Goal #3 and Goal #11: CHECK!

If you need a reminder, goal #3 was to go to Tokyo Disney and goal #11 was to karaoke in Japanese. Check and check! Long post coming. You have been warned.

How did I accomplish these two goals, you may wonder? Well, I had 3 holidays in a row ("silver week") so if you include the weekend, I ended up with 5 days of vacation! A perfect amount of time to go to Tokyo with Sarah.

So... let's begin with Saturday. Kim and I were taking the same shinkansen to Tokyo, so we went together to Nagano first and had some Mister Donut. I am up to 42 points, so I almost have enough to get a little cell phone charm! Of course, I am going to keep saving them so I can get the lion with the donut mane, but I have a long way to go for that... Funny part of this story, we left from the little platform near my apt, so in the process we saw TONS of my students. They had something in Nagano, but it was so funny because they would walk up to the platform, see me, and gasp in shock! Some were excited, "Elissa-sensei!! DisneyLando! Tanoshii!!" And others were just panicked to see me outside of school, so I got a bow and a very nervous-sounding "good morning." Haha, they are so cute.

So fastforward to arrival in Tokyo. (Shinkansen ride was fine... the train had pokemon on it!) Sarah and I managed to book trains that arrived at essentailly the same time, but we did not take into account that Tokyo Station is BUSY! Like, WHOA. So she calls me when she gets there and says "stay where you are, I am coming." No problem, right? WRONG. So very wrong. It seems that she asked quite a few people where to go and they all told her different things, but 30 mins later we found each other, had some lunch at the station (Japanese version of croque monsieur) and then went to our hostel. Snaps to Sarah who knew how to get to the hostel... it was on these crazy backroads somewhere by Tokyo Daigaku, but she got us there! The hostel was...well, I guess cute is a good word. It was a more traditional rooming experience, so we left our shoes at the door of the hostel, wore slippers up the steps (very dangerous, by the way, cause the slippers slip off your feet...I don't think thats why they are called slippers though....) ANYway, our room was a cute little tatami room and we opened the closet to discover that the beds were inside! Futons, ahoy! Luckily, we left and when we got back that night, the futons were magically set up for us! Fantastic, because I would not have been able to figure out what to do with all the pieces and blankets and sheets. My only issue with the hostel was the showers. They had a public bath and one family bath. So the baths were onsen style, where you go in and sit on a little stool and wash, and then you get into the bath. The family one was smaller and the door could be locked to give you privacy, or the public baths were separated by gender, but otherwise open to all. Clearly I chose to use the family bath, but it was a hot commodity. One night I had to wait for like 25 mins for this couple to come out. Also, the water was WAY to hot for me, so I did not even get to enjoy the bath part. (it was like 43 C=109F).

Next, we wandered around Tokyo Daigaku (thats university) for a while and then we went to the Tokyo Dome hotel. There is like a little amusement park there and then a HUGE hotel and the Tokyo Dome which is a stadium/concert hall. Funny story here: we go up to the top of the Tokyo Dome hotel to take some pictures of Tokyo. We sorta figured there would be somewhere to do that, but we get to the top and there is no such place. So Sarah uses her awesome Japanese skills and asks one someone who works there if there is an observation deck or something. No, was the answer BUT, he said there was room we could go into for like 5 minutes. He shows us into this room which turns out to be set up for a wedding reception! Cake and everything! No guests yet, but still, in the US, they would have just been like "nope, no such place. go away." Gotta love the service in Japan. So next, we made our way to Harajuku which is like a cute little shopping area. I think on Sundays they dress up in some very interesting outfits or something, but we were not there on a Sunday. I did get some nice pictures of some Japanese guys from the idol shops. Haha... It seems I am turning into a "fan girl" I love Arashi, though! Sarah does not think MatsuJun is cute, however, but that is ok.

Let's move on to Sunday. DisneySea opens at 8, so we roll in around say 9:30 thinking it will be good. WRONG. S.O M.A.N.Y P.E.O.P.L.E!!!!!!!!! Lines and lines and lines of them. We waited to get into the park for about 40 minutes. I am so glad we bought tickets ahead of time. One of my JTEs suggested that we do that because it would be crowded. I actually heeded her advice for once, and that was a goooooood call. When we got there, they had already suspended ticket sales until 5pm. That should give you an idea of how many people were ALREADY in the park. When we did finally get inside, most of the fast pass return times were already to 8:00pm. We did some of the shorter rides and shows, but most of the big stuff like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and Journey to Center of the Earth will have to wait until a less crowded trip. The Little Mermaid show was pretty awesome... but the lipsyncing with the English songs was pretty awful. They were all suspended with wires though, so it was cool. Ariel was actually Japanese, too, unlike many of the other characters we saw. Peter Pan, Aladdin, and Jasmine were all gaijin.

Monday: DisneyLand. We decided to be smart and get there at 8 to avoid the entrance line. We were a little bit late, but it would not have mattered. We still got to wait for a half hour or so to get inside. Same deal with the fastpasses, though we did get some for Space Mountain with a reasonable return time. Yay, we got to go on a ride!!!!! One of the rides, however, "Ride and go Seek" which is the new Monsters Inc one had a 350 minute wait when we got there! 350 minutes! Do the math.......... Why would anyone even wait that long?! Do you know what you can do in 6 hours? A LOT! So again, we stuck with the shows and shorter waits. We did go on "It's a Small World" which I have not been on since I was 5. That brought back some memories. They sang in Japanese though for part of the ride, so that was cute! AND the most important part, when I left the ride, I did not have the song stuck in my head (thank you, Arashi).

Post Disney we did some shopping at this pretty awesome mall and then we just headed back to the hostel.

Tuesday: We met up with Kim in Ikebukuro to go shopping and go to Namja Town. Namja Town is like a big maze amusement park type place. Kids can get these sensors and you go around the whole place, holding it up and then when it lights up, you are supposed to do what it says. The whole thing was in Japanese, so we did not try it, but, in theory, it is fun. When I say maze, though, I mean it. We spent a lot of time just trying to find where we wanted to be. We had some fantastic gyoza for lunch, though, and REALLY good gelato. I had chocolate, of course, and it was the most perfect chocolate flavor ever. That is saying a lot, because I have had many many different kinds of chocolate ice cream. I also won a pretty big Doraemon from one of the UFO catchers. The guy who worked in the game room complimented my technique. Haha.

ALSO on Tuesday, here is the karaoke part! After a bit of waiting at the crowded karaoke place, we managed to get a room and we sang! I sang in Japanese!!! YEAH! Well, more like I mumbled a bit along with the song. Normally with kanji, they give you "furigana" aka how to read the kanji, but for some of the "more common" kanji, they left off the reading because those are the kanji that people should just know how to read, which resulted in some mumbles on my part. I think I learned a few new kanji, though, because they kept popping up in the songs I was singing. Either way, it was fun.

Let's see... one other funny story. I can't remember where it fits into the timeline, but at some point, Sarah and I were trying to get somewhere on the subway. So we come up the escalator and our train was there! I was in front so I walked right onto the train and I turned around to see the doors closed and Sarah waving at me from the platform! Whoops! Somehow we missed the little "ding dong" sound that tells you the doors are closing. I really do not remember hearing it at all, but there I was, alone on the train. HOWEVER. the trains in Tokyo come really often, so I went one stop and got off and got on the next train with Sarah. Conveniently, in each station, the cars stop in the same place, so I got off and just stayed put, which meant that when I got on the next train, Sarah was in that car! It was funny, really. In DC, though, that could have been awful because the trains are so randomly spaced and so inconsistent.

Alright, I think that is all for now. Long, ne?

Trash in Japan...the full story

I went to McDonald's here the other day and I found myself in a debacle. Kim and I ate at the restaurant, and as we were throwing our trash away, we found ourselves unsure if we should throw the whole cup in the trash, lid and all, or if the lid and straw needed to be separated. Why did this happen, you may be wondering. Well, let me tell you about trash in Japan. It has to be separated into 4 main categories: 1) burnable 2) non-burnable 3) plastic and 4) PET bottles. Each type is collected on a specific day, depending on where you live. They have schedules printed so you know when to put what out. There are collection bins where you put the bags. Your name should be written on the bag, and when the bag is full of plastics, you should write "pura" on the outside. (pura= purasuchiku... say it fast and drop some vowels, you will get it, bear in mind that there is no "ti" sound in Japanese... so replace the chi with ti if you are still having trouble)

Burnables include: scrap paper and tissues, small toys, kitchen waste
Non-burnables are metals, small, regular light bulbs
Plastics are the bottle lids and wrappers.
And PET bottles are the plastic bottles. But you have to take off the wrapper and lid and put them into pura.

So there are a few other categories... milk cartons are their own thing and they have to be rinsed out, and then cut apart and tied together. Cardboard has to be flattened and then tied together. Stacks of cardboard cannot be more than 20cm tall. Paper is the same, tied together and not more than 20cm tall. Batteries never, ever, ever go out with any of this trash. There are two specific collection days a year for batteries. Larger objects have to be taken specially and quite often there is a charge for the really big ones like chairs, TVs, couches, etc. Fluorescent light bulbs also have some special procedure, but I have no idea what it is.

You may be thinking, "wow, Elissa, how are you handling this garbage situation?" And the answer is for the most part is: its fine. Most of my garbage is either burnable or plastic. Unfortunately I have a lot of PET bottles, and I haven't figured out how to get rid of them because apparently they are not collected from the usual collection bin. So I just have them sitting in my garage with the cardboard. I tried to put the cardboard out and I was all excited because it did not get returned to my door. A few days later I was taking out my pura and there was my cardboard, still sitting in the collection bin! Apparently in Iiyama, if the garbage is not correct, they just leave it forever and ever. In other cities, I have heard that your trash magically is returned to your door for you to sort properly, but it seems that is not the case for me in Iiyama. I have been told that I can take PET bottles to a convenience store to get rid of them, but I am sort of afraid of looking crazy when I pull in with my three bags of bottles and stand there for 20 minutes putting them in the bin one at a time through the little round hole that is perfectly bottle-sized. I should just go sometime at midnight... if I am going to look crazy, I might as well go all out!

Back to the McDonald's situation... after much debate, Kim and I decided to just ask the guy at the counter and he just took the cups back from us. That's one solution to the problem, but it did not answer the question!!!

A post for entertainment until I actually have something to write about

Seeing as I am living in Japan, I have decided to experience the pop culture some while I am here. This includes watching some J-dramas and some awesome J-pop! There is one drama that we are watching called Hana Yori Dango (Boys over flowers) and we are into the second season and it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD! *sigh* I love it, and the actors are so hot, and they do all kinds of cute things...You will have to watch to see what I mean.

So next, I have been introduced to the wonderful world of J-Pop.

During this process I have found a new love: Arashi. Arashi is a J-pop group.... they sing, they dance, they rap, they're cute... what more could you ask of a music group? (Also, one of them stars in Hana Yori Dango, so he can act, too!) You could compare them to N*sync or Backstreet Boys, I suppose, in the sense that they are a boy band and they all dance on stage together and such. I don't want to say they are better than the American boy bands, cause JT is very awesome, so I will just say they are on the same level. I think that is a fair assessment.

So, are you wondering where the entertainment is in this post, as promised in the title? Here it is: I am learning the dance to one of Arashi's songs. My plan is to get a group together and perform it at the Nagano talent show/fundraiser in the spring! Are you laughing?

Just imagine me and a few others performing this. I mean, I think it's awesome! Also, it is giving me something to do to occupy all of my free time! I am learning the steps and I am putting in my own if I can't figure them out from the video. HAHAHAHA

In addition to learning the dance, I am trying to learn some of the lyrics so I can karaoke one of Arashi's songs in Japanese and thereby complete goal #11 from my goals for Japan!!! So it all fits together, really. As of right now, it is quite entertaining to hear me sing it because I can do all the random English words (love story, love so sweet, and lady) and then I can utter random Japanese syllables here and there. I can also do the "wo wo wo, yeah yeah yeah" parts. I'm on my way!!!

Have you ever tried to debone a fish with chopsticks?

Just a quick post about the school lunches. Apparently the menu is planned very carefully here, so that the kids have a healthy, balanced lunch that is high in calories. Every day the lunch has some sort of carb (either bread or rice), a bowl of soup, a salad, a protein, and a bottle of milk. Sounds good, right? Some things I should elaborate on: the salad is sometimes rather slimy. There have been several days where the vegetables have not been recognizable. Next, the milk is whole milk and has more saturated fat then you should have in one day. As it turns out, the milk in Japan does not bother my stomach, but I still give my milk away because I just cannot fit it into my stomach after everything else. The soup is usually good, but I should mention that it, too, often has unrecognizable meats or vegetables in it. Carbs are carbs. I actually really like rice, even plain rice, so its always fine. Sometimes we get naan or just two slices of bread, and one time we got a huge cheese roll! Fantastic!

And finally, earning its own paragraph in the blog post, is the protein. Where to even begin?!? When they say protein, they just mean some sort of random meat incorporated somehow into the meal. One time we had spaghetti with hot dog slices in it, and that counted as protein. (Oddly enough, this was the same day as the huge cheese roll, so it was actually carb-y day) Another day we had like curry ground beef and that was pretty good (that was the day we got the naan) (PS I am eating all sorts of meats here that I would not have been eating in the US. It is easier to eat them than to explain that I don't like them...) ONE day we got pregnant tempura fish! (read the fire drills in Japan post for more details of this escapade) Earlier this week I picked up my lunch tray to find a whole piece of fish, skin still on, and everything. So, it actually tasted pretty good but it had bones in it still! And, hence the title of this post, have you ever tried to debone a fish with chopsticks?! We are talking small bones, here. It is REALLY difficult to get them out of the fish. I ended up eating quite a few fish bones that day, and that was not fun. I did not have anything to drink except soup broth, so I ended up going to the teachers' room after and chugging my bottle of water to try to get the bones out of my throat. AND the piece de resistance! A delicious WHOLE GRILLED SQUID. That was yesterday's lunch. In all honesty, I was warned that it would happen, but I was still not prepared for the sight of a whole squid on my tray, just hanging out, still resembling its former state. UGH. I ended up giving it away to one of my students, and that was a funny conversation. (In Japanglish)

Me: Does anyone want my squid? Anyone? I will not eat it...
Student: I will eat it
Me: THANK YOU!
Students sitting near me: "ahahahahahahahaha, Elissa can't eat the squid! Elissa can't eat the squid!"


Whatever, they can laugh.

If you ever find yourself in Japan and you need a snack...

...go to a konbini and get an ONIGIRI!

So you may have seen some very random pictures on my shutterfly of onigiri, so I thought they needed further explanation:

I love onigiri. My students think it is hilarious that I love onigiri, I am not sure why, but every time I tell them that I love onigiri, they look at each other and giggle. For those of you who do not know, an onigiri is a rice ball and it is DELICIOUS. You can get them at any konbini in Japan and also at most of the grocery stores. Essentially, it is rice wrapped in seaweed (nori) often with something in the rice. Some types of onigiri include: tuna mayonnaise, salmon, salmon eggs, and some sort of vegetables. My favorite is tuna mayonnaise (its like tuna salad). However, opening the onigiri can be a challenge! In fact, when I took Japanese in the US, we watched a video in my class about onigiri. The video was essentially Japanese people making fun of tourists who could not open the onigiri correctly. My first onigiri was a bit of a disaster, but I have the hang of it now! Here are some pictures to show you how to correctly open and an onigiri so you can avoid the typical tourist frustration, in case you ever find yourself in Japan and need a quick snack!

First, read the directions! Not that they are helpful. They look sort of like origami instructions, and I don't know about you, but many a time I have set out to make a beautiful crane and ended up with a crumpled ball due to frustration from unspecific instructions.




Step 1: peel from the top all the way around to the other side.






Step 2: carefully pull the right side, leaving the nori but getting all the plastic off.








Step 3: Same as step 2 but with the left side of the plastic.

Voila! Onigiri!!!!!!!!!

Last step: ENJOY the AMAZINGNESS of your onigiri!!!

You are correct, this post had no point, but at least you know what the random pictures are now!

Iiyama 第三中学校 school festival

At most schools in Japan, festivals are part of the calendar and are EXTREMELY important. My school had its festival this weekend, and although I missed the first day, I was able to go to day 2 and see the music festival. I wish I could have gone to the first day because that was the day with the sports festival and all of the students' skits and dances. Some of my third years wanted me to see their dance, but I had a JET conference that was "mandatory." (you can ask me for that story... it's not funny, it's just irritating) I got to see a video with some clips of day 1, and it looked like it was a lot of fun. They did a lot of the usual sports things and then there was also bowling (knocking over water bottles) and some other random things. It rained, however, so the big race where each student has to run like 600m is postponed until Tuesday after school.

The kids do a LOT of preparation for these festivals. Pretty much since I got here in August, they have been doing things after school to prepare, and this past week was insane. Classes were shorter or canceled for decorating and cleaning and setting up the school for parents. Also, the fact that the festival was Friday/Saturday means the whole school has a holiday on Monday! Awesome!

ANYway, I did have a good time watching the music part. The morning started with performances from some elementary school sixth graders. It was interesting to see, because some of the schools had like 8 sixth graders total, while others had two groups of 20 perform. Essentially, the more rural schools are pretty damn small, as in 50 students total. Crazy, ne? I think I get to teach at one of those.. but that is still to come. Back to the festival, after the elementary school performances, each class at my school sang a song, and then each year sang a song. Also, the teachers/PTA sang a song, and I participated! This means that I sang in Japanese in front of a LOT of people. It was a good song, though. Afterwards, the music teacher apologized to me for picking such a hard song! Apparently some of the teachers even were having difficulty singing parts of it, so she figured I must have found it to be impossible. Little did she know that I practiced the song several times at karaoke, so I was actually ok, with the exception of one line. (I love karaoke!)

At the end of the day, there were some awards given out, and then a trophy to the best third year class which resulted in a lot of tears. The winning class was happy they won, so they cried. The losing class was sad they lost, so they cried. All third years were sad that this is their last festival, so they cried. Constant tears for like an hour!

So the main reason for this post: meet my students! I have just under 300 in the school, and I teach all of them. It could be worse, but learning the names is quite a chore! A lot of the kids look very similar! Also, I think there are two sets of twins. Here is a video of the whole school singing a song. If you watch, that is a student conducting, the piano accompaniment is also a student. They are so talented! Can you imagine if middle school students in the US were forced to learn all kinds of songs and sing. The Japanese kids even sing different parts! Bass, tenor, alto, soprano! WOW. I think it's ok to post this, cause you can't really distinguish any faces. Apologies for the parts where the sound cuts out when I zoom.

Do they have fire drills in Japanese schools?

Why, yes, yes they do! Let me tell you about it!

First, an alarm sounds, similar to the fire alarms in the US, but it does not sound during the entire evacuation. After the alarm sounds, the Vice Principal goes on the loud speaker and announces something about the drill (in Japanese, so, clearly, I could not understand)

Next, the kyoto-sensei comes into the teachers' room and says, "Come on, Elissa-sensei!" Then he runs (yes, runs) outside to the field with the asthmatic ALT running behind him. BUT WAIT, it gets better. In the school, to properly simulate a fire, they had firemen there blowing fake smoke into the hallways for students to run through. So, the asthmatic ALT runs behind the kyoto-sensei, chokes on the fake smoke, and finally makes it outside, coughing all the way.

NEXT, all the students come pouring out of the building and run across the field. Their homeroom teachers quickly go through and count and then go to the kyoto-sensei and report attendance. I should mention that when they report attendance, they shout to the kyoto-sensei, even though they are standing right in front of him, and then he shouts back an acknowledgement.

NEXT, the firemen come and set up a little demonstration. They have the student leaders (6 students) and 3 teachers come forward and use fire extinguishers. The extinguishers were filled with water, though, and the demonstration was to put out the oh-so-terrifying traffic cone that was the pretend fire. It was interesting, however, because I have never actually used a fire extinguisher. I just assume that if the time came, I would know how.

Finally, the kocho-sensei gave a speech about the importance of the fire drill. Sometimes there are earthquakes and they cause fires, so it is important to pay attention and know what to do, just in case an earthquake hits.

So that was how my day ended today.

One other thing I wanted to share: for lunch, we had pregnant tempura fish. Yes, they took whole fish that were pregnant and deep fried them. Silly me, I looked and thought it was shrimp tempura, so I bite right into it, and then these things that look like eggs are inside, and as I am chewing, I realized that it was not, in fact, shrimp. The JTE I was eating with saw my face, and said, "Oh you just ate the head! It's a pregnant fish! You do not have to eat it!" I dutifully swallowed what I had in my mouth, but I did not eat more. Normally I would have forced myself to eat it, but this was too much. So lesson learned: Always ask what it is before eating, not after taking the first bite!