Japan in Thirty Days

Thursday - Week 3

04 Nov 2010 1 Comment

by bjoelle in Brianne/ブリアンヌ

Windy did a great post about our group activities with photos, like calligraphy and visiting an enormous white Buddhist shrine on the hillside. I liked calligraphy the best. Making ink from the ink stone was relaxing and learning new characters was fun. I actually left the group slightly early in the afternoon from a tea break that was a fancy location for tea, but almost a do-your-own-ceremony.

So off I went with Yamaguchi-san from Gontenba city. I thought we lived close but our home is in Numazu, and we drove a long time. I know this because I was passed out in the back seat immediately and woke up as if I’d been asleep all night. We were going to Namazu’s Central Dispatch Center!!

This was for their 1-1-9 center, a medical and fire dispatch operation. This area is NEVER seen by the public, but the chief from the last station physically walked us in. I kept hearing: “Special Permission.” Normally, Dispatch is seen from the elevator (almost like seeing our Dispatch center from our elevator, which is not at all). We went through some doors and into the office portion which is staffed 8-5, where you removed shoes and put on slippers like in a home. From there I was allowed no further, but could stand at the windows and observe the dispatchers working and could ask questions during the brief interview I was given. Their computer system was immense!

I was most impressed by the fact that they are constantly training. If the phones aren’t ringing, the computer runs training simulations. Oh! And they work 24-hour shifts!!! Anyway, much of the details were lost in translation. Me: English Boss: Japanese. But Yamaguchi helped where he could and I took notes. At home later, with the help of the computer translator, Yamaguchi filled in all the missing details for me. He said that dispatchers there are over 40 years old, and almost always men. Yamaguchi said when I walked in, it created a huge reaction. Outside the station, the Boss introduced me to the firefighters climbing up and repelling off the training tower. He said the reaction was just as strong, and I noticed them dropping the ropes and bowing. It is so funny the way he tells the story!!!

The family took me out to eat, and thankfully, we dropped karaoke and onsen from the schedule. They drove us all the way back to Gotemba to a huge brewery and restaurant. We went one week before they put up the “largest Christmas decoration display in Japan”. I thought I picked out my own pasta dish, but it was family style and we had all manners of food on the table in no time: roast beef, my pasta with mushrooms and fish eggs, mussels, escargot, half rack of ribs, potato salad, Japanese dumplings, hot pie (which is like a chicken pot pie but with seafood)… It’s no wonder I had a tummy ache afterwards. Yamaguchi-san remarked that he was starting to understand my English! And we had a great time telling stories, with minimal use of the dictionary. We talked about our families, Carl, the trip to dispatch, politics (believe it or not), his feelings about China, and were even making jokes at the end: calling Yamaguchi-san Charlie Brown because of his solo puff of curly hair like Charlie’s. We were laughing so hard. It felt great. Airi, Ikuma and I raced back to the van (Gotemba is COLD!) and laughed the whole way. At home we looked at Google Earth photos of my house and my parents’ house where we saw my car parked across the street!! They took a lonnnnng family video of us talking and playing with crazy Moka, while Airi and I filled out pages for her ‘Friends book’, where I answered questions like what my favorite music, best talent and biggest dreams are on hot pink paper and drew pictures for her as well. Good times!