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1.28.2003 First things first: We have another glorious update to our photo albums! The Parade of 1000 Samurai is up in all its glory! Again, if you have some requests, let us know! In increasing order of significance, here are the things that happened this week. On Saturday night, we went over to the Roses' house where they put together a mini-celebration for Julie's birthday and gave us a nice big piece of pottery. We also watched the movie Fargo, so that the Roses could hear us say, "Oh, I've been there" or "I worked a block from there" or "Yah, some people do talk like that ya know" or "Yes, sadly, some days in the winter are exactly like that". It seemed to just charm the hell out of them, and they took to calling Julie "Margie" from then on. Little do they know, on the next movie night we're watching Kangaroo Jack, The Crocodile Hunter, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. OK, the Roses really outdid themselves this time. When we first got to their apartment, I wasn't allowed to do anything except sit down, have a beverage, and open a huge birthday present. Really folks...31 is nice. They even hung streamers and a Happy Birthday sign that they neatly colored IN the lines. Yeah, you know we did watch that there Fargo movie. It's a thriller you know. I keep telling them that we don't sound like the people in the movie, but that just makes 'em laugh harder. So, I've given in to being called Margie, and secretly enjoy having my "accent" mocked. The best part is their absolute denial of any accent whatsoever. Here's my online impression of the Roses. TH DANGOU ATE MI BAHBEH. Take that Rose X 2. Zander thinks I sound Irish, Kenyan or Italian when I use that voice, but I know true accents when I speak them. Next up, we finally bought a scanner for our computer. That will be really nice, because now I can add drawings to the site if I want. Not having bought a new scanner in about five years, I am really amazed at how small, light, fast, and inexpensive they are now. My old scanner (which, I should point out, is of a higher quality than this new one) is about five times more expensive, three times heavier, and six times as big. It's also about twice as fast, so Scanner 2.0 loses on that score. Otherwise, it's a great traveling scanner. Well done, CanoScan! We also got a new stereo to replace the old boombox we got with the apartment. The boombox wasn't so bad, except that if you stepped, knocked anything over, or said a cuss word too close to it, it would skip about five times. That got old. This new one is flat and hangs on the wall. Slick-o-rama. It really is cool to hang it on the wall. Besides, there is a spot on the front of it where you can put your choice of artwork under the glass...so it doubles as a picture frame too. Most importantly, the other night, Julie and I were in the living room reading something off the internet when I was vaguely aware of some rustling noises in the closet. I didn't know that Zander was aware of any rustling until just now. All I know is that I saw what I thought was a ferret crawling on jean skirt. That made me scream...Ferrets are gross. BUT THEN, it grew wings and started flying at my head. That really made me scream! Sometimes in my really scary dreams I try to scream and I can't. Well, I've learned the very important lesson that I CAN scream in those situations. Suddenly, I was made keenly aware that something was indeed amiss when I saw a flurry of movement to my right, and I heard Julie screaming behind me "Oh my god!! It's a bat! It's a BAT!!" There was a bat that was about the size of a medium-size mouse (body-wise) and a wingspan of maybe ten inches flying around the room like a terror-stricken Microchiroptera. Julie was instantly on the floor, covering her head and in the foetal position, screaming "AAAAAA! AAAAA!" while this bat did laps around our living room. There is nothing medium-size about a bat that is flying around a tiny room at 60mph. Now, I'm not scared of bats; in fact I think they're kind of cool, but I could tell that Julie wasn't going to want this one around much longer. So I told Julie to go in the other room, but she refused to move from her secure position on the floor (presumably "going into her happy place"). I grabbed her [by the hair]and gently guided her into the kitchen, then went back and opened the sliding glass door to the deck. Bat-san did a few more laps before he realized that, "aha! That cold air is probably exactly where I want to go" and zipped on out. Later inspection of the closet revealed that the ceiling panel had been moved when I had stored some blankets on the top shelf, and that had left a space for the bat to climb through. None of this explains why there were bats in the ceiling to begin with, but hey, we are guests in this country; it is not our place to judge; if they want bats in their ceilings, that's okay with us. Julie sheepishly reentered the room and said that maybe she wasn't as cool under that stressful condition as she had hoped she would be. I told her she did just fine, but quietly hummed the theme to the Batman TV show for the rest of the evening (he means the rest of the weekend, and maybe the rest of our lives). Zander was really calm about having a bat in here. I would've completely lost my mind if he wasn't here. OK then, this is Margie and the Batman wishing you lots of that there Holy Hotdish!!! .: posted by Zander Cannon 10:32 PM Tokyo Time 1.23.2003 Woo! Here's an enthusiastic mid-week update to tell you that we have finally figured out the photo albums. So! Our first photo album is up, and in classic Cannon-style sentimentality, we present you with: Pictures of our Appliances! We will be putting more up as we go. Send in your requests! .: posted by Zander Cannon 11:28 AM Tokyo Time 1.21.2003 Well, I don't know if anyone can find this site, because I looked high and low for it on Google and Yahoo, and it wasn't in the top 150 returns. Hopefully as this site sits around a little longer it will move up in the ranks. So if you could do me a favor and pass on this web address to someone who might like to see it, that would be great. I found out also that I'm on a lot of websites. People have sketches that I did that I swear I've never seen. It's also helpful for finding out to whom I sold certain art pieces. It's kind of nice, actually. Sure beats my keeping track of it. Well, this week I just got the tar beaten out of me again at Aikido. Am I too tall? Too American? Am I not flexible enough? Am I just a big sissy? Seriously, I have bone bruises on my tailbone from rolling across the floor (again, about as hard as a concrete slab with posterboard glued to it). Now, I know you're the one who's supposed to be soft, and yielding, and allow others to be hard, and aggressive; I mean, I read the little book too, but does it really apply to floors as well? I'm sure it's supposed to, but come on! Can you cut a guy some slack while he practices? Sheez, I'm thirty and I feel like I'm ninety. I wonder what they say about me. "Here comes that absurdly tall white guy with the round eyes and long pointy nose who crashes the back of his pelvis into the floor sixty times a class. Let's put gum in his hair." It would almost be worth it if they did that, since six stocky forty-five-year-old Japanese men hazing me would be seriously funny. I've been totally gloating about my acquired taste of natto to Julie, who doesn't believe me, and wants me to try the horrid natto maki, which is what nearly killed us in the first place. I say forget it. I'm fully integrated into the culture, and I've got nothing to prove. My parents came to visit Julie and me over the holidays and we went to Tokyo and Kyoto and then came back up to Utsunomiya. Here are a couple things that happened in the course of that time. 1. We found out that the Taiko drumming video game "Taiko no Tatsujin" (Taiko Master) is the best video game of all time. You just play the traditional Japanese drums according to a pattern of circles that moves quickly from the right to the left of the screen. Red means hit the drum, blue means hit the edge, yellow means beat the drum as fast as you can, and a big red circle means hit the drum as hard as you can. Sounds easy, but it's trickier than you think. You can choose from dozens of songs, including a Japanese version of "YMCA".  2. The trip was an ideal time to take revenge on my parents for making me eat vegetables when I was a little kid. We had so much weird food in Kyoto! We even had a kaiseki (special traditional Japanese meal) on Christmas Day, and I don't think we could name three things in it. There were funny looking whatsits and crazy colored elephinos; we just had to eat it or go hungry.    3. I learned that I know more Japanese than I thought I knew. You have to be pretty brave when your family is following you around like Konrad Lorenz' ducks and you have to be the guy who asks where hotels are and which train platform we need to be on to go to Kyoto. I'm officially at the point in my language ability where I am a "survivor". If I have a patient listener, I can get across most concrete ideas, but casual chatting as yet eludes me. Maybe soon. Ja, mata raishuu! Hi Everyone. Every few months I switch between two Junior High schools, and I've just switched again. I LOVED my last school because the students tried so hard to speak english and could joke around. I really like the teachers at my current school, but a lot of the students greet me with, "Idonnutspeakuengrish." Charming. Because most of the kids are a little...slow at warming up to this whole foreign language thing, I take pleasure in the small things. Like this boy, (8th grade) that practices all the ways of telling me that I'm crazy. "You are a crazy woman," "You are the most crazy woman," "You are the queen crazy woman," and "I am sure, you are quite crazy." Today I told him that he's a super crazy boy and that just cracked him up. He asked me if that's like Superman, except crazy. You're probably wondering what came out of last week's meeting with the JET program...Yes, we are staying one more year! My mouth is watering just thinking about coming home, buying a house, seeing all our friends, seeing our families more, maybe having some babies...OK, sorry...too much information. BUT, we also love it here in Japan and we want to experience as much of it as we can. We also want to give you all a great excuse to either collect some frequent flyers miles or use some up and come for a visit. OK, I'm done hinting around, I'll talk to you later. Love, Julie .: posted by Zander Cannon 5:06 PM Tokyo Time 1.18.2003 This is just a quick update to let everyone know that our new emails are zander@zanderandjulie.com and julie@zanderandjulie.com. The links to those addresses on this page have been fixed as well. Write away! In fact, we'd really love it if you asked your most pressing questions about Japan. "Do they have peanut butter there?" "What do they do on Christmas?" "What's the difference between a temple and a shrine?" "What TV shows are popular there?" You know, that kind of stuff. Things are seeming less and less mysterious to us these days, so we might skip right over the things you want to hear about. .: posted by Zander Cannon 9:02 PM Tokyo Time 1.14.2003 Good morning everyone. It's Tuesday morning here and I'm home from school recovering from the flu. I won't give you the gory details, but I'm relieved to be feeling better. I'm also pretty happy to have a website back up, and catch up again. The best way to reach me is at julie@zanderandjulie.com. Before we moved here, I compiled a list of addresses so that we could mail out the coolest Japanese Christmas cards ever. If you're wondering why you didn't get one, well...umm, good intentions count don't they? Maybe you'll settle for a Coming of Age Day card? Actually, that was yesterday, so it'll have to be the next cool holiday. For Coming of Age day, high school boys and girls dress up in their traditional kimonos and have a celebration about growing up. In my mind's eye, I picture a party that celebrates those small steps in growing up. Like shaving your legs, or brushing your teeth everyday. I might need to research this a little more, so if you have any information about it, let us know and we'll post it later. I have to comment on what Zander said last time about his bike. I've always been a fan of baskets on bikes, in fact I was mocked in Minneapolis for having a basket and kickstand on my mountain bike, and only now, am I truly able to get over it. It does help that I have a brand new, pink one-speeder to help me cope. On the back it has a rack where I can bungie a box of groceries when the front basket is full. But that rack also doubles as a seat for me when we're one bicycle short, and Zander needs to ride my bike. It's the closest I've come to becoming a Harley-mama...so far. One of these days I'll take a picture, but it's really common to see two people riding their bike like this in the rain. One person is steering and pedaling and the other is holding up the umbrella and chatting on the cell phone. Unfortunately I'm not that calm of a back seat rider yet, because I get nervous and have to jump off when I sense danger. This Friday I have a JET program seminar that I've heard is a counceling session on whether or not we should each stay with the program for next year or go back home. We've been saying for a long time that we'd like to stay for two years. But now that it's time to really decide (the deadline is Valentine's Day) it's a tougher decision than we'd anticipated. I haven't experienced enough of Japan yet to qualify coming home, but we're also REALLY excited to move home and experience the adventures that will hold for us. We miss our friends and family like crazy. Zander's mom just lent me John Irving's Hotel New Hampshire. It's one of the craziest books I've ever read, BUT one of the main characters never really enjoys his life because he's always looking to what's next. For now, we're going to stay in Japan for another year, but we'll keep you posted. Also, mark your calendars because we'll be home for about 3 weeks in August. Hello Minnesota State Fair. Well, that's all I've got. Love, Julie Zander here. I've been taking care of my poor wife this last couple days, because she was not only sick, and homesick, but it was also her BIRTHDAY, and what is worse than being sick and homesick on your birthday? So happy 21st birthday to dear Julie! Just kidding. She's actually 31. She's in her Dirty Thirties. So here's the shocker of the year: Are you ready? The other Sunday I went to Aikido class, as usual, and as usual, after class we had lunch. This time, we made omochi, which is basically blobs of smashed rice. It is made by putting cooked rice in a hollowed out end of a wooden stand, about three feet tall, then smashing it down with a huge wooden mallet. After doing that for a while, you roll the blobs in flour, or something, then eat it with some toppings. So first of all, here we all are, standing in the parking lot of the Aikido school, all dressed in our martial arts uniforms, plus tennis shoes, holding bowls of omochi and cans of Asahi beer. So I looked over these toppings, and was about to try to formulate a Japanese sentence to ask what they all were, when I just thought to myself, "Heck, you don't need to know what those are. Don't be such a wimp." So I piled on the stuff, some of which were spices, some were veggies, and some were these mustardy-colored beans in a very sticky goo with finely diced vegetables. And I'm eating all of this stuff, and it tastes pretty good, and I suddenly realize that a couple of the guys there are looking at what I'm eating. They say to me, in Japanese, "Zander-san, do you like natto?" "Oh, no, I sure don't," I say. Then they really look confused and finally one of them points out to me that what I'm eating actually is natto. WHAT!? Why, this stuff is pretty darn good, actually. Now I remember trying natto maki and it being absolutely horrible. Natto maki is like natto sushi. It smelled bad, it made me gag, it was awful. But this stuff was pretty normal-- it didn't smell bad, it tasted kind of, I don't know, savory, and I'd actually order it if I saw it somewhere. I can't believe it. I'm Japanese! Hooray! Okay, I warned you. Sometimes I won't have that many interesting things to write about. .: posted by Zander Cannon 4:29 PM Tokyo Time 
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