Welcome to the jungle

I spent the past two weeks exploring the steamy jungles of Borneo. The highlight of my trip was hiking through virgin rainforest. The lowlight of my trip was watching filthy flea-covered dogs eat people’s vomit as they were throwing up.

Luckily, the vomit-eating dogs didn’t make an appearance until the second week of the trip. The first week was pure bliss. The best part was the five days spent trekking in Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak.


The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a true tropical wonderland. According to the park’s brochure, Mulu is home to a mind-boggling 75 species of mammals, 262 types of birds, 74 species of frogs, 47 species of fish, 281 species of butterflies, 52 species of reptiles, 458 species of ants and 20,000 species of invertebrates. But trying to spot all of these creatures in the dense jungle wasn't easy. There were too many hiding places.


The park boasts 1,500 species of flowering plants, including 170 species of wild orchids and 10 species of carnivorous pitcher plants.


Gunung Mulu National Park is also home to the largest cave system in the world. The caves were awesome. It was like going back in time a few million years. It was an otherworldly experience. None of my photos do the caves justice.


A local guide took us into the caves and explained the significance of the different rock formations. He liked to negate every scientific statement he made by saying “that’s what they believe” after every sentence. For example, he’d say, “This cave is 20 million years old. That’s what they believe.” Or he’d say, “These limestone formations were caused by the movement of ancient rivers. That’s what they believe.”


On our fourth night in the park, we hiked to a giant cave to watch 2 million bats fly out for their nightly feeding. They didn’t all fly out at once. They came out like a plume of smoke from a chimney, clustered together in a long, thin band that snaked across the sky. It took more than half an hour for all 2 million bats to come out. It was an amazing thing to see.


I went to Borneo thinking I would see lots of exotic wildlife. I assumed I would see boa constrictors curled around trees and orangutans swinging from vines. I thought I would see crocodiles resting on the riverbanks and elephants tramping through the forest.

Let’s just say my picture of Borneo was a little out of focus. I did see lots of wildlife but on a much smaller scale. I saw lots of termites and ants and butterflies and beetles. And giant cockroaches and centipedes too.

There were leeches galore. I was a little disappointed to be the only one not attacked by leeches. Everyone got bitten but me. I was even walking through the leafy areas to get them to jump on my legs but they just weren’t interested. Stupid leeches.

Aside from hiking, our main mode of transportation was by longboat. The river systems are the main arteries of transport in Sarawak. This is Kalang, one of our guides, using a pole to push us through one of the shallow sections.


Kalang also took us to visit his village where some of the locals were selling handmade crafts. Once nomadic people of the rainforest, these Penan were now living on a government settlement. They were also converts to Christianity, as evidenced by the religious messages stitched into most of their beadwork.


We grudgingly left the park on Day 6 and spent a night in the city of Kuching before heading out into the wilderness again. The next three days and two nights were spent at a traditional Iban longhouse.


I have mixed feelings about the longhouse. It had nothing to do with the Iban people. They were lovely. Like this old guy who tried to teach us how to fish with a net (we didn’t catch anything).


It was the longhouse itself I didn’t really enjoy. There was garbage strewn around outside. It was oppressively hot inside. The smell was almost unbearable. Everyone was smoking. There were mangy cats and skinny dogs everywhere. I got flea bites up and down my legs and arms and all over my ass from sitting on the floor.

There were chickens and pigs that lived under the longhouse. The roosters started crowing at 4 a.m. and didn’t stop until dusk. The chickens would wander in and out of the longhouse. I woke up one night with a chicken flapping its wings by my head. I hate chickens. They are filthy, mean birds.

On our first night there, the Iban people had a rice wine party to welcome us. It was fun with lots of traditional dancing and music. But some people got so drunk they were vomiting right where they were sitting and then the mangy dogs would come over and lick up the vomit. I almost got sick just watching that.

There wasn’t much else to see or do. We were trapped in the middle of the jungle. Most of the Iban didn’t speak English so conversation was limited. I found it difficult to spend a lot of time inside the longhouse because of the smell and the heat so I spent most of my time down by the river, sitting in one of the longboats reading a book.


After three long days at the longhouse, we went back to Kuching for a couple of days. Kuching is a vibrant little city with its mix of Chinese, Indian, Malaysian and indigenous people and I would have liked to have spent more time there.


I spent most of my time in Kuching exploring the colourful shops in the market, like this store that specialized in Muslim headscarves.


Overall, it was an amazing trip. I was lucky to end up with a great bunch of people. It was my first time on a group tour and I was a little nervous about traveling with complete strangers but everyone turned out to be lots of fun. (On a side note, I booked the trip with Intrepid Travel and can't recommend them enough. Everything was well-organized and smooth. We had lots of free time to do our own thing. Our guides were excellent and took us way off the beaten path.)

The group was relatively small. There were only eight other people on the trip, ranging in age from 24 to 64. There was not one person in the group I didn’t like. My favourite people were a British couple on their honeymoon. They said their idea of hell would be to spend their honeymoon at a beach resort surrounded by other married couples talking about their weddings. I also took a shine to Evert, a 30-year-old chef from Belgium, and Paul, a 34-year-old archeologist from Australia. The five of us played cards and drank beer almost every night.

There’s so much more that I haven’t mentioned, like how we were invited to Christmas dinner at a local guy’s house where we gorged on wild boar and jungle ferns. I’ve really just skimmed the highlights (and lowlights) of the trip. But it’s getting late and I have to get ready to go back to work tomorrow. So I’ll leave you with one last picture of this tropical paradise.

Into the heart of Borneo

I’m heading off to spend two weeks trekking through the steaming jungles of Borneo.

I’ll be back on January 3rd if the leeches and the mosquitoes and the pythons and the crocodiles and the centipedes and the scorpions don’t kill me first.

And on that note, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you in 2007. I hope.

My name is Sarah but you can call me "nipples"

I suppose I should be flattered that the kids at my junior high school have warmed up to me enough to give me a nickname. Unfortunately, the creation of my nickname was left to the imaginative power of a group of 15-year-old boys. They call me “nipples.”

It could be worse. They call the science teacher “pig.”

My own private nipplegate started in one of my Grade 9 English classes. The students were making Christmas cards and I was walking around the room correcting their mistakes (“Umm . . . ‘Let’s enjoying Christmas’ is good but ‘Merry Christmas’ would be better”).

There is one kid in this class who is the ringleader of a cabal of sexual harassers. He is failing English miserably but he knows every swear word in the dictionary and is fluent in dirty talk. His current favourite expression is “I want you.” The kid propositions me at least five times a day.

Anyway, he called me over to his desk to ask for help with his Christmas card. I should have known it was a ruse.

He asked me to spell a word for him. Which word?

“Nippluss,” he said, while his friends snickered in the background.

I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say so I asked him to repeat it. Over and over again.

“Nippluss! Nippluss! Nippluss!”

I still didn’t understand what the hell he was saying so he drew two red dots inside the upper half of his snowman’s torso. I clued in immediately.

“Nipples!?!”

The expression on my face sent him and his friends into hysterics.

“Nippluss! Nippluss! Nippluss!” he chanted.

I (lightly) smacked him over the head with my textbook and told him to stop. And he did stop. For a little while at least. He waited until my back was turned and softly said, “Nippluss.” I ignored him. So he said it a little louder, “Nippluss!” I carried on like nothing was happening until he yelled, “NIPPLUSS!” and the whole class exploded into laughter.

I turned to the Japanese teacher for help but she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “He is very rude boy.”

Unfortunately, the name stuck and now half of the Grade 9 boys yell out “nippluss” whenever they see me.

Now, I don’t really care that they call me nipples. I gave my teachers crude nicknames when I was their age too (my personal favourites were Mr. “Rock Hard” Rocca and Mr. “No Weenie” Novini).

But what surprises me is that they have the audacity call me nipples to my face. I wouldn’t have dared called Mr. Rocca or Mr. Novini by their nicknames to their faces. It would have meant a week of detention.

But in Japan there is no such thing as detention. No such thing as sending a kid to the principal’s office. By law, teachers aren’t allowed to kick a kid out of the classroom. I am not allowed, under any circumstances, to discipline the students.

So the kids talk in class. They sleep in class. They party in the back of the room. And the teachers just put up with it. Talk about blowing your stereotypes about the Japanese education system to smithereens.

Before I came to Japan, I assumed I would be teaching some of the most focused, dedicated and studious kids in the world. I imagined them staring up at me with reverence and respect.

Instead, they’re staring at my chest and calling me “nippluss.”

Cockroaches and boyfriends

My second newspaper column was published this week. It’s generating rave reviews. Two different people told me it was “interesting.”

I wonder if “interesting” means the same thing in Japan as it does in Canada (“It sucked but I don’t want to hurt your feelings”). Perhaps the humour of my musings on cockroaches and boyfriends was lost in translation.

I was just following orders. The editor asked me to write about my impressions of “Sakawa life.” He also told me to keep it short and simple because the town’s official translator can only read rudimentary English.

For those of you who can’t read Japanese, I’ve cut and pasted the English version below. Enjoy! Or don’t enjoy! Just don’t tell me it was “interesting.”

Settling in

By Sarah Marchildon

I’ve only been living and working in Sakawa for three months but I already feel very at home here. I am constantly amazed by how warm and welcoming everyone is. My social calendar is so full I don’t have time to feel homesick!

Many people ask me if I have had any trouble getting used to life in Japan. I tell them there have only been two major adjustments for me: 1) getting over my fear of cockroaches and, 2) not being asked out on dates.

There’s not much I can do about the cockroaches (high-pitched screaming doesn’t seem to affect them much). But I’m working very hard to learn as much Japanese as I can so I can find a boyfriend. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long, cold, lonely winter.

As for school, I’m having a lot of fun teaching English and getting to know the students. Junior high schools in Japan are very similar to junior high schools in Canada. But in Canada, students don’t have to clean the schools like they do here, and we don’t have anything like your national sports day. Undokai was a very interesting experience for me. I was impressed to see all the hard work and preparation by both the students and teachers in the weeks leading up to the big day. It was a real treat to be able to watch (and participate in!) undokai at several different schools.

In my spare time, I’ve been enjoying playing volleyball and tennis. I try to get out to the pool as often as I can and I run with the students at Sakawa Junior High School once a week. I need to exercise a lot because I’m worried I will get fat. The food in Japan is very delicious and all I do is eat and eat and eat!

I am also taking tea ceremony classes every Thursday in Kuroiwa and I study Japanese every day. I’m learning many useful phrases, such as “You are handsome” and “Are you single?” As you can see, I am enjoying Sakawa life very much.

Road mirrors

I love the big round mirrors that stand tall over every hairpin turn and blind intersection in this town. Their purpose is strictly functional -- the convex surface of the mirror allows drivers to see approaching cars around a bend in the road.

Most of the roads are so narrow and twisty that there would be a head-on collision every 30 seconds if there were no mirrors. I’m a big fan of the road mirrors. Not because I’m Captain Safety or anything. I just think they look cool.

Stephane Dion for Prime Minister!

Wow. I can’t believe Stephane Dion is the new leader of the Liberal Party. I wanted him to win but I didn’t think he’d actually pull it off. I wasn’t convinced the delegates would vote for a guy who made the environment the centerpiece of his campaign. But they did and he won. This is very, very exciting news.

I like Dion. I like his passion and his genuine concern for the environment. I respect him for making environmental sustainability his defining issue, especially when it’s not the easiest way to win the fight for people’s hearts and minds.

Canadians are an apathetic bunch when it comes to the environment. We know we should be concerned about the environment but we’re not willing to do anything about it. We say we care about nature but we also want to drive our SUVs, expand our highways and live in sprawling suburbs. Something isn’t working and Dion knows it.

Will he be the person to turn things around? I don’t know but I’m feeling optimistic about the future right now.

I can’t wait until the next election. Heck, I might even vote Liberal for the first time in my life.

Man hunt

I was told the only way I’d ever get a boyfriend in Japan was if I made the first move. All I had to do was take the lead and the men would follow.

Well, what a load of crap that turned out to be. I’ve transformed myself into a brazen hussy and I still can’t get a date. My attempts at seduction are about as subtle as a baseball bat to the skull. But no matter what I do, I just can’t crack their pathological shyness.

Lest you think I’m exaggerating, let me give you three examples of how my not-so-smooth moves have been rebuffed.

EXHIBIT A

Name: Nobuo (or, as I like to call him, Nobu-oohhh!)
Age: 28
Occupation: Employment status unknown
How we met: He plays on my volleyball team

Okay, so the real reason why I’ve been enjoying volleyball so much is because of Nobuo. He is, quite simply, one of the sexiest guys I’ve ever seen. He’s tall and lean with thick black hair and beautiful brown skin. Don’t even get me started on his body. The boy has abs you could break glass on (I know this because he takes his shirt off after every practice and, oh my god, I can’t even write about it without getting hot and bothered).

Plus, he’s fun and playful. He’s always bouncing around and cracking jokes with everyone. Everyone but me, that is. Up until last week, he barely said more than a single word to me. He’d mumble hello at the beginning of practice and mutter goodbye after it was over.

I asked one of the girls on the team why Nobuo went out of his way to avoid me. She gave me the same tired excuse I’ve been hearing for the past four months.

“He’s shy,” she said. “He’s afraid to talk to you because he can’t speak English.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I thought to myself. “I’m so sick and tired of this shy and timid bullshit. If that’s the way he’s going to be then I’ll be the man and wear the damn pants and show him how it’s done!”

At school the next day, I went straight to the vice-principal for help. He does nothing but practice magic tricks and surf the Internet all day so I figured he’d jump at the chance to do something useful. I pulled out a pen and some paper and asked him to translate a list of phrases, such as “Are you single?” and “I think you’re handsome” and “Let’s go for a drink sometime.”

I showed up at volleyball practice last Monday armed with an arsenal of Japanese pick-up lines. Nobuo gave me the perfect opening when he walked into the gym wearing his hair in a different style. I pounced.

Me: Nobu-oohhh, sumimasen. (Excuse me, Nobuo.)

Nobuo: Hai! (Yes!)

Me: Kami wa . . . (Your hair . . .)

Nobuo: Down?

Me: Hai! Hai! (Yes! Yes!)

Nobuo: [silent]

Me: [batting my eyelashes, flashing him a huge smile and throwing in a little shoulder shimmy] Kakoii desu ne! (You’re soooo good looking!)

His response? He sort of half smiled and then turned and ran (yes, ran) out of the gym. See what I mean? How the hell do you ask someone out for a drink when they run away when you try to talk to them? Okay, moving on to Exhibit B . . .

EXHIBIT B

Name: I forget
Age: 31
Occupation: High school English teacher
How we met: At a bar

I was out drinking with some of my co-workers when a handsome stranger walked in from out of the cold. He strode into the bar wearing a black leather jacket, baggy jeans and a striped scarf. His motorcycle was parked out front. He was like a Japanese version of George Stroumboulopoulos.

He joined our table and I swapped seats so that I was sitting next to him. I introduced myself in Japanese and was surprised when he answered back in perfect English. He told me he was a high school English teacher but his real passion was writing poetry. I asked him if he was single. He said he was. Things were looking up.

Late into the night, the conversation turned to romance. Everyone around the table took turns describing their dream date. When it was my turn, I pulled out the metaphorical baseball bat.

“Well, I’ve always wanted to ride on the back of a motorcycle with my arms wrapped around a cute guy,” I said, looking directly at the cute motorcycle-riding guy sitting beside me.

Someone asked me to describe what the guy on my fantasy date would look like.

“Well, he’d be wearing a black leather jacket,” I said, looking directly at his black leather jacket.

“And a striped scarf,” I said, looking directly at his striped scarf.

“And glasses,” I said, looking directly into his bespectacled eyes.

His response? Stunned silence. He just sat there blinking, not saying a word. I tried to drop more hints but I couldn’t penetrate his fortress of shyness. I haven’t seen him since. And that brings us to Exhibit C . . .

EXHIBIT C

Name: Kashida-sensei
Age: 28
Occupation: Art teacher
How we met: He teaches at my school once a week

Every Tuesday, a foxy young art teacher visits my school. He always sits next to me between classes (but only because there’s nowhere else to sit). Our desks are so close our elbows touch.

It would be highly erotic if Kashida-sensei wasn’t so ridiculously shy. In four months, he has never initiated a conversation with me. He won’t even say good morning unless I say it first. And he never, ever, looks me in the eye.

So I took it upon myself to make the first move. Every week, I share my secret stash of chocolate with him. I slip him cookies under the table. I always pack an extra mandarin orange in my bag just for him. And he just sits there and giggles. Not because he thinks I’m funny but because I make him so uncomfortable. (The vice-principal pulled me aside and spelled it out for me, “He’s shy.”)

And even though I make the effort to speak to him in Japanese, our conversations are painfully one-sided. For example, I once asked him what he did in his spare time. He said he liked fishing. I said I liked fishing too. He giggled. I told him we should go fishing together. He giggled some more. I asked him if he would take me fishing. He giggled even harder. After about five minutes of this, I gave up and rolled my eyes (not that he noticed since he kept his head down the whole time I was talking to him).

The thing is, it’s hard for me to sustain interest in any of these guys when I’m doing all the work and getting nothing in return. It’s like a game of tennis. I’m hitting easy serves across the net and these guys are just standing there letting the balls pile up on their side of the court. It’s no fun if they’re not hitting the ball back.

Who knows? Maybe they’re not shy at all. Maybe they’re just not that into me. Maybe I should go back to being less brazen and wait for one of them to take the lead. Or maybe I should just resign myself to a life of celibacy in Japan. I don't know what to do. These guys are driving me crazy. And not in a good way.

I went to Kyoto

I went to Kyoto last week. Unfortunately, half the population of Japan also went to Kyoto last week.

I blame the media. You see, it’s autumn and the leaves have started to change colour. The Japanese media have been reporting on the “leaf front” sweeping across the country as if they were in hot pursuit of OJ Simpson’s white Bronco. The leaf front has been the lead story on almost every TV newscast for the past five days. We’re talking live hits, helicopters, expert commentary and graphics. All for a bunch of dying leaves.

When the leaf front finally hit Kyoto on Tuesday, there was wall-to-wall media coverage. I was both excited and annoyed that the leaves had decided to explode into fiery shades of red the exact same week I was going to Kyoto. I knew it would be beautiful but I also knew I’d have to share the view with hordes of people.

Undeterred, Zoe, Aiko and I set off for Kyoto at dawn on Thursday. It took three and a half hours by train to traverse Shikoku Island and cross over the Inland Sea to the Japanese mainland. Once we were on the mainland, we hopped on the bullet train to Kyoto.



The bullet train was fast. It was a strange feeling riding on a train that went more than 300 km an hour. It felt like we were sitting in an airplane that was barreling down the runway just before takeoff. Towns and cities whipped past the windows. An hour later, we were suddenly in Kyoto.

We decided to spend the first day walking around. We saw geisha wrapped in beautiful silk kimonos.


We walked along cobblestone streets lined with traditional wooden houses.


And then we set off for some Buddhist temples to see what the entire population of Japan had flocked to Kyoto to see. Blazing leaves!



Now, you may think this was all very beautiful. But the photos don’t tell the whole story. For example, there were news helicopters circling overhead. It’s hard to appreciate the beauty of a temple garden when the air is filled with the constant thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack of propeller blades.

And whenever I tried to take a picture of something, there were 50 other people jostling to take the same picture as me. There was not one moment of quiet reflection. Nowhere to wander off by myself.

Visiting the temples was like a ride on an amusement park. You queued up in line. You paid your money. You shuffled along a roped-off path with hundreds of other tourists. You took some pictures. And you popped out the other side. One bus full of tourists drove away and three new buses arrived.



The experience wasn’t much fun. I didn’t hate it, though. There were parts of Kyoto that were breathtakingly beautiful. Like this golden temple just before sunset.



I also had a cinnamon bun and a latte for the first time in four months. It was almost as exciting as riding the bullet train. (Yes, I went to the cultural centre of Japan and Starbucks was one of the highlights. Go ahead and mock me. But you try living in a rural area where there’s no coffee and cinnamon buns and people who speak English and then tell me your heart wouldn’t involuntarily skip with joy when you saw those familiar green letters!)


We spent Thursday and Friday night in Osaka. Actually, the real reason we stayed in Osaka was because it was impossible to get a hotel room in Kyoto and Osaka is only half an hour away. I had tried reserving a room in Kyoto months ago but everything was booked solid.

We were lucky to even get a hotel room in Osaka. Then again, this was the view outside our hotel room window.


But Osaka was great. It was miles and miles of nothing but concrete and neon. I love neon. I’m like a moth drawn to the lights.


And that was it. We took the train back home on Saturday afternoon.

My first volleyball tournament

I played in a three-day volleyball tournament last week. It was one of the most nerve-wracking, vomit-inducing things I’ve ever done.

Forget the cockroaches in my apartment. Forget the fish heads for lunch. Competitive volleyball is way more terrifying.

I was a little surprised my teammates asked me to play in the first place. These are the same people who banned me from the last tournament because I suck so bad. And it’s not like I’ve improved that much since then (although, to my credit, I no longer duck and scream when the ball comes my way). Maybe they were just waiting to make sure I wouldn’t publicly embarrass them before they invited me to play in a tournament.

Secretly, I was thrilled they wanted me to tag along. During the past three months, I’ve grown to like volleyball so much that it’s now one of the highlights of my week. But I was about to learn that volleyball practice and a volleyball tournament are two very different things.

When I walked into the gym on the first day of the tournament, I felt like I had stepped into an alternate universe. I barely recognized the place. Everything looked so . . . professional. There were line judges and officials and score keepers. There were even spectators in the stands.

Six different teams were warming up at the same time, filling the gym with the sound of squeaking shoes and balls pounding against the floor. I watched as they practiced spiking the ball with such force and speed it looked like the hardwood floor would splinter into a million pieces.

I was in way over my head. I told my teammates that I’d rather just watch. But they insisted that I play. I couldn’t argue with them. I mean, I wanted to argue with them but I couldn’t because my Japanese is too limited to explain how I was feeling.

They told me I wouldn’t be playing until the second game, which meant I had lots of time to sit around and get more and more nervous. Now, I’ve competed in countless swim meets and triathlons and I’ve always felt nervous before the gun went off but I’ve never felt the kind of anxiety I was feeling before I stepped on that volleyball court. I knew that if I screwed up I’d be letting down a whole team of people.

And if it’s true that a team is as strong as its weakest link, well then I felt like a rusty paper clip trying to hold a chain of iron rings together.

By the time the second game rolled around, I was so nervous I wanted to throw up. But my teammates dragged me onto the court. I was told to stand in the back, to the left of the server.

I started to panic. I looked around wildly and yelled in Japanese, "Hajimete desu! Hajimete desu!" (It’s my first time! It’s my first time!). I wasn’t trying to be funny but everyone started laughing. I didn’t want them to think I was joking so I repeated it again, in an even more panic-stricken voice. But this only made them laugh harder.

The official seemed annoyed by me jumping around flapping my arms and yelling in Japanese so he blew the whistle long and hard to shut me up. Once everyone was quiet, he blew the whistle again and the game began.

I silently prayed for the ball not to come near me and for a while it didn’t. But then we scored a few points and the other team scored a few points and before I knew it I had rotated from the back of the court to the front. I was inches away from the net, expected to “attack.”

I knew that if the setter hit the ball my way I was supposed to jump and raise my hand over my head and hit the ball so it would land on the ground of the opposing court. But every time I tried to spike the ball in practice it usually ended up in the net. So instead of spiking the ball during the game, I decided to just make sure it ended up on the other side of the net.

Whenever the setter passed the ball to me, I simply pushed it over the net with my fingertips.

When it came time for me to serve, once again my goal was just to get the ball over the net. Fortunately, my first serve sailed over the net and dropped into the middle of the opposing court. Unfortunately, my second serve veered wildly to the right and hit the official in the head.

The set went on like that for what seemed like hours. When we finally won, I was more relieved than happy. I was even more relieved to find out that they only wanted me to play that one set during the entire three-day tournament. I guess it was sort of a token goodwill gesture.

I still like volleyball and I’m still looking forward to practice tomorrow night. But I don’t think I’ll be playing in any more tournaments any time soon. I'd rather stay home and kill cockroaches and eat fish heads.

Carrot sticks: Part II

Since I got such a kick out of seeing Japanese people react with revulsion whenever I ate carrot sticks, I decided to take my raw-vegetable freak-out fest to the classroom.

I was curious to see what kind of chaos I could create by offering my students carrot sticks at lunch.

I figured the elementary school kids would be the perfect guinea pigs for my little experiment. These kids think everything is fun and exciting. All I have to do is walk into the classroom and they start jumping up and down, screaming “YAY!!!” I knew if I showed up bearing carrots, the excitement level would be through the roof.

I ran the idea past the homeroom teacher first, since I knew how controversial carrot sticks could be. The last thing I wanted was to get fired over a damn vegetable. He looked at me like I was proposing to feed the kids leeches for lunch but agreed to go along with the plan.

As soon as the bell rang, I joined one of the classrooms for lunch (kids in Japan eat at their desks). I quietly reached into my backpack and pulled out a bag of carrot sticks. Before I said a word, the kids swarmed around me.

“WHAT’S THAT?!? WHAT’S THAT?!?” they yelled (I have no idea why these kids insist on screaming when they try to talk to me).

“Carrots,” I said.

One boy frantically pointed at himself and then pointed at the carrots.

“Would you like one?” I asked.

“YES!!!” he yelled.

He grabbed a carrot, ran back to his desk and shoved it in his mouth.


It took a few attempts before he was able to bite off a small piece (the kid looked like he was trying to gnaw through a steel cable).

Once he finished chewing and swallowing, he stood up and proclaimed the carrot stick “DELICIOUS!!!”

Upon hearing this, a few other students ran over and demanded a carrot stick. I think they expected the carrots to be delicious because when they bit into them they looked completely bewildered, like someone had poured salt in their coffee instead of sugar. This kid was not impressed.


The girl in the photo below took a bite and said something in Japanese that sounded like, “WTF? This is the grossest shit I’ve ever tasted. Oh my god. I’m going to throw up now.”


Who knew carrots could be so much fun? Next month, poutine tasting!

Carrot sticks

You’d think it would be pretty difficult to gross out a bunch of people who have no qualms about eating fish with their heads still attached and squid so raw it’s still moving.

But I have discovered the one food that makes Japanese people recoil in horror. Yes, I’m talking about that most repulsive food of all -- raw carrot sticks.

The first time I brought raw carrot sticks to work it sent shock waves through the staff room. You would have thought I was biting the heads off bats.

“What are you eating?” asked one of the teachers, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“Um . . . carrots,” I said.

My explanation only confused her more.

She wanted to know if they were boiled. I told her they were raw. She wanted to know if I thought they were delicious. I told her they weren’t particularly delicious. She wanted to know why I was eating them if they weren’t delicious. I told her they were healthy so I enjoyed eating them. She wanted to know if everyone in Canada ate carrot sticks. I told her lots of people in Canada ate carrot sticks. She wanted to know if I was joking. I told her I wasn’t.

I noticed some of the other teachers were eavesdropping on our conversation so I held up my little container of carrot sticks and asked if anyone wanted to try one.

There was a collective gasp and some nervous laughter before they started backing away, wildly waving their hands in front of their faces and shaking their heads. In a country where raw horse meat is considered a delicacy, not one of them was brave enough to try a carrot stick.

I continued to bring in carrot sticks a few times a week and they continued to point and laugh. It took about a month for the novelty to wear off. After two months, one of the teachers worked up the courage to try one.

He took a bite, chewed and swallowed. He took another bite, chewed and swallowed. The poor guy looked like he was trying not to gag. He had an expression on his face that seemed to suggest he was eating pig rectum or blended rats.

He somehow managed to choke down the whole thing. I asked him what he thought.

“It was delicious,” he said. “Thank you.”

If the teachers at my school thought carrot sticks were disgusting, I can’t wait to see their reaction when I bring poutine to work.

Two minutes with a wild monkey

I had my first encounter with a wild monkey on the weekend.

I was walking across a bridge, minding my own business, when I saw a flash of fur out of the corner of my eye.

It took a few seconds for my brain to process what I was seeing. A monkey sitting on the bridge. I did a whiplash-inducing double take. “Holy crap! There’s a monkey sitting on the bridge!”

I pulled out my camera and slowly tiptoed toward it. I didn’t want to get too close. It was unnerving to come face to face with a monkey without a cage between us. Also, the monkey was not exactly cute and cuddly. It had a red face and pinched features, which made it look mean and angry.

A voice in my head repeated itself over and over: “Don’t look the monkey in the eye! Don’t look the monkey in the eye!” I had read somewhere that monkeys will attack you if you look directly into their eyes. Or maybe that was bears. Either way, I wasn’t going to take any chances.

So with my eyes looking everywhere but at the monkey, I inched forward and blindly took a picture.


By this point, the monkey was attracting a small crowd (“small crowd” meaning “four people”). Someone threw some crackers on the ground and the monkey jumped off the railing and started eating them.


However, the crowd seemed to be more interested in watching me take pictures of the monkey than in the monkey itself. They were looking at me with the same amused expression I get when I see tourists taking pictures of raccoons and squirrels in Stanley Park. (“Ha, ha. Look at the tourist taking pictures of that nasty-ass monkey like it’s some sort of exotic and beautiful animal. Ha, ha.”)

Suddenly, without warning, the monkey charged toward me. I had a terrifying vision of it leaping onto my face and digging its claws into my hair.

I shrieked and jumped out of the way. I also managed to snap a photo at the same time.


The monkey kept running and disappeared into the woods. And that was the end of my first encounter with a wild monkey.

Postscript: I thought it was a pretty unique experience until I went home and googled “Japanese monkeys” and found out Japan is overrun by monkeys. Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article about the monkey population explosion:

Rural villages sometimes post bounties of up to $1,000 for the leader of a particularly destructive monkey troop. In cities, sensational news reports about monkeys "molesting women and children" have stirred police officers to form monkey posses, patrolling streets with nets and bananas tied to poles.

The weirdest girl in town

Most of the time, living in Japan isn’t all that different from living in Canada. But just when I think I’m starting to fit in, I unintentionally do something to set myself apart. Like walking to work.

Who knew something so innocuous would turn into an international incident?

It started out innocently enough. I woke up early. It was a nice day. I thought to myself, “I’m up early. It’s a nice day. I think I’ll walk to work.”

That day I was teaching at a small school out in the country. It’s about four kilometres away and you have to go up and down a few steep hills to get there. But I like walking, especially when I get to pass through scenery like this.


So I hefted my backpack over my shoulders and set out for what I thought would be a nice walk through the countryside.

I got about 10 minutes away from my apartment when a car slowed beside me. I looked over to see one of the teachers from my school rolling down the passenger-side window and frantically waving for me to get inside the car.

“No, no,” I said in Japanese. “Walking, good. Exercise, good. Car, no thank you.”

My explanation only seemed to confuse her (either that or my Japanese is completely incomprehensible). She patted the passenger seat and urged me to get in.

I thanked her profusely, bowed and continued walking. She drove beside me for a little while. I pointed at my feet, pointed at the road ahead and gave her the thumbs up. Over and over and over again. She eventually got the message and drove off ahead of me.

Ten minutes later, a second car slowed beside me. It was a different teacher but he did the same thing. He rolled down the passenger-side window and frantically waved for me to get inside the car. I played another round of charades, pointing at my feet and the road ahead, until he drove on.

Five minutes later, a third car pulled up beside me. This time, it was the principal. Instead of slowing down to offer me a ride, he brought the car to a complete stop in the middle of the road and started shoving the junk on the passenger seat onto the floor. He didn’t even ask if I wanted a ride, he just assumed I’d hop in.

By the time the fourth car pulled up beside me, I realized the teachers weren’t offering me a ride just to be nice. They were offering me a ride because they assumed something had happened to my bike. They thought I was walking because I had to, not because I wanted to.

Amazingly, another car pulled up beside me when I was just one block away from the school. The teacher rolled down the passenger-side window and frantically waved for me to get inside. Now it was my turn to look at her in disbelief. The school was literally no more than 50 metres away.

“Um . . . the school is right there. I can walk,” I said.

She gave me a look that said “You are the weirdest f*cking person I have ever met” and turned left into the parking lot.

By the time I walked into the staff room, the gossip mill was churning at warp speed. The way they were talking, you would have thought I was the first teacher in the history of the school to have ever walked there. (Actually, I probably was.)

They wanted to know how long it took (45 minutes), did I ever walk such great distances in Canada (yes), do other people in Canada walk to work (yes), was my bicycle was broken (no), was I tired (from walking, no. From answering their questions, yes).

I tried to explain that walking to work was a nice way to ease into the day and get some exercise in. That I liked breathing the fresh air and looking at the scenery.

They smiled and nodded but I don’t think they really understood. By lunch, their tone had shifted from awe to concern. They wanted to know how I was going to get home.

Good lord, I thought. Here we go again.

I cringed inwardly and told them I was going to walk home. And so I went through the whole process of turning down rides all over again. By the end of the day, I had managed to convince them that I really didn’t want a ride.

I hefted my backpack over my shoulders and set out for what I thought would be a nice walk home through the countryside.

I got about 10 minutes away from the school when a car slowed beside me. I looked over to see a cab driver rolling down the passenger-side window and frantically urging me to get inside the car.

“No, thank you,” I said. “I’m okay.”

He seemed to think I was turning him down because I didn’t want to pay the cab fare. So he started yelling, “Free. Free. No money!”

I had already experienced the novelty of a free cab ride in Japan (I once had a cab driver waive the $30 fare because he said he enjoyed our conversation so much that he thought it wouldn’t be right to make me pay). So I pointed at my feet and the road ahead until he drove away.

All of this just because I decided to walk to work. What does a girl have to do to fit in around here?

Halloween in Japan

I was supposed to be Catwoman for Halloween but my costume ended up making me look like a cross between Nacho Libre and a dominatrix.


This is what happens when you slap a costume together at the last minute. My friend Zoe, who is an English teacher in the next town over, emailed me Saturday morning to ask if I had figured out what I was going to wear to the Halloween party that night.

“I was thinking that you should go as Catwoman,” she wrote. “All you have to do is wear something black and I’ll make you a mask like this one.”

She attached a photo to the email.


“Oh my god!” I wrote back. “Let’s do it!”

A few hours later, Zoe showed up at my apartment with some black felt and white thread.


I combed through my closet, trying to find something black and slinky to wear. The best I could come up with was a sleeveless black turtleneck and a pair of spandex cycling tights. It was more sensible than sexy. It was the sort of thing Catwoman might wear if she was riding a bicycle rather than prowling the rooftops.

Zoe managed to whip up a mask in record time. This is me trying on the (almost) finished product.


Once my costume was done, Zoe got dressed up as Pippi Longstocking (she had made her costume weeks ago).


We jumped in the car and drove to Kochi City as fast as we could. Luckily, we didn’t get stopped for speeding, although seeing the expression on the police officer’s face when he pulled us over would have been worth it.

Once we got to Kochi, we found out we’d have to walk about 10 blocks to get to the bar where the party was being held. Walking through the streets in full costume on Halloween weekend wouldn’t faze me in Canada. But here? There were hundreds of people milling around and not one of them was wearing a costume.

I had a sinking feeling we were going to attract a lot of attention once we stepped out of the car. Not only were we foreigners but we were foreigners dressed like we were heading to an S&M club. Zoe had to drag me out of the car like I was a dog on the way to the vet’s office.

Those were the longest 10 blocks of my life. We couldn’t walk two steps without someone pointing and staring at us. We stopped men dead in their tracks. They stood frozen in place, mouths open, eyes popping out of their heads. Once the initial shock wore off, a few of them pulled out their camera phones and snapped pictures of us. Other guys would elbow their friends until the whole group was hooting and hollering.

Who knew all it took to get a little male attention in Japan was to walk through the streets dressed like this?


The stares didn’t stop once we got to the party. Every five minutes a different Japanese guy would stop me and ask me to take a picture with him.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony. One week I’m writing about how hard it is to meet men in Japan and the next week I’m writing about how hard it is to fight them off. I’ll never figure this place out.

So many men, so few balls

Remember when I said Vancouver was the worst place in the world to meet men? I take it back. Rural Japan is way, way worse. I haven’t felt this invisible and ignored since the last time I went to a gay bar.

Now, I’m not the kind of girl who bases her self-worth on her attractiveness to men. But it’s nice to have a little male attention now and then (being hit on by pimply teenage boys and the mayor doesn’t count).

I feel like Quasimodo out here. Men cross the street when they see me coming. Construction workers fall silent and stare down at their boots when I pass by. I could jump up and down in the middle of the road wearing nothing but a bikini and the men would still avert their eyes and run the other way.

I decided to ask the male teachers at my school why Japanese men went out of their way to avoid me. Of course, I had to wait until after several rounds of beer and sake since the male teachers are only brave enough to talk to me when they are completely wasted.

“Why do all the men in this town refuse to speak to me or even look at me?” I asked in broken Japanese once they were properly loaded.

“Japanese are shy!” yelled the 27-year-old social studies teacher. “Japanese man has Samurai soul! Samurai are shy!”

I politely pointed out that a truly shy person wouldn’t be screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of a restaurant about how shy he was.

His response was to yell even louder. “I WILL BE YOUR BOYFRIEND!” He then drew imaginary circles around his nipples while chanting something that sounded like, “Ling, ling, ling, ling, ling, ling, ling, ling.”

The consensus around the very drunk, very loud, very rowdy and very obnoxious table was that Japanese men are painfully shy.

I realized the only way I was going to get a date in Japan was if I made the first move. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds.

For starters, the married men in this town don’t wear wedding rings. It’s impossible to know who’s single and who isn’t without wasting valuable time. I’d strike up a conversation with a cute guy only to have him say, “My wife is on your volleyball team” or “My son goes to your school.”

Not only is it impossible to tell if a guy is married, it’s equally difficult to tell how old he is.

One night after volleyball practice, I chatted up some cute basketball players who spoke passable English. They weren’t shy at all (that should have been my first clue). After about 10 minutes of flirting, one of them asked me to guess how old he was. I gave him a good, hard look and said 28. It was an honest answer so I couldn’t figure out why they were killing themselves laughing. It turned out they were all 19! I got out of there faster than the bullet train leaves Tokyo.

My luck isn’t much better with foreign men. While spending a weekend in the city, I met a guy from Australia. He was tall and lean with rugged good looks and a wicked sense of humour. We hit it off immediately. He even asked for my phone number and offered to take me surfing. Just when things were looking up, he dropped the bomb and casually mentioned his boyfriend. His boyfriend!

It’s hopeless. I didn’t think my love life could be any more non-existent than it was in Vancouver. How does that old saying go? Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, someone throws you a shovel. Yeah. That about sums it up.