1. i quit my job! the company was making me absolutely mental and i couldn't deal with working there anymore so my last day was March 28th and i have been gainfully unemployed since. it feels great not to have to go there everyday but i still feel fairly scared, excited, and uncertain of what lies ahead. my current plan is to start my own english school, one in which i can teach the more practical side of the language in both private lessons as well as in workshops such as book clubs and lessons cerntered around themes like cooking, traveling, shopping, etc. i might be moving in the next couple of months so i don't encroach on the roommates' space but for now i am happy to take it easy for the rest of the month. the fact that i feel so good everyday is a sign that i've made the right choice.
2. Cor has left Japan. he and i both quit on the same day and had been trapesing around the city for a couple of weeks. we took a short trip to nagasaki (more on that later) but all in all, we were able to enjoy Tokyo in the spring (one of the best seasons here!). he flew out of Narita on the 17th so the fun has stagnated a bit since then but he's somewhere on a beach in thailand for a month and then heading home for a couple of months before starting biznass school in Hong Kong. i look forward to visiting both him and the big h there. although he's gone, his bed and desk now occupy my room and my back is happy to finally be back on a nice mattress after having spent 3 and a half years on the floor. yippee!
Such a sweetie, he also left me with an early birthday present. Cor is great but his gift choosing skills need a bit of tuning. he got me a really nice, really expensive, and really big bread maker which is extraordinarily nice (especially since it can bake cakes -- yum!) but we have no space in our tiny ass apartment for it. suz and i have assessed our space and we just don't have the room. it's a wonderful gift but it's just not the time right now to be filling our apartment (a temporary domicile -- i hope!) with furnishings and appliances that we won't use on a daily basis. Sidebar: if you're reading this Cor, i love the sentiment babe, but i had to take it back.
Now this wouldn't be a proper blog entry without a rant, so here it goes. the big ass breadmaker needed to get returned to Bic camera (a huge electronics store in ikebukuro). i lugged that big ass box all the way down there and i was armed with the reciept that, thankfully, Cor left me. the guy on the first floor tells me to take it to the second floor. ok. the guy on the second floor tells me to take it to the fifth floor. ok. on the fourth floor going up, a nice young staff man offers to take it up to the next floor for me. all the peeps on the fifth floor converge on me and my breadmaker (appliances are not such popular buys at the moment). i tell them the story: my boyfriend bought me this lovely gift but i have no space for it so i have to return it. they get the floor manager over and he asks me for the reciept. i give it to him and then he asks me if we can call Cor. I say, "what for?" and he says he has to confirm that it's ok with him if i return the breadmaker. hun?? i ask them if he paid by credit card. Nope. do you need his bic card, cuz i got it at home? Nope. then why the fuck do you need to call him? because you weren't the one who purchased it. WHAT?! so i tell him that Cor won't be reachable by phone for a month. he says that's ok and he'll WAIT. they generously let me leave the breadmaker there rather than me lugging it home and they give me a reciept and tell me to come back when Cor is reachable again. i left shaking my head and not understanding at all what just happened. perhaps i'll go back on my birthday and so i can pick out a different gift . . . .
Back track to Nagasaki!
For his final domestic trip within his temporary home country of japan, Cor decides he wantas to go to Nagasaki so we take a little 3 day trip there. it was a beautiful city; clear skies and clean water, but the food situation wasn't good. it was all chinese food. Champon (the local chinese food favorite dish) is good but it's all cabbage, which Cor hates, so i had to watch him make his "eeeewwww pickle face" for 45 minutes. we went up the ropeway of Mt. Inasa and got a great view of the sunset and the night view. see?
so the first day was quite good (besides the food situation). the second day was where we had the problems. Now, Cor is a well studied history buff and i am not. he has read and carries lots of books and maps and i do not. he has the ability to completely detach emotion from fact and i do not. Enter day two: the atomic bombing tour day. we started at the peace park which was nice and then went to the museum which was not so nice. i froze within the first 5 minutes of entering, just glued to the first TV monitor showing photos of the blast and the complete devastation that followed. the museum had loads of artifacts, either found or donated by the families of the victims. there were stories, photos of the burns and scars on the victims, clothes with blood stains on them, charred bento boxes of kids with carbonized rice inside, the works. i don't know how many times i lost it in there. i was so emotionally unprepared for the whole experience that i was emotionally and mentally drained afterwards. i think that's why i dislike history so much; it dwells on the mistakes of the past. i know the overall message of the museum is that nuclear weapons are bad but i don't think i need a 3 hour emotional beating to come to that conclusion. afterwards, we went to the hypocenter where the bomb was actually dropped and then saw the one-legged Tori (the shrine gateway). we had a very somber lunch (my fault as i was the bigggest wet blanket all day after that) and then went in for more depressing times at the site of the 26 Christian martyrs. I don't think ic an ever go to Hiroshima after this trip! we did go to Dejima which was like an upscale dutch relocation camp which was not depressing but i was wrecked from before so it was tough. nagasaki has loads to see but not a lot to do and it was a glaring exposure of one of the many differences between me and Cor. it was certainly the most educational vacation i'd ever had.so after nagasaki, we come home (quite happily), and spend the last week with friends and doing a mini food tour of all the things Cor wanted to eat before he left. we also cooked at home doing a taco nite with some japanese friend and chicken parm for his last dinner. the shinagawa prince hotel and the penis restaurant will have to wait for his next visit!
anyways, i know i keep saying i will be better about this blog, and i will try but don't bet the farm. life somehow has a way of catching up with all of us, doesn't it? until next time . . .
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