My mom came to visit last weekend with Michael. In preparation, I cleaned my apartment and bought new sheets and covers (and now my couches match).
We met up at the station on Saturday morning, had some lunch at the ramen shop, and visited Koma Shrine and my school. Essentially they saw Hidaka in an afternoon (with the exception of the park with the red flowers, since the flowers are only in bloom for about two weeks in the fall). We then went to Kawagoe and shopped around for awhile.
At 7 we met up with a few other AETs, my JTE and another teacher from my school for “dinner and drinking.” While everyone was nervous beforehand (I think), almost everyone had a good time. We had yakiniku and beer, and followed it up with an hour and a half of karaoke.
My friends admitted/complained that my co-workers are cooler then theirs. Although my interaction with the other teachers at their schools has been minimal at most, I always have a great time when I go out with my co-workers. My JTE and I swap stories (he says it’s a good way to practice his fluency), and I spend many free periods gossiping with the office ladies. Furthermore, Sato-sensei (the JTE we went out with on Saturday) not only found us a great place for dinner, he ended up treating our karaoke. Plus he sang the classic “I Want It That Way.” The other teacher who came out with us is equally as much fun. She’s the youngest teacher on staff (not counting me) and she teaches Japanese (kanji and such).
On Saturday night, when she was surrounded by seven people who were speaking in conversational English, she said to me “クリストルの感じ分かる。” (essentially, “I understand your feelings”). She continued, “私たちいつも日本語しゃべるけど。。。” (“we always talk in Japanese but [it’s difficult for you to understand]”). While I was in complete awareness of my situation, I didn’t ever stop to think about it from the perspective of my co-workers. I’m always getting compliments from them about how well I speak Japanese, to which I always respond with a shake of the head and a “上手じゃない” (no really, I’m not that good). However, after noticing how little she spoke when she was in the situation I find myself in everyday, I realized I’m really not as bad as I thought.
Anyway, back to my mom. We all had a lot of fun at dinner and karaoke, except for the huge embarrassment I felt when my mom announced that Kaz could move to Hawai’i and marry me.
The next day, we ventured out to Tokyo. A quick stop at Tokyu Hands turned into a 2.5 hour long shopping trip (which was topped off by a stop at Milky Way, land of delicious parfaits). We finally checked into the hotel at 4:30, then I anti-climactically took a nap until dinner. We got semi-lost on our way to the sushi restaurant that was recommended to us for dinner, but it turned out well because I got a new carpet for my apartment.
The following day was a national holiday known as 成人の日. This is a holiday that celebrates young adults who turned twenty in the past year. I believe it’s a bigger event if the twenty year old is a girl (if only because she gets dressed up in a fancy kimono). Coincidentally, we decided to visit Meiji shrine on this day. I was kinda bummed that we didn’t make it to Harajuku on Sunday to see the cosplay-ers, but I think it was worth it to see the elaborate kimono. After Meiji and Takeshita-dori (essentially a shopping area for teenagers), we crossed Tokyo and went to Ginza (the high-class, brand-name area of Tokyo). Michael’s cousin lives in the Tokyo area, and we met her for lunch. She brought her fifteen year old daughter who understood English very well, but was convinced she couldn’t speak it. I spent the majority of the two-hour, 5000yen lunch talking to her about Disneyland in Japanese. After perhaps the most frustrating search for a belt in a shopping district, mom and I parted ways in Shinjuku station.
I am now even more convinced that I am re-contracting and that I can’t help but end up, in the long run, in Hawaii.
