Thursday, October 21, 2004

I'll be sittin til the evening comes...

Well, here I am on an unexpected day off. I've been sick with a cold the last two or three days and it just kept getting worse and worse, so I finally called in sick today. Bleh. Which means I will prob'ly have to make-up all the lessons on one of my days off sometime later. Man!!! Well, here are some more scenes from my life in Japan. I experience constant, abiding anguish over what order to publish these pix to my blog. Do I publish them so you scroll up or scroll down in order to view the next picture chronologically? Anyway, this time you scroll up. So start from the bottom and work your way to the top. I think that's better. As kermit would say, Sheesh. I actually met a guy named Kermit once. Can you imagine? Kermit? Why would do that to your kid? Anyway, I'm off to make some more hot tea and use this extra day to do some lesson prep. Enjoy, once again, my online exercise in narcissism. I know I do. ;]


This is a cute button that Jonathan found somewhere. It somehow exhibits something quintessentially Japanese in its cuteness and its stilted English. I really like it.


This is inside a model of a spacecraft. This is a model of a toilet on a spacecraft. There various buttons and tubes, some of which were labeled 'suction'. Needless to say, we spent some time theorizing about the logistics of what actually takes place when one - ahem - uses the bathroom in space.


Yes, I am a giantess here. Good grief. This is me and Saki and the cast remains of some long-dead unfortunate fellow. We toured the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. This was on the Life and Biology floor exhibit. A very interesting museum. We spent about four hours there.


On Sunday, October 17, Jonathan and I went to Tokyo to meet our friend, Saki. We decided to spend the day at a museum and we had a lot of fun. This is a picture from the window of the train en route to the museum. Tokyo is in the distance.



After shopping in the typhoon, we went and sang karaoke for a few hours. Jonathan is gracing the room with a moving performance of Piano Man.


More people braving the typhoon winds and rain. This man has done the smart thing and closed his umbrella. The wind will destroy your umbrella if you put it up, so it's just best to deal with getting wet. This typhoon came about two weeks ago. Another one just hit last night, altho it wasn't quite as bad in this area. It's interesting how commonplace typhoons and earthquakes are here and how easily I am now accustomed to them. Well, typhoons, at any rate. Earthquakes still scare me a bit. I was woken a few nights ago by a fairly large earthquake that lasted about 20 seconds. Man! That is so SCARY! Sheesh. What can you do but just pray and hope this isn't the big one? Admittedly, it is a bit thrilling, tho. ;)


This is a cool photo. The rain was falling almost sideways and you can see it shooting like bullets in this picture. A typical typhoon scene: a woman struggles with her umbrella that has been turned inside out and a row of bicycles are knocked over on top of each other.


Scenes from the aftermath of the typhoon. Outdoor escalators everywhere were strewn with leaves. The drama never ceases.


This is the top floor of the Seiyu shopping center near my place. Most shopping centers have some area of games and crap like that. I couldn't resist dropping 100yen to try my hand at winning some sweet confections. (100yen is about 1dollar). I won one small piece of candy. D'oh!


Our fellow restaurant patrons.




Action shots. Woah. The excitement pulses off the page.


A second view of the ramen shop.


A ramen shop in my town. Pretty good noodles here and not too expensive. Immaculately clean kitchen! Look at how that stainless steel sparkles. That is actually a fairly rare sight in kitchens here.


Don't know what's going on here. Just a funny picture and a view of the street that runs by my apartment.


This was the day the big typhoon hit Chiba. It didn't stop Jonathan and I from going out and about,tho. We had some ramen and went shopping. But it was WINDY! Zoiks. This is my mailbox. Of course, I only usually get junkmail and this photo exhibits a typical specimen.


An apartment building in the background and some small, almost shanty-like houses in the foreground. Between them are the tracks of the nearby Keisei train line, but the noise is actually quite minimal.


This picture and the one above are views from my balcony. Two old ladies live in this house next door. I overlook their small garden and I like to see them out early in the morning poking around in it.



This is in the tatami room. Tatami are the mats on the floor. They are installed into the floor and changed each time a new tenant moves in. Apartments are measured by how many tatami rooms they have. It is soft and firm and comfortable for sleeping and sitting on. Behind me is my futon and blankets that I sleep on. I roll or fold them up in the morning and put them aside so the room can be used for other things during the day. On nice days, a futon should be brought outside and hung over the balcony and beat with a stick to kill any mites and to get rid of dust and dirt. I like doing that. You can hear the echoes of people beating their futons when you walk around outside sometimes.


My kitchen. That square object is my stove that is waiting to be installed.


Here is my washing machine. It is so GREAT to have a washer right in my apartment. I love it. Doing laundry here is actually fun. I never thought I would say that.


Laundry hanging to dry. It was raining outside so i had to hang it inside. Behind me is the tatami room that serves as both bedroom and living room.


This one and the next few above are "scenes" from my illustrious abode. I am still in the process of collecting furniture. I'm getting a desk soon. Looking at these pictures, I thought that maybe it doesn't present the most pleasant-looking atmosphere, but in reality, my apartment and my neighborhood are actually quite cozy - despite the gray, barren-looking day on which these pictures were taken.


Fuchimotos and their friends gave us a GRAND tour of a nearby temple. We walked around for two or more hours and had the history of many things there explained to us. It was a truly unique experience. One that maybe even many Japanese people do not get. The man in green (I am sorry I can't remember his name) is a monk who lives at this temple. His wife is the woman on the left. In one shrine, he even opened a special area that is not for the general public and told us this could only be seen once every 12 years. I'm not sure if that means each person can only see it once every 12 years or if the statues themselves cannot be viewed by anyone except once in 12 years. Anyway, that was interesting. And before we left, they had a short ceremony where a couple of the monks prayed for Jonathan and I. Two have monks pray a blessing over you is usually quite expensive, so for us to given one free of charge, as it were, was a humbling gift. However, during such ceremonies, it seems customary to sit in the position of seiza - where you fold your legs underneath you and sit on the backs of your legs and your feet. Japanese people are very good at this. But Jonathan and I both had trouble. Our legs kept falling asleep and tingling or hurting. I was embarassed cuz I kept fidgeting during this serious ceremony. It was only about ten minutes, but by the end I had given up and just returned to indian-style. Phew...



Here a a couple more pictures from the day we spent with the Fuchimotos. Aw...