#3: Extracurricular Activities -- Japan Style

Hey all,

Greetings again from the other side of the world - I hope summer's end is treating everyone well. The weather here has been alternating between hot (today was 90-something) and rainy, and sometimes a strange combination of the two. My host mother, Keiko, says that June is usually the rainy season here, so I assume that all the rain is the result of Hurricane Katrina. She also says that it's been hotter this year than in the past. Apparently a lot of Japanese are now fairly convinced that global warming is something to be taken seriously. Back to Katrina though - the morning news I watch has recently been divided into three sections: Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese election, and some other odd story, usually fluff reporting. I can't believe how devastating the hurricane was (and how poorly it was handled back home). It even reached Japan that, to quote one politician, "There were two disasters - the hurricane and the response to it." Katrina hit Japan as well, damaging the Southern mainland and islands quite a bit, missing the middle of Japan, where I am, entirely, and hitting the Northern island of Hokkaido at the end. The Japanese seem to have handled it quite well.

Every day here is a huge energy drain. You'd think that only having one class would leave ample free time and energy to do whatever I'd like, but then you'd be wrong. I have Japanese class every morning from 9 until 12:30, Monday through Friday, with 10 minute breaks every 45 minutes. It's really not that "intensive", but the teachers rarely speak English -- so zoning out for a second can cost you a lot. Some of the other students have been complaining that it's a catch-22 that they don't know enough Japanese to ask a question about something they're learning, but I think it's better that the teachers don't speak much (or try not to speak much) English. In fact, I'm impressed that they've been able to conduct a class entirely in Japanese to students who have such an elementary knowledge of the language.

After class, I usually have an inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria ($3-5), Sukiya ($4-7) or various other places that I am beginning to explore. The cafeteria here is not what you might think of when you conjure up an image of a school cafeteria. Sure, it looks pretty similar, but the food is a lot better than what they serve at school (I'm not even going to mention high school cafeteria food). I usually get either a meat-vegetable combo dish of some kind, Japanese curry with rice (very tasty), or beef soba/udon/ramen - all of which are under $5. The rice there is also very fresh. The down side is that ordering fried chicken or something similar will result in a dish slathered mayonnaise, which the Japanese absolutely love and use as we do ketchup - maybe more. Sukiya is a chain fast-food restaurant that is not at all what you think of when you think of fast food (seeing the trend here?). It's across the street from the school and serves up curry rice, ginger beef (or something similar) with rice, and a couple other dishes in all sorts of combinations and sets. If I'm really hungry, I get a large set for around 600 yen (a little less than $6). It's delicious, though there's not a lot of variety. Today I went with some friends to a Chinese diner (not American Chinese, mind you) type restaurant, where I got a gigantic bowl of ramen, a little bit of katsu don (or something similar...ok, I admit it - sometimes I don't know what I'm eating. but there is something about this country that makes me trust people more. one example of the difference in trust here is that it is considered bad manners to count your change that you get back from a cashier), and a large bowl of fried rice. I've never been so full on a $8.50 of food in my life.

Keiko has been keeping up with the interesting cuisine as well. Last night we had flat fish and some delicious sashimi (squid and something else of which they forgot the name). The flat fish was a little intimidating at first because they put the whole fish on the plate, head and all. It was easy to eat though, once I got the hang of picking through the bones, and pretty tasty. When I woke up Saturday afternoon, she made me the best bowl of ramen I've had in my life, after which I had the freshest orange I've ever had in my life, followed by the tastiest grapefruit. I'm having trouble remember all the different food she's made because I've eaten here almost every night and morning for the last two and half weeks. She made delicious katsu don (fried pork ) a few nights ago. Oh, that's right -- I had an incredible meal the other night. She made both unagi and tako in one dinner! The unagi was served don style (over rice), which is one of my favorite Japanese dishes back home, and the tako with a hint of lime and some cabbage. It was oh so delicious. I sense some of you may be a little bit apprehensive about these dishes, so let me reassure you- eel and octopus are two of my favorite marine cuisine!

Commuting and running around dehydrates me a bit every day (not to mention the higher sodium concentration in pretty much everything - I don't know how they handle it), so I carry a couple bottles of water that I freeze over night all the time. The Japanese, as I am learning, prefer tea (usually green tea) to water. It was kind of funny reaching the top of Mount Atago and seeing all the people downing their big bottles of iced green tea (no sugar). I half expected the runners in the Hokkaido Marathon, which I watched a while back, to douse themselves in tea from time to time instead of water.

After I eat lunch, I occasionally head over to the gigantic arcade across from school. It has a batting cage, and old style arcade with crane games, and every other kind of game you can imagine, not to mention a whole eerie corner of hentai ones. (if you don't what that means, don't worry about it. just know that it's not suitable for children. or most normal people). I usually play Pop'n'Music, a music game where you press buttons to the melody of a song, or some kind of fighting game. If I am feeling energetic, and feel like making myself sweat out of every pore in my body, I play a round of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR to those in the know). DDR is probably more popular in the States now than in Japan, where the fad has died out a good amount. Games here are generally 100 yen (about $1), so I don't go too often - as it is very easy to spend absurd amounts of money, especially if you have never played a game before and lose in 10 seconds.

A few days ago, the sun decided to come out (for a change), so I resolved to go running. I asked my host mother where to go and she said the road to their greenhouse (where they tend to the chrysanthemums) would probably be best. I assured her that, having walked there once, I knew the way. But, being incredibly kind-hearted, and Japanese, she refused and led the way on her bike. I had a tough time keeping up with her, especially since I was constantly being distracted by the sunset or something of equal beauty, to which I would try to breathe out a "kirei desu ne! (it's beautiful!)" in between panting. I have to be honest with myself - I'm a wee bit out of shape compared to my...more athletic days. This being the case, a 5k (a little more, maybe?) run was a little tiring. When we reached the greenhouse, Keiko left her bike and showed me the way down the river nearby. It was beautiful - Takatsuki is situated in a valley, so you can see the entire town from the non-populated spaces, as well as all the surrounding mountains. I forgot my camera, but Keiko brought hers and made me pose several times. The riverside is a nice spot where people have barbecues on weekends, she explained to me. We saw some fish and a turtle in the river, which brought forth a conversation about snapping turtles and I had a good time explaining to her in Japanese how dangerous they are. They are actually a very expensive delicacy in Japan. She put her bike in the back of Daitaro's truck for the way home (its mostly uphill going back), but I told her I wanted to run more (silly me). Once again, I assured her that I knew the way, and this time she let me go and went home with Daitaro (oh, silly me). The going was fine until I realized I had zoned out and run past the rice fields (a beautiful spot) that I should have cut through. Yeah, it's true - I can't backtrack. I just can't stand it. So, being my stubborn self, I pushed onwards and made the next turn instead. This probably wasn't a big deal, as I came out in a place that looked vaguely familiar, and kept running. When I got back to Ankoji-cho (my town), I figured it would be easy to find my house. Oh, how wrong I was. My host family lives in Ankoji san(3)-chome (cho-meh). I wandered through i(1)chome to ni(2)chome and thought "now it should be coming up!", but then I passed under some unfamiliar power lines and was suddenly in yon(4)chome, dangerously close to the surrounding mountains. I scratched my head, shrugged and turned the way I thought was right. This is where things get a little...murky (I'm not good at finding the right word sometimes, but I think murky does the trick here). I wandered past the same groups of kids playing hide and seek about three times. Somewhere in this interim, it got dark. When I finally decided it would be best to attempt to find the road and find my way from there, I was no longer able to keep up my marathon pace. I'm not completely sure how, but I eventually found my way back home - a little late for dinner. It should have taken 30 minutes, tops. I was probably gone for an hour and a half though. All in good fun. Except for when I passed out before finishing my work.

Last Friday night, I went with a bunch of the guys in our study group to check out the nightlife (we had tried unsuccessfully before, but this time we knew what we were doing). Since the bars and clubs here don't really get going until around 1am, we started sipping some drinks down by the Kamo River at 10pm (note: the drinking age here is 20, and very loose. also, you can drink outside), which was good fun. The Japanese loooove happy hour. They're big on drinking a little bit every day to keep themselves from going insane. The riverside became pretty populated around 11 or 12, as the party people began to stretch their legs. At one point, about 40 Japanese were standing arm in arm in a large circle with a few people at the center taking pictures. I think they were singing something, but I couldn't quite catch it. I tried to ask someone what was going on, but it was to no avail. I met a few other non-Japanese there as well. There were a couple British guys whose names I don't remember, and a Pakistani guy who worked for an oil company. The Brits joined us later at Bar, Isn't It?, where admission was 1000 yen with one free drink. The bar mostly played American pop music there, which Japanese girls love. I guess it's probably better when you don't understand how bad the lyrics are.

Other than the usual wandering around downtown and elsewhere, that's what I have been up to lately. Tomorrow (it's Friday, the 16th, now that I'm finishing this) I'm going with the group for a walk by Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine to the fox demon, Inari. It's supposed to be a really interesting place - I'll include it in my next email. I hope everyone is doing well. I'll be back soon enough.

Love and peace,
Jess

P.S. - I finally got my computer registered on the school network, so now I will have an easier time sending mail, though the Colgate website will still not allow me to send anything from that address.
P.P.S. - I apologize for all the long parenthetical statements. (old habits die hard).