Sayonara 2005, Sayonara Japan (for three weeks)

I'm leaving my apartment in just about an hour to begin the long long long journey back to the 585.

Since I have some time to kill, I'm gonna do a sort of year-in-review and post a favorite picture or two from each month of this year.

January
From Michelle's (the only person to visit me!) visit. This has to be one of the best photo sequences ever. Poor Kate-o is always a step behind.




February
The view of the mountains as James and I drove back from a snowboarding weekend in Nagano


March
Most of the former Team Sanjo. I miss those guys!


April

On the most romantic night of my life, with the most beautiful man in the most beautiful city. Oh, Sydney


May
Cairns, Australia


June
A last minute beach barbeque in Maki


July
Team Sanjo Farewell Karaoke party


August
My and my mommy and sister at the Boathouse during my first trip home!


September
Thailand




October
Hong Kong


November
Nikko


December


And, hoping this isn't too cheesy I want to close this off with a quote from Paulo Coelho's "The Pilgrimage"
"When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to attach much more importance to the things around you because your survival depends on them. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may be able to help you in different situations. And you accept any small favor from the gods with great delight, as if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life.
At the same time, since all things are new, you see only the beauty in them, and you feel happy to be alive... The word peccadillo, which means a 'small sin,' comes from pecus, which means 'defective foot,' a foot that is incapable of walking a road. The way to correct a peccadillo is always to walk forward, adapting oneself to new situations and receiving in return all of the thousands of belssings that life generously offers to those who seek them."


That is all...
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Snow Country

For those of you who aren't aware, in 1996 Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata wrote a book about Niigata - the prefecture I call currently call home. The title of the book, you ask? "Snow Country". Evidently that book was not set in my area of Niigata (which is still totally bare), rather the southern areas of Joetsu and Yuzawa which have the highest snowfall in the world on that latitude (around D.C. area). And as I found out this weekend have already been totally dumped on!




I snapped these pictures while I was driving down to Yuzawa to go boarding on Sunday. It was crazy... when I left Maki it was crisp and sunny, and within an hour south on the Kanetsu Expressway, it was cloudy and snowy and driving was bad news. I can't comprehend the extreme differences in weather conditions between these two areas... and I can't control my jealousy for the people who live down there who can hit the slopes after school.

Anyway, I thought I'd give my two loyal readers who aren't in Japan (aka, not Aaron... or Kristen for that matter) a little peak into the ridiculous conditions of the Japanese winter.

For all the hype Japan gets for being this technologically-advanced country, they certainly skimp on a lot of things we take for granted, like central heat and insulation. I do have a heated toilet seat in my apartment though, go figure. So, in no particular order, here are the random things that make winter in Niigata livable:

My kerosene heater. Only the most ghetto folks in America use these things. They smell, they're dangerous, it's a pain in the ass to get kerosene from the gas station. But it's cheap (1200yen for one of those big red tank things) and it freakin works. It also has a timer so I can set it to turn on 30 minutes before I get up and before I get home so it's nice and toasty when I need it.


This little halogen heater packs a big punch for its size. I keep this in my bathroom so it'll be relatively warm when I brush my teeth/wash my face and most importantly, get out of the shower.



This big thing runs off electricity so it's expensive and it doesn't actually work that well. I leave it on overnight while I sleep so combined with the heat from my electric blanket it seems to do the job.


Heating pads. I stick one of these to the shirt under my sweater when I go to school. No, there's no central air at school either -- the halls and the lunch room are absurdly cold. My students probably wear like 600 of these a day since the girls wear skirts and they all walk/bike to school. Japanese kids are freakin champs.
I also stick them to the bottoms of my feet in my snowboarding boots.


And finally, my trusty snowboard and my new snowboarding buddy, Aaron. Funny that I lived through like 20 winters in Upstate NY and never had a need to pick this up, but I'm glad I got forced into it last year. It's gonna be the only thing to do every weekend. Weeeee!

Good thing Niigata has tons and tons of resorts to explore!

Woah. I am suuuuper sore today!

9 days til vacation!

This weekend was pretty crappy. So determined not to waste an entire weekend, I went boarding in Yuzawa all by myself on Sunday.
There was tons of snow down there and tons of cute boys. And I worked off much of my recent frustration. I can sleep happily tonight...
楽しかった。

10 days til home!ちょーうれしい！

A very Niigata weekend

On Saturday I, along with about 20 other Niigata JET girls, attended an "English Day" at a nearby Women's College. It was organized by this British guy David who is the head of the English department there. He's married to a Japanese lady, has been here for 14 years (good lord!), has lived in Tokyo and Nagano... and it all started when he did JET on Sado Island. Crazy. Anyway, this event basically consisted of 5 straight hours of chatting in English with Japanese girls (Yellow fever dudes, hold your comments). We got paid $100 for it, which at first I thought was a bit high... until about halfway through the day when I realized just how exhausting it is to be patient and chipper and smiley for that long! Phew!!

It was obviously quite different talking to college aged girls rather than my rowdy junior high schoolers but there were a lot of similarities as well. Such as, well, boys. My personal favorite was when a girl asked me "How many boyfriends do you have?" (perhaps a bit of translation trouble here) So I said, "Well, at any given time, I usually have around 5." To which she and the 3 other girls in our group shrieked like only J-girls can and then asked me "How do you make boyfriends?" Then I confessed that I am really not the girl to ask. And of course they all asked me if I liked Japanese or American boys better, oy.

After that, Kate and I went into Niigata to meet up with Nuria, Kristi and JP for dinner and drinks. Eventually Aaron met up with us and dinner and drinks turned into an all-night booze-a-thon, which I haven't done in about 4 months.

But first, we did Print Club!

In Japan, Print Club (or, PuriKura in its katakana-ized and shortened form) is all the rage. EVERYONE does it - not just 14 year olds. And I now understand why... it's freakin AWESOME. You get to take like 10 poses then you can choose which ones you want and THEN decorate them. And every machine is different, so you can never get bored.

Anyway we started the night at Shame, one of the more western-style bars in Niigata. There's usually quite a few foreigners there and um, bolder Japanese folks. 11:30 is when the last train from Niigata leaves and by then it seemed that the night was just beginning, so everyone but Kate (lame!) decided to stay out.


We had a long night ahead of us so we bellied up to the bar and started mingling.


I ran into Pru, this wicked Aussie who I used to b.s. with when I actually used to go out. She's hammered in this picture, but trust me, she's awesome.


A highlight of the night was when this guy, Daisuke (on the left), started chatting me up. He was hammered but kind of cute and wearing Dolce and Gabbana pants, so I played along. Eventually, in typical, self-conscious Japanese man form, these dudes started arm-wrestling. I'm fairly certain it was over me, but actually I think they forgot I existed once the testosterone started raging. Have I mentioned how random J-dudes are? Awesome.


Around 4:00 we hit a wall which kinda sucked since we still had an hour till our morning train, so we all passed out at our table at Shame. Good thing the owner there isn't a creep about people sleeping in his bar...


All in all, it was a good time but granny's been paying for it all week at school!

Tunnel Vision!

I can't stop thinking about snowboarding!!!
Yesterday's snow has melted. ざんねん！ But I can see the mountains from my desk at school and they are so pretty and white. Aaron & I are gonna wax our boards on Wednesday and maybe I'll be able to make it out before Xmas break (15 days by the way!).
はやくスノボ行きたいね。

On Sunday I was feeling adventurous so I wandered into the small board shop in Maki to see a.) if I could find anything to spend my money on, b.) which ski-jos come recommended by the serious boarders out here and c.) if there were any cute guys to practice my Japanese with. Like I expected, it took only a few minutes before one of the workers got up the nerve to approach me and ask if I could speak Japanese. I replied with the usual "sukoshi dake" (just a little) and we started chatting. I asked the guy which resorts he liked best and I told him where I went last year. I also asked about Joetsu Kokusai where we were going to get season passes and he told me it sucked for boarders, so good thing we didn't get passes there! Then, he gave me this huge coupon book for at least 1000yen off all the major resorts in Niigata and Nagano and pointed out which ones he likes best. It was awesome!

It pays to be adventurous with your Japanese!

雪が降っている！
There was snow on the ground this morning and it's been raining/snowing all day. YES! One step closer to snowboarding season!
楽しみ！