Since my last post was a bit long I decided to continue on a new one.
Ghibli museum
On Monday I finally got to the Ghibli museum. I've been meaning to get there for some time now, and finally managed it. You see, this museum has a system whereby you have to book tickets from a convenience store, in advance. Last year I tried to go there during summer holidays; checked three weeks before, and every time slot on every day was fully booked. Going on a Monday, however, was a matter of going to the convenience store at 2pm and buying a ticket for 4pm...
It's a bit of a trek out to Mitaka but I enjoyed it. The museum is designed as a big, rambling house to explore - full of odd chairs and mysterious doorways and winding staircases, and so on. You could watch a 15-minute animated short, and see animation techniques, and so on. There was even a cat bus for kids to play on. ^_^
Muza
Recently I went to Kawasaki Muza. Muza is the concert hall in Kawasaki; it's right next to the station and one of the most recognisable buildings in Kawaski. I'd never been there for a show, but a student invited me; her daughter (a former student) was playing bassoon in a concert. (For ages, my student told me she played the 'faggot'. Until today I never realised what instrument she actually played. Now I realise that 'faggot' is the German name for 'bassoon'.)
We sat in the front row at the concert. After the show I went out with her family to a buffet restaurant. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't allowed to pay... it was very nice of them and I felt very well treated. ^_^
(BTW, Mum, the mother who invited me is the same lady who sent you the Japanese souvenirs as a Christmas present.)
Gym
Tomorrow I'm going to a gym near Kawasaki station. My co-worker had a free coupon for two people, so we're going together. I have never been to the gym in Japan... I'm in pretty poor shape, I think...
Hiroshima and Miyajima
I'm thinking about going on a weekend trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima some time in the next few weeks. I'm looking at accommodation options now.
It makes me realise how far I've come, though, since my first week in Japan, staying in the ryokan in Kyoto, and finding the food so impossible to manage. Now, I'm looking at these hotel options thinking I would probably prefer a Japanese-style breakfast to a Western-style one...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Yokohama and irrashaimase
I'm still doing stuff most weekends.
Yokohama
Last weekend was the farewell party and all-night karaoke. After that, I didn't feel like doing much the next day, so I went to Yokohama.
I don't know why, but every time I go to Yokohama station on a weekend, I'm shocked by the number of people there. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. I mean, like, waiting in long lines to exit a building, walking in human 'lanes' of traffic, and in general, seeing the kind of crowds that you might see at the end of Sky Show when everyone gets up to go home. And it's just an ordinary Sunday in Yokohama.
These kind of crowds are not that rare in Tokyo, but because I consider Yokohama like my 'home' station, and I think of Yokohama as a smaller, less bustling place, it still surprises me. Generally I don't mind crowds, but if I'm in a grumpy mood, I sometimes get the urge to headbutt the person in front of me.)
Yokohama station is a major hub station - lots of different train lines stop there - so it's naturally busy, and it's also surrounded by a dense network of department stores, in all directions, including underground. I have wandered their mazes many a time, but I still don't have it quite straight in my head which department store has which food hall, for example. (Of course, the food halls are the only parts I am interested in, hahaha.)
Before, I described pachinko parlours as the 'seventh circle of hell', but I found a close contender for sheer awfulness - the Vivre building in Yokohama. (This is the building that has an 'all-you-can-eat' dessert buffet. ^_^) I went there for the Starbucks, and unfortunately had to use the bathroom. It's full of 'gyaaru' (girls with over-treated hair, pancake makeup, fishnet stockings, short shorts... in other words, scary girls). These gyaaru are sales assistants, shrieking out the specials.
A lot of stores hire people to stand outside and shout out the specials, or shout 'irrasshaimase!' (welcome!) to people*, but I can't convey the cacophany in Vivre. All of the ladies had very powerful voices, and some were using the aid of megaphones. I think there may have also been some unpleasant background music, but I can't remember. Since I hate clothes shopping anyway, I couldn't imagine anything worse than actually going into one of those and having to endure that kind of aural assault while sorting through hot pink 80s-style off-the-shoulder tops.
*(Almost all store clerks will say 'irrashaimase' when they see you. Of course, I expect it. If I'm in a store, and a clerk sees me, and they *don't* say 'irrashaimase', I kind of think 'oh, they're ignoring me'. However, in some cases, the 'irrashaimase' doesn't sound remotely friendly, and makes me want to leave the store quickly. If I didn't know what it meant, I might think they were telling me to GET OUT OF OUR STORE!!
A lot of girls have a very nasal 'irrasshaimase' going, and some gung-ho guys, like the electronics store or fruit seller guys, will absolutely bellow it in quite a scary manner. The best is in big 100 yen shops where everyone's 'irrasshaimase' sounds like an 'I hate my job and all my customers'.
One of my students works in retail, and she says she says it's one of the worst things about the job, being told to say 'irrashaimase' to everyone who walks past. In some stores you'll even see/hear sales assistants just randomly calling out 'irrashaimase' as they walk around doing their job - in this case, they're not even looking at you, and they say it at regular intervals just to cover themselves in case someone does walk past.
In Australia, the equivalent is 'hi, how are you?', so 'irrasshaimase' has the benefit/disadvantage (depending on your POV) of acknowledging a customer while not requiring a response.)
As usual I'm going off on rambling tangents... I decided to try to walk home from Yokohama to my house. The previous week I had tried to walk to my house from my second-nearest train station, and ended up 6km in the wrong direction, in Shin-Yokohama. This was a pretty poor effort. This time I made it without getting lost at ALL. It took me about an hour to walk home from Yokohama. ^_^
Yokohama
Last weekend was the farewell party and all-night karaoke. After that, I didn't feel like doing much the next day, so I went to Yokohama.
I don't know why, but every time I go to Yokohama station on a weekend, I'm shocked by the number of people there. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. I mean, like, waiting in long lines to exit a building, walking in human 'lanes' of traffic, and in general, seeing the kind of crowds that you might see at the end of Sky Show when everyone gets up to go home. And it's just an ordinary Sunday in Yokohama.
These kind of crowds are not that rare in Tokyo, but because I consider Yokohama like my 'home' station, and I think of Yokohama as a smaller, less bustling place, it still surprises me. Generally I don't mind crowds, but if I'm in a grumpy mood, I sometimes get the urge to headbutt the person in front of me.)
Yokohama station is a major hub station - lots of different train lines stop there - so it's naturally busy, and it's also surrounded by a dense network of department stores, in all directions, including underground. I have wandered their mazes many a time, but I still don't have it quite straight in my head which department store has which food hall, for example. (Of course, the food halls are the only parts I am interested in, hahaha.)
Before, I described pachinko parlours as the 'seventh circle of hell', but I found a close contender for sheer awfulness - the Vivre building in Yokohama. (This is the building that has an 'all-you-can-eat' dessert buffet. ^_^) I went there for the Starbucks, and unfortunately had to use the bathroom. It's full of 'gyaaru' (girls with over-treated hair, pancake makeup, fishnet stockings, short shorts... in other words, scary girls). These gyaaru are sales assistants, shrieking out the specials.
A lot of stores hire people to stand outside and shout out the specials, or shout 'irrasshaimase!' (welcome!) to people*, but I can't convey the cacophany in Vivre. All of the ladies had very powerful voices, and some were using the aid of megaphones. I think there may have also been some unpleasant background music, but I can't remember. Since I hate clothes shopping anyway, I couldn't imagine anything worse than actually going into one of those and having to endure that kind of aural assault while sorting through hot pink 80s-style off-the-shoulder tops.
*(Almost all store clerks will say 'irrashaimase' when they see you. Of course, I expect it. If I'm in a store, and a clerk sees me, and they *don't* say 'irrashaimase', I kind of think 'oh, they're ignoring me'. However, in some cases, the 'irrashaimase' doesn't sound remotely friendly, and makes me want to leave the store quickly. If I didn't know what it meant, I might think they were telling me to GET OUT OF OUR STORE!!
A lot of girls have a very nasal 'irrasshaimase' going, and some gung-ho guys, like the electronics store or fruit seller guys, will absolutely bellow it in quite a scary manner. The best is in big 100 yen shops where everyone's 'irrasshaimase' sounds like an 'I hate my job and all my customers'.
One of my students works in retail, and she says she says it's one of the worst things about the job, being told to say 'irrashaimase' to everyone who walks past. In some stores you'll even see/hear sales assistants just randomly calling out 'irrashaimase' as they walk around doing their job - in this case, they're not even looking at you, and they say it at regular intervals just to cover themselves in case someone does walk past.
In Australia, the equivalent is 'hi, how are you?', so 'irrasshaimase' has the benefit/disadvantage (depending on your POV) of acknowledging a customer while not requiring a response.)
As usual I'm going off on rambling tangents... I decided to try to walk home from Yokohama to my house. The previous week I had tried to walk to my house from my second-nearest train station, and ended up 6km in the wrong direction, in Shin-Yokohama. This was a pretty poor effort. This time I made it without getting lost at ALL. It took me about an hour to walk home from Yokohama. ^_^
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Rainy rainy
It's really the rainy season now. Last year, I mentioned, spring had very tiresome weather, raining every weekend, but come 'rainy season', it mostly cleared up. So last year, the so-called 'rainy season' was fairly mild and not all that rainy.
This year, we had a beautiful spring with lovely weather, but the rainy season is really living up to its name. It's been raining two days out of three for the last couple of weeks. It rained yesterday, and the day before, and the morning before that, and so on. I kept getting caught out at work without an umbrella. We've had thunderstorms, drizzle, all-day sousing rain...
And it's getting really humid. I've been busting out the shikke tori (de-humidifying pellets) again, and they are collecting quite a bit of water.
All the ajisai (hydrangeas) are in bloom and the greenery is so lush in every crack and small place it's able to grow; if this weren't a concrete jungle, it would be a phenomenal mass of plantlife.
This year, we had a beautiful spring with lovely weather, but the rainy season is really living up to its name. It's been raining two days out of three for the last couple of weeks. It rained yesterday, and the day before, and the morning before that, and so on. I kept getting caught out at work without an umbrella. We've had thunderstorms, drizzle, all-day sousing rain...
And it's getting really humid. I've been busting out the shikke tori (de-humidifying pellets) again, and they are collecting quite a bit of water.
All the ajisai (hydrangeas) are in bloom and the greenery is so lush in every crack and small place it's able to grow; if this weren't a concrete jungle, it would be a phenomenal mass of plantlife.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Oyakodon
I just made some delicious oyakodon, which is a chicken and egg mixture on rice. The name 'oyakodon' literally means 'parent child bowl' (which is kind of disgusting when you think about it). Actually, my oyakodon tasted better than a store-bought one, because I could ensure the chicken was good-quality meat (not with big pieces of skin, fat, etc -_-).
You can see what oyakodon looks like here on Google Images.
Here is the recipe. ^_^
This will make 3-4 servings.
Ingredients
lots of steamed rice
chicken breast/thigh (I don't know how much I used, maybe 300g or so)
1/2 leek (I used half an onion instead, frying it before adding it to the dish)
1 bunch mitsuba/trefoil (I forgot to buy this so I left it out)
4 eggs
1 1/4 cup 'dashi' stock
3T mirin
3T soy sauce
Method
1. Cut the chicken into small cubes. Slice the leeks thinly, diagonally. Cut the roots off the mitsuba and chop roughly.
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.
3. Put the dashi stock, mirin and soy sauce in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Then add the chicken, and reduce the heat to medium.
4. When the chicken is almost cooked, add the beaten egg, pouring it over the top with a circular motion.
5. When the egg is half-cooked, turn off the heat and add the leeks and mitsuba.
6. Put steamed rice in bowls, and put the 'oyako' mixture on the top.
I also seasoned it with a bit of salt and pepper.
おいしい！ (Delicious!)
You can see what oyakodon looks like here on Google Images.
Here is the recipe. ^_^
This will make 3-4 servings.
Ingredients
lots of steamed rice
chicken breast/thigh (I don't know how much I used, maybe 300g or so)
1/2 leek (I used half an onion instead, frying it before adding it to the dish)
1 bunch mitsuba/trefoil (I forgot to buy this so I left it out)
4 eggs
1 1/4 cup 'dashi' stock
3T mirin
3T soy sauce
Method
1. Cut the chicken into small cubes. Slice the leeks thinly, diagonally. Cut the roots off the mitsuba and chop roughly.
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.
3. Put the dashi stock, mirin and soy sauce in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Then add the chicken, and reduce the heat to medium.
4. When the chicken is almost cooked, add the beaten egg, pouring it over the top with a circular motion.
5. When the egg is half-cooked, turn off the heat and add the leeks and mitsuba.
6. Put steamed rice in bowls, and put the 'oyako' mixture on the top.
I also seasoned it with a bit of salt and pepper.
おいしい！ (Delicious!)
Changes
We're having some changes at work at the moment. This week was Pete's last week, and we have a new teacher, from Australia. Let's call him Dan. We had a farewell/welcome bash for them last night. Unfortunately Pete was pretty under the weather, so I don't think he could enjoy it as much as he would have... I'm going to miss having him around. He's one of the most positive people I've ever met. His next plan is to go hitchhiking, which is pretty cool.
It was a good party though. Afterwards, we went to all-night karaoke and I got home at 6am. Being at events like this reminds me of how much I like my school and all the staff/students in it. And it reminds me how much I'd like to do far more things with students; I'd happily go out three or four times a week if I could. But it can be difficult to organise.
So work is going fine but it's a little bit busier than usual; I've been doing more of the little random jobs like doing English tests with students, meeting new students, chitchatting in the lobby, etc. I realised I can do it quite well; even if things happen like materials going missing, or losing out on prep time, I find I have enough experience now to kind of wing things a bit more.
Basically, what it comes down to is I like my job - I like the job itself, I like my work environment, I like my coworkers and I really like the students. There are a couple of things I won't really miss - I still struggle a bit with things like crying children, and I do tend to get a bit stressed and nervous before kids' classes, though I don't think I show it.
But even teaching kids has some good points. I think I mentioned the time I was sick and my 11-year-old girl wrote me a 'get well soon' note, half in English and Japanese. Another, younger girl is often hugging me and saying 'I like you!' (She also asked me if I was in love with anyone, and if I was married, hahaha.) And last week I taught a private lesson to this 8-year-old girl. She was a lot of fun, and cute. After class she was following me around, and hugged me, gave me some snacks, and told the staff that we were friends.
Right now I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about leaving (my last day is September 2, but we are not telling students for a little longer). Now that Pete's gone, and we've done all the farewells, it feels like a familiar time has come to an end. I'm really now feeling conscious of counting down until I go. To make myself feel better about leaving, I have to remind myself:
I have a lot of nice people around me, but the nature of this job is that people come and go a lot. Actually, our core staff has been fairly stable, but various part-time teachers have come and gone; a number of students I've really liked or gotten along well with have left, and more will no doubt do so some day. So in that sense it's not like I have such a strong attachment to anyone, and I am used to saying goodbye to people, although I don't like it.
Similarly, I have made some friends in Japan now, but the truth is that most of them usually seem to be busy or unavailable to do things. The guy at Gaijin Smash had it right when he said that Japanese people often don't seem to want to do things spontaneously (or even with one or two days' warning). I find unless I 'schedule' something a week or more in advance, 90% of the time it's a 'no'. If you have, say, six different friends, and you meet up with each of them once every two or three months, well, it's not much of a social life; it's not what you'd call a really close friendship. I don't so much have a group of friends, either, unless you count my co-workers (who are good eggs).
So if I am honest, although I like the people here very much, and enjoy spending time with them, I know that realistically we are probably not going to be strong, lasting friends forever.
that although I feel comfortable and happy - like I'm in my element and get along with everyone - that I felt that way in my last job too, so there's a good chance I'll also feel happy in a new workplace.
my English *is* deteriorating somewhat. I think my grammar even on this blog has gotten slightly patchy at times. Sometimes when I speak, I skip articles ('a', 'the') or entire clauses, to make the sentence shorter and simpler. (I do try not to do this in class...)
I really do want to travel, and I really do want to try living in another foreign country.
For the record, I still haven't decided what I'll do after my job finishes - whether I'll go back to Australia, or get another job in Japan. If I get another job in Japan I ought to start looking. I guess even if I leave, if I want to, I can come back some day.
It was a good party though. Afterwards, we went to all-night karaoke and I got home at 6am. Being at events like this reminds me of how much I like my school and all the staff/students in it. And it reminds me how much I'd like to do far more things with students; I'd happily go out three or four times a week if I could. But it can be difficult to organise.
So work is going fine but it's a little bit busier than usual; I've been doing more of the little random jobs like doing English tests with students, meeting new students, chitchatting in the lobby, etc. I realised I can do it quite well; even if things happen like materials going missing, or losing out on prep time, I find I have enough experience now to kind of wing things a bit more.
Basically, what it comes down to is I like my job - I like the job itself, I like my work environment, I like my coworkers and I really like the students. There are a couple of things I won't really miss - I still struggle a bit with things like crying children, and I do tend to get a bit stressed and nervous before kids' classes, though I don't think I show it.
But even teaching kids has some good points. I think I mentioned the time I was sick and my 11-year-old girl wrote me a 'get well soon' note, half in English and Japanese. Another, younger girl is often hugging me and saying 'I like you!' (She also asked me if I was in love with anyone, and if I was married, hahaha.) And last week I taught a private lesson to this 8-year-old girl. She was a lot of fun, and cute. After class she was following me around, and hugged me, gave me some snacks, and told the staff that we were friends.
Right now I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about leaving (my last day is September 2, but we are not telling students for a little longer). Now that Pete's gone, and we've done all the farewells, it feels like a familiar time has come to an end. I'm really now feeling conscious of counting down until I go. To make myself feel better about leaving, I have to remind myself:
Similarly, I have made some friends in Japan now, but the truth is that most of them usually seem to be busy or unavailable to do things. The guy at Gaijin Smash had it right when he said that Japanese people often don't seem to want to do things spontaneously (or even with one or two days' warning). I find unless I 'schedule' something a week or more in advance, 90% of the time it's a 'no'. If you have, say, six different friends, and you meet up with each of them once every two or three months, well, it's not much of a social life; it's not what you'd call a really close friendship. I don't so much have a group of friends, either, unless you count my co-workers (who are good eggs).
So if I am honest, although I like the people here very much, and enjoy spending time with them, I know that realistically we are probably not going to be strong, lasting friends forever.
For the record, I still haven't decided what I'll do after my job finishes - whether I'll go back to Australia, or get another job in Japan. If I get another job in Japan I ought to start looking. I guess even if I leave, if I want to, I can come back some day.
Phones
It's interesting to live in such a high-tech world. I don't like the idea of being too dependent on technology, nor too 'connected'. I think it can reduce people's patience, require people to be constantly stimulated. However, there's no denying it does make life more convenient, and already it's hard to remember how life was five, ten, fifteen years ago.
For example, there was a time when, if you made plans to meet a person, and you got there, and they didn't come, well, there was really nothing to do but keep waiting, then go home (or find a pay phone and try to call their house). These days, if people are meeting, there's a 10-message preliminary exchange so that you don't really need to make concrete initial plans at all. ('I'm about to leave the station now', 'where are you at the moment?' 'I'm heading toward the restaurant, will prob be about 5 min', 'sorry, is it the restaurant next to Lawson, or the one near the park?')
I remember when I was a kid, getting books from the library, I would have no way to know whether the same author had written other books which weren't in the library, unless they were listed on the cover of the books I did have. If you did find this out, you could possibly go to Dymocks in the city and request they order it in, but this was a bit of a hassle. I remember a few years ago, I was on Amazon and discovered that my favourite ever children's book ('The Giver') had two sequels; with a few clicks I could order them and within days they were at my house.
And ten or fifteen years ago, if you went walking around the streets of suburban Yokohama, and you got totally lost (as is very common for me), and you finally found your way again... well, there'd be no way to find out exactly where you went, what mistake you made, where you should go next time, etc - unless you could procure and read a Japanese road atlas, in Japanese. I would be constantly going around and winging it, never knowing where I was.
These days, however...
I was just on diddlefinger, checking out maps of my neighbourhood, and of the surrounding suburbs, so I could see what convenience stores were where. Before I leave my house I do a quick check of Hyperdia to see when my next train will leave. I use both these sites constantly to check potential routes, work out exactly where I'm going or where I went on a particular day...
However, I'm still a bit behind the times, since a lot of Japanese people would use their cell phones for this purpose. Some people use, I think, a kind of GPS on their phone to get directions; they can check timetables; they can watch TV shows, download and read comics, take decent quality pictures (some phones; not mine ^_^), play games, whatever. People are using mobile Facebook, sending photos to friends, listening to music...
I don't know much about the latest gadgets, nor about the future of technology, but it does seem mobile technology is getting better; more pervasive; that it will be a dominating technology in the near future (as indeed it already is). People are demanding more functionality in their phones; phones are going to be used for so many different purposes that I think that the state of phones now is the tip of the iceberg; we're going to see significant design and functionality changes, breakthroughs, improvements.
As for me, I have no idea what my phone is capable of, since I'm too scared to play with it too much. I don't know exactly what my phone plan includes, but it's the cheapest sort, so I think any deviation from my 'included costs' - such as surfing the Internet - could potentially wrack up huge costs. That's probably the biggest problem at the moment - getting a service like just being able to watch TV on your phone, can cost you, I dunno, $80 or more per month. Compared to your free TV at home, it's got a way to go.
For example, there was a time when, if you made plans to meet a person, and you got there, and they didn't come, well, there was really nothing to do but keep waiting, then go home (or find a pay phone and try to call their house). These days, if people are meeting, there's a 10-message preliminary exchange so that you don't really need to make concrete initial plans at all. ('I'm about to leave the station now', 'where are you at the moment?' 'I'm heading toward the restaurant, will prob be about 5 min', 'sorry, is it the restaurant next to Lawson, or the one near the park?')
I remember when I was a kid, getting books from the library, I would have no way to know whether the same author had written other books which weren't in the library, unless they were listed on the cover of the books I did have. If you did find this out, you could possibly go to Dymocks in the city and request they order it in, but this was a bit of a hassle. I remember a few years ago, I was on Amazon and discovered that my favourite ever children's book ('The Giver') had two sequels; with a few clicks I could order them and within days they were at my house.
And ten or fifteen years ago, if you went walking around the streets of suburban Yokohama, and you got totally lost (as is very common for me), and you finally found your way again... well, there'd be no way to find out exactly where you went, what mistake you made, where you should go next time, etc - unless you could procure and read a Japanese road atlas, in Japanese. I would be constantly going around and winging it, never knowing where I was.
These days, however...
I was just on diddlefinger, checking out maps of my neighbourhood, and of the surrounding suburbs, so I could see what convenience stores were where. Before I leave my house I do a quick check of Hyperdia to see when my next train will leave. I use both these sites constantly to check potential routes, work out exactly where I'm going or where I went on a particular day...
However, I'm still a bit behind the times, since a lot of Japanese people would use their cell phones for this purpose. Some people use, I think, a kind of GPS on their phone to get directions; they can check timetables; they can watch TV shows, download and read comics, take decent quality pictures (some phones; not mine ^_^), play games, whatever. People are using mobile Facebook, sending photos to friends, listening to music...
I don't know much about the latest gadgets, nor about the future of technology, but it does seem mobile technology is getting better; more pervasive; that it will be a dominating technology in the near future (as indeed it already is). People are demanding more functionality in their phones; phones are going to be used for so many different purposes that I think that the state of phones now is the tip of the iceberg; we're going to see significant design and functionality changes, breakthroughs, improvements.
As for me, I have no idea what my phone is capable of, since I'm too scared to play with it too much. I don't know exactly what my phone plan includes, but it's the cheapest sort, so I think any deviation from my 'included costs' - such as surfing the Internet - could potentially wrack up huge costs. That's probably the biggest problem at the moment - getting a service like just being able to watch TV on your phone, can cost you, I dunno, $80 or more per month. Compared to your free TV at home, it's got a way to go.
Friday, June 19, 2009
You know you've been in Japan too long when...
I found this list on the website Thin Rope.
From that list, here are some I totally identify with...
You know you've been in Japan too long when...
...you see a gaijin get on the train and think "Wow, it's a gaijin!"
...you can't have your picture taken without your fingers forming the peace sign.
...your idea of a larger home is an extra 10 square meters.
...you think the natural location for a beer garden is on a roof.
...you wait for the first day of summer to wear short sleeve dress shirts.
...in the middle of nowhere, totally surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren't surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible means of a power supply and when you think nothing of it when that lonely vending machine says
'thank you' after you buy a coke.
...you have over 30 small, transparent plastic umbrellas in your entrance even *after* donating several of them to taxis and JR recently.
...you believe that the perfect side dish to eat with a juicy, deep-fried pork cutlet is a pile of raw, tasteless, shredded cabbage.
...it doesn't surprise you that a case of beer has the same per unit price as a single can.
...you think cod roe spaghetti with chilled red wine is a typical Italian dish.
...you start to recognize BGM as a meaningful genre of music.
...walking into a crowded bar full of non-Japanese makes you nervous, because they "look dangerous."
...when you accompany your "no" by the famous waving hand-in-front-of-nose.
...you think that "Lets SPORTS yOUNG gAY CluB" is a perfectly normal T-shirt logo for a middle aged lady.
...you "gambarimasu!!" before every little activity you engage in.
...when it all seems normal.
From that list, here are some I totally identify with...
You know you've been in Japan too long when...
...you see a gaijin get on the train and think "Wow, it's a gaijin!"
...you can't have your picture taken without your fingers forming the peace sign.
...your idea of a larger home is an extra 10 square meters.
...you think the natural location for a beer garden is on a roof.
...you wait for the first day of summer to wear short sleeve dress shirts.
...in the middle of nowhere, totally surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren't surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible means of a power supply and when you think nothing of it when that lonely vending machine says
'thank you' after you buy a coke.
...you have over 30 small, transparent plastic umbrellas in your entrance even *after* donating several of them to taxis and JR recently.
...you believe that the perfect side dish to eat with a juicy, deep-fried pork cutlet is a pile of raw, tasteless, shredded cabbage.
...it doesn't surprise you that a case of beer has the same per unit price as a single can.
...you think cod roe spaghetti with chilled red wine is a typical Italian dish.
...you start to recognize BGM as a meaningful genre of music.
...walking into a crowded bar full of non-Japanese makes you nervous, because they "look dangerous."
...when you accompany your "no" by the famous waving hand-in-front-of-nose.
...you think that "Lets SPORTS yOUNG gAY CluB" is a perfectly normal T-shirt logo for a middle aged lady.
...you "gambarimasu!!" before every little activity you engage in.
...when it all seems normal.
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