Bang the Drum

When I came to Japan, the big thing I wanted to get involved in was taiko (Japanese drumming). Things like martial arts and ikebana (flower arranging) don’t hold too much interest for me, but large drums definitely have an appeal. For quite a while I was disappointed because I couldn’t find a taiko group to join. But that all changed.

A few weeks ago, I went to a performance of a taiko group in the next town over. After the performance, they invited me and my friends to practice with the group. So on Wednesday night, two friends and I went to their practice. It was lots of fun. I can’t wait for practice next week.

Nara

In Nara, we stayed at a rather fancy hotel that had a nice onsen in the basement. We took advantage of that and used it every night.

Nara has a large park with tame deer. The deer are considered messengers of the gods and therefore the wander around freely and people feed them “deer cookies”. Around the park are various temples and things. One of them is the largest wooden building in Japan (or maybe the world?) and inside is a giant Buddha. At 16 meters tall, he is the second largest Buddha in Japan and the largest made of bronze (they like to rank things here).

For Amy’s birthday we went out for yakiniku followed by karaoke. I told Lindsay and Amy that they had to do karaoke while in Japan or they would miss out on one of the most Japanese activities. At first, they were wary and unsure of themselves, but they quickly got into it and loved it.

Kyoto

*Pictures to come because my camera decided to go haywire when I tried to upload them. Let's hope that they aren't gone.*

Since Lindsay and Amy came to visit, it was the perfect reason to take a week off of work and travel to Kyoto and Nara, the big tourist destinations in Japan. We had a ton of fun! I’m going to break up the summary into a couple posts to make it less of an overwhelming task to read (and for me to write).

Sightseeing in Kyoto goes something like this: temple temple shrine temple shrine shrine temple castle temple shrine shrine temple*…you get the idea. The reason for this is that Kyoto was the only city spared of being firebombed during World War II (and the reason it was spared was because it was filled with historic temples).

We stayed in a fantastic little hostel in Kyoto. It was very small and was run by a Japanese guy with an Australian accent. We couldn’t find the place when we first showed up, so we called and he picked us up. Before we made it back to the hostel, he invited us to have nabe (Japanese soup cooked in a pot in the middle of the table) with the rest of the guests. The nabe was delicious and we had great half-English half-Japanese confusing conversations.

We spent the next couple days walking all around the city all day long. Between stumbling upon random shrines tucked away in the middle of shopping districts and seeking out the big famous temples we saw a lot.

There was a festival of lights in the evenings at one of the major temples while we were there. The 5-storey pagoda was all lit up and the views were magnificent (unfortunately my camera batteries died). We also got free samples of Nihon-shu (sake).

We realized just how full of large famous, old things Kyoto is on our second full day. We set out a plan to walk to a one famous place and start sightseeing from there. However, it took us most of the day to get there because we ran into one after another old famous pretty thing all the way there.

On our last day in Kyoto, we finally took it easy. We walked about for a bit and stumbled upon a Shinto wedding, which was quite a rare experience. We also saw two girls dressed as geisha. Although there are lots of people in Kyoto wearing kimono (doing so allows you free entry into all the sights), this was a somewhat rarer sight. I’m pretty sure they were just dressing up and were not actually geisha. It was the day before Amy’s birthday, so we got some fancy pieces of cake, and sat by the river to eat them. At the river we saw a crane, another rare sight to conclude the very Japanese experience of Kyoto.

*temple=Buddhist, shrine=Shinto

Reunion

Many people have idly said that they would like to visit me. Unlike most of these people, my IWU friends Amy and Lindsay actually bought plane tickets and are now here! They're going to chill in Taiwa for a few days, come to school with me, and then we're all going to Kyoto and Nara.

Another Gaijin!

Living in the inaka (countryside), I don't often run into other gaijin (foreigners) around town. I'm pretty sure I know all the native English speakers here (four of us, all JETs). Apparently Taiwa used to have a rather large population of Brazilians, but most of them moved when the factory they worked at moved. (Being expected to move for your job is quite common in Japan). However, there are some still around town.

As I said, the scarcity of gaijin around town makes running into another one somewhat exciting. On Sunday, I was waiting to cross a large street when I saw on the other side of the road two young guys who were pretty clearly not Japanese. It seemed like they noticed me as well. When the light changed, we met halfway across the the street and exchanged a "konnichi wa". When we finished crossing the street, both I and those guys looked back over our shoulders, entertained that we saw another gaijin.

Or maybe we were checking each other out. Hard to tell the difference these days.

Pomp and Circumstance

The Japanese school year goes from April till March. Therefore the time has come to say goodbye to my 3-nen-sei. They graduated on Saturday.

The 3-nen-sei teachers wore kimono. A couple of the mothers wore kimono as well.

The ceremony was remarkably similar to American graduation ceremonies (right down to forcing me to endure "Pomp and Circumstance" during the processional) despite the assurances from several coworkers that Japanese graduation ceremonies would be very different. Actually, during rehearsals, several teachers asked "You don't have graduation ceremonies in America, do you?" However, the ceremony was sufficiently Japanized by adding lots and lots of bowing.

The principal read off every. single. diploma when awarding them. Several officials gave speeches. One graduate gave a speech, as well as one 2-nen-sei. I gather that they were very moving speeches because quite a few graduates as well as some teachers were crying. Then the graduates all got on stage and sang a song.

On stage for their song

Hentai Students

As anime fans probably know, 'hentai' means 'pervert' in Japanese. It appears to be my students favorite thing to call one another (along with 'gorilla').

While students were working in groups during class, one girl randomly asks me, "Do you like bananas?"

Well, not especially. Although I do love banana bread and banana cake. And I recently discovered the joy that is banana pancakes.

"Do you like chupa chups?'

Chupa Chups remind me of Spain, so of course I like them. But are we discussing food or are these girls using thinly veiled euphemisms to be inappropriate? By their giggles, I'm leaning toward inappropriate. So to re-establish my teacher-ness I correct their pronunciation of 'chupa chup'. Hey, they're Spanish (and from the word chupar, making them an even dirtier reference than the kids probably realized). Then I walk away, as this conversation can only get worse.

After class, one of the girls from this group starts again with, "I like bananas. Do you like bananas."

Once again I explain how I enjoy baked goods containing bananas, but not bananas themselves. But I'm still thinking that they aren't talking about food. My suspicions are confirmed by the next question.

"Do you like sausages?"

This bit was accompanied by gestures that definitely suggest they were not talking about food. So I tell them that they're being incredibly inappropriate, but of course my English goes over their heads and I'm left no recourse than to simply walk away. Darn perverted eighth grade girls. How am I supposed to respond to crap like this?

Shark Attack!

Today for school lunch we had shark. Not sure about any moral or ethical dilemmas involved with eating shark, but it was fairly tasty.