The Silver Samurai is No More

Summer has arrived in Japan. We had Spring for only about a week and so I didn't have time to buy new t-shirts to replace the ones I sweated through last summer. I am now frantically searching for t-shirts, which is really annoying as finding a t-shirt in my size in Japan is about as easy as finding a respectable Australian or someone of voting age at The Stone Temple.
My bike was stolen. It's horrible. The Silver Samurai is no more. It's partly my fault I guess, I should never have showed off its blazing speed and sleek design around town as arrogantly as I did. The few Japanese friends I have assured me it was stolen and I sulked around for a few days giving anyone on a bike suspicious glares, but then I saw some sign that had a bike on it and a phone number. After trying to decipher it for about an hour, I realized that it said that bikes left overnight were towed to this location, and it gave a map. With newfound enthusiasm, I took a cellphone picture of the map and set out.
This "bike jail" could not have been in a more obscure location. It was like they wanted you to prove yourself before getting your bike back. The Japanese system of addresses did not make this easier. There is pretty much no system. They just built huge cities without remembering to organize anything so Japanese neighbourhoods are hedge mazes with narrow, winding, alleys and no street names. I think my address actually means "Osaka City, head southwest for awhile until you come to a medium-sized mountain, walk for 30-50 minutes, turn left, face the sun, and it's the 3rd floor." Anyways, after an hour of back alleys and coming across the same goddamn rice paddy three times, I went to a post office and got new directions. Then I came across the schoolkids.
I've found that kids in Japan are pretty varied in their reactions to foreigners. Some are fairly indifferent, "Oh look, there's a foreigner. But look over here! There's a rock." Others think foreigners are mythical creatures and don't even try to hide their surprise. "Oh my God! What the hell is that? Don't look, don't look! It might see you. Holy fuck. It's a big one. Buddha, I hope it's not hungry. Ok, ok, you make a run for it, I'm just going to sit here and start to cry." Most, however, especially when in large groups, want to shout English at you. This is cute at first, but gets really annoying. It will start off with a few "Hellos", and when you respond they giggle and whisper to each other like they didn't actually believe it would work. If they left it at that, it would be ok, but they don't. Especially when you are wandering around their neighborhood, walking past them time after time, lost beyond belief. Then they just keep shouting "Hellos" or "How are you? Im fine thank yous" like you are having a conversation. I got a few "I love yous" too, which was a little unsettling and I soon became the pied piper of Japan, with scores of Japanese schoolchildren in my wake. Thank god I finally realized that traffic lights on Japanese maps mean that the light doesn't actually have to exist, just the feeling that a traffic light could be there is enough, and I found the bike jail.
There were tons of bikes there. I was sure I was going to find the Samurai. The craziest old Japanese man with googly eyes greeted me with some sort of grunt and I gave him my bike's registration number. He looked through the records and didn't find anything but then took me around the yard to double-check. He was talking to me but his pronounciation of Japanese was as bad as my listening ability and I was lost in his googly eyes so I wasn't really paying attention anyways. The Samurai wasn't there after all and old crazyface left me with the suggestion that I drink green milk and practice the flute (He might as well have, I have no idea what he was talking about). I thanked him profusely and suggested he practice his Japanese. So it turns out, my bike was actually stolen and I should have listened to my Japanese friends after all as Japanese people are much wiser
than I am, despite being ruthless bike thieves.
No bladder accidents recently. It's been kind of nice. Although there are a couple kids who I have wanted to drown in the toilet, most of my students are nice and a lot of them are really cute. Like, ridiculous, make you want to cry, kidnap-material cute. I'll let you in on a secret. I'm going to bring one back to Canada. I explained the plan to her but she's only 4 and her vocabulary is limited to irregular shapes and rare flowers so I dont know if she got the details. I'm pretty sure she's ok with it though because she told me her brother is mean and she hates him.
For little kids in Japan, foreigners are pretty weird. When you live in a country where 99% of the population looks and talks the same, a big freckly foreigner is a mystery that needs to be discussed openly. So this is how a lot of my classes start:

Student 1: (Walks in) Whoa, a foreigner.
Bouche: I'm not a foreigner, I'm Japanese.
S1: (Confused look) No, you're a foreigner.
B: Yeah, you're right, I'm a foreigner.
S2: (Wallks in) Whoa, foreigner teacher.
S1: He speaks Japanese!
S2: Really? (Speaks really fast in Japanese to me)
B: I don't understand.
S2: No he doesnt!
S1: You're really tall.
B: I know.
S2: He DOES speak Japanese! (Again, jabbers something at me)
B: I don't understand.
(They are bewildered. Japanese kids have troubling understanding how someone can only know a little bit of Japanese. They think I either know it or I don't)
S1: (A little distrusting) You have blue eyes.
B: Yes. You have brown eyes.
S2: You have hair on your arms! (Proceeds to pull the hair on my arms)
B: Stop that.
S1: You have weird spots on your arms too!
B: They are freckles. You wish you had freckles.
S2: Your hair is curly.
B: Yes. (Conversations with Japanese children definitely reassure you of what you are).
S2: Haha, you have a hole in your sock.
S1: (Falls over in hysterics. Holes in socks are the funniest thing a Japanese child can imagine for some reason).
B: Dammit.
S1: You're going bald.
S2: You look like a grandfather.

So the reassurance thing can backfire sometimes. Anyways, I did some traveling around recently to Shikoku, a pretty rural area of Japan. It was refreshing to see some nature after living in the urban sprawl that is Osaka. Im headed to Hokkaido (the northern island of Japan) at the end of the month to do some hiking and hot-springing. Aside from that, things are pretty much the same. Too bad about the Canucks, though I'm pretty glad they didn't win the Cup when I was here.

Bouche