In the last three weeks we`ve been hit with two monster typhoons. The first was widely proclaimed to be The Biggest Typhoon In 10 Years. The second, which hit the day before yesterday, was pronounced The Biggest Typhoon In 22 Years. They were both incredibly powerful. Never seen anything like it. I was fine, nice and cozy in my fourth floor apartment, but I talked to another teacher who had to sandbag her entire foyer because water was about two feet deep in the street outside her house. Classes were all cancelled, and I got my supervisor to translate the weather report for me - that way I knew exactly when it would hit our area, so I could go out and get the necessities nice and early, the necessities being rented movies. Then I turned on the TV (it was kind of creepy that every single television station started switching to the Emergency band and showing pictures of the devastation it was causing), and watched the typhoon through my balcony doors. Both were over in a few hours. In the end, it was kind of a cool experience.

Of course, I`m also a little thankful that I`m going home in two months, hopefully Mt. Fuji decides to blow and finish us off.

Because I only teach an average of about 4 hours a day, I have a lot of spare time. And because it only takes five minutes to make rice and ten seconds to open canned fruit (the two dietary staples I have been living off for the past month or so), and my apartment is so small that it doesn`t really accumulate the filth and grime I usually endow upon my habitations , cooking and cleaning don`t take up much time, either. So I read a lot, and go biking a lot, and rent a lot of movies.

There is a Tsutaya, which is like the Japanese version of Roger`s, a block away from my place. I got a membership as soon as I arrived, but it wasn`t until my dad purchased a little DVD player when my family was visiting that I ever used it. Now I usually rent three or four movies a week.

But I have to say that I have found the video store even more difficult to navigate than the grocery store.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, 98% of North American movies have been given Japanese names. These are usually pretty close to the what our titles would be (with some exceptions: `The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys` is now `The INNOCENT Lives of Altar Boys`, all the James Bond pictures start with `007:`...etc.), except written in kanji/katakana. The Japanese language, for those who don`t know, is phonetic, and organized so that there is never any sound that ends with a consonant (from what I understand, anyway - I`m sure there are exceptions). What this means is that you can`t have the word `Ghost`, because it ends in a consonant; it becomes, phonetically, `ghost-o`. But what it comes down to is that it`s all in Japanese. Which is what is printed on the side of the DVD and VHS cases. Which I can`t read.

Thankfully, sometimes there are the little icons of the stars on the sides, so I can sometimes navigate by these. Normally, however, I have to pull out shelves and shelves of videos to find what I`m looking for.

But that`s not all. Because even if the titles were subtly changed, I would normally be able to go through alphabetically and find what I`m looking for. Even if it was arranged according to the Japanese phonetic alphabet, it wouldn`t be that difficult.

But for some strange reason that I don`t understand, Japanese video stores arrange their movies by subject. And I don`t mean the genres, like `romance,` `horror`, etc. I mean specific subjects about what the movie is about.

There is a shelf for war movies. There is a shelf for natural disaster movies. There is a shelf for movies about jail breaks. There`s one for movies with protagonists with disabilities, there`s one for movies about characters who have been wrongfully accused, there`s one for sad movies about couples who break-up. There are TWO shelves for coming of age movies - one for young kids and one for teenagers and young adults. Now the categories aren`t labelled, so I have to guess, but I`m pretty sure there`s a shelf for bad Richard Gere movies, too.

This makes looking for specific videos really, really, really difficult. I was looking for `The Shawshank Redemption,` and was baffled. It wasn`t in the jail break section, wasn`t in the `based on a book by Stephen King` section, it wasn`t even on the `man goes through an ordeal and becomes a changed person` shelf. It`s one of the most rented films of all time, but man, I`m still looking for that bloody movie.

And finally, there is a very different way of returning your movies. In North America we are spoiled; we can drop them through a slot in the door if we`re in a hurry, or if we have time we can step inside and leave it on the desk. Not so here. You have to wait in a specified line-up to drop off your tape or DVD, which is often rather long. When they finally get to you, they check the DVD for scratches, double check it with your return stub, scan it through the computer, and then they let you go.

I was ignorant of this for the first week, and made the mistake of dropping my video on the counter and walking out. They fined me 500 yen, or about $6 Canadian, for that little error. No kidding.

I was reading the English translation of the Japan Times yesterday over a cup of coffee at Mister Donuts, and I read an article that made me laugh out loud, thereby attracting even more attention than is due for a foreigner in a Japanese coffee-shop.

The article was about a new policy adopted by the Tokyo school board that allowed boys` and girls` names to be mixed (`gender-free` is the term used) on the daily attendance rosters (previously, boys` names had gone first, because, as the article explains, they would complain if the girls were first, whereas girls don`t complain as much because it`s not their nature. No comment from this humble blogger on THAT particular can of worms.). What I found so funny was a comment by a member of the Board of Educationon. Here is the exact quote:

`First you mix boys and girls together in the names list, and before you know it they`ll be sharing rooms on school trips, because differences are no longer recognized between the sexes. And then eventually they`ll be changing clothes in front of each other or holding piggy-back races together.`

Good Heavens! The equilibrium of Japanese society rests on the chance popularization of mixed-gender piggy-back races! The very fabric of civilized living is coming undone! Repent, for the end is at hand!

He, he, he. Piggy-back races. I love this crazy country.

This is a list of what I miss from home:

- ATMs that are open all the time, and don`t close at 8pm and on holidays;

- North American pizza - not the monstrosities they make here, with wasabi, raw tuna, and fried eggs on top;

- jaywalking;

- English TV, for that matter;

- English news...it`s tiring having to guess your way through the headlines of the day;

- zoning laws;

- Taco Bell - I`ve been dreaming about Mexican food for weeks now...

- being able to walk down the street without having Japanese women check you out for being a foreigner...actually, that`s not so bad...

- televised sports that do not include sumo wrestling or baseball;

- ambulances that travel faster than the speed-limit;

- being able to walk into a fast-food joint and order a hamburger without psyching myself for a round of charades;

- the loonie and the twoonie...the Japanese don`t have cute pet names for their currency

Been a while since I posted anything, so here`s a quick note on last week`s mini vacation.

I went on a business trip to a place called Kanazawa, which is on the other side of Japan - `width`-wise, you could say, so it`s on the China-side, a 4-hour shinkansen-and-train ride away. I taught for two days, and stayed an extra day to do some sightseeing.

The Kenrokken garden is supposed to be the biggest and most beautiful garden in Japan...but honestly, I wasn`t too impressed. Oh, it was nice and everything, but I wasn`t blown away. It was like taking a nice walk in Stanley Park. Then I toured a Samurai house, a Geisha house, and a Ninja temple.

That night, I dined on unagi (grilled eel) and spent several hours in  Japanese bath. Very relaxing, though too hot and filled with naked businessmen.

Last night I was up fairly late watching TV. One of the Hockey World Cup games was aired the night before, from 2am-4am, and I stayed up and proceeded to sleep until noon; hence I was quite wide awake indeed at midnight when...guesses, anyone?...yet another bloody earthquake hit! Now it`s just getting annoying.

Anyway, I didn`t feel like sleeping after all the warnings and alarms were sounded, so I flicked through the channels, and it occurred to me that I have never really provided any documentation of a typical cross-section of Japanese television. Below are some examples of the TV shows that I managed to catch last night:

- some kind of a talkshow/gameshow wh ich culminated in a long table topped with various types of fish and seafood dishes being lowered into the cage of a large black bear, with well-known celebrities betting on the dish that the bear will eat first;

- a gameshow in which a scary-looking guy in a clown suit lights a candle and proceeds to pour the hot, melted wax onto the bare chest of a contestant below - his winnings are based on how much hot wax he can handle being slowly dripped onto his body from an increasing height;

- a talkshow that ends each interview segment with the interviewee putting on a suit of fuzzy fabric, running down a long plank, jumping off a diving board, and trying to stick to a wall covered in velcro;

- a show in which, from what I could discern, female fashion models get grouped together to form pick-up games of various sports that none of them are good at, or even played before; I managed to sit through an insufferable round of bowling and two horrendous innings of baseball before changing the channel;

And, my very favourite:

- an odd gameshow in which a contestant selected from the audience drops one of his credit cards into an aquarium filled with piranhas - if one of the piranhas tries to eat the card, he wins. What he wins, I know not; does he get his credit card back? Maybe he gets to keep the piranha? I don`t know.

And you know, at that moment, around 1am last night, I believe I reached my tolerance for nonsensical television. I really can`t take it anymore. At this point, I think looking for pictures in the static of out-of-frequency channels would prove more entertaining.

Two earthquakes last night - first one just after 7pm our time, a 6.9 off the Wakayama coast south of where I am located; then another one just before midnight, this one about a 7.3, similar area, I think. I felt both of them - not a lot of shaking, just vibrating windows. Then there was a tsunami-warning broadcast over the TV and radio; there was only about a half-meter rise where I am on the coast, but nearer the epicenter it rose to about a full meter.

What was kinda freaky is hearing the public address go off. I can`t understand it, but I can pick out a few words, like `jichin` (earthquake) and `tsunami`. It`s disturbing when you have no idea what is being said: it could have been saying, `Run! Run away! There is a huge earthquake going to hit followed by one mother of a tsunami! We`re all going to die! Ahhhhhh!` And I`d be sitting there smiling away, listening to Creedence on my CD player, no idea whatsoever. Ah, well - at least I wouldn`t know what hit me.

We have a typhoon going through right now, and though it`s only hit really hard in the southern area of Japan, it`s been really dismal and rainy the past two days. My weekend was spent stuck indoors, cleaning my apartment, playing darts while playing Simon and Garfunkle and my Moulin Rouge soundtrack as loud as I dare, and reading a lot. And watching Japanese TV, which hasn`t gotten any more interesting or less annoying since I`ve got here. Thankfully, Ghostbusters has been playing on my movie channel constantly, and even though I cringe everytime I hear the Movie Guy`s pronounciation (with the Japanese phonetics, it sounds like, `Go-suit-oh bass-turds`), it is indeed a comfort.

...

A week or two ago, I found this sports shop in Shizuoka. Went in and explored the hockey section, checking out some jerseys...and there is an official Canucks jersey, on for half price - I ended up buying it for about $75, which is a loooot cheaper than if you buy them in Vancouver. Of course, if there isn`t a hockey season this year, I am going to be very angry.

...

So. With a lack of anything blog-worthy, I shall stop typing now.

There are a lot of bizarre types of bugs in this crazy country. And the normal bugs that you`d expect to find in North America can do all sorts of weird stuff that our bugs can`t.

Take spiders, for example. They jump. Really, really far. I was trying to catch one that was in a classroom once, and the eight-legged freak jumped a good two feet across the room.

There are cicadas everywhere here. They`re big and loud and they lie on the ground pretending to be dead and when you walk by go nuts and try to fly into your head.

And there are cockroaches. Oh, boy, does this country have some crazy cockroaches. `Gokiburi` is the Japanese name for them. They`re huge and they fly. And they`re everywhere. I despise cockroaches; they`re so creepy, and fast, and unkillable...they`re like silver fish, which rival roaches for my most hated insect (which, since I`ll be moving back into Gage Residence at UBC this year, is kind of ironic; loathing silverfish and going to Gage is like hating swallows and living in Capestrano).

I was on the train yesterday, and I was sitting in a booth with two rather attractive young Japanese ladies, when all of a sudden they both got up and moved across the aisle. I was a little confused, but being a foreigner has some weird effects on people. Then one of them pointed at the floor near my feet, and I was out of that booth and on the other side with my two new female friends in about half a second because there were COCKROACHES EVERYWHERE!

...

Okay, I have an apology to make to you, Faithful Reader. I promised myself that when I started this blog, I would keep it interesting. I despise those blogs that degenerate into the most boring and useless of electronic drivel; ones that consist of riveting anecdotes such as, `I went to the store, and grapefruits were on sale, so I bought three.` Next time I update this, it will be much more interesting than this `Roaches on the Train` story. I promise.

I climbed Mount Fuji last week, and it was one of the most difficult thing I致e ever done, physically and mentally. We left about 8:30pm on Sunday night, taking a train and a taxi to get to the fifth station - it痴 a ways up the mountain, where people usually start climbing from. We started climbing at 10pm. After about 15 minutes, I was tired, but we didn稚 reach the summit until just after 4am.
 It痴 all volcanic pumice, very loose and very light, so it痴 easy to take one step and slip back three. Also, it痴 very, very steep, and there are some big boulders in the way that you have to clamber over. And it痴 dark, and it gets very cold very quickly - it痴 below 0ｰC at the top, and it hovers around freezing for a good portion of the climb (the summit is at about 3900m, and we started climbing at 2400m). The guidebooks say it takes between four and six and a half hours to reach the top; it took us just over six, with a bunch of rest stops. It was incredibly tiring. I can稚 even describe how exhausting it was...imagine being just dead tired after half an hour, and knowing that you have several more hours to go. It only took us two hours to descend, but by that time I was so tired I couldn稚 run. I have never been so completely drained of energy. All I could do was move my legs in accordance with gravity.
 And then there was the altitude sickness. When I first heard of that, I dismissed it - no bloody way I壇 ever get altitude sickness. But of the four of us who climbed together, myself and another guy, Jeremy, both got some pretty crazy altitude sickness going on. When you ascend a mountain relatively quickly, your body doesn稚 have a chance to adjust to the decreasing levels of oxygen in the air. Hence your brain gets oxygen deprived and can lead itself to some pretty groovy effects. At about the 2800m mark, I noticed that all the rocks in my peripheral vision were getting zebra stripes, and whenever I壇 blink, I壇 see stripes instead of just blackness. My field of vision started getting smaller, and I got really dizzy. After a few hundred meters, I was getting purple zebra stripes, and not just in my peripheral vision. Jeremy got the same thing - dizziness, vertigo, distorted vision...it痴 a pretty groovy trip in all. Our conversations were like this:

Jeremy: Hey, Cam, how痴 it going?
Cam: Not so good...got some purple zebra stripes going on...you?
Jeremy: My rocks are turning green.
Cam: Okay, time to rest.

 Then we壇 curl up off the path a bit and try to keep ourselves warm while we nodded off a bit and tried to get the rocks back to their natural colour.
 Anyway, we made it to the top around 4:15am, and got to watch the sunrise at 4:30am. Just beautiful - indescribable, with the sun coming up over a big carpet of clouds and lighting up the whole sky. Incredible.