Driving in Japan... Section 4: Gaijin Traps
I drive a stick shift, POS, K-Car here and about 3 months have passed without incident... until last night.
So, in front of my apartment parking lot, around what would be a curb (its really just a slope) there are metal grates that cover these DEEP gutters. These gutters are on the sides of all roads in Japan... they are otherwise known as Gaijin (foreigner) traps. They were so dubbed upon our groups arrival after several unsuspecting members of our 1st year JET squad haplessley fell or were cought in them. Ask them and like vets of war, they will sit you down and tell you of that fateful time they fell into the trap. And for a small donation they'll gladly show you their 'war' wounds. I have yet to understand why these gutters are here... how much drainage could you need here?! In any case, they are a bit of a neusance, makeing biking & skating rather rough at times and no gaijin today walks across them without paying full attention. The ones by my apartment are no exception... except that they 10x as annoying.
Now it just so happens that after coming back home from work one day I found that 2 of the corner grates had fallen down into the gutter and these 2 grates just so happened to be in front of my space. Actuall to the side, so that I had to 3 point my way in and out every day. ANNOYING number 1. However, looking into the dirty muck that ran through that gutter and deciding that it was more icky to pull out the grates than to manoeuver around them, I let them be. Trying to be as careful as possible .
This small victory was short lived though for as time passed and my lazyness grew, I thought there were certainly quicker ways to exit my spot. So last night, brilliance struck and I decided to back my car in so that all I had to do was drive forward when I left. No problem! I came in an angle, backed that thang up and... bam... I was in the gutter.
After a moment hyperventalation (omygodomygodomygod... whadoIdowhadoIdowhadoIdo)... I pulled it together to go check to see if anything was seriously damaged. And oh, what I saw!
After a good laugh... the I ran inside to grab my camera to document my feat and fabulous misfortune (nothing was seriously broken).
Here are the pictures: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2116970684
I was able to call some friends for help to get the car out. AAA? Puh-lease. Who needs a tow when you have the sheer brute strength of 4 strapping ALTs? It was a lovely effort.
A round of cookies for all.
Score: Tina 1, Gaijin traps 0
Represent Roaddogs (pt.1)
After living in Sabae for about 2 whole months, things are getting pretty settled and I’m getting used to getting around. I feel alright driving. It’s so convenient to get places and with half the sweat! However, there are a lot of things that are within reasonable walking/ biking distance so, with gas prices being what they are here (about 107 yen per litre) and parking being a nuisance (and I thought Westwood was bad?!), it’s sometimes more convenient not to drive. And this is where my story begins…
Sunday evening (that Monday was a holiday), a group of us Sabae-ans and Takefu crew (Takefu is the city right south of Sabae) decided to go to a local Sabae bar for a few drinks. Now, this little bar is only about a 25 minute bike ride from my apartment so I decided to bike instead of walk or drive (there is also this little law here that you absolutely cannon drink and drive… even if you have 1 drink 3 hours before you leave… so if you drive, you ain’t drinkin).
A few days earlier in the week, I had left my bike at the train station so, on the way to the bar, I had to stop by and pick up my bike. No problem. I had done this a few times before so it should have been a quick and easy stop. I repeat… it SHOULD have been easy. After getting there and realizing that I hadn’t parked my bike in my usual spot, I proceeded to search the lot for my bike. It was during this time that I realized that a grey cruiser bike with a black seat and black bell is not quite as unique as I had thought. 25 minutes later and lower and upper bicycle garages searched, my bike was nowhere to be found. It was a grim situation. However, not to loose track of my priorities, I realized was already 30 minutes late in meeting up with my friends. So what was I to do? Turn around and go home? Get the car and spend more time or money on parking only to not be able to drink at the bar? Of course not!!! That would be silly! Not to mention anti-social and BO-ring! So I did the only logical thing anyone in my situation would… I “borrowed” someone else’s bike. Yes, I understand that perhaps in weighing my options, bike “borrowing” and “drunk” driving should weigh about the same… but again, I was merely borrowing a bike. I had heard somewhere that it happens all the time. Hey, when in Rome…
But before anyone starts with the lectures about moral responsibilities, let me just tell you that I at least took the most BUSTED bike I could find. Seriously folks, this bike was SCREAMING to be taken. The tires were practically flat and the not quite straight, so it swerved as it rode. The basket was mashed in (oh yah, a road warrior) and it had a fantastic ghetto lean when it was on its kickstand. It was a real gem.
So, onward and out I went to the bar, had a few drinks and later a friend and I rode back to our homes. And oh, what a ride back it was. The road was one gigantic obstacle course… complete with uneven pavement, blind guides, random plants/ bushes and gaijin traps. Yes, I was sober enough to ride back… and just enough so that I wasn’t all over the street (I did have enough common sense to ride on the sidewalk rather than the streets… which come to think of it, might have been a wiser choice considering NO ONE was on the road at that hour). So, the slight inebriation compounded with my unsteady, busted bike and obstacle course of a sidewalk did not make it the smoothest ride back. I eventually found my self challenged by a rail/fence that suddenly appeared to my left. My bike, being the road warrior it was, seemed compelled to take on this battle, unable to turn away, despite my best drunken efforts to turn the handles. So, into the battle (aka rail) I went. Sadly, we lost (the rail had refused to budge… curse you rail, and your concrete anchoring!!!) and I came out with a bruised left knee. The rest of the ride was pretty much “pedal, ouch, pedal, ouch”… etc. In the end, despite my friend’s pleas to keep it as a “memento”, I returned the bike and limped home, representin’ fo my true “roaddoggs”.
Most Extreme Elimination Challenge- High School Edition!!!!
Wow. I think that this day has been the apex of my time in Japan thus far. I have truly been amazed by the Japanese school system… or at least my school in particular. Let me explain… today was day one of back to school festival: sports day.
Sports day started with an assembly of students into their groups (red, yellow and blue teams) and presenting themselves to the school. It was so cool. They had made giant mascots in the back of the field (see pictures). The mascots were as follows: blue= Stitch from Disney’s Lilo & Stich, yellow= Tiger mascot of the Osaka Tigers (baseball team), and red= Muck, some children’s TV show character monster. All the students and teachers belonged to a color team (I was yellow) but I think sports day is the only day that they use these colors so there’s pride but pretty much just for this day.
The first games were sprints and then a relay. It was pretty standard. But then... the first on many an interesting competition, they had a jump rope contest. All the seniors for each color tried to do as many jumps together (with one rope per team) as possible. So, they had to jump together… it took a few practices but when it was go time it was actually pretty impressive cause they got a good lot in. Then another relay and THEN… a 3 legged race!!! So funny. They had about 4-5 races of this and then went on to another relay. However this relay had a twist. They would run 1/8 mi, then pick up a piece of clothing, put it on and then run to the next station and take exchange it with a teammate, and then that teammate would go on to pick up another item of clothing, exchange, etc. By the end, the boys were wearing a whole judo outfit with a belt and a medal! After that, they had a tug of war and then another relay. Again, another twist. It was an inter-club relay so each club had their members as the runners. Poor kyudo (Japanese archery) girls had to run in their full regalia (long shirt and skirts)! The boys clubs were fun to watch because each added a little ‘show’ when they switched runners. The gymnastics teams did flips and then started their next lap walking on their hands! Kyudo boys shot arrows at a nearby target, Kendo boys had to duel with their teacher, judo boys had to throw each other and computer boys were running around with computer parts and assembled a computer (just the shells). The sports teams did the same sort of things. Basketball club dribbled around the track and power passed at the exchange and baseball kids slid to the exchange. It was a pretty good show. I think the girls liked the gymnastics and baseball teams’ … they were going nuts. "YATA!!!! SUGOY DESU NE?!?!"
For a little break from athletics (I think they had fun but it was pretty damn hot too), the kids got out and performed a cheers for their teams. I think it was a competition so the kids all had costumes and special moves for their cheers. It was pretty awesome and way "genki". It was mighty entertaining to see these kids sweating it out and yelling at the top of their lungs. I was only too sad that I couldn't understand a word. I think I missed some pretty good jokes. Rats.
After thatm there were a few more games... 2 of the funniest ones I have ever seen! 1) 'Capture the Flag' but a bit different from home. First, the flags are on giant poles and each team (on either side of the field) has to support it upright (obviously to make it hard to get at). So, part of the team is supporting their poles, and more are just surrounding it to protect the flag from "attackers" from the other team. The rest of the team is on the offense and trying to grab the other team's flag. It was pretty funny to watch these kids throw themselves at the pole and climb over each other to get the flag. Madness.
2)They also played chicken fights. Here, 3 boys acted as the base, while one boy rode on top (it was an interesting configuration... a boy in the middle, 2 boys on either side w/ arms on shoulders of middle boy, top boy sitting on the arms of side boys). Here they all wore red caps and the goal was to try to steal the other team's caps. It was fabulously brutal. I could hear the head slaps from the side lines! it was also interesting seeing them go blindly at it at first and then work out more of a strategy (ganing up on one target at a time). I don't think i could have paid for better entertainment.
Anywho, a good time was had by all and I think that my team (BIG YELL-OW!) won overall points. Woo Hoo!
The sweet smell of … failure?!
So, today wasn’t the first day of school. It’s not the first day of festival either… but somehow I feel like this is my crappiest day so far. I get to school, running late and on 5 hours of sleep ( I can’t seem to get tired before 2am these nights). Just in time for a meeting I don’t understand and then I am told that today the students will be outside practicing for their sports day on Sunday. Did I already mention that it is Friday but everyone is coming in on Saturday for last day of practice and then Sunday is the sports festival? Good bye weekend. Then Monday and Tuesday are the last days of festival and we get Wednesday and Thursday off. Eh.
Perhaps I should explain a few things before I go off on other stuff…
The school I teach at is an academic high school, which is pretty much like a college prep school. The only difference is that they only have grades 10-12 here (I think). They call it grade 1,2,3 (3= seniors). Their uniforms are all pretty much the same but it’s kind of interesting how orderly they make them look! As I mentioned, the kids do get inspected but in their gym clothes they are even more unified, only into more specific groups. The first grades are red, second grades are green and third grades are yellow. They have these colors on their arm bands and on their shoes so that you can easily point out what year they are in. And then the boys have blue shorts while the girls have black. It’s human filing!!! Oh how I love the organization of it all! One of the other teachers was telling me how he found it (the conformity) depressing and how the cheers sounded like brainwashing propaganda. Haha silly, free-thinking teacher. Who could get brainwashed by a cheer and school colors?
GO BRUINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we stood in the ungodly heat and humidity for 3 hours watching the poor kids practice walking from one end of the track to the other, hollering their cheers and practicing a ‘folk’ dance. I nearly fell over just standing so I really felt for those kids. Haha being in high school stinks! It makes me slightly appreciate HS in the states (can you imagine trying to get Agoura High together for cheers and a folk dance?! It is to laugh.)… but only slightly. OK well, I know I hated school then but I hope these kids don’t feel too similarly. OR at least I hope that they like my classes.
Speaking of that… onward. So I had to sort of come up with a lesson plan today. I thought it was OK as I wasn’t really sure what they wanted. I came up with 2 games (20 questions and BINGO) for warm up and then I thought I’d introduce meself and then have them write a little something about themselves. Well, I went in and I think my ideas were completely shot down. The games would take too much time, they already know how to introduce themselves, they’ve done it a bunch of times, etc. BIG FAT BLAH! What to do?!? I’m a little bad a on the spot improvisation so when all my ideas were shot, I didn’t quite know where to go. It was such a wonderful feeling to humbled so quickly and so blatantly. They then came up with something sort of similar (the students will write about themselves but write it to me and draw pictures of themselves which will help me remember them) but I had the feeling they didn’t think I contributed much. I guess I didn’t. They didn’t really agree with what I suggested. It’s kind of rough as my predecessor was here for 2 years and apparently was a great and creative teacher. It was also a weird feeling… I would give them a suggestion and then they would think about it and then discuss in Japanese and occasionally mention my predecessor. I guess I just have to get over it and accept that I’ll be compared or thought of as her inadequate replacement! Bah.
Can it be that I’m already thinking… “this was a mistake”? I’m really missing everyone now and the comforts of home, but I will try (desperately) to overcome and not let it get to me yet. This is what I asked for right? Trying something that is a challenge. Sorry about all the griping this episode!!! Starting to sound like “dear diary…” kind of stuff. Oh well. This is the time everyone can write back and tell me how I’m going to be fine and I can still be great… GO BRUINS.
