Ohayo. Ohayo. New Jersey.

So said the kids as they saw me leave the jidoukan (youth center). Well, not so much in the rebellious proletariat sense as in the “lets go say good bye, and not with our fists.” On my first day hanging with the younger elementary aged kids, I was pretty glad/lucky there were no fists involved. We received plenty of forewarning that the younger kids tend to think of your crotch as a deer during open season (I’ve actually never heard of anyone punching a deer or similar animal, but I’m sure it’s happened in Alaska. In fact I probably went to high school with someone who has. But alas, I digress.). The only balls that got smashed were of the baseball type. We played some baseball and I never knew that I could be a pitcher! Granted that we played with a rubber ball ,and the kids only came up to my waist, and I threw underhand, but hey, it’s still pitching. After that I totally schooled a kid (a cheeky 7 year old) in Othello and had a rousing round of Jenga, during which we went over the American English pronunciation vs the Japanese one (J-eh-nga vs J-in-ga).

It’s one thing to not really understand what adults are saying to you – at least they can make multiple efforts in multiple fashions to convey a meaning. With the kids, it’s a whole bunch of quick talking and more quick repeating of the same thing. I have to quickly say something or nod my head before they lose interest in the invigorating topic of…say…my origins. Nearly all the kids can say “How are you?” but they don’t really know what it means. I figured that one out when I responded, “Fine, thank you. And how are you?” Then I just get blank stares and some kid-Japanese…and then a “How are you?” again. Nonetheless, I am always amazed at how comfortable I am with the kids even though we’ve got a complete language barrier. Awkward silences due to my incomprehension are quickly erased by quick actions and gestures by the kids. They’re not shy about taking me by the hand to lead me to the podium so I can accept my hand made gold medal – it’s Olympics time and I just won the gold in beating kids at Othello. I need to figure our how to spend more time here! Maybe I’ll be able to give Mr.Phelps’ medal count a run for its money!

In other news, I had another raucous bbq weekend with other JETs. This time it was at the other end of the highway in Rubeshibe. Then, I had another two food events with JETs this week alone. I love meeting the neighbors. With one, we were almost able set our friend’s shed on fire, but settled for asphyxiation by yakiniku (Korean style bbq). It was great.

Eddie. See Eddie. See Eddie dance.

On the other free night, my coworker took me out for another (!) yakiniku dinner. The place was called “Viking Western” and was an all you can eat place with little grills at each table. The Japanese use the term viking (sounds more like “bi-keen”) to indicate “all you can eat.” I’ll leave that one up to you. As for the “western” part, I saw nothing western about it, except for the wagon wheel they had out front and a big sign in English that said “Welcome.” This reminds me, the other day, I saw a coffee place, “El Paso Coffeehouse.” Seems like the Japanese have got the wild west down to the tee. Those cowboys sure like their coffee and copious amounts of bbq. Hmmm, I’ve been to El Paso and I don’t remember seeing any coffeehouses, or any cowboys for that matter. I guess they all went to Japan.

It’s the name of my new phone. It’s built like a tank and it’s waterproof. And it better be. Buying a phone in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language is one of the more difficult things you can do, right up there with curling and tight rope walking. I did have a Japanese friend, who speaks some English, come along, but it was still heinous. First, Japanese cell phone plans are way different than they are in the US. I still don’t get it. Second, trying to dodge the add ons in a language you don’t speak is difficult as well. Oh and the contract…my head still spins when I think about it. As we neared the end on closing the deal, a precocious , and life saving, employee looked over our shoulders and mentioned that the phone I was about to buy had no English language settings. Well that’s nice to know. So I settled on the little tank and called it a day (2 hours after walking up to the phone counter). I’ve had a heck of a time trying to figure out the phone as it only has limited instructions in English. I’ve got the basics covered though, just don’t expect me to check my voice mail any time soon. If you want to see the phone, it has a neat website, but a lot of it is in Japanese (although some of the English is pretty entertaining “sleek tough” (!)) http://gzone.jp/

Well it has been almost a week since I first moved into Tanno. I’m working on developing somewhat of a routine, but it really won’t do me too much good since my schedule will change again once school starts in late August. I’ve been going to my Board of Education (BOE) nearly every day. I have my own desk and everything, along with a name plate in katakana (the part of the Japanese alphabet used to spell out foreign words). Unfortunately the pronunciation of my last name was off so we had a fun lesson in figuring out how to represent it with a soft ‘G.’ The BOE is only a 15 minute walk for me and is in this brilliant new building that has a concert hall (!) even.

There he is! Now, I actually think he's a sun and not an onion.

The BOE building in all its glory!

My supervisor at the BOE has been absolutely awesome. Although she speaks little to no English, she has helped me with my shopping, showing me the ropes of the appliances, and even attempted to help me figure out the trash situation (turns out I’m in the unlucky group that has to sort his trash out the wazzu). Oh one biggie was that she helped me get a new pillow (courtesy of the BOE).

My original pillow. It's filled with crunchy plastic beads. It did not work well.

One of the more interesting aspects of my time in Japan that will be ubiquitous is how people don’t hesitate to speak in Japanese to me because I look somewhat Asian. Today at the convenience store, the shopkeep spouted out some Japanese, to which I nodded, and thusly my lunch for tomorrow was thrown into a microwave and heated. And then when I give them blank looks and remain silent they just think my tree doesn’t go all the way up to the top branch. For the blatantly non-Japanese folk, they don’t have the problem of the assumption of language. But it goes both ways. It would get old real fast if I got the stares that an obvious foreigner gets.

Language has been and will continue to be the biggest challenge for me. I even had a small break down the other day after spending the entire day with my BOE without anyone that spoke a lick of English. Thanks to my incredible coping skills, I didn’t crawl up into a fetal position and start rocking. To my credit, the next day I was feeling fine and have been since. Oh and I think it could also be due to the fact that my BOE gave me a nice hunk of change for “moving expenses.” Ah the wonders of cash.

Another saving grace has been how welcoming the other JETs and ALTs (assistant language teachers) have been. This last weekend, one of the ALTs that has been here for six (!) years was finally going home and had a going away party. It was held in Abashiri, about 50 minutes away by car and on the northern coast. There I met a bunch of the other ALTs in the area. Folks from Canada, Ireland, England, and 3 other Alaskans (one of those Alaskans even has the exact same birthday as me. Cosmic!). Now, watching me while I interact with a number of different accents is probably extremely amusing. I unconsciously adopt accents when I hear them so needless to say, the confluence of four different types of English found its home in my mouth. I had to stop and smack my head when I uttered “to-mah-to” instead of the usual “to-may-to.” Oh! and I found my new love: jingusu kahn. It’s named after Genghis Kahn (for reasons yet to be discovered) and consists of marinated mutton that’s bbq’d on a special hot plate. After the meat is done, you cook udon noodles in the sauce that’s left over. Totally awesome. It reminded me of Korean bbq, speaking of which, someone else brought kalbi marinated strips of beef to bbq. I was in heaven! AND I heard there’s a decent Korean bbq in Abashiri ( I know I already mentioned it, but I think it bears repeating).  I think we all know where Justin will be spending his weekends. What’s even better, is that I’ve heard that all of Hokkaido has all sorts of cuisine-related gems (we’ve got a Jamaican place in Kitami). I don’t think I could have asked for a better placement. Oh wait, I did ask to be placed here! Clairvoyance at its best.

Futatsuiwa - "two rocks"

The morning after the bbq, we went to a Futatsuiwa just outside of Abashiri. It was beautiful and reminded me of the beaches by Ninilchik in Alaska where my family used to go clamming. I got to skip rocks. I think I’ll be coming back there. My last activity in Abashiri was lunch at a Nepalese restaurant. This place was better than Annapurna in Capitol Hill (which is saying a lot). We had tons of curry, dal, and naan. It was a great end to a wonderful weekend.

Just so you all know, I will not be posting pictures of my place until I deem it picture-worthy. It may be a while. Actually it’s pretty nice place, but I’ve just got a lot of personalizing to do. I’ll give you the rundown so you can all imagine in your heads what it is like before I dash those images with real pictures. I’ve got a pretty large bedroom with a real bed-sort of. I use the futon as my bedspread due to a lack of actual bedspread. There’s a big closet in my room with a full size dresser so I’ve plenty of room for all those clothes I didn’t pack. I’ve also got a tatami mat room (6 tatamis large!), also with a large closet for storing bedding and other futons, and a big tv that may or may not work. There’s a big living room area with a coffee table and a desk. The kitchen has a two gas burner stovetop with a little fish grill slot, which I’ve discovered can toast bread quite well. Off the kitchen (can we have a starbucks instead of the…*whisper* kitchen?) is the toilet room, which might I add has a little faucet on the tank that you can use to rinse your hands while it’s filling after a flush (Yeah I thought it was a bit gross at first, but it’s actually pretty efficient)! Also, off of the kitchen is a utility room that has a washer and a vanity sink. Off of that room there is the shower/bathing room. I’ll spare the details until I get actual pictures so just use your imagination in the meantime. There’s also a small garage out front and I’ve got a wee backyard with a garden started by my predecessor. I forgot to mention the 16 other residents in my house, the plants. There are a lot, but they’re neat. I think I’m going to name them (Cornelius, Estevan, Alouicious, Pete, Estelle, etc…).

In my battle with the Japanese appliances, thus far it has been Justin 3 – Cryptic Kanji 0. I’ve been able to do a load of laundry, cook on the stove, and make a batch of good rice…I think it’s the Asian in me. I’ve also been able to take a shower without burning my skin off (the water here gets very hot very quickly).

A successful dinner! Complete with chu-hai (fruity-zima like beverage) leftover from my predecessor.

A note on the garbage in Japan. It is a type-A paradise. You have to separate everything by whether it burns or not. I never thought of plastics as burnable, but some are! Metals are not. Also, the recycling has to be bound and bagged in different ways. Orange bags for those non-burnables, blue for burnables, and rainbow for things that fall from the magical unicorn as it passes over on a nimbus cloud. You get the picture. Lucky for me, or so I think, I don’t have to worry so much about the separation. I was getting wound up analyzing the garbage description grid they had on my city’s garbage guide (check it out: http://www.city.kitami.lg.jp/e08/e08.htm) and my supervisor told me not to worry. We had a conversation that amounted to: “Just put everything in the orange bag.” Or at least I think. We shall see how that develops. It would be quite the load off if it works. Hopefully the garbage police won’t come for me. I’m totally not kidding. They exist.

One failure I did have was when I tried to make a Korean noodle dish I’m fond of, bibim nangmyun. I got excited when I found a red pepper “kimchi paste” at the grocery store. I thought ti would be a good substitute for what I usually use. Not so much. Not even the noodles were right. Big fat failure. Oddly enough I was watching Meet the Robinsons (“My head is too big and my arms are too small! I don’t know how well this plan was thought through…Master?” Thanks Alex) and figured that I’m going to have to keep moving forward. I did find out that there’s a great Korean place in Abashiri. If all else fails, I can just pay someone to cook Korean for me.

Keep moving forward!

Oh and the all important address to which you can send me mail love:

Ask and ye shall receive.

On Wednesday July 30th, 45 of us Hokkaido JETs took a plane from Haneda airport in Tokyo to New Chitose in Sapporo (actually south of Sapporo-how many airports are actually in the city anymore?). From there we all gathered our luggage and filed out to meet our contracting organizations. Some drove to their final destinations while others took the train. Luckily I found out that I was going to be flying into Memanbetsu, about a 40 minute drive from where I will be living.

Unluckily, we had about five hours to kill before our flight. So what is one to do with five hours to burn? Eat, of course. My supervisor from my board of education, along with her English-speaking cousin, hit up one of the many ramen shops in the airport. Alright, I see a bit of a trend with my eating habits, but ramen in Japan varies my region, sort of like hot dish in the midwest and you’ve got to try it whenever the opportunity arises. Hokkaido likes to boast that it has the best ramen, and after trying, its claims are legitimate. Oh and even better, ramen can even vary from town to town…methinks a ramen tour of Hokkaido is in my future.

Our little ramen adventure took up only an hour so I had the pleasant opportunity to try and get to know my companions through a whole lot of broken English, pictures, a map we had on hand, and of course, hand gestures. The wait went by surprisingly fast and next thing I knew, I was on a plane headed for Memanbetsu.

The view from my plane window.

The flight from New Chitose to Memanbetsu only took about 45 minutes. To my surprise, I was not the only English speaking person on the flight. I spotted a man reading an English version of some international newspaper. He would have been a fun “guess the accent” contestant. Once we landed in Memenbetsu, we met with the director of my town’s board of education and he drove us to Tanno. Before dropping me off at my house, what did we do!? Eat! We went to a family owned restaurant, that I think doubled as a house, and had some good homestyle Japanese cooking. I had “chicken rice,” which amounted to rice with onions, green peppers, and chicken all sauteed in ketchup. Sounds a bit suspect, but was actually pretty good. Now I see why my family always put ketchup on their fried rice. However, i don’t think I’ll be making it a habit.

Oh and by the way, my town is called Tanno. It used to be its own township but was incorporated into the city of Kitami several years ago. It is known for its rolling hills of wheat and onion fields. A little circular guy with a hat carrying a straw of wheat is the mascot. I think he’s actually an onion masquerading as a mascot, but eh as onions are ubiquitous here they’ve got to use them for what they can. I’ve actually got an onion field right across the street from my house. Tanno also has a neat little ski slope with a rocking onsen (hotspring) next to it. Lucky!

Tokyo Orientation was and perhaps will be the biggest conference-like thing I have ever attended. There were over a thousand of us new JETs from places like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the UK, Ireland, and far away lands like Canada. My favorite game was guess the accent of the white person before they open their mouth. We got heaps of information (15lbs worth actually) and received speech after speech, but I think the best part of it was getting to know the other new JETs particularly those in the same prefecture as me and to get advice from the Tokyo Orientation Assistants (TOAs-2nd year or beyond JETs that help out. Think Perspectives Leaders.).

On the second night, all of us heading to Hokkaido went out to a tabe/nomihoudai, which is a bar/restaurant where you have all you can eat/drink in a two hour period. Quite the novel idea. I was able to rally, somewhat, and with my fourth or fifth wind of the day was able to stay out until 11PM! Keep in mind that I had not had more than 9 hour of sleep in the last 4 days. (An aside on jet lag-it sucks. I can only imagine what the folks from the East Coast or UK have to go through. Mine was/is bad enough. AND the sun gets up wicked early in Tokyo. It popped up around 4:30am. Bizzare.)

Tabe/nomihoudai with the Hokkaido JETs. Thanks for the pic Callie.

On the next night, Joe (a JET from Seattle who is going to Sapporo) and I went out to explore the mean streets of Shinjuku. We found a Uniqlo, Japanese drag queens, and a Haagen Dazs with squash flavored ice cream….mmmm. We also ate at another delicious Tokyo ramen hut. So good.

But what do they mean?

This one's for you Rodney (and Gillian).

Oishii....?

Like I said, the best part of Orientation was meeting all the other JETs which means that I have partners in crime all across Japan. It’s a good feeling. I’ve even got someone to go to Korea with me!

Last breakfast with the Seattlites before heading our different ways.

On July 26th, at 11:45am, 70 other JETs from the Pacific Northwest and I took our Northwest Airlines flight from SeaTac to Narita Int’l Airport. The flight was supposed to be about 10 hours, but it was more like 9 and a half. We had the second shortest flight out of all the other JETs that arrived in our orientation group-the folks from Sydney had a nine hour flight, while others from New York or Atlanta had 14-16 hour travel times.

Once we made it to Tokyo the first thing you notice is the molasses-like heat and humidity. It’s gross. It had been a while since I felt anything quite like this so it definitely took some adjusting to get used to sweating while I was merely standing, or sitting. Oh and lucky me, there was a video crew interviewing random participants as we came out of customs. It must have been my dashing good looks after a nine hour plane ride, but they stopped me for my first impressions and first anxieties. I don’t think I gave them the answers they expected as I quickly blurted out, “My luggage!.” By the way, for anyone that was there during the last two days, they know that I was pretty high strung about all the packing, particularly because the packing logistics proposed by JET was mind boggling. Luckily everything turned out just fine.

We took a bus into the Shinjuku district of Tokyo to our hotel, the Keio Plaza. It was swank and had all sorts of stuff to do all around. My first night there, I had an awesome ramen dinner with some rice and chicken karage (Japanese fried chicken = bomb dot com). I also saw the most amazing sunset I had ever seen. Granted that I had to climb through some blocked off areas of the hotel, but I think it was worth it.

First meal in Japan. And no, this is not one of those plastic displays.

Something out of a science fiction movie. The sky is actually more purple than the picture shows.

The food was great. The scenery crazy. The people bountiful. But what was it that caught my eye right off the bat? The toilets.

Bidet. Water trickle function. What more could you ask?

My roommate and I fiddled around with the control panel and almost got sprayed in the face. Check out a fellow JET’s blog on her brave experience with a toilet. Awesome. http://whereiscallie.blogspot.com/