Oni out, Happiness in.

Yesterday was the Lunar New Year, this is the year of the rabbit for those who don't know. From what I know the Japanese don’t really focus much on it since they celebrate the New Year on the 1^st of January, however they do have a holiday that corresponds with the Lunar New Year called “Setsubun” (節分),otherwise known as the day of bean throwing. Basically in order to cleanse yourself of the evils of last year, and to keep away the new demons that will plague you this year (in order to ensure more good luck/happiness), you have beans thrown at you. Makes perfect sense right? This also marks the start of spring, according to Japan. Being from Michigan I’m used to it not being spring until April. Though, I was in Japan for Setsubun last year, and it snowed that day, so Mother Nature is never very accurate when it comes to these things. 

 My host family had an antique mask of just like the white one on the bottom left that appeared hanging in the doorway shortly after New Years. I didn't realize what it was supposed to represent until after I started reading up on Setsubun, it actually is supposed to be the God of happiness.

People will go to shrines and temples for this ritual but it can also be performed at home. My experience was watching my Otousan (host father) get pelted with beans by my Okaasan (host mother). My Otousan had come home from working, and before entering the house he had to be “purified”. My Okaasan invited me to come watch, and I found the whole thing hilarious and a little strange. At the time I didn’t know what I was being called for or why, so you can understand. The whole time my Otousan looked like he was trying not to burst out laughing, and I think my Okaasan was having way too much fun with it. I was a little embarrassed for him, but it is nice when people don’t take things too seriously.

It was also around this time last year that I was preparing to return home. CIEE students were to move out of our host families homes by the 3^rd, either to return home or find other accommodations. I had made my plane ticket for the 6^th in order to give myself a few extra days. I sure my host family wouldn’t have minded me staying a few more days, but I had wanted to spend some time with my friend Caroline of “Spooning with a Schoolboy” before I left. So I decided that I would leave my luggage at my host family’s house, and go spend a couple nights with Caroline. Caroline and I went to college together here in the states, and I consider her one of my very close friends. We didn’t get to see each other as much as we would have liked while I was there (maybe a couple times a month?), because she is a busy English teacher, but it was nice spend some time with here before I left. She still had to work during the day, so I was by myself a lot of the time I was there, but I didn’t mind because I need some time to myself. Most people would want to spend every last minute they had in Tokyo running around to their favorite parts of the city. But not I, I had gone out with my friends to say our goodbyes to each other and the city already. By that point I was ready to detach myself. I had already had three break downs that week about having to leave. My worst was when I was packing and had to fight for 2 hours with the zippers on my suitcase to close. Yeah, that was a low moment. So, I welcomed being shut up in a room to just escape the fact that I would soon be leaving. I think I spent most of the time marathoning the TV show “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”. This is how I deal with most of the problems in my life, tv show/movie marathons. It works for me.

  Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo

I returned to my host family’s house on the 6^th so that my host sister Maki and my Okaasan could take me to the airport (my Otousan had to work). It felt weird coming back home after spending a few nights at Caroline’s, this resulted in ANOTHER crying breakdown in the bathroom shortly after I got there. It was hard to say goodbye to my Otousan, the family pets, even the house. We all sat for some group pictures before we left. My flight was for 7pm, so I think we left around 3pm? We drove to the airport because of my luggage, but we had to stop at the eki (train station) so that I could get a refund on my suika card (Train pass used mostly for JR lines. You can put money on the card and then you don’t have to worry about buying a ticket every time.) I had about 1000yen left on the card, and I needed that money for dinner at the airport since I was broke. I was sad that I exchanged it though because they kept my card and I would have liked to keep it. We took the toll road to the airport, which was like super freaking expensive, and I felt bad about asking them to take me after realizing that they had to pay like 700yen (about $8.50) every stop! I’m used to tolls being like 80cents a stop. But it was cool to get to drive over the famous Rainbow Bridge again and look back at the city skyline before leaving. It felt like I had come full circle, since on my second day in Japan we (CIEE group) drove over the bridge in our big bus. We made it to the airport on time though. I checked in my luggage to find that I was over the weight limit by like 6 pounds! So cue me freaking out and having to have my host sister pay for me to mail a box of stuff home. I felt horrible because it was 4000yen and they wouldn’t accept credit cards, so she ended up paying for it for me (T__T). I bought a few Abercrombie and Finch shirts for her over here and mailed them to her in exchange, since they jack up the prices a ton in Japan. After that crisis was dealt with, we decided to have dinner together before they left. It was mostly my Okaasan noticing that there was a McDonalds there and really craving a chicken sandwich :D. I offered to pay for my own but Maki insisted on paying. We said our goodbyes in front of security, and I was very proud of myself for not crying again (though I was on the verge trust me). Since I had 1000yen to spare I spent it on a fashion magazine (ViVi) for some reading material, and chocolate, the cure all of cure alls. I however have the worst luck ever at airports, because as I was going to board the plane I thought I lost my passport. Cue freak out number two! But all was well because I found it under the seat I was sitting at. I also do not do good on long flights, I don’t sleep well and I always feel sick by the end of it. But it was nice to be greeted by my parents and my best friend when I landed in Chicago.

So this Sunday it really will be a year since I left Japan, and I think I’m ok with that. I still have bad days, but I’m moving on, and I think it helps that I know that I will be going back next year for a vacation. The best advice I can give to returnees is just to take it one day at a time, and try not to get sucked into that loop of constantly feeling bad for yourself. This year I’m hoping to keep my demons out and happiness in.

My experience of earthquakes and typhoons in Japan.

Reasons I have not posted in a while:

1)   I was busy writing a long guest post for Caroline of “Spooning with a Schoolboy” on Vegetarianism in Japan (which will be published within the next few weeks I’m guessing).

2)   I then got sick with the cold from hell.

3)   Um… Snowapocalypse 2011? No, in fact I have just been lazy about it.

But speaking of the Snowapoclypse, it was very underwhelming for me. For those who don’t know, I live in the Southwestern part of Michigan. We get a lot of snow here, and have already had 2 blizzards this winter, so I'm used to this okay. This blizzard however was supposed to be THE BIG ONE.  You know, like the one back in 65 (according to my father) where snow drifts are a big as houses, and 30 inches of snow fall. Yeah, well we did get drifts but they are not as big as houses, and we only got like a foot of snow, so I am unimpressed. Though a ton of places are closed today even though the roads don’t seem to be terrible and it has stopped snowing and the sun is shining.

This hysteria and disappointment remind me of when we would experience typhoons (everyone called them tsunamis, but tsunamis happen on water... like big crushing wave, storm on land is a typhoon/hurricane so I will be referring to them the proper way) and earthquakes in Japan. Since I live in Michigan I had experienced neither of these forces of nature before. During our orientation period, CIEE took us to Ikebukuro’s Honjo Bosaikan (Life Safety Learning Center) where we were required to crawl through a smoke maze,  learn how to us a fire extinguisher (while shouting “KAJI DA!” much to our own amusements) , sit in a earthquake simulator room, and watch an educational film about earthquakes in Japan and how the next “BIG ONE” for Tokyo is just around the corner.  In all seriousness though, when that “big one” does hit, it could be pretty catastrophic so it is scary. 

I only recall experiencing three earthquakes while I was in Japan. The first of which I actually slept straight through without feeling a thing. It was only in the morning at breakfast when my Okaasan asked if the earthquake had scared me in the night that I even knew we had one. Maggie, the other student living with us, also slept through it. Okaasan said that she jumped up when it happened and wanted to come see if we were ok (since it was our first) but that Otousan told her we were fine and not to worry, so she looked out the window to see if the lights in our windows were on, which they weren’t, so she figured we were all right. Bless her. The second earthquake happened while I was in my Japanese class, and I thought at the time that my friend Tom (who sat behind me) was shaking his foot on my chair to be annoying. It wasn’t until after class when he asked if we had felt the earthquake that I realized it wasn’t him. Sorry Tom. The last earthquake I remember happened in the night, and I remember feeling the shaking in my dream, then waking up and realizing that everything REALLY WAS shaking! But I was so sleepy, I just thought, “Oh, it’s an earthquake”, and went right back to sleep. So much for being concerned about my own safety. Earthquakes just weren’t as scary as I thought they would be.

We had two typhoons hit while I was there, and the first was actually so bad that they canceled classes. It really wasn’t too bad, just a lot of strong winds and heavy rain, but that makes terrible conditions for the trains to run so most of them shut down (except subway, but all my trains were above ground). I remember the typhoon had hit during the night, and it passed before noon the next day. I had to wait for a text message from CIEE saying if we would have classes or not in the morning. Oh did I ever pray to the Kamisama for that text message. I sat watching the news on TV about how so many JR lines had shut down, and my Okaasan even told me I didn’t have to go, so I was already planning on skipping but it was nice to get the confirmation that it was ok. Even if we DID still have class I wouldn’t have been able to get there because two of my train lines shut down. But I heard that a couple of my classmates actually did end up going to class without knowing, and then got stranded because the trains lines shut down after. The weather was GORGEOUS after the storm passed. Really blue skies and sunshine. So Maggie and I went to explore a town on one of the stops along our line called Noborito with our friend Erika who also lived along that train line. Only the train times were all screwed up, and some were only going in one direction, so it took us a little longer to get there even though it’s only like a 10 minute train ride away. The second typhoon that hit barely even touched us. I think it had actually stayed more off land, so really there was only some heavy rain and winds but not enough to seriously disrupt things.

I mostly think people just enjoy the thrill of freaking out when it comes to mother nature.