MatthewMeyer.net

So as you know, my holiday week included a brief stint in the US. After my last day of work, Hitomi and I drove Pichan to Yumi’s house in Fukui to drop him off, drove back home and packed, then slept for about 2 hours before catching the earliest train to the Osaka airport. The airport was beautiful, but unfortunately the airline staff was pretty bad. (Note to self: never fly Northwest again.) Like at USJ, they spoke to me only in Japanese and to Hitomi only in English… only there were no smiles, the speed was much faster, and the tone was icy cold. Plus the ticket woman told us Hitomi’s name wasn’t on the eticket reservation, even though it was very clearly written in capital letters. Luckily, it didn’t turn into a big problem.

The flight was pure hell. The seats were extra extra small and I was so cramped. I had expected that, of course, but on this particular plane there were no TV’s, and thus no in-flight entertainment. It was a 14 hour long trip through hell with nothing to look at but the back of a dirty Northwest Airlines chair. The plane crew was also very disorganized and rude (not to me, but to the other passengers — particularly the Japanese who didn’t speak English). I tried so hard to sleep, but my shoulders and neck got so sore that I was writhing in pain for the whole trip. And thats why I caught a cold which lasted for the whole week. :’(

After that, our luggage was delayed for an hour and came out on the wrong belt, then our transfer was delayed another hour, and then we flew in circles over Philly for yet another hour on our transfer flight waiting for landing clearance. And all the time I *really* had to pee, but I was told the toilet was reserved for the first class passengers. Gah! Northwest!

Home was great though. We celebrate my birthday the first night, and I got some awesome presents including a voice changing mask that kept us all entertained for the whole week (unfortunately I didn’t have room in my suitcase to take it back to Japan).

Erik wears the mask

The next day we celebrated Christmas just like when we were kids — donuts and presents and the atrocious Barnyard Christmas CD. And all the Meyer men got LED headbands that are oh-so-cool!

Lights on!

My birdies! It was so great to see them again!

Despite me having a fever, we did manage to get out into Philly once during the week. It was really nice to show Hitomi some of the big sights of the city, as well as the subjects of some of my paintings. But it was cold as a witch’s teat and we soon got pretty numb. Gadzooks!

Yay Philadelphia!

Another nice treat was getting to meet up with the JASGP again. We met Kazumi, Sam, Kaori, and Masako for lunch at the Palm and caught up. It was really nostalgic to see everyone and the office again, and I’m really happy we got to meet up, even though it was only for a couple of hours.

Sam, me, and Kazumi

For most of the vacation, though, we stayed indoors and played with Erik, Anna, and Lydia. We played a few games with my parents too, and talked quite a bit. Hitomi did lots of exploring the house as well.

Hitomi found the attic!

We also impressed Hitomi with the size of American supermarkets

The "Japanese corner" at Wegmans... probably the biggest selection in South Jersey

"American-size" mugs at Wal-Mart

It was a really nice holiday, even though it was really expensive to fly and really short. We didn’t even have 6 full days, but it was the first trip home in a year and a half, and 2 years since I had seen Lydia, so I was happy we got to go.

In about 12 hours I will be at the airport, checking my bags in and sleep-walking to the terminal. I’m reminded of the last time I went to Japan, I was in a lonely little terminal in the back of the airport, and I fell asleep, only to be awoken at the last call for boarding my plane. That was kind of scary… so let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.

I’ve sent a letter to my host parents in Kanazawa (finally) and a letter to my branch in Fukui. I’m really excited, but now I’ve got the last-minute-did-I-pack-everything-I-need” jitters. Tonight I’ll be eating my last cheesesteak/hoagie/pizza/taco — whichever I decide upon — in a long time. Wow… I’m gonna miss a lot of things. D&D, American junk food, lounging around and watching DVD’s, LAN parties, wargaming, not to mention being able to speak. Friends too, of course, and my birdies!

The craziest thing is that this is something that I’ve been determined to do for so many years now… since mid-high school when I first picked up a Japanese language book and though, “Hey, this language is really interesting, and actually possible to learn!” Now here I am, 8 years later, actually doing it. 8 years — that’s 1/3 of my life — has been spent waiting for this, and now I’m about to go do it.

What’s left to do today? Panic a little more about packing, dinner with my family, one last card game with my D&D friends, some quality time with my birds, and then maybe finish watching Evangelion! Next time I write here, I will be on the other side of the planet, and a day ahead of the rest of you.

I’m off!

It’s hard to believe it, but one week from now I will be in the air over San Francisco on my way to Japan. I had my final day at the JASGP on Tuesday, and then we went out to dinner afterwards at Raw in Philly — very good, but also very expensive. Luckily it’s also very filling. Saying goodbye is always hard, but it doesn’t feel like a permanent goodbye. In fact, everyone in the JASGP is going to Japan next week for different reasons, so we’ll all be fairly close to each other while we’re over there.

The 4th of July was fun… I didn’t really do anything patriotic; just ate and drank, played board games, and watched a Lord of the Rings marathon. That’s a good holiday activity.

Yesterday I went out to Raw again with different people and we had some of Raw’s sake. Wow!! It’s really, really expensive but it was amazingly good!

Today I’m forcing myself to take inventory of all my things I’ll be taking so I can make sure I’m not missing anything. It’s almost like this is such a big move that I hardly know how to prepare for it!

Well that’s about all I can write for now. I’ve promised everyone that I will update this much more regularly in Japan (which should be easy, since my “ordinary life” will be much more interesting while living in another country). For now, I’d better get to work!

Today marks just 3 weeks until I’ll be in Japan. It’s starting to feel… real I guess. I went to my last Conversation Club on Thursday, and I’m making dates to see my friends for the last time soon. Wow. I guess it still doesn’t feel quite real. More like surreal. Actually, it feels a lot like the movie “Paprika,” which I just watched (and very highly recommend, btw).

I guess that’s a pretty weird comparison, but I’m in one of those weird moods lately. I have one week of work left at a job that I love, and I’m leaving my high school friends plus a lot of really cool new friends and coworkers who I’ve only just started to get to know. I’m still not very good at Japanese, but after spending a year and a half practicing with Emiko as well as meeting a Japanese family in Collingswood, and all of the other Japanese people I’ve met through work — conversation club, various events, and Shinnyo-en — I feel a lot less shy about it than I used to. It’s like I’m leaving just as some really nice relationships are forming. (At the same time, I’m looking forward to re-visiting Kanazawa and Yasuko, my host parents, my friends who live in Tokyo but studied in Philly last year, and a family from Philly who I know through the JASGP who were just transferred to Fukui!)

My job for the past month has been training Kaori, our former intern and now part-time employee and replacement me, and Sam to take over my jobs. Preparing for that means that I’ve had to spend a lot of time reflecting on exactly what I do at the JASGP, and I’m really going to miss doing it. I had a lot of freedom, and I really enjoyed what I was doing; I felt like I was able to help a community out, even if it was really only a tiny bit. On top of that, this weekend was the annual meeting for the National Association of Japan America Societies, held in Philly this year. I actually didn’t have much to do for it, since I won’t be around after next week (I guess I’ve become a “lame duck” assistant…), but being there and meeting folks who do the same thing as we do in other cities really felt cool. Actually, it felt cool on one hand, but sad on the other, since I was really only watching from the sidelines rather than participating deeply. Even though I’m excited to go to Japan, I’m not excited to leave. I want to stay and help the JASGP, especially since lately we’ve been branching out so much more — planning brand new events like the PhilaCon, Autumn Leaf Viewing, Horror Film Fest, Beer Garden, and karaoke parties, as well as expanding the website even further (we just set jasgp.org/forum live). Sam asked me the other night about what I want to do in my future… and I always have trouble delivering a straight answer. I guess I’m one of those people who literally wants to do and to be everything. I have so many dreams that if I could split myself into ten Matts, each one of me would still be bursting with ambition. I can easily say though that one strong hope of mine is that when I return from Japan, I’ll be able to bring more energy and inspiration to the JASGP.

Damn I am corny.

Today marks my reverse one-month anniversary in the US. That is to say… exactly one month until I will be in Japan! My flight leaves early on July 13, so by this time in one month, I will have landed in Nagoya (and miraculously, it will be tomorrow instead of today, thanks to the international dateline).

I’m really excited… I’ve got my suits, today I went to the dentist to get a cleaning (only one small cavity), gonna get a final haircut soon… just about everything I do these days is the last time I will do it in the US for a long time… which really doesn’t have any special significance, of course, but it’s fun to say.

30 days… This is the last time I will get to write a blog post 30 days before I move to Fukui… ^_^v

Thanks to everyone who came by the May Fair to see me! The sun was bright and the heat was sweltering (and me without a tent!) but it was a fun event anyway. Turnout was high, and I was able to sell quite a few paintings, so it was a much better event than last year’s. I just hope my skin doesn’t peel off… my arms and knees got pretty badly scorched from sitting under the sun for 9 hours.

I’m sure a lot of people will be coming to my website for the first time after picking up my postcard or business card at the May Fair, so thanks for visiting! A few people have asked me if I have more paintings available since the fair, and the answer is yes, I do. I have a number of prints of “Flying Cherry Blossoms at City Hall” available, and just a handful of “Cherry Blossoms on the Schuylkill River” left, and you can buy them either from my web store or from The Japan America Society. Prints of Chickens of the World are also available on my web store.

I made a promise to fans of my work to do at least 1 more Japanese print before I move to Japan… and it’s in the works. This one is a night view of City Hall and I should have it done by mid-June. If I’m feeling extra fast, I may be able to do two more before I leave — but in any case, I will post an update here on my blog when I have new art.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by my booth, everyone! It was great to see so many familiar faces and so many new ones. Seeing the smiles on peoples’ faces when they walk past my chickens is the biggest inspiration to make more artwork. みんなーさん、ありがとうございました！

It was 3 years ago last week that I went to Japan for the first time (I’m enjoying looking back at my blog and re-reading what I was doing that month). At the same time, I’ve started counting down days until I start my job at AEON in Fukui. Today, there are exactly 2 months until I leave for Japan. I’m really excited, but I’m starting to get a little nervous finally… Yesterday was the Nihongo PhilaCon language competition at Villanova, and while I wasn’t a contestant, I was helping run it. I was listening in on the language contest (and feeling very nostalgic for Latin Certamen and Knowledge Bowl in high school) to see how well my self-taught level compared to level 1 and 2 high school students. I was pretty happy, but out in the hallway one of my coworkers, Kaori, made me aware of the limit of my knowledge… I know some basic stuff in lots of categories, but I’m severely lacking in-depth vocabulary. She quizzed me on basic vegetables, and to my embarrassment I hardly knew any! I’m now beginning to realize that it will be a lot more difficult living on my own in Japan than it was living with a host family… ^^” I’m really excited, despite that.

The Mayfair is coming up, and I’ll be selling my paintings at a very reduced price in hopes to burn off some stock before I move to Japan (any prospective buyers reading this? ;-P). I’ve been playing lots of Warhammer lately, building and painting plastic models, and I’ve begun to realize that’s been eating up all of my painting time and desire, and I haven’t done much drawing or painting recently… That’s really upsetting because I wanted to have a little more to show at the Mayfair. I suppose it may be for the better anyway, because I wouldn’t want to print up even more images only to not sell them (knock on wood) at the Mayfair. But I’ve got to keep in mind that painting toys is fun, but not so much productive. >_< Anyway, the Mayfair is at the end of the month, so once again I’ll be sitting at my crappy little stand, unfurnished because I can’t afford to, hoping to sell enough to pay for the spot!