Tanjoubi Omedetou!

Me and surprise parties just don't go together. Two years ago my friend Marie tried to plan a surprise birthday party for me but she scheduled it on a Tuesday - the same day as my choir practices at the time - so when she asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her I told her I was busy.

"Oh well I'm planning a party for you and I already booked the place so can you skip chorus?"

The answer of course was yes. I can always skip choir practice for a party. Especially if it's for me!

This year she almost got away with it. I thought we were having lunch and then going to have a bath today but I had music practice with our mutual friend Masako yesterday and she gave away the secret. Just as we were leaving Masako said she would see tomorrow at Marie's house party.

Huh???

Aaaaand surprise ruined.

Masako felt really bad about it and emailed Marie right away to apologize. But I don't really care. I just love that Marie tries to throw me surprise parties and that she cares enough to convince me to stay in Japan longer so we can take one last weekend trip together (to my dad's chagrin.) I'm going to miss all my friends in Japan but Marie most of all.

O saki ni shitsure shimasu

As you may or may not know the Japanese have a lot of set phrases that are polite to say throughout the day. Living alone, I don't get to use the ones for leaving and coming home but I do have to say the ones at work. For example, I say a loud "Good morning!" or "Ohayogozaimus" to everyone in the teacher's room every day.

When I leave I say just as loudly but somewhat apologetically, "I'm sorry for leaving before you" (osaki ni shitsure shimasu) Then they respond with "Wow you worked hard today!" (O-tsukaresama deshita) Or sometimes they just say sayonara. I actually get kind of offended when I don't get an o-tsukaresama deshita when I leave. I mean I know I'm just part time and leaving before it gets dark but still I taught 4-5 classes so I deserve a "you worked hard today" goodbye.

They say o-tsukaresama at other times too. When a train arrives somewhere they thank you for your hard work sitting there patiently while the conductor drove the train. The hair stylist tells me thanks for your hard work after she has washed my hair, which always confuses me because shouldn't I be saying it to her instead? And a teacher told me that after I finished washing my hands the other day. She was waiting for her turn at the sink so it's possible she was being sarcastic about how long it takes me to wash my hands but I couldn't be sure. I've encountered very little sarcasm here that I'm unsure it even exists. But who says thanks for your hard work after washing their hands? I mean really.

Anyway, I was explaining all of this to my dad the other day - the ins and outs of Japanese greetings in the workplace and how they don't say things like "Have a good weekend!" on a Friday evening when they leave work because they know they will all be back on Saturday morning. They don't even say "Have a good night" because apparently no one should want to be anywhere other than at work. My dad pointed out that we would never apologize for leaving early in the US. We're much more likely to say "See ya later suckers!" as we waltz out the door at 4:59 on Friday afternoon.

He asked me if I ever smiled when I said "sorry for leaving before you."

"Oh no," I told him. "You have to look like you feel awful about leaving them behind to do all the work. You can't look happy about it."

There is no "See ya later suckers!" in Japanese although if you did translate it it would be something like "O-saki ni suckas!" which for some reason makes me laugh. Maybe it's the thought of my uber-polite coworkers shouting the word suckers and looking happy to be going home that is ridiculous enough to put a smile on my face. The only problem now is that since this conversation I have a mental picture of me shouting O-saki ni suckers! as I leave the teacher's room everyday to go home. It makes looking apologetic hard.

For the record, just because I can swim 1200 meters doesn't mean that I can run around for two classes playing tag without feeling like my legs are going to fall off. Which is exactly what I've done the last two days and exactly how I feel at the moment.

Told my elementary students that I'm leaving at the end of July and we only have two more classes left together. Most of them didn't seem that sad but maybe that's because they're 10 and they don't really think about the future. The teachers have been really sweet though and I know I'll be crying buckets when it's time to say goodbye.

Back at junior high school tomorrow. We have exchange students from Indiana and Kentucky visiting so it will be nice to have someone to speak English with. And two weeks from now a delegation from Georgetown is coming to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the sister city relationship with Tahara. As the year-round representative of G-town I am not only going to the ceremony/reception but I'm also singing a solo. (Amazing Grace - because that's symbolic of international cooperation...)

People from the same delegation are coming around to watch me teach at Takamatsu-sho. That means I'll have to dress up to go to elementary school, which sucks because this time of year I try to wear clothes I don't mind getting dirty and sweaty since just standing around is hot and my teaching style usually includes a lot of me jumping around and acting like a clown and then playing games that have me running until my legs feel like they're going to fall off.

With any luck they'll actually replace me with another Georgetown College graduate and I won't be the last of my kind. No one tells me anything though.

Now my main concern is convincing the Board of Education that they shouldn't charge me to haul away everything in my apartment but that it should be left to the next ALT (unlike me who had to buy everything new.) I'm trying to appeal to the Japanese dislike of wasting things. I've used the word waste at least twice in every conversation regarding this topic. So far all I've gotten is that they have to talk about it and they'll let me know. I can't decide if they are really talking about it or if this is their way of saying no. It will be nice to be back in the land of yes means yes and no means no and by that I mean America.

Only six more weeks to go!

Japanese medicine

There is a reason I have my mom ship me my allergy meds from the States and that is because I don't like taking things when I don't know what's in them. But sometimes I go with convenience over complete understanding. Especially here in Japan.

I ran out of both zyrtec and benadryl two weeks ago. My mom had just sent me a package so I didn't feel like bothering her for another one so soon so I went around the corner and asked the little old lady at the pharmacy to give me something for itchy eyes and throat. She picked up a box and very kindly read it for me to confirm that was what I needed and then she even threw in a free vitamin drink that tasted a lot like cough syrup.

I called home afterward and tried to sound out the ingredients on the back of the box while my mom translated them into real words. If you've ever tried to read words written in katakana then you will understand what this conversation sounded like.

"Pu...so...fu...e...do...ri...n?"

"Pseudoephedrine. That's a decongestant."

There's also belladonna in there along with some caffeine. Yesterday I started noticing I was having vertigo and dizziness. I'm sitting on the couch and suddenly the room will spin. At first I thought it was because my ears have been stuffy. It still could be that. It's happened before when I haven't consistently taken my decongestant. Fluid builds up in my ears and my balance goes out the window.

But I took two sudafed this morning and I'm still dizzy. I also took another one of my allergy pills. I'm starting to think I'm having an adverse reaction to the belladonna alkaloid in the allergy medicine. Actually another call home to Nurse!mom brought that out as a possibility. Either way I stayed home from school. Riding my bike and teaching 5 classes didn't seem like a good idea when every 10 minutes or so the room shifts position. At least I don't have hallucinations...that's another side effect of belladonna. Although that one might be more fun that this.

Hamamatsu Kite Festival

On Monday May 3rd my friend Marie (Mah-ree-ay) and I headed to Hamamatsu to see their famous kite festival. It was Golden Week so it was packed. The line for the shuttle bus from the station to the festival was over an hour long and wound around two blocks! Marie is much more patient than I am and when I complained she just said, "It's Golden Week. You have to wait everywhere now." But it turned out to be worth the wait.

It was the perfect opportunity for people watching. Almost everyone was wearing hoppi - the jackets worn during festivals. Most people had the pants and split toe shoes on as well. And almost every girl I saw looked like she had been to the salon that morning to have her hair done. This is no small festival! It's really billed as the Hamamatsu Festival rather than the "Kite" festival per say but the kites really are the biggest draw. Even so we also saw some taiko drummers and nearer the station we saw some floats that I imagine are carried around town in much the same way they are in Tahara.

But we were there for the kites. They weren't battling that day but instead each neighborhood kite association would gather around one of their enormous paper kites. Each kite had the name of any new babies born in the last year emblazoned in the corner. Those same babies were hoisted up on the shoulders of one of the men and then a small band of elementary school children toting trumpets would play and the adults would cheer. It was really cool to see each group welcoming the new child to the community. And because Hamamatsu is a large city there were lots of bands and lots of babies and lots of kites.

Once the ritual welcome was performed then the kites were ready to fly. The wind wasn't being very cooperative at first but eventually the sky was filled with hand-painted paper kites. Marie tested my Japanese reading skills by making me translate the kanji (or hirigana) on each. After some festival food and a nice time watching the kites we stood in line again for the bus ride back to the station. We spent more time getting to the kite festival than we did at the kite festival!


Marie and I pose in hoppi.



These cute old ladies are taiko drummers. They were so nice to let me snap their picture.


Everyone was wearing their festival clothes.


They are big kites.


They took several people to move.


You can see the baby just under the flag. The adults are dancing around him.




There were bands of children everywhere playing their instruments.


Getting the kite ready to fly.


A view from a small hill.


These guys had a better vantage point though I think.

Ninja Festival

During the month of April every weekend in a small town called Iga-Uneo in Mie Prefecture hordes of people show up in ninja costumes hoping to practice their ninja skills. I had no idea this town existed and I certainly didn't know about the festival until I listened to the How Ninja Work episode of Stuff You Should Know. (Consequently if you are not subscribing to this podcast then you should be because it is awesome.) As soon as I became aware of this knowledge it became my mission to make it to the Ninja Festival in Iga.

I convinced my new friend Allison to join me. We met in Nagoya Station and then headed to Iga. It takes forever to get there. Because ninja were secret warriors their training centers were in the middle of nowhere. There are two areas in Japan known for their ninja training schools - one in Mie Prefecture (right next to Aichi where I live) and the other in Shikoku. We took three trains from Nagoya. The last one was a local train with a ninja theme painted on it. They even had some high school aged ninja reading off the stops.


The ninja train


In the train station. They were all over town though and honestly were a bit creepy.


When we finally arrived we were greeted by more ninja who gave us some mochi and if we could win at janken then we could have some sembei. My ninja kindly threw paper every time and let me play three times until I beat her and could get the sembei. Who said ninja aren't kind?


Adorable elementary school ninja!


After some wandering around we finally figured out what we were supposed to be doing - testing our ninja skills! For a small fee we got a piece of paper and a map. We went around town to different stations where they tested our skills. I sucked at most of them. But Allison was really good at throwing ninja stars. Remind me not to make her angry! There might have been some sort of prize at the end but we never did figure it out.


We had to blow out 10 candles with only 3 tries. Failed!


Throwing stars. Failed!


And shooting arrows. Also failed! I suck as a ninja. :-(


After lunch we headed to the ninja museum where we saw a ninja show and toured the ninja house and museum. In the show they showed several different weapons and methods of fighting. I was the most impressed with the way a ninja could fight a man with a sword with just a piece of long rope. The little boy sitting in front of us though seemed more interested in Allison and me than the ninja.


Demonstrating these scary looking weapons.


A fighting demonstration


Our new blue ninja friend.


The ninja house had lots of hiding places and secret places where they could see you but you couldn't see them. The museum portion explained that most ninja did not wear the bright blue or even black costumes we kept seeing around town but usually wore the clothing of a farmer so they could pass by unnoticed. The problem with a ninja costume is that then everyone knows you are a ninja!



A ninja house looks pretty normal.


But it has secret doors.


And secret hiding places.


Because Iga is so far away we couldn't stay as long as we wanted but had to catch the train back to Aichi. It took me over 3 hours one way but in the end it was definitely worth it.


Ninja Festival 2010!

Before I went to China I took a quick weekend up to Nikko with my good friend Marie (pronounced Mah-ree-ae).

Nikko wasn't really on my radar of places to visit in Japan until I read a book on early Japanese American relations and it said that the must see sights for early American tourists were Nikko, Fuji, and Kyoto. So on Friday night we hopped on the overnight bus to Tokyo. After breakfast at McDonald's (and some freshening up in the bathroom) we took the train from Tokyo to Nikko. Then it was another bus to see Lake Chuzenji where we wandered around, shopping and visiting a local temple.



Lunch on Saturday. Nikko is famous for yuba-soybean paste dried and rolled into noodles.








On Sunday we got up and made our way to visit the famous Tosho-gu temple. It differs from other Japanese temples in its ornate decorations and colorful carvings. Since it was a holiday weekend it was packed but we still had a nice time. We even managed to do a little geocaching.


















I like how someone created this small turtle. :)




After the temple we headed over to the Kinugawa Onsen area to try some more modern attractions. The first was a maze. The told us that the average time to get through it is 40 minutes but if you made it in less than 20 then you could have a free drink afterwards. Marie and I thought we were way above average and we totally had this. Then we got in there and realized we would be lucky to make it out in under 40 minutes. We got through in 43 minutes.


At the start.





This is when we realized that this wasn't going to be easy.


A give up door and a sign saying we went the wrong way.

Then we went to the Trick Museum. It wasn't really a museum but they had lots of paintings on the wall that played with perspective. They encouraged you to take lots of different and fun pictures. We only had an hour before they closed and even though we could have definitely stayed a lot longer we took advantage of the little time we did have. It was really really fun. After the Trick Museum we grabbed dinner and then found a hotel that had an onsen. Our feet were aching and it was nice to soak and relax.

Monday morning we woke up and caught the train back to Tahara. Tuesday I went to work and Wednesday I caught a flight to Beijing. I'm almost caught up on my travelogues, but not quite yet. I still have the Ninja Festival to post about and Monday I'm going to Hamamatsu to see the Kite Festival and Tuesday I leave for Seoul, South Korea for 4 days. So much to see and so little time. Sometimes I think 3 months is too long to wait to go home and other times I wonder why I didn't re-contract to stay another year.