Helpful Japanese People

One thing that is beginning to amaze me around here is how helpful the Japanese are when you ask them for help. Yesterday I went to Osaka to the university of a friend of mine. It was quite far, and required a number of train changes, a subway and a bus. Meanwhile, I decided I needed something in the huge mall that is in the central station in Osaka. Someone told me to go to a certain store for gift bags. I asked another store clerk, and she walked outside her store into another one to show me where the bags were. I was having fun shopping around, and I realized I'd better get to the subway. I asked a janitor what direction the subway was. Instead of pointing me in the direction, he walked with me for about 5 minutes, making sure I got on the right one. His English was better than most of the folks around here. He wanted to discuss politics! Today I was looking for the international office in Kobe, and a young man not only walked me to the building, he rode with me on the elevator to the 20th floor! Amazing!
Another rather embarrassing situation pointed out the polite nature of these folks to me. I had gone to an onzen (hot springs) in Arima. They have a lot of products like shampoo, lotion, cleansing gel, etc. around for you to use to bathe before you get into the hot springs. So on Thursday, I went to a local onzen that a friend had recommended. There were a couple of caddies of products, so I carefully tried to figure out which was shampoo, and I proceeded to wash my hair. A woman came up and said (I guess) that here was the conditioner that went with it. I didn't realize until later that at this onzen you have to bring your own stuff. So instead of saying "Bitch, get your hands off my shampoo", she gives me her conditioner too. I didn't even figure it out till later, so I didn't apologize. Very nice people, these Japanese.

Birthday weekend

What a fabulous couple of days I just had! It began with a school-wide meeting at Kobe Kaisei College. An inauspicious beginning, one would think. I had to introduce myself twice, once at the combined meeting and again at the English Department meeting. As usual, everything but my introduction was in Japanese, leading me to believe that we (the foreign teachers) are cute little mascots for them, little more. But I met some really nice folks at the reception afterwards. One woman got her BA MA and PhD at CSU, and we had a lot of friends in common. I spoke with several others as well and set up times to meet. It's really important when you know you're only going to be somewhere for a year not to waste time in getting to know folks. It might be good practice for when I come home too.

After the reception, I received careful instructions from my friends and I boarded the train for Osaka to meet a former IEP student (Itsumi) and a former MA classmate (Beniko Mason) (from a very long time ago). Itsumi is working in Tokyo, and she had a conference near Osaka, so she invited me and Beniko to meet her there. Beniko took us to a tofu restaurant she is fond of. I wasn't that excited when I heard about it, as I don't usually fall over myself trying to get tofu. But this was an awesome restaurant! It was the old fashioned kind of Japanese restaurant with tatami mats and individual rooms with sliding paper doors and low tables with indentations for your feet. They brought us about 20 different tofu dishes in little round dishes and little square dishes, and little bowls. They had what looked like tofu popsicles, tofu pudding, tofu sushi, sweet tofu, salty tofu, tofu au gratin. When we came in there was a dish of uncooked tofu cut to look like flowers and leaves sitting in the middle of the table. It started looking weird, and I realized that it was cooking. We added a sauce and ate that too. We finished it all off with tofu ice cream, and then they came and kicked us out as we had been there for 2 hours. Our conversation was delightful as well. I loved the whole experience.

The next day was my birthday, and I had planned a geocaching hike with L'Shawn, Doug and Jon Watkins, my CSU friends. I really like to hike and don't know where to go, so the geocaching site helped a lot. We found our way to an abandoned railway along a beautiful river. There are about 6 old tunnels to go through. The cache was in the middle of the second and longest tunnel. We searched in the dark for about 30 minutes, counting railroad ties, looking for numbers written on the ties. We felt like Indiana Jones looking for the Lost Ark. Unfortunately, we came up empty. When I looked at the geocaching website, I saw that the cache hasn't been found for 3 years, so I think a muggle got it. But it got us to a really cool hike anyway. At the end of the hike, we had a beer at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the river. It really reminded me of the Poudre (a little wider, though). Then we boarded the train to Osaka where we ate at Bubba Shrimp, a most un-Japanese restaurant, replete with Japanese waiters who met us at the door with trivia questions about "Forest Gump".

Finally, Jon, who has been here for over 3 years and knows the joint well, took us to another part of Osaka which kind of looks like a cross between Times Square and Vegas. I think this is what a lot of folks think all of Japan is like. In fact, where I am it's very residential and calm, so I was a wide eyed tourist, taking in all the lights and the interesting array of people. All in all, a great weekend.

Trip to Arima Hot Springs and Himeji Castle

It was Easter weekend, and I didn't even realize it here until the president of Kobe Kaisei College told me. There were no Easter bunnies and pastel chocolates around to clue me in. Anyway, I spent the weekend as a serious tourist. I did go to mass in honor of my mother, but as it was all Japanese to me, I left early.

On Saturday, L'Shawn and Doug and I went to Arima, a town up in the mountains near here a la Estes Park. It has an onsen (hot springs) and is very charming. We took a cog railroad up the mountain, which put the one up Pikes Peak to shame. I didn't think the mountains were all that high around here, but I changed my thinking. The views from the car were amazing, with mountain cherry blossoms (a recurring theme around here). When we got to the top of the cable car line, we took a gondola up the rest of the way to the town. Really fun. You don't have to get there that way--in fact, we rode the bus home. There was a geocache at the end of the gondola line, and I picked up a little Japanese cell phone charm from that. We found our way into the town (with some difficulty) and had a wonderful lunch of curry udon noodles. Then I went to my first 'onsen'--hot springs. It was inside, not out, and apparently this one is famous for its dark colored water. First, you go to the shoe locker where you leave your shoes and get a key. Then you go to the locker room where you leave all your clothes and get another key. At onsens you have to go in the nude, so they are separated by sexes. When you get into the bath, you first must wash off at one of the many little sprayers located around. Then you get into the onsen. It was relaxing, though honestly, I prefer the outside ones like Ojo Caliente in New Mexico. It was a little like going to the hot tub at Miramont except for the naked part. I didn't mind being naked, as everyone else was too. And there were all ages, from little girls to old women. What did bother me was the dressing room where I noticed all the cute young chicks with their super fancy underwear, which was somewhat unlike my utilitarian duds. Anyway, we had a great day.

We finished it off by going to a sushi restaurant in Kobe. This one is a chain, and it's really neat because the restaurant is surrounded by a conveyer belt. Little dishes of sushi and a few other things, like chicken tenders, and desserts go around the booths. If you see something you like, you just grab it. At the end, they count your plates and give you a bill. That was a nice way for me to try different types of sushi, because if it looked too disgusting, I just let it slide on by. My dinner was very good, and it only cost about 5 bucks, which is a very good deal here in Japan.

I have been warned that the summers here in Kobe are insufferably hot and humid, so I decided I'd better do as much touring around as I can while the weather is still nice. So on Sunday I went to Himeji Castle, known to be one of the most beautiful in Japan. It is only about 40 minutes or so by train from here, and it has lots of cherry trees. So now's the time. I went on this adventure alone. It was fairly easy to get there, and again, I found a geocache. The castle was very crowded. I heard very little English around me, though. There was a German tour, and I saw some French folks in the gardens. But mostly there were Japanese there. The castle is 5 stories tall, I believe, and once we entered the castle, we had to take our shoes off. I didn't know about this, and I was wearing sandals. Therefore, I had to walk all around barefoot. The staircases in this castle are so steep, they remind me of ladders. It was hard work! When I finished the tour, I put my sandals back on, and noticed that I had 2 big blisters on the end of my toes. I was thinking that making people remove their shoes was an exagerration on the part of the Japanese; however, young women around here are very fond of stillettos, which they wear even to climb around the rocks of an old castle. Those shoes could definitely do a number on the wooden floors of the old castle.

Anyway, it's Monday and I'm back to work. That is definitely less strenuous than all this touring.

Transportation to school

The transportation system in Japan is slick, though I really haven't used a whole lot of different types yet. I have my Lagari card which lets me ride the train near my house, and I have a couple of bus cards for the bus to work. I think L'Shawn says you can get to work in about 35 minutes door to door if you need to. I only have one class which starts at 9, so I don't think I'll be in a time crunch that way. Anyway, to get to work, you have options. You can take the train for 1 stop and then get on the bus, which takes 25 minutes. Or, you can take the train for 2 stops and walk for 25 minutes. Or you can walk all the way, which takes about an hour. It's not particularly cheap to ride the trains, though I am oblivious with my handy card. L'Shawn said they figured out it would cost $200 a month to commute to work if you ride the whole way round trip.

For now, I am enjoying walking to work. The season is spectacular with all the cherry blossoms, and you see interesting sights along the way. Beautiful houses and gardens tucked in with more normal ones. And lots of narrow, winding streets. Yesterday, I saw a lot of people who were quite dressed up all walking the same way (not together). They all had darling little children with them dressed to the nines. One woman was wearing a kimono. Nosy person that I am, I dug out my little dictionary and asked one woman who looked nice if there was a wedding. She smiled and said no, it was a ?????? That's the problem. I can figure out how to ask the question, but have no idea what the answer is. Anyway, I asked at work, and they said it was probably a new school ceremony (translation). So it must have been the opening ceremony for either an elementary school or a preschool, from the looks of the children. On the first day of school, I sometimes took the kids to school, or at least walked them to the bus. This is apparently a much bigger deal here.

My house is right by the train station, which is quite handy. However, I often think, wow, the wind has really kicked up, only to realize that it's a train going by. Luckily, there are no streets near here that cross the tracks, so there is no whistle like there is at home.

So the commute is quite manageable. Most of my students have to ride the train between an hour and an hour and a half to get to school. That's because there is no dorm, and most students go to college in the general vicinity of their home, but that vicinity can be up to 2 hours away I guess.

Today we're going to take a train ride up the mountain to a village famous for its hot springs (onsen) More on that later.

Tennis in Japan

Well I had my tennis date today. It was awesome. To begin with, we played on a clay court, which was a first for me. It wasn't difficult to adjust to, though occasionally I felt like I would slip and fall. And the ladies were all fairly evenly matched. I was trying so hard to understand what they were talking about. Luckily, the scoring is all in English, and there were lots of "good shoto" to be heard in our match. The woman who invited me brought orange slices to share between sets. At the end of the match we took these rake things--they look like what they use on baseball fields, and we smoothed out the court. Then we took brooms to sweep the lines.

I had bought a pair of pants to play on Sunday, as I noticed that folks don't wear the same thing that we do in the states to play tennis. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that white was the color of the day. In fact, it was not easy for me to find pants to fit. I ended up with size men's O, which is one up from L. This did not make me a particularly happy camper. The blue pants I got were fine. But at the club I played at , everyone had long white pants, long-sleeved white shirts, white sweater vests and white jackets. And most of them were over 60 (or over 70). It looked like acres of white-clad old folks. I have to hand it to the Japanese--the elderly are very active.

I asked my friend about joining the club, but she said that you couldn't join for just one year. Don't know why, but I can't ask. There are rental courts for guests, though, so hopefully I can find enough games to make me happy.

After the match, my friend invited me for lunch. We went to a Japanese noodle shop. It was ok. Not fantastic, but ok. I think it was a pretty typical little Japanese restaurant, and I was glad I had her to interpret for me. Nice day. Now I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Bureaucracy

Dealing with governmental systems in Japan is not for the faint of heart. I'm exhausted today after getting a bank account, which took about 3 hours and 1 weekend to complete. To begin with, don't try doing it alone. You absolutely need a Japanese babysitter to hold your hand and do most of the actual work. Last week I went to the ward office (don't ask what it is as I don't know) and registered as a gaijin (foreigner), because I knew I would need to do that for the bank account (which I need if Iwant to get paid). They gave me a temporary paper and told me to come back in a month for the document. Last Friday I went with my Japanese babysitter to the bank where they told me that I needed a blue paper, not a white one from the ward office. So I trucked across town to get the blue paper. Couldn't come back to the bank that day as they close at 3. This morning, my babysitter and I went back to the bank with the blue paper and 3 other documents. Keiko filled out most of the information in Japanese. My date of birth was in year 22 of the emperor. Who knew? (Hopefully you can't figure out what year that is.) Anyway, I printed and signed my name, and they took the paper and we waited for 15 minutes. The banker came back and said that my name needed to be exactly the same as it was on my passport. I was perplexed. What was wrong? Apparently the passport has the name written in all capital letters. So we had to fill the paper out completly again, this time with my name in caps. Another 15 minute wait. The banker comes back to say that they want my last name first.
Another 15 minutes and I get my account. I'd like to get a cell phone, but I'm not sure I'm up to it. Meanwhile, the cherry blossoms are still lovely.

Geocaching in Japan

I believe my new hobby of geocaching will prove to be one of the best I could have for this adventure. I have already gone on 3 geocaching outings, and each time my friends and I have discovered really cool places we never would have found otherwise. The first time we found a cache near an interesting sake pickle shop. They had some pretty weird looking pickles in that shop (some of them disturbingly anatomical-like). On another day we found a cache at a sake museum and shop complete with free samples. It wasn't bad at all and the shop was charming. There was a cache near where we went for the hanami, but we couldn't find it. The best thing about this hobby is that I have a GPS. I have set my first waypoint as my house, and the second one as my school. That way I don't have to rely on 1) L'Shawn (my neighbor and co-worker)2) my lousy sense of direction 3) my terrible Japanese to ask directions or 4)all the mysterious signs written in Japanese. I can just pull out my little machine and head in the right direction.
I have included some pictures of the first caches we found.

Hanami

In the last 2 days I have participated in 2 hanami (cherry blossom viewing parties). The first one was during the afternoon. The cherry blossom trees along this river were breathtaking, and my neighbors and I went with a group of Japanese folks who volunteer at the international center and some Mongolian girls who are students at Kobe University. There was a ton of cute little packages of Japanese food and a little beer and wine. You set up your big blue plastic tarp, take off your shoes and you sit and eat ( a lot if you're me) and chat. These folks were delightful. They spoke a little English, and my neighbors L'Shawn and Doug( also from CSU) helped interpret. A lovely afternoon. I even got a tennis date out of the deal with a woman who looks to be about 70 and is approximately one half my size. We'll see how it goes (or if I can find the right subway exit).

Then last night some of the teachers and employees of Kobe Kaisei (my school) had a hanami party near the school. Same drill, lots of cute food, but this time there was considerably more emphasis on the drinking side of it. Lots of wine, beer and sake. It was really fun. I haven't been to a party like that in many many years. I think it was a good bonding experience for the teachers.