An Old E-mail

Since I spent the day cleaning and have no energy to be creative, I've decided to post an old e-mail that I wrote when I first got to Japan:

Things are going ok, my Japanese is horrible, it's easier than I thought to not know
the language, and learning is going slowly. I got my car this weekend.
It's really strange driving on the left side of the road, with the steering
wheel on the wrong side of the car. Every time I put on my blinkers, the
windshield wipers go on. I drove a lot yesterday. I found a McDonald's, its
about 30 min. from my house. The speed limits here are ridiculously slow.
Driving in Kilometers isn't actually that bad, but what gets me is the
liters of gas, stupid metric. Gas here is uber expensive, about $1.25 a
liter.
Yesterday was really beautiful, so I went to the beach, which was
nice. There are a bunch of beaches here. I went to one facing the Pacific
The sand was really hot, I think I have marks on my feet from it. I waded
in the ocean a little, my pants got all wet. No one was allowed to swim on
this beach, or any beach facing the Pacific for that matter, I guess the
undertow's too great. You can swim on one beach in the bay. I went there
too. The beach was actually kind of crappy, no waves, and a lot of people.
They have these huge concrete jacks in piles along the coast. Paul says
that they are there to prevent erosion, but they actually cause it. I don't
know. They are pretty industrial in any case.


I got home at last, put on the AC, put laundry into the washer and
another into the dryer, put the fan on, plugged in my computer and turned on
the TV (never anything on in English, but I like to laugh at the crazy
commercials) well about 15 minutes later, I think when the fridge switched
on, and everything all of a sudden went black. How the hell could I have
blown a fuse? Where the hell is the fuse box? I knock on the land lord's
door..... nothing. I knock again....... nothing. I look around, and find
something that might pass as a fuse box, there's writing on it, but it's in
Japanese... perfect. I start throwing switches... nothing, occasionally I'd
get a spark of light, but then a switch would pull itself. Great... So I
try to call my supervisor. Dial the number.... a woman's voice answers
"Moshi Moshi" "Errrrrrrr" I elegantly responded "Kamaguchi-san" "Ahhhhh"
responded the voice, and there was a shuffling on the other end of the line.
"Moshi Moshi" said the voice of a seven year old boy.
"EERRrrrrrrrrr....... Kawaguchi-san" "Hai" "EEErrrrrrrr.... Heroshi
Kawaguchi" "Ahhhhhh!!!!!" scuffle scuffle scuffle "Moshi Moshi" said
the voice of my supervisor, who, by the way, doesn't really speak English.
"I think I blew a fuse" "uh?" "my electricity is out." "uh?" "lights
broken" "ah! I come over" He shows up about five minutes later. He looks
at the thing I was taking for the power box, throws a couple switches, reads
the words, throws a couple more switches, gets down off the chair and pulls
out his cell phone, calls someone, talks for about five minutes, turns to me
and say, "I call mechanic" "electrician?" "Ahh! hia" After twenty minutes of awkward silence between my supervisor and myself, the electrician comes in, throws a couple
switches, takes some of the paneling off throws some more switches, says
something in Japanese, and leaves. Kawaguchi-san tuned to me and said
"special part, he get" twenty minutes later, two other electricians showed
up, threw some switches, talked a little longer, then left, still no power.
Kawaguchi-san just turned to my and shook his head. So he and I sat in the
darkening room for the next hour. The AC was no longer working, so I
started dripping with sweat. After the first ten minutes I pulled out my
laptop (which is still giving me troubles) and I say "music.... errrr....
ongaku" "ongaki" he corrected "hia arigato" so I played him a bunch of
music, trying to figure out what he liked, it really turned into "have you
heard this song before" he knew Queen and Bon Jovi and the Beetles, and a
couple of the mamma's and the papa's song, he didn't seem to enjoy any of the
punk or hard rock I played for him. Finally I played luft balloons, and
tried to explain that luft was German for air. He turn to my and said"hia,
Luft swaza. " "yeah, German air force... do you like war movies?" "War
movies?" "movies" I pointed to the TV "war" I mined a army dude fighting
"hia...... I like" "really?" just then the doorbell rang (which is the
only electronic thing still working, and another set of electricians came
in, smelling vaguely of Cigarettes and sake. Pulling out a flashlight, (now
it was completely dark) they pulled out a replacement part, performed
surgery for the next twenty minutes, and finally the electricity come back
on. Thank God. I was a little more careful about my electricity
consumption from then on.
Well that's about it from Asia. Talk to you later.

-Dan