Okonomi-yummy
I had my number one absolute most favoritist food today; Okonomiyaki. I've been waiting for my favorite shop to open after New Year. It's run by an old lady near my previous apartment. It was good to see and talk to her again. We can't communicate much but she treats me like a relative rather than a customer. It's sad though. I don't know when I'm going to be able to come back to Japan. And if she were to pass away... I wouldn't even know. I may try to go see her again Thursday. I think she thought today was the only day I'd come by because she was giving me a bunch of little presents. I was stuffed with okonomiyaki afterwards but I still had dinner at the Nakamoto's in 3 hours. I secretly hoped they didn't have TOO much food that I love. One thing they had that someone brought from Kumamoto was basashi which is horse sashimi. Yes, raw horse meat. I had one piece, it's ok, it doesn't have a lot of flavor and it's sort of stringy and tough. People were telling me I lost weight, later they said I still had some more to go. I'm just glad it's an improvement over "You're fat." I might have lost a little weight but part of it has got to be the clothes. The stuff I was wearing last time I saw them was a year and 20 pounds old. Of course I'm going to look better when I don't have enough material hanging off my butt to make small quilts. But I digress. Remember how I said I'm seeing more of the social side of people? For some reason everybody is inviting me to stay over at their houses. I don't know if they think I don't have a place to stay or if it's some sort of custom but I haven't done that much over the last couple of days and all of a sudden I'm booked until I leave. My friends come back tonight too and I'd really like to see them but as I type, I'm sitting at one of the Nakamoto's houses almost ready for bed. Tomorrow I go to my old school. I'm excited and a little nervous about what people's reactions will be. I don't want to get my hopes up too high so as not to be disappointed.

- posted by Chris @ 11:56 AM (3) comments

 
Akemashite Omedetou!
You know the Japanese have 2 different congratulations for the New Year. One is for before the New Year, and the title of this entry is what you say after. I however, forget to say either. The Nakamoto's took me on a small road trip to a town called Hagi today. They make famous pottery there and I think the last warlord to govern Hiroshima lived there. I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong though. We got to make some pottery ourselves. Yes they were sorry excuses for pottery after looking at the real stuff but it was good fun nonetheless. We had good fun drinking real Japanese green tea because Keiko (Mrs. Nakamoto) was showing us how to drink the tea, slurped the last bit a little too loud from her bowl, made herself laugh and I think she may have snorted tea up her nose. Oh well, in my head it's funnier that way. By the time we went to the castle in Hagi I wasn't feeling too well. I woke up feeling questionable and got a stuffy head and headache throughout the day. I just wanted to go home. It didn't help that there was NO castle in Hagi. Sadly, like many of the castles in Japan, the castle was destroyed or dismantled either in World War II or by a rivaling warlord. So I stood on the Hagi pile of rocks that used to support the out walls. By dinner, I had a fever and I guess because of the rise in my body temperature, everything felt colder. I was nearly convulsing with shivers and chattering teeth. The restaurant we went to was famous for 3 things, great udon, fantastic chicken (teriyaki-ish), and eating OUTSIDE even in winter. The only thing warming people eating are kotatsu which are like coffee tables with heaters under them and blankets over them. They're sort of effective, but not so great on the upper body. Oh and this place doesn't have modern kotatsu either. They put a tray of coals under the table. Very slow to warm up compared to halogen. But I stuck it out and had really good food and a pretty good time. The Nakamoto's were very concerned I was sick but once I showered and took LOTS of medicine I felt much better. It's funny, I've only been here a few days but already I feel like I've seen more of the Nakamoto's personality and socializing than I did over a whole year. Our cousin Masayoshi is engaged to China (Chee-nah; not the country). She went to Hagi too and he kinda flirts with her and pokes fun of her. For someone I've only known as polite and overly cautious, it's refreshing to see him let his guard down a little.

- posted by Chris @ 10:00 PM (1) comments

 
Pounding in the New Year
Oh it felt so good to sleep in today. I made it through a 12 hour flight next to a semi-annoying girl from Los Angeles and arrived in Japan and Hatsukaichi alright. It took a longer than I expected but oh well. I started to stress a little when I couldn't get in touch with my friend who had the key to the place I was going to stay at. But a freezing 45 minutes later, I was inside as warm as one can be in uninsulated buildings. I'll have to remember to pay my friends back for all the electricity I'm sucking up with their heater. Today I went to the Nakamoto's house up in the hills. Everything is how I remember it. It has only been 5 months though. This is only about the 4th or 5th time I've seen it in the day so I finally got to see the flower nursery, where they're building a new garage, and we got to pound and shape mochi. It was fun because I got to see familiar faces, and we were doing something else besides eating and practicing English. Oh and my Japanese still sucks, but I've retained some of it. Listening is way more easier than speaking. You know, at least if I looked more 'foreign' the people at say Seven-Eleven could write me off as in the process of learning Japanese rather than Japanese and mentally impaired. I don't know if they know I understand more than I do because people tend to ask questions about America, about me, my schedule this time, etc, to each other and not directly to me. The next few days are probably going to be pretty uneventful. Most of my friends are still traveling and half the country shuts down until the 3rd or 4th day of January. So I'll just relax, live off of Seven-Eleven food, and walk (no bicycle) around my old stomping grounds. (Saying as little as possible of course.)

- posted by Chris @ 10:44 PM (0) comments

 
Hisashiburi!
According to my ever so important electronic dictionary. Hisashiburi means "It's been a long time" or "I"ve missed you!". Accordingly so, I leave to visit Japan for New Years. I hesitated to write in my blog again because it seems not only pointless, but vain to think people would still read about anything that happens to me at home. My rationale would have to be that although my year in Japan is officially over, the effects that it's had on me continue even months down the road. It seems that adjusting to Japanese life, includes readjusting to American life. Culture shock is just part of the problem. Briefly, it's a little difficult being obligated to tip restaurant servers for mediocre to bad service, I miss a lot of the food I used to eat in Japan, and American extravagance (which I am fully guilty of) can be sickening at times. But that was all a given with reverse culture shock. If I'm to be brutally honest, the worst part about coming home is realizing and accepting that home is different than the way it was in my head for an entire year. Sure some buildings have changed, and I've missed a LOT of movies and pop culture, but moreso people have changed and not just physically. It's nobody's fault, I've changed a lot too, but to me it's sad that many of my deepest relationships, the source of my support structure, don't seem to be there. I think it's because I got on with my life in Japan, and people got on with their lives at home. Now, I've left my life in Japan behind, and a lot of times I feel like I'm intruding into the lives that people have gotten used to living without me. I learned in a psych class that the saying 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is true because you tend to gloss over the faults of people when they're not in front of your face all the time. I wonder if the reverse is true, that presence makes people realize what they don't like about you. The last few months make-up by far the hardest time of my life. I can handle physical and structural changes, but drastic changes in my personal relationships have given me regrets about leaving, enormous insecurities, mood swings, self-blame, and extreme trust issues to say the least. And I think the worst part... is that nobody seems to get that. So I leave for Japan, in search of... something. I don't know if it's closure, familiarity, or to see if I feel I could fit in over there, just in case... Whatever it is, I hope I find it, because feeling torn over an oceans distance is no fun. And as somber as this entry may sound things aren't all that bad at home. Like anything, there are ups and there are downs. Grad school is going better than I thought it might, I've managed to not grow fatter like so many turkeys I devoured on Thanksgiving, and I'm eager to get back to attend to my old relationships with a new perspective, a new mind-set, a new year, and a clean slate.

- posted by Chris @ 6:59 AM (0) comments

 
Shang-Hi!
I got off the boat today and flew to my final stop in China, Shanghai. I'm spending less than 24 hours here but I wanted to make the most of it. I made cheap reservations at the Peace Hotel built in 1906. It's nice and sits on the riverbank. The only thing about it is that it's unbelievably quiet in the old halls so it reminds me of the shining. I keep freaking myself out everytime I walk to my room. There's a rooftop garden (it's really a bar) that overlooks the river and some of Shanghai's many skyscrapers. It is a pretty skyline at night though. After I checked in to the hotel I got a recommendation from the concierge and hopped a cab to a nice Chinese restaurant where they had Hot Pot. It's kind of like fondue but it's a soup and they make it spicy! I've never had it before so the only English speaking guy in the restaurant helped me. It was a LOT of food for one though, towards the end I was so full and so hot from the heat and spices I thought "I may actually die in front of a giant pot of spicy soup." I drank two cans of diet coke and I really wanted some water. The waitresses don't know what "water" is so I wrote the Chinese character for water down which they understood then asked what kind of water I wanted. I showed them a bottle of water I had in my backpack and said "No bottle, not bottled water." Somehow that translated into "beer" and they brought me a tall chilled bottle of Tsingtao. Thankfully it was unopened so I sent it back. After the hot pot dinner, (which was fantastic, I highly recommend it) I got caught in a torrential downpour while trying to hail a cab. Soaked and soggy I returned to my hotel (had another shining moment when I saw my reflection out of the corner of my eye), and made my way up to the rooftop garden. I took some snapshots of the city at night. Surprisingly, I've really enjoyed Shanghai. (I had heard some bad things about it.) Roughing it in Beijing gave me bronchitis which I'm just starting to recover from. The guilt ridden over indulgence of the cruise ship also wasn't my cup of tea. Now, alone in my slightly musty and somewhat eepy-cray hotel room I'm surprisingly relaxed, and very much ready for tomorrow when I start my journey home.

- posted by Chris @ 12:00 AM (1) comments

 
Victoria Cruise Lines "The civilized way to see the Yangtze"
I've been sailing down the Yangtze river for about three days now on Victoria Cruise lines. I'm really enjoying the Yangtze. It's unexpectedly brown with silt which apparently happens every summer and is the reason why farming along the Yangtze is so good. The views from my room are spectacular and the weather could hardly be better. We've already passed through the massive gorges along the river and as I write, we're going through the locks of the Three Gorges Dam. After spending a week in a no frills Beijing hostel that cost less than $10 a day it's a bit of a culture shock. It's mainly the other guests I think. I'm not used to all the small talk, being able to overhear so many conversations, and high levels of what could be considered bravado and ignorance. Not that there aren't arrogant close-minded conversations going on in Japan every day. I just couldn't understand them. Again, I think it's just shock because in general, most of the people that applied to the JET program tended to be very liberal in their views both political and cultural. Also, if I'm to be completely honest, I have to say that as someone of Asian decent, I find it a little... unsettling to have an entirely Asian crew waiting on people that have more money than they do class. Just because somebody serves you, it doesn't make them you're servant and you shouldn't treat them as such. It's hard to explain, but it's also a little annoying to see the degree at which things are altered to accommodate the tourists. Our "servants" can't even be called by their real names because they've been given names like "Sky", "Luther", "Cambell", and ironically "Chris" presumably because their real names would be too hard to say. The offshore activities are filled with what I would find as degrading silk fashion shows, acrobatic acts, and vendors saying "Hello lady!" in hopes of making some money while the tourists, myself included, waste buckets of food because we can't manage to stuff ourselves any further. The changing of the names was the same in Korea and Fiji was overaught with the tourism syndrome. The "traditional Fijian dancing" with the guests was complete with grass skirts, floral decorations, and a disco ball. As I'm typing, the traditional Chinese dancing they're doing with us includes night club lighting and the Macarena. Fortunately, the silk laden, ornately dressed Chinese crew got off the dance floor before YMCA came on. It makes me question how much of your own culture you should surround yourself with when you're visiting another culture. In Beijing, I thought I really wanted more of a "cultural bubble" around me. I don't think I'd much care for diving right into many cultures, but on this boat I feel like I'm looking at things like I would at an aquarium. I'm looking forward to coming home. I've had enough of being a tourist for now. It's extremely tiring, not to mention expensive.
- posted by Chris @ 10:10 PM (0) comments

 
Greetings from China!
Hi everyone! I'm blogging from the internet connection from the hostel I'm staying at in Beijing. Where do I start? In Japan I suppose. I left Hatsukaichi by train in the morning. Some of the relatives and friends came to see me (and my travel companions Carly and Hillary) off. It was a teary goodbye for most. Then we took the shinkansen to Shimonoseki where we caught the ferry that would take us to Qingdao. The ferry ride was 28 hours but it really wasn't that bad. We had bed compartments, there was a restaurant with ok food, and we met a guy from Mexico named Armine and we played cards forever. We got to Qingdao and I think I was immediately hit by culture shock. Things were dirtier than Japan, I couldn't read anything, and people were yelling at me in a language I couldn't even begin to understand. From the port in Qingdao, we walked over a kilometer to the train station only to find out that the overnight train to Beijing we wanted was full. So we booked a train to leave the next morning and stayed in a hotel for the night. It was nice cause we got a chance to see Qingdao. I'm amazed at how cheap things are here. Taxi rides for 20 minutes or more cost only about $4, food and drink are cheaper than at home unless you go someplace really nice, and you bargain when you shop so basically you can get a price you're happy with. After a 14 hour train ride (which felt longer than the ferry ride) we were finally in Beijing. We're staying at a hostel. It's my first hostel experience. I have to say I prefer hotels but I'm only paying about $10/night. If you don't mind sharing bathrooms, rooms, common areas, and bad service it's bearable. The other factor though is having to lock up you're things all the time because you don't know who could get into your stuff. We've already gone to Tiananmen square a few days ago. It's really cloudy (smoggy?) here so the views and the pictures aren't so impressive. We went partway into the Forbidden city and then went on to lunch at the famous 140 year old Quanjude Peking duck restaurant. It was very yummy duck. Not earth shattering, but delicious nonetheless. Yesterday, we took a tour to the Great Wall which I've ALWAYS wanted to see. I really enjoyed it mainly because I was in disbelief that I was actually there. We went to a fairly touristy area of the wall which is too bad because there are so many people around it's hard to enjoy it. If I were to come back to China again, I'd definately try to take the time out to go to less touristy, more picturesque parts of the wall. That's about it so far. I'm tired and looking forward to my next destination this Saturday, Chongqing. From there I'm taking a cruise down the Yangtze until Yichang. I'm hoping that the sights on the Yangtze, away from all the cities, will be gorgeous. But at the same time, I don't want to expect too much in fear of being disappointed. I will try to write again soon or at least once before I leave for America from Shanghai. Hope all is well on your end.

- posted by Chris @ 11:25 AM (2) comments