Narita-San

Last weekend (it seems impossible to be any less than a week behind,) my friend Iris, another ALT hailing from the Claremont Colleges, came up from Kagoshima to stay a night with me in Kurume. While we weren't able to try out El Sol, Kurume's sole proprietor of Mexican food because it was reserved for a private wedding party, we did make it to Narita-San, the hulking white statue that towers over western Kurume.

Narita-san is primarily a destination for those suffering from health issues, but according to the nice English flyer we got, it is also a place to go for "blessings for traffic safety, fortune increase, business success, family well-being, the salvation of aborted babies, the gratification of all wishes and protection from evil." How could one expect any less from the tallest shrine on Kyushu (standing 62 meters high. Just on Kyushu? That means there's an even bigger one somewhere else!)

Narita-san is visible from the end of my street and since Iris didn't have a bike to ride, we decided to walk. It was a lovely hot, humid morning. The walk only took about 20 minutes, but the trip hardly seemed worth it without climbing up inside of the statue. We paid our 500 yen, and walked around to the back of the statue into a room with a life-size diorama of people from all walks of life gathered around a huge Buddha. There was even a blonde woman in lacy-petticoats from the 19th century among the worshipers! The hall leading from the room was soon just a staircase that lead up, up, up into Narita-san's insides. The walls were off white, and the stairs were grey. The monotony of the colorscheme was broken up a bit by small photos in old frames showing the construction of Narita-san during the 1950's and there were a few landings with paintings and other Buddhist parphenalia. Every so often, there was a tiny window that looked out on some rice fields, a bunch of houses and the other trappings of suburbia (shopping centers, fast food restaurants and the like). While the steps weren't very steep, there was little to no air conditioning, and I think both Iris and I emerged about 10 lbs lighter thanks to the copious amount of sweating we did inside. And that's about all we gained from our climb. The top was basically a wall that prevented the stairs from going any further, half a dozen more tiny windows and a very plain Buddha statue with a small box underneath for money. All those stairs for that? I should mention that Iris and I were the only people crazy enough to climb inside an un-air conditioned statue in the middle of August. I am sure all of the locals know better.

At the end of our desecent, we followed the signs to the "Place of Heaven and Hell" which led us down a nice cool underground corridor to a little museum of sorts with nice displays and beautiful mosaics. In one corner however, there was a black archway decorated with plastic skulls...the doorway to hell could not have been made clearer. The path through the archway did a tight little circle through a small room, lit in reds and greens complete with animatronic demons tourturing and devouring less than devout human beings. I thought it was pretty funny in the midst of other rather serious looking religious iconography. I also enjoyed that hell was air conditioned; scenery aside, it was much more pleasant than outside.

Satisfied with our visit to Narita-san, Iris and I then conquered the bus system and ate at an Indian restaurant near the train station before she caught the train back to Fukuoka where she then caught her bus back to Kagoshima. I walked around the Ichibangai shopping area for a while and took the bus back to the apartment, where I recovered from the morning's adventures by sitting under the A/C, eating a popsicle and watched 5 episodes of Prison Break back to back to back on Fox.

Baseball Maddness

I appologize for the Reader's Digest version of the Soft Bank Hawks Baseball Game. Here's the stadium. Its pretty new, and fancy. Like Chase Park in Phoenix, it has a retractable roof, but it only opens when the Hawks win, which hasn't been very often in the past few weeks. It however, does not have a swimming pool, or multiple levels of seats. Everyone, except the CEOs in their business suites, sits on the same level.

The inside. Nice artificial turf and green seats give the whole thing a very bright look. Then add the beer vendors in their neon orange, pink and yellow outfits...you can't miss them. Beers of a generous size were 700 yen. That's what beers of an unreasonably small size cost in the States. Chalk one up for Japanese Baseball.

The entire outfield section of the seats is filled with very enthusiastic fans that cheer in unison throughout the whole game. I found them very entertaining as long as I didn't care about what was happening on the field. To keep them all on the beat, there is a rotating team of cheering captains that stand infront of the section and keep time. The guy below is now the personal hero of all of the ALTs in the Kita-Chikugo Board of Education for his professionalism and accurate hand motions. After each cheer, he would tip his hat to the crowd and take a bow. Note the white gloves...this guy took his position very seriously.

The Hawks logo. Looks more like a chicken to me. The team has a whole family of "hawks" that run out on the field and pose on their merchandise. Dad and Mom, 3 kids, and a crazy uncle. Not sure if that is really their relationship, but you get the point. Something to appeal to everyone. Speaking of merchandise, we were probably the only people in the whole Yahoo Dome not weilding the hollow plastic mini-bat noisemakers.

Seventh inning: in the States, we stretch and sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which is a little silly if you think about it, because if you made it through to the seventh inning, you are clearly already at the game. Maybe the lyrics of the song the Japanese sang were similar, but I got the feeling it was more about rallying for victory. As the song is starting, people begin to blow up these long yellow ballons....

...towards the end of the song, the bleachers aound the staduim are a sea of yellow...

...and then at the end of the song---WHOOSH! Everyone lets go of their balloons, which fly up towards the ceiling and a few seconds later, you get hit by things that feel like banana peels falling from the sky.

As if the whole balloon extravaganza, walking through the mob back to the subway and getting on the train around 10:30 PM wasn't exciting enough for a Wednesday night with work the next morning, our supervisor suggested that we go out for an hour of karaoke. Not wanting to offend, we said yes (conveniently for him, his last day of summer vacation was on Thursday). We went to a place called "Magic World" near one of the train stations in Kurume, and it was truly an experience. For those of you who don't know, karaoke in Japan is a not an exercise in public humiliation. You and your friends get your own private room, and often the price includes snacks and drinks. It turns out that our supervisor can sing in addition to speak near flawless English, and he blew us all away with the Righteous Brothers "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling," while I screeched out some Kelly Clarkson. Aside from Shintani-sensei's singing, my favorite part was the duet Jamie and performed to Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous Girl." She was Nelly, I was Timberland. The decor of this place is not to go unmentioned. The below picture shows just a glimpse of the exterior. I guess you'll have to come visit if you want to see the inside...

***This is probably just the first of many adventures with Shintani-sensei. Like most, if not all Japanese, he is all business in the office, but he sufficiently drank Dave under the seats at the baseball game and seemed truly disappointed when our hour of karaoke was up. His birthday is tomorrow, August 21, and we are taking him out on Wednesday....

And on your right...

Two Fridays ago, the University of Kurume's Intensive English Program coordinated a tour of Kurume for all of the new ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers, like myself.) We were met at the closest train station, picked up by a bus and shuttled to campus, where we met our "guides," Japanese students currently studying English. They were all adorable, and very modest about their English ablities, when half of them probably knew more about grammar than I do. The other half were getting there, and I think just shy by nature. After introductions and a brief power point about all that Kurume has to offer (many slides of shopping centers, ramen shops, some parks) the floor was opened up for questions. From what I could gather, the typical Kurume University student spent a lot of time eating ramen and going to karaoke, while attending the occassional festival. One of the girls confessed a love for all things Harry Potter, and told us that she was going to try very hard to read the last book in English, because she would have to wait another year (?) for the Japanese version to be published.

After a rather non-descript cafeteria lunch, we got on the bus and headed out to see the sights of the city. The first stop was the Kora Shrine, located on a neighboring hill overlooking the city. As the bus navigated the small turns up the hill, every so often there was a break in the trees and you could see the steps leading up to the shrine from the bottom of the hill. One day, when it is much cooler, Allison and I want to go back and climb them. For now though, we were more than thankful for the bus's air conditioning.

At the top, we entered through the back of the shrine, and immediately could see the city laid out infront of us. Before even looking at the shrine itself, I went over to the special observation deck. This is what I saw:

Even better than the view from City Hall! It was much clearer, and we could see very far, into neighboring prefectures! (I just made that up, but perhaps if I had known where to look, it would have worked.) So after soaking up the view, I turned around to look at the shrine. I don't know too much about shrine architecture right now, but I am hoping to learn a bit more while I am here. I am pretty sure the large stone statues in front are there to guard the shrine...

Where the people are in the above photo, there is a large bell and an offering trough. I think we all threw in 10 yen and said a little prayer for good luck. ( I believe I wished for an early autumn.)

There were just a few other crazy people out in the hot sun at the shrine. My Japanese guide, Saori kept saying "Atsui, atsui" which means hot, and getting pebbles stuck in her fashionable white sandals. In contrast to the relatively private viewing we got, the Kora Shrine is a totally different place at New Years, when people from all over come to ask for good luck in the coming year. New Years is the only time when a public bus goes up the hill...all other times of year its private transportation or your own two feet.

Back on the bus to our next stop: the Ishibashi Culture Center. Mr. Ishibashi is one of Kurume's claims to fame. His name might ring a bell once it's translated: ishi means stone, and bashi means bridge...yup, Bridgestone Tires originated here in Kurume. Needless to say, Mr. Ishibashi made out quite well and collected lots of art, but he didn't want it to just sit in his house, so he built an art museum to show it all off. While it pales in comparison to the Getty, it was showing an interesting exhibition while we were there. All the art was done by Japanese artists, but depicted foreign locations, presumably painted while the artists were studying abroad. One of my favorite pieces was Three Grazing Horses by Sakamoto Hanjiro.

Another highlight from this stop, which I unfortunately don't have a photo of, was the homemade robot that stood in a separate culture center office, which was responsible for coordinating concerts and other events. It stood maybe 7 ft tall and looked to be made out of plastic tubing and stryofoam with a coat of silver spray paint. But low and behold, when the very obliging office lady plugged it in and waved her hand in front of it, its eyes lit up and it waved its arms! One of our genki tour guides even got up and did the "Robot" alongside it.

Breeze through the next two stops, the Kurume International Center, which can be described as an office in trasition at best. Among the stacks of boxes and extra furniture was an extensive lending library though, with many titles in English to choose from. Like so many other things, once it gets cooler, I think I will be frequenting it more often. Then we went back up to the observation room in City Hall, a repeat for those of us who had already been up there, as well as the Municipal ALTs who actually work out of City Hall.

Last but certainly not least on the tour was an "optional" dinner...why the coordinators thought anyone in their right mind would turn down a dinner that they were paying for is beyond me, especially when they took us to a place that served multiple courses. It was a set menu, and provided us foreigners many opportunities to try new things. The first plate was sashimi, raw fish and other goodies covered in a fish broth gelatin. Mmmmmm. It actually was quite edible, although I didn't slurp up the gelatin too readily. Then came the salad, fairly straight forward; the kabocha soup, which was probably the highlight; some delicious crusty bread, very different from the thick, Wonder Bread found everywhere else in Japan; and then the fried pork rolls with a barbecue-y flavored sauce. The pork was delicious, but quite filling. I ate 5 of my 6; other people who were not fans of pork ate less. The extras all ended up in front of Daisuke, the genki student who danced with the robot, who promised us he would eat them all. Where they all ended up is anyone's guess. He ate his own, most of another full plate and two heaping plates of rice before slowing down.

Then came dessert, which he polished off as well. I managed to find some room for the simply, yet oh so beautifully presented coconut and watermelon gelatins, with a small scoop of caramel ice cream in the middle. A nice end to a hot day. After the meal, we arranged ourselves on the steps of the restaurant for a big group picture. We caused quite a stir...another patron who was dining there, got out her camera and took a picture of us as well.

Food Frenzy

I don't think there has ever been a time in my life when my daily routine was not scheduled around food and eating, and thus, my life in Japan is hardly any different. When the alarm goes off in the morning, I remind myself that getting out of bed means I can eat breakfast. In the office with very little to fill our time, we talk about our 45 min lunch time for an equal, if not longer period of time before it even happens. The ride home from work often involves a stop at the grocery store (always an adventure) and evenings center around dinner. Adjusting to cooking for myself as well as Japanese cuisine means that my simple breakfasts (cereal or bread) and left overs are pretty much the only meals when I know exactly what I will be eating. In restaurants, I can sometimes finish my meal and still not know exactly what I have consumed...

For lunch and dinners out, I have stuck with a fairly Japanese diet...ramen, udon, chikkin katsu, miso soup, sushi, sashimi, and sashimi (the exceptions being lunch at an Indian restaurant, a sandwhich and popsicle from 7-11, and a corn dog at the baseball game). While perfectly satifying, I think ramen and udon will become much better when the weather cools down. I am still getting used to sashimi (raw fish, sometimes served on rice squares or I've had it as a salad-ish concoction covered in a gelatin of some sort,) and don't think it will ever be a favorite, at least not while other options abound.

My two favorite food discoveries so far are kabocha and yuzu paste. Kabocha is Japanese pumpkin, but I know it as squash, and it is delicious. Yuzu paste is a citrus-y, spicy condiment made from yuzu, a small Japanese citrus. It is also very delicious. The need to have yuzu around to flavor just about everything is spreading up from Allison on the first floor into my second floor apartment.

Another delicious item in my kitchen right now is my popsicle collection. Its really hot biking back from the office and entering an apartment that has been locked up all day, and having a popsicle waiting for you really helps. Not wanting to come home to just one kind of popsicle, this week, I bought two boxes to add to the stragglers of the last bunch, allowing me to choose from 4 different kinds. The most Japanese of them all are the macha, or green tea ice-cream bars that are filled with red azuki beans and white mochi, rice pudding-y stuff. Very creamy and refreshing, and the only way I enjoy green tea.

Even with 4 flavors of popsicles to choose from, I crave more substantial food for dinner. I've really only cooked twice (just boiling spaghetti doesn't count as cooking), both were easy meals with loads of left overs. I have to get used to the idea that I am just one person with a tiny fridge, but its the left overs that have kept me from having to cook more often. My first culinary endeavor was to make rice and vegetable curry with the aid of a box of "Vermont Curry." I guess the box saved me from the hardest part, measuring the spices, but since it was all in Japanese, I did have to ask my mom how she made it at home (yes, you can find it in Japanese grocery stores in the states...I highly recommend trying some.) Armed with English instructions, I headed into the kitchen and cut up plenty of veggies and cooked them to the appropriate tenderness and added the curry. I was very happy with the results. My rice came out good too, a feat I was never able to manage in the States.

The next meal I made was by the seat of my pants and also involved vegetables, but this time I sauteed some of them and added them to pasta with some picante sauce to get a "Zesty Pasta Primavera." Since I make little to no effort to maintain my vegetarianism eating out here (too much trouble, plus I need to try everything) I look forward to my veggie meals at home. I've been looking for recipes on the internet, and have found a few I want to try, as well as a very well done blog called "Delicious Coma" all about eating and discovering new food in Japan. http://www.deliciouscoma.com/archives/2006/04/beginnings.html

When not in my apartment, I get to try lots of new things, like multi-colored boba at the baseball game we went to. I had no idea that they even existed! I thought boba only came in dark-brownish black and resembled deer droppings, only slimy. But, no--it comes in colors too! (Not that the colors make it taste any better, but it does stop it from looking like excrement)

Last night, I got to experience my first tabehodai/nomihodai or all you can eat/drink beer garden. Doesn't sound very Japanese does it? Following yet another orientation, this time at the prefectural level, the first of two after parties took place on the top of a tall building. The roof had been covered in astro-turf and there were lots of white plastic tables and chairs set up, as well as an extensive buffett and drink dispensing station. There were even mini-grills on each table to cook your own meat.

Even though I knew that in order to get my 3200 yen's worth (about $32, pretty reasonable), I would have to pace myself, there was so much good stuff, it was very hard, and I ended up leaving after about an hour and a half because I was so full. Just after one trip to the buffet, I brought back all this:

And this:

Just because Kirrin has the prettiest label does not mean it is my favorite. In fact, it is currently 3rd of the big three beers here. Number 1 is Sapporo, the two spot is Asahi, and lastly Kirrin. But the ranking could change at any time, so I will keep you posted :-)

The Largest Hanabi Festival in Western Japan...

...conveniently took place in Kurume on August 5th, the first weekend after my arrival. Hanabi means fireworks, and it marked the end of the Water Festival that also took place that weekend. Having spent most of that weekend stuck inside, disinfecting my apato, I was really looking forward to leaving it behind for a few hours to witness what would be the most incredible display of fireworks I have ever seen.

My neighbors and I all piled into a taxi to get as close to the river as we could, then joined the masses walking toward the launching site/ Thousands of people filled the streets, which were lined with yakitori and takoyaki stalls, as well as vendors selling various glowing sticks, ninja swords etc. Perhaps about a third of the crowd was dressed in their yukata, or informal summer kimonos which was really neat to see. Once we got to the entrance of the riverside park, we went through a gate and down a flight of stairs to the seating area. There were uniformed men directing traffic, but the strict orderliness of the whole event wasn't completely apparent until the end, when the crowd patiently waited with no pushing to go back up the same narrow staircase.

Lots and lots of people came out to watch, and with good reason. There were eleven sets of fireworks, and each set was better than the best finale I have ever seen (maybe being so close to them helped--the fireworks were set off right across the river which was probably only about 300 yds wide).

The sky looked something like this for the next hour and a half. My rear end got a bit numb from sitting on the pavement, and my neck was sore from leaning back to see all of the fireworks, but it was well worth the price of admission, which was FREE!

After the reported 10,000 fire works had been set off, it was time to join the masses headed up the narrow staircases, but as I mentioned before, this was unbelievably orderly thing in the world. We followed the crowd back through neighborhoods to the train station which was overwhelmed with people trying to get home. We continued to walk towards home, stopping at one of the many, many, glowing vending machines along the way for some liquid refreshment. Pretty much every day, I try a new drink, to make sure I get to experience every kind before picking a favorite and settling into a rut...and this particular night I was very keen to try a bottle of "Energy Squash," but alas, other people had gotten to the last of the stock before me. I have been on the lookout for it ever since, but have not seen it anywhere. :-(

Arriving in Nippon

Today, for the first day since my arrival to my apartment 11 days ago, the vacuum cleaner is put away in its proper place. This signals that 80% of my apartment is now usuable, vs. the virtually 0% that was when I moved in. Yay!!

Now I can spend more time on my blog, and properly record the highlights of my time here in Japan. Let me start at the beginning:

I left LAX around 1 PM on July 28th, and arrived in Tokyo at 4 PM on July 29th. The flight was long, had a fairly lame video selection and questionable vegetarian entrees. That's the last time I request a special meal...the regular ones came with better sides (pineapple and strawberries, sushi, brownies) and I can always pick around the parts I don't like. Disembarking from the plane with dozens of other JETs, we were ushered to the immigration line, which snaked back and forth about 8 times before we finally reached the counter. Looks like fun, no?

In my state of grogginess, that's really about all I remember about the airport. We then dropped off our largest luggage to be shipped ahead to our prefectures (mine made it all the way to the Kita-Chikugo Board of Education Office, in Kurume) and climbed on a nice bus for the hour plus ride to our hotel in Tokyo for orientation. The next few days were long, a combination of the jet lag and repetitive workshops and inspirational speeches. The JET Programme, as it is officially spelled, pretty much took over most of the Keio Plaza Hotel, so I hardly felt like I was in a foreign country at all. There were a ton of people to meet, yet who knew if you would actually see any of them again? Oh well. The view from my room on the 24th floor was nice, and it would all be over in a few days.

On August 1st, I boarded the last of the planes (for a good while...I am no rush to fly anywhere any time soon) for Fukuoka, the prefecture I am stationed in. Fukuoka is the name of the prefecture as well and the largest city on Kyushu, the southern most island of Japan. We left the unusually pleasant weather of Tokyo for a good deal more hot and humid, but the sauna of the first day would later be eclipsed during the following week in terms of sweaty miserableness, but I am getting ahead of myself. Everyone was met at the airport by their Supervisors, mine gathered up my co-workers, Dave, Allison and myself to take us out for lunch, to the office to gather up our luggage and finally to our new homes in the jutaku, or Teacher's Apartments. Lunch was good, we tried our hands at making our own sesame sauce to dip our chicken yakitori into; the office was, well an office, we got to know it much better in the next few days. And finally, the jutaku!

Hardly a testiment to the beauty and grace of traditional Japanese architecture, the jutaku is actually a really great idea. It houses just teachers, many of whom, like myself and the other ALTs get a reduced rent because the building is owned by the Board of Education or something like that. How reduced you ask? Very.... I have 3 rooms, a kitchen, bathroom and a washing machine on my patio and I am paying around $160 month, plus utilities. The bulding has 3 staircases with 3 stories each, and two apartments on each story. Mine is the second story in this picture. Inside, the the layout is just like the one below, minus that sink in the bathroom. More pics later when it looks more like home.

While spacious, not all was ideal in my apartment when I arrived; mostly it appeared to not have been cleaned for the past 3 years that it was inhabited by the guy that I am replacing. Hence why the vacuum has not been put away for a week and a half. But it is much better now.

We were left on our own for the night, but our incredibly friendly upstairs neighbors, Johnathan and Kendra (second year ALTs from Montana) invited us all upstairs for dinner---soft tacos! Most the the ingredients came from Costco (there's one outside of Fukuoka, as well as a website that delivers! And to use the website, you don't even have to be a member!) and I was able to contribute some salsa from the gigantic container of Pace Picante sauce that was lovingly (?) left for me, and continues to take up at least a quarter of my tiny fridge.

The next day, August 2nd, was our first official day at the office, although really we ran errands most of the morning. Upon arrival in our professional finest (I wore my suit and felt awkward) we were officially introduced to the Superintendent, a very important man who rarely leaves his private office on the far side of the room. Word on the street is that in Japanese offices, the further from the door you are, the more important you are. Hence, the ALTs occupy the table right inside the door. As it should be for the amount of "work" we are doing in the office these days. Anyway, we were presented to Mr. Important in front of other Mr. Pretty Importants and had to walk forward when our names were called, bow, accept our certificates of employment, bow again and go back and stand in our little line. But the real nerve-wracking part came afterwards when our line (Allison, Wendy and Dave) was taken out to the rest of the office and expected to introduce ourselves. Not a whole lot of prep time. Allison did fine because she came here on an exchange, and I hope I managed not to offend anyone with my crappy pronunciation of Hajimemashite, watashi wa Wendy Phelps desu. Dozo yoroshiko. Not my finest moment I know.

From there, we went to City Hall to get apply for our Alien Registration Card and open a bank account. For all of its technologial advances, Japan is a cash society, and even though a lot of bills are paid directly out of your account, internet banking is a foreign idea to them. ATMs also have hours and will either not dispense money or charge you for visiting them after said hours. Hmmm. We're all eagerly awaiting our first paychecks, and having decent sized bank accounts, having opened our accounts with about 100 yen each (roughly $1).

We had some waiting to do while the Alien Registering people and the bank did the paper work, so we got to go up to the top of City Hall and look at the view. Unfortunately, a typhoon was expected shortly, so the visibility was somewhat limited, but there was a fairly good view to the south. See the large white spire to the left toward the horizon? The jutaku is a little to the left of that. The spire is actually a giant statue known as Narita-san. It is a Buddhist Shrine and one of two points of interest in Kurume, according to Lonely Planet. Have not been yet, but will go soon.

That wraps up the first few days; airplane, Tokyo, airplane, Fukuoka briefly, and Kurume, my new home for the next year at least.

It gets better....

Way past my bedtime, but this too good not to share:

"i found your blog.... i think that's snake wine!i'm told it's a natural aphrodisiac.drink that and say goodbye to limited social circle, say hello to friends... or i guess if it's strong enough, lovers.enjoy! :-P"

Thanks James for this enlightening information. Konpai anyone?

Here it is!

The long awaited blog has arrived! One less thing on the massive to-do list that comes with setting up your own apartment and adjusting to a new job. But now I guess I actually have to write stuff--but no matter what, writing will probably always be preferable to finding small pickled cobras in your kitchen cabinets. No, I am not kidding. Some of you may have heard about the less than sanitary conditions of my apartment, or "apato" as they say in Japan, but this has taken it to a whole new level. Stay tuned for more stories, but for a now, a picture of the pet I didn't know I had/wish I didn't have.