Aaron Ackerson's Blog

Picture of the Day: Braille for your feet



In Japan, these tiles are on the curbs of many intersections and at the bottom and top of staircases in some buildings, so that blind people won't accidentally step into the street or fall down the stairs. Also, there is music and sometimes sound effects that play at many intersections when the light changes.

For some reason, today seemed to go faster than Thursday or Friday did. With Nishioka-sensei's approval, I went to the Junior High again. I spent some time reading an Akira comic that a student had left for me to borrow, and then I spent some time exploring the inside of the school. After that, I went back to the school office, and there was actually some work for me to do!

Arakawa-sensei, who had gone with us to Nara last week, was grading some English homework, and she had some questions for me about whether or not some phrases had been written correctly, and about the meanings of some words. For a few minutes, I actually felt useful!

I went to 7-11 to buy my lunch. Typically, my lunch is pretty eclectic. I usually get kimchi (Korean pickles), a Japanese rice ball with umeboshi (a pickled plum) inside, and some kind of bread or pastry. Anyway, today I was there at the same time as some other Kanan Junior High teachers. One of them talked with me a little while I was there, and gave me a ride back to the school after I bought my food. Also, the store clerk recognized me and remembered that I carry my own set of chopsticks and thus don't need disposable ones with my purchase.

After eating lunch at the Junior High office, I went back to the town office, where we were given the September issue of the Kanan Newsletter, which you can read here. I'm on page 12 and Sasha is on page 13.

Also while I was there, Nishioka-sensei also told me that September 1st is a holiday for Kanan Junior High, because that's the date it was founded. This will work out great for me because I was planning on staying out late for my birthday on August 31st anyway. I'll have to be at school by 8 am on Thursday though...

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Picture of the Day: Something for the Ladies



Apparently, train perverts have become enough of a problem that during certain busy hours, women have reserved train cars where they won't have to worry about getting goosed.

Today is August 29th, and I arrived in Japan on July 25th, but in a certain way, it feels like it's been more like two months since I arrived. I think it's because I've experienced so much since I've come here. I feel differently now than I did a few weeks ago when I first moved to Tondabayashi. For my first week or so here, every morning when I woke up, I was like, "Holy crap, I'm in Japan!" But these days, I'm starting to take it for granted that Japan is where I live now. That is not to say though that I'm not still enjoying my time here.

Here's what's happened since I wrote my last entry:

On Wednesday, Ueda-sensei (who I recognized from the Junior High as soon as I saw her) picked us up around 9:45 and took us to a large department store, bigger than the Daiai near our apartments. I picked up some things I had been needing, such as a toaster to cook the toaster pastries my mom had sent in my latest care package.

After that, sensei took us to Panjo, the mostly-clothing mall that Amimoto-sensei had taken us to previously. It was a little boring, but I did pick up a really cool glasses case there.

After that, she took us to Amimoto-sensei's house for a little party. Present were myself, Sasha, Ueda-sensei and her daughters, Erica and Marina, Amimoto-sensei, and another Junior High English teacher.

Amimoto-sensei had fixed lots of great food for us, the main course being vegetarian curry (she didn't use any meat in the preparation, because she knew I was vegetarian).

After we ate, Ueda-sensei and her daughters, who belong to a community gospel choir in Tondabayashi, sang some gospel songs for us, and then Erica and Marina played with some marionettes that Amimoto-sensei had in her house...

That night, Sasha and I went to the "Jazz Bar" a few blocks away from my apartment to see a group called "Bring Station" perform. At first, we were the only two people there other than the band and the bartender.

Sasha and I chatted with the band before they started their first set. When they went on, they did their best to introduce their songs in English, because other than the bartender, Sasha and I were their only audience. But as the continued to play, two other people came in. One of them was the woman who owns the bar and the other Sasha presumed to be the owner's boyfriend.

When the band took a break between sets, they overheard me telling Sasha that I had studied jazz piano in college, and they asked me to sit in for one song during their second set! They asked me what jazz tunes I knew, and I suggested that we play "Comin' Home Baby" by Earl Hagen, which is one of the few jazz tunes that I can play off the top of my head. Only the guitarist was familiar with the song, so he explained the chord changes to the other two members of the trio.

It was a lot of fun to play with them, but it was also humbling, because I was definately the least accomplished player in the band. Everyone seemed to enjoy my contribution though. We got some nice applause, and the band seemed happy to have me play with them. After the second half of their performance, I traded my CD for theirs.

Later that night, Sasha remarked to me that she thought the band sounded better with me on piano than they did as a trio. I don't know if I agree with her about that, but it was very nice to hear that from her.

The next day Sasha and I went back to work at the Board of Education, and for once I wasn't late, because Sasha made sure not to get ahead of me, and she corrected me when I made any wrong turns.

We didn't really have any work to do that day, but we did get a chance to talk with Nishioka-sensei. He told us the story of how he and his family lived in Burma for several years, where he taught at a school for children of Japanese businessmen who were working abroad there, and where he also taught Japanese to the locals on a volunteer basis. He said that for the first few months, everything was new and exciting, but after that things got stressful because of language and culture differences, but by their second year there, they had settled into their new life, and the similarity between Burmese culture and their own became more pronounced than the differences. And when they finally moved back to Japan, their daughters wished they could stay in Burma.

He also told us about my predecessors, Don and the New Zealander who came before him (I want to say his name is Hamish, but I'm not sure if that's correct). He said that both of them had experiences to his own, feeling excited about everything in their first few months, feeling weighed down by linguistic and cultural differences after that, and then becoming accustomed to Japanese life. He said that Hamish (?), not unlike his daughters, didn't want to leave his adopted home when the time came to do so.

After telling these stories, he told us that anytime we have any problems with life in Japan that we can talk to him about them. I thought that was really touching, and I'm glad that we have a supervisor who has experience living abroad himself and thus has an understanding of our situation that many others wouldn't.

That afternoon, while Sasha and I were sitting at our table at the office, talking with each other (since we didn't really have anything else to do), I invited her to come to my house that evening, where I would cook dinner for the two of us after which we could watch a DVD on my new region-free DVD player. Up until this point, other than microwaving stuff, I hadn't done any cooking in my apartment, and having a guest was a good reason to start.

Several weeks ago, I had bought some "hotcake" mix with Mickey and Minnie mouse on the box. This is what I wanted to cook, but first, I needed a few things from the supermarket, including cooking oil and a spatula.

While I was walking around at Daiei, a few little boys noticed me and started talking to me. Then their friends saw us and started talking to me also. Before I knew it, I had a large fanclub following me all over the store. According to one of them, that was the first time he'd ever talked with a foreigner.

They helped me find some of things I was looking for, and they asked me to play Taiko no Tatsujin (my current video game, which is on the top floor of Daiei) with them, which I obliged. Once I had finished my shopping, they even followed me home! They asked if they could come inside, but I refused. I've heard stories about little Japanese kids being afraid of foreigners, but those boys were so outgoing towards me, I think if anything, I should be afraid of them!

When Sasha came over, she showed me how to work my gas range. Just like my shower's water heater, the secret is to push down on the dial to ignite the flame. Anyway, I cooked one very large pancake, which the two of us split. I overcooked it a little, so it was a tiny bit burnt on one side, but it was still good.

After eating, we watched my DVD of the Miyazaki film, Kiki's Delivery Service, which we both enjoyed thoroughly. I chose that movie for two reasons, one of which being that out of all the Miyazaki DVDs I had, that's the one that I hadn't watched in the longest time. The other reason was that I thought that as JETs, both of us could relate to the story of Kiki, who left her home and everything she knew to find a new life for herself in an unfamiliar place.

The film hit even closer to home with us than I thought it would. It was uncanny how many things in the film reminded us of ourselves and our lives in Japan so far. I recommend this film to other JETs who might be reading this, and to anyone else who has or is currently living abroad. I also reccomend that people who don't fit into this category watch it also, just because it's a good movie. You should watch Miyazaki's other films too while you're at it.

Friday was another long day at the office with no real work to do, and this time Nishioka-sensei wasn't even there. On Thursday, there were times when I had to fight (unsuccessfully) to stay awake, and on Friday Sasha was fighting the same fight. Meanwhile, I gave up the fight and just let myself drift off for a while.

After I woke up, and Nishioka-sensei was still nowhere to be seen (it turned out that he had meetings he had to attend for most of the day), I decided to head off to the Junior High to hang out with the students, something my predecessor had strongly recommened that I do before I start teaching. He said that one of his biggest regrets was not taking the time to hang around the school and meet the students before classes began.

After I got there, I heard the sound of music, which I followed to the band room, where members of the school band were warming up for their rehearsal. I sat down in the room and listened to them warm up and then rehearse for an hour.

One of the songs they rehearsed was "Locomotion," by Orange Range (pronounced "Orenji Renji"), which is apparently one of the most popular songs in Japan right now. I've heard a muzak version of the same song in Daiei. It's a catchy rock song losely based around the Gerry Goffin/Carol King composition, "Loco-Motion."

I was particularly impressed with one of the percussionists, who played drumkit on this song. I don't think she was any older than 14, but she could read drum music, keep a really steady rock beat, and play with restraint, which is more than can be said for many drummers who are older than her.

Their rehearsal ended at noon, and I was ready for lunch. I bought some food at 7-11 and brought it back to my desk at the school office, where I hoped some students might come to talk to me as they had eariler that week. But being a Friday, not as many students were around, and by the time I finished lunch, most of the students who were there that day had gone home, so I went back to the BoE.

When I got back to the Kanan Town office, I saw several students on the first floor, but feeling shy, I didn't converse much with them before I went back up to the third floor where I sat wish Sasha again. We talked for a little while before I decided that I wanted to go back and talk with the students. I invited Sasha to come with me, but she said she was afraid it would make it look like she wasn't working, so I opted to go by myself.

The students were still down there, so I sat with them and had a really pleasant and relaxing conversation with them (mostly in Japanese). After they went home, I went back up and chatted with Sasha some more until our "work" day was over.

Later, after I had gotten home, Nishioka-sensei came over to make sure I knew the procedure for paying my rent, which I already did, and while he was here, he also helped me with some other things, including deciphering my mail. He showed me which things were and were not bills. He also took custody of a cel phone bill which was addressed to my predecessor, Don. I showed Sensei a 'notice of failed delivery' from Yahoo! which I found in my door when I got home that day. He called the number on it and told them that now I'm home and they can try to make the delivery again. In a matter of minutes, the delivery man brought the modem to my apartment, after which Nishioka-sensei helped me set it up.

Since then, I've really been enjoying the benifits of having broadband. Now I can once again listen to radio stations online. I've been spending a lot of time listening to my favorite station in the world, Cleveland State University's WCSB. On Saturday, I was able to catch KRUD (a weekly internet broadcast by Marko a.k.a. B0B Barker, who did one of the remixes on my album), and my favorite talk radio show, Loveline, which I listened to on the internet stream of Cities 97, from Minneapolis. Today I listened to Wolf Den Radio, another weekly internet-only show.

Another cool thing about Yahoo! BB is that I can make really cheap phone calls. According to a friend who also has the service, calls to the U.S. are 2.5 yen per minute, and calls to other Yahoo! BB users is free.

Also, having a broadband connection has made uploading photos to my blog into a less time-consuming process.

Last night, Sasha and I went to MoreCore for the second time, where we met up with a few other JETs and people who they brought with them. We met with Jarrod, an Austrailian who I recognized from before, who brought along his girlfriend Sandra, who came to Japan last week just to be with him.

We also met with Jill, a third year JET who is from Tondabayashi's sister city...

She brought along her friend Rachael, an English girl who works for a local engineering company as an English teacher for their employees. Jill also brought along her boyfriend Koji, who Sasha and I had meet last week when we went to MoreCore for the first time.

When Sasha and I first got to the bar, there were bouncers at the entrance who told us that there was going to be a private party that night. I got a little worried at first, buy Shoji (the owner/bartender) came out and told them that it was cool for us to come in. After we went in and sat down, he gave us each a free beer!

I had fun that night, but I also felt really uncomfortable, because the place got really crowded and noisey because of the party. At times, I could barely hear what people at my own table were saying. Also, we didn't get a chance to really converse with Shoji this time, because he was too busy working. But as some of the party attendees filtered out, things got a little more comfortable, and after some of the JET crew also headed home, some friendly Japanese guys came to our table and started conversing with us, which I really enjoyed.

Today was pretty uneventful. The only time I left my apartment was to go to Daiei. While I was there, some of the boys from Thursday spotted me and followed me around some more. After I bought the things I needed, I played Taiko no Tatsujin with them again.

I expect tomorrow to be like Thursday and Friday in that we'll have to be at work, but we'll probably have no responsibilities other than just being there. I plan to use the time to print out a request for an absentee ballot for the upcoming U.S. election. I'll probably hang out at Kanan Junior High too.

Tuesday is my 23rd birthday, and I will celebrate by singing karaoke in Osaka City. I sent invitations to join me to everyone I know in the area who has an e-mail address, and I also posted about it on a few JET web boards. I'm pretty sure Sasha will be coming along, and hopefully a few other people will too. For anyone in the Osaka area who might be reading this, and might want to join me for some karaoke starting at 6 pm on the night of August 31st, here are the directions to the place (which I haven't been to yet), according to Rachael:

THE SIGN SAYS KAREOKE & THERE'S A BIG SMILEYFACE ON IT.WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT ABENOBASHI,YOU TAKE THE ESCALATOR DOWN, THEN WALK STRAIGHT TO ANOTHER ONE,THIS TAKES YOU TO TENNOJI SATION.WALK STRAIGHT AHEAD TO THE EXIT AT THE END & TURN RIGHT.IT'S ABOUT 150 METERS FROM HERE, ON YOUR RIGHT.

See you there.

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Picture of the Day: Hotel the Lutheran



A wedding chapel/hotel in the Tennoji area of Osaka.

Before I pick up where I left off in my last entry, I'd like to mention that right now I am listening to something on my new FM radio that I would not have expected to hear on Japanese Radio: A show on which two Filipina women are discussing women's health in a mixture of English and some other language (Tagalog maybe?). Who woulda thunk...

Anyway, at the institute we had two days of classes, with two classes each day. The students were divided into four different groups, based on their skill level, but they were free to move to other groups if they felt their classes were too easy or too hard. I was in Class B, which was the second-highest level. I felt adequately challenged but not too much so. The only time I really felt like I was struggling to keep my head above water was in the 3rd class, when the teacher just talked at us for most of the class, instead of engaging us in discussion as the other teachers did. There were four teachers, who rotated among the classes, so that all the students got one class with each teacher (assuming they didn't switch classes).

Our homework, which we presented in the final class, was to prepare a speech in Japanese about our hometowns. Even though I usually tell people I am from Chicago for the sake of simplicity, I felt weird about writing a speech about Chicago, saying that it's my hometown, even though I'm from Park Forest, a south suburb of Chicago. But on the other hand, I didn't feel like I had anything to say about Park Forest, so I wrote a speech about how boring Park Forest is and how Chicago is more interesting. I didn't really trash-talk Park Forest though. I just said that there wasn't anything remarkable about it. I mentioned that the 1990s grunge band Soundgarden was from Park Forest, but that I didn't like them very much.

The highlight of my time at the institute was on Thursday night, when I decided to try karaoke for the first time. When I went to the karaoke room around 8 pm, no one else was there, so I figured out how to use the equipment and started finding songs that I liked in the book. Slowely, other people started to filter in, and by the end of the night it had turned into a huge karaoke party.

The book had a great selection of songs in several different languages, including English, Japanese, and Engrish. There was also a section of Korean songs, but nobody there could read Korean lyrics, so we didn't sing any of those.

Some of the songs I sang included "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Welcome to the Jungle," "We Will Rock You," "Choo Choo Train," "Boom Boom Dollar," and "Funkastic," (which I totally butchered).

Since there was also an electric piano in the room, I played piano on "Sweet Child of Mine."

Here are some various other photos from the Institute:

After Sasha and I got back to Tondabayashi on Friday, we went to the neighboring town of Kishi to go to a bar called MoreCore, which Sasha's predecessor Mike had recommended to me. First, we went to an Udon restaurant, because we were pretty hungry. There, we met a Japanese guy called Daiba (his nickname, not his real name), a dancehall reggae DJ who has spent a lot of time in Jamaica, has a Jamaican girlfriend, and speaks English with a Jamaican accent. He was very happy to meet us and to have someone to speak English with. After Sasha and I finished or meal, Daiba showed us his store, where he sells hip-hop and dancehall mix CDs and hip-hop clothing.

After that, we went to MoreCore, where we met the owner/bartender Shoji (who Mike had told me is "the nicest guy in the world") We also met a woman named Suzuka (presumably Shoji's wife), and Shoji's friend Koji, whose girlfriend is Jill, another JET who lives in Tondabayashi. Since she was back in America for a while, we haven't gotten to meet Jill yet, but hopefully we will soon.

The bar had a great atmosphere. The place was decorated nicely, and there was a TV showing western music videos. Shoji really is a nice guy. Shortly after we met him, he asked us not to use "-san" when addressing him, which implies familiarity. Sasha had several beers, and I had two cocktails, both of which were very sweet and fruity. I hope Shoji remembers what the second one he served me was, because I want to have that again the next time I go there. It was green-colored, carbonated, and very sweet.

I think the amount of alchohol I've consumed since arriving in Japan is more the amount I had consumed in my whole life before coming here. That's really not saying much though, since I barely drank at all before coming here. I've never gotten drunk, and I have no intention of doing so. I've found that I do enjoy drinking though, as long as the drink isn't too strong or bitter.

The next day, I made another trip to Den-Den Town (by myself this time), where a bought a region-free DVD player, which is something I've been wanting since I got here.

On Sunday, I got up late, and stayed home most of the day, not doing much of anything.

On Monday, Sasha and I rode our bikes to the office in the morning. I told myself that this time, I was going to pedal fast and not lose track of her. I did better than I usually do, but a few blocks away from the office I lost Sasha, and with her, all sense of direction. It had also started to rain around then. After trying to find the way on my own for a while (and failing), I called the office, where they gave the phone to Sasha, and she told me which way to go. When I was almost there, Nishioka-sensei drove by and pointed me in the right direction. When I got there, I was once again late and soaking wet. I don't think I was any more than 5 minutes late this time, but I felt pretty bad that I hadn't kept up with Sasha like I told myself I would, and that I had managed to get lost when I was practically on top of the office.

Once we were both there, Nishioka-sensei took us to the cashier, who gave us August's salary in cash. We were supposed to get it on Wednesday, but since Nishioka-sensei had been so busy preparing for the presentation that day, he forgot about our money until after the cashier's window had closed. But now that we have bank accounts, our salary will be automatically deposited in there every month from now on.

Right after that, I got a call from Amimoto-sensei at the Junior high saying there was another package for me (another one from my mom, this time mostly filled with macaroni and cheese). After I got there, she asked me to write a very short self-introduction speech to present to the students. She showed me speeches by Don and his predecessor. I really liked Don's because after his speech, he had a quiz about the speech's content, so I wrote a speech and a quiz in a similar style.

One of the things I mentioned in the speech was that I like anime. When she read the speech, Amimoto-sensei suggested that sometime, we show the students some anime dubbed into English. So far, she has suggested that I sing songs and watch anime as part of my teaching. I haven't started teaching yet, so I don't know for sure, but I think this will be a pretty sweet gig.

Later, when I was finishing lunch at my desk, three female students came to the office, wanting to talk with me. One of them is one who I had met previously, before she and some other students went to Brisbane with Mr. Nishioka. Out of the other two, one of them, named Megumi, didn't speak or understand English, so she mostly just sat there while the other two asked me a lot of questions. I made an effort to communicate with her too. Whenever I'm talking with a group of Japanese schoolkids, there's usually one or more in the group who seem like they want to talk with me, but because of the language barrier and/or their own shyness, they can't bring themselves to very easily, so I try to reach out to them. I think one reason I do this is because being a shy person myself, I can relate to them.

Anywho, the topic of conversation turned to anime at one point, and when Amimoto-sensei told them that we were planning to show them some Japanese anime in English, they got really excited. I thought this was amusing, considering that many American fans of Japanse animation feel that English-dubbed anime is a travesty, but here are these Japanese kids who think that anime in English is the coolest idea ever.

As long as I'm poking fun at American anime fanatics, there's anoter point I'd like to bring up. In Japan, all cartoons are considered "anime." In a record store I went to on Saturday, guess what the Disney soundtracks were filed under? That's right, they were in the "anime" section, which gave me a chuckle because many American otaku (a Japanese slang term refering to people who obsess over some aspect of pop-culture) hate Disney with a passion and will get mad if you suggest that Disney cartoons are in a similar genre as Japanese cartoons. And they hate it if you use the word "cartoons" to describe anything Japanese.

It is interesting to note that I have heard Japanese people refer to Japanse anime as "cartoons" when they speak English, and they are often surprised when they are told that in the U.S., the term "anime" only refers to cartoons from Japan. But I digress...

After talking with them for a while, the girls had to go, and they said the next time they saw me, they wanted to show me some of their favorite comic books, and they wanted me to show them photos from America.

Today (technically yesterday, it's after midnight now, yadda-yadda-yadda), Amimoto-sensei took us and another teacher named Arakawa(?)-sensei to Nara, a very historic city with a lot of old Buddhist stuff. We saw a museum with many Buddhist statues from different eras, some of which were made in other countries, and we went to a temple that had "Daibutsu" (a big Budda). We also saw a lot of deer, which is apparently something else Nara is famous for.

Tomorrow, a teacher named Ueda-sensei (who I've supposedly met, but I don't remember) will take us to a shopping center in the morning, and then to Amimoto-sensei's house in the afternoon, where she has invited us for a little party. At 9 pm, me an Sasha plan to go see some live jazz at a bar a few blocks from my apartment.

Talk to you later.

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Picture of the Day: Tondabayashi's PL Tower



Not even the locals know what to make of that thing. I love it.

On Wednesday morning at 9 am, Sasha and I met Amimoto-sensei in front of the library. It didn't open until 10 am though, so we didn't go inside. We went straight to the bank to set up our accounts, which we were now able to do because we now had our Alien Registration Cards.,"
After that, we went to the Kanan Town Office to prepare for our presentations. Sasha spent time looking over the speech outline she had written, and worked with the two elementary school teachers she had met the previous day to prepare for their team-teaching demonstration. I went into a meeting room to practice playing and singing "Party Hard."

When the time got closer to the presentation, we moved into the large room where it would take place. Amimoto-sensei told me that Nishioka-sensei had asked her to read a translation of the "Party Hard," and she had some questions about what some of the lyrics meant. The part I had the most trouble explaining was "When everythings stops feeling alright, then everything is alright," because not even I am not sure exactly what Andrew W.K. meant by that.

As the time drew near, the room started to fill with elementary school teachers. First, Sasha and the male teacher, Tawa-sensei, team-taught with the rest of us playing the role of elementary school students. They use illustrations and a game which involved a catchy chant.

After this, several of the teachers lead a group discussion. I'm not sure what it was about, because it was all in Japanese. I was pretty bored during that.

Then it was time for Sasha to give her speech. After saying a few openning words in Japanese, she gave a speech about herself and Australia, which the female elementary school teacher translated.

Then it was my turn. I spontaneously decided to open with a Japanese wordplay joke that I had made up on my own. As I stepped in front of the audience, I pretended to lose my balance and then exclaimed, "Ochisou-sama deshita!"

"Ochisou deshita" = "I was about to fall"
"Gochisou-sama deshita" = a very common phrase used at the end of a meal, meaning "that was a feast!"

I think they liked the joke. It sure surprised them anyway. After that, I read my prepared speech and Amimoto-sensei translated it paragraph by paragraph. You can read the speech here.

They applauded at the part about how I respect the Japanese for the importance they place on foreign language study.

After I spoke, I lead the "Party Hard" sing-along, which went even better than I expected it to! I put together a lyric sheet one which the background parts were in parenthesis. I sang the song once through myself just to demonstrate how the tune went, but the audience caught on immediately and sang along with me even though most of them had presumably never heard the song before! Everyone, including Amimoto-sensei and Nishioka-sensei loved it, and it turned out to be a really great finale to the event.

After this, Amimoto-sensei read the lyrics, translated into Japanese, after which I lead one more sing-along which went even better than the first one. I made an audio recording of my whole presentation, so at some point I will be able to put it on this site. Right now though, I have neither the means to transfer it to mp3 or the bandwidth to upload it in short amount of time.

After this, Nishioka-sensei drove us to Rinku Town (home of Kansai Internation Airport) where the next day we would begin two days of classes at The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute at Kansai. The institute was a really, really nice place. As guests, we got to stay in hotel-like dorm rooms with air-conditioning and over 50 channels of satellite TV, including an all-anime station called Animax.

Well, it's getting late now, I'm getting tired, and I've got an early morning tomorrow, so I'll have to draw this entry to a close now and pick up where I left off next time.

See ya!

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Picture of the Day: "Fresh Dairy"



Guess what they stock in the "Fresh Dairy" section at Daiei. Unless you guessed "nothing but fish," then you are so wrong...

On Monday, we went back to work. We were supposed to be there by 9:00 am, but since Sasha got ahead of me and I lost track of her on the bike ride there, I ended up getting lost and being 10 minutes late. No one seemed to care very much though. Probably because there ended up being nothing crucial for me to do that day anyway. Neither Ms. Amimoto nor Mr. Nishioka were in that day. The only person who was there to see us was an elementary school teacher whose name I forget, who was mainly there to meet with Sasha.

Nishioka-sensei told us a while ago that we'd each have to give a 15-minute lecture about ourselves and our homelands on Wednesday the 18th. I assumed that whoever we met with on Monday would mainly be helping us prepare for that, but the elementary teacher didn't really know much more about the presentation than we did. She was able to give me some good topic ideas anyway though. I spent most of my time at the office that day writing my speech.

A care package was waiting for me at the Junior High School that day (I have my mom send them to the school rather than to my apartment because I've heard from multiple people that if you're not home when a package is delivered, it might get returned to the sender). Since I couldn't bring it back home on my bike, the elementary teacher and I decided that the best way to get it back to my place was for me to leave the Board of Ed at 1:30 on my bike, and at 2:00 she would leave with the package in her car and meet me in the library parking lot near my apartment. (The reason she didn't want to meet me at my apartment building is because the roads there are too narrow for her comfort.)

When I left at 1:30 I got lost almost immediately, and yet another ride that should have taken only 15 minutes ended up taking an hour, and the teacher had to wait for me for over 20 minutes. She was really nice about it, though.

Among the contents of the package was a bike helmet, which is a pretty uncommon thing to wear here, but not completely unheard of. I'm glad to have it now because I never feel safe riding on the narrow streets here, many of which have no real sidewalks. Even the wider streets in town are pretty narrow by American standards.

Also in the package were a new pair of slippers which actually fit me! They are a tiny bit awkward, because they "slip" off when I walk too fast, but they are infinately more comfortable and easy to walk in than the generic slippers I wore at Kanan Junior High School before.

That night, I went to Osaka City to meet with my friend Eva, a third-year JET with impressive Japanese skills, and a lot of great stories and advice.

I first came to know Eva back when I was starting to work on my JET Program application last year. I looked around for JET-related resources online, and I found her blog-like Yahoo! Group, Eva's JET Life. She answered the questions that I asked her along the way and gave me some great encouragement, and when I started this blog, she became a regular reader.

Last week or so, she e-mailed me to let me know that she would be passing through Osaka around this time and that she'd like to get together, so I took my first ever train ride by myself to Osaka City on Monday night to meet her for dinner.

As a side note, one great benefit of having e-mail on your cel phone in Japan is that you can use your phone on the train without looking like a complete jerk (actually talking on your phone is frowned upon in trains). This is how we kept track of each other's location as we were each on our way to the city.

Anyway, we ate at an Udon/Soba place first and then to another restaraunt (I forget the name) that has western foods, including pizza and tacos. It was really great to meet her finally. She's very positive and friendly. It was also a little surreal because when I first found her Yahoo! Group, I wouldn't have thought we'd actually meet some day. Between getting to hang out with Eva and finding that I could easily take the train both ways between Tondabayashi and Osaka-shi by myself, Monday night was the most fun I'd had since the Naganos showed me and Sasha around Osaka a week and a half ago. Eva also bought my CD, because I'd mentioned before that I had gotten played on Dr. Demento, and she is a huge Dr. Demento fan! She's the first person in Japan to buy one.

This morning it was kind of rainy, so Nishioka-sensei picked me and Sasha up in front of Sasha's apartment. Two elementary school teachers (including the one from the previous day) were at the office to meet with Sasha and to help her prepare for teaching at her five elementary schools. I was soon called over to the Junior High by Amimoto-sensei, who wanted me to look at the materials that had been left by my predecessors, including the lesson plans that Don had made. There were also some random magazines from New Zealand which had been left by another predecessor. Ms. Amimoto had a few things she had to attend to, including a teachers' meeting which was supposed to only last 1 hour, but ended up lasting 2 hours.

I looked at the team-teaching stuff for a while, and after I felt that I had gotten all I could out of that, I started reading an article about Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in Uncut, a Rolling Stone-like magaine from New Zealand.

Sensei's meeting finally ended and we had a late lunch together. I had a kind of soup called "Corn Potage." I'd never heard of it before, but apparently "potage" is a real English word, and that kind of soup is pretty common in Japan. I also had a "Crepe Omlette," which kind of looked like an omlette, but tasted more like a pastry.

It was around lunchtime that Amimoto-sensei told me that the 5 minutes worth of speech that I had written so far was enough, and that I should spend the rest of my presentation time teaching an English language song to the 50 or 60 elementary teachers who will be our audience.

I thought for a while and decided on "Party Hard" by Andrew W.K. I'm going to play the little Yamaha keyboard that I brought with me while singing the lead vocals, and I'm going to try to teach the mostly non-English speaking teachers the background vocals. It might crash and burn, but either way it will definately be fun to try.

After work today, Amimoto-sensei drove me and Sasha to a shopping mall in the nearby city of Sakai. It wasn't really my kind of mall. Almost every store there sold mainly clothing. I did pick up few things while I was there though, including a handbag and some plastic chopsticks.

The chopsticks and their case bore the likenesses of characters from the Hayao Miyazaki film "My Neighbor Totoro." I haven't seen the film yet, but I am a big fan of Miyazaki's work in general.

When I bought the chopsticks and case, the store clerk asked me if they were a present. You'll hear a lot of fans of Japanese anime talk about how in Japan, animation is regarded as a serious art form that's not just for kids. This is true to a certain extent, but if you are an adult buying merchandise with cartoon characters on it, store clerks will apparently think you're a weirdo. I got the same reaction when I bought a Pokemon pencil case a few weeks ago.

When I got home, i practiced "Party Hard," and got started on this blog entry. ("Dear Diary, today I wrote in my diary...")

I should get to bed soon because tomorrow I have to get up early again. Amimoto-sensei will show me and Sasha around the Tondabayashi library, and then she will help us get our bank accounts before we go to the Board of Education to give our presentations to the elementary school teachers.

After our presentations, Nishioka-sensei will drive us to the institute where the Osaka JETs will have a three-day Japanese language course. Since we're not leaving until the afternoon, we'll be missing the content of the first day, but that's just an orientation anyway. The real class starts on the second day.

Also, we get paid tomorrow, which I'm excited about.

As a closing note, I apologize for my previous entry. I got way too carried away with that and I ended up doing the same kind of whining that I said I didn't want to do on here. I promise I will think twice the next time I am tempted to use this forum to engage in that kind of self-indulgence.

Talk to ya later!

Posted by Aaron Ackerson at 01:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Picture of the Day: "Lordy, Lordy!"



He must take that HGH stuff...

Compared to last few weeks, this week was really boring. No reason to go to the office, and nobody taking us to exciting places. Also, this weekend Sasha went on a trip with some other Australian girls, so I couldn't do anything with her either.

I had been planning to go to Osaka City on Saturday with Holly (who I had met at the orientation on Tuesday) and some other JETs. She was supposed to send me information about where and when we were to meet, but I never received it. It turns out she spelled my e-mail address wrong.

On Saturday afternoon, I was talking with some other JETs online who were planning an outing that night in Osaka, and I asked them to call my cel phone as soon as they knew exactly what their plans were. They said they would, but I never heard from them either...

These last few days, the monotony and boredom have given way to feelings of loneliness and isolation. Not in a homesick or culture-shocked way, mind you. They are the same kind of lonely feelings I got back in the U.S. whenever I was on vacation from school, and there were no classes or homework to distract me from the fact that I had no real social life.

Every day, I have been haunted by the words of that Chicago cop who spoke at my pre-departure orientation, who said that every day that passes is one less day you have in Japan, and that if you put off doing the things you want to do, they will never get done, and you'll never get another chance to do them. But for me, putting myself into social situations isn't something that's in my vocabulary, no matter what country I'm in.

I went for a long walk today, which usually makes me feel better at times like this, but it didn't help much this time. Sasha came back tonight though, and we hung out for a while. That dramatically improved my mood, so hopefully I won't be feeling any more intense loneliness for a while.

We go back to work tomorrow, which I'm really glad about (even though we have to be at the office by 9 am, ouch!) That will give me something to do other than sitting around and feeling sorry for myself.

I'm sorry this entry has been such a downer. When I first sat down to write it, I planned for it only to be a few paragraphs, but once I got going I felt like I needed to talk more about that stuff in order to blow off steam, and I had to use some restraint to keep it from getting even longer and more melodramatic. The last thing I want is for this to become one of those stereotypical blogs where people do nothing but whine about how pathetic their lives are.

But at the same time, I feel like I would be doing a disservice to you if I didn't at least acknowledge that my life isn't non-stop fun. I'll try not to dwell too much on the bad stuff though, because I know that would be no fun for you to read about.

And for those who might be worried about me after reading this, I want you to know: I'm fine. I'm very glad to be where I am now. I still feel that applying for the JET Program is one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's.

Posted by Aaron Ackerson at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By the way, thanks to someone on I Think I'm Lost, I was able to find the solution to my Wordtank problem. You can read the thread here.

Posted by Aaron Ackerson at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Picture of the Day: A motion-controlled sink which dispenses both water and soap

Yesterday, Sasha and I went to our last JET Program orientation, this one held for Osaka JETs in Osaka City. I saw some people I hadn't seen in two weeks. There were several speeches, some group discussions, and a demonstration of a Brazilian martial art called Capoera, which is pretty cool to watch. It's almost like dancing. Probably the most important thing I got out of this orientation was a book called Osaka Survival Guide 2004, which has some useful information compiled by a group of JET volunteers.

After the orientation, I went with a group of Australians and one other American to a nearby restaurant. It's a kind of restaurant where before you sit down, you buy a ticket from a vending machine near the entrance to get the kind of food you want. Then you give that ticket to the server and they relay your order to the kitchen.

Posted by Aaron Ackerson at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the things I looked forward to most about Japan was the weird Japanese English which is often refered to as "Engrish." Here are some examples I've photographed so far:

An appetizing drink

"I like my dictionaries like I like my shoes..."

The bathroom slipper that doesn't care much for environmental activists

Breakdancing for the planet

If you're going to feel crummy, it might as well be in the color of rainbow.

Yum.

"Fruits Loop." Trust me, that's what it says.

Addicted to Engrish

A shirt to wear to Home Depot

Remember Beano? Now it's back... in sandal form!

Double-yum.

I wonder if she does dope, and whether she's ever gotten busy with a soap on a rope (sorry, inside joke).

Random. English. Words.

They might as well have named the car the "Suzuki Arbitrary."

Just supply chain management logistics, and nothing else

From the makers of Tic-Tac...

This floor will not be stopped, no matter what the elevator has to say about it!

This one is pretty clever, actually.

WELL, ARE YOU!?!?!?

I never knew Hamburg was famous for its beefstew pizza curry.

After drinking booze comes coffee and lunch.

Posted by Aaron Ackerson at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, Sasha and I went to Osaka City by ourselves, to practice for Tuesday, when we will need to go to an orientation for Osaka JETs. We took a long walk to the place where it will be, and then we took another long walk to a place called Den-Den Town ("Den" meaning electricity), an area with many electronics shops. It's a cool place, and I hope to go back there by myself sometime when I have more spending money.

The main reason I wanted to go there was to get an electronic dictionary. I ended up getting a Canon Wordtank G50, mainly because it has English menus and an English manual. It seemed like a good purchase at the time, but when I got it home, I found that I couldn't get it to do some stuff that I think is pretty essential. My main problem is that when I look up a word in the English-Japanese mode, I can't see the furigana (kana showing the pronunciation of kanji) for the Japanese words. I looked in the manual, but still couldn't find any way to get furigana. I feel like it would be more useful to carry around a paper dictionary. If I had spent more money, I could have gotten a fancier model that has a quiz mode that might have been helpful to me, but as it is, I'm seriously wondering if it will ever be useful to me.

If anyone out there has experience with Wordtanks, could you tell me how to get more out of it? Right now, I'm feeling like I just wasted a whole lot of money.

Tomorrow, Sasha plans to go to a beach. I'll probably go with her.

Posted by Aaron Ackerson at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't need to get up early for anything tomorrow, so tonight I will hopefully be able to catch up to the present.

Though before I talk about Sunday, I want to backtrack to Wednesday (this is turning into a Tarentino movie after all...) Nishioka-Sensei told me that when my suitcase first arrived, the carrier said that it was making strange sounds. It turns out that the little keyboard I put inside somehow got switched on, and other things in the suitcase were pushing the keys.

Anyway, Sunday...

On August 1st every year, a buddhist sect called PL puts on a huge fireworks display in Tondabayashi. According to one website I read, it is the biggest fireworks display in the world. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's sure the biggest one I've ever seen. Also, it was the most artfully done fireworks display I've ever seen. There were many build-ups and climaxes, where they would shoot many of similar fireworks in succession, with each round going higher and exploding bigger than the last. The finale was a huge, bright explosion in the sky like nothing I've seen before.

Earlier in the evening when I went to the supermarket, I noticed that the area was way more crowded than usual. Also, many people (mainly girls) were dressed in kimono. When the time came for the fireworks, Sasha and I were able to watch from the roof of her apartment building, so we were able to get a good view without having to deal with the crowds.

Monday was the last day that we would get a ride to the office, so we decided to practice riding our bikes for the first time. Even though I typically enjoy biking, I found riding my bike around Tondabayashi and Kanan to be very awkward. My bike seat does not go high enough for pedaling to be comfortable, the weather has been very hot and humid, so riding typically leaves me dripping with sweat, the seat is very hard and hurts my butt and thighs, the roads are very narrow, usually with no real sidewalk, so I have to constantly be minding the traffic (and not wearing a helmet makes that even more un