Not currently wearing my I <3 Japan Shirt

It all began with Laura’s birthday….(not really, only this blog entry). We had decided to go to MoMA, a restaurant very cleverly named after what we assume to be New York’s Museum of Modern Art, but who can truly be sure. Cristina had slaved for two days making a delicious pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing as Laura hinted she would love to eat that on her birthday. We arrive at 7 (maybe even earlier) and are give one of four tables in a raised tatami area behind bamboo-blinds used as trendy (or cheap) separations. As we begin to order, another party begins to arrive and are seated at the table next to us. We are told that they are going to need the table we are sitting at by 9, to which we tell them not to worry. We will most likely be done by then, or so we thought. The two people employed there begin to make what we had ordered and placed it on our table. The food was delightful; however, after about an hour, it was taking a lot longer to get to us. The place’s 4 tables had filled up as well as the bar’s 10 seats. We continue to wait and request another bottle of wine. Apparently, we had drank their only bottle so we asked if we could buy one from a combini and simply pay a corking fee. They agreed.

I walked out, went to an Everyone to buy a bottle of Chianti. As I approached the counter to pay, the two clerks were busy assisting other customers. The boy, who I thought was going to finish first, was ringing up a lady’s 10 rice balls individually rather than ringing them up as a lump sum. So, I went to the girl, who had an irked customer that left after she had only individually bagged three of the 15 single-serving size ice creams he had purchased. She rings up the Chianti and proceeds to bag it. I tell her I don’t need a bag. She’s stunned. I have hit her with a horror of a comment. She is about to sound the alarm if she can only escape out of her trance. She proceeds to apologize, PROFUSELY, and begs for my forgiveness because she will have to use a piece of tape to mark the bottle of wine as purchased. I do not respond. She continues to apologize, bow and all. She finally puts the piece of tape on. The Chianti costs 1098 yen. I place 1100 yen on the counter. She cant seem to enter the right numbers (probably from fear that I may eat her or do what I really wanted to do, smash the bottle over her head and scream). I leave after her 3rd attempt, without the change and with the taped bottle in my hand. She chases me, I ignore her.

Back at MoMA, our party is still waiting for their food. Another 45 minutes pass and we send Bryan to see what is going on. One doesn’t acknowledge him. The other tells him to wait. We wait another 10 minutes and decide to leave. They, then, decide to tell us our food will be coming out in 10 minutes, to please wait. We are so pissed that we tell him no and simply pay for the food, but leave anyway. Needless to say, I will never go there again. Whewww… Now that that is out of my system, I can continue.

On Wednesday, Cristina returned Momo, the Lapin. She says she is not as enamored by the car as she once was. We pick up her Marshmallow and leave Ono-san’s $750 poorer. I drive the entire time because she doesn’t have a valid driver’s license.

Thursday, I meet with Cristina at her house and drive her to the Kotobuki Driving School in Kanoya so she can practice for the driving test that she was scheduled to take the following afternoon. I pretend to go as her translator to help her with tips. Luckily, I was able to convince the driving instructor not to go over anything except for what is going to be in the course for foreigners at the testing center. She is frustrated by the whole experience, as you can imagine, and contemplates not driving a car in Japan again. We decide to bury our woes in a delicious KFC Twister.

Friday comes. Cristina takes her written test. She passes. Cristina takes her eye test. She passes. Cristina takes her driving test. She fails. Reasons given: Only one, her driving is a bit swervy. No rhyme or reason. Cry, cry, cry. Cristina loses faith in the Japanese Automobile Federation (understatement). Cristina must try again. *note: Entry is not well illustrated because of blogger’s absence and inability to more adequately describe the situation. For a more detailed account dealing with the torture of getting a Japanese driving license, please see blogger’s entry entitled “License to kill, I mean, drive”.

Friday night, I meet the members of the office in front of Ginga Arena. We are ushered into a resort mini-bus. I have no idea where we are going, only that it’s a drinking party. The mini-bus stops at Koyama and we pick up the other members of the other offices of the Kimotsuki Board of Education. Adam, the new Koyama ALT, is in the bunch. Some us talk while others sleep on the bus. It had been a long day for us Uchinouran BOE members who had to wake up at 5:30 AM to drive to some mountain in the middle of nowhere near Kishira to pick up roadside litter for one hour. Time goes by and the bus finally arrives at its destination. It’s a church! Sort of. It’s a fake church on the borderline that divides Cristina and Laura’s towns. Japanese people use it to get married in (just like the movies) with a hotel right beside. We walk into the hotel where there is a huge banquet hall set up with a buffet table at its center. I feel like I am at a wedding, but not. In true Japanese style, it’s as you cat sexy? (The previous sentence was just completed by a Math teacher from Uchinoura JH. I thought you might appreciate it, so I left it.) In true Japanese style, the party was all you can eat and drink. It was all good fun and great to finally hang out with new cool people. At 11, the party ends and we all get back in the bus. Everyone is looking very tired. The Koyama people are the first to get dropped off. As we are finally approaching Uchinoura, the head of our office says that the after-party will be at his house. I react surprised. Everyone looks half dead since we all got up so early to pick up trash and were all pretty much full of cold banquet food and gassy Japanese beer. I was ready for bed. I suck it up and go to his house since the bus dropped all of us off there (and I had no other choice). The after-party goes on for another hour, an hour more than the night should have lasted.

Saturday morning, I walk to Ginga Arena to pick up my car. I run into some students and stop to converse. I pick up my car and drive to Cristina’s. I pick up some pre-requisite yummies at the Ai-shop on the way. Cristina is cleaning, so I wait. We debated what we were going to do. We decided to go to the waterfalls, but it turned out to too dreary a day leaving the water to be unpleasantly cold. We leave after a while, and go back to the house for some movies, chicken fajitas and wine. We are joined by Laura, Matt and Adam.

The next day was even more uneventful than the previous. We lounge about all day and watch nearly the entire second season of Arrested Development. Great show. I feel so lethargic that I decide to go running. However, nature called and shortened the distance to the finish line.

To Bali, or Not Bali

Sorry for the lack of writing. Cristina and I (me more that Cristina) have been in a gloom because of the possibility that we may not be going to Bali as we had planned for September. Reason being that all decently priced flights out of Japan have been booked, but don’t get me started on that. Don’t even get me started.

As for the happenings of these past two weeks, here they follow. As of August 5, Cristina checked in her car for the shakken test that every car in Japan must be submitted to every two years. In exchange for it, Ono-san, the mechanic, awarded her the peach Lapin we call Momo (peach in Japanese). If you recall, this is not the first time Cristina drives Momo. Momo was lent to us by Ono-san this past February when we went to Nagasaki with Kaz and Alex. It was good to us then and its great to us now. However, like all good things, this too has to end. Momo is being exchanged for Cristina’s marshmallow on wheels tomorrow.

Two Saturdays ago, Laura, Cristina and I went to Nichinan to visit Osa and Tata. We joined them for some fun in the beach and met up with other old and new Miyazaki ALTs. After some beach baking, we showered and reconvened at Akabei, home of the infamous Pumpkin Mousse. The night concluded with some bowling.

The following Sunday, the kids went to the beach while I went to the Miyazaki mall to try to find a Lonely Planet Bali guidebook. (This is while we were still very much thinking that the Bali trip was going to be possible.) As it turns out, the biggest mall in Kyushu doesn’t have any English guidebooks, except for maybe a few about Japan. Lucky for us Kagoshima foreigners (not so lucky for me that day) Amu Plaza in Kagoshima City has a huge English-language section (comparatively). My annoyance on this trip peaked when the mall was full of shopping carts on both floors like a giant grocery store. Who puts shopping carts in a mall? (Hint: The Japanese) To top it all off, half of them were attached to a plastic car with either one or two children (read: brats screaming because they didn’t get a green tea or a goopy rice paste treat). The evening was spent in Uchinoura. Cristina and I visited Roketo Matsuri and made our rounds saying hello to all of my students and their parents. We then left the festival early to meet the Katos who we were going to view the fireworks with. As we got there, it began to pour. The Katos called to confirm the fireworks were still being set off, and surely they were. Within minutes, we crammed in the car to drive to the cape to view the fireworks going off over Uchinoura Bay. It was a beautiful sight. The evening was only made better by having the adorable 1-and-a-half-year-old Yume sitting on my lap hanging over the window with her eyes set aglow.

The work week began with me calling all my reliable travel sources to see who could get me the cheapest flight to Bali. As it turned out, most flights were booked and the seats that were available were incredibly expensive. So, as it stands, we are now on several waiting lists in the event that someone cancels their reservations.

On Wednesday, we had a dinner at Laura’s. We invited all of the surrounding ALTs including several new ones. To introduce them briefly: Adam (in Koyama from England), James and Martha (married couple in Kushira from Canada), Andrew (in Shibushi from Brisbane), and Matt (in Ariake from New York). I am sure that you will hear more about them in the course of the year as we hang out more.

Thursday, my eye was itching and hurting. I felt like I had scratched my cornea. Worst of all, this wasn’t the first day I felt like this. My left eye had been feeling like this for the past 4 days. I decided that it was time to do something about it, so I asked my office if the Uchinoura doctor could possibly see me for my eye. They laughed and said that I would have to go to Kanoya for that. I asked them where in Kanoya. They responded Imagama Eye Clinic. I asked where that was. They began to seem annoyed. I didn’t care. I needed to go and I needed to go now. They finally called and I was there within the hour. Once I arrived, I pushed my way through the small, bedroom-sized waiting room overflowing with about 50 people. I gave my name at the desk and proceeded to wait by the door. Two hours pass, and I was finally permitted to go to the smaller waiting area inside the clinic. Within another 10 minutes, the doctor sees me. He asks me some questions and looks at my eyes (no gloves). The good news is: I live and so does my eye. The bad news is: I have conjunctivitis and writes me a prescription for an antibiotic. I am instructed to put drops in my eyes 4 times daily for the next 3 days. I do so, and as it stands today – no eye problems.

Friday, I felt so good that I had finally seen a doctor about my eye that I decided to file my taxes. I know, it’s an odd connection. I just felt that I was getting lots of things accomplished. By mid-morning, my file was mailed and I am now waiting eagerly for my refund to be electronically transferred. Later that night, we went with the newbies to the new branch of Kabochate that opened in Kanoya. We followed it up with some mandatory karaoke.

Saturday was uneventful for me. I felt extremely under the weather since I had probably slowed down my recovery with a few too many beers. I stayed home while Cristina joined Laura at the beach. When she got back, we went down to Nejime for a dinner Mike was hosting to welcome the new ALTs in South Osumi peninsula, but we left early because of how not-well I felt.

Sunday, we had a lazy start. I still felt under the weather. However, Cristina urged me to go to Osaki Beach with her for a picnic and to meet up with the others. We got there and ate our food. We didn’t do much there and the beach looked like a junkyard probably due to some storm that had washed so much trash ashore. The newbies were restless and wanted to do something. After some debating, we finally agreed to take them to the Koyama waterfall, Todoroki-no-taki.

We got there and the place was packed like a cool swimming hole on a hot summer's day (largely because it was just like that). I had never seen it so full. Within no time, James, Martha and Cristina were wading in the lagoon. As we sat there staring at people climbing the boulders and sliding down the slippery slopes, we pondered whether or not to do it ourselves. While the rest of us just sat there, James and Martha scaled up the waterfall and explored its third tier. After a few minutes, we saw them sit at the top of it and push themselves off. It looked somewhat tempting to me, but the vertical climb up the rock had me a bit frightened (not the actual waterfall itself). Furthermore, I didn’t want to look like a fool trying to hoist myself up and possibly fall embarrassingly and sacredly at the lagoon’s edge. Therefore, we decided to test the other cascade that you didn’t have to climb. It was great and lots of fun. It’s just like going down any slide in a waterpark (except it's a natural rock formation that has probably taken hundreds of years to take shape rather than some sad pexiglass cutout labeled Slush Gushers or Summit Plummet). As we climbed up to go down it again, we noticed that the other waterfall that I was too frightened to climb before was empty. I was reminded by someone of what I said earlier and urged to try the climb now that nobody else was around.

James went first. Then, it was my turn. Within seconds I was scaling the rock with a yellow rope in my grip and my legs perpendicular to the wall. I was standing at the top in no time. The third tier was absolutely beautiful and going down the waterfall was an absolute rush. When the others had seen how easy it was to climb, they followed suit. When all of us had moved to the next tier, we followed the water trail a bit up the mountain to where we saw some peaceful butterfly migrations and some fierce rapids (like the ones I almost killed myself in across from the Tarumizu ferry port). We spent some time up there and then rode the waterfall back down.

Swimming in the lagoon, we noticed there were some new people there. One of which was a foreigner. He was a German professor that split his time between teaching in an Okinawa university and relaxing in his Koyama home. We had a good conversation about surrounding beaches and then he asked us if we had gone down the right side of the waterfall. We had told him no, only the left. He urged us to accompany him to which James and I agreed. That side had some faster waters and a bit that leaves you tossed in the air, but other than that, it’s just like the other one (maybe a little more dangerous). With that under a belt, we decided to call it a day and go home. The group reconvened again at Cristina’s where we enjoyed a chicken fajita dinner with some Banana’s Fosters for dessert.

That brings me to this uneventful week where I spend my days in the office obsessing over a trip to Bali that may never happen. Oh, and today is Laura’s birthday so we are going out and celebrating! Happy Birthday Laura!

Sand Craft

Yesterday, I notice three bus loads of kids show up at Ginga Arena. They are all wearing mesh hats in the five Olympic colors with a logo that looks like it was copied off a $5 Olympic t-shirt from the 1980s. In any case, someone in my office proceeds to ask me if I am feeling genki. Already, I approach the question cautiously for fear of what I may be committing myself to. I answer that I am feeling good and they tell me that today they will host a “sandokurafuto (sandcraft) workshop” on the Uchinoura beach. I am immediately reminded of the time that I was 8 years old and won third-place in the South Florida Tri-County Sand Castle Building contest. Since I always tell them I am horrible at sports, I decide to inform them of this and they take me a bit too seriously. Within minutes, I am given 5 different mesh hats to choose from with the Ginga Renpo 2005 logo. I choose green. One of the men look at me and tell me that it’s an “ugly” color. I ask him why. He tells me “it’s agriculture.”

In the time that the children are doing something somewhere in Ginga Arena, I am told that they come from different prefectures and are participating in a type of summer camp. Not counting the adults, there were nearly 60 children. Hours pass, bento-boxed lunches arrive and the children eat. Another hour passes, and they are taken downstairs in front of the galactic carpet wall hanging we have in Ginga Arena. I begin to understand some of the things they are being told like making sure to wear their caps at all times and drink some wheat tea or Pocari Sweat regularly. After they hear all the rules, it’s off to the beach we go.

We arrive at the beach and the children line up in their respective groups (surprisingly not color coded). The sandcraft presentation begins. Some people from my office spearhead the talks. It is an art and taken extremely seriously. It is quite different from the sand castle building that I am accustomed to. Rather than it being an actual sand castle with a wide array of towers and bridges, sandcraft to them is building a concrete-like cylinder of sand that can be sculpted into different things, like the arena or an anime character. The children are asked if they understand and are told to begin working in groups. (As a side note, all the supplies for this sandcraft class was lent to us by Higashi-Kushira, Cristina’s town, that I didn’t even think had a beach.)

The first step to the art of sand-crafting is to get a large garbage bin or something cylindrical with a hole at either end and put it on flat area of sand. You then add sand and an equal part of water. Then, you grab your bamboo sticks and poke holes in the sand so that the water can go down. Once, the water goes down and the sand is concrete-like in texture, you do it again until the cylinder is full to the level that you desire.

The next step is to gently tap the cylinder on all sides and then try to slowly raise it up. Originally, my group was working on making a rocket but it turns out that it was too great an endeavor. At the time we began to remove the cylinder, the tower came crumbling down. The tall slim cylinders are too difficult to work with. Thus, our group fell far behind. We doubled the pace and decided to work on making a Doraemon (a popular anime character) with a garbage bin instead of the tall cylinder. Once we finished this step, it was time to sculpt it.

Obviously, not all the kids can sculpt the thing at once, so I began to build an American-style sand castle in front of the character. However, the tide was coming in and nearly washing away what we were doing. In that instant, someone shouted “BARRICADE-O” and all the other groups began to imitate us. Apparently, they interpreted my art as an attempt to block the waves from wrecking the precious sandcraft character. In any case, when all was said and done, I think our group did a marvelous job. And, for what it’s worth, I think we also had the best sandcraft character AND ‘barricade’.

Later that night, we had a barbecue on Mt. Kano with the view of Uchinoura beneath. It was a nice place to be and at a nice time of day. It was fun to be considered essential to the event rather than a wallflower or entertainer like I feel many other times. They had me at a grill cooking meat and fish for two hours. Unfortunately, all the smoke (and staring at all those dead fish) gave me a huge headache. However, once we were finally inside, some of it went away. When it was our turn to finally eat, however, I could not even look at the fish nor the meat. I ended up eating only vegetables and some sashimi. The night ended with me bidding all the adults goodbye and telling them to "Please enjoy Uchinoura." I felt like the token beauty-queen hostess or a geisha. I suddenly fell into my role of entertainer once more and shook someone's hand before saying goodbye. Suddenly, the crowd was in an uproar and everyone wanted to shake my hand. And on that note, I ended my evening. Despite the shouts of "Encore" I knew it was time to retire to bed.

License to Kill, I mean, Drive

Getting a driver’s license in Japan is torturous, tormenting, disturbing and gut-wrenching. I have been struggling through the process for the past week in what has been one of the most dreadful weeks of my life. I can slightly compare it to the editing and evaluation process of my thesis, but with the added stress of doing everything in a week's time and in a country where I hardly know the language and rarely understand the culture. I have had to jump through countless hoops and walk through fiery pits of hell. While there, I came extremely close to selling my soul to the devil in exchange for a small rectangular piece of laminated cardboard with my picture on it. In any case, I survived and now live to tell the tale.

Months before, my office notified me that I would have to take the driving test in order to get a Japanese-issued driver’s license. Just a little background information: Some nations have a treaty with Japan allowing their citizens to just file some paperwork and get a Japanese driver’s license. However, due to insufficient data meeting the requirements set forth by Japan’s DMV, the United States does not qualify for this. Therefore, Americans in Japan have to go through the complete process if they plan to stay more than one year in Japan and drive here. Thus, my office informed me that they would help me through the process in the summer when things quiet down. I informed them that my mother would come to Japan the last two weeks of July and they knew that my permit expired August 1st. They told me to just relax and we would worry about it after my mother finished her trip.

Flash forward. My mother finishes her trip (July 26). I take the day after she has left (July 27) to lounge in the office and read the new Harry Potter book which I had been dying to read ever since we got it weeks before. I inform my office that I need to start the Japan licensing process as soon as possible. They told me that my mom just left and that I should take it easy for now.

Thursday (July 28), my office asks me what I was doing to get my license. I informed them that I was waiting for a copy of my driving record from Florida’s DMV. They act surprised and proceed to make tons of phone calls in the period of one hour. I understand hardly anything except for my name being said in stressed tone in Japanese (Jieshi). One of my supervisor’s inform me that I don’t need a copy of my driving record, but I do need an official translation of my Florida driver’s license that I have to get from an office in Kagoshima City (for the bargain price of 3,000 yen). They continue and say that I had to leave at that moment. So, I depart the office at 11:30AM and proceed on the two-hour journey that I was originally planning to take the following Monday. On the ferry, I meet up with Mike from Kanoya who had taken the test two years prior and passed on hos first attempt. He more thoroughly informed me of what I have to do and suggested that I take a 2-hour driving course in Kanoya that he, Laura and other ALTs had taken. At that moment, on the ferry, I call the driving school and schedule an appointment for the following day at 8:30 AM. I get to Kagoshima and the taxi driver finds the right building after being lost for a good 10 minutes. It turns out that the taxi does not have any change, but neither does the office that I had arrived at. The taxi was eventually settled and the translation had begun. It turns out that the official translation is just all the stuff from my license placed in a table with some Japanese on it. I think that everything on the license is very logical and does not need official translation. Or at least someone in the actual DMV could do it. Anyway, 20 minutes later, I was back on the ferry to begin my 2 hour journey back to Uchinoura.

Friday (July 29), 8:30AM, I begin my driving course. Kotobuki in Kanoya is an actual school dedicated to teaching the art of passing a driving test in Japan. Other than the three or so truck drivers, I was definitely the oldest person there. There, they taught me what I needed to know in order to pass the test. You may be thinking that it can’t possibly be that hard. Well, just to give you a feeling about what specific things they are looking for, let me run by you everything you have to do before you even turn the car on. Before you enter the car, you have to look behind the car and in front of the car. This is to make sure that there’s no stupid kid lying down in front of the car waiting for you to turn it on and run him over. Then, as you have your hand on the handle, you have to look back to make sure there are no cars or mopeds coming too close to you at the time you are opening it. Then, you sit inside and look back at where the door closes to make sure that your seat belt is not caught in it. Then, you pull your seat up and buckle up. Adjust your mirrors. Look at your rear view, your left mirror, your left window, your rear view again, your right mirror, your right window. Turn on the car and tell the instructor that you are ready. All actions must be at least 3 seconds long and in the correct order (to be honest I don’t even remember if that was the order). Then, class began. Kotobuki's instructor taught me things like speeding up to 50kph when on the short straight away (the 50KPH sign means that you need to reach that speed not that it’s a maximum… at least for the test). Go exactly between 20 and 25kph when you are on a turn. Cross all intersections extremely cautiously and slowly, stopping at times when there are no stop signs. Changing lanes in the middle of an intersection with a signal is a must for the test. As you turn right (like turning left in the States), you turn into the far lane rather than the closer lane. Before making a turn, you must look through the rearview mirror, turn on your indicator, break, look right and left and over the shoulder of where you’re turning, then move close to that side of the lane before making the turn. All of that must also be done in the correct order and 30 meters before the turn. Class alone was challenging and seriously freaking me out.

The weekend came and along with it heavy rain. As if all the horror stories weren’t enough, the entire weekend and Monday morning seemed rather omenous. I can probably count the waking hours it wasn’t raining with one hand, which is more than I can say for the countless lightning strikes that shook our houses.

It was Monday, August 1st, the day my International Driving Permit expired. The man I knew least in my office was elected or assigned to take me on the 2.5 hour journey to the main Kagoshima DMV office where all foreigners must go to get their license. We left at 9:15 AM, and arrived at quarter till noon. We were instructed to come back at 1:00. So, we went to McDonald’s for lunch (not my choice as my stomach will tell you). After lunch, we went back to the DMV. Upon arrival, I was escorted by 2 Kagoshima Police officers and the man from my office to a room in the back. I was asked for the 18 papers (or so it seems) that I had been preparing for days before, along with two 2.5 x 3 cm photos. After some more bits of paperwork, I was finally ready for the eye test. I was to first take off my glasses. As I expected, I failed the eye test. I was then allowed to take the test again with my glasses. I passed. It was time for the paper test. I was escorted to the second floor to an incredibly long and empty room that had about 100 desks meticulously lined on a concrete floor marked with masking tape to make sure they are always correctly filed. I was given the English translation to one of the paper tests. It seemed to have been translated by a machine or someone that had not yet mastered the English language. However, in combination with the pictures, the questions were not that difficult to understand. I was never given a score, but I was told that I passed. I was now informed that I could proceed to take the practical driving test.

To be brief, I failed. The instructor took me on a sample ride before showing me how I was supposed to do everything, but I just didn’t meet his expectations. Reasons being: I looked forward too much, I was not aware enough of my surroundings. I nearly missed the first turn. I didn’t turn on the indicator 30 meters before the turn. Coming out of a ridiculously tight “S-curve” and “crank curve” the edge of my car was sticking over the imaginary line. I proceeded through an intersection with no lights or stop signs at normal speed rather than slowly and cautiously. He began to add up the points deducted and stopped counting when he got to 90 and realized it was going to go into negative numbers. I asked him what time I could come back the following day and he said 8:30 AM.

I got home that evening a bit depressed and gloomy. To be frank, I didn’t expect to pass the test on the first try, but I didn’t expect to do so poorly (according to them) either. I had lost faith in the Japanese system (understatement) and was questioning why I signed on for a second year knowing I had to endure this. Later that night, Laura called me and went over the driving course that was going to most probably be used the following day. You see, there are only two set course routes they use for foreigners, and we were given them beforehand. We went through meter by meter what I was supposed to do on the course. I marked and wrote notes on the course map in red. I fell asleep that night with that looming over my head. My International Driver’s Permit had expired.

Tuesday, August 2nd, the same man that took me on the long car ride the day before had to take me again. Today it was much worse, because we began the day early. He picked me at 6:15 AM. I was so embarassed. We got to the test center at 8:25. I was treated just like everyone else that was waiting to take the test. I had to file some more paper work and pay some more money. Then, I went with Maeda-san to walk the course like so many other people there were doing. We did it. And we did it again. It was now 9:40 and all I had to do was wait till 10:00 when the driving tests would begin. At 10:00, I was the second car to go out. Unlike the day before, the tester did not speak any English, but was extremely kind and made a lot of small talk. He took me on a sample drive of the route. Then, it was my turn. I proceeded a lot more cautiously than the day before. The biggest mistake I made was not turning on the indicator when I switched lanes in the middle of the intersection. I did hear him slash points off on his paper many times, but still managed to remain calm. The tester was kind and often warned me of likely mistakes at moments right before I would be most likely make them. The test was finally over. I walked around the car to hear his comments and the results of the test just like the day before. And then, a wonderful thing happened…. I passed. He didn’t inform me of my mistakes. He just told me to be careful, to pick up my license at 1:00 and sent me on my merry way. Maeda-san and I were ecstatic. We both called many people and informed them of the great news. It was now 10:30. We waited at the DMV till 11:30 and then went for lunch. We had a great lunch (that I was finally able to keep down) .

At 1:00, we were back at the DMV. I began to pay some more things, take a picture and fill out some more forms. One week and 17,650 yen (approximately $176) later, I was handed my Japanese license at 2:43 on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2005.

Last night, Laura, Cristina and I celebrated by watching the last 10 episodes of 24 which we have been meaning to watch for the past month and finally all had a free night to do.

So Long! Farewell! Auf Wiedersehen! A dieu!

Just a quick update before I begin what will most likely be one of the most stressful times here in Japan. Let’s begin with Monday of last week. Well, after work we met at Jill’s house to take her to the City where we would bid her farewell. We ended up going to a nice dinner at an izakaya where everything was 500 yen (from the sodas to the beers). Alex also accompanied us which was nice since it was probably the last time we would see him in Japan also. After dinner, we spent the rest of our time at Starbucks where the girls flirt with the Starbucks staff to get free cheese soufflé samples. It was nearing 10:30 and we decided to leave since I still had to drive all the way to Uchinoura to drop off my mother at the airport early (EARLY) the next morning. We said our goodbyes and were in a taxi within minutes.

At 10:30 we arrived at the Sakurajima Ferry Port. We heard the fog horn announcing the ferry’s departure, but did not think anything of it because ferries cross the bay every 15 minutes. Little did we know that this stopped at 10:30. From 10:30 to 6:00, the ferry only crossed the Bay once every hour. So, we just lounged about and took a walk down Dolphin Port (the new bayside shopping complex). At 11:30, I began my journey back to Uchinoura.

I got to Uchinoura at about 1:30. I was in bed and asleep by 2:00. At 4:30, the alarm rang and it was off to take my mother to the airport. We were at the airport by 7:05 at which time I dropped her and her 4 BAGS! We said a quick goodbye because I was illegally parked. Thanks for coming Mom. I miss you (a little).

Later that afternoon, I had to go to Kishira Elementary to hold an English workshop for the teachers. At first I was afraid, I was petrified. I didn’t know what I was going to do. But, then I get there and they handed me the lesson plan and told me what I was to say and it was great. I complemented the plan with a few answers and explanations to their questions and topped it off with a demonstration of some games they had not thought of before.

The following day was spent reading Harry Potter shamelessly at work. In the evening, we met Adam, Kaz’s successor. Kaz brought him over to Cristina’s where she was staying and from there we all went to Kabochate. It was sort of a goodbye for Kaz and a welcome for Adam. Later in the evening, some cool folks from Kaz’s eikaiwa met up with us and we headed out for some karaoke. The night probably ended at about 2 AM, when Kaz finally passed out.

The next day would be the beginning of my most torturous week here in Japan. It was filled with unspeakable things that I don’t know if I could translate into words. (I realize that sounds really harsh and in light of all the atrocities that have happened in this world, it really wasn’t that bad. I’m just a whiny person that needs to vent about it… and will do, in the next blog entry!)