Insert Meaningful Title Here, Possibly with Apology
It HAS been a while, hasn't it? I bet you thought I had forgotten about this. (hahaha, I are so funny, we both know that there is no "you" to be thinking anything at all. Seriously, if anyone is still checking this, I am amazed) In any case, why don't all none of you sit back, relax and get ready for...
So, when last we left our heroine, she was regaling you with tales of cultural festivals. Since then, much has happened, although (I would argue) very little of it would be considered "of note". The presentation I was doing for mid-winter went off very well. It was meant to be a lighthearted look at some of the weirder parts of Japan and that is what it was. The only crisis came when we ran out of monopoly money and had to make the individual groups keep track of their winnings themselves. Curse my lack of fake 100 dollar bills!
In December, I mostly recall lots of parties. I went to both the bonenkai for my school and for my yosakoi group. Disaster very nearly struck my school bonenkai as I got sick with a fever a few days before it happened. Fortunately, it turned out to just be a ritual 24 hour fever (I had one last year, too. This just goes to show that my brilliant strategy of categorically refusing to go to the doctor and attempting to kill it with vitamin C is COMPLETELY VIABLE) and I got over it in time for the party and didn't even have to expend any precious time off as my supervisor heavily implied to the high school that I was merely at the middle school that day and not, in fact, sleeping at home. (thank you, Seika!) That being said, I am not sure all the effort was worth it, as the school bonenkai was not as great as last year's, as it was held in a lower-scale onsen in Wakura (although that did mean that it cost half as much as last year's so I shouldn't complain) It was still fun, though and I even won a pillow during bingo. (a real pillow. not a Japanese one. according to Seika, at $30 it was the most expensive prize. nobody however was jealous, because, unlike your normal Japanese pillow it was not filled with rocks.)
The yosakoi party, on the other hand, was probably the best enkai I have been to in my entire time in Japan. I can say this with full certainty because cross-dressing was involved (in both directions!). During the actual dinner proper, they had several games where you had to guess which cups had cola and which ones had cola mixed with vinegar based on the reactions of people who drank them. There was a cross-dresstastic fashion show and, of course, a giant rock, paper, scissors-off that my compatriots and I, naturally, lost. The Japanese have mad rock, paper, scissors-fu. After dinner, we ambled over to mega awesome CHICKEN KARAOKE, where we got a HUGE room full of white leather couches and proceeded to sit and stare as every single Japanese person in the room demonstrated that, why, yes, they do know all of the dance moves to Pink Lady songs.
Then I went home for Christmas and there was a short intermission.
let's go out to the lobby, let's go out to the lobby, let's go out to the lobby and have ourselves a snack, as long as it doesn't involve natto
The year resumed with a return to Japan that included driving from Komatsu to Anamizu while falling asleep in order to try and make it to work the next morning. This plan succeeded about as well as can be expected. That is to say, I abandoned it and called up a friend in order to get some sleep and leave for work really early the next day.
January, February and most of March passed by in a haze of me being cold. I am fairly sure other things happened, but I don't remember them because I am actively blocking out memories of snow.
Actually it wasn't that bad. It did snow for a few weeks, but it always melted enough over the course of the day that driving did not terrify me. I would like to take this moment to talk about how awesome the kotatsu is. Conclusion: Really, really awesome. That is basically the only reason I did not die. Kerosene heaters and electric blankets are also pretty cool.
January was fairly uneventful, except for the Oyster Festival, which was, as expected delicious. Some KZ friends came to visit and we basically stuffed our faces and drank. We also terrorized my students, who were out in force volunteering at the festival. Ok, ok, I was the only one who terrorized my students, but I definitely did enough of it for several people, so I feel my earlier statement stands.
February picked up with a few extremely random yosakoi performances which I agreed to attend in a fit of insanity. Both of these performances were basically "cultural entertainment" for some business meeting that happened to be going on. This meant that we danced in a space that was barely large enough to fit all of us, much less accommodate our movements while being stared at by bemused salarymen. The first time, the appearance of several foreigners caused quite a stir, but by the second performance word had apparently gotten around because as far as I can tell no one even glanced in our direction for the duration of the dance. Which just goes to show that although yosakoi is awesome, it will never hold people's attention if forced to compete with free food. I would be bitter, but I can't really say that I would feel differently in a similar situation, so I'm not.
February is also when my 3rd year students stopped coming to school, which led to 1. boredom and 2. extreme sadness on my part. I loved those students. They were soooo cute. I carry around a picture of the class in a vaguely disturbing stalker-like manner. But it's not stalker like at all, ok? See, when people give me pictures I just put them in my purse and then forget to take them out forever and ever and so it just seems like for some reason I carry around pictures of 3C and the giant Godzilla the students made last year just so I can whip them out whenever the situation calls for it (and sometimes when it doesn't) but that is NOT THE CASE I SWEAR.
In March, I went to Thailand. For three days. Probably not the best plan I ever came up with. Made somewhat worse by the fact that I missed my flight and got to sit around Osaka airport for 9 hours. Osaka airport, for the record, is very nice, but not that interesting. They DO, however, have a really nice little service in place where you can rent yourself a cubicle with a comfy chair/couch a computer with high speed internet (although no World of Warcraft installed, which I think is a huge oversight. they DID have lineage though, which I guess is bigger in this neck of the woods) and access to a bunch of movies and books (although these are mostly in Japanese) for what I thought was a fairly reasonable price. 6 hours cost me about $30. I watched Music and Lyrics - it was cute.
Thailand was nice, if hectic. Met mum there and we saw a bunch of stuff and it was really good and mum got to give a speech and everyone thought the speech was really cool except me because 1. I wasn't there to hear it (sleeping due to extreme lack of sleep on flight over) and 2. it was about chemistry so I didn't even understand the title.
Got back to Japan just in time to go to a birthday party which was about as fun as can be expected when you haven't slept in 36 hours (i.e. really fun) There was pizza and karaoke and it was good. The next week, my school had its graduation ceremony and enkai. It was sad. But there was cake! And I got my students to sign the yearbook! and I totally got water all over Seika's yearbook (sorry seika! I would have gallantly switched books at that point but students had already written (now illegible. sorry seika!(don't you love nested parentheses? (have I already made that joke?))) messages on it, so I couldn't.)
Later, the school year ended and my brother and his wife came to visit. (they shall be referred to as B and J from now on which stands for "nickname I am not supposed to reveal to other people" and "actual name") They went around Kyoto before coming to see me during which time we had Seika's going away party...it was nice. Sad, but nice. Also, full of booze. We rented out this tiny bar-looking-thing in wajima for the extremely low price of 2000 yen per person for all you can drink for 3 hours + assorted fruits and cheeses. The only caveat was that the all you can drink only applied to 3 drinks of the (only, and can you blame the guy?) bartender's choosing which turned out to be gin and tonic, cassis orange (a really sweet fruity girly drink), and a whisky water. This left most of us drinking gin and tonics the entire night, until.....someone discovered that combining them with cassis oranges led to AWESOME. Then there was much rejoicing. and karaoke. we think. Then Seika moved to Yokohama where she has since been worked RIDICULOUSLY hard (coming home at eleven! ELEVEN!!) but I am getting ahead of myself.
The day after the party, I went to KZ to pick up B and J and take them around town. They were suitably impressed, as well they should have been because KZ is awesome. Although, I must say that the ninja temple kind of loses it's mysterious allure after you've gone through it SIX BLOODY TIMES. We went back to Noto in the evening and ate meat. It was delicious. Go meat! Meat banzai!
Over the next two days, I took them on what I like to call "Ye Compleat Toure of WTF Thynges In Ye Noto Peninfula." This includes the random giant green Buddha, the random extremely delicious gelato stand in middle of nowheretown on the road from Anamizu to Notocho, the random GIANT HOTEL in the middle of Suzu, the random bakery run by a random Australian in Notocho, the random beer brewery and emu farm with random Czech guy brewing beer there, the random Japanese Cornell graduate who runs a laquerware store in Wajima, the random GIANT ROCK jutting out of the water that is otherwise surrounded by completely flat land, and the random tiny lighthouse.
There was also a random oyster festival in Anamizu on Saturday (not at all random, actually. it was created to comemmorate the one-year anniversary of the earthquake) which I took them to where they were terrorized by my students possibly as payback for my early terrorizing in February. Mostly they had us write (by my count) a billion "messages of encouragement" to the town. We foolishy used up our entire store of creativity on the first one, however, so the rest consisted entirely of Star Wars and Portal references. We also grilled some oysters, took pictures with my delinquent students (confirming my hidden fears that my students will think my brother is cooler than I am. Not that it is hard to be cooler than I am. But still) and my brother won a Giant Box O' Soap from a raffle.
I also made them come to my school where we discovered that sudden terror at the prospect of meeting and having to talk to Japanese people one of whom is the vice principal is the SUREFIRE way to get rid of hiccups. Oh yeah, and we rented a car for our...AMAZING ROAD TRIP TO TAKAYAMA. (yay!) Which I will talk about (hopefully) in a later entry.
Ok, that's about HALF the time since the start of the doom hiatus, but I want to go ahead and post instead of leaving this to stew for (another) two weeks. Enjoy, all none of you who still check this!
So, when last we left our heroine, she was regaling you with tales of cultural festivals. Since then, much has happened, although (I would argue) very little of it would be considered "of note". The presentation I was doing for mid-winter went off very well. It was meant to be a lighthearted look at some of the weirder parts of Japan and that is what it was. The only crisis came when we ran out of monopoly money and had to make the individual groups keep track of their winnings themselves. Curse my lack of fake 100 dollar bills!
In December, I mostly recall lots of parties. I went to both the bonenkai for my school and for my yosakoi group. Disaster very nearly struck my school bonenkai as I got sick with a fever a few days before it happened. Fortunately, it turned out to just be a ritual 24 hour fever (I had one last year, too. This just goes to show that my brilliant strategy of categorically refusing to go to the doctor and attempting to kill it with vitamin C is COMPLETELY VIABLE) and I got over it in time for the party and didn't even have to expend any precious time off as my supervisor heavily implied to the high school that I was merely at the middle school that day and not, in fact, sleeping at home. (thank you, Seika!) That being said, I am not sure all the effort was worth it, as the school bonenkai was not as great as last year's, as it was held in a lower-scale onsen in Wakura (although that did mean that it cost half as much as last year's so I shouldn't complain) It was still fun, though and I even won a pillow during bingo. (a real pillow. not a Japanese one. according to Seika, at $30 it was the most expensive prize. nobody however was jealous, because, unlike your normal Japanese pillow it was not filled with rocks.)
The yosakoi party, on the other hand, was probably the best enkai I have been to in my entire time in Japan. I can say this with full certainty because cross-dressing was involved (in both directions!). During the actual dinner proper, they had several games where you had to guess which cups had cola and which ones had cola mixed with vinegar based on the reactions of people who drank them. There was a cross-dresstastic fashion show and, of course, a giant rock, paper, scissors-off that my compatriots and I, naturally, lost. The Japanese have mad rock, paper, scissors-fu. After dinner, we ambled over to mega awesome CHICKEN KARAOKE, where we got a HUGE room full of white leather couches and proceeded to sit and stare as every single Japanese person in the room demonstrated that, why, yes, they do know all of the dance moves to Pink Lady songs.
Then I went home for Christmas and there was a short intermission.
let's go out to the lobby, let's go out to the lobby, let's go out to the lobby and have ourselves a snack, as long as it doesn't involve natto
The year resumed with a return to Japan that included driving from Komatsu to Anamizu while falling asleep in order to try and make it to work the next morning. This plan succeeded about as well as can be expected. That is to say, I abandoned it and called up a friend in order to get some sleep and leave for work really early the next day.
January, February and most of March passed by in a haze of me being cold. I am fairly sure other things happened, but I don't remember them because I am actively blocking out memories of snow.
Actually it wasn't that bad. It did snow for a few weeks, but it always melted enough over the course of the day that driving did not terrify me. I would like to take this moment to talk about how awesome the kotatsu is. Conclusion: Really, really awesome. That is basically the only reason I did not die. Kerosene heaters and electric blankets are also pretty cool.
January was fairly uneventful, except for the Oyster Festival, which was, as expected delicious. Some KZ friends came to visit and we basically stuffed our faces and drank. We also terrorized my students, who were out in force volunteering at the festival. Ok, ok, I was the only one who terrorized my students, but I definitely did enough of it for several people, so I feel my earlier statement stands.
February picked up with a few extremely random yosakoi performances which I agreed to attend in a fit of insanity. Both of these performances were basically "cultural entertainment" for some business meeting that happened to be going on. This meant that we danced in a space that was barely large enough to fit all of us, much less accommodate our movements while being stared at by bemused salarymen. The first time, the appearance of several foreigners caused quite a stir, but by the second performance word had apparently gotten around because as far as I can tell no one even glanced in our direction for the duration of the dance. Which just goes to show that although yosakoi is awesome, it will never hold people's attention if forced to compete with free food. I would be bitter, but I can't really say that I would feel differently in a similar situation, so I'm not.
February is also when my 3rd year students stopped coming to school, which led to 1. boredom and 2. extreme sadness on my part. I loved those students. They were soooo cute. I carry around a picture of the class in a vaguely disturbing stalker-like manner. But it's not stalker like at all, ok? See, when people give me pictures I just put them in my purse and then forget to take them out forever and ever and so it just seems like for some reason I carry around pictures of 3C and the giant Godzilla the students made last year just so I can whip them out whenever the situation calls for it (and sometimes when it doesn't) but that is NOT THE CASE I SWEAR.
In March, I went to Thailand. For three days. Probably not the best plan I ever came up with. Made somewhat worse by the fact that I missed my flight and got to sit around Osaka airport for 9 hours. Osaka airport, for the record, is very nice, but not that interesting. They DO, however, have a really nice little service in place where you can rent yourself a cubicle with a comfy chair/couch a computer with high speed internet (although no World of Warcraft installed, which I think is a huge oversight. they DID have lineage though, which I guess is bigger in this neck of the woods) and access to a bunch of movies and books (although these are mostly in Japanese) for what I thought was a fairly reasonable price. 6 hours cost me about $30. I watched Music and Lyrics - it was cute.
Thailand was nice, if hectic. Met mum there and we saw a bunch of stuff and it was really good and mum got to give a speech and everyone thought the speech was really cool except me because 1. I wasn't there to hear it (sleeping due to extreme lack of sleep on flight over) and 2. it was about chemistry so I didn't even understand the title.
Got back to Japan just in time to go to a birthday party which was about as fun as can be expected when you haven't slept in 36 hours (i.e. really fun) There was pizza and karaoke and it was good. The next week, my school had its graduation ceremony and enkai. It was sad. But there was cake! And I got my students to sign the yearbook! and I totally got water all over Seika's yearbook (sorry seika! I would have gallantly switched books at that point but students had already written (now illegible. sorry seika!(don't you love nested parentheses? (have I already made that joke?))) messages on it, so I couldn't.)
Later, the school year ended and my brother and his wife came to visit. (they shall be referred to as B and J from now on which stands for "nickname I am not supposed to reveal to other people" and "actual name") They went around Kyoto before coming to see me during which time we had Seika's going away party...it was nice. Sad, but nice. Also, full of booze. We rented out this tiny bar-looking-thing in wajima for the extremely low price of 2000 yen per person for all you can drink for 3 hours + assorted fruits and cheeses. The only caveat was that the all you can drink only applied to 3 drinks of the (only, and can you blame the guy?) bartender's choosing which turned out to be gin and tonic, cassis orange (a really sweet fruity girly drink), and a whisky water. This left most of us drinking gin and tonics the entire night, until.....someone discovered that combining them with cassis oranges led to AWESOME. Then there was much rejoicing. and karaoke. we think. Then Seika moved to Yokohama where she has since been worked RIDICULOUSLY hard (coming home at eleven! ELEVEN!!) but I am getting ahead of myself.
The day after the party, I went to KZ to pick up B and J and take them around town. They were suitably impressed, as well they should have been because KZ is awesome. Although, I must say that the ninja temple kind of loses it's mysterious allure after you've gone through it SIX BLOODY TIMES. We went back to Noto in the evening and ate meat. It was delicious. Go meat! Meat banzai!
Over the next two days, I took them on what I like to call "Ye Compleat Toure of WTF Thynges In Ye Noto Peninfula." This includes the random giant green Buddha, the random extremely delicious gelato stand in middle of nowheretown on the road from Anamizu to Notocho, the random GIANT HOTEL in the middle of Suzu, the random bakery run by a random Australian in Notocho, the random beer brewery and emu farm with random Czech guy brewing beer there, the random Japanese Cornell graduate who runs a laquerware store in Wajima, the random GIANT ROCK jutting out of the water that is otherwise surrounded by completely flat land, and the random tiny lighthouse.
There was also a random oyster festival in Anamizu on Saturday (not at all random, actually. it was created to comemmorate the one-year anniversary of the earthquake) which I took them to where they were terrorized by my students possibly as payback for my early terrorizing in February. Mostly they had us write (by my count) a billion "messages of encouragement" to the town. We foolishy used up our entire store of creativity on the first one, however, so the rest consisted entirely of Star Wars and Portal references. We also grilled some oysters, took pictures with my delinquent students (confirming my hidden fears that my students will think my brother is cooler than I am. Not that it is hard to be cooler than I am. But still) and my brother won a Giant Box O' Soap from a raffle.
I also made them come to my school where we discovered that sudden terror at the prospect of meeting and having to talk to Japanese people one of whom is the vice principal is the SUREFIRE way to get rid of hiccups. Oh yeah, and we rented a car for our...AMAZING ROAD TRIP TO TAKAYAMA. (yay!) Which I will talk about (hopefully) in a later entry.
Ok, that's about HALF the time since the start of the doom hiatus, but I want to go ahead and post instead of leaving this to stew for (another) two weeks. Enjoy, all none of you who still check this!