In the meantime, I can't connect my computer to the internet until the second week of August. Rest assured, I am having a great time!

(I figured out the Japanese keyboard -- sort of -- and fixed this entry, so no need for any more snarky comments.)

So last week I went to set up the internet in my apartment, having just procured my Alien Registration Card (a.k.a. "gaijin card") from City Hall. But then I found out it takes THREE WEEKS to set up. Isn't this Japan? Don't the vending machines talk to you and the public toilets have a variety of bidet options? Isn't my cell phone the coolest and undoubtedly the cutest piece of technology I have ever owned? The answer to these questions is: yes, yes, a thousand times yes. But this is also the land of squat toilets and no clothes dryers and hand-crank water heaters. So. Instead I will try to write as much as I can at school, even though there is a very long entry already written on my computer and almost one hundred pictures ready to be uploaded to Flickr, even though when I met with the school principal, he said, "We hope you will not be on your computer as much as your predecessor." (He said it in Japanese and it was not translated to me until later.) I will be sneaky. I will update you.

* * *

Tokyo was a blur of people and names and places in Japan that I will never visit. I ditched the optional workshops and walked around Shinjuku instead, exploring a massive department store and going crazy over the amazing stationery department where everything was subdued and beautiful. (Sadly, I haven't found a similar stationery store in Ogaki, but I haven't given up hope.) After a few days of workshops and receptions, I boarded the shinkansen (bullet train) with the rest of the Gifu JETs.

In the train station I bought a huge bento that included a little bit of everything, including a snail! As I ate it on the train, rushing past Mt. Fuji at 200mph, The Arcade Fire blasting on my iPod, it really felt like I was heading towards a new life. But by the time we pulled into the station in Gifu, my stomach was hurting, and it wasn't because of the snail. Everyone was nervous about meeting their supervisors and plunging into their new, English-less lives. I was met by my predecessor and one of my two supervisors. They took me out for lunch (my second of the day) at a restaurant next door to Ogaki's "church," a tall and narrow faux-gothic building used only for weddings. Apparently church weddings are hip these days. From there, I was whisked away to school and had to immediately meet with the principal and vice-principal, which was made even more nervewracking by the fact that I was feeling all sweaty and crumpled. Then I met every single teacher in the school (and couldn't remember a single name afterwards!) and finally settled in the library, my office for the time being.

My predecessor's contract overlapped with mine, so instead of moving into my apartment right away, I stayed with the head of the English department for a few days. This was a scary prospect at first, but as soon as I met her, I knew we would get along. She and her husband even offered to be my host family and they helped immeasureably during my first week here, taking me out to eat, buying me groceries, even giving me some rice from their field.

Ogaki, my new town, is great. It is green and pretty, with lots of rice paddies and rivers and birds, but there's also a mall across the street from my house that has practically anything I could ever need and the train station is just a 5 minute bike ride away. My apartment building is in an ugly concrete ghetto, unfortunately, but the apartment itself is not bad at all. It has two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom and toilet room. The bedrooms and living room have tatami floors and paper screens. By Japanese standards, it's quite big.

I've eaten a lot of amazing food since I arrived, but on my first night in Ogaki, during my welcome party, I made a discovery: everyone in Japan can eat more and faster than I can. Even the tiniest girl can finish off everything on her plate and everything in her beer mug before I am halfway through. There have already been multiple conversations about my small stomach capacity (as well as my penchant for desserts). On that first night, I forced myself to drink two giant beers and was subsequently dubbed a Good Drinker, which I think is a useful title to have here.

Everyone thinks I look Japanese. (Also popular: "You are very skinny for an American!") In some ways I think I have it easier than the super whitey whites who have to answer the question, "Can you eat Japanese food?" about ten million times. But I sometimes catch Japanese people looking at me strangely and I know it's because I've just committed some faux pas that only a Japanese girl who had been raised in a cave would have done. So improving my kindergarten-level Japanese is my first goal; I'm signing up for private lessons this week.

I know what you really want are PICTURES, but you'll have to wait until the Japanese internet gods have descended and granted me access from home. Until then, I'll try to sneak some computer time as much as I can.

One of my favorite things about living in Japan thus far is onigiri, triangular seaweed-wrapped rice balls that contain some small morsel: an umeboshi (pickled plum), a bit of cooked meat, some fish. They sell them everywhere and they are usually around 100 yen ($1) each. Two onigiri and a bottle of barley tea is the perfect summer lunch for me.

But not everyone dares risk the onigiri because if you can't read kanji, it's almost always impossible to tell what is hiding inside that cloak of seaweed and rice. If you are repelled by roe, pickled fruits, dried fish or the thought of tasting something you have never tasted before, then onigiri are not for you. It's a bit like biting into a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean -- will you get strawberry shortcake or earwax? Is it worth the risk?

For me it is, although I admit I'm always a bit disappointed when I get an umeboshi, not because I don't like it but because it doesn't feel like it's worth as much as an onigiri filled with ginger chicken or fresh tuna salad. I don't like the texture of the dried fish onigiri and super-tiny roe makes me feel like I am eating insect eggs. Ugh.

I try to remember the kanji for the onigiri I like, but have not been successful thus far. I do better if the label has some hiragana or katakana, the two Japanese alphabets I can read, but even that isn't foolproof. In fact, I used to always mix up the words "onigiri" (rice ball) and "unagi" (eel), so the first time I shopped for onigiri, it took me a minute to realize there were not actually three different types of eel rice balls; they were all just rice balls.

To the people who would rather eat tasteless plastic-wrapped conbini sandwiches than embark on the adventure that is onigiri-eating, I say: BORING. Let's enjoy onigiri!

(Just remember to save the labels of the ones that make you want to puke so you don't get them again.)

When I lived in L.A., the things that caused the most stress were lack of money, lack of free time and my old car. In Japan, I am making more than enough money to live, I have ridiculous amounts of free time and I'm not legally allowed to drive a car, so stress comes instead from daily interactions in a language I basically cannot speak. It is hard, especially for someone like me, someone who likes to be independent and on top of things, to think: "I'm at the library. I want to get a library card. How on earth am I going to get a library card? Is this the form I need to fill out?" So I take it and fill out as much as I can figure out, and approach the librarian. Then, in my inelegant Japanese I say, "I would like a card please. But I don't understand Japanese." She giggles and asks the other librarian, who thankfully does speak some English and that is how I get my card.

But there's no guarantee there will be someone there who can understand enough English to know what I'm talking about, no guarantee that my limited Japanese vocabulary will coincide with the words needed to express what I want. So every new interaction is stressful. Sending money home after my first paycheck was a major undertaking and one that took three days to complete: one day to scope out the post office and figure out that none of the financial services are available on weekends; one day to ask a clerk, "Eigo ga wakarimasuka?" ("Do you understand English?") and hear an embarrassed, "Iie, wakarenai!" ("No, I don't!") and also figure out that the service I needed closed an hour before; and one final trip to actually make the transfer.

The clerk who helped me was incredibly sweet and spoke a teeny bit of English. Together with my teeny bit of Japanese we successfully filled out the necessary forms and made the transaction. I was sweating but relieved when I sat down to wait for her to finish the process. Then, after I thanked her in Japanese, she handed me the receipt with a smile and bow, and said, "So sorry. I must English very hard!"

I rode my bike away from the post office, triumphant, and realized I was humming "We Are the Champions." It's apparently a popular song in Japan, but I swear I haven't heard it since I got here, so I think it's somehow invaded my brain, like it's a virus I inhaled at the fireworks show two weeks ago or something. It's as insidious as my recent squid sushi cravings or my constant need to nod and bow. Before you know it, I'll be asking for mayonnaise and crab guts on my pizza.

...No, I'll never be THAT Japanese.