So, I'll just come out and say it. I hit a car while riding my bike on Wednesday morning. No, I wasn't wearing a helmet, like Everyone should (but no one does in Japan). I will find one posthaste. I'm not dead, as it would be very hard for a ghost to type, even though Ghostwriter seemed to pull it off rather well. And I wasn't my fault (in the eyes of the law!~ and mine).
So, I'm riding my bike to to the train station like I do almost everyday. I'm on my favorite straightaway, where I hardly have to pedal because I still have a lot of speed from going downhill. As I approach this blind-corner, I check the safety (lol) mirror for cars. I see none, I hear none, I proceed w/o braking. According to the driver, he looked in the mirror also and did not see me either.
He stopped right in front of me and here are my thoughts (after much reiteration so they make sense).
Mirror.
Clear.
Cool.
Car.--Crap.
*Boomf* (that's a sound, not thoughts)
Air. (hmm, this reminds me of judo)
Ground--Face meets ground--Bike meets head.
Lie on ground.
So the guy gets out of his car immediately to check if I'm ok. I reply, saying that I think so, as I get up and look around. I find my backpack behind me (it used to be in front of me). Guy goes and picks up my bike, stands it up. He's very hurried and went back to his car, ripped off a piece of paper from somewhere, wrote his phone number on it and put it into my hands.
Here is our first sign of trouble.
In Japan, there are these things called Meishi. They may be just business cards to you, but here they are very important. When you meet someone you give them a meishi! Almost everyone, but some students and housewives have them. You even give them to the person in a special way, two handed and facing the person.
And I got a piece of paper :'(.
Next, went back to his car, telling me "Sorry, but I have to go to work". I had gathered my things and gotten to the side of the road by then and was just staring at him. Then as he got into his car, he told me "Go to the hospital fast ok?"
Then he drove off.
Yes, he left.
So, then we had some realizations.
First, I just hit a car, flew through the air, and hit the ground.
Second, I'm not dead!!!!! YAYYYY! Went and prayed for a second, thanking God for protecting me from worse injuries.
Next, I'm bleeding from my left eyelid and my head is bruised and my wrist hurts.
Then, No ones stopping to help. They must be going to work too.
Finally, I should make a few calls.
Host mom, didn't get her. Program director. Friend, to say I think I might be late for school.
During some point in time, I considered riding my bike to the station and sitting on the train to get myself to the hospital. This was foiled by my broken bicycle.
Needless to say, when my host mom got there, she was furious at this driver. In America, we call that a hit-and-run. I'm pretty sure you can tell, I'm kinda pissed off now. At the moment, I thought, this guy's job must be pretty tough on him! He's really gotta go to work. No, I didn't have a concussion.
I missed school and spent the day in the hospital, taking tests. My eyes are fine, as well as my skull and other appendages. I did get 4 stitches!
Now, I have the complete injury care list:
Cast
Brace
Crutches
Stitches
I guess I should amend that to injury care that you can walk around with.
So, luckily, my host mom's got some internet skills and she found the dude online! He's a dentist! That got her really mad. That filling/cleaning, just couldn't wait.
Gotta give a bit shout out to the CJS ladies from School who came to the hospital!!! to them coming to the hospital and helping me all day.
I was able to make a whole room of ppl laugh, when I was getting my concussion test (in Japanese!~) I gotta say, at least 2+ points have been added to my joke meter.
At the end of the day, I just wanted to get everything related to it out of the way, so I went to make my police statement. I showed me on my lil toy bike (the coolest toy bike you've ever seen! With clear spinning wheels and pedals!) and a toy car.I also drew a picture of the incident, with the best arrows, I've ever drawn. But I digress.
I finished up my police statement. Fingerprinted my documents and all, (even the picture I drew. The policeman particularly enjoyed that one). Then I went on my merry way home. Luckily, I had none of the subcranial hematoma symptoms and went to bed and woke up!
The aite (aite = opponent/other person; My opponent was a car and the ground lol) So he's been calling my house and school trying to apologize. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time accepting forced apologies. My host mom has said no to his seeing me and after 2 more days at school I completely agree to never seeing him. The next day at school, I was told that he was sorry again and he panicked. I started feeling like I'm being stalked ~.^ warui kimoti [weird feeling] after he got hold of all these numbers. The Friday, I was told he didn't just say sorry, but asked that I don't file a complaint with the police...
3 strikes!
No MEISHI!
LEAVES THE SCENE OF A ACCIDENT!!!!???
THEN ASKES ME NOT TO REPORT IT FOR FEAR OF LOSING HIS LICENSE?!!?
The nice, oh-it-was-an-accident Ama has left the building.
I hope he loses his license. He didn't stop at his stop sign, he pulled out in the way of a biker, stopping abruptly as he saw her. And he apparently has enough points on his card that this pushes it over the top! Gotta say, I think he deserves to lose his license. Make the streets of Nagoya a lot safer. I just hope he doesn't ride the bus with me <(0.0;)>
But enough with the ranting, I'm getting my stitches out in 8 hours! and I needs my rest!
I also went on a trip this weekend that was good. So we'll talk about that instead next time. I don't think you want a picture of my face right now, but I'll give you some smiling ones later!
Goodnight!
~Ama
Monday, March 15, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Hadaka Masturi and Arubaito!
So, I haven't posted anything up-to-date recently, but I just wanted to share that I got an arubaito! (part-time job) I teach English about three times a week for the month of March as a private tutor. PT jobs are a lot better here in Japan, especially as an English-tutor, because native are so mezurashii (rare). I'll be busy for March, so sorry in advance.
So before I leave, I have to tell you about the Konomiya Hadakamatsuri I went to on Friday. This is a Festival, otherwise known as the Naked Man Festival. At this fest, men of all ages get to run around drunk out of their minds and basically naked. In actuality only one man is naked, but I'll get to that in a second. The men wear loincloths and head bands (which I think represented which town/village they came from.I was surprised by the amount of loincloth they had surrounding their waist, but I'm glad they had a bit of extra covering, because not much was left to the imagination. Some men had tattoos! If you didn't know, in Japan, tattoos are extremely rare and are associated with the Yakuza (Japanese mob). I saw two guys w/ full body tats. Who knows?!?!!?
The rowdy men went through the (rainy, this year) streets of town toward the shrine carrying large bundles of bamboo. My friends and I who were getting soaked in spite of our umbrellas, were narrowly missed by a swinging bundle as we had wriggled our way to the front of the crowd at the shrine. These guys were carrying around boxes of sake (rice wine), soooo yea, they were drunk. I'm pretty sure a few of them had fallen down on the way there as they had unexplained grass all over or, as one man was, bleeding from the legs. It was also raining really hard and was kinda cold so I felt bad for them, though, most of them seemed very happy and boisterous. The men all came in groups very happy to arrive at the shrine. With every group, the bamboo pack got bigger. The men who had already arrived cheered each other on, with a phrase that I think is "Washo". I'm still not sure. But it meant, "cheer up" "fight on" etc.
They sure were genki (energetic).
So they get to the shrine and are waiting for the one naked guy, who has been consecrated for the ceremony. This guy hasn't eaten in 2-3 days and has been specially picked this year. I'm sure the prep is longer than that, but I do know 2-3 days is enough for me to want to tear my way through a bunch of naked men to get a sandwich....well maybe not. So, in Japanese culture, there are unlucky ages. A lot of the participants in this festival are at these points in their lives. The consecrated man has been chosen and consecrated in order to bring luck to these folks. In order to get some of that luck, you have to touch the lucky man.... This is what I like to call CHAOS! Poor dude is completely naked, starving, protected by a small group of dudes, and being chased, pushed, jammed and beaten, but a bunch of drunk, semi-naked, unlucky men. Under normal circumstances, probably not his cup o' tea. But luckily, it's a great honor to be this festival's holy man, so I think he'll get over it after some sleepless nights.
Of course the body guards offer some protection and the men are being constantly splashed with cold water in order to deter them from their goal, but I think the alcohol helps their resolve. So this guy makes it through what would be a 3-4 minute walk in a couple of hours and is pulled into the shrine, hopefully, alive. This year's guy was still genki and standing when he recovered a bit afterwards. Yatta! (yay!)
So I got some omiyage (souvenirs) from this trip. The men have many brightly colored headbands and they rip off strips to give to the onlookers. It's considered good luck. I got like 5 strips. Reasons I got these strips: A) I'm a foreigner, that looks reallllly foreign. B) I asked ppl and surprised by my Japanese, they gave it to me.
For the A reasons, I got 2 strips w/o even asking. That was nice.
My friends and I couldn't stay too long, so we didn't see the holy dude, but we did make a friend and eat at an outside shop w/ him. That was fun.
I'll post some pics later. It's 12:39am here! and I have 2 kanji (Chinese characters) tests tomorrow, so I'm going to hit the futon (futon = where I sleep)(aka. the hay).
Night!
~Ama
So before I leave, I have to tell you about the Konomiya Hadakamatsuri I went to on Friday. This is a Festival, otherwise known as the Naked Man Festival. At this fest, men of all ages get to run around drunk out of their minds and basically naked. In actuality only one man is naked, but I'll get to that in a second. The men wear loincloths and head bands (which I think represented which town/village they came from.I was surprised by the amount of loincloth they had surrounding their waist, but I'm glad they had a bit of extra covering, because not much was left to the imagination. Some men had tattoos! If you didn't know, in Japan, tattoos are extremely rare and are associated with the Yakuza (Japanese mob). I saw two guys w/ full body tats. Who knows?!?!!?
The rowdy men went through the (rainy, this year) streets of town toward the shrine carrying large bundles of bamboo. My friends and I who were getting soaked in spite of our umbrellas, were narrowly missed by a swinging bundle as we had wriggled our way to the front of the crowd at the shrine. These guys were carrying around boxes of sake (rice wine), soooo yea, they were drunk. I'm pretty sure a few of them had fallen down on the way there as they had unexplained grass all over or, as one man was, bleeding from the legs. It was also raining really hard and was kinda cold so I felt bad for them, though, most of them seemed very happy and boisterous. The men all came in groups very happy to arrive at the shrine. With every group, the bamboo pack got bigger. The men who had already arrived cheered each other on, with a phrase that I think is "Washo". I'm still not sure. But it meant, "cheer up" "fight on" etc.
They sure were genki (energetic).
So they get to the shrine and are waiting for the one naked guy, who has been consecrated for the ceremony. This guy hasn't eaten in 2-3 days and has been specially picked this year. I'm sure the prep is longer than that, but I do know 2-3 days is enough for me to want to tear my way through a bunch of naked men to get a sandwich....well maybe not. So, in Japanese culture, there are unlucky ages. A lot of the participants in this festival are at these points in their lives. The consecrated man has been chosen and consecrated in order to bring luck to these folks. In order to get some of that luck, you have to touch the lucky man.... This is what I like to call CHAOS! Poor dude is completely naked, starving, protected by a small group of dudes, and being chased, pushed, jammed and beaten, but a bunch of drunk, semi-naked, unlucky men. Under normal circumstances, probably not his cup o' tea. But luckily, it's a great honor to be this festival's holy man, so I think he'll get over it after some sleepless nights.
Of course the body guards offer some protection and the men are being constantly splashed with cold water in order to deter them from their goal, but I think the alcohol helps their resolve. So this guy makes it through what would be a 3-4 minute walk in a couple of hours and is pulled into the shrine, hopefully, alive. This year's guy was still genki and standing when he recovered a bit afterwards. Yatta! (yay!)
So I got some omiyage (souvenirs) from this trip. The men have many brightly colored headbands and they rip off strips to give to the onlookers. It's considered good luck. I got like 5 strips. Reasons I got these strips: A) I'm a foreigner, that looks reallllly foreign. B) I asked ppl and surprised by my Japanese, they gave it to me.
For the A reasons, I got 2 strips w/o even asking. That was nice.
My friends and I couldn't stay too long, so we didn't see the holy dude, but we did make a friend and eat at an outside shop w/ him. That was fun.
I'll post some pics later. It's 12:39am here! and I have 2 kanji (Chinese characters) tests tomorrow, so I'm going to hit the futon (futon = where I sleep)(aka. the hay).
Night!
~Ama
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