Is it July YET? Will it ever be over?
Today was our visit to Iai Middle and High School. It is an all girls school founded by missionaries 150 years ago. Parts of it were really old and creaky and parts were shiny and new. Kids in Japan have to go to school from 9-12 or something on Saturday. I heard that they were phasing out Saturday school, but I guess this one didn't count because it was a private school.
I rode the train to Hakodate station and the streetcar the rest of the way. It was in an area very far from where I usually go called Goryokaku. When we got there, we took our shoes off and put them in plastic bags and put on plastic slippers. We were then herded up some creaky stairs to a large meeting room with many artifacts left over from the school's early days. There were old clocks, typewriters, oil lamps, electric lamps, pianos, portraits, an old stove and a suit of samurai armour in a glass case.. The ceiling was bolted together by long steel bars and nuts which met in the center. It's kind of hard to explain.
We sat in the room for a good long while while people spoke to us in Japanese and then we sat while no one spoke to us. Finally, we were herded around the school and joined classes in progress. The girls were really excited about us foreigners. They went absolutely nuts over this one goofball from UGA with spiky blonde hair and blue eyes.
After looking in on a few classes, we went back up to the old meeting room and sat some more. Then we were divided into groups and taken off to our activities. Mine was a discussion about Japanese pop music. The others were animation, the environment, cooking squid, and mock JET lesson. The people who signed up for JET didn't know they were going to have to teach English when they signed up for it.
Anyway, we listened to 4 JPOP songs and were supposed to give our opinions on them, but none of us felt comfortable enough to talk about it. The blonde guy was really popular, because all he knew how to do was give a thumbs up or down and shout "SUKI!" [like] if it was good and "KIRAI!" [dislike] if it was bad.
Since our discussion wasn't really happening, we were split into even smaller groups and sent to talk to the girls. It was during this time that they taught the blonde to give a thumbs up and shout "DOOOOD!" because apparently someone does it on tv. This sealed his fate, as he was doomed to make the gesture constantly from the time of conception to the time he left the school. Previously, he'd only been attacked because they wanted to touch his hair. In one of the classrooms, some girls practically dog-piled him for a photograph. They all wanted to have the picture taken with him.
During our discussion, we watched a horrible video which consisted of a group of approx. 10-year-old girls doing cornball dances to teach English words. It was terrifying.
After that nightmare ended, we were released and I went with what I thought was a couple of people to eat lunch and then to Goryokaku Park. Or so I thought. The girl was from Germany and apparently spent a lot of time in Japan. Enough to have a J-Phone, which I'll get into later. The guy was some dork from Mass. or somewhere who wasn't actually a student anywhere but doing the HIF program anyway. Turned out, the girl was meeting her host family for lunch, so we went to the meeting place and waited. Presently, a scrawny, dried-up, presumably young woman with 3 obnoxious children came along. Unfortunately, that was the host family. We went to a Chinese buffet on the second floor of a hotel in the Goryokaku area. After a torturous lunch during which mom smoked a hell of a lot, I learned that the family from hell was going to the park with us, so on our way out, I told the dork, Anthony, that I was going home. The others had already taken off speedwalking towards the park. Naturally, I assumed he'd tell them since he said "See you Monday" to me before leaving. I went back into the hotel to use the bathroom and while I was in there, I started hearing kids screaming something that sounded like my name. I waited for a while, but they wouldn't go away. When it sounded quiet, I came out and was looking at maps when I was found by the German girl who wanted to know why I didn't tell them I was leaving. I explained to her that I had, in fact told SOMEONE and she said his response had been "I dunno, she ran off". I asked her to apologise to her host mother for me and explained that I was going home. She wasn't upset.
Getting home turned out to be a bit of a trial. There is a JR station called "Goryokaku", but it is apparently no where near the actual area. I set out in the direction that I thought we came from but was soon lost. I passed by a department store so I went in to have a look around. This store was completely different from the other two I'd been in. This one had about 3 floors of clothes and 3 floors of useful stuff. For instance, furniture. Japanese furniture beats the hell out of American crap. Everything has to be useful because the space is so limited. The furniture I saw was fuctional while being asthetically pleasing as opposed to ornamental crap. I looked at short tables and cabinetry. The couches were really small and low. The beds are low and hard. There was even a child's 'training' bed which was about as tall as the others (approx 18") but had a little guard rail so you brat wouldn't be sore from the altitude.
In addition to furniture, I looked at tv's and other electronics. The tv's here are all widescreen now. I saw Sony WEGA widescreen tv's, plasma tv's, etc. I saw a dvd-ram tv-recorder. I looked at J-phones and cameras. Speaking of which, cell phones here are worlds ahead of American. J-phones have bright, color LCD displays and built in cameras. You can send pictures and video to other phones or your computer. I looked at rice cookers, refrigerators, washing machines and bicycles. None of which resemble their American counterparts. Japanese refrigerators have exterior drawers for freezers and vegetables and stuff. Japanese bicycles have no extra gears and come with baskets and bells and cost 19,800 yen. They seem to get some pretty hard treatment, too. People ride on the sidewalks and leave them out in the rain. They have little bicycle parking lots here. You put a lock through the wheel to keep it from turning and no one steals it.
As I was leaving the store, I saw some dishes and other kitchen crap. I bought some dishes against my better judgement because I knew they'd be heavy and I had a long way to go. I left the store and just started walking. I had no idea which way to go. Finally I came upon a large intersection with highway numbers so I checked the map. Boy was I a long way from Hakodate station. I stopped in a small convenience store and asked a really nice lady which way to go. She told me and said it was a 30 minute walk. I followed her directions and, sure enough, eventually, I went right to it. However, naturally, I'd just missed the train. There was another in 40 minutes, so I just sat on the platform and looked at the steam engine that was parked at the adjacent platform. There were some photographers taking pictures of it, and then it left. I don't know what was going on, but I took a picture, too.
The train came and I walked home.
After dinner, there was (surprise!) another inane variety show on with the *same* people as on every other tv show. I watched a bit of it with my family. This one turned out to be rather interesting. It had a segment about the transsexual that won the Miss Tiffany's pageant in Thailand. It showed implant maintenance and the guy squeezed one around for us. They call them "new half" here. Then they did a segment on a fag in Thailand and all of his dubbed sentences ended in "desu wa" [this is a stereotypical indicator of gayness in Japan]. Then they did a segment on Canada's "So Gay TV". I saw Scott Thompson briefly. I must remember to ask Victor about that...
There seems to be a soap opera that takes place in a bowling alley on about every other night.
They really do have panty snatchers in Japan!!! I'm watching footage from a camera hidden in a clothesline. A guy with a blurry face is stalking the panties. Snatch!
My host father has a day of "park golf" planned for tomorrow. I assume that translates to "mini golf". You'd think on sunday, after a hard week of hell, I could sleep slightly late, but I've been told to be ready by 9am.
I WANNA GO HOOOOOME
Not having internet access is the hardest part. Not being able to keep in touch with friends and loved ones during a time like this really hurts. I've got to find a way to get these home.