Around the 'nomiya

We spent a few days just around where I live, and of course one of them was spent at Shiraito Waterfalls and Lake Tanuki, the sorta "must-sees" of my city. First we headed off to the waterfalls. On the path down to the falls there is a bunch of bamboo, so we decided to go senior picture style (as we did at many places throughout the week!):






















































At the waterfalls, we decided to buy the cell phone charms of some Mt. Fuji characters. They kiss each other and we wanted to make sure they had enough "alone time" before they parted ways again and resided in different countries:


After Shiraito Waterfalls, we headed up to Lake Tanuki for a little picnic, followed by a walk around the lake:

And a few more senior pictures:

Mt. Fuji didn't come out to play, but it was a fabulous day despite it!

Two Worlds Collide

I often feel like I live in two different worlds, which has some obvious truth to it. I have two completely separate lives that don’t really mix. My friends here listen to me talk about home, my family and friends and life in America and my friends and family at home listen to stories and see pictures of my adventures here, but there isn’t any interaction between the two worlds. Therefore it’s a bit nerve-wracking when the two worlds collide. Starting over in a new country with literally no one that you know allows you to sort of rebuild yourself – your image, personality, what background information people know about you. I can’t say that I really act much different than I do at home, I guess just in theory it's that way. So my friends in Japan got a small glimpse into my “previous” life and Dawna a glimpse into my “new” world (or maybe my same life in a different world?).

So anyway, the collision ended up being amazing ;) My best friend since childhood came to visit me in Japan for a little over a week. I think we had a really great mix of being able to relax and just do our own thing (watch movies and FRIENDS while eating popcorn and peanut butter M&Ms) and seeing new places and things. Coming to a new country, especially one with a culture so opposite your own, can be an intense experience and it’s easy to shy away from things but Dawna hit a few of them head on, which made me excited to share a few of those parts of my life with her!

From a purikura booth in Tokyo

I’m just going to do a few blog entries about the different places we went, because it’s too hard to cram a whole week’s worth of activities into one blog entry. Dawna, thanks so much for taking time out of your life to come explore mine for a bit. I love you so much and hope you enjoyed your time here as much as I did!

Keeping Busy

During the second half of last year I started to become a bit of a hermit, and since going home this summer I have really started to get out and take advantage of my time again. Here are just a few of the things I have been up to:

I went to an okonomiyaki restaurant with some Japanese friends. We were actually going to get Indian food, but our local Indian restaurant is taking a hiatus and doesn't open again until the end of this month. I don't really like okonomiyaki much, but I tried a few new types of things that I enjoyed! Okonomiyaki is often translated as a Japanese pancake, but it's really nothing like a pancake like you would envision. It's usually cabbage, some other veggies and chunks of meat, egg and some type of batter (but only a little bit to hold it together). You mix it all together and fry it, flip it, and then cut it in pieces to eat. It's usually topped with a special sauce, mayo, and sometimes fish flakes or shredded sea weed. Here's a video of the flip:

Remember if you're reading this in an email, you'll have to go to my blog to watch it.

I also tried a new thing that's like the omelette/pancake thing above - it's a mix of ingredients but isn't eaten in the pancake form, but more like a...stirfry? Not exactly, but my English is failing me these days, so see below:

The bowl of ingredients before mixing it.

Chiaki mixing in the the sauce to give it good flavor.

I also organized a rafting trip for AJET along with the vice president. It's quite near my house actually. so I had a few people come up to stay with me the night before and we just drove there. There were about 30 rafters in all, so quite a large group. It was a good time. Like last year the rapids weren't really that big, but we had fun in the water and in good company!

Our Raft Left to Right: Me, Kory, Kelly, Jaime and Dion

One of our team's rafts in the rapids

After rafting, we went to hana no yu, my favorite onsen and second home! The wine bath is back, though a different type of wine, so I am one happy girl! After onsen I road tripped it with a new friend out to the Izu peninsula and went to dinner with John and Kari. We scoped out a new bar in the "Nag" and stopped to soak our feet in a foot bath along the way. Apparently they are all over the city there, I wouldn't mind living there for the foot baths!!

Can you tell which feet are mine? ;)

So life has been good, hope it's as good there as it is here! Love you and miss you all!

Ash

p.s. After writing all this, I realized I had already blogged about some of it, but this time pictures are included, so I'm not deleting all this work!

Licensed to Drive

I've been really behind on life in general lately, so of course my blog follows suit. So, let's catch up!

The day after coming back from Goza beach (see previous entry), I braved transferring my American driver's license into a Japanese license. It is a little bit backwards, but when you first come to Japan you can use an International Driver's Permit from your local AAA office. All you have to do is pay to get it and stick a passport size photo on it, and you're 100% legal to drive in most foreign countries. Mine expired in August, so I had to get a real Japanese driver's license. Many other countries can just go in for an interview and change their license without taking a test, but Americans have to take a 10 question True or False test (in poorly translated English) and then a shortened version of the Japanese driving test.


People make a lot of noise about this and say that it's a huge deal. And it is a little bit, because most everyone that I know had to take the test multiple times before passing. After asking for lots of advice from previous test takers, I armed myself for success by choosing the easiest testing center (or most lenient to foreigners might be the most accurate) and wearing a suit to the testing center to assure the examiner that I was taking this seriously. Oh, and I should also add that to get this appointment I visited my local police station 4 times, got some Japanese translations of papers, got a letter from the MN DMV because I had renewed my license in July while I was home and it didn't look like I had my license for longer than 3 months, I didn't have the right size photo for the application, etc. etc. etc.

So finally I was there, thankfully with the help of a Japanese friend since I don't speak enough Japanese for the interview portions of the test. So first I turned in all the paperwork that I spent the previous month collecting and waited. Then I had an interview about what my driver's education classes and driver's test entailed and then I waited. Then I took a 10 question True or False test that was a bit harder than I expected, so I was a little nervous while I waited again. I took an eye test and correctly identified the "blue" and red lights. And waited. Then when I found out that I passed the written portion, they explained the driving course and told us to memorize it. Then I ate lunch, walked the closed course outside to get a feel for it while driving, and waited nervously as my friend had left for the day (noticing a trend here?). Finally was the driving section of the test. There were only two foreigners there that day taking the shortened test, me and a Chinese woman who understood even less Japanese than me.

The Japanese eye test consists of a bunch of circles with a gap missing.
< -- You have to say whether the gap is up, down, left of right.

I was chosen to go first. You drive the center's car (on a closed course), which is regular size and has a regular size engine. Yes, I realize I'm revealing my lack of knowledge in the car department with that description! But it's noteworthy because I drive a Kei car, which is a smaller bodied car with an engine around 550CC (). Now that doesn't mean much to me, but I've been told that many 4-wheelers and snowmobiles in the use have the same size engine as my car! Still it was nothing near the size of my parent's Le Sabre or the Taurus I used to drive! So after looking under the car and doing some safety checks inside the car (and of course looking underneath and behind the car for small children and animals) I set off around the course.

Me (a little bling that day) and the car I bought last November.

You get one loop around the outside of the course to get used to the car and the brakes and then the real test begins. I overused my blinker because I had been told to signal for everything, so I did and he kept telling me I didn't need to signal for this or that. I went around a few curves and then had to speed up to 40 km/hr on a straight away...that's about 25 mph. The rest of the test was much slower than that even! You go through a bunch of turns and stops at the fake stoplight and crosswalks, go around a construction zone, and make turns with limited visibility due to "buildings" on both sides of the road. The most difficult is the special turns section, mostly to prove that you can handle driving on the narrow roads of Japan that sometimes look more like sidewalks than roads.










One is an S-curve with a narrow road and I know a lot of people make it through the curves and then fall off as they are turning left out of the curve. Somehow I made it (if you fall off the course, you automatically fail and can't finish the test) and then moved on to the "crank." It's two 90 degree turns on a narrow path with bars hanging down around course. Again I made it through (driving at well under 10 mph).

We stopped back at the parking space and though a long conversation with lots of drawings, I was informed that I don't get close enough to the left and right side of the lanes when making my turns so a little old grandma on a bike could come up and I could hit them (even though I looked over my shoulder and in my mirrors multiple times on every single turn!). Also, I had failed to realize that my side of the road was a two lane, so I had made all of my right turns from the left lane! Seems pretty stupid of me, but it's hard to tell on fake roads! I was sure I hadn't passed since obviously making a right turn (remember that's across traffic here) from the left lane had to be a huge no-no!

The Chinese woman took her test after me, and I was really glad that we were on a closed course! She was hitting the brakes pretty hard jerking the car and pumping them on every curve. She finally reached the S curve and completely went off the course before trying to turn left out of the curves onto the road again. The examiner got a little mad at her it seemed, as he scolded her for not stopping, backing up and trying again instead of just driving completely off the course! She didn't get to finish the test. While she was driving back to the parking space he started asking me questions about me being a teacher and how long I had driven in America before coming to Japan. Apparently he liked the answers to my questions because I passed!


I had to watch a terrible safety video and get my picture taken. I got my license handed to me the same day! It was a long day, but worth it knowing I'm a legal driver in Japan again! And much easier than I thought in the end after being nervous for weeks.

Fabulous Weekend in J-Land

I truly had a fabulous weekend! Here’s the rundown:

Friday during school, one my of students invited me to join her community’s taiko (Japanese drumming) group. Though I know nothing about playing drums and I am not sure I will actually join the group, I am excited to check it out a few times and learn a bit about it. It was also cool that she thought of me. She’s a really good student and I helped tutor her for Eiken, and English proficiency test last semester. She passed. After school I headed to Oz, the local “foreigner” bar in Fuji. We had a good crowd and I had a few people stay the night at my house for rafting the next day.

So for Saturday, I was in charge of planning rafting for AJET this year, so I commanded the troops with the help of Joey, our VP and social butterfly. The day was a success despite a forecast for lots of rain! It only rained a little bit while we were rafting, but as we were in the final leg the sun came out and the sky cleared, making it a beautiful morning on the Fuji River. It was nice to spend some time in nature as I haven’t done so in awhile! Then we were off to eat some sushi and then went to the onsen to clean off and relax after a morning of rafting in a dirty river! Seems the AJET event was a hit. Glad everyone enjoyed themselves!

After that my new friend John and I road tripped down to his ‘hood on the Izu peninsula. We jammed out and I forgot how much I like driving! Most of my driving consists of city driving and I absolutely hate it, so whenever I get out of Fujinomiya and Fuji, it reminds that it can actually be enjoyable to drive faster than 40 mph. John, Kari and I went out to one of their local faves, a tonkatsu restaurant where basically everything has pork cutlet. I had my usual favorite, katsudon (rice with a sweet sauce, egg, onion and breaded pork on top). It was the best I have had in Japan so far and the restaurant environment was pretty sweet as well with a bit of a winter lodge/log cabin feel. We stopped to soak our feet in a local foot bath, where we saw a bunch of older women getting together to gossip on a Saturday night! Then we commenced the awkwardness that is trying out a new bar in a small town. Japan doesn’t really do bars as we know them in America. There are a lot of hostess bars where men pay to be kept in good company with pretty women and there are Japanese style izakayas. I obviously don’t frequent the hostess bars, and izakayas are usually reserved for bigger parties, not your usually Saturday night drinking. So you never really know what to expect when stepping inside a new bar. It turned out to generally be a success. After that, I crashed at Kari’s place in exhaustion after a long week of getting up early and going to bed late.

I got to sleep in for the first time in awhile on Sunday, and it was some much needed rejuvenation. I needed to be rested up to judge a speech contest in Mishima. Being tired is not a good idea when you have to listen and judge speeches for 2 hours for people who speak English as a second language! So thankfully, I was rested and ready to go. I was kinda afraid the speech contest would be a bore, but it ended up going much better than I imagined. It was the first speech contest I’ve seen here, so I didn’t know what to expect. There were two classes, junior high and open. The open class had high schoolers and college students, and one random 62 year old guy who wanted to join the contest. It was some interesting variety and was really fun to see the cute little junior high kids since I only work with senior high. After the contest, the international association took us out to dinner. After, another judge and I made the trip back to Fuji area together. He lives so far into the boonies that it became an adventure. We missed our turn, but realized it when we ran into Starbucks and McDonald’s, and whenever I accidentally end up at Starbucks, I can’t really say that it was a bad thing. So we got a few treats, and drove off into the middle of nowhere. Somehow I found my way back to my city and after the coffee was in high gear to shower, wash dishes and pick up all the bedding in my house from the visitors on Friday night!

This week is jam packed: essay grading at school, coffee tonight, Japanese class tomorrow night, first taiko lessons/group on Wednesday, teaching my first adult conversation of the new session on Thursday, and Saturday Dawna arrives in Japan!! I know the week is going to absolutely fly by, so it will be nice to have some fun times with Dawna next week. For those who don’t know, my computer is down til next week. I needed battery charger/adapter, so my battery is dead until Dawna delivers my new one. That means no phone calls for you guys this week! Love you and miss you all!! Take care as the weather cools down!

Silver Week Vacation - Goza Beach

Last week, there were three national holidays in a row, making it a 5 day weekend. Hate Japan when I have to take a vacation day at Christmas, but love Japan when I get 5 day weekends for "Respect for the Aged Day," "Autumnal Equinox Day," and according to my calendar, an unnamed "National Holiday." Amazing. So, 9 of us in the Fuji family + a few cousins made our way down to Mie-ken, a big south/west of where we live. It was a fabulous weekend/week of relaxing on the beach. We rented two bungalows and rented "futons" which really turned out to be more like blankets on a hardwood floor inside the bungalows, but a snooze here and there on the beach made it okay.


It was nice to take in a few sunsets at the beach. Sunsets by where I live aren't much to write home about. Above Liz and I are taking it all in. We grilled almost all of our meals. The guys were gracious enough to cook almost everything. We did grilled pork and beef with Japanese style grill sauce, hamburgers with all the fixings, jerk chicken, and even eggs and sausages in the morning!! Note the inflatable bananas hanging in the trees behind the grill and shower building. I really wanted to take them into the water!!


Since the guys were doing the grilling, the girls became the designated vegetable choppers. Liz got a little bored and became threatening...mostly cuz the pumpkin was so hard to cut!


We grilled pumpkin, onion, peppers, cabbage, mushrooms, and eggplant almost every night! A few meals we ate at a small Japanese restaurant by the beach.

We did a lot of just hanging out, swimming, reading on the beach, playing beach volleyball, doing fireworks -- nothing all that eventful, but just the way we wanted it. Here's a semi-candid of most of the group down by the water on the first day:


The owners were super friendly. They brought us to the grocery store almost every day (the beach is pretty far away from anything civilized...not in walking distance anyway). He brought a few of us out on his boat and they gave us fresh oyster and shell fish for our grill outs. When we were out on the boat, he stopped at one point, got out and came to talk to us. He pointed one way and said, "This way: America." It was quite Christopher Columbus-like.

It was a great weekend, though the trip there and back was tiring since we had to take a ferry, limited express train, the shinkansen bullet train, taxi and local train. It was a great week with the Fuji Family, can't wait til the next great adventure!

A Quick Update

This past weekend was filled with social affairs! On Friday night I got together with my "Fuji Family" -- a group of friends in our area and a few "cousins" from about 40 minutes away. We got together for dinner and drinks. It was a good time had by all! Here's a few pics of me and the ladies (though there were men too, I just don't have photos of those!).



Most of us are also headed for the beach this weekend. This week has three public holidays, so we're leaving Saturday until Wednesday for some serious R&R. Going to go for a few runs with Kari, read on the beach, have a BBQ and hang out with most of my best friends in Japan! Can't wait! We rented bungalows right on the beach!

On Saturday I was off to Fuji again, this time with Kelly, one of the other private teachers in my city. She is heading back to America-land next week, so we had to send her off right :) It was a good time and a great opportunity for me to meet a lot of new people!

Sunday we had a huge BBQ with almost 40 teachers and Japanese friends. I was quite impressed with the cooking -- there were tons of chips and dips, kabobs with meat and veggies, hot dogs, brownies, etc etc etc. It was almost like I was in America! Again, a good change to catch up with some others I don't see so often.

At school I have been keeping busy! The essay grading has again begun and I'm on about my third lesson of the semester. I dont' teach much the next few weeks, but that will give me a chance to catch up on those essays! Before I know it, it will be midterms and Dawna will be here so I can have another mini-vacation!

I have also been busy planning a few AJET events -- check out our website. AJET is a group of volunteers that plans activities and outings for the teachers in Shizuoka area. So far this year we have put together a beach day with fireworks (see Atami Fireworks Post), Costume Karaoke, a Mt. Fuji Climb and coming up is White Water Rafting, some people running a road race and some people going to watch a soccer game. I did the white water rafting last year, but I think I'm gonna give it another go this year :) hoping to see Mt. Fuji this year from the river!

Also, I'm studying up to take my driver's test to get my Japanese driver's license. I have to take the driving test next week, the day I get back from the beach!! I'm quite nervous for the test, as I have heard most foreigners fail the first time! I'm going to one of the easier places, but am still a bit nervous as I'm not sure I'll understand everything that is going on! I have a friend coming with to help with the paperwork and interview questions, but I think I'll be on my own during the driving portion. Wish me luck, as I'm gonna need it!!

I've also started taking a Japanese class in my city. It's a bit basic for me as I have studied a little bit on my own, but I still have learned new things each class - especially vocabulary! I'm a little embarassed to be in the beginner section of the class as I've been here a year, but I suppose it's better than not going to the class and ending my second year here at the same level I am now!

Note that I have added a new pictures thing on my blog (see right side bar near the top) and my Twitter status updates. I'm sure very few of you know what Twitter is, but I update a few times a day so you can see what I'm doing! Check it out!

I guess that is about all that is going on here! I hope all is well at home! Take Care!

Ash

Fujinomiya Fire

After sushi on Monday night, I was at my friend's house and all of a sudden we heard a bunch of sirens and announcements over the city speakers. We didn't know what was going on, so we went into the hallway of her apartment and everyone was running down into the street, so we followed, not knowing that was going on! There was a huge cloud of smoke going into the air from what looked like a few blocks away, and turns out, it really was only a few blocks! Several fire departments were called in to help with the fire and the whole city it seemed was outside watching the fire. I heard today that no one was hurt, though the building I am sure is destroyed. They were rerouting traffic for hours. I took a few videos - check it out!

As I said before, if you get my blogs in an email, you'll have to click here to watch the videos!

Monday Night Sushi

Sushi is quickly becoming one of my new favorite foods, and I've been eating a lot of conveyor belt sushi lately. It's really popular in Japan. Different kinds of sushi go past your table and you can grab whatever you like! It's around a dollar a plate. Decorated plates are wasabi free (like the three of mine below with the yellow rim). My new favorite is the bottom left corner: rice, shrimp (cooked), avocado, onion and mayo on top...soooo wonderful!

Here's the sushi going around and around. See anything you like?

If you don't see something you like, you can do a special order and it's delivered on a mini Shinkansen, the Japanese famous bullet train:

Hope you enjoyed your Kappa Sushi lesson! That's a lotta plates!



Oh yeah -- if you get this by email, you'll have to go to my actual site to see the videos. Click here.

Down by the River

On Friday night, a bunch of us go together for some quality time down by the river (in the pale moon late....anyone?). We went to the convenience store and stocked up on junk food and hung out for a few hours. It was really relaxing and good to catch up with people! I've been going out a lot more lately on the weekends and it's been nice to keep up with everyone. Since I live on a separate train line, I always gotta leave early, but I suppose in the end that's better for me anyway!