Ganbarimasu!!!!

So last night after Aikido, my Sensei called me over to begin filling out the stack (well, 5 sheets) of papers for my shodan test. One of them was a summary of the fees, which translates to about $250.
Before this, the class had ended with my Sensei telling us that Sunday he witnessed some Dan testing under our head Dude. The testing looked pretty good to him, but apparently Head Dude thought otherwise. "Goodluck (Ganbatte)", he wished those of us testing.
So, after giving me the price breakdown, he explained that $240 of it will be refunded in the event that I fail.
Ganbatte.

On Recontracting

So... This Friday my papers for RECONTRACTING are due. Which is terrrrriffying. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate making decisions. I am currently leaning 64 1/2 towards staying and 35 1/2 towards not re-contracting. Which could lead to any number of options, this includes, but is not limited to; backpacking around SE Asia until my funds run up, returning to South America until my funds run out, coming home and getting a "real job" in a lab while I apply to graduate school, or opening a combination vegetarian restaurant/cult headquarters in Phoenix, AZ with Mac. He'd run the restaurant, I'd manage the cult. We just need an inspirational/insane leader. Maybe I could get Josh to join us.
I'd like to make a short list of the reasons to stay or reasons to go, so that my Dear Readers can offer their advice, experiences, or vegetarian recipes for our new restaurant.

Should I Stay or Should I Go (now...)
Stay:
1. Japan really isn't that bad, once you explain that yes, bacon does count as meat and yes, garlic is OK.
2. Aikido. I love my dojo here, the training is great and I just want to be on the mat as much as possible. Also, in the event that I fail my shodan test I can try again in September. (Joku desu)
3. I think I'm just starting to scratch the surface of things to experience while I'm here. I think the first half of my year here has been finding out about the cool things to do; now I just have to do them. For instance, my prefecture apparently has great skiing North of Himeji, but I've been too busy preparing for my shodan and MCAT tests to make it up there yet. Next year I want to learn how to snowboard. Another example, I met a Shokuhachi master (Japanese flute) on Thursday who offered to teach a few of us twice a month. There is also any number of beautiful old places to visit, temples to see, I want to get into some parks and things this summer.
4. Learn a little more Japanese. I've been a bit too busy to study much, but after April want to really catch up on my studies.
5. I've met a lot of really great people here that I'd hate to leave so early.
6. I want to travel outside of Japan more on my holidays, use this place as a base.
7. Having a place that feels like home. After a few nights out of town, I can walk out of the train station, see the castle up the road and let out a sigh of familiarity. These are the streets I know, these are my favorite restaurants, this is where my friends hang out.
8. Having people visit me and show them my town!
9. Having one more year to sort of goof off before starting "real life".

Go:
1. Central heating. Japan winters are killing me. I wore the wrong shoes to school the other day, and the top layer of skin on my toes is all ouchy hurty 4 days afterwards from being numb all day.
2. I'm ancy to get back in school/ start an actual "career path." Most of the people over here as ALT's have degrees in things like English, East Asian Studies, and the like. Or they are actual teachers. I feel like I'm wasting my degree in Biology by not putting it to use. Is that silly?
3. Japanese schools. I really liked the last school I was at, Toyotomi, but this year I started at a different school which I don't like as much. It's twice the size and the teachers seem more rushed and less friendly. Maybe I just need a period of adjustment to the new place. But I have no assurance that next fall I will go back to Toyotomi (I will change schools twice again if I re-contract). I could go to a better school, or a worse one. I really like the kids though. The girls always come up to me and try and talk, and try even harder to get me to remember their names. I occasionally run into them in town and they yell "Oh! Allison Sensei!" But, work is work, right? I love teaching at elementary schools though. There isn't this pressure to maaaake the kids learn English, we just play games and it's great. Last week the teacher wanted to teach "Shall we..." So instead of a big rigid lesson, we played "Shall we go to the Zoo?" And all the kids got to pretend to be animals. I taught the penguin dance to my favorite group of girls (class 5-4). The really ADD kids all wanted to be monkeys so they could shriek and jump up and down and scratch their armpits.

So... yeah. I'm leaning towards staying another year. Take the MCAT in April, work on med school applications from here, fly home for interviews twice in 2006, and see the family and my dog... Thoughts? Leave your comments, and I may or may not take head of your advice.

On The mysteries of Yuzu Cha

I'd heard about it.
I'd seen it myself.
I had to try it.

Yuzu Cha.

It sounded aweful, a tea made by pouring hot water over orange marmelade. Why would anyone drink this stuff? I had to find out. This afternoon I swung by my favorite hideaway in Himeji, Sento Maaakusu Cafe (St. Marc's Cafe) and thought I would pass up my usual cup of coffee, and go for something less dehydrating. I got my cup of orange marmelade tea, climbed up the stairs into the (gasp!) Non-smoking section (these are rare in Nihonland) and took my first sip... Terrible. Flat out bad. It was sort of syruppy and very sweet, but with the bitter taste of orange rind, which came from the huge pile of orange rinds not surprisingly found at the bottom of my cup. I mean, what else would I expect from a tea made of orange marmelade?

Although disappointed in my experience with yuzu-cha , it will do nothing to diminish my quest to try everything weird but non-meaty in Japan. You might think, there aren't that many non-meaty weird things in Japan. But you would indeed be wrong! A new favorite of mine is this bizarre cold black barklike thing... I have no other way of describing it. It looks like thin black shredded roots (it might be) with gyunikku (some weird jelly type thing), beans, and sweet tofu. mmmm. It's delicious. I suggest anyone who is in Japan or visiting find it and try it. With that said, wish me luck on my quest of finding weird, delicious things to eat in Nipponland!

ahhhhk! aAAAAaaaaAAAAhhhhhhh!

Ok, so before I can write anything else in my blog I must share this dear readers... Saturday I went to my Himeji dojo with Tom and had a splendid time being thrown across the mat. After class, I was figuring talking with my friend Masahide when one of my Senseis, Jikuhara Sensei, came over to relay some news. It went like this:

"?????(japanese)???? testing ???(japanese)???? you ????Shodan?????(japanese)??????? March. Okay?"

What? errr, no? Wait, what? March? Not the more distant/preparable September?
Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Can't be right. Maybe they're just testing me. I'll just go to class Monday and see if anyone mentions it. So I made it through class without it coming up, until after class Masahide comes up to me:

"sooooo, shodan. Zagi one two three four. Hamni Handachi one minute. Standing four minutes."

Ahk! It's worse than expected! Maybe I can start going to the Friday Shodan's only class to help prepare. ahhhhhhhh. This and MCAT in April. ok, off to nihongo lessons.

wish me luck, or as my supervisor said, ganbatte... I'll need it.

On Aikido frustrations- followup

So.... I ended up going to class on Tuesday, and it was wonderful. Not that I did particularly well, but I went to my not so ouchy hurty dojo with a very open mind and it was great. Thanks to everyone for their advice and experiences on my last entry.

My friend Tom Newhall from Oberlin College Aikikai has been in Japan since the start of January, and finally made it down to the Kansai on Friday night. So we met up in Nara to train at Sanshozenji Zen temple and Aikido dojo (www.aikinara.jp). Why? Our wonderful sensei from Oberlin, Jim Klar Sensei, trained their about 15 years ago and we felt we should make some sort of "pilgramage" out there. The dojo is a short ride on a local train out of Nara, Tom and I promised to meet at the train station near the dojo. I got off the train, and started looking around for Tom and/or the right direction to the dojo when a little old man noticed that I was looking a little lost. I asked him for directions, but they were a little too complicated for me to coordinate with the ones Jim Sensei had sent us, so he offered to drive me and Tom there as soon as I found him. Tom soon showed up, and we piled into our new aquantance's car. The drive took a little longer than we expected, but we managed to try to make small talk (in Japanese!). Tom and I stepped out of the car, and walked into the temple grounds.

We wandered into the complex, if only to try to pick out which building was the dojo, which was the monk's quarters, and which one we would be attacked by ninjas if we entered. We decided the first one looked like a residence, so in the darkness we proceeded down the gravel path through an ancient cemetary trying to identify the dojo. We eventually found it, but the lights were out and no one was there yet. We sat down on the steps in the dark, surrounded by ancient graves, and broke out some onigiri goodness, followed by chocolate covered almonds. Dinner of Champions. Twenty minutes before class the first car pulled into the parking lot and the first aikidoka greeted us and led us into the temple...

More later...

On Aikdio frustrations

It seems that the more I practice Aikido, the worse I get. I just got back from an extremely frustrating aikido class, took out and sorted my 8 types of tonight's recycling (the other 2 plus burnables goes out friday), came in, and had a delicious grape chu-hi. Now, I was speaking with Randy earlier in the night, who made the claim that I have one of the biggest egos of anyone he knows. Maybe tied with Josh. Now, I couldn't figure out if he was joking or not, but it certainly might explain why I was so frustrated with myself in Aikido tonight. It might be something like this... So I majored in biology, because it was really easy for me, and thus made me feel really smart. Now I'm doing something that I can't sleep through and get an A, and I am not handling it well.
It's easy to say, "I'm not a shodan (insert nidan, sandan... shihan) therefore I can't do this technique". But then I tell myself "Allison, you've been doing this for four years now. Certainly you're better than this. FOCUS!!! Why aren't you focussing? Stop yelling at yourself and focus!" A more focussed Allison emerges... "Ok, my partner has got this timing thing down pretty well, try to adopt that and see what happens." I try to pick up what he is doing and mess it up, leading to: "why don't you have timing Allison? You aren't getting this at all! AAAAahhh stop thinking and just train".
This thought process (process? there is no process here) continues throughout class, with me never being able to get my head straight. So now I can't decide if it would be better to take tomorrow off, and go in Friday (or saturday) really missing aikido, or if I should go to class tomorrow, and take the attitude that training is training, get on the mat and stop complaining.
At any rate, I should get to bed and stop procrastinating taking a shower, which I have done because my towels are in the washer.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments, either about my aikido, my excessive thinking on the mat, or on the size of mine (or Josh's) ego, please leave me a comment! Remember, real friends leave messages!
Al

Happy New Year! Episode III, Revenge of the...hmm. I hope no one's seeking revenge...

Well, I could go in chronological order, and update this blog according to the list I made earlier, but I'm much too excited to tell you all about my wonderful New Years Eve to do that. so here we go, out of order.

Saturday, December 31st- Sunday, January 1st.
Ahhh New Years. It seems like I have been rather short on good New Year's Eve experiences, most of them having been pretty lame in the past. So this year I was really excited to do something fun. My first thoughts were to go to Nara or Kyoto, join in the throngs of Japanese people out ringing in the new year and ancient shrines and temples. I just had to find someone to go with, as not to be alone. Well, it turned out that everyone wanted to go to Oooosaka clubbing. Scratch shrine visits. Taube, Julian, Mac, and their visiting friend Gwen from back home, had headed out to Osaka already on Friday. Lex and I joined them Saturday afternoon.
We spent the afternoon and early evening wandering around the shopping districts and in and out of arcades, where I saw one of the most bizarre things yet. Electronic Horse Racing. No, they are not betting on horses via computers, they are betting on virtual horses. Check it out:
There was also a big table, where little horses ran around a track, apparently by magnets, which people also bet on.

After wandering around with Julian and Mac, we regrouped and split up again. Julian left for the airport to pick up another one of their friends coming in, Shay. However, his flight got cancelled and he didn't make it in until Sunday. Anyway, Lex and I split off and had dinner, Lexi convinced/inspired me to get some awesome (read- hilarious) big yellow sunglasses, which I am both proud and embarrased to say I wore all night. I am starting to confuse the distinction between really ridiculous and a good idea. Then we met the rest of our crew outside our chosen club, the Underlounge. it's apparently a big foreigner bar, but it was our Japanese friends who were meeting us picked it out (Koki and Hanako).

Anyway, we had to drop our stuff off in a locker outside, so unfortunately I have no further pictures for you all. Maybe Taube will put some up on her webpage, I think she brought her camera in. I didn't want the baggage of a purse and coat and things in a crowded and hot bar and dance floor. So we all finally get in, after checking all of our stuff, and get our first drink of the night (yay!!). I pretty soon joined the growing throng of people on the dance floor, occassionally making it out to Kampai (Japanese for Cheers!) with everyone and pretty soon was pretty toasted myself. The crowd on the dance floor kept growing and growing until no one at all could dance, and it was like a big cheery happy mosh pit. All anyone could do was jump up and down together, and randomly throw hands in the air to chants of what sounded like "Oi Oi Oi". It was great.

I couldn't believe what happened next. Gogo dancers and crossdressers. The club had apparently hired them to dance on the bar and this elevated table/dancing top thing at the back of the dance floor. The guy guys were huge, and not in necessarily a good way, but were wearing weird stripey outfits that were cut like high school wrestling uniforms, and they wore funny hats. The "girls", or maybe crossdressers, wore sort of space agey rocket girl outfits and would occassionally shoot little laser like toy guns at the crowd.

Right before midnight I realized I had to find Mac and the gang, but there was absolutely no way to get to the bar from my position, so I stayed with the crowd. There were a couple of Japanese dudes around me who kept grabbing my fist out of the air to the chants of Oi Oi Oi. So when Midnight struck I might not have had someone to kiss, but I did have someone's arm around my waist and ended up getting a mouthful of confetti. I think I might have swallowed some of it. And here I thought Japanese boys were to modest to touch in public, especially strangers.

So after midnight, everyone kept drinking, Gwyn and I made numerous forays out onto the dance floor, and the crowd dissipated a bit so there was some room to dance. Lexi suggested we, "we" including myself, climb onto the stage on the back and dance in front of everyone. I guess this would be another example of me confusing "ridiculous" with "good idea", but we had a lot of fun. I guess the gogo dancers were on break, but they came back and wanted their spots back, so we climbed down and explored the rest of the club. In the back, we came across a crowd of people playing pass the bottle of champagne (later we would find two of the boys dancing on tables without their shirts on), more people wearing sunglasses inside, and a fellow JET! He was sort of mean though, so I didn't talk to him much.

After a while, Lexi split and headed out to another club to meet some other people. I was coming out of the bathroom (more on that later) when some random dude comes up to me. He introduced himself as Donnie (I think it was really Tony, but over the music and accent, I couldn't really hear). Tony was French, but he was in japan for kickboxing, muay thai to be precise. I thought it was strange, I mean, I would be in Thailand if I did muay thai. But I didn't ask, we got some champagne and joined Mac and the crew. We finished our drinks and headed to the dance floor. After dancing together for awhile, I thought he would get a kick out of one of the fine features of the club.

So we headed to the bathroom. Now, the women's bathroom has a bit of a corridor for the line. The men's bathroom has a big long mirror above the urinals. Now, this is no ordinary mirror, it's one-way. It cuts off at about chest height, but if a girl were so inclined she could watch all the different expressions on boys' faces as the pee. Some of them are really hilarious. There's the "ahhh, thank god, finally!", the "okay, let's get this over with", and of course the "checking myself out, hairs okay?" face. So I explained this to Tony, and he went in the men's room to check it out. There was no way he could get to the women's side to see what was going on, so after he was done peeing, he banged on the mirror, and I banged back, thus causing all the Japaneese dudes still peeing to flip out. All to the amusement of the Japanese girls watching. Don't worry, don't worry, the mirror cuts off at the chest. The way to and from the bathroom passes the VIP entrance, which I had been ignoring, until on the way out Tony grabbed my arm and we walked in.

Spread out on several couches, taking up virtually the entire space were a bunch of huuuuuge dudes. Tony introduced me and poured me some more champagne. They were all French. There was a Jerome, a Christian, a Mark (I later found out he was Canadian or American- I forget which), and a couple of others. After talking to some other people in the room, I found out the French dudes were really really super famous K-1 kickboxers in town for a big match earlier that night at Oooooosaka Dome. Oh. Alright. The lounge was pretty quiet, so I dragged Tony back out onto the dance floor for awhile. We returned to the lounge (I am by now, quite drunk) and the French contigency decided it was a good time to find somewhere else to go.

I alerted Mac and the others that I'd be following the French for awhile and we headed out the door. We got outside, and stood around while figuring out where to go. I started talking to Mark, and it turns out he did Aikido! Yay! Aikido! He trained some French version, which sounded softer than the American Ki Society. So while we were discussing the myriad versions of Kotegaishi (sp?) the others in my new group decided that they wanted to go back in the Underlounge. Okay. So we went back in. The night wound down, I found my way back to Himeji, Tony to his hotel and an early morning flight to France.

Getting back to Himeji, I paid a visit to the local shrine and then climbed to the top of the castle. Then home, a few phone calls home, and finally bed at 10 am.

Yesterday I googled "Osaka Dome Kickboxing," and I guess one of the guys I met is Jerome Le Banner, who apparently is one of the best fighters in the world. I mentioned this to my supervisor, Iizuka sensei, after aikido tonight. He was really excited and immediately translated it into Japanese for the rest of the dojo. A lot of the aikido people were really impressed. Iizuka Sensei told me that all Japanese people know who Le Banner is. The things I miss not having a TV. I guess if I ever run into them again, they will remember me as the totally clueless drunk girl wearing ridiculous sunglasses. Wait, by "ridiculous" do I mean "totally cool"? I have no idea anymore.

Lanterns set up for the New Year visits

happy new year!!! Part II

What's next on the blog catch up schedule? Mmmmm. I think Ruminashion. Which, while it might sound like a bovine activity, is really a giant light extravaganza/ memorial for the Kobe earthquake.

Tuesday, December 19th.
I was getting on the bus after staying at school late. I had been fighting another cold and was looking forward to getting home, skipping aikido, and getting in a good sleep. I sat down on the bus seat and by cell chimed sweetly to tell me I had another message. I checked my phone, it was Lexi. "Illumination ends Thursday," my phone read, "Let's go to Kobe." Well, scratch plans to get some sleep. I got back to the apartment, rounded up Mac and Lex, and we headed off to Kobe.

We didn't know where to go when we set off, but the giant crowds and megaphone wielding city workers easily led the way. It started off as a big exercise in herding management. If there's anything to make you feel more like you're part of a flock, this was it. Huge swarms of people proceeded from the train station, down streets lined with crowd barriers, and police officers lazily keeping watch to make sure no one was line-jumping. "Lazy" extends so far that I caught one officer sleeping on his feet. We paused in the stream of people so that I could take this picture of a traditional Shinto torii gate, which is used to delineate 'sacred spaces' from the ordinary. They are usually around shrines and such, but occassionally they'll be in the middle of busy, modern streets. What makes this one great is not only it's size, but the name of the cafe next to it.

"Patisserie Tooth Tooth"

We made it past the gate and the sleeping guard, and continued with the herd. The route took us past all the high end shops, Channel, Gucci, other places I know nothing about. When we got to the lights, it was phenomenal.

There were all these individual, enormous gates filled with colored lights, going on forever.


After constructing this enormous tunnel of lights, I guess they just couldn't stop. And so... they built an enormous electric cathedral of light and blasted operatic versions of christmas carols in a park, filled with hundreds of Japanese people snapping pictures with their cell phones. It was a little surreal.

Crowds at the start

After the show, Lex and I sampled the usual variety of Japanese fair food and headed back to Himeji. Well, Mac left while we were eating, I left after sampling a fish cracker, with brown sauce, uncooked egg, puffed corn, and mayonaise (uck) and a delicious crepe. Now, why anyone would put an uncooked/semicooked egg on top of a cracker and give it to you to walk around with is completely beyond me. How anyone manages to eat this contraption without being completely covered in egg clearly knows more than I do.

Hey! Look at the enormous fish head!
Fish heads!!!

And so concludes today's blogging.
Happy reading, love Al

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Resolution: Post more new blogs.

Okay, so I know it's been awhile and a lot's happened. "Boyscouting" in Kobe with Lexi, Illumination (sounds like ruminashion in Japanese) finishing at Toyotomi Junior high school, Christmas in Ehime with Josh, a trip to Nara and Kyoto, and chillin' with some French kickboxers on New Years. I meant to post earlier, really I did. I think this will have to be done in several installments.

Let's see, December... So being raised in the suburbs of Indiana, then attending Oberlin, I haven't ventured out much into the world of "clubbing". So one fine Saturday evening, Lexi and I embarked on a journey to the delightful city of Kobe. We had a late start to the evening, as Shirasagi Residence hosted a going away party for the Australian ALT's who had to return to their country. After stuffing ourselves with the most delicious variety of both Western and Japanese foods, Lexi and I 'got ourselves dun up' and caught the train to Kobe. By "dun up" I mean dressing up as Lexi's version of J-girls. I was sporting my jeans and black boots, a black and grey stripey shirt with a designer T over it, topped with a tealish colored poofy vest with a faux fur hood. Lexi however, outdid me, as per usual. Let's see, I believe her gettup included cowboy boots (with heel), purple hose, a ruffled camo miniskirt, neon yellow tank under frilly black tank under black vest with fir hood. I feel like I'm leaving something out... I don't quite understand what we were wearing and was pretty cold, but Lexi assured me that we were pimpin it Japanese style... I have no idea. At least it was amusing.

The first half of the train ride we spent trying to ignore a really drunk old Japanese man who kept escaping from his friends to jump across the aisle and sit next to us. Once sitting down, he would try to access his extremely limited English vocabulary, which consisted of "nice body" while gesturing at Lexi's chest. We got off the train, and wandered around Sannomiya for awhile. Kobe seems to be a much friendlier city, we had lots of (guys) yell "hi" to us, some really crazy dudes from Osaka invited us to a college party (in Osaka), but they weren't students. We saw a guy dressed as Hard Gay (a TV character) in a really really expensive car, the driver waved to us, and the Hard Gay guy (dressed in S&M black biker leather gettup) pretended no one could see him. Anyway, we eventually wandered into a bar Lexi knew. Now, this was no ordinary bar, it was distinguished largely by the crassness of the hosts, which is fairly uncommon in Japan. Lex and I performed a karaoke rendition of Eminem (Em Dirty) where the Japanese host boys chimed in on the PeeWee Herman chorus (eh eh eh eh eh eh). After we sang, we hit the streets again to find a club to hole up in. We wandered back down to the station and picked up a couple of boys on the way. One was cute, but quiet. The other was very friendly, thought less cute. We asked them where a club was, and they took us up the street to some disco, where they left us at the door. Apparently, the cuter one was only 18 and couldn't get in yet.

Lex and I paid the cover charge and stepped into an enormous club where Japanese reggae and hip hop pounded out of the speakers. We exchanged our money for drink tokens from the vending machine and put our orders in with the bartenders, all wearing black suits with white collared shirts. The bar was packed, but not around the bar. Everyone was crowded around the dance floor, watching what was going on. I squeezed my way through the crowd, to see what was going on off the reflection of a mirror. Girls Girls Girls. Girls in the skimpiest thing that could ever be classified as "shorts" doing some of the raunchiest dancing i have ever seen. Apparently we came on an "event" night, the "event" being these hip hop dancers. Anyway, that went on for awhile. Don't get me wrong, the girls were really good, I just never expected to see that kind of dancing in Japan, or outside of a strip club.

After the performances, I guess the club returned to normal, Lexi and I danced in a corner of the dance floor. We spotted a Japanese dude in these awesome faux aviators. A little later he came over and danced with us, and damn he was good. Later in the night, he started dancing with me, so I put my hand on his hip, with the result of him running. Like, fast. I looked around, and although the floor was packed with both girls and guys dancing, absolutely no one was touching at all. Ahhhhh crap. Note to anyone reading this- no touching while dancing!!! Not if you don't want to terrify your new friend and embarass both them and you horribly. Ahhh well. I saw him later and appologized, and he seemed cool with that. I'll um, count that one as a learning experience. The club closed around four, four thirty and lexi and I once again trekked down to the train station, where we grabbed some soba noodles and waited for the trains to start running again.

And so ended A Night in Kobe.
Next up, Illumination.