One Becomes Two Part 2

Konnichiwa!

Me in Sendai!

It’s Kelsey here! I’m in Japan; can you believe it? There are still days when I wake up and need to register that I’ll be living in a foreign country for the next year!  I’ve been in Sendai for over two weeks now, but I’ve done so much in that short period of time that it feels like much longer than that.  To be honest, I don’t even know where to start with this blog post! I suppose I’ll just ramble on for a little while! J

Downtown Sendai is full of covered walkways - very nice on rainy days!

Within the first few days of arriving in Japan, it became clear to me how obvious it was that I’m a foreigner.  Although I was undoubtedly aware of it while living in Canada, coming to Japan has reminded me just how incredibly multicultural Canada truly is. Biking and walking around with Nico involves countless stares from the locals, most of them directed towards my big curly hair and our blue eyes. I have already had a number of inquiries from the locals asking if my hair is naturally curly or if I perm it; the look of disbelief that crosses their faces when I tell them it’s naturally this way never gets old to me! How can something as simple as having curly hair be so intriguing to someone?!  I guess I’ll never quite understand.

Speaking of things I'll never understand...

The language barrier between us and the locals always makes for an adventure of some kind. All of the locals here are aware that we can’t speak Japanese, yet they can’t communicate in any other language! What inevitably happens is the reliance on body language to convey a message, mostly hand gestures and pointing. I wonder what goes through the cashier’s mind as he or she speaks to me in Japanese and I simply stare at them, with zero comprehension of what they are saying. Nico and I have begun the process of getting a tutor to give us Japanese lessons once a week. Tomorrow is our first lesson, actually! We figure that if we’re here for a year we might as well learn how to order food and ask where the washroom is!

Nico has trouble finding washrooms too.

Speaking of food, I have been eating very well since I arrived. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t even had sushi since coming here! Shameful, I know. Italian food is very popular here, and since Nico and I both love Italian food (and he IS half-Italian, after all), we’ve been enjoying the comforts of home in the form of pasta, Caesar salad, and minestrone soup! Mmm! We’ve also found a quaint Thai restaurant that not only serves amazing food, but has a wonderful and homey ambiance, complete with authentic Thai décor, music, and even a video of Thailand playing in the background. While eating, you’re transported to Thailand - how awesome is that?

Delicious Thai... Mmmmm....

Canadian Crab Whiskey - just like home!
:P

Happy customers!

While there are some comforts of home that I miss already, namely garlic pickles, being able to read every menu and sign that I encounter, and having air conditioning blasted wherever I go in the summer months (did I mention how humid it is here?), I am having a wonderful time so far. I’ve already been challenged, stretched, and terrified in one way or another. Someone once told me that everyone should do one thing a day that scares them: I guess waking up in Japan covers that!

150 dollars for french fries is pretty scary.

As some of you know, I started a job last week at a place called Primary that, contrary to its name, is a private school for adults who want to improve their English. Currently, I am only a part-time worker, but I prefer it for now as I am still getting accustomed to living in Japan. So far I have taught four lessons; two private one-on-one lessons and two group lessons with three students. The evaluations from the students have been positive so far, and I’m hoping to keep that up! After all, it’s in the students’ hands whether or not I am promoted to a full-time position! When I was younger I considered the possibility of being a teacher, but that was a dream I left long ago. Although teaching is not my desired long-term career, it has been quite exciting and liberating to stand in front of a room with students and be completely in charge for an hour. This whole Japan thing is one big adventure after the next: I’m meeting the challenges head-on!

Interview Day! (I did not wear those flip flops)

That’s all I can think to write for now, especially as this is supposed to be the second half of Nico’s last blog (sorry for the delay!). There are no new pictures for this blog, but we will be writing another one tonight about our more recent adventures, complete with new pictures!

Bye for now!

             Midnight
             snacking!

Settling into Sendai II

Hello, house!

So it's August the 18th and I've been at my job for two weeks now (technically 18 days, but nothing before the 4th really counts)! They say the worst thing you can do when coming to Japan is to have a rigid mental picture of how your life is going to be there, and they are indeed correct. That's not to say that I fell into that trap; but life here has been full of unplanned surprises, that is for sure.

You actually have to pull...

Garbage disposal is a big deal in Japan.

First on the list is simply my neighbourhood. Sendai is divided into five wards ("ku"), and I live in Wakabayashi-ku. The ward was hit hard by the events of March 11, but my immediate area is on the extreme Western part of Wakabayashi, so things around me are fairly tranquil. As mentioned before, I live near Kawaramachi station, which is in an interesting point of the city. I am more or less in the exact middle between the downtown core (three subway stops North) and the large mall area aptly named "The Mall" (three subway stops South). The surprise for me is that, as a result of this unique position, I live in a very quiet neighbourhood despite being placed in a very urban area. There are shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and banks (not to mention a great many places catering only to those who speak Japanese) like any other place in Sendai, but it's all much more quaint. I'm actually quite pleased with the area - I am close enough to everything and yet far enough away so I don't have to deal with loud sounds and busy streets. Plus there is a twenty four hour 7/11 literally on the other side of the road from my house, meaning cravings rarely go unsatisfied for long.

The road outside of my house. City of Trees, remember?

Bars in Kawaramachi prefer the "cute" angle to the "cool" one.

Kawaramachi Station!

The second big surprise was that every trip for groceries has thus far been an adventure of its own. You really take for granted, living in a place where everything is in your language, just how much reading you do on a day-to-day basis. Is this package seaweed or parsley? Who knows! There are a lot of different brands and different foods altogether here, so there's very little in the way of familiar stimuli. That being said, it's still a lot of fun, and as long as you are careful and know where to look you are fine. I still have a long way to go, but I have been cooking for myself for two weeks now without incident. 

Buranu Freku! Or something!

Yes, my first home-cooked meal in Japan was pasta. 

That's better! (still no table...)

Smores! YES!

Authentic traditional Japanese cuisine.

Also worth noting is that I spent the entirety of last week at a Sendai Board of Education-hosted orientation. A lot of the information was very helpful, since up until that point most of what I've been told was either incredibly general or just plain inapplicable. Definitely a great way to spend my first full week in Sendai, not to mention giving all of us new JETs some more time to mingle before we start working on our own. One of the orientation days was spent participating in a number of "cultural workshops", which basically meant that we spent the whole day having fun (but also working really hard, promise).

Japanese Cooking Class: Before!

Japanese Cooking Class: After!

Their largest shoe. :(

My work uniform! Or possibly a festival costume. Hard to recall....

Masters of calligraphy (yes, mine goes in the wrong direction...).

Earthquake simulator. Unpleasant.

When I finally started work at my school on the 15th I was also pleasantly surprised at everyone's friendliness, despite me being the only foreigner/illiterate person in the staff room. The vice principal (kyoto-sensei) in particular seems to forget that I don't understand Japanese. Our conversations usually follow a pattern: he says half a million words in Japanese, pauses for my comprehension, remembers that I have no idea what he is saying, laughs, and then proceeds to communicate to me with intricate gestures. Other teachers sometimes use online translators to speak to me, which is always accompanied by at least one hilarious mistranslation. That being said, it will be nice once the English teachers start showing up to work...

Sampling Sendai's famous dish - gyutan (beef tongue) - with a local.

My locker - Nikorasu!

That'll do for updates for now! Hopefully I can get into the habit of blogging little things frequently so I won't have to do these massive posts every once in a while. But I'll probably just get more busy as the weeks drag on, haha.

You can view the whole photo album here!

Bye for now!


P.S.:

Probably the coolest thing I ever won from a cereal box.