Heading South for the Winter

I'm off tomorrow for a 2 week trip around Malaysia and Singapore. I probably won't be blogging until I get back. Happy holidays to everyone. I wish you all the best. Look forward to more tales of adventures (and of course misadventures) in the new year.

Bonenkai 2: Drunken Co-worker Boogaloo

Last night was the bonenkai for the Taiwa JHS staff. This was a BIG DEAL, with endless planning, overly fancy handmade cards...

It was held at a large, fancy hotel in Matsushima (3rd prettiest view in Japan). The hotel was hosting tons of bonenkais that night, most of which appeared to be for other elementary and junior high school teachers.

A large number of people were spending the night at the hotel, so when we first arrived we went to the rooms to hang out before dinner. Everyone was very excited to start drinking (except those driving home or pregnant). As each person came into the room where we were hanging out, they were given a glass and we toasted them, saying "o-tsukare-sama desu" (literally "you must be tired") which means thanks for your hard work. There was something odd about sitting around on the floor of a fancy hotel room with my mostly middle-aged coworkers drinking beer--like some weird prom-gone-wrong.

Then is was time for the actual bonenkai. Sadly, I don't have a picture of dinner because I didn't charge my camera batteries. In many ways it was similar to last week's--there was a nabe that was boiled while we were eating. It was oyster nabe because Matsushima is famous for oysters. There was also a large, raw oyster, sashimi, other things....again things I didn't recognize.

The event was nomihodai, meaning all-you-can-drink. The Japanese custom is to pour drinks for each other. This meant that I have no idea how much I drank because my glass was never more than half-empty. Sometimes you'd have to take a few sips just because somebody would want to fill your glass but it was completely full! I was sitting next to the maintenance guy, who was drinking shochu with water. I also gave it a try (which seemed to excite the people around me). It tasted more or less like vodka mixed with water. Not bad, but not good either and I decided to stick with my beer for the rest of the night.

Things got interesting when two male teachers (including one of the English teachers I work with) came in wearing dirty Santa dresses ready to MC silly party games. (Pictures will be posted here after another teacher emails her's to me). The games pitted the teachers of each grade against each other. Highlights included a cup-o-noodles and a container of red pepper being passed around. Each person could give 1,2, or 3 shakes of pepper onto the noodles. When it got to 100 shakes of pepper, the person who it landed on had to eat some. And there was a relay race with 4 stations. The first was to eat a cup-o-noodles. At the second leg, participants had to eat something and chug a beer. The third was chugging a glass of green tea. And the final leg of the relay race was to eat a container of yogurt through a straw. Somehow I got suckered into this straw/yogurt business. My team was in 1st place up to the last leg of the race--but then nothing would come up through my straw!! So my team lost, but it was a lot of fun and everyone was amused.

At the end of dinner, I got a ride home with another teacher's mom. The car ride was amusing. My co-worker was quite drunk. And she spoke the most English I've ever heard her speak. (I always say that drinking is good for foreign language practice/fluency. In fact I said it in the car last night--or attempted to--in Japanese).

It was really fun and interesting to see my conservative, Japanese coworkers let their hair down and get really goofy. Too bad in the New Year it will be back to serious school-teachers.

You want what?

Yesterday, at the start of one of my 3-nen-sei classes, the teacher and I were asking the students random questions to get them warmed up. The class was really full of energy. I asked what present they wanted to get for Christmas. One boy shouts out "I want Horigome!" Horigome is the family name of the kid who sits a couple seats behind him. The class found it rather funny, but probably not as funny as I found it.

An Update from the Mean Streets of Taiwa

It looks like Taiwa's time as a crime-ridden ghetto is over. As you may recall, a neighborhood store was robbed last week. For the rest of that week, all after-school activities were canceled and the students were told they had to walk home in groups. During the entire week, including yesterday I was reminded of the "scary" situation and reminded to lock my door and be careful while walking home. However, today clubs were back in full swing. Apparently our "burglar" has been arrested. We can all sleep better at night now.

Pretty Scenery

My drive home from Naruko was absolutely beautiful. It had been snowing overnight and the mountains and trees looked like they had been kissed by the snow. I stopped to take this picture.

First Bonenkai: A Very Naked Weekend

The Japanese have an end of the year tradition known as bonenkai, which means 'forgetting the old year'. And how does one forget things? By getting massively drunk, of course! (Don't worry Mom, I didn't actually get drunk enough to forget anything). So a bonenkai is a party with a very nice dinner and lots of booze.

One of my friends organized a bonenkai at an onsen in Naruko. An onsen is a Japanese hot spring. We arrived at our ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) before dinner and changed into the yukata they provided. We all made sure to tuck them left-over-right because only corpses are dressed with their kimono right-over-left.

Before dinner, we went in groups to an outdoor onsen that was a few minutes' drive away. (Interestingly enough, that pool is the first photo here.) First the girls went and then the boys. We wore traditional Japanese sandals on the way there, which are incredibly hard to walk in. We got to the changing area, and it was quite cold to take off our clothing. Then we had to rinse off before getting in, but there were only 4 buckets for this purpose and many more of us. So we all doused ourselves very quickly and passed the bucket to the next person. The water was VERY hot. One ALT's girlfriend had come to visit. She had only arrived in Japan the day before and was already getting naked with strangers. Quite the welcome to Japan.

While the boys were at that onsen, we were hanging out in the lobby when two Japanese guys came out of one of the rooms dressed as Santa Claus. They were also having a bonenkai and were much further into their festivities than we were. We were about to check out the onsen that were inside the ryokan, when Santa-san called us back. It appears they had a bag of gifts. So we all got socks...it was quite random.We had a very fancy, tradtional Japanese dinner. We all sat on our knees in the formal Japanese style while the woman of the ryokan started us off. There were many yummy bits (I ate so much sashimi--it's really growing on me) in our dinners. But there were also many strange things that we didn't recognize. After we finished eating, we sang some karaoke until it was time to quiet down.
Then it was onsen time again! We discovered that there was a large mixed-sex onsen, a small women-only onsen, and several small 'family size' onsen, one of which was outside. Somebody brought a beach ball and we played a little seated volleyball in the large onsen! (I think this violated everything an onsen is supposed to be). Later, I and a few others left that one because it was too loud.

The outdoor onsen was small and beautiful. It was decorated with stones and statuettes as well as plants around it. I and a couple others ended up sitting in there for several hours! We had some interesting conversations about all manner of topics, from Ninja Turtles to complex mathematics (yes, a lot of my friends are nerds).

After becoming completely prune-y and getting out, I joined some people who were hanging out in one of the rooms. After a while of that, it was back for some middle-of-the-night onsen!

In the morning, we had a traditional breakfast--rice, miso soup, fish, some other things. Then I took a shower and another quick soak. After I finished and got dressed in my jeans and shirt, it felt odd to be back in my normal clothes after spending so much time either naked or in a yukata. What a good way to get clean, relax, and 'forget the old year'.

Easily Amused

Yesterday in between classes, I was walking down the hall at school. I saw a group of 3-nen-sei boys gathered around a window, clearly excited over something they saw outside. As I made my way toward the window to see what they were so interested in, they ran off to the gym for class. Before I made it to the window, a huge group of teachers came running around the corner and rushed at the same window.

There was a rainbow! A big fat one, reaching all the way down to the ground!

Everyone oohed and aahed and eventually made their way back to the teachers' room and to class. I was quite entertained to see what kind of a commotion a rainbow can make in a Japanese workplace.

Emergency? A Dialog

This morning one of my English teachers looked at me and said “Last night there was an emergency. Did [my supervisor] call you?”

“No! What emergency?” I replied, thinking I might have slept through one of Japan’s many potential natural disasters. At this point the teacher takes out her bilingual dictionary and comes over to my desk. So earthquake is out because she ought to know that word already.

“Ah, there was a burglar.” She underlined the English word in her dictionary.

“A burglar? That was the emergency?”

“He went into a small store with a small knife. And he was not caught. We brought all the students inside. We took them home by our cars.”

“Um…a burglar?”

“The police were patrolling Taiwa. If there is danger we will not have class today.”

“Um…did anyone get hurt?” I was extremely confused as why somebody robbing a store would lead to classes getting canceled.

“No. Not yet” Well that seems a bit morbid and pessimistic.

The conversation continued a bit, all the while I was thinking “Emergency? I do not think that word means what you think it means.” I guess coming from the mean streets of America (where everyone must own a sawed-off shotgun or something) I was a bit confused. Crime is bad. But a robbery where nobody got hurt is not my definition of an emergency. But I guess in Japan, where there is virtually no crime, people’s reaction is slightly different (and alarmist).

After I typed this, all after school activities were canceled, students were told to walk home in groups and another teacher told me that I had better stay in my apartment tonight.

Happy Chanukkah

Living in a Shinto/Buddhist country as I do, sometimes I have to get creative in order to observe my own cultural and religious events. So after realizing that Chanukkah was approaching I set out to figure out a way to light some candles. I bought some Buddhist Dharma candles at the 100-yen shop. Then I came home and constructed a menorah out of aluminum foil and toothpicks. It's pretty bootleg.

Hope everyone is having a good winter holiday season!

Japanese Family Dinner

This week I spent two days at one of my elementary schools. After I was done teaching the first day, the school nurse confirmed that I would be back the next day and invited me to her house for dinner. At first I thought she was inviting me for the following day, but after some confusion I figured out that she meant to take me home with her after she was done with her work.

To tell the truth, I was too tired to really want to go to her house for dinner, but these opportunities don’t come up very often. Anyway, we went to her house, and I was still feeling disinclined to wait so long for dinner and socialize when all I wanted was a nap. However, her house was big and warm and very Japanese. I tucked my feet under the kotatsu (low table with a heating element underneath and a blanket on top) and admired all the Japanese knick-knacks on display.

At one point, her husband turned on the TV and we watched the ‘international news’. Here’s what I managed to get out of it: there’s something going on in Korea, something about China…possibly it was about China sending the US poisonous food?, something about Iran. It was very informative. Then they had a segment about 1 US news story that was shown 5 times to help teach people English. It was showing in Japanese, then in English with Japanese subtitles, in English with English subtitles, in English without subtitles, and again with English subtitles. I didn’t particularly care about Mike Huckabee before, and I certainly didn’t need to hear this random bit 5 times. The rest of the TV programming was equally odd. There was bio of Peyton Manning. Later, an American football game was broadcast (Baltimore vs. New England in case anyone care). But by this time, dinner was ready.

The school nurse, her husband, and I sat down to a huge spread…two different nabes (one oysters, one pork), clams, rice, a salad of sorts….later she got up and cut up some sashimi. Soon, their son came home from work and joined us at dinner. Just as I decided I was too full to eat anymore, their daughter came home from school. I had been told that their daughter was very good at English, but I was quite surprised to find out she actually was REALLY good at English (Apparently she used to attend NOVA before they went under). So I continued to sit at the table and chat while she ate dinner. And then their other son came home and sat down to dinner. All this time, the school nurse kept giving me more and more food…apples, persimmon, yogurt, jasmine tea…

I had a great time sitting around the kitchen table and chatting with this lively bunch. But it turned out that there was some confusion. The school nurse intended for me to stay the night and to go to school together in the morning. However, I had no desire to go to school the next day in the same clothes and without having gone home (plus I still wasn’t 100% prepared for my lessons). So eventually they ended up taking me home (about a 30 minute drive).

I didn’t get home till after 10pm. At that point I was too full to fall asleep. But I was in such high spirits after the evening of being social and lots of laughter (and of course food).

Safety First

This afternoon, I was informed that the teachers were having a seminar about using an AED. By the time I got to the fourth floor (where the seminar would be) I found out that we would also be learning techniques to deal with violence (or something like that...I never get the full story).

Several paramedics came with CPR dummies and training AEDs to demonstrate for us. During the demonstration I noticed that the paramedic neglected to do a sweep to clear the dummy's airway and did not check for a pulse. This disturbed me to say the least.

In case you don't know CPR, let me explain briefly. If a person isn't breathing, it's possible that something is in his throat preventing him from doing so. So you put your finger in the person's mouth to check for that. Otherwise, what's the point of breathing for him if your breath isn't going to go anywhere either? Also it's possible for your heart to be beating but for you to not to be breathing. If this is the case, you probably don't want someone to needlessly break your ribs. Hence checking to make sure a person's heart is actually not beating before doing the work for it.

When we split into groups to practice, I asked our instructor "um...excuse me, but shouldn't we check for a pulse before starting chest compressions?" (by asking him I mean that I asked an English teacher to translate). Apparently "these days" you no longer have to do these things. This made no logical sense to me at all so I pestered for an explanation. It seems I received two answers. It's difficult for the average (Japanese) person to check for a pulse, so the organization that oversees these kinds of things decided it would be better to teach people to just go ahead and start chest compressions. The second is that if a person isn't breathing but his heart is still beating then his heart will stop beating soon. So it's okay to just go ahead with the chest compressions. Um...I really hope nothing bad happens to me here that would prompt a random incompetent person to start doing CPR willy-nilly.

Then we watched a video, the topic of which I can best describe as "stranger danger." It was filmed using a bunch of elementary school kids and the acting is ridiculous. In the first scene, a dirty, unkempt guy comes into a classroom and pulls out a knife. The teacher screams, the students run. The man randomly cuts one of the students and continues waving the knife around. The second scene had a sweaty guy sneak up to a school playground and attack the children with a baseball bat.

After a few more scenes and some explanations of safety procedures, the video goes back to those scenes to show how teachers should handle the situation. In the first scene, the teacher fights of the knife-wielding character with a chair until she's joined by a couple other teachers who together subdue him with furniture. In the second scene, one student informs the teachers of the crazy guy with the bat. They run out to the playground and fight him off with a mop and a stick.

All this led up to some crazy instrument we apparently have at school. It looked to be a metal pole (like the kind at swimming pools for aiding distressed swimmers) modified to be pitch-forked on the end. You're supposed to use it to trap the menacing individual against a wall.

Of course, I might be missing something since I couldn't understand a word of the seminar.

More Crafts

You probably don't want to read another post about making wreaths with little kids. I wasn't all that excited to do it for 3 days straight. But then I got to make traditional Japanese crafts! Yesterday with the fourth-graders, I made miniature kadomatsu, which apparently you put outside your house on either side of your door for New Years. Mine are outside my door! (Even though real ones are much bigger and these will probably get destroyed by the elements).

Today the fifth-graders used a traditional rope-making technique to make their wreaths. They used the chaff from the rice harvest. It was surprisingly like straw that comes from wheat or whatever it is we have in the US. It was somewhat difficult and a bit tiring, but something about it being a rope-making technique excited the nerd in me.

As a bonus, in the afternoon I played "traditional Japanese games" with the third-graders. I put it in quotes because one of the games was London Bridge is Falling Down--same tune and everything. The first game was one that some of my chuugakko students showed me one afternoon. It's like a non-violent version of Red Rover. The second involved everyone walking in a circle while one person sits in the center with their eyes closed. Everyone sings a little rhyme as they walk that ends with "who is behind you". (As an aside, I'm really excited I managed to understand that).Then they stop and the person in the middle has to guess who is behind him based on what he hears that person say.

Afterwards they asked me to teach them American games. Being put on the spot, unprepared, and in a small space (we were in the classroom) I very quickly remembered the circle handslapping games of my youth--Down By the Banks of the Hanky Panky (or however it goes). Then I taught them Ring Around the Rosie. Duck Duck Goose might have been a better option, but for some reason it didn't come to me until right after we were done. If we had been outside, I would have opted for Red Rover. Oh well, perhaps next time...

Christmas Crafts and Ultimate Frisbee

I’m at one of my elementary schools for three days this week. The students are making Christmas arts and crafts with me. (Just because it's not a holiday I don't personally celebrate is no reason for them to not expect a lesson on the typical Western culture). Today the first and second graders made wreaths. They had already made the actual wreaths out of sweet potato roots and morning glory vines, but today they decorated them with ribbons, pipe cleaners, bows, leaves and a whole array of other items. It was pretty fun.

To set the mood I downloaded some Christmas music. That’s right, while most of you have been complaining about being sick of Christmas music, I went out of my way to get some. I also drew a few pictures of a snowman, a Christmas tree, etc. on the board, but this school’s stock of chalk is woefully lacking in colors compared to my junior high school.

I got my own wreath to decorate. When I started working on it, I thought it would look somewhat classy—well, as classy as a random arts and crafts project can be. However, the kids just kept giving me their random scraps and I used whatever they gave me. After receiving more ribbons than I knew what to do with, I tied one in my hair. This was a big hit and I ended up tying ribbons in 2 or 3 girls’ hair before the end of class. I also got a random pipe cleaner creation which I turned into a clip-on earring. Of course this meant that I had to turn pipe cleaners into earrings for the kids too.

I snapped this picture of myself in the teachers’ room in front of all the decorations I’ve hung up in there. My wreath is now hanging by the shrinky-dinks I made earlier this year. If I keep going at this rate, by the time I leave Japan this teachers’ room will be covered in my artwork. Also, check out my bling.

After yesterday’s dodgebee, I got the urge to bring Ultimate Frisbee to Japan. Today at lunch the third graders asked what kinds of games children in Chicago play. So I offered to teach them Ultimate at recess.

After lunch I looked up have, throw, move, and fall in the dictionary. When recess came, I borrowed a dodgebee disk and headed outside armed with the scrap of paper where I wrote the words I would need. I explained the rules. I explained them a couple times in fact. There are really only 3 or 4 rules that need to be understood. The kids seemed to understand. They made the connection to American football on their own. Then we started to play.

At this point I think the only rule they retained was that there were two teams. Because as soon as we started, it just became “throw the Frisbee and chase after it”. It was really windy, so very few throws were actually caught. However, one team apparently scored four points. Although, since we played the entire game in their endzone, I’m not sure what they were using as a criterion for scoring. Although they missed some of the finer points of the game (namely all of them), they seemed to have fun, which I guess is the important part.

Tomorrow the third and fourth graders get to make wreaths.

Teacher's Rec Time: Dodgebee

Today the students had exams so they went home after lunch. Shortly before 4:00, I noticed that a lot of the teachers were leaving. This is really odd since most teachers (as well as most employed Japanese) stay at work till well past dinnertime. Then all of a sudden I hear one of my English teachers say that she ought to invite me to something. Turns out, the teachers were having recreation time with the teachers of the elementary schools. So I got invited to go to the elementary school next door, where we would play dodgebee.

Dodgeball? you ask (I asked the same thing). Nope. Dodgebee. Dodgeball played with a somewhat large, foam frisbee. But I ought to back up for a second. I've been playing dodgeball with my elementary schoolers. Japanese dodgeball is different from American Dodgeball. Here dodgeball is played with only one ball. If you catch the ball, nothing happens. And if you get hit by the ball, you merely go behind the other team's side and get to play from there. Overall, I find it to be less exciting and competitive than American dodgeball, but it is nice that nobody gets bored by sitting out after getting tagged.

Anyway, back to our afternoon of dodgebee. The frisbee, being foam, didn't fly particularly fast and being foam, was really easy to catch. Also, this being Japan, everything has to have a bit of formality to it. So of course there was an opening speech, as well as a closing speech. After the opening speech, we all did a series of stretches in a very organized fashion.

Forty minutes were allotted for the teachers to "enjoy the recreation time." And then it was back to work. Except for me. I went home.

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I sure did.

As the Miyagi JET living in a house (with an oven) I took it upon myself to host Thanksgiving. Luckily we had a 3-day weekend, so Thanksgiving in Miyagi was on Friday. I had about a dozen guests and a crazy amount of food. I really wanted to take a picture of all the food we had, but there was so much that it couldn't all fit on my table. The kitchen table was covered in dishes, as was my counter, and the stove!

One guy managed to find a turkey! I hadn't eaten any turkey since long before coming to Japan. I think this was the same for everyone here. He did an amazing job with it (especially considering it was his first time cooking a turkey). He brined it and everything. We also ate stuffing, sweet potatoes, two salads, vegetable ratatouille, deviled eggs, bruschetta, mashed potatoes, some sort of Hungarian egg and potato dish (with real Hungarian sausage!), cornbread....and I'm probably forgetting quite a few things. Dessert was an apple pie made completely from scratch, two different apple crisps, real whipped cream... And then of course, we suffered from food comas.

Long story short, everyone did an AMAZING job cooking (and eating). There was food, wine, and merriment. One person even brought Thanksgiving decorations while another one made origami out of Thanksgiving colors. My house has never felt so warm and inviting as it did with all the guests here.

A few of my guests were not American. Celebrating Thanksgiving was a novelty for them. At the beginning of the evening, Liz from New Zealand asked if there are any special Thanksgiving activities such as songs. We told her that there's a traditional dance that we do. Oh making up things about our home cultures--so much fun!

Three people stayed the night. Today we tackled the leftovers. We did a great job picking at the turkey carcass. I won the wishbone. And now I'm making some stock out of the turkey bones. I'll be eating leftovers for a couple more days!

Winter has Arrived

There is snow on the ground! I'm about to find out how that affects my walk to school.

Surviving the Winter

A (nonexhaustive) list of things I miss from the US:
*Central Heating
*Double-paned windows
*Insulation

It’s still autumn here in Miyagi-ken. But it is getting colder and people keep warning me about the severity of the winters. I’m getting mixed messages about how bad the winters generally are. I’ve heard that there will be a lot of snow, that there won’t be a lot of snow, that it will not be nearly as cold as Illinois, and that it will be much colder than back home. I don’t think the outdoor temperatures (or wind chill) will be as bad as back home, but only time will tell.

The problem comes in with the indoor temperatures. You see, Japanese homes are not built with the sort of energy-conserving techniques we have in the US. The walls are very thin and there is no insulation in them. The windows let drafts through. And the Japanese heat using kerosene space heaters.

That’s right. Kerosene. The heaters do work via electricity, so it’s not quite the pioneer days lifestyle. But it still involves filling up a container of kerosene from a tank outside my house. And it smells bad. Of course, the fumes can’t be good for you, so it’s important to air the heated room out (thereby letting all the heat escape—genius!).

I bought bubble wrap to attempt to insulate my house. That might help a little.

On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about putting things in the refrigerator because it’s just as cold in my kitchen.

Outside of Miyagi--Caves in Iwate

This was a weekend of cars and caves. On Saturday, a group of 15 drove to Iwate, which is the prefecture directly north of Miyagi. It was quite a long drive, especially since we avoided the expressway, opting for the scenic route (because Japanese tolls are quite pricey). It was already dark by the time we got to the place we were staying. That's not to say it was late—it gets dark around 4:30.

We stayed in a surprisingly nice cabin. It was big and warm. The second bit was the really exciting part. We also had kitchen facilities so we made nabe, a type of Japanese stew. One person made a cake in honor of two others' birthdays. And we generally had a good evening of chatting, singing along to music, hanging out, and being easily amused by balloons. In the morning we had pancakes for breakfast.

After our delicious pancake breakfast, we headed toward Ryusendo caves. These caves are famous for having underwater lakes with incredibly clear water. The transparency of the lakes water is a world-record depth of over 40 meters (if you don't understand metric, that converts to 'very deep'). Because its Japan, and this is a famous spot, the caves had catwalks, stairs, and light fixtures. But they were pretty nonetheless. Outside, there was a spout of drinking water from the springs in the cave. Drinking this water is supposed to add three years to your life. It reminded me of when I went camping in Spain and drank real mountain spring water.

After the walk through Ryusendo, (and after stopping for lunch at a gem of an Italian restaurant), we went off the beaten track to another cave. This was the real deal. We were outfitted with helmets that had headlamps, galoshes, and matching jumpsuits. (The helmets were the same ones we used at high ropes at camp). A spry middle-aged woman was our guide. We jogged (in the rain) to the cave—probably the funniest part of the trip.

As I said, this cave was the real deal. Small spaces, scrambling up rocks, sloshing through water, somewhat challenging descents, bats and complete utter darkness except for out headlamps. We turned off the headlamps at one point to experience pitch darkness. This was not the kind of darkness your eyes adjust to—ever. Also a bat flew in my face. But there were amazing stalactites, stalagmites, and other cave-rock structures. Also, we learned that galoshes are not the most stable footwear for rock climbing or for running. But despite this, we all managed to make it back out of that cave (and back to Miyagi) alive.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!

My first one (that I noticed anyway). Very exciting! I only noticed because my doors rattled and made a bunch of noise for about 20 seconds. I was actually talking to my mom at the time. I think she got a little concerned when I excitedly announced "Whoa! Earthquake!".

Halloween Part II

Yes, I understand that its November and therefore Halloween has come and gone. However, I had some more Halloween-y fun. I already celebrated in the big kid way a couple weekends ago and today I got to celebrate with the little kids. I did a little Halloween lesson for the first and second graders at my favorite elementary school.

I threw together an impromtu costume with a skirt and a couple scarves (my usual last-minute costume). Before the first graders came into the play room where I hold my lessons, I hid behind some doors so I could jump out at them. I talked in a spooooky voice and chased the kids around a bit.

I taught a few random Halloween words (monster, werewolf, Grim Reaper, candy, etc). And the kids played a game that was a substitute for bobbing for apples. They had to pick up flashcards of the words I taught using a headband that had a string and a magnet. It was pretty difficult for them, but entertaining. The best part was that they formed two teams which I named Vampires and Zombies and taught all the Vampires to say "Blood!" and the Zombies to say "Braaiiins!"

Afterwards, they made little masks out of paper and came up to me to "trick or treat." For some reason, when their teacher and I asked them to pose for a picture, they all put their candies on their heads.

I love Halloween. Both the big kid and the little kid versions.

Kouyou-mi in Naruko

This weekend I hung out with my friends who live in Ishinomaki, a city about an hour north of me. Nathan and I drove up to Ishinomaki on Friday and we went out to celebrate a birthday. On Saturday, we took a day trip to Naruko.

The Japanese have an appreciation for nature and certain seasonal events are a call for spending time outdoors, observing and enjoying them. In the spring everyone likes to look at the cherry blossoms. In the fall, the turning leaves turning red (called kouyou) is the big thing. So we went to Naruko to walk around and look at the autumn colors. We planned to hike through a gorge, but found out that it was closed, apparently due to dangers of falling boulders. So we walked along the road instead. There were tons of people because it was apparently the best day of the year to watch the kouyou in Naruko. Except for a bit of drizzle during part of our walk, the weather was wonderful. I took quite a lot of scenic pictures (and had trouble picking which to put here).

Naruko is a city famous for kokeshi dolls. All along the road, there were craft stores selling dolls. And you could watch the artists working on them. We stopped at some stores to look at them and some people bought presents. (I just bought postcards!)

At the main lookout point, there were food-stalls set up. The Japanese always enjoy nature with food. It was very hard toe decide on what to eat. I eventually settled on some traditional autumn soup. Although the very friendly and entertaining man making takoyaki made me want to get some just to patronize his stand. WARNING: DON'T READ THIS NEXT BIT IF YOU DON'T LIKE EATING ANIMALS OR THINKING ABOUT WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM There were fish on sticks being cooked over coals. There was also a tank where there were fish swimming around. The man working at that food stall would grab a fish, spear it, and stick it over the coals. You could see some of the fish still moving as they were being cooked. I tried a piece of Jane's fish and it was delicious.

On our way back down the hill, we stopped in a restaurant for hot cocoa. As we were sitting, in came some more people. I turned to look at them, and it turned out to be other JETs that we know! It was quite a random run-in. So we chatted with them for a few minutes but they left pretty quickly to be outside before it got dark.

It was a very good little trip. We wanted to go to onsen (hot springs/baths) but didn't have time before we had to catch our train back to Ishinomaki. But aside from that, we had a great walk and plenty of fresh air.

Fresh Dinner: This post may not be suitable for vegetarians or the faint of heart

After we returned to Ishinomaki from our outing to Naruko, we went out for an amazing dinner. We all had eel tempura over rice (unagi-don). We sat at the bar of the small restaurant and chatted with the chefs as we watched them preparing food.

This was my dinner.

And this was my dinner's home until about 10 minutes before we ate.
The chef that prepared our meals reached into the tank with a net, grabbed an eel in his hand and brought it , squirming , over to his cutting board.
He stuck a metal thing through its head , pinning it in place, though its reflexes still made it twitch and it didn't lie flat right away. But he very quickly and skillfully cleaned and deboned it in seconds. He sliced it and brought it back to the kitchen and was ready to grab another eel. Nathan made a video of our food being prepared.
Food doesn't get any fresher than this. It was absolutely delicious.

Meanwhile , the other chef prepared this beautiful plate of sashimi while chatting away with us. Sadly, this tray was for someone else. The eel was quite filling for us.

Youtube Randomness

I happened upon some interesting tidbits on the interwebs. And I thought back to my trip to Tokyo in September. When I was meeting up with Ruriko, we were on the phone trying to find each other and she asked "Are there a lot of people?" We were meeting here.

Stumbling onto Japanese-iness

After the rains of the past two days, this morning the weather was beautiful. I came home from the Halloween party in the morning and after a few hours more of sleep, I went outside. I had been sporadically hearing some traditional Japanese music.

I started walking around, eventually heading in the general direction of the music. I discovered a little festival going on in a bank parking lot. There were food stalls hawking both cooked food and fresh produce. I ended up buying 5 little eggplants for 100yen.

The music turned out to be coming from a stage. I saw several traditional fan dances. Most of them were performed by older women in beautiful kimonos. However, one dance was done by three tiny and adorable little girls. They kept looking at each other for cues on what to do. There were also performers who played and sang traditional Japanese music.

Stumbling on these kinds of things is one of the parts of living abroad that I love.

Foreigners Celebrate Halloween

Last night, the Miyagi JET social group put on a big Halloween party. We rented large cabins where we could be loud and not have neighbors get upset by 9 pm. The people running the event decorated pretty well, including carving a pumpkin (Japan has pumpkins, but they're not orange) and putting up fake tombstones with with the names of things that have recently met their demise, such as a favorite Irish pub in Sendai and the Nova language school.

There were a lot of fun costumes. I went as bad Japanese fashion--wearing several layers including a dress over jeans, leg warmers (which are actually incredibly comfortable), and my hair in a small ponytail right in the front of my head.

I got a ride to the party with Dan. But when I got in his car, I found that it was being driven by Santa Claus (or Father Christmas, as Dan calls him). After we picked up Nathan, who had really greasy hair and a painted on skinny beard, we stopped in a convenience store. I can't imagine what the people working there were thinking.
Here's Santa with a Japanese junior high school student.

The cast of Clue was also there! They brought with them a real incredibly heavy wrench and a length of lead pipe. The knife and candlestick were fake.

Best costume of the night!

Here's a guy from the video game Streetfighter and a washed-up Harry Potter.

While it's awesome to have the opportunity to be living in Japan, it's very relaxing to occasionally hang out in a big group of foreigners. But lest you think this post will be completely free of Japanese tales, I will conclude with an 'only in Japan' tid-bit. We had a tin of Pringles. They were "Ethnic" flavor. Only in Japan can something taste like "ethnic."

Potato Party Pictures

No deep thoughts today. Just a few pictures.

In the place where the little potato garden had been, there was a fire pit. We wrapped all the potatoes in aluminum foil and threw them on the fire. Alternating more sticks and more potatoes. I got to poke at the fire a bit, so that made me happy (I thought of Team Let's Go Camping). And my candied sweet potatoes were a hit.


Showing off the fire. One of the teachers, a student teacher, me, and a student hiding in the background.



Hanging out around the fire.

The school nurse poking at the fire.

Potato Party

Last week, I helped the special needs class dig up their little garden of sweet potatoes. They harvested over 100 potatoes. It was a fun, random, activity. And everyone got to take home one big, fat potato. The rest were set aside for a bbq that the class is going to have tomorrow. I told them that sweet potatoes are a traditional American food, a traditional dish at Thanksgiving. For some reason, this was a surprising fact, even though sweet potatoes are a New World food. I told them that I wanted to make candied sweet potatoes for the class. So the teacher gave me 3 more big, fat potatoes. They're in the oven right now. I hope they turn out well, otherwise everyone is going to think that American food is bad.

My position as a foreigner in Japan whose purpose in being here is to internationalize the students has made me think more about the US. And I view the US in a more positive light than I often did while at home. I routinely answer questions about what we have in America, what we do in America, what things are like in America. I've never really given any thought to what American food is. As a lover of all sorts of foreign cuisines, I've never given American cuisine much credit. But I really love sweet potatoes and other Thanksgiving foods (I'm definitely going to have a bit before bringing them to school...too make sure they turned out okay....) Next month I have to teach elementary school lessons on "American culture" and I'm not sure what I should teach about. I'm open to any and all suggestions.

And I'm going to cut these ponderings short because I have to go check on my sweet potatoes.

Soccer

There is a group that gets together on Sundays to kick the ball around in a park in Sendai. Today I joined for the first time. Just as we're dividing ourselves into teams for a game, a group of junior high girls and their coach come by and ask to play with us.

Our hodge-podge group had never played all together before. Most of the group had minimal (if any) soccer skills. On the other hand, this was an actual team that we were playing against. Japanese junior high students are hardcore about their sports, practicing every day all year long. They had excellent ball skills. We had one single advantage--size. We're full-grown adults and on top of that, we're foreign and therefore taller than the average Japanese. Surprisingly, we won! Though if we'd played on a larger field, they definitely would have killed us. (During half-time, we had some debate as to whether we should let them win so they avoid the possibility of the coach's wrath).

Eventually the coach told us that the kids had to go home. So we ended the game and shook hands with them as is the custom at the end of Western sports competitions and then lined up across from our opponents, bowed, and thanked them in unison, as is the custom at the end of Japanese sports competitions.

After the girls left, we decided to play another short game just amongst ourselves, although most of us had very little energy left. After we'd been playing a few minutes, two little boys (elementary school age probably) came up and asked us to join. So one kid joined each team, and we played on.

I'm exhausted from all that running around. I'm going to sleep really well tonight. And probably won't be able to move in the morning.

I can't wait till next Sunday.

P.S. When did I go back to calling it soccer?

Dinner and a Surprise

Right before I left school today, the 3rd grade English teacher came to my desk and asked if I had any plans for the evening. I said I didn't so she invited me to her house for dinner. I wanted to bring a box of chocolates, as per my cultural traditions, but I don't think Japan has nice boxes of chocolates, so I settled for a bag of nice-looking chocolates.

She lives in a huge house with her husband, two kids, and her husband's parents. I came over and relaxed for about an hour while Obaasan (grandma) cooked dinner. I saw all of her son's soccer medals and her daughter's clarinet.

Dinner was quite fancy. We had oyster soup with oysters from Matsushima (a bay close to here), sashimi (raw fish), Japanese pickles, some sort of potato-salad type dish, yakitori (grilled meat), another dish that had various colored peppers and was therefore happy, and of course, rice. We had three kinds of sashimi--tuna, saury (anyone heard of this fish before?), and squid. My previous experience with sashimi was less than stellar but I vowed to give it another shot next time it was presented to me. I'm glad to report that this time I enjoyed it much more.

The table was cleared and my co-worker's son busted out the board game Othello. We ate some apples and I dominated at the game.

I was asked if I wanted coffee or tea and I felt very culturally at home. My co-worker started taking a log cake out of a box and I was thinking how similar this part of dinner was to home. As she revealed more of the cake, I saw writing that said "Happy Birthday Rita"! They put a candle in the cake, which I blew out and they all sang happy birthday to me. I was not expecting that at all. It was so sweet!

Tea and cake was pretty tasty and then Obaasan and Ojiisan (Grandma and Grandpa) invited me over any time I want, and said that I should come over if I ever feel homesick. Ojiisan said something along the lines of 'even though we don't speak the same language we can communicate from the heart.'

The whole evening was very sweet. Plus the two pieces of mail I got today (thanks Amy and Trina) made me feel like it was my birthday all over again.

Getting Lost Where?

Today Nathan and I decided to go to Izumi, which is the part of Sendai closest to us. Instead of taking the the straight-shot major road that runs right past my house we took the scenic route past nana-tsu mori. Unfortunately after a while it was starting to look like we had missed a turn, so we stopped at a 7-11 to ask directions. Although Nathan asked for directions to Izumi Park-Town, he got directions to Mt. Izumi, so we were still on the wrong path. We were so wrong that we ended up in...



Montana! Montana? Apparently so.

And we weren't the only ones confused about where we were or where we were from, because that Trans Am they had parked outside had a back license plate from Ontario and the front from California.

Turns out Montana is a little kitschy restaurant that serves "sparerib steak", "chili con carne" and "cowboy rice" along with a few other "American" dishes. Bad country music was playing from a speaker (I'm not dissing country music, this was particularly bad). There was also a small shop that sold some fair trade coffees and some trinkets. It was like Crossroads in downtown Bloomington, only much smaller and less cool.

Somehow my first trip to Montana occurred while I was in Japan. Ah, Japan...a magical place where rules of logic and apparently geography don't apply.

Awesomeness

I went to my favorite elementary school today. Here's a brief list of what makes this a sweet gig.

-I taught the first graders and the sixth graders the baby shark song.
(baby shark do-do-doo-do-do/mama shark do-do-doo-do-do)
I figured it was relevant to both classes because I taught the first graders about animals and the sixth graders about family members.

-I taught 2 classes the Hokey Pokey. They thought I was crazy and they LOVED it.

-I played kick-ball at morning recess.

And next time I go there, I'm having a Halloween party with the little ones and I intend on showing the Animaniacs' Nations of the World song to one of the classes.

Nanatsu Mori

The symbol of Taiwa is a set of seven small mountains that can be seen in the distance. These are known as nana-tsu mori or seven forests. A while ago, at my official town welcome party I heard an interesting legend about nana-tsu mori. According to legend, each mountain has a god. And if you climb all seven mountains and pray to all seven gods, you get good luck for life or eternal happiness or something. So this became my new goal.

I had the day off so I took my new car to nana-tsu mori. I drove around for a while (only accidentally turning on my windshield wipers twice) trying to get to the mountains and to a spot where I could park and walk around. Eventually I found a place to park my car and started walking. I had trouble finding any usable trails though. Sometimes I found some trail markers, but hiking is clearly not all that popular around here because the trails were overgrown to the point where I wouldn't exactly call them trails anymore--in other words, they were impassable. At some point I did make it up to a high point of sorts. I'm pretty sure it wasn't an actual peak, but I clapped my hands together 3 times just in case there was a god living there. I also found a nice creek. So although I didn't do too much actual hiking, I had a nice time.

Driving on the Left

I am the proud owner of a little Suzuki k-car!

I bought it from my friend Jenny. We did all the paperwork while squatting on the steps in my front yard.

Now I just have to keep reminding myself to stay to the left. And that the blinkers are on the right side of the steering column and the wipers on the left. Bizarre....

School Daze

I’ve gotten some questions about Japanese schools, so I’m going to try to describe what Japanese school is like from my limited understanding. Some things that I’ve experienced may not be the way it works in all of Japan. But I have a feeling that a lot of it is pretty similar across the board.

In Japan, school is divided into elementary (grades 1-6), junior high (grades 7-9), and senior high (grades 10-12) schools. But they just start the counting over in each school. So I teach at a junior high, but refer to all my students as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd graders.

School starts at 8:15, when all the kids need to be in their classrooms. At this time the teachers all have a meeting in the teachers’ room. (The Japanese like the open plan for offices, so everyone has a desk in one giant room). Then the teachers that have homerooms go and take attendance and do whatever it is they do in homeroom.

Typically, all students stay in the same class together and the teacher move from classroom to classroom. There are 6 class periods of the day and each subject is taught a certain number of times a week. The government requires that JHS students get 3 class periods of English per week. Classes last either 50 minutes or 45 minutes. The school uses two different schedules, though I’m never quite sure why they sometimes go by the shortened schedule. Class size tends to be big. I think 30-40 students in a class in junior high is pretty normal. (But it varies based on the size of the community. One of my friends visits a school on an island that has about 70 kids in grades 1-9 total). The students also eat lunch in their classroom. Everyone eats the same school lunch, including the teachers. In each class, a group of students serves the lunch. I’m not sure if the servers rotate periodically, but I do know that they wear white smocks and headscarves when they do it. At some point in the day (at the end in my junior high and after lunch in my elementary schools) is cleaning time. There isn’t janitorial staff in Japanese schools, so the kids sweep, empty garbage, wipe the windows and whatnot.

In junior high, after school ends the students have their club activities. Unlike in the US, the kids are in one club. Most kids are in some sort of athletic club, but there are also kids in band and in computer club at my school. I can’t think of any other non-sports related clubs at my school but depending on interest, there could be more at other schools. So the kids practice their sport every day for about 2 hours after school, year-round. (No wonder the school lunches are so big and filling). Usually only the ichi-nen-sei (1st) and ni-nen-sei (2nd year) participate in club activities. The san-nen-sei (3rd year) quit their club activities and start going to another study school after school to prepare for high school entrance exams.

The elementary school kids go to school in their own clothes, but they all have adorable little matching hats. Everyone else has a school uniform that they practically live in. In Japan you can see kids at any time, any day, including weekends, in their school uniforms. They all have their formal uniforms and their gym uniform. They wear their gym shorts and shirt underneath their formal uniform so when its time for P.E., they can just change in the classroom. And once they get to school they have to change their shoes and put on indoor shoes (as do the teachers). They have little cubbies in the entrance where they keep their shoes. All the kids wear the same shoes inside the school.

Hm…that’s all I can think of for now. I don’t really know much about high school since I don’t teach there. But feel free to ask any questions and I’ll try to answer them.

Natto

"Do you like natto?" giggle giggle.

For those who are not well-versed in Japan's less palatable cuisine, natto is fermented soybeans. Loved by (some) Japanese and universally loathed by all gaijin (foreigners). Foreigner disgust of natto is so well known that it's a constant joke. Therefore the question above is quite common. (The Japanese giggle at everything though). Despite its far-reaching reputation, I vowed to give natto a try before I said I didn't like it.

Today appeared to be my chance. One of the English teachers told there was natto for school lunch (more of a warning) and told me I didn't have to eat it (which of course I know because I routinely leave behind part of my 900+ calorie lunch). After all that hype, I chickened out. I'm disappointed in myself in that I could not work up the courage to try natto. I've been so good about trying new foods the past few years. But after everyone telling me that it's bad (including about half the students) and after seeing how sticky it looked, I decided not to. Maybe if I'm confronted with it again I'll be braver...

Adventure Sports and Outdoor Dance Parties

This weekend I went on a trip with about a dozen other Miyagi JETs to Gunma Prefecture to go canyoning and to attend a Full Moon Party. We drove down to Gunma, which took about 5 hours.

I was not familiar with canyoning before I went on this trip. (Note: The activity was canyoning. I did not go canoeing). Canyoning was described to me as 'a waterslide, but the slide is rocks.' Even though this description did not sound particularly fun, (or pleasant for that matter) I decided to go anyway. The description turned out to be fairly accurate, but canyoning was amazing.

We went to the canyoning place on Saturday morning and were greeted by a bunch of crazy kiwis (and some crazy Aussies, and one crazy Hawaiian) who ran the place and facilitated the trips. After signing waivers in which we all put down each others' cell phone numbers as emergency contacts, we were faced with our first challenge--putting on all the gear. We were given 2 wetsuits each and sent to changing rooms to attempt to pull them on. After much struggling and groaning, one by one we all succeeded. At this point we put on the special shoes we were given and made our way outside don the rest of our gear: a harness, a life jacket, a helmet, and gloves. Once properly suited up, we all waddled over to a bus and had a short ride to the river.

We all climbed down the gorge and into the river. After a brief safety lecture on the importance of bent knees and straight arms, we were off. We slid down some currents and some waterfalls feet first and others head first (Superman style). One rather large waterfall involved the use of ropes and carabiners for safety. At the bottom of that one was a rather deep pool. Here some of us participated in another challenge. It involved climbing out of the river gorge, climbing over the railing of a bridge and sitting on a platform swing. The swing was then pulled out over the center of the pool. Then the participant had to hold on to a bar above them and pull their weight off the swing. The swing was pulled away and the participant was left to hang over the river and let go to free fall into the water! We also jumped off cliffs/waterfalls, swung on a vine into the river, and had a splash fight with our helmets.

When it was over we went back to their facility and struggled to remove our wetsuits. Afterwards, some of us went to a beautiful swimming hole in the river nearby and hung out for a while. Some people played on a rope swing there and dove off of large rocks. But I was done with the adventure part of the day and was moving into the chilling out part. The water was cold but the air was hot so it was great.

Some parts of our group went to an onsen, while others went back to the place we were staying to take a nap. A few of us decided to stay at the canyoning place, which had a little bar and was just a good place to chill out. In the evening we had a yakiniku (BBQ) party for dinner and went back to the place we were staying to chill out before the full moon party.

This little town has a big outdoor dance party every full moon. It was a 5 minute walk from where we were staying. There were 3 stages with DJs. The music wasn't the type that I'm normally into, but I had a bottle of wine and I like being outside, so it was quite good. Lots of people dancing, some playing with glowsticks, and others spinning fire (including one of the guys in our group). At some point around 3 am or so, all of the people in our group spontaneously go together. Some of us started a massage chain, which 2 Japanese girls joined for a minute. They didn't quite get the concept because they were dancing in the massaget line. And then they left and started taking pictures of us. They probably think that its a crazy gaijin (foreigner) dance or something.

Sunday we made the long drive back and luckily it was a three-day weekend, so I spent today resting my aching muscles and joints. Canyoning was so fun and very scary. It's something that I will either never do again or will be much more adventurous next time I go.

Barnyard Bilingualism

Today in one of my classes, one of the phrases that the students were repeating after me involved the word 'bad'. One of the boys said it quite loudly several times, making him sound rather like a sheep: baaaad baaaaad. I laughed and said this, but the joke was somewhat lost because in Japan sheep say 'me' (short e sound). This started the class on a brief tangent of what sounds various animals say in Japanese and English. Apparently Japanese cows say 'ma'. And the kids got quite a kick out of my impression of a chicken.

Pretty much the only exciting thing that happened in an otherwise really boring school-day.

A Shoutout...

...to those who made my life awesome today. My parents and Kathy. You guys rock!

(And for a brief explanation of why they're awesome and how YOU can be awesome as well).
I peeked in my mailbox and there was something there from Kathy and a slip saying I had a package (which was from my parents). Now I can't stop smiling and tomorrow morning I have a big decision of which good coffee to drink (3 choices between the two packages!) Going from no decent coffee to 3 packages of good coffee is just excitement overload.

It's amazing wonderful getting mail is (*wink wink nudge nudge*). Thanks guys. Also thanks to everyone who has sent me postcards. Those routinely make my day and make me feel loved.

Tokyo Whirlwind

I had an extra day off on Friday to compensate for having to work the previous weekend. So I decided to hop on a train to Tokyo.

My first experience on the Shinkansen ("bullet train") was fantastic. Taking Shinkansen is like flying if flying didn't suck. The trains are crazy-fast, quiet, with lots of leg-room. And I just showed up at the station, bought the ticket from a machine, and hopped on.

Although the train ride took less than two hours, it took me half an hour to navigate my way out of the train station. Most of the train/metro stations in Tokyo were massive labyrinthine structures, full of huge crowds.

I wandered around practically the entire city while I was there. When I first arrived, I wandered around the Ueno district, going to the large park there and to a shrine in the park. After eventually making it to a hostel, I dropped off my stuff and hopped the metro to Shibuya. Shibuya was full of neon lights, crazy fashions and young people. I found some cool music stores there. Afterwards, I went over to Ginza, which has less neon but fancier stores. Not really my scene, but just like visitors to Paris must stroll down Champs-Elysee, visitors to Tokyo need to go to Ginza. However, I did find a Belgian themed bar that had my all-time favorite beer on tap (which I have not seen outside of Belgium). That beer alone, made the trip worthwhile. I also had a nice chat with the guy sitting next to me at the bar--a Japanese who studied French and cooking. Back at the hostel, I chilled with an actual French guy.

On Saturday I got an early start, bought an all-day metro pass, and saw just about everything Tokyo has to offer (or at least it felt that way). I saw the Imperial palace, which has a moat around it. Walked through the Imperial Gardens, hopped the metro to Harajuku where there weekends. There were only a few are supposed to be a bridge with people in crazy costumes onkids in costumes when I went there, and they weren't that good. In Harajuku I saw the Meiji Shrine, which is one of the biggest (or maybe the biggest?) shrines in Japan. The gate to the shrine is the biggest of its kind anywhere. To pray at the shrine, you first wash your hands outside. When you walk in, you toss a coin into a box, bow, clap three times, pray silently, bow and walk out. Afterwards, I went across town to Asakusa where there is another famous shrine. There were also street vendors and other interesting scenery. Asakusa is an older, more traditional part of Tokyo (no neon lights).

Later in the day I met up with Ruriko! It was very good to see someone from IWU. We met up in Shibuya, had some coffee, walked around, ate dinner, and walked over to Harajuku and hung out in the park there. Eventually we parted ways and I decided to go to Roppongi to go salsa dancing. (Hey, if I'm in an international city, I have to do international things that I can't do at home in Miyagi).

On the way there, I decided I like Roppongi because the name is made up of three kanji that I know (literally six-book-tree). This is the hot nightlife part of Tokyo. As it was still early, I wandered around looking for different salsa clubs or possibly an interesting bar to get a drink in. Somebody handed me a drink ticket for a bar and I decided to check it out. I ended up chatting with the guy working the door, who was Israeli, but then I decided not to go to that bar after all. Since I was planning on catching the last train back to my hostel, I went dancing pretty early. Despite it being only 9 o'clock or so, the club was full of people dancing. There were a lot of good dancers there and I had a great time. Eventually I ended up hanging out with a few Chicanos and got to use my Spanish for the first time in quite a while. (Probably haven't spoken Spanish as long as I haven't gone dancing). At one point the DJ played Mana and we rocked out and later there was a mariachi performance. But I had to leave shortly before midnight so that my train didn't turn into a pumpkin. On the metro, I made friends with a random Japanese girl.

On Sunday, I went to Ueno park again. In the park is the Tokyo National Museum. This was a fantastic art museum of a lot of Japanese artwork of all styles. I enjoyed it very much. And I got a discounted ticket with my IWU ID (yay for there not being dates on that thing). After a bit more walking around, I eventually went to the train station and got on the shinkansen to go home.

Now I'm quite satisfied, but my legs are tired and I have to go to elementary school tomorrow.