Open letter to my Mommy

Hey mom!
I'm super genki as always.
No problems back here. I'm going to study for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test tonight with my British buddy Simon.
That's awesome that James gets to see Laura in Germany. Just one more family member traveling to foreign countries without me ;)
It's funny, Kathy sent me an email about the same thing, on the same day as you. But I also sent her a thank you card for my birthday present so I guess it was just coincidence.

The new prime minister is....hmm, questionable. Time will tell if he's any good, but either way, I'm very proud that the leaders in this country pay attention to public opinion and step down when nobody likes them. In that respect America is closer to an African dictatorship than true democracy.

This month I also bought a new computer that is big and strong and does everything.
I also bought James his birthday present today. I know it's early, but I want him to get it this month while I still know his address. He can open it as soon as it gets there. I've addressed it so he'll know it's from me. Oh, and lastly, my friends Tim and Yuko got married and it is the first time I've been invited to participate in a wedding! It was super fun and we did a lot of traditional Japanese things, despite the style of the wedding being "Catholic". Very expensive, but an awesome time. You can see pictures here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2556037&id=10118973&l=04a21e0fbf

I'm going to post this letter on my blog too just cuz I haven't updated it in forever.

Bye for now!
love
greg

The Dregs of FY2009

Today is the last year of the fiscal year here in Japan, and what an interesting week I've had. For starters, my previous entry "Eating Flipper" was published online at: and subsequently linked to by a bunch of Japan-related blogoshperes which I never even knew existed. the result is over 900 people have looked at my article in the 3 short days it has been online, and while plenty have people have offered their often ridiculous two cents, no one has said anything insulting to me (with the exception of one self-righteous troll) and many people commented just to say I'd written well! :D

I'm all over the internet apparently. the manager who organized our Mazda Ekiden team (see previous posts) also just sent me this link from the Mazda's homepage ! My picture is toward the bottom; I'm the white guy with the Abe-Lincoln-chinstrap. :p

Also, last week, I got to translate letters from the governor to none other than Barack Obama and Gordon Brown! I won't get into what they said, but it wasn't anything top-secret. Still cool though, yeah? My boss was really worried because of the high-level addressees, but after I finished my translation, we went over it together (he speaks some English) and he agreed it was solid, not that I had any doubts. ;]

There have been a few farewell parties for people in our division getting transferred, and a party for Mr. Kadoya who got married, and the best thing to happen ever was, for the after-party, we went to Round1 (a 9-storied amusement center) and played ping-pong, billiards, darts, and BATTING CAGES! Sadly I don't have any photos from the batting cages, but it was awesome and I had been in forever! Good, clean fun.

Yesterday and the day before we rearranged everything in my Ken-cho office, but to be honest, the hardest bit was done on Monday, on my day off, but last night was the construction of a new wall in our office , seriously, so this was some of the madness involved in preparing:



They're showing you where the new wall now stands.

Mr. Teraguchi (My supervisor for the last year) hurrying to finish his work.

Eating Flipper

Last weekend I ate dolphin. Wait! Where are you going? Let me explain. I did not set out to eat dolphin. I went to an international exchange barbeque, held by my friend in Osaka. The participants came from Japan, America and Australia. We all brought food and drinks for each other, and learned how to play cricket. We fired up the grill and started throwing on what we brought, and one of the Australians said, “I have a bit of dolphin in the cooler if you want to try.”
Here is where I feel the pressure. I love trying new food and I have never said no to a challenge. I keep a list in my head of animals I have and have not yet eaten, and dolphin is one of things, like whales, that I KNOW I shouldn’t eat, but… maybe just once. So that is exactly what I did. I tried the steak part and the skin part, once raw, once grilled, each.
While I ate Flipper, I found out more. The Aussie who brought it said he loved the stuff, and always ate it raw with soy sauce. He bought it from Taiji, the very subject of the new film “The Cove”, which the (far-too-biased-to-really-be-called) documentary condemns for their annual killing of literally tens of thousands of dolphins. It is also the main capture spot for dolphins used in shows and aquariums worldwide. I had seen previews and wanted to see the movie, but I already knew the gist of it. Dolphins are intelligent, majestic animals that should never be caged or killed for food. I love, respect, and admire dolphins, but just like dogs or cats, if I find myself in a place where they are eaten normally, I’m going to try a little.

We all continued to discuss the subject and the man who brought it talked about how he, as a foreigner, couldn’t find it at the stores there, but if his Japanese wife went in alone and asked for it, they would bring it out from behind the counter; this sounds very diabolical, but given the threat protesters and demonstrators could pose to the businesses who sell it out of simple indifference, I can understand why they would be careful. Why are there no Japanese protesters causing problems in Taiji? That is a larger and better question for someone who wants to research the topic.
When I came home from Osaka, I immediately watched “The Cove”. But much like actually eating dolphin, the experience was unimpressive. Sure, the movie made a few good points about mercury levels, pollution, and the over-fishing of whales and dolphins, but this movie was less about the killing of dolphins, and more about how difficult and dangerous it was for the crew to get in to Taiji, and record the killing of dolphins. Their goals were admirable, what they exposed was deplorable, but the whole movie screamed of their own egos.
Ultimately, I do not feel bad about eating dolphin, because I was not actively pursuing it, I didn’t pay for it, and I didn’t create any new demand for it. I got to find out what it tastes like, and that was enough for me. The taste, by the way, was similar to liver but with the texture of beef. The skin, mostly fat, was obviously chewy, oily, and not very good. Now that I have crossed that line I can say from experience, it is not worth trying. But I also know that if you are like me, you want to make that decision for yourself. In contrast, I also tried crocodile that day. It was delicious, like sword fish, and came from an animal that is decidedly stupid, ugly, and disagreeable. So I’d like to conclude by saying, save a dolphin, eat a croc.

This is madness?

THIS IS SPARTA! Oh wait, no. It's madness.
My office at the ken-cho erupted today after the announcement of the annual transfers. It's such a bizarre system. Every year, people who have worked in the same office for more than two or three years get transferred or changed to different duties. I guess it's good cross training and keeps everyone from getting too comfy and complacent, but you'd think the people who have been working for 20+ years would be used to the annual ritual. They are not.
My current supervisor is being moved to a new division, but luckily, like last year with him, my new supervisor is someone already in our office. We're also getting someone new who apparently is fluent in English and someone else who i know, but for some reason my boss says he's not allowed to announce (even quietly in my ear) who it is yet.
This year really is going crazy with change though. Even the office itself that I work in is changing! They are adding a new wall that will make where I currently sit part of the room next door! The door i sit by will also go to the other room, BUT the cool thing is, my group is being moved to the OTHER side of the newly-smaller office so I'll be right by the OTHER door which will become the ONLY door to my office. You follow?
This all happens April 1st btw. That's right; only two weeks for everyone who is being transferred out to finish their work for the fiscal year, clean out their desk and move to their new desk where someone else just did the same thing. The vibe in the air is similar to an anthill that's been kicked over. But I am addict for change, so I am looking forward to the havoc. Also, I get to have a second go at having a first-year supervisor. This means I won't have much help, but it also means I'll be able to make more independent decisions like this year and my supervisor will be more of someone who enables my direction rather than setting it for me. Yay for POWER! :P

Ahhh! My Legs!

So last Sunday was the Mazda Ekiden (relay race). I may have mentioned before that our goal was do better than last year (67th place) and we DID it! it was cool clear day, but there was a bitter cold wind blowing in my face the whole way, but everyone of our 6 members said they were able to pass a few of the competition, bettering our position one leg at a time! The Mazda Ekiden is divided into two divisions, Community - like our team, and Company - for bragging rights around the Mazda plant I guess. Community is actually HARDER because lots of university track teams use the Ekiden as practice and devour the top 10 places or so. This year our score was 39th out of 160 teams though, meaning we got into the 75th percentile, and to cement that our overall score of 85th out of a total of a combined 338 teams!
After that, just like last year, the plan was to go eat at a yakiniku restaurant (like bbq'ing indoors and sitting down for those who don't know, it comes from Korea actually...) and we trudged over, exhausted, ready to eat! We sat down, order drinks that took forever to get there, and had a toast, and just started eating our first pieces of seasoned, thin sliced cow's tongue, when the waitress came to our table and announced, "There's a fire, we need everyone to leave. Please take your things with you and go"! Sure enough, the smoke intake at "table 2", as the servers kept saying, was blazing like a scene from Backdraft! They were doing every retarded thing to put it out (except use fire retardant), but they did put it out rather quickly. The manager then announced that they had to call the fire department anyway, so please leave, don't worry about the bill...which would be awesome if we had eaten a full meal, but we really only get enough to make us MORE HUNGRY! After checking about 4 more place and waking 40 minutes (after a race...) we did find a great place and it cost less than the first, and the service was very prompt, so it all worked out. Just you don't get the wrong impression, Yakiniku has been around a looong time and all the older Japanese guys I was with remarked that that had been the first time they'd seen ANY kind of restaurant fire, so it's not a common thing!
Since then, I've been running a couple times, and to touch rugby practice, so my legs feel like daggers, but hopefully they'll heal up big and strong :P
I went to the Oyster festival on Ondo and I also ran into one of my favorite teachers from my first year teaching, a P.E. teacher named Mr. Hirai. He was helping direct parking at a nearby elementary school, so we got to chat and catch up. Great times!

Frebruraryr

This month was awesome, and painful, like a microcosm of life.
I decided, this being a short month and my gaining a few kilos over the winter, to take the month off alcohol. I don't know if that sounds like an amazing feat to you or note, but i do so enjoy drinking socially, that I for one was curious as to how hard it would be. The first test, Feb. 6th, my friends George and Jemma had a party to celebrate their getting married. The party was a mandatory 2500 yen for all-you-can-drink, and I drank two glasses of orange juice and some of the worst iced coffee of my life! But because I still had a blast and thanks to being there I got invited to play poker the following day with just the kiwis. Funny enough, I left that party early because I had already made plans for poker that night, too, at my friend Simon's house. I lost 3000 yen there, but if you subtract how much I'd usually spend on drinking while playing poker, I was guess it would have normally been a 4000 yen night.

The next day I woke up and went out to Hachihonmatsu (near/in Higashihiroshima) and played poker with those guys. It didn't even dawn on me until about 3 hours in that other than myself, everyone there was from New Zealand. I don't know if these specific Kiwis represent your average dude on the streets of NZ, but these guys know how to live. Lots of laughter, no one being overly serious or imposing, and humble. George ended up winning everything (it got to be a pretty big pot, too) but he didn't even say "I won" when the girls came back from their day out. I have yet to meet a Kiwi I didn't like.

The next weekend Sachi and I took 5 days off to see our friends in Fukuoka and then go sight-seeing around Kagoshima. We ate tons of great food, especially kurobuto, or black-pig pork, which is the Kobe-beef of "the other white meat". We also visited Sakurajima, home of one the most active volcanoes on Earth, constantly spewing ash, and Furusato Onsen, a Shinto shrine with pools of sea water heated by the volcano. On the way home we stayed the night with our friends in Fukuoka, ate Fukuoka's specialty, Tonkotsu ramen, for lunch and nabe for dinner while their two adorable little boys raised hell around us, and the next day stopped in Shimonoseki on the drive home for fugu-burgers, which is exactly what it sounds like. Delicious, poison blow-fish meat batter-fried and served in a bun with tartar sauce, and shredded cabbage. SO GOOD! Of course, all this great food meant my not-drinking only SLOWED my burgeoning gut. By the last night of the trip I weighed 69 kilos, up 3 from the beginning of the year!

That's why this month has also been all about getting back into jogging. I only managed to get out there 4 (I may go tomorrow, making it 5) times this month, but I've discovered that by tuning out I actually run much further than i thought before, so each time I've gone, I've jogged 4 miles, plus a 5 minute cool-down while I walk home and stretch. I really wanted to keep this up every day, but rain and bad health got in the way! Here's what happened:

Tuesday, my first day back from the Kagoshima trip, I got to go on board a 75,000 TON cruise ship making a round-the-world voyage, and interpret for the English Captain and Japanese government types. That was the biggest cruise ship to ever dock in Hiroshima Port and the first of several similar interpreting jobs for me this year, but next week's ship is less than half the size (although that's still massive). The weather had gotten unusually warm that week, and I mistakenly thought my suit jacket would be enough, but on the coast a super cold wind was blowing and that equaled over-exposure #1 for the day. When I got home I changed into warm-ish jogging clothes and went running in the freezing cold night - over-exposure #2. Then my buddy Kazu came over to give me a haircut. That was fun, but i sat in my cold bathtub wearing only my underclothes, and followed it up with a hot, hot shower. Three strikes, I'm out.

After the shower, I immediately broke a fever of 38.2 degrees (100.7F), and had violent chills where I thought my body was convulsing. Thank god I had my hot carpet on and I sandwiched myself between that and my futon, and after abuot a half hour, I felt well enuogh to crawl under my covers and go to bed. The next day I stayed home from work, went to the doctor, and had a blood and flu test. The flu test was negative, but the doctor told me, (and I think this translation captures the exact attitude and style in which he said it) "What else could it be?" Either way, the medication was both Tamiflu AND antibiotics, so whatever it was, it went away, but not before keeping me home from work, alone, for another 2 days. Again, this sucked, but I DID finally watch Slumdog Millionaire and I loved it! (Oh, everyone loved it? Okay.)
This week I managed to get back out there jogging, but by Thursday my legs were dead and last night it rained all day long. But I DID excercise! My buddy Dan came way out from his island to show me a 2nd floor, indoor skateboarding bowl/restaurant! It's called Fury Pool, and it's right by Diamond City. We spent the 500 yen to use it for an hour, and I must have ate shit about 5 or 6 times, meaning my right side hurts ALL OVER now, and I fucked up my wrist, but it was so worth it to get back on a board and dropping into bowls. What a rush! This year I plan to be back on my skate board MUCH MORE. Wish me life!

Ending my January right.

I don't mean to make it sound like I only live on the weekend! I actually had a great Thursday night out after work with some co-workers who took me to a small restaurant that only charges 500 yen (roughly $5) for all you can drink soda, juice, tea, wines, beer, cocktails, whatever, for 90 minutes! Not only the drinks, but the food was quite cheap, and not bad. I don't know how or why it was so cheap, but I will be going there again sometime for sure! Work itself was a lot of written translations and the usual. I also do an "English lunch" every Wednesday with people at work who want to use what they know, but most are quite shy and need prompting/prodding. And Friday I went to an elementary school in Mihara for work. After giving them my standard lesson about American culture we ate lunch together, then some of the older members of the community came to help us pound mochi and play traditional Japanese games, like japanese spinning tops, gokokunarebi, a variation of Igo, kendama, and others. It was a fun day.

Saturday I worked, and at night played poker with my friends. I lost. heh heh. But the whole time we talked about goofy shit and enjoyed the highs and lows as the game progressed. I went around midnight because I had to work the next day too! Sunday I got up and rushed to work by 7:30am. From there, myself and some other members of the HIC, as well as volunteer staff, loaded onto a bus with 39 foreign residents of Hiroshima to Kita-hiroshima Town's district of Mizoguchi. Basically the boonies, but this was my second time going on the trip. The purpose was to show these foreigners, mostly from India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, and Mexico, what life is like in a region with heavy snowfall. Last year was waist-deep snow we made snowmen and inter-tubed downhill on. This year we had our big snowfall a few weeks early, so when we got there all that was left was the dirty, small patches left in the shade. "Oh no! What did you do??" you might fret, but fear not, the locals figured this out a few days in advance and whipped up some other traditional events, like...pounding mochi! Boring for me, since I had done just two days before, but good fun and a rare occasion for most people, Japanese included! There was Kagura as well, like last year, and I got to watch an Oni who made his way through the crowd to stage, stand right in front of me and reduce a 4 year-old Japanese boy to tears just by looming over him. I almost died laughing.
Don't forget this was for work. What work? I was translating constantly. Announcements before during and after, on the bus there and back, and speeches and explanations about the foreign and local food and cultures Japanese to English AND English to Japanese.

Best of all were the old men outside. The were there last year too, and only came inside for lunch. Despite the freezing cold, they preferred to stand outside around an stove pipe stove on wheels and they cut cups out of bamboo that morning to drink sake out of. This year though was an added treat. One of the old men had just come back from hunting wild boar in the mountains, and cooked up ribs for anyone who wanted them right there on the top of the stove! I ate about...5 ribs. They were sooo good!

As if my weekend, despite working everyday, couldn't be any better, Monday I finally got a day off. This was good timing being February 1st, the 2 year anniversary of my relationship with Sachi. We met for lunch at Swiss Fondue restaurant specializing in all you can eat dessert, and traded gifts at our table while the girls at the table next to us said "aww, that looks fun". Then we went bowling, strolling, shopping and finally stopping (see what I did there?) off at an elegant one screen theater with couch-like upholstery where we watched The Lovely Bones. It was long, and lame, but just like 2012, having Sachi there next to me made the whole movie seem better. We were still too full for dinner so we took another long walk together and parted ways so she could drive home to Kure. Later she texted me to say her mother was most impressed by the dozen roses I gave her. Bonus points.