To all the mini-lizards/yamori/gecko-like creeping things and, in particular, the adult I escorted out of my spare room a few minutes ago:
I do apologize. You are by far more clever, faster, sleek, and able to crawl through tiny spaces than I previously gave you credit for. Why, if you could crawl under my closet door when I was chasing you around, your younger and smaller relative would surely have been able to crawl under my outside door and had no need of the theatrics of dashing in when I was taking the garbage out. I even think I know how you got into the room this time, by squeezing through the unavoidable tiny crack around the screen.
However, it was really not nice of you to hide in my curtains. And it's nearly unforgivable that you lept onto my arm when I went to open them, even if you were as startled as I was. You're going to give me a bad reputation with the neighbors if you keep this up; I've nearly used up my screaming quota for the month.
Therefore, I have a request. I know you must like those dark, cooler spaces, and maybe you were just hanging out by the window so you could slip out again. However, it would be much better for all concerned, if you ~absolutely have~ to come inside, to stick to the wide-open spaces. And standing still when I try to catch you with the flattened milk-container-and-Styrofoam-tray contraption. The sound of your little sticky feet padding across the floor rapidly-- pat-pat-pat-pat-pat--- totally freaks me out. Hey, I'm paying homage to your speed here. Work with me.
It's just a proposal. Think about it.
P.S. You're the first adult gecko that I am aware of entering my apartment since I got here. I don't know how to judge gecko gender, but I really, really hope that you didn't lay any eggs or anything. I'd be very upset if you did.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
The enkai
Lights will remain dim and sounds muted in my apartment this morning in honor of the passing of my first enkai and in the hope that I will survive the ensuing hangover (another first).
It just figures that it would happen when I'm alone and in a foreign country. I woke up this morning with vertigo-- well, it was kinda fun to watch the walls spin for awhile-- and wondering how I'd gotten a cold and the flu overnight. It didn't take too long to figure out that I was fine as long as I didn't move and, from there, the cause.
The enkai was everything that I'd thought/hoped it would be, with a little somethin' special in the way of a local delicacy and a pleasant lack of groping by male co-workers. Enkais, for those of you without backgrounds in Japanese office social politics, are basically office drinking parties at a restaurant during which people can let down some of the barriers they carry throughout the day, get drunk, and say what the really mean. The next day at the office or, in the case of last night, the following Monday, anything... shall we say, out of character... that was said or done is forgotten and never mentioned. This particular enkai was a welcome party for me, and as the guest of honor I got to sit across from my supervisor's boss, which I think translates as our section chief, and chat it up with the head honcho.
A slight tangent on the subject of drinking... my supervisor had asked me a bunch of questions during the initial drive from the airport to my apartment (well, we did have nearly 2 hours to kill), including whether I ate fish or not, if I could use chopsticks, and if I drank alcohol. I said yes to all three, and he seemed particularly impressed that I drink. Given the Japanese's low tolerance for alcohol and women's slight frames, it's somewhat uncommon for Japanese women to be able to drink a lot. He was sufficiently impressed to mention the fact that I drink at nearly all of the 7 schools we went to visit. I suspect, as a result, there will be more enkais in my future.
I was told to prepare a speech for last night's enkai, or at least brush up on my self-introduction, but my co-workers were kind enough to let me do it after a few rounds and some delectable sushi, after which I probably would've tried to sing The Star-Spangled Banner if they'd asked me to (hey, I've been able to practice with the Olympics going and American peeps winning so many gold medals. And it's not just me-- you watch, the camera usually gets a close-up of the starred athlete mouthing the words). I think my Japanese improves after a few drinks, anyway.
There was one moment of horror, which was of course the Expensive Local Delicacy for The Honored Guest moment-- it's really not acceptable to decline, you have to at least try it. And at first, I thought that I'd lucked out. One of the pieces of sushi that I was given was topped by a slice of the local delicacy, a kind of shellfish that translates roughly to "turban shell" and in the wild looks like a giant snail in a shell like a hermit crab might inhabit. Upon inquiry as to what it was-- being sort of greyish with a darker lining around the edges, it was surely something that I'd never had before and I wanted to make sure it wasn't fugu, or potentially deadly blowfish-- a whole specimen in a shell was promptly produced, and I was given a toothpick to do battle with the beast and wrestle it from the shell. Oliver, a senior ALT who has been in my BOE (Board of Education office) for 2 years, was sitting next to me and generally watching my back. He said he was given the same thing at his welcome party and that it took some effort to remove the thing from its shell. Thus informed, I jabbed with vigor, but the toothpick's edge wasn't very sharp and I couldn't get enough purchase to even start to pull it out. Removing the toothpick and examining its tip (which at this point was a little bent), I made a comment about how difficult the turban shellfish was to eat, and then started thinking about how to ask for different jabbing utensils or at least a new toothpick.
Here comes the horrifying part (ready?): when I looked back to the shell, the flesh had retracted into the deeper recesses of the shell. The thing was still alive. And I'd just stabbed it with a toothpick. (Oliver assured me that his had been dead. I must be special.) I gave up my vegetarianism while studying abroad my junior year in part to experience the wide array of culinary experiences that Japan had to offer, and continue to eat fish and meat as much as for convenience as remaining open to new experiences, but in that moment, I regretted the decision. I wanted to smuggle the poor creature into my purse and make an extended bathroom break, during which I could dash out a convenient back door and carry the brutalized shellfish the 2 blocks to the harbor, whereupon it could be returned to its salty home.
As it happened, the thing retracted far enough into its shell that it was deemed inedible (the effort required to remove it was officially declared impossible, at least with my meager toothpick) and the plate was whisked away before I had the chance to implement my Shellfish Rescue Operation: Back Door plan. Instead, I was given artistically-arranged, chopped-up, and definitively dead pieces of turban shellfish. I rather hope that I'm not given the honor again. The texture was kind of like cartiledge (the Japanese described it as katai, or "hard") and the taste, while not unpleasant, got stronger the more I chewed.
Otherwise, it was a wonderful evening as, indeed, it was intended to be. Being the guest of honor, everyone was trying to make me feel welcome and happy. Their efforts went as far as having the afore-mentioned section chief, who sat across from me, giving a speech in English about how happy they are to have me in Tsushima and how they hope I'll enjoy it here.
Delicious tempura followed the sushi, and juice-swollen grapes and pieces of nashi (kind of like a pear with an apple's crunch... very, very tasty) rounded off the meal. We lolled around a bit in post-feast fashion and the men had their cigarettes (sadly Japan doesn't have the same no-smoking-in-public-places-or-restaurants laws that Maine does... the smokers did ask me if it was okay, but I didn't mind that much, and things are just different here). Then, we were all off to karaoke!
I was a little surprised because I didn't know that there was a karaoke place so close, but there was a tiny one was just down the road from the restaurant in downtown Hitakatsu. Good to keep in mind. Oliver and I sang a few songs in English, and our office-mates sang some traditional Japanese songs, which was all quite amusing.
Sufficiently stuffed, beyond tipsy, and entertained, the group broke up and I was driven home, soon afterwards collapsing on my bed in the triumph of surviving my first Japanese enkai.
It just figures that it would happen when I'm alone and in a foreign country. I woke up this morning with vertigo-- well, it was kinda fun to watch the walls spin for awhile-- and wondering how I'd gotten a cold and the flu overnight. It didn't take too long to figure out that I was fine as long as I didn't move and, from there, the cause.
The enkai was everything that I'd thought/hoped it would be, with a little somethin' special in the way of a local delicacy and a pleasant lack of groping by male co-workers. Enkais, for those of you without backgrounds in Japanese office social politics, are basically office drinking parties at a restaurant during which people can let down some of the barriers they carry throughout the day, get drunk, and say what the really mean. The next day at the office or, in the case of last night, the following Monday, anything... shall we say, out of character... that was said or done is forgotten and never mentioned. This particular enkai was a welcome party for me, and as the guest of honor I got to sit across from my supervisor's boss, which I think translates as our section chief, and chat it up with the head honcho.
A slight tangent on the subject of drinking... my supervisor had asked me a bunch of questions during the initial drive from the airport to my apartment (well, we did have nearly 2 hours to kill), including whether I ate fish or not, if I could use chopsticks, and if I drank alcohol. I said yes to all three, and he seemed particularly impressed that I drink. Given the Japanese's low tolerance for alcohol and women's slight frames, it's somewhat uncommon for Japanese women to be able to drink a lot. He was sufficiently impressed to mention the fact that I drink at nearly all of the 7 schools we went to visit. I suspect, as a result, there will be more enkais in my future.
I was told to prepare a speech for last night's enkai, or at least brush up on my self-introduction, but my co-workers were kind enough to let me do it after a few rounds and some delectable sushi, after which I probably would've tried to sing The Star-Spangled Banner if they'd asked me to (hey, I've been able to practice with the Olympics going and American peeps winning so many gold medals. And it's not just me-- you watch, the camera usually gets a close-up of the starred athlete mouthing the words). I think my Japanese improves after a few drinks, anyway.
There was one moment of horror, which was of course the Expensive Local Delicacy for The Honored Guest moment-- it's really not acceptable to decline, you have to at least try it. And at first, I thought that I'd lucked out. One of the pieces of sushi that I was given was topped by a slice of the local delicacy, a kind of shellfish that translates roughly to "turban shell" and in the wild looks like a giant snail in a shell like a hermit crab might inhabit. Upon inquiry as to what it was-- being sort of greyish with a darker lining around the edges, it was surely something that I'd never had before and I wanted to make sure it wasn't fugu, or potentially deadly blowfish-- a whole specimen in a shell was promptly produced, and I was given a toothpick to do battle with the beast and wrestle it from the shell. Oliver, a senior ALT who has been in my BOE (Board of Education office) for 2 years, was sitting next to me and generally watching my back. He said he was given the same thing at his welcome party and that it took some effort to remove the thing from its shell. Thus informed, I jabbed with vigor, but the toothpick's edge wasn't very sharp and I couldn't get enough purchase to even start to pull it out. Removing the toothpick and examining its tip (which at this point was a little bent), I made a comment about how difficult the turban shellfish was to eat, and then started thinking about how to ask for different jabbing utensils or at least a new toothpick.
Here comes the horrifying part (ready?): when I looked back to the shell, the flesh had retracted into the deeper recesses of the shell. The thing was still alive. And I'd just stabbed it with a toothpick. (Oliver assured me that his had been dead. I must be special.) I gave up my vegetarianism while studying abroad my junior year in part to experience the wide array of culinary experiences that Japan had to offer, and continue to eat fish and meat as much as for convenience as remaining open to new experiences, but in that moment, I regretted the decision. I wanted to smuggle the poor creature into my purse and make an extended bathroom break, during which I could dash out a convenient back door and carry the brutalized shellfish the 2 blocks to the harbor, whereupon it could be returned to its salty home.
As it happened, the thing retracted far enough into its shell that it was deemed inedible (the effort required to remove it was officially declared impossible, at least with my meager toothpick) and the plate was whisked away before I had the chance to implement my Shellfish Rescue Operation: Back Door plan. Instead, I was given artistically-arranged, chopped-up, and definitively dead pieces of turban shellfish. I rather hope that I'm not given the honor again. The texture was kind of like cartiledge (the Japanese described it as katai, or "hard") and the taste, while not unpleasant, got stronger the more I chewed.
Otherwise, it was a wonderful evening as, indeed, it was intended to be. Being the guest of honor, everyone was trying to make me feel welcome and happy. Their efforts went as far as having the afore-mentioned section chief, who sat across from me, giving a speech in English about how happy they are to have me in Tsushima and how they hope I'll enjoy it here.
Delicious tempura followed the sushi, and juice-swollen grapes and pieces of nashi (kind of like a pear with an apple's crunch... very, very tasty) rounded off the meal. We lolled around a bit in post-feast fashion and the men had their cigarettes (sadly Japan doesn't have the same no-smoking-in-public-places-or-restaurants laws that Maine does... the smokers did ask me if it was okay, but I didn't mind that much, and things are just different here). Then, we were all off to karaoke!
I was a little surprised because I didn't know that there was a karaoke place so close, but there was a tiny one was just down the road from the restaurant in downtown Hitakatsu. Good to keep in mind. Oliver and I sang a few songs in English, and our office-mates sang some traditional Japanese songs, which was all quite amusing.
Sufficiently stuffed, beyond tipsy, and entertained, the group broke up and I was driven home, soon afterwards collapsing on my bed in the triumph of surviving my first Japanese enkai.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
A Brief Warning
I would like to considerately request that all weird-looking bugs vacate my bedroom ASAP. I really don't know how you're getting in, but if you get any scarier-looking, the Killer Bug Spray is going to make an appearance. I just want to know one thing: why, WHY, are you attracted to my pajamas?! Don't you know how disturbing it is to stagger into one's bedroom after a long day and find a palm-sized grasshopper atop one's bed? Please, go after the food in the kitchen. I'll even leave some out for you if you promise to attack it and not my bed.
This also goes to the mini-lizards attempting to invade my entryway. Don't think that just because I'm trying to take the garbage out at 7:30 AM, pre-tea-consumption and still a little blurry-eyed, that I didn't notice you scooting in as soon as the door was open. You'll have to do much better than that. Hiding under my shoe-cabinet amidst the dust-bunnies and old spiderwebs won't work either; my broken-down-cardboard-milk-container, now turned into a bug/lizard/other-small-pest catching device, can reach all the way into the corners. So don't even try it.
This also goes to the mini-lizards attempting to invade my entryway. Don't think that just because I'm trying to take the garbage out at 7:30 AM, pre-tea-consumption and still a little blurry-eyed, that I didn't notice you scooting in as soon as the door was open. You'll have to do much better than that. Hiding under my shoe-cabinet amidst the dust-bunnies and old spiderwebs won't work either; my broken-down-cardboard-milk-container, now turned into a bug/lizard/other-small-pest catching device, can reach all the way into the corners. So don't even try it.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Leftist driving, my new-found love of momo, and mountains upon mountains
Tsushima drivers beware: I got my rental car yesterday (see picture!) and shall be wreaking havoc on your streets, driving among you, until such time as this driving-on-the-left with the steering-wheel-on-the-right thing becomes more natural. As it is, driving here feels like a video game, and as such, rear-ending old grannies is 10 points, right?
... actually, driving is going fairly well, all things considered. Aside from the first, nearly-heart-attack-inducing 8-minute drive from the car rental place to my apartment earlier today, I think I've been doing well. Unfortunately, the hardest place to drive in my general vicinity is the road leading to my apartment. In many places, it's too narrow for two cars to comfortably pass, so whichever driver decides to be more considerate backs up to an area that they can comfortably pull off to the side. This is made difficult by the fact that the road leading to my apartment is lined on one side by a stream leading to the ocean which lacks guard rails in many places.
As with many things Japanese, my car came with an extra something to make it even more adorable: a Jenglish tag on the plaid blue seat covers. Just in case I wasn't sure about the seat cover's relationship with the car.
... they're friends, obviously.
On a completely different subject, a long time ago, one of my friends told me that I absolutely ~had~ to try a Japanese peach, or momo. I finally got around to it, and oh my-- it's sort of like daintily packaged bliss. First of all, they're enormous, a good-enough sized portion to comfortably sit in but adequately fill your hand. Secondly, they're juicy, with a quality of juice unrivaled in my experience. And, unlike the American/what-can-be-bought-in-America counterparts, the juice doesn't fly everywhere when you bit into the peach; it's relatively easy to enjoy without ending up a sappy mess. The scent is rather on the light side but can be detected without puncturing the skin. Finally, the color of the flesh is delicately pinkish, almost white, making the consumption of momo a high-quality aesthetic experience.
The only down-side to momo is how ridiculously priced they are, although what I'm paying is probably more than usual because of island inflation (did I really just pay ~800 yen... nearly 8 dollars... for 3 peaches? Oh yes I did). Given the whole package, though, momo are a rare but definetely-worth-it indulgence.
I wrote earlier about how mountainous Tsushima is, but I never would've been able to picture the reality, so here are a few brief glimpses. The picture on the left is one I randomly took from along the side of the road (during my driving practice earlier today), and the one on the right I actually climbed pretty high up to get, after tons of steps in the nearby Omega Park area (Omega is, apparently, a name of a company... I think):
... it really is like a tropical paradise.
Japanese towns are tucked into the nooks and crevices of these mountains. Take, for example, my apartment building. It's in Furusato, a "ward" of Kamitsushima. [Think of it this way: if Tsushima, the entire island, is a city, then Kamitsushima is a district, like Brooklyn but micro-scale, and Furusato is the equivalent of a neighborhood within Kamitsushima]. My apartment complex is the last thing on my road (I think... it doesn't seem like there's anything out there... the road continues, but I haven't actually explored in that direction yet), nestled between two mountain ridges. Because it's so far off the beaten track, as it were, there is an abundance of wildlife. I've seen swarms of dragonflies--looking out the window now, around dusk, there are maybe 150 flying around between the apartment complex and the woods, hopefully snatching up pesky mosquitoes and smaller bugs. Sorry the dragonflies don't photograph well-- you'll just have to come and see them. Here's what the apartment complex looks like:
Behind the complex, to the right of the light in the picture, is a Japanese-style graveyard, mostly mini-shrines with names on them and ashes interred within.
... Oh, wait! What's that in the lower left-hand corner?
Here's a close-up:
... identification, Uncle Ben?
For the record, this isn't the first time I've seen this kind of bird. They don't seem to be very shy and particularly like hanging out nearby the riverbed (now filled in with weeds) that defines one side of my road (note the absence. of. guard. rails!!).
Well, I hope the pictures this time around help you folks get a better idea of what it looks like here! ^^
... actually, driving is going fairly well, all things considered. Aside from the first, nearly-heart-attack-inducing 8-minute drive from the car rental place to my apartment earlier today, I think I've been doing well. Unfortunately, the hardest place to drive in my general vicinity is the road leading to my apartment. In many places, it's too narrow for two cars to comfortably pass, so whichever driver decides to be more considerate backs up to an area that they can comfortably pull off to the side. This is made difficult by the fact that the road leading to my apartment is lined on one side by a stream leading to the ocean which lacks guard rails in many places.
As with many things Japanese, my car came with an extra something to make it even more adorable: a Jenglish tag on the plaid blue seat covers. Just in case I wasn't sure about the seat cover's relationship with the car.
... they're friends, obviously.
On a completely different subject, a long time ago, one of my friends told me that I absolutely ~had~ to try a Japanese peach, or momo. I finally got around to it, and oh my-- it's sort of like daintily packaged bliss. First of all, they're enormous, a good-enough sized portion to comfortably sit in but adequately fill your hand. Secondly, they're juicy, with a quality of juice unrivaled in my experience. And, unlike the American/what-can-be-bought-in-America counterparts, the juice doesn't fly everywhere when you bit into the peach; it's relatively easy to enjoy without ending up a sappy mess. The scent is rather on the light side but can be detected without puncturing the skin. Finally, the color of the flesh is delicately pinkish, almost white, making the consumption of momo a high-quality aesthetic experience.
The only down-side to momo is how ridiculously priced they are, although what I'm paying is probably more than usual because of island inflation (did I really just pay ~800 yen... nearly 8 dollars... for 3 peaches? Oh yes I did). Given the whole package, though, momo are a rare but definetely-worth-it indulgence.
I wrote earlier about how mountainous Tsushima is, but I never would've been able to picture the reality, so here are a few brief glimpses. The picture on the left is one I randomly took from along the side of the road (during my driving practice earlier today), and the one on the right I actually climbed pretty high up to get, after tons of steps in the nearby Omega Park area (Omega is, apparently, a name of a company... I think):
... it really is like a tropical paradise.
Japanese towns are tucked into the nooks and crevices of these mountains. Take, for example, my apartment building. It's in Furusato, a "ward" of Kamitsushima. [Think of it this way: if Tsushima, the entire island, is a city, then Kamitsushima is a district, like Brooklyn but micro-scale, and Furusato is the equivalent of a neighborhood within Kamitsushima]. My apartment complex is the last thing on my road (I think... it doesn't seem like there's anything out there... the road continues, but I haven't actually explored in that direction yet), nestled between two mountain ridges. Because it's so far off the beaten track, as it were, there is an abundance of wildlife. I've seen swarms of dragonflies--looking out the window now, around dusk, there are maybe 150 flying around between the apartment complex and the woods, hopefully snatching up pesky mosquitoes and smaller bugs. Sorry the dragonflies don't photograph well-- you'll just have to come and see them. Here's what the apartment complex looks like:
Behind the complex, to the right of the light in the picture, is a Japanese-style graveyard, mostly mini-shrines with names on them and ashes interred within.
... Oh, wait! What's that in the lower left-hand corner?
Here's a close-up:
... identification, Uncle Ben?
For the record, this isn't the first time I've seen this kind of bird. They don't seem to be very shy and particularly like hanging out nearby the riverbed (now filled in with weeds) that defines one side of my road (note the absence. of. guard. rails!!).
Well, I hope the pictures this time around help you folks get a better idea of what it looks like here! ^^
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