Happiness

The JET culture shock timeline.

I’m sure many of you are wondering if I feel homesick/culture shock. The JET Programme always emphasizes that everyone in one way or another will experience culture shock which goes in phases. I haven’t really followed their chart, but I think I have felt some homesickness since I’ve been here. For example, I feel really homesick when people back at home talk about the weather cooling down or it becoming fall because it is still a hot, sweaty, humid, hell-hole here. Of course I miss my friends, pets, boyfriend, and family too. For some reason, it’s the weather thing that really gets to me though. Also, I miss food from home. Other than that, I’ve been ok. It’s not like I’ve sunken into a stage two depression or anything like the chart suggests. In fact, I’ve been overall pretty happy and enjoying my time here so far. I still haven’t traveled much because money has been tight, but I plan to at least visit Hiroshima, Tokyo, Hokkaido, Kyoto, Nara and possibly Okinawa before the year is up. If I’m really lucky, maybe China or Korea. If I stay two years (which I’m planning on), I will most likely visit a neighboring country. Anyway, the point of this post is to write about the things I’m enjoying so far.

First, I have some good news. My friend from Ohio is coming to visit in less than two weeks! He’ll be the first person from America to come visit me! I couldn’t take work off, but we will still be able to enjoy the weekends and the evenings. I hoping he’ll be brave enough to explore downtown while I’m at work. Next, I got plane tickets to go home for two weeks during Christmas/New Year’s! I’m so excited to know that I am for sure going home!

Next, as I have mentioned, I’m anxiously waiting for it to become fall (my favorite season), and when people back home talk about it becoming fall, I get sad. So, this is how I have recently coped with it, and it helps: I have decorated my apartment for fall. I also have fall scented candles and fall foods like pumpkin soup, maple candies, and chai tea. Even though it’s disgusting outside, when I’m in my home, it feels so nice. Soon the weather will match my home, I hope. One thing that excites me is that Japan is supposed to have some of the most beautiful fall foliage. I want to look into some of the most famous places for fall foliage and then go there when the leaves change. On a somewhat related note, I wasn’t feeling that comfortable in my apartment so I made some adjustments. It’s amazing what a simple bit of rearranging can do (and by simple, I mean it took me hours lol). Highlighting the most important parts; I changed my desk into a kitchen table seeing as I never used the desk. I still need to buy one more chair, but it’s amazing how much more home-y it feels to have a kitchen table. Next I made the sitting/entertainment area cozier by dividing the living room in half and turning a bookshelf into an entertainment center. I don’t have a TV, but I set my laptop on the entertainment center, and it works out nicely. I rearranged the bedroom and made the bed more secluded in the corner. Last, I hung like 30 pictures on my wall above my bed. It looks great! Now my apartment feels like a haven…except for the unfixable tiny bathroom.

Rearranged.

Rearranged

 I thought I already wrote about this, but apparently I didn't. I got to see my Japanese friend who currently lives in Singapore. She was back visiting her family, and she decided to visit me too. We went to Spa World. It’s a multistory building with a pool/water park on one floor, an Asian themed hot springs on another floor, and European themed hot springs on another. This month, the women got the European floor and the men got the Asian. It alternates each month. First we swam in the pools and did a big water slide thing, and then we went to the hot springs. It’s becoming a tradition to go to onsen (hot springs) when we visit each other. At the onsen, I ran into two other JETs. It’s not exactly the place you would want to run into acquaintances seeing as you’re butt naked, but it was fine. I thought it was funny because my Japanese friend was like, “Hey! This is my country! How come you are running into people you know and not me?!” Haha! Even though it was a work night, my friend slept over and it was super fun!

My friend! After Spa World.

Another fun time was somewhat unexpected. It was a Saturday, and I had no plans. I really wanted to hang out with some friends, and I figured it wouldn't be a problem because it was Saturday, but it turned out that everyone had already made plans. I was faced with the choice of doing nothing or going out alone. Going out alone didn't seem that fun, but I remembered how I came to Japan last year by myself, and it was one of the most exciting and fun experiences of my life. With that initiative, I decided to go to the zoo. It was near Spa World so I knew the area pretty well after going there with my friend. The area is called Tennoji. It is famous for Tsutenkaku (an observation tower), kushi-katsu (fried things on skewers=delicious), and Billiken (a golden mascot thing that is supposed to give you good luck). Anyway, the zoo was really fun even though I was alone. I felt really content and it reminded me of when I traveled alone. I got so see some neat animals that are uncommon in American zoos such as lesser pandas (red pandas) and all sorts of Southeast Asian cats. Afterwords, I went to the famous kushi-katsu place and had delicious fried vegetables. I’ll admit that it would've been nice to have a friend with during dinner time, but since it had a bar for single eaters, I didn't feel weird. I even felt some satisfaction by going to a restaurant by myself and enjoying it.

Lesser Panda (Red Panda)!

Tennoji. I actually took this picture before when I went
with my friend.

Last weekend was really great, but before I go into that I want to mention something I forgot. My Fridays are actually not like the weekend for me because after I get home from work, I cook dinner, eat, and then go to a Japanese class for foreigners in the Shijonawate area. It’s at the Municipal Center, it’s run by volunteers so it’s free, and it’s an hour and a half. It’s actually the thing I mentioned in my last post where I met the lady at the Shinobugaoka Matsuri, and she was all hyper and wanted me to come to her class. This is the class lol. I just started going two weeks ago so I've only been there twice. Both times I literally sat there and spoke with a Japanese person for an hour and a half. Most people bring textbooks and study, but no one has really told me what to do. I prefer to just speak the whole time because that is what I want to improve the most with. I like going. Anyway, back to last weekend. On Saturday, I went to Round 1 (which is a multistory gaming/entertainment building). They have tons of arcade games, batting cages, roller skating rink, ping pong, darts, bowling, pool, and more! I went with a group of older JETs. I hadn't swung a baseball bat in so long, and I loved it! I got the high score on one of the arcade games too! After, we ate dinner at a really good Mexican restaurant (they actually have Mexican in Japan…I was misinformed. Apparently Osaka is one of the few places in Japan that you can actually get good Mexican) called Uncle Steve’s or Steven’s…can’t remember. They had super legit frozen margaritas. My only complaint about Mexican food here is that it’s not spicy enough, and there’s not enough cheese. However, the ingredients always taste really fresh. I've eaten at one other Mexican place that serves cheap burritos (I think it’s called El Zocalo’s). I liked it there too. After dinner, I met up with a different group of JETs (mostly new JETs) and we went bar hopping. We went to a place called Cinquencento first that serves drinks for 500 yen. Then we went to L&L (what does L&L stand for anyway?) which is a bar in America Town. I had actually gone there early one time to see a comedy show which was fun. It’s full of foreigners and Japanese people, and you can do hookah! So, of course I did some hookah and had the best sangria of my life there. The sangria was cinnamon-y! A few Japanese girls were at the table next to us celebrating one of their birthdays so we asked them to join us and we all drank and smoked hookah together. We plan to meet them again next weekend. I missed my last train along with a few others so we all crashed at Aimee's place (of the new JETs). Out of all the new JETs, I really seem to connect with Aimee. I was going to go to a big festival in Kishiwada the next day, but after not sleeping much, I chilled at home. It was a three day weekend though, so I went out on Monday which I will briefly describe next.

L & L.

On Monday, I went to a Mexican festival that had been going on all weekend at the Umeda Sky Building. I went with Aimee, and we ran into a few people we knew. Before that, we had sat down with two random Japanese men (seating was sparse) and began to have a conversation with them about booze and Japanese while watching the live Mexican performances. I was drinking a strong margarita at the time and one of the men came back after getting up with two shots of tequila. One for him and one for me…oh dear god. I had Aimee help me drink it. Needless to say, I felt pretty good. Not to mention that I got another margarita later, and Aimee got a free shot of tequila that we also shared lol. It was fun! We got to eat Mexican food again too haha!

Happily eating a quesadilla.

The point of this post is to let you all know that I am having a good time. Even though I miss home, I know that once I am done with JET, I will miss it too.