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.

耳が痛い!!! (My Ear Hurts!!!)

When I was a young child I had a slight hearing problem. To fix it, doctors removed the adnoids in my nasal cavity and made me wear hearing tubes for about eight years. The upside? I do not snore, except in the rare case that my nostrils get ridiculously blocked. Downside? When my nasal area gets blocked like that, the fluid build-up makes me mad susceptible to ear infections.

Now normally, back home in the States, I’d buy some Sudafed over the counter, take it regularly for about three or four days and case closed. In Japan, though? ちょっと違うよ。Things are a bit different. Here in the land of temperamental weather and crazy sick masks, Sudafed is illegal because it contains epinephrine, a stimulant. Epinephrine is illegal but you can buy what is basically speed at a combini… Go figure.

Anyway, this puts me in a sticky situation because since I can’t really take any preventative measures or properly self-medicate, I am left waiting for the monster incubating in my inner-ear to hatch like an Alien baby and deliver a mighty painful dose of reality in the middle of the night. Take for instance last September. I had only been in Japan for about a month before I got the summer sniffles. I don’t like to take medicine because I like for my white blood cells to train themselves for war every now and again… let me just say, they go down mighty quickly to that inner ear infection. Needless to say, with almost no warning whatsoever (after many years of dealing with this problem, I can feel an infection coming about 3 days before a doctor can even see it on the monitor =/) I am brutally awakened by what feels like someone repeatedly stabbing me in my ear with a knife. Yay.

With no Sudafed I was left writhing in pain and the only things I could immediately think to do were to call my mother in the middle of her workday, and cry. Simultaneously. I searched online for home remedies but I think at that point all I had in my house was a loaf of bread and a carton of milk so many tips were utterly useless. All I found was some advice to chew gum with Xylitol in it, amazingly that stuff is everywhere in this country. Eventually I just resorted to dripping hot water down my ear canal, hoping it would break up that pressure.

As I waited… and cried, I kept thinking one thing- well, two things actually: it sucks to be contractually forbidden from owning a car or scooter; and WHY ON EARTH IS SUDAFED BANNED?!!?!

When I woke up the next morning after somehow being able to fall back to sleep I thought: man, this might happen a lot here… And here we are, starting round two. Tomorrow, I gets drugs; if I can make it through the night because I definitely can’t drive to a hospital at 3am!

My failed arsenal of weapons. =/

Birthday Cake and Naked Men

Seems that many of my friends are getting sick or injured lately.  I think it may be attributed to a combination of a few things.  First off, as much as I had hoped Spring had finally sprung and I could commence with the reduction of layers (I rock 6-7 layers on the daily), I was wrong.  The weatherman tricked me with a few warm and sunny days and then *BAM*, so suddenly the gray skies and cold and cloudy days returned, almost with a vengeance.  Indeed, I had forgotten I lived in what I like to call Kita-Cuts because Kobe’s Kita-Ward is absolutely notorious for being cold, and Hanayama tops the list like a sadistic snowy layer on a tree-covered-mountain cake. *sigh*

In addition to the cold that refuses to release its icy grip on my part of town, about 10 days ago my friends and I decided to tax our bodies with an insanely-packed weekend.  It started off with a birthday party in Osaka.  My good friend Damon turned 25 so a bunch of us headed directly from our respective schools out to a tiny bar in Shinsaibashi owned by some friends and made it an awesome event.

In A 100-year old Japanese house.

The food was awesome and Damon is a real music-loving guy and most of the Japanese people he meets are involved in the creative arts in some way.  At the party were a rapper who is pretty skilled on acoustic guitar, a DJ, a didgiridoo player that beat-boxes with the rappers, a salaryman magician, and a poi performer who is also a contact juggler (think David Bowie in Labyrinth).

Another guy I’d met before, Jinta, provided the nosh food and the amazing cake, which happened to be the best cake I’ve tasted in quite a long time.  A really fluffy yellow cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries inside, with more whipped cream and strawberries on top, creating a ring around the edge of the cake with the birthday candles.  The best part was the custom dark-chocolate “album” with “Happy Birthday D-Wolf” scrawled across it.

Scrum-diddly!!!

I mean, seriously, if that thing was a man, I would happily become Mrs. Birthday Cake. It was.that.good.

Anyway, after the festivities wrapped up at that spot, the crazies (that includes myself) decided to STAY in Osaka and make it an all-nighter.  So we headed to an experimental music… thing that was happening until sunrise.  It was quite a walk from the train, and we stopped for food and melon soda (we need it in the States!), and finally got to the tiny gig in a ramshackle structure.  Ended up staying there until 5:30am before deciding to head back home.  It took us 6 train transfers to get back to ‘yama, sweet ‘yama.  I didn’t get to bed until around 8:30 on Saturday morning.

You figured I’d take it mellow, but no.  Woke up a few hours later and headed with a couple people out on another train trip to Okayama, 72 miles West of Kobe, for Hadaka Matsuri, aka Naked Man Festival.  For those wondering what on earth that is, Hadaka Matsuri is a 500-year old festival held every end of (cold as ice) February where thousands of (slightly crazy) men run around for hours in the night in nothing but loincloths and socks through small bodies of water to cleanse and purify themselves before gathering in a temple at midnight to fight for one of two lucky sticks in complete and total darkness.  Thousands more crazy people (including myself) stand around and watch all of this go down.

Swear, Naked Man is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

Delirious J-Guys

Out of respect for them as my friends, and their personal shame, I will not post pictures of my friends and the other gaijin that participated that night dressed in similar fashion.  After several hours of running around like this, though, all the groups slowly proceeded into the temple to await the dropping of the sticks, which, by the way, “guarantee” you a lucky year (and 10,000yen) if you catch it.  I say you’re already lucky if you can catch and keep that sucker without losing your loincloth, a limb, or your freaking life – no lie.

Still Early in the Game, Yet

Many of the groups hadn’t gathered yet, this was still more than an hour before the sticks were dropped.  As the time drew nearer, though, the anticipation was palpable as the crowd got bigger and more uncontrollable.

Fights Started to Break Out

It was really dangerous on the edge as fights were breaking out for better placement, closer to the center of the action, and also because the core group in the middle was continuously swaying from side-to-side with their arms raised in the air… waiting… for those sticks.  To me, it looked like a gay rave and the only thing missing was It’s Raining Men over a techno track… but that was just my observation.

In any case, after all that running around half naked in the 0 Celsius weather, not a single gaijin came out with stick in hand.  They were still lucky, though, because no one got seriously injured or died, like some dude last year!  Silver lining, eh?  That night I didn’t get to bed until around 4am, then had to rush out of the door in the morning to not get charged extra for the accomodations so I couldn’t even enjoy it.

When I got back home, it was raining and I had 20 minutes to sit down before heading back out into the rain to have dinner with my Obaachan friend and her family.  But, I can’t complain.  I only have the slight sniffles while one of my naked friends fully came down with the flu.  And no stick to show for it, even.

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.

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!!!

I’m an Auntie!!!

My sister finally had her baby!  The “official” due date was October 2nd but the little girl was not having it… so several days later, on October 5th the doctors induced labor and little 7lb Gabrielle Christine was born!  So now I’m officially an AUNTIE!

Here’s a lovely picture.

My niece!

The only thing that sucks is that I wasn’t able to be there for the birth, I really wanted to be there to support my sister; but Gabby is healthy so that’s really all that matters.  I got to speak to my sister a few hours after labor and I guess she had the baby in her arms because I heard her mewling for a split second!  It was a very tiny voice, and that was the only sound she made.

Erica said that Gabby barey made any noise when she was first born, which is amazing seeing as how both my sister and her husband are singers and very vocal. =P  But in a bit, she’ll be singing just like her mommy and daddy and she’ll drive them crazy like Erica used to do me when we were kids.

I should be going home for a visit in January and I’m excited!  Time to go buy baby shoes and blankets and all that stuff! =D

STICKY POST: Photos

I have FINALLY gotten a camera (just as my camCORDER needs to be repaired >=/ ) so I have linked photo albums in the right sidebar of my blog.  It’s in the “Albums” section and there are several different albums, so enjoy!