Beaucoup de Izakaya

hello from jpan! All is well here, althought the homesickness is starting to settle in and its really affecting my work haha. Last weekend Maria and I took the train to Okazaki and met up with Briana at the station. She took us to an izakaya for dinner--its a restaurant where you order a bunch of different foods to share and its fairly cheap, but lots of fried food :). There was a couple sitting next to us and our waiter never wanted to come and take our order or theirs so the man started shouting sumimasen and hiding behind his menu...it was hilarious. so then we felt it appropriate to shout sumimasen loudly as well. One thing about japan is that everyone in restaurants and stores shouts at you...they constantly shout welcome and thank you over and over again. After dinner we went to karaoke for about an hour and a half and then went back to Briana's house to sleep. On saturday we decided to go shopping, of course, and we went to Aeon mall near her house. I bought some jeans at Gap...seriously they were the only ones that fit my hips and were long enough. And they were WAY too expensive. bah. We found a massage place in the mall and decided to get 30 min back massages which was grand...im pretty sure i was drooling but whatever. Then we went grocery shopping for Briana and went back to her house. Then we met up with Matt and Annie at Yamachan--its a famous restaurant in Nagoya or "world famous" as they claim to be and the mascot is a man who is 3/4 chicken...its sweet! They have the best chicken wings tho...yum! The environment is really fun tho and the waiters attempted to speak english to us and made the dinner highly enjoyable. After dinner we went to a bar called izakaiya jaa nai (not an izakaiya) where all the foreigners hang out for chris's (a third year) bday party. There we drank a lot...they had miller lite...and then went for all night karaoke after. We karaoked until 5am...yikes! it was fun tho, i thought it best to constantly sing backstreet boys and 'nsync songs, im sure everyone else appreciated it! Sunday we slept in until about noon and then went to breakfast then back on the train home--its only like an hour train ride away, not too bad. Sunday I just went grocery shopping, made some fried rice for dinner, and went to bed. Monday I sat around as usual at school, reading everything and anything I could find online. I actually did finish my first lesson tho, its just my self-introduction in which i made a power point with pictures of the fam, the friends, etc and a quiz about me that I will make into a competitive game. After school I wanted to go to the foreign food store and see what they had so I found the bike Dan left for me and attempted to ride it....oh god, its so small and old and falling apart I almost didnt make it...trust me everyone I passed was laughing cuz i looked hilarious on it. I got some junk food tho and peanut butter...score! On Tuesday my supervisor helped me sort out some bills for gas, water, electric which are all overpriced but i guess thats the way it is here. Around 12:30 he took me to my other two schools that I teach at once a week...Taketoyo HS and Utsumi HS, both senior high schools in the chita peninsula. I met with the vice principals and english teachers, who were all quite nice and spoke english well enough. Utsumi is a low level academic high school, so that should be fun I'm sure no one will listen slash care what I have to say, but the school is located close to the ocean and Utsumi is like a beach town, its very pleasant! My supervisor got lost on the way and we drove around in circles, so I cant wait until I have to go there by myself next week....After work I met Maria in Sakae to get my cell phone, which now i have one!!! We went to Soft Bank in Sakae, there are a couple english speaking employees so it was easy enough to get a phone! Then we found a subway and omg it was so amazing to have a real sandwich again...we both ate footlong subs and were in heaven...i think we are going to make it a monthly trip! After that we went to HMV to get blank cds, wandered around by all the hostess clubs and men holding up signs with girls, and call girls in the streets...its a very wholesome city haha. Im at work now and about to go into the gym and give a speech in front of oh 1000 people, no worries I'll be fine...not. Oh and its in japanese...ouch. Wish me luck!! Today is Opening ceremony day so all the students are here and almost ready to start school, although i dont start teaching until next week! Ahh i have to go now and make a fool of myself, just a typical day for me! Lots of LOVE! Miss you all! Oh and its been raining here all week which brought some cool breezy weather which is a nice change from the humidity! :)

Ego Converstaion

Its finally Friday...this week was long! I have nothing to do at work since the teachers arent here, so i sit around for hours reading things online or listening to music....but no worries some teachers sleep at their desks so im guessing they got nothing to do either! On Wednesday night after work I went into Sakae to go shopping again and bought more things, i cant help it! I found out the sales only last until this Sunday so i need to get all the cheap shopping in while i can! After that I met Matt and Maria at Nagoya Station, which is like one of the largest train stations in the world, and we went to a movie theatre to watch Batman. The movies here are so expensive, 1800 yen for a movie, but if you go to the last showing its only 1200 yen and on wed its lady nite so it was only 1000 yen...not bad! Most movies are in english with japanese subtitles so thats good, some are dubbed in english but luckily it was subtitled because if batman was dubbed it would have been ruined! After that I barely caught my last train home...the trains stop running around midnight and if you miss it you're screwed! On thursday i did my normal routine at work...nothing...and then after work i went to the post office to pick up my atm card, finally...they accidentally sent it to osaka which is like 2 hours away...but now i have it! Then at 7:30 i met Tetsuya, a man that Dan, my predecessor, got me in touch with so that I could teach an english converstaion class to him and some other people. He drove me to Agui Hall and I met about 6 other people that I would be teaching as well. They were all older men and women, but soooo kawaii (cute) and so eager to meet me! I just introduced myself and we had an informal converstaion session for about an hour and a half and then we went for tea afterwards. I got paid like 80 bucks for just sitting and talking with them and Im going to do that every week! Also they offered to take me places, let me come to stay at their houses, and were so kind to me, I am really glad I got to meet them and look forward to getting to know them better! they loved the pictures I showed of everybody, especially you mom and dad...they thought you were so young and handsome! haha it was a great time! After work today I am going to go back into Sakae and try to buy a cell phone at Soft Bank....arg i hope i can get one so the other alts can get a hold of me since I have about 3 three-day weekends in September all of which i will be traveling during!! After that Maria and I are going to Okazaki for the weekend to visit Briana and just hang out and relax! So im looking forward to the weekend...as always! oh and someone needs to send me some cheese...its awful here and i dont know if i can live without it! ALSO i found dr pepper today in a vending machine...score! no mountain dew tho, its only in tokyo! Much love xoxo!

My Closet :(

Orientation yesterday went well. All 18 new JETs of Aichi were there and some older CIRs were there as well. We listened to speeches, watched a video about Aichi, and had panels on life and teaching in Japan...there was some useful information at this one as opposed to the Tokyo orientation which wasn't quite as relevant. I found out some interesting facts that I feel inclined to tell you....like how laws in japan are ultra-serious. Apparently possession of marajuana or heroine gets you the same punishment according to japanese law, they dont really understand the difference between the two and if you are caught with either you are royally screwed. Also here the police have the right to question you at any time if they feel like it, so basically no one has any rights here....very odd. And there is no right to an expedient trial here, they can hold you for as long as they like and they basically mentally torture you until they get a confession, since they really cant cant any evidence to convict besides a confession. We heard lots of stories about previous Jets who got arrested slash got into big trouble with the law here. After orientation we had a reception and we did it japanese-style if you will....we all stand around these little tables and listen to the host speak and then after she was done we kanpai-ed (cheered) our beers and then we could start on the buffet. I went simple, beef and rice...only to realize whilst i was eating the rice that something in it had eyes....yes yes there were tiny little fish in my rice. It was still delicious, but i've discovered that the japanese find a way to sneak fish into everything so i might as well just be prepared for it. After that a few of us went out for a nijikai (second party) and sat under the tv tower just hanging out. We decided to call it an early night and left around 8:30, but i was still hungry so i went to the train station and got a crepe....good stuff. Now im at work again just sitting, but at 2 I have an appointment with Hiroki, a young boy working on a speech for a speech competition. I am helping him with his pronunciation and delivery, his speech is so sad about how he was picked on and such, but i cant help but laugh at times because his tone is way too happy for the content of the speech and he cant pronounce the th sound to save his life haha. Im putting up pictures of my apartment! Much Love.

Partying in Sakae

soooo michael phelps rules all and brett still kicks butt....i found a sports bar in nagoya to watch jets games!! well this weekend was crazy fun with the alts. On friday i cleaned my apartment and went to yamada-denki, the electronic store near me, and bought lots of things for the apartment....a shower bar, curtain, pots, pans...etc and now i have everything i need, i hope! On saturday i went shopping in sakae and found too many sales! I bought some dresses that were half off...apparently august is sale month but in september everything gets really expensive again so i have to do my shopping now! Then i met up with matt and we went to the hard rock, we just got paid a lot of money on friday for doing nothing so we decided to celebrate! I had a 17 dollar burger....it was well worth it! Hard Rock in Japan is like the Nitty Gritty, everyone goes there for their birthday and its crazy...people running around clapping and singing and banging on drums idk....and after we were planning on going up nagoya tv tower to see the view at night, but ran into roy and nick, who are older alts in nagoya, and then chris and tom, new alts, so we sat around outside drinking budweiser (ew)...there is like a fake central park in sakae and they have a cart of brooklyn hot dogs...which are not good... and american beer. After that we wandered and drank beer in the street, which is way more fun than stupid open container laws in the states! It was quite an entertaining evening! Sunday morning I went into sakae again at 11 to meet everyone for a scavenger hunt! We got into four teams...my team was just three...me, chris, and matt (all from the midwest so we names our team the mid-western muts)...an we had costumes, which were dog noses, and a dog puppet mascot! We had a list of things to find and we had to take pictures of us wearing our costume and with the mascot in every picture....everyone thought we were crazy, as they should have. We found some interesting places tho....like sex shops...and saw some interesting people....like grandmas wth purple hair, apparently its a fad in japan...and did illegal things, taking a picture of someone sleeping on a train is illegal, but we did it anyways...it was 5 points! We got second place and our prize was a pitcher of beer at the sports bar shooters were we meet after the hunt. we made it just in time to watch phelps live win his 8th, it was sweet. After that we played games and I ate a quesadilla...i really miss mexican food (chipotle)...and then we left around 7 to go to an australian bar called red rock to watch one of the alts perform. That was a lot of fun as well....drinking beer, watching gymnastics, and listening to good live music..all in all a successful weekend! I am at work now, obviously working so hard because i have SO much to do but after work im going to go to Utsumi beach for the fireworks tonight...the japanese take their fireworks very seriously! And then tomorrow is orientation in nagoya all day! Ill try to put up pictures of my apartment and school on wednesday for you! I hope everyone is doing well and have a safe trip Rita!!! Lots of love and go USA!!

Karaoke-からおけ

Sakae

Tokyo Orientation Photos