Mullet bikes, $115 'Levy's jeans and purple convertables

Colette and Annie played in the water today by the baby shrine (see the next post for more about that). The coastline here reminded me a bit of Hawaii, it had small islands and outcroppings mixed with sandy beaches. I'm very excited to go back when we have our swimming suits!
Here's Nicolle teaching her favorite class, a class of adults. No crying, no dirty diapers, no snotty noses or wild 4 year olds, just sensible, interested adults who can follow most of what she teaches. Here she's asking what they would like to do if they were to visit the USA.
Is it a moped . . . or a bullet bike . . . maybe a mullet bike? For those who want to look cool but still have their feet safely planted.
Beanies are cool even if it's a sweltering summer day, if you have a purple convertable. You can't tell from the picture but it's metal-flake paint and very nice rims. This OG's buddy tripped on his lowriding shorts on the way around the back of the store, I guess they worked there. He looked around to make sure no one was watching but didn't see us in our little 3-door car, not cool enough to be noticed.
Colette was not happy to be in the car. On Saturdays we've been driving an hour to Takamatsu for a half-hour lesson, then another hour right back. Nicolle has classes before and after with exactly an hour between for the commute, so there's no time for sightseeing or shopping in Takamatsu, which is about 4 times the size of Marugame. But we worked it out so that I'll teach the classes before and after, so Nicolle can take the car to Takamatsu early and/or stay there after her class is over to see sights or shop; her next class won't be for 3 hours later now. Too bad we can't all be there together, but it's not worth Colette's unhappiness (and screaming) to put her in a carseat for two hours on hot Saturday mornings.
Today we ate out with Daron and Lori. They're very nice and showed us a place sort of like a Japanese Denny's, it has western-type foods (hamburgers, pasta, etc) and Japanese food. I got curry rice and brisket, Nicolle got a chicken and cheese with tomato sauce thing, both were very good. I'm glad we have a place to take people now when we have visitors. Also we found a nice used clothing store, but a bit pricey. I was wondering why the "Levy" jeans were behind glass until I saw the price tags, over 100$ each, just for ratty old faded Levy jeans, many with holes in the knees. They weren't special low-cut or stylish levys, just plain old levys you might see a farmer wearing in rural Utah. I also saw some leather shoes for 200$. There was a 3$ rack outside which Nicolle picked out a cute shirt from. Had I known how much Levy jeans go for, I would've filled my suitcase with them.

Today Daron and Lori invited us to go with them to the baby shrine, which is only open two days out of the whole year. Pistured is Daron and his baby Annie, on the left. His father is Japanese (like 4th generation or something) and he's been studying Japanese so he knew more than any of us, he explained a few things about it. Pictured is the last quarter of a long boardwalk from the coastline over the water to reach the small island which houses the shrine. Lori said that up until a few days ago, the boards were missing. Apparently they only put down the boards between the stone pillars once a year.
Here's a view up inside the shrine. They had a ceremony later with drumming and music. At the back you can see the final stairs ascending to a small room, they're covered in white cloth.
Before crossing the boardwalk, we washed our hands in this water, including Colette and annie's hands. We did it to be respectfull as it is customary.
This was another small shrine at the top of the stairs.
I was excited to see beaches with swimmers along the coast on the way there. The shrine was anly 20 minutes from the school downtown, so swimmable beaches are nearer than I'd thought. The water wasn't pristine clean and clear like Hawaii or Costa Rica, but for me a beach is a beach. Daron says that the open seawater on the south or eastern sides of the island are cleaner, but it wasn't too bad, seemed like the Mediterranean sea to me. The coastline we've seen up to now has been port coastline, full of barges, rocks, docks, etc; not very nice to go swimming. I was very happy to see a more natural coastline so near Marugame. You can bet I'll be there with Colette during the hot month ahead of us, while Nicolle teaches at the school.

Tonight I went and played a few songs at a small Jazz bar downtown near the school. There was a trio playing tonight consisting of the owner on bass, a pianist and guitar player. I played "Lover Man" and "Doxy". I was very well recieved, I think mostly because of the novelty of having a real American sax player wowed them more than my actual abilities, they were all decent players; hopefully I can get a group together to play weddigns or parties in the area. He asked me to come back next week to play the full set. I'm not sure if he'll pay me or if it's just a free jam session, I guess I'll find out. It's hard to communicate, the bartender knew the most English of all of them, which still wasn't too much. I asked him if the group plays at weddings or parties, he kept repeating "wedding party" and saying "yes" so I guess they do, I'm not sure. The cafe owner upstairs speaks fluent English so I told the owner I'd email him and she could translate, I think he understood. I've gotta get cracking on my Japanese!

Mini-frogs and Coca-Colas

Here's a baby frog Colette and I spotted sitting on some moss at the base of some rice, the little speck. Tadpoles scatter when you walk past the edge of a rice field.
We bought this coke just to illustrate the differences in portion sizes here. They do have normal sized sodas as well, but nothing like the 40 oz monstrosities common in the states.
Colette looked too sute in her pajamas to resit the urge to shoot.
Colette likes to swing. This park was ok except for under one climbing thing there were hoards of Japanese wasps. I watched a documentary on them on Animal Planet once, a group of about 30 wasps attack beehives, decapitating the bees by the hundreds each, then carting off the larvae to feed their young. They have power-ranger-like heads so they are easily recognizable. We stayed away from that side of the park.

Climbing Little Fuji

Today I took Colette to climb what people call Marugame's "Little Fuji". There are many mountains in Japan called Little Fuji named after the much larger and more famous one. Yesterday I attempted the climb but ran out of time and had to turn back so Nicolle would be on time for work. This picture is of the two of us after we'd started the trek up the mountain. We'd biked to the base from our house, a few miles away.
Here's a view of little Fuji from near our home, taken yesterday when it was a little clearer. These lilypad leaves are each over 2 feet across.
Taking a break at a bamboo bench by the trail. Carrying Colette up a mountain reminded me of when Dad would carry us when we were younger. Now I'm the sweaty red-faced father and the complaining child is my baby. She was pretty good except near the top she got tired of being on my shoulders (she got tired of being in the baby carrier about 1/2 way up). We saw lots of butterflies and birds so she was generally entertained. Also most of the trail is shaded by overhanging trees so it wasn't too hot for the baby. It's been hot here but nothing like the sweltering Texas July we left behind.
A nice man took our picture at the top. There wasn't really a view from the top, it was pretty smoggy and besides there were thick trees all around. There were a multiple shrines around the summit. As we climbed up the trail, each person or group we saw went crazy when they saw Colette, all saying "kawai" of course. I've found that people are more friendly if I greet them in Japanese and bow my head as we approach each other, then most start saying other things in Japanese then when they see I don't understand most switch to English. Most don't speak fluently but know a few simple phrases. It's refreshing how nice and friendly people are, contrasted with Americans' indifference to others they meet in the street. They seem like wise grandfathers, aunts, etc, who are very happy to see you, possibly for a chance to practice their English, but even if they don't speak English they are very happy to see us.
Besides the main trail which we took, there were smaller steeper trails leading off in all directions from the top, which crossed our trail which spiralled around the whole cone, giving us many views as we climbed.
Also on top were a few cats which a pair of ladies fed while we were there. Colette was very interested and we fed them a little snack from another bamboo bench.
Here's a view about 1/3 of the way down of the surroundings. Yesterday when I made my first attempt I couldn't find the trailhead in the midst of an elaborate shrine. I met an old man who said he'd been a junior high English teacher 20 years before but now was a farmer. He said that the shrine was his family shrine which he maintained. Then he showed me a hidden shortcut to the trailhead behind the shrine, I followed the stone steps up and around to the main trail. It reminded me of the secret stairs from Lord of the Rings, except a lot shorter.
Between biking to the base and carrying Colette to the top and back, I was pretty tired when we made it back to our bikes. Luckily nearby was a vending machine and I bought a drink which boasted 9 amino acids, it was very good. There are vending machines all over the place, along a deserted stretch of the road, by some random house, etc. They sell everything from cigarrettes to t-shirts, so I've heard. I've only seen vending machines that sell beer, food, drinks, and cigarrettes so far.
Colette refuses to ever be put down, or not have 100% of my attention on her for even a second, unless it's really enterntaining stuff, like Sesame Street or some other show involving muppets. Anything that keeps her occupied for even only a few moments is great, so while I do the dishes I set up a chair so she can help. She got really involved tonight so I had to throw another towel down, she's still learning how not to throw the dishes on the floor after she bangs them around in the sink a little.
I stopped by a Jazz club near the school downtown today, and luckily ran into the owner along with someone who speaks fluent English. I gave him a card and he invited me to sit in with a group that's playing Saturday. I've been practicing a bit but Colette doesn't allow it for very long, not even while she sits in the crook of my arm anymore. I'm not sure it's worth the effort to keep my chops up, if it means a crying baby who feels so sad because Daddy's not giving her 100%, so we'll see what happens. I've been content the past few months to not have to worry about keeping up and developing my sax chops. but it would be nice to make a little extra money and since I'm a blond-haired blue-eyed American it could be a sort of a novelty which could allow them to overlook my rough sound from not practicing so much.
I also emailed some modeling agencies about Colette. It seems that there should be some way to capitalize on how cute everyone thinks she is. We really stand out here, the only non-Japanese I ever see work at our and one other English school, and they live in another town. As far as I can tell the agencies are mostly in Tokyo or Osaka, but there may be something in Takamatsu, an hour's drive away. It would be nice to supplement our income and pay off our student loans sooner, besides the fun of trying something new. Since we have a family work visa we're covered as far as documents go, too!

Some pictures

Colette LOVES bike rides.


There can never be too many pictures of Colette as far as I am concerned. Especially if they are of her being helpful. Here she is helping daddy keep the front entry way clean for the shoes. This is were the shoes stay while we are in the house.
This picture is mostly for dad. It is impossible to describe how massive this bridge is. I have more pictures dad if you want them. Of course we will take you to it when you come, it is really close and has a neat museum all about how they built it.
Colette the tourist. She loves to put things with straps or handles around her neck/arm and drag them around. Here she has Melissa's camera.

Questions

My sister Elisa had some questions so I will answer them here just in case anyone else was wondering.
This house is only about 2 blocks away from ours. Rob and I don't actually know if it is a house or some kind of shrine, in any case it is gorgeous. There are big beautiful japanese houses like this mixed in with more "modern" ones all over our neighborhood. As far as the food goes..lets see, the milk costs the equivalent of $1.50 but you only get 1000 ml. To me it tastes like the milk in Costa Rica, a tiny bit sweet. another example of the tiny portion sizes is the bread. It is delicious but you only get4 or 5 slices per loaf, especially since they are packaged without the ends. The 4 slices of bread only costs about $1 to $3. When Joey and Melissa were still here we went to Moss burger. Each burger was $2 to $4 and they were about 1/2 the size of burgers in America. Oh that is another thing. No one calls the US anything but America. It seems kinda funny to me.

Here is a bike we saw on our first day here. I didn't know what the handlebar covers were for, I assumed it was to keep them clean. Instead I later learned that it is to keep the user as pale as possible. If you look carefully you can see the hat in the basket. The women wear massive sun hats, long sleeves, long pants and sometimes even scarves when riding their bikes. But it is not just old ladies trying to keep pale. I have only seen a few men taking drastic measures, but I often see young women with long "driving gloves" and enormous hats even in the awful heat. Then there's Rob who goes out to do yard work at noon shirtless, or buys sunless taning lotion.
Anyway, as far as teaching goes, for the first week Rob and Colette went with me to most of the places but now they stay home most of the time. Rob teaches at least a couple of times a week, mostly at the "bilingual kindergarten".

more and more

Here's our tiny stove..it works great.

Here's another view of the tatami room. That's a little table in the corner, great for dinners or tea.

Here's Colette helping daddy wash the dishes. What a great helper!


Our tiny fridge. We don't have enough food to fill it up anyway.

Here's our oven/microwave. It has special settings to work as either. I haven't tried to bake anything yet, someday I will give it a shot.

more of the house

It posts the pictures backwards...oh well, this is the sunroom, well half of it, looking out to the driveway from the tatami room. The sunroom gets really hot, that is why we have the clothes hanging up.


Another view of the sunroom, it looks like a resale shop with all of our clothes hanging up like that.





This is one view of the tatami room. Behind the curtains is the sunroom. We try to keep them closed so that the tatami room doesn't get so hot. The bedroom and the living room have ac's but the rest of the house doesn't so we do what we can to keep the rooms cool. Since so much of the house is wood it smells like a sauna.

This house our house

Well as requested here are some pictures of the house...
The picture on the left is the hall, the first door on the right is the wash room (pictured on the bottom left), the second door is the toilet (pictured top right). The door at the end is the bed room (pictured to the left).

It has all been said

It was a good thing that I worked for a little bit before we came, if not I might have had a nervous breakdown;) Some days I have as many as 8 clases, some in the next city over so it takes an hour to get there just to teach for an hour or even a half hour and then I have to drive for an hour back. Supposedly it will only be this crazy for the rest of August, then it will settle back down. So far I like teaching, I think I would like it more if there were more of a curriculum. Right now I don't know the students very well or what they are capable of so it is hard to plan a "lesson". Hopefully I will figure it out soon so I don't stress out so much. Colette seems so big now, she tries talking a lot more, and she has a lot of facial expressions and emotions. The other day when I was "teaching" at the kindergarten she got jealous because I was holding one of the other babies. She started swatting at him and he in turn swatted back at her. It was not fun. I think that I have discovered that I like teaching the adults more than the small children. The adults are respectful and cooperative, and even though the kids are cute it is physically demanding to have to pay so much attention to so many children at once. Also many of the children are the only child in their family so they don't know how to share or wait their turn. I don't mean to give the wrong impression I do enjoy teaching, I just need to get settled and I think it will be easier.

The grocery store

In the grocery store you can choose your own live fish to take home and eat. Colette makes lots of friends with her golden hair, I guess she was more interesting than the fish for this little boy. We saw a truck on the freeway with a big tank on the back which said live fish, Iguess they supply the grocery stores.
If you look closely you can see the 9800 yen price tag, roughly $100. These aren't for eating, but for gifts; grown in special glass containers, they keep for up to a year. Fruits are very expensive here, as aqre vegetables. They seem to care for their produce individually like in "Search for the Ware-rabbit" or something, the fruits are packaged individually in these little nets almost like crochetted sweaters made of styrofoam string. A peach usually costs over $3, and the bag of 4 carrots I bought today cost about the same. Limes are $1 each.
Here's Colette next to some packaged octopus. One of the students gave us octopus dumplings, they tasted much like squid I've had before, pretty rubbery.

I went grocery shopping today while Nicolle was teaching, using the bike which has a sort of baby seat in the back which I strapped her into. It even has little mini handlebars for Colette to hold on to. She absolutely loves riding back there, but since we went in the middle of the day she got sleepy halfway there and zonked out, so I had to carry her and walk the bike the rest of the way. Our little part of town has many rice fields and tiny little roads divide them. Cars give bikes the right of way here so I feel much safer riding a bike than I would in the

Hello again, whoever's reading. I thought I'd send a few more photos tonight. Above is the entrance to a buddist temple, they are all over the place, small ones maintained by the local community. I walked inside too but not for long because I wasn't sure what was appropriate. They are very well cared for and have beatifull stone carvings and plants.
Here are some of the morning "bilingual kindergarten" kids. In the morning we are more like day care workers than English teachers, the ones who come for the summer special aren't as used to the whole thing and sometimes cry the whole 4 hours they're here. Plus Colette won't stand for anything but being held all the time, so my arm was pretty dead after teaching the 4 1/2 hour class. It's ok though because it's only till the end of August, then things will slow back down as the kids are not on "vacation" anymore and will go to their regular school. I only teach the kindergarten on Fridays, but Nicolle teaches them every day. They are very cute and loving kids and fun to play with but they all want shoulder rides from me, some of the chubby ones are very heavy!
Coleete gets mad when someone tries to take a ball away, or even touch one she's playing with. She's going through an adjustment as we focus our attention on other kids. She only allows me to teach or play with other kids if I'm holding her so that it's clear she's the favorite, otherwise she gets upset. She has gotten much more sociable since we came here, and took after Melissa right away, even letting her carry her around. The other couple who teach at the same school as we do have a 9 month old baby and I can see that they will be fast friends.

Colette in front of the Marugame Modern art museum. There are a lot of stairs and a fountain, so she likes this place.
Here's another view of the castle, from across the moat. The moat is actually pretty wide, I'm not sure how deep. Out of all the original towers, only one remains; so the castle isn't nearly as big as it would have been in its glory days.
Driving is becoming more comfortable, but the right of way rules are opposite of the US rules in some cases, which is very strange. For example if I am approaching an intersection where I have no stop sign but the crossing road does, and I must turn, a car at the stop sign can go across my path before I turn. It was very confusing today when that happened.
Things work differently here. For example, rather than paying a tax or fee for garbage collection, they just make it a requirement that you use official government trash bags, which cost about $4 for a small pack of 8 bags. These yellow bags are the only ones the garbage collectors will pick up, so you have to buy them. Another example is the air- conditioning of a house. Each room has its own air conditioning unit, which sits on the ground outside of the house, not hangind awkwardly from the side or from a window. Rather than wasting a lot of A/C on rooms you're not occupying, you only use the ones you need.
Nicolle is very tired from teaching all day and goes to sleep with the baby about 9pm or earlier. I had thought that taking care of the baby would leave me a lot of free time to practice my sax, or learn Japanese, or whatever else. This is harder than I'd thought, so today after trying to practice while Colette fell asleep in my arms (I can play the sax while Colette's sitting on my left arm) I gave up and watched Japanese TV for a while. They have some strange shows. Lots of obstacle-course shows with contestants swimming, jumping on trampolines which bounce them onto big floating pads, climbing over walls, running across log-tightropes etc; it's like a live scene from super mario brothers. The game show sets are crazy, with huge bubbles, flashing stars and arrows, moving glittering objects everywhere. And the celebrity's hairdos are out of this world. Imagine the anime cartoons' hairdos in real life. Many colors, and usually sticking straight up at crazy angles.
Most people in the street are using umbrellas or visors and gloes to make sure they don't get tan. It's kindof strange to see a 60 year old woman in a dress riding a moped with an umbrella. Or a middle-aged man on a bycicle the size of a kid's dirtbike. Today we saw a crazy bullet-biker on a small bike with an Elvis hairdo and a huge hunter-orange seat on the back. He revved his tiny engine (maybe hoping to fill the back seat with an impressed schoolgirl) and drove off, Nicolle commented that he'd be laughed at with such a small-engined bike back in the states. All the cars have tiny wheels and are very skinny but normal height, making them look really funny to me, they look squashed. Most cars are square and look like miniature versions of the Honda Element.
Well I'm off to bed, tomorrow's another normal school day, even though it's Saturday.

This is a view facing east from the West side of Marugame castle, one of only 8 existing castles in Japan. I climbed to the top while Nicolle was teaching nearby in the downtown school. Although overcast, it was a hot day and Colette was fast asleep in my arms, so I was dripping by the time we made it to the top. For 100 yen (about a buck) you can go inside, but I saved that for another day when someone else was there with me who'd appreciate it. The castle mound has many tiers and levels, I imagined as I climbed up that the peasants lived outside the moat, the nobles on the upper levels, and various grades in between. I doubt the royals ever actually had to climb this for themselves, probably people carried them to the top. Here I saw a huge bird of prey with big feathery legs with monster sized talons soaring just above the other side of the castle.

These are some tombstones along the bank of one of the many irrigation lakes in our area. The backs open up to place the urns of deceased loved ones, many urns can be placed in the same monument. If you look closely at this sign, you'll see a warning to would-be-frogcatchers that there are boy-eating fish in the lakes, pictured is a boy with a net splashing around on lilypads trying to catch a little frog, with a large fish with sharp teeth about to grab him. On the other side of the lake is a similar sign, with the boy after a butterfly. I thought it must be to scare the kids because of how dirty the water must be or the risk of drowning, but when I was walking around the reservour Sunday morning, I hear a large splash, and looked over just in time to see something really big, not like big for a trout big; more like big for a dog big. I thought must have been one of the huge herons something but nothing ever surfaced again. I walked over to the area and saw a hole about the size of a car door in the thick cover of lilypad-like plants. Whatever it was I'm not going to be dangling my feet in the water anytime soon.

The lake was surrounded by huge birds of prey as well. They would swoop down and grab things out of the water, making shrill cries. For how tame the Japanese seem, there sure are a lot of wild things around them.
These mirrors are set up at every corner and most intersections. They are the only way to be able to tell if a car is coming around the corner, and since in many places only one car fits, they are absolutley necessary. The roads are impossibly narrow, they seem more like back alleys. Downtown there are two lanes going each way, but out in the country where we live there are some stretches where you have to go one at a time with oncoming traffic, waiting your turn and backing out when necessary to let someone past. usually you can find a driveway to help fit more than one car through. Since there are no curbs between the road and the few feet down into the rice paddies, it's very important to slow down when attempting to pass someone, not that anyone does.
This is some of the rice growing near our house. It is a beautiful shade of green, and planted in perfect rows evenly spaced. The bases are completely submerged, and tadpoles and mosquitoes breed in the water.
I must admit I feel a bit like the main character on "Spirited Away" as she gets put to work in a strange and magical new place. This picture was taken in a passageway beneath some fountains, a hidden passageway under a waterfall leading into another part of a meticulously-cared-for park. On the other side was a large dragon head carved from a stone the size of a car, set atop a stone column surrounded by perfectly pruned hedges.

This was our dinner sunday. Very tasty, you fry up all your food on the grill sitting in the center of the table. The only downside to it was sitting on your knees for over an hour, something I'm still not used to. The polite way to sit here is on your knees with your feet straight back and the tops of your feet flat on the floor, nothing crossed. Joey and Melissa are in the picture as well, they were about the nicest people we've ever met. They opened their home to us and showed us all around town, going with us to classes and even making dinner for us. They are on their way to Hawaii right now, I hope they have a great vacation before diving back into school at BYU this fall.
I can't believe it's only 10 pm, Nicolle and Colette went to bed hours ago. Our jet lag worked out well for us and we've been getting up now at about 6:30 am. When we got back this evening I unpacked the rest of our stuff and cleaned the house, it feels like our home now. I like the hardwood floors and the sliding wooden doors. I have yet to experiemnt with the remote-controlled toilet, Joey translated the buttons for me before he left. One feature is an adjustable stream of water, you control the direction and strength with arrows on the remote. There are two types of jets, a water-massage for your heiney, and hot air afterwards. There's also a heat option for the winter. I don't understand the need for a remote since the buttons are right there. Maybe to get things going those cars you can start from inside your house or something.

Tomorrow will be another busy day, and since our days off are Monday and Sunday, it's not really the weekend until Saturday night. After August our hectic schedule will slow down into the normal routine, right now there are many extra "summer special" classes at a discounted rate to get kids interested and promote the school. Our boss Fumiyo works morning till night every day except Sunday, I think she loves to be busy all the time. The typical Japanese worker is scheduled to until 5pm but all are expected to stay until 7, if someone were to leave early they would be ostersized at work and people would speak badly of them. It was only 20 years ago that the normal workweek was reduced to 5 days rather than 6, and although labor laws say there shouldn't be unpaid overtime they aren't enforced. We were teaching a 59 year old man who will retire next year, and I asked him about his retirement. He said that he will used this years and last years' paid vacation time just before he retires. That didn't seem abnormal, until we asked him how often he'd used his vacation time during his lifetime working for his company. They get 20 days per year, and what they don't use goes into the next year, but if not used by the third year they're gone. He said he's never used more than 1 or 2 days per year, and only for sick leave, not vacation. He said that few if any use their paid vacation time, to use the full 20 days would be disgracefull, he said they'd think he was lazy. He's a manager in an engineering company. It's ok for those retiring to use their vacation days just before they leave though, so he plans on using all 40.

The past two days have been very hot and muggy. Colette and I got a little sunburned today on a walk while Nicolle was teaching in a nearby town. Colette still refuses to entertain herself, and must be either carried or led along as she walks around in search of a ball or a stuffed animal, preferably a doggie. Her hair is supercurly and the longer it gets the more it sticks out in the sides and back. Somehow the top stays straight, it looks like my hair di after wearing a hat all day, but much cuter of course. I hear "Kawai", the Japanese word for cute everywhere I take the baby. It's about the only Japanese I understand.

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

Losing my mind

We leave in exactly 4 days, and the stress is getting to me. We just got back from visiting my sister in Arlington and the entire drive here Colette screamed. Needless to say I am not too excited about the 18+ hour trip to Marugame. Still it will be great to finally get there. We are going to Japan! It is still a little hard to believe.
It was hard to say goodbye to all of our good friends at our Spanish Branch today, the only thing that got me through it was the promise that they will write to us. We still have a ton of things to do so I will write more later.