Long Time No Blog :/

Hello, oh blog readers! I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last post. All of a sudden I went from vacation mode to work mode and then to travel mode, and I fell behind! The good part of that, though, is that I have LOTS of upcoming posts about the past two weeks. There will be fun photos and adventures and stories galore! Yay!

The first crucial piece of information you should know is that I’m back in the states! Surprise! What’s that you say, you thought I would be in Japan for a year? True. But due to a very complicated chain of events involving travel plans and visas and job-hunting, I went on a mini-vacation to Japan, I’m going home for a couple weeks, then back for the full year. It’s a lot of traveling (which I’m still in the middle of), which sucks, but it also means I get to see all my favorite people! So that’s great.

Stay posted for many blog posts coming soon to catch you up on all I've been up to in Japan. There might even be something about my adventures in Alaska!

See you soon!

Amusement Park

High on a hilltop near Morioka, Japan, hides a magical land called:

Ok, so I don't actually know what it is called since it's in Japanese. But there was a wonky panda and a long-armed clown to welcome us, so you know it has to be great! Here's an aerial view of the amusement park we visited this weekend with Claire and Jesse, taken from the ferris wheel of course!

(Photo cred goes to Jesse on most of these pictures)

There were so many awesome things about the little Japanese amusement park next to the zoo. Including:

I was tall enough for every ride!

I finally got to drive a pink car in Japan!

There were beautiful mountains and lush forest all around us!

A carousel!

And lots lots more, including a fence-maze-thing, a very haunting haunted house that I thought we were maybe going to be lost forever in, a 3D theatre room where we almost got eaten by a dinosaur, and lots of rides that spun us around in circles and upside down and all kinds of directions. But the best ride of the day by FAR was this roller coaster. It wasn't a particularly long ride, but each individual car spun around as you whizzed through the jungle. It made us feel like this:

 

Who wouldn't love being in a place like this?

Tourist-y Day

On Saturday, Tyler and I did some more tourist-ing. First, we went to the Morioka History and Culture Museum. It was not as big as the Iwate Prefectural Museum as it focused just on the history and culture of Morioka (as could be surmised from the name). It was really cool, but unfortunately there wasn't a good English guide available and very little writing was in English. The exhibits were awesome and had a lot of videos and reconstructions... I just wish I had known more about what I was looking at! At the entrance they had floats on display from one of the big festivals that happens in the fall. They had robes you could wear to pose with the floats, so of course I did!

The museum took less time than I had anticipated, so we decided to venture to this magical place I had read about online called Iwachu Casting Works. Morioka is known for its amazingly gorgeous cast iron teapots, which of course I am obsessed with. I really want to learn the art of cast iron teapot making! So for my first step toward this goal, we went to the Iwachu Casting Works "theme-park style factory." On the website there were directions for how to take a bus to Iwachu. We got off at the appointed stop, then used Tyler's Japanese iPhone for directions to the factory. It took us down a tiny alley and up to the back of what looked like an abandoned factory building with a sign on top that read Iwachu Casting Works. Because everything in that area was packed so tightly together, there was no way to get from the back of the building to the front (there were houses and fences right up to the sides of it). Tyler was pretty convinced that the factory was out of business, but I wasn't ready to give up on my dream. We backtracked to the main road and followed a different path, which led us to the front door of:

Needless to say, we were quite happy to have found the place! When we went inside the first room was a museum area, and there was no one there. So Tyler still joked that it was abandoned. But we wandered through the museum area and caught sight of people! Next we came to the factory part, which was very small. There was only one guy in there at the time, working on polishing some tea pots that had just been cast and didn't have their handles attached yet. I was amazed by the volume of production in that tiny factory!

The last part of the building was the show room and store. There were some amazingly gorgeous pieces. The cast iron feels so incredible in your hands, and you can tell how nice it would be filled with warm tea. The Iwachu teapots are not cheap though. I'm going to have to save up and buy one as my big Japan souvenir. Or learn how to make them myself! (A girl can dream). 

Me with what is apparently the largest cast iron teapot in the world. Cool!

A website of potential interest:
http://www.japan-iwate.info/app/location_detail.php?lid=80  This is the official Iwate tourism page, and everything on it is awesome. The link will take you straight to the section on the Iwachu Casting Works factory, but feel free to explore from there!

Exercise Park

There's a park across from the grocery store near our house. I've never been up to explore it until yesterday on my way to the store, when I figured I'd prolong my stroll and investigate the park. And boy, it was not what I expected!

Ok, full disclosure, it was kind of what I had expected because Tyler told me it was a "exercise park," which I mocked because anyone can exercise in any kind of park. But what I discovered was a bunch of hilarious "exercise equipment" set in the scenic backdrop of this park. In the background of this picture, note the large wooden rope course things and this bright orange piece of equipment:

It was kind of like a Russian army training camp met a playground, and altogether kind of funny and weird. Most of the equipment was made of logs (like the far-away one in the above pic), but some pieces were newer, like these orange ones.

(Diagram of, presumably, how to exercise. Stay in the middle of the spectrum because at one end it appears you are very angry, and at the other end you might die of exhaustion.)

Funniest of all to me is that there were no benches in the park. It was a little disappointing because I had been hoping to visit this park to sit and read, but clearly this park is for exercise only. I got excited and thought that I had found a bench, but apparently this bench is made for exercising, not sitting, as illustrated by this diagram of how to exercise on a bench:

The end.

New Job!

On Wednesday, I finally went to visit my future place of work! Next month, I will begin work at OASIS English School. It is a private language center, where I'll be teaching English classes to all level of students (mostly adults). And on Wednesday I had my first visit there!

OASIS school is in downtown Morioka, so it's a bit of a bus ride down there. My first great encounter of the day occurred at the bus station. There is a small kiosk at the bus station where you can buy bus cards. Mine was almost empty, so while I was waiting for the bus I went to buy one. I bought my bus card from the woman in the kiosk with my usual method of pointing and nodding. When I was putting my card in my passport holder, she pulled out a small card holder and asked me, "Card carrier?" and then something more in Japanese. I shook my head that I didn't need one, but she kept getsuring at it. "Present!" she said in English, and gave it to me! It was so sweet! Once she gave it to me, I could tell that it was handmade. It was pretty adorable. I have some Alaska pins that I like to take with me when I travel as small gifts for awesome people. When I was working in the visitor center in Alaska, some Canadians gave me one and I thought it was so cool that I wanted to do it too! So I dug one out of my backpack, went back up to the counter, and gave her a forget-me-not pin. "Present!" She was very happy too. It was a cute interaction.

Anyway, then I got on the bus and went to OASIS. It is a very small school; there are two other English teachers and one Japanese woman who is the administrator. Ryoko, the administrator, met me and we filled out some paperwork. Then the other teachers arrived and I met them. Some students came in from the highest-level class and we had a great conversation. I was really impressed with their English! One student, an older woman named Keiko, asked me all kinds of questions and started taking notes, so we joked that she was doing my job interview. I sat in on the highest-level class (which was only three students that day). It was great! Everyone there was very friendly and laid-back, which was kind of a relief, since Japanese society tends to be a little more reserved and formal in the workplace. It was also really nice to have so many people to speak English with!

I think I will be going back next week to observe more classes, even though I don't start work until I return to Japan next month. But I'm already looking forward to being at OASIS! 

Rosie, in Action

She's like a tiny underwater lion!

Earthquake!

This morning I was lying peacefully asleep in bed when I was jolted awake by Tyler's Japanese cell phone sounding a siren-like alarm and saying something in Japanese. "Earthquake!" Tyler said. And sure enough, it was!

Tyler was more freaked out than I was, since I am pretty used to small earthquakes in Alaska. But since we live in a pretty old tall apartment building, we both got up and started getting dressed just in case we needed to evacuate. Within a few minutes the light shaking of the quake was over. Nothing was broken or had fallen over, except Tyler's precariously perched Wolfman action figure (featured in an earlier blog post). 

The earthquake was a ways south of where we are, and while it was about a 6.6 or so, it looks like there was no major damage or casualties or a tsunami warning issued there. But it was eerily close to part of Japan hit by the tsunami four years ago. And with the recent Nepal disaster, it's important to be earthquake aware! 

So for Tyler and I it was (luckily) just a little bit of excitement for the day. There was one other small earthquake the first night I got here. Those nice little earthquakes always kind of remind me of home. 

Feels Like Home, Only Different

Well, I've officially been in Japan for long enough for it to start feeling like home. Here are a few of the most interesting things I've noticed.

• Cleanliness. As I mentioned in my TRASH post, the city is super clean. When you go out to eat they give you moist towels to wipe your hands before eating. That said, lots of people still wear masks around on a daily basis, which kind of makes me feel like I'm living in the middle of an apocalyptic epidemic of some sort, and kind of freaks me out.

•  Bundling. It was very hot for my first weekend here, and has still been pretty warm this last week. I was walking around sweating in a short sleeved dress, and yet most of the people I would see were wearing sweaters and light jackets. Everyone wears so many clothes! How are they not overheating?? Also, no one ever shows their shoulders (out of modesty, I would presume) and yet I have seen some very short skirts. And, of course, everyone always dresses super nicely. 

• Sitting to Drink. In America, a coffee cup in hand is pretty much a constant accessory for anyone walking down the street ever. In Japan, however, I have seen a total of zero people walking around with drinks, either coffee cups or bottles of cold drinks. Which is weird, because there are vending machines everywhere that have both hot and cold drinks in them. If people are buying drinks at vending machines, WHERE ARE THEY DRINKING THEM? Also, I really like walking around with my drink (hot or cold) and it's sad that it's not a normal and acceptable thing to do here. 

And lastly, my favorite:

• Pink Cars. Light pink is a normal color for cars here! It's adorable! Little old men drive pink cars! It's great! Every time I see a pink car when we're out and about I point it out to Tyler. I might have to get a pink car when I get back to the US, except everyone will think I work for Mary Kay. The cars here are also very adorable. They're pretty much all small and square and super cute. And pink. Did I mention that lots of cars here are pink?! 

Mt. Iwate

Here's Tyler and I, in the wind, on a bridge over the river that runs through Morioka city, with glorious Mount Iwate in the background:

Pretty majestic.

TRASH IS SO HARD

So here's a fun fact about Japan:

TRASH IS SO HARD TO THROW AWAY!

First of all, there's no trash anywhere along the streets or sidewalks or anything. Japan is SUPER clean. Which is awesome.

But what I don't get is where all the trash goes, because when you're walking around there are also hardly ever any public trash cans anywhere. Except outside convenience stores, usually, but when you're downtown that can be hard to find.

Most importantly, though, trash is super hard to throw away because it gets sorted into at least six different categories. Including your own trash at home. We have a chart to help us figure it out, which looks like this:

Of course, this helpful chart is in Japanese. But the main point of it is that everything gets sorted into a color, and that color trash gets put out and collected on a specific day of the week, or every other week, or once a month. Depending on the category.

Tyler hadn't tried taking out the trash at all before I got here. Apparently if you put out the wrong trash on the wrong day, or if your trash is incorrectly sorted, the garbagemen will bring your trash back to you and fine you. This morning we tried putting trash out for the first time. It was pink day. It's 2pm and I have yet to have anyone knock on my door bringing me garbage, so I think that means we're good! Fingers crossed.

Prefectural Museum

Our apartment is located on a hill just north of the main city of Morioka. I really like being just a little bit removed from the heart of the city, and it's super convenient because there's a bus terminal that's a 5 minute walk away. It kind of reminds me of being on Palatine Hill at Lewis & Clark, except the bus isn't free. In fact, the bus is pretty expensive. But worth it!

Anyway, turns out there's some pretty cool stuff up here on the hill. Including the Iwate Prefectural Museum!

The museum was so cool, for so many reasons! They had pretty much everything... starting with dinosaurs then moving on to early human tools and pottery, which I of course went nuts for, and got to dredge up some facts from my Japanese and Korean art history class! They had really cool displays about all kinds of inventions like iron mills, and castle construction. They had an awesome folklore and culture section. We had a little museum guidebook in English that we got from the front desk, and a few of the main exhibit signs were in English, so I could figure out what most things were about. And just when I thought it was over, the natural history continued with all kinds of modern fish and animals (mostly stuffed, but some live glowy fish that were really cool)!

I will definitely be visiting the museum again. There was a TON to take in, and I know I'll just keep getting more and more out of it. For now though, here are some highlights from my first visit. It's mostly animal stuff, because I'm pretty sure you weren't supposed to take pictures of the artifacts.

This dinosaur. What is it?? Apprently an early coastal mammal. Pretty big and really weird. Cool.

A giant shark jaw!! It was at the entrance to the modern animal area.

At the entrance of the museum, there were vending machines with little souvenirs in them. Tyler chose the scary samurai sculpture vending machine, and I chose the early cultural artifact machine. We got these two little guys on the left! They now live with our plants. And the Wolfman gets to hang out too, since we're all about the whole East-meets-West thing here.

Here's me with the giant awesome sculpture at the museum entrance. Unfortunately, I've already forgotten what this sculpture represents. There was a lot to take in! I'll be sure to check when I go back. I'm sure it won't be long until my next visit!

New Roomie

Meet Rosie, one awesome axolotl and the newest addition to our apartment! Her favorite activities include flapping her gills, floating about, and staring contests. 

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Tyler and I, along with our friends Claire and Jesse*, went to the Morioka Zoo! While we didn't see any tigers, we did see lions and bears and all kinds of other cool stuff. It was a pretty nice zoo. Some of the pens were awesomely huge and open like this one below. Others were smaller and sadder. But I like to think that all the animals got to take turns playing in the big happy pen in the middle of the zoo. When we were there, it was full of ostriches, these little deer things, and a zebra.

The zoo was quite extensive, and had pretty much everything except tigers or pandas. There were even weird things like prairie dogs in the zoo! There was a mountain lion, and regular lions,  and some really cute playful otters, and flamingos, and raptors, and gross monkeys, and a rhino, just to name a few. 

One of my favorite parts of the zoo was this handy guide of how to identify animals from their butts. Because let's be real, it's not often that zoo animals give you the perfect view like that rhino did above.

For instance, how would I know what that creature on the right was without the handy butt guide? Oh, it's an elephant!!

And here's the butt of a cool Japanese goat thing!

All in all, it was a great day at the zoo. We had originally wanted to go to the amusement park which is right next to the zoo, but it's a holiday right now so the lines were INSANELY long, and it was hot out. So we opted for the zoo instead. Tyler and I bought yearly passes, so I'm sure we'll be going back again! And we are hoping to go to the amusement park next weekend with Claire and Jesse. I'll keep you posted!

(Here's me as one eyeball of a giraffe)

*Claire and Jesse will appear often in upcoming blog posts. Claire is in the JET program with Tyler, and they live in the apartment building next to ours. They are from New Zealand.