December In the Can
Tuesday December 7, 2004 - Monday January 3, 2005
A couple of weeks beforehand, Liz had asked me if I wanted to do anything about Hanukah for our Eikawa class (adult conversation). The Japanese already know about Christmas, so we both thought that it would be interesting for them to learn about a Jewish Holiday, since the Japanese know nothing about Judaism. I thought this was a great idea and would give me an opportunity to share some of my heritage with some Japanese and it would be a lot of fun.
I emailed my mom and told her that I was planning a class about Hanukah and asked her to send me some stuff including candles, a menorah, dreidels, etc since none of this stuff is available over here. Anyone who knows my mother knows that when you ask her to do something, especially Judaically (I think I just made up that word) related, she goes a bit overboard. A couple of days before the first night of Hanukah I get a package from her that contains 3 DVDs about Hanukah, a box of candles, a small menorah, some matzo ball soup and potato pancake mix, three boxes of Hanukah chocolate candies, and about 60 dreidels for my class.
Planning for the class, I tried to find a Japanese language web-site that explained what Hanukah was all about. Liz helped me find one and once we had that, I tried to retell the story of Hanukah in the simplest way possible.
For the Eikawa class, I handed out the Japanese sheet about Hanukah, explained to them in simple English what it was about and why we celebrate it, and then showed them a very short movie that my mom had sent me on DVD, that basically retells the story of Hanukah, except that it’s performed by a Kindergarten class of some Orthodox school. The people in my class thought it was very cute.
After explaining what Hanukah was about, I divided the class up into about 8 groups and gave each group a make-shift menorah that I had made out of some paper plates and tall candles that I had bought at the 100 Yen store, the night before. The candles kept falling over so it took a while before everyone’s menorah was in proper shape. We dimmed the lights, I said the three traditional blessings over the candles in Hebrew, and we all lit our menorahs. Even though it was only the first night of Hanukah that evening, I had the class light all eight candles just to show them what it looked like. The room looked absolutely beautiful with the lights out and 8 menorahs or so shinning brightly in the darkness.
You can see the pictures here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=3e7d&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Once we were done with all of that, we turned on the lights again, and I explained to the class how to play dreidel. Using a stick-figure diagram sheet that I had made, I explained to them about the four letters; one on each side of the dreidel and what they meant. Each person in the class was told to bring about 20 Yen in 1 Yen coins to the class, so we could all play. One thing you have to realize about the Japanese is that they absolutely love, LOVE to gamble. Once they had figured out how to play dreidel they had a blast playing it and winning and losing money. At the end of the class, I gave out some chocolate Hanukah coins to everyone, and let them keep their dreidels. Overall, the class was a resounding success and everyone had a great time learning about Hanukah, lighting the candles, and playing dreidel.
Sunday December 12, 2004
Sunday was the 6th night of Hanukah. I had invited Liz and Takafumi over to my apartment to light the candles with me and Sunday they came. We turned out the lights, lit the candles, I said the blessings, and then we played dreidel for a little bit before they had to go. One of the things you’re supposed to do for Hanukah is that when you light the menorah, you’re supposed to put it in a place where people driving by can see it. Every night of Hanukah, I would put my menorah by my window, so anyone driving past my apartment would see it if they looked up into my window. I wish I knew some of my neighbors so I could ask them what they thought about it.
Monday December 13, 2004
Besides being the 7th night of Hanukah, this was a really important day because when I got home from school around 5pm or so, I had an email from my mom telling me to call her as soon as I could. The language in the email was so strong that I knew something bad had happened. I debated waiting until later to call home because back in Albany it would be 3am, but decided that I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on so I called home. With a sense of dread, I called my parents. Of course, calling at that time, I woke up my dad who told me that his father, my Grandpa Abe had died.
Grandpa Abe had been in his 90’s and had led a long life. My dad told me that Sunday night, walking back from dinner at his assisted living complex; Grandpa Abe collapsed and died on the spot. It was completely unexpected. One minute he was eating dinner, the next he had gotten up, walked a couple of feet, and the next thing anyone knew, he was gone. I guess, everything considered, that’s a pretty good way to go. There wasn’t any pain, it was over practically immediately, and he had been healthy until the end. His heart just gave out.
I was, of course, shocked by the news. I always knew that Grandpa Abe, and everyone really, would die at some point, but no one expected anything like that. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know how I felt about the whole thing. I really hadn’t known my Grandpa Abe that well. For most of my life, he lived in Florida so I rarely saw him. It was not until his last few years, when I was in college, that he moved to an assisted living community about 10 minutes from our house. This probably will sound cruel, possibly even heartless, but I really wasn’t all that upset about Grandpa Abe dying. I mean, I barely knew him. Yes, he was my grandfather, and yes I talked to him a bit once he moved closer to us, but for all intents and purposes, he was just an old man that I rarely saw. For the majority that I knew him, he hadn’t expressed any interest in my life. He didn’t call me or my sister, didn’t ask questions about what was going on in our lives. The extent to which I communicated with Grandpa Abe was when he sent me a birthday card and I sent him a thank you note in response.
He was really, just slightly less than a stranger who happened to be related to me. This is the part that’s really going to sound heartless, but by the time he moved closer to us, I really had no interest in getting to know him. I had my own life, my own friends, and any conversation I tried to start with Grandpa Abe ended up devolving into him telling me about the newest Reader’s Digest or what particular part of his body was ailing him at that moment. Nothing about me, nothing about his life, nothing about trying to spend more time together, nothing about anything, really. Even living 10 minutes away from us, I still barely saw him.
Like I wrote earlier, it was 3am in Albany, so I told my dad that I would call back in a couple of hours when it was a more reasonable time there. In those hours, I really thought about Grandpa Abe, and what his death meant to me. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was sad that he died, in-so-much as you can be sad that anyone dies, but what really got to me, what really affected me, was the raw emotion I heard in my dad’s voice, even at 3am in the morning. I always knew that my father and his father didn’t have the closest of relationships. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I barely knew Grandpa Abe. From what I’ve heard, he really wasn’t that much of a loving father to his children, my dad and my aunt, I mean, he didn’t abuse them or anything, just wasn’t emotionally involved with them, so it’s not really surprising that he didn’t show much emotion to me.
After he died though, I started to reflect on my father’s relationship with his dad in Grandpa Abe’s later years in life. Ever since Grandpa Abe moved closer to us, my dad would call him at least once a week. He’d drive him to his doctor’s appointments, take him out to lunch, visit him and get him what he needed from the drug store, etc… My father had decided to try and become closer to his own father, even in his later years, and I have to respect that tremendously. The devotion and caring that my dad showed Grandpa Abe is an example that I hope to live up to when my own parents start to become incapable of taking care of themselves (who am I kidding? They’re going straight to the Old Fogies Home and we’re throwing away the key).
Not only that, but I started to regret all the missed opportunities to get to know Grandpa Abe. He had lived an amazing life and I knew next to nothing about it. He had been a medic in World War II, been one of the first chiropractors back in the US, and lived a long and eventful life. I regretted that when I was young, he had never taken the time to get to know me, and when I was older, I had never taken the time to get to know him. All his memories, all his stories were now lost and I’d never be able to hear them. After he died, it didn’t matter that he had never tried to share his life with me, it was just the fact that they were gone forever.
The thing that hit me the hardest though, that affected me tremendously, was that I started to imagine what my dad must be going through and I started imagining what it will be like when one of my own parents dies. That really did it. I’m pretty lucky in that I grew up in a loving home (even if we didn’t get cable TV until I went away to college). The thought of losing my mom or dad, knowing that it’s going to happen eventually, that it’s inevitable, was very powerful.
I wasn’t really that sad that Grandpa Abe died, but I was upset because my father was so affected. I felt sad for his pain, if not my own.
Sorry if this entry bored people, it has nothing to do with any Japan experience, but in writing down about important days, this was one of them.
Tuesday December 14, 2004
Tuesday was my last Eikawa (Adult Conversation) Class. I know I haven’t really talked about it that much, outside of what Liz and I did for Halloween and what I did for Hanukah, but the Eikawa class was pretty fun. It was every Tuesday night from 7 to 9:30. Usually Liz planned the lesson where we would go over some topic to help the students improve their conversational skills. We would break a topic up into various activities and games in order to keep it exciting. The biggest problem with the Eikawa Class is that there was such a disparity in the conversational levels of the students. It’s hard to design a lesson when some of the people in the class can barely speak English and others are almost fluent. Tremendous credit goes to Liz who not only managed to overcome this difficulty, but also design a fun lesson. I have no idea what I’m going to do next year once she’s gone and I have to plan the lessons.
Anyway, for our last class, Liz and I wanted to have a party and at the same time have some English conversation involved. What we ended up doing is having a dinner party at a local Italian restaurant. A couple weeks before the actual class, we scouted out possible locations and picked this place because it was big, the food was good, and they offered us a great deal for a group rate. We borrowed their menu and Liz translated it from Japanese to English and before the final Eikawa class, we handed out copies and told the people in the class they had to decide what they wanted to order, and the night of the dinner party, they had to order what food they wanted in English.
That night, they dressed me up in an apron and a chef’s hat and I was the waiter for the Eikawa class, running around with a little notepad and pencil, taking orders from the students. Since my Japanese is pretty terrible (but steadily improving) it really forced the students to speak English to me since I wouldn’t understand their Japanese.
Overall, the evening was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. I wish someone had taken some pictures of me in my “Swedish Chef” get-up because I looked absolutely ridiculous. In May, the Eikawa class starts up again for another 10 weeks.
Wednesday December 15, 2004
Wednesday, I had two very important revelations, both related to each other. The first was that the Winter Vacation period was much longer than I had expected. School here ended on December 21st and I had expected, like most schools in the US, that it would start up again maybe January 2nd or 3rd, after New Years. Nope. School didn’t resume until January 11th. That’s a heck of a vacation. Once I found that out, I kind of regretted that I hadn’t gone home, but had decided to stay in Japan. Most of the other JETs either go home or go traveling for their winter vacations. Since I’m coming back to the US at the end of June for my friend’s wedding, I didn’t want to come back to the US in December, plus I wanted to save money for the airline ticket... I planned on going to Tokyo for a couple of days, but once I found out that the vacation was over three weeks long, I didn’t know what I would do with that much time off.
The second revelation occurred once I got back to my Board of Education Office, after school. Talking to Liz a bit, she told me that even though school’s closed and there aren’t any classes, as long as the BOE is open, we have to go to work. Even if we have nothing to do, we have to come into the office. If we didn’t want to come to work, we had to take nenkyu or personal time off. Some JETs I’ve talked to don’t have to go in to their BOE’s when school’s not in session, but not me. If the BOE’s open, because the other people who work their still have things to do, and I don’t take personal time, I have to go in. I get 20 days of nenkyu a year. Most of them, I’ve saving for when I go back to the US in June for a wedding that I’m going to. I’ll probably use at least 10 days, so I can spend two weeks in the states. The idea of having to come into work, even if I had nothing to do, and just sitting there, trying to look busy, or not even trying to look busy, for 8 hours, made absolutely no sense to me, but that’s Japan for you. It doesn’t matter if you’ve finished your work, or even if you don’t have any work to do. If your coworkers are there and you’re supposed to be there, you have to be there. The fact that that leaves the JETs with long stretches of time in our BOE’s when schools out and we have nothing to do, doesn’t matter. No exceptions to the rule, no special circumstances, no common sense…
Japan Observation Number 30: I don’t think I’ve discussed it up to this point, but like the US, once the end of November rolls around, Japan starts gearing up for Christmas. The decorations come out for all of the stores, holiday music starts playing on the speakers, Colonel Sanders and “Donald” McDonald get Santa makeovers, and every where you go, you see Christmas trees and presents. The funny thing is that very few Japanese are actually Christian. To them, Christmas is a totally secular holiday, with no religious connotations, where they give presents to each other.
I’ve always felt like an outsider around Christmas season. I mean, even though I love the aesthetic appeal of Christmas, it’s a beautiful holiday, and I love traditional Christmas songs like “White Christmas” and others, even if they are totally overplayed, I don’t celebrate it and the whole holiday season just serves to remind me that I’m a minority in an increasingly Christian society, where the majority is trying to impose its values on everyone else. I recently got into a discussion about this with someone, but even if Christians don’t think about the religious origins of Christmas, the non-Christians will never forget them, and because of this, Christmas will never become a totally secular holiday like Thanksgiving or even marginally secular holiday like Valentine’s Day and Halloween.
In Japan, it’s even worse. The sense of not feeling part of society in the US during Christmas season is multiplied untold number of times by the isolation and sense of not belonging in Japanese society in general. I feel like even more of an outsider. At least the Christian JETs get to feel like they have something in common with the Japanese around Christmas, a shared experience, if you will, but not me. Everywhere I go, people ask me what I do for Christmas in the US and I have to try and explain to them why I don’t celebrate it. At one of my school’s, Fujita-sensei asked me to give a presentation about how I celebrate Christmas and I had to tell him that I couldn’t do it. We started talking about Christmas and he said that I must think it’s pretty weird that everyone in Japan celebrates Christmas even though they’re not Christian. In response, I tried to explain to him that in rating weird things about Japan, the fact that all of them celebrate Christmas barely deserves a 1 out of 10 on the chart, in terms of strange things I’ve seen or experienced since I came here. He laughed.
So here’s my schedule for the end of December: The last day of classes is December 21. The next day, I have to go into the office with nothing to do. The day after that, the 23rd, is a holiday: the Emperor’s Birthday. The 24th, I have to go to the BOE. Same with the 27th and 28th. From the 29th to Monday January 3rd everyone has off. The week of January 3rd through January 7th, I had to go to work again, even if classes were still out. Monday January 10th was another holiday and classes started up again on the 11th. Makes absolutely no sense…
Tuesday December 21, 2004
Like I wrote above, this was the last day of classes. Both the teachers and the students at Nishigo 2nd, where I was that day, were pretty excited. The kids visibly so, the teachers, it was a little hard to tell, but you could see them looking at the clock pretty often, mentally counting down to when school finally ended. I only had two classes that day, both in the morning, so in the afternoon, I went with Itoh-san to a local car garage to buy snow tires for my car, which was pretty good timing because that afternoon was the first real day of snow we had in Japan.
Random Japan Observation 31: In Japan, everyone has two sets of tires for their cars. You have your Spring/Summer/Fall tires and you have your winter tires. Every winter, everyone in Japan takes off their rest-of-the-year tires, stacks them somewhere, usually outside their houses, and puts on their winter tires. Initially, I was a little confused by this practice and I tried to explain to some of the English teachers that back in the US, we really don’t change our tires every season, unless you live in an area that gets an ungodly amount of snow. They were all pretty flabbergasted about this nugget of information and wanted to know how people drove in the snow if we didn’t change to specifically winter tires. I told them that I guess that in the US we do a better job of plowing/salting the roads in the winter so we can get by with all-year tires instead of having two separate sets. As time went on and I would come to experience a Japanese Winter, I would find out that the above statement was VERY VERY true and that there’s practically no road maintenance in Japan (at least where I live) in terms of plowing the roads clean of snow, or at least putting salt down to help melt the snow or give tires improved traction. I would come to be very glad that I had my snow tires. My old tires that came with the car were getting pretty bald anyway, so in the spring, I’ll have to buy new non-winter tires.
Wednesday December 22, 2004 - Thursday December 23, 2004
I spent 8 hours this day at the B.O.E doing pretty much nothing. I surfed the internet a bit, read my book a little more. I was SO bored that I actually studied a little Japanese (Oh My God!)
That night was the Nishigo 1st Bonenkai. Stolen from the internet: “Bonenkai are year end parties that involve eating and (lots of) drinking. They are held during December before the new year. It is a time to eat and drink with family, friends or work mates. During the Bonenkai one tries to forget the bad things during the year and end the year on a good note and build stronger relationships between people.”
This usually involves lots and lots and tons of alcohol.
Two teachers from the school picked me up and we drove to this pretty swanky hotel about 40 minutes away where we would spend the night eating, drinking, singing karaoke, and drinking. Did I mention there would be drinking? Anyway, I had a pretty good time. My hotel room was interesting because instead of a normal Western hotel room, I stayed in a traditional Japanese style room, picture here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/detail?.dir=34e1&.dnm=9063.jpg&.src=ph
When everyone was at the hotel, we all went to our rooms for a bit to change clothes, take a shower, whatever before heading downstairs to the banquet room. The dinner/entertainment started off with one of the teacher performing a traditional fan dance which was amazing to watch (I wish I had a video camera). Dinner consisted of many small dishes that the hotel staff kept bringing out to us. Each dish was only big enough so that you got a good taste of what you were eating before the next one was brought out. Three of the male teachers, for reasons still unclear to me, were dressed up as women as part of the general entertainment. One of them was Fujita-sensei who is one of the English teachers. It was absolutely hilarious to see him dressed up in drag; especially since everyday at school he almost always wears a suit. When I took his picture: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/detail?.dir=34e1&.dnm=4444.jpg&.src=ph he begged me not to show it to his wife, who is a teacher at Kawatani, one of my other schools. I asked him if he knew what “Blackmail” meant and we both had a good laugh about that one. We played some quiz show type games that I could only watch because I couldn’t understand anything, and then Charades which I rocked at. Fujita-sensei was on my team and translated everything I said into Japanese so I was able to guess what the other teachers were trying to act out.
After dinner, dessert, and more dessert, we went downstairs to the hotel Karaoke room for some singing. Everyone sang at least a couple of songs and I got dragged into singing “Stand By Me” with Komatsu-sensei. He loves that song and he told me that his dream is to sing it to his future wife at their wedding. If that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is. After Karaoke, some of the teachers went off to drink some more, some went to bed, and some played Mahjong till the early hours of the morning. I watched them playing Mahjong for a while but I had no idea what they were doing and eventually I went to bed.
In the hallway outside our hotel rooms, were a couple of random Japanese guys from other schools or businesses, totally passed out on the floor. All year long, the Japanese are so reserved and stoic (anal really) and during Bonenkais, they let it all lose; all the pent up emotions from the whole year come charging out helped along by a veritable river of alcohol. It was a lot of fun for me to watch as an observer, but I don’t think it can be too psychologically healthy.
One of the oddest points of the evening was when one of the teachers at Nishigo 1st, I don’t even know his name, came up to me totally drunk, and started telling me that he wished we talked more at school. Now, to truly understand just how bizarre this was, you have to realize that first of all, he had never spoken a single word to me the whole year up until that point. I mean I didn’t even know he spoke English until he started jabbering away at me. The other weird thing was that once he got going, he started talking to me like I was his life-long buddy or something, tell me about his marriage, his kids, which students he liked and disliked, etc… He just kept going on and on. He must have talked my “ear off” for over an hour. It was just bizarre.
Funnily enough when school started again in January, he once again never said a word to me. I don’t know if he forgot about our conversation or not, but it was like it had never happened. Talking about the experience with other JETs, I found out that this was a frequent occurrence with us, that a teacher will confess the world to us at a Bonenkai, totally drunk, but back at school, not a word.
Pictures from the night can be found here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=34e1&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Thursday morning, we all woke up pretty early; around 8am to go have the hotel’s breakfast. I felt pretty bad for some of the teachers that morning as they obviously wanted to sleep more because they had been up so late drinking the night before. The breakfast buffet or whatever was packed. The whole place was filled with teachers from other schools and business men who had all had their Bonenkais at the same hotel.
I ate breakfast with the vice-principal and principal. The vice-principal (Kyoto-sensei) kept looking at what I was eating.
Japan Observation 32: The Japanese don’t have any “breakfast” food. They will eat the same foods that they eat for lunch and dinner at breakfast too. There is no equivalent of cereal, bagels (how I miss you!) eggs or whatever. It would as if people in the US had steak and potatoes for breakfast. A typical Japanese breakfast consists of rice, Miso soup, fish, and a salad. I couldn’t imagine eating that stuff for breakfast.
So Kyoto-sensei and Kocho-sensei (the principal) were chowing down on their traditional Japanese food. My stomach was a little queasy from the night before, not so much because of the alcohol, I hadn’t drunken that much, but because of all the strange foods I had at dinner, and the amount of food I had eaten.
So for me, breakfast consisted of some eggs, a couple slices of toast and a glass of Orange Juice. As they kept looking at my breakfast, I felt I had to explain to Kyoto-sensei and Kocho-sensei that in the US, we eat certain foods for each meal and that it’s just weird for me to eat “dinner” food for breakfast.
After breakfast, I was driven back to my car, parked at the B.O.E. office, I drove home, and went back to sleep until the afternoon. I had to be at work the next day again to spend 8 hours waiting to leave…
Wednesday December 29, 2004
Wednesday, I finally caved and bought a real digital camera. Up until this time, I had been taking photos with the built in camera in my cell phone, but if in a couple of days, I would be going to Tokyo for a small vacation, and I wanted a real camera to take pictures with. Doing some research on the internet, I had finally picked out the camera I wanted: The Cannon Powershot S1 1S. http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=SupportDetailAct&fcategoryid=223&modelid=9824. One thing you should know is that in Japan, digital cameras are expensive no matter what they do. As a result, I figured that if I was going to spend a lot of money anyway, I might as well spend a little more and actually buy a pretty decent camera instead of just a simple point-and-shoot.
There was one problem though… In the US, the Powershot S1 costs about $350, which is a pretty decent price, all things considered. In Japan however, it cost about 6 Man, which is a little over $600. As much as I wanted that camera, I just couldn’t spend that much money, especially knowing how much cheaper it was in the US. For about 2-3 weeks, I tried to think of all kinds of crazy schemes to buy it in the US and ship it here, but it just wouldn’t work out. So On Wednesday, I finally caved and went to buy it.
Of course, having actually decided to buy it finally, it wouldn’t be that easy. When I told the store clerk in my broken Japanese that I wanted that camera, he let loose with a string of Japanese that I didn’t understand at all. For about 10 minutes we tried going back and forth trying to communicate (I had stupidly left my pocket dictionary at home). Finally he got me to understand that they were all sold out of the camera I wanted and they wouldn’t get in any more until the next shipment on January 10th. Then I spent the next 15-20 minutes trying to explain to him that I need the camera before that because I was going to Tokyo for a vacation, and I wanted to know if I could just buy the display model, since it was in mint condition.
Eventually, he understood what I was getting at and went to talk it over with the Manager. He came back and said that since it was the display model, they’d knock a couple of Yen off the price (Yay!) and I could buy it. They ended up selling it to me at about 4.5 Man, which I was very much willing to live with and with the money I saved on the price, I splurged and bought the 1gig memory card for the camera, instead of the 512mb one. Overall, I was very satisfied with the outcome.
Friday December 31, 2004
Before we left for the New Year’s vacation, Shibayama-san, one of the women in my B.O.E. office had been kind enough to invite me over to her house to spend New Year’s with her and her family. I had been over once before, when I first arrived in Japan and I had enjoyed myself, plus she had two children generally around my age, so I agreed. So that day, I drove to a local liquor store and bought a 3500 Yen (around $35) bottle of champagne as a thank you gift for Shibayama-san’s family. Back before the vacation, she had told me she would call me before coming to pick me up, so I waited in my apartment for her call.
No one called. Around 10pm, I realized that no one was going to call and that I would be spending New Year’s alone in my apartment. I was pretty bummed out by this and actually a little angry at Shibayama-san (more on this when I finally go back to work). Around Midnight, I was getting a little sick and tired of watching crazy Japanese people do crazy Japanese things for New Years, none of which I understood, and I was feeling a little lonely and depressed so I called home.
The one good thing about the time difference is that Midnight Friday in Japan is only 10am in Albany. I talked to my parents for a while and they celebrated the Japanese New Year with me over the phone. It was good talking to them, but it made me feel a bit more alone talking to my parents thousands of miles away as the Midnight Struck, instead of celebrating it with anyone else here.
Sunday January 2, 2005 - Monday January 3, 2005
Sunday and Monday I spent planning my vacation in Tokyo. I was going to take 5 days of Nenkyu (personal time) so I’d have from December 29th to January 11th off from work. The 5 days were for the week of January 3 - 7 when the B.O.E. was open again, but classes were still out. I was going to spend 4 nights and 5 days in Tokyo from January 4 through the 8th. I did research online, reserved my hotel room, found out when and how much the train would cost, and booked two different tours in Tokyo.
After the let-down of New Years, I was very excited to get out of my apartment, and the snow covered Nishigo, and head down to the Big City.
Next Entry: Tokyo Vacation Day 1
A couple of weeks beforehand, Liz had asked me if I wanted to do anything about Hanukah for our Eikawa class (adult conversation). The Japanese already know about Christmas, so we both thought that it would be interesting for them to learn about a Jewish Holiday, since the Japanese know nothing about Judaism. I thought this was a great idea and would give me an opportunity to share some of my heritage with some Japanese and it would be a lot of fun.
I emailed my mom and told her that I was planning a class about Hanukah and asked her to send me some stuff including candles, a menorah, dreidels, etc since none of this stuff is available over here. Anyone who knows my mother knows that when you ask her to do something, especially Judaically (I think I just made up that word) related, she goes a bit overboard. A couple of days before the first night of Hanukah I get a package from her that contains 3 DVDs about Hanukah, a box of candles, a small menorah, some matzo ball soup and potato pancake mix, three boxes of Hanukah chocolate candies, and about 60 dreidels for my class.
Planning for the class, I tried to find a Japanese language web-site that explained what Hanukah was all about. Liz helped me find one and once we had that, I tried to retell the story of Hanukah in the simplest way possible.
For the Eikawa class, I handed out the Japanese sheet about Hanukah, explained to them in simple English what it was about and why we celebrate it, and then showed them a very short movie that my mom had sent me on DVD, that basically retells the story of Hanukah, except that it’s performed by a Kindergarten class of some Orthodox school. The people in my class thought it was very cute.
After explaining what Hanukah was about, I divided the class up into about 8 groups and gave each group a make-shift menorah that I had made out of some paper plates and tall candles that I had bought at the 100 Yen store, the night before. The candles kept falling over so it took a while before everyone’s menorah was in proper shape. We dimmed the lights, I said the three traditional blessings over the candles in Hebrew, and we all lit our menorahs. Even though it was only the first night of Hanukah that evening, I had the class light all eight candles just to show them what it looked like. The room looked absolutely beautiful with the lights out and 8 menorahs or so shinning brightly in the darkness.
You can see the pictures here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=3e7d&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Once we were done with all of that, we turned on the lights again, and I explained to the class how to play dreidel. Using a stick-figure diagram sheet that I had made, I explained to them about the four letters; one on each side of the dreidel and what they meant. Each person in the class was told to bring about 20 Yen in 1 Yen coins to the class, so we could all play. One thing you have to realize about the Japanese is that they absolutely love, LOVE to gamble. Once they had figured out how to play dreidel they had a blast playing it and winning and losing money. At the end of the class, I gave out some chocolate Hanukah coins to everyone, and let them keep their dreidels. Overall, the class was a resounding success and everyone had a great time learning about Hanukah, lighting the candles, and playing dreidel.
Sunday December 12, 2004
Sunday was the 6th night of Hanukah. I had invited Liz and Takafumi over to my apartment to light the candles with me and Sunday they came. We turned out the lights, lit the candles, I said the blessings, and then we played dreidel for a little bit before they had to go. One of the things you’re supposed to do for Hanukah is that when you light the menorah, you’re supposed to put it in a place where people driving by can see it. Every night of Hanukah, I would put my menorah by my window, so anyone driving past my apartment would see it if they looked up into my window. I wish I knew some of my neighbors so I could ask them what they thought about it.
Monday December 13, 2004
Besides being the 7th night of Hanukah, this was a really important day because when I got home from school around 5pm or so, I had an email from my mom telling me to call her as soon as I could. The language in the email was so strong that I knew something bad had happened. I debated waiting until later to call home because back in Albany it would be 3am, but decided that I couldn’t wait to find out what was going on so I called home. With a sense of dread, I called my parents. Of course, calling at that time, I woke up my dad who told me that his father, my Grandpa Abe had died.
Grandpa Abe had been in his 90’s and had led a long life. My dad told me that Sunday night, walking back from dinner at his assisted living complex; Grandpa Abe collapsed and died on the spot. It was completely unexpected. One minute he was eating dinner, the next he had gotten up, walked a couple of feet, and the next thing anyone knew, he was gone. I guess, everything considered, that’s a pretty good way to go. There wasn’t any pain, it was over practically immediately, and he had been healthy until the end. His heart just gave out.
I was, of course, shocked by the news. I always knew that Grandpa Abe, and everyone really, would die at some point, but no one expected anything like that. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know how I felt about the whole thing. I really hadn’t known my Grandpa Abe that well. For most of my life, he lived in Florida so I rarely saw him. It was not until his last few years, when I was in college, that he moved to an assisted living community about 10 minutes from our house. This probably will sound cruel, possibly even heartless, but I really wasn’t all that upset about Grandpa Abe dying. I mean, I barely knew him. Yes, he was my grandfather, and yes I talked to him a bit once he moved closer to us, but for all intents and purposes, he was just an old man that I rarely saw. For the majority that I knew him, he hadn’t expressed any interest in my life. He didn’t call me or my sister, didn’t ask questions about what was going on in our lives. The extent to which I communicated with Grandpa Abe was when he sent me a birthday card and I sent him a thank you note in response.
He was really, just slightly less than a stranger who happened to be related to me. This is the part that’s really going to sound heartless, but by the time he moved closer to us, I really had no interest in getting to know him. I had my own life, my own friends, and any conversation I tried to start with Grandpa Abe ended up devolving into him telling me about the newest Reader’s Digest or what particular part of his body was ailing him at that moment. Nothing about me, nothing about his life, nothing about trying to spend more time together, nothing about anything, really. Even living 10 minutes away from us, I still barely saw him.
Like I wrote earlier, it was 3am in Albany, so I told my dad that I would call back in a couple of hours when it was a more reasonable time there. In those hours, I really thought about Grandpa Abe, and what his death meant to me. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was sad that he died, in-so-much as you can be sad that anyone dies, but what really got to me, what really affected me, was the raw emotion I heard in my dad’s voice, even at 3am in the morning. I always knew that my father and his father didn’t have the closest of relationships. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I barely knew Grandpa Abe. From what I’ve heard, he really wasn’t that much of a loving father to his children, my dad and my aunt, I mean, he didn’t abuse them or anything, just wasn’t emotionally involved with them, so it’s not really surprising that he didn’t show much emotion to me.
After he died though, I started to reflect on my father’s relationship with his dad in Grandpa Abe’s later years in life. Ever since Grandpa Abe moved closer to us, my dad would call him at least once a week. He’d drive him to his doctor’s appointments, take him out to lunch, visit him and get him what he needed from the drug store, etc… My father had decided to try and become closer to his own father, even in his later years, and I have to respect that tremendously. The devotion and caring that my dad showed Grandpa Abe is an example that I hope to live up to when my own parents start to become incapable of taking care of themselves (who am I kidding? They’re going straight to the Old Fogies Home and we’re throwing away the key).
Not only that, but I started to regret all the missed opportunities to get to know Grandpa Abe. He had lived an amazing life and I knew next to nothing about it. He had been a medic in World War II, been one of the first chiropractors back in the US, and lived a long and eventful life. I regretted that when I was young, he had never taken the time to get to know me, and when I was older, I had never taken the time to get to know him. All his memories, all his stories were now lost and I’d never be able to hear them. After he died, it didn’t matter that he had never tried to share his life with me, it was just the fact that they were gone forever.
The thing that hit me the hardest though, that affected me tremendously, was that I started to imagine what my dad must be going through and I started imagining what it will be like when one of my own parents dies. That really did it. I’m pretty lucky in that I grew up in a loving home (even if we didn’t get cable TV until I went away to college). The thought of losing my mom or dad, knowing that it’s going to happen eventually, that it’s inevitable, was very powerful.
I wasn’t really that sad that Grandpa Abe died, but I was upset because my father was so affected. I felt sad for his pain, if not my own.
Sorry if this entry bored people, it has nothing to do with any Japan experience, but in writing down about important days, this was one of them.
Tuesday December 14, 2004
Tuesday was my last Eikawa (Adult Conversation) Class. I know I haven’t really talked about it that much, outside of what Liz and I did for Halloween and what I did for Hanukah, but the Eikawa class was pretty fun. It was every Tuesday night from 7 to 9:30. Usually Liz planned the lesson where we would go over some topic to help the students improve their conversational skills. We would break a topic up into various activities and games in order to keep it exciting. The biggest problem with the Eikawa Class is that there was such a disparity in the conversational levels of the students. It’s hard to design a lesson when some of the people in the class can barely speak English and others are almost fluent. Tremendous credit goes to Liz who not only managed to overcome this difficulty, but also design a fun lesson. I have no idea what I’m going to do next year once she’s gone and I have to plan the lessons.
Anyway, for our last class, Liz and I wanted to have a party and at the same time have some English conversation involved. What we ended up doing is having a dinner party at a local Italian restaurant. A couple weeks before the actual class, we scouted out possible locations and picked this place because it was big, the food was good, and they offered us a great deal for a group rate. We borrowed their menu and Liz translated it from Japanese to English and before the final Eikawa class, we handed out copies and told the people in the class they had to decide what they wanted to order, and the night of the dinner party, they had to order what food they wanted in English.
That night, they dressed me up in an apron and a chef’s hat and I was the waiter for the Eikawa class, running around with a little notepad and pencil, taking orders from the students. Since my Japanese is pretty terrible (but steadily improving) it really forced the students to speak English to me since I wouldn’t understand their Japanese.
Overall, the evening was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. I wish someone had taken some pictures of me in my “Swedish Chef” get-up because I looked absolutely ridiculous. In May, the Eikawa class starts up again for another 10 weeks.
Wednesday December 15, 2004
Wednesday, I had two very important revelations, both related to each other. The first was that the Winter Vacation period was much longer than I had expected. School here ended on December 21st and I had expected, like most schools in the US, that it would start up again maybe January 2nd or 3rd, after New Years. Nope. School didn’t resume until January 11th. That’s a heck of a vacation. Once I found that out, I kind of regretted that I hadn’t gone home, but had decided to stay in Japan. Most of the other JETs either go home or go traveling for their winter vacations. Since I’m coming back to the US at the end of June for my friend’s wedding, I didn’t want to come back to the US in December, plus I wanted to save money for the airline ticket... I planned on going to Tokyo for a couple of days, but once I found out that the vacation was over three weeks long, I didn’t know what I would do with that much time off.
The second revelation occurred once I got back to my Board of Education Office, after school. Talking to Liz a bit, she told me that even though school’s closed and there aren’t any classes, as long as the BOE is open, we have to go to work. Even if we have nothing to do, we have to come into the office. If we didn’t want to come to work, we had to take nenkyu or personal time off. Some JETs I’ve talked to don’t have to go in to their BOE’s when school’s not in session, but not me. If the BOE’s open, because the other people who work their still have things to do, and I don’t take personal time, I have to go in. I get 20 days of nenkyu a year. Most of them, I’ve saving for when I go back to the US in June for a wedding that I’m going to. I’ll probably use at least 10 days, so I can spend two weeks in the states. The idea of having to come into work, even if I had nothing to do, and just sitting there, trying to look busy, or not even trying to look busy, for 8 hours, made absolutely no sense to me, but that’s Japan for you. It doesn’t matter if you’ve finished your work, or even if you don’t have any work to do. If your coworkers are there and you’re supposed to be there, you have to be there. The fact that that leaves the JETs with long stretches of time in our BOE’s when schools out and we have nothing to do, doesn’t matter. No exceptions to the rule, no special circumstances, no common sense…
Japan Observation Number 30: I don’t think I’ve discussed it up to this point, but like the US, once the end of November rolls around, Japan starts gearing up for Christmas. The decorations come out for all of the stores, holiday music starts playing on the speakers, Colonel Sanders and “Donald” McDonald get Santa makeovers, and every where you go, you see Christmas trees and presents. The funny thing is that very few Japanese are actually Christian. To them, Christmas is a totally secular holiday, with no religious connotations, where they give presents to each other.
I’ve always felt like an outsider around Christmas season. I mean, even though I love the aesthetic appeal of Christmas, it’s a beautiful holiday, and I love traditional Christmas songs like “White Christmas” and others, even if they are totally overplayed, I don’t celebrate it and the whole holiday season just serves to remind me that I’m a minority in an increasingly Christian society, where the majority is trying to impose its values on everyone else. I recently got into a discussion about this with someone, but even if Christians don’t think about the religious origins of Christmas, the non-Christians will never forget them, and because of this, Christmas will never become a totally secular holiday like Thanksgiving or even marginally secular holiday like Valentine’s Day and Halloween.
In Japan, it’s even worse. The sense of not feeling part of society in the US during Christmas season is multiplied untold number of times by the isolation and sense of not belonging in Japanese society in general. I feel like even more of an outsider. At least the Christian JETs get to feel like they have something in common with the Japanese around Christmas, a shared experience, if you will, but not me. Everywhere I go, people ask me what I do for Christmas in the US and I have to try and explain to them why I don’t celebrate it. At one of my school’s, Fujita-sensei asked me to give a presentation about how I celebrate Christmas and I had to tell him that I couldn’t do it. We started talking about Christmas and he said that I must think it’s pretty weird that everyone in Japan celebrates Christmas even though they’re not Christian. In response, I tried to explain to him that in rating weird things about Japan, the fact that all of them celebrate Christmas barely deserves a 1 out of 10 on the chart, in terms of strange things I’ve seen or experienced since I came here. He laughed.
So here’s my schedule for the end of December: The last day of classes is December 21. The next day, I have to go into the office with nothing to do. The day after that, the 23rd, is a holiday: the Emperor’s Birthday. The 24th, I have to go to the BOE. Same with the 27th and 28th. From the 29th to Monday January 3rd everyone has off. The week of January 3rd through January 7th, I had to go to work again, even if classes were still out. Monday January 10th was another holiday and classes started up again on the 11th. Makes absolutely no sense…
Tuesday December 21, 2004
Like I wrote above, this was the last day of classes. Both the teachers and the students at Nishigo 2nd, where I was that day, were pretty excited. The kids visibly so, the teachers, it was a little hard to tell, but you could see them looking at the clock pretty often, mentally counting down to when school finally ended. I only had two classes that day, both in the morning, so in the afternoon, I went with Itoh-san to a local car garage to buy snow tires for my car, which was pretty good timing because that afternoon was the first real day of snow we had in Japan.
Random Japan Observation 31: In Japan, everyone has two sets of tires for their cars. You have your Spring/Summer/Fall tires and you have your winter tires. Every winter, everyone in Japan takes off their rest-of-the-year tires, stacks them somewhere, usually outside their houses, and puts on their winter tires. Initially, I was a little confused by this practice and I tried to explain to some of the English teachers that back in the US, we really don’t change our tires every season, unless you live in an area that gets an ungodly amount of snow. They were all pretty flabbergasted about this nugget of information and wanted to know how people drove in the snow if we didn’t change to specifically winter tires. I told them that I guess that in the US we do a better job of plowing/salting the roads in the winter so we can get by with all-year tires instead of having two separate sets. As time went on and I would come to experience a Japanese Winter, I would find out that the above statement was VERY VERY true and that there’s practically no road maintenance in Japan (at least where I live) in terms of plowing the roads clean of snow, or at least putting salt down to help melt the snow or give tires improved traction. I would come to be very glad that I had my snow tires. My old tires that came with the car were getting pretty bald anyway, so in the spring, I’ll have to buy new non-winter tires.
Wednesday December 22, 2004 - Thursday December 23, 2004
I spent 8 hours this day at the B.O.E doing pretty much nothing. I surfed the internet a bit, read my book a little more. I was SO bored that I actually studied a little Japanese (Oh My God!)
That night was the Nishigo 1st Bonenkai. Stolen from the internet: “Bonenkai are year end parties that involve eating and (lots of) drinking. They are held during December before the new year. It is a time to eat and drink with family, friends or work mates. During the Bonenkai one tries to forget the bad things during the year and end the year on a good note and build stronger relationships between people.”
This usually involves lots and lots and tons of alcohol.
Two teachers from the school picked me up and we drove to this pretty swanky hotel about 40 minutes away where we would spend the night eating, drinking, singing karaoke, and drinking. Did I mention there would be drinking? Anyway, I had a pretty good time. My hotel room was interesting because instead of a normal Western hotel room, I stayed in a traditional Japanese style room, picture here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/detail?.dir=34e1&.dnm=9063.jpg&.src=ph
When everyone was at the hotel, we all went to our rooms for a bit to change clothes, take a shower, whatever before heading downstairs to the banquet room. The dinner/entertainment started off with one of the teacher performing a traditional fan dance which was amazing to watch (I wish I had a video camera). Dinner consisted of many small dishes that the hotel staff kept bringing out to us. Each dish was only big enough so that you got a good taste of what you were eating before the next one was brought out. Three of the male teachers, for reasons still unclear to me, were dressed up as women as part of the general entertainment. One of them was Fujita-sensei who is one of the English teachers. It was absolutely hilarious to see him dressed up in drag; especially since everyday at school he almost always wears a suit. When I took his picture: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/detail?.dir=34e1&.dnm=4444.jpg&.src=ph he begged me not to show it to his wife, who is a teacher at Kawatani, one of my other schools. I asked him if he knew what “Blackmail” meant and we both had a good laugh about that one. We played some quiz show type games that I could only watch because I couldn’t understand anything, and then Charades which I rocked at. Fujita-sensei was on my team and translated everything I said into Japanese so I was able to guess what the other teachers were trying to act out.
After dinner, dessert, and more dessert, we went downstairs to the hotel Karaoke room for some singing. Everyone sang at least a couple of songs and I got dragged into singing “Stand By Me” with Komatsu-sensei. He loves that song and he told me that his dream is to sing it to his future wife at their wedding. If that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is. After Karaoke, some of the teachers went off to drink some more, some went to bed, and some played Mahjong till the early hours of the morning. I watched them playing Mahjong for a while but I had no idea what they were doing and eventually I went to bed.
In the hallway outside our hotel rooms, were a couple of random Japanese guys from other schools or businesses, totally passed out on the floor. All year long, the Japanese are so reserved and stoic (anal really) and during Bonenkais, they let it all lose; all the pent up emotions from the whole year come charging out helped along by a veritable river of alcohol. It was a lot of fun for me to watch as an observer, but I don’t think it can be too psychologically healthy.
One of the oddest points of the evening was when one of the teachers at Nishigo 1st, I don’t even know his name, came up to me totally drunk, and started telling me that he wished we talked more at school. Now, to truly understand just how bizarre this was, you have to realize that first of all, he had never spoken a single word to me the whole year up until that point. I mean I didn’t even know he spoke English until he started jabbering away at me. The other weird thing was that once he got going, he started talking to me like I was his life-long buddy or something, tell me about his marriage, his kids, which students he liked and disliked, etc… He just kept going on and on. He must have talked my “ear off” for over an hour. It was just bizarre.
Funnily enough when school started again in January, he once again never said a word to me. I don’t know if he forgot about our conversation or not, but it was like it had never happened. Talking about the experience with other JETs, I found out that this was a frequent occurrence with us, that a teacher will confess the world to us at a Bonenkai, totally drunk, but back at school, not a word.
Pictures from the night can be found here: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=34e1&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Thursday morning, we all woke up pretty early; around 8am to go have the hotel’s breakfast. I felt pretty bad for some of the teachers that morning as they obviously wanted to sleep more because they had been up so late drinking the night before. The breakfast buffet or whatever was packed. The whole place was filled with teachers from other schools and business men who had all had their Bonenkais at the same hotel.
I ate breakfast with the vice-principal and principal. The vice-principal (Kyoto-sensei) kept looking at what I was eating.
Japan Observation 32: The Japanese don’t have any “breakfast” food. They will eat the same foods that they eat for lunch and dinner at breakfast too. There is no equivalent of cereal, bagels (how I miss you!) eggs or whatever. It would as if people in the US had steak and potatoes for breakfast. A typical Japanese breakfast consists of rice, Miso soup, fish, and a salad. I couldn’t imagine eating that stuff for breakfast.
So Kyoto-sensei and Kocho-sensei (the principal) were chowing down on their traditional Japanese food. My stomach was a little queasy from the night before, not so much because of the alcohol, I hadn’t drunken that much, but because of all the strange foods I had at dinner, and the amount of food I had eaten.
So for me, breakfast consisted of some eggs, a couple slices of toast and a glass of Orange Juice. As they kept looking at my breakfast, I felt I had to explain to Kyoto-sensei and Kocho-sensei that in the US, we eat certain foods for each meal and that it’s just weird for me to eat “dinner” food for breakfast.
After breakfast, I was driven back to my car, parked at the B.O.E. office, I drove home, and went back to sleep until the afternoon. I had to be at work the next day again to spend 8 hours waiting to leave…
Wednesday December 29, 2004
Wednesday, I finally caved and bought a real digital camera. Up until this time, I had been taking photos with the built in camera in my cell phone, but if in a couple of days, I would be going to Tokyo for a small vacation, and I wanted a real camera to take pictures with. Doing some research on the internet, I had finally picked out the camera I wanted: The Cannon Powershot S1 1S. http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=SupportDetailAct&fcategoryid=223&modelid=9824. One thing you should know is that in Japan, digital cameras are expensive no matter what they do. As a result, I figured that if I was going to spend a lot of money anyway, I might as well spend a little more and actually buy a pretty decent camera instead of just a simple point-and-shoot.
There was one problem though… In the US, the Powershot S1 costs about $350, which is a pretty decent price, all things considered. In Japan however, it cost about 6 Man, which is a little over $600. As much as I wanted that camera, I just couldn’t spend that much money, especially knowing how much cheaper it was in the US. For about 2-3 weeks, I tried to think of all kinds of crazy schemes to buy it in the US and ship it here, but it just wouldn’t work out. So On Wednesday, I finally caved and went to buy it.
Of course, having actually decided to buy it finally, it wouldn’t be that easy. When I told the store clerk in my broken Japanese that I wanted that camera, he let loose with a string of Japanese that I didn’t understand at all. For about 10 minutes we tried going back and forth trying to communicate (I had stupidly left my pocket dictionary at home). Finally he got me to understand that they were all sold out of the camera I wanted and they wouldn’t get in any more until the next shipment on January 10th. Then I spent the next 15-20 minutes trying to explain to him that I need the camera before that because I was going to Tokyo for a vacation, and I wanted to know if I could just buy the display model, since it was in mint condition.
Eventually, he understood what I was getting at and went to talk it over with the Manager. He came back and said that since it was the display model, they’d knock a couple of Yen off the price (Yay!) and I could buy it. They ended up selling it to me at about 4.5 Man, which I was very much willing to live with and with the money I saved on the price, I splurged and bought the 1gig memory card for the camera, instead of the 512mb one. Overall, I was very satisfied with the outcome.
Friday December 31, 2004
Before we left for the New Year’s vacation, Shibayama-san, one of the women in my B.O.E. office had been kind enough to invite me over to her house to spend New Year’s with her and her family. I had been over once before, when I first arrived in Japan and I had enjoyed myself, plus she had two children generally around my age, so I agreed. So that day, I drove to a local liquor store and bought a 3500 Yen (around $35) bottle of champagne as a thank you gift for Shibayama-san’s family. Back before the vacation, she had told me she would call me before coming to pick me up, so I waited in my apartment for her call.
No one called. Around 10pm, I realized that no one was going to call and that I would be spending New Year’s alone in my apartment. I was pretty bummed out by this and actually a little angry at Shibayama-san (more on this when I finally go back to work). Around Midnight, I was getting a little sick and tired of watching crazy Japanese people do crazy Japanese things for New Years, none of which I understood, and I was feeling a little lonely and depressed so I called home.
The one good thing about the time difference is that Midnight Friday in Japan is only 10am in Albany. I talked to my parents for a while and they celebrated the Japanese New Year with me over the phone. It was good talking to them, but it made me feel a bit more alone talking to my parents thousands of miles away as the Midnight Struck, instead of celebrating it with anyone else here.
Sunday January 2, 2005 - Monday January 3, 2005
Sunday and Monday I spent planning my vacation in Tokyo. I was going to take 5 days of Nenkyu (personal time) so I’d have from December 29th to January 11th off from work. The 5 days were for the week of January 3 - 7 when the B.O.E. was open again, but classes were still out. I was going to spend 4 nights and 5 days in Tokyo from January 4 through the 8th. I did research online, reserved my hotel room, found out when and how much the train would cost, and booked two different tours in Tokyo.
After the let-down of New Years, I was very excited to get out of my apartment, and the snow covered Nishigo, and head down to the Big City.
Next Entry: Tokyo Vacation Day 1