At some point if something becomes such an epidemic then at sometime it will affect your life in some way.

Lately the scourge of Swine Flu or H1N1 “Aka 新型インフルエンザ　(shin-ga-ta-infuruenza) [lit. New Type of Influenza]” has hit Mutsu City in a very nasty way. Nearly a half or more of the schools here in Mutsu have received one or more cases of swine flu. To combat this outbreak schools have implemented a plethora of strategies from: asking students who are sick not to show up, canceling full grades (like 4th and 5th grades), canceling and clearing out full floors of schools, to even canceling school itself for upwards to 1 to 2 weeks even.

In the meantime, visitation type teachers like me- who go to different schools every day or so- continue to be bounced around like volleyballs with the simple order to “not get sick.”

Today my school visitation was at one school where it was rumored that swine flu had closed down all classes. I couldn’t tell you for sure at the time since most of it was hearsay from other schools. To me, it was only logical that if my boss didn’t call me and tell me to not show up then I had to make some effort to show up. This particular school wasn’t exactly the closest either. Often it takes about 30-40 minutes one-way to get there.

My arrival at the school wasn’t exactly welcoming. It was one that I typically dread and often dream about. It’s the case where you arrive at the wrong school and they look at you funny and you realize that this wasn’t the right school you were supposed to be at and now you’re embarrassed and late for the right school- who by the way is calling your boss and all their friends. Well today that was the vibe I was getting here.

The vice principal came over to explain surprise that I came today. Her tone was one of the ‘haven’t you heard the news’ type. She explained, pointing to a white board with scribbled names tagged with “Infuru”, that the school had been suspended for a week due to the horrible out break of swine flu. Suffice to say the rumors were true.

My heart saddened for them, this isn’t a school I go too very often. I decided then that I should probably call my boss. Though the time was 8:00am-ish and he hadn’t gone to work yet– I knew he’d be on his cell. I called and told him, to the best of my knowledge, what was happening over at this school and his reaction was one of surprise and befuddlement. I could tell he didn’t know. It was too late schedule wise, or even time wise to reschedule me to another school so the best solution was that I’d return home and hang out there for the day.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but I agreed only because hanging out at a school that had swine flu wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. Even if the teachers didn’t have it… In my mind, if I had any sort of flu (swine or otherwise) I’d be a flu pollinator for the entire Mutsu city. At this point the best thing was to apologize profusely at my mistake of arriving and slowly excuse myself from the teacher’s room.

The rest of the day, didn’t feel much like an extra vacation day either. Typically unplanned days off aren’t. I couldn’t help but think how such a thing has started to effect me– make me feel self consceus and a bit worried. The funny thing about it is that getting the flu isn’t what has me concerned at all. It’s the social stigma of having been tainted that I’m most worried about.

~J out

Japanese Disclaimer:

日本人は本当に住みませんでした。私の最初ブログから、このブログまでは英語だけを書いていました。しかし、もしかしたら、僕の「毎日話」日本語で読んでいたいなら新しい日本語ブログを書くかもしれません。

Ok..

Yesterday was quite an interesting day to say the least. It was a day where I shed the track suit in exchange for a black suit and tie….

This day came about because at one of schools I teach at the main English curriculum teacherdecided that because she’d had to attend an event somewhere it would be best that I didn’t come in for that day. So instead I went in to the Board of Education to “work”.

The suit and tie was more of a formality then a requirement. I could have done with something less I suppose, but then probably less would have been thought of me. Regardless, the morning that I had to go in– I had completely forgot what time I was suppose to arrive. Often schools start at 8am so I guessed it to be around 8 or 9am. Erroring on the side of caution, I arrived fully suited at 8:15 to my post where every single desk and chair was vacant. “Bad Move” I thought as a cold rush ran through me. I walked in a full circle out of the building and back to my car to contemplate… Certainly I was too early, but probably not early enough to run and grab a bite at Micky D’s. I decided the best idea would be to wait it out with my ipod until 8:29am then try and stroll in again.

Around 8:29 I headed back to the sound of a bell ringing off inside the building. It was the type you hear as the last school bell rings proclaiming.. “you’re late.”

damn

The building I’m in, by the way, is the culmination of all the city hall put into one. What they did was literally convert a shopping mall into a city hall. Walking in, you’re hit with the sounds of people buzzing around, typing, chatting, and clinking away their coffee cups against hard US Govt. metal desks that they broght from the old City Hall. This place is “brand new” by the way, but no one thought to order new(ish) (even late 20th century) desks. No why waste desks made in the 40′s and 50′s? They’re bullet proof!

Ok ok… now.. The feeling I got was that I was in the middle of Mutsu’s brain. The epicenter of all things.. er.. Mutsu. All day, everyone worked like the end was near. Women ran across the nicely carpeted floor in high heels. While Old men walked around in their pressed suits like Czars of some righteous kingdom. Often I tried to keep to myself, but the sociologist in me kept me more occupied just watching how these people interacted with each other in a business environment.

It was incredible, but at the same time exhaustingly boring. Afterall, my task for the day was simply to study. What, exactly, wasn’t as important as just looking like I was doing it. The whole environment didn’t quite fit the “studying atmosphere” however…but it was a good lesson and I got a kick out the whole thing.

If I think of more stuff I’ll write about it later.

~J out

I’m going to chalk it all up to a bizarre rampage of discovering who I am.. but today I made tortillas. This is after an attempt to make re-fried beans, chocolate chip cookies/scones, & strawberry short cake.

I suppose it’s really due to me setting challenges and markers for myself then accomplishing them one by one. A way to measure progress perhaps. Today’s challenge was simple– make a few tortillas that I could eat with dinner tonight.

Like most cooking challenges I first went to the net. Finding 4 or 5 of the same recipes and comparing them. Up front– a lot of them called for some type of lard or shortening… Something which I neither like or want to attempt finding. The substitute was vegetable oil- or (perhaps) what I’ve been tricking myself to believe is vegetable oil .

So to start out I needed flour… the recipe I finally followed called for 3 ½ cups of all-purpose flour.. I have “fu-ra-wa” + the flour kanji and some others… but I couldn’t tell you whether or not it was “all purpose flour.” All I knew was it wasn’t bread flour which would be PAN-Furawa..

Next I needed to add 1 teaspoon of salt & ½ teaspoon of baking powder. I recently discovered that baking power is a ‘raising’ material. That is– it makes stuff rise. Too much and you could get an Indian NAN– to little and you’d get a stiff paper tortilla. All this I learned from making cookies which turned into scones due to adding a 1/2 teaspoon  baking power more then what was probably needed.

After baking powder came 3.5 oz of vegetable shortening.. Again like I thought– I’m not a fan and believed veggie oil *would* work fine.. And I was mostly right.. however, after having completed this recipe I can see why shortening is called for. It adds a more ‘chewy’ texture, rather then a “crispy” one that the oil presumably adds.

Next was 1 cup of plain Jane– good ole fashion warm water. The idea here wasn’t to dump, but to drizzle & mix. As you drizzle and mix you’re supposed to hand-mix it around.

Now “MY” experience was that once I touched this stuff it went straight from the bowl to my hands like two attracting magnets– gobbling up my hand in a white goop. Eventually it settled down– but not before I had to put the beast down with more and more water– of course that’s when it went too gooey and I had to counter with more flour.

At the end of this madness actually sat a good looking ball of dough. It tasted bland, but that was to be expected. Some ‘wild out there’ recipes said one can add chopped chili peppers or taco seasoning or something wild into the mix… I, however, passed (this time).

At this point the first half was over. Next half was the “plop, roll, and fry.” According to multiple sources I also had a 20 minute intermission. This was to let the dough settle, the heck, down– This time was something that I could use to say clean or wash or something except I didn’t. Instead I spent my “half time” going to the farthest 100 yen store in Mutsu to find a puny 100 yen rolling pin & a wine bottle opener. 210 yen total with tax.

Upon returning I found my blob had changed slightly to a more golden color. My next job was to cut it up and roll it into small tortilla balls.

So I began ripping and tearing the dough into 9 little dough balls.

Now with a pan, a pin, and some enthusiasm I began rolling those balls into the closest flat circle I could muster in 1-2 minutes as the pan began to heat up…

I would then throw that raw ‘tort’ on the pan then quickly return to start another–

stopping of course every 15 seconds..

to flip the last tortilla over..until it had brown marks..

Finished tortillas went on to a plate covered with a towel.

The whole ordeal probably didn’t take longer then 15-20 minutes, but the feeling was like being Ana Garcia (a famous Mexican chef) whipping up a fiesta in my small Japanese apartment. Suffice to say, it was intoxicating.

At the end sat a short stack of tortillas bursting with the fumes of what I’d imagine would be a lazy Saturday afternoon in the barrio wafted all around the kitchen. I felt exhausted, but very satisfied.. To test my success(es) I loaded one tortilla from the bottom of the stack with a grip of cheese and nuked it in the microwave for 2 minutes on high… I pulled out the steaming sizzling cheesy treat and plopped myself on the couch. Nothing tasted so good as that did at that very minute…

It was another victory story– more proof I *can* survive in Japan after all.

~J

Today was the first of a two day celebration of Mutsu’s 50th anniversary. Apparently50 years ago the two towns of Ominato and Tanabu merged to form the great city of Mutsu.

The celebration was held at the Mutsu dome… A big sports facility and fitness center. To help participate I helped the “foreigner’s Stand” by being an assistant with Halloween cookie decoration.

Overall it was a pretty fun event. Since I worked all day I didn’t get many pictures, but tomorrow I’m skipping out on helping to walk around and take photos.

~J

Tonight I had a bowl of beans and rice with some veggies on the side…

The basics of basic human food substance.

and it was good…

~J

So yesterday I decided to drop into a grocery store I’ve been meaning to go to in a while called “Satou.” It’s a very small local grocery store here that sits next to a giant big new Maeda (The Safeway of Shimokita). I’m not sure how Satou’s does business but just outside it is an outdoor type vegetable store.

Now I was tipped off before hand that this little veggie market might be carrying beans or “mame.” A side note here is that here they really, really, don’t have “Mexican food”. I mean even the Korean restaurant here runs a little side market to sell specialty Korean food. I guess the whole international food isle thing hasn’t hit quite yet. (neither has canned food, but that’s another thing).

Ok, so I walk into the market and sure enough is a bag of pinto beans. I was kinda excited too to see them. There were three size bags: small, med, and big. I bought the small bag because I wanted to see first if I could make– Refried beans.

There’s a few ways to do it…

One is cook it over a stove top for 2 1/2 hours, and the other way is just to soak them overnight. I’m doing the overnight one.

Once soft I got some garlic, onion, tomatoes, and seasoning mix. My plan is to sauté the garlic and onion in vegetable oil, then mash the beans and add them in. Mix it all up then cook up some ground beef, rice, and chop up lettuce. And do a kind of taco salad thing with whatever chips I can find.

IF.. and only IF I can successfully make one bowl of FRIJOLES REFRITOS will I buy a bigger bag of beans.

Deeper then beans is just whether I could live “live” in Japan or not. Now I got lucky and got a pack of tortillas, but I’m down to 2.. so the “NO SH*T Goal” here is to make a straight up: All fresh hand made bitch’n burrito with refried beans, ground beef or thick sliced beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, green & chili peppers, onion, guacamole, sour cream (or something close enough like sour yogurt), and sea salt/pepper all on top of a big flour tortilla– just using stuff I can find here in Japan.

baby steps… baby steps… but I think I can do it.

~J

Today I thought of posting a ‘life in Japan’ type post.

Washing clothes– whether you’re doing it in a hi-tech washing machine or beating them over a washboard– It isn’t all that fun of a thing to do. In Japan, the process is different for everybody, but it feels a lot like how you would wash your clothes normally in the states. 

In my case, I have a neat top loading washing machine. The water-in hooks up to a water faucet with a special hose. and the grey water-out is hooked up to my drain/sewer system underneath. The other way to do it is to hook up a hose from your kitchen sink to the washing machine then run a water-out hose from the washing machine to your kitchen sink basin (that actually, I’ve seen before and I even have a hose to do that for this machine too).

To work it, Press the big metal button up top to your right then make a decision to either load your clothes in, with detergent, and hit the blue start button OR; hit start, let it spin, then let it start filling up with water, before dumping detergent in, then your clothes… Often I don’t want to put soap on top of my dry clothes so I do the later.

Hot and Cold is up to you too. It’s faucet controlled so if you want a warm wash you gotta turn the hot spigot on.. For a cold wash, it’s the other way around. I first ran with all cold washes to save gas (my water heater is an on demand propane gas burner type)… but now I run washes with a 50/50 warm/cold mix.

Now my machine boasts it can dry too.. well if it can that’s news to me because my clothes are never fully ‘dry’ when I pull them out. Perhaps it’s my lack of kanji reading skills… but either way, when I pull them out I typically have to hang them up in my apartment on these cool rack thingies to dry my clothes completely.

If I’m washing business attire or jeans I might also iron them too depending on the wrinkle count .

Now once everything is up, my apartment can look like clothes boutique.. which is fine… but there you go– that’s life in Japan.

~J out

Hey all, I forgot to say that I’ve given up the old blue RAV4 for something else.

The story goes….

When I left the RAV4 at autobacs everything seemed in order. They even gave me a loaner car so I didn’t have to catch the bus. However, while up enjoying Sapporo I was told that the mechanic had found a disturbing problem. The right front wheel, in his opinion, needed replacing along with the struts, supports, and maybe even the short shafts… The whole new repair on top the other things would cost me an additional $1,300.

This for a car I wanted to be ‘cheap’ wouldn’t do so I pulled the plug on the whole deal and opted to find another car when I returned.

When I returned I got to see the old blue RAV4 and sure enough… it was broke probably more broke then I left it?? I don’t know… it looked bad.

So I had to find a new car. My options at the time were small for my estimated budget. It ended up between a Regular Suzuki Swift type car, An old Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, or a newer Suzuki Jimny JB23. Truth be told, I wanted the lancer Evo– it was cool. But cooler, smarter heads prevailed and I took the Jimny instead.

It turns out to be a pretty slick car too. There’s an enthusiast magazine here for the Jimnys and mine seems to be right up there with the 4×4 dream vehicle. Some of the coolest features on it is this small turbo charged 660 CC Engine. It’s small, but it sounds like turbo charged beast.

The suspension and frame on it is rock solid… The thing could climb up a mountain and do just fine. It’s a 5 speed stick with a lo & hi vacuum powered 4×4.. the inside and outside look virtually brand new (for a 2001 car).

The one thing about it I don’t exactly know 100% yet is whether it’s really a JB23W (Wide) or a JB23 Narrow. According to 1 book I read it could be a narrow version (just looking at the body style), however I looked at the VIN number and model number and it says it’s indeed a JB23W… Now all that means is ‘more room’ and a wider stance. Also most 4×4 guys with Suzuki Jimny JB23′s roll with the Wide Version… Apparently in those circles it’s important to indicate that “W” in magazine spec articles I’ve been reading.

Tomorrow, I gotta go back to the dealer to sign some papers, at that time I’ll go look at the Jimny again to double check. (maybe even bring a camera & measuring tape).

I do think it”d be cool to get into something like off-roading or something cool like that while living here in Japan. I suppose since I bought the perfect car for it– why not get into learning a new risky, money pit, sport? I already got a Jimny Autoparts Pro Shop spotted in Hirosaki– and I noticed I’m getting some holidays off in a few weeks.

hmmm– I’m thinking roadtrip.. heh heh. Dang it… looks like, yet again, I just might have another car project!

J out

Folks I’m exhausted.

Working as an Elementary school teacher is kicking my butt. The kids are between 6 years old and 11 years old and are little nuclear power plants of energy. When I go to hang out with them at recess they wear me down to bits.

I’m just not used to it is all. Just the other day I came home after teaching and, tossed some rice & water into the rice cooker, then collapsed on my couch like a sack of potatoes and went to sleep (at around 4pm). When I woke up it was nearly 9pm and I still was groggy… coherent enough though to nuke some curry and have a small bowl of rice and curry.

Everyday isn’t like that, but it’s hard work for something that seems mind boggling easy to explain.

I mean telling someone, “hey yeah I live in Japan and I teach elementary age kids stuff like ‘I like apples’ or ‘I can jump’” then in the next line say, “but I’m so exhausted from it I can barely cook a meal…” sounds odd right?

Anyway, it’s a poor excuse for not blogging. I’m sure in time I’ll get back up to speed.

J out