(no subject)
I swear I meant to update more along the way, but I didn't, so here's my great big info dump of what I did this summer.
The biggest thing that happened was that my family (parents and sister) came and visited for about 10 days from the end of July to early August. After getting lost and confused in Shinjuku the last time they came to Japan, they insisted that I pick them up at the airport and lead them the whole way back to Gunma this time around. Thanks to all the overblown nuclear scare stuff being said about Japan, they were some of the only people to get off the plane at Narita. It was pretty surreal.
(The three on the right are my family, and the three on the left are Paula's from when we all got to meet and have breakfast. ♥)
For 2 days, my family stayed in my house in Gunma. They pretended to be Japanese by bringing gifts for the people at my schools and BoE who look after me the most. So they got to see where I work and where I live and got to sample things like cheap and delicious conveyor belt sushi...kindof. My dad was most fond of the roast beef sushi, my sister liked anything fried, and my mom ordered practically everything that was cooked and mixed with mayonaise. ^^;;; I was the only one to eat raw fish.
From Gunma we took a bus down to Kawaguchiko, near the base of Mt. Fuji. The weather was cloudy almost the entire time we were staying there, so we didn't get many glimpses of the mountain from the bottom, but at least it didn't rain on us too much.
After using the first day to settle in and get acquainted with the area around the lake, we used the second day to go to Fujikyuu Highland, a theme park just one train stop away. The last time I went there, the park only had 2 roller coasters, but since then it's gotten 2 more, including a brand new one that has a hill so steep, it takes you upside-down without even going through a loop! But unfortunately, I'm the only person in my family who likes thrill rides, so instead of waiting in line for hours and having to ride alone, I took the time to ride my favorite, Eejanaika, and spent the rest of my time on themed attractions with the rest of my family.
Day 3 we climbed Mt. Fuji. We didn't do the climb-through-the-night-to-watch-the-sunrise thing, because that requires an extra day to recuperate. We took a bus up to 5th station in the morning and hiked as far up as we could from 9 to 3. Between the altitude, the heavy fog, and the steep inclines it was really rough, though not nearly as bad for me as for my parents. We made it up to 8th station before starting back down. My dad got a hiking stick and had it stamped at all the stations and hostels along the way. And by some stroke of luck, the fog cleared away right as we got near our turning point, putting us up above the sea of clouds, and as we went down, the clouds decended with us, so we got to keep our most amazing view and get some really neat pictures of the rocks. The sun was just setting as we got on the bus to take us back to the lake.
Day 4 we were in pain, but went to a nearby folk village anyways, and I got to take my sister to the public onsen for some naked bonding time. It was made less awkward by the fact that neither of us had our contacts in and did a lot to help our muscles relax.
After Fuji, my family spent their last few days with me in Tokyo. We had been planning on going to the fish market, but decided that a better use of our time and energy would be to take a day trip to Hakone and unwind at a hot spring. We went to a place called Yunessun, because the majority of the park requires bathing suits, putting my American-born family members much more at ease. The resort was very grossly crowded, but once we got in and started dipping into all of the different baths, it was absolute heaven. They didn't have my favorite lotion bath, but the minty blue thing that they replaced it with was also nice. Judging by the fact that my parents grossly slept in the next morning (when they had been waking up at 5 or 6am due to jet lag), I'd say the baths did their job~.
My family's last full day in Japan was also the day before my sister's birthday. Paula joined my mom, sister, and I for a celebratory shopping trip. I took us to Harajuku, so my sister could by some authentic, Japanese goth-loli clothes. She ended up buying a very cute black and white dress with a hooded shoulder cape. I splurged on myself as well and bought a ruffles and lace punk outfit, the most outrageous Japanese fashion I now own.
That evening, all dolled up in our new clothes, my sis, Paula, and I went to see the latest Rock Musical Bleach. The story was original and cliche to the max, but the singing was absolutely AWESOME! My sister barely speaks 3 words in Japanese, but she absolutely loved it, and one of the guys sitting in front of us turned around and gave her a special photo of Ukitake that he'd won.
Awesome experience and a great trip all around.
Back in Gunma, I've had the surprising pleasure of getting to know our town's new ALT. Surprising because I didn't think I'd get along well with him at all. Aside from liking Japan and men, we have basically nothing in common, but it sounds like he's gonna be just fine as an ALT. He's doing well socially, despite being way out in the boonies, and I think he'll try hard to connect with the kids. He's got it rough, being scheduled for two straight terms of strictly elementary school teaching, but he likes kids, is very organized when it comes to planning, and is very receptive towards getting ideas and materials from his seniors. He's very hungry for knowledge in general, actually. When spending time in the office, he made a lot of conversation with our Japanese co-workers in a very "cultural exchange"-y sort of way that would make the leaders of the JET program proud. Helps too that I'd say his Japanese is at about the same level as mine and might be better once he gets back into the swing of living in Japan and communicating with the people here.
If I had one complaint, it would be that he strikes me as a little underhandedly selfish. He's a bit...meiwaku is the best way to put it. He uses what ignorance he has to become a burden and get other people to do things for him. Because he's new to Japan, it makes perfect sense to request help getting everything set up (like life insurance and bill payments); that I have no problem with. But there have been times, like where a task was set before us and I was left to do it on my own, because he was busying himself with trying to figure out the capabilities of his 3 online banking accounts...and then checking facebook. I had to request specifically for him to start doing his job and to help me, because he had already shifted his portion of the translation work onto me, in order to deal with his ignorance of the Japanese banking system...and check facebook. He also borrowed one of my bikes more than 2 weeks ago and hasn't given it back yet, despite living just around the corner. Those sorts of things.
Bottom line is, I think he'll do his job just fine, but I don't think that we'll be what you might consider friends, and I don't see us hanging out in our spare time.
School finally started back this week. I feel a lot better about myself now that I have a reason to go to work each day. I've also been sticking around a little extra to help some of my kids practice for the English speech contest coming up. I've got one girl in particular, who I think can make it to the prefectural contest, if not further. She's got a great topic and her pronunciation surprised the hell out of me when I first heard it, it's so good. Should be fun.
I've also had one of my schools request that I bring a bunch of my costumes in to work, so that they can take pictures for their Japanese version of a yearbook. XD I love feeling accepted in spite of my somewhat otaku hobbies. ♥
And as a final note, on the topic of cosplay, I'd like to make a quick mention of Comiket. I went. I cosplayed. And while wearing super crazy belly-button flashing gay clubbing Dream Live 6 Tenimyu cosplay, Paula and I got interviewed for a Chinese TV special. It was awesome in a fabulously embarrassing sort of way. XDDD
The biggest thing that happened was that my family (parents and sister) came and visited for about 10 days from the end of July to early August. After getting lost and confused in Shinjuku the last time they came to Japan, they insisted that I pick them up at the airport and lead them the whole way back to Gunma this time around. Thanks to all the overblown nuclear scare stuff being said about Japan, they were some of the only people to get off the plane at Narita. It was pretty surreal.
(The three on the right are my family, and the three on the left are Paula's from when we all got to meet and have breakfast. ♥)
For 2 days, my family stayed in my house in Gunma. They pretended to be Japanese by bringing gifts for the people at my schools and BoE who look after me the most. So they got to see where I work and where I live and got to sample things like cheap and delicious conveyor belt sushi...kindof. My dad was most fond of the roast beef sushi, my sister liked anything fried, and my mom ordered practically everything that was cooked and mixed with mayonaise. ^^;;; I was the only one to eat raw fish.
From Gunma we took a bus down to Kawaguchiko, near the base of Mt. Fuji. The weather was cloudy almost the entire time we were staying there, so we didn't get many glimpses of the mountain from the bottom, but at least it didn't rain on us too much.
After using the first day to settle in and get acquainted with the area around the lake, we used the second day to go to Fujikyuu Highland, a theme park just one train stop away. The last time I went there, the park only had 2 roller coasters, but since then it's gotten 2 more, including a brand new one that has a hill so steep, it takes you upside-down without even going through a loop! But unfortunately, I'm the only person in my family who likes thrill rides, so instead of waiting in line for hours and having to ride alone, I took the time to ride my favorite, Eejanaika, and spent the rest of my time on themed attractions with the rest of my family.
Day 3 we climbed Mt. Fuji. We didn't do the climb-through-the-night-to-watch-the-sunrise thing, because that requires an extra day to recuperate. We took a bus up to 5th station in the morning and hiked as far up as we could from 9 to 3. Between the altitude, the heavy fog, and the steep inclines it was really rough, though not nearly as bad for me as for my parents. We made it up to 8th station before starting back down. My dad got a hiking stick and had it stamped at all the stations and hostels along the way. And by some stroke of luck, the fog cleared away right as we got near our turning point, putting us up above the sea of clouds, and as we went down, the clouds decended with us, so we got to keep our most amazing view and get some really neat pictures of the rocks. The sun was just setting as we got on the bus to take us back to the lake.
Day 4 we were in pain, but went to a nearby folk village anyways, and I got to take my sister to the public onsen for some naked bonding time. It was made less awkward by the fact that neither of us had our contacts in and did a lot to help our muscles relax.
After Fuji, my family spent their last few days with me in Tokyo. We had been planning on going to the fish market, but decided that a better use of our time and energy would be to take a day trip to Hakone and unwind at a hot spring. We went to a place called Yunessun, because the majority of the park requires bathing suits, putting my American-born family members much more at ease. The resort was very grossly crowded, but once we got in and started dipping into all of the different baths, it was absolute heaven. They didn't have my favorite lotion bath, but the minty blue thing that they replaced it with was also nice. Judging by the fact that my parents grossly slept in the next morning (when they had been waking up at 5 or 6am due to jet lag), I'd say the baths did their job~.
My family's last full day in Japan was also the day before my sister's birthday. Paula joined my mom, sister, and I for a celebratory shopping trip. I took us to Harajuku, so my sister could by some authentic, Japanese goth-loli clothes. She ended up buying a very cute black and white dress with a hooded shoulder cape. I splurged on myself as well and bought a ruffles and lace punk outfit, the most outrageous Japanese fashion I now own.
That evening, all dolled up in our new clothes, my sis, Paula, and I went to see the latest Rock Musical Bleach. The story was original and cliche to the max, but the singing was absolutely AWESOME! My sister barely speaks 3 words in Japanese, but she absolutely loved it, and one of the guys sitting in front of us turned around and gave her a special photo of Ukitake that he'd won.
Awesome experience and a great trip all around.
Back in Gunma, I've had the surprising pleasure of getting to know our town's new ALT. Surprising because I didn't think I'd get along well with him at all. Aside from liking Japan and men, we have basically nothing in common, but it sounds like he's gonna be just fine as an ALT. He's doing well socially, despite being way out in the boonies, and I think he'll try hard to connect with the kids. He's got it rough, being scheduled for two straight terms of strictly elementary school teaching, but he likes kids, is very organized when it comes to planning, and is very receptive towards getting ideas and materials from his seniors. He's very hungry for knowledge in general, actually. When spending time in the office, he made a lot of conversation with our Japanese co-workers in a very "cultural exchange"-y sort of way that would make the leaders of the JET program proud. Helps too that I'd say his Japanese is at about the same level as mine and might be better once he gets back into the swing of living in Japan and communicating with the people here.
If I had one complaint, it would be that he strikes me as a little underhandedly selfish. He's a bit...meiwaku is the best way to put it. He uses what ignorance he has to become a burden and get other people to do things for him. Because he's new to Japan, it makes perfect sense to request help getting everything set up (like life insurance and bill payments); that I have no problem with. But there have been times, like where a task was set before us and I was left to do it on my own, because he was busying himself with trying to figure out the capabilities of his 3 online banking accounts...and then checking facebook. I had to request specifically for him to start doing his job and to help me, because he had already shifted his portion of the translation work onto me, in order to deal with his ignorance of the Japanese banking system...and check facebook. He also borrowed one of my bikes more than 2 weeks ago and hasn't given it back yet, despite living just around the corner. Those sorts of things.
Bottom line is, I think he'll do his job just fine, but I don't think that we'll be what you might consider friends, and I don't see us hanging out in our spare time.
School finally started back this week. I feel a lot better about myself now that I have a reason to go to work each day. I've also been sticking around a little extra to help some of my kids practice for the English speech contest coming up. I've got one girl in particular, who I think can make it to the prefectural contest, if not further. She's got a great topic and her pronunciation surprised the hell out of me when I first heard it, it's so good. Should be fun.
I've also had one of my schools request that I bring a bunch of my costumes in to work, so that they can take pictures for their Japanese version of a yearbook. XD I love feeling accepted in spite of my somewhat otaku hobbies. ♥
And as a final note, on the topic of cosplay, I'd like to make a quick mention of Comiket. I went. I cosplayed. And while wearing super crazy belly-button flashing gay clubbing Dream Live 6 Tenimyu cosplay, Paula and I got interviewed for a Chinese TV special. It was awesome in a fabulously embarrassing sort of way. XDDD