Monday, April 27--Friday, May 1

On Monday, there was a fire drill at school.  I was fortunate enough that one of the teachers let me know ahead of time, otherwise I wouldn't have known (they forget that I can't read the school schedule sometimes).  It still managed to catch me by surprise when there was an announcement and then everyone mysteriously vanished from the teacher's room.  One look outside into the yard, however, told me where to go.  

I was also asked by my head English teacher to make some emotion flashcards.  Instead of simply using pre-made clip art, I decided to make life extremely difficult for myself and draw some pictures.  I think I did a pretty good job.

"Hungry" was definitely my favorite.

The only problem was, apparently my drawings were...too good.  The students were too busy paying attention to the pictures rather than noticing the emotions they were trying to convey.  Oops.  Guess I have to tone it down for next time.

After school, there was a heart-stopping moment where I almost left my hanko on the counter of a Lawson's convenience store.  I took it out of my coin purse in order to dig around for change and thought, "This is too important to forget.  I'll just set it down right here."  

Pff, famous last words.  

Within point two seconds I had completely forgotten that I had taken it out and almost walked right out of the store without it.  Thank God for the vigilant woman standing behind me in line who knew exactly what I had left there and grabbed me before I could leave.  I left with my hanko in hand and my face redder than before.

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Wednesday was a holiday (Showa Day) so there was no school.  I took the opportunity to go to Elena's apartment to discuss our upcoming Golden Week plans.  We were planning on the late end (compare it to planning winter break getaways three day before Christmas), but we were hoping we'd still be able to manage without too much trouble.

The bus I took to Elena's place was decked out in Girls und Panzer anime stickers.  Japan's sense of promotional decor will never cease to amaze me.  Elena had given me specific directions on how to take the bus to her stop but I, of course, went forth in the traditional Kathryn manner and promptly forgot how to do it.  I missed her stop completely and had to wait for the bus to turn around and take me back.  

When I finally got there, we couldn't decide what we wanted for lunch.  We figured we'd walk around a bit and see what looked good.  I guess we should have remembered that Elena doesn't live in the most urban of areas.  Finding a food place ended up taking us about an hour.  Also, we got lost.

Some very nice looking flowers.

Some very nice looking weeds

Folks working on the rice field at the end of Elena's street.

After wandering in a huge, convoluted circle, we finally decided on a ramen shop not too far from her house.  By this time, we had worked up quite an appetite.  The ramen shop was pretty small inside, but very comfortable.  We sat at the counter, surrounded by spices, and mulled over the menu.  Thankfully Elena can read some Japanese, otherwise I might have ordered a side of butter by itself without realizing it.  I can't remember what I ordered, but when it arrived it was absolutely amazing.  I'm always taken by surprise when a bowl of ramen is placed in front of me.  I'm not used to ramen bowls being as big as my face.  Needless to say, it was delicious.  We'll have to come back to this place again.

We ordered coke.  We were delighted when they plopped these in front of us.

*drool*

We then visited a bakery just down the street from the ramen shop.  The ladies there served us tea while we were looking around.  I walked out with a few buns of something or another.  Because I can't read any Japanese yet, some food items I buy end up being a surprise.  It can be quite an adventure.

Case in point.  I discovered salad in my bread.

For our Golden Week excursion, Elena wanted to go to Osaka to see her friend Shoko.  Kyoto and Kobe were in the same relative region, so we decided to hit up those areas, too.  We started looking up hotels.  

All of the hotels in those areas were, predictably, either completely full or extremely expensive due to the high travel demand.  All of the rooms that were left were around ¥100,000 for four nights (or $1000. Yikes.) or too far away from our destinations for it to really be worthwhile.  We'd be spending all our time traveling (in retrospect, that's what we ended up doing anyway).  

Then, by some Internet miracle, we found a hotel room for ¥40,000 ($400--for the both of us!).  It was a 2 star hotel, but it was within walking distance to the Sakai station and wasn't in a shady area.  Success!  We sacrificed a cyber goat to the deities of the Internet and turned our attention to the next thing.

Transportation.  In order to get there within a reasonable amount of time, taking the Shinkansen, or bullet train, seemed our best bet.  All we had to do was go to the Mito Station ticket office and buy some tickets.  

Maybe we should have sacrificed some cyber goats to the deities of the Japan Railway, too.  Trying to get our hands on Shinkansen tickets ended up being a huge pain in the neck.  

As per the usual way of planning vacations, everyone else wanted to leave early and get back late as well, so all the times we wanted to reserve tickets were already taken.  What wasn't taken was a Shinkansen traveling to Shin-Osaka in the mid-afternoon on Saturday (which would get us to our hotel in Sakai at 8pm), and a Shinkansen on the return trip on Wednesday at 9 in the morning (getting us back home in the afternoon).  Long story short, after a few hair-pulling days of last-minute ticket buying (and a little helpful assistance by Taylor), we got our reservations for all our trains and got ready for our upcoming week of vacation.

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I can't resist taking pictures of my school's neighborhood on a nice day.  I took these while heading over to Taylor's house for dinner on Thursday night.

My apartment is behind the gym (red-striped building) across the river. 

I cross this bridge every day to get to school.

Look how cute the emergency vehicles are! Like Tonka Trucks!

At dinner, Taylor introduced me to his elderly neighbor, Mr. Kobayashi.  Mr. Kobayashi is a sharp old gentleman and very charming.  We passed the evening talking about our families, how I was enjoying Japan and my work, and about ourselves.  We also enjoyed a delicious crock-pot dinner made by Taylor.

I think I must have had like, three bowls of rice. No wonder I'm fat.

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I bought a Japanese magazine while I was at the station at some point.  It had Baymax on it so of course I was going to buy it.  

Japanese magazines are interesting.  Sometimes they have gifts in them that are advertised on the cover.  They're mostly little things like bags or pouches, but sometimes they'll shove a small umbrella in there.  Japan's pretty cool like that.

Now...what to put inside this...

Monday, April 20--Sunday, April 26: My first week at Mito-Shi Dai San Chuu Gakko

I love the route I take to school.  Once I'm off the main street, it's very relaxing and peaceful and I appreciate the view of the canal all the way through the neighborhood.  All the pictures I'm going to upload from here on out are in chronological order, so excuse the lack of visual sense.

I kept hearing all these strange, propaganda-like announcements being made all throughout the week, and for a while I couldn't figure out where they were coming from.  They would appear through neighborhoods, down my street, down major streets, and either be in a male or female voice.  I rapidly figured it out that it must be election time.  Sure enough, it was.  The people inside the vans waved at everyone like they were going to be crowned Miss Universe, so I had to wave back at them.

Some pretty flowers outside someone's house.

I went to Saizeriya for dinner at one point (or two).  It's a Japanese Italian restaurant that has pretty much exactly what Japanese folks would put on Italian food.  Various dishes of seafood-pasta, hamburg dinners (which isn't hamburger in the American sense; it's more like meatloaf), and some mayonnaise-topped entrees (although they do have some delicious little breads). I took a picture of the table bell, which is a standard in many restaurants.  The waiter sometimes will not approach your table until your bell is pressed.  If the tables don't have a bell or a chime, it's perfectly acceptable to call out "Sumimasen!" across the restaurant in order to get a waiter's attention (or so I've heard.  I personally haven't done that yet).

The head teachers at San Chuu liked the Welcome signs I gave them.  They put one on display outside the teacher's room for a while.  Weeks later, I'm STILL finding glitter on the teacher's room floor.

The teachers liked the idea that I could paint names in Disney characters so much that they asked if I could make a certificate for the winners of a Spelling Test that would be happening at the end of the week.  I told them that I no longer had my paints or brushes, but I'd give it a shot with what I had. 

It took a LOT longer than a simple letterbrush painting.  Everyone really liked it, though.  I was even asked to present it to one of the classes that had won by request of their homeroom teacher.  It's now stapled up on their wall, nicely laminated.

I specifically picked characters that I knew were popular in Japan. 

Once in a while I'll remember to take pictures of my school.  No pictures of students, of course.  They're very strict about that.  

The teacher's entrance.  The student entrance is outside to the right.

Facing the student entrance.  Teacher's entrance is behind the flowery tree.

Student bicycle parking structure (with my bike)

In the middle of the week, I left school as usual and was in for a neat surprise.  Giant carp flags had been strung along the canal in honor of the upcoming Children's Day holiday (May 5th).

Kamado Shrine, right along the banks of Bizenbori

While at the station one day, I saw the mascot for Mito City's soccer team, the Hollyhocks.  The mascot, Holly-kun, is pictured on the little blue milk cartons that are an essential part of all Mito City school lunches.  I think he's cute, so I had to snap a picture (and take a selfie with him to send to my sister.  I knew that's what she would have done if she had been with me).

At the end of the week, my school had an enkai, or welcome party, at a local hotel.  It was a great opportunity to meet and chat with my new coworkers outside of the school environment and just see everyone relaxed.  People made speeches (about what, I had no idea, but I was highly entertained anyway), and I was informed that I would have to make one as well.  As soon as I got up to the front, my speech mainly consisted of: "Konbanwa.  Arigato gozaimasu" and then a small bit of English that immediately lost many of my coworkers, but went along the lines of "Thanks for welcoming me to your school and the educational community."  I then ended with the versatile "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" and was met with a hearty round of applause.  It was great.

Much of the evening was spent socializing with the teachers and pouring drinks for each other.  Pouring drinks is a huge deal at social events.  People will simply go up to the person that they wish to talk to and offer to pour them more of whatever they're drinking.  If the person's drink is completely full, they will quickly gulp some down and then hold out their glass to accept more.  I walked around with both tea and beer in my hands and made a point to pour drinks and chat with every teacher I could.  Even if we couldn't say much beyond our names and such, it was still nice to be officially introduced to everyone.  

The most entertaining part of the evening occurred after much of the drink-pouring and the first few courses of food.  First, all the teachers sang San Chuu's School song (which I got a copy of, but unfortunately still can't read).  I really enjoyed listening to it and wished I could participate. 

Afterwards, there was something that I later found out was a cheer/chant of sorts.  At the time, I had no idea what I was watching.  The Curriculum director took off his suit jacket, put his tie on his head, and basically began screaming at the top of his lungs in Japanese.  It was incredible to watch for the first time with absolutely no context.  At first I thought they were acting out a skit, because even a few of the other teachers got involved in whatever was going on.  It made for a very memorable evening.

Once the weekend hit, I finally had time to do my laundry!  When in Japan, do like the Japanese do:  buy a bunch of clothespins and let the sun do what it does best.  The laundry detergent smells really good.  Thank you, former AET tenant, for leaving behind good-smelling detergent and an adjuster bar so I didn't have to buy them.