Settled In

I'm gonna blame the lack of updates on a lack of activity. Things are slow right now. It's been freezing outside, and only just recently is it warm enough to do any sightseeing. In fact, Jamie and I have been running our heater at night 'cause of how ridiculously cold the apartment gets. As a result, we got hit with a $99 gas bill for our first two weeks. I love this country's dedication to recycling and limiting natural resources, but it's starting to wear on the wallet. Thank goodness futon are so warm.

Speaking of warm things, have I made it apparent that everyone here is incredibly warm and accommodating? Last Saturday, Orr-sensei's wife threw a welcome party of sorts for us 4 guys from Rose and several newer faculty from the school. She prepared a whole bunch of delicious Japanese food and made us a massive apple pie. We chatted it up with everyone for a while, including Orr-sensei's daughter, Christine. She's spent the majority of her life in Japan, but she recently graduated high school and is heading for Taylor University back home in August. She took the 4 of us to a Korean restaurant for lunch today, since we were all complaining about Japanese food not being spicy. We're still not very familiar with this place, so I'm hoping we'll spend more time with her and her friends around town.

Of course, we (minus Elliot) made our usual rounds to Super Star this past weekend. Hoshi-san asked us to come on Sunday night since they don't usually get much business, and it ended up being a pretty chill night just kickin' back, practicing our Japanese, and learning the local dialect (Aizu-ben, I'll tell ya about it later). When midnight rolled around, Hoshi-san decided to take us home...but only after making a stop at the local castle, Aizu-jo. It was faintly illuminated at night, which made it a little eerie but pretty all at once. Hoshi-san motioned to all of the bare trees around the walkway and castle front and told us that when 花見 (hana-mi, cherry blossom festival) comes, each of them would be covered in beautiful cherry blossoms. He says he'll bring us back at that time to watch the parade and celebrate. Since the festival is weather-dependent, I'm thinkin' about going down to Tokyo and seeing 花見 there before it's warm enough to see in Aizu. We just gotta make some concrete plans and actually commit to them.

Just yesterday, Jamie and I were gettin' up and ready for the day when we heard the doorbell ring. Jamie answered the door to a tiny Japanese woman we'd never met. After the shock of seeing Americans answer the door abated, she cheerfully asked Jamie if he understood any Japanese. When Jamie answered, "Yes, a little bit," the lady proceeded to launch into a speech about Jesus and eternal salvation. She left us with this slip of paper and was on her merry way. As it turns out, we'd been hit by Jehovah's witnesses. Can't even get away from 'em in Japan! For a country so disconnected from religion save Buddhist and Shinto rituals still practiced at public shrines, it was a heck of a surprise.


I've tried steaming rice in a pot about 4 times. If I didn't burn it, then it came out really soggy. We got to school, and it was like finding presents under the tree on Christmas. Except instead of Christmas, it was just Wednesday and instead of finding presents under the tree, we found an automatic rice steamer next to a trash can. We were afraid it wasn't going to work, but Jamie hooked it up and it boiled water just fine! It got used for dinner that night and worked like a charm!

We're all getting restless, so some sightseeing is most definitely in order. I'm looking forward to some great stories and pictures in the coming weeks.

The Japanese for the week is a word that describes my good buddy Andrew. When Japanese people want to describe someone who has no ability to catch on to context, they call that person "K-Y." No, not the jelly. It stands for 空気読めない (kuuki yomenai) and literally means "can't read the air." It can be really, really insulting if used incorrectly, so be careful!

Gaijin out!