Nihongo no OBL

I finally found an American style bar near my apartment. All the other bars I've seen are the sit around a table and eat some Japanese food style, and I can't just wander into those and start talking to people. Seems like I'm barging in on some party.

Anyway, I've ridden by this place a few times and I though it looked like a real bar, so I went there last night. First, I lubricated my Japanese skills with a couple of beers at home, which put me a little closer to my Japanese speaking OBL. Not enough, of course, but close.

I walked in through the honky-tonk style swinging half doors, and saw a big wooden eagle, a route 66 sign, and 3 guys who looked like a Japanese Stray Cats tribute band. All slicked pompadours and cowboy-ish shirts, ready to rockabilly the night away. These were the guys working there. Other than them, there was a couple at one table and 2 older ladies at the bar, and a couple of dozen Elvis pictures.

I asked for a beer, rockabilly bartender asked what kind and started listing my choices. When he came to "Buda-why-za", I gave him my "really?!!" face, which I find to be quite useful when talking broken Japanese. He yelled to the rockabilly waiter to bring me a Bud, and when he did, it came with a mug in the shape of a boot, and I knew this was a place I could get used to.

I drank my boot-beer and listened to the ladies ordering a drink. They were just listing off liquors and juices, making it up as they went along. She finally had a tequila, watermelon schnapps, and OJ. I reached deep into my 3rd beer Japanese skills and asked what the name of that drink was, and she said "it's original" in English. They were very nice to me the rest of the time they were there, even reminding me the word for salt when I ordered a tequila (they actually had Cuervo).

They left and another guy came in, who seemed very interested in talking to an American. I talked to this guy about cars, motorcycles, and baseball for about an hour (10 minutes of actual conversation, 50 minutes of trying to get the other person to understand).

It was definitely a fun place, with oldies on the stereo and Tom and Jerry on the TV, and 4 seriously rockabilly guys wandering around. Other than the fact they were Japanese, something about the place really reminded me of "Swingers". I will be going back for sure. Next time I'll bring my camera.

Today, I'm going to watch football this morning and make an itinerary for my upcoming Kyoto trip tonight. I'm going to go to the Lion's Head tomorrow for whatever New Years festivities they have, then on Tuesday I'm going to check out what sort of activity there is at the local temples and pack for Kyoto. My hotel says they have internet access, so maybe there will be updates from Kyoto, but my itinerary may be too packed.

Weekend in Tokyo

Over drinks at the Lion's head Saturday night, Chris and I decided we were bored with Utsunomiya and I offered to take him down to Tokyo Sunday. We didn't really have a plan, but on the train we decided to try Shinjuku and Akihabara.

First in Shinjuku, we went to this temple where they were supposed to have a flea market on Sunday. It was funny seeing these ratty tables with peoples random junk in the middle of this ancient temple. Didn't they cover this in Sunday school?
After the temple we walked around for a while. From what the tourist book says, Shinjuku doesn't really come alive until dark. Then there's a section filled with these little bars with maybe 4 seats in them. And nearby is an area that's very much a red-light district. Nothing was really going on in either of these places when we were there, but I want to see what its like at night.

We walked to the other side of the station to go to the bookstore to get me a Kyoto guidebook, and then went on to a mall. The place wasn't very big in area, but we rode the escalators all the way up to the 12th floor looking around. Here's the part of Christmas they decided to embrace.
The city offices in Shinjuku have a 45th floor observation deck, so we went over there. The view was incredible. If you have really good eyes, or I had a better camera, you can see Mt. Fuji.
Look a little to the left of that, and I saw a dome. The "and if you look over here..." picture said it's the Tokyo dome. Gives a little sense of the scale of Tokyo when the baseball stadium looks like this. We stopped in Akihabara, Electric Town, on the way back. The place is just crazy, you start going down a 20 foot wide street, and every time you turn, the streets get smaller and more crowded with electronics until you're just walking down an aisle with gizmos all around you.

The place is not as big with electronics as it used to be, and it's picking up the economic slack with Anime and porn. When we walked out of the station, there was a big crowd around something, so I had to go look. Here's what it was:
I think this girl was selling DVD's, and I think, maybe she was in them. I don't know, and I don't think I'd recognize her even if I saw the DVD. I'm not sure if that's her on the billboard or not, I didn't get a close enough look at either the picture or the back of her (although that guy behind her sure did). Really can't tell how old anyone is here, can you? I kind of felt bad for all the girls in maid costumes standing around being ignored while there were dozens of people snapping pictures of her.

On another topic, I watched that Browns game last night. That was the first time I felt really like I was missing something. It's going to suck to watch them in the playoffs alone with a computer and a Kirin.

This week's drinkin' stories

We've got a couple of business trip visitors here this week, so of course we had to have a party. Party stage 1 was at a restaurant in the sort of red-light area, but it was starting later than normal at 8:30. I had taken one of the guys (Chris) to a restaurant when he got here Sunday. I think I may have mentioned this place before, where the owner was so excited to see American's in his shop that he forced the waitress who could speak English to sit down and talk with us. Well, he did the same thing this time, and invited us back, said he would give us free beer and gyoza when we came. He started naming days we should come back, "Monday?, Tuesday?". I told him as politely as I could in Japanese that maybe we would come. We finally settled on maybe Friday. He looked at Chris and asked if he would come, too, and Chris said "Absolutely".

Now, I don't want this guy thinking that Americans are liars, especially because of something a Canadian said, so we started off the night at stage zero, this restaurant, for 1 beer before we go to the party. No sooner does the waitress (who is surprised to see us) put the beers down then the owner tells her to bring more. So we got our free beer, but were already 2 ahead of the pace when we went to the party.

Pretty standard Japanese party, lots of food and beer. I learned both that the word for cuttlefish is "ika" and that it's delicious. Probably drank a little too much, but I pushed through to stage 2, the hostess bar. I heard one guy on the phone negotiating letting Americans in, and we were off.

It was your normal hostess bar, girls being especially friendly to me. Whether this is because I'm American, or because I'm single, or because the Japanese guys said something to them, I don't know. I must be learning something, because I was able to make a little small talk with girls in Japanese, and to tell them Chris is a movie star.

I don't know if it's a good sign or not, but I've learned enough Japanese to get myself into trouble now. I tried to tell the girl next to me that she's tall, which I though was funny since the word for tall is the same as the word for expensive. Clever Japanese play on words with the girl I'm paying to be my friend. However, my pronunciation was a little off, and I guess I said it it a way that made her sound like an evil giant. She seemed a little hurt, did the playful hitting thing, and told me "Not takai, ookii". This just confused me more, since ookii means big, and even I know you don't tell a girl she's big. Got into a big discussion, mostly of me apologizing and trying to figure out what the right thing to say was.

We stayed there for the usual amount of time, but since the party started late, it was almost 4 before I got home and passed out. I felt surprisingly OK this morning, but when I saw Chris this evening, he apparently didn't fare quite as well. Anyway, sorry no pictures this time. We're going to Tokyo tomorrow, so maybe I'll have some then.

Baby's first haircut

I was in dire need. I haven't gotten a haircut since a few weeks before I left, and I needed one bad. I was little nervous, since I don't know how any barbershop talk like "A little off the top" or maybe "did you see that game last night?". Here's the before picture:
I had a few errands to run, so I figured I'd walk around doing those and stop in if I found someplace that looked inviting. I picked a place near the station, with both the largest number and biggest size barber poles I saw. Turned out to be a good choice, they were pretty easy to communicate with and seemed like they could handle not black, not straight hair.

They pointed me to chair 7 (out of 20 or so) and as soon as I sat down, a girl came over and asked "Shave suru?", which I just learned Friday is the plain form of "shimas", so I totally understood. I looked around, saw that everyone else was getting shaved, and figured what the hell. She started to lather me up, and then gestured to the edges of my eyebrows and the area a unibrow would be if I had one and said "koko?". I thought I said "no", but I must have said "No, don't skip those areas" because she proceeded to lather them up and shave them too. She did a nice job, lots of hot towels later, a guy came up to cut my hair. I had studied before I went and now know "Mijikai" means short. So I pointed and said "mijikai", and he replied "Sho-to?" (short) and I got my haircut. Here's the after, but I wore a hat all day today, so it may not do it justice.
I also finalized my winter vacation plans. I get a week off for new years, and I decided to go to Kyoto. I finally got a hotel booked, so the next step was train tickets. I was a little nervous about getting the right kind of tickets for the right day, but I think it worked out. I'm going to bring my tickets to class tomorrow and have my teacher reassure me.

Last week, I asked the guy who would know what the thing to do in Utsunomiya on a Saturday night is. He said he was entertaining visitors, but I should go up to the Lion's Head Pub and meet anyone who speaks English. So that's what I did. I figure it would be dead until 10 or so, so I started off at home with dinner, beer, and tequila. Here's a picture I though was funny after an hour or so of that. It's tequila and takos, get it?

I went up to the bar, and it was all guys, but I met some people that I have a feeling I'll be seeing around, so it was an OK night. It started raining while I was walking there, but I managed to give the taxi driver directions.

Today, I rode my bike around for a few hours, looking around town. It's just a lot easier than driving and finding parking here. I stopped at the "Hard Off" second hand shop, just to look around. The DVD section had a couple of shelves of American movies in Japanese. I bought Star Wars. Hopefully, I'll learn some Japanese from it. I'm sure it will come in handy being able to say "That's no moon". The thing that kills me isn't so much the language, it's the voices. C-3PO and Darth Vadar just don't sound right. And they keep saying "Lu-ku" when they mean Luke.

Bonen-kai (SONNA-NO KANKEI-NE!!!!)

Friday was the department bonen-kai, end-of-year party. I didn't really know what to expect. It was at a really fancy hotel, but I also know how every party I've been to here has been, so I wasn't sure how to play it. Nothing prepared me for this.

I got there right on time and was told to take the elevator to the "Grand Ballroom" on the top floor. I saw a few people I know on the way in, so I could tell that I was dressed right. Or so I thought until I got off the elevator and saw 4 guys at the check in table wearing superhero costumes, most of them the younger guys, but one was sort of a big dog, so I was more confused than I normally am in Japan.

I went in and sat down with a guy I know and, of course, they started pouring me beers. My boss came over to pour me a drink, and he was already pretty hammered. Then, according to Japanese tradition, I tried to pour him one. First, thought, to be culturally correct, I was told that I had to finish mine. OK, no problem there. Then, according to the ritual, my boss gave me his beer to finish before I could refill his. It was shaping up to be a rough night.

The guy I was sitting with (Sato-san) explained that all the new guys hired this year had to put on a show. He kindly gave me a warning that this always involves the new guys in speedos. This was also the only party I've been to that included the secretaries, so they got to size up the new guys, too.

Earlier in the week was some things I could say that would make people laugh. Basically punchlines from Japanese comedians, to help me make small talk. First, they taught me "Obei-ka?" with a sweeping hand gesture. It means "are you western?", and I guess you say it if they do something western, and then people laugh. I didn't get a chance to use it, though.

The second thing I learned was "Sonna-no kankei-ne!!" with downward fist pump. It's the catchphrase of a guy named Yoshio Kojima. Means something like "What does it matter?". The didn't, however, mention the standard presentation of this. Which brings me back to the new guys show. They did a whole routine based around "Sonna-no kankei-ne!!!". Here's a video of Kojima, so picture 5 guys doing this. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to embed it.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2nyza_kojima_fun

After the show, there was a little mingling time, then it was time for BINGO!!! Turns out, I'm not good at bingo. They had good prizes, like a TV and a Wii, and some crappy ones. I didn't win any of them. I got to practice a lot of Japanese, and some guy promised to set up a "meeting girls party". I don't remember the word in Japanese, but it's basically a party where they arrange an even split and hope everyone pairs off nicely. It sounds like that's the normal way here in Japan, since all the bars are hostess bars.

When the party wrapped up, my well-lubricated boss grabbed me and said we should go to a bar, and he recommended going to one that doesn't have hostesses. I accepted gladly, and we went to a place that was sort of English-pub-style bar, with live jazz. They go by the bottle keep system (you buy a bottle and leave it there, and whenever you come in, you drink from it). We mostly went with individual drinks, though. I asked (in perfect Japanese) if they had tequila, and then what kind it was. With one other guy, I had my first shot of tequila in Japan (Sauza blanco, but I can't be picky). The other guys liked the ritual involved and wanted to join in, so they immediately ordered more shots. They didn't get the idea of waiting between drinks. Before I knew it, we were 5 shots in and not slowing down. No, you can't get the tequila on the bottle keep system. I had to pay 4000 yen for the big party, but for some reason I didn't pay anything at the bar, even though I was ordering all the drinks. I hope it keeps up like this.

I stopped at the 7-11 on the way home and bought a sandwich, since I hadn't really eaten anything, and went home and went to sleep.

EARTHQUAKE!!!

Breaking News....I was about 75% asleep, and a pretty big earthquake just hit of the coast of Japan, about 100 miles away. It was 6.2 on the Richter scale, pretty darn big. That's a 4 on the Japan scale. From what I can figure out, that felt like a 2 here in Utsunomiya. I could hear it, which I didn't expect. Just a low, groaning noise. Messes with a half awake mind. I have a feeling if I was standing or sitting or doing anything but trying to fall asleep, I might not have felt it at all. As it is, I had to check with the authorities before I posted this, in case I dreamed it.

From the USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_big.php

And from Japan's equivalent: http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/

I'm going to try to go back to sleep, but I can't stop thinking about what I'm supposed to do if a bigger one hits. I'm on the 5th floor. I guess if I hear screaming I'll run towards it, assuming it's people who are trying to get my attention.

Anyway, everything's fine here, nothing fell down, I still have all my plates and liquor on the high shelf is still in it's bottles.

Home Sweet Home

I know you've all been dying to see what my apartment looks like with stuff in it. It took me this long to get all the stuff I need and take some pictures. They aren't all great pictures, but they work. First, the view. When you look straight down from my East windows, you see this nice little dirt park. They don't seem to want to spend time caring for grass, so the parks are mostly this kitty litter dirt. Still, it's nice. There's a public restroom in the park, but they don't have the same reputation here. If you look up from the park, you see this weird European churchy-looking building. I didn't know what it was for a while, and if I had it may have influenced my apartment choice. It's some sort of giant wedding chapel. I'm thinking of trying to crash some of the parties. I think I'll blend in.

My apartment is what they call a 1LDK. That's one bedroom, and another room that covers living room, dining room, and kitchen. Here's some pics of the LDK. Yeah, that's grandma's afghan and a family picture.

The LDK has sliding doors that open it up into the bedroom. Makes for one big room, but since there's no central heating or insulation, you keep doors closed and only heat the room you're in. I didn't make the bed, sorry, but I did pick out the curtain. There's no carpet, so it automatically matches the curtains. Also, I forget which day is cardboard garbage day, so there's still a bunch of boxes in there.

I've also got a walk-in closet that's bigger than I expected my apartment to be. Notice the convenient poles. They only go up about 6 feet, but girls are short here.

Besides the entry and the shoe closet, there's 2 more rooms. One is the combination laundry room, bath/shower room. The shower head doesn't actually go in the tub, you just stand in the middle of the room and wash up. The tub fills itself up automatically, if you know how to set it. I don't, and don't know when I would learn.

The shower is off the laundry room, where they have one 100v/50hz ungrounded outlet for the washer and dryer. Seems safe. Takes forever to dry clothes, but everyone hangs their stuff out.Finally, there's the room I affectionately call the shitbox. It's just a little room with a toilet. The toilet does everything you think it would. I'll get into that another day.

Otherwise, things are going good. I finally got my car and I'm happily zipping around town. It's not really fun to drive, but I laugh every time I walk up to it. Partly because I walk up to the wrong door, but mostly because it's ridiculously small.

This past weekend, some of the guys at work invited me to a "Bowling Convention". I don't know what word he was looking for, but convention wasn't it. I told them I wasn't any good (the truth) and then went out and won the first game by 20 pins. Must have something to do with not having a beer in the other hand. I got back to my normal skill level after that. Also did a lot of shopping. Anything in these pictures that could be called a shelf, I bought on Friday. I think the people at the store must have laughed their asses off after I left. They played charades with me for 40 minutes until I got everything I wanted, and the were really good sports about it.

Pics from the Tokyo Motor Show

Two weekends ago, I went to Tokyo for the big Tokyo Motor Show. The place was packed. We couldn't even get close the the crazy concept cars. The first thing I saw when we walked in was a brand-new, 2008 1980 Honda 750. They still had all the old dies and things, and people still want them, so they started making them again.

We kept moving and saw all the crazy cars and bikes and scooters, and I took pictures of them.

There was a crazy crowd in front of every booth, and I think 2 people looking at every car. There was a huge paparazzi frenzy in front of every girl. I couldn't help getting caught up in it. Finally, after taking all those pictures for Adrian, I stopped and took a picture for Dad at the Dodge booth.

Back in the Blogosphere

After a week or so of no internet, I finally got it hooked in my apartment. I know you missed me.

I'm pretty well settled in at my apartment. I thought I'd tell you about it, take pictures and stuff, but I realized I may run out of things to say, so I'l do it one step at a time and take longer. So I'll just describe where it is. I'm about 0.8 km South of the train station on the East side, as if that means anything to you. I guess the important stuff is I'm about 12 minutes walking to the station, about 4 minutes from 2 supermarkets (in Japanese, it's called a "suu-paa-). About 4 minutes from the hyaku-en-shoppu (100 yen shop). It's amazing how important the dollar store is here. That's where you buy just about everything. The quality seems better, and 100 yen is only 85 cents. They must save on shipping from China. Guess where I'm doing my Christmas shopping?

Last weekend, I had 2 nomikai (drinking party) to go to. I was introduced to the term nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) and tabehoudai (lots of food). They set a time limit, usually 2 hours, and keep bringing the beer/sake/shochu and about 8 courses of dinner. My plans on getting skinny in Japan are taking a hit.

Friday was with my group at work at a chunko-nabe restaurant. That's sumo weight gain stew, and it's really good. If you retire from sumo and don't go into coaching, you open one of these joints. They fed me more than I could eat (including a big prawn that you have to clean yourself) and as much as I wanted to drink, which I kept in check knowing I had to do it again the next day. I didn't eat this that night, but a few weeks ago I ate the other one that was in the bowl before I took the picture. Mmmm, raw baby squid. Looks bigger in the picture than it actually was.

Saturday night was a going away party for one of the OAPs who's going back. I suppose I should define my terms better. OAP is Honda-speak for "Overseas Assignment Program". Anyway, he's a little older and had 2 kids, but still wanted to go to Roppongi for the night. That's the foreigner (and girls looking for foreigners) packed bar/nightclub area of Tokyo. One of the guys arranged the tabehoudai/nomihoudai at T.G.I. Friday's, which nobody thought existed. Best damn potato skins I ever tasted. Beer flowed freely. There were only 4 of us there, and we estimated (since we couldn't count) about 8-10 pitchers. I learned the phrase "itsu-mo futatsu kudasai", which means "always 2, please", and there were always 2 pitchers on the table. It was a hard night of drinking (in western style bars for a change), some dancing, and learning my way around. We dropped the older guys one by one (there were 2 of them) until me and the other younger guy called it a night around 3. Went to a conveniently located hotel that gave a discount to Honda employees and passed out until we rushed to catch the 10 AM shinkansen back for a OSU-Mich party.

Oh, and I bought some curtains.

Busy, Busy

I had a really busy day yesterday. Got a lot done, but it was really hectic. Our HR OAP girl and one of out teachers picked us up at the hotel at 8: 30, and I didn't get back for more than 5 minutes until about 1 AM.

First we went to open bank accounts, which we could only do at the branch that Honda does it's payroll through, which was 30 minutes away. It took forever, since we only had one translator for the 3 of us. Actually, took about 2 hours, but they were long hours.

Next stop was Yamada Denki for cell phones. That took another couple of hours, and we had to run out of there to get to the next stop before we were even finished. First we had to figure out how the system works here. In the US they give you a free phone and charge you monthly for the airtime. Here, it's sort of opposite. We pay monthly for the phone, and then the service is on top of that. So I have a minimum of 2200 a month to pay at least, but if I use more than about 20 anytime minutes, it goes up from there. At least that's how I understand it, I may be wrong.

I got a crazy phone. It's got a 3.2 MP camera, GPS, and a TV. A little 3 inch TV. It only gets Japanese channels, but it's a cell phone with a TV. I don't have a clue what else it does. I didn't even know about the GPS until after I checked out.

Anyway, we had to run out at about 1:30 to go through the McDonalds drivethru before Driver's Ed at 2. It was just like high school, but on the other side. Drove around the school's little course for 15 minutes with the teacher up front (with the auxiliary brake) and the translator in back. Then we headed out on the roads. The teacher and translator pointed me towards my apartment. We drove from there to work, with the teacher telling me to slow down, and then back to the school.

After we finished there, we went back to Yamada Denki to pick up our phones. I was thinking it would take 5 minutes, and then they started to try and sell us Internet access. It took about an hour to figure out how it works here, and then another hour for the lead singer of a Japanese reggae band to sell us all the package and schedule installation.

I had just enough time to get back to the hotel and drop things off before we went to a party they had set up for us. I only had the energy to go to stage 2 before I called it a night. I hear it went to stage 3, but I didn't have the energy.

Tomorrow I move into my apartment, and then there's another party to go to. It's supposed to be low key, which is good, because Saturday I'm going to the Tokyo Motor Show and then Roppongi (a big nightclub district)for the night.

Next weekend I have yet another party to go to. This one is for one of the current OAPs that's going home soon. Another guy found out that you can get nomihoudai and tabehoudai (all you can drink / eat) at TGI Friday's, so as a last Japanese hurrah, we're taking him there. Then another wild night in Roppongi.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to update this for a few weeks, so you won't get to hear about any of that. Japanese-Rasta-Internet-Salesman guy couldn't schedule installation until the 18th, so once I move out tomorrow, I'm incommunicado until then.

Insurance

Yesterday we had a meeting to go over our mandatory renters insurance and the other optional insurance policies we could get. They gave us a brochure full of cartoony pictures of various disasters you could claim. One picture in particular caught my eye. It was a guy golfing with a the ball going into the hole.

Apparently, it's traditional here for a guy who gets a hole-in-one to buy eveyone's round of golf, drinks for anyone he sees that day, and send gifts to everyone who was there. This could run into the thousands of dollars, so you can take out hole-in-one insurance. I asked, and it was only 200 yen a month for the lowest coverage, but you didn't get any sort of card to prove it, so I decided to take my chances. I considered doing it, getting someone to vouch for my good shot in exchange for free drinks, and throwing an insurance fraud party, but decided they'd take one look at my swing and catch me.

Tomorrow is the first of at least 2, maybe 3 welcome parties. This one is being set up by my old manager from Ohio, and I'm told it will include "3/4 potatoes". Not the real big guys, but pretty high up people. Which means it's likely to be expensive, since they'll be obliged to kick in a lot more money than us peons. Should come back with something to say.

Also tomorrow, I've got to set up a Japanese bank account. After that, I've got driver's ed. They want to make sure we understand the traffic laws here, so we go to a driving school for the afternoon. I doubt there's going to be anything very exciting there.

Weekend

It was a pretty restful weekend, other than a lot of walking. Got back Friday night and went with Mike (he's here on a business trip from my group back home) to a ramen place and then had some beers at the Lion's Head. It's an Irish style pub that's kind of a gai-jin hangout. I tried to order a black and tan, but couldn't get the point across until they handed me a menu. I figured out that that they called it a half and half.

Saturday, we decided to explore our new neighborhood. We needed to get lunch first. On the way to Lion's Head, I remembered seeing a sign for Genki Sushi, the sushi on a conveyor belt place. We walked that way until we found the sign, figured out it was on the 2nd floor of what looked like an office building, but that doesn't mean much here. We went up and there wasn't a restaurant in sight. Turns out we found the local corporate office of Genki Sushi.

Around the corner from there is a big temple, and when we went in that direction, we found a street festival of some kind going on. Turns out this weekend was the annual Miya Jazz Festival. We got some food from the stands set up and settled in to watch what was happening. There was a band playing, and I got to hear a Japanse woman sing "What's Goin' On". She did Marvin Gaye proud. While we were sitting there, a guy who apparently loved America came up to talk to us. He noticed one of us had a coke, pointed, and said "Coca-Cola!!!". Mike said "Pepsi-Cola!!!". He said "Dr. Pepper". They went on like that until the ran out of soft drinks, and the guy went away.

We went over to my apartment to look around the neighborhood. On our way there, we saw this sign encouraging you to clean up after your dog.

We walked around the neighborhood and went into a place that was sort of like Japanese Wal-Mart. I'm going to have to go back there once I move in to get my place set up. Also checked out a bike shop, a camping/outdoors shop, and Yamada Denki, an electronics place. We ate dinner at an Italian place, walked home, and about 5 miles after we started, I settled in to watch Resident Evil 2, since it was on TV in English.

Today, Joe and I went to check out the local mall, Bell Mall. Kind of an interesting place because it isn't really divided up as clearly as American Malls. There's no real entrance to the individual stores, just a couple of walls. You can easily wander out of one store and into another without noticing.

For dinner tonight, we went to a place 2 doors down from the hotel. The owner somehow figured out that we weren't from around here. He dragged 2 of the waitresses over to us and made them sit down and speak English. I think he realized that if word gets out to Honda in America that they speak English, it will improve business. Anyway, we had a nice chat with the 2 waitresses and a good dinner.

New Information

I had my first 2 days with my group at work, and learned a few things from them:

1. It's really hard to get my PC set up in Japanese. I have it, but it's useless until I get the software installed, and I can't read enough to actually install things.
2. The Japanese keyboard layout is different. The spacebar is about 1/3 of what it is on an American keyboard and the keys next to it change it from typing in English to typing in Japanese.
3. My whole group lives within 1 km of my place.
4. There's a good okinomiyaki place about 1.5 km away, I'm going there tonight.
5. The Honda Life I picked out is a chick car. Watch this video to see the lifestyle Honda imagines a Life driver living: http://www.honda.co.jp/LIFE/imagemovie/index.html
6. Mugen (Honda's main performance parts supplier) makes some parts to man-up the Life. I may consider them. http://www.mugen-power.com/street/life/parts/parts2.html
7. My apartment is very close to the main izaki-ya (bar) district.

Not much else to say. No real plans for the weekend except learning more about my neighborhood.

Shopping & Paperwork

Monday was my first day of "work". Not that I'm doing any real work yet. We met the HR girl who's in charge of taking care of us OAPs. She seems to have her act together, but she doesn't speak any English, so it's going to be hard to get anything done with her. Luckily, the other 2 guys' teachers where there (I haven't met mine yet). We spent a few hours filling out work papers that I couldn't read. I'm much better now at writing my name in katakana. It's actually legible.

Next we went apartment shopping. I was braced for the worst. I expected tiny little, one room shoe boxes underneath the train tracks. It's a little different here. For one thing, they only rent through real estate agents, so you have someone find places for you and take you around to them. Second, their name for a condo is "mansion". So I got a mansion. It's in a great location, about 0.7 km from the train station, overlooking a park. I'm on the top floor (5th) on the end, so 2 sides of the place are floor to ceiling windows. It's 1 bedroom, living room/dining room, kitchen, bathroom. The bedroom and living room are only separated by a set of 3 sliding doors, so you can open it up to be 1 big room or close it up and only heat or cool a small area. Here's a picture looking from the bedroom into the living room. That's the realtor (R) and the teacher translating for us (L) in the living room, and I'm behind the big, load-bearing post.



I thought the place would be tiny. They gave us packets with floor plans and locations for each apartment. The spot where it says the area, though, wasn't in any units I understood. I just used it as a relative judgement, so I knew one was bigger than the other. The one I picked was 17.2 somethings. Turns out the unit was 2 tatami mats, those straw floor mats you see in japan. 1 tatami is 90 cm by 180 cm, so 2 is 180 X 180, or about 17.5 square feet, so my place is about 600 square feet, huge for a 1 bedroom in Japan. More about the gizmos in there some other time.

Yesterday, I did city, state, and federal paperwork. I applied for my alien registration card and and multiple re-entry permit. I also got (from work) my inkon. It's a little stamp that's used in Japan instead of signing things. Mine just says "Daniel" in katakana. We also had to register that as my signature with the city.

After what amounts to the Japanese BMV, we went to the car lot to pick out cars. It was awesome. The told us to keep it under 2,000, 000 yen and set us loose. Car shopping is so much fun when you aren't really concerned with the cost. Even if I spent the limit, my payment, with insurance and maintenance, would be around $100/month. I checked how I fit in just about every kind of car they had. I really wanted to get something that I can't get in the US, so that cut out about half of them. Streets are narrow and gas is around $7/gal, so I wanted something small. I turned down the Fit, the Mobilio, the Spike, the Zest, the Beat, and the That's (only car named with a contraction). I finally found a sweet black almost new Turbo Life. It's about the smallest car Honda makes: 660 cc's, 3 cylinders of turbo charged fury in a cartoon car. I had to get the turbo, since it bumps it all the way up to 65 hp. Here's my hot new whip, check out the optional 14's I'm rolling on, the base model had 12's.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Life (before you ask, no, it's not the Diva Turbo, it's just a Turbo)

Since the sticker was only 998,000 yen, plus 40,000 for insurance, I started adding some options. They threw in snow tires, which I was told I'll never need. They also added an aftermarket, English speaking navi system, and the backup camera, since it's tough to back something this huge in. They told me it will take 3 weeks to negotiate with HGT and to install all my options, so I scheduled delivery as a birthday present to myself.

Well, I've got to finish watching the Browns game (don't tell me who won). Then I've got to go to bed, since tomorrow I actually go to work. Sorry for the long post, but I've been too busy to make frequent short ones. Happy Halloween.

Got here fine

After a week in San Francisco, I finally got here to Utsunomiya safely, if anyone was wondering. We got to the hotel around 8:30 last night, then the current OAPs took us out to dinner, then the local Irish pub, and finally Utsunomiya's version of a dance club. They got us pretty drunk and managed to keep us up until 2 AM local time, which is 1 PM the day before in Cleveland. It seems to have really helped with the jet lag, so if anyone comes to visit, I'll get you good and trashed right away.

Today, one of the current OAP guys took us for a tour of Utsunomiya. I've been here before, but it was a different perspective than I've had in the past. For instance, I was very interested when he pointed out the grocery store.

Here's my week in San Francisco in a nutshell:

• Watched the last 5 innings of 2007 Indians baseball in a predominantly Red Sox bar.


• Toured the "Winchester Mystery House" (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about)


• Went to a bar to watch Monday night football, teamed up with the guy next to me and came in 2nd in a trivia contest. But everyone around us thought it was fixed, so I think I won.


• Toured Alcatraz, and did it as touristy as possible.


• Stayed in a really cool hotel in Japan Town.


• Had 2 days of cultural training that amounted to sitting in a room with the other 2 guys BS'ing, mostly about Japan.


• Walked all over the city and saw most of the sights (China Town, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, Golden Gate Bridge, etc.)

Tomorrow I go to work for the first time. Nobody is really sure what we do tomorrow, but I think it's mostly getting set up with living arrangements. I'll let you know when I find out.

First Post

I'm still learning how to use this, so bear with me. This is just a practice post. I'll try to keep this up from now until I get back from Japan. Hopefully this will be full of good stories and pictures, but who knows, maybe I'll get busy or bored and it won't end up happening. We'll see.