Typhoon Adventures, Part 2

On Tuesday the typhoon came in in full force.
I knew it was supposed to rain all day and get worse in the afternoon, so I had my umbrella and everything, but I had no idea how much worse!
I was done with classes for the afternoon, but I stayed to eat lunch with some people.  As we were finishing up eating an announcement came over the loudspeaker.  I couldn`t understand all of it, but I got 二番目と三番目and 中止 Even if I hadn't known what that meant already, the meaning immediately became clear when a huge WOOO! sounded throughout the dining hall.  Second and third periods were cancelled because of the impending weather. 
After that my friends and I weren`t sure what was going on, if we needed to leave, or what.  We finally decided to as the Center for Japan Studies, our "home base" on campus here.  On our way we ran into some other international students who were also confused, but had heard that while the subways were running, the JR trains might not be, or perhaps fewer would be running.  Hearing that, I decided heading straight home was the best bet.
It was around 2:30 when I got to the subway station and took my normal subway route home to Ozone, where I transfer to the JR above ground train.
Sure enough, the JR trains weren't running. 
Luckily, on my platform I happened to run into three other people heading the same way as me: two other exhange students, and a Japanese Nanzan student who spoke excellent English.  She was able to call up her family and friends and try to figure out what was running.  The consensus? Nothing.  We might even have to stay at Ozone overnight!  Highways were even getting closed off!
There was one bus running, but only one bus was running per hour.  We decided not to even wait for that.  The line had become too ridiculous.  And the line for taxis was ridiculous too.  Our Japanese friend admitted that she hadn't had any lunch, so we braved the rain to dash over to a nearby supermarket and get her some food. 
We waited there for a couple hours until it seemed like the rain was stopping.  We decided to try to walk back to Ozone station. 
When we arrived there, there was a taxi waiting, and lo and behold, the person waiting with the taxi was our Japanese friend's dad!  He also worked in the area and was trying to get home so he wanted to pick her up.  He graciously allowed the three of us to squeeze into his cab, too.
Once we got into the cab we were able to start heading home, but that whole process took probably two hours in and of itself.  Traffic was slowed to a crawl because everyone else was trying to get home.
On the way we saw tons of flooding: the rivers all looked incredibly high. 
When we finally arrived at our destinations, which for me was Kozoji station, from which my host parents could come pick us up, we tried to figure how much to pay but the Japanese girl's dad said he would take care of it.  They were heading on even further, to Tajimi, a town a few more stops away.  We were incredibly grateful because if it'd been just us, there was no way we could have afforded that taxi: it was over ￥10,000 (more than $100 US)!

From there I thought I could just walk across the station to the exit where my host parents usually pick me up... but it was totally flooded!

Here you can see Mr. Donut and BellMart (a convenience store) by where I was waiting were totally flooded, too!

I couldn't get to where my host family was waiting, and because of a combination of the flooding and traffic, it took them about an hour to finally pull around and get me!
By the time I was home it was about 7:30, five hours from when I left.
Never have I been so thankful to be home.

Apparently that wasn`t even destined to be the worst of it.  On Wednesday the strong winds were supposed to come.  When I got home the house was in "typhoon mode", with shutters over all the windows and all the potted plants from our front porch brought inside. 
On Wednesday classes were cancelled.  I was so thankful just so that I didn`t have to risk getting caught out in the weather again! 

So Wednesday I just stayed inside all day, did reading for class, and got to knit and watch TV.  By 4:30 ish the weather cleared up, and my host parents started putting everything back outside and taking the shutters down and stuff.  I had been up in my room and was just about to come down and say "I can see the sun!" when my host mom said "Shannon! You can see the sun! Look!" It was exciting.

Turns out all of this adventure was a bit too much for me.
On Thursday I got sick.  I went to bed with my stomach feeling a little crummy, and then I was freezing! I thought it might be because it was a little cooler outside than it had been, and I went to bed with wet hair.  But I should have known it was worse than that.  I was so cold I put on a long sleeved shirt, and leggings under my long pajama pants! ;w;  i tried to find blankets in my room but I didn't know where to look and it was lllaaaate so I just wanted to go back to bed.
I threw up a couple times. D:
Turns out the flu is going around.  Or a cold? I figure it must be the flu but the Japanese use the word "kaze" for everything so I'm not sure what the heck I had.
Apparently my fever was over 38 degrees celsius, which is over 100 degrees fahrenheit.  I haven't had a fever that high in ages.  My host mom took me to a clinic to get me excused from school and they gave me an IV drip for fluids and a bunch of medicine: an antibiotic and something to help with digestion and some other fever reducer in case my fever got high again. D: 
It was all in Japanese so even with my host mom explaining everything to me it was still terrifying!  I'm still not sure what the deal with the IV drip was, because I don't think they do that in the US unless matters are seriously desperate, but hopefully they were just overreacting?
I did feel considerably better afterwards, though.  Able to at least attempt to eat something.
Let me tell you, health insurance in Japan is miraculous.  The whole thing only cost me ￥1340, about $15 US.That's with medicine and treatment and everything.
I asked for a slice of bread but apparently what you eat when you're sick in Japan is this special bread called Castera or something like that that apparently has a lot of nutrients in it. 
I slept the rest of the day, and at dinner my host mom tried to give me umeboshi (really sour pickled plum) and some kind of rice porridge, which I picked at, but with the exception of the umeboshi it was really flavorless so I couldn't finish it.  It was definitely easy to eat, though.  She gave me some more Castera instead.  The orders were eat a little and drink a little water, but do it slowly, and often. 
My host mom gave me an ice pack wrapped in a towel and some of these cool little cold sticker sheet things you can stick on your forehead, and I went back to sleep for most of the night.  By the time I woke up I felt much better!
I still feel mostly better, but I'm kind-of tired from classes.  I woke up early because I'd been sleeping the whole day.  I still have one more class to go, from 3:15 to 5:30.  Hopefully that'll be okay.  I think some of this medicine to help me digest might be making my stomach upset, or else I pushed a little too hard at lunch today trying to eat real food... It was only udon, but it was kitsune udon so maybe the abura age was a bad idea.  I'm cold right now but I think this computer lab might just be cold!! I think I'm right under a vent.

Well, we have a field trip to Kanazawa this weekend so I'm just glad I feel well enough that I can plan on going!  I'm definitely definitely going to sleep early tonight.

I'm worried this blog post will just make everyone worry about me, but don't, seriously! I'm fine now.

Typhoon Adventures, Part 1

My host mom bought me chocolate on chocolate cream Pocky! :D It’s so fluffy and delicious!  It’s funny because instead of saying チョコレート (chokoreto)  or チョコ(choko) like chocolate things normally do in Japan, it says ショコラ (shokora).  I guess it’s trying to be pseudo-classy, like chocolat  or something.

Is that even how you’d spell that?  “Chocolate” doesn’t look like a word anymore.

This is bad, now I’m just going to eat all this Pocky! Why are there only three sticks per package?!!

--

This has been quite an interesting week, and it’s only Wednesday!

On Monday, we had class as normal, but my research methods professor, who studies gender in festivals, wanted us to come, if we could, to a festival in Imaike, a few subway stops away from school, after class with him. 

Imaike is an interesting place because, if I’m remembering the history he told us right, it used to be outside the borders of Nagoya.  It was where a train line ended, so a lot of people got off there and it boomed as a result of that.  Lots of drinking establishments popped up, and the area is very multi-ethnic, with a lot of Chinese and Korean immigrants.  When the subways were put in people stopped getting off there and going into the neighborhood, so it fell into some decline.  In particular after World War II it became known as a big cabaret area, kind-of seedy.  Today there are still a ton of bars and pachinko parlors.  Anyway, this festival is actually run by the store owners’ association, to try to draw people there.  There are the traditional Japanese festival booths selling food and games for children and stuff, but there’s also like, the Lion’s Club doing a yard sale, and advertisements for the supermarket, and booths for info about community organizations. 

When I told my host mom, who is a woman in her early 60s, that I was going to Imaike, she had an interesting reaction.  She said it was full of bars and pachinko parlors, but if I was going with my teacher and my class it would be okay. “Just stick with your teacher!!” 

My professor laughed when I told him about this.  He’s an Australian guy in his 40s who’s been living in Japan since he was in his 20s who still acts quite a bit younger.  (He insists we call him by his first name, sometimes takes his shoes off when he’s teaching, and on this day he was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt with the communist sickle and hammer symbol on it.)  He said something to the extent of “That’s one of the things I like about this part of town!” 

Well, as you may remember, we’re on typhoon 15 of the season here, and as of Tuesday it started coming Nagoya-ward in earnest.  The rain started in the afternoon.  It let up for a bit when we left our class at 5:30, and was okay when we got to the festival around 6:30.  “If it rains too hard we can always go to an izakaya,” our professor told us.  (An izakaya is the Japanese version of a pub.  I’m coming to really love them.)   We decided we’d all split up and explore a bit and reconvene in an hour, at which point we’d decide if we wanted to do dinner together, or what. 

Well the rain didn’t hold off for very long.  I had just long enough to buy a stick of mitarashi dango (kind-of like dumplings, I guess? The sauce is kind-of sweet, like a soy sauce + sugar taste.  When they’re hot and fresh they’re delicious!) before it started pouring on us! Me and Michael, one of my classmates who’d wandered the same direction as me, ducked under a stand for cover, where I took the only pictures I was able to take on my camera.  Which is a real shame, because I couldn’t capture the size of the festival, or the colorful lights.  We got a phone call from our professor, and decided to all meet back and then make a run for somewhere to eat. 

We made a mad dash for an izakaya up the street that our professor knew, and ducked in for food and drinks. 

Izakaya are Japanese pubs.  You typically take off your shoes and step up onto a raised  platform.  Depending on the set up, you’re either sitting/kneeling on the floor on cushions, or the floor is sunk deeper under the table so you’re still sitting on cushions on the floor, but you can sit normally with your feet under the table.  There’s food (good traditional Japanese food!) and there’s drinks, and there’s often a 飲み放題 (nomihodai), or all-you-can-drink, option where you pay a set rate for unlimited drinks that usually also includes some kind of food dishes.  The table next to us was full of very drunk Japanese men. 

Anyway, the food is good, and unlike bars in the US or pubs in the UK, it’s not revolving around sports and like, going out with the boys, so the atmosphere is much better.  I’m sure it gets rowdy and smoky late (Japan doesn’t really restrict smoking in restaurants the same way as in the US.  Carolyn and I were in a restaurant last weekend and a woman came in as we were finishing up.  After she said something to the waitress, the waitress asked the other patron who was eating there if she was okay with smoking.  She said she was, and then the woman proceeded to smoke her cigarette as she was deciding what to order.).  Anyway, I’m sure the izakaya get rowdy and smoky as the night goes on, but it also seems like an excellent place to develop some camaraderie with local people.  If I were living in Japan, trying to learn Japanese, I would absolutely go to an izakaya and just try to start talking to people.  Societal rules are laxer in places like these.  When some of my friends and I went out one night, I had to leave early to catch the train home, but apparently later they started playing a drinking game with some Nanzan University athletes who were sitting a table over!  I myself got into a conversation with a woman while waiting in line for the bathroom.

So, anyway, we went to the izakaya and our professor started explaining the menu to us and asking us what we wanted to try.  He took our drink orders and ordered a salad and a handful of small plates: grilled things on skewers.  One was chicken and leek, one was grilled tomato wrapped in what I think was bacon.  There was something else I’m forgetting about, but the most interesting food item, which of course I forgot the name of, involved half-cooked chicken!  It was chicken on a skewer, but raw on the inside, with a line of tart but kind-of sweet plum sauce, and sliced shiso leaves on top.  Shiso is a Japanese leafy vegetable that seems to be in everything.  It’s green (though there’s also a purple variety -- not sure if this is an age thing or a different species), and I can’t really describe the taste, but I’m starting to really like it.  I have shiso salad dressing on my salads every night. The chicken-plum-shiso skewers were delicious!

After that we had ochatsuke, a bowl of rice with some kind of flavoring or topping, with ocha, or green tea, poured over the top.  Apparently it’s traditional to order and eat that last, after you’ve done all your eating and drinking.  It did seem very palate-calming.  I had ume (pickled plum - very sour!) flavored ochatsuke. 

Our professor treated us all to the izakaya meal!! 

After hanging out and chatting and eating and drinking, the rain seemed to have let up, so we went to try to check out the festival again.  There was still a bit of a concert going on, and we found someone spinning fire, but most everyone had packed up their stalls.  

(At this point my camera also ran out of battery.)

Our professor told us he wanted to show us some more stuff.  We walked by a big pachinko parlor, and he asked us if we’d done that yet.  We said no, so he said “Okay let’s just do a 10 minute look-see shall we?”  We went in the door from outside and then through a second automatic door.  As soon as that second automatic door opened, the noise was just INCREDIBLE.  The whole place was full of the clattering of pachinko balls and the whir of the game machines.  No one was saying anything.  They were all staring at the screens, pushing their buttons, and puffing away on their cigarettes.  Still, the sound was almost deafening!  Some people had huge stacks of baskets and baskets full of balls that they’d one! 

It’s gambling, but it’s officially a game for prizes.  Apparently if you take your balls out back to a shady counter behind the shop, though, they cash it out for you.  There’s no real secret about that, either. 

After pachinko, Alisha and I decided we’d better take the train home soon.  It was already approaching 9 and I had a quiz the next morning.  Our professor walked us to the nearest JR station, but first we stopped by another thing he wanted to show us: a gomen nasai jizo (I’m sorry statue).  It was a little statue in an alcove along one of the streets.  The sign explained that if you hurt someone's feelings you write it on a little card and apologize to the statue and then you’re forgiven.  There were tons of little cards hanging in the little alcove.  We also walked by a shrine where there was apparently a statue of a boar or a bull or something and if you rub it’s nose you’ll do well in school.  Maybe we all need to go back there.

At the train station, our professor dropped Alisha and I off and we got on what we expected to be the 8:38 train.  I texted my host mom as normal, telling her I was on my way home.

Except the train didn’t move.

And then it still didn’t move.

There were all these announcements in Japanese, but I couldn’t really understand them, and everyone just seemed to be sitting on the train waiting.

I got that there was something about heavy rain, and told my host mom this, and she just said to text back when it actually start moving again.

We ended up waiting on that train for almost two hours!  So my normal hour commute home took me 3 hours.

Oiii.

But that wasn’t to be the end of my typhoon adventures! Oh no.

 Stay tuned for Typhoon Advenutres: Part 2, coming soon to a blog near you!

Last full day in Inuyama

Man, I just turned on the TV and I saw some serious 気持ち悪い (kimochi warui, creepy) TV commercial. :/ It was for a plastic surgery clinic and had this guy (the doctor) going around pointing at women who then sprouted angel wings after he pointed at them. o_o;
Then I saw a weight loss commercial.  She looked like she had a similar body shape/fat distribution to me (some fat on the thighs/butt but really not fat) and she was saying she felt daruma-shaped! 

 They seemed to be saying that if the woman used some leg workout equipment she’d lose all these centimeters in 4 weeks.  They had before and after videos and it’s like, no way.
Oh Japan. 
Now I’m watching children’s shows, but I still can’t understand anything.  On the channel before this I found One Piece.  So I’m wondering what will be on in 20 minutes or so.
Also Japanese vending machine canned iced cafe au lait is really delicious.  Says the non coffee drinker.  Well, it’s not even that it’s really outstandingly delicious so much as it’s surprisingly worth the 120 yen it cost.  That’s about $2.
テレビの前に座りながら、どら焼きを食べて、冷たいコーヒーを飲むのは最高！
I keep saying everything is “最高” though.

Today was interesting.  We had our last day of Japanese classes, and then we had free time until 5:30.  There’s this place called “Sweets Castle” here in Inuyama that, according to a brochure we read, was a place you could make cookies and biscuits and stuff, see a bunch of cool stuff made out of desserts, and have an all you can eat buffet of sweets.  A bunch of the girls and I all decided this sounded awesome.  We were told it wasn’t within walking distance so a man from the hotel was really nice and drove us. We paid our 1200 yen to get in, and found....

Not much, really.
This sickeningly sweet song was playing on repeat, and you kinda just wandered around through displays of sweets.

Cake  (or maybe iced cardboard, who knows?) Parthenon

This is apparently American sweets. We have, potato chips, donuts, Milano cookies... chocolate coins... 

And American fruit?

May your heart be ... wakuwaku (excited, fluttery, I guess)... forever.

Why yes, that is a candy Virgin Mary statue. nbd.

It was actually really creepy, especially because no one really seemed to be working in most of the places. :/
We didn’t pay the extra 800 yen to make and decorate cookies because we thought we could buy sweets once we got in, or have a buffet.
Well, it looked like lunch there, which made have included said mystery buffet, was another 1300 yen.  And there was some chocolate and stuff for sale but it was kinda just  meh looking. 

All in all, if you ever go to Inuyama, don’t go to Sweets Castle.  Go to Monkey Park or something instead.  It’s an amusement park/zoo with a bunch of monkeys.  We didn’t go, but it would probably have been more fun.  Because where can you go wrong with a ferris wheel and monkeys?  But it started pouring down rain, and we’d already wasted money at Sweets Castle, so we didn’t go.

Apparently there’s a typhoon coming this way.  But don’t worry too much, it’s not headed directly for us, and it’ll probably just be strong winds and rain for a bit.  Apparently this is pretty par for the course for fall. 
So it was raining on and off all day today as the storm approached.  Tomorrow's forecast is 100% chance of rain with 40km/hr winds. YAY.

After the creepy castle we had more time to just wander around Inuyama.  We went to a soba restaurant.  The owners had this adorable baby they were carrying around in a backpack as they were serving us! awww.

After that we just kind-of walked up and down the streets, saw some cute houses, that kind of thing.

We had one more dinner at our ryokan, too!  So, more crazy food pictures!

We talked about going to a bar for a bit, but instead we all just internetted down here in the ryokan lobby.  So much for 飲み放題クラブ　XD

Tomorrow morning (if the winds aren't too strong) we're returning to Nagoya, so I'm not sure when I'll next be able to get online.  Until then, everyone!