Rodgers-sensei

What I'll miss about my life in Japan

2007-07-23T14:33:00.000+09:00

This is a list I've been compiling for a while. I might add some more in the next week or so if I get access to the internet again.

MISS
my friends!
onsens
100yen stores
my bike
road mirrors around nearly all corners
okonomiyaki
black sesame ice cream
Lawson giant corn
efficient, clean, reliable public transportation
no tipping
quality service
squat toilets
Japanese pine trees

WON'T MISS
odor of burning garbage/plants
cigarette smoke in nearly all public places
smell of squat toilets
futons
changing my shoes all the time
weather reports without radar
tv shows watching people eat delicious food
sake
3.7% milk

WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND
Japanese fashion
Japanese mullet
manga and anime
how no one gets warts from onsen visits
why no one dies in the electric buzz tub in onsens
why it isn't instinctual for most Japanese people to just repeat what s/he just said slower when I haven't quite caught what they said right away (they either give up without any attempt at repeating or repeat it just as fast as the first time they said it)

LOOKING FORWARD TO
dryers
using my credit card
furniture in general
skim milk
bagels
hearty, healthy sandwiches
movie theater popcorn
mac n cheese
turkey burgers
buffalo burgers
cheeseburgers
lean steak
fresh delicious corn on the cob

I'm planning on writing about any culture shock that I have when I get back, as well as commiseration over things I miss about Japan. So this is not the end of my blog! I'll write about the bullfights I watch tomorrow and my trip to Sydney too. Sayonara, for now.

Farewell Parties

2007-07-21T13:14:00.000+09:00

I've been to about seven get-togethers that would constitute as farewell parties by Japanese standards. Getting together with two people for dinner after school is still considered a party here. Many of my Japanese friends and colleagues have never had Mexican food, so I suggested the Mexican restaurant in Naruto for more than half of these parties. Everyone liked the food, and I enjoyed their company. I received many really nice presents such as geta (traditional Japanese sandals), indigo dyed coasters, washi (handmade paper, a t-shirt, and a piece of Otaniyaki pottery.

Two of my schools held farewell ceremonies with the students. My favorite school had an entire assembly just to say goodbye to me. It was really sweet. The principal and student leader made speeches, and then I gave a speech in both English and Japanese. Then the students presented two presents to me, geta (traditional Japanese sandals) and a laminated calender decorated by all the students! They had a professional photographer come to school and take a photo of the entire school with me in the middle. They're going to send me the picture once I'm home. I was really touched by all the hoopla.

Another school included me in their closing ceremony before summer vacation. Those students gave me an indigo dyed fan.

And of course the board of education threw a party too. It was the biggest one, and the most fun!
Here I am with my lovely supervisor.This is a family that I've become really good friends with. Here we are after dinner and my last trip to an onsen.
This is silly, but I said goodbye to my plants too. My friend Christine who is staying another year is going to take care of them now.

Typhoon/Earthquake/Tokyo

2007-07-20T22:47:00.000+09:00

Last weekend a huge typhoon whipped through Japan, hitting the southern section the hardest. It rained the entire week beforehand, soaking me on my way to and from work. Apparently a few teachers were required by law to stay at school overnight just in case the neighborhood had to evacuate their homes and relocate to the school.

My friends and I escaped on an overnight bus to Tokyo for a three day weekend. The bus was ten times better than overnight bus trips I've been on in the US. There were two aisles on the bus, so each of the three seats in each row were separated. There was a foot rest, fold out desk, drink holder, light, and far reclining for each seat. Once we got to Tokyo in the early morning the next day, we stopped by the Tsukiji Market, a gigantic fish market. It was really dangerous to walk around because there were so many guys driving trucks and carts as fast as possible. I don't understand why it's open to the public. We were able to eat some delicious sushi at a nearby restaurant though.
This guy is sawing cubes of frozen fish.

During the weekend we ate some delicious food: fresh sushi, cheese tofu, avocado tofu, other delicious tofu, Thai food (with the best crab I've ever eaten!), Mexican food (at a restaurant that didn't have any form of beans other than chili beans!?), Indian curry, tempura, soba, and fresh fruit smoothies. We ate a few of our meals with some of my friends who currently live in Tokyo. It was really nice to catch up with them!

We went shopping in Ginza, Harajuku, Asakusa, Shinjuku, and Shibuya. My favorite store was Itoya, a 9 floor stationery and supply store in Ginza. They actually annexed two shops around the corner too. I could spend hours in those stores. Anyways, while we were shopping in one of the department stores we saw peaches on sale for $12 each!
Ginza:
Asakusa:Harajuku:Shibuya:Shinjuku:
And of course we partied in Roppongi:
It rained a lot on Saturday while the typhoon was headed towards us, but by mid Saturday and all day Monday, the weather was pretty nice. I think the typhoon weakened by the time it reached us.

On Monday morning, the earthquake happened in Niigata Prefecture (about 350km north of Tokyo), on the other side of Honshu Island. I was sitting at our hostel's computer when it happened. I felt like I was swaying back and forth, but I couldn't see anything else moving so my perception seemed really off. I asked another guest if they could feel it and they could, so I knew I wasn't losing my mind or getting lightheaded or something. The swaying wasn't continuous, but the random spurts that I could sense went on for two or three minutes! Quite a weird sensation to experience. Once I realized what was going on I worried that either it would get a lot worse really quickly or something really terrible was happening far away. Turns out it was the latter, as you've all heard about in the news. One of my Japanese friends told me that the same area had an earthquake about three years ago. Japan is earthquake-prone, so the cities are set up a little differently and the buildings have been built to withstand some shaking. All the Japanese cities that I've been to are not centralized with a large downtown area with tons of skyscrapers like all the US cities. Everything is pretty spread out.

I still haven't caught up on my sleep since we got back, so I'm staying in this weekend to rest and pack before my next three weeks of traveling start up. My internet service ends on Monday night, so if you want to call me before I leave, call me this weekend! I have a lot on my mind, so check for a lot of updates this weekend.

Update

2007-07-13T17:23:00.000+09:00

Last weekend my friends and I camped at a beach on the southern coast of Shikoku. It rained most of the time, so I didn't get very many good pictures. Right before I went to bed, I picked up my jacket and put it around my arm. Then I felt this sharp pain in my left arm. I've never been stung by a bee before so I was afraid I might be allergic to them and that my throat would close up soon. But I continued to be able to breathe and the pain traveled up to my armpit! The pain was excruciating!!! We think I was stung by a poisonous centipede (mukade). I never saw what stung/bit me because it was hidden in my jacket and I lost track of it because I was so concerned with the possibility of dying. Anyways, this might have been what stung me:
It had to have been smaller than that though. Maybe it was a something else. I felt a lot better after about 48 hours or so. Now it itches, so I think I'll be fine. Other than that, we had a nice time! Here are my friends swimming. Actually, I haven't transferred those pictures yet, but I'll add that later.

Speaking of bugs, I had two tiny roaches in my apartment last week. I was trying to fall asleep and I heard something flying into the wall, so I turned on the light and found a tiny cockroach in my bed with me! I threw it outside, but then while I was trying to fall asleep again, another tiny cockroach flew into my armpit! I had to kill that one. Haven't had a problem since though.

There are so many insects out, and I think it's because it's the beginning of the typhoon season. There's a big typhoon coming this weekend. It's headed straight for us, but my friends and I are heading out for Tokyo before it's suppose to get here. It'll rain all weekend in Tokyo but I think the typhoon will lose a lot of steam in Osaka first.

Delicious Food

2007-07-13T16:38:00.000+09:00

About two weeks ago I got together with two of my Japanese friends. My friend Toshiko taught me how to cook five Japanese side dishes. We made dashimakitamago (the egg thing), miso soup, harusamesunomono (clear noodle salad), horensounogomaae (spinach and sesame dish), and kyuurigomaae (cucumber sesame salad). I really enjoyed making all the food that I decided to by a Japanese cookbook. This way I can continue to study Japanese and eat delicious food when I'm back in the US. Here we are with the food:
(check out the necklace, Mary!)

In the same day I went to the motor boat races with my friend Makiko and her husband. Makiko got her PhD in counseling in Missouri and counsels students at two of my schools. Anyways, we went to the boat races here in Naruto, but it was an away-race, so we were still able to bet, but weren't able to see the races in person. We bet on one race, lost, and left. It was interesting to see how it's done, but not so thrilling. Makiko's and her husband were interesting to learn about what kind of races are gambled on in the US. So I told them about horse, dog, and pig races!

Instead of wasting our money on the away-races, we went out for a really really nice lunch at a famous sushi/seafood restaurant in Naruto called Arashi. We saw the chefs pull out the fish/sea creatures from the huge fishtanks in the front before they brought us our meal! It can't get any fresher than that! ...or can it? I had thinly sliced raw squid with it's tentacles fried tempura-style:
It's meals like this that make me wonder how THE US got stuck with the "huge portions" stereotype. I could barely finish this meal! Here's Makiko and her husband:

I always enjoy hanging out with Makiko because she is fluent, so our conversations get much farther along, and she's able to tell me really interesting things about Japan. She told me that some restaurants will serve squid or octopus completely raw... as in, still alive. And people eat it with the tentacles still writhing about! The only time I've seen this is in the Korean movie "Old Boy." She also told me that somewhere in Japan you can order a special eel and tofu meal. The eel is still alive on the plate when it's served. Then the eel is lit on fire! It gets scared and runs right into the tofu, getting itself stuck in the middle. Then you eat the tofu with the eel "cooked" inside! That's probably the craziest food story I've ever heard.

Makiko is pregnant, so I've learned a few interesting tidbits about childbirth in Japan. Initially she told me that Japanese women are usually pregnant for 10 months when they have a baby. At first I was like, "How can that possibly be?? Are Japanese people actually a different species???" But as it turns out, they just begin the count from the woman's last period. She also told me that they don't know the sex of the baby (too early to tell, or it's a girl) yet, but even if they did, they wouldn't pick out a name ahead of time. She said that it is customary to take the baby to a name fortune-teller-like person after he or she is born. The specialist takes the number of strokes in the family's last name and the date of the baby's birth into account and comes up with a number. That number deciphers the stroke order (number of strokes) in the kanji character (Chinese character) of the baby's name. Once the parents have that stroke order number, they choose a name out of a list of kanji characters with the same number of strokes.

Mary's Blog Entry

2007-07-08T20:01:00.000+09:00

Well, it feels like I’ve told everyone I know about my trip to Japan already, but I’ll try and think of some new and interesting thoughts I’ve had in retrospect now that its been over a month since I’ve gotten back.

I love Japanese food. Seriously, about half of my pictures were of the food I ate. I had really appreciated all the pictures of food that Jane had on this blog before I came because I was most curious about what people eat. The pictures I took of my meals really aren’t any more amazing or appetizing than stuff you’ve already seen on this blog, but they’re still able to jog my sense memory so here’s a couple of my favorites for you (well mostly for me). They kind of make me sad now though, because I miss eating them:

Japanese Ramen (there’s no flavor packet, its just innately better than our ramen):

This was my all time favorite meal from the trip. Its tofu soba. It was delicious.

Here is a picture of me eating it:

And of course the amazing okonomyaki:

I would describe our trip to Japan as a tour of modern Japanese culture, which is exactly what I wanted to experience during our visit. It would have been nice if we had more time to visit more historic ancient Japanese sites, but I guess we’ll just have to go back again some other time for that.

Our modern Japanese tour included: a baseball game, purikura (crazy photobooths), a ridiculous museum (of ramen), onsen spas and shiatsu massage, a day at middle school, shopping at 100 yen stores, getting beer from vending machines, karaoke, going to empty little bars, eating conveyor belt sushi, exploring grocery stores, visiting the peace museum, and arcading. I think Jane covered most of this in her blog already though.

I can’t get over how genuinely nice and hospitable everyone in Japan was. And how all of the bathrooms were clean. And how everyone recycles. And how Jane can speak Japanese.

My favorite part of the whole trip was the time we spent in Osaka. I think I liked it there the most because it was the first place we experienced when we got off the plane. We were immediately overwhelmed by the giant neon city full of great people-watching opportunities. There was good food on every corner and incredible mall/arcades of stores everywhere we went. I’ve always loved cities, but Osaka really made an impression on me as being incredibly unique and totally different from any city I had ever been to.

I’m glad we were able to stay in Japan for an entire two weeks, because it gave us the opportunity to experience everything we wanted to without feeling rushed, or worrying that we wouldn’t have time to do everything. We ran out of money, but I left without any regrets. Thanks to Jane.

Baseball love love

2007-07-06T14:26:00.000+09:00

During lunch today, some of my 8th grade female students said this to me, "Baseball 1, 2, 3 (motioning bases), Eddie, love love (motioning a heart)?" There was a lot of giggling and then they all looked at me with faces covered in anticipation. They also made motions about which bases meant what.

From this I gathered that they were asking me how many bases I had gone with Eddie!!!! Of course I didn't answer, but I sure did laugh really hard.

And now I know that baseball bases and stages of relationship progression have the same double meaning in Japanese as they do in English.

Happy 4th of July!

2007-07-04T15:04:00.000+09:00

Happy 4th of July everyone! Per Robyn's instructions, I wore red, white and blue to work today.
It was convenient because it was raining out and these cloths work well for biking in the rain. However, I had to change once I got to school because I gave a farewell speech in Japanese to all the teachers at my high school during the morning meeting. The speech went well. It made me realize that my Japanese has improved despite my lack of dedication to studying. Unfortunately for the students, but fortunately for me I think I learned a lot while listening to all the Japanese spoken during English class! My last class at this school was a lot of fun because it was a small elective class and we wrapped up our monopoly game!

Don't worry Robyn, after my class today I changed back into my red, white, and blue outfit.

Somehow I only have 3 weeks left here! The next two weeks will include my last lessons with all my students. I will attend a farewell party with the teachers from each of my four schools, another one with everyone in my section at the board of education, and then another with all the JETs in the prefecture for all the JETs that are leaving. My friends and I are also planning on going to Tokyo for a weekend, and a bullfight on the other side of our island before I go. On my way back to the US I will be stopping in Sydney, Australia for a week to visit my cousin Joanna and her fiance Tom!

Everything is happening so fast that it's hard to really reflect on my time here. I'll try to post when I can. There are a few things that happened last week that I didn't get a chance to post about, so I'll get those up here as soon as I can.

Have a wonderful time celebrating the 4th of July. I'm not sure I'm going to do anything more than wear red, white and blue. Justin might bring fireworks to the JET party this coming weekend so maybe it will feel more like the 4th of July then. I'm just happy I didn't have to march a bass drum around town today!

Maria's blog entry

2007-07-02T14:00:00.000+09:00

Hi Jane's family and friends! First to introduce myself to those of you who don't know me - my name is Maria. Jane and I became friends at Wellesley (as well as being neuroscience colleagues in collaborating labs).

I went to visit Jane for two weeks in the beginning to mid-June and she has asked me to write a blog entry about my impressions of Japan. Although it's quite hard to sum it all up in one entry I'll do my best. I thought I'd try to classify it into the five senses - what I saw, smelt, ate, heard, and touched. So here it goes:

Sight: I was amazed at the cleanliness and orderliness of just about everything - from public bathrooms to subway stations. Even the taxi drivers wore white gloves. When buying things, especially in Kyoto, each item was boxed and then very carefully wrapped in beautiful paper - I was afraid the customs or security officials would make me unwrap them!

There are many beautiful things to see in Japan (I have to agree with Jane that the Fushimi Inari Shrine is one of the best!) I couldn't ever describe the temples and shrines and gardens properly but the landscape made a huge impression on me - I'm not sure exactly what I expected but from the plane you could see valleys full of buildings surrounded by large, steep green hills. On the ground, I really enjoyed staring out the bus or train window at the flat rice paddies against old traditional wooden houses with green hills as a backdrop. Near the end of the two weeks, rainy season began and the tops of the mountains were covered in mist. The closest description I can get is it was like being in a real-life Ansel Adam's photograph - that magnificent.

On a different note, I was surprised how I could ride a bike I borrowed from Jane anywhere in Naruto, leave it outside a shop, and when I came back not only was the unlocked bike still there but so were all my packages in the basket! It was amazing!

Other "sights" was the cash society Japan is - it's very rare to find a place that takes credit cards and finding a post office to withdraw cash can be a big pain as I found out! Finally, I was surprised at the amount of English words - for example, huge "SALE" signs in department stores.

Taste: The food is quite different in texture and flavor from the Western palate. I enjoyed fried food called tempura, thick udon noodles, and okonomiyaki - a cabbage type pancake served with a barbecue-like sauce. The sweets were not sweet enough for me and often filled with a red bean paste which is okay but something I had to get used to. Surprisingly large amounts of fruits and vegetables (that weren't already pickled) seemed really hard to find when eating out and breakfasts left much to be desired - many places actually serve hot dogs for breakfast although apparently the Japanese eat rice and miso soup. Eggs are usually considered a lunch or dinner item.

Jane and I got to try both olive-flavored and soy sauce-flavored soft serve ice cream on Shodoshima which seemed like a real delicacy. :0) One of the best meals I had was something called kaiseki in Kyoto. The closest thing I can compare it to is Spanish tapas - many smaller dishes of different items brought out one at a time. It's a traditional meal and was served while we sat on cushions on tatami floors. The walls had been opened to a garden right outside and we sat and talked and drank sake and ate some really quite delicious and beautiful looking (and tasting!) things.

Touch:My favorite "touch" experience was by far the onsens, or public baths. It's an odd experience at first literally stripping naked and going to bathe with a bunch of strangers but the baths are so warm and inviting. The last time we went, we had hiked up 1346 steps to a Shinto shrine in Kotohira and afterwards found a natural onsen nestled in those Ansel Adams misty green hills. It was amazing and won't soon be forgotten!

Hear:Jane posted about the Takarazuka troupes so you already know a bit about this. I wanted to see a performance of some type but all I really knew about performance arts in Japan was the famous puppet theatre, Bunruku and Kabuki, another type of theatre. Takarazuka is a really interesting type of theatre that I'm thrilled I got to see. It was good we read an English synopsis before because I couldn't understand any of the words but the music together with the rotating stage was a phenomenal performance to experience. The costumes and the ways the women were made up to be their male or female character was fascinating to see.

In addition, I went to see an Awa Odori dance performance that the center in Tokushima puts on for tourists. There's really no way to quite describe the music but I can see how much fun the celebration in August must be - if you didn't look at it - take a look at Jane's videos of the Awa Odori. I guess I really enjoyed this part as well because at the end they invite audience members to go up and dance on the stage with the dancers so I figured - why not? My Rough Guide book says the motto for the celebration is "the dancing fool and the watching fool are equally foolish, so why not dance?"

Smell:On Shodoshima, an island known for its olive trees and fake Grecian ruins, we had a great day running around in a car Jane had borrowed from a friend. Between seeing peacocks and monkeys and the making of noodles, we also went to a great little soy sauce museum and factory. You can smell it as soon as you get into the vicinity. We each got a free bottle of soy sauce with admission and most of the signs in the factory had English translations. It was an amazing little museum for being really out in the middle of nowhere.

The other smell I will miss is the green tea I used to make at Jane's for breakfast. It had this great sweet earthy smell that's hard to describe but it's wonderful to wake up in the morning and drink tea and look outside and think - "I'm in Japan!" So final thoughts - Jane is going to have the best bachelorette pad with neat containers everywhere - she buys these funky containers like an olive drop container from Shodoshima. She will also have the greatest assortment of hand washcloths. In Japan, none of the bathrooms (I didn't come across one!) have paper towels (many don't have soap either!) so each tourist area sells different types of washcloths so that people can carry them around and dry their hands. Jane has quite the collection!

Although I went to school with Jane, I only got to teach in one class. The other classes were practicing for a demonstration class that Jane had to carry out for other English teachers. I was quite impressed by her teaching (and always so proud of her when she would speak Japanese to anyone!). I don't know how I would have handled teaching middle schoolers! So finally LOTS of thanks to Jane for a fabulous experience!

Takamatsu

2007-07-01T21:54:00.000+09:00

(continuation of Maria's visit)

We visited Ritsurin Park in Takamatsu. There were a few nice volunteers there who wanted to guide us around the park. They were really just trying to practice their English and they seemed like nice guys so we went along with them around the park. We after about ten minutes, 8 or 9 other guides (men and women) showed up and we were bombarded with facts about the park. We didn’t really get a chance to peacefully look at the park because someone was always talking to us. I’m usually pretty annoyed when I feel like I’m at work when I’m trying to vacation, but the situation was just so humorous that I enjoyed it. I’m not so sure Maria did though. I got to practice my Japanese a little bit, they got to practice their English, and Maria got to practice her Spanish with a guy who supposedly spoke Spanish as well as Japanese and what I call marbled English. One guy kept taking pictures of us with him in the park. We kind of felt like an exhibit ourselves. We did the tea ceremony with the group too. I really love the teahouse in Ritsurin Park.

A few of the guides didn't make it into the picture, so make no mistake... there were more!

Kotohira

2007-07-01T21:38:00.000+09:00

(continuation of Maria's visit)

Kotohira is a temple about 45 minutes southwest of Takamatsu. It’s famous because there are over 1000 steps to the top of the temple grounds. You can pay to have two guys carry you up, but there is so much to distract you while you’re stepping that it’s a pretty easy hike up and down. There were shops up to the halfway point and then a beautiful forest the rest of the way. Here were some people being carried up.

The temple…

The views…

At the bottom of the mountain, there was a sake brewery with a giant bottle of sake in the front. We didn’t have time to go through and sample, but we thought the giant bottle was pretty cool.
We ended the short, packed weekend with a lovely drive through the mountains in Kagawa and Tokushima Prefectures and a dip in a real onsen.

Shodoshima

2007-06-30T22:47:00.000+09:00

(continuation of Maria's visit)

Shodoshima is the largest island in the Seto Inland Sea, just off of Takamatsu City which is about 1.5 hours north of Naruto. We took a ferry over to this island, not knowing entirely what to expect. We had read about an olive grove and monkey park before going. We really lucked out with the weather. This was our view of the Seto Inland Sea during our ferry ride over to Shodoshima. The first one is Takamatsu City.

First we checked out the Peacock Garden which was a little piece of land full of palm trees and peacocks.

Next we ate lunch at a handmade somen restaurant. Somen are the thinnest Japanese noodles. Lunch was very delicious. The somen was served with ice cubes, green onions, and somen dipping sauce.

Then we wandered around the olive grove, the most famous place on the island. We found this to be the lamest place on the island because of the really fake ancient Greecian ruins, and the fact that it was really just an olive grove and several gift shops. Plus the gift shops didn’t sell any actual olives, only olive products like olive chocolate, olive oil, olive hand cream, olive candy drops, and hello-kitty-in-an-olive-costume figurines and towels. These were the silly ruins.

Next we took a ropeway up through the Kankakei gorge. The view was pretty amazing. We also tried some olive ice cream while we were at the top. It had a faint olive taste. Not too bad.

Then we went over to the Marukin Soy Sauce Museum.

We got a free bottle of soy sauce when we went into the museum. I had no idea how to make soy sauce before coming so I found the museum pretty interesting. First they roast the wheat. Then they add soy beans, mold, salt, and water. Then the soy sauce ferments for a year or longer! Before they ship it out, they cook it to burn off the alcohol and kill the yeast. We tried some soy sauce ice cream before we left. It really did taste like soy sauce, and it was surprisingly not gross. Not exactly delicious, but not bad. Anyways, apparently most soy sauces in the US are synthetic, or in other words, the soy part isn't fermented. The Japanese soy sauces I've had have always seemed much richer in flavor so I guess that would explain it.

On our way to see the monkey park, we saw this massive statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion and mercy. When we got closer we noticed it was a temple.

Sadly we didn’t have much time to spend at the monkey park, but we did see quite a few monkeys while we were there. They were eating ants and occasionally fighting with each other. There wasn’t a real fence around the park, so the monkeys could easily escape if they wanted to. We saw a few hanging out near the road far from the park, but the majority of them stay on the top of that mountain.

Kyoto

2007-06-27T22:15:00.000+09:00

(continuation of Maria's trip)

Maria stayed in Kyoto for five days, two of which were with me. We walked around Gion (district with many exclusive teahouses and restaurants where geisha typically entertain guests) quite a bit, shopped, ate a kaiseki obento (Kyoto-style lunch), and hiked through the Fushimi Inari Shrine.

Gion was really fun to walk around because it’s a cute little neighborhood. It was difficult to take pictures at night, but we tried.

Here were some funny things we saw while shopping.
outside KFC:

The kaiseki obento was mostly all tofu called yuba in different forms. It was delicious, and I would eat it again, but I probably won’t crave it like I do with tacos and sandwiches. The tempura was my favorite part. This is a picture of the adorable restaurant we picked.

Here’s what we ate.

cutest bowls ever! One is filled with rice, another with miso soup, and the third with a rice dough ball filled with meat.
dessert.... sour oranges

The Fushimi Inari Shrine is by far my favorite place in Japan. It’s a very unique shrine where you can hike all day long on a path lined with torii gates. I visited this shrine before with my parents but we weren’t able to hike very far up the mountain. Maria and I nearly made it to the top, but had to turn back early so I could catch the bus home. Anyways, neither of us could stop taking pictures because everywhere we looked was peaceful and beautiful. It had been raining just before we got there, so everything was wet.

Osaka/Instant Ramen Museum

2007-06-26T23:31:00.000+09:00

(continuation of Maria's trip)

We stopped by the Instant Ramen Museum on our way to Osaka. We made a few cups of our original flavor concoctions. We didn’t make them from scratch like Matt, Mary, and I did, but we got to choose our soup flavor and four toppings. Here are the choices:
Here we are watching them being made:

There are a lot of Ferris Wheels in Japan. They really are everywhere and I’ve been dying to go on one, so Maria and I went on the Ferris Wheel on top of the Hep5 building in the Umeda district of Osaka.

We also briefly visited Dotomburi to buy a piece of luggage for me.

Takarazuka

2007-06-25T21:30:00.000+09:00

My friend Maria visited me for the past two weeks. We went to Takarazuka, Osaka/Instant Ramen Museum, Kyoto, and several places in Kagawa Prefecture. I have a lot of pictures for each, so I’ll write one post per place. First, Takarazuka.

Takarazuka is a town outside of Osaka that is famous for it’s dance revue, also named Takarazuka. The dance revue Takarazuka is made up of 4 troupes made up of women only. There are a select few who play male roles in each musical that they perform, and they are considered the real stars. They have a huge fan base. There are performances in both Takarazuka and Tokyo and the musicals range from traditional Japanese folklore to translated European musicals. I think there’s a grand finale at the end of every show featuring the stars and the Takarazuka chorus line that has a stricking resemblance to the Rockets. Maria and I saw “Elizabeth,” an Austrian play performed in Japanese by the Snow Troup.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the actual show, but there were many pamphlets, posters, and costume pictures outside the auditorium…

This is an actress transformed into a male and female role.

These are the finale outfits for the star of the show depending on the gender of the role she played.

I had heard a lot about Takarazuka before I came to Japan, so I’m glad I got to see a performance. The show itself was exactly what I expected; it was pretty crazy, but definitely impressive. The stage was really amazing because it had a rotating center. The only thing that surprised me was that there weren’t any obsessive screaming fans. I had heard so much about the cult-like following but I really didn’t see it. I could understand some of the Japanese, but not enough to really know what was going on without the English summary we read beforehand.

Best Birthday Ever!!!!!

2007-06-24T22:25:00.000+09:00

I had so much fun this weekend! My friends Erin, Justin, Christine and I celebrated my 23rd birthday on Saturday by going paragliding off the top of a mountain, bathing in an onsen, eating Mexican food, and watching a band perform live at a bar in Naruto.

We weren't sure if the weather would cooperate with us for the paragliding, but we were having a lot of fun with all the paragliding instructors and our paragliding suits that we didn't really mind waiting for the clouds to clear. The suits made us a little silly.

We went two at a time with a guide. Christine and I went first and once we were strapped in, we ran down the mountain until the canopy lifted us up. Since I was in the front I smacked into a few bushes during this process. I thought the attempt was over at one point but then all of a sudden we were in the air! It all happened so fast! The ride itself was really peaceful and beautiful. I felt really secure and safe, so there really weren't any fearing-for-my-life moments. It was thrilling nonetheless. Of course the guide was doing all the work, so I definitely had some "What about Bob?" sailing moments. This is the valley we flew down through.

Here are the pics I took from the air!

Then Justin, Erin, and the guide went... They were able to avoid the face-in-tree experience.

The onsen dip was relaxing and cleansing as usual, and the nachos and burritos really hit the spot! This was the band we saw live at a bar called D-Box.

The singer was kind of a Japanese Jack Black character. They sang about how much they love whiskey and udon noodles. What I found just as humorous was the crowd listening to them play. The crowd was politely sitting and clapping during the show. Not a whole lot of rocking out. They were clearly enjoying themselves though. The bar itself was run by a Japanese family with two boys in junior high school. They weren't my students, but it was still weird to be served alcohol by a 13 year old.

It wouldn't have been so much fun without my silly friends so thanks guys for the best birthday ever!!!!!

eraser dust

2007-06-15T20:31:00.000+09:00

This lovely contraption cleans chalkboard erasers. The erasers at my schools are like a rectangle block covered with corduroy, and the corduroy-like side is the part that you wipe the chalk off with. The erasers themselves are not that much fun. Well neither is chalk. I've succumbed to the chalk-all-over-my-pants problem that many teachers have. I really miss whiteboards. Anyways, I bring all this up because of this contraption:

Despite my distaste for chalk, I think this thing is really cool. The kids clean the erasers, but I have secretly always wanted to have a turn at cleaning them with this thing. Basically, you turn it on, slide the eraser over the slit, and it sucks all the chalk off of the eraser. Yes, of course there's a machine to take care of loose chalk dust!

Sports Day

2007-06-13T20:47:00.000+09:00

About two weeks ago, one of my junior high schools had a sports day at school. It was similar to the field days my elementary school had when I was growing up. However, the day was well organized and efficiently carried out in a way that made it seem like some sort of ceremony. It turns out that two days before the sports day (when I was at a different school), the entire school had a sports day rehearsal just to make sure the day went smoothly.

At this particular school there were three classes (A, B, C) within each of the three grade levels (1, 2, 3) (those mean 7th, 8th, and 9th graders) and the competition was between classes A, B, and C. For example, one team consisted of 1A, 2A, and 3A. Anyways, the parents were invited to come and only mothers showed up. Sadly they rarely cheered unless it was their kid competing, and even then they didn’t shout or scream. I was pretty shocked. I perceived the parents to be very apathetic because of this lack of enthusiasm, but I’m sure that’s not the case. It was a pretty hot day, yet some of the teachers were wearing sweatshirts and pants.

After everyone was gathered around the track, the opening ceremony began. The school’s brass band (all girls) played the school’s song while each class marched in. There were specific spaces on the track where the students were allowed to enter through and a separate one to exit from the track (the red poles in the pictures below). Once marching in place in front of the principal, the music stopped and the principal and one of the club coaches made a little speech. Then they orderly marched out of the track through the designated space for exiting. Then the races started. They had about 16 events, but absolutely none of them were competitions among individuals. All the races were relays. There was a running relay, an obstacle course relay, trash-sorting-while-running relay, a three-legged relay race with teachers such as myself, and a four-legged relay race (3 people). This was one of the obstacles in the obstacle course:

There were a few games too. There was the classic tug of war of course. One game was a tire hoarding game where all the kids were standing in a circle within their team’s designated area (each team had 1/3 of the circle) around a big pile of tires. When the whistle was blown, all the kids ran to grab a tire and take them back to the circle line within their team area. The team with the most tires won.

Another particularly interesting game was a game among the boys. Each team of boys had to line up, bent over so their backs were flat. Then the smallest team member walked across all of their backs. After he had walked off of someone’s back, that person had to go to the end of the line to replenish the walkway. The small boy had to walk on backs to a far cone and back. It looked painful and the small boy fell a few times despite the teacher standing next to him trying to support him.

At lunch time all the teachers had a catered obento (box lunch). This was mine:
This was the only meat that was included:

After lunch, the brass band played while all the clubs marched around the track in their uniforms. There were the were many teams/clubs: boys baseball team, girls volleyball team, art club, table tennis team, boys basketball team, girls basketball team, judo club, kendo club, soccer, girls soft tennis team, boys soft tennis team, and kyudo (Japanese archery) club.

After the parade and words of wisdom from the principal, there were a few more races and events. The final event was folk dancing/square dancing, which was translated to me as "barn dancing." Everyone assumed that I already knew how to barn dance, so they signed me up for this event. One of the classes was short of boys, so I was in the boys' line. All the kids had clearly learned the dance in gym class already, so I was the only one going the wrong way most of the time. It was pretty amusing. It was also funny for me because the boys and girls had the same attitude towards dancing as the kids at my school in Germantown did during the dance unit.... kind of avoiding eye contact and trying very hard not to display any sort of enjoyment.

posting update

2007-06-11T23:04:00.000+09:00

Due to the fact that Google bought Blogger a while back and made a bunch of improvements I changed many of the settings on my blog in the last week. One of the settings I changed was allowing only 3 posts to appear at a time, so if you haven't checked my blog in a while, check the archives.

Staring

2007-06-11T22:33:00.000+09:00

I was stared at by a man at the grocery store today. I said something to him in Japanese and he just said that he didn't speak any English. Maybe I misspoke, but I was saying really simple stuff, so I highly doubt it. Anyways, he didn't take his eyes off me for the entire time I was packing my bike with groceries, mailed a letter, and biked halfway down the street. Based on what he said, he was surprised to see me and even more surprised to hear me speaking Japanese. He even took a little step back when I spoke something he understood.

I thought I would have these kind of experiences when I first got here because I had heard so many stories about stuff like that happening to others. However it hasn't really happened to me other than confused little babies staring at me. So I was really caught off-guard when this happened. I've gotten double-takes and whatnot, but this was the first blatant, continuous staring episode.

funny things!

2007-06-07T21:30:00.001+09:00

Here are some funny things Matt, Mary and I saw during their visit.
This was the men's bathroom sign:

This Madonna store sold time on their shaking machines. You stand there, it shakes you, and you apparently lose weight.

Hiroshima

2007-06-03T14:45:00.000+09:00

In Hiroshima Mary, Matt and I stayed at a ryokan (a Japanese-style Inn), visited the Peace Memorial Museum and Park, bathed in a sento (public bath), and attended a Hiroshima Carps baseball game.

A ryokan is a hotel where you can rent tatami rooms with futons. By futon, I mean a special cushion that unfolds on the floor, that you sleep on. I've never seen a futon in Japan that lays on a frame like the ones in the US. This was half of our room.
Sometimes futons are really flimsy, flat and uncomfortable but these were really cushy. Even though I sleep on a Western bed in my apartment, I found these futons very comfortable. Most ryokan also include breakfast and dinner in the price. The meals are sometimes served in their dining room or brought to your room.

Here are the sites..

(Those are hundreds of paper cranes behind Matt made for the Sadako Memorial.)

The Hiroshima Carps were playing the Tokyo Swallows while we were there. It was pretty easy to get cheap tickets ($15) and buy the necessary cheering gear. We had more fun at this game than most of the baseball games we've been to in the US. However, the baseball itself was a little less impressive. We had fun because the fans were going crazy (except when they were on the big screen, and then they were just embarrassed and shy), everyone around us was eating noodles, the popcorn was good, the baseball diamond and field was half the size as in the MLB, and the batting averages were as low as .111! Instead of clapping and yelling obscenities/encouragement, fans hit plastic bats together in an organized beat and song. None of it was prompted by the big screen either. There were bass drums in each section of the bleachers to keep the cheering together, and I'm not sure if those are always there or people actually bring them to every game.
During the 7th inning, everyone blew up these special balloons, cheered something and then released them.
We saw a lot of this.
We're always a fan of giant cups of ramen, especially when they are driven around in a tiny truck.
Whenever the Tokyo Swallows scored a run, the Tokyo fans opened up their green/blue umbrellas and cheered.
Tokyo won, but it was still a lot of fun!

Kyoto

2007-06-02T13:34:00.001+09:00

When Mary, Matt and I were in Kyoto, we went shopping, sang karaoke, walked around Gion, saw a few sites, relaxed at a beautiful new onsen, and watched the Aoi Festival parade.

Karaoke is a lot different in Japan than in the US. Mary, Matt, and I rented a little private karaoke room with a tv, karaoke machine, microphones, and surround sound. Plus it's all you can drink. You pay per person per hour. It's kind of fun to have your own little private party while you're out, but you have to go with fun people like Matt and Mary. Singing hams usually aren't that fun to go with.

One of our favorite places to eat in Kyoto was a sushi restaurant where the sushi goes around a conveyor belt and you just take the ones you want as they go by your table or place setting. The sushi was really delicious too. When you're done, a woman counts how many empty plates you have and charges you about $1.25 per plate. This was my view from my seat at the counter. The conveyor belt was moving clockwise.

As for the Kyoto sites, we went to Kinkakuji (the temple of the Golden Pavilion), Ryoanji (the temple of the rock garden), and the Monkey Park in the Arashiyama area. The Monkey Park was pretty big ans the monkeys are allowed to go anywhere in the park. We were able to feed them from the inside of the feeding lounge at the top of the hill. We fed them peanuts and apples. While we were there one of the monkeys peed on another monkey below him and there was a small monkey brawl! There was also a really cute baby monkey but it's mom kept on taking the food that people were giving it.

The Aoi Festival on May 15th is about 1400 years old had is celebrated as an offering to gods for a good harvest. Geraniums and horses with bells were paraded from the Imperial Palace to two temples where they were offered to the gods. The people in the parade were dressed in very formal, traditional kimonos, but they didn't really look like they were into the festival because they looked bored and a few were using their cellphones as they walked down the street. The simplicity and lack of excitement that this festival had made me realize just how awesome and fun the Awa Odori Festival in Tokushima City is in August. Dancing through the streets like a fool is much more fun than silently carrying flowers.

Osaka

2007-05-29T22:52:00.000+09:00

While in Osaka, Mary, Matt and I went on a River Boat Cruise and to the top of the Osaka Castle.

The Osaka Castle was my least favorite of all the Japanese castles I've seen so far. It has an elevator and looks nothing like a castle on the inside. The boat cruise was pleasant and relaxing though. We also did a lot of shopping in Osaka. I bought a bright orange piece of luggage and an expensive knife that has already started to rust (!?). Mary and Matt got a lot of awesome cloths.

We took a little detour to visit the Nissin Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda, Osaka and it was so much fun! We had to make reservations three months in advance because it is so popular. There was a tiny museum about the history of instant ramen and a station where you could put your own toppings in a “Cup Noodle” cup and have it sealed just like the stuff in the store. There was also an instant ramen-making workshop where we, and many elderly Japanese women, made instant chicken flavored ramen from scratch. We made the dough, flattened it, and cut it. Then the attendants steamed the noodles. Afterwards, we added oil and shook the noodles until they were wavy. Then the attendants fried and dried the noodles in a special oil with the chicken flavoring. Meanwhile we decorated our ramen packaging and watched a video about how the ramen is made in a factory. Definitely a highlight of our entire trip! Our ramen tasted delicious.

I fixed the pictures that didn't show up yesterday, so scroll down to view the silly arcade prizes and whatnot.

Update

2007-05-28T20:07:00.000+09:00

While Matt and Mary were visiting me, I thought of many topics I haven’t discussed on my blog yet. So I will share their visit with you through multiple posts that touch upon all these topics. I apologize for the lack of writing lately. I have about a week and a half until my next visitor (Maria!) comes, so I’ll try to write a bunch in the meantime.

My parents had the historical tour of Japan, while Matt and Mary had more of a modern tour. They went to four cities, two onsen, several arcades, two museums, two castles, one boat cruise, a Hiroshima Carps vs. Tokyo Yakuruto baseball game, one of my junior high schools, nearby beaches, many shopping arcades, all sorts of restaurants and bars, made our very own instant ramen from scratch, stayed in a Japanese style hotel, sang karaoke, and got together with a few of my Japanese and American friends. I’ve asked them to send me a little blogable write up about their impressions when they get the chance, so I’ll post that as soon as they get that to me. They left yesterday, but I believe they are currently still finding their way back to Boston.

Arcades

2007-05-28T20:03:00.001+09:00

Arcades are everywhere. Sometimes they are just pachinko gambling parlors with loud, unbearable game noises.

Sometimes they are just game rooms with games where you try to grab prizes. This one in particular had a tv inside, replaying clues about how to properly tip one of the cartons over.

Sometimes they are just game rooms with video games that usually include fake guns, dancing, drumming, or hitting buttons.

Sometimes they are just rooms full of booths for sticker picture (purikura) making.

Sometimes they are a combination of all of these in a multi floor arcade building. In any case they are fun to explore. We found that they were usually more packed than the bars late at night.

My favorite part of arcades is the purikura making machines. Matt, Mary, and I made several sheets of purikura. First we had to choose a few picture options, then we posed for a bunch of pictures (sometimes there are monkey bars in the booth), and finally we would decorate the pictures with words, drawings, crazy borders, etc. Many of my students have booklets filled with purikura that they look at during class instead of paying attention to me, so I know it’s all the rage. Here's a picture of the screen while we were decorating some of the pictures we took.

Some of the prize games have odd prizes. Of course there are always cute stuffed cartoon animals and such, but we saw lots of food items you could buy for cheaper at the store next door. Also briefcases, hello kitty make-up cases, giant chocolate bars...

Vacation in Boston

2007-05-12T10:20:00.000+09:00

I just got back from my 9-day vacation to Boston. I had a wonderful time visiting my family and friends. Here are a few highlights and pictures.

I flew from Osaka to Boston with a brief stop in San Francisco. I was lucky enough to be able to sit with a friend of mine who I rarely get to see. We had no idea we were on the same flights until we saw each other at the airport! Unfortunately the air on the plane dried out my sinuses so badly that I had a sinus infection for four days afterward.

While in Boston I went on several dates with Eddie, went to a birthday party at Jillian’s for one of my college friends, spent time with my parents, dined with several friends all over Boston, visited friends and Professors at Wellesley, went shopping, watched many movies and tv shows, and celebrated Cinco De Mayo with Mary, Matt, and friends. I enjoyed several bagel sandwiches, subs, cheeseburgers, tubs of movie theater popcorn, and Mexican dishes, all of which just aren’t the same or non-existent in Japan. Here we are in the Boston Common:

Only once did I accidentally bow to sometime as a thank you. I didn’t really experience culture shock, but I did notice two things that I wasn’t expecting to stand out so much. First, there were SO many people talking on their cell phones in Boston. That may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but cell phones are rarely spoken on in Japan and I guess I hadn’t realized it was that big of a difference. My mom noticed no one was actually talking on there phones when she visited. Cell phones are mainly used for email, internet, games, and music in Japan. The phone plans kind of induce this though. I pay about $45 a month and that gives me 24 free minutes PER MONTH to use, but nearly unlimited email and internet use.

Anyways, I also saw a lot of kanji (Chinese character) tattoos in Boston. I always thought those were silly for Caucasians to have, but now that I could read some of them I found them pretty entertaining. I’m not sure if any of the people I saw studied Chinese or Japanese, but I guess it’s similar to Japanese people wearing shirts with English sayings (some very controversial) that they don’t understand. It just looks cool.

My trip back was pretty horrendous. I spent a total of 24 hours sitting on a plane. There were five hours worth of delays between a “security problem” in San Francisco, a broken plane blocking the runway in Osaka, and spur-of-the-moment refueling in Kobe. I had to flat out sprint through the San Francisco airport to make my connection too. Once I was finally able to get off the plane in Osaka, I had already missed the last bus to Naruto, so I stayed in a hotel and had to go to work late the next day. Somehow I got through this with very little cash and no battery left in my phone!

The vacation was totally worth it though!

I was able to take this vacation because of “Golden Week” in Japan. You can look that up on Wikipedia if you’d like. I’m copping out of explaining that one because I wasn’t here to experience it and because I have to get going in an hour to go pick up Mary and Matt at the airport in Osaka! They’ll be here for two weeks.

School Update

2007-04-23T20:36:00.000+09:00

Two weeks ago we had an opening ceremony for the new school year with all the current students except for the youngest, newest class. A lot of bowing and a few speeches took place. Overall it took less than 30 minutes, but I still had to come to school all day and wear a suit. The day after that was almost exactly the same except that it was called the entrance ceremony. The new classes filed in and their mothers watched from the back of the gym. There were speeches and more bowing of course. All the teachers were introduced including myself. Again, less than 30 minutes and I had no classes for the rest of the day. In the afternoon the kids cleaned the school. Easiest money I ever made.

Many of my classes have been shortened lately because the homeroom teachers need time in the afternoon to have parent teacher conferences. They drive to every single student's house and meet their parents for about 10 minutes and move on to the next student's house.

There is such a thing as a PTA in Japan, and what I find really amusing is that it's actually called the PTA despite the words parent and teacher starting with completely different letters in Japanese. I wonder how that got started.

Elections

2007-04-23T20:16:00.000+09:00

The local elections were held on Sunday. I haven't been able to ask many people about them, but from what I can tell candidates were allowed to campaign for about 3 or 4 weeks in very restricted ways. There were boards with grids on them posted on major streets where each candidate was allowed to put one square poster. I didn't see any political ads on tv. However, for the past two weeks I've heard nothing but loud, shrill, annoying recordings being played at top volume from slow driving campaign vans. I have no idea how anyone could understand what was actually being said, and even if they did, how they could really evaluate a candidate's agenda and values based on the 15 seconds that the van screamed through their neighborhood.

In the local elections, citizens vote for individuals. However, in the national election for Prime Minister, citizens vote for a party and the party chooses the actual Prime Minister.

As a side note, I found out a couple days ago that Japan doesn't have juries in its judicial system!

Mom's Entry

2007-04-22T16:47:00.000+09:00

Many apologies to the faithful readers of Jane’s Blog for this late entry. Jet lag from our trip to Japan took us much longer to recover from than anticipated before jumping back into our work schedules and travel schedules.

Our tour guide in Japan was the BEST! We would never have seen as much as we did if it had not been for Jane and her Japanese skills. She has already highlighted many of the places we visited, so I will share some stories as requested.

I was impressed with the uniforms, white gloves and professional/courteous train, bus, and taxi drivers. All forms of transportation were efficient and clean. However, if you ever board a crowed city bus in Kyoto, be aware of the mighty little old ladies that board the back of the bus. They transform into a football-charge stance and plow through people to get to the front of the bus in order to get off at their destinations. I almost landed on the floor as one of these women shoved me. Jane said something in Japanese to her and she stopped her charging.

Most people have washing machines, but no dryers. Laundry is hung out to dry on balconies. Dirk and I found a western-style Laundromat in Kyoto to wash/dry our clothes. The washing machines automatically dispensed detergent. We met 2 chatty young men from Australia who were staying in a hostel and touring Japan for a month. It is interesting how much people like to visit when they meet someone who speaks their native language. We saw lots of people from Australia visiting Japan.

We did a lot of eating out due to our touring schedule. I craved fresh vegetables and salads. They were usually nowhere to be found. Jane whipped-up her soon-to-be-famous rice/veg/chicken recipe twice. It was delicious and satisfying. I have not been able to reproduce it yet. Jane, I will need a lesson in August. We have been putting ground roasted sesame seeds on everything since returning. My favorite restaurant dish was the okonomiyaki lunch in Hiroshima. Entertaining and delicious!!!

The junior high students at one of Jane’s assigned schools were a delight! The second class was especially enthusiastic about participating in interviewing us and playing Jeopardy. It was especially fun to see Jane’s interaction with them. We were asked what our favorite sport was and how old we were! One girl asked me if I loved my husband and later asked me “how much do you love your husband?” Ha ha

Three of my favorite and lasting memories were seeing the beautiful Gold Pavilion in Kyoto and the peaceful surrounding gardens, relaxing/rejuvenating in the onsen at Nishi-iya followed by dinner with Justin and Mailena at a Japanese restaurant, and the awesome pottery shops in Naruto.

Dad's Entry

2007-04-22T15:59:00.000+09:00

We really enjoyed our visit to Japan. It contains some of the most beautiful landscape sites I have ever seen. I’ve always preferred to capture photographic images that combine natural beauty and beautiful man-made structures. The Japanese have understood how to create locations that have that exact combination for centuries and it shows in their castles and temples. Jane took us on a tour of many of those sites in Himeji, Kyoto, Hiroshima, the mountains of Shikoku and Naruto. Between the three of us we took over 900 pictures (before thinning). Of course, many of the best images were captured by all three of us so that will probably boil down to several hundred good shots—a very successful vacation in my view.

My favorite image is that of the temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. You aren't allowed to go inside the pavilion. However, the point of going there is the unbelievably beautiful visual scene of the temple building reflecting in the glassy pond that is dotted with tiny “islands” of stone and trees pruned to perfection. The place was also arranged nicely to allow lots of people to visit without destroying the beauty. I think that’s an art in itself.

Another favorite was the Himeji Castle, a huge compound with an amazing investment in stonework, woodwork and defensive design. I loved the moat at this and other castles and palaces. I was struck by how similar the castle in Naruto looked to the Himeji castle, although tiny in comparison. We didn’t visit the Naruto castle but we could see it up on a very steep and pointy hill in the center of the community. That hill would have been a great defensive element for a fort/castle. Castle in Himeji:

We all thoroughly enjoyed the shinkansen (bullet train) visit to Hiroshima. The Peace Memorial was very interesting and to stand and stare at the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall, the domed building that has been preserved in its destroyed state, makes real the horror that was experienced there when the first atomic bomb was dropped at the end of World War II.

We found the people to be very friendly and almost always willing to help. However, there were few signs in English so we were very fortunate that Jane can read and speak enough Japanese to get around smoothly. We’re very proud of her! (side note - Dad actually took a video of me ordering shinkansen tickets!)

The food was good, for the most part. We had some very delicious meals, but I must admit that Japanese is not my favorite ethnic food. Here we are eating a full tempura meal while sitting on the floor.

My favorite snack was “Giant Corn” sold at the Lawson’s convenience store. They are very similar to Corn Nuts in the US but even larger and they have only salt and pepper on them which makes them taste great. I also found that I could buy Mountain Dew in the some of the Coffee Boss (Pepsi) vending machines that were everywhere, although most of those machines didn’t have it. Put the Giant Corn together with a Mountain Dew and I was in heaven.

In all we had a great visit. We’ll remember it for the rest of our lives. Thanks for making it possible Jane!

Parents' Visit

2007-04-01T19:14:00.000+09:00

My parents came to visit for about 12 days and we were able to cover a lot of ground! They came to school and taught with me on the last day of classes of this school year. Here they are sipping their juice boxes in the teachers' room. hehe

The next school year doesn't start until next week, so I was able to take lots of time off while my parents visited. We spent about four days in Kyoto. It was my first time in Kyoto, so I wanted to see lots of the famous sites. This is Kinkakuji, the temple of the Golden Pavilion. It was originally built by the shogun Yoshimitsu in 1397 as a retirement house, but an obsessed monk burned it down in 1950. It was rebuilt a few years later.

Nearby the Golden Temple is Ryoanji, a temple famous for it's rock garden. The garden is meticulously raked around 15 boulders. It was originally built in 1499 (years after the temple was built), but the designer is somehow unknown. No matter how you look at the garden you can only see 14 of the boulders at one time. There are several myseteries surrounding the garden.

This is Ginkakuji, the temple of the Silver Pavilion, and it was built in 1474 but was never finished because the Onin War began and they couldn't afford to put silver on the structure.

Kyoto was the capital of Japan for 1000 years. We signed up for the English tour through the Imperial Palace. The original palace was built in 794, but it burned down several times. The buildings that we saw were built in 1855. That's the throne behind my dad.

One of my favorite sites in Kyoto was the Nijo Castle because we were able to see the inside of it. The castle was home to the Tokugawa shoguns from 1626 until 1867 when shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned power to the imperial court. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but we were able to see beautiful murals and experience the creaking floor. We were told that the builders built the floors creaky on purpose so that they would be able to hear intruders.

The grounds have two impressive moats. This is one of the gates and wall from inside the grounds.

This is another Buddhist temple called Sanjusangendo. Inside there are 1000 statues and one large statue of the deity called Thousand Armed Kannon.

This is Kiyomizudera, a Buddhist temple on the side of a mountain in Kyoto. I'm sure we were there in the wrong season or a week too early at least, but I don't understand what the big deal is about this one. It's the only place in Japan that's up for being voted in as one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World." It was traditionally believed that if you jumped off the side of it and survived, that your wish would come true. They've since banned any attempts. There are also two love stones here that guarantees love if you walk with your eyes closed from one to the other. Normally there's a beautiful view of Kyoto from the temple, but we were there on a hazy day.

I thought the Shinto shrine Fushimi Inari Taisha was one of the more amazing places in Kyoto. All shrines have tori gates at the entrance, but this one has thousands of wooden tori gates lining a path that hikes up and down a mountain. This shrine has a fox twist to it because foxes are believed to be the messenger of the harvest deity Inari, to whom the shrine is dedicated. There were lots of fox statues around the shrine.

I think we were a week too early because most of the cherry blossoms looked like they were on the verge of blooming. We still saw a few. Here are a few random pictures I took. Some were from the Kyoto Botanical Garden.

My dad had his heart set on riding the fastest train in the world, so we took the shinkansen/bullet train to Hiroshima for one day while we were staying in Kyoto. It didn't feel like it was going very fast, but it's able to go 186mph. The ride was amazingly smooth. By the way Dad, I think there's a faster train in Shanghai.

I already posted quite a bit about Hiroshima (October), but I think these pictures are worth posting. This is a sunset view of the A-bomb Dome.

And this is the tori gate of Itsukushima shrine at sunset.

I still have a little more to post once I transfer pictures from my brand new camera! Plus I asked my parents to write a little about their experience, so hopefully they'll get those written and I can post them. I'll let them tell the stories.

earthquake

2007-03-26T21:27:00.000+09:00

No worries, we were nowhere near it. It was closer than the last major earthquake though. My parents and I were in Naruto when it happened and we didn't feel anything.

Right now we're in Kyoto enjoying the warm spring weather. Tomorrow we're taking the bullet train/shinkansen/the fastest train in the world to Hiroshima for the day!

Sumo

2007-03-20T20:49:00.000+09:00

On Sunday Christine, Erin and I went to Osaka to watch part of a professional sumo tournament. I have so much more respect for sumo than WWF, which I am embarrassed to say I have also seen in person. Sumo is Japan’s national sport, however baseball is much more popular. In the last decade or so, many foreigners have competed in (and won) sumo tournaments and many people attribute this as the reason for sumo’s decrease in popularity. A Mongolian man is the current champion. Sumo is abundant with rules and rituals, and I’m no expert, so I’ll try to explain what I can.

There are six tournaments in Japan every year. Three are held in Tokyo, and the other three are held in Fukuoka, Nagoya, and Osaka. Tournaments last 15 days, and every contender has one bout per day. Because of this, they arrive about an hour before their bout and leave when they are done. Each day begins with bouts between the less experienced/talented wrestlers and continues on up until the late afternoon when the top ranking wrestlers wrestle. We saw lots of sumo wrestlers out on the street walking to and from the Osaka Gymnasium building while we were walking around trying to find the gym. You can tell they are sumo wrestlers because they are the HUGE men walking around wearing a yukata (casual kimono) with sandals and their hair is in the formal sumo knot on top of their head. Sumo wrestlers are not allowed to drive cars, so most of them walk on the street.

The point of sumo wrestling is to throw the opponent within the ring or force the opponent out of the ring. Each bout is usually less than a minute long. There are many techniques in sumo, and even though I don’t know much about sumo, I could see a difference in ability once the top ranked wrestlers got in the ring. This is the sumo arena.

A new platform/dohyo is carefully made out of clay, sand, and rice barrels before every tournament. The roof is suppose to resemble a Shinto shrine.

Before each rank level, all the contenders within that level come out in formal sumo attire ($4000 aprons) and walk onto the platform when their name is announced. They stand out to the crowd and then in at the rest of their team.

The ring is dampened with water between every so many bouts. Special attendants sweep the ring before every match as well as the edge just outside the ring once the wrestlers have entered the ring. There was a referee/gyoji in a samurai style kimono for every bout, but they switched referees often. Apparently the referees are all ranked in some sort of hierarchy.

In order to purify the ring the top ranking wrestlers throw salt into the ring just before entering….. every time they enter. They stretch their legs out in the air and then squat facing their opponent. After that they can (and almost always do) stand up and leave the ring to rinse their mouth or just psych out their opponent. Many of them hit their belly to get the salt off their hands and that was one of my favorite parts. It’s hard to describe why, but I’m sure you can imagine. While they are warming up in a ceremonial/routine way, the sponsors for that particular bout are announced with men carrying sponsor logo banners around the ring. Whoever wins that bout gets the money.

Lots of wrestlers were pushed or fell completely off the platform, and they landed on one of the five judges sometimes. After the bout, both wrestlers face each other and bow. The loser leaves, and referee declares the winner while the winner bows and collects the envelope full of prize money. Once in a while there were some tough calls, so all the judges came up to the platform and conferred. They asked for a rematch once, but all other times they declared a winner. Here they are conferring and I've also included a bout between lower ranked wrestlers. Press play, then pause it and wait for it to fully upload before watching it.

I was surprised by how little noise was made by both the audience and wrestlers. If I were a wrestler, I would grunt or growl once in a while. And if I were in the audience, I would yell and scream before and after bouts. But despite my best efforts, I can never be a professional sumo wrestler because women are banned from entering the ring…. for purity sake of course. I know I was in the audience and could have screamed, but it was very apparent that actual screaming would have been rude and I never want to be that foreigner. There were a couple shouts from individuals but so few compared to audiences of other professional sports. If you look closely at the stands in this picture, you can see the box seats. If you buy box seats you get a square section of floor space, four seat cushions, and tea service. You can’t wear your shoes in the square.

The cheap seats were actual chairs with seat cushions strapped on top, and we were able to keep our shoes on.

The top ranking wrestlers were really impressive. Many of them look like your run of the mill fat guys, but when they wrestled you could see leg muscles you didn’t know existed. Their strength is astonishing. The current grand champion/yokozuna is 26 years old, 184cm/6ft and weighs 148kg/326lbs. Among the 70 top ranking wrestlers, the age range is 20 – 36 years old, the height range is 168cm (5ft6in) – 203cm (6ft7in), and the weigh range is 117kg (258lbs) – 182kg (400lbs). There are no weight classes in sumo though, so a 258lb-er could face the 400lb-er if they are in the same rank class.

More about the ranking and the yokozuna... the ranking is all based on how many bouts or tournaments they've each won overall. In order to become a grand champion/yokozuna (the highest rank), one must already be in the rank just below the grand champion called a champion/ozeki, and win two tournaments (15 bouts) in a row. Once you reach the grand champion/yokozuna level, you can never be demoted. Because of all this, there can be multiple yokozunas at one time or none at all. Yokozunas continue to compete in tournaments until their ability is no longer at the yokozuna level, in which case they voluntarily and respectfully retire to start their own stable to train others.

Anyways, here's the best close up that I got just before a bout started.

Takos!

2007-03-14T21:02:00.000+09:00

Last week a friend of mine taught me how to make takoyaki, grilled octopus donuts. The first time we tried it, it didn't work out. It went better the second time...

I love Mexican tacos, and I'm constantly looking for restaurants that serve them. The authentic taco stand in Tokushima City just closed, so I told one of the teachers how much I'm going to miss it. She said there are other restaurants that serve tacos, so we went to a Japanese restaurant that had a Mexican food section on their Italian/Japanese/Mexican menu. I was first suspicious when bacon tacos were on the menu. I ordered the ham tacos and this is what I got... that's a dollop of ketchup in that little pitcher.

"Pinocchio"

2007-03-13T21:06:00.000+09:00

For the past 13 years some of the JETs in Tokushima Prefecture have written, produced, and performed a musical in several theaters around the prefecture. This year’s show is “Pinocchio” and it’s more of a dancical than a musical because nobody really sings (mostly lip syncing). The play includes junior high school level English and several Japanese phrases, so all of our students can have an experience outside of class to enjoy practicing their English. Each scene is outlined in Japanese in the playbill too. I decided to join in, and now I’m playing the tap dancing candlestick maker, Pinocchio’s homeroom teacher with a midwestern accent, and a yakuza (Japanese mafia) gang member. So far it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve had four performances so far, and the last one is coming up this weekend. Many elementary students were able to understand and enjoy it, so it was simple enough for them, yet it wasn’t too slow or basic because the native English speakers in the audience found it really humorous. Here are some pictures of the cast.

Apparently the Japanese mafia are well-known for their tattoos and Hawaiian shirt wearing tendencies. Tattoos are taboo in Japan because of this association. I was really surprised by the Hawaiian shirt tidbit. So Dad, don't bring your vacation shirts next week.

Spring

2007-03-06T12:00:00.000+09:00

During the morning announcements in the staff room today, the student discipline teacher announced that an unknown man exposed himself at the Naruto train station yesterday. Many female high school students use that station, so he wanted to pass on the message to warn everyone. One of the teachers that I teach with told me that this usually happens in early Spring because it starts to get warmer. So I guess Spring is here! What an unlikely sign.

I never use that station because there’s one much closer to my apartment. They didn’t catch the guy.

Graduation

2007-03-01T22:03:00.000+09:00

Today I attended Naruto Technical High School’s graduation ceremony. It was very similar to graduations in the US with a few exceptions.

Attendants and dress: The teachers, current students, family, and the mayor attended. The students wore their uniforms, and everyone else who attended wore black suits except for about three mothers and one male teacher who wore kimonos. I was shocked by how few family members were there. It looked as though there was no more than one guest per graduate!

Shoes; Everyone had to change their shoes before entering the gymnasium, which meant that I had to change from my indoor shoes to guest slippers or gym shoes. There was a special cover over the gym floor, so I didn’t really understand why we were changing our shoes. All the teachers and I wear our indoor shoes outside at that school because the hallways are outside, so it never really seems to be about keeping floors clean. Anyways, the graduates had special green slippers that are only used on graduation day and the guests were given guest slippers. So here were all these men and women changing out of their dressy shoes and into slippers at the entrance of the gym. Many of the teachers changed into gym shoes. I usually find dressy shoes very uncomfortable, so I like the idea of changing out of them, but I’m still baffled as to why people were even wearing dressy shoes in the first place if they knew they weren’t going to be wearing them for the actual ceremony for which they dressed up.

Ceremony: All of the English teachers were off attending to something, so I really had no clue what was going on or what I was suppose to do. This is what I observed though. The graduates processed through the audience that was mainly made up of the current younger students, sat down, and the Principal began the diploma giving. The speeches came later. Lots and lots of ceremonial bowing took place throughout the ceremony. But when you think about it, bowing rather than handshaking makes the ceremony go a lot faster because it cuts out all the walking to, on, and from the stage. You can bow from a distance. And of course there are fewer germs exchanged. I had to bow with the teachers every once in a while, although I have no idea what I was bowing about. Anyways, when a student’s name was called, he stood up, yelled (sometimes obnoxiously) “HAI” which in this situation means here/present, and remained standing until everyone in his technical major was standing. Then a student representative of the students in that major walked up to the stage and received all of their diplomas at once. They all bowed to the Principal. And it went on like this through the three majors of computer science, machinery, and environment. AFTER the diploma part, about five or six people gave speeches including the Principal, Mayor of Naruto, leader of the PTA, and the student leader. One thing in particular that I noticed was that there was absolutely no laughter during the entire ceremony, so there must not have been any jokes told. About 80% of the students were sleeping in their seats and a couple were listening to music on headsets attached to their cellphones. Afterwards the graduates processed out and changed their shoes.

Afterwards: Everyone was much more cheerful and pictures were actually taken by the few parents that were there. Each homeroom had a special little get together afterwards. Some of the students came up to the staff room and thanked certain teachers and took pictures with them. All the teachers had a special catered box lunch. The brown red bean rice is eaten on special occasions for good luck.

Sake Festival

2007-02-22T21:59:00.000+09:00

I never liked beer, but I always thought it was because I hadn't tried one that I liked. Out of all of the beer that is brewed in the world, there must be one that I like. So I did the nerdy thing and took a short class over winter vacation at Wellesley about beer. I realized that I like wheat and/or Belgian beers the best.

Since I got here in August, I've tried nihonshu, aka Japanese sake (fermented rice), from various places, but I never felt compelled to drink anymore than a sip to try it out. Then I heard about a sake festival in Ikeda, Tokushima. I thought that I would be able to find a sake that I could enjoy the same way I found wheat beer. So a couple of my friends and I took a train over to Ikeda last weekend to test taste many different sakes from all over Shikoku.

Other than us, the festival was attended by several elderly Japanese men, a couple of whom didn't hold their sake well. We didn't get any pictures of that though.

There were 33 of these setups. Each sheet gave the taste rating on a sake bitter/dry to sweet scale, alcohol content, where it was made, etc.

We paced ourselves. Don't worry, the samples were small and we didn't try ALL 33.

Well no such luck. There were only about two that didn't make us go "bleh, that's awful!" Oh well, we tried. Maybe it's better this way.

Happy V-Day!!!

2007-02-14T19:51:00.000+09:00

Over the last week, nearly every Japanese person that I talk to on a regular basis asked me if I knew about Valentine's Day in Japan. I'm a little sick of hearing about it to be honest, but I should at least relay it on to you guys. On Feb 14th, girls give boys chocolate. Girls usually give some to their friends as well. It doesn't seem to change as they grow up. Women give their male coworkers and bosses chocolate. Today I received chocolate from a few of the female teachers and students. The students really went all out, which was really cute and delicious. I gave all of the teachers chocolate from Kobe since I was there last weekend. Everyone asked me if I sent Eddie some chocolate, but they weren't surprised or confused when I told them that I got him something else.

On March 14th boys and men give girls and women chocolate. It's called white day.

Today really seemed like any other day to me though. Snacks are passed out in the office every day.

Castles, dungeons, and dragons

2007-02-12T16:47:00.000+09:00

This weekend I went to Osaka to visit some friends. They taught me how to play Dungeons and Dragons, and we had a lovely time playing until 3am. I was a headbutting half-elf monk orphan. Anyways, this is the hair dryer that my friends let me use in the morning. It's so tiny, yet it still works really well.

I also went to the Himeji Castle, north of Kobe. The Himeji Castle is one of the twelve castles in Japan remaining from the feudal era. The moat, defensive walls, living corridors, and storage buildings were all built in 1346. The main structure was built in 1600. I was really impressed with the castle. It was beautiful and really well kept. I went all the way to the top. Inside there were diaries, guns, calligraphy, and armor on display.

Everyone had to put their shoes in a plastic bag and put on slippers before entering the main building.

And of course, there were no scribbles allowed.

The windows were built extra high in many of the rooms. If the castle were to be attacked, the guns and ammunition were kept on the floor, and the people shot through the windows up on the platforms.

These are gun racks.

Outside the moat, there's a beautiful park with multiple gardens in it. I partook in the tea ceremony in the tea house in the middle of the park.

Cutie 'tude

2007-02-08T23:20:00.000+09:00

Today I noticed one of my male technical high school students’ small beanbag pillow. The top of it had Mickey and Minnie on it and the words “Cutie ‘tude.” Hehehe

One of the best ways to stay warm all day (that warm weather was a fluke) is to warm my feet by the heater. I usually lift my feet up to the warmest part of the heater so they warm up faster. Well today I warmed them too long and basically cooked my feet. After I moved away from the heater, a melting shoe odor lingered around my desk!

Speaking of odors, right now I’m sitting in the office and the fresh smoke mixed with the old smoke stuck in the walls is making my nose burn.

Warmth!

2007-02-06T16:53:00.000+09:00

It's 60 degrees Fahrenheit right now!!! Wahoo!!! Although this feels like a fluke, one of the teachers who I teach with told me that Spring officially starts here this weekend. This is the first winter that I didn't see any snow. ........shucks!

Eddie's experience

2007-02-01T10:19:00.000+09:00

Since several loyal readers of this blog will be visiting Japan soon, Jane thought it would be a good idea if I wrote down some of my observations... So here goes!

The flight over the Pacific wasn't nearly as bad I was expecting. Luckily I had a decent seat (i.e. the aisle), and the person next to me was under 400 pounds, so it really wasn't that bad. It helps to get up and walk around once every few hours. The food on the Northwest flight was pretty good too. The portions were tiny, but luckily I had some snacks with me.

When I first landed in Japan, I was surprised by how cursory the customs inspections were; they merely asked why I was in Japan and didn't even open my luggage. I was also struck by the fact that the Japanese police officers don't appear to carry guns. It's the first time that I've been in a country where gun posession is outlawed across the board. It's hard not to admire a society that can function without guns!

As soon as Jane and I left the airport and boarded the train that would take us home, I couldn't help but notice how clean the train was and how polite the attendants were. The train was immaculate and the ticket lady actually bowed before entering and leaving the different cars of the train as she walked through. At first, seemed a bit odd to me, but I grew accustomed to it quickly. After a week or so, I found myself doing little head bobs as well! Speaking of head bowing, I smacked my head about five times because the doorways in Japan really are much lower than the West. Yet I digress... the transportation workers in Japan are not only polite, but they are also nattily dressed. Taxis drivers wear suits. Actual suits with a tie and jacket! Even fast food workers look sharp and work very hard. Walk into a Mister Donut and you'll see what I mean! They are genuinely cheerful and happy to serve you.

Although a few restaurants did offer the option of using silverware, the vast majority only provided chopsticks. They really aren't that hard to use. The Japanese do seem to enjoy watching foreigners struggle to use chopsticks though; that and my declining body weight were incentive enough to learn to use them fast! I had the chance to sample several different Japanese dishes. As might be expected, I enjoyed the food that most resembled what I am accustomed to. I was delighted to discover that Pizza Royal Hat’s pizza is better than almost anything in Boston! After I spent three weeks living with Jane, she can now order just about any pizza in Japanese without a problem! I also highly recommend Pickle’s café. They have a fantastic cheese omelet with rice! Visitors should, however, be careful when Jane orders more exotic food. After beginning to eat one such mystery dish, I discovered a tentacle! I was surprised by how much I liked sushi though. It comes in a wide variety some of which was quite tasty even to an uncultured palate such as mine! I also liked udon, ramen, and okonomiyaki. Here I am in front of one of the ramen shops in Naruto. The chopsticks move up and down like a magic trick.

During my last week in Japan, I had the chance to help Jane teach English classes at a technical high school and a junior high. The junior high kids were very attentive and seemed to be quite interested in learning English. The technical high school students, however, were the exact opposite of what I had expected. I had assumed that Japanese students would all be very well disciplined and exceedingly deferential to their teachers. At the high school I visited, this was not the case; students talked amongst themselves and even used their cell phones to send text messages during class! Upon walking into the first class, a kid made arm wrestling gestures at me, which could have been confused with inappropriate gestures until Jane explained what he actually wanted. Jane said that he was the arm wrestling champion of the school (there was an arm wrestling tournament during the cultural festival before Jane tap danced). I let him think he could win for a bit and then I put his arm right down. The teacher said that if he had beat me, there would have been many more challenges throughout the day. One of the most surprising things that I noticed about the school was the apparent indifference of the Japanese teachers. They didn't even try to control the class. Even under these difficult circumstances, Jane was able to conduct useful exercises for those who wanted to learn. Here we are warming ourselves next to the kerosene heater in the staff room. We put our jackets on when we went to teach.

I found the amount of English used on clothing and signs in Japan very surprising. Though the English is barely comprehensible, it is everywhere! This despite few people actually being able to speak English (until Jane gets through with them, of course)!

Here we are on the boat to go see the whirlpools.

"famous"

2007-01-31T21:50:00.000+09:00

I've started to realize that the term "famous" has a completely different meaning in Japan. Only a handful of places in Japan are famous like the Grand Canyon or Eiffle Tower are famous. There's Mt Fuji, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, and several temples that you could all probably recognize in a picture because they are truly famous. But now I'm starting to realize that famous should really be described in three different categories: locally famous, nationally famous, and globally famous. I now think that most things, symbols, and places that I'm told are famous in Japan, are really just locally famous. Some of the people I teach with seem to think everywhere is famous for something, since that's how Japan works. Once one of the teachers asked me what my hometown, Germantown, was famous for and I honestly couldn't think of anything but fake German architecture (which it isn't actually famous for)! Wisconsin is famous for cheese, and Milwaukee is famous for beer, but not every individual town in Wisconsin is famous for something like every town in Japan seems to be famous for something.

Anyways, I've come to realize this about Japan because of omiyage. An omiyage is a gift that is traditionally given to co-workers and family after one returns from a trip. Whenever I travel I always bring something back for the office of the school that I teach at the first day that I'm back. I was told at orientation to do so because I may offend the office if I don't. Just before I leave another prefecture I always pick up one of the "famous" treats of that prefecture, but after I hand it out nobody can guess where I was, based on what I brought back. If that prefecture was actually famous for that treat on the national level, people would recognize that right away right? Plus, I have received odd omiyage from other people and I seriously hope that Tokyo is famous for something other than a banana-shaped cake filled with red bean paste, which I have received from a couple different people. Sometimes I think all these places are famous for things just so that people have a convenient omiyage to bring back to everyone in the office. It's not just little keychains and magnets either. It's like miniaturized versions of the locally famous equivalent of the Boston cream pie in a 9, 12, or 16 pack.

Once a teacher had me verbally conduct a true/false quiz about the differences between US and Japanese traditions. She had written it, and one of the statements was "Americans give omiyage." Yes omiyage, not gift, the English word for omiyage. She had it marked as false. But I changed the answer because Americans usually DO bring their families and friends gifts from vacations. It's just not as expected as it in Japan, especially in the office.

Last weekend Christine, Erin, and I went on a mini-roadtrip to Matsuyama (on the other side of Shikoku). The expressways on Shikoku are really expensive. They really do save you a lot of time, but we were on the road for about 1.5 hours in Christine's little lawnmower-engine car and the toll was $25! We stayed in the same capsule hotel that I stayed in in October. We went to two onsens while we were there. We went to the jungle onsen (locally famous), and the Dogo Onsen (nationally famous because it is the oldest onsen in Japan and was mentioned in a famous Japanese book). Both onsen were made of sulfer baths from the same natural hot spring. Both were super cheap at $4! The jungle onsen had several different baths: regular hot, medicinal, orange (four oranges were submerged in the tub which was a little weird), cold, and a hot one outdoors. They were all in a big warehouse, but you only noticed that part if you looked at the ceiling because there were palm trees and other plants surrounding most of the baths. The Dogo onsen was really small and had only one bath. It was really old and traditional, which was nice too. You can pay to do the tea ceremony after your bath, which is unusual for most onsen. Here we are outside the Dogo onsen. The Jungle onsen wasn't as nice looking.

In other news...

It's suppose to snow tomorrow. All the 9th graders are worried because they have to go take their entrance exams at their chosen high school tomorrow. The news said that the high tomorrow is 7C and the low is 2C, so I'm guessing nothing will accumulate even if anything falls in the first place. But snow is rare here so just the possibility of it falling is a big deal. As for the entrance exams into high school, one kid was so stressed out today that he ran away from home! His homeroom teacher left school to go find him. It turns out, the kid was sitting next to the ocean.

The birthday deal with Japan Airlines is ending Aprils 1st, so we can't go to Hokkaido for cheap anymore. Plus we, and everyone else in Japan, cannot book domestic flights any earlier than two months before the departure date. So the Hokkaido trip still might happen, but it's really up in the air.

planning and reading

2007-01-26T11:18:00.000+09:00

My job isn't terribly intellectually stimulating, however I've spent a lot of my time planning and reading lately. The trip planning has gotten me very excited and the books have satisfied my brain. I've read 5 books in the last couple weeks, all of which my aunts and uncles sent me! I read a trilogy about the life of Josephine Bonaparte (Napoleon's wife), a James Patterson mystery, and Running With Scissors. Now I really want to watch the movies Marie Antoinette and Running With Scissors! I think they are coming to Japan soon.

Anyways, here are my future trips:

Tomorrow I'm going to the Dogo Onsen, the oldest onsen in Japan, in Matsuyama with friends. We're probably going to stay in a capsule hotel again.

My parents are visiting for two weeks at the end of March. This will be Spring vacation/the end of the school year for students in Japan, so I will have time to travel to Kyoto and Osaka with my parents.

During Golden week, a big holiday at the beginning of May in Japan, I'm going to return to Boston and visit my parents, Mary and Matt (sister and brother-in-law), Eddie, and Wellesley friends (小沢先生を訪問したいと思います！）Other than lots of catching up with friends and hugs and kissing with family, I have big plans for movie watching, restaurant frequenting, and shopping!!!!

About five days after I return from Boston, Matt and Mary are coming to visit for 2.5 weeks! Mary is heading up the planning for that trip. I know that we will definitely go to many onsens and make ramen at the instant ramen museum.

For my birthday in June, two of my friends that I met here and one of my Wellesley friends, who will be visiting at the time, and I will go to Hokkaido for a long weekend. Japan Airlines has a birthday special where you and three of your friends can fly anywhere within Japan for only $100 each, within one or two weeks of your birthday.

So there's going to be a lull in exciting posts during February, but I'll have silly and beautiful pictures back up again before you know it. Have a good weekend!

substitute teachers

2007-01-23T11:08:00.000+09:00

There's no such thing as a substitute teacher in Japan. If a teacher takes a vacation, all the classes are rescheduled so that his or her classes are made up ahead of time. If a teacher gets sick, they rearrange all their classes' schedules so that the classes can be made up when they get back. Needless to say, teachers don't take sick days and instead come to school sick. This prolongs the sickness and gets everyone else sick too. The lack of heat in the classrooms doesn't help either. I think substitute teachers would help lower the stress level of these teachers and the scheduler! However, it takes the students forever to warm up to new people, so perhaps the substitute teacher's job would be difficult. But then again, substitute teachers have a difficult job no matter what. I think new teachers in Japan or teachers in training would do it though.

I snuck into the unused counselor's room yesterday and took a nap for 15 minutes! heh heh heh It's the only room with a couch and the counselor only comes a couple afternoons a month. Afterwards, I tap danced in all of the classes at this school since I promised them I would several months ago. It was the first time all of the students and teachers had seen American tap dancing. They thought my tap shoes were crazy looking.

Public Drunkenness

2007-01-17T13:42:00.000+09:00

Last week Eddie and I went out for lunch at a really cute restaurant where we enjoyed omelet and rice meals. The meal came with a rather shocking sideshow though. There was a large, drunk Japanese man trying to eat lunch nearby. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. [Don't read this if you're eating]

First, he stood up, undid his pants, tried to pull them up over his big stomach, redid them, and sat back down. Then his food came and he started eating it while swaying back and forth from side to side. Whenever he put salad in his mouth, he choked a little and spit most of it back out. There were a couple times when Eddie and I just stared at him to make sure he could still breathe on his own. While he drank his soup, he kept coughing it back out all over his shirt. He wasn't cleaning himself up and he didn't seem embarassed at all. Meanwhile, the people sitting at three other tables in the restaurant, acted as if nothing was going on, even when the man (very loudly!) came very close to needing the Heimlich. Nobody called the police, nobody asked if he needed help, nobody kicked him out, nobody called an ambulance. It's possible that we didn't stick around long enough to witness a response, but after 30 minutes, we couldn't take it any longer and left.

I've put off writing about this topic because the generalizations I'm making are really big and most likely don't include all Japanese people. However, after being here for six months and talking about it with other foreigners, I feel as though I should still mention it on my blog.... with this big disclaimer.

As most foreigners living in Japan will most likely agree, alcoholism isn't really acknowledged here. I'm not sure if it is acknowledged as a disease here, but I have noticed that as long as someone is legally old enough to drink, nobody is looked down upon for really heavy drinking. Nobody is really ashamed of it either.... not that they should be. I was really surprised (when I first got here) when I noticed that a well respected woman that I know always mentioned "drinking alcohol" as one of her hobbies. All other Japanese people in the room usually just smile as if she had just said knitting was her hobby. I just wanted to make this observation since many cultures do in fact look down upon it.

I've heard a lot of stories from other ALTs about going out to parties with Japanese people. It is not uncommon that a foreigner goes out for a couple drinks with Japanese co-workers, and no matter WHAT happens, the next day everyone acts as if nothing happened.

I should mention that drunk driving is very taboo. The legal blood-alcohol level for driving is zero, so driving seems to be the only reason that Japanese people accept for refraining from refilling your cup. Japan, or at least Shikoku, has a service called daiko. It's a taxi service that brings two drivers when you call. One taxi driver drives your car home with you in it and the other taxi driver follows to take the first taxi driver back once you're home. It costs just about the same, if not less than a taxi so there's no reason not to use it. I wish the US had something similar. I wonder how many lives it would save.

the vacation is over

2007-01-14T19:36:00.000+09:00

I said goodbye to Eddie this morning before he got on a bus that went straight to the airport. I've become accustom to long-term goodbyes for two reasons: my extended family has always been more than 3 hours away and I attended college out of state. However this goodbye was a lot harder for me to deal with. I think I've made it this long without homesickness because I've had so many interesting and crazy distractions. Eddie was a little reminder of home and now that he has gone, along with the fact that the newness of Japan has worn off, I've got a small case of homesickness. I have a lot to look forward to this week with friends and work, so I'll be okay. I know it will pass.

Eddie had some interesting observations that I'll post about later this week.

Osaka, New Years, and Eddie

2007-01-04T21:48:00.000+09:00

I've had such a wonderful time since Eddie got here. He recovered from jetlag pretty quickly. We stayed in Osaka for a week at my friends' apartment. Unfortunately it got very cold the day after he got here, so it wasn't as much fun walking around the city. We still managed to see a lot of the city though! Here we are in the Dotomburi district. That night we went on a small boat river cruise.

Here I am posing at the Tennoji Zoo.

Here's Eddie in a market near Namba. It was really funny how he could see over everyone's head.

Here's Eddie using chopsticks like a pro. He learned in three days!

Here we are in Kobe. We spent a day there. We met up with one of my friends from Wellesley. She and her family treated us to a delicious sushi lunch. We also went on a sake brewery tour in the Nada section of Kobe.

We went to Osaka's aquarium called the Kaiyukan. It was pretty cool. We saw a whale shark, porcupine fish, sting rays, dolphins, giant crabs and a bunch of jellyfish. I took a video of the big tank. The link is on the right.

Many places were closing because of New Years. Unfortunately I got mixed up about when the instant ramen museum was open. So we went all the way out to Ikeda, a suburb of Osaka, and the doors to the museum were locked. We still took this picture though!!

Christmas

2006-12-26T13:55:00.000+09:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! During the weekend I caught a cold, so I stayed in and tried to recover. I also cleaned my apartment and went shopping so that everything was all set for Eddie's arrival! I found a Christian church and went to a service on Christmas Eve. I'm not sure exactly what kind of a church it was but it definitely wasn't Catholic. It was obvious that we were celebrating Christ's birth, so I knew I wasn't too far off. I opened my Christmas presents too!

On Christmas Day I went to work and planned out fun things to do in Osaka once Eddie gets here. That's about all I did. At home I watched part of the Office season 2 and the movie Adaptation. Once my family woke up on Christmas morning, I was able to talk with them over the phone. A pleasant Christmas, but definitely missing some fun family members and delicious food. It didn't really feel like Christmas to begin with, so I sometimes forgot which day it actually was.

A highlight of this past weekend has been driving a tiny little car. Almost all of my friends left the country during winter break, and two of them left me with their car. I have an international driver's license and insurance, so I'm all set. Man I miss driving!!!! I am already accustomed to driving on the left side of the road because I've been following traffic rules on my bike this whole time. The only thing that I mixed up the first couple times was that the turning signal switch is on the right and the windshield wiper controller is on the left of the steering wheel.

Tonight I leave for Osaka. I am staying at my friends' apartment while they are visiting the US. I'm taking care of their adorable cats while they are gone. Eddie flies in tomorrow and is staying with me until January 14th. We're going to stay in Osaka through New Years and then head back to Naruto. Some highlights of the things I have planned are an evening river cruise through downtown Osaka, the instant noodle cup museum, Spa World, Osaka's Aquarium, sake brewery tour, New Years Eve in Shinsaibashi/Dotombori, shopping, and lots of eating (Kobe beef, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, etc). Oooooh I'm pumped! I think I'm going to have a hard time sleeping tonight due to the anticipation and excitement!

Christmas in Japan

2006-12-15T22:29:00.000+09:00

It should be no surprise that Christmas isn't a national holiday in Japan. That means that I will be going into the office on Christmas! I probably won't do much. I just have to show up. The kids have two weeks off for winter break, starting on the 23rd.

From what people have told me, I've gathered that some people in Japan give their kids Christmas presents. But it sounds like they only do it when they are younger and that the presents are silly. I've seen about two houses with Christmas decorations outside. Almost all stores have been playing Christmas music since the end of November. Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" is played just about every other song. Everybody has said that they eat Christmas cake on Christmas. I think that's funny because that's about the ONLY dessert that my family DOESN'T eat at Christmas time. But if you think about it, maybe we should.... after all, we are celebrating a birthday. They told me Christmas cake is just like birthday cake but with different decorations. Christmas Eve or Christmas night is a date night for most Japanese couples. Japanese families all gather together (the way we do for Christmas) for New Years, not Christmas. During New Years they go to a temple and pray.

When I explained some of the Christmas traditions in the US (caroling, cards, decorating the tree, santa, etc), the kids were most surprised by the tradition of leaving cookies, milk, and carrots out on Christmas Eve. They thought it was really funny. That and sending Santa a wishlist.

Some rambling about cheating

2006-12-14T14:27:00.000+09:00

I'm really starting to notice all the small intricate differences in the Japanese school system. I'm sorry to say that I don't like some of them. I've already mentioned the heating issue.... I'm wearing thick socks and I haven't been able to keep my toes warm all day today.

But anyways, one of the aspects of Japanese student behavior that really surprised me at first, and now gets on my nerves, is their lack of independence or confidence in themselves. I don't really know how else to explain it, but that's how I perceive it.

In American schools, when you are called on in class or are working on a worksheet, what would happen if you turned around and consulted with three of your friends for about two minutes before answering? Or blatantly copied your friends' answers? That was always considered *cheating* wasn't it? Well that's what about 90% of the kids do here. The other 10% of the kids are the ones that are telling everyone else the answers (they aren't sly or discreet about it either), and then don't need any help when it's their turn.

I was told during orientation that this is how the kids would behave and that you shouldn't fight it because you'll just have absolutely silent classes. They pretty much said it was a cultural difference because Japan is a group society. I think they pass too much off as being a 'cultural thing' though. Regardless, kids really will just stand there in silence forever (after you call on them) if you don't let them communicate with others. Somehow standing in silence is the less embarrassing option to them. To me, the longer the silence, the more embarrassing it gets.

Now that I worry about how effective each exercise is in class, I've given great thought to this behavior. I think it really inhibits each kid's learning. That's why we consider it cheating isn't it? Why figure out what is going on in class if you know someone will always tell you the answer? It creates quite an obstacle in making lesson plans. I think that this behavior is part of the reason why there is a such a huge gap in abilities within each class. The other part might be because Japan (or at least Tokushima Prefecture) has a "no fail" policy until high school. As long as you show up to class often, you'll make it all the way up to 9th grade. Passing doesn't depend on your attempt at learning. Where's the motivation? I feel like the only thing that motivates these kids is passing the entrance exam to high school. But even then, they can keep on taking entrance exams until they get into one. It's not like they won't go to high school. I guess the kids want to go to the same school as their friends though, and that is the only reason I can think of that is motivating my students to listen to me.

The only other difference in the school system that I either don't understand or find inefficient is the counseling aspect of school. I think I need to learn more about this one before I really comment on it. For now, this is what I know. I know that the school counselor visits the school a couple times a month. They visit each school about as often as I do (4-5 days a month), but only interact with the kids that sign up to talk. At some schools, the counselor sits at his desk in the office for the entire afternoon, looks bored, and packs up and leaves as soon as he can. At other schools, the counselor actually talks with students. Perhaps I'm just generalizing based on one guy that doesn't do his job, but on the other hand, I feel like I've seen some kids that look like they aren't getting the help that they need. It's really hard to watch. I'm going to a museum with one of the counselors this weekend (she earned her phd in Missouri!), so I'm definitely going to try to learn more about it all.

I realize this is a pretty negative post. I didn't mean to say that I've lost any respect for Japanese culture. Every job has it's frustrations, and I just wanted to share my job's challenges with you guys.

I think there's a stereotype in the US of what an average Japanese student is like, but I have to say, I think those stereotypes came from Tokyo or the Japanese version of a magnet high school. I'm just not seeing it at the extent that would warrant the beginning of such a stereotype.

hmmmmmmmmmm I don't think I'm really making a point here. It's just that the way some of my students behave and study boggles my mind sometimes. It's almost as if they've been told their whole lives that specifically *Japanese* students have such a hard life and that they should really believe it. But really, they don't study that hard until 9th grade, just before entering high school. And they only join one club. Nobody is in more than one club. A few students go to "cram school" (extra classes) after school, but I'm pretty sure that's not everyday. Most of the kids seem to be home by dinner time. Japanese schools aren't that rigorous! This is really bad, but I have to try not to laugh when they all say they have a very hard life. I'm 22 years old and I've already caught myself wanting to say, "Well when I was your age, I was in 10 clubs. You'll be fine."

my life is so hard

2006-12-13T14:03:00.000+09:00

One of the teachers that I teach English with is also the home-ec teacher. The junior high school kids get to cook twice a year. This week they got to make crepes and cake. The teacher invited me to come and help one of the groups, so I said yes. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, as usual. I helped one of the groups crack eggs and stir, which was a lot of fun. But then once all the desserts were made, and a sample was sent up to the other teachers for grading, every group gave me a dessert. How could I say no to those cute kids wearing aprons?? So over the course of an hour I sat there and consumed 6 delicious desserts! That's when it dawn on me how terribly hard this job is. I don't know if I can keep doing this!!!!

In other news, I had a few of the kids that live in the orphanage/care-giving home in my class today. They are in the special needs class, and up until this week completely ignored my presence when I was in class. No eye contact, no participation, no hellos or goodbyes, and they didn't even attempt to speak to me in Japanese. If they said anything or looked at anyone at all, it was always directed towards the other teacher. I never really pushed it with them because there are a million reasons why they could have been acting that way. However, since they received their presents from Santa and the visit from all the foreigners, they have completely changed. In class today, they made eye contact with me and spoke directly to me! And at the end of class they asked me when I was coming to their class again! Well, I just wanted to spend the entire day there with them.

Also, I was quoted in the Tokushima newspaper on Monday! A newspaperman interviewed me at the orphanage/care-giving home on Sunday. I said I was glad to see the kids smiling.

weekend stories

2006-12-12T22:00:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I did a number of things. On Friday night I went to a staff dinner party at a hotel in Tokushima City with everyone that works at my high school. It was interesting to say the least. There was a raffle, bingo, and buffet. I saw all the food lined up when I walked in, so I understood there was a buffet. Several people still explained to me that I must get my food myself, as if it was a new Japanese concept for me. However, only one person explained to me that in Japan, you never fill your own glass. So the majority of the people there spent more time walking around refilling other peoples drinks than eating at their own table. The people who were driving had a special sticker on them asking that you not serve them alcohol. Non of the men had stickers on. Many teachers that do not talk to me in the office finally struck up a conversation with me. The not-so-sober principal admitted to me that he was worried that I wouldn't work out in the beginning, but that now he is relieved (I'm the first female JET to work at that technical high school). During bingo I won an alarm clock! I was invited to all the smaller second parties, but I went a long with the youngest crowd and one of the English teachers that I teach with. We went to a snack bar. We were the only ones in there, and we sang kareoke for a bit. I sang "Girls Just Want To Have Fun."

Saturday and Sunday were spent with friends. We visited two orphanages in Hanoura and Naruto and threw Christmas parties for them. The term orphanage isn't very accurate though. The majority of the kids that live there have families that they visit occassionally. They live there because their families can't afford to take care of them. It's kind of like a free day-care/night-care. The kids are in good hands though. For example, there are 18 staff members for the 30 kids at the Naruto home. The home is near one of my junior high schools, so some of the kids and I knew each other. Ten other Jets and I sang Christmas carols, played games, decorated a Christmas tree, made Christmas cards, and just had fun with the kids. At the end Santa appeared and gave all the kids presents! The care takers invited us to stay and have lunch with all the kids.

I was able to use a lot of my Japanese this weekend. I feel a lot more comfortable just blurting out sentence making attempts. I make a TON of mistakes, but I feel that what I learn from these mistakes sticks in my memory better than memorizing and studying from books. I think I held back too long.

weekend

2006-12-03T20:58:00.000+09:00

This weekend was rather relaxed compared to last weekend. I went to the local live jazz bar on Friday with some of my JET friends. On Saturday I went to a barbecue with my supervisor, Jeff, and Jill. It was a lot like a barbecue back home but with different food. There were tons of people, a couple guys manning the grill, kids running around, lots of drinking, and way too much food. They grilled chicken, oysters, corn on the cob, beef, and sausage. Lots of people brought food too. I had some of the best potato salad in my life there. It had avocados in it! Anyways, I met a lot of Japanese scientists that work for Otsuka in Naruto. Otsuka makes a lot of the popular sodas, energy drinks, snacks and pharmaceuticals in Japan.

Later I went to an onsen in a nearby town with some of my friends. It was kind of sketchy, and I'm pretty sure the wine bath was just water with red dye in it. Everyone kept staring at us, even when we had clothes on. They didn't provide soap and hair drier usage cost money, which are both usually free. Part of the bath had this electrical part to it, where you feel a fairly light electrical shock in the water. I was pretty confused as to why people weren't dying.

Today I did nothing and it was everything I thought it could be. :)

It's pretty cold now. It's in the 40s outside. Some of the teachers giggled when I walked into school last week with a scarf (a beautiful one made by Mary!), hat, gloves, and winter coat. They don't ride their bike to work though! I've been wearing 4 shirts to work everyday and my hands and feet are still cold. There's no heat/heater in the classrooms and hallways. Yet the girls are still required to wear skirts as part of their uniforms. They just started turning the heater on in the teachers' offices.

Hong Kong

2006-11-29T19:31:00.000+09:00

Hong Kong is a fun and exciting city. It has a little of everything - a beautiful view, high end shopping, cheap markets, great food, a giant Buddha, a unique mix of culture, a really convenient public transportation system, and an amazing amount of nature/wildlife in the heart of the city. Fortunately it didn't rain while we were there despite the 90% chance that was predicted. It was cloudy the whole time though. I traveled with my friend Justin, who is also a JET in Tokushima Prefecture (his blog is now linked over there on the right). We went by brother and sister whenever someone asked, and that's pretty much how we interacted anyhow.

FOOD
It was Thanksgiving weekend, so we ate quite a bit. We had Thai, Peking dim sum, Szechuan, Mexican, Mrs. Field cookies, Hong Kong style fried rice, some seafood (squid and baby oysters), and Japanese ramen (which we're pretty sure was made with spaghetti noodles). We almost forgot that it was Thanksgiving, but this was my actual Thanksgiving meal - congee, sesame rice balls, and soy milk:

MONEY
My least favorite thought process is dividing by 8. We had a confusing couple hours our first night because we had yen that needed to be exchanged for the Hong Kong dollar. We're both accustomed to calculating yen into US$ because it is roughly 100yen to $1 plus a little. And we know there's about 8 HK$ to a $1. But the actual exchange we had to act on was 1HK$=16yen, or 1yen=0.0659HK$. So we kept trying to reconvert everything back to dollars, all in our head of course. We finally found a place with a good exchange rate and then left yen out of our calculations when looking at prices in HK$.

TRANSPORTATION
I was really amazed by the city's public transportation system. There were trains, buses, trams, walkways above streets, outdoor escalator, and a subway. All were super clean and ran frequently. All signs and maps were in Cantonese and English. The subway was so easy to use because all you had to do was put your finger on the destination you wanted on the screen map and it told you how much money to put in. It was a relief after Japanese timetables and price maps. Here we are on a city bus that took us straight from the airport to our hostel. Note the nicely cushioned seats.

HOSTEL
We stayed in a hostel in Causeway Bay, a shopping district on the East side of the city. It was about $16 per night per person and we had our own bathroom, air conditioning, and wireless internet. We used the wireless internet to communicate with family and friends in the US. Justin used his pda and skype to call people. I used my webcam and aolim. The first room they took us didn't have everything we wanted in a room so we switched rooms. It was kind of an ordeal because no one in the office spoke English, but I managed to figured everything out through an English speaking woman over the phone. They took us to one building three blocks away, but there was some problem with the security guys on the first floor, so after a verbal fight took place in front of us in Cantonese, we left and they took us to a different building. We paid the difference for a better room on the street, which felt a little shady, but once we got settled we realized the room was actually quite safe and convenient after all.

THE SITES
Parks - HK has a ton of free, well-kept, clean, gorgeous parks. We went to the Honk Kong Park, Kowloon Park, HK Botanical Garden and Zoo, and Victoria Park. Some of the parks have swimming pools, ponds, greenhouses, sculptures, waterfalls, museums, restaurants, wild animals, aviaries, sport courts, and well manicured plants. Here are some pictures from the parks.
Where park meets city-

Orchids-

Victoria Peak - We took the steep Peak Tram up to the top of Victoria Peak, south of the city. There was a mall and restaurants on the top. This was the clearest it was all weekend. Here is the view-

The Promenade - Across from Hong Kong Island is Kowloon Peninsula. There's a street on the edge of this peninsula and it has the best view of the city from the north. Here is the view during the day, East to West. My pictures at night didn't turn out.

Here's the clocktower near the promenade.

The Ngong Ping Skyrail and Buddha - West of HK Island is Lantau Island. The largest outdoor Buddha in the world sits on top of a mountain on Lantau. There's a brand new skyrail that takes you right to the Buddha. We had to wait about two hours to get on it though. It's about a 20 minute ride over a bay and a couple of mountains. I took a video of the end of the rail because I was worried that I pictures would turn out due to the dirt on the glass in our cabin. Here are some of those pictures, but the video is linked on the right.
Look for the skyrail cabins that fit 10 people there at the top of this picture-

The skyrail begins down near that building in the center of this picture-

It was pretty cloudy up there, but here are the good pictures of the Buddha and the surroundings.

We shared a cab back with a couple Spanish wine sellers because the line was too ridiculous to take the skyrail back. I don't think little amusement park skyrails are going to do anything for me anymore. And this means that in three weeks, I've seen the biggest indoor (at Todai-ji in Nara) and outdoor Buddhas in the world!

SHOPPING
There are malls and markets everywhere you turn in HK. We walked through most of the malls that connected all the big buildings together. You can stride through half the city and avoid the hot, busy street by doing so. The markets were a lot more hectic and fun. We got to Ladies Market, the Jade Market, Night Market near Jordan Rd, and Stanley Market on the south side of the HK Island. We bartered for everything we wanted, and sometimes we unintentionally bartered by walking away when we actually weren't interested in items. We didn't get around to the goldfish and flower markets.

NIGHTLIFE
We went out on the town one night in the SoHo and Lan Kwai Fong districts. We took the public outdoor escalator to get there. I'm pretty sure there are other places to party because only foreigners and ex-pats were there. We still had fun though. No cover charges.

PERCUSSION
We got tickets to see a Taiwanese Ju Percussion Group perform at the HK Cultural Center alone and with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. It was a spectacular show and parts of it reminded me of Blue Man Group minus the blue and the humor. So I guess it was just the sound and lighting. Anyways, I was really impressed. The orchestra sounded a lot like western orchestras but all the instruments were completely different. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. We also saw the last round of a middle and high school drumming competition. Here's a picture of the Cultural Center. It has three theaters inside it.

JAL
Japan Airlines is right up there with Midwest Express. I got to sit in the upper deck exit row on the way back. All seating enjoyed many movies, games, music, and more on personal screens. They had cameras on the bottom and front of the plane that you could watch. The meal came with silverware, chopsticks, and free unlimited drinks (I didn't take advantage of it Mom and Dad!). No warm gooey cookies though.

I definitely want to go back someday! It would be fun to have a condo there. Hmm, new goal in life.

tap dancing and Thanksgiving

2006-11-22T13:34:00.000+09:00

Well last weekend I caught a cold and stayed home for two days. Luckily I got better just in time for the technical high school's cultural festival. Two of my friends and my supervisor come to the festival with me. We enjoyed the food, kareoke singers, and bazaar. Unfortunately it was raining, so not many non-school people came. They covered the stage though, so I did a little tap dancing number for everyone. They put microphones near the floor so that everyone huddled under tents and inside buildings could here my feet. It was the first time for everyone there to see tap dancing.... which took a little pressure off of me. I didn't use any music or costumes, but I did many typical tap steps. I didn't mess up, so I was happy. The look on the faces of my students was priceless. These photos are courtesy of Erin. Students were wearing their school uniforms.

I also did some calligraphy to display at the cultural festival. This is the calligraphy teacher who helped me practice, before I made my own.

Uh, I think I just ate an acorn. I'm at school and a teacher handed me a snack. It really looks like an acorn, but I don't think any humans eat acorns..... hmm, maybe it's a chestnut. Okay, a teacher just told me it was indeed a chestnut. Okay, that's settled.

Tonight Justin and I are headed to Osaka to catch a flight to Hong Kong, where we will spend Thanksgiving eating Chinese food. We're returning late on Monday, so I probably won't get pictures or stories up until Wednesday. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers!!!!!!!!!!!! Eat lots of mashed potatoes for me!!!!!!!!!

Takamatsu, pizza, and Bolivian food

2006-11-15T20:46:00.000+09:00

Last Friday I had a few friends over to watch a movie. I successfully ordered three pizzas over the phone in Japanese all by myself!!! And there was no mistake, I really meant to order these....

This is a teriyaki chicken pizza. It has some sort of salad dressing, teriyaki sauce, chicken, seaweed shavings, and cabbage. I ordered it without mayonnaise like it usually comes.

This is the Pizza RoyalHat's special pizza. It comes with tuna, ham, tomato, corn, cheese, and sauce.

On Saturday I traveled to Nishi-iya to enjoy some Bolivian food with Justin and a couple other Jets. Justin has some Japanese/Bolivian friends who invited us over for dinner. It was my first time in an actual Japanese house. The house was really cute with three really big tatami rooms, kitchen, entranceway, playroom, and bathroom. We sat on the floor with our legs under the blanket that lays between the tabletop and small table heater. We had all kinds of sushi, a Bolivian appetizer, and chicken/potato dish that tasted just like my favorite meal in Honduras. I always crave that dish, so it was a satisfying surprise to eat it out in the middle of Japan's hidden valley.

On Sunday I met up with two Jets from Michigan in Takamatsu, part of Kagawa Prefecture just north of Tokushima Prefecture. We explored Takamatsu's Ritsuren Park, the largest garden in Japan (750,000sq m).

The kikugetsutei teahouse inside the garden was serving tea properly by the Japanese tea ceremony.

We sat (on the floor) in a waiting room for a while and then shuffled (in our socks) into the tea room. We sat on the ground while some guy in a kimono asked a few people from the group to participate in the running of the tea ceremony. Then they made the three of us move to the front because it was apparently obvious that it was our first time. We got a great view and were served just after the women in kimonos. Some of the other women there were in kimonos, and all of the men and women conducting the ceremony were in traditional kimonos. First we ate a tea ceremony sweet, and then drank some tea from some expensive cups. There was a proper way to hold your cup and rotate your cup and bow to the person serving you. We just followed everyone else and hoped we weren't insulting anyone. The woman in charge of making conversation during the ceremony asked us where we were from and a couple other things I couldn't understand. Overall, it was pretty exciting!

Then we headed over to Yashima, just east of Takamatsu, where there is a neighborhood (called Shikokumura) of historical houses/structures from all over Shikoku. First we ate an entire vat of Takamatsu's famous sanuki udon at a locate restaurant.

This is an old soy sauce warehouse.

This is a lighthouse and house of the lighthouse's keeper was nearby, but difficult to capture in a photo.

Weather update

2006-11-15T20:34:00.000+09:00

It finally got cold here. The first day of winter was last Monday and the temperature dropped. At night it's down to about 50F and 60F in my apartment. My space heater brings it up to about 65F. I guess this probably still sounds warm to everyone who has already experienced snow. It feels a lot colder to me now that I can't stay warm without wearing a hat and gloves. I can't go barefoot in my apartment either. Everyone is catching a cold now. I fought off a cold with nine hours of sleep, three liters of water and one liter of orange juice all in one day.

As for the earthquake and possible tsunami, I'm at no risk. I didn't feel it and the two largest islands of Japan are blocking me from a tsunami. From what I can tell from the tv news, the epicenter wasn't technically in Japan and most people couldn't feel it. They are predicting a tsunami hitting Hokkaido to as far south as Tokyo.

Osaka and Nara

2006-11-09T22:05:00.000+09:00

I had a wonderful weekend last week in Osaka and Nara. I went with Jill and we met up with one of my friends from Wellesley and her friends. We did touristy things in Nara, but not in Osaka. We were really just checking out Osaka for the first time, shopping, and hanging out with some delightful new friends and their pet cat and kitten. I bought an amazing electronic dictionary (Canon G90 complete with a kanji write-in feature!) in the Nipponbashi district of Osaka, which might as well be called THE electronic capital of the world. Picture several Target stores all on one street, but only selling electronics and accessories. Each store had entire floors devoted to just cameras or just computer accessories. Here's a view of the street:

These are the adorable cats cricket and velcro. I took this picture with my cell phone!

NARA
Nara is the birthplace of imperial power in Japan. During the 8th century, Emperor Shomu wanted to demonstrate his power by building a gigantic temple with a gigantic Buddha inside. Nara was nearly bankrupt by the time the temple was finished 15 years later, but it showed the area who was boss. Many sub-temples were built later on, so the entire area is filled with many temples, shrines, and ancient burial grounds. Every January, the grass-burning festival called yamayaki is celebrated nearby the temple. The fire got out of hand a few times and the temple and Buddha were nearly destroyed. That and an earthquake have required the temple and Buddha to be rebuilt a few times. The most recent rebuilding took place in 1709. The temple is called Todai-ji and this is the outside. The entire building is made of wood.

This is the biggest Buddha in the world. More specifically, it depicts Rushana (Dainichi Nyorai), the Cosmic Buddha presiding over all levels of the universe. It's two-thirds its original size.

pic c/o jill:

One of the supporting pillars of the temple has a small tunnel through its base. If you can pass through the tunnel, you're supposedly guaranteed a spot in paradise. As you can see, only kids can really fit through it.

Election Day!

2006-11-08T09:32:00.000+09:00

Well, technically it's the 8th here, but I'm monopolizing the office computer all day as the election results start pouring in all night in the states. My ballot came in time for me to get it postmarked before election day. Since I'm out of the country, they will count it if it arrives within 10 days after the election. It's exciting to be voting in Ohio!

Anyways, I had a wonderful weekend in Osaka and Nara. I will post pictures soon. I'm just too preoccupied right now.

Happy Election Day. If you're an American, I hope you voted today!

good hair day and smoke

2006-11-02T14:54:00.000+09:00

I have been able to dry and curl my hair in under five minutes every morning because of one amazing electronic device. A two in one brush/blowdryer. It blows air from the bottom through the brush. It has changed my life. Here it is:

Every day I smell smoke. I've been pretty good about avoiding cigarette smoke, but the garbage and weed fires are completely unavoidable. There are little crop fields everywhere, and everyone seems to have a lot of stuff to burn. When I open my window in the morning, the first thing I smell are burning weeds. When I bike home at night, I pass through several hazy clouds of awful smelling smoke. It's getting really annoying and gross, but I'm starting to get use to it. When I get back to the US and miss Japan, I know that all I have to do is burn some garden leftovers and I'll feel right at home again. This is one of the smaller fires burning next to my street.

I'm going to Osaka and Nara (on Honshu) this weekend because tomorrow is a national holiday and I don't have to work. I should be home by Sunday night, if anyone wants to wait to call me Sunday morning America-time.

Halloween part 2

2006-11-01T21:21:00.000+09:00

Since Halloween isn't celebrated in Japan and the kids haven't seen anyone dressed up in a costume in person, I decided to go all out and be a ghost all day. Whenever I walked down the hall, I made eerie noises, and randomly said, "BOO!" I even taught class looking like this:

I think it was successful because the kids were really interested in learning about Halloween and kept cracking up when I had to readjust my eye holes or ran into something. They also thoroughly enjoyed chasing me in the hallway saying trick-or-treat. Luckily, thanks to my mom and aunts, I had enough candy to give one or two pieces to everyone at that school. After each class, I found a bunch of notes (in English!!) from students in my letter box on my desk. The teachers thought it was funny too. Every time I came back to the teachers' office, they would look up and giggle, something they rarely seem to do.

shocking news

2006-10-30T19:22:00.000+09:00

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

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

excitement

2006-10-29T20:15:00.000+09:00

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!

2006-10-25T20:14:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-24T19:23:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-19T20:33:00.000+09:00

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,

2006-10-14T16:20:00.000+09:00

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

cold

2006-10-13T18:51:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-12T21:23:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-11T21:37:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-05T12:27:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-03T11:43:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-02T22:43:00.000+09:00

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.

Opera and student stories

2006-09-29T14:34:00.000+09:00

Last night I went to the cultural center in Tokushima City to see "The Marriage of Figaro" opera with my friends Smitha and Brian. It was a cast of Austrians singing in Italian and there were vertical digital Japanese subtitles going on both sides of the stage. I didn't understand much, but the music (Mozart) and costumes were beautiful! The program included sheet music and a manga (Japanese comic) of the play in Japanese. The experience was almost TOO cultural for me to handle.

During the train ride into the city, I ran into two of my students. They are siblings. Our conversation was quite limited, but I was impressed with their enthusiasm in trying to communicate with me outside of class.

Today I had more speaking tests. The English teacher told me that the students told her that it was hard to understand me during the test because I sounded so authentic but that I was really friendly... so they want to learn more English so that they can communicate with me! I was pleased to hear this. Perhaps I'll finally get a letter or two in my "letters" bin that I put on my desk at school in case someone wanted to practice their English in a less confrontational way.

After lunch two students came up to me and told me that the fried cheese portion of my self introduction last week had sparked their interest. They wanted to know how to make it. I told them that I had never made it before and that you need a special kind of cheese that I haven't seen in Japan yet. They were a little sad about this, but I told them where they could get some cream puffs and they got excited again. It was really cute.

I've mentioned these interactions because they were refreshing for me. I've been feeling like my job is a little pointless lately, but perhaps that's because I did the same lesson in every class for 4 weeks and it got really boring for me. A couple teachers don't use me effectively either... I'm a human tape recorder sometimes (repeating words over and over). But now that I know that there are some students that really want to learn English and my culture, I feel better about it all. Hopefully my tap shoes will arrive soon and I can win over a couple more students with a little demonstration. :)

Comments about comments: Ah yes, the plastic ants and cockroaches were used on mom and dad too. hehehehe To let everyone else in on the family pranks I pulled with plastic bugs (for the record, Aunt Jan started it with those ants at one of our family reunions)... Once Mary went to school without showering because she thought there was an actual cockroach in the bathtub. She didn't yelp or alert anyone else so that we could kill it. She just didn't shower that day.

HA

2006-09-29T01:34:00.000+09:00

I just killed it! I think I'm going to invest in some spray because running after it all around my apartment was ridiculous! I just hope there aren't more that I don't know about. I also hope that the one I just killed didn't go to the bathroom in my apartment because that's how the diseases spread. yar. okay, it's 1:30am, I need some sleep!!!! ........with the lights and air conditioning on.

AAAAAHHH

2006-09-28T23:57:00.000+09:00

I JUST SAW A TWO INCH LONG COCKROACH IN MY APARTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I TRIED TO SMASH IT BUT IT CRAWLED AWAY AND I CAN'T FIND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's ironic is that it looked just like those plastic cockroaches that I use to scare Mary with when we were growing up. It was the exact same size, shape, and color. Well it seems as though whats comes around, finally got around, back to me!

speech contest

2006-09-27T21:59:00.000+09:00

For the past 3 weeks I've been correcting speeches and coaching a couple kids in English pronunciation to help them prepare for an English speech contest. The students wrote the speeches in Japanese, the teachers translated it, and I took it from there. On Tuesday, they competed in the Naruto competition. One of my students came in third place, but only the top two get to go on to the prefectural level.

I just have to explain the difficulty in English coaching to you. I've never thought about what my tongue is doing during certain sounds that we make when speaking, until I did this coaching. In Japanese, r=l and l=r, so their entire tongue is trained to stick to the roof of their mouth while they talk instead of just the back up for an r sound or just the tip up for the l sound. Also, f= the h sound, w= the oo sound, and v= the b sound in Japanese, so you can imagine how a sentence like "I would like to eat my favorite food" would sound like "I ood like to eat my haborit hood." On top of that, Japanese has a vowel after nearly every consonant, so when Japanese people speak English, they add a lot of extra vowels (that's why that shirt I posted a picture of before says Okulahoma). So in the end, that sentence would come out as "I oo-do liku to eato myu haborit hoodo." And when they say my name, it sounds like Jie Lozyaazu to me. But anways, the kids listened to my instructions and watched my lips move a lot more than they were use to, so it was a good experience, but all the exaggerating of my tongue and mouth movements gave me a headache everyday that I coached. I was really impressed with their improvement in the end though. I'm really proud of them. It was worth it! I also learned a lot about how to move my tongue a little differently so that I sound more authentic when I speak Japanese. Here are the kids that I coached after the contest. They are all about 15 years old.

At all three of my junior high schools, I'm conducting the oral exam part of class all week. The oral exam was always my least favorite part of foreign language classes, so it was odd to be on the other side of the desk. But it was really interesting too. I always wondered how I sounded to native speakers and how other people in the class did. Turns out that some kids just sit there until you motion that they can leave no matter how clear you make the directions (non-verbally, verbally, and written down). The girls were all average or above average, and the boys were either silent the entire time or answered with incomplete answers. There were a few boys in each class that knew what was going on, but I couldn't help but notice the general trend. I have run into the same pronunciation problems that I mentioned before with all of the kids, but I wasn't sure if I should downgrade them for that since their teacher pronounces it the same, unclear way.

This is a really funny article:

Third-Grader Awaits Lesson For Cursive G

GRAND RAPIDS, MI-Area third-grader Abigail Werner simply cannot wait to learn how to write the letter G in cursive.

Mom, no that foot bath was free, but you had to have your own towel, just like you need your own towel nearly everywhere else (bathroom, restaurant, etc) because paper towel and napkins are rarely provided. I'm pretty sure it's to reduce the amount of trash. I now carry a washcloth type handkerchief everywhere I go.

local stuff

2006-09-26T21:35:00.000+09:00

A couple weekends ago I did a bit of exploring around Naruto. Here's the Chomeiji temple near one of my junior high schools.

Here's the view of Naruto from that temple.

Here's another temple at the bottom of that hill.

These are some cool trees that are everywhere.

These are shots of Tokushima City.

This is a frog that was waiting for me on my bike in the morning last week.

random updates: There was a 5.2 earthquake this morning between Shikoku and Kyushu. It happened around 7am, and many people felt it here, but I didn't. Also, it still gets up to about 80F everyday, with humidity at about 50%. It cools off quite a bit at night though. Also I'm thinking about getting a turtle for a pet.

fantastic weekend

2006-09-24T23:46:00.000+09:00

I had a great weekend. I finally got internet access in my apartment, I reconnected with some JET friends, and visited a town on the southern coast of Shikoku.

On Saturday I attended disaster training with other JETs. We participated in an earthquake simulation, high wind simulation, fire/smoke simulation, and practiced using fire extinguishers. It was a little silly, but it was nice to see everyone that I met during orientation and hear about how their first few weeks have gone. Here I am in the earthquake simulation.

I didn't get a good pic of the wind situation, but here are some people putting out an anime fire.

Today I went to Hiwasa, a town south of Anan (where the English camp was). I rented a bike for ~$4.50 for the day and saw the sights. During the summer, many loggerhead sea turtles come to the Hiwasa beach to lay eggs. In the last ten years the number of turtles that come has been decreasing. I don't think more than 10 came this year, but never the less, there is a sea turtle museum right on the beach. They had a tank of turtles and many facts and figures about sea turtles. Ever since I did a report about the Galapagos Tortoise in 3rd grade, I have been fascinated by turtles. So I really enjoyed the visit and of course, the souvenir shop. This is the beach.

This is the first exhibit in the sea turtle museum. That shell is an adult loggerhead turtle shell.

These are baby loggerhead sea turtles!

Hiwasa also has a castle and temple. The temple is called Yakuoki and it is the 23rd temple in Shikoku's 88 temple pilgrimage. I liked it better than the ones in Naruto. I saw some people on the pilgrimage too! Here are some pics:

The castle Hiwasajo sits on top of a mountain near the downtown area. It's a reconstruction of the actual castle, and not that spectacular for a castle. I didn't pay to go inside because I heard it's more museum (all Japanese) than castle.

These are some flowers that I haven't seen in Naruto, but were all over Hiwasa.

This is a foot bath that was next to the train station. You rinse your feet, then stick them in the troff of scalding hot water for ten minutes, and then dry off your feet and go!

more food!

2006-09-20T16:14:00.000+09:00

This is chicken curry. The sauce is on the side here:

This is soba (buckwheat noodles). It's served cold with a sauce/juice on the side that you dip each noodle in before eating.

These are Naruto sweet potatoes. They look like red potatoes and have the consistancy of red potatoes, but taste like sweet potatoes!

This is a meal that I made with the Naruto sweet potatoes. That's my classic rice dish that I made - cooked rice with seaweed, onions, tomatoes, sesame seeds, and soy sauce. And on the right is smashed, buttered and salted sweet potatoes.
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These are buns filled with strawberry jam. Some come with bean filling or other fruit filling.

These were next to the ritz bitz..... I did not purchase them for fear of a metamucil-type ingredient.

mmmmmmmmmm ramen the way it was suppose to be made. Ramen is actually a Chinese food, but it is eaten in Japan often. This is from a ramen shop. There's a small fatty piece of beef on top and a large container of black pepper on the right.

This is a teriyaki burger from Mosburger, a Japanese fast food restaurant. It wasn't very fast though. It wasn't crowded and it still took 15 minutes to serve this up. It's mostly lettuce as you can see. The burger wasn't very good, but the fries were! That's my cell phone on the left. Note the reusable cup that they serve the water in. They really try to reduce the amount of trash in Japan, even at fast food restaurants.

This is udon, the thickest noodle I've ever eaten. It's very Japanese. It can be eaten hot or cold. That's a sheet of seaweed in my hand.

This is the average size of a peanutbutter jar here. I buy the kind with chocolate already mixed in of course. It's my special treat.

This is just a funny shirt that I saw at a store.

shoe custom

2006-09-19T16:20:00.000+09:00

This past weekend was relaxing for me. There was movie renting, long bike rides, a good storm, and most importantly, no choking.

There's only one custom that has given me trouble so far. In Japan, you must change your shoes when you enter most places - schools, doctor offices, hotels, homes, cafeterias, nice restaurants, etc. If you don't bring along your own pair of 'indoor shoes' to change into, you often HAVE to wear a pair of communal slippers. If there aren't any communal shoes provided, you go barefoot. The communal shoes look old and rarely cleaned. They don't have any signs of fungi or anything, but it still grosses me out. How are people not getting warts????? Here's Justin puting his pair of communal shoes back. These are open-toed, but all the school ones are closed.

These are the shoe cubbies that were provided at the Kochi Castle. There weren't any communal shoes, so we went through the castle barefoot. I've never liked having dirty feet, so even being barefoot without an opportunity to wash my feet soon afterwards bothers me.

So I got a pair of indoor sandals to wear at school during the day. I thought I was covered and could kiss the communal shoes goodbye. I was wrong. All bathrooms in all of my schools have communal bathroom slippers that you switch into from your indoor shoes. The cafeteria at the high school is the same, and as I found out during an assembly today, so is the gymnasium. Here are the bathroom slippers (the girls get pink and the boys get blue ones).

My high school doesn't have hallways to connect the buildings, so we walk outside on paths to get to and from classrooms. During my first tour I ran back to get my outdoor shoes before we left the building onto one of these paths, but the teachers told me it was okay to wear my indoor shoes on the paths. So I think this custom has lasted out of tradition since it's clearly not about keeping dirt off of certain floors.

I've taken comfort in the fact that a Japanese friend of mine is also disgusted by the communal shoe phenomenon. She doesn't think they are cleaned, and when they are, it's probably just a wipe down. No sanitizers.

check it out

2006-09-16T16:39:00.000+09:00

Hey I just added more pictures to the mountain post from a week ago, so check it out.

My water company is doing work aroun dour neighborhood for the next two weeks and has to shut off the water for a bit. They notified everyone ahead of time and gave everyone a soap gift set for the inconvenience!

I'll write more next week. I have Monday off because it's a national holiday honoring "the aged." Have a good weekend.

slurping is polite

2006-09-14T14:39:00.000+09:00

Japanese people slurp up noodles - ramen, udon, soba - all slurped. It's a very specific sound. I'm learning to make it. Anyways, I mention this because for lunch today we had spaghetti (with sauce and vegetables already mixed in), bread (that was possibly suppose to be Italian bread but it was really sweet), and salad made of pickled vegetables and tuna. We ate with forks but without the spoons for noodle twisting. While I was eating at my desk I noticed that ALL of the teachers were making the usual slurping noise as they ate their spaghetti! It was so funny, but I didn't laugh out loud.

Spaghetti seems to be considered one of the three main "American" foods. Pizza and hamburgers are the other two. Spaghetti and pizza are originally Italian! Anytime I mention that tidbit, people get reeeally confused. They are also flabbergasted that I don't like to eat pizza all the time and that Americans actually eat some Japanese dishes. Anyways, the only really American food that I can think of is a hamburger, hotdog, and maybe a casserole!? Help me think of more. I don't want to say fast food is American since we can't make that at home. When I introduce new foods, they ask me how to make them. They were confused that I had never physically made a cream puff or fried cheese curd. I was like, no, you just buy them.

English

2006-09-13T12:21:00.000+09:00

I can't take any credit for that baseball game. I won a book in a raffle during orientation that is filled with games focused on warm-up activities, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, etc. The book is great because it has a description of each game in English and Japanese. This has been a life-saver because the teachers barely speak English. Out of the 10 teachers that I team-teach with, four know/speak English well enough to communicate with easily. The others know basic sentences and only vocabulary that is in the textbooks that they use, so there has been some confusion.

These are a few things that one of the teachers said to me:

What, name? (she was asking the name of my college)
Oh, there are much snow in Boston?
Do you like animal?
Do you know sushi?

Actually, that last question is used by every Japanese person I've talked to so far. They ask Do you know....? And put in inanimate objects. It makes me cringe a little when they ask me if I know sushi as if it is a person. I think my new goal this year is to explain to the teachers that 'of' or 'about' needs to be added to that question unless it is a person. I know that this is a tricky part of English, and I understand why they make those particular mistakes, but I guess I'm just shocked that I'm getting this from the people that are teaching English. Plus, I know enough Japanese to know that a teacher was translating parts of my self-introduction incorrectly.

Today the 2nd years (9th graders) were extremely rude. One kid in particular spoke whenever I spoke and lots of kids were laughing. So I asked him to come up to the front so that the entire class could hear. I asked him twice. Then he started doing his homework (writing) instead. It's not my job to discipline the kids, but I don't want to give up or give an incomplete lesson because the other kids in the class shouldn't have to suffer. I'd rather have one kid hate me if the class runs well than the two kids in the front being the only ones that understand the lesson. I can't discipline them, so I'll use embarrassment in worst-case classes.

Updates:
- I got my modem in the mail last night, but my service won't start until Sept 22. So that's when my vonage line will start working too.
- My water bill was only ￥485 (about $4.50) for one month of service! My rent is only about $160/month. My phone and internet bill (once service starts!) will probably make up for it though. Everything but rent is automatically withdrawn from my account each month.
- September 11th was covered in Japanese news. They rarely report on non-Japan news, but September 11th, Pres Bush, and America's war on terrorism were all mentioned.

technical high school

2006-09-12T08:46:00.000+09:00

My first day at the technical high school went soooo much better than I expected. Beforehand, I was warned that the kids would sleep, use their cell phones, listen to their mp3 players, swear at teachers, and sit in class with some of their clothes off (when it's hot out). The technical high school has about 400 students there, 11 of which are female. They "major" in computer science, agriculture, or mechanics. The school is very famous for their baseball team, so although the grades are very low, it is still hard to get a spot in the school because kids from other prefectures take the entrance exam. Last year their team was among the top 8 in the country. Baseball in Japan is like American football or Nascar in the States. The baseball players at the high school live in dormitories near the school if they are from other prefectures.

Before going to class, I talked to one of the teachers. At that time I was undecided as to how to handle the classes - super sweet or strict and mean. She told me that the kids misbehave because they don't get enough attention at home and that they take advantage of the female teachers because they are more supportive and kind. I decided that super sweet was the way to go. During my 3 classes, there were a couple kids sleeping, listening to mp3 players, and using their cell phones. In one class, the talkative leader kid kept asking questions. He was really interested in middle names and why they exist. And one kid asked what kind of men I like, to which I replied, "Men who speak English very well." They asked that even after Eddie was introduced in my self introduction!!

I had them play "baseball" for a comprehension quiz on my self-introduction. There were two teams, and when a team was up to bat, they could ask for a 1, 2, 3 base, or homerun question. A 1 base question was a yes/no question. A 2 base question was an easy one word answer. A 3 base question was much harder, and a homerun question was usually "What state am I from?" since all of them forgot. They got outs for wrong answers. By the end of the period, all eyes and ears were on me when it was time for a question! There wasn't any mocking me, which was what I was most worried about, so I was sooooo relieved at the end of the day.

At lunch time, I bought lunch in the cafeteria. Actually, I bought a ticket from a vending machine and took it up to the counter. I had tempura udon which was really tasty. I sat next to a couple kids who actually attempted to speak English with me. Once they left, some kids nearby got me a glass of water to go with my lunch.

a weekend in the ER

2006-09-11T09:47:00.000+09:00

Did anyone think that I could move to Japan and NOT have an odd medical problem? Please don't read this post if you're eating (ahem, Erin!). So on Friday night, I made myself a really nice dinner of fish, toast, and rice with tomato, onion, seaweed, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and seafood seasoning. Needless to say I was really excited about it. That excitement, along with the fact that I'm an inexperienced fish eater, caused me to forget that fish in Japan still have bones in them.

Well I ended up getting a sharp bone stuck in my esophagus on my first bite. At first I thought I might be choking, and die alone in my Japanese apartment which was embarrassingly messy at the time. But then I realized I could breathe and talk, so I ran over to Jeff's apartment and informed him of the the situation in case he had any ideas for what to do. It was reeeeally painful. From what I could tell the bone was sharp and hooked or perpendicular to my esophagus. It made me salivate more, which caused me to swallow more, and swallowing made it dig farther into my esophagus! We called one of my bosses, who was eating with everyone at the office (so everyone found out) and he said that Japanese people just eat rice when that happens to them. So ate the rest of my dinner, which was delicious, but didn't help. The pain was so bad that I didn't think I could sleep, so I decided that I should probably go to the hospital.

The Naruto hospital said we should go to Tokushima, so my boss's wife picked me and Jeff up and took us to the Tokushima Hospital. By the time we got there, it had been two hours since I had eaten the boney fish and the pain was getting worse. Once we got to the ER and I signed in with my spiffy Japanese National Healthcare card, we waited in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later, a nurse came into the waiting room, took my temperature, and discussed my problem with us in front of everyone else in the waiting room (from what I've read, lack of privacy is common in Japanese doctors offices). Then I went back and saw a doctor, who couldn't see anything by just making me say AAAAAH. So he called a specialist, who arrived 15 minutes later. He told me that the only way for him to know what was going on would be for him to stick a tube/light/camera down my throat via my nose. If he saw something, he would stick a tiny pair of scissors onto the end of the tube and cut it. If he couldn't see anything, he wasn't sure he could do anything to help.

I was already freaked out about the whole situation and being in a hospital altogether, but I was in a lot of pain so I thought I'd try out the tube thing. Jeff was translating everything for me, by the way. He's studying for a Japanese proficiency test, so he was learning a lot of vocab throughout the evening. The doctor hadn't mentioned exactly how it was going to go down, so I was quite freaked out when he started blasting my nostrels with some chemicals and then sucking them back out. The tube with a light went through my nose easily, but I could feel the heat of the light as it went down. I'm not really sure what happened then, but I know I was making one heck of a squinting-what-the-heck-is-going-on-face. The tube came out and I started to feel faint, but threw up instead. The bone was still there. I found out later that the doctor didn't see anything during the whole process. He kept saying kowaii, which I found out later means scary. But at the time I thought he was saying kawaii, which means cute. I was so confused why he was telling me I was cute while I was crying and throwing up.

They gave me two options - I could either come back in the morning when the best ear, nose, and throat doctor would be there and go through the same thing with him, or just take pain medicine/antibiotics while I wait for my body to get rid of it on it's own. So I took option B. I got the medicine and the entire visit for 10,000 yen, which is a little less than $100, but that was before the health insurance kicked in! I get to go back sometime this week to get money back (probably about $70) for what insurance covered. They couldn't get it to go through at the time because the computers were down and a real emergency case had just come in.

The medicine helped me fall asleep, and I stayed in on Saturday to rest. I was sad that I had to miss the kids' cultural festivals. The pain slowly moved down on Saturday and the pain reminded me of strep throat minus the congestion and sinus pressure. By dinner time on Saturday the bone had dropped into my stomach and the long scratch down my throat was healing.

Another highlight of the weekend was the discovery of two food items - I found fried pockets of cream corn that are absolutely delicious. They were in the frozen foods dept at the grocery store. I also found a conffectionery shop that sells cream puffs! They are medium size, but otherwise made exactly like those in Wisconsin! They are called shyoo creamu in Japanese, which sounds like shoe cream to me in English... not as appealing. Anyways, they were only 147 yen (~$1.20), so I might give them as gifts in the future.

Today is my first day at the technical high school. I'm teaching three classes. I have no idea what to expect. There are only 11 female students in the entire school. One of the female students who happened to have a ridiculous amount of eyeliner on, told me this morning in the teachers office that I was cute and commented to the teacher that my head was so small!

....jya, never a dull moment

p.s. Dad - those are not hotdog buns. They are like a tiny loaf of bread. Once they were sweetened with little chunkes of apple! I think the bread is tasty.

School Lunch

2006-09-08T14:07:00.000+09:00

I don't have much time to write today, but I uploaded a couple pictures of school lunch so that you can get a feel for what I eat everyday. This school has an sd card reader, so I can post pictures! More often than not, everything tastes good. There's some squid in this one, and that packet is full of jam:

I didn't care for this salad, but the rest was good. Keep in mind that milk is whole milk:

This is what I had today. All of it was delicious. That thing on the right is kind of like a slice of cold omelet:

There's no such thing as cold lunch at these schools, even for teachers. A set of students from each class goes to the kitchen and picks up all the food and trays, and brings it all back to the room. They set it all up in the front of the classroom and two students serve everyone. They wait until everyone has food and then they begin eating. The teachers eat with their homeroom class or in the teachers office room. They do the same thing as the students. Everyone eats the same thing. After lunch all the teachers brush their teeth. I got myself a brush and tube of toothpaste for every school so that I can participate in teeth brushing time. What's weird is that most of them have bad teeth by American standards. I'm guessing that the smoking and constant tea and coffee drinking has more of an effect than the constant brushing.

Tomorrow all three of my junior high schools have cultural festivals which is mostly a recital from what I can tell. They all spent every afternoon this week preparing for it. There will be band performances, singing, dancing, speeches, etc. At lunch time at one of the schools each class will set up a store selling food. So I'm going to attempt to go to parts of all three. Then I'm going to relax on Sunday!

Special Ed

2006-09-05T14:28:00.000+09:00

I had a better day today with the kids. There's a pretty big difference in the way that the kids behave at each school. Today I team taught three classes, one of which was the special ed class. I've asked many people what they mean by the term they use to describe this class and they can't really translate it well. They say that the kids are slower, but when I interacted with them they seemed fine. So I don't think there's anything severely wrong. They were a lot of fun to teach because they seemed really eager to learn. Tomorrow I have the same type of class but a different grade level to teach. They have been described as kids that have epilepsy and hydrocephally. In the electronic dictionary that this school provided me with, the term for this class means flap or flutter. hmm

In every class after my self introduction there is time to ask me questions and so far I've been asked a lot of the same questions like who my favorite singer is or what my favorite Japanese food is. But today they asked me much more creative questions like how much my glasses cost! I was really impressed.

mountains!

2006-09-04T15:19:00.000+09:00

I had a fun weekend packed with site seeing. I took the train out to Nishi-iya (near Nishi-yama on the map in my "Pre-Japan" post) and met up with my friend Justin. I met Justin during orientation. He's from Arkansas and studied economics along with Japanese. But don't worry Eddie-fans, Justin is just a friend. He has a serious girlfriend. Just thought I'd get that out there since he'll probably be mentioned on here a lot.

Anyways, I was able to see and experience practically everything in Nishi-iya. Nishi-iya is gorgeous because it is in the heart of Shikoku's massive mountains. There's a river running through the mountains too. For anyone that knows anything about Japanese history, this area was where the Heike clan found refuge after being overpowered. We went to a Heike "museum" but I'm not quite sure I knew what I was looking at. We went to the famous vine bridge in the area and it looks really old and cool, but we read that they rebuild it every three years for safety reasons. So it's not actually that authentic when you think about it. On the side of the road there's a statue of a young boy going to the bathroom over the side of the mountain into the river. That's always mentioned in the tourism pamphlets, and it was really funny, but it was just on the side of the road. Kinda random.

We also went to three onsens. Onsens are Japanese style bath houses. I'll explain more about them when I have time and internet access at home (to post pictures), but basically I bathed naked in a hot spring hot tub at the top of a mountain with Japanese women that I didn't know (genders were separate). Pretty awesome.
This was the elavator we took up to the top of the mountain.

This was the women's onsen.

This is the indoor one. This is wear you undress beforehand and redress/primp afterwards. Blow driers and nice facial creams are provided.

No one was in here so I was able to take a pic. It's kind of hard to see but the shower area is on the right. You sit on a little stool and wash yourself. The hot spring water is near the window. It's a really big hot tub.

We also went to Kochi City which is on the central southern coast of Shikoku. We visited the Kochi castle, and ate a lot of food. I took 103 pictures this weekend, so it was well documented. I'll post a few as soon as I can.

Today I team taught three classes. The third-year students were loud and quite rude. The teacher just let it go and went on with class despite the constant banging on the window and talking that was going on. But from what I've heard the classes at my technical high school are much worse. hmm. We'll see.

One thing to note before I go is the Asian mullet. I just can't get over it. The majority of the Japanese girls have them. The hair on the top isn't super short or anything, but the back is a tad longer than I'm use to. The hair that is longer is only one layer thick. I don't know if I'm describing this accurately, but be on the lookout for it once I start posting pictures from school events. Next weekend Seto JHS is having an all day culture day, and I've been asked to come.

Despite the fattening food, I've lost 6 lbs since I got here! It's probably all the biking though.

Day 2

2006-09-01T13:34:00.000+09:00

It rained all night and into the morning (including my 40 minute ride to school) so we didn't have evacuation practice outside. I taught a class of first years (7th grade) and a class of second years (8th grade) this morning. The second years were terrified of embarrassment and participated very very minimally. The first years were active, but you could see the uncomfortable-ness of puberty setting in. Middle school is so awkward! But anyways, English class is taught in Japanese, and this totally confuses me since every foreign language class I've ever been in was never in English. The kids liked my pictures though. They were confused by the concept of fried cheese. When conprehension questions were asked after my self introduction, they knew the answers regarding Eddie better than the rest. All the teachers and principals have been very nice to me so far.

I ate the school lunch again today. It was an average school lunch where the meat is sketchy but the soup and rice is okay. I ate with the first year class, but it was pretty uneventful. They eat in their own classroom. The kids get the food from the lunch person, bring it to the classroom, dish it out for all the students and then clean up afterwards. They work together very well.

This afternoon I will coach a third year student who will be competing in an English speech contest in a couple weeks. She wrote the speech in Japanese, the English teacher who isn't fluent translated it, and I corrected it.

Have a good weekend everyone!

p.s. Happy 3 year Eddie! I love you!

First day of school!

2006-08-31T09:44:00.000+09:00

I'm writing from Naruto Junior High School on that island that I posted a picture of yesterday. This morning I biked here and I was lucky that it was fairly cool and not raining. I got here about 20 minutes before the morning teacher's meeting, so I had enough time to get myself situated. The teacher's room is a big open air conditioned room (the only one in school) with all of the teacher's desks grouped together in pods. In Japan, the students stay in the same classroom and the teachers move from room to room between classes, so their desks are all in one room. I have my own desk at each school. This morning I made a speech in Japanese and English to all of the teachers. It was short, but I also passed out a newsletter about myself in English and Japanese. Jeff was kind enough to proofread it.

Today I am helping teach two "first-year" classes. The first year in junior high school is the same thing as 7th grade in the US. I have several laminated pictures and maps made so that I can show the kids my family, where Wisconsin is in the US (no one knows when I tell them that's where I grew up), and where I went to school. I'm so excited!

Since this is the first day of school, the entire school weeds the school property during the afternoon. I was told to bring outside clothes for this event so I'm assuming I will be participating. Bring on the ragweed allergy!!! On a normal day the kids clean the entire school at the end of the day though. I don't have to do that but I may be assigned to a part of the building to oversee during the cleaning.

Tomorrow I go to Seto Junior High School and go through nearly the same thing. I teach two classes and instead of weeding, participate in evacuation training. Tokyo experienced a massive earthquake on September 1st over 80 years ago and ever since then, they evacuate on September 1st. I'm not sure if they do this all over or if it's just that school. Should be interesting. I was told to bring a hat because we'll be outside for at least 2 hours.

Erin, I'm glad you feel like you're here. My job here is to internationalize the kids, so my existance is about 80% of my job. But I consider this blog part of my job too because I get to internationalize you guys at the same time. Japan is left out of the US curriculum (minus WW2), at least it was in Germantown. So I feel like everything will be just as amazing to you guys as it is to me, who started learning about Japan from scratch at Wellesley. You should still visit me though Erin!!! There's so much that you just have to experience yourself.

Grandpa J, those trucks are made by many companies but they are all identical. Honda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc. No non-Japanese makers though.

Everything seems tiny to me

2006-08-30T08:48:00.000+09:00

Here is a snipet of pictures of things that seem small to me:

This is Jeff's car next to an American size car.

The minivans are actually mini.

Here is a neighborhood street. It looks like an alley, but it's a street that people live on.

Gas is 144yen/L, which is $4.64/gall so I'm sure that's why the cars are smaller. The engines are smaller. And small cars are easier to maneuver on tiny streets.

These are average size soda/coffee cans.

This is a tiny bag of popcorn. It's the same size as the single serving size in the states, but it's the only size that's available. This is pretty typical of all groceries. The sizes are smaller, but you pay the same amount you would in the states.

This is a shopping cart at all stores - grocery store, menards type stores, drug store, etc.

The cans maybe smaller, but they are available EVERYWHERE in vending machines. Snacks are only available in freeway roadstop vending machines, if that. Soda, coffee, water, ion supply drinks, beer, and cigarette vending machines are everywhere.

This is rare, but a couple blocks from my house is an egg vending machine!!!!

School starts tomorrow, so I won't be coming into the Board of Education office everyday with my computer. I'll also be busier than I have been, so I won't be posting quite as much until I get internet access in my apartment (which was ordered three weeks ago!!!!!).

Here's the Board of Education office which is layed out like all Japanese offices - desks pushed together in a wide-open room - no cubicles and no privacy.

Tomorrow I teach at Naruto Junior High school with is about 1km behind those white buildings on that island.

This is the ferry that I will take my bike on to get there because it's too dangerous to bike on the car bridges.

Dear Gypsy Sanchez (see previous comments), Yes I definitely had a "What About Bob?" moment while I was sailing. I didn't get tied to the front sail though!

I think I answered all other questions in the last couple posts. If not, ask me again - email or comment.