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In The Beginning 
The flight was brutal. It just never ended, and by the time it DID end, the recycled air was making me sick. When we finally got to the apartment, all I could think was that I really wanted to go home-- but that it wasn't worth getting back on the plane. As of now, I'm thinking of staying 2 years just so that the return flight is that much further off.
Okay, so I'm being a baby. It's not that the flight was terrible. They showed some good movies ("Bedazzled" and "Singing in the Rain"), and the food was really spiffy. Even granted that it was airline food. I saved the menu, somewhere. I do wish, though, that the airlines would concentrate less on squashing us in like sardines. I can deal with about 5 hours of sitting, but after that I start getting stiff and cramped.
Enough about the flight though, and on to Japan itself.
Well, not that I saw much of it at first. Firstly, the sun had set as we landed, so it was dark. Mostly I saw a lot of glowing signs flashing by the train window. (I got to ride the Shinkansen! That thing is cool!) More of the signs were in English than I had thought, but there were still more that I couldn't make heads or tails of. It's kind of a shock to realize
that not only do you not speak the language but that you're functionally illiterate as well.
We were met at the Utsunomiya station by four girls, but two had to run catch another train. The two who stayed, Eleanore and Sylvia, were very nice. They pointed out a ramen shop that is good, faily cheap and able to accomodate foriegners. They also, once we reached the apartment, set up our futons for us. This was very good because by that the world was slowly spinning and I couldn't have made a Western bed let along figure out a futon for the first time.
So, after that, fall down, go boom, night-night. Sleep is a good thing.
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The First Day
We didn't do much. Dave went out exploring in the morning while I puttered around trying to get a little settled. Also, one of us had to wait home for our suitcases to arrive. Fortunately for us, we never had to haul the luggage very far, and when we did we had those nifty little cart things. (Which, incidentally, are FREE at Nerita airport.) Nova arranged to have our luggage shipped to the apartment from the airport, so that was a load off of our minds and backs.
Dave came back with convenience store food, which was an adventure in itself, given that it was JAPANESE convenience store food. Our luggage arrived sometime in the afternoon, and we had a fun moment with that. Our apartment has a video hookup that started buzzing and then there was someone on the screen talking at us (in Japanese, of course) and we couldn't figure out how to respond. Dave ran down the stairs and helped the guy bring the suitcases up in the elevator. Then we spent awhile unpacking and getting lunch, after which I crashed and had a nap. When I woke up, we went out and did some exploring together. Then we came home, had dinner, a bath in our funky tub, and fell asleep.
That time difference is a killer.
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First Real Day At Work
I really should have tried harder to call Eleanore. That morning I got up, ate, dressed (in my pretty new blue suit), etc, and feeling perfectly confident, went to catch my train. Dave, who (lucky stiff) works right up the road from the apartment, walked me to the station and got in line for the ticket machines with me. He waited around for a bit, but then had to go so that he'd have enough preperation time. I felt fine, so off he went. Then I got to the ticket machine. The map I had from Nova said I was to go to Ooyama, but there were no train lines with stops at Ooyama listed. I tried to call Nova but the number I had... I'm still not sure where it actually called. Now I was starting to panic. I was going to be SO late and I couldn't call them, which meant I was going to be in trouble for not giving them adequate notice.
I spent a while wandering around the station before I decided to try the tourist info office. They didn't speak English, but they managed to help me figure it out. End of story right?
Not quite. According to the office girls, I had to take the Shinkansen from Utsunomiya to Omiya, from there to Ikebukuro, and then take the regular train from there to Ooyama. Fun, huh? So, back I trooped to the the ticket machines. (Which, btw, have a button to change the intstructions to English.) But I still couldn't figure out what line to take, and really didn't think I had enough yen on me for a Shinkansen ticket.
Officially and thoroughly panicked by now, I wandered a little more and tried really hard not to cry. Then I decided to do as I'd considered going earlier and went to the JR Nova office right outside the station. I knew SOMEONE there would speak English. So, taking my courage in both hands, I went to implore help. The Japanese staff there was wonderful. One of them called Oyama for me, took me to the station, got me a ticket and sat me on the train. See, I'd been given the wrong map. My map was for Ooyama, but my office is in Oyama. Eleanore says that the foriegn office screws up like that alot. The sad thing is, we'd -asked- about Ooyama vs. Oyama at orientation.
Oyama is only a half an hour away on the local train. I have a nice little train pass now (called a teiki) that lets me travel to work easily and comfortably every day. Now that I've got the trains mostly figured out, anyway.
Anywho, I wasn't in trouble with work. They'd given me a free period as my first class, probably just in case something like this happened. And the AT (assistant trainer and nomially my boss) met me at the station and got me to the building and set up and stuff. (Not that I couldn't have found the building, it's right outside and says NOVA in big letters.)
So, after the thrilling start, my first day went just fine. I was a little bit overwhelmed by the different classes. I'd been trained in the Utsunomiya office and they only ahve 3 person classes, but Oyama is a newer office and has 4 person classes. Given that we have 10 minutes between classes to write the student's files (Pass/fail, strengths and weaknesses) and then chose the lesson for the next bunch, this can be a real pain. I've only had to go to class with no lesson chosen once, though.
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Otaku Girl's Day Off #1
A few weeks ago, I forget just when, Dave was doing some overtime, which
left me alone for the day. I decided to head over to Yamada-Denki and
pick up some stuff we needed, like a USB-splitter. Yamada-Denki is an
electronics shop, two stories tall and bright can't-miss yellow. It's
where we bought our computer desks and the dehumidifier, and it's also
where I bought Dave's angel-and-devil speakers and my hair dryer.
I soon learned my mistake.
Never send a computer geek to an electronics store alone.
I was just about drooling over their computers. They had a Sony Viao
laptop about the same size as my Compaq, but with an 18 gigabyte hard
drive (ie, three times the size of mine) and a DVD player/CD drive and
burner. They also had some little thing about the size of a notebook--
by which I mean it was at most a quarter of the size of a regular
laptop-- and IT had a hard drive about twice the size of mine.
The Viao desktops were even more incredible. They had huge monitors, 40
gig hard drives, video-capture cards and more stuff than I can count. I
wanted one soooo badly. Fortunately, I know that we're saving up to buy
new computer when we get home, so I figure I'll wait till then and buy
something even cooler. Probably a Viao though, they are impressive.
Later that day I had a less-than-thrilling experience, though. I was
poking about in the bedroom, putting the laundry away, when I
accidentally brushed aside the curtain on the window. There on the wall
was the biggest cockroach I've ever seen. I'm not even sure it WAS a
cockroach, but it was huge and black and I jumped back and squealed like
every movie stereotype you ever saw. Then I ran out of the room. I
gathered my courage, grabbed the broom and dustpan, and went back in. I
managed to knock it to the floor, and in between bouts of jumping back
and screeching, managed to whack it and trap it on the dustpan. Then I
went out to the balcony (which I opened with my feet, since my hands were
busy keeping the bug in the dustpan) and threw it over the side.
Then I cleaned out the fridge and did the dishes. If bugs are that big
here, there's no WAY I'm taking chances.
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Otaku Girl's Day Off #2
One real advantage of the Nova schedule system is that if you need to
have a nonstandard day off, you can swap a shift with one of the other
teachers. The week of June 25th, Jason came to me and asked me to swap
him a Monday. He had an Aikido test coming up on Monday July 16th and
he could offer me a Saturday, which he did and which I jumped on. (Since
he has Fridays and Saturdays off, he can almost always get a swap. It's
a great bargaining chip.) Then I emailed Jen in Shiobara and asked if
she'd be available in July. Unfortunately, she was going home for a
visit around the time I'd arranged to have my free Saturday, but I was
able to pull some strings and get Saturday the 30th of June off instead.
Yay!
So, on Friday night, instead of taking the train and getting off in
Utsunomiya, I made sure I got the 9:07 train that goes all the way to
Kuroiso and rode on straight up to the Nishi-Nasuno station where Jen
meets me. She picked me up and we went back to her place in her cute
little yellow car and stayed up way too late talking. ^_^
The next morning we puttered around and wrote a story together, which
was much fun, I must say. We're pretty darn good writers, if I do say so
myself. Also, I got a look at the picture Jen made for me of my
character, which is much spifty-keeness. Jen's a great artist. :)
For lunch, we went out to this little restaurant that belongs to one of
Jen's friends. I ADORE this place. I want to tuck it into my pocket and
take it home and keep it forever and ever and ever. I did the next best
thing, which is take a few dozen pictures. At one point, I even took
pictures of the ceiling and the tatami, but had to delete them for space
for other, more important pictures.
It's a pretty traditional place, at least to my untrained eye. It has
an area with tables and chairs, but it also has a sit-down area, where
you kneel (or lounge, as in our case, since we can't manage that position
for long) on pillows on the tatami. The sit-down section was AWESOME. It
had real tatami, a little privacy screen between the tables and real
shogi in the windows, but that wasn't the cool part. The cool part was
that the part of the building that it was in juts out over the near-by
river so that all you see through the window is mountainside, cool
rushing river bright green plants, and even a little waterfall. Also,
there were two men out in the river fly fishing. The view plus the room
made for great ambiance, which was only heightened when they brought out
our lunch. We had Unagi-don, which is barbecued eel on rice, and miso
soup and some weird Japanese pickles, all arranged on Japanese dishes and
bowls. It was so good! Then the lady brought out some home-made apple
pie. This place gets 5 stars in my book.
After lunch we went back to Jen's and chatted and puttered some more. I
wanted to get pictures of the onsen in her building (more description of
which in a later post), but there were people in it so I guess I'll just
have to visit her again. *grin* Then I had to go home-- I'd gotten
Saturday off but not Sunday, so I had to get enough sleep to go to work.
Also, Jen had dinner plans, so we zipped off to the station and said good
bye. I can't wait to do this again sometime. :)
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Otaku Girl's Day Off #3
On Monday the 2nd I did something I've been meaning to do for a while,
but needed to do even more as the hot weather set in.
I bought a bike.
Bikes are ubiquitous in Japan. Just about everyone has one. Given how
expensive cars are (for one thing, you have to prove you have a place to
park it when you buy it and you often have to pay for that space), bikes
are a major mode of transportation. One of the oddest things I saw when
I first got here was office women and men-- both in suits and the women
in heels-- hopping on their bikes and pedaling off. Sometimes in dress
coats even, and women's office wear is almost always a skirt. But they
went merrily on their way.
That was in February, too. When it was cold, rainy and snowy. But
apart from riding in skirts and heels, the Japanese have also mastered
riding and holding an umbrella at the same time.
Anyway, bikes are big here. And it was time I got one. It's just too
hideously hot to walk to the station in the morning. A bike is faster
and generates its own breeze as you go. Plus, it's added security at
night. Twice I've been stopped by guys who wanted to try talking to me
in English. Now, I have nothing against them but when they do this at
night when I'm alone and tired I really, really don't like it. Granted,
they haven't actually STOPPED me, they've just kinda fallen in step with
me, but it puts my back up. I figure that now I have a bike, they won't
have the opportunity.
Back to the story. (I won't say "but I digress" because I always
digress.) So I headed out on Monday afternoon to find a shop called
"NeoCyclysta", armed with a map I got from our friend Timothy. I ended
up wandering Eastern Utsunomiya for at least an hour in the heat and
humidity. I was never lost, but I did have a devil of a time finding the
place. I don't think Timothy remembered the way too clearly (well, he
had only been there once) and I had trouble orienting his map right. I
reoriented it about three times and never found the place. After awhile,
I was understandably frustrated. Not to mention hot, sweaty and
exhausted. I decided to try just a little more. I'd invested too much
in this enterprise to give up and frankly, I had no intention of walking
the 30 minutes back home. Dang it, I wanted a bike and I wasn't going to
stop until I had one!
Fortunately, one of the places I found on my ramble was a Haagen-Daas
shop. I popped in and bought a squash float to restore myself. (As
usual when encountering Japanese-English, it tasted nothing like squash.
The liquid was some kind of lemon-flavor and the ice cream was
strawberries and cream. It wasn't bad, though.) Then I stopped at
Yamada-Denki so I could sit on the bench in the air-conditioning and
relax a bit. After that, I screwed myself up for one more try.
I didn't find the shop. But I DID find this place called "Outdoor
Life". I figured that they might have bikes and if they didn't, they
might know where this "NeoCyclysta" place was. They didn't have bikes.
They did have tons and tons of camping gear. It was like walking into
Sunny's Surplus back home. I wanted to squeal with glee. I think I
did-- I can get away with a lot, since I'm a crazy gaigin. I asked the
clerks about "NeoCyclysta". This mostly consisted of saying "NeoCyclysta
wa doko desu ka?" in a pleading voice and looking hopeful. This works
more often than it should. The poor clerks were a little at a loss as to
what to do with me, but they eventually managed to draw me a very nice
map. (We communicated mostly by gesture-- I am going to KILL at charades
when I get home.) So then I followed the map to the shop and managed to
pick out a bike. Yay me!
My bike is bright yellow. I preferred a nice bright blue one that was
also there, but I figured I had a better chance of spotting the yellow
one in the herds of bikes that roam around the parking spaces. (Dave
insisted on calling it a banana-bike for all of 10 minutes before I made
him stop. I don't like bananas!) It's also just a basic shopping bike.
It's got a black metal mesh basket on the front and a black wire thingy
for tying boxes to. (It's also apparently for riding, since that's how
they double-up here.) But it's mine, all mine!
There was, however, one small problem that I didn't notice until it was
too late. You see, they have all kinds of locks here, including one kind
that attaches to the frame of the bike and locks the wheel. I thought it
was just the back brake. It wasn't, and I didn't discover otherwise
until I came home from work last Saturday and found it locked and the key
missing. Boy was I pissed. I had to haul it home, steering with one
hand and holding up the back wheel with the other. Fortunately, just
when I was about to give up on human nature, this guy came up and asked
me about the bike. First he did it in Japanese, but then he switched to
English. He asked me what happened and I told him, then he asked how far
away I lived. When I said it was about five minutes, he said that it was
too far and picked up the back wheel himself. So he helped me wheel it
home and reminded me that there's a bike shop about a block away. This
was VERY GOOD, seeing as I'd forgotten and was planning on hauling the
bike back to NeoCyclysta.
So, a week after I'd bought my bike I took it to the bike shop to get it
unlocked. I was worried that I might have to prove that it was mine
because they take bike theft very seriously here and I really can't make
myself understood. But all I had to do was show the guy the piece of
paper with "Please help me unlock my bike!" on it in Japanese that Dave's
staff had kindly provided. He smiled, went into the back, and came out
with a bolt cutter. He had the lock off in about 3 minutes. I thanked
him profusely, gave him 310 yen (about $3.10) and rode off.
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...And More
There are students that make you sleep, students that you want to whack
on the head with a book, students that you just don't really care about
one way or the other, and students that make you want to tuck them into
your pocket and take them home.
Today (7/14/01) I had one of the latter. It seems I am the staff's
current favorite teacher for the 7C levels. 7C is the lowest level
in NOVA, outside of the children's program. Some of them aren't too bad,
some of them are complete beginners, and at least one of them has been
there for nine years and not advanced. (But he's a sweety, so he's fun
to teach.) Today's student wasn't him. Today's student was a woman with
a high-school daughter who is learning English because she and her
daughter want to go abroad together. She (the mother) tries really hard,
is friendly, talkative and personable. She had a little trouble (the
lesson was "this/that, these/those", which is a bit hard) but once she
got it she got it quite thoroughly. She's my new favorite student.
I also had a bit of oddness in one class. When I went to prepare it,
the schedule said that one of the three people had cancelled. I did a
little dance of happiness and prepped for two students. When I got up to
the classroom, though, there were THREE students. Ack. I panicked for a
second, then figured that I'd read the schedule wrong, or the staff had
made a mix up. I prayed that the student hadn't recently had the lesson
I'd planned and got on with things. Then when I checked the schedule
again at the end of class, the names of the cancelled student and the
surprise student didn't match, so I went downstairs to find out what
happened. I figured that someone had written in (that is, booked in
after the schedules were printed, in which case the staff usually comes
up and writes it into the schedule) and that the staff had forgotten to
write it in upstairs. It turns out that the staff had no idea what had
happened either. Also, since I had no idea what the girl's last name
was, I couldn't give them more information than "Maki". It eventually
got sorted out, but I still have no idea exactly what happened. I did at
least get her student number and write the lesson up in her file.
Thankfully, she hadn't had the lesson recently, so it all worked out.
But it was weird for awhile.
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Miya Matsuri, August 2001
Matsuri is the Japanese word for festival. It looks more like a parade,
to me. They take these things called mikoshi, tie them to some sturdy
wood beams, and haul them up and down the street. Mikoshi are small
shrines, though "small" is a relative term. Some of them can weigh as
much as three tonnes.
And on August 4th, Dave and I carried one. Thankfully, it wasn't the
three tonne one. (By the way, I'm spelling "ton" with an "e"
deliberately. These are metric tonnes, not imperial tons.) The timing
was a bit tricky. The festival started at 3:30, with a nice big lunch,
but we work on Saturday until 5:40 so we couldn't make it to the lunch.
The carrying part started at 6:10, which Dave just made it too. They'd
already started when he got there, but he'd had to finish work and run
home and get changed into the uniform. Fortunately, the starting point
was just at the bottom of our street. I didn't get there until much
later. At 6:10, I was still on the train, and then I had to get changed
into my uniform, too. By the time I got to our mikoshi, they were on the
third trip. I didn't have any trouble finding it, at least, because our
apartment manager's wife met me at the building. She flagged me down as
I rode my bike in and told me to hurry, which I did. But it was hard to
hurry!
I'll have to take a moment to describe the uniform. There's a white
strip of cloth about 10 feet long and maybe a foot or so wide. This I
had to wrap around my chest a few zillion times. After that, there's
some very strange thing that looks like two cones of white cotton sewed
together in a kind of mobius strip along the long edge. That's the
pants. They're scary. I had to leave the festival at one point because
I thought they were falling off. Over these go the happi, or small
jacket. It's sort of like a hip length kimono.
So, I rushed home from work, rushed into the happi and rushed out to the
mikoshi which was a few blocks north of our apartment by then. Right
away they pulled someone out of the hoard of carriers to make space for
me. But first, the guy in charge pulled my shirt off.
I was being hurried toward the mikoshi, feeling very nervous, when the
guy in charge came up behind me and pulled the happi off of my left
shoulder. I have no idea what was going on. The apartment manager's
wife (who, apparently, has no other name) shooed him off and helped me
fix it. My guess is that he thought I'd put it on wrong, which isn't a
bad assumption. In Japan, you wrap the shirts left over right, instead
of right over left. No big deal, right? Well, the right over left
version is how they wrap corpses. But I, knowing this, had tied mine
correctly. There were no further mishaps with people trying to remove my
clothing.
I was crammed into the press of people right behind Dave. I took the
beam in my hands and attempted to carry the mikoshi. It didn't work very
well. I was too short to actually support it, and I couldn't get the
rhythm that they were using to rock it. Plus, I kept stepping on
people's feet and getting my feet mashed under theirs. I was very glad
when the turn ended.
Oh, right. Turns. We didn't have to carry it all in one go. Every 500
meters or so, we stopped, put the mikoshi down on sawhorses and rested.
After that one half of a turn I did, I refused to carry it again. I was
too nervous and I wasn't doing it right anyway. Dave took 5 turns. The
next day, his shoulders were each covered in one solid purple bruise
about the size of your hand. I managed to miss more carrying too, when I
wandered off to find somewhere I could adjust my shorts. When I came
back, I had to walk up and down the street about three times before I
found them again. There were a LOT of people there. For one thing, we
were not the only mikoshi there, not by a long shot. For another thing,
there were all the spectators. The Japanese love their festivals.
Personally, I think it's more fun to watch them watch the festival.
Nearly all of the women were wearing yukata, and about one- to two-thirds
of the little girls I saw were wearing Hello Kitty yukata. I'm not
kidding.
Anyway, the whole experience was pretty short for me, since I missed a
lot of it. It ended pretty soon, but not before Dave persuaded me to
climb up on the mikoshi so he could take pictures. This was A-OK with
everyone else-- they had two girls standing on it and cheering the
carriers on when they were moving it. I flatly refused to be on it when
it was moving. It looked like fun, and the carriers were holding the
girls' feet so they couldn't fall but... it just didn't look that safe to
me.
At the end, we took the mikoshi back to the apartment building and went
around back where I discovered that we have a little playground. We set
it down and got on with the partying. Everyone else was already pretty
well lubricated, since they'd been drinking beer all evening. Carrying
the mikoshi is hot and thirsty work, after all. So they were all in a
great party mood. There was watermelon, beer, soy beans, beer, sausages,
beer and some really strange dish that someone told us was pork and cow
stomach on miso. It was pretty good, whatever it was. Oh yeah, don't
forget the beer. Drinking isn't just a past time here, it's a part of
the culture. I finally let them pour a little into my glass to satisfy
host/guest obligations and so I could participate in the many rounds of
"Kampai!" ("Cheers!"), but I didn't touch it. There were some definite
benefits to being there, and being a girl, though.
For one thing, the minute I sat down I was surrounded by four mostly
unclothed young men who were very interested in me. Dave was sitting
right across the table from me, and we both found this pretty amusing.
There was even one guy who said "I get your heart!" to me. They kinda
melted away when I told them that I'm engaged, though. But they
were lots of fun before they went. They were very eager to try out their
English on us (yes, they talked to Dave too). They kept saying "What's
this?" or "Kore wa nandeska?" (some of them knew enough English to ask,
others didn't). When we told them, they'd shout it happily. The tent
was full of "Watermelon! Watermelon!" and even "Chopstick!" Like I
said, they were pretty well lubricated.
All in all, it was a fun but rather exhausting night. I'd definitely go
to a festival again, but I wouldn't carry a mikoshi! It's kind of like
climbing Fuji, I think. Worth it once, but not twice.
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Robyn's Visit, October 2002
Day One: Sunday, October 13th.
The best laid plans of mice and men, right? I got an email from Robyn last night. Her flight had been cancelled. Fortunately, she was able to schedule another, or this would be a pretty short journal!
Anyway, this morning I got up, got ready and walked to the Airport Bus office. I'd bought a ticket for the 12:30pm bus, but since Robyn's flight had changed, I had to try to get an earlier bus. Luckily, changing wasn't as difficult as I'd thought it might be. Here's how it went:
Me: "Ano... Sumimasen." [Um... excuse me.]
Clerk Lady: "Hai?" [Yes? (this time said with a slightly nervous smile.)]
Me: (taking out my ticket and showing it to her.) "Ano, junichi-ji sanju-pun wa chotto chigao." [Uh, 12:30 is a little bit wrong.]
CL: "Cheinji?" [You want to change?]
Me: "Hai. Juichi-ji wa daijobu desu ka?" [Yes. Is 11 o'clock all right?]
CL: "Hai." (giving me a form.) "Onamae, denwabango, jishyo." [Yes. Please fill out your name, telephone number, and address.]
Me: "Hai." (spelling my name in katakana.)
Then she printed out a new ticket thanked me. I thanked her back and left. That was pretty much it. I had gotten there just in time to catch the 11 o'clock bus. I'm on the bus as I write this. Nothing else to report. Just a few comments on the scenery. It's fun to watch it all go by. You see the quaint Japanese shops and offices with apartments and homes built in, plus traditional and modern architecture mixed (like the steel torii for this one shrine in Utsunomiya.) Further out, there are mountains and tiny villages. Japanese cities aren't so crowded only because of the number of people and amount of available land. They're also crowded because the Japanese always bunch up, even out in the sticks where they have more space.
The boards at the airport lied. They said that Robyn's flight was "arriving at 14:44" from 3pm when I got there, to 3:55 when Robyn finally emerged from Customs. I was moments from going to the counters and asking if her flight was all right. She came out about then, so I didn't have to. I had warned her that Immigration and Customs would take awhile, but I hadn't thought they'd take that long!
So anyway, I'd finally found Robyn, who thanks to the whole cancelled flight thing hadn't gotten her vegetarian meal, so we headed off to find (a) the bathrooms and (b) something to eat. We settled on sushi, tuna for me and cucumber for her. She's thinkng of bending on the fish issue, and I hope she does. It'd make it so much easier to feed her while she's here! We chatted and stuff. She told me about Pittsburgh, I told her about Japan. We finished, then went out and got on the bus. Yeeha, three hours back. That makes it six hours on the bus for me. In one day. X.X
Dave met us at the bus stop with a bag of dried mangos for us to munch on. We walked home. Dave carried Robyn's bag and we showed her the apartment that we are trying to get. When we got back to the apartment, Dave gave us the devilled eggs and soy beans that he had coocked and we watched TV. Robyn loved watching "The Simpsons" in Japanese. Then she demanded to use the internet. We puttered around after that and went to bed at around 11pm. ZZZZZZZZ.
Monday, October 14th.
We all slept in, but Robyn didn't get up until 12pm. I let her sleep, she HAD just flown around the world. Eventually braved the lion's den and bribed her up with the promise of scrambled eggs. Then she got up and ate, showered, etc. After that Dave showed Robyn some of the pictures we have on the computer from various trips.
We poked about a bit more, then we went shopping! Though our plans were a bit spoiled, since the banks were closed for the holiday. (Japan has an insane number of holidays.) We took Robyn to see "Stripper" and some of the other shops on Orion-dori. She thought they were hysterical and loved them to bits. There were several strange t-shirts for Robyn to enjoy in the stores AND on the customers. After stopping at Nova to get the staff to help us arrange for pottery lessons in Mashiko (Robyn adored the model cell phones on the show floor), we went to Genki Sushi for lunch. Robyn mostly stuck to the no-meat thing, though she did give in to the temptation to have some salmon.
Since Dave was horrified to discover that I only have one pair of wearable pants (outside of my work clothes), we hit Seibu in search of some jeans. (We'd looked at "Stripper" and found some that almost fit, but they were a bit tight in the waist, so no dice.) Still no such think as luck. And everyone wonders why I hate shopping so much. Anyway, I did score some new shoes to wear in Kyoto, nice brown slip-ons so I don't have to bother with the whole on-and-off deal at the temples we'll be visiting.
Robyn got to see the kimonos at Seibu and was impressed/horrified by the prices. She declared that I wasn't allowed to buy the nice pink one that was only $1,000. Foo. Then Robyn started "dying of thirst" so we headed home and watched "The Fifth Element" which she hadn't seen before. (Actually, on the way back we stopped at the tatoo parlor so Robyn could at the pictures, but it wasn't open.) Dave made a stir-fry (with fried tofu) for dinner. Robyn relaxed in the bath and Dave and I puttered on the computer. Then we went to bed so we could get up early enough for our trip to Mashiko.
Tuesday, October 15th.
Well, we left later than we had planned, but there was no real rush. After a bit of running around on Monday, we'd finally gotten a booking to make pottery. (Thank you, Timothy and Tomoyuki!) The appointment was for 1pm. We hit the bank, then got to the bus at around 11. We arrived in Mashiko at about 12 and headed straight for this awesome little cafe. Though the bus hadn't stopped at Togei Messe like we had assumed it would and it took longer to get to the cafe then though, still we were able to get some good pictures, so it wasn't all a loss. The cafe is so nice! English menu, but Dave and I could read enough katakana that it wouldn't have been a problem. What makes the cafe awesome is that they serve you on Mashiko pottery and the bathroom is decorated with it-- it's got these huge clay sinks with grape leaf designs and the fun heated toilet seats with bidets and stuff. Also, the food is really good, though this time we confused the poor waitress and she mixed up the order. We didn't end up with anything that anybod couldn't eat, but my food got lost entirely and Robyn got something else. Eventually Dave asked about my food (it was just a little too late to simply have been late) and we got it straightened out, but I had about eight minutes to finish so we could get to the class on time. Oh well. No biggie. Robyn and Dave enjoyed their "Oriental Noodles," (spaghetti with soy sauce, mushrooms and seaweed) and I enjoyed my spaghetti with tomatoes, herbs and lemon. Then we hurried over to the potter center.
The potter center has this huge, scary Tanuki (badger/dog/racoon) statue whose balls are very obvious (as well as the thing that goes with them) and bigger than I am (the other thing isn't). That was fun to show Robyn. We spent a little while trying to find the actual calss area bcause the center is this huge, sprawling place, but between our minimal Japanese and a Japanese family's minimal English, we got directions. I think we were a little late, which is a big no-no in Japan, but we looked confused enough that I think they guessed about the getting lost.
They set us up with aprons and did a demonstration for us and the other (Japanese) students. We couldn't follow much, but we could guess from watching. The poor guides were very nice, though we could tell they were nervous. They didn't speak much English, but I think they did a champion job of helping us.
Robyn, as the artist in the family, was practically a natural, making several bowls, cups and plate-like things and using up two full lumps of clay.
Dave proved the improbability that men had invented pottery. He had a tough time getting the clay to obey him, though that did free him up to take some nice pictures and tape the proceedings.
After one easy tea cup, which they guide pronounced good ("Ah, jozu!"), I had several failures, but I kept at it. I'm collecting tea sets that match the seasons, but I'm still missing winter and summer and I thought I could make a set myself. Turns out I could MAKE 'em but glazing them was a different story. Ah well. Playing with mud is fun. I'm thinking of starting potting as a hobby when I get back. I did make one other thing besides tea cups. I tried my hand at making a vase. Robyn says it looks like a spindle. It's cool. ^_^
After the potting (and I won't even tell you what it all cost, lessons for three people, firing and delivery), we did a little shopping. Dave found a cute vase/candle holder thing he liked and we showed Robyn the "Designer Potter" room, with its sculpy-like designs and insane prices. I found a set of tea cups that I almost liked for summer, but at $10.00 per cup, I wasn't sure enough to buy them.
We hit the cafe again for dessert. Heehee! Dave had "raw chocolate" (some kind of cake with a mix of bitter and sweet chocolate) and a Coke. Robyn had a blueberry tart and some hot cocoa, and I had a pear charlotte and hot cocoa. As we were leaving, Dave struck up a conversation (in Japanese) with the staff that was fun, but a bit confusing. Poor Robyn had no idea what was going on, only that we were talking about her.
One of Dave's students had told him that there's a shrine in Mashiko that's only open for one month every 12 years and that it was open this month. We decided to try to find it. We guessed where it was by looking at our map (unfortunately only in Japanese) and started walking. We saw several hopeful signs, but had to give up after about half an hour. It was getting dark and we didn't want to get stranded in Mashiko. At least we got to have a nice relaxing walk, though, and got to see some lovely Japanese countryside and take some nice pictures.
Here's where the other shoe drops, though. It's an unwritten rule that you can't have a vacation without SOME kind of drama, and given the fights that Robyn and I used to have, I'd really been dreading it. It struck on the way back to Mashiko proper. Robyn had used up all her film (this roll, anyway) and was trying to wind it back up. She'd bought her camer (an old manual with a high school's name written on it) from one of her friends and had gleefully been anticipating the wonderful pictures she was going to take. However, for reasons we can't figure out, the camera wound backwards and when Robyn opened her camera to take it out, she found that all the film had been ripped out of the case and that when she'd opened the back it had all been exposed. Pictures go bye-bye. She was, needless to say, rather upset about it and it took about an hour and us reading about half of the "Japanese Made Funny" book to her to cheer her up again.
On the way home, we stopped off at "Hard Off" (a used hardward store) and bought her another used manual camera as a Christmas present. So, hopefully that's all worked out now. WHile we were there, I resisted the urge to buy a violin. I DO want to learn again, but I'll wait until I can find an English speaking teacher!
When we got home, we had dinner (split pea soup) and crashed.
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