Nachos & Wild Boar

I wonder if this is how it always works. Right when things start to get going, you end up leaving. I'm finally hanging out more with my teachers... right as I leave! Why couldn't this have happened sooner?! Also this year's first year JETs are pretty awesome (as are the friends I've made in my year); why am I leaving when they're just coming? Yar.

note: not drawn to scale (probably)

Monday night though, one of the teachers came over to my place for a little culinary cultural exchange. She brought me inoshishi, or wild boar, which is something of a local specialty? Or if not a local specialty, it's really common around this area because there are hoards (herds?) of wild boar that live in the mountains. I'm told by some of the other ALTs who drive in this area that seeing them (dead) on the road is a fairly common enough sight. I've yet to actually see one in real life (though it's probably for the better, since I've heard they're fairly dangerous - see picture hahaha). 

still probably not to scale, but who knows.

Really though, I've heard their tusks can do some pretty serious damage. That's actually one of the things they hunt up in the mountains, so whenever I hear gunshots, I generally assume that they're trying to shoot a wild boar (rather than a monkey or something.) I've also heard that they're kind of pests out in the countryside (which is where I am). They get into gardens and crops, rice fields, and other places humans don't want them (mostly everywhere - poor boars). If you need an example of how dangerous they can be, I suggest watching Princess Mononoke. Those boars can do some serious damage. Plus it's the boars who decide to retaliate, and the boars who are demon-posessed and yeaaaaah. Yeah. 

Lookit how freaking cute the baby ones are!
Oh. Em. Gee.

So they get hunted, and in Niimi, my Tuesday/Friday city, they're something of a local specialty (also apparently among the locals here too? For my teacher anyways.) I had wild boar ramen from an instant box package, but never like... fresh? When I told this to my teacher, she decided to take it upon herself to show me; we decided that she would come over and cook some wild boar for me, since apparently she has some from somewhere and it was pretty cheap, whereas going to a restaurant would probably be on the pricey side. It also meant that I got to try a more home cooked version of the wild boar, since apparently my teacher eats it frequently enough with her parents for her mother to not like the taste of it! 

I have no idea where my teacher ever got it though! I've never seen this in the grocery store (maybe I'm not looking hard enough). Or the butcher's. Maybe from a farmer who had to kill one? I'm not really sure. But she came with some pre-seasoned (and with onions) so we cooked some of that up so I could have *fresh* inoshishi. 

It actually wasn't bad. I can't describe the flavor beyond "well, it doesn't taste like beef or pork... but it tastes like... meat." It was kinda chewy though. She said that some people think it's smelly? I could get used to eating that though. It really wasn't bad, and worked pretty well over rice.

In exchange, I made "American"-ish food for her. I made nachos! They're kinda Mexican-American, yeah? Or Tex Mex. Personally, they were kinda crappy nachos since I had to use the cheesy kind of Doritos (I'm a tortilla chip purist hahaha) and the meh kind of Japanese cheese that goes from deliciously gooey cheese to solid plastic cheese in about one minute away from a heat source, microwaved it instead of baking it in the oven (oven gives it that amazing color, but I only have a tiny toaster oven and I never make "only a little bit" of nachos) and Japanese sour cream (which I suppose is better than NO sour cream) that's also kind of... solid. I did make guacamole for her (she said I was the first person she knew whom actually bought avocados at the grocery store) and added some left over jalapenos and hot sauce I needed to get rid of. The guacamole, honestly, on its own is pretty good, and apparently enough to convince people that I'm good at cooking (ahahaha. Though to be fair to myself, a Mexican-American chick gave it the green light, which, somehow validates it as being pretty damn tasty).

Score another win for (home made) nachos in Japan. 

We also talked about the state of marriage currently in Japan, and about how single ladies will often try to emphasize the fact that Oh Man, Do They Love Cooking when trying to net a man. She actually told me that while she does enjoy cooking, she generally avoids mentioning it so that it doesn't look like she's trying to find a man! I found this fascinating. Also, apparently, guys here look for that in a girl; how well she can cook, and whether or not she likes to. The uh, gossip around one of my schools is that one of the teachers does precisely that to try and appeal to men. She also said that they often look at the kind of bentos single ladies bring to school or company or whatever, since a homemade bento (versus a storebought one) indicates one's skill in the culinary domain. Cute bentos = likes cooking. Oh Japan. Personally, I think cute bentos = loads of time on your hands. 

My teacher explained though, that this was part of konkatsu, which means Stuff You Do When You're Looking For a Man/Marriage Partner. So you do things like make your lunchbox every day - yourself - to show the world that Yes You Do Love Cooking because Wow Doesn't That Make Me Look Like Perfect Wife Material. My teacher also claims that she can tell when a girl makes a bento, and when her mother makes the bento. Japanese women also will go to dating events/speed dating setups, or will go to parties in hopes that they will meet Mr. Stable Job And Marriage Prospect. They try to act cuter around guys (since apparently, guys dig that kind of thing here or something). There are dating websites.

Interestingly as well, they also have dating services that will help match people up, a lot like those websites, except with a lot more help. She said you submit your profile and they help match you with someone else. Then, they help you arrange for the first date, and chaperone the two of you for about half an hour before leaving you on your own. Apparently some people she knows met like that? 

Given the context of what women do in Japanese society (don't ask, I'm not sure) and the kinds of roles they fill and the opportunities they have to meet people, I guess this kind of service makes some sense. 

Something else she told me that was pretty interesting, is that here in the countryside at least, men who work at schools are way more attractive (though I'm not sure how much of that was projecting...) because they have stable jobs and can take a little more vacation than your average salary men. On the flip side though... women who are teachers are considered to be too clever and smart, leaving many female teachers as single ladies.

On a different, more food related note, I also managed to make chili in my rice cooker, since I lack a proper slow cooker. Who would have thought! I mean, I've made stuff like meat before in my rice cooker, and I made a stew with it before, but oh man, the chili actually turned out pretty good, and didn't require too many extra things that I didn't have. Actually, I had a bunch of chili powder I had brought with me back from the US, along with some uhhhh I forget the name, something- arbol de molido that basically was like holycow spicy. Really freakin' tasty though. So tasty that I can't believe I didn't make it sooner. Once you get the prepwork out of the way as well, it's a pretty easy recipe.

The only downside is that you can't use your rice cooker while you're cooking the chili, making things like prepping rice for chili and rice, something of a problem. I almost considered buying two, hahaha. #asianworldproblems

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter is one of those things in Japan that's been slightly commercialized, but otherwise not really celebrated or recognized beyond candy sales at the import stores, a mention or two in intercultural exchange classes and English clubs, and possibly decorations in some restaurants featuring specials or sales.

I suppose the churches do something special here too.

However, there is one place I completely didn't expect, that celebrated Easter (the bunny part of it) in full force.

Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea.

But wait - you might be wondering - Easter was in April? Why on earth am I talking about it now? 

Because, when I went with my friends last weekend to the parks for one last hurrah kind of trip, Easter practically shoved itself down our throats the minute we walked up to the park.

It's supposed to be like that until the end of June. Holy. Cow. In addition to making a lot of things kind of.... uglier (in my opinion anyways, with EASTER 2012 all over everything), they also had parades and shows themed around this Easter celebration. Entire areas were transformed so that shows about Easter could happen in Disney Sea.

It was even worse in Disneyland.

There were these huge statues/models of bunny rabbits (really cute ones actually) in the center of the park and scattered all around. A lot of the souvenirs had some kind of "easter 2012" thing on it, including these oddly shaped Mickey and Minnie egg things. They actually had popcorn buckets as well that were shaped like that (those were actually kinda cute). All around the park, as well, we kept noticing Disney characters that were shaped like eggs, and other small little Disney eggs

Most of them were actually really cute...

We thought it was cute, but that it was just the decoration kinda for the park. So we went through most of the day not thinking too much more of it other than stopping to take pictures of them.

Oh man, were we so wrong about them being simple decorations.

There had been people around checking maps and stuff, but I thought they were just park maps. Oh no. They were special maps.

Disney actually was doing this brilliant Easter event. Massive egg hunt. All around the Disney park.

Oh. My. God.

I didn't find this out until later, when I was talking to one of the cast members, asking what these two little shack things were since I was too lazy to go over to them. I think I asked him something else too, but clearly egg hunt information trumps all memory space of the other question. He told me that they were egg hunts, and that there were two courses: Standard, featuring 15 of the character eggs "hidden" around the park, and then Expert... with... more. I forget how many. But they were smaller eggs that were in places that were a lot harder to notice.

For the Standard course, you were given five stickers of characters that you had to place on the map. The maps had blank spaces for general locations of where the eggs were, so you could use the maps and blank spaces to make pretty good educated guesses as to where certain eggs were located. The expert course, I'm not sure how many you were given, but they gave you small little thumbnail picture of the general location, and you had to put the egg sticker on the appropriate thumbnail. I don't think you had a map to tell you where in the park the thumbnail was though.

That sounds so amazing.

Sadly, I did not discover this amazingness until about 3:50. Our group had finished up most of the things we wanted to do (and had time for); people were going to shop around for souvenirs, since we had plans to leave the park around 4:20ish, which my friends reminded me.

The egg hunt was not in the plan. At all. And I only had about half an hour to run around the park to collect them. Plus the maps themselves were either 500 yen for the Standard course, or 1000 yen for the expert. BUT, we had been taking pictures of the eggs we had found (and we had found a lot), so when the cast member mentioned that we only had to find five eggs, I was like PFT, STANDARD COURSE NO PROBLEM. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I mean come on. It's the chance to run around the Disney park hunting for stuff. A giant Disney treasure hunt. That's been pretty high on my list of "Things that would be so freaking awesome to do" list, right up there with things like tag in Disneyland and a race through Disneyland. So like, this kinda checked off the race thing too, since I was racing... against time.

 When I got the map, I was like "Oh, no problem, this is totally doable."

Best. Egg Hunt. Ever.

Then I looked at which stickers I had been given, and realized that this probably was not going to be as easy as I originally thought. I mean, I thought we had seen most of the eggs, and that getting the prize for this would be as simple as looking through my pictures, then putting the stickers on the map and making my way to tomorrow land.

At first, it seemed like that would be the case. That Lightning McQueen egg? Yeah, was pretty sure the moment I got it that it was going to be next to Autotopia. Brier Rabbit? Yeah, he was next to Splash mountain. We had just come from Toon Town, so I was able to check off Pluto pretty easy, which left Donald Duck and Lady.

Donald was wearing Western getup, so clearly that meant somewhere near Big Thunder. I hadn't actually seen this egg though, and there were three spots in the Western Area, so I figured I'd go over just to doublecheck (though, apparently if I had used my head and camera a little more I would have been able to remember that one of them was Woody and Jessie, and the other spot had the bears from Country Bear Jamboree, so obviously the one left over was Donald. But I kinda wanted to see it with my own eyes, so I ran over there and started hunting around. One of the cast members around there saw me running around and looking at the map and asked me what I was looking for, and I told him I thought it was around here.

The man went, "Hmmmm...." and looked around, then smiled and told me 「ここから、見える。」 or "From here I can see it." I was like "EHHHHHH" and thanked him before looking around again until I finally found it tucked away amongst the cacti and brambles.

This left Lady, whom I hadn't seen at all. Looking at the map, I figured Fantasyland would be one of the places she might be in. Italian...? Hm. But I was also pretty sure that the three eggs there were Alice in Wonderland, the dolls from Small World, and (I remembered this when I got there) Pinocchio and Jimney Cricket. So that was out. Definitely wasn't in Tomorrowland. So I went back to Adventureland and ran around to the spots there trying to find this Lady easter egg.

I actually finally found it a little bit closer to New Orleans Square. It was, among all of them, the most well-hidden I think, since it was sitting in a small planter with a Tramp easter egg, eating spaghetti.

So freaking cute. I'm so glad I found that one.

It was in an area in between the lands that we had never actually used, close to a stage with Disney New Orleans shows. On the map, there were actually two of them really close to each other, and I had forgotten that there was a pirate Goofy near Pirates of the Caribbean, also in New Orleans. It was like Oh noooooo and I kind of worked with another couple to place my last sticker, before sprinting over to the prize area with about ten minutes to spare.

I hadn't accounted for standing in line, but I made it. :D

The prize for finding everything in the correct spot was that you got to choose one of five packaged eggs. Inside the identical packages was an Easter egg, containing one of four known eggs (or maybe the mystery egg!). Makes it worth the 500 yen, definitely.

But honestly, I'd totally pay for the 1000 yen one, or the 500 yen map if it gives me an excuse to run all over the Disney park going on a treasure hunt. Sign me up any day. :D

Runny eggs, my nemesis

Sunny side ups.

Bane of my culinary existence.

I made breakfast potatoes for dinner; I had a lot of potatoes I needed to get rid of, and I love having breakfast for dinner sometimes. I mean, I love breakfast. The large, lazy Sunday morning type where you have the time (and energy) to chop up potatoes and make some nice eggs and stuff, maybe some bacon to go with.

Eggs, hidden by the potatoes so you can't see the failure.

Japan seems to not really dig these kinds of breakfasts. Most places I go either a) Don't have breakfast or b) Have a "morning set" that comes with toast, a salad, and like, coffee or tea. Maybe some places will have egg salad with that or a sausage or something. But I don't really see eggs and toast for breakfast (otherwise I'd be more inclined to eat out for breakfast!). So it's nice to sometimes make it at home, whether for breakfast or dinner or whatever. Eggs in a basket are my default "oh hm, I need to finish these eggs and/or this bread" go to egg meal.

My default egg-for-breakfast is the scrambled egg, mostly because it's really easy to make, despite creating another dish to clean. Plus they're pretty tasty.

However, I do really like a runny yolk kind of egg, and there's something... happy, about sunny-side ups. They also go quite well with bread.

The problem is I can't make them to save my life. Or anything with a runny yolk for that matter (save the eggs in a basket). Mine always end up too overcooked, or the egg whites aren't cooked enough. I've tried reading about it online and watching videos.

Tonight, I tried to make it by steaming it at first. I don't think I was supposed to add water though. Oops. For some reason, in my head steaming = presence of water. My eggs ended up kind of... soppy and wet. Dripping, even. It was kind of... not so great. Plus the insides were partially cooked, so the bottom part was that pastely kind of yellow that's not so tasty. Sigh. The time I tried to make it before this, the insides ended up thoroughly cooked. Oops.

The second attempt tonight involved trying to baste the egg in oil, or, as the video recommended, butter, nearly browned (oh man, does that smell ridiculously good). It still turned out partially cooked inside though. I think I'm cooking them for too long? It doesn't seem like it's that long... it feels like it's cooking for a minute and then BAM slightly solid insides BAM BAM fully cooked yellow yolk. Ugh.
The basted egg method though... yeah, I was planning on experimenting all tonight with making runny eggs, but after that last one - cooked in butter - my arteries pleaded no more. Right, that's one method I'm not trying again (at least, not with butter. Maybe canola oil or something less fatty).

Tomorrow, I'm actually going to have breakfast! At least, that's the plan.

And if I fail again, there's always breakfast potatoes to make everything better.

Do you remember...?

Generally, I look upon not having classes as a kind of holiday almost, since it frees up the better part of my day to do things like... sit at my desk... study Japanese... and wander around talking to students occasionally. I mean, it's a mixed blessing, since it often means I'm sitting for most of the day, don't have any club activities, and stand a good chance at being bored unless I can find something to do (and even then!)

I had only one class today, since the second years are on their class trip and my single first year class today was cancelled because another teacher wanted that spot, and since the other first years weren't having Oral Communication (my class!) my team teaching partner decided to keep it even. (I'm so jealous of Japanese school kids! A class trip sounds like so much fun. We didn't really do much as a class except for during senior year. Senior picnic at water world, and then grad night locked in the bowling alley together. I don't count the individual honors class trips we took to DC and Oregon, though those were amazingly fun. But I mean seriously, these kids get the chance to go to Tokyo or Hokkaido together for a week or something. Super. Jealous.)

I don't know how I ended up leaving work at SEVEN O'CLOCK. My normal working hours are until 4 o'clock! What's wrong with me?! This isn't even a singular special event. I often find myself at school (especially my base school) far longer than my technical working hours, whether or not I have club activities.

I missed having OC though. This year's group of first years at my base school are super fun! They have a lot of energy, and they're good kids. :)

Last week, as a reward (kinda) my team teaching partner and I decided that while they're working on making their menus (the unit we're on is restaurants! Ohohoho.) we could play some music to make it a little bit more enjoyable.

Little did we know what we were getting into...

Unfortunately, we only had my small iPad speakers to go off of, but oh man! I love the boys in my last class. I asked them what they liked. They said Lady Gaga. They asked me if I had telephone, and I said unfortunately no (fail at pop culture, self) but that I did have other songs, so we started with that. We played Born This Way and had a grand old time of it. The boys in the front started dancing, bless them. It was pretty awesome. They sang along too, and we had a fun little talk about what the words meant (since they asked, and I was more than happy to oblige). When Lady Gaga finished, I put on some Michael Jackson (they asked for We Are the World, which I also don't actually have, another failure on my part) so I played The Way You Make Me Feel, and then after that they asked if I could play Thriller (which they danced to).

The best part though, is that I had gone back to change songs to play a little bit of Earth Wind and Fire, since I swear Japan is full of stuff like the Carpenters and the Beatles, who are probably okay (I don't think I've listened to the Carpenters outside of Japanese classrooms though) but I mean like... very little soul, R&B, or funk or those kinds of music. Plus two weekends ago when I went to Kibichuo (which was awesome. I should really write about that sometime), we woke up with a song since for some reason September was in everyone's heads and hearts, so while we were making breakfast we played September on repeat and just sang and danced our way through breakfast. It was beautiful. Oh, but I digress. I put on September, thinking they probably wouldn't know it (since I had asked them if they knew Earth Wind and Fire, and they replied negative).

They totally knew September.

Well enough to kind of sing/hum their way through the whole song, while also dancing along.

Best. Class. Ever. I love these kids! They're so much fun. I'm going to be ridiculously sad when I have my last class with them. I'm already sad that I didn't have class with them this week!

Hello there rainy season and bugs

Ahh, things have gotten so busy as of late! Where does the time end up going? I suspect those boring moments in life steal them away from the more interesting ones.

I have a plane ticket back, though one slightly different than the one they approved me for. I suppose that's the problem with allowing us the freedom to choose our own flights and dates and times; we need to get it approved by a whole slew of people, taking something that's better done with a couple phone calls and making it more difficult. First we need to give the proposed flight quote to our supervisors. Then, it moves up the chain to the vice principal, and then the principal (at least that's how it works at my school). Then it gets faxed or mailed to our Board of Education - in my case, the prefectural office. Then they approve it, and fax it back. Then we're supposed to buy our tickets. But it needs to wait on at least four people - four people who are generally pretty busy.

Yet somehow, when we faxed the paper to the board of education in the morning, by the evening the flight on kayak.com was no more. thankfully though, I was able to find A similar flight - the same times even, on the same airline for the first leg - for just a little more money. Sooo I bought it, and I'm really hoping the board of education will say alright since it's only a little more expensive. Pain though, to use my American credit card when I'm getting paid in yen. It means I have to transfer more things, which honestly, I think is a huge pain in the rear.

It's why I haven't really sent money home other than physically bringing it back and selling it to people in the states who want yen.

On a completely different note, it's gotten disgustingly hot and humid. I've already turned on my air conditioner. As far as I'm concerned, summer officially started when they turned on the AC in The train and stopped automatically opening the doors at all the stops. Yet still, there are days - like today - where for one reason or another it's just really freaking COLD and it throws me off because I have no idea what to wear ahaha.

Humid, (and the occasional rain) means also that the bugs have returned in full force. It's kind of disgusting. You can't ride a bike anywhere without getting pegged by a couple bugs. Bugs up the nose, in the mouth (despite trying to ride with my mouth closed), in the eye (despite my small eyes lol). Ugh. But worse... is that the bugs have invaded my house!

They're also pretty fast. D:

Last week I had not one, but TWO centipede visitors.

One of them was this bug, called 'gejigeji' in Japanese. They're generally 'good' bugs since they eat other bugs and don't really bite or sting. Their name in English is "House Centipede." They're kinda non-aggro hahaha.

The other one...

I had another mukade in my house. D:　Longer body, black color, a little on the skinny side, and shorter legs. Yuuuuuck. Seriously, I was looking for pictures, but then I stopped because it felt like I was somehow going to summon another one just by trying to look for pictures of it.

I looked over and saw something moving out the corner of my eye, and it turned out a mukade had decided to crawl into my backpack. Nearly grabbed a lighter to burn it, but that would have destroyed my house maybe. Boiling water was not an option either, because I had electronics in my backpack.

Thankfully, I still had some of the kill-by-freezing bug spray that goes down to like. -82C I think? Sorry, -85C, or -121F. It took about a minute of panicked hyperventilating and spraying nearly the whole can for it to stop moving. Still in my backpack. Right up against the lip of the bag too.

Removing it... yeah. So you know that non-harmful one earlier? It was in my bathroom while I was taking a shower. I waited for my friend to come over to my house, and she helped me kill it by drowning, and then did what I couldn't; removed it with disposable chopsticks. Bless the woman, she also removed the dead bee that's been sitting on my window sill for a good month or so.

So yeah. Removing it was a challenge. I thought about vacuuming it up, but the irrational fear part of me was like, "WHAT IF IT'S STILL ALIVE? WHAT IF IT'S JUST IN A CYROGENESIS KIND OF SLEEP WHERE IT'S BODY IS HIBERNATING?" also the reason why I was like, nooo picking it up with chopsticks.

Eventually, after much shaking with my Mt. Fuji walking stick (nice and long) it kinda came to the edge of my bag, and I grabbed a broom and kind of swept it into the dust pan, put on my shoes, went outside, and hurled that thing far away from my house. Retrospect says I should have dumped it in the river.

I suppose I'm getting better at killing bugs, even if I still scream at them. Even then, I think that's gotten a bit better now too. I don't scream as loud... sometimes. I still hate being surprised, so when I'm surprised by a bug in close proximity to my person, I'll still jump and scream. But like, it's better than before, I suppose.

Yesterday at school, I had an interesting conversation with the teachers at one of my school, how there were a tooon of words to talk about rain. And that rainy season was finally here, with yesterday being the first good rain. It actually dropped the temperature by a good... 8-10 degrees Celsius. Which is a big difference, something I keep forgetting. 19 is a bit on the chilly side, especially if you don't bring a jacket! Not just any jacket though, because it was still humid, so the rain jacket I brought with me stuck and clung and made me feel kinda gross.

I did make a soup last night. Chunky and creamy tomato potato soup. Nom. Relatively healthy too, I think, in addition to being really filling! And when you add a little bit of feta cheese... ah, heaven. I think this is why I love the autumn and cool weather, and I don't mind winter too much. Soups. Hot foods.

That being said though, I love cold foods too hahaha. Actually, I bought some zaru soba (I think that's the cold stuff? Maybe? Ha! I don't actually eat it that often... maybe this is my second time) that's matcha flavored, so I'm excited for that.

Mmhm, yes, ah I see

One thing you notice when you listen to Japanese people speak in Japanese is that there are lots of verbal nods - words like uh-huh, mm-Hm, oh really, I see - that indicate to the other person you're listening and paying attention. Perhaps it's due to fact that as a beginner at the language, these oft repeated words catch our attention more often and we come to recognize them. However, Japanese people, I've noticed, will do this in English as well (and it's not just the women).

Today I had a conversation with one of the JTEs at my school. I was explaining why I had made edits and changes and stuff to the thing I had been asked to correct. He nodded, said uh-huh and "Ah I see" and generally sounded like he understood all of what I said until we reached the end. He was sorry, he said, but he didn't understand my explanation of this one section (that he had said "naruhodo!" or, "ahh I got it!" to). I mean of course, I explained it again, but I thought it was curious that he hadn't brought it up earlier.

He's not the only instance this has happened to me either. M conversations typically look something like this:
Me: so about the day I'm leaving, I have to decide by today right?
JTE: yes
Me: I was thinking about flying out of narita since I came in there...
JTe: Ah I see
Me: and flying in to San Francisco
JTE: yes
Me: On August 25th...
JTE: I see
Me: even though it's a bit later than I thought it was going to be
JTe: I see
Me: so is there anything you want me to do before I leave?
JTe: Hm? When are you leaving?

It's like Ken's Dating Advice: Learn How To Listen sometimes!

To be completely fair though, I do the same thing in Japanese sometimes if I'm pretty sure they don't expect a reply out of me and they don't speak English and they're speaking too quickly or using too many words I don't know.

Oh yeah though, at reminds me. I've picked a date for my departure from Japan! I'll be returning to California on August 25th. Waaaaay later than I initially thought, but I really want to see Perfume at Summer Sonic, and then Rurouni Kenshin comes out on the 25th. Yes, I'm staying an extra five days so I can see a movie that doesn't have an American release (yet...?) without subtitles (ahahaaaaa). It'll be fun I hope hahaha.