What to do when visiting Japan? Eat, that's what.

Sadly, the next day already marked Wallin’s departure. He was to fly out at 12:45pm, so we actually had to get up at a decent hour to take him to the airport. As per usual, Nagoya airport was not at all busy, and so we had time to grab some chicken curry for lunch at a café in the airport. We were all pretty delirious with hunger, and at the point where we would say (and then laugh at) the most ridiculous things. I even made Maria cry she was laughing so hard. And I pretty much take pride in any time I make Maria cry (irrelevant of the number of tears). I also managed to snap a decent shot of Maria and Wallin.

...and then another in which the main attraction is Maria’s freakishly large hand. Notice how it is bigger than her head?! Yikes, that's unfortunate.

After lunch, we escorted Wallin to security check-in and said our goodbyes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad to see him go. Wallin was of course playing it tough, but he kept looking back and waving or smiling even after he cleared security, so I know that fool was bawling his eyes out the minute he turned the corner…that or the minute he realized he was back in Korea. Ouch.
So our merry band of revelers was down to two, and it felt a bit lonely walking through the airport back to the train terminal. I was very grateful that Maria was staying for well over 2 weeks, unlike like some folks cough Annie cough, as Wallin’s 5-day stint seemed all too short. With Wallin on his way back to the land of kimchee, Maria and I decided to stop in Nagoya, in hopes of hitting up my favorite ramen place. Sadly, there were still closed for the New Year’s holiday, so instead we wandered randomly around Nagoya for awhile, with Maria supposedly satisfied “just to be in Japan.” I sometimes forget that all of this is new to other people. I think especially since I’m in the same region as when I studied abroad. When I go back to Nagoya, it’s not a big city that puts stars in my eyes, it is simply my old stomping grounds. And the novelty of being in Japan has worn off for me a bit (the novelty of really awesome food, however, has not), so that I sometimes forget to just look around and enjoy being here. Anywho, we essentially walked around with no destination, to the point where I was turned around, and our plan became to hopefully stumble upon a subway station. We did also happen upon this sign for a Japanese-French restaurant with "good" food. Don't want to know what the quotes are for...

And after an hour or so of strolling, we came up another subway stop, and made our way back to Nagoya station, where I took the chance to take Maria to the same miso pork cutlet place I had taken Wallin a few days earlier. After dinner we headed back to the O-gak (one of our affectionate nicknames for Ogaki) and watching Anthony Bourdain:No Reservations on Netflix while staying warm under the kotatsu (table with blanket and heating element underneath) and the nearby space heater (for those who don’t know, there is no central heating in my apartment).

The main goal of the trip for Maria was to eat lots of delicious food, Japanese or otherwise. So most days I worked involved Maria occupying herself for the day either by 1) Being lazy around the apt. 2) Wandering around Ogaki 3) Taking a trip to Nagoya and hopefully not getting lost. Then when I got back the main issue was where to grab dinner. I wanted her to have a proper spread of Japanese food, plus try the local gems that do other cuisine really well. A number of times, our quest for food brought us into Nagoya. One such night I went straight from work to the train station and met up with Maria and Lauren in Sakae (the happening, entertainment district of Nagoya) and went to dinner at Yama-chan, a chicken-wing chain restaurant/bar that is practically an institution in Nagoya…that I had actually never been to before. Overall, it was pretty decent, and it was an “izakaya” style place, which means you order a bunch of small plates of food to share between everyone. The food itself was good, and their famed chicken wings were tasty (probably due to the MSG, but hey, I’m not above that). The burdock root fries were also quite yummy. Then a poster up on the wall caught my eye, they had a “red miso lager” beer for sale by the bottle. It was overpriced, but I had to try it.

I can’t say I tasted the miso, but overall the beer was tasty, and much better than all the light beer that is most popular over here. I kind of felt bad for the Japanese couple that got put at the table next to us in the little room, since we weren’t exactly quiet. At the same time, Yama-chan is not the place you go to for a quiet dinner, and they took it well in stride. After dinner, we bummed around Sakae a bit more and took Maria to a game center (read: arcade) to do purikura (photo booth.) The basic idea is that you pick your background, take a number of pictures in front of a green screen, making the most ridiculous faces you can in body positions that make sense with the background (i.e. green pipes a la the Mario games, etc.). After having managed to get rid of all of your dignity in this fashion, you get to go around to the computer screen on the side of the booth, and insert clip art and write messages on the pictures with the touchpens. The goal, or at least standard practice, is to put so much additional crap on the photo that you can barely see people’s faces. Maria was suffering from sensory overload just from the arcade atmosphere, and was like a deer in headlight when she first sat down with the touchpen. After a few minutes, she got the hang of it and had the pictures properly covered with stars, sparkles, and, of course, the steaming pile o’ poop graphic. Once we had printed the photographic evidence of our collective insanity, we decided to call it a night. We all still had train rides back home and work the next day (well, at least Lauren and I).
We managed to make it to Nagoya again, and this time my favorite ramen place was open. I’m quite proud of this place and wanted Maria to try it. It’s a hole in the wall place that seats maybe 12 people, and the kitchen area is larger than the seating area. Their specialty is “spicy miso garlic butter ramen” and Maria was quickly a fan. In fact, that became her favorite meal of the entire trip. Excellent, yet another convert.

At another place we went to, I ended up trying a black sesame based ramen, which was pretty darn amazing as well. We also ended up going to Masala Master, and also made a trip to Bellmart, the Brazilian restaurant/market, with Jon and Sarah. We go there often enough so that the guy who works at the restaurant recognizes Jon, Sarah, and I. We pretty much always order a can of Guarana with our meal, and this time when we paid our bill, the guy just handed us a bag with 4 cans of Guarana, on the house. I always knew he was awesome beforehand, this just verifies it.
Jon's forehead wrinkles (@Bellmart)

Sarah's favorite Asian pose (also @Bellmart)

New Year's with Wallin and Maria!!!!

A mere two days after Christmas, Eric Wallin was scheduled to once again grace Japan with his presence. Now a seasoned international traveler, Wallin apparently thought he was above the rules, or just didn’t give a crap (I’m betting the latter), and neglected to bringing any of my contact info, which apparently put him in a bit of a pickle at the immigration desk. Thankfully, they eventually let him through and I met him after the secret santa gift exchange/lunch for capoeira ended. See picture of yummy fish stew we had at the Brazilian restaurant, Salvador.

I got some cologne, deodorant, and other stuff in a sort of men’s beauty care package. I think the lady was trying to tell me something. I met up with Wallin in Nagoya station, and we decided to just head back to Ogaki and take it easy. The evening basically consisted of many episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Hulu (thank you IP address switching software!). I had to work that Monday, so Wallin chilled at the apartment until I got back, and we started watching Californication before we grabbed dinner. Wallin wanted to head back to the local, awesome Indian restaurant Masala Master, and I wasn’t about to object.
Jon was already planning on heading to Kyoto the next day, and seeing as last time Wallin didn’t get to do a whole lot of sightseeing, we spur of the moment decided to join Jon the next day. After a pleasant train ride, we endured the bus ride from hell. It stopped every 20 paces and we went through about 50 stops before finally arriving at Kiyomizudera (a temple) on the east side of Kyoto. It has a great view and some impressive wooden scaffolding. On the way up, we stopped for some amazing green tea cream puffs. They were pretty much amazing, although Wallin’s starting leaking and by the end he had cream all over himself.

After wandering the ground we stopped at a random, little mom and pop place for lunch. This ended up being more entertaining than expected. The food was certainly tasty, but the entertainment came from the old couple running the place. Namely, that while the old lady was pouring our water and making all of our meals, the old dude was just sitting in a chair at a table across the aisle reading a newspaper. He flipped a page, only to reveal a picture of a couple topless women. We pretty much couldn’t believe it. You have to love (or at least I do) the sheer senility/lack of giving a crap required to be reading an erotic paper, while your restaurant is open, sitting directly across from the customers eating in your restaurant. And the wife didn’t even blink when she sat down next to him. Good to know she’s in on it, too.

After lunch we headed to a smaller, not at all busy place that was a WWII memorial and had a huge Buddha statue. They also had a replica of Buddha’s footprints, so you could get an idea of just how dead you’d be if you pissed him off. Then we headed to Kodaiji, which has a nice zen rock garden and large grounds and buildings to wander around in.

It also features the only two-story tea house, etc. Read the wiki if you want to know more. From there we walked up the philosopher’s path, where long ago monks pondered the meaning of life…and what they were going to have for dinner. It’s a really nice walk, and far enough away from the center of the city to actually be quiet and serene, and thus rather conducive to reflection. On the way back to the bus stop, we were talking about Wisconsin cheese fries (at state fairs, etc.) only to have the foreigners walking a few paces ahead us turn around ask “Are you from Wisconsin?!” Turns out it’s a small world. The guy was from Appleton, and his visiting girlfriend was from Milwaukee. So we chatted a bit on the bus ride back to Kyoto station. Finally, Wallin and I grabbed some ramen that ended up being pretty tasty, although my ears almost bled into the ramen broth every time the female employees shouted “Irasshaimase!!!” (approx. “Come on in!”) in their signature whiny, nasally, high-pitched voices. The whole time in Kyoto station, Wallin was admiring the architecture, stating how they prefer not to get that fancy/creative in Korea. And I have to agree that Kyoto station is impressive. In fact, it is probably the most impressive station I’ve been to in Japan.

The next day, Maria was scheduled to arrive in the evening. My friend Erica was in the area for New Year’s, so we met up with her and a friend of hers in Nagoya to hang out during the day before picking Maria up. The goal was set out early, when I got a text from Erica while still on the train asking if “miso katsu and a cake buffet sounded like a good plan to us.” Yup, we were going to eat, a veritable master course on gluttony. According to plan, we met them and immediately headed to a place serving miso sauce covered fried pork cutlet, a Nagoya area specialty. From there we hopped the subway to Osu, a shopping arcade in Nagoya that has a lot of personality. After wandering the streets of stores, and stopping at a used game shop where Wallin had a borderline religious experience (for good reason, too, they have all the old school stuff), we headed back to Nagoya station to go a cake buffet that I had told Erica about. I had not eaten there yet, since when I first stumbled upon the place, it had a massive line out front. This time, though, there was no line.
The basic premise: Pay $15 for 80min of gorging yourself on the buffet of cakes and desserts available. For those wishing for some semblance of balance in their meal, they also had some pasta dishes, salad, and curry rice, but it clear that dessert was the main event. Aside from the plethora of cakes/desserts, they also had a chocolate fountain and soft serve ice cream…and, of course, coffee, tea, and juice. Now, this sounds amazing, and it was, but eating nothing but desserts is a much better idea in theory than in practice. I was already feeling a little off after the first jam-packed plate o’ sweets, and was the only person brave (read: foolish) enough go immediately go grab a second plate of dessert. I was not exactly enjoying life after the second plate and looked to some curry rice to help bring back order to my stomach. That, along with some OJ and tea, helped calm things down a bit. The quality of the desserts, although obviously not top notch, was pretty good and most desserts were quite tasty. I would consider going back, but only if I was showing it to someone new. I don’t want to make a habit of going to that place. Wallin wasn’t feeling that hot after the pork cutlet lunch and the cake buffet wasn’t hitting him well, either, but he persevered.

We headed back to the station, checked out the holiday light display, and snapped a few pictures with the lit up Japanese cartoon mascot characters. Finally, we said bye to Erica and went to grab a train to the airport. As is my luck with the Meitetsu lines, the train we wanted was leaving as we bought our tickets. So we waited for the next train and ended up cutting it a bit close, but made it there with some time to spare. Maria’s plane was a bit late landed, but she got through immigration, etc. pretty quickly. Upon seeing us, she set down her bags and jump-hugged Wallin, much to the surprise and horror of Japanese folks around us. Yeah, we aren’t quite as reserved, deal with it. After the heart-warming reunion, we headed for the train, the whole while Maria was smiling like an idiot, ear-to-ear, and warned us ahead of time that her face would be like that for the entire duration of her stay in Japan, and she pretty much ended up making good on that promise. The train ride back felt a bit like the twilight zone, in the best possible way. I still didn’t quite believe that both Wallin and Maria were in Japan. I was counting myself lucky at this point (despite the nasty stench Wallin had managed to fill my apartment with a mere half hour after he arrived a couple days before). In any case, the train ride back to Ogaki passed rather quickly, with Maria still mesmerized at the fact that everything was in a different language, and with Wallin looking what I would call “almost happy.” Don’t entirely remember what happened that night, but I guarantee you it was good times.
The next day we had a Skype date with none other than everyone’s favorite hirsute Italian, Matthew Rounds. I hadn’t actually talked to him since leaving our apartment in Madison, and I’m pretty sure Wallin and Maria hadn’t talked to him in forever, either. We caught up and then shot the shit about nothing in particular. It was great to just sit and insult each other…which we ended up doing for a good 3 hours before finally calling it quits. Either way, it was quite the reunion, and I think Wallin may have even teared up when he first saw Rounds on the computer screen. We ended up killing the rest of day until midnight, when my supervisor, Taniguchi-san, had offered to take us to a local shrine. Now, it had been snowing pretty much all day, and not wanting to make her drive in such horrible conditions, I suggested calling it off. This of course led to a series of texts and eventual phone calls throughout the evening playing the game of “Oh, I wouldn’t want to trouble you.” “No really, it’s not a problem at all” “ Are you sure, the roads must be bad with all the snow.” “Oh, they don’t look too bad, it should be all right.” And back and forth ad nauseum until someone finally breaks. Seeing as I wanted Maria and Wallin to have a somewhat proper New Year’s (no Zoni soup, however, sorry crazy old dude on the train…more on that later), I caved and accepted her offer.
I kind of felt bad, because the roads were indeed awful, and since the snow was continuously falling, most roads didn’t even have tire tracks to follow. The conditions were hellish, even by Wisconsin standards. The saving grace was the lack of ice on the road…and the snow tires on her car. She decided to first take us to a small temple near where her mother lived in Tarui (the town just west of Ogaki). We stopped at her mom’s place, and were promptly given umbrellas for the falling snow (a new concept to me, that’s for sure). They also attempted to find snow boots for Wallin, but even the dad’s boots came nowhere close to fitting the gigantic feet of Mr. Eric Wallin. We made the short trek to the temple, all the while admiring the absolutely gorgeous scenery around us. The freshly fallen snow made everything especially beautiful. No one else was at the temple, so we rang at the caretaker’s house and asked permission to ring the bell at the temple. This isn’t normally something you get a chance to do at bigger, more crowded temples. So we each took our turns ramming the hanging log into the bell and listening to the low, subdued tone ring out and then slowly fade away into the countryside…only to have a bell at another temple ring out, as if to answer our call. It was dead silent, other than the occasional bell, and the experience left me with a profound sense of calm and serenity. There are certain moments, such as this, that remind me why I am enamored with Japan and convince me that some part of me in inextricably connected, and resonates on a base level, with the kokoro (heart) of Japan.

Apologies for getting somewhat sentimental there. After ringing the bell, we were given a look inside the temple and a chance to pray, and then a bag of goodies from the caretaker. We then headed back to the car and set off for the large shrine in the area. It was supposed to be busy, but due to the horrible road conditions, hardly anybody was there. I felt bad for all the food vendors set up on the path from the parking lot to the shrine. Not only was hardly anybody out, but those that made the trek out weren’t stopping to enjoy food out in the cold and snow. Not exactly an auspicious start to their new year. We continued to the shrine, tossed our ten yen coins in (there is a play on words where the amounts ten and fifty yen also mean sufficient luck, thus those amounts are preferable) and prayed for good fortune. I also wanted to make sure and buy everyone an “omamori” or good luck charm of sorts. There are different charms for different aspects of life, including work, study, love, travel, pregnancy, etc. Maria begged me to not get her the studying one, so I went with a general protection from bad luck. I knew for sure I was getting Wallin the charm for love, and I am happy to say that I’ve already gotten reports from Wallin that the charm is working. (yeah, who has your back? you’re welcome) I also picked up a couple for James (from capoeira) to send back. We then pretty much headed back to the car and got dropped off near the apartments, complete with incessant bowing and thanking upon parting. We got back to the apartment it was after 3am, and in our amazing genius, decided we weren’t too tired, and threw on Porco Rosso (a Miyazaki film). And we were getting hungry, so I made some rice and boiled curry sauce pouches. Mmm…nothing like curry rice at 4:30am. Wallin slept through a good chunk of the movie, but Maria and I managed to stay awake. Then we all finally called it quits and headed to bed at 6am. Healthy, I know.

Obviously, we got quite the late start on New Year’s Day (as many tend to do…granted, we had no alcohol involved). Wallin wanted some sushi before he left, so we finally ventured from the apartment mid-afternoon for a rotating sushi restaurant about 20 min away by foot. The walk was less than pleasant due to the fact that all the snow from the previous night was melting and everything was wet and slushy. Still, this was made up for by tasty, tasty sushi. Maria was apparently not feeling terribly well as she only had 4 plates. Wallin, however, put in a very solid showing at 15 plates, and I hit a happy medium at 10. The fatty salmon at this place is extremely addicting and by far my favorite thing they have. And at 2 pieces for 100 yen (just over a buck), it’s super cheap!
By the time we finished eating and trudged back to the apartment, it was time to head over to Jon’s place for the group viewing of the new Sasuke tournament being broadcast on NHK. For those who don’t know, the program goes by the name of “Ninja Warrior” in the states and is shown on the G4 network (www.g4tv.com or Youtube for clips). It happens twice a year and is a 4 stage obstacle course. 100 people get a shot, most of whom are TV celebrities selected as jokes, but then there are generally about 20-25 competitors who try and give it their all. Anyway, Sarah’s brother was visiting as well, so we had a rather large group together for the six hours of programming bliss. The only guy to have passed all 4 stages (since they ramped up the difficulty), and all-around badass, Makoto Nagano, unfortunately had a mental lapse in concentration and got out on the first stage, much to our horror (although Jon called the upset on that one, and demands credit).
That's right, how can you resist a classy fisherman who can also kick Chuck Norris's ass? Reference photo below:

Okay ladies (and Wallin), stop drooling, it's not very becoming of you. Especially you, Maria, you're going to make Mark Dacascos jealous. A relatively new guy, however, ended up completing all 4 stages this time. And of course, the producers promised a completely revamped (and likely ungodly difficult) course for next time. I can’t wait. We then stayed up quite late at Jon’s place discussing anything and everything, from Jon explaining the supposed finer points of the city of Baltimore that Maria has yet to discover, to the general differences between the North and South (and general regional heterogeneity within the US), to the fact that one of Maria’s roommates is, in fact, not Southern, but rather South-ren, a not-so-subtle distinction that Jon was able to point out for us. (Jon being from North Carolina, and thus able to educate us on the ways of the South, which, at times, seems like a foreign country to me.) Sometime past 2am we finally decided to call it quits.

Sadly, the next day already marked Wallin’s departure. More on that next post.

Christmas Time in ol' Nippon

What's this? A second post in as many days?! Your eyes do not deceive you! I may have had material written and saved up and never got around to uploading it, especially once Wallin and Maria came to visit (the coverage of which will start next post-exciting, isn't it?).

December started off with the first weekend being consumed by the Japanese Language Proficiency test. The test was on a Sunday and including commuting to the test site, pretty much took up the whole day, save for a celebratory dinner at a shabu shabu place with Jon and Sarah. I even received a “congrats on surviving the test” present from Sarah. She had found advent calendars at an out of town mall and picked one up for me. So I got to be six years old again, eating the chocolates one by one. Although, to be honest, I was using the thing to countdown to the release of Final Fantasy XIII (Dec. 17th) as much as I was using it to countdown to Christmas. Jon had reserved a copy and Sarah and I promised to translate/interpret the game as he played. This pretty much sucked up all of our spare time until Sarah’s family got into town for the holidays, forcing us to take a break.

The day after the game came out my work had its year end party, the Japanese word for which literally means “forget the year party.” It was at a really swank place in a super formal setting upstairs. Everyone had their own personal table/tray and we all sat in a U-shape, with our seating arrangements decided by a number we pulled out of a hat as we walked in. We also each received a bingo playing card, and we ended up playing a rousing game of bingo as we ate, with the winner getting to select a food prize from the list. After hitting four in a row, you had to stand up until you actually hit BINGO.

It took an absurdly long time to finally hit BINGO, meaning my food was piling up as they brought out more. Thankfully, I finally won and ended up picking some sort of “black pig” meat as my prize. I’ll be getting it at the end of January, so I’ll let you know how it is then. The whole time the hostesses, dressed in kimono, were making sure we were always with a bottle of beer and warm sake. And my section chief sitting next to me made sure my cups were always full.

I also ended up chatting with the division chief, who normally doesn’t say a word to me. Apparently with a little alcohol, though, he gets pretty chatty. He told some story about how a particular phrase originated from a player on some 1970s Japanese baseball team, and then went off on a huge tangent that was difficult to follow. So difficult that he even lost himself, as at the end he summed it up with “Well, what I was trying to say is, I think chemistry is a good career choice.” Seeing as he is my superior and then some, I couldn’t dare to eat while he was chatting with me, so I got even further behind on eating my food. Before I knew it, people started heading out, and I still had a couple dishes and dessert left. I quickly scarfed down the remaining food and hurried out. I later found out that in the hurry I had left my digital camera next to my seat. I got worried when I ventured back the next day only to have the guy at the restaurant say nothing had been left behind, but thankfully the guy from my work who organized the party had picked up and gave it back to me the next Monday. An unexpected bonus was that it was snowing when I left the party and it continued to snow through to morning. Thus, before starting a marathon session of FFXIII, Jon, Sarah, and I decided to a have a bit of a snowball fight. Hearing about the huge storm and UW snow day, and the Bascom Hill snowball fight left me longing for some winter fun, so it was perfect timing.

Although the Christmas music starts playing in Japan as absurdly early as it does in the states (and quite possibly earlier since they haven’t caught on to “Thanksgiving” yet), it never quite reaches the same feeling. For whatever reason, be it the lack of Salvation Army bell ringers or whatever else, there isn’t the same sense of goodwill. Now this could just be because Japanese people are so polite year-round I don’t feel the difference. In any case, something was a little off. A majority of the songs played are of the more romantic variety, and their interpretation of Christmas is a bit different, naturally. There are a few uniquely Japanese “traditions” for Christmas. First off, Christmas Eve is considered a romantic date night for young couples. Another popular institution is that of the “Christmas Cake.” You can start reserving these things in November, and it is apparently a big deal. Even more odd is the fact that they are completely shocked when I tell them there is no such concept in America. One girl in capoeira was so shocked that she just kept repeating “But why? Why wouldn’t you eat cake? It’s so delicious! Why? WHY? WHY?!!” …this continued for about five mintues, at which point I wished to be rid of the sense of hearing. Then there is the tradition of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. Whatever marketing genius at KFC brainwashed the masses into thinking the western world eats fried chicken on Christmas is a genius. I sincerely hope he/she is enjoying early retirement, because they earned it. What a freakin mastermind. Anyway, not only is KFC making money hand over foot during the holidays, but other companies, including local supermarkets, are selling chicken legs on Christmas. And wow, when we stopped in our grocery store, they had the hype train going strong. There were probably about 5 people whose sole task was to scream at the top of their lungs about how you should pick up some Christmas chicken. One especially over the top employee was clapping his hands constantly as he shouted, just to be a dick and make more noise.

After picking up some last minute food items at the store, we headed over to our friend Erin’s place near Nishi Gifu (west Gifu) station, affectionately referred as the anus of the Tokaido train line by a few of us Ogaki JETs. Anywho, that does not reflect at all on Erin, who is awesome, and hosted a Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. Everyone brought something (me, the cheesy potatoes, I’m a one-trick pony, what can I say?) and as should be for a holiday dinner, there was entirely too much food. About 15 or so people showed up, and it truly felt like the holidays with all the smells floating around…and the eggnog probably helped, too. It was a nice mix of JETs and Japanese folks, although I felt a bit bad for Erin’s father-in-law, since he only spoke Portuguese. Gah, I REALLY need to get going on learning Portuguese properly. Just when I thought the food train was to end, a slew of 5 or 6 desserts hit, and I’m not one to turn down sweets. I wanted to try them all, so I was literally eating a fudge brownie sundae as I left. It was awesome.
That being said, I still thoroughly missed the proper family get-together and was extremely grateful to receive care packages from various family members. The highlight certainly being the homemade cookies, closely followed by the Oaks Meltaways, candy canes, and the Trader Joe’s truffles. Me? Sweet Tooth? No idea what you’re talking about.
The actual day of Christmas involved me going to work, unfortunately not in a Santa suit as originally planned since the store apparently already switched over to New Year’s mode when I went to buy the suit. Rock and I, who both had no plans for the evening, decided we’d rather not bum around our apartments lamenting our lonely situation, and took the train to Gifu to hit a couple bars looking for other foreigners with nothing to do. Our first attempt, Bierhall, was quickly abandoned. We opened the door to see an empty place and a desperately hopeful bartender. We quickly shut the door, which I felt a bit bad about, and moved upstairs to a rugby-themed bar named Scrum. There was one person in the bar. Better than none, so we decided to kill some time there. We chatted for awhile, and then Rock checked down at Bierhall again, where there were now a few people, so we moved down there. A girl from the UK was there with her parents who were visiting for the holidays. (Note to visiting family: Don’t worry, I will not take you to some foreigner bar while you’re here.) Then a good group of her English language students (all adult Japanese people, mind you) came and when ended up having a good group of people and some nice conversation. We then went out for a bit of karaoke before finally catching the train home. It was a very random Christmas, but relatively interesting and infinitely better than wallowing at my apartment. And let's be honest, being in Wisconsin for Christmas means there is about a 50% chance you wind up at a bar, anyway.

"A discourse on the scientific nature of Hangul" (aka My Trip to Korea)

I'm still alive...apparently some of you have been wondering. I apologize for the seemingly eternal hiatus, but here is a gigantic post to sate your appetites for my horribly lackluster, mistake-ridden English. This post has been in the works for awhile...with more on the way soon.

At the end of November, I visited one Mr. Eric Wallin in South Korea. I took a half day on Friday, and had Monday (holiday) and Tuesday (my day off from working entrance exam Saturday) off, so I ended up with a nice long weekend. And Korea is so freakin’ close, it’s entirely doable. Getting from Ogaki to Chubu airport was almost as long as the actual flight to Seoul…er…Incheon airport. Less than a two hour flight, but there was still a full meal. Well played, Air Korea, you just earned some points. Before I knew it was in Korea and got through immigration, customs, etc. pretty quickly, probably due to the fact that I didn’t have checked baggage and that customs consisted of me handing someone my slip as I briskly walked past them. No questions, no inspection, one of the easiest customs setups ever (only to be outdone by China, which didn’t even have a person standing there to take a slip).
And it’s a good thing, too, since I only had about 7 minutes to spare to catch the 6:20 bus I had planned on taking to downtown Seoul. I was heading to Sadang station, where Wallin was going to be waiting for me near a coffee shop. Thanks to the Friday night traffic going into Seoul, though, the bus ended up taking a lot longer than Wallin had expected, so instead of arriving around 7pm, the bus dropped me off around 7:30-40. I didn’t see any station entrances, so putting on my best confused foreigner face, I ask the bus driver, “Sadang?” He pointed me in the right direction and without too much trouble I found exit 12, and the coffee shop Wallin was supposed to be waiting by…except there was no Wallin. I checked inside the shop as well, but he was no where to be found. I looked around a bit, but was sure not to wander to far from the meeting spot. Eventually I heard Wallin calling me and a teary-eyed reunion ensued. Turns out Wallin saw a bus pull away right when he arrived, and assumed the bus was early and I had been on that one. It was quite the opposite, but apparently Wallin had then thought he lost me and was all worried looking around for me. Aww…he really does care about me. Now that I’m in a brand new country, what do I do first? That’s right, we went straight to capoeira practice. One-track mind? Maybe. Anywho, we get there, only to find them in a circle practicing instruments. And this is after hearing Wallin complain about them never practicing music…was he lying this whole time? We joined the circle and Wallin’s story was quickly corroborated when I heard the quality of the music. The instructor was barely singing loud enough to hear him over the instruments, and I certainly couldn’t understand what he was saying. Granted, he is Korean, and thus Portuguese isn’t his native language, and a certain amount of slack could be given for being sloppy with words, but I wasn’t hearing any consonants whatsoever. Either everyone else couldn’t hear him, or they just didn’t care, because hardly anyone was singing. And one girl who had a tambourine looked like a freaking zombie. No energy, mouth not moving, and I swear the tambourine was striking her hand, and not the other way around. We stretched a tiny bit and then it was roda time. It started out slowly and built up, and it was fun enough in that I got to play against new people, but there was definitely a lack of dialogue/communication in their play.
And then the instructor…I don’t know if he just learned a different style of capoeira regional, but I almost couldn’t stand watching him play. He never had his guard up and was throwing these lazy kicks, and all around just playing sloppily, at least in my opinion. I realize I’m not hot shit myself, but if he’s supposed to be an instructor…
It would be a good place to improve acrobatics, though, as a number of the guys in the class were pulling off barrel rolls and folha secas over the mats after class, but that’s only a small part of capoeira. Anyway, long story short, I now understand Wallin’s frustration.


After practice, we headed off to meet up with a couple of Wallin’s friends. We found them outside a bar, but Wallin and I hadn’t eaten yet, so we went to a restaurant and grabbed dinner first. They had the heating surface in the middle of the table and we ended up getting chicken w/veggies. Lots of steam shot up and helped warm me up, seeing as it was a good 20 degrees colder in Seoul than in Ogaki. The food was spicy and tasted of kimchi, but I enjoyed it and it actually went well with the soju (standard Korean alcohol, approx. 40 proof) and crappy beer. Wallin apparently hates soju, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Then again, I’ve had baijiu (China’s standard spirit), which is at least twice as strong and three times harder to drink, so my scale may be a bit skewed. After chatting it up and getting a proper buzz going, we headed to the bar, which actually ended up being more of a lounge atmosphere, to meet up with Wallin’s friends, Jenna and Carrie (sp?). They apparently bought a bottle of wine to split, but it was so bad, they had Wallin and I help finish it off. Apparently in appreciation for taking one for the team and buying such a horrible wine, they were given a plate of appetizers/snacks. It looked pretty sketchy and they hadn’t touched it. I gave one of the “nacho” looking things a try and whatever they put on top (which sure as hell wasn’t cheese) was not pleasant. I then tried one of the mandarin orange wedges, which tasted vaguely of mint, nothing like orange, and was equally unpalatable.

After chatting about life in Korea vs. Japan, etc. for awhile, we called it a night. We headed back to Wallin’s apartment, where I got to sleep in a space that was…drumroll…centrally heated! That alone was pretty amazing. Wallin’s apartment itself is pretty spiffy as well. Everything looks relatively clean and modern…he has kitchen space…and a dining table…and a not ghetto bathroom. However, he also has a bug infestation, which I don’t envy him for. And earwigs at that, blech!

The next day we got a late start, but eventually headed over to a district called Insadong, which is by far my favorite area of Seoul. We grabbed some walnut paste filled donuts from a street vendor, and those were quite tasty and filling. There was a lot a souvenir shopping to be had, so the foreigner/tourist population in this district was rather large. We were in particular looking for an awesome teahouse Wallin had been to before. We ended up wandering down all these different side alleys, which at times felt like their own little maze and definitely had a distinct personality/atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed wandering down and exploring these side paths.

We didn't find the one he was thinking of, but in the process managed to find an even better one. And this tea house is my favorite place in Korea, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The inside was super warm and had tons of character. It had a very natural, earthy feel to it, and the coup de gras is that there were about 6 or so live birds chirping freely inside. They weren’t caged, so every once in awhile one or two would fly overhead across the room. And this is to say nothing of the tea, which was also incredible. Wallin raved about the plum tea, but I went with the citron tea, which was sweet and sour and incredibly yummy. There were even a bunch of citron rinds at the bottom you could mash for even more flavor. We were waiting for Jenna to meet us there, so once she arrived, we of course had to have another cup. This time I went with the plum tea, which tasted like candy and put me in a happy place. Soooo good.
There were also these puffed rice snacks that came with the tea. They had a slightly sweet flavor and I enjoyed those thoroughly, too. If I ever make it back to Korea, I AM coming back to this place.

We attempted to go to the imperial palace that day, but due to our late start, and the fact that they apparently close at 4pm, we had to abandon that and go to plan B. This involved unexpectedly stumbling upon a new, free to the public exhibit about Hangul, Korea’s writing system, which is so FREAKIN scientific, you won’t be able to handle its awesomeness. Or at least that’s what they would like to have you believe. For some reason, Koreans take what I believe to be an inordinately large amount of pride in Hangul. I think it’s cool that have pride in their writing, don’t get me wrong, they are just very in your face and over the top about it. There was a volunteer interpreter who started explaining some of the exhibit to us. First sentence out of his mouth? “Hangul is really scientific!” *facepalm* It is certainly easy to learn (an hour on a website the night before I left was enough for me to be able to read signs/sound out words) and simple to write (no 22 stroke symbols), but there is just no end to the pro-Hangul mania. And of course they drew a comparison, saying hangul could better approximate English words than katakana, the Japanese writing system for adopting foreign words. Whatever you say, guys. To be honest, neither is perfect, and which one does a better job depends on what individual word you pick. Despite being overkill, I did kind of like the emphasis on science. They even had some navigational/astronomical tool on the 10,000 Won bill. “It’s science!”

Wallin then proposed heading to this tower that supposedly had a pretty sweet view of Seoul at night. Sounded like an all right plan. Then we got there and were in line for the cable car when we realized we were pretty much the only non-couple there. Apparently this is quite the popular date spot as well. Of course, for all I know, this could all have simply been a ploy by Wallin to try to get in my pants. He kept giving me that look, like he wanted to hold my hand. It also turns out that Korean women have a similar high-pitched annoying scream/squeal, one that I swear every girl let fly when the cable car jerked a little bit and left the platform. It's like they'd never been on a cable car before. And even if you hadn't, what were you expecting?! Of course it is going to be hanging over nothing, with a rather large drop to the ground. That's the point! Yet this was apparently reason for everyone to scream. We got to the top, at which point Wallin wanted to attached a padlock to the fence, symbolizing our love. And then he saw a place indoors that would make a mold of a couple's clasped hands, and wanted to do that. I realize he's not having the best of luck finding Korean women he's interested in, but this was getting ridiculous. In all seriousness, though, the view was spectacular, and I managed to a pretty decent shot of the night skyline.

After that excitement, Wallin and I took a stroll down this river that runs through Seoul while Jenna met up with Amy to do some shopping. Apparently the city fixed up the river area a few years ago, and it is a really nice place to stroll through. They had a lantern display going on, so there were some interesting decorations to look at as well. We wandered through one of Seoul’s marketplaces (I believe this was the “wholesale” one, so pretty cheap). After not buying anything, we were going to meet up with Jenna and Amy…who had apparently been drinking…outside, in 30-something degree weather. I can tell I’ve already been away from Wisconsin too long because for second I thought that was weird. Way to represent Wisconsin, ladies. It took a couple subway transfers to reach them, but when we did, we found they had consumed a bottle of wine…each. We also saw empty wrappers from chocolate and Camembert cheese. Apparently, this was supposed to be their dinner. Not a smart choice. We dragged them along to a proper restaurant. Jenna wanted to keep drinking, but Amy wisely slowed down. I did my best to drink most of the bottle of soju, but my efforts were squashed when Jenna ordered another bottle, held on to it, and proceeded to drink from it. Yeah, your imaginations aren’t far off…nothing good is going to come of this. The meal itself was, well, fatty. We were at a grilled meat place, and whatever we ordered was at least 60% fat. It’s a good thing the alcohol kicked in and I stopped caring, otherwise I don’t think I could’ve put down much. The grease was tasty enough, but that much fat just isn’t appetizing.

After this meal, the four of us planned to grab a taxi over to where another friend of their group was hanging out. On the way there, Jenna passed out in the backseat, and when she woke up…yup, she started puking. We got out of the cab right away (thankfully it mainly went on her bag) paid the good man (who was laughing at the whole situation) and let Jenna finish cleansing the system. Amy decided she would go with Jenna to find her a hotel for the night. This all happened quite quickly and Wallin and I soon realized we should have jumped in the cab with them. Why? Because we soon got a call from Amy saying they had to stop that cab as well for further “evacuation.” It got real interesting, because when Amy was paying the cabbie, Jenna just ran off. So she is now wasted and by herself, wandering Seoul. If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is. Wallin and I just decided to wander random around where we thought their cab would’ve headed, in hopes of maybe running into Jenna. Thankfully, after about 15-20 minutes, we got a call saying Amy had found Jenna and gotten her into a hotel. Whew, crisis averted. We stopped by to drop off her half puke-covered bag, which I had been carrying the whole time.

With Jenna securely in a hotel room, the three of us headed to Hongdae to meet up with the other friend of theirs. We ended in a bar/hookah bar/club that actually have a pretty cool cave-like interior. We found our own little alcove seating area and took a breather after all of the hullabaloo. Thanks to the ladies, Wallin and I found ourselves on the dance floor. Yeah, picture Wallin and I dancing…not pretty. They had a decent, if not odd mix of music, with random techno, followed by Nirvana, followed by “Rock Around the Clock.”

No one really cared to drink given the previous craziness, but Wallin ended up buying a beer just because he felt bad that none of us had bought anything since arriving at this place. We hung out a bit longer then decided to call it a night and headed back to Wallin’s place. Amy also crashed at Wallin’s place and ended up making us breakfast in the morning. I forget what they are called now (English fail) but she made the toast with an egg in the middle. I also think I drank a gallon of the orange juice Wallin had on hand. We also got a late start this day (noticing a trend?), but eventually headed toward the palace to rectify yesterday’s mistake. Amy headed back home to the countryside, but we met up with Jenna (now alive and well) for the palace.




This was pretty cool and the grounds were expansive. To be honest, this stuff all starts to look the same, so I was trying to find characteristics that were different from Japan and China. What makes this thing Korean? The degree of curvature on the roofs seemed a little more severe, and they used the green a heck of a lot more than I’ve seen anywhere else. I was also struck by one of these old style buildings having a chimney attached to it. It makes sense in terms of heating the place, but I’d just never seen that combo before. There was also a museum on the grounds that had a lot of interesting stuff about Korean culture (which I’m pretty clueless about other than Taekwondo). They had an exhibit on traditional Korean clothing and a bunch of old tools/implements…including the “placenta chamber.” Yeah, you read that correctly.
Apparently they though burying the placenta after birth would lead to an auspicious life for the child. Go figure.

On Monday, I got a late start and climbed the large hill next to Wallin’s place. It was a really nice wooded path and maybe took 45 min to get to the top. What was distinctly Korean, or at least something I had never seen before, were the little exercise stations located just off the trail. Every so often I would come upon one of these, where there were always a number of elderly folks deluding themselves into thinking they were getting exercise. At best, most of the equipment could facilitate some light stretching. The most noteworthy contraption being the spin platform that you rotate on while holding onto a steady post. A very…unique phenomenon, if anything. After getting back down the hill, I attempted to find a subway station and head to the old Olympic park, but I got turned around and ended up just exploring the surrounding area, and then killing time at a café until Wallin got back from work. We hit up capoeira again that night, and then I headed out early the next morning. On the bus back, there was a suspicious looking statue as we approached the airport. Way to keep it classy, Korea.

Roller Coaster

The next weekend (Nov. 7-11) I headed into Tokyo because I had the JET program's CIR Mid-year training seminar to attend. That lasted Mon-Wed, so I popped in early on Saturday to spend the weekend in Tokyo and Chiba. I took the bullet train to Tokyo, and quickly realized again why I'm not the biggest fan. People! And far too many of them. I couldn't even find an open coin locker to dump my stuff off. I scoured the station and then just ended up waiting like a hawk near a bunch of them until someone came to get their crap. I was supposed to be meeting my friend Elfo/Maggie/Margie (all one person), who I trained capoeira with back in Madison. She's currently studying abroad in Tokyo, so we met up Saturday afternoon. I met her in Shinjuku station, after sniping a coin locker, we met up with another random friend she had met the week beforehand while giving out "free hugs." Typical Maggie. We met Shousuke and headed off to Yoyogi Park, where there happened to be a festival of sorts going on. Yoyogi park is one of the few patches of green in Tokyo proper, and thus one of my favorite places. We wandered the park and then found the "festival," which was really more of a hippie flea market with concert performances. They also had a bunch of ethnic food stands/carts (reminded me of Madison...)where I had some awesome ginger chicken.

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.

An addendum

So I realized that I forgot the events of November 1st in the previous post. A number of us had been invited to a drum circle...yes, you read that correctly, a drum circle, by our friend Eri. Apparently her mom heads up the thing. Being the morning after Halloween, most folks were nursing a hangover, but a few of us made it out to the drum circle. I certainly wasn't expecting to find this in Ogaki, and was pleasantly surprised since it reminded a lot of Madison (although this was far too organized of an event for your standard madtown hippie circle) and I had a chance to practice some of the capoeira drum rhythms. In addition to drums, there were all manner of bells, shakers, etc. This may have also been an event partially for mentally handicapped people, as there were a number of special needs kids, one of whom was rocking out some sweets riffs on a electric guitar, which actually made for a nice complement. There were folks from age 5 to 90 (and in typical Japanese old lady fashion, I wouldn't have guessed her to be a day over 75). After the drum circle, we stopped for lunch at an Italian place and then went searching for a green tea parfait that one of Rock's students had suggested to him. We found the place, only to find out they were sold out. Epic fail. Later that evening, Rock realized he didn't have his camera and must have forgotten it at one of those restaurants. Dominique wasn't feeling well, so she gave me the keys to her car to run Rock around and find his camera. So I finally got a chance to drive in Japan! The weather was absymal, and rainy, night driving is annoying no matter where you are, but I also got to try and adjust to driving on the other side. What felt even more odd, though, was having the gear box on my left side. It was a manual car, and shifting with my left hand, although doable, felt less than natural. Thankfully, though, we managed to find Rock's camera without incident, and I got a satisfy my curiosity in regards to driving in Japan.

Current Update: It was Ellie's birthday, so we all went out to Gifu for dinner and drinks. I played a few games of pool, albeit on a frustratingly small table, and talked a bit with this random Japanese business guy named Junji. He was buying people drinks and chatting everyone up in Engrish. On the train back, I commented to Sarah that Junji probably has a wife and kids but comes to the bar most nights after work instead of going home. I later found out from Rock, who knows Junji a bit better, that that is pretty much the case. Ugh...how depressing. This certainly reaffirms my decision/desire to not settle down for awhile, but sometimes I hate when my jaded prognostications prove true.

Odds and Ends

The next weekend I had to work on Saturday because the entrance exam and interviews for the graduate school were happening. Apparently, part of the interview (i.e. the last 30 seconds-2 minutes) consists of an English proficiency check, by way of a few random questions. They suggested I start off with an easy question and progressively ramp up the difficulty. So I started off asking "What city are you from and what is it famous for?" A surprising number of them couldn't understand the word "city" and even more couldn't understand "for" at the end of the sentence and what function it served. An unforeseen potentially awkward situation came up when one of the applicants was from Hiroshima. For the sake of consistency, I had to ask the same questions. Thankfully, the dude ignored the elephant in the room and said Hiroshima is famous for okonomiyaki (japanese savory "pancake" mess). After that interview, though, one of the professor on the panel asked me it sounded weird to say Hiroshima is famous for the atomic bomb. "No, no it's not. You definitely wouldn't say that." He seemed to already have an idea that something was fishy about the statement, and was asking for corroboration, but still...awkward.

The day went by relatively quickly, as the rest of the interview period was the applicant giving a presentation on what they hope to do research about, or what type of art they hope to create. There were folks from many fields and it was semi-entertaining to try and grasp what they were going for. Everything from flash animators, to photographers, a programmer who created real time feeds of twitter posts and display them in interesting manners, to musicians...with one lady in particular wanting to create music from a female's perspective that captures their sense of eroticism. Good luck with that. Sadly, once she mentioned eroticism in music, all I could think of was music by "Peaches," but maybe she's going for something a little more subtle, and a little less raw. Far too many of the presentations, though, seemed to lack a point or true direction. I though this may just be the scientist in me, but even the professors on the panel were quite skeptical of some of the applicants. Still, though, an interesting enough day at the office, and I get to take a vacation day off later for coming in on Saturday. So I'll be using this to help create a four and a half day weekend and go visit Wallin in Korea. Woot!

The next weekend was Halloween, which ended up being pretty low key. A number of folks were going to a bar in West Gifu that I didn't particularly enjoy the first time I went there, and as is the case every year, I didn't really have a costume prepared, so it would have been odd in that sense. I later found out a few folks went into Nagoya for some all you can eat/drink party at some bar. It turns out I could have had some really drunk J-girls hitting on me (as was the case for Rock and Ozzy)...dang, guess I missed out. Grandpa Collin was out in full force and so I just went out to eat with Jon, Sarah, and Anna at...drumroll please...Stamina-taro. So we again stuffed ourselves silly. I threw on the mask Wallin gave me from Korea for some makeshift Halloween attire, and that thing is NOT comfortable to wear. After the meal we took some Halloween puri-kura (picture booths) and got some spooky pictures. My green shirt, however, was the approximately the same shade as the green screen background, which made for some especially odd photos.

That next Tuesday, we had the day off for culture day, and it turned out that Nanzan University (where I studied abroad in Nagoya three years ago) was having an event for past study abroad students along with their homecoming festival. I wouldn't have gone, but my friend Pao, who I studied abroad with, is back in Japan for grad school in Osaka and was coming into Nagoya, so we decided to go together. She also had got in contact with our Japanese language teacher from that year, and so we met up with her as well. We chilled a bit at the event and then our teacher treated us to lunch at an Italian place near the campus. It was a bit odd to talk with her outside of a class context, and it was much less stressful now that we weren't her students. I actually rather enjoyed the conversation overall. She was oddly adamant, though, about me not abandoning my chemistry major to do work strictly related to Japanese. She insisted if I did so, I would "become just like everybody else." This seems like a bit of an overstatement, but I think I have an idea about what she was trying to say. I really do enjoy chemistry as well, but I can't see myself abandoning Japanese and working in a lab all day long. She suggested a interesting idea to me...going to grad school for chemistry-in Japan. Now this thought had occurred to me before, but she said I could apply for the Ministry of Education scholarship to pay for my Masters Degree studies, and it is more of an opportunity to meet a professor, who will have a network of folks he can introduce me to, which could turn into a job. I have been trying to figure out how to properly marry my two major into some job I enjoy doing, and this seems like a more promising path to that end than I have been able to come up with on my own thus far. I'm just not entirely sure I wouldn't be miserable doing grad school without some folks to properly vent to. I think the natural depression that coincides with grad school coupled with the fact that one never quite feels like they belong in the society and that it's hard (at least for me) to make friends with Japanese people (I will go into this in a later post...).
At the very least, that is one possible pathway I am considering at the moment. The rest of the day, Pao and I hung out around Nagoya and did some shopping in Osu. All in all, it was great to catch up with an old friend and a solid trip to Nagoya. Yes, I realize there are no pictures in this update. As Captain Murphy would say "Too bad."

Next Post: Mid-year CIR training conference (a.k.a. A giant waste of my time)

Current Update: I've had some distressing news today. One of my good friends here is going to have to leave the program early and is in fact heading back to the U.S. next Monday. This is coupled with the recent news that ALT positions in the prefecture will be cut from 30-something to 7 next year due to a lack of budget. This means that should I stay here another year on JET, all of my current friends will be gone, or at least relatively far away. This has been weighing somewhat heavily on my mind this past week. More on these unfortunately developments later. In lighter news, I went to Nagoya today and got to eat at my favorite Italian place from when I studied abroad. Nothing like food to make you feel better!