Marugame is beautiful

Our first full day in Japan was a lot of fun. We participated in the classes which Joey (who's place Nicolle is taking) taught the classes, ranging in age from young kids to adults, in seperate classes during the day. There's usually a break for an hour or two between classes, and there are a few different locations which serve as classrooms; from the room above our boss' garage to a classroom in the upscale newspaper building in Marugame, which has an art museum on the first floor.
In between classes we ate at a noodle bar, Marugame is famous across Jap[an for the best "udon" noodles, a thick noodle about a foot and a half long. We sat around low tables cross-legged on the mats, it was fun and different. The noodles reminded me a bit of Wagamama's in London, except less colorful and salty, which may be Western variations to the food, kindof like tex-mex or something as opposed to authentic Mexican food.
Our house is gorgeus. I was prepared for a tiny shack, so was happy to see a clean and neatly designed house with wood floors throughout, and interesting sliding doors instead of swinging doors. It uses space well and the large doors make it easy to convert two rooms into one big room, or offers multiple ways of heating or cooling the house, allk very energy-conscious. There is a sun room completely made of glass except where it connects to the house, which I'm told gets very hot in the latter part of the summer and cold in the winter. There's also a traditional Japanese hosting room, a tatami, with mats and a low table. All the shoes stay in the entryway when you enter the house, which makes it feel like you're entering into some sort of temple or something. When people come to visit we can have a meal or two there son the mats, but there's also a regular dining table in the kitchen. There are fans and individual A/C units in each room of the house. There are 3 individual rooms, plus the kitchen and sunroom, so there's plenty of places for people to sleep if they want to come and visit.
Immediately outside the house is a large field of planted rice. There are rice patties (sp?) all around our part of town, but rather than being a poor area like I'd expected the houses are pretty nice. Some are really cool, with traditional gardens and stones, and most houses have sculpted bushes, trees, and flowers.
This morning we woke up about 5 am and went for a walk around the neihborhood. We passed by some shrines/monuments set up where people place the urns with ashes after their loved ones pass away. There was one on the edge of a huge irrigation reservour. We walked around its rim with others who were walking their dogs, watching the huge cranes/herons whatever they are fly away as we got closer. there were also big hawks or some other birds of prey hanging out on the power poles, maybe after the loud frogs croaking away in the water. There were a few frogs on the roof of the sunroom this evening as well.
The classes have been pretty small so far, and since it's summer vacation for the kids a lot of kids aren't showing up. I don't think there are any classes above 15, but today the largest was the adult class of about 7 people. Nicolle will have to tell you more about that since I'm only going to be teaching a few classes a week (including a kindergarten class!).
Joey and Melissa have been very nice to let us stay in their house until they go back home on Thursday. They have a two year old who Colette's a little nervous about when he gets overly excited. Colette's schedule a little messed up so she's been honery today at times, but for the most part interestd in the usual stairs and exploration. We went to a used clothing store for kids where we bought her some shoes which squeek when she steps, whichI don't think she'll ever wear because they are so offensively loud. She was very excited about them thought and we walked around together a bunch before a class started and I took them off of her to not completely disrupt the class.
Joey says that 70% of the country is wilderness in Japan, that there are bears and all sorts of wild animals here. Most of the population is concentrated on the coasts, with the mountanous interiors of the islands largely uninhabited. It would be interesting to go camping in the mountains here.
Everything here seems to be designed to conserve energy and waste as little as possible. The grocery stores are different, instead of having huge amounts of produce, meatsd, etc; there are smaller packages and fewer sitting out. Portion sizes are smaller. Apparently health care is only about $75 a month for the whole family, and the governemnt will deposit $200 every once in a whilke into our account just for having a child. Our car is a boxy looking thing with three doors, only the left side has a back door. Joey and Melissa picked up a nice big carseat for the baby at the freecycle place. Joey says the car gets about 35-40 miles tothe gallon. The top speed we will go anywhere is about 50 km per hour, so not very fast, but the narrow roads without curbs drop 2 feet down right into water-filled rice patties, so it doesn't seem free of risk. There are big round mirrors set on poles at every corner so you can see if someones coming, and the streets in many places are barley large enough for one car, so people often have to back into a driveway or completely out of a street to tlet someone past. Neither of us have driven yet, needless to say we're a littel worried about it.
We're also a little worried about getting to all the appointments we need to find. There are no street names nor signs, so you just have to remember how to get there using landmarks (past the haridresser take a left, etc). Also nobody uses debit or credit cards, everything is done in cash, especially in a smaller town like ours. Our part of town is fairly rural comparatively but feels more like a busy suberb to me. Downtown Marugame has many tall buildings and feels more like a big city. It's about a 15 minute drive, today we were late so Joey made it in 11. I'm looking forward to using the old beach-cruiser style bikes in the driveway to get around town, one of them has a baby seat. I rode around a bit with Joey and his son after dinner tonight.
The microwave is also an oven, the stove is gas powered, the bathroom is divided into two rooms, the toilet in one (a massive throne with elecronic controls and a remote, with many varied capabilities which I can't read because its all in Japanese) and the sink in another, and the shower/bath in another. the shower isn't actually inside the bathtub, it's next to it. That's because the Japanese family will all take baths in the same water (a bath is an important thing which everyone always does I guess) so they shower off first before soaking in the tub. Reminds me of "Spirited away" a little. Actually everything reminds me of those movies, I hear kids conversations and I remember the movies.
Everyone loves Colette, and strangers come up just to gawk at her and say things which I don't understand. Then they use a bit of broken english to ask how old she is, what's her name, etc. The word for cute is "Kawai" so we hear that a lot.
People dip their heads or bow to each other in their cars, at the store, on the street, or when you meet, rather than waving. People seem to accept handshakes too but mostly just bow.
The bikers and motocyclists have big mitts attached to their handlebars. We thought they must be to protect their hands from cold in the winter but Joey says it's because they don't want them to get tanned. They all wear big hats and some have umbrellas too, instead of tanning lotions they sell whitening lotions at the stores, people want to be as white as possible. All the models in ads are white as the driven snow.
We'll eventually post photos too, but I'm sleepy so I'm off to bed. As far as the phone goes we have a cel phone which can receive calls at no charge to us, and we can call for 3 cents a minute to the states. We'll also have a house phone. As soon as I get those numbers I'll email them to the fam. Our internet will remain connected even after Joey and Melissa leave so we'll be able to email from now on.
Rob