Rotemburo

So I went back to my little Ryokan (traditional japanese inn which is of course huge) and managed to get into the rotemburo (outdoor onsen) this time. It was very cute. I was by myself the entire time, and I remembered my camera! I love onsens, they are very relaxing, and one of the best parts of being in Japan. I can just sit back and think about life all day. I've been there three times so far, and once it was snowing, so I would stand out in the cold air with the snowflakes melting on me for a bit, and then jump back in. It was crazy how much had to land on me before it stopped melting, but by then it was pretty cold. Normally temperature extremes bother me, but I'm getting used to being incredibly hot and then taking a cold shower and alternating. I'm aware of the temperature of my skin, but I seem detatched; it's an observation, not a state, if that makes sense. Onsens are like the beach, except backwards. This onsen is my favorite so far. I tried out a different one yesterday, but it felt pretty much just like a public swimming pool. Cheap, but no atmosphere, very busy; they had a sauna, but the water was not as hot as a normal onsen, and smelled of chlorine. The little kids were fun to watch run around.

Sorry for being quiet so long, I've been alternately busy and lazy.

Christmas was great, we got invited to Adrian's friend's party in Shiroishi, the next prefecture over. We met a lot of english teachers from all over. It was a potluck, and we brought gyoza (dumplings). They were a lot of fun to make. We learned how to make them a few days before at Dane's friend Fumi's house before we went to a potluck. It was a christian potluck, which was okay, because they're always friendly, but it was very 'god this god that' because the only word we understood was 'kami-sama'. We heard a Japanese flute player, a lady who performed a Chinese way of speaking/singing poems, and a guitar player.

Moving went all right, we had no map but we did have a GPS (in Japanese of course) and pretty good idea of where we were going. It took us two trips to get everything. We drove back the next day again because Dane forgot his shoes in the cupboard, heh. We absolutely love the new apartment, it has an amazing layout and somehow seems bigger. It came with a larger fridge and a gas stove (which is AWESOME) and some other furniture. It's a 10 minute walk from the school, 5 minutes from the train station (at most), and 5 minutes from the grocery store. Woohoo.

Also, driving is awesome. I need a new adjective. It was very easy to get used to driving on the other side of the road. There are very few differences between driving here and driving in Saskatoon. No turning on red lights, people go around people a lot because the roads are so narrow, there is no public parking, and you signal right before you turn (in advance is not good, they think you're turning into a parking lot instead of at the corner and pull out in front of you.) Gas stations don't have bathrooms or convenience stores, and they empty your ashtray and will fix broken lights for you.

My Wednesday class had a year-end party (Bonenkai) at Uotami, a private dining restaurant. It was super cool. We all shared food, and there were doors to our booth. It was one of those tables that has a hole underneath so you can put your feet down or sit on the edge. I went back a couple days ago so I have photos, but it was a smaller booth. Dane almost didn't fit inside. Some of the teachers in Yamagata had a small Christmas gathering too, we went to a Gyukaku restaurant which was super fun and had a gift exchange. I really wish I'd had my camera. Gyukaku is Japanese BBQ; similar to Korean BBQ, except it's a grill with coals instead of a metal plate to cook on. We had some pickled vegetables, and they brought out cow's tongue, two different cuts of beef with different sauce, pork, chicken, and scallops. The cow's tongue was my favorite. New years and winter break was pretty uneventful, Dane and I just got used to our new place and city. My mom sent me a camera for Christmas (thanks so much!) so I have a loooot of photos to put up.

more later!

sorry for the lack of updates

i blame pure laziness, because i have lots to post about. winter vacation has started, so i will have lots of time to write, but today we are moving, yay! also, i don't know if i'll have internet until february, so a temporary goodbye until then. woo!

Ohnoes!

I have run out of money until i get paid, so i have nothing to do, really. I need more work, because i have time to do things, but no money; so i'd rather have less time and more money, so i can actually do stuff.

Also in sad news, my camera is brokeded, i don't know why. So hopefully i will get a new one.

Adventures! We went for Karaoke with the teacher Dane replaced, Melissa, her husband Sousuke, and her friend (another american, can't remember her name). It was a lot of fun. We had a room to ourselves with an L-couch, a large tv, a couple mics, and a couple 'robots'. The robots were wireless controls for browsing music and managing the karaoke machine. They had free drinks, soups, and icecream. I drank soooo many cups of vegetable chowder, my throat was sore not only from singing, but because melissa and sousuke smoke a lot >_< We sang for about 3 hours. It was a bit expensive, but totally fun. By expensive i mean about 35$ each. The Japanese have a custom where they split the bill evenly; i'm always left wishing i had ordered more so that it was fair, because i always end up paying for more than i got. oh well.

I can't wait till Dane gets his car. No more endlessly walking, and we won't have to take the last train back to tendo early in the evening, we can stay and hang out with our friends in yamagata (after we move to tendo). I walked to a store and bought a heater a couple days ago, my arms and back are still sore from carrying it all the way home, heh.

Tendo will be way awesomer than yonezawa, i can't wait to move.

Rhuminations

I really like my adult classes in Tendo. They're not classes through my employer, they just have the contract to provide the teacher; and the classes are for fun. My wednesday class, we always just sit around chatting, it's great. Sometimes I go 'okay let's finish this chapter' or section or topic, so we try, but we always veer off course. My Friday class is not as comfortable, but when they make comments in Japanese I always make a face and say "Whaaaat?" It sounds corny, but they always laugh and try to explain. I find it amusing that the class that has difficulty just chatting is supposed to be the one that is more advanced. They all help me find out so many useful things; i learned the difference between and particulars about sukiyaki and shabushabu (sukiyaki is a pot with soysauce, vinegar, dashi, water for broth, where you dump in a plate of meat and vegetables; after it cooks, you dip an item from the pot in raw egg and then eat it. raw eggs in japan are very popular and safe. shabushabu (their version of 'swish, swish') is just a pot of water, with either meat or fish put in it (i think one at a time)); about strange places to visit (there's a mountain near tendo with a depression in it, and in that depression are lots of little holes that cold air comes out); and that the only thing japanese people eat with a spoon (specifically a chinese spoon) is a dish called chawanmushi (basically a savoury egg custard with mushroom, green onion, maybe some other tasty stuff), because it is impossible to eat with chopsticks (the chinese version is just egg, much plainer and less tasty). I bought a manga book i was drooling over a while ago even though I had no clue what it was about, simply because it looked cool. They informed me the title was 'black butler'. I'm very excited to translate it. it will be so worth it.

I went to another Onsen a few days ago, it was also awesome. It was the middle of the afternoon and therefore deserted, so I had the whole place to myself. There was an inside bath and an outside bath (rotemburo), but I was escorted to the inside one, and I didn't know you couldn't get from one to the other. That's all right, I'll be going back, and will go to the outside one next time. I wished I had brought my camera since it was so empty. It was a pretty little tiled room, and the water was oooo so hot. I went in for as long as I could, came out and cooled off, then went back in; I ended up having to take a few cold showers so I could go back in, because I was so warmed to my core that it would have taken a few hours sitting in the room to be able to go back in again.

Dane recieved a gift from one of his students; she had recently purchased a new car, and it came with some emergency rations (hardly suprising for the Japanese). She gave him a can of bread. (not suprising for the Japanese, but still suprising to me). This bread, ended up being intensely orange flavored (if it's an emergency, it might be your last meal, can't have plain bread, right?) and very can shaped. I wonder if they put the dough in the can, sealed it, and then baked it? Where would the air have gone? Oh well, haha.

Come December 20th, Dane will have a vehicle; he will be purchasing this car from the teacher he replaced here. So holidays, here we come! We have about a week and a half off. I wonder where we'll go. We should totally go south, so it's warm enough to sleep in the car, and just go to an onsen every day to get clean (it's customary in Japan to wash yourself before going into the bath, so that you don't sit in your own dirt, so there's little wash stations everywhere). It would be fun! Haha.

I signed up for a wwoof membership (willing workers on organic farms); in exchange for helping on a farm, I get to stay with a Japanese family and get fed. I'm very excited about it. Also, very excited about moving to Tendo at the end of the month; it's much smaller, and therefore easier to get places; also, much prettier I think. I will also be able to take a whole bunch of classes, like calligraphy, flower arrangement, hiphop, ink painting, pottery, and so on. I hope. :)

Zao Onsen

Dane and I got up real early in the morning a couple weeks ago and took the train to Yamagata; then we took the *correct* bus to Zao Onsen. (We had previously taken the bus to Sendai, the capitol city in a different prefecture, heh; not only that, but we discovered, in very plain English, a schedule for departures to Zao.) Zao Onsen is the name of a little town on the side of a mountain that is very popular for skiing and snowboarding, as well as having a few hot springs. It was very pretty, I already posted the pictures. We walked like a third of the way up the mountain to go to a hotspring; when we got there, we discovered it was closed. We walked around some more, got some prices for the slopes, and made our way back down. We ended up going to an onsen that a co-worker recommended to me. It was way awesome. They had an inside pool, and two outside ones of varying temperature; they also had some barrel-like tubs for people to sit in with little streams of water falling into them that were even cooler. I loved it.

My hair is getting pretty long, I'm starting to look like Rukia from Bleach again. I don't really like it, but it's all right. We'll keep going.

Having to wear a suit to work initially bothered me; but after beginning work, it didn't bother me at all. It was no longer about me feeling like they were suppressing my individuality; it became about me putting on an outfit and taking on a role. I want to look good for my students. Now I just need to pull together the perfect outfit to satisfy my steampunk cravings.

Apologies

I am sorry to inundate you with so many posts at once - a lot happened that I didn't make time to write about during the weekend. Hopefully my writing and stories are intrigueing enough that you want to read all of it, despite the amount. I wanted to try and post more frequently throughout the week, instead of creating a backlog of articles; but I have lost my access to the internet, and must find it elsewhere.

here is a link to the first photo of the second batch i uploaded: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22687419@N06/3057976513/
just click next. there are quite a few of them. sorry, i have no time to organize or comment!
Enjoy.