After the raving reviews I got from my J in France blog,
I’ve decided to create a sequel called J and A in Japan. This blog has many of the same characters as
the previous one with the difference that this time Adam has a main role. I hope to make some improvements from the
previous blog by actually adding pictures.
As I am
writing this, Adam and I have now been in Japan for about four days. We arrived Wednesday night and stayed
overnight at a hotel right at the airport.
This worked very well for us as we both had hardly slept and were very
jet lagged. The first thing I noticed
upon entering Japan was the toilets. So
far, all the washrooms I’ve been in, including public ones, have shower
toilets. These give you the option of
washing your bum and then blow drying it clean.
In Tarui, a town where we are having trouble
getting wireless internet (and in fact will not have it), we still have a
shower toilet in our home. In the women’s
public washrooms, they have the option to squat over the ground , use a toilet,
or use a urinal (?) (not sure how a woman is supposed to use that).
The
next morning we enjoyed a complimentary breakfast at the hotel and were picked
up at 10am and brought to Tarui. Tarui
is a small (28,000 people) town nestled in the mountains. It’s really quite scenic. It also seems to have everything you could
want in terms of shopping and outdoor activities.
When we arrived, we dropped off
our bags at our new home. Our house is
really nice here and a lot bigger than I expected after looking at pictures of
apartments in Japan. We have a spacious
bedroom, a hallway, a living room, a kitchen, and a downstairs for a washing
machine and shower room. We sleep on
these “futons” that are on top of a tatami floor with carpet over
top. Since there’s a number of these
futons in our place (5 to be exact), Adam and I have piled them up to make for
a more padded bed. I’m thinking that
sleeping on these is good for your bone density since the floor is still pretty
hard.
After
dropping off our luggage, we were taken to the school board office and met
everyone there, then to the immigration office to register our ID cards (we
have to have the cards with us at all times while in Japan), and to the bank. Then, we were taken out to eat. After lunch, we had our first experience of
grocery shopping. It’s a wee bit
difficult as you’re really not sure what you’re buying and if the price is good
or not. For Adam, who is used to reading
the ingredients on everything to know what he’s eating, this is quite the
challenge. We came home and started to
settle in.
The
next day, Adam was to meet the mayor at 9:00am.
He wanted me to come too, to share in the experience. So we got dressed up and went out. First we met the superintendent. Adam was asked to introduce himself, so he
did in English and Tomomi (an elementary English school teacher) translated. Next, we met the mayor. Pictures were taken and the mayor spoke a
little bit of English. I joked with Adam
that he’s taught 4 years in Calgary and hasn't met the mayor. Here, on his first day he meets the mayor of
Tarui. I went home after this and
started to clean. Cleaning is my way of
making our house feel like home. I also
wanted to kill/clean up any bugs that were hiding.
Later
that morning Adam came home and said that we were being taken to Ogaki (a town
that’s 8 minute train ride from here).
We went to the Suitopia centre to register for a beginner’s
English class and we found the Catholic Church.
On
Saturday, we did a lot of walking.
First, we walked to Fuwa, one of the junior high schools Adam will be
working at. Then, we walked to a grocery
store. However, we didn’t know where the
store was, except that is was close to the junior high. After wandering around and Adam getting to
try out his Japanese of asking, “Suupaa wa doko desuka?” we found the
store. Coming out of the store we saw a
street vendor selling these skewers of things.
We pointed to two that we wanted.
I thought I picked one that looked like beef and figured that’s why it
was more expensive. In the end, Adam’s
was a mystery fish and I think mine was some animal liver. Needless, to say neither of us was very
full. We stopped at the farmer’s market
close to our house and bought a few more things before heading home.
We had
some lunch, then with great anticipation, I cut into what I thought was a
watermelon. Our faces dropped as we
discovered that it was some kind of squash.
I tasted some raw and it was terrible.
I thought that 200 yen for a watermelon that size was pretty cheap. I’ve now used it in stir fry and found it
quite delicious.
We left
for Ogaki that afternoon to make sure we could find the Suitopia centre and the
church on our own. At the centre, we
went into this science exhibition thing for kids. We went around and looked at the things, but
seeing as we couldn’t read anything we went through pretty quickly. We headed for the church and got to meet
Father Rey. He’s a missionary priest
from the Philippines and very welcoming.
Finally,
we went back to the mall by the train station for some supper. We chose an Italian restaurant. We took off our shoes and placed them in
lockers by the door. We ordered our
meals by pointing at the pictures. The
waitress asked us questions, but since we couldn’t understand her, we just
nodded our heads. She must have been
asking us if we wanted bread, nod yes (since there were other waitresses just
going around offering people different breads), then asking us if we just
wanted what we pointed to, nod yes, then asking if it was ok if Adam’s was
cold, nod yes. I ended up with a
delicious mushroom pasta meal, and Adam ended up with a cold avocado, shrimp,
fish egg, pasta meal. We both thought
that was pretty funny. Interestingly,
the Japanese people were eating with forks and we were eating with
chopsticks. I think it’s like how in
Canada when we go to a Japanese restaurant we eat with chopsticks. They go to an Italian restaurant and eat with
forks.
We
proceeded to another cafe type place to get this strawberry/shaved ice/ice
cream dessert before returning home.
Yesterday,
we went to our first Japanese class, I found it rather fun and the other people
at our table spoke English (3 from the Philippines). We left early so that we could make it to the
Mass in Tagalog at 11:30am. We got there
right on time and were the only people in the church. Father comes up and welcomes us and then
explains that they have something called “Philippine time” where Mass will only
start at 11:55am. Then, the girls who
were sitting at our table at the Japanese class came in, and so next week they
can give us a ride to Mass. The
community was so welcoming to us. Many
of them spoke English. Father gave us booklets
to follow along in English and assigned two ladies to translate his homily to
us. He also got us to come up to the
front and introduce ourselves to the church.
A few of the ladies gave us their contact info and said they would ask
about a job for me as some of them teach English. All in all a great experience so far and
we’re settling well into our new home.
September 7
Adam
and I have had quite the eventful weekend.
We started off Friday night with a game of Canasta. Then, Saturday morning we went on a biking
adventure. First, we biked to the second
junior high where Adam will be working to see how long it would take and
exactly where it was. Then, we decided
that we should check out this waterfall.
The night before we had talked about going, looked at the map, were
unsure of how long it would take us to get there or if we would just get
lost. In the end, we found the way on
the first try and got to the waterfalls in about an hour and a half from
leaving our house. It was so hot biking
and although the roads look flat they are slightly uphill. I don’t know if I’ve ever sweat so much! On the way, the rice fields start to be
enclosed with electrical wire and there are beware of bear signs. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our bear spray
to Japan. I was wondering too if bear
etiquette here is the same as Canada. J
We thought getting to the
waterfall would be a hike into the mountains, but it was more of a walk up the
road. We left our bikes lower down as
one of them has no gears and both the seats are low, so going uphill is hard
(good thing Tarui is flat). The falls
were beautiful. Adam started to go down
to get closer to them when we saw a snake.
Since we had read somewhere that there are venomous snakes we decided to
head back. It is so lush and
beautiful. The road was right along a
creek with many other baby falls and a number of little lizards and larger
insects.
We were going to have a picnic at
a little park area on the way down, but after being chased around by a huge
hornet (which are also apparently fairly dangerous), we got on our bikes and
rode away in order to escape. We stopped
instead at what we think was a frog sanctuary, or at least there was a lot of
frogs hopping around us and a sign had pictures of the developmental stages of
the frog. We has chicken with some
cooked vegetables, some sort of leaf thing that I bought at the Farmer’s Market
that tasted like lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, and figs. Delicious!
As it was only 1pm and we had
planned this to be a whole day excursion, we decided to head to a nearby lake
to go swimming. (We have a map of Tarui
and mountain area which a previous AET had labelled with some English.) Back on our bikes we go, passing temples,
creeks, houses until we decide that it’s probably uphill from here and once
again leave our bikes. We walk up the
road the rest of the way and arrive at the lake. Our faces drop as we see that the lake is not
swimmable. In fact, you can’t even get
down to it if you wanted to. Instead, we
walked on the road/path all the way around (probably about an hour walk) and
enjoyed the mountain scenery. Feeling
like we had had enough heat and exercise we headed back to our house. Going home was much easier as it was
downhill.
That night, we had been invited
over to Michael and Miho’s house for dinner.
Michael is a previous AET who married a Japanese woman (Miho). We were able to socialize with them and three
other Albertans living in the area, one of whom was a previous AET and her
husband. They made tacos and we felt
like we were back in Canada. Even in
Japan, Adam got razzed for being an Oilers fan.
We arrived home and start getting
ready for bed. Adam is sitting on the
edge of the futon when a cockroach flies into his toiletries case. He quickly zips it up and then we consult
about what to do. We decide to clear the
living room, assemble a number of different whacking tools and dump the case on
the ground as we are both armed and ready to kill. This was my first time seeing a live
cockroach and if it is my last, I believe that I will live a very happy life. On the count of three, AKA
Adam, “Are you ready?”
Me, “No.”
Adam, “Are you ready?”
Me, “I’m never going to be ready. Maybe we should just do this in the morning.”
Adam, “Ok, I’m going to open the case.”
I proved to be fairly useless in the killing role as I
screamed and threw my book not exactly close to the scurrying cockroach (those
guys can move, let me tell you).
Luckily, Adam had more of his head about him and hit it on the first try. We were lucky it didn’t decide to fly, that
would have made things trickier. We
wondered how it got in; we’ve got cockroach poison on every window sill and in
other random places. We also have these
high pitch frequency speakers to deter rats.
I must say, I’ll take cockroaches over rats any day.
Today, we got up and received a
call from a lady saying that she will pick us up and take us to the Suitopia
centre in Ogaki for our Japanese class.
I tried to figure out whom she was and if we had met her. She asked if we lived in the same house as
the previous AET and that she’d be there in 5 or 8 minutes. It turns out that we hadn’t met her, but that
as she worked at the centre and used to give the previous AET rides there, she
thought she would drive us.
Today, I felt like the Japanese
class was like a university class. I
just copied everything down and decided to figure it out when I got home. There’s a wide range of people in the class
and 3 of them go to the Catholic Church.
We’ve chatted with them more as we all headed to Mass right after the
class and they all speak a little English.
After Mass, we went to our first
festival. Apparently they have this one
in Ogaki every first Sunday of the month.
It was much like a Canadian festival/market. You have lots of booths set up with food or
other things that people are selling and a few places for entertainment. One of the most interesting things was these
girls (maybe teenagers) who were “singing” and dancing on stage. In front of the stage were young men and the sitting
area was almost exclusively all men too.
The thing was that the men were dancing along, they were really really
into it.
We also checked out Ogaki castle.
September 10, 2014
On Monday, when
Adam got home, we did what I had been joking that we could do: we biked up to
the same lake we went to on Saturday, ran around the lake, and rode our bikes
home. It actually wasn’t as far as it
had seemed on Saturday, but it was still a very good work out.
Today, the lady who drove us to
the Suitopia centre on Sunday took me grocery shopping. We went to a couple stores and I sure stocked
up on food, being relieved that I didn’t have to carry it home. People here are very welcoming and helpful, I
find.
In our town, there are bells that
are chimed at 7am, 10am, noon, 3pm and 6pm (I believe). At first we thought these bells may have some
religious significance. Later, we found
out that they actually just indicate things like: time to start work, tea time,
lunch, and they use them for town announcements (ie. Grandpa So-and-so has
wandered off. If you see him, please,
etc.).
Garbage is another thing that is
different here. You have to separate
your garbage into “burnable,” non-burnable, and recyclable. I suppose that with so many people in such a
small country they don’t have much room for landfills so they opt for burning
garbage. The challenge is to figure out
what is burnable and what isn’t.
Finally, instead of putting your
mail in the mailbox, they ring the door bell and hand deliver it. Of course, if you aren’t home they put it in
the mailbox.
September 11, 2014
Yesterday,
I had an interview in Nagoya for an ALT company. I left around 9am and took the train to
Ogaki, having bought a ticket all the way to Gifu city and thinking I could
just stay on that same train. Once we
got to Ogaki, everyone got off the train, a bunch of new people came on and
they switched the direction the seats were facing. It is really cool how the seats are on
rollers and you can lift them slightly and roll them to the other side so you
can face the direction the train is going.
I asked the man now sitting across from me, “Sumimasen, Gifu?” “Maibara.”
Whoops, wrong train, this gentleman got off the train with me, asked a
train attendant where to go to get on the Gifu train and indicated with his
fingers that it was platform five. So, I
made my transfer and got to Gifu. I feel
like the train system here is much like the metro system. There are different lines that run back and
forth between cities and you have to get off and transfer lines.
In
Gifu, my plan was to go to city hall where I was told I could apply for
jobs. I arrived there and after going up
to the international relations office, I met some people who could speak some
English and who tried to help me. They
told me to go to Hello Work. I set off
with a new map, got lost, tried to ask for directions, and then decided that I
should just head to Nagoya. I don’t know
if I found the original Gifu station I was at or not, but instead of going on a
train with the JR lines, I went with this other line. I still ended up in Nagoya and this other
line had its station right next to the JR station. The station in Nagoya was huge and a little
bit confusing. There are all these signs
about different lines, platforms, subway, etc.
Luckily, I found the visitor information and they wrote on the map where
the office I needed to go for the interview was. (I had a google map but wasn’t sure where I
was on the google map.)
Walking in Nagoya is like walking in New York except safer (I’ve never
been to New York but that’s how I imagine it).
There are people everywhere, tall sky scrapers and everyone walking very
fast to wherever they are going and me in the middle staring at my map. J
Going
on the train from Tarui to Nagoya, I came to realize just how populated Japan
is. Tarui is very much in the country
with mountains around, so there’s more “space”.
On the train it was basically all buildings except for the rice
fields. It seems like any bit of land
that does not have mountains, either has a house, a rice field, or a
garden. If you aren’t living on it, then
you’re growing food on it. The rice
fields are little too and can be found in the middle of the city (like in
Ogaki).
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