DearScotty

It’s been awhile since my last post. I suppose one gets used to living here and the humor and mystery that is Japan slowly vanishes. But here are some random things I’ve experienced this past month:

Last week I didn’t wear a jacket for the first time in the last six months while in Japan.

I found 150 yen on my bike ride home yesterday.

I purchased my first watermelon.

Saw Propagandhi in Osaka on the 17th. Great show, great guys!

I can now jog/run 4 miles in under an hour.

The basketball coach at school is my new buddy.

Drinking parties with teachers are still just as boring and horribly expensive.

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This past weekend Theresa and I took a few days off and vacationed in Okinawa. What makes Okinawa special? What if I told you Mr. Miyagi told Daniel-san that his home country was Okinawa? This Japanese territory is made up of hundreds of islands south of the Japanese mainlands. Basically, it’s Japan’s Hawaii. The dilemma for me wasn’t deciding which island or beach to visit, but how I could find a sports bar playing the NCAA basketball tournament. We searched Kokusai St. which is the main hot spot in Naha but only found a few bars that were only getting feeds from games earlier on in the tournament. I wasn’t finding any luck until a stray light bulb bludgeoned me in the head. The Hostel’s Internet!

Luckily for me, our hostel had a couple computers connected to the internet with zero security. That meant I could download the slingbox application and watch the tournament from my brother’s cable feed. I was able to watch both UCLA games early in the morning while Theresa slept, and the other time while she went off for a massage. (Note to Matt, I deleted the slingbox player from the computer, no worries. I’ve got some Pineapple Hi-chews for you as an expression of my gratitude.)

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While cooking pasta on my 3-hour lunch break I felt a disturbance in the Force which caused me to spill half the pasta down the train. A delayed “FUUUCK!” tardily filled the silence. I was about to discard it all but I was able to save some of it that hadn’t touched the sink. Now I’ll have to cook pasta tomorrow just so I can finish all the extra sauce I made. What happened to me?

With just under an hour left in my workday I strolled into the teachers’ room and found someone else sitting at my desk, or rather where my desk used to be. There were a couple teachers giggling at me, and one of them finally decided to point me to where my desk now rested. I no longer have my back against the wall at the end of the row giving me the privacy to enjoy internet television and video websites. I am now smack in the center of all the teachers, no longer shielded from the principal and vice principal’s stares. It will now also be more difficult to sneak in late as I will now have to walk right down the center of the room. I’m almost positive that the moment my desk found it’s awful location, my spaghetti snapped from the strainer and waterfalled down into the sink.

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March 31, 2008 marks a special date in Fukuoka history. I was going to post our Okinawa trip report but that’ll have to wait as there are more important things to share. Today, Fukuoka welcomed a new American food chain to their downtown. Prior to this date, the only foreign fast food options around town were McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and KFC. But things are a changing! Now we have a Subway! Theresa and I decided to partake in the grand opening and made our way to the city this evening for some fresh yummy sandwiches. The only other times we’ve had Subway in Japan were when we visited Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Now, Fukuoka is almost like a real city!

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Over the course of my time in Japan I’ve managed to collect quite a few humorous text messages from some of my local acquaintances. I thought I’d share some of them here. I’ll keep the senders’ names anonymous in case any of it comes back to haunt me. This first one comes from a friend I made early on who was expecting to meet me at our town festival:

“I wait for pleasure”

Unfortunately, no pleasure arrived for her. So she responded, “you came?”

I replied that I was on my way and received this in response, “I came :-)”

The following day she sent me a follow up message, “You came, I was glad. I will wait for pleasure tomorrow. :-)”

Once school started we stopped chatting and I ran into her a few times at the grocery store. But last September I received this gem, “By the way, I have 1 news. I have a baby in my body now. It will be born in April of the next year :-)”

Over the past year and half I haven’t been able to get into Japanese pop music. Sure there are many avenues for me to find out about J-pop but I’d really like to steer clear of those dark alleys:

1.) I could talk to my students about who’s hot or not, but they’re just kids and would probably just recommend who’s ever doing the newest McDonald’s ads.
2.) There’s also the occasional Karaoke night out with all the local foreigners where undoubtedly there will be a few who rock at Japanese. Here they must show off their skills by singing some J-pop hits. Those songs usually sound exactly the same, and when drinking is involved, those songs will poof out of existence from my musical memory.
3.) I could always turn on the TV to catch a musical variety show but that would mean having to put up with bizarre commercials that either end unexpectedly or finish with a cheesy jingle that would even make Uncle Jesse cringe.

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It’s been a while since I’ve complained about the school lunch. I’m sure part of it is because I’ve gotten used to most of it but, more importantly, I believe they’ve just stopped making really bad food all together. Well, today they broke their streak of providing decent meals for lunch. Today’s main dish was bird’s nest. I approached my plate with caution as I tried to discern what brown jumbled mess lay before me. I sat down and studied the gunk piling high. It looked like twigs, pine, laundry dryer lint, and other odd things you’d find in a bird’s nest, yet it was darker as if the nest was soaked in black ink. Truly baffled, I asked the secretary next to me what this dish was. She said it was black sea grass and tarp with processed fish. I responded with, “It’s not very pretty is it?” She gave her usual response when asked about odd food dishes and said, “No, it’s not pretty, but it’s healthy.” As she was finishing up her sentence the vice principal entered and dumped his bird nest into the trash. I asked him whether or not he liked the dish. He said, “Diet, I’m on a diet” then proceeded to slap his belly. Immediately I told the secretary, “Guess he doesn’t know it’s healthy.”

Today I signed my intent NOT to re-contract. My two years in small town Japan will be over next July. I will probably have to give a good bye speech to the kids. The usual speech will probably motivate the kids to continue learning English while demonstrating that they’ve changed my life. I’m sure the kids haven’t learned anything, and my life hasn’t changed much. I would love to take the piss but I’m sure it won’t get translated properly. Now that I know the leash is coming off I feel a lot more relaxed, especially in class. I could care less if the kids goof off or attempt to destroy the lesson. Go a head, fine by me. Now that I’m set to start grad school at UCLA in the fall, the students’ lack of joy to play Jeopardy doesn’t bother me a bit..
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Besides catching up on a decades worth of TV shows that I’ve failed to ever watch, to kill some time I like to jam on the guitar. I’ve never formally introduced her so, here goes. I bought James for a few hundred bucks when I first arrived in Japan. I don’t know who James is, but he makes good guitars. Playing in between episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert Report can get quite boring so I’ve decided to get a band together. My friend Shou is an amazing guitar player, who makes my guitar skills look like a five year old playing a squeaky recorder. That said, I have demoted myself to bassist. The only joy in this is getting to buy myself a new bass. My previous basses have been beginner basses, except one that was a step up from beginner. So, this time around I decided to go all out and get me a manly yet beautiful bass.

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As winter moves into full force the sound of “samuii ne?” reverberates throughout the country side. As the birds chirp outside, the Japanese “samuii ne?” inside. It has been rumored that a lost Japanese kid can find his way back to his mother just by the sound of her “samuii ne?” [citation needed] This tired phrase means, “Cold isn’t it?” And it’s probably just a bit more annoying then the summer destroying, “Hot enough for you?”

When you’re inside a classroom exhaling steam puffs and you have to waddle around like a penguin because your feet have frozen solid, I believe it goes without saying that it’s cold. If they have such a big problem with the cold, why not install heaters? Or how bout this amazing piece of technology, Insulation!