Snapshot Saturday #7 - Thanksgiving Dinner in Aomori (11/28)

In the morning starting at 9:00AM, we helped make Thai Green Curry for the Global Party which collaborated with the volunteer group for an event hosting university exchange students from Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Taiwan. There were only 3 of us Americans here including myself. We met a lot of new people and added them on LINE.

Kelsey and I testing out the Thai Curry as we just about finish cooking the meal. It was delicious, Reminded me of home oddly enough.

Late Thanksgiving dinner @ Masako's house on 11/28. Card games were going on on the left, while dinner was just behind the wall to the right. There was mashed potatoes, mac 'n' cheese, turkey, cranberry jelly, and other traditional foods! Felt like an authentic Thanksgiving Day dinner. Definitely needed this to recharge my batteries.

Snapshot Saturday #6 - Lucky Perriot Burgers and Goryōkaku in Hakodate 「ラッキーピエロ」と「五稜郭」(11/21)

*Place Holder* Sorry I didn't write anything!

Snapshot Saturday #5 (11/14) -

Snapshot Saturday #4 - Shirakami Sanchi「白神山地」(11/7)

Today I went to Shirakami Sanchi, which hosts a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I tagged along with two friends, Keita (In the foreground, Nickname: Maru-chan) and Andres (in the background). Maru-chan drove us and we set out to try and see several different places in the area.

At the very start of our hike towards Anmon Falls. This post reads,
｢白神山地世界遺産地域　入口」
(Shirkamisanchi Sekaiisan Chiki. Iriguchi; Shirakami Sanchi World Heritage Area. Entrance)
Thank you Google Translate.

Man-made waterfall also at the very beginning.

Mini panorama of Maru-chan and the trail leading towards the falls. It was a very very easy hike of about 15 minutes.

Both Maru-chan and Andres are photographers, so we took a lot of these kind of photo breaks.

One of my own photos en route to Anmon Falls. Just a small creek waterfall thingy, beautiful nonetheless.

AND WE'VE ARRIVED. Anmon Fals was close due to the cold weather and coming winter.

Near the parking lot, once we returned from the trail, we saw a huge playground resting on a hill with a giant slide. Maru-chan and I braved it. It was actually quite intimidating to look at, but it wasn't as bad as it seemed. The first time I went down, I went way too slow, so I took of my jacket and slid using that.

A photo of what I think is Iwaki River - named after the nearby mountain, Iwakisan (Mt. Iwaki)

Next stop: Nishimeya Village (西目屋村; Nishimeya Mura) where there is a famous waterfall - particularly in Winter - called Chichihoke Taki or Chichihoke Waterfall. I'm not sure what the huge sword symbolized, nor what we were supposed to do with it, if anything. Just to the right of the tip of the sword you can see the shrine area.

The shrine area was only 3 switchbacks from gronud level. The path entrance was just behind the waterfall that you can see just trickling down from the cliff above.

There was A LOT of nationalism going on in the shrine area. There were about 4 of these shrines of different sizes. I wonder what it meant...

After a long day, and a few more stops, we ended up in Goshogowara - a city famous for it's summer festival, tachinebuta.. We were in the city, however, for dinner inside a huge shopping mall called ELM.

Snapshot Saturday #3 - A Short Bike ride, then... PARTY! - Halloween in Aomori (10/31)

Being a hermit for the past few days made me desprately want to get out, even though I had plans for Halloween night. My friend and I biked up the road that went parallel to the coast and eventually got this sight when we reached the area where my base school was. It wasn't as great a sight as I hoped, but on the plus side - exercise!

(L-R) Peter, Kelsey, Me

At the venue for the ALT Aomori Prefecture Halloween celebration. Lots of alcohol was to be had here. Had a Strong and another chu-hai while walking to the venue (Strong is the brand name of a popular chu-hai. Chu-hais are basically delicious mixed drinks in cans coming in flavors ranging from pear, to peach and proofs of 6 to 16. Strong is 9% alcohol!) Oh yeah, and you can legally drink in public in Japan. AWESOME RIGHT. Drink a beer while passing a cop on the street, they can't do anything to you!

Already drunk at this point - and so are these random Japanese folk! This is technically "after" the ALT party. The ALT party stopped at around 11PM, and from there a party with a different host took over, and a whole bunch of Japanese pepole came in. Apparently the DJ was famous? and from Tokyo? It became much more fun after the crowds came in though, for sure.

Another photo with some random Japanese folks. Throughout the night in my drunken stupor, I would shout over the blasting music to random people, "一緒に！一緒に！" (issho ni! issho ni!; together! together!) and dragged countless Japanese people, some of whom were sober, and not feeling it, to the dance floor and to the raised dancing platform.

Last photo to conclude the night. The 3 people no the left are ALTs and the 3 girls on the right are complete strangers. Someone shouted at me to take a picture with them so, still drunk, I thought, "why not?"

Snapshot Saturday #2 - 「ビタミン愛」と「久保田酒」 (10/24)

Today's Snapshot Saturday is called ビタミン愛 (bitamin ai; Vitamin Love or Vitamin "I") and お酒 (osake; alcohol). The first title, bitamin ai means Vitamin Love in English, but phonically, it sounds like Vitamin I, so it's a Japanese pun / play on words.

ビタミン愛

"Vitamin I" was the title of this month's free lunch event that a professor from Aomori University helps lead every month. It's a way for the community members, and especially the elderly, to gather and eat lunch together. They particularly focus on the elderly as well because often times they live alone and as they say, "eating lunch with others is always more enjoyable than eating lunch alone". A member of the group who helps lead the free event explained that every piece of food that we make, and every step of the process, has love in it - from the folks who grow the crops (which were locally grown and donated for free) and we who cook the meals, to the customers who eat them.

We started work at 9:00AM and had until a bit after noon to prepare the meals. We made Miso Soup, Croquettes, Salad, Chopped Apples and served green tea from Korea - all from scratch! Each time they hold this event, they aim to serve 50 guests, so preparing the food in just a few hours was definitely a group effort. Everyone was always doing something.

Among the volunteers who were helping cook the meal were Thai exchange students from Hirosaki University and Vietnamese exchange students from Aomori Chuo Gakuin University, which made the experience even more enjoyable. It was interesting because while the Vietnamese exchange students knew a bit of English, we mainly relied on our Japanese speaking ability to communicate with each other. I felt much less pressure than I do when I usually speak Japanese because all of us were around the same age give or take a few years, and Japanese was also their second language.

Long story short, we managed to pull through while getting to know our fellow volunteers. Among the group were 2 Vietnamese students, 4 Thai students, the 4 older Japanese women who organize these events, and us 5 Americans, among a few others.

By 1:30PM, the last guest was served and the folks who organized the event said that we can have free time and explore the building until 2:00PM. One of the older ladies chimed in emphasizing that "We should be here at 2:00PM sharp to start cleaning up. Japanese time, not American time."the statement rubbed me the wrong way a bit, but every single one of these women were so casual and cordial that I couldn't stay bothered for long. While exploring we went through a WWII exhibit and a "planetarium" that mostly consisted of constellation stuff. By 1:55PM we came back and helped clean. When we finished, a Japanese woman from a room that was holding a tea ceremony demonstration recognized one of the American ALTs who had been in Aomori for 5 years and invited 10 of us to watch and participate, so we did. We watched 4 girls, probably around 10-12 years old serve us tea, and the older woman in charge explained each step, each rule, and what we should say. Side note: There are TONS of rules. OMG. After that, the same older woman gave us a demonstration on the Korean Drum.

Korean Drum performance. She told us afterwards a story about how N. Koreans would kidnap Japanese people using the large bag things that carry the drums.

Tea Ceremony with a young apprentice.

By around 3:00PM we were all finished cooking and cleaning and so all began heading home.

Clockwise from Me: Andrew, _____, Shonda, _____, _____, _____,
Niiyama-sensei, Mi, Bo, Som, Kelsey, Heidi, Phi, Huy, Sasha

久保田酒

The next portion of this blog post will be about the evening where I was luckily invited to a sake tasting event by a fellow ALT who had an open spot. The ALT who invited me was actually invited by a man who has been teaching her calligraphy, and she wanted to know if I was interested as well. Since I expressed that I was, the man who was teaching her wanted to use this event as a means to get to know me better in order to decide whether or not he will take me under his wing as well. Besides me, Tiffany (the other ALT), and the man who is teaching her calligraphy, we were accompanied by many other of his friends who were all retired high school teachers aged somewhere between their late-40's and early 60's. Nonetheless, they were all very friendly -- and even moreso after a few glasses of sake.

The title of this portion, 久保田酒 (ENG: Kubota Sake) is actually the brand name of the sake that we tasted. There were 6 different sake choices to choose from, and we were given glasses to try 4 of them.

The sake that I tasted (From L to R): Kobata Hyakuju, Kobata Senju, Kobata Manju, and Kobata Kouju

We were also served small dishes of assorted foods on the table that included chikin karaage (ENG: Fried Chicken), Sashimi, some beef dish, vegetables, and other things. The total fee for the event was 5,000 yen, but was worth it nonetheless.

Everyone got drunk quite fast. I personally talked a lot to the man on my left (Tiffany was on my right) who was a retired high school English teacher named Mr. Ikaria (I think). He had really great English and was so extremely friendly. The sake helped make things even more casual and had a great conversation, probably around 40% of the conversation was simply laughter. The rest was small talk and conversations about sake, Japanese, and Japan. We later had a visitor from another table too who was blowing kisses to Tiffany. Her name was. Ms. Osanai and was probably mid-50's or 60's (and most likely a lightweight, happy drunk). She was super friendly, and invited us two to go to her cafe that was opening up called Cafe 0371. The title is actually another play on words based off of her name. If you take the first hiragana "letter" from each number, it spells her name, with the exception of 0. In Japanese, it's kafee zero(O) san nana ichi. If you put the bold parts together, it spells (O)sanai, which is her name!! Cool right?

Besides sitting at the table and enjoying conversation with the teachers and Tiffany, there was a stand in the back where you would first taste 3 different sakes. Then, you would try a taste of 5 different, unlabled sakes. The goal was to correctly guess which bottles were the 3 sakes that you originally tasted. Tiffany and I got only 1 of the 3 correct... we also had to make sure not to pour too much into the glasses since sake is as strong as wine.

Anyways, the night was great -- we had a lot of great conversations and, actually, I enjoyed this night more so than the Welcome / Sports Festival Enkai that I went to with my Base Schools. The older, retired teachers were much more laid back and it probably helped that this wasn't exactly a work function.

As we left, we were all a good amount tipsy/drunk, and while we headed to the elevator, one of the men in our group was saying something in Japanese, and so Mr. Ikaria translated, saying that he was jealous of my height. The other man gave me a soft slap across the cheek, but it was all in good fun and didn't hurt at all.

All in all, the drinking event was one of the most fun I've had in a really long time and by far the best drinking event that I've been to (Out of only about 3-4 drinking events that I've been to in the almost 3 months I've been here). Tiffany and I went to Starbucks at around 8:30PM after the event ended, and gave ourselves some time to sober up before biking home. We ran into our P.A. (Prefectural Advisor) and chatted with him for a bit before it was time to go.

Anyways, that was my Saturday. Hopefully I can keep this up -- Until next time family and friendsss!

Homesickness and Difficulties Abroad

I'll admit it. I'm getting homesick.

As bad as it sounds, it's not so much the individual people that I'm missing -- I can see them over webcam (thuogh I've been slacking on that, too). It's the overall sense of being in a place where you can feel "at home" and relaxed without worrying about not being able to communicate with folks on the bus trying to talk to you, your coworkers at work, or even grocery store clerks.

It's not all bad, though.

When I visit my schools, the students are usually quite excited to see me. I often hear them saying "Andrew da!" (It's Andrew!) or something along the lines of that. Middle schoolers are less energetic in the classroom, but they always say hello to me as I pass through the halls, and I give them high-fives in return (JPN: hai tatchi; high touch). There have been occassions where some students have stopped me for a short conversation inbetween classes, but even that is a struggle at times because there's so much more that I want to say (probably the same case for the student), but we just have such a large language barrier.

Elementary schoolers are genki all the time. In and outside the classroom. They scream "hello!!!" to me as I pass through the halls and stick their hands out for high-fives as well. Them being energetic in the classrooms, and the teachers generally being more laid back takes some stress off my shoulders as well, but I just wish there was a way that I can magically be fluent in Japanese, or my teachers in English.

Also, there are some coworkers of mine in a few of my visit schools that are absolutely amazing. Today for example, I was talking to my visit junior high school janitor who was waiting at the same bus stop that I was. His knowledge of English was about the same if not more than my knowledge in Japanese. I feel like there is no tension or anything when talking to him, so I don't hesitate to say hello and engage in conversation. The whole conversation is in Japanese, with the exception of a few English words when I don't know it in Japanese. He corrects my Japanese when I say something incorrect, and makes small talk at school when I'm there. At that same school, my teachers are better at English than my base school, so I speak to them and they speak to me. There's also a person at the front gate (who I guess might be like the school clerk) who is comparatively very good at English and we talk as well.

I think most of the stress appears when I'm at my base school, but I do have moments where I silently get stressed out and frustrated at the other schools. Half of time it's during the 5 minute discussions with the teachers before class. The elementary school teachers explain it in Japanese, but there is a resource setup where we can print the lesson plans in English. However, they still add small changes to the lesson plan, and those changes are hard to understand at times. I can probably understand around 30-40% of what they're saying, but it's not enough. The second half is from general communication with coworkers during work. I've been here only for 2 weeks. I don't know the office culture, and I don't have a strong grasp on the language. If I were to speak up, I would only be able to ask simple questions in Japanese. Furthermore, people engrained in our heads that Japanese schoolteathers work 10+ hours a day and are very busy so I feel like there is no time to chat. Another part of it is nerves, which I have a lot of. I'm a bit too shy for my own good -- but there are still times where I do engage in simple conversations.

I think that this feeling that I've been having for around a week or so is akin to the feeling that I had when I first left for college. It's textbook homesickness. It's the sort of feeling where, if I went home, I'd feel like I'd become 50 pounds lighter. Like a giant weight has been lifted and I can finally relax.

Getting into this slump also sort of creates a chain reaction. Just before writing this, I was thinking about what songs there are about California or San Francisco, so I listened to a few songs on YouTube. And just now I was thinking about how warm it must be in the Bay Area right now, comparatively.

That being said, there's obviously a list of things that I could do to "fix" this. I put fix in quotations just becuase I'm honestly a bit skeptic that it'd fix the problem. I think the "fixes" would be short term fixes, but the feelings would once again appear in time. For example, I can reach out to the other ALTs and hang out with them to get my fix of English in for the day, but then what about after that? I could be advised to just speak with my coworkers and not be afraid of making mistakes or interrupting them, but I'm quite shy with folks that I don't really feel comfortable with, so it's easier said than done. It's not like someone could tell the folks in my base school to just speak more English with me -- I wouldn't really want to force that on them just to make my life easier. I'm the sort of person that, as bad as it might be on myself, doesn't want to "burden" others by asking favors, or asking them to do something on my behalf. So, I'm sort of in a pickle.

But rather than being cynical and talking about all the negativity about my situation, I need to just find a way to change my mindset, or simply gamansuru (ENG: to endure) because I know, in time, this feeling'll pass.

Apart from all the ranting, there are some key takeaways for people who are thinking about living abroad in a non-English speaking country or doing the JET Program.

1. Homesickness is real - don't assume that you won't get it. You'll see it pop up in different forms. You might not miss people... you might miss your hometown in general and just the general feeling of being in your comfort zone. You'll be finding yourself in your awesome, inexpensive apartment thinking that it's way too quiet, it's way too cold, and that you wish you were home.
2. Don't expect that your Japanese coworkers or EVEN YOUR JTEs will have conversational English. This is something I assumed prior to the JET program, and while I wasn't entirely wrong, the JTEs don't have the English level that I was expecting, and they weren't as excited for me to be there as I was expecting either. What I expected from the JET Program didn't match up exactly with what I am now experiencing. You might be finding yourself at your desk inbetween classes just looking at your desk if you didn't bring work to do / don't have any work to do since you don't want to disturb your coworkers / cannot speak English.
3. Assume a certain level of uncomfortability at the workplace and in day-to-day life if you can't speak or read Japanese. There is a chance that you'll be placed in a small city, town, or village that doesn't have many accommodations for those who speak English. You'll need to get accustomed to what your bus stop's kanji looks like and how it sounds just to get to and from home, you'll probably be trying to look for something at a grocery store, going aisle to aisle just to find it, and if you meet some nice old lady who's speaking your region's dialect you might not be able to respond. It's pretty stressful.

As a parting gift, here's one of the songs I was just listening to before I wrote this post... I actually have never heard of them before, but I really enjoy the song / music video!