Somehow having something more to post about!

First, an announcement. The address at the bottom of my first blog WAS correctly translated, so it is valid. However, there is an adjustment to be made, which I did on the post itself. (The difference, specifically, is moving "Miki, Hyogo" from right before "JAPAN" to "Hyogo, Miki" right before everything else. Apparently this makes more sense to many, although both are recognizable formats, the updated one is preferred.


This first image is that of my room (broken airconditioner included!) You can see the steel shutters behind the windows. Although it is night, you wouldn't really know either way when these things are shut. These protect the glass from exploding all over the place in storms or Ichiro impersonations gone wrong. The room is not tall, the table is very short. I'm sitting at it right now typing. Sitting on the floor. It is less than knee-high by a long shot. I've only hit my head once on the doorway so far. That's another thing: almost all interior rooms in most homes are elevated from the rest, or separated by a doorway with a solid frame all the way around. So stepping between rooms is necessary. No dragging your feet: you'll trip. Some of the classrooms at the school are actually 1/2 meter above the hallway, so you are quite high-up when you are in class. It can be an unnatural feeling.


Speaking of unnatural things, the last thing I thought I would see many oddities in when I came here was eyes! One of my fellow teachers (australian) has eyes that are not amber, but instead a much more ORANGE colour than you could attribute to Amber. Her father's (also a teacher there) has plain brown eyes, so I don't think it is from him. The "odd-eye cat" below, not that you can tell all that well, was shot in full daylight. I am calling it an odd-eye not because it has different colours of eyes, but because one seems to be permanently dialated. It ran out into the street to cuddle me on sight. I guess she knew I was a cat person? In full dailight, the eye was immediately obvious. She knew what a phone or a camera was though, because if I brought it anywhere near her face she would turn away. I had to sneak it in front of her face at a weird angle, flat against the cement, upside-down while petting her after about 20 tries doing other things. Two little girls saw me petting it, and like all cute-as a button girls that can probably get away with anything, but don't look like they'd try, wanted to join in on the cuddling the kitty. They were fascinated by my English talking-to-cat sounds. They'd likely never seen more than 10 non-Japanese people in their 8 years of combined life. So, I let them take over and took one picture of them and the cat. Of course, like all little girls that seem so cute, like my own sister was, they are really troublemakers when they think no one in charge is looking. They went for the cat's feet, going for some tickling of the toe-hairs. After I said "Bye bye" (I heard them say it to their friend down the street, so I knew they'd understand), they thought mayble playtime was over, and the cat seemed slightly content about not having to twitch much more. They proceded by following me and trying to be quiet, failing, of course, in giggling fits whenever I'd turn around and see them. They weren't very good at hiding of course, but they knew that and still thought it was fun to follow me. I was a little worried they'd follow me and get lost, but they abruptly turned off into their own houses across the street from eachother after a couple hundred kilometers.


I went to go see the sales (grocery stores make different sales on everything every day, encouraging you to shop every day, which you do. Great marketing, much better from what I can see than the US). And got a very nice Lemony drink by a company called "Kirin." They seem to be the dominant drink company of taste-choice for most of the area. Most other drinks that are of the same kind are not sold at the same stores even. Most people probably would not buy them next to a Kirin. Unlike Coke or Pepsi or Starbucks, or any American beverage company, they do not divide the company into groups for different things. Kirin makes coffee drinks, sweet drinks, healthy drinks, traditional drinks, soft drinks...anything they make is "Kirin." Funny enough, I have not seen one Pepsi or Coke of any kind since I've been here, besides one flavor of Fanta that, of course, doesn't have an equivalent by Kirin or any other company. However, Combini (Conveni(ence stores)) carry one small bottled water drink. The one with the red stripe along the blue, Cascade somethingorother. Otherwise most of the stuff here is made here. I was surprised by this, especially since it is a small, crowed island with little land. Almost everything eaten here is MADE here. Ingredients must be from many places, but food is assembled here for people here.

I beat the Badminton Goddess!
At work (before all that) had to take some of the students and set up badminton courts, so that they could have a n0n-English activity that would hopefully wipe them out a bit so they'll get some sleep for tomorrow's class. The young woman in charge was Yui, another person who was a helper for our Summer Camp. She is about my height, maybe taller, and has long arms. She's fairly lean muscle, and stronger than she looks. She helped roll out the poles for the nets, handling each one about as easy as I could. Then I found out why she was in charge: She's the local Badminton (badomiton) Goddess. She basically told me "I'm good at Badomiton." She is not one to brag, even for the Japanese, and most Olympic medalist in this sport from Japan would never, ever say something like: "I'm excellent at Badomiton." She was, of course, like almost all Japanese people would, underestimating herself hugely. She's incredible. Eventually I ended up in a game against her, in teams. She almost never had to move her feet. We were starting to fall a little behind, and then I remembered my where my true sporting abilities lie: Unpredictablity, confusion, lack of proper form, and unusual slap-stick humor. These started to go into every swing. I would look as if I was comitting to one shot, making it SEEM as if I was rigid and dedicated to a shot, then switch it to a very different shot. I'd look hard when I was going to hit soft, and I would make it look like I hadn't seen or wasn't going to be able to get to the birdie until I knew it was the last second, and then I'd move in and bat it with a quick motion at full extension. I did baseball, samurai, golf, mario, behind the back, serving while walking away, and everything I could think of. I even did a Dragon Form T'ai Chi Ch'uan reverse-held blade move mixed with some other forms I know for a while which looked so terribly ineffective and off guard that they never knew I going for the birdie, especially since I wasn't looking at it, I was using a broad T'ai Chi Ch'uan vision to see where it was without looking at it. I was using less energy because I was using a combination of relaxation techniques that were appearing tense or dedicated to hard movement, but were in fact not dedicated to anything in particular. This put the opponents on their toes constantly when reacting to my movement. Eventually, Yui gave up and sat down exhausted, a few points behind. It was then that I realized that I had went from being not-good at badmiton as I was 8 years ago when I had likely last played it, to being actually GOOD. Of course, 3/4 of my victories were because of the element of surprise, and I wouldn't say I was great by any means. I think Yui's nerves were just plain fried from reading and constantly reacting to my false signals, and kinda I felt bad for being so spontaneous to some degree, but I had also had her laughing to where she couldn't effectively play anymore on at least 5 occasions, (about a 1/3 of the amount of the rest of her team members that were cycling in and out). She and everyone else were part of a strickly adhered-to form-focused badmiton physical education style that was their greatest weakness. I hardly ever held the racket like it was "supposed to be" and I never moved the way they were taught, swung like they were taught, or anything else. If there was anything that I KNEW to be the most effective single way to do something at any one point, I avoided it like the plague. I picked anywhere between 10th best and things that may not have been attempted for any reason nor have almost any effectiveness. Yet they are unexpected, so they suddenly become VERY effective as long as it gets over the net. Yui's reflexes are like lightning, so I had to make sure that she had no idea where it was going or even that it was going to be hit until it would be too late for her to cross the court, or until I made her think that I was going for the opposite corner that I was. I ended up making 2 others sit out from general exhaustion of lungs from laughter and the heat I was trying my best to ignore. It was quite possibly the most successful sporting competition that I have ever participated in considering the odds. Especially since I was a primary source of bizarre entertainment for those who were watching our game from the sidelines (everyone not playing or taking a break seemed to be watching our game versus any of the other 5 games).

This morning was also a humourous experience! I was walking along where I saw my first gaigin (foreigner) yesterday, and I saw her again. I had to wait at the long light anyways, and so, before it turned, I turned to her and said, "Don't see many gaigin around here, do ya?" She jumped, severely, panting from the shock. She shook her head out and, still gasping, said, "no, no you don't! You're right, I didn't expect you! We both were walking in the same direction for a few blocks, and it turns out she's been here a little over a year, and is an Alabaman ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). She was surprised to learn that I was a visiting teacher in training, probably for the same reason everyone does: I don't seem very serious and I look far too young. Just the same, when I had to go North and she Southwest at an intersection, she gave me her email and basically said that she and a few rouge gaigin get together where they are an assortment of minorities rather than individual minorities and chat in English. It sounds pretty good. When I'm helping out with the summer stuff and there isn't *quite* as much to do, I will probably go see once what it is like. I'm sure I'll meet all kinds of interesting people there from abroad.

~A~