Down Time

The time I spent at home was a nice break after all the stress and seclusion in the months prior. I spent most of the time enjoying things I wasn’t able to find in Japan. Unfortunately, we are in the process of trying to sell my car, so I wasn’t able to drive my beloved Matrix, but luckily my mother was able to lend me her car. I don’t think a lot of people in America realize how much they take having a car for granted. When I was limited to where I could go in Japan by the train schedules or the amount of time I was able to spend biking somewhere. Even being able to borrow my mom’s car while I was home was a tremendous amount of freedom comparatively speaking.

One thing I really enjoyed while at home was playing in a card tournament in Charlotte and seeing all my friends who I hadn’t seen for 5 months. That was one of the social activities I really missed while I was in Japan since the language barrier usually segregated me to the sidelines even though I usually did well in any tournament I played in. I did make some good friends while playing cards in Japan, but the language and cultural barriers kept them from being as strong as the friendships I’ve made in my years of playing cards in The States. That said, I still hope I get to see some of my Japanese friends at the bigger tournaments in the near future. While I didn’t do as well as I would have liked in the tournaments in Charlotte (i.e. I didn’t win money), it was still a lot of fun being back around my old friends. One of my teammates also swept the competition, winning 14 straight rounds to take the trophy and $2500. Proving me right when I was telling people he was the best technical player in the tournament. I didn’t get to look at the comic convention that was taking place at the same time as the tournament, but I didn’t really have money to spend on comics anyways, so it all worked out in the end.

As I raced around trying to see friends and visiting people, I think I maybe could have used another week in North Carolina to get more accomplished, but I honestly couldn’t wait any longer to see Christian. Since I’ve gotten to Mexico, it’s felt like all of this past year was just a bad dream that passed in a blink, and I’ve really been enjoying getting used to being in a new culture. While Japan is a different culture at it’s core, on the surface it’s still very much like the US – safe, clean, and sheltered from the rest of the world. Being in Mexico is the opposite. Here it’s very similar at the core, but different on the surface, so while it is easier for me to navigate my way around and understand what people are doing, I’m experiencing tons of new things. Not to mention Spanish is a million times easier than Japanese. After being here a week, I’m occasionally using complete sentences, which is a pretty big accomplishment for a guy who hasn’t been in a Spanish classroom since the 7th grade. I wonder how much better my experience in Japan would have been if I would have been in a real classroom where I had been able to use Japanese whenever possible. I guess that will be one of the great what-if’s of my life. Christian wants to spend time in France teaching eventually, so we might spend time in Japan together as retribution. Only time will tell though. I do miss the students I was close to, and I’m planning on spending the next few days writing e-mails to everyone and catching up with them.

I’ll be back in a day or two with more tales of what I’ve been doing since I got here, but as for now, I just wanted to get everyone up to speed on what I’ve been doing lately.

The Road (or Sky) Home

At long last, I have a chance to sit down and write about everything that has been going on in the last three weeks. I suppose that I should start with how I left Japan…

I arrived at Kansai International Airport with more than enough time, the result of paranoia of airports that has come about after years of painful experiences at the airport. As I went to check in and check my bags, a friendly clerk told me that the flight was full, and that if I went on the next flight at 9pm (my flight was scheduled for 1pm), I would be able to fly business class. Since I was only going to be stuck in the air for an extra 8 hours, I decided I would do it, but the greedy inner-Ryan that likes to get everything possible wanted more. I asked if I would also get free ticket. When he said I’d get a $750 ticket voucher, both the inner- and outer-Ryans went, ‘Boo-yah!’ in unison. But the story isn’t that simple.

They gave me some food vouchers and asked me to come back at noon. I went and found a sushi place that gave me some horrible concoction of cucumber, wasabi, rice, and seaweed that they masqueraded as kappa sushi, which had been one of my favorite foods while stuck in Japan. I returned only to find out that I was going to take the original flight anyways. This meant I would have to rush through security and immigration, which aren’t always the quickest endeavors. The final weight was lifted from my shoulders at immigration when the officer checking my passport asked me informed me that I wouldn’t be able to use the same work visa if I left the country without a re-entry permit. I emphatically told him, “I know.” With that, it was done. I was finally free of the job that had been the cause of so much frustration for five long months.

I arrived at the gate to see that the flight was indeed full. Not only would it be a long flight (about 12 hours or so to Detroit), it would be packed. Luck, it seemed, was on my side, because right before I got on, the clerk who had helped me before came up and told me they still needed a volunteer, so after years of always volunteering to fly standby in an effort to get free tickets, I finally got to cash in. They took me to another counter to figure out how I would be getting back. The new flight would be via Honolulu, and although the woman asked me if I would like her to book the tickets a few days apart so I could spend some time in Honolulu, I declined due to the lack of funds and the fact that I was going to be in Mexico soon anyways. There really wasn’t a need to spend a few days in a tropical climate when I was headed to one in a few weeks’ time. I wish Christian had been there with me so I could have said yes, giving us a free trip to Hawaii! Oh well. Looking at the dates for the arrival times, I noticed that I was scheduled to get into Greensboro (my home port, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it) a day later, which meant I would be spending an extra 20 hours traveling. Yay. What seemed like an easy proposal had turned into something I actually had to work for. Not only that, I wouldn’t be able to get a vegetarian meal on the flight from Honolulu to Atlanta, which translates into me not eating much.

While they were straightening out the tickets, they told me they would bring it to me in the Business Lounge. This is a special place at airports reserved for people who fly business and first class. Inside this hallowed place, they give you free drinks and snacks. I wish I was more of a drinker, because they had unlimited beer and liquor, but the free coffee and orange juice was just as good to me at that point in time. I passed the time actually writing something for once, making some money while I was stuck waiting. When the time finally came to get on my new plane, I happily sauntered up to the gate in my tie-dye shirt amid all the rich people who were actually paying to fly business class. I boarded the plane, put my bags away, and immediately began checking out the different goodies I had at my disposal. Well, first of all, the seats in business class (on Northwest Airlines) are like Lay-Z-Boy Recliners in an airplane. They go almost completely horizontal, and you can curl up in them to actually sleep while on the plane, a far cry from the torture they subject you to in economy. While this isn’t a big deal flying for a few hours, when you’re in the plane for more than six hours, it makes all the difference in the world. This is on top of the drinks and food they give you in business class, which is a far cry from the stuff they subject you to in coach, mainly because of all the snacks they give you in addition to the meal. The second you walk on the plane, they’re kissing your ass and asking you what they can do for you.

I was sad when the flight arrived in Hawaii, meaning I had to go through immigration again, and possibly customs. This fear was realized when I got subjected to a ‘random’ check at customs because the woman there saw my bag full of Pocky I was carrying for all my family and friends. She informed me that they often had illegal products in them, such as pork fat, for flavoring. Obviously she chose the wrong person to pick on. I told her I was positive they didn’t since I was a vegetarian who read enough Japanese to know that I wouldn’t eat anything that had something like that in them. Clearly she was trying to confiscate them so she could eat them herself. So in the end, my years of studying Japanese culminated in protecting my stash of Japanese junk food for all my loved ones to enjoy. Not the most noble of purposes, but you have to take what you can get, I guess.

In Hawaii I enjoyed a Veggie Burger from the airport Burger King and then went to wait at the business lounge in that airport. Following an uneventful six hours or so, I boarded the flight to Atlanta, which was on Delta. My dad has always said that Northwest was more like Northworst, but Delta’s first class was pretty much economy with wider armrests and private TV monitors. While in the previous flight I couldn’t touch the seat in front of me with my legs completely extended, Delta was the same leg-cramping experience I was used to. On the bright side, while I wasn’t able to really eat much of my meal since it was all dripping with gravy, they did serve ice cream sundaes complete with whipped cream and hot fudge. The bagel I got as part of my breakfast was also delicious, since bagels are something not easily found in Japan. I also got to watch a new movie, The Matador, which was probably the best movie I’ve ever been able to see in-flight. So while the seats had something to be desired, everything else was pretty nice.

Once I arrived in Greensboro at around 10am, I had to stay awake until at least 10pm or so in order to try and fend off jet-lag. All sad, besides the small naps I had taken on the various longer flights, I had been going for about 48 hours, and it took me the entire 2 weeks I spent in the states to fully recover, but that's a story for a later post (albeit, not a very exciting one).

¡VIVA MÉXICO!

Thought I should post after being absent for about 3-4 weeks...
The job in Japan ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. After a few days in Osaka with my friend from Japan Camp days, Cleveland, I headed home to spend 2 weeks doing nothing with my life. Most of it's a blur. This was probably due to the fact that I was just anxious to get the lull over with and be in Mexico, which is where I am now. The last few days have been filled with awesome food, sleeping in hammocks, and time spent with Christian, which was all long overdue. I'll post more later with pictures and explanations, but suffice it to say that I'm finally content after being upset with life for so many months. The only bad news is that either Italy or France is going to win the World Cup today, which is sad news indeed. Arrogant Europeans holding that trophy in the first year I followed the tournament is enough to make me cry, but oh well. Anyways, I need to get back to my busy schedule of enjoying the time spent here and not understanding a single word people are saying to me! ¡Viva México!