Actually talking about her internship? No way.

I know I promised that I would talk about Kamakura and Kitakamakura this time, but it'll have to wait, since I decided to actually talk about my internship instead of temples and food.  I'm surprised, too, but it's been an interesting few weeks.  ^_^

Where I sit has changed, since the tech guys couldn't figure out why the internet hated the break room where my cubby used to be.  Instead, I've a more different cubby behind the circ. desk, so now I can see people and answer ref questions, etc...while fixing records.  Actually, I really can't see anyone at the counter, since there's a large printer sharing the desk with me, but I can hear people at the counter.  I still really don't do much circ. work, since there are actual circulation workers, but at least I can see how circulation procedures work in practice now.  Turns out, to the letter of what they are supposed to do.  Yay, ingrained routines from Japanese school systems!  Everyone does everything the same way, every time.  At least I know my manual will be followed...

Being out in the front also has also allowed me to get to know our new color scanner/printer!   Getting it was very exciting, and now people can scan things and have them sent to email.  I think everyone was hoping that would mean fewer faxes (scanning is far cheaper and less of a pain than faxing), but, so far, everyone is still loving the old fax machine and its magical capabilities to get things to the U.S. 

In any case, I still get far too excited when I actually help anyone than is good for me.  Found a mother a book about achieving your goals to read to her kid's class: elated.  Helped an education student find children's books about disabled kids: ecstatic.  Drew a guy a map to the train station and showed him how to get to Shibuya (I can only hope he knew where he was going after that, since Shibuya station has multiple exits and is a very large area and this guy had literally just arrived in the country): confused as to how the Japanese workers don't know where the train station is...I guess they drive everywhere, or not go anywhere?  I also explained the Ghibli Museum to someone who wanted to go there, which may have been my favorite reference question ever.  Although the little girl who wanted a book about Tinkerbelle, then insisted that her name was Ariel despite her father's claims it was, in fact, not, ("I know, Dad.  I'm just pretending it is.  So it is.") was adorable.

I'm also still working the weekly storyhours.  Our volunteer, who usually runs it, singing the songs and such, will be going home to her family for a few weeks at the end of March for the vernal equinox and Higan no Chu-Nichi, so I'll be the one singing and running the kids through the motions at the end of March.  I have very few of the songs down yet, at least not in the form they are sung here.  Skimanary-Rinky_Dink http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEEsX69iIxY is much different from the hand motions I grew up with, thanks to living so close to Canada.  And some are English versions of Japanese songs...still working on Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree, for example.  So, I'm kinda nervous, since the kids all know these and I'm not sure I can keep the attention of 20 small children for half an hour.  At least I can sing Five Little Ducks without issue...it has remained stuck in my head for several weeks and I can do the motions in my sleep.

As for the records themselves, they are slowly being fixed.  I've come across some very...interesting ones.  Apparently, the Japanese workers used to make records for the donations about seven years ago, but really didn't know that rules are flexible.  So, now I see things like publishers or main characters listed as authors since the book doesn't list an author, series labels where a series doesn't exist, and little to no subject entries while the summaries are sometimes very creative in their phrasing.  On the other hand, some entries are flawless, at least in my eyes, and I never took any of the upper-level cataloging courses.  I am learning most of the subject entries for children's books as I go along, which is good, but if I ever graduated to the adult books (not gonna happen...I'll be lucky to finish the kids' books) I'd be screwed if I had to create a record from scratch.  

As an added bonus, I got to visit our sister library, which is located on the large naval base connected with all our flier population.  This base houses the carriers the planes are affiliated with, and everything else that supports the carriers.  It's roughly the size of Buffalo, and I'm very glad I wasn't placed there, since I would have spent half my time lost on-base and would have starved trying to walk to the commissary.  The library, naturally, is much, much bigger.  It takes up an entire floor of a building, and looks wonderful since it only moved to that location about six months ago.  There are TV-viewing rooms, a teen's room (with monitored camera since the library is next to the high school and is apparently where the teens go to test the limits of authority), an entire room dedicated to the Japan collection, a real storage room (we have a shelf and the cabinets under the sink), and even a conference room with projector and (non-functional as it is hung 7 ft off the ground) smartboard.  They have eight different cataloging staff members (!), and twelve employees total.  What I was most impressed with, however, was the shelving.  The library has all Japanese shelving, which comes earthquake-proofed. Basically, it's mounted into the floor and ceiling, then each shelf has horizontal bars that will spring up over every shelf to hold the books in if there is a certain level of movement.  That means far less picking things up after an earthquake (or small child climbing the shelves).  The only drawback is that the shelves are shallower than some American books, since most Japanese books are pocket-sized, for easy carrying.  So, the library has a larger Oversize collection by necessity, and in some places the bars don't do much since they can't fully deploy.  Still, the idea of the bars automatically popping up was amusing to me.  It was nice to hear the experiences and opinions of the base's library director, to get an idea of what goes on elsewhere, and in different military branches, since he's worked for several now. 

Next time I may actually get around to my new favorite 'kuras, but until then, here's a few teaser pictures.  It is, by the way, Plum blossom season, and some of the Sakura are also in bloom (and have been for weeks) despite the weather channel constantly informing everyone that's not supposed to happen until late-March.  This means that I've been seeing a lot of flowers everywhere I go.

 

The Daibutsu at Kamakura

 

Part of a shrine in Kitakamakura, can't recall which...

 

A roadside shrine in Kitakamakura.  The dog is an offering, not a statue...he's just a bit mossy. I could not figure out what the statues stand for, so if anyone knows, let me know. 

  

Plum blossoms at the Atami Ume blossom festival at Atami Baien. 

Updated!

As I assure my parents in my daily emails, I am not dead.  I merely got caught up in work and a glorious, very, very snow-rainy weekend I spent traveling for 12 hours a day.  So you're going to get the shortened version of a few things, starting with Yokohama. 

Yokohama:
I'm about as far away from Yokohama as I am from Tokyo, and although it's far easier to get to Yokohama (straight line, 1 train line), Yokohama's station makes up for it by being the least transfer-friendly thing I've ever encountered.  I like the ones where you literally have to cross the tracks to get to the other platform far better than the 15-minute jog through multiple levels, empty hallways, and determined businessmen that is the Sotetsu line to the JR lines entrance.  Yokohama city itself, on the other hand, is very nice.  I could tell you about the very important part the seaside place plays in Japanese-European history, the giant ship that still sits in harbor by a beautiful dog park that promises terraces of roses once the weather warms up, or the raised walkways that look out to the theme park with its giant ferris wheel.  I could talk about the red brick warehouses dating back to the beginning of foreign contact in the 1800s and which now house rows of tiny shops selling everything from the best of Japanese teas and cakes to chopsticks shaped like lightning bolts, to pork buns and Pepsi, to the Uniqlo Home store taking up half of the top of one warehouse (http://store.uniqlo.com/jp/store/home/index.jsp).  But nope.  I'm going to talk about this guy:

 

Yes; that's a real sword.  And he's eating the apple as he cuts it with a knife, both of which he's juggling.  The flaming piece of wood is chopped off in this pic.  He's also on a 12-foot tall unicycle and speaking the entire time.  Good god.  Anyway, I found this guy doing a show in the main park in Yokohama, Yamashita Koen, which is featured right along the main piers (the one with the roses).  The first time around, I caught the very end, which involved this and having a guy toss him flaming sticks from the ground.  I then wandered elsewhere, and came back four hours later to see him maybe a quarter of the way into his next show.  This time, I got a good viewpoint.  This guy was hilarious.    He did a comedy act/various circus-type skills like these.   The guy tossing flaming sticks, it turns out, was someone he randomly picked from the audience and referred to as his younger brother throughout the act, convincing him to do random things, like hold one end of a string of national flags while he talked about how much he wants peace for the world, or you know, chuck flaming things at his head.  As a reward, volunteer-guy was given a miniature version of the performer's guitar case, which has a face painted on it. Sadly, few of his jokes translate cultures (including the brother ones).  At one point, for example, playing on the Japanese obsession with cleanliness, he picked up a tiny broom and dustpan to clean up every last bit of the apple he was eating while juggling (not much actually stays in his mouth since he was speaking the entire time about how delicious it was and would his brother like a piece).  He also balanced flaming sticks on his nose, rolled them over his back, etc..., played the most dramatic music ever to psyche everyone up for his awesome somersault, did pithy magic for the kids in the front rows, and entirely encouraged them when they kept shouting 'gambatte!' (go for it/good luck) while he pretended to not know how to put together his unicycle.  This was definitely the best hour I spent in Yokohama, and I only understood about 70% of what this guy was saying and was standing in front of two businessmen who clearly thought the foreigner couldn't understand them until they noticed my Sophia bag.  Hahaha! Best non-direct apology ever goes to business #1 for beginning to talk about how smart the foreigner was for understanding the street performer, by the way. 

 

 

Up next should be the 日本民家園 (Nihon Minkaen), the Japanese Folk Museum.  http://www.city.kawasaki.jp/88/88minka/home/minka_e.htm It's in Mukougaoka-yuen, right on the Odakyu line and so pretty convenient from just about anywhere near Tokyo.
Honestly, this thing deserves its own post, and I'll try to do it justice soon.  For now, though, the basics.  I decided to go on the second-worst day of weather in Kanagawa all year.  I'm awesome that way.  It was snow-raining the whole time and maybe 33 degrees out.  It's an open-air museum built in a mountain park on steep hills, with wood and dirt paths leading everywhere.  Wonderful in the summer, I'm sure.  That day, however, it just meant that everything was slippery, cold, and trying actively to kill me while I attempted to reach each house, most of which shoes must be taken off before entering.  There were advantages, though.  There was hardly anyone there, so I could wander, gape, and take pictures without people in them to my heart's content.  Every person stationed in each house was also more than happy to talk to me as well, although I gather that's more of an everyday occurrence at this museum. 

In many, they had people sitting by the (lit) cooking fires to tell you about the house and keep people from frostbite, assumably, so I stopped by one where a bunch of people were grouped around the fire. It was four workers, only kinda working, and two college kids visiting from Kobe.  They made tea over the fire in one of the old-fashioned kettles (mmm....matcha!) and we all had some, after the guy making the tea managed to melt two of the paper cups while dipping them in the water.  They found a ladle after that.  The house we were in (the Misawa house) used to be a family home/pharmacy, so there were rooms for the medicine to be stored and a shop area built in the house by the kitchen.  It's over 180 years old, very waterproof, an official national treasure, and from Nagano prefecture in Kanagawa (all the houses were moved to the museum, like Genneseo).  The guy who was supposed to be there, since the other workers were definitely supposed to be working elsewhere, likely outside, told us all this over tea and jokes. I understood about 70% of it without girl from Kobe's help or the one worker translating things with his electronic book.  He was very proud of that book, so he translated things that didn't really need it, such as 'medicine' and 'earthquake', but he was so proud of it and that he could pronounce the English words that I just let him go at it, even though he didn't actually translate anything helpful (like the random questions thrown my way. 'homesick' would have been a good word to translate, guy).  We also talked about why America doesn't use the victory/peace sign for pictures when we are "number 1" ---seriously; the guy said that.----baseball (the Yankees are better than the Mets in NYC, by general decision/Godzilla-san playing for the Yankees), earthquakes in Kobe, the crappy weather, and why Kobe-girl and her friend were just friends and going out together on Valentine's weekend.  The sign for gay was thrown out during that conversation (pinky finger up rest of the hand in a lose fist), which then created a conversation about American signs for gay after poor Kobe-guy and Kobe-girl strongly refuted that insinuation (and the immediately following one of them both cheating on their respective significant others).  The closest I could come up with was flinging a hand back the way I was taught NEVER to hold my violin.  Are there any? I'm not even sure there are...

 Picture courtesy of Kobe-boy.  The guy sitting next to me is the worker for the house, who had a wonderful sense of humor.  The cups on the right were later inadvertently used to flavor the tea after they fell in that kettle you see over the fire.  Behind us is a bedroom and we're in the kitchen/pharmacy/living room/main guests room.  I don't know how it manages to be sunny while raining so hard; it's Japan.

In any case, I had a good 45 minutes of warm toes, feeling in my hands, and amusing conversation before heading back into the cold and checking out all the other houses.  Folk houses are amazing; it's hard to believe that something made out of mud, straw, and a few hundred-year-old trees (some of which were still alive and serving as main support structures when they were scheduled to be moved, posing a problem) can last hundreds of years in earthquake central, then survive a move cross-country in some cases.  Ok; they're not exactly the best-insulated (doors would be nice in some of them) and I feel bad for those who were still cooking in their living rooms in the 60's since that's where the stream was.  But they are beautiful and few things feel better under the feet than tatami matting.  Plus, the whole museum is located inside Ikuta Ryukuchi, a large park that has some mountain trails I'd really like to get to when hiking them isn't likely to end in me broken at the bottom of a steep case of steps.  There's also a planetarium and art museum in the park, that I saw, and a college I didn't see.  For the Y300 student fee, the museum is definitely worth the trip.

 

Plus, you get to see these: old Japanese kid's books!  They were literally the only piece of decoration inside one of the houses, excepting a table.  Oh, Japan. 

And, a few of the houses house what is apparently one of Japan's best 雛人形, (hina ningyo) collections: 

 

 Check out those 五人囃子 (gonin-bayashi)! Well, 三人 since I didn't catch the other two...They also apparently have special celebrations for 雛祭り (hina-matsuri), the girl's day/doll festival, on March third (that's a Wednesday this year, sadly for me).

Now for the kicker: this place is literally 1 stop away from Ikuta and I didn't know about it before now.  I could have spent so much time in the park and the museum de-stressing from how bad I was (and am) at Japanese but I didn't.  And it would have been summer and super-pretty.  Plus, they have neat summer programs.  Instead, I haunted far-flung Yoyogi (ok...it was close to school).  


That's it for all.  I'll try to get to Kamakura and Kitakamakura, as well as work life, soon!

Catch-up time!

Catch-up time!
Two weekends ago, I decided to explore my immediate area, on the good side of the tracks.  There was rumored to be a bathhouse very close to the station.  There was a bathhouse; it's just a thirty minute walk from the station and hid behind one of the multi-tier parking lots used to save space.

Given, it was the bathhouse's parking lot, but still, it made it much harder to actually find the place.  The view you see, by the way is from a pedestrian bridge nearby.   Now, for those of you who can't figure out why I was walking all the way out to a public bath when I have my own, perfectly good, bath in the hotel, let me explain a few things.  Japan loves baths.  A lot.  They also love hot springs, but there are none around here.  So, in places like this, public baths are created which mock some of the aspects of hot springs.  Some, like this one, import water from a famous spring and use that in some of the baths.  Others just have a large bath with very hot water in it.  In all cases, you take off your shoes, go into the office after putting your shoes into a cubby, buy a locker, then go to the locker room.  There's an area for bathing before you take your baths, since it's really disgusting to be dirty when you go into a bath; it's shared water.  Usually, soap and shampoo is supplied, but it's a good idea to bring your own just in case.  After, bath time! In this case, there were 9 different baths and a sauna to chose from; I picked everything.  The expectation is that you'll stay for several hours, which is not all that hard to do, really, with things like baths with bubbles using salted water, a sauna with TV (watching a rock star's commentary on the news with 15 naked old ladies....not awkward at all....), or individual baths meant to massage your back.  My favorite was the flower bath even though it was an odd opaque yellow color and the hottest of all the baths.  There was also one with water from...well, I'm blind without my glasses, so somewhere in Japan with mountains.  That leaves a lot of options open, but the water was very nice.  Most baths fit multiple people; the one with the flower water had over 20 people in it at one point of time, to give you an idea.  It's quite possibly the best way to relax in Japan, and the 3 and a half hours there were the best of my weekend.  Hence why I signed up to a 'tour' (read: trip) to a famous bath house (no; not Spa World; I could only wish) in a few weeks with the Navy tour thing.  I am a bit worried, since it's bathing suit friendly, but I assume I can lose all the clingy navy wives somewhere in the mile or so of baths...

By the bathhouse was a large bookstore. I was good, but I did find a few things that merited pictures:  

Coraline!  

And, just for Leslie....

The Twilight Series, complete with pictures from the movies.  Even the final books had movie pictures on them for no apparent reason.  Maybe they figured people wouldn't know what they were without random pictures of pretty actors.  Don't you also like how they split the book into two books to make them easier to carry and read on trains?  Also featured in the foreign books section were Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies, Percy Jackson, and, wait for it, Spongebob.  In the adult section.  Yea, Japan! 

All around the area are houses with gardens and I noticed something odd: Cacti.

It may be 'warm' over here, but it's not warm enough in my mind to have cacti growing outside in January.  I mean, it snowed this week and the snow's still here as it hasn't warmed up enough to melt it.  It was cold enough that I actually saw Fuji-sama from the library's window.  So I really have no clue how all these plants survive...I feel bad for this sad cactus; he doesn't look so well, unlike someone's garden, which looked like it belonged in Arizona.

Which brings me to a library update, naturally.  We are moving to a new cataloging system in a few months, at which point of time all the circulation procedures will change....I was supposed to write a manual on them but now I'll have to leave large gaps for the new processes of checking in and out things.  I can still write about photocopies, circulation rules, rules for new members, when to check the outside book drop, and all such others, but I won't be able to have the screenshots and system-specific directions I wanted unless I magically can stay beyond April.  Or I could hope the system goes up early.  We're also getting a color printer, which is great and exciting.  

In the realm of YA lit, I ordered a ton of new books, filling up a few gaps in the series we have, or at least, as much as the company we use for the loan service would let us.  I also used the new YALSA lists to get some new good stuff.  Then, for the younger ones, I continued to fix records!  I kinda hate Disney now, for refusing to list authors for most of their stuff.  Yes, Disney, I know that you own the rights to this, but I would like to know who wrote it, illustrated it, and published it.  Walt Disney is dead; I cannot list him.  At least the records will be clean when they move to the new system.  I also got to create a display for Black History Month, which was fun, and work more storyhour.  Far more kids showed up than were supposed to, but I became some kid's hero for finding his Sesame Street book about Leonardo the Horrible Monster.  And, later, I made myself five new friends by going through a book for them and explaining all the fish's names since I could read.  They were sooo...cute.  "And what's this fish's name?  He looks scary.  What's this fish's name?  And this one?  Are they the same fish or are they brother fish?...What's the name of this book?  That's an octopus!  And so's he, but he looks weird...Octopus taste good.  Will someone eat him?"  Their mom was in signing up for the family's card, so they took that book home, along with Angelina Ballerina, since that was the one little girl's favorite, according to her.  That exchange was well-worth the time lost for cataloging. 

Up next, Yokohama, mini-weiner dogs in sweaters, and street performers!

New stuff!

Today, we got a bunch of new materials in, including cds.  We got Glee, Vol. 2!  Just in time for the show to come out in Japan. ^_^  By the way, getting cds shelf-ready is a large pain.  You know that shrink wrapping and those peel-stickers that never actually come off?  Imagine doing that 30 times in a row.  It makes getting the book records into the system a breeze in comparison.  Actually, that would be easy if the gremlins let the internet flow for more than 10 minutes at a time. 
In other news, I'm still on the easy paperbacks.  It may take a while to finish.  And, starting next week, I'll be working one night a week until late.  While that means I don't start until 13, I do have a feeling that it will wreck havoc on my sleep schedule.  Even on the weekends, the birds, sunlight, bugles, and jet fly-overs tend to wake me up a little after 6.  

From academic to teddy bears, all in the same day.

Last weekend, I went to Tokyo proper, to go visit a few old haunts and as an excuse to get out of Ebina. First up was Sophia University. On the severely small chance that you don't already know, I studied abroad there for a semester. It's apparently a very good college, to the point where Americans on base act impressed that I went there. It's like going to Tokyo U., but for people who want to know languages; it's also frequented by children of the Yakuza, making it very safe to attend. Popular reactions to hearing that's where I went have been "honto ne?" [really], and "Sugoi!" [wowgood], although "...damn, you're smart," was definitely the most amusing. What they don't know is that it was the only Japanese school my college had a program with, since we were required to go to Jesuit colleges, and I didn't even take an entrance exam. So what you should know right now is that this school is a magnet for ridiculously smart Japanese people, and a ton of foreigners (like 100...wow). Being there was a bit like going back to your undergrad place 3 years later... everything's familiar but you recognize no one. I saw one guy I could have sworn was the Norweigan guy from my religion class, but then I heard him speaking Russian. Not so much him, no. The foreign component must be growing; during the hour-ish I was there, I head people speaking German, Spanish, Russian, American English, British English, Australian English, Japanese (duh), Chinese, and something that was not Russian but was also Eastern European. I also saw a gaggle of nuns heading into the library and watched two professors debate their ideas over ice cream, outside. It was maybe 40 degrees. I got there just in time for lunch rush, and since I was not going to wait in those lines to deal with than amount of people, I ate combini yakisoba. It was like old days, me being lazy. I may not have loved all the classes and the school itself at the time, nor do I now, but you have to admit that it is pretty. And, man, I still love that cheap, poorly-made yakisoba.
Rufus decided to see what the course electives and programs offered are. Since it's almost spring, people are preparing for graduation, and newcomers are looking for what classes they will take or what programs they may want to enter. Because of this, there was a shop downstairs selling the graduation kimono. Girls, by the way, wear pink over darker pink. I have no idea what boys wear since it wasn't displayed. Unless they wear pink...
The main gate, which hardly anyone uses since it's on a side street. Yeah.
The view from the side gate's entrance way. I do not miss running down this pathway to get to my morning class on the opposite side of the campus; not at all. The second building on the left, by the way, is the library, while the one you can only just barely see in the back houses the largest cafeteria and some classrooms.
The path running alongside the sports field on a hill. By the way, that branch is low. Don't smack your head/neck. I had to duck pretty low to get by myself and I'm short even in Japan.

From there, I went to Harajuku. There are no pictures, since I spent my time drooling at Kiddyland, one of the best stores in existence. http://www.kiddyland.co.jp/en/ They now have a floor dedicated to Studio Ghibli, which if you know me, turned into a serious issue. That brings us to Rufus' new friend, the littlest Totoro, the big version.

Good god, is that store amazing. One day, when I am a millionaire librarian, I will go on a shopping spree there. It is five floors of cute. There is also a floor dedicated to Snoopy, and another where they play The Simpsons in Japanese, which is weird, by the way. I could literally talk about the store all day, but I'll spare you and just tell you that you NEED to go there if you ever get out to Tokyo, even if you don't like cute. It carries everything from Gegege no Kitaro to Gundam fighters to a four-foot-tall Totoro to Hello Kitty to earphones shaped like cars to The Very Hungry Caterpillar bento boxes to Moomintroll. So I went there. I was there long enough to necessitate leaving Harajuku so I could see the park while it was still light. So...on to Yoyogi Park.
I love that park. I love it more than I love Kiddyland. I may even love it more than I love melonpan. My hour there didn't do it justice. I will be back on a weekend when it is warmer and give the day to that park, where skateboarding businessmen hang out with Rockabillies, goth lolita, Rastafarians, and classical musicians. It's a place that has a shrine (of course), several ponds, a museum, and is a forest in the middle of Tokyo. Think Central Park, but not as scary and much, much cleaner with far more trees. Also sacred, because, the park is literally on sacred ground. Here's the gate into the park from Harajuku. This is the side of the park with the shrine, by the way: They have a very large rack full of barrels of wine from around the world. This one is from France. The bottom sign in Katakana reads: "domenne kare."Ever wonder where Totoro got the idea of the giant sacred tree? These trees are tiny, compared to some.
From the shrine into the park. The shrine gates, followed by tori gates. Those doors, by the way, are about half a foot thick.
Sadly, it was getting dark and, you're welcome mom, I decided to leave before that happened. So, I headed out, being cheap and deciding to leave by way of Yogogi-Uehara instead of Harajuku since it's closer to where I live. It was a bit of a hike, but it's ok. I saw parts of the park I'd never visited before. On the way out, I passed the Tokyo Equestrian Club. That's where I saw this:I just had to take a picture. There is no way the sign-maker didn't know exactly where that came from. The rainbow font and trotting pony make this sign, in my opinion. I think I'll leave you to ponder that sign. Next time, I get around to the onsen, Sagamino, and a bird park I found by wandering around random neighborhoods.

Ebina in all its glory, with some talk of books

You know how I promised to write about Ebina? Yeah. Later. First, here comes more library adventures!

As you know I am cataloging things, including new things. That means I had my first adventure in adding new titles to the collection and actually putting them on the 'NEWLY ARRIVED' shelves. I think the whole process is supposed to take maybe 10 minutes per book, but I was being slow. It took me far longer than that to retrieve the records off-database, convert them into the database, run report, go back and change ID #s/call nos, stamp and date every book, place in tattle strips, print and add on new call no. labels, look up lexiles then print stickers for those, reinforce with tape if needed, and add the bright orange piece of tape to each before handing the receipts (dated and stamped) to Y-san and putting the stuff out. Hopefully, I'll get faster. I'm excited to say that we got in Going Bovine--I've wanted to read it since the summer. Now to find out if I'm eligible for a library card here. I might need to be sponsored...

I also created a display for Black History Month today. And by that I mean that I looked up some books highlighting the spirit of the holiday, Coretta Scott King award-winners, and playaways, dvds, and cds to go along. Then I printed up a sign and dismantled the 'Award-winning Books of 2009' display to put the new books in its place. It only took an hour because the catalog kept crashing. Did I mention it crashes a lot? Well, it does for me, since my location has internet-sucking gremlins. So, when I try to work on the catalog records for my big, big, big, project, it can take me up to half an hour for a single record, if everything goes wrong and the system is slow to come back up/refuses to believe it's kicked off the internet. But that just means I get to look at awesome titles like 'Mommy, Why Did Jesus Have to Die?', part of a long series of very Christian donated books, for longer. There's also one about why the family doesn't celebrate Halloween (hint: pagan and the devil will have your soul). Really, I'm enjoying my work; it feels nice to lose myself in OCD-ness for hours.

But then I also get to do things like help with storyhour, where the kids are adorable. Thankfully, less than 30 showed up this week, but they got to make snowmen out of paper after winter-themed books and play-songs. I helped one girl spell 'Frosty' (her snowman's name) and was rewarded with a giant THANK YOU, MS-SAN!! Another kid helped her neighbor spell his name in Japanese and wrote hers in both Japanese and English, to show one of the volunteers she could. All the kids are so quick to learn languages, it makes me jealous.

And now, Ebina: Where Superman supports the Prius!

Ebina is a very industrial city; there are car dealerships and large buildings not for offices or homes everywhere. The streets are unsafe to walk in because of the large amounts of traffic, and the sidewalks are split with poles/trees to keep bikers from going too fast. There are Pachinko parlors by the train station, including the not-so-subtle Gorilla Pachinko. There is a giant gorilla climbing the building, and another standing on top of it, while the whole thing is screened with gorillas. It has the feel of a miniature golf course/B movie set from the outside, and I will not be going inside to see how it compares to casinos.
There is also a one-story grocery store about 20 minutes from the base, and a Book-Off, the best book store chain ever. Everything is second-hand and everything is Y105. For those of you keeping track at home, that's a little over a dollar in American terms. Which leads us to sidetrack #1: Guess the book. Answers are provided at the end. I, to no surprise, was not able to walk out of the store empty-handed. I'm sure eventually I'll be literate enough to read these, right?
Book #1: Level Easy
and, from the inside: Know what those are?

Books #2: Level Medium (unless your name is Cami).

Book #3: Level Hard


Aren't they pretty? You don't win a prize if you guess them all, since I will forget to give it to you, but you do get to act superior to those who didn't guess correctly.

End of sidetrack! Back to Ebina...

I wandered around for a while, and found a nice little residential area full of little store that were closed because it was Sunday, a small square, and lamps which I assume are lit at night. There was also a smaller grocery store there, which had different types of teas. I'll let you know how the Azuki green tastes ^_^ There's also a park off of the main drag, which has a baseball field, some walkways, a playground, and some paths. I decided to eat my snack-lunch and read there a while since that's a good idea in 40-degree weather. So, I watched an elementary? baseball team practice, then found a bench in a corner to sit. There was an old guy in a nearby bench. Within five minutes, there are 6 old guys surrounding me, chatting about nothing and everything (old guy 2's dog--it was wearing a sweater by the way, old guy 3's shumai, old guy 1's job, the economy, the foreigner sitting in their spot, the base, the baseball team....). I was literally stuck and it was slightly awkward. Eventually old guy next to me decided that he was bored of listening to old guy 4's kids and asked me, in English, where I'd gotten my book. He got very excited when I answered with [America] and asked whether I lived on the base. It turned into a small conversation in shitty English/shitty Japanese. He works and lives on-base, it turns out, as a firefighter and hopes that I get to see more of the city. He also suggested I go to the areas around us, a subtle way of saying that Ebina is a bad representative of Japan. I actually hope I will see him again, since he was nice. On the other hand, I've since seen three of the other old guys on the streets and I presume that they meet in the same place every Sunday to bullshit and eat 7-11 Shumai, so going to the park again would accomplish that, I suppose. They know all know that the foreigner understands them now, so it may be a bit awkward...they weren't using the polite language to talk about me.

I ended up going home before seeing too far, since all I saw was industrial for several miles in all directions, but I do need to explore on the other side of the train station. I was recently made aware through eavesdropping that there is an onsen (public bath) over there by a grocery clerk on the base. This made me very excited, and he drew me a map. So, this weekend, I am thinking Onsen, as well as seeing the side of the city that has a McD's and yakisoba place. To me, that means there will be less factory and more shops, houses, and maybe even a だんご（dango） stand. I have an obsession with dango to the point that I even stooped to buying it at the grocery store. What's dango, you ask? Tastes much better than it looks here, I promise.
It's dumplings made from rice flour skewered on a stick. The ones I've had are coated in mitarashi, which Wikipedia tell me is "a syrup made from shouyu (soy sauce), sugar, and starch." It's kind of like crack on a stick, but then, crack appears to be a common ingredient in Japanese snacks. I, for example, am currently eating puffed corn shaped like those rolly-polly bugs because it is delicious (and not bug-flavored). And this:
This is a (squished...) bread that is absolutely wonderful, stuffed with azuki beans, some green-ish beans, and black seeds of ?, and made from buckwheat, if the color is anything to judge from. I hope that it at least isn't as bleak as this half of the city, since I may have to spend a lot of time away from here if that is the case. Up next, Sophia and other Tokyo-proper areas, as well as why I should not be allowed anywhere near a store called Kiddyland.

Answers: 1=Harry Potter, 2=Kekkaishi, 3=Howl's Moving Castle

生田!!!! You're my favorite 'live rice field'!

Yesterday I decided to go visit Ikuta, my old home. To that, I had to get on the Sotetsu line, go to Ebina, two stops away, then transfer to the Odakyu line and head up the 7-ish stops to Ikuta. Very easy in theory. I've ridden the trains a billion times; unfortunately, I almost always had my super-awesome Suica card of magically getting tickets and now I have none of those, plus my station, Sagamino, decided to post everything in Kanji. Yay. Luckily for me, there was a Pasmo card-creator and some nice random Navy guy who informed me of this when he saw me staring at the train fare map with what has to have been a wonderful *confused* face. So now I have a Pasmo!
It's like a Suica, but without the penguin mascot. Still confused? This is like a prepaid debit card for trains. Instead of buying a ticket to a specific place, I stick a bunch of money on the card, and smack it on the train gates, where it tracks where I go and deducts the money from my card. I can stick more on at almost any train station. Most people carry them in their wallets and just whack those against the gates, but mine's huge, so I need to find a smaller case or something for it.

Anyway, once I got my card, I headed over there without any problem and began my picture-taking frenzy to make up for all the pictures I didn't take a few years ago when I actually lived there. I apologize in advance, since some of this will likely only make real sense to a few of you, but that's ok with me. I just reeeeaaalllly want to show you all my old home, so I took over fifty pictures of it; that's normal, right?
The station entrance, something I saw almost every day for four months. Odakyu lines has a new logo. Isn't it spiffy?

I found the hair salon, Harmonia, where I once had my hair dyed and the hairdresser thought he broke my hair when he blow dried it and it exploded into frizz. I also walked by the local Mickey-D's, selling something called a Texas burger that looked like it may kill you automatically. Next came the walk to 5 Ship's Women's Dormitory and Golf Studios:


Don't just walk. Run, like the little green man (in the wrong direction...he's headed back to the train station on this sign. Bad little green man. Hiding in a train will likely end badly for you).

As I walked I noticed a ton of economic development. The town's really been growing. And that building they were making when we were there? Another restaurant, while the bento place (flower logo) is renovating. The graffiti you see behind the sign isn't graffiti; it's informing you that the place is under construction, as is obvious by the fact that there is no door and someone was sanding the walls:
and the flower shop is still by the bento place:

And more good news; the old vegetable-seller farmer is still around. I bought some delicious carrots which made delicious curry and will make delicious...carrots? I really don't know many carrot recipes for the girl who owns rice, soy sauce, and Toppo. I guess I could boil them? Salad, but I don't trust base vegetables...
Giraffe-san makes another appearance! I am not obsessed with it. Not at all. He sits opposite of the pathway from the station, by the way. Walking, walking.

The old Denny's is now a Jonathan's. Not that that makes me sad. Japanese Denny's are far too Japanese. And....walking...I go right, by the way. Unseen is a 7-11.
Good to know they still haven't updated that sign from the early 90's. Did I mention that 5 Ships is on the top of a long, winding hill? That wasn't fun when it was 90-some degrees out with 100% humidity. I much more enjoyed it in 40-degree weather.Hill! To the left, with the yellow roof is some form of junk shop that has never, in my memory, been open.Look! We're at the top of the hill. The office should be just ahead, then it's only a block to the dorms.
New sign. Sweet. Much classier than when I lived there. Then...What's this? I seem to recall this alleyway being smaller and featuring another steep hill. Not flat. And what are these?
These are not dorms. These are very emphatically new apartments and townhouses. There are small tricycles in fenced yards and nameplates on gates. No red gates, courtyards, or college-age girls to be seen. No security cameras or giant concrete fence. Apparently, 5 Ships turned itself just into a golf studio and sold the dorms for profit, which were then torn down. Some of the new buildings aren't fully up yet! And really? Yuppie apartments located near the middle and elementary schools? Couldn't you do better? Like a ramen shop that's not 20 minutes away or an addition to the humongous graveyard that area backs into? At least it's not a driving range...

That fully explains all the 'omg. foreigner!' looks I got, but makes me sad. I liked those dorms and now I feel homeless, even though I definitely no longer live there. After that wonderful revelation, I headed up to the local elementary school and graveyard, then to the grocery store in a vain attempt to find a specific cereal brand (bleh. Did get a 2010 dayplanner on sale, though!) and relive the walk of death up the two more different hills to get to it. And, I'll admit, so I could finally have a picture of the OK Supaa logo:
Just looking at it makes me feel better! That's right, my supermarket was called the OK Supaa, even though it's two floors and very so much more than OK. I basically spent a few hours wandering around Ikuta (hiiiii graveyard! Hiiii residential areas and freaked-out residents!) before realizing that I was starving and eating at the ramen place that even two years ago, when foreigners populated the local dorms, was a place to be stared at a lot if you weren't Japanese. Not surprisingly, I was stared at, but my tonkastu ramen was more than worth it. Why, yes; this is the wall in front of the elementary school. Yes; it is adorable. And this? This is the town as seen from the top of the graveyard. And, to end this on a sweet note, the orange grove in the park near 5 Ships' office. (heheh. Bad pun!). Yes; those are real oranges on the trees. Even I'm confused as it is still January and it does snow in this country. Whatever. Makes just about as much sense as placing an orange grove in a bamboo forest in a park in the first place. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Ikuta. Now you all know what that place I never shut up about looks like. In detail. But, if you want, there's more pics on the facebook. I really did take a lot. Most of those aren't pictures of the street though. I saved the truly boring ones for you ^_^. Next time, your heroine takes on Sagamino in Ebina, where she now lives. Will she survive the park and the cluster of old men interested in the book she's reading? Will the Gorilla Pachinko parlor win her over with its subtle advertising?! Will she be able to navigate the grocery store?!! What is that strange map she was given??!! Find out when you tune in for EBINA: The Industrial City of Doom!