Friday, August 10, 2007

   That is that. Whether you understand it or don't understand...whether you accept it or not...what is, is. That's all there is to it. - Yuuko, xxxHolic

Well, the connection in this place is holding up better than I thought it would so I can make a more leisurely post this morning. When you read this think about what time it was at your house when I was writing it. It's 10:50am on Saturday here right now, which means for most of you it's sometime Friday night! I'm living in the future..... I'm washing clothes right now and thinking about unpacking the last of my stuff. Yesterday was really tiring so I slept in today. I'm invited to do 3 different things today, but I kind of want to wander about on my own a bit and get my bearings. I'm almost definitely not going to the AJET enkai b/c I don't have much cash left and my ATM card won't come for at least a few more days. Some of the girls are taking Stacey, Holly and Jasmine shopping so I might go along for that just to see some shops, but I'm worried about spending on that trip too so.....I don't know. The thing I'm most interested in is going to the park with Mark and his wife to play with the giant bubble blowing thing he's got. Yesterday was less fun than it was supposed to be due to the ridiculous amount of time it took for Stacey and me to get our keitai. I ended up being the only new person (actually, the only ALT I think...) to go with the company "au" because they had a Sony Ericson phone that I really liked. Mark is the only other person in our office who is on it. Everyone else has something called SoftBank basically because it allows free calling between members. Their phones were really expensive though and mine was only Y4590 (around $35) for the brand new model! Plus I got all kinds of discounts on my plan b/c the lady at the shop was really, really nice. I also got a free 1GB memory card to put music and things on (my keitai is also a music player) and at the end of it all she gave me, Mark, and Jess tokens for the juice machine! Wow...ok, I just got really distracted sending Mark a text. There are so many cute things to use on my keitai! Ahh...I love technology! I found a way to download tetris to my keitai as well for only Y210 (around $1.50) but for some reason at the last minute it wouldn't let me do it. I'm sure someone can figure it out for me though. It seems like everyone here has games on their phones and/or a Nintendo DS that they carry around all the time. I want one, but I don't really have the money for that yet. It's going to be hard saving money, traveling, and buying cool stuff all at once. I plan to send some to my FL bank account as soon as I get paid every month though so hopefully that will help. And...I've lost my train of thought. Posting a list is a lot more efficient. OK, so yesterday after "The Great SoftBank Affair" as it has been dubbed and my fun time at au, we went down to the DD Building (or something like that....) and signed up for Japanese courses. Jasmine and I will be in the same class so that's good. Stacey already knows some kanji so she's taking the second level and Holly knows a lot so she's not taking anything. I feel so illiterate! Ah, but it's ok, I'm getting along fine. The most important thing is being able to pay for things like food and bills and they use arabic numerals so I can read the amounts just fine. We had lunch at this cute little place called Shizuoka News Deli where for Y950 you can get salad, crispy fries, a drink, and 3 different fresh made items. I got a cream cheese and salmon sashimi salad with onions, a cucumber and bell pepper salad, and a pumpkin casserole. It was all soooo good, and nice small portions so you don't feel too full. We also went to get Stacey signed up for her driver's test since her predecessor left her a moped to ride. I just have 2 bikes, but it's ok, I don't think I'd like to drive around here just yet. Maybe next year or something. Anyway, biking is good exercise. Amazingly, even in Japan the DMV is dirty and the lights are all funny. It was almost familiar. Last night we had the office welcome party for 2 hours at this place that didn't look anything like a restaurant. The room was almost like a lobby with tables set up, and everyone wore outside shoes in it. We can wear them in our office too which kind of surprised me on Thursday, but it makes things easier since I only brought the one inside pair for school and my slippers for home. Actually, Jess said I could wear shoes in my apartment, but I don't really want to. Anyway, last night was a bit expensive (Y5000 - around $45, that's more than my phone cost!) and there wasn't a lot of food, but it was still pretty fun. When we signed in we had to choose a little post-it to find out where we would sit. There were hearts....and three other things that I didn't notice, but they were for the 4 different tables. Then each one had some kind of stamp on it to determine your seat. Mine had 2 little ants, and Stacey's had 3 ladybugs, but somehow we ended up next to each other and at the same table with Mark and Lauren so that was lucky. I was next to an older man named Haruyoshi....something, but he said to just call him Haru. He was really funny, but my Japanese is not so good some some of the time he was asking me things and I had to get Lauren to help out. The 4 of us that are new had to stand up and introduce ourselves in Japanese and it went pretty well. One guy even stood up and clapped when I said I was a vegeterian. Actually, that was kind of weird, but whatever. Everyone seemed to get really drunk really fast (except Lauren and me) and then they played guessing games that I didn't understand a word of, but seemed to include questions like "How many telephones are in our office?" Then they did a quiz about the 4 of us and we had to stand in front again and answer. Mine took the longest for them to guess b/c it was "What is your favorite vegetable?" and I don't think zucchini is very common in Japan. It was funny though. It lasted for 2 hours and at the end everyone got a "present" which was obviously from the hyaku-en (Y100) store, but mostly cute stuff anyway. I got a long phone strap with Dorami (the little yellow girl cat from Doraemon) on it. After the enkai some of the ALTs were going out to a little festival at the Center downtown, but I was really tired so I got Jess to show me the way home, and....now I'm looking at my clothes drying on the line. It's a bit nostalgic really. I can remember being 5ish and painting pictures in my backyard while my mom hung clothes on the line before we had a dryer. My apartment is on the top floor of our building (6th) and I looked down and saw a lot of people had put their laundry out this morning since it was so sunny. It's cute to see it all hanging like that. Anyway, it's nearly noon now so I guess I should get ready to go out. Ja ne! (and sorry for the long post!)

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