Sayonara Nate!

The best part of my job is the amazing amount of vacation time I get. Unlike other ALTs who have to sit around the office even when class is not in session, I am given the boot. All I have to do is submit a report telling them my plans and then I'm out the door. In summer that means I head home to America for six weeks of friends, family, wheat bread, Cracker Barrel biscuits, and orange freezes from UDF. I got home yesterday after 24 full hours in transit (that's three trains, three planes, and one car ride.)

But before I left we had the first of what I'm sure will be several sayonara parties for Nate. The party was at a club in Toyohashi and Nate was clueless despite several people suspiciously showing up from Nagoya with little explanation as to why they were there until we got to the party. There was food, an open bar, a few speeches, and plenty of karaoke. It would have been the perfect party if only it hadn't been Sunday. Not that stopped most of us from having a good time.


Singing YMCA




I know he's not going to miss me or Japan but the job won't be the same without him. This last year I've argued over whose state is cooler (Ohio!) looked up lots of completely random things on Wikipedia (naval lint for one), recited SNL sketches in class (I've got a fever...and the only prescription is more cowbell), and cracked up over Nate's William Shatner impersonations (May...I...help...you?) But now, he's on his way back to Kentucky. I'm on my own from here on out.

In Mourning

Since it was a rare sunny day during rainy season, Nathan, Miyuki, and I rode our bikes to the beach this afternoon. Once there we were met with a sad sight - a huge and very dead sea turtle had washed up on shore. It looked like he strangled himself on some rope, died, and then washed up. Further down the beach are dunes where turtles come ashore and lay their eggs. Nathan has plans to take his brother when he comes later this month there late at night to see if they can spot some. Today when we saw this poor thing, he said,"You were worried about not seeing a sea turtle, Jennifer. Now you have." In this case I really wish I hadn't.

Miyuki lays down next to it to show how big it is.

Love Hotels are recession proof

A poem

My third graders (US 9th grade) were writing English poems this week. We started with a Mad Libs sort of exercise where each student picked a phrase and wrote it on a sheet of paper, then they combined them with the other students in their row to create a poem. This one was my favorite.

Rainbow
My pet
Across the sky
I feed it everyday
Fun.


I want a pet rainbow that eats fun!

Update on Best Dancer in the Tahara Mixed Chorus

Turns out that not just people who showed up to the concert in May got to see my amazing Ponyo dancing skills. Anyone who tuned into the local access channel could see me dancing like a loon as well, including two of my school principals and one Jr. High English teacher. Yeah, I'm awesome. And pretty embarrassed.

I'm bustin a move on the end in orange.

Eye Doctor

I went to the eye doctor today. This is a big accomplishment coming from the girl who said she would never ever go to another eye doctor other than Dr. Parker ever again. I love Dr. Parker. We searched for years and years for an eye doctor I would be comfortable and when I finally found her I refused to go to anyone else. Even when we lost our health insurance for a short spell, I made my mom promise me she wouldn't make me go to someone new. I was in a panic about it, but she promised me I didn't have to see anyone other than Dr. Parker.

I've been going to her for over ten years now. We even laughed about it the last time I saw her. She told me that when my mom made that first appointment she told them I was a very nervous patient and to be please be gentle with me but after the exam I said, "gee, that wasn't bad at all!" It was love at first sight (harty har har.) This woman even bought an $800 set of knives off of me that horrible summer of Cutco. So you know she is pretty darn awesome.

I really considered coming home and having my eyes checked by her over my summer vacation and if America didn't have a completely screwed up health care system then that's exactly what I would have done. But the miser in me kept reminding the wimp in me that it would be very expensive to do it that way and rather silly since I have insurance here in Japan. The wimp in me reminded the miser that I don't speak Japanese well. The miser put her foot down. And since I had the afternoon off today, I visited the local clinic.

It wasn't that bad. But Japanese clinics are completely different than American ones. American doctors and medical staff are tied up by HIPAA regulations that go to sometimes silly measures to protect patient confidentiality. There is no such thing as patient confidentiality in Japan, except when the doctor decides not to tell the patient what is wrong with them, to protect them from bad news supposedly. There are no separate exam rooms. There was a waiting room, a testing room, and the doctor's office with a curtain for a door. Aides flitted around with their patients in tow, each of us at a different testing station right to each other.

My Japanese was just good enough to get my point across and there was only one test that I was slightly confused about, but I finally figured out what they wanted me to do. They did a lot more tests than Dr. Parker ever did and the doctor concluded that my glasses are actually stronger than I need. I don't feel like spending any money to replace them at the moment because they don't bother me, but I did order more contacts. Although they would only let me have a 3 months supply at a time. Not that this is a huge problem. I only wear my contacts on the weekends or special occasions so 3 months will likely last me through until next summer.

The doctor and my aide was super nice and made me feel very comfortable despite my lack of Japanese. The only real downside was that it took forever. You don't make appointments in Japan you just show up and join in the queue, so I had to wait a bit. Then there was about 45 minutes of eye tests. Then another wait to see the doctor and another wait after that while they figured out the financials, coming to a grand total of almost 2 hours. And it would have been longer if I had arrived any later than I did because it got real busy while I was there. But it's over with. I survived. And I saved money. Woohoo!

In Kanazawa with Keely

At the beginning of this month I headed up to Kanazawa to see my friend Keely. Keely is awesome and one big reason why I am here in Japan. We met at Georgetown, where she was two years ahead of me. We had the same group of friends, were in the same sorority, and I was very sad to see her graduate but totally jealous when I found out she had moved to Japan to teach English in Tahara.

Yup, that's right, she had my job before I did. Since this sister city ALT program is not very well advertised at the college, she is the only reason I even knew it existed and thought to look into it when I started feeling stagnated at Cintas. After she left Tahara, she went around the world on Peace Boat (the same Peace Boat I want to try and work on) and then came home and married a Mexican guy she met in a hostel near Mt. Fuji. They now live in Kanazawa where she works for the university and studies environmental science while he finishes up his PHD in computer science (he's being recruited by Google at the moment.) Basically, I want to be just like her and if I get on Peace Boat the only thing left will be to snag a Mexican computer science genius for a husband.

She's been to visit me in Tahara twice now but this was my first visit to see her and Kanazawa. Her husband, Jovan, was away in Tokyo so it was a girl's weekend. It also happened to be Hyakumongoku Matsuri, Kanazawa's biggest festival of the year.

Friday night we headed down to the river to watch hundreds of floating lanterns drift by. Each lantern was hand painted and each one was sponsored by a family, local group, or school. They had large ones, small ones, and even one shaped like Doraemon. We climbed down the flood wall and sat on the ledge, watching them go by. We were in the chaya district and the faint strumming of shamisen music floated down to us as we watched the lanterns.





We got a late start Saturday morning after talking late into the night. Our first stop of the day was Kenrokuen Garden, considered one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. It was beautiful. For lunch Keely took me to the art museum, not to see any paintings, but to eat in the cafe, which boasts a world famous pastry chef. We had the most delicious quiche I have ever eaten. It was like a symphony in my mouth. We finished up with cakes and iced coffees.


Kenrokuen Garden


I couldn't resist getting a picture of this woman in her kimono sitting in the teahouse.


Kanazawa Castle. The wall and gate are all that's left. According to the Lonely Planet it burned down so many times that locals finally gave up on rebuilding it.

After lunch we wandered over to the castle and then down through town looking for the parade. We made a quick stop at the Museum of Modern Art to look at some of the free exhibits before finally finding the parade. We weren't interested in the brass bands, so we sat in a Starbucks until the acrobats showed up. They were totally worth the wait. Balancing on the tops of ladders, three men moved between death defying pose one after another.


At the Museum of Modern Art


A dragon goes by in the parade.



Tired of the parade, we wandered through the samurai district. Kanazawa was never bombed in WWII so there are still lots of these old neighborhoods around. We walked around, shopped a bit, and finally decided on some kaizen sushi for dinner. The sushi came around on a conveyor belt and we took what we wanted. Each plate is color coded with a price so at the end you call over a waiter and he tallies up how much you owe based on your stack of plates. I was really really hungry and the food was really really good.





After dinner we headed back to the center of things to see 10,000 people do some Japanese line dancing. I've seen this in Tahara, but believe me it is a much different thing to see thousands and thousands of people dancing in the street versus a few hundred people. In Tahara they were in a single file line. In Kanazawa they were 5 people deep for almost a mile. Then we headed back to Kenrokuen because it was open later and lit especially for the festival. They also had a classical music concert. It was a lovely way to end the day.









After another late night gabfest, Keely and I headed out a little earlier on Sunday to see the chaya district near where we had been on Friday night. Clustered in this area are lots of traditional tea houses, which means of course geisha. We didn't see any dressed up but we did stop to have a bath at the local sento and we're pretty sure we saw one of the okasans of one of the tea houses. She was older and had her hair immaculately coiffed. I had told Keely we could tell people we had bathed with a geisha because she probably was one at some point in her life. Too bad she was on her way out as we came in.







Our private room at lunch. Very traditional


The food was soooo good.


Me and Keely

Lunch was at a small restaurant in an upstairs room. We had the local fish dish recommended by the waiter. And it was sugoi oishii (very delicious!) After walking around and shopping some more, I said goodbye and caught the train (3 actually) back to Tahara. Who knows when and where I'll see Keely next. Maybe this summer in America!