As You Gain Experience, You'll Realize That All Logical Questions are Considered Insubordination

So you don't know where you're going but you want to talk
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You'll tell anyone who will listen but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all…

Mondays are difficult. Let me explain:

Imagine you’re 8 years old and your parents are having a dinner party… everyone’s dressed fancy and talking with big complex words and you can’t understand anything. After standing around bored for 2 hours, someone asks you a question, and everyone goes silent and turns to look at you, expecting an intelligent answer…

Or perhaps another example… Imagine being handcuffed to a chair, being forced to watch Ultraviolet in Portuguese, followed immediately by The Horse Whisperer in French.

Anyway, it’s not fun, but unavoidable I guess. 2+ hour meetings, all in Japanese. But it’s better than Friday afternoons… I still can’t tune out that evil evil accordion music.

I’ve been studying lots for Japanese, but while I know the rules, it’s hard to actually put em to use. I’m thinkin a good idea is to get some Japanese Manga (graphic novels) and practice that way, learning sentence structure, etc. I need to work on vocab too. I’ll get better eventually I hope, I still got 9 months to practice.

Work’s been going a bit better though. They have me working with tooth impedance and I feel semi useful. It didn’t take me long to do the work, so I killed some time by making a fancy excel spreadsheet, which got mad at me when I tried to input a formula that was waaay too big for it. I don’t blame it, the formula looked like the Horrendous Space Kablooie. And then I showed my supervisor who thought the numbers it generated were too low, even though I explained to him that I chose example numbers at random since nobody gave me actual values yet. Maybe tomorrow…

Edit: Got the data myself after confusing the guy next to me, and it seems to work in my table. My supervisor thinks there may be a problem with the calculations/data, some of the numbers weren’t what he expected. But they do match my calculations, and I’ve quadruple checked my calculations, so… I was supposed to meet with him to discuss the data, but we all know what happened there.

Oh yeah, apparently the guy who’s been directing my main project quit over a week and a half ago. Which explains why I’ve seen him once in the past three weeks. But it doesn’t explain why I still haven’t been told he quit! What the heck do I do now? Gah!

Hmm… have I described my office yet? There’s lots of buildings at my work, including a sales office, the R&D building (where I am), and various factory buildings where the manufacturing takes place. The cafeteria/main factory building looks kinda like an old firehouse, all red brick. Like a normal Japanese office, everything is quite wide open, no cubicles or anything. Which actually makes it seem way more cluttered; you are able to see papers and binders and files piling up everywhere. I’m in the project area, off to the side a bit, which is nice. But it does mean I can be easily forgotten about. And I’ve already discussed the music in my office o.O.

Pirates are cool.

You lucky bums get to see Dead Man’s Chest two weeks before I do. I’m jealous. The Kraken looks awesome.

I guess I should talk about my weekend at some point… On Friday I had my welcoming party. My section at work went out for Okonomiyaki, it was quite good. Afterwards the younger ones in our party went to a nearby bar where we met up with the some of the other guys from the company. Quite a nice little bar, we had a room at the back to ourselves, where we sat on the floor by a low table of course. I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, but it was still pretty fun. Nice to see my coworkers outside of work, makes me feel I can relate to them a bit more. And I’m very glad about the lack of Karaoke!

Saturday was supposed to be a sleep day, but Vincent, Boon-hau and Tongxin came down to Kyoto for the day, along with Boon-hau’s friend. We went for lunch at Kyoto Station. The actual train station seems to be a tertiary function of the station. The primary function, is of course, shopping. The escalator goes up 11 floors, with nearly everything you could imagine… tons and tons of clothes, a floor just for sweets and gifts, a supermarket in one of the two basements... The top floor is all restaurants. The secondary function is as a tourist attraction. From the top of the station you can see the entire southern half of Kyoto, perhaps the northern half too, I didn’t explore enough, but it’s pretty cool. Next time I’m there I’ll take photos. And then, I guess, it’s also a train station… A fair number of foreigners around Kyoto Station too, but I guess that can be expected.

After lunch we took the bus to the Golden Temple. Quite pretty, but long bus ride. Slow too… for the first half hour we coulda walked faster than the bus. The temple itself is covered in gold leaf, so it’s quite neat. The area around the temple was nice too, lots of trees and a little lake. But the area felt too much like a tourist trap I think, there were nearly more foreigners than Japanese there. I enjoyed Fushimi Inari much more.

We headed towards Silver Temple after that, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there. Tongxin bought 2 cheap flute thingys from a vendor and we toured down Philosopher’s Walk for a little bit. After we went to Gion, and I left the group just before dinner. I was going to meet David at the pub where he hangs out, but I was a bit delayed…

Two minutes after I left the group, an older man (yes, apparently it’s not just Anton with the OMLGP) starts talking to me. He asks where I’m from, how long I’ve been in Japan, then says he’s an English professor, and he’s writing a Japanese-English dictionary. He then gives me a handful of pages of his dictionary and asks me to proofread them… on the street… on a busy street… on a Saturday night… I’m too polite for my own good, I read a few pages, gave him a suggestion or two, then said I had to go, I was running late.

Now, you’re probably thinking this is rather odd (almost on par with some of my other experiences), but I was completely prepared for this, and the coincidence of it nearly made me burst out laughing. Dave had told me earlier that he had had two encounters with the same guy years earlier, who asked him to proofread pages both times. And another past intern at my company has met him too! So Byron, be prepared! He’ll be lurking, waiting for you.

Last night I had the strangest dream…
Where everything was exactly how it seemed…

Before I forget, why not turn my blog into a dream diary! And by that I mean, let’s annoy you all with the insanity that goes on in my head every night. So I was sleeping outside (in my dream), I forgot why, maybe I missed curfew and got locked out. When I woke up I was being eaten by tick beetles (an imaginary bug, think tiny beetles that dig under your skin and give you lime disease). Then I was outside a bar in England battling against O-ren Iishi from Kill Bill. And then I was concerned about the batteries I was chewing on. I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Then I realized, well, when you eat electronic devices you’re eating the batteries inside them too, and that works fine! So eating the batteries separately should work too, they’ll just join with the electronics in your stomach! That was the justification I remember in my dream.

Ok, take the blue pill and return to the Real World, Link. Don’t worry everyone, I’m ok now… until I go to sleep tonight. Dreams as weird as these are rather common for me, it makes sleeping rather interesting. But some nights the craziness is a bit overwhelming.

I’m surprised how normal it is to me that everyone (including my friends) calls me Link here. I mean, it’s a cool name and all, but the concept of being referred to by your last name takes a little adjusting. Though some of my friends forget that Link is not my first name… " ‘Link Brett Adam’… Adam? That’s a weird last name!" ><.

Oh yeah, Sunday I met up with Vincent and Anton at Kyoto Station. We were gonna go back to the dining bar nearby that I wrote about before, but unfortunately it was closed. So we went to a little ramen shop nearby. It was quite good, a little weird with the music from the 50’s playing…(once again, I was expecting to hear this kinda music in Japan. I really did my research before coming here). We went for dessert at a café, it was quite good as well, mmm aisu kokoa and chocolate cake. Explored Kyoto Station, and then Vincent had to take the bus home… Anton and I returned home as well.

What else can I write about? Hmm, bought a fancy new camera. It is half the width of my old one, and lighter too. Plus the screen is four times bigger and picture quality is much better. So now I have incentive to take more pictures, and Anton will be happy cause I won’t be stealing his all the time. I will also be setting up an album on Picasa, I'll let you know when it's up. So you'll get to see all the pics instead of just the ones on my blog.

My Alien Registration Card is ready, but the ward office closes before I get off work at night, so I gotta find a way to pick it up. Maybe I can make a mad dash during lunch.

I finished phase IV of the kitchen cleanup project. Phase I was the fridge, which had a healthy layer of grime on the inside. II was the garbage can, which we could smell from our dorm rooms. III was the dish drying rack. You’d assume that since clean dishes are going there, that it would be clean, and not have a nasty black coating on the bottom. You’d be wrong. IV was getting rid of the year of grease and miscellaneous foodstuffs on the stove, wall, pipes, shield for the pipes, and everywhere else. Byron owes me one. Maybe he can bring me candy from Canada. Maybe yes…

Reading the news this morning has made me a little bit uneasy. Missile test-fires very close to where I’m living can never be a good thing… I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Anyway, another long blog so I should probably wrap it up…Further blog posts as events warrant. Farewell!

Luck Can't Last a Lifetime Unless You Die Young

Well, it's now Sunday night, and it's been a rather eventful weekend! Let me now recap some of the highlights... Ok, Friday night Ly and David took me for Yakiniku. David even paid for me as a happy b-day/welcome to Japan dinner! Which was very nice of him. Went back to the dorm and spent a few hours playing Battletoads for the NES!!! For those of you less enlightened, here's a screenie:



On Saturday I met with Anton and Clement (from the Co-op Japan Program) and we toured Nara. We went to Kofukuji and Todaiji temples. Todaiji was amazing, we thought the gates (below) were impressive, then we get into the temple grounds and actually see the temple (also below). We don't have stuff like that in Calgary. Inside the temple is home to the second biggest Buddha statue, as well as some smaller statues, like the menacing figure also also below.































Hmm, two interesting things... there is a rather large deer park inside Nara. Clement and Anton both thought this was very cool, as the deer were extremely domesticated, you could pet and feed them, they'd walk along the sidewalk basically begging for food. Coming from Calgary and living 5 minutes from a provincial park, I thought this was a little... odd. As I expressed to my friends... "They're Deer!!!"

Also interesting was the first realization of my "Gaijin Power"... a group of 7-8 junior high girls started waving and saying hi to us, and even wanted a picture with us! It was hilarious! No picture for you guys though, we were holding up traffic on the walking path and decided we should get going.

Wandered around Nara for a bit, and then went to play Pachinko! Pachinko is a lot like slots, only weirder, and money goes very fast. Basically you turn a knob and try to get balls into this little hole, and when you do, slots start playing in the window above, and if you win you get more balls. Ly won 200 bucks (20k yen) the first time he played, lucky bum, and Clement won 50 bucks... I lost 10 :(. Don't think I'll be playing again, I used up all my non-existent beginner's luck.
On a side note, gambling is actually illegal in Japan, but that doesn't really stop anyone. See, in pachinko, you don't win money, you win little cards and a cookie (mmm cookie)... and when you're done playing, you go around to the back where there's a guy who (shockingly!) buys cards for money!!! Well, not a guy exactly, but you stick your cards in the slot, and a minute or two later, when you open the slot, there's money inside! It's like magic!!
On a second side note, I would have trouble working at a certain electronics store in Japan... Japanese stores seem to have theme songs, which is ok, unless the song is soooo bad that within 5.8 seconds you'll want to run out the door screaming in agony. I never actually did that, but I wanted to. But I will never go back to that store again, so I don't think it's a good way to bring up the company's reputation. But what do I know?

Oh yes, Clement feels the need to take a picture of every different kind of bottle he drinks in Japan... Even if it means laying down in a train station to do it. Crazy foreigner... here Anton feels the need to kick him in the behind:



















I also got the famous picture of the melon soda bottle from Clement:
























Moving on... went back to Anton's place for a bit. The lucky bum has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and his own bathroom and laundry facilities. But he has to take a train and bus to work, so I guess I'm not so bad off. I headed home around 10 (I have a curfew) so I missed what sounded like an interesting party, held by Clarissa (Co-op Japan Alumni), who lives near Anton.

This morning Anton was feeling a bit ill (sore throat), so me and Clement went exploring Kyoto. First we went to Fushimi-inari, which is a temple up in the mountains in eastern Kyoto. This temple was absolutely amazing. There's a path that winds its way to the top of the mountain and back down, and along the way most of the path is lined with literally thousands of Torii gates! It was amazing how many there were! Very pretty...



















Then we went to eat lunch in downtown Kyoto, but didn't explore downtown much... we took a scenic (ie long) detour through Gion and area to get to Kiyomizu Temple. This temple, far up the mountains of Kyoto too, had some very nice buildings and quite the view of Kyoto.






















Went to the imperial palace, but unfortunately it was closed :(. Here's the gates.



















Hmm, better finish writing, the ones who are still reading this are probably getting bored too. We tried to go to Nijo Castle, but got there exactly as it was closing. So we returned to Kyoto station, Clement went on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, and I went back to my dorm... So that ends my exciting journey for the weekend...

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So, today marks my one week of being in Japan! I've written about what I did, but haven't written about my initial impressions yet, so here goes...

There are some difficulties for me living in Japan. There's a lot to get used to. Food is a big thing, there's so many things that are different from Canada. I've made an effort to try everything so far, including squid and cow's tongue (two things i've never had before). I've made an effort to eat more too... if it wasn't for the miles and miles of walking every day I'd probably gain weight. The bathrooms are hard to adjust to too, ie the squatting toilets and communal showers.

Some things are also quite difficult due to the language barrier. Shopping is hard; I can't read what anything is, I have to guess... and ordering food in a restaurant is a challenge; not only do I not know what it is, but I also can't pronounce it half the time.

I also feel like I stand out everywhere I go... because I do stand out. It's kind of a double edged sword. In Canada I always did my best to blend in. Half the time my friends didn't even know I was there. But it's neat to get the attention some times, just because I a foreigner.

There's some other things that are really neat too. I get to see and do and eat things that don't exist in Canada. The train system is amazing; not only are the trains on time, but there's different speeds of trains that stop at different stations, but there's 8-9 different train lines to switch between. And it all runs perfectly. Also I'm average height!!! There's so many people everywhere (and I'm just in Kyoto). You see tons of school kids all in uniform, which is weird to see. There's temples and shrines and neat things to see everywhere. I'm learning a lot (about Japan, but also about myself) and I'm really excited about the next 10 months here.

I have some fears and doubts too. I'm concerned that I won't be able to do the work presented to me at my company. I'm worried that I won't be able to learn the language at all and I will have to spend the next 10 months struggling like I did this week. I know that I shouldn't worry, that I'll be fine, but it's a bit hard to see at the moment. I'll just have to try hard and hope for the best.

Here starts my second exciting week in Japan. I'll continue my blog after my next exciting adventure, hopefully it won't be as long and rambly as this one... So, until then!

Oh yeah, I love to hear your comments, feel free to leave one if you like/dislike my writing, have suggestions, or just want to say hi.