That said, my planned post: my Pentax has disappointed me for the first time. I took a picture of some pretty wild ferns this morning thinking, What a lovely grey morning, I could go around taking pictures as long as I don't get too drizzled on. Nope. "Battery depleted". Ironic, because I got the call last night from the denki (electronics/appliance store) saying my spare battery was in. At least there's that, but with the charger at home (I think--after all the mp3 bad that I'd dropped on the bus turned out simply to be in the wrong pocket of my bag) I'm cameraless for the afternoon. And what fun is a purse camera that won't take pictures?
I wonder how many shots of the inside of my purse it took? That's the best explanation right now--it's in a soft bag, a repurposed cosmetic bag, and my purse kept hitting the on/off button. And possibly the shutter. I'll see tonight after I've charged the battery. Seriously glad I bought a spare. Wish I'd have been less impulsive and bought something I could buy AA's for, like the Nikon.
Will have to buy a hard case for it when I pick up the battery.
But during all that the Nikon went headfirst onto the dirt field. At first I got "lens error" messages but with a little TLC and massaging I got it working again. Still, this is not the first time I've done this, and it will only take so much. So I went into the Best electronics store across from my people-watching Starbucks and bought a Pentax Optio VS20.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
keechakatt, please tell me I didn't buy a dog of a camera! It was over half off, and bigger specs than the Nikon Coolpix, and the lens had an impressive sounding name and optics are just everything to me. -sigh- damned impulse purchases. Damned 60% off. I'm a bit wary of the battery, being rechargeable and me as an expat knowing I'll be dealing with different power outlets in the foreseeable future. I haven't played with it other than these few pixhttp://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc156/l
of graffiti in Kumamoto. Normally I don't bother with tags like this, being single color and done without thought to art. Piss on a wall, as far as I'm concerned...usually. In this case it was what I didn't see--crossovers. Each tag is discreet, not overlapping any other. It's like you've got some really nice people who just happen to like spray-painting their names on walls. I'm slightly puzzled by it all.
Little thoughts:
They really do say "bonsai!" when they win, at least at that school.
Both the winners and losers had tears in their eyes when the awards were given out.
Couldn't see the eclipse today, too many clouds. Saw it on the TV news where the camera was pointed at the Starbucks I had lingered at earlier that day. Mental note to watch that spot for cameras.
Doctor here gave me Prilosec for my acid reflux, and no Ganaton. I may look for a different doctor. Ganaton treats the cause. Of course, finding a bra that would hold up double D's without strangling my esophagus would do that too, if such a creature could possibly exist.
I shaved yesterday. My shin itches horribly.
Go Al!
Was going to tweet a drawing of Mo, but I can't remember my twitter password and don't care enough to look it up. Pathetic.
but three solid leads. Follow up on this one: http://www.fairmontschools.com/index.ht
Damn, can't cheat the date to keep it on top.
Yesterday after work I grabbed the bus to the grand opening of a new thrift store. My coordinator was helping me run errands the day before so we stopped, knowing they weren't yet open, because I'd spotted the most perfect couch on the display rack waiting for the opening. The guy wouldn't sell it to me then, saying the police would make life difficult if he sold anything before the grand opening. (Given the number of times I thought to myself--how easy would it be to steal that couch?--this does make sense.) So yesterday I go there and score the perfect couch for forty bucks, plus ten delivery. It's a "fainting" style couch, more for napping than lounging, one armrest and no backrest. Sure, it's got a stain on the one side that is now facing the wall, and a gap between the cushions where it would be really easy to lose small objects. But it's really clean, it's cushy, and it's the perfect place to help Yong Yong watch the birds. I even got pictures of the birds--to upload when I'm not on a time limit.
But the birds have a nest in my wall. I think I've mentioned this, but there's no mistaking it now. I know when there's a bird in there because the little ones throw a ruckus whenever he/she is. Smartly, they're quiet when the adults aren't around. Otherwise Yong Yong and I would go completely crazy.
But notes on the beehive here. I call it that because the tables here in the staff lounge are arranged in rows, and a few minutes before any given class it's like a highway at my back. I have to consciously remind myself that there's nothing wrong with this, since my instincts don't take well to motion around me unless I'm directly facing it (and even then, if I'm tired or anxious, it's a problem. Damned phobia.)
But the hallways are where you really notice the difference between here and Hanam. In the morning every time you come face to face with someone, every time, you both say "ohaiyo gozaimasu". After awhile that comes out "mumbleaimaaaasu". In the afternoon it confused me for awhile, since "konnichiwa" started sounding like "jaa" and I wondered whether it was German, Japanese, or Jamaican. Happens when you greet everyone like that. I try to stick with "good morning" and "hello" but that's only really appropriate with students. Some teachers like that and some seem to consider it an intrusion, so I have to feel out which is which and when is when.
Lunakitten will be amused at this one: the word for "look here! pay attention!" is "hola!". Amuses me to no end, and I'll probably never forget it. What makes me sad is that for as often as I've heard it, I don't remember the Korean word for the same. My brain keeps saying "ikura" which is Japanese for "how much". It must be similar to that but the new languages in my brain are competing for each other and Japanese is winning by proximity.
Students in the hallway are a pretty tame lot compared to the kids at Hanam. I actually miss the ruckus a bit. At Hanam we all filed into the cafeteria for a lunch so loud--made worse by metal dishes and cutlery--that you really couldn't hold a conversation in there. Afterwards the students would separate, some to the field for some soccer or basketball, most in the hallways to fight and chase and chat. Here, that would be unthinkable. At Kahoku when I ate with the students they were silent until a certain signal, after which there was very quiet chatter. (Well, except for the class extravert and his buddy. No stopping them.) Since I eat in the staff room at this campus I don't notice what the students are doing, except that it isn't loud enough to notice.
Cleaning time--here this is a serious difference. After lunch, the whole student body picks up cleaning supplies. Everyone. Rags the size of hand towels mop the floor in the hallway. Little brooms sweep. Designated students even clean the bathrooms. Really tiny towelettes clean the windows. There's even a small brigade that goes out and tends to the flowers--weeds don't stand a chance. All this is just after lunch and before two afternoon classes. Hanam was different. Lunch was slightly longer and there was class directly after it. A small number of students stayed to help clean, and while I liked to help I was told that was their job and that I shouldn't. I usually did anyway, though I limited myself to cleaning off the graffiti on the tables/desks. Here the staff is evicted from the staff room (I've stayed when I was behind on a deadline) and the VP helps this squad clean the room. Before they start, there's a lineup and a little speech. Afterwards, a lineup and a little speech. This is perfectly normal--before English class starts the whole class stands up and greets us formally, a process repeated after the end bell. It's done right or it's done over.
There's a far greater sense of formality here. I like it when it spares me the hard stares of ajummas, when I've done something boneheaded and I'm not treated like a bonehead. OTOH it means you don't always know when you've made a mistake, and people let you carry on down the wrong road lest they embarrass you by pointing it out. Koreans might write things off as Strange Foreign Customs, but they wouldn't generally let you make a complete idiot of yourself. Here, you have to be 'in' to even get a hint, and I'm not 'in' yet. I'm lucky I have a fellow American--California teacher actually--to tell me not to leave my McD bag on my desk. We're all still adjusting to each other and it's getting better, but slowly. So much hinting, so little coming out with it. I suspect if I really really screwed up (or if anyone did really), the daily greetings would stop and I'd notice and miss their presence. I imagine that would be sheer Hell to a Japanese person.
There's a saying here: the only thing harder than being a foreigner in Japan is being Japanese in Japan. So far that looks true.
May 12th
Just a shortish note, hoping I don't lose track of it by the time I get to a computer to post it tomorrow.
Friday at work was busy to the point of harrowing. I offered to make sentence tiles, made a prototype in the morning and showed them to the one Japanese teacher I knew would be receptive. Not surprisingly he wanted them...in two hours. In Korea I had an entire afternoon—here I didn't quite have enough time to finish them. A coworker helped laminate them and the students did the final cutting. Ppali ppali Japanese style. At least he wanted them; the fellow who wrote the worksheet on which it was based said the vocabulary was too hard for the class. “No thank you” Japanese style.
I'm not supposed to write about work, but that was too much to keep quiet about. Besides, it explains my relative lack of posting the last couple of days. Work is hard and tiring with little or no time to goof off, at least at this point.
But today—tonight, just past midnight—I've got the most wonderful case of heartburn. You see earlier tonight I discovered one of three Mexican restaurants in Kumamoto. Pictures to be posted. My waiter was a Turkish fellow who looked and spoke like an American. I asked him if he spoke any Spanish and he did not, despite having a Mexican grandfather. What a curious world. The owner of the place, a Japanese fellow, spoke good Spanish but my own skills aren't good enough to tell you whether it was Mexican or Castilian or something else. Doesn't matter really. Most places in Japan the entire staff greets you with konnichiwa or something like it when you walk in, and something-gozaimasu when you leave. This place it was buenos noches and gracias, which was refreshing. The Japanese custom of greeting customers done in the Spanish language.
But oh the delicious heartburn. So often when I eat the local food I'm hungry shortly afterwards. I suspect this meal will be sticking to my ribs for a couple days. The salsa 'habanero' was a touch more vinegar than I remember salsa and just the right heat for me, which is to say not very hot. The nachos—I wish I knew where the guy got his chips. The tortilla under the “taco” (actually small tostada) was clearly made there. How do I know? It had this delightful smoky flavor under it that matched the dragon's breath coming from the tiny kitchen. I could barely see the cooks through it once the place got busy. There was a Santana/Dave Matthews/Rob Thomas concert on rotation on a video screen, and I made a couple happy when I could tell them who Carlos Santana was.
And then I missed the hyaku-yen (dollar) store by five minutes, and my bus by thirty seconds, and felt rather bummed about that. No cheap cat toys or bath fizzes for me tonight, no stopping on the way home to bum around the internet cafe, the one close enough to walk home from (barring flirtatious strangers, eh?). I'd complain about what douchebags people in Kumamoto are after dark but really it was only one or two—most folks were still polite. A bit jovial, less introverted than they are during the day, but minus the one very sweet. There was the guy on the bus I remember well; lean, perfect skin (or wore foundation, in that lighting it was possible), nice suit, high-end shopping bag in hand going home to the sticks. He's got a very lucky wife I guess. Minus the one who walked too close behind me and talked jarringly loudly on her phone while doing so, folks were quite nice tonight, nothing like that night when I had to step over the splat on the sidewalk. I've told so many locals about that night on the way back from Nagasaki, I forget whether I posted it.
Alas, no internet at home yet. Still pricing plans and nailing down a computer that will handle it. This one is good but very basic, and I'm not really in a hurry. I'm looking at a plan from Yahoo, eighty bucks a month which is steep but includes cable which includes four or five channels that I can reasonably expect are in English. Can't be sure—I saw a show that surprised me with its dubbing. Wish I could remember context there and not just the surprise.
Yong Yong wants to play with his chicken toy, and I should go to bed.
---13th
On the way here I waited for a bus (in vain, got gouged again by the taxi) and saw three vans go by. All square, tinted windows, black. One had spoilers the size of wings on top of it.
Hotblooded guys are so amusing from a safe distance. I wonder if they were Very Nice People?
----------------------------
Pix here. The red signs are me catching some bad Korean--didn't have the nerve to call them on it though. I can read hangul, so they might assume I speak Korean.
http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc156/l
Incidentally no storm, just a high pressure system moved east and north and the weather here kinda nice/normal.
May 9th 2012
He has his bodyguard. Yong Yong is lounging in this room with me right now. Sure, maybe right just at this moment he enjoys the birds more than my presence but last night the birds were quiet. He likes his bodyguard, me. OTOH it was warmish last night and I don't remember him in the tatami room with me at all, other than to come in and talk at me a little bit as I was drifting off to sleep. He certainly wasn't cuddled next to my feet.
Then again I keep that room a bit warm, on purpose. It can and does get chilly at night, still have the heater in there just in case. A second blanket would be wise right now but pointless in a couple weeks, so I've held off.
Today is Wednesday, so I left work after lunch. I came home and napped. My ankles are killing me—combination of things, four hours solid on my feet being a teacher's aide certainly a part of that. The other part is the storm the weather folk promised us, and judging by the ankles it had better be a doozy. I feel like I'm wearing two bear traps where my socks should be.
That's a new bird noise, loud and sharp, too high-pitch to be a crow, too low to be a sparrow, too high up to be a kid with a whistle. Very curious.
All three rooms in my apartment have holes in the walls, high up and of the right diameter that the previous tenants probably had three air conditioners in here. That's not as ominous as it sounds; they also went completely overkill on the overhead lights. I have one here in the Zen room with a low incandescent setting and a high fluorescent, both operable by remote. But the side effect...
phone call. I swear I'm watching the clouds grow like time-lapse mushrooms out my window.
...the side effect is a) that the holes make this old-style place even less insulated and b) some birds have nested in the hole in this room's wall. Now normally, language issues or not, I'd alert the landlords to this. For a few days there I banged on the wall when I heard them pecking in there, as they are clearly in the wall. But you know what? With the nest there Yong Yong has no end of entertainment. Oh sure he asks to go out every morning when I go to work and has tried to make a run for it once or twice, but there's nothing like the Live Bird Show on Kitty TV. I'll mention it to my coordinator—that was him on the phone. We have to follow up on my green card (which will be white, not green, welcome to Japan) and on getting me a bank account so my agency has somewhere to put my paycheck and I can stop paying 7/11 rates to use my money.
But the Zen room where I've done yoga a couple times will not be hosting yoga tonight. I have four items of clothing I need to repair and the remains of yet another Hotto Motto dinner to clean up. Hotto Motto (pronounced hoe-toe moe-toe, I can read that much 'gana anyway) is good cheap food and I've eaten there probably more than I've actually cooked. Deep fried boneless chicken thighs on a bed of noodles, with rice and shredded cabbage on the side, four to five bucks depending on how many pieces of chicken or whether I opt for beef. My good intentions involve studying my Japanese tonight, but the truth is I'll probably finish writing this, decide that walking is just no fun, and break out the new incense kit I got from one of the Buddhist supply stores. “Kotan” is apparently charcoals, though they're square and not round like the Chinese-Californian ones. A very tiny brazier and ashes in lieu of sand, as is the Japanese-Buddhist way. They tried to sell me these lovely little bark slivers but I want to burn some of my frankincense first. I'll have to find the Japanese words for frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood, orris root, sulfur and saltpeter.
I seriously hope I don't have to move soon after such goodies. I really don't like my alien card being in limbo like that.
This morning I think I saw a protest, though it was so polite I couldn't be sure if it was a protest or just a desire for awareness. You see, last week was Golden Week, a bunch of holidays in a row, and we didn't have trash service on our usual days. As a result the trash piles Monday morning were heavier than usual, and got picked up later than usual. Walking home from school Monday afternoon I still saw some, which made me wonder what was wrong. Sure enough the trash piles were gone this morning, but there were about eight truckers with colorful flags standing on the main intersection. (Near my home and on the way to either school is an intersection of three highways, a popular place for truckers to drive through). The flags clearly included the word 'truck' (again, my kanas aren't great but I could read that much) and a cartoon of a truck. I smiled and nodded and they returned the gesture, even as they were using these flags to guard the moppets crossing the busy intersection. I got close enough to one guy's tennis-ball yellow hat to see it read something Trucker's Association. So while something's amiss in paradise, at least folks are quiet and polite about it.
I'm often asked by both Koreans and Japanese folks which students have better English. Korean students are more proficient as a rule, but that's probably because they start two years earlier. Korean doctors/vets/dentists/pharmacists I also find have better English, but that may be apples and oranges, comparing folks in Hanam (an hour from Seoul) to folks in Yamaga (an hour from Kumamoto and a very long way from Tokyo). Travel professionals here seem to be good with English though, such as the staff at the bus stations here and in Kumamoto and the hotel folks in Kokura and Fukuoka. Taxi drivers run about the same, though with the cab fares here I rarely take them. A two buck bus ride cost me fourteen by cab because I was impatient.
But I don't remember if I posted it—the way to Nagasaki included a lovely performance by some kids doing traditional drums. I hesitate calling them kids because while some of them were...OMG...there were these two guys. The one you can't see in the video and in fact I didn't see until the camera was off, because he was behind the flautist. But when he stepped forward to take his bow...holy sixpack! There wasn't an ounce of fat on this shirtless guy, and you could do your laundry on his abs. Really amazing. The other shirtless guy was similarly maintained, though not quite to the same impressive level. Late teens both of them I suspect.
Heck, today at the local furniture shop there was a young guy waiting on me. Dress shirt so nothing to ogle there, but tall with a very pleasant face, longish hair, gentle manners but without the shyness so many guys here have (or affect to have). He also had the sense to keep his Japanese very very simple when talking to me, which is warmly appreciated. I bought a corner shelf for the incense goodies and other such smelly/mystic/ooga booga stuff. It's here in my Zen room (so called in part as a homage to Rocky Horror. No roaches though, and a plain yellow carpet that I got on sale. Really must be more careful where I put my decimal places, though it was still a good deal at forty bucks).
It's coolish now, nearly 7pm, very pleasant other than the bear traps around my ankles. This afternoon though, getting home midday from work...I check the tatami room (remember, I keep that one a little warm on purpose) and it read 30C. Yuck. I turned on the box fan and just lay on the carpet, naturally drifting off to a nap. Whenever the fan oscillated away from me I was uncomfortably warm, but when it was on me it was pretty nice. After the nap I put on as few clothes as I could get away with and went to McD's for a sundae and an iced latte—and some air conditioning to read my National Geographic in. A long long way from Delphi or the Klatch but you do what you gotta do. There might be a gourmet shop in the old part of town here but I haven't gone yet, and there are those ankles...
and dammit I've got sunscreen in my eyes.
Not much inclined to write right now. Spent much of the day tidying and unpacking and feeling pretty good about that. My bathroom area is now mostly decorated, with a Hello Kitty meets Ghost Ship theme. I blame that on the desire for pink that hefty moves seem to inspire in me, and a National Geographic article on the Titanic. Here are some pictures: any suggestions for things to add? (The suitcase is now a clothes hamper--I'll definitely need new bags for my next trip.)
That's all for now--back to work tomorrow.
That said, Mom you know I love you. You should have seen the hill I had to climb to get to these shots. Sadly there were no photos allowed inside the museum. (click for larger)
That's from the monument on the hilltop to these martyrs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-six_
better yet
http://www.26martyrs.com/
There are other pictures I took in Nagasaki..oh I dunno...the site where the atom bomb was dropped, and the remains of the cathedral that was standing there. You know. ;) But definitely did not leave enough time to see that museum, or the other famous temples and churches in that city, or the old Dutch harbor which I was genuinely looking forward to. Next time.
Just a matter of when. I have ordinary weekends upcoming for a couple months now, including a couple Sunday-Mondays.
A couple of pictures from Kahoku, where the more rural school is. Clickable thumbnails.
So that I wrote last night. As for today I'm hauling around a crazy amount of shopping things, including some impulse items (a solar-powered battery charger that only does two batteries, when two out of three of my battery-powered things take three batteries).There's a store here in Kumamoto called "Donquixote" that had bicycles outside and I though "Bicycles, useful to price them but I won't be tempted to buy any" That store got me for a hundy, but useful stuff, like a work bag that will actually handle the old computer that needs a name, and some Jaeger, and some Cherry Vanilla Dr. Peppers (wish they'd have had Diet, but they don't. And the sodas here are full American size cans, not the lovely slimline ones I came to favor in Korea.)
I meant to go to the harbor here in Kumamoto but I've almost no sense of where that is, and I'm hauling way too much stuff. Stuff that alas does not include shelflike objects. Le sigh.
Off to check on my game. Was going to print out game books today but with as much as I'm carrying and as much as I spent that will definitely wait. Plus I have this week de facto off, so I have time. Now the question is: Nagasaki, Akusa (sp?), or Miyazaki beach? Or should I just stay in and stop spending money???
Oh, this morning I took Yong Yong for a walk around the building. Apparently he can slip out of his harness like it's not even there --sigh-- but I think I've shown him that When In Doubt, Go Upstairs.
