Hello Again, Chichibu!*

Our next day off, Yumie and I went to Chichibu, which is my hometown's sister city and where I spent two weeks for a delegation three years ago.

The train ride was perilous and included us running into random b-boys practicing at Higashi-Hanno station.  For a second I did a double-take, thinking that I was in an American movie or something.  But no, they were just hanging out there with a stereo and cardboard and everything.  I wish I could have gotten a picture, but that might have been too weird...

Once we got there, it was amazing.  I was constantly hit by nostalgia the entire time.  To my amazement, both Isshin and An-chan, who were two and five when I last visited, remembered nearly everything about my visit before. It went from things like Isshin remembering a picture he took on my phone, down to him remembering a very vague fact I had mentioned about myself last time.  

Isshin had also grown up into an amazing kid.  As had An, as she definitely doesn't cry as much as she used to.  But Isshin showed a thoughtfulness and patience you don't see in all eight-year-olds.  One time he was speaking to me and said something I didn't understand, and when I said so he quickly apologized for using Japanese I didn't know!  Another time An-chan took an object straight out of his hands, and while here in some of the homes the kids would immediately start fighting, Isshin just shrugged it off.  He's such an amazing older brother.

Also, it was really cute because I mentioned drinking or something, and my host dad seemed surprised and then was like, "Oh!  You're not a high schooler anymore, are you?" and then seemed really happy and said we should drink some sochuu or beer.  I declined, but maybe next time I visit them (in the beginning of September!) I might say yes.  Another funny moment with alcohol was that Yumie asked Isshin to write the most complicated kanji he knew and he wrote it down.  I wasn't able to read it and then we showed it to An-chan who was like "Of course I know how!  It's Kirin!"  My host mom laughed and said it was right, and that the reason they knew what it was because they had Kirin beer around the house a lot.  It was seriously hilarious.

My host mom was amazing as usual, and got into the hobbg theDuriny of K-dramas.  Like a lot of Japanese women now.  Haha.  During the Kawase festival people kept on saying hi to her.  It's really good to know she's really involved in the community still, and that her English teaching job was going well.

I know I say this a lot so I apologize but Chichibu  is where the anime AnoHana takes place.  So of course we did some pilgrimages.  It was interesting how much my host mom knew about the anime without ever actually having seen it, but the city really pushes the advertisement of AnoHana far.  

Bridge Picture

Also, I was able to visit a lot of places I went to before

Lock Picture

Hakone

Last weekend the encho-sensei and his wife took us to Hakone, a beautiful mountain resort town.  On clear days you can see Mt. Fuji in the distance, and the place is full of differently-themed museums and onsens.

However, the two days we went didn't have the best weather.  But that's okay!

On the way there we stopped at a gas station and were told that we had a flat tire.  The gas stations in Japan are very nice, with most being full-service.  The attendants pump your gas for you, pay for it with your card, and do things like check the pressure on your tires and wipe down your windows.  And this one, of course, saved us from what could have been a bad situation on the mountain.  The culprit was a metal nail.  In the station I used the restroom and came across something pretty ingenious.  Instead of a disposable paper towel dispenser, there was a cloth/resuable towel on two rolls.  So you would tug it and the cloth you used would go onto the second roll and be hidden, presumably to be washed later.  I'm sure I've seen this in the States before (maybe?) but I thought it was pretty neat.

Our first stop in Hakone was Owakudani, a valley with an active sulfuric hot spring.  We took a rope way (basically an aerial cable car) to get to the top, and it was super scary!  For some reason I've been finding myself getting more and more scared of heights as I get older, and I was at the point where I was just severely okay in the cable car.  Then the wind started blowing, and we were shaking back and forth!  Encho-sensei's wife, who was with us, was so terrified she sat on the floor of the cable car.  She later said that when you reach the top cable route, you normally can see Mt. Fuji and it's really pretty, but the day we decided to go was really cloudy up top on the mountains.  When we got off of the cable car the wind was pretty strong.  All it was was people walking back and forth, their hair lashing everyone because of the wind.

We got to the actual hot spring and it was really pretty.  The water was boiling like crazy and there were workers there boiling the famous black eggs.

The springs also served as the home to two cats!

One thing I noticed was that while there were a lot of foreign tourists groups (maybe even more than the Japanese there on that day), not many were actually from the U.S..  In fact, there were few "white" tourists, and those that were were generally Europeans from countries that don't speak English.  The vast majority were Chinese tourists who came to the site on tour buses.  And when you did see the few white tourists, it was generally just a family group.  We did see a group with teenagers speaking English on the way back though, and I was pretty surprised.

We went to a Le Petite Prince museum afterwards, and it was adorable.  I wanted to buy all the items at the souvenir shop.

Then we finally got to the ryokan!  We started at Lodge Fujimien, basically a traditional Japanese-style inn, with tatami floor rooms, yukata to wear, and an onsen for its public bath.  I was really happy to have this experience, as so far my stays in Japan have all been pretty much home stays.  Apparently, the hotel had a view of Mt. Fuji from all of its rooms, its restaurants, and its public bath.  But the weather was bad so one couldn't really see anything.  For dinner we had kaiseki and it was fun.  Some of the food was a little too Asian for me, and of course I had problems because I'm slightly allergic to shrimp, so we just asked for them to take that all out of mine.  Yumie and I also spent a lot of time in the onsen just relaxing.

The day after we were planning to take a little ferry cruise in the lake around Mt. Fuji, but due to the weather the business running it was closed.  A little bummed, but still enjoying Hakone, we went to the famous Venetian Glass Museum.  There was a really cute Crystal-Playing Trio.  One gentleman played crystal classes, the other set that looks like a crystal xylophone of sort sort, and the other crystal/glass tubes that he blew through.

Afterwards we went to eat and the bus woman was really nice.  When a spot near the window opened up, just as we were starting to eat our food, she cleaned the table immediately and said we should sit over there for the view.  And then, since the table next to us was unoccupied, she pulled over the chairs so Yumie and Encho-sensei's wife could put their bags on them.  Downstairs, while Yumie and I were waiting for our hosts to buy some souveniers, we a cashier offered us some tea and asked if we wanted to sit down.  Such good service.

The way back we met up with a past employee of Bott Home.  She is a newlywed of a year, and she and her husband have this really nice condominium in a city by the ocean.  We visited the beach for a bit, but since I was wearing socks and shoes I didn't go in.  It was really pretty, despite the lack of the typical beach sun that day.  There were people playing beach soccer, beach volleyball, and even a couple of guys windsurfing.

On the way back home we had kaitenzushi, or sushi boat sushi, and I ate practically every type of tuna they offered.  We were so stuffed after that!

Snapshots

(Pictures later.)
The days have been going by so fast, I'm starting to forget the order of when things happened.  So here's some little literary "snapshots" of sorts of different memorable things that happened to me this week.

Yumie and I watched three of the younger children (all two to three years old) during a longer staff meeting, as the younger kids didn't have preschool that day.  We started out inside and I finally showed the kids the bubbles I brought from the States.  Then they ate tons of snacks and asked my poor work partner to refill their cup of tea like five times.  Afterwards we went outside in the heat and played.  The most hilarious moment was when one of the boy's at my house started screaming and extending his hand toward us.  He sounded like he was going to die, so Yumie and I looked over and all it was was just a little ant on his hand, which Yumie promptly whacked off his hand.  This is hilarious (and cute) because most Japanese kids love insects.  Another boy in my house catches grasshoppers every day, and another girl in the house tries to eat beetles.  The same little one that was screaming about the ant also spent one morning before the kindergarten bus came alternating between crying and being okay.  He had fallen at first, and I was surprised that he started crying because he never cries when he falls.  Then he was okay when he was washing his hands, but he saw some dirt on the scratch (I think?) and started crying again.  At the same time the little girl in the same house fell and I was like "please don't cry" and she didn't.  My little boy is so adorable sad and cute.

I finally got a Japanese cell phone!  It really cost me an arm and leg, but I hope it works out.  If you'd like my mobile e-mail please let me know.

When one of my house moms and I were washing the dishes, we heard a loud crash.  We waited for crying, thinking maybe it was a child that had fallen or something, but nothing happened.  A few minutes later a kid from another house comes in and asks if the head mom is there, but then talks to the house mom that's there.  Apparently he had kicked a soccer ball through one of the windows and shattered it.  Note, this is a soccer ball and not a baseball, and something like that would require a lot more force to break a window since it's softer and not as compact.  I sneaked a look at the window and there was this comical soccer ball-sized hole.  It's really unfortunate though.  One of the boys in the house asked during dinner if they were going to be able to fix the window.  They're going to be able to, but they said it's just bad timing.  It makes me wonder what the exact budget at the home is.  I'm glad no one got hurt though, as the window that got broken is right next to where the little kids and other people go use the bathroom and that could have been bad.

Another day I was washing dishes with one of the girls and she broke into Backstreet Boys.  We sang for a while and it was great.  The same girl also listens to some English worship songs, and is one of the ones that tries to use English the most with me, with hilarious effects.

My work partner and I also started playing Ragnarok in our free time.  This could be a bad thing...

The kids here also have a handbell club!  It's run by one of the workers who composes his own music, and is adorable because sometimes at night he'll practice worship songs with his fiance in one of the rooms in the office.  (Which one of the workers told me about with amusement and "How cute!"s from me.)  The little kids have their session first and work with inexpensive music bells.  One of the boys is super adorable and kept on looking at me and Yumie while practicing, all with a big grin on his face.  Afterwards, the older kids came.  They're amazing.  I forget how nice doing music in a group is.  It also really makes you be super careful of your timing, something that is super lax with the flowy contemporary and New Age pieces I normally play.  The teacher in my house was super nice and let us play some of the bells that he's normally assigned too, and it's hard to get that whole vibrato thing down.  Yumie mentioned a handbell club being on this popular t.v. show, but couldn't remember the title.  I actually saw the episode of New Girl she was talking about!  I told her we should start a handbell club in Davis but I don't know if that's going to work out...

Also, there's this children's book all about Obama in the large hall.  Too funny.

Money Issues?!

Free days are amazing.  However, I've been noticing that after I come back from a couple of days of mostly speaking English, my Japanese gets really bad.

Yumie and I went to Shinjuku again yesterday to meet up with some of her friends.  I was going to meet up with my friend Christine a little bit later on in the day, but we weren't able to hang out until later in the night.  Yumie's super nice friends walked around with me to all these ATMs as I was having issue with my card.  (Later on I learned it was because of my withdrawal limit, and I still am waiting for a response to see if I can make my limit a little higher, as the minimum limit I can withdraw at most ATMs exceeds my institution's withdrawal limit.)  I was having like a heart-attack thinking I might be penniless in a foreign country, but I think it'll all work out.  Most of all though I'm more bummed that I wasn't able to buy my prepaid phone because I couldn't withdraw any money.  You'll see why this is really important later on in the post.

We went shopping a bit, with Yumie getting a new outfit, and then we played darts until it was time to go to an izakaya!  (I also played more of Reflec Beat and was very happy.)  All of Yumie's friends were all wearing t-shirts with just a tiny embroidered logo of the clothes company.

Can you name them all?  Polo, elephant, eagle...

We also tried boba here.  We were very disappointed.

A little bit in, and my friend Christine joined us.  She's going to be in Japan for a year or two, so I'm really happy I got to hang out with her.  All of us hung out more, with all of us (except me, as I mostly spoke English) speaking a mixture of Japanese and English that I'm sure was weird to everyone around us.  As the night went on, I headed back to Christine's cute little apartment in Ogikubo while my work partner stayed with her friends.  

I was really happy to meet all of Yumie's friends!  They were very thoughtful guys, especially to a girl they just met.  Also, I remet my friend Toru after not seeing him for like two years and a half!  He was my first ever Japanese interview I had to do for class, and it was really sweet that he remembered exactly how we first met and everything.  Hopefully we'll hang out again.

The morning after, Christine and I went to the station, since we would take the same line to get to her work and back to my work/living place.  She went to go grab a coffee and I needed to recharge my card, so we split up and then said we'd meet back near the gates.  However, as the time for the train to depart came... I didn't see her.  I decided to wait a little bit before finally asking for help and where the payphone was, all in stumbling Japanese, with some English help because some of the commuters/workers knew some English.  By this time I was pretty sure Christine had just taken the train already, and knew I'd be okay because I'd taken the same line a few times already and was okay.  She didn't pick up when I called her on the payphone, so I finally realized that I was carrying a wi-fi hotspot device (albeit with a low battery) and used it to message her.  

All in all, I was sure I was going to be okay, but if I had been able to get that pre-paid phone (which I totally was going to get if not for my ATM problems) I would have just been able to call her easily right off the bat asking where she was.  Or she could have called me.  Hopefully I can get money soon to buy it, but I'm not sure any places here in Machida stocks prepaid phones, and I'd also need a Japanese guarantor or someone with a foreigner registration card as I'm just here on my passport.  :(

I got back fine, and took a long nap before eating dinner with the kids, who were all very excited to see me. Back to another stretch of work tomorrow!

Customs: What's Rude and What's Not

I've been to Japan before, as I've mentioned in an earlier post.  So I thought that not many things would faze me this time around, but there's a few minor things that totally jumped out this time around.  They're not big things, and I am more than fine with doing things that Japanese way, but I thought these would be interesting to share.

One of the first things I noticed when I had my first breakfast with a family was that everyone puts their bread on top of their cup.  My partner tells me this might be an Asian thing, as like when there's not room on the plate or no separate plate for the bread, they put the bread on top of the cup.  It's because it'd be weird to get leftover food particles on the bread.  In my family it'd be considered totally rude to do that.  I know I was never explicitly told not to, but no one has ever done it in my family and my extended family other than like, while at a party, with a paper cup, and while moving the food to wear one is going to seat and eat.  And that's just me thinking that I've seen a relative do that before.  It's more common just to deal with whatever food you're eating touching the bread.  Now I think everyone's slices of bread on top of the mugs is pretty cute although it is a bit of a hassle when I want to take a drink.

Another thing is that people don't really say "sorry" or "excuse me" as much as someone in the States might when they bump into someone.  Of course, when I'm working here and bump into a worker he/she and I exchange sorries, but when I was at Machida Eki people were in a rush and it was only a couple of times, and normally an older woman, that said "excuse me" to my "excuse me." (In Japanese, of course.)  Even in San Francisco or on the BART or something people say excuse me a lot more.  Of course, this is just an observation and isn't based on facts, and it's okay.

Another funny thing is how people don't say "bless you" or anything when sneezing.  Of course I knew this, but there's been many times when a kid sneezes at the table and I want to say something.  Also, it's not really common practice to turn away from the food when sneezing, and some of the kids even blow their nose at the dinner table while eating, haha.

Wow!

ワウ！Wow!  Time is passing by so fast!  I've already been in Japan for one week!

I need to really try to consistently write.  This time, I'll just describe my most recent free day (the day I did my last entry) and talk about a few things I've started to notice.

Saturday was super fun.  :)  My partner and I just hung around Machida Eki, but there was still tons of stuff to do there.  In trying to find a ramen place, we found two older people at an information booth who were really talkative.  The place we went to wasn't the one they recommended, but it was delicious.  Yumie and I hit up a few game centers (I even got the courage to finally play Reflec Beat for the first time), and went to a Starbucks!  At the Starbucks they gave me a little card to hand back to them when my drink was done because I ordered a drink with soy milk.  They take milk allergy seriously there, even though it would have been okay since I only get soy because of the taste.  Yumie and I then met up with Chiaki, who used to be an international student at Davis!  She was really sweet, and we tried to go to this cool green tea dessert place, but it was super expensive.  Chiaki even got Yumie and I omiyage.

Afterwards we met up with Ryota again.  We went to my first ever izakaya!  It was fun, but I was a little disappointed because everything tasted so weak, even when I asked for a double shot.

Cuba libre even in Japan!

After that free day though...  Working here is super fun, but for some reason it's really tiring.  My work day is long, but I have a lot of break in between.  But I guess it's just the monotony of constantly dish-washing that does it.  The kids are great though!  Today Yumie and I watched three of the younger children (who didn't have school today) while the staff had a meeting.  We played outside for only two hours, but with the humidity it was pretty tough.  The kids are really well behaved though, and listened to us when we told them not to do something.  One of the boys in my house was hilarious too: he started screaming all of a sudden, like he was going to die, and stretched out his hand.  Yumie and I freaked out and thought he had cut himself or something, but all it was was a small ant on his hand, so Yumie just flicked it off.  He also tries to smash beetles or spiders when he sees them.

Tonight was also very fun.  The kids are really curious, and I think they're getting more used to talking to this random foreigner who visits their house and uses really bad Japanese.  They enjoy saying random phrases and learning things, and when I need help, like when I don't know what cupboard a bowl goes in, they help.  The older kids are all really nice too.  They say really encouraging things to the younger kids, and even like offer say, the cushion they're lying on when two of the younger kids start fighting over the last cushion to lie on.  Even the high school boys, who live in a separate cottage from the mixed-gender cottage and sometimes seem standoff-ish, all showed a lot of attention when a little boy fell over while trying to help stack chairs.

Free Time

Two days ago was the first morning that I ate breakfast with the cottage I'm going to be with for the next five weeks.

They're all really nice!  Even though they definitely don't speak English as much as the other home, the kids were all really interested and kept on trying with me.  The adults did too.  After dinner was really fun too, as one of the girls played piano for me, and the boys showed me Pokemon and some of their toys.  (And one of them showed me his lizards too right after breakfast.)

During our free time we went to grab some things we needed, and visited a pet store even.  Here in Japan it's okay to sell pets at a pet store.  It makes me a little worried though, because how pet stores normally use puppy mills and such...  But the animals looked well taken care of for the most part.  (And cute!)  But I think I'll stick to reputable breeders for my pets.

Elephant Slide in Machida

The next day was our first day off, and Yumie and I went to go see her friend in Shibuya.  It was really fun!  His English is like near-perfect since he studied abroad for a year.  We walked around Takeshita Street in Harajuku (I bought something for a friend at the official AKB48 shop), and then went to Shino-okubo where Korean Plaza is.  The streets are like lined with Korean Idol shops because of Kanryu, or the Korean Wave.  I picked up a Big Bang CD and a bracelet, but I realize the more... child-ish things, like a giant poster with an idol's face on it or something doesn't appeal to me as much as it used to.  I guess I'm just getting older.  I definitely like more subtle things now and I always think like "Where am I going to put this?"  I even do this at anime conventions, but I just realized it more in the idol shop.  It's a good thing though, as it means I'm spending less money and buying less useless stuff. 

Takeshita!

We ate at a Korean restaurant where I had bibimbap and tried makkori, a sort of rice wine.  It was good, but I don't think it became like my favorite for anything.  Afterwards, exhausted and everything, Yumie and I went back to Machida and met up with some workers where we had their birthday dinner.  It was really interesting seeing the eating dynamic where you have to ask if someone wants to try a dish, or the whole process where each plate had a pair of serving chopsticks.  Cutting the food with chopsticks seemed really hard too.

Party!  (Although sort of a bad picture)

Near the end, one of the workers surprised Yumie with a birthday cake (or haha, sort of surprised us since we knew something might be going on), but then they definitely surprised me with a pair of house slippers for the both of us.  Our manager got Rilakkuma for me and Hello Kitty for Yumie because I mentioned liking Rilakkuma a lot and Yumie has a Hello Kitty credit card.  It was incredibly thoughtful of her, and I have a feeling the slippers were a lot of money.

Delicious keeki. 　

Today is another free day, but we're not sure what we're up to yet.