Damn, I haven’t had as much fun as I did last night in… well, a long ass time. As I’ve mentioned before, Friday night my teachers from IwaChu arranged an enkai, or drinking party, for Chie-sensei since she’s leaving the school. I was actually at MayamaSho for her last day, and when I showed up to school on Friday morning I felt bad that I couldn’t be there on her official last day of work… :(

Because of the zero tolerance drinking laws, I took the train into Furukawa. Even though it was 7pm, there were lots of high school students only just then leaving for home. The weather’s getting nice and warm and it was awesome to walk the streets as the sun’s setting and the air has a welcoming crispness.

Here’s the restaurant, Kanijin かに仁! It was a cute very traditional style restaurant tucked away in a little neighborhood in the heart of the city. The room we reserved was washitsu 和室 style (traditional Japanese style with tatami mats and sliding paper doors) but there was a long western style banquet table and chairs, which I thought was strange. Usually they will have low Japanese style tables, sometimes with an area sunken below it to dangle your legs into.

The servers were setting up the table when I got there and it looked so pretty! I didn’t give a damn if anyone thought I was crazy for taking pictures. The bowls and dishes were really nice in particular, and of course everything was arranged beautifully. The meal consisted of salad, sashimi, tempura, teriyaki fish, and the specialty of the house was a kind of creamy crab purée, served in the shell of the crab itself. This purée was really good, and I was totally scraping the shell clean to eat it all… right as I was polishing it off, I picked up the shell and noticed on the other side was the whole crab’s fucking head, with eyeballs and little feelers and everything. Luckily I had pretty much finished, otherwise that bit of nightmare fuel would’ve prevented me from eating anymore.

I was worried that the enkai would be super awkward, seeing how I am not fluent in Japanese. Everyone was super friendly though, and two of the english teachers sat next to me, so I was able to talk with someone/via them no problem throughout the night. Furthermore, I got super drunk, as did everyone else, which definitely helped make it super fun. We started off with Asahi, and everyone was surprised when I told them Japanese beers were common in the states. They got even more excited when I told them about craft beers and how Eli and Lucas have made their own beers. After all the Asahi was finished, we got big mugs of draft Sapporo. The nice thing about this dinner is that it was a flat 5000¥ which included all you could drink.

I also introduced them to the concept of “bombs”— to be fair, the Japanese do bombs, but the staff were older and this is more of a country area, so they mostly just have beer or sake here. I had a nice small buzz going on, and that’s when they decided to order a ton of Nihonshu 日本酒, traditional Japanese sake, and make me try all of them.

All of a sudden our two hours of reserved party space was up and we were leaving. I was super drunk and was ready to catch a train home, but everyone wanted to go to an izakaya for more drinks so… of course I went :) We walked a block or so away and went to this awesome, dimly lit place and sat around a low little table. They ordered me a tall glass of some crazy sake and a ton of weird snacks including deep fried squid and natto omlettes with ketchup. For those of you who don’t know, natto is fermented soybeans, a.k.a. super sticky and disgusting. If not for my gung ho drunkness, I’m sure I would have gotten sick.

After awhile I noticed it was super late and the trains had stopped running so… I had to get a ride back home with Cool Anime Hair Guy. I feel really bad because I still don’t know his name… but the good news is the ride home was awesome, because in addition to me not knowing the language, I was also drunk and slurring my speech and overly friendly. We ended up talking about a lot of stuff though, including video games, shrines and temples, and love hotels.

… and in the morning I woke up and found this in my purse. Awesome… There was Japanese class at the community center in Furukawa today, but I totally decided, fuck it, I’d rather be lazy for the day. I have a lot of lessons to prepare too, and I wanted to spend most of tomorrow shopping in Sendai, so I figure it’s OK to relax for today :)

The station at Nishi Furukawa is super peaceful… it’s the last station before the countryside becomes more civilized. I recently watched My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away with Alea and it’s so weird to see these movies after living in Japan; the countryside and neighborhoods and train stations are just like in the movies.

Santee was never as country-ish as Kami-machi, but I definitely remember it being more rural as a kid. It was easy to find open fields and unadulterated and uncultivated land. I used to love playing in fields and collecting sticks and rocks and just generally enjoying being by myself, alone in a peaceful landscape.

As much as I miss home and friends and family, it’s been really nice to be reminded of what it was like to be “on my own,” which is how I felt most of the time growing up. I didn’t make a lot of friends or really gain confidence in relationships until much later in life, and… well, frankly I found them complicating and a pain in the ass. I really treasure introspection, and being around people made life chaotic, dramatic— I couldn’t think. But trying to go back to my original shy loner child status proved to be impossible— it’s like I got hooked on the company of other people. I’ll bet all of this sounds strange to those of you who grew up with a close family or circle of friends, but… I dunno, this’s just my experience, being alone and cultivating myself, for myself. I loved the solitude and I still do now. But it’s kind of funny that a place so far from my home and foreign to everything I know is what’s reminding me so poignantly of my old memories.

It’s interesting to see the rice seedlings coming up. I just realized I had no fucking clue how rice grew and was harvested at all. Here’s a lovely photo from a walk to Aeon in my neighborhood:

There are tiny little baby frogs that climb up onto the sidewalk sometimes too! Walks in the evening are really nice and peaceful here :)

Tonight’s the enkai for my JHS… Since drinking and driving are practically death penalty worthy here in Japan, my coworkers are trying to get Cool Anime Hair Guy to carpool with me… I really wanna get my drank on, but am not sure if the palpable social awkwardness of 2 thirty minute drives with this guy will justify it. So instead, I’m gonna just bite the bullet and walk to Nishi Furukawa Station (30 minutes) and take the train in. At least then I can be an awesome drunken Japanese train passenger!

I’m going to try to take some sweet photos tonight to show you all how fun Izakaya are :) PS, it’s right next to a love hotel I see billboards for all the time. <3

Damn, I haven’t really written a real post for awhile :/ Time’s been flying by here though and I never feel like I have enough time for myself. I love being active and around people, but there’s a part of me that’s still very quiet and private… and it feels like I haven’t had any time to just relax… and unfortunately it doesn’t look like things are going to be slowing down for me anytime soon.

I’ve had this ridiculous surge of school pride as of late. To be fair, Junior High School here is a million times cooler than our JHS stateside, and even probably better than most of our high schools. They have a lot of really awesome sports and clubs afterschool, and the weekend after this is the Miyagi prefectural tournaments for a lot of them. I’m planning on seeing the judo team at Furukawa Budokan and I’d really like to see the baseball team too… makes me realize how much I just miss watching sports.

I’ve posted a few pics of IwaChu on here before, but I just found out the school’s pretty new (1997 as you can see above) and apparently built by some crazy modern architect… which would explain the cool layout and interesting architecture of the school building. I’ll try to get some good photos of the place someday, it’s hard to take photos here in Japan though, without looking like a total tourist.

Speaking of awkward assed photos, I got all kinds of funny looks when I was taking this pic of my kyuushoku 給食, or school lunch. I would have 1) starved to death or 2) died of malnourishment if not for these lunches, though… They always consist of an entree, side, bowl of rice, bowl of soup, milk, and occasionally a desert  (in the case above, we got an apple jelly cup).

I really love these lunches even though they’re not… exactly delicious. I’ve found that most Japanese food lacks the savoriness that I’m accustomed to, but these lunches are really filling. In fact they’re usually too much and I feel super full after eating them… I dunno how these kids eat it all (sometimes getting second portions!), as well as finish way before me! Even the elementary school kids beat me at finishing the meal : /

Now that my Japanese has improved a hell of a lot, I’m having more fun with my coworkers :) In fact, tomorrow I’m going to an enkai, or all you can eat/drinking party at a restaurant with the staff! I’m super excited and also nervous… I’ve heard a lot of weird shit can go down at these parties, and the next day is very much a “whatever happened at the enkai stays at the enkai” kind of deal.

Also, a lot of people liked my descriptions of my coworkers from a post I did when I first started teaching… so I thought I’d add a few more :)

Professor Snape Lady: Her title pretty much says it all. If Professor Snape were a track suit wearing middle aged woman junior high school teacher in modern day small town Japan, this lady would be it. In classic Snape-esque fashion, she has greasy shoulder length hair and a sour disposition. I feel like she’s always talked down to me in the few exchanges, though she’s actually warmed up to me lately… yay!

Fat Nurse:Fat nurse is from the old post, but she now has a name: Chie Kato. I mention her here because… apparently she was only at IwaChu to fill in for the regular school nurse, who was away on maternity leave. I’m super bummed because I totally love her :( Actually, the enkai mentioned above is being held in her honor.

3 new student-teachers - Shiho, Ko, Shota: When you’re in college to become a teacher, you have to student-teach for 3 weeks at a real school. We just got these three newbies this week. They are pretty nice, though I’ve only really talked with Shiho. For the most part they huddle around their make shift desk, which is actually the lunch table in the staff room, cowering in fear.

Older, fatter, more bald Japanese Groucho Marx: I dunno why I didn’t mention this guy earlier, he is awesome. He sits near my desk and is definitely one of the more interactive people at school (with me, that is). He always tries to speak English with me, but ends up coming off really crazy. I think he’s the social studies teacher, and he’ll just come up to me with the textbook and point at a picture of FDR and be like, “Su quare Dee ell! Su quare Dee ell!” or say, “Sank you! Sank you!” if I hold the door open for him or something.

Satoshi Kaneko: He’s probably my smartest sannensei student. He knows a ton of english has like no accent, it’s insane. I make fun of him though, because his last name sounds like “koneko” (kitten). It also literally means “golden child,” so I’ll call him that too. The photo above is actually a sign I saw in Furukawa with his family name on it! I took a picture to show him on Monday… turns out it’s a fucking funeral sign. Luckily it’s not for his family or anything, and it got a big laugh out of everyone at school.

Sho & Nao: Ichinensei students of mine. Sho is a goofy looking kid that is always goofing off. I think he’s really warmed up to me though, since I remember his name (one of the few kids I can). Nao is a little fat girl with freckles and big curly hair that she keeps in pigtails. She is super shy, but also really happy and giggly, so her shyness isn’t annoying. She freaks the fuck out everytime I say “now,” since it’s pronounced the same way as her name.

Here’s a pic of my kids at Mayama Elementary… and also Sailor Moon. They asked me to draw something for them, and Sailor Moon is the last anime I was really into… I’m so old :) I think I mentioned it, there is a sweet old hipster teacher here who’s super into KISS and plays the guitar. He helped me do some Japanese calligraphy today, I’ll post a pic of my masterpiece sometime later :)

And… that’s it for my insanely long post! I’ll try to keep it more regular from now on. I hate updating with a ton of stuff. I did wanna say that I got paid today though, and damn is it sweet. I promptly blew like 100$ already, and I’m planning on shopping in Sendai on Sunday too… dammit XD Hope everyone’s doing well <3

Current Obsessions: reading ebooks, unsubstantial snack foods, neighborhood walks, indie folk, school spirit, studying Japanese

I feel like I should be writing more, but I’ve been really busy lately. It’s nice though, and the week is flying by fast! School’s been a lot of fun recently… My observation with Ms. Mori went well and I got a lot of compliments. I’ve been bonding with the kids a lot too :) But, you never know, this is Japan; people will never tell you how they really feel here, but for now I’ll just be satisfied with the notion that they like me :P

The weekend went by so fast!! ;_; Unlike you guys in the States with your fancy Memorial Day weekend…

I met a bunch of new people at F Mate on Saturday and am planning to go out to Sendai this weekend. I get paid on Thursday and am going to shop my little heart out. I went to Hamazushi with my friend Haruna on Sunday evening and saw one of my students… my first encounter with one of the Junior High kids outside of school! And… it was surprisingly not awkward. Yay!

And now, because I’m sure you’re tired of listening to me ramble about my weekend, here’s part 2 of my Signs project:

Clockwise from top left: Coca-Cola sign, classic in every language; Parking/exit sign; Iseki Rental Car shop; Nakaniida Taxi Company.

Boss Coffee! A.k.a. Japan super coffee; Land for Sale; Crosswalk; weird steel drum I found in a junkyard by the road before a scruffy dude smokin’ a cigarette awkwardly came out of an old trailer and was like “Konnichi wa?”

That little symbol on the mailbox means… “mail.” Actually pretty handy, since it signifies not only mailboxes, but post offices as well as other establishments that will handle your mail for you; “Ganbarou Tohoku!” sign— Good luck, Tohoku!; Rusty fire hydrant sign; Control valve.

An old cleaning place— yet another abandoned building in Nakaniida; some tanks that I can’t read….; Empty food boxes; Eco-friendly company billboard.

Crest of Iwadeyama Chuu.

岩出山中の紋章。