Luck o' the...Russians? Hmm, yes quite.

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I originally wanted this to solely be a travel blog, hence why I haven't posted nothin' in a while. No travel, no post and my life has been pretty void of traveling. However, I have had various requests throughout the year to start this thing back up, despite my current stationary lifestyle. I informed them that if I started back up I wouldn't be posting about anything much interesting, just my life happenings and crazy rants. Apparently that's good enough though. I considered it all year long. Since I have been finishing my last couple of terms for my BA I haven't had much time to think about it, but now that i'm practically  done with my degree I started to consider it harder and now here I am. So here I go. Post one after a long hiatus.


I have noticed throughout the years that I have some of the most ridiculous good luck. However, before that good luck comes a'knockin' things always seem to plummet down a spiraling tunnel of shit for a couple minutes before taking a sharp turn for the best.  


I graduated a couple weekends ago and it felt great. After four years I finally had my degree and I was going to start grad school in the fall (that's right, they accepted my sorry ass into the MA TESOL program, yahoo!).
I had two summer jobs lined up and ready to go.
After a year of "it's your's! ...oh wait just kidding we have no funding...Gotcha! You still have it!", my graduate tuition is going to be paid for by the department I currently work for as part of a graduate assistant program.
I was going to travel to a part of the US I have been wanting to go to forever (although since the East coast seems to be having a bit of trouble with heat i'm a little glad I didn't go).
Life was looking great.
Until I had  4 credits sneak up on me out of nowhere that need to be completed in order to receive my BA. That's right, I made my family sit for 3 + hours watching as 6000+ students they didn't know walk up and receive their empty diploma case for nothing.
DESPITE having two advisers in my department go over my DARS report (my university's system for tallying up credit requirements) and telling me I was on the right track. I guess there was some sort of miss-communication or something because I am for sure 4 credits behind and there ain't no way around it. It's an accreditation issue for the university; all undergrads needs a minimum of 180 credits to graduate and I've got 176. Le sigh. Thankfully all my specific degree requirements have been taken care of so I just need four credits of anything, upper or lower division.  


So, I panicked and scrambled to get into a low level online course (I'll be damned if I'll let this get in the way of my summer vacation!). I'm taking a 100 level women's studies course online. So far it's been easy breezy and i'm not too worried about it as far as school work/effort goes. I am pissed that the university decided it needs an extra 250 dollars for "online class fees", totaling my tuition this term to over 800. All paid out of my pocket (and some of my mom and step dad's pocket--thanks guys!). Oh well, life shall go on.


But like I said, life plummets before taking an unexpected turn. Here's some more examples


I had applied for a teaching job in Chile once I found out that I wasn't going to have the funding I thought I would for grad school. I had a really good interview, the contract the lady drew up  for me was a amazing, and I truly thought that I was going to have to learn Spanish over the summer. Unfortunately the owner of the school did not have the projected enrollment she thought she would so I didn't get the job. However, around that same time I found out that I had the graduate assistant position. Plummet and turn.


Another example, I was told back in November by a dear co-worker of mine that student workers were not allowed to work over 1039 hours in the fiscal year (which runs from June to July for us), otherwise we would have to resign because the university would have to pay back benefits. I panicked and tallied up my total hours for the year so far and I was already at 600. I doubled checked with our lady who deals with HR and she confirmed it. So since November I have been working a measly 14 hours per week, BARELY getting by with 500 dollar pay checks PER MONTH (shit shit shitty shit shit). Luckily I had financial aid otherwise I wouldn't have made it. HOWEVER, I found out a couple days ago that there was a miss-communication (this seems like a pattern with my uni). Turns out my dear co-worker was not considered a student worker but rather was under some other category that rendered her unable to work over the 1039. Student workers, however are not eligible for benefits no matter what and can therefore work up to 130 hours per pay period. I've been living poor for NO REASON. I have since then been racking up the hours like mad. A plummet with a slight turn (if I had been working 130/month hours for the past year I wouldn't have batted an eye at the amount I have to pay for my summer class).


I'm still going to Japan in August though! I'm planning on mostly staying in Tokyo, but hopefully going to Shizuoka to see an awesome friend as well. I am also going to try and drive over to Montana's Glacier National Park to do something camping and climbing and visiting my most awesome roommate Jenn. 
We'll see though. That's one hell of a drive from here and I wasn't the best pilot last year when I did it with friends. 


Today is fourth of July so I feel like I should end this with something patriotic so here ya go 

couldn't have said it better myself!

Happy fourth everyone and expect more posts in the future!

-J

Revival

I just purchased a ticket back to Japan for August; one week stay.

I'm also planning to go to New York after graduation.

Looks like I will have to revive this blog after a loooong hiatus.

Traveling rocks.

"...if I stay in one place, I lose my mind."

So my host family in Japan wants me to come to my host sisters wedding in November.


The ceremony is being held in Australia.


And they're going to put $1,000 towards my ticket leaving me to scrap up the last 6-800.


I'd be there for about 5 days, and would miss Thanksgiving plus a couple days of class.



I'm not going to be getting as much financial aid for next year as previous years because I submitted my FASFA renewal on the 4th and not the 1st, meaning I was too late to get the Perkins loan from my school.




Should I pay tuition/living expenses or go on a 5 day trip to Australia?



Life sure is complicated.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

Too much structure can be too much

so um, my camera is broken so there won't be
any pictures that I've taken shown for
a while.....

I have been battling over skype with Citi Bank Japan these past couple days to try and figure out how to set up a transfer from my account to my host families account (JASSO - the scholarship I was getting while over there-- ended up paying out March's portion even though I 1. didn't sign for it and 2. am no longer there. But now I can pay back my host family so I'm not really complaining).

After going through all the menu options in both Japanese and English until I hear the one that sounds remotely like the problem I am having:

Today our computerized phone receptionist will be
played by Lady Gaga

Generic computer phone women's voice: "please enter your account number"

Me: grumbles while tears through bag to find card; enters number.

Woman's voice: "now enter your telephone pin number"

Me: "my what?"

Woman's voice: "please enter your telephone pin number"

Me: enters pin number

Woman's voice: "we're sorry, that number you've entered is incorrect. Please enter your telephone pin number"

Me: "stupid computerized piece of..." enters number in again.

Woman's voice: "We're sorry, that number you've..."

Me: hangs up.

I called back and did it all over again, entering what I thought was my PIN number but turned out to be the wrong pin number and I was transfered to a human.

I get talking with this guy (who's English is so-so but I can manage). He tells me that in order to transfer the money I have to apply for something called a "one time pin". What does it take to do that?

Citi bank man: "I'm going to transfer you back to the computer system where you'll have to enter in your telephone pin number".

OH I'LL GIVE YOU A PIN NUMBER!!!!!
(me played by Beyonce)

Me: "but wait! I've already tri..." Too late, i'm transfered and the woman is back demanding my number.

I hang up and call back.

I get someone different. We go through the explanations and just before he's about the switch me to computer woman from hell I tell him that I don't know what my "telephone pin" is.

Citi Bank man: "oh well, if you've signed up for banking online then you should know it".

Me: "looks like I forgot it".

Citi Bank Man: " you should have gotten it in the mail on a little post card when you first opened your account".

Me: "yeah that's gone".

Citi Bank Man: "oh..."

Me: "Is there any way you can just look me up in your system and go from there"

Citi Bank Man: "no, we need that PIN number, we can't look up anything without it".

Which is complete BS because I called them a couple weeks ago about closing down the account and the guy just looked me up with my name and date of birth. But this man could not be convinced otherwise.

Solution?

He told me to download this registration form and send it in by mail then they'll manually register the account that I want to transfer to. Should take about forever to complete.

I understand that companies have certain laid out ways of processing things, but sometimes you got to break the rules a little bit. Just sometimes. Why couldn't they just look me up with name and my account number? Who knows.

Thank you for calling Citi Bank, have a nice day.

Jerks.


--In other news--

I've been working my butt off lately (not complaining seeing as how I'll be able to pay my rent and car insurance on time~). In addition to my current job at OIA (office of international affairs) I have picked up a student to tutor in English! The Middle Eastern Studies advisor heard that teaching English was kind of my thing and hunted me down and introduced me to a student from Qatar who is having some difficulties with his English studies. Very nice guy and eager to learn, but at the very most beginning level right now.

I don't know this for a fact but I don't think that they require you to learn English in the Middle Eastern countries. Most the students from the Middle Eastern countries are all in the Intensive English Language Program (and a good portion of them fail their classes on a regular basis for more reasons than just not being able to understand what's going on). My new student has been here since winter term this year and is still mastering his ABC's (but he's moving through them like a trooper!). I helped him with his English HW and could tell that he gets it, it's just being able to remember things without needing something to prompt him.
I charge him $10/hr and we're scheduled to meet twice a week (although he's very relaxed about time and was at first saying "oh, whenever you're free is fine". To which I was like "no, I need structure, when are you free"?). Canaan (the middle eastern advisor) said that he'd be shooting more students my way in the future so. bring on the tutoring~

$10/hr is less than I was charging in Japan but the way people think about money over here is way different than in Japan. If I had been asking for 1000 yen/hr over there then I wouldn't have gotten any students because they all would have been wondering why I was so cheap! Whereas here, if I had gone above $12 no one would even consider me! So why did I go with 10? Because I don't have any fancy qualifications other than what I can tell them I've done in Japan and that i'm a Linguistics student. Whereas in Japan all I had to be was a native speaker and I was in! Funny how that works out.

Oh and one interesting linguistics thing that I found out from my first lesson: Arabic doesn't distinguish between "p" and "b" sounds. "put" and "but" sounded the same to him. IT'S INTERESTING TO ME.

For those of you who don't know where
Qatar is; here you go. 

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...."Flyjin"

As Japan continues to grapple with its nuclear emergency, special scorn has been reserved for the "flyjins", foreigners who made their living in the country but fled in the wake of the March 11 earthquake.

Rebuilding Japan: Special scorn for 'flyjin' foreigners who fled country
The Telegraph
Global Bussiness
4/21/2011

"You are the first foreigners I have seen in my bar in a month," said Hidetsugo Ueno, the bartender at High Five Bar in Ginza. "Are you sure you should be staying here in Japan?" he added, with a smile.

Skittish members of the financial community were the first to empty out and Hong Kong has issued around 300 long-term visas to bankers and traders who wanted to continue working in Asia, but not to live in Tokyo.

"Around 80pc of the visas are to employees at international financial institutions earning at least HK$100,000 (£7,775) a month," said Chan Kwok-ki, Hong Kong's immigration director. Five of those went to employees of ICAP, who sent traders to the island as a temporary measure.

 In addition, almost all Chinese and Korean residents in Japan have now left the country, despite no advice to do so from their home governments.

The sudden flight has dismayed the Japanese.
 
"It's not good that they all left so suddenly," said Mutsuko Izawa, a housewife who lives in the town of Ujie, 85 miles the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. "Of course this means that in the future, when a company has a choice between hiring a Japanese and a foreigner they will not hire the foreigner because they will be worried if they are going to stay.

"For senior people in big companies, I think they had a responsibility to their Japanese staff to stay. I can perhaps understand if they wanted their families to leave, but a company operating here needs people who will be here when times are more difficult," she added.

"I think this has reinforced the impression amongst Japanese that a lot of foreigners only look at Japan as a place to work for a few years, earn a lot of money and then they go again," she said. "They're not really interested in the society or the country. This isn't their real home. These disasters have really just shown how true that is."

The managing director of one British firm in Tokyo said he had evacuated only one of his staff because he had a wife and a young child.

"We thought it was only the right thing to do in the circumstances, but only because they had a small baby," he said.

"No-one else left our company and I think that was the right thing to do as if four or five senior executives had suddenly decided to jump ship then it would of course caused great resentment. There are a lot of executives and companies in Japan today who are facing a backlash against them. The feeling is they have lost credibility with their local employees because they left and I think that will cause longer-term problems."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I fully agree with this! It's silly that practically all foreigners evac'd so suddenly after this happened when no foreign embassy's issued any sort of evacuation notice. When I was still there I checked the US embassy site everyday just so I would know if they did start issuing evac notices, and they never did. When I got the email from my program saying that they were revoking our visas and bringing us home, naturally I was a little confused. If the gov isn't evacing people, why do we have to? But what's done is done I suppose. I don't want to think of my self as one of these "flyjins" simply because I would have stayed if I had a choice in the matter.

My employer Gaba seemed to be understanding and told me to apply again in the future, so no worries there of them not hiring foreigners in the future (not that they really have a choice in the matter of hiring foreigners or not being an English teaching establishment). I don't know how many of the workers there left, but my manager wasn't surprised when I told him that my visa was canceled because one other student at my learning studio called in the day before and reported the same.

What really irks me though, is that I know at least two fellow students on different programs who were able to go back to Japan to complete their studies! Although it sounds like one of them got changed to a school in Osaka, the other one is back at Waseda. *sigh* whatever. I wish our program hadn't panicked unnecessarily with the rest of the world and these "flyjins" and made a better decision to keep us there and follow what the government was doing (i.e. not emergency evac'ing everyone).

Nowadays it's an important skill to be able to interpret the media and filter out the hysterics from the truth. Many, it seems, do not possess this skill hence the wide spread evacs of all foreigners in Japan (okay not all but a good number of them fled).  I just wish this fear mongering on the media's part would come to an end, especially in cases like this! It's already scary enough, no need to hype it up by x10.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

My first Passover~

Sort of.

A lady who belongs to the Middle Eastern something or other as an advisor here in Portland sent out an email three days ago to our department for Middle Eastern Studies wanting to know if any students would be willing to come over to her house for passover to wash dishes. Naturally the email got sent down the line (Middle Eastern Studies office is in the same building as the Office of Intentional Affairs --where I work) and it got handed to me by my supervisor. 12 bucks an hour plus free food and a ride back home? Count me in!

This family lives in the West Hills which means they're rich and their house exemplified that fact. Beautiful kitchen, old gas stove (the kind with the pilot exposed that are illegal to sell now-a-days) plus a wood stove for heating and an electrical stove thrown in for shits and giggles. Wood floors, wood counter tops, lots of cabinets and flood space. I didn't see the rest of the house (for obvious reasons) other than the bathroom and the entrance way that sported a beautiful painting of a Chinese warrior. I guess Carol (the hostess) is really into Asian pottery and letterings and has been to Japan a couple times. Her husband is a linguist like me except he focused on Middle Eastern languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, etc. Their daughter, Marissa graduated from U of O, but in what I don't remember. Carol reminded me of my Asian Studies prof I had last year; sort of quiet and walks around with a sort of disconnect that leaves conversations a little bit awkward. I didn't talk to her husband very much but her daughter was the complete opposite of her; loud, amiable, and totally and completely into this passover thing. Nice people overall.

Not being Jewish (nor religious in any other particular way) I didn't really know exactly what was going down for this "passover". Carol and her husband (who's the Rabi for their local synagogue) filled me in on a couple things. Passover is sort of what Easter is for Christians (minus frighteningly giant bunnies hiding colored eggs). She had about 14 people both nights (passover lasts 8 days but most people only celebrate the first couple days).

I didn't really witness what went on during the sedar (is that what they call it? I guess it means ceremony or something) due to being in the kitchen the whole time (talk about kitchen wench) but I did hear most of what they were doing (although I couldn't understand what they were saying most of the time due to it being mostly in Hebrew).  They started at about 7:00pm and went through the Tora reading passages and sang some songs. Then they went into some debates about various topics revolving around the Jewish community (one of the topics being about more support for GLBT, which I thought was cool ~they didn't sound like they were very conservative Jews ). Then the food was served and I was preoccupied with keeping up on the leaning tower of plates and pots so I don't know what went on during the eating portion (other than eating).

After all the courses were served they went back to reading passages and singing more song (one of them I got stuck in my head but can't remember any of the words other than "10 for the weeee commandments"  ...idk either).

All of the people there looked
about like this + a yamaka .  

They were all really nice people and the food was spectacular. I've never had kosher food before (other than the salt, haha) but I guess the process it goes through before it can be considered "kosher" is long and expensive sounding. It all has to be inspected by a certain person before it's processed and in the case of meat, has to be drained completely in a certain way, then is has to be inspected again by the same exact person as before (can you imagine if that person got sick or something in the middle? They'd have to halt the whole operation!) before it can be packaged and sold. They don't eat pig or shell fish (that little specific right there is enough to count me out! Ain't no body tell me I can't eat food!), nor can they have milk products if the meal had meat in it (I wanted to get some more in depth detail on this peculiarity, but the dishes came pouring in as I was asking so I forgot).


Normally I feel very uncomfortable around religious people and religious ceremonies leave me feeling anxious, but I didn't experience either here. Granted I wasn't really apart of it but I guess because I don't really know anything about the Jewish religion they didn't creep me out like Christians do. Could also be that they were really chill and didn't appear to be hard-core conservatives or shove their views down my throat. It was a nice overall experience. I had gone to a Mosque last year for my Middle Eastern studies class and just sat in on their morning service in which afterward I felt some of those feelings that I described above but it did give me a better understanding of the Islamic faith. I think I want to go to a Synagogue sometime and do the same sort of thing. Would be interesting (I've done the Church thing more times than I wish to count so i'm done in with that field; although it would be interesting to go to a Catholic ceremony sometime because those people intrigue me).

I must say though that I have found that I much prefer the Buddhist ceremonies and practices that I experienced in Japan (and southeast Asia). They're much more relaxing and make me feel less stressed somehow. Maybe it's because there's no priest (or what have you) up in front of you telling you this and that and to do this and that. Buddhism is more personal/private from my experiences and I do find the idea of reincarnation better than the idea of an after life.

and lets face it, rock gardens are prettier to look at
than dead guys on crosses.

Needless to say it was an easy $130 dollars made and i'm glad I did it.

Now off to figure out what's wrong with the car I just bought.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

South East Asia Part two; Thailand

2/21 (9pm)

We woke up at about noon then went in search of some grub. Walking out of the guest house gates was like walking into a movie set. There were street vendors lined up on every sidewalk selling everything from underwear to the freshest of fruits. All the building were filthy and the streets were packed with pedestrians trying to barter and better deal. Already we are completely covered in sweat and grimy as all hell but I find myself not the least bit bothered by it (I found that the dirt and grunge never bothered me on this whole trip and that I actually found myself preferring being away from the high fashion pristine hectic life style of Tokyo --dear god I might be turning into one of those hippies!). Thai people are so beautiful (in looks). Most of the women i've seen on the streets (albeit most of them school girls) have been gorgeous! And for the boys I can definitely see Japanese fashion influence (especially with the host boy hair-dos -- bleached hair that didn't quite make it to blonde but orange; was close enough so lets gel it into some sort of tricked out anime sort of hair style look). But for the most part the Thai have a fashion all their own (or stolen from the American 1980's); Black sequin dress for an everyday stroll down the block? I think yes!

The motor bikes were a common place object. Although
the numbers in Thailand weren't quite as impressive
as those in Vietnam.

After wondering the streets in what seemed like a daze and asking each other "what do you want to eat?" about a dozen times we eventually decided on this little open aired restaurant that displayed it's meat choices in a little glass case up front and served Pepsi in dirty glass bottles (they recycle their glasses here -- after washing them of course) with a straw. The hot sauce had a dead bug in it and the plate that I ordered (white rice, chicken stir fry) came with a deep fried egg white but I have never tasted better food. The price was even better than the food -- 250 Baht for the both of us (about $7).

Nothing like a cold Pepsi out of a grimy
recycled glass bottle to accompany
my lunch!
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

NOM NOM on the pad thai. 

Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

We spent the rest of the day walking around the little neighborhood that surrounds our guest house. We came across a vendor selling ice cream and couldn't pass it up (I don't know how high the tempts were on this whole trip; I just know that it was hot enough that I almost wanted to rub the cold ice cream all over my face instead of eat it). The girl selling it was this petite little thing who seemed completely excited to sell ice cream too us. I ordered what I thought she said was coconut but ended up being vanilla with chocolate sauce on top;  Mikaela got strawberry with techno-colored jellies and chocolate sauce. Both coming to the grand total of 30 baht -- together (15 baht each = 25cents). I love this country.

For a while now i've been  having this urge to buy clothes from the SE Asian-y looking store on Waseda doori on the way to school (in Japan) but it's always been far too expensive for my taste (30 dollars for a shirt on sale!?!). Here in Thailand though, the price is more than right. I found me a pair of MC Hammer style black pants that I bought for 380 baht (around $12, I failed at the haggling --next time I won't be so slow!). Mikaela bought an awesome bag that she succeeded in talking the price down on (well done young pad won!). My haggling skills kicked in shortly after this encounter -- I blame the jet lag. Breaking all your big bills is a huge help when it comes to bargaining for anything ( in any country) because you don't want them to see that all those 5000 baht bills tucked away in your money belt when you go to try and pay them. Luckily 7-11's were rampant and reliable places to break big bills in.

The colors in this country were popping!
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

The bag left dye stains all over her clothes.
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

I never did buy a coconut while I was there (we do go hunting
for fresh ones on a later trip though and succeed). 

Before we headed back to our guest house we stopped at the grocery store to explore ( you can learn a lot about a culture just from their groceries). The produce section was amazing; it had dragon fruit and Nashi (Asian pairs) and pineapple and almost every other tropical fruit you could imagine. Although they had no Durian fruit they did have durian chips which I decided to buy and ended up being quite tasty --salty and kinda nutty. I made it my goal to try durian fruit ( the smelliest fruit in the whole) while I was here and though that perhaps working my way up to the real deal would be the best option so I bought every durian flavored thing I came across on this trip.  We bought yogurt for breakfast along with beer, water, and snacks (all adding up to135 baht -- 4 dollars). It's going to be awful going back to Japan and having to deal with over priced everything. One interesting fact I learned about Thailand today was that one cannot buy alcohol between the hours of 2-5; no matter the circumstance. Some sort of crazy curfew they have; although it doesn't say anything about drinking the alcohol between those hours if you already have it.

so many rows of tighty-whities! 

actually pretty darn tasty.
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

Coca Cola was everywhere. Brand-washing anyone??
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

No Beer for you after 2 and before 5!
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

I could eat these every day (And we did while we were in
this town). Thai Ice tea flavored creme inside sweet bread!
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

Not as tasty as it looks (Dragon fruit). It was rather tasteless
in fact.
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

The hardest part about this day (and probably about the whole trip) was filming. I always forgot to have my camera at the ready because I was so distracted having fun (understandable). I did get a lot of footage though (I think 3 tapes of all of Thailand?) but i'm not taking as many pictures as I would like (it's hard to double fist!) I think Mikaela has me covered in the photo department though (thank god) and she's also become sort of the star of my documentary because i'm always filming her being the host.

I swear either the buildings here were brightly colored
and beautiful, or dirty as fuck...
Photo courtesy of  Mikaela Corney

Next Time; Thai Royal Palace, giant laying down Buddha and temples.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

SE Asia posts coming to a blog near you!

Here's the first post of our trip! I'll try to be consistant with all of them but with having to find housing (going to go look at two places tomorrow) and a car here in Portland quick-like, my life is a little bit hectic (being sick isn't helping the situation any either.


I was able to land my old job back at the University though so at least I can check that off the list (they're even going through a loop hole to hire me as a temp and not a student worker so I don't have to take classes this term). 


Anyways, here's the first chapter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2/21/11 ~ 2:00am

Saturday night’s live went fabulously well. I didn’t screw up (or if I did I didn’t notice) and I got compliment after compliment (and even requests to come back next month and one offer to open a show for some guitarist chick named Ami Guitarra). I only ended up playing one song (Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin) but that’s all they needed (gotta leave them wanting for more, right?). Originally I had planned to do two songs (the other being Bang Bang by Nacy Sinatra) but I didn’t feel comfortable with the guitar part (need to strengthen these damn hands) so I ditched it. Next time.

Feelin' it.

Since the show started so late at night (11pm) naturally everyone that came had to pull an all-nighter. But that didn't bother me (I was leaving for my trip Monday night so I had all day Sunday to recuperate). I drank more than I’ve drunk in a long time (free tequila shots at the bar? How could I refuse?!) And had to have my good friend Natsuyo escort me back to my home station because I could barely stand straight (and ended up getting off in Harajuku and spilling my guts everywhere; not one of my better moments). Sunday was not a very happening day to say the least, so I planned to just gradually do my laundry and carefully pack everything I needed for tomorrow. At around 3pm I texted my travel buddy (and now good friend) Mikaela to see what time we were supposed to meet up tomorrow night (since we were flying out of the new international port in Haneda and not Narita – an hour train ride as opposed to 2 hours –we weren’t too pressed for time).

Or so I thought.

My text message to Mikaela: “so what time we meeting up tomorrow night”

Mikaela: “…you mean what time tonight right?”

Me “…what??”

Mikaela  “didn’t you get my text???”

*checks phone* 2/20/11, 11pm: Mikaela Corney; “We’re leaving tomorrow night at 12:30am technically making that Monday morning. See you tomorrow!”

“!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So I ran downstairs and promptly informed my host family in the calmest manner I could muster (voice a slight octave up, eyes wide, smiling nervously) that I was in fact leaving in five hours; not tomorrow. I think my host mom was more stressed out than I was for she immediately started running around trying to help me get my laundry all hung up (god I miss dryers) all the while chastising me for not being more together (if I had not texted Mikaela when I did then she would have had a very lonely three weeks). But I was able to get all my shit together (really I didn’t need any of the clothes I had washed because they were all winter clothes that wouldn’t have been suitable for the climate I was heading to); I got it all down to 10 shirts, 2 shorts, 1 skirt, I dress, socks, underwear and sandals, barely even filling half the bag (although this particular back pack, though a good sturdy back-packing back pack, was so huge and awkward that it felt heavy even without anything in it). In record time I made it to Shinagawa (our meeting point) even before Mikaela!

   

On the express to the airport I decided to start my “No Reservations” project right off the bat (I’m really excited to edit all my footage!) and got shots of us being giggly little school girls. This old grandpa who was sitting next to us got excited with us when we started filming and gave us high-fives when we were done then happily bounced off the train when it came to his stop and waved enthusiastically as we took off again. I don’t know if he knew exactly what we were excited about because we were talking in English the whole time but it was cute none-the-less.

(we ended up having five different currencies in our
wallets by the end of this trip)

At the airport we ran into our first little speed bump. For some strange reason the names on our tickets were different than those in our passports but the attendants got it sorted out. Haneda airport is pretty small in comparison to Narita, but it’s clean and has that “shiny new” look to it (It used to be an airport that only flew domestic and flights throughout Asia but they’ve remolded and now include flights world-wide). Going through immigration was a chuckle for we couldn’t seem to get our departure cards filled out right and the immigration officer who was helping us kept on giving us a hard time. Then we were through, in no man’s land (did you know that the area past customs in airports was considered “no-man’s land”? Explains why all items are duty free…), giddily waiting for boarding. As we were in line to get our currency exchanged we ran into a rather cute Canadian boy who just so happened to be going the same way we were (and just so happened that he was a model in Japan a couple years ago—but we all know that doesn't really count) and he almost had the same flight as us (as well as seats right next to ours!) but it turned out that his flight was with JAL and ours was with ANA, both leaving at the same time, to the same destination. Needless to say we never saw him again. 

Alley to our Guest House
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

Landing in Thailand was one of the most magical moments of my life. As soon as I stepped off the plane  and smacked into the wall of humidity all the sleepiness lifted away (I don't know anyone who can sleep on a plane) and was replaced with awe and excitement. We had no idea where we were going or even how to get there so we just followed all the other white people (worked every time) and snagged a taxi outside the airport. Took about an hour and a phone call to reach our guest house (the only one we booked in advanced) but we made it safe and sound (didn't even have to haggle with the price). The guest house was perfection tucked away in a little corner alley. Rock hard beds, ceiling fan (none of our guest houses had AC), no glass on the windows –just screens, have to self flush the toilet and no hot showers. Perfect. 

 An Australian guy (never caught his name) lives/works there and was a very helpful guide/what  should(n't) we do around the area, etc. He was a very chill guy, curly brown hair down to his chin that was beginning to gray, surfer dude shorts, Hawaiian shirt (although when we arrived at 7am he greeted us in boxers, shirtless --obviously forgot our reservations). He is very much one of those dudes who just goes where his feet takes him and can just be a dude. When I asked him why he left Australia, he just said he came here one day and never went back. Okay; I can respect that. 

Bluefin Guest House
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

There were not very many people staying there from what I could see but the place was very spacious. The kitchen and sitting room area was open; no doors or walls blocking the outside. Stairs led up to the guest rooms. There were a couple buildings in our little closed off area and I couldn't tell if they were all part of Bluefin or not. All except our building were inhabited by Thai people so I don't know (maybe Bluefin included apartment buildings too?). The showers were outside of our building, down a ways. They were like showers one would find at a camp ground. Single stalls lined up, equipped with toilets; the need for flip flops was never so apparent. After we checked in we marched directly up to our beds and passed the fuck out for a good four hours.

retarded face moment
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

More alley outside our GH
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

See that bucket there?
That's where you got the water to
flush the toilet. It was actually kinda fun.
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

Never slept on a bed harder.
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

They had a beautiful garden outside
with a nice sitting area.

This little guy (who is named Meow, but whom I re-named
Francis) was all over us all the time. Very friendly but
crawling with fleas.
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

Mikaela likes Francis, hates his bitting buggies
(seriously, she was covered in bites the first night.
I held out for a little while and I thought she
was going to get all the bad luck, but they caught up
with me).
Photo courtesy of Mikaela Corney

Next chapter -- Bangkok and the Royal Palace. 

PEACE OUTSIDE

Jamie 

Japan Tsunami Survivor's Charity Event

My friend/DJ who currently lives in Fukuoka Japan is setting up a fundraiser for the Tsunami relief for Japan.

"We are putting together a char­ity event for the Japan tsunami sur­vivors. It will be held at Sound Bar Brick in Tenjin, Fukuoka on April 16th. 100% of prof­its will go to JEN, a Tokyo-based NGO who is doing ground work in Tohoku"

http://www.lakeshore-driving.com/lsd/japan-tsunami-survivors-charity-event

If you live in that area or know anyone who does, take the time and go! Not only will it be fun but it's for a good cause!

PEACE OUTSIDE (and inside)
Jamie 

Pretending?

I've got a good starting portion of my S.E. Asia travels written out as well as a lot of pictures edited and I feel like I want to start posting them in between updates on what's going on in Japan/my life after leaving Japan. Lets pretend life is going as normally planned, shall we?

Things are still dreamy here and probably will feel that way until I head back to Portland and start really living again (staying with mom is like being on a mini vacation so doesn't count). I've been feeling delusional earthquakes ever since I got here and hate it (every time my step dad bounces his knee at the table or when the dog starts jumping around, I start involuntarily. Even when I'm just sitting there alone my mind starts to automatically focus on the ground and whether it's shaking or not. Post traumatic syndrome or what?!) Reverse culture shock hasn't been hitting me as hard as I feared it would (due to no preparation) but I still find myself in a language tangle when interacting with others. Breaking the habit of blurting out "sumimasen" when I run into someone, or "hai?" when my name is called,etc is going to take a while but i'm adjusting faster than was expected. The worse part of this whole ordeal is going to be finding a job. I'm not one for customer service (I just can't stand people) so I really want to avoid putting myself into that situation if possible. Yet, I know I'm not in Japan anymore so simply being a native English speaker isn't going to get me far in the teaching world. Perhaps I can look into some translation work, or maybe even tour guide but I'm not going to be too picky when it comes down to it and will have to suck it up if worse comes to worse.

I'm going to meet up with my friend who lives here in Campbell tomorrow for a little support group/ranting get together.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

Back home?

My mind has been in a haze ever since I arrived at Haneda Airport (actually more like ever since I found out I had to leave). It didn't feel like I was about to leave, and it still hasn't sunk in that i'm not going back (for now anyway). The airport was packed with foreigners and Japanese alike either fleeing Tokyo or leaving Japan all together. I'm pretty sure that Tokyo is now free of all Chinese people (Air China was particularly crowded).

My host family are truly amazing people. Not only did they drive me to the airport, but they bought me dinner, forced me to accept an un-godly amount of money to take back with me to America (which I will pay them back ASAP), and stayed with me until I walked through security. No other host family i've had has even gone as far as the train station to the airport with me.

I had one friend come see me off as well (since I left so suddenly it was hard for people to leave their jobs and such --which shows how much people in Tokyo aren't letting this disaster ruin their daily routines). It was hard leaving them but like I said before --i'm not a crier.

I had five bags on me; all of which were over weight. Luckily though they had a deal going on in lieu of what happened to where they were only charging for one overweight bag. Still ended up paying 16,200 yen (about $180).

All day that day we hadn't felt any tremors. Might have been because we had grown used to them and just didn't notice or perhaps because they were small enough not to notice--I don't know. As I walked through security up to the customers officer however, the whole world started a-rumblin'. The overhead lights were swinging, cell phone earthquake alarms were blaring, airport intercoms were delicately stating "An earthquake is happening, an earthquake is happening" (oh that's what that is); even the customers officer looked unsure (to which I was like, oh Jesus, you ain't stopping me from running through here if this gets any stronger). But it stopped as promptly as it started, I finished with the wide-eyed customers officer, and ran straight to the TV.


Epicenter was very close to the coast of Chiba, but only about a 6.0. No Tsunami warning (thank. god.). The tremors are getting closer and closer to Tokyo which is very unnerving but logical from what I hear (since the northern most plate had such a huge shift now all the other plates are shifting as well; rolling down the coast line). I was shaken (and stirred) and extremely upset because I had cancelled my phone an hour earlier so had no way of contacting anyone to make sure they were okay (I have many friends who live in Chiba). There was nothing left for me to do though but wait, so wait I did. Boarded my flight and had the pleasure of sitting next to an American emergency response guy whose team was heading to Hawaii.

Me: "So are they pulling you guys out because the situation is stabilizing?"

Him: *gives me an oh you poor thing sorta look "they're pulling us out because they don't want the rescuers to become victims"

Me: "oh".

Him: "there's only about 50 men left to work on those plants and they're the true heroes. They're never going to have an easy life after this".

Me: "It's that bad? Where you there?"

Him: " No, I was at the navy base in Yokosuka helping with supplies to the North. The thing is that the (reactor 2 I believe) is still surrounded by four feet of concrete so getting water to it to cool it down is next to impossible".

Me: "Thanks for calming my nerves"

He then politely asked me what I had been doing in Tokyo. Told him I was on study abroad but that in sight of what's been happening my program decided to evacuate all students. I was worried about my friends and host family and didn't want to leave like I was. He informed me that it was better that I was leaving.

That was by far the longest flight I have ever been on. I landed in Honolulu at about noon. Unfortunately I had only less than an hour over lay (about a week over lay would have been just about right to even out the tan I got in Thailand). From what I saw of Hawaii though it looked like a place I would go back to in better circumstances. As soon as I got to San Jose and saw my mom waiting there, I couldn't hold it in anymore; I completely broke down (what is it about moms?). I tried skyping my host family when I got to my mom's house but they weren't home. Verizon however is having a deal right now where you can call/text Japan for free until April 11th so I texted my host sister and she replied saying she was shopping in Ginza. Okay, now I can sleep.

I contacted my school and have decided not to take Spring term so as to get my life back in order. I absolutely hate the fact that I had no choice in this matter of being evacuated but then again I actually got lucky compared to another student I know on a different program. She had gone down to Kobe to escape everything and enjoy spring break. Her program however promptly called her the day after arriving there and said that they had set up a flight for her for the next day. Couldn't return to Tokyo to close her apartment, grab her stuff, or say goodbye to anyone. Needless to say she's a bit angry and sad and lost (like all of us are but perhaps just a bit more than the rest). Luckily she lives here in Campbell California so I'm going to hook up with her later and have a little support group. I'm so mad about a lot of things. I had just started my job at Gaba that I had worked so hard for. I had just gotten into the music scene in Tokyo and was scheduled to play some more gigs. My Japanese skills were skyrocketing, I was making lots of neat friends, and life was just so great.

This disaster is so horrendous and has displaced so many people that it's hard to complain about my petty problems. I just wish (as does everyone else) that it hadn't happened and that I was still snuggly immersed in the city that I had loved to hate (I'm not a big city kinda person so me and Tokyo had a lot of disagreements, but at the same time a lot of found memories). Got to start looking for a job, car, and apartment in Portland now. Hello, life.

If any other students out there are feeling lost/angry/sad, and just want to talk to someone who's feeling the same then feel free to contact me.

Email: weloveme006@yahoo.co.jp
If you email me I can give you my cell number as well.

Here's to all those brave souls working on getting that plant under control
Jamie