Saturday, May 23, 2009

Twas the night before Portland and all through the flat...

The blare of the television. The hum of the air conditioner. The sound of frogs and crickets spill in from outside. The garbage and recycling bins are overflowing with buyers remorse. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now that everyone is gearing up for their journey home, all of their impulse buys find their way into these bins. These sounds fill the flat and I am just sitting and listening...soaking it all in.

The goodbyes started today, with two of my flat mates. It wasn't emotional at all just a "hey, nice to meet you, take care" type of goodbye with a hug instead of a handshake. Tomorrow will be different though. Another person who I have become fond of, Izzy, is on the same flight as me so we will be leaving together. Izzy and Becca and their whole crew are the ones I have become close with the past month or so. They have all been here for a year and have forged long lasting friendships so saying goodbye will be hard. I can already tell that it will be cry fest 2009 and being the sappy emotional girl that I am, I can guarantee I will be crying as well. I would like to write something more than what I have but I can seem to find the words. All I can say is that it's been a long hard and amazing four months. I can't believe it's over. I will miss Japan but I know that I will be back. I will miss my friends, who I may never see again. I will miss. And I'm OK with that.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Little Red Buckets Revisited















I wrote about these little red buckets after my visit to the hospital a couple of months ago. Today, after putting it off for the last month, I returned to the hospital to take back my crutches. I've been avoiding doing this because knowing the Japanese, I thought this would be a long drawn out process. Japan must not realize that paper comes from trees because they require you to fill out a form for everything. In school I would get an insane amount of handouts each week. Seriously, the amount of paper I have been given in four months from my teachers is like one or two years worth at my school back home. It's ridiculous. Anyways, back to the hospital. I was sure they were going cause some big scene over the crutches. I suck at Japanese and they suck at English so A+B=procrastination. 

As I approached the hospital I noticed that it looked really dead, ha! no pun intended. There were no cars or bikes out front, no one smoking a cig outside, not a sign of life anywhere. I figured with the recent Swine Flu mess that this place would be crawling with people, all who swear that they have the flu. It was so dead that I thought maybe they were closed but as I approached the automatic doors they opened. I walked inside and it was the strangest sight ever. The whole place was completely empty. I have never seen a hospital empty before. The television was blaring with grunts from the Sumo match. It was really eerie. The only two people were these women behind one of the counters. I took my receipt and just handed it to them. 

Luckily, they just looked up my file and handed me my 5,000 yen($50) deposit and I was on my way. It was painless but creepy. I wanted to take a photo but the ladies watch me as I walked away. So I turned the corner and snapped the photo of the buckets and walked real fast towards the door. I looked behind me and they had come from behind the counter to look at what I took a picture of. I just pointed to the buckets, waved and walked out. 

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Bugs and Pregnant Women

In the winter it's expected that a lot of insects go south, south meaning in the ground. Although the amount of insects decreases during the cold winter months, you still see some. However, since I have been in Japan I have hardly seen any insects, at all. It's not even that cold, at least not in the region that I live in. This bothered me for some reason and I found myself looking at the ground when I walked looking for any sign of life. I hate bugs, all of them-- except for ladybugs. This was getting to me though. I just wanted to see a goddamn bug. One day I walked into a swarm of nats and I got excited but nats are so boring. 

Another thing I noticed about Japan was that it seemed that bugs and pregnant women had something in common. No, pregnant women didn't go south for the winter but they were non-existent. Once I noticed that I had yet to see a pregnant women I started seeking them out, the same way I did with the bugs.  I began to size up any Japanese female with any sign of weight in their belly region, which was rare because most Japanese women are really thin. 

When spring finally made her appearance my search for bugs became more intense and I gave up on pregnant women. The opposite thing happened though. Instead, the warm weather brought out the pregnant gals rather than the bugs. I jokingly suggested to a Japanese classmate that pregnant women hibernate in Japan and she seriously confirmed that I was correct. I started seeing more and more pregnant bellies but still no bugs. 

Then last week, Becca was out biking around and she was attacked by mosquitoes. For some reason I was happy about this, not about her unbearable itching but the fact that there are signs of life here. Then last night I saw a small black spider in the living room. Once again I was quite happy about this. I hate spiders and bugs but for some reason it seemed weird that I hadn't seen a bug in months. I know they all have their purposes in the world but I guess I just got used to them bugging me. Ha!

You never know what it's like until you do it yourself

Sorry I have been slacking on the posts, I have been too busy dealing with Swine Flu. Well, not really but it's a good excuse. As far as my finals go, I had four classes. One of them we had an oral presentation that was 80% of our grade so that basically was the final. Another one was a take home that was handed out before the Swine Flu mess and I am just about finished with it. In another class we had a paper due on the day of the final so my teacher emailed us saying we could either do the paper or the final as a take home, I already had the paper done so I picked that option. The last class I had the teacher didn't feel comfortable just giving us a take home so he just factored the final out of the grading process and will be grading us on all of our assignments up until this fiasco. All and all I got away pretty easy. They still cancelled our graduation ceremony. And we didn't get to say goodbye to a lot of people or our teachers. Boo.

Every place in my city is sold out of face masks but we went into Osaka yesterday and hardly anyone was wearing one. I am not worried about it at all but they are advising us to wear masks to the airport and on the plane since airplanes are bacteria cesspools anyways. I bought some for the flight but don't plan on wearing them until then. The hysteria has infected some of my friends here and I think they think I am crazy for really not giving a shit. 

I cannot believe my time in Japan is over. The past month has been the best. I have gotten to know my flat mate Becca more and a few others from school and my dorm. I really like Becca a lot. She is 19 but she doesn't seem like it. I don't even know what that means really. She's been here for a year and I admire that she is young and has done something like this, all on her own. She's very bright and fun and reminds me a lot of Sierra. Not so much their personalities, hell maybe it's just because she's small and spunky. We've spent a lot of time together the past month and I really will miss her. I'm not sure if I will ever see any of these people again, nothing personal but we live in different worlds. I know though, if I am ever in their neck of the woods and vice versa, we would gladly put each other up. 

When I first got here I often wondered what in the hell I was doing. I had never felt so out of place. February was hell and dragged on. I honestly never felt so lonely in my life. March was bittersweet, had amazing visitors and an awesome time on spring break but then just like that...it was over. April came and I hurt my ankle and this has pretty much laid me out for the past eight weeks. I think I missed out on a lot because I was crippled. However April and May have flown by. I cannot believe that I will be home soon. It's so surreal. I think it might be hard coming home and trying to return to my life. I am excited but I feel nervous. So many things are going to be weird like eating or being social.  I guess it will be just like when I came here, a lot of people told me what to expect from their experiences of traveling, living or studying abroad either in Japan or elsewhere but really no one can prepare you for an experience like this. People keep telling me what it's going to be like when I go home but really I won't know what it's like until I actually do it. I can't wait.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Fucking Swine Flu Hysteria

Swine flu is in Osaka, which is 40 minutes away from my town by train so today they cancelled all final exams and closed down the school. Most students are happy that exams are cancelled but I have been studying/working my ass off so I am not happy. I am not sure what this means for our final grades but they're in meetings discussing it as we speak, sense my sarcasm? The Japanese are so goddamn paranoid in general so now that Swine Flu is sweeping Asia they are going crazy. One thing that has really pissed my off about Swine Flu is the way the media has covered it. It's bullshit and all they have done is create a massive hysteria. Yet another example of irresponsible journalism. How do these people get degrees and jobs? I don't think the media always realizes how much responsibility their bear when it comes to shaping public opinion. 

I know my school is just taking precautionary measures but people are rushing to the grocery stores stocking up on food because they have been advised to stay indoors. Seriously people. Do you know how many people died from the flu last year? 36,000. Did you hear about one of them? No. I know this is a bit different because it's a new strain so the unfamiliarity of it all makes it more threatening, I get it. But still. My last week in Japan, taken hostage by Swine Flu. Boo. I must be old because I am the only person at my school that is bummed that I can't take my finals. Oh and they cancelled our graduation ceremony that was on Saturday. Boo!! No free food or alcohol.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Japanese television...

includes but it not limited too: shows about cats, weird commercials where half the time you're not sure what it is that they are advertising, variety shows where they make fun of people to their faces, variety shows where people, usually Idols, who are famous Japanese people who sing act and dance, compete in weird games where the prize is a plague. There was a show on the other day where two idols played the first Super Mario Brothers on a Wii in a competition in front of a live audience full of girls dressed up as Mario. Oh and all of the variety shows have live audiences,who are really excited and loud and usually filled with girls.

 You wouldn't believe some of the shit that is on these variety shows. Another thing about the variety shows is they seem to have no real time limit. Like a show will start at 7 p.m. and have no commercials for like an hour and a half and then all of a sudden at 8:47 the show just ends. When there are commercials during any program, sometimes it's hard to tell if it was a commercial or just part of the show. Back home, you usually know when a commercials coming. The show will reach a climatic or exciting part and then the screen goes black and then BAM a commercial break begins.  Here, shit goes bam, bam, bam often leaving me confused on what was the show and what was the commercial. 

They have a foreign movie channel that mainly airs American movies called Movie Plus. There's a channel called Super! Drama that airs American television shows from classics like E.R. to the newest ones like Gossip Girl and you can opt for it to be in English with Japanese subtitles or  dubbed in Japanese. Japanese voice actors are amazing. It always looks like the actor is speaking Japanese. I don't know how they line it up so well but it's amazing. I guess voice actors are huge here and they win all sorts of awards for their work, with good reason. I wish I had a videotape so I could record some TV so you can see what I am talking about it. It's going to be really weird flipping through channels when I get home and hearing English on every channel.

 The commercial breaks on Super! Drama are weird too. The show will go for 45 minutes and then when it's over they show 15 minutes of commercials, instead of showing the commercial in between. At first I welcomed this method now I hate it because the commercials they show for those 15 minutes are always the same. Like clockwork, a few minutes before the next show starts a Proactiv commercial comes on where they have someone like Jessica Simpson try and say some of her lines in Japanese. It's painful. Even though I cannot understand most of the shows here I think I might actually miss them. They are so weird and unexplainable but they provide endless hours of entertainment. 

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Lay off me, I'm starving!

Japan has this brand of ice cream called Lady Borden and let me tell you, it's literally the best ice cream in the world. I love ice cream and I have high standards. This stuff is amazing, it's like crack. My roommates and I all joke that crack must be the secret ingredient because it's extremely addicting. 

Japan also has the best yogurt I have ever had. It's so good. So here's what I don't get, they rule at making ice cream and yogurt so why the hell can't they make cheese?
The cheese here is a joke. It's disgusting. It looks like cheese but it has a weird texture and the taste, well, it's just plain wrong. It's like they put cheese flavoring in this weird substance and try and pull it off as cheese but it's not. You can find imported cheese but it's so expensive, which is why pizza here is like $30. 

I had no idea that I would have such a hard time eating here. I don't eat meat but I eat fish so I figured I would be OK. Wrong! They put meat in everything, I think just for fun or to piss me off.  

Only 11 more days till I can enjoy real food again. I haven't been starving or anything mainly due to various care packages packed with food but it will be nice to go to the grocery store and be able to read packages again but also just to enjoy eating again. I feel like I haven't enjoyed food much since I have been here. Also, I can't wait to have good beer, wine and cocktails again. Shit is gross here. Overall, I just can't wait to be home again, in case you haven't picked up on that yet.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The most expensive movie rental ever

Last week my flat mate Becca and I rented a couple of movies. One was some cheesy romance that sucked and the other was a movie about Bettie Page, which was pretty lackluster. We watched it on Wednesday night and went to return it on Friday only to discover that it was missing. We asked everyone in the apartment and everyone swore up and down that they hadn't touched it. We searched every where and it was nowhere to be found. Bettie Page just magically disappeared into thin air. The problem with this was that we rented the movies on another friends account. 

So today Becca and I went to the video store to see how much it would cost to replace it. On the way in I jokingly said to Becca, "What if it's 5000 yen($50)?" Becca laughed saying there would be no way, I agreed. It must've been the first time anyone had ever lost a DVD because the clerk involved every employee in the store, all of them looking quite distressed at this tragedy. Then I see one of them write 10,000 yen($100) on this form and I whispered to Becca that it was going to cost 10,000 yen. She was in denial for a second until the clerk said it out loud. Oh and they threw on a late fee too. So, a movie, made by HBO, was going to cost $102. We told them we would look for it again and come back. They gave us a month to return it and said there would be a $2 late fee everyday. 

Becca and I sat outside of the grocery store for an hour going through all of the possible scenarios of where this stupid fucking movie could have gone. We grilled all of our roommates and everyone adamantly denied removing it from the DVD player. We got home, filled with rage, mostly because it made no sense and because of the fact that we were going to have to pay for this stupid movie. We saw one of the roommates and asked her again if she had seen it. She said no. 

An hour later, Becca went into their room and grabbed the second DVD case out of her pile and guess what was in it??? The Bettie Page movie! This is after she repeatedly said she hadn't seen it! Becca came running out screaming and I joined her, jumping up and down throwing ourselves around the flat. We almost paid $100 for a DVD that was sitting in the next room the whole time. We think she just took it out and wasn't paying attention and mistakingly put it in her case. But for the love of Christ! Becca and I were full of rage for a good couple of days, especially the last couple of hours. 
What kills me is why the hell was that movie $100! Japan is so damn expensive and sometimes I think they do it to torture foreigners. I can't wait to come home!!

Monday, May 11, 2009

The Final Countdown

I come home in two weeks and I can't wait. It's crazy how fast the time has gone by. I haven't been posting lately partly because I have been busy with school work but also because I have been lazy. Right before I left Portland  I got the idea of starting this blog because I thought that it would be easier to post updates on how I was doing for everyone to read rather than me emailing fifty people. Somehow, this blog has become somewhat of a journal, sometimes personal, introspective--an overall outlet for me. In some ways, this blog has saved my ass here because a lot of the times it was the only outlet I had seeing that I haven't had much of a social life here. Yes, believe it. Ms. Social Butterfly, Life of the Party has had no social life in Japan.

When I was younger I wanted to be a writer. Growing up in an unstable and somewhat chaotic household, writing became a way for me to escape the craziness. I always excelled in writing in school however when it was pointed out by others that I did well, I felt that it inhibited me because writing became about doing it for a better grade or about trying to impress my teacher rather than doing it because it was something that I was passionate about. So I quit and lost one of my only creative outlets. This was around junior high. I always wonder what would've happened if I would've kept at it. Throughout the years, I would pick it up here and there but it would never go anywhere.

I just wish I could've realized that I could've kept writing, even if it was just in a journal. No one would ever have to read it and there would be no grade, no pressure. I was a bit reluctant to start again but really it kind of came out of nowhere. Like I said, I didn't plan on this blog being what it is. I know that my posts tend to be long, sometimes whiny or just plain boring and this has probably lost me some readers. However, I don't care if anyone reads it. I appreciate those of you that do but really this blog started out as something for you but has turned into something for me. I had no idea how much I missed it and really how much I need it. It's a part of me that I have let go for too long and keeping this blog has inspired to pick it up again. I think I will keep this going even after I return to Portland.  

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Ignorance or Stupidity?

We were having a discussion class in class today about how a lot of the population of Japan depends on public transportation to get around. You really don't need a car here. Japan has the most efficient reliable public transportation system in the world. It's simply amazing. So this girl from Louisiana, who is always on her computer checking her facebook and never seems to be paying attention, blurts out, "Before I came to Japan I only thought poor people used the bus. When my parents asked how I got to school and I told them I took the bus, they freaked out and offered to send me money."

I couldn't help myself and blurted out, "Are you serious?"

She was.

Really? Only poor people use public transit. Even hours after this incident I'm still dumbfounded. 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Heroes....

Has hijacked my life for the past four days. I never watched it back home but they have been running a marathon all week and my roommate and I have been sucked in. It's Golden Week in Japan, which is a string of national holidays from April 29th-May 5th, so we have had no school which has enabled us to watch Heroes for seven hours a day. I am not kidding. It's pathetic.