School Jane to went apple monkey carburetor.

Hi-diddly-oh! I made it to Nagasaki safe and sound last night. I've now been in the city officially for one whole day, all by myself, and I'm loving every minute of it.

I'm not implying I got here solely by my own efforts. Urata-sensei made the hotel and airline reservations for me, printed out maps to the hotel from the airport, and photocopied the Tsushima bus schedule for me. All I really wound up having to do was stand at the place he pointed out to me at the appropriate time. Foolproof, right?

For those of you who don't know, the Japanese drive on the wr... opposite side of the road. Opposite from Americans and, to the best of my knowledge, roughly 95% of the world. The only countries I can think of who do it this way are Japan and the UK. Even with all the pluralism and cultural relativism I soaked up from my anthro classes, I still occasionally slip, like I just did. It's just that the.... forget it.

I packed my bags and headed to the prescribed point on the map: the bus stop, right in front of my apartment. I got there about twenty minutes early, just in case. As I stood there, I decided to read the posted schedule, to try out my fledgling kanji literacy. I couldn't find the time for my bus--in fact, I couldn't find times for any buses heading to the airport. (I spent the past two weeks drilling myself on the kanji for airport, airplane, and other catching-bus-to-airport-related characters.) I didn't panic; rather, I just sort of stood there, slowly getting frustrated with the whole bus system, which must have made a misprint in their schedule.

While I was silently fuming about it, one of the teachers who sits in my row in the faculty room pulled in to the apartment complex. About ten or fifteen of the teachers live around the same complex as mine, by the way. She got out and greeted me, startled like everyone is when I greeted her in Japanese. (I swear, I'm not using any more Japanese than you learn in two weeks of an intro course, yet they all chitter "ee?!" and "jozu ne!" and "sugoi!" whenever I thank them or tell them good morning. It's cute, but confusing.) I decided to admit I was lost, and asked her where she thought the bus stop was. It almost came out entirely in Japanese--this got another warm "ee?!" out of her--and she thought about it for a few seconds, and pointed to what she thought was the right stop.

The right stop was directly across the street.

I thanked her kindly, picked up my bag, and dashed across the street. There, on the schedule, was the time I was expecting, and along came the bus, right on time. All this confusion because I got the traffic flow mixed up.

Anyway, from there we got to the airport right on time. I paid for the ticket at the counter--about $200 round-trip, but since this is a business trip, it's all on the school's dime--checked my bag, and caught my flight without any problem.

Flying from Tsushima to Nagasaki is kind of amusing. First of all, you're in a tiny little 40-seat prop job, which sort of wobbles as it takes off. The wobbling is actually due to all the wind that the island gets, but it doesn't make the plane look any less silly. Secondly, the entire trip, from runway to runway, is about 35 minutes. You ascend, the little seatbelt sign turns off, you have just enough time to go pee, and then the seatbelt sign gets turned back on, because you start the descent. $100 for 35 minutes in the air.

Anyway, the guy next to me started talking to me in you-must-not-be-from-here-speed Japanese, so I thankfully was able to keep up with him. He asked if I was a teacher in Tsushima, and we started talking from there. His full name is Kan Da, or his last name is Kanda--I think it's the latter, because I haven't heard of many monosyllabic Japanese names. Regardless, he teaches at one of the local junior high schools, and his school's JET this past year was an Irish guy I don't think I met. He asked if I knew how to get to my hotel, and while I had a rough outline of the plan written down courtesy of Urata-sensei, I figured it couldn't hurt, and asked him if he knew which bus I should take. He said sure, and left it at that.

Thanks to staring at Google maps of Japan for the last week or two, I learned that you don't really fly into Nagasaki proper. The nearest airport is Omura, which is about a 40-minute bus ride to the northeastish. Anyway, we landed, grabbed our bags, and he walked me past the bus I needed to take, to the ticket vending machine, talked me through everything, and pointed out the bus to me again.

On the bus, I sat next to a Japanese man dressed in a suit and listening to an MP3 player. After about ten minutes on the bus, he asked me something that I assumed was Japanese. When I asked him to repeat it, he said "Shall I talk?"

I've been here about a month now, and one of the peculiarities I've noticed about Japanese English is the frequent use of "shall." I don't know if it's just from growing up in the southeast, but nobody I know uses "shall" in daily speech. It feels to me like it's very rarely used outside of formal situations--"shall we?" is about all that comes to mind, and even there it's used to sounds sort of mock-formal. Again, maybe it's just my experience, but it sounds archaic to me, and yet I've heard it at least once a day from a Japanese since I've been here.

Anyway. Guy in a suit asked me "shall I talk?" I grinned and said sure. He asked me if I'm in Nagasaki for holiday; I told him it's a little of both. He asked where I came from; I told him Georgia, and had to specify America. He asked if Japan is too hot for me; I laughed and explained that Georgia's pretty humid too. At about the same time, we both sort of realized that all of that was in Japanese--what I mean is, I was carrying on with him in Japanese for all of that. It wasn't native speed, mind you, and I was using stilted dictionary forms. (Probably the English equivalent of something like "Well, you see, I am here today on holiday, but it is the case that the day after tomorrow I have a meeting. I am a teacher because.", with the "because" tacked on in the wrong place--it should have been explaining why I had a meeting. He apparently understood what I was trying to say. The point is, it probably came out overly proper, not very relaxed at all.) We talked for the rest of the trip, and he asked if I knew where I was staying. I eventually had to break out of Japanese, for lack of vocabulary, and I learned that his English was very impressive. I told him where my hotel was, but I was still a little iffy on where exactly my stop was. He offered to help me, which I found out entailed him skipping his stop to get off at mine. He walked me to the hotel, talking to me all the way, jumping back and forth between English and Japanese. He even walked me into the hotel lobby, just to make sure I got there safe and sound. Great guy.

So yeah. Check-in was uneventful, except that I had to pay up-front. It comes out to about $50 a night, which seems outrageously cheap to me, seeing as I'm right on the Nagasaki waterfront, and--which is more--I'm right next to the convention center where we're having our meeting on Monday and Tuesday. The school's paying for my stay, but only for the nights I have to be here--my first two nights are on my dime. Anyway, I paid the money, and they gave me my room key. It's a real key, not a fancy card key or retinal imprint device or anything. Comes on a keychain complete with a hefty lump of metal that reminds me of a Pog slammer, with the room number etched onto it, as well as a little orange stick that I paid no attention to.

The elevator reminds me of some of the ones in eastern Europe--not dangerous, just tiny. I got off at my floor, opened the door, and immediately went to inspect the room. Y'know, check for bugs, make sure everything's clean, pull down the bedding to see that it's been changed, all the stuff your mom did when you went on family vacations and stopped in hotels for the night. ...Everyone's mom did that, right? Right?

So I open the door, and flip the nearest switch I can find, and nothing turns on. The only light in the room is a 1" square LED with the word "IN" written above it. This caught me completely offguard, and I stared at it for about thirty seconds before I realized I was holding the door open with my foot, and anybody walking around would be able to see the gaijin gawking at the light switch. Before I could close the door, though, the bellboy from the lobby walked by, and casually pointed out, in broken English, that the stick on my key goes in. That's all he said, and he stood there while I put the rest of it together--above the "IN" was a little hole covered by a little door which, sure enough, fit the stick on my keychain perfectly. Once the little stick is in, all the lights in the room work. I thanked him, he very graciously shrugged it off, and I swear I heard a snicker as he rounded the hall.

So there you have it. I got outsmarted by an electrical outlet. Japanese utilities 3, Adam 0.

There'll be pictures up of all that I'm talking about--honest--but I left my camera-computer hookup cord thing back on Tsushima. I also left my internet cable at home, assuming this hotel would provide one, like Keio did in Tokyo. I had to buy one at an electronics store today. Guess how much? Jeremy, if you're reading this, guess. No, really, guess. $4 for a 7-foot CATV cable. Best Buy would charge that much per foot, right?

That's enough for one post. That, and I'm about to pass out. It was a long, long day, full of swashbuckling, donuts, sweat, and nougat. No, seriously, my day included all of those things. You'll just have to wait till my next post to hear about it. Hah! It's sort of like a cliffhanger, if a story with three readers can have cliffhangers.

Oh well. The title comes from an awesome Japanese page Madeline showed me a couple of years ago, by the way. Nighty night!

Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Barely even human...

Hiyo! Since last we spoke, I've met my supervisor, Satomi-sensei. She's really cool, and apparently is insanely busy. I'm not exactly sure, but I've heard she teaches both English and Korean. That makes for a hectic schedule, but it also makes for a convenient means to learn Korean! She's just now getting back from her honeymoon (she used to be Kojima-sensei!), and the pile of stuff on her desk was about a foot (erm, about 30cm) high. She also had me fill out some paperwork. Apparently we're supposed to sign in every day we work, so they can track if we miss any days. Not having known this, I had to fill in about twenty blanks--according to their records, I hadn't worked since I got here. No worries, though--I still got paid.

Payday was yesterday, too. They gave me an envelope fat with cash, explained what's taken out of my gross pay (rent, FICA-ish stuff), and also gave me an envelope with money to cover traveling expenses this weekend. I was kinda nervous on the walk back home, carrying that much cash, but that's just out of habit--I haven't seen anybody remotely shady or sketchy yet.

So they tell us to set some goals for ourselves, both to give us direction in the beginning, and help us straighten up if/when the homesickness/depression sets in later on. To that end, I figure here's as good a place as any to try to list them.

My main goal during my stay here is to help people learn stuff. As underwhelming and inauspicious as that phrasing is, it's true. English is obviously the main thing I'm teaching, but it isn't the only thing I hope to teach. Among other things, I hope also to teach the people around me that (not all) Americans are the fat, lazy, arrogant cretins that more and more of the world sees us as.

My second goal touches more on my big plans for life. Right now, my ultimate career goal is to end up teaching something, somewhere, to somebody. I usually assume that means teaching in a formal capacity, such as high school or college, but I could just as easily see myself working as a diplomat, a worker bee for the U.N., some form of foreign affairs advisor at the State Department, or just a writer. Every job I dream of doing entails teaching on some level.

I have such a desire to spread knowledge because I feel that most of the major problems with the world stem from ignorance. Every single manifestation of cruelty and injustice I have found--things such as sexism, racism, pollution, religious extremism, and homophobia--can be explained almost entirely as products of ignorance. As idealistic as this may be, I am convinced that with proper education, with a truly effective spread of knowledge, problems such as these would be greatly diminished, if not erased all together.

Before I can truly begin teaching in the way I'm talking about, I need to learn more--a lot more. Above all else, I need to learn simply whether I'm any good at it. All I've been since college is a waiter and a restaurant manager--neither of which afforded me much chance to see what, if any, teaching ability I have. Sure, I'm crazy about the idea of teaching, about being able to help cure those seemingly intractable diseases of modern society, but I might just... suck at teaching. Though I hate to think of it, I must accept that as a possibility. Seeing as that would sort of throw a wrench in the whole plan, I need to test my mettle, and being here is a great way to do just that.

My other goals while in Japan, while not quite as broad in scope, are still ambitious. I aim to take full advantage of my (relative) proximity to so many freaking amazing countries: if, by the time I leave this area, I haven't been to at least five other countries, I should consider the mission a failure.

I also hope to learn as much Japanese as possible while I'm here. This will give me a chance to see just how good I am at learning a language. While I seem to be fairly adept at picking up the basics of a language, I've never actually devoted time to intensely studying one.

I'm also looking forward to being outside of America, as this will give me as much of an outsider's perspective as I can ever hope to have, being born in the country. Such a perspective will, I hope, help me better understand exactly how so many things could go so very wrong with what was until recently such a beautiful experiment in government. If I can get that far, then hopefully the problems will seem somewhat more surmountable.

...Oh, and it'd be swell to fall in love while I'm here, too. :)

So that's a list of some goals I've got. I've been meaning for quite some time now to elaborate in writing on what I was talking about up there. Now that I've got this nifty thing, I might just post about it.

Nagasaki on Friday!

If you ever face a situation with seemingly insurmountable odds...

...hum the Indiana Jones theme to yourself. This advice comes to me courtesy of Evelyn, who learned it from David, my predecessor. Try it! It works!

After my grueling two-day work week, I had a great weekend. Saturday I met up with Aaron and Evelyn (both JET veterans who live ten minutes away from me), Mitch and Mike (new guys, like me, who live about a 40-minute drive away), and Patrick. Patrick was a JET back in 1990--the second year of the program's existence--and, from what I've gathered, has basically lived in Tsushima ever since. He still teaches English, though is in no way affiliated with the JET Program anymore. He came by to meet me Friday night, bringing the gift of unpowered dehumidifiers.

I don't know how these things work, exactly, so I'll attempt to describe them here, and post a picture later. Basically, it's a little clear plastic box with a hard plastic lid covering a thin layer of foam. The inside of the box is divided into two main chambers, with a third, smaller one on top. The bottom chamber is empty, while the middle chamber is full of what appear to be foam pellets. The plastic separating the pellets from the rest of the box has holes poked in it, that keep the pellets from falling through but still allow air to pass through. Finally, the foam seal on top looks like the little piece of paper/plastic/foam you have to pull off when you use a ketchup bottle for the first time.

Operating instructions: 1) Remove hard plastic lid. b) Place apparatus in area to be dried. iii) Make a sandwich, and watch TV.

That's all there is to it. Step iii is optional, even. By some bizarre magic, these little pellets will absorb the moisture in the air, letting it condense in the bottommost chamber. That chamber will eventually fill with water, at which point you discard the whole thing and buy another.

Five minutes of tireless research has taught me that the mystic pellet ingredient is known as a desiccant, and I conclude from such a foul-sounding name that there exists some amount of this material that will kill a man.

At any rate, they work amazingly well, and don't use a bit of power. Thus, my daily electricity consumption is still limited to my refrigerator, my AC (which is set on 28 degrees), my laptop, and one light. I don't have a dishwasher, and sitting indoors for most of the day in an environment decidedly not rife with the stench of yellow sauce means I don't have to wash clothes every three days--that keeps my water consumption down, too. I neither own nor have any need to own a car while I'm here, and so my oil consumption is limited to indirect sources: the oil consumed by the boats and trucks that delivered the food that I bought at the grocery store, plus the occasional carpool to the riv--...

Oh! River! Right! So I met all of those folks, and we drove to... a river whose name I can't remember. Its name means something along the lines of 'the place where a kind of fish lives.' I'm a failure at remembering place names here so far. The important part, however, is that we had a great time. There was swimming, and jumping into the river from a tree branch twenty feet in the air, and walking upstream while being gawked at by the gathered Japanese and Korean tourists. (I didn't do any of the jumping from trees, but I was sure to take a picture of it.)

After we swam a while, Aaron, Mike, and I talked baseball for what must have been an hour. It was a lot more fun than I first realized to find someone else to talk sports with. Aaron's from Philly, so he had some choice words to share with me regarding the parentage of Braves fans, but he readily conceded, admitting that Philadelphia as a town hasn't won anything related to professional sports in something like 30 years.

After that, Evelyn, Aaron, and I showed Mike and Mitch some of the shopping-related sights in Izuhara. We had supper at Roxy's, the "American" restaurant in town. They serve burgers, fries, pizza, fried chicken, steak, and A&W root beer floats. Aaron says he's never been a huge root beer fan, but ever since he came to the island, every time he goes to Roxy's, he winds up getting A&W.

Dinner was a lot of fun--we collectively bashed the pipe-in music, which apparently was an XM station specializing in pop, rap, and R&B set to a reggae beat. They weren't always just covers of the song--we all agreed that it was Usher singing "Yeah," just with a lot more of the drums than I remember being in the original.

We finished off the evening by playing Simpsons Road Rage at Evelyn's. I wish I'd brought some games like Taboo or Catch Phrase with me. Nobody in the group thus far has wanted to play spades, although there have been some riveting Egyptian Rat Screw matches.

Sunday was spent watching South Park episodes, downloading music, and reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I didn't realize how much I'd blazed through the book the first time around--I'd forgotten everything except for the very big ending.

So I've finally actually started tinkering with lesson plans for my classes. That's a good thing, because I'll be out there teaching in a little over a week. I'm surprisingly calm about it--I spent the better part of two years dealing with having to convey information on a daily basis to a group of 10-15 teenagers who didn't want to be there. This group doesn't have to clean tables, though, and they'll actually understand what the Japanese boss is yelling at everyone about.

Pictures! Pictures! As promised! Picasa rocks!

Five-day weekends rock!

Apparently, teachers in Japan get three days' vacation time that can be taken anytime during August. Since I have neither a) a car, nor 2) my re-entry permit (allowing me to, say, take a ferry to Korea on a whim), I couldn't think of a particularly good time to take those days. So I ended up taking them this week.

Friday night I hung out with Evelyn, Aaron, and Rob, three of the veteran JETs on the island. Evelyn made the fixins for some temaki (手巻き), and we stuffed ourselves. After that, we played some Simpsons Road Rage. I had only played the singleplayer, which left me disappointed, so I was pleasantly surprised by the multiplayer. It's like Crazy Taxi, but you get to drive around Springfield.

Saturday night we tried to get all the Tsushima JETs together for dinner. This wound up a failure--of the eight or so we were hoping for, one was out of the country, and two were in Fukuoka. Refusing to give up, Evelyn, Aaron, and I met Mitch (from Maine) and Michael (from San Francisco), and walked to a yakitori restaurant in either Mie or Toyotama--I can't remember which. We had a great time, ate lots of food (none of which was horse), and then walked to Maruwa, the local drugstore. Mitch and Michael were both English majors, and Mitch apparently speaks practically zero Japanese. This is compounded by the fact that his supervisor apparently speaks zero English. He lives in a standalone house with an amazing view, but he's apparently a half-hour's drive from the nearest supermarket. This means he essentially has to get a car, and until he does, he has to rely on the help of others to get his groceries and such. I really feel bad for the guy. It makes me appreciate just how amazing my setup is--five minutes' walk from a small grocery store, and a half-hour's walk from a mini-mall with a burger joint. He doesn't even have Internet in his house yet. That, coupled with his not speaking any Japanese, is really wearing on him.

Sunday night marked the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. Midnight was supposed to be the ideal time for viewing, so I packed a bag with my stargazing chart, a bottle of water, a beach towel, and a flashlight, and set off at around 20:00. Wanting to find the best place for viewing, but not having a car, I made the 20-minute hike up to the high school, which sits atop a mountain overlooking the town. The streets were absolutely empty and, except for the cicadas (which are going 24 hours a day here), completely silent. I got to the school, and made my way onto the sports field, which is about the size of the Myers quad, and has absolutely no grass. I found solace in this last fact, because while I know cicadas and roaches are ultimately harmless, I'd much rather not be visited by any of the island's centipedes or huge spiders, thank you very much.

I let out the towel, lay back, and realized that I was looking at the stars in Japan for the first time. "Freaking amazing" doesn't do it justice, but it comes close. Obscured somewhat by haze caused by humidity, and at times blocked out by the clouds passing by, there were nonetheless a whole pile of stars up there.

After a few minutes of relishing, I realized I haven't gotten my bearings here yet, and so I don't know which way is north. Not having anticipated this, I didn't bring a compass, and so I tried to navigate by the constellations. This turned into a complete disaster. I know precisely three constellations: the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, and Orion's Belt. (Come to find out, those aren't even really constellations; they're asterisms.) It was too cloudy for me to make out Orion's Belt, and, after looking and swearing for twenty minutes, I realized that half of the Big Dipper was below the horizon. I therefore had no idea what was going on, and had to spend another half-hour poring over star charts before I decided I'd found the southern sky.

I eventually gave up on learning the constellations, and decided to watch for shooting stars. It was about 23:00, and I figured it was about to be awesome. The clouds parted for a while, leaving me a view of almost the entire sky. I did indeed see some shooting stars, but only one every two or three minutes. The ones I saw, however, were spectacular--easily the most stunning I've ever seen. One of them was huge, and streaked across the entire sky, from one side to the other.

I wanted to stay well past midnight, to give it a chance to pick up, but my mind started wandering, and I began imagining what this schoolyard would look like in a zombie movie/videogame. That, not surprisingly, led to my being creeped out, and after about a ten-minute meteor drought, I decided to call it a night. All in all, it was awesome--I can't wait until winter, when they tell me the sky will be a lot clearer.

Monday through Wednesday were spent mostly loafering around. I'm rereading the sixth Harry Potter (much more slowly than the first time), as well as Ishmael. In addition, I've adopted a new strategy to learning Japanese.

Instead of using my textbook, or just learning stuff arbitrarily, I've begun taking pictures of signs around town, stuff that I pass by every day on my way to and from work. I look up the kanji in those pictures, and try to understand the signs from that. So far, so good--I can read the sign for the police department (in case the parked police car outside isn't clear enough), and I know now that the quarry I explored the other day was clearly marked "off-limits" and "dangerous." The book I'm using for kanji reference is the same one we used in my high school Japanese class, and was given to me as a graduation present by my sensei there.

I officially cooked for the first time last night! I christened my Japanese kitchen by stir-frying pork with some onions. I almost added soy sauce, but it tasted mighty fine without it.

I've almost got Picasa up and running. There should be links to pictures soon. Honest.

Wee Todd Did

So all day today I've felt sort of out of it. I've been really tired, and still sort of confused about my mistake yesterday--being led to the introduction ceremony thinking it was a day early. I realized a few minutes ago that it is, in fact, Friday. I've been convinced that today was Thursday. I guess this is what I get for leaving my laptop's clock set to US Eastern time, in an effort to keep up with what time it is for friends and family when I call them. There's something fundamentally unsettling about realizing you've missed a day somewhere.

A Lesson in Shame

Thursday marked the 52nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. In recognition of the date, my school was nominally in full session: all students were required to attend. After the remembrance ceremony, the students apparently were to take placement tests and take care of other administrative things. All 700 students were in attendance, as were about 35 of the 50 teachers on faculty. I had known about this since my first full day on the job. I had also known that I was to be formally introduced to the school on this day, following the ceremony. To that end, I was asked to prepare a brief speech, which I did, and with the help of Urata-sensei, I translated it into Japanese. Again, I was aware of the day on which I'd be giving this speech. I, however, am still having trouble adjusting to the time difference, so I lost a day. I was convinced that it was a day earlier than it was.

I arrived at school early--at about 7:50--to find the office abuzz, easily the most crowded since I've been here. (Most of the teachers spend the inter-session summer months on vacation, or outdoors coaching the students' club activities.) As I unpacked my laptop, it slowly dawned on me that the ceremony was in fact Thursday, and that I had lost a day somewhere. I hastily began memorizing my speech, still not stopping to dwell on the significance of the day.

At about 9:45, the faculty headed to the gym, where the student body was already gathered, seated on the floor. I stood next to some of the other teachers, and after a few minutes, an older man walked into the gymnasium. Everyone who greeted him--principal, vice principal, the regular teachers--did so very respectfully, with much more than the standard bow, as the man headed for the stage. He smiled at me, and I bowed as low as the other teachers had. He got to the stage, and greeted the gathered students and teachers.

As he began speaking, I realized that this man had lived in Nagasaki on the day the bomb was dropped. A survivor of the bombing was speaking to us.

In my first week here, I've realized that my Japanese is far better than I ever gave myself credit for; all it needed was to be put to good use. I've discovered I can get by remarkably well for having been here for a few days. Even so, my listening comprehension is still sorely lacking. (To be fair, the man was older, and was likely speaking with an accent, which I've heard can give even native Japanese speakers trouble.) I tried my best to keep up with him, and I was indeed able to make out the tenses of verbs, and the occasional noun. I wasn't able to tie them all together, and I realized that I've never learned any vocabulary that would tell me when he got to the part where the bombing began. I haven't learned words like detonate, explosion, fire, or even die and kill. So, while I was able to keep up with him fairly well as he talked about being in his first year of middle school, and what his parents and friends were doing on the days leading up to August 9, what little comprehension I had mustered dropped off quickly.

About fifteen minutes into his speech, I noticed several teachers around me crying. An overhead projector had been hooked up; a teacher put up a slide of a photograph depicting what once had been a city block--maybe where the man had lived--but was simply not there anymore.

I felt singularly out of place: a citizen of the country responsible for causing this horrible disaster, sitting in a gymnasium one hundred miles from the city itself, amid 750 Japanese, many of whom had never met an American before. I didn't know how to act, so I simply bowed my head and tried to keep up with the speech.

As he finished his speech at about 10:55, the only sound in the gym was intermittent sniffling. The crowd applauded him, and he left the stage. A teacher spoke briefly, mentioning the time, and at 11, he finished, and silence fell over the crowd. At precisely 11:02am, when the bomb was dropped, air raid sirens went off throughout the city below us. The sirens lasted for a full two minutes, during which I was literally shivering.

Once the sirens stopped, a teacher said something further, a student stood and thanked the man on behalf of the rest of the school, and the man headed for the back of the gym.

At this point, one of the teachers came to me, smiling, and asked me to come to the stage. I was going to be introduced. As I was led, dumbstruck, I again met the man who gave the speech, and I thanked him in Japanese. He began talking to me, in Japanese, and thankfully the teacher leading me to the stage translated for me. He was very kind, and asked me where I was from. When I answered that I was from America, he didn't flinch--I was watching for the slightest change in his expression. He mentioned, through the teacher, that he had flown to California to give a similar speech to students there. I thanked him again, still feeling completely out of place, and followed the teacher to the stage.

Once at the stage, I followed the principal up, and took a seat beside the podium. He began speaking about me, mentioning that I was the new ALT, where I'm from, that sort of thing. He then turned the podium over to me, and I stood before the crowd, standing exactly where the man who had spoken was standing not ten minutes prior, and offered my introduction into the dead silence.

That the introduction went fine didn't really register. That I didn't even have to use the script I'd brought, or that I even got a laugh from the crowd when I mentioned--amid what apparently was impressively correct Japanese--that my Japanese is not very good, just sort of rolled off of me. I still felt horribly uncomfortable. The crowd applauded me loudly, and I left the stage to a sea of smiles and thumbs up from Urata and Murahashi.

I felt terrible, but nobody else seemed to notice, or hold anything against me. They had told us this at Tokyo Orientation, but I had refused to accept it. Apparently they were right--none of the teachers or students have expressed anything resembling hostility or even resentment toward me.

The prospect of speaking before a crowd of 750 people wasn't really bothering me. It was the weight of the occasion that got to me. But, sure enough, after the ceremony, a lot of kids stopped me in the hall to say hello and try out their English. The teachers all congratulated me on the speech, and how impressed they were that I didn't even need my script.

You hear about how terrible the bombings were. You see clips of the mushroom cloud, pictures of the memorials, and footnotes in Wikipedia's "On This Day..." section. I even read an article run in the New Yorker exactly one year after the bombing of Hiroshima, containing interviews with survivors of the bombing. But none of that gives you half of the perspective that you gain from being in the country and hearing a survivor speak on its anniversary. I can't imagine how much more intense it would have been if I'd actually been able to understand everything he said.

I'm going to be in Nagasaki for a conference at the end of the month, so I'll get to see the Peace Park there. That ought to be rough.

Never eat fried rice as an in-flight meal.

Let's recap my last five days in America.

Wednesday, 18 July: Drove from Missouri to Georgia to spend time with my grandparents.

Friday, 20 July: Drove to Borders in Athens for the Harry Potter Wizards Ball. Met Cord, Clay, Jeremy, Stephie-chan, Ashley, and Laura A. Cord was dressed up like Harry, and Clay made an awesome Snape. Once the books got wheeled out, it became apparent that, even having reserved copies, the guys were going to be waiting a long time to get theirs. Since I hadn't reserved a copy in the first place, and since I was just there to hang out, I said my goodbyes and left Borders at about 12:03. Having heard rumors, I drove across the street to Kroger, and found an innocuous table with a pile of Harry Potter books on display. I quietly picked up a copy, paid about $20 for it, and strolled out of the grocery store with the book at about 12:07. Hah! From there I drove straight to Fish and Michael's house, read three chapters, and passed out.

Saturday, 21 July: Woke up bright and early, rendezvoused with the Weeville troupe, and skedaddled at about 8:30 for Tampa. Drove all day, ran into an awesomely inconvenient thunderstorm north of Tampa, and got to Anna Maria Island at about 8:30 that evening. Didn't read any Harry Potter.

Monday, 23 July: Having thoroughly enjoyed 1 2/3 days as a resident of Weeville Beta, I made tracks for Missouri after lunch. In case you've never tried to make that trip, a) it's 22 hours, and b) don't. Stopped between Chattanooga and Nashville at about midnight and got a hotel room. Didn't read any Harry Potter.

Tuesday, 24 July: Woke up reasonably early, drove for the day, got to Springfield at around 8pm. Packed. Didn't read any Harry Potter.

Wednesday, 25 July: Packed. Didn't read any Harry Potter.

Thursday, 26 July: Drove from Missouri to Georgia with Mom and Dad. Didn't read any Harry Potter.

Friday, 27 July: Spent time with family in Toccoa, drove to Atlanta for the pre-departure orientation. Met lots of people I'm sure I'll never see again. Very helpful nonetheless. Drove back, stayed up until 2am packing and repacking, trying to get my two suitcases within the 50lbs allowance, and failing miserably. Heather and Megan, having driven all day from Missouri, drove to Toccoa from their hotel in Alpharetta. Didn't read any Harry Potter.

Saturday, 28 July: Woke up at 5am, did more last-minute packing, said goodbye to granny and papa. Rode with Mom and Dad to the airport, meeting Heather and Megan there. My flight wasn't until 12:23, but the JET people wanted everyone checked in at the airport by 8:30. Stood in line for about an hour and a half, talking with other JET folks, and noticed lots of people carrying copies of Harry Potter for the flight. Checked my bags (only one was over the free allowance! yay!), got my boarding pass, and was all done at 10:30, giving me at least an hour before I needed to go through security. Bleary-eyed and with a stomach upset for several reasons--not least of which was the antibiotics Mom made me take to get over my sinus infection before getting to Japan--I sat down with the four of them and had breakfast. We made idle smalltalk, trying desperately to avoid talking about saying goodbye. When it finally came time to say goodbye, it wasn't as painful as I was fearing. Maybe it was because we were all tired, maybe it was because I'm older now than when they dropped me off for college, maybe it was because I wasn't afraid of where I was going--for whatever reason, Mom didn't break down. That kept me from breaking down. It was still rough, but I'd spent the better part of six months dreading that goodbye, and it wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting.

At any rate, I said goodbye, made it through security in 20 minutes, got to my gate, and finally opened up Harry Potter. The rest of the day is a blur, due to my nose being stuck in the book, and also to my being stuffed in a plane for 14 hours.

Suffice it to say, when I got to Tokyo, I was numbed from travel. I had, however, finished the book, and was thoroughly satisfied with the ending. Ever since the fifth book, roughly 75% of which consisted of Harry being angsty and depressed, I've loved every page that doesn't contain Harry being a weenie. That probably contributed to my loving the seventh book.

...Anyway, Tokyo. We got out of the airport, and had to pick at least one suitcase to send on to our contracting organization, since the hotel would only allow one suitcase per person. Acting on the advice of the JET coordinator in Atlanta, I opted to bring 3 carry-on-type bags, and send both bulky suitcases to Tsushima. I was still encumbered, but not nearly as badly as I would have been with one of my suitcases. So we got on the bus, had to wait on account of a girl suffering a severe bout of nausea, and finally headed for the hotel.

We got to the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, at about 9pm local time. At checkin, we were presented with about 30lbs of paperwork and informational packets whose purpose, I later learned, was merely to hinder our progress toward our nice, warm bed. The hotel, at any rate, was stellar. Easily the nicest I've ever stayed in. One of my two roomies reminded me of Chuck, except it was the Chuck from circa fall 2003. This roomie was almost frothing at the mouth at being unleashed on an unsuspecting group of vulnerable female JETs, as well as the local population of gaijin-adoring Japanese girls. Those few of you who knew Chuck way back then will understand the comparison.

The hotel bathroom could probably have beaten me in a game of chess. I'm not even kidding--no fewer than ten buttons adorned the toilet, including options for bidet, spray, seat warmer, and about thirty other words I couldn't decipher and somehow never needed to satisfy my toiletary needs. The bathroom mirror also had a heater behind it, making it steamproof. I don't know about whomever's reading this, but to me, the only thing more discomfiting than an ice cold toilet seat is a toasty warm one.

The 2007 JET Programme Group A Tokyo Orientation spanned the next two days, required full business attire, and consisted of huge meetings, medium meetings, and tiny breakout seminars.

The huge meeting had all ~1,000 of us gathered for speeches from the head of CLAIR (the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) and higher-ups from the three ministries involved with the JET Program: the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.

The medium meetings were for those of us specifically teaching in schools (as opposed to other types of JETs, who work in government offices or boards of education), and consisted of more speeches by higher-ups.

The small meetings consisted of actual JETs giving lectures on how to teach alongside native Japanese teachers, as well as smaller breakout sessions devoted to topics such as rural JETs, pop culture, and etiquette in Japan.

The huge meeting wowed us, the medium meeting bored us, the smaller meetings were marginally insightful, and the breakout groups were mildly helpful. All in all, the official orientation was useless; what made it worth the time was the opportunity it afforded for networking. We were seated in the big meetings based on which prefecture we were heading to, and this allowed me to focus on 25 people who I could possibly see again this year, instead of the 9,975 other JETs who I'll probably never see again. I met two guys going to a tiny island next to mine, and found the other new JET going to Tsushima.

Amid all of these meetings, we had breakfast and lunch with whomever happened to be around when we sat down, which was amazing in and of itself: I met several Brits, a few Scots, some Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, and South Africans.

To any American readers who have taken Japanese and are self-conscious of their accent: don't worry. I thought my accent was subpar, until I heard a Dubliner trying to explain Japanese etiquette. I'm pretty sure the non-American English speakers will have the hardest time being understood by their students and coworkers. I mean, native English speakers have a hard enough time understanding full-speed Scottish--what chance does an ESL student have?

Almost everyone spent both nights touring the Tokyo bar scene. (I was a weenie and spent the first night sleeping.) The second night, however, I enjoyed a Filet O Shrimp sammich at the Shinjuku McDonald's, and saw a sign for the Mega Mac, which can only be described as a Double Big Mac. I ran into a group of other Atlanta JETs heading out to dinner, and I tagged along.

We stopped at a restaurant and ate tapas-style, ordering about eight different appetizers. They were mostly variations on the chicken theme--grilled chicken skewers, tempura chicken, fried chicken cartilage, etc. They did, however, have nigirizushi, so I availed myself of some mackerel. I absolutely love the stuff in Athens, but it was simply amazing in Tokyo. The check came in as a collection of slips of paper, each with an amount at the bottom. We assumed these were either the check for each item ordered, or that the server had tried to be helpful by separating the bill for us. That total came out to about ¥27,000, which is a little north of $200. It was a pretty fancy restaurant, so we were only mildly surprised, and spent five or ten minutes pooling our cash. When we went to the front to pay, though, the host freaked--our total was only about ¥9,000, which was on the bottom of the topmost ticket they had given us. We didn't argue with him, but after we left, we spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out how eight of us ate practically a full meal for a grand total of about $75.

We hopped on a JR from Shinjuku to Shibuya for about a dollar each, and did the tourist thing there. I know next to nothing about Tokyo, by the way, so you'll have to look elsewhere for that kind of stuff. All I know is that Shibuya is amazing. Someone mentioned it having one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world, with something like 10,000 people crossing at every signal.

We found a bar called Gas Panic, where some friends of one of the guys in our group were meeting later on. When we arrived, there were a few Japanese dancing, but they quickly retreated when the guy's Atlanta friends showed up. They literally took the floor over. When the DJ saw all the Americans on the floor, he keyed up This Is Why I'm Hot and Walk It Out, and other such stuff. It was awesome. The rules of the bar were that you had to have a drink in your hand at all times, or else they asked you to leave. So I kept an empty beer bottle in my hand all night. They didn't do tap water, either, and every drink was about Y500, so it would've been mighty expensive to get drunk or to hydrate.

So we took taxis back to Keio Plaza. (An aside: in Japan, not only is the legal blood alcohol content to drive 0.00%, it is equally illegal to be a passenger in a car being driven by someone who is intoxicated. Guilt by association is big here.) We all had to wake up early the next day for to ship out to our actual contracting organizations.

As I lined up with my Nagasaki-ken brethren, fully aware that I'll in all likelihood never again see 90% of the 1,000 or so assembled, it finally felt like I was going to Japan. The orientation felt like a sort of safe haven--Japan was out there, while we were safely insulated in the hotel. It didn't freak me out, really. It just sort of finally started to sink in.

We took a bus to Tokyo's regional airport, and along the way, I realized how much I hate big cities. Tokyo, for all its historic beauty--what with the Imperial Palace, the awe-inspiring skyscrapers, and Suntory--is a wretched place. Almost 13,000,000 people live in the city, with 35,000,000 in the greater Tokyo area. From my 31st-floor window, I remarked to my roommates that Tokyo's pretty foggy. They corrected me--that was, in fact, smog obscuring my view of buildings three blocks away. I can't imagine living in a city where you're constantly breathing that in. The roads are tiny (which is fine--so are the cars), and they're right next to the buildings, so the sides facing the roads are black from exhaust. All in all, I was glad to get out.

We boarded a plane for Omura Airport, which is near Nagasaki. I sat next to a guy named Anthony, who, although Scottish, to me sounds indistinguishable from a Brit. As offensive as that remark may be to both Scottish and British alike, there it is. Anyway, we had a great conversation about cultural relativism, world travel, and religion.

I freely acknowledge how awful the average American is, and that we are notorious for our gluttony. I apparently am still not aware of the extent to which we stink.

Case in point: in preparation for coming to Japan, American JETs were notified that we were allowed to check two suitcases weighing no more than 50 pounds each, and were further permitted one carry-on bag to stow overhead, one carry-on bag to stow under the seat in front of us, and an additional item such as a coat, umbrella, or book. Our checked bags, if overweight, would cost us $50 per bag and would allow up to 70lbs each; anything behind 70 would not be accepted.

I stuffed two suitcases to about 65 and 51 pounds, stuffed a carry-on duffel bag to the maximum acceptable weight, and brought my laptop as my second carry-on. I knew I'd packed a ton of stuff, but I justified bringing all of it, paid my extra, and thought nothing of it. I grumbled at myself for bringing so much stuff to lug around, but that was all.

I mention that to mention this: as we were gathering in the hotel lobby prior to prefecture-specific departure, it came up in conversation with an Irish guy in our group, an Aussie, and Ant (the Scot) that non-Americans were permitted one checked bag of no more than 20kg, which is about 45 pounds. Any overage would result in a charge on a per-kilo basis, coming out to something like US$5 per extra kilogram.

It's things like this that make the outside world hate us, America.

The guys were prodding us about it--all in good fun, of course--but on the flight later that morning, sitting next to Ant, he didn't seem to hold us in contempt. In fact, he was very forgiving, saying that most of the people he knows back home are just as awful as the stories everyone tells of America--it's just that we're a much easier target. I'm not sure how I feel about being exonerated--sure, my country's off the hook a little, but only because we're not the only ones being chowderheads.

At any rate, we landed at Omura, and there it abruptly became clear: we were going to be picked up individually by someone from our school, and taken off from there. I guess it was obvious all along that this was going to happen, but it hit me as I was getting off the plane that I was finally going to officially meet the people I'll be working with for the next year. So I grabbed my bag from the conveyor, and saw a crowd past the security checkpoint. One guy was holding a sign that said "Welcome to Japan Adam Shirley." My thoughts were (in this order): 1) sweet, they spelled my name right, and didn't put Shirley first; 2) I really wish I wasn't sweating like a pig; and 3) maybe I should take a picture of that. So I took one, I promise. I just haven't gotten around to posing it yet.

The guy introduced himself (in English) as Murahashi, a teacher at my school. I introduced myself in Japanese, shook his hand, and he explained that we were catching a plane to Tsushima Island in about 45 minutes. We walked about 50 feet to check my bag, and he asked if I was hungry. We stopped in a noodle shop and had chanpon and gyoza. Gyoza are Chinese pot stickers, and chanpon is noodles and shrimp and squid and fish cake and mmm. It was yummy.

So we hopped on the plane, and Murahashi told me it's about a 30-minute flight, and that as soon as we reach cruising altitude, we immediately begin our descent. We talked about the island for a few minutes (he speaks excellent English), and very soon were landing. The landing was a bit rough, due to the island's strong winds, but we made it just fine. We hopped in Murahashi's car and took off.

Tsushima airport is about half an hour's drive from Izuhara, my town. The island is absolutely beautiful. I spent most of the drive trying to read the signs we passed, surprising Murahashi with actually being able to read kana. I had almost gotten used to being a passenger on the left side of the car when we passed my apartment, and kept right on going. I hadn't known we were going straight to school. We get there, and I didn't have a change of shoes for school. Not to worry, though--they have a full supply of cute green visitor slippers, in sizes ranging from an American men's 7 to 8. Being a size 10 1/2, you can imagine how goofy this felt and looked. The stairs defeated me with every step.

We entered the teacher's workroom, which is a big room with the desks for all 50 teachers, with the vice principal's desk in the center. When I walked in, the 15 teachers or so applauded. I was introduced to the vice principal, and handed a microphone to introduce myself to the teachers. I did so, in Japanese, which elicited gasps of shock, and further, stronger applause. A couple of teachers approached me afterwards and complimented me on my excellent Japanese. For those of you who haven't studied Japanese, the only Japanese these people had seen me use up to this point is what you would learn in about a month in a normal-pace introductory Japanese course. I'm nowhere near as good as I should be, having studied for a combined 5 1/2 years, but, just like people at the orientation told us, regular Japanese folks are amazed if foreigners speak any Japanese.

Murahashi-sensei had to take care of something, so I got passed to the care of Urata-sensei. We left after about ten minutes, and Murahashi brought me to my apartment. The entry room has the standard bare floor for changing shoes, followed by the step up into the house proper. This entry room has three doors--to the left is my bathroom, shower, and washing machine; to the right, my bedroom; and straight ahead, the room they call the LDK ("Living/Dining/Kitchen"). The floors in the house are pretty nice hardwood, and my bedroom is a 6-tatami room. (Tatami, for those of you who don't know, is a creamy confection similar to nougat.)

The apartment came fully furnished. The kitchen has a sink, refrigerator, freezer, microwave, stove, cabinets, and an oven. There's a sofa, a pantry, a wire rack for cookware, and a desk. There's an additional foldup desk and accompanying chair, as well as a foldup ping-pong-sized table. The bathroom consists of a traditional Western-style toilet (no so called 'squatty potty'), a regular sink and mirror, the washing machine, and a Western-style shower and bathtub.

The bedroom has a coffee table, a large chest of drawers, a computer desk, and a ton of closet space. There's also a leather chair that reclines. The only strange part is that the seat of the chair is flat on the floor--no legs or wheels for the chair. This makes it perfect for scooting up next to the coffee table.

Urata showed me around, teaching me how to use the remote-controlled air conditioner (something I've never even seen in America). Around this time, David--my predecessor--showed up. He's a beast compared to me--a couple of inches taller, and a bigger frame--which made me immediately feel not as bad about the slippers situation. (He wears a size 13.) He's a great guy. He showed me around the apartment, covering the things Urata hadn't. We waited for the gas man to show up and get my hot water heater set up in my name. David's brother was flying in to Nagasaki the next day, and the two of them were going to spend four or five days visiting the island. We had talked about it beforehand, and I had no problem with them crashing at my/his apartment.

So Urata left, and David and I talked while I unpacked. One of the teachers, Kurokawa-sensei, showed up to say goodbye to David, since he would be out of town for the next week. He brought his son and daughter, who couldn't be more than 3 and 5 years old, and I discovered what every other visitor to Japan has discovered: that Japanese kids are absolutely adorable. They have all of the fascination with Americans that grown-up Japanese do, but with none of the timidity and restraint that adults have had drilled into them. David spent most of the time wrestling with them, and they loved every bit of it.

After Kurokawa left, it was right around sunset. We took a walk, and David showed me around town. We stopped at a store about five minutes' walk from me, and I stocked up on cereal, milk, yogurt, juice, and "peanut cream," desperately hoping it would be a poor translation of what was actually peanut butter. (I was wrong.) We came back, dropped off my groceries, and took a much longer walk to the mini-mall in Izuhara. It's actually an impressive indoor shopping mall, with a full grocery store called Red Cabbage, a bakery, two or three department stores, the only fast food joint on the island ("Mos Burger," pronounced sort of like "Moe's," but with a soft 's' at the end), two more restaurants, and a space that serves as a movie theater--Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is coming in a week or so. From here we walked a little to the apartment of another JET in Izuhara, named Evelyn. She wasn't home, but David had moved most of his stuff to her place. I saw a gecko! And a beetle with antennae longer than his body! Man, I hope I get the pictures up soon.

It was around this time that, for the first time since arriving in Japan, I felt exhausted. In a matter of half an hour, I went from peachy keen to dead on my feet. David and I had sort of planned to get dinner somewhere, and continue showing me the town, but I had to bail on him. He completely understood, but we still had to walk back to my place. It's a full half hour walk, which is agonizing if you're tired and were stupid by wearing chacos for a four-mile hike. Suffice it to say, I made it, bade him goodnight, and got ready for bed.

After brushing my teeth, I made ready to collapse onto my bed. But wait! I'd forgotten to make my bed. Japanese futon are collapsible and are stored in the closet when not in use. I was lucky--the school bought a brand new futon set for the apartment this year. I still had to unfurl the thing, though. It wouldn't have been nearly as frustrating if I'd been coherent. I got it laid out, and slept like a rock. ...A rock that sleeps.

So that enormous tale covers my first four days in Japan. Any one of those days could have been expanded to take up this much space, but mah po hands just cain't take it.

Inaugural Blog! Whee!

So here it is. After five years, I've finally returned to blogging. Of course, the last time I had a webpage, it wasn't even called blogging. But that's not important. What is important is that I made it to Japan. I'm now working as an Assistant Language Teacher in the JET Program, and am posted at Tsushima High School, in Izuhara-machi, Tsushima-shi, Nagasaki-ken. Tsushima is an island of 40,000 people situated between Kyushu--Japan's westernmost main island--and South Korea. Izuhara is a town of about 6,000. For you Google Maps junkies out there, the names of stuff in Japan will be in Japanese. But fear not: the kanji for Tsushima is 対馬; for Izuhara,
厳原. Copy and paste those into word, blow them up to size 72 or so, and you'll have an idea of what to look for on the map. (Hint: I'm the one on the southwest coast with the anchor by the name.)

So I'm not sure what I'll do with this space yet. I'd like to keep it from devolving into a digest of rants and negativity about the bad parts of my day, but at the same time, I'd like for it to serve as a journal of my life here, since God knows I'm too lazy to keep a handwritten one. With that in mind, my posts will probably more often than not be addressed to myself. Anyway. This should also help me track the degradation of my English speaking ability, as I spend the year surrounded by ESL folks. Yay!