Halloween 2007

Being a traditionally western holiday, Halloween has only recently begun to catch on here in Japan. Although it does pop up from time to time; mostly in decorations, but I did see an ad for a haunted house:

I have been giving Halloween lessons at my schools for 2 weeks now, during the preparations for which I've actually learned a lot of things about the holiday I never knew myself. Like how it didn't really appear in the US until the mass Irish immigration in the late 1800's, or how costumes weren't mass produced until the 1930's. Trick-or-treating wasn't really a phenomenon in the states until the 1950's. And did you know that the original jack-o-lanterns were made from turnips? Pumpkins are a native crop of the Americas; it wasn't until people started making them there that carved pumpkins became the norm.

Anyway, this past Saturday I had the honor of teaching one of my JTE's how to carve pumpkins, with her kids :) She brought the squash, I did the instructing. The pumpkin I ended up with looked more like a football to me than a pumpkin, and wasn't well suited for a scary face. So I opted to go with something rather Stewie-like, heh heh
They were surprisingly difficult to carve. One I think because they are slightly different here than at home (small and green vs big and orange) and two because the knives we had weren't really well suited for pumpkin-carving. But we made the best of it




In the end I think her's came out more Halloween than mine


I should try to find the pics from a couple of years ago when we carved them to look like they were puking, heh heh heh

That night I ended up at a costume party in town that was held by a private English language school at the only "club" in Takayama. Probably the smallest "club" I've ever been in, I think it's actually smaller than my apartment. Then again, this isn't Tokyo. But it was fun to get out and see what other people came up with. I didn't have nearly the resources or time to put together something on par with last year's dead flight attendant, so I took the easy route and went as a cat. It was actually quite popular here as everything in Japan is "cute" - I think I remember only one scary costume the entire night!

I also managed to talk one of my JTE's into going to the party with me, heh heh. He had a fantastic blond wig, and I insisted he put on the bunny ears to complete it.

With my friends Theresa and Rie

The crazy smoking Hamster

Colorado, plus one

Angela had an amazing mermade costume she claimed was attached the same way you would wrap yourself up in a kimono o_O how she managed to pull it off is beyond me, but she looked great

Our local South African came as Pooh-san

And my favorite costume of the night, Billy's Boot Casa

I think I may have posted before how crazy they are for Billy's Boot Camp here. They're always shocked when I say it's pretty much past it's prime in the US, lol

Utahime

I've got a new favorite show! It's called Utahime (song princess/ songstress).

official website

It stars my favorite favorite Nagase Tomoya (from My Boss My Hero). The synopsis from DramaWiki:

Nagase Tomoya, playing the son of a popular songstress, travels to a small-town cinema in far-off Kochi Prefecture to watch the closing movie before the theatre shuts its doors forever. The movie takes place in the same village but during the Showa 30s (1950s), in the years following the war. The story follows a young soldier who washes ashore on the beach one day, having lost his memory. He is "adopted" by the family who owns the village cinema and given the name Shimanto Taro. Although his past remains a mystery, Taro becomes good friends with many of the villagers, discovering his love for movies and falling in love with a feisty young girl. link



SQUEEEEE!!!!!! It shows Friday nights at 10 ^_^ Episode 3 airs this week.

My Fabulous Toasty Table

The change from summer to fall has taken me by surprise. In fact, it's almost like fall just skipped a step. It went from HOT to chilly in a matter of days. I kid you not. At this point, I've taken to wearing long pants to bed and sleeping in long-sleeve shirts. At school I keep my jacket on the entire day. It seems all of the buildings here have been designed to keep cool in the summer, not warm in the winter. Which seems strange to me given that this is a mountain town and the cold season lasts longer than the hot. -_-

Today it rained, all day. In fact, it's still raining. And cold. Which is why I opted not to make the daunting journey into town for dinner and karaoke. Instead, I decided to stay home and watch subbed tv on my trusty compy 2.0. And in the spirit of being a cozy homebody, tonight for the first time, I set up my kotatsu.
 
A fixture of all Japanese homes, it's a table with a heating element attached to the bottom of it. You throw a blanket over it and sit under it to keep warm. Since I don't have central heating and I've yet to haul kerosene for the fan heater from the gas station to my apartment (a trek I'm not looking forward to), I started this puppy up. And oh, it's nice. When I first arrived at my apartment, it was just a coffee table in my tatami room. I actually used it as a nightstand. But it has since been given a place of honor in the hardwood, "tv" room.
 
Being that I come from the land of heating vents and furnaces, it took a few confused grumbles on my part to actually set the thing up. However, once you really get looking at it it's pretty simple. Basically, you just plop it down wherever you want to sit, preferably near an outlet so you can plug it in. In my case I went with the room containing cushy chairs with backs. It's got a removable table top on it so that you can throw the futon over it and still have a usable table. Then you plug it in, turn the dial to your desired setting, and bask in the warm orange glow. ^_^ It's really a very simple design. The "heater" isn't much more than a glorified light bulb, but man does it make your feet and legs (and anything else you might put under there...) nice and toasty. Dan mentioned you can get lifts for the kotatsu legs to accommodate larger people. Being a person of, well, somewhat of a short stature, it's not really an issue for me.
 
I had no idea what I was missing the past couple of weeks, sitting here wrapped up in blankets like a moron. oy! So far the warmest I've set it to is medium, though I have a feeling from the way winter has been described around here I'll be trying out the higher settings soon enough.

So there you have it, my kotatsu. As I've been teaching my students to say, "It's fabulous!"

World Series here we come!

I found out today at work from my baseball-loving JTE that the Rockies beat the D-backs in game 4 of the NCLS Championship Series today. Er, I suppose technically it was yesterday since it was in Denver... last night really.

..but let's not get distracted by things like time and space. The Rockies are going to the World Series. The Rockies are going to the World Series.

For the first time in 15 years, the game will be played in Denver. And where am I? I'm in Japan! lol, the irony kills me. I remember when they first played in Denver. Back when we were breaking attendance records left and right because they didn't have their own ballpark and had to play at Mile High stadium.

I had my 12th birthday party at a Rockies game.

I saw them sweep the Yankees in game 3 of that series this summer. I was also technically "working" during that one, heh heh. Ah, consulting.

But I digress. The World Series. In Denver.

I mentioned before that there were three of us who came here together from Denver. I received this lovely txt today from Dan, one of the guys in our trio.

one of us is unlucky and kyle and i think it is you. that is why we didn't win until you left the country. ^_^

lol, bastard.

I updated the English bulletin board at MJH in honor of the win:

sorry for the poor quality, I took it with my phone. It's a little Matsui-heavy, but considering my audience I opted to go with pictures of people they'd be interested in. I mean, it's not like they're going to actually read the articles. Besides, he had that incredible home-run :D

I heard from a little mouse (actually, it was Dave) that Isaac is going to try to get as many tickets as he can for the games. Good luck buddy! I'm so jealous, but I really do hope you get to go.

And send pictures, please!

Alice the (not-so) Road Racer

I don't have a car here in Japan. When I want to go to Takayama or Kuguno I have to rely on public transportation (train or bus). Or talk someone into driving me. But here in Miya, I have my own wheels for getting to and from school, the grocery store, or the bank, in the form of Alice.

In Japan, if you ride a bike, there's a good chance it's one like Alice. Fancy mountain bikes and road racers beware, here the bike of choice is the Granny ride. Everybody has one. And I mean everybody. This is just a fraction of the number waiting at the station alone in Gifu city

Wide, comfy seats, low bars you can wear anything with, and a basket in front for loading your groceries. Alice even has a little rack on the back I can carry stuff on - sort of like her own little bustle.

I ride her to and from school every Monday and Tuesday, and on Thursdays when I'm at MES. It takes me about 10 mins to ride the distance from my apartment to work. I've only walked it twice; once when I went to a baseball game and was meeting people there for a ride, and once last weekend when I took my Mom and Dave over to see the schools.

Recently, Alice came down with a terrible affliction for a bicycle - a flat tire. Dave noticed it on Friday and tried to get it fixed. But it just went flat again. I didn't get a chance to go back until after work today when I had *gasp* an entire encounter solely in Japanese!

It went like this:

Me: *creeping up to the gas station* "uh, sumimasen! pan-ku shimashita" (excuse me! I have a flat)
Guy: "ah" *gestures for me to give him the bike*
Me: *gives the guy the bike*
Guy: *takes bike over to shop and starts to work*
2 other guys hanging around: *watching*
Me: *follows Guy* *unsure of what to do*
Guy: *sees me looking hopeless* *gestures to chair* "dozo" (please)
Me: *grin* "ah! arigatou!" (thank you)
Guy: *works on tire* *finds hole in tube* *patches*
2 other guys: *watch* *fill gas for customers* *watch some more*
1 of the 2 guys: *puts air in Alice's front tire*
Me: *watch guys working* *look around aimlessly*
Tire: *fixed!*
Guy: *lubes the chain and gears* *stands up* "ok!"
Me: "yeay! ikura desu ka" (how much?)
Guy: sen ni hyaku roku ju en
Me: *in head* uh, one-thousand, two-hundred...
Me: "sen ni hya...."
Guy: "sen ni hyaku roku ju"
Me: "hai, sen ni hyaku roku ju" *furiously digs in coin purse for 1,260 yen*
Purse: doesn't have a 50 yen coin or 6 10 yen coins
Me: *pulls out 1,500 yen* "chenji desu ka" (do you have change?)
Guy: "hai hai hai" *runs off to get change* *brings back change* "dozo" (please) *gives me change*
Me: "hai, arigatou gozaimasu!" (thank you very much!)

It may not be much, but I got my tire fixed and didn't speak a word of English. And now Alice is happy again and we can ride to school tomorrow! And there's just nothing quite like a happy bicycle ^_^

Got Guests?

Mom and Dave are visiting this week. Between work and tourist stuff I've been pretty busy; so not much on the blogging front.

But be ye not unhappy, for I have random pictures of the past two days for you ^_^

The foot spa at the Green Hotel


Hida no Sato (Hida Folk Village) in the rain




On Kokobunji street in Takayama


At Hachimon Shrine


Takayama Festival





That's a lot of nuts!!!*

*credit goes to Dave for the quote on that one

...And sometimes it is all sunshine and roses ^_^

In the perfect follow-up to my last post about feeling a tad bit homesick, today was probably the best day I've had yet in Japan.

It all started with my first class this morning, at KJH. It was the san nen sei (3rd grade - equivalent to 9th grade in the US) regular English class. As in the kids that aren't great at English (those guys are in the advanced class). This class has a student who frequently sleeps through all of his classes (not just English), doesn't participate, or worse yet, disrupts the class by being somewhat obnoxious. He also happens to be in my conversation class, where the first time I taught he pretended to sleep almost the entire time. I have dubbed him "the sleeper". It also has another guy who is one of the school bad-asses (this being a small school out in the countryside with only 112 students total, it's relative of course), who initially shrugged off my attempts to talk to him with "no English", but who has since come around and is fast becoming one of my favorites. Anyway, this class actually went really well. The sleeper was awake and participating; he's actually been participating a lot lately. I am unsure as to the cause of this transformation, but whatever it is, I'll take it! It's great ^_^ I also had fun catching my favorite bad-ass sneaking glances at me all during class, heh heh

That class was in the morning, during second period. I didn't have any more classes in the morning, so the next time I saw the kids was during lunch. Like I've said before, I eat with the students in the cafeteria, which is pretty small.

All of the students eat with their classes - ie ichi nen sei, ni nen sei, san nen sei. I rotate who I eat with on the days I'm there. Today I sat with the san nen sei, and I purposefully sat near the bad-ass as I'd caught him eyeing me all morning and had a feeling he might actually talk to me. Often I end up intimidating them to the point that we all eat in silence unless I quiz them about something... which I hate. Lunch started out with the usual silence, until I finally broke down and asked the boy sitting next to me "how are you?" to which he responded "e-to (um), I'm, e-to, I'm.....good!" heh heh. It took a few more "how are you's" to other students, but eventually the silence was broken.

And oh, did it break today. My bad-ass was actually the most talkative one, who wouldn't give up on trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say to me (amazing, coming from a kid who initially told me he didn't speak any English ^_^). The conversation started out innocent enough - "what's your favorite sushi?", and I found out that tuna is tuna in Japanese. Then they started asking me "do you like ~~ sensei", and I found out which teachers they do and don't like. Which was really funny because we were sitting next to the teacher's table so they had to look over their shoulders and whisper to make sure they weren't overheard. THEN, the girls started pointing to the bad-ass and calling him a bad boy and a play boy. And my interest was piqued. I kept teasing him with that label, and he laughed and said "no no no!" but eventually he fessed up to it. And I found out what they meant by playboy when he finally said "I like making babies".


....HA! I almost choked on my rice I started laughing so hard when he said that. And it took me a while to recover, it was so funny. They actually came up with a few different ways to say it too, which was even better. And they say they can't speak English. pffft.

After lunch the students have about a half an hour of free time. I usually wander around and attempt to talk to them, which sometimes goes well, sometimes not. The san nen sei have, until today anyway, been for the most part too shy to talk to me much. However, given how well lunch went I decided to give it a shot and wandered up to their homeroom, where a bunch of girls were hanging out on the balcony. We started chatting, this time talking about our pets, and then what I studied in school. And then it went back to which san nen sei boys do I like (a question I was asked last week), which I tried my best to deflect. Eventually, almost the entire class was circled up around me and the bad-ass mentioned he saw me in Takayama in the park near the train station. It wasn't until I asked him when that I realized it must have been when my friend Dan and I went to Nagoya - we walked though the park near the station on our way to the train. And I remember Dan said there were some high school boys staring at me and he made a point of getting in between us - but it turns out THEY WERE MY STUDENTS!!! And they even tried to say hi! The playboy said they shouted "Jennifa-sensei!", but I didn't hear them. Oy.

THEN, I had ichi nen sei conversation class during 5th period (after lunch), in which I taught them tongue twisters (mixed biscuits, sally sells sea shells by the sea shore) using the telephone game. It t'was a hoot ^_^ And in case you're wondering, mixed biscuits is more difficult than sally sells sea shells by the sea shore. Just try saying it 3 times fast; I bet you screw it up on the third one.

Finally, to round out my day-of-awesomeness, I met a group of high school students outside Kuguno station on my way home. Usually high school kids ignore me, but this time I heard "kawaii!" (cute) as I was approaching them, and one of them started waving to me. At first I thought "oh crap, I've forgotten someone I met somewhere..." but it turns out I hadn't met her yet, she just recognized me from the newspaper.

She recognized me from the newspaper. She recognized me from the newspaper. How many times have you been told that? So there I was, with 5 high school students who live in Kuguno and go to a school in Gero, chatting. Three ichi nen sei (in high school - so 10th graders) and 2 san nen sei (12th graders). And they were all excited to talk to me and really interested in me, even the boys. Japan is one of the few places you can go where people are genuinely *happy* to meet an American. Like, that was the first thing she asked me. "Are you from Amerika?" And their English was really quite good, I was impressed.

I had a smile on my face the entire ride home, and then I ran into some of my shogakko (elementary school) students at Miya station. And they were all smiles and happiness to see me ^_^

How could that not be a fabulous day?!?!?!!!! Yokatta!!! (It was great!)

It's not all sunshine and roses...

I am currently in the process of making a display for the English bulletin board at MJH. I have decided to make a poster about Colorado - in the shape of the state using pictures and post cards that I have brought from home (or that Mom was kind enough to send to me). I've already made one display highlighting the wonders of Mexican food - complete with pictures and descriptions of different dishes ^_^

Anyway, the process of creating this collage has brought me my first real wave of homesickness since I was jet-lagged in Tokyo. Looking at all the pictures and remembering how beautiful Colorado is in the fall, and how I can't just drive down to the Springs to check out the aspen on Pikes Peak. And how the super-amazing-awesome "Picture-taking-party" is coming up at MWH. Ahhh, Steamboat. Somehow I don't think I'll be including any pictures from those fun times in my school displays, heh heh.

But what I miss the most are the familiar views, the things I saw every day. Or almost every day. Like downtown, the dog park, and the flatirons

Rock on, Colorado. You're beautiful. And I'll make sure everyone here knows it too ^_^