On the road again...

Guess who passed her Japanese Drivers License Test on the FIRST try?

That's right, me!


And there it is... I look thuggish simply because they actually don't let you smile. And probably because by that time I had already spent about 9 hours at the menkyo center and wanted to die.

But I did it. Only myself and one other foreigner in the group of about 10 of us passed.

Awesome.

Man,

Another weekend has come and gone already. We are now beginning the final week of Natsu Yasumi. School starts up again next Monday, which means I'll have at least a week of full days of nothingness (rather than half days) while they do all that random ceremonial stuff that they do in the beginning and end of every term. I feel a little sick to my stomach just thinking about starting the grind up again...

Anyway, yeah so this weekend we did manage to get out to Sado. We took the 16:10 ferry from Naoetsu to Ogi. There was a bit of stress getting everyone to the Port and on the ferry on time, but once on the ferry we started drinking and all was well.
This picture is Emily and I (the seasoned veterans, or weirdos, however you wanna look at it) with newbies Grace, Kristi and Aaron. All very cool people.

We arrived a Ogi at about 6:45, and we had a short walk to the concert site where the famous Sado Island Kodo drummers were set to play at 7pm. So we hauled ass to the ticket booth, had a bit of an uphill hike but we made it to the show just a few minutes after it started, which was great. We even managed to find a space in the back where we could fit with all of our stuff. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but here's one I managed to get before I got yelled at:

The picture, or course, does no justice to the event at all. We were at a top of a hill which led down to the stage. The stage kind of framed this beautiful tree behind it. Each side of the hill was lined with tents selling snacks, drinks and souvenirs. Probably a few thousand people covered this hill (Daigua people, think of the hill part of the Shell). The Kodo was amazing. The sheer strength and endurance the drummers have as well as the synchronization of all the drums is astounding. Now I get why this festival is a must-see(do?) in Japan.

After the concert we shuffled down the hill and found a bunch of food stalls and shops at the bottom where we stopped for some ramen and nama-biru before hailing a taxi to the beach we were meant to camp on.

When we arrived at the beach, we found a spot where our 4 tents could fit and we set up shop there and had a few beers and went to sleep. The highlight of this part of the night was this idiot girl in the tent next to us. Let me paint you a picture... Aaron, Emily and I were just standing around chatting when this idiot American girl (with a head lamp on her hat) and this Aussie guy come stumbling over. The girl asks if we are JETs and where we live. I told her we lived in Niigata and that I was a second year, and Aaron said he was a first year. Then the girl says to me "So, like, you just arrived in Japan and your broha is already visiting you?"
Me: "Uh, my what?"
Her: "Didn't you say he was your brother?"
Me: "Errr, no, and I'm a second year."
Then Aaron goes, "Hey, turn on your headlamp and look at us... do we look like siblings?"
Me: "Yeah, uh, he's a little bit Japanese... I'm a little bit Irish..." (this girl was not wasted at all, riiiight)
Then the girl turns to Emily and asks what her deal is. Emily tells her she's a "retired JET" meaning she did the full three years on JET and therefore, can't be a JET anymore. So the girl goes: "So, like, are you gonna take your contract home with you?"
At this point, I literally said "Ooook, I gotta go!" and I ran off towards the water. How Emily and Aaron finally escaped from this wacko are beyond me. But we did get a good chuckle out of it, and Aaron is officially my part-Asian broha. Any idea what the sister version might be??

So Saturday came quite early as it always does when camping. I woke up sweaty and gross and a bit hungover, thus reconfirming my hatred for camping. We decided to get the 10:20 ferry back to Naoestu. Half the group decided to go back to the ferry port and look at the festival stalls while Makiko, Will, Kayvohn and I decided to go swimming. We took to the water real fast cause it was like 500 degress and we all smelled gross. The water was great, but as it's jellyfish season on the Japan Sea right now, Kayvohn and I both got stung. Just small stings, but still annoying. After our swim we headed into Naoestu and had big bowls of ramen for breakfast (weird) and got back on the ferry to head home, where we could shower and re-enter the world of humane living.

Saturday night, Emily, Kouken, Aaron, Grace, Will, Makiko, Kate and I all met up for a dinner at Asian Kitchen in Niigata then a few hours of drinking and wandering in Niigata. It was really fun and super funny cause Kate was in rare form of hilarity with all these hand gestures and comments like "thank god she's in the hospital." It was a good night, but we ended it early to catch the last trains back to our respective inaka towns to catch up on the sleep we missed on Friday... phew!

A few thoughts...

This was us pretending a certain Rank ALT was coming into the room. The reactions are priceless... and totally accurate.


This was not planned, I swear!


Another earthquake hit Japan today. It was only a 3 in Niigata; the epicenter was in Sendai and it was a high 6, I believe. That's huge. I was just sitting at the Town Office waiting for my last half an hour to pass, when the familiar swaying began. I looked up to see the lights shaking above me and the telephone cords outside swaying slowly. It lasted for quite a few minutes during which all you can do is look around the room and make awkward faces at your colleagues. It's weird, and it's a totally helpless sensation that I have become all too used to in the last year here.

Other than that, I've been wasting my life away for the last few days. I didn't have to go into work at all on Monday, so instead of cleaning the mess in my apartment, I sat around all day and watched like a million DVDs. Then I went into Niigata for the Orientation party. It was, um, annoying... as most ALT functions are. Lots of people acting like best friends, when you haven't seen each other for months;lots of BS conversation; and since it was the first party of the year, lots of weirdos looking to hook up. A rather uncomfortable situation for me. But, I did meet some cool people who replaced some of my old friends. So that looks good. I'm afraid my energy levels are a bit low right now, so I didn't really bother to get anyone's information... but we'll all run into each other sooner or later. The best part though was that Kate and I didn't pay for the Nomohoudai/Tabehoudai. We were meant to pay 4000 yen at the door, but no one collected money from us. And in the insanity of having 100 foreigners at the bar, we just blended right in. AWESOME!

We are planning on hitting the famous Sado Island Earth Festival this weekend. Makiko and I are both nervous cause we hate camping, but we have to go. I've heard the Kodo drummers are amazing, and people come from all over Japan and abroad to go to this festival which is a mere ferry ride away from where I live. This is another part of my being-more-excited-about-Japan plan: I'm going to bite the bullet on weekend trips that I have thus far put off. I am going to make it down to Kyoto/Osaka/Nara, Kobe and Hiroshima before I leave... Seeing other parts of the country will be interesting. And getting out of Niigata never hurt anyone!

And, the most positive thing of the last few days is that I've been feeling pretty confident with my Japanese lately. Which is funny since I was out of the country for two weeks and my class doesn't resume til September. But I've been using it a lot more with my English-speaking Nihonjin friends - a nice crutch for when I don't know a word or can't express an idea. Also, I think it shows them some respect for their culture/language. I had a conversation with Miyuki last night and another 2nd year ALT actually commented on how good it sounded. That was nice.

A change of attitude

Ok, so yesterday I did a bit of soul searching. And I decided I need to work on being more positive about the coming year and Japan in general. Warning: this is a bit of an incoherent rant:

On Thursday night, we had a get together at Kate's new, fabulous apartment. After all the Nihonjin had left it kind of turned into a heated bitch about life in Japan session. Perhaps the 3 bottles of wine and various Chu-his and beers helped fuel this conversation but man, it lasted a long time. So, in my hungover state, I decided that I really need to work on that. I was feeling pretty tired of Japan before I went home, and I was hoping I'd refresh while away. And on the one hand, I did. I realized that this is my life now and for the coming year; and I certainly don't have a place in America right now. But I wasn't excited anymore. It became something I've taken for granted and on some level, resented.

Since I've been back, things have been ok. The license thing is still annoying. I went to the menkyo center yesterday and managed to get the first stage done. My test is set for August 24th. But, really, two weeks without a car are going to be fine, especially since at the beginning of last year, I didn't have a car for 4 months!

The whole friend thing is what's really getting to me at this point. James and Emily are still around till the end of the month. Soon after they leave, Makiko is going back to school, so it really is just me, Kate and Kayvohn. We skipped the Newbies thing in Sanjo last night because Nuria's original plan got foiled by various idiots bitching about one thing or another. Then, it turned into an annoying serious of email banter between about 6 people who replied all everytime. So I had to read through about 25 emails of this shit. So, I said, count me out. It gave me a bad feeling... BUT I haven't met any of the new people yet. For all I know, their annoying email personalities aren't what they are like in person. Kate and I talked about this last night and in any case, we just need to accept the fact that this year is going to be different from last. We aren't going to have the awesome group that we had last year. Last year was awesome - we never had to go to any of the rank ALT get togethers because we simply had better things to do. I think this year is going to be a lot different, and once we stop hoping for the great chemistry of last year, the better equipped we will be to accept the new people as they are, and have a good time with that. We're going to the Niigata Newbies thing tonight, so, yeah, ganbarimashou.

So other than that, things really are good here. I need to work on reflecting the positive rather than the negative if I want this year to be something I can live through. I need to get my thick skin back and not let little things get to me as they have been lately, and I need to stop taking the good things for granted.

For example, Kate and I went to Akahige last night. Akahige is a nearby restaurant that we go to because their miso ramen is absolutely to die for. The old woman who works there sometimes tries to chat with us in Japanese. Despite the fact that we can't always understand her, she is interested in us in a positive way. And she shows it by giving us free things lots of times when we go in. Last night was the best though - she gave us the double-sized ramen bowl (which we, of course, couldn't finish!), a bowl of grilled corn to put into the ramen. Then when Kate and I got up to go pay, the girl at the desk told us that they wanted to give us dessert too. So we sat back down and they came back with these huge bowls of ice cream with fresh fruit. It was amazing. That's the kind of thing that I need to start appreciating again. Itadakimasu!

I made it!

Ok, so after another straight 24 hours of traveling, I am back in Maki. The flights went surprisingly well, especially considering I was flying in/out of Atlanta. I thought ahead this time and had some cash on hand to drink a bit, so I was able to sleep for awhile on the flight. Between the random movies, the random sleeping, my iPod and Harry Potter, the 14 hour flight coming back seemed to go pretty fast. We got in a bit early and I booked it through the Japanese/foreigners with Visas line at the airport, got my bags and ran down to the Narita Express. I barely managed to get on the 13.46 train to Tokyo, then I just had to wait 20 minutes for the 15.20 Shinkansen to TsubameSanjo where Makiko was there waiting for me.

It was so nice of her to come get me cause it seriously cut out about another hour (or more) of train travel for me. I otherwise would have to go to Niigata station then to the Echigo line to Maki, which sucks. As she drove, I saw that Sanjo is kind of flooding again. Apparently there were some serious rain storms while I was gone, and Sanjo is prone to flooding as everyone learned last summer. Yikes. So we went to dinner at Naomi's and she filled me in on the gossip of the last two weeks. It was good, but I had a pretty weird case of vertigo happening. I think my brain still thought I was on a plane cause I was pretty dizzy. She dropped me at home, we managed to struggle with my suitcases up the stairs, I showered and immediately went to bed.

And now I'm up... and it's 4:30 am! Thanks, Jetlag!

It feels weird to be back. I'm frustrated because I am currently without a drivers license - and probably will be for at least two more weeks. My bike tire is broken, so I need to get that taken care of today. It seems like it's gonna rain non stop this week. There are a few events for the new people this weekend that I want to go to, but I would really have liked to drive there - and I fucking can't. So I'm a bit frustrated.

On the other hand, it's nice to be back on my own turf again - in my apartment, my space, my stuff. I have to go back to half days of the BOE this week, which is easy, so I have a bit of dowtime before school starts up again. Things are different here now, but I am being positive about the coming year.

And now I'm either going to unpack or go back to bed.

I'm such a geek!

Chieh sent this out to the old Team Sanjo from our Sayonara Enkai. God, I am such a geek. I wonder what I was shouting?

Notes from the Daigua

Today is my last full day on U.S. soil. I have a ton of packing to do, including all the new clothing I bought and my new iBook (yay!), and all the stuff I stocked up on that I can't get easily in Japan. But I'll worry about all that later.

Observations from my visit home:
- Americans are fat. And loud. And have really annoying cell phone conversations in public places. But they do have beautiful teeth.
- The food here, while delicious, comes in portions which are way too big and way too rich.
- Upstate NY is now full of racists and homophobes. I'm very scared of this trend.
- Canandaigua doesn't change.
- Having more than three varieties of beer to choose from is absolutely awesome.
- Jagerbombs are also awesome.
- Canandaigua Lake is so beautiful, which is why I spent at least two hours every day at the lake house.
- US Weekly is cheap and good reading.
- Wegmans subs still rule. As do chicken wings and proper pizza.
- It's really hard, and scary, to adjust back to driving on the right side of the road.
- Having the ability to communicate all the time is underrated.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. Even though things are gonna be different when I get back to Niigata, I think another year will be good for me. I'm glad I didn't decide come home this year, because let's face it - there's not much for me in the States right now. And I have lots of exciting travel plans including Thailand, Hong Kong, India and mainland China. It's gonna be awesome. And it'll be exciting to follow Cory and Jared's move to Portland - where I plan on joining them at this time next year. Right, now I have tons of errands to run!