Friday February 6, 1998: 9pm
So on the work front, things are interesting. Beta releases on the 17th to testers (and this time they actually may release it), so we're frantically testing our stuff so that the testers we pay have nothing to do. Sort of an odd action I suppose, but I think it's based on the fact that I'd rather find a bug myself than have some stranger find it for me.
Anyway, everyday now I come in to work and am greeted by a nice stack of reported bugs. One bug per page. There have been many a page in the last 2-3 weeks. But today, I am mighty proud because I left the office with only one or two bugs outstandi
ng - and one of them is extremely not important. Whoopee!! Of course this doesn't reeeally mean too much because they're still making a bunch of changes which I find a bit odd they didn't think of before. But it's fine because I like getting bugs on pa
per and fixing them - checking the "fixed" box and slamming the unlucky bug sheet face-down on my desk. It give me power. No actually, it just makes me feel like I'm doing stuff fast. I like that.
Sunday February 7, 1998: 6:01am
on the bus to Nagano from Ueda
Well of course now I"m going to start with Saturday's happenings, because today is still Saturday in my books since I haven't slept yet. Let me go back 24 hours, well, 5:30am Saturday morning to be exact, when my very loud alarm clock woke me from a n all-too short slumber. I got up, went for my run, headed to the station, rushed off to Shinjuku, and yet still managed to be half late for my 10am bus. It was 9:56 and I was still 3rd in line at the ticket counter, how frustrating! But, I got my tick et and rushed in the direction that the very nice service lady had pointed to, just hoping the bus hadn't left yet. I didn't really have to worry because I got on with time to spare. I took my seat. Some foreigners got on and walked by. The first one takes a look at me and says "You speak English?" I say "yeah", he says "Good", and keeps on walking. I puzzled about this for a moment and came to only one conclusion: American. Then I had no more time to think because the person sitting next to me arr ived.
Now, to get this straight, I don't usually like talking to, or being talked to by strangers on trips. What I mean is, I'm not the sort of person to strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to me on an airplane flight just because fate h as stuck us in such close quarters. I like to sit with my own thoughts and stare out the window, or sometimes read. But today this was obviously not meant to be (even though I had just started The Fifth Business by Robertson Davies) because Mika (as this girl was called) is the type who finds time along on trips to be quite boring, and freely said so. And so not even one minute passed before she had struck up a conversation with me, which started in Japanese.
Now this was quite the interesting phenomena. She had been on an exchange to Kansas for a year when she was younger, so her English was quite good, and had the bonus of slang. But oh! She would speak half-half. For example, "In high school I real ly liked math DE I was kind of good at it DAKARA I first started out uni thinking I would do math DESU YO. DEMO it was MUZUKASHI and I heard computer science had no work DAKARA I transferred over." This was hilarious. I don't know if she realized she was diong it or not, as she spoke really fast in this hybrid language. It later came out that many of her friends and coworkers speak in this way too! Now that's crazy.
Anyway, it was fun talking to Mika. We had an odd amount in common: both girls, who like math, are studying CS, have programming jobs but still in school, volunteer at the Olympics, and - oddly enough - parents who live in Indonesia. Well her fath er at least - lives in Bandau. But she's never been. I guess it's her mother that lives in Nagano.
Oh, at 11:30 or so we made a pit stop at a small restaurant on the highway. We went in to take a look and they had a TV, and were playing the opening ceremonies live. I looked up just in time to see the very last Canadian athlete go by, I think it was a sign.
So we arrive in Nagano, at the JR Nagano station, at 1:38, 2 minutes ahead of time. Amazing! Only in Japan would BUSES actually arrive on time.. and during the Olympics too!! I was baffled.
Now my job was to find Jason. I didn't really believe it would be very difficult, but actually the Nagano Station isn't exactly small. And this place is literally *infested* with gaijin foreigners! It was really crazy! I kept on having the se volunteers walk by saying "Welcome!" and the likes. Made me feel a bit like a twit because I didn't want to be treated like a tourist, although I suppose I am one in Nagano. Anyway, since I didn't see Jason anywhere obvious (ah but Jason has tendenci es to hide in the most unnatural places, really) I took a little turn about "Centre Square", where, incidentally, all the medals will be presented. How exciting. Then I spotted Jason and soon after he spotted me, and so we then began to try to find a st ore that sells Olympic paraphanelia. Of course we found one, but would you believe that they are NOT overdoing it?! In fact, they only had 5 different t-shirts, and 3 of them were white. So I didn't buy any. I have 3 or 4 orders for t-shirts, and none of these fit any of the descriptions requested by the orderers. Well, I'm going to be that they can't possibly NOT be selling paraphanelia everywhere.
Next, Jason and I start our walk over to IBC (International Broadcasting Centre) where we'll be volunteering. We had to get our accreditation cards (security passes) and uniforms. Now first is the accreditation card. See, they'd sent us some stuff in the mail - special forms, pictures, holograph stickers, and instructions. We had to bring all this with us if we wanted our card. So of course, Jason and I being the somewhat forgetful two that we are, we couldn't even manage this. Jason had someho w sent all this stuff to CANADA, which was honestly a pretty stupid thing to do. Not that he meant to do that, of course, but it's a long story (which I'm not going to explain here). But I'm one to talk - I did something not-so-bright myself -- I forgot ALL forms of identification. This, of course, was obviously stated (in bold, underlined, and highlighted in many ways, I'm sure) in the instructions: BRING PHOTO ID WITH CONFIRMATION OF NATIONALITY AND DATE OF BIRTH, etc etc. Would you believe I did no t have this on me. No passport (not surprising), no driver's license (only half-surprising), no tourokusho - foreigner registration card - which almost knocked me over because the only time I allow myself to go anywhere without my tourokusho is on my runs. I can get arrested here (in Japan) if I'm not carrying it with me at all times. That's why I could NOT believe that (a)I could be so stupid as to not bring any ID, and (b) I couldn't think of where I had put the darned thing. Ho w annoying. So they sent me to this really nice Irish dude, who asked me questions about how I came to be wandering Nagano with no ID except for my student card (not quite appropriate to call ID), among other things. By this point I feel like quite the twit, but I guess I was convincing because the guy hopped some fences and got me in. Yay! Jason also was able to get his card. Whew.
Next came uniforms. Wow, this is SO neat! We got a jacket, a fleece sweater, gloves, a hat, and SHOES! All official volunteer stuff! Made by Mizuno! They're *nice*. And we get to keep the stuff! Purdy darn neat, if ya ask me.
We then went to the info desk where we stopped and chatted with people for awhile. Then I realized I'd lost my wallet. How freakin' annoying. Looked through all my bags 3 times, but not there. So Jason and I split up to retrace stops, and I found it at the accredition centre, sheesh.
So now Jason and I head over to Ueda (the city where he lives) by one of the media shuttle buses, which are free for us with the accreditation cards. Awesome! It takes 45 minutes or so, and we arrie at the Ueda station just before 6. This is perfe ct, because we were supposed to be at Noah's (a restaurant owned by Satsuki's family, Satsuki being one of Jason's very good friends here) for arubaito, part-time job, uh yeah, waitering/waitressing. They need some foreigner help to deal with the foreigner clientelle. When we got tehre it was getting pretty packed, but within half an hour it was just popping at the seams. They actually had a private party who had just come from a wedding, so it was their reception - all you can eat and drink fo r 2 hours! Wow it got busy! Anyway as busy as it was, I didn't help out 'cuz actually they didn't need me. This was fine with me because it was interesting enough to just sit at the bar, although noone else believed that. Oh, everyone else! K, so at the restaurant were Satsuki, Satsuki's mom, Gaku-chan, and Taori-chan. And Jason. Gaku-chan is Noah's only full-time employee outside of Satsuki's family, and he's the chef, bartender, and waiter. I think he's 24 and from Nagoya. Reeeally funny guy!! Not to mention that he's a darn good cook - him and Satsuki's mom cooked *everything*. Wow. Ok, then there's Taori-chan, who is a part-time waitress/bartender, 18, and in high school. She lives with Gaku-chan actually. She was purdy neat too - quiet but not in the usual Japanese way, I mean, she was happy to talk and stuff. Anyway, she's cool. Oh and Satsuki is 23 I think, and she's the good friend of Jason's. I really like her too, she's friendly, and it's easy to talk with her. Her mother is ve ry nice as well - seemed more like a pal than mother actually. So that's the Noah staff - I won't bother to explain who Jason is anymore, except that his hair only gets stranger as time passes! hahahahaha.
We were at the restaurant until about 11:30 or so. The wedding party had all left by 9, leaving a substantial mess behind which we cleaned up and stuf for a bit. I thought it was interesting that they didn't have a dishwasher, so all dishes were do ne by hand - and there were lots of dishes! But cleaning up was fun because everyone was so cheerful and joking - one big party. And Gaku-chan made some pizza for us to eat, and it was sooo good!! OhMAN it had been too long since I'd had a real pizza! And so we all sat around in the restaurant, eating, drinking, chatting for awhile, then up and left to go to Sega world not to long before midnight.
Sega world. Would you beleive Ueda has a Sega world?! Well, they do. And we were going there to have an air hockey tournament. See, tomorrow, no today actually, at 4pm, we're all (Jason, Satsuki, Gaku, Toari, myself) going to the Canada vs. Japan womens' hockey game!! So cool!! I can't wait! Anyway, we thought we'd have ourselves an air hockey tournament tonight just as a preview. Plus, Jason had challenged me to a game before. That was his mistake because under my quiet peaceful exterior li es an air hockey goddess (as Sariya would say) - but how could Jason know this? He found out when I whopped his butt 12-11 in 3 puck air hockey, that's how! Ah hahahaha, beaten by a girl at hockey, he should be ashamed! I'm sure he is, because Jason ha tes losing to girls, it's a well-known fact.
Actually that was the only game played because we ended up getting there just moments before midnight, so it closed too soon. But, we'll have our tournament at some point, no worries.
Now starts the party - the ice cream party. Satsuki, Jason and I stopped off at the 7-Eleven to stock up on aisu and headed back to Jason's apartment. Ah, finally, after promising for months, I make it to Jason's apartment! Hey, it's a nice place - I think it's got more class than mine, but that could be because it was cleaner. In most ways though, they're identical. The layout of his apartment is the exact mirror image of mine - the bathroom doors are the same, and things like that. Exc ept he doesn't have a temperamental water-heater-from-hell, and his toilet seat can be *heated*... like, at a flip of a switch! Amazing.
Back to the party. We get in, and Jason turns on his kotatsu - that's a low table which has a heater under the table-top and a big duvai (sp?) type cover taht goes over the top and hangs down the sides to the floor. Kotatsus are extre mely Japanese, and they are sooo nice. 'Cuz you go sit at the table and stick your legs under the blanket and under the table and it is so toasty warm in there! I'm so jealous he's got one!
Entertainment for the evening was The X-Files - Jon sent me a tape for Xmas with *all* the episodes since May when I left, but I haven't watched them yet since I don't have a VCR. And Jason and Satsuki are X-Files fans too, so we sat with the kotatsu, popped in the tape, and dug into the ice cream and junk food. What fun! That show is soooo funny sometimes, I love it! And I ate so much I still feel sick. But it's the good kind of junk food sick, y'know?
Ahyeah, so we finished the tape at a bit before 5 - a little over an hour ago. Jason and Satsuki went to sleep, and I proceeded to bundle up in lots of warm clothes for this skiing event!! I left the apartment at 5:45 and walked over to the nearest media bus station where the shuttle bus picked me up at a bit before 6. I started writing this on the shuttle bus, but I have since arrived at IBC, and I'm currently sitting in one of the lounge areas near the CBC room and watching a few famous media pe ople going by. It's about 7:30 now, and time to go catch my shuttle bus to Hakuba, where the downhill venue is. Off I go!
6:30pm - Hino
What a CRAZY day, maaaannnnn I don't believe it. I get to Happoone (in Hakuba) at 8:30, and wander a bit to kill time until Simon arrives. The bus ride up was pretty uneventful - had a small chat with a dude from CBC (the *French* CBC, he was quick to point out) - the bus was very empty since it was just a media bus. Cool.
I meet Simon completely by chance - he had also arrived early (like 7 or something) and also got not a wink of sleep last night. That made for confusing conversation.. hahahaha. We hung around the Coca Cola stand for a half hour or so, waiting for Janus (sp?) another Canadian guy working in Hirooka (U Vic, I believe). We saw lots of excited fans go by - we saw some pretty silly looking Americans going rah-rah for a camera [ed note: sorry, but it's just so much FUN to trash Americans!] Hm. When J anus got there we headed over to the gates, which had suddenly gotten extremely crowded. They were checking everyone's bags. And they were so busy checking my bags in fact, that they forgot to check my ticket!
The spectator area was already pretty packed, and confined to the area around the finish line, which I found a bit strange. We walked up a ways, and proceeded to make seats in the snow for ourselves. The seats were useless of course, because when t he first forerunner came down, everyone stood up..
Yes, so the weather, at 9am, had been sunny and clear, and quite warm (just below freezing) but by 10:15 it had gotten a bit overcast. And once the 3 forerunners had gone down, there was an occasional snowflaks, and they announced that they would be waiting for a few minutes for the weather to clear up.
Man, I was SO set on seeing this event. Hey, it's THE reason I went to Nagano this weekend. But, as the minutes passed, suddenly we found ourselves in a half-blizzard. Still, we waited. We hoped. At moments I thought it would actually get bette r but after an hour and 20 minutes - at a bit before noon - they called it quits. ARHGALDKJASLGKJH!!!!
Fine fine fine, I still had a hockey game to go to, so I would live, though mightly disappointedly. Janus headed back to Hirooka, and Simon and I intended on going back to Nagano by media shuttle bus. So Janus went into the HUGE mass of people wait ing for the spectator buses, and Simon and I went to the people-with-priveleges parking lot.
Yeah priveleges my ass. We waited there for a LONG time. It seemed like NO busses were going to Nagano, in fact, it seemed like no buses were going anywhere at all - we waited for over an hour. Oh, and the weather.. it stopped snowing and blue sky came out - in short, it became the perfect day for a ski race. Not that this added to my bitterness.. oh well. After quite a while, we found out that shuttle buses to Nagano didn't seem to exist at all (ummmm..!?!) but, we could take a shuttle bus to some bus terminal and catch a bus from there. So, we hop on this mini bus with all these skiiers, and start the drive - suddenly it starts to blizzard again - it went from pure sunshine to crazy snow within seconds. Amazing.
So this bus takes us to some bus parking lot place about 5 minutes away. I have never seen so many buses in my life - there were so many, it was incredible. Almost as incredible was that all these buses were empty, and none of them were going to Na gano. None. They were alal going up to the ski hill. I couldn't beleive it because there were literally hundreds of buses - one big traffic jam.
So it was in this "blizzard" that Simon and I set out to find a bus to Nagano. 3 o'clock (some 3 hours later) finds us no closer to our goal than before, although we're much more wet and soggy. But in the meantime we have wandered through the snow (and it was coming down!) talked to many a volunteer and "knowledgeable people", oo, and we found this Coca Cola stands, kinduv, but it was almost an amusement park. They had these tents set up, and a brass band playing Disney music (like "It's a small w orld after all") and everything Coca Cola, actually, it was a pretty neat place. We would've stayed and watched the mens' snowboarding on TV (which, incidentally Canada won) but I still (foolishly) thought I could make it to Nagano for hockey at 4. So, on we trudged.
Next, we actually found the Hakuba bus terminal which did have public buses (ie, not for the purposes of Olympic travel really) to Nagano. But we found out that the huge crowd there had already been waiting for *2.5 HOURS* for a bus, so we gave up o n that. And I gave up thinking I could make it to hockey. *sigh*
That left the train. There's no direct train to Nagano (big mountains in the way) and I would have to go to Matsumoto (near Hirooka) then transfer to Nagano. But if I did this then I would probably miss my 6 o'clock bus (which I'd already paid for) So, I took the train right back to Hino.
What a ride! The train was just PACKED. It stayed that way most of the way - so much for taking a snooze! Oh we met another Canadian on the train so I talked with him for the ride back (Simon got off in Matsumoto). He's a bartender at a bar in Ra ppongi. Nice guy, excpet he seemed a bit, uhhh, condescending. Yeah, that's the word. Well, I can handle condescending.. us geeks get that a lot ;)
And, I got back to my apartment about 40 minutes ago. Luckily Martin and Huayue (who are currently staying at my place) left the key in the mailbox. They should be back at around 9 so I think I'll take a small snooze until then...
Monday February 9, 1998: 6:20pm
So I found out today that they've postponed the mens' alpine event for Wednesday, so I can still go!!! See, Wednesday is a holiday here so I'll take the train up reeeally early to Hakuba and come back in the afternoon. I am so happy! It's the only day this week I could make it too! Now I'm determined to get to the event - well, it shouldn't be postponed again because the weather is supposed to be really nice on Wednesday.
Oh Im on my way to Hachioji to meet Martin. We're going to see Titanic. Yeah I've already seen it, but it's really good plus I missed the first 20 minutes. Should be fun.
Tuesday February 10, 1998: 8pm
Well now I'm mad. Because the weather in Hakuba was so bad today, they postponed the womens' Super G for tomorrow, which means they had to bump the mens' alpine 'til Thursday!! But I talked with Simon and he thought he'd heard that we'd be able to use our tickets for the womens' Super G because of the postponements, so I was gonna go anyway. But then Simon just phoned up to tell me that the Super G doesn't start until 1pm, and that's too late. So I won't be going. Mannnnn and I really wanted to go. Grumblegrumble.
Fine, I'll content myself with watching everything on TV. Actually, I was just watching the mens' 500 metre speed skating event, which Shimizu (a Japanese) won. The first gold medal for Japan, so they're going just crazy. I have seen the rerun at
LEAST 30 times, no joke! Actually, he was racing against Bouchard (a Canadian), so he's getting a lot of coverage here too.. ha ha. Oh it was great though because Canada placed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th!! Awesome eh!! I was sittin' here in my apartment c
heering and stuf. Fun fun!! Well, pairs free figure skating is supposed to be on now, so I'm gonna try to find it.
Wednesday February 11, 1998: 6pm
Ah, what a lazy day. Got up late, turned on the TV to watch some coverage. It seems to be a stunning clear day in Hakuba.. hmph. There were some great events - ski jumping, moguls (I love moguls!! Well, watching it), womens' 3000m speed skating (G ermans got all 3 medals, wow!!), and womens' Super G. Those are the ones I watched, at least. I love it!
And, the only other thing I did was finish The Fifth Business. Great day.
Thursday February 12, 1998: 8:30pm
So the mens' alpine was postponed AGAIN! Of course this time I don't mind, because the longer it's postponed, the more of a chance I have of seeing it! Well, the chance is still very (very) slim - I have to work on Saturday (just because there's lo ts of work to do, it's not an official day), so the only way I could see it were if they postponed until Sunday... doubt they will, but I can hope.
Right now is the mens' figure skating short program, and it's really great. Stojko hasn't gone yet I don't think *I missed the first 5 or so skaters), and I'm looking forward to it.
Oh today I got up at 5. So much for my "plan" of accustomizing my sleep patterns.. today was the first day this week that I got up before 7. hahahaha!!
And it got pretty warm today - so much so that they were calling it the first day of real spring all over the news and stuff - I mean, it got to 14C, and by Saturday it should be over 20C!! Yeah well, we'll see about that.
Friday February 13, 1998: 5:20am
Hey Blue phoned last night! Actually I think she phoned twice but I was so disoriented the first time (I had been asleep) that I couldn't think straight enough to pick up the phone. Anyway it was great to talk to her, and she told me some Waterloo
news, and Canada stuff. What a nice thing, to phone! Makes up for it being Friday and knowing I have to work tomorrow..
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