Fun weekend?

Well half fun.

Had my welcome party on Sunday afternoon. So nice of people to get up and come out on their day off. Honestly, I don't think I have ever had that before, a party for me. I mean, some birthday parties when I was a kid and whatnot, but never as an adult has there been an event organized around me. (head swelling)

So, had about a dozen of my students come out to eat and hang out. We ate at this great chinese food place that the other Geos teacher knew about. It was really good food, and you could tell everything was fresh. Started off with some cold chicken in peanut sauce (that sounds like Thai food to me, and it was fantastic) then a salad with pumpkin chips on it. The Japanese are really big on pumpkin. I saw pumpking salad in the store the other day, like a potato salad in the states with mayonaise and whatnot. And no, I did not get it. Anyway, this salad had thin slices of pumpkin on it, about the thickness of a ripple potato chip and they were crunchy and really good. Someone in America should put that on their salads, I bet people would eat it up (ugh, that pun really wasn't intentional).

Oh, and I had a triangular piece of cucumber that was covered with salad dressing and I absolutely COULD NOT pick it up with my chopsticks. I was trying and trying for a couple of minutes to pick it up and one of my students (it sounds so weird saying that because we weren't in class and she is either around my same age or older than me) was watching and laughing at me. Eventually I was told to just pick up the plate and push it into my mouth. That is okay with noodles too, pick up the bowl and shovel em in. See, Japan isn't that polite.

The next course was soup. I can't remember what it was other than noodles. Then came shrimp with tomato sauce. And then fried pork and rice with eggs. And we finished up with some yogurt and cassis. What is a cassis? So, I asked what the fruit flavor in the yogurt was, and everybody said, well it tastes like a cassis. What do you call a cassis in America? And I had never even heard of a cassis. So someone broke out their handy electronic dictionary and it translated it as a "black currant" which I have never even heard of. So I asked what it looked like, and no one had ever seen the fruit. Just eaten it in stuff, or apparently it is mixed in drinks a lot in Japan. So, never really figured out what a cassis is. Got home and looked it up on Wiki and it looks sort of like a blueberry. Tasted somewhat similar to one as well.

So, good lunch/welcome party. Oh, and and the restaurant was so hot! I always wear long sleeves over here to cover the tats, especially around co-workers and students, and I was dying in that place. It didn't help that they had a tv on the wall showing the kitchen and I kept seeing the super hot wok and the flames coming up the whole time. Oh well, just sweat all the time over here. Not a big deal, at least not for me. Maybe for those around me.

Afterwards, one of the students that I went out with after work on Saturday night asked if I was busy and wanted to go bowling. Of course I said no I wasn't and yes I did. Well about ten of us decided to go bowling at USA. USA! USA! USA pachinko parlor, arcade, and bowling alley that is. A super huge place full of all your time and money wasting vices. Well, turns out Sunday afternoon is league day at USA bowling alley. What the? Wouldn't you think that a weekend afternoon would be the worst time to fill up the bowling alley with league bowlers? Well, whatever. So, it was decided that we would go to another bowling alley in Sabae. A couple of people decided to call it a day, so we ended up with 7 of us piled into a station wagon headed to the bowling alley.

Turns out Sabae is about 40 minutes away. That is a long way to go for bowling and I felt bad that everybody took that much time because I mentioned I would enjoy going bowling. Sometimes I feel like I am taking advantage of everyone's niceness. Like they won't say no to me. So, now I feel like I shouldn't ask anything. Especially if people are going to go out of their way. Hmm, concious fight.

So, we went bowling and it was fun. The bowling alley was super busy so all seven of us had to bowl on one lane. Except they only allow a maximum of four bowlers per lane, so we paired up and bowled as teams. It was fun, nice bonding time with some of my students and my manager.

And of course I forgot to bring my camera. The trees around here are so green and dense. I don't think I can get to those hills around Tsuruga easily. The expressway runs along between the city and those hills. I am going to check around and see if there is a way to get to them though because I want to go up and see how big Tsuruga actually is. Of course i was told that there are poisonous snakes around here, so maybe not.

Today (Monday) I got up at 8 am and went to city hall to get my foreigner's card.



Cool huh? (Ooooh, and how meta, the picture of the blog in the blog. You are now in an MC Ecsher drawing)

And once I got that I was able to go and open up a post office bank account so my paychecks can be deposited right to there and I don't have to walk around with all of this money. Nice. Of course, I don't get paid again until the end of September, so not really of any use to me yet. More important for my manager because without the bank account she has to pay me in cash, and I know she doesn't like doing that.

After that I went and got a cell phone. This is where the weekend gets less fun. Cell phones are butt expensive over here, especially because the cell phone company doesn't just give you a cheap phone like they do in the states. You have to buy your cellphone. And the cheapest cellphones at the place were over $300. Ouch! And the one I bought was $400. Yes, I didn't get the cheapest one, figured if I am going to use it for a year I might as well get one I actually like.



Just sitting there.



With the clock lit up. Yes, that is really pretty and very slick looking. That is the one reason I chose this particular phone.



Opened up.

Now, everyone says that cellphones are much better over here, and they might be, but I don't really see it yet. Especially because I am not a big cell phone user. I use the cellphone to make calls and send text messages, not download songs and games and other junk. The one thing I wanted they didn't have. Some of the students said that the last teacher had a phone that allowed him to take pictures of kanji and it would translate it to English for him. That is what I really need. However, that wasn't available for the phone I got or at the place I got it, or I don't know, I just don't have it. Oh yeah, and everything is in Japanese of course. So I had to stumble my way through the online user's guide and try to figure out how to change stuff to English and to use the phone.






Look at how big the phone is! It is huge compared to US cellphones.

Now, the most confusing part of the whole experience for me is how cellphones work in Japan. I am used to day minutes, free nights and weekends, a limited number of texts per month and then a charge, and paying for internet usage. It is different in Japan. First, days are free and it costs money per minute to call at night, like 20 cents a minute. That is odd. Also, if you call a person on the same network as you it is free, but it costs per minute to call people on another network. And they don't have text messaging per se, they have emails and you get charged per data packet sent and recieved. Well you sign up for x number of data packets and if you go over that you get charged more. I have no idea how that works. I hope they allow you to change your plan easily so once I figure out how everything works I can get what I need and get rid of what I don't.

So, all in all, a very busy weekend. Not much sleep. Lots of fun on Sunday, lots of money spent both Sunday and then a lot a lot of money spent on Monday. Although, I was good and didn't go out to eat tonight. I cooked up a chicken breast. I read about a rice cooker with a timer on it online over the weekend and am going to look into that. The biggest obstacle to my cooking at home more is that by the time I get home from work the last thing I want to do is cook. I figure if I can set the rice cooker to cook the rice at 9, by the time I get home it will be done or close to it, and I can cook up some chicken and have a healthy and inexpensive dinner instead of spending so much on food. Right now that is my biggest expense. And I am sure will continue to be over the course of the year.

So, next weekend I am going to go do something. I haven't decided what yet, but something. Maybe a day trip somewhere? And the weekend after that is a three dayer so I can def. go somewhere and not worry about not getting to chill out and catch up on sleep for the week ahead. OH and plus I got a second futon to put under the one that was provided for me from one of my students' parents. They were going to throw it out and she offered it to me as padding. And boy does it work great! My bed finally feels like a bed instead of sleeping on the floor. Now maybe my back will stop hurting so much. Fingers crossed!