Korea

Hey thins is to just say that we got to Korea ok. There is not Internet in the room so dont look to hard for post till after the new year. There will be some great stories already like Hollerin' Cabbie and It's the East Sea stupid.

Merry Christmas

Here are our Christmas Pictures. We hope everyone back home has a great Christmas. On Christmas Day itself we will be in Tokyo, then we will go to South Korea for vacation. The hotel will have Internet so look for pictures and posts from Korea.

Birthday/Christmas/Sorry It's Been A While

It was my birthday earlier this month. I had a good birthday. I got a card from my Grandparents that was waiting on me when I got home. So far its been the only card to arrive, but I’m sure more will come in. It was all in all a good birthday. Samantha got me a Takoyaki maker that we have already used. For those that don’t know what a takoyaki is: it’s a ball of dough with a piece of octopus in it. The takoyaki maker is a special pan that has 20 round holes in it so that you cook and flip the takoyaki to make them round. Then you eat the whole thing topped with mayonnaise, sweet sauce, seaweed, and fish flakes. It’s really good and a very stereotypical Osakan food. You can also make mini muffins in it or what we did for dessert was use pancake batter with a bit of banana and dark chocolate in it. The dessert we made in the thing was heavenly. Earlier in the year my parents sent me bike clothes as a gift and they have been great. Though I rarely bike to school anymore I still bike around town for things. My neighbor Stephanie got me a Guinness, which I believe that James Joyce said, Guinness is the, “wine of Ireland.” I can’t say that I disagree. Samantha also got me the great cake you see below.

Also, its been snowing off and on for three days slowly and steadily. To give you an idea how cold it was the shower room had icicles hanging from the ceiling and window frame. The floor had ice on it and the body wash was frozen. Oh and when I got out of my nice warm shower the mat and towel were frozen. Every morning I open the shower room window to look out side and see the weather. . The toothpaste was frozen solid and the body wash was frozen to the window sill. I had to spray it with hot water to be able to use it and even after that it was like rubbing ice on my body. The answer to the question of can toothpaste freeze, yes it can or at least is so cold you can hardly use it. According to Stephanie her olive oil has started to freeze in the mornings.

We are taking a lot of Japanese steps to stay warm. One, I moved our bed into the room next to the living room so we just live in the two. Two, I insulated the big glass doors and windows in the house with bubble wrap. To do this you get sheets of wrap and moisten the windows and then stick it up there. Three, using the kotatsu, which Samantha already posted about. Four, using Japanese style house coats, which are quilted and very, warm. The thing about them is they are most associated with Japanese old folk so we are dressing like Grandparents. Five, stobu are the kerosene heaters for when its the coldest. They call heaters stobu which is Japanese English for stove. They were shocked that we called them heaters and called gasu renji(gas range) stoves.

Play
The video of our performance of a Christmas Carol didn’t turn out. Here are some pictures of it below. We had a great time doing it for people. My favorite group to perform it for was the church. We mixed in Japanese and two of the Church ladies gave a summery of the plot and story that really helped. The crowd got into it and it was just a lot of fun. They were really appreciative of it. The schools liked it to and want us to do a play next year. We are already bouncing around ideas for it. So email me any ideas for it.

Oiishijanai

So I go to this little store called Green quite a bit. It's closer than the main grocery store and often has cheap produce.

I stopped in there the day before last, because I saw a bag of four apples for 100 yen ( about a buck) . I step into the store and the owner takes one look at me and exclaims "Kowaii" (adorable/cute) I'm not sure if she was talking about my bright red winter jacket or my hand knitted hat. ( First hat I ever made and I, in a stroke of brilliance, refused to look back at a pattern when it came time to reduce stitches. The end result is that my hat has a little stem sticking out of the top)

I grab a few other items I need and head for the register. She picks up the bag of apples I have selected and scowls at the apples like they have done her a personal disservice. She tells me "Oiishi ja nai" which roughly translates to:

She says it a few more times to make sure that I understand, smiles apologetically, and then goes outside into the cold and the slush to root through the 1oo yen apple bin to find me more satisfactory apples.

I'm not sure if I should be touched by her thoughtfulness or insulted that she didn't believe I could tell a tasty apple from an untasty apple. ...Buuuuuut, the apples she picked were delicious so maybe she was right.

S.

Santa Caleb

Today I taught Christmas at Kozuya Elementary to the first and second grade. I explained the reason that Christians celebrate Christmas. I also, told them about kids believing that if they are good all year they will get presents. Then I opened the floor up for questions. All the questions were about Santa and Presents which would have been true at an America school to I guess. Some of the best were as follows. Keep in mind these are all in Japanese and have to be translated by going back and forth with the real teacher. Then I had to answer in Japanese.

Why does Santa come in through the Chimney?
Because he is not a burglar and cant use a locked door or window, he has to use the Chimney.

I don’t have a Chimney how does Santa come in?
He can use the out side vent of the Kerosene Heater to get in.

Then he would be inside the heater?
Magic

Why does Santa give presents?
To celebrate Jesus birthday.

What is the English word for the animal that pulls Santa’s Sleigh?
Reindeer, the I sang Rudolf the red nosed reindeer which made them all surprised to learn that only one Reindeer had a red nose.

How does Santa know what we want?
In America kids write him a letter that says what they want.

Do they put it in the mail for real?
Yes, they do.

WAAAAAAAAAAAA We don’t write letters. If we don’t write letters Santa won’t know what we want. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Mr. Caleb what is Santa’s address?
At this point before I can tell them to address them to the North Pole. The teacher steps in and tells them that they can tell their parents what they want and they will tell Santa. I admit that I wanted them to write Santa letters just to confuse the Japanese mail system.

One kid very nervously asked if wakening up late is a bad thing?
The teacher handled this one to saying it was bad especially if it made you late to school and you parents late to work.

We then made Christmas Cards in all the classes that day. It was a lot of fun and the kids really liked it. Also, in another reason that my Elementary kids are starting to grow on me is that they are so cute. In my first grade was one girl who is little Ms. Dainty in class but at lunch was forking it (I guess in Japan I cant say forking it I have to say chopsticking it) in like rice was about to be illegal. I mean she had more rice in her chopsticks then she could force in her mouth. Things like that are just so adorable.

Hank Williams Fish Market

The other day my Principle from Chokai and his wife took Samantha and I to Hachinohe. There is a big mall in Hachinohe that has an import store and several other great stores so they thought we would want to go. It was nice. We were able to get all the Christmas cards we are sending out this year and some Christmas presents. We even go some things to decorate the house. We don’t have a tree but we do have some garland and silver balls around the living room. There is a small pine tree outside the house and we are going to wait till closer to Christmas and decorate it. Samantha has suggested that we saw off the top bit to make it a small tree with out necessarily killing the tree. We also have a cloth wall hanging of Santa’s sleigh going by Mt. Fuji. I even bought a Santa costume in my size for 420 yen or about $4.20. It included hat, beard, pants, shirt and belt. It’s really a pretty good costume for the price. I can’t wait to show it to my kids around Christmas. I think that the Elementary kids will love it and I will even use it at the Kindergarten that we teach at.

After the mall they took us to an amazing fish market. It was full of all kinds or fish in every state from some being still live to just the heads and tails. We walked around the building trying samples of everything from raw Octopus in Kim chi sauce to fresh crab. I mean this stuff was in the ocean that day it was so fresh. The whole time it’s really loud but I keep thinking that I hear Hank Williams. Now, I know that being in Japan can drive some people crazy. I also know that some crazy people here music and voices. So, I’m thinking that there is no way that this fish market full of Japanese people in Iwate is playing Hank Williams. Therefore I must be starting to go crazy. What's more, I asked Samantha if she heard country western music and she couldn’t. Finally we get to a quite place and you know what they were. They played one Hank Williams song after another the whole time we were there. The fish market had a sort of restaurant in it where you could buy fresh fish and then take them and rent a small grill and cook it right there fresh. We did that and it was great. We had chicken, beef, squid, huge scallops, shrimp, and some other fish. It was the best sea food meal I have ever eaten and it was really cheap too. It was one of the most not in Kansas anymore moments. Here I am eating fresh fish in Japan, trying to explain what little I know about Cockney in Japanese, and the whole time Hank Williams is going in the background.

In unrelated news the other ALTs in town and Samantha and I are putting on a Christmas play at all four middle schools in town and the church Samantha, Stephanie, and I go to. It will be a Christmas Carol rendered into very simple English. For example we may well end up changing the ghost of Christmas past, present, and yet to come to yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I will be playing Scrooge and am busy making all the props for the play. I’m really looking forward to it. I think that it will give me a great opportunity to talk to my kids about the real meaning of Christmas since they celebrate it here as a sort of Valentines Day. Also, I’m going to video the Christmas play and if it turns out well and the other cast members still agree it’s not to embarrassing post it on the blog. So look forward to maybe seeing me play Scrooge in the simplest English imaginable and then all of us singing silent night. Why Silent Night, because the Christmas lesson of the 8th grade English book is about the writing of the carol Silent Night. It gives no translation of Silent Night and they only hear it sung once but it’s the Christmas carol that our students will most have heard of.

Lastly, the weather. My teachers all say how mild the winter is. Its cold freezing cold but there has not been any snow for a week. They say that normally by the first of December there is usually snow on the ground for good.

Elementary Culture Fests

I have finally finished all my culture festivals. There was one for each school. The elementary school festivals were really cute and fun. The first one that I went to was in Chokai. The kids did skits and singing both as a whole school and as a class. They did little songs about animals living in the mountains.
As you can see cute animal costumes are a necessity.


The second elementary culture festival was in Kozuya. It was pretty much the same except that the fifth graders had grown their own rice and sold it. It was really good. They gave me a small bag of it for helping them divide it into bags. Also they had one of their plays was about the unification of Japan.

Overall I really liked doing the elementary culture fests. They were fun to watch and the kids were really happy I was there. However, I wish more parents had introduced themselves to me. I had been hoping to meet parents and see how they felt about English education. I goes since my predecessor didn't speak Japanese they assumed I didn't but I got a lot of smiles.

As a in general update it has snowed here for the first time. It mostly melted in the afternoon but it was cold in the morning. Today to winterize the house I moved the bed into the room right next to the living room. We are now using really just to room of the house. We also got out the kerosean heater because its too cold for our clothes to dry . We also insulated the house by putting bubble wrap on the big glass windows in the main rooms.

We'll see how long this lasts

There are two things I need to do more: draw and post on this blog. Seeing a connection, I decided to try making quick little doodles to post onto this blog. Today's is about my friend and hero, Kotatsu:


On cold days I have to struggle to leave it.

Also, I'd like to publicly thank Jon and Emily for mailing us a wonderful care package. Emily is currently pursuing her goal of becoming the most attractive and intelligent lawyer in the world, while Jon is well on his way to becoming an international nurse of mystery. Thanks guys, we loved it!

Images of Fall

Hey everybody!

It's been a while and for that I apologize. I thought I'd pop in and drop some photos I'd taken. These are mostly just odds and ends that caught my fancy.


First up we have my bike:

My bike is awesome. It has a basket so I don't have to lug groceries on my back and a bell so I can announce my presence to slow-moving pedestrians. Little one-speed bikes like this are called Maa Maa Cheri.

It only cost 3,000 Yen. ( About $30 US)











Next we have the little piggy pork buns.
















(Shown here are size reference piggy and dramatic lighting piggies)
I saw these at the store and snatched them up. For those of you that don't know pork buns consist of steamed dough wrapped around a little bit of delightfully seasoned pork. They're usually just round with a puckered top, but in this case they were adorable piggies. The color of the ears and nose were an indication of the type of filling. There was a piggy with blue ears and nose but I didn't get that one.

This here...

is denim wine. I never even bothered to call it by it's real name, which was conveniently in English. I bought it because it looked like it was wearing bottle-shaped blue jeans. ( You win again marketing) I lucked out. Inside this bottle was a red wine hearty as I could have ever wished for. C'mon admit it, you want to try Denim wine.


I was sorely disappointed this Halloween season to discover that Japanese pumpkins are small, green-skinned and hard. I had given up on carving, or even witnessing a genuine Jack-o-lantern this year when several shops around town displayed just that. I have no idea where they got the pumpkins. It was like magic. Most of them were pretty standard fare. Triangle eyes and a gap-toothed smile.




Some were a little more imaginative















This one was wearing reindeer antlers:



















The rest of these are just some shots of the fall colors. The orange tree grows outside of our backyard abandoned hospital.
-S.

Cold

Hey its cold really cold. We had snow flurries yesterday night and as I right this its 48 degrees in the living room. So its very cold and it will soon get.......you guessed it colder.

Halloween

On the day before Halloween my Elementary School in Kozuya let me have a Halloween party for my 6th grade class. It was a lot of fun for me and the kids. I told them and every class I taught that day Taily Po in Japanese. The kids seemed to really like it they were scared by it at times and amused by my faltering Japanese at other times. Then I told them about trick or treating. The teacher made a small door for the kids the to knock on and trick or treat from. They would say trick or treat and then I would ask them a question in English and if they got it right I would give them candy. Several students made funny mistakes with their answers. One girl said that her name was candy. Instead of saying she liked candy. Another girl when asked how old she was said she was cookie. So I say in Japanese, "you are cookie years old." She and the students around her laughed. So I asked again and to help her said I was 22 years old. This prompted her to think and then claim she was 22 years old.
Me teaching the kids monster names.
My Door.
This is the poster board about me at this school. It has facts about me and this poster of me. Apparently I have light brown hair and green glasses. Also if you look closely you will see that they dont ask if I'm married but if I'm marriage so I'm the physical embodiment of marriage.

Culture Fest 1

I have had my first culture festival. I forgot my camera so pictures will have to wait till I get pictures from one of the teachers. However, I will try to talk about it without the aid of pictures. This is my second Japanese culture festival and Samantha’s first. My first was at Kansai Gaidai and this one was a world apart. Which is to be expected when comparing a middle school and a college, I guess. The event was at Chokai which is my smallest school. In the first part of the day each grade did a play that they had made all the scenery and plot for themselves. The first year class has made global warming their project this year so their play was about a family and their attempts to save energy and prevent global warming. They do things like unplug appliances when not it use and turn of the car when they go shopping rather then idle it. This play was the easiest to understand because it went something like this. “I will unplug the TV,” then he would unplug the TV. The second play was a bit more interesting. I want everyone to know that this plot is not an exaggeration. The story opens with a girl confessing that she likes a boy and them going out. After the date she is hit by a car and killed. She meets a god of death who after some discussion agrees to let her not move on but posses the body of her boyfriend’s best MALE friend. She (in the body of the male friend) tells everyone that it’s not really Shinichi but Akiko (or some such collection of names), they of course don’t believe her and get mad at Shinichi for his poor sense of humor. The boyfriend pushes Shinichi down and then the scene changes. The girl in Shinichi’s body then goes to HER house to meet her grieving mother. She is wiser now and doesn’t immediately tell her mother she is really Akiko she waits a bit and then tells her. After the mother is upset the god of death comes back to take Akiko away. Then the god of death goes off stage and comes back in white socks, long underwear, wings, and a halo that kept falling off and either making him forget his lines or making the forgetting of lines more hilarious. The final part of the play is Akiko being reborn as the daughter of one of her class mates with no explanation of if the classmate has grown up or is just a pregnant middle school student. The next play was truly the most confusing and to try to relate it is difficult. It opens with the kids in class and they are complaining about school. Then it cuts to two kids rooting threw trash looking for things for their mother to eat. Then another girl comes and pushes those kids down and takes their trash. Also, the trash girl is carrying her English book and going on about how she wishes she could go back to school. Then it cuts to a scene in school where one of the boys is studying and the pushing down trash kids girl comes in and pushes him down too. Then it changes scenes again two girls are living with their parents who are happy normal people. Except, the mother is the girl who pushes everyone down. The children go outside to play soccer. Then trash boy and studying boy break in the house and murder the parents. The kids go live with their grandmother. Then it cuts back to every at school like in the opening scene. They then talk about how glad that their lives are like that and that they go to school. The play was not a continues story like we thought it was short bits of unrelated stories. After that we went to the class rooms and saw examples of things the kids had made including old English essays. One of which was about how a girl’s mother “loved her cat to much and that it made the cat want to escape. The girl’s conclusion was I know how the cat feels sometimes.” Other kids just talked about how cut their family pets are. Other exhibits where things like crafts the kids had made. There was also a room where community artists and handy crafters exhibited their work. Including calligraphy that they had made Samantha and I do. That’s right out calligraphy is right there next to some of the best calligraphy in the community. To end the festival the students had traditional dance and choral singing. The ninth graders even sang Scarborough Fair. Aaa youa goingu Scabaowa Faya. Actually it was really good singing and they had clearly put a lot of work into every part of it.

On a bit of a more serious note. Last week one of my schools closed for a week for the swine flu, it’s now reopen but the local elementary school closed for a few days this week. There is also no word here on when we will be able to see vaccines. However, in good new one of my towns does not have any cases of swine flu. This should also give you an idea of how spread out my schools are and how little contact the residents of small towns that make up Ichinohe have.

Recently I have been really busy here is a bit of my schedule tomorrow, Friday, Samantha and I are hosting a Halloween costume party. This will be after a full day of school for me where I have to teach time, months and Halloween, also I will tell the story of Taily Po in Japanese which my JTE has helped me translate. Then Saturday I have an elementary school culture festival in Kozuya. Then Sunday I have to go to my second elementary school’s culture festival. Then on Nov. 8 I have to go to my other middle schools festival. So I by the end of next week I will have worked everyday from October 25-Novermber 13 with two days off. These are not together either one day is a Saturday and the other is a national holiday. At least I can take substitute days for my weekend work but oh well. Looking back that’s not strictly true I have actually only had 1 day off since the 19th of October. So on November 13 my schedule will have been work 5 days one day off, work 9 days have one day off, work 3 then have one day off then work 6 and finally have a weekend.

A Day In The Life Of An ALT

7AM This is the time that I normally wake up to get ready to go to school. It takes about 30 minutes to do everything in the morning. Though it gets harder and harder to get out of bed for the morning to start as it gets colder.

7:30 AM Ride my bike to work. If I’m going to Kozuya this entails a short ride down the main highway route 4. There is a big shoulder and sometimes other bikers so its pretty safe. When I teach at Chokai it’s a 30 minute ride through the mountains so I can enjoy the scenery. Also, I will often stop and buy some fruit or vegetables.

8AM Arrive at school. I usually get to school a few minutes before the morning meeting. If this is the first day I’m at the school for the week its when I find out my schedule for the day. There is a short teachers meeting every morning. Before the meeting though we all use our name stamps to sign in. This is the time where I get ready for the day if I haven’t gotten everything done the day before. Things like making worksheets and the like.

There is home room and other things until around 8:45. This is when the first class of the day begins. Most schools have 6 periods in a day each of 50 minutes though all schools have a short schedule of 45 minute classes that they use sometimes. There are frequent changes to the class schedule because of assemblies and what not. When I say frequent I mean it to they change for anything especially elementary.

12:35-13:05 is lunch. I eat the school lunch like all the students and all the other teachers. Its usually pretty good. There is rice or bread, milk, vegetables, soap, and some kind of meat at every meal. It’s usually very filling and is very cheap, only a few dollars a day. After lunch there are 2 more class periods. Then the students clean the school and have another short homeroom. After all that there are club activates. These can go till very late after school some times 21:00 if there is a competition coming up. I hang out for a little of the club activities. Clubs are different at each school of example Kozuya has Volleyball, baseball, tennis and track and field. While Chokai only has table tennis. My normal time to leave school is a little after 16:00. Then its home for dinner.

During the day I can teach between 0 and 6 classes depending on where I am. If I’m at a middle school the normal amount is 2 but I can do up to 4 if the school has a special education class. At elementary I’m much busier since I go only once ever other week they have me teach as many classes as they can so usually 4 or 5. Also, I have more responsibility to plan the lower level lessons. 5th and 6th grade have a text book that they use but its teachers manual is only in Japanese so its very difficult and many ALTs hate it. For 1st-4th grade I can be the lead teacher and plan and execute the lessons virtually on my own. For an example week I will teach 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade. I have to plan the lesson for all but 6th grade. 1st and 2nd are about numbers and time. First grade gets numbers 1-10 and second grade gets what time is it and o’clock. For 4th grade I will be teaching a different lesson. It will be over these vocabulary words: standup, sit down, raise your hand, clap your hands, turn, jump, run, walk, swim, read, sleep, left, and right. I will also do a review over my name is and I like/don’t like. My main job in the elementary is to make English fun and teach vocabulary not grammar. I know that after reading this many of you are saying good since my grammar is bad and we all know I shouldn’t be teaching penmanship or spelling. The big challenges in the day are correcting the students and sometimes teacher’s grammar without hurting feelings. Also, I have to make warm ups and games for the middle school students which can get hard to come up with. Games need to teach a grammar point or review vocabulary, but do at least a little fun. Games that I like doing are Battle Ship, Shiritori (a Japanese game where one person says a word and the next person says a word that starts with the last letter of the previous words), and any game with lots of running in the elementary schools.

Funny Stuff

I have two funny stories that I would like to share from teaching recently. They will kind of give you a feel for what I get to do every day. We were teaching things like, where to, what to which to, when to, and how to. So I thought that it would be fun to do it about travel so I asked them about Morioka. Questions like, do you know how to get to Morioka or tell me where to eat in Morioka. Then I split the kids into groups and had them pick a place in the world to make question about it to ask me. So, I'm walking around the class and one kid walks up to me and goes, "Kentucky." "Does America have a Kentucky state?" When I say yes it does he runs to the map on the wall points at South America and asks me to show him where Kentucky is. When I correct him he then sees where the map says Phoenix and goes, "the state of Phoenix is where we should ask about."

In my next class they where trying to form sentences. A girl was filling out the paper and instead of writing My brother has a bike she wrote has my brother a dike. I tried to correct her and so she changed it to My brother has a dike.

My Commute

These are some pictures of the commute trough the mountains to Chokai where I teach every other week. Its a great ride that I even do some times on the weekends for fun. Also, since the area it goes through is so rural there are a couple of great fruit and vegetable stands. They leave bags of whatever has come into harvest and everything is 100 yen or about 1 dollar. Its a great way to get some cheap healthy food. Last time I went to one I got 4 big pears, a bag of shitake mushrooms, and a bag of home grown tomatos all for way cheaper then the grocery store. I will not be posting pictures of the ride to Kozuya as its on the intersate and there for not pretty or interesting.

Hot Springs, Onsen

Today Stephanie, Samantha, and I went up a couple stops on the train line to a place with a bunch of hot springs. We went to one that was really cheep and pretty nice. I cant speak to the woman's portion but the man's was good it had seen better days but good. They had a hot bath that was really big, round and had a fountain. There was a small luck warm bath and a cold one. It was really nice and relaxing. It was only 5 dollars to take a bath and since the train was only 3.60 its something I think we will do again.

Mr. Donuts

Today Samantha and I went to Ninohe the town above us to get donuts. We walk for about 2 and a half hours to get them. They were the best donuts in the world.

Kindergarten Sports Day

Kindergarten sports day started off with a mini festival. The kids played taiko drums and some pulled a small float which you can see. The whole day was really fun. We set with the dignitaries who were and watched the kids do all kind of adorable events.

They separated the kids in to red and white teams and competed with a bunch of crazy races and relies. They even got the parents and grand parents into the act. They had them help with some of the races. One event they had the dignitaries and us do an interesting race. You take a string from a box and tie it to something then the next person ties their string to yours and the team with the longest string at the end wins. It was fun to see the uptight looking town officials lesson up and do the race with the rest of us.
In the race above the kids had to run put on costumes and then race to the end. All the girls were Sailor Moon and all the boys were Ultraman. The race below was with the parents and they ran through the course wearing hats connected to the hats the kids wore.
The final game is one in which the kids through bean bags into the net. The team with the most wins. However, the white team played through the bean bags as high as they could and lost the round. The final winners of sports day where the kids on the white team but everyone got a medal.

Misadventures of a Reluctant Housewife (part one)

Okay, let me start off by saying that I am a reluctant housewife. I mean this as no disrespect to non-reluctant housewives out there. Housewifing is a full-time job. It's just not a job I have any talent for. So I salute you, those of you who can excel at this role.

I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've never done without a job or school before. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm completely sure housewife experience will not impress the universities I apply to for masters school. I'm not sure if it's the fact that the first time I ever put my atrophied domestic skills to use, I choose to do it in Japan. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm finding this job to be a lot more difficult than I foresaw.


Now I know some of you are nodding sagely as they read, just as I know that some of you are thinking "Pftt. How bout' some cheese with that whine?" I'd like to dedicate this blog post to all of the latter people.

Ahem. You may be all smug and cocky now, but you wouldn't last ten minutes as a Japanese housewife! I know your type. You'd shatter under the pressure like a balsa wood airplane in the hands of an energetic grade schooler.

Oh you want an example?

Fine. Let's start with something easy. Grocery store run. We all gotta eat. As a Japanese housewife you absolutely must be able to buy groceries.

First, I get on my maa maa cheri other wise known as a one speed, upright bicycle with a basket. You didn't realize you'd need a basket? See? This is why you need me, you're green.
Anyway I get on my bike and ride to the store. When I ride I ride on the left side of the street. I know your Western brain wants to turn those handle bars over to the right side of the street, but that way leads to swift and messy downfall. The left side is where its at.

On my commute to the store I pass this thing :


What is that smiling thing? I have no clue. I wonder every time I pass it.

Eventually I do get to the store and it looks like this:
That's right Jois. The store's name is Jois. Care to try pronouncing that? Yeah I thought not.I start off with something easy: sugar. I want to make sweet tea and that means I need sugar.

Sugar comes in kilos here, and is sold in bricks. Let me tell you from experience, buying bricks of white powder that come by the kilo makes you feel like a little bit like a drug dealer. Oh and before I forget, on the same isle are kilo sized bricks of salt. They are NEARLY IDENTICAL if you can't read Japanese.
After sugar, the temptation to continue shopping habits that were established in America comes on strong. This temptation is soon squelched by the fact that western food is outrageously expensive here. I submit three food items that are relatively cheap in America: pasta sauce, Budweiser beer and spam.
Pasta is the refuge of every broke college student. It's cheap, filling and somewhat nutritious. Above yous see the price of 348 yen for a tiny jar. ( Yen to Dollar 101: move that decimal two spaces over and you have a rough approximation of your price in dollars. 348 yen= $3.48) Also, take into consideration that every meal has to feed people who walk or bike everywhere and you suddenly realize that it's going to take at least three of these little jars to do the trick.
Your eyes do not deceive you. It is about $2.05 for a single Budweiser beer when it is on sale. Guinness is a heart-breaking three dollars a pop.

Look at that! A tin of spam for $5.48. You can buy real meat for that kind of money. (Yes that is spam sushi. I don't know either.)

Okay, so it's too expensive to shop like an American. Time to start shopping like a Japanese housewife. I head to the fish isle, and I am completely overwhelmed. Guys, you have no idea how many different kinds of fish there are. You also don't know how lucky you have it, when most of your fish comes in precious little pre-cut fillets. Fish that stare back at you are part of life here. Occasionally swallowing a bone (because there are roughly eleven billiondy in every fish and they are impossible to see) is also a part of life.
Here's a few little snap shots of the fish sections:
Consequentially, if anyone knows what these hermit-crab looking things are, do let me know.


This is squid.
And this is octopus. Now here's a question for the ages. Red tags mean that items are on sale. Red tags usually go on items that are nearing their expiration dates. Should I risk buying red-tag octopus or squid?


Are you starting to grasp it? How difficult it can be to be a Japanese housewife? Very well. A small break for now. More later.
(To be continued in part two)