Adventures and Misadventures in Japan

Sayonara

2008-07-29T13:16:00.002+09:00

I'm not sure if anyone still reads this, but in case you do...

I've been saying goodbye to Japan. Lots of parties, dinners, and whatnot. Also packing and other errands. This will be my last post from the Land of the Rising Sun. Tomorrow I'm getting rid of my internet connection, and on Thursday I'm moving out. I'll be heading on a trip to Thailand, before returning to the States on August 14th.

Perhaps when I get back, I'll write some sort of profound post. Or maybe I'll just put up some pictures from Thailand. In any case, since I'll be home, you can call me instead. :)

Fancy Dinner

2008-07-21T11:42:00.003+09:00

As I mentioned in my last post, the English teachers at my junior high took me out to dinner on Friday. Originally they wanted to go to a yakiniku (Korean bbq) restaurant, but I had been to three barbecues the previous weekend and had another one planned for the following day. So we ended up at a Japanese-style restaurant. Although I've been here a year there were still exciting, new dishes I hadn't tried yet.

There was a soup that involved a contraption that you had to squeeze jellied seaweed out of. That was quite entertaining, and pretty tasty.

I finally tried whale. I'm surprised I hadn't encountered it yet. The waitress as well as my dinner companions got a little worried about my reaction to the whale (since foreigners tend to be ethically opposed to whale meat). I rather liked it, although it took a long time to chew a piece and I would get tired of the flavor by the time I was done.

We also had sea urchin. I tried this once before, but it was not in its shell that time. Although mine was sufficiently dead, a few of the sea urchins on our table were still moving a few of their spines. One of them was quite active. Also pretty entertaining (but not very tasty in my opinion.)

Owarimashita!

2008-07-21T11:21:00.002+09:00

It is now summer vacation at Taiwa Chuu (although the students will of course be at the school every day). It is also the end of my time there. Friday was the last day of the term and the school had the end of term ceremony. The end of that ceremony was a farewell ceremony for me. The principal gave a speech about me. Then I gave a speech to the students, which I did in both English and Japanese (and I was told that the Japanese was comprehensible). A student gave me a speech, also in English and Japanese, and another student presented me with flowers.
Then all the students made two rows for me to walk through as a send-off. (A gauntlet if you will, but a friendly gauntlet). I walked through, saying goodbye, shaking hands, giving high fives, a few hugs, a few students shouted "I love Rita". This all took quite a long time.
Later, I had to give another speech to all the teachers. I also baked brownies as a goodbye gift for the staff, so I passed those out. In the evening the English teachers took me out for dinner.

Bonus cute story. I put up a "Goodbye" bulletin board, with a letter to the students and teachers and a sign saying "Keep in touch with Ms. Rita" and my email address. A couple of my students read the sign, and not understanding the idiom "keep in touch" they touched the paper.

Don't Go to a Bald Barber

2008-07-07T12:42:00.004+09:00

Today I did something worse. I got my hair cut by a man with a mullet. And of course, he was the father of one of my students. It's actually not too bad (not too good either). Nevertheless, it was a rather worrisome experience.

Fujisan

2008-07-01T19:30:00.001+09:00

3776 meters. Japan’s tallest mountain. Tall enough to make breathing difficult. Tall enough for altitude sickness to be a concern. We were going to conquer this beast. We would stand atop of Japan.

The typical way to climb Fuji is to start at the fifth station and spend the night at the 8^th or 9^th. Then to wake up in the middle of the night in order to reach the summit by sunrise. As the book I have about hiking in Japan phrased it, “To see one symbol of Japan from atop another symbol of Japan.” This was the plan.

Originally, we had assembled a decent sized group for this adventure. However, as the level of challenge and the high probability of bad weather set in, people began dropping out one by one (or rather two by two it seemed), until by Thursday night it was down to just Colin and me. Unfavorable weather was practically a guarantee at this point. But we were determined. This was our only chance to climb Fuji and we would bring lots of warm clothing and rain gear and take precautions and hope for the best.

We went down to Tokyo on Friday night and took a bus to Fuji 5^th station on Saturday morning. The weather was looking to be on our side. It was overcast but not too cold. Saturday’s climb was surprisingly short. We made it to the 8^th station in slightly over 3 hours, and that included many stops to rest and catch our breath. At this point we were over 3000 meters and we could see above the clouds.

We ate an early dinner at the mountain hut and were in bed by 7 pm. Slightly before 1 am, most people in the hut woke up for the pre-dawn trek to the peak. Laying in our sleeping bags, we could hear the wind howling and occasionally when the wind died down, we could hear the rain falling. Colin and I looked at each other with some hesitation, but decided that we had come all this way and we would brave the storm.

Thus, we got up, got dressed an insane number of layers, exchanged a hug for good luck and stepped outside. With flashlights and headlamps we bared down against the elements and began the slow ascent of the last 600 meters or so. On and on we walked in the darkness, eventually the predawn light was enough that we could see a bit around us. However, the clouds were so thick that we would often lose each other in the mist. Eventually, it grew overwhelming. Approximately 5 minutes away from the summit, drenched to the bone, upon finding out that there would be no place for rest or a warm drink at the top, and seeing that there was no sunrise to be seen, I turned us around. I figured without anything to see, we were close enough.

On the walk back down, we stopped in a mountain hut to rest. From the altitude, the weather, the exertion, Colin had become somewhat ill and didn’t want to go on. We decided to stay there and nap. It was 5:30 am when we got to the hut, and approximately noon when we put our mostly wet clothes back on and headed out into the howling wind again.

The descent took much longer than I thought it would, partially because we walked very slowly, partially because we walked down the ascending route. We returned just in time to catch the last bus back to Tokyo. And much later, still somewhat wet and exhausted, we safely made it home.

There’s a Japanese expression “He who climbs Fuji once is a wise man. He who climbs Fuji twice is a fool”. This gets thrown around a lot. And after this weekend, I finally understand it. I’m glad that I went on this hike. However, it was not exactly a pleasant hiking experience (well, Saturday was, but it was greatly overshadowed by Sundays misfortunes). And I think I’d probably be a damn fool if I were to do it again.

Holy Trekking Through Snow

2008-07-01T19:05:00.002+09:00

A week ago, I went to Yamagata prefecture (west of Miyagi) to hike Dewa Sanzan, one of the holiest places in Northern Japan. Dewa Sanzan consists of 3 mountains especially sacred to a particular religious sect. The three mountains represent birth, death, and rebirth.

We started on Saturday with Gassan, by far the largest of the three at approximately 1800 meters. (Of course, in Japan usually you drive halfway up the mountain to get to the trailhead). The day was very hot and humid, but Gassan still has quite a bit of snow in many places. Our first encounter with a patch of snow coincided with heavy fog drifting over us so that it seemed like we were walking around in a great void, in an abyss surrounded by nothingness. The contrast in temperatures between the snowy spots and the non-snowy spots was stark and provided a nice relief from the normal balmy conditions of June.

As we were taking a group photo in front of the shrine at the top of the mountain, we heard several loud thunderclaps. Suddenly it began to rain. Painful, icy rain. We put on our rain gear and began to run/slide down the snowy mountainside. We must have looked insane to the people we passed—a dozen foreigners barreling down a mountain. The rain abated after about 10 minutes and the sun came back out in full force. The snowy patches still provided great opportunities to slide down the mountain, throw a few snowballs, and generally have the kind of fun that doesn’t normally happen in June.

We spent the night in the temple complex on top of Hagurosan. In the morning, we walked down the mountain and back up again. The trail is made of 2446 stone steps and is lined with huge trees.

In the afternoon we drove over to Yudonosan. On the way, we stopped at a temple that houses a mummified monk. He apparently took steps to mummify himself while still alive. We listened to a speech about him, but since my Japanese skills are rudimentary at best, I still don’t understand much about it. On top of Yudonosan we went to a special temple where we got blessed and walked barefoot to a spot with a good view. After the blessing we put our feet into a nice foot onsen, which in itself was a blessing after two days of hiking.

Yamagata is famous for cherries, so after a stop for some cherry flavored ice cream we drove back home to Miyagi.

This is the largest thatched roof in Japan.

The Big One

2008-06-14T14:34:00.003+09:00

This morning we had a 7.0 (6.9 according to some sources) earthquake here in northern Japan. It was pretty intense shaking. Some things fell. Some of my friends have a few broken dishes. There were aftershocks for quite a while afterwards that got annoying after a while (in fact there's one as I'm typing this).

Just wanted to let everyone know (if they happen to hear about the earthquake by other means) that I'm okay.

Hiking Nanatsumori

2008-06-06T19:53:00.004+09:00

Apologies for being a slacker about updating the blog.

You may recall the 7 small peaks located in my town and the legend I heard climbing about them and praying to the spirits that live on each peak. Last weekend my friends, Liz and Colin, and I set out to achieve the eternal good fortune (or happiness or luck—I don’t quite remember).

Although it was raining on Saturday morning (it’s the rainy season this month), we decided to set out anyway. With rain coats and hiking boots started on what would be a very wet, muddy, slippery, but fun hike. On Saturday we hiked up and down six peaks, taking pictures on each summit.

The seventh and tallest mountain is separated from the others and is a short drive away. After completing a big loop (with combined ups and downs of about 1500m) and with not much more daylight left, we decided to tackle Sasakurayama on Sunday.

We returned to my house soaking wet, cold, and tired. After recouping with hot showers, hot tea, and then bibimbop at a nearby restaurant, we headed out for two fantastic hours of karaoke.

Sunday morning turned out to be sunny and warm. Unfortunately our boots were still disgustingly wet. With such nice weather, there were several other hikers on the mountain. Well rested, we walked up the mountain in about 40 minutes and spent about the same amount of time at the top attempting to take fun pictures with camera timers.

Now we ought to be blessed, but even if we don’t get eternal good fortune, the weekend was still a blast.

Onikobe

2008-06-06T19:43:00.004+09:00

I couple weekends ago, I was in Onikoube, an area near Naruko.

A large group of JETs spent Saturday learning to paraglide. Because it was our first time, the instructors didn’t give us much opportunity to get off the ground. There were other people around who were flying quite long and high. Paragliding involves wearing a very large and awkward harness and running in a rather odd manner. Needless to say, the whole day was fairly amusing.

That night, we went camping nearby. Other friends joined us for camping. Although it rained (have I mentioned it’s the rainy season) that night, we had a shelter where we cooked. Barbeque, s’mores, people with guitars, campfire, all added up to a very good night.

In the morning, some of us set off on an attempt to find a nearby onsen that has a waterfall. What we originally thought was the path to the onsen turned out to be a very nice short nature walk with several geysers and a stream. I’d never seen a geyser before. Eventually we hopped back in our cars and found the place. There was an outdoor pool, and indeed another natural pool underneath a waterfall. We were warned that there was no point in going in the waterfall due to the heavy rain the night before. Of course we went anyway. The water was pretty cold but invigorating.

Funny Translations

2008-05-22T20:50:00.002+09:00

Today I came across this and felt the need to share. It has a list of bad English translations of Japanese "Adult Video" titles. If this kind of thing might offend you, perhaps you shouldn't click the link. For everyone else...it's quite funny.

Kabuki

2008-05-20T17:01:00.007+09:00

On Saturday I went to a performance of a type of traditional Japanese theater. From what I could tell, the main act was about a down-and-out sumo wrestler who goes on some sort of mission and fights off some other guys. Basically, I watched a play that I didn’t understand a single word of. (The physical comedy parts of it were quite fun). Attending theater productions in languages I don’t understand are not a usual hobby of mine. In this case I went entirely for the opening act.

The opening act was a short kabuki production done by five foreigners. A few of these guys are my friends, so I came out to cheer them on/laugh at them. Their performance was fantastic. They all wore pretty purple kimono, geta (traditional wooden shoes that are very hard to walk in, tons of make-up, and wigs. After the show, they posed for funny/scary pictures.

And just for fun, you can watch a couple minutes of the main play. I don't understand a word of it except when the little girl cries "Mother Mother". Also, her mother is played by a man.

Lanterns and a Happy Buddha Birthday

2008-05-10T12:21:00.003+09:00

I lucked out because I happened to be in Seoul while the city was having festivities in honor of Buddha’s birthday, which I guess is this week. The celebrations involve thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of lanterns all over the city. The lanterns are in the shape of lotus flowers. In the afternoon I participated in an event where they taught foreigners how to make lanterns. It was lots of fun and I won a prize because my lantern rocked. In the evening there was a parade of lotus lanterns. It was possibly the longest parade I have ever seen. It consisted almost entirely of people carrying lanterns. People in traditional Korean dress carrying lanterns. Buddhist monks carrying lanterns. Small children carrying lanterns. College students carrying lanterns. Elderly people being pushed in wheelchairs carrying lanterns. Very small children being pushed in strollers carrying lanterns. More people in traditional dress. More monks. You get the idea. Occasionally a cool lit up statue of Buddha or a dragon or something similar would come by. I watched the parade for 2 hours and there were still lanterns as far back as the eye could see. There was no sign that it would end any time soon. People also passed out little lanterns to the people watching the parade, so that even the sidelines had a neat effect of lots of lights. I took lots of parade pictures, so here are a few of them, along with my own lantern and other lanterns around town.

Random Mountains with Random Friends

2008-05-10T11:42:00.004+09:00

In Seoul I set out to have a little walking tour recommended by Lonely Planet. While trying to figure out where to go from the subway station, I made friends with a random guy who was clearly also attempting the same walking tour, so we set out together. After a few wrong turns, we finally made it up the spiritual mountain we were trying to see. However, we took some back trail because we only saw the temple, which should have been the first sight, on the way down. In South Korea they have random parks with exercise equipment set up on the mountainsides (because hiking up a steep mountain isn’t enough exercise). In addition to scrambling up some rocks, seeing cool carvings, and taking funny photos, we goofed around on this exercise equipment.

In Busan I set out for a more serious hike with another random traveler. We were aiming to see a famous mountain temple. However, we probably took the wrong path because there was no temple. And we were told there would be people selling food and drinks along the way. But there weren’t any of them either. (Except the woman selling kale juice—but we decided to pass on that). Despite the lack of a temple, I think we had a very successful hike. The peak was 615 m—there was a large marker saying so. And the views were amazing. We also took random breaks to play on the exercise equipment we encountered. When we returned from the trail and into town, we stopped at the first shop we saw and bought a bucket of oranges. We sat down and immediately devoured 3 each. Then we went out for bibimbap.

When I returned to Seoul, I walked up Mt. Namsan, which was quite small and not too nature-y, but it gave great views of the city.

Korea: So Close Yet So Different

2008-05-10T10:54:00.004+09:00

For Golden Week, I went across the East Sea to South Korea. The Korean Peninsula is just a hop, skip and jump away from Japan. Just a super-short flight from Sendai (I think Seoul is the only international destination from that airport) and I was in a land of spicy food, loud noises, and dirty cities. It was a fantastic trip. I spent some time in Seoul and Busan (also written Pusan). There wasn’t too much of the historical type stuff to see because the Japanese destroyed most of it over the centuries (just like in Japan there isn’t too much non-reconstructed stuff to see because the Americans destroyed it). Also, South Korea’s number 1 national treasure was destroyed in a fire in February of this year. However, I saw a palace, and came in time to see the changing of the guards, who were all wearing fantastically colored outfits and fake beards. I also went on a few hikes and celebrated Buddha’s birthday with lotus-flower lanterns.

Wakai Sensei

2008-04-24T19:28:00.002+09:00

A few days ago, I was wandering the hall at school during school cleaning time. I stopped to talk to a group of my new 1-nen-sei. In the group was an adorable girl named Yuki. She sits front row, center in her class and always smiles at me when she sees me. She's also tiny...still looks very much like a little kid, whereas some of the 1-nen-sei already look like teenagers.

Yuki asked me how old I was. And as I usually do, I made the students guess. This always takes some effort because I don't know how to say 'guess' in Japanese and they don't understand it in English. Eventually however, they start guessing. While most guesses begin in the upper 20's, one boy guesses 38! Eventually they work their way down from 26 to 22, at which point I say that they're correct. Yuki starts jumping up and down and clapping her hands with glee saying "Wakai! Wakai! Sugoi wakai! (wakai=young). She runs around a bit and tells a few other people my age, some of whom are also excited by having such a young teacher. Others are a bit more apathetic.

I look back at the boy who had guessed 38 and made acted like I was very upset. Little Yuki, standing not even as high as her classmate's shoulder, sees this and starts wailing on him and demanding he apologize. Eventually he turns to me and says sorry (in English!). But that wasn't quite enough for her. She continued demanding apologies for a bit longer till he says it again.

Nice to know little Yuki has my back.

Sakura

2008-04-24T19:05:00.004+09:00

The biggest, most fundamentally-Japanese phenomenon here is the blooming of the sakura, or cherry blossoms. It is the essence of spring. On the television weather reports, they show the 'sakura fronts'. Lines that look like weather fronts but show when the sakura are expected to bloom around the country--starting in the south and moving northwards. When Amy and Lindsay were here, we saw a few blooming sakura in Kyoto, and they said that Tokyo was in full bloom when they were there. The sakura blooming season finally reached us here in Miyagi recently.

Cherry blossoms are everywhere in Japan. The school yard of most schools are lined with them. Parks are filled with them. Shrines, temples, monuments all have sakura growing around them. Driving in the countryside is very pretty during this time.

However, the cherry blossoms only bloom for about a week--maybe two if the weather is very cooperative. Thus during this time, everyone celebrates with hanami--literally flower watching. Everyone finds nice spots under the sakura to spread out a tarp and eat and drink and bask in the beauty. In some places, lights are strung between the trees so that it is pretty at night. That way, people can continue their hanami in the evening. The pictures are from a hanami I had on Sunday with some friends near the castle in Wakuya, a town north of here.

I recently learned the reason why sakura and hanami are so important to Japanese culture. The sakura symbolize life. They are ephemeral and fleeting. The trees bloom, but after a brief period or a heavy wind and rain, they are gone. (Today is raining). Thus, you have to go out and celebrate the blossoms (life) while they're out there...because they'll be gone soon.

Incidently, I realized that I only have 3 more months of living in Japan. So I'm working on celebrating it while I still have it.

Sharing My Lunch

2008-04-10T16:46:00.002+09:00

As I wrote before, I sometimes make food that I get cravings for but that don’t exist in Japan. Among these foods is hummus. Yesterday I brought some hummus and pieces of carrots to school with me in my bento (boxed lunch). And since everyone stares and questions my food whenever I bring in anything I make myself, I shared with quite a few people. Not only did I introduce several of my coworkers to hummus, but I also introduced them to the concept of eating raw carrots. That’s right. Apparently in Japan they do not eat raw carrots. And they were quite shocked that I did. Until they tried some. Because everyone agrees that carrots and hummus is delicious.

New Beginnings

2008-04-10T16:44:00.002+09:00

The new school year began this week. On the first day of school only the older students came. After a ceremony introducing the new teachers, we prepared for the arrival of the new students. All of the 1-nen-sei classrooms were decorated and the gym was set up for a ceremony.

My coworkers and I decided that the proper English translation for the ceremony would be “school entrance ceremony,” although I don’t remember anything like this occurring while I was at school. It did however, bring back memories of Freshman convocation at IWU, that being the only thing I could liken it to. I started worrying about the resemblance when a student passed out, however, it wasn't hot and if there was a Japanese equivalent of "oouuuuut", it went over my head.

The ceremony was fairly long, and pretty similar to graduation, with the new students marching in, every student’s name called, and a bunch of speeches by various officials and a couple students. And bowing. Lots of bowing.

Role Reversal

2008-04-04T22:39:00.002+09:00

One of the new teachers at Taiwa Chuu went to grad school in the US. In fact, she just returned to Japan last month. She is still readjusting to driving on the left side of the road. Her English is impeccable (it would have to be after 10 years of immersion). She said that if I need any help with anything to ask her (practically everyone I've ever met in Japan has said this to me). But I joked that if she needs any help to ask me. After all, on some level I've been here longer than she has. After her welcome party, she gave me a ride back to where I parked my car--a parking garage near a subway station where you don't have to pay for parking. So I'm teaching her secrets and tricks already. She joked that I'm her 'sempai'. Sempai is a Japanese concept of anyone who is senior to you, either ahead of you in school or at the same company longer than you, and you look to this person for guidance.

And more bang for your buck. Another role reversal tale from this evening:

At the fancy restaurant they put out both chopsticks as well as knives and forks. During the second course I'm happily eating with my chopsticks when I notice that my neighbors to the right and left are both using the Western utensils. At some point, from my left I get the inevitable "Hashi wa jozu" [You're skilled with chopsticks]. And I was able to shoot right back, "naifu to foku wa jozu" [You're skilled with a knife and fork].

Goodbyes and Hellos

2008-04-04T22:10:00.002+09:00

April marks the beginning of the new school year in Japan and it means an interesting Japanese phenomenon occurs. Teachers are rotated among schools. For some reason (a reason not known to the Japanese teachers I asked today) elementary school and junior high teachers don't stay at the same school for more than a few years. They don't get a choice in the matter and are told sometime in March that they'll be transferring.

Thus, last Friday we had a goodbye party for the 7 teachers leaving Taiwa Junior High. At school that morning we had a ceremony with the students (despite the fact that it was technically vacation and that the 3-nen-sei had graduated, they were all there in their uniforms). After the ceremony the teachers moved all the desks in the staff room around to reflect everyone's new positions. Most of the 1-nen-sei teachers became 2-nen-sei teachers, those 2-nen-sei teachers that didn't leave became 3-nen-sei teachers...

And then the teachers gathered in the evening at a fancy Chinese restaurant. In the true Japanese sense there were quite a few speeches and even more drinking. The presentation of the food was spectacular. (Unfortunately my camera is officially out of order). The first dish that got brought out for each table had slices of duck eggs on one side laid out to look like a frog. On the other side of the dish were thin slices of various foods arranged to look like a peacock. Later we had shark fin soup and some kind of large fish...and probably some other things that I'm forgetting. Two of the English teachers I worked with left and saying farewell to them was sad.

But if teachers leave others have to replace them. Therefore, earlier this evening we had a welcome party for the new teachers. This took place at another fancy restaurant in Sendai. The food was good, but less remarkable. And once again there were tons of speeches. Among the speeches...each new teacher introduced themselves and then all the 'veteran' staff were introduced. And at both events, at the end of the night and the height of drunkenness everyone stood up and sang the school song.

So it seems that in Japan fancy parties come in twos. You have a party to ring out the old year and bring in the new year. And you have a party to send off your leaving coworkers and welcome your new ones. Although the reason for the reshuffling remains a mystery.

Bang the Drum

2008-03-28T16:14:00.001+09:00

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

2008-03-28T16:12:00.000+09:00

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

2008-03-28T16:09:00.001+09:00

*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

2008-03-16T18:52:00.002+09:00

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!

2008-03-11T18:02:00.002+09:00

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

2008-03-10T16:16:00.005+09:00

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

2008-03-06T20:23:00.002+09:00

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!

2008-03-06T20:19:00.002+09:00

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

For Ben Folds Fans

2008-02-28T18:57:00.000+09:00

When American musicians release CDs in Japan, they usually contain bonus tracks not found on the American releases. Last weekend at Rice Field, we were talking about music and Ben Folds came up. Somebody popped in "Whatever and Ever...Amen" and put on….a Japanese version of “Song for the Dumped.” It was hilarious!

The most laid-back place in Japan

2008-02-28T18:56:00.001+09:00

If you ever find yourself driving through rural Japan on Route 457, keep your eyes open for a little restaurant called Rice Field. The name is appropriate—there’s nothing but rice fields around. It’s about twenty minutes outside of Taiwa and it’s possibly my favorite place here.

When you walk inside, you’re greeted by wood-paneling, Hawaiian shirts and guitars hanging on the wall, and the most laid-back people in all of Japan. I believe I’ve written about the harried lifestyle of most Japanese. This appears to not apply to the owners and workers of Rice Field.

The menu is small but the food is delicious. And about once per month they have a live music night. They call it Aloha night and wearing a Hawaiian shirt gets you a free drink. They set out some free snack food and you merely aught to buy some drinks (I highly recommend the oolong tea).

Last Saturday I met a couple friends at Rice Field for the live music night. Several musicians drove in from around Miyagi. As some nasty wind raged outside, the wood stove kept the small crowd nice and warm and spirits were high.

The music was entertaining. Toward the end of the night, several musicians decided to play together—or perhaps a few roped the other ones into it. During one song, my friend Alia and I got up to dance. The owner was also up and dancing and in the span of a couple minutes, we turned the entire place into a short little dance party. Everyone who wasn’t playing an instrument at the time was dancing thanks to Alia and me.

When the music ended, that didn’t mean it was time to go home. On the contrary, the staff of Rice Field, some friends, and the Gaijin-san (us foreigners) hung out in one corner talking and laughing. (The owner passed out at one of the tables). We ended up hanging out till 3 am. At which point everyone decided the weather was so bad that they would all spend the night in the restaurant…except us crazy foreigners who weren’t afraid of some wind and snow. We drove home despite all the worry and offers to spend the night. And we were told that if anything happened on the way home to call and those guys would come help us.

Those of you coming to visit will definitely be having dinner at Rice Field.

The World According to Children

2008-02-27T18:44:00.003+09:00

I've spent several days over the past couple weeks teaching at an elementary school that I had never gone to previously. Since each lesson was the first time for the kids to have English class with the super cool, slightly crazy foreigner, I brought my huge world map and showed them where I came from.

The map is Eurocentric (like what all my readers are probably used to). This tends to throw the children off a bit, since most of their maps feature Japan front and center (Asia on the left and the Americas on the right).

"Where is Japan on the map?"--I have kids come up and point to it.

"No...that's Madagascar."

"Nope, that's New Zealand...you're getting closer."

Finding the US is even more fun.

"That's China."

"That's Russia."

"That's Australia. They speak English there."

"Mongolia?"

At some point I give a kid a little nudge over to the left. Or perhaps another merely started by staring intently at Africa.

"No. That's the Democratic Republic of Congo."

Sometimes I see their eyes on the correct hemisphere.

"Nope. That's Brazil."

"That's...what is that Cuba? [squints]. That's the Dominican Republic."

I felt bad every time they pointed to Canada...so close...especially since the US is referred to as simply America. And one time, a girl pointed to Alaska and I wasn't sure whether to give her credit or not.

Oh geography...looks like people are bad at it all over the world.

Home-made Sushi

2008-02-23T20:29:00.002+09:00

Last time I was at elementary school, one of the teacher's invited me over to his house for sushi. He had previously mentioned that his wife can make sushi, which I thought was pretty cool. So on Saturday he and his two sons (ages 8 and 10) picked me up and we went to their house.

They live in a very nice, Western-style house. In the car, the kids questioned me about video games, so as soon as we made it inside, they showed me all their games. I spent the next hour or so playing Wii sports with them.

Before sitting down to dinner, the teacher's wife poured vinegar over the rice while the boys and I fanned it vigorously. I'm not sure what the fanning was supposed to accomplish, aside from possibly dissipating the smell. Once we sat down, the boys explained how to make sushi rolls. We had lots of fun ingredients, including various types of sashimi, cucumbers, avocado (called 'abogado' in Japanese, to my unceasing amusement), and even sea urchin. It was my first time trying sea urchin, and I wasn't particularly impressed. Aside from that, everything was quite yummy, making me very full and very happy.

More Japanese Snowiness

2008-02-19T17:22:00.006+09:00

As if we didn't get enough snow festival fun at Sapporo Yukimatsuri, a few of my friends and I took a day trip on Saturday to Akita Prefecture, northwest of Miyagi, for the Kamakura festival of Yokote town. The kamakura is a snow-hut construction.

The western side of the country definitely gets harsher weather than the eastern side. It was snowing pretty harshly during our drive to Akita. Not having considered this, we had an Aussie and a Kiwi behind the wheel of the two cars we took. Although inexperienced at driving through snow (and whiteout conditions) they brought us there safely. The difference in the amount of snow along the roads in Miyagi and Iwate (eastern side) and Akita (western side) was astonishing.

When we arrived in Yokote town, we were even more impressed with the amount of snow they had. I’m no stranger to large snowfalls. After last year’s blizzards in Illinois that brought snow days to university students, I thought I understood what large drifts of snow were. However, in this town, there were drifts as high as my shoulders. There were whole untouched empty lots covered in snow as high as my elbows. The town had so much snow that they opened the sewers and were shoveling snow into them. And this appeared to be a normal amount. Had we been dressed better, it would have been the perfect snow to play in. As it was, we threw a few snowballs but quickly realized that we would become very cold if we continued with that behavior. More snow was falling down while we were there and in the 5 hours or so we had been parked, about 4 inches of snow accumulated on the cars. Since we spent that time walking around outside, my hair turned into a very interesting icy-dreadlock-y mess (which melted and made a huge puddle when we were at dinner).

As I said, a kamakura is a structure built out of snow and ice. Apparently this town has been building these things every winter for about 400 years. The townspeople who build these things then sit inside making a warm sweet drink (which traditionally has sake in it, but not anymore) and bean mochi. They invite the festival-goers into their kamakura and offer the drink and food. Of course, the kamakura is technically indoors and being Japanese, one has to remove one’s shoes before entering. This is no small feat, at least for me because I wear high-top boots that are rather annoying to put on and take off. This is exacerbated by the fact that you don’t want to step barefooted on the snow, nor do you want to step inside with shod feet. Therefore, I made quite a fool of myself when I got invited into one and spent ten minutes struggling with my shoes.

In addition to the kamakura that people sit inside, the school children also constructed miniature ones in front of their school. These were all lit up with candles and were very pretty.

Overall, it seemed like a very pleasant event because the festival was really local and relaxed. The kamakuras were in residential neighborhoods right outside people’s houses. Everyone was very friendly and inviting. It was surprisingly warm inside the snow-huts.

Winter Wonderland

2008-02-15T20:41:00.006+09:00

You're probably thinking to yourself "Why is Rita writing a Christmas-themed blog entry in February?" But this post isn't about Christmas. It's about a much more exciting winter-y event--Sapporo Yukimatsuri (Snow Festival). Last weekend I (and seemingly every other JET in Japan) went up Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's 4 main islands, for this event.

The weekend craziness started with an overnight ferry ride from Sendai. This boat was so big it was easy to forget that I was actually on a boat. And there was a bath on the boat (the Japanese don't consider showers sufficient for getting clean). In the bath, the water rocked in the exact same way as the ocean, which was cool but not relaxing.

Sapporo's main streets were decorated with countless ice and snow sculptures. Many of the ice sculptures shared similar themes--birds, fish, etc. The snow sculptures were much more varied and interesting. Several of them were promoting new movies, such as the second installment of Narnia. Among the ice sculptures were ice bars. That is, there were beer tents surrounded by walls made of ice blocks. One evening we hung out at the Bailey's ice bar, sipping hot drinks outside.

On Sunday, several of us traveled to the winter wonderland outside of town known as Satoland. Everything was white as far as the eye could see. We wandered through a snow/ice labrynth. There was a huge field of little snowmen that people build. A fellow JET and I built one...but as it was the end of the day there wasn't much snow left and we had to cannibalize the eye pieces that had fallen off other snowmen. Still, we were very proud parents to our diminutive Cubist snowman baby.

In the spirit of trying new things and because this was Hokkaido, I went snowboarding on Monday! For some reason, the bunny hill was at the top of the mountain. The view was incredible. Despite the fact that I didn't feel like I'd gotten the hang of it well enough to go down harder slopes, there was no other way off the mountain. After spending the whole day on my butt in the snow, we went to an onsen. That was my favorite part of snowboarding.

I ate very well during this weekend. Hokkaido has its own famous style of ramen. One night we had an all you can eat lamb buffet/all you can drink dinner at the Sapporo Beer Garden (Sapporo isn't just a city--it's also a brand of beer). And after the snowboarding/onsen we went out for delicious crab.

To top off the weekend, four of us went out for a marathon all-night karaoke, returning to the hostel just in time to pack our bags, hop on the bus to the ferry port and sleep most of the long day of travel back home.

A Year Later: Interview Reflections

2008-02-06T21:06:00.000+09:00

I interviewed for JET about one year ago. Recently I finally realized the answer to one question that an interviewer kept harping on. He asked me repeatedly how I would cope with the food situation, pointing out that the food I was used to would not be available.

Turns out that my solution to the unavailability of various foods is to make them myself. I've made my own pasta sauce, my own hummus, even baked my own bread twice. I'm getting really into making everything from scratch. Looks like after time spent in Japan I might become an expert in preparing all sorts of cuisines--except Japanese.

February Traditions

2008-02-06T20:57:00.000+09:00

Last Friday I was at elementary school and I realized that the next day was Groundhog Day. Somehow this came up in conversation with one of the teachers and I explained the tradition. As it turns out, Japan has its own early February tradition.

On February 3rd or 4th the Japanese take part in a ritual called mamemaki in order to drive out the demons from their homes and offices and to usher in spring and happiness. Since the 3rd fell on the weekend, the school observed this custom on Friday.

One of the teachers came to the room where I was teaching in an "Oni" (demon) mask. The kids (and I) threw peanuts at him to drive him away. That's right folks. Mamemaki means bean throwing. Traditionally soy beans would be used (and then eaten) but the peanuts had those convenient shells.

The Japanese tradition is definitely MUCH cooler than Groundhog's Day!

Working Hard

2008-01-31T17:08:00.000+09:00

One day last week, I walked home in the company of some of my 3-nen-sei. They were on their way to juku—commonly called ‘cram school’ in English. We talked about their schedules for the day and their usual schedule. One girl goes to juku every day (including weekends) from 5 pm till 9 pm. The other only goes six days per week but is there 5 pm-11pm. This is above and beyond the homework that their teachers at school assign.

They asked me about what I do after school. Not wanting to appear horribly lazy, I impressed upon them the exciting tasks of adult life—grocery shopping, cooking dinner, doing laundry… They said it sounded like I was very busy….if only they knew….

I think those kids spend more time on their studies at 15 years old than I did when I was in college. I’m glad I’m not a Japanese junior high schooler. And it doesn't get any easier when they get older.

Gesture Confusion

2008-01-31T17:07:00.000+09:00

Since my Japanese is appallingly bad and most people around me hardly manage a few sentences of English, I end up communicating through gestures quite a bit. Even when people are able to communicate in the same language, the nonverbal aspect is a very important part. However, just as people in different parts of the world speak different languages, so they also use different gestures—sometimes with much room for misinterpretation. This is the case even for similar cultures (flash the ‘peace sign’ to some Brits or Aussies and see if they get angry).

I’ve started adopting some of the Japanese gestures, although at first they really threw me off. In the West we typically point to our chests when referring to ourselves. In Asia however, the common method is to point to one’s nose. This seemed really odd at first, but appears that I’ve adopted it quite freely now. (I was happy to find that I was gesturing correctly when I visited Malaysia).

If you find yourself in Japan and want to signal to someone to come toward you, hold your hand out, palm-down, and wave your fingers back and forth. To an American, this will look like you’re shooing them away. Unfortunately, before I figured this out, some of my students who were trying to get me to come over and help them were quite rudely snubbed. Oops.

Just yesterday I had an interesting conversation with one of the English teachers I work with regarding various mental and psychological disorders and learning disabilities. I said the word “mental”, which she repeated and put her hand on her chest. I looked at her, confused, and repeated the word, pointing at my head. Because clearly mental problems are those in the brain, which is in your head. But the Japanese like to think of their heart as the seat of mental reasoning….perhaps. I’m not sure why they do that, but it made me doubt even more that the terms my coworker and I were discussing were the same in both of our heads (or hearts?).

Farewell Notes

2008-01-30T20:04:00.000+09:00

Don't worry, I'm not leaving yet. However, my 3-nen-sei are graduating in March. The 3-nen English teacher came to me today with a stack of farewell notes they wrote as an English assignment. They had little messages of thanks, of what they plan to do in the future, or of hopes to meet up again. Here are a few of my favorites (spelling errors and all):

"I hope our memory does not delete."

"I'm pleasure to meet again."

"We will run after dream's forevr."

"Let's meet schoolmate re-union. Please invite me to your wedding. Love 3-1"

"Let's meet aging some day."

"I hope we meet when we are twenty years old. Let's drink sake!" (Cultural note--the legal drinking age in Japan is twenty).

"This class was not so bad. I enjoy enough."

"I am not sorrow. I want smiling your face. The endless"

If you want funny quotes (and you are a facebook user) check out Subarashii quotes from JET teachers' pupils.

Student-Teacher Interactions

2008-01-21T18:16:00.000+09:00

One thing that continues to interest me is the way in which students and teachers in Japan interact. If they were in the US, their behaviors would probably result in the students getting detention and the teachers being sued. At the very least. Meanwhile...in Japan its just hilarious.

One day last week I ate lunch in one of the 3-nen-sei (9th grade) classrooms. After he finished eating, the home-room teacher, a somewhat pudgy middle-aged man, came up to the lunch group I was sitting with and stood behind one of the boys.

The homeroom teacher points to his victim and say, in broken English, "He is good boy. He has best smile of all students."

In the fashion typical of my students, the boy looks at me and emphatically says, "No no no!"

This does not deter the homeroom teacher. He continues, "He has best smile...He has...many lovers." And he points around the classroom.

The student decides to return the favor and tell me about the teacher. "He is very big boy. He is biggest boy." The teacher agrees to this assessment and continues to try to talk about the student. Since the verbal responses didn't work to get the teacher to stop talking, the student gets out of his chair and pushes the teacher against the wall to try to get him to stop. The teacher wrestles in response and goes on to tell me random amusing nonsense about the rest of the lunch group.

At least the homeroom teacher practiced his English...

The World's Economies

2008-01-13T21:18:00.000+09:00

I live in the boonies. For most of my life, I've taken for granted living 10 miles from a major hub of international air transportation (O'Hare). In order to get to Narita Airport (near Tokyo) I took a taxi to the Sendai Subway, the subway to the main train station, a shinkansen to Tokyo, and the Narita Express train to the airport (4 hours of travel). To get back home again after my vacation I took the Narita Express, Shinkansen, and a bus.

Traveling from my house to the airport and back again cost me 30800 yen which currently converts to US$271.27.*

In 11 days in Malaysia I spent 600 Malaysian Ringgits which translates to US$179.13.*

I want to make some sort of insightful comment here....but I don't really have any. I'm pretty amazed at the figures though.

*I used the currency converter application on iGoogle.

A Malaysian Misadventure

2008-01-13T21:15:00.000+09:00

I mentioned in my previous post that my trip to Malaysia was a positive experience except for a couple of instances. This was one of them. As you read, keep score.

I was wandering around the Malaysian city of Ipoh when I began to feel somewhat hot and tired. Luckily for me, I encountered a grassy area near the river which had many park benches. I decided to stop and relax.

Suddenly, my repose was interrupted by someone snatching my bag! Before I knew what had happened, I was up and running after the thief. Some primitive part of my brain took over and demanded that I claim my territory and fight for it. As I ran, I also shouted. The bag-snatcher ran down a steep embankment toward the river and fell. I thought that would be my chance to catch him—but alas, I fell in the same spot. To get away from me, he decided to jump into the river and cross to the other bank. Although I did not pursue him into the river (that would have been stupid—none of my valuables were in the bag and the river was nasty) I kept shouting. On the other side, several men who heard my yells took up my cause and soon the cowardly thief abandoned my bag and slipped underneath a chain-link fence.

I stopped yelling and turned to find that I had drawn a crowd of 10-20 onlookers. Some of them accompanied me to the bridge where I received my now-soaking and muddy bag from the men who recovered it. Although some people in the crowd suggested I ought to file a police report, I decided that would be a pointless endeavor. Instead, I set off across the street to find a place to clean off my bag. I was pointed toward an Indian restaurant.

The Indian restaurant had no sink in their restroom, but when I explained what I wanted they let me into their kitchen to use the sink. I discovered my phone was in the bag, which upset me (however, since then it dried out). But the part that upset me the most was that my journal was in the bag. Although it has dried out, and I’m using it again, some of the ink ran and is no longer legible.

The people at the restaurant were extremely kind. After I finished attempting to clean my bag, they offered me a drink. I explained what had happened again, and one of the patrons took a great interest. He asked if I needed medical attention and bought me another tea. I ended up sitting at the restaurant for quite a while to calm my nerves. In that time, the owner gave me lunch and refused to accept my money.

One person ruined my belief of the general goodness of humanity, and seemingly everyone else in Ipoh did something toward restoring it.

For those keeping score at home, tell me who came out ahead, me or the thief?

Malaysia and Singapore: A Pictoral Summary

2008-01-09T21:27:00.000+09:00

I'm back from my Malaysian/Singaporean adventure and that means it's time to blog about it. In short, aside from a couple misadventures (one of which will get its own post) it was a nice, relaxing trip. The weather was hot but not unbearably so, the people were generally friendly, the food was cheap, diverse, delicious, and plentiful, and the sights pretty. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here are some:

Christmas Day was a day of religion; I visited a mosque, a Hindu temple, and a Buddhist temple. The population of Malaysia consists mainly of three ethnic groups: Malays, who are mostly Muslim and speak Malay, Indians, who are mostly Hindu and Tamil-speaking, and Chinese, who tend to be Buddhist.

Chicagoans may remember a lot of fuss about 10 years ago when new buildings were going to take the Sear's Tower's title of Tallest Building in the World. Here they are, Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers. Not that it matters anymore, because there is a building even taller in Taipei now.

Outside of KL, Batu Caves is the sight of a Hindu temple reached by 272 steps--my work-out for the day.

Some couples carry their baby in a yellow cloth suspended from a sugar cane to thank the goddess for the birth and to bless the baby.

Other people carry refreshments to be sold at high (for Malaysia) prices at the top.

All around the caves were cheeky monkeys. The first monkey was a pleasant surprise. The second was cute as well. Then I realized there were troops and troops of monkeys and they were somewhat scary.

I saw many more houses of worship around the country, with interesting architecture and artwork. The entire county seems to smell of incense from the offerings at the Buddhist and Hindu temples. Here are some massive incense in front of a Buddhist temple.

I went to an island called Penang. I met up with a couple friends from Japan and we went to the beach.

We rode on a tri-rickshaw even though only 2 adults fit in one.

Lunch served on a banana leaf is delicious.

I took a little side trip to the Netherlands. Actually, I went to Malacca (also spelled Melaka) which was conquered by just about everyone over the centuries.
I made friends with some travelers, and we found the mouth of the river, where it feeds into the Straits of Melaka. One of my new friends and I then put our feet in the water even though it was fairly murky.

I rounded off the two weeks with about 1.5 days in Singapore. This dude arrived in Singapore and had about half the city named after him. I'm not that cool. I just showed up, had a nice night on the town, and spent the next day at a museum.

Heading South for the Winter

2007-12-23T12:50:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-22T11:00:00.000+09:00

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?

2007-12-20T22:44:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-18T18:11:00.002+09:00

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

2007-12-16T17:20:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-16T12:53:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-14T17:24:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-11T21:21:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-10T17:18:00.000+09:00

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

2007-12-05T21:21:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-30T21:47:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-29T20:25:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-27T19:47:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-26T17:47:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-24T19:28:00.001+09:00

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

2007-11-19T07:52:00.000+09:00

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

Surviving the Winter

2007-11-16T22:20:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-12T20:13:00.001+09:00

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!!!!

2007-11-07T21:29:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-06T20:02:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-04T17:26:00.000+09:00

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

2007-11-04T17:08:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-31T21:16:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-28T21:38:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-28T20:43:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-24T21:00:00.001+09:00

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

2007-10-23T20:59:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-14T17:35:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-09T21:08:00.000+09:00

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?

2007-10-08T21:02:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-04T22:38:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-03T23:02:00.000+09:00

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

2007-10-02T20:29:00.000+09:00

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

2007-09-30T20:04:00.000+09:00

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

2007-09-27T21:09:00.000+09:00

"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

2007-09-24T21:58:00.000+09:00

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

2007-09-20T21:06:00.000+09:00

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...

2007-09-19T16:43:00.000+09:00

...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

2007-09-17T22:29:00.000+09:00

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.

Playing at Recess

2007-09-11T22:39:00.001+09:00

Today I went on my first elementary school visit. It was a busy day. There are six classes in the school (one for each grade 1-6) and I played with (I mean...taught) each class. These kids were insanely cute. I nearly died from cuteness overload. And they were so excited by everything I said and everything we did.

I showed up in the morning and quite a few kids on the playground immediately wanted to talk to me and be my friend. As the foreigner who visits occasionally I'm almost a celebrity to these kids.

They set me up in a nice big carpeted room that was labeled play room in katakana (I'm starting to be able to decipher some kana!). I mention carpeting because shoes don't go on carpet, so I got to spend practically the whole day barefoot! Yea, I'm easy to please and being barefoot is one of the little things that make me happy.

I had very similar lessons for each grade. I introduced myself and had them practice introducing themselves in English and shaking hands. Then I taught them either fruits or foods. I played a fun game involving running to the board and slapping a flashcard with some of them. The first class that played the game broke one of the props in their enthusiasm. It was one of those plastic fans and I have roughly 400 more, so no big deal. I sang a lot of head-shoulders-knees-and-toes. The kids got excited over everything! A picture of the Chicago skyline, American money, a picture of my family, everything I said or did. A lot of these things I showed to my JHS students and they barely cared. So it was refreshing.

During morning recess I literally ran around with the kids. Some second-graders would take me by the hand and start running. I jump roped with the kids, played on the swings (even jumped off them), went down the slide, flipped over on the monkey bars... During lunch recess I played dodgeball with some kids. I miss recess.

I was so active today. I ate a bigger portion of the 900+ calorie school lunch than I ever have. I heard a lot about how tiring elementary school is, but this is clearly coming from people who have never been camp counselors. Seven hours of high energy children was fantastic. No boring downtime like I have at the JHS.

I can't wait for my next elementary school visit!

Speech Competition

2007-09-10T21:08:00.000+09:00

Today was the county-wide English Speech and Recitation contest. LIke the title says, there are 2 categories of speeches: those that a student memorized out of the textbook and those they've written themselves. The textbook prints the worst stories ever.

I've been working with 4 students on their speeches. All their hard work paid off today because one of the speech students got first prize in that category and one of the recitation students got second place in that category. These two will be participating in the Sendai-area speech contest on Wednesday.

I'm so proud!

Oops

2007-09-10T21:06:00.000+09:00

I realized that snapfish is stupid about letting other people see my pictures. Apparently I have to invite others via email. So that last link in my previous post won't get you to my pictures. Sorry. Email me (ritayamin@gmail.com) if you want an invite. And I suppose I'll move my pictures to a less-stupid picture hosting site.

School Spirit

2007-09-10T20:10:00.000+09:00

This weekend was Taiwa JHS' sports festival (undokai). This event is a huge deal. Classes were canceled to have time to practice. Kids practiced after school. A lot of preparation goes into the junior high's sports festival.

The school was divided into 5 teams: orange, red, blue, green, and yellow. Each team consisted of one class from each grade. The kids all wore headbands of their team's color. Each class also made a flag, so the whole event was very colorful.

The festival took place on the field (sand lot) in front of the school. Many parents brought picnic lunches and sat on the side watching.

The event began with all the students marching across the field. I can't decide if the marching is cool or kind of scary. Then there were quite a few opening speeches, a lot of bowing, some shouting from the team leaders, and stretches. Everyone stretched...the students, the principle, the PTA members...

The morning was filled with lots of fun events. There were some almost-western style relays, except an entire class ran as one relay team as opposed to 4 people. The ichi-nen-sei (1st year students) jump roped. Only they did it in cooperative Japanese style, where the entire class or 30 or more jumped together with one rope. While this seems impossible to the independently focused Westerner, they were surprisingly good at it. During one practice, I saw class 1-4 jump 23 times in a row. The ni-nen-sei (2nd year students) had a crazy relay involving alternating groups of three boys with legs tied together (like a 3-legged race) and pairs of girls who had to run with a balloon between them. The san-nen-sei (3rd year students) had a relay race where groups of 8 had their legs all tied together in a row. This event was tons of fun since it involved the most falling. The girls then had a basket toss competition. I helped make those bean bags that they're throwing. Afterwards, the boys had a huge, fierce tug of war.

After lunch, there was a cheering competition. Some san-nen-sei from every team made up chants and singing/cheering. They practiced really hard. School was so loud while they were all practicing. I recorded very low quality video of all the cheers, so feel free to watch. Green Yellow Blue Orange Red While figuring out who won that competition, we had roughly 700 more relay races. They just wouldn't stop with the relay races.

The event ended with the students marching once again, more speeches, bowing, and stretching.

I recieved a lot of questions as to whether we have sports festivals/jump rope/tug of war/whatever in America. I have to say, this was a very interesting Japanese custom.

The rest of my pictures from the sports festival are here.

Typhoon

2007-09-07T14:40:00.000+09:00

Today I experienced my first typhoon. This storm hit Japan a couple days ago and is pretty much on a path over most of the country. (I think the southern islands of Kyushu and Shukoku missed out). The storm has been moving very slowly, so yesterday we were all anticipating it. Yesterday there were high winds here and people kept looking out the window as if they would be able to see the typhoon approaching.

Yesterday I told people that this would be my very first typhoon. Everyone was shocked! I guess if you live in a country that consists entirely of islands in the middle of the ocean, it’s difficult to imagine places that are unaffected by ocean weather. One of the English teachers even had a stereotypical Japanese television reaction: ‘eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaah?’ But I explained that Chicago is very far inland so we don’t have typhoons, which incidentally are called hurricanes in the Western hemisphere. And no, I’ve never experienced a hurricane either.

This morning one of the English teachers called to inform me that the weather was too severe for the students to come to school. So they get to stay home, safe and dry. But the teachers still had to come in, so here I am, blogging in the teachers room. I looked out the window, and thought ‘you’ve got to be kidding me. I have to go out in this shit.’ But I’m a trooper, so I put on my raincoat and grabbed my umbrella. School is a 15 minute or so walk from my house. I was immediately soaked, because no matter which way I held my umbrella, the wind changed directions and I got soaked. My umbrella kept alternately flipping inside out and bending far more than those metal stays are meant to bend. The last 5 minutes or so, I was holding the umbrella straight out, parallel to the ground instead of over my head, because that’s how the wind and rain were blowing. I got to school with my pants completely soaked through. I actually wrung them out in the sink. It’s a good thing I had a pair of sweats at school. My umbrella broke because of the wind. The fabric ripped off two of the stays.

Typhoons blow!

Back to school...

2007-08-28T20:52:00.000+09:00

School is back in session and I've now spent two full days at school although I haven't taught any classes yet. But never fear--tomorrow I'm teaching 5.

Monday was the first day of the semester and therefore we had an opening ceremony. It was in the gym and very hot and at the end, one of the kids fainted because of the heat (remind anyone of anything?). Anyway, the kids were all wearing their formal uniforms. Usually they wear uniforms that look like warm-ups you would wear if you were on some sports team. (In fact most of them changed after the ceremony, as did the teachers. But nobody told me and I was stucksweating in my fancy clothes all day.) I noticed that the kids shoes are color coded by their grade. The 7th graders have white shoes with red markings, the 8th graders white shoes with blue markings, and the 9th graders' shoes have green markings. At the ceremony, I had to give a short speech in transliterated Japanese. I think I managed to get most of it out without garbling it too much.

Every day, at the end of classes, the kids clean the school. During this time on Monday I walked around and introduced myself to some of the kids. Some were very shy and tried to avoid talking to me. Others were very enthusiastic, but still turned to their friends for help. When I try talking to the kids, I tend to hear a lot of "YES!" no matter what I say. Which incidently is also what I do when people speak Japanese to me.

Monday was only a half day for the students, so many left at lunchtime. However, after lunch most came back for their various club activities. I worked with the speech contest participants for a while. Afterwards I prepared my self-introduction lessons until it was time for me to go home.

Later, I was walking down the street when I heard shouts of "Rita-sensei! Rita-sensei!" I ran into a group of 3 girls that I had introduced myself to earlier. I stood and talked to them for quite a while. They all needed to consult on everything they or I said.

One of the teachers gave me a bunch of veggies from her grandparents' garden. I got baby eggplant, some sort of little green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and 3 stalks of the biggest, fattest asparagus I have ever seen!

Today the students had testing most of the day. I didn't have too much to do. I spent about half the morning helping one woman who works at the school make these little balls filled with seed. It was a lot of fun. We took breaks to juggle and to play a makeshift basket toss. Later I tried to laminate some pictures and they got stuck in the laminator. Since I messed up a laminator, I officially feel like a teacher. In the afternoon I graded the 9th graders' English tests, which was terrible work.

Tomorrow I actually start teaching. Wish me luck!

Gasolina

2007-08-26T16:24:00.000+09:00

The US, Spain, Morocco, Israel, and now Japan--places where I've danced to Gasolina. That song really needs to go away.

Comparing Sizes

2007-08-25T15:01:00.000+09:00

I did a bit of research about the populations and land areas of the US and of Japan to tell my students about the US. Thought it was interesting enough to share here. The US has a bit more than twice the number of people than Japan (~300 million vs. ~127 million). But the US is nearly 1000 times the size of Japan in land area! No wonder everything is so big and spread out in the US.

Changing Jobs

2007-08-24T13:44:00.000+09:00

After my previous job working in rehab where the kids cussed me out on a fairly regular basis, the level of respect I get from the students here is unbelievable. I'm sure there will be some troublemakers in my classes because we shouldn't overgeneralize. This morning as I was coming to school the baseball team was outside. One of the kids passed me and as he said good morning he not only bowed but also tipped his hat to me. So I went from kids cussing me out to kids tipping their hats to me. I think I like this job change.

Shindig and first day at school

2007-08-22T23:58:00.000+09:00

Last night was the official welcome party for me and Nathan. After work, people from the Board of Education, the principals, vice-principals, and some teachers from all the schools, and some other official-types including the mayor came to a local place. There was a nice spread with various little things to eat. We all stood as Nathan and I were introduced and then several speaches were given. And then I had to say something! After the speaches and the "Kompai" we all ate and mingled. I have been asked about my hobbies so often lately. At one point, I was talking to all the English teachers from Taiwa JHS and I tried an onigiri (rice-ball thing) and described it as "oishi" (delicious--one of the few important Japanese words I know) and they all thought it was fantastic, laughing and smiling. I'm not sure if they were impressed that I liked it or that I busted out a Japanese word. Of course there were the mandatory questions as to whether I could use chopsticks, and everyone was impressed that I could. I mingled with everyone at the party. The English teachers helped translate for me. And at some point, after meeting a bunch of officials, the English teacher who was with me said that now as a Japanese custom, I should pour more drinks into their cups. I guess now that I did that, we're officially friends or something. Anyway, all in all it was a pretty fun shindig. And the food was delicious.

Today was my first day going to school instead of the Board of Education. It is still summer vacation, but the teachers are working (albeit shorter hours and more relaxed atmosphere) and the students are there practicing with their various clubs. I came in around 10 am, walked around the school with one of the English Teachers, had some coffee, and then spent some time helping out 2 students who are participating in the upcoming English speech contest.

I worked with them on their pronunciation and inflection (or intonation, not really sure what its called). English is a very up-and-down in pitch language, whereas Japanese is much more flat and even, so it is very difficult for Japanese speakers to sound natural. Of course, the problem with that comes from being able to stress different words in a sentance for different nuances of meaning. It's a bit wierd that I have become the authority on how words are pronounced. I keep thinking that the pronunciations I'm giving are specific to my accent and there may be other correct (and possibly easier) ways to pronounce certain words.

But anway...the students were so eager to please. And they respond to praise so well. When I said that something was correct, or especially when I called something perfect, their faces would simply light up.

Before I knew it, it was lunchtime. A bunch of the teachers sat together at a table in the teachers' room and we all had lunch together. I told them all about famous things in Chicago. They were shocked to find out that ketchup does not go on Chicago-style hotdogs. After lunch, I sat at my desk brainstorming my self-introduction lesson for a bit. However, before long, a couple teachers came in with ice cream for everyone. So we all went back to the table and sat around eating ice cream together. When we were done with our ice cream, I went back to my desk and within 20 minutes or so, one of the English teachers came to me and said that I had been working very hard, must be tired, and to go home.

I get told that I must be tired a lot here. It's a bad translation of some Japanese phrase that is basically thanking a person for their hard work. It means something along the lines of 'you have been working so hard so you must be tired.' It is a very polite thing to say, but it comes off oddly if you're unaware of the intent.

So my first day, I worked 4 hours, an hour of which was lunch, and another 20 minutes or so was spent eating ice cream. Yes, I was very tired. I look forward to doing it again tomorrow.

My Address

2007-08-19T22:43:00.000+09:00

I finally understand my address to be able to give it out. I have no qualms about posting it all over the internet because it means nothing to me and I doubt anyone would actually be able to find my house by this info. I'm not exactly sure of the order that the info is supposed to be written, but the folks at the post office in Japan are clever, so hopefully they'll figure it out and I'll be able to get mail.

Yamin Margarita
Miyagi-ken Taiwa-cho Yoshioka
Tennouji-aza 138
981-2621
Japan

Who wants to be postcard buddies? Sending me mail will officially make you the Coolest Person EVER!

Outside of Miyagi

2007-08-19T15:33:00.000+09:00

On Saturday, the Taiwa clan and a new Sendai ALT named Huong took a road trip to a beach party in Fukushima, the prefecture south of Miyagi. We were unsure about making the trip because the weather in Miyagi on Saturday morning was gray and rainy and altogether not nice beach weather. However, we decided to risk it and we drove south for several hours to get to this beach.

It was fairly cloudy and the weather finally cooled down to the point where it was comfortable to be outside. At the beach there were tents with beer and food, people playing volleyball, cooking out, and swimming. We hung out with some folks we knew and met some foreigners (mostly JETs) from other prefectures. It was a good, practical lesson in Japanese geography because I met people from Fukishima, from Ibaraki, which is directly south of Fukishima, and from Yamagata, which is west of Miyagi. I did not know any of these place names before yesterday. Spent part of the afternoon playing volleyball with random people swapping in and out on both sides.

We took a walk past all the tents selling booze and food. At one were scantily-clad girls selling Smirnoff Ice along with a drunk guy who may or may not have been working. Jenny decided she really wanted the little prize that they were giving away if you buy a drink, but told the guy that she wasn't drinking. We wandered away from that tent and a minute later I was standing with the 2 guys I had come with when the drunk guy comes up to me and says that 'we need to corroborate' and that he'll get fired if I don't buy a drink. So he pulls out his wallet and hands me 1000 yen (approximately $10) to buy drinks. We all went back to the tent, I bought 2 drinks and we went on our way. Jenny got her toy and I got one too (it was a little flashlight thing). Random, but if somebody wants to give me money to buy myself a drink I guess I'll take it.

When it got dark, a crowd gathered in front of a tent with a stage and a DJ spinning. Turned into a very fun dance party. People got up on stage, dancing and jumping up and down. At some point, tons of the foreigners got up on the stage. Unfortunately, they cut the music insanely early (10 pm!). So then we had to chill out the rest of the night.

A couple hours later, I took a nap on the beach, but all my body heat was being conducted into the sand and after an hour of being really cold I gave up and got up. Ran into Nathan and Huong who started asking me where Jenny was. Apparently they hadn't noticed that I announced an hour beforehand that I was going to sleep. After we found Jenny sleeping in her car, I settled on a park bench to take another nap. It was much warmer than the sand.

Around 3 am I woke up with a second wind and started wandering the beach again. I hung out with some kiwis and Japanese who were sort of dancing to crappy music from a CD player. After hanging out with them a while, I decided to make friends with a group who had a fire going. So I stood in front of the fire and warmed up, wandered the beach again, and then the Taiwa clan was ready to leave.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Nothing was spoiled by rain. The only disappointing part was that we left about 30 minutes before the sunrise and I wanted to stay and watch it, but c'est la vie. Sometime after I get my own car, I'll drive to the beach to watch the sunrise.

Illiteracy and its Challenges

2007-08-14T21:31:00.000+09:00

Every day I realize the difficulties of living in a country where I don't know the language. I have a pocket dictionary, which helps me a little. However, even with that, I find little things like grocery shopping to be very challenging.

Our first day in Taiwa (2 weeks ago now, crazy!), Nathan and I went grocery shopping. In that excursion, I wandered around the store looking for things I might want to buy. Many items were completely novel and intimidating. However, I managed to find some of the basics: a bag of rice, eggs, etc. I bought some veggies that looked like they could be related to lettuce or spinach. And I bought some random cooking oil. I wandered the store trying to find something resembling oil. Finally, I found a bottle, but I had to ask Nathan to make sure.

Since I couldn't find the spices in the store on that first excursion, my cooking was too bland to even bother eating. (It didn't help that I couldn't read the buttons on my rice-cooker and it took me multiple attempts to make a decent pot of rice.) So a few days later, I went to another grocery store on a quest for spices. Salt and pepper would have been a good place to start, along with curry powder. After wandering up and down the store, I managed to find the spices. I foudn curry powder first. In fact I found several different containers of curry powder. One of them was labelled "Indian Curry Powder" and to emphasize how Indian it was, it had a picture of....and American Indian with a headdress. I settled on some curry powder without the ridiculously incorrect logo. I found the pepper pretty easily as well, although I had to guess that it was pepper. However, I could not find any salt.

On my third attempt at grocery shopping I finally found some containers of white powder that could be salt. Since I couldn't read them, I guessed which one to buy. Of course, this guessing made me unsure about what I had bought, so when I came home, I decided to taste in order to make sure the spice I bought was in fact salt. However, when I put a little bit on my tongue, I dicovered that I had accidentally bought MSG!

It was not until my fourth excursion to the grocery store that I FINALLY found salt...labeled in English, no less.

Grocery shopping is becoming somewhat easier. The milk has pictures of cows on it. I bought some meat the other day, guessing to make sure it was chicken. But this has been just one example of what I am sure will be the many challenges that Japan will bring.

Home Sweet Japanese-Style House

2007-08-12T22:16:00.000+09:00

Japanese internet has wrecked havoc with my ability to click the right links on websites. All the links are now simply questionmarks because they changed to Japanese and my computer does not support Japanese font (not that I would be able to read it if it weren't questionmarks). Nevertheless, I'm attempting to post pictures of my new domicile.

I have a sweet set-up here in Taiwa-cho. The board of education put me up in a Japanese-style house. And it's positively huge by Japanese standards. Which means that when we decide to have gatherings with other JETs from the surrounding inaka, we can party at my house and everyone can crash here (like we did this past weekend).

Traditional style rooms are floored with tatami mats. Room sizes are measured in the number of tatami that can lay in the room. Typical sizes are 6-tatami or 8-tatami. I have both a 6 tatami and an 8 tatami room. I also have another room that's my bedroom and what is possibly the largest kitchen in all of Japan.

A view of my house from the street.

The front door. Welcome.

In Japanese homes, we take off our shoes.

My six tatami room. Notice the sliding doors with the paper screens.

The largest kitchen in all of Japan. However, it has less counter space than the tiny kitchen in my apartment in Bloomington. The fridge isn't even as high as my shoulder. But I have an oven, which is not common in Japan. Also, the kitchen table has a gas line running to it and a burner in the middle so I can make yakitori at the table.

My 8 tatami room. Notice my housplant, courtesy of the cell phone company, is still alive. All my windows are actually sliding doors.

Here's my bedroom. I have a Western mattress, but it's hard as a rock. I have a bunch of spare futons and I'm considering sleeping on one of them instead. I have tons of storage space in the bedroom and it's the only room in the house with an airconditioning unit.

I suppose this would be the bathroom. Here is a sink and a washing machine.

Off this room is the actual shower/bath room. It has a deep tub and a showerhead. Its very spacious for taking showers. I still haven't taken a bath, but I found some bathsalt, labeled "it's nice."

Finally, down the hall and around a corner from the bathroom is the toilet. Notice there is a small faucet above the tank. When you flush the toilet, water pours from the faucet and you can wash your hands. I keep a bar of soap on the windowsill. It's kind of awkard to lean over the toilet to wash my hands, but it works.

Since my house is huge, I have plenty of room for anyone wanting to visit. I even have spare futons. So anyone reading this is invited. Also, the big house means I'm going to freeze to death in the winter, but with temps in the 90s right now, that's not a big concern.

Perils of Foreign Beauracracies

2007-08-08T20:13:00.000+09:00

I've been in Taiwa-cho a full week now. And I haven't updated the blog although I have had lots that I want to tell because I've been completely cut off. I actually got on the computer once at the Board of Education and wrote an entire entry, but couldn't post it because the page was blocked by the same thing that wouldn't let me get on to gmail (but facebook worked for some reason).

Trying to get internet and a mobile phone have been (and continue to be) huge ordeals. First Nathan (my counterpart in Taiwa) and I were told by our supervisors that we would not be able to get internet or phones until we get our Alien Registration Cards, which won't come until the week after next. But other JETs have everything set up already and were exchanging numbers when we got together in Sendai on Sunday.

It turns out that we can get by with certificates that we got when we filled out the paperwork for the Alien cards. Our supervisor took those certificates at the time. Nathan found them in a random stack of papers at the Board of Education.

So yesterday, armed with my bilingual dictionary, Nathan's moderate Japanese ability, and all the documents we need, the two of us walk to the cell phone store. Luckily the rain abated during this time and the store was not far from my house. Then we hit a wall. No meaninful communication occurred with the sales-lady. No matter how many times Nathan asked her to speak slower, she continued her rapid-fire Japanes...to me. We gave up and left. We called Jenny, a third year ALT in town who's been super-awesome as our senoir, and whose Japanese is up to snuff to handle these kinds of situations. So Jenny meets us back at the cell phone store and discusses the deals and plans and all that kind of stuff with the sales woman. Everything seems to be looking up...until it turns out that the store has no phones in stock!

This afternoon we get one of our supervisors, Nakajima-sensei, to take us to the electronics store that is too far to walk in order to get some internet and phones. Internet is the greater priority, but we start with phones. After three hours and lots of confusion and frustration, we finally have phones. With our phones came complimentary plastic fans (that every company gives out as advertisements), quite a few travel packs of tissues, a roll of toilet paper, and a diseased-looking houseplant.

With the phones finally worked out, we went to another part of the store to see about some internet. We were not too optimistic at this point. Especially because Nakajima-sensei said that he had to be back to the office after half an hour. After spending some time talking to those guys, it turns out that we need to have permission from whoever originally set up our land-lines in order to get internet installed. So that won't happen for a few days.

This evening I managed to hitchhike on someone's wireless and I called Nathan on our new phones to share my good fortune. When I get some internet of my own, I'll share all about my huge house and my problems with illiteracy as well as crazy karaoke nights.

Tokyo

2007-07-31T20:14:00.000+09:00

I've been in Tokyo for a couple days now. This website converted to Japanese and it took me a while to figure out how to log into my blog. The travel was surprisingly easy, just long. I chatted with Cory and Jeff from IWU at the airport. They decided to teach me random inappropriate words in Japanese. I wasn't really paying attention though, figuring I would make enough of a fool of myself just mispronouncing things without actually knowing any bad words. (Turns out the words for 'cute' and 'scary' are almost the same. Imagine telling someone that their kid is really scary when the kid is cute.)

We're staying at a crazy-nice hotel in a good neighborhood in Tokyo. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to explore. The first night a few of us went out for some food. We found a tiny place with pictures on the menu and a huge crowd of Aussie JETs having a great time. Last night the Miyagi JETs went out to an Izakaya (traditional Japanese bar). We took off our shoes and I learned 2 important words--nomihodai and tabehodai--all you can drink and all you can eat. Afterwards some of us went to karaoke. We went to the type of karaoke place where you get your own little room so you only make an ass of yourself in front of your friends and not in front of random strangers. It was a great night!

I'm leaving Tokyo bright and early tomorrow morning. The Miyagi JETs are getting on a bus for 6 hours to head to Sendai and then we need to go further to our new homes. The Sendai JETs get to take the bullet train, but those of us going to the inaka (bu-fu nowhere) are going the slooooooooooow way. I'm super excited to get to my house and see what my new home is like. I'm also tired of living out of my luggage. At this point I feel like staying for 3 years just so I can unpack and not repack for as long as possible.

Starting a blog

2007-07-25T04:18:00.000+09:00

It's about 5 days till I leave for Japan. I figure a blog will be the best way for those interested to keep up with my adventures, misadventures, and maybe some of the more mundane happenings of my life there (and those who don't care won't be bothered). Hopefully I'll do a semi-decent job of writing in this blog. And those of you reading, please keep in touch by sending me the occasional email at ritayamin@gmail.com.