MatthewMeyer.net Blog

I am in Japan! (Please excuse any typos, this keyboard is kind of funny...) I got here alright, though it was a very tiring trip. The flight from Toronto to Tokyo was something like 13 hours, and from Tokyo I had to take many different trains to Echigo-Yuzawa and from there to Kanazawa. I was so worried that I would miss my stop because I kept involuntary falling unconscious from tiredness (23 or so more hours combined with the 23 hours of driving I was still sleeping off from the drive from Florida). Hardly anyone here knows any English, despite the huge amount of English in their ads and posters, so I was really lucky to know enough Japanese to comprehend their insane train system. It is really a fascinating system... the trains are accurate to the minute, and every minute has a scheduled train. It is (where the hell is the apostrophe on this keyboard?) like watching an old fashioned fast motion movie when people get on and off the trains. Tokyo was a huge difference from Toronto, because everything in Toronto was huge and open and completely empty, while everything in Japan is tiny and extremely crowded. But anyway, as I was saying, the trains are amazing. They are whisper quiet, 100% reliable, and operate on a track that is about 1\3 the size of our tracks. The trains are so quiet you can hear someone breathing in another car. They are ridiculously clean, too, and they have concession ladies who walk from car to car, very politely announcing their entrance and exit, then offering a variety of bizzarre snacks.The houses in Japan are about 3 inches apart from eachother. Running from rooftop to rooftop like they do in anime no longer seems like a feat. When I finally made it to Kanazawa after an exhausting and very nervous many-hour-long train ride (since I had to be able to translate where the train said it was stopping next) I took a taxi, but the driver did not know English either. So I had to try to translate the house address from English into Japanese, and only when we got there did we find out that the school here gave me an incorrect house number and phone number. We found it, though, it was just next door, and the Yamamiyas are a very friendly and sweet couple. They know about as much English as I know Japanese, so it will be a very fun experience trying to communicate. When I arrived okaasan ("mother" in Japanese) made me ramen and tea, both scalding hot, of course, so my tongue is still numb and blistered (hopefully the trip will scar my tongue up a bit so I will lose my super heat sensitivity). Their house is entirely traditional, so I sleep on a futon in a tatami room and have to duck to use the doorways (Westerners are much taller than Japanese). I am extra glad I have not watched any Japanese horror movies recently because the bad stuff usually happens in these tatami rooms. I was too tired to care though. I fell asleep to the sound of millions of frogs singing in the rice patties. I have to say it is weird sleeping with only a thin sheet of rice paper separating you from the outside of the world, not even a lock.

Today was really fun. I had a huge breakfast (another meal issue I have to deal with, since my stomach is so small and it is considered very rude not to eat every last grain of rice at a meal) consisting of eggs, salad, tea, and toast. Okaasan walked me to the station and to the school; its a nice walk through a beautiful medieval town. She tried to explain how to use the local train station but since she does not know English and I do not know Japanese, all I figured out was that I am in Kanazawa... It is not nearly as confusing as the big train stations in Tokyo though, so I will manage perfectly well. It gets dark here very early (before 6!) and there are few street lights, so we will see if I get home alright... :-B So we had our first class today. We are a small group, just over 10 people, and we have plenty of teachers. We took a placement test (which I bombed... I did not have enough time to refresh myself after school ended to get into a higher class) so I am in tori ("bird") group -- how serendipitous, eh? Yasuko-san, the Eurocenters administrator, is a very lively and friendly woman. She took us on a walk around town and went over all the activities we will be doing while here. It is going to be very exciting (and VERY expensive but that is breaks).

It is raining now, but okaasan was very kind and gave me an umbrella this morning, so I will be alright. I have to remember to take some pictures at some time. But my time on this computer is almost up, so I should type in the addresses and send this. I will write again when I have time.

Henji mattemasu!