One week down, one week to go. I made it through 6 days without getting arrested! I'm still going to keep the state department on notice however, just in case. Since I've been here I finished teaching one course, started another, tried real sushi, toured Tokyo, and made some other... "observations."
It's good to be back in the classroom, even if my students have no idea what I'm saying. Anyone who thinks teaching through an ASL interpreter is difficult really ought to try lecturing through a translator. It's a whole different ball game. Add to that I am forced to use lecture notes that someone else prepared, and it's been quite the trial. I always prefer to write my own material, but I didn't have any time to be doing that this time around.
The students are great. It's a lot like teaching college -- most of them want to be there, and the few that don't just sit there with a dumb look on their face waiting for lunch time. It's kind of fun to help them practice their English. Apparently English is taught more as a read and written language than a spoken language here. It's amazing how well they are able to navigate the software -- which is written entirely in US English. Don't get me started on the keyboards. Not only are all the non-alpha keys in the wrong spot... there's a ton of extra buttons and jibberish on there I don't understand. More than twice I've found myself doing the hunt-and-peck during a lecture. Not cool.
Enough business. Let's talk sushi. Everyone knows I don't like sushi. I make no secret of it -- everyone has their thing. Some people don't like mayonnaise, some people don't like sour cream, some people even don't like cream cheese. Me, I don't like any of that crap. Especially sushi. I have no problem shooting down plans when people say "let's get sushi!" It's the one thing I refuse to eat in the USA. But when in Rome... so I got it out of the way early. I let my client order for me because everything was written in jibberish and there were no pictures. I should have known better than to go to a restaurant that had no oven, stove, or cooking utensils. What came out looked like the trash bin outside the New England Aquarium: squid, octopus, eel, roe, fish, and rice. Most of the fish dealies were actually pretty good. Except the salmon which had roe on it -- pass. The octopus and squid were tough. I tried not to chew them but the octopus was huge so I couldn't avoid it. The mystery shell fish went down easy -- I just swallowed it. Then came the eel. I wouldn't have known it was eel if I hadn't asked, but I asked. And it was awful. Salty, almost pickled, mushy, with a skin of some kind... and it was gigantic. Like 6" long and 2" wide and you were supposed to eat it all at once with a giant wad of rice using chop sticks. I washed it down with some soy sauce, but spent the rest of the day wondering what was going on in my stomach.
Speaking of chop sticks... hmm... how do I say this delicately? I'm all for tradition, but at some point the Luddite in all of us needs to embrace the simplest of technological advances and stop getting between me and my food. I've been here 6 days now and I'm getting pretty good with the chop sticks, but I just don't get it. I watched an elderly woman try to cook for us today, and she fought for 3 minutes using chop sticks trying to turn the asparagus so it wouldn't burn. Had she used tongs? done. Ah well.
Today I did a day tour of Tokyo. Kind of pricey for what it was, but I'm far too lazy to go out and find most of these things on my own. If nothing else it forced me to learn the subway system and what all the different areas of the city are about. And I found a bonsai tree that's over 500 years old. Chew on that one for a while. That tree started growing while the paint on the Mona Lisa was still wet!
I did most of the touristy stuff -- temples, towers, gardens. I saw the great temple at Asakusa, went to the top of the Tokyo tower, had a "bbq" at a Japanese restaurant, and participated in a tea ceremony. I also rode a bus, chased a swan, and crashed a wedding. And the little old lady at the tea house loved my "Matsuzaka" t-shirt written in Japanese. Not much energy to write anything else, pictures to follow. More touristy stuff likely tomorrow.
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