this is the ceiling

in the main area of Terminal 1 at Narita Airport, at which I stared for hours on Monday. I took the midnight bus to Tokyo (it actually leaves at 10:50pm but "midnight bus to Tokyo" sounds so much better) the night before, arrived at the airport at 6:30, and had to wait til 11:45 for United's check-in counters to open before I could ditch my overweight suitcases. Literally overweight, I mean, I had to pay extra. So I had plenty of time to watch the shadows on the beams change and contemplate the disaster and my future. I'd been trying not to think about either. But now I have to. I'm at my parents' house in PA, a jet-lagged charity case.

But at least I got six months.

oh hey, don't I have a blog?

...but not a computer? It's been back in PA at my parents' house for two weeks now while HP avoids our calls. I've never been less impressed with a company's customer service.

It's a shame to whine while I'm doing something as exciting as living in a foreign country but without my computer to record everything, how will I remember anything? And I don't care if this is cheesy--I want to share my freakin' experiences with my family! Nothing counts if they don't know about it. Plus it would be nice to be able to keep up with their lives, too.

Anyhoo,


have some rice.

Forget me not, for I remember you, although it may not seem like it because HP is a slightly unhelpful company

My computer is totally, completely, stone-cold dead.

I bought it in March. It started having problems in May.

I'm furious.

I have to send it back to the U.S. on my own dime, wait for them to fix (or, given how things have gone so far, "fix") it and ship it to my parents, and then wait for them to ship it to me. The frustration is threatening my health, seriously, so I just try not to think about it. If it weren't for my amazing email-capable Japanese cell phone and my awesome technologically generous roommate Amy (whose laptop I'm currently using), I would have no communication with the outside world whatsoever. I'm in a country where I can't even read street signs, so you can imagine how completely out-of-touch I feel. It would be different if this were back in the day, before email and blogs and craftster and tvlinks, and if I were thus mentally hardened for the ordeal, but it's not, and everyone around me is so freakin' connected, and asking if I've heard about some senator who did something, as if I could possibly know any news that isn't part of Sendai's only English-language news broadcast...

oh, I know, poor, poor me. There are starving children in Africa who don't even have computers. But imagine! Seriously! Imagine running your life without a computer for three months! Now imagine doing it from a foreign country! Where the internet cafe has for some reason blocked some functions of web-based email such as the REPLY and NEW MESSAGE functions which are the MOST IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS. For fuck's sake.

Now if you haven't gone into a dark room to lie down after that horrific scenario has played itself out in your mind, I'd like to apologize for not answering your email/checking your blog/noticing your death.

On the upside, I taught someone the words "brewery" and "distillery" today, and I finally finished my Tivoli. Pictures... someday, if I don't suddenly become a Luddite out of conviction rather than necessity.

wish you were here

legs on beach
Originally uploaded by safety dance.

Wish I were still there, too.
Nobiru Beach

three things that caused me nearly to wet myself

1. Someone found my blog by googling "dance song that goes-doo doo doo doo doo".
2. I've been perusing engrish.com this evening and wish I could find this hat. It would be a fantastic Father's Day gift.

3. And, so as not to go photo-less into that good night, some Engrish I saw on the street:

just me?

...or is it really rude to ask someone if they regret getting a tattoo? Like, in casual conversation? I mean, you would never ask someone if they regretted having a baby or not going to college. Or, say, gaining weight or wearing Uggs. I'm just sayin.

akiu

hot hot heat

I went to an onsen with my roommate Amy today. It was a co-ed onsen, but because the main onsen was men-only until 7 pm, the only other people there were women and a little boy who was really not happy to be there. There were both indoor and outdoor onsens, so of course we chose the outdoor, mostly because we're both northern girls and, hey, did you know, hot springs are REALLY hot? It was really pleasant to sit on the rocks with your feet in the onsen as it started cooling down in the evening, though.

It was really unpleasant to get out of the onsen and walk down to the bus stop and wait for the bus in the rain, however. Then as we tried not to fall asleep on the bus we realized neither of us had eaten since last night. We got off the bus, onto the subway, and finally to the yakitori (aka kebab, aka food on a stick) place right by our subway stop.

This is where it gets fun, because two men and a woman were having a big night out and were enjoying watching us eat our baked potato with chopsticks, and one of the men came over to talk to us, and he asked what country we were from. Amy said she was English, and the man said, "Ah. [gesturing to his friends] We are Japanese!" and everybody cracked up. I'm still laughing. They bought us some ginger and wasabe yakitori, clearly anticipating the eye-watering and mouth-fanning, but even Amy didn't think it was that hot. Although our sinuses are quite clear now. As we left, one of them yelled, "next time!" which has caused Amy and I to start a "he LIKES you" war.

Pictures soon--er, not of the onsen experience, but of the beautiful town the onsen was in.

It felt like I was on a boat

Yes, I felt the earthquakes yesterday. The first one was during my first lesson of the day and lasted maybe fifteen seconds. When it stopped, we just continued the lesson like nothing had happened, although I was totally thrown off my game (and I assume the students were much more so--after all, on this whole continent I have only myself to worry about). All the local news is in Japanese, of course, so we had to wait for the Western world to wake up and report on it before we knew what was going on. Just as we were going to bed, we felt the second quake. I was lying in bed and watching a downloaded episode of Heroes, and the shaking was gentler than earlier but it went on for more than a minute. When it finally subsided I got up and consulted with my shaken (heh) roommates. We checked the internet for updates, but even forty-five minutes later there was still nothing; we tried finding some coverage in English on TV, but to no avail, so we gave up and watched a few minutes of a learning-English game show. The contestants had to fill in the blanks of a English sentence after listening to three or four native speakers say it. It was pretty amusing, but not nearly as good as Japanese commercials, of which my current favorite is the Kirin ad featuring "We Will Rock You."

(We're far enough from the epicenter that there doesn't seem to have been any local damage, but there are thousands homeless in Niigata. I'm trying to figure out how to donate or volunteer to the Japan Red Cross, but so far haven't found it.)

I don't knit lace on the train

Not since I had to frog the beginnings of my Orangina. Don't ask me why, but suddenly, about two years after the Orangina craze, I suddenly, out of the blue, decided to knit it the other day, bought the pattern, and found some Japanese yarn. I don't know what fiber it is exactly--it says 70% something, 30% something else, and neither things are the characters for cotton or wool... It says SoftRamie on the front of the ball band, and I'm fairly sure the 70% is the katakana for acrylic. But it feels nice enough and it was on sale, so I went with it.

So, my dad taught me to use chopsticks when I was a little girl. I promptly forgot and devised my own way. He has since told me I do it wrong, but I'm so good at doing it my way that I didn't have patience for learning to do it all over again the right way. Well, the other day I went out for soba with some friends. It's pretty cool, actually--you order using a vending machine outside on the sidewalk and it gives you a ticket with your order on it, and then you go inside and hand the guy behind the counter your ticket and tell him what kind of noodles you want (soba or udon), and in a few minutes you've got yourself bowl o' noodles. It's a standing restaurant, too--no chairs. So anyway, I'm standing there trying to eat noodles with chopsticks, which involves slurping, which is totally polite in Japan but which I still cannot force myself to do, and which is actually really difficult to do anyway, without making the noodles fly all around and fling sauce on your shirt, when these three late-middle-aged businessmen come in and stand next to us and start... observing how I eat my noodles. They found it very amusing. I wasn't terribly embarrassed or anything but it made it that much harder to eat with grace, knowing that I was being watched. So then one of them tapped my shoulder and said "wrong," while pointing to my chopsticks. Disconcerted, I said, "...oh?" (Brilliant international communication! We will reach understanding!) He grabbed a pair of chopsticks and said, "sample, sample," showing me by example how to hold it so that the lower chopstick stays still and the upper chopstick moves (just like my very American dad does it). Well, it's hard to overcome twenty years of chopsticking, so I made some mistakes and got some more sauce (which is clear, but also oily, so it still leaves a stain) on my shirt. But at least I provided them with some amusement. I'm sure they have traveled for business to the U.S. or had to interact with foreigners for business, or they wouldn't have remembered (from their school days) enough English to talk to me, therefore they must've been the embarrassed party at some point, so I didn't mind so much, but sometimes it's hard to tell when people are laughing with you and when they're laughing at you, so it wasn't exactly fun.

My friends suggested that next time I should just shake my head and claim, "Korean style!"

Never mind

no, really...

I mean, thanks, Blogger, for realizing that I'm in Japan and maybe I read Japanese, but hey, maybe I don't, and you know, maybe I'd like to DELETE A POST you know, and I can't figure out how the hell to do that. But whatevs, that's cool, don't even worry about it. Peace.

p.s. AND ANOTHER THING!! I can't change my template. Grrr.

I knit on the train

jaywalkers numero tres
Originally uploaded by safety dance.

My first Japanese FO: another pair of jays.

pattern the ubiquitous Jaywalkers

yarn contest prize from strangelittlemama--she dyed it herself! Thanks, Carole!

needles size 1 Susan Bates dpns

mods made the legs shorter because I didn't know how much yarn I had--turns out there was plenty

started May 6, 2007, in the US of A
finished July 1, 2007, in the land of the rising sun.

yeah, I crossed that bridge

I went hiking today at a place called Oku-Nikkawa. I filled up my memory card but a lot of the photos didn't turn out because it was a bad day for lighting. Oku-Nikkawa is barely a town, just a train platform and a couple buildings, but it has a camping area and a few trails, and from the train platform you can hear the rushing of water from the valley below. It was fantastic to get out of the city and get away from people. (It was less than fantastic getting back on the train soaked in humidity and sweat and rain, and go back to Sendai Station where all the businesspeople were commuting home in their suits.) I discovered that the "river walk" actually goes THROUGH the river and it was just too cold and the bottom of the creek too rocky to keep wading, so I headed up to the mountain trail instead.
The train passes over the trail at a couple of points, but I forgot that when I went down a little side trail back down to the creek. I was crouching at the edge of the water taking my usual super-fascinating close-up photos of moss and lichen when I heard thunder, and thought, "that's weird, I thought Japan didn't get thunderstorms--hey, sounds like it's getting closer--oh my god ROCKSLIDE OH MY GOD oh right it's just the train." Turns out there was a bridge almost directly over my head that was concealed by the thick vegetation. At least I was alone so there was no one to see me jump up and overreact like a moron. Except for how I just, you know, told the whole internet.

Oh, and today I taught someone the difference between "she's wearing a bikini" and "she wears a bikini." Not a big deal? Think about the difference between "she's drinking" and "she drinks."

Matsushima, ah!

Maybe it's all the Cocktail Partners, but I just have nothing to add.
Matsushima

now try it with one hand tied behind your back!

Think it's a pain in the ass calling tech support in your own country? Try doing it in a foreign country! That's right, fans and friends, I have just spent two hours testing my patience. It's amazing--I don't consider myself a patient person, generally, and especially not in traffic, but the knowledge that I am the outsider in the situation, the person for whom special consideration is being offered, makes me capable of putting up with an awful lot. Or maybe the fact that my support person (supporter?) spoke little English and I (still) speak next to no Japanese made it easier--everything was said very slowly, clearly, and deliberately, with no extraneous chit-chat or nonsense, and although it took ages, I did resolve a few things. I'm still not quite up to full speed, possibly because of a virus (yay!), but I'm working on it. I must say I am really enjoying spending my whole day off on it, too, when I could be at the beach or in the mountains. Whatever, HP, that's cool.

More pictures, less bitching, when all my problems (well, at least my computer problems) are resolved.

p.s. I finally got my gaijin card the other day--I'm officially a resident alien now.

wizened

wizened
Originally uploaded by safety dance.

I took a rainy-day walk up to this temple that overlooks the city. Since it was a rainy Thursday, I was the only person there, alone with the screaming birds and the ashes of people who've been buried there. It was lovely.

You never don't have space for a garden

You never don't have space for a garden
Originally uploaded by safety dance.

I'm so impressed by the creation of privacy and use of space in Japan.


(Which I then invade.)

my local neighborhood shrine

I don't know what it was lit up for exactly--some kind of matsuri, announced on red banners all up and down the canal, but of course, I can't read Japanese.

So far, I'd say that teaching conversational English is about as interesting as you want to make it. I've had some great students and some weird students and some students who were only there because their parents make them go, and I've gotten some really great questions. I'm getting better at defining or exemplifying succinctly words like just, even, and still; and nuances like "on top of" as opposed to "on." (I had to think about that one--it seems like we usually say "on" when referring to something that usually has stuff on it, and "on top of" when referring to something that doesn't, as in, "I put it on the table" versus "I put it on top of the refrigerator.") Looking at my notes from today, I explained "modest," "archaeologist," "glacier," and "monsoon." Of course, it gets a little repetitive, but I think that's true of teaching in general. So far, so good.

seven random facts

Madalyn tagged me for a seven weird things meme. It fits in perfectly with my new plan to not actually think, just make lists, so here goes. Here are the rules: Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those who are tagged need to write on their own blog those 7 facts as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog.

1. I am infamous among my family and former roommates for taking really long showers. My record is one hour and forty-five minutes. (That was my freshman year of college, and my excuse is that, having moved from my parents' quiet, peaceful house in the country into a dorm full of three hundred shrieking women, the shower was the only place I could be alone.) I try to keep it down to a normal, non-wasteful ten minutes or so, but every so often I just forget and realize I've been standing there thinking about nothing for half an hour.

2. I believe in all that birth-order stuff. Strongly, embarrassingly strongly, given how completely scientifically unsound it is.

3. As a child, I was so terrified of the dentist that I had to be given liquid sedative in the morning before school, another dose when my mom picked me up for the appointment, and then laughing gas when I got there. And I was still nervous.

4. I have a math tattoo. I am not good at, nor do I particularly like, math. (I meant to showcase it when Scout's tattoo meme was going around, but I was too busy. I'll have to do that sometime.)

5. I am very monogamous, perfume-wise. I've only worn two scents in the last twelve years, and I only switched because they stopped making the first one. (And now they've stopped making the second one. Fear not: I stocked up when it was on sale.) My mom has worn the same perfume as long as I can remember, so maybe it's genetic.

6. I moved to Japan speaking exactly six words of Japanese. Smart!

Let's see... I tag Jodi, Noelle, Beverly, Jaime, Carole, Ramona, and Molly.

(Oh, I had my first real day of work today. I was exhausted by the time I got home, but guess what? Japan apparently has no open container laws. My supervisor and I stopped at the convenience store and had some beers on the train. Always a silver lining.

6.

five things I have discovered about Japan.

Wisteria over the canal along my street.

1. It's humid. Dear god, is it humid. I'd forgotten what it's like to leave home with wet hair and then arrive at work with hair still wet.


2. Black coffee is called American coffee; medium is M-size.


3. Produce is expensive. I just had my first piece of fruit since I left the U.S. It was an apple. It was heavenly. It should've been, it cost me a dollar.


4. The 99 yen shop is a godsend. Right next to the subway station, it sells everything from beer to makeup to (overpriced) produce.


5. Every store has its own little theme song that's stuck in your head for hours after you leave.





(My new job is a little overwhelming right now so I apologize if you've been waiting with bated breath for fantastic photos of Shinto shrines or anything. Haven't had time yet.)