The Christmas Rundown

Allow me to adjust my red felt hat and jingling belt before I begin typing.  The holidays are upon us, and that means Christmas jingles and lights everywhere, fried chicken ads on TV and excitement building as we approach the birthdays of Jesus and the Emperor.  We had our usual children’s Christmas party last weekend, and my group did a hidden picture search, with giant Christmas themed pictures projected onto the whiteboard.  Can you find the hidden Christmas fish, Billy?  No more kids parties this year, hooray!

Last weekend I attended a UNESCO workshop for high school students who wanted to discuss global issues.  Unfortunately the organizers decided that we had to discuss EVERY global issue in English within the time limit.  (There are 17 of them according to the UN in case you were wondering).  For next year I’m suggesting that UNESCO focus on funny cat videos, so the kids can get a little more conversation going.  There were over 60 kids and 12 or so English speakers, so I got a chance to network a little with some foreigners I hadn’t met before.  At the end of the event we were paid 3,000, and then I immediately got on a train to Nagoya and went to a concert that cost 3,100 yen.  It was in a little basement venue and the bands were playing a genre called “shoe gaze”.  It’s a form of rock with a lot of weird ambient noise that is apparently geared towards Japanese people who have a hard time making eye contact.  The event was organized by a coworker who spends months recruiting the best shoe gazers from around Japan.  Some people were supper into it, although I probably won’t listen to much shoe gaze until next December.

So this week I had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off.  Then I’ll work tomorrow and fly home on Friday.  No one else I know had the last three days off, so I picked up some discount train tickets and explored for a couple days.  On Tuesday I went to Kobe, which is the sixth biggest city in Japan.  I checked out the famous harbor and went to the top of this huge neon-clad tower, where I gazed at the sprawling metropolis and the giant light up “Merry Christmas” spelled out on the hills beyond the city.

Yesterday I went to a huge lake called Hamanako and explored a series of little islands that are connected by bridges.  Then I explored more in the nearby city of Hamamatsu, which I knew nothing about except that sometimes trains out of Ogaki terminate there.  It turns out it’s a huge city with 700,000 some people and a 50 story tower next to the train station.  I was going for two towers in two days, but sadly the Hamamatsu tower observation deck closed at 5:30.  Both trips took over 2 hours each way but only cost about $20 each thanks to a special seasonal ticket that lets you ride unlimited local trains for a whole day. 

Okay, I’m off to pick up a few Christmasy things and then start packing.  I’ll see everyone in a few days.

November

I see I’ve let nearly another month pass without a post, so let’s see what I can dig up to report.  Last weekend we had a huge Thanksgiving party at an American coworker’s house in Nagoya.  We crammed 16 people and about 50 pounds of food into a little living room that was about 200 square feet.  Our host somehow got a turkey (not available in stores here) and brought stuffing mix from the States.  It turns out Japanese people love stuffing for some reason.  I even got to watch the Vikings beat the Lions on tape delay!  It turned out to be almost all work people so it felt oddly like another company event, but fortunately there was also a ton of alcohol (including jello shots) so we were all able to communicate smoothly.  I made a solid 20 servings of mashed sweet potatoes, which unfortunately were underappreciated, so I have been eating sweet potatoes every day for the past week.  They are starting to grow on me.

What else?  I went to another opera concert, although this one was not followed by a raging after party or a cross dressing bar.  Come to think of it, I haven’t even cross dressed since my last blog post.  My singing coworker is taking a break from opera after this, so I soaked up as much of it as possible.  At the concert I also met my land lord and the president of Shimon.  Ogaki can be a really small city sometimes.

Other than that, I have been a little stressed about work for a while.  My boss gave us our new schedule for next year, which initially had me working on Saturday and continuing on at my three least favorite branches.  I balked at that and after hearing how badly my classes have been going, he agreed to give me a new schedule with no Saturdays.  He is also going to spread my crappy branches out amongst four Americans next year, so now I will have some people to commiserate with.  I will be teaching four days a week in Hellos, which will be similar to the classes I taught last time around.  I will still be “rented out” to Shimon on Wednesdays.  My other boss (the Shimon one) was very understanding about the change.  Although he invented the program I’ve been teaching this year, he admitted that many teachers have been having problems teaching it, including many students that are not trying or misbehaving.  It’s a relief to have this out of the way, as I’ve been getting progressively more frustrated with work over the last few months. 

Well the only other news I have is that I a got a ridiculously cheap ticket home for the holidays.  I got a direct flight from Tokyo to MSP for only $880.  I will be home from 12/22 to 1/1.  Let me know if you want souvenirs from Japan!  Otherwise you’re all getting used panties for Christmas!!