a Moving Experience
I had this long long meandering story about me being moved to a little Ho-dink town in the mountains. It was pages and pages long + for the most part very amusing, …if unfortunate.
It’s still too soon to tell if this will be an adequate sequel.
If I had known that that one dumb-ass would get me transferred, I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my time doing my work as well as I did,
and I did do it well.
Indeed, If some of the many disappointed people here knew who she was, she would likely come to prefer being transferred herself.
At any rate, as much as I did like Suzaka, I never intended to stay forever;
A little longer might’ve been nice, but “someplace else” has its appeals as well.
The principle at the one school I worked for always seemed really stern, and I was most often too reluctant to try to say anything to him, but he made the nicest going away speech for me in front of the whole school.
A girl I helped with the speech contest there got on the stage after him and also made a speech for me in front of the whole school;
I didn’t help her with that speech,
but she did a very good job of it and gave me a big bouquet of flowers that I would love to have more time to try and paint a picture of, but I find myself having to tie up loose ends/ pack up all my stuff instead.
The principle at the other school always seemed to be a little afraid of me, and that didn’t change very much to be honest, but he also gave me a quick going away speech and managed to “plug” my website several times.
They let me out of that school for about 3 hours that afternoon. I went to file a report with the police for the passport that I’m still missing.
I don’t know why the American Embassy requires an official “missing article” police report to apply for a new passport.
I don’t know why they would need to know an exact time of day that a missing article went missing (in the report) - If you knew exactly when something disappeared you would likely know how/ perhaps where it disappeared to.
I also don’t know why you would have to go to a different police station to get a copy of the same “missing article report” that they write right in front of you at the first police station.
I don’t know why the one policeman that drew/ gave me a map to the other police station pointed in the wrong direction when explaining the map.
I didn’t / don’t know a lot of Japanese words: “Embassy“, “official report“, and “primary police station”, but I do know how to say “erotic fantasy” …
Mine is Nurses!
I got back to that other school just in time for all the teachers there to applaud and give me a nice little clock for all the work I did there.
They told me exactly what time I had to come back and said that they were planning something…
I think it would have been funny if I showed up late and said it due to my not having any idea what time it was.
Despite what I consider a staggering cost, I had agreed to go to the other school’s end of the year finale’ because my favorite teacher told me he would be leaving it.
As it turns out, I had to leave too, so I got one of the special seats at the front of the room with all the other transferees, and there were loads more speeches about the lot of us.
I didn’t understand most of them, but I wasn‘t trying too hard to listen to most of them,
most of mine included.
We stayed up only slightly late, but woke up more than just a little too early (in my opinion). We got a bus back to town. I walked home from school and tried my best to stay awake until it was time to go and get my girlfriend from the station.
She had been in Australia for a month.
We had planned to use my spring vacation/ the time before she got a new job at a new pharmacy - to take a little trip somewhere in Japan.
I would have liked to have gone to the Grand Canyon, but I can’t go home without my passport, and my passport is still not anywhere it should be/ lost!
As I would, by all reckoning, have to leave Nagano in the near future, we decided that it would be better to try and do all the cool things a person in Nagano can do, in Nagano, while we were …still in Nagano.
The first night that she came we finally made it to the all vegetarian restaurant in Nagano.
The 1st time I tried to go there - I got lost.
The 2nd time I tried to go there - they were closed.
The 3rd time I tried to go there - I arrived 2 minutes before closing (which they thought inadequate).
The 4th time I tried to go there - the girl I was with didn’t want to (she said it was because the ice cream there was really bad, which seemed an odd reason not to go - She didn’t order any Ice-cream where we did end up after all).
The 5th time was Fantastic!!!!
Well, absolutely adequate, but entirely vegetarian anything is exceptionally nice as far as I am concerned.
People who aren’t vegetarian often wonder what it is that we vegetarians eat, and the definitive answer that I have come to is:
Food.
Most vegetarian places use wheat or soy based proteins, as well as mixtures of different vegetables. This place used millet seed in a lot of their dishes. I liked it, she liked it - we were both surprised to see that they even had ice cream that was made without any milk or eggs! (Scream) Actually, everything except for that was really good; That was, in truth (like the other girl had warned me long long ago) decidedly: Un-good. I would like to be able to go again.
The next day my girlfriend and I were going to go snowboarding at the super cool place I went the last time, …but she and I have this waking up early disability, and consequentially we didn’t make it out of my house until 3pm.
I had always wanted to take a bath with wild monkeys, but it turns out that you can’t do that.
I’ve also always wanted to do anything with several sexy - scantly clad Nurses,
…perhaps if I took an ad out?
Anyway, there’s a place not too far off where you can go watch wild monkeys forage in the snow and warm up in the open hot springs, but it closes at 5pm.
We got there well before 5, but it turns out that that place closes at 3pm on Sundays.
There were still plenty of monkeys running around and digging in the snow, but the park staff had cut off the hot water flow to their pool, so they were no longer interested in splashing around in it. As cool as it would have been to see them all wearing shower caps and touting “soap on a rope”, I still got to see a whole mess of monkeys without having to pay the entrance fee, so I wasn’t at all upset.
The next day we drove to a castle a little over an hour away. Castles, I’m told, are always cold. This castle was very nice, but it was winter, and it was cold. This castle had no heat. It had lots and lots of open gun and arrow holes as well as large panoramic openings in the upper floors, and no glass to cover any of these openings. You also had to take your shoes off when you went in, so it was really chilly.
We thought we’d save ourselves the toll money by not taking the expressway back, which would have been fine if I hadn’t also decided to save myself the $20 cost of a book of maps that had more than half the roads printed in it. I bought a map for 100 yen - less than a dollar, that did get us home - eventually.
The next day we went to an indoor hot spring with a pool/ hot tub and a waterslide. I raced a couple of kids up the steps to the slide 3 or 4 times, but then they got tired of it.
Later, the English teachers from one of my old schools had a little end of the year English party. 2 of them picked us up in a car and took us there. 5 minutes before they arrived I got an e-mail from my company telling me to be ready to go for an interview in a placed called Maebashi, …which I had heard of, but knew nothing about. I was just about to ask the 3 of them (the English teachers and my girlfriend) what Maebashi was like, when I got a phone call from my company telling me to be ready for an interview on Thursday in a place called Komoro. I had never “heard“ of Komoro, but I remember seeing the name on many of the signs we passed in the road while we were lost the night before.
The party was good, except that I could hardly hear anything out of one ear the whole time ( + the next day. ( I think I got water in there one of the many times I went down the waterslide).)
I made due with my usual “dining out in Japan” fare of:
French Fries,
“salad with no bacon bits please”,
and “Tofu with no fish flakes on top please”.
Oh, and lots of Booze.
Can’t forget the booze…
They gave me a funny paperclip dispenser, and a little egg shaped refrigerator basket magnet. I understand the paperclip dispenser - because it’s a funny paperclip dispenser. The basket magnet seemed too small to put anything in at first, so I had to think about it, and I informed them not too too long after that it would be perfect for me to store syringes in.
The English teacher I once tried to take to the all vegetarian restaurant in Nagano showed up and gave me a little bouquet of flowers. She’s engaged now it seems, which is nice to know. A woman I had never met before also turned up with a little bouquet of flowers for me. I think she was transferred into my old school to replace one of the English teachers transferred out. My replacement was decided when it was decided to replace me and his vacancy will in turn be replaced with someone as yet unknown. ….maybe Greg?
(He’s a guy I met later.)
My most immediate replacement was also good enough to drive my girlfriend and I home …’cause he didn’t have any of the booze.
The booze…
The booze!
The next day we woke up Early!
Then we went back to sleep a few times, but did at least manage to make it to the ski park before 2pm. We got to go down the old “Olympic Course”.
I did it in “non-Olympic time”!
There was also this one super steep hill that I went down head first on my back, and when I was finally able to stand up again at the bottom of the hill, my jacket was full of snow.
We went to an onsen (/volcanic water bath) after that.
Sometimes little kids go in those with their parents,
sometimes really young girls go in the men’s bath with their fathers,
….for some reason a girl that I had taught, that had just graduated the 6th grade was in the men’s locker room with her father, and was clearly - if not intently, watching me undress.
She wanted to be sure that I would be one of her English teachers the next year, so she came over to ask, and I had to explain nakedly/ ackwardly that I was supposed to have been, but that someone had decided to replace me. Every bit of that was uncomfortable.
My girlfriend and I were supposed to go to some shopping outlet the next day/ Thursday, but I’d been scheduled to attend an interview in a town we had gotten lost in the vicinity of 3 days before. As the town was fairly close to the shopping outlet, and as interviews of this kind never take more than a few minutes, we decided to drive down there together so that I could take her shopping as soon as it was over.
The interview was scheduled for 3pm, so my company asked me to meet some of their representatives there at 12 to pick out an apartment nearby in case I did get the job.
That killed a little time….
We went into the Board of Education at 3pm, and some nervous looking guy stepped out to say that they were having a meeting/ couldn’t meet with us then.
I was told not to go too far away, as they’d call us back within an hour (or 2), so my girlfriend and I wandered around the center of that city for an hour - We got extravagantly bored, and waited in the car for another hour - Then we got a call from the other people at the company, who were also deathly bored of waiting around in that city, so we all got together to wait around some more (in a supermarket lounge. Nearly 2 and a half hours later/ Late Greg and I were called in for a him or me - both together - choose one - 15 minute interview.
Neither of us had any interest in that city at that point I dare say, so it’s fair to say that he was the lucky one.
The more and more I think about it actually, the luckier he seems. Lord knows I put no effort into making myself seem any more charming. They asked me how I felt at school when I was young, and I really had to think hard to come up with anything other than “sleepy”. I was prompted for an answer, so I said that my brother went to the same school as me, and he used to beat me up a lot. They asked me if I had any friends that did drugs and I said that I didn’t. They seemed to like that answer, so I thought I better strike down my bonus points and point out that it was more because they usually seemed inclined to beat me up too.
They asked me what kinds of things - other than English I could teach the kids in their city.
In the past I have taught kids different ways to rudely arouse sleeping classmates, how to give/ get out of strangle holds, … I wanted to say that I could teach everyone how to make a really fantastic salad - because one rude old bastard told everyone there that vegetarians like me have a “weird religion”, and he “didn’t want me teaching it to the kids”, but after a wee bit of thought I just said “art”.
I wore sneakers with my wrinkled $30 suit, but nobody noticed either. I spoke Japanese better than Greg, I’m afraid and they did notice that, and I got stuck with the job.
3 cheers for Komoro(!!!!), later, …when I leave it.
My girlfriend was kind enough to wait in the car for those 20 minutes (the whole interview + walking time). She would have waited in a café or anywhere, but we had already walked around the city and found no cafés or anything of any value to do, so she just fell asleep in the car. I had to wake her up and give her the bad news.
We finally got to the shopping center that she likes just as they were closing up the last few shops. I don’t mind not going shopping at all, but she waited around politely all day just to do that and in the end we couldn‘t even find an open restaurant, so she just took a train back home and I drove a little over 2 hours back to mine.
I brought the car I borrowed back to my company the next day. It’s cheaper than parking it in my town/ my old town. While I was there we discussed: my new contract, some training thing I’m supposed to go to over the weekend, how we ought to go about moving me, … We got it all settled nice and neat, but they never received my new contract by fax from the head office, the dates of the training changed, and the truck they thought they had free wasn’t…
I made a mental list of places I’d like to paint pictures of while I am here/ able to. I went out on Saturday morning and it looked like a real bad rain was coming, so I stayed in for a few hours: straightening things up/ waiting for it to rain. After about 3 hours I decided to just go outside and give painting a try. About a quarter of a mile from my building it started to rain.
As I was walking back, I remembered making a mental list of places to paint pictures of on rainy days. It was never a very long list; It was 1 place. I wound up painting the eves of an old fashioned house from the inside of my building’s parking garage. I would be moving within a week, so I used acrylic paint, which dries quickly, instead of oil paint, which can take a month or more to dry - depending on how it’s used. I’m not nearly as fond of acrylic paint, but that picture came out pretty well. I came in quite cold.
On Sunday it rained all afternoon, so I continued cleaning up my apartment/ getting ready to move. In the evening I met the Hawaiian guy who worked at all the schools in my town that I didn’t (who is replacing me at some), and an elementary school teacher that I liked, who I threw many snowballs at a few weeks earlier.
They asked me where I’d like to have dinner, and I,
of course,
Said: the all vegetarian restaurant in Nagano.
The 6th time I tried to go there, it was - again - closed.
But the Hawaiian guy knew of a cool cheap little Tai/Indonesian place not far off, where they can make things without meat. That was Great! + Cheap! + in my case Vegetarian!
On the way back we stopped at a bar where the owner would play songs on his guitar for you to sing along to. Me and the vodka I made friends with decided to try and sing a song my parents used to have a record/ LP of in our house when I was 10. I’m not sure if the owner had ever even heard the song , but it did, in the end, …finally end.
That was fun anyway., and luckily we were the only people in there.
On Monday the nice manager lady of the Nagano branch of my company and I drove another hour down and one back to look at one more apartment in the city I have to move to. I would have liked to have looked at more, but that’s the one I’ll be living in now.
We saw 3 on the day of the interview:
one was expensive, and right next to the train tracks
one was expensive, old, yellow from tobacco , the shower had something that looked like a diesel engine attached to it, and it was sticky in places
one was more expensive, nice, but a long long way from where I would have to work.
The one I’ve wound up in isn’t as nice in the inside as that last one, but it’s closer , cheaper, and has the best view.
I spent the next 2 days painting as much of Suzaka as I could, …while it was still nearby.
This one older fellow saw me painting some old buildings, and he told me something like his brother owns them. He walked by and invited me in for tea every 45 minutes or so, but he drove away on an errand just as I was finally finishing up.
I also met the friendly guy who runs the popular grilled meat shop near my old town. He took pictures of me and put them up on his website.
2 days later, I had to go say hello to the principle of my new school, so the “nice manager lady of the Nagano branch of my company” came by in her car, which we packed up with some of the small things that would fit inside, and drove all the way down to Komoro again.
When we got to that school the principle confessed that the first day of school would be:
his last day (making a trip down there to meet him - Unnecessary).
He also informed us that the first day was several days earlier than the board of Education had told us.
I was supposed to have until Thursday/ 1 week to move into my new apartment and visit the American Embassy in far off Tokyo (to swear before an officer that I am an American, and try to get all the paperwork for my replacement passport submitted), now I have until Sunday but….
The Training thing the head of my company had planned for Friday/ Saturday also got switched to Saturday/ Sunday, so I’ll have no days off before starting work in a new city, and my plans to rendezvous with my girlfriend for a day or 2 while in her area are similarly canceled.
Just to give you the feeling - I will say:
In Japan there are soooo many vending machines! They say it’s very convenient because you never have to walk more than a hundred yards to buy a drink.
As sinks are also commonplace, I don’t see any great benefit to them, but people like to walk up to vending machines, and look through the plastic window at all the cans they can buy.
I’ve been telling people that this new city I have to move to is really dumpy, but I don’t think they understand.
On the way to my new apartment I saw a vending machine and looked through the plastic window, and saw that is filled with old cans. How old?
All of them are at least half orange with rust. - Komoro.
When we got to my apartment we swept up all the emaciated dried up fly carcasses from the more than 1 year since anyone had lived there.
I wondered whether the last fly “went crazy”: before eating the remains of his fallen comrades/ or after that last ditch survival trick had finally run out.
I didn’t yet have any city sanctified garbage bags to dispose of the remains, so I just swept them into a paper bag at hand.
I found out later that there are 8 kinds of garbage here with special times/ places and strict rules regarding the disposal of each.
If/ when I do ever find time enough to do so I will have to look up “dried up bug exoskeletons” in my city garbage dictionary to check their “proper disposal procedure”, or I’ll just have to fill my pockets with dead flies and make sure no one is looking when I take a walk.
I tried out the toilet in my apartment and noticed for the 1st time that it wasn’t a regular toilet. It has a flap at the bottom where the water should be. When you “flush”, the flap goes down, and it makes a noise that makes me think that water would drip down to rinse it off - if I had any water service connected there yet.
I would have stayed the night there, but my nice supervisor friend from the Nagano branch of my company said we could load his much bigger car up with some more of my stuff and drop it off there on our way to our company training thing over the weekend, + I would need to be at the older apartment to facilitate that.
Then he called me the next afternoon to say that the training was canceled, …which is great, except that I still had to do a mock training with him that night, and no longer had any way to move anything larger than a large suitcase to my new apartment.
I always find it fascinating how quickly and entirely the information I am given changes.
I wasn’t sure how the manager lady would arrive that Thursday morning, so I packed everything securely away in boxes before she arrived. Then I waited around all the next day, and the next day (with everything all ready to go/ inaccessible. Waiting and waiting for days is nicer when you have something to play with.
I couldn’t cook without any pots/ pans, so I went to the little bar where they were always nice (in a weird way) to me - for the last night. I had one of the 2 things on their menu that they could alter for me to be able to eat and I told them I wouldn’t be coming back.
I should have been gone before the next night, but instead I found myself buying a package of friend beans, and opening up the box I had packed my kettle in - so I could heat up a cup of vegetarian spinach soup.
The next day was the last day I had off before starting work. I called my manager to ask if they’d come up with a way for me to move yet, but he didn’t answer his phone.
He didn’t answer an hour later.
+ He said he would check with the other lady and call me back the next time I called, but he didn’t call back, so I called another time and at around 2pm I roused him from his hangover to get the company’s little dirty spare car.
I put my mini-fridge, work clothes, microwave, and heater inside and finally got on my way.
About 5 minutes from my old apartment I noticed that the kerosene from my ever problematic kerosene heater was toxifying the car, so I rolled down the window.
I got to my new apartment and unpacked the car. Kerosene and soy sauce were all over the back of the car. I managed to get to the home center before dark - a good thing because:
I was busy,
There were no light bulbs in my new apartment,
I got dizzy from sitting in the car for more than 1 minute.
I asked them if they had anything which could clean a car full of spilt kerosene.
I speak Japanese well enough to explain most of my problems, but I always have trouble getting people to believe that these things really happen.
Apparently no one else has ever spilt a lot of kerosene inside of their subcompact car.
Hooray Me!
Work - the 1st day was just me not listening to a lot of explanations that I also would not have listened to - were they in English.
I had 1 hour to go home and change before the school staff party: “to celebrate the beginning of the new school year”. The “nice manager of the branch of my company lady” and a nice guy from another venture business of hers came by in the last few minutes of that hour in the truck that was free that afternoon with the rest of my stuff.
I got a ride to the party where the guy in charge said that they didn’t know what I would be able to eat, so I would just have to order something. I tried to order something off of a waitress, but she said that she could only take orders from the guy in charge of the party. I told this to the guy in charge of the party. He asked me what I wanted. I told him. He said alright, just order that. I told him that I was told that I wasn’t allowed to order anything. A committee was formed to explore the problem of:
the waitresses not being able to wait on anyone but the one guy that they could wait on, who couldn’t understand that anyone other than him couldn’t ask for anything.
All it all it was pretty good. The usual blend of: people who are afraid of me for not being Japanese, people who are interested in me for not being Japanese, people who don’t realize that I can speak/ understand Japanese, people who seem to think that I can speak/ understand really complicated Japanese, and the well toasted alcoholics.
They don’t seem nearly as dangerous as the last bunch of teachers that I worked with. At the 2nd party I was able to remember all the drinks that I ordered, and most of them got to me mostly full.
(sampling) …the booze
The booze.
Why did they schedule a big party for a Monday night? I made it to work on time - Early the next day. They sent me home early because I had to meet someone from the gas company who came to do a safety inspection before turning my gas on.
The safety inspection was Unremarkable!!!!
Ha! I love that.
Before getting my gas turned on I could only eat micro-waved potatoes with baked beans.
That gets everyone’s gas going!
Ha! (It’s a pun.)
I managed to slip in a few remarks about a missing passport now and again, so they let me out of work the next day as well, so that I might take the 4 hour trip to central Tokyo to get to the American Embassy - which closes early that day of the week, …but I made it in time.
I actually woke up earlier than I ever had to when I was just going to work. I rode my bike to Komoro station. I waited for a local train and rode it to where I could get on a Shinkansen/ Super express train. I waited for a Shinkansen and rode a long way to a part of Tokyo where I knew there was a subway station. I was cut in line twice while waiting to consult with the guy at the subway gate as to which way down the line the station where the embassy was was.
The police patroling the outside of the embassy asked to see my passport, which being lost was the reason I was there, but I had my alien registration card.
(I’m told it is illegal for anyone who isn’t a Japanese citizen to step foot outside their residence in Japan with out it/ or a valid foreign passport with a valid up to date visa. You‘re probably not too likely to get caught by a random patrolman and arrested just for not having one, but I‘ve heard stories about people riding bikes - thought to be bicycle thieves being caught without them and having to pay huge fines.)
A guy at the embassy said that they would mail me a new passport in 2-3 weeks. He told me that I ought to keep my whereabouts in the Department of State’s online database current - in case there was some kind of natural disaster.
I told him that I just moved to an apartment that lies just below an active volcano. I didn’t tell him that it’s in the area designated “very likely” to be subject to poisonous gasses.
Ha! Beans! - That was the pun from before.
Mt. Asama does spew molten rock + noxious gasses too though.
I also didn’t tell him that I get dizzy when I drive; He seemed busy.
I managed to get out right before they closed for the day/ early that day.
On my way back to the subway station I found an entirely vegan restaurant.
I once would have likened finding an all vegan restaurant in Japan - to stumbling across a living breathing magical unicorn on your way to work, but I am happy to stand corrected. - all the wiser now.
It was a good place and I would go back, …if it wasn’t an 8 hour round trip.
I put 2 falafels in my pocket to share with my girlfriend - who is merely politely curious at my eating habits.
(People who are unaware of the effects meat farming has on:
their own health,
the well being of millions of starving people,
the earth’s environment as a whole…
… to name a …few reasons, would do well to try something like: http://peta.org)
My girlfriend was supposed to come over the weekend to see my new apartment, and finally go to that shopping center that she wanted to 2 weeks before, but her mother reminded her that she was going to be in Korea over that weekend, and that someone needed to stay at home and watch over their dog.
I repeated that same process of riding my bike to the station, waiting, taking a $4. train ride, waiting to take the $50. Shinkansen ride - not quite so far as Tokyo this time - to see her.
We met my old roommate at an Okinawan bar in his city the next day, + we went for a long drive to have a barbeque with some of her friends the day after that.
Her friends didn’t have much that was meatless, but they were friendly, and brought lots of booze.
The booze
The booze.
That barbeque ended at about 3pm, so she tried to drive us to that shopping center that she really seems to want to go to. Again, we got there just as everything was closing, so she just took a look around my apartment and headed back.
I got to see her again the next weekend, because my company decided to reschedule the training that they had canceled 3 weeks ago - for that weekend - not too far from her.
I didn’t hear anything from anybody, so I sent my supervisor an e-mail inquiring as to whether the training had again, been canceled, but I didn’t check for replies because:
I couldn’t get to a computer,
The computer repair men were repairing all the computers,
And if it were a case of the training NOT being canceled - I didn’t want to know anything about it.
He called me at 9pm the night before training to be sure that I did know about it, which really was a let down. He said it was in 2, 8 hour sessions, on Saturday and Sunday
- that was shocking!
He said I had to wear a shirt and tie to it which was more of a let down.
I wanted to tell him that I had recently contracted: Avian Bird Flu, but instead, I merely mentioned that the puddle on the floor of my bathroom got bigger every time I flushed the toilet.
I woke up at 6am the next morning so that I could be in time for training: a bunch of jerk asses swaggering/ strutting, and telling me what I already know - when I could be doing anything better.
I sat in bed for about a half hour, thinking about how much I really didn’t want to go to a totally unnecessary training session.
I took a shower then sat on the edge of the tub thinking about what kinds of things would be better than going to training. (- In the meantime I dripped entirely dry.)
I made a pot of tea and drank it very slowly and thought of funny excuses to not go to training - other than Bird Flu.
(In this meantime, I missed my chance to catch the good train, …and I missed the back-up train.)
Then I wrote my girlfriend a message - summarizing my opinions on my company’s mandatory-unpaid-unnecessary- unhelpful- 9am-6pm, Saturday and Sunday - formal attire necessary, you work 12 days straight training that I would have to pay a lot of money to get myself to/ not be compensated for in any way.
Then I just didn’t go.
How mandatory is mandatory?
Not terribly mandatory.
The cherry trees in my new new city had just started to open up. I didn’t know where the best spot to paint them would be, so I just drove down the hill to my new school, where there are lots of cherry trees.
It was warm, but very windy, but all in all - far better than sitting in a little dark room with 50/ 60 other unfortunate people who’s weekends had been theived - being told what types of pants/shoes/ such are and aren’t suitable for work. I was at first a little concerned about angry phone calls, but they were, perhaps, too busy to notice me missing.
Waking up as early as I did (to ultimately NOT go to training), did give me the benefit of a good long Saturday’s worth of day light.
The wind, however, was a real hinderence to progress. I had to choose a less optimal angle to paint both of those pictures from, because standing behind a thick tree gave me a little bit of protection from the really really strong gusts of wind. Still, one picture got blown off of the easel just after I had finished it, and my palate got blown into an as yet - unused canvas (still in its wrapping - Luckily).
After those 2 pictures I thought I’d go off and look for another - perhaps less windy place to paint.
I didn’t find it.
I found places that were less windy, but I couldn’t find anyplace else worth painting.
I tried a few more times on a few other days, and this really is not a nice looking city.
I went back to my 1st city that evening to visit my girlfriend. Her city is a wasteland. Mine is an ugly boring wasteland.
The plan, was that I go to the training - near where she lives, meet up with her that night, then go to the other day of training in Tokyo (yes, on a Sunday). Despite not going to the 1st day of training, I went all that way to see her.
I was also expecting someone to call me - angrily about missing the 1st day + to insist I go to the next.
That call came the next day, …but it wasn’t really an angry call. It was a: “The training just started a few minutes ago, are you lost? Oh, you’ll be about 2 hours late? Oh, ….you weren’t here yesterday?“ kind of a call. They told me that they were meeting in a yellow building in a park by a station.
I found the park after getting to the station, but could find no yellow buildings in it.
When they called again to ask if I’d found the place I explained the situation, and it turns out that there were several parks near that station.
It took me until after the lunch break to make it all the way to where they were.
Then I had to sit there for 4 hours and learn such things as:
How to say “Good Morning” in Japanese (- I learned that on the plane ride over here 5 years ago).
How to play Hangman, and Pictionary…
Ummmmm, ….Huuuuhhhh, tck
Actually I didn’t learn any of that, because I already knew all of that.
‘Glad I missed the 1st day.’
I said that to the guy sitting next to me - who turned out to be Greg.
He said: “Yeah, but you have a good excuse to not come all the way down here.”
I said: “Yeah, - I didn’t feel like it.”
He said: “Because you live in Nagano.”
I said: “Yeah, …. That too.”
An hour or 2 later, a girl sitting on the other side of me pulled out a book.
I was waiting for one of the 2 managers stationed at the door to wander away - so I could sneak out, but they stood there in shifts.
The closer and closer it got to 5 o’clock - the less they stood by the door, and the more they stood blocking the door.
I was the 1st to escape - at 5:15. That’s 15 minutes after “mandatory - no weekend for you - you learn nothing - waste your youth watching us poise - training “ was scheduled to end.
How can you turn 20/30 minutes worth of information into a 2 day fiasco?
Talent and shamelessness.
Talent and Shamelessness.
When I was walking from the station in my old city to where I parked my car it began pouring down rain.
I was not 10 minutes from the car when this happened - I had an umbrella, but never the less - all of me - below the knees got soaked.
If only they had let us out of our mandatory unpaid Saturday/ Sunday formal wear necessary - but totally unnecessary training on time.
I got home at 10:55.
My feet were wet for those 4 hours in between.
When I got home my toilet was fixed, …but broken.
Fixed in that: you could flush it without getting your feet wet (Although it didn‘t matter just then (Well, …depending on the consistency of the flush water)).
Broken in that: the flap at the bottom - that separates the body of the toilet from the “stink pipe” went down, with that first flush, and never came back up again.
It’s the later part of April, but my new new apartment is still really cold. It turns out that the clock they gave me at one of my the schools in my old city also has a thermometer component. This I find fascinating. I’ve been watching it, and although it seems to be getting warmer, it snowed an inch last night.
The plastic pump I bought to refill the kerosene tank of my heater broke at my old apartment; It sprayed kerosene here and there, …and on me.
I didn’t want to buy another one of those wretched things, so I got a funnel to replace it.
When I tried to refill the kerosene tank with the funnel on Monday, it went all over the floor.
Luckily my toilet water towel had had some time to dry, so I used that to soak up the kerosene.
I’ve told my girlfriend that if we ever wind up living together, she will be the Queen of kerosene. I would up and quit dealing with it right now, …if it wasn’t so cold.
The funniest part of my old long rambling story about being forced to move someplace, was when they took me to meet the mayor.
An English teacher came in here yesterday + looking very determined - he shouted to me that I should wear a suit to school on Friday, because they’re taking me to meet the mayor here.
He told me the same thing - at the same volume today.
Let’s hope they mayor doesn’t ask me what I think of his town.
When I was visiting my girlfriend in my old city over the weekend I saw a travel poster with the name of my city on it, …and I laughed.
I was wrong about the garbage anyway….
I thought that there were 8 very specific kinds of garbage, with different collection dates/ procedures, but there are in fact 12!