Life has pretty much continued as normal. I work during the week and plan various activities during the weekends. My Japanese lessons are going pretty well. My teacher is awesome and has a really good sense of humor. We usually meet at McDonalds, buy a 100-yen sandwich and basically chat for an hour. We're still reviewing the textbook I used during my last year at UNC, but we're almost done and then we'll be on to new material! I've also started working out most every day. I do simple workout videos in my apartment from a site called fitnessblender. I've put myself on a schedule and so far am doing pretty well with it. My reward for keeping up with it for 30 days is a new video game.
So on the weekend of November 16th I went to visit Cheryl in Yamanashi. An organized group of English teachers in Yamanashi were getting together to have a pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner and I tagged along with Cheryl. There was no turkey, but plenty of chicken and some attempts at stuffing, green bean casserole, and so on. Pretty good food, and interesting conversation. We tried to make a pumpkin pie (using the tiny green Japanese excuse for a pumpkin), and it would probably have turned out alright if we had an oven other than that built into the microwave...and the pan could turn...We ended up with half a black brick and half pumpkin soup. After Thanksgiving dinner Cheryl and I hung out at her place eating rice pudding and watching Sherlock.
The following weekend I was invited by Rodney to participate in something called Survival Game in the Ibaraki prefecture. It's apparently a fairly frequent tradition held among Rodney and his coworkers/students from his former school. The concept is this: everyone dresses up in camouflage, goes out into the woods, and we shoot each other with air-soft BB guns. I was working entirely with borrowed gear and probably got hit twice as often as I even fired the darn gun, but still had a good time. The highlight of the day was in one instance of a game called "Spy Game," where the game starts out 11 versus 1, but 4 people are pre-chosen to be spies (by the guy who is playing alone). The spies' job is to take out everyone else before the lone guy gets shot. The only glitch in the system is that the spies don't know each other. So in one game, Rodney (a spy, as it happened) decided to make things interesting, and started shooting everybody as soon as the game started. He took out 4 guys before somebody finally shot him. Unfortunately for him, 3 of those were fellow spies >_<
The next weekend I visited Cheryl again and we hung out around Yamanashi. On Sunday we went to a place called Kawaguchiko to see Mt. Fuji (it was awesome) and eat lavender flavored ice cream (it was OK). We ate the local Yamanashi specialty for lunch, called houtou: a miso-based soup with wide noodles and a variety of vegetables. As cold as the weather had been getting, it was both appropriate and delicious. For dinner we went to a kaiten-zushi (or sushi-go-round, for the lay person). It was pretty awesome. We sat at a bar and could order food using a touch screen. We would just tap the items we wanted, and when they came around, a little song would play. It was all fantastic.
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| Mt. Fuji as seen from Kawaguchiko. Can't wait to actually climb it. |
On December 7th I had a drinking party with some students and Connor (the teacher I replaced, who is now back in Japan). A lot of students came and we had a great time. Rodney's friend Blair came too, and that's when I learned about the foldable bike in a bag. Blair rode his bike to Fujisawa, but planned on taking the train back, so his bike is able to fold up and fit in a bag that you can carry on a train...another awesome invention I've been introduced to in Japan. The following day I had planned on going on a hike with some students but that kinda fell through so I spent the rest of the weekend applying to graduate school and doing a little Christmas shopping.
On Saturday the 21st I had an office bou-nenkai, which is basically an end-of-the-year drinking party. It was great, since I rarely get the chance to hang out with people from the office other than Rodney. We went to a casual bar type of place and ate finger food and drank beer. I did eat some strange things that night, including raw octopus (I think...) and shirasu pizza. After the party I met Cheryl, who had taken the train that night and stayed in Fujisawa. The next day we opened Christmas gifts from each other (I got her a Japanese version of Pokemon Soul Silver, and she got me a little turtle charm and a scarf). Then we met up with Rodney, Connor, and Connor's girlfriend to head to Blair's for a Christmas party. It was basically 3000 people shoved into a tiny Japanese house. The tiny genkan consisted of shoes stacked in multiple layers so that upon leaving, finding your shoes felt a little like diving into one of those ball pits at Chuck-E-Cheese. The party was fun, especially when everyone was making their own characters on the Wii upstairs and then playing Wii Sports Resort. The most popular game of the night was the sword-fighting game, where careful strategy and planned motion fell swiftly to Rodney's frantic waving of the Wiimote.
Unfortunately I worked on Christmas (in Japan, where most people practice Shintoism or Buddhism, New Year's is much more important than Christmas). I worked a standard 8-hour day and came home to instant yakisoba for dinner, but I did have some presents to open from my family (thanks everybody!). I did have a small plastic christmas tree with giant ornaments that I bought for a total of 210 yen (about $2).
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| This gives new meaning to "presents underneath the tree." |
The week after was a Counseling week for Aeon, so many lessons were cancelled and the office has a little extra time to clean up, prepare for the next year, and teach some special lessons. I took part in teaching a special Christmas lesson which was pretty fun. I got to teach my students a little bit about Christmas in Western countries and they talked about what they do for Christmas. We also decorated ginger snaps with icing. It was a busy week, but not in the same way as others are, so it was a nice way to close out the year.
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