How I spent my Winter Vacation

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クリスマス　パッテイ　　 東京　　古くま　と　お正月　&　後
Christmas Party Tokyo New Year’s with the Furukumas & after

Jogakuin’s last day before winter vacay was Friday December 22nd. I had to stick around a couple of hours, watching all the joyous girls as they left for whatever. They were pretty few actually, because most people didn’t show the last few days. This is hardly uncommon, as skipping class is nearly as popular as breathing. Anyway, I met Motoko a few hours before the party, and she gave me a Christmas present and card, but was all very embarrassed that she didn’t bring a gift for the party so she didnt come (as would be improper or something). I of course, didn’t bring one either. In fact, I didnt even bring her present, I left it with my luggage in the school storeroom. So I ran to the school convenience store and bought two boxes of cookie/cakey things and said: it'll do.
The party itself had five schools in attendance including ours and HiroDai. So, to my surprise, there were MEN there. If I’d only have known before!! I would have made myself looked halfway interesting. One of my friends got hit on by three guys at once. I of course, got cornered by three members of the faculty, one of whom was nice but spit when he talked, and thus had only like two minutes to mingle (this is actually not an exaggeration at all). In that two minutes though, I finally came into close proximity to a girl I remembered from two previous Kyudo Shiai. Actually, I remembered her hair. Anyway, we had time to exchange names (her name is Miki, so I now know about five girls named Miki) and laugh about some kyudo stuff and then mingle time was up. I did get to snap this pic at the end of the night though. We shall doubtless meet at the next shiai.

After this I won a Hello Kitty Christmas boot from bingo, and gave the candy to my friends who didn’t get anything. Thus I seemed nice while simultaneously ridding myself of candy that my chubberrific self so does not need at this point. We did the gift exchange, and it took a humour-filled five minutes to get the people, university students mind you, to understand and move around a table clockwise in order to disperse gifts fairly. It was over all too soon, and I returned to the Takeda Rez, and packed up my stuff. The next day I bid an almost teary farewell to those wonderful people, and promised to call them. Then it was off to school to drop off some stuff in the school storeroom and pick up some other stuff for the trip I was about to undertake.

Imai-san took me to the station, and I had lots of time to kill. So we went to the rental store and then had coffee. Then I got on the bus and waved goodbye to Imai and to Hiroshima.

Tokyo 東京

The busride to Tokyo was 12 hours, 7 to 7. I sat and tried desperately to block out the reaaally bad Japanese movie about women truckers, and had to put my legs and arms in the bus aisle because the heater under my chair was running so hot. We arrived a half hour early, and Shane was fifteen minutes late, so I wandered around Tokyo station for forty-five minutes, trying to look inconspicuous. To make things a little interesting, I almost forgot my bag from the bus (was early, wasn’t thinking too well). Anyway, was wonderful to see Shane whose first words were “I bet you thought I forgot!” Yeah, I kind of did. We ate at Wendy’s (what nostalgia!) and then went right to Asakusa, toting my book bag and computer bag (our shoulders/backs hurt the next day). Asakusa 浅草 is the old temple district (or so I am calling it) with old temples and shrines. All the way we compared notes about Japan and the Japanese and our lot and how there is soooo much we just do not understand. Is not glamorous or nice, but it’s true. Is the first time I have been able to do so, and I took the advantage. On the nice side of things, we got some good varying perspectives on things. We agreed that Japanese are the same as Americans, but different.

Profound, huh?

We then hurried back to Saitama, in Urawa prefecture, to Shane's dorm (as much as one can hurry on a one hour train ride). Then we prepped for Shane's Christmas party. Shane made a turkey (which was almost bigger than his oven) and stuffing (from a box) and bought biscuits for his friends. Most of his gaijin friends weren’t there, so it was us and the Japanese mostly. Does that make a difference? We did think about it, as the guests were about twenty minutes late. Can you imagine cooking a whole turkey and have the guests not show?? Felt really bad for him, but I figured it wasn’t because they were Japanese (mostly because Shane’s friends did the same sort of things to him in America. Poor guy). Anyway, we did have fun, I tried in vain to hide the fact I was tired as hell (I say “in vain” because everyone said at least once, "wow you look tired").
Next day (Christmas) we opened our stuff then went to work. Yes we did, we went to work at English Support, which is an English school (Im sure you could have guessed that). Found out that Shane's boss bills him out as the Leonardo Dicaprio of ES and was giggly about that for a little while. I taught a few people English. It was pretty enjoyable actually. Shane and I jointly taught one girl (free-speaking actually. Is good practice) who was the youngest looking neurosurgeon I have ever seen in my life (somewhere in thirties, looked early twenties). She gave us more things to think about. She had had trouble getting a job, because she was a woman (this discrimination is commonplace in Japan, even I have seen help wanted signs that say MAN on them here). Then she got one but it was so stressful/horrible that she got sick. So she quit and got a different job. Get this, her parents cried and begged her to go back to the job she hated. She doesnt like Japan at all. She even said she hates it, and moreover said to us, "I dont understand why you two even wanted to come here." She wants desperately to move to Australia and teach disabled kids to scubadive. However, she cant get a visa that way. Sad isnt it?

We finished up, made big money and then ate at KFC (they call it "Kentucky" here), then continued to the next job Shane works. He teaches this elderly gentleman (nice guy) how to use his computer and a little bit of english. I just sat there and watched for like an hour, then the man (shacho!) took us to a pub where we had a beer and chatted about all manner of things. He paid for it all (though I protested and Shane did too). Then, he handed me an envelope after driving us home, saying "conversation fee" and then practically shoved me out of the car as I protested again. There was five thousand yen in the envelope, which I didnt open till he was gone. The man paid me fifty bucks for doing absolutely nothing! I laughed so hard I got teary-eyed. Then we watched the Patriot, and shane fell asleep before the end.

NEXT Yokohama and Harajuku Tokyo Disneyland. The end of the year is a big thing in Asia. Of course, Christmas pales in comparison. Sometimes is not celebrated at all. In fact, is not a holiday, and people will have to work here, considering it is a monday this year. Bummer. There are some very bizarre things that the Japanese do. One thing thus far, is that you take a bath with an orange floating in it. I found this a bit disturbing. I dunno, there's just this orange floating around and... ehhhh.