airplane marimokkori

Another day travelling Japan, another marimokkori to add to my collection.

 

 This one kinda feels like cheating, since it's not actually from any specific area. I'm trying to justify it by saying that it's from the airport, which is sort of like a different area that I've never travelled to before...

Oh, and in other marimokkori news, I found this website, which shows you all the marimokkori in the series - so you just click on an area of Japan, and it'll come up with all the marimokkori available in that area. Pretty cool, huh? Though, I'm trying not to look through all of it, since I'm afraid it'll ruin the fun of travelling into a new area and discovering which ones are available.

me returned australia tomorrow

So, you'd think that after spending a year and a bit in Japan, my Japanese would be good enough to tell people that I went to Australia to see my friends and family, right?

Well, this card begs to differ. after coming on to my local starbucks on my day off, the starbucks people asked me how come I was in so early, as opposed to my usual late afternoon night visit.

What I wanted to say : "well, funny you should ask actually. I'm not working today since ijust got back Australia last night, after. Going there over the weekend for my friend's wedding. So yeah, I thought I'd need a day off to recover today. "

What apparently came out of my mouth:
"Me returned Australia tomorrow."

So, the natural consequence of that random tidbit of information being mentioned to Starbucks people was to ask more questions about me going home. And being on a roll, the only answers I could come up with were "yes" and having a confused look on my face, since I had no idea what they were asking.

So, after our awesome conversation, one Starbucks lady, straight perm, (known for her super straight hair, in case you were wondering where we got that imaginative nickname for her) gave me that little card, thanking me for always getting vanilla lattes and stuff.

So, I'm guessing my Japanese still has a fair way to go....

oh ninjas, how you disappointed me.

Yay for another long weekend! This time, it we were celebrating Labour day, which meant another opportunity to leave our lovely quiet prefecture (read: boring) and go elsewhere. Though, as tradition would dictate, it meant that we only decided the previous week that we wanted to go somewhere new, by which time, everyone else in Japan - being the organised, overzealous type of country - had already decided months in advance they were going to take advantage of the weekend too, and book out all the accomodation for the places we wanted to go. But, rather than drowning my sorrows in numerous cups of vanilla lattes and frappucinos like I usually do, I thought it was a good idea to try driving to a new prefecture. So, we ended up deciding on going to Shiga, a prefecture just next door to Gifu.

But what to do in Shiga? Well, visiting Japan's largest lake seemed so cliché and well, not my cup of tea. I've found out I'm not really one for nature, surprisingly (as I write this on my blog while listening to my iPod). And, all that the city of Nagahama seemed to have on offer, other than the usual temples and castles, was just a really, really old train station. Meh. So, trying to forge new ground, we ended up settling on Koka, the city known for its ninja clan in its heyday. Granted, I wasn't expecting it to be littered with ninjas, (after all, they would be all stealthy anyways if they were good ninjas) but we were hoping to visit Ninja Village, which, as you'd expect, was meant to be a village full of ninja-related crap.

After our two hour drive to Koga, turns out, we arrived a little too late. Like, 10-15 years too late. My super high expectations of the ninja village were a little bit more than shattered when we got there and found that it wasn't really that well maintained. Like, dead crickets and other insects littering the cases of old ninja weapons in the museum. And a tea house that looked like it had collapsed, and was left as it was.  The only redeeming part of the museum turned out to be the ninja star throwing range. It's sad to say when I thought about ninja stars, I immediately thought of Three Ninjas Kick Back, where one of the three was learning to throw ninja stars accurately, was given the wise advice by his uncle to stare at the target until it became the size of a watermelon, and aim at it. So, I did try that technique, though turns out, I can't tell the difference between that technique and squinting, so I wasn't that good.

The one redeeming thing from our trip to Shiga? Marimokkori! Yep, an overpriced ¥420 phone strap made my weekend. I guess that may be a sign of a not-so-successful trip. But nonetheless, as we stopped at a rest stop on the highway between Kyoto and Tokyo, the huge rest stop was stocked with souvenirs from everywhere in between, for the Japanese people who had forgotten to get any presents on the way back from holidaying. Which meant that I was able to buy some Marimokkori from places I had been to before I started my collection! wooo!!

 

Shachihoko (Lion carp), Nagoya

  

Pagoda, Nara

  

 Tanuki (Racoon Dog), Shiga

not meant to be...

Oh unreliable Rusty, I hardly knew ye.

It seems like I've been fighting an uphill battle against the Powers That Be for the last year or so in Japan. As much as I try to go against their plans for me, they seem to try and give me a sign that I'm doing what they don't think I should be doing. The latest sign came today, as I was leaving my house and getting ready for my bike ride to school.

I haven't ridden my bike to school in ages, partially because I've now got a car, and also partially because I'm lazy. But, after the sugarfest and food-gorging-fest known as a weekend in, I decided to try and ride my bike and do something remotely healthy.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Decked out in my coolest biking clothes ever (read: matching tracksuit, since a whole matching tracksuit isn't as lame as it may be back home) and grabbing a bag for my work clothes from my car, I was walking to the apartment's bike parking area, looking for my "Yes We Can!"-branded bike, with its bright blue bike rope wrapped around the back bike rack.

Huh. That's weird. I don't see the blue bike rope thingy. Maybe someone stole my bike rope thing. It's not that uncommon really, since it wasn't like it was locked to the bike. It's already been stolen a few times, but it didn't bother me too much, since it was just from the hundred yen store. Wait a minute. I don't feel as inspired looking through these bikes,  with the one bike sticking out with a name that also doubles as a good life motto...

Yes, my bike was gone. Despite being locked, it seems as if someone with their professional thievery skills has broken my inpenetrable bike lock. And, instead of getting mad or really annoyed, I just shrugged and went back inside my place to get changed into my less cooler, less coordinated work clothes.

I think I'm not as annoyed as I should be because I'm kinda second-doubting myself and my ability to pick out my bike from a lineup of 5 bikes. Plus, I'm also the person who freaked out thinking my car was stolen when my friend said my car wasn't parked outside my house (despite the fact I drove to my other friend's house the previous day and was staying at their place at the time), and I also tried to withdraw 300 bucks from an ATM, only to take my ATM card and my receipt and forget to take out the money sticking out of the machine.

But partially, I'm not annoyed because I know the powers that be have not been wanting me to ride my bike for a long, long time. 

Case in Point: Bike Number 1: aka Rusty red bike. It was free, a hand me down from the person who worked as the English teacher before me at school. Not the best bike, but did manage to get me from A to B. Even though it did get around two flat tires in less than 6 months. In both cases, the tire got punctured on the way to school, which meant I still had to ride my bike to get to school in time.  I also decked it out with a fancy gel-like seat cushion, which was subsequently stolen during a visit to my elementary school, and had multiple bike ropes taken from it as well. The final straw for Rusty was the day a spoke was sticking out as I was riding it. Not wanting to lose momentum, I tried to stick the spoke back in with my foot as I was riding.

After regaining consciousness, and cautiously trying to ride my now-broken bike home and simultaneously alleviating pressure from my foot, I found that it'd cost around 50 bucks to fix my free bike, and take up to a few weeks or so, which, wouldn't have worked with my now purple foot. So, I forked out an extra 25 bucks and got myself a new, shiny one, aka Yes We Can!

While Yes We Can! was shiny and new, it was still plagued with flat tires, flimsy basket, and a missing cap for where you inflate the tire. It had begun to rust after just a few months, leading me to believe that Rusty may have been a Yes We Can! in a previous life.  It's hard for me to compare though, since soon after Yes We Can! was purchased, Rusty mysteriously disappeared from the communal bike area as well.

So, after two bikes, 5-6 flat tires, a broken spokes, a purple foot, 3 stolen bike ropes and a stolen fancy seat cushion, I think the Powers that Be have won.

I just hope they don't have anything against me driving...

another long weekend!

Oh Japan. While there are some days I can't stand the sight of any more sushi, and get annoyed with the seemingly-hardworking ethic (emphasis on the seem part), one thing I will always appreciate about your culture is the amount of public holidays.

While I do come from a country where a horseracing and gambling warrant a long weekend in November, it can't really compete much with Japan, which has  Vernal Equinox, Greenery Day (May 4),  Marine Day (3rd Monday of July),  Respect-for-the-Aged Day (3rd Monday of September),  Autumnal Equinox,  Culture Day (November 3rd) and Sports Day (3rd Monday of October), to name just some of them.


So, not wanting to waste a long weekend at home, we ended up visiting a couple festivals before heading up to Northern Gifu and visiting a friend's part of town.  While I've been there a few times before, it's always good to see, especially since it's a village, and feels very villagey, as opposed to my city, which very much feels just like a shopping centre surrounded by rice paddies. While I do have shopping, and the pleasant smell of burning off rice paddies every now and then,  my friend's village seems to be more of a cohesive community, where everyone is related, friendly, and everybody knows your name. I guess it's the one of the perks of living in such a remote area of the sticks I guess.  I'm sure if I was placed there instead of my area, I'd be complaining about being isolated and wishing I had a coffee place within walking distance, so I should remain content just getting to visit that area every now and then.

The weekend turned out to be awesome as well for another reason - actually, the reason that makes me so motivated to travel in the first place - marimokkori! Even more to add to my collection! I finally got the one for my area, Gifu city. Weirdly enough, it's not for sale in Gifu city itself, but in the northern area of Takayama, which is a couple hours away, which seems stupid, but nonetheless, Yay!

 

Comorant (Gifu) 

Sarubobo (Hida)

sleep and food

I always wondered what the preoccupation was with the preoccupation with sleep Japanese people I'd met seemed to have. Granted, I hadn't met many, but I always wondered how on earth everyone seemed to sleep on public transport, and how students slept in class. And how every single student I'd ask "How are you?" to would always reply with "I'm sleepy", "I'm tired" or a combination of the two.  Was it the lack of sleep the students had each night due to studying til the wee hours of the morning? Were the teachers equally buggered from the ridiculous workload they had here, normally working til 8:30 or later at night, that made them sleep deprived too?

And even though I'm getting enough sleep (with the occasional late night watching Heroes or The Amazing Race) I've succumbed to this sleeping thing to. Every day at around 2:30 pm, I feel my eyes get too heavy to keep open, my head slowly slumping down, before I quickly jolt back up once I become aware that I'm about to fall asleep, only to feel my eyes get heavier and my head sinking down. What the hell's happening to me!?!?

After much time pondering, I'm wondering if this sleep thing is like a part of the culture. I've seen heaps of teachers with their heads slumped at their desks, napping, or blatantly sleeping every now and then, especially after work. Which, you'd normally think would be a no go thing, you know, being slack at work to the point of napping and being completely unproductive. But apparently, as long as you're at the bottom or top of the work chain, it's actually deemed okay. Rather than seeming so lazy and unproductive that you're sleeping during work,  it's thought of a good thing, where you've worked hard that now, despite your best efforts, you can't help BUT fall asleep.

I also have a feeling my school lunch is contributing too. There's this thing called kyushoku here for lunch at schools, which means, rather than bringing your own lunch every day, a (Japanese) nutritionally balanced meal is served at school. Every lunch time, students from each class carry the huge containers of food to the classroom, where they dish out their lunch themselves. Lunch usually consists of rice (although, it's noodles on Tuesdays, and bread on Thursdays), soup, salad/vegetable thing, something fried, and milk.

Though, unfortunately, it's not just any milk. It's milk with 3.6% milk fat milk. Which may not seem like much, but seems way creamier and thicker than normally milk back home, and I swear, by some standards, it'd be considered to be a form of light cream or buttermilk or something.  But anyway, I swear this milk, especially when it's been sitting out for at least half an hour or so before eating, must be the culprit behind everyone being so sleepy. If it doesn't make you feel bloated and full by the end of lunch,  I'm sure the fact that it's probably been sitting out for longer than half an hour on most days mean it's filled with things that make you sleep.

Speaking of Kyushoku, just thought I'd share this video of Kyushoku time at one of my preschools. Apparently, everything that can be turned into a song, with this one combining the rules for eating Kyushoku, and saying "Itadakimasu", which is essentially the Japanese equivalent to saying grace before a meal.

my favourites

I know as a teacher, you shouldn't really favour some students of others, and you should treat them all equally and stuff. But have you seen some of these kids?

There's cute, and then there's "puppies and kittens and bunnies coated in sugar" cute. So, while I do my best to be nice to all the kids at my 3 preschools I visit, I can't help find my favourites. Sometimes it's easier to pick my favourite ones than other times, especially when they are the ones that won't stop kanchouing me, or the bossy ones who see me playing with one kid, then yell at the kid to make them run off crying, and then try to get me to play the same I thing I was playing before, but with them. But, after a few months of deliberation, and new students this year, I've finally decided on my top ones from each school. An unfortunate consequence of getting to play with so many kids at 3 preschools is that I never remember their names, so I only remember them by their faces or their nicknames. Granted, anyone who has heard my nicknames for all the people at my local Starbucks knows that I'm far from creative when it comes to naming them (The Starbucks people by the way, are Manager girl, Smirky, Smiley, Smiley girl, Asian lady, English lady, Pixie Chick, and Glen) but hey, they're apt, and it makes them easy to identify!

Kazuki Okay, a fairly unimaginative nickname, since it's just a Japanese boy's name, and not his name, but I think he looks like a Kazuki. He has a shaved head and has that cute thing that little kids have where they can't pronounce words properly, but it seems way cuter when he can't pronounce words in Japanese, so he calls me "Thenthei" instead of Sensei and likes to come up to me and sit on my knee and squish my face.

Lil' Gangster I feel sorry for this 3-year old and his 5-year old brother, who have tryhard parents who have died their hair brown and given them "hardcore" mullet/rat-tail type hairdos. But this runty guy, who's smaller than the others in his class, has the biggest black eyes I've ever seen. And he's mastered the cute semi-dazed stare. I usually find him come into other classrooms at random times, and just stare at me, or at the other kids, without saying anything, before the teachers politely tell him that the others are busy and can't play with him now, so he leaves for 5 minutes and comes back. He's only started talking to me lately, and just asks for me to pick him up all the time.

Special Dude He's a 3-year old with fairly severe autism, so at first, when I didn't know he had autism, just thought he hated me. But apparently, he's been telling his parents that he likes it when I come, which did get me warming to him a little more. He's also been asking his helper teacher if I can have lunch with him, and says he won't eat if I'm not there. At first, when I did sit next to him, he usually got too scared to eat or ran away. But after a fairly deep conversation with him "Do you like ice cream? It's good huh?" He's now talking. "Mmm... It's good!" is about as far as the conversation goes, but I'm happy.

Half 'n Half A girl at one preschool who's half Japanese, and TOTALLY adorable. She knows a fair bit of English words, but doesn't really talk much in English, but does come up to me with random objects from outside to show me that she knows them in English, like "wock", "twig", "twee" and "weaf".

Non-3-year-old I told you my nicknames were pretty unoriginal. But anyways, Non 3-year-old is a 5-year-old, but looks like a 3-year-old in one of my classes, so looks way younger than everyone else in the class. He's the one who cried and refused to play Fruits Basket (the game where you all sit in a circle, and have to switch seats depending on what someone says) after he didn't understand what to do in our practice round. He didn't know how to open or eat those tiny jelly cups, so I had to open it for him and feed it to him.

Tea Boy - He was on my list of potentials for my favourites list for a month, since he was always finding me on the playground in the morning and wanting to play something with me. There was also a time when I was helping his class make origami frogs, and so he got me some light green paper for himself and me. Thinking I should make a different looking frog, I went to get some dark green paper, and he oh-so-cutely stomped his feet had a mini hissy fit before changing his paper to dark green too, so it was exactly the same as mine. He then tried to copy the same face I drew on my frog on his.

But what made him land a spot in my top was during story time day. He got me to sit next to him during story time, but midway through the book, he quietly got up, went to his bag in the back of the room, changed his pants, and sat a little bit away from me. After story time, the teacher noticed a puddle around where he was sitting. "Oh, What's this? Did you have a little accident?" she asked.

"Oh, no, it wasn't me," replied Tea Boy. "I think someone spilled some tea there at lunchtime." The teacher promptly got up, to grab some disinfectant and clean the puddle up. But in the meantime, the surrounding kids decided inspect the puddle and see if it was tea, by shoving their faces in it.

Aah, any 5-year-old kid who calmly changes their pants without other kids noticing, potentially knows the consequences of his actions and knows he can avoid it by lying, and then make other kids in the room put their face in an unknown liquid is definitely a favourite in my book.

tokyo marimokkori

Yep, I've now got two Tokyo marimokkori, thanks to my brother, though I can justify it seeing how my first one, Hachiko is supposed to represent Shibuya, not Tokyo, so my new Tokyo Tower one, technically, counts as a different area.

 

Oh, and I'm also wondering if it's considered cheating if I get my friends to get me the ones from Kyoto and Nara.... Because, I have been to those places before, but I just didn't get them last time since marimokkori wasn't as huge then, and I hadn't started collecting them...

summer soumen & suika school day

Oh Japan. If there's one thing I like more than collecting regionally exclusive, well-endowed phone straps, it's the seemingly random days and events that happen. I guess everything seems random mainly due to the fact I can't understand everything that's said around me, but nonetheless, it makes the days way more interesting.

So today, something was happening with the special ed. class at my school. What exactly, I'm not too sure, but it did involve the kids doing suika wari, which is essentially watermelon piñata-ing,  where a person is blindfolded, spun around a few times, and then with a stick (or in my students' cases, a wooden kendo sword) and are directed to smash a watermelon. Now, one of the pros of being the token foreigner at school, is that I also get asked to be involved with all the activities the special ed. kids do, so I got my fair share of watermelon wacking done as well,  but unlike them, almost everything I do, without fail is followed by surprised exclaimations of "jouzu! (you're really good!)" since they don't expect me to be good at anything Japanese-related. So apparently, I'm also really awesome at breaking melons with wooden sticks.

After some quality squatting around in a circle and eating watermelon time, I headed back  to the staffroom, trying to enjoy one of my last days sitting at my desk during summer holidays. That was, until one of the support teachers for the special ed. class calls my name and motions me to come outside.

 The class had decided on serving nagashi somen, which is normally eaten around summer, so the kids had fashioned a huge bamboo pipe-type thing, supported b some sticks, and connected it to the drink taps on one end, so water flowed down the bamboo, and the other hand finished at the drain. As water flowed through the bamboo, one person placed bundles of somen noodles on the top, and the flowing water carried it through the pipes.

 

Meanwhile, other students and teachers, armed with bowls of spring onions and tsuyu (a soy sauce and stock-based dipping sauce) huddled around the pipes, waiting with chopsticks to catch the noodles going by, dipping them in the tsuyu and eating it fresh. I couldn't help thinking how this couldn't be done back at home in Australia, because of the water restrictions, but at the same time, I was totally blown away by how cool it was. It's made me really keen on finding a real nagashi somen restaurant, with some apparently utilising natural water streams to carry the noodles to customers. 

Oh summer vacation in Japan. Why can't you have more days like this, and less days involving sitting at your desk and doing absolutely nothing?

ninja food

I like food. Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's known me for longer than five minutes. I also like ninjas, which shouldn't come as a surprise either, since... c'mon, who doesn't like ninjas? So, after hearing about the ninja-themed restaurant in Tokyo, I had to go.

Turns out, a  ninja-themed restaurant is probably one of the few themes that actually translates well into a food thing. I mean, I like pirates, but a pirate restaurant definitely doesn't have the same ring to it.

After going there, I can say that I definitely was disappointed... except maybe for the start, when the ninja maître d' (yes, not all ninjas are stealthy and deadly, you know) was telling us that our ninja waiter was hidden somewhere in the room,a dn would reveal themselves. So, after that I was kinda hoping for our ninja to appear in a puff of smoke, or jump down from the ceiling. Unfortunately, after being summoned by a ninja call, our ninja just came through a small door in the wall, which would've been cooler I guess, but we kinda got our hopes up for a more ninja-like entrance.

anyway, I don't want to give the whole ninja experience away and ruin all the surprises, so instead, I'll just post some pictures of food...

 

Ninja Star Grissini

  

Turban Shell à la escargot... 

  

... lit by a fuse!

  

Ninja soup, heated with a 400˚ rock

  

Veal and foie gras à la creme brulée

  

 Frog Cheesecake

marimokkori, the algae ball man

Okay, I'll admit it; I have a phone strap hanging off my phone.... but Japan made me do it! Everyone in Japan has one, from the Harajuku girls to the middle-aged salarymen - it's not just for little girls and those guys with anime hair. I just wanted to fit in, and do what everyone else was doing, be cool... And before you even ask, yes, if Japan walked off a cliff, I would too, okay?

Besides, I was looking for something cool to collect from all the places I visited in Japan. And while all touristy places here seem to sell random cookies and stuff, I decided I wanted something that would last a while.

Unfortunately, unlike my Hello Kitty-obsessed friends, I had less choices in terms of what phone straps I wanted to collect. For a while I was trying to go for a superhero strap theme, but soon enough, I found my Hiroshima Power Ranger (armed with Rice scooper spoons, which Hiroshima is famous for) and my Kobe  Beef Ranger losing their limbs and in a couple of days... For superheroes, not as sturdy or resiliant as you'd expect them to be, which was kinda disappointing. Plus, the superhero straps weren't as easy to find in some of the less touristy places.

Then, I stumbled upon marimokkori, or algae ball man. it's supposed to be a pun on marimo, which are these green round algae ball clusters, found in Sapporo, and mokkori, which essentially means crotch. While only Sapporo is known for marimo, it seems like the rest of Japan is getting on the bandwagon.

 

Hachiko (Tokyo)

  

Takoyaki, Octopus Balls (Osaka)

  

Chinatown (Yokohama)

  

Giant Buddha (Kamakura)

  

Maple leaf-holding Deer (Hiroshima)

  

Lobster (Kanazawa) 

It is kinda weird how each region has released their own region-specific marimokkori, even if they don't have marimo in their area.

But meh, who am I to complain? I've found something to waste my money on when I travel! Yay!

*Update* I've had a few people checking out this page to see my marimokkori collection, so, I figured I might as well add a new "marimokkori" label to my blog, to make it easier to keep track of my (hopefully) ever-growing collection of giant crotch phone straps!

pachinkoing

Yay! I'm in Japan... Still, I guess. But it feels like I'm in a
different Japan since I'm travelling around in places outside of Gifu.
I feel Gifu doesn't really count since the whole mysteriousness and
strangeness of it has already disappeared, which kinds sucks. But
getting out of the prefecture certainly feels like it's injecting new
life into a country I've now been in for over a year.

After meeting up with my brother in Osaka on Thursday night, we spent
the next few days getting lost in the city. I've decided that getting
lost in a city is probably one of my favourite things to do on a new
place, mainly because it seems to mainly consist of walking around
aimlessly, shopping and stopping to eat food. The only downside of
this was realizing how much cooler Osaka is than Gifu for shopping,
but not being able to buy anything, since I lack the money and also
don't want to lug around a bunch of crap as I travel around Japan.

One of the highlights of Osaka: pachinko-ing! Sure, it's essentially
Japanese pokies, and just involves you insetong money and twisting a
knob and holding of on position as balls fly out and drop onto random
holes, but still way more fun and entertaining than playing pokies and
just pulling a handle. We also played this variant pokies, which
involved exchanging money for tokens, and inserting the tokens in a
machine and watching them randomly fall into certain holes on a board.
We did find we were awesome at it too, and were winning quite a bit.
Until we realized we didn't know what we were suppsed to do to
exchange the tokens back into money, or exchange them for prizes. So
instead, we just kept playing until all the coins were gone.

Ah well, I guess that's not how the games supposed to work. Bit hey,
of took a year before I even touched a pachinko machine. I've got the
whole year to work out the 'how to actually win money' thing. One step
at a time!

how to take a crap properly

So, I got a letter the other day from my city hall, saying that I need to go to my local health centre again and do more health tests, so that I'm eligible for the Japanese Health Insurance here. I wasn't too keen to submit myself to more health checks in Japan, seeing how my last medical testing involved me in the reception of a medical center, with a doctor yelling at me "You! Pee in this cup! Toilet! Now! Go!" Apparently, not understanding Japanese is kind of the same as being deaf. And that was also the day I found out that doctor-patient confidentiality isn't quite the same in Japan as it is back in Australia.

So, the next day at school, the office lady at school hands me an envelope, filled with page upon page of medical surveys. Most of which are just "tick this box if you've ever had this disease", which doesn't sound too hard. That is, until you realise you don't know what "tuberculosis", "anemia", and "urinary tract stones" are in Japanese. But meh, it's summer holidays, I've got nothing else to do at school. At least translating  the "symptoms" page and the "medical history" page will give me something to do.

Also, in the packet, I found a smaller bag two small tubes and what appeared to be to small  needles of something. Were they expecting me to do my own blood samples? Because, c'mon, I know Japan's different to home, but even that seems a little weird. So, I decided asking the librarian. (Not because librarians would be well-versed about DIY blood tests, but just because she was around, and seems friendly).

"Excuse me, what's this?"

"Oh. It's poop."

"Um.... poop?"

"Yes, when you go to the toilet, you poop. And you use this."

I opened the bag, and found a brochure giving me directions on how to do something that actually sounds quite disgusting.  Well, it would've been REALLY disgusting, if it wasn't for the cute little turd mascots showing people how to take a crap.

So apparently, before this medical test, I need to take two fecal samples. TWO. So, one two samples, two days apart. The first one, to be stored in a cool, dry place. And, seeing how this testing is in the middle of a 36-degree summer, the only cool dry place in my place has all my food and chocolate in it.

I don't think I'll be eating chocolate for a while.

do you have lunch?

"Do you have lunch?" My favourite science teacher asks. I know it's weird that I call people who are supposed to be my co-workers my teachers, but I feel like I'm in this semi void, where i'm not a student, but not quite a teacher. Plus, when teachers talk to each other, here, they refer to each other as "teacher" when they're around the students, to sound professional and stuff.

I really need to get out of school. It's summer holidays, yet again, but being Japan, all the teachers still have to go to school during summer holidays, even if they have nothing to do, and just sit at their desks all day. Apparently, it's because teachers here are considered public servants, and so, like other public servants, have the same holidays as everyone else. This apparently is a fairly recent thing, which happened after Japan stopped having school on Saturdays. But anyways, because I've been "working" these Summer holidays, I've been bored out of my brain for the last 3 or 4 hours, emailing people, studying Japanese, and finding things to do to prevent my brain from becoming a huge gelatinous lump. So, the thought of an invitation to lunch with one of my nice teachers, sounds like a great way to get away from my desk.

"No, I don't have lunch." I reply.

"Oh." My science teacher says, in a semi disappointed tone. Without saying anything else, he grabs his keys from his desk, and heads to the door with the super happy vice principal.

Minutes later, I realised what just happened. They teach "what do you have for breakfast?" as meaning "What do you eat for breakfast?" So, my science teacher thought that he was actually asking if I was going to eat lunch (and thereby eating lunch with him). Me saying that I didn't have lunch, meant that I wasn't going to eat.

Damn this whole English being ambiguous thing! It causes tons of communication problems. And leaves heaps of people sitting at their desk hungry, while their atrophied brains turn to jelly. mmmm. Jelly.

the end of an era...

Okay, so maybe i'm being a little overdramatic, given that I counted the end of blueberry gingerbread ice-cream at Baskin Robbins as the end of an era, but this time it feels different. More era-y.
Just yesterday, while sitting at my desk, I hear someone shout "Mr Narin-san" and turn to find the principal of my junior high school presenting me with my new contract for my second year. It has now officially been one year since I had my last Gloria Jeans coffee at the airport, and said goodbye to everything in Melbourne.

It's the weirdest feeling, since this year has gone so fast, and yet, at the same time, it feels like a lot has changed as well. It still feels like just last week I was introduced to Motosu in Gifu, and was counting down the days to see my first week pass in Japan. And at the same time, I've forgotten that sense of wonderment at everything Japan. I can't even remember when I stopped thinking it was weird that our local mall employs uniformed guys to direct traffic in the parking lots, which most of the time just involves them bowing and telling you to go straight down a one-way street.

But now, after receiving my new contract, and saying goodbye to my friends who are heading back home, it's kinda hard to be in denial of this year being over. What's this new era going to be like? the distinction between years seems so noticeable, as opposed to being back home, since there's such obvious changes in people and stuff between one year and the next. It's kinda like a TV show, and it's the end of season one, and season two sees the departure of some main characters, and the introduction of new ones as well. Will this season be better than the first? Or will the departure of some of the characters mean the show has jumped the shark? Eeeshk. This must totally count as an end of an era.

edamame

Eeeeshk! Almost one year has passed since I left my life in Melbourne for new and mysterious place that was once Gifu. It's scary thinking how quickly time has passed, and how everything that was once weird seems totally normal. I don't even take a second glance at the traffic-directing man at the shopping mall, whose sole job is to direct people down a straight one way street anymore, or even think twice about the Motosu theme song that plays through the city-wide speakers in a North Korean-propogandalike fashion. sigh.

But, there are tiny moments and tiny discoveries like this that make me happy about my decision to stay in Japan for another year.


Sure, this looks like just another, ordinary plastic-looking keychain resembling edamame, a common Japanese beer accompaniment or snack, right?

That is, until, when you squish the soybean pod (as you would normally when eating it to get the beans into your mouth) and three little bean pop out, before going back in as soon as you stop squeezing it. What's even cooler, is that the middle bean has one of 27 different random faces on it, so even if you get more than two the odds are you won't get the same face.

Is it necessary?
Not really.

Is it kind pointless?
A little.

It is the best 630 yen I've spent?
Hell yeah!

yellow hair girl

I kinda have to admit, that one reason I was semi pumped about coming to Japan was the prospect of being famous... Not like actual famous, or even "It's that dude who was in that KFC ad" famous, but like, being a local celebrity and token foreigner in whatever town I was placed in Japan. The token foreigner that all the kids know, that gets asked to join in local festivals or be the guest of honour at parties, or gets pumpkins and stuff from random locals just for being the token foreigner.

Unfortunately, my previous perceptions of Japan failed to actualise, and while I do get a few random waves from students at my local mall, and some nods of recognition from Smiley and the crew and Starbucks, that's pretty much it. Despite my town being relatively small, it's definitely not small enough for everyone to know everyone else's name in town.

That certainly isn't the case for my friend though. She lives in a village called Neo, which, while technically is a part of my town (due to a recent 4-town merger), it's still an hours drive away from my place and still very much its own self contained village. To get an idea of how small it is, there are apparently just two restaurants in the town, which close on alternating days so not to compete with each other. And, with my friend being the only one in town with blonde hair and blue eyes, she kinda sticks out, so almost anyone in the town who has kids in Neo knows her as the English teacher at the only two schools there. Apparently, she's gotten used to the special treatment she gets, and isn't phased by the obligatory greetings and small talk that seem to hound her anywhere she goes in her town. Even a trip to pay a bill at the local city hall results in drinking some tea and a half an hour talk with the people who work there.

So, during one alcohol-fuelled night, we decided to put this to the test.

Yep, we addressed a letter to "Yellow Hair Girl" of Neo, without actually writing down her address, other than her village name, prefecture, and postcode.

I soon forgot about the letter until a couple days later, and while it did seem like a pretty stupid idea in hindsight, still wanted to see how famous she was in her town.

Turns out later, that yes, she really is that well known in her village. The postman delivered the letter to her school (Something the postman does regularly when she isn't at home to receive packages) and gave it to the other English teacher to give to her.

It also turns out that writing a letter in block letters, without a return address, and without being specifically addressed to anyone also can sometimes be interpreted as potential hate mail or harassment. Who knew?

never trusting kind old ladies ever again...

"Oh, if you're going to visit the gardens up north with your friends, you should also visit this temple as well, since it's on the way back..."

Yeah, I'm not falling for that again.

Last weekend, me and a couple other friends decided to make a weekend trip to Shirakawa, an old little village 3 hours north of our city, which also happens to house a friend with a fancy new apartment. Currently, we've got this whole "let's try to fit in as much as we possibly can" vibe going, since one of our 'Fu Crew (yes, that's our official name, I'm still working on badges though) will unfortunately be leaving us soon for Canada. So, rather than another bumming weekend at everybody's favourite shopping centre, or even bumming at a different apartment, we decided to go Prefecture hopping to Ishikawa, and head to Kenrokuen Gardens, apparently one of the best gardens in all of Japan.

While we were in Shirakawa, we visited a cool coffeeshop owned by one of the nicest ladies I've met in Japan. Being a coffeeshop in a tiny-arse village, it didn't have the frappucinos I was accustomed to, but instead it was a communal large-table like thing that us and other coffeeshop customers sat around, talking to to everyone and helping ourselves to the free Zenzai (red bean pastey soup) in the middle. While chatting with the other randoms, and the coffeeshop lady, who also happened to work at my friend's board of education on weekdays, the topic of our plans for the Sunday came up. And that's when we made our mistake of telling her about our plans to visit the gardens.

So, after recommending us to visit this other temple, which apparently is better than temples in Kyoto (like, THE temple capital of Japan), kindly drawing us a map, and making us rice balls for lunch our next day, we decided to heed her advice and make it to the temple as well. Sure, it seemed a little weird that it was supposed to take longer and be more expensive to go straight south to home, rather than than taking the short cut of going in a round circle, but hey, why would this nice lady lie to us?

We found out 2 hours later after leaving the gardens, that yes, our instincts were right about this short cut not being as short as we thought it would be. We're a little slow, so it took us 2 hours, and not the fact that we went through 3 prefectures to get to this temple. It was a pretty cool temple though, from the 30 minutes I saw of it - we got there when it was closed, and since we all had work the next day, we were worried about how long it would take to get home.

But I'll definitely make my way back to that temple again. Someday. When I'm ever in the area again. And actually have the time. And after I rebuild my trust of kind old ladies.

the joys of teaching 1st year kids

Okay, so this may be a month or two late, but I thought I might as well keep people updated  with what I'm doing in this new school year. I was really looking forward to teaching the brand new first year kids at Junior High, since it means It'll be the first time I'll have been at school longer than the kids have, and as 1st years, they'll be more impressionable than the other kids, which'd be more fun and exciting. 

So, after 1 month, what kind of fun and exciting things am I doing?

• We just finished the alphabet. It took two lessons to get up to capital M. Only after finishing capitals did we move on to small letters. 
• I've learnt "Good morning everyone" is too complicated and confuses 1st year kids, who have just learnt "Good morning" up until this point. 
• "I am Narin. Are you Kouhei?" We're also a little too early to be answering "no" to questions, and so I've just been asking people their actual names. 
• For dialogue and example purposes, I'm Canadian. It's too hard for kids to say "Australia" at the moment. 

Riveting stuff, huh? And that's why I haven't blogged for a while. 

i'm narin, and i'm a coffeeholic.

I'm taking the first step in admitting I have a wee bit of a problem when it comes to coffee. But it's not my fault, it's just that I live in Motosu, and other than having a firefly park, and a big ass, really old tree, there's not much else to see or do, other than hang at the recently built shopping centre. And the choice there is to hang with my school students and be a fully fledged mallrat hanging in Macca's, or to avoid them while sipping coffee while hanging out in Starbucks. Plus, when I have a Japanese lesson with my friends on Tuesdays, or my English conversation class on Thursdays, where else can we meet to have a lesson?

But I just realised today (during my aforementioned English class) when I was about to order that I think I'm there a little more often than anybody else...

Me: (in Japanese, so just pretend these are subtitles) Hi.
Starbucks Lady: Hi! The usual? One tall vanilla Starbucks latte?
Me: Ye...
Starbucks Lady: Hot? in a mug?
Me: Yes.
Starbucks: As usual, thats ¥410. Thanks again!
Me: Uh... Thanks...