They also had a big banner where people could freely paint random doodles, so Maggie and Shousuke took the opportunity to showcase their art skillz. After this we walked a bit away from the main area only to find people doing capoeira under the walkway! And they happened to be the group Maggie has trained with a couple times, so we joined in the roda. It was a ton of fun getting to play with some random people and definitely made my day, if not the entire trip. Night fell, and we returned to the stage area where there were now a ton of little votive candles all over. We took it upon ourselves to create a smiley face with them...good fun.
Then some street musicians came and did some impromptu music, only to have some random trashed foreign lady join in with her harmonica. And then some random dude stood in front of them and did some combination of tai chi and Michael Jackson imitation dancing. This same dude did the same thing before at the capoeira roda. I think he might he been a bit touched in the head. Overall, it was an amazing day, and I was psyched to get to hang out with Maggie again!
I then left to meet up with my friend Erica in Chiba prefecture since I was crashing at her place until the seminar on Monday. We decided to take it easy that night and just grabbed some Italian for dinner. Feeling particularly hungry/glutinous, we each ordered two pasta dishes. The carbonara was pretty tasteless, but the spicier tomato and cheese spaghetti was tasty. The next day found me posing as a Canadian. Erica and her co-worker Adam signed up to be interpreters for a Chiba prefecture tour aimed at foreigners. Sunday was Erica's turn to do the proper interpreting, but Adam was supposed to go along as well. Seeing as I was in town, and Adam didn't really want to go, I went incognito and pretended to be Adam from Toronto. We started out heading to an aeronautical science museum, which was pretty cool, but considering I grew with EAA in my backyard (woo hoo Oshkosh's one claim to fame! *I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Country USA, besides the fact that it would be a claim to infamy if anything at all*) I had seen a lot of similar stuff before. We then stopped at a local market, where I bought a squash paste filled pastry, which was quite tasty. Unfortunately, the person doing the stone roasted sweet potatoes was all out, or I would have been all over that.
We then headed to a smaller city in the prefecture for their Naniwa festival. Naniwa are little statues that are put around the tomb of important folks. There are to protect the tomb, but they are also often used to recreate the scene of funeral. It was a charming little festival and then had some unique local foods for sale.
I tried some sort of purple speckled noodle, which I suspect was partly made of a purple colored potato. The texture was a bit odd, but it tasted fine, and was certainly the most visually interesting noodle I've ever eaten. We also found some "carrot jelly" dessert that a local family was selling. I picked up a bunch of this stuff as a souvenir treat for my co-workers. It tasted pretty similar to pumpkin pie filling, just with a different consistency.
They had a little parade and then Erica grabbed some oknonomiyaki and ate that on some steps away from the hub-bub. Erica couldn't finish it all, so I was eating the remainder when some old ladies came up the steps, one of whom, looking at me eat, said "My, you are skilled with chopsticks, aren't you?" I HATE being told this. And Erica hates this even more. Of course I can use chopsticks. Just because I'm a foreigner doesn't mean I have some predetermined tendency towards chopstick ineptitude. I'm human, I have the same five fingers on my hand that you do. Beyond that, I don't sit there and complement every Japanese person I see using western utensils, "Oh wow! You're really good at eating with a fork, that's amazing!" No, I don't even think twice about it. I understand she's a sweet old lady just trying to be nice, but it reflects an underlying ignorance about the rest of the world that pervades far too much of Japanese culture. It also is part of a Japanese concept called "tatemae," which is basically disingenuous politeness, but that's a rant for another post.
The festival done with, we popped over to Narita-san, which ended up being a pretty cool temple, and we even got a guided tour. There was a cool turtle shaped rock formation that fittingly had a bunch of turtles hanging out on it. I was a big fan of that, not sure why, but it struck me as awesome. After the tour Erica wanted to find this place that sold soft serve ice cream with a hint of local honey mixed in. We found the place, and the ice cream was worth the walk. The store sold all sorts of fruit infused honey, and had diluted some samples with water to make a really refreshing beverage. I was tempted to buy either the blueberry or citron honey, but I didn't bring a ton of money with me for the trip and the bottles were $14, so maybe next time.
After we got back from the bus tour, we headed to Chiba city and had some amazing ramen for dinner. We then caught the cheaper, late night showing (at 8:15pm, mind you)of the movie Pirate Rock, which tells the story of a particular pirate radio station's battle with the British government during the 1950-60s-ish...I think. Either way, the characters are over the top and the antics that ensue are quite hilarious-definitely suggested viewing.
The next day marked the start of the CIR training conference. We registered after lunch and were then treated to a wonderfully mildly boring presentation/group activity session about how to internationalize at a deeper level, and while having more fun. Unfortunately, I got seated next to some jackass from the Philippines who insisted on speaking in English and wasn't even trying to contribute something constructive to the conversations we were supposed to be having. So any value the session may have potentially had was squelched by my nimrod partner. I also ran into an old friend of mine from study abroad who is apparently also doing JET, but way up north in Akita prefecture. It was great to catch up a bit with him, plus he is moving down to Shizuoka prefecture to do some graduate study on a scholarship he got, so that would make a trip to hang out with him more viable.
That night I met up with Alaina (a fellow JET CIR), Sarah and Phillip (who teach English in Chiba on a different program), who are all grads of the Japanese department at UW-Madison. We grabbed dinner at a Thai restaurant in the local train station and basically shot the shit for a good while. I hadn't seen Sarah in a couple years, so it was great to see her again. Alaina and I had both learned that the hotel we were staying in had an artificial onsen (hot spring bath) on the 4th floor, so after dinner we both headed straight back to the hotel. It was amazing. In addition to a couple bigger baths with water jets, there were little personal round baths made of stone or wood. One longer bath even had log armrests and headrests, so it was like sitting in a recliner while soaking in this bath. If that's not the definition of relaxation, I don't know what is. Needless to say, it helped wash away the stress from the conference. The next day was full of workshops, five in total. I went to one on translation and then one on interpretation. Then we had the workshops that were mandatory for first year CIRs. These were a joke. The one on "business manners" covered basic material that anyone who knows enough Japanese to be a CIR has learned four or five times over in the past. Yes, I know the different degrees of bowing, how to exchange a business card, and the basics of how to use polite speech. It was like reverting to second-year language class, and a complete waste of time.
That night again involved dinner with Sarah and Alaina, but after dinner I received a call from Jon saying an e-mail was sent out with a rumor that all but one CIR job would be cut for next year. Great. And consider the ALT jobs are being slashed by over 70%, I had reason to believe there was a decent bit of credence to this rumor. This obviously put me in a horribly stressful mood, and after viewing the e-mail myself using Alaina's computer, we decided some Mario Kart on the DS would help. And indeed it did. Alaina and I played a good 30-something races, and what do you know, afterwards my headache was pretty much gone and I felt much more at peace about everything. Note to self: Mario Kart makes everything all better. Another dip in the onsen further calmed my nerves. Also, random nerdy note: The hotel room ceiling lights looked like the Triforce from the Legend of Zelda series. If I ever have a house, this is what my lighting will look like. Too awesome.
The final day we had a two more workshops, one of which was about how to give a good presentation. Ironically, it was the worst, most sleep-inducing presentation of the entire conference. After the workshops, I consulted with other folks from Gifu regarding the rumor, and the two who actually work at the prefectural government office hadn't heard anything about it, and checked with their Japanese co-workers, who also hadn't heard of such cuts, so hopefully my job is safe for next year. Yes, for those who don't know, I'm planning on staying a second year if my job is available. A couple of us from Gifu headed back together, but first stopped in the Shibuya district of Tokyo for a pizza buffet lunch at none other than Shakey's Pizza! I have fond memories of bringing my report card in for free tokens during elementary school. This place didn't have all the games, but the pizza was pretty tasty-that is, when the toppings weren't Japanified. I made my way through squid and onion pizza, as well as bacon and pickled ginger pizza, but was finally rewarded with good ol' pepperoni and onion, and then sausage and tomato. Finally, a few long and crowded trains later, I was home. I don't think I've ever been more happy to be back in Ogaki.
Current Update: I just got back from a long weekend in Korea visiting my friend Wallin. It was an excellent time and I hope to cover that trip in the next post. Unfortunately, that may not be for a while as I will be hunkering down for the final studying/cramming before the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) on Dec. 6th. I failed the thing by 3% last year, so hopefully this time it'll be revenge.
It's so good to see that Maggie is still Maggie :) Good luck on your exam. Ganbatte!
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