sept 7th

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, The Japanese Zone. Submitted for your approval, imagine a place where Coca-Cola made not only Coke and Sprite, but also Coke-Lager and Coke-XXX. Imagine a place where Bacardi sold their usual flavors of rum, but also bottled water and ginger ale. Those that know have heard of Kirin beer, but what about Kirin Iced Tea, and Kirin Melon Cider. Imagine a place where shirtless females are not to be shown in public by law, but acts of incest, sodomy, or violent gang rape are okay as long as their drawn (with the naughty bits blurred out for morality). Imagine a place of people born to be beaurocrats, and you will have found yourself in a place closely resembling the Japanese Zone.

A list of things you might not have known about Japan:

1)Cigarettes are cheap, 230yen a pack, from a vending machine.

2)5 kilo bags of uncooked Rice, amongst many other things, are available from vending machines. There is one not to far from me.

3)Beer is relatively expensive. And it's all fucking pisswater. Though Kirin and Suntory's autumn brews have hit the shelf, and they are cheap (relatively, 240 for a pint can), and effective (6.5% alcohol, the highest in all the land)

4)The Japanese have not grasped the effectiveness that is the medium of television (or radio), and instead broadcast all public announcements (typhoon warnings, missing children, earthquakes) via loudspeakers positioned throughout the city. Our apartment right now is right behind city hall, and right next to the first speakers that click on (they do understand how echos work, so they delay the message across town) so everytime I hear that electric hum I think Godzilla's been sighted off the coast and heading for shore.

5Japanese children have an obession with punching you in the balls and trying to ram their fingers up your ass. It's true. Japanese Adults think it is cute and will not dissuade them from doing it.

random news and 'dotes
Niall (the irish guy I work with) may be the funniest human being on the planet. the kids in his class that I've sat in on must think I'm nuts, because I just laugh the whole time. I've very excited, for he is my partner off to the college type school we teach at down south a bit. Yeah I'm gonna be teaching college classes, wildness. It's a theme park university more or less. a Vet School that's located in a big awesome zoo/theme park about 20 minutes down the road.

I can now drive a manual transmission on the left side of the road down a two way street that's as narrow as a kings sized bed. . I haven't mastered it, but I can get the car movin and I'm not freaked out to see two cars, a motor scooter, three people, and two bicyclists headed dead on for me. Now all I have to do is learn how to ride a bike, and then how to shoot fire balls out of my hands and I'm golden.

Erich, guy who's job I'm taking, told me this about working at EVI:
"If you told me a year ago I would have enjoyed seeing a small child cry, I would have thought you were nuts. How could anyone take pleasure in the suffereing of the young and innocent? Well... time makes fools of us all."

and last, we are moving out of this stink hole to better climate. It's the same area, about a 10 minute walk further in land, right near the station and closer to where I work. Its not really a big difference in location, but the place is much nicer. Jenn's supervisors just have to get their asses in gears. The people I work for found the place for the guy who was supposed to come but didn't, so we could probably have been moved in by now if we went through my work, but the genetics of bureaucracy and all that are at play.

this is for the birds

I can't get into this personal blogging thing. Maybe it's the same reason I can never keep steadily writing one piece of fiction. I'm writing for a faceless nameless audience from which I get little to no feedback from. So instead I'll be posting the emails I've been sending to my friends, and some lovely random pic-uh-tures from my flickr stream.

Here follows the first, bear with me if it's repeat info:

Item 1: I have a job. Apparently they heard I was in town and couldn't wait to get my English speaking skills inside some Japanese brains. Approximately 830pm here last Friday, about 4 hours after landing in Kansai International, and about an hour in our new apartment, I got a call from one Kathy Sekioka, a native Alaskan who has been living in Tanabe for 20 years. She runs a small Eikaiwa (english language school) in the area. We set up a interview for saturday afternoon, and in less than 24 hours in a country I had a new job. It's part time teaching work, I have 12 classes, and hour each.

EDIT: Okay, so I started this email on sunday, since then many things have been keeping me from finishing it. One of them being training for work, and also I've already been promoted from part time to full time, so I've been having to prepare for that. My schedule is already getting changed after a week.

As for work I've sat in on a couple classes and taught a few. Students of all ages, so it's pretty interesting work in what's required of me. Training's pretty intensive, the school uses several different text books depending on the level and the age of the student. The school is small, a 5 full time teachers and one part time and two full time office workers. Except for Kathy, all the teachers are guys, and I haven't met the new part timer who's gonna replace me. Peter is a Canadian with a very maritime accent. He's been with the school for 9 years and has probably been in Japan for 12, japanese wife and a few kids. I haven't interacted with him much yet, Niall is an Irish guy who's also been with the company and in Japan for a while, as he has a wife and is expecting a kid. he has a great Irish leprechaun laugh. Bradley is a 26 year old Brit from London. He's hugged me no less than three times so far. He's a guy you can't but help like, wacky, full of energy, insane. He just came from Korea a month ago, spent time in India and Thailand, etc. I'll write a separate Bradley email, as he's the one who I've interacted with the most; I met him the second day I was here.

So less about work and more about the other English speakers I'll probably be interacting with a lot in Tanabe. Steve is the other ALT who lives in our apartment building. Northern Brit from Durham, so he has a good Beatle-esque accent. He's a youngin, just turned 21, didn't study Japanese before coming here but he's coming along, majored in History at Uni. Todd is a Seattle-West Coaster in his late 20ish 30ish, year old former microsoft employee who's basically the Johnny-on-the-spot in Tanabe. Basically if you need any help with anything he's the guy to go to, has a girlfriend who is well connected in the town, and he himself is pretty in the know here. Problem is he has a rather intense social life, so we kinda feel bad asking him to help us out with stuff. It's his 2nd year in the JET programme. Joanna is the CIR for Tanabe City, hailing from Vancouver, she's nice and pretty funny, only hung out with her twice sof far.

Oh and before I sign off on this email, I'm also learning how to drive a manual transmission. Today was my first day out of the parking lot and onto the streets. Driving a stick is pretty fun, but my teacher is Kathy's husband, who's English is very fluent and good, but not so much for trying to instill the knowledge of how not to make a car make horrible grinding noises. The car is also a japanese electric shaver, Kei-car, go-kart engine and wheels at the corners of the car, so handling is interesting, especially around the twisty and inclined streets of Japan. That's all for now, next email will come sooner than later hopefully.

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Inside the bus? it IS THE BUS! The Bus of the UNDEAD!