J-O-B

I finally got a job! It's with a small children's school (ages 0 through 12) called Mebaekids. I will start training in February, and then as long as my visa is processed in a timely manner, I'll officially begin the position on April 1st with the new school year. The other staff members seem very friendly, the students are basically well behaved, and I think I will be happy there. Out of all the places I applied or interviewed with, I think this school is the best fit for me, so I guess it's good it took me so long to find. Andrew has some time off in March and if we can swing it, we plan to go to Thailand for about a week. I'll continue to work my temporary job at Modern English for the rest of this month. I'm actually going to really miss my students there. The kids are so much fun, and the adults have opened my eyes up to many things about Japanese culture.

What I don't think I'll be missing are the long train rides to and from work (2+ hours each way). My trips back home at night are always interesting because the trains are super crowded. It truly is amazing how many people they can squeeze in there. All sense of personal space is lost as you are smashed up against a door or window (or drunk Japanese man), surrounded by a sea of bodies, and all the while more just keep piling in. Train etiquette, or rather, the lack of it, takes some getting used to here. People rarely say excuse me and just tend to push their way around. Once the doors are closed, however, it is not uncommon for everyone to be completely silent. At times, it's even peaceful. With so many passengers in the car, there are not enough seats or overhead rings for people to hold onto. It's quite comical to experience the swaying of the crowd as the train bolts away from each station, rocks back and forth along the track, and then slams to a stop again. Everyone just has to lean into each other to keep from falling down, and on top of it, many are trying to sleep while standing up.

Christmas 2007

Considering Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, I was surprised at the amount of effort they put into "pretending" to celebrate it. Throughout December it was almost impossible to walk into a store without hearing Christmas carols or seeing some sort of decorations or lights. Even the plastic Colonel outside of the local KFC was dressed up like Santa Claus. The extent of the holiday celebration for the Japanese is eating a piece of cake on Christmas Eve, so I think the whole thing is really nothing more than a giant marketing ploy.

On Christmas Day, everything is open and people go about their business as usual. We decided to go out for sushi and then to an amusement center called "Round One Stadium" to celebrate Christmas and my birthday. It's a five-story building that includes: bowling, roller skating, mini-bike racing, putt-putt golf, karaoke, pool tables, darts, an arcade, batting cages, volleyball, basketball & tennis courts, archery, badminton... even a mechanical bull. It certainly wasn't a conventional Christmas for us this year, but it sure was fun!

It was REALLY cold that night...

Here's the chocolate-banana birthday cake Andrew made for me. He ran out of room so it just reads: "AMBA," which is how the Japanese say my name anyway.

My Trip to Seoul, South Korea

Here are some photos from my trip to South Korea last month. I was only there for three days in order to renew my Japanese tourist visa, but it was enough time to get a taste of Seoul. My hostel, "Seoul Backpackers," was in a great location in the heart of the city. I did a good amount of walking around the shops and streets in the area where various temples and "palaces" were scattered here and there among the modern stores and restaurants. Seoul is especially beautiful at night. Unfortunately it was terribly cold when I was there, but I stayed out as long as I could. Although they don't really celebrate Christmas, there were some rather impressive light and decoration displays, which added to the usual elaborate array of lights coming from the buildings.

On the second day I decided to head toward the mountains and just see where I ended up. I hiked to the top of one peak, where there was an incredible view of the city, and then I continued down into a little town on the other side. Everyone I came across in Korea was friendly and helpful. I found that more people seemed to speak English (or were at least willing to speak English) than in Japan, and they were definitely more obvious about "gawking" at foreigners. People were generally not too shy to talk to me. When I was hiking up the mountain I came across many Korean military troops who were stationed at different posts along the way. I'm not sure what was going on or why they were there, but I felt a little awkward because they would immediately start poking their buddies and then grab their binoculars to stare. I would sometimes give them a little wave or say "Hello," and this seemed to really please them because they would sort of giggle and eagerly wave back with huge smiles on their faces.

The food in Seoul was delicious. I had a stir fry in a wonderful vegetarian restaurant I found, and a very tasty Italian dish on my last night. I also had some pastries and gelato, but my favorite treat was a sort of breaded pocket or pita that was wrapped with aluminum foil and served warm with what I think was a sesame seed honey filling. At night the streets are lined with hundreds of little shops that serve all sorts of food. It's a popular pastime for people to huddle around these "tents" to eat soup or noodles or skewers or kimchi or who-knows-what-else while they socialize and keep warm.

New Foods

Sorry for the lack of updates. We have been really busy. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have recently tried a food that I always thought would be horrible. Maddie came over for a visit to hang out with Amber on Friday while I was at work getting whipped by a little kid with a jump rope. Which the Japanese teachers did nothing about. Anyway, she bought a bunch of snacks for the visit. She had bought something that is called dried squid snacks, or some variant of that name. Amber showed me the snacks and told me that they were really good. It is funny that she tried them while I was gone because I think she was afraid of trying them too. But we both have agreed that being over here has opened new doors and not being afraid to try some food just because it looks weird or sounds disgusting. I say try all new foods that are put in front of you. Some you may hate and some you might get addicted to like me and the dried squid snacks. It tastes like peppered beef jerky to me. But each pack tastes different. Some have tasted like fish jerky as well. The squid is shredded and it actually looks like dried leather so even if you do see it on a table and try it you won't know the difference.

My message for the week. Try new foods. Just a run down of foods that I have tried over here. Most of them are things that I never thought I would eat. Some were good and some were not so good.
Chicken Cartilage
Quail Eggs
Chicken Stomach
Chicken Intestines
Chicken Ovaries
Chicken Liver
Chicken Lung
Fish brain
Fish paste Miso
Fish gills
Raw crab
Raw lobster
Raw shrimp - not good
Spicy fish skin
Persimmon - Not sure about the spelling.
Pizza with various Japanese style toppings
Octopus rings - like onion rings

I am sure there are more things that I have tried that have been weird but that is all that I can remember at this moment.