Sickness in Motion

(Disclaimer: This story is slightly gross, so don't read it if you are eating or thinking about eating in the near future.)

Yesterday, I wasn't feeling too well, but I won't give up a precious day's pay, so I went to work anyway. I had to go to Naoestu, which is my farthest away school, an hour and a half train ride. I normally enjoy this train ride, because I can sit back and relax, listen to music, maybe play DS, or read. On this particular day, however, I started to feel a bit queasy. Usually, I sit in the seats that face the direction the train is going in, but none of these were available, so I sat in a seat that puts you in a position where you are moving sideways. My state of nausea, unfamiliar traveling position, and the fact that the heated seat felt especially heated combined disastrously and caused me to vomit right there on the train. At the time, there was still a good long hour until I reached my destination. Thinking it would be helpful or perhaps not thinking at all, I caught most of the sick in my hands. Then, I was left with two handfuls of puke and no idea what to do with it. I looked around at my fellow passengers, but they all looked away if I caught their eye. I hoped that someone would open one of the doors near me at the next stop, but no one around me got on or off the train.

I just stared at my hands wondering how I could possibly make this a better situation. Some high school girls came over and stood next to me for about 30 seconds before realizing I was holding vomit. They quickly shrieked and ran away. Finally, three stops after the unfortunate incident, someone nearby got off and thankfully left the door open. I poured my puked out the train door onto the tracks. I figured I'd be able to clean myself up once I got rid of the excess vomit, but it didn't occur to me that my hands would still have a pukey film on them. I went back to staring at my hands wondering what to do next. I didn't have much time to think though. 

About 2 seconds after I sat back down, all of my fellow passengers, who had ignored me and pretended nothing was wrong for 3 whole stops, surrounded me. About 5 packs of tissue were shoved in my face, a handful of wet wipes were given to me, and an older lady started cleaning off my face with a hand towel. Someone produced two plastic bags: one for all of the used tissues and wet wipes and another for my sweater and my scarf, which would be useless for the rest of day, leaving me slightly colder than I would have liked.  We reached a major stop shortly after this and most of the people who ended up helping me got off there. The old woman asked if I was getting off at Kashiwazaki and I said, 'No, Naoestu." She frowned at me and I could tell she wanted to offer some words of encouragement, but she didn't think I'd understand. She took the bag of trash off with her and said, "Ganbatte," or "Good luck./You can do it." 

Long time... long post

Sumimasen. Sorry for the long gap in posts. No excuse really. Just laziness. Plenty of excitement has been had by all, but I just couldn't motivate myself to share it with you lovely people. That having been said, let me share some of my goals for 2009:

*Cook one new recipe a week

*Study Japanese for 3 hours or more each week

*Plan the best wedding you or anyone you know has ever been to

*Eat a bit healthier (All those adorable Japanese sweets are so tempting!)

*Travel outside of Niigata 3 times

*Write on this here blog twice a month at minimum

*Do yoga and meditate more often

In the first two months of 2009, I've come closer to achieving some goals more than others. Our new Peppy School Year is starting in April and Spring is on the door step, so I feel a greater sense of renewal now than I did in January. I've been feeling sick for the past few weeks and therefore grumpier than usual, but now I'm feeling much better. With a happier demeanor, perhaps I can stick to my goals a bit more successfully. And now that I've put them out here on the internet for all to see, hopefully you guys can keep me accountable and bug me about my progress with these goals. 

What have I been up to besides making and failing to meet personal goals? Well... At the end of January, one of my friends, Jessica, turned 23, so a bunch of us headed to Niigata to celebrate in "the big city." One of my other friends, Cat, is a belly dancer and teaches at a studio in Niigata. The owner of the jazz club below her studio told her about a jazz performance in the club that night and said she should bring all her gaijin friends with her. The performance started at 9:00, but we were only half-way through our bottle of wine and pizza at that point in the night. We finally made it to the studio around 10:45 and the performance was well underway. The club was packed. There were at least two people sitting on every chair and it appeared that every inch of floor space was covered by someone's shoes. The entrance door to the club led directly to the stage. When we peaked past the door, the owner waved us in, but there was no where to go. She continued to wave us in, so we headed for the only open area of the club, behind the bar. We had to cross the stage and walk in front of the audience to reach the bar. When the band finished their song, the club applauded the musicians and then gave the new audience members, us, a round of applause for being foreigners. The music was great though I only understood the very few English phrases thrown in here and there. It was my second Japanese jazz experience and I must say it is one musical genre they've translated beautifully. We were all enjoying the music when the owner got on the mic and announced there would be a belly dancing performance. Cat looked around the room for the belly dancer for a moment before realizing that she was about to do an impromptu belly dancing show to some jazz music. If she was nervous, it didn't show. She got up in front of the crowd and danced beautifully to songs I doubt any other belly dancer has ever used in a performance.

After a mint martini or two at cozy Café 37, we decided to head back to the station where we had stored our bags in lockers. We had planned to stay at a sento, an onsen/hostel. We got to the station and found, to our shock and horror, that Niigata Station was closed until 6:00 a.m.! We walked around the station looking for different entrances that might possibly be open, but to no avail. It didn't take us long to decide that the only place to wait out 4 hours until the station reopened was a karaoke bar. Some of us were more tired than others and fell asleep at random intervals throughout the karaoke performances. Cat was dozing off one minute and the next, I looked up to find her dancing around on the benches. Joe and I both took a little nap and then simultaneously popped up to join Jessica in a lovely rendition of Britney Spear's "Lucky." Yusuf's friend, referred to by all as Brother, had the most dramatic sleeping experience. In the middle of a tirade about something none of us can quite recall, he decided to pass out, falling suddenly on the table spilling water about and breaking a few glasses. 

We went to retrieve our bags from the station at 6:00 a.m. We got to the sento, had a quick bath and fell asleep quite easily. Around 11:00, we began to wake up, bathe, and stumble around wishing we'd stayed on our cots a little longer. We had some Indian food, spend many hours in Starbucks trying to wake up, and ended the birthday revelry by engaging in one of Jessica's favorite activities, purikura.  

Dustin and I decided to stay in Niigata an extra night on account of our Round One addiction. We played medals, but lost big time. We decided to come back in the morning for SportCha, the 3 hours of free play. Check out at the sento was 9:00 in the morning. Luckily, it was right next to Round One. We checked out at 8:50, ran into the conbini for breakfast, and headed to Round One. Unfortunately, we didn't know that Round One doesn't open until 10:00. So, we spent an hour in the snowy cold waiting and waiting and waiting. Once we got in, we decided to spend just an hour and a half at SportCha since I was especially tired and crabby. I spent my entire ninety minutes in the massage chair room listening to some relaxing Philip Glass. It was 1500 yen well spent. 

All in all, it was a fun weekend; however, the hour spent outside Round One combined with the hours of sleep lost on our adventurous night cost me my health for a week. Luckily, it was an office week and I spent most of my time at a desk, being particularly un-genki. I did have to fill in for a co-worker at the end of the week. I tried to don one of the surgical masks courteous Japanese people wear to keep their sickness to themselves, but after 5 minutes, I thought I was going to suffocate. I don't know how they wear them all day long. It made me feel even sicker. By some miracle, I had a rare three day weekend, so I spent many hours in bed and drank loads of o.j. Dustin, being the kind and loving fiancé that he is, went to the drug store to find something to make me all better. He brought back Strong Wakamoto. On the box, there is a picture of a girl holding her chest, a picture of a girl holding her stomach, picture of a guy flexing his obviously strong muscle, and a lot of kanji that we didn't understand in the least. Dustin said he thought they were general vitamins to build a strong immune system. I was sickly, so I didn't question him and starting taking 3-4 a day. He took one occasionally to fight off any potential immune system deficiencies.  After about a week, I began to feel better, but I didn't know if extra vitamin C, lots of sleeping, or Strong Wakamoto deserved  credit. I wasn't sure if I should continue to take these vitamins, especially if I didn't know exactly what they were. I wasn't too worried, since the Japanese don't really do medicine and almost anything you find at the drugstore is actually a bunch of herbs and vitamins. Still, my curiosity had to be sated, so we (and by we, I mean Dustin) looked up all of the kanji that were written on the front of the box.  Much to our surprise, we discovered that we'd both been taking an anti-constipation pill  for about 7 days! It must not work too well, because neither of us noticed too much of a change in that area. Needless to say, I will be translating anything and everything I put in my body from now on.

January and February were very snowy months. When I first realized the snow was going to be sticking around longer than the 2-3 weeks I'm used to in Missouri, I retreated to my apartment where my warm blankets and space heater kept me unfrozen. After weeks of laziness and boredom, I gave in and decided to participate in some Japanese winter activities.  Some of the Peppy teachers formed a team to compete in the International Snowball Fight Championship (also known as the World Snowball Fight Championship depending on which banners or literature you read). It was my first Japanese festival complete with vendors selling squid on a stick, chocolate covered bananas, and sake starting at 8:00 a.m. The boys began drinking beer around 9:30, but I waited to try some Niigata sake until 11:00. I had just enough time to finish my cup before we had to fight our enemies. Since girls could be hit 5 times before being out and boys could only be hit 3 times before being finished, I was declared the team captain. I had a lot of pressure on me, because the rules stated that if the captain got out, the team lost. As team captain, I was required to dress like an idiot. I was given the type of hat a rice farmer might wear, giant snow shoes, and a huge wooden paddle with which I could defend myself. Some of the teams come just for the costume competition. Teams like the Obamas, the girly men, and the banana-head girls weren't there as serious snowball fighters; they just wanted to dress up and have fun. Our first competitors were a bunch of girls dressed up and not serious about winning. We creamed them. The second team we fought, however, was full of baseball players, who were much more athletic than anyone on our team. In this case, we were the ones creamed. Towards the end, I looked around and realized that Dustin and I were the only ones standing. I said, "Dustin, we're the only ones left." Moments later, Dustin was out, too, and I suddenly found myself retreating into the fetal position trying to escape the barrage of snowballs raining down on me.  Defeated though we were, we didn't let it get our spirits down. A few magical rides down the hill on sleds and 10 minutes of awesome BMX bike tricks and everyone was more than happy. We'll spend next winter training and be champions in 2010!

The weekend after the snowball fight, we headed to another mountain for snowboarding. Neither Dustin nor I had ever tried the sport, but we'd skiied before, so we figured we could get it easily enough. We rented snowsuits and snowboards and scampered up the practice hill to learn the ways of the board. Our friend Mikiko gave us tips and showed us how to fall and get back up. I mastered the falling part, but never quite got the getting back up without taking the board off first. Dustin slid down the hill a few times before feeling confident enough to hop on the lift and snowboard down the mountain. Mikiko asked if I wanted to come along, but I opted to stay on the hill and practice a while longer. When she'd made it up and back down again, I was still trying to make it down the 50 foot hill without falling and it wasn't going well. My frustration was obvious, so Yuko, Mikiko's friend, suggested I switch to skis, which I'd told them I had tried before. What I hadn't told them was about my last experience with skis, when my much more experienced sister had taken me on black diamond hill where I freaked out half-way down and had to be carried down by the ski resort staff on a snowmobile.

I got to the top of the practice hill, donned my skis, and skied down the hill flawlessly. At the bottom of the hill, I was greeted by a joyful Mikiko and Yuko clapping and telling me what a great skier I was. (It's the Japanese way to overly praise. My friends and colleagues are continually amazed at my Japanese despite the fact that I know a very limited set of useful phrases and Japanese characters.) They suggested that we go to the top. I was slightly nervous, but I knew they would wait with me all day if I didn't go then and there, and I didn't want to delay their fun any longer. The view on the ride to the top was peaceful and gorgeous, but as we got closer and closer to the end of the lift, I got increasingly terrified. I wasn't ready for this.

Mikiko sailed down the moutain on her snowboard, but she asked Yuko to stay with me, since she was on skis, too. I started going down the beginners path slowly and not so surely. I remembered that I need to make a pizza shape to slow down and I just kept pushing the backs of my skis out further and further until I'd slow down to a halt and then speed up a bit until I got scared again. Yuko tried to give me pointers, but we had a major language barrier. We got down the mountain about a third of the way and suddenly, it got very steep. I tried to make the pizza, but I pushed out my skis too far and they crossed and I tumbled down, slamming hard on my right shoulder. Memories of my last skiing experience flooded back and any sliver of confidence I'd had left my body. Yuko helped me get grounded again and put my skis back on, but I just kept falling over and over again, each time landing hard on my right shoulder. Eventually, the pain and terror became too much. I didn't want to go on, but I literally didn't know how to tell Yuko. I pointed to my shoulder and said, "Itai," or "Hurt." She said, "Daijobu?" or "Are you ok?" I said, "Daijobu nai. Kowai." or "I'm ok no. Fear." We looked at each other not knowing what to say or do. I started repeating, "Kowai... itai... kowai... itai... kowai." 

The pain, anxiety, and frustration got to me, and I started to cry. I'd only met Yuko a few hours before and she really didn't know what to do and was getting increasingly more uncomfortable. Being the polite Japanese girl she was, she tried ever so hard to make me feel better and assure me everything would be ok. She said, "Walk?" I really didn't want to walk the remaining third of the mountain carrying my skis with a bum shoulder, but it seemed a far superior choice to skiing the rest of the way down. I slung the skis over my left shoulder and started to walk while she went to put her skis on to, I assumed, ski the rest of the way down alone. She must have called Mikiko to ask her what to do, because I walked down for about 5 minutes before Yuko found me and told me to stick my skiis in the snow and called Mikiko to explain to me that the medic was coming to take me the rest of the way down. Yuko and I sat awkwardly in the snow, not able to say much to each other. I hadn't bothered to enjoy the scenery until she said, "It's beautiful." and pointed to the view. Since we were just sitting there and it was rather breathtaking, I decided to take a picture. Tears were streaming down my face, but Yuko thought I should be in the picture. She motioned that I should wipe away the tears and said, "Don't cry." before snapping a photo. It was an oddly sweet moment. A short while later, the medic came, I got on the back of yet another snowmobile and had quite the déja vu. I spent the remainder of the day in the "lodge" drinking tea and reading. A trip to onsen after skiing, a lidocaine patch, and a few days of moving my arm as little as humanly possible did wonders and I have no lasting damage from my second traumatic skiing experience. Maybe I'll try it again next year, but I'll wait to buy a lift pass until I've spent half the day on the practice hill.  And I will be taking a Japanese class at the Civic Center starting in April, so I can better communicate with everyone.

*Photos of the snowboarding trip are at the end of the "Oh, Brother" album and the snowball fight photos are now at the top of the list!

Back to the Grind

We've been back to work for about two weeks now. Peppy gave us nearly three weeks off before making our jobs slightly more stressful for the next two months. We have parent observations at our schools at the moment. That means that students and their parents are squeezed into our tiny classrooms. The parents usually sit as close as possible to the door and stare blankly at you as you interact with their child in a language they don't understand for an hour. In one respect, it's a bit better, because most of the students are better behaved when their parents are looking on. Some, however, decide to show off their ability to annoy the teacher and act a little worse than normal. I'm told that the parents often report that they enjoyed the lesson even if their facial expressions lead you to believe otherwise. If that's the case, I'll take those bored looks as a compliment.

The worst part of the return to work is the commute. I normally enjoy my train rides immensely. Because it's the peak of winter, however, getting from my apartment to my classrooms is very difficult indeed. Every day, I sadly pass my bike wishing I could use her to get around like I used to. Dustin bravely rides through the snow covered streets. The one time I tried, I nearly wrecked my bike on the icy streets so many times that I've scared myself from even attempting to hop on again until the snowy weather has passed. I haven't decided which I like less: trudging through the side streets left uncleared of their foot high piles of snow or the bigger streets with spouts of water shooting out of the ground creating an icy sheet by nightfall. Sometimes, you run into an over-enthusiastic spout of water that hits you right in the thigh, leaving your upper leg wet and cold. The snow and wind have made the trains unreliable. I've had to wait on the platform hoping and hoping my train will eventually come like it is supposed to only to catch the next train an hour later. I understand that snow is a part of winter all over the world. I've experienced my fair share of snow and ice storms in my lifetime. I've just never had to endure such extreme weather for an entire month. And it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon.

The snow has forced us to take taxis more frequently. For our schools that are a 45 minute walk from the station, we have to take a taxi both to get there and back to the train station. Since Dustin and I work at these schools (which are in the same Academy Plaza) during the same week, we get to take the taxi at the end of the night together. This taxi comes at the same time each night, so our boss reserves it for the whole week and it just shows up and takes us away. To get to the classroom from the station is much more of a hassle. Our classes start at different times each day, so we arrive at the station separately and take different taxis to the classrooms. We choose when we get to school, so we have to reserve the taxis on our own. Dustin has a good enough command of the language to get his taxis easily enough. I, however, have had a long "conversation" with the taxi company each day I try to convince them to pick me up. The first time I called, I relayed the train station where I needed to be picked up and the location I needed to be taken. The time at which I needed the taxi was hard to convey.  The word for 3 is san and the word for thousand is sen, easily confused. I needed to be picked up at 3:20. I assumed they were asking what time to come, so I kept repeating sen ni ju, or thousand twenty. The taxi employee kept repeating the same question, that I continued to assume was "What time should the taxi come?" and I kept repeating thousand twenty. This went on for a few minutes before the woman put me on hold and handed me over to someone who asked "What time?" I said, in English, "3:20." I think this new woman repeated my entire taxi request back to me, so I just kept saying "hai hai hai", or yes yes yes. Once the taxi arrived, the taxi driver spoke to me in Japanese during the entire ten minute ride to my classroom. I occasionally said, "hai" when I heard a word I knew like English, English school, or teacher. I don't know what he was saying or asking about these things, but I agreed.

It hasn't been all work in the past few weeks. Last Sunday, we went to a New Year's celebration at the Civic Center. We pounded mochi (rice cakes) with a giant mallet that was too heavy for me to lift on my own. Luckily, a strong man was nearby and helped me lift it up and down. Pounding the mochi gave us good luck for the New Year and we got a delicious treat. It was very yummy, but we couldn't eat too much, because we'd had a larger than expected lunch. For the second time, I ordered ramen as my meal and somehow ended up with two bowls of it. We've decided that anytime I want ramen, Dustin's going to have to eat it, too. He's eaten the second bowl and whatever he ordered these first two times, but from now on, we'll just be ordering the one bowl of ramen we think we've been ordering all along and see if we get the two we usually receive. 

I have officially experienced my first earthquake. I almost missed it, too. Dustin and I were sitting on our futons, doing something or another on our computers when the floor started rumbling. I leapt up and stood in the doorframe while Dustin ran to the sliding glass door and opened it! I yelled at him to get away from the window and he laughed at me. It was such a small earthquake and lasted for less than 10 seconds, but I erred on the side of caution and Dustin found that ridiculous. 

There's a conbini near the Nagaoka train station called Save On (its name makes me think of a frugal hippy) that Dustin and I frequent quite often. Sometimes you need to grab a warm drink, a little lunch, or an onigiri (rice ball) to hold you over on your way to school. We go in at least twice a week. When we first arrived in Nagaoka, a little old woman who works at Save On slipped some free juice in our bag with a wink. A few nights ago, Dustin needed a chicken snack, so we stopped in at Save On. The same little old woman came up behind us and shoved a bag stuffed with baked goods that expired the next day into Dustin's hands. We tried to say "Arigato," but she put her finger to her lips and shushed us. We walked out of Save On giggling while we surveyed our loot. Sometimes it's good to be a foreigner in Japan.

Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu

or Happy New Year! Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, "Happy New Year week," because it still feels like January 1 here in Japan. The New Year celebration has been going on and on and on. After having stayed in the warm apartment to avoid having to brave the hail and/or snow for the few days before New Year's Eve, we got a bit too excited about having a reason to leave the apartment and started celebrating at 6:00 p.m. We went back to visit the little okaachan and ojichan izakaiya we'd enjoyed so much before for some tasty traditional Japanese food and Niigata sake. The cute little old couple were closing up shop a little early, since New Years is a family holiday in Japan. We moved on to a much less interesting izakaiya, but by 9:00 we were bored by Nagaoka's "nightlife." We decided to ring in the New Year with some strawberry champagne, which proved more difficult to pop open than one would expect (see the And so This is Christmas... photo album).

On January 2, the New Year celebration continued with some great Japanese music. We saw some Shinto music performed. The most interesting instrument was a mouth organ unlike our simple harmonica. It literally looked like a miniature organ held up to his mouth. Here's a video of that music (Please forgive my terrible videography.):

After that group performed, a very different music and dance group went on stage. They played the type of music you would hear at a festival. One of the men danced around stage formally before dressing himself in a dragon costume. After the dance was finished, he walked around the audience snapping at the children while the kids' parents took pictures of their sometimes scared young ones. Here's a video of the second musical group (Please forgive the shoulder of the man sitting in front of me.):

When the music stopped, we stepped outside only to hear... more music. We walked down Ote Street, a normally quiet street (depsite being Nagaoka's "main street"), and found it filled with the sounds of taiko drums. There was a troupe of taiko drummers playing ginormous drums in front of the old lady department store in tiny little shorts while the snow fell around us. Most of them were getting a workout banging their sticks against the sides of the drums, but I felt pretty bad for the cymbal player. We spent the rest of the day doing some belated shopping and successfully avoiding the temptation to buy one of the many surprise bags the stores were offering. They were so tempting, sitting there just being huge and mysterious. Of course, they were in fact filled with all of the crap the stores haven't been able to sell in the past year, but there was that slim chance that something worth more than the $50 they were charging could be inside that giant bag. Alas, we walked home with lots and lots of presents for others, but no surprise bag. Whew. 

Today was my favorite day of New Year's celebrating. My Japanese friend and coworker invited Dustin and me to join her and her daughter in some New Year activities. First, we went to the shrine to get our yearly blessing. It was about an hour drive to get to the shrine's parking lot and another five minutes driving around the parking lot looking for a spot, but we spent about three minutes total in the shrine, including the line we waited in for Dustin to ring the bell to call for our blessings from the priest. From there, we stopped for a lovely little meal at a nice Italian restaurant before making it to snow country. Once we got closer to the mountains, the sides of the roads were piled high with snow the bulldozer had pushed off the road. At one point, I looked out my window and saw nothing but snow right in front of my face. Winding around the mountains was a bit scary at first, but I put it out of my mind and trusted Yumi's years of experience on these icy roads. We made it there and back alive, so my trust was justified.

Eventually, we reached the onsen (hot springs)! Japanese hot springs are usually by the mountains. This one was right across the street from a ski resort, so lots of people using the onsen came right off the slopes. When you go to onsen, you enter the locker room, take off your clothes, and go into the onsen in your birthday suit. Before today, I was a bit nervous about the nakedness of an onsen experience, but I talked myself into it and was ready to go right into that locker room, strip down, and spend an hour taking a bath with dozens of people I don't know, a teenager I'd known for a few hours, and a coworker I'd know for a few months who I wouldn't see naked in most circumstances.  Much to my surprise, my Japanese friend informed me I'd be onsening solo, because she was too nervous to go in with me.  I was shocked to find out that a Japanese woman, used to many naked trips to the onsen was more scared than an American woman, conditioned from childhood to think of nakedness as private. I went in alone, spent some time in the hot water, endured stares from Japanese children who may never have seen a foreigner (much less a naked one), and left refreshed and with a bit more audacity. Our night ended at Yumi's house with some customary Japanese New Year food. In Japan, the woman of the house spends all day on December 31st cooking food for the first week of the year, so she can start the year off with a rest. We had our second huge meal of the day, this time full of osechi-ryori. We had sweetened black beans for our health, sweet potatoes with chestnuts for making money, and ozoni soup with mochi, a food once eaten by the samurai to give them energy for battle.  It was a lovely end to a lovely day and a wonderful beginning to what will certainly be a wonderful year.

Christmas Japanese Style

It was a very Japanese Christmas here in the Asby-Sitterson household. We started out the festivities on Christmas Eve by consuming what we later found out was a typical dinner for the night before Christmas: pizza. We also had a Christmas cake. It wasn't your typical fruitcake recycled from last year's pile of unwanted gifts. The Japanese make cute little cakes with Christmas decorations and loads of icing and charge you $30 to share it with your sweetie. Luckily, we waited until the last minute to buy one for ourselves and got a cheap one half-off at the grocery store minus all of the frills and extra icing. It was still a tasty end to our traditional Japanese Christmas Eve feast. One of my Japanese coworkers was surprised to hear that Americans don't have these cakes on Christmas Eve. When I explained that pumpkin or pecan pie was more common, she looked confused and said, "Your culture is so different." Yes, it is indeed often different than the Japanized version so popular here.

Our evening continued with some Christmas Carol Karaoke. The plan was to sing only Christmas songs all night long to ring in the holiday, but we eventually ran out of Christmas themed tunes and had to throw in a few cheesy non-Christmas songs. We started out the night strong with Mariah Carey's classic "All I Want for Christmas is You." A bunch of uber-Christmasy songs such as "Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland," and "Silent Night" followed. We then introduced Dustin to some Christmas tunes new to him. He pointed out that "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid is quite a downer on such a joyous occasion. "Last Christmas" by WHAM! and "Little Saint Nick" by the Beach Boys and "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon made appearances on the playlist. The funniest moment of our blessed Christmas Eve singing came when the version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" that we chose turned out to be a rendition by City High. Imagine this church hymn sprinkled with "Baby" and "City High up in here!" Quite humorous.

Dustin instructed me to let him sleep until 11:00 on Christmas morning, so the coffee was waiting at 11:01. We opened the gifts that we miraculously kept unopened for about a month; they lived under our tiny tree in the Christmas corner, constantly tempting us. As per Christmas tradition, we made our presents useful immediately. Dustin spent most of the day playing his new Wii game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed while I read David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice and flipped through Lonely Planet Japan. I was highly disappointed (though not surprised) to discover that Nagaoka wasn't mentioned in the 868 page book even once. What was said about our rural prefecture, Niigata, failed to surprise as well. The famous rice and sake was mentioned beside the ski resorts and onsen. I had long since come to terms with the fact that I live in the boonies, but I hoped, for a brief second, that once I got my hands on the extensive Lonely Planet Japan guidebook, certainly something I hadn't yet discovered would be brought to my attention. Luckily, the rest of Japan is just a short train ride away. And all of the staples of Japan can be found in our tiny little town.

Once dinnertime rolled around, we pulled ourselves from our new toys and headed out on an adventure to partake in another traditional holiday meal in Japan. The Japanese eat a hearty meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas night. We hoped that we'd be able to squeeze our way into our local KFC for a nice meal. When we walked out the door dressed warmly (It was 3° C!), we were assaulted by big drops of rain. We opened our umbrellas and set out on our mission to meet The Colonel. About two minutes into our journey, the rain turned into little pellets of hail. Yes, folks. We braved a hail storm just to get some fried chicken and corn. Eventually, we made it. Turns out, the Japanese order buckets of chicken for Christmas in advance; they just come in, pick it up, and eat it at home with their families. Most of these people drove up in their cars, scampered in to retrieve one of the bags lining the counters and open table-tops, and returned to their warm houses by car. Since we arrived on foot, we decided to dine in. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves. Dustin had a chicken sandwich, whose name included both teriyaki and fire, some fries, and a biscuit with maple syrup. I had some cold corn and furi furi potato. Furi furi potato are basically french fries in a take out bag with your choice of flavor packets. You dump in your packet of flavor, shake, and enjoy. I chose yakisoba flavor, which is a type of Japanese noodle dish. It was the second oddest holiday meal I've had yet. (The oddest being the Christmas Eve dinner I shared with my dad and sister at Hooters on the year that my mom had to work the graveyard shift. Not much was open on that Christmas Eve in North Kansas City...)

Our Christmas ended in the wee hours of the morning. After KFC, we braved what had turned into a snow storm to get to 7-11 to call Dustin's family, who hadn't heard from us in a while. I had my new gloves to keep my hands warm and my rainboots to keep my feet dry, but it was the coldest phone call I've ever made. We got smart once the phone card we had ran out and hurried back home to make the remainder of our calls on Skype in the comfort of our own home. Speaking of Skype... It's a free and easy way to "talk on the phone" via your computer. All we have to do is set up a time when we'll both be at our computers and it's like I'm within reach, only 15 hours in the future. What I'm saying is, call me please, but let me know when, so I can answer. Just a reminder, my Skype name is danasitterson. We still have about $8 of Skype credit, so if you don't have the internet, you might be able to bribe me to call you on an actual phone for a rather short conversation. 

From now on, we'll be putting links to full photo albums on the blog. You may have noticed a new addition to the sidebar directly to your right called "Captured on Film." Currently, you'll see the names of five different albums. Clicking each link will take you straight to the albums of photos I post on facebook, so all of you who have decided not to waste time on facebook can see the pictures without having to sign up for your own account. Enjoy! 

I'll get back to you next year. Have fun during the rest of '08. 

Reflections

As the year comes to a close, I've been hearing and reading various people's hope that 2009 will be a year much better than 2008. Undoubtedly, it has been a rocky year in the economic sense; however, I can't help but feel that 2008 has been such an extraordinary year as well. For the first time since I've been a voting citizen, our country has decided to elect someone who has a plan to right so many of the wrongs that have happened in recent years. And personally, it's been such an exciting year! I started off this year jumping into the job market and was so blessed to have experience working with fabulous teachers that I greatly admire before having my very own classroom, brief though it was. My engagement was a very happy surprise in May. Now, I am here in Japan taking advantage of this wonderful job opportunity.

When I first arrived in Japan, adapting was more difficult than I anticipated. Adjusting to the decreased working hours and increased Dustin hours was surprisingly trying at first. If you ever question whether or not your current mate is "the one," try moving to a foreign country, living in a 10 x 12 room, and starting a new job that you share with that person. I can happily say that we've made it through the bad times and are on to the good times. Obviously, I don't expect smooth sailing for the rest of our life together, but I know that we'll be able to handle what comes our way. I can now say that I'm enjoying Japan and life here is much less difficult than I initially found it.

I've only been here for three months, but it's been a period of great growth. I started out the year working during most of my waking time. I came home exhausted each evening and never found enough time for myself. I didn't have time to develop any interests much less pursue them. Now that I have all the time in the world, I've discovered interests I didn't even know I had. Besides the occasional holiday-related festival or performance, Nagaoka doesn't offer much in the cultural sense. Alas, I've been expanding my world through the internet's many wonders. I've found time and again that I don't appreciate all of the things America has to offer until I've left it. Don't get me wrong, I love singing my heart out at karaoke, I appreciate the cute little mascots that adorn every sign and building that I see, I eat my fair share of sushi, and I recently wasted $15 and 20 minutes at the pachinko parlor. I engage in Japanese culture on a daily basis, but I've been discovering and/or reconnecting with so many great things that aren't particularly Japanese. These are the things that currently fill my free time (It's a long list, because I have so very much of it.):

1. podcasts (This American Life, The Hidden Universe, All Songs Considered, New Yorker Fiction)

2. bicycle riding (out of necessity daily and for pleasure occasionally)

3. news (The Daily Beast website, Anderson Cooper, BBC)

4. reading (fiction, non-fiction, blogs, magazines)

5. movies/ T.V. (The Daily Show, Mad Men, Twin Peaks)

6. writing (right here, in my journal, in letters)

7. photography (taking, posing in, viewing)

8. yoga and meditating

9. video games (Wii, DS, at the arcade)

10. studying Japanese (slowly and not so devotedly)

I like our life here in Japan. Our jobs are so easy and usually fun. We live quite comfortably while being able to pay back school loans easily. There's at least one surprise in nearly every day. Today's surprise: baking brownies in a toaster oven. They had to be stirred every 30 seconds and still turned out a bit burned on the top, but they were done in half the time! Interacting with Japanese people is often full of hilarity. When I first got to Japan, I had very little success with chopsticks. Despite this fact, I was told by three different women (all strangers) on three different occasions that I was "very good with chopsticks." My last such encounter happened with a cute little old lady who waited to accost me with this compliment until Dustin had left the table to use the restroom. While he was gone, she interrogated me in Japanese and I repeated "eggo" or "English" over and over. She kept holding up 3 fingers, so I said that I had been in Japan for nearly 3 months, wondering how she would have known this. She quickly said goodbye and left the table when she spied Dustin approaching.  And if you haven't guessed by now, I'm quite enjoying all of this free time. 

2008 has been a great year and I know that 2009 will be even better!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Japan just doesn't want to believe the fact that winter does not officially begin until December 21. I tried to convince my students that it was in fact still technically Fall, but they refused to concede defeat. After yesterday's erratic weather (which included torrential rain, sunny skies, hail, and the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen, all within twelve hours' time), I started to question whether or not to join the "Winter is now." camp.  Admittedly, the snow-covered rooftops add a bit of holiday atmosphere that was previously missing; however, trudging through the streets bundled in countless layers of clothing while trying to pull my boots out of heaps of slushy half-melted snow mounds did not particularly bring to mind sleigh bells, glistening snow, or doing anything the Eskimo way. Once I blasted Christmas tunes through my headphones, I did feel slightly merrier, but I'm still missing the bike-worthy weather.

November passed by oh so quickly. I'm getting adjusted to my classes. I have many more junior high school classes than I anticipated or desired. I don't think I've been called to work with the preteen to teenager demographic. I'm too fragile and sensitive. I can't handle the rude comments and ugly portraits directed towards me. Luckily, I only have one school full of junior high students. The rest of the month, I teach younger kids with only a sprinkling of teenagers through out. 

We FINALLY got cellphones and paychecks. Both have greatly improved our social lives. Now we can actually be informed when a happening occurs. In Japan, some people text, but most people use phone e-mail. That means, you can send me an e-mail from your computer and I can receive it basically as a text. My phone e-mail is dsitterson@i.softbank.jp. 

Dustin's already adorned his phone with quite a few dingly-danglies. My phone doesn't have a designated place to hang the oh-so-popular phone jewelry, so, I'm not as cool. I did feel like a rockstar at the Softbank store while we were signing up for phone service. While we were waiting for something or another, we were served piping hot green tea. After we paid for the phones, our arms were filled with "gifts." Most of them were Softbank promotional items like a box of tissue, a roll of toilet paper reminding us of our phone plans' benefits, Softbank folders, Softbank pens, Softbank sticky notes, and (my favorite) a Softbank plush dog mascot phone jewelry that spouts off Softbank ads when you press his tummy. I hooked him onto my bike and he now sounds very scary after spending a few nights outside in the rain. Some random things were included in our prize bags, like a notebook wearing a tiny hooded sweatshirt and a plethora of coupons to some unknown eatery. It was quite a loot.

We took part in a Thanksgiving potluck with some of our fellow Nagaokan-Americans. It was quite a spread. I was sadly disappointed in the sweet potato dish I've made so many times in America with success. Apparently, toaster ovens just don't do the same job as a large oven. Everyone else made some wonderful food. Tonight is an Italian-themed potluck! Hopefully, my toaster oven can handle garlic bread. Dustin's dad and stepmom sent him a lovely birthday package with some of your staple Thanksgiving food that we'd missed during the potluck, so we got to have a second Thanksgiving meal (Thank you!!!). Thanksgiving also happened to be Dustin's birthday this year. We both worked on Thursday, so we postponed his celebration to Sunday.

On Sunday, we travelled to the big city of Niigata to celebrate Dustin's 26th. A few new friends joined us for lovely Indian food and Round 1, a place that very well may have been made specifically with Dustin in mind. It's a huge 5 story building. Inside, there is karaoke, bowling, batting cages, skating rinks, a "relax lounge" filled with row after row of massage chairs and manga, basketball, tennis, ball pits, a mechanical bull, countless UFO games (crane games for you non-Japanese), more medals games than I've ever seen, and of course, VIDEO GAMES!

"What are medals games?" you ask. In America, these are the quarter games where a mechanical platforms moves back and forth pushing quarters towards the edge as you drop in your own quarters hoping to gain more than you put in. In Japan, you pay for medals that aren't worth anything. You feed these in the machine endlessly hoping to win more medals that you can't turn back in for the money you originally paid for them. Instead, you just rack up more medals credits at this particular institution and you can play with more medals the next time you come in. It's like gambling without any possibility of winning. Basically, it's a way to kill an hour for $5. We got some free medals with the 3 hour block of play time we bought and I must admit, that it was indeed entertaining to play medals. I may even pay for an hour of medals entertainment some boring day.

I had a blast at Round 1. Dustin had such fun that he's back there as I type, only one week after our first visit. I was surprised by the amount of cooperative video games. There were so many where you and a partner had to work together to win. I also enjoyed a game where you killed the bad guys by typing their names on a computer keyboard. I had fun and practiced numbers in Japanese by beating up on a big sumo guy. I played video games for a good hour, before needing a karaoke break. Jessica, our newest Nagaokan, joined me in a round of Christmas karaoke. I lost track of time in the karaoke room. The massage chair and the Christmas tunes were intoxicating. The realization that our 3 hours of play had finished dashed my hopes of partaking in any of the sports related fun at Round 1. I vow to play some sports when we visit again during our holiday vacation.

Dustin and I tried our luck at the UFO games and went home 1600 yen poorer for it. Our friend Scott won seven separate items from the UFO games, so we thought we could do it, too. Scott gave me a great tip. If you call the UFO attendant over and point to the item you want, he will make it easier for you to get it AND he'll show you how to do it. Still, somehow, we couldn't free that cute little hamster dressed up like a cow from his glass cage. Scott has had over a year of practice at this, so maybe in time, I will be able to win useless stuffed animals from UFO machines. I know it's possible, because I saw many little Japanese teens leaving with bags overflowing with stuffed prizes. 

*UPDATE: Dustin just walked through the door, back from his second venture to Round 1, carrying the coveted hamster/cow AND a melon dog. He has learned the ways of the UFO.

We did leave with plenty of purikura. I heart purikura. To obtain a bit of purikura, you first go into a completely green photo booth. You choose a back ground, use the monitor to set yourself up to be perfectly positioned within the background, and do a silly pose. This continues for 5 or 6 backgrounds. After you're posed out, you head into the editing booth where you can use a photoshop-like program to glam up your pictures. You can add pre-made icons, phrases, and filters OR you can use the pencil to do just about anything to your photo. Usually, you only have about four minutes to edit and then choose your favorites, but our editing booth got stuck on 39 seconds, so we had all the time in the world to perfect our purikura.  Here's some purikura Dustin and I did a while back that now decorates my phone and the beauties from last weekend. 

Thank you to everyone trying their hardest to keep in touch. I love hearing from you all even if it's a short little paragraph once in a great while. I've got lots of letters fully written and waiting for stamps. Hopefully, I'll have some in my mailbox soon, too! *hint hint hint* 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!