I can now drive in Japan! Yay! Since getting the car, we've had a lot more freedom in deciding where to spend our time and money. One day, we just hopped in the car and drove 60 or so kilometers to Takamatsu, the largest city on Shikoku. We didn't do much their except eat udon (a type of noodle that Takamatsu brags about) and do a little shopping (we bought some My Neighbor Totoro ornaments.)

One of the big challenges with moving to Japan has been adapting my diet and cooking habits. In the States, a typical day of eating for me was to have coffee for breakfast, a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and anything ranging from Hamburger Helper to homemade fettuccine alfredo for dinner. Here in Japan, the coffee is easy enough to come by, in a variety of forms ranging from instant to brew-in-your-cup to a basic coffee pot to Starbucks. It's not as popular or as common as tea, but it's still very common and very easy to get. So, breakfast is taken care of.

Lunch... well, lunch is a different story. Biggest difference? It is SO HARD to get cheese here. Or at least, cheddar cheese like we would use for sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, etc. Thinking about it, I think cheese is one of the things I miss most about American food. So, for lunch I generally have pasta salad or fried potatoes. Lunch tends to be my most American meal of the day, since Brent usually prefers Japanese food. I like a great deal of Japanese food, don't get me wrong, but I can only eat so much rice or udon.

Potatoes are easy enough to get here, although they are small and expensive compared to the States (which doesn't mean that they're expensive compared to other food around here, they're just dirt cheap in the States.) I have actually expanded my range of things I cook with potatoes, since it's harder and more expensive to buy the ready-made stuff here. Also, I figure I might as well put all my free time to good use! So far I've made mostly potato soup (thanks Mom!) and fried potatoes which are not to be confused with potato fries, the Japanese term for french fries/chips. (Side note: I don't capitalize french in french fries, but I capitalize it when speaking about the French language or culture. Is this normal or common?) I experimented with a recipe I found for microwave potato chips, and while they were really really tasty, I had a severe problem with them sticking to the plate I cooked them on. Currently, I have some fries soaking in water, and will make my first attempt at home made french fries shortly.

For dinner, I'll occasionally make something like potato soup, but it's more common for us to have something fairly Japanese for dinner, such as curry rice or yaki soba. Last night was had some pan-fried fish (no clue what it was, it was red uncooked and a dark pink cooked) with rice. Tonkatsu (breaded and fried thinly sliced pork chops) is pretty common for us to have, as are gyoza (Chinese meat dumpling things) and miso soup.

One of the challenges we have is that our kitchen is tiny. Our stove is gas and not very nice. It's not one of the nice gas stoves, instead it's the type where the flame is inches away from you when you stand and cook something. Cooking anything that needs stirred often is a pain because the heat rising up from around the pan is really intense. We're not sure if the stove sucks or if we are just incompetent at using gas burners. There are also only two burners and they're really close together. There is a single grating thing resting over both of them, with massive gaps in it, so if you jostle a small pan too hard, it can slip and fall off the burner and onto the stove top. In summary, it's a huge pain and we're thinking about replacing it when we have some more spare cash.

Even with the bad stove, though, it's nice to have a change of pace in eating, even if I miss easy access to french fries. There are benefits. It's harder to get snack food we like, so both Brent and I have been eating less overall, and especially eating less fatty foods like meat (at a guess, I would say I've cut my meat consumption in at least half.) Coupled with us having to bike everywhere, we both have noticed our pants being a little looser. Quite frankly, I felt that I was eating too much meat in the States, but it's just such a common thing for Americans to do and trying to cut back didn't really go anywhere, so I've been glad for the opportunity to switch at least that part of my diet around. I say this having plans to go out to yaki niku this weekend, though!

(Yaki = fried, niku = meat.)

We are having a difficult time getting a wireless router to work. While we don't technically need one, it would be nice to get the cables off of the middle of the floor.

Kaiten sushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurants are fun, and have good sushi. I had some amazing lightly blow-torched salmon with mayonnaise.

Random fact: Mayo is big in Japan.

I have found a way to give myself unlimited ringtones using any song I want. This would be more exciting if people ever called me.

Even after a month, my legs still hurt while biking.

Being functionally illiterate is hard. Teaching people to read is an important thing. Makes me feel better about the years I spent doing that in the States.

Random pictures of a typical dinner to go with the random post:

Finally! Home internet! And a phone! I'm getting settled in here.

I took the trip to get my visa expanded on my own. Took the train to Tokushima, no big deal. I've done that before. After I got there, I realized that I'd have to take a city bus the rest of the way, which meant recognizing kanji that I'd never seen in combination before. But, I got it right the first time, and thankfully the bus driver was familiar with helping foreigners, since the immigration office was on his route. I thought it would be a weeks long process, but instead I waited at the office for 5 minutes, and then they handed me a card that stated that I have permission to work 28 hours a week.

On Friday, Brent's supervisor, who is incredibly nice and helpful even though I'm not her responsibility, took me to the employment office to look up some English teaching jobs. I got several leads, and I'll be dropping off some resumes on Monday. Later that evening, there was an enkai (a work party) for Brent's Board of Education (basically a school district) and I was invited along. It was a nomihodai, which means "all you can drink." So, lots of beer (but I still haven't had Kirin!) and plum wine. The food was mostly sashimi, which I'm getting used to. I even tried tako (octopus.) The taste was pretty decent, but it was very very chewy. I ended up swallowing it pretty much whole.

And today, sweet sweet home internet. And a cell phone! Woo!

Some random pictures (from the Naruto album, which has been updated.)

We are scheduled to get home internet on September 5th! Yay! Hopefully they can install the cable through the air conditioning vents, if not, we have several more weeks of waiting to go.

This last weekend was pretty busy for Brent and myself. Thursday evening, we went to the beach with Brent's fellow JETs. There was lots of seaweed and potentially a jellyfish. On Friday, the last of the Naruto JETs arrived, and we all went out to an izakaiya and had a great dinner with drinks. I didn't bring my camera, though.

On Saturday, we bummed around in the morning, but in the late afternoon we went and visited some places on our street.


This shrine, Kyokai, is less than a five minute walk from our apartment. One of the priests was very nice and gave us a personal tour--in Japanese. We understood some of it, like that they just got a new copper roof. They aren't a very tourist-y spot, so I think they were a little shocked that we were there.

There are several other shrines on our street, both small roadside shrines, and larger ones. There are also lots of amazing Japanese cemeteries. It's just after Obon, the Japanese festival for remembering the dead, so there were lots of decorations on the graves.

More religious places around Naruto






On Sunday, we biked about half an hour to Bando Station, dropped off our bikes, and walked a few blocks to the first temple on the Shikoku 88 Temple pilgrimage, Ryozenji. It was amazing. It's probably not as impressive as the larger temples in Kyoto or Nara, but I loved it. It was also

From Ryozenji, we walk a couple of kilometers to the second temple on the pilgrimage, Gokurakuji. Gokurakuji is an Amida Buddhism temple, which excited me, because I remember learning a lot about those types of temples in the Japanese architecture class. (That class is also why I took so many pictures of brackets and roofs at the temples.) This temple was more impressive and beautiful than the first one, but also felt more impersonal.

More picture of Gokurakuji



After getting home from the temples, we headed out to a Tokushima Vortis soccer game. The stadium is in Naruto--it was built by the Otsuka company, the same people who make Pocari sweat, which, by the way, I find to be amazingly delicious. The company was founded in Naruto. The game itself was pretty boring, but there was an amazing sunset to watch. And a huge Sudachi-kun I got to take my picture with.

Updated Naruto album, with beach and game pictures



In other news, I applied for my gaijin card last week, and will pick it up on Monday. After that, I can go to the prefectural office and apply for permission to work, which they may or may not grant. If they do, great, I plan to start going around to all the English schools with a resume and saying that I'm available for a part-time job. If not, I plan to start going around to all the English schools with a resume saying thati'm available for a full-time job, but I'll need a new visa.

But for now, I stay at home during the week and study Japanese by watching television. And using my textbooks, of course. I bought the level 2 Genki book. I used level 1 in my university Japanese class and liked it, so I thought it would be a good way to continue to study. I could have put off the purchase, though, since I'm still reviewing Genki 1. I think I know more Japanese than Brent at this point, although that doesn't matter since he's still way more comfortable than I am speaking it. I'm hoping to find a Japanese conversation partner in the next few weeks to start to feel more comfortable speaking.

Well, the are other things on the internet I need to do, and limited time in which to do them. Hopefully I can start to make posts from home soon!

Things are going fine in Japan so far. I've been here for a week, and Brent for three, and things are awesome! Except for the fact that we don't have internet at our apartment yet. We're getting it wired (is that the right word?) for fiber-optic, so we have to wait a few weeks for them to get us set up. But when we do get it, the internet will be SUPER FAST.

I have been taking tons of photos, but since I don't have internet at home (and have been unable to find a wi-fi hotspot, oddly enough) no pictures can be uploaded yet. I have taken pictures of everything from the plane I came to Japan on, a close up of my tatami-mat floor, and the huge festival that has been ongoing since I got here.

I haven't been doing much, other than watching Japanese television and working on my language skills. I haven't gotten my foreign registration card yet, and once I get that I need to apply for work permit before I can start looking for a job. Oh, and I've been cleaning. Our apartment had been empty (empty of people--the ants love it) for half a year before we moved in, so it was in desperate need of a clean. Some things don't change though--I can still watch Mariners games! At 11 in the morning, but it's still a nice bit of home in a very foreign country.

I bought a bike, and rode for the first time in, oh, 15 years or more. It's true that you don't forget, but you sure aren't graceful at first! It's nice having on though, since the nearest grocery store is half an hour on foot, but much less than that by bike.

Weather wise, it's been muggy! Muggy muggy muggy! Muggly like I have only felt on Virginia in the summer. Probably muggier than that. You don't feel self-conscious about the sweat though. Everyone walks around with a fan and a sweat towel. The bugs are killer though. Ants are everywhere in our apartment. I'm trying to combat them, but it's difficult. Cicadas are HUGE.

Anyway, public terminal, need to get off soon. Longer post (with pictures!) when I have the internet!