Higashiyama Zoo

This has been a busy week with my first visitors to Japan!  Mom and Dad arrived on Saturday, and we've been on the go ever since. 

First stop was the Higashiyama Zoo. 

It's a great place for viewing the ever-popular sakura (cherry blossoms).  Many people say the week they are in bloom is the best week in Japan, so Mom and Dad timed their trip perfectly!

Since it was Easter Sunday, I like to think that this was the Easter bunny :)

Fun with the giraffees.

Moving on to a silly turtle exhibit... If the Japanese didn't think Americans were freak shows before, they do now!!

A line up of kangaroos.  We couldn't see any joeys in the pouches :(  But they were still cute.

A koala bear!

View of the Higashiyama Pond from the Sky Tower.  The paddle boats down below were helicopters, swans, and other cool characters!

These are some random riding toys scattered around the zoo.  You hop on, put in 100 yen, and then steer it around it runs out of juice!  LOL.

Moving on to a different part of Nagoya -- Sakae with the floating pond and TV tower.

The whole family at Central Park.

Mom and Dad enjoy the park.

Cherry blossoms!

Mom and Kerri look like they are at one with nature.  Do not be fooled... we are still indoors-type people!

Dad and Kerri in the park.

Yummy Easter Dinner

Their first Japanese restaurant experience: Yamachan for chicken wings and other treats on a stick.

Mom and Dad look really thrilled to be sitting on the floor eating dinner.

At least they enjoyed the Japanese soda ramune.  You have to pop the top and then push a marble in it in order to start pouring.

Eel Dinner & Philippino Bar

This week one of the men in my department retired from Mitsui. Every time someone comes or goes, it requires a big work party!! This time we went to an unagi (eel) restaurant, which Nagoya is famous for.
Here's my plate of appetizers: seaweed, green onions, pressed rice with peas, gummy rice on a stick, and a shell full of seafood sauce and some kind of mussel. Surprisingly, the mystery shell had the best flavor. Also, the green plate at the top left is my raw eel waiting to be cooked in my pot. Several of the men mistakenly ate their eel without cooking it!! Even with my limited Japanese, I understood the waitress when she said we would cook the eel later!! I think there may be something inherently wrong with your food if you can't tell if it should be cooked or not before you eat it!!
My half-eaten sashimi (raw fish). I tried one of each and then gave the rest to Jazzy Dani.

We are finally cooking the 2 pieces of eel. It's boiling in water with seaweed and some mystery floating object. Oddly, I was the first one to start eating the mystery object, and people were asking me what it was... like I had any clue!! It was kind of like thin, soggy bread.

Next is salad time. Usually I find the salad to be one of my favorite (safe) courses. This one had way too much slimy seaweed for my taste, though. It's garnished with fish flakes and bamboo.

This was one thing that I tried but refused to finish. Uhh, it was a clue when they said the name was "rotten seaweed". Basically it's liquefied seaweed and vinegar and some unknown white floaters. Women eat it with a spoon, so I gave it a try. Yup, it tastes like vinegar and seaweed!! Men drink it like a shot!

Unidentified object, but one of the tastiest of the night. It had vegetables buried inside this thing. No one had any idea what it was! I told them that it's strange to me that no one can identify what they are eating! But they said Japanese are raised to clean their plates. It doesn't really matter what they are eating--they're still going to eat it.

Another eel dish with rice. Each pot is shared by 2 people.

Here are the instructions for preparing and eating the eel dish. Again, should food really require an explanation of how to eat it?! We were all cracking up about these 4 options listed below!!

Notice anything missing? Yup, no dessert... I was even chanting betsu bara, which means "separate stomach" (for dessert even when you're full from dinner) hoping the waitress would get the hint!! No luck :(

Whole department at dinner!

Kerri & Miyamura on his last day. He is the one who said I looked like Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid at the Christmas party, and he brought it up again tonight. He's a firm believer in my Ariel qualities!! Also, he researched my last name online and likes to randomly announce to people that my ancestors are from England based on the origins of "Green".

Finally, Miyamura said the night would not be complete without a visit to the Philippino bar, so we set off in taxis to find the mystical Philippino bar...

In true Japanese spirit, one guy went back to work to finish some things up, but said he would join us there shortly.
So this Philippino bar doesn't have a name or a sign. You just wander around a specific area of town and some guy will come up to you and ask if you are looking for the Philippino bar. Of course, this happened for us rather quickly, and then Miyamura and the guy were "negotiating" for a few minutes. Finally, they whisked us away to a building and put us in a tiny elevator that took us to the Philippino bar. Can you say "shady"?!

I quickly realized that the bar was some kind of gentleman's club because they were no other ladies there, except for the Philippino ones getting paid!! And while there was nothing overtly scandalous going on in plain view, the whole vibe was sleazy!

My highlight of this bar... they have a liquor called "Green"!! My co-workers told the ladies that I needed to take home the bottle since it was the same as my name. We even had to call "Mama" (leader of the ladies) over to discuss it. Mama said I could only take the bottle home if we finished it all. At this point, I got a little belligerent and said something like "Really?! Like you don't have any empty bottles just sitting around in the back?!" Next thing you know... an empty bottle appears in front of me as a souvenir! Either they like mouthy Americans, or they just wanted to shut me up!

There was also karaoke at this establishment, and Philippino-style in obviously like American-style were you sing in front of the whole bar!

I decided to lead the bar in a Beatles classic: Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da. Notice one of our Philippino ladies sitting on my right. They would just make themselves comfortable were ever this was a sliver of a seat and then order themselves drinks on our tab!

The whole group joins in the singing with me. Another Philippino lady sits at the right of this picture. I think she may be wearing a white trash bag for a dress. It was puffy and horrible.

Oh yeah, and the guy who went back to work to finish a few things did show up shortly after us, and he brought all of the other guys with him who were still in the office at 10pm!!

As we were leaving, Miyamura said I will probably come back here again because all of the Philippino ladies speak English! Umm... it was nice to order my own drinks and very rudely demand my own liquor bottle, but it's still not likely that I will return to this place ever again!!

Strawberry Picking

On Saturday I was invited to go strawberry picking with some friends from work, and since I knew this experience would be unlike anything I've done in Michigan, I decided I better join!
I thought this would be a 2-3 hour adventure, but we ended up being gone for 12 hours!! I am often amazed how long it takes to get places in Japan, but no one else seems to realize how inconvenient it really is. (What I wouldn't give for my car and Interstate 75 during these trips!!) Keep reading to hear about about my long day...
We set off for Tahara City, which is about 100 km from Nagoya. (60 miles = 60 minutes in the USA, right?!)
The blue shaded area is Tahara City on the Atsumi Peninsula. The northern side is Mikawa Bay, and the southern side if the mighty Pacific! After 3 hours on a train and in a car, we have arrived at the strawberry "farm". I was impressed by all of the windmills in the distance!

Our group of 15 consisted of Mitsui and Toyota workers, and we have finally arrived at our greenhouse.

Yes, they go strawberry picking inside greenhouses!! I knew something was up when all of my friends showed up in dresses and high heels! This also explains why the strawberry season in Japan lasts from January to May. They don't have to contend with winter weather!!

In Japan you go strawberry picking to eat them right away, not take home with you! So here is Kerri and her friends enjoying their strawberries!

Rows and rows of yumminess!

Many of my friends starve themselves all day just so they can gorge on strawberries, but I must admit that all of that sweetness was rotting my stomach!!

The winner for the biggest strawberry!

I imagine that if my American friends were there, we would have bet someone $5 to eat a green or barely pink strawberry!! LOL. Sick, twisted, immature Americans :)

All you could eat strawberries for just $10. (We stayed there for about 30 minutes.) That's a pretty good deal considering when you buy them at the grocery store in Japan they are available in trays of 6 for $6.
Here's all of my strawberry stems, and many people like to dip their strawberries into the sweet milk creme on right. I wasn't such a big fan of it.

Next, we went to a Tahara City lookout spot. I loved all of the windmills. I never get to see them close up in America!! That big blue building in the middle is the Tahara Toyota plant, which is the largest Toyota plant in Japan. They are an award-winning plant, especially with all of the windmill power right on their own property. The rows of buildings in front of the plant are (you guessed it) housing for the Toyota workers!! I'm shocked that a manufacturing plant has ocean front property (this would never fly in America), but I guess that's what happens when your entire country is an island!

FYI - I did a little research on Tahara City, and surprisingly their "sister city" is Georgetown, Kentucky! In addition, the Tahara plant is the "mother plant" to TMMI (Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana), so Princeton, Indiana is a special "friendship city" to Tahara as well!!
Directly to the right of the plant is the Tahara Port, where they ship out Lexus and Toyota vehicles to all over the world. Pretty convenient that they don't have to transport them to the port!! Maybe I should ask at work if I can go for a tour at this place :)

Kerri and Hari enjoy the windy view.

Next stop was the ocean. I always laugh at their palm trees in central Japan because this weather is so not tropical, but they are imported to make it feel more beachy for visitors!! We didn't stay long because it was windy and cold, the ladies in skirts couldn't handle it.

Lastly, here is sign for the restaurant we ate dinner at. I have no idea why the frightening sign says "It dies."!! It was a ramen joint, with the key word being "joint". Oddly, all of the posters inside were related to Bob Marley, Cheech & Chong, and marijuana! Thankfully, I didn't see any more skulls and crossbones.

I finally arrived home just after 10pm. All I could think about was that if I were living in Kentucky, I could have driven to Michigan, had dinner with the parents, and driven home in the time it took us to go strawberry picking. I'm pretty sure if this was the case in America, no one would bother to go strawberry picking!

Japanese class ends

Can you believe that it's already been 3 months since I started Nihongo kurasu (Japanese language class) back in the beginning of January?!
I can. It's been painful every step of the way. I constantly felt like I was the slow kid in class. (And I'm sure everyone else in class noticed it, too!)
About 4 weeks in to my class, I found out that "Beginner 1" was not the lowest level class!! Apparently, I should have considered enrolling in "First Step" or "Basic" before jumping to Beginner. At that point, it was too late to switch, and dropping out would be a waste of money, so I just powered through as best as I could.
As I learned after the final test, my best was just not good enough this time. I wasn't able to make the 70% grade required to pass the course :(
Here's a pic of me and my classmates on the last day of class. The 2 Japanese women sitting in the front are our teachers. (One teacher was for Tuesday classes, and the other for Friday.)

I'm actually really happy this class is over because it caused me an incredible amount of stress. I'm going to continue to build my vocabulary with Rosetta Stone, but grammar rules and verb tenses are history for me! I'm going back to the kiddie pool rather than drowning in the deep end!
Otsukare sama desu. (Cheers for good work!)

Holidays and Time Off

As I've mentioned before, the Japanese work ethic is legendary. Most workers stay late into the night as if they are in some kind of silent competition with each other. But do not be fooled, being a worker in Japan has some benefits, too.
For instance, most companies in Japan give at least 19 paid holidays per year. (Compared to 9 paid holidays with Transfreight.) The rumor is that the holidays force businessmen to spend time with their families, but I also think that the Japanese will use any excuse to have a party! Some of the more unique observed holidays are:
--Spring & Autumn Equinox (What?! The first day of Winter and Summer aren't special, too?!)
--Greenery Day (Not sure what this consists off, but it must be cool since it has the name "Green" in it...)
--Children's Day and Respect for the Aged Day (That pretty much covers everyone, right?)
And my personal favorite...
--The Emperor's Birthday! (How sweet would it be to get August 4th off in honor of President Obama?)
These holidays are rarely observed on a Monday, but rather the day off is given whenever they fall, so I frequently have random a Tuesday or Thursday free from work. There is also a Japanese law that when 2 holidays fall within the same week and there is only 1 work day in between, that middle day must also be given off as a holiday! That rare occasion happened in September 2009 just before I arrived in Japan. Sadly, there are no "gimme" holidays like this in 2010.
Nearly all stores, museums, and attractions are open on holidays (to boost revenue from businessmen and their families). Instead, they take the following day off.

There is no policy about Sick Days, but people are encouraged to take them. In fact, you will rarely ever hear a cough, sneeze, or sniffle in the office. If you are remotely sick, it is expected that you will stay home from work for 5 days. (And computers don't leave the office, so no working from home!) When you return to work, you must wear a mask for another 5 days. (I think it's to warn people that you were recently sick, and they should stay away!!)
In over 4 months, I haven't been sick yet. Not even a sore throat. Some people say it's due to my strong American immune system. Japan is such a clean environment with anti-bacterial paranoia, that in recent years there is a true problem with children not building their immune systems. I guess in my 29 years in America, I've already had everything under the sun that Japan could possibly throw at me!!