Heat waves sending me home...

It is pretty much too hot to live. Since last week, temperatures have been in the 30s during the day... tonight, it's 31 degrees Celcius despite it being 10:40pm. I have the odds stacked against me: I have sensitive skin, poor circulation (and thus a poor body heating-cooling system), and I am from Canada, where it generally doesn't get this hot for so long and with such humidity. Because of that, my skin has been itching, like it's swelling and getting too tight for me; I absentmindedly scratch it and cause a rash of small bumps to appear on my arms. I've also lost my appetite due to heatsickness. I no longer have any desire whatsoever to live in a country that lacks a decent winter.

In recent news, I went to Shiga prefecture and Kyoto with two of my friends. It's my last trip in Japan, as I only have two weekends left, during which I have to finish packing, cleaning my apartment, and getting rid of the stuff I can't or have no desire to take with me to Canada. I have taught most of my coworkers (including the other foreign teacher, heh) the word "penultimate", because that's what this week is.

Tales of Takabata

Accidentally posted this in Chotto... a few days ago. Here it is now :P

 ~~
Actually not really. I haven't updated this in like forever, but hey, I went to Koyasan! It's a place in the mountains in Wakayama prefecture - the mountains surrounding this plateau are like the leaves of the lotus, which is why Kukai (Kobo Daishi), the founder of Shingon Buddhism, chose it as the base for his new practice.

We stayed overnight in a shukubo, or temple lodging, ate shojin-ryori (traditional vegan Buddhist monk food) and hiked around. It was fantastic, and I super recommend it to anyone in Japan.

Somebody turned the humidity up to eleven today, plus it's raining. I've my laundry drying in my shower room (which actually can blow air into it to dry things) - but slowly - and my dehumidifier on in an attempt not to be soggy all day.

You said it, recycling-shop t-shirt.

I had to go out earlier to do a few errands - the paperwork for leaving Japan is seemingly endless, what with pension refunds and tax withheld, but I managed to pay a bill, send off some forms, and then - in my pride - I tackled going to the ward office to ask for a new pension booklet, as I seem to have misplaced mine. The guy helping me didn't seem to understand that I didn't understand Japanese, was extremely unhelpful, and was staring at my chest the entire time. Add to that his incredibly foul breath, and I left the ward office five minutes after I came in, extremely put out. I am still on square one, as the guy did not even TRY to communicate to me, so I have no idea what to do next. I'll be phoning the international centre to see what advice they have to give.

My mood was mollified by the fact that afterward, I went to pick up my dry cleaning from the little old lady who does it, and she gave me a cob of sweet corn to munch on, so... yes. Now to plot my next steps.

I'm leaving Japan on July 15, and so I'm in what seems like an eternal process of wrapping things up and getting through red tape - made more difficult by the fact that my Japanese is still quite infantile. Ah well.

Kimonomono!

In Japanese, "mono" means "thing(s)". Hence the terrible joke that is this post's title.

I live!

Pondside Buddha in Hirabari

Sorry for the silence on the eastern front, folks - Google Blogs has this tendency to not allow me to sign in for weeks at a time, though I try every permutation of password I have ever used. Doesn't help that I get all my error messages in Japanese, because Google "helpfully" senses my location and regionalizes the page.

What I've been doing for the past month: surviving.

Smells like spring...

One hundred and five yen for some potpourri and poems!

I got the lavender :3

Mankai

Meaning "full bloom".

View from my balcony.

Ohanami, oh my!

It's springtime in Japan, and that means cherry blossoms! Yesterday, I went to my very first ohanami, or cherry blossom viewing party. It's a tradition in Japan to go with your family, friends, and coworkers to a park and set up a picnic spot under cherry blossoms... it's very popular, so much so that our spot occasioned a stakeout from about 7am; the actual event was scheduled for noon. It's a sort of potluck-picnic; everyone brings a snack to share, plus alcohol, and you get drunk and chat to people and consume delicious things all afternoon.

Today is beautiful and sunny, with gorgeous warm weather; I took a bike ride to my grocery store, since my 105-yen Lawson's mysteriously closed last week. I discovered, much to my delight, that my river is lined with sakura on the block near my grocery store, so of course I took some pictures.

Good manners: turn your phone to "manner mode" while you're on the subway, Mom says! The creepy dude in the ad underneath has been grinning maniacally at me since I got here last May. HE NEVER GOES AWAY.

Signage

I have once again amassed a large amount of amusing signs that I've come across... let's take a gander!

GET THAT BABY

Ikebana.

I realize I've been slacking with updates lately, and I apologize - life here has been hectic, to say the least.

 This is Crystal Square, the hub of the big underground mall near where I work - it stretches out in a wheel-pattern underneath the streets. Lately, it's been surrounded by ikebana - traditional Japanese flower arrangements. I really liked this one; I can see the art of flower arranging now, as just looking at this evokes an entire nature scene in my mind. It's like a microcosm of Japanese flora in the spring, and it's lovely.

I survived. Many have not.

I am in fact still alive after Friday's earthquake. In Nagoya, we experienced a 4.5 earthquake, but no damage was done to structures or people - just a lot of shaking and scariness. I was teaching at the time, on the 6th floor of a downtown office building, in a classroom with floor-to-ceiling windows. Needless to say, classes were interrupted on multiple occasions to hurry away from the windows, just in case. We experienced several hours of aftershocks as well, and were scheduled for a tsunami, but it didn't make it here.

It goes without saying that I and all of Nagoya have been and continue to be monstrously lucky. The north of Japan, however, experienced a localized apocalypse, and with a looming nuclear disaster at the Daiichi facility, they need all the help they can get. If you can, please donate some time, money, blood, or supplies to help those in need - every little bit helps. Here is a link to some organizations where you can help. Please continue to pray for and think about everyone in Japan as the death toll mounts.

It snowed on Friday! It didn't stay on the ground for very long, but it was rather magical, I think.

Birthday!

Spring comes to Nagoya

I had the weirdest last day of being 23, let me tell you. It's counselling week at my school again, which means no regular classes, which means that the schedule gave the day a bit of a surreal quality already. I noticed one of my coworkers' new tie right off the bat, but didn't cotton on to my other coworker's haircut until late that evening. One of my students came and gave me gifts, though!

Uh, Spongebob, I think there's something in your teeth.

Hey all, my apologies for the silence over the airwaves these past few weeks; I'm going to try to resume regular blogging from now. To start with, I want to talk about what winter has been like so far: it's dry, drier than in Canada, and sunny most days. The air temperature is cold, probably about 2 or 3 degrees, and so if it's windy, it can be quite unpleasant, but the sun is strong enough that it warms one up so that it feels to be at least 7 or 8 degrees in the afternoon. Nights are cold, but rarely freezing.

Thus when it snowed last weekend, it came as a bit of a shock.

Back to the grind...

After a week of being in Nagasaki, that is!

This is in my city, about a month ago. Red maple leaves up the steps to a small neighbourhood temple. Lovely, wet, windy day.

Twas the night before Christmas...

The capitalist expression of the holiday spirit has been with us all month here in Japan, and you can see signs of it everywhere. Christmas sales are popular, and Santa-san has been advertising everything from the classic Coke to the ubiquitous Kurisimasu keeki to strange odds and ends on the infomercial channel.

Today, on Ariel's Blog: strange subway station signs!

Watch that baby. Waaatch iiiiiiiit.

This one was overtop a baby change table in the bathroom at my friend's subway station. Fun times.

Shopping!

Every once in a while I wander vaguely around the shops in Sakae, and I wish I was invisible so I could take as many pictures as I want without getting dirty looks. I mean, I stick out like a sore thumb anyway, and even with a cellphone camera, it's pretty obvious when one is taking a photo, so I try not to do it too often. But... seriously. You gotta document some of this stuff. Maybe I'll do another run next week.