May 31, 2005

It is amazing to me the amount of time that people spend talking about God. The internet (my new best friend) is absolutely filled with people talking about God, debating this philosophy and that theologians views compared to this one. There is a whole lot of NOTHING being said in very eloquent ways, and some very insightful and intelligent things being lambasted and vilified because they are speaking the Truth but do not come in line with popular Christian culture of the very vocal, and often rude, extreme right or left. So much said. So many people of God who are slandered personally all over mass media and private conversations of people who don't even know them because they do not maintain popular views. So many people talking about nothing with any real spiritual content, in very appealing and "spiritually" sounding ways.

I wonder how many hours in total are spent talking (read: blabbing away) ABOUT God. And I wonder how many hours those people spent actually in communication with the God that they are so fond of talking about. I know that I read lots. I spent more time reading about God today, than I did in actual communion with Him. How much time is wasted as we talk amongst ourselves? It's like as if there was a bunch of my friends who all made websites to talk about me. What did Michelle have for breakfast? What did Michelle mean when she said Hello to the boy on the stairs? What was Michelle wearing today and was it appropriate for the situation at hand? They started talking all about me, and then they started discussing things about me, and disagreeing. And then they started all out fights over who remembered what I had for breakfast 5 days ago, was it the Breakfast of Champions? or was it rice and a raw egg? (It's got to be one of those two, there aren't any other possible choices) And then they took things personally about whether I would notice if they noticed that I was wearing my hoop earrings as opposed to my straight bar earrings. Would anyone call me up to go for coffee? Would anyone call just to say "Hey, I was thinking of you"? It would bum me out to have my loved ones behaving so badly toward each other, over things that don't really matter in the long run, and to have them not want to hang out with me any more because they're far too busy updating their postings on what I said in my sleep 12 nights ago.

I believe there is lots of really good stuff out there in the world (internet, churches, studies, schools...) Lots of stuff that inspire people to seek after their Saviour and Creator. Lots of stuff that is just there to make money in the guise of "godliness", I mean, I mean "godliness" too. I am constantly reminded of how great our God is through conversations with friends and reading other people's comments online. But I wonder if we spend too much time at it, even the good stuff, and we lose the focus. It's so much easier to just spend our time, watch it be exhaled out of our bodies, doing the good things that we're sure will be pleasing in God's eyes.

"Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles, and sell 25 million copies of a book that said good things about you?" Then I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers!" Matt 7:22-23 – with a possibly sacrilegious and definitely a hypocritical addition of my own.

I'm going to go and talk with God now, cause that's enough talking about Him.

May 30, 2005

Today was very, very long. From now on, every Monday is going to be very, very long. I have Japanese lessons at 10 am in Tsudanuma on Monday mornings. I work at Tsudanuma at 4 pm on Mondays. The lessons are like 12 feet from my classroom! So I am in the same building from like just before 10 am until 9 pm every Monday. Oh, hey, I just found my train pass. I thought I had lost it. I was leaving the school tonight and missed one train because I couldn't find my pass. I searched everywhere that I could, considering that I was in public and I store it under my bra strap when I'm getting on and off the train. I don’t have pockets. Like I have said before...I keep all sorts of things in there, not just the usual bra contents. And so here it is. Never mind. I found it. And back to the original train of thought, my teacher is this cute little old man. He used to work for some big company, it sounded like as a designer or engineer or something. I like him a lot. His parents moved the family to Korea just before the war and after the war they were in a, he called it a, "camp" in North Korea. And then he said, "But then we leave" and made a motion of running and flung his arms out. I said "escaped?", he said "So, so, escape". Oh my!! He's just a volunteer with the International Association. He kept saying that he's not a real teacher, but he loves to teach people the Japanese language, "so let's enjoy together". I love him. He had three pages of stuff for us to cover in the hour and a half. It was pretty easy, considering I have taken Japanese before, but there was still a few things that I learned and the rest was a really good review. We will take it slow. He gave me a first little topic of introducing myself. He kept saying that I could say this or that to my students to make them feel more at ease. I wish I could. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we're discouraged from using any Japanese with the students. I still do sometimes, but do so discretely. I don't think I could manage to do a full introduction with a student in the "lobby"/"waiting area" without it coming back to haunt me. But I loved the lesson anyway and I will take a lot of it to bed with me tonight to read over again. It was a great lesson in learning for me as I found that I wanted time to practice it verbally with him, but didn't get the chance. It was perfect timing as I have some tough classes on this day (we won't even talk about CFH "Class From Hell" today except to say that we went over the meaning of "Go to Hell"...I would like to clarify that I was not the one who brought it up first.) It meant that I was able to go back to my school room and plan my classes with a whole lot more to them than what I've been doing. I've been anxious to get at my Japanese lessons in the hope that it would help me to understand what to do in the classroom. It has. It will only continue to have an impact on my teaching, I'm sure.

May 29, 2005

I booted around the flat today, cleaning up and such. Then I went for a little jaunt around the block..I hesitate to call it a run, but technically I guess that's what it would have been. Then I got all gussied up because........

I went to Taeko's for dinner tonight. She's the awesomest receptionist (the one who had to do the cleaning up after "The incident") at Kita. She also invited two other teachers, who I talk way to loudly and quickly with, mostly over tofu donuts at Mister Donut, and two other students of mine. So, here's how it goes, this is the family tree of the evening. Taeko is a receptionist at the school. She works Fridays with me and Carrie. She works Saturdays with Michelle (the other one). Her best friend is Akiko. Akiko is one of my students on Friday mornings. Akiko's son owns the bar where Taeko, Masanobu and I went for drinks a few weeks back. Taeko is also one of my students on Wednesday night. She became friends with Masanobu in English class, the one that I now teach to both of them. Carrie and I work together on Fridays and have totally connected really well. Michelle and I work together on Thursdays and totally connect too. Carrie and Michelle are close friends and live near each other. So essentially, everyone was connected to everyone else and it's just a grand ol' time. There's the characters of the story, and characters they are.

The plot of the story goes something like this: I head off on my bike to try and find Taeko's house that is in a random neighbourhood a ways from here. I'm half way there and have just crossed the railroad tracks when I go to get my little map out of my pocket again and...it's not there. It's a very windy night. It has blown out of my pocket (I loose more money that way...!) and blown away. I stop and turn the bike around to see what I can find, otherwise I'll have to head all the way home and call Michelle (the other one)'s keitai and just pray to God that she answers. I go to head back over the tracks and this car sits and my path and starts to hook at me. What the heck? It's Taeko, who has just picked up Michelle (the other one) and Carrie from the station. FABULOUS!! I'm saved!!! So I follow them on my bike, no easy feat may I say, to Taeko's house.

Her house is lovely. It has these round smooth stones as the front "porch"/"walkway". There's so many things here that are hard to explain as they don't exist in North America as they do here. I would call it the walkway up to her house, but that would imply that there's room from the street to the front door, when in reality is about three feet wide and then a giant concrete wall that goes directly onto the street. No sidewalks. No space to really have 2 cars pass. It reminded me of some streets in Italy and in Mexico. So the stones continue into her front entrance inside the house where you take your shoes off and step up to the wood floor. We saw Akiko hard at work in the Kitchen and the three of us ladies wanted to go help, but we were quickly ushered upstairs into the main sitting room. Oh my what a sight. On the floor were these little black lacquer tables, two per person, full of these tiny beautiful dishes. Each dish had one or two things in it. A little roll, or piece of fish, or a collard green in peanut sauce. Everything was small but beautifully and intricately done. We snooped about the room a bit, looking a pictures and out the windows at the road and houses beside us once Taeko left us and generally oooh-ed and aah-ed at all the little niceties around us.

We started dinner without Masanobu, but he arrived shortly. Wine was poured, no one pouring their own of course, and dishes were enjoyed with a bit of explanation. She even had the menu printed up for us. Not that we could read it, but it's beautiful none-the-less. There was a total of 15 dishes!!! That included some of the deserts, but not all. There was too much food for me to remember and it just kept coming. At first it looks like there isn't going to be enough, but little bits and little bits end up making for very large bits, and big protruding tummies. We had cold noodles (not Udon and not Soba, so I don't know what they were) and they made us Michelles and Carrie slurp our noodles. Carrie won and is now referred to as Number One. Michelle (the other one) was next in line and this Michelle has far too many British sensibilities in her to slurp (read: she fears godly retribution if table manners are not up to the Queen's standard of dinning etiquette) and so I'm now Number "mm" with three fingers held up. They won't even speak the words, it's just (point at me) "Number mm" (hold pinky, forth and third fingers up with a distain on your face and then laugh). That's my new name. The company was awesome. And by awesome I mean funny and intelligent and a mix of Japanese and English and often completely inappropriate and lots of personal attacks and harassment and delightful in every possible way. By the end of the night we had vocabulary lists. On theirs was: rob the cradle, cougar (as in the Cdn usage, not a mountain lion), more cushion for the pushin (that one was Carrie's, I was scandalized, although we won't tell them what it means and have told Masanobu and Taeko that they have to find out on their own by asking other teachers but it's too inappropriate for Akiko, who is a very proper woman, so we told her she's not allowed to remember it), and puke. On our list is: giri and gari. Not to be confused. See Michelle (the other one) has this thing with popsicles. She thought the word was 'giri giri' and taught Carrie and I the word. We're all using it. Blah, blah. Michelle (the other one) uses it at the convenience store all the time "Giri giri wa doko desu ka", 'Where are the popsicles?'. So we find out tonight that the word is 'gari gari' as the name for a certain popsicle. Oh, funny. Oh dear we've had it wrong. No big whoop. Later on in the evening, Masanobu finally lets it drop that 'giri' is actually a real word in Japanese. Oh really? Well, so what does it mean? Diarrhea. Well then. And how many times have we used the word 'giri giri' thinking that it was referring to 'popsicle'? Hmmm. Michelle (the other one) then gets very quiet, which is disturbing in and of itself much like the eerie calm before a large quake (no birds), and she's now laughing hysterically thinking of all the people that she's asked 'giri giri' for. We stayed, laughing and joking, until about just after 10 and then decided that it was about time that we get back home as we all work tomorrow. It was quite a trek home and I'm really glad that Masanobu had to walk up to the train tracks to meet his wife, otherwise I would have gotten lost FOR SURE! A delightful evening. I just can't even describe it properly.

May 28, 2005

I have really gotten used to my classes on Saturdays. This is a very good thing as I used to hate this day. I was hoping to get into the school early today to get some extra paper work done (like Parent's Day plans, they're a LOAD), but then things didn't really go as I had planned. I was going to get up at 7:30. I had the alarm set and everything. It went off as planned, I pressed snooze once, then I was going to get up. I found myself aboard the Millenium Falcon. I think that Darth has invaded my neighbourhood. Even if I could sleep with the windows shut (which it's already too warm to do..this summer is going to be very difficult), the windows do nothing to keep out the sounds from the 3, count them 3, schools that are all within .5-3 blocks of my house, and so I was brought back into the dream world by sounds of the Star Wars theme. My reaction when I am annoyed upon waking is not as many would suspect. I am not so inspired by my wrath, as many who have witnessed the disturbance of my sleep in Tilikum at night, to the fight response in the morning. I am much more inclined towards the flight instinct when disturbed in the morning. And when one is waking from the dream state into reality, where else would one "flight" to, but back into the dream world when so assaulted by the real world. And so this morning, I was lulled back to sleep, with my alarm now off, by that great work of John Williams. Da da dadada daaa daa dadada daa daa da da da duhn.

At 8:50, I looked at the clock after coming back into this world from a very odd dream world where I was on a special opps team and one of my fellow team members was a very large, very manly, man...though pregnant and out of breath as the two of us had to escape some sort of evil...in a mall...and make it back into the elevator to rejoin our group, um, yeah, about that...and then bolted up and out in the kitchen, about two steps. You would think that being an hour and a bit late, I would be able to at least make up a bit of time. Maybe even stay at an hour late. But no. I had made it onto the train by 9:25 (a miracle in and of itself, I actually made it to the station on my bike in about 7 minutes, breaking all current land speed records set on a mama-chariot) and I was about a minute from the station where I transfer when I realized that the keys to Kita were in my bra. I removed them from their hiding place (yes, I store all sorts of things in there, not just the usual contents that you would expect to find in a bra) and then thought, "Keys. These are keys. These are keys to Kita school. One needs keys to enter our schools. I am going to Makuhari where no one else will be for about another two hours. I need keys to enter our schools. I need keys to get into Makuhari, where no one else will be for about another two hours. Hmmm. I will put these keys, the only keys have on me at the moment, in my bag and not in my bra. Hmmm." Yes, it really did take me this long to process the previous information and to come to the mind boggling conclusion of "I FORGOT MY KEYS!!!!!!"

I would like to point out, at this time, a fact about taking the train in Japan as a foreigner. Most Japanese are not used to being in close proximal distance to real foreigners, so when they are in the presence of a foreigner they tend to watch them out of the corner of the eye. What this means for many foreigners is that you are constantly being watched. On trains around and in & out of Tokyo, people don't really care and this isn't much of an issue. But when you're on a train in the middle of burbia where people don't get out much...well, I get watched a lot. And so as I'm realizing that I can't find my keys, I'm searching everything, my bag, my pockets, my bra (just to make sure there's not more in there)...all the while, being watched serepticiously. I had to stay on the train and make it back to the station and get my card rescanned, like a total dork, by the station guy who couldn't figure out where I was trying to go if I was coming out of the gates that I had just scanned my card "in" at. I kept telling him that I wanted to come "here" "here" and he, not believing me, kept asking me where I was trying to go. I rode my bike all the way back home, ran in the door, grabbed the keys sitting directly beside my door, ran back out, and back onto the train, all within 20 minutes. I was faster than Speedy Gonzales. I liked that cartoon. That was a good cartoon. I eventually made it to the school, like two hours later than I had hoped to be, so although I didn't get any of the extra work done, I thankfully had enough time to do the planning for the day.

That was my morning till noon. I then had a run in with the counter boy at Matsuri. Don't ask. It's too long to explain and I'm still confused. I don't actually know what the issue was even still, and it's not the first time that it's happened after ordering the same take out order before. All I know is that I order something and put the money in the machine, and then the counter person comes back and says a bunch of stuff that sounds like Japanese to me and the only word I can understand is "oki" which means 'big' and then they end up taking more of my money. Whatever. Just give me my rice and raw egg.

Then I started my day of 6 classes, all pretty much in a row. Today in class, I almost cried. Now, before you get all pitying on me and start drafting an encouraging email in your mind to send to me, and some flowers, and maybe a nice little note in the poste, I almost cried because I was laughing so hard. I have this fabulous (read: crazy) class of primary kids. At first they were a little much for me, but now that I know the kids I find that I'm much more lenient when they go a little nuts because they do try hard at times. I had only 2 of the boys today because most of the other schools in the area had Sports Day today (a Saturday, try pulling that one off in North America..no way that would ever fly), hence the Star Wars theme music of my morning, and the other 2 students were absent. I love these boys. Understand that I really do enjoy teaching them. One boy is one of my favourites of all the kids that I teach. His name is Kenichi and he loves the Mariners. He was born in Seattle while his father was posted there for work, but they moved back to Japan when he was like a year. He loves Seattle, although he hasn't been there in years, he still loves the idea of Seattle. As do I. He's a bright kid, he just doesn't concentrate. I love when he really wants to know how to say something in English, because he likes English, because that's what they speak in Seattle, and I can see it on his face that he's really trying to take in what I'm saying. He baked me cookies once. I love Kenichi. That class spoke so much English when I first took it over that I had to implement the "No English Challenge" o-meter, where if they spoke too much Japanese then the wouldn't get their English Challenge stamp for the day (collect enough stamps and you can "buy" a little trinket at the school). This is a big thing for them. The EC stamp is cold hard currency in their world. I intended to do the o-meter for a couple of classes then the use of only English would go up and then we're cool. Kenichi comes into the class now and grabs a whiteboard marker and draws the NoEC-o-meter himself. He even tells on himself when he has whispered something to a friend in Japanese, something I would be willing to overlook every now and again, but not him. He's a fanatic. So I had Kenichi today, and this other kid Ryo, who is pretty funny but gets too violent for my taste and just a little bit overboard. I don't mind when the kids want to run around and blow off some steam, it's fun. But when there's a kid who if you give them a foot then they get completely out of control, then I try to keep them on a shorter leash. Ryo is one of those kids. I like him, but he kicks or punches the wall just a few too many times, over nothing, for my taste. So these two come in and the other teacher at the school decides to play a joke on them and go into the class as if he's going to teach them (he's a GIANT guy and often freaks kids out, but they love him for it) and chases them around the class once. It was great fun. They've never been happier to see me. And that set the tone of the day. I started by talking to them about the weather and whatever (T: "What day is it today?" S:"Today is Saturday" T:"How's the weather?" S:"It's sunny, cloudy and hot" Read: overcast and humid). Then they noticed the flashcards from the previous class. I think, 'Hey, perfect time to do some new vocab that will be coming up soon, just a little preview'. "What's this do you think? Hmm" quizzical looks from both, "He's walking to school" "He walk to school" "Yeah, he's walking to school, good" "What about this?" "Aaaaaah" It's a cartoon for 'take a shower' but it's a lady so the boys usually get all funny about it. "Oooooh, that's right, she's taking a shower, tee hee" As Kenichi covers his gaping mouth and his eyes bug out, and Ryo kicks the wall. At this point I start giggling to myself. Then comes a man buttoning up his shirt (let's not take these two pictures in sequence, I have enough childish behaviour to deal with in a day, I don't need it from more adults than I already deal with) "What's he doing?" Kenichi: "Dressed, he dressed" "That's right, he's getting dressed" at which point they repeat and then start to show me 'get dressed'. I start saying "please don’t take your clothes off in the middle of class", but I'm giggling too much to really be that stern about it. They think this is hilarious as I say "Kenichi, keep your shirt on, Ryo, pull your shirt back down", but all was for naught. I lowered my eyes for a moment to try and regain my composure and set them straight. I looked up and there was Ryo in the middle of the classroom pulling his shirt right over his head and swinging his shirt away like some sort of pudgy, 9 year old, prima-donna chip and dale's. "Ryo don't!" and then he stands in the middle of the room in his pants and a wife beater flexing his arms and doing deep lunges like a chunky Japanese Herculean demigod. Think deep lunges. I am now on the verge of tears and really completely beyond any poise or self-control as I'm just trying not to completely laugh out loud. As I sat there, shaking and fanning my face with the flashcards, he eventually stopped and put his shirt back on and returned to his seat. I do believe that class was one of the greatest moments I will have teaching, from Kenichi telling on himself when he spoke Japanese, to the look their faces when they realized it was a girl in the shower, to Ryo's Arnold-esque theatrics, to them calling me a grandmother, and then when that got the desired reaction I became the grandmother of everything in the room, especially the rubber rat that sits up on the window ledge. There was great delight over that one. Makes ending up with 7, yes, not 6, but 7, classes today bareable. And hey, even if I can never have kids, I can take solace in knowing that I'm the grandmother of a rubber rat in Japan.

May 26, 2005

I worked out at Katsu today. I think my schedule may change soon. I have one class of preteen girls that will have only one student left by next week due to conflicts in their public school schedules. And I have an adult class that really has only 1 student that ever attends. Which means that my last two classes of the day will soon be cancelled, leaving me with a very small teaching schedule for the day. I'm sure things will be reshuffled. I don't particularly want to be reshuffled because, although I really can't stand the other two classes on that day, I really like the other teachers who I'm with on Fridays and I would be terribly saddened to loose that time with them. And the popsicles. We eat popsicles. Michelle has turned me on to these fabulous icicle popsicle goodness bars (and no I'm not talking about myself in the third person again, there's two Michelles). At first I was minorly intrigued. But I'm starting to look for them on my own now. They come in blue (whatever flavour that is), white (which is ?yougurt? flavour) and apple. I have only had the blue ones. They're yummy. Odd at first, but then there's no going back. It's the ice in the middle that at first seems so wrong. The outside of the sicle is the same texture as a true TM Popsicle. But the inside is more like hard packed snow cone ice. A little odd. And it melts really fast. But quite tasty. So I'm into beginning my sentences with conjunctions this evening. While............Therefore.........Although.......

May 25, 2005

I had a kid sleep through an entire class today. Even though I tried to wake him, I didn't actually want him to wake up. He didn't. He's the little annoyance that gave me the cold I've been fighting.

I am fully addicted to reading this site. I've been reading the site, and another on line discussion that is moderated by the same guy, for quite some time now, even before I got to Japan. But now I'm reading a little bit every day. Helps me round out the influx of non-English communication, or at least non-correct-native speaker-English communication. If I were more of a recluse it might be a good thing. As is, it is turning me into more of a hermit than I've been naturally inclined to be.

Tonight, I discovered that cajun lentils and mayo is the new dinner of champions. Just a little bit of mayo. Just to mix it all in with. David Avice would be proud...or nauseous, one of the two.

May 24, 2005

Today is Harold Richert's birthday!!

I bought a mirror today. Quite exciting. Now I can see just how much weight I've gained. It's really aweful. And I can see my whole face when I'm putting on makeup, as opposed to just 2 inches at a time in my pocket mirror. I often don't know what I look like until I get to work, and at that, I often still only know a portion of my face or hair at a given time. The best place to check what you look like?? On the train. Most of the trains that I take have mirrors right by every door. How considerate for all us vain little train riders.

On my way home from buying the mirror, I had a rather comical interaction with an 8 year old. Okay, so I giggled the whole way to the corner. I was walking my bike (with the large stand up mirror lashed to it) down the sidewalk. These two boys were talking and walking towards me. They looked up when they were still like 12 feet from me and the one boy actually looked at me and gasped! And then just stared with this dumbfounded look on his face. I was trying so hard to keep a straight face as I passed them and as soon as I passed I could hear their excited chatter as they turned to watch me go. I couldn't help but giggle out loud (once out of ear shot) to myself all the way to the end of the block. This does happen. More often than I would expect. I'm still surprised at people's reactions at seeing a foreigner and I find it incredible that people have been able to live for years (often into their teenage years or into their twenties) without ever having seen a real foreigner close up, let alone talk to one.

May 23, 2005

I totally bagged on a class today. I have this aweful group of 14-16 year olds who all know sooo much more than I do, no really, they are evidently privy to the thoughts of God because I am just a lowly subservient creature to their splendid existences. We decided to play prepositional Uno for an entire one-hour class. Or rather they decided, and I just didn't care. Maybe it had something to do with the lack of sleep over the past week (which my activities this weekend only added to as opposed to help), maybe they've just broken my spirit, maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a power struggle. I realize that's exactly what is going on in that class. They are just trying to assert their power, cute little teenagers that they are..oh, how that would git their goat if they knew I said that. And so my own need to maintain power of them rears its head! To back track, prepositional Uno has very little educational benefit. There's some, but little. We play Uno as usual (and by usual I mean, by Japanese rules which are a little different than what I'm used to) only the cards are home made and they have to match animals (like colours or suits) or the placement of said animal (like the numbers). They are actually quite fabulous. They have these little pictures on them that someone has obviously done with MS Paint. The cards are divided into Cat, Fish, Rabbit and Spider. Then the prepositional phrases on the bottom are like: is behind the lamp; is on the table, is under the chair; is in the toilet; is beside the car; is behind the lamp. The 'is in the toilet' and 'is behind the lamp' are my favourite. The toilet is pretty obviously funny, but it's the pictures that are the best, the fish is standing head first in the toilet with it's tail sticking up in the air, the cat is actually sitting in the toilet and the expression on the cat's face is priceless. I also like the lamp ones, again because of the pictures. You can barely see the animals because they are eclipsed by the lamp, you just sort of see their butts hanging out the sides. The cat is behind the lamp, looks remarkably like Skid Mark would if she sat behind a lamp.

May 22, 2005

Oh my, what an eventful past 24 hours.

So we ended back at the bar a few blocks from here. I got home way to early in the morning and still couldn't sleep so I did some laundry and some cleaning and some reading. I then slept for an hour and a half then got up at like 8:30 to catch the train back to Tsudanuma. I met up with a bunch of other teachers who live near the other school and two former students who now just are friends and fabulous tour guides.

There's this big festival in Asakusa (ah-sack-sa) which is an old neighbourhood of Tokyo in the north of the city. So what happens is that the smaller neighbourhoods in the area make these really elaborate and extravagant shrines to present their gods at the temple and pretty much take them on a tour of the neighbourhood. I believe it's called Sanja Matsuri (Christopher B, correct me if I'm wrong, if you know). The portable shrines are often quite heavy, some are really huge, but the ones that we saw are just average size, only a couple tonnes. The people get together and carry the shrines/floats on their shoulders, with like 50 people or so maybe less, all at the same pace. The carriers have to get really close together and bounce up and down to the beat of the drums and flutes that preceed them. They move really slowly so that they don't ram into each other. Everyone around them is cheering and chanting with the drums and are all dressed up like a team and it's really cool. They carry them all through the streets and to the temple, from something like 8 in the morning until 8 at night. What a symbol of a community in worship. The carriers totally sacrifice their bodies and consider it a privilege to do so. The streets are all shut down and people line the edges to cheer and then to follow the processions. It was cool to see the processions in both the small streets that would get totally jammed up, and in the massive 4 lane streets in larger commercial areas. We even got to see two shrines passing each other so the crowd was insane. It felt like a small town fair with kids all dressed up (and even their own little processions) and the avenues leading up to the big shrines are always lined with booths selling all sorts of yummy treats and goodies (mmm, tako, and no that's not Mexican..so very far from Mexican). It just had this great, small community feel to it, with 2 million people. The crowds didn't even phase me, in fact it wasn't until looking at some of my pictures that I realized just how big the crowds were, but if you wanted to get away from the crowds it was easy, you just had to go one block over to where the route had already been, or wouldn't be for several hours. It was cool.

We walked around a lot. I'm going to bed early tonight.

May 21, 2005

I had a really fast day today. I had planning to do for my 6 classes, then I got to school and saw that I had 2 more trial lessons posted at the end of my day. Pooey. It made for a long day. I was about to go to bed, but then my friend from down the street just called and told me I had to go for a drink with him and a couple of other teachers from my school that he knows. I was going to say no because I'm tired, but I haven't been sleeping and even though I'm tired, I'm not sleepy, and I just sort of thought I should take the opportunity for some English interaction. So I said yes and now I'm heading out the door to catch the next train.

Written later, like the day that is no longer considered Saturday:

So after a stupid day at work yesterday (today?), I headed to Tsudanuma to meet up with some friends for "just a quick drink". Yeah, about that. We met up at this little place that looks like it belongs more on some seedy beach in Mexico than in a major city centre. It's kind of put together ad hoc. Most of it is open air, and it's just kind of, yeah, Mexico. The tables are in lengths and just banged together pieces of plywood. It was quite fabulous. And to add to the charm it's a gaijin bar so it's evidently really "shady". Sort of the way a "Korean" hang out would be in Richmond. Oooo, that place is dangerous, it's where all the foreigners who aren't like us band together to create havoc on our perfect society. Quite fabulous. We decided to stay there for a while. Much discussion of world politics and the latest plot developments on "24" and "Lost" ensued, much to the chagrin of us ladies...I'm sorry but "24" is a man's soap opera. Then we went to play some darts at another local (and fully lame) bar. We then decided to grab a cab (the trains had long stopped running) to the bar just down the road from me. I was quite glad with the decision as it was back in my neighbourhood, and more importantly far away from the home of the incredibly annoying Minnesotian that we had managed to pick up with us back at the first "seedy establishment". Nice enough guy but his speech is seriously just a string of profanities. It was a bit much..and this is coming from ME!!! You know it had to be bad if it was too much swearing for Michelle's ears. I have a darn high tolerance for vulgar, expletive and offensive language, and this guy was too much for me. It's not even that I was offended, more annoyed than anything. It was really just the one word in it's many forms over and over again. I mean, is there no other words in your vocabulary that you could possibly choose. If you most use incredibly profane language then at least be creative in your usage and word choice. I liken it to my little Kindie student, Yui, who only chooses to use the white crayon. He has some many possible colour choices and combinations, yet he sticks to the white crayon. Why stick to the one word when there is such a plethora of words you could use? And don't even get me started on derivational morphology where you can make up your own words that have possibly never been used before...

May 20, 2005

I was not having a good day today. What is it about Fridays that are so cursed? Two weeks ago was the "Incident". And then this week both Carrie and I had some awful classes. I had two really bad classes then an horrific trial lesson where the prospective student stopped me half way through and said "I don't know point. Why? Why say this? Is no point. What is this? A test? Explain why I do this." We were just doing really easy fill in the blank exercises. Okay, so switching gears! I guess that we'll do something else. I wanted to just go home. I told Carrie that I had my two of my favourite classes coming up and she said "Well, good luck, because I just had my favourite class and they were horrible." Oh great. So I went to the washroom and prayed "Lord just get me through this day". My next class was these great kids, one of which has awesome English skills (you know, skills). But they have a tendancy to get bored and not say anything. I had a full review lesson planned, but I kind of only did some of it and switched some of it up to not include any traditional teaching stuff. Instead we played three games. It was great. They reviewed stuff. We used giant plastic animals as the board game markers, and most of all, I didn't yell at anyone or want to cry at the end of class. Curse lifted!! Hallelujah. And yeah, my last class was good too.



Oh yeah. And by the way, may I rant about the fact that all the rest of the planet gets to see the new Star Wars but us here in Japan. The release date for Star Wars III in Japan is in like JULY!!!!! July 9th! Who knows why? No one knows. It just is. There are poor little kids in Honduras who would able to scrounge up money to go into the closest village to see the movie. But me, in fast paced, technologically advanced, booming Japan where one can conduct world altering business from a cell phone, has to wait for another 2 whole months before I get to see it on the big screen. The generally accepted rhetoric on why this is??? Because there's a shortage of translators. Psh! That's what I say to that. I mean if Estonia can have a release date of May 20th, why can't Japan at least manage a May 21st date?????



Grrrrrr.

May 18, 2005

The little germ factories have been particularly productive lately. It is astonishing what is publicly acceptable to most people here. Most. Some are sensible. But for the sake of my point here we will not pay attention to the sensible for the time being.

I have one little boy in a Jr High class who seems to always be sick. It may be allergies. I don't know. I don't actually particularly care. All I really care about is the excessive production of mucus in the little man. See, for many here it's rude to really blow your nose in public. Given, some people are able to do it quietly and with their head turned, but in my experience, most don't. So instead of just blowing his nose, which would be rude(?), he proceeds to slurp and snort all through class, wiping his nose all over his sleeves and hands. And, well, this little one is very curious and feels like he needs to know everything that is going on, which is an admirable trait in and of itself, but in reality becomes a problem for me when he decides that he needs to know what my notes say. Yes, he then proceeds to put his tainted hands all over my book to see what I'm doing. I hand him a box of Kleenex and he says "No, no, I okay [slurp]" and proceeds to wipe his nose with his sleeve.

What has brought on this rant??

I'm starting to get a cold. It's probably from all the toxins in my body being release by the massage and acupuncture..but I still blame the little germ factories.

May 17, 2005

I went in to the acupuncturist today. He's pretty cool. He speaks pretty good English. He starts with these electrified suction cups that I've had used on me before in the physiotherapist's office (or if you're in the States, the physical therapist's). Then he massages all the tight areas, which on me are plentiful. I totally carry my stress in my shoulders, so they're a mess. Then he gets these tiny little thin needles and pokes them all around your body. Some of them I didn't even feel, others I could kind of feel, then he would twist them around and then I could feel the muscles reacting to it and then they hurt. The hurt totally doesn't last long, and like I said, most of them I could barely even feel. Then he leaves the odd one in and puts on more suction cups. Then you're done. He uses his English speaking patients as practice for his language skills and in return he doesn't charge us for treatment. Good deal for me, man!!

Then I went in to Tsudanuma to go shopping. I found another Tower Records so I went in to check things out. I spent over an hour just listening to new stuff. Some of it is no good, but there was some interesting things coming out of the States and Australia that they get here. I haven't worked my way up to listening to some J-Pop. I just can't do it yet. The thing is that so much pop culture here is pretty cheesy, they do have their really cool moments though, but the cool moments seem to never be in regards to music. Or at least none of the main stream stuff that would be sold in a mall retail store. It's like everyone here is trying too hard to be American when it comes to making music. Think Brittany Spears, then make her really cheesy and fake. I hope you're recognizing the tongue in cheek sarcasm in that statement. Eventually I will get there, but for now the music affronting my ears in all public spaces is quite enough J-Pop for me.

May 16, 2005

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket --safe, dark, motionless, airless-- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

-CS Lewis

'The Four Loves'

Who likes unbreakable and impenetrable?
I do, I do

Who likes irredeemable?
Oo, yeah, not so much

May 15, 2005

I finally...

Oo, earthquake!

Weee!!!

K, so, as I was saying...I finally went for a run today. The second since I've arrived here. I feel so good after running, but I get so darn bored that I always stop sooner than I should. Today it was a good thing. I almost forgot my futon out on the porch, but thankfully I got bored on my run and came back when I did. It only had a few specks of water on it when I brought it in.

And now it is downpouring with thunder and everything. I'm glad I'm inside. I'm really glad that I can sit in my dry little home and enjoy the storm from in here. What an eventful day already and it's only the afternoon. A run, an earthquake, a storm. It's really all downhill from here.

Speaking of earthquakes, they are something that is very common place here. That link is showing you the quakes that have happened in the last 7 days. What about in the last day, you ask? Heh, heh, heh. Most of the buildings are so shoddy made that they move a lot anyway even if it's just a big truck driving by, so it's hard to tell when it's actually an earthquake or not. There are earthquakes here constantly. And my above reaction of noticing it and then carrying on, is pretty standard. Nobody even talks about them so I often don't know if it has truly been a quake or if it is, as I said, just a truck driving by...or the jackhammer outside my door that starts at 7 o'clock in the blessed morning.

And now the sun is out. This is all within like a span of about 15 minutes. Crazy.

May 14, 2005

Crazy day today. I actually got all my planning done for all my classes in record time. All six of them. Yes, I have six classes today. And I got a few notes down for next week too. I still haven't gotten into the swing of planning and my weird schedule. Some days, make that most days, I have to be at the school for 10 hours because of the way my schedule falls. I'll start a class at like 12:30 so I'll need to be in an hour before that at like 11 or 11:30, but then I'm not out of the school until 9:30 at night. And it's not like I get a big ol' break in the middle either, it's bits and pieces here and there so that by the end of the day I'm credited with like 5.5 teaching hours, but I've had to be there much longer than that.

After school I met up with some of my adult students at a local place that's owned by another of my student's sons. Does that make sense? It was the three of us for most of the night until Mariko joined us as well. Taeko is the super hero receptionist from yesterday's story. She's one of my students as well. And Masanobu is an Engineering professor at Tokyo University. He's a smarty pants. The other two students from the class couldn't join us. We had great fun. It was cool to sit and talk with them outside of class. We talked about Japan and Canada and Linguistics and travelling and I taught them cool English (like 'your usual watering hole') and they taught me a bit of Japanese. It was good. Daijobu. It is good.

May 13, 2005

Warning: The following contains material that although is funny, may offend those who do not appreciate bathroom humour...there's nothing lewd but there are bodily functions mentioned that some many not find as funny as I do. Continue with caution

So I need to back track a bit to last week for my statement of the day to make any sense. Last week on Friday, one of my fellow teachers who is at the same school as I am on this day had a bad experience with one of her students. As bad as it was for her, it got worse for our favourite receptionist. So. Carrie (she's from Seattle) was teaching a class with some grade 6-ers. One of the boys starts kind of dancing around, she doesn't think much of it as boys that age are often dancing around. He finally says "Teacher, teacher, toide", which means washroom (which, for the Americans reading this, means bathroom). Carrie's like "Yeah, sure, whatever, do what you need to do, you don't really need to ask me", not that he understood any part of that other than "Yeah". Carrie doesn't see the little guy for a bit, so she sticks her head out of the class and she sees him standing in front of the washroom. Evidently he didn't make it to the washroom in time. He's standing there covered in poo. The floor around his feet was covered in poo. Carrie still had the rest of the class so she couldn't do anything about him, and she had to call the receptionist, Taeko, to take care of the little guy. Taeko is our hero. Later Taeko had to clean the hallway, she got two clothespins and pinned up her pants at the knees. It was quite humourous. Carrie felt bad for Taeko and for the little guy. It was just bad. She kept saying "Poor little guy, poor Taeko, poor guy, it's just poor everybody". There's the back track.

Today, Carrie and I decreed that today would be a "No Poo" Day.

And it was so

May 11, 2005

Oh my, I just realized that I just polished off a jar of Jif with a spoon. I would quite possibly kill for a giant jar of Adam's. These tiny little containers of Jif (which isn't good pb at all, but it will do) at like 500 yen a pop are going to drive me insane. I don't ask for much, I can do without all other western food, but I have a serious dependency on peanut butter. It's wrong, I know. And it will probably lead to some premature heart attack, but I just can't help myself. I wonder if there's a PB Anonymous? If not, I should start one. Me and Heidi and Shaunna will be it's first members. For the record, it wasn't the whole jar all at once, it was mostly gone already. It was just surprising that I had just sat down and eat without thinking and now it's all gone. I shouldn't really say surprising because I've done it before back home, it took me by surprise that it was all gone, not that I had eaten it all. I think that makes sense. It makes sense in my head, I don't know if when I say it that it makes sense out there in the air. Um, yeah.

I had a fabulous little class of Kindie girls. They are soooo darned cute, and so good. No boys in that class running around in circles screaming at the top of their lungs..ah, I will miss little Takuma but it's nice to be able to actually do stuff in English as opposed to just classroom management. I think that's what gets me about most of the Kindie and Playgroup classes that I have, they are all so heavy on the classroom management that it feels really pointless to be doing any of it. The classes that stress me out are the ones where we have to keep everything going at all times and never loose momentum otherwise the kids will get out of control. I love being able to stop for like 10 seconds to put on the CD for the next song and not have to worry that in doing so I will have completely lost the class and they're now running around in circles, or are back under the table, or dancing with their dresses over their heads...that's for me to do, not them.

May 10, 2005

Today was really just a day full of momentary lapses of insanity. I didn't work. I cleaned. I bummed around...and lapsed in and out of sanity.

May 9, 2005

Did you know that Keitai owners don't match their phones. Unlike dogs. Keitai are cell phones. But not just any old mobiles. I am yet to meet someone here who can actually manage to call a keitai a cell phone. They really two completely different entities. A cell phone, you talk on it, the odd one you take photos on. I know many people who are quite attached to their mobile. It's not the same. I do believe that a keitai could could possibly have enough controls to power a nuclear sub-station (not that I know what a nuclear sub-station is but it sounded good and like something that would need some serious tech behind it to run it). Your whole life can be on a keitai, and again, it's different from say, Doug, who I believe would go into catatonic shock if ever he were left cell-less (Doug, I love you, not that that's a band-aid, but more of me saying that I don't mean anything negative by the comment, just calling it like it is). I had a girl whip out her keitai in the middle of class tonight to look up the word "punk" cause they weren't following what I was saying. Yes I called a kid a punk today, long story and I digress. The point is that she looked up the word "punk" on her keitai in the matter of about 10 seconds and it gave her a full translation of the word into Japanese. You can get the entire Tokyo subway and JR systems. The subway system consists of a kazillion different lines and the JR system looks more complicated than heart surgery. You doubt me? See the picture beside. Neither of which actually include the areas near me. And it's all available with connecting transfers and arrival/departure times that are so accurate it would bring any Swiss to tears, on your keitai in a matter of seconds. Most of my friends' keitai's hold more pictures on them than I would ever know what to do with, and they're often printable quality. Then there's the text messaging. I know that in North America we're a little behind the times on this point. The Europeans had it down years ago, and we're all waaaay behind Asia. You can send your friend practically a novel worth of information at the click of a button. There are people who spend their whole time on their keitai and very rarely interact with their surroundings. There's even a name. They're called Oyayubizoku, translation: people who won't get off the keitai. Would you believe that this is still sort of digressing from my main point? That little jaunt was to try and explain what a keitai is and why I cannot just call it a cell phone, because it's something very different. My point is actually that the keitai does not match the keitai owner. There are numerous times when I see some fabulously dressed woman in a power suit on the train, probably coming from some high executive power meeting where worlds are being formed and then the little jingle for whatever Hello Kitty-esque cartoon is popular that week comes out of her purse as she fishes around in the bottom of the ever expensive giant Louis Vuitton to finally find the ever elusive ringing keitai. Is it a little cell phone that she pops open and says "Hello, this is Michiko speaking" (only in Japanese and in a confident manner)? No, it is a bright pink contraption with like, 6 bobbles hanging from the top of it, one of which is a stuffed animal larger than anything I would ever allow my child to play with, another bobbles glows pink and purple when it is ringing and she finally pops it open to not actually talk on it but just to look at the screen and jiggle (either a text, or some good photos). The Japanese are big into the keitai decorations. And it's not just the women. I have seen men in power suits walking down the road with a flashy electric blue keitai that they are text messaging on and from the top hangs 4 little bobbles all of kids cartoon fame. Everything here truly is cute. Even the phones. I don't mean to mock it, and I hope it doesn't come across as such. It's just that for a girl who is so anti-cell back home, well, it's a little overwhelming.

May 8, 2005

I managed to grab a bit of sleep at two hour intervals today. I had to be awake for some of the morning to open the door for the delivery of my new washing machine! It's really pretty. Way nicer than anything I was expecting. I feel bad...and yet I don't! Other than that I just bummed around here and ate whatever is in the rice cooker and played games and read and that's about it. I picked up my other roll of film. There's some alright shots, nothing too spectacular. Now I need to have a bath and go to sleep.

May 7, 2005

I met up with two friends tonight after work and we headed to a club in Shibuya for some dancing all night. It was great fun. No great stories. Just a lot of dancing and consumption of 500 yen bottles of water. And that was for a tiny, itty bitty bottle. After grabbing some cheap grub near the station, we caught the second train of the day back home and all headed back to our little abodes to grab some sleep.

Oh, one story! We were walking from the station and I looked on the back wall of the entrance to this hotel and there was this GIANT picture of the Empress and the Inner Harbour in Victoria. I was in shock and I totally freaked out. We took a picture, but it wasn't my camera so I hope to have it soon so I can post it.

May 6, 2005

"The Saturday night, Shibuya HARLEM is shaken, NO DOUBT. If music lover the mammoth party which it is possible, is proud of the collection customer power of wonder for everyone to enjoy purely!"

This means that DJ No Doubt is gonna get the party going on at Club Harlem. I love translation.

The break is over. It's back to school. So sad. I have one less class on this day now so it means I'll be able to chill throughout the day as I have tonnes of breaks between classes. Ah, glorious planning time. So good. I got some good news at work today. What's in showcase number one? Well, Bob…….it's a new washer and dr- a washer! All you have to do is tell me the price of these items. Supa Ki-rin (Super Clean) with the power of green tea to get your clothes dazzling white and rain soaked fresh. I left my laundry out today. It started to pour about 3 this afternoon and hasn't let up. My skivvies are soaked. The lid on my washer is broken so I mentioned it to the receptionists. They sent a repair man here while I was at work today and it's going to cost too much to fix it, so I get a new one! I felt kinda bad at first. Now I'm fully okay with it.

May 5, 2005

What a difference from yesterday. I was supposed to meet up with two friends and go see a temple near by, but one of them went to the Art Deco exhibit, and the two of us remaining decided that we didn't want to do anything at all. So we just hung out at her house. We went grocery shopping and then I taught her how to make a one bowl meal in the rice cooker. That was the most productive thing of the day. We just lounged and talked for the rest of the time. It was great to just chill and chat and be real. Fabulous.

May 4, 2005

I went into Tokyo again today with another fellow teacher. I hadn't originally planned on going, but, well, it's just something that I had to do. So that's about all I did, walk around Tokyo, lame parts of Tokyo, walking lots, listening to complaining pretty much all day and not seeing much of anything of any interest. Except this guy playing the guitar, he was my little 5 minutes of sanity in the day.

May 3, 2005

I haven't done anything today. How wonderful. I did the odd errand. I made a salad. I got one roll of film developed. I talked to an amazing, wonderful, most beautiful, dear friend. And most importantly, I haven't walked anywhere!

May 2, 2005

Big long day. I left the house at like 9 am and I got back just before midnight. There's so much that I've seen that I really cannot even begin to try. I went into Tokyo with some friends. We first went to an Art Deco house that was completely stunning and perfect (except for the cool art exhibit that was going on, because they put these panels to display the pictures and that blocked the view of the design of the house). It's now the venue for the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, it was built as Prince Asaka's house. I just figured out upon returning home that it's right near where Christopher lives. From there we decided to walk and we found a place to get some food. It used to be an old house, now it's this funky little place with some cool Japanese cuisine that looks very LA/West Coast. We then walked some more and saw a tonne of random city sights (nothing famous or worth noting, just a whole lot of city) and some serious designer shops. We came upon this one building up off a main drag and it turns out that they were just setting up an art exhibit, complete with a Japanese woman who does traditional Thai dancing. She was practicing and the two men were mounting pictures. They told us to come it and we got a free and exclusive show of traditional Thai dancing. We then met up with a former receptionist of the school who is now working a few blocks from where we were in Shibuya. We went for dinner at this traditional Japanese restaurant and had some very good food and shochu and laughed and then we came home. So this may not seem like much, but we figured that from after lunch to the time we stopped walking in Shibuya it was like 5 hours straight, of just walking with no purpose and finding all sorts of randomness.

My feet hurt.

May 1, 2005

I had planned on going into Tokyo by myself today, but then late last night I talked to Clara and she invited me along with Andy, Satomi, Clara's cousin and herself on their trip to Kamakura. So this morning, as difficult as it was to get my butt out of bed, I headed off to meet up with them on the Shin-Keisei platform. The trains were busy and we pretty much had to stand the whole way from Kita to Kamakura station. It's a good deal south of Yokohama, not a quick trip. It was worth it. We caught a bus from the station up to the first sight, the Giant Buddha. It is giant.

It is the one that most people see in postcards and travel brochures. It's a giant bronze statue that was cast in like 1252. Unbelievable that two sculptors were able to complete such a task way back then. Makes you wonder how many people had to be involved in making it. We had a pleasant time together there. It's pretty much just a big statue with the odd little building around it, and a giant pair of slippers for the giant buddha's giant feet. The weather was beautiful and fairly clear.

We then headed out to find a temple. We had to stop for some sakura soft ice cream along the way (cherry blossom). Satomi said it was good, very light, not heavy. We then stopped for Sweet Potato gelato a little further down the road. It's Satomi's favourite so Clara and I had to try some. It's purple. It's very good. It takes like sweet potato. I kind of expected it to be different. But it surprisingly taste just like sweet potato and that’s a good thing. It's odd, in a good way.

We wandered the streets on the way to another temple. We saw little kimono shops and restaurants and a ryokan that was well over a hundred years old all lining the street leading up to the temple gate. As we entered in the garden at the base was beautiful. I want to say stunning but it is the wrong word. It is serene. It's green and lush and quiet, despite the throngs of fellow tourists, and, well, calming. We climbed the stairs up through the garden that lead to the temple that sits on top of this huge hill. There's one big main building and a few other smaller ones around it. There were tonnes of people. There's a little building with a giant wooden contraption that you spin for good luck. We saw some artifacts from the temple that have been preserved in a show room. They were really old. And some coins that came originally from China but that were dug up near by. Some of them were from before 700 AD. Un-freaking-believable. We went into the main building and there's this giant golden statue. It was odd looking around a people and seeing their different reactions. It was like being in a cathedrale in Europe. Most people (today this included me) were just looking around and sort of taking it in, but then there were others (today this was not me, but in Europe it was me) who were moved by the place of worship. There was one lady who you could tell was praying earnestly and was moved in her spirit by what she was seeing. Interesting. Up above the main building we climbed up to another view point. On the way down, there was this little corner of all these little Buddha guys. Some were really small, some were kinda medium sized, many of them had little home knit tea cozy hats on. Don't want their little Buddha head's to get a chill up there on that mountain top. Some even had little clothes on and keitai charms hanging from them.

Most of my pictures of today had to be of roof tops and such as I was trying to get some good flattering pictures, no small feat considering the hundreds of people who were in the same location as me. The weather started to turn and although it was bad, it just wasn't a nice day out anymore. I got to see the ocean!!! My heart leaped for joy when I saw the water. I couldn't believe how much I had missed it. I was starting to feel it a few days ago and had even considered trying to find some bit of waterfront in like Funabashi or something. I found a picture in the flyers that daily come to my door of a beautiful beach and the locator map looked like it was around here somewhere, but I couldn't make out the station name in Kanji, and so the location remains a mystery. I still want to find it because although I saw the ocean today and it made me feel a little better, I still have a growing desire to just sit at the water's edge and watch her roll in. I have always been a West Coast girl, and I forever will be at least a Coast girl, which Coast is fully up for discussion.

We headed back down the hill and entered the cave shrine. It was really small and really dark and I said that I felt like the Viet-cong or something. There's these carvings in the walls and they have little candles lit below that as offerings. Then we hit the street again. We decided to head back towards the station and to rustle up some grub. It was quite the walk back, especially considering that by this time it was almost three and we hadn't had lunch yet. We ate some lame "Italian" food and then headed down the main shopping drag of the town. All these temples and shrines are built around the town of Kamakura. So there's a real town thriving off, mostly, the tourists and visiting Japanese that come there throughout the year. The main drag up to the Shrine was about the most European feeling thing since arriving here. Some of the shops were decidedly Japanese, but there was a flowering boulevard down the middle of the street where you could walk and sidewalks (virtually unknown in Japan) and even a Polo Ralph Lauren. Odd.

The shrine has a very impressive massive red torii gate at all the entrances. The one we went in by starts with a huge old rock arched bridge, that you're not allowed on anymore because it's too old, so we went on the little flat ones that were constructed long ago to save the cool old one. Then it's a big, long, open, dusty walk that is evidently lined with booths through the summers up to the first building at the base of the massive wide set of stairs up to the shrine. Everything was big and open and the buildings were all very ostentatious and ornate, whereas the Buddhist temples are more unassuming (mostly anyway, other than the huge golden statues and giant bronze Buddhas). The temples are more like places that are supposed to bring you to calm and into a Zen like state, whereas the shrines are meant to be glorifying to the gods that are inside. I don't know. I don't know the differences of the religions at the heart of them, so I don't know how it truly plays out, these are just the observations I made through today as they seemed to be to me.

We headed back out and caught the train. We were greedy with the seats of the train this time, and the trains were WAY less crowded on the way back. We stopped back at Katsutadai for some Indian food near the rest of their homes. I ate and then headed out on my own at just after 8:30 for one more train stop up where I was meeting a bunch of folks to go bowling. I was about an hour late, but whatever. Bowling was odd. Fun and clearly reminiscent of bowling back home, but in the middle of people's games they stop everyone, turn on the black lights and then the people who's turn it was all have to bowl at the same time, then who ever gets a strike on the black light bowl gets a prize and gets their picture taken in a giant bowling pin outfit with all their friends. Then it all goes back to normal. We had a lot of fun. And then we got tokens for the gambling machines downstairs so the guys had to use up their free tokens, I pretty much gave mine over to be used in the machine that Dave had been working on. It was funny to watch them get so excited about one coin possibly going to drop, common, drop, oooooh, so close..with every coin put in the machine.

So now it's almost 2, I left the house at 8:30 this morning. And I'm meeting some folks on the platform again tomorrow just after 9 to go in to Tokyo.