t.p.

all who occasionally use only one square of toilet paper, hands up.....
i thought not. honestly, why do they make the squares so bloody small? it's always 'pull one down, fold it over the next' in the very least. and if it should rip along the first perforation, well now its integrity is compromised, greatly increasing the threat of the dreaded mis-wipe. here the japanese actually do something bigger. t.p. squares are twice the size, and with the wonders of the bedet, one sheet is frequently enough. someone's gotta think of these things.

i dreamt of gulliver's

i had a dream (that one day every valley shall be exalted....no, no..) that gullivers was no longer as it is. i indeed had a dream in which fraser had redirected the focus of gulliver's as a travel accessory & advice shop into a barbecue house. we're talking sizzling grills, meat on spits, and fraser sweating and running around giving people advice about the best way to roast spare ribs. and the best part is that carey was back, having decided that this new direction was indeed worthy of her investment. a couple days later i had a sequel dream in which gullivers specialized in audio-visual electronic equipment. i must've seen about 60 different kinds of video monitors in there. every kind of tv you could want, and every kind of tv with a canada flag on it.....

挙母祭り (koromo festival)

koromo is the name toyota city had before the motor company moved in and made it flourish. a few weekends ago we (nobuko, cleo, and my host siblings) headed to a local park for a festival happening there.
you can see me here making glass beads and eating dead-fish-on-a-stick. that fish came from the river running through the park. things with faces are always tastier when you know where they come from - i can eliminate any ethical nagging in the back of my mind. there was all sorts of traditional stuff: tea ceremony, pottery, some awesome weaving and fabric dying, and later on was a good 3 hours of music.

there was a didgeridoo artist (whom i later talked to and played with), a mexican band, an ocarina band, and finally an all female tyco drum band. only the most traditional imported music for a traditional japanese festival! as the didgeridoo guy (mishima) was playing the moon was rising over the mountain behind the stage through the misty clouds. it was quite eerie to see/hear.

誕生日 (birthday)

my family was kind enough to have a little birthday dinner/cake/gift opening on my birthday. considering how this was a week after i arrived, i found the gesture incredibly outgoing. so, nobuko and hisao - thanks! the day before, during one of our investigatory conversations, nobuko (my host mum) asked me what my favourite colour was, and i replied forest green (midori). so when i opened my gift on the 5th i was surprised that she had indeed gotten me a gorgeous forest green sake set. she apparently, however, had asked me about my favourite colour after she had bought the gift, so i merely missed the relief on her face when she discovered the couldn't have chosen a better colour. we duly introduced the vessel to its intended contents immediately afterward. happy birthday indeed!

bowwwwwling!

doing nothing halfway, the bowling alley by our school is enormous and glitzy. two floors of bowling and another of arcade games. during your bowling game you can choose a song to have played, like a video juke box. i'd like to poll the audience: what do a baboon and bowling have in common? ask the japanese, cuz i had no idea why the nature channel was on during our game.

and after the bowling we hit up a tyco drumming arcade game. kinda like pa rappa the rapper, if you've ever played that, but you have to hit the drum in the right spot/way instead of hitting the right button on the controller. good times y'all.

sustainably wasteful

i can't decide whether the japanese are commendably sustainable or deplorably wasteful. everything here has more packaging than a kosher supermarket, yet they meticulously recycle. the roads are just jammed with cars, yet so many run only on motorcycle engines. are these people concerned with saving the planet, or is it that their density is so high that without such measures the place would be a dump? i'll let you know if i figure it out.

beer food

the japanese have taken the glory that is beer to the next level: in a liquor store you can buy your booze, then pick your favourite munchy from the "beer food" aisle. there is actually a distinct category that is "beer food". i love it. you've got your various nuts, your cheese sand, your dried fish.....it's an enlightened society where you can drop by the liquor store (or convenience store, or grocery store....) and pick up a 6 pack of brown pop and some octopus jerky.

word on the street

i've found it quite startling how spotless everything is here. the streets are barren of trash, and unnervingly few trash cans. beyond garbage, there are 9 types of recycling (not including batteries), so you need a bloody degree just to keep on top of that.
the cars are, predictably, largely quite small (heh heh). the thing is, though, that those that aren't small are monstrous minivans. pickups don't even exist, even pimped out lowered ones. one thing that is universal, however, is that all the cars (and monstrous minivans) are disproportionately tall and skinny. there's no way this kind of headroom is needed for any asian. and being so tall and skinny, they all look so awkward and boxy, zipping aroung on the wrong side of the street.
also predictable in the town of toyota, yet worthy of a moment to stop and go "hmm", is that everyone owns a toyota. i guess it would be accurate to say toyota owns everyone, as all these cars are bought with employee-discounted toyota paychecks.

like a schoolboy

school has begun. and it is just as everyone has been telling me: all the students here (95% women) gawk and giggle, then ask if you can teach them english. never has it been easier to get girls' phone numbers (even after telling them i've been with my girlfriend for 2 years), yet so bloody difficult to find my own number in my new keitai (cell phone). i call my host brother, masato, my keitai sensei - cell phone teacher. on these bloody phones you can watch tv (and there's a tv guide available), email (texting doesn't exist - it's all considered email), chat msn style, listen to the radio, scan bar codes which tell you the company's web site, and my phone even has a built in magnetic thingy that works as a credit card, charging to my phone bill. unreal. not to mention most of the menus are in japanese, even on my bilingual phone.
walking into the cafeteria for the first time i felt like i was the star attraction of a freak show. the room didn't quite go quiet, in fact i'm certain it got that much louder. teeny-bop giggles will do that.
our first class went well - modern japanese society. we'll be studying post war modernization, which means we'll be reading '60s manga and watching movies, analyzing for cultural and technological developments. my kind of class.
i also found out today that the 3 of us have to prepare a halloween party. the japanese don't celebrate halloween, so it's all up to us. i guess this also means that we can create whatever bizarre "traditions" we want.....
other than that it's business as usual, as usual as you can call a class with only 3 of us in it. no less than 4 different japanese classes, history, and society. bring it on.

the beauty of a park

i was taking a stroll through the local park. let me tell you, the mosquitos are pitfully tiny, but equally voracious. and my body is not desensetized to them: i am an itchy boy. this park is quite massive, but one thing i'm discovering (and already knew, i just hadn't put it together) is that the japanese idea of a park isn't pristine forests and babbling brooks; it's tennis courts and gravel squares and concrete enclosed streams. sure there is tons of foliage and green space, but it's all tailored. it's wrapped and pruned and carefully selected. i understand the aesthetic - it really is beautiful to behold- but it doesn't have that feeling, that sense of vibrancy that i'm filled with when i walk through the back forest in violet hill or stanley park. this only goes to solidify my maturing belief in something that nature possesses which is far more than meets the eye. i think that this meticulous tailoring is present not just here, but in everything they create - and this is where their famous diligence comes into play. it is the possibility for any endeavour to become an art, be it designing a compact house, the world's most comfortable toilet (yes, i'm still on about that. the seats are even heated, and it'll blow dry your butt after you bedet yourself), or arranging flowers. thus, when you take on an endeavour in japan you do it with every ounce of energy and experience you can muster. how many other places have lifetime employment? they want someone who's been doing the job for 30 years, because all their experience is in that field. in the case of living with nature, however, the japanese need to read up on aristotle a little: there is, somewhere, a golden mean between tailored beauty and natural beauty that does not exist here. it can be noticed by one who is used to something a little less cultivated and a little more powerful.

day 4

my host family is quite young. and because they are young they don't serve miso soup, eggs, rice, and various pickled substances for breakfast. nope, it's good old fashioned toast and cereal. suits me fine - i was a little worried about rice for breakfast. only all the cereal boxes available are tiny. and the options are frosted flake style or granola. two most excellent choices, to be sure, but limited in scope.
i hadn't considered how tiring it would be to constantly be struggling to communicate. both my host parents speak a decent amount of english, but that still doesn't make it a breeze.
and it's hotter than david hasselhoff's swim trunks here. i sweat at least a little all day, though i can't quite tell the difference between my sweat and the tangible humidity. i can see why the japanese bathe daily. remember "pocari sweat"? well, it's turned into quite the amusing family joke. after explaining to them what "sweat" is they too understand why the concept of drinking it really gets me going. so now when i come home sweating from the heat and the uphill return bike ride i'm not just sweating - i'm pocari sweating.

day 2

awoke bright and early, but not bright enough that i missed my first waking sunrise on japanese soil. compelled to go for a walk at a jet-lagged 5:30am i made my way downstairs in the miniscule elevator of the okazaki grand hotel (not to be confused with the okazaki new grand hotel - much newer, much fancier, next door). i knew i'd have to talk to the reception guy, which pursed my lips after my first cultural mishap last night (the 3 of us - chris, cleo, and i - wanted some dinner, and so headed to the hotel restaurant. with no waiter only a group of japanese businessmen, and a japanese menu at hand we wondered what restaurant-entrance etiquette was. do we take a seat, should we call out, are we expected to conjure a waiter with a subconscious message of repeated bird-like bowing? no idea. luckily, at this point the waiter turned the corner and presented us with our very first bona-fide language gap. nishio sensei, who had picked us up at the airport was gone and had only told us to sign the bill after our meal. was it already ordered? were they expecting us? after telling the waiter who we were [in japanese - booya!] and seeing a blank stare i realized he did not. no worry, out comes the english menu). but back to the situation at hand: descending in the elevator i prepared a speech for the receptionist-cum-waiter informing him that chris and i only had one key for our room, and asking if i could have a second one so i could go for a walk while he slept. meeting him i say as much, and he calls over another man, hands him a key, and heads back in the direction of upstairs. "no no no" i say - and try to clarify. enter circus music, for the next two minutes were spent bumbling through each others' statements. finally he puts the key away, apparently understanding, and i bid him good morning. i walk toward the door only to discover that no, he wasn't heading back upstairs originally, he was taking me over to unlock the door to get outside. so it begins.
our hotel is right on the river, and the sun's orange voice echoed across it, intensifying as i walked along. this town, okazaki, is apparently a small one but it still has 20 storey buildings; and i'm not sure what constitutes the edge of a town because, much like england, civilization just keeps going wherever it is habitable. it seems fashionable here to don your suit and walk about the town windmilling your arms - a good morning stretch, methinks. anyways, between last night and this morning i can tick many things off my mental scavenger-hunt list: karaoke bar, beer & cigarette vending machines, a temple & castle (yet to be explored), a squat toilet (sans toilet paper).... but what i most anticipate is a good old fashioned japanese breakfast.

starting again from the beginning....

day 1:
how appropriate that we approach the land of the rising sun surfing the sunrise. from the humid seats of UA flight 831 it's been morning all day. the airplane is like an airlock into all things japanese - japenese newspapers offered by japanese stewardesses, japanese safety announcements, japanese mums bouncing screaming japanese babies, english movies and japanese subtitles - i can feel my mind starting to accept that this medium will soon be normal, not some curiosity encountered in class; not some distant committee accepting my half-witted assignments over cyberspace. it's real now. i'm 10 kilometres above the pacific, moving 800km an hour, i've eaten the ginger-chicken-on-rice brunch, i've felt the tears of my lovely kat against my cheek.... this more than any day feels like, as mom said to me so many hours of morning ago, the first day of the rest of my life.

first mobile post

oh, what technology can do: i posted this from my phone.

bathroom

not to be confused with the toilet room, or the room with the sink, towels, and washing machine.

if you look, you:ll notice that this whole room is a shower. i was a little hesitant at first because i wasn:t sure if it was kosher to spray water all over the floor. i saw no other way, and there seemed to be a drain, so away i went. note the herbal essences shampoo. god bless globalization (or should god bless it?...)

kitchen

kitchen. tiny dishwasher; huge sink.

the height of civilizataion

and here it is: the most advanced piece of technology around. this toilet is, as they say, da bomb.

on that panel on the right are the controls. on top are the flush options, :large: or :small:; next down are the bedet options: small, large, female (shoots water a little further forward. eliminate wiping!), and heated air dry. the red button stops.
it:s even possible to adjust where the water shoots, and how hard.

and, to top off your excretion experience, when you stand up the fan automatically picks up speed. i wish i had to go 10 times a day. come to think of it, this toilet is a good incentive to drink more beer......

japanese squatters

this here is a genuine, bona fide public squat toilet. i thought it rather ironic that a nice fat maple leaf was sitting inside.

this toilet shouldn:t be confused, however with the one in my family:s home.......

pocari sweat

imagine a place where skin excretions are in high demand as an energy drink....just kidding. this drink actually has nothing to do with sweating. nonetheless i find it terribly amusing. it:s turned into a bit of a phenomenon in my house: whenever i (or anyone else now) come home all sweaty, it:s not just sweat anymore. now, we:ve been pocari-sweating. good times.

kendo shiai

this is masato (number 85 on the right) sneaking in a good shot under his opponant:s guard. we went yesterday to his kendo shiai (tournament) in this huge gym loud with the sound of cracking swords.

pate kanpai

man, was this a great night. we bought fresh sashimi from down the street and had a feast. hisao:s holding up a piece of cracker with genuine canadian salmon pate. note the terribly amusing fish head. we stayed up late into the night talking about language and our respective cultures, drinking plenty of beer and wine.

sweet home toyota

welcome to my room. i was rather surprised how big it was: 6 tatami mats. there:s a closet, a door to the outside, and a window near the floor by my bed. the doors and windows are all paper and wood. it:s the only room in the house that is like this, however. i sleep on one of those fold up futons. pretty comfy.

inanimate introductions

if ever i forget anyone:s name i have this door to keep me from losing face. it has the whole family:s names (masato is the 12 year old son, and kei is the 10 year old daughter). i don:t yet know, however, why there:s a union jack....

host parents

here are nobuko and hisao takahashi, my most generous host parents. nobuko works at a hospital reception desk, and hisao works as a designer at (surprise!) toyota. i think he designs the navigation computers. they:re a cool bunch and have helped me incessantly since i arrived. cheers to the takahashis!

renovation reservations

right behind my head is the hotel we stayed at. the sign below reads "okazaki grand hotel". at the top left you can see the aptly named, fancier "okazaki new grand hotel". i guess they just couldn:t be bothered to renovate. i thought it appropriate to add a wee peace sign, but the powers that be decided it should be mostly cut.

first contact

here are the host parents with us in the foyer of the hotel in okazaki.
from left, top: chris:s host father, chris, nobuko (my host mother), myself, cleo, cleo:s host mother, (bottom) chris:s host mother, ayumi (nobuko:s friend). i can scarcely believe that of all these people no one was tempted to make a peace sign.
this morning we, the students, were getting ready in our rooms when a call came up. it was the receptionist talking a mile a minute, something about having to leave at 10:00. as it was 10 i said, we:ll be down soon. that wasn:t quite it, i guess, as a new voice came on. this was yamada sensei (behind the camera for this shot). he seemed rather peeved that we weren:t down there yet. so, i told the others, and we hustled down - only to be asked to sit and wait while he sorted out our folders. the world famous "hurry up and wait" syndrome. not the first meeting i had expected. after a good 10 minutes of sideways glances and small giggles we were asked to come over and make introductions. it:s all downhill from here.

a warm reception

this is nishio sensei. he picked us up at nagoya airport. he:s quite a perky, funny guy. ironic that he:s going to teach us how to wield a bamboo sword - kendo style.

somewhere over alaska

don:t we look excited? this is the first plane i:ve been on (a 777) that had tvs in each seat. it had tons of headroom. unheard of. the 11 hour flight was pretty long, but we slept, watched any of quite a selection of movies, read, or just gazed off into space. for me it was mostly sleeping. actually, i had the best plane sleep ever on this flight. it did help that i was up all the previous night dealing with my retarded computer