Flu Season

The weather has definitely shifted here. The thermometer on my alarm clock informed me it was a brisk 59 degrees Farenheight in my apartment this morning when I woke up. At school, the hallways and teacher's room are about the same, the classrooms are a bit warmer from the collected body heat of close to 40 students. But the changing weather is a bit of a shock to the system, and flu season has started. Kids are more boogery than usual, people are wearing their oh-so-fashionable surgical masks in public, and a week ago, Jamie actually lost her voice! Washing hands every 30 minutes and eating multiple mikans a day has become a daily routine. If only Japanese restrooms had soap in them (which I am sure is better at preventing the spread of germs than a piece of cottony paper with ear straps from the dollar store)!

It appears flu season has also started at home in the U.S. as well. How do I know? I read about it in the NYTimes. As usual, many interesting articles today including one about the dimming of the iconic Manhattan skyline due to improvements in lighting technology and rising energy costs. There was also one about Google, and how they have started tracking searches with keywords like "flu" and "muscle aches" and mapping them to see where the next potential influenza outbreak might occur. Probably not entirely what the creators had in mind back in the day, but postitive unintended consquences are a great thing in my opinion.

Read it while eating a mikan, and be sure to wash your hands when you're finished.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

A Beautiful Fall Day

A few weekends ago, Jamie and I bid farewell to Kurume for a few hours and went into Fukuoka for a "girl" day. First stop was Yasu's magical hair palace, where we got the star treatment and emerged with lovely new fall looks. Jamie got her hair trimmed and Yasu gave her some fabulous shampoo comercial waves; I asked for a chin length angled bob with some bangs and got just what I asked for.

Looking fab, we ate lunch at an Italian restaurant we discovered a bit on accident before one of our monthly meetings. The restaurant is located on the second floor, behind a frilly boutique and is always full of women. I like to refer to it as the "lesbian lunch lair." The food is really good, and for just under $10, you get a salad, amazing crunchy bread, a huge pasta, drink and two, yes two, tiny desserts. No wonder it's always crowded ;-)

Full of lunch, we hopped a bus for the ferry port, took the ferry to Nokonoshima, and got on another bus to take us to the "Island Park," with it's famed hillside of pink and white cosmos flowers. The weather was really nice, so we weren't exactly the only people there, but the people watching added to the fun.

Follow me to the cosmos patch!

Oooo look, we made it!! Gorgeous!!

Throughout the afternoon, the sun kept going in and out from behind the clouds, making it hot, then cold, too bright and then too dark to take pictures. We had some creamy soft cream and hot from the fryer tempura sweet potatoes before boarding the bus back to the ferry, back to the bus, back to the train, back to Kurume.

The day's (and this post's) parting image--Fukuoka skyline from the ferry.

Halloween!

Based on this picture alone, it's going to be a good one ;-)

* * * *

As soon as the calender hit October 1st, teachers at one of my junior high schools asked me to give a lesson about Halloween. For the 7th graders, I gave a short speech about the three things most people do--1) decorate the house with jack-o-lanterns, spider webs and the like, 2) put on a costume, and 3) go trick or treating. I show pictures of me in past costumes, like the Spice Girls and as an Oompa Loompa from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, but sadly I am met with a whole classroom of blank stares. Some things (old pop culture references) just don't translate. After the speech, there was a quiz, and then we played Halloween bingo.

Outside of school, I had two Halloweens! Imagine that, in a country where no one goes trick or treating! Last weekend, I headed into the city with Vanessa to attend "Halloween Salsa," a party/concert/dance event which made me really confused as to which country I was in. I was given free tickets by a teacher at one of my junior high schools. After school hours, he is the lead singer of "Salsa del Oriente," Fukuoka's (only?) salsa band.

The event gathered a good crowd, there was delicious Spanish food, fun music and many talented salsa dancers. Most people dressed up in costume, Vanessa and myself included. We fit right in at the party, but I felt pretty rediculous on the train home.

Not wanting my costume to be "lost in translation" again this year, I opted for the not so subtle "kabocha." Between West Coast (used clothes) and the Daiso (100 yen) I think the whole thing cost me less than $8.

October 31st started out as a school day like any other at a mildly disfunctional elementary school. The first class I was supposed to teach forgot about me for a good 20 mins, and then the class I was supposed to eat lunch with forgot about me completely, so I ate with a mixed group of office staff and volunteer mothers in the principal's office. The all comented about how weird the day's menu was, and I would have to agree. The main dish was a tasteless concoction of tofu, boiled cabbage and quail eggs in a gelatinous sauce. At least the rice and soup were good.

Friday's main event was going bowling in costume. Nine ALT's and two slightly embaressed Nihon-jin met up at Kurume's Sports Garden to share candy and hurl brightly colored balls at unsuspecting pins. Everyone looked pretty amazing in their costumes. Our group had a cowgirl and cowboy, devil, James Bond, turkey, Santa Claus, reindeer, pumpkin and a pirate. We all called it a night after two games, but in that was plenty of time for me to eat enough candy to feel sick!

Keizo's first Halloween!!! I made sure he went all out costume wise, but I don't think he got a stomachache.

Heart and SEOUL

Hisashiburi readers!! Long time no see. Let's get right down to it:

Last year, I did a pretty good job of hitting most of Japan's hot spots. Almost every Japanese person I talk to now can't believe the list of places I've been in just a year, and admit to only having been to a fraction of them themselves (yet somehow it's a crime that I have never been to NYC). So this year, I wanted most of my travel destinations to be outside of Japan, and I am proud to say that less than two full months in, I have knocked one off the list.

Seoul, South Korea is geographically closer to Fukuoka than Tokyo, but a visit will still get you a passport stamp! For Jamie, it was her first (and possibly last?) stamp from a country other than Japan or the U.S. For me, it was my first stamp from a country where I didn't speak one word of the language (even coming to Japan for the first time, I knew konnichiwa and arigatou.) Thankfully, Koreans seem to take their English education more seriously than the Japanese do, and even the bus drivers and convenience store employees spoke in English to us.

When traveling throughout Japan, cities are very similar. The public transportation usually works in the same way and people conduct themselves pretty similarly. We had no idea what to expect in Seoul, and thankfully we ran into very few problems, but being used to the efficiency, politeness and cleanliness of Japan, we found Seoul to be a very different place indeed.

Welcome to modern Seoul. The Incheon Airport. Built on reclaimed swamp land about an hour from the heart of the city.

The road from the airport into the city was wide and recently paved. People drove American-sized cars on the American (right) side of the road. There were lots of converted motorcycle flatbed scooters to transport goods from one neighborhood to another. Each area seemed to specialize in two or three completely unrelated things. The neighborhood where we stayed was the packaging, lamp and sewing machine district. We walked through the stainless steel (ash trays, industrial kitchen counters etc) and tennis raquet neighborhood and passed the puppy and desk chair district on the bus. Really, there was something interesting to look at pretty much everywhere!

Seoul's central post office. Pretty cool building, eh?

After locating our hostel, we decided to forgo lunch (shock!) and have a light snack so we could eat a hearty dinner later on, and head to sight number one, Gyeongbokgung Palace. [Most Korean words, especially place names had too many letters and the money, the won, had way too many zeros. 1000 won was roughly $1 US when we went.] We saw three different palaces in Seoul, and but I can't really tell you the differences between them. They were built by different people I have never heard of, and are all pretty spectacular. Gyeonbokgung was quite extensive, and after walking around for over an hour, Jamie and I decided we should probably move on to palace #2, only to discover when we looked at the map that we had missed about 1/2 of it.

Main hall of Gyeongbokgung. Quite large, made of wood with every exposed surface, like the ceiling and the roof supports exquisitely painted in bright colors. I was awed by the fact that this was all done without the help of modern machinery. Quite the accomplishment.

Palace #2 was Deoksugung Palace. Much smaller but accompanied by two buildings that closely resemble the White House. They were built in the early 20th century and used to receive foriegn dignitaries. The traditional style buildings were also painted in the same fashion as palace #1.

The back cover shot for our short guide to Seoul. Tip #1: the shopping isn't as good as you were lead to believe (read on for more explanation).

The old receiving hall for foreigners. Today it is an art museum. The building above and the building below are right next to each other. Weird, huh?

A little palace-d out, and getting hungry, we set out towards one of Seoul's landmark department stores. On the way there, we saw lots of cool public art, as well as some signs from home.

A tower made of concrete and old headlights!

Subway art.


Sculpture above one of the subway station/shopping arcades. In person, you could see the activity below reflected in each of the silver spheres.

OMG! Krispy Kreme! No wonder Koreans are normal sized human beings!

After dinner and some light shopping, we called it a night and went back to the hostel to rest our weary feet and watch some high quality English television in the form of "The Girls Next Door."

Day 2 was set aside primarily for shopping, since most of the cultural landmarks were closed. We left our hotel and headed indirectly for the Dongdaemon market. We passed through an open market selling all sort of odd, supposedly edible treats. Quite a lot to take in first thing in the morning. Vats of spicy, homemade kimchi abounded, but weren't enough to mask the smell of fish. There was fresh fish and dried fish (chirimen jakko, one of my least favorite school lunch ingredients. They are served whole and impossible to remove from whatever they are mixed into, usually rice or salad) of every size imaginable!

Gross, gross, gross.

Following the detour through the open market, we found our way to a large building we thought looked like a mall, but when we entered quickly found ourselves to be the only people wandering about leisurely. The entire 7 or 8 story building, with wings A-E was full of people on a misson--designs and fabric swatches in hand. It was fabric and trimming wholesale warehouse, the likes of such I had never seen before. Slightly frustrated that we were wasting precious shopping time, we wound our way out, stopped to take a picture in front of an imposing gate (which will not post properly) and headed back across to the other side of the river where the pre-made clothes were for sale.

We were not much more successful on the pre-assembled clothing side of the river than we were in the fabric mecca. Minus my purchase of a t-shirt and a two knit hats, all we came across were hideous grandma clothes made out of synthetic fabrics. Yes, they were cheap, but who cares? We sat down to lunch tired of being on our feet and rather discouraged. Lunch--bim bim bap (hot rice bowl covered in veggies and a raw egg) was easily the best purchase of the day.

Hats, hats and more hats outside of the shop where I bought mine. Undoubtedly made in sweatshops somewhere in SW Asia.


Discouraged by the shopping, Jamie and I decided to head to Seoul Tower. We made a brief stop at a traditional Korean Village, but there weren't any nifty craft demonstrations as advertised in the brochure. We did take a nice little kyukei on a big rock to plan our next move. We could see Seoul Tower from the village, and read in Lonely Planet that we could walk from the Seoul Tower exit of one the major subway stations. So it was back on the subway, and immediately outside of the exit, the up hill climb began. We went up two smaller hills before takings two massive sets of stairs and were completely exhausted. From the Lonely Planet, we determined that we were less than 1/2 way there, so we started to evaluate our options. 1) Keep walking, being bitten by mosquitos and getting sweaty; 2) Give up; 3) Try one of the other methods of getting to the tower, a yellow bus or a taxi. As luck would have it, we sat down right across the street from the bus stop and a yellow bus pulled up within minutes. The driver was very nice as he literally drove us back to where we had come from (the village), around the hill where the tower was located, and finally up the hill. We climbed the hill for a good 10 minutes in the bus and passed several crazy people walking up. When the bus finally let us off in the parking lot, we still had about 400 yards of steep up hill road to follow to the top. It was pretty rediculous. And I don't think Lonely Planet did a sufficent job warning the reader about the severity/distance of the incline. Or maybe it was in metric, which even after a year of living in a metric country, I am not good at judging.

Anyway, the tower. We finally made it...on probably one of the most overcast days Seoul would see all month. So we decided to save the $8 or whatever it cost to go up and just look out from the outdoor observation deck at the bottom of the tower.


The tower from the approach. Probably more magestic against a blue sky.

The chain link fence around the observation deck at the bottom of the tower. Apparently, when things start to get serious among young Korean couples, they come up here and afix a lock with their names on it to the fence. This is maybe 1/10th of the fence, not even. The yellow sign says "Don't throw your key away," whatever that means in the midst of a couple thousand locks.

The "view." How much was weather and how much was smog was difficult to determine. Despite the gray, the hundreds and hundreds of massive apartment blocks and several huge huge TVs for advertising were visible.

We ventured toward the gift shop, where we bought some cute postcards. Cute postcards of a tower, you ask? Yes. There were maybe 3 awful photographic ones, and the rest of the rack was adorable cartoon versions of the tower with big smile, surrounded by cute forest animals or local elementary school student's wobbly looking crayon renderings. Adorable. We located the snack bar and spent $10, (yes, $10) on a large shaved ice, ice cream, fruit and condensed milk concoction that came in a bowl better suited for taco salad. It was huge and delicious! I don't know if I should ever spend $10 on some thing that is basically frozen water ever again, but it makes for a good story.

Preparing to indulge.

Don't remember anything too remarkable about night two. We looked for dinner and ended up back on the street we explored the first night, where Jamie bought ballet flats and some scarves. Overall though, we completely over budgeted for the trip...I returned to Japan with about $300 in won. Bad plan. The selling rate in Japan is awful. I was lucky to "give" some to Vanessa, but still have about $100 in won that would turn into about $70 if I were to exchange it here. Not sure what I will do with it.

Day 3. Morning came and we dragged our tired bodies out of the hostel. While in Seoul, we relied heavily on the subway to get us around, and it worked beautifully. It was pretty clean and safe (not quite up to Japan standards, but acceptable to anyone else's) the trains ran frequently, and cost us about $1 every time we got on and off, which seemed like such a bargain compared to Japanese public transportation (I spent $10 today getting to and from school using the train and the bus). However, taking the subway, or more specifically getting to and from the subway via stairs definitely took its toll on us. I swear we climbed millions of stairs in the short time that we were there, and were moving noticably slower on the last day there than we were on the first day.

Day 3's agenda really only had one stop, the last of the big palaces. This one you needed to be on a guided tour to gain admittance. So we showed up and bought our tickets for the English tour and hung out in the back of the group. If I had been a member of the Korean ruling class, Changdeokgung Palace would definitely be were I would have wanted to live. The main halls looked quite similar to the other palaces, but the grounds were extensive and woodsy. My favorite part though was the romatic looking library perched above a lily-pad covered pond. Beautiful. The picture below is the last picture I took in Korea, and I think it's pretty fitting.

Goofing around under a veranda.
The library.

While we were standing near the library, a muffled thundering came from the direction we had come from. We turned around to see a huge group of Korean school children barrelling towards us. Our group started moving again, but not fast enough and for the last 20 minutes of the tour we were in the middle of a sea of 6th graders. While not exactly ideal, it was a telling experience. The group was completely unorganized. The teacher in the front was jabbering away on a cell phone, kids trailed behind and beside him in groups of 3 or 4, bumping into people on our tour, playing with their Nintendo DS, and listening to their iPods. On a school trip?!?! It looked like a lot of chaos to me, and made me appreciate all of the organization and rules of Japan.

Several hours later, after a flight where Jamie's herritage thouroughly confused all the flight attendents (she was spoken to in Japanese, Korean, and what we thought was Mandarin. Dang, those Korean Air flight attendants are a smart bunch!) and mine was as clear as day (English, English and more English) we arrived safely back in the jutaku. An excellent way to spend a long weekend, but now that I've been, I can put Seoul on my been there, done that list.

There's no place like home

Where to even start…maybe a little over a week in the office with very few things which actually need to be done will provide me with the just the opportunity I need to catch up. It would be really nice to start the “new year” (as far as my JET contract is concerned) up to date and all ready to chronicle the next adventure. [**That plan sort of worked. I wrote all of the text and uploaded it. I didn't add any photos or publish it until now, September 19, 2008. School started and I have been too distracted by past seasons of Project Runway to finish what I started so diligently almost a month ago.]

August 2-16, 2008 already feels like a distant memory. My time at home was such a nice, clean break from my life in Japan. The differences were immediate after stepping off the plane in San Francisco. The immigration official didn’t even bother to answer my “good morning,” and I waited almost an hour for my bag to appear on the conveyor belt. Once I had my bag, customs went quickly, until I rounded the corner to re-check my bag to Phoenix. There was a Disneyland-esque line snaking in front of the four open check stands. The line took another hour, preventing me from catching my scheduled flight. The whole time, the baggage handlers yelled across the crowd and stood around idly. Welcome home!!

The gorgeous Sonoran desert, home sweet home.

Phoenix looked almost exactly as I left it. Riding home from the airport, I felt like I had just woken up from a strange Rip Van Winkle nap, rather than actually having spent a whole year in a foreign country. The presents in my bag assured me that I was indeed conscious and living in Japan for a year. Phew.

Things got off to a good start with a late lunch at Chipotle. I didn’t eat nearly enough tortillas while I was home. Jet lag hit hard my first night, and I was passed out on the couch at 7:30 PM. I moved to my bed and slept for 14 hours. The next night, I fell asleep a little bit later, but woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep. Just when I was getting used to Arizona time, we left for my cousin’s wedding in New Hampshire.

Friends and family aside, the three best things about going home:

1) Clear blue pool to swim in.

2) Huge fridge full of food that I didn't have to buy. (Really, what kind of nerd takes a picture of a fridge?)

3) La comida de Mexico!

The wedding and New Hampshire were both really lovely. It was the first time in about 10 years that almost all of my mom’s side of the family was together. And the cake was delicious.
New Hampshire was much the same as when we were last there, sometime when I was in high school. The weather cooperated for the most part, and we did some nice hikes, stargazed, ate homemade ice cream and scrumptious pancakes, and enjoyed all of the greenery. Everyone was feeling nostalgic and talks of a reunion every 5 years or so are in the works. Count me in.

ハイキング！

My family cleans up pretty well, don't you think?

チョウ　カワイイ　church where my cousin got married.

The beautiful bride, Anna and her husband, Mike. Congradulations!!!

Andrew and I reliving the old times on Trot-Trot. We used to fit a bit better than we do now.

Back to AZ. Less than a week to go shopping in stores with sizes to accommodate curvy persons, eat all the food I missed with all the people I missed and swim in the pool. That may not sound like a whole lot, but I was really busy. Linda came to see me, and we spent quality time scouring the sale racks of our favorite bargain haunts, Target and Old Navy, and working on our tans. Before I knew it, I was crying at the airport on the morning of the 16th. I wouldn’t get back to Japan until 8 PM on the 17th, and I was not looking forward to the trip. Once again, SFO proved to be a problem, and I spent an additional two hours there waiting for the plane to take off.

Linda and I conquer hiking in the desert in August and the self timer on my new camera. Is there anything we can't do? I think not.

Initially, I was not too excited to be back in Japan. But since Monday [8/18], I have mostly recovered from my jet lag, eaten Naoko-sensei food, and experienced some of the outstanding customer service that I missed so much while at home in the States. I have also mapped out my vacation days, and the weather has been eerily nice the last two days. I think these are all good signs, which confirm my initial reaction about being back: the weirdest thing was how not weird it felt to be here.

Yukata

My last weekend in Japan before my trip home, I went to a festival in Omuta with Keizo and Allison. While we all wanted to see the dragon floats and mullet-ed denizens of Omuta, I think the main reason we went was to eat all of the great festival food--takoyaki (battered octopus balls), yakinikku (grilled meat on a stick), potato fry (French Fries) and kakigori (shave ice). I also wanted to wear my new yukata that I had bought with Jamie a week or two before.

Yukata, or summer kimono, are very popular during the summer festival season. Naoko-sensei, calligraphy teacher/cook extraordinare taught me how to tie the belt and Allison helped me get the bottom all even before we headed out. While it looks nice, you can only imagine how hot it gets with your legs wrapped together, mummy style. And since you have to mince your steps, not a whole lot of air flow is created when you walk. It was fun for a night, but I am quite relieved I don't have to wear something like this all the time.

The End of an Era

Allison left Japan for the foreseeable future on July 28th, bringing the tremendous trio down to a dynamic duo. While Jamie and I may find new people to share our dessert and purikura passion, it will never be the same.

We needed to finish strong, so after the “Sayonara Party” for Allison and Johnathan, we went to Hagen-Daz for ice cream and ended the night with two sets of commemorative purikura. The mad skillz (multiple poses, sultry expressions, and fast draw decorating) acquired over the course of the year really help take these to a whole new level.