Tropical Paradise, Anyone?

So after fours straight months of dealing with wild children all day, no breaks, no pauses, no time-outs, I went on vacation. And it was worth the wait. Okinawa is probably the most beautiful place I've been. Thinking back on the places I've been...'probably' is swinging closer to 'definitely.'

I think in total 13 people ended up going, a rag-tag group of English teachers who either knew each other or had some connection to the others in the group. Luckily, all 13 of ended up being not only very nice but also incredibly laid back, which meant we almost completely avoided the normal stresses of group travel. And the bonus was that we had with us not one but TWO Japanese speakers! You have no idea how much easier this makes eating, shopping, or doing almost any activity at all in Japan.

We stayed in the main city, Naha. It was a nice place, similar to those in mainland Japan in the sense that it was seemingly endless - city blends with town, blends back into city again. It had a much more relaxed atmosphere, however, and there were definitely a lot more non-Japanese people walking around.

Two days were spent taking ferries to small, outlying islands, and then lying around on various beaches. The first, Zamami, was beautiful, though the day was a bit cloudy. The second, though, Tokashiki, blew it out of the water.

Not bad, huh?

It was absolutely incredible. We rented snorkels to check out the coral underneath the water, and - wow - no one was lying when they said coral is home to thousands of species. The sea life was incredible!...and scary. Being, in general, pretty afraid of stuff, it took me a while to get used to being close to fish and other things. Especially because some fish, particularly these little guys - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >
seemed to find people super interesting and wanted to be REALLY close to them. And if you swam away, they chased you. Ok, so these fish are harmless and I'm a pretty big baby. But, right before leaving, Ashleigh and I went out snorkeling, and before you knew it we were really far out there. She suddenly made a noise for me to look at something she thought was cool, and luckily she did, because it made me lift up my head just in time to notice a big, square, orange jellyfish about a foot from my face. That was enough to make us hightail it for the shore.



So, a few other things I learned about Okinawa:

1. American military base = American things. I found M&M's, and Andy and I even had a root beer float (which was amazing, except that they put ice in the root beer first....so then the ice cream was all crunchy. Come on, guys).

2. They really love pork. The have key chains and postcards and t-shirts with pictures of it, or slogans like "We love pork!"...so you know I'm not exaggerating. They even play dress up with pig heads. So there.

3. People in clubs can do synchronized dances to certain songs. That's right, just like a movie.

4. You can see mongeese on the streets and live penguins inside a bar. Unfortunately, the penguins do not serve you drinks, as I had hoped.

5. If Mexicans thought they were badass putting worms into their tequila, they were wrong. Try a whole poisonous snake. Or how about two? ...pussies.

6. They can do amazing things with sweet potatoes.

7. Mango KitKats.

On the whole, the trip was fabulous. At the moment I am back in Toyama, where it is, once again, raining. But at least the rain is warm.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

That's right, it's cherry blossom season. It's the time of year when all of Japan is awash in fluffy pink and white clouds. Everywhere you look, it's beautiful. And you don't even have to step outside to notice the change, you can just feel happiness everywhere - everyone in the entire city is happy. It's pretty incredible, actually.

This Sunday I woke up (late) and meandered outside for a picnic with some friends. First thought: Holy Shit. Before arriving in Japan I looked up the population of Toyama as being almost half a million people. Before Sunday I had not once seen evidence of even half that many people. But suddenly, without warning, everyone, literally everyone, decided to go outside. I had to basically fight my way into a convenience store to buy picnic supplies, and I just had to forget about biking altogether. Kids were running all over, friends were meeting, weird parades of people wearing crazy masks and costumes were going by; it was madness.

The cherry blossoms are definitely quite a sight, however, and definitely worth all the hype. Our picnic under them on Sunday was made even better by Japanese hospitality: we were welcomed in by a group of people having a barbecue, and they gave us cushions and kept feeding us delicious yakisoba (fried noodles) and okonomiyaki (pancake-like thing with veggies and squid), as well as filling our glasses with sake and making us campai (cheers) every few minutes. It was like hanging out on a big, fluffy, sunny cloud with smiling faces around you all day...and then well into the night. And like any dream day, it ended with karaoke.

My Hood, Pre-Cherry Blossoms

This is around the corner from my house. All these are cherry trees and within a week they will transform into a magical pink wonderland. Stay tuned for photos.

This is the view from my friend's apartment. It's hard to get the mountains well on camera, but you get the idea. I can see these beauties everyday on my way to work (and by everyday i mean the times when they aren't covered by a thick haze, so...sometimes.).

Free to Good Home - One Nice American

So I have a new family. A lovely new Japanese family. I have, essentially, in the past two weeks been adopted. They've claimed Lindzy and I as their new foreign friends, and I couldn't be happier about it. They like cooking us dinner, driving us around to cool places in their big van, and making us drink things. It's a perfect situation. This weekend they took us to an excellent art museum in the middle of nowhere, and then to eat onegiri (rice balls wrapped in seaweed with different things inside, mainly fish - the best snack ever) at a "famous" onegiri shop (in Japan everything is famous; famous famous famous). On the way home we stopped off for some road sake, and they showed us these crazy sake cans that heat up the sake inside when you push the bottom of the can - instant hot sake! Genius! To finish off the day they made us a delicious dinner and then we all went to sing karaoke. Lovely. Here they are in action:

[Sorry, my camera has this weird filmy-ness to it lately - I'm looking into the cause of that.]

So cute. Hanging out with them is really helping me become more Japanese. I like it. Here's Lindzy and I turning Japanese and loving it:

I Really Like My Job

Wii-shimashita

It occurred to me today that blogging is like a tame form of exhibitionism. And, I must say that even though I woke up this morning excited to write things down for people to read, this thought made me feel apprehensive once again. Is that something I want to associate with myself? Oh well, too late I suppose.

That said, today was a mixture of high and low emotions for me, but, luckily, neither was too overwhelming (read: nothing exciting happened today).
-On the positive, Japanese class was excellent. I'm starting to see that if I keep up with this class I can really learn a lot while I'm here. I can now describe my day for you in Japanese, should you so wish, provided you are really only interested in what time I wake up, what hours I work, when I have lunch break, and when I go to sleep. I could maybe include some other interesting tidbits (like when I eat breakfast or read a book), but let's not get too crazy.
-Today's unfortunate event occurred this evening. I accidentally placed my big yellow stuffed tofu up against my space heater. Within only a few seconds I smelled burning. Now I have a big stuffed animal with a singed hole in it and a better understanding of why my boss warned me not to burn down my apartment when I first moved in.

The Jump Off

So here it is, my brand new blog. This post is going to be short and sweet, I think I need to ease myself into the blogging experience. But I will put up some photos of the amazing lunch Lindzy and I had today at our co-worker Eri's house in celebration of Girls Day. It was delicious and so fun. We played cards, we made origami, and Eri's grandmother even juggled for us. Doesn't get much better than that.