to stay or not to stay that is the question!

I am grappling with the decision to stay in Japan another year. I had thought my mind made up on staying even though most of my friends are leaving. I had attending a JET conference and now I am left with a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I think about the question. I am not going to go into the details of the pros and cons but I am afraid of the reverse culture shock if i leave. Apparently when leaving Japan (since the culture is so different from that of English speaking countries) many people go into an extreme reverse culture shock and basically begin hating their own cultures and countries. I was always really bad after I returned home at the end of summer camp and that was onlya week. I realize I have to return some time and I don't want to teach English for the rest of my life. This decision is anything but fun :(

finally finally snow

We finally had a few decent snowfalls in Mikawa though they continually melt. I am still disappointed since I was told to expect two metres of snow and the ski resort is in a constant flux of opening and closing since they don't manufacture any snow. The snowflakes here are so thick and beautiful though, that when they fall it is like a dream. I went for a walk during the last snowfall and took some pictures with my sad cell phone camera. Camera has still not recovered from the beer.
The big puddle of water is due to the street clearing system which consists of a strip of dribbling sprinklers that spread water along the street. Since it is winter I had worn winter boots and not rubber boots and my feet were slightly drowned by the time I got back.
My lovely car the morning after. To prepare for the snow everyone here puts up their windshield wipers at night, thus it is easier to clear off the snow!

no pictures

While home my camera took and impromptu beer bath and as such is not working now. I cleverly took out the data card thinking I could retrieve the pictures through another means but I have, true to form, lost the data card (I am sure it is in a safe place). Lovely, Melissa remembered that we had taken out a three year warranty on our cameras so I will attempt to dry my camera out in a bowl of rice and take it in to be repaired. Hopefully I can find my data card once my bags are completely unpacked. Pictures of New Years, ice fishing and more hopefully to come...

christmas in canada

Well after the 26 hours it took to get here it was nice to have Christmas with the family. I had a Tim Horton's Ice Cap as soon as I sighted the place and it was lovely! I think my taste buds are going to crap in Japan because I also sampled a cinnamon bun and I found it too sweet. I don't think that concept even existed to me before. It is funny comparing the flights of American airlines and Canadian. On Air Canada the white population was under fifty percent with the other being people with different national backgrounds but Canadian. The lines for the American airlines were almost solely white. With the massive amount of white people I catch myself thinking that I know them or they look familiar. I also bowed to a lady in the drug store! I find that I am incredibly more polite than I have ever been but I am hesitant to ask for help with anything. Only here for 6 more days so need to make the most of it!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

japanese cars part 2 - names

Japan has to have the most ridiculous car names of any country. Rarely is there a car name that is Japanese (because that would be uncool) but instead they bungle any foreign word that might make sense?

The duet because it is music for two!

The naked....???? (Actually a really ugly car)

Note this is a car.

This car is made for the Street.

That's .... a car?

The box isn't even very boxy for a car in Japan.

The diva for ladies with an attitude.

FunCargo

Either the big or Homy?

and life on wheels

There is also the...

“Applause” - People will clap as it drives by.

“Rocky” - the movie or the terrain?

“Town Cube” - oh the cube.

“Joy Machine” - sounds kinky.

“Acty Crawler” - huh?

“Life Dunk” - if you dunk life is it a good thing or a bad thing?

“Stout” - not the drink but is a good name for an ugly car.

“Toyopet” - ???

“Deliboy” - don't know of many delis or deliboys around here.

“Prairie Joy” - because of the lush prairies of Japan

“Big Thumb” - big thumb = small car

“Fairlady” - any men driving this car?

“Delica Space Gear” - A delicious car with space-ship equipment.

"Fit" - driving this car is like exercise!

"Chaser" - never in the lead.

"Sprinter" - perhaps ahead of the Chaser.

"Starlet" - for wanna be movie stars.

"Coaster" - no gas pedal in this one.

"Be -1" - be in one?

"Sunny California" - ...?

"Jazz" - and all that Jazz.

"Today" - today this is a car tomorrow...?

"Bongo Friendee" - the bongo players choice!

"Bongo Brawny" - those players with thick wrists.

"Scrum" - for the rugby lovers.

"Pistachio" - definitely for women.

"Town box" - you never need to leave your car.

"Charade" - it just acts like a car.

"Move latte" - uuuh?

"Elf van" - Santa's choice.

"Fargo Filly" - straight from North Dakota.

and many many more...

japanese cars part one - body styles

It is far overdue that I speak of Japanese cars. I have had a fair share of different cars due to my mishaps and what not. My current car is considered a kei car but it is a Pajero mini by Mitsubishi. It looks like a little jeep and I digg it but there are many cars out there that I simply shake my head at.

My area is incredibly rural with many farms so it is not surprising that farm trucks abound. Back in Canada a farm truck is at least a 1/4 ton often with four wheel drive. Japan's version is a little different. With a width of 174.5cm they can zip around the small roads encircling the rice fields.

Every farmer has one and I swear they do not go above 40km/h. With the box being so small, you wouldn't think they could haul much but they manage to haphazardly pile massive amounts of stuff in it.

Then there is the cube shaped vehicle (because cubes are aerodynamic didn't you know). The cubey vehicle seems to be the automobile of choice among women and they often coming in pale pinks, blues, and greens.

Another girly car is the bubble car though many pretty men are seen in them as well! They often come in pastelly colours akin to the cube.
Everyone else and their dog drives some form of hatchback that can range from cubish to a spaceship looking vehicle. The overwhelming prevalence of hatchbacks did not dawn on me until a few months ago when I was checking out the cars in my parking lot and then I noticed it everywhere else. My parking lot....

Now the yankees you might call the white trash (or the chavs as the British would say) of Japan. They are often seen out with tracksuits and gaudy clothing with the biggest hair and worst die jobs imaginable. For some obscure reason both the men and women tend to wear hello kitty slippers as part of their every day fashion?They don't stop the tackiness with their person however but extend it to their automobiles and in comes the yankee van.

Please don't get the impression that these are extreme or uncommon because I have a few cruising the streets of my town.

The kings of the road however, hate to be outdone and so custom semis are a frequent sight as well. With elaborate airbrushing, tricked out lights and random slabs of chrome these vehicle are hard to miss.

sendai and the test

I wrote the jlpt (Japanese language proficiency test) in Sendai which is a city on the east coast of Japan. Surprisingly it was only a 3 hour drive, I always forget how small Japan actually is. There isn't much in the way of history to see in Sendai so we went to third best waterfall in Japan. The Japanese are forever compiling lists and there is a list for everything from "most scenic viewing spot" to "best beef tongue" (of which Sendai is suppose to have the best but unfortunately we didn't sample it on this excursion). The waterfall was pretty impressive and if we had been there a week earlier the view would have been incredible with the changing leaves.


The test was not great and due to a horrible bed (no sleep) and a warm room I even fell asleep during the listening. It did inspire me to study more and perhaps I will take it again!

american thanksgiving...with rider football

Quite a bit late but we celebrated American thanksgiving again in Japan. Jim opened up his new apartment in Muramatsu and Yasuko cooked up some chicken. I let Michael know I had high standards when it comes to mashed potatoes and he didn't disappoint. My pumpkin pie was loved by all, of course, and we even had some Japanese shabushabu thrown in. The Grey Cup was the next day so I bought the western finals as a test drive and it rounded out the thanksgiving nicely.

Tomomi and Tomoko

Rie and I. She is trying to hide her face behind my hair because she thinks it is too big.Noriko's full face. Yoshiko is sceptical.
Michael, Iwan, and Evan playing full. In reality Evan continued eating until he left.


The turkey hit Tsubo...hard...but we had chicken so maybe it was the beer?

mexicans, snow and rye!!!

Since Niigata is relatively small you end up meeting most everyone in the foreign community. We were lucky enough to have a group of Mexicans, who were training for some type of engineering situation, living in the city. With their strange drinks and constant hi jinx they often kept us amused. Unfortunately, they were called back to the homeland to impart their knowledge (if they remember anything after inebriation) to their fellow countrymen. They had never seen snow before ( it is still difficult for me to believe people like this exist) and were hoping to do so before they left. It did snow but not in the city so Misael and I offered to show Jose and Mariano some of the cold stuff out in Mikawa. It was pretty disappointing actually because it had rained so the snow was really icy but they seemed to enjoy it.

Mariano's first touch.

Misael, Mariano, and Jose. I think Misael was happy to have Spanish speakers around.

After we said our goodbyes at a party at Northern Lights and Dustin was so nice to give them a bottle of Crown Royal.

The Japanese Tradition － 謝罪 Shazai bowing

Well I am lazy and there is nothing else to call it. Now that I can't hook my computer up and whip my pics right off it to the net, the whole process of saving them on a external drive, processing them through the weird program my school has and then waiting for the ridiculously slow net at school to upload means I haven't posted new pictures in a while...probably tomorrow. Until then a comical look at bowing. Never seen the really low ones but the multiple bow is used often. Have I mentioned that people bow in their cars?