Just to give you an idea about how expensive fruit is here, I took a picture of a fruit stand near my Language Center in Kawasaki. First, 100 yen is approximately $1.00. Now, look at the price of the strawberries, do the math, and be thankful you get to pick buckets of strawberries for a few bucks in the spring.
My last email was before Christmas so it's definitely been awhile and A LOT has happened since then. Where to start...
Well first, I went to Hong Kong and spent Christmas and New Years with relatives there. It was the best thing I could do for the holidays next to going home to Massachusetts and I had a great time there. The weather was much more comfortable than it was back in July when it was hot and humid so walking around was a lot easier. Most of my 8 days there, I spent walking around the city by myself and also with different relatives for some site seeing and shopping. Of course, I stuffed myself silly with Chinese food. It was a nice familiar dose of home cooking. I spent New Years Eve watching the fireworks at Victoria Harbor with thousands and thousands of people. Nathan Road, Kowloon's main street, was blocked off to traffic and crowded beyond anything I've ever seen but the fireworks were worth the crowd.
January was pretty normal, just working and living. Work has been good and I really love being there. On the 14th, which was a national holiday, me and a bunch of people went out to Niigata prefecture North of Tokyo to the mountains. I ditched the 22 years of just skiing and decided to try out snowboarding. Good thing because snowboarding is SO fun. I can't believe I waited this long to try it out. By the end of the day, I had picked it up pretty well and was trying out toe-side and heel-side all the way down the mountain. But believe me, there was a whole lot of falling along with the learning. The next few days, moving any part of my body was pretty much torture but I think soreness from exercise is the best kind of pain and super gratifying. We're planning another trip on March 20 which is another national holiday that everyone has off. It's difficult to go on the weekends because so many of us have to work on them so national holidays are the best for group trips. Hopefully it all works out.
On the subject of winter activities, Yokohama City sets up an ice skating rink near the harbor by these famous red brick warehouses named Aka-renga Souko which literally means "Red Brick Warehouse." These literal names are not uncommon here and the only reason why they don't sound unoriginal is because they're in Japanese but, since they are, the names sound great. This ice rink is called "Art Rink" and skating there at night is best because they have a lot of light displays shining different colors and shapes on the ice and along the walls of the warehouses while playing music. It was a little crowded the night we went in February and the general pace of the circlers was pretty slow so my friend, Adam, and I were weaving in and out of people and trying not to knock them over. It was probably a little obnoxious but it's much more fun to skate fast and we were pretty good about avoiding running into others.
The day after ice skating, I got on an airplane bound for Bangkok, Thailand to visit my cousin, Andrea, for a few days and then to lay on a beach on Koh Mak island in the Gulf of Thailand for 7 days. I landed in Bangkok at about midnight and so by the time I got through customs and immigration, it was about 1AM. Being so used to the safety and cleanliness of Japan, Thailand was a small culture shock I had to get used to. I was unfamiliar with what the standard fare for cabs was and also the general sleaziness level of Thai people so I negotiated what I thought was a reasonable price to get me to downtown Bangkok, where Andrea's apartment was. The cab turned out to be a private company's and unmarked so upon seeing it, an alarm automatically went off in my head. I thought about it for a few seconds and decided to try it. Turns out the driver didn't speak any English and had some trouble with my poor Thai pronunciation of Andrea's address. He drove to a parking lot where a bunch of men were sitting around a small table so obviously I started questioning him and kept my voice firm in hopes of intimidating him out of anything I thought he might've been planning. However, these men were his friends and he only stopped to ask them how to get to the address I named. I gave him the piece of paper that had it written on it along with my cousin's number at the bottom, which they saw and ended up calling for help. When they told me that they'd called her and asked me to talk to her, I figured the situation was safe and calmed down. Andrea later told me that Thai people are generally very nice and helpful. General sleaziness level: low.
After that, everything else went smoothly in Bangkok. Andrea had to work on the weekdays so I was on my own for the most part to explore the city for 2 days. She wrote me a list of things to do and how to use the public transportation system so getting around and finding things was pretty easy. The feeling and physical look of Bangkok is much different from that of Japan's cities because it is much dirtier and the outgoing people are the complete opposite of the Japanese's quiet and passive manner. Not that Bangkok is a dirty city. In fact, it's just like any city in the United States. It is just that Japan is freakishly clean. Out of all the places I've visited so far, Thailand is by far the least expensive and Iso I was able to loosen up my budget just because there was so much to buy for so little money. And the fact that I barely shop in Japan also loosened the purse strings a bit. As for the food, spicy and delicious is how I would describe it, though it's probably an understatement. Andrea told me that Thais need to have four flavors in their food in order for it to be complete: salty, sour, spicy, and sweet. Pretty much every flavor possible so that equals very tasty food.
After two days of temples and shopping in Bangkok, I took a 5-hour bus ride at 6am to Trat where I caught a song thaew for a 30 minute ride to the pier. A song thaew is a local taxi that consists of a pick up truck with 2 benches on the bed, a rusty cover over our heads, and the rest open air. Riding in that through the Thai countryside dirt roads was pretty cool. Next was an hour ride on a speed boat from Laem Ngob Pier to the tiny island of Koh Mak where I stayed in a beachside bungalow and spent 3 days on the beach. I went by myself with hopes of getting some quiet time and I wasn't disappointed. Koh Mak has a much quieter atmosphere next to its bigger neighbor and backpacker magnet Koh Chang. This quiet time proved productive also because I was able to learn my Japanese months, days of the week, and numbers. Along with that, I also learned how to read Katakana. Japanese writing consists of three different "alphabets." Kanji is taken from chinese characters and each represents a single word. Hiragana is a set of about 70 characters representing syllable sounds and used to write Japanese words. Katakana characters represent the same 70 syllable sounds but is used to write foreign words in Japanese. At this moment, Katakana is the best to learn first as a foreigner because many things are written in it. You don't realize how much more convenient it is to know it until you are able to read signs, menus, and many other things written in it.
After those few days on the beach, I took the trip back to Bangkok in reverse and flew back to Tokyo the next day.
As for the subject line of this email, I have moved again. This time, to a house in Zushi which is a couple of towns east of Fujisawa and a much quieter, wealthier community. I moved in with my friend Aaron, who is also an English Instructor and was on the same flight as me back in September from the States and his brother, Josh, who is a high ranking US Naval enlistee. The house belongs to Josh and the rent is paid for by the US Navy so my rent is charged by him and is much cheaper than the rent I was paying in Fujisawa. The house itself is beautiful with 2 floors, 3 bedrooms downstairs, and the living room, kitchen, and bathroom upstairs. All the furniture is already there except for my room. I will take pictures and post them a little later of the house and once all my furniture arrives (around March 19) I will take pictures of my room as well. I'm planning on giving it an Asian theme, with some sheets, pillows, and decorations I picked up in Thailand along with stuff I had from Hong Kong and Japan. It's all very exciting because I like decorating :).
The location of the house is literally a 10 minute walk from the beach and an even shorter bike ride which is possible now since my friend gave me her old bike for free. I'm very happy about my new place and very excited to live with Aaron and Josh, who are great guys and as laid back as they come. We're even talking about getting either a puppy or a kitten!
Here is my new address:
Heather Tang
Hisagi 2-3-29
Zushi-Shi
Kanagawa-Ken
249-0001
Japan
That's it for now. All of my photos have been updated on my site and more will be coming once I get some pics of my new place along with my room later in March.
The link for the pictures again is:
http://picasaweb.google.co
Hope all is well back there and that you're surviving the winter next to your fireplaces (I miss those!). Send me a message with what you've been up to, I'd love to hear from you and what's been happening in your lives.
