Ohio Gozaimus
Btw, that means Good Morning in Japan. I wanted to send everyone the first of which I am sure will be an email every Friday to let you know what is going on here in my world in Sano City, and hopefully I will get to hear from all of you. The first thing I can say is that it is incredibly hot over here. No matter what time of day it is, the heat just cascades over you and its stifling. Not very comforting for a girl who's idea of being outside is riding around with her top down. Funny, yes, but I'm getting used to it. It is especially warm when I am riding on my bike. The sun comes up extremely early and goes down by 7pm. Its crazy, and it was really hard to sleep the first few nights, especially with the 13 hour time difference between home and here.
The bike has been another interesting experience. Although as a kid I always rode my bike everywhere, it is completely different when it is your mode of transportation. It is getting easier, but every time I get on the bike I laugh to myself, if only my mom could see me on this bike she would be laughing too. The first day I rode the bike I ran into the wall and got a huge cut on my arm that still today hurts like the dickens and I know for sure I will have an enormous scar on my arm
Each weekday since I got here I get up in the morning and take a train to the Board of Education. We sit at the computers and basically surf the Internet each day, from 830 to 415, with an hour lunch break in between. I have learned a lot from Wikipedia since we have been here, as my desk mate Robb likes to fill us in on crazy things he finds on the net. I have learned a lot from him though, since he has been here a long time he is really helping us out in getting used to the culture.
After work, it seems that I am always extremely tired. Unfortunately, I dint have the Internet up at my house. I call it a house, but really it is like an RA dorm room. I by far have the smallest apartment I have seen here. I have two rooms, one is a kitchen and the other is my bedroom/living room/dining room. I have cable, but it is all in Japanese. I have a VCR, but it is not working at the moment but will be fixed. The highlight of my day can be watching a tape of an evening of television at home, ie we have tapes of like a Tuesday night on fOX with Everybody loves Raymond, Seinfeld, etc. If anyone is bored and feels like making a tape like that, feel free, Id appreciate it. Grocery shopping here has been interesting as well. I was telling my mom, I lucked out yesterday and got ham instead of what I thought it was. The grocery stores are a maze of food,all of which I have no idea what they are. I'm getting used to it though, and this week I am going to try out my new rice cooker haha.
Culture wise, Sano is very backward. I havent really gone out yet, except to a small bbq with other alts. It is very , very male dominated here. This is something that, for me, is going to take a long time to get used to. Its hard even in the office here at the BOE, because the men do not do anything, the women serve tea and snacks and clean up after the men along with doing their jobs. Even when I met the mayor yesterday, I was again the only woman except for the office lady who kept coming and filling up the tea. The mayor asked Billy, my counterpart, all about where he went to school and what he studied and what he wanted to do after he left Sano. All I got asked was if the weather was too hot for me and was I getting sunburnt. For some reason this is probably the thing that urked me the most so far about the culture. There is still the idea here that women should be subservient to men, and I am just not all about that.
I miss everyone very much. I had a hard first few days here, wishing very much that I could come home. It is getting easier now that I am set in to a routine, but I still wish that I could be at home eating Taco Bell ( the thing that I miss the most foodwise surprisingly. God I love Taco Bell) and watching reruns of the OC. But with each day it is getting easier. I am excited to start the school year and get things in full motion.
