Home Sweet Air-Conditioned Home

I apologize in advance for the orientation of the pictures...I'm running out of time and this isn't the most sophisticated blog editor. :(











































Since I last made an entry in my blog, our life here in Tsurusaki has DRASTICALLY improved, thanks in large part to the servicemen from Best Denki. Our new air conditioning unit works like a charm. We’re sleeping peacefully in a temperature controlled environment, with the windows closed and the curtains pulled tight. It’s been nice to finally be able to relax in our own home. AND with all that cool air blowing through, we’ve been able to clean up a bit, do our laundry, and cook meals! Nice, yeah? On our little trip to Oita the other day, we also stopped into a 100-yen shop to pick up a few things for our apartments. We got dish towels, air fresheners, a laundry basket, garbage cans, slippers, towel rods, tupperware, ziploc bags, hangers, and much more...all kinds of good stuff...and we only spent about $30! 100-yen shops are amazing here...much better than the Dollar Tree back home. This one was 5 floors, each packed to the brim with all kinds of useful junk.






Our jobs as office-weasels have also started to take shape. My 30-minute bike ride in the sweltering heat of the morning doesn’t seem so bad as long as I pack my sweat towel (which, by the way, is totally socially acceptable here...even kind of expected). The only tricky bit is the steep hill at the end. Even the kids have to get off their bikes and push. I hiked in behind a student this morning and he was huffing and puffing...so I don’t feel like such a wuss. My supervisor--along with basically every other teacher at the school--has been out on vacation these last two days. Yesterday it was just the Vice Principal and myself here. I sat at my desk and worked on lesson plans...and he started washing windows at around 8:15. I offered to help him, but he told me, “No, no. This is my hobby.” Apparently he enjoys it quite a lot, too...’cause he kept going for (I kid you not) five hours. He was dressed in khaki pants, a bright yellow t-shirt, and for the majority of the day, had a towel tied around his head. During the time that he wasn’t crawling around on the counters washing windows, he had his bare feet propped up on his desk while he listened to music on his laptop. I’m still trying to figure out what the dress code is here, but it seems pretty casual. That should be good for me. I don’t like ties...but I love towels.

He ended up calling my supervisor at around 12:30 and telling me to go home since nobody was here and there was really nothing to do. But...I stayed and worked until about 2:00 (when they finally turned on the AC) so I wouldn’t look like I was too eager to get out of here. I also missed lunch yesterday on account of I didn’t know where to eat. I had leftover curry stashed in one of my desk drawers, but I wasn’t sure if it was kosher to eat at my desk. So...instead of asking the VP (whose English is...“maybe not so good”), I just waited until I got home. (I did ask him in Japanese before I left, though, and he said everybody eats at their desks, so...good for me)

I’m typing this blog entry at work, by the way...I’ve been here for over an hour now, and there’s still nobody else in the office.

You can tell how busy I am by how clean my desk is...




but we’re not all so tidy here in the land of the rising sun. Check out my neighbor. Eeesh...I’d hate to have his job.



Anyhoo...after work Tori and her supervisor, Watanabe-sensei, were waiting for me in our apartment so that we could go back to Best Denki and apply for Internet service. We applied for an account with Yahoo! BroadBand, but we’re not sure whether or not we’ll get it yet. It’s kind of a tricky situation right now...we still don’t have our Alien Registration Cards (and won’t until at least the 24th...maybe not until after the 31st), so we can’t get cell phones and we may not be able to get the Internet. Even if Yahoo!BB accepts us, we’ll have to wait 3 weeks for the modem to be sent to our apartment. So...it looks like we’ll be going to Starbucks for a little while longer.

I realize y’all haven’t really seen any pictures of our town, so last night we walked around with the intent of taking some pictures of our city, but didn’t end up with a whole lot. We got a shot of the super market (called Marushokku) just a block from our house.







We got some novelty tourist shots of us eating the window displays.


We got some photos of the vending machines right across the street from our apartment.


And, most importantly, we got some photos with a kooky old man we met on the street. As he was passing, he caught our eye and we said “Konbanwa.” That, as it turned out, may have been a mistake. We thought it was Japanese for “Good evening,” but apparently it really means “Hey, we’re fluent in Japanese and we really want to hear your life story. Could you please stay here and tell us about yourself for no less than 15 minutes?”

The dude talked our ear off...but we couldn’t understand hardly anything he was saying. He was talking at light-speed and WOULD NOT STOP. About a minute into the conversation, he whipped out a copy of the Asahi Shinbun (one of the more popular Japanese newspapers) and there he was on the cover! We think he’s either 85...or he’s been teaching for 85 years...or he’s the oldest man alive or something. But...I DO know he got to meet the Prime Minister...and um...he’s the number one something. Also, he started studying English three years ago, so he can understand a word or two.


I don’t think he had any idea that we didn’t know what was going on. Every sentence ended in “desu ne” which is kind of a plea for confirmation...so we just kept nodding and saying, “Hai. Hai. Hai.” For the middle ten minutes, Tori and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Hell, we didn’t even TRY to stop laughing. He was just so excited to be talking to us, he could hardly contain himself.

Toward the end of the conversation, it stopped being funny and we just wanted to know if it would ever end. A few people passed by and gave us surprised/sympathetic looks, but nobody rescued us. He was blown away with how tall I was (compared to him), so we took a photo...then he gave us his business card and started to walk away. FREEDOM!! Wrong. He came back not two seconds later! This time he just wanted us to sign his card, though. I think he wanted our address, too, but I told him I couldn’t remember it, so that was the end of that. For the rest of the night, we kept our eyes away from passers-by.

Today in the office has been almost entirely uneventful (It’s now 1:00 and I’ve been here for 5 hours). I did, however, get to meet Messy Desk Man. His name is Naoki Hyoudo and he’s one of my English teachers (for simplicity’s sake, though...we’ll just keep calling him Messy Desk Man). Surprisingly, his English wasn’t all that good. He stayed for...maybe 5 minutes, then left. As did all 3 of the other teachers who have come in today.

In other news...I just met another one of the teachers. His name is Kazuyuki Uesugi and he works for the Architecture Department. His English is basically non-existent, so we just struggled through a short conversation in Japanese...him trying to dumb things down a bit, me fighting to find a few words. But...it was worth it. I think he really appreciated the effort.

By the by...here's a picture of our city in the daytime...taken from my school.


We’re going to be at a summer camp for the next 3 days and may not be able to write again until we get back. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they have Internet access, though. It’d be nice to not have to sit in Starbucks to check my email and update my blog.

Until next time...