we wish you a merry christmas...

So I just had my first Christmas weekend in Japan! It was my first time not being home or with family for Christmas, which was definitely very strange and a little bit lonely, but thanks to the wonderful thing known as technology, I was able to Skype with my family on Christmas Eve, which was great!

Anyway, the break started off with taking a trip to Miyagi Prefecture to volunteer to help with recovery from the earthquake/tsunami in March of last year. I wrote about it in detail here, so please take the time to read it! It was a very good experience, and I'm glad to have had the chance to do a little bit to help out. The bus left at night, so most of the day was spent buying things and getting ready.

I came back to Chiba bright and early (aka 5:45am) on Christmas Eve, whereupon I promptly went back to bed for a few hours. After getting up and failing to do anything productive, I went out for a ladies' night with a few Wisconsin ALTs! We all dressed up a little (hurray for excuses to wear dresses) and had dinner at a (semi-)fancy restaurant not far from Chiba Station, which had an excellent view of the illumination in Chuo Park. It was a Christmas dinner course, which meant it was all decided for us beforehand, and it was absolutely delicious!

Afterward we went to Port Tower, which I have been to several times before but never at night, so that was pretty cool. Although we missed the fireworks (which was kind of the whole reason we decided to go there, oops), we managed to see a short street performance of a guy flipping cones (cooler than it sounds) and the short light show of the Port Tower illumination. We also went up the tower, and saw a gorgeous view of Chiba at night!

On Christmas Day, I went down to Togane to eat nabe (Japanese hot pot) at a friend's Christmas Party! It obviously wasn't quite the same as being at home, but it was a lot of fun and I had a really great time eating and talking with everybody, so it was still a good Christmas! I got to see a few people I hadn't seen in a while and meet a few more, which is always great.

Wednesday was back to work as usual (Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, but I took the day off), followed by a trip to library and the discovery of a restaurant specializing in cabbage rolls/stuffed cabbage (it was delicious).

On Thursday my friend James showed up at my work because he had to go to the immigration office downstairs, so after work we went to Chiba Station together and had coffee with a friend of his, complete with Bananagrams! Then I went to my frisbee team's bounenkai, which was super fun! We started out at the restaurant we had reserved and then moved to another izakaya, after which most people went home but a few of us continued on to one last bar, since one of my teammates was kind enough to offer to drive us home. It was a late night, but a good one!

And then today was my last day of work for the year 2012! Apparently there is a tradition at work of ordering lunch together on the last and first work days of the year, so today we all had sushi, which was very tasty. Then after work, I went on a last-minute shopping trip to LaLaport with my friend Laura! All in all, a very good last work day. :D

And so begins my first real break for New Year's! New Year's is a really big holiday in Japan, so I have until January 4th off (even though it's a little silly to have to come back then since Jan. 4 is a Friday), and the thought of having a week's vacation is pretty awesome. I can't believe it's almost 2013 - so much has happened this year - but I'll spare you all my reflections for now. Maybe next time! :)

nanohana volunteer bus

So last weekend I took part of a volunteer bus to go help with recovery in Tohoku from the Great East Japan Earthquake (and tsunami)! It was a very good experience, and I may very well go again sometime (though maybe not until it gets a little warmer).

I decided to participate because I wanted to go somewhere and do something over Christmas weekend, and as I'd been thinking about volunteering before, it seemed like a perfect chance! I went on a trip organized by Nanohana Bus Company, which I had found out about via work and which I chose because I could get on at Chiba Station instead of Tokyo, which was very convenient. The fee to participate was also fairly low (10000 yen), which included transportation to and from the site, lunch, and even admission into a hot spring!

So after purchasing lots of necessary items (steel-lined rubber boots, work gloves, masks, goggles, bright blue jumpsuit, etc), I headed to Chiba Station on Saturday night, ready to spend the night on the bus before arriving in Miyagi Prefecture in the morning. The bus stopped at a few places including Chiba and Tokyo, slowly filling up with volunteers, most of whom seemed to be participating on their own like me. Because of a last-minute cancellation, I was lucky enough to have the two-seat row to myself, which made it much easier to get comfortable and sleep (though I can really sleep anywhere, haha).

Around 5:30am we stopped at a rest station to have breakfast and get changed (we did stop a couple of times during the night as well), before getting to our final destination around 8! We didn't find out exactly where we were going until shortly before we got there: a town called Minamisanriku (南三陸町), on the coast in Miyagi Prefecture, which suffered a lot of damage in the tsunami last year. According to our guide, the government has officially declared Minamisanriku as recovered, but there is still a long way to go before things can be considered normal again. On our way to our volunteer site, we could see huge piles of rocks and things still scattered about.

When we got to the site, they split us into two groups and assigned each one to a different area. The day's task: uprooting all the grass and plants that had grown over the land and then going through the soil to remove all the glass, trash, rocks, and other random objects that were buried there. We each had a little sickle (which I've never used before), and after a brief explanation, we set right to work! It wasn't easy - they told us to try and totally uproot things when possible and a lot of the plants were settled in pretty tight (I had to admire their tenacity! ), and it was tough to be constantly squatting or bending toward the ground, but the weather was bright and clear and warmer than any of us had expected (I shed several layers as the day went on), and it actually felt really nice to be outside doing some physical labor instead of sitting at a desk all day for a change!

It was also pretty interesting to see what came out of the ground, though thinking about where they had come from and how they had gotten there was also a little sobering at times. There was a lot of broken glass and concrete/cement/rocks, as well as shells, trash, plastic, and pottery fragments. A couple of interesting things I found included an electric toothbrush head and a little Donald Duck charm bracelet, and I even saw a tin lunch box somewhere.

After working for a few hours (with plenty of breaks in between), we had an hour for lunch, which was a buffet of things like yakisoba, fried rice, soup, spaghetti, etc. I had a big appetite after working all morning, and it all tasted delicious! There was a fire going outside and they were even grilling oysters (though I'm not a big fan so I didn't try any).

After lunch we went back to work until about 4pm, when we wrapped up for the day, having cleared almost all of the area they gave us! After we got back on the bus, our guide explained that the work we did, while helpful in its own right, was just as much to help encourage the spirits of the people who lived there to not give up and to keep doing their best to rebuild, which was a really interesting thought. As the earthquake/tsunami happened over a year and a half ago now, the number of volunteers and visitors to the area has definitely decreased, but apparently still having volunteers come out has been motivating to the locals (and hopefully will continue to be!).

Next we drove to the shopping street to have dinner and buy souvenirs, which was pretty cool even though they were all in makeshift buildings. I had ramen for dinner with another lady who was on my volunteer bus, and enjoyed wandering around the little shops before we left for our next destination, the hot spring!

It was a hot spring inside a hotel, and it started to snow as we went inside. The onsen (hot spring) was pretty nice, with several different baths and even a sauna. My favorite part, though, was the outdoor onsen in the midst of heavy snow! It felt pretty amazing to soak after a long day's work and enjoy the beautiful view of the snow falling at the same time. I also got to talk with a few more of the ladies who had volunteered with me, which was cool.

After I left the bath (I can't stay in hot water for too long), there was still some time, so I bought some ice cream at the hotel gift shop and read some manga from the little library they had there (which I thought was pretty cool) while enjoying a live band that was playing Christmas music in the lobby. And then it was back onto the bus for the night ride back to Chiba! I definitely had no problem falling asleep after that, and managed to sleep pretty well until I got back just in time for the first bus back to my apartment.

All in all, it was a really great experience, though short, and like I said, I'm definitely considering doing it again. The earthquake and tsunami may have been over 18 months ago, but there is still so much left to be done, and I hope that people don't forget about it anytime soon.

monorail wine train!

Whoosh, this week went by fast - probably because it was full of fun events!

On Tuesday night I went out for a 忘年会 (bounenkai), or year-end party, which was for the ladies at my work but nonetheless included one of our male superiors, haha. It was at semi-fancy restaurant called Gotham with very delicious food, and I had a good time eating and drinking with everybody.

Wednesday I had dinner with one of my friends at a very cute place called Afternoon Tea, which was clearly decorated to appeal to women, haha. After that I went to salsa night again, which was fun as usual, even with only a few people.

On Thursday I had my last evening frisbee practice of the year, which was pretty chilly but still good - I even managed to catch a few goals during our scrimmage, which is a very rare occurrence, haha.

Yesterday I went on the Chiba Urban Monorail's wine train with a few of my coworkers, which was super super awesome! I wrote about it in more detail on my travel blog here (read it!), but basically we got to drink wine and eat dinner while riding the monorail, which was pretty much one of the coolest things I've done since I got here. :D Afterward we met up with our boss and sang karaoke, which was also super fun! Admittedly I didn't recognize most of the songs and failed a little bit at the Japanese ones I tried to sing (for some reason they were all super high or just hard -.-'), but it was great to have fun with my coworkers outside of work, since I don't get the chance to that often. :)

And in less than two hours I will be on a bus to go volunteer somewhere in Miyagi Prefecture! I have no idea where exactly I'll be or what I'll be doing, but I'm sure it will be a great experience (assuming I don't freeze to death). I'll certainly blog about it when I get back, so until next time. :D

chiba urban monorail wine train!

So yesterday I got to ride on the Chiba Urban Monorail's 'Wine Train', and it was amazing! Basically, it was a chance to ride on the monorail while enjoying wine and a bento dinner, along with the beautiful night scenery of Chiba!

Mono-chan!

I went with a few of my co-workers, and we met up at Chiba Minato Station, which is the beginning (or the end, depending on how you look at it!) of the monorail. The route for the event was to go all the way down one line, to Kenchomae Station, going back to Chiba Minato, then going down the other line to almost the end (though I don't remember which station exactly, oops) before ending at Chiba Station. The whole thing took an hour and a half, which after we got off I think we all agreed went by super fast!

Super classy.

When we got ready to board, there was a cute sign at the front of the car with the monorail mascot, Mono-chan, in a Christmas hat and holding a wine glass. When we stepped into the car, though, was the exciting part. Seeing the monorail car, which I've ridden many times before, full of tables with wine and bento boxes and decorated with little bunches of grapes (even all the ads had been changed to ones of wine!), was really really cool!

Delicious!

And then we were off! It was pretty amusing to see the regular monorail passengers at all the stations we passed through, who were clearly very confused (and probably jealous) to see us eating and drinking inside (can't blame them). There was both red and white wine (apparently enough for each person to have 2 bottles!), a delicious bento box, and a running commentary by our emcee, Santa. The monorail passed by the Christmas illumination in Chuo Park on its first round to Kenchomae Station, and then on the way back actually stopped briefly so we could get a good view. They even turned off all the lights and switched on Christmas lights around the windows to make our own illumination inside the cars! There was also a prize drawing, for things like a monorail charm (my co-worker won one!), fancy wine, and a stuffed Mono-chan, and a short explanation about wine from representatives of Mercian, the company that provided the wine. 

Illumination in Chuo Park!

All in all, it was a fantastic event, and if I had the chance I would definitely do it again! I am a huge fan of the monorail, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest suspended monorail - I even looked it up in the library to check once (and it was there!) - so I really enjoyed getting to experience it in a new way. We even got to take home our wine glasses and any remaining wine, plus a free 2013 monorail calendar. Well worth the 4000-yen ticket, I think! Apparently they do a similar event with beer in the summer (which is more appealing than wine to me, haha), so maybe I'll be writing about it in a few months. Let's hope! :D

Our own illumination!

tokyo, tokyo, tokyo

Well, these past few days have certainly made me appreciate how close Chiba is to Tokyo! Somehow I've made the trip four out of the past five days, which now that I think about it is probably a little ridiculous, haha. But worth it!

On Wednesday I headed over for my first Tokyo Swing Night in a while, which was awesome as usual. Every time I go there I meet some new people, which is always exciting. And then on Thursday I actually went to exactly the same place, but this time for west coast swing! I was super excited to find an event just for west coast, which is arguably my favorite dance, and it was so much fun to be able to dance it again.

And then on Friday I went to LaLaport with some friends to watch The Hobbit! I was worried about tickets running out (since it was opening night) and so I went straight after work to get tickets, but it turns out I needn't have worried and probably didn't really need to show up 3 hours early, haha. But we were in a mall after all, so we shopped a little and got dinner before seeing the movie, which I thought was awesome! I got so into it that I was physically tired when I came out - definitely worth seeing (though maybe not in 3D).

Yesterday I headed back to Tokyo for my first Carleton alumni event, which was just a lunch gathering at an alum's house. I met some brand new Japanese freshmen who had just finished their first fall term (aww) and a lot of other alums, and even ran into a couple of students that I actually knew at Carleton! It was pretty interesting talking to people from all different years at Carleton and figuring out what was the same and what was different for everybody.

After that I went back to Chiba and met up with some friends to celebrate a birthday! We sang karaoke for a couple of hours, which is always a blast, and then just hung out at Ocean Deep for a while until everybody had to catch their last trains. I was a little tired from the past few days, but it was super fun!

Then this morning I got a last-minute invitation from my friend Chris to go shopping in Akihabara, which I actually haven't been to since getting to Japan this time (though I did go when I studied abroad). We wandered around for a bit before meeting up with one of his friends for lunch in Harajuku, after which I finally came home! It's been a busy few days, but I'm sure this next week/weekend will fly by, too! :)

peanuts

So last Wednesday I went to salsa night at Ocean Deep again, for the first time in a while, and again, it was a blast! My friend James came along this time and we had a lot of fun dancing - we even tried bachata once, which is surprisingly hard (even though all we did was the basic, haha).

On Friday I had to stay late at work, but after that I met up with Cory for dinner. We were planning to go to an all-you-can-eat pizza place, but the trains were super delayed due to the earthquake (which was probably the biggest one I've felt since I got here!) so we just had dinner at an Indian restaurant near his apartment before playing Lego Harry Potter, which was pretty great. It took me about three times as long as normal to get home, though, since trains were still delayed - you'd think I'd have learned not to take trains once there's been a delay, but apparently not, haha. -.-'

And then on Sunday I played in my first frisbee tournament (called Peanuts!) in Japan, which was super fun! Our team was the one that organized it and it was in Port Park, where we have Saturday practices, so I got up early to help set up the field. The teams in the tournament were all from the area - mostly college teams, actually - and every team came in costume! There were Santas, rainbow afros, scientists (and Pikachu!), martial artists, suits, chickens, and frogs (my team!) - it was great because it reminded me of the Hallowinona tournament I played in back at Carleton, and clearly everybody was just there to have fun and play frisbee. My favorite costume by far was our captain's, though - in the middle of one of our games he came out in a Christmas tree costume and played in it, even though he couldn't run in it at all. So great.

Some Santas, chickens, and frogs!

After every game both teams had to do some sort of cheer or activity, which was also super fun. My team did competitions: one where everybody had wooden skewers in their mouths and had to transfer a candy from one person to another without using our hands, and one where we raced around a marker in pairs with a frisbee between our butts. Other highlights include an ultimate frisbee version of the atarimae-taisou by CowCow (look them up on YouTube), Ya (which is the exact same icebreaker as Wah) with a penalty of getting your face drawn on if you messed up, and some impressive backflip demonstrations.

Vortex: chickens and frogs for a day!

The tournament lasted all day (though each game was only 30 minutes) through intense wind and we only won one game, but we did win one game and ended up in 4th place! I didn't score any goals, even though if I had it would have been worth 2 points for being a girl, but I at least managed to get the disc (only once, haha) and laid out for a disc in the endzone (but didn't catch it), which is good enough for me! Hopefully there will be lots more tournaments to go to in the future, because this one was tons of fun. :D

good-bye november, hello december

Wow, it's December! November definitely went by faster than any other month so far (though I guess there have only been three of them, haha).

Work has gone back to normal since the Quezon delegation left, although I did end up staying late for the rest of the week. It turns out that I've worked enough overtime to take a whole day off sometime, so I'm thinking about taking Christmas Day off (since it's not a holiday in Japan)! I don't have any plans for Christmas at the moment, but we get Christmas Eve off as a makeup holiday for the Emperor's birthday, so it would be a four-day weekend. :D

On Thursday I went to my first night frisbee practice in a while, which was super fun! It was surprisingly warm and not at all windy, which was perfect frisbee weather (and again my team thought I was crazy for wearing shorts and a t-shirt when they were all in pants and long sleeves and gloves, haha). Next Saturday we have a tournament, which will be my first one in Japan - very exciting.

Friday I went to the library and ended up coming home with probably a lot more stuff than I can actually read/watch in two weeks, haha. It's been a really long time since I browsed a library for fun (sadly), and there's actually a pretty big English section in the Central Library so I just wanted to borrow everything! After that I just went out for dinner and started reading, which actually made a pretty great Friday night.

On Saturday I went to the International Association to volunteer for a Christmas event! There was a good amount of people there, including some pretty adorable kids. We set up and decorated a Christmas tree, which I think the kids had a lot of fun with, and I read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas out loud to the group. :D

After that I went to Lalaport to see the new James Bond movie! Having absolutely no expectations whatsoever (I've only ever seen one James Bond movie before this one), I actually enjoyed it a lot. We went to a ramen place afterward, and then my friend Ella came home with me to spend the night, since she was taking the JLPT today at Chiba University near my apartment, which was super fun!

This morning I walked over with her to the university and then spent the rest of the day reading in a cafe and just wandering around the area, which was super chill and awesome. I found a lot more little cafes and restaurants that I'd like to visit sometime, so hopefully I actually will, haha!

a visit from quezon city

Last week some officials from our sister city in the Philippines, Quezon City, came to Chiba in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of our sister-city relationship, and I got to accompany them to a bunch of cool places in the city, which I probably wouldn't have gotten the chance to see otherwise!

They were here in Chiba for a total of three days, though the first day was relatively uneventful. We did make a really brief stop at Narita-san Shinshoji, which is one of the most popular temples in Japan, but because it was starting to get dark and also raining really hard, we really just took a few pictures at the entrance. I would really love to go back and actually take a look around sometime - one of my friends was there the same day and she said it was one of the most beautiful places she'd seen.

The next day the delegation had a courtesy visit with the mayor and a courtesy visit/luncheon with the chairman of the Chiba City Assembly and some other assembly members, which I helped interpret for (sort of). After that we went on a study tour of some waste treatment facilities (which I left entirely up to the pro interpreter, haha), which was actually pretty cool! We got to see things like trucks dumping garbage, cranes moving it around, garbage being pressed into blocks, etc. Part of the facilities was a system that created biogas (mostly methane, I think?) from burning garbage, which is then used by a nearby steel factory for energy. Pretty cool, I think, especially considering this is the kind of thing I would probably never see otherwise!

Next we made an unplanned stop at the Fukuda Denshi Arena, aka the soccer stadium that is home to our soccer team, JEF United Chiba. Thanks to the assembly member who was with us, we got to go on a quick tour around and saw things like the control room, locker rooms, the drug testing room (complete with bathrooms with glass doors!), and the VIP room. We also got to go on the field, which was pretty cool. I think it'd be super cool to play frisbee sometime there, though that will probably never happen (though we do practice next door once a month)!

The next morning our first stop was the Chiba City Museum of Art, to see the exhibit I went to with my family a few weeks ago. After that we walked over and got on the monorail, so our guests could experience it. We managed to transfer onto the Urban Flier (the new monorail car), which has a glass bottom in the conductor seat and won a Good Design Award this year!

After that we went to the World Business Garden in Makuhari for lunch. We went all the way to the top of the building (to the 35th floor!), where there was a really great view of Tokyo Bay and Makuhari. Next was a tour of Makuhari Messe, which I've been to before but was still pretty interesting. I learned that the main 8 exhibition halls were built to look like the mountains of Chiba Prefecture, while the newer 3 were designed to look like waves from Chiba's coast, which I'd never realized before. When we walked around, there was a huge line of people stretching across the 8 exhibition halls (which I learned span 530m), who were there for Best Artist 2012, a concert that was broadcast live at 7pm tonight! I was just watching it on TV, and knowing that everybody I saw was actually in Makuhari Messe at that moment was pretty cool.

All in all, it was a super busy three days, but I had a lot of fun being with the delegation and visiting the various places with them. I'm not sure when another delegation will be coming to visit or if I'll be here for it, but I hope that I am! :D