Olympics Finale

Wow. Gotta say the Olympics closing ceremony was just as impressive as the opening ceremony! Actually makes me pretty proud to be living in Asian right now!

Of course I've been following the BBC live text today for the final day's Olympic action, and as soon as the U.K.'s plans for their blip in the closing ceremony were released, there was a hilarious discussion about how that was going to go over. Most people couldn't for the life of them figure out why a 'privet hedge' was being included in the handover segment (which is what the double-decker bus transformed into when the top folded down....in case you're like me and previously had no idea what a privet hedge was). There were great fears amongst the Brits for their performance tonight, but I have to say, as different as it was to the Chinese style for the Olympic ceremonies, I think it was a perfect showing for London's style and for the U.K. to set the stage for making 2012 "theirs."

I do have to admit that getting an insider's look today at both the pride and neuroses of the British leading up to the London Olympics (especially having to follow the Beijing Olympics) made my 2 weeks of inadvertent education about British athletes totally worth it!!!! Especially the comments made about London's Mayor as he cruised up through the stadium for the Olympic flag hand-over. There were sighs of relief that he didn't trip up the steps, bets taken that he'd set his hair on fire with the Olympic torch, and disappointment that he didn't mimic Usian Bolt's 'bow and arrow' pre-performance routine. Yep, the Olympics are coming back to "the West." I think the fact that the London Mayor was glad-handing the crowd on his way up the red carpet with his jacket wide open and looking a little scruffy (compared to the stateliness of the other 2 men on the stage) says it all. Classic. :-D London's gonna be a one big party isn't it?! Go London! :-)

Alright, so you can finally be free of my Olympic rantings, I'll give my final shout-outs. Well done to the U.S. Men's Indoor Volleyball Team on taking the gold over Brazil! Hate to admit it, but I didn't think we stood a chance against Brazil. Very convincing showing! Yay!

Along with Synchronized Swimming, my friends and I became enthralled with Rhythmic Gymnastics, something else I didn't think I'd ever hear myself say. I heard R.G. might be on the chopping blocks for near-future Olympics....I hope not! But they darn-well better not let Cricket and Rugby into the London Olympics...... ;-)

And how about this....the Kenyan who won the Men's Marathon gave an interview with a Japanese journalist right after the race.....IN FLUENT JAPANESE!!!!! Apparently he goes to university in Japan. Very impressive! Well done, dude! Oh, and what a way to get your medal...in the main stadium, on closing night, in front of all the other athletes, as well as +90,000 spectators on a red carpet, broadcast around the world....geez.

I guess it's a good thing that summer is almost over now that the Olympics are over. I have only one more week of wondering how to keep myself busy sitting around the teachers' room before classes start again. It's been nice to be able to while-away my work hours by watching the Olympics. :-)

Oh, and on a final sports note, shout out to the #1 pitcher on my current junior high school's baseball team. I recently found out that he was chosen to play on Japan's team for the "All Asia Junior High School Baseball Tournament" that happened in Japan last week. Stellar! Although he ended up at 3rd base instead of pitching......but who cares about the details! Way to go Yuji!

Brad Walker Has Left The Building

Oh, bugger. Checked the participants list for the Men's Pole Vault final tonight, and Brad Walker is not on the list. Well, it's not the first surprise in Track and Field where the U.S. is concerned ay?! Ah well.

The bug's in your ear now, so from here on out, for all you die-hard Track and Field fans, anytime you watch a major competition, just remember 1 name......Brad Walker, Pole Vault.

Now, I haven't made any comment on the swimming yet.......yeah, yeah, yeah, of course Phelps was great, and the U.S. Mens'4x100 free-style relay effort was out-of-this-world. BUT, I've come by a new-found respect for Synchronized Swimming! D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T!!!

Earthquake! Again!

Oooo.....was sitting in the teachers room this afternoon when the few of us there felt quite a large, sudden jolt, and extended moderate shaking. Everyone says this particular area of Japan is pretty safe as far as earthquakes are concerned, but if we feel one here, it's usually because it was really strong, or nearby. The quake this afternoon was only about 4.7, but surprisingly close to my area compared to all the other earthquakes that have happened this year.

You can check out reports and maps at: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

From Tokyo, go due West about half an inch and that's roughly the area I'm in. :-)

The Boy to Watch

Hey all! Wanted to make sure you're prepared to tune in to the Mens' Pole Vault final on Friday night (August 22nd). Why, you ask? Because, how cool is this - my friend Liane's cousin, Brad Walker, is competing as the current U.S. pole vault record holder and gold medal winner in the 2007 World Outdoor Championships! Go Brad!

Check out his Olympics bio at:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=248/bio/index.html

August 22 Athletics schedule:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/trackandfield/resultsandschedules/day=14/index.html

The pole vault final is scheduled for 7:55pm on the NBC website, but of course that might be different for different areas of the States.

Barrage

And while I'm at it, I might as well answer the question only I'm probably asking myself, "Why the sudden influx of blog postings?!" Well, the answer is completely anti-climactic....sorry. It's summer vacation for 6-weeks, which means unless I take personal vacation time, I have to go to school for 7 hours Monday - Friday, even though there are no classes. And what's one thing I can do to guarantee to eat away at those monotonous 7-hours in the teachers' room? You guessed it! Type 8-page blogs! Also, I've been sick for about 2 months, so I've been taking more of those personal vacation days now that summer vacation is upon us to sit around at home instead of at school, where I don't feel as guilty whiling away my hours typing stuff on the internet. "Sick for 2 months!" gasp the masses. Don't worry, it's only bronchitis. :-) Normal people would have been over it ages ago, but since I have asthma too, it takes me forever to clear out my lungs again. And I caught a cold in China as well, so that helped a lot. :-D I can't understand why. The fresh air of Shanghai should have done wonders for combating bronchitis......

Ooops

For those of you really looking forward to reading more about my friends in China, I goofed and somehow the story behind 'the China-Japan Connection' ended up being posted under the date of August 3rd instead of today (August 10th), before the "The China Connection - Part Deux" blog (not after it, like I promised). You're going to have to go back in time in order to read about "The Sabrina-Fredrik Mystery Unveiled." Just doing my part to add to the intrigue. ;-)

Olympics....again

I have to say, if you're hard-pressed for Olympic coverage......or even if you're not and you're just an Olympics nut like me, you should check out the "Live" coverage on the BBC website. It's very thorough coverage on everything from equestrian to swimming, and lets face it, coverage on things like equestrian, shooting and archery are just funnier from a British perspective anyway.

Like I said, comprehensive coverage, but in a short, perfunctory manner, and it's highly entertaining, as well as weirdly informative....for example, it was there that I first learned that the name of the recent Thai gold-medal winning womens weightlifter was a recommended name change by a fortune-telling nun. Jolly good fun that!

The China Connection - Part Deux

Heading into my second blog about China, maybe only slightly more interesting for you than my first entry, is the recap of my first visit to China.

Hold on...100m breaststroke mens semi-finals....go Kitajima!

Yo! Kosuke is first in his semi-final heat. Word.

Okay, back to me (hee hee). The day after school finished for the summer, I hopped on a plane to jet off to Shanghai for a week. My friends, a married couple from Europe - Sabrina, from Germany, and Fredrik, from Sweden - moved to Shanghai last year (I'll get into how I know them and why they moved to China in my next blog). They came to visit me earlier this year, and of course I’d be remiss not to reciprocate! I really wanted to see what their life was like in Shanghai, and, of course, get my first taste of life in China first-hand. I actually didn't really go anywhere during the summer holiday last year (which makes for a long 5-weeks of hanging out at school when there are no classes), and I haven't traveled to any new countries since arriving in Japan in 2006, so going to visit Sabrina and Fredrik was a catharsis for me on many levels.

However, I have to admit that this was the weirdest trips I've ever taken to a foreign country conceptually, in that I didn't really have a plan, except to hang out with my friends. I read just enough about Shanghai in my "Lonely Planet" book beforehand to know that what Sabrina said about there not really being much in the way of site-seeing there to be true. So I figured I'd wing it, and didn't actually start reading more in depth about Shanghai OR China in general until I was on the plane. VERY strange feeling.

So anyway, Shanghai. Honestly, it's just like any other big city in the world (and I probably wouldn't have gone there under any other circumstances, to tell you the truth). It has its shiny, new skyscraper, top-line shopping and international chain areas,

and it has its older and run-down-looking areas.

When I say there isn't much to see in Shanghai, it's in comparison with other Chinese cities, like Beijing. Of course if you like big cities, Shanghai is a great big city to visit. Lots of museums, lots of shopping areas, many different "sections" to the city ("antique" market areas, the French Concession - where Sabrina and Fredrik live, the Bund - which is a built-up area along the major river in town), and Shanghai is famous for its culinary options. I happen to be the exact opposite of a big-city lover, so I kept myself busy with Sabrina's suggestions of parks, temples, and the Old Town area, the latter of which was by far my favorite.

Temples:

The Old Town was by far my favorite, preserved (or more likely, rebuilt) from Shanghai's more traditional days. There's a large, enclosed Chinese garden, called the Yuyuan Garden, in the Old Town that is quite famous. I ended up there twice. I'm sure you can see why.

Yuyuan Bazaar area

Yuyuan Gardens

Two absolutely adorable Chinese junior high school students, who were on summer vacation and randomly wandering around the bazaar area, overheard me speaking English to a shopkeeper, and outside the shop they approached me to try their English. After our first conversation and good-bye, they found me again to ask to take a photo together, so of course I grabbed a passing Australian study abroad student to get a photo with my camera too. :-) Kudos to the JHS girls for having the guts to try a conversation with a random foreigner! I hope they go back to school in September even just a little more excited for English class. ;-)

I arrived in Shanghai on a Saturday and left the following Friday. Sabrina and Fredrik were kind enough to hang out and do a little site-seeing on the Saturday and Sunday (which funnily enough always ended at 1 of 2 of their favorite massage/spa places....1/2 the price of what I would pay in the U.S. or Japan so how could you pass that up?!), but of course they had to work Monday - Friday. I met both of them separately on two days for lunch and to see where they work. And every night we tried our hand at Shanghai's famous restaurant scene. During the week, between lunches and dinners, I tried 3 different kinds of Chinese food (Shanghainese-mix, Cantonese and Yunnan), Thai, Mexican, Italian, a bit of Nepalese, and a lovely American-style brunch. :-) None of which I can get in my area in Japan (except for Italian....Japanese-style). Shanghai is a very international city, and pretty much has been throughout its history, from what I remember reading. I should have taken more photos of the different kinds of food, but that's one aspect of Japanese culture that I haven't quite adapted to yet (every time I look at photos of my Japanese friends' travels, at least half the pictures are of food). I did manage to get one photo of me, Sabrina and Fredrik at the Yunnan/Nepalese restaurant my last night in Shanghai, as well as the bar on the Bund over looking the river and "new town" (shiny skyscrapers and funky-designed TV tower, all brilliantly lit for enjoyable night-viewing) we visited to wrap up my week-long Shanghai experience.

Overall, an interesting trip, and it was great to catch up with Sabrina and Fredrik again. What's my impression of China? I think it's impossible to say, because I don't think big cities ever give you a good impression of the true face/culture of a country. Shanghai especially. I heard multiple times that Shanghai is very different to the other major cities in China, let alone the rest of China itself. One thing I do feel comfortable commenting on with great accuracy is that it's friggin' hot in the summer, at least on the East coast. I flew into China in front of a typhoon, so I got lucky my first couple days in that is was a bit cooler and quite a bit more breezy in the city than normal for summertime. But that didn't last long and the majority of my site-seeing was done in 36-40*C temperatures and over 80% humidity. Being in a city of 18 million with high air pollution didn't make the summer heat and humidity any more comfortable. ;-) I haven't been following the temperatures in Beijing too closely, but a couple of days before the Olympics started, one Japan newcaster was reporting from Beijing with an auto-temp reader that indicated 40*C and 86% humidity....and that was at 5:00pm. I'm really feeling for the athletes. Not cool to be in any outdoor sports at this Olympics, especially long-distance ones.

Also, based on my experience in Shanghai, I would have to say that at least city-folk in China are a bit more laid-back. Dress was a bit more relaxed....even to the point of middle-aged and older men wandering around in nothing but boxer shorts and flip-flops. But you can't blame them because it's so flipping hot...did I mention that already? ;-) Lots of people, usually only men, taking siestas in chairs on the sidewalks, in the entrance-ways of buildings, in the back of their bicycle carts, on benches and under ramadas in parks. Can't say if that's just a "in-the-heat-of-the-summer" thing or an all-year-round phenomenon though. Also, I only saw it once myself, but my friends say that they see people wandering around in their pajamas on the streets all the time, and not just to grab the paper or put out the trash. My pajamas-in-the-street experience was on the Las Vegas-type street I posted a few photos of at the beginning of the blog. She even had a camera and was snapping a few photos. :-)

There's a spitting culture too that kind of takes you aback....okay, disgusts you really. No one is immune from it either...men, women, children, anyone can be heard drawing as much as they can from the very deeps of their throat and nasal cavity to projectile onto the sidewalk or into the street. Of course it's not everyone all the time, and again, of course, you catch the middle-aged and older men doing it more. But it's regular enough to definitely be a noticeable part of daily life. I'm not sure what's up with it. I'm going to have to ask my Chinese friend here in Japan about it. She's from Suichan, so I'll be interested to hear if the same thing happens down/over there.

Capitalism is alive and well in China from what I saw, an impression I'm sure you gained quickly yourselves from looking at my photos. I asked Sabrina's Shanghai-born co-worker about how the economy has changed during her time. Unfortunately she was younger than I'd expected, so she couldn't really comment from a personal perspective. She said while the markets started opening up in the 1980's, it's really been in the past 10-years that international companies have been proliferating in China and that capitalism has fully gripped the country. I really wish I'd had a chance to visit China during the 1980's or 1990's to have a comparison for today's China. One thing's for sure - at least in Shanghai - everyone was trying to get into your pockets. You're pretty much a sitting duck if you can't muster the mettle to haggle on prices. You're also hard-pressed to find a moment of peace in areas frequented by tourists as hawkers are constantly approaching you to get you to come to their shops or show you brochures of their name-brand knock-offs. And they don't take no for an answer. There were many times I had to take a stab at speed-walking or completely change direction mid-step to get these people to leave me alone. But again, it wasn't everywhere I went in the city. Still annoying though. :-)

Although the upside to all that is that China is pretty safe crime-wise. You don't have to worry as much as you do in the States or in parts of Europe, for example, about pick-pocketing or other petty crimes. Some of you might be questioning the safety of foreigners, especially Americans, in China after the attack on the American tourists in Beijing. I never encountered any anti-American or anti-foreigner sentiment while I was there.....although people didn't seem too impressed when I told them that I currently lived in Japan....that's a whole other story though. My personal thoughts about the attack in Beijing is that you'll find disturbed individuals everywhere in the world and it's difficult to know how or when they might lash out. I think that type of incident is rare in China, and it might actually just be a coincidence that it happened during the Olympics and to American tourists.

I got pretty excited about the prospects China (outside the major cities....except for Beijing) holds for visitors during my readings about it. So hopefully this won't be my only travel entry on China!

The Sabrina-Fredrik Mystery Unveiled

It had been eight years since Sabrina, Fredrik and I last saw each other in Sweden. That is, up until earlier this year when they started their 10-day Japan holiday by trekking out to my neck of the woods for a long overdue reunion. While we had only four days together, I schlepped them through my school, to my favorite Indian curry restaurant, to a wonderful local hot spring resort, skiing for 2 days in Nagano Prefecture with my town’s “family ski weekend,” and finally to the famous historic capital city of Kamakura on the coast just SW of Tokyo. See the end of the blog for some photos of our whirlwind adventures.

How do we know each other, you ask, and why did they move to China? Well, since you're dying to know, here's the story!

Sabrina and I took Swedish language class together during the year I lived in Sweden. She and Fredrik met prior to our co-Sweden stint while they were both studying in Nottingham, England. At the end of their studies, instead of returning to her native Germany, Sabrina decided to follow Fredrik back to Sweden. Seemed to work out well for them. They've been together for something like 10 years. And if you think I’m well-traveled, wait until you hear what they’ve been up to since our year together in Sweden.

After living for 3 years in Sweden, following a very enjoyable vacation in Barcelona and long-term interests in Spanish music and Latin dancing, they decided to move to Spain to take an intensive Spanish language course for a few months. The original idea had been just to travel, not to settle down and intensively study ANOTHER language (they are both fluent in English, can speak some French, of course both speak Swedish fluently, and naturally Sabrina's got the German thing going), but they decided to put the money towards something more lasting and invested in language courses and living as students in Spain instead.

After finishing the language course, their intention was to find jobs and settle in Spain for a spell. However, through Mexican friends made during their time in Spain, they found merit in moving to Mexico instead, which they did, and lived in Mexico City for 3 years.

When they decided to call it quits in Mexico and move on to the next adventure, they first finally decided to tie-the-knot in Cancun, then took a 1-year “honeymoon” and traveled extensively throughout Latin America, South America and Europe. Their next long-term destination choice was China, and to get there, they continued their extensive journeys by taking the land route from Europe to China through Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway and down through Mongolia before making roots in Shanghai, where they have been living since October 2007.

In case you’re wondering, Sabrina is a Civil Engineer and typically serves as Project Manager at constructions sites…one of those jobs that you can find relatively easily anywhere in the world, apparently, and receive substantial salary and compensation for it. Fredrik’s chosen career is in Human Resources. International jobs in Human Resources aren’t quite as readily available, but luckily, because of Sabrina’s relative global job-security, it’s okay for Fredrik to bide his time in the job-search arena. He's recently found very gainful employment for a Swedish company with an office in Shanghai.

Fascinating couple! Not hard to see why it's been enjoyable to keep in touch with them over the better part of a decade regardless of distance.

IN TOKIGAWA TOWN:

Shopping at the one and only local grocery store. Sabrina and Fredrik were oddly excited about their first Japanese grocery store experience.


Sabrina sitting in on a Math class at one of my junior high schools.


With some of my friends at our favorite Indian restaurant. Back row (l-r): Akiko, me, Sabrina, Fredrik (boy that row would have killed brain cells to figure out, ay? ;-) ). Front row (l-r): Takeshi, Toshi, Mai.

GUNMA PREFECTURE, ANNUAL TOKIGAWA TOWN FAMILY SKI WEEKEND:

View of the surrounding mountains and neighboring ski slopes.


Standing in line like good students for our ski lesson with a Tokigawa Town ski pro.


Hamming it up with our ski instructor.


So accommodating for the ski staff to entertain the skiers waiting in line at the lifts like this. :-)


Lunch time!


Dinner-time at our Ryokan (Japanese-style inn). Me and Fredrik with one of my 1st grade junior high school students and the inn owner, who used to be a member on Japan's womens national volleyball team! Yes, she was extraordinarily tall. :-)


The start of Day 2. What a shiny, orange-looking group. ;-)


Fredrik and Sabrina on the lift with one of the guys I happen to play tennis with on Sundays!


I'm pretty sure I posed this picture just for future viewing entertainment.......lost ski and everything......


Here's Fredrik and Sabrina looking distinctly suave and not buried in snow.


Fredrik showing off his "I'm from Sweden and you're not" world-class skier pose. ;-D


With all the school kids from my town who were on the town ski trip!


KAMAKURA

Good travelers wisely utilizing travel time to bone up on their next destination.


Even better travelers, having ditched the prep-reading and gone straight for the infamous Japanese public transportation snooze.


The giant Buddha in Kamakura.


My best impression of a giant Buddha.


My friend, Mie, who lives in Kamakura, was kind enough to take time out of her day to show us around the city. Supposedly, when you see a happy Buddha statue like this, you should touch his belly for good luck. You might remember me doing the same thing in one of my China photos, although in my photo I was running with the idea that if you look as happy or happier than the Buddha, your chance at luck should increase exponentially....right?!

The China Connection

Everyone doing their patriotic duty and being good sports fans for the start of the Olympics?! Good, good. I have to say I'm THRILLED to be only 1-hour ahead of Beijing time and hence can watch the Olympics live.....well, I could if the Japanese broadcasting of events made any sense to me. I haven't been able to figure out their rhyme and reason for how they televise events yet. The Opening Ceremony was straightforward, thank goodness....although it didn't finish until 1am here. However, on Day 1, the first televised events were womens weightlifting and judo....totally understandable as there were famous Japanese athletes competing in both sports. However, after the Japanese matches/tries were finished, after showing a few other non-Japanese matches/tries, they kept replaying the same matches/tries multiple times when they could have, in my opinion, better spent the air-time on other sports, which were, as I found by simultaneously following the live Olympic web-text on the BBC website, definitely going on. :-)

Even though they are popular sports and there are high hopes for the Japanese athletes in the following events, the games/heats/rounds for mens gymnastics, womens soccer and swimming weren't shown live, but a bit later, due, I'm sure to the fact that they felt obligated to replay every Japanese weightlifting and Judo bout, as well as the interviews, multiple times before moving on to other events. This is why I love Japan. :-) The things that make absolutely no sense to me. :-) Oh, and the Olympics are being broadcast on 3 different channels, sometimes at the same time (different sports, however....well done!). And I knew to keep an eye out for that eventuality (multiple-channel broadcasting) simply because I've been in Japan for awhile and knew better. :-) Love it!

Of course over the course of my 2 years in Japan I've gotten familiar with the top Japanese athletes because, let's face it, televised sports are the one TV program for which you really don't have to be able to follow the language in order to understand what's going on. Going into the Olympics, I'm finding that I know the Japanese teams/athletes a whole heck of a lot better than I know what's going on for the U.S.! New generations of U.S. athletes....can't handle it! I'm happy to see there are some familiar names on the marquees though, such as Michael Phelps, the Hamm brothers, and the girls and boys of beach volleyball (go May & Walsh!!!). But with the combination of watching primarily Japanese-athlete-competing events (because, of course, that's what Japanese TV is going to focus on broadcasting), and being lopsided on my athletes-knowledge, I'm afraid I'm going to have to admit that I'm probably going to be cheering for Japan more often than the U.S.!

I'm actually sitting in my tatami room (a.k.a. living room) now, surfing the channels every 3 minutes, waiting for the first swimming final to be broadcast. Nothing yet. I'll have to check the BBC site again to see what's going on (SO funny). Luckily the Japan high school baseball "World Series" is going on right now too, so I can follow along with that in the meantime....I have no idea whose playing in the game I'm watching right now, but they are tied in the 11th inning, which is one of the closest and longest games I've seen in the 2 weeks the series has been running so far. This year's series is slightly more interesting to me than last year due in part to the fact that the son of one of the teachers at my current junior high school (you're all following this right?) was part of the team that made it to the World Series from my prefecture. Unfortunately they lost by 1 run in their first game so they are out.

Whoop....400M individual medley is about to start. Phelps' first medal chance....and Japan is all over it! They LOVE the big name American athletes. There was a dubbed "documentary" special done recently on Phelps aired a couple of nights before the Olympics started. The famous American track and field athletes are pretty well-known here too.

So anyway, in case you're interested in following along with the Japanese athletes (if you even have the chance with Olympic broadcasts wherever you are), here's who to watch out for:

Swimming: Mr. Kosuke Kitajima in 100m & 200m breaststroke. I think he won gold in both in Athens, and I unless I'm mistaken (which happens often), I think he's the world record holder in at least one of the events.

Judo: If any of you watch it yesterday, there might have been focus on Ms. Tani Ryoko. Apparently she's been pretty much #1 in the world for ages at 48kg. I read last night that she hadn't lost a major competition since 1996! She was going for her record 3rd gold yesterday, but lost to the eventual gold medal winner and had to settle for bronze....which still gave her a record 5th Olympic medal in the event.

And Phelps gets his 1st gold in WR time! Awesome start to my day! I imagine he's feeling the same (hee hee).

Next is 100m womens butterfly....2 Americans whose names I don't know (new generation sneaks), but no Japanese swimmers in this event, so GO U.S.A.! (ha ha)

Gymnastics: I don't know about the Japanese womens team, but there's a lot of hype about the mens gymnastics team. They qualified for the team all-around (?) yesterday in 4th place behind China, Russia and the U.S. Whoo hoo!

Track & Field: Ms. Mizuki Noguchi won the gold in the womens marathon in Athens, and was looking to do the same in Beijing, however her participation is sketchy now, because she was diagnosed yesterday with severe fatigue after coming back from her Swiss training camp early. But I guess the marathon isn't until Aug. 17th, so get better quickly Noguchi!

Also, the largest non-sumo Japanese guy I've encountered so far, Koji Musofushi, is in the hammer-throw....and/or shot put, or something like that. I can't remember which Games, but he won gold in his event at least once in the past. Both Musofushi and Noguchi are hugely famous in Japan.

Volleyball: Both the womens and mens volleyball teams qualified for the Olympics, which was a huge coup. The Japanese womens team has been strong pretty consistently over the years, but I guess the mens team hadn't qualified for the Olympics for 16 years! The team captain was on the last team to qualify for the Olympics, and at 38-years old, this was obviously going to be his last chance for an Olympics. I've been watching the volleyball tournaments religiously....almost all the major international events have been held in Japan this year, oddly enough.....so it was an absolutely thrilling moment to see both teams qualify. I think they are going to have to play miracle volleyball in order to medal, but hey, they're there! And I love the setter on the womens team, cuz she's so short! I think I heard she's my height exactly. I knew I was playing volleyball in the wrong country...... :-D

Wanna hear something funny? The whole reason I started this entry was because I was in China myself 3-weeks ago, but I'll have to save that story for the next "China Connection" blog because I'm obviously way too excited about the Olympics for the good of my blog. ;-D

How To Obtain A Japanese Driver's License in 125 Easy Steps

Driving in Japan……the first year was easy. Except for being from a country that drives on the opposite side of the road, and thus having to really concentrate for the first 2 weeks of driving in Japan to make sure I stayed on the left side of the street, I didn’t have to do anything special to be able to drive my first year, except hit up a AAA office in the States prior to departure to procure an International Driving Permit. For this all I had to do was hand over $10 and one of those beloved passport-sized photos, then show up in Japan, get my hands on a car and, well, other drivers beware!

The rumor is that up until a few years ago, the Japanese Government was cool with us foreigners driving around at will for multiple years on the International Driving Permit, which makes sense honestly. After one year, you would hope most people would have gotten the hang of driving in Japan and be a lot better at it than they were the first day they got in the car. So why not let them keep on keeping on?! Well, all that was relatively recently changed. So now, after one year, the International Driving Permit is no longer valid, and foreigners have to obtain a Japanese Driver’s License (referred to as “JDL” from here on out) if they want to continue driving legally. The process one must undertake to obtain the JDL is different depending on the country you are from.

If you are from the UK or Australia, for example, the process is incredibly easy. Show up at your regional driving center (which is probably the biggest pain as you can’t just rock up a local licensing center in your own town…..cuz it doesn’t exist; there are 1-2 centers per region/prefecture), pay your money, hand in your application, take a 10-question written test, and as long as you muddle through that without too many mistakes, your Japanese Driver’s License is in the bag.

If you’re from another country, for example, the U.S., you have to do all of the above PLUS take a driving course driving test! I’m sure it helps that countries like the UK, Australia and New Zealand all drive on the left-side of the road also, but I’ve read that the reason for the difference is based on a form each country can fill out and submit to the Japanese government for approval to have their citizens exempt from taking the practical driving test. Unfortunately for the U.S., each state tends to have at least a few of its own unique driving-related rules. Hence, a single form can’t be completed on behalf of the entire country. All 50 states have to complete the form and be individually approved by the Japanese government. It’s very funny in a fruitless hopefulness sort of way.

Before I get to the practical driving test, let’s go over paperwork. Along with the license application, foreigners have to prove that they lived in the country from which they obtained their original drivers license for at least 3 consecutive months prior to arriving in Japan. Normally this can be done relatively easily by bringing your passport along which is hopefully at least 3 months old without any stamps that contradict your declaration of 3+ months of residence.

Naturally, I had to renew my passport right before I came to Japan so my passport was only about 1-month old when I left the States. And, of course, in my pre-departure preparation, making sure I was completely prepared for the Japanese Driver’s Test requirements were not at the top of my list of things to worry about, so I conveniently left my old passport in some random box in my brother’s basement.

Okay,……so now what? I have to prove 3-months of residency in a country I had lived in almost my entire life, and I couldn’t do it very easily. Funny, ay?! After multiple calls to the regional Driver’s License Center by the staff from my supervising office (the Town Hall Department of Education), the solutions were: provide a letter from my most recent employer…..which actually doesn’t really prove anything at all, so I was also told to submit old credit card statements with my address on them. In the States I would have said no way (being all paranoid and stuff about anything related to sharing credit card information). But, it’s Japan (not as scary with personal information issues), and it was the easiest thing to get my hands on in lieu of the inconveniently buried old passport. Thank goodness for online-based documents!

After much trouble for my town’s Department of Education staff and the teachers at the Junior High School I was at that particular term (especially the new, 2-term only, recently-graduated, hence 1st-time-teaching English teacher, who had the unfortunate task of translating the Department of Education’s messages about what seemed like impossible drivers license document requirements based on their phone conversations with the licensing center staff), and bothering the Business Manager at my old office in Arizona, I finally had what I hoped would suffice as proof of residency. I admittedly started the process a bit late, because none of us were familiar enough with the process to realize what was involved (the only foreign teacher to ever stay in Tokigawa-Town for more than 1 year had been from Wales, hence was one of the “easy” cases). My legal driving privileges were set to expire at the end of July of 2007. I was hoping to have everything squared away before then, but especially before the new foreign teacher was due to arrive the second week in August so I could be a good mentor and take him shopping for needed supplies, and let him get familiar with the driving routes to the towns that actually had decent stores at a comfortable pace. Not in the cards. In the end, he had to learn through trial by fire.

Why? Because I failed my practical driving test the first time. And you have to wait at least a couple of weeks before you can try again. Bugger. Double-bugger.

Considering I’d been driving for 16 years by this particular point in time, I figured I’d be able to take a decent stab at the driving test. You can even get a map of the driving course beforehand so you know what you’re up against. I was nervous about the fact that the driving instructor would be giving me instructions in Japanese and I wouldn’t really understand them, but then again, they have foreigners taking the driving test all the time, so they must have figured something out by now as to how to deal with us non-Japanese speakers. I was also nervous about the fact that I had read and heard from other foreigners that basically 9 out of 10 foreigners fail the driving test the first time around. Later I heard it’s really hard for Japanese people to pass the test too.

The driving test is VERY strict. When they say turn on your turn signal 30 meters before a turning, they mean 30 meters (like I know any distances in meters in anyway…everyone tried to translate 30-meters for me by saying it was the same length as a telephone pole…because it’s natural to know how long a telephone pole is when it’s laid down on the ground…hmmm). Of course you have to move properly into turning lanes, signal and maneuver appropriately around road hazards, and my favorite that I never had to do in the States was drive through “S” and “Z” curves (because Japanese roads tend to be very tight and very windy). However, the killer for me was the combination of checking over your shoulders and million times before, at 30 meters, in the right sequence, signaling and moving in the appropriate distance to the curb or the center lane before turning as to not allow bicycles, mopeds or motorcycles room to sneak up on you before you turn. I honestly can’t remember, but I think you’re supposed to move closer to the curb or center line, then signal, then turn. Or signal first that you’re moving in towards the curb or center line (but not yet turning), then move in, then signal again for the turn…….obviously whatever the sequence was it’s never made sense to me. And I’m sure you’re all following along without an iota of difficulty. Also after your turn, you have to make sure you are the appropriate distance from the curb. I failed my driving test the first time because I was too far away from the curb during and after my turn……eh?!?! Color me surprised.

So anyway, all the stuff I just told you about why the Japanese practical driving test is so difficult…of course I didn’t know any of that when I got into the instructional car the first time. And being a bit blown away from failing a driving test not because I ran over a curb but because I was too far away from it, made me realize that my odds of passing the second time were most likely quite slim without knowing the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese practical driving test. And faced with having to burden a member of the Department of Education to accompany me to the driving center multiple times if I kept failing, I (begrudgingly) decided to fork over the $300 it costs to take two x 2-hour driving classes at the driving school in a neighboring city.

Of course, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, someone from ‘my’ Department of Education (DOE) had to accompany me to the driving practices, sit in the backseat of the practice car to help translate what the instructor was saying while I tooled around the driving course. For some reason the guy who was 3rd in command in the DOE drew the short straw. Lucky him.

I’m sure the practice at the driving school helped somewhat when I took a 2nd stab at the practical driving test. However, I’m thoroughly convinced that what actually enabled me to get a “pass” from the test instructor the second time around was the mere fact that I went to the driving school, and that the test instructor had 2nd and 3rd opinions from the driving school instructors as to my ‘true’ driving abilities.

So yes, I did pass my JDL test on the second go. The collective sigh of relief from the DOE staff provided the town with a lovely cool breeze that day.