Oh Geez!!!

Gomen, yo. I feel like my Ozzie boys for not updating in over a month.  Andy’s last update was in January and Damon’s was… yipe. He just updated a few days ago so I’ve really gotta get on it.

In any case, I have survived the last vestiges of Winter to experience my first Japanese Spring and all the Sakura that make the Nihonjin go crazy.  In the past month I’ve switched my phone provider from AU to Softbank (yay for free iPhone deal!!); gotten a PitaPa which is a magical card that gives me quick access to most rail lines in the Kansai area, do quick check-outs at many stores, and is a “credit” card that is directly linked to my Japanese bank account so I can do PayPal transfers (except when I recently checked, PayPal changed their system so you can now link directly to a Japanese account… it wasn’t like that before which is why I got the PitaPa… anyway).

As per the Board of Education I am employed under, I switched schools in the beginning of April and luckily, I am still very close to my apartment, which means I can wake up late… out of ~30 foreign teachers in my neighborhood, I believe I’m the last one to leave my apartment for work.  It’s nice.

I’ve also gone to 3 or 4 teachers parties and 4 Sakura-viewing events. Made hella (bad) short self-intro-type speeches in Japanese… Although my Japanese is rapidly improving, I get nervous at making speeches or reading/reciting prepared stuff.  I’m much better when I’m freely speaking… *sigh*  But I’ve had classes with most of my new students and even though I’m at a bad school where the kids don’t really study and score (maybe?) lowest in the district, I’m having a good time because it’s a lot more laid-back, relaxed, and welcoming than my first school.

So I’ll just leave you with some images of the latest goings on.  I will be more prudent about updating =D Enjoy!

The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museumin Takarazuka

You see the camera crew?  Apparently they were filming promo material for the museum and I unwittingly (and a little unwillingly) became an extra while in the manga library. >.<

Damon had a gig at Trinity

My friend Damon had a music gig at Trinity that turned out pretty well… except for the creepy guy butchering several West Coast (California) dances in lame attempts to game on J-girls.

Ijinkan Foreigner House in Kitano, Kobe, Japan

Beth, Che, and I finally visited one of the turn-of-the-20th century foreigner houses that Kobe brags about…. it was aiight.

Crazy monkeys! Don't eat me!

Went to Monkey Mountain, a park in the Arashiyama district of Kyoto and fed a bunch of crazy monkeys from inside a cage.  The big ones were really fat, so I tried to feed the babies.  They were mecha kawaii!!!

Sakura Viewing in Akashi Castle Park

Akashi Park was hellllla crowded that day. I’m so glad I got to enjoy a few hours in an emptier area of the park… plus, no stares.

Sakura in Himeji Castle Park

Many people knew this was probably the last weekend to view Sakura before some rain came and knocked them all down (yesterday); so last weekend at Himeji Castle Park was insanely crowded as well.  My friends and I got a nice spot without too much visual interference (people).   When a strong wind blew, petals would rain down from the trees and it was really lovely.  They got into everything, haha.

Hanami Within Himeji

I imagine it was nice to be a lady living in the castle come Hanami time… this is beautiful!  More shots:

Himeji Castle with Sakura and Trees

Outside the Castle

The last month or so has been crazy, but I’m REALLY looking forward to Spring and Summer.  I feel like I have successfully(?) survived my first “real” winter, which must be why I’ve been hearing Beyonce singing in my head all week.

The weather has been nice and warm lately, you might be able to tell from the beautiful clear blue skies (which will turn grayish come the summer humidity).  Yesterday it rained, though, so the raindrops beat the sakura from the trees and now  petals litter the ground like an autumn scene that has been miniaturized and colored a soft pink.

Sunshine and warm weather make me abundantly happy.

I Am A “Samugari”…

The phrase goes, “if you can’t stand the heat…” but is there one for being unable to withstand the cold?  I am currently experiencing my “first” winter; one with actual snow and frost and ice.  On top of that, I’m living through it in Japan, the land full of people who don’t seem to understand the concept of insulation outside of thermoses and soup containers.  Currently it is 37°F/3°C outside which means my apartment is probably 1 or 2 Farenheit degrees warmer without the heater.

If you read the blog title, then you may be asking, “But what is a ’samugari’?” No, it’s not some kind of special Samurai class (although that would be mind-blowingly awesome if I were somehow a samurai… hmm); what “samugari” (寒がり) actually means is someone “being sensitive to the cold” and that describes me to a tee!  I already knew before I arrived in Japan that I didn’t really enjoy winter, but my my; being here has elevated that sensitivity and disdain to levels nearing intolerance and hate.

Now, I try my best to fend off the cold with a nice combination of long johns, thermals, extra layers, big coats, gloves, scarves, thick socks, multiple layers of socks and hats; and I have 2 heaters, an electric blanket, and a kotatsu at my disposal so if you’re thinking “Just put on a sweater and, boom, problem solved!” then you don’t really understand what I mean.

The problem comes when I begin to peel off the layers and expose myself to the bare elements with no comforting heating machines to stave off the biting cold.  It’s as simple as having to use the toilet, both at school and at home. Japanese-style toilets are no problem – you don’t touch anything.  Western-style causes yelps of shock when you have to tinkle at 2am.  Lucky for me I picked up a furry toilet cover for only 100yen at Daiso (such a lifesaver, I tell you).  When it’s time to wash hands, ice-cold water rushes through the faucet and drives your fingers closer to frostbite than you ever want to be, spurring myself and many other ALTs I’ve talked to to second-guess the oh-so-necessary act of handwashing.  Another lucky thing is to stash anti-bacterial hand gel in your pocket to avoid the hand-numbing act of washing.

So already it seems like I’ve come up with some workarounds to avoid some of the issues that plague a samugari such as myself, so you might well be thinking “So shut up about it already“… but, no.  The ultimate, and yet-to-be-solved problem still remains: the shower.

The thing is, when I turn on my tiny little space-heater, I close the door to the front area of my apartment so that I’m only heating a smaller section and not wasting energy (think green!) but the problem is that the entry to my apartment contains not just that little space where you leave your shoes, but also my washer, sink, toilet room and, you guessed it… shower!  This means that while I’m sitting toasty in my tatami room, my shower area is the still the same freezing 3°C.

Let me tell you, the worst part about taking a shower is getting in and getting out.  Once I get in, the water is at a nice, cozy 100°F/39°C but even in the shower there is enough cold air to dampen the experience.  That’s why as soon as I get home from school, before even turning on my heater, I force myself to get in the shower before the sun sets and the temperature difference between indoors and out increases.  And once I park myself in front of my heater, post-shower… man… you’ll be hard-pressed to rip me away from that thing.  Like a suckling baby to the bosom.

Needless to say, the weather calendar says it should start warming up around mid-March, thank God.  I actually saw a website that said, “Japan is an island country and hence the temperatures never reach the extremes.” and that is truly funny.

2008… What Did You DO To Me?!?!

I don’t know if any year of my life has ever been so epic and life-changing.  I was looking over the blogs from the past year and I can’t recall any other time in my life that has been as epic as these as these last twelve months.

In January my Grandmother was diagnosed with bone cancer and after a few months of caring for her weekly, she passed at the end of April this year.  My sister learned she was pregnant and the baby was born in October.  I had also heard from the JET programme about my application just before beginning my last semester of college.

In February I interviewed with JET and both my brother and Grandfather were in and out of the hospital a few times.  March was kind of quiet aside from working on school projects and trying to learn Japanese while I was still waiting to hear back from the JET programme about my interview… that was agonizing.  Oh yeah, and we moved.  I hate moving.

In April I found out I was accepted into JET and just two weeks later my Grandmother passed away.  I drove cross-country three days to attend the funeral.  I also found out the baby would be a girl.  In May I finished my final project for school and graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree after what seemed like forever.

In June I just spent time with family and in July I spent countless hours staring into my closet figuring out what to bring to Japan.  I had a going away party and in August I moved to Japan.  The last four months of the year have been an absolute whirlwind.  I’ve picked up a lot of Japanese already, I’ve met lots of great people, and have traveled to several places across the country.

Nara, Japan

I’ve had many firsts this year, like a great leap in feeling independent and having a disposable income.  2008 made me feel death, life, divorce, ridiculous drama, knowledge, growth, accomplishment, fear, apprehension, shame, pride… and love.

If this next year is anything like the one that’s coming to a close; I should prepare to get my socks rocked off.  So let’s get ready to eat some mochi, drink some sake (everyone else… not me), and ring the temple bells into the Year of the Cow!

雪, 雪, 雪!!!!!!

This past Thursday in school on Christmas (yes, I had to work on Christmas… lame, I know) the teachers put the weather channel on the television at the end of the room.  All day I kept hearing them say “雪 (ゆき), 雪 (ゆき)!” [yuki=snow]; now as you may know, I’m still learning Japanese but there are some words that stick in my head like glue and I knew that one!  I turned to one teacher and said  “yuki? Is it going to snow?” And I got a bunch of “はい!… たぶん”s [Hai!... tabun=Yes!... probably].

Sure enough the next morning when I stepped out of my apartment, I looked down over my landing steps and saw bushes and cars and everything covered in white stuff.  I am 24 and that was definitely the first time I had been in falling snow.  It was AWESOME!

Some people may not like snow but I thought, “Well, hey, I already have to deal with the cold… I might as well get some snow with it!”  I was so excited and I wanted to take pictures of EVERYTHING and so when I got to the bottom of my steps and whipped out my camera, I was able to take one shot before the battery completely died on me because I forgot to charge it:

Right outside my apartment building.

Lesson learned, that’s for sure because while I was at school the sun came out and melted all the magic away.  It hasn’t snowed for two days.  I know we will have some again soon and next time I’ll be ready.  It looks like icing was dumped onto everything!

For now it’s just cold… no snow – just cold.  How lame.

Lame-sauce

Yeah… gomen nasai for not posting frequently.  Bad blogger/daughter/friend lately for being pretty slack on communications outside of Kobe, no lie.  In fact, even inside Kobe I’ve just been a bit lazy.

Also, I haven’t felt like anything too spectacular happened to post about, besides the epic visit of several other San Francisco JETs placed in Southern Japan… but it was also a little too much drama on one particular day so I didn’t want to share that =/  But having the friends over was a good weekend.

Uh… right now I have a weird throat thing going on.  Itchy, coughy, sore.  I actually called in sick today.  I felt really bad because I was supposed to be doing an elementary school visit today, too. For the next three days I’m going to be doing Christmas lessons for each grade.  yay.  Hope that goes well, I even have backup plans, for real.  Some of the kids can be hard to please.

Oh yeah, it’s recontracting time.  I sent in my essay about 10 days early, but I just wanted to hurry up and get it outta the way so I don’t have to worry about it in the upcoming chaos that seems to be the end of the term.

Umm… otherwise life is good.  If people want to holla at me, you can always email me at gmail.  The pre-@ is stina.christina.  Bust a line and I’ll get at ya.

Toys!!!

I’m just a big kid at heart and I love toys.  I’m not a huge collector or anything, but I like to buy little things that jump out at me.  Japan is already rocking my world because I found two awesome things in the same day.  I’m just going to show you some of the toys I’ve gotten here.

When I first arrived in Japan in August, Pepsi and Medicom Toys were having a promotion where you get a 70% Star Wars-themed Bearbrick with the purchase of soda.  I didn’t see those things ANYWHERE because they sold out so quick.  I had mentioned it to a friend and he ended up scoring one for me that had been abandoned (or lost) by a kid at school.  The toys were keychains and this one doesn’t have a hook anymore, so I’m assuming that’s how it came to be lost:

One of the Fetts, I can never remember which. Don't kill me.

Then this past Saturday I was walking with a friend through the main shopping street, Center Gai, and we took a random detour and found a tiny little used-toy shop.  It looked like the owner just went around to garage sales buying all the little toys he could find and then re-selling them.  He had a heavy cache of stuff, but what really caught my eye was a 100% Bearbrick/Medicom toy from a Sesame Street series:

Remember Count? Ah ah ah!

You can see by the quarter that he’s just a bit bigger than the 70%.  He only cost me ¥380!  That’s about USD$3.50 or whatever.  The ultimate score that day, though, was found in the endless blocks of used clothing/toys/games/electronics/etc. stores we spent a good part of the day strolling through.  I have no idea how my eyes found it, but when I saw it, coupled with its ¥100 price tag, I KNEW I had to have them.  I did an eBay search and could not find these same metal binoculars anywhere!  Check it:

BEST BINOCULARS EVAR!!!

Favorite place to shop?

So being in Kobe I now have a disposable income.  I really never had that luxury in college, so I’m enjoying it while I can.  Kobe is known for its metropolitan atmosphere and fashion savvy… and also its bakeries, apparently; which would explain why nearly every other store downtown is a womens shop and about every fourth store is a bakery or parfait place – no lie.

Anyway, after being here a couple of months, I have realized what store I love to shop in most…. the Hyakuen! Hyaku En literally means 100yen and these stores are AWESOME!  My personal favorite chain is Daiso because sure, we have a few back home in the Bay Area, but for some reason, they don’t sell all the same stuff.  Daiso in America is a little more boring.

You can get so much stuff at a Hyakuen for so cheap!  Like, every element of home life exists in these places: plants and gardening, toys, food, pet supplies, stationary, home decorating, craft (knitting, sewing, crochet, etc.), cosmetics, etc. etc. etc.  A new Daiso just opened up near a train station one stop away from my neighborhood. I think everyone knows that’s pretty dangerous, haha!

I could waste so much time in there finding things I just realized I needed…

There are probably some “real” clothing stores I will come to love but for now, the Hyakuen is king.  I mean, I can buy 100% wool yarn for about 1 US dollar!  I worked in a fabric store and couldn’t even get a decent amount of acrylic for $1.  All you can get for a dollar back home is that weird eyelash crap that makes it look like you maimed and killed a muppet.

Anyway… yeah.

Barebones

I will update soon, I’ve been really tired lately, or not in the blogging state-of-mind if you understand.

Here’s a barebones update:

• My birthday was last Tuesday, it was pretty cool.  I went to Kyoto with my Ni-Nensei students (7th graders)
• I got a package in the mail from home, thanks Mom!
• I might not go home to visit in January as planned because my sister, her husband, and baby Gabby may be in Antigua for half the time I want to come home. My opinion: it’s almost pointless to come if the baby won’t be there. Almost.
• The temperature here is playfully dipping between winter colds and autumn warms on an almost daily basis.  I’m afraid for the winter that’s around the corner… my first one with snow.
• I’m getting along really well with my teachers and students.
• Some other JETs from San Francisco will be coming to visit next weekend.  I’m excited.
• I would have to take a paid day off to avoid working on Christmas.  I just might do it because that might be too hard for me to handle – working on Christmas, no family around, not being home, etc.

So… yeah. Hopefully I shall return soon.

Socially Speaking…

The teachings of my parents coupled with painful social experiences through gradeschool made me develop and maintain as truth the idea that everyone, no matter the case, deserves a fair shot to show themselves (their personality) to you before you make any judgements against them.  I try to practice this with every person I meet, I am not 100% all the time, but I’m pretty good at giving everyone the chance I believe they deserve; so when I meet people who so adamantly prejudge others, it always kind of rubs me the wrong way.

I know I’m not going to get along with everyone I meet, but I will let the other person’s (re)actions decide that for me.  I try not to write people off until they act negatively against me personally… even if they have a bit of a reputation for being a mean person or something like that.  People deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Someone said to me last week that they can’t afford to give people the benefit of the doubt, I guess they’ve been burned too many times.  I responded that I can’t afford not to because of my belief that everyone on this planet is the same and deserves the same amount of initial respect.  What they do to gain or lose respect, though, is a completely different matter.

In that same vein of respect, I find that if you acknowledge that you will not become fast-friends with everyone, you should still be able to maintain respect for others.  If you find someone that you do not get on particularly well with, make amends and move on with your life.  Constantly speaking negatively about someone and openly sharing your disdain for same-said person will rapidly make me lose respect for you as a person.

To say things like someone is “not cool” makes me automatically feel like you’re also “not cool” for so simply debasing someone.  Also, to say that someone says “stupid things” however often shows that you don’t often listen to yourself because no one speaks poetry at every utterance; and to me even says that probably say many dumb things yourself.

In the case that you are ever placed in a relatively small community of people who live in the same situation as you, work in the same occupation as you, and are a part of the same employment/exchange program as you it seems unwise and just plain rude to openly and oftenly make negative remarks about people that you must be around weekly.  You never know what ears may hear and how third parties may feel about you and also about the person you despise so much.  In fact, it may even cause people that you do get on well with to lose initial respect and wish to avoid making contact with you in further instances.

It’s sad to say that in conversation with the one who does not give people the benefit of the doubt, they mentioned this type of thing and I said “I can’t really imagine that happening”.  Well, then.

They’re Staring at Me Anyway So… Might as Well!

You don’t have to be in Japan long to realize there are not very many people in any particular area with very dark skin.  Call us what you want: Black, African-American, African, a person of African Descent, or my personal favorite, Chocolate; the fact of the matter is that there are not very many of us in Japan so I guess it’s  bit of a novelty to see someone walking down the street or riding the train looking about 15 shades darker than the average Japanese person.

I don’t have much of a problem with it, in fact, I’ve already become so used to it that on a day-long bike trip around Kyoto I saw a guy who looked African standing on a corner listening to his headphones, waiting for a light.  As we rode past him, I audibly said, “Wow!”  A friend heard me and asked about it… I couldn’t help but laugh as I explained “… now I know how the Japanese people feel!  I really was not expecting that!”  The only sort of issue I have is when people – adults – continue to stare.  I don’t mind the little kids so much, I understand, it might be a completely new experience for them; but for adults, it’s a little like they should have more “home training” than to openly gawk at a person sitting across from them on the train, especially in a city as big as Kobe, which in its history was the first Japanese city to open its ports to Western traders and even had an international community that dates back to the 1850s.  Basically, it should be old hat to see foreigners… dark foreigners even, in their city.

In Kyoto, random High School kids wanted a picture with us.

What I’m trying to say is that they stare.  A lot.  So I have learned that I might as well make the most of it and there’s a new sort of freedom that comes with that.  Back home in the States I have reservations because people only look if you’re being nutty and you feel embarrassed to act a fool and draw attention to yourself.  Here, they’re already staring so it’s like I can do nutty things because it’s not going to draw more attention than I already get on a regular basis… does that make sense?

For example; Friday I was with friends and I was bored of the usual hang-around-all-night-doing-nothing-until-we-have-to-run-for-the-last-train events so I grabbed a couple people and set out to make mischief.  What we really ended up getting into was hanging around several groups of dancers practicing routines in CenterGai after all the shops closed down.  We didn’t have proper speakers or anything, but the six of us danced around, sang songs to create the music to dance to, (unsuccessfully) tried to exchange business cards with any willing salaryman (good try, Andy!), rescued random mice in the JR Kobe train station, and us girls even consoled a love-lorn Japanese guy.

We got tons of stares but it didn’t matter because they’d stare at a mini-gang of gaijin anyway so we just had fun.  So much, in fact, that making mischief may just become a regular part of the weekend.  Bring it on.