whatta view

let me start with a preface. we left thursday night at stayed at kanko lando en route to tateyama. from the expressway i noted this place, with all its neon lights, looked like pachinko paradise. then, to my surprise we pulled in and parked. turns out i wasn’t far off. i’m not sure if i can convey the extremely bizarre and utterly strange nature of this place via this description. i could not quit giggling and smiling the entire time. you walk into an oriental kitsch foyer with red carpet and silky curtains where you remove your shoes and put them in a lil’ locker. you take that locker key to the front desk where you trade it for another key. then you walk down a counter where you choose a totebag from about 7 different piles. each one has a picture in front of it showing the type of outfit that is contained therein. there are pink shorts outfits, blue pants outfits, flowery dresses, sarong wraps… that’s where you part with your belongings- they give you a number and take your pack. as you turn the corner it opens up into a crazy playland. there are pachinko and slot machines, massage therapists, karaoke boxes, vibrating chairs and beds [for a hundred yen a turn], video games, huge tvs, restaurants, dozens of vending machines, vanities with hair dryers line one wall. there’s a sunken area with people wallowing around on blankets on the floor wearing their fuzzy pink outfits. people are just camped out everywhere. off to the other side some old folks are doing tai chi. we head to the second floor where there is more madness. you walk into the ladies area and there are nearly 100 rollout beds with backrests on the floor facing a huge tv. off to one side is an open changing area, to the other side a room of bunk beds. we claim beds and head to the public bath. this is the part where i get naked with my teachers [only the ladies, pheew]. it seemed much stranger before it happened. it’s a huge facility with a pool for laps, a sulfur yellow pool with skin enhancing nutrients, a sauna, a bench where you sit and water falls from 15 feet up and beats on your sore muscles, an ice cold pool. these are all decorated really cheesy with lion sculptures spitting water outta their mouths and such. as the only non-japanese i got quite a few stares. i’d just smile and wave and try not to run and hide. it was incredibly relaxing and i emerged in my hot pink short set ready to sleep, which was great because we woke at 4 am the next day for hiking. [this whole experience was worth much more than the 1900 yen we paid for sure.]
i had the most amazing experience friday [8/27/04] climbing mt. oyama in the tateyama mountains in toyama prefecture. it’s one of the three sacred mountains in japan [with fuji and hakusan] and it reaches 9852 feet at it’s peak. the weather was perfect. the scenery is absolutely unreal; i’ve never seen land like that before. every time you turned your head there was a breathtaking view as gorgeous as the last.
at the summit, we knelt at a shinto shrine while a monk chanted and beat drums. he served us sake and prayed for our health and safe descent down the mountain. part of the legend goes...they built a shrine there as a challenge to worshipers and monks who brave the steep climb as evidence of their dedication. or that's what i think i gathered anyway.
kobayashi san let me steal these pics.

this is the whole group of us. kobayashi sensei is in the bottom right corner [the young, hot one.] he's the photographer in most of these shots.


this is Uchiyama sensei and i. she's been really helpful and kind. she let me borrow a rainsuit and sweater for the trip. she's also the english teacher that gets the middle of the night phone calls asking things like where is a public bath in my area.


the view from the tip top of the range.


ishiyama sensei, in the foreground, is the youngest english teacher. we get along really well. her english is much better than my japanese but she is still learning quite a bit which makes conversation between us labored at times. she is incredibly nice. she even took me shopping for hiking boots. also in the pic is takano sensei, the music teacher.




everyone lunching at the top of the mountain under a small shelter where they sell shinto charms. we cooked ramen and coffee and had all sorts of other little snacks we'd bought at the conbini earlier.

even teachers wanna have fun

my welcome enkai [code word for work party] was held at a sushi bar around the corner on wednesday night [8/25/04]. it was my predecessor and i along with the English teachers from minamishiro koko [my high school] and a young physics teacher who enjoys practicing his English, which is pretty darn good already. we sat in a tatami room and everyone took turns telling a bit about themselves as we were served plate after plate of incredible food. the meal started with a plate of sashimi including tuna, yellowtail, bream, scallop [my new favorite] and sweet shrimp. the presentation was top-notch; the colors were arranged well and the plate was garnished with little yellow and purple flowers. then came a prawn that was about eight inches long. i watched everyone else and then followed suit as they wrenched its head off and used the chopsticks to pluck the gooey white and green meat [brains?] from its head. then you cracked open the body and because this is such a classy restaurant they were nice enough to serve us all pregnant prawns. you ate the eggs along with the huge chunk of meat in the body. it was sweet and tasty. then a conch-looking shell that turned out to be a sea snail [after i checked my dictionary the next day] cooked with butter and herbs. very earthy and tender. a small basket of tempura was followed by an eggy, custardy, soupy mix with chunks of shrimp and fish in it. finally a plate of nigiri sushi- super fresh. i passed off my piece of ikura [the big fish eggs] to the physics teacher. the meal was accompanied by all the sapporo and green tea you could drink.
the party then moved on to another traditional bar where they ordered more food, including beef tongue, fish carpaccio and mixed root salad. we all drank draught beer and shochu drinks for a couple more hours. it didn’t get too rowdy but everyone definitely had a good time. impromptu karaoke broke out and teacher gossip was swirling. i can see these get-togethers fortifying the bonds between the teachers. too bad these parties are a bit costly, so they aren’t a regular occurrence.

a novel that doesn't do justice to the earth celebration

i had the most incredible weekend. i can’t begin to convey the marvel that is the kodo drummers through writing but i’ll make an attempt. friday morning liz and i caught a bus [the correct one, i might add, with the help of the cutest lil’ ole lady at the bus stop] to naoetsu port where we happened to bump into hundreds of people waiting to board the ferry to sado island for the earth festival. many of them were other jets who we’d expected to see there. the ferry was awesome. instead of seats there are sprawling areas of fluffy blue carpet and everyone takes off their shoes and wallows around and sleeps for the 2 hours it takes to get there. i met a couple of English teachers who live near Kyoto that invited me to come visit [here’s to free places to stay]. we hit the island running, stashed our stuff at a mom and pop hotel for 500 yen, bought tickets [my teacher had reserved three day passes for us, good thing cause they were sold out of them] and headed to ogi port which is the center of the festivities. there was cheap delicious, food [over the course of the weekend i ate Indian curry and naan, green and red thai curry, fresh grilled fish sandwich, Mongolian tacos…] and lots of vendors selling hippy type wares. there was a small set up where people were playing drums and singing, people were twirling fire and kicking balls around. totally relaxed and inviting. due to the typhoon, friday’s performance was moved into a gymnasium. as we filed in, we passed the concession stand which was selling the cheapest beer on the island. we all sat Indian style waiting…they took the stage with a vengeance. banging small and medium sized taiko drums, dancing , spinning banners, screaming. it was amazing how tightly woven their sound was considering all the moving around. there were a couple of low-key numbers with traditional dancers and flutes. their best was yet to come. we headed to sobama beach on a bus and set up camp with about 15 other jets. there were already lots of tents there. a huge bonfire, lots of beers, drumming, dancing and singing ensued. saturday we rented some floats and spent the day on the beach. there was quite a bit of garbage on the sand and in the water, that weekend it was blamed on the typhoon but usually they say korea is responsible for dumping into the sea of japan. the area was incredible- mountains carpeted with greenery, rice paddies and farms dotted the landscape and there were huge rock formations along the coast about 20 yards out. [i would love to show you pics but my beloved camera is missing in action, r.i.p. i’ll share the story soon…right now it’s too painful.] you can check out their website to see some shots: click here. we headed to a shrine the next night for an outdoor performance by the featured guests, a gypsy brass band from Romania. our awesome tickets ensured us early entry. we climbed an ancient stone walkway lined with hand-painted lanterns that cut switchbacks up a mountain side at an incredibly steep grade. we entered a beautiful clearing and settled on the grass which didn’t last long. the band absolutely rocked. they played tubas and trumpets and saxophones and clarinets and cymbals. they hollered in Romanian and gave the belly dancer as many changes and beats as she could handle. it was impossible to sit still and eventually the entire crowd was standing and dancing. there was more drinking [a lil’ tequila] drumming and dancing back at the campfire. there was a cool breeze blowing in off the water and the fire made it the perfect temperature. a Japanese guy i’d danced with at the show introduced me to his friends who had studied in Canada and Australia, respectively. their English was amazing. i’m coming to consider being multi-lingual as the mark of extreme intelligence because it gives you the tools needed to learn as much as possible from so many sources. they played the didgeridoo [Australian woodwind] and guitar all night and we watched the sun set over the beach [of course, that happens around 4 am, so not that crazy…] sunday we were exhausted and slept at the market, on the beach, in the tent until show time. it was the finale and they put on an incredible show. it began with traditional Japanese dancing by kimono clad women, followed by a roaring set from the brass band. we danced like crazy along with the Japanese friends we’d made. then kodo took the stage. they wailed out songs unlike anything i’d ever heard. then they brought out the huge taiko drums on platforms and pounded out complex beats in huge sweeping motions. the amount of physicality involved is unbelievable. monday morning we woke to light, steady rain. packed up our tents and caught the 10:20 ferry back to noaetsu. the drummers were all at the port and did a huge send-off that was enough to nearly bring tears to your eyes.
although i returned poor, sick and camera-less, it was an amazing weekend. i already can’t wait till next year.

painting the town

wednesday night we met a few of the british jets for dinner and drinks and, as it turned out, a lil' karaoke.

at funae, great bar food with a rowdy atmosphere and a menu with lots of pictures and english.


this the master of PTA, the one i keep saying is incredibly friendly. he let me get behind the bar and serve drinks on wednesday. we also hit up his friend's place one night for a quality shochou [japanese liquor that is smooth enough to drink straight. dangerous.]


melanie and i making fools of ourselves...again...at PTA.

random thoughts...

of course i've been observing so many cultural and sociological quirks. maybe writing about them will legitimize my staring in some way. [i figure it's fair since they stare at me.]

-the old folks here are so flexible. they squat, in positions i can't even assume, on the side of the road waiting for the traffic lights to change or just hanging out. they also fold up like dolls to sit on stools and such. years of tatami rooms and tai chi. they're also bicycle riders well into their 80s it seems. it creates a whole new breed of road rage, uh...sidewalk rage. there are grannies who dismount their bikes at the first sign of oncoming traffic instead of steering around it. their dismount is this bizarre maneuver i've been practicing where they balance on one pedal and cross their free leg behind them. you'd just have to see it.

-and nearly 90%, literally, of all women are severely pigeon-toed. to the point where it affects there gait and stride. what is that all about. even their tv and magazine models. some sort of side-effect of their physiology...maybe their hips and pelvis are constructed quite differently than westerners. i did read about their tampons being 'different' [whatever that means]. or i could be over-theorizing.

more pics

about a 30 minute bike ride over the river and you're in farm country. all that's rice, which is one of the main exports of this prefecture. that doesn't go very far in explaining why it so so darn expensive. the smallest bag of fresh, uncooked rice i've found costs about 2800 yen, or 28 dollars. so i've yet to use the rice cooker that is in my apartment. instead i buy these little trays of precooked rice you microwave for 2 minutes, perfect. much better than the rice i cooked back home in a pot anyway.


we cooked udon for lunch one day at school with natto [fermented soybeans- gross] and okra [in japanese it's okara]. the teacher on the far right is Uchiyama sensei. her english is super and she's helped me out quite a bit; telling me where the bike shop is, taking me to lunch, bringing me flyers for festivals, calling and reserving earth celebration tickets for me. she's a lifesaver.


a wild and crazy night at our favorite little karaoke bar, PTA. the master, which is what they call the people who run bars and restaurants, is super nice. it stinks i end up taking all the pics...that explains the weird arm thing.


the chefs at a great restuarant we've been frequenting, yagaiya [which means outdoor food]. this is the place where they all get out their dictionaries and help us decipher the menu.

festivals galore

liz and i went to the kenshin matsuri on monday night. it's a festival celebrating this guy who was a badass during the samurai era. he united a bunch of fighters and conquered a lot of land, displacing some ruler nobody liked anyway. he was from a town, and eventually settled and died there, that's only one train stop away. i'm obviously over simplifying...just look at the pics.


this man is making okonomiyaki. it's pancake batter with cabbage, pork, shrimp, some red vegetables, corn and an egg [and some weird lil' dried shrimp in the far right tray]. they slather it with a brown sauce and mayo [i've learned 'mayonaizu nashi onegaishimasu' which means no mayo, thanks'] it's their fair food. and to think we deep fry candy bars, what fattys.


near a hundred men and women dress in armor and march to a huge field where they re-enact a battle. this is not such a good picture. we couldn't get very close...after we got reprimanded for standing where you aren't supposed to apparently.


while these people provide the narrative, i think. we couldn't understand anything they were saying.


there was a huge crowd. we saw one other foreigner. also ran into a japanese guy at the yakiniku stand who had lived in new jersey for a while. his english was great. too bad he only gets to practice on silly american girls at random festivals.

Big city envy.

On the brink of morning rush hour we boarded the train for Niigata City, the capital and largest town in the prefecture. It’s a 2 hour scenic trip that runs along the coast and at times is bordered by mountains. [what i saw of it anyway…i slept quite a bit. it was 7 am!] We missed our connection in the city and caught a taxi to the prefectural education office. There were games and videos and other orientation staples. We headed downtown that night to a bar for group nomihodai and tabehodai [all you can drink and eat] for 4000 yen [about 40 bucks]. I was glad to discover there are other JETs who aren’t utter dorks…as a matter of fact, I’ve decided that I really like the Brits’ disposition. They have caustic senses of humor, they drink and party like champs, and they are all rather pleasant. You know we put a hurtin’ on the all you can guzzle…and on the free pool table. girl-power. It was the first time we’d been out dancing since arriving [our entertainment district in Takada is more bars and karaoke oriented]. A sentiment put forth by a friend we met in Tokyo was echoed…’I dunno if Joetsu-shi is ready for you two girls’. We danced and acted up until the ripe old time of
9 pm when the shuttle bus left to take us back to our free rooms.
The next day was more chatting and orienting, then we were bused downtown for a walking tour of the city lead by the older JETs. We’d buddied up to some of the second and third year teachers, all Brits, so we kinda stole off on our own. Lunched at a good Italian restaurant [tried the squid ink pasta which was garlic-y and salty. really savory. it left the most unbelievable black stain in my mouth. worse than eating oreos.] We had a wrap up orientation moment on the banks of the river [the largest in the prefecture] then Liz and I hit the shops. We’d decided we were staying for the night even if it meant sleeping at the park. After exhaustive and productive buying sprees, we used some hotel lobby bathroom to change clothes and, as the family says, bathe like whores. We squatted on the corner and did make-up and changed shoes before wandering into the bar district. We ran into some other JETs who had the same stick-in-town plan…except they’d scouted a place to sleep. There was more pool and a beleaguered trip to sing karaoke [we never made it]. Some chick offered us her place to stay before she left with a South African she’d met. We headed to her place, minus her…got some beer and sat up all hours with the cool Brits. The next day we all watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics before heading to lunch together. after that we went our ways. Liz and I headed to Toyano park where there was a soccer game going on. It took us two hours, a long walk and a 20$ taxi ride to find the place. It was a beautiful, traditional Japanese garden with playing fields on one end near the professional soccer team’s stadium. We did dinner, and nomihodai [guzzle] at an izakaya [a restaurant with a rowdy atmosphere where you order many smaller dishes to share] before hopping the 11 pm train home. Luckily when I snapped awake on the train, we were at the platform of our stop. If we had overslept, we would’ve ended up in Osaka. Save that for another weekend.

pics

A couple of girls trying to catch goldfish at the Noaetsu Matsuri, a summer festival in which floats are pulled through the sreets by rowdy men and women on their way to the temple where they drop off bags of sake, rice and fruit.


The view as we cross the sreet from our hotel in Tokyo, the Keio, hence all the whities. I just read in the news that two 20-something caucasian boys got naked and jumped off a high balcony there. Glad they waited a week and half until we had checked out to commit suicide.

Hell on Wheels!!

i’m mobile!! there was an old bike in liz’s garage with flat tires, rusty springs and squeaky brakes. i pushed it from her house to the bike shop, about a 30 minute walk. the cutest little man in light blue coveralls wandered out of the roll-up door as i feverishly flipped through my dictionary. i’d been practicing…”this is my friend’s old bike. it has flat tire and problems. please look.” he poked and prodded and told me what was wrong, i think. i asked if he could “work now please”. he pushed it in the shop and scribbled down some numbers, 5500 yen. yikes. while i waited, his wife brought me iced coffee and his friend popped in and tried to carry on a conversation with us both. he fixed my light and adjusted my seat. when i got off the cycle to pay, i didn’t realize there was a trick to locking the kickstand and over went the bike into another bike. luckily there was no domino effect. silly white girl. as i rode home i noticed a horrible noise still coming from the brakes so i wheeled around and headed back. they were all still chatting in the shop. i said "excuse me, pardon me, i’m sorry" over and over as is the custom when you’re about to trouble someone. “noisy brakes” i mustered. they laughed. he replaced the brake pads for free and sent me on the way with a pat on the back.
now i’m a terror. this weekend i ventured farther in every direction than i’ve gone before on foot. i passed some open wooden storefront that narrows into a long hallway plastered with pictures of women bathing each other. i figure this could possibly be a public bath. we found a few pool tables at the Cheamy Amusement building. From what we could surmise, you can bring your own beer from the conbini [short for convenience store]. found a 24 hour grocery store, a bunch of new restaurants, video store, a two-story KFC and all kinds of odds and ends shops.
although there don’t appear to be any shopping malls within riding distance, liz and i did figure out how to take the bus to Jusco, an unconventional shopping center comprised of individual stores but there are no walls, it's kinda like different departments. there are three huge floors. we neglected to ask at the bus depot how to get home, so…we wandered aimless for hours, found an international foods market where i picked up salsa and tortilla chips, some rosemary and curry powder. we ate at a chinese restaurant before having someone call us a cab.
we also, quite literally, stumbled upon a shopping complex at Naoetsu, a couple of stops away on the train. we were trying to find a temple and ended up buying clothes. interesting, trendy stuff. more to come on fashion later. we also discovered a great eating spot near there. we’ve tried the pizza, a couple different salads including the ‘popular’ radish and fish egg one, which is much better than it sounds, seared tender beef with garlic and potatoes and deep fried camembert croquettes. not only is the food incredible, there are also a couple of hotties that work there and a friendly older guy they jokingly call grandpa. they all get their dictionaries out and help us decipher the menu.
i’m preparing to head home shortly. hallelujah it’s quit raining…this morning i rode my bike, steering with one hand, holding an umbrella in the other, trying not to dump my bookbag outta the old lady basket on the front. a mess. it doesn’t quite compare with my motorcycle but at least it’s wheels!!

drumroll...

at long last...pics of my pint sized place.



so here's the entrance. i'm using the closet doors for extra space. imagine that, me with too many clothes. note the lil' dish cabinet that comes up to my chest. hee, hee. all my shoes also have to fit in the little entry space, which isn't working so well. occaisionally i have to cheat and stash some in the closet.



this is the living/sleeping area. the bed folds outta the wall but it stays down all the time so as to also serve as a couch. under the coffee table you see the cord hanging, that's how you plug it in so that it will heat underneath in the winter.



the infamous kitchenette. the keypad on the wall above the burner is how you control the hot water in the apartment. you can't really see the four trash cans there...the garbage collection is uber-strict. on the first and third saturday is this, on the second tuesday you can trash that,
m-w-f you can put out paper and raw waste [that's the only one i can remember. hence the piles o' trash].



and the midget bath. the good thing is that it's designed so everything can get wet, even the toilet paper holder has a little cover, so you can just spray the whole thing out. the pic is a bit deceiving...that's as wide as the whole room is. the other day i was in there when someone knocked on the door. i tried to hurry out and hit my knee on the toilet seat which went flying out the door and across the apartment. it's best to use caution in there.

as you can see, the place is livable. i cleaned it out quite a bit and got rid of all the winnie the pooh clocks, broken plates, empty liquor bottles, hot wheels, rusted pots and pans and other such trash that had accumulated over the years. you can only dispose of those things one saturday a month i think, so i woke at 7:30 with a glorious hangover and toted three huge bags and two laundry baskets of trash downstairs to the sidewalk where you put them under the huge nets that are out [or sometimes you have to sort everything out into big baskets.] i know they were all thinkin' "nasty american, she makes so much trash!"

baldness is genetic huh....thanks ben!

so i spent 2 hours this morning trying to configure my computer to work at school. it took the non-english speaking computer whiz all of 5 seconds...oh sweet technology, what a demented common language.
glad i can quit pulling my hair out now. especially since i'm already losing it like crazy. i read about it in all the culture shock articles but didn't expect it'd be so pronounced. my hair is falling out in clumps...as if i came down with leukemia upon entering the country. to allay your fears, it doesn't look like female pattern baldness yet.
how bizarre.

junkie...

it occurred to me that everytime i think of something i want to post on here it revolves around food; surprise!! so i:ll spare you the details of my fabulous noodle lunch and indulge in the beauties of the bathrooms instead. so i mentioned the big flush and little flush before. the big flush is so large it goes on for, literally, two minutes. also, in women:s bathrooms many of the toilets have buttons that make a flush noise without really flushing so they can mask the sound of their excretions. and they play it over and over and over again the whole time they:re in the stall. at first i thought they were just wasting gallons of water, which is very unjapanese. and many of the bathrooms have lights that illuminate automatically depending where you walk. when you open the door, the first one comes on. if you head to the sink, the ones over there light up and only the one over the stall you:re in comes on. like something out of the jetsons. most places use the asian type of squat toilet which is just an oblong basin in the ground. i:m getting better at it although you do have to take caution not to urinate on your shoes or give yourself a hernia while having a bowel movement over one, so i hear.
on a somewhat related note, i:ve also been told it is part of my duty to check the handicap bathrooms at school to be sure the -bad kids- aren:t sneaking off and smoking in there. it:s comforting to know that some things do transcend cultural boundaries.

now we`re cookin` with gas...uh, or maybe charcoal

so last night liz and i wandered around searching for something cheesy. a classy pasta joint wasn:t serving yet so we set out to find torishin, which we:d heard about from some locals. it:s a good sign when you ask a random group of japanese men on the street where an eatery is and they all happily lead you right to it.
so, no cheese, but incredible yakitori, which literally means grilled chicken. it:s a closet of a place decorated with tons of pages of japanese writing everywhere, maybe menus. there:s a long bar made of light-colored, well-sanded wood- it:s beautiful. we have a seat and the master hands us a broken-english menu, ahhh... [he spoke decent english which he said he:d learned from customers over the years] we opted for chicken breast meat with wasabi and plum glaze, chicken meatballs, shemeji mushrooms and chicken, onion and green pepper sticks with a soy glaze [all skewered and seasoned with `secret spice` then cooked on a long narrow grill behind the bar]. we also had a plate of chilled radish, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, carrot and some unidentifiable vegetable pickles. yeah, just whole pickled garlic cloves, yum. throw in a bowl of rice and a couple of draught beers...near perfect meal.
whoever musters a visit, i:m dragging you there.