Week 2 in Yawatahama

So this is my second week living in Ehime. Ehime is a rather inaka (countryside) prefecture by most Japanese people’s standards, so being a city girl, this is quite a big adjustment, even if Yawatahama is considered to be a “city” by those south of us in Seiyo and Ikata. However, I definitely am warming to the small town mind-set. Whether it’s a simple “Konnichiwa” on the street from a stranger, which definitely doesn’t happen in Edinburgh, or meeting the mayor and ending up in the local paper, it’s safe to say that people are a lot friendlier in small towns.

Yes, I actually did meet the mayor. Luckily for me I was dressed smartly in a suit since some photographers in the local paper had come along for the occasion. Though unluckily for me, Japan is a rather humid place, so sweaty-faced me is going to end up in the paper, scaring away all the locals from integrating with foreigners. Well, I hope not. The paper still hasn’t come out yet, so I still have the joy of seeing what picture they choose. Despite the fact that the mayor spoke barely more English than I speak Japanese, he seemed like a very lovely man. In fact he gave us omiyage of the famous Yawatahama Chanpon t-shirts that everyone working in the city office and board of education seems to wear. I feel like a bit of a fraud wearing it since 1) I haven’t actually tried chanpon (in fact I’m a little bit vague as to what exactly it is, I’ve just been told it’s a “mix of everything”) and 2) the t-shirt is too big since I foolishly said I was a medium since Japanese sizes are notoriously small.

Actually, that brings me to the fact that my feet are a size large here. What? I feel like a giant! And I’m actually pretty small, so that’s saying something. Any Westerners above average size probably will really struggle to find clothes or shoes here. Luckily I’m fairly Japanese sized, apart from my massive clown feet of course.

Anyway, so the mayor then invited us to watch the fireworks with him and another journalist rushed up to us at the end and asked us to give him a quote about the fireworks. Needless to say, the quote ended up in the paper just a few days later. I guess I’m famous! Better get my autographing signature ready for when my picture comes out in the paper… Though I suppose it’s reassuring to some extent that they have to fill up the paper with quotes from foreign girls about the fireworks, since it means there is literally no crime to report. In fact, I even accidentally left my bike unlocked for 2 days and nothing happened to it. Japan is known for having extremely low crime rates and this is even more true in the country. It’s definitely a refreshing change
from British city life.

There is a definite sense of community spirit, and this is evident from the various festivals that have been going on in the last week, where everyone gathers to talk, eat carnival food and watch the fireworks. Whether it’s because we’re foreign and therefore automatically more intriguing, or because country folk are generally nicer, we ended up with a load of free food after one festival. This included candy floss, a bag of frozen chips, fried chicken and some ice slushy things, all in one night. Warning: being foreign may make you fat, as everyone wants you to try their food.

Going back to community spirit, at one festival a Japanese woman who spoke the most perfect English I had ever heard, probably better than a lot of Scots, came up to us and immediately wanted to strike up a friendship. Surprisingly she had never lived outside Japan, so it baffles me as to how she speaks so well. She ended up inviting us to her house for coffee another day, during which we were surrounded by her family. Her youngest son was really intrigued and kept peeking in, then bursting out laughing at the sight of such pale people.

I can’t get over the utter politeness of everyone, yet at the same time there are such big cultural differences. For instance, people here find it normal to eat fish heads (with eyes and everything!), while I struggle to even eat a single prawn. But that’s just me being a wimp. I will overcome my fear! At one of the festivals they were actually getting random people from the crowd to ride a pig and see how long they could stay on for. Yes, there was a pig rodeo. An actual pig rodeo. Everyone seemed to find it hilarious, but honestly, I found it rather cruel with all the squealing of the pig. I suppose this is why the Japanese can’t really seem to fathom the idea of vegetarians.

However, the community spirit even extends to the nursery children. This week we’ve been doing nursery visits. This means singing things like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, one of my childhood favourites. I think the word kawaii was invented for this very event! The children can barely speak Japanese, yet they manage to sing all the songs and some of them can even say a small self-introduction in English. Impressed didn’t cover it, and it still didn’t cover it when the kids started doing taiko drumming IN TIME WITH ONE ANOTHER AND WITHOUT HITTING EACH OTHER WITH THE STICKS. Seriously, even I can’t manage to do this nowadays. I’m rather proud of myself for the fact that I managed to resist stealing one of them. Will people get the wrong impression if I post this online? But that being said, a bunch of little Japanese children all waving and say “Bye bye! Nice to meet you!” is quite possibly the cutest thing ever.

Of course, I did manage to escape briefly back to city life for a couple of days when I went to Matsuyama a week or so ago for the Ehime Orientation. This one was much less sleep inducing and much more useful than the Tokyo Orientation in my opinion. On the first night we actually went to an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink restaurant. A Scottish girl + all you can drink = carnage. Such a formula would never work in the UK. It was really hilarious to see the amount of hungover people at orientation the next day.  Of course, I was one of them, but that’s nothing a Maccy Ds can’t sort out.

Japan continues to surprise me, just as it did last week. For instance, I headed out with some of the other local Nanyo JETs to a jazz bar in Ozu to find some of the smoothest jazz I’ve ever heard. Japan never really struck me as being a hub for jazz. However, the most amazing thing this week for me has to be what I call “the noodle river”. Today the head of the BOE drove us up precariously high into the mountains to a noodle restaurant. But it wasn’t just your usual noodles in a bowl.While some Japanese bars have conveyor belts with food, this restaurant had a little stream going round the table. And in the stream the chefs would send out little clumps of noodles at random intervals that we had to catch with our chopsticks. Yes, I was literally fishing for noodles! Isn’t this just the most amazing thing ever?? Maybe it’s just me… This, combined with being in a sort of tree house deep in the beauty of the mountains made it such a strange, yet exhilarating experience. Sadly it can’t be a regular occurrence, since it’s nestled so deep that you need a car to get there. But alas, that is where the magic comes from.

Hmm, it seems Japan might be rubbing the sharp sarcastic Scottish edges off of me… Time for me to go I suppose before I become too mushy and stop recognising myself.

Arrival in Japan Part 2: First Days In Ehime

When getting off the plane in Matsuyama, the capital of Ehime prefecture, the first thing that struck me was the heat and humidity. All the new Ehime JETs were met by a gaggle of excited supervisors waving large welcome signs around, before being whisked away to their towns.

When we arrived at Yawatahama, me, the other new JET, a current JET, my supervisor and my coordinator all went for lunch at what felt like an overwhelmingly traditional Japanese restaurant. It was all shoes off and sitting down around the low table. We were told that we should try cold noodles. I hesitantly agreed, thinking it sounded a bit off-putting, but not wanting to offend my bosses. And to my surprise, it was really great and refreshing. Basically you pick the noodles up with your chopsticks, dip them in a tub of soy sauce and other bits and pieces and slurp them up. Apparently slurping here in Japan is not rude in the slightest, but instead shows your appreciation for a meal. However, being a stoic British person, I can’t yet quite bring myself to do that yet.  We also had okonomiyaki, which is basically a savoury pancake type thing with vegetables and things mixed in. I had this once before, but to my surprise my coordinator suddenly took the top off the table to reveal a hotplate underneath, and starting pouring the mixture onto the hotplate and making the pancake himself in the middle of the restaurant. Needless to say, it was very tasty.

I was then shown to my apartment, which to my delight is very much Japanese style. I have a kitchen, and then a bedroom and living room, both of the latter having traditional Japanese tatami mats on the floor. Although I’ve been told they can be a bit of a hindrance to maintain. Here is my tatami mat living room which has a lack of furniture.

 I don’t have an oven, or rather I have a mini oven thing, even smaller than a microwave. I also have a gas stove, which alarms me as it looks like it could blow up any minute. The biggest surprise of all was my shower though. I have what is essentially a wetroom, with a swimming pool type floor with tiles and a drain in the middle. The shower itself is a deep box that you climb into and stand in (about double the height of a normal bath), with a handheld showerhead. Basically, there is a hole in this box and the water drains out and goes down the drain in the floor. Rather odd. At first I thought my box was leaking when water appeared on the floor, until I realised this is what is meant to happen. The ability to add pictures has mysteriously disappeared, so I'm afraid I can't add anymore pictures right now.

The next couple of days were basically a blur of me and the other new JET being taken round by the supervisor to visit the Board of Education and some of our schools we will be teaching in once the summer holidays are over. This consisted in us giving out omiyage to all the teachers and co-workers, which are little souvenirs from our hometown. So for me this is generally things like shortbread, tablet and little Highland cow key rings and the like.  Never have I bowed so much in my life as I did in those past 2 days. And never have I said “Arigato gozaimasu” and “onegaishimasu” so often for lack of any better vocabulary.

One thing I noticed is people’s utter enthusiasm towards foreigners. Whilst in the UK we wouldn’t even blink at the sight of a foreigner, we are such a novelty to the Japanese due to their complete lack of racial diversity. This can be both a good and a bad thing as I have quickly come to realise. Whilst people are very eager to make you feel welcome, it also means that you get a lot of stares when walking around outside and in the supermarket. One little girl practically banged into a door because she was staring at me. And just this afternoon a group of Japanese schoolgirls exclaimed “Kawaii!” when they saw me in a shop. I really feel it won’t be long until everyone in the town knows about the two new blonde gaijin girls simply from everyone talking about us "newcomers".

While most adults generally try to hide their curiosity when they see me walking around, the kids really can’t help themselves. At the first school I visited they literally swarmed round us like a bunch of flies to some leftover meat. It was very endearing for me, the way in which they were both eager and shy at the same time. They would yell out the few English phrases they knew like “Nice to meet you” and rather amusingly “This is a pen!”. But when I actually tried to speak to any of them directly, particularly the girls, they would dissolve into a fit of giggles and hide behind their friends. I suppose this is my first small taste of what teaching will be like. Sometimes frustrating, yet always amusing.

I’ve had a great first week so far, being shepherded around by our coordinator and sampling many different restaurants. The food has been great, although I know that in a couple of weeks I’ll be craving some fresh mozzarella and a big bag of McCoy’s Salt &Vin. The surrounding countryside is beautiful, although the sheer humidity makes me reluctant to go outside for long periods of time.

Our coordinator has been very much a mama bear to us, doing everything from helping us open bank accounts, to making sure we don’t get lost, to taking us shopping and most amusingly, trying to set us up with some of her younger friends. Yesterday we were initially told that we would be going shopping, then we would meet some of her friends to go out and eat with and then to the beach, gender unspecified. In Japan people tend to hang out in same sex groups, so it wasn't unreasonable to assume they would be females. Later in the day it comes to light that these friends are actually male. Then she starts telling us their ages saying “Oh, they’re too young for me”. I have to applaud the way in which she was so sly about introducing this idea of gallivanting around the beach in the dark with some of her young male friends, originally leading us to believe they would be female without actually saying that. Although in the end the beach never happened as everyone was too tired and full from good food. Anyway they were all lovely guys, and we will probably meet them again for some kind of language exchange, even if this is a little bit different from our coordinator’s original hope of us gallivanting around the beach in the dark with them. 

Today being the only day without work or plans, I decided to do a little exploring of my own in the afternoon sun. To my surprise I stumbled upon a sprawling hillside graveyard with several beautiful shrines in the entrance way. I think I’ve used the phrase “to my surprise” far too often in this blog, but I think this really sums up living in Japan.

So all in all, a great first week and hopefully many more to come!

Arrival in Japan. Part 1: The Tokyo Orientation

*** Just to apologise for the lack of photos, my computer isn't being cooperative in letting me post them. I'll try and sort it as soon as possible.

So here is my first blog post, finally having arrived in Japan. I’ve been here less than a week, but I feel I have so much to say as everything is so overwhelming. So for now I’m just going to focus on Tokyo orientation. In a strange way, it seems like time has passed both quickly and slowly. Whenever I look at my watch it feels like it’s sneakily jumped ahead a few hours because I’ve been doing too much. But at the same time, it feels like years ago that I was at Edinburgh airport because of how much has been packed in this last week

Just over a week ago I was stressed out, running around Edinburgh saying my goodbyes. It was a sad time to leave, given that the festival was just revving up. I kept getting excited over this despite the fact that logically I knew I wouldn’t be here to see it.

Anyway, I digress. The plane journey was fairly hellish, in terms of the fact that it was 12 hours long (not including the flight to London and the waiting in between) and I was unable to sleep for more than about 10 minutes at a time. When I arrived in Tokyo that day I felt like the whole world was swaying. This swaying feeling only added to the feeling that I was dreaming. It’s strange how we step into an airplane, step out however long later and we’re in a new place. Have you ever stopped to wonder that it’s just a simulator and we’re actually the star of our own Truman Show (great film that is worth a watch if you’re never seen it before)?

So moving on from strange philosophical, Matrix-like questions, the hotel was pretty damn sweet. I’m kicking myself now for not having taken a picture of all the chandeliers hanging in the entrance and dining rooms, but it was pretty frickin’ sweet. 

Also, only in Japan does the toilet have a remote control. It took me a couple of minutes to work out where the flush was, which, by the way, isn’t even on the remote control.

I spent the first afternoon swaying in my dreamlike state with a big group of other British JETs since we were the first nationality to arrive. My first meal in Japan was a plate of noodles with random egg yolk on the top that took me by surprise, though despite this, it was pretty tasty. But as I was soon to find out, this is only the beginning of the surprises I would find awaiting me. By the way, we ordered the food by pressing a button on a machine in the door and putting our money in like a vending machine. Then a few minutes later the waiter turned up with our dishes.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around Shinjuku, in all its bright neon lights, then getting the subway, or rather, overground, since it’s not actually underground (or at least this line isn’t, I haven’t ventured to the others). And guess what: it was cute! As in little cartoon character mascots everywhere! There are so many times that you can say "Only in Japan" and I think this is definitely one of them. Cute is everywhere! Even in the bank in Yawatahama which I'll get to later.

We got the subway to Shibuya and stood around in our big gaijin bubble making the Japanese V in our pictures. Naturally this resulted in a lot of Japanese people staring at us, which brings me to the topic of the fact that Japan is an extremely homogenous country in that over 99% of the population are completely Japanese in origin. Most of the other 1% is made up of other Asian immigrants from China or Korea, so when a huge group of British folk rock up, then the Japanese stare since they’re not used to this. Even in Tokyo which you would probably presume has a bit more variation in terms of race.

The rest of the day was spent in a sweaty and tired, but completely awed daze, visiting a shrine near Harajuku and climbing a tall building near the hotel to get a view of the city at night (when I say night I mean 8pm, since it seems to get dark here around 7pm, even in the summer).

The next day was actual orientation. This meant hundreds of JETs from all over the world were herded into a giant room and sat down according to the prefecture they are heading to. We were basically talked at for several hours, which isn’t a great idea when combined with jet-lag and suits in a rather warm and crowded room. In my opinion, and also after having talked to several others, the JET Programme was pretty harsh on us. They expect us to arrive in Tokyo after an extremely long flight and a timezone change of 8 hours, then actually attend conferences and stay awake the next day? Yeah, sure. And a lot of the Americans and Canadians were much worse off, having an even bigger time difference and arriving late at night.

To cut a long story short, we were talked at for a couple of days and I was really sleepy.  On the second day I ventured out to lunch with the other Scots (definitely the best group of JETs, totally not biased!) and ended up in a really traditional sushi place. Unfortunately my friend has the picture on his camera, but it was my first experience of taking my shoes off  before entering a restaurant and sitting on the floor at a low table to eat. Really great sushi and at least a third of the price I would pay back home.

The second evening was also really cool. It was the British embassy event, so all us Brits were herded to the British embassy for munchies and bevvy (woo!). We were also given a lecture basically telling us not to get arrested. Did you know you can get arrested for punching a plastic snowman? Or for stealing a cardboard cut-out of Justin Bieber from a karaoke bar? Nope, me neither. Later on I drank all the wine and loaded my plate with sausage rolls – only at the British embassy. I mean, who knows the next time I’ll get to eat a sausage roll? And of course there were the traditional Japanese Taiko drummers, which just about burst my eardrums but were very amazing and energetic in their dancey drumming.

Later that night a big group of us headed to an izakaya (a traditional Japanese bar) and failed miserably because the group was too big. So we split up, and I bought an interesting drink in the konbini (convenience store) called Strong Zero which managed to get me tipsy after only 1 can. Yep, me, the Scottish girl who can drink a bottle of wine like juice got tipsy from one can of something…  I seriously wonder what they put in that stuff!  So I had a fun last night wandering around Shinjuku and Shibuya amongst all the colourful lights, and going into arcades and not actually playing anything, but just gazing in awe at how many floors it has and the weird prizes it had (a box with eyes on it, seriously?).  So I must confess, and please don’t hate me for this, we ended the night by going to McDonalds and having some chips. It wasn’t my idea, I swear!

The next day I got up at early o’clock in order to catch my flight to Ehime. The flight was short and I slept my way through most of it. In fact I awoke to what I thought was turbulence, but was actually the plane bumping down on the ground. I looked out the window to see lots of hills! And green! And actual Japan! Not the crazy hallucinations of a frat boy on mushrooms that Tokyo is.

So stay tuned in kids for the next instalment of Hannah Wanders Helplessly Round Japan Offending Everyone She Meets With Her Gaijin Ways.  :)