Japan Week 5

We have had such a fantastic, fun filled week!!

(9/3) Thursday- Today was fantastic becuase we got a care package from home!! Rachel and Charlie sent us a box that weighed nearly 20 pounds full do delicious snacks and familiar foods! We are trying our hardest not to devour it all at once!

(9/4) Friday- Knowing that Eric had to work on Saturday we decided to have a nice relaxing Friday night! We went to an Onsen in our town with Genevieve. An onsen is a bath that is made from natural hot springs. For those of you who did not know, they are extremely common in Japan due to the vast quantity of active volcanoes in Japan. So, going to the Onsen is a fantastic (and relatively inexpensive) treat! Then men and women are seperated in most onsens because you do not wear any clothing in the tubs. It's quite an elaborate process to get to the tub as a matter of fact, but once you are there, man o man is it wonderful! I can't wait to be soaking in the hot tubs outdoors while the ground is covered in snow!

(9/5) Saturday- Eric worked in the morning, he even gave the students a quiz.... on a Saturday! I know, right?! Because high-school is not required in Japan, not all of the students choose to continue their education after the 9th grade; however, the students who do so are required to take entrance exams and apply. Prior to the application process they tour various schools and observe classes, which is what the students were doing today. The worst part about it is that the students who are already in high-school have to attend these Saturday sessions so they can be models for the visiting students... and then their crazy English teacher gives them a quiz! (P.S. the quiz was actually kind of fun, and not very difficult... I just like to tease Eric about it).

After work we headed up to Aomori City (our capitol) where we went "camping" for the night. We met up with a small group of JET's who are going to participate in a non-profit organization called Everest of Apples. We are working to support schools in Cambodia and Nepal, but more about that later. So we had our meeting in this cute little cabin at the ski resort and then some of us (who drove long distances) stayed over night in the cabin. It was wonderful to get to know people even better, and to meet a few new people.

(9/6) Sunday- We had to be out of the cabins by 10 am, which lead to a very long, wonderful, adventourous, fun filled day.. that we have titled PLAY DAY! Eric, Geneveive and I spent the day exploring anything and everything between the ski resort and home. We started with the ski resort itself! We saw that the ski lift was running and had seen signs about some sort of ride, so we had to check it out! Much to our wonderful surprise it was a tobogganing ride! We paid 500 Yen ($5) and rode the ski lift up the mountain where we got into our Tobaggans. It was basically a sled for dry land, we sat in a plastic "bucket" that had wheels underneath (much like skateboard wheels), and we had a steering device (that was much like bike handles) and 3 options; park, neutral, and break. We rolled very slowly to the start line of the track, and then headed down the mountain! The track was basically a concrete sidewalk that had been laid into a wonderful tobbagan trail, complete with twists, turns, embankments and a fantastically steep slope. We had so much fun that when we got to the goal line we all jumped out and ran and bought tickets to go again! It was really quite fantastic.

After that we decided we needed lunch and one of our friends Wyomia (from South Africa) had heard of a small sandwhich shop near by, the bread was all baked fresh and it reminded me of the potato bread my mom used to make in our bread maker.. mmm mmm good. Then we parted ways with Wyomia and her boyfriend Bret and we headed off to find the big buddah. After several wrong turns which put us in the middle of a marathon (thankfully the Japanese run very short marathons), we found the gigantic buddha!It was extremely impressive and the pictures don't do it any form of justice.

Then we headed into the city, we did some shopping and eating! We went to a crazy store called Don Quiote which I don't think I can successfully describe but I will try. Imagine a mall, all in one store; grocery store, halloween shop, electronics, toys, trendy gadets, music/movies, car parts, bookstore, oh yeah and designer clothes and handbags (real not fake), and fireworks! It's not at all like walmart though... it's very crazy and causes severe stimulus overload! Yes we bought fireworks... and we will set them off at the beach soon! We also went to a 10 story bookstore, the English literature section was smaller than the bookshelf in our house :( but we did buy some great stationary! We also went to a foreign foods store called Jupiter, which sells Dr. Pepper!!! We bought a whole 6 pack :) They also had Taco Shells, and since Rachel and Charlie sent us taco seasoning and salsa we can now make Tacos!! For Dinner we went out to an amazing Italian restaurant, I did not expect to find Italian food that delicious, in Japan. The chef was born and raised in Japan but studied at a culinary school in Italy for a few years, man did his hard work pay off! After dinner we headed back home to our sweet little town of Ajigasawa. While the city was full of excellent amenities that we do not have in the inaka, it made me very thankful that we got rural placement like we asked for on our applications. The Japanese way of life is so amazingly peaceful, and I feel like we may have overlooked that if we had lived in a big busy city. I am always amazed by their ability to be extremely productive and have such an impressive work ethic, and outside of work they shut it off completely and have such a relaxing, beautiful lifestyle. I think that a lot of stems from how curteous people are to each other. I think Americans have a lot to learn from the Japanese. I guess you could say that the city made me really appreciate what we have in Aji.

P.S. I have now one month of life in Japan under my belt!

(9/7) Monday- Since school was open on Saturday, it was closed on today!! We got to sleep in, and have a lazy Monday morning... which for some reason is twice as gratifying as a lazy Saturday morning. We decided it was time to make our house feel a little more homey by decorating with a few things of our own so we went shopping. Altough we ended up buying more useful kitchen/household gadgets than decorations... we did buy FISH!!! What better way to make it feel more homey than by getting pets! We went to the fish store and picked out the fish we wanted, and the necessary equipment, which is much more difficult when doing so in Japanese. After the challanging task of getting the fish out of the tank (the blue fish that we really loved jumped out of the net and onto the floor at the store, but he was saved!) and making sure the two types of fish we chose could cohabitate, we had to figure out which type of food they needed, which required verbal communication rather than playing gestures. Eric held up our fish and said "tabate" which means eat... the store employee got very freightened and kept saying "Eiu" which means 'no' and then he got a sad/blank look on his face. We realized that he thought we were asking about eating the fish so we were laughing. Finally we walked to the fish food section with him, pointed to our fish then to the fish food and said "tabate", he then understood and helped us get the proper food. So, we now have 7 pet fish! 2 large ones that seem to really like each other, which is why we got both, and 5 tiny fish that swim in a school. We are still working on names.

Earlier today while shopping for household items we were in search of a deoderizer specifically for trash cans. Being restricted to the days which you can dispose of the garbage really stinks! (quite literally). Eric attempted to ask for help in finding it but we did not know any of the necessary vocabulary. He started by showing a store employee a trash can and waving his hand in front of his nose as to say "stinky" and she was clueless. So then he made an eating motion and then pointed to the trash and then waiving his hand in front of his nose as to imply that the food trash stinks... but we think she thought we were saying that eating out of the garbage smells bad because she tried to show him the bowls after that.... so he gave up and we went on our way. Eventually she came running after us in the store with a fellow employee, they were carrying an entire display of garbage can deoderizers! They figured it out, and it was humerous for all, victory!

After we brought the fish home and got them all settled into their new home we made a very special dinner.... TACO NIGHT!!! We had Tacos and Nachos and boy were they delicious! So delicious that we ate 1 dozen tacos between the 2 of us.... mmmm mmm good!

(9/8) Tuesday- Back to work and the normal work week... at least this week is going to be nice and short :)