Sorry for the lack of any new updates. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, everything’s been better than I’d even hoped. I just don’t have a free wifi connection in my apartment anymore, and won’t have a connection until May. So it’s like I’m living in 1985 again or something. Anyway, look for a lot more news next month.
じゃあまた来月に
I like being an alien. I got an alien card in Iceland, and I finally got my alien card here. This alien card means a little more to me, though, because now I can get a keitaidenwa (cellphone) and bank account. So now I can start to try to pretend to be a productive member of society here.
Also, I went back to the Mamechan izakaya tonight. No one else was there but the nice proprietor. She’s quite a nice person and I hope to be able to understand a lot more as time goes on…
Today I went downtown to buy a bike (at a camera store, of course) and then headed around town to see the cherry blossoms (sakura). There were a few in some shrines downtown, but the best place was Meijo Koen. There were all kinds of people sitting under the trees eating and drinking and singing. I wish the weather were better (it was cloudy so the colors didn’t turn out so hot), but tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, so this might have been my last chance. Perhaps next weekend-we’ll see.
Guess what a store named “The Great Monkey Flip” sells? Eyeglass frames, of course.
Last night I went to my local izakaya (just two blocks down my street) for the first time. I had no idea what to expect, and it didn’t start out very auspiciously at first, as I almost got knocked over by a couple of drunk old gentleman dancing the rhumba. It didn’t seem that I’d fit in. But just an hour later, I was singing “My Way”, and I ended up talking to this nice old man until 2am. My Japanese wasn’t very good, and his was hard to understand, but I just did a lot of aizuchi (nodding my head, grunting and saying “sou desu ka” a lot) and it was a very nice time. I understood enough to know that his parents were in Nagasaki when the bomb was dropped, and now he’s the only one in his family left in Japan and he’s kind of lonely, as his older sister is in New Jersey and his brother is in Korea. I ended up singing another song and enjoying some typical izakaya food and many beers. What’s more, I was not allowed to pay for any of it, no matter how many times I tried. I think I’ll probably be going to this place a lot. The proprietor is a really nice old lady, and runs a nice little joint.
By popular demand, here are a few photos of my apartment. Not much to see, I know, but that’s pretty much all there is. In fact, I’ve rearranged it already from what’s in the photos. It’s the one on the third floor
Today I walked downtown from my apartment. Yes, that’s right, I can walk all the way to Sakae (the main drag of Nagoya, where my school is and where all the action is). Took me about an hour with lots of stops to take pictures and stuff (also in that gallery).
Today I had a lesson and I had prepared for a completely different one. The fact that it turned out great anyway has given me a lot of confidence.
Even though I haven’t been in the Navy for ten years, I still feel really weird if I wear my suit outside without a hat on.
I really lucked out with this grocery store just a couple hundred feet from my front door. Just the varieties of fish are enough to boggle my mind. Let alone the vegetables and other unknown Japanese food. I can’t wait to figure out how to prepare a bunch of them.
Yeah, I’ll have pictures up soon. Don’t worry too much.
I moved into my apartment last night, and tonight I made my first meal therein - just a simple fried rice. I am facing my first feeling of culture shock finally in the midst of this transition. This apartment is really really small. I need to figure out where to put stuff, and while I’m figuring out where to put something, I don’t have anywhere to put it in the meantime, so it’s kind of messy. Anyway, the new rice cooker works perfectly, and I bought a ton of meals for about 40 bucks, so things are looking up.
If you didn’t know already, Japan won the baseball game today, and they are therefore the _real_ world champions. Suck it, USA, is all I have to say. There were only two major league players on the winning team, while USA’s team was pretty much all MLB players.
Anyway, today was a holiday, the first day of spring, which worked out really well as a day to move into the place. I had my first official lesson yesterday, and a few more tomorrow. By Thursday, I will have completely taken over the place of this very talented teacher who has been there for seven years! Of course, it will take a long time to try to fill that guy’s shoes, but I feel very honored to be in this position. I am very lucky, because I think I got one of the best new positions in Nagoya - I get Saturdays and Sundays off, and the school is in a really great location.
Anyway, enough of my random yakkin. Here’s some Engrish for you.
Oh yeah, I just wanted to mention that Japan is in the finals of the World Baseball Classic, and I’m very happy about it! They played fair and square and didn’t have to depend on any favorable calls from home umpires, unlike some other team whose name I won’t mention. But basically any team that has Alex Rodriguez on it can eat a bag of s**t.
Today was a pretty chilly and breezy Sunday afternoon. My first day off in six days. Where are all the people? Underground. Also saw a bunch of Elvises dressed in all black leather dancing in the park. They weren’t very good dancers. But that’s ok, there weren’t that many people watching them, because most people were underground.