In which the Traveler Becomes Acquainted with Part of her Town

Today was the day.

I decided I needed to get out of my apartment and let the people of Taiki-cho actually see me. And, you know, actually see Taiki-cho. Plus I was almost out of cereal. So I decided that today after work I would ride my bike to the store. That way I get out of the apartment, see a bit of town, get some groceries, get some exercise, and not bother anybody at work. A perfect plan!

Except I forgot to factor in the fact that I'm inherently lazy. Supremely so.

Today I kept hearing how it was 暑い, atsui, or hot. And I kept thinking to myself, it's maybe eighty degrees, if that. But my inner couch potato (or floor-in-front-of-the-couch potato, as it were) seized on the opportunity when my coworker Komori-san dropped me off at my apartment after work.

See, my inner whiner said, it's so hot outside! Maybe I should go tomorrow.

But tomorrow's Obon, and I'll be busy in the evening. And after that it's supposed to rain all week.

But I get the car next week. Then it'll be so much easier...

However, I'll be long out of cereal before that. So no breakfast. Unless I wanna, you know, cook. And I don't. And it really is nice outside, I really should go out.

Fine. I'll go take pictures of those pretty flowers next door.

While I'm outside, I may as well walk around a bit.

While I'm walking around a bit, I may as well take the bike. It'll be faster. But I won't go to the store--that's actually kind of far away. Ish.

It is hot outside, after all.

So I put on some shorts, tied my hair up, and rounded up my electronics. I got my camera, my almost dead iPod (which I need to recharge, thanks for reminding me), and my almost dead cell phone (I'm banking on the fact that Taiki is so small it'd be really difficult for me to get lost. Maybe.), filled up a bottle of water, slipped on my sneakers and out the door I went!

Well, actually, it was more like, Fill up the water bottle, wash the dishes, decide I don't want to wash the dishes, try to re-fill the bottle because I forgot I filled it, wait, I have to go to the bathroom, didn't I get a bottle of water, I could totally go tomorrow or Thursday, where did I put my phone, I hope it's not too humid, okay fine let's go.

But  I digress.

My first obstacle was the bike itself. I got the lock undone easily enough once I located it, but I couldn't get the kickstand up. To save. My life.

I tried pushing it towards the handlebars. Away from the handlebars. In. Out. I relocked the bike. I unlocked the bike. Nothing worked. This was about to get extremely silly, extremely fast. I was going to have to knock on somebody's door and have them tell me how to work the kickstand. Good grief. That's a hell of a way to meet the neighbors.

(Yes, I still have not met my neighbors. I may or may not freeze in place whenever one walks past the window, hoping they don't notice me and try to eat me--worse, talk to me. I do alright if they speak slowly or even normal-ish speed, but some people speak WAY too fast and don't get it when I get lost after about 0.185739854 seconds.)

Turns out you have to push that metal thing in against the kickstand and push it back away from the handlebars. I had to do this with my hands. Dear lord, riding this thing is going to be embarrassing, isn't it. Stupid foreigner can't even work a 自転車. (jitensha, bicycle)

You're gonna love this next part.

I got the bike out of the entryway and tried to get on it. Now, I noticed when I was in Kyoto that the Japanese (at least in Kyoto) get on and off bicycles WAY differently than I, and every other American I know pr have ever seen, do. We tilt the bike slightly to the side, swing our leg over the back to the other side, and take off. Some people are slick and step on one pedal, get the bike going, then swing over. I don't do that. I have the coordination of a seizing duck. The Japanese, however, do the bike-motioney-thing, but then sorta bend their knee and swing their leg over between the seat and the handlebars. That's how they get off, too. I swear to you, I've seen it done countless times but I have yet to work out the mechanics of that particular maneuver. They just sort of seem to float onto and off of the bike.

I tried to try that once. I almost fell of the bike.

Anyway. Like I said, I tried to get on the bike. And sorta hopped around awkwardly like a penguin on hot coals until I got to the end of the little temporary parking spot. Why so awkward? Because the seat was so high that I couldn't reach the pedals if I was sitting on the bike. Which made hopping onto the seat and going a little difficult.

So I kinda stood there staring that the bike for a few minutes. I could see where to adjust the seat, I just couldn't quite figure out how to get it to work. There was a lever that swung around, which I thought might loosen the joint where the seat goes into the bike--but the pole of the seat was in the way. What the hell. Now would be a good time for a little ojiisan to come help me with my bike, stupid foreigner be damned. Now that I was outside I wanted to actually do something.

I figured it out after a moment. Turns out the whole knob that the little lever was attached to twisted around the other way to loosen the joint. I got the bike seat down and off I went, watch me go!

I rode around on the road for a while, then found a bike or walking path behind the road that followed the river. It went up to the main bridge in the town and came out right at the little patisserie I'd seen but wanted to try. I decided I'd stop on my way back home and get cake--I earned it for going out, after all.

I noticed, riding around, that though the front wheel was straight, the handlebars were turned slightly to the right. And yet, it wasn't terribly unnatural to ride that way. I'll get used to it. 

All in all I rode my bike around for about forty-five minutes or so on this side of the bridge. I found a temple I wanted to go up to, but I wasn't sure if I could park my bike at the foot of the stairs or not and nobody was around to ask. I decided to try again another time.

You can sorta see the stairs, way back in the back there.

Eventually I came back to the bridge and the patisserie. But it was so lovely out, and I wasn't even tired from biking yet (which surprises nobody more than me, let me tell you), so I decided to head across the bridge. I wouldn't go so far as the supermarket, that was too far away. After all, it was hot. So I perused around "downtown," which is all set up along the main street.

Hm. Some pictures of this would've been nice, huh? Sorry, I was enjoying my ride. And saying hello to everyone. Even the stuffy-looking guy determined to ignore me as he rode his bike in the opposite direction suddenly smiled when I said hello to him in Japanese.

And suddenly--there was the super market.

Again. No picture. Maybe another time. Or on facebook eventually.

Hey, since I was here.

It took me a moment to find the space for bicycle parking, since the parking lot was actually full of cars. It's so odd sometimes to see everyone driving, since I'm used to most people biking or taking public transit. But there is no real public transit in Taiki. The nearest train is in Obihiro, I think, which is an hour away by car. There's a bus, but it runs about once an hour and I've never seen it. But find the parking spaces I did and in I went.

Maybe I shouldn't have worn shorts. They're pretty short. Like, halfway up my thighs. Which, granted, I've seen Japanese girls wear--and shorter--but I'm a foreigner, and quite a bit...softer...than most Japanese girls.

Ah well.

I browsed up and down the aisles getting just a few things. I didn't want to overload the bike basket. So I got things like face soap, salt and cinnamon, cereal, tomatoes (for tomato sammiches, if I ever get off here and feed myself before bed. According to my usual schedule I should've eaten about an hour or two ago, watched an hour or two of Big Bang Theory, and be taking a shower in about fifteen minutes. I've not eaten yet and I've been on the computer since I got home), and candy. Lots of candy. In my defense, it's almost all for the Bestie. However, nobody here knows that. They must think I plan to send myself into a diabetic coma. Really, only one box of pocky and two bags of hard candy were for me. The rest of it was for her--I swear!

Does nobody believe me?

Haters.

Anyway. I checked out, loaded up, and back across the bridge I went!

Isn't the river pretty? Kayaking is pretty popular here. But it gets shallow in some places. I actually saw two kayaks at the edge of the river, along with a tent under the bridge. Camping is popular, too. I'm not sure whether this is some sort of semi-urban camping trend or a homeless person, tho.

Anyway.

I passed a garden of a house that I swear belongs to a landscaper or bonzai aficionado. Or this town is half-full of aficionados, since I passed about six gardens that looked like this one during my ride.

Halfway across the bridge Komori-san stopped and said hello. He asked if I'd fixed my bike--I'm assuming that's what he asked, anyway, he's one of the ones who clocks in at somewhere around the speed of light. And, since it's reflex now, I nodded and said yes.

Wait.

My bike is broken?

Where?

I noticed the handlebars, which were initially misaligned, were properly aligned.

Uh....

But of course he'd kept talking. I don't even remember what about, I was so worried about my bike suddenly falling to pieces under me and squishing my tomatoes. And scraping my knee. Japanese people are pretty odd about blood.

Then he drove off and I went on to the patisserie. I got a piece of chocolate cake--just one, thank you. I wish they'd had earl gray cake like the Lipton in Kyoto Station--but ah well, I should be glad I have a place that sells cake, which as it turns out is just right up the street from my apartment. Score! This could be dangerous.

 New rule: One must bike to the patisserie. Or walk. No driving.

Until it snows.

While I was paying, in walks Komori-san! Again! Is he following me?! He's picking me up for Obon tomorrow, you see, and he said since I was riding my bike around, how about he pick me up by the liquor store tomorrow at around 530?

分かりました。I understand.

.....

Wait.

What am I supposed to do with my bike, then?

But I'd left by then.

I'm smart.

So I got my cake and went home. I missed my turn and wound up going around the block. Oh well.

And those pretty flowers that were my excuse for going out?

I'll get pictures of them next time. o.~

In which the Traveler Tries to Find Dinner in Shinjuku, aka Traveler in the Big City

This one is a few days late, but it's still amusing.

My last night in Tokyo I decided to go and get some dinner before calling the Bestie and afterward going to karaoke with another JET. I hadn't wandered much past one block from the hotel, so why not?

Well. Here's why not.

After a few minutes of dithering, I decided I wanted okonomiyaki. Basically I like okonomiyaki, and I wasn't in the mood for anything overly hot or complicated to eat. Essentially I was lazy. So, goal in mind, I set off.

I wandered for about ten minutes up and down streets, taking random corners and peering at plastic meals in the windows, restaurant names, menus and whatnot. I found nothing, but I did wander across a policeman. So I flagged him down and asked him if he knew if there was an okonomiyaki restaurant in the area. After he blinked away his surprise that I spoke Japanese and I got over my surprise that I didn't have to think about the question before I asked it, he crossed his arms across his chest, put his chin in his fist, and looked up into space. He tilted his hips and shifted his weight back and forth making various hmm and hrmm noises. Finally he nodded and looked at me.

「わかりません。」

Thirty or forty-five seconds of straight thinking and I get "I don't know."

Okay. Undaunted, I thanked him and continued my wandering. And continued. And continued. For about fifteen minutes. I'm kinda actually pretty hungry now. I wandered across the Lawson a block from my hotel and asked the lady behind the counter. She asked her male coworker. He asked the other lady behind the counter. Then he went around into the store to ask the fourth coworker. They talked for about three minutes. Finally he came back to me, bowed and apologized for taking so long, then, still semi-bent over, tilted his head to the side.

「ないと見えます。」

It doesn't look like it.

Okay. I remembered I had a map of the immediate area in my orientation materials upstairs in my hotel room. I'd check that, and failing that, pick something else. Simple, right? So I thanked him and went back to my hotel. When I got upstairs, tho, I realized my roommate was still in, and her boyfriend whom she'd not seen in a while was with her. So I decided not to go fetch my map. I went instead to the JET information desk downstairs for another map.

I mentioned to the guy at the table that I was looking for an okonomiyaki restaurant and told him of my travels in search of the elusive food. He seemed genuinely surprised that nobody knew where one was, proclaimed that it was impossible that Shinjuku didn't have an okonomiyaki restaurant, and whisked me off to the hospitality room to check online.

Wouldn't you know it, the one computer that was open, incidentally the one we sat down at, had non-functioning internet.

He told me to go to the 交番, the police box, around the corner of the hotel.

"There will be two or three policemen on duty, one of them will surely know where one is."

I thanked him and set off. The police box is in a different direction from the block of restaurants and entertainment I was wandering, but I was decently sure that if they gave me vocal instructions I could follow them. Worse come to worst they'd probably give me a map. So I went up the block, following a couple of street signs, and kept my eyes peeled for the police box. But I couldn't find anything that said Koban in either language, so I went across the street at a fancy intersection and checked the area map.

The map showed the police box as in the middle of the intersection.

.....

I don't think that's right.

So I went to another map. It had fewer details, but after a moment I found the police station. Apparently I was in the right area, but I still couldn't find anything. So I wandered off back towards the block of restaurants. I'd look one more time and if I didn't find anything I'd pick something else, though by now it was a mission for its own sake. About five minutes and four blocks away I found another map and just for kicks I looked for the police station. Apparently it was about three buildings up the street from the intersection. Dafuq. Oh well, screw that, I didn't want to go back.

I went up and down a few streets and--wait. I know that kanji.

お好み焼き

Okonomiyaki! I took about three steps backwards and went back to the menu.

広島のお好み焼き

It was okonomiyaki, but it was Hiroshima style. Which isn't bad, don't get me wrong, but it's made with noodles in it, in layers, and is quite difficult to eat. At least, for me. Not only was I not in the mood for anything overly difficult to eat, but I don't particularly care for Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. I want the pancake. But where there's one there's a nest, right? I kept looking.

And found nothing. Well, that's not true. I found two McDonald'ses and a KFC. But seriously, it's my last night in Tokyo. I am not going to McDonald's.

You know what? Screw it, I'll eat the damn Hiroshima okonomiyaki. But there was a problem--I couldn't find it again. I looked. Twice.

There was another convenience store, so I stopped in and asked the guy behind the counter. By now I'm really good at this question and I've even made it more complex, adding the disclaimer that it's an odd question, but here it is anyway. He considered the question, asked his coworker, then turned back to me.

「ないと思います。」

I don't think so.

Dammit.

Fine. I thanked him and left. I was tired and hungry, dammit, and now I was tempted to get a sandwich or rice ball from the convenience store and eat in my room. But I'd just left FamilyMart--it'd be embarrassing to walk right back in. Maybe the convenience store in the lower level of the hotel was still open. Besides, it was a quarter to eight already, and I'd told the Bestie I'd call her back around 830. For reference, I'd left the hotel initially between 630 and 7. So I oriented myself and went back toward the hotel. Right across the mini-street from the Lawson up the street from my hotel I saw a restaurant I'd noticed two or three times in my meandering. It wasn't okonomiyaki, but I like donburi well enough, so I stopped in. By then I was so hungry that I started getting nauseated about halfway into my meal. I have the oddest-ly delicate digestive system I know of.

I stopped at the Lawson on my way back--I'd earned dessert. My cashier was the same guy who'd went around and asked everyone else. .... Hello.

So that was The Great Okonomiyaki Failure. I made it back to my room at a little past nine.

Also, it was dark and I didn't want to look overly touristy, so I didn't take pictures. Sorry. Use your imagination--I'm sure you'll be fine.

Chapter 1 In which the Traveler becomes Oriented

Finally made it! I'm currently chilling in my hotel room at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. We arrived late-ish last night and it's been pretty much nonstop from there. And it was a bit of an adventure getting here.

First things first, we had pre-departure orientation in Nashville Friday. I got to meet the other people I'd be flying with, which was nice. I'm the only one in our group heading to Hokkaido, and there's only one person going to Okinawa, making us the bookends. I'm not the only one from Oklahoma in our group, which is a nice coincidence. Friday evening we had dinner at the Consulate General's home, which was nice but rather stuffy and formal. But still, a wonderful experience.

はじめまして。私はアシュリー　マクビーと申します。アメリカのオクラホマから来ました。私は北海道の大樹町へ行きます。これから、一所懸命頑張りますので、どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。

One of the Japanese gentlemen there seemed genuinely pleased that I'm going to Hokkaido.

"Yes, it is very cold. But the people are very warm in their hearts. The very best people are in Hokkaido."

We stayed the night in Nashville and then at 7am loaded up on the bus. I didn't take appropriate pictures--sorry. Not exactly a wonderful start, I know. I couldn't get my large suitcase down to 50lbs, so I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and just pay the $75 in overweight fees. It wound up weighing 58lbs, but amazingly the agent waived the fee! It turns out they waived it for all of us, but I think I was the one most overweight. Either way, thank you very much, Delta!

Our itinerary was to fly from Nashville to Detroit, have about 2 1/2 hours to eat, and then board a 13-hour flight to Narita. We hung out in the food court to get breakfast, but our flight was delayed. We wandered to the gate and sprawled out--Belem and I bought cards and a bunch of us played for our delay. We made grandiose plans for swapping seats, meandering through the aisles to chat, and playing games throughout our flight. But then we were delayed again. Unfortunately our delay was two hours, effectively eating our layover to nothing.

The plane landed at 3pm. As our flight to Narita was to leave at 330, they began to board before we even taxied to the gate. And of course we were seated in the back of the plane to Detroit. Then we had to use the restroom. As we waited for the group to reform, the gate agent at our Detroit gate approached us.

"Are you the JET group headed to Narita? You need to be at your gate now. They're not going to hold the plane much longer."

So we speed-walked over the moving sidewalks, crammed onto the tram, and all but ran. We made it to the gate right at the tail-end of the boarding line. But again we were in the back of the plane and some had to use bins rows away because nearby ones were full. I wound up seated in the center of the plane, two or three rows away from the group, sandwiched between a little Japanese man who read or slept through the journey, and some indeterminate Asian man who slept most awkwardly hunched over his tray table when he didn't have his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him. Which was also awkward. I couldn't see the screens for the in-flight movies, which was actually fine, as the entertainment system crashed about an hour into the flight. The flight attendants reset the system, which shut it down for 20 minutes. I'm sure the business class cabin hated us. However, the reset didn't fix it, and the movies hiccuped, lagged, and jerked and the sound system faded in an out with static.

It was a long flight.

But we persevered and made it eventually! The flight arrived at 530pm. Then it was off through Immigration, Baggage Claim, Customs, and down the relay of blue-shirted JET volunteers around to send away our luggage and board the buses to the hotel. The whole airport trek took about an hour, and then it was another hour to an hour and a half bus ride to the hotel. It was nearly 9pm by the time we rolled into the hotel. We were on our own for dinner, but most of us were too exhausted to go far. I went up to my room, washed up, and just went over a block to the コンビニ and bought a sandwich and drink. Skype, shower, and bed by 1145.

Today was up at 630, get ready and dressy, breakfast at 745, then Post-Arrival Orientation, Day 1! The keynote speaker was hilarious and charming. I hope he never decides to start a cult--he could be a dangerous man. I got a lot of papers and information, and I actually ran into one of the guys who worked in the International Office at Ritsumeikan! He was recruiting for Ritsu as a grad school and promoting the SKP program, which is the one I participated in during 2010-2011, until the earthquake. The whole orientation is very fancy, and it's so odd to see all the men and most of the women in suits. Women are allowed to wear "cool business," which does not really mean closer to business casual, like we thought, but rather that we can wear blouses without jackets, as it's quite hot in Tokyo in August. Men.... you make adorable penguins. I wore my jacket in the morning but dropped it off back in my room at lunch.

After lunch we could choose three seminars to attend. I went to Visiting Elementary Schools, Resources for Lesson Planning, and Teaching at Multiple Schools, which it turns out didn't apply so much to me. Live and learn. I came back upstairs and dozed off for about fifteen minutes, then it was back downstairs for the banquet. Which was also fancy. It was a graze-and-mingle affair, and I did both, then skipped out at 730. I don't much care for large, crowded spaces and quite frankly, I'm exhausted.

Which brings me to picture time!

You only get pictures of Shinjuku from my hotel window. The Hokkaido JETs were unofficially invited on an informal night out to a 飲み放題, an all-you-can-drink party, in Shibuya, but I decided not to go. There are 46 of us, not including the Sapporo group, and frankly I'm exhausted. I just want to crawl into bed and die for the evening. FOMO, you can kiss my sleepy bum! 

We have prefectural dinners tomorrow, I think, so hopefully there will be more/better pictures later! For now, I bid you all a fond adieu!