On vacation

Those are beautiful, beautiful words.

I like my job a lot, but I really felt that I had to get away for a bit to try to recollect strength and think of different ways to approach all that is my Japanese life.

I've been staying with my former host family from the Chuo summer program last year. My host mother asked me to teach English to the older of the two sons, who is now 8.

It is REALLY nice to be able to teach someone what I want and how I want. For example, I really like to use computers as a teaching aid, but classrooms simply don't have that kind of nifty technology. Not to mention I can teach English correctly as I know it instead of having to change things due to what the teacher is working with.

It's nice.

I have to test him again on this later, but the 8 year old memorized a pretty good length self introduction a little while ago.

"My name is Ryou. I am 8 years old. I like hamster. Do you like hamster?"

And yes, he does know what each part means. :D

Tokyo is nice. It's been good to just hang around and meet up with people. I've been taking it easy.

At the same time, I found that I really do like Kagoshima. I've found myself talking about different aspects of Kagoshima life with people and found that I really, truly enjoy it.

I also know that deciding to go to Tokyo was an awesomely good idea.

Christmas was uneventful except for a party I went to later on in the day. Uneventful Christmases are pretty standard for me, so it was no big deal.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. :)

Winter clothes and packing

I realized recently that I really like buying winter clothes. Especially buying warm socks and sweaters. It makes me wonder just what I am going to do with myself once the weather starts to warm up again.

I suppose that's the only real good part about cold weather- keeping warm.

I'm headed up to Tokyo on Sunday. It won't snow there, but it is colder there than here. Being bad at really knowing temperatures just from hearing the numbers, I don't really know what to expect.

So, I am thinking in my head how to pack my bag. I won't be really able to pack until Saturday because I have to do laundry first. I also need to buy souvenirs to give to people in Tokyo. I need to study the domestic flight baggage policy better, too.

I'm definitely worrying too much.

As you might've been able to tell from the last entry, I kind of have a strange perception of time these days. The days seem to be moving slower (probably because I am looking forward to Tokyo so much) and I am used to them moving so fast. I thought when I wrote the last entry that it would be the last one before going to Tokyo.

But I have a feeling I am going to feel much better once I get on the plane.

Hopefully, I'll feel much more present for my next entry.

Not much to say

It's Saturday here, a little more than 15 minutes before it's Sunday.

I haven't posted anything yet this week. Not because I haven't wanted to, but rather I was unsure of what exactly to say.

Life has been pretty uneventful.

I'm going to Tokyo on the 21st and I will be there until January 3rd. I am glad I made a decision about what to do for Christmas and New Years. As the days roll by and the holidays get closer, I realize more how difficult it will be for me to be away from California.

I didn't really expect to feel like that. I thought that at most I would miss my family's tacky gift exchange. I learned otherwise when I was standing in line to mail Christmas packages to people back in California and I found myself getting a little upset.

What was kind of funny (in a not so funny way) was yesterday while I was at one of my middle schools, one of the English teachers came up to me and started talking to me about how Christmas is such a family holiday overseas, like in the US and England. He kept talking about how it is so important for people overseas to be with their families and I wished he'd realize that I -am- a person from overseas away from my family and that he would just stop talking about it.

But- feeling weird and a little bit upset on and off about being away from the holidays, doesn't mean that I am not ok or that I wish that I wasn't here. I won't regret being here in Japan instead of the US, either.

I am glad that even though I thought my first Christmas away from home wouldn't be too big of a deal, I still arranged for myself to go somewhere so that I can distract myself with meeting people and moving around. I guess it turns out I'm pretty good at watching out for myself even when I am not 100% sure what's going on in my head.

So, if anyone wanted a psychoanalysis about how I feel about having this first Christmas away, here it is. I don't really want to say anymore because I don't really want to think about it more. There's no point to that besides getting upset because that won't change things. I want to stay in and enjoy the present.

This is rather mushy and probably something that should rather go on my other blog.

Something relating to this blog, however, is that since I will be out of town for about 2 weeks starting the 21st (Sunday), there might not be weekly updates here. I know I'm not very reliable about them yet, anyway.

2 minutes until Sunday. I'm posting this.

伊集院ラーメン Ijuin Ramen

This is a story about ramen.

Sorry if this blog isn't written so well. I wrote it rather quickly.

As some might know, I've had a vicious cough lately and my nose has been rather stuffy. During these times, I tend to prefer spicy food, hoping that it will clear up my sinuses.

Yesterday, when the end of my work day was approaching, the idea of having spicy ramen popped into my head and really appealed to me. I thought about it even more and decided that I wanted to try to get the ramen to go and eat it at home. Not feeling well and barely having a voice, I didn't really feel up to sitting in a restaurant.

There's two places for ramen here in Ijuin and one of them I knew for certain had spicy ramen. So, on the way driving home from work, I looked at the sign in front of the shop and was able to read in that short time that the shop opens that 5 for the evening.

So, I walked to the place at 5 and then was able to read the sign even better. The opening time was not 5, but rather 5:30. Further, the shop doesn't even open at all on Tuesdays.

I decided to go to the super market and buy things to try to make my own spicy ramen, but as I was walking around the store, I realized that I was really really hungry and tired. I ended up just buying premade food for dinner and gave up on ramen for the day.

Today, as the work day was wrapping up, I decided to go by the ramen place at 5:30 and ask if I could do take out as I had planned the day before.

I got there and asked, but they couldn't sell ramen to go.

I decided to try the other ramen place, Ijuin Ramen. I went into the shop and asked about taking ramen to go. The two guys in the shop said I could. It turned out they gave me a regular bowl from the shop and asked me to return it when I can. They covered the bowl with plastic wrap in hopes that it would stop the broth from spilling. They put that, along with chopsticks and a spoon on a tray for me. When I was still uncertain about how it would hold up in the car, they got out another case for me.

I was so surprised that they did that for me.

I think some readers would probably say that this kind of hospitality is "typical Japan", but I honestly don't think that's true. Sure, people here are very kind and helpful a lot of the time, but, like in any other country, an experience like that is very rare and awesome to have.

I drove home, careful of the ramen in the back, hoping that no matter what I do with my life, I go about it thinking outside of the box and going out of my way to make something work for someone the way they have their heart set like those guys did for me.

Oh, and the ramen was delicious.