Not Seen In Shirakawa

A seaside torii in Iwaki.

International Remittance, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Ordering an International Remittance and Ordered an International Remittance. . . Only to Learn Why I Was So Worried in the First Place

Before I began work in Shirakawa I was told that, in addition to the usual team-teaching work at junior high, I would be acting as “main teacher” at an elementary school. My first thought upon seeing those words was something along the lines of “I did NOT sign up for this shit.” The JET program, as I understood it at the time, entailed assistant teaching to mainly junior high and high school students. Even if I were to work at elementary, it would still be in the role of an assistant, and not, you know, the person responsible for designing entire lessons in a subject I’ve never taught before to a kind of audience I’ve never taught before in a language that I’ve barely even spoken, let alone used for giving detailed instructions.  

God, listen to me whine. I needn’t have worried. My elementary school has actually proven to be nicer than my junior high school. The staff is friendlier, the students are more enthusiastic (which is saying something, since my JHS students can be pretty damn enthused, at least in the lower grades). . . hell, even the building is nicer, which is to say it appears to have been built in this century, as opposed to sometime during the Allied occupation. Yes, my work at elementary is far more involved, but that’s largely a good thing. I have more freedom to experiment and have fun, and because I teach all the grade five and six sections at my school on a single day, I never end up sitting around the office waiting for something to do, like in junior high.

That is, except on days like today. Occasionally, there are days in which I’ll end up not teaching any classes at all, because of teachers meetings, school trips, and the like. Since my elementary school is generally nicer than my junior high, these days basically amount to being in-office holidays.  I can sit back, study Japanese, prep for the next weeks classes or Eikaiwa (more on that another time), catch up a bit on my favorite blogs. . . hell, I can even write a blog post of my own for once!

I can also finally go the damn post office during banking hours! Which leads to the main topic of this particular post. . .

Even though I’ve now been in Japan for over two months, I haven’t sent any money home until today. Part of the reason for this is my reluctance to use Japanese for, well, anything really. But another part of it is, like I said, the damn postal bank hours: 9 AM – 4 PM (I’m usually at work by 7:45 AM, and leave work at 4:30 PM).  Fortunately, today I had a basically free day and a vice principal cool enough to let me leave work for a while. So, at long long last, I drove down to the post office and ordered my first international remittance. 

And then I remembered why I put these damn things off all the time.

First, I stopped at the 7/11 and took out 80,000 yen from the ATM. Then, I went to the nearby post office or yuubin kyoku (郵便局) and requested a direct remittance to a bank account, kouza ate soukin (口座あて送金). The first hint that I’m a complete idiot who can’t do anything in this country came when the clerk, or tennin, asked if I wanted to deposit to a yuubin or post office bank account—not only had I failed to specify that I wanted to make an international remittance or gaikoku soukin (外国送金), but I also failed to recognize the word yuubin (though, in my sort of defense, I heard yuuchin, which is not an actual Japanese word according to my dictionary). After the clerk saw that I had written gaikoku in my notebook and realized what I wanted, he directed me over to the banking section. There, I took a numbered ticket and waited for my number to be called, as is the norm in Japanese banks. After five minutes, I was called up, and after a bit more confusion, I was finally given an international payment application and declaration form for payment to an account, or kokusai-soukin-seikyuusho-kenkokuchisho(kouza-ate-soukin-you)(国際送金請求書兼告知書(口座あて小送金用))—note that I’m not 100% sure about that transliteration. I also had to present photo identification; I used my residence card, but a passport works too. I then took a few minutes to fill out the form:

A sample remittance form.

 

 

 

 

I then handed the form back to the clerk, along with the 80000 yen I wanted to send back to Canada plus a 2500 yen service charge. That’s when the fun began.

After waiting for about twenty minutes, I was called up to the desk and asked about the bank code I had entered. I had done some research online on how to perform international remittances, and I found out that one of the pieces of info needed for direct-to-bank account transfer was the bank’s international routing number. I asked my mom to talk to my bank (Royal Bank of Canada) about this, and they gave her Royal Bank’s so-called swift code.  Well, this is not what the post office is asking for. In the section marked account number, I had written down the three digit branch/institution number, followed by the five digit transit number, and finally followed by the seven digit account number—this was how I had always done it in Canada (note that different banks and countries may have different numbering systems). In the section marked Bank Code I had written the swift code. As it turns out, I only needed to write down the account number in the account number section (I know, who’d have guessed?). The Branch Number followed the Transit Number is what goes in the Bank Code section. The swift code is not needed anywhere in the form.

Fucking swift code. . .

So, after making the necessary corrections and stamping them all with my hanko (which is basically a stamp which acts as a personal signature for official documents in Japan), I waited for another fifteen minutes before being called up again to hanko some other corrections I had made on the form (this was made even more tedious by the fact that I had to stamp all four copies of the damn form everywhere a correction was made). Then I sat down, waited for five more minutes, and was then asked to come up and stamp a few more places that I had missed the first time. Fifteen or so minutes later, I was called up again and informed that Royal Bank would charge me 10 dollars for the international remittance. Alright, fine. Another ten minutes, and I was called up to enter the equivalent amount of Canadian funds (~$970) into which my 80000 yen would be converted, along with appropriate Currency Code (CAD for Canadian dollars). Ten minutes later, the clerk (who, to be clear, was really nice through this whole process) finally gave me copy of the remittance form along with my residence card. Plus, as a final gift, and to remove any doubt in my mind as to whether everyone at the post office thought I was a complete fucking moron, I was provided with Japan Post’s Guide to International Remittances:

And just to drive the point home, they made me roll this into a cone and wear it on my head as I left. True story!

 

The remittance will take 4-6 business days to clear, so I should know by Friday of next week if my money has made it safely home. I'm sure— I hope— there will be no problems with the transfer between now and then. 

Seen in Shirakawa

A car buried in vegetation, near the train tracks.

So. . . my gas was cut today.

Fall has arrived in Shirakawa, and with it come both typhoons (there's one scheduled to hit Fukushima this weekend) and plummeting temperatures. So what could be better than waking up after a long, cold night to find that there's no hot water coming out of your shower?

Things like this are an annoyance in one's home country. In a foreign country, they're terrifying. Not only did I have no clue what was happening-- was my bill somehow not drawn out from the bank? Was there something wrong with the apartment building itself?-- I had no real way of even directly finding out what was wrong; it's not like I could pick up the phone, call the utility, and have any hope of either getting my message across or understanding them in return. I had no choice but to send an email to my supervisor, who (as I would learn later) just happened to be on holiday. Wee.

I spent all morning in a state of near panic waiting for a reply from my supervisor, but none came. I was so messed up today that not only was I late for one of my classes (which. . . bad), but I actually cut off one of my JTE's while I was driving to work! Fortunately, it was two of my JTE's who ended up helping me out of this mess. They talked to the board of education, and they in turn managed to get my gas reconnected. It was the weirdest thing; the gas company, no doubt after seeing the continuous consumption of hot water from room 201 of Castle Eight, reached the obvious conclusion that there's no-one currently occupying room 201 of Castle Eight, and shut off the gas.

In any event, I've got hot water again. But now I'm worried that other utilities have made the same mistake as the gas company, and that I'm going to wake up on Monday morning with the power cut off.

Japan. It's a gas.   

Man, I suck at this.

Sorry for taking so long between posts. I honestly just haven’t had that much to write about – or rather, what I did have to write about I didn’t want to right then, if only because I didn’t want to think about it right then.

Anyway, you know how I was saying in my last post that I didn’t want my blog to devolve into just a catalogue of cool stuff I’ve been doing? Well. . . forget that, at least for this post. Here are photos of my rainy weekend trip to the Aizu Wakamatsu samurai festival. It’s not much, but it’s something for now. I hope to go on more trips as I get more comfortable with, well, everything, and I’ll also start doing posts on various aspects of life in Japan, like driving, the typical school day, etc. Stay tuned.

Look at me! I'm a narcissist!

I was originally going to write a post about writing a travel blog whilst maintaining emotional and thematic depth, and not merely descending into a list of "things I did", a la the Newfoundland posts (which I still haven't finished for precisely that reason). I still intend on writing that post.

But for now, fuck that.

'Cause food.

Specifically, I'll be talking about the food that I've cooked or otherwise prepared at home, and not restaurant food or pre-packaged combini food. Since I have been in Japan for nearly a month, I'm sure you'll find it no shock that I've prepared a full three distinct dishes at home. The first, shown above, is my typical breakfast: a bowl of cereal with milk, yogurt, and fruit. I did pull one variation on this formula: once, when I forgot to buy milk, I went to a nearby vending machine and bought chilled cafe au lait ('cause you can do that here) and used it as my milk substitute. I leave it up to you to decide how it went.

Next, of course, is spaghetti and meat sauce, here shown in the process of becoming awesome. It took a shockingly long time for me to even buy cokware, let alone start cooking. Part of the problem was that my apartment came furnished with and induction stove. The principle behind these stoves is pretty interesting, at least for people with a physics background. Basically, the stove consists of a wire coil, through which flows a very rapidly oscillating current. This current, in turn, creates an oscillating magnetic field. This oscillating magnetic field, in turn, creates rapid vibrations in any magnetic object, like a pan or pot, placed above the coil. These vibrations then cause said magnetic object to heat up. The result is that the cooking vessel itself if heated without any heating of the stove surface.

Which is all well and good until you try to use it on a non-magnetic pan. Then it's fucking garbage.

Yes, of course, I bought the wrong pan. But not before I bought a whole bunch of meat to cook on that pan. And of course, I only realize its the wrong pan after I lose the damn receipt! Which is not to say that I'd wanna try returning a product with my Japanese as it is. . .

Anyway, it all got fixed, I have a ferromagnetic pot and pan, and now I'm cooking. . . occasionally. This lovely dish consists of a Neapolitan sauce with minced beef, fried onions, and few drops of extra virgin olive oil, 7-Eleven brand parmesan (I know. . .), served atop spaghetti noodles. For my next attempt, I'll try adding eggplant and garlic, assuming I can even find garlic in this backward godforsaken--

Ooh! Bacon!

That's right! Two slightly overcooked land-of-the-rising-sunny-side up eggs with three slices of bacon and Hokkaido-buttered toast. And the best part? I cooked this an hour ago! Now breakfast's for dinner!

(I now calmly await the arrival of a brutish man, brandishing his own belt as a weapon, who will sternly inform me that breakfast is, in fact, not for dinner).     

Ooh! Earthquake!

You know what? I'm really starting to like earthquakes!

I've experienced three so far in Japan (one in Aizuwakamatsu, two in Shirakawa-- one just a couple of seconds ago) all at night, and all (obviously) of minor intensity. Of course I'll be singing a different tune when a magnitude 6 quake hits, but for now, I'm enjoying the little quakes I've felt so far. It starts off with what sounds like a gust of wind, or like someone slammed a door. Then the apartment starts to gently rock, almost like a cradle. Since I'm typically in bed when the quake happens, this is quite welcome.

On a completely unrelated note, after 2-3 weeks of working with a trio of kids from my junior high school on English speech practice, we finally went to the district speech contest. All the students won prizes, and one got first prize in her category. Another student was doing brilliantly until a cognitive slip-up resulted in him basically repeating a whole paragraph. I was actually really pissed off-- not at him, but at the fact that all his hard work was basically fucked up by an accident followed by a moment of panic. Anyway, he still managed to get sixth place (out of 21 in his category) which shows just how well he did.

Congratulations to all three!     

I'm Back! But I Gotta Go!

The mountains to the west of Shirakawa.

Hi Everyone,

After two weeks in Shirakawa, I finally have access to the internet. Granted, it's a bit limited; I can only access the internet through my Windows OS until I get a wireless router. In any event, before I head off to Aizuwakamatsu for what I think my seventy-fourth orientation, I just wanted to let you know that I haven't given up on you! I haven't abandoned you!

遅い

It's means "slow" or "late", and it's pronounced "osoi". So don't send me e-mails asking about it.

In fact, don't expect any internet contact for a least a little while. I'm in Tokyo, having just finished up orientation. From what I hear, it will take a little while to get my internet set up at my apartment. So if you're wondering why I'm not posting lots of updates now that I'm here, that's why. I may be able to send out e-mails from the board of education, but that's about it.

Yeah, I got ink done. . .

Well. . . not so much ink per se as patterned adhesive polymer. But yeah. These my dawgs, yo. We tight.

I spent my last Friday in Canada with my Japanese language partner Chinami. It was her last day in Canada as well and so, with the help of her host family, we made a day out of it.

First, since Chinami had recently seen The Dark Knight, we went to the theatre to see The Dark Knight Rises. The good news was that the show we went to was far less crowded than normal-- even a full week after release, Nolan Bat-film showings have usually been packed. The bad news. . . well, without going into a full review, I'll say that Christopher Nolan's habit of writing every other line of dialogue like a bloody graduate-level thesis statement was even more irritating than usual, since it made it that much harder for Chinami to understand what was going on (and I won't even go into Bane 'n' Bale's voices). Still, she liked it, though she said she'll have to watch it again in Japan.

Next, after a trip to the dollar store to buy Chinami a passport holder, we went over to Chinami's host family's house for movies and nachos. Now, my mom likes her some nachos, so I thought I was prepared for what I was getting into.

I was not.

For one, I was not expecting diced chicken in my nachos. I didn't even know that was allowed; I thought it would give protein poisoning or something. And homemade guacamole!? That is quite simply an upending of the natural order, my friends. Avocados are not native to central British Columbia; our frosty, windy climate would kill an Avocado tree before it ever had the chance to bear fruit. And yet we live in a world where Prince Georgians can not only access the Avocado fruit, but can do so in sufficient quantities and with sufficient quality to produce guacamole on a weekly basis.  

The nachos were good is what I'm saying.

Also, the family's oldest child, Maddy, gave me this, my new official Facebook profile image:

Actually, this is a police sketch. I've still got a warrant out in the Tri-State Area over some bogus illegal thumb-wrestling betting charges. 

There are still lots of things to do in Canada, including among many other things finishing off the last part of my St. John's series. Expect mineshafts and icebergs in the days to come.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's -- no it was just a plane.

It was madness. Dozens, if not twos of dozens of cars were lined along the edge of old Highway 97. Eager, likely easily impressed hordes of locals (including yours truly, just so it's clear that I'm nothing special either) cameras in hand, hearts a-flutter from anticipation and probably also heat stroke, stood at the ready along the airport fence, awaiting the momentous arrival of a . . . big airplane:

 

This constitutes an event in Prince George. This town, as a collective unit, needs to get out more.

I can't wait until I'm in Shirakawa. That's where shit be happening', I just know it!

I'm not a PC, I just play one on TV...

I've finally begun to switch over from my old Dell Brick™ to a new MacBook Pro. I'm even writing this post on my new computer.

. . .so, whaddaya think? Does the blog feel more, like, user-friendly now? It damn well better.

Doin' the New-fun-go-go: Part #3

Day #3

The previous installment of "Doin' the New-fun-go-go" was posted on July 1st. For most Canadians, July 1st is simply Canada Day, the holiday commemorating the signing of the British North America act and hence the birth of Canada as a more-or-less independent country. For Newfoundlanders, it's a bit more complicated. On July 1st, 1916-- nearly thirty-three years before Newfoundland joined Canada-- the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was all but wiped out during the initial thrust of the Battle of the Somme. In memory of this loss, July 1st was declared an official holiday in Newfoundland, called Memorial Day. Following Newfoundland's entry into Canada, Canada Day and Memorial Day were celebrated concurrently, with Memorial Day functions observed in the morning and Canada Day celebrated in the afternoon and evening.

Today, the U.S. celebrates Independence Day, which as it turns out could also have been a very interesting day for Newfoundland. In 1934, Newfoundland, which up until then had been an essentially independent Dominion like Canada, temporarily reverted to being a colony of Great Britain following a severe debt crisis. After the debt crisis was resolved in the 1940's, Newfoundland's future status was in doubt. Some in Newfoundland called for a return to Dominion status; others, including future Newfoundland premier Joey Smallwood, called for confederation with Canada. Then there was the unofficial third option: joining the U.S. as the 49th state. This was a actually a pretty popular idea among Newfoundlanders, with 80% of the population wanting to join the union in a 1947 survey. It was not to be, though; Canada really, really wanted Newfoundland, and the U.S. really, really didn't.

Doin' the New-fun-go-go: Part #2

Day #2: Oh Hai Benny!
It's weird; I'd known for years that there was this weird little movie called "The Room," yet I never got around to actually seeing it until I came to St. John's. And yes, it really was because I went to a museum called "The Rooms." Ha ha ha, what a tool am I.

Anyway, I got up a little earlier on Day #2, but not much earlier. Fortunately, there's a restaurant in downtown St. John's called Nautical Nellies that offers delicious brunches, including smoked salmon Eggs Benedict ("Oh Hai Cheap Title Pun!"). All served with a side of Newfoundland charac-- and there goes the blood vessel in my brain as I realize I was about to write that.

Doin' the New-fun-go-go: Part #1

Now begins the somewhat abridged summary of my trip to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Day #1:

I arrived at St. John's near midnight local time. After some delicious homemade chicken paprikash, I went to bed. I woke up at about noon-ish, still feeling a little groggy from the flight. This gave me my first chance to see my sister Naomi's house in the daylight:

Dis is what we do up in Airport Heights

My apologies for the delay. I've spent the last five days visiting my sister in St. John's, Newfoundland ("and Labrador," I guess. . .) and am now sitting in Ottawa airport on a four hour layover, eagerly awaiting my forty minute flight to Montreal and yet another four hour layover.

I'll be updating the blog with travel stories, pictures, and whatnot soon enough. For now, though, I'll just be uploading pics to my Facebook. But to give you preview of my adventures in North America's Oldest White-person City, I'll direct you to this: Screeching in.

I did that.

Things I still need to find out, part #1 of one assumes several

When I started this blog, I set myself the goal of publishing something new every one or two days. I figure that if I want to be any kind of professional writer, I'd better learn to meet a deadline, even if its self-imposed. Part of the problem with this is that sometimes I just feel like I don't have anything all that interesting to write about; other times, I have ideas that turn out to be too big for a single blog post, or that can't be properly developed in a single twenty-or-so-minute burst of typing. My hope is that I can learn to pace myself well enough so that I can have a regular stream of properly developed "big posts" with a few relatively smaller posts to keep things on moving.

With that in mind, here's quick list I wrote up today of things I still have to find out about living in Japan.

1) How should I go about getting a mobile phone? 

I want to get an iPhone 4s, to go along with the MacBook Pro I'm hoping to buy sometime this summer. From what I know, the only telecomm company in Japan that carries iPhones is SoftBank. Can I buy a unit here in Canada and bring it Japan, or will I have to buy the phone in Japan from SoftBank? Will I need to go to a big city like Koriyama to get an iPhone, or can I get one in Shirakawa? (if these questions seem a little naive, it's probably because I've never been on a smartphone plan before. . .)

2) How do I get around in Shirakawa? 

What's public transit like in Shirakawa? Can I get a bike in Japan which will support a 6'7" frame? Will I need to drive to get around the district?

Answer: It looks like I'll need to buy a car. I've been told that the Shirakawa Board of Education might help me out with finding a car to purchase. This will be pretty cool, since driving in Japan is itself an new and alien experience.

They drive on the left side.

It's a completely different kind of driving!

3) Student Loans

How will I arrange for my student loans to keep getting paid? I probably find out more about this once I get my bank account set up, but it might not hurt to ask if anyone in JET paid their student loans while in Japan. I might also have to talk to the Canada student loan office.

4) Science!™ ?

I know that many ALTs take part in volunteer activities not directly connected with their duties as English teachers. Are there any science-related activities, like science fairs, science/physics clubs, etc. that I could take part in? Are there any other JETs with scientific background?

I'll try asking these questions to some of the JET folks who've contacted me. Then, maybe, I'll post the answers I get, either in this post or a new one.

Also, if anyone here has answers, feel free to comment!

I didn't know just how good JET would be for my social life. . .

In the past two or three days I've received about a dozen friend requests and a handful of welcome messages from ALT's living in Fukushima. I've been invited to two Facebook groups, one for Fukushima prefecture ALTs, and a more exclusive group for ALTs in my part of Fukushima. It's like I've joined some kind of supportive community of something.

I'm starting to think this Zuckerberg fellow was on to something. . .

The Narrow, Cracked Road to the North

As you may know (or should, if you read this blog's inaugural post) I've been placed in the "City of Shirakawa" in Fukushima prefecture to work as a JET ALT. Naturally, I've been poking around the Googles to learn a bit more about my future hometown.

There's actually not a sizable of info on Shirakawa.¹ This isn't too surprising, given that Shirakawa has a population of roughly sixty-six thousand (Prince George, by comparison, has a population of around seventy-seven thousand). So far, I've found a page on Wikipedia, another page on Wikitravel, a Youtube channel belonging to a Shirakawa local, a couple of videos highlighting earthquake damage (see below), and a few scattered images of Komine castle, which I'll get to later.²



What's weirder is that info on Fukushima prefecture as a whole also appears to be pretty sparse-- besides the glowing green elephant in the room, I mean. The Wikipedia page has a few fairly brief sections on history, geography, culture, and tourism in Fukushima, along with the obligatory sections dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and its aftermath, but otherwise it's mostly just padded out with boring old lists of cities, rail-lines, and universities. Almost makes me wonder what Wikipedia's page on Kiev Province looks like. . .

But again, the information available in Japanese probably vastly outweighs that which is available in English, so just I'll just chalk it up to laziness on my part.

Anyway, here's what I've found out about Shirakawa so far:

The "City" of Shirakawa

"County" or "District" would probably be a better word. From what I can tell from Google Earth and a couple of other sources, the region known as Shirakawa is a collection of small-to-medium sized towns, with large patches of countryside. It looks to be quite pretty in the summertime, from what I've seen so far.

Komine Castle

Shirakawa's only landmark, if Google Images is to be trusted. Meaning "small peak castle," it was originally built in 1340, was destroyed in 1868, and rebuilt between 1991 and 1994.

Ramen  

Shirakawa is famous for it's Ramen noodles. I am so there.

Basho

The famous Japanese poet Basho wrote about his travels through Shirakawa as part of his classic poem The Narrow Road to the North.  

Daruma

Dolls. That's all I know. They're dolls. I guess I'll learn more once I'm there.

Radiation

Based on information provided by my Japanese teacher, the highest radiation levels in Shirakawa are just a little higher than that found on a high-altitude flight, so I'm not too worried.


So, yeah. That's what I know of Shirakawa thus far. Not much. Buy hey, suspense!

Until next time. 

1 In English, anyway. What, you expect me to read Japanese? Pssh.^↩
2 I also found a blog called Stephanie's Adventures in Japan which, disturbingly, was last updated in February of 2011. . .^↩

Yookoso!

Welcome to Doin' the Nihon-Go-Go, my new blog about Life, Japan, and everything that happens when those two things collide. Expect a new post every one or two days, because damn it, this time I'm gonna keep up.

If you're interested, you can visit my old blog, Kyle Took a Bullet for Me.

Also, Japanese!

こんにちは！僕の新しいブログにようこそ！それが「Doin' the Nihon-Go-Go」と言います。そのブログに日本の生活に書きます。そして、僕は日本語を練習するつもりです。