Three days and counting II: Electric Boogaloo

Technically I've only been in Japan for two days and a couple hours (give or take), but it is the third day officially since I landed on Nagoya International's tarmac and so I think it counts. In any case, I will probably be too tired by this evening to write the post up, so forget precision timing.

I've only been here for two full days and it already feels like it's been a week. Sunday, my friend C (who is teaching here in Nagoya as well) and their partner Saber (who is visiting from the United States) came and picked me up and took me all over Nagoya - I signed up for Japanese lessons at the International Centre, ate at a ticket restaurant (you choose your meal from a vending machine with pictures on; you pay it, it gives you a little slip, you give that to the cook, then voila: food in about 5-10 minutes, no Japanese necessary), saw Nagoya Castle, wandered the residential streets a bit, and a good time was had by all. Yesterday was the first day of training: long days of 10-7, but I'm not going to talk about it since this blog is about culture, not my teaching career.

The weather here has been quite nice. It was fiercely hot on Sunday, but it's been cooler for the rest, since it's been cloudy and slightly rainy. The air is not dry - it's not terribly humid, but it's enough that I really don't need hand lotion or anything, which is a change from this time of year in Guelph. I think this stay in Japan will be good for my skin, if nothing else ;)

Eating here has been an experience so far: I mostly buy my breakfast and snacks at the convenience stores, since they have very good tuna-filled onigiri, as well as fruit cups and what claims to be pudding, but I know better. It's more of a custard than anything else, made with eggs and milk; it's quite delicious. Things are not as sweet here (which bodes well for my sugar intake), and there are more savory and delicate flavours than anything else.

For other meals, I've tried the ticket-restaurant, and last night I went with three of my fellow trainees to a combined bar-restaurant (izakaya). The menu was entirely in Japanese, though the server spoke a bit of English, and it was hilarious trying to communicate what we wanted. In the end, we had edamame and some skewers with meat of questionable origin (the server was killing himself laughing while miming things like stomach, intestine, cheek, heart, liver, etc), but it tasted delicious. We were a pretty big hit there; everyone wanted to speak English to us, so we had a lot of shouted "HI"s, "EIGO"s (English person) and "WELCOME"s, and a lot of laughter.

This morning I attempted to buy an orange: the little old man who was vending tried to give me the entire basket, but after a lot of insistent "ichi!"s (one) and gesturing, I managed to come home with only one orange, and not nine. It was delicious. I should try to be more polite, however; I tend to forget my o-kudasai (please), or to tack on "gozaimasu" after arigato (which ups it from a casual "thanks" to "thank you very much"). I'm pretty excellent at saying "sumimasen" (excuse me), however. Here's hoping those lessons at the International Centre help with that!