life on a stratovolcano ^{oshima edition}

Well, it’s Tuesday, and I’m definitely hurting. The other Island JETs decided that their drab, boring islands weren’t good enough, and all made a pilgrimage to the bustling metropolis of Oshima. Needless to say, much beach-going and partaking of certain beverages which may or may not be alcoholic ensued.

Paulette and her boyfriend, Minh came first. I would have been excited.

Except that their boat came in at five AM, three and a half hours after I went to sleep.

On the other side of the island.

The day after my second welcome party.
Feeling about as cheery as a death row inmate, I forced myself out of bed and splashed some cold water on my face. The entire trip to the port I kept praying that Paulette and Minh wouldn’t actually be there; partially because of their probable cheeriness and readiness to get the day started, and partly so I could fake being angry later. Bleary-eyed, I stepped out of the car at the port and squinted, looking around for them. Even though it was misting outside, the sun was already hot (the damn thing rises at 4:30 am here), so the wake-up part of my brain was extremely confused.

As soon as I saw Paulette and Minh, however, I was immediately filled with the intense joy of schadenfreude: they looked just as bad as I did. Evidently the overnight boat ride hadn’t treated them very well.

Tyler: “Welcome to Oshima.”
Minh: “Nice to meet you.”
Paulette: “Are we going to do something now?”
Tyler: “I was actually thinking of going back to sleep.”
Paulette and Minh: “THANK GOD!”

So we all headed back to the house, and after eating several boxes of fruit loops (thanks mom), we proceeded to try and pass out. Unfortunately, electricity on Oshima is a funny thing. During the typhoon, we had absolutely no problem at all with it, but now that it was misting outside, the whole damn island’s power went out. This means no air conditioning, no fans, and no refrigeration. The inside of the apartment started to cook, but we opted for heatstroke instead of going out into the sunlight.

Six hours later, we all woke up, and headed to the airport to pick up the next member of our crew, Rachel. We were hungry, but I really don’t know that much about restaurants on the island due to my penchant for cooking. Fortunately, my predecessor Rebecca was a restaurant-o-phile, and so Paulette knew of a good place by the airport. We arrived, and since my car is so low to the ground, I opted to park on the street rather than actually going into the parking lot.

We had an awesome meal of sandwiches and pumpkin soup with mango ice cream, and then headed back outside. I stepped up to my car, and started to open the door. Minh was the first to realize that something was wrong.

Minh: “Uhh… Wasn’t your car on the street earlier?”
Tyler: “Yeah, I guess so.”
Minh: “But it’s in the parking lot now.”

I looked at my car, then glanced at space on the street where my car was, then back at my car, and the street again.

Tyler: “I guess someone moved it.”

On Oshima, you don’t worry about anyone stealing your car. It’s just not something that you think about. Because of this, I always leave my keys in the ignition. Evidently someone thought that my parking job on the street was unsafe or something, and was kind enough to move my car for me. None of us were too surprised.

We grabbed Rachel from the airport and promptly headed to the beach, where we lounged around for a while. Eventually, we noticed a circle of people down the beach a ways, with one person in the middle holding a stick, and a watermelon on the ground. The girl in the middle was spun around with her eyes closed, and everyone in the circle urged her toward the melon. Evidently her melon-smashing skills weren’t up to par, because she managed to miss the thing completely and break the stick in half. Same result with the next person. Paulette, the social butterfly, ran over to them and started trying to communicate. Eventually, they said the magic words:

“Do you want to try?”

Paulette looked like a little kid at Christmas who just realized that a toy truck flipped over in her front yard. She feigned protest for a few seconds, but was way too excited to keep it up. They gave her a stick, and she spun around a few times. After a few stumbles, Paulette walked right over to the melon and smashed the hell out of it. It was a melon slaughter — pieces went flying a few feet. I’ve never seen Paulette happier.

Paulette: “We should do this EVERY DAY! THAT WAS SO AWESOME!”
Rachel: “That melon was thirty dollars. That would get pretty expensive.”
Paulette: “Do I look like I’m anywhere close to caring?.”

We noticed that Rob’s boat was bearing down on the port at a stupidly fast speed though, and we decided it best to start toward the dock. Paulette, full of melon-slaying adrenaline, took the lead.

Rob was pretty much instantly recognizable in the crowd — he was a six foot tall pale redhead guy with aviators and a white fedora. The essence of gaijin.

We chilled out at the beach for a while longer, and then decided to go to the outdoor onsen. It’s a Japanese social custom (read: punishable by death requirement) that you shower before you enter the hot springs. I hopped into one of the shower stalls and stripped down, only to turn around and spy four little eyes peeking at me from behind the curtain, giggling. I sneered at them, and they ran away, but I definitely saw them peeking in a few more times during my shower. Eventually, I saw their dad walk up and start laughing, and then turn back around, allowing them to continue their voyeurism. Little bastards.

We sat in the hot springs for a while and bitched about our jobs, but soon we got hungry. We all went back into the shower room to clean off (because you get icky in onsen), and as we were dressing, Rob made a vaguely unsettling realization.

Rob: Uhh… Guys? Where’s my underwear?
Minh: It can’t have gone anywhere. Look in our stuff.
Rob: No, it’s definitely not there.
Me: Maybe you just looked over it.
Rob: They’re bright red. There’s no way I would have missed them.
Minh: Well, I guess someone wanted them.

Rob would have absolutely none of that, though, and insisted that we go back to the beach and look for his underwear. We humored him, and of course, he never found them.

So we started making plans for the night. We decided on the first yakitori place that I went to for the office party, and that we would get our beverages beforehand. At the store, we rain into Machiko (a.k.a. Sexy and Dangerous) and her friend (whom we dubbed Safe and Prudent, and which we later found out was neither). We invited them over as well. After them, we ran into Michi, another teacher, and asked him to come. He was pretty excited, and we all headed to the yakitori place. Unfortunately, they were full, so we checked restaurant after restaurant until we found one that would take us: a little hole in the wall place with lots and lots of old people. About fifteen minutes into our meal, we heard a sound akin to fingernails scratching down a chalkboard in hell. Please take note of the little girl for later:

That went on all night long, and was a major buzz kill. We ate all manner of strange and delicious creatures (the moans-of-ecstasy-consensus being that the french fries were the best), as well as some not-so-delicious ones. Ever eat stir-fried chicken skin? Yuck.

Anyway, that guy who kept on singing with the speaker in our room turned up to full blast started harassing Rachel and Paulette (whom he thought was Russian for some reason), and tried to get them to sing. We left, and my last memory of the place was him trying to follow us with the aformentioned little girl in the video holding him by the arm and dragging him back in.

We went back to my place and had a dance and Uno party, and partook in much delicious food and beverage.

Rob and Paulette also showed off their mad dance skills.

We started playing “Egyptian Ratscrew UNO,” and I started smacking the cards almost every single time, which lead Rob to invent the mantra of the trip, “TYLER SUCKS!”, which he had our guests repeat several times throughout the night. Bastard.

The next day we shipped Paulette and Minh off without much fanfare, and didn’t actually end up doing very much until late in the afternoon, when we headed to Habuminato. Habu is a very old fishing port on Oshima that was created when an earthquake hit c.a. 1700AD and formed a natural harbor. It’s been in constant use ever since, but the fishing village still looks almost exactly the same as it did a hundred years ago. All the houses are still traditional, and the area is not a major tourist attraction, so the area is completely authentic. We went to the geisha museum there where creepy animatronic geishas move like Linda Blair, and then explored the rest of the town. Midway through, we found Iwase running, who took us to a sushi restaurant in Habu.

When we heard “Sushi,” we let out a quiet collective groan, as it is easy to tire of the stuff after eating it every other day for a month. We entered this tiny little restaurant and opened the menu, which was, of course, completely in kanji. One thing really threw us off though: the prices were in kanji too. Usually in Japan prices are numbered with our arabic numbers, but here they were really intimidating Chinese characters. We figured “what the hell,” and said “nigiri” over and over again until they brought us some food. After all, what difference does it make what sushi restaurant you go to?

Evidently a whole hell of a lot, because what we ended up biting into was the culinary equivalent of sex.

The nigiri was SO good, and SO fresh, that I fell in love with it all over again. The fact that this restaurant actually had lager beer made it a hell of a lot better as well. We were happy.

Since I’d been drinking, Rachel fired up the car and we headed to Mr. Iwase’s house. The place is down a sketchy, dark, winding forest road that isn’t even paved, so Rachel had a really fun time navigating my “giant” Honda Civic there. We arrived, and Mr. Iwase brought us in for four-course snacks (including grapes!), coffee, shochu, and juice. Talk about over the top hosting! We stayed and talked about his time in San Fransisco for a while (Rachel’s home town), as well as many other pleasantries. Rachel bonded with him over his book collection as well, and we all were glowing from being showered with such attention and edible gifts. Oshima (and Iwase) is awesome!

We left at about 9 o’clock, and proceeded to head to my house. We watched some Michael Jackson music videos (the island air does weird things to you), and then started the twenty minute trek on foot to my favorite bar. Midway through, we stop at a public bathroom. Rob and I had just entered the men’s room, when we heard Rachel let out an ear-piercing scream from the other bathroom. Rob just kind of stood there and peed, and I jumped up and ran over to see what was up. Rachel was sheet-white and freaking out.

Me: “What happened? I thought you were about to get raped or something?”
Rachel: “Sp…Spiders…Tons of them! HUGE! HUGE!!!!!”
Me: “Yeah, that happens here.”

So we kept on until we reached the bar, “C.S. Japan,” a glowing mecca in the island night. The front of the bar is made of glass, and I counted about twenty people inside playing darts, billiards, and just drinking at the bar. It looked pretty sweet. We headed over to a pool table, and someone came over to take our orders. We asked for some drinks to start, and began playing nine ball and cutthroat. We then decided that it would be a great idea to eat more at this bar, and started poring over the katakana menu.

Rachel: “Fu-ra-i-do-po-ta-to-su, furaidopotatosu. Fried potatoes! ROB! OH MY GOD THEY HAVE FRIES!”
Rob: “We must have them. Order them. Order two! and what’s this?”
Rachel: “Chi-ki-n-do-re-na. Chicken Dorena? Chicken Doren? Chicken Darren? What is that? I think it’s a sandwich.”
Me: “I’ll go ask.”

In reality, I just walked up and ordered it, and it turned out to be a great mashed up chicken dish that WASN’T rice (lots of points there). After we started eating, my friend Gus walked in and sat down. As we were about to leave, the waiter brought over a pancake covered in chocolate with bananas, whipped cream and ice cream.

Gus: “Tyler, it’s your birthday cake!”
Me: (makes loud gaijin noises of surprise and approval) Thank you so much!

Everyone in the bar sang happy birthday to me as we downed the cake from the oh-so-nice Gus. We thanked him some more, and decided to go ahead and leave. It was only midnight. We received the warmest “goodbye” I’ve ever experienced at a bar before, with the bartenders shaking our hands and thanking us, and people coming up and wishing me a happy birthday. I felt like a celebrity. We left the bar almost completely sober, and about fifty meters in Rob and I had the most pivotal conversation of the night.

Rachel: “Your island is so awesome. I wish we had a place like that.”
Me: “Man, I wish I had more to drink.”
Rob: “Yeah, me too.”
Rachel: “You guys realize that there is a bar RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”
Me and Rob: “Ohhhh yeahhhh!”
Me: “Wanna go back?”
Rachel: “After everyone said goodbye like that?”
Rob: “Back to the bar!!!”
All of us: *singing “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky* (I’m not kidding)

So we roll back into the bar, belting out The Eye of the Tiger like the gaijin we are: “dun, DUN dun DUN, DUN dun DUN, dun DUN DUNNNNNNN!”

Everyone in the bar is cracking up, and looking all “why the hell are you back here?”

“Three more beers!” I shouted to the bartender. I threw Gus my camera, and he took this awesome picture, which is totally unedited:

Suddenly, our lives turned into every beer commercial ever made. We were chatting it up with everyone, making jokes, and turning sexier by the minute. Rob told me there was a guy who spoke flawless English because he lived in the states, so I had to go speak with him.

Me: So did you live in the states or something?
Him: Yeah, I went to high school in Tennessee.

Whoa.

Me: No way, I lived in Tennessee! What city did you live in?
Him: Knoxville.

*add sound of records screeching to a halt*

Me: HOLY SHIT! ME TOO!

Oddly enough, however, he seemed completely and totally uninterested in talking to me, but I will post a picture of him because I kind of have to.

Gus then invited us over to play darts with him and a couple from Tokyo who looked a little bit odd, but we had a blast nonetheless. Sorry Rachel, but this was the only picture that I got of the group:

We played darts for a while, but all I really remember was winning a lot and Rob yelling “TYLER SUCKS” a lot. Thanks, buddy. Just for that, I’m going to post this picture of you after you missed the dartboard three times in a row:

Rob sucks at darts

So Rachel started talking to the girl in the group, who was wearing something especially bizarre — a shirt with a pair of glasses on it. Evidently — and this is what Rachel gained from casual conversation — the girl was put in a mental institution when her husband died, but got out because she fell in love with this other guy… Because of his GLASSES! I’ve never really heard of a glasses fetishist, but whatever.

Anyway, our commercial finally came to an end, and we stumbled out of the bar. Suddenly, an idea occurred to me: “Do you guys want to go to the beach?”

Everyone was really enthusiastic about it, and we all ran down to the black sand, stripped down to our underwear (Rob was actually in his underwear before either of us were anywhere close to the beach. I think he was running and taking off clothes at the same time), and did a running dive into the ocean. It was glorious. We swam around for a while by the moonlight, with the billions of stars smearing Oshima’s sky being reflected in the ocean, and in that moment we were infinite.

Laughing, we all came back onto the beach and started putting back on clothing, when Rob said, “You wanna do that again?”

Hell yeah!

So Rob and I tore our shirts back off and sprinted down into the waves. A few seconds later, we emerged again, much to a laughing Rachel’s amusement. We started trekking back up to wash off, and stopped by a palm tree for some pictures:

Yeah, I think that picture sums up the whole trip nicely. I love you guys!

I just got back from volleyball, where I made an important self-discovery: I am a terrible volleyball player.

In other news, these past two weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of classes, caffeine and carnage. I made up a hell of an activity that was almost entirely dependent on a worksheet yesterday. The teachers even stood around congratulating me on it for a few seconds. Triumphantly I hit the print button. Several seconds later, and ten minutes before class, I discovered that the printers were broken. All three of them. The teachers knew, of course, but nobody wanted to break the bad news to me.

Iwakura: It’s okay, just do them by hand.
Me: You want me to write this entire worksheet out in ten minutes?
Iwakura: I’ll go ahead to class, you do what you need to.
Me: Thank you so much.

So, with what looked very much at the time like a gesture of goodwill, I frantically finished the worksheet by hand and threw it through the copy machine. Seven minutes late, I bolted out of the office and nearly knocked over a group of girls congregated on the other side of the door. “Gomennasai!” I shouted, and pounded down the hallway to the classroom. I slid open the door, and, surprisingly, everyone was just… Sitting there. including Mr. Iwakura. They all stared at me silently as I made my way to the front of the classroom, and I proceeded to teach a pretty awkward lesson.

In much more fun news, my welcoming party was on Friday, and it was a total riot. Tanaka-san came with his friend to pick me up, as they were planning on out-drinking me as they love doing to newbies. Fortunately, they underestimated this American’s alcohol-imbibing abilities.

So we arrived at the establishment, which was a traditional Japanese yakitori restaurant (think kabobs, but a thousand times better), and were greeted by the delightful owners. They are a husband and wife, probably around sixty years old, and they are really damn cute. We removed our shoes and stepped up into the private room reserved for parties, and were greeted by several delicious looking dishes, as well as already-poured frothy mugs of beer.

Tanaka and myself took a seat on the floor and immediately began to chow down.

As you can see, the food was deliciously impaled with sharp wooden sticks.

I swear, I’m in Japan. See?

Anyway, after a while they did their obligatory toasts, one of which was in English and directed at me. Luckily for you, I caught it on video.

I also swore I’d never do this, but it’s amazing what seven or eight beers will do to you:

I also got hit with the “sexy beam” many, many times. What is the sexy beam? Who better to demonstrate than one of my fellow teacher who was sexy-beaming me all evening! (Julia, I swear it’s not as dirty as it sounds. Only almost.)

Oh yeah, and another video:

As the night went on, the challengers to my drinking prowess were dropping like flies. And I would have won, if it wasn’t for this guy:

I mean, honestly, what was I thinking? He’s a bear.

Anyway, we took my loss in stride, and when you’re this badass, you don’t need to win.

Goodnight.

Ok, anything bad I said about the classes that I teach (I don’t know if I did or not), I completely and totally take back. I just got finished with the most responsive, fun class that I’ve taught so far. I’m saying exponentially better than the others. Before, I felt like Ben Stein on The Wonder Years, but now I feel like… Well, I can’t really think of any awesome teachers off the top of my head. But they’re really great!

So they’re letting me go an hour early so I can get to my house before the typhoon destroys the island. Everything is dead quiet outside right now, and it has stopped raining. The calm before the storm, perhaps? I’m really happy to have that giant bar of chocolate right now…

Maybe, possibly, by some slim chance, the power won’t go out, and I’ll be able to go down to an overlook and take pictures of the tsunamis coming in. Iwase told me that he once saw a 10 meter high wave! That’s like 30+ feet! So if you’re lucky (and I’m lucky), I’ll get a video up of the carnage later tonight.

As for now, I’m trying to figure out how to close my windows… This could be very bad if I can’t. Also, if school is canceled tomorrow because of the typhoon, I still have to go. Not kidding. Even though I have nothing to do, they fully expect me to risk life and limb to come to class. I guess I’ll earn my pay this month!

Well, I’ve been tracking the route of this big-ass typhoon, and it doesn’t look too good for poor little Oshima.

In better news, it’s my birthday! Which means absolutely nothing here! I realize how much I looked forward to my last birthday, being 21 and all, but now I’m 22 there’s not too much different. I guess the kids don’t look at me as strangely in class anymore when I tell them my age, but besides that, it’s kind of just another day.

Except that my co-workers are AWESOME and bought me this comically large chocolate bar. I plan on subsisting on this whilst the storm ravages the island.

I also got a really awesome couple of care packages from back home filled with food, books, Tennessee stuff, and a few presents that I have yet to unwrap. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Classes have been extremely stressful due to the botched first round of self introductions. I’ve streamlined them a lot more, and made it so I don’t have to put nearly as much energy into them. I will be SO glad once this week is over.

Two girls stopped me in the hallway today and sang “Happy Birthday” to me. It was really cute; I wish I had my camera then.

Lots of radio announcements are going on via the island’s loudspeakers. The only word I recognize is “Typhoon.” I guess that’s the most important one.

Anyway, I’m buckling down and bracing in. Wish me luck.

Well, today was my first day at Minami High School (the marine school), and let me tell you, it was a blast. The teachers are all expected to give speeches in front of the students during assembly on the first day, so I sent my speech to Tanaka-san yesterday via e-mail for translation. This morning I went into work, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Tanaka-san! Thanks so much for helping me with that speech last night. Did you finish translating it?
Tanaka: Yes.
Me: Great! Can you print it for me?
Tanaka: Yes.

Unfortunately, “yes” has a very different meaning in Japan than in America. Most Japanese people are so reluctant to upset, that they will withhold bad news from you at the expense of all else. When it came time for me to go on-stage, I made my way to the gymnasium and stood near the back. When I entered, some guy was giving a speech and waving around a huge picture of the eruption of Mount Mihara back in 1986. I’m not sure if he was trying to scare the hell out of the students, inspire them with awe, or give them a science lesson, but I didn’t understand a word of it, and therefore shut down. I returned to reality a few minutes later when Tanaka-san poked me.

Tanaka: It’s your turn. Go to the front.
Me: Cool, I’m ready. Can I have my translated speech?
Tanaka: Umm… I have been very busy.
Me: You don’t have the speech?
Tanaka: No, I have it. Here.

Predictably, he handed me a sheet of paper with my speech, in English, verbatim. “Great” I told myself. “Oh well, at least I’ve got something to work with.” As it turns out, Stein Baraq, who is the American exchange student at Minami High School, was to go onstage with me. That didn’t bother me one bit, as he looked like an absolute nervous wreck, and I felt totally in control.

As we boarded the stage, everyone fell very, very quiet. Many of the students had really googley eyes, gaping at the two new gaijin that had arrived at their school.

I stepped up to the podium and hunched over the microphone, which was at about the level of my navel. It is Japanese tradition to put the microphone at the level of the principal, and let me tell you, he’s not a very tall guy.

“Hello,” I started. “I am very excited to be in Oshima.”

Hunched over like a Quasimodo, I proceeded to deliver the cheesiest, slowest, most articulated speech I’ve ever even imagined. I was pretty angry about not having a translation, as I lost my audience at the word “excited.” I attempted to draw them back in by acting out what I was saying. “I come from Tennessee, which is sort of close to Florida,” and I’d draw up an imaginary map. Blank faces, more talking. I finished on an okay note, and, surprisingly Stein managed to get his speech out, in Japanese, without collapsing.

Afterward, many of the teachers congratulated me on my “superb speech” (I think I threw up in my mouth a little), and all the kids were going “nice job” and the like.
I went back to my office afterward, and continued studying the Japanese that I had worked on that morning, when the kids started invading the office. I was really surprised, because the teachers were talking to them like they were friends and not students. For some reason, this wasn’t how I envisioned teaching in Japan.

A few seconds later, two female students walked up to talk to the teacher next to me, and one of them turned to me.

Girl: Hi!
Me: Hello.
Girl: I’m rich.
Me: What?
Girl: I’m rich.

At this point I start laughing hysterically.

Girl: My name is Yu.
Me: Nope. You’re “rich girl” from now on.

A few minutes later, another girl comes walking through the office, and I noticed she was carrying a “Nightmare Before Christmas” bag. I told her “Nighmare Before Christmas o suki desu.” (I like). She got a huge grin, and started barraging me with a flurry of questions in Japanese. Finally, she asked, with much struggling:

Girl: Who… is… your… favorite… character?
Me: Jack, of course.

Being the big genki gaijin that I am, I began to sing “Jack’s Lament”, and everyone around me was all “sugoi!!!” She giggled and ran off.

About two hours later, she returned with a little Jack Skellington toy, and she handed it to me with the biggest grin on her face.

Girl: “Present”

Jesus, how sweet is that? I love these kids.