Nihongo-a-Go-Go :: Mandy's Journal

Save me!

Well, two days of training over, a little more of Japan covered, and a few tears shed.

I HATE TRAINING!!! I HATE MY AUSTRALIAN JERK OF A TRAINER!! A MONKEY COULD DO HIS WORK!! HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY COUNTRY!!

Ahem, okay, with that out of my system. Training today went much better than yesterday, I think. The trainer is so unhelpful; this morning I had to admit I was in tears before going in because I didn't want to go in that badly. He just kills my self-esteem. It's like, dude, this teaching method sucks. I have a masters IN ENGLISH. I've given lectures, presented papers at conferences, done poetry readings. This is simply regurgitation. There is honestly no room for individual expression of the teacher in the lessons. Basically, I'm really just going to look at this job as a money-maker. Working with the students is fun though. They genuinely want to learn, and will get involved. I do want to make sure that they're interested in learning, so that'll make the job worth it. I just want to get out of training, you know?

Training is taking place outside of Nagoya, in Gifu. This more...old-fashioned town is about a twenty-five minute train ride away on the Meitetsu Line. The train that we take is the "Super Panorama Limited Express," which is such a fantastic name for a train. It makes me think of "Starlight Express." :) The trip takes us out of the urban-ness of Nagoya and through more rural lands. There are fields and houses, more traditional looking. The tiles on the roofs are really neat, all glazed and with rounded pieces at the peaks of the roofs. The actual town we train in, Gifu, is smaller, with some big department stores, like Loft and Parco, but a lot of it is little sidestreets, most of them one way. There are restaurants, food booths, banks, clothing shops, wine stores, plant shops, gift fruit shops, everything. Sometimes the sellers are hawing their wares aloud; unfortunately, I don't know what they're saying. :) But some of the food smells heavenly, especially from this little place that grills food. We don't know the prices or anything, so we haven't eaten there. The budget is rather tight right now, before we get our full paycheck. But it's a neat little town, more typical of what I had pictured when I thought about towns in Asia. The clothing shops are ultra-modern, though. They may be in older buildings, but the fronts are all glass with trendy logos, chic clothes and gleaming carpets and walls. Very expensive too; all the clothes seem to be. Heck, everything here is expensive.

At work, the other teachers gave us a heads-up that a typhoon was coming. It hit about the time we got to Nagoya Station, meaning we had to walk home in it. Wow! The winds just lashed the rain at us, changing directions and really making it hard to hold onto our umbrellas. We got back to our apartment soaking wet, but now we can say we've lived through our first typhoon. Wait until that's our first earthquake, heh.

Fooooooooood!

Well, today was about finding not only the grocery store, but also edible groceries within. We actually found the store really easily, and it's nestled among a bunch of other groovy stores.

Firstly, we found a used manga, dvd, and cd store. Very awesome! We're talking about racks of manga for 105 yen. I found the Gackt section of the cd's, but they didn't have the one I wanted, le sigh. I bought one manga by You Higuri, because it's super beautiful and she's one of my favorite artists. It was volume one, and they didn't have any others. I hope I'll be able to find the rest.

After that we went to the 100 yen store, which is basically like the Dollar Store. We got the correctly colored garbage bags so we can sort our trash the way we're supposed to. They also had plates, paper, all sorts of stuff that it's good to know where we can get. Then on to Feel Super Market. First off...man! Grapes are expensive here, like 600 yen a bunch! And an apple costs 100 yen. I can't imagine paying that in the states. Secondly...it's hard to know what things are. :) And then thirdly...some things I just can't see as food items. I love calimari as much as the next person, but the huge purple coiled tentacle with the suckers glaring at me menacingly...pretty, yes. Food? No. We ended up with chicken, tofu, noodles, spaghetti, soy sauce, garlic, margerine, toilet paper, ramen (we pray its chicken), chicken boullion, crab meat...um...a bottle of orange Qoo (which tastes like watered down Sunny Delight) and a cabbage and carrot mix to fry up. Pretty yummy, really!

After shopping, we went to one of the little 100 yen booths for lunch. I got a lo mein like box of noodles and veggies, and it was excellent. I even successfully ate it with chopsticks. :) It seems that everything here is a little sweet and a little pickly. All in all, it was a successful day. Tomorrow training starts...so we'll jump that new hurdle when we get there. :)

Seeking Creativity!

Today was heavenly! *swoons* I can't believe it!

Today we knew that we needed to learn to sink or swim using the Japanese subway system. We need to get to Sakae station on Monday for job training, and it just sounded like a better idea to figure that out before Monday. We headed down to the station, with a goal in mind. That just happened to be reachable from the Sakae station as well.

The Volks Nagoya Showroom.

I'd determined the route there before we left the apartment, thanks to Aimee's friend Emi who gave us wonderful super helpful directions on how to get there. Basically, we just had to leave the Sakae station at the right exit to get onto Ootzu-dori and then walk down past the Nagoya Highway and the Volks store was on the second floor of the Clock Tower Building 2.

But we had to buy tickets...

After staring dumbfounded at the all-Japanese machines, we went to the information booth to ask. All the woman there told us was basically to put our money in. Mm-hmm. So, I took the plunge. There's a sign above the machines with the fares to all the places you want to go. You put in money, and buttons light up with different amounts. Like, if you put in 1000 yen, then buttons for 200, 230, 260, etc, would light up. You pick the one for the correct fare, it spits it out, and gives you change. So, we picked the standard 200 yen ticket...and it was the right one!

After a false start going the wrong way on Ootzu-dori, we actually found the Volks store very very easily. Too easily, if you know what I mean. :) We practically skipped up there. There were basically three rooms. The first was the "boy" room, full of gashapon, model kits, paints, etc. KT, darlin', you would have DIED for some of these kits. They didn't have Kaoru...but the Ah! My Goddess ones were so beautiful! They also had a large collection of Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, but most of it was really overpriced and available in the states. Super cute though! The second room was the 1/6 room. So many clothes!!! And any body, head, hair color...crazy! It was amazing to me to just be able to pick up a Goh-guy, like normal merchandise.

I guess the last room was sort of two rooms, and that was for Super Dollfies. They're all over the place, in cool clothes and stuff. And the one-offs...there was one tall boy in a sort of traditional imperial Japanese outfit who was gorgeous! I finally saw dolls with pureskin in person...beautiful! I also totally fell in love with Isao, who I never really liked from the Volks pictures. But he's...gorgeous! He was carrying a little MSD on his back...and his tight pants...and his two-tone wig...and his boots...and little smile...totally in love. He's much much too expensive though. I did see the FCS MSD head that I'm so getting. *shakes head* There was just so much! The one thing I would have liked to see more of were MSD boy clothes. But I did buy a pair of cheap 300 yen shoes for my 1/6 Apollo doll, and an outfit for Harlequinn of a dark grey tank top and neat capri length jester checked trousers in browns and greys. Super cute! Thomas is wearing it right now, because Harlequinn's still in his jester outfit.

Anyway...ah, so much! The people at the store were so sweet and funny. The love of dolls sort of transcended language. The clerk gave us pamphlets from the old Doll Party's that have great pictures in them. I'm so excited and ready to be saving up for new dolls! We made it home sans problems, and grocery shopping was pushed back yet another day. :) We did however sample Japanese yogurt. It comes in TONS of flavors, including apple and chocolate. Aimee got a kiwi-flavored one, which I didn't really like. It was very tangy and odd, not exactly kiwi. I got strawberry, which was tasty. The yogurt here is more...yogurty, for lack of a better word. Like, it's more yogurt than fruit. And more liquidy. I also must confess a new adoration for white strawberry Fanta which is basically strawberry flavored and clear. *finishes off the bottle* Ah!

Veni, vidi, vici!

Well, I feel very...confident now about moving here. I was very worried about how I would adjust to life here, but I've been more comfortable and assertive here than I've been travelling anywhere else. Here's the rundown of my day.

First thing, I knew that I needed to take a shower. The showers here are very different. They're gas heated and you basically stand in the room and hold the shower thingie to wash yourself. I think it would have been more enjoyable for me if I hadn't had to wash my hair. With my crazy long hair, it took a really long time. From now on, I think I might wash my hair in the sink with some help from Aimee. *nods* But I felt a lot cleaner and more awake.

After that, the plan was as follows.

1. Go to Nagoya Station to get passport photos.
2. Go to the Nishi-Ku Ward Office.
3. Get food for dinner.

We conquered all three!

Finding the station wasn't hard, but we had no clue where to find a photo booth. As we wandered, we did find a plant shop, lots of French bakeries, a bookstore, and two big department stores. Thankfully, a very nice woman at the information desk spoke English and gave us directions to the next department store over, which had photo stuff on the 7th floor. This was a painless experience, though the pictures are as hideous as every other id photo I've ever had taken.

After that, we walked up to the ward office. We actually walked too far! It also started raining and thundering as we got there. It wasn't hard to find our way back, though we managed to time it so that we were there when everyone was on lunch. The woman was very helpful, though at first she told me that I couldn't get a certificate of registration until Monday, and I need it on Monday for orientation. It ended up that we needed to come back at 4, and they would have it done for us. So, we had about 2 and a half hours to kill. Luckily, there were several shops along the way to explore. We went into a big fun drugstore. Everything is Hello Kitty! I was most amazed by the HK razors and HK floor wax. We bought a bag of spaghetti and a pack of 5 chicken ramen while we were there. At least...I hope it's chicken. :) I also got a box that had candy and a keychain change purse. It's super cute! There is only one piece of candy, actually, and it looks like a huge white smartie. The change purse is actually made of metal, but has a zipper around the outside. It's Card Captor Sakura, and I'm totally enamored of it. The bookstore was very neat. Lots of manga, all new and neat and tidy. There were also the huge monthly manga magazines, which are about as thick as phone books. I almost picked up this month's Asuka, but decided to be good. ;) The neatest thing there was a Japanese version of the children's book "The Hungry Caterpillar." Kawaii!

The walk home seemed a lot quicker, and the rain had eased up. We stopped up to our room, and as we were leaving, we had a 'chat' with an elderly woman. Aimee understood a little bit of what she said, but I felt like an idiot. :) She seemed very amused by us, and it was fun. I've found that knowing how to say "please," "thank you," and "excuse me" go a long way, especially if you say them with a big smile. We went down to the convenient store that's right below our building, but it was too expensive to go shopping there. So we picked up drinks for dinner, but that's it. The drink itself is yummy! It's lightly grapefruit flavored, and called 'Qoo.' It's very mild; all the drinks seem to be. Becky, you would love them!

I'm pretty sleepy now, but I think I'll pep up again after dinner. Tomorrow's tasks...groceries and VOLKS!!!!

Finally here!

Well, all, I finally made it! The longest day of travelling of my life...as a matter of fact, I feel like I somehow missed a day. This morning it was early early on Tuesday, and now I'm sitting here on Wednesday night. Very odd.

My first impression of Japan was...water. We were flying low, right along the coast. I'd like to say more about it but the airport, the train, the train ride, were very reminiscent of England. Except for the bright lit-up pachinko parlors. Pachinko is a game a lot like pinball, and the signs for each place try to outdo the others, with rainbow neon pictures and sparkles. It's very...Vegas, for lack of a better word.

We rode on the shinkansen to get here. Talk about fast! A very smooth ride, too, though I would have preferred if they didn't have smoking cars. I guess because we're getting so anti-smoke in America, we forget that other countries don't care as much.

Heh, a little motorbikle just went by our apartment. No big ol' Harleys in this city, Daddo. :)

The apartment is tiny, but rather lovable. :) It's a perfect size for me. Anyone over 5'8" simply wouldn't fit through the doorways. But we have our own Western toilet *cheers*, stove, fridge, iron, dishes, sofa, tv, vcr, washing machine, drier, shelves, balcony (BALCONY!). And we have futons.

Let me tell you about the futons.

It's like building a sort of enormous sandwich. There are a bunch of folded mattresses, blankets and sheets,and you have to put them together in the right order. Still not sure mine are right...but it seems pretty comfy, all together. My sheets are light blue, my fav color! Aimee's are green; it's like they knew we were coming. :)

I must admit first off that I am afraid of the shower. It's a gas shower, gas-heated, that it. Heh, we'll see how this works. The tub is neat; it's like a big square cereal bowl that you sit in to relax. The shower...well, you just stand on the floor and shower yourself off. Heh, odd.

Well, I need to get some sleep and catch up a bit. :) I'll have more to write tomorrow, I'm sure. When I strike out into the neighborhood and try to get myself lost! Talk to you all soon!

Yay! My first ever blog! And this would be my first ever test post. Life is exciting! Heh....Mandy go sleep now.