MIMI ni TACO ga dekiru?

I've been wondering what this phrase means. It's an odd phrase when you think about it, because MIMI=ear, ni=on, TACO=octopus, dekiru=form.
Put that together and it comes out to: "An octopus will form on your ear. "

Now, what is this supposed to mean? It really doesn't make sense to me. I think I'm misunderstanding something. I think maybe the TACO, doesn't mean "octopus," but "callous."

I often come across phrases that don't make sense to me, but my imagination conjures up a meaning for it anyways, and the strangest images come to mind. An octopus forming on your ear? Really, it doesn't make sense.

"Jizou": Guardian Deity of Children

Guess what's inside this little "house"? It's not an outhouse, although it's right about the same size.

It houses several "gods" inside. Since I hardly know a thing about buddhism, I don't really know what the proper name is. They're called "Ojizou" in Japanese, which according to the online dictionary means "guardian deity of children."

Usually the stone buddhas with red aprons on them, are just placed out in the open or under small wooden shelters. The little Ojizous in this "shelter" got lucky I guess, because the neighborhood people built a nice little home for them.

People seem to take really good care of the Ojizous in this shelter. Someone always puts fresh flowers, leaves tea or sweets, and burns incense as an offering to the deity. The little sign in the front said that when there was a fire in the area, the house on the same property got burned to the ground, but the Ojizou's home remained unscathed. Kinda spooky.

Personally, I always wonder what the red apron stands for. Why is it red? Why do they need aprons? I haven't looked into it yet, but if I find the answers, I'll let you know.

Oh yeah, see the little swastika on the incense bowl? I was at first very shocked to find the insignia on these religious items. Why would they put something so shocking on things that are supposed to stand for peace, right? Well, I don't remember the full explanation, but in zen buddhism, the swastika or manji, as they call it, stands for the ideal harmony between love and intellect...and it existed much earlier than the Nazis. It's too bad that the original meaning didn't spread out into the world and it became more of a symbal for hate.

Black beans?

It's the season for black edamame beans now, so I see them being sold all over town. Giving food as a gift is a very common practice here, so whatever is in season, it's often passed on to neighbors and friends as a gift.

A friend of mine gave me a stalk of black edamame beans the other day, and as I was eating them, I wondered why they were called "black" beans, when they are actually green. They look the same as the regular green edamame beans on the outside, but it has a grayish-black skin around the actual bean, so maybe that's why they are called black edamame beans.

Ok, so I just asked my mom about it and the mystery got solved. The color change happens AFTER the edamame beans are dried! Once they are dried, they turn completely black and hard.

The custom here seems to be, if you go to a friend's house you're supposed to take some sort of food for the family, usually sweets it seems, as a gift. Likewise, guests to your home are supposed to bring food as a gift too. It's nice I guess, but kind of a hassle at the same time. At least for me, it feels like that.

12 Inches Away

See the white building in the middle? That's where I'm working right now. The picture is kinda old though, because it's from before we moved in. Now, we have our school sign up, a porch, etc. so it looks nicer. See the house with the red roof next to our building? It's not part of our building...yes, as hard as it may be to believe, they are our neighbors! Just a whopping 12 inches away at that.





The first time I peered to the side of our building (it's actually a regular 4bdrm house), I was surprised how *close* the next door neighbors were! Sure, I can manage to squeeze in if I wanted to, but it's a real tight fit.

It might be hard to believe, because even I have a hard time believing it, but there are houses and other buildings that are even CLOSER together than this! In the older parts of town, like where I'm working at, houses can be something like 3 inches away! Can you believe that?! When I come across homes like that, I stand and wonder to myself, how do they fix the walls if it needs to be repaired? No one can fit in between, so how do they do it? Maybe the only way to ever fix your house is to tear it all down and rebuild it.

The wood panel in the picture, it came flying at us during last year's typhoon. I think it came from the neighbors house across from our school, but since we didn't take it back right away, it just got to be too akward to return it, so it's still sitting here. And the shoe, I just put it there hoping people could get a feel for how close the neighbors were. Speaking of shoes, I need to get a new pair because this one is starting to tear.

More on my day in Osaka.

Bikes are a very common form of transportation in Japan. As you can see here, there are always rows and rows of bikes near train stations, as people ride their bikes to the station, then commute to work/school by train from there.

Whenever I ask my students how long it takes for them to get to school, typically for the high school kids, they say anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.

For the college students, they usually say anywhere from an hour to two, sometimes even longer. When students sometimes tells me it takes two hours to get to school it astonishes me! TWO whole hours or more to get to school??? If it were in the States, I'm sure people would just MOVE closer to the school, but over here, commuting to school/work for up to 2 hours seems fairly typical. I've still yet to figure out what the reason behind this is, because it just doesn't seem economical to commute, when transportation costs in Japan are so expensive.

One reason might be, most parents in Japan financially support their kids throughout college, so having to pay extra for housing and food for their kids who have moved out of the house is too tough financially. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? WHY DON'T THE KIDS PAY THEIR OWN WAY THROUGH COLLEGE? Unlike the States, there doesn't seem to be much of a government supported student loan system over here, so I guess it makes it difficult or nearly impossible for students to pay for their own college education.

Another obstacle that gets in the way of college age kids moving out and living on their own probably has something to do with how expensive it is to rent a place in Japan. The rent itself doesn't seem so high, pretty decent actually. But they have all these so-called "deposits" in Japan that you have to make when renting a place. They have a "key deposit" that costs something like 2 to 3 times your monthly rent, then they have an "appreciation fee" for the landlord for letting you rent the place. Even though these expenses are called "deposits," they're one-time fees that don't get refunded, so it all adds up in the end. It all seems so complicated.

Here's a picture I took of one of the underground shopping centers right under the subway system and skyscrapers! I always feel somewhat clausterphobic when I'm walking through these places because there are so many people and the air just feels tight. I always prefer to walk outside rather than underground.

It's people, people, people, wherever you look. Where do they all come from? The underground shopping centers stretch for miles in every direction, and once again, I always get lost. Everything looks the same to me, and I can't handle feeling lost when I know the subways are right above me. I always start thinking what's going to happen if an earthquake hits while I'm underground? I need air! I'm probably just being paranoid.


So that was my day in Osaka. It's about 45 minutes from where I live. I never go there by myself because I'll probably never make it back home, but this time, my friend was with me so I just made sure I never lost sight of her. Had a good day.

A Day in Osaka

I went out to Osaka for most of the day on Sunday. I've never been out to downtown Osaka before, so it was interesting. Felt like any downtown office area in the States. There weren't a lot of people since it was the weekend, so there was a relaxed feel to it.

I saw something unbelievable while I was there. At first, I thought maybe it might just be a decoration, but then, it started to move, so I stared harder and realized it was real! What did I see? It was a small dog riding on the back rack of a bike! Now, if it were in a basket or something like that, I wouldn't have been so surprised, but then, it was just laying down "holding on" for dear life on the flat rack that's usually used to tie your belongings onto. The rack is about the size of a box of tissue, so imagine how odd the dog looked riding on the back of the bike. It was quite an unsual sight. Wish I could've taken a picture of it!

I went into an electronic store that was EIGHT stories high. Uh, I was shocked at how big the place was. You could probably find just about every and anything electronic at that store. What more, in every available space, there were advertisements, which was quite overwhelming! Made me dizzy.

A strange sight there was, there were salespeople sitting atop a ladder about 6 feet high and I thought they were probably changing the light bulb. But then, I realized they were spread out all over the floor in the same fashion. I soon found out what they were doing! The salespeople started shouting at the top of their lungs about whatever products they were promoting. Wow, what a way to sell something, huh? So at this electronic store, they have millions of products, they have twice that many advertisements hanging from the ceiling and taped to the walls, and they have salespeople sitting atop ladders yelling and promoting products. Quite overwhelming!

Can't Sleep

Sometimes, I have a hard time sleeping. It's something like 4 am now, but I can't sleep! Oh well, it happens from time to time and I've gotten used to it.

It started raining a few hours ago. Windows here in Japan have metal shutters on them, so I can hear the rain clanking on the shutters now. They have the rainy season over here, so it rains non-stop for days sometimes. Although this year, it hasn't been so bad. They also have a typhoon season too, and typhoons keep hitting during that season. Last year it was pretty bad in the Kansai area too. I remember being pretty worried about the river out front, whether it was going to overflow or not. Thankfully, it didn't, but it got pretty close. This typhoon season though, the Kansai area, well, at least where I live, didn't get hit directly, so no worries.

Japanese-style Toilets!

Ooooh, I really detest those things. One of these days, I'll take a picture and post it. For those of you who have never seen one, let me try to explain. They look like a miniture urinal, except, they're embedded into the ground. Another way to put it is, it's like a western-style toilet buried into into the ground all the way up to the seat.

For those of us who are not used to having to squat all the way down to relieve ourselves, it feels as though we're being forced to exercise at the same time. I find it extremely uncomfortable, like I'm going to tilt backwards. Then, when you flush, you have to SEE everything going "downstream."

If you're wearing long pants, then you also have to roll up your pants, or else your pants could end up in places you don't want them to. So basically, I find it a pain to use those toilets. I guess the reasoning behind it is that you never have to come in touch with a toilet seat that some stranger just sat on, but I don't know which is better or worse.

Another thing I've also noticed about a lot of public restrooms is that, they don't provide toilet paper. So most Japanese people always carry those little tissue packs. If you decide to visit Japan, I highly recommend carrying around tissue packs too, or else you might end up being sorry. If you're out in the city though, chances are, somebody will be passing out free tissue packs, so don't worry.

They also almost never have paper towels in public restrooms either. Recently, more restrooms have blow-dryers to dry off your hands, but still, it's a better idea to carry a handkerchief around like all Japanese people seem to. I keep reminding myself every time my hands are dripping wet, to carry a handkerchief, but I've yet to follow through with it. I can't shake off the expectation that restrooms will have paper towels.

You might laugh at me, for having all these observations about bathrooms, but hey, they're important, ok? So here are more observations of mine about JP restrooms.

Did you know that even the western-style toilets in Japan are high-tech?! One, they have temperature-adjustable heated seats. Two, they come with a control panel on the side of the bathroom wall. You'll never guess what the control is for! As hard as it may seem to believe, these control panels squirt water out to *wash* your butt for you. And if you want it to, you can even press a button to have it *blow-dry* your butt for you! And what do you know, even the length of time, water pressure, and position of the squirting, can be adjusted to fit your needs with a press of a button! Da-da---!

I've yet to decide what my opinion is of those high-tech toilets. They scare me.

When my friend, who works as a caregiver, came to visit me from the States last Christmas, her suggestion was that those high-tech toilets should be installed in nursing homes in the States. What do YOU think?

Just one more thing about restrooms. If you're claustrophobic, you aren't going to like the restrooms over here. Every wall is completely sealed and closed to the floor. No wide open space like restrooms in the States.

Ok, I think you've heard enough concerning the bathroom situation in Japan.

HOW do you find your way around in Japan?!

For those of you who have tried to get from point A to point B in a car, have you ever wondered HOW in the world people here find their way around? I SURE HAVE!

First of all, there are NO street signs in Japan, at least I haven't come across any so far, and I've been living here almost 2 years now. If you're only driving around in your local neighborhood where you've already familiarized yourself with the roads, then it's not a problem. BUT, if you want to get to some place you've never been to before, then it can be a problem, especially if you have a bad sense of directions like I do. As I see it, there are a number of problems in finding your way around in a car here in Japan:

• Problem #1: NO street signs.

• Problem #2: All the traditional Japanese-style homes look the same. All the modern Japanese-style homes also look very similar.
  

• Problem #3: If you live in the countryside, there are RICE FIELDS in every direction. AND THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.
  

• Problem #4: SOMETIMES, you come across a stop light that has a what LOOKS like a street sign on it, EXCEPT, you can't be fooled. They actually AREN'T street signs, only the NAME of the stop light. Which means, no matter what direction you come from, it's the same name.
  

SO, adding all these problems together, I find it nearly impossible to figure out where I'm going, where I just drove, and where I'm supposed to head. I look in every direction and it all looks the same to me. On top of that, the names on the stop lights always throws me off because I'm accustomed to expecting the name on the light to be the name of the street.

It took me a long time to figure out that the names on the lights were the same from all directions. One day, I was trying to get somewhere, and I decided to take the backroads. WHAT a mistake. There were rice fields all around me, traditional Japanese-style homes here and there, and a stop light with a name on it. I thought to myself "Wow, this is the first time I've seen a street sign in Japan! How helpful, now I can have some point of reference for where I'm supposed to turn!"

About 20 turns all over the backroads, I was back at the same light again. Not just once, but probably like 20 times. I couldn't understand why no matter how many turns I took, I kept coming back to the same spot. How could it possibly be???

Eventually, I "accidently" found my way out of what felt to me like the Bermuda Triangle and arrived back home without ever reaching my initial destination. I was pretty upset by the time, due to the absurdity of the same "street" coming up over and over again no matter what.

My parents are baffled by what I could possibly get so confused about. I say it's WRONG to give stop lights NAMES. Why do stop lights need names???

I have more to say about the road situation in Japan, but I think I'll stop here for now. Just thinking about getting lost everywhere I go makes me upset.

Komusubi Omusubi !

The other day, I was watching a Japanese news station and there was a mention of a "Komusubi," with an image of a Sumo wrestler in the background. I thought this was just so HILARIOUS and was having a huge laugh about it. I thought to myself "Why would anyone name himself 'Komusubi' of all things?!" In my mind, "Komusubi" sounded just like "Omusubi," which in Japanese means "rice ball." Wouldn't YOU also think it was quite humorous for a Sumo wrestler to call himself a "rice ball"?

It really struck my funny bone and I couldn't stop laughing. Then my friend wanted to know what I found so funny, and I told her. Then it was MY turn to get laughed at, because I had it all confused. What she explained to me was that there are different ranks for Sumo wrestlers, and "Komusubi" was not in fact an individual's name, but a name of a rank for Sumo wrestlers. The only thing I knew about Sumo until then, was that grand champions are called "Yokozunas." Now I know better! (I STILL think "komusubi" is a funny name for a Sumo wrestler though.)

By the way, I also later found out that "komusubi" actually means "small knot" and NOT "rice ball," although it sounds similar.