a little rant and rave

To give you a better idea of what its like living here I will give you a little list of my rants

1. The Cold. It is soooo freezin cold in my apartment you can see your breath. There is no glass covering my bathroom windows and the term *hot*water is such false advertising. Today I was literally shivering the whole time I took a shower.

2. Not being able to find good pizza. I really miss this shop called Uncle Fatti's on commerical drive. The best spinach and fetta pizza for 1.50!. Here pizza is like sooo expensive and really thin crusted and not much topings and really oily. Yuck!

3. How narrow and dark the roads are. Most of the roads here wouldn:t even be called back alleys in Vancouver. They almost don't have room for even one car (you have to retract your mirrors). Also they are really dark at night (every time i ride my bike i take my life in my own hands).

4. the early morning announcments. They have this big P.A. system across japan where they like to make early morning annoucments especially on the weekends. I have no clue what they are saying (i think sometimes it is such things as *warning there is a wild boar on the loose* etc), but it is so not useful to me! Please just let everyone sleep in peace.

5. The lack of ovens in Japanese apartments. I have been really craving lasagnia, but there are no OVENS IN JAPAN!! they have these litte broilers that can fit two pieces of bread and that is it! I also wont be able to make christmas cookies grrrr.

6. The train system! A big personal growl from me on this one. So many times i have got on the wrong train or gone on the wrong tracks. It is really confusing because I can't read kanji. Mostly I run around and look like a goof. I actually missed meeting up with my friend Megan for brazilian food once because i took an express train by accident and ended up 1/2 hour out of the way. I was stuck at a station for another 1/2 before i could get back to kofu. arg!

7. How much packaging there is everywhere. If you come to japan you will really see how everything is not only wraped in plastic once, but twice and then always baged. ug! So much garbage accumulates here.

8. Speaking of garbage OH MY - taking out garbage here is an absolute joke! You have to divide everying up into inumerable catagories. eg. burnable, non burnable, plastic bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, stuff like furniture, shoes. All of these things go out on different days of the month! (they actually give everyone these huge illustrated calendars to help you figure out when to take out your garbage.). You can only take out the garbage the morning of the day it is to be picked up (so, yes, I store garbage on my balcony, yuck!). You must have everything in clear plastic bags and you are supposed to label everything with your name (which i don't do. muhaha! they cant track me down!).

9. taking off my shoes all the time. At all but one school (an aviation school) I have to take off my shoes (which arn't even dirty, gosh!) and change into *inside shoes*. When i have classes in other buildings I have to reverse the process and put my oustide shoes on, carry my inside shoes with me and change back into them again later. Ugh! Its sorta obsessive compulsive if you ask me! Also in the changing rooms at stores you have to take off your shoes (i didn't discover this until i had a shop clerk yelling at me in japanese for putting one foot in the changing room).

10. having students runnign around screaming kawaii! (cute!). I seriously have kids coming up to me everywhere in kofu and screaming at me. oh dear oh dear. it was kinda cool at first, now its just getting scary (which, coincidentaly, is actually `kowaii` in japanese, almost the same as cute). I also had a group of 18 year old guys on their bikes chacing me through the streets of kofu. I had to duck in a 711 and hide behind the magazines to evaide them (a lady was looking at me strange as I hid behind some japanese porno. hehe)

Okay, thats enough ranting. Really I love japan. I will post all my raves soon to even things out.

love you all
gracie