January 2001:

Year of the Snake

Week 19: Jan 1 - 6

Well John and I arrived back to Matsumoto from our trip at 1:00pm Friday the 5th. Japanese holidays confuse me. We had from December 31 to January 4 off, but we are required to come in to work on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th. Don't worry about me though, I still get a weekend, Monday the 8th is a holiday.

Check out the Misc Ramblings page for a report on my trip. I promise to actually write this one. Photos will be appearing in the Gallery soon.

Saturday Japan was hit with a mild earthquake that was felt here in Matsumoto. AISoft is on the 8th floor of an office building which, like many others, was gently shaken. The earthquake caused no damage here, and many of my co-workers were heard laughing and joking about it. Or maybe they were laughing at the fact I was huddled under my desk with my jacket over my head, praying for deliverance.

Week 20: Jan 7 - 13

The weekend was pretty boring, only one other foreigner, Paul, had returned from his holidays, so we spent some time in Matsumoto attending a ceremony celebrating the coming of age of hundreds of Matsumoto teens.

Monday was Angela and my anniversary, celebrating 6 long, but very happy years together. Gifts can be sent to the address listed on the Contact Us page.

Monday night, Paul and I went to Hard Off to check out what they had to offer. We found a dozen Super Famicon Game Systems (a Japanese precursor to the Super Nintendo) and vowed to return to buy one. When we got back to the dorm, mayhem ensued: the cafeteria had run out of food. Everybody who was on holidays had returned Monday night, and the caf workers weren't prepared and had run out of Curried Pork (as well as most of the dishes). So with Paul drinking tea out of a rice bowl, we dined on Curry Udon. And I thought the caf food was bad when they had time to prepare it.

The weather is miserable here. It snowed about 6 inches on Saturday night, and has rained every day since. The ground is covered in slush, and my running shoes get soaked on my daily half-hour walks to and from work. I wish I had brought my boots.

Wednesday morning Ryan rolled into work, looking a bit disheveled. We filled each other in on our respective holidays, then realized most of the day had passed with no work done. These things happen.

During the flight from Chicago to Tokyo I was seated beside a young Japanese couple. As soon as the plane took off, the two people began, inexplicably, to punch each other in the head furiously, giggling like mad. 14 hours and 2 homicides later, I arrived at Narita. The next day I woke up at 4:45 A.M., caught a bus for Matsumoto and arrived at work fresh as a daisy.

Saturday night we went out to dinner with our basketball friends. We tried basashi and loved it. Afterwards we played pool and I won 3 out of 5 games.

The guy at the pool hall said I could get a student discount if I had a valid student ID. Since I'd left my University of Waterloo card in Canada, and since he didn't look like an English major, I showed him my Ontario driver's license. ("Yes, that's my school's motto: 'Permis de conduire.'")

Week 21: Jan 14 - 20

Tuesday was our Japanese class, but instead of a lesson, we had a late New Year's party. We sang songs, played party games and ate junk food. I felt like I was back in elementary school on the last day of classes.

On Saturday I went snowboarding, for the first time, with Isogai (the basketball team captain). He thought that I, being from Canada and all, would be an expert when it came to winter sports. I shattered that illusion in no time.

Anyways, this was my first attempt at snowboarding. It's great; there's just you, your inner ear and gravity, all pitted against each other. I'm proud to say that despite my astounding lack of co-ordination, I didn't even fracture any bones that day.

Week 22: Jan 21 - 27

Wednesday I had a meeting with the R&D managers and demoed Beta 1 of my Crazy 8 cell phone game. I think they were impressed, but informed me that something major had to change with my project, but they weren't quite sure what. They'll get back to me next week. Until then, I won't be working very hard, for fear that anything I do will have to be undone when they contact me.

Friday is Paul's birthday and we're planning a dinner. I've come down with a cold, so I don't know how much hard-core partying I can take this weekend.

Paul's birthday dinner went well. We all consumed copious amounts of food and beer, and spent a small fortune. After dinner some people went to karaoke, but since I wasn't feeling well, I decided to go home to bed. It had just begun snowing, hard.

It snowed all day Saturday until 7:00pm. By then 62cm (2 feet) had accumulated, the largest snowfall on record. The town was crippled, and we were stuck inside. Some people managed to get out early to go skiing, and never made it home that night because of the main roads being closed, and the commuter trains out of order. This place is actually starting to remind me of home...

Unlike Chris, my superiors aren't all that anxious to check up on my progress at work-- mainly because nobody at A.I.Soft understands what I'm working on (including me).

I elected myself to be in charge of organizing Paul's birthday dinner. I decided to make a reservation, for all 16 of us, at a local restaurant. This was not easy. At this particular kind of Japanese restaurant, you are expected to order the food at the time you make the reservation, even though you probably don't have a menu on hand. And also you have to tell them what everyone is going to want to drink. So, with John's help, I used my broken Japanese to convey the idea that my group would have the seafood party platter, if any, and that I didn't know exactly what we'd have to drink, just that there'd would be a lot of it going on. The waiter seemed satisfied.

Due to popular request, another stunning rendition of Disney's "Under the Sea" was performed at karaoke.

Week 23: Jan 28 - 31

Sunday we were snowed in again. The trains were behind schedule, and I didn't feel like trudging through the snow, so I stayed in. Ryan and I played Risk (my board game from Canada). He won the first game, and I won the second.

On Monday Yukari, Yamanaka-san, John and I made an igloo out of one of the large snow piles in the dorm's parking lot. The dorm manager forbade us to use the dorm's shovels, or make any kind of snow structure on dorm property. After a moment's hesitation, we ignored her.

I made the mistake of trying to leave the dorm on Sunday. Walking along what passes for sidewalks in Hirooka, I was up to my waist in snow. Upon reaching the station, I learned that the trains were hopelessly behind schedule, so all I could do was stumble back in what I hoped was the direction of Shoen Seiwaso. My Japanese friends are no longer impressed by stories of Canadian winters.