November continued

On the following Thursday I met a Japanese friend for lunch at a shabu-shabu restaurant. Shabu-shabu is basically meat that is cooked for a short time in boiling broth which is at the table. The meat is supposed to be thin enough that you can cook it in a few seconds, and the name is supposedly the sound that the meat makes when you splash it around in the broth. The restaurant we went to was all-you-can eat for 90 minutes, so we ate lots of meat, veggies, mushrooms, and even some sushi. It was probably the best meal that I've had in Japan. It was good practice for my Japanese too because we spoke almost no English the whole time.

On Sunday I returned to the church of the previous week, which held a special Thanksgiving/autumn harvest service. This time there were about 30 people in attendance, which felt like a lot of people in the small sanctuary. After the service there was a meal, but first there was a mochitsuki. Mochi is cooked rice that has been pounded into dough, shaped, and then given different flavors. The rice was first cooked, and then it was poured into a log that had been hollowed into a bowl on one side. The rice was pounded with a large, heavy mallet. The children participated in this part, but the mallet was too heavy for most of them to lift alone. I pounded the rice too, and it felt strange to release so much energy to the end of a violent pounding.

The mochi hardens quickly, so once it was judged to be sufficiently pounded, it was brought inside and different flavors were added to it. The kind that I tried was wrapped in nori (dried seaweed) and dipped in soy sauce. Other flavors included being coated with sesame seeds or kinako, which is a flour of roasted soybeans that is apparently somewhat sweet. I didn't try either one. The texture of mochi is extremely chewy and the center of the mochi is bland, creating the unpleasant sensation of chewing for a long time on something without taste. Apparently every year many elderly people choke to death on mochi because of its consistency.

I didn't stay for the church meal because I had told my friends that I would join them in making pizza at a friend's apartment. We made some bacon-mushroom pizza that was mediocre in every aspect except for the mushrooms. After that we danced and talked and I played the guitar. It was a really nice Sunday.

November's Novelties

I suppose in September I was settling in and getting accustomed to life in Japan, and in October I was mostly sick to varying degrees. Only this month have I begun to explore a bit more.

First I went hiking with some friends on the Nakasendo trail, which is a road that connected Tokyo to Kyoto during the Edo Period (1603-1868). Some parts of the road are still intact, and it passes through many quaint villages as well as beautiful countryside. The stretch we hiked wasn't the most scenic as nearly half of it was next to an actual highway, but there were some nice parts nonetheless, especially with the color of the autumn leaves. We walked at least 15 km, and I was really sore for the next few days.

Another friend and I went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant after our Thursday morning Japanese class. Here you can pick out plates of sushi (usually containing two pieces of sushi) for a hundred yen apiece (about $1) from a conveyor belt that runs on one side of your table. At the particular restaurant that we went to, the plates were protected by a hard plastic bubble-like casing which stayed on the conveyor belt, and it wasn't very easy to take the plates out of this casing. The first time we tried, we failed to completely remove the sushi plate, and we had to watch the desired sushi be taken out of our reach. It was funny though, and it was an interesting way to eat, though I found that I tended to be distracted by new possibilities that the conveyor belt might bring.

The next day we went with some of the people in the Japanese class on a kind of walking tour through Matsumoto that ended at a miso factory. Miso is a paste fermented soybeans mixed with salt, a fungus, and sometimes a grain like rice or barley. Miso soup is a staple of Japanese cuisine, especially for breakfast, as I understand. The factory that we visited made two kinds of miso--red and white. The white miso sits for a year and has a milder taste, whereas the red miso sits for three years and is stronger. Miso tastes salty, but (to me) it also has a pleasantly earthy taste and aroma. The factory showed us the warehouse where they kept very large barrels (five tons is what I remember) of miso. Every six months or something like that, the miso is rotated by shoveling it out of one barrel and into another.

After the tour we sampled some miso soup made from the factory's miso. The factory had a nice gift shop, which also sold miso soft-serve ice cream. This was so bizarre that I had to try it. The taste was not bad, kind of a slightly salty and creamy mixture that reminded me more of Bailey's than anything else. I ate it all, but it wasn't tasty enough that I would eat it again.

The following weekend I decided that I wanted to go out on Saturday night, and went to an izakaya, a darts bar, and a club. It was a rough night, and upon getting home very late I discovered that I had lost my key. I slept on a coworker's floor in my clothes, and the next morning I had to call my boss and ask him to bring the spare key so that I could get into my apartment. I promised myself that many parts of that night would not be repeated, but it was a funny experience to see the inside of a Japanese club, where very few people were dancing--most were just bobbing to the music. Why even go to a club if that's what you want to do?

On Sunday the 18th I finally went to a different church that I had been wanting to visit for a while. This church was also very small, with only 12 people in the service that day, but they were very friendly, and invited me to stay for lunch after the service. Also, I was able to understand generally what the sermon was about, and I was able to follow the order of the service. I promised to return the next week.

There was a bit more to November that I will finish soon, hopefully.

Flu and Halloween

After my last post, my voice steadily improved and I felt mostly well by Saturday. On Sunday, however, my sickness got worse instead of better. I'm pretty sure I had a fever every day of the following week, but at least I had a voice so I was able to teach without obvious deficiencies. That week and the next week I focused mainly on recovering from my sickness by sleeping at every possible moment. As a result, it was strange to rediscover the concept of free time the following week. I'm still coughing a bit, mostly at night, and from the severity, longevity, and symptoms of my illness I've decided that I had the flu, which I don't think I've had since high school.

Because of my illness, I haven't done much in the way of interesting things. The Saturday before I got sick again, I went out in Matsumoto and went to an izakaya with some co-workers. Through one of them I met a Japanese guy from Brazil and several of his (Japanese) co-workers as all of us hung out together. From there most of us we went to a karaoke place, where I sang One Day More from Les Miserables (despite my still-recovering voice). Apparently no one knew the song, and yet apparently it was still fairly successful.

I discovered a taste for matcha-flavored items--that's an (expensive) kind of green tea. Matcha Kit Kat bars are so good that I've had to bribe myself in order to stop devouring a bag every other day, and I've replaced my morning cup of coffee with matcha tea, which is supposed to be healthier and generate a milder caffeine kick.

Halloween is not celebrated in Japan as a general rule, but in my town there was a special festival on the Saturday before, with a costume contest and a parade. I couldn't go because I was working, and the parade was rained out anyway by a typhoon, but some of my coworkers appeared on TV because of their costumes. During the previous week my school had a special Halloween week, and we had to wear Halloween costumes the whole time. It was a bit annoying, but the kids enjoyed it.

The following Monday (10/30) I went shopping for clothes because it was supposed to get close to freezing and I had no hat. I walked the distance between two train stations, gaining a hat, a cheap pair of slim fit khaki chinos, and a strong appreciation for the quantity and quality of second-hand shops in Japan. It does make sense that they would be prevalent due to the high cost of disposing of many items, though. 

On Thursday I went to Japanese class, and on the way home stopped by a second-hand shop with several guitars. I really wanted a guitar because I'm feeling a lack of music exposure here, and I still haven't found anyone yet who really enjoys karaoke. I couldn't make a decision I felt good about that day, and I couldn't imagine carrying an open guitar all the way back to my house via walking and train. On Friday (11/3) I went to the local second-hand shop and picked up a decent nylon-string guitar for about $30. The neck is just slightly bent and it's got several scratches and nicks, but the strings look practically new and it plays well for the most part so I am happy with my purchase.

Weekends

My writing regularity has been abysmal, but everything else has been going well. I'm studying Japanese diligently, as well as working on a website programming project. I still haven't made any Japanese friends though, so I'm working on exploring more possibilities in that area.

Weekends have mostly been very fun. I already wrote about my first two weekends in Japan. The third weekend's plans were threatened and nearly canceled by a typhoon, but in the end my closest co-workers and I braved the unfriendly weather and went to a modern-style izakaya, which is basically a Japanese-style pub/bar (there are probably more technical differences, but I'm not experienced enough to know about them). There, I had sake for the first time in Japan. The waiter put a small glass (maybe 3 oz?) in the middle of a wooden square-shaped cup (called a masu). Then he poured the sake into the glass until the wooden cup and the glass were both full to the brim. How on earth do you drink that? Somehow, I didn't make much of a mess. Some of my students told me that they had never seen both the glass and the masu used, and that it was probably just for show.

After a couple of hours of conversation, food, and drinks, we started walking back home. On the way there we passed a still-lit sign (not so common in this city) advertising a bar, and one of my co-workers said we should check it out. A man was standing outside, and he told us in very few English words that there was live music inside, which solidified our plans.

The bar was probably the smallest public establishment I've been in, with enough room for maybe 20 people at most. We had arrived in the middle of an open mic session. One of my co-workers played about half of the Mario theme on a guitar that was offered, and I played and sang one verse of Hallelujah. After me, a real musician from Tokyo came up to the front and played several songs with an electric guitar. All the songs were in Japanese, but it was still fun to feel the atmosphere of a pub getting into the music, and I was able to join them.

The next weekend was the company welcoming party for me and another co-worker. We invited our adult students, but only two of them came. First we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. From there we went to karaoke, a visit I had been promoting more or less ever since I had started working. It was a blast. Some of the best songs were "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Don't Stop Believin'". After that we probably should have gone home, but we were still on a karaoke high, so we went to an izakaya. The spirit died out before long, so we headed home soon after. It was probably the most fun party night I've had, at least since the Christmas parties in Vietnam.

Last weekend was much tamer. The three of us language school teachers met in a flat and just hung out and chatted for a few hours. It was going to be a game night, but we didn't really have enough people or the will to play games.

On Thursday night I realized that I had a cold and couldn't sleep. At 2:30 I said to myself, "There's a convenience store 3 minutes away--why not try to buy some medicine there?" Well, it seems that they didn't really have any. I bought an expensive one-dose bottle of herbal remedies which didn't do much. At 7:00 I was still awake so I decided to walk to the Japanese Wal-Mart which is 12 minutes away. When I got there, I could see the medicine I needed, but the pharmacy section was closed off until 9. I bought some tissues and mandarins and came home. About 8:30 I fell asleep and slept until 10:30. It was cold outside and raining, so I put off going out until I had to go to work, and bought medicine on the way there.

I barely managed to make it through my classes on Friday, and I had to wear a mask while doing so, which is quite uncomfortable when you have to talk a lot. I spoke with my boss and arranged for my later classes on Saturday to be taught by another teacher. By Saturday afternoon I felt fine, but my voice was almost gone. Saturday night I slept a lot--at least twelve hours, so I skipped church on Sunday. On Sunday though I had no voice at all, except if I tried hard I could do a decent impression of Batman. Monday (today) was supposed to be my day off, but another teacher got stuck after traveling and so I'll be teaching a couple of her classes. My voice is only at about 50% though, and I kind of sound like a valley girl. I sure hope it will be better tomorrow.

So in conclusion, I haven't done any cool Japan-specific things, but I have been fairly social and productive. I have been invited to do some touristy things next week, so if that works out I should have more to talk about by next weekend.

Frightening Experiences

I asked some of my business students about how they would feel about living abroad. They told me that they wouldn’t feel comfortable with anything more than a 2 week trip, mainly because of the language. Today at the post office I realized that for me it’s not just a language problem, but also a “what do I do in this situation” problem. At the post office, from what I could understand from the signs, one can apply for loans or pay them off. Some of the counters required you to take a number, and when I first walked in I didn’t know where to go. After standing back and observing for a bit, I figured it out, but that initial minute or so was scary. “I have no idea what to do, so I’ll inevitable commit some horrible faux-pas” was more or less my thought. On the other hand, in many situations in the US, I don’t feel like it’s much more comfortable. On the contrary, I feel like I deserve a break if I do these things in another country, whereas in the US if I do something wrong, I should have known better.

That excuse wouldn’t suffice for a driving accident, though. In Japan, people drive on the left side of the road, as I mentioned earlier. I have two business classes outside the school which I must drive to, and it’s pretty scary. Everything is flipped. I have to turn around to the left to look backwards and back out of a parking spot. The turn signals are on the right side of the wheel. The gear shift is to the left. It’s really disorienting. Fortunately, when actually driving, I can pretty much follow the cues of the cars around me. When I turn left or right, I’ll be reminded to stay on the left by cars on one side or another.

My first day driving was quite scary though. My boss let my follow him to the orthodontist’s office where I teach, but I had to drive back. I didn’t have problems then, but that night when I had to drive somewhere else, I missed a turn without realizing it and went way out in the middle of nowhere. Google is mostly accurate, but it was still telling me to turn at tiny roads that I couldn’t imagine leading anywhere, and even if they did I would be in trouble if I met another car on them. Driving alone in the countryside of Japan at night, lost if Google proved untrustworthy—it was a harrowing experience, though I ended up arriving only five minutes late.

On Friday morning I was startled awake by alarms and announcements telling me that a missile had been launched by North Korea, and to stay under shelter. I wasn’t worried—if a missile hits here, practically the countryside, then something has gone very wrong. It was an interesting experience that I never thought I would have, something out of the cold war era or post-apocalyptic fiction.

The first weekend's successes and failures

My first real weekend turned out to be disappointing. On Saturday some of the other teachers went to Matsumoto, but I worked all day and so I was too tired to catch the train and try to find them. On Sunday I had planned to go to a church that I had found months ago. When I got to the train station, I checked google to see which train I should take. Google then told me that there wasn’t a train for another hour, which would mean that I would miss church. As I was panicking and trying to find other options, the train that I thought I would be taking arrived and, sure enough, it was going to the place I needed to go. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to buy a ticket and race through the station in time to get on the train.

Instead, I wandered around downtown Shiojiri trying to find other churches. I did find the Portuguese church, but it had already started by the time I got there, and I didn’t expect to be able to understand much anyway. After establishing that I couldn’t find a church service that hadn’t started long ago, I went home and tried cooking.p

My first attempt at cooking was an unmitigated disaster. I think the problem originates from just one ingredient though—the noodles. I was making the famous dish “yakisoba”, fried noodles (oddly, it doesn’t use soba noodles despite the name). I bought fresh chumen (Chinese noodles, similar to ramen), and added them to carrots, cabbage, and onions. Because they weren’t dried, I assumed that they were okay to add directly to the dish. Wrong! Apparently you’re supposed to briefly boil them first. The yakisoba ended up as a glutinous, sticky mess, and though I managed to eat enough to keep me full, I couldn’t bear the thought of eating the leftovers, so I poured out the remainder of the pot.

On the bright side, I was very happy with the cooking dish that I have ended up with. The burner I’m using is probably only 22 cm, approximately the length of my hand from fingertip to wrist. That doesn’t give me much room to work with. Since I tend to cook one-dish meals, I first bought one of the largest frying pans, which ended up being almost too big to even sit on the stove area! I certainly couldn’t cook anything on the back burner at the same time. After much deliberation, I decided on a pot that wasn’t to far from a wok. It has served me well by allowing me to cook large meals with many different ingredients but without taking up all my stove’s real estate.

My second cooking attempt met with much more success. I made a curry (really, beef stew) except I substituted shrimp for beef and left out the mushrooms. It was a little watery in the end, so I added tonkatsu sauce (which seems to be the Japanese equivalent of ketchup), and it became more than acceptable. I probably wouldn’t use shrimp in curry again, but it was so cheap compared to beef that I couldn’t resist. I also used barley instead of rice, which came out really well. As leftovers, the meal was even better.

After my failure to go to church on Sunday, I was determined to make sure my plans were solid. I looked for free Japanese lessons and found a bunch within a half-hour train ride of my city. Monday night I attended one of these classes, and it was a lot of fun. The class had many teachers, and I was taught with just one other student from Thailand. We read essays in Japanese, answered reading comprehension questions, and then discussed the topics presented. It was probably the best Japanese class I’ve ever had, though I wouldn’t have minded a bit more discussion.

First Week in Shiojiri

On Monday morning I immediately left for Nagano city to get my residential permit. Nagano city is, of course, the capitol of Nagano prefecture (prefectures are kind of like states for the US). The 90 minute train ride there is very scenic, winding through mountains. I wanted to get back to Shiojiri as soon as possible to do more shopping for my apartment, so I didn’t explore Nagano at all. It will happen though… someday. The tickets to and from Nagano cost more than $20, so it’s not a trip I’ll make on a whim.

From the train, looking back on Nagano

Japanese customer service and respect is very famous, but maybe a bit extreme in my opinion. The bus driver who took me to the immigration office in Nagano saluted and bowed (in her seat) to every single bus that we passed. Similarly, in every store including the supermarket, if you walk near a store employee, they say, “irasshaimase” (basically “welcome”). It seems like a pain to me, but I guess they get used to it. In fact, I would imagine that it’s not uncommon for them to do it when they’re not on the job.

Back in Shiojiri, I observed some classes and familiarized myself with the teachers’ room. Tuesday I started teaching. The first week was pretty easy because lessons were mostly based on self-introduction, but I experienced a bit of a learning curve teaching the students too young for this. In fact, my first class with kindergarten-aged students was a near disaster. There were only four students, but one insisted on attacking another, who reciprocated somewhat. It was difficult to keep their attention and they were rowdy, but somehow I managed to keep them from hurting each other or leaving the classroom for 45 minutes. Phew, that’s a long time.

The rest of my week only improved from that class. Every morning I went shopping, trying to equip my apartment with food and utensils, and then I taught in the afternoon and evening. I’m really excited about trying all the food available. Also, Shiojiri is really nice. It’s famous for wine, and in fact there is a wine-tasting tour going on during the weekends. It’s grape season, so as I walk to work I smell delicious fresh grapes. They even have grapes growing at the train station. You might think that that would mean the grapes are cheap to buy, but alas they’re not. Even so, I haven’t been able to resist buying them a few times. I try to make them last, but I want so much to devour them like candy because they’re so delicious.

On my way to work, a large garden beyond the parking lot

Some of the cool yards that I see on my way to work.

A Pause in Matsumoto

Matsumoto Castle at night

The next two days I spent in Matsumoto, the second largest town in Nagano prefecture, famous for a 500 year old castle. On Saturday I was mostly hunting for food or at orientation in Shiojiri, but I did take a night stroll around the castle. On the way to church on Sunday, I had breakfast in Flower Clock Park and observed many people watering and trimming their yards. The greenery here continues to amaze me, but in the city the impressive quality is its manicured perfection rather than its abundance. Oh, and there are drink machines on every block here! They typically sell about 20 different drinks, most of which are some variety of iced coffee, with a couple of juice, soda, or tea options. They cost 100-160 yen (about $1-1.5), but the cans are small.

x

The Hanadokei (Flower Clock)

The mountains! East side of Matsumoto

I arrived at the church with about an hour to spare and sat at a nearby park. I wanted to make sure that I was going in the right place and doing the right thing, so ten minutes before the service I followed a few people inside. Everyone took off their shoes and put on slippers, so I did the same and then walked into the sanctuary and sat down in the back row. After a few minutes, two ladies came in and started excitedly talking to me, and pulled me out of the sanctuary. I was given a Japanese-English new testament, a Japanese hymnal, a bulletin, and was asked to sign their visitor book. While I was doing that, they panicked over not having anyone that spoke English (even though I had answered all their questions and followed their instructions). They suddenly remembered someone in the balcony who was a foreigner and asked her to come down and talk to me. I talked to her a little, but insisted that I knew enough Japanese to sit through the service without her help.

The service order was pretty traditional, though with more hymns than I’m used to. It was really cool to say the Apostles’ Creed in Japanese and think about the people throughout the world and time having confessed this faith! I could follow the sermon and understand the majority of it, but I was clueless about the songs. I was able to sing them because all the kanji (Chinese characters) had their pronunciation written in small Japanese characters above them, but I suspect that the vocabulary and style was poetic.

A random historical bit of Matsumoto--a town map

A generic street in Matsumoto

After the service I was invited to take tea and snacks (watermelon, chocolates, and pickles) in the church, and I did so. Most of the people left, but I was able to chat with the few people who stayed. The other English speaker was from Kenya, and she invited me to a barbecue after the service. She left before me to pick up her phone, telling me to meet her at the nearby Circle K convenience shop. I went to where I thought it was, and it turned out that the place I had in mind was a 7-eleven! (They are in great abundance in Japan). Panicking, I ran back to the church and made slow circles, but never could find it, so I missed out on meeting more people.

On Sunday evening I brought my luggage to Shiojiri by train. My boss picked me up and took me to various stores to buy necessities before we arrived at the apartment where I would be living. Once I’m a little more settled I’ll share pictures of the apartment. For right now I’ll just say that it’s cozy and will, I suspect, require a Japanese approach to the use of space. My bedroom is definitely big enough though.

First day in Japan

My first impression of Japan came from the tatami mats that covered the floor, and which have a scent that I suspect I will soon associate with Japan. Tatami mats are used like a rug, with rice straw as the core covered with woven rush straw. They look really nice and are soft. It’s very bad manners to step on them with shoes; I suspect it’s because they’re difficult to clean.

My next impression came in the morning as I was driven to the airport. The greenery here is beautiful—there is a mix of tropical, jungle-like plants (e.g. bamboo and something similar to a small palm tree) yet also small coniferous trees. At least in Chiba, the shrubs and trees are thick and abundant. Before I could fully take in this sight, we turned left out of a little road onto the highway. At the same time, a car was coming right at us. I almost yelled, but it wasn’t a problem because in Japan people drive on the left. It’s going to take me a while to get used to this, but I have to learn fast because I’ll be expected to drive starting from my second week of work.

From the airport I took a train to Sakura, a city with several touristy sights. My primary destination was the National Museum of Japanese History. It was a pretty interesting museum, but I wished that I could read Japanese better. I tried reading for the first few minutes and quickly gave up because it was too slow. I was given an audio tour player, so I was able to understand several things generally. One exhibit was about Japanese schooling, and there I talked to a museum attendant for probably 30 minutes. He had traveled to many different countries, and his English was quite good.

Examples of greenery found on the way to the museum:

I went back to the airport and had lunch though it was nearly 3:00 at this point, and sat down to wait for the bus that would take me from the airport to Matsumoto, near where I would live. While I was sitting down, probably looking something like a zombie (east coast time is 2-3 AM at this point), a TV crew came up and asked if they could interview me. They asked in Japanese, so I responded without really thinking, “that’s fine.” Hah. They asked a few general questions, and then they asked me what my favorite Japanese food was, where I had eaten it, and then what I liked about it. At the last question I was completely clueless (I had told them it was salmon sashimi), so I think they took pity on me and gave up. I hope they heavily edit that footage if they use it at all, because I’m sure I was a terrible interview subject.

It was somehow unsurprising to me when the bus driver didn’t show up in the appointed location at the appointed time. I waited around for 20 minutes, and then called my boss from a public pay phone. I ran out of time three times, but by the third time I had received enough information to be able to find the bus and everything went smoothly after that.  

In transit

My flights to Japan went pretty well in the end. I had the rare experience of sitting next to someone who wanted to talk. This was a recent college graduate who would be working at a center in Japan that promoted environmentally conscientious agricultural practices. I wonder why they are importing foreigners to work in such a business...

For the first night, I was going to stay in a hostel not far from the airport. The airport is commonly said to be in Tokyo, but it's actually in a somewhat rural area called Chiba, the prefecture east of Tokyo.

(Chiba looks like a cute dog, they claim)

Anyway, at first my plan for getting to the hostel was to call the owner and ask him to pick me up. Apparently this would be free except for the cost of the phone call. But I felt bad asking to be driven to and from the airport twice, especially when the hostel is already so cheap. The alternative was to take a bus (barely more than the phone call) and then walk about 20 minutes. This would also give the benefit of seeing the countryside up close and giving me a chance to grab dinner on the way.

My first problem was finding the bus. The ticket office didn’t list the bus going to my destination. After looking around some more I checked the instructions and sure enough, the bus only departed from terminal 2. So I moved to terminal 2. Here the bus was listed in one place, but not at the ticket office. My instructions couldn’t advise me about this, and neither could Google, so eventually I asked at the information counter, and they told me to pay in the bus itself.

So I started waiting for this bus. Incidentally, my flight got in 45 minutes late (I have no idea why) and I didn’t clear customs until 5:15. After getting money, storing a suitcase, and finding the bus, it was 6:30. In the US, it would still be light, but here the sun is gone by 6:30. When the bus dropped me off it was a little after 7, and I was in pitch black night walking between fields and a highway. In the US this would have been very uncomfortable, but here there was a sidewalk on both sides of the road, despite the rural nature of the area.

I found the hostel without trouble about 30 minutes later. It had a very homey feel, with tatami mats and futons to sleep on. There was also a nice addition of short paper dividers between the beds, which gave more privacy than any other hostel I’ve slept at (except the one in Paris which had curtains to cover the face of the bed). After a shower I was too tired to eat, so I went to sleep immediately, about 8:30. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to lie down.

Public transportation always interests me, and it provides plenty of opportunities for embarrassing mishaps. I hopped on the terminal transfer bus through the exit doors. I’m not sure how bad this was, since I’m fairly certain it was a free bus. In Russia, typically a bus would keep its back doors open if the ticket fee would be collected by someone, as opposed to having a place to pay next to the driver. I rode such a bus frequently, so I didn’t think anything of it until a few minutes later. When I got on the bus to the hostel, I deposited a 500 yen coin (the bus cost 300 yen). Apparently that was the wrong thing to do—if your currency is too large, you have to put the coin in the slot to the right first, then take the change and use it to deposit correct change. Well, now I know.

This entry was backdated to the date of my arrival.

Leaving for Japan

Now posting from the Toronto airport, about to board on a plane for Tokyo, to say that I'm bringing back this blog for my adventures in Japan! So far I haven't had any adventures, for better or for worse, but I am sure that will change soon.