Winter Vacation Adventures, part 1

Well, I'm not going to lie. You all know I'm terrible at updating, and I'm going to admit now that the main reason I continue to do so is that the few emails I receive stoke my ego. My desire to see the red dots on the Clustr map to the right spread and multiply also helps. Also, since I'm absolutely shit at remembering to bring my camera anywhere with me I feel like I should have some means of recording this adventure for posterity.

So I guess I should update about these past few weeks:

The issue with my car has for all extents and purposes been resolved. The dude called my Board of Education, who then came to my main school the next day to have me sign a bunch of papers I didn't understand to have the insurance pay for it. Then I cried because I had no idea what was going on and missed my mom and felt sorry for myself and came home early and took a nap and forestalled packing. The Friday was awesome because there were no classes but we did have to stand on the cold floors of the auditorium/gym for closing ceremonies of the second (Autumn) semester. I ate lunch with my teachers at my favourite sushi place, where I managed to drop half a sushi chunk of rice on my lap. I believe this was my first ever Japanese chopsticks spill, and I blame it on the tough piece of unknown fish eaten.

That evening, we had our junior high school Bonenkai (end of the year party) at this ryokan (Japanese inn/restaurant) whose former proprietress was a surrogate mother to many of the kamikaze pilots. There were pictures and model planes all over. The food was pretty delicious. The teachers in charge of the planning made a top ten list of events of the past year, on which my arrival was number six. As I was sitting blank faced in my own little daydream for the previous four entries, I had to be informed twice of this and then was forced to make a speech, which basically was 'Ugh...these past few months have been very interesting. This food is tasty. Ugh....thank you.' and then I sat down. We also played a bingo form of Secret Santa. I got a really cute mug and table mat, and my purchased gift of a Takoyaki (fried octopus balls) maker was won by the eminent Kyoto-sensei (vice principal) himself. I don't think he liked it. But at least he didn't win a Kitty-chan (Hello Kitty) vacuum cleaner like Kocho-sensei (the ultimate principal), who tried to pawn it off on me. Then I went home while everyone else continued on to karaoke. I had to pack for my next adventure: Tokyo!

I woke up early Saturday morning to an unpleasant surprise: frost on my car windows! I was already a little late to meet my friend whose house I would be parking my car at while in Tokyo, so I hurriedly scraped some ice off with a random cassette tape holder found in the car and anxiously sped off towards the freeway. As I was leaving my sad excuse for a driveway, I hit the left side of my Daihatsu on this concrete block that indicates the sidewalk. There was a loud scraping sound as I rushed to get out, which I later saw was the sound of my left floodlight being pushed up into itself and its frame being pushed out. As nothing broke, and I don't even know how to use the floodlights, I'm not stressing this, although I can't say I'm too proud of my two accidents in the span of less than 60 hours.

Nevertheless, I arrived to meet my friend and got to the airport with time to spare. After buying some omeyage for Tami, the friend I was meeting in Tokyo, I boarded the plane and proceeded to pass out for the entire flight. From Haneda, the airport in Tokyo used primarily for domestic flights, I took a bus to Narita, the international airport about an hour and half outside of central Tokyo where Tami happens to live. Unfortunately, although I was a bit early, Tami emailed me to let me know that she was in the hospital! She had a stomach flu, and her overeager office took her to the hospital to get an IV. I would have bussed to her house, but as I had no idea where she lived I chose to wait a bit until she got out. In the mean time, I busied myself gawking at all the foreigners in the airport, browsing the magazines and books, looking at all the different Tokyo Hello Kitty cell phone charms, and buying a face mask.

I don't think I mentioned the prevalence of the face mask. The first time I encountered one was at Matsugaura elementary school, where I scrambled in late to my first morning class to see 10 six and seven year olds, half of them with their mouths and noses covered by these surgical-like masks. I wondered if there was an epidemic that I wasn't told about, but it's just the kids' (or their mothers') protection against common winter air born viruses. Actually, I'm not sure if the kids wearing the masks were sick or just germaphobes, but in any case it was a weird sight.

So, though Tami was just hospitalized, we talked and she told me that she was feeling much better. In any case, she suggested I buy a face mask to protect myself from whatever thing she had. So I did, and wandered about the arrivals area of Narita wearing this thing and waiting for Tami. Although in the next week I would see thousands of people wearing facemasks, I'm pretty sure I'm the only non-Japanese person to ever do so. It would explain the strange looks I was getting, from tourists and natives alike. So Tami picked me up and we drove to her place, in a little town called Shibayama that's famous for their creepy ceramic life-like tiny people statues.

I think it's a universal JET fact that anytime one JET enters another JETs apartment, the former experiences some form of housing envy. Since almost all JETs have no choice in their living arrangements, which are chosen by each JETs contracting organization (or town), the housing varies considerably. While I live in a drafty tiny apartment with virtually no kitchen and a bedroom smaller than my bathroom, Tami lives in a freestanding house with a massive kitchen and two large rooms. She also lives about an hour from a Costco, so her kitchen was stocked with some Western favourites, like brownie mix (she has an oven!) and taco seasoning. Well, some of my Western favourites, at least. She also has nice dishes and no clutter from her predecessor, as well as an awesome heating system in both bedrooms, so of course I wanted to kill her and take over her identity in order to live in her swank house. But as she was graciously putting me up for the next ten days, I decided not to.