I got home last night from a weeklong road trip with Corey through the surrounding prefectures in Japan. I want to put in a plug for the awesome place called Earth Embassy.

Earth Embassy boasts an organic farm with the tempting and delicious Solar Cafe. It’s located at the base of Mt. Fuji, with a wonderful view of the mountain available from the cabbage patch across the road. If you want a place to stay in the Mt. Fuji area, you can stay in the welcoming guest house. Or, you can pitch a tent in their back yard (they also have tents available for rent). Corey and I did the allnighter hike up Mt. Fuji from the 5th station and then came back to pass out in their yard during the day.

It’s going to take a while to get the dust of Mt. Fuji off my body. I’ve taken a shower already and it’s still coming out of my ears and eyes.

Like I said during the Tea Wars, I always have to wonder if people are trying to tell me something. I can’t speak Japanese so it’s difficult to say anything to me anyway, but the Japanese are renowned for avoiding direct confrontation.

For the past week, there has been no toilet paper in the one stall in the teachers’ bathroom that has a Western toilet. Everyday the kids are supposed to restock the toilet paper during soji. They’ve been doing it for all of the squat toilets, but not for the Western toilet. I always forget that there’s no TP, so I end up making a dash for another stall in the middle of my business. I just hope that nobody happens to walk in while I’m holding my pants up with one hand and hobbling around.

Probably they just forgot because I’m pretty much the only one that uses that stall. But I still can’t help but wonder if there’s another message. OK, gaijin. We’ve been coddling you for over three months. Now grow some thigh muscles and learn how to squat like the rest of us.

Anyway, today was the last day of work before summer break. I don’t have to worry about any of this until the end of August.

On this last day, my shy Japanese students finally worked up the nerve to sexually harass me. At the end of the school day I stopped in on a group of boys holding a meeting for the baseball team to say “goodbye.” As I left one of the boys tentatively stepped out the door to call “yummy” at my retreating back. As he turned to flee when I turned around, his friends locked him out of the meeting room. Over three months of probing them to speak English and this is what I get? Come on, boys. Even my elementary students know that word.

Oh man.  I’m doing it again.  My scavenger instincts are flaring up.  I can’t resist.  Today I  went through somebody’s garbage.  I know my neighbors would be absolutely horrified, but they’re probably horrified by me already.  I should say in my defense, it wasn’t just random trash.  Since trash bags are required to be clear, I could see that it contained clothing and some other moving-out type garbage and not rotting vegetables or anything.

Most of it is sadly and very obviously too small for me.  I didn’t even bother to try on the brown sparkly tube top that said “EARTH” in big gold letters and rhinestones.  But a few items are nearly my size and very decent finds.

1.  A white T-shirt with collar, rhinestone buttons going half way down in the shirt.  In big gold letters:

FIND      RIZE
ASK      SUN
LOVE    GLAD
CONTINUE

2.  A purposely threadbare longsleeved white shirt.  The brand is called “BLOW.”  There are rhinestone buttons on the shirt cuffs.  In silver sparkly letters:

        CZARINA
RIFIND SWEET, LIGHT
BROWN, HARD
TASTE, YOU
AS IF IN A
DREAM

Now, I think both these shirts are hilarious.  But I’m a little nervous about wearing them around where my neighbors can see.   Hanging them outside apartment window to dry after washing is completely out of the question.

A group of girls were waiting outside the nurse’s room. Probably for one of the many, many health checks the Japanese school system demands of its students and staff. The adorable girl from Tanabata signaled me to come over. The little 5th grade girls were inspecting each other’s chests. She looked at me and said “Cute-o!” Then held her hands over her chest and moved them outward, saying “big.” I think she was trying to tell me I had nice tits.

For all of my post pubescent life I have the chairman of the “Itty Bitty Titty Committee.” This is the first complement I have gotten on my rack since I was 15, back when the boys would tell just about any lie to actually get a glimpse of a bare breast. Even my mother is embarassed by my unendowed bosom. At least I’ve got the Japanese elementary school girls impressed.

A girl in the 6th grade was wearing a light blue shirt that said something like “Searching for love through groping.” I don’t remember the exact phrasing; I was caught completely off guard. But it definitely involved seeking love and groping. I really hope she doesn’t have to ride on the train at all today.

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On an unrelated topic, I heard this Beatles cover by the Japanese band Love Psychadelico on the radio as I drove home from work. The music video is somewhat eye catching, but try to ignore it and just listen to the song. I didn’t have any visuals to help me out when I first heard it.

It’s so god awful I almost LOLed off the road and into a rice paddy in my little yellow plate car. And this bunch of shit is Number 2 on the Ginza Top 20.

Most of the time I feel like my junior high students are just mid-sized Asian automatons. Some of this is probably due to my lack of appreciation of a culture that encourages members to fit in more than mine does. Most of it is probably due to my inability to understand Japanese. But ever so rarely, my students surprise and delight me.

More and more, I adore Moe. She’s the prettiest and feistiest girl at this school. I noticed her immediately even though she has that same short hair style that almost all the Japanese girls and boys are sporting. Unlike all the other students, she is DETERMINED to communicate with me, even if her English isn’t that great. (It isn’t even the best in the class). All the other girls are so shy. If they have hair longer than that androgynous pre-mullet they lower their heads down try to hide their faces under it the moment I approach their desk. But not Moe. The spunky volleyball star has got something to say.

Today the students had an unstructured English class while they prepared questions to ask me during their speaking test. A lot of them were goofing off. I was trying to take advantage of the distracted energy and engage the students in conversations they actually care about. I figure that if they realize that there are thing they truly want to communicate in English, they’ll be more motivated to learn it. Moe was writing something in pink chalk on a board at the side of the class.

MSTBN –with a ^ over the T

Her friend said something to her and she added an inverted ^ below the N for good measure.

Me: What is this?
Moe: Band. School fair. October.
Me: Ah! It’s the name of a band. Are you in a band?
Moe: Yes!
Me: What do you play?
Moe: I pay drums. Air drums. (pretends to play the drums)
Me: Air drums?!
Moe: Yes! (points to friend with one hand and makes clicking motion with the other) Air castanets. (points to back of class) He plays air triangle. She plays air guitar.
Friend: (raises hand) Air piano!

I’d almost forgotten that sometimes teenagers can be cute, creative, and absolutely hilarious.

Tanabata, or the star festival, is held on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year. This is the day when two mythological star crossed lovers are permitted to meet each other. For the rest of the year they are separated by the Milky Way.

The festival in Maebashi is little more than some cute decorations made by elementary schoolers and a big excuse for vendors to come and line the streets selling octopus balls, donuts shaped like Anpanman and Doraemon, chocolate covered bananas, and Pokemon balloons. But it attracted a lot of people. Quiet little Maebashi was filled to the brim, elbow-to-elbow people jostling each other. (more…)

I went on a hike through a forest on Mt. Akagi today and got attacked by a crab. I’m not shitting you.

I stepped near the edge of the trail to examine a tree and suddenly Corey said “Oh! Look out! There’s a… a…” Shock had rendered him speechless.

I looked down to see something brown and spiny running furiously for my ankle. I jumped back to see a crab only about 6cm long, reared up and menacing me with both claws in the air.

For the record, Mt. Akagi is in the landlocked prefecture of Gunma, nowhere near the ocean. There was a stream down the hill from us. I learned later that freshwater crabs are common in certain parts of Japan. Still, I doubt anyone goes for a walk in the woods expecting to get threatened by a crab. Stung by a bee, maybe. But pinched by a crab?

Now here’s something you don’t see every day.

Japanese people are much more comfortable with their food than Americans. They like things raw. Raw fish. Raw beef. Raw horse meat. They like things whole. If it has eyes? All the better to stare at you while you bite down on its head with. If it’s alive? Even better. Writhing squid? Yum! Little fish swimming around in your soup? Delicious! (more…)

The junior high students had exams for three days, which meant that I spent half a week in the teacher’s room with nothing to do. Eventually, I gave up all pretense of working or studying and just settled down with a trashy novel. I got to page 346.

The students finished their exams with their last period of Friday set aside for marching practice. They put all the students and teachers in the gym. They made the students line up in a predetermined order according to height (girls on one side, boys on the other) and made the teachers inspect them. This is one of those moments when I felt so much sympathy for the students. I’m young and still confuse myself for a student. I’m used to being the one inspected and corrected, not the one doing the inspecting and correcting. Luckily, I wasn’t asked to help with any of that, and even if they had wanted me to, I would have feigned complete incomprehension. (Actually, it probably wouldn’t have been feigned.) There’s just something that feels wrong about looking and behaving exactly like everyone else. From uniforms to lockstep movements. This is always creepy. Well maybe not if you’re in a marching band, and even that’s probably questionable. (more…)

I used to like the rice paddies. When I first touched down at Narita airport, I looked out the window and thought, Ugh. This is it? This is Japan? Then as I rode the train farther into the country, I saw curved tiled roofs and rice paddies and thought, Yes! This is much better. THIS is Asia. (more…)