Off to the states

Well, I'm off to the states for a couple of weeks. I haven't been home in 4 months and am curious as to what my response will be when I set foot on USA soil. Obviously, I'm excited to see family and friends. However, since our son and a roommate now live in our house, we will be staying in our guest room. Essentially, we'll be visitors in our own home. So even though we are "returning home", it feels more like we're going on a visit away from our home. Very confusing. I'm definitely not used to "global" living.
On a side note: I'm still not very blog savvy. My friends say that I need to update the blog more often. Not necessarily long pieces, just updates. So with that in mind, I'll keep this short but try to communicate more often. Next blog will be from the USA.
Ja mata,
Gary


One last thing....
This is something you certainly don't see in East Aurora.


I tried to get Marcia to put her hand near this spider
to show how big it was. That's as close as she
would get and only for a microsecond. (That's why her hand is blurry.
She jerked it away pretty fast.) Pretty big huh?

Thanksgiving in Japan

Thanksgiving with the downstairs neighbors (also expats). Beer, football (tape delayed), snacks and turkey. Life is good. More on the downstairs neighbors in future blogs.

The Journey Begins

Well, here goes. Although I consider myself computer literate, I am pretty much blog ignorant. A friend of mine, Frank, who is very literate in more ways than I can count, including computer and blogging, (see his website at ravenweb.net) has set this site up for me. He also posted my first blog which was a newsletter that I sent to friends back in the states. Based on some positive response to the newsletter, I've been encouraged to chronicle my experiences while living in Japan. So without further ado, the journey begins.



I've now officially been in Japan for 3 months. The time seems to be flying by. First to all those people who are more knowledgeable about Japan. I apologize for any simplifications or gross inaccuracies that I may put forth. I'm just sharing my experiences and I certainly don't claim to be an expert on anything Japanese. Anyhow, things have certainly been moving along. I've learned both Hiragana and Katakana and can read and write very slowly. Since Katakana is the system for foreign words, and many of the words come from the English language I can actually figure them out. The other day while shopping with my wife, I sounded out kurisumasu kado. Masu is pronounced mas so the two words were Christmas card. Since I was standing in front of a large display of Christmas cards, the deciphering process was made much easier. It's strange to be so excited about reading and sounding out words as if I was a four or five year old.
But, speaking of Christmas, I was surprised that it is such a big deal here. Decorations have been going up since Halloween, which also seems to be enjoyed here.




I'm continually surprised at the number of celebrations and festivals that occur here. Japan, at least our area, seems to be very event oriented. Almost every weekend some event takes place on Motomachi or Naka street. Motomachi Street is the main drag of our shopping area with many trendy shops and restaurants and Naka Street is the next street over. In late October we had an event on our street called the "La Pesta Mille Miglia 2006", a classic race car event. I guess they drive (race?) these really cool old race cars from Harajuku to Yokohama and the "finish line" is on Motomachi Street. Quite the event. The street was blocked off. A large stage was constructed with ramps at both ends so the cars could drive down the street, up the ramp, onto the stage and then down the other side and continue down Motomachi. A full band was on the stage and played swing and jazz pieces. Also on the stage were local dignitaries and, of course, car manufacturer executives who sponsered the event. There must have been at least 75 cars, if not 100. I took lots of pictures. The cars were old and in immaculate condition. I saw English, German, Italian, and a few American cars. Very few , if any, were from Japan. I think most of the cars were from a Tokyo classic car club. Quite the event. The street was completly mobbed with people. This event was held on Tuesday evening of a normal work week.

In early October (October 9th) Monday was a holiday here so there was some kind of street celebration all weekend in our neighborhood. Each evening, Naka street was closed to traffic. Venders sold food from booths set up on or near the street. The rest of the street was covered with tables and chairs. People were eating and drinking everywhere. Some were eating at the tables. Others just claimed a part of the street and spread out a tablecloth. Musicians played on street corners, and there was even an exotic dancer.






We have had a shopping week called a Charming Sale, where Motomachi street was jam packed with people for a full week including two weekends.

A celebration for dogs, including a dog beauty contest. Dogs are very popular here, especially small dogs. People dress them in very elaborate costumes. My favorite costume, which I was unable to get a picture of, was a small dog dressed in a black leather Harley Davidson outfit. Vest, pants and even leather hat.





The dogs are wearing grey and white sweaters with pink front sleeves.




The strollers in the above pictures are for the dogs.



Obviously some people also get dressed up.


There seems to be no end to the number of events and all are well attended. This was the grand opening of a new department store near Yokohama station.





One last side note. We recently spent a week in Rome (Marcia worked and I toured). Rome is a truly awesome city and the history is overhwelming. That being said, I was truly delighted to return to our home in Yokohama. Within half an hour of being in Rome, we were ripped off by a cab driver and within the first two days, two others of our group had their pockets picked and their money stolen. After living in Japan for three months, I had let my guard down and had forgotten to be paranoid. Two very distinct differences between Rome and Yokohama are the level of crime and the level of service. I have been to Italy before and I love the food and the country and the friends I have there are very warm, loving, caring, helpful people, but my experience with restaurants is very different. I'm often made to feel like an outsider who is intruding on a private party. This is not always the case and I'm only speaking about my personal experiences, but I have made requests to waiters that have been completely ignored. Glass of water, check, these are not outrageous requests. Maybe I'm just getting spoiled living in Japan, but the eagerness to serve that Japanese waiters display is quite refreshing in comparison. One last comment. Yokohama is the cleanest city I have ever lived in. Let's just say Rome isn't.
More later as the adventure unfolds.
Ja mata,
Gary

Sorry

To anonymous who wrote: "More"

I've almost finished another one. I was interrupted by a trip to Rome and an introduction to Tokyo nightlife. Should post in a day or two. Thanks for your interest.

Living in Japan

So for all those people that thought we dropped of the face of the earth, we haven't. We just moved to Japan.

Let me explain. Early this year, Marcia was offered a three year contract to work with the Moog operations in the Pacific and be headquartered in Japan (specifically, Yokohama). She expressed interest and we were flown out in early April to Japan for a week to see what it would be like to live in Yokohama. We were pleasantly surprised. We talked it over and decided that living in a foreign country would be interesting. So Marcia accepted the position. I sold my business and we packed our bags. We left Stephen in charge of our house and Abby (old dog), Trofast (old cat) and Maggie (young, weird cat). We arrived in Yokohama on August 11 and the adventure began. For all those people that knew we were moving to Japan I apologize for the above synopsis. However you, also, probably still think that we've dropped of the face of the earth. I apologize and will try to be better with my communications in the future. In our defense, our shipment of furnitiure was delayed and we spent the first three weeks living in a hotel. So we have only been getting settled into our apartment for about three weeks.

Our apartment is modest by American standards and huge by Japanese standards (3 bedrooms and 1 bath). The scaled down lifestyle suits me fine since I am the one mostly responsible for keeping the household. (Having no job at the moment and Marcia being reponsible for human resource operations in seven or eight countries, it was sort of a "no brainer" who was going to keep the home fires burning.) It's very likely that I could teach English here in the future, but at the present time I'm exploring Yokohama and the train and subway systems and studying Japanese. Someone has to find the fun places to explore and, of course, good places to eat so when Marcia's not working she can be entertained. It's a tough job but I'm willing to sacrifice. Ha. Ha. Marcia is very busy at work, but we have been getting out and around and it's been very interesting and fun.

Contrary to popular belief, the food here is quite varied and very good. There are plenty of fish and rice dishes, of course, but also pizza, steak, french fries, etc. There's even a Fridays that we like to visit when the need for traditional American food gets too overwhelming. Obviously, all of the "chains" are here also, ... McDonalds, KFC, Shakeys Pizza, Hard Rock Cafe. For the more adventuresome, there are many dishes that are delicious if one is willing to risk ordering without really knowing what you're getting. A lot of menus don't have any english, but they do have pictures of the dishes. When we're feeling experimental, we'll go to restaurants where very little or no english is spoken and just point to what we want. Believe it or not, these have been some of our best meals. However, there are no guarantees that what you think you see in the picture is what the picture actually is. Marcia thought she saw chopped red tomatos as a topping on a noodle dish when what she got was salmon roe (fish eggs). Not to her liking. The tempura is fantastic. We keep exploring and discovering new places to eat and drink. The variety is amazing. From traditional Japanese and Chinese to expat sports bars. The fruit and produce here is fantastic, but very expensive. The other really expensive item is beer! Six packs from $12 to $15.

The Japanese people are very helpful and courteous and are very appreciative of any attempt we make to speak Japanese. The written Japanese language is different from english in that it is not based on one alphabet but three. I'll try to give a very simplified explanation. One alphabet is used for Japanese words (hiragana), one alphabet for foreign words (katakana) and to make things interesting an alphabet borrowed from the Chinese (kanji) made up of thousands of characters each representing a single thought or concept (with variations, of course). I've taught myself the basics of hiragana and can sound out words, even if I don't know what they mean, and can write very slowly. But, here's where things get complicated. These three different forms of writing are completely intermixed and will all appear within the same sentence. So the best we can really hope for is a very basic "get by" kind of understanding. I've had more time to study than Marcia and am getting some phrases down that I can use, but the main problem is understanding responses from the people I comment to. They speak quickly and throw in a lot of words I don't know. Needless to say, it's a slow process.

I've attached a few pictures to give a sense of where we're living. We're in a relatively quiet part of the city. We live in an eight unit building built up the side of a hill on a dead end street that faces a park. The good news/bad news is that it's quiet but we have over 60 stairs to get to our front door.

Now for a quick tour of our neighborhood ....

This is the view from the bottom of our street. We live on the back side of this building.



Some of the stairs to our house.



Next three shots are walking down our street to the "main drag" of our neighborhood, Motomachi Street.






A more quiet way to get to Motomachi Street and a shortcut to the train station.



The "main drag" of our neighborhood. Motomachi Street.



Last picture is a view of Yokohama Bay from a park a short walk up the hill from our house.



Well, that's a brief update on our latest adventure.

Ja mata (se you later),
Gary