Saturday, December 26, 2009
Ho Ho etc..
Adam and I went on a day trip to Haruna shrine on Christmas Eve, easily one of the nicest shrines I’ve been to in Japan, and it’s only about an hour from home. Most shrines and pagodas are rebuilt as copies of the originals due to fires or earthquakes or bombings, but this one is the original structure, built in 1869. You can really feel the history in the faded paint and weathered wood. To get to it you have to hike alongside a mountain path lit by lanterns. Really nice. We packed a bento and drank some hot tea before hiking up to the top, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
At sunset we headed up to Lake Haruna at the top of the mountain, where there was a Christmas illumination show taking place. This was an involved production which culminated in Christmas lights, hand-holding couples, peevish adolescents in Santa suits, and a bubble machine. (Which was awesome because the bubbles froze in mid-air. Frozen bubbles. Frubbles, if you will.)
We caught a bus back home and bought some fried chicken for dinner. I could go my entire life without going into a KFC and be content, but Japanese eat fried chicken on Christmas, so I thought we’d do it their way this year. Japanese are also big fans of Christmas cake, so I decided to make one of those too. We don’t have an oven, so I made a cake in the rice cooker. This is completely reasonable, since most Japanese homes aren’t equipped with ovens or anything else that would encourage much baking. Rightly so, as baked goods in Japanese homes are doomed to failure. 7 hours after putting my cake in, I gave up waiting for it at 2 am and went to bed. After that time I turn into a surly underslept harpy and nothing good happens after 2 am anyway. The aftermath of it all was something more like a Christmas bagel. We dressed it up and ate it anyways.
Christmas morning was spent hunting down presents and opening packages from home. Thanks to everyone from home. All the gifts exceeded far beyond what I deserved for Christmas; namely pervasive neglect or a swift punch to the nose.
Also, I made Adam a Christmas TARDIS. I am the coolest.
Oh, and check out what Adam made me for Christmas. He was a slave to Microsoft Paint for 2 weeks in order to make this. Steampunk Santa! If you look closely, you can see a man riding a penny-farthing in the background. There's also a TARDIS if you can find it...
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Scavenger Hunt
If you can read between the rows,
Tralfamadorians and guns,
Dead one by one, and so it goes!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sick Muffins
There has been a lot of Christmas shopping lately, which means multiple trips to Tokyo. Living so close to a world class city has its advantages. You get a nice mix of old:
And new.
We took a shopping break to go to Ueno zoo, which was all kinds of amazing. I saw some animals that I never even knew existed. The tanuki were my favourite, mostly because Japanese folklore makes them out to be the bearers of drunken tomfoolery. They also have magic testicles that can take the shape of anything. Also, someone was rather underdressed for the party:
In other news: License to scoot!
On a completely unrelated note, I’ve decided that the best Doctor of all time would be played by either Michael Caine or Geoffry Rush. Despite my wild arm-wavy attempts to advise the BBC to increase their budget to accommodate either of these actors should they wish to consecrate the show, they’re still going with Matt “I-can’t-pronounce-th” Smith. Please accept this vandalized Matt Smiff photo as a symbol of my irrational resolve to dislike him, as Caine or Rush could likely drop a fart with more intellectual and emotional resonance than anything put forth by Mr. Smiff. (I find googly eyes are most effective.)
11 days till Christmas!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
DEAR JAPAN YOU ARE ON THE MANK
My favorite is the ping-pong ball drop and the shuffle for first base.
I'm not dead
There’s been too much goings on in the last month to cover in any detail, so it’s bullet time:
· Took salsa lesson/ paired with Salary Man/pondered the probability of real-life Shall We Dance
· Boyfriend came and we did Tokyo
· Was served food by a ninja
· Razorback pig on a leash
· Went to all night psychedelic rock festival/made eyes at Gene Wilder*
· Found and moved into new apartment
· Bought a Vespa/woo-hooed
· Got addicted to Dr.Who
· Went out into the mountains/rowboating
Japanese fruit stacks well
Living room with kotatsu
Tatami room/bedroom
And here's a picture of my new (relative to me) Vespa:
I'm pretty sure they're fucking with me. One student was apparently under the influence of LSD when he wrote this test:
In case you can't read that, it says:
1. When's your birthday? "My birthday is April 18th."
2. What is your zodiac sign? "My sign is Aries."
3. What's your blood type? "My blood type is lazy."
4. What kind of person are you? "I am clean my room."
5. What kind of person do your friends say you are? "My friend is help with cooking."
Tokyo never disappoints. Especially on Sundays, when the Harajuku Dance Gang, a faction of the Tokyo Rockabilly Club, are out in full force. Yes, this lot is bad news. Dressed in full 50’s Greaser garb, they’ll hang around like miscreants and reinforce their bad-ass street gang image by dancing around to Sha Na Na. You don’t want to mess with these people. They rebelliously endorse pomade and suspenders with no shirts. These people take their exclusivity seriously. I mean, they have T-Shirts:
Yes, that’s a pompadour skull with a comb and a switchblade. I’ll leave it there...
Did I mention that Adam and I were kicked out of a yakuza bar? Bored on a Saturday night and thirsty for adventure, we wandered out into Takasaki in search of a place to drink. We came across a shadowy brick building, no windows, with a life-sized statue of a black man in a white suit holding a trumpet out front, and the words BLOCK SHOT flashing in neon across the entrance. So of course we went in. The entrance led to a set of stairs, which we climbed, and when we turned to go inside we stumbled right into the middle of some smoky, skeevy club house where a dozen men in suits all stopped what they were doing to look at us. Uncomfortable silence. Chelsey weighs her options, and settles on giving an unassuming double thumbs-up and asking to come inside LIKE AN IDIOT. We were promptly welcomed by the bartender, who then turned our asses around and showed us to the door. Adam and I ran away to the nearest Belgian bar to lick our proverbial wounds.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I'll leave you with a couple engrish pictures I took.
Cheers.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
First Week of Classes
My classes are impossible to predict; sometimes the students will be completely silent and unresponsive while at other times they’re impossible to control. So far, I’ve found no reliable way to gauge how rowdy my class will be. The students in my first ever class were completely disengaged, and some were even sleeping. (Sleeping is more or less acceptable in Japanese classrooms, by the way) At any rate, I spend most classes talking to myself. Or throwing things at the students to get them to shut up. I suppose things will be easier when I get the hang of this teaching thing and settle into a routine. Or maybe I’ll quit and be free to concentrate on my new career as a mail order bride.
My apartment has a ton of leftover stuff that I’ve been using to settle in with. For example, I’m using my predecessor’s lunch box to pack my lunches in. Her name is Lesley and she’s one part bunny rabbit, one part cotton candy, and one part bubbles. So it stands to reason that I’m now in possession of the most adorable lunch ever:
I have all the classes do a paper airplane self-introductions on the first day, which means they have to write their names and something they like on a sheet of paper, fly it across the room, and have someone else introduce them. I gather all the papers at the end of class. One cheeky scamp wrote this:
That last bit can either mean that he loves me because I’m young, or he thought it fitting to divulge his love for Angus Young. Or both. I’m commonly mistaken for that guy in AC/DC.
So I found a new apartment. It’s all hardwood except for one of the rooms, which has a tatami floor. It’s 2 rooms plus a kitchen/dining area; well-lit; near both my schools and Takasaki station; it’s the corner unit of the apartment complex so I only have to worry about neighbours on one side; and it’s CHEAPER than my other place. Also, it comes with a free stove and 2 air conditioners. I’m looking forward to moving out of this confounded excuse for a solitary confinement cell and I won’t be looking back, lest I turn into a pillar of salt and other such colourful metaphors which are either from Greek Mythology or the Bible; I can’t quite recall as I am uneducated.
In other news, check out this awesome moustache mug I bought! Complete with jaunty top hat! SEE?
Also, please enjoy this video I took of the accordion lady who hangs out in Takasaki Station on weekends. She makes me want to wear a stripy shirt! And eat baguettes and smoke at the same time! And get drunk on cheap wine and curse at everything! And other fun qualities that all stereotypical Frenchman have!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon.
This is Eli. When I first met him I made the mistake of telling him about how I hadn’t gotten a phone yet. I had unknowingly triggered some sort of involuntary reflex that compelled him to barf up every bit of information he knew that related to the iPhone. Mildly interesting at first, but after 5 minutes of listening to him blather on, I tuned out, occasionally offering an indifferent “mmm” and “oh, rly?” Roughly 10 minutes later, I began asking him barbed questions that did little to veil my indifference on the subject, like “So Eli, what do you do when you’re not talking about phones?” and “Are you getting paid for this?” Eventually I brought out my camera to commemorate the moment where I had heard the most about phones from anyone, anywhere. And suddenly, silence. I was like “No! No! Keep talking about phones!” Ironically, he had nothing to say, so he compromised by repeating “Phones Phones Phones Phones Phones” while I snapped a picture.
My will to resist his aggressive pitch for iPhones ebbed, and he took me to set one up yesterday. It turns out that he’s an incredibly cool guy and has set up phones for at least 4 other JETs. He just really likes iPhones. We went out for drinks afterwards. Eli has a tattoo of Geraldo Rivera, which is probably the hipsteriest thing I’ve ever heard. In the end, I actually really like my iPhone, so it just goes to show how often I superficially reject the unfamiliar with a parochial desperation bordering on pathetic.
In any case, I got to choose the last 4 digits of my phone number. They are 4815. I’m a geek, I know. Those of you who know the significance of these numbers get a gold star.
This is Michelle, from Vancouver. I had been told repeatedly by different people that Michelle was my twin. (For those of you who know the story, I also have a twin living in Prague whom I've never met. This leads me to believe that I am actually one of a set of three. And the three of us combined, with the use of our power rings, can call a superhero. It's all very scientific, you see.)
This is Brent. He is an ALT advisor in Gunma, which basically means he is responsible for giving wise and sound advice to JETs, should they ever find themselves in a position where they need help. Let it be known that at one point during the weekend he can be quoted as having said "My weenis is legendary."
On August 29th I may be heading out to climb Mt.Fuji. While Mt.Fuji is not a technical climb, it is said to be a difficult climb because of the loose volcanic rocks that make every step forward slide half a step back. So I’ll let you know how that goes. I may opt out since it’s relatively expensive and most of my funds this month will be allocated towards moving, and I don’t want to be poor. Being poor means adopting a cockney street urchin accent à la Oliver Twist, an altogether unbecoming prospect, as I am already sufficiently irritating.
Here are some videos I thought I would share. Both of these people are popular on Japanese TV right now. The first one I can’t stand and I usually end up flipping through channels to avoid him. The second one is of a TV personality I love immensely because she’s hilarious and reminds me a little of myself when I was young and homely.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Welcome to Japan
Japan has proved itself to be way more awesome than pistachios, as per usual. I’m settling into a routine now. In keeping with Japan’s doomsday image, the weather has proved itself to be a meteoric cock-up of catastrophic proportions. Since I’ve arrived, there has been two tornados in my city (I was not present for these, as they occurred during Tokyo orientation) and an earthquake. Luckily the epicentre was somewhere north of Gunma. So I’m still alive. For now.
Even though it’s summer holidays, most of the kids come to school anyway. They participate in club activities and get help on their summer homework from the teachers. Not only do the kids get homework during summer holidays, they take tests on their first day back. So be good or you might be reincarnated in your next life as a Japanese High School student.
The school I work for is a well-oiled machine. Every teacher is instrumental in helping the students, and everyone does their best to make the whole machine run smoothly. At this point, because I haven’t taught any classes yet, I contribute an approximate value of 0 to the team, yet they still let me come back every day to continue making a fatuous gimp of myself. I was under the impression that I had one supervisor who was wholly responsible helping me get set up and answering any questions I may have. I met her, and she’s delightful. However, the powers-that-be at this school determined that one person would simply not be enough to manage the amount of ineptitude ejaculating from my wee self, so they charged the whole of their sizable English department to be my handlers. Every few days an English teacher will come up to me and inform me that they are “assigned” to me that day, and will I please just sit at my desk quietly and not make trouble please and thank-you. I’m sure we’ll all get along just fine in the end.
As most of you know, I’m currently in the process of hating my apartment and looking for a new one. I’m not sure how my predecessor managed to live a year in this ill-conceived monstrosity. Lofts may seem cool in theory, but in practice they are just plain dangerous. When it comes down to it, our groggy cave-man brains have not equipped us with the ability to skilfully maneuver down steep ladders at 6:45am every morning.
One thing I won’t be able to escape are the ubiquitous cottage cheese walls that plaster every apartment I’ve seen so far.
Care to see what I made myself for dinner last night? No? Tough titties, here it is:
This is rice and pumpkin and salad. I spend unreasonable amounts of time inside grocery stores, staring dolefully at exotic foods I can't read for packaging for. This usually ends in me buying recognizable foodstuffs, like the above, and more than often means I end up eating popsicles for dinner. This isn't really due to my lack of kanji-reading ability, but I'm a grown-up now and I can have popsicles for dinner if I want to. So there.
I think I'll quit while I'm ahead. In the next few days I'll be attending a conference in Maebashi, the next town over. I'll be meeting a lot of Gunma JETs and there will likely be drinking and karaoke and butt dragging on carpets etc. Not by me, of course.