Is Everything Bigger in Japan?

Nope...Unless it's a SPIDER, SUMO WRESTLER, or a PEAR?! Oh and just in case any of you are ever on Jeopardy (my favorite TV show), Godzilla's name is Gojira. Not Godzilla. Gojira means half gorilla, and half whale (kujira), a nickname Ishiro Honda (the director) and colleagues used to described a press agent who was "oversized and tough-looking." The producer originally wanted Godzilla to be a giant fire-breathing ape. I'm starting a "If his momma named him Gojira, I'ma call him Gojira" campaign to make the world to respect original names. Maybe it's just me, but has anyone else ever wondered why the names of countries are different in different languages? This doesn't make any sense to me. We should call a country by what the nationals call it. Okay, so Israel/Palestine may need to combine the names. Take Japan for example. How in the world did the idiot westerners get Japan from Nihon/Nippon??? It's not like European explorers, missionaries, and cartographers didn't have the same sounds in their own languages. It's not even an adaptation, Japan is a completely different word from Nihon or Nippon!!! I'm just saying...

Enough of that seemingly endless rant...

That's the principal helping clean windows during cleaning time...I began nodding off at about 11:00 am! About 3:30, Just as I was all ready to go home (though I leave at 4:00) I flagged down one of the English teachers to let her know what I had planned for tomorrow's lesson and guess what she says..."There is a teacher's meeting this afternoon. It will start at 4:15 and may last more than an hour." NO! So, I said, "Sure I can stay." As I was walking around during cleaning time, the principal stops me and says, "After the meeting I would like to take you to Arao to introduce you to they're famous pears as a gift." Well, the meeting was BORING! One, I couldn't understand a word of what was going on. Here, meetings are just when everyone sits around to listen to someone else read from a paper. There's no discussion, no disagreement, no decision making. All that is done during casual conversations among the employees. Word gets back to the boss, the boss makes decisions, then dictates them to the employees. Well it pretty much works the same way in a school. So after snatching 5-10 minute naps I decided to pull out my crossword puzzle book and pretend to do puzzles. More sleep! I hope no one noticed. There was absolutely no point in my being there. Plus, had I known that there was going to be a meeting I would have brought something productive to do!

As aforementioned, the Principal and I went to Arao. I managed to stay awake in the car (thank God for conversation!). When we got to the orchard it was closed. So he drove a little more and there was another open orchard. So, we went there. The old man told us all about the pears and how they had to do things differently because of the hurricane that blew off most of the pears. He peeled and served us some pear then walked us through the orchard. He let me pick one and gave me 6 as a gift since it was my first time in a Japanese pear orchard. I didn't pick that one to the right. Didn't want any Sumo Booty on my pear! So of course I bowed a million times to show my gratitude. The pears....BIG ain't the word!


On the way to the station, Principal Maehara got to talking about Dementia again and I asked him if he meant Alzheimer's and he said yes. Then with the same sad distant stare that he does when he talks about his late parents, he told me his mother had Alzheimer's. I managed to change the subject and before I knew it we were at the station. When I got home, I cut up onions and green peppers, seasoned some ground beef, and julienned some Japanese sweet potatoes for the burger and fries I'm having for dinner tomorrow!!!

More pictures:
So, not everything is bigger here. However, everything is exponentially CUTER! Look at the weenie display at the grocery store. Elephants, lions, an otter, rabbits, flowers, etc. TOO CUTE!

Here's Saturday night's dinner. YAKINIKU! Your personal BBQ! Take that Personal Pan Pizza!

The older lady on the right is Naoko. She's Emily's (my upstairs neighbor) Shodo (Japanese calligraphy) teacher. Well, Maggie and I were talking about how we like green tea and Naoko made some traditional green tea for us...SO NICE! Look at me being all Japanese!




So apparently Predator and Alien's distant cousin also likes shopping in Tenjin!



I want one of these in the courtyard of my imaginary house. Talk about multi-functional. This clountain is a microcosm of Japan. Aesthetically pleasing and super functional!!!



Anyone wanna do some grocery shopping here? Didn't think so...