Karaoke and Real Japanese food

We had a fun weekend filled with some uniquely Japanese experiences. I don't know how karaoke works in the U.S., but I suspect it isn't well. We went to complex (the only possibly word) for karaoke, you rent out private rooms, they have thousands of songs in the catalog, english and japanese (also Korean and Chinese too I think, but I could barely read the Japanese so I didn't bother). Lots of fun, we sang a lot of songs, there should be some pictures.

I know a lot of people say things like "I can't sing karaoke/dance unless I've had enough to drink." Well, apparently the Japanese think of people like that, because we were thrilled to find that for about 800 Yen (maybe 8 dollars?) we could have all we could drink for an hour, they'd just keep bringing the drinks. Definitely a good deal, and at the end of the hour, those who ordered drinks were in good spirits!

That was Friday night, on Sunday afternoon we went with Meghan, another English teacher in Murakami and her boyfriend Yuya to a Japanese seafood restaurant. When we first got the food, I was pretty stunned. Lots of seaweed and basically lots of stuff that I would never have thought of eating. Shame I forgot to get a picture, but I want to put into writing that I promise to produce a picture of a meal like that, since I'm sure there'll be more. An entire fried fish is not a common sight back home, I don't think. It was pretty good, but I'm not keen on eating a thing from a shell so fresh that there's little bits of gritty sand crunching between my teeth.

Maria starts (started) work today, and the kids begin going to school tomorrow, so we should have some new stuff to post somewhat soon!

Apartment Photos

Since we keep getting requests for "pictures of our place" here they are!

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Here we have the front of the building, the "Danger Stairs" upt he building, and the front door! Jolly fun we're having! (I am anyway, you'll have to roll with it).

Here's a blurry shot of the front entryway. Note that we're standing in the kitchen to take this picture. Since it's Japan, you have to take your shoes off and wear "inside-only" shoes. Now I (Brian) grudgingly admit this does keep the place neater, but it's kinda annoying. I guess we'll say "when in Rome" and that sort of thing that fails to reassure in anyway, it's just a nice way of saying "put up or shut up".

Here's two pictures of our very tiny kitchen. There's no real cabinets, nor any counter space. But we do have a nice rice cooker! Otherwise, it's a pretty sad kitchen, but it does the job, I suppose. We've found that cooking fairly easy Japanese food isn't too bad. We tend to do noodles or rice, with a meat and a vegetable, at least so far.

Here's some pictures of the bathroom area. We just have a washer, no dryer, so clothes end up having to hang up. We bought a laundry rack for 80,000 yen just yesterday, because we weren't sure that using the clothesline in the winter (when it's supposed to be cold) is going to work so well.

This is the living room. Maria's computer is hooked up to the TV, sound and video, so we can use it as a DVD player or for listening to audio books. We're soon getting TV, as long as we're close enough to the DSL server.

It might look pretty small, and it is, but for Japan it's not too bad. We're able to have a larger apartment because we live in a rural area.

Finally, here is out tatami room (tatami mats on the floor), this is where we sleep and where I do my research work.

We just got cell phones so we'll be taking pictures on those too now (getting a cell phone in Japan is more complicated than in America, I think. Everything has internet and 10,000 features). Hopefully we'll have some pictures of the festivals that we're going to and been going to soon, but our friends took those photos so we're waiting for them to get internet and then send them along. This weekend, the 22nd, might include a trip to Shibata, where they have a festival, and next weeekend will be a trip to Sekikawa for a festival that somehow involves a giant snake.

arrived safely and without internet!

It's a travesty, but it's true. Just letting those known who might have wanted to talk to us soon, we have no internet right now and probably won't for a little while. We should by the very beginning of september at the worst, but that's all we can be sure about. For me the worst part is that I cannot really do a lot of my work until we get some kind of internet connection, so I`m forced to figuratively spin my wheels for a couple of weeks.

I am in an internet cafe now and I can write a bit more than was put in that last paragraph. Things are going pretty well here, and we`re having fun working on learning Japanese, seeing as Maria` is a bit rusty and mine is nonexistant. We miss our puppy and we miss our friends and family, which isn`t much of a surprise. Also, this blog post looks funny because I am typing on a Japanese keyboard, and I`ll occasionally hit the wrongぶっとｎ and get a bunch of stuff that doesn`t make sense in Japanese or in English.

Yesterday we walked down the ocean, about 4km from where we live, and we looked out at the sea of Japan. We don`t have pictures yet, but we can promise apartment/neighborhood/ and points of interest photos once we are all hooked up online. The apartment was small and the futons very thin so we decided that we needed to add some mattresses (rather, Maria did). It`s cozy though, except for not being thrilled about sitting on the floor, it`s pretty nice and well sized for a Japanese apartment. So that`s about all we can report on for that front.

The food is a bit strange (squid at the grocery store) but the rice is good. We`ll add some more next time we can get some access, hope to talk to people soon!