shocking news

I know this is going to shock many of you, so beware...





I haven't seen anyone playing sudoku since I got here.

excitement

Last weekend Justin and I checked out the jazz bar in Naruto. They play live jazz every Friday night, and it's really amazing stuff! They played their own original songs in Japanese and then a couple in English. The owner of the place is very friendly and chats with everyone that comes in. A couple other people wanted to practice/show off their English, so we made a few friends.

This week I taught a Halloween lesson in every class. I showed pictures of Mary (my sister) and her friends at a Halloween party as examples of costumes. I also showed a picture of my friend's son dressed up as a cell phone which all the Japanese kids really got a kick out of. Since I talked about it all week, it was about time to celebrate it! So yesterday Jill and I went to a bar that foreigners frequent. She dressed up as a cat and I went as the kanji character chiisai, which means small and looks like this: 小 (you might need Japanese on your computer in order to see it). Creative, but poorly executed as paper taped to my gray outfit. I'll post a picture once I transfer my pictures. Most people thought I was a skeleton until I gave them the hint that I was a kanji character. I think I'm going to dress up again on Tuesday at school because I think the kids will crack up. They're more comfortable with speaking English with me after a silly class.


In the last two weeks the 8th graders in all of my junior high schools got to go to Okinawa on a school trip for a couple days. Okinawa is a lot like Hawaii from what I've heard. I'm pretty sure there were no worksheets, tests, or essays involved. And neither parents nor assistant language teachers were invited, only the 8th grade teachers and principals. Just an observation...

Japan doesn't do daylight savings, so now I'm 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and 15 hours ahead of Central.

Karen, let's be happy I got as far as shirasu eyeballs. I've tried everything else!!! Maybe someday when I'm really hungry and I muster up enough courage, I will try the shirasu just for you. :)

Dana and Delores, I'm happy to hear you've tuned in! If you want to catch up, August probably has the most interesting cultural posts. Aren't you excited? You blog now!

more food!

Orange juice, banana milk, and a noodle sandwich with pickled radish on top:


Cottage cheese (note its non-curd creamy state):


Curry udon (sooo delicious), pickled vegetable salad (ick!), roll, apple jelly, milk, and tea:


Ham chowder (delicious!!), bread with soy crumbles called kinako (delicious!), mystery egg dish (kind of like a hush puppy filled with an egg, fried, and served cold), milk:


Catch-all noodle dish (noodles, squid, beef, carrots, potato), rice, salad (seaweed, lettuce, carrots, and eel fish), milk, tea:

Here's a close up of the eel fish. Note that you can see their eyes. Keep in mind that I had no idea what they were when I first sat down to start eating. I seriously thought that there were worms in my lunch. I was not happy with this meal, and I went home hungry that day.

busy busy

I haven't been writing as often because nothing terribly interesting has happened. I have been busy though. It seems mundane to me, but I'll share a few details on what I've been up to.

Last weekend I finished my Christmas shopping! haha I wanted to get it done freakishly early so I could save money on shipping. I did some of this shopping at a mall that is a 40 minute bike ride south of my apartment. The mall is a chain called the Fuji Grand and it is just that... an enourmous mall. It's got a grocery store, movie theater, department store, specialty shops, fast food, Chinese restaurant, Italian restaurant, and a gigantic arcade/photo club. In the last two weeks, I watched two movies in English in the movie theater!!! I saw Black Dahlia and World Trade Center. Half of the movies that run in that theater are English movies with Japanese subtitles. It's kind of expensive ($17 during the day and $12 for the last showing around 9pm) but I'm probably going to go back when movies that I want to see get here. And wow, I've never cried so much while watching a movie in a theater than I did while watching the World Trade Center.

Since my tap shoes came in the mail, I've taken up tap dancing again! I reeeeeeally missed it. I don't have many places to practice since it's so loud and requires certain flooring though. So I got a piece of countertop from the tech high school and practice for a half hour when I get home from work, which is before the person below me gets home. My feet aren't strong enough to tap for more than 20 minutes at a time so it all works out. I'm signed up to tap dance for the tech high school's cultural festival in late November, so I really have to practice!

I've been trying to put more time and effort into my Japanese studies. ......It's going slowly. There's a dialect difference in the Western half of Japan, so even some of the words I remembered from college courses have to be re-learned as different words.

I've also made a Japanese friend. She's a student at the Naruto Educational College and wants to teach English someday. We met while she was student teaching at one of my junior high schools for two weeks. We get together once a week and eat together. Two weeks ago she made me nabe (delicious!), and last week I made her tacos. There are many other dishes that I would like to make for her and my students, but I don't have an oven. Anyways, we practice English and Japanese while we eat. It's been a lot of fun so far!


I also applied for an absentee ballot last week. I probably should have done this earlier, but regardless, I'm really excited about voting in Ohio. This will be my second time voting, but I have yet to vote in person. I've been keeping up with politics in the US via online news. In case anyone is wondering, cnn has the best online video setup.

This is a school assembly at one of my schools. They are arranged in vertical lines by class and gender.


This was the sunset in Naruto today. I almost fell off my bike when I saw it. My apartment is off in the distance.

nose etiquette

It is rude to blow your nose in public, but it is perfectly acceptable to pick your nose here. Needless to say, there's a lot of sniffling going on. Not just sniff-sniff sniffling, but full-chunky sniffling. And the kids that pick their nose in class are still able to be considered cool.

dear anonymous commenter,

Yes, my boyfriend IS still stunningly handsome and he's also quite silly, but that's what's so charming about him.

cold

It's 70 degrees Farenheit and I'm cold. God help me this winter.


Happy Friday the 13th!

Never a dull moment with the tech teens

Today's classes were interesting to say the least. A couple of students are behind a year in school and I was told that it was because they were part of a "motorcycle gang" that joy rides at night and were arrested last year for doing so. They were kicked out of school for the remainder of the year. Most of the teachers did not think they should be allowed back in this year, but the principal (who does not have to interact with them at all) chose to let them come back. That's just background information for my story, but I should note that "motorcycle gang" probably has a drastically different definition than what probably immediately popped into your head. They were probably just riding mopeds at 3am.... which might be why they sleep in class. But anyways, one of them interrupted the teacher many times to ask me what I thought about wwII and how I felt about Pearl Harbor. He told me that he doesn't like America but does understand that there are good people that live there. So I told him that America remembers Pearl Harbor but does not discriminate against Japanese Americans because of it. They seemed surprised that Americans didn't have a grudge against them. The teacher asked me if America was going to go to war with N.Korea, and I told them that I wasn't sure. I sure hope we don't because that would pretty much be a goodbye to my generation, assuming the draft would have to be re-instated. Class lightened up once we started playing a word category game though.

A couple of you have asked me what Japanese people think about N.Korea and everything that has happened in the last few days. I only asked one person, but she said that everyone thinks N. Korea is crazy and that Japan will block all imports/exports/immigrants until they stop making threats. I read in the Japanese online news that Japan has recently taken all of those measures and the new Prime Minister Abe was quoted saying that Japan will stick to their current policies of not possessing or detonating nuclear bombs, but that Japan has the technology to quickly make one if need be. If Japan actually followed through with this, it would go against everything that their peace memorials stand for, and I think that many citizens would be against it.

adVENture

I had an amazing time this past weekend. Everything went surprisingly well and the weather was gorgeous the entire time. The only thing that I didn't do that I posted early about was visiting Uwajima. I spent many many hours on buses, trains, and ferrys and I spent a lot of money but it was totally worth it. So, on with the stories and pictures:

BEPPU
This is the gigantic "ferry" that I took to Beppu (Kyushu) from Matsuyama (Shikoku). It was an overnight ferry from Osaka, so there was a hotel taking up most of the space inside.

I had about 5 hours in Beppu, so I bathed as much as possible. This is the first sand bath that I had right on the coast of the beautiful island of Kyushu. Beppu is one of the most geothermically active places in the world, so there are many onsens and a couple sand baths. For a sand bath, you get naked, put on a yukata robe, go outside, lay in a shallow hole, and the attendant shovels sand all over you. You lay there for 15 minutes, get up, wash off the sand, shower (traditional sitting shower style in an open room with others), take a dip in the onsen (like hot tub), and then put your clothes back on and go. The whole experience takes about 45 minutes, and it's very refreshing.




This was the second place that I went to where the sandbath took place inside. It is a very famous onsen called the Takegawara onsen. For some reason the second bath was more refreshing than the first.


MATSUYAMA
There are many things to do in Matsuyama, but I decided to skip a few things in light of future trips back. The Matsuyama castle is one of the coolest castle grounds I've seen so far. It is very close to the center of the city and there is a moat around the huge hill that the castle is on top of, there are huge gate doors, and there are gardens and museums nearby. The main castle is being reconstructed right now, but I still got some fantastic pictures. This is the chairlift without any harness or front bar to keep you from falling out. However, it wasn't too far from the ground.



The wall around the main castle grounds had many lookout windows that I thought were fun.


Just south of the city station is the house and burial site of the original Haiku poet, Masaoka Shiki. Here is his statue and a few of his haiku poems.


I stayed in a capsule hotel for two nights in Matsuyama. It is one of the few that allow women to stay there. Capsule hotels were originally created for business men that had stayed out late and missed the last train home. You are issued keys for your capsule (to lock from inside) and locker, yukata robe, towel, and slippers. Bathrooms and showers are shared, but the owner gave me a sign and a key to lock the shower from the inside while I showered. The bed was comfy enough and I didn't feel claustrophobic. The only thing I didn't like was the stale smoke smell which was unavoidable despite the rule against smoking inside the capsules and the designated smoking area in the lobby. It was about $24 a night.






MIYAJIMA
There's an island just across from Hiroshima called Miyajima. There is a Torii gate entrance to the Itsukushima Shrine there and both seem like they are floating on water when the tide is in. Since the gate is in the water, the entire island is considered sacred. Unfortunately I didn't stay for sunset, so my pictures of the gate are not as amazing as they could be. There were a TON of people there and the tide was out. It is lucky if you can get a rock to stay on top of the gate. I threw rocks for about 15 minutes with others and successfully got one to stay! Hopefully that will balance out the three mirrors that I broke a while ago.

These are buddhas at the Buddhist Daisho temple on Miyajima.

This is the 5 story pagoda behind the shrine.



HIROSHIMA
Hiroshima is a huge city without skyscrapers. It's gorgeous because it is made up of several peninsulas right next to each other, making it seem like there are rivers every ten blocks. It has a lively nightlife despite the fact that dancing is illegal after 1am. While I was in Hiroshima I was treated quite differently than I am in Naruto. I think they assumed I was a tourist with no iterest in Japan other than to see the Hiroshima sites. I can't really describe the difference, but it wasn't as friendly. I don't think it was completely due to my American citizenship because once I bowed or said something in Japanese or told them that I teach in Japan, they smiled and were much nicer.

I stayed in a hotel on Peace Boulevard which is lined by "Phoenix Trees" that survived the a-bomb despite their 600x200 meter proximity to the hypocenter and the prediction that plants would not grow for up to 75 years afterwards. I went to the Peace Park first. This is a statue of a mother shielding her daughter during the bombing, which is in front of the Peace Memorial Museum.

The Peace Memeorial Museum was a little hard to take and I'm going to spare you the more gruesome details. The documents between US scientists, politicians, and generals regarding the construction and detonation of the bombs were displayed as well as pictures of victims and the utter destruction that occurred. I definitely had history class flashbacks, but there were a few things that I learned. I learned that the bomb blew up 600 meters above the city, not on the ground. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was made of uranium while the bomb dropped on Nagasaki's was made of plutonium. The US originally began creating nuclear bomb technology partly because of Albert Einstein's urgent recommendations and the fear that Germany already had the technology. However, Germany was never considered as a place to drop the bombs, or so the museum emphasized. The US had a list of twenty Japanese cities that was eventually narrowed down to four. Hiroshima was first because it had good weather that day and there were no enemy prisoners of war being held there.

Part of the museum was dedicated to identifying and protesting the countries that still have nuclear weapons. The display also mentioned that if a full nuclear war were to take place, Earth would experience a "nuclear winter" because the extensive dust and smoke in the air would shield the Earth from the sun for a fairly long period of time. This would interupt planting seasons and especially warm climate habitats. So in the event that there are survivors, there would be a massive starvation period... among other things.

This is the cenotaph memorial for all of the known a-bomb victims. Their names are engraved in it. You can see the very low flame that will remain burning until all nuclear bombs on Earth are no longer in existance. You can also see the A-bomb Dome in the distance.

This is the A-bomb dome. Before the war, this building was the Industrial Promotion Hall. It was very close to the hypocenter of the explosion, but one of the few buildings that stayed relatively standing. It is the only pre-bomb building that remains today and great effort has been made to keep it just as it was immediately after the explosion.

I'm sure everyone remembers the story of Sadako Sasaki and the 1000 paper cranes. This is the Children's Peace Monument that was inspired by her story. Those cases are filled with paper cranes and some of the cranes the Sadako made herself are in the Peace Memorial Museum. There's a bell in the monument that you can ring for peace.

I tried to be a little artsy. This entire display is made of origami roses.

I went to the Ehime Prefectural Art Museum just to see Salvador Dali's Dreams of Venus. It was huge! I remember learning about it in Spanish class in high school. The museum also had a garden called the Shukkein Garden, which was created in the 17th century as a miniaturized version of scenes of Xihu, China.

This is the Hiroshima Castle. It's a reconstruction because the original was obliterated by the a-bomb. The castle had a proper moat around it, but there wasn't much else to look at.

This is the Catholic World Peace Memorial Church near the prefecture art museum. The priest survived the war and dedicated his life to rebuilding this church as well as peace on Earth. It is the first church that I have seen since I came to Japan, so don't worry Grandma, I did some praying.

This is the inside.

Hiroshima is famous for its style of okonomiyaki (Japanese pancaky thing). In Hiroshima they cook it for you - cabbage, pork, soba noodles (my choice), tortilla looking things, bbq-tasting sauce, and some other things that I didn't recognize. The Osaka version is the cook-it-yourself version that I described in my first food post.


In Hiroshima I also went out for tempura, but when I went into the restaurant, I had no idea that I had walked into the real deal. WOW. Turns out tempura is really a 15-or-so course meal with proper seasonings and sauces for each piece. Each "course" was one piece, but they came one at a time and each had a special process for seasoning. I had no idea what had happened afterwords because I was just in awe. Basically I had tuna sashimi and tempura (special kind of frying) fish, prawn (crayfish heads and tails!!!!!!), shrimp, sweet potato, onion, natto (Japanese dish of fermented soybeans), and ice cream. It came with salad, pickled vegetables, rice, miso soup, and sake.

Hiroshima also had the first Subway that I have seen since I got here, so I had a HUGE turkey and cheese sandwich with egg salad. The Japanese Subway menu featured many shrimp sandwiches as well as cheese, basil, or original fries. I have been missing my staple turkey sandwich, so it really hit the spot when I devoured it.

YAWATAHAMA
I came to Yawatahama and Honai to visit friends and take a day trip to Uwajima, but nothing was open the day that I wanted to take a day trip so I just spent time with friends. These are two of my three lovely friends in Yawatahama. I had a splendid visit with them.

Actually, I did attempt to go to Uwa-cho, but the directions that I had were all wrong and everything was closed, so I spent the hotter part of the day just wandering around the rural town before heading back to Yawatahama.

FUNNY STUFF
There's a lot of English written on stuff like folders, clothes, notebooks, bags, etc. The English is usually a little off or completely wrong, which makes shopping a very entertaining pastime. Here is a sweatshirt that my friend and I saw in Yawatahama. It says "Oregon state. That city is located in the western part of the United States." Grammatically correct, but Oregon is a state and why would you describe the location in the first place. Random. I got a sweatshirt that says "Spatial Rgchly" which isn't accurate in any way whatsoever. I'm thinking about wearing it to class for a lesson, "Okay kids, this is not a word."

This is a man practicing his golf swing in a corner, on the top of the huge ferry to Beppu.

guns and vacation plans

Today one of the principals asked me if I knew about the shooting in Colorado, so I told him about all three of the shootings that happened in US schools in the last week. Then he pointed out that guns aren't allowed in Japan and asked me what I thought about guns in general. He said that he likes the US (he has visited once) and US culture, but somethings about US culture he just doesn't understand. I told him that I am the same way. I don't really get guns. I tried to tell him that I thought the shootings had more to do with mental health issues than gun laws, but I don't think he understood me. I think those people would have done something bad even if they didn't have guns, the events just wouldn't have been as tragic.

jya, moving on to something happier... I'm going on a big trip this weekend! The junior highs have fall break, so I'm taking an extra day or two off to make it a five day weekend. I'm going to take every form of transportation other than an airplane, which means bus, train, tram, subway, bike, taxi, ferry, and lots of walking. The highlights of my trip are a sand bath in Beppu (where everything but your head is buried under sand), a capsule hotel stay in Matsuyama, the Dogo Onsen in Dogo (oldest hot spring bath house in Japan), the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, and the Itsukushima-jinja (the famous torii gate that looks like it is floating on water) in Miyajima, and a fertility shrine and museum in Uwajima. I've done my research :)



This map is a blown up map of Shikoku (light blue island), Kyushu (red island), and western Honshu (dark blue region):


Here's the schedule:
Friday (after work): train (top right green route on map) to Tokushima, bus (pink/purple rt) to Matsuyama, stay in capsule hotel

Saturday: ferry (lower blue rt) to Beppu on Kyushu Island, take sand bath and onsen bath, ferry back to Matsuyama, maybe bathe in Dogo onsen, stay in capsule hotel again

Sunday: ferry to Hiroshima (top blue rt), see the sites, stay in a nice hotel

Monday: train and ferry to Miyajima (small blue rt southwest of Hiroshima), rent a bike and see the sites, ferry and train back to Hiroshima, ferry to Matsuyama, train (green rt) to Yawatahama, stay with Jet friend

Tuesday: train (green rt) to Uwajima, rent bike and see the sites, train back to Yawatahama, stay with Jet friend

Wednesday: train to Matsuyama, see the sites, maybe bathe in Dogo onsen, bus back to Tokushima City, train back to Naruto

Transportation and accomodations will cost $325 total, and all of the sites cost less than $10 each, so I think I'm getting a good deal. I bought a brand new backpack for the trip and I think I'm going to pack light, like two outfits, to save my back. There are laundry facilities at each place I'm staying, so I might as well. Yes, I'm going by myself, but Japan feels as safe as Wellesley did, and let's remember that there aren't guns in Japan, as one of the principals pointed out today. If the capsule hotel doesn't seem safe (it's one of the few capsule hotels that even allow women to stay there), then I know of three other hotels that I can stay at. I also know where all the information centers are with people that speak English. I also have phone numbers of English speakers that run hotels in each area. So don't worry!!!

penalty tap dancing

The teachers have started to force students to tap dance with me in the front of the room if they lose a certain warm up game. It's pretty funny. If you don't answer, you're going to have to tap dance!!!

sweaty knees

Today my knees, and only my knees sweat. I can't explain it. Well I was riding my bike, but still, my heart rate was up and only my knees were sticky/close to being soaked.

I had all the Naruto Jets over for a little get together tonight. It went so well! I think we'll get together more often now. I think I've mentioned everyone on here so far, but I'll quick summarize. There is one elementary school Jet named Jeff (American). There are two junior high school Jets, Jill (Canadian) and me. There is one high school Jet named Mark (Irish) and I guess I could be in that category since I teach at the technical high school too. There is one CIR (coordinater for international relations) that works at the German house translating between Japanese, German, and English and running local German classes. His name is Patrick (German).

Last weekend I stuck around Naruto and Tokushima City. Justin came out for the prefectural speech contest since his student won the Iya-area contest. We ate a lot of Mexican food from Dave's taco stand in the city. sooooo good! I love nachos!! I did a lot of planning for a big and complicated trip next weekend and over Thanksgiving. I'll outline that once I set my plans in stone.