Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Assorted Bits of Semi-Useless Knowledge and the Evolution of a Maze
Well, to start off I figured I should do something I haven’t yet done. I shall begin this post by summarizing all the useless facts and information that I have learned since arriving here in Japan, be it cultural or otherwise. I do this mainly for the odd assortment of items that I probably won’t be able to work into my posts. As I continue learning these sorts of things you will continue to be receiving those happy little “Japanese Culture Tidbits.” Yet again, I am without pictures, so I’m hoping this shall make up for their absence.

• Japan still has en Emperor! Call me stupid (or simply American), but this is something I wasn’t aware of. The only person who ever makes it into the news is the Prime Minister, so I figured that was the highest governmental office. I assume that the Emperor probably holds a similar position to the Queen of England, a figurehead with little real power. But I’m not sure of that. This requires some digging.

• The Emperor’s wife is a Christian! In fact, she comes from a very wealthy Christian family here in Japan. They are the family that started the Cup Noodle company.

• The creator of Pokemon is a Christian as well. Kelly-san knows the man pretty well and says he is a very nice Christian guy. This goes against my previous assumption that the man was insane. I mean, do you honestly think a sane man could come up with something like Pokemon? Heh heh! Apparently the man has been begging Kelly-san to let him come out here to visit, but since she had her baby, she doesn’t have time to entertain guests, so the poor guy has been forced to wait. ^_^

• There is an official climbing season for climbing Mt. Fuji (respectfully referred to as Fuji-san by the Japanese). I didn’t think it was even possible to climb the thing. I knew that the Shinto religion viewed the mountain as a god of sorts and I figured for that reason it would be off-limits to climbers. This is not the case and in reality the mountain is a popular destination for many tourists. The official climbing season starts on July 1st and goes through August 27th every year. Any other time of the year, due to high winds, snow, and cold temperatures, the mountain is hazardous and even deadly to climb. The most popular climb is one that puts you at the mountain’s summit by dawn so you can see the rising of the sun in the land of the rising sun. The morning view from Mt. Fuji is apparently breathtaking and thousands of people make the trek every year. Surprisingly though, only one percent of Japanese citizens have ever climbed the mountain.

• The Japanese organize everything. From city planning to trash, everything has its place and everything should stay in its place. You don’t just throw stuff in the trash can, you sort it into five different categories when you throw it out: recyclable plastic, aluminum, steel, burnables, and non-recyclable non-burnables. You have to go to a certain part of a city to find a certain item. If you want jewelry you to to the Ueno jewelry market, if you want to find trendy clothing you to to Harajuku, and if you’re a businessman you probably live in Ikebukuro or Shinjuku.

• There is a song that plays over loudspeakers every workday at 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM to welcome home the hard workers. It’s a nice happy song with a very polite Japanese woman saying something that I assume is “welcome home” or something of the sorts. Nobody has ever translated her speech to me, but that is my assumption.

• The Shinto religion is viewed more as a piece of Japanese culture than an actual religion by most Japanese. They go to shrines to pray, worship the bodies and spirits of their deceased, and dedicate their children to shrines as a piece of tradition mostly. This is why it is very difficult for most Japanese to become Christians because turning their back on the Shinto religion is like turning their back on their culture, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been here, it’s that the Japanese are very proud of their culture and heritage.

• The Japanese and the Chinese are not on good relations. Now don’t get yer panties in a wad, I’ve known this for some time, I just didn’t know it was to the extent that it actually is. At the global day of prayer the first thing that was offered up for prayer was the reconciliation of Japan/China relations. The Chinese wouldn’t even let a Japanese recovery team into the country to help with the rescue effort after the earthquake a couple weeks ago. This is amazing to me.

• The Japanese are very honest and forthcoming. At least the ones I’ve had a chance to talk to for an extended period of time are. I had thought they were generally reserved and private people, but when I’ve sat down with Chieko-san or Kelly-san and actually talked, they spilled all sorts of personal information to extents that I felt uncomfortable sitting there listening to them. And they did it quite matter-of-factly. It was uncomfortable, but I do admire their honestly. I feel much closer to these women because of that, but can’t say I’m ready to spill my guts. ^_^

As more information reveals itself to me I’ll continue to post it, but this is all I have for now.

Tuesday, May 27th
I woke up late today after I hit the wrong button on my cell phone. It was only 20 minutes later, but I’ve never even done that before. That set the tone for things to come. The day was full of work just like yesterday. The first part of the day I spent working on finishing the short stories for the activity book. My goal was to have them finished by lunch, but unfortunately I was running a bit behind my own schedule and ended up finishing them at about 3:30. I didn’t take a break all morning except for lunch, so at 3:30 I took a short break before I began working on the maze again. I showed Kelly-san what I had been working on yesterday and she didn’t like it much. She turned to me and said, “I looks like you’re trying too hard. You’re not having fun.” She was right. I had been trying very hard to create this maze and it was apparently showing in my drawing. I scrapped my first attempt completely. My second attempt was pretty bad as well. So, I spent the evening until dinner just contemplating how I could make this thing fun for kids and still have fun doing it. I didn’t come up with anything. I ended up going to bed in a bit of a frustration.

I was also a bit of a klutz all day. To those who know me personally don’t take that as much of a surprise, but today is the worst it’s been in a while. I was sitting around breakfast and noticed Yoshi-san spill some of his tea. I thought to myself, “that’s something I would do, I’m surprised I haven’t done it yet.” Five minutes later I spilled my own tea and ended up making an even bigger mess than Yoshi-san. I laughed at myself and was thankful nobody noticed my spill. Later in the day as I was coming down for lunch and ended up almost breaking my neck falling down the staircase. The staircase is made of nice lacquered wood and is about as steep as a ladder with no hand rail. It is Japanese custom not to wear shoes in the house, so I am forced to walk up and down these things in my socks. Socks on slick wood don’t have very much traction and I’m not surprised something of this sort didn’t happen sooner, but as I was coming down the stairs I was looking at the painting hanging above them rather than down at my feel like I should have been. My foot slipped off the edge of one of the stairs and I rode down only barely staying upright. Kelly-san was coming down behind me with Luka-chan and about had a heart attack. The entire rest of the house heard the commotion and was thrown into a brief state of panic. They thought somebody actually fell. And if I had fallen it would have more than likely resulted in serious injury, because the edge of those wood stairs is quite sharp. Thankfully my pride (of which there remains very little) was the only thing injured in the incident.

Wednesday, May 28th
Today went much better than yesterday. I didn’t have much to do today, the only thing left for me to do is finish the maze and I have a full two days to do it. I spent the morning talking with friends on audio chat over AIM while casually working on a maze concept. I made it a good way though the maze and decided to go and get Kelly-san’s input before proceeding further. I showed it to her and she seemed very pleased! Her exact words were, “Now you understand!” That made me happy and I spent the day until after lunch finishing up the maze. I got it mostly finished by the time Kelly-san got back from a meeting she had with a local pastor. She got back at about 4:00, and when she returned I showed her my almost-complete maze. She seemed disappointed. She said it wasn’t hard (which it wasn’t, it was very easy) and that it didn’t appeal to the right age of kids. Now, I am fine with constructive criticism, but when you give me a thumbs up at 10:00 AM and tell me to scrap it and do something different a mere six hours later, it irritates me. Whether I was irritated or not, I was forced to reconsider my concept. She drew out a quick sketch of what she wanted, something remarkably similar to what I had come up with last night, and sent me off. So, I went off what she sketched out and came up with something completely different than what I came up with earlier in the day. After dinner I had a rough concept down and showed it to her. She didn’t seem overly enthusiastic, but she said it was good and that I should finish the maze. I made sure she understood where I was going with it and she still gave me the approval. So, if I finish this one and she has a problem with it, it isn’t my fault. Below are the two mazes I made today. The one on the left is the one I did first, and the one on the right is the one that is (hopefully) going to be the final when it is finished.

The last bit of fun stuff that happened today involved my bus ticket back to Hatoyama on Friday. Yoshi-san found the site with the bus schedule on it and asked me to pick what time I wanted to leave. There were only six buses running from Nyukawa to Shinjuku and only two of them were at times that were acceptable. One leaves at 8:17 AM and the other at 1:47 PM. I’d love to take the one at 1:47, but that would mean me getting to Shinjuku at 7:00 PM only barely giving me enough time to get to Sakado before the last bus of the day leaves for Hatoyama. It’s safer for me to take the 8:17 bus, so that is what I shall do. It’s early, very early, but I’ll manage. I’m mostly disappointed for Kelly-san or whoever ends up transporting me to the bus station. That’s earlier than they normally get out of the house. As I like to say, se la vie. At least I’ll be able to relax on Friday night once I get back to New Life League. ^_^ Is anyone else thinking about a movie or two? Heh heh!

Caesar1280's Anime Ticker

.hack//Legend of the Twilight, Air, Air: The Movie, Akira, The Animatrix, Appleseed, Aquatic Language, Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror, Beck, Black Lagoon, Blame!, Blood the Last Vampire, Bokurano, Burst Angel, Castle in the Sky, Cowboy Bebop, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Digimon Tamers: The Runaway Digimon Express, Egao, FLCL, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shambala, Gankutsuou, Gatekeepers, Genshiken, Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society, Gin-iro no Kami no Agito, Grave of the Fireflies, Grenadier, Haibane Renmei, Hellsing, Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, Hikaru no Go, Howl?s Moving Castle, Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Jyu Oh Sei, Karas: The Prophecy, Last Exile, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Midori?s Days, Milennium Actress, Mushi-shi, My Neighbor Totoro, Naruto, Naruto: The Movie, Nausicaa, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death And Rebirth, Ninja Scroll: The Movie, Other Worlds, Paprika, Perfect Blue, Pet Shop of Horrors, The Place Promised In Our Early Days, Prétear, Princess Mononoke, Read Or Die, Read Or Die: The TV, Samurai Champloo, Samurai Seven, Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal, She and Her Cat, Spirited Away, Steamboy, Tide-Line Blue, Tokyo Babylon, Tokyo Godfathers, Trigun, Voices of a Distant Star, Witch Hunter Robin, Wonderful Days, Wrath of the Ninja, X

Anime I've Seen - .hack//Legend of the Twilight - .hack//Sign - 5 Centimeters per Second - Air - Air: The Movie - Akira - The Animatrix - Appleseed - Aquatic Language - Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror - Baby Blue - Beck - Black Lagoon - Blame! - Blood the Last Vampire - Bokurano - Burst Angel - Castle in the Sky - Cowboy Bebop - Cowboy Bebop: The Movie - Digimon Tamers: The Runaway Digimon Express - Doorbell - Egao - FLCL - Fullmetal Alchemist - Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shambala - Gankutsuou - Gatekeepers - Genius Party - Genshiken - Genshiken OAV - Ghost in the Shell - Ghost in the Shell: Innocence - Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society - Gin-iro no Kami no Agito - The Gokusen - Grave of the Fireflies - Grenadier - Haibane Renmei - Happy Machine - Hellsing - Highlander: The Search for Vengeance - Hikaru no Go - Howl's Moving Castle - Innocent Venus - Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade - Jyu Oh Sei - Karas: The Prophecy - Karas: The Revelation - Last Exile - Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi - Midori?s Days - Milennium Actress - Mushi-shi - My Neighbor Totoro - Naruto - Naruto: The Movie - Nausicaa - Neon Genesis Evangelion - Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death And Rebirth - Ninja Scroll: The Movie - Other Worlds - Ouran High School Host Club - Paprika - Perfect Blue - Pet Shop of Horrors - The Place Promised In Our Early Days - Prétear - Princess Mononoke - Read Or Die - Read Or Die: The TV - Samurai Champloo - Samurai Seven - Samurai X: Trust & Betrayal - Serial Experiments Lain - Shanghai Dragon - She and Her Cat - Spirited Away - Steamboy - Tekkonkinkreet - Tide-Line Blue - Tokyo Babylon - Tokyo Godfathers - Trigun - Trinity Blood - Vampire Hunter D - Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust - Voices of a Distant Star - Witch Hunter Robin - Wolf's Rain - Wonderful Days - Wrath of the Ninja - X Total: 93

Anime I Haven't Completed - .hack//Roots - Ah! My Goddess - Angelic Layer - Avenger - Baccano! - Bamboo Blade - Basilisk - Binchou-tan - Black Cat - Bleach - Blood+ - Boogiepop Phantom - Case Closed - Le Chevalier d'Eon - Chobits - Chrono Crusade - Code Geass - Coyote Ragtime Show - D.Gray-Man - D.N.Angel - DearS - Death Note - Dennou Coil - Desert Punk - Digimon - Dragon Ball Z - Ergo Proxy - Eureka Seven - Excel Saga - Fighting Beauty Wulong - Final Fantasy Unlimited - Flag - Freedom - Full Moon - Gantz - Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Gintama - Glass Fleet - Great Teacher Onizuka - Gundam Seed - Gundam Wing - Hayate the Combat Butler - Hellsing OVA - Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - Ikki Tousen - InuYasha - Jigoku Shojo - Kage Kara Mamoru - Karin - Kino's Journey - Love Hina - Loveless - Lovely Complex - Lucky Star - Makai Senki Disgaea - Marchen Awakens Romance - Meine Liebe - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Mononoke - Monster - Moon Phase - Mr Stain on Junk Alley - Naruto Shippuuden - Negima?! - Negima! - Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion - Nerima Daikon Brothers - NHK ni Youkoso - Night Walker - Ninja Nonsense - Noir - Peacemaker Kurogane - Pokemon - Prince of Tennis - R.G. Veda - Ragnarok - Rec - Red Garden - Robotech - Romeo x Juliet - Rosen Maiden - Rurouni Kenshin - Saikano - Sailor Moon - Samurai Deeper Kyo - Sci-fi Harry - School Rumble - Scrapped Princess - Shin-chan - Shingu - Shion no Oh - Shuffle! - Shrine of the Morning Mist - So Long, Mr. Despair - Solty Rei - Sousei no Aquarion - Speed Grapher - Spice and Wolf - Super Milk Chan - Tales of Phantasia - Tenchi Muyo - Tenjhou Tenge - Texnolyze - The Third - Tsubasa Chronicles - Urusei Yatsura - Venus Versus Virus - Welcome to the N.H.K. - Winter Cicada - X-1999 - Xenosaga - XxxHolic - Yu Yu Hakushou - Yume Tsukai - Zero no Tsukaima - Zipang Total: 116

Manga I've Completed - Cowboy Bebop - FLCL - Manga Messiah - Manga Metamorphosis - Q*Ko-chan - Saiyuki - Shirahime-Syo Total: 7 Manga I Haven't Completed - .hack//Legend of the Twilight - Black Cat - Blame! - Chobits - D.Gray-man - Darkside Blues - Death Note - The Demon Ororon - Desert Coral - Disgaea - Eureka Seven: Gravity Boys and Lifting Girl - Fruits Basket - Getbackers - Hayate the Combat Butler - Kamunagara - Legal Drug - Love Hina - Loveless - Megatokyo - Naruto - Negima - Read Or Die - Rurouni Kenshin - Tactics - Trigun Maximum - XXXHolic Total: 26

Anime I'm Currently Watching
Samurai 7, InuYasha, Samurai Deeper Kyo,
Boogiepop Phantom, and Shrine of the Morning Mist

Manga I'm Currently Reading
Read Or Die, Hayate the Combat Butler, and Megatokyo.hack//Roots, .hack//Sign, 5 cm per Second, Ah! My Goddess, Angelic Layer, Avenger, Basilisk, Binchou-tan, Black Cat, Bleach, Blood+, Boogiepop Phantom, Case Closed, Le Chevalier d'Eon, Chobits, Chrono Crusade, Coyote Ragtime Show, D.Gray-Man, D.N.Angel, DearS, Death Note, Dennou Coil, Desert Punk, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, Ergo Proxy, Eureka 7, Excel Saga, Fighting Beauty Wulong, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Flag, Full Moon, Gantz, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Gintama, Great Teacher Onizuka, Gundam Seed, Gundam Wing, Hayate the Combat Butler, Hellsing Ultimate, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Innocent Venus, InuYasha, Jigoku Shojo, Kage Kara Mamoru, Karin, Kino?s Journey, Love Hina, Loveless, Lovely Complex, Lucky Star, Makai Senki Disgaea, Marchen Awakens Romance, Meine Liebe, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Mononoke, Monster, Naruto Shippuuden, Negima?!, Neon Genesis Evangelion: End of Evangelion, Nerima Daikon Brothers, NHK ni Youkoso, Night Walker, Ninja Nonsense, Noir, Ouran High School Host Club, Peacemaker Kurogane, Pokemon, Prince of Tennis, R.G. Veda, Ragnarok, Rec, Red Garden, Robotech, Romeo x Juliet, Rosen Maiden, Rurouni Kenshin, Saikano, Sailor Moon, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Sci-fi Harry, School Rumble, Scrapped Princess, Serial Experiments Lain, Shingu, Shuffle!, Shrine of the Morning Mist, So Long Mr. Despair, Solty Rei, Sousei no Aquarion, Speed Grapher, Super Milk Chan, Tales of Phantasia, Tenchi Muyo, Tenjhou Tenge, Texnolyze, The Third. Trinity Blood, Tsubasa Chronicles, Urusei Yatsura, Welcome to the N.H.K., Winter Cicada, X-1999, Xenosaga, XxxHolic, Yu Yu Hakushou, Yume Tsukai, Zero no Tsukaima, Zipang

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