Saturday night, I got to see the house of the CO of the whole base. His wife hosted a wine and cheese tasting for Officer's Spouse's Club. It was a lovely time, though perhaps a little stressful to go to the house of the guy who runs the whole base with the intention of drinking lots of wine. Thankfully, I have a brain, and I know that there are times when it is more than usually important to behave. So I did. But that's the thing about living in a small American community in a foreign country. (We talked about this at the party.) Someone is always watching. We, as Americans, stick out, espcially here where we're the only white people around for the most part. And not only do the Japanese watch our behavior and make judgements about America as a result, the other American's are watching. We all know each other! So you can't go doing anything too stupid, or your spouse may hear about it at work the next day.
Also, as a side note, I had to walk to base because one drink (literally) is enough to put you over the legal limit for driving around here. This didn't bother me, though, because 1) it's a super rule in my opinion and 2) exercise is important.
Then Sunday I successfully bought thread for a cross-stitching project I've been working on for about a year now. I found a place off base that sells the stuff, and that alone was a major accomplishment. So I rewarded myself with a trip to Starbucks for my new favorite drink: the matcha latte. Matcha is the super strong tea, and adding milk and a little sugar doesn't make it less green, but it is quite yummy.
So I was planning to just relax for most of the day, but instead I got a call to sub on base for the first time. (My subbing last week was at the junior college.) When I signed up to sub, I did it through the high school, but the automatically put me in for the elementary school, too, to give me more opportunities to work. Today, I subbed in the Sure Start class. It's a preschool program run at the elementary school. There was a teacher's aid, who just basically became the teacher for the day, and I ran interference making sure nobody killed each other and that everybody washed their hands before lunch and took their naps, that kind of thing. I got to help with craft time, so that was cool, and the book fair is at the school this week, so I got to take all the kids, two at a time, to go look at the books and make a wish list for their parents. That was great fun. I LOVED book fairs as a kid. So it was nice to see them all going crazy, "I want this one, and this one and this one..." Good times. Poor parents, I feel a little bad for them. So the day passed without incident, and I now have even more spending money for Golden Week. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll explain that another day....
In other news, I have an A in my first week of Action Research, which is also another 100%. So far so good!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
My new friend...
Today, I got my first pay "check" for teaching in Japan: a cash payment for the subbing I did last week. I rewarded myself by going to check out the Mos Burger downtown. Sasebo, oddly enough, is known for its hamburgers (I know I know, they're so Japanese?), and Mos Burger is the gourmet variety. So I went, and the menu was (logically) all in Japanese, but it did have pictures, and I ordered with a decent amount of success (read: I got what I intended to get, but I mostly had to point and it took two guys to understand). I had a little trouble telling them what kind of drink I wanted, since usually I just get ocha (hot tea), and that did not appear to be an option.
The Mos Cheeseburger was every bit as gourmet as a burger can get without being presumptious. It was the size of a McDonald's happy meal burger (which suits me because that's what I order there anyway), and consisted of a bun, mustard, the burger itself, a hefty amount of chili and some cheese. It was quite tasty. I got fries and a coke with it, and they were very good too. The fries were just enough to be good but not so much that you feel like you drank a vat of fat. The coke was about medium sized. Better yet, my order came with a menu and coupons, and the menu is in katakana, which I'm supposed to be able to read. So after I ate, I sat down to translate the thing so next time I'll know how to say what I want. I was having a decent amount of success in this endeavor when I was distracted by a vistor.
It was a lizard.
And it was crawling near the ceiling in my TV room. It was grey and about as long as my hand.
After my initial panic reaction to call Zack, I realized that the little guy was more scared of me than I was of it, which is actually saying a lot. Then I decided that I could not keep this to myself. I had to tell someone! So I pulled out my phone and took some sub-standard pictures (I really really really need a camera here), and then I called Mel for advice.
Mel has lived everywhere, as far as I can tell, and she's not a girly girl who would scream at the word lizard, so I knew I could ask her what she would do and not get "Call 911 and demand that someone help you!!!" Her first reaction was "Lucky! I never see lizards around here!" She went on to explain to me that lizards eat bugs (okay, I knew that, but it hadn't occurred to me yet) and thus it was not a good idea to kill the guy. I wasn't going to kill him anyway, so this was a good start. She then said that she had seen a lizard here eating a cockroach. This warmed me up to the little guy considerably. I had to kill a cockroach last night, and if he was willing to take on that job, I'd be happy to share my TV room with him. She said also that lizards scare easily, and I could probably chase him out an open door. He wasn't exactly in a position for that, though, so I decided against it for the time being. Instead, I left him to his own devices, and when he figured out that I wasn't going to eat him, he rushed down behind the TV and out of sight. I have no idea how he got in to the house in the first place, so I can only hope that he'll either leave the way he came or go about killing every insect on the first floor (I'd rather imagine him not going anywhere near my bedroom).
I successfully calmed myself down enough to take a bath, but when I was done, I found myself still curious about my little visitor. So I got on google. After a quick run through of every lizard common to Japan, with pictures, I'm fairly confident that my buddy is a Japanese Gecko. No, really, that's their common name. In Japan, they're called Nihon-Yamori, and are considered guardians of the house. So, I've named the guy Mushu. (I know, wrong country. I don't care.) I hope I never see Mushu again, or if I do he's on the first floor, but it's good to know that the Japanese like these guys. That must mean they're relatively harmless. For a picture of one who looks a lot scarier than my little guy, go to this webpage:http://homepage3.nifty.com/japrep/gekko/gekko/text/ejpyamori.htm. Mushu looks more like the Geico gecko, only gray. I think he must be a baby. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but it certainly was good entertainment for the night.
The Mos Cheeseburger was every bit as gourmet as a burger can get without being presumptious. It was the size of a McDonald's happy meal burger (which suits me because that's what I order there anyway), and consisted of a bun, mustard, the burger itself, a hefty amount of chili and some cheese. It was quite tasty. I got fries and a coke with it, and they were very good too. The fries were just enough to be good but not so much that you feel like you drank a vat of fat. The coke was about medium sized. Better yet, my order came with a menu and coupons, and the menu is in katakana, which I'm supposed to be able to read. So after I ate, I sat down to translate the thing so next time I'll know how to say what I want. I was having a decent amount of success in this endeavor when I was distracted by a vistor.
It was a lizard.
And it was crawling near the ceiling in my TV room. It was grey and about as long as my hand.
After my initial panic reaction to call Zack, I realized that the little guy was more scared of me than I was of it, which is actually saying a lot. Then I decided that I could not keep this to myself. I had to tell someone! So I pulled out my phone and took some sub-standard pictures (I really really really need a camera here), and then I called Mel for advice.
Mel has lived everywhere, as far as I can tell, and she's not a girly girl who would scream at the word lizard, so I knew I could ask her what she would do and not get "Call 911 and demand that someone help you!!!" Her first reaction was "Lucky! I never see lizards around here!" She went on to explain to me that lizards eat bugs (okay, I knew that, but it hadn't occurred to me yet) and thus it was not a good idea to kill the guy. I wasn't going to kill him anyway, so this was a good start. She then said that she had seen a lizard here eating a cockroach. This warmed me up to the little guy considerably. I had to kill a cockroach last night, and if he was willing to take on that job, I'd be happy to share my TV room with him. She said also that lizards scare easily, and I could probably chase him out an open door. He wasn't exactly in a position for that, though, so I decided against it for the time being. Instead, I left him to his own devices, and when he figured out that I wasn't going to eat him, he rushed down behind the TV and out of sight. I have no idea how he got in to the house in the first place, so I can only hope that he'll either leave the way he came or go about killing every insect on the first floor (I'd rather imagine him not going anywhere near my bedroom).
I successfully calmed myself down enough to take a bath, but when I was done, I found myself still curious about my little visitor. So I got on google. After a quick run through of every lizard common to Japan, with pictures, I'm fairly confident that my buddy is a Japanese Gecko. No, really, that's their common name. In Japan, they're called Nihon-Yamori, and are considered guardians of the house. So, I've named the guy Mushu. (I know, wrong country. I don't care.) I hope I never see Mushu again, or if I do he's on the first floor, but it's good to know that the Japanese like these guys. That must mean they're relatively harmless. For a picture of one who looks a lot scarier than my little guy, go to this webpage:http://homepage3.nifty.com/japrep/gekko/gekko/text/ejpyamori.htm. Mushu looks more like the Geico gecko, only gray. I think he must be a baby. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but it certainly was good entertainment for the night.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
How to do the Laundry
I was talking to Mom and Dad yesterday (Happy Birthday Mom!), and they pointed out that I've neglected to explain several of the more mundane tasks of my life. With that thought in mind, here's a quick summary of how I do my laundry. I promise it's at least a little more interesting than it sounds.
Step one: plug in the washer. We only have one plug in the washer/dryer area, so we can only use one at a time.
Step two: put clothes in washer. The washer is much smaller than my old American one. We used to make about a load of laundry a week (unsorted). Now we make two.
Step three: turn on washer.
Step four: push the start button. For the record, there are many many choices as far as cycle selection go. They're all in Japanese, though. We have instructions in English, but I've currently misplaced them, so we're running everything on standard at the moment. Oops.
At this point, the washer will jiggle the clothes around a few times. Then it will light up a button which indicates how much detergent you need. There are four levels and they're in picture form. Most of our loads are the most detergent, which means we're running full loads. It is interesting sometimes, though, to see how much it will tell you. I guess it does it by weight, so some loads that look full are really small, others that look small are full.
Step five: Put in detergent. Another disadvantage of not currently having the directions is that I'm confident there's a place for softener, but I can't remember which place it is.
Step six: close the lid and wait.
The washer will then behave like a perfectly normal washer, except with like three spin cycles. The clothes are much dryer when it's done than they were in my old machine. When it's done, it beeps politely at me.
Step seven: Take laundry out of the washer.
Then I have to make a decision. If the laundry in question is stuff I don't mind displaying to our neighbors, and it's a sunny day, it goes out on the patio where we have three rods to hang dry things. Everyone hangs out their clothes to dry around here. It kind of makes sense, because 1) the dryer takes like three hours to work anyway and 2) it's even smaller than the washer. As a result, I've taken to doing laundry first thing in the morning when the patio is still sunny.
If I don't want the neighbors to see it, the laundry goes in the dryer. This involved unplugging the washer, plugging in the dryer and then basically following the same process as washing. There's a separate on and start button, for example. I have managed to memorize the kanji for the cycle which is "Less shrink," so I'm good there. Then I just have to be patient, because it takes forever.
Also, at the end of every load, I have (count them) four lint traps to clean. One is in the washer, and is a little baggie looking thing which just has to be flipped inside out to be emptied. The other three are in the back of the dryer as one big lint-catching contraption. So I have to pull them all out, scrape off the ones that need scraping, and then vacuum the one that needs vaccuming (no, really, that's what the instructions say to do).
It's quite a process, and if we were a family of five, I'd probably be frustrated. Luckily, I like doing laundry and it doesn't require a ton of attention, just time.
Other success stories for the last few days:
I successfully drove to Hario housing all by myself. It's half an hour from main base, and I'd only ever been there by bus before.
I successfully got on the sub list at the high school here. The background check must have gotten through because I got a letter saying that I'm accepted now.
I successfully got an A in my first grad school class. And not just any A, I got 100%. Go me! :-)
Step one: plug in the washer. We only have one plug in the washer/dryer area, so we can only use one at a time.
Step two: put clothes in washer. The washer is much smaller than my old American one. We used to make about a load of laundry a week (unsorted). Now we make two.
Step three: turn on washer.
Step four: push the start button. For the record, there are many many choices as far as cycle selection go. They're all in Japanese, though. We have instructions in English, but I've currently misplaced them, so we're running everything on standard at the moment. Oops.
At this point, the washer will jiggle the clothes around a few times. Then it will light up a button which indicates how much detergent you need. There are four levels and they're in picture form. Most of our loads are the most detergent, which means we're running full loads. It is interesting sometimes, though, to see how much it will tell you. I guess it does it by weight, so some loads that look full are really small, others that look small are full.
Step five: Put in detergent. Another disadvantage of not currently having the directions is that I'm confident there's a place for softener, but I can't remember which place it is.
Step six: close the lid and wait.
The washer will then behave like a perfectly normal washer, except with like three spin cycles. The clothes are much dryer when it's done than they were in my old machine. When it's done, it beeps politely at me.
Step seven: Take laundry out of the washer.
Then I have to make a decision. If the laundry in question is stuff I don't mind displaying to our neighbors, and it's a sunny day, it goes out on the patio where we have three rods to hang dry things. Everyone hangs out their clothes to dry around here. It kind of makes sense, because 1) the dryer takes like three hours to work anyway and 2) it's even smaller than the washer. As a result, I've taken to doing laundry first thing in the morning when the patio is still sunny.
If I don't want the neighbors to see it, the laundry goes in the dryer. This involved unplugging the washer, plugging in the dryer and then basically following the same process as washing. There's a separate on and start button, for example. I have managed to memorize the kanji for the cycle which is "Less shrink," so I'm good there. Then I just have to be patient, because it takes forever.
Also, at the end of every load, I have (count them) four lint traps to clean. One is in the washer, and is a little baggie looking thing which just has to be flipped inside out to be emptied. The other three are in the back of the dryer as one big lint-catching contraption. So I have to pull them all out, scrape off the ones that need scraping, and then vacuum the one that needs vaccuming (no, really, that's what the instructions say to do).
It's quite a process, and if we were a family of five, I'd probably be frustrated. Luckily, I like doing laundry and it doesn't require a ton of attention, just time.
Other success stories for the last few days:
I successfully drove to Hario housing all by myself. It's half an hour from main base, and I'd only ever been there by bus before.
I successfully got on the sub list at the high school here. The background check must have gotten through because I got a letter saying that I'm accepted now.
I successfully got an A in my first grad school class. And not just any A, I got 100%. Go me! :-)
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Busy Busy
This week has been full to the brim of things to do, despite (or especially because) of the fact that the boys are gone. Every morning this week, I subbed for another teacher at the junior college. It was my job to make their students talk, and to get them to fill out one specific survey. That's it. I scrambled through the materials they gave me when I started working there, and the time possitively flew. I guess I'm used to planning fifty minutes at a time, and these classes were forty. Everything took longer than I expected, so that was great. The first day, we made sympathy cards for their teacher, whose grandmother had died. The next day, we did the survey as an interview, that spilled into day three. Since then, we've been playing games that involve talking. I've been loving being in the classroom again.
Also, this week I started class two of my masters degree. This one is called Action Research, and is part one of a three part set that is meant to help us do our major research project for the degree. Step one is to identify a problem at your school that you might be able to aliviate. STRESS! If you haven't noticed, I love my school, and I hope it never changes. It took me most of the week to 1) do the reading to figure out what I was supposed to do and 2) identify any problem at all, much less the three we're supposed to start out with. So that's kept me very busy and very freaked out. Research makes me nervous. But I think I'll like it once I get past the panic attack. That's going to take awhile, though.
Friday, I had agreed to keep Mel's cat while the movers were packing up her stuff. She came over before school to drop him off. I let him wander relatively free while I was getting ready. Before I left for school, he had jumped out a window, and I was certain he was lost and gone forever. If I didn't have to go to school, I would have spent the morning running around the neighborhood calling for him, but I couldn't. Instead, I called Mel and begged forgiveness. I told her the window through which he escaped was still open, and I'd look for him the minute I got home. Then I set about feeling super super guilty. I thought of everything Mel's done for me since I've been here, and that just made it worse. Visions of squished cat danced through my head. I got in my car to go to school and promptly saw the cat running across the road. I threw the car into park in the middle of the (very narrow one-way) road and dashed after him. It didn't take long for me to lose him again, and the honking from the street indicated I really better get to my car. So I gave up and went back to feeling guilty. When I told the teachers at school what had happened they assured me that Mel was going to die of grief, so I went home determined to find the stupid cat or die trying.
When I got home, the cat was in the house acting like nothing was wrong. I closed the window and called Mel. As it turned out, she spent all morning freaking out. She even got someone to come stay with the movers so she could go looking for him. Obviously, she didn't have any luck, and she was certain she would never see him again and she was devastated. I felt horrible. Then, we investigated further and realized that the window he jumped out leads to a balcony (the realitor called it "not safe" when we saw the place originally), and from there, there's no where to go. Literally. We decided that he would have had to stayed on that balcony or he never could have gotten back in. SO, as it turns out, the cat was on my property the whole time, and I chased some other cat through the road, and Mel worried for nothing. :::sigh::: At least he's back safely. Next time, I'll tell her to take him to the kennel on base.
Friday's class was actually my childcare class, too. I had planned what I thought was 90 minutes of work and expected to have extra time at the end of class. We got through 10 minutes of my plan. Their level is low, and things take time. So I can relax a little about lesson planning and expect to get through less material this semester. But I like them. They're a good class. We're going to be fine.
After all the chaos of that day, I enjoyed a lovely bath before bed just to relax enough to sleep.
Saturday, I let myself sleep in, then set about doing the masters work I had been avoiding all week. That took most of the morning. Then I cleaned up the house (it was getting pretty bad) and took care of Dory. Back home, I allowed myself an afternoon of play time before Mel came over to go out for dinner and then come back for a movie. Saturday was also the last day before the election. Mel and I did not realize this when we arranged to go out for dinner together. At seven, the trucks with the speakers were out in full force, and outside on the streets, people had gathered in support of their favorite candidates to wave and cheer. Even the guy who owns the Mexican restaurant was fascinated watching the vans go by and the people yell. It was insane! I think my hearing got worse. We enjoyed dinner, all the same. The Mexican place makes fresh guacomole, so that was yummy.
Then at 8:00, everything had to stop, so walking home after ice cream, it was so quiet it sounded, as Mel said, like the world had ended. We watched our movie and I allowed myself to go to bed early.
This morning, it was pouring down rain, and the silence of the night before was still pervasive. No one is out and about today, which suits me just fine. I went to church, came home, finished my school work for the week, and here I am. Next week is looking a lot less stressful, and I'm glad.
I'd have some pictures for this post, but SOMEONE :::glares playfully at Zack::: took my camera with him. We'll be investing in a new one soon, he assures me. In the mean time, words will have to do...
Also, this week I started class two of my masters degree. This one is called Action Research, and is part one of a three part set that is meant to help us do our major research project for the degree. Step one is to identify a problem at your school that you might be able to aliviate. STRESS! If you haven't noticed, I love my school, and I hope it never changes. It took me most of the week to 1) do the reading to figure out what I was supposed to do and 2) identify any problem at all, much less the three we're supposed to start out with. So that's kept me very busy and very freaked out. Research makes me nervous. But I think I'll like it once I get past the panic attack. That's going to take awhile, though.
Friday, I had agreed to keep Mel's cat while the movers were packing up her stuff. She came over before school to drop him off. I let him wander relatively free while I was getting ready. Before I left for school, he had jumped out a window, and I was certain he was lost and gone forever. If I didn't have to go to school, I would have spent the morning running around the neighborhood calling for him, but I couldn't. Instead, I called Mel and begged forgiveness. I told her the window through which he escaped was still open, and I'd look for him the minute I got home. Then I set about feeling super super guilty. I thought of everything Mel's done for me since I've been here, and that just made it worse. Visions of squished cat danced through my head. I got in my car to go to school and promptly saw the cat running across the road. I threw the car into park in the middle of the (very narrow one-way) road and dashed after him. It didn't take long for me to lose him again, and the honking from the street indicated I really better get to my car. So I gave up and went back to feeling guilty. When I told the teachers at school what had happened they assured me that Mel was going to die of grief, so I went home determined to find the stupid cat or die trying.
When I got home, the cat was in the house acting like nothing was wrong. I closed the window and called Mel. As it turned out, she spent all morning freaking out. She even got someone to come stay with the movers so she could go looking for him. Obviously, she didn't have any luck, and she was certain she would never see him again and she was devastated. I felt horrible. Then, we investigated further and realized that the window he jumped out leads to a balcony (the realitor called it "not safe" when we saw the place originally), and from there, there's no where to go. Literally. We decided that he would have had to stayed on that balcony or he never could have gotten back in. SO, as it turns out, the cat was on my property the whole time, and I chased some other cat through the road, and Mel worried for nothing. :::sigh::: At least he's back safely. Next time, I'll tell her to take him to the kennel on base.
Friday's class was actually my childcare class, too. I had planned what I thought was 90 minutes of work and expected to have extra time at the end of class. We got through 10 minutes of my plan. Their level is low, and things take time. So I can relax a little about lesson planning and expect to get through less material this semester. But I like them. They're a good class. We're going to be fine.
After all the chaos of that day, I enjoyed a lovely bath before bed just to relax enough to sleep.
Saturday, I let myself sleep in, then set about doing the masters work I had been avoiding all week. That took most of the morning. Then I cleaned up the house (it was getting pretty bad) and took care of Dory. Back home, I allowed myself an afternoon of play time before Mel came over to go out for dinner and then come back for a movie. Saturday was also the last day before the election. Mel and I did not realize this when we arranged to go out for dinner together. At seven, the trucks with the speakers were out in full force, and outside on the streets, people had gathered in support of their favorite candidates to wave and cheer. Even the guy who owns the Mexican restaurant was fascinated watching the vans go by and the people yell. It was insane! I think my hearing got worse. We enjoyed dinner, all the same. The Mexican place makes fresh guacomole, so that was yummy.
Then at 8:00, everything had to stop, so walking home after ice cream, it was so quiet it sounded, as Mel said, like the world had ended. We watched our movie and I allowed myself to go to bed early.
This morning, it was pouring down rain, and the silence of the night before was still pervasive. No one is out and about today, which suits me just fine. I went to church, came home, finished my school work for the week, and here I am. Next week is looking a lot less stressful, and I'm glad.
I'd have some pictures for this post, but SOMEONE :::glares playfully at Zack::: took my camera with him. We'll be investing in a new one soon, he assures me. In the mean time, words will have to do...
Saturday, April 21, 2007
My First Day of School
April 13th, 2007
It's a good thing I'm not (very) supersticious because today I had my first class for the junior college. I had a meeting with my supervisor earlier this week, and I've been antsy ever since waiting to see how it would go. The class is Childcare English. It's an elective course through the childcare department meant to prepare students for an internship next March on base. The English department (the people who hired me) put a cap on the class of twenty students, but since it's an elective, there was no telling how many would actually show up. So until this morning, I did not know how this day was going to play out. If less than 20 showed up, I was going forward with my first lesson. If more than 20 showed up, I'd do interviews to narrow it down.
The first thing I do when I get to school is take my shoes off. No, really. There are marvelous little shoe cubbies in the entryway, and I get to trade my shoes for a pair of slippers. The ones they provide are not so comfy, but I brought my own pair today, so I was ready to go. I'm delighted that I don't have to worry about what shoes I wear to school anymore. I'm just going to take them off when I get there, anyway! :-)
I was greeted at the door by one of the English teachers, Jenni, who helped me sign in since Luc is gone. Then we met a teacher from the childcare department, who told me the total count of interested students for my class was 24. In the US, not only would they never cap a class at 20 (try 30), if there were four extra, they'd never ever ever bother to take them out. But this is not the US. This is teacher heaven. So my first class, I held interviews. On Tuesday when they first told me that this might be a possiblity, I had thought about when I helped judge drum major tryouts back home. The score cards were vital in that process because students would inevitably complain about the results. Here, they told me that I didn't have to have any system of scoring at all. "Just choose the best 20. You'll be able to tell. No one will question your decision." It's an amazing feeling to hear that last sentence. I'm so used to someone breathing over my shoulder all the time.
So this morning, each student came into a room with me, usually hesitantly because it's polite to wait until invited around here. I had to ask them to sit down before they would. Then I asked them a few quick questions: name, where they were from, siblings, may be something beyond that, but that pretty much covered it. Then I rated them all 1-10 based on how they spoke. I realize this doesn't sound difficult, but it was just enough to distinguish the lowest four, and that was all I needed.
In the process of talking to the kids I did learn a few generalities about them as well. The majority of the class comes from either Nagasaki or Omura (which I think is near here) with a few from Sasebo and a few from elsewhere. There will be exactly two boys in the class, but that wasn't especially surprising to me, since it is childcare, which is a generally female field. The really fun part is they're mostly pretty excited about being in the class. I've been warned over and over since I got here to expect the students to not want to say anything. These students offered information and seem anxious to get a high enough score to get into the class. One girl even asked to speak at the end of the interview ("Yeah, sure, go ahead!") and told me that she had signed up because she loved kids and she loved English and she hoped I'd let her stay. I could have hugged her. She was well in the top half, so instead, I told her I looked forward to teaching her. I'm not used to that kind of enthusiasm from my students, and it's really energizing.
When the interviews were done, the teacher from the childcare department who was coordinating with me told me that I could go home. I was done for the day. So that was it.
Instead of going home, though, I went to a meeting for the English Department. I'm subbing for another teacher's conversation classes all next week, and the teachers all plan together, so I needed information. I was told there was no plan for next week. The goal was to build community in the class and get the kids talking. That's it. I was given a few introduction games, and the rest is up to me. Crazy! So I'll be busy this weekend lesson planning. The meeting gave me a chance to meet the other English teachers, though, and that was nice. I had met the other Navy wife, Debbie, before, and the other three women are very nice as well. I could spend a whole letter just telling you all the details of their lives, but I'll spare you. The point is now I have a few more friends. It's a small group, so they hang out together a lot. So that should be fun!
I went to lunch with two of the English teachers, Ada and Dannielle, at the school cafeteria. Everything there is done in sets. Just outside the door to the cafeteria is a vending machine with little plastic chips in it. Each chip has Japanese writing on it. You pick the meal you want and buy your chip. Dannielle and Ada helped me translate. Ada's been here 18 years, so she can read most of the Japanese. I chose a chicken meal that she recommended. We took our chips up to the counter, and for 300 yen, I got three fried chicken tenders (Japanese style) with sauce over them, salad, a plate of rice, and a bowl of miso soup. We ate, and then we had to take our trays up to the front again, rinse all the dishes, and leave them in a washbasin. It was pretty good, especially for cafeteria food. Ada says if you need a quick meal, their to go sets are pretty good too.
Back home, I've been working on school work since then. Zack's been pretty busy this week getting ready for their upcoming deployment. It's frustrating to him at the moment, but from what he says, his CO has great faith in him, so I'm sure he'll be fine.
It's a good thing I'm not (very) supersticious because today I had my first class for the junior college. I had a meeting with my supervisor earlier this week, and I've been antsy ever since waiting to see how it would go. The class is Childcare English. It's an elective course through the childcare department meant to prepare students for an internship next March on base. The English department (the people who hired me) put a cap on the class of twenty students, but since it's an elective, there was no telling how many would actually show up. So until this morning, I did not know how this day was going to play out. If less than 20 showed up, I was going forward with my first lesson. If more than 20 showed up, I'd do interviews to narrow it down.
The first thing I do when I get to school is take my shoes off. No, really. There are marvelous little shoe cubbies in the entryway, and I get to trade my shoes for a pair of slippers. The ones they provide are not so comfy, but I brought my own pair today, so I was ready to go. I'm delighted that I don't have to worry about what shoes I wear to school anymore. I'm just going to take them off when I get there, anyway! :-)
I was greeted at the door by one of the English teachers, Jenni, who helped me sign in since Luc is gone. Then we met a teacher from the childcare department, who told me the total count of interested students for my class was 24. In the US, not only would they never cap a class at 20 (try 30), if there were four extra, they'd never ever ever bother to take them out. But this is not the US. This is teacher heaven. So my first class, I held interviews. On Tuesday when they first told me that this might be a possiblity, I had thought about when I helped judge drum major tryouts back home. The score cards were vital in that process because students would inevitably complain about the results. Here, they told me that I didn't have to have any system of scoring at all. "Just choose the best 20. You'll be able to tell. No one will question your decision." It's an amazing feeling to hear that last sentence. I'm so used to someone breathing over my shoulder all the time.
So this morning, each student came into a room with me, usually hesitantly because it's polite to wait until invited around here. I had to ask them to sit down before they would. Then I asked them a few quick questions: name, where they were from, siblings, may be something beyond that, but that pretty much covered it. Then I rated them all 1-10 based on how they spoke. I realize this doesn't sound difficult, but it was just enough to distinguish the lowest four, and that was all I needed.
In the process of talking to the kids I did learn a few generalities about them as well. The majority of the class comes from either Nagasaki or Omura (which I think is near here) with a few from Sasebo and a few from elsewhere. There will be exactly two boys in the class, but that wasn't especially surprising to me, since it is childcare, which is a generally female field. The really fun part is they're mostly pretty excited about being in the class. I've been warned over and over since I got here to expect the students to not want to say anything. These students offered information and seem anxious to get a high enough score to get into the class. One girl even asked to speak at the end of the interview ("Yeah, sure, go ahead!") and told me that she had signed up because she loved kids and she loved English and she hoped I'd let her stay. I could have hugged her. She was well in the top half, so instead, I told her I looked forward to teaching her. I'm not used to that kind of enthusiasm from my students, and it's really energizing.
When the interviews were done, the teacher from the childcare department who was coordinating with me told me that I could go home. I was done for the day. So that was it.
Instead of going home, though, I went to a meeting for the English Department. I'm subbing for another teacher's conversation classes all next week, and the teachers all plan together, so I needed information. I was told there was no plan for next week. The goal was to build community in the class and get the kids talking. That's it. I was given a few introduction games, and the rest is up to me. Crazy! So I'll be busy this weekend lesson planning. The meeting gave me a chance to meet the other English teachers, though, and that was nice. I had met the other Navy wife, Debbie, before, and the other three women are very nice as well. I could spend a whole letter just telling you all the details of their lives, but I'll spare you. The point is now I have a few more friends. It's a small group, so they hang out together a lot. So that should be fun!
I went to lunch with two of the English teachers, Ada and Dannielle, at the school cafeteria. Everything there is done in sets. Just outside the door to the cafeteria is a vending machine with little plastic chips in it. Each chip has Japanese writing on it. You pick the meal you want and buy your chip. Dannielle and Ada helped me translate. Ada's been here 18 years, so she can read most of the Japanese. I chose a chicken meal that she recommended. We took our chips up to the counter, and for 300 yen, I got three fried chicken tenders (Japanese style) with sauce over them, salad, a plate of rice, and a bowl of miso soup. We ate, and then we had to take our trays up to the front again, rinse all the dishes, and leave them in a washbasin. It was pretty good, especially for cafeteria food. Ada says if you need a quick meal, their to go sets are pretty good too.
Back home, I've been working on school work since then. Zack's been pretty busy this week getting ready for their upcoming deployment. It's frustrating to him at the moment, but from what he says, his CO has great faith in him, so I'm sure he'll be fine.
Sakura
April 7th, 2007
We just wanted to wish you a happy Easter and share some pictures with you. We woke up this morning and it was so pretty out we remembered that we had been neglecting the camera.
We celebrated our Easter after church by going to the church cookout/potluck. We drove home then walked to Nimitz Park. In the grand tradition of all church gatherings, there was a TON of food. So we ate and watched the kids hunt Easter eggs. Then it was so pretty we decided that Dory needed a long walk. On our way to pick her up, we met a small boy (the one in the picture) who was trying to catch the cherry blossom petals as they fell of the tree. Aparently, if you catch one in the air, you'll get happiness (this is what his mother told us). So Zack decided to help him. When the wind died down, Zack shook a branch of the tree, causing more petals to fall. The boy finally did catch one... on his forehead! It caught in his hair and Zack helped him get it to his hand.
This adventure being through, we went and released Dory. The family of another dog was at the kennel, and their little girl had been giving Dory Scooby Snacks (she was sitting right in front of Dory's cage, and Dory's tale was wagging furiously, so at least I assume there was some exchange going on). Dory left the girl behind with reluctance and we walked her back to the park. Nimitz park, we had learned, is US property, so going there does not violate her quarantine. So she timidly, but excitedly, explored the park, sniffing furiously and chasing birds. She was very nice to the people there, so we rewarded her with half a hotdog from the cook out. The kids thought she was pretty neat.
Since we were back, our friend Andy roped us into participating in one of the adult games. Seven couples were recruited. Andy took Dory for us, and she didn't even try to bite him. They blindfolded all the men, who were then asked to identify their wives three times based on touch. The first time, they touched the hands of all the wives. Then we all switched places and they touched our ears, then another switch and they touched their noses. The man who got the most right was the winner. I said this was a game meant to get the poor guys in trouble, but everyone had fun watching. Zack tied for winner! He correctly identified me all three times! So we won two candles.
By this time, Dory was thoroughly worn out from watching so many people, so we took her back to her kennel, where she gladly curled up for a nap. Then we strolled home and got a couple pictures of the cherry blossoms and the house on our way. So a good Easter was had by all.
We just wanted to wish you a happy Easter and share some pictures with you. We woke up this morning and it was so pretty out we remembered that we had been neglecting the camera.
We celebrated our Easter after church by going to the church cookout/potluck. We drove home then walked to Nimitz Park. In the grand tradition of all church gatherings, there was a TON of food. So we ate and watched the kids hunt Easter eggs. Then it was so pretty we decided that Dory needed a long walk. On our way to pick her up, we met a small boy (the one in the picture) who was trying to catch the cherry blossom petals as they fell of the tree. Aparently, if you catch one in the air, you'll get happiness (this is what his mother told us). So Zack decided to help him. When the wind died down, Zack shook a branch of the tree, causing more petals to fall. The boy finally did catch one... on his forehead! It caught in his hair and Zack helped him get it to his hand.
This adventure being through, we went and released Dory. The family of another dog was at the kennel, and their little girl had been giving Dory Scooby Snacks (she was sitting right in front of Dory's cage, and Dory's tale was wagging furiously, so at least I assume there was some exchange going on). Dory left the girl behind with reluctance and we walked her back to the park. Nimitz park, we had learned, is US property, so going there does not violate her quarantine. So she timidly, but excitedly, explored the park, sniffing furiously and chasing birds. She was very nice to the people there, so we rewarded her with half a hotdog from the cook out. The kids thought she was pretty neat.
Since we were back, our friend Andy roped us into participating in one of the adult games. Seven couples were recruited. Andy took Dory for us, and she didn't even try to bite him. They blindfolded all the men, who were then asked to identify their wives three times based on touch. The first time, they touched the hands of all the wives. Then we all switched places and they touched our ears, then another switch and they touched their noses. The man who got the most right was the winner. I said this was a game meant to get the poor guys in trouble, but everyone had fun watching. Zack tied for winner! He correctly identified me all three times! So we won two candles.
By this time, Dory was thoroughly worn out from watching so many people, so we took her back to her kennel, where she gladly curled up for a nap. Then we strolled home and got a couple pictures of the cherry blossoms and the house on our way. So a good Easter was had by all.
Universal Truths
April 6th, 2007
Living here has been a series of new experiences so far, but I have discovered a few things that are the same no matter where you go:
1. Banks always take longer than you expect. I went in to the Shinwa bank today to get a Japanese account so the junior college can direct deposit my checks when I start work. Other than the wait, it was quite a new experience for me. There were two people at the door kind of directing traffic as people came in. One of them spoke English, and she helped me fill out the form to open the account and directed me to a teller. The teller took my information and gave me a number. Then I sat. While she was working on my stuff (which apparently involved passing off bits to other people and waiting for them to return), she helped like five other people in a similar manner. It made it look very effecient. Whether it really was or not, I don't know. But I have to say, it was nice to sit and flip through a magazine while they sorted out the details rather than standing there watching her stamp this and type that.
2. Salespeople are a determined crew. I was sitting at home today working on some school work when my doorbell rang. This is a very rare experience, so I was delighted to go to the door. There was a man there who clearly didn't speak much English, and he quickly determined that all I can say in Japanese that was of any use to him was Konnichi wa (hello). This did not stop him from doing his best to explain that he was selling what appeared to be groceries and paper products door to door through a catalog. I felt a little bad saying no because he put so much effort into expressing this to me, but I successfully turned him down, at which point he bowed politely and went on his merry way. Highly entertaining.
3. Politicians will do anything to get their name out. It's election season here. We don't have Japanese TV, and Japanese radio is almost all talk, so we don't listen to that much either, but a week or so ago, big vans started driving through the streets of town with four huge megaphones on the top of each. They inevitably are full of people who are dressed similarly and are waving out of every window, and someone is always chatting merrily out of the megaphone. It's so loud that it sounds like they're in our bedroom at night. These vans are advertising the local politicians who want to be elected. It's annoying, but they only are allowed to do this for a certain number of days before the actual election, so it's temporary. And I still like it better than the commercials on TV back home bashing political opponents. At least these people are friendly. They wave, and Zack waves back. :-)
4. Field trips are adorable. Today there was an elementary school class having a field trip in the park by our house. SO CUTE! The kids were probably kindergarten or first grade. They all wore little red baseball caps. The girls had red checkered shirts and the boys had blue checkered shirts. They all had blue pants with red stripes down the sides. They were setting up a picnic when I went by. There were blankets, and each child had a lunch in a little white basket. About the time I walked passed, the teacher apparently set the kids free to run in the park because they all took off running in the grass. I think I'll like living across from that park.
In other news, I have a meeting with the other teachers at NJC on Tuesday. I'm told that since my class is an elective, the powers that be are not sure how many people will want to sign up. Rather than capping the class and function on a first come first serve basis, they simply told me that if more than about 20 show up, I should use the first class to conduct short interviews, then weed out the lower level speakers until I get to 20. How odd is that? I'm not sure how I feel about it, but if that many show up, it'll be quite an experience. I used to have nightmares about not having a class roster when I arrived at my first day of class. I guess it's safe to say I won't have one this time...
We've met some of our neighbors in the last week or so as well. The family across the concrete patio area from us is military as well. The man is American, his wife is Japanese, and they have a daughter. Now that we've actually spoken we nod politely at each other as we pass, so that's nice. I've taken to nodding politely at any Japanese people who walk by when I'm out as well, but I don't know which ones live where yet. I guess I've still got some exploring to do.
Living here has been a series of new experiences so far, but I have discovered a few things that are the same no matter where you go:
1. Banks always take longer than you expect. I went in to the Shinwa bank today to get a Japanese account so the junior college can direct deposit my checks when I start work. Other than the wait, it was quite a new experience for me. There were two people at the door kind of directing traffic as people came in. One of them spoke English, and she helped me fill out the form to open the account and directed me to a teller. The teller took my information and gave me a number. Then I sat. While she was working on my stuff (which apparently involved passing off bits to other people and waiting for them to return), she helped like five other people in a similar manner. It made it look very effecient. Whether it really was or not, I don't know. But I have to say, it was nice to sit and flip through a magazine while they sorted out the details rather than standing there watching her stamp this and type that.
2. Salespeople are a determined crew. I was sitting at home today working on some school work when my doorbell rang. This is a very rare experience, so I was delighted to go to the door. There was a man there who clearly didn't speak much English, and he quickly determined that all I can say in Japanese that was of any use to him was Konnichi wa (hello). This did not stop him from doing his best to explain that he was selling what appeared to be groceries and paper products door to door through a catalog. I felt a little bad saying no because he put so much effort into expressing this to me, but I successfully turned him down, at which point he bowed politely and went on his merry way. Highly entertaining.
3. Politicians will do anything to get their name out. It's election season here. We don't have Japanese TV, and Japanese radio is almost all talk, so we don't listen to that much either, but a week or so ago, big vans started driving through the streets of town with four huge megaphones on the top of each. They inevitably are full of people who are dressed similarly and are waving out of every window, and someone is always chatting merrily out of the megaphone. It's so loud that it sounds like they're in our bedroom at night. These vans are advertising the local politicians who want to be elected. It's annoying, but they only are allowed to do this for a certain number of days before the actual election, so it's temporary. And I still like it better than the commercials on TV back home bashing political opponents. At least these people are friendly. They wave, and Zack waves back. :-)
4. Field trips are adorable. Today there was an elementary school class having a field trip in the park by our house. SO CUTE! The kids were probably kindergarten or first grade. They all wore little red baseball caps. The girls had red checkered shirts and the boys had blue checkered shirts. They all had blue pants with red stripes down the sides. They were setting up a picnic when I went by. There were blankets, and each child had a lunch in a little white basket. About the time I walked passed, the teacher apparently set the kids free to run in the park because they all took off running in the grass. I think I'll like living across from that park.
In other news, I have a meeting with the other teachers at NJC on Tuesday. I'm told that since my class is an elective, the powers that be are not sure how many people will want to sign up. Rather than capping the class and function on a first come first serve basis, they simply told me that if more than about 20 show up, I should use the first class to conduct short interviews, then weed out the lower level speakers until I get to 20. How odd is that? I'm not sure how I feel about it, but if that many show up, it'll be quite an experience. I used to have nightmares about not having a class roster when I arrived at my first day of class. I guess it's safe to say I won't have one this time...
We've met some of our neighbors in the last week or so as well. The family across the concrete patio area from us is military as well. The man is American, his wife is Japanese, and they have a daughter. Now that we've actually spoken we nod politely at each other as we pass, so that's nice. I've taken to nodding politely at any Japanese people who walk by when I'm out as well, but I don't know which ones live where yet. I guess I've still got some exploring to do.
A trip to Korea
This space may or may not later contain some info about a trip Zack took. I need to get his approval before putting it here. Please stand by. :-)
The Daily Grind
March 30th, 2007
Over the last week, while Zack was away, I found myself a routine to follow. I spent Monday doing the kind of normal stuff that would bore you all to tears. Tuesday, everything happened at once. Ombudsman training started, and I started working on a Master's Degree online. The Master's Degree is through the University of Phoenix. They have an office over here in the education center and apparently classes start every Tuesday (it's Monday in Phoenix). My degree will be a MA of Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in English as a Second Language. Everytime one of my classes ends, I'm automatically enrolled in the next one.
Other than being online, it's a lot like any other program. There's an online classroom, and an attendance and participation policy that require me to log on at least a certain number of times per week and to comment on what's being said in a productive way. This class is the "Introduction to Grad School" class, though that's not what it's called. Most of the students are also going for some kind of Curriculum and Instruction degree, so that's nice. Most are in the states, but we've got one student in South Korea, and one in the UK. I like it so far because I can get on whenever I have time. It's not something that requires me to be somewhere at a specific time. The downside so far is that I have to learn APA format, and I've taught MLA for three years now. :::sigh::: I guess I deserve it. And it certainly could be worse.
Ombudsman training has been very interesting. The best summary I can give you is that being an ombudsman is like being an information booth for the families from your ship. If they have a question, it's your job to either have an answer, or know where to find one. The average family, as it turns out, thinks the ombudsman is a babysitter, taxi driver, and automatic best friend, so most of the problems they face involve convincing people that this is just not so. They're not even required to manage the social stuff. That's the responsibility of the Family Readiness Group. Mostly, they keep up communication between the ship and the families, so everyone knows more or less what's going on and how everyone is doing.
The other important thing I learned is that the CO's wife and XO's wife can't be ombudsman. They have their own special title. So the only person who is currently trained to be an ombudsman on Zack's ship other than the current one is me! The leader of the class suggested that if I was concerned, I could probably work with Carmen (the current ombudsman) until she leaves and then take over. I'm thinking I'll do just that. The job actually requires a lot of the same skills as teaching, actually. I found myself constantly comparing it to dealing with parents at school. So I think I'll be okay. I've talked it over with Carmen, and I will be putting in my application soon. So that's it. No more commitments for me. I am not sticking my nose in anywhere else... for now....
Tuesday night was also Japanese class, which was reading focused. For those of you who may not know, Japanese has at least three alphabets (I've heard up to five depending on how you count them). Hiragana is a set of letters that represent the basic sylables of Japanese (there's 40-some). Katagana does the same thing, but is used for foreign words and sometimes italics. Kanjii is a modified version of Chinese characters where each symbol represents a word. There are 2000 some of those. To read a Japanese newspaper, for example, you have to be able to read all three alphabets. I am getting decent at the hiragana alphabet, but katakana is still really hard for me, and they're not even trying the kanji with me. It was exhausting.
Wednesday after ombudsman class all day, there was yoga and then University of Phoenix. Thursday I finally didn't have much to do when I got home and allowed myself to go to bed a little early. Friday evening I hung out with Mel again. Then Zack arrived back!
The trip was a little rough on him because the weather has not been very nice lately. I guess the waves got pretty bad at times, but he didn't get seasick, so that's good. I think most of his trip was devoted to working on turnover, since Tim leaves tomorrow. Turnover for the Suppo involves a lot of counting because he'll be responsible for everything that is (and isn't) on the ship once it's done. So you have to make sure you have what the inventory says you have. He also spent a lot of time reviewing training. He says it makes a lot more sense now that he's seeing the practical side of it. If you ask him flat out, he says he likes his job, and I think he's excited. It's just a lot of responsibility, so I'm sure he's a little nervous, too. It's Saturday, but he's back at work again for a meeting or something... He laughed when I suggested he'd have some time off this weekend. So what the other wives say is true: even when they're here, they're not here.
So we're both plugging away and keeping busy. The weather is clearly changing. When we first arrived, we couldn't stay in any room for long without heat and slippers. I haven't turned a heater on in about four or five days now. It's been alternating between beautiful sunny days and rainy or cloudy and humid days. Today, it's warmer outside than in, and it's very cloudy, humid and windy. I think it may have rained in the night. If what the rest of the Americans say is true, summer is going to hit us any second now. In the mean time, all the trees are blooming, and it's really lovely.
Over the last week, while Zack was away, I found myself a routine to follow. I spent Monday doing the kind of normal stuff that would bore you all to tears. Tuesday, everything happened at once. Ombudsman training started, and I started working on a Master's Degree online. The Master's Degree is through the University of Phoenix. They have an office over here in the education center and apparently classes start every Tuesday (it's Monday in Phoenix). My degree will be a MA of Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in English as a Second Language. Everytime one of my classes ends, I'm automatically enrolled in the next one.
Other than being online, it's a lot like any other program. There's an online classroom, and an attendance and participation policy that require me to log on at least a certain number of times per week and to comment on what's being said in a productive way. This class is the "Introduction to Grad School" class, though that's not what it's called. Most of the students are also going for some kind of Curriculum and Instruction degree, so that's nice. Most are in the states, but we've got one student in South Korea, and one in the UK. I like it so far because I can get on whenever I have time. It's not something that requires me to be somewhere at a specific time. The downside so far is that I have to learn APA format, and I've taught MLA for three years now. :::sigh::: I guess I deserve it. And it certainly could be worse.
Ombudsman training has been very interesting. The best summary I can give you is that being an ombudsman is like being an information booth for the families from your ship. If they have a question, it's your job to either have an answer, or know where to find one. The average family, as it turns out, thinks the ombudsman is a babysitter, taxi driver, and automatic best friend, so most of the problems they face involve convincing people that this is just not so. They're not even required to manage the social stuff. That's the responsibility of the Family Readiness Group. Mostly, they keep up communication between the ship and the families, so everyone knows more or less what's going on and how everyone is doing.
The other important thing I learned is that the CO's wife and XO's wife can't be ombudsman. They have their own special title. So the only person who is currently trained to be an ombudsman on Zack's ship other than the current one is me! The leader of the class suggested that if I was concerned, I could probably work with Carmen (the current ombudsman) until she leaves and then take over. I'm thinking I'll do just that. The job actually requires a lot of the same skills as teaching, actually. I found myself constantly comparing it to dealing with parents at school. So I think I'll be okay. I've talked it over with Carmen, and I will be putting in my application soon. So that's it. No more commitments for me. I am not sticking my nose in anywhere else... for now....
Tuesday night was also Japanese class, which was reading focused. For those of you who may not know, Japanese has at least three alphabets (I've heard up to five depending on how you count them). Hiragana is a set of letters that represent the basic sylables of Japanese (there's 40-some). Katagana does the same thing, but is used for foreign words and sometimes italics. Kanjii is a modified version of Chinese characters where each symbol represents a word. There are 2000 some of those. To read a Japanese newspaper, for example, you have to be able to read all three alphabets. I am getting decent at the hiragana alphabet, but katakana is still really hard for me, and they're not even trying the kanji with me. It was exhausting.
Wednesday after ombudsman class all day, there was yoga and then University of Phoenix. Thursday I finally didn't have much to do when I got home and allowed myself to go to bed a little early. Friday evening I hung out with Mel again. Then Zack arrived back!
The trip was a little rough on him because the weather has not been very nice lately. I guess the waves got pretty bad at times, but he didn't get seasick, so that's good. I think most of his trip was devoted to working on turnover, since Tim leaves tomorrow. Turnover for the Suppo involves a lot of counting because he'll be responsible for everything that is (and isn't) on the ship once it's done. So you have to make sure you have what the inventory says you have. He also spent a lot of time reviewing training. He says it makes a lot more sense now that he's seeing the practical side of it. If you ask him flat out, he says he likes his job, and I think he's excited. It's just a lot of responsibility, so I'm sure he's a little nervous, too. It's Saturday, but he's back at work again for a meeting or something... He laughed when I suggested he'd have some time off this weekend. So what the other wives say is true: even when they're here, they're not here.
So we're both plugging away and keeping busy. The weather is clearly changing. When we first arrived, we couldn't stay in any room for long without heat and slippers. I haven't turned a heater on in about four or five days now. It's been alternating between beautiful sunny days and rainy or cloudy and humid days. Today, it's warmer outside than in, and it's very cloudy, humid and windy. I think it may have rained in the night. If what the rest of the Americans say is true, summer is going to hit us any second now. In the mean time, all the trees are blooming, and it's really lovely.
Onsen in Unzen
March 24th, 2007
When the boys are away, the girls will play. At least that's the way Mel and I figured it. We had made plans to go to Daizu antique bazaar with a tour group from base. Thursday while I was at her house making cookies (her toaster oven is everything she said it was), we got a call saying the trip was canceled for lack of people. The base is having it's own bazaar this weekend, so I guess no one thought it was worth traveling.
Not wanting to waste a whole weekend, Mel and I decided to plan our own trip somewhere. She's going to be leaving in a few months, and she had a few places nearby that she still hasn't seen. One of them was a place called Unzen, which has an active Volcano (there are a lot of those around here) and hot springs. Mel raved about Japanese bathing, and this seemed like a good place to go to try it out. So we hurried to base and got someone in MWR to help us book a Japanese style hotel room in a hotel with an Onsen (the Japanese bath).
We left Sasebo at noon on Friday armed with maps and our fresh cookies, and I played navigator to Mel's driving. We even got a taste of Japanese radio, which I learned was mostly talk, but we heard a lovely country song that was mostly in Japanese with the chorus of "Hey there, hey there..." ... interesting... and we arrived in Unzen around 2:30. The town was up a winding road from the coast. It's fairly small, but quite cute. Because of all the hot springs, it smells strongly of sulfer pretty much everywhere you go. I have no idea how the locals deal with it constantly.
We checked into our hotel and set out to see some of the town before dinner (which was included in our room cost). We quickly found a walking path that took us around to the various hot springs. The water apparently bubbles up from the earth at temperatures of up to 120 degress celcius. The springs as a whole have a name that roughly translated means 88,000 hells. It's taken from a budhist myth that says that there are 88,000 ways you can sin as a human, so if you live a bad life you have to go through 88,000 hells. The Japanese rulers used this myth as an excuse to torture Christians at Unzen during Japan's isolationist phase. They took people who continuted to follow christianty and threw them into the hot springs. There's a memorial to the Christians on the walking tour now.
Other than the hot springs, Mel and I learned about the only thing to do in town was the hang out in an onsen. So we returned to our hotel and soaked our feet at the foot spa outside for awhile before going to dinner. As a result, we were outside when two busloads of Japanese tourists pulled up. If we had imagined we'd have a quiet night in a mostly empty hotel, we were totally wrong. It didn't really matter, though.
Dinner was pretty amazing for a meal that was included in a room fee, but Mel tells me it's pretty standard fare for the Japanese hotels. There were several kinds of sashimi (which I'm liking better the more I try it), a salty custard thing with meat, a shrimp salad, some pickled vegetables, two kinds of soup, rice, and a sweet custard for dessert. We also ordered some sake. The lady who served us was very nice, but spoke no English, so she did a lot of motioning from one dish to the next to try to explain how we should eat it. It was nice of her to try.
After dinner, we waited a little while to let our food settle before going down to the onsen. There's a procedure for using the Japanese baths, so Mel gave me a tutorial while we waited. Step one: in your room, take off your clothes and put on the robe provided for the purpose (make sure you tie it left side over right because the other way is bad luck). Grab the hand sized towel and the thick body towel also provided. Step two: go down to the baths, determine which one is for girls and which is for boys (sometimes complicated since they're not labeled in English), and go through the apropriate door. Having tried this now, I'm planning to memorize the kanji for Woman. Step 3: deposit robe and body towel in a basket on a shelf in the first room. Step 4: take a shower to get clean. This is done in an individual stall sitting down on a little stool. The onsen provides shampoo and soap. You can use the hand sized towel as a wash cloth. Make sure you rinse your stool when you're done. Step 5: Pick a bath and soak. Don't stare at the other bathers, it's rude. Don't but your hand towel in the water, that's also rude, but you can use it to cover up... um... certain areas... when walking from bath to bath.
The onsen in our hotel had three baths: one clear warm water, one with all the minerals still in it, and one outside also with all the minerals in it (the area was enclosed from all sides so no one could see in). They also had a little kitty pool with toys that wasn't so hot, a cold water bath to cool off in, and a sauna. I have to say, I wasn't sure how well I'd do wandering around naked with strangers, but it was a wonderfully relaxing experience. I had a great time. We wandered from bath to bath soaking then cooling off. Outside was expecially nice because the air was so cool. We bathed for like two hours straight.
Once we were done, we rinsed off all the minerals and they had hair dryers and some lotion to use. Then it was off to our room to go to bed.
The room, before I forget, was also Japanese style. There was a shoe cubby just inside the door and when we first arrived there was a little table and some pillows on the floor to sit with hot tea waiting. While we ate, they pulled our our futon materesses so they'd be ready when it was time for bed. It was adorable.
The next morning, we woke up to an unpleasant surprise: rain and fog. We went down for our (also included) breakfast, which was very similar to dinner minus the dessert, and decided to go up to try to see the volcano anyway. When we checked out, three hotel attendants held umbrellas for us and escorted us to the car thanking us repeatedly.
So we set off in hopes of seeing the volcano. We weren't able to do so, though. They apparently closed it off due to bad weather. Instead, we decided to take the road across the island to Shimabara, home to a bunch of temples and a Japanese castle. Temples are mostly outdoor, and the rain didn't give us a break, so the castle ended up being our destination. The original, like most castles in Japan, had burned down many many years ago, so what we saw was a replica. We were allowed into three buildings. The main one housed a museum with four floors of historical Samurai artifacts and one floor dedicated to the Shimabara rebellion in which a 16 year old led the Christians of Kyushu to rebel against the samuaris. They took the castle, but then they were seiged and the samurai killed everyone. Nasty business. Pretty castle.
One of the smaller buildings contained a bunch of statues, presumably made by the same guy who did the peace park statue in Nagasaki. They had a mini version of the peace park one and then many many others of various subjects. The only things in English were the titles of the scuptures. There were animals (mostly tigers and dragons), men doing activites and women either riding animals or holding children. They were quite lovely.
The third building housed more artifacts from the Samurai period, these made mostly of wood. they were daily supply type things like a winnower for rice and chests. It was kind of interesting to try to figure out what some of the tools were.
Probably the best part, though, was the macha house that was on the grounds. Matcha is a special type of green tea. There's a whole special ceremony for serving it. Mel said that as a tea lover I couldn't miss it and she'd walk me through the process. We sat on a mat on the floor of this building and women dressed in kimonos brought us a little cake apiece. They set the cakes in front of us and then bowed and we bowed back, then they scurried away. Next came the tea. It was served in fancy bowls. The women placed the bowls with the pretty side facing us, then bowed and we bowed back. Then it was our job to admire the bowl, then turn it around so we didn't drink from the fancy side. The tea itself is made from green tea leaves ground to a fine powder. The powder is then whisked with hot water until it's frothy and green. Really green. Grass green. Turn-your-tongue-and-lips-green green. My dad drinks coffee you can chew. Matcha is green tea you can chew (though Mel tells me there's another variety that is actually pancake batter thick). It is polite to slurp this tea to show your appreciation. When you're done, you turn the cup back so the pretty side is facing you and wipe where you drank. Then the women come and take it away.
All this was pretty cool, but what made it especially nice was that the ladies were having a slow morning, so they stopped at the end to talk to us, and between us, Mel and I had enough Japanese to carry on the conversation. We told them where we were from and that we are English teachers and they found all this very nice. They then offered to serve us more tea, so that was cool, too. I made one lady's day by telling her her kimono was pretty (the word for pretty has been the most useful Japanese word I've learned when it comes to making friends). Then they let us take a picture with them. (It's on Mel's camera, so I'll have to send it on later.)
By this time it was approaching noon and Mel's cat and Dory were calling our names, so we headed on home in the still pouring down rain. Overall, though, it was quite a successful adventure. I'm hoping Zack will have enough time some weekend to go back and check it out.
When the boys are away, the girls will play. At least that's the way Mel and I figured it. We had made plans to go to Daizu antique bazaar with a tour group from base. Thursday while I was at her house making cookies (her toaster oven is everything she said it was), we got a call saying the trip was canceled for lack of people. The base is having it's own bazaar this weekend, so I guess no one thought it was worth traveling.
Not wanting to waste a whole weekend, Mel and I decided to plan our own trip somewhere. She's going to be leaving in a few months, and she had a few places nearby that she still hasn't seen. One of them was a place called Unzen, which has an active Volcano (there are a lot of those around here) and hot springs. Mel raved about Japanese bathing, and this seemed like a good place to go to try it out. So we hurried to base and got someone in MWR to help us book a Japanese style hotel room in a hotel with an Onsen (the Japanese bath).
We left Sasebo at noon on Friday armed with maps and our fresh cookies, and I played navigator to Mel's driving. We even got a taste of Japanese radio, which I learned was mostly talk, but we heard a lovely country song that was mostly in Japanese with the chorus of "Hey there, hey there..." ... interesting... and we arrived in Unzen around 2:30. The town was up a winding road from the coast. It's fairly small, but quite cute. Because of all the hot springs, it smells strongly of sulfer pretty much everywhere you go. I have no idea how the locals deal with it constantly.
We checked into our hotel and set out to see some of the town before dinner (which was included in our room cost). We quickly found a walking path that took us around to the various hot springs. The water apparently bubbles up from the earth at temperatures of up to 120 degress celcius. The springs as a whole have a name that roughly translated means 88,000 hells. It's taken from a budhist myth that says that there are 88,000 ways you can sin as a human, so if you live a bad life you have to go through 88,000 hells. The Japanese rulers used this myth as an excuse to torture Christians at Unzen during Japan's isolationist phase. They took people who continuted to follow christianty and threw them into the hot springs. There's a memorial to the Christians on the walking tour now.
Other than the hot springs, Mel and I learned about the only thing to do in town was the hang out in an onsen. So we returned to our hotel and soaked our feet at the foot spa outside for awhile before going to dinner. As a result, we were outside when two busloads of Japanese tourists pulled up. If we had imagined we'd have a quiet night in a mostly empty hotel, we were totally wrong. It didn't really matter, though.
Dinner was pretty amazing for a meal that was included in a room fee, but Mel tells me it's pretty standard fare for the Japanese hotels. There were several kinds of sashimi (which I'm liking better the more I try it), a salty custard thing with meat, a shrimp salad, some pickled vegetables, two kinds of soup, rice, and a sweet custard for dessert. We also ordered some sake. The lady who served us was very nice, but spoke no English, so she did a lot of motioning from one dish to the next to try to explain how we should eat it. It was nice of her to try.
After dinner, we waited a little while to let our food settle before going down to the onsen. There's a procedure for using the Japanese baths, so Mel gave me a tutorial while we waited. Step one: in your room, take off your clothes and put on the robe provided for the purpose (make sure you tie it left side over right because the other way is bad luck). Grab the hand sized towel and the thick body towel also provided. Step two: go down to the baths, determine which one is for girls and which is for boys (sometimes complicated since they're not labeled in English), and go through the apropriate door. Having tried this now, I'm planning to memorize the kanji for Woman. Step 3: deposit robe and body towel in a basket on a shelf in the first room. Step 4: take a shower to get clean. This is done in an individual stall sitting down on a little stool. The onsen provides shampoo and soap. You can use the hand sized towel as a wash cloth. Make sure you rinse your stool when you're done. Step 5: Pick a bath and soak. Don't stare at the other bathers, it's rude. Don't but your hand towel in the water, that's also rude, but you can use it to cover up... um... certain areas... when walking from bath to bath.
The onsen in our hotel had three baths: one clear warm water, one with all the minerals still in it, and one outside also with all the minerals in it (the area was enclosed from all sides so no one could see in). They also had a little kitty pool with toys that wasn't so hot, a cold water bath to cool off in, and a sauna. I have to say, I wasn't sure how well I'd do wandering around naked with strangers, but it was a wonderfully relaxing experience. I had a great time. We wandered from bath to bath soaking then cooling off. Outside was expecially nice because the air was so cool. We bathed for like two hours straight.
Once we were done, we rinsed off all the minerals and they had hair dryers and some lotion to use. Then it was off to our room to go to bed.
The room, before I forget, was also Japanese style. There was a shoe cubby just inside the door and when we first arrived there was a little table and some pillows on the floor to sit with hot tea waiting. While we ate, they pulled our our futon materesses so they'd be ready when it was time for bed. It was adorable.
The next morning, we woke up to an unpleasant surprise: rain and fog. We went down for our (also included) breakfast, which was very similar to dinner minus the dessert, and decided to go up to try to see the volcano anyway. When we checked out, three hotel attendants held umbrellas for us and escorted us to the car thanking us repeatedly.
So we set off in hopes of seeing the volcano. We weren't able to do so, though. They apparently closed it off due to bad weather. Instead, we decided to take the road across the island to Shimabara, home to a bunch of temples and a Japanese castle. Temples are mostly outdoor, and the rain didn't give us a break, so the castle ended up being our destination. The original, like most castles in Japan, had burned down many many years ago, so what we saw was a replica. We were allowed into three buildings. The main one housed a museum with four floors of historical Samurai artifacts and one floor dedicated to the Shimabara rebellion in which a 16 year old led the Christians of Kyushu to rebel against the samuaris. They took the castle, but then they were seiged and the samurai killed everyone. Nasty business. Pretty castle.
One of the smaller buildings contained a bunch of statues, presumably made by the same guy who did the peace park statue in Nagasaki. They had a mini version of the peace park one and then many many others of various subjects. The only things in English were the titles of the scuptures. There were animals (mostly tigers and dragons), men doing activites and women either riding animals or holding children. They were quite lovely.
The third building housed more artifacts from the Samurai period, these made mostly of wood. they were daily supply type things like a winnower for rice and chests. It was kind of interesting to try to figure out what some of the tools were.
Probably the best part, though, was the macha house that was on the grounds. Matcha is a special type of green tea. There's a whole special ceremony for serving it. Mel said that as a tea lover I couldn't miss it and she'd walk me through the process. We sat on a mat on the floor of this building and women dressed in kimonos brought us a little cake apiece. They set the cakes in front of us and then bowed and we bowed back, then they scurried away. Next came the tea. It was served in fancy bowls. The women placed the bowls with the pretty side facing us, then bowed and we bowed back. Then it was our job to admire the bowl, then turn it around so we didn't drink from the fancy side. The tea itself is made from green tea leaves ground to a fine powder. The powder is then whisked with hot water until it's frothy and green. Really green. Grass green. Turn-your-tongue-and-lips-green green. My dad drinks coffee you can chew. Matcha is green tea you can chew (though Mel tells me there's another variety that is actually pancake batter thick). It is polite to slurp this tea to show your appreciation. When you're done, you turn the cup back so the pretty side is facing you and wipe where you drank. Then the women come and take it away.
All this was pretty cool, but what made it especially nice was that the ladies were having a slow morning, so they stopped at the end to talk to us, and between us, Mel and I had enough Japanese to carry on the conversation. We told them where we were from and that we are English teachers and they found all this very nice. They then offered to serve us more tea, so that was cool, too. I made one lady's day by telling her her kimono was pretty (the word for pretty has been the most useful Japanese word I've learned when it comes to making friends). Then they let us take a picture with them. (It's on Mel's camera, so I'll have to send it on later.)
By this time it was approaching noon and Mel's cat and Dory were calling our names, so we headed on home in the still pouring down rain. Overall, though, it was quite a successful adventure. I'm hoping Zack will have enough time some weekend to go back and check it out.
Driving like the Japanese
This is Domanik, our Honda Domani.March 19th, 2007
I don't think I ever really got to explain to you the joy that was our driving test, and now that Zack's too busy to look over my shoulder and scoff, I think I will.
The first thing you should know is that in Japan, they drive on the left. The second thing you should know is that they don't give you any time to practice before you take the test. Driving on the left is not so bad if you've got somebody to follow, but the first time I did it, I was being tested, the first person who took the test had failed, and there was no one driving on base. So I was freaked. In addition, part of the test was backing into a spot, which I had never done before. Thankfully, we didn't have to parallel park, so I survived. I only hit my wipers instead of the blinker once, and I only tried to go to the wrong side of the road once, but I caught myself, so I got a license. Whew. Zack, of course, had complete faith in his own abilities and did not worry at all.
So the second time I drove on the left side of the road was alone in my very own car. I knew where I was going, but let me tell you, that night driving was like the first day I ever drove a car all over again. The roads here are pretty tiny. I mean, sometimes there's not really enough room for two cars to drive side by side, but it's a two way road. It was stressful, but I only had to make one right turn (the hardest part) so I made it home without incident that first night. But then we went back to base to drop off some stuff for Zack and we got lost (we missed a turn because we don't walk the same route we drive). That's where it got stressful again. I think the darkness factor was the worst, so I guess I'll be trying to keep myself restricted to daylight for a little while.
And the biggest challenge of any driving outing is getting back into our parking lot. The road we're on is one way, and the driveway into our parking lot has a concrete wall on either side of it. There's room for one car to get in or out at a time. Once in, I have to do a U turn (or, usually a three point turn) to get up to my spot. I have been successful so far only because 1) no one's been coming or going when I arrive or leave and 2) the people who own the spots just inside the turn have been gone, so I can use their space to get turned around. We'll see how it goes when one of these factors changes.
There are some things I really like about driving here, though. 1) The driving age is 20, and you're required to go to driving school before you can legally drive. I'm told that people do it illegally all the time, but at least most of the drivers should be good as a result of these rules. 2) New Japanese drivers are required to post signs (one on the front, one on back) on their cars indicating that they've just been licensed. They have to stay posted for the first two years that they drive. The signs are each a little chevron, one half is yellow, the other green. This warns everyone else to watch out for them. Americans are not required to use them, but every girl in our class was anxious to buy their own (the guys are too macho to admit they want one). So our car is duly labeled, which makes me feel a little better. They have similar signs for people over the age of 70, which are raindrop shaped, half yellow, half orange. I think it makes sense, especially in the new driver's case.
So driving is going pretty well. I've only hit my windshield wipers instead of the blinker once today, and I've managed to stay on the correct side of the road, so I think I'll be okay. I'm not sure I'll be taking some of the side roads, but may be I'll get brave as I get better.
Making friends
March 17th, 2007
Zack has been really busy this week getting ready for his first deployment, so I've been busy trying to find people to hang out with while he's gone. As usual, I've had some help from Mel. Mel, as I mentioned before, is the wife of another officer on Zack's ship (the CHENG, which is short for chief engineer). They're newlyweds as well. Before getting married, she was in the peace corps, and spent some time in both Russia and China. She has a masters in ESL. We like a lot of the same stuff (like travel and lanugages), so we get along well. Mel and her husband will be moving to Virginia in a few months, but she learned a lot while she was here, and she's apparently determined to help me transition smoothly. From what I gather, she had no real guide, so she spent a lot of time staring at her walls, and we all know how much fun that can be.
One of the things Mel recently discovered is a group called the Officer's Spouses Club (for a legal explaination of why this is not discrimination against the spouses of the enlisted folks, e-mail my sister Emily, who just learned all about fraternization laws in the military). Mel explained to me that "spouses" for all practical purposes means wives, and they get together at least once monthly to either do something fun or just hang out. This month's outing was tomato picking. You can go to these outings either by becoming a member (which means paying dues) or by getting a member to invite you. Since Mel only found out about this recently, she's not a member, but her friend Debbie is, and she took both of us as guests.
So Thursday morning, I woke up to the sound of rain pouring down the roof and wondered how serious I was about meeting people. Was I, for example, willing to go tomato picking in the freeezing cold rain? Maybe, I reasoned, they'd skip that and go the lunch part. So I went, rain and all. Mel gave me a ride to base, and then a bus took us the hour and a half to Oshima Island, where there were supposed to be tomatoes. On the way, they had their Club meeting, and I learned that the Officer's Spouse's Club is more than just an excuse to go hang out. They run a thrift shop on base and use the money from that, and the dues from the club, to help those in need. Primarily, they give out scholarships, but they do other things with it too. This made me feel much better about potentially joining, considering the fact that you still have to pay for all these outings.
The tomatoes, as it turned out, were in big plastic greenhouses, which made a lot more sense based on how cold it's been. We got to taste before we picked, and either I had forgotten how good vine ripened tomatoes really taste, or these are especially good. One of the men who worked at the place then distributed baskets and clippers and took us to the greenhouse to pick. He showed us what a good tomato would look like and everything (green on the top, with lines on the bottom and bumpy means it'll be ready in three to four days). I got a few ready to eat, and a few that will conviently ripen while Zack's not around, since he doesn't eat them anyway.
After everyone had picked to their heart's content, we went to a nice hotel on the island for lunch. We had all ordered in advance so they could be ready for us. All the options were tomatoes fixed in some special way. I had tomatoes wrapped in bacon over cabbage in a cream sauce. It was delicious. There was also Tomato Rissoto, Tomato Tempura, and even a Pizza option. All of it looked good.
But what made the trip really good was how friendly everyone is. I guess I'm still learning that we're all in transit everywhere we go. These ladies know it and take advantage of the chance to meet people. If I stood without talking to anyone for more than a minute or two, one of them would say "I don't think we've met yet. I'm (insert incredibly forgettable name here)" and chat. They are a well spring of information about living in Sasebo and also just fun to hang out with. So that was good. I gave the president my e-mail address, and she said she'd get me on the list to get the information for the next one. Debbie said I could be her guest again, but I'm thinking I'll be joining anyway...
Thursday night, we had a brief about the upcoming deployment of Zack's ship. All the guys were required to attend and wives(the ship has an all male crew) were encouraged to come, so I did. The brief itself was like watching our Welcome to Sasebo class in fast forward, but it gave me a chance to meet the CO (Commanding officer), XO (Executive officer), and more importantly, both their wives. The rest of the officers on the Guardian, other than Mel's husband, are single, so the four of us comprise a very small community of our own. The XO is new, but his wife, Skii, has lived for the last ten years, and they've been in Sasebo before. She's Austrailian, and models, sings and recruits other models, so she's pretty busy, and also very nice. The CO's wife is Japanese, so she's kind of got her own life, too, but we're all going out to lunch on Monday, so that will be fun. The XO's wife and I are also going to take the ombudsman class that's coming up because the ombudsman of the ship will be leaving in a few months, too, so someone needs to pick that up. (The ombudsman's job is to help families communicate with the crew while they're out, as best I understand so far. I don't really know, but I know she's super important. Like most important jobs, it's farly thankless, so no one wants it, so... More to come on that I guess...)
So Mel, continuing in the spirit of getting me out of my house, informed me that night that there was a Noritake sale coming up today. She invited Zack and me both to come with herself and Joel (her husband) and check it out. Naturally, we went. We were joined by Terri, the wife of the CO of another ship, also new to town as of a month ago, and Carmen, the current ombudsman for Zack's ship. We took Carmen's van to the factory, which is in a town about half an hour from here. The drive was absolutely lovely. It was along a winding road through the mountains with a good view of the valley below.
Upon arriving, we wandered through two rooms full of china in all shapes and patterns just out on tables. There were baskets waiting at the door you could pick up to hold what you chose. All of it had price tags, and everything was 20% off what the tags said, so it was a really good deal. We got a few things, mostly gifts, but not much. (Dad, I didn't buy you the giant porcelain leaping deer, don't worry.) Carmen didn't get anything because they didn't have the teapot she wanted, so she's waiting until the next sale. Terri filled a huge box with her purchases, and Mel and Joel got his parents a whole set in a pattern his mom likes.
Once we had paid for our purchases, there were tables with newspaper so you could wrap everything carefully. If you wandered further back into the warehouse, you could find an auction going on for more china. I have no idea how it worked because of the language barrier, but I do know that once and item and price were announced, there was a rock/paper/scissors contest to see who would get it! It was highly entertainting to watch. At a stand in the back of the auction room was a man with a vase full of wooden chopsticks and piles of plain white china behind him. If you gave him your receipt, he would let you choose a number of chopsticks based on how much you had spent (we got to pick three, Mel got five). Chopsticks that had been marked red on the bottom were considered lucky. For every lucky chopstick you picked, you got a medium sized china teacup. For every normal one, you got a smaller sized teacup (they looked like the plastic ones you see on airplanes). We got three lucky chopsticks, then Zack found a receipt someone else had left behind and not used, so we ended up with six lucky teacups and two unlucky.
THEN, we all decided to eat lunch at the various stands they had set up in the auction room. Our food was served on more china, which was ours to keep. So we came home with two plain white plates as well! The whole thing was highly entertaining.
Tonight, we're going out for Japanese Mexican. There's a guy who used to live in California who has a restaurant on the Ginza. I think the restaurant has a name, but it's identified by the sign MEXICAN FOOD over the door. It's supposed to be really good. We intend to find out for ourselves.
Zack has been really busy this week getting ready for his first deployment, so I've been busy trying to find people to hang out with while he's gone. As usual, I've had some help from Mel. Mel, as I mentioned before, is the wife of another officer on Zack's ship (the CHENG, which is short for chief engineer). They're newlyweds as well. Before getting married, she was in the peace corps, and spent some time in both Russia and China. She has a masters in ESL. We like a lot of the same stuff (like travel and lanugages), so we get along well. Mel and her husband will be moving to Virginia in a few months, but she learned a lot while she was here, and she's apparently determined to help me transition smoothly. From what I gather, she had no real guide, so she spent a lot of time staring at her walls, and we all know how much fun that can be.
One of the things Mel recently discovered is a group called the Officer's Spouses Club (for a legal explaination of why this is not discrimination against the spouses of the enlisted folks, e-mail my sister Emily, who just learned all about fraternization laws in the military). Mel explained to me that "spouses" for all practical purposes means wives, and they get together at least once monthly to either do something fun or just hang out. This month's outing was tomato picking. You can go to these outings either by becoming a member (which means paying dues) or by getting a member to invite you. Since Mel only found out about this recently, she's not a member, but her friend Debbie is, and she took both of us as guests.
So Thursday morning, I woke up to the sound of rain pouring down the roof and wondered how serious I was about meeting people. Was I, for example, willing to go tomato picking in the freeezing cold rain? Maybe, I reasoned, they'd skip that and go the lunch part. So I went, rain and all. Mel gave me a ride to base, and then a bus took us the hour and a half to Oshima Island, where there were supposed to be tomatoes. On the way, they had their Club meeting, and I learned that the Officer's Spouse's Club is more than just an excuse to go hang out. They run a thrift shop on base and use the money from that, and the dues from the club, to help those in need. Primarily, they give out scholarships, but they do other things with it too. This made me feel much better about potentially joining, considering the fact that you still have to pay for all these outings.
The tomatoes, as it turned out, were in big plastic greenhouses, which made a lot more sense based on how cold it's been. We got to taste before we picked, and either I had forgotten how good vine ripened tomatoes really taste, or these are especially good. One of the men who worked at the place then distributed baskets and clippers and took us to the greenhouse to pick. He showed us what a good tomato would look like and everything (green on the top, with lines on the bottom and bumpy means it'll be ready in three to four days). I got a few ready to eat, and a few that will conviently ripen while Zack's not around, since he doesn't eat them anyway.
After everyone had picked to their heart's content, we went to a nice hotel on the island for lunch. We had all ordered in advance so they could be ready for us. All the options were tomatoes fixed in some special way. I had tomatoes wrapped in bacon over cabbage in a cream sauce. It was delicious. There was also Tomato Rissoto, Tomato Tempura, and even a Pizza option. All of it looked good.
But what made the trip really good was how friendly everyone is. I guess I'm still learning that we're all in transit everywhere we go. These ladies know it and take advantage of the chance to meet people. If I stood without talking to anyone for more than a minute or two, one of them would say "I don't think we've met yet. I'm (insert incredibly forgettable name here)" and chat. They are a well spring of information about living in Sasebo and also just fun to hang out with. So that was good. I gave the president my e-mail address, and she said she'd get me on the list to get the information for the next one. Debbie said I could be her guest again, but I'm thinking I'll be joining anyway...
Thursday night, we had a brief about the upcoming deployment of Zack's ship. All the guys were required to attend and wives(the ship has an all male crew) were encouraged to come, so I did. The brief itself was like watching our Welcome to Sasebo class in fast forward, but it gave me a chance to meet the CO (Commanding officer), XO (Executive officer), and more importantly, both their wives. The rest of the officers on the Guardian, other than Mel's husband, are single, so the four of us comprise a very small community of our own. The XO is new, but his wife, Skii, has lived for the last ten years, and they've been in Sasebo before. She's Austrailian, and models, sings and recruits other models, so she's pretty busy, and also very nice. The CO's wife is Japanese, so she's kind of got her own life, too, but we're all going out to lunch on Monday, so that will be fun. The XO's wife and I are also going to take the ombudsman class that's coming up because the ombudsman of the ship will be leaving in a few months, too, so someone needs to pick that up. (The ombudsman's job is to help families communicate with the crew while they're out, as best I understand so far. I don't really know, but I know she's super important. Like most important jobs, it's farly thankless, so no one wants it, so... More to come on that I guess...)
So Mel, continuing in the spirit of getting me out of my house, informed me that night that there was a Noritake sale coming up today. She invited Zack and me both to come with herself and Joel (her husband) and check it out. Naturally, we went. We were joined by Terri, the wife of the CO of another ship, also new to town as of a month ago, and Carmen, the current ombudsman for Zack's ship. We took Carmen's van to the factory, which is in a town about half an hour from here. The drive was absolutely lovely. It was along a winding road through the mountains with a good view of the valley below.
Upon arriving, we wandered through two rooms full of china in all shapes and patterns just out on tables. There were baskets waiting at the door you could pick up to hold what you chose. All of it had price tags, and everything was 20% off what the tags said, so it was a really good deal. We got a few things, mostly gifts, but not much. (Dad, I didn't buy you the giant porcelain leaping deer, don't worry.) Carmen didn't get anything because they didn't have the teapot she wanted, so she's waiting until the next sale. Terri filled a huge box with her purchases, and Mel and Joel got his parents a whole set in a pattern his mom likes.
Once we had paid for our purchases, there were tables with newspaper so you could wrap everything carefully. If you wandered further back into the warehouse, you could find an auction going on for more china. I have no idea how it worked because of the language barrier, but I do know that once and item and price were announced, there was a rock/paper/scissors contest to see who would get it! It was highly entertainting to watch. At a stand in the back of the auction room was a man with a vase full of wooden chopsticks and piles of plain white china behind him. If you gave him your receipt, he would let you choose a number of chopsticks based on how much you had spent (we got to pick three, Mel got five). Chopsticks that had been marked red on the bottom were considered lucky. For every lucky chopstick you picked, you got a medium sized china teacup. For every normal one, you got a smaller sized teacup (they looked like the plastic ones you see on airplanes). We got three lucky chopsticks, then Zack found a receipt someone else had left behind and not used, so we ended up with six lucky teacups and two unlucky.
THEN, we all decided to eat lunch at the various stands they had set up in the auction room. Our food was served on more china, which was ours to keep. So we came home with two plain white plates as well! The whole thing was highly entertaining.
Tonight, we're going out for Japanese Mexican. There's a guy who used to live in California who has a restaurant on the Ginza. I think the restaurant has a name, but it's identified by the sign MEXICAN FOOD over the door. It's supposed to be really good. We intend to find out for ourselves.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Taking care of business
March 15th, 2007
Zack's been working pretty hard. He left for work yesterday before six and didn't get home 'till after eight, so fun time is over for him. Since we've moved in, I've been busy running errands (which takes longer when you don't have a car yet) and getting set up with work. A good bit of my day yesterday was spent filling out the background check for the high school on base, where I'd like to sub. I'm still not done, but I'm making progress. Beyond that, there's been the trip to the Security Office to register the car, looking for Japanese classes, a ton of miscelaneous dropping off of paperwork to make our move official, and grocery shopping. I've been doing that in stages because I have to carry everything back on my back. So we're slowing getting stocked up.
I've discovered that cooking here is a little different from back home. For one thing, I have no oven, just a little broiler that might hold one steak at a time and is meant for fish. Mel, my new best friend who is the wife of one of the other officers on Zack's ship, tells me that she has learned to make everything from casseroles to a pie in her toaster oven, but mine's not that big. So for now I'm just functioning as if I don't have it at all.
Another challenge is that the commisary on main base is pretty small, so you're not guaranteed the ingredients the recipe calls for. They'll order anything you want, but it takes time and you'll have to buy a lot of it. So, for example, I made chili the other night, and I found out that it was a good thing the recipe doesn't have to be exact because they didn't have "One big can of tomato juice," or kidney beans. No biggie in this case, but clearly improvisation will be important as we go along.
On our tour of town, Eriko, our guide, mentioned that there's a morning market "near the train station" every morning. So when I asked Zack what he felt like eating when the chili was gone, he suggested something involving fresh fish from the market. I took him at his word, did a little research, and discovered a website that said the market was "near the train station" from 3 am to 9 am. Figuring it was about time for another adventure, I decided to try to find it. So last night I found a recipe for any white fish that sounded good (ginger and orange, what's not to like?), looked up the name of every fish I could find in my Japanese/English dictionary (there were like five), and set the alarm for a reasonable 6:30. I'm sorry. No fish is worth getting up at 3 am.
This morning I got up and pointed myself towards the station. Naturally, I didn't find it on the first pass... or the second... but then I found a road where it looked like shops were open. Having walked to base the last two days in a row through a shopping plaza, I knew shops didn't open most places until 9:00ish, so I followed that road, and sure enough, I found the market.
By this time it was a little after 7, and the market was already looking like it was closing. There were still vendors, but not many, and most of what was left were sellers of produce and dumplings, and a few pieces of china. I found two vendors selling fish, and their display was primarily of the whole fishes waiting to be bagged up. It was at this moment that I realized I had no idea how to ask for just the fillets. Luckily, there were some things that looked cut up and ready to cook. I approached, just as I had planned, and asked the woman running the stand, "Nan des ka?" (What is it?) pointing to one of the cut up fish. She replied in a very quiet Japanese voice. I only barely caught the last sylable, and it didn't sound like anything on my list. I leaned in and made a noise indicating I had missed what she said, and she repeated herself, but still too quiet. Deciding that I could spend all day playing this game, I gave up and decided it was certainly fresh and white and fish, and that was good enough, so I asked, "Ikura des ka?" (How much does it cost?) She answered too quietly again, so I asked if she could write it down. She took pity on me and told me the price in English.
The price was fine by me, and seemed reasonable compared to what was around, so I agreed to buy it. I came home this morning with a slab of fish, still with scales, that was probably caught last night. I had no idea what type of fish it was (though I had a pretty good idea what it wasn't), and it didn't occur to me that I might have been able to bargain until I was halfway home, so I may have gotten a raw deal (no pun intended), but I was relatively proud of myself.
Tonight, Eriko came by to show us around our neighborhood for a program called "know your cho". Her first order of business was to translate the remotes to our a/c-heater units (we learned they have timers, among other things). Then she helped me translate the washer and dryer, so now I can do laundry. After that, she was giving us directions as to the fastest way to get to base and what not, and since it is her job on base to encourage people to get out, we were telling her about our trip to Nagasaki. Figuring it couldn't hurt, I told her about my fish adventure this morning. She offered to try to figure out what I had bought. I showed her the slab, which I hadn't cooked yet. She admitted that it was hard to tell from a slice, but her guess was some kind of mackeral.
Eriko was super helpful. She also gave me directions to the building where my Japanese classes will be located. Concerned that they weren't accurate enough, she offered to walk me there tonight to get a feel for it. In the process I learned that there's a sauna up the street from our house (not five minutes walk), found where to drop off garbage on the right days, and found Eriko's favorite cake shop, a go cart park, a martial arts school, and a lovely park, so that was great. It also put me in just the right mood (namely, starving) to try to cook what I had bought.
The hardest part of cooking it was getting into the pan. This is primarily because I'm a wuss about fish. It was slippery, and then I rinsed it making it more slippery, and then I could feel the scales and I didn't want to touch it, but I got it cut into two pieces and into the pan. I don't claim to like fish, but the result was quite good. It's amazing the difference freshness can make. Zack liked it a lot (or he wisely chose to pretend very well). It almost makes me want to get up earlier next time and see what else is available. May be when I'm not waking up early every day anyway.
The other super news for the day is that Dory has made a friend. Well, technically, she's made a few friends over at the kennel. She likes all four of the women who work there and wags her tail at them and kisses them when given the chance. I even caught her being nice to one of the other dogs the other day. But she has made special friends with a woman named Tina. Tina's husband is stationed here, and she loves animals in a major way. She hung out at their previous home until her husband got on base housing so her dog wouldn't have to be quarantined. She's just started working at the kennel, and Dory is her favorite. We were bemoaning the fact that she's stuck until June, and today, she offered to take Dory in for us. She suggested that she could take her home to meet their Rot Wieler (I've met him and he's a big baby) a few times when she's coming and going from work, and if Dory learns to play nice, she can live with Tina and her husband until June. Obviously, I'd be able to visit her there, but she'd be inside a warm house instead of in a concrete box, and she'd get a lot more attention. Not to mention we wouldn't have to keep paying kennel fees to keep her. So we're all pretty happy about that.
In other news, Zack got a bike, so now he plans to ride to work every day. The shop was recommended by Mel and Joel. They'll do any regular maintenence work for free, and they threw in a bell, a lock, and a light. So things are rolling along fairly smoothly...
Zack's been working pretty hard. He left for work yesterday before six and didn't get home 'till after eight, so fun time is over for him. Since we've moved in, I've been busy running errands (which takes longer when you don't have a car yet) and getting set up with work. A good bit of my day yesterday was spent filling out the background check for the high school on base, where I'd like to sub. I'm still not done, but I'm making progress. Beyond that, there's been the trip to the Security Office to register the car, looking for Japanese classes, a ton of miscelaneous dropping off of paperwork to make our move official, and grocery shopping. I've been doing that in stages because I have to carry everything back on my back. So we're slowing getting stocked up.
I've discovered that cooking here is a little different from back home. For one thing, I have no oven, just a little broiler that might hold one steak at a time and is meant for fish. Mel, my new best friend who is the wife of one of the other officers on Zack's ship, tells me that she has learned to make everything from casseroles to a pie in her toaster oven, but mine's not that big. So for now I'm just functioning as if I don't have it at all.
Another challenge is that the commisary on main base is pretty small, so you're not guaranteed the ingredients the recipe calls for. They'll order anything you want, but it takes time and you'll have to buy a lot of it. So, for example, I made chili the other night, and I found out that it was a good thing the recipe doesn't have to be exact because they didn't have "One big can of tomato juice," or kidney beans. No biggie in this case, but clearly improvisation will be important as we go along.
On our tour of town, Eriko, our guide, mentioned that there's a morning market "near the train station" every morning. So when I asked Zack what he felt like eating when the chili was gone, he suggested something involving fresh fish from the market. I took him at his word, did a little research, and discovered a website that said the market was "near the train station" from 3 am to 9 am. Figuring it was about time for another adventure, I decided to try to find it. So last night I found a recipe for any white fish that sounded good (ginger and orange, what's not to like?), looked up the name of every fish I could find in my Japanese/English dictionary (there were like five), and set the alarm for a reasonable 6:30. I'm sorry. No fish is worth getting up at 3 am.
This morning I got up and pointed myself towards the station. Naturally, I didn't find it on the first pass... or the second... but then I found a road where it looked like shops were open. Having walked to base the last two days in a row through a shopping plaza, I knew shops didn't open most places until 9:00ish, so I followed that road, and sure enough, I found the market.
By this time it was a little after 7, and the market was already looking like it was closing. There were still vendors, but not many, and most of what was left were sellers of produce and dumplings, and a few pieces of china. I found two vendors selling fish, and their display was primarily of the whole fishes waiting to be bagged up. It was at this moment that I realized I had no idea how to ask for just the fillets. Luckily, there were some things that looked cut up and ready to cook. I approached, just as I had planned, and asked the woman running the stand, "Nan des ka?" (What is it?) pointing to one of the cut up fish. She replied in a very quiet Japanese voice. I only barely caught the last sylable, and it didn't sound like anything on my list. I leaned in and made a noise indicating I had missed what she said, and she repeated herself, but still too quiet. Deciding that I could spend all day playing this game, I gave up and decided it was certainly fresh and white and fish, and that was good enough, so I asked, "Ikura des ka?" (How much does it cost?) She answered too quietly again, so I asked if she could write it down. She took pity on me and told me the price in English.
The price was fine by me, and seemed reasonable compared to what was around, so I agreed to buy it. I came home this morning with a slab of fish, still with scales, that was probably caught last night. I had no idea what type of fish it was (though I had a pretty good idea what it wasn't), and it didn't occur to me that I might have been able to bargain until I was halfway home, so I may have gotten a raw deal (no pun intended), but I was relatively proud of myself.
Tonight, Eriko came by to show us around our neighborhood for a program called "know your cho". Her first order of business was to translate the remotes to our a/c-heater units (we learned they have timers, among other things). Then she helped me translate the washer and dryer, so now I can do laundry. After that, she was giving us directions as to the fastest way to get to base and what not, and since it is her job on base to encourage people to get out, we were telling her about our trip to Nagasaki. Figuring it couldn't hurt, I told her about my fish adventure this morning. She offered to try to figure out what I had bought. I showed her the slab, which I hadn't cooked yet. She admitted that it was hard to tell from a slice, but her guess was some kind of mackeral.
Eriko was super helpful. She also gave me directions to the building where my Japanese classes will be located. Concerned that they weren't accurate enough, she offered to walk me there tonight to get a feel for it. In the process I learned that there's a sauna up the street from our house (not five minutes walk), found where to drop off garbage on the right days, and found Eriko's favorite cake shop, a go cart park, a martial arts school, and a lovely park, so that was great. It also put me in just the right mood (namely, starving) to try to cook what I had bought.
The hardest part of cooking it was getting into the pan. This is primarily because I'm a wuss about fish. It was slippery, and then I rinsed it making it more slippery, and then I could feel the scales and I didn't want to touch it, but I got it cut into two pieces and into the pan. I don't claim to like fish, but the result was quite good. It's amazing the difference freshness can make. Zack liked it a lot (or he wisely chose to pretend very well). It almost makes me want to get up earlier next time and see what else is available. May be when I'm not waking up early every day anyway.
The other super news for the day is that Dory has made a friend. Well, technically, she's made a few friends over at the kennel. She likes all four of the women who work there and wags her tail at them and kisses them when given the chance. I even caught her being nice to one of the other dogs the other day. But she has made special friends with a woman named Tina. Tina's husband is stationed here, and she loves animals in a major way. She hung out at their previous home until her husband got on base housing so her dog wouldn't have to be quarantined. She's just started working at the kennel, and Dory is her favorite. We were bemoaning the fact that she's stuck until June, and today, she offered to take Dory in for us. She suggested that she could take her home to meet their Rot Wieler (I've met him and he's a big baby) a few times when she's coming and going from work, and if Dory learns to play nice, she can live with Tina and her husband until June. Obviously, I'd be able to visit her there, but she'd be inside a warm house instead of in a concrete box, and she'd get a lot more attention. Not to mention we wouldn't have to keep paying kennel fees to keep her. So we're all pretty happy about that.
In other news, Zack got a bike, so now he plans to ride to work every day. The shop was recommended by Mel and Joel. They'll do any regular maintenence work for free, and they threw in a bell, a lock, and a light. So things are rolling along fairly smoothly...
Horray for work!
March 14th, 2007
I have a job! I had my interview today. They only have one class available this semester, but I figure it's better to be less busy for awhile so I can get settled in. I will be teaching a conversation class through the child care department of a community college in town. Basically, they are training to teach kindergarten or work in day care, and they want to do internships on the Navy Base, so they need some vocabulary and practice with child care terms.
There are a lot of reasons that I like this job. Mostly, I miss teaching, but also it gives me a ridiculously large amount of freedom in the classroom. The curriculum is only loosely set up. I'm going to get a copy of the outline via e-mail, and that's it. They've told me they don't really care what we do as long as it's educational. So I can cater to my students. The hard part will be the fact that I know very little about child care, so I will need to find out some more about that. Luckily, I've signed up for an outing with the Officer's spouses club on Thursday, and the woman who taught the class before me will be there, so I get to meet her and find out what she did. Basically, I'm super excited about the whole thing.
My bosses assure me that they should have a few more classes available next semester (which starts in late September), may be even in the English department this time. In the mean time, I can sub for other teachers there, and I can sub at the high school on base as well, not to mention the Japanese classes I'd like to take. So much to do, so little time... I think I'll find ways to stay productive.
I have a job! I had my interview today. They only have one class available this semester, but I figure it's better to be less busy for awhile so I can get settled in. I will be teaching a conversation class through the child care department of a community college in town. Basically, they are training to teach kindergarten or work in day care, and they want to do internships on the Navy Base, so they need some vocabulary and practice with child care terms.
There are a lot of reasons that I like this job. Mostly, I miss teaching, but also it gives me a ridiculously large amount of freedom in the classroom. The curriculum is only loosely set up. I'm going to get a copy of the outline via e-mail, and that's it. They've told me they don't really care what we do as long as it's educational. So I can cater to my students. The hard part will be the fact that I know very little about child care, so I will need to find out some more about that. Luckily, I've signed up for an outing with the Officer's spouses club on Thursday, and the woman who taught the class before me will be there, so I get to meet her and find out what she did. Basically, I'm super excited about the whole thing.
My bosses assure me that they should have a few more classes available next semester (which starts in late September), may be even in the English department this time. In the mean time, I can sub for other teachers there, and I can sub at the high school on base as well, not to mention the Japanese classes I'd like to take. So much to do, so little time... I think I'll find ways to stay productive.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Moving in...
March 10th, 2007
Over the last four days, we've been going full tilt getting ourselves settled into our new home! On Thursday, Zack signed the only lease he's likely to ever sign that includes the stipulation that we cannot wear shoes in the house. We walked over in the afternoon and dropped off a few things and did some floor planning. We were told the movers would only place our furniture once, so we had to be prepared.
Friday, we woke up at 6:30 to be out of the hotel by 7:30. A van took us to our place and we stowed away our suitcases. The movers and the people from Housing with our appliances arrived around 9:00. Both got big moving trucks into a one way road down which our van driver was afraid to go. The morning was a little chaotic. I checked off our boxes as they came in while Zack directed traffic so to speak. Before 11:30, all our stuff was in, the appliances were up, the gas man had come by to give us instructions about how to use the stove and hot water, and the cable guy had come through to get our information for our internet contract. At 11, Zack was wandering from one to the next signing everything, since it's all in his name. The movers had to lift our queen sized matresses over the railing to our upstairs patio to get them to our room. My grandmother's chest of drawers went up that way as well. For the matresses, they just lifted the boxes and got them up without rope or anything. They used a pulley system and blankets for the dresser. It was pretty cool to watch.
So by noon, everyone was gone and we set to work unpacking. We worked steady, and by 4:00ish the kitchen and the tatami room were more or less together. Then we walked back to base to tell Dory how cute she is and to go to a car sale run by the Navy League. A guy from Fukuoka had brought down 20 used cars. Jerry, the Navy League rep, had lots of good things to say about him and his work. By 6:30, we had bought a car! We'll be able to pick up our Honda Domani and drive it home next week Friday or Monday after all the paperwork has gone through. They're installing a CD player for us as well. It's silver, and it's primary draw (other than being really well taken care of) was that it was the smallest car available.
Saturday, the unpacking continued. The downstairs is now completely done, and our primary challenge was clothes. We have one enormous closet, and it had no rods for hanging clothes. We're not allowed to put any holes of any size in the walls, so we bought two rods that just use pressure to stay up. We got one to stay with my clothes on it, but the other has fallen down, so that's a challenge for today. Other than that, there's a few more boxes and we should be done by this evening. We plan to celebrate by going out and getting Tempura at a place up the way.
A note for the music lovers out there. On our way home from the base yesterday with supplies, we ran into a high school aged marching band on the ginza! They were a small group: one tuba, four trumpets, and what not, and they were advertising for a concert or something because they had signs with prices on them. They played a fantastic rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In". They were really good. We loved it.
Having accomplished so much doesn't mean we'll suddenly be bored. Monday, Zack has to be at work bright an early, I have an interview for a job at Nagasaki Junior College, a lunch date, and the cable guy coming sometime in the afternoon. On top of that, there are papers to be returned to Housing listing damages, more papers to be sent to various other people to adjust Zack's pay to our new situation, and a visit to the Security department on base to prove we have a place to park our car. The good news is, after Monday, we'll have internet access in our house, so no more sitting at the coffee shop to write! We'll keep you posted. In the mean time, enjoy some pictures of our new abode before all the stuff arrived...
This is the entryway...
And here's what will be our study/dining room...
Me in our kitchen (no dishwasher=really big sink).
The downstairs patio (aka Dory's room).
We call this the tatami room (for the mats). It will be our living room.
The shower/bath room (nice deep tub)
The bedroom
Our spare room (for all of our friends when they come visit).
And our super cool upstairs patio with a view. :-)
Over the last four days, we've been going full tilt getting ourselves settled into our new home! On Thursday, Zack signed the only lease he's likely to ever sign that includes the stipulation that we cannot wear shoes in the house. We walked over in the afternoon and dropped off a few things and did some floor planning. We were told the movers would only place our furniture once, so we had to be prepared.
Friday, we woke up at 6:30 to be out of the hotel by 7:30. A van took us to our place and we stowed away our suitcases. The movers and the people from Housing with our appliances arrived around 9:00. Both got big moving trucks into a one way road down which our van driver was afraid to go. The morning was a little chaotic. I checked off our boxes as they came in while Zack directed traffic so to speak. Before 11:30, all our stuff was in, the appliances were up, the gas man had come by to give us instructions about how to use the stove and hot water, and the cable guy had come through to get our information for our internet contract. At 11, Zack was wandering from one to the next signing everything, since it's all in his name. The movers had to lift our queen sized matresses over the railing to our upstairs patio to get them to our room. My grandmother's chest of drawers went up that way as well. For the matresses, they just lifted the boxes and got them up without rope or anything. They used a pulley system and blankets for the dresser. It was pretty cool to watch.
So by noon, everyone was gone and we set to work unpacking. We worked steady, and by 4:00ish the kitchen and the tatami room were more or less together. Then we walked back to base to tell Dory how cute she is and to go to a car sale run by the Navy League. A guy from Fukuoka had brought down 20 used cars. Jerry, the Navy League rep, had lots of good things to say about him and his work. By 6:30, we had bought a car! We'll be able to pick up our Honda Domani and drive it home next week Friday or Monday after all the paperwork has gone through. They're installing a CD player for us as well. It's silver, and it's primary draw (other than being really well taken care of) was that it was the smallest car available.
Saturday, the unpacking continued. The downstairs is now completely done, and our primary challenge was clothes. We have one enormous closet, and it had no rods for hanging clothes. We're not allowed to put any holes of any size in the walls, so we bought two rods that just use pressure to stay up. We got one to stay with my clothes on it, but the other has fallen down, so that's a challenge for today. Other than that, there's a few more boxes and we should be done by this evening. We plan to celebrate by going out and getting Tempura at a place up the way.
A note for the music lovers out there. On our way home from the base yesterday with supplies, we ran into a high school aged marching band on the ginza! They were a small group: one tuba, four trumpets, and what not, and they were advertising for a concert or something because they had signs with prices on them. They played a fantastic rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In". They were really good. We loved it.
Having accomplished so much doesn't mean we'll suddenly be bored. Monday, Zack has to be at work bright an early, I have an interview for a job at Nagasaki Junior College, a lunch date, and the cable guy coming sometime in the afternoon. On top of that, there are papers to be returned to Housing listing damages, more papers to be sent to various other people to adjust Zack's pay to our new situation, and a visit to the Security department on base to prove we have a place to park our car. The good news is, after Monday, we'll have internet access in our house, so no more sitting at the coffee shop to write! We'll keep you posted. In the mean time, enjoy some pictures of our new abode before all the stuff arrived...
This is the entryway...
And here's what will be our study/dining room...
Me in our kitchen (no dishwasher=really big sink).
The downstairs patio (aka Dory's room).
We call this the tatami room (for the mats). It will be our living room.
The shower/bath room (nice deep tub)
The bedroom
Our spare room (for all of our friends when they come visit).
And our super cool upstairs patio with a view. :-)
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Venturing outward...
Since we last updated, we have been very busy exploring. Thursday night, Zack tried his first sushi. We got a map from the family center on base that had some recommended restaurants marked, and a group of us from class went out to try some authentic Japanese food. We found ourselves in a tiny sushi place with a main bar and two small tables on the floor. They offered an English menu with pictures. We all got combination 1. The sushi consisted of tuna, yellow tail, shrimp, shellfish, octopus, smoked eel, mackerel, and scrambled egg (I wish I was joking). All also had rice and wasabi. Some had seaweed paper on them. Everyone but me got hot sake. I stuck with tea. Those who like sushi really enjoyed it. Zack and I do not particularly like sushi, but it was worth a try.
Friday was the class field trip, which took us around town to some sights. We got to visit a Shinto shrine that we think is within walking distance of where we'll be living. Our guide told us that the Japanese are not relgious, they're superstitious. So there is a ritual for washing before visiting the shrine, for making a wish (involving throwing money, ringing a bell to wake up the spirits, clapping and bowing), and for finding out your fortune, as well as changing it if you don't like it. On the field trip, we also saw 99 islands again and visited the Hario housing. We ate lunch at Jusco, which is like a mall with a grocery store in the bottom.
Saturday, though, was the real adventure. Four of us went to Nagasaki without the aid of a Japanese guide. We walked to the trainstation around noon and rode for about two hours. Once off the train in Nagasaki, we took a trolly to the Hypocenter where the atom bomb was dropped. On August 9, 1945 at 11:02am, American forces dropped a nuclear bomb which detonated 500 meters above ground killing 150,000+ people. Half those people died instantly, the others were burned alive and suffered varying degrees of radiation poisoning before dying.They have errected a big black monolith there and made the area into a park and place of prayer. On the 50th anniversary of the bombing, they added a monument honoring the women and children who died in the blast. From the Hypocenter, it's about a block to the peace park, where statues from all over the world are errected to celebrate peace. From the main entrance, you climb a flight of stairs to a fountain with spray shaped like a dove representing peace. The statues are arranged below, the most prominent being of a man pointing to the sky and holding out a hand to represent peace. On either side of this statue are huts for oragami cranes that people make and leave there. Water flows around the base of the main statue, and it is all very peaceful.
Friday was the class field trip, which took us around town to some sights. We got to visit a Shinto shrine that we think is within walking distance of where we'll be living. Our guide told us that the Japanese are not relgious, they're superstitious. So there is a ritual for washing before visiting the shrine, for making a wish (involving throwing money, ringing a bell to wake up the spirits, clapping and bowing), and for finding out your fortune, as well as changing it if you don't like it. On the field trip, we also saw 99 islands again and visited the Hario housing. We ate lunch at Jusco, which is like a mall with a grocery store in the bottom.
Saturday, though, was the real adventure. Four of us went to Nagasaki without the aid of a Japanese guide. We walked to the trainstation around noon and rode for about two hours. Once off the train in Nagasaki, we took a trolly to the Hypocenter where the atom bomb was dropped. On August 9, 1945 at 11:02am, American forces dropped a nuclear bomb which detonated 500 meters above ground killing 150,000+ people. Half those people died instantly, the others were burned alive and suffered varying degrees of radiation poisoning before dying.They have errected a big black monolith there and made the area into a park and place of prayer. On the 50th anniversary of the bombing, they added a monument honoring the women and children who died in the blast. From the Hypocenter, it's about a block to the peace park, where statues from all over the world are errected to celebrate peace. From the main entrance, you climb a flight of stairs to a fountain with spray shaped like a dove representing peace. The statues are arranged below, the most prominent being of a man pointing to the sky and holding out a hand to represent peace. On either side of this statue are huts for oragami cranes that people make and leave there. Water flows around the base of the main statue, and it is all very peaceful.
From the peace park, we headed over to the Urakami Cathedral. The orginal building before the bomb was the biggest cathedral in east Asia. That building was destroyed by the bomb, but they have rebuilt. One of the artifacts that they have saved is a piece of a wooden madonna that used to stand in the cathedral. Apparently it was a beautiful piece and people came from all over to see it. Years after the bomb fell, a priest from northern Japan came to see the ruins and found the face of this madonna. He saved it and eventually returned it to the cathedral for safekeeping. The bombed madonna, as it is called, is quite something to see. The cathedral itself is very pretty, too. The windows are all stained glass and quite colorful. It's very peaceful inside.
These historical visits done, we jumped back on the trolley and went downtown to catch the lantern festival. The festival is ending this weekend and celebrates the Chinese new year. Therefore, other than the lanters which would have been enough, the do shows of traditional Chinese music and dance. We found our way to the specticle bridge, which was decorated in lanterns in the shapes of all the Chinese Zodiac signs. From there we went to a park where a stage was errected and saw a Chinese drum show, followed by acrobats and a dragon dance. The drum show was kind of like an Asian version of drumlines with high step, martial arts style moves. The acrobats were super. They balanced things on their feet and chins and did contortionist style things, balanced on things, and got eight people on one moving bike. The dragon dance was using the kind of dragon on wooden sticks that you see in movies. They had two of them and four teams that alternated carrying them as well as a percussion line that followed them around. The dragons circled and bounced around to the music and when they would leave, we were supposed to shout "Omotoi Omotoi!" (we think) to make it come back. The whole park was decorated with more lanterns, and the darker it got, the more beautiful the lanterns were.
When the dragon dance was over, we had to book it back to the station to catch the last train back to Sasebo. We managed to find it without asking for help, and we were safely back in town by a little after midnight. We were all terribly proud of ourselves for venturing so far afield without any "international incidents" as we call them.
These historical visits done, we jumped back on the trolley and went downtown to catch the lantern festival. The festival is ending this weekend and celebrates the Chinese new year. Therefore, other than the lanters which would have been enough, the do shows of traditional Chinese music and dance. We found our way to the specticle bridge, which was decorated in lanterns in the shapes of all the Chinese Zodiac signs. From there we went to a park where a stage was errected and saw a Chinese drum show, followed by acrobats and a dragon dance. The drum show was kind of like an Asian version of drumlines with high step, martial arts style moves. The acrobats were super. They balanced things on their feet and chins and did contortionist style things, balanced on things, and got eight people on one moving bike. The dragon dance was using the kind of dragon on wooden sticks that you see in movies. They had two of them and four teams that alternated carrying them as well as a percussion line that followed them around. The dragons circled and bounced around to the music and when they would leave, we were supposed to shout "Omotoi Omotoi!" (we think) to make it come back. The whole park was decorated with more lanterns, and the darker it got, the more beautiful the lanterns were.
When the dragon dance was over, we had to book it back to the station to catch the last train back to Sasebo. We managed to find it without asking for help, and we were safely back in town by a little after midnight. We were all terribly proud of ourselves for venturing so far afield without any "international incidents" as we call them.
A (not-so) brief subjective history by Zack
March 1st, 2007
Yesterday was our last day of formal indoctrination class. We received a very interesting history brief on Japan and learned a lot of stuff that we'd like to share with you. Sasebo City was founded in the early 1880's as a Naval Base for the Japanese Navy. There is a building right outside this internet cafe that housed the leadership of the Imperial Navy and took a major roll in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Talk about living history, right? The harbor is surrounded by mountains on all side except for the bay facing south that leads out to sea. It is very defendable and also very close to the Republic of Korea and mainland Asia.
Okay, so Japan's foreign policy back then was that of exclusion.They didn't want anything to do with outsiders and were perfectly content to be isolated from the rest of the world. By the end of the 19th Century, Europe was carving up the rest of the world as it's own and forced itself upon Japan. The Shoguns (ruling Lords) had become weaker than previous years and were amazed at the industrialization forced upon them by the American, British, Dutch, French, etc... neighbors. In keeping with the spirit of Imperialism, Japan built a fleet of it's own and took a port city in Korea to claim as her own. Great Britian, one of Japan's major trading partners, scolded Japan saying that only Eastern European Countries could expand. After all, in this high and mighty age, Japan was viewed as "uncivilized" by Europe. So Japan withdrew back to their land and were astonished when Britian awarded the land to Russia. That sparked the Russo-Japanese war in which the Japanese soundly beat the Russians and established themselves as a major player. They never forgot the imperialist nature of their trading partners and would become imperialists themselves before too long.
In the 20th century, the world destroyed itself through actions of the 1st World War. Japan sat that one out but in the 1930's began taking land from their traditional enemies, the Chinese and Koreans. By the 1940's the world was alarmed at how fast the Japanese had grown technologically. Germany and Japan entered a strategic alliance in 1940 becoming the Axis Powers. With the British and Dutch financially and militarily weak from the first world war, Japan had no problem capitalizing on that weakness by targeting their lands(mostly in China and the Phillipennes) to expand their Empire the way America (Puerto Rice, Phillipenes) and Europe (most of Africa and Asia) did decades earlier.
After defeating the Japanese, the US rewrote their constitution making it illegal for their forces to have any offensive military at all. In the 1960's we entered an alliance with them declaring an attack on Japanese soil would be considered the same as an attack on America. In return, they let us build bases all over their lands to protect them from any aggressors and also use their islands as the most forward deployed area of operations we have in the Asian theater. We coexist together peacfully today as Allies and friends.
In the ancient days, the Japanese followed a caste system very similiar to the one of present day India. The "Samauri" or Warrior class was charged with defending the people. Now, Samauri have been outlawed for centuries as an attempt by the Emperor to Westernize his people, The Japanese people see the United States Navy as the Samauri of old. With limited military powers of their own, they rely on us to protect them and look to us with a deep sense of respect and honor for that position.
Yesterday was our last day of formal indoctrination class. We received a very interesting history brief on Japan and learned a lot of stuff that we'd like to share with you. Sasebo City was founded in the early 1880's as a Naval Base for the Japanese Navy. There is a building right outside this internet cafe that housed the leadership of the Imperial Navy and took a major roll in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Talk about living history, right? The harbor is surrounded by mountains on all side except for the bay facing south that leads out to sea. It is very defendable and also very close to the Republic of Korea and mainland Asia.
Okay, so Japan's foreign policy back then was that of exclusion.They didn't want anything to do with outsiders and were perfectly content to be isolated from the rest of the world. By the end of the 19th Century, Europe was carving up the rest of the world as it's own and forced itself upon Japan. The Shoguns (ruling Lords) had become weaker than previous years and were amazed at the industrialization forced upon them by the American, British, Dutch, French, etc... neighbors. In keeping with the spirit of Imperialism, Japan built a fleet of it's own and took a port city in Korea to claim as her own. Great Britian, one of Japan's major trading partners, scolded Japan saying that only Eastern European Countries could expand. After all, in this high and mighty age, Japan was viewed as "uncivilized" by Europe. So Japan withdrew back to their land and were astonished when Britian awarded the land to Russia. That sparked the Russo-Japanese war in which the Japanese soundly beat the Russians and established themselves as a major player. They never forgot the imperialist nature of their trading partners and would become imperialists themselves before too long.
In the 20th century, the world destroyed itself through actions of the 1st World War. Japan sat that one out but in the 1930's began taking land from their traditional enemies, the Chinese and Koreans. By the 1940's the world was alarmed at how fast the Japanese had grown technologically. Germany and Japan entered a strategic alliance in 1940 becoming the Axis Powers. With the British and Dutch financially and militarily weak from the first world war, Japan had no problem capitalizing on that weakness by targeting their lands(mostly in China and the Phillipennes) to expand their Empire the way America (Puerto Rice, Phillipenes) and Europe (most of Africa and Asia) did decades earlier.
After defeating the Japanese, the US rewrote their constitution making it illegal for their forces to have any offensive military at all. In the 1960's we entered an alliance with them declaring an attack on Japanese soil would be considered the same as an attack on America. In return, they let us build bases all over their lands to protect them from any aggressors and also use their islands as the most forward deployed area of operations we have in the Asian theater. We coexist together peacfully today as Allies and friends.
In the ancient days, the Japanese followed a caste system very similiar to the one of present day India. The "Samauri" or Warrior class was charged with defending the people. Now, Samauri have been outlawed for centuries as an attempt by the Emperor to Westernize his people, The Japanese people see the United States Navy as the Samauri of old. With limited military powers of their own, they rely on us to protect them and look to us with a deep sense of respect and honor for that position.
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