Two for the price of one!? What a deal!

Right, so on to today. Started out by actually returning my bike and getting one that fit me. Armed with nothing but my shame, completely broken Japanese, and lame excuse of "I didn't realize I wouldn't fit on the bike I bought", I was a little nervous they wouldn't let me exchange it. Luckily, everything went swimmingly, and I even found a bike that was 2,000 yen cheaper! Didn't actually get a picture of it, but it's silver, has a basket, and doesn't make me look ridiculous until I almost crash into things (which happened more often than I'd like to admit. More on that later). Got it at the same department store I buy my groceries at.

Oh yeah, completely forgot to mention that place. It's called Saty, and it's not like department stores back in the States. The ones here are more like mini shopping malls. One back in Okayama had everything from capsule machines to an entire floor of alcohol and everything in between. Saty has three or four floors (can't remember which) that contain the aforementioned bike and grocery stores, a bunch of restaurants including a McDonald's and 2(!) Mr. Donuts just in case you're on the third floor and can't be bothered to go back down to the first to get your damn donuts (kinda like Starbucks back home I guess, only for donuts), a bunch of clothes stores, a book store, an electronics store, and a freaking movie theater. Oh yeah, movies over here cost like 20 bucks... Guess where Thomas won't be going very often?

Anyways, got some McDonald's for lunch and got stared at by a bunch of people while eating (gradually getting used to that). Think I scared a couple of middle school girls though. They were talking about me while they were walking by (one of the rare times I was actually able to understand some of what was going on around me), so I turned my head and gave them a nod. They started giggling uncontrollably and ran away. Maybe not scared, but definitely startled. Which reminds me, I now have a new item in my "top 10 most adorable things I've ever seen" list. I was at my branch school on Saturday, and a little girl (maybe 6 or 7?) was interviewing to maybe get signed up. She popped her head in the office, saw me, and ran around the corner. She then proceeded to stick only her arm around the wall, wave and give a little "Harro!", and run away again when I said hi back. Pretty sure Japanese kids win the award for most adorable kids in the world from what I've seen over here.

Anyways, bike in hand, I was able to do what I wanted to do yesterday: explore the city! Beware, photo dump ahead again.

Freaking ingenious solution to germaphobes. No stupid toilet ring things making a mess everywhere, they can just wipe down the seat with sanitizer. Good job using your brain Japan. Seriously. Oh yeah, I didn't realize until after I left the bathroom that everyone inside of it probably heard the shutter sound my iPhone makes to announce it has taken a picture while I was inside the stall with the door closed... yeah...

Almost straight off, I found this. For some reason, I'm really intrigued by it. It's obviously for a pool, and seems to be usable still, but the whole thing is fenced off and overgrown like this (I walked all the way around it trying to find a way in)

A closer view of it. Seriously, aside from being a little dirty, I see nothing wrong with it.

It's attached to this, and I'm pretty sure the whole thing is an abandoned school building. Just sitting right in the middle of a busy section of town. Weird stuff.

In addition to the perfectly usable boats that don't get used. There's a whole bunch of really old boats that seem to have just been abandoned in the middle of canals and rivers.

There's a bunch of shops that open onto the river like this, so I'm even more confused that these things don't get used more often...

Remember when I mentioned most parks aren't like they are back home in my last post? This is what I meant.  This is what appears to be the typical Japanese park: a small open space with a tiny kids toy tucked into the corner.

Didn't get to go here, but it looked like a shopping district. I might have to visit again at some point.

More completely unused riverfront. This one was especially confusing because it had houses and stuff along it,  just no signs of people anywhere. Maybe the mutant is home to some horrible mutant beast that kills anything that comes near?

A very out of place Western-style building. It's an art gallery now, but I'd be willing to bet everything that I own that it used to be a governmental building. During the Meiji era, the Japanese government built a shitload of Western-style buildings in a desperate attempt to show off that they were modernizing. Also, this is the beginning of the historical district stuff.

Not sure who this is a statue of, but it's out front of the prefectural office and he looks like a badass.

Castle on right, prefectural office on left. WHY AREN'T OUR GOVERNMENTAL OFFICES THIS COOL?! Seriously... I feel cheated. Also, I get to go to that office tomorrow morning for my Alien Registration Card. I'm an alien :D

A better view of the castle, moat, and wall. Going there sometime soon, but I want to read up on it a bit first cause all the signs are in Japanese and I want to know what's going on.

Boat tour place outside the castle. You can take boat tours around the moat (which actually encompasses most of the historical district). This is the first time I've seen boats here used for something other than looking unsettling.

Oh my god, boats that actually serve a function! Quick, take a picture!

I thought this headed to the castle, but found out later it actually heads to some shrines behind the castle. Oh well, I'll check them out when I go back to the castle.

This is near the castle, but I just wanted to take a picture because so many of their houses over here still look like this. They're mixed in with everything else, too, so you'll see something like a modern gas station then a freaking ancient house. It's awesome and I want one. Specifically one that has a wall around it and a garden/yard. I'll get a picture of one at some point to show what I mean.

This tree? Yeah, it almost took my head off. Partially my fault cause I kept thinking "If I duck low enough...", but really, it's the only way to go unless you want to ride your bike in the road. More on that later.

Hey, look, random white guy!

Tour boats in action.

Shrine a little bit away from the castle. No one was there, so I walked around it a bit.

Looks like they hold ceremonies inside or something? There's a bunch of seats and an altar in there.

See?

OMG PHOTO SPAM! Mini shrines within the shrine, and totally awesome, not derpy looking at all lions. My phone started to die around this point, and I looked like this :(

A school that's not abandoned! It's the little things looking different over here that gets me. Castle and shrine? Cool, but doesn't make me feel like I'm in a different country for some reason. School that looks kind of like an apartment building warehouse with an empty dirt field? OMGJAPAN!

The last thing I found for the day was a cemetery, and it was seriously one of the most peaceful places I have ever  been in my life.

It was also absolutely gorgeous.

This leads up to a second tier of graveyard.

And this leads up to a cool hidden shrine/grave thing. I don't think anyone's been there in a long time, cause I had to seriously work to find the trail, and all the steps were covered in heavy moss... I definitely almost fell a few times.

My iPhone battery died after those last two pictures, which royally sucks because there was so much more to the graveyard. Didn't get any pictures of the hidden shrine thing, nor the big temple at the center of the graveyard and all the cool trees and bushes that came with it. Also didn't get any pictures of the second tier of graveyard or the other little hidden paths I found. I get the feeling they're like that because not many people are weird enough to want to explore a cemetery, but I couldn't help myself. It may sound morbid, but the place was eerily serene and beautiful. I hope to be buried somewhere half as nice as it someday.

And now the animal section!

Ducks!

Geese in a moat!

Geese showing off their super long freaknecks in a moat. If you look at the one closest to the camera, you can actually see how far its head is down there. They were practically eating off the bottom of the moat.

These spiders. These freaking spiders. Oh my god I hate spiders, and these are huge. Biggest I've seen was probably about half to three-quarters the size of my fist. They're yellow, green, and red. I saw them all over near the canals in Okayama, and was really hoping they were localized to that region, but they're here too. I think they're some kind of water-reliant spider, cause, with the odd exception here or there, they're always near the water. Since I'm in Matsue, that means they're freaking everywhere. Ugh.

This guy had NO FEAR. I was standing about 5 feet from him, and he was just looking at me like "What? You're not gonna do anything, why should I fly away?" Thanks fearless bird, you gave me a good photo opp.

These guys did not. In one part of the city there were at least a dozen hawks circling around back and forth. I tried for like 10 minutes to get a good shot, and they just would not sit still. One of them mocked me by landing on a telephone wire then flying away as soon as I tried to snap a photo. I wanted to get at least one clear shot for my dad cause he likes birds of prey, but this was the best I could manage.

Anyways, with my camera dead, I just went home after the cemetery. Didn't even get through half the city. Maybe more next weekend :/

Some random things that have surprised me about Japan:

1.) It's a really blind-friendly society. The money (including the paper bills) are all sized differently and have at least one distinct raised design on them, every single sidewalk I have seen has had raised plastic/rubber trails to keep blind people from wandering into the street, and easily 80% of crosswalks make distinct beeping sounds depending on which way is clear (100% at major intersections). That's just the stuff I noticed, I'm sure there's more. Dunno why this surprises me, but it does.

2.) It is not a bicycle friendly society. Sidewalks are cluttered, cracked, filled with sharp objects, and sometime just flat out disappear. There was more than one occasion today where I had to go across three crosswalks at the same intersection because one way simply didn't have a crosswalk, and one way barely had enough room for people walking single file, much less a bike or someone walking a bike. Drivers are also very aggressive. I saw someone get slammed by a car while going across a crosswalk that was telling him it was safe (the guy was actually only about 10 feet behind me, so it was very nearly me that got hit). The driver was doing a left turn (opposite driving here, so the equivalent of a right turn in the States) and just didn't want to wait I guess. With how many people ride bikes over here, you'd think things would be easier.

There's more, but this post is way too long already, and I'm sick of typing after two solid hours of posting, so I'll just leave you with...

Food Challenge Day 2: Teriyaki Chicken and Rice (and more awesome juice)

This one turned out much better. No, that's an understatement. Compared to the fried rice, this was fucking five star dining. I'm really surprised, but there you have it, I successfully cooked something good. And I bought some extra chicken that I cooked up, so I have some for tomorrow as well. Haha, tied it up already!

Score to Date: Thomas - 1 Vengeful Food Gods - 1

Let's get this started

So yeah, starting this up a little late, but it hadn't even occurred to me until one of my fellow trainees suggested I make a blog (thanks Ryan!). Honestly, it's not like you've missed much. Okayama was interesting, but I was mostly training and I didn't have a camera, so yeah. The highlight was probably the castle and the gardens. That's about it.

On to Matsue (beware of photo dump ahead)! Just got here on Wednesday, but I haven't gotten a good look at the city until today due to loads and loads of work. My predecessor, Daniel, was a pretty cool guy, and he helped me get set up, so I've already got internet access and an iPhone. There was some confusion on the bike front, but I went and bought one today, so that's covered as well. My branch school is surprisingly slow at times. Normally it's just my manager  (Matsuura), the head teacher (Mayumi), and me working. All my students are pretty freaking awesome, which is a relief since I had been worried I'd have some nightmare students like I did when I was teaching 109X. Highlights for me are a plastic surgeon that does gender reassignment surgery (he's one of only three in all of Japan, which is pretty cool to me), a college student that's a member of a hip hop dance group (I really wanna see them perform to see if it's different than American hip hop), a professor at a nearby university (this one is obvious), and a history enthusiast (also pretty obvious). Tomorrow I meet my last group, so hopefully it goes as well as it has been previously.

My branch school. Yeah, not too much to look at.

My apartment is pretty nice, and it's freaking huge considering the size of your average Japanese apartment. The only downside I've noticed is that the windows are really thin, so sound and temperature have no difficulty getting through them.

I need to buy slip-on dress shoes. Badly.

Looking right from walking in the door: my kitchen, toilet room, shower room (toilet and shower are separated here), and washing machine in the book corner.

I get to stand on the floor while taking a shower (the tub is for baths only)! There's a drain in the floor, and it's awesome. Only downside? The floor takes forever to dry, so there's usually tiny puddles left even at the end of the day. Uncomfortable while brushing my teeth.

Now, left! Living room and Bedroom.

Couch and awesome floorchair (least that's what I call it). Excuse the mess in these next few pictures, I've been exhausted, so things kinda piled up a bit.

My tv, some dress pants, and one of the best inventions ever: a Kotatsu (look it up).

My bed. Good thing I don't mind sleeping on the floor. Also, my desk, but it was way too messy for me to take a picture of.

The view from the window you see in the last picture. Not much to look at from here :/

The view from outside my apartment. This picture doesn't actually do it justice. Those hills in the background are much more prominent than they appear, and they're coated in trees displaying full autumn colors. I want to hike in them.

That's about all I saw for my first few days here. Yesterday was my first day off, and I spent it walking around and taking pictures of my walk to work (due to me being dumb and buying a bike that was way too small for me then being too embarrassed to return it right away).

Park on the way that I drop my recycling stuff off at. It's the only "normal" park I've seen over here. This part is under construction, of course, but there's more.

Like this bridge, that runs across the middle of the park (the park is pretty freaking big; takes up about a city block).

Why is there a bridge, you ask? Because this city has water freaking everywhere. I'm serious. No matter what road you're on, there's water either under or near you. Guaranteed. Most areas have stairs leading down to little platforms like this one, but I've never seen anyone down there.

I'm pretty sure all the water comes from the same river (just split off and manually redirected multiple times). Coincidentally, a walk over the bridge that goes over that river on my way to work. The next few pictures (it's a big river with an island in the middle) is looking left while walking from my apartment.

Yes, somebody actually does live on the island. I envy them, but at the same time, it looks creepy as all hell. I couldn't get good pictures of them, but there's ramshackle, rusted metal sheds and huts all over with tall grass and overgrown bushes growing in and out of them. Very horror movieish.

That's the top of one right there. Pretty much just took this picture to maintain the steady "landscape" scene transitioning from rice fields back to river.

This side of the river is much wider, the start of actual cityish looking buildings is off to the right.

Finally, this. There's boats everywhere on this freaking river, but nobody seems to use them. They just sit there. I've passed over this bridge at least 20 times since Wednesday at various times of day (been walking a lot), and I've only seen a boat being used once. Seems weird to me.

And now the left heading from my branch school. It's a lot of the same, so feel free to ignore these. I don't really have much to say about them.

Almost done with the river shots, I swear. I found this while exploring a back road, and I honestly think it says  a lot about the river and the use (or lack thereof) of the boats. There's lots of areas like this with rundown and unused docks or boats. Gives me the feeling that the river used to be used a lot, and isn't now for whatever reason.

Just for reference, that's the bridge I took the earlier pictures from.

Last one. I'm serious this time. Remember when I said earlier that someone lived on that island? This is their house. They have to use a boat to get back and forth. How freaking cool is that? "Where do you live?" "Oh, nowhere special, JUST AN ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF A DAMN RIVER!" I assume they have a mailbox on the city side of a river... unless the mailman gets an awesome mailboat to take out to their house.

Chips over here are freaking deceptive. If their were a food version of Transformers, Japanese chips would definitely be Decepticons. If the nutritional pyramid was the Norse pantheon, the section with Japanese chips would be Loki. After buying chips here, I'm pretty sure there was a translation error in The Bible. It wasn't a snake that deceived Eve, it was a fucking bag of Japanese chips. Take the chips in the green bag for example. What's your first guess? Sour cream and onion, right? Green back, chips with green flecks on them, everyone knows that's sour cream and onion. Nope. It's freaking nori and sea salt. They taste like fish chips. I ate them because I felt betrayed, and I eat when I feel betrayed. You win this round Deceptichips.

When I said earlier I bought a bike that was too small for me, I meant this is how close my damn knee came to the handlebars. I'm pretty sure I looked ridiculous.

Finally, I have decided that every weekend (Sunday and Monday for me), I will attempt to make new Japanese dishes. Hopefully this will allow me to, in time, stop spending so much money going out for lunch every day. I will take pictures of this process so that you may all use them to mock me later.

Day 1: Salmon fried rice and the most delicious invention ever, peach, grape, and banana juice (no, I didn't make the juice, but I wanted to put something that actually tasted good in this picture).

The rice was a total and abject failure. I overcooked the salmon, forgot to buy any freaking vegetables and failed to realize this fact until i was already cooking everything, put the rice in late which caused a cold fish/hot rice combo of grossness, and pretty much messed up everything that could be messed up. Yeah.

Score to date: Thomas - 0 Vengeful food gods - 1

What a sad way to end my first day off. Oh well, I'm still in Japan!