THE END DRAWS NEAR.

ugh.  Honestly, the stress of leaving Japan is seriously the infernal monkey on my back right now.  Nary a minute goes by without me thinking about packing, or trip tickets, or future jobs, or saying good-bye to my friends here.  I'm trying to tell myself that leaving is the right thing for me and that feeling sad about leaving only confirms what a great time I had here.  Who knows if that's working though.

However, this past weekend was a blast.  After having a stressful couple of days and sitting through a migrane inducing Returner's Conference in Fukui, the red wine was calling my name.  I drove down to Obama to hang out with Danielle and sat down for dinner, a chat and lots of wine.  By the time the guys met us for some karaoke, I was tanked.  It was a good time.

After karaoke, we headed back to Danille's to hang out.  A few ALTs and a few Japanese...and the great thing was that we were able to converse comfortably in Japanese.  Just talking about anything, really.  By this time, it was about 3:30am and I guess our loud, booming forgeiner voices were getting to be too much for the neighbors.  One man stopped by, katana in hand (a katana is a japanese samurai sword.  he didn't unsheth it, but we knew was he was holding) and told us to shut up because he had work tomorrow. 

Okay.  Holy Crap Nuts, Batman.  I just had a KATANA pulled on me.

LAST MONTHS...

Whew, it's been a while.  Ever since returning from spring break my life has been a constant whirl of activity that often leaves me breathless and exhausted but eager to do more.  These past few weeks have been amazingly fun... the temperatures are rising and the sakura have bloomed and fallen.  Spring is solidly here...a sign that my time in Japan is drawing to a close.

Among the many things that have changed since the start of the new school year, by far the most important one is that I have a new supervisor!  My old  prick of a super is now teaching at a special needs school in a town 45 minutes away.  YATTA!  The entire school life experience for me has changed since he's gone...everything is easier and more relaxed.  It's the best thing that could've happened.  I still have to see him this friday at an enkai... but other than that the dick is out of my life!  YES!

Last weekend I went to an evening bar-b-q under the sakura trees in Obama park.  As the evening progressed, more and more Japanese uni students showed up for the party and hung out.  That was the first time in ages that I was able to have a chill conversation in Japanese-- it felt so good. 

There are so many things that I need to motivate myself to do before it's too late and I'm gone from here.  Doing some serious Japanese study ...exercising ...and of course, posting on this infernal blog.

SOUTH KOREA.

Right now I'm in blustery Busan, South Korea for my cousin Randy's wedding.  So far I've been buying knock off designer bags, dealing with my family and language barriers (since I don't speak a lick of Korean).  The language barrier is by far the most frustrating thing.  Sometimes I encounter shopkeepers who speak Japanese, so it's easy to get my point across, but for the most part, people here don't speak Japanese or English.  I've forgotten what it's like to be in a country where I can't communicate and it gets really frustrating sometimes.  Yesterday I was in a department store that's a lot like Neimen Marcus and was trying to buy nail polish at Anna Sui.  The girl there was so unhelpful once she realized I couldn't speak Korean.  She just stood there with a blank expression (much like my students when I'm trying to get them to speak in class) when I was asking if I could try the polish on, then when she finally understood what I was trying to say, she helped my with a kind of bored indifference that just made me so mad!

Needless to say, I didn't buy anything from her.

When my family met me at the airport and we were first driving through Busan, my aunty asked me if I thought that it looked like Japan.  And I have to say, this city looks nothing like any city I've ever seen in Japan.  It seems like the entire city is under construction, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the city.  Streets criss cross over each other, lanes don't match up in intersections (there could be four lanes before a stoplight, then once you go through the light, there are only two or three) and everything is so far apart.  It really is strange.  But, that's all a part of being in a forgein country..things are different.

One night my cousin, his fiancee and I went out drinking.  In Busan, most of the locals don't drink in bars, instead they drink souchu and eat side dishes in tents set up in back alleys or on the street.  We're staying across the street from a famous beach called Haeundae...so we went drinking in the tents set up in the parking lot there.  Inside each tent is a table surrounded by seats, and in the center of the table there are about ten aqariums, piled five on top of the other.  In each aqarium are live sea creatures that are meant to be purchased and the lady working the tent will cook them up for you.  Sounds nice right?  Well...the creatures are unlike anything I've ever seen.  Sea worms (hat look like uncircumsized penis'), sea snails, sea cucumbers (that look like brown or green penis' with bumps all over them), crabs, clams, lobsters...all ALIVE and praying not to be thrown into the pot.  It freaked me out.  Between taking shots of souchu, my cousin noticed that one of the sea snails was trying to make a break for it and was slowly inching his way out of the aqaurium.  Man, what an experience!

Well, we're getting picked up to go to the wedding in about two hours, so I guess I should make my way back to the hotel before my grandmother has a spaz attack because she doesn't know where I am.

SPRING...IT'S SUCH A TEASE!

It snowed all day yesterday.  Honestly, I don't understand what's going on with the weather...it's already the third week in March!  We should be seeing the first buds of spring, not the last gusts of winter!

Oh this infernal country.

I LOVE HANGING OUT WITH OLD PEOPLE

Last night another ALT and I went with my friend Yumi's family to eat at a friend's house.  On the menu for dinner was some Echinzen crab (from an area called Echizen in Fukui--it's really expensive) and different kinds of seaweed that one of Yumi's father's friend's picked himself.

After the introductions were finished, I realized that I couldn't understand a damn thing any of the men were saying.  Each of them (there were three total) spoke in incredibly thick Tsuruga-ben accents and conversed at a rapid speed.  But, by far the most hilarious thing about these men were the gestures they used and the inflection of their voice. 

The tones of their voices rose and fell as their arms raised and lowered...constantly refilling each other's sake glasses.  The man who's house we visited, Yamaguchi, decided that my name was much to difficult to remember, so he resolved to call me "Hawaii" for the duration of the meal.

The other ALT and I were subject to the same questions over and over "Hawaii, kani wa oishii?"  "salada wa oishii?"  "sakana wa oishii?" 

And our friend Yumi sat silently next to me, eating shellful after shellful of kani miso (crab brains.  oh.  yum).  I swear, for a petite little japanese chick, Yumi sure can eat.  I have no clue where she puts it all because she's got a kick ass figure!  So unfair. Ages after both Dana and I had eaten our fill, Yumi was still plugging away.  Polishing off all the salad, crab and seaweed.  Girl can eat.

Just before we left, Yumi paused to check her hair in the mirror.  She suddenly gasped and clutched her cheeks, "God! I got so FAT!" she exclaimed. 

oh boy.

Solving this jigsaw puzzle and posting about this sweepstakes for Big Red makes me eligible for free Xanga Premium for life...