Gluttony and gaming in Osaka...with Sarah!

Yes, yet another post!! I know, it's like Christmas in October. Also, Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Now a few posts earlier I was lamenting the exodus of people from Ogaki, but thankfully Sarah was just moving to Osaka, and not out of the country. And even more fortunately, Osaka is only a couple hours away by train, which makes it an easily doable weekend trip. So I decided to head down the second weekend in September, essentially just to hang out, but Sarah’s stories of a lunch buffet that included gelato didn’t hurt matters, either. So I hopped on the train and made it to the Nakatsu subway station where I met Sarah. We dropped my stuff off at her place and promptly headed for the lunch buffet. It was solid walk, but I think that’s necessary before such gluttony. There was a decent spread of proper food, but the real attraction was the 6 or so flavors of gelato, which were also all you can eat. I quickly found that the passion fruit flavor was easily my favorite, but the black tea flavor was also really tasty, and the yuzu (citron) flavor was decent, if not a little weak. I of course ate too much, but it was yummy… and crowded. There wasn’t much room to work with anyway, so getting to the food was a chore at times. I think one of the things I’ll notice most when I’m back in the states is the sheer amount of space, especially in stores. Aisles with elbow room, for starters.

One of the neighboring stores is advertising... puddung cake? I think I'll pass.


We wandered the mall area of the same building a bit before heading over to America village, which is sort of the kooky, hippie district of Osaka. And we got a healthy dose of the kooky.



Exhibit A: This girl's outfit.



This area also features lanky robot lamp posts. Eerie, yet kind of awesome.



We sat down on ledge in the little center square/park area and a few minutes later, some guy comes past in a huff, turns, and then sets his backpack down next to mine, saying “sorry, excuse me”. Then, like clockwork, he starts asking us questions in English. Okay, another random dude wanting to practice his English a bit, nothing too odd there. But there was something off about him…especially when he asked the random question “Do you know David Bowie?” Well, yeah, I know of him, he’s got solid music, blah blah blah. “Oh really?!” And then he proceeds to pull out and show off a new David Bowie T-shirt and a Bowie patch for his backpack. Okay, buddy, you like Bowie…a lot, settle down. At some point he asked where in America I was from, and when I answered Wisconsin, he reacted as if he knew where it was. I highly doubt, considering he responding with “Oh, so you know the Battleship Wisconsin, right?” “Umm…no?” He couldn’t believe I didn’t know and then proceeded to tell how it was the most powerful battleship in the world at its time, and that it was at Pearl Harbor or something. At which point he started talking about Pearl Harbor, and used hand motions to mimic the bombs dropping…complete with explosion sound effects. Really, dude, really?! I truly think there was something a little off in this guy’s noggin, so I just took it stride and didn’t really say much in return, but I couldn’t help thinking how ridiculously offensive it would be if it were the other way around. Something tells me it wouldn’t go over so well if started talking to some random Japanese person about the war and then start acting out the dropping of the a-bomb with sound effects. After that awkward bit of conversation, he finally decided to leave.

Of course, it wouldn't be America in Japan without a mini version of the Statue of Liberty.



Not too long after that, another guy asked if he could sit next to us, and starting talking to us in English. His English, along with his level of sanity, was a marked improvement over our last random encounter. We ended up speaking a mix of Japanese and English, and learned that our new buddy Shun lives in Tokyo and works as a highway engineer. Damn, so not only is he sane, but he actually pretty dang smart. He was complaining that Osaka was boring compared to Tokyo, which I guess if you are used to Tokyo, any place seems slow/boring in comparison, but really? Osaka is no slouch, and Tokyo sure as hell isn’t the be-all-end-all. He offered to get us a beer from the convenience store when he went to grab a snack. We politely declined, had some semi-decent conversation, and then Sarah and I decided to peace out before another random person came to join us.

We then stopped at a Village Vanguard store, the same eclectic store chain where I picked up the Pia-no-Jac CD a number of posts ago. This time I was taken in my the genius marketing of a beverage called Curiosity Cola. Yes, I felt like a giant tool being sucked in by such an obvious ploy, but couldn’t help purchasing it out of, yes, sheer curiosity.



It ended up being tasty, with a bit of ginger flavor mixed in, so no regrets. We stayed awhile in the store, mainly listening to various CDs at their listening station. Sarah checked out the Disney rock and punk cover CDs, none of which she cared for too much. I stumbled upon a solid techno artist by the name of De De Mouse.
I realize techno isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm throwing in a link anyway. No video, just audio. It's a long song, but listen at least to around the 2 minute mark if you want a idea of what his sound is like. Sadly, my favorite song isn't up on Youtube to link, oh well.



After this we headed over to a park and plopped down for a break, just doing some people watching. It was getting dark, and we were getting hungry, so we wandered back to Shinsai-bashi, where they have a giant covered shopping arcade. On the way there we passed by an unfortunately named curry joint.

No guys, this is not at all what you think it is.



Since one good all you can eat buffet deserves another (and we wanted pizza), we went to, that’s right, good ol’ Shakey’s Pizza and Buffet. Sure, they had their share of odd Japanese style toppings, but they put out plenty of “normal” pizzas, so we gorged ourselves on those. Also, it was by far the cleanest, brightest Shakey’s I’ve ever been inside. With our stomachs bursting we headed back to Sarah’s apartment. In her infinite wisdom, Sarah picked up an old Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) shortly after moving to Osaka. Even more importantly, she had Super Mario Kart! So…that was pretty much Saturday night, racing through to Gold Trophies in all 4 cups on 100cc mode. Good times, that game never gets old.



We grabbed some breakfast the next day before deciding to head out to Den Den Town, which is Osaka’s electronics district, to check out the used game shops and see what we could find for her Super Nintendo. We stopped at one place, but it was somewhat overpriced and we didn’t find a ton. We grabbed lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then headed out to another store Sarah said was cheaper. There we stumbled upon some gems. Namely, Sarah picked up Super Mario RPG on the cheap, and I found Hook, which is based off the early 90s Peter Pan movie of the same name. I remember playing it at Mary and Joe’s once a long time ago, so it has some nostalgia value. I was pleasantly surprised to find the game holds up well over time with some solid platforming action. Maybe not quite as difficult as it was for me back then, seeing as I beat the game back at Sarah’s place in around 90 minutes. But those were 90 minutes of fun, and the game cost only 300 yen, so I really can’t complain.

We also found The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Circle K/Sunkus!! He's the mascot for their autumn "Delicious Bread Lifestyle" ad campaign.



Sarah also purchased a game called Little Master, simply because it had an endearing angel-winged kitten on the cartridge label. We played that for about 3 minutes before decided it was crap. Again, only 100 yen, not a big investment. Then Sarah started in on the gloriousness that is Super Mario RPG. Sadly, it came time for me to catch the train, but we stopped at a curry place nearby the station for dinner first. This curry was a much deeper brown than any Japanese curry I’ve had before, and had a distinct flavor that I really can’t liken to anything, but it was good and I’d definitely go back. It’s honestly the first J-curry joint I’ve gone to that isn’t Coco Ichiban (giant chain). I’ve also decided if I ever become a rap artist, that is going to be my name. J-curry, recognize. Sadly, it was then time to part ways. Not for long, though, as I’d be briefly stopping in Osaka the next weekend.

*Update: It turns out there actually is a Battleship Wisconsin that existed during WWII, and it was actually one of the last and most advanced built by the Navy, so the guy wasn't talking completely out of his arse. He was still batshit crazy, though.

Cookout and microbrews in Shiga

Now we transition into September…and summer was showing no signs of slowing down, which was just as well, since my friend Corey back from Tokyo Orientation had invited me out to the Shiga prefecture welcome barbecue. A few days beforehand I find out Corey won’t actually be there until later in the evening. Thankfully, I had told Rachel about this, and she also had met someone from Shiga at Tokyo Orientation and gotten an invite, so we had a contact person, making it slightly less awkward that we were crashing a Shiga event. After transferring trains at Maibara, we sat down only to have a large group of foreigner get on the same train car as us. And dang, the once silent car was suddenly filled with boisterous conversations. I can definitely understand how that would annoy Japanese people, and was slightly embarrassed. At the same time, it was refreshing to hear that much life on a train. Japanese trains tend to be eerily silent, unless you hit a pack of drunken businessmen heading home late at night. There are certain aspects of Japanese society I prefer, but in terms of speech volume in public spaces, I side with America in being a little less circumspect on the matter. Rachel and I had an inkling that that group of foreigners was headed to the same place we were, but we stayed back from the pack a bit once in Nagahama, as we figured it’d be a bit awkward to introduce ourselves without our contact person. “Where do you live in Shiga?” “Actually, we’re from Gifu.” “oh… so what are you doing here?”

Also, this amazing stained glass window was in Nagahama station.



At least that’s how we imagined the conversation would go, if not worse. Unfortunately, we hung back too much and lost the group down a sidestreet, so we wandered aimlessly a bit once we got to the park before finding the barbecue. It just so happens that the park is right on a lake, so the view was lovely and the weather ended up being perfect. We found our contact, chatted a bit, and then started joining random conversation, at which point we inevitably had the conversation I detailed above. But everyone was really cool about, especially once we explained our connections. I was taken aback by the sheer numbers, there were probably a good 50 people there. Apparently Nagahama city has 30 JETs just by itself. In comparison there are maybe 15 JETs between the western region of Gifu prefecture and Gifu city itself. It was bring your own food, and unlike Rachel, I was not prepared, so we went to the grocery store near the station where I picked up some chicken skewers and “American Cola” (yeah, that was the name of the drink), and Rachel grabbed some ice cream. We headed back to the site and grilled up our grub. Partway through the afternoon, a few folks started tossing around a Frisbee, which quickly morphed into a pick-up game of ultimate frisbee, which I hadn’t played in forever and was an absolute blast. On the back line of one of the “end zones” was a little raised flowerbed with a brick border/enclosure, and there was also a small, stout little tree with some rather thick branches. Why do I bother telling you this? Because at one point I was in the end zone and starting running a crossing pattern along the back line as the frisbee was tossed my way. With my eyes squarely focused on the task at hand, I didn’t notice that one of the those thick branches sticks out into the end zone, and I ran full speed into that sucker. I didn’t hit the ground, but my feet did leave the ground for a second just due to momentum. I thankfully had my arm in front of me, so it took the brunt of the damage, but it was still a hell of a hit, and horribly embarrassing. Again, everyone was pretty cool about it. Brief update, the cuts and whatnot I got from that tree have left scars, that thing means business! As further testament to how much of an ass this tree was, it took out someone else later in the game. I tossed the frisbee for the end zone, and it was carrying a little too far, but one guy was making a great run for it until he, too, ran smack into the tendrils of this sylvan warrior. He took the hit higher up and fell flat on his ass, it looked as if the tree just up and clotheslined across the chest, a la pro-wrestling. This also made me look like less of a doofus for having run into it before, woot! I was not done injuring myself, as I apparently turn into a dog when a frisbee is thrown and see nothing else around me. I was again running for an overthrown frisbee and tripped over the brick border of the flower bed. I stayed on my feet and it wouldn’t have mattered, but since I wore sandals that day, which are not conducive to playing ultimate, I went barefoot for the game. As luck would have it, the toenail that I have previously had turn purple from injury twice (of which one of those injuries led the nail to fall off completely), again took the biggest hit, and is now again about ¼ purple. The poor dude doesn’t get a break. Thankfully it didn’t really hurt that bad and I was able to keep playing. Earlier on in the game, I had noticed two of the guys on the opposite team doing some handstands and other capoeira-esque movements while waiting for the kick-off. So during one of the lulls in the game, I asked them if they play capoeira, and they DO!! Talk about random encounters! They were pretty psyched as well, and after the ultimate game dissolved, he broke out his iPod w/ speaker deck, put on some capoeira music and we had a little impromptu capoeira session. Really coincidental, and really awesome. We had grand plans to get together some weekend day and train a bit, but fall has quickly descended and people be busy, so I’m doubting it will happen this year. By this time, it was getting dark, and Corey had arrived from his school’s Sports Day (think Field Day from Franklin Elementary School, but for big kids, too). I also ran into my friend Matt from when I studied abroad, who also just so happens to be doing JET in Nagahama. So we got to catch up as well.

Matt, Rachel and Marcus!



I was pleased when the plan for the evening came to involve drinks at the local microbrewery, which Corey had talked up a decent bit. I was excited to have some Japanese beer other than Asahi or Kirin, which in my mind aren’t much better than Bud/Miller Lite. It was called Roman Brewing Co. and they had a full-blown restaurant attached to their building. It was a classier place with wood tables and chairs, and the beer lived up to Corey’s hype. I didn’t care as much for the Nagahama Ale (which I heard one other person complain was “too hoppy”), but was a huge fan of the Kurokabe Stout and their seasonal ale. They had stills visible behind the bar and just the whole microbrew culture reminded me a lot of Wisconsin.

Feels like home!



I was never a huge beer drinker, and still really am not, but I have grown to have a certain appreciation for darker beer, as well as a curiosity to try various microbrews. The night was a lot of fun and I met a lot of cool people in Shiga. Hopefully I’ll be seeing more of them over the next year. After a few drinks, some went on to another bar, but our last train to Gifu was calling, and I didn’t feel like pulling an all-nighter, so we called it a night.

The next day we headed to downtown Ogaki where every first Sunday of the month in the summer/fall they have a little flea/farmer’s market with some local performers.

Checking out the local Ogaki spring water...refreshing!



A few of the JETs from the Gifu city area came into Ogaki as well, and we strolled up and down the main drag, and even caught the “samba parade” which consisted of four women in carnaval outfits attempting to samba in giant platform heels with a few guys drumming the beat behind them. One of the things about Ogaki I do really like is that there is at least a little bit of cultural diversity with the sizeable Brazilian population.

It also doesn't hurt when cultural diversity looks like this.



And Ogaki has a guy wearing a tiger mask playing a guitar, you don’t get much better than that.



After that, we grabbed lunch at a small Italian place before parting ways for a lazy Sunday.

Fireworks, Obon, and Noh...ahh, Japan.

I left the last post commenting on the new year and new people, and one of the big events that generally brings everyone out of the woodwork is the huge fireworks show on the Nagara river in Gifu city. This year was just as impressive as last. The tarp was pretty much in the same place, and I swear I bought kakigori (snow cone/shaved ice) from the same dude last year. A fireworks show this awesome is a tradition I could get used. And this year I went out in a yukata, so that was good fun. I think I mentioned this last year, but it bears repeating, these fireworks absolutely blow anything I’ve seen stateside completely out of the water.

It attracts quite the crowd...



My badass red and black yukata, plus some badass new Gifu JETs!



Then that Tuesday there was the work orientation dinner. All the English teachers get together for some team teaching workshops, etc, and then go out for dinner. I signed up to join the dinner portion, but then completely forgot about it until I got a call from Erin 7 minutes before it was supposed to start…in Gifu city. So I bolted to the station on my bike, had good luck with the train times, and made it to the restaurant only around 20 minutes late. The food and drinks were only just starting to come out, so the timing worked out quite well. It was all you could eat or drink from a selected (and pretty varied) menu, and I made sure to get my money’s worth. It was a raucous time and I was glad to see all the new people from orientation again as well as the veterans.

The next weekend Naomi and I went to visit Vitor...and the beach! We grabbed the train to Toyohashi, where Vitor lives, and immediately hopped in his car to drive an hour to Tahara, where the beach is. One the way there, we stopped for lunch at a place Vitor insisted we go to for their famously massive tempura rice bowl. The picture below was the smallest size they had.




I could barely finish mine, but it was pretty amazing. They also had some delicious fried chicken wings. Everything on the menu looked scrumptious. Needless to say, I'd like to return someday. We headed onward and had an awesomely lazy afternoon on the beach. The day was cloudy, so not too warm, but that also lulled me into not applying sunscreen that often, so I ended up getting sunburned. We had fun playing in the sand and generally goofing off. This beaches also had some amazing smooth rocks, some even with flatter edges, so I grabbed a few for my berimbau.

So international it hurts!



For any guys with ideas of skinny-dipping, this sign kindly reminds you to keep thine phallus in thine drawers. (Or some enterprising English speaker scratched off part of an "o", either way, worth a laugh)





The end of a lovely day!



The following weekend Naomi needed a few “rent-a-foreigners” to help promote the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperative) meeting in Gifu in early October. This was at an Obon dance event at an elementary school in Gifu. They gave us yukata (summer cotton kimono) to wear for the evening, along with some tea and onigiri, which always helps. We had a group of 6 or so foreigners, hailing from a number of countries and at one point we got up on a little stage, gave self-introductions, and one of us spoke briefly about APEC.





That was it. After that, we just did a bunch of traditional Obon dances, and far and away my favorite song for Obon is “Harukoma” (“Spring Foal”). Below is an old video from up in Gujo-Hachiman, where they stay up all night dancing on a couple selected days. The video quality is bad, but it has the best audio I could find. I also love how you can hear the old grandmas singing "harukoma" in the chorus, it lends a certain raw authenticity and is endearing at the same time.




I pretty much just love this picture of Naomi.



They were giving out prizes for dancing, or essentially for looking like you were having a good time and getting into it. I’d figured they’d pick a token foreigner for one of the prizes, so I had a 1 in 8 shot, not bad odds. Anywho, due to my amazingly awesome dancing, I was selected. The rest of the night I got to dance around with a medal around my neck stating how much I rock.



Anywho, I had missed out going up to Gujo-Hachiman this year, so I was glad to get to do some proper Obon dancing and help out Naomi at the same time. After the event was over, a couple of us went out for a late night snack and complain about work session. I was pleased, though, as the pasta I got was really quite good, and I had a coke float with it, which is pretty hard to screw up.

The following weekend there was a torchlight Noh theatre performance outdoors on the Nagara river. I had updated the English handout for this year and translated the plot summaries of the plays and actor bios, but I doubt anyone looked at it because it was already pitch black when I got there. I had literally rushed straight from work and even then missed the opening music performances. Thankfully I got there just in time for the start of the first of two major plays. I had never seen Noh before (aside from a brief video clip back in Ancient Japanese Lit. at UW), but knew it was even harder to understand than Kabuki. The first play, though, was in the comedic style, Kyogen, and ended up being halfway intelligible at times. The following play was serious Noh, and aside from a random word or two, I couldn’t understand a thing. It was quite a cool experience, though. Robert, one of the new JETs, drove all the way down from Shirakawa village (a good 2 hours, at least) for these performances. He didn’t have a place to crash, so I offered up my place. He drove myself and Rachel back to Ogaki where we grabbed dinner at a rotating sushi place I hadn’t been to before (Robert insisted it was the best of the big chain restaurants). It was quite good, indeed, and afterwards we dropped Rachel off and then chatted and exchanged Youtube video recommendations before heading to bed.

I had to kick out Robert relatively early in the morning, though as I was heading into Nagoya on Saturday for a variety of reasons. I met up with my friend Kevin, who I studied abroad with at Nanzan University three years ago, and who is a new CIR on the JET program in Nagoya. It just so happens that he lives right by the one Pizza Hut I know in Nagoya where you can eat-in. It is attached to and shares dining space with a Mister Donut (dangerous, I know). We ostensibly met up to have donuts for “brunch” but we were there talking for quite a while and at one point we both sort of glanced over at Pizza Hut, at which point there was no resisting. So we followed up donuts with greasy cheese pizza, and it was everything I thought it would be. Kevin had to head to a barbecue event and I was to be meeting fellow Gifu-ites in Nagoya station for a little walking tour for the new folks. It was great to talk with Kevin at length again and hear how he is settling into work. I’m horrible at keeping in touch with people, and it’s always reassuring when you can pick up right where you left off with a friend. The walking tour was decent, but not too many people showed up for it. I did end up trying an “ice cream donut” though, in the underground mall/maze in Nagoya station, and it was pretty darn tasty.

After checking out the station area, we hit up Osu Kannon, which is always good for some nostalgia value and T-shirts with bad English on them. The real crowd from Gifu joined us in the evening for the beer garden, but that is exactly when I peaced out, as I had a capoeira practice with a meeting afterward that everyone was supposed to attend. The next day I chilled in Ogaki and biked down to the mall on the south end of town where they have a…SUBWAY! Sadly, the sandwich I got wasn’t all I had built it up to be. The bread was a little dry and the “cheese spread” was super fake. I’ll have to go with one of the standards next time.

Orientating the Newbies! (No, I don't care if that's not a real word.)

After Maria left, Sarah wasn’t too far behind, as she was moving to Osaka only a couple days later. For her going away dinner we decided to hit up a new place that we had long been meaning to try. We grabbed the bus down to the AEON mall on the southern end of town to this restaurant that let you add on all you can eat Belgian ice cream to your meal for a little over $2. That is essentially the whole reason we went there, but their regular set meals ended up not being a bad deal, either, including all you can eat salad and curry in addition to the main dish. I did have a little bit of salad and curry, but I wasn’t about to fill up on those when I had ice cream available. They had eight flavors, plus they rotated in new ones when, essentially, Sarah and I finished one of them off. It was a solid place, and a shame we found it so late in the game. Thankfully, that upcoming weekend provided me with proper distraction from the fact that Maria and Sarah left Ogaki, and that Jon would soon be gone as well. What distraction would that be? The Tokyo Orientation for new JET program participants! I had to go through it last year, and decided to apply to volunteer as an assistant (free trip to Tokyo and time out of the office? Um, yes please.) I also was assigned to help give a presentation with 2 other people on “How to Make the Most of Your Time on JET.”

Random funny Engrish: Mmm...ethnical tuna.




I got into Tokyo Saturday morning and headed to the hotel for a debriefing meeting. It was certainly interesting to see the other side of this massive orientation and all the planning that goes into it. When coming in as a new JET, I was far to jetlagged to appreciate the logistics behind the orientation, and really just wanted to get to my new home. After some assembly line labor making bags of materials for new JETs, I grabbed dinner and then headed off on a bus with a bunch of other TOAs (Tokyo Orientation Assistants) to a hotel near Narita airport, since I was assigned to help greet and herd new arrivals at the airport for most of the next day. My hotel roommate ended up being one of the people I was to be giving the presentation with, and he’s a pretty cool guy, so that worked out well. We had been previously informed that this hotel had alcohol vending machines, so a few of us decided to grab a beer and hang out a bit. It somehow came to be that our room was where everyone gathered, with random people joining in as the night went on. We started out playing various card games, including one I hadn’t heard before, called Kemps. Essentially, you have a partner, and you establish a secret sign/gesture/posture. Then everyone draws 4 cards, and through swapping with the deck and cards face up on the table, you try to get four of a kind. Once you achieve this, you do the secret signal, and if your partner notices and shouts “Kemps!” you get a point. If you are doing the secret signal and someone from the other team recognizes it as a signal, they can shout “block kemps!” and then they get a point. You can really mix it up by faking a signal, since false blocking comes with a point penalty. Anyway, it was a fun game, one I’ll be trying to spread to others no doubt. Then at some point we shifted to Egyptian Rat Slap? (it goes by a ton of other names as well). I was quite excited since I used to play it with friends back in high school sometimes. It turns out my skills haven’t deteriorated, as I won every game. After 3 or so games in a row, the group decided to handicap me by not dealing me any cards, so I had to “slap in” to get cards, and I still managed to win. I think that is what I’m going to do when I’m old and need to keep my brain and reflexes sharp, just obliterate everyone else at the nursing home at this card game. And of course I might as well put a friendly wager on the board to makes things interesting. “Oh, what now, Eunice?! Looks like I get your pudding for a week!” The only problem will lie in my hip breaking when I try to do a celebratory dance. Aaanywho, enough gloating, back to the hotel room. Cards wound down and we just began talking. And it was refreshing since we were actually having intelligent conversation about different global issues. One guy in particular seemed to pride himself on using plenty of vernacular during said semi-academic discussion, which led to gems such as “political economies be mad trippin’, yo” To be fair, I’m not sure if he threw in the “yo”, but I think it adds a little something extra. Also, randomly at some point in the night, we figured out that close to half the room could speak at least some degree of Mandarin, so I got to dust off my horribly rusty Mandarin and have a really basic conversation, which is always fun, if not a little depressing since I know I’ll never be able to put in the time to properly learn that language. Alack, alas.

Corey (roommate) and I were thankfully not on the early shift, so we still got a reasonable amount of sleep. In fact, the two of us were also assigned to the same station at the airport, the escalators! We had one other guy with us at that post, and our job was to direct folks onto the elevator, explain how to ride the elevator with their carts (which have awesome magic breaks so you don’t even have to hold it going up the escalator, something we had to reassure many a skeptical person on). We also had a sweet sandwich board sign explaining the carts that we took turns wearing and jumping around like idiots in. For just standing around all day, time went by quickly, genki (“energy/spunk”) levels never went down, and it was a lot of fun. That probably had to do with the fact that both of the other guys working the station were cool to hang out with. And to show you just how cool, here’s a picture of Corey imitating a hot dog statue.



Why the statue looks so happy to be slathering condiments on itself knowing it will soon be eaten, I’m not sure. I found out late in the game that I was actually going to be leading one of the buses of new JETs back to the hotel, so I had to leave Corey by himself (the other guy had left to lead a bus even earlier). Thankfully we had little book with what to cover on the bus ride back, because I wasn’t listening closely to the explanation the day before since I was initially marked as having no bus to lead. So I winged the whole thing, and managed to collect all the necessary forms, allay any fears, and make sure everyone knew what was happening over the next couple days. I also triple checked their forms, seeing as due to jetlag/incompetence, many people neglected to sign their form or mark a box despite me explicitly telling them to do so on the bus. Oh well, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I was on one of the last buses back, but managed to latch onto a group of other TOAs going out for a late dinner. Unlike the group I hung with at the hotel, I didn’t nearly as much care for this group. Being late, only a few places were open, and we settled on this place where we had a whopping 15min before last order. So there is a rat race to get our orders in on time. I don’t care to be rushed and was taking my time in looking at the menu, which apparently one of the other guys took to mean I can’t understand the menu, and started explaining what stuff was to me. It might fair assumption on his part, but it was still horribly insulting, especially considering the condescending manner in which he said it, as if he was babysitting me. Not to mention he just looked like a tool, but hey, I’m not bitter about it or anything. The next day we had a prefectural meeting and I got to meet all new incoming JETs. Everyone seemed pretty chill and nobody was freaking out, so that was a plus. Most of them had actually been to Japan before, so that made my job relatively easy.

Then I got together with my presentation partners, Corey and Cat, and we went through and timed it a couple of times, and just then just chatted for awhile. Later in the afternoon we gave our presentation, and despite being the last time slot, when the greatest number of people skip or sleep through the presentation, we not only had a solid number of attendees, but they were engaged and asking questions, it was awesome! One person even came up to me at the end of the presentation to just thanks us for giving it. That really surprised me, but I was glad to see people got something out of it.
After that was the welcome banquet, which is actually a really nice spread. Sadly, the lines were ridiculous for the first half, and I had to interpret for some government branch head the second half so I didn't get to eat a ton. And when I say interpret for the gov't dude, I basically mean I talked to him. Most new JETs don't have the balls/interest to come up and talk to one of the bigwigs, so I sat and chatted with him a bunch.


Then at some point I ran into Erica in the hotel!



After the social experiment gone bad that was the previous night, I didn’t really feel like going out on the town and plopped down to watch some TV, at which point I found some science show with an some old dude explaining atomic energy distributions, so I geeked out a bit watching that, and realized that I have pretty much forgotten any and all science vocab in Japanese. Yikes. I finished out the night with some Zelda on my DS.
The next day I helped run small group workshops for the new CIRs. We did some impromptu speeches, and then had a workshop where we divided them up based on what type of workplace they were assigned to. Like last year, I didn’t really have a home in this workshop since I’m pretty sure I am the ONLY CIR to be working at a university. So I wasn’t too much help other than piping in once or twice with some advice on interpreting for extended periods of time. That night I met up with Corey and Cat and a few others. This night turned out much better than the last, again, due to solid company this time around. We stumbled upon this omlette rice place that was underground. It didn’t have much of a store front on the street, so we were really surprised to get downstairs and find the place decorated like an old American country home. All the waitresses had on red and white checked aprons, it was like something out of the twilight zone. I was really psyched though, when my meal came with a dinner roll, scored, with butter melting inside. Mmmm…I hadn’t had a dinner roll in forever. Sounds simple, but it was soooo good. We were then going to meet up with some of the people from Corey’s prefecture at Hub, a chain bar. However, this chain apparently has 5 locations in the Shinjuku area, so after searching a bit, we end up at the wrong one. After getting a map to the other locations and consulting with Corey’s friend, I figured out which one they were at.

So we wander over to the correct Hub and meet up with everyone. It also turns out that today is 30% off drinks for Hub card members, and one of the guys in the group had made a card to take advantage of the deal, so the beers were only moderately overpriced, which was nice. I had a dark and tan at Corey's suggestion, but then for the second drink decided I prefer to have Guiness by itself rather than mixed with another beer. We had a rousing good time at the Hub until they closed up (and at a surprisingly early hour, considering this is Shinjuku we're talking).

We wandered around some more, looking for any places that were still open, and while considering our options at a major intersection, a random, college-aged Japanese dude came up and started talking to us English. We chit-chatted for a bit before inviting him to come along with us to our next, as of yet unknown destination. After some searching, we found a place open late, and headed up for a drink and some light snacks. Kazu, our random new friend, was indeed in college, but I think he said he dropped out, and he has aspirations of becoming a professional baseball player. Yeah, you and every other Japanese guy, buddy. I didn't want to burst his bubble, but I'm pretty sure Japanese society will do that quickly enough. Anywho, being an student/ex-student, we paid for his drinks, and decided to eventually end the night at some point between 2-3am.





The next morning simply consisted of meeting my fellow Gifu people in the hotel lobby and catching the train back to Gifu. We grabbed lunch in Shinagawa before getting on the bullet train and were having a rousing conversation on the way back. Now, we we're being a little loud, and one of the new girls had a particularly loud voice that must have carried pretty far, because some guy up to her and start explain how she was talking to loud, and launched into a condescending explanation of how the curve of the train makes her voice carry more, etc. Okay, fine, not the most polite way to go about it, but whatever. Then, though, she told her she should buy something to eat or drink, so she could keep her mouth busy (and thus not talk), and as he walked back to his seat sarcastically offered to buy her something to drink. Wow, what an ass. If I hadn't technically been representing Gifu, I would have probably told him off for being such a jackass about it, and now looking back, wish I had anyway. Oh well. I felt bad for the new girl, who was obviously taken aback by the whole thing. Thankfully, people in Gifu-ken are nicer than that guy.

I got off the bullet train at Nagoya, while the rest of them continued on to prefectural orientation. I contemplated hanging around Nagoya and maybe grabbing some ramen, but I had my suit and luggage with me, and really just wanted to head home. That day also happened to be Jon's last day in Japan, so when I got back to Ogaki, I went out to dinner with him and Rachel. We went to that same yakitori place we went to for Maria's last dinner, since Jon is quite the fan of that place, as am I. It was good fun, but it also obviously sucked to see Jon go. Rachel and I vowed to hang out more and Rachel, as our RPA, also resolved to create more events for JETs in our area. I picked up a few things from Jon’s apartment that he was going to toss (including a microwave, woo!), and then I headed back to my place. Ogaki was now pretty much empty, but I tried not to dwell on that too much. It’s a new JET year, with new people!