Let me see what I can reconstruct of the blog entries that died with my Dell netbook…this is going to be a long one!
The flight over was totally fine. It was 13 hours or so, but I was surprisingly comfortable. That can probably be attributed to the upgrade I got at the gate – it was just premium economy, not the good stuff, but I’m sure it made a difference in my comfort. I had lunch watched several movies – The Blind Side, Chaplin, Did You Hear About the Morgans, Two Weeks Notice, and Sherlock Holmes. The nice thing about international flights is that deaf people can enjoy movies too – set your seatback TV to English, then watch a movie in another language. Presto, subtitles! The only part that was horrible about the flight was the fact that the guy on the aisle slept for the first ten hours. About halfway through that, I asked a flight attendant to help wake him, and I got to go to the bathroom and walk a little bit. I didn’t get up again until he woke up several hours later! Fortunately, thanks to the premium economy upgrade, I was able to stretch a bit in my seat and not succumb to deep vein thrombosis. They served breakfast as well, and then as the ground came up below us, I craned to see out the window and got a rush of excitement as we landed.
The instant I stepped off the plane, there was an attendant with a piece of paper with my name. See, I usually list myself as deaf when I fly, so I don’t get put into an exit row. (You don’t want to rely on my wacky hearing in an emergency, trust me.) Apparently, in Japan, deaf people have to be escorted through the airport. I didn’t tell her no, because I thought maybe I could jump some lines (didn’t happen), but I got the impression that deaf people just get an escort through Narita Airport. That’s the way it is. Huh. Anyway, she stayed with me all the way through immigration, baggage claim (got my suitcase and everything), and customs. After customs, we went through a door, and there was a big sign with my name and three smiling faces! One was my supervisor, Dr. Osugi, another was an student, and the third was one of the trainees, a young lady from India who is more or less fluent in ASL. We scurried around to get my mobile phone and then hopped in the car for the 90ish-minute ride to Tsukuba.*
After I filled out some paperwork and got to my room, I tried to get some cash from the ATM at 7-11, which is right around the corner from my dorm (which opened in late 2009 and isn’t on any satellite views). Hmmm…no dice, on any of my cards. So I hurried back over to Dr. Osugi’s office and borrowed ¥10,000 to get started. That’s about $100, but really it was $108 when I paid him back – for quick reference, you move the decimal point left two spaces, but you have to remember that really it’s going to be a little more than that. Next I went with the two girls who had greeted me, and a friend of theirs, to a cheap noodle shop across the street (I think it’s called Haneda but I keep forgetting the exact name). I couldn’t identify any of the items and ended up with a tiny salad, a tiny bit of a cold noodle thing, and a bowl of rice (rice is not an accent in Japan, it’s a food). It was fine though. The four of us chatted for a couple of hours about the differences between American deaf culture, Japanese deaf culture, and Indian deaf culture. It turns out Japanese people don’t use name signs amongst themselves. Some of them have adopted name signs to use with foreign signers, but amongst themselves it’s all fingerspelling, all the time. I forget what else we talked about, but I learned a lot that first night!
The next day, Saturday, my two student friends walked me to the dollar store and the grocery store. We ate at a burger joint called , which had a really fabulous vegetarian sandwich – and a menu with English! I forget what I did the rest of Saturday, but it was nothing special. On Sunday, I had a meeting with Dr. Osugi, and then I set off for the (TX) station. I bought a card and rode to Tokyo in search of money. I stayed in the Akihabara area and tried every ATM I found. I asked for help but nobody knew what was going on. I even tried one at the post office; most of them have multi-service ATMs that are supposed to work internationally…but mine didn’t. I was tired and stressed out by this point, and I sat down on the ground outside the post office and cried a little. I had forgotten the koban (police station) right next door, though, and some cops heading back inside tried to ask if I was okay. I waved them off and said I was fine, because what could they do? I finally picked myself up and made my way to . I walked in the door, and was immediately told that they were closed. Dammit! This made me want to cry more, so I looked at the cats for a few seconds – customers were still playing with them, they had only just closed – and then stepped outside. Riku (see the Staff page on that link) was sitting in the window, and I wiggled my fingers at him and peered through the window at the others for a few minutes. Then Riku decided to stretch, and fell right off his perch! That got me laughing, and I headed back to Akihabara station to take the train back to Tsukuba.
Dr. Osugi had given me instructions on taking the train back to the campus. He gave me a paper, written in Japanese, to show the bus driver, and sure enough the driver told me when it was my stop. Just one problem – it wasn’t really my stop. It was the same place, but on the other side of the loop, apparently. Dr. Osugi’s directions had said to go to the right from the stop, so I did. And I walked. And walked. And walked. In the dark. For two hours. I knew I was hopelessly lost when I saw a map that indicated the blind campus of NTUT was nearby…because that’s not near the deaf campus. I finally came upon a couple and begged for help, showing them Dr. Osugi’s business card and pointing to the part that said the school name. Fortunately they spoke a tiny bit of English, and were familiar with the school. Whew! I was still about 20-30 minutes away, but I made it back.
On Monday, I observed three ASL classes. Dr. Osugi teaches in straight ASL, which I think is good for the students, and the other teacher (I think her name sign was like “fire”) teaches in JSL and ASL, which is good for me! I picked up a lot of signs in that class. At lunchtime, I went back to my room, armed with the login information for the network. I opened my computer and…nothing. I poked, prodded, everything. I have no idea what happened, but I suspect it wasn’t charging here, or got otherwise screwed up. So Monday afternoon, I went back to (this time with Arti) and bought a netbook. Whee. It was about $400; there were some for slightly less, but they were Japanese. This is actually an American product, so it works great for me (and will at home). The key layout is a little different from what I’m used to on the Dell, but I’ll adjust. I bought the netbook, we looked around a little more, and took the train back to Tsukuba.
When we got to the surface, I said I’d rather walk than take the bus, after my horrible experience last night. What I didn’t know was that the same thing would happen again…we got hopelessly lost, mainly my fault. I was exhausted, sore, and cranky, and when we came upon a hotel I dragged Arti inside and showed the desk clerk my phrasebook, pointing to “would you please call me a taxi.” Sure enough, when we got in the taxi and rode back to NTUT, we were WAY off where we should’ve been. I got back too late for a shower, unfortunately, and with grotesque sores on my feet .
That’s it for now. I will talk about today, tomorrow. Well, I will talk about yesterday, later today. It’s 3am and I have to be up no later than 10ish. Good night!
^ If you’re curious, the sign for Tsukuba is NDH Y-shape PO->DH, DH 1-shape, PO->down, makes an M from NDH pinky to NDH thumb. I never did like SignWriting, hopefully that’s clear, at least to signers! Mt. Tsukuba is actually two bumps, “boy and girl,” and the Japanese sign for males is thumb-up (like good, A-OK) while Japanese sign for females is pinky-up (like you’re sipping from a teacup, but with a closed fist), so the two mountains are the boy and the girl, and the sign goes from the male to the female…get it? Further, the sign for NTUT is DH Y-shape PO->NDH on top of DH S-shape PO->down. The Japanese sign for “technology” is DH 1-shape (PO->in) on top of NDH S-shape (PO->down), so the Y-shape of Tsukuba sits on the S-shape of technology to form Tsukuba University of Technology. More info than you ever wanted, right?