Jean Of mArc

If you read that sentence and were wondering “the opening of what?”, then I guess the answer is the opening of a new year! In Japanese, they say “Akemashite Omedetou” which roughly translates to the above. Of course, an interpreted translation is “Happy New Year!”

Originally, I wasn’t sure what a Christmas and New Year’s in Hirosaki-land would be like, especially because many of the other foreigners went home for Christmas. Having to work on Christmas Day, initially, took out the ol’ Christmas cheer, stomped on it a few times, and fed it to the wolves. However, it ended up being just fine.

In our English Club here at the school, the students and I made some home-made (school-made?) Christmas decorations, and later that week I brought in a Christmas Tree, which we decorated with the decorations we made. It was actually quite amusing because it was right near the entrance to the staff room, and every time a teacher came in they would look at it and give a inquisitive “eeeeeeh?” This is much easier and funnier for people living in Japan to imagine. Here are some pictures to prove it!

As mentioned in the previous post, on Christmas-Eve Eve, Travis, Angie and Takarou went out to sing Christmas Carols. Sadly, it was somewhat rainy that evening, so not many people were passing by, however it involved singing, which automatically makes it awesome. Takarou, one of the least-shy Japanese people I’ve ever met, was belting it sometimes. I don’t know if he understood what he was singing, but he sure gave it all he had! Then on Christmas Eve proper, I attended a pleasant Christmas service at the Japanese church I attend. I didn’t understand the message, but my guess is it had something to do with a baby and a manger. We had flashlights that we shaped like candles and used those to light our hymnals enough to see them.

On Christmas Day, the staff let me into the kitchen for the afternoon where I made some banana bread and eggnog. Perhaps banana bread isn’t traditional Christmas food, but a) it’s something I know how to make without messing it up, and b) most Japanese people have never had it before and will never know that we eat it year-round. The banana bread was quite devoured by the staff and students after making it available…. however the eggnog mostly sit there getting warm and gross. Maybe bright yellow liquid with foam on top is scary for miso soup drinkers. But a few brave teachers, including the vice-principal, gave it a shot and gave an affirming “umai”, which is a manly way to say that it tastes good.

After that, I disassembled our English Club Christmas tree and brought it home to re-assemble it in my apartment, where it still stands and will likely continue to stand until winter is gone, since I seldom make any adjustments to decorations once they have been placed.

That night, I skyped into my immediate family’s Christmas morning, although for me it was Christmas night. Thankfully, I had received a package from my mother on time, so I was able to join in the present-ravaging fun… on my turn, of course. It was really neat to be able to join it, and will stand out for being so unusual. I had to keep asking my mother to turn the camera around so I could see what was going on. I felt like I was sitting there and had to get someone to move my head in the right direction or something. I also got to see Winston’s hilarious new trick, but I won’t spoil it by telling you what it is. Instead I will leave you in suspense. Mwahahahaaa!! (<– Dan O’Shea tribute)

The next day, I had a Christmas party at my apartment! I’d like to say that I was so motemote that everyone came, but because of a mixture of “already have plans” or “not in the country” excuses, only Travis and Angie were able to come. It was still a good time though! We mostly chatted, ate a lot and played board games, as seems to be the world-wide standard for parties that I’m involved in.

After that was English camp! The English camp takes place twice a year at the Aomori Christian Center. Because it is both for learning English and about God, it incorporates both Biblical lessons in (mostly) easy English… although I thought a lot of it was difficult! This year the theme was “Battling the Goths”, which focused mostly on temptation and fighting against it. As a result, we learned about Gothic literature, Gothic movies, our assumptions about what is and isn’t a threat, Gothic architectures, and modern goths.

The “goths” were originally the barbaric bunch who came down from the north and trampled over the Roman empire. The word “goth” since had a negative connotation, meaning “ruthless”, “barbaric” and “uncouth”. The French built a number of buildings in their own “French” style, but during the age of Renaissance, people felt like their architecture was much more artistic, and that the old French style was “Gothic” at best. It was intended to be an insult, but the name stuck. Gothic novels and movies usually take place in these kinds of scary buildings, and there are a number of key elements that characterize it: a damsel in distress, a huge, old building with tons of secrets, a dark and spooky atmosphere, etc. Modern goths don’t directly come from this, but rather compare their dark looks to that of Gothic times.

Anyway, there were 12 campers, 4 teachers, and others were taking care of logistics and over-whelming quantities of delicious food that I don’t often get the privilege to eat here in the East. There were 5 high school boys, 1 university-aged man, 2 high school girls, and 4 women. It was a fun and pretty relaxing camp, with a mixture of study time, eating time, movie time, game time, sermon time, discussion time, skit time, sleep time and do-whatever-you-want (ie. free) time. If you so desire to check out some pictures of the aforementioned camp, there are pictures on this website, maintained by John and Laurie Elliot, who are Christian missionaries who’ve lived in Aomori, Japan for 30 years. They are also the ones in charge of running these English Camps twice a year. I just recently came back from spending three pleasant and relaxing days at their house in Ajigasawa.

New Year’s was a similar story to my Christmas Party, except for the following differences:

1. Fiona, a student from South Africa studying at Hirosaki University, joined in the fun.
2. It was hosted by Travis and Angie, not me.
3. It was New Year’s, not Christmas.

So, we stayed up late, CEPing (chatting, eating and playing board games) until midnight, at which time we went out towards one of the temples, just like the Japanese do. It was PACKED with people, which we were quite surprised by, and many younger people at that. We of course didn’t take part in any of the worship rituals, but it was very interesting to watch people clap their hands, pay money to ring a giant bell, and yell “Happy New Year” (in English) to us as we passed by. Here are some pictures:

Prior to the people packed at the temples, it was strange that as I was talking through town on New Year’s, there were almost no people on the streets, and almost no commotion. Unlike Canadian New Year’s which have people out on the streets partying and such, it seems that most Japanese people are at home celebrating with their families by eating mochi. What is mochi? It’s a traditional treat eaten in Japan at New Year’s! It’s sort of a sticky, doughy treat that you wet and dip into various things, like soy flour or sugar. Here’s a picture I nabbed from another site:

While at church, I had a local tradition: eating mochi with melted cheese on it with a hot dog wrapped in seaweed and dipped in soy sauce. I thought it would be an incomprehensible mesh of flavours in my mouth, but it was actually super delicious. Of course, I’m not a picky eater.

And this almost brings me to the end of my fingers’ typing quota.

By the way, for those of you who’ve been wondering about that Japanese Language Proficiency Test that I was talking about back in the day, I took it on December 6th, and I feel it went okay. However, I won’t have the results until February or so, so I can’t really let you know anything until then.

Speaking of February (one of my favourite months, by the way), for those of you who don’t know, I will be heading back to the land of the rising tide (Nova Scotia) at the end of this month. That’s right! I’ll be somewhere between Halifax and Wolfville (inclusive) at all times between January 29th and February 14th (exclusive)! If you like me to any degree, please make sure that I get to see you while I’m there, assuming you are there as well. If you are not there, then you should consider a similar trip yourself during an overlapping period of time. Please do not deny me the privilege of your company!

Oh, and for those of you who have decided not to talk to me anymore because I don’t update my blog often enough, I hope that this long post makes it up to you. If not, come here, I’ll give you a hug.

Jean Of mArc

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas! This is my first time being away from home for Christmas, and it is quite different, but interesting. First of all, as in Canada, right now is the winter holidays at the schools. However, it is not to celebrate Christmas, but the New Year, which is a much bigger deal here. To demonstrate this point, even during these “holidays”, teachers are required to continue coming to school this week and to teach classes… but attendance by the students is optional. You would think that would mean a bunch of empty classes, but students here in Japan are quite a bit more diligent I guess, because they are still around the school. This, sadly though, means that I too have to work this week, even on Christmas Day. That part is kind of depressing, I must admit. I’m going to ask tomorrow (Christmas Eve) if I’m at least allowed in the kitchen or something so I can bake some snacks on Christmas Day, rather than just sit at my desk and weep or something.

That being said, there are a number of things that make it feel like Christmas here: there are some lights out around town. Not on anyone’s houses, but just along some trees and in shops, for example. Stores here are trying to push the idea of Christmas to make people buy more, of course. Sheesh. Also, it is snowing here…. it has been snowing pretty much every day for the past week. That has definitely made it feel more festive. Also, within the various church gatherings, there are special events made for Christmas, such as a Christmas Eve service tomorrow night, and carols for singing. Speaking of carols, I am going out carolling on Dotemachi, which is the more popular of streets for walking in this city, with some friends: Travis and Angie, a missionary couple who are teaching English at a Christian High School, Takarou, a Japanese friend who is very excitable, a good business and quite good at English, and others. It should be a good time, and I don’t know if anyone has ever sang carols outside at Christmas in Hirosaki before!!

On Christmas evening, I’ll be logging onto Skype to log in to Christmas Morning in Halifax with my family, so I can be at least a part of whatever is going on there. I just organized a Christmas Afternoon with Travis and Angie, and hopefully a few more of us who celebrate Christmas. It’ll be on Boxing Day, but this year, Christmas is 2 days long!! And next week, I’ll be going to help out with a Christian English Camp. I’m really looking forward to being able to spend some time getting to know some Japanese people during that time.

Anyway, as a message to my family and friends back home, as well as anyone else that I don’t even know who is reading this blog, I leave you with this heart-felt message:

I guess that’s the Japanese version. Close enough?

So, usually I like to think of a topic to talk about, and then write about that, but I can’t seem to think of one solid topic to talk about for now, so I’ll just talk about random things that are going on over here in Anime-land. I guess talking about random things is what most people use their blogs for anyway, so forgive my normality please.

First of all, last week my Dell laptop broke down. On doing some research, I believe that the video card fried, and after examining things a bit more, I think I figured out why:

1) I have a table that has a heater under it (called a “Kotatsu”. Very benri indeed)
2) In order to keep the heat in, I put a light blanket around the table.
3) There is a certain video format that puts a certain amount of strain on the video card. Nothing it can’t handle, of course, but it still makes it warm.
4) My poor Dell was playing said-kind videos, on said table, which was heating up because of the heater that was under it, and the said video card’s fan was smothered by said blanket.

Yes, I know, I totally brought that upon myself, but I didn’t really think about it at the time. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wear glasses. Maybe if I got laser eye surgery??

Anyway, the thing is warranted, but I have to get it down in Canada, so that’s not going to happen any time soon. And because my body’s proper functioning seems to depend on having a computer to use (it’s not my fault: computers have nicotine in them) I went out looking for its successor. Fortunately, I found one very quickly: a second-hand Sony Vaio VGN-NS50B from 2008, which was as good (if not better) than the computer I already had. And it was only 57,000 yen, which at first glance may seem like it’s more than my student loans, but if you consider that that is about 600$ Canadian, you’ll notice that I got quite a deal. The only downsides with it are:

1. The keyboard layout is in Japanese, but is mostly the same as what I’m used to with a few minor changes. For example, @ is its own key, and quotation marks are Shift+2, etc.

2. Windows Vista comes with the thing. If that’s not bad enough, it’s in Japanese, so I can’t even read all the error messages that pop up every 5 minutes. It seems like they made it suck in every language, so no one feels discriminated against. Of course, this is almost moot because I mostly use Ubuntu anyway, and only go into Windows for Skype, since my webcam’s video drivers aren’t released for Ubuntu.

3. The keys on the right-hand side, such as the Enter key and arrow keys, are kind of sticky. They work fine, but I don’t like pushing them. Oh well.

As you can see, I got a pretty good deal. I would go tell the store I bought it from that they got ripped off, but I don’t know what “ripped off” is in Japanese, and even if I did tell them, they would probably just say “Yes sir! You are right, most honourable customer! Thank you for allowing us the privilege of being ripped off-ni narimasu!” This will ring true to anyone who has lived here, I’m sure.

Anyway, I guess there was really no point in telling you about all that, since it doesn’t at all affect you in anyway. So thanks for letting me waste your most honourable time.

More importantly, thanks to everyone who sent me replies regarding my previous post about English Club! Reading over them is both helpful and amusing. Helpful because of the encouragement and ideas, but also amusing because of the conflicting suggests (ex allowing versus not allowing Japanese). Even among the English teachers here this is a debate, but I don’t want to wage any wars so I’ll just think about the options and try and go with whatever works best.

This past week we did indeed end up baking cookies with the English Club. They wanted to make a lot of cookies, so we doubled the batch, which of course means that they’ll take longer to bake as well. It ended up taking a total of 2 and a half hours, but part of that was my fault because although I thought I had everything in place, it turned out we needed more eggs. So we had to walk to the store to get some and then come back. And then I looked in the fridge and found that I HAD indeed bought enough eggs in the first place, but they were in a bag so I missed them the first time. Sometimes I’m so absent-minded I shock myself.

But overall they seemed to enjoy it in their own quiet way. At least being quiet in a big area while doing something is less awkward than sitting in a small area with nothing to do. I’m beginning to think that the English-only rule doesn’t have much to do with why they aren’t speaking much, I think they might just be quiet people by nature.

Anyway, we ended up with lots of cookies, and they all gave me quite a few from their batches! I was just eating one. Yum! I’d offer you one, but I’m not really sure who you are, since I’m not made aware that you’re reading this, and the whole being on the other side of the world thing makes it difficult… except for Steve: if you come to Hirosaki before I eat all the cookies, I promise I’ll give you one.

Speaking of dear ol’ Hirosaki (and indeed the place is old), it’s definitely getting colder here, which means new considerations and discoveries. In fact, there was a light snowfall on Monday, and a bigger snowfall on Tuesday, believe it or not. Pikurishita! (Literally “I was surprised!” but that’s not as catchy). To be honest, this was the first time that I’ve ever seen snow outside of Canada before: every time that I had gone travelling, it was always to warm places or during the summer. When I saw it, I almost felt like Hirosaki was warped to Canada or something, since I just have such a strong association between Canada and snow. Maybe it’ll make me feel more at home.

I really did not bring anything to prepare for winter though, aside from long johns and some fleece pants. I guess I’ll have to do some shopping for some warm things, which is good because then I can get some of the locals to show me some good but cheap articles to buy.

The trickier part will be heating up my apartment. Central heating is coming into some parts of Japan, I’ve heard, but for the most part kerosene heating is still the in thing. Everything is heated with gas: the stove, the hot water at the tap, the hot water for the shower/bath. Thankfully I have a good heater in my apartment, which burns fuel and heats up the main room. I just keep the sliding doors closed and it doesn’t take too much to heat the place up. And, thankfully there’s a pipe from it leading outside, so I don’t get carbon monoxide poisoning. The problem is the hallway/washroom area; it’s already quite cold, and it’s not even December yet. I have done a few things to help get it down a bit: used bubble wrap on the windows, put a rug down in front of the toilet so my feet aren’t as cold. But the main problem is that the shower room is the coldest room of all! I’m sure that you can imagine why that’s unpleasant. Even with the hot water running, the steam is not enough to make the room pleasantly warm. So if anyone has any suggestions about different techniques on how to cheaply insulate my apartment a bit, please let me know.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I would like to say that you are a much wiser person after having read this post, but I’m pretty sure you’re now about as wise as when you started reading. To make up for it, here’s a quote from CS Lewis: “He who believes himself not to be proud, is very proud indeed.”

Something like that.

One of the most interesting and unique things about visiting different countries is the particular palette of food that is offered there. This includes what you find in the grocery store, what you get from chain restaurants, and what you get when you go to a locally-owned restaurant run by a man who thought it was a good idea. It’s also a good topic to discuss, because everyone likes food. Whenever you don’t know what to talk about, food is a good choice. Even if you’re not talking about, the suggestion of going out to eat is something most people think is a good idea.

So, I thought that it would be interesting for everyone else to read about some observations I have had regarding the food here in Japan.

First of all, I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking: Japan? Food? I’m already an expert. You eat sushi day in and day out! Well, the short answer to that is: no, actually, I don’t. In fact, in Hirosaki there aren’t that many sushi places to choose from (but thankfully, the ones that ARE here are quite good). In fact, sushi is NOT an everyday thing to eat here. Yes, you can get it pre-packaged freshly every day at any number of combini (convenience stores) or suupaa (grocery stores). But then again, in Canada, you can get pre-packaged cut-up fruit trays… but how many of those do most of us eat in a normal day? The truth is, sushi is treated here more-or-less the same way that it is treated back home: something that you say “Hey I know! Let’s go out and eat some sushi!” And everyone says “Yeah! I haven’t had that in a while!” Of course, they don’t say “Ewwwww raw fish!!” because it’s delicious… and you should like it too.

On the topic of sushi, the sushi here is (as expected) very good. However, I was surprised to find out that it tastes very similar to the kinds I’ve had back in Canada. I figured since “Chinese food” in Canada is kind of a joke compared to the real thing, that sushi would be the same, but it’s actually quite similar. Some choices are the same: tuna, salmon, egg… but of course, many of the choices are quite different: back in Canada you could get some with cream cheese in it, or (my favourite) the dragon roll with has tempura bits in it and is wrapped in avocado (I’ve been told you can get that here, but I have yet to see it). Here in Japan, most sushi concentrates on one main ingredient: seafood on top. You can get fish, like at home, but also squid, eel, octopus, shrimp, scallop, etc. Of course, most of it is raw, and most of it I can’t eat due to allergies, so I just stick with the safe bets.

Sushi here is served via conveyor belt. The chefs put sushi on a plate and place it on the belt, and it goes around to tempt the customers. If you want it, just take it off the belt and enjoy. At the end, they count your plates and you pay accordingly. I’ve seen this in Calgary, but it’s not as common in Canada overall. In some restaurants, the sushi chefs are in the middle of the circular belt, chopping up fish, shaping the sushi, using wasabi to stick them together, etc. If you want a particular order of sushi, just yell out the name of it and it’ll be coming right up!

So what do the Japanese people eat on a normal day? Well, like back home, there is a lot of variety: you’ve got Japanese food (duh), Chinese food, Korean-style BBQ, Italian food, “American” food (ie. McDonald’s), Indian food (the real deal!), etc. But on a regular day, I often see these 2 things:

A) Bento – a boxed lunch. These are cheap, are all the same, and are changed everyday. The cafeteria at our school allows staff to order them before 11:00, and at 11:30 comes to the office to deliver them to whomever ordered them. The cost is 450 yen (or about 5.00$ Canadian). These usually have a good mixture: something salty, something meaty, rice, a little dessert, a little garnish, and some soup.

B) Curry Rice – This is a very common dish here, except that the Japanese curry is very different from Indian curry: it is darker, sweeter, less spicy, and thicker than Indian curry. Honestly, I like both Indian curry and Japanese curry a lot, but I can’t decide which I like better: they are so different that they are hard to directly compare. So I guess it depends more on my taste-buds for each day.

But, by far, the dish that I see people eating the most up here in Hirosaki, and the dish I eat the most:

RAMEN!!

Ramen is what we back home would call “noodles”, except that the dish tastes are so different it’s almost an insult to call what we eat in Canada ramen. The ramen they serve here is delicious! First of all, the sauce is often home-made, not from a packet. The most common flavours are miso, salt and shouyu (soya). Second, they usually have a number of different spices, vegetables and other garnishs in them. Finally, they usually have some sort of substantial extra in them, such as slices of cooked pork, slices of egg, etc. It is served piping hot, and is intended to be slurped down as loudly and quickly as possible. Of course, I don’t like to rush my eating, so I take my time with it.

My favourite ramen shop is actually right at the corner of the school I work at. It’s called “Mendorak”, and is run by a man and a woman (perhaps married). Neither of them speak any English (or if they do, they are avoiding it well), which is good because it gives me a chance to practice my Japanese. The woman is very nice, and finds everything I do funny (probably because I’m a foreigner and am probably doing everything wrong), and the man is pretty quiet but always busy preparing dishes for people. They usually know what I’m going to order, because I usually order the same thing: Saishoku to Nyuu Tantanmen. It’s absolutely delicious. Roughly translated, it is “Vegtables and Milk Spicy Ramen”. I’d never thought of having something that was both spicy and creamy before, but it’s an amazing blend, and it is the restaurant’s specality: they invented it. It comes loaded with carrots, sprouts, celery and some other stuff that I don’t recognize. Here is a photo of the delicious dish itself:

One of the best things about this particular restaurant is that the longer you stay there, the more side-dishes that you get for no extra charge! The woman will just had you some pickles, or some pumpkin, or whatever else she decides to give you! And she’s discovered I really like iced coffee with milk in it, and since then she’s almost always given me a free glass of it at every visit.

Speaking of service, Canada has a lot to learn from the Japanese: the service you get in Japan is far beyond what I’m used to. Of course, it’s a bit of a show: they don’t ACTUALLY think the world of you just because you’re a customer, but still, it is nice to be treated like someone who is paying money to them to run the business.

The most noticable example of this is if you go to a fast food kind of place. In Canada, this is considered kind of a low-end beginner’s job: you don’t expect much of the service, and the service doesn’t expect much of you. However in Japan, working for fast food is actually kind of prestigious because you are working for a big company, and that’s a bigger deal here. To give you an idea of the difference, let’s compare a Canadian fast-food donut shop (ie, Tim Horton’s) to a Japanese fast-food donut shop (ie. Mister Donut):

Tim Horton’s: You enter, wait in line, and get up to the counter. The staff member at that point finally notices you exist, and says “Can I take your order?” to which you list everything off. You drop a penny on the ground, and you say “oops” and pick it up. They tell you how much your order is, you pay it, they give you the food, and you are forgotten about.

Mister Donut: As you enter, you are welcomed from behind the counter to the shop by the staff. You get in line, which is usually short, and when it’s your turn, you begin listing off what you would like. You drop a yen (ie penny) on the ground, and the employee runs from BEHIND the counter to your side, picks it up, gives it back to you, and then runs back behind the counter again. You only want a coffee and a donut. They tell you how much it is, you give the money, and they ask you to sit down. Within a little bit, they come to wherever you’re sitting and bring you your donut on a plate with your coffee, and a glass of ice water on a tray. As you’re enjoying your food, your coffee starts to get low, but loe and behold there is already a staff member behind you, ready to refill your cup. You simply hand it over, they refill it, and you continue to enjoy your stay.

This is EXACTY what happened to me when I visited Mister Donut once. There are disadvantages to this: the staff welcoming every single guest is quiet loud and over-whelming, and in general the food is more expensive (126 yen for a donut), but you can see the difference! Of course, this will not be the same EVERYWHERE you go, but in general the service is of a much higher standard here.

Finally, getting back to food, another commonly-served dish here is Okonomiyaki. Basically “however you like it”. It’s probably the Japanese equivalent of a pizza, since it has a flat, circular base and is served a number of different ways. The base is sort of like a pancake, made with soy wheat, cabbage and yam, held together by an egg. It is then topped by special sauces, which I can’t remember the name of, and you often put fish flakes on it (though, that makes them dance a bit, which turns some people off). The beauty of this is that you can go to restaurants which let you fry them yourself, so you get a bowl with the ingredients and you can cook a number of small, fresh ones, and eat them all differently. Also, Japan seems to be a big believer in giving you a cup and letting you go pour your own drinks from a selection, and you can do it endlessly until you leave.

Well, this certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of the foods and services available in Japan, but it is an introduction! I’ll probably have to talk more about it in another post, but for now this should do juuuuust fine. I hope you’re feeling hungry now! Go eat!

Gochisosama Deshita!

When I first arrived in Japan, waaaaay back in July ‘09, we were taken to Shinjuku, Tokyo, to the Keio Plaza hotel. I wrote about it a bit and posted pictures, but I really didn’t get a chance to look around or explore Tokyo on my own time.

Last week, the Japanese had 3 consecutive holidays in a row for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Naturally, I took 2 days of paid leave on Thursday and Friday to make a whole week of it. And then, on Saturday, headed down to Tokyo to meet up with Samuel. Samuel is another JET who came with the Montreal group; we met at the orientation there and have become travel buddies. He lives quite far from me, so this is really our only chance to hang out together.

Anyhow, here are some of the cool things that happened:

1. On of the first things we did was head to Shinbuya. If you haven’t heard of it, it is the home of a lot of shopping and such, but more interestingly, a TON of people everyday. In fact, it is the home of the world’s busiest intersection. You wouldn’t really tell when the lights are red and there’s only cars on the streets… they alternate so that only cars or people go at the same time here… but as soon as those lights turn green, whoooooooooa!!!! PEOPLE!!! Here’s a picture after the light has turned green:

As you can see, it was kind of busy there. And while being there, we saw a glasses shop that was closing for a bit for renovations, and they were selling glasses for really cheap (about $50 with perscription). I happen to really like glasses, and found a really neat blue pair, and Samuel found the same pair except silver and got them. It’s kind of cool because now we’re going around with really cool glasses. Okay I’m lame. Whatever.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I really like how much people use bikes to get around here in Japan, even in Tokyo. Here’s a picture of a bike rack in a busy area:

On our first night, we decided to be adventurous and stay at a capsule hotel. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, Tokyo is kind of famous for having many capsule hotels, so-named because you actually sleep in capsules that are all laid out on either side of a wall. They are for men only, since they are usually occupied by businessmen who need a place to stay while on a business trip. When I read about them, I thought that it was probably pretty crampt and not very nice, considering that it only costs about 28$ a night to stay in one. However, for the sake of adventure, we went and stayed in one, and were pleasantly surprised! First of all, when you arrive, you just pay by the night: they give you a key, a robe and a towel. You can go into a locker room to lock up your stuff and change into the robe, and the towel is for the shower/hot tub/sauna area. They also had a really nice lounge area with lots of chairs all pointed towards a TV that no one seemed to be watching, because they had walls and walls of manga (Japanese graphic novels) that you could take out and read. But because of my limited Japanese-reading ability, it was really no good for me. But still, the chairs were nice and they had free computers with internet to use. But the first night we were quite tired so we just headed up to the beds. They weren’t nearly as crampt as I had expected them to be: there was plenty of room to stretch out, and enough height to sit up. In fact, it was pretty much just like bunk-beds, except with walls around them. And you had a little roll-down screen that you could pull to block the light and for privacy. Here are some pictures of Samuel and I at the hotel!

Unfourtunatly, on the first night of being there, I ate something that didn’t settle with me… I don’t know if it was food poisoning, or there was some shellfish stock in the soup I had or what, but I started to bring it all back up. And then I went to sleep for a while, but then I woke back up to bring some more of it up, over and over for a few hours. After that, I was more feeble than I’d ever been before: I could barely move, and when I did it took all my strength. They only thing I was good at was sleeping… so Sunday was completely out for me.

After I recovered, we went to several other districts in the area. These included:

Akihabara, the electronics district, selling pretty much any kind of electronic, video game, anime, manga, or whatever else your geeky little heart can think of. Everywhere you went, there were cheap gadgets, flashing lights, old and new games, and girls dressed up like anime characters trying to get you to come into the shops and buy stuff. Don’t believe me?

When going around the city during the day, you never know what you’ll see! Take for example this giant hamburger that I ate:

If you think that’s big, you should have seen the fries! Oh, and after you are done eating, eventually you have to use the pooper… or in Samuel’s case, buy a toy at a vending machine that ends up being an Asian-style squat toilet with a “present” already in it!

And everywhere you go, there’s interesting buildings to see, such as the following ones from Asakusa:

And there were others everywhere we went, like this one in Tsukigi. However, it doesn’t look Asian, and we have no idea what it actually is. Somehow that doesn’t bother us though.

When I saw the following, I just had to take a picture; it reminded me of a certain place from a certain university in a certain small town in a certain small province in a certain second-biggest country in a certain world in a certain galaxy of a certain Universe:

And even in the subway stations, there were amusing things to look at, like the following sign:

Truth be told, I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to swing your arms around at a subway station… at least, I think that’s what they are doing, I can’t really tell. At least now I know that I’m supposed to go to a beach first.

Oh, and by the way, we met up with Spider-Man!!! Although it looks like Tokyo’s low crime-rate is making him bored or something, because he’s starting to take up part-time jobs:

Of course, being a city, it looks coolest at night with all the lights lit up!

The following picture was a wall that we saw at night that was completely lit up, and displaying numbers around a corner in Roppongi.

The numbers changed often, but not in any noticable order; they weren’t increasing or decreasing, so we’re not really sure what the point of them was… probably none, but they looked cool!!

Later after that, we went to Yokohama, a city in the greater Tokyo area, but considered a different city. It was a pretty huge minato-shi (harbour city) with one of the biggest China towns in the world. Of course, if you really want a China town, you best go to China. Here is the China town:

And here’s what the harbour looks like at nighttime:

Pretty cool, eh?

Well, I know this wasn’t my best writing ever, but I just wanted an excuse to post a bunch of pictures since I found a newer, easier way to do it and wanted to take advantage of it. Thanks for humouring me.

When I was posting my previous posts, I was unable to upload pictures and video because I did not have internet: rather I wrote up my blogs on my computer offline, and the copied and pasted onto the work computer to upload just the text. Now I have entered into the 21st Century, and I have internet, so I can now provide you with photos and video of my new life! Sadly, though, a lot of the photos that I took until arriving in Tokyo are lost… but here’s what I got!

Nightlife in Tokyo. When you’re there, it’s hard to tell that it is actually night, because the neon signs collaborate together and emit elumination on par with the sun’s.

The Japanese sure love their vending machines! Yes, this is outside at night…

Tsubasa and I met up and went out for ramen.

The very first ramen shop I ever entered.

Japan loves to put characters on things.

The Prime Minister of Japan is Taro Aso… an election is coming up soon… do you think he’ll get re-elected?

Soon after my arrival in Hirosaki, the Nebuta festival began. Nebuta is a festival held every year, exclusively in Aomori prefecture, and is one of the biggest festivals in the Touhoku region. It lasts for a week and is primarily celebrated all over Aomori, but the largest celebrations are in Aomori City, Hirosaki and Goshogawara.

In Aomori city, they have large 3D floats which are wire-framed and covered with a tough paper and then lit up, to depict a scenes of battles between warriors and dragons and such. I will hopefully be able to get a picture up soon. I was a part of this, as a Aomori JET event, and we actually got the chance to be on the streets as they paraded the floats down the streets. We all wore haneto, a very interesting kind of get-up, and had little bells hanging off of us. When the festival began, huge taiko drums were being beaten on, accompanied by flutes playing the same melody as a loop. As we went down the street, we jumped around Nebuta-style: left leg twice, then right leg twice. You keep doing this while a leader (basically whoever chooses to start) yells: “RASSERA! RASSERA!” (pronounced rah-say-rah) and in response everyone in ear-shot responds by yelling “RASSE, RASSE, RASSERA!”. Because we had bells on, we all jingled as we jumped. I think the native Japanese find us foreigners jumping around kind of amusing. When the bells fall off, or when you pull them off, you’re supposed to toss them into the crowd so they can collect them. Kids and mothers especially seem to like getting them. And that’s what you do for 2 hours all around the downtown of the city. It was loads of fun, but tons exhausting!

In Hirosaki (my city), they have small-to-giant floats that are shaped like a thick Asian-fan, and on them are various paintings of warriors and monsters and such. Some of them were very cool, and some were actually very gory. These floats are either on wheels, pulled by those who painted them, or they are carried on poles by men, the old fashioned way. Also, they had GIANT (and I mean HUGE) taiko drums, with four girls on top on both sides of the drum (yes, it’s that big) playing it full-armed as it is rolled down the street. And they play another melody the whole time, yelling “Yaayado!” (pronounced yaaaah-ya-doe). Again, very cool, and since I was only watching, it wasn’t nearly as exhausting.

Finally, in Goshogawara (a city with a long name), they have the tallest of all floats, over 20 meters in height! Sadly I didn’t get to see these ones, so I can’t say much about them, but I plan to make sure to see them next time!

To change the topic, life at the school is pretty low-key right now. It is summer vacation, so there are no classes, but teachers and students still go to school. Teachers prepare for the coming year, and students take part in club activities. However, last week one of the students got the Swine flu, and so all the students had no school at all for a week. Teachers still came in, however. Right now, I spend most of my days at my desk, and my job is pretty simple: prepare lessons for the coming term, and learn Japanese. I’m enjoying trying to come up with creative and effective ways of teaching the students English. The hard part is that I have no idea what it’s like. I’m not sure what would or would not be too difficult for the students, nor how well they’ll comprehend the lesson. But of course, I’m not teaching alone: I’m an assistant teacher, after all. So I pass off my lesson plans to the teachers that I’ll be working with to see what they think. So far I have a self-introduction game, where I try and get the students to guess which facts about me are true and which ones are false (from a list), and I have a lesson about negative statements (ex. I would like neither to eat bread, nor rice). Spending time learning Japanese is great because not only is it immediately useful, but I used to study it on my own time: now it’s part of my job.

On August 9th, I had the chance to go see a Japanese percussion concert, and it was great! Rather than saying a lot about it, I’ll just post a clip for your own viewing pleasure.

Finally, I have been attending the Hirosaki Fukuin Kuristo Kyoukai (Hirosaki Gospel Christ Church). It is about as far away from my apartment as the school is (20 minutes on bike), and the services are Sundays at 10:30 AM… so about the same as back home. The church is small, and most of the members are either middle-aged, elderly, or children. The pastor and his wife have five of them, which makes up the bulk of the children. It is a small congregation, as Christianity is not popular in Japan: the pre-dominient religions are Buddhism and Shinto. The service was, of course, in Japanese, so I didn’t understand really what it was about. But I was able to sing the songs with them, since a lot of their music is translated hymns, and they are mostly written in Kana (phonetic characters rather than Chinese-style characters). Although my ability to communicate with them is minimal, they have been very welcoming of my presence at their church, and invited me to an English service which takes place on Sundays at 5:30 PM. Yesterday I attended it, and it was great to meet other Christians, as well as some Japanese friends who were close to my age! It is hosted by a Canadian/American married couple who have been living in Japan for the past 30 years.

That’s the end of my “Arrival” series, but stayed tuned for more exciting Adventures in Japan!

Next Time: Pictures of Everything!

Before continuing, I noticed that there were two details about Tokyo that I neglected to metion.

First of all, from my observation, Tokyo is clean clean clean. As you’re walking down the sidewalks its very rare to see any garbage, cigarette buds, etc. Also, garbage cans are hard to come by. See, in Japan, people don’t seem to eat or drink while they walk, so they don’t really generate much garbage on-the-go. Therefore, they wouldn’t really need cans everywhere, and there’s less trash on the roads. Not to mention that they have paid workers to clean up the place even if there WERE something to pick up.

Disclaimer: If the word “toosh” offends you, don’t read the next paragraph!

The other observation was that our hotel room had a bidet. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a toilet that can wash your toosh with water once you are done your business. I’ve noticed that it really cuts down on the amount of toilet paper you have to use!

Disclaimer ended

Anyway, onto Aomori…

After arriving in the small Aomori airport, I was quickly greeted by Steve (a friend from Acadia who is a current JET in the same prefecture), Michelle (my predecessor), and Sudo-sensei (my supervisor). After some hasty greetings, Steve headed back to his school, and Michelle, Sudo-sensei and I were off in the car. Michelle is kind, relatively soft-spoken girl who has been very hospitable and helpful in getting me used to my apartment and my future job. Sudo-sensei is a great supervisor, always willing to help me out and show me around. And he is very very patient with me, since I have no idea what I’m doing.

The first thing we did was go to a traditional-style restaurant. At the entrance you must take off your shoes and walk on an elevated platform, and sit down on pillows at lowered tables. The waitresses (no waiters) comes to your table and kneels down to take your order. Sudo-sensei recommended the katsudon to me. Katsudon is fried pork cutlets. I have had katsudon previously in Canada, but this was MUCH tastier. Along with my meal I had some soba noodles and other sides of which I unfourtunately can’t remember the name of. It was quite a delicious meal, and a great introduction to my new home. It was also the “what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here” moment that JETs warn you about. It was while at dinner there, in front of brand new people at a brand new place eating brand new food that I realized what I was getting myself into. But I got past it… for now. I’m sure it’ll hit me again sometime. During the meal, my supervisor commented that I wasn’t slurpping enough while eating my food! Of course, because I’m from Canada I always try NOT to slurp, but here slurpping shows an appreciation for the food… and then I noticed how loud everyone was eating. After that I made as much noise while eathing as I could… and I fit in. At the end, Sudo-sensei paid for the meal, for which I was very grateful.

As we left for Hirosaki, it started to rain harder and harder. We entered the city only to the fanfare of cars and water hitting the ground. I didn’t know where the city began, and it was hard to really see anything except the buildings around me. At the time, it seemed kind of depressing, since it was my introduction to the place. I was taken to my apartment, which is in a central location. It’s also right next to Hirosaki gas, so I hope there are no fires there. Fourtunately it’s quite humid here so we should be okay. Entering my apartment building, I was kind of wondering what the inside would be like. The entrance to the building, and the stairs and walls and floors were all just solid grey concrete, and I was wondering if I was just going to have a concrete room to live in. But when the door opened, I was pleasantly surprised to see a very nice, traditional Japanese apartment: I have 3 small rooms with tatami flooring, traditional sliding doors between them, wood and tiled flooring elsewhere. The kitchen is a good size for one person, with a stove and fish toaster (no oven though), a sink, a fridge, and various household items good for cooking and eating. There are plenty of windows, I have a balcony (though the view isn’t terribly interesting, it’s not bad), a tub/shower (kind of ghetto with a turn-to-heat crank) and a small room with a toilet. I will eventually give a video tour of the place.

The rest of the day was spent running around the city: getting an alien registration card, getting passport pictures taken for said card, and visiting the school for the first time. The school is an old one (over 100 years), though the building is fairly new. In Japan at school, you MUST change out of your outdoor shoes and into your indoor shoes. We all have little shoe lockers for which to store our indoor shoes. I was quickly introduced to the office workers, including the vice-principal and principal. They took me into the principal’s office, closed the door, got me to sit down, and started talking to me in Japanese. I only understood a little of what they were saying, but enough to respond with a simple phrase. Then they said a bunch of things I didn’t understand, we were served tea, and then we left to go run around some more. But after a while, he had to go attend a parent-teacher meeting at the school, so he got his wife to drive me home. She was a very smiley, genki (energetic) woman, who wanted to chat with my in Japanese. She was understanding of the fact that my Japanese wasn’t very good, but kept saying things to me that I didn’t understand. Well, sometimes I did but didn’t know how to respond. Other times I had no idea and just nodded and said “Hai!” (which means “Yes” or “I agree”).

After I was dropped off at my apartment, I was only in there for a minute before Steve came in to show me around a bit. But since Sudo-sensei wanted to take me out to dinner, we only went to the combini (convience store) to get an umbrella (it was a down-pour by now) and some basic food items. And then we came back to the apartment and chatted for a bit before Sudo-sensei came over, dressed in more casual clothes, to take me out to dinner.

His wife dropped us off at a yaki-niku restaurant. Yaki-niku is actually a Korean thing, where you sit at a table with a grill in the middle, and are given raw meat to grill up yourself. He also ordered me some sake (rice wine), which is actually a very good clenser. I can honestly say that it was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. It was so delicious I just kept saying “Oishii! Oishii!” (Delicious! Delicious!) over and over. I didn’t have enough of a vocabulary to elaborate though.

After having yet another meal paid for (I’ve very spoiled), we went back to my supervisor’s house for a few minutes just to visit and meet his dogs. His dogs REALLY don’t like strangers though, so it was quite noisy. He then took me back to my apartment.

When I came back, I got a chance to meet Dee Jay, Michelle’s boyfriend. He’s a hip-hop artist, and a very good one too. He’s done paintings for some shops both outside their shops, and inside. He also designs clothing prints, posters and tattoos. He even has some of his work published in magazines. Seems like you can get non-English-teaching jobs here, even if you’re not fluent in Japanese.

From then on is kind of a blur now, but here are some of the things that have happened since:

My school handed me my own Hanko, which is a stamp that is the equivalent of a signature here in Japan. With it, I was able to open up a bank account, and get a cell phone. After considering some options, I went with iPhone because I’m a fan of the huge array of applications you can get with it. Although the iPhone isn’t really popular here in Japan, it still is comparable to what they have here… and I can set it to English. I won’t give out my phone number on this site, but if you want it please ask me!

Also, I bought a bike. It was used, but in really great shape, and it was only 57$! In Japan, there are A LOT more people biking than there are back home. It’s a very common mode of transportation here. I even see old women biking home with their groceries! Most bikes here are only 1 speed, though, but that’s fine for where I live because it’s pretty flat here. And in fact, biking can be a faster way to get somewhere than driving here, since there are different pathes you can take, and most of the traffic speeds are only 40-50 km/h. There are also a lot of traffic lights, but with a bike you don’t have to wait behind other cars. I’m a fan!

The apartment I was put into was only temporary until the residents were gone, which ended up being a week later. I am now moved into the new apartment. It is actually just across the hall from the old one. Although the old apartment had a better view and more sunlight, the one I’m in now has some distinct advantages: it has hot water at the sink, there are already dishes, shelves, desks, a couch, a bed, a pretty big tv, a few fans, a better shower, and other items. It also has a room heater, which will be essential in the winter since these apartments have no central heating, which is pretty standard for Japan.

There is more to write about, but this blog is:

To be continued…

PS. Please leave a comment! I’d like to know you exist!

The Japanese airport was incredibly clean and very efficient. There was a very long line for customs, but it moved very rapidly. Other countries could take some notes from them. Mostly it involved looking at your papers, taking your picture, getting your finger prints, and saying “Youkoso” (welcome). There after, we followed a long time of JET orientation helpers who guided us along the way. There was pretty much one JET orientation leader every 3 meters, so it would have been VERY difficult to get lost. After stepping outside, the heat assaulted us. It was very sunny, hot and very humid the day of our arrival. Of course, we were expecting this and I had experienced it at other airports before (Hong Kong, Brazil) but this was the thickest air I had ever breathed. It actually started making my cough for a while. I’m glad that I was outside the airport when this happened, because otherwise they might have thought I had the Swine Flu and put me in quarentine for the next 2 weeks.

We then took a bus into Tokyo. Looking out at the world from our bus on the way, it really didn’t seem that foreign to me: the vegetation was similar to Canada’s (though greener), and the roads and signs were similar (in English and in Japanese). After a while though, we started to see more buildings, and there was a lot of Japanese writing on them (as expected), and when we were able to see a harbour, the water was a very very dark blue. We passed through Chiba city, and then popped into Tokyo. Originally I was expecting it to be more like New York City, with grids and grids of high-rise sky scrapers and flashing lights and tons and tons of people on the street, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was instead a really really huge city of buildings and roads. The sidewalks really didn’t have many people on them at all, at least on the routes we were taking, but we saw all kinds of buildings, restaurants, vending machines, etc. And then we arrived at the Keio Plaza Hotel, where our next 3 days would be spent. Again, the area was not very busy at all. We were led around the building to make getting our necessities (keys, books, etc) as efficient as possible. We were then given the rest of the evening off.

Altogether there were a few thousand of us all dressed up in our fancy suits in a giant room in a grand hotel in the middle of Tokyo. In fact, it was the tallest hotel in Tokyo, and right across from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. The view from our hotel room was awesome: it was right in front of that building, and on either side you could see greater Tokyo with its endless sea of buildings all around. I wish I had taken a picture, but I do have it on video (which will be here at some point).

Mitch and I decided to go out exploring the area a bit, along with some other guys. We walked a little bit to the left of the entranced, and noticed down the streets a bunch of neon lights. Like moths to a lightbulb, we were attracted to the area. When we got there, there was so much activity, many people, blinding lights and lots of noise. This was more similar to what I was expecting! It was hard to believe that it was so close to the quiet area where our hotel was. We just walked around, amazed by the flashiness of everything. We went into a restaurant to get something to eat. None of us could speak Japanese well enough (or read it) to figure out what was what, so we mainly went by pictures. I had to explain to the waiter that I was allergic to shellfish but not regular fish, while another guy that was with us had to explain that he was allergic to regular fish but not shellfish. The waiter didn’t speak any English, so our broken Japanese was hopefully understood. We then pointed to our chosen dishes. He said something about a 400 yen table charge (in Japanese), which we accepted… we didn’t realize it meant 400 yen per person until we got the bill. The food was alright, but I knew I’d be having better meals soon. It was more-so the experience of trying to order at the restaurant and going out for our first Japanese meal that was the exciting part for us.

We walked around for a bit longer, but we were all starting to get kind of tired, since our clocks were all out of whack. We went back to the hotel to get some shut-eye until the morning.

Early in the morning we were greeted with a Western-style buffet breakfast, followed by a formal opening with the Board of Education. We were divided into our prefectures, so I was finally able to meet some of the JETs who would be in the same area as I would. Some were close to me (Hirosaki, Aomori city) and some are far away. After that there were presentations for all the JETs, followed by lunch and then workshops from which we could pick and choose which ones to attend. Pretty much all of them were either about teaching in Japan, living in Japan, or being a person of a certain type in Japan (ex. being of Asian decent, being vegetarian, etc). They were all pretty useful, but it was very difficult for some people to pay attention, either because they were too tired and had jet lag, or because they had a lot of energy and sitting down all day was very difficult. In the evening they hosted a welcome banquet for us, with our first “kanpai” (which is the Japanese equivalent for “Cheers!”).

The next day was pretty similar over all, except that at night I got to meet up with a Japanese penpal that I’ve had since September, and also a Japanese friend that I had met at Acadia. We went out for ramen and various plates of food, and it was their treat, which was so nice of them! One of the dishes I tried, which they specially ordered for me, was called “natto”… it’s sort of infamous among foreigners because a lot of people can’t handle it. Basically it is fermented soy bean paste. But I have to say that it’s smell is stronger than its taste, and although I probably would never choose to order it, it’s not really that bad… well, except that it’s really sticky. Anyway, it was great to meet up with them, and I intended to give them a ring once I’m in Tokyo again.

And then I went to bed fairly early, since we had to get up early to eat breakfast and head out to… Aomori!!! For those of you who don’t know (probably most of you), Aomori is the northern-most prefecture on Honshu, the main island of Japan (which contains Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto etc). Aomori means “blue-green forest”. A prefecture is similar to a province back home, except they tend to be more like the size of Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island rather than like, say New Brunswick. Anyhow, my city, Hirosaki, is only about a 20 minute drive from the airport.

The flight over there was great, and I got to meet a lot of the people with whom I’ll be sharing a prefecture with. One guy was from South Africa and had never been abroad before. He had never seen snow… so he’s likely in for a surprise. There were other JETs going to Aomori whose jaw dropped when the word “snow” was mentioned. But from what I’ve heard, winters in Aomori are more mild than what I’m used to, so it sounds kind of tropical to me.

And then, after a very short plane ride in which some were getting a last-minute crash-course in Japanese, we arrived at the Aomori airport.

To be continued…

All my anticipating has just become a reality: I am now in the land of the rising sun! Actually, I’ve been here for four days now, but my days have been so packed I’ve not yet had the time to write anything about it. However, sitting here in my new apartment where I will begin my new life, I finally have a bit of time to sit down and share my tale. Here’s the story:

On Friday, July 24th, us future JETs had an orientation at a Hilton hotel in Montreal. There, we were pumped up to go, had some practical advise on lesson planning, got our passports back, and discussed some last-minute details. In my opinion, the most useful was the lesson planning because it gave us a chance to take some ideas, make a lesson plan and activity out of it, and then present it to the other JETs. The advice on how to evaluate it were pretty good too: is it interactive? does it get everyone involved? what do we learn from it? After every group had had a chance to present, the ideas were compiled into a document by Mrs. Giroux, who will soon provide it for us all.

Afterwards, I dropped by the bank to pick up some yen, and then headed back to Tristan’s, where the Bixi bike was STILL located, to get my stuff so I could head over to the hotel, which is by the airport. The hotel was called (and probably still is called) “Aloft Airport Hotel”. It was a very differen hotel than anthing I’d been in before: it had thin neon lights along the side, the reception desk was in the center and was round, the floor was made of different-coloured squares, the bar had each bottle in its own lit box behind the counter and they had different colours, it had futuristic furniture (although technically that’s impossible since it exists now, but you know what I mean), and was playing electronica/dance music in the lobby and hallways (not too loud though). The rooms were pretty stylistic too. But none of that mattered because I was quite tired, and it was time to go to sleep during the afternoon to start the battle against jet lag. I went to bed at about 4:00 PM… but then woke up at about 7:45 PM and could not get back to sleep. And when I woke up, that was the beginning of my looooong night.

I walked over to another hotel nearby which had a restaurant called “Eclipse”. I liked that because it reminded me of a good Java IDE, but I’m probably the only one that thought of that when going there because I’m a geek. Looking at the menu, I realized that it might be my last chance to have certain kinds of meals, so I got a Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich and some Nachos. They were both excellent (although on the the pricey side): the Sandwhich was almost as good as Ben’s was (though not QUITE as good), and the Nachos were piled high with lots of chunky btoppings; exactly the way they should be. The only thing I didn’t like about them was that they already had salsa on them under the cheese. I know this is a controversial topic, but personally I don’t like having salsa on the chips because it makes them soggy quite quickly. I prefer the dip method when it comes to salsa. Call me a heretic if you wish.

Afterwards there really wasn’t very much for me to do. It was about 10:00 PM after I left the restaurant (I really took my time there), so I still had 10 hours until we were meeting up at the airport. I decided to go for a ride on the airport shuttle. There was really no reason to, but it was just an old man going around and around with no passengers, so I hopped on and provided some company for a round. Then I got out and went back to my room, but it was only about 10:30 PM. 9 1/2 hours left.

I spent most of the time watching some movies, writing some stuff, playing Xplorers online (basically Settlers of Catan) and basically trying to make the most of the time. My view was kind of neat because I could watch planes take off. But by 4:00 AM I was ready to give in and just go to sleep for a few hours, but I knew that might ruin it, so I managed to push myself. I left for the airport at 7:00 AM expecting to be the first one there. To my surprise, however, one of the girls from the team was already there! I chatted with her for a bit while other JETs started showing up.

After a while of Air Canada employees arguing amongst themselves trying to get us all organized and out of the way, we said our goodbyes (well, the people whose families were there said their goodbyes; I said goodbye only to Mrs. Giroux, the program director from Montreal) and we were off to Vancouver. I can’t really recall much about that trip though, since I think I passed out on the runway, woke up every time they were offering some water or juice, and then I woke up when we arrived in Vancouver. I was told the trip was 5 hours, but for me it was about 30 minutes. Then we had to get out to transfer over to our next flight, which would be twice as long as the previous one. After having one last subway sub, we met up with some of the other JETs from Alberta, and we were on our way to Japan.

The flight was kind of long, as expected, but it didn’t feel too bad for me. Because it was now 6:00 AM in Japan, I decided to stay awake since I had to act like it was day time now. The interesting thing, though, was that because we were heading west the whole way, the sun never got ahead of us, and we were always smack dab in the middle of the sun’s light location on Earth. And because I saw the sun rise in Montreal at 5:00 AM July 25th, and it fell at about 8:00 PM July 26th in Tokyo, I was able to see the sun for a total of 26 hours straight. Needless to say, my biological rhythms were a bit off.

On the ride to Japan, I was sitting next to a Japanese man who was a Doctor of Meteorology. I was able to speak with him a bit in Japanese, and whenever I was stuck he would switch to English. He was in Canada on a 1 week business trip, and was returing home to Kyoto. He says that his work involves a lot of travel around the world.

Along the way I only slept for an hour: I stayed up for the rest, either chatting tiwh other JETs, or playing cards with them, or watching the on-board TV screen, or listening to iPod, or anything else to keep myself busy. Having done it for 10 hours at a hotel before, it was even easier to do it wither others around who all had to do the same thing. Of course, every once in a while I’d get up and walk around.

I’m not sure, but I think the flight crew was addicted to serving drinks, because they came around and did it, it felt like, about every half hour. But hey, when you’re on a 10 hour plane ride and that’s your job, I guess you really want to do it!

Eventually we were getting close to the Narita airport, and everyone was getting excited. I was lucky in my seat placement, because I was able to see quite well from where I was. I took some videos that I’ll upload soon of our arrival. Upon landing, the JETs on the plane all started cheering and and clapping. We were all quite genki to be there: after months of anticipation, we had finally arrived.

To be continued…