7 in 1

So the last two days of the week were pretty useless at school. On Thursday I sat at my desk all day because I wasn’t scheduled to teach any classes, and then on Friday was some sort of Sasayama-wide junior high sports competition so no classes were going on. On Friday I went around and watched some of the kids practice or play a match. I really think this job entails more of an internationalization PR campaign rather than teaching. Oh well.

On Friday two friends from out of town came to visit the Sas. Luckily they arrived for movie night. Our plan was to pile into two kei-cars and drive to the movie theatre located about 30 minutes south of us. (a kei-car is a tiny car with an engine under 660cc, kei literally means “light”) Some confusion at the gas pump led to one kei-car smoking and stranded on the side of route 176. As the “kei” in kei-car would suggest, it was no problem pushing the car to a better place to leave it for the tow truck. So imagine 7 foreigners in middle of nowhere mountain village, Japan with one car out of commission. That was us Friday night. We decided then to fit all 7 people into my car and go ahead to the movies. My car can fit four comfortably...esque and five people if you really stretch your limits. 7 people is quite a feat. I’m sure we did nothing to help quell the gossip of gaijin being superhuman or possibly being too cheap to drive two cars. My poor kei-car certainly had its work cut out since I’m pretty sure we weighed much more than the car itself. This area is also pretty hilly and flooring the gas pedal barely ensured passage up each hill. To further convey the amazingness of this feat, this is a car that no matter how bad you park, the size ensures a 99% chance of being inside the lines.

Since I had Sasayama-outsiders visiting, I thought we should walk to the downtown area and see what would happen on Saturday morning. Sasayama is a pretty popular tourist place for Japanese people, so there are a lot of little shops and museums and such. But I’d only ever been to the museums; I always drive right past all the shops. We went into this fabric store and there was a lady dressed like a geisha that immediately told us “come here!! I soooo happy see you!”. She held up a kimono and we thought she just wanted us to see some different designs or whatnot, but then she started dressing one of my friends. All of a sudden Anna was being fitted for a kimono. After that was over with, we found out that this lady was a customer at the store, and had just wanted to dress Anna up for the fun of it. Of course the shop staff loved it. I wouldn’t be surprised if a picture of the experience becomes eternally framed on the shop wall.

Then yesterday morning we had a gaijin lunch at the local McDonalds. With 7 of us in one restaurant, it was once again another nail in the theory that gaijin only eat McDonalds and travel in packs. McDonalds here have brought back the Megamac for a limited time. I can’t think of the last time I went to MickeyD’s in the US, but I do remember that the menu was very green and wanting to convey a healthier image. Luckily this is not the case in Japan. McDonalds in Japan is already infinitely better than its US counterpart. The workers are attentive and the food is made after you order it. And Japan invented the MegaMac. It’s a BigMac with twice the meat. After lots of rice and fish, it’s just the right thing to remind you of home without the whole reality part.


This morning at school was some sort of morning assembly. I think it might have been to start out the month of October, but I wasn’t really sure. There was a lot of bowing and “~~~asssssu”. Good morning is “Ohayou Gozaimasu”, but you never hear people say it; I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in my office that says the whole 2 words. You usually just hear the last two syllables “aaaaahhhhsssssu”. It would be like saying “innnnngg” for good morning. Between this, the loud slurping, groping on the train and no one looking you in the eye when you talk to them; it makes you wonder how this country manages a reputation of politeness in the west.