It's around that time and the weather has changed here in Sabae. It went from being a cool 60 degrees or so in early fall, to about 40 and raining every day. I suppose I was spoiled with 4 Los Angeles winters in the recent past, but the snows will come soon and freeze to death whatever remaining brain cells still harbor any memories of that beautiful time and place. I splurged just a small bit and bought a large, soft, wonderful down comforter that actually cost more than my Japanese-style futon pad/bed, so I've kept fairly comfy (I know you were all worried).
The Japanese have also invented an additional more interesting way of keeping warm, the kotatsu. This is a small table with a removable top. Under the table is a small heater that plugs into the wall via a power cord. When cold weather rolls around, you can put a special blanket underneath the tabletop. Then you can turn on the heater, stick your legs under the table and feel all your concerns about hypothermia melt away. Couple this with a plug-in heated floor rug and another small plug in heater, and everything should be groovy when the real frost hits... I hope. A nice looking young man from Google Image Search warms his bones under a kotatsu.
Sorry that I haven't posted anything in a while, I guess the daily grind is getting to me a bit. Luckily I still had time to snap some more random pics from around Japan. Enjoy.
Kid's Beer Yep, it's exactly what it sounds like. "Beer" marketed to kids. Remember those candy cigarettes you used to buy as a kid? Well Japan saw those and raised you a cold, frosty beer. Except this actually has pictures of kids on it, so there's not even any plausibly deniable Joe Camel-esqe concealment of this company's motives. Of course the "beer" is non-alcoholic, but look, it foams like real beer and everything! Actually I looked it up it says the original company that sold this just called it kid's beer, but it didn't look or taste anything like the real stuff. Then it sold so well on name alone that a giant corporation bought it and changed it to look, act, and taste just like the real thing. Wow Japan, wow.
Old School Game Cartridges at a Designer Clothing Store in Osaka
Basically none of the effin' clothes fit me in this country, so when my friends go shopping I look at the store decorations. This one happened to have awesome old video games. Oh yeah and the one in the nintendo at the time was "The Goonies Official Game", still playable. Awesome. Steez Kick ass Bastarding No clue. On the DJ booth at a random Fukui bar.
City Hotel New Urban Time and Space This was the hotel we stayed at in Tokyo the second time around. Actually it kind of makes sense once you've been to Tokyo.
Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks. The first one is a student's bag. It reads: 'Hello Kitty: My room is full of fun things! Come over! Let's play together!' Slow down Kitty-chan, I don't know you that well...
Sweater from an Osaka high-fashion boutique. Reads: 'KISS ME MY MOUTH IS (peace sign) FILLED.' Doesn't this company have an English fact-checker to tell them that sounds like some disgusting sex act?!?! 5 out of 5 friends I showed this to didn't even see the peace sign. Sweater FAIL.
Here is some bread I made on our school field trip. The smiley-face guy up top is a Japanese cartoon character named 'Anpanman', you can google him to find out what he really looks like. The Japanese word for bread is 'pan', borrowed from the Spanish. The bottom is an x-mas tree, and the things on the left are just formless pastries.
I'm not even sure I can do this one justice. The students were supposed to translate sentences from Japanese to English. The correct sentence should have read, 'I crossed the new bridge yesterday'. Instead, she somehow came up with I MOVED THE NEW POON YESTERDAY. I can undertand 'moved' instead of 'crossed', but 'poon'?!?! What the hell? I think this young lady needs a stern talking to and some soap to clean out her mouth!
A big part of my job is correcting essays that my 2nd year students do in Writing class. My kids probably aren't the best English students in the world, but they still try to get some pretty complex points across in their essays. Almost all of them own electronic dictionaries, where they can put Japanese Kanji characters in and get translations on words and phrases. The dictionary gets stumped a lot, and spits out some hilarious stuff a majority of the time. Here are some examples of funny dictionary-influenced writing.
"The person left (after war) is very spicy." Huh?
This girl respects my motor nerves. I can't say I've ever received that compliment before, nor am I likely to get it again.
Actually this one is just adorable. Also "I long am long for because I am short". Next lesson: why you shouldn't use the term "long for" to refer to another person.
Weed. Japan loves it. Not smoking it, growing it, or possessing it mind you; just the idea of it. Marijuana is one of Japanese people's favorite decorative items. My teachers and students' mothers have pot-leaf air fresheners in their car. My students have weed-themed pencil boxes. In a country where getting caught with trace amounts of pot lands you in jail for a minimum of 5 years and smoking the stuff is paramount to social suicide, it's kind of hard to understand how the theme became so popular or widely accepted. The leading gaijin (foreigner) theory on the subject is this: Japanese people love Jamaica. They love reggae music, Bob Marley, Jamaican flags, everything. Apparently somewhere along the way some Japanese person saw the aforementioned Jamaican stuff associated with a funny looking leaf. They then started putting said funny looking leaf on t-shirts, baby bottles, etc. According to those who have lived here a while, no Japanese people even realize that it's a marijuana leaf! They just think it's some kind of Jamaican icon (which I guess it is...) Hilarious.
Here are some example pictures for y'all:
Here are some "decorative bongs" from our local Jamaican restaurant on the left, and their sign with prominent weed leaves on the right.
Here is a CHILD SIZED pot leaf t-shirt! Notice the sign above the shirt that says "KID's".
Last but not least, no poser Japanese Rasta's collection would be complete without a "Leealise It" sign from the local weed clothing store.
Found this gem in one of the teacher's rooms today:
Apparently, it's a lost in translation phrase. In Japanese, "is my mother" means someone is stubborn (I think). One of our English teachers is a pretty funny guy and put this on the board with the instructions "translate to Japanese" on the left. Somehow I doubt anyone is going to do it correctly.
Here are some random funny pictures I've been taking during my travels around Fukui Prefecture. Click pictures to enlarge if need be.
P.S. I recently had the opportunity to exhaust and nearly kill myself by climbing Mt. Fuji, I'm just waiting on some pictures taken by friends, then I'll post an exhaustive write-up, promise! :)
That's right ladies and gentlemen: BROILED EEL ICE CREAM. If I were you I would grab an American flag, kiss the ground, and start singing the Star Spangled Banner right now because being in the USA means you never have to eat ice cream that tastes like eel. The little sign says "オススメ" or "recommended" and that it's "No. 1". Yikes. I avoided their recommendation and went with rum raisin.
Tommy Lee Jones is the spokesperson for Suntory BOSS coffee here in Japan. His face is plastered all over vending machines and billboards here, always with a big, boldfaced BOSS right next to his famous mug. All the vending machines say, in English, "Suntory Boss is the boss of them all since 1992." That's pretty boss if you ask me.
Not quite as funny, but this sign is typical of the English used in signs around town. There's really not even any reason why the person making this sign should have screwed up - It's not like "dining" is spelled that way in Japanese. And if you have the sense to capitalize "Rico", why don't you have the sense to make bar and Rico two different words? I'm chalking this one up to pure carelessness.
On Tuesday I took a train about 1 hour north of Sabae to a small seaside town called Mikuni for a day of beachside fun and fireworks in the evening. The beach was great, but unfortunately the waves were weak in comparison to anywhere in California, so there wasn't much opportunity for body surfing or anything of that sort. The area was packed with people all day in anticipation for the fireworks, and by nightfall there must've been about 10,000 there. Once the sun set it was time for the big fireworks show. I have to say that it was by far the best fireworks show I've ever seen in my life. The local crew really went all out with the display. To give you an idea of how it was done: the beach is moon shaped and only around 3 football fields long, with bars of land a few hundred meters long jutting out into the ocean on each side. One of the bars of land was completely sectioned off, and this is where they shot the fireworks off from. Not only did they shoot straight up into the air, but they somehow managed to shoot the mortars out horizontally only 25 or so feet over the water at times too. Most impressively though, they had two boats which sped around throwing lit mortars into the water. I've never seen or even heard of anything like this, and it was just as awesome as it sounds with dozens of mortars creating massive explosions on the water while the boats presumably fled as fast as they could. As if awesome fireworks wasn't enough, on the land bar workers were also lighting giant kanji (japanese word/pictures) aflame on the shore. Once those were done, they lit what had to be a 200-300 meter long rope which showered a 30ft high wall of flame down the entire landbar. Another part of the show included picture fireworks, such as a giant fish or shooting an arrow through a target. There were also a series of special fireworks which mostly consisted of extra-giant mortars individually designed to do crazy stuff. I think the best part of the whole show was the super excited announcer who would frantically describe every firework event as if he were introducing the '96 Chicago Bulls. Hearing something like, "(frantic Japanese, frantic Japanese) SUPAH EXPLOSIVE FIRE GRRAAAND FINALIEEEEEE!!!" only served to bump my firework watching experience from a 10 to an 11 on the awesomeness scale.
After the show was over, four of us decided to try and camp out on the beach. This was kind of an all-or-nothing experiment, as none of us had cars, and the last train home until morning was at 11pm. Besides a 2 person tent, passports, and wet swim trunks, we didn't have much, so we set our for the nearest konbini (24hr convenience store) guided by the GPS of a trusty iPhone. Unfortunately, the trusty iPhone actually ended up leading us in circles for about an hour. This being summer in Japan and it therefore being 80 degrees with ridiculous humidity, we didn't get to the konbini until we were all soaked with sweat and ready to pass out. Finally, after a daunting uphill trek, we spied the glorious flourescent lights of Circle K. We purchased our beer and snacks and scarfed them down out front. I'll tell you this: there is nothing quite like hanging out front of a konbini in the middle of nowhere in rural Japan at one in the morning. Strange things were afoot at the Circle K.
First a couple of drunk guys pulled up, and the one of them who was driving actually slammed into the automatic door while trying to enter the store. They bought some drunkie snack food, ate it in their car, and threw all the wrappers out the window. They took off and almost drove right over the two foot high curb before slamming on the brakes and correcting the mistake. As they swerved off, a cop appeared out of nowhere right on their tail... I would assume they got pulled over.
As the drunks left to meet their fate, we encountered the next fellow wanderer in the night: squatting girl. This girl looked to be about 16 and was squatting by herself at the edge of the parking lot. I should mention at this point that squatting flat footed is apparently very common and confortable for Japanese people, but physically impossible to most westerners from a flexibility standpoint. Anyways, this 90lb teenage girl was just hanging out by herself in the middle of nowhere at the edge of an unlit parking lot.
Unfortunately for her, after 10 minutes passed she encountered the third group of vagabonds: the roving scooter gang. This guys, about the same age as the girl, were weaving back and forth through the general vicinity with gangsta blue bandanas tied around their faces. The only thing killing their badass look was the 50cc yamaha putt-putt scooters they were riding. When they pulled up next to squatting girl, we naturally thought the worst, and I was forced to consider whether saving this damsel in distress by beating the gangsters over the head with their own 25lb scooters was feasible. We had forgotten one important detail though; this is Japan, not downtown LA, New York, or Chicago. The guys probably asked the girl where she got her Hello Kitty cell phone decorations or something, and were on their way.
Anyways, after the Circle K weirdness we made it back to the beach around 1:30am prepared to set up camp and enjoy the serenity of the ocean at night. Sadly, we had failed to take into account a few problems. First, there were dozens of people on the beach still! Most of them were roaming through the trash on the beach with flashlights, looking for forgotten treasure such as wallets, cell phones, etc. Also, of all the people on the beach, we were the only ones who seemed to be spending the night there. Our concern grew when we were approached by no less than seven police officers, asking for our passports and speaking way to much Japanese. We played the part of dumb foreigners to perfection, and the police left us alone most likely out of fear for the hassle kicking us off would entail them. Finally, we could burrow inside our tent and get a nice, peaceful nights rest.
Nope. As soon as the cops were out of sight, a motley band of evil Japanese high schooler hillbillies showed up... with fireworks. Since of course seeing the ultra-expensive multi thousand dollar display earlier in the night could only be improved by lighting off 2 cent effing firecrackers for the next two hours. I'm pretty sure at one point they were actually standing over our tent lighting these things off. Once these evil rebels decided they'd had all the fun they could stand, it was time for some nice shut eye... for about an hour. Then of course around 5:30am it was time for a full Normandy-style assault on Mikuni beach, for cleaning purposes. The troops, which consisted of hundreds of middle school students with teachers, as well as two loud ass diesel engine dunebuggy/golf cart/beach dragger hybrids, were a gentle, refreshing awakening after one whole hour of sleep. After packing up the tent, it was just one quick hour long train ride to my glorious 2 inch thick Japanese style futon pad bed and hours of make-up sleep along with it.
***I've uploaded some images which cannot hope to convey the epicness of the Mikuni fireworks display. The first photo is a shot of about half of the beach, taken early during the day but you can see how packed it is. You can also see a bit of one of the land bars that goes out into the water. This isn't the one they shot fireworks off of, but hopefully you get the picture. The other photo is of one of the boat-dropped mortars exploding on the water, and the video below is similar. The video isn't mine... I took my own but it had way to much cursing from all of us having our collective minds blown by the incredible fireworks :)***
Here are some photos I snapped on my phone at a mall in the city of Takefu. Why choose between dressing up as sheep or monkeys, when you can do both? I think this family had the right idea.
So I decided I would fill everyone in on one of my favorite things about Japan so far, Engrish. Engrish is a term used to describe what happens when non-native English speakers with limited skills are inexplicably tasked with designing important things like clothing, food labels, and signs. The first examples I have are funny but not too terrible, probably a 6 on the Engrish scale of hilarity. I happened upon this iced banana drink at a gas station during the drive to Fukui. Apparently it isn't cold. In fact, it's not even truely cool. It is simply, "Coolish". Please don't confuse this with the Snoop Dogg designed California version, "Cool Ish".
Another one I found was at the entrance to the karaoke bar. It reads, "We love,,, Singing". The triple comma, while an awesome idea in theory, often leads to excruciatingly long pauses during conversation.
Well, I'm finally done with orientations, and have begun moving into my new apartment in Sabae. Tokyo orientation was full of long days, long nights and futilely making friends with people I'll probably never see again. Once I was able to meet up with the Fukui ALT's who I'll be around for the next year, we all got to go out and do some bonding activities. We went to a place called the Christon Cafe in the Shibuya district in Tokyo. This district is one of the most surreal places I've ever seen. I suppose it's like the Times Square of Tokyo, but probably with 10x more people.
The Christon Cafe itself can only be described as outrageous. The cafe is gothic-Christ themed... as in there are bleeding, dying Jesuses all over the cafe. There was also a painting of the Pope, with a little mini-me Pope attached to his front on a baby harness. Confusing. Decor aside, the cafe was delicious. It's a nomihodai place, which means "all you can drink". For about $30 US, we were treated to a 5 course meal, with unlimited drinks for about 2 hours. Not a bad deal in the least.
After the cafe we were all in good spirits (and good spirits were in us, if you get my drift), so we headed out once again for karaoke. Japanese karaoke is not what you'd find at your typical bowling alley in the US (shout out to All Star Lanes though!). You pay a flat fee, something like $20 a person, and you get your own private booth for an hour. Inside the booth, it's all you can drink once again, and you order through a phone on the wall in the booth. The setup is sweet, with a large TV and wireless electronic device which you input song selections into. The selection of songs was great; they had every English song I could think of, including all time classics like Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend". That was just one section of the selection book, as there were also J-Pop sections, Korean Pop sections, etc. They even give you tambourines so the not-so-vocally-inclined can shimmy to the music! In all I'd say it was a more than successful night out on the town, as well as a great escape from the monotony of Tokyo Orientation.*
Another great opportunity I had in Tokyo was to go up to the public observation tower at night to get a better view of the city. The Tower is appx. 60 floors up on a public building, with a 360 degree view of the city. This was my first chance to get a real idea of the scope of Tokyo, and let me tell you it is gigantic. I've never been to New York, but I can safely say Los Angeles or San Francisco seem like villages compared to this place. At night, skyscrapers fill the view as far as the eye can see in every direction. The closest description I can give you is that it looks like the city in Blade Runner, without the flying cars. I took some pictures that will hopefully give everyone who's never been an idea of how big Tokyo really is.
*link to karaoke fun: http://www.youtube.com/user/brett3053#play/all/uploads-all/0/7lUWdwod3Zw
Just got into Tokyo for orientation. All it took was a lovely 11 hour plane ride over the Pacific Ocean to get me here. So far I've only had just enough time to sneak out for dinner (even though it's 4am in California right now). We ate at a restaurant where you place your order via machine, and they give you a ticket which you take up to the cooks, who then prepare your meal. Efficient and delicious! I had the katsu-donThen we somehow stumbled upon the most expensive bar in the world, where the waiter kneeled down to hand us hot towels when we arrived. I payed $8 for what else... an Anchor Steam. Nothing like paying 2-3x what you would normally for a Northern California beer! The only other thing of note is that I was assaulted by the android toilet in my hotel room, which looks like it came straight out of the new Terminator movie. It washed and violated me in ways I am only beginning to understand. Nothing like the sound of shifting gears and robo-arms while you do your business! I've also put a picture taken on my dinner trek through the Shinjuku district of Tokyo.
Welcome to my blog, Brett in Sabae. This is where I'll chronicle the next year in my life as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Sabae, Fukui, Japan. While I envision this mainly as a way for my friends and family to follow me in my adventures, I hope to pick up some future JETs and maybe some random folks as well.
I suppose I'll use this first post to fill everyone in on myself and what I know so far...
I'm a 22 year old American from Corning, California. I graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles in May with a degree in politics. I applied for the JET program last fall, and after an incredibly long wait I found out that I had been 1) accepted 2) placed in Fukui Prefecture and 3) placed at a high school in Sabae (with a few months in between each of those notices). All I know about Sabae so far is that it is in the rural Fukui prefecture, it's a town of about 60,000 people, and they manufacture 20% of the world's supply of eyeglass frames. There seems to be some sweet skiing and hiking opportunities nearby, and maybe if I'm lucky I can get in on some touch rugby and Buddhist meditation. Hopefully I'll learn a bit more as I get in contact with my predecessor, and of course ultimately I'll be there in only two weeks time!
I suppose that's all for now, and I suspect my next post will be from orientation in Tokyo!
Basically none of the effin' clothes fit me in this country, so when my friends go shopping I look at the store decorations. This one happened to have awesome old video games. Oh yeah and the one in the nintendo at the time was "The Goonies Official Game", still playable. Awesome.
No clue. On the DJ booth at a random Fukui bar.
