The Roach Motel aka My Apartment

So about a month ago, I stepped outside of my apartment and found a big, black cockroach laying in wait on the outdoor balcony/hallway. I managed to smash it with my shoe, which apparently is the wrong thing to do since any eggs inside go shooting out all over the place and can still hatch. Well, I figured things were okay since it was outside and all but I did use some cockroach spray on the area. After a few sleepless nights dreaming of bugs crawling all over me, I managed to forget about it except for when I'd talk to Mom and Dad and they'd ask if I'd seen more of them.

This past Sunday night they asked me again and I assured them that it was an isolated incident and that I hadn't seen any since then. Monday night I came home, turned on the light in the bathroom, and there was a giant brown cockroach on the wall, uncomfortably close to my toothbrush. I tried to trap it with the plastic lid to my hair mousse as I didn't want to smash it and that was the closest thing I could grab. I almost got it but the lid proved to be too small and it scurried into a tiny crack between my sink cabinet and wall to safety. Gross.

I immediately called Mike to discuss strategy as he's been battling cockroaches for awhile now. I think (or at least hope) he has a slightly larger roach population than I do though - I think he said he's trapped ten in one night before. Last night I spent constructing complicated houses with super sticky floors and sickly sweet smelling bait inside. I've put the traps around my bathroom and kitchen along with the poison that they eat then take back to kill all their little roach buddies. I also put all of my food in the fridge, whether it belongs there or not. Hopefully that will do the trick, but as of right now, the traps remain empty. Maybe this was the only one and he was just passing through on the way to my neighbor's place. Stay tuned.

Gorge-ous

One Saturday, Ali, Kate, Leslie and I took Leslie’s car to Tedori Gorge in the Hakusan area for a quick little afternoon trip. We got lost a couple times on the way there (and back) as the roads here aren’t marked very well. Many of the streets don’t even have names. If they do, they may be written in English along with the Kanji in one place but not be labeled in English a little further down the road. The same goes for tourist spots. The streets in Kanazawa also wind around a lot. Although many castle towns are laid out in a grid or have the castle to one side of the town, here the castle is in the middle and the streets surround it in a sort of maze. Some claim that it was a form of protection for the castle, but others say it was just poor city planning. The view of the gorge was definitely worth the drive though!

Trains and Buses, Buses and Trains

Public transportation is great here and is oddly the cause of most of my exercise. The trains and buses are always on time and I am always late. I can be found frantically biking and/or running to the station or bus stop at least once a day. At least the weather has gotten a bit cooler now so I'm not as sweaty!

There are several bus stops conveniently located a couple of blocks away from my apartment. When you get on a bus in Japan, you grab a slip of paper from a machine by the door. This slip of paper has a number on it (the number of your stop on the bus’s route). This number corresponds to a board at the front of the bus which will tell you what your fare for the trip is. The amount of the fare is digitally written underneath your number and gets adjusted the further from that stop you go. When you get off the bus, you put the correct change that matches the board in the coin machine by the driver. I usually take the bus to my schools on Monday and Friday. Transportation cost to my Monday school is $2.60 each way and $6.80 each way to my Friday school.

I used to take the bus to the school I go to on Tues-Thurs, too, but I’ve found the train is cheaper. It cost $3.70 each way by bus but it’s only $1.80 each way by train. What a deal! My apartment is located about 12-15 minutes from Kanazawa Eki (the main train station pictured below) by foot and 5-7 minutes away by bike, depending on traffic lights. I go two stops (7 minutes) on the train then walk another 7-10 minutes to the school.

Okay, sorry, enough about my boring commuting times and costs. Here are a couple train related stories to wake you up…

Before school started, my friend Ali and I took a trip to Kyoto (someday, I’ll hopefully blog about it). We were at the train station about half an hour before our train was due to depart back to Kanazawa. A train pulled up and most everyone who was in line got on. It didn’t look like the Thunderbird Express train we had taken there (yes, the train was really called the Thunderbird Express) but we decided to get on anyway as trains often come early and sit on the tracks and our train was the only one listed on the board. Anyway, you can probably tell what’s going to happen next. Yep, the train doors closed as soon as we got on and it started moving… in the wrong direction. We had gotten on the wrong train with no idea where it was going or how long it would be before it stopped. At this point there was only 20 minutes before the Thunderbird was supposed to fly away. Luckily, the train stopped after about five minutes and we were able to hop off. We rushed to a different platform and just managed to catch a train that we hoped was heading back to the station. With six minutes left, the doors of the train opened back at Kyoto Eki and we plunged into the throng of black-haired, black-suited commuters. We had of course arrived at Track 7 and had to get to Track 0 (I know, Track 0 seemed odd to us, too). I picked up my suitcase on wheels and was sprinting around people shouting “Sumimasen!!” (“Excuse Me!!”). We jumped into the Thunderbird just before the doors shut and collapsed in our seats, laughing hysterically in relief while the Japanese just looked at us bemusedly.

Last week, I was hurrying to catch the train home from school and tried to jump on as the train doors were closing. Unlike my beloved MetroTransit Light Rail, the doors of the train didn’t seem to have any sensors on them and kept closing. I was stuck halfway in the train and halfway out. I managed to wriggle in so only my bag (with my laptop in it) was stuck in the door. I was still attached to my bag though as the strap was around me. Some giggling high school girls tried to help by pushing the button to open the doors back up but it wasn’t working. Finally the doors gave a little and I was able to pull my bag in and the train started rolling. My face burning, I sat down and decided that next time I would just wait the twenty minutes for the next train.

Okay, those are enough embarrassing stories for now. I’m sure I’ll have more for you soon enough.

Biker Babe

This is a picture of my less than beautiful lilac “mama-chari” which I’ve named Perle (well, that’s the name on it anyway). A “mama-chari” is the most common type of bicycle around these parts. It’s a one-gear road bike with a basket. It feels pretty wobbly and I somehow managed to wrench it while trying to get it out of a bike rack so the handlebars are currently crooked. I’m sure the low tire pressure doesn’t help the ride either. I keep meaning to get them pumped up but I’m always in a bit of a rush. Even with these flaws, my lovely Perle is the envy of all the neighborhood kids due to its waterproof basket cover. It’s super handy as you never know when it’s going to start pouring. It also hides the fact that the bottom of the basket is rusting out.

I was scared to ride my bike for quite some time after I arrived. I’m not much of a bike rider as it is and the crazy traffic and busy sidewalks here were daunting. Bicyclists are supposed to ride on the sidewalk here, not the street, and there doesn’t seem to be any rules about what side of the sidewalk to use. Pedestrians are really bad about moving out of the way. You’re supposed to ding your bicycle bell notifying them you’re behind them but many times they’ll just ignore it. My favorite is when there is a group of people taking up a whole sidewalk and they’re staring right at you but don’t move. Of course, even if they do move, you never know if they’re going to go to the right or left.

Cars are another big biking hazard. Drivers are bad about looking to see if there’s a bike before pulling out of the narrow streets or turning. I’ve been told that drivers in Ishikawa are famous in other prefectures for their terrible driving. They might even be worse than Illinois drivers! My co-worker Patricia has been hit by a car on her bike three different times and had to go to the hospital once. Many other JETs have also been hit by cars. Helmets are definitely a good idea!

I’m getting more and more confident riding my bike though and am really glad to have it. It makes getting around town really convenient and I do love that covered basket! I often have the Wicked Witch tune going through my head as I zip around on my bike with the wind in my hair… um… did I just type that out loud?

Hakusan City Tour (10/5)

Daishoji Day was rapidly followed by exploring Hakusan City Day. A bunch of JETs had signed up for a tour put on by the Hakusan City Council so we got up too early on Sunday morning to catch the bus to the area. We were put into small groups of three or four and sent on a tiring scavenger hunt with tasks to help us explore the area.

The hunt culminated in a slightly scary gondola ride up a mountain where we had an indoor “BBQ”. This BBQ wasn’t anything like BBQ in the states but it was pretty darn tasty. We each got a tray filled with chunks of raw meat, soba noodles, cabbage and other veggies that we “grilled” on a shared griddle while wearing large white paper bibs. The mountain was also used as a jumping off point for paragliders, which was cool to watch.

After the treacherous ride back down the mountain they took us to the Ishikawa Insect Museum, where live butterflies got to hang out with and on us. It started to rain but we decided to brave the outdoor festival anyway to hear Jero (a somewhat famous singer in Japan I had never heard of) and see some really cool festival floats.

Daishoji Days (10/3-10/4)

My friends Anna, Daniel and Mike live in Daishoji, a small town south of Kanazawa in the Kaga area. It’s only 45 minutes to an hour away by train. Leah and I went to visit them on Friday night and Saturday. We ordered some interesting yet delicious pizzas (it’s always hard to tell what the toppings are just by looking at the pictures so you never really know what you're going to get) and headed to the one bar they have in town, which is unfortunately closing soon. After enjoying some small town Japanese hospitality, we headed back to Anna’s where we decided to watch Kindergarten Cop. Let me just say I wasn’t thrilled about having Kindergarten Cop be the first movie I watch in Japan, but it was hard to make a decision between that and the other not-so-great movies available. They had picked up ten videocassettes for $10 at a nearby secondhand store. You can’t argue with that kind of deal, even if the quality of the movies isn’t the best!

The weather the next day was absolutely beautiful so after a tasty pancake breakfast we headed to the coast in Anna’s car. I would be really nervous driving in Japan but Anna’s Scottish so she already had the driving on the left thing down before she came here. The scenery was gorgeous and we’ve made plans to go back for lots of picnics.


From there we went to Side Burger, purported to be the best hamburger joint in Ishikawa. I’m happy to say that I believe it! I ate a delicious cheeseburger that came with fries and onion rings while listening to American music from the 1950s and sitting on sparkly vinyl chairs. The only thing that could have possibly made the experience better was if they had served milkshakes.

After stuffing ourselves with Americana, we headed to Second Street, an overwhelmingly huge second-hand store that sold anything you could want and much much more. We helped pick out ten more videos and I got a new bag and hat. Then we stopped at the grocery store to buy ice cream and chocolate snacks so we could fulfill our milkshake cravings back at Anna’s while watching The Princess Bride. What a perfect Daishoji day!

Dangerous Wildlife

This is the view from my bus stop at my mountain school. Pretty, isn't it? I joke with the teachers that the school is actually a zoo though. At the end of the day there is a lot of jingling and jangling as the students walk down the hallways to go home or to badminton club. They each have a bell attached to their backpacks. When I asked the reason why, I was told that the students had spotted a bear a few days ago. The bells are used to warn the bears the students are coming in order to scare them away. A lot of hikers have bear bells too – I think I’ll start attaching one to my backpack every Friday! Who knew the hazards of teaching would include possible bear attack?!? Personally, I think it would be better to have the bear wear a bell but I think that might be a bit more difficult to accomplish. Apparently there are also wild boars and some sort of deer-type animal in the area. Some students told me there is a snake that lives down by the playground that occasionally puts in an appearance too.

Last week, a teacher came into the staff room and was freaking out because she had found a tick on her. My English teacher calmly pulled a spray bottle out of her bag and sprayed her down and then sprayed her chair. She said that ticks like to hang out in the judo room and I guess the spray was something to either try to ward them off or kill them.

This week, I was in class with the 9th graders and they were working in pairs to come up with telephone conversation skits. The English teacher started freaking out because either she or one of the girls saw the wasp I had noticed earlier flying around near the ceiling. The students started yelling, “Yusuke! Yusuke!” (pronounced “You-skay”) the name of one of the boys in class. I guess he's the resident bug killer because he ran to grab an aerosol can of bug spray conveniently located right by the blackboard – this must be a frequent occurrence. He ran around the class chasing the wasp with a plume of bug spray trailing behind him. It wasn’t doing any good as the ceilings were much higher than the spray was reaching so he climbed onto a chair and started spraying even more fervently. The wasp finally faltered and fell to the floor where another boy promptly stomped on it. The English teacher and I retreated to the hallway, opening windows along the way to avoid the noxious, spray-filled classroom, but the students just went back to their work. I know we had our share of wasps in the classrooms back at Midland, but I think we only got to chase them around with fly swatters.

There was more excitement in the afternoon, but this time it was not bug or animal related. On 11/9, the students need to perform the area’s traditional folk dance, so people came in from the community to teach them and help them practice. Apparently they first learn the dance in elementary school but one of the 7th grade girls went to a different elementary so didn’t know it. An older woman spent the entire practice teaching it to her (and to me and the other teachers) but the girl cried the whole time. I think she was really embarrassed because she was the only student who didn’t know it and Japanese kids really don’t like to be singled out – it’s all about being part of the group.

It was pretty cool to watch the kids dance and fun to try and learn it. There are separate dances for the boys and the girls but they dance together in a big circle. The girls get to dance with fans and large traditional paper umbrellas while the boys dance with bells, then straw hats, then swords (I was told they were imitation swords when one of the teachers saw my worried look). I’m sure they have cool costumes too, so I can’t wait to see the actual performance!