Bits and pieces

I got a new mobile phone. It's certainly the nicest phone I've ever had. For example, I can make video calls. I can use it as a camera or video recorder. I can use it as a voice recorder. I can download music or surf the Internet. It has games, and I can download more. I can download TV shows and watch them. I can send emails. Tonight I was playing with it. I downloaded some free ringtones from the Internet on my laptop, then used Bluetooth to transfer the ringtones to my phone. Now my ringtone is 'Ice Ice Baby', haha.

Oddly, the only thing I can't seem to do successfully is send an SMS! People here seem to send emails to other phones rather than SMSes... I don't really get it yet... every phone has an email address. I am still trying to figure out how to set mine!

***

In the last three and a half weeks I have bought thirteen books. I'm slightly ashamed to admit it! I really need to make the effort to join a library, now that I finally have my alien registration card. (Yes, I am an alien in Japan!)

In my defense, several of the books are to help me study Japanese...

***

Oh, as I mentioned in my last post, I think I found the church I want to attend. It's in Yokohama and the church originated in Hawaii. The pastors wear leis, and everyone greets each other with alohas during the announcements, haha... I really liked the service.

The church has maybe 40 or 50 people? It has a very warm atmosphere. Within ten seconds of my walking in, the lead pastor had given me a hug (a 'side hug' :)) and someone had written me a name tag with smiley faces on it.

The congregation is maybe 60% Japanese, 40% other nationalities. The service was bilingual, so for the announcements, sermon etc, someone would speak in Japanese and then in English. The worship was mostly in English but for some of the songs, we sang first in English and then the Japanese equivalent. The message was really good, simple and sincere. And one thing I liked is that everyone who preached or talked smiled a lot.

***

Here's what I ate for dinner a couple of nights ago. (This is a fairly typical sort of dinner for me.)

A small hot fried rice patty with chicken from the convenience store.
A few tinned apricots. It took me about ten minutes to wrest open the can without a can opener.
A small cauliflower cup-a-soup (had about half, tipped the rest out).
A piece of toast with cheese and Vegemite.
A chocolate cookie.*
A few sips of some vile, concentrated 'multivitamin pack' drink.**

*(My connecting station has a cookie stall. It's really bad because whenever I cross platforms - ie, every day - I have to walk past this stall. The smell of freshly baked cookies hits your nose as soon as you start climbing the stairs. They smell SO good. Even though they are kind of expensive, I have bought them three times...)

**According to the package, it is made from about 25 different fruits and vegetables, so it's unsurprising that it doesn't taste very good. I mean, a drink with asparagus, eggplant, sweet potato, tomato and fennel in it? But I'm consciously trying to consume enough fruit and vegetables so I can stay healthy.

Lots of people get sick at this time of year. A lot of my students have had colds. It's not surprising - the cold weather, the continual moving from a hot to a cold environment and vice versa, and the proximity with so many other people...

For example, you are waiting for a train at the end of the day, and when it arrives, you see that it is wall-to-wall people, and the windows are fogged up from the effect of so many people breathing in there. You get in there and there's a kind of warm, cloying atmosphere, and half the people are wearing surgical masks (people wear these when they have colds), and every second person seems to be sniffling or coughing. It's like walking onto an incubator for disease!

Last weekend I had a new low. I got up at 1:15pm. I went to bed at 1:30 the day before. That's nearly 12 hours in bed. And at this time of year, it's dark at 5pm. So I got to 'enjoy' four hours of daylight. Admittedly, that day was very overcast and the light was dull, so that's probably why it didn't wake me.

But getting up at 1:15pm meant I couldn't get to sleep until about 4am the next day, which was a work day, so I didn't get enough sleep, which meant the night after that was another 12-hour sleep...

The trouble is, it seems I am predisposed to get up just in time for work, whether I start work at 9am or 12:45pm... haha... oh well, the good thing about it is that I'm always getting plenty of sleep so if I feel like I'm coming down with something, I can sleep it off properly.

***

For the first 2-3 weeks of training and teaching, I was on a total high and very full of confidence. Since then, I've gone back to normal. I'm still enjoying myself and doing well, but I'm just more like my usual self. :)

***

The other day I took my first ever 'peak hour' train, the kind you imagine when you think about Japan. I thought I had done this before, but not so. This time, it was peak hour, *and* one train got taken out of service. Everyone had to get off the train - there was at least two or three hundred people on it - and join the already long lines of people waiting at the station for the next train (which in turn, was already full). But people don't stop when the train seems full. They just keep getting on.

Now I realise that a 'full' train is not just wall-to-wall people. A 'full' train is where you find yourself thinking 'it's lucky I'm not wearing foundation today, or this guy (whose shoulder my face is pressed into) would be getting white marks on his suit'. A 'full' train is where you are pressed against - not just touching, but pressed against - at least four other people. Hahah!