The New Apartment

Dear Blog,

I am no longer "Alone in Kudamatsu." Havent been for a few years, actually. I just moved with Motto from Tokuyama to Hiroshima. Yup, that Hiroshima, from your history book. But the name "Alone in Kudamatsu" stays. "Living in Sin in Hiroshima" is too wordy.

I love it here in the big city so far. Ive never lived in a real urban place with a population of over a million. Just today Motto and I were walking back from the grocery store and took a moment to notice how huge the high rise we past was. Like a couple of country bumpkins we stood there, noses pointed up, counting the stories. 33. So tall. We were impressed.

Motto: Can you imagine if you were building that?
Me: What do you mean?
Motto: Standing up there working.
Me: It'd be so windy.
Motto: Would you live on the top floor?
Me: Probably not, I'd think about jumping too much.

This apartment is a lot bigger than the one back in Tokuyama. We got a bedroom, a tatami room, a kitchen, a genkan, and a bathroom with a mirror and sink! I was so excited about that. The last apartment had a sink and tiny shaving mirror in the shower and that was it.

Strange noises:

• 10 p.m. church bells. Church, really?
• Upstairs neighbor plays loud 90's Alt rock on Saturday nights.
• Nightly slapping sound. Like someone is quickly whacking a fat man's back. Duration: approx 20 mins.

Good points:

• Living downtown and can get a burrito, Starbucks decaf iced coffee, falafel and Subway sandwich in one afternoon. I dont, but I could.
• Small American-themed cafe downstairs in my building. Serves coffee, cocktails, and Japanese food. The owner has big glasses and a motorbike and we say "konnichiwa" when we see each other.
• Okonomiyaki restaurant around the corner has a friendly cook who makes me vegetarian food.
• A young vegetable vendor guy stands downstairs with some cheap random veggies some days. Old ladies walk by and buy single cucumbers and slip them in their purses. They all seem to know each other pretty well.
• Squeezed 20 guests inside for my housewarming party.
• Someone keeps their wifi unlocked and it's super fast.

Bad Points:

• Raspberry-chan's new room is on one of our balconies. Motto got sick of being attacked by her and we cant let her chew up the floors and wooden moulding anymore. So she's outside like some sort of animal.

I bought some new furniture and now I finally own a bed. But too be honest I miss the futons.

Motto got that insane bookshelf (pictured left) at a refurbish shop. I told him if he wants to keep his million DVDs Antonio gave him he'd better find something to keep them in.

I tried to take pictures of the place. But a video tour will probably work better. I'll do that someday. Or you could come visit.

I should make a Drunk Vegetarian Guide to Hiroshima to accompany my Fukuoka one.

www.LearnNihongo.com is Live!

Finally finished a project I've been working on for a while, LearnNihongo.com. It's a website for Motto's online Japanese lesson business. I've been studying CSS feverishly for months trying to make a site that looks professional and can serve as a portfolio piece to get me more jobs as a web designer.

The site has come a long way from this:




You can tweet this link to help spread the word about the site, and follow @learnnihongo for a new Japanese vocab word everyday.

Online Art Show. Enjoy.

My Flickr Pro account expires in 6 days. Dont think I'll renew it, because I dont do the kind of work needed to get people to look at my photos there (like comment on other people's pictures). With that in mind, and inspired by sleepytako, I'm using a highly technical algorithm to post my top 10 photographs of 2010.





















And I actually got my camera (Canon EOS DSLR 40D) exactly a year ago next Wednesday!

Wish I Saw This...

...before I moved to Japan!



My block is "Chikko-cho." I think.

Japan is Amazing

A few nights ago Motto and I hit a 711. He read comics and I explored the ice cream freezer. I was excited to find an actual dinosaur egg being stored between suika popsicles and soda ice. I bought two.

I ate mine on the walk home, but Motto agreed to save his til we got back so we could document the experience. The dino egg is kept inside a balloon, or possibly a tiny condom.

Motto's first attempt at opening it.

My suggestion.

Enjoying the delicious treat.

Satisfaction.

Motto Fan Club

Motto mentioned in passing that he wouldnt mind teaching Japanese lessons over the internet in his "spare time" (or meal/sleeping time, as most people call it). So, I of course immediately got started building him a website. It was fun and didnt take very long. I like playing around with HTML code and pop-ups and PayPal. I even used a coupon I had to take an ad out on Facebook. Maybe you will be one of the thousands of lucky Facebookers to see the ad. You'd have to have "Japanese" or "Japanese Language" or "Japanese Culture" as one of your listed interests (god knows, I dont) and you'd have to live in the States...but, who knows. If you see it take a screen shot (feel free to black out whatever unmentionable Facebook group you're trolling).

Now, you might be thinking, "Why would I pay money to talk to your boyfriend online?" Because I know I would. I mean, he doesnt usually make me pay, but... Actually, tons of people here, in Japan!, pay loads of money for Japanese lessons every week. I used to, back when I was capable of book learnin, before I became obsessed with watching King of the Hill reruns on Videostic.com. But really, if people who live in a country surrounded by Japanese would pay to take lessons, there must be something to the word "lesson" that makes you not mind throwing money at it.

Plus he's a real teacher. Plus he giggles a lot. Plus he may agree to do webcam. Plus I'm not even sure he knows what's going on. I'm not asking any of you blog readers to sign up for lessons. I hope I have a more refined audience then Naruto-obsessed-used-Japanese-pantie-sniffing-Nihonphiles. But, do go check out my amazing web-baby-making skillz. It's at http://japaneselesson.jimmyjanesays.com.

Someone order a chinko?

A summer festival in Yamaguchi City.

Cultural Experience #26+27

Today I woke up really early and went with a bunch of my coworkers to see yabusame, Japanese archery on horseback. The archer rides a horse down a long path and has to shoot three targets without stopping. It was pretty interesting. The cherry blossoms were past full bloom so when the wind blew there was pink snow.


I probably had four panic attacks on the drive up. It was way out in the country and we took little winding roads.


Afterwards we went to an onsen. It was my first time, and being the only girl in the group, I had to face the Japanese bath alone. It was weird. The whole idea of onsens is strange. Or the Japanese obsession is. Children, teenagers, old people, all strip naked and sit together in hot water. Frequently.

First you buy a ticket and then get a key and a towel from the clerk. Then you walk into a locker room, get butt naked, and ask strangers which door you should go through. Then you enter a shower room, where dozens of ladies are sitting on little stools and lathering up in front of little mirrors. I sat at a stool and started washing my hair and staring in the mirror thinking how surreal this was. I watched a few old naked ladies, to see what I should do next, and they went through a door to get outside. I followed. I was disappointed by the pool, it was pretty small and the scenery wasnt great. I held my little white towel over my shame as I got in. Everyone stared at me. It's hard to be inconspicuous when youre a foreigner. There were some old ladies near me, talking to each other, there were a few kids playing with their mom, and there were some young teenage girls huddled together.

It was totally not relaxing. I had to pee and I felt totally out of place. And I was alone, it probably would have been better if I had someone in there I could talk to. Above all, it just seemed totally bizarre. Like, Japanese people just go get naked with their friends and sit and chat in water?

I'd go again.