Kuruma Arimasen

Later that night, after going to a party at a bar in Kofu, a few of us went to a McDonald’s (yes they have them here, and you can get a shrimp burger) drive through – without a car. When we walked up to the window, Dave (who’s Irish – which is why everything he says is funny) said to the guy “Sumimasen, kuruma arimasen”, which literally means “sorry, car does not exist” (practically, it means, “sorry, we don’t have a car”, but the literal translation strikes me funny). The attendant there (at 3 in the morning) was really chipper and helpful. He wore his McDonald’s uniform with pride. That seems to be a theme here in Japan – there are no ‘bad’ jobs, and everyone takes their job really seriously. People take satisfaction in wearing their work uniforms (and there is a heavy emphasis on uniforms). Whereas someone working at a McDonald’s drive through at 3 in the morning in the middle of nowhere in America would be annoyed and surely when a group of foreigners walked up to the drive-through window, this Japanese guy in the same situation tried his best to give us an excellent McDonald’s experience.

A Day Trip to Tokyo

On Sunday, some other new JETs and I went over to Tokyo. We took the bus from Kofu. It takes about two hours to get from there to Shinjuku station. There’s not much to tell – we didn’t do all that much – just sort of walked around and got lost a lot. We did manage to make it to Moiri Tower, where you can see a 360 degree view of Tokyo. It was pretty cool. Tokyo doesn’t have nearly as many skyscrapers as Manhattan. Most of the buildings are pretty low, actually. The city is made of up many smaller neighborhoods connected by a labyrinth of roads. It would be a nightmare to try to drive around Tokyo – it’s hard enough to walk. The streets are not gridded. In fact, there’s no order to them whatsoever. Most don’t even have names. There are just streets – going in all different directions. I hear the taxi drivers get lost sometimes.
The subway system isn’t much simpler. I shouldn’t say “subway system”, but rather “subway systems”. Yes, there are two separate subway lines. Not like “red line”, “blue line”, but two wholly different subway systems that overlap each other. One is run by JR, a huge Japanese transportation company that runs most of the trains in the country, and the other is run by (I think) the Tokyo Bureau of Transportation. They each have a ton of different colored lines going all over the city, but they are separate from each other. You need two completely different subway maps to navigate, and each one is ridiculously complicated in and of itself. It took us a while to figure out how to get around…

[Ok, so I think the pictures require some explaination. One is a street in Harajuku that had some insanely nice shops. One is an intense-looking bus. One is the famed crosswalk in Shibuya, where like, a thousand people cross at once when the light changes. One is a Kevin standing in front of a Masked Rider subway poster. And the last one is one of the views of the city from Moiri tower.]

Fireworks

On Tuesday night I met the other Yamanashi JETs at the fireworks festival. The fireworks were definitely the best I’ve ever seen. Instead of one big fireworks show that sort of pulls out all the stops (like in America), the festival consisted of smaller shows. In between, a Japanese women would give a speech (I think about the sponsor of the upcoming display). Each little show was perfectly choreographed. The ones that were set to music were done so that the firework cues matched (almost) perfectly with the soundtrack. It was really impressive – especially since we were sitting so freakin close to the fireworks themselves. They were literally right overhead. During one of the shows, a burning ember landed, like, fifty yards infront of us.

A Busy Tuesday

So, this afternoon I had lunch with Kae, my JTE. Beforehand, she showed me around Nakatomi Junior High, the school I’ll primarily be working at. The school is on a mountain overlooking the town. The view is incredible. The school itself is three stories. It’s a lot more friendly looking than American junior high schools (Beck certainly doesn’t come to mind). Except for science, music, and PE, the kids stay in their homeroom all day and the teachers come to them. Without lockers, it kind of feels more like an elementary school. One interesting feature to the school was the abundance of helmets in all the classrooms. You know, for earthquakes. They apparently strike about once every two months.

The kids are now on summer break, which means they don’t go to classes but instead participate in clubs everyday. The dedication of these kids is unbelievable. Kae took me to the gym where the badminton team was practicing. The badminton team, by the way, is all girls (the boys play baseball), and they could flat out ruin me in badminton. I’ve never seen anyone (let alone a thirteen year old Japanese girl) hit a birdie so hard. They were crushing that freaking thing. Our junior high has the first and third best badminton players in Yamanashi.

I met the music/band teacher, whose name I have since forgotten. Since I put it on my JET application, everyone in the school knows that I play saxophone – especially the band teacher. She wants me to play in some sort of school festival. I told her I didn’t have my horn with me. She said they had extra ones at school. I tried to tell her that I was really rusty, but she didn’t seem to care. She gave me the sheet music. Great… If the girls in brass band (its all girls, I guess ALL of boys are busy with baseball) are anywhere near as good as the ones on the badminton team, this is going to be really embarrassing…
After showing me around the school, Kae had to go to the local firestation to visit some students who were learning about what its like to be a fireman for a day (or something… I’m still not really clear on what we were doing there). When we walked in, the kids were busy performing CPR on a dummy, so we started chatting with one of the head fireman. After finding out that I was from Philadelphia, the guy kept saying “Rocky!” to me and punching the air. After the kids finished their lesson, the firefighters took it upon themselves to enthusiastically show me every piece of equipment in the station. They took me into the ambulance and took my blood pressure and monitored how much oxygen was getting to my fingers (?!). Apparently not enough – I was six points below average. Then, they insisted on having me try on all of their firefighting equipment. I tried on the fireproof jacket (even though it was like 95 degrees out). Then they strapped an oxygen tank to my back and put this giant, face-covering mask on my head and had me breathe through it for a minute (though there was enough air in the tank to last another twelve). Kae just sort of stood by and acted as my translator through the whole thing. I’m still not sure why we went there in the first place. Kae barely talked to the kids. I think the Japanese are on a mission to humiliate me.

Japanese TV Part 1

Japanese television is retarded. I just watched a show where two kids are reading “Lord of the Rings” and the characters come to life. Only, its not Lord of the Rings, because the characters are a guy in a red eighteenth century European military uniform, a princess in a two-dollar tiara, a guy with a plastic helmet and shield, and a greasy haired old woman in a French maid outfit. But they totally used the music from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack all throughout the show. At one point, the guy in the military uniform was fighting a wall made of cardboard boxes, and then he fought construction equipment. It was like a bad dream that insisted on making no sense.

Sometimes, Doing Things is Kowai (Scary)

Everything is a little bit terrifying over here. I had some errands to run today, and I knew that in order to get to the big Target-like store (which is like 45 minutes away – everything is far away here – but the drives don’t feel long – they’re very scenic) I would need to buy gas. I prepared myself. I was all ready to say “man-tan kudasai” (full tank please), when I saw the attendent, but when I drove up, he started asking me questions or something. I ended up getting my tank of gas, but the experience was a bit more frightening than it would have been in the States. I guess I’m better for it.

Driving

Driving in Japan is a real trip. Everything’s opposite – you drive on the left side of the road in the passengers seat. The first time I drove, I made an American right turn… I won’t do that again. Since then though, I’ve gotten used to it. I drive an old white Honda Vigor. There are all sorts of weird Japanese cars that never make it over to the States. Honda, Toyota, and Nissan pump out all sorts of cool designs over here. Its really rare that you see American cars here (surprise, surprise). So far, I’ve seen three – a Buick (what?!), a Mustang (apparently they’re fairly popular), and a Hummer (I hear they’ve caught on as a status symbol). We were driving around the other day, and we saw a guy in a red Ferrari. Beautiful car. The guy must have imported it because the wheel was on the left side.
The nomenclature for roads here makes navigation very difficult. When a new road is built, they don’t bother giving it a unique name. Instead, they name it after an already existing road. I live on Rt 52, but there are three other Rt 52’s that run parallel to it. They don’t even bother with words like “new” or “old” – all the 52’s are just 52. Good luck figuring out which is which. And its not just 52. There are many Rt 5’s, and several Rt 12’s. Its fun to come to an intersection where, any way you go, you’re on the same road.