Jean Of mArc

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…