Check?

(I forgot to draw the speech bubbles.  Whoops.  Enjoy the glory of MS Paint-made speech bubbles.)
(Once again, clicking on the images makes them bigger and easier to read)

So today, after a very confusing conversation with my supervisor, I learned that checks aren't a thing in Japan.  I probably should have realized this earlier, considering when I got my bank account, they didn't give me a checkbook, but somehow it slipped my mind.  Apparently (as far as I can tell), when you need to give a large amount of money to someone, you just... withdraw cash and put it in an envelope.  Which is how I have been paying my rent and water bill (the water bill is even more bizarre... you put the money in an envelope and stick it in one of your neighbors' doors, and every few months they rotate who takes it to the water place).  I've never heard of just withdrawing $750 worth of cash and giving it to someone in an envelope, other than for under-the-table sorts of things.

I'm still not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with this ¥75000 cash.  After the "give it to the same ATM" line from above cycled about five times I just said I understood.  I figure I'll just take the money out, slap it down on the counter at the bank along with the bill, and say "I need to get this money to this company.  How do I do it?"  Playing the gaijin card! 

Shoe Sacrilege

Confession: I sometimes wear my outside shoes past the genkan, if I'm in a hurry and just need to grab something.  *Gasp!* Oh, the horror!  Taking off my shoes when I just need to grab something from the table?  A'int nobody got time for that!

Earthquake?

I experienced my first earthquake in Aomori!  ...And no one acknowledged it.  It was just a little bitty baby earthquake.  It only lasted about thirty seconds, and I might not have noticed it if I wasn't sitting still at my desk.  All of the sudden I felt a little off-balance and looked up to see the cord on the desk block phone swinging a little.  And then it was over and when I looked around, very few people seemed to have noticed it at all!  I heard two guys saying "地震？"　　"そうか。。。" ("an earthquake?"  "I guess so...") and that was all the acknowledgement I saw of it. 

I checked my earthquake radar immediately after and saw that it was a 5.0 off the coast of Hokkaido.  Glad to see that my radar updates as soon as it happens!

Ohana

I think this every time I do my self-introduction for a new class.  Also, side note, "ohana" (お花) means "flower" in Japanese.  Also, Nani's name (何) means "what?"  I'm really curious how the Japanese dub of Lilo & Stitch went.

Pokemon Go, Pokemon No

(If you click on the images,  they get bigger so it is easier to read!)

Pokemon Go came out a couple of weeks before I left for Japan, and it had been out for about a week and a half in Japan when I got there, so I'm not sure if the same kind of craziness that was going on in the States happened in Japan in the beginning and it just mellowed out by the time I got here?  But I noticed a distinct difference in how people play, as well as how the game is set up, in both countries.  In America, people were running around catching pokemon all over their neighborhoods and walking dogs to hatch eggs... it was so crazy that it made newspaper headlines!  So when I got to Japan and saw a bunch of people just standing completely still in parks and in front of train stations, just staring at their phones, I almost didn't recognize that they were playing the same game!  Instead of running around chasing pokemon, they stand near the Pokestops and just let the pokemon come to them, then catch them, all without moving.  Very different than in America!  Maybe it has something to do with how Japanese culture places emphasis on doing one thing at one time rather than multitasking, which is why you almost never see people eating or drinking while walking.  I've also noticed a difference in the location of Pokestops; in America, there were at least four Pokestops within a mile of my house, which was located in a residential area of a suburb.  In Japan, I almost NEVER see Pokestops in residential areas.  There's one in front of the high school near my apartment and one in front of the post office a couple of kilometers, and that is it.  However, when I go downtown and go in front of the train station or to the large park near the sea, there are at least three or four Pokestops all within a hundred feet of each other.  I guess it's because they don't want people running around neighborhoods catching pokemon, which can be a little disruptive, but by all means, do it in the park.  Of course, when you do go to the park, everyone is just standing motionless.    

Terremot-no

When I told people I was moving to Japan, one of the first things they said was "watch out for earthquakes!"  Japan, as a whole, experiences earthquakes quite regularly, but the majority of them tend to go undetected by people going about their daily lives.  I've been in several where I only felt them because I was lying in bed reading, and even then I had to check the earthquake radar to be sure I actually felt something, it was so small.  Major earthquakes do happen, and they can be a big deal, but Japanese people are used to them and have well-established procedures for them.  It also depends on where you are in Japan; Tokyo gets earthquakes far more often than where I am in northern Tohoku, since my prefecture is surrounded by mountains that act like natural shock absorbers.  There has even been a couple that my friends have felt in Hachinohe, which is just on the other side of the mountains, and we didn't feel a thing! 

(But yes, I do have an earthquake kit)

We did have a large typhoon recently, (Typhoon 10, or I think the American news was calling it something weird like Lionrock? Lionheart?  Everyone here was just calling it Typhoon 10) and that knocked some small branches off, but that's about it for natural disasters in this area as of late.

(the title is a dumb pun on the Spanish word terremoto which is earthquake, I'm sorry) 

Sun's out... moon's out?

It's the thought that counts.  It's sometimes frustrating to be on the opposite day-night schedule from family and friends!  

(this actually happened when I was studying abroad last year, not this time around.  It was still Japan though)

Things that make me nervous: having this conversation more than 5 times

So, I moved to the snowiest city in the world.  And I don't drive.  This area is kind of (really) rural once you get out of the city proper, so when it comes to getting to other cities and even the airport, you pretty much need a car to get around, and people around here are very well-aware of this.  Hence, I have had a number of coworkers and people I have met here express concern at how I don't have a car and have no plans to get a car before winter.  I'm trying to remain optimistic that I'll still be able to get around once the snow starts falling, but we'll see how it works out.  Adventure?  Yeah, let's call it that!