Rurouni

Moving on

2010-10-22T03:15:00.002+09:00

Well, it's been 2 months now since I left Japan. I never did write up a formal "final entry" for this blog... so I guess I should now.

My last month in Japan was an emotional adventure involving friends from Sweden, farewell parties, finally climbing Fuji (YES!), and ultimately, leaving. I had thought at the time that I had a job lined up that would have me back in the Land of the Rising Sun before Halloween. But, like so many things in life, it didn't pan out.

Instead, I am back in Colorado, catching up on life in the USA and planning my next moves. Which may or may not involve living in Japan; but I am sure will always, in some way, involve the country and the culture I have come so much to adore.

Since life is no longer filled with exciting adventures and crazy experiences in Nihon, I have decided it's time to put an end to this blog. I hadn't been doing a very good job of updating anyway, so it really should come as no big surprise.

If there's anyone still out there, and still interested in what I'm up to, even if it doesn't involve eating fish full of eggs and fermented soybeans, I've started up a new blog, which you can find here. Keep your fingers crossed I can sustain the posts over there better than I did here, hahahaha

Thanks for reading!

Happy Anniversary Japan, part III

2010-07-29T17:25:00.004+09:00

Today I have lived in Japan exactly 3 years. Last year and the year before I wrote a post and took a picture to commemorate... and so it seems I've started a new tradition.
July 29, 2007

July 29, 2008

July 29, 2009

July 29, 2010

For those of you still following this blog, but who are somehow unaware, this will be my final JET anniversary in Japan; as of today I am no longer an ALT! Though somehow, I find myself still signed up to help out with school-related things until my departure from Japan. Which is set for next month - August 22.

It's been a crazy, life-changing adventure, these 3 years in Japan. As evidenced by the gradual slowdown (and pretty much total-stoppage) of posts on this blog, I've grown quite accustomed to life here. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do next, but I can tell you it'll be much more along the lines of environmental work than teaching English; just not sure exactly where it's going to be... yet (~_^)

Now back to packing, cleaning, and more packing... only 4 days left till I have to be out of my apartment!

Portrait by a 6th grader

2010-06-30T21:04:00.000+09:00

What do you think? Does it look like me? ;)

Uncaste India

2010-06-28T23:19:00.002+09:00

The good people over at Longitude (the organization I went to India with) have just launched a new and improved website.

And guess whose blog post is featured on the Uncaste India page?

heheheheh

If you'd like to read the post, you can check it out here ^_^

Weird flavor in Japan #10354892

2010-06-19T20:21:00.002+09:00

Saw this at the conbini on my way home tonight and just had to give it a try

I can't quite place the taste; kind of a soda with some sort of sweet something-or-other in it. Like bubble gum or something...

Not bad, but not something I think I'd drink every day. At least it's zero calories ;)

Just another one of those quirky things I'm going to miss about Japan; you never know what kind of strange new food item you'll run into in the convenience store~~~

INDIA

2010-05-30T20:34:00.005+09:00

Here it is, finally! The India post.

It's a huge, epic story. I've actually been telling most of it for a couple of weeks in various English classes, and I've decided to use the slides I made for class here. So I give you my volunteering in India presentation.

Keep in mind, the slides are intended for young ESL learners, ranging from elementary grade 5 to junior high grade 3 (9th grade in US), so they're written in simple English and Japanese ^_^ I'll also throw in some added comments, to flesh the story out.

My trip took me from Nagoya, Japan, through Hong Kong, and into Delhi, where I met up with the other volunteers.

How long do you think it takes to get from Nagoya, Japan to Cheveru Village in India?

Tragically, although I was able to make the switch between airplanes in Hong Kong, it appears my bag was not, as it failed to arrive with me in Delhi. So, there I was, alone in a place I'd never been to, at 3 in the morning, with no way of contacting anyone, filling out lost luggage paperwork and almost missing my connecting flight to Hyderabad. The bag arrived in Delhi the following day, but since I'd already moved on to the south of the country, I ended up fighting with the airline for a week to get it back.

A week! Think about that. No toothbrush. No pajamas. No underwear. For a week. Fortunately, I was able to purchase a toothbrush, some underpants, and a spare shirt. I borrowed another shirt and another pair of pants, and was able to swap out one outfit a day - alternating between the red shirt and the yellow shirt, the jeans and the borrowed pants, until my bag arrived. The day before we left >.<

So why put myself through all of this?

Notice that there are also Dalit in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, and countries like Japan, Korea, and Somalia have groups similar in status to the Dalit.

But. India is kind of special. Why?

It's HUGE! 1 BILLION people. There's about 6 billion people in the whole world. And a sixth of them live in India. Dalits account for 16% of the population in India, which means there are actually MORE Dalit people in India than all of the people in Japan.

Interesting side note, did you know that there are 22 official languages in India? The primary languages are Hindi and English, and then each state is allowed to have it's own local language too. The official language of Andhra Pradesh (where we were) is Telugu. When Ravi, a Telugu speaker (and the leader of ARV and our "trip Dad") called Delhi, where they speak Hindi, to inquire about my bag, they spoke in English. I thought that was cool d(^_^)b

This was taken as we arrived on the first day in the village - when they greeted us with the most amazing flower leis (which were incredibly heavy) and paraded us down the main street out to the work site, with drums and dancing and beautiful, beautiful smiles ^^ Also, check out the girl in the red shirt, heh heh heh

Think about that - no indoor plumbing. Every time you need water, you have to carry it from a well to your house. Every. Time. And forget about flushing toilets, they don't exist there.

This is what their houses look like now

There are animals everywhere. Cows, goats, and chickens roam free, you would just see them wandering down the streets, even in the cities. I often wondered how people found their cows when they wanted them, and if they could recognize them on site, like a pet dog or a cat.

Of course, as cows are sacred in India, beef is strictly out of the question. If you go to a McDonalds (which we did, with much glee after we left the village), you won't find one hamburger on the menu. No Big Mac's. No Quater Pouder with Cheese's. They have chicken nuggets, chicken burgers, salad burgers, and french fries. And they always have little marks that will tell you if the food is vegetarian or not.

While we were volunteering, we ate all of our meals in the village, in their school house.

Although they teach grades 1-12, it's relatively rare for these children to actually complete all 12 grades. Most girls in India drop out after grade 5, and boys rarely make it past grade 8. The need to help support their families is just too great; according to UNICEF, India has the largest number of child laborers under the age of 14 in the world.

May is actually the height of summer in this part of India, and so all the kids were off on summer holiday. Quite a few of them came out to play with us every day, and their ability to communicate in English was pretty darn good. It made me kind of sad, in a way, as here are these kids with next to nothing, but they are eager to talk with us and can communicate fairly well. And then there are my students, who have virtually anything they could ever ask for, and I'm lucky if I can get them to to remember how to say Thursday...

We ate curry every day. We all got sick. I was number 5, of 15 (out of 18 total volunteers) to go down with "Delhi belly", as they say. I was out for 2 days, during which time I stayed in the hotel watching tv and trying to ride out the power outages and 'A/C off-time' as best as I could. Lucky for me, India has quite a lot of English language programming, and I did get to see a lot of the Magadheera music videos (see the post below for more about that).

This is actually a two-family home, one would be on the left side and one on the right. Each home has 2 rooms.

The only way up to the roofs we were working on was these crazy bamboo ladders.

^I climbed that.

Everybody helped out on the roof - paid laborers, volunteers, women in saris, kids in sandals...

Mostly our work resembled a kind of cement-tray relay, where we passed the cement up to the roof, dumped it out, the professionals would smooth it out, we tossed the empty trays to the ground, picked them up, and back over to the cement mixer to be loaded up again.

After my, uh, illness, I took it easy on the work and helped out plastering the inside of some of the homes where the roofs had been finished. Which basically meant sitting in a chair and occasionally getting up to hand cement to the pros :D

check out that scaffolding. safety first!

^yellow shirt day ;)

We worked from breakfast to lunch, and then not again until evening. We took the afternoons off. Why? ...

With temperatures like that, it was all we could do to survive the afternoons without melting. Especially when the power went out (as it did, several times a day) and the fans stopped working. Bleh.

On our last day in the village, we had a party to celebrate the end of the work camp. All the girls got saris, which were tailored for us, and the guys got traditional suits. The girls also got glass bangles (which I've been wearing ever since) and flowers for our hair ^o^

And then it was time to go T_T It went by so quickly! But it was such an amazing experience. It was so incredible to meet the villagers, who, although they have so little and must live such difficult lives, they genuinely seemed so happy. It really taught me a lot, especially while I myself had nothing, my temporary impoverishment (having only the barest essentials and having to live off the charity of others to get through the days); I really found that all of those things I brought with me I didn't need. Except the diarrhea medicine. That would have been nice to have.

The night of the party we all headed back to the hotel, showered, then headed off on an overnight bus back to Hyderabad for a morning flight to Delhi. From which we took another bus up to Agra and out to...

Our single day of sightseeing!

Seeing the Taj was great, and also it was a good experience to see kind of the "other-side" of India - the one in which we were seen not so much as heroic volunteers, helping the people, but more as marks for the street vendors and pickpockets... which luckily nobody fell victim to, this time.

All in all, an amazing trip. Absolutely left me wanting more. This is a country that definitely hasn't seen the last of me!

And if, after reading all of that, you find yourself wanting to help out these amazing people, I encourage you to make a donation via the Longitude website, which you can find by clicking HERE.

While we were working, a man came from another village nearby asking Ravi to help him build 100 homes. They had received grants from the government, but the money isn't enough to complete the homes; and in a tragic catch-22, once they've been granted the money they have to use it within a certain time-frame or the government will take it back. So they're desperate to get the houses built before even the little money they've received is lost. Unfortunately, as ARV is struggling to raise enough money just for the homes in Cheveru village, Ravi had to turn the poor man down. It was heartbreaking to see. There has to be a better way to help these people than relying on the donations the work camp volunteers can beg from their friends and families. I just haven't figured out what it is yet...

Magadheera

2010-05-12T21:01:00.008+09:00

I'm planning a post about the volunteer work in India, but I have so many photos to sort through and stories to get straight that it's going to take me a little while.

In the meantime, I've got this little gem for you.

Getting to the village I volunteered in is no easy task; getting yourself to India is only the first part. It took me 12 hours to travel from Nagoya to Delhi - it took another 11 to get to our hotel in Gudivada (2 flying from Delhi to Hyderabad, 9 driving from Hyderabad to Gudivada). It's another half hour or so from there to Cheveru village.

So during this 9 hour bus ride, our "trip Dad", Ravi, asked if we'd like to watch a movie. The films they had were all in Telugu (the language in Andrha Pradesh state), but with 9 hours to kill and nowhere to go, we all said "sure. why not?"

I figured I'd half pay attention and sleep most of the way, seeing as I'd had about 2 hours of sleep in the preceding 30 or so. And then. THE FILM WAS AWESOME.

It's a musical, of course, as most Indian films are. And we couldn't understand a word of it, but, it was just so, entertaining. It probably didn't hurt that it was a love story, too ♥

The film is called Magadheera. It's the story of two lovers; one a warrior and the other a princess, who die in an epic and tragic love triangle/ battle set in the year 1609. Their love for each other is apparently so strong, that 400 years later they are reborn... but the question is, will they re-connect?

From wikipedia:
The story begins in 1609. Kalabhairava (Ram Charan) is a guard of Udayagarh kingdom. His family is praised by everyone for their sacrifice for the kingdom. Mithra (Kajal Agarwal) is the only princess of the kingdom. Bhairava and Mithra fall in love with each other while her relative Ranadev Billa wants to marry Mithra . He loses a challenge with Bhairava for marrying Mithra and he is sent out of the kingdom as per the challenge. In Bhairava's ancestral backround, no male lives more than 30 years and all of them died while protecting the kingdom. The king is worried about that and pleads Bhairava to sacrifice his love. Mean while Ranadev Billa mingles with Sher Khan (Srihari) who is in a spree of conquering India and in process nears the Udayagarh kingdom to conquer the kingdom of udayagarh. They kill everyone in the kingdom in the absence of Bhairava, who went with Mithra to Bhairava kona (a spiritual place) to offer yagnas for the welfare of the kingdom. The enemies come to that place to kill Bhairava and conquer the princess. Bhairava and Mithra die there after Bhairava kills a hundred of Sher khan's soldiers single-handedly in a fight. Sher Khan wants to form allies with Kalabhairava but cannot do so because he promised Billa the kingdom and Mithra. The second shade of the story is in 2009 where Bhairava, Mithra, Sher Khan and Ranadev Billa take rebirth in this century. One day, Bhairava accidentally comes into physical contact with Indu (Mithra) and feels a surge of electric current. But he only saw her dress. So will he in the end find her and save her from the evil desires of her cousin?

Like I said before, since it's an Indian film, it's full of songs and dances, and all sorts of allusions (no kissing! *gasp*) and it's quite long.

So we watched this film on the bus, were all amused by it, and thought that would be the end of it. And THEN. The music made it's re-appearance. Repeatedly. In fact, one night in the village we took a break from working and an impromptu dance-party broke out, fueled by, you guessed it- the soundtrack to the film :D

They're dancing to this song (on top of a half-completed building. safety first! *facepalm*), in which the hero is drunk and keeps seeing his sweetheart's face on another woman - and you can see the kids copied some of the moves from it

This one is kinda long, but I really love it, you can hear the kids singing along and you can really see they've copied a lot of the dance moves from the movie. Plus, this kid is such an awesome dancer! And what a ham! He kept asking me to show him "his video" afterward :D :D :D

It's this song, from the beginning of the film (and the silliest part of it, IMO - shocking pelivs thrust!!! hahaha)

The music popped up a few other times, occasionally during our "siesta time" (when it was way too hot to work) and I caught quite a few of the music videos on TV when I was stuck in the hotel room for 2 days with... let's just call it an unwanted byproduct of a sudden change in diet and extreme heat.

So after all this, several of us decided we wanted to get a copy of the soundtrack, which comes conveniently packaged on several different hit-song CD's full of mp3's from different movies. The one I got looks like this

My personal favorite is this one, the love song from the modern part of the movie

And my second favorite is this one, the love song from the historical part

All told, there are 6 major song and dance numbers in the film. My CD has 64 songs on it, from 10 different films. It's been a fun way to get into the genre; but I have to admit I'm still quite partial to the Magadheera songs, probably because I've seen the film and have a personal connection to the music through the village.

I've since found a version of the movie with English subtitles, which helps to explain a lot of stuff you just can't figure out on your own. It's really a cute story! But I am impressed by how much we were able to understand, just based on facial expressions and actions in the film d(^_^)b Sadly, I think I may never quite understand the, uh, shock-waves from the first song. But perhaps some things are just better left unexplained...

Some movie trivia: It was released on July 31, 2009 and was a huge HUGE hit. It was the highest-budgeted Telugu language film ever made, and became the highest-grossing one of all time. And apparently because of this, they've recently decided to dub it into Tamil.

It's been a month since I last posted

2010-04-24T13:46:00.000+09:00

Man, I am such a great procrastinator! hahahahaha

Seriously though, a whole month. ooops.

As my mother, and countless others, can attest, I've always been particularly good at putting things off. It's a testament to my ability to pull things together at the last minute that I ever made it through high school, college, and graduate school :D

My current procrastination projects include (but are not limited to):

cleaning my apartment (been putting that one off successfully for weeks!)
packing things up to ship back to Colorado
laundry
looking for a job post-JET (aka after July)
packing for India
...and this blog

My preferred methods of procrastination usually entail books, tv, and internet, in addition to just plain removing myself from the situation entirely by doing something like going in to town ^_^

I don't really have a coherent story to put together for you of recent events, other than to say the school year concluded and started again, I went to Thailand for spring break, went to my last Takayama festival, and today is my birthday :)

In celebration of the successful completion of my third decade, here are some pictures of recent happenings. Time, it would seem, is something you just can't avoid, no matter how good of a procrastinator you are ;)

Part of the book I received from the kids graduating from Kuguno. I had them for all 3 of their junior high years! Amazing doesn't even begin to describe them :)

Archery in Takayama

Noto Coast

The longest bench in the world ^_^

Wat Traimit in Bangkok

Thai Tuk Tuk

Beach on Koh Samui

The lucky roof tile I donated to the Big Buddha temple on Koh Samui

At the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangnan

Which is by FAR the largest party I've ever been to in my life. Probably close to 20,000 people, all along the beach.

Where people do crazy stuff like jumping ropes. That are on fire

Protesters in Bangkok, a few days before things got ugly. They were actually quite friendly when we were there!

Takayama Festival

Furukawa Festival

Sakura at night

Kind of cool to represent Takayama at the Takayama-Denver Sister City party ^_^

Birthday shenanigans

My Colorado birthday cake!!!

Thanks for stopping by! And don't forget to Donate to my project in India!

Help me build houses in INDIA!!!

2010-03-13T09:42:00.004+09:00

I've signed up to spend my Golden Week vacation this year volunteering in India. I'll be going with an organization called Longitude, a non-profit who "facilitates volunteer opportunities in conjunction with our foreign partners, raises funds for project growth and improvement, and provides material and programmatic support for the foreign NGOs with whom we collaborate". The specific NGO I will be working with is called the Association of Relief Volunteers, "an Indian non-profit working on issues of human rights and caste discrimination in rural Indian villages."

photo from golongitude.org

In particular, I will be helping to build houses in Chevuru Village. The following information is taken from the May 2010 trip page:

Chevuru Village Background

A total of 459 Dalits (formerly known as Untouchables), including 70 widows, live in thatched mud huts in Chevuru. Most of the adults in the village are unskilled agricultural laborers and are unable to find work outside the 3-month growing season each year. Because they earn barely enough wages to support their families, missing even one day of work to repair their fragile huts after heavy rain or floods can affect their ability to feed their children. Acquiring permanent housing will not The only allow these Dalit villagers to work more days of the year but will also raise their social status, giving them the confidence they need in order to stand up for their rights.

Fifty-one families in Chevuru were able to begin building permanent houses under a state government scheme that provides housing grants to people living below the poverty line. However, these grants are not enough to cover the remaining costs of the houses. These families have requested Longitude and ARV’s financial assistance to complete their homes, which have been sitting unfinished since last year. In order to put a roof on every home, we must raise US $1500 per house.

How You Can Help

Our group’s fundraising goal of $15,000 will subsidize the completion of 10 houses in Chevuru. Please help us meet this goal by either fully or partially sponsoring one family’s home. A contribution of any amount will bring piece of mind and security to a very deserving Dalit family!

---

If you are interested in helping out, please visit the group page at

http://www.golongitude.org/www/JET_May_2010.html

You can donate online through the group webpage, or they have an option for if you prefer to donate by check ^_^

The start of the goodbyes...

2010-03-09T15:06:00.006+09:00

Today was junior high school graduation day. It's my third one now, so instead of writing about the ceremony (which I did my first year) or my attire (last year), this time I'm going to write a top ten of what I've learned in 3 years of ceremonies in Japan, should you ever find yourself at one ^_^

1) Graduation ceremonies are extremely formal, solemn events, ridden with tradition and ceremony.

2) As such, there is no cheering, and only occasional clapping. Everyone does everything, and I do mean everything, as a group. Also, you will bow, in unison, many, MANY times.

3) In a shrewd display of planning, the ceremony is held mid-week, making it easy for parents to attend.
...Also, no friends or siblings will be there; for the most part it's the students, teachers, parents, and various "important" members of the community (PTA, police, mayor, etc).

4) Graduation is a white-tie affair. Occasionally, women will wear kimono.

5) Against all their effort to remain stoic, SOMEONE always ends up crying.

6) If you live in the mountains, be prepared for snow. Heavy, wet, spring snow. And yes, it's snowing here today :/

7) Be sure to bring a change of clothes for after the ceremony - nobody wants to be "that guy" stuck in a suit all day. Especially when the kids all go home at noon! And keep in mind you're going to have absolutely nothing to do afterward, you'll have to find something to do to keep yourself busy.

8) No school lunch! Yeay! Bento!

9) The graduation enkai (work party) is the first of the "spring-enkai season". 2 weeks later you'll have the end-of-the-school-year party, followed by the goodbye party for departing teachers, the welcome party for new teachers, and then there's the opening-day party. All within the span of less than a month o_O By the way, I work at 4 schools. They're fun ^_^ But can get quite expensive!

10) Charge your camera battery, clear off your memory-stick, and be prepared for lots and lots of pictures! It's the best (and last, in many cases) chance to get photos with your departing graduates. If you're lucky, you might run into them later on in town, or during the spring or autumn festivals. Sometimes I see them if I have to ride the train, but for the most part, this is kind of the end of your relationship with them, so make the most of it!

Winter Sports

2010-02-21T22:10:00.005+09:00

I'm not much of a winter person. In fact, I'd say one of the only redeeming qualities of this season is that it's the only time I get to go snowboarding.

And, occasionally, there are pretty trees.

This year has been pretty snowy here in Japan. Much better for enjoying winter sports than last year, but fairly sucky in terms of everyday living :P

So far this year I've managed 7 trips:

1 time to Mary Jane/ Winter Park (Colorado)
1 time to Arkopia (Kuguno)
2 times to Mont Deus (Miya)
1 time to Goryu/ Hakuba 47 (Hakuba, Nagano)
1 time to Sun Alpina Kashimayari (Hakuba, Nagano)
1 time to Takasu Snow Park (Gujo, Gifu)

Hopefully I can squeeze in a couple more before the season ends. If I have to be cold, I should at least be able to enjoy it! ^_^

TV

2010-02-16T22:38:00.003+09:00

I've been terrible about keeping up with the blog recently >.< I know! I know.

This isn't a huge post of interesting craziness of Japan. Well, maybe a little crazy. I've been watching my tv a bit more recently cause of the Olympics. It's kind of interesting, actually, to watch them here, the focus is entirely on the Japanese athletes. Which makes sense, of course, when you think about where I am.

Anyway, with all this extra tv-watching, I've also seen a lot more Japanese commercials, which never fail to amuse me. They're just so different from American ones! One of my favorite recent ones is this ad for Halls cough drops

And while I'm at it, I'll just go ahead and throw this one for the McDonald's Texas Burger in too. It's part of the new "Big America" marketing campaign, supposedly highlighting cuisines from different parts of the US. This one is, obviously, supposed to represent the Lone Star State... what Footloose has to do with that I'm not quite sure... but you can judge for yourself

The Texas Burger is set to be followed by the Hawaiian Burger, the New York Burger, and the California Burger, sometime this year.

And how about this ad for the Toyota Vitz... using the popular character Rilakkuma (relax bear)... O_o I think the concept is that driving this car is supposed to be relaxing for the harried, over-whelmed Japanese woman in her 20's or 30's... but really all I can think of when I watch it is "awwwwwwwwww!"

JLPT 3級

2010-02-03T16:34:00.004+09:00

Just a quick shout out to say

I PASSED THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TEST!

Level 3, given December 6, 2009.

My final score was 316/400 for a total of 79% (you need at least 60% to pass).

And I got 100% on the listening section.

Yeay!!! ^_^

Kakizome

2010-01-23T12:22:00.002+09:00

My first Japanese class of 2010 wasn't so much about language as it was culture. We did 書き初め kakizome, the first calligraphy of the new year. Traditionally, it's performed on January 2nd, although more and more it's being assigned as winter vacation homework for elementary school students (who all have to study calligraphy in school).

My teacher gave my partner and I the option of several different characters, including 虎 tora (tiger - this year's zodiac animal), 愛 ai (love), a couple I can't remember, and 夢 yume (dream).

This was a tough one. The character you choose kind of says a lot about your hopes for the coming year. I was debating between 愛 and 夢, love or dream. Which is more important?

There are so many reasons I came to Japan, many things I've learned, been disappointed by, been surprised by, enjoyed. The experience can been interpreted in so many ways. But what kind of fortune am I hoping for in the coming year? What do I still want to achieve?

I decided to go with 夢, dream. My partner did as well.

It's actually a lot harder than it looks. My teacher gave us each an example character to practice off, and several sheets of newspaper before we moved on to the rice paper for the real one.

">

We each got three attempts. From which we picked what we all thought was the best of the three to keep.

May we all have fortuitous dreams this year ^_^

Travelling

2009-12-21T07:57:00.005+09:00

I'm currently at the airport in Nagoya. Well, not at the airport, I'm in a hotel very close to the airport (on the same island. Central Japan International Airport [CENTRAIR for short] is built on a man-made island), but that's beside the point.

I'm going home for Christmas! And my longest trip home (3 weeks) since I moved to Japan. Every year it seems to get longer by about a week, hahahaha.

Anyway, I decided to avoid the stress of same-day commuting to the airport and stayed in a hotel last night. Flight leaves in about 5 hours. And in true Jen-travel style, getting here was a huge pain, hahahahahhaha

Let me explain. We got a LOT of snow in Takayama over the weekend. The whole region got a lot of snow, I'd say. I was in Toyama Friday night for an end-of-the-year party for work and we basically drove through a blizzard out and back. Safety-first! Is not always the motto here, haha.

It continued snowing all weekend, to the point that they closed part of the highway between Takayama and Nagoya. I was planning to take the bus. But they closed the highway. Snowing all weekend, and apparently they didn't have ample warning to get the plows out. Although, as with most things in Japan, I only understoond about half of what I heard so there was probably more of a reason than that. At least I like to tell my self there was, anyway.

So I had to take the train. Which costs about twice as much as the bus and takes just as long. D'oh! But at least it doesn't depend on roads being open and it never gets stuck in traffic...

So I get to Nagoya and then I have to get out to the airport, where my hotel is. This is not my first time doing this; I've flown out of this airport several times. Most recently when I went to Korea in September. So I was fairly sure I knew what I was doing when I hauled my enormous bag down the steps to the Meitetsu subway line, bought my ticket, and went down to the tracks. On the "airport" side.

And then proceeded to get on the wrong train. oops.

It seems this line splits at a stop called 太田川 (Odagawa), and I was on the line that doesn't go to the airport. And I didn't realize this until I'd been going the wrong way for about 20 minutes. I got nervous, checked the map, and realized I was going the wrong way. I checked with the conductor, who gave me an OMG you dummy look and told me I'd have to get off at the next stop. Nice of the people on the train to say something right? I mean, with that huge bag and the fact that I'm a foreigner I'm sure it was pretty obvious I was supposed to be going to the airport... but I digress.

I get off, haul that bag (25 kg) up and over the rail line, and down to the other side where the station master informed me I'd have to go BACK about 20 minutes to the Odagawa station and change there. Noooooooooooooooooo! It was already 1030pm by this point. And although Nagoya isn't anywhere near as cold as Takayama, it still gets pretty chilly at night. Wah.

And then, in typical Jen-travel fashion, I met a really cool guy who could speak English! He asked me where I was going and said he would help me get off at the right station to change trains. He was on his way home in Nagoya.

Turns out he started using English about 30 years ago on a trip to India. He loves mountain climbing, and he spent several months there backpacking. And then he went back again. He's climbed mountains all over Japan, including Fuji, IN DECEMBER. "Yes, it's very dangerous. But very beautiful!" He told me ^^

He's been all over Asia, and once to New Zealand, and he studied for 2 years at a university in Thailand. Where he met his wife. They have 2 children, a daughter and a son, both grown now. The family makes yearly trips back to Thailand to visit her family, although he doesn't always have time to join them. He did, however, make sure to tell me the best places to visit :) He speaks fluent Thai, and his wife can (now) speak Japanese very well. He said it took them having children for her to really try to learn it, since she didn't want to be the only mother at the kindergarten who couldn't understand anything, haha

By the time I got to the stop where I had to change, I had learned so many interesting things about this man. Except his name.

What is it about travelling and meeting strangers that makes people open up so much? Maybe it's the fleeting nature of the encounter, knowing you will never see this person again. So it's ok to tell them things I bet even his co-workers don't know (or maybe have never asked). At any rate, my embarrassing mistake at Nagoya station, which I had been cursing as I got off that first train, hauled my luggage up and over the tracks, and down the other side, that mistake turned into a wonderful opportunity to meet someone I would have otherwise never encountered.

Merry Christmas everybody!

On pleasant surprises at the 100 Yen Shop

2009-12-12T14:14:00.009+09:00

My favorite Japanese entertainer of all-time is a man by the name of Nagase Tomoya (family-name first, personal-name last). He's the lead singer of the band TOKIO and an actor who has appeared in many, MANY dramas. In fact, he's the guy who played the lead in my very first (and still one of my favorite) Japanese dramas, My Boss My Hero. You may or may not remember the post I made about it shortly after moving to Japan in 2007. He was also the lead in Utahime. ^_^

Anyway, I've made good use of this particular idol, all of my students know he's my favorite and I often use my "crush" on him to humorous effect in the classroom. It comes in really handy for demonstrating personal preference "I like Nagase Tomoya. Do you like Nagase Tomoya? Yes, I do!", comparatives "Nagase Tomoya is the most handsome actor in the world", passive-voice "I have loved Nagase Tomoya since 2007", etc.

And one of the best parts about living in Japan is that I get to see his mug everywhere. On tv. In movies. In magazines. And advertising just about anything you can imagine.　Like cell phones

And jeans

Just today I was at the 100 Yen Shop and I saw this beautiful advertisement for Asahi beer:

I do believe he has advertised Suntory Beer as well

photo from tubefire
I'm actually more of a Kirin fan, but they've yet to use him in advertising (that I know of, anyway), hahahahaha
d(^_^)b

Ah and Un

2009-12-03T06:38:00.004+09:00

A friend of mine gave me a book shortly before he left Japan last summer, and I'm just now getting around to reading it. It's called "Hokkaido Highway Blues", by Will Ferguson. It's about a guy who decides to hitchhike his way from the southern tip of Kyuushu to the top of Hokkaido, following the cherry blossoms in the spring.

So far, it's pretty awesome ^_^ I've never recommended anything here before, but this one's pretty good, and it's full of good information about Japan.

One part, in particular, struck me as a good opportunity to show off a couple pics from a recent trip I took to Koyasan, a sacred mountain near Osaka that is full of temples and shrines and one very enormous graveyard

The part of the book I'm talking about is close to the beginning, actually right at the start of chapter 7, where he describes the stone statues that are always found guarding the entrance to Shinto shrines

You approach Shinto shrines through torii gates, the entrances are usually guarded by a pair of stone lion-dogs. Like so many things Japanese, these lion-dogs came to Japan from China through a Korean intermediary. When they define themselves, the Japanese tend to skip Korea, the middle-man, and claim a connection to China that is direct and overemphasized. But here, in the shrine grounds of the gods, the Korean connection is acknowledged: the guardians are called koma-inu, "Korean dogs." That Korean icons should protect the repositories of all that is Japanese in spirit- the Emperor's Church in a sense - that Korean dogs should be given such a high-ranking position is something rarely commented upon by the Japanese. These stone guardians provide a telling clue about the ancient Korean roots of the Japanese Imperial Family.

The lion-dogs were originally a lion and a dog, and were very different in appearance, but over the years stonecutters found it easier to carve them to the same proportions. The two figures grew more and more alike, until their features blended. One lion-dog has a mouth that is always open, the other has a mouth that is always closed. The open-mouthed lion-dog is named 'Ah', the other is named 'Un', or more properly, 'nn'. "Ah," is the first sound you make when you are born, "nn," the last sound you make when you die. "Ah" is the breath inhaled that begins life, "nn" the exhale of existence, a universe that turns on a single breath. 'Ah' is also the first symbol in the Japanese alphabet, 'n' the last. And so, between these two lion-dogs, you also have the A and Z, the Alpha and Omega. In the original Sanskrit, 'ah-un' means "the end and the beginning of the universe; infinity unleashed."

Infinity unleashed! word.

BTW, the book is actually much funnier than the above passage would imply. For example, in describing a conversation he has with some kids in the back of a car...
His eyes widened with an audible boing. "English! You speak English! Say something, say something in English."
"Wayne Newton is the Antichrist."
"Wow! What does that mean?"
"It's a poem. Kind of a haiku."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA =D

a free gift, or a disguised punishment?

2009-11-28T12:58:00.003+09:00

Haven't updated in a while, sorry! Partly due to a lack of interesting stuff to post about, and partly due to my own laziness. But, something interesting happened today that I thought I would share.

Some local ALTs here in Hida are having our own Thanksgiving dinner tonight, and I've been chosen to make the sweet potatoes. I've never made sweet potatoes before, and I don't have an oven. But, based on my success with apple pie, I figure I'll be ok.

Anyway, I had to go to the store and get the ingredients (sweet potatoes, mostly), where I was greeted by "Merry Christmas!" signs everywhere and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" on the speakers, hahaha

But the really crazy thing, what surprised me more than all the obnoxious xmas-ing, was what happened at the check-out. My first year here all the supermarkets in Takayama instituted a new policy of charging for plastic bags, to encourage people to bring re-usable eco-bags. Usually I have one in my car, but today I forgot it at home and had to buy a plastic one. 15 yen, no big deal; it's not the price so much that makes me not want the plastic bags, I hate them more because once I get my stuff home and unpacked I then have to add it to the plastics bin...

So I get the bag, and along with it comes:

A pack of 3 boxes of natto >.<
For those of you too lazy to follow the wikipedia link, I'll copy some of the info for you here:
Nattō (なっとう or 納豆) is a traditional Japanese food made from soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis. It is popular especially as a breakfast food. As a rich source of protein, nattō and the soybean paste miso formed a vital source of nutrition in feudal Japan. Nattō can be an acquired taste because of its powerful smell, strong flavor, and sticky consistency.

"Can be an acquired taste" is kind of misleading. In my experience everyone, foreigners and Japanese alike, fall into two, very distinct camps with respect to natto. You either love it or you hate it. I'm in the latter group, hahaha, natto is definitely one of the grossest things I have ever had the misfortune to try. Unsurprisingly, that experience has only been thrust upon me during school lunch. One particularly horrific experience was the infamous shishamo-natto double-whammy lunch last year. *shudder*

So I find it unsurprising that, in the event you forget to bring your own bag to the supermarket, not only do you have to pay 15 yen for a plastic one, you now also get three boxes of natto as a "gift". I'm thinking the person behind this particular marketing campaign must also fall into the camp of natto haters.

Autumn!

2009-11-08T14:49:00.003+09:00

Fall in Hida is...

The autumn Takayama Festival

Chilly BBQs with friends

Hida no Sato

Festivals at small village shrines

Autumn Tea Ceremony

Hiking in Kamikochi

Coffee

Halloween

Hiking in Miyagawa

Visiting friends in Nyukawa

...TBC

Sorting trash in Japan

2009-10-21T21:41:00.004+09:00

I've recently been doing a bit of purging in my apartment, sorting through the small mountains of stuff that have slowly been collecting over the past two years of living here. Most of it is paper - old envelopes, magazines, junk mail, phone books, out-of-date tourist info and maps, old cards, half-finished lesson plans, and an overwhelming number of calendars, teaching resource books and "JET Journals" the good folks at CLAIR just keep on sending to us, year after year. Seriously, who needs FIVE calendars? I can understand one, maybe two (a big one to hang on your wall, and maybe a smaller one for your desk). They're quite pretty and useful in that they have all the Japanese holidays written in them. But five? Really? In a tiny Japanese apartment? They do suggest in the accompanying letter (itself a nice addition to my growing pile) that you can give the ones you don't need to coworkers and friends. But who am I supposed to be giving them to, really? Everything's written in English and all the people I know who could use an English calendar have themselves been inundated with too many. So we all end up with piles of unwanted crap, and nowhere to throw it away.

Which brings me to yet another interesting phenomena in Japan. People love packaging in this country. They LOVE IT. I suppose it's partly due to the culture of gift-giving here, in which case it's nice to have things in little individual packages. Makes sense for things like omiyage (souvenirs) or perhaps the odd, easily-perishable item that might go bad in relatively high (as compared with Denver, anyway) humidity. Box-lunches that benefit from a small self-contained snack also spring to mind. But the over packaging doesn't stop there. Everything comes individually wrapped. Buy a box of cookies? Open it up and you'll find 12 individually wrapped little snacks. Want some tissues? Here, have a box with 5 more boxes inside. How about a box of pens? Inside you'll find 20 pens that come in their own plastic bags. And don't even get me started on how those boxes of pens are themselves coated in plastic shrink-wrap.

As an environmentalist, I certainly have plenty to gripe about with such an gross example of wasteful packaging, strictly on moral grounds. But if I get off my high-horse and speak as a person living here, it's just plain hard to throw anything away. In this culture of over packaging, there are virtually NO TRASH CANS anywhere.

It's kind of a big joke amongst the foreign population, how we all end up carting around loads of garbage in our bags until we find a place to get rid of it. Out in public this usually takes the form of the convenience store, which is one of the only places you can ever find to get rid of your trash.

photo from julie in japan

You may have noticed that those aren't just ordinary trash cans. They're set up for you to sort your unwanted goods, in addition to getting rid of them. This applies equally for public trash cans and disposing of garbage at home, so I'll just focus on what it takes to get rid of the stuff from my apartment.

One of the biggest surprises I had waiting for me when I first moved here was the "garbage list". Which looks like this

Basically, what we have are:
燃えるごみ (moeru gomi), burnable garbage like kitchen waste, tissues, bedding, etc.
燃えないごみ (moenai gomi), non-burnable garbage like broken glass, rubber, non-recyclable plastic and metal (like jar lids), broken plates, etc.
プラ (pura), plastics
PET bottles, aka plastic pop/tea/juice bottles
紙 (kami), paper items like empty ice cream cups, paper bags, and paperboard boxes
瓶 (kame), glass bottles
缶 (kan), aluminum cans/metal
紙パック (kami paku), milk and juice cartons
資源ごみ (shigen gomi), recyclable materials (like all that office paper I've got)

The way you pay for your trash removal is actually a pretty good system, IMO. Instead of paying a monthly fee for however much you want to toss, you pay for the bags you use to put the trash out. Without the proper bag, they won't pick up your garbage. In addition, each household is allotted a certain amount of "trash stickers" to be used for the burnable and non-burnable trash. If, by some aberration of nature, you actually manage to use up all of the stickers they give you, I'm not really sure what happens. I've never even come close to it in my two years here.

Anyway, I was really fortunate in that the girl in my position before me was incredibly organized and left for me a pretty easy system for coping with the "list". I've got boxes under my sink for plastics, PET bottles, and boxboard. The burnable trash goes in the regular trash-can with a lid. In one of my closets I have boxes for aluminum cans/ metal and glass bottles, and a small box for non-burnables. I've only thrown the cans and bottles once or twice, and I've yet to collect enough non-burnable trash to make it worthwhile to bag up and put out. At least before the purge, heh heh heh.

In addition to the trash stickers, everybody gets a schedule for when to put their trash out. Burnables are taken twice a week, and everything else is on kind of a rotating system. It's pretty logical, put the separated trash in the appropriately colored clear-plastic bag, and in the case of burnable or non-burnable trash, a sticker showing your name and address. And if you've put something in there that shouldn't be there, technically somebody can return your trash to you for you to sort out before throwing it away again. Although I've snuck in the occasional junk-mail into the burnable garbage here and there, it's never been returned to me, and I see bags in the trash cans all the time that clearly have not been sorted properly.

All of this is to say, that although I've purged my shelves of all this paper, it still hasn't left my apartment. It's currently sitting in three nicely-loaded bags, waiting to be bundled in twine and taken over to the drop-off place. And there they shall sit for now, for recyclable materials like office paper and milk cartons are only collected once a month; and that day doesn't come again until November 14.

*sigh*

So long Smacky, hello Bucky

2009-10-17T10:30:00.000+09:00

I never even saw it coming. It was like being hit by a speeding truck, that drove off in the night. Every day we had been together; mostly when I was on my way somewhere, but also occasionally while killing time waiting for something. Always there with a pick-me-up, when I was feeling down. Ready to rock when I was in a good mood. And who could forget all those classes spent energizing the kids with holiday jingles and Super Mario?

I'm talking, of course, about my iPod. Smacky.

We'd been together since 2005, sharing many travel adventures and boring commutes, occasionally doing a tv program here and there. Everything was going fine until last Friday, when I disconnected him from my car adapter and put him in my bag. The next time I tried to play him... nothing.

At first, I thought it was just one of those silly "reset" situations. We've had those before, they're not a big deal. But try as I might, no matter how many times I reset him, Smacky refused to turn on. Then I thought it might be the battery, so I hooked him up to my computer for a full night, hoping he would be recognized in the morning. But nothing T_T

It was at this point I realized that at some time on Friday night, while I was wandering around the Takayama Festival eating snacks and talking with former students, Smacky passed silently into the great iPod "beyond".

I looked up on the internet what it would take to get him fixed. We'd been together for 4 years, I figured I at least owed him that much. And then I found to my horror, that if I did send him in for refurbishment, he'd come back with his memory erased. He might not even be the same iPod, I could end up with someone else's former friend. And it would likely cost me 100 bucks at least.

I mulled my options. Send Smacky in? Drive music-free for who-knows-how-long, only to get back an empty shell of my former friend? Or do I go get a new one? I decided my only real option. It was time to let Smacky go.

The next issue was deciding which new one to go with. There's the shuffle, the nano, the classic, and the touch. Not to mention the iPhone, which I was actually kicking myself for turning my nose up at only a few months earlier. At the time I thought, I've got an ipod already. Why would I want one for my phone? Ha ha ha, oh irony.

I already have a shuffle that I received as a gift a few years ago. Satchel, as he's known, doesn't have a lot of memory, but works just fine as my faithful running partner. So that removed the shuffles from the list automatically.

Then we have the nano, which comes with a video display and has more memory than the shuffle. They also come in an array of colors and the new ones can take video. Which is like, who thought of that? "hmmmm, what do people look for in a portable music player? I know! Let's put a video camera in it!" :S

The classic is what I had originally had, except now they come with way more capacity than Smacky, who, at 30GB was apparently a relic model. The new ones come with 160GB. If I'm honest with myself, I never came close to filling the space on Smacky, even with videos. And the few times I watched videos on him it killed the battery, so I didn't do it very often. 160 GB is probably way too much storage for me, esp when it's almost twice as expensive as the nano. And a lot bigger physically too. So I decided the classic was out.

That left the touch, which intrigued me. It's got the touchscreen interface, and wifi capability. You can play games on it and and it's basically an iPhone without the phone part. It's also quite expensive.

In the end, I decided that for me, an iPod is a music player. I don't need it to play games, and I can get internet access through my phone when I'm out and about. I'm probably not going to watch videos on it. For the same amount of storage and half the price, not to mention a fraction of the physical size, the nano was the way to go. And I could pick my favorite color too ^^

Getting an iPod in Japan is the same as getting one anywhere. The only difference is all the documentation that comes with it is in Japanese

Other than that, they're exactly the same as any other model. It's been so long since I even contemplated getting one of these that I was really surprised by the size of it. Compared to the classic, it's tiny!

And it's greeeeeeeeeeen!

So now I face the arduous task of loading the music I want (as opposed to everything in my library) onto it. I'll always remember Smacky, my first portable music player. But I'm looking forward to new awesome adventures with Bucky ^_^

Cockney Rhyming Slang

2009-10-13T22:46:00.003+09:00

This really doesn't have anything to do with life in Japan, but I doubt it would ever have taken place if I didn't live here.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a fellow ALT in Hida, who is originally from England. He was teaching me about the nearly intelligible dialect of Cockney Rhyming Slang. Something which, prior to this conversation, I didn't even realize existed. And I'm still not entirely sure why it does, ha ha ha

ALT
cockney rhyming slang is where you substitute things for words when they rhyme
but not just anything
and i have no idea why
so apples and pears is stairs

Me
apples and pears together are stairs?

ALT
so you say "she fell down the apples and pears"!

Me
ha ha ha
how the heck did apples and pears become stairs?

ALT
i have no idea!
and "midnight kiss" is piss
and a funny one i found the other day is piano is joanna
so in london people with strong accents say piana

Me
well that's romantic

ALT
erm, dunno about romantic

Me
;)

ALT
cockneys aren't really the romantic types

Me
ha ha ha
i dunno

ALT
they are more like scallies

Me
giving someone a nice sweet piss...

ALT
he he he

Me
or do i have that backwards?
go take a midnight kiss?

ALT
lol, the other way round!!!

Me
ha ha ha ha ha

ALT
yeah, to take a midnight kiss

Me
ha ha ha ha
i totally don't get it
but it's making me laugh

ALT
like, "hold me brew, i'm gonna take a midnight kiss"
i have no clue why cockney rhyming slang exists

Me
to confuse other people?

ALT
just geezers with too much time on their hands

TY0918 (Melor)

2009-10-07T20:42:00.007+09:00

In the US we call them "hurricanes". Some places say "cyclone".

In Japan, these storms are called 台風, tai fuu.

Whatever you want to call it, there's one heading this way, and besides being the first one to make landfall since 2007, it's also supposed to be the most powerful in a decade (according to the AFP).

And it's projected to take a path that runs smack over Gifu prefecture, including Takayama

(from the Japan Meteorological Agency, with a small modification ^^)

The Japan Meteorological Agency is predicting wind speeds of 98 mph near the center, and gusts of 123 mph by the time it reaches us here. This is down from 134 mph gusts when it makes landfall on the southeastern coast of Honshu tonight. No sign of the wind yet, although the rain has been falling here since this afternoon, steadily getting stronger and stronger.

In light of this, the JR Lines will not be running (the trains will stop) and all classes in Takayama elementary and junior high schools are cancelled tomorrow. Meaning the kids don't go to school. Lucky guys.

The teachers however, being dedicated civil servants (including yours truly), are still required to go. Why, exactly, is a little beyond me, but such is life in Japan. At least up here in the mountains of land-locked Gifu prefecture we don't have to worry about storm surges... just lots of rain and wind. Bring on the ponchos and rubber boots!

--Edited 10/08/2009 5pm: well what was supposed to be the biggest storm in a decade turned out to be surprisingly weak. Light rain and a few gusts of wind is all we got here; I think we had more damage from the torrential rains we had in June and July than from the "typoon"! At least I was around to experience the last one, in September 2007 =)

Me no naka de taiyou wo mieru ^_^

2009-09-30T16:30:00.003+09:00

I used to really dislike the color of my eyes. For some reason, I always wanted them to be blue. A lot of people in the Scandinavian half of my family (I'm roughly a quarter Swedish and a quarter Danish, and half Irish) have blue eyes, and I always thought that was a better combination with blond hair than what I've got. Which is sort of a greenish-blue, that can look mostly blue, depending on the colors I am wearing. But, in reality, they are sort of an odd light-green, largely due to these rings of yellow right next to my pupils.

I always hated those rings. It was like they cheated me out of my blue eyes.

At home, since there are so many kinds of eye color, and mine aren't a brilliant shade of anything, they didn't really stand out. And then, I moved to Japan. Where any eye color other than a very deep brown is a rare thing of wonder. I get complimented on my eyes all the time here, and recently I've come to like them more and more.

One fifth grade student in particular loves to just stare into my eyes, for loooooooong stretches of time. To be honest, it's kind of unnerving. And then she'll comment (in Japanese, of course) "oh, Jen-sensei! Your eyes are green! Why are they green? Why are foreigner's eyes not brown?"

This of course leads to a discussion about how not all foreigner's eyes are blue or green; there are many eye colors, and many kinds of foreigners. I'm constantly fighting a (losing) battle to show that being American isn't a race, it's a nationality. You can find any kind of person from anywhere in the world in the US, and they can all be Americans. It doesn't help that I fit the blond-hair blue (or in this case, green)-eyed American stereotype almost to a T when making my case...

Anyway, stereotypes aside, this little girl gave me what is probably the best compliment I have ever received about my eyes; and in the process completely changed my opinion of them. One day, while referring to the (formerly detested) rings of yellow in my otherwise bluish-green irises, she said to me:

"I can see the sun in your eyes!"

Now who could continue to dislike them after hearing something like that? =)

Pan!

2009-09-27T11:25:00.001+09:00

Have I ever mentioned they sell bread here with no crust? Or how you can buy sandwiches at the convenience store with no crust? It's so funny how unpopular it is here! And the crust-less bread? It's sold in boxes

\^o^/

Ayu

2009-09-14T08:51:00.006+09:00

Plecoglossus altivelis.

According to wikipedia, it is a relative of the smelts and is placed in the order Osmeriformes. Native to the Palearctic ecozone, it occurs in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of western Hokkaidō in Japan southward to the Korean Peninsula, China, and Taiwan.

And it's eaten WHOLE. (x_x)

It's quite popular here, showing up on menus, at festivals, and with an unnerving frequency in my school lunch.

There are a few ways to catch ayu, like fly fishing, Cormorant fishing (Gifu City is actually quite famous for this), and by taking advantage of their territorial behavior using a decoy, known as ayu-no-tomozuri.

The decoy method involves the use of a captive ayu and a long fishing rod. And by long I do mean loooooooooong

Last month I had the opportunity to try my hand at catching ayu. We went to a river in the town of Kamitakara; which, though technically in Takayama, lies about an hour's drive north of the city (^_^)b

A friend of a friend is an avid ayu fisherman and was kind enough to provide us with rods and tackle, and captive ayu. And seeing as I've never been able to skewer minnows or worms, let alone hand-sized fish, he also bait the hooks for us too ^^

It's actually a fairly cruel process - the bait ayu is attached to the line by the mouth and also has a second, free-swinging hook that is attached to it's back end.

so close to freedom...

You then introduce the decoy into areas likely to have ayu and wait for one to attack the intruding fish and hook itself.

It's kind of an interesting process. My only prior experience involving the use of live bait has only been with small creatures (like minnows). You can't feel them on the end of the line, so the second you feel it pull you know you've got something. But in this situation, since there's already one live ayu on the hook, it pulls and wiggles around as the fish goes here and there on the end of it. I was tricked more than once into thinking I had something.

In the end, I managed to hook three, and catch two. One lucky little guy got away from me the one time I was left to myself, while our fisherman was off helping my friend, ha ha ha

And the two fish I did catch? Presents to our fisherman for showing us a great time. Cause I sure as hell wasn't going to eat them myself! =D

The culinary delights of kyushoku

2009-09-03T18:29:00.003+09:00

School started last week.
Which means - school lunch is back!

Today we had

whole squid. mmm mmm mmm.

//sarcasm.

Koshien

2009-08-16T16:32:00.004+09:00

I've always liked baseball. I spent several birthdays watching the Rockies play at Coors Field (and before them the Denver Zephyrs - who else remembers them!!) growing up. I always caught at least one game every summer, and in my previous job as an engineer, was lucky enough to work with some awesome people who took us to the opening day game every year (you rock Dave E!!) ^^

In Japan, baseball is pretty big.

In fact, I might even go so far as to say it's more popular here than at home. We like to call baseball "America's pastime", but really, I think Japan loves it more.

Sure, the US has more pro teams, more money, the best players, and a longer history with the sport. We invented it, and it's definitely an important part of our culture. But consider this: there are 12 pro and 12 minor league teams in Japan; a country roughly the size of California. And, unlike just about all other imported sports, they have a Japanese word and kanji for it. In Japanese, baseball is 野球 yakyu. The first character means "field", the second is "ball". Soccer is サッカ sakka, basketball is バスケットボール basukettobo-ru, volleyball is バレーボール bare-bo-ru (no "v" in Japanese), golf = ゴルフ gorufu.... you get the idea. All in katakana, all words imported from another language. But baseball? Baseball is yakyu.

These days I mostly watch my junior high teams play, though I have seen a couple of pro games. Occasionally, if I am feeling especially playful, I'll even go practice with the teams after school.

What I haven't seen a lot of are high school games, since I don't teach there. And high school baseball is big here. Like, REAL big.

Culturally speaking, it's everywhere. In manga (Japanese comics), tv shows, movies, you name it. This summer the big thing to see is the movie version of the popular tv drama (itself an adaptation of the manga) "ROOKIES".

From wikipedia: Rookies is the story of an amateur teacher, Koichi Kawato, who is faced with the challenge of guiding a high school baseball club composed of delinquents. The students are wary of him and often threaten Kawato, but he refuses to abandon them and continuously speaks highly of recognizing their dreams. Eventually, the team is assembled and they dedicate their time to achieve their dream of going to Koshien.

A group of thugs and bullies, redeemed through their dream of going to Koshien.

You may be wondering what this magical place is. Amusement park? No. Tropical Island? No.

Koshien is a ballpark. A professional baseball stadium, located in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and home of the Hanshin Tigers.

It's also the location of the two High School Baseball Tournaments, held every March (since 1924) and August (since 1915). In fact, Koshien stadium was built to host the tournaments. It opened in 1924, but didn't become the home of the Tigers until 1936. The tournament games even take precedence over the pro ones - if they need to be rescheduled the Tigers have to postpone any conflicting home games (^_^)b

The games held at Koshien are the culmination of tournaments all over the country. While the one in the spring (the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament) is more selective (only 32 teams), the summer National High School Baseball Championship is more popular. It consists of 49 teams - one from each prefecture, and two each from Tokyo and Hokkaido (since there are so many schools there - in Tokyo because of population density and Hokkaido because it's huge). So basically, every year in August all the prefectures play against each other in one huge showdown.

The games are quite popular, even being broadcast on the television network NHK.

And this year, I went ^^

My former JTE, who is arguably a bigger baseball fanatic than I; actually, not even arguably, he IS a bigger fan than me; and I went to Koshien Stadium for one exceptionally awesome day of baseball. Since the games are so popular, we decided to go relatively early in the tournament - on the 4th day. And since Takayama is pretty far from Nishinomiya (between Osaka and Kobe), we had a looooooooong day of it too.

Because of the popularity of these games, getting tickets ahead of time is extremely difficult. All of the pre-game tickets were sold out before we even had a chance to try to get them, so we had to buy our tickets the day of the game. And you can only buy game-day tickets at the stadium.

On that day there were four games, the first started at 830 am. This meant we had to leave Takayama by 4am.

Yes, 4 am.

2 hour drive to Gifu City, then a 1.5 hour shinkansen ride to Osaka,

and another short train ride to Nishinomiya got us to the stadium around 8am

Bought our tickets, ran inside, and got some pretty awesome seats!

Under the shade, and right behind home plate ^^

I've mentioned before about some of the differences in watching baseball games in Japan vs the US. For the most part, these games went down the same way my junior high games go, except with a WAY bigger audience.

To start, both teams run out and greet each other with a bow and "onegaishimasu!" (one of those ubiquitous Japanese phrases that is used all the time and defies all attempts to give it a blanket translation; it comes from the word for "wish" , often means "please", and in this case is basically "let's play a good game!")

This is then followed by what I have termed the "game siren" - sounds like an air-raid or tornado siren and marks both the beginning and end of the game.

When I go see a junior high game, usually the cheering consists of the family of the team members (and at Miya's games, mostly just myself, ha ha ha). But since high schools are much larger, and also because of the awesomeness of getting to play at Koshien, the cheering for these games more closely resembled the pro games I've seen.

There were four games on this day, which we watched, one after the other, from 830 am on. I didn't know any of the teams, although I did recognize the names of some of the cities they were from. My JTE knows more than me and was able to inform me a little, but for the most part we just enjoyed watching the games. Which basically went like

And

^^The boy at bat in those videos' name is "Momiyama". And wasn't it SO kind of that man to stop right in front of me when the runner came in from 3rd??!? //sarcasm

At the end of each game, the players go back to the infield and once again greet each other, this time with an "arigatou gozaimashita!" greeting of thanks. And then the siren plays again.

The winning team will then remain on the field as their school flag is raised and their school song is played on the PA

The losing teams all collect some of the dirt from the field to keep as a souvenir of getting to play in the tournament. Apparently a tradition started in 1949.

So there we sat, enjoying the games, for 8 hours. And potentially ending up on TV, as the commentator box was just in front of us ^^

Does anyone else find it amusing that the camera is being protected by a straw mat? ha ha ha ha ha, I love Asia!

We finally had to leave around 430 pm to catch the train back to Gifu City. So it was time to bid farewell to Koshien

Leaving that early meant we missed most of the last (and most exciting, of course) game of the day. The score was tied when we left, both teams well-matched, a real showdown of baseball ability. It even went to extra innings. A real tragedy not to see it.

...but... when there's a will, there's a way. This is Japan! THE land of technology and gadgets.

We watched the rest of that game with our cell phones on the train
v(^_^)v

Not quite Fuji...

2009-08-11T16:09:00.007+09:00

A six hour hike snaking up a volcano, following a column of headlamps through the dark, and reaching the summit in time to witness a breathtaking view of the sunrise. A timeless tradition that everyone in Japan should do at least once in their lives. The summit of Mount Fuji.

This is not that story.

This is the story of how I had planned to climb Mt. Fuji, but ended up visiting the city of Yokohama instead.

... let me explain.

Back in July I made a plan with a friend of mine to climb Mount Fuji in August. Since he works for a Japanese company, we decided that it would be best to do it on a weekend and settled on August 8 for the day of our ascent.

As luck would have it, he managed to talk his boss into giving him a day off on the Friday before, so we bumped our plan up a day in the hopes of a slightly smaller crowd and more sleep before going back to work on Monday.

Unfortunately, fate interceded, and he ended up having to work that day anyway. To make a long story short, we decided with the extra day of work and the likelihood of the weather being bad anyway, we'd have to postpone our journey. This now meant I had a day by myself in the Tokyo area, when all of my friends there would be working.

What to do? After my initial disappointment at not getting to climb the mountain, I decided to be an optimist and make lemonade out of the lemon that was handed to me. I went to Yokohama ^^

All I knew about Yokohama before this trip was that it is the second largest city in Japan, and that it was the first port opened (in 1859) after the arrival of Matthew Perry. I had also heard it described as the favorite city of several of my fellow ALTs, more than enough reason to check it out.

Since I hadn't brought my guidebook with me (it's quite heavy and who wants to haul that up a mountain?) I had virtually no information whatsoever on what to do once I arrived in the city. So I went to the tourist information center, got a map, and off I went.

My first stop was the shopping area Motomachi and the former foreign residence area, Yamate. Here you can find lots of western-looking houses, shopping

and a Catholic cemetery ^^

Then I headed over to check out the Chinatown, rumored to be the best in Japan (and, apparently, the largest in all of Asia).

It was full of shops (a nice, air-conditioned break from the rather intense heat) and restaurants

and as any self-respecting Chinatown should, comes complete with a Starbucks.

It also has a lovely Chinese temple, Kantei-byo

so full of color!

Next I wandered over to the harbor to lounge in the breeze and shade of Yamashita Koen.

Where I actually fell asleep for a while in the glorious, glorious grass. Oh, how I miss grass! They just don't have a lot of it here.

After my nap, I decided to take a harbor cruise. While it was nice to get out on the water and enjoy the breeze, as far as harbor cruises go, this one was fairly so-so. Things I saw:
The bay bridge

The bay

The city

The pier

The only non-Japanese person on the boat ^^

The pier was pretty interesting though. Not only does it look like a spaceport out of a Star Wars movie, it has a fantastic wood and grass promenade on the top

Tell me that doesn't look like a skateboarding fantasy.

Down a little further from the pier is the Minato Mirai 21 area, full of shops and restaurants and an amusement park. It also has a lovely red-brick warehouse (that has been converted into many shops and restaurants) called Aka Renga Souko

where they had set up a large sandbox

and were preparing for a rock concert on the following day.

I'm not entirely sure who they were, but their dress-rehearsal made for awesome accompaniment to my tasty BLT dinner ^^

On the way back to the station to catch a train back to Tokyo, I strolled past "Cosmo World", home of what was the largest Ferris wheel in the world when it was built in 1989 (and still the world's largest clock)

And a beautiful view of the Landmark Tower

Not quite Mount Fuji, but all things considered, not a bad way to spend a Friday either (^_^)

Happy Anniversary Japan, Part II!

2009-07-29T18:27:00.006+09:00

Today I have lived in Japan exactly 2 years ^^ Last year I wrote a post and took a picture to commemorate, so I figured this year I should do the same. Unfortunately, the weather has been absolute CRAP! lately so it's all rainy out behind me... but, at least this time I remembered to take the picture earlier, and I have a better flash now!
July 29, 2007

July 29, 2008

July 29, 2009

Slightly tanner this year, but still nothing compared with when I first arrived, ha ha ha, oh Japan v(^_^)v

Tomorrow, yet again, I shall head to Gifu city to get the new ALTs!

First day of summer vacation, and what do I do? Get up early for my students, of course!

2009-07-18T05:49:00.004+09:00

I'm going to Tokyo today with a good friend of mine who is leaving Japan in about a week :(

Since it's her last weekend she said she wanted to go to Tokyo. So, although I've kinda been there a lot, I really had no choice but to go again ^^ darn! Tokyo! Man, that's rough.

Today is also the first day of summer vacation (FINALLY!), and of the regional baseball tournament. If I wasn't going to Tokyo of course I'd be going all weekend (or however long my teams last). BUT, since I'm leaving I figured I can't go. I was pretty disappointed, actually, since I've watched ALL of the tournament games the current Miya san nen sei have played in. I came to Japan right at the start of the second term in their first year of junior high school, which is when they can start playing in games. Also, I was really lucky that my former JTE at Miya was a coach on the team at the time, so it was easy for me to go; I was only able to start watching Kuguno play once I got Tank.

Anyway, in Takayama (and maybe the rest of Japan too, I'm not sure), after the tournaments associated with the first term end, the san nen sei (9th grade) have to stop playing in order to study for the high school entrance exams. So this will be their last tournament, assuming they don't get the top spot and go on to the prefectural game at the end of the month.

On top of this, after the san nen sei retire, there will only be 9 players left on the Miya team. There is a minimum of 10 players required to join tournament games, so essentially, this is also the last tournament for the entire team until the new kids come next spring and boost their numbers.

So there I was, 2 years of game watching under my belt, and prepared to miss the last one. And then last night at the end-of-term party for Miya JHS, while telling the baseball coach I can't go, it occurred to me. My bus for Shinjuku isn't until 130 pm, I'm not meeting my friend until 1, the game starts at 9am. I CAN GO. For the start, at least. Better than nothing...

Unfortunately, it's all the way in Furukawa, which is like, at least a half hour north of Takayama, plus. Even more since I live south of the city. And on top of that I don't know where the baseball ground is there. So I'm meeting the team at the school by 715 ^^

This time yesterday I had a nice, free, Saturday morning waiting for me. In which I could laze around a bit before meeting my friend and going to Tokyo. At the very least, I could sleep in.

Now I'm up at 530am, ha ha ha

PS it's currently raining. Won't that be ironic if I get myself over there only to find out the game has been postponed and I can't see it!

Tanabata

2009-07-07T18:44:00.005+09:00

Today is the Japanese holiday of Tanabata. It's a "star festival" that was imported from China sometime during the Heian Period (794 to 1185). The festival is held on the 7th day of the 7th month in most parts of Japan... except here in Hida where it's a month later, in August. Many festivals get pushed back by a month here; supposedly because the altitude makes the weather about a month behind that of the rest of the country (according to the locals anyway). Whether they do the same thing somewhere like, say, Sapporo, I'm not sure ('_^) I have also heard that many areas observe it August 7 because that more closely coincides with the 7th month of the traditional lunar calendar that was followed in Japan before the Meiji Era.

At any rate, although they don't hold the festival for it until August, everybody here knows Tanabata is SUPPOSED to be on 7/7, as evidenced by the "tanabata jello" I had in my school lunch today (oh yes, school doesn't end here for 2 more weeks) ^^

The premise of the festival is as follows. According to the legend (originally from China and tweaked to fit Japan), the two stars Vega, known as Orihime (weaving princess) and Altair, known as Hikiboshi (cow herder star) represent two lovers who are separated by the Milky Way "river". Only once a year are they able to meet, on the 7th day of the 7th month, for one night.

I feel especially sorry for Hikiboshi in this tale, as not only does bear an incredibly unfortunate name, he also appears to have been very unlucky in his choice of father-in-law.

From wikipedia:
Orihime (織姫, Weaving Princess), daughter of the Tentei (天帝, Sky King, or the universe itself), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川, Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星, Cow Herder Star) (also referred to as Kengyuu (牽牛)) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if Orihime worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.
(link)

The main features of the Tanabata festival are the colorful lanters with streamers and bamboo with wishes. Since it hasn't been held here yet this year I can't show you any pictures of them... but, oh, wait...

I have pictures from last year. Lucky you!

According to wikipedia, the streamers on the the lanterns represent the strings Orihime uses to weave

How true that is, I have no idea. I didn't ask ^_^

The best decoration/feature of the festival though, in my opinion, are the wishes. They are written on 短冊, tanzaku, colorful strips of paper, and then attached to bamboo. According to wikipedia, In the Edo period, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper.. These days, however, people write wishes for anything.

I think the bamboo and the paper are burned after the festival, similar to other wishing customs in Japan. And in case you were wondering, yes, my wish is hanging there in the picture, and no, I'm not telling you what it was =D

Unfortunately for the lovers this year, today has been completely overcast with periods of no, light, and very heavy rain. At the moment, if my ears are to be believed, we are currently in a period of medium-to-heavily-rainy. Looks like the magpies won't be making any bridges tonight.

HOWEVER, thanks to Hida's relatively-chilly weather, the lovers will get a 2nd chance next month. Keep your fingers crossed for better weather then (^_^)b

2009-07-04T22:40:00.003+09:00

July 4, 2009

Baseball games by day:

Fireworks at night:

Happy Birthday USA!!!

Happy Basude =D

2009-06-27T08:06:00.003+09:00

This goes out to my Step Dad Fritz, who is having his "29"th birthday today ^^

Happy Birthday - Click here for funny video clips

Pitagora Suichi

2009-06-12T23:12:00.007+09:00

I don't usually watch my tv, since it's all in Japanese and there are no subtitles to help me. But every now and then I turn it on and if I'm lucky I'll find a show called "Pythagora Switch", an educational program for children. I like it cause I can usually understand most of it (since it's for young children the language is pretty simple), it's made to make you think, and generally speaking it's pretty amusing ^^

My favorite segment is called ju pon anime, "10 stick anime". It involves 10 sticks coming together and doing.... stuff =D

One of my all-time favorite songs from the show is the onomatope no uta, "onomatopoeia song", which shows just a few of the zillions of onomatopoeia there are in the Japanese language ^_^

And here are a few examples of the Pythagora Switches (Rube Goldberg machines) featured in the show

This one shows all the stops of the Yamanote Line in Tokyo

Cool show, hu? See? Television can be educational!

Polini Grand Prix of Japan

2009-06-06T14:16:00.006+09:00

This is very, very late, but back in April I gave myself a very cool birthday present. Tickets to see the Polini Grand Prix of Japan - the Japanese leg of the MotoGP circuit. And I talked a friend into going with me too, heh heh. You may remember, I posted briefly about this race last year when Valentino Rossi won the championship at the track in Motegi.

This year the Twin Ring Motegi hosted the 2nd round of the MotoGP championship, and it just happened to fall the weekend of my birthday. The tickets are actually good for the full 3 days of practicing, qualifying, and the final race day, but since I had to work Friday and we spent all day Saturday driving the 6 hours to Tochigi prefecture, we only saw the main event. Which was all I cared about seeing anyway ^^

We left early Saturday morning, our goal:

the "tsuin ringu motegi", located in the town of Motegi, in Tochigi Prefecture. And because my luck is like that, the weather was terrible

Motegi is actually a very small town, so we stayed in the larger city of Utsunomiya, located relatively nearby. Six hours after we left Takayama, we arrived and parked in a very cleverly designed parking lot

why is this so cool? cause look! It locks you in until you pay! genious.

The weather was actually so bad this day that they were unable to do the qualifying laps for the finals the next day, so we didn't actually end up missing anything by burning one day driving. So we entertained ourselves in a mall near our hotel, where I found POPPLES!!! How long has it been since you've seen them?!?! They must have made a comeback.

The next morning we woke up to a slightly better-looking sky...

And headed off to the track!

At this point I was getting quite giddy and couldn't believe that I was actually at a MotoGP race. eeeeeeee!

There are all sorts of booths set up by the various teams and companies represented in the competition, all selling merchandise

Many of them also had replica bikes you could look at or sit on, this is at the Fiat Yamaha team tent. The bike is a replica of the one Rossi rides ^^

At this point they were beginning the warm-up laps, so we decided to go find some seats before it got too crowded. Unfortunately, mother nature had different plans and decided to start pouring rain minutes after we sat down. Our umbrellas weren't up to the challenge in that much rain, and all of the ponchos sold out in seconds; leaving us to run for shelter in the Ducati shopping tent, of all places =D Which is where I got my current favorite sweatshirt (that I was teased about in the last post ^^). I took this pic of a Repsol Honda bike as we were running for cover in the downpour

Lucky for us, the rain only lasted about a half an hour, after which the sun broke through and dried the track. And it actually turned into a lovely day! We were sitting in a pretty awesome section, near to the start/ finish line and one of the curves in the track

The 125cc and 250cc classes each had their races before the 800cc GP one. During which we got to see a bike go down right in front of us

The rider was ok, though I'm sure unhappy about crashing out.

Eventually we got to the main event - the MotoGP class race. Since the qualifying laps the day before had to be cancelled due to the weather, positions were based on the warm-up times the riders had on Friday. Which put my favorite, Rossi (number 46), in pole position

The stands were pretty full by the time this race got going. Check out all those Japanese flags!

There is one Japanese rider currently racing in the MotoGP class, Yuki Takahashi. There are also a few others in the 250 and 125 cc classes. Actually I think the Japanese star of the day was the 250cc rider Hiroshi Aoyama, who came in 2nd in his race. Unfortunately for Takahashi, he crashed out in the first lap, taking down one of my other favorite riders, Nicky Haden with him =( But this is only Takahashi's rookie season in MotoGP, and I am very much looking forward to seeing him develop as a rider ^^

Anyway, we had a pretty good view for the start of the race

And some awesome views of the curve

^ here you can see the 3 leaders - Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi, and Dani Pedrosa (1, 2, and 3 from the left)
A closeup of Rossi and Pedrosa

The race was actually fairly straightforward, the biggest event being that Rossi lost the lead to his teammate Lorenzo relatively early in the race, and was never able to get it back. Aside from the crash at the beginning (which happened on another part of the track so we only saw it on the big tv) and a little back and forth between Rossi and Pedroasa, it was pretty uneventful, ha ha ha

Rossi approaching the finish line

The final results were Lorenzo in 1st, Rossi 2nd, and Pedrosa 3rd

Lorenzo got a bit caught up in the excitement and jumped off his bike to plant the victory flag in the sand

After which his bike stalled and he had to be pushed over to the podium, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

You can hear the Japanese announcer saying near the end "that was a great performance Lorenzo, but please don't stop your engine! ^^"
Before we left we checked out the shops one last time

And I made sure to grab some Rossi schwag

And that was it! We hopped back into the car and began the 6 hour journey back home. I'd say it was a birthday weekend well spent ^^

And in return for going with me to this race, I had to promise my friend I would go with him to see the F1 Japanese Grand Prix race at the Suzuka Circuit in October. So it looks like my racing days for 2009 are not quite finished yet! ^^

E=awesomeness

2009-05-30T10:51:00.013+09:00

I had to go to Gifu City yesterday for a conference. Usually I don't like going to Gifu, especially when I have to take a train that leaves Takayama at 650 in the morning in order to make it on time. There's not much there that I am interested in doing, it's usually hotter and more humid (in summer) than Takayama, and it takes over 2 hours to get there by train. Plus, if I go for work it means I have to sit in meetings all day, and yesterday was no exception. I would have much preferred to stay in Takayama and go to school ^^ ha ha ha ha, I'd rather be at school than travelling to a city. Oh, how times have changed!

After the conference I chose to come back with some other ALTs on the 615 train. Usually when we take this particular train, we end up standing in the back of the car as the non-reserved seats are all taken by people in Nagoya. Last night, however, we got lucky. There were just enough open seats!

I was pretty tired after having to get up so early, then sitting in meetings all day, so I planned to just plug in the iPod and go to sleep. Shortly after we all sat down the man next to me turned to me, pointed at the ALT in front of me, and asked "is he your husband? if you want to sit together I can exchange seats with him." I just laughed and told him that we were just co-workers and it was fine. I put on the iPod and prepared to pass out.

And then a thought struck me. Hey! He spoke pretty good English. And I had noticed when I sat down that he seemed to be reading some kind of technical paper. Whatever it was it was full of mathematical equations involving integral signs. Something like this:

which I totally stole from the wikipedia article on path integral formulation. This particular equation came from the section on the Schrödinger Equation.

But enough geekery. I glanced over at the paper he was reading again, and I noticed it was written in English. He was reading a paper about something very math-ey, in English! Intrigued, I had to ask him about it.

me: wow! you're reading about math in English!
man: yes, it's a paper about theoretical physics
me: *glances to the top of the paper*
paper: *quantum mechanical theory.....*
me: oh! are you a student?
man: no, I must write some questions for a test so I am trying to get some ideas.
me: so you're a teacher then?
man: yes. I'm trying to make the questions difficult, but no TOO difficult.
me: wow, that sounds, well, difficult :D
man: yes, these days there are so many students who attend university. I think many more than in the past, because they don't want to start working yet ^^ (ha ha)
me: really?
man: yes! and a lot of them want to go to graduate school to keep avoiding starting work [*wink wink, nudge nudge*]. so I must write a good test to find out who REALLY wants to study and who's just avoiding work. Especially in this subject, because it is very difficult to find work in this field. There aren't many positions open for theoretical physicists.
me: O.O

Turns out he's a professor of theoretical physics for a university in Tokyo. He's originally from a town near Takayama, went to high school at Takayama's best public school, then university in Kyoto. He was returning for his nephew's wedding, but he had to give a lecture that day so he had to take the train all the way from Tokyo, via Nagoya, instead of the (much more direct) bus.

I was curious, so I asked him if the textbooks Japanese theoretical physics students study are in English, and he said that for undergraduate students it's all in Japanese. But if they go to graduate school they also must learn English because many of the papers they will have to read about the subject are written in English. Also sometimes French, German, or Russian, but mostly English. And then if they do a PhD, their dissertation must be written in English.

!! Can you imagine? Doing something that difficult in a foreign language. It really makes me appreciate much more how lucky those of us who speak English as our native language are. I mean, sure, I can have a simple conversation about inconsequential things in Japanese (hey! it's pretty hot today isn't it? is this an apple? can I sit here?) but I can't ever imagine doing something like differential equations. Heck, I can hardly explain why I hate eating shishamo so much, ha ha ha

We chatted a little about his work, and then moved on to much more important discussions. Like our mutual dislike of natto

We talked non-stop for the entire ride home. About food, teaching English, my lack of scientific anything since I've moved here, how he lived in France, how he met his wife, how we both like motorcycles. He teased me for wearing my Ducati sweatshirt, when my name so closely resembles another famous motorcycle brand ^^

In the end, I was really disappointed the train ride wasn't longer. That was a pretty damn awesome conversation! And who would have thought? There I was, ready to just pass out and ignore the guy next to me. If it hadn't been for the integrals, something I hated doing in college, by the way, I might never have met such an interesting person d(^_^)b

I never thought I'd say it, but thank you, Isaac Newton.

green alligators, some long-necked geese...

2009-05-17T19:02:00.005+09:00

This past weekend (May 16-17) was the All-Japan ALT Soccer Tournament. There are two tournaments held every year, one in the spring and one in the fall, although this is the first time I've gone to one. Usually the spring one is in June, but for some reason they moved it up a month early, so we got to play in some lovely springtime weather (driving rain and wind ^^)

Gifu prefecture was only represented by the girl's team this year as the boys failed to get their act together in time. We were the only participating prefecture with no men's team. Rock on Gifu Pirates!!!

And since our prefecture is pretty large, and our team members are spread from the north (where I live) to the south, this was also the first time we've all played together. The result? After 4 games yesterday and 3 today, in the wind and the rain and the cold, we came in 3rd place (out of 6). Not bad, eh? Honestly we weren't THAT upset when we were eliminated in the semi-final round, as the losing team was free to go home afterwards and we'd all had about enough of being cold and wet.

After 2 days spent outside in nasty weather playing soccer, and then another 3 hours driving home, followed by a quick stop for dinner, I realized I needed to do some shopping before I went home. Cause I knew once I was in I'd collapse into an exhausted, lumpy heap on my bed. So I stopped at my usual supermarket on the way home, hair still a mess from being wet and wind-blown (thus resulting in it being very VERY stringy and curly) and up in a pony tail, and wearing the sweatshirt and fleece pants I changed into after the last game. And it slipped my mind that just about every time I go to this place I see someone I know, seeing as it's the closest market to my towns.

Sure enough, as I'm grabbing some milk I turn around and there's one of my 7th graders with his mom. He says hi and I ask him how he is (your typical quick say-hi-without-really-wanting-to-talk greeting). His mom, who I may or may not have met in the past (can't remember, but most people in my town know who I am even when I have no idea who they are), comes over to say hi and looks in my basket.

The contents of my basket are:
apples
bananas
soba noodles
ground chicken
ground pork
milk

"mom": what are you picking up?
me: *looks in basket*...*grins*....uh, food?
"mom": food! ha ha ha ha ha! *slaps me on the back*
student: *looks embarrassed*slowly creeps away*
me: *continuing to grin at the absurdity of this conversation*
"mom": *points at her son*keep up the good work with him, eh?
me: yes mam!

This was followed by me being spotted by and waving to/ saying hello to at least 4 other students before making it out of the store. still in sweats, hair still a curly mop.

And you know what? It was just another example of why my town is so awesome. Cause I can totally do that and not be embarrassed, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha =D

On tasty, doughy, molded delicious

2009-04-16T06:30:00.003+09:00

The spring Takayama festival was on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Tuesday night would have been the parade of floats through the old streets, except that the weather was crap. Rain, all day. We had gorgeous weather the week leading up to it, and it cleared up in time for Wednesday too. But Tuesday? Naw. Rain.

So, no floats this year. But they did have the festival stalls, which are conveniently located along a street that has covered walkways ^^ I decided to go, even in the rain, to see old friends and, more importantly, the call of taiyaki was just too strong...

Taiyaki is the most fantastic festival food I have discovered. And there are a LOT of fantastic festival foods. There's this misconception that all Japanese food is healthy, but these events are the proof that this is just not so. Karaage (fried chicken), giant baked potatoes covered in butter, yakisoba, takoyaki (balls of fried dough with bits of octopus inside, quite tasty!), crepes (yes, the Japanese have fully embraced this feature of French culture and taken it WAY beyond anything I ever saw in Paris), chocolate-covered bananas and strawberries, okonomiyaki (sort of a fried mish-mash of noodles and toppings that vaguely resembles a pizza), various kabobs, some delicious pita sandwiches, frozen chocolate-covered fruit, ice cream ... the list goes on. and on. and on. ^^

But, the best is taiyaki. Which is a fish-shaped cake filled with any number of delicious fillings, usually azuki (red bean) paste. (wikipedia link)

This year I found a shop selling miniature tayiaki, that you could buy as sets ranging in size from "little delicious" to "whole-world delicious" (^o^) I got a "little delicious" variety set, filled with tiny surprises of custard, chocolate pudding, green-tea, and of course, azuki. Which is my favorite.

Welcome festival season! My stomach and I look forward to enjoying you ^^

Concert!

2009-04-07T06:51:00.004+09:00

eeek! Haven't updated this in almost a month! m(_ _)m sorry sorry! I've got a few interesting stories to share, and no time to share them at the moment... the new school year is going to start.... in about 2 hours. Yeah, we had a nice long week and a half break between school years, ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway, I went to a concert in Nagoya on Saturday, Punkspring 09. Five bands played, three of which I was familiar with - NOFX, Bad Religion, and Rise Against. NOFX and Bad Religion were probably my two most favorite bands when I was in high school and college, there was basically no way I was going to miss this show ^^

It was also my first concert experience in Japan. For the most part, it was the same as at home - mosh pits, pushing, shoving, loud music (ah, the hallmarks of a good punk show), except that between songs the crowd got real quiet. The bands were also a bit less interactive with the audience, vocally wondering onstage if anybody could understand anything they were saying, ha ha ha ha ha

The quiet did work out for me during NOFX's set though, when I shouted "I love you!" to Fat Mike (the lead singer) and he said "that's sweet, but let's try to keep this more of a friendly relationship" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I love that band.

I didn't take my camera in, but here are a few pics from the show I got with my cellphone

Rise Against

Bad Religion

NOFX

Hooray for spring!!!

Graduation

2009-03-14T12:03:00.003+09:00

The junior high schools in Takayama had their graduation ceremonies this past Tuesday, March 10. I was in Miya, same as last year. I've posted about the graduation ceremony before, so this time around I'm going to talk about something different. One of those odd little things that only happens in Japan. Or anywhere that requires a change of footwear at work.

Graduation is a big, big deal here. Students show up in the same thing they wear every day - their school uniforms, but teachers are expected to dress to the nines. As in, suits and white ties. Women wear black. I broke out the pearls even.

This year I went for the Johnny Cash look, after noticing that my white dress shirt isn't so white anymore, heh heh...

I've cropped the picture since I'm not really supposed to show close-up pictures of my students anymore (sorry!)

Now, the fact that I'm wearing a suit isn't that big of a shock... or maybe it is. But what I really find amusing here is the pairing of this quite dressy look with my school shoes. Which happen to be a pair of blue sneakers.

And this, of course, is perfectly acceptable.

Another farewell...

2009-03-05T18:49:00.006+09:00

The end of the school year is fast approaching, and with it, graduation. I had my final English classes with the san nen sei (9th graders) at both of my schools this week. Since my schools are very small, I only have one class for each grade - 1A. 2A, and 3A. Both of my schools opted to let me be in charge of the final class (in Kuguno I was allowed free reign in my final 5 classes with them), so in Miya we played a game and in Kuguno we finished the English yearbooks I'd started with them several weeks ago. I also saved some time at the end for my goodbye speech and for handing out the music cd's I decided to make for all of my graduating junior high kids. Talk about something that's easier said than done - that sounded like such a good idea when I came up with it last month, only to turn into a hellish amount of work to get it done in time, lol. But I think they were happy to receive the gifts, complete with a message from me, written in English and directed toward each student individually.

It's customary for the graduating classes to give all of their teachers large square cards with messages from the students. Last year I got them from both my junior high (9th grade) and elementary (6th grade) graduating classes. This year I got the card from the students in Kuguno after their pre-graduation celebratory ceremony, held two weeks ago. This class decided to part with the usual tradition of messages from each student, and instead chose a kanji for each teacher. This is mine

This character, when used in the verb 抱える (kakaeru), means "to hold". They explained to me that they hope I will forever hold the memory our time together when I return to America (T_T)

I missed the part of the ceremony where they gave these out as, torn as I always am between these two schools, I had to go to Miya to participate in part of their san nen sei party. So the kids at Kuguno gave me the plaque the next time I was there, in the lunchroom before the entire school, prior to everyone eating lunch.

In Miya, after handing out the cds, the class had asked for some time to give their farewell to me. Which started by presenting me with my message

which includes a picture of the entire class when they were ichi nen sei (7th graders), 3 years ago. This they followed by singing a song to me.... at which point my self-control went out the window and the tears started flowing, lol (;_;) After that we took a picture

These two classes have by far been my favorites. Since I've had them from when they were ni nen sei (8th graders), I've had more time to get to know them than the kids who graduated last year. Plus, they're just FUN. Many of them are outgoing and playful, and all of them are kind - there's not one kid in either class I don't feel comfortable talking to or teasing. I'm really going to miss them! But I'm excited for them to move on to new challenges and experiences d(^_^)b

Survey!

2009-02-21T10:54:00.005+09:00

One of those silly surveys that gets passed around. Decided to post mine here. Also, I found a bunch of old pictures from when I first moved to Japan and I was taking pictures of EVERYthing, so I sprinkled them in randomly. They have nothing to do with the survey answers. Enjoy!

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE:
I got my first name from my Irish grandmother and my middle name is the same as my mom*. Ironically, my Irish grandmother's real name was Jane, but everyone called her Jenny (hence me being Jennifer), and here in Japan everyone seems to think my name is Jane.

*As has been pointed out to me recently, my American grandmother's middle name was Jane, not Ann... not sure why I remembered it wrong. Let's just chalk it up to Jen's crap memory for now
... >>
... << ...
Either way, it still fits in with the Jen/Jane theme ^^

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Tears of joy in a laughing fit last weekend ^^

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
It's ok I guess. A little sloppy. And I can never seem to write す properly.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT?
uh, turkey?

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Nope!

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Of course. I'm awesome.

DO YOU USE SARCASM?
No. Never.

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
As far as I know, yes.

WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
I'd like to think I would, but I'd probably get to the top, take one look, and back out :D

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Whatever happened to cracklin' oat bran? man that stuff was good.

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Depends on the shoes, but generally speaking I've gotten quite adept at the Japanese slip-off-method.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Vanilla.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
I have an odd habit of looking at hands for some reason...

RED OR PINK?
Red

WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I'm a bit of a procrastinator, so I'll put off answering this one for a little while

WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
fuzzy white and grey striped uniqlo pajama bottoms and no shoes

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The sounds of my apartment

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
emerald green. or some fancy named color that is emerald green. like fern. or mountain meadow.

FAVORITE SMELLS?
I really love the smell of rain, especially on rocks. Also, I miss the smell of the forests in Colorado.

FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Baseball. BASEBALL!!!!!!

HAIR COLOR?
Natural color is a fairly boring shade of dark blond that I find it nearly impossible to cover up in Japan. Also, it's increasingly gray. I'd say right now there's probably about 4 or 5 different shades in my hair, from the old light tips to the brown lowlights, some old highlights, the gray, and the natural color.

EYE COLOR?
kind of a chameleon-ey green that can look blue depending on what I wear.

DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No. the optometrist said I have better than 20/20 vision. nya! :P

FAVORITE FOOD?
mexican. oh god, how I miss mexican. and corned beef.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
generally speaking, happy endings are good. unless they're unrealistically happy, then they suck.

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
uh, something on the airplane back to Japan

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
red.

SUMMER OR WINTER?
I love winter sports but I don't like the cold. I'd say I'm more of a fall person.

HUGS OR KISSES?
yes please :)

FAVORITE DESSERT?
vanilla ice cream. or butterfingers.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene (I am, after all, a science nerd)

WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Didn't watch tv last night

FAVORITE SOUND(S)?
I really miss the sound of the mountains in CO. The wind blowing in the trees just doesn't sound the same here.

ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles

WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Not sure. I'm pretty far now, but maybe, Sydney? or Hong Kong. Probably Sydney is farther.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I've discovered a latent baking ability, now that I live in a country with no ovens.

Yum

2009-02-17T22:33:00.004+09:00

In a sign of just how much I've changed since moving to Japan, tonight after taiko practice, while we were all sitting around chatting in Japanese and eating snacks, I ate a chocolate-covered piece of seaweed from Korea. And I liked it. So much, in fact, that I ate two.

My Valentine?

2009-02-14T07:44:00.005+09:00

I've never been a big fan of February 14. But in the spirit of giving, I thought I would share with you one of the unique traditions in this country.

In most places around the world, Valentine's Day is all about the ladies. Men famously agonize for weeks over the perfect gift, dinner, night out, whatever, for the object of their affection. Women sit around and wait to be impressed. As it should be.

In Japan, however, things are backwards. Women give men gifts. Usually of chocolate. In fact, there are two types of gifts, giri choco, obligatory chocolates for bosses or co-workers, and honmei choco, for their true love.

Not ones to miss out on a marketing opportunity, in 1978 the National Confectionery Industry Association began to take advantage of the deep feelings of obligation (especially as relates to gifts) in the form of White Day, held one month after V-day, on March 14. This is the day for men to repay the kindness shown to them by their loved one, or their employee, by purchasing any number of White Day gifts. link

I had the fortune of experiencing this particular oddity firsthand last year. It just so happened that my first visit to one of my elementary school's after having returned from the Snow Festival in Hokkaido was on Valentine's Day. When you take a trip in Japan, usually you are expected to bring some kind of omiyage or souvenir for your co-workers. The gift to bring from Sapporo is a white chocolate biscuit called Shiro Koibito, or white lover. So, being the good employee that I am, I brought some white lover back for all of my schools. Because of the fairly rigid hierarchy in Japan, usually I give the gifts to the principal of the school, telling him that it's for everyone. Then they pass it along. Usually they understand this.

About month later, close to White Day, I realized the message on this particular occasion hadn't been clear. I was actually quite confused at first, when my principal came up to me in the staffroom. A bit embarrassed, he looked at me, fumbled for a minute trying to think of what to say in English, decided he couldn't do it, and handed me a small bag with some sweets from Tokyo in it. Surprised, I thanked him and he was on his way.

It took the rest of the day to figure out what had happened - apparently he mistook the Sapporo omiyage for a Valentine's gift, of the giri choco variety I assume, and therefore was reciprocating with a White Day gift. It was so sweet I didn't have the heart to tell him my gift had been omiayge, intended for everyone (*^_^*)

With V-day safely on a Saturday this year, I plan to celebrate (by which I mean completely ignore) the holiday snowboarding in Nagano. So doubtful I'll get any White Day gifts this year... but I guess we'll just have to wait and see ^^

Is it an early spring, or just a tease?

2009-02-05T16:56:00.005+09:00

It's really warm here right now. Like, REALLY warm. Today it was in the 50's. In the 50's! It's February. Early February. This fantastic springtime weather is about 2 months early.

Today at elementary school, I played with my 1st graders during the lunchtime recess, and then, because I had no classes after lunch, again for about 2 hours in the afternoon before it was time to go home. We played on swings, on the bars, the jungle gym, played several games of tag, and dodge ball. They rode around on the unicycles (which I've always found fascinating - can you imagine a shed full of unicycles for the kids to play on during recess in the US?) and played on stilts (another safety-conscious toy that shows up at the schools here) and I tickled them as they tried to cross the monkey bars. We ran all over that dirt school yard, which should be covered in snow at this time of year, but which is only a bit damp and a little squishy. And me with nothing more than my fleece vest.

As far as "normal" life is concerned, the warm weather is fantastic. Lots of chances to enjoy being outside and it's way easier than shoveling my car free in the morning. Even the parking lot for my apartment is all but snow-free at this point. My olive oil is liquid, for pete's sake!

But as far as winter sports are concerned, this weather couldn't have come at a worse time. The snow, quite frankly, sucks for snowboarding or skiing. I went last Sunday and it was, quite 'meh'. And right now Takayama is hosting the All Japan Junior High School Ski Tournament. I have several students participating, actually. And I can just imagine what they must be thinking... now, of all times, to have this glorious weather. LOL

Ah, Mother Nature. How you do like to toy with us so.

Monpachi!

2009-01-28T19:13:00.003+09:00

Some people have asked me if there's any Japanese music that I'm interested in. Since I've been here, I've had the chance to sample lots of local music, and some of it I find quite to my liking. Especially a punk band from Okinawa called Mongol 800 (pronounced mongoru hapyaku), often abbreviated simply as "monpachi". Cause, you know, mongoru hapyaku is just such a long name *rolleyes*

Anyway, in the event you'd like to hear what my favorite Japanese rock band sounds like, I give you their most famous song, 小さな恋のうた (chisana koi no uta - small love song)

MONGOL800 - 小さな恋のうた
by ASHIKASAN

Here's the wikipedia link, in case anybody wants some further reading ^_^

A great big day, all over the world

2009-01-21T22:15:00.003+09:00

The free newspaper I was handed as I exited Gifu station today

....and the other side ^_^

yeay v(^_^)v

Let it snow!

2009-01-13T16:43:00.003+09:00

Two posts in two days? Must be some kind of record (-_^) It's snowing today. Big, fluffy, white flakes. The kind you only dream about as a kid, when you live in Colorado. The kind that only exist in places with copious amounts of moisture in the air. Perfect for molding into snowmen, or small projectiles to whack your friends with. The kind of snow I NEVER had growing up.

Course these days, that kind of snow translates not so much as "really fun stuff to play with" and more along the lines of "man, I have to shovel my car free"... but there's still something magic about it. At least in January. By March I know I'll be ready to enjoy the wonders of liquid olive oil (the likes of which has long since solidified at room temperature in my apartment. along with the honey. strangely enough though, the "salad" oil I bought for frying onions in December is remarkably fluid...)

Just after 4pm today a small break in the storm allowed me my "kairu chansu" (opportunity to go home), as my teachers put it

It lasted all of about 10 minutes before returning to this

Winter is back!

2 weeks

2009-01-12T18:43:00.007+09:00

That's how long I was home for. And now that I've spent the better part of the last 3 days "re-adjusting" to the 16-hour time change between Colorado and Japan (which is code for "hanging out watching tv and reading"), and it's been 5 days since I returned to the country, I figure now is a good time for an update ^_^

I had a very full two weeks back in Denver, spent catching-up with friends and family and enjoying all that life in America has to offer. Like...

Culture

Art:

Shopping

(^^ day after xmas... BAD IDEA)
Food:

The great outdoors:

(^^ you did know that 1/3 of Colorado is very VERY flat, didn't you?)
The city:

Christmas:

New Year's:

And a good amount of sleeping-in, movie-watching, and just general hanging-out with friends

In case anyone was curious, I had no trouble at all clearing immigration upon my return to Japan. I was a little nervous, since I hadn't spoken Japanese in over two weeks, and I still don't know how to say "re-entry permit"... but I just walked up to the guy, handed him the two books, pointed at the new one and said (in Japanese) 'new passport'. And that was it; he checked my re-entry permit, found it acceptable, and stamped the new passport no problemo. And now, after years spent obtaining a well-populated book, I have one solitary, lonely stamp that says '7 JAN 2009 NARITA'

d(^_^)b

That was one long trip...

2008-12-25T10:21:00.001+09:00

Two train rides, two plane rides, a bus and a car ride, and about 30 hours. That's what it took to get me from Takayama back to Denver for the holidays. All in all, it was a relatively painless trip (minus the sleep deprivation), I made all my connections no problem and even made a new friend on the flight from Tokyo to San Francisco.
This is from somewhere between California and Colorado... probably Utah?

The biggest hurdle I've had so far occurred during immigration in San Francisco.

Me: *taking every opportunity to make small talk now that I'm surrounded by English speakers* "that's a really old passport. It never works in the new readers they have, you have to type everything in by hand"
Passport guy: *looks at passport* "yeah, it is old. It's so old in fact, you won't be able to leave the country with it."
Me: "eh?!?!!"
Passport guy: "yeah."

Apparently, if your passport expires in less than 6 months, you have to renew it before you are allowed to travel abroad. Mine was good until April of next year, four months after when I plan to head back to Japan, and two months shy of the cut-off (>.<)

So my first full day back in the US was spent getting a new passport, which went surprisingly smoothly considering how horrible the process of obtaining official documents usually is. The first thing I had to do was to contact the Japanese consulate, who informed me that all Japan cared about was that the passport and my re-entry permit were still valid when I went back (I can renew the passport in Japan). The US immigration office didn't really care what the Japanese had to say though, I got the feeling that even if the Japanese would have let me in, the Americans still wouldn't have let me leave.

As it turns out, if you can prove you are leaving the country within 14 days, you can go directly to the passport agency to get a new one. Lucky for me, there is an office in Denver, so I set up an appointment for the latest possible time that day, which was 11 am. This was at about 10 am, we live around 40 minutes from this place, and I was still in pajamas. So I basically got dressed and out the door, didn't even have time to brush my teeth, and headed straight for the passport agency.

After more than a year in a country where if you miss your appointment by like, a minute, you're out of luck, I was a little apprehensive. But, we just managed to get there before my time (yeay!). The guard asked me if I had 1) an appointment (yes) and 2) passport photos (no) and told me to run down to Kinko's to get them. When I expressed some concern about missing my appointment time he told me "don't worry, you have an appointment, we'll still let you in". I love America! Ha ha ha.

Anyway, I got the photos (dirty hair and all), got the stuff turned in, and after begging and pleading with the man behind the glass, talked them into letting me pick it up the next day. My argument being that the American and Japanese holidays overlap in an inconvenient way - the US offices are closed over Christmas and the Japanese ones the four days after New Years, so if I needed to transfer the re-entry permit I needed to get the documents back ASAP.

Other than that exciting start to my vacation, I'm just looking forward to being back for two weeks in a place where I can read all the signs and understand the announcements without having to think about it. Also, I've been eating Mexican food like nobody's business. Viva la burrito! Chipotle, to be precise (-_^)

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

An iPod and a Playstation 3!

2008-12-11T17:21:00.002+09:00

Today was my last day at one of my elementary schools before school ends for winter break. So I decided, though it's a little early, to do Christmas lessons today. Cause, well, they're fun ^_^ Not much usable English gets taught, but it's a good chance for some cultural exchange and the kids always enjoy it.

For my 5th and 6th graders I decided to teach them the 12 Days of Christmas song. But, since it's kind of old, and I still have no idea what a partridge in a pear tree has to do with xmas (aside from some sneaky allusion to Christ), I opted for an updated version that I found on this website. Of course, since this version changes the words to modern gifts that people might actually want, there isn't a musical version to sing along to. Which meant we had to do it karaoke style, heh heh heh, which also meant they HAD to sing it cause there was no way to hide if they weren't >:D

Anyway, they lyrics to the final verse are:

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
12 pairs of Levis
11 electric guitars
10 boxes of Legos
9 mobile phones
8 Burberry bags
7 cans of cola
6 Barbie dolls
5 gold rings
4 teddy bears
3 soccer balls
2 Chanel gloves
and an iPod and a Playstation 3!

^_^

It was a bit tough, though really after I explained the intro (on the ~ day of xmas, my true love gave to me...) it's quite easy to understand. The most difficult part is the speed, which was pretty fast on the instrumental version of the song that I have. Plus, I've caught a cold, so singing that song repeatedly for 2 hours was a task... but hey! what's a little laryngitis when we're talking about presents?

Anyway, the kids loved it, and I heard them wandering around the rest of the day, mimicking my dramatic rendition of "5 gold rings!" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ^_^

I am SO going to do this at the junior high schools...

Wow, is it December 6 already?!?!!?

2008-12-06T15:07:00.005+09:00

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been busy doing, well, not much really. I'd like to say that I've been studying my butt (or as they like to say in Japan, "hip") off for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) that I'm taking tomorrow... but alas I realized a few weeks ago there's just no way I'm going to pass it, lol

On the advice of many people I, and several of my friends, signed up for the level 3 (4 being the easiest, 1 the hardest). The reasoning being that we've been in Japan for over a year so should be able to pass that with sufficient studying.... which looks to have been a bit, optimistic. So I've just kept plodding along with my usual pattern of studying when I have down time at school and going to my Japanese class on Friday evenings. I've decided to just use tomorrow's test as a gauge of what I know, since I'm pretty sure I can't pass it ^_^

Other than that, I've just been going to work, chatting with my kids, and playing taiko. Also, in a freak dropping-accident, I seem to have broken my camera, so I don't have many pictures these days to post. The camera still kind of works... sort of. Something inside of it is whizzing around and makes the whole thing shake, so taking pictures that aren't blurry is a challenge. I am planning to get a new one when I go home for xmas in a few weeks, but until then I have to live with either blurry pictures, or none at all.

And here are a few of the least fuzzy pics from the past few weeks, in no particular order. Enjoy!

The shrine I've only recently discovered, which sits at the bottom of the back road that climbs the hill to KJH

Some low clouds hanging in Kuguno

My contribution to Thanksgiving dinner: green bean casserole, from scratch!

Shopping!

2008-11-15T10:07:00.002+09:00

One of the ~~scariest~~ best ways to learn about Japanese culture can be found via shopping. Food shopping, especially. While it's essentially the same as at home, there are some interesting differences between what you find at the supermarket here and what you'd find in a typical American store. On a recent foray into the wonders of the Japanese supermarket, my friend Gavin and I decided to have some fun and document the uniqueness of the items on display...

I'll start of with something simple, and safe. Fruit. It's incredibly expensive here (on average, one apple will cost you at least a dollar), yet also quite tasty, and incredibly large. Like this pear

Moving on from there, we wandered into the snack aisle. Along with the typical cookie and cracker options are the more traditional Japanese delicacies, like dried octopus, squid, and niboshi (small, dried fish).

Niboshi show up in my school lunches with a frightening frequency... I usually take the opportunity to make a "gift" of them to whoever happens to be lucky enough to sit next to me on that particular day (-_^)

From there we moved on to the refrigerated food section, where you can find a nice selection of seaweed

Bento (boxed lunches)

Sushi

And onigiri (rice balls)

I've actually become quite hooked on onigiri since I moved here. They're fairly cheap, and since you can find them virtually anywhere (supermarkets, convenience stores, tiny little shops tucked into alleyways...) they're super convenient. Actually, my favorite onigiri has a tasty seaweed and sesame seed filling (^o^)

Lest you should think that all food in Japanese cuisine is healthy, they also usually have a huge selection of pre-made fried food and tempura ready to take home

Moving over to the seafood section, you find delicacies like fresh squid

Niboshi

And one of my most hated school lunch additions (because there is just NO way to eat around it) are the chirasu boshi... teeny little fish they like to sprinkle on rice

And just for kicks... the cooked fish table

And should think that the biggest shopping surprises are reserved for the supermarket in this country, I'll throw in one bonus I found at the 100 yen shop

Yes, that is a syringe. A SYRINGE. At the dollar store! Will wonders never cease to amaze me...

Emperor's Cup

2008-11-06T20:05:00.009+09:00

It seems there are two, rather short, comfortable seasons in Japan. One is in the spring when things are finally warming up, and the other the beginning of fall when things finally start cooling down. Other than that it's either unbearably hot or insanely cold, and in a place with no air conditioning or central heating, life can be pretty uncomfortable. All that to say that I am once again living in fleece and sitting in front of the, always-healthy, kerosene heater as I type this up. I've yet to pull out the kotatsu, I'm hesitant to break it out this year as once you get under that thing you never get up :P

Anyway, I spent last weekend visiting a friend in Tokyo, where it was much warmer ^_^ No need for kotatsus just yet, and I didn't even break out the fleece. Woo hoo!

On Sunday we went to go see Japanese horse racing (which is just like any other horse racing in the world, except that it's in Japan) at the Tokyo Race Course

We were there to see one of the biggest horse races in Japan, the Emperor's Cup.

It was a first for me; although I spent my childhood around horses and have been to race tracks before, I'd never actually seen a race.

This is the "backside" of the track, facing the paddock where the horses are paraded before and after the race

The "big" race of the day was scheduled for after 3pm, and we got there sometime around 1 so we decided to make some silly bets on the earlier races. To do this you fill out a betting card (which I didn't take a picture of but it was all in Japanese anyway) and then line up to stick it in a machine

That will issue you your ticket

For this race, we decided to go in 50/50 and placed our 200-yen bets on the horses with the best names. Like Ash Cake (#3). And Carmel Voice (#9). And Rikisan Shin O (#1).
Then we went out to the track to see our race...

And of course our horses didn't even place in the top 3, ha ha ha ha

By the time of the big race, the stadium was pretty full

We actually did our homework for this one, and both decided to place bets on the favorite (#14, Vodka).

This was a bit of a nail-biter, as Vodka was only marginally favored to beat #7, Daiwa Scarlet. I decided to also put a bet on a long-shot with a cool name (# 1, Asakura Kings), and Atsuro made some other bets too that I didn't pay attention to.

This time we decided to stand near the gigantic tv monitor, apparently the biggest tv in like, the entire world

Which also happened to be where they first brought all the horses out to the track

Most of them were pretty excited, and took off the second they got onto the track

Except for our beloved Vodka, who, like a true champion, calmly walked onto the track and steered herself over to the crowd and made everybody ooh and ahh... and I took no pictures of it (>.<)

The race ended up being really close, a total photo finish, between Vodka and Daiwa Scarlet

Everyone was waiting with baited breath for like 20 minutes while the judges decided the winner... which was...

...drumroll please...

VODKA! By 2 centimeters! Seriously! Here's a link.

In the end, I made back exactly what I spent that day at the track, including what I lost on the losing bets and the admission fee. Atsuro managed to come out 10 bucks ahead, lucky guy.

I may not have made my fortune betting on fast horses, but still, it was a good day at the races! v(^_^)v

New Additions!

2008-10-24T23:34:00.002+09:00

First of all, I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate Jess and Chris, who welcomed Wyatt Chester into their family on October 20th. I am so happy for you guys! And I can't believe my friends are having kids ^_^ Also, I have to agree with Kraig and ask what happened to Jesus Danger?!? It has such a nice ring to it (-_^)

On the heels of that fantastic news, and cause I'm sure you're all just DYING to know, yes, I did get a car. His name is Tank, and he's a spry 12 year old Mitsubishi Minica.

He is at once the smallest and oldest car I have ever owned, and I was lucky enough to buy him from a friend returning home in August. Since then he's been eagerly anticipating the arrival of my license... or so I assume. At any rate, now that I've got it, Tank and I have been able to share many lovely adventures, including getting lost on the way to another part of Takyama last weekend... in which we ended up in Nagano Prefecture by mistake d(^_^)b

We were trying to get to a town called Kamitakara (technically a part of Takayama), during which we passed by this fantastic overlook

And in the town of Hirayu made a wrong turn that took us up this two way "road"

We didn't get any pictures of the parts where there were lines of cars parked on both sides of the "road", but it was a pretty drive and we did get the leaves

It was at this point that my friend noticed we weren't in Gifu anymore, which he pointed out to me by saying "um, we're in Matsumoto" (which is in Nagano prefecture). My response? A very mature "craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!" ha ha ha ha ha

We never did make it to the ropeway we were trying to get to (seems everyone in Chubu was visiting Kamitakara that weekend... the traffic was a nightmare (>.<)) so instead we visited Honoki ski resort

Other than that fun drive, Tank and I have mostly just puttered around here, going in to town for Taiko practice and Japanese class. And twice to Kuguno when I was running late for school... heh heh heh... eh. Not having a car for the past year I didn't realize just how convenient they really are when you live out in the country like I do. Especially when you prefer to purchase your groceries after 6pm. Hooray Tank!

DMV, part II

2008-10-13T21:23:00.006+09:00

It's been over a week now since I took a day off work and headed to Gifu City, where, with the aid of my wonderful and talented friend who can speak Japanese, I took my driving test. And interestingly enough, the test was the easiest part of the whole adventure. As my friend put it, it was the "craziest/most amusing/bewildering day ever!" And I'm finally getting around to telling you about it ^_^

It started out easy enough, after spending Sunday with another friend who lives near the city, we woke up early Monday morning to get to the test center by 830. The girl we stayed with works at a high school in what is essentially a suburb of Gifu City, and though she had initially planned to give us a ride we decided to take the bus. First in to Gifu City and then another one out to the test center. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, the first of our problems came courtesy of Mother Nature, in the form of a nice, light rain, that extended our ride in to Gifu to about an hour. We were at first unfazed as we got to the station with about an hour left before we needed to be at the test center, and we figured since we had JUST done this a month ago (when I got my paperwork turned in), it should be a piece of cake to get out there, right? mmmm hmmm. Read on.

After finding our gate, and what we thought was the bus we needed, we patiently waited, still blissfully unaware of what was to come. What we hadn't counted on were the hoard of high school students on their morning commute filling up the entire bus and leaving us standing, crammed in the aisle. Teenagers are teenagers, no matter where you are, laughing and chatting and fogging up windows all over the world. We rode on that bus for over a half an hour before we made it to the high school and the kids all got off, at which point we were able to make our way up to the driver to ask if we had missed our stop since we couldn't see or hear anything jammed amongst all those hormones. I initially relaxed in one of the recently vacated seats as my friend went to talk to the driver, until I heard her gasp "uso!" (no way!)... and we were informed we had gotten on the wrong bus (>.<)

Panicking, we get off the bus, into the rain, and run across the street to the bus stop going the other direction. Fortunately, a bus pulls up shortly after that and the driver says she'll take us (for 200 yen of course) to where we can switch to another bus that should get us out to the testing center. So we get on the bus. 5 minutes later, we get off, back into the rain, find the next bus stop, and the bus pulls up about 30 seconds later. We're initially thrilled to see it goes to "mitabora" (where the testing center is), but after our earlier mistake (in which we got on a bus going to "mitabora") we make a point of going straight to the driver and asking him if he goes to our stop. To which he replies "no".

?!!??!

Then, very slowly and meticulously, in typical Japanese fashion, he pulls out a schedule and proceeds to find out when the bus that goes to that stop arrives, which is in 35 minutes. Now REALLY panicking, we said "no thanks", that we only had about 5 minutes left at this point, and he agreed to take us as far as he could (for 200 yen) and let us know when to get off.

So we ride the bus. As we were approaching our stop he remembered that there are often taxis stopped nearby and suggested we try to get one if we could.... and luck be a lady there was ONE taxi sitting there. w00t! After almost getting run over crossing the street, we hopped in.

And got a ride from an awesome taxi driver who took a shortcut and got us there only 15 mins late! Lucky for me, the 830 am appointment was more like a suggestion, they accept people anytime between 830 and 9 am for my particular time slot. phew!

Still jittery and panicked from our expidition, we managed to turn in my documents and I lucked out again and got the nicer of the 2 guys who do the testing. Who actually remembered my friend and I from our earlier visit the month before. And while he was checking that I had copies of 1) my US driver license, 2) the translation of the US license, 3) my full driving record (with the issue date of my original license, along with my *ahem* minor traffic infraction from 1999), 4) the first page of my passport and 3) all of the pages of my passport that have stamps in them (why is this required? who knows), he informs me the copy of the first page of my passport is missing.

(>.<) NO WAY! I had it the night before, I swear! I triple checked everything before I went to bed. But after leafing through the plethora of papers multiple times, I had to admit that it just wasn't there. Not only was a copy of the first page of my passport now floating around somewhere in Japan (a comforting thought), it also occurred to me that all of our public transportation acrobatics of the morning might be for naught as several people have told me they won't let you make copies there. And then he handed me a large piece of cardboard with コーピ (copy) written on it and told me with a grin to run over to the building next door and make a copy. yeay!

Our next task was to fill out some paperwork, which I let my friend handle as my Japanese penmanship isn't anything to brag about, and all the people around us oohed and ahhed at her calligraphic skills. Then I had to take my eye exam. In Japan, instead of calling out letters, you say where the opening of a circle is. Up, down, left, right.

photo from here

I have a habit of mixing up left and right in Japanese so I was practicing how to say them as we walked into the exam room and the guy running my machine proudly announced to me "up down left right ok!" and then I proceeded to do it in Japanese anyway, albeit with hand signals just in case. Then he surprised me with the test for color blindness and all the Japanese ran out of my head and I switched to "green! blue! yellow! red!" ha ha ha ha ha ha

After the eye exam we had a bit of a break, an excellent opportunity to calm down and collect myself for the written test and the driving test. Although I had done the practice course 4 times the day before and 2 times the week before, I was still nervous I would forget something. As we were waiting, the nice test man came up and started telling us how his son is now living in the US working for a Japanese company. And wanting to make a good impression, we did everything we could to engage him in conversation. This drew a laugh from a Japanese guy sitting near us, who turned out to speak excellent English, having just returned from a working holiday in Australia. He was there to change his Australian license to a Japanese one, a process that just requires processing paperwork but still takes the same amount of time as testing does.

My friend stayed behind with our new Japanese friend as I went to take the written test, which is in English, along with the 4 other people who were in my testing group that morning. As far as I know they were all from Brazil, and were taking their test in Portuguese. As expected, the written test was pretty easy, the most difficult part being trying to figure out what the question is asking. I finished first, in about 10 minutes, and went back down to wait for the driving test.

Once we were all ready we headed out to the driving track. We had a group of about 10 people, the 5 of us taking the test, my friend, the two men testing us, and a few people there with the other group, including a man who had lived in Brazil when he was younger and now makes his living helping Brazilian people pass the Japanese driving test. They then split us into 2 groups, all the guys in one car and me and the only other woman testing in the other. It may be that the men were testing for a manual license (since my car is an automatic I took the much easier automatic license test), I'm not sure. At any rate, I got the nice man for my test (yeay!) and I got to go 2nd (double yeay!).

The test proceeds thusly. The tester gets in to the front passenger seat, the testee the drivers seat. I hop in the back and put on my seat belt. She's nervous, but starts out well. He initially offers to help guide her through the course, but she said she was ok so we all sat in kind of an awkward silence for most of her test. Like I said, she started out well, and I was thinking cool! maybe we'll all pass! and then she went a bit fast down the hill and cut the pass a bit close and I thought to myself uh oh, and then in the "crank" section (where you have to make your way though some very sharp turns) she hit the poles. Which is an automatic disqualification. I felt so bad for her! But he surprised me and let her keep going, and we went though the rest of the first half of the course at which point she ran over the curb, which is another disqualification. At that point I could tell he was annoyed, and he told her to go back to the start and finish.

I was already nervous, and after witnessing her failure I was even more so. She got out and I moved to the driver seat. My tester gave me an encouraging "let's pass!" and "good luck" ^_^ and said "lets go!" I had rehearsed the order you're supposed to do everything in so many times, even though he seemed eager to get started I still went through all the motions. Put on the seat belt. Adjust the mirror. Turn on the blinker. Put the car in drive. Remove the emergency brake. Check no cars are coming. The whole time I kept saying exactly what I was doing, to make sure he knew I knew what I was supposed to do.

And off we went. And can you believe just as I make my first turn and he tells me to change lanes the blinker switches off mid-way and I didn't get it back on before I changed lanes. D'oh! And he pointed it out and I said "ah! you're right! I'm sorry" but he didn't seem too bothered by it. He helped guide me though the rest of the test, and all the while I'm talking. "ok, let's turn. and here we go! check! check! check!" I make it though the crank and the s-curve no problem, manage not to hit the curb, and at the train tracks roll down the window "yep, no train coming! let's go!" lol

At the end I park and he tells me "you missed the blinker but your driving was ok" and then, in a rather cheeky move, he asked me if he could have a kiss! lol and I thought to myself, crap, is this a test? Like for a bribe or something? But I just smiled and cheerily said "sure!" to which he laughed and said "no no no! I'm married" ha ha ha ha ha

My friend had been waiting and watching with the other observers, and she said I looked the best out of everybody. Once we were all finished we went back to the waiting area to await the results of the test. And boy was it a loooooooooooong wait. Over half an hour at least, and when you're waiting to find out results like that, it feels much longer. Periodically, my tester would come and chat with us, and since the guy who lived in Brazil is there fairly often they seemed to know each other and we all chatted and joked around. My friend and I are a pretty powerful combination here, I draw them in with the blond hair and she wows them with her wit and Japanese ability -_^ It never works as well when we are separate, lol

During all this we find out that 2 people out of the 5 passed, and the Brazil guy passes along that I was one of the 2. My friend and I let out a shout of glee!!!! hopped around, hugged, waved at our new Japanese friend who was still waiting to change his Australian license, and were all around cute and obnoxious and filled with relief ~(^o^)~

The next step involved filling out some more paperwork, paying for the license, and getting pictures taken. Three of us did it together, me, the other guy who passed, and our new friend. Thanks to running around in the rain and humidity, my hair had curled up horrendously, add to that you aren't allowed to smile in pictures (which of course meant I couldn't keep a straight face when it was picture time) and I ended up with a REALLY funny looking license picture. Doesn't even look like me, ha ha

By 1230 we were all finished and ready to head back to Gifu station and catch a train home. So we said goodbye to our new friend and went out to the bus stop, to wait. As we were sitting there and I was sending messages out to say I PASSED! our new friend drives by in the back of his parent's car and hangs out the window to wave. After waving back, my friend joked they should have given us a ride, and we go back to waiting for the bus. And then out of nowhere our new friend shows up and says "hey want a ride?" d(^_^)b and his parents gave us a lift to Gifu station. His dad was a riot and has incredibly good taste in tv (his favorite shows being LOST and 24) and we all sang songs karaoke style and then they told us they want us to become friends with their daughter and invited us to visit them out where they live in the western part of Gifu prefecture.

With the lift we got to the station much earlier (not to mention free-er) than we would have on the bus and had time to buy some lunch before we caught the local train back to Takayama. What started out as a questionable morning turned out to be a fantastic experience!

"Craziest/most amusing/bewildering day ever" indeed!

Motegi

2008-09-28T16:01:00.004+09:00

I suppose this post has very little to do with life in Japan, although the events in it did take place here. Plus, it happened while I was living here, which should, technically be enough, right? ^_^

Many of you know I like motorcycles, some of you know I follow MotoGP. Well, I follow it on and off anyway, I may not watch every race but I certainly make sure to see who ends up the champ in the end. And this year, one of my favorite riders won the championship, by winning the Japanese Grand Prix. The Japanese Grand Prix, at the track in Motegi, in Tochigi Prefecture.

And the winner this year? After an amazing sweep from 2001-2005, a loss to Nicky Hayden in 2006 and then Casey Stoner in 2007, Valentino Rossi finally made it back to number 1 ^_^

GoGo! Dragons

2008-09-24T18:29:00.006+09:00

Apparently, I've never really described where, exactly, Takayama is in Japan. Most of you probably know that it is in the northern part of Gifu Prefecture, but where is Gifu Prefecture?

To answer this, let me first explain that Japan is made (predominantly) of 4 islands, Hokkaido in the north, the elbow-shaped Honshu, the much smaller Shikoku, which sits south of the western part of Honshu, and Kyushu, the furthest to the south and west. Of course there are many smaller islands as well, including the Okinawan chain, but for all intents and purposes, Japan is made of 4 main islands.

Honshu is the largest of the 4 islands, and according to wikipedia,
is roughly 1,300 km long and ranges from 50 to 230 km wide, and its total area is 230,500 km², 61% of the total area of Japan. It is larger than the island of Great Britain, and slightly larger than the state of Minnesota....
The island is nominally divided into five regions and contains 34 prefectures, including metropolitan Tokyo. The regions are Chūgoku (western), Kansai (southern, east of Chūgoku), Chūbu (central), Kantō (eastern), and Tōhoku (northern). (link)

Gifu Prefecture is located in the Chubu region, right in the center of Honshu. The light blue part of this map.

If we blow that map up to only look at the Chubu region, Gifu Prefecture is the one labeled "21", right next to Nagano (#20)

Gifu Prefecture is then further divided into several regions (like the Hida region, the northern most part of Gifu Prefecture, where Takayama is) and large cities like Takayama and Gero. Three years ago, nine towns and villages near the old city of Takayama merged to become the Takayama of today. This expansion effectively made it the largest city in Japan by surface area at 2,177.67 km² (840.80 sq mi). (link) The city takes up more than half of the entire Hida region, and is shown as the dark green section on this map of Gifu Prefecture:

Now that we all know where Takayama is, let me get on to the main topic of this post, baseball ^_^ Many of you know that I am a baseball person. In the US I always went to see the Rockies play in the summer, and here in Japan I often practice after school with the team at KJH, and I go to see most of the tournament games played by MJH. In fact, MJH just won the second round of the fall tournament and will be heading off to the finals this weekend (yeay). Anyway, one of my English teachers is also a big fan of baseball, and last month I begged him to take me to a Japanese pro game.

The closest team to Takayama, in fact the only team in the Chubu region, (and therefore my default favorite team in Japan) is located in Nagoya City, part of Aichi Prefecture. The Chunichi Dragons.

Last year they won the Japanese version of the World Series, the Japan Series, (yeay! at least one of my teams could do it! -_^), and even more impressively, they were the team featured in the 1992 movie Mr. Baseball.

At the end of August, thanks to my awesome JTE and his wife

we got to see them play the Hiroshima Carp at the Nagoya Dome. It was the first time I've ever been to a game in a dome before, seeing as Coors Field is an open-air stadium.

The inside of the dome looks pretty much the same as any baseball stadium, with the exception of an almost entirely astroturf infield and an abundance of Japanese writing everywhere. Except when writing cool stuff like "GoGo! Dragons" on the big screen (10 points if that made you think of Inspector Gadget ^_^)

The game itself was the same as games at home. What makes Japanese baseball really interesting is the differences you see in the crowd. Like the lack of peanut shells (or anything else for that matter) littering the floor. Or how instead of nachos you can buy a bento to eat at your seat

Probably the most interesting aspect of the Japanese baseball game is the oendan or "cheering squad", who sit together in designated "cheering" sections with taiko drums and noise makers and horns and huge flags to cheer their team on. According to my JTE, many of these people follow their team around to support them. Like, even to away games. (o_O) It isn't so much that there are organized cheering squads at these games that surprised me; rather it's that there are actually Japanese people who don't spend every waking moment furiously looking busy and never taking vacation. Who are these people?!?!!

And it's not just the "official" cheering sections that get into it, but the entire crowd who shake off their usual cloak of calm and reserve to rowdily encourage their team. Unfortunately, the battery on my camera died after only a few pictures so I couldn't take any video, but I did find this one on youtube

Another interesting event not included in American pro baseball (or at least that I remember) are the pro cheerleaders. You have, of course, your scantily clad young women, and because it's Japan ridiculously cute furry mascots that ride around on bikes and do handsprings with huge heads.

An interesting experience, to say the least. Of course, in the end, I suppose all that really matters is who wins and who loses. Currently, the Dragons are ranked 4th (out of 6) in the central league with 12 wins and 12 losses, 2 games behind the #1 Yomiyuri Giants, and 7th (out of 12) in the interleague, 3 games behind the #1 Softbank Hawks. Currently, Hiroshima is ranked one ahead of Chunichi, but on this day the Dragons were victorious with a 7-3 win and 2 home runs. And besides, who wants to be called a Carp, anyway? Dragons are WAY cooler

d(^_^)b

2008-09-14T18:14:00.002+09:00

Both of my elementary schools had their sports festivals yesterday, this year I chose to go to Kuguno to see theirs. But this post isn't about the sports day itself, it's about the party we had after. At a fancy sushi restaurant in Takayama.

Where I ate this.

My dictionary translated it as the generic "shellfish", though I'm convinced it's some kind of sea snail.And to eat it you have to twist it out of the shell using the toothpick. Anyway, I really did eat it, and for all you non-believers out there (Mom), here's your proof

I was a little worried, but actually it was pretty good. Tasted like chicken, ha ha

DMV

2008-09-09T17:08:00.004+09:00

I had yesterday off as an alternative holiday for working Saturday at the JHS sports festival, and I used the opportunity to go to Gifu City to turn in my driver license application paperwork. Actually it's more like a paperwork check. You have to take this ridiculous amount of paperwork to the International Division of the DMV in Gifu City and have them check to make sure you have everything they want before they'll schedule you for an appointment. And they ask you the most pointless, minute questions too. Like, how many questions were on your original written examination, how many did it take to pass, and how many did you get right? ...um, that was 12 years ago (in my case), how the hell am I supposed to remember? And then there was whose car did you drive to take the test? Open or closed course? What kind of physical exam did you have to take? (I guessed eyes and hearing, though thinking back now I think it might just be eyes...) My favorite one was how much money did you spend to get the license (including any driver ed courses and the license application fee). I'm still not quite sure what the point of that one is. Anyway, if you're lucky and you're from Canada or Australia or most countries in Europe, once you get your paperwork checked and you get a scheduled appointment day, all you have to do is hand in your documents on your day and wait to get your Japanese driver license. If you're unfortunate enough to be American (or South African, apparently), you also have to take a written exam and a driving skill test. The written test is as easy as the ones back home, but the driving test is notoriously difficult to pass. And, although this is the INTERNATIONAL DIVISION of the DMV, nobody speaks English there.

Anyway, I went back in June with another ALT and our supervisor to try to turn in this paperwork and was told I needed to have my ORIGINAL license. As in the one from 1996. I told them it didn't exist anymore and they said to get a document that showed every license I've ever had. And they had no sympathy for me when I pointed out that nowhere in the list they give you of stuff you have to have does it say your license must show the date of original issue (mine only showed the date that particular license was issued, in 2005, valid 2 years before I even moved to Japan and way longer than the requisite 3 months). So, I had to request from the State of Colorado, in writing, my full driving record. And 2 months and one document later, I headed back to the Gifu DMV. This time with my friend Angela, who can speak Japanese, to act as my interpreter.

Now, to make this whole process easy, especially for those of us who have to travel halfway across the prefecture to get to this place, they kindly only accept paperwork between the hours of 3 and 4 pm, Monday through Friday. And if you're early or late they won't accept it. Which is why it was so fortunate I had an alternative holiday on a Monday and didn't have to burn a vacation day ^o^

Anyway, we got my paperwork turned in, and this time I got to talk to the slightly more friendly of the two gentlemen who handle this stuff and managed to pass this first round on my second try. Finally! So I've been scheduled for a test on October 6, beginning at 830 am. If all goes well, I could be driving in less than a month! Or, I could go the way of most people and fail the driving test on my first, and possibly second, and third, try. We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed for me (o^_')b

Serve me up some SEOUL, baby!

2008-08-21T21:38:00.003+09:00

Yesterday I returned from a 5 day trip to Seoul, South Korea. It was my final trip with my friend Theresa, who went on to Hong Kong before returning to the US as I headed back to Japan for another year of ~~playing with children~~ teaching. We'd been planning this trip for months, although it's only been in recent weeks that it really started to shape up. In fact, most of what made our trip so fantastic actually came about in just the past couple of weeks.

So a girl Theresa had known something like a decade ago came to visit Takayama. I got to meet her for all of like, a day, but it turns out that her brother lives in Seoul and she suggested we meet him for dinner while we were there. So we did. He, in turn, brought along a friend who has just graduated after studying abroad in the US and is home on vacation while awaiting the results of a big test he just took. We met up with them for dinner the first night and had such a fantastic time with them that we ended up meeting up with them every day of our trip v^_^v Had we been left to our own devices, our tour of Seoul derived from the guidebook, we would have most likely enjoyed ourselves. But we would have missed out on a lot of those things that you only get to experience when you spend time with people who live there. Like their favorite restaurants that they've been going to for 13 years. Or getting a tour of the largest women's university in the world (Ehwa). Or where to get the best deals on socks.

Yes, meeting up with Jasper and Romeo (yes, Romeo, hee hee) really made that trip. I've uploaded photos to my picassa album, you can find them by clicking on the slide show in the upper right hand corner, or for the very lazy amongst you by clicking here. Some of my favorites:

At Jongmyo Shrine

Insadong, the antiques market

Dinner, our first night

Video of Jasper, explaining the steps of eating "sam"

Gyeongbokgung, the Palace of Shining Happiness

Changdeokgung, the Palace of Illustrious Virtue

The "secret garden" at Changdeokgung

Bibimbap

With Romeo (on the left) and Jasper (on the right) at Ewha Women's University (where Jasper teaches)

In Myeondong market

Eating the spiciest kimchi I've ever had at Romeo's favorite (and wonderfully inexpensive) restaurant

Stewed silkworms. No, I didn't try them :P

At the DMZ

Our last dinner in Seoul

I am continually impressed by the caliber of people I keep meeting in Asia. Jasper and Romeo both gave up their valuable time and energy (and paid more than their fair share of restaurant bills) with little more than a couple of souvenirs and the pleasure of our company in return. Granted, our company is worth a lot... but still.

I can't wait to go back ^_^

Matsuri

2008-08-05T18:34:00.005+09:00

Summertime in Japan means one thing: Matsuri Season! You can find one just about every weekend, and many weekdays, in almost any town, large or small.

Yep, summer is all about festivals in Japan. And nothing say "festival" in Japanese quite like fireworks. Sunday I went to the last day of the Gero Matsuri, located conveniently enough, in Gero. Which is just under an hour south of Takayama. Since I still can't drive, I took the train. The same train, it seems, that everyone else was taking. It was so packed that my friends Gavin and Theresa were unable to get on it in Hagiwara and had to drive ^o^ *shock* You would not believe how hot it was on that train. Then again, maybe you would.

Anyway, like I said, festivals in Japan are all about the fireworks. And Gero didn't disappoint.

What I especially enjoyed about the fireworks in Gero is how they paired them with music. Nothing says Japan like Indiana Jones!

The other feature of Japanese festivals are the prevalence of yukata (summer kimono) and jimbe (a traditional summer clothing for men, resembling pajamas in the west). This summer I decided that I too, would jump on the yukata bandwagon, and I bought myself one. And believe it or not, I was actually able to dress myself in it on only my 3rd time ever wearing one!

Dressing oneself in a yukata may not sound like that great of an accomplishment, but it's considerably more difficult than the everyday skill of donning, say, a pair of pants. Not only do you have to measure out the proper length of fabric to fold over at the waist, you also have at least 2 ties under the obi (belt), a clip thing to keep it shut, a board to shove under the front of the obi to keep it looking nice and flat, and then there's the art of tying the obi itself. Which is no easy task, especially when you're doing it on yourself. And you've got 10 minutes until the train arrives. I'd say I still have a long way to go before I've mastered the art of obi tying (if that's even possible), but I think I did a decent enough job for my first try ^_^

Lucky for me, there are still plenty of festivals left before the end of summer, so I've got ample opportunity to practice!

Happy Anniversary, Japan!

2008-07-29T19:23:00.007+09:00

Today I have lived in Japan exactly 1 year. Aside from my very short trip home in January I have not left the country. I can't believe how quickly time has gone by. It seems like just yesterday I was fresh off the plane in Tokyo, jet-lagged and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. (I direct you to my first post from Japan)
July 29, 2007

July 29, 2008

And tomorrow I am going with my supervisor to Gifu city to pick up 4 of the new ALTs.

I can't believe how much my life has changed in the past year. When I first got to Japan everything was amazing and colorful. It was like the entire place was sprinkled in fairy dust. Though the winds of time have gradually blown that dust away, and now it feels more like life than a fairy tale, I can still honestly say that I love this place. Sure, the vending machines aren't quite the novelty they once were and eating a whole fish or squid jerkey isn't quite the adventure it once was, but I cannot emphasize enough how lucky I am to be in Takayama. More than that, being able to live and work in Miya and Kuguno, with my awesome staff and my crazy students.

I have made so many friends, met so many great people, and had so many amazing experiences, it's impossible to sum it all up in one post. But I can certainly try ^o^

I guess like anyone on this program I've had my ups and downs. A lot of difficult decisions had to be made, and there are always those sticky cultural misunderstandings and language barrier issues that arise when living in a foreign land. As my friend Daniel so eloquently put it, living here helps you discover what you are by showing you what you are not. Japan, like any other country, has it's sucky parts as much as it's fabulous ones. I think I've just been lucky enough to experience more of the good than the bad. So here's looking forward to another fabulous year v^_^v

Team Takayama!

2008-07-23T23:11:00.004+09:00

We had a going-away party 2 weeks ago for all of the ALTs who chose not to re contract for this year. Technically I think all of their contracts are up next week, most of them are going home (2 will be staying in Japan, just not with the JET Program). This was the last time we would all be together, I think, and I had initially intended just to go to the dinner. But once I got the yukata (summer kimono) on and a few beers in me, it wasn't long before we were all at karaoke and I had to crash on Kyle's tatami, ha ha.

Hooray for Team Takayama, 2007-2008!

Ever wonder what it's like at a karaoke bar in Japan? Well here you go :D

I can't believe it's been a year already. I'm really going to miss the people going home, they have become like my family away from family.

New peeps are arriving next week, and I'm the only ALT stayin with the program who will actually be in Takayama when they arrive. Eeep!

A taste of Miya

2008-07-08T17:35:00.003+09:00

Summer has finally descended upon us up here in the mountains. High temperatures, increasing humidity, and sunny days have given both my students and I summeritis in a big big way. There's a week and a half of classes left before the "break"; I put break in quotes as most of them will still come to school almost every day for club activities and summer cram classes. It seems the insane Japanese work ethic is ingrained from a young age.

But I digress. All this summerness has me itching to not be at work, and my students' laisser-faire attitude isn't helping much with my own. Add a touch of homesickness (oh Chipotle, how I miss you), and I was in a bit of a meh mood on my ride home today. And then something amazing happened. I was greeted by one of the many little old ladies of Miya in our small grocery store. And then by my neighbors, who stopped their car on the little road that runs between the rice fields behind my apartment to chat with me about the weather. And when I got home I had this nice little present waiting for me

Living in a bigger city certainly has it's benefits (markets open past 6 pm! laundromats! Starbucks!), but there is just something about living with the farmers out in the country that can't be duplicated anywhere else. I really do love this town ^_^

4th of July

2008-07-06T09:23:00.008+09:00

This week I was finally able to prove to myself that yes, the 4th of July does exist in other countries. Unfortunately, it's just July 4; other than being a Friday it wasn't much more than a typical school day.

I did make a point of talking about the holiday and printing out some pictures to show my students how we celebrate Independence Day at home. I got some interesting responses when I asked them why July 4 was special... when I gave the hint that it was an important birthday in AMERICA I got "Jen!" (no!) "Bush!" (no!) "Obama!" (no!) lol, it was only after I said it wasn't a person that they finally figured it out ^_^ The picture of the flag cake got the most interest; in Japan, they have something similar called hinomaru bento, which is a box lunch that has white rice with an umeboshi (pickled plum) in the center, representing the Japanese flag.

(hinomaru bento pic from wired.com )
Personally, I think cake is a much a tastier way to eat your country's symbol ^_^

(pic from recipetips)

Although I wasn't in the US, this year I did get to spend my holiday with other Americans - 3 other Takayama ALTs. And I had the honor of hanging out with the chief instructor of the Ki Society in the US, and all-around really-cool-guy, Kashiwaya Sensei and his daughter, Yuki, who were visiting Takayama ^_^ (For those who don't know, I studied Ki Aikido in the US before moving to Japan)

After baseball practice, I headed up to Takayama where I met Kashiwaya Sensei, Yuki, and 2 other Aikido students who were also in Takayama, Randy and Felicia, for dinner. The PE teacher at KJH actually set the whole thing up for us, I love how helpful people are here ^_^

4th of July dinner this year? Hoba miso (a traditional Hida dish served on a big leaf)

After dinner, Sensei, Yuki, and I met up with 3 other Takayama ALTs, Katie, Dan, and Angela for some fun with fireworks. Which are surprisingly easy to acquire here. In Colorado they're almost universally banned because of the fire hazard. But here you can get them in almost any convenience store during the summer.

The biggest challenge is finding an open area to light them; we chose a spot next to the Miya river near the Hachimon shrine.

Dan, looking like the Statue of Liberty

Sensei

It may have been small, we didn't have BBQ or cake, there were no silly people dressed like flags, but it was the 4th of July. And we had fireworks (^-^) Yeay

Okinawa

2008-07-02T20:15:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I returned from a 6 day stay in Okinawa, where my friend Angela and I tagged along with my friends Nari and Ken on their annual windsurfing trip. I'm waiting for pictures from Angela to do a proper post and upload to the picasa album, but for now I thought I'd give you a few teasers since it's been a while since I last wrote. Enjoy!

At Centrair, the beginning... still on Honshu

My horrible windsurfing form ^o^

Fun with Awamori

The beach

Shoes!

2008-06-15T19:23:00.003+09:00

They say you should replace your running shoes every 350-550 miles. Mine were way overdue... I've had them since spring 2006 (>.<)

Old shoes

New shoes!

Welcome, new shoes. I look forward to getting to know you better ^_^

But never fear, old shoes. Though we may be parting ways during running time, I won't abandon you. For you shall become my new

walking shoes!

Yakedake!

2008-06-08T21:17:00.005+09:00

Yesterday, I climbed a mountain. And not just any mountain, one of the "100 Mountains" of Japan, Mt. Yakedake. An active volcano located on the border between Gifu and Nagano prefectures. And since one of the original reasons I got into geology (my undergraduate degree) was a fascination with mountains that explode, you can imagine my glee in hiking it ^_^

So we began about 9:20 am at the parking lot

The hike is almost straight up and down. Literally, there are hardly any switchbacks once you get out of the trees...

The trees slowly begin to thin... and even though the temperature was falling it was just humid enough that I was still shedding layers, ha ha

gotta love those nice, well-maintained trails

Erin: "hmmm... now where did that trail go?"

About mid-way up there is this fantastic shrine where the tree is splitting this enormous boulder. It also doubles as a great break spot.

The snow lasted pretty much until after we passed the tree line, which was both a benefit as it made the trip faster since it flattened the trail a bit, and a curse as all 3 of us managed to plunge our feet into the snow more than once v^_^

We stopped for lunch on the ridge between mountain summits. All 3 of us agreed it bore a striking resemblance to Weathertop. Sadly, we were fresh out of 'taters and forced to rely on our trusty supply of onigiri ^_^

Nagano is that way, right?

View of Kamikochi, Nagano from the "lunch spot"

After a short break ~~Frodo and Sam~~ Erin and Daniel and I began the ascent of the summit, a crumbly, rocky jumble of volcanic debris. Mostly gypsum

And there were steam vents!!!

And it was steep

Like, really steep

Upon reaching the summit, we toasted the mountain with a sake kampai (cheers)

And puttered around at the top for about an hour.

As any self-respecting volcano should, Yakedake has lovely crater lake

Steeeeeeaaaam vents!!!!

And then after taking a good long look at the building clouds, we decided to descend

Did I mention there were steam vents? ^_^

The view on the way back is breathtaking

Daniel even broke into song at this point

And though the hike down was, well, down, it was surprisingly difficult. I think my legs got more worn out from the hike down than on the way up, ha ha ha

About 2.5 hours after we began our decent we reached the car. ahhhhhhhhh....

And changed pants. Most of the snow was considerably slushier on the way down than it was on the way up ^_^

And we ended our day with a stop at the local foot spa.

Total time: 7.5 hours. Hiking time: ~6
And I'm not even that sore today. Woo hoo!

Pictures

2008-05-24T08:33:00.004+09:00

I finally decided to jump on the Picasa bandwagon. I added a slideshow to the links on the right, and once I've figured everything out I'll try to add a little more functionality to it. For now I think if you click on it it will take you to the album list. I've had an account with Picasa for a long time but I never really used it. And seeing how other people have used their slideshows to such great effect (esp Julien and Martha in Georgia!) I've decided I want one too.

Because I just have to admit to myself that I don't post about all the cool stuff that goes on here and I'm sure you'd like to at least see pictures ^_^

So far all I've managed to upload are pictures from April and May of this year. But I'm going to work on getting the older stuff up too. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll finally be able to see all those amazing pictures from Sapporo! ha ha ha ha ha

Happy weekend everybody!

PS - I'm playing in a public taiko performance this weekend. It's my first one ever and I'm really nervous about it. So wish me luck!

And so it begins

2008-05-18T21:21:00.005+09:00

My cousin Dan married his sweetheart Ashley today ^_^ Well, technically it was yesterday.

Way to leave me the last holdout there, Dan. :P Serioulsy though, congrats guys! I wish I could have been there, I'm sure it was a blast

May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand

And I swear, the card is in the mail ...
<_< ..
>_> ..
^_^

It's rice planting season!

2008-05-17T20:29:00.002+09:00

I've been told that Gifu is one of the poorer prefectures in Japan; full of backwards, country farmers. But when the view on my morning run looks like this:

I really don't want to live anywhere else ^_^

Making Pie in Japan

2008-05-11T09:25:00.002+09:00

A friend of mine had a pot luck lunch yesterday at her new apartment, and requested that I bring pie.

Some of you may be wondering, why on earth would anyone ask Jen to bring a pie?

Well, it just so happens that around here I've become well known for baked goods ^_^ Which is actually quite amazing given that there are no such things as household ovens in Japan.

You may be wondering then, how, exactly, do you make baked goods without an oven? Doesn't the term "baked" imply baking? And you would be right. So I've decided to give you a little tutorial on how I make pie in Japan. Apple pie, specifically.

At home I would have just gone to the store and bought a pie tin with a pre-made crust in it, loaded it with filling, and thrown it in the oven. Cause I'm lazy like that. But, though I'm sure it must be here somewhere, I have yet to see pre-made pie crust in Japan. Not in Takayama, and certainly not in the little store in Miya. Which means you have to make the ENTIRE pie from scratch.

To do this, the first thing you have to do is figure out what the kanji for flour is. This took me a looooooooooong time to do as the first time I made pie here was back last November for Thanksgiving. My Japanese isn't that great now, and back then it was even less. But I digress. The kanji for flour is 粉 (kona)

Mine is a fine powder flower good for baking (and the 粉 in the name is therefore accompanied by lots of other kanji to describe that). So once you have your flour you have to make the dough. My recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, some salt, sugar, and an ungodly amount of butter and shortening. And I didn't take any pictures of this step, sorry.

While your dough is chillin' in the fridge, the next thing to do is peel and chop the apples. Normally you use tart green apples for pie but I forgot at the store and just bought the red ones. Heh heh. Still tasted good though ^_^

For the apple coating I use brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, a little salt, vanilla, and a little more lemon juice.

Mix it all together and you should have some nicely coated apples

Next you have to roll out the ball of dough that should be nice and congealed from sitting in the fridge. It takes about half of the ball for the pie bottom and half for the top.

Once you've rolled out your dough and have it in your pie pan

It's time to fill it with the tasty filling! I think I could have actually done one more apple to fill it better but the pies here have a tendency to boil over in the microwave and it's such a pain in the ass to clean up that I'm a bit hesitant to do it.

The next task is to put the top on the pie. I've done both the full and the lattice tops and I think the lattice ones work out better for cooking here. Plus, it looks more "American" to me for some reason

So up until this point, other than the difficulty in buying ingredients, making a pie here is virtually the same as making one at home. The real difference here is how you cook it. With no ovens, we have to get creative. This is my set-up

I put the pie in the microwave at 500 watts for about 30 minutes. It does a pretty decent job of cooking everything.

Now the reason that my pies have a tendency to turn out better than a lot of people's here is very simple: my toaster. It's just big enough to fit the pie plate. JUST. So after cooking in the microwave, I put the pie in the toaster on medium for another 10-15 to brown it and also to try to cook the bottom more. Pies here have a tendency to be rather soft on the bottom I think because of the way they're cooked.

Unfortunately for this pie, I made the crust a wee bit too big so it got shaved off when I put it in the toaster, ha ha

And that, my friends, is how you bake a pie at home in Japan. The real fun, of course, is in eating it

v(^_^)v

Sakura!

2008-04-28T22:30:00.003+09:00

April is cherry blossom season in Japan, and up here in Takayama ours bloom near the end of the month. The peak was actually during last week, and with the rain we had over the weekend most of the petals are gone now. But lucky for you I had my camera out last week!

This beauty is in Kuguno, near the top of the enormous hill I have to climb twice a week to get to the junior high school

I saw this one in Furukawa, the town just north of Takayama, taken during the taiko festival I went to the weekend before last

Same tree after dark

This one is across the street from my apartment

And the rest are of Garyuzakura, the Sleeping Dragon Cherry Tree, in Miya. It's quite famous and very close to my apartment. So my usually very quiet neighborhood has been full of buses and tourists whom I love to surprise by getting off the train in Miya and walking home. Anyway, the tree is 1,100 years old, enormous, and supported by several wooden beams. Apparently it doesn't matter if you're a tree or a human; once you pass that millennial mark everybody needs a cane ^o^

I spent last Tuesday at MJH with the ichi and ni nen sei (7th and 8th grade in the US) painting pictures of the tree. Mother Nature was in a good mood and provided plenty of sunshine.... I actually came away from the experience slightly pinker than when I began ^_^

Several of the classes from Miya elementary also came on that day for hanami (flower-watching). This is the 5th grade

And a mix of JHS and elem

I got in on the flower-painting action as well

my painting half finished (and what the tree looks like in winter, ha ha)

and the finished product

Maybe not gallery-quality, but not bad for somebody who hasn't painted in like, 15 years, neh?

So that's how I spent a day of work. Out in the sunshine, painting a tree.

Yeay

Happy Birthday to ME!!

2008-04-24T18:20:00.004+09:00

Spent my birthday at Miya elementary today. I can't imagine a better place to celebrate (or try to forget, ha ha) the day of your birth, away from home ^_^ I decided to spice up the regular stuff I had planned for English class, so we learned the birthday song (which surprisingly many of my students already knew) and Happy Birthday! And just before I left for the day, my kyoto sensei gave me omiyage as a present. Some kind of cracker with raisins (^_^)v

For the linguistically curious among you, in Japanese happy birthday is 誕生日おめぢとう！ (tanjoubi omeditou!)

And this is the present I got from the band of students I walked home with, in the rain, today

Hooray for 28

Takayama Spring Festival

2008-04-20T22:28:00.003+09:00

Apologies on the lateness of this post. I had actually written up most of it the night of the festival but was literally falling asleep at my computer as I was typing, which I interpreted as a good sign I should go to bed. And then, well, you know me. I put it off ^_^ heh heh heh. eh?

So, last Monday and Tuesday was the Spring Festival here in Takayama, one of two annual events that draw a massive amount of people to our, relatively, sleepy town. I've gotten so used to being one of only a few foreigners in this area that it is quite a strange experience to be surrounded by so many non-Japanese people, ha ha ha

Mom and Fritz were both in town and had been doing plenty of sight seeing, with me that weekend and then on their own during the day that day while I was at work. They managed to cover quite a lot of ground during the day and were pretty beat by the time I met up with them (and Fritz has the pictures to prove it!), and we were all famished so our first priority was... festival food!

Fritz with okonomiyaki and Mom with one of those fabulous baked potatoes

mmmm... tako yaki

Sandi with frozen pineapple

I also ran into some of my former 3 nen sei (9th graders) from KJH at the festival, which was such an awesome surprise! They all go to school in Takayama so I never get to see them anymore (we never ride the same train), but one enterprising young lass convinced me to swap phone emails with her, then promptly informed me she would kindly share my address with the rest of them so we could all keep in touch. Hahahahahaha.....um... actually I am happy to keep in touch with them so it's all good ^_^ I've actually seen several of my students, both from Miya and Kuguno, at the recent festivals (this one in Takayama and another one I just went to this weekend in Furukawa). But I digress. On with the pictures!

We wandered the festival stalls for a while, saw some fabulously-clad shop keepers

and would you believe right before I wanted to take this picture there was hardly anybody walking that part of the sidewalk and the second I took the camera out *woosh!* this enormous crowd comes barrelling through. Ha ha ha, we had to wait for at least a couple minutes to get a break big enough, and when it finally happened the guy on the left was waving me to "hurry up!" and take it :D

Turtles!!!! How often do you see baby turtles swimming around in tanks at festivals in the US? hmmmm?!

They were so cute! I really wanted one. And they sold out FAST too! I saw them at the festival in Furukawa yesterday too and had to really restrain myself not to go home with one.

The main attraction of the Takayama Festival, both in fall and spring, are the floats that they have. They actually have different floats for both festivals, but the basic design of them is the same. One of my English teachers told me he thought the spring floats actually have nicer woodwork than the fall ones do. To me, they all look the same

You can compare this with the floats in this post from last fall.

This was with my friends Dominique and Sandi; Mom and Fritz had both called it a night at this point ^_^

Not long after this photo was taken Sandi and I decided we'd had enough of being squashed in the herd of people watching the floats and decided to head back to the stalls where we met up with most of the other ALTs in Takayama. And I saw more of my students ^_^

The last local train leaves Takayama at 930, and since Sandi had parked her car at my apartment we both took it back to Miya. We secured some good seats up near the front of the first car, since Miya is the first stop from Takayama, and I spotted some of my 2 and 3 nen sei boys from Kuguno (8th and 9th grade) looking a bit lost trying to find a place to sit or stand and waved them over. These are some of my favorite students, a bit rowdy and actually fairly disruptive in class but they do it in English so I don't scold them too much. They're a riot to hang out with and they're on the baseball team so I see them on a fairly regular basis actually. Though it's rare for me to see them in their street clothes... they all look like little hoodlums! ha ha ha ha ha ha. But they're all really good kids and I adore them immensely. And yes, they bought an air rifle at the festival and were waving it around on the train and nobody but Sandi and I seemed to find this odd...

Ah, Japan.

2008-04-12T22:15:00.000+09:00

I love you, Mom ^_^

Saying Goodbye, Round 2: JHS and ES Graduations

2008-03-27T18:27:00.009+09:00

I got a nudge from my friend Tim that I needed to update the blog more, and in the hopes that I might be able to pursuade him to go to Tokyo next weekend I'm going to comply ;)

Like I said before in an earlier post, graduation in Japan takes place in March. The high school graduations were about a week and a half before the junior high school ones, which were followed a week later by elementary school. I was lucky enough to go to all 3.

All JHS in Takayama had their graduations on March 11 this year. This meant that I was only able to attend the ceremony for one of my schools. this year it was Miya. I was really sad I didn't get to see Kuguno's ceremony, although I did get to participate in the rehersal at the school on the Friday prior.

The week leading up to graduation I spent making farewell cards and playing games in my last English classes at both schools. At Miya we played "hot potato" for our last class, using a small stuffed Oscar the Grouch, courtesey of a cereal box at home (thanks Dave!), and music from my iPod. I told them if they answered a question correctly they could choose a prize from my stash of Colorado schwag; a rigged bribe - I had planned to give them all stuff anyway ^_^

At Kuguno I had my 3rd grade conversation class (which I run almost exclusively by myself) making farewell cards that spilled into 2 classes, so we ran out of time to play the game. But I was impressed by their creativity and we all ended up with a fabulous book of memories, all in English. Even my sleepy-grouchy kid participated, heh heh

During their final regular English class we combined the basic and advanced classes and watched a making-of video of the "We are the World" song from the 1980's. My JTE was asking me I'd seen that video before in America and I had to reply "well maybe when I was little, that song is really old..." ha ha ha

In the afternoon that day we had rehersal for the ceremony, in the gym. Which was freezing. I think I've mentioned this before but there is no central heating here, and insulation is a joke. Those enormous gyms are heated in the winter using space heaters (if we're lucky). Some of them are quite large, but most of them are like this

This is actually from the graduation at Miya elem but they're all the same

At any rate, you have to have a lot of them on for a long time to make any kind of impact and it seems nobody thinks of this fact ahead of time. At least at KJH. I swear, I thought I was going to die when we had the 2nd term closing ceremony back in December. Anyway, we all sat together, bundled up in our winter coats, practicing. Actually, I didn't have a chair so I got to stand, lol

So we practiced how they, one by one, get called and walk to the center of the stage to receive their certificates

and we practiced singing and speeches and then it was over.

I'm sad I missed the real ceremony. I heard that grouchy-kid and the bad-ass girl both cried during the real one, heh heh heh.... *sniff*

I made a point of spending as much time with my 3rd graders at MJH in the days leading to their graduation as well. This included lunchtime, which I had been having with the 2nd grade since January.

They all got inkan stamps this day as gifts - inkan are used here to sign for stuff instead of signatures. I have one too - it says "jenifaa".

The day of the ceremony, March 11 (a Tuesday), one ingenious teacher came early and lit all the stoves, plus the weather was really nice that day, so it was actually quite comfortable in the gym.

All of the parents, staff, and the rest of the students file in and sit together in the gym and then the graduating class, led by their homeroom teachers, parade in. They have a tradition here where the graduating class homeroom teachers wear traditional clothing - kimono and hakama. Isn't that just awesome? What would we do in the US if we tried to have a custom like that? Leather chaps, cowboy boots and dresses with corsets? ha ha ha

Although there were only 22 graduates at MJH this year, the ceremony was still just as long as at even the biggest schools in Takayama. Which just meant we got more speeches and songs, I think.

these things are boring no matter where you are - US or Japan. ha ha

Each graduate walked on stage and received their ceritficate. You might notice they're all wearing their uniforms and not graduation cap and gowns. That's more of a western custom.

After they received their diplomas they turned to the audience and said a few words about their dreams for the future.

And of course there was singing. And speeches.

After the ceremony they had their final homeroom meeting, which I invited myself to... all their parents were there too so it wasn't that strange (I hope!)

I don't know about other schools, but at MJH they have a tradition of taking a picture of the graduating class with all the staff. You can see more than 60 years worth of pictures hanging in the downstairs hallway. I think it's really cool, to see how the school and the students have changed over the years. You can see in the early pictures, the effects of the devastation from the war (no cohesive uniforms, the school still being constructed, etc), gradually changing to the modern society of today. Plus, it's nice to be able to see the ALTs who have been here before me, and to know that one day my sucessor will be able to see me too ^_^
So, after the homeroom meeting we all made our way to the gym to take the picture

And this is what it looks like. Can you find me? I do tend to stick out here a little ^_^

After that we all lined the hall to send the graduates and their families off in style

And then, as the other teachers went back to the office or with their homeroom classes, I ran outside to take pictures with the 3rd grade.

And then they were gone! *cries*

Elementary school graduation was a week later, on March 21 (a Friday). This year I went to Miya elementary. This ceremony, although heartbreaking I'm sure for those who had been together for 6 years, wasn't that sad for me - since both Miya and Kuguno are so small and each only have 1 ES and 1 JHS, I'll get all the 6th graders next year in JHS ^_^

"arigatou roku nen sei" (thank you 6th grade)

On ceremony day, since the elementary school is bigger than the junior high (6 grades vs 3) we packed the gym a bit more

we still froze though -_^

Interestingly enough, they wore their new JHS uniforms for the ceremony

I guess to symbolize moving on to the new school. After their final homeroom meeting we all lined up outside to send them off, same as at JHS. Except it was really cold that day. And outside (>.<)

And that was it! I spent the rest of the day there planning lessons for next year's English classes. I'm glad my last ceremony was the only one where I'm not actually saying goodbye to anyone. Cause April 7, when they come to JHS, I'll get to say "hello!"

It's not just a comic strip

2008-03-21T16:54:00.004+09:00

Peanut Butter is expensive here. And somewhat difficult to find. It's not carried by the little grocery store in Miya, I have to go to Takayama to find it. And when I do, it's in a teeny-tiny jar that costs about 5 bucks. Heh heh, not that that's saying much these days, hu? (-_^)

Anyway, I've been experimenting with different spreads that I find at the store and yesterday my friend Maki pointed out "peanut cream", sitting by the peanut butter.

Yep. Peanut cream.

"pi-nattsu kuri-mu"

Ever the scientist, I figured I'd try it out. You know, as an "experiment". Upon opening the container, you find a creamy, carmel-like substance that smells like peanuts.

The creamy-texture makes it spread nice and smooth, and goes fabulously with apples

mmmmmmmmm. peanuts. what will they think of next?

Snowboarding

2008-03-16T09:26:00.006+09:00

Spring is finally here in Takayama (yeay!), and as we emerge from the mountain of snow that has blanketed the ground for the past 2 months I'm finally getting around to posting about my favorite winter past time: snowboarding.

In recent years at home, plagued by long drives, bad traffic, so-so snow, and laziness on my part, my participation in this sport has dwindled to only one or two trips a season. Compare this with my time at CU, when I had a season pass and went almost every weekend.

But here I live in the mountains, and though it's not really comparable to the peaks in Colorado, there is a ski slope in my village. There is one in Kuguno too. There's a bigger one about a 30 minute drive north of Takayama. And the even bigger resorts in Nagano are only about 2 hours away, what it normally took to get to the big places at home driving from Denver.

I actually started the season off not on a snowboard, but on skis. Something that I grew up doing (started age 6) but haven't done for oh, about 10 years since I switched to the snowboard. However, I've decided after the success of that day I'm actually a better skier than snowboarder. Yet in snowboarding I shall persevere; because, frankly, I think it looks cooler. Ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway, I posted about the ski trip with KJH back in January, though I believe my write-up on it was in the form of my favorite inspirational poem by Kalidasa. So here are a few more pictures from that day.

The view from atop Arukopia resort in Kuguno (that's Mount Ontake - one of the local volcanoes in the background)

With my girls for the day

First time on skis in a decade (I can't believe I'm old enough to count time in decades like that)

One of those great "on the lift" close-ups

What happens when you spend the day skiing with a group of 15 year-old girls: a lot of standing around chatting

After the day of skiing in Kuguno, my next trip was with some friends to the ski hill in Miya, Mont Deus. It was my friend Kyle's first time on a snowboard (after a lifetime of skiing - I could relate to his frustration at the difficulty in switching) and I got to play snowboard-sensei for the day. Actually, this has happened to me a lot this season. To be expected I suppose, when you're from a place with lots of mountains and most of the people you hang out with aren't. I was giving George tips on skiing that day too. But I digress. Mont Deus

Not bad for his first time, hu? must have had a good teacher...

Atop Mount Kuriyama. You can see Miya in the valley behind me

My next trip was Honoke, which is a slightly larger resort (more than 2 ways down?!? inconceivable!), located north of Takayama. Once again, I was called upon to advise my fellow boarders, 2 of whom were trying for the first time that day. This is also the day that I switched boards 4 times. I can't believe I left my snowboard at home - it's been really difficult renting this year. Next season I'll have my own equipment for sure.
The view from atop Honoki (it was cloudy that day, so not the best view)

Strapping in on the bunny slope

We spent part of the morning working on basic skills until I let my friend Gavin take over the instructing and went off with my friends Yoshi and Nari to hit the bigger hills. That's Mount Norikura in the background, the other local volcano.

For the last run of the day we met up with Gavin and Theresa. Coleen, unfortunately, wiped herself out early on in the day. That did result in me getting to use her board though, which I was grateful for.

Next up was a weekend trip to Nagano, in which I and some other ALT friends tagged along with Nari and a bunch of his friends on their annual trip. Fun doesn't even begin to describe how great it was :D It did have quite an ending though... but that story deserves it's own post so I'm gonna save it for now. But I'll give you a pic anyway just to be consistent -_^

And my last trip was the day after the Mashita Seifu graduation, when I was talked into going one last time to Mont Deus. I really didn't have an excuse, it is in Miya after all.
A really great shot of Miya from the top of the hill

I hung out with my friend Evan and the art teacher from one of his schools, Shunpei. Who is amazing on the snowboard. I also ended up changing boards 3 times this day, which resulted in me spending most of it on my ass, ha ha ha

Shunpei, catching air

At the end of the day we finally met up with Gavin again

And now, 2 weeks have passed and the days are getting warmer. Most of the snow on the ground in town is gone and I doubt it'll last on the hills much longer. It was a fun, if short, winter-sports season. I enjoyed it immensely, and am now looking forward to equipment sales so I can hook myself up for next season (^-^)v

With nuts.

2008-03-10T21:29:00.003+09:00

I have now decided I like peanut butter.

This is a momentous occasion; for my entire life until now I was always the kid who had jelly sandwiches instead of PBJ, because I couldn't stand the PB in the PBJ. I ate J's only.

Something about skippy super chunk is appealing to me right now in a bad bad way.

Who would of thought. Of all the things I might begin to like since moving to Japan, it's peanut butter.

------

On a completely unrelated (or is it?) note, spring is coming to Takayama. I spent last weekend in Tokyo where the weather was mighty fine (sunny, in the 40's-50's) and came home to the residual 1-1.5 feet of snow in the Hida region (last week it was more like 2-3 feet). But today, it rained. With snow on the ground, it rained.

What a strange experience. Walking past a foot of snow on the rice fields and it's raining.

Which reminds me, I have now lost every single umbrella I had in my possession. I either left it on a train, a bus, at a school, or it was stolen. One of the one things in Japan it is considered culturally acceptable to swipe is the umbrella. So, last October I had 5. Now, I have 0. Next time I'm at the store and it's raining, somebody's losing my favorite phonics "U" word.

Saying Goodbye, Round 1

2008-03-02T18:24:00.008+09:00

Yesterday I had an absolutely fantastic day, but it requires quite a lot of backstory to express why, exactly, it meant so much to me.

In Japan, the school system is a bit different from the US in that you have to take exams to get into a particular high school, and it may or may not be in your town. Compulsory education here only lasts through junior high, and although it's not manditory, roughly 98% of all kids in Japan do go to high school. Getting in to the right school is very important; basically you must get in to the right school for the job you want to do or the college you want to go to. In my opinion it's a lot of pressure to put on the kids graduating from junior high (15 years old, taking exams that may end up deciding your path in life), but I digress.

Way back in September of last year I met a group of high school students in Kuguno. This is fairly impressive given that most high school kids here are either too shy or beyond caring to give me the time of day.

This all started because I ride the train to work when I am in Kuguno. The local runs between Gifu City and Takayama (and back), and it stops at all the stations along the way, taking about 3 hours. Students in the Hida region also ride this train, either going to the schools up in Takayama or down south near Gero, depending on where they live. In one of the towns south of me, Hagiwara, there happens to be a high school. And that's where the students I met in Kuguno go to school. It's also the school where a good friend of mine is the ALT.

So back in September I met this group of students who live in Kuguno. The train sits at the station in Kuguno for about 10-15 minutes before heading on it's way north to Takayama, so there is a lag between when they get off the train and when I need to be on it to go home. So every week, either 2 or 3 times depending on where I was for elementary school, I have chatted with these high school students before getting on the train. The conversations are an interesting blend of English and Japanese - 2 of them happen to be really great at English, the rest are so-so. It's been a really fun experience, and as I get to know more of them, then more find out about me and it snowballs and I get to make even more friends ^_^

Anyway, 2 of the students were seniors this year. One speaks only a little English, and one is quite good at it. And I really got to know both of them quite well, and looked forward every time I was headed to Kuguno to see them. In the mornings when I got off the train, one of them would be at the door waiting to shout "washoi!" (something commonly shouted during festivals and such, kinda like "hey-ya!" - and his tagline, apparently) and give me a high five. The quieter one was usually standing nearby rolling his eyes, ha ha

The seniors at the high schools here finished classes almost a month ago. So I haven't seen those boys for several weeks. But before classes ended they were telling me about a concert they were going to perform at their graduation, in which one would play guitar and the other would sing. I told them I really wanted to see it, so before they stopped riding the train they gave me all the info they had and invited me to go.

Since I also happen to know the ALT at their highschool, a fantastic South African named Gavin, I talked to him about acutally attending the graduation ceremony as well. Sort of as a surprise to the kids. He spoke with his principal and we worked it out so that I could go. I also managed to get in touch with one of them (who speaks excellent English for a student) in time to let him know I was coming and that I'd be on the train so he should come find me.

Saturday arrives. I get up, get myself going, and somehow manage to be late. Just late enough in fact, to watch the train pulling out of Miya station just as I'm running up the steps. @_@ I was't the only one who missed the train that day though, as 4 seniors were also left standing at the station as the train pulled away. They however, had a mom to drive them to Hagiwara, whereas I did not.

Missing that train was a huge dissapointment for me, not only because I was now going to be late for the ceremony (a HUGE deal here in Japan where everyone is freakishly punctual), but more becuase it meant I didn't get to ride the train with my friends. A good 40 minute train ride to chat and I missed it.

I ended up having to take a bus up to Takayama and catch the 848 limited express train, which stops in Hagiwara at 928. The ceremony began at 9. I didn't know exactly where to go so I was text messaging my friend who was there, and it turned out that since I was late I wasn't going to be able to get in. Crushed, I wandered around outside the school, until some people in the office near the entrance took pity on me and asked me if I needed something.

This actually turned into an interesting conversation as they didn't speak English and my Japanese hasn't quite made it to the point of being able to express "I was invited to attend your graduation but I'm late" so I ended up instead saying "uh, watashi wa, miru... uh, graduation? graduation? what the hell is graduation in Japanese?!?!.... um, san nen sei... bye bye?" ha ha ha ha ha

Eventually we got it worked out, and I finally was able to tell them that I was supposed to be watching the ceremony but I had missed my train. I watched as they debated amongst themselves "well, it's already started, I don't know, should we let her in?" and finally I guess they decided in my favor as they had the youngest guy escort me over to the gym and let me in.

The ceremony was about half over at this point but I did get to see the last hour or so of it. But the real fun began AFTER the ceremony, when I got to go meet all the students. My friend Gavin showed me, and my friend Theresa (who also attended), around the school while the san nen sei were having their final class meetings, and I got to see several of the students I have met at the station. Which was fun. Also got to meet many new faces.

Of course the best part was after the san nen sei (seniors) finished up and it became mayhem on their floor as everyone was running around, chatting and taking pictures and congratulating each other. Gavin and Theresa and I wandered around too, until I spotted some hair I recognized and ran up, shouted "hey!" and got a "Ore? Jen? JEN!!!! WASHOI!", a high-five, a huge smile, and was introduced to all the people who were near enough he could say "Kuguno's ALT" to, ha ha ha ha ha I did manage to get a congrats in and we took pictures and it was great.

Then the other one made his way over, I congratulated him as well, we got a picture

One of them then proceeded to escort me over to the building where they were having the "graduation live" show. I'm sure this was an incredible ego-boost for him, as everyone watched as we walked over there together, chatting and whatnot. Sometimes being in this place you really get a feeling for what celebrities must experience on a daily basis.

Anyway, I saw 3 performances at the graduation live, the best of course being when the boys and their friends played. I also managed to sit with my ichi nen sei (Freshman) friends, which was really fun. When they came out, the singer got to the mike and shouted "Washoi Jen! Jen washoi!" and then they were scanning the, quite packed, room trying to find me. "Jen? imsasu ka?" (are you here?) and when they found me he pointed me out and shouted "Hi Jen!" ha ha ha ha ha, I love that kid.

They sang 2 songs, one of which I recorded and the other I spent taking pictures. Before I knew it, it was over and they had to go home. I am at once so happy for them to have graduated and be going off to college, and at the same time sad because it means I won't get to see them any more. It has been such a great experience getting to know them over the past 6 months. And this is exactly the kind of thing I came to Japan for. Getting to see a different way to experience life, meeting new friends and finding common interests.

I am REALLY going to miss them. At least I still have the 1st and 2nd years, ha ha ha ha ha ^_^

And the survey says....

2008-02-24T17:10:00.004+09:00

The funny thing about the JET Programme is that the interview and selection process take place in the spring. Applications are submitted in December, whittled down in January, interviews take place in March, and offers are sent out in April. By May most people have been placed and in late July/ early August the new JETs arrive in Japan.

Because of this, people currently in the program have to decide by mid-February whether they wish to re-contract for another year or not; so the coordinators know how many new applicants to accept. It's a difficult position to be put in, especially for 1st year JETs, only 6 months into the program and still with 6 more months to go; you have to decide if you want to stay for a time period longer than what you originally signed up for (18 more months!), and what your frame of mind will be like at the end of the current contract period.

My time in Japan has been an amazing experience. And I have found that I'm challenged here in ways that I never was at home - not only through being immersed in Japanese language and culture but in trying to communicate and connect with so many different people from different places. My current work responsibilities have nothing to do at all with what I spent 7 years of my life in school training for, and 2 years after school actually doing. And yet I feel like I am learning vast amounts of things, not only about Japan and Japanese culture, but about the other people on the program I have met here as well as myself.

Now I heard from a friend of mine on the program whose father spent years living abroad, first working with the Peace Corps and then with other agencies, and frequently moving from place to place - and maybe my friend Julien who is currently in Georgia (the country, not the state) can confirm or deny this for me - that there is a reason you have to sign for 2 years with the Peace Corps. That it takes about 6 months to get adjusted to life in a foreign country, then you spend about a year actually living in and experiencing the culture, learning the local language, etc, and the last 6 months you spend preparing to move on to the next phase in your life.

Seeing as JET Programme contracts are signed for one year only, by that logic you spend your first 6 months getting used to life in Japan and your last 6 months preparing yourself to go home, and you don't get any time to really get into the culture. And of course, that's the whole point I started this crazy adventure.

All of this is to say that I have made the decision to stay for another year. I struggled with it for months, putting it off until the absolute final moment I could. In the end, I chose to listen to the little voice inside that told me I am not finished with this experience yet.

This decision has some pretty big consequences for me and many people at home. At the very least, I know some of you are disappointed I won't be coming back at the end of July. Some relationships are changing considerably; but that's not something I'm going to discuss publicly here (sorry! I'm sure you're all dying to know :P). I am not sure how many people are still reading since I don't get many comments, but I will continue to post about life in Japan and my experiences as often as I can.

With so many big changes happening for me, I have neglected the blog a bit I admit. And I apologize for the lack of emails and responses that I should send out, I will try hard in the future to keep in touch better :)

For now, look forward to more stories and posts! I've got some great pictures from the snow festival in Sapporo 2 weeks ago and the crazy Nagano ski weekend trip from last week to tell you all about.

For now, じゃあね！See you!

Remembering 3A

2008-02-20T20:03:00.008+09:00

I've mentioned a couple of times how small my schools are. At Miya JHS there are currently 88 students and at Kuguno JHS there are 112. There is only one of each class at both schools, and they are small enough that I can get to know all of my students really well. 3A in Miya has 22 students, at Kuguno there are 32.

The school year here is coming to an end soon, and the 3rd graders are preparing to graduate on March 11. This week both schools had a ceremony/ rememberance for the 3rd grade class, put on by the other students and the teachers at each school. Again, because my schools are so small, all of my students know each other (at each school separately) and the ceremonies were quite fun. In both I had a part during the teacher's tribute; at Kuguno I sang (in Japanese of course) with the other teachers and at Miya we played taiko and did a sort of gag game show.

Anyway, the purpose of this post isn't the ceremonies themselves, per se. But at the end of each the 3rd grade all got up and addressed the school, thanking everyone for all the memories and experiences they had.

KJH 3rd grade (9th graders in the US)

MJH 3rd grade

Usually at these sorts of things, I sit there with only a vague understanding of what is going on. My Japanese is ok enough for stuff like "do you want a bag?" when I'm at the convinience store and "I have a flat tire" at the gas station, but when it comes to full-on, regular speeches, I get lost quickly.

So I knew they were addressing the teachers, but I didn't really know what they were saying at Kuguno until one boy busts out with "Jen-sensei, we really enjoyed your English class. It was fun to spend time with you, ..." I can't actually remember the whole thing. I was so surprised, not only that they made a speech for me but that it was coming from one of the lower-level boys I rarely get to have class with. The entire room turned to see my expression when they heard the English start, and I know I was grinning from ear-to-ear and beaming while he addressed me. I could tell they were pleased, I was really quite stunned and surprised.

After the ceremony finished, I headed back to the teacher's room to finish up some stuff for Friday, and got yet another surprise. It's not uncommon for students to come into the teacher's room, they do it all the time to ask questions and pick up or drop off things. But they really don't ever have any reason to come to my desk. So you can imagine my surprise when 2 of the 3A boys came up to my desk to deliver this:

A thank-you card, made by the 3rd grade class. All of the teachers got them. Mine, of course, is entirely in English.

Now, other than the fact that apparently the entire 3rd grade thinks my name is Jane, I was most surprised by this:

...Yoshiki is a boy.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I love that kid. He's so not-shy, it's awesome. I'm really going to miss this class.

Kobe!

2008-02-04T19:41:00.000+09:00

Waaaaaaaay back in December (Dec 15-16 actually), my friend Theresa and I took a weekend trip to Kobe and Himeji. I've finally gotten around to cropping and uploading photos, so here you go, 2 months late. Kobe!

The "purpose" of our trip was to see the Kobe Iruminarie (or illumination). We left early Saturday morning and took a bus from Takayama to Kyoto, where we caught a train to Himeji. As it turns out, the bus drops you off at a random stop along the highway in Kyoto, nowhere near the station. Or anything, for that matter. We ended up catching a cab once it became apparent we had no idea where we were in the city, ha ha ha

In Kyoto station we found these fabulous ice cream sandwich things. Heart-shaped and made of delicious ^_^ I got mint chocolate chip. They're so adorable they force you to make cute poses in pictures

....anyway, we actually rode the train through Kobe to a town called Himeji, which is the home of what has been called Japan's most beautiful castle, Himeji-jo.

We were lucky and got a great English tour of the castle, for free! So what would have been the two of us quickly wandering through the castle and gardens not having much of a clue of what we were looking at turned into a 2 hour, very informative, stroll.

We got a nice lecture on all the fasicnating defensive designs built into the castle, as well as a little history on who lived there and how they lived. For example, these ladies are playing a type of "memory" game using colored seashells. The cat, however, is just sitting there.

The castle is full of really cool defensive structures that were never used. It was never attacked, and even managed to avoid destruction during the bombing campaign of WWII.

The different shapes of the holes are for different types of weapons - guns and arrows mostly. It's cool to think it was first designed right after guns were introduced in to Japan (castle was built in the 17th century, guns arrived in the 1500's I believe).

As a (somewhat dormant) geologist, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the "oil-slick" wall, which is actually the original wall. It's 400 years old, and made of dirt. I am SO impressed

Himeji, as viewed from the top of the castle

And our guide was kind enough to show us the perfect spot for getting an up-close shot in front of the castle. Cause we didn't already have like, 50 pictures in front of it, ha ha ha

One of the most famous ghost stories in Japan purportedly originated from this castle. The story goes that there was a maid in the castle whose sole responsibility was to care for 10 priceless dishes. Each day she would take them out, polish and count them, and then put them back. One day she was asked by the lord to bring the dishes... but she could only find 9. As she lost one of the dishes, and had therefore been derelict in her duty, she was executed and her body was thrown in this well

The story goes that her sould is unable to rest, and you can hear a sorrowful voice coming from the well, counting... ichi-mai, ni-mai, san-mai (1, 2, 3...) up to kyu-mai (9), at which point it wails and starts all over again.

This story is quite famous at many castles, but our guide assured us it really started at this one. I asked her if there was some back story or alterier motive for them killing her (seems a bit harsh for losing a dish, even if it was expensive). Apparently, she doubled as a consort and her lover happened to be a samurai the lord was plotting to assassinate. However, she found out about the plan and warned the samurai, who got away. So the lord hid one of the dishes and used it as an excuse to execute her, which then enraged her samurai lover who then attacked the lord and was himself disposed of.

Pretty sneaky, hu?

After the castle we wandered over to the gardens that are right next door, and absolutely beautiful. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

After Himeji we headed in to Kobe to see the Illumination. Which involved waiting in a line that puts even the best wait at Disneyland, during New Years to shame. It was more like following a parade route through Sannomiya (the district of Kobe we were in) than waiting to see anything

It took us about a half an hour of shuffling along with the herd before we finally approached what drew so many people to Kobe to stand in line in the cold...

You can see all the cellphones sticking up taking pictures ^_^
From far away it looks like a church, but as you get closer you can see that it's made of many separated arches along an arcade

Once we finally got into it, we started to wonder, there aren't any tickets or anything, it's all outside, how do they enforce the 10pm close time? About 20 seconds after we took this picutre we got the answer

As all the lights went out precicely at 10pm. lol, Japan.

The next day we got up and found an enormous outlet mall near our hostel.

It came complete with a Starbucks, which we hovered around until it opened. While we waited, we took in the view of Akashi Strait, where you can see the longest suspension bridge in the world - the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge.

Once we got bored of looking at the view, we literally sat outside the Starbucks until it opened. I was too embarrased to walk in immediately after they opened the door... so we waited a good 30 seconds before making our way in ^_^

People here usually assume Theresa is Japanese until she openes her mouth, but nobody makes that mistake with me (I can't quite figure out why... must be something about the way I carry myself -_^). The guy behind the counter was trying to talk to me in English and gave me the price - 4500 yen. Hee hee hee, I didn't have the heart to tell him he was an order of magnitude off, I just smiled and said "wow, great English!" in Japanese. Which ended up endearing us to him apparently as he personally delivered our coffee to our table after making a special trip over to the condiment counter to get cream and sugar and napkins. I love this country!

After Starbucks we headed into Kobe and visited the Chinese market.

Theresa was in heaven, and I got my first taste of bubble tea!

And then, before we left, we set off in search of Kobe beef for lunch. Which turned out to be quite the odyssey as we could not find ONE coin locker in the station. Not one! So we hauled all our crap with us, all over Sannomiya looking for a restaraunt in the guidebook. Which we neved did find. But we took a chance and actually ended up in a great tempanyaki restaraunt with a nice view of the city and a good lunch deal.

The beef was really good. Well worth it's reputation.

After we finished eating, and while we were drinking our coffee, one of the watiers/ cooks brought out a giant slab of Kobe beef and plopped it on the grill in front of us. Bewildered, we just looked from it, to him, and back to it, before he said "take a picture"...

And then he said "now I'll take a picture of you with the beef." Quite matter-of-factly. And so, I found myself holding a giant cut of raw cow, an inch from my face...

I kept going back and forth between a smile and a strange look on my face, and managed to wind up with a strange-looking smile instead, ha ha ha.

After that we got some Kobe Pudding (which all of my students had instructed me to get when I told them I was going), and headed home. To the snow!

Samui yo! (It's cold)

2008-01-20T17:44:00.001+09:00

The temperature in my apartment is so cold that my olive oil is nearly solid, and there is no discernible difference between the inside of my refrigerator and out.

However, beneath my kotatsu it's nice and toasty.

Such is life in Japan.

A fabulous quote for today:

2008-01-18T21:49:00.000+09:00

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

-Kalidasa

Gomen ne?

2008-01-17T21:31:00.000+09:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I primarily blame karei naru ichizoku (The Grand Family) for eating my spare time at home...

It rocks. Kimura Takua is a close second to Nagase Tomoya for my ichiban daisuki (favorite) Japanese actor... in fact I might go so far as to say they are equals in my fangirlieness ^_^

*ahem*

I am still planning to write about Kobe and Kyoto, and possibly my trip back to Denver. But now I must get ready for sleep as tomorrow is skiing day at KJH! And I'm not kidding when I say skiing day, they really mean it. I am not allowed to snowboard.

...it's been 10 years since I switched from skis to the snowboard. And tomorrow will be my first time back to separated feet sliding downhill. In front of my students.

Wish me luck!

From Kyoto to Denver, in 24 hours

2008-01-06T15:58:00.000+09:00

Being that I've lived in Japan for the past 5 months, I tend to fall a little behind on the news back home. That's why I had no idea there were monstrous thunderstorms terrorizing the west coast of the US, and wreaking havoc on travel, even in places half way around the world. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We began our journey home around 1pm in Kyoto, Japan. We'd been there for 3 days, seeing the sights, eating the food, and fighting our way through the hoards of Japanese who also thought it would be a fabulous time to visit the city. I'll leave the rest of the Kyoto trip for another post, but suffice it to say it was beautiful and fun and very, VERY crowded.

Before our trip home we just had to stop for coffee at this place

Imagine our surprise when, beyond it's simple sign, you find yourself not in a granola-themed enclave full of overstuffed couches and smelling of patchouli but a rather elegant shop that could rival swanky European coffeehouses. Definitely NOT what we had envisioned when we saw the sign, ha ha

The day before, we went all-out and purchased shinkansen (bullet train) tickets, which happen to run between Kyoto and Nagoya about every 10 minutes. A little expensive, maybe, but so convenient and quick! And also quite crowded. In fact, ours was crowded enough that we stood the entire 45 minute journey in the door hatch with about 7 or 8 other people. Our train departed Kyoto station at 1:35pm, which is when I began counting the hours it took for us to get home.

Since our plan to eat kaiten-zushi (the conveyor belt sushi) failed miserably when we ran out of time in Kyoto, we ended up with a nutritious meal of coke zero and snickers bars on the train ^_^ But at least we were on time for the flight, right?

When we arrived at Japan Central International Airport (centrair for short, the Japanese just LOVE contracting every possible word they can) we were greeted with a sign that said "due to equipment arriving late the 5:10pm flight to San Francisco has been delayed until 8:15pm". Apparently, there was a weather delay.

...this meant that we would be arriving 3 hours later into San Francisco than previously planned, just late enough that we would miss our connecting flight to Denver. So, they offered to put us on one at 3:20pm that would arrive in Denver about 6:50. Seeing as there was nothing we could do about it, we agreed. Also, for the first time in my adult, full-fare-paying, life I was offered a free upgrade to business class. Unfortunately, only I was offered this upgrade (they only had one seat left), and being the kind soul that I am, I declined the offer in order to sit with Dave. So instead, they upgraded the two of us to economy plus.

Since we now had an extra two hours or so at the airport, we decided to wander around. It's actually got a fairly nice layout for wandering in the main terminal.
Takayama? Gion district in Kyoto?

Nope! Just the shopping area of the airport ^_-

They also have this fantastic sky walk where you can go outside and look out at the harbor, the runways, the gates, and watch the planes taking off.

The international terminal also has a business center where you can get online for free, which is where we spent a fair chunk of our time waiting for the plane to arrive.

The plane ride between Nagoya and San Francisco was rather uneventful. We ate curry, we watched movies, we went back in time...

I didn't manage to sleep at all as every time I was about to nod off we'd hit turbulence and I'd wake up. For the most part our journey was a clean, boring arc between Japan and the US. Until we were almost finally to California and we made this interesting squiggle.

The reason for our delay in Nagoya became quite apparent on our decent into San Francsico, which was marked by turbulance, the plane being struck by lightning, and the flight attendant announcing over the intercom (as part of his "put your tray tables and your seatbacks up speech) "and remember if we have to evacuate the plane be sure to leave all your carry-on items behind"

...always confidence inspiring, that one >.<

We cleared customs without any hassle, got some pizza (my first American meal in 5 months!) and found to our horror that the flight delays weren't over quite yet.

No free internet in the San Francisco airport. Didn't get offered any kind of upgrades. And our 3:30pm flight didn't end up leaving until after 5:30. Ah, America. At least the plane was only about a third full, which meant everybody got their own row.

In the end, it all worked out to:
Total travel time: 23.5 hours
Distance traveled: 6050 miles
Hours slept: 1.5

All to come here

Here's to being home for a week!

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! (Happy New Year!)

2008-01-01T01:16:00.000+09:00

Well it's only New Year's Eve morning back in Colorado as I write this, but here in Miya it's after 1am on January 1, 2008 ^_^

New Year's is a big deal in Japan, it's probably the most important holiday of the entire year. Most people spend New Year's Eve cleaning the entire home so that the new year can be welcomed fresh and clean. Around midnight, local Buddhist temples will ring their bells 108 times to represent leaving behind the worldly concerns of the old year. Many people visit their local shrines just after midnight and all though New Year's Day to pray for good fortune in the new year.

We had planned to visit a nearby village called Shirakawa on the last day of 2007, but Mother Nature had other plans and decided to dump a crap-ton of snow on Takayama. So instead, we ran errands in town, taking advantage of the car my friend let me borrow in exchange for letting him keep it in my parking lot while he rings in the new year in Thailand.

Anyway, some pictures for you of the snow at the red bridge in Takayama, where we hopped out of the nice heated car just long enough to snap some scenery

Just before midnight we headed over to the shrine in my village, the Minashi Shrine, which is the largest and most respected Shinto Shrine in the entire Hida region of Gifu prefecture. The reason my village is called Hida Ichinomiya is because of the shrine - the name means "first shrine of the Hida region". There was already an impressive line forming before we hopped in, I can't imagine what it's going to be like trying to go there tomorrow. But lucky for us we got our coin-tossing and ritual blessing done before 1am ^_^

I saw some of my student's there too, but most of them had a hard time recognizing me all bundled up. Without my blond hair I guess I'm just another random person. I had no idea I could blend in so well! heh heh

They also had festival stalls set up near the entrance to the shrine, around the first Torii (gate). We bought some tasty little snacks and then called it quits. We wandered over to the Buddhist temple to see what was going on (people were ringing the bell) and then called it a night. Definetly different from the usual way we ring in the new year!

And with that I'm headed to bed. I wish everyone at home a safe and Happy New Year!!!

Kurisumasu Omedetou! Merry Christmas! Part 2 - Christmas Day

2007-12-30T08:58:00.001+09:00

Like I said in the last post, Christmas in Japan may be popular, but you still have to work. So, on Christmas Day, Dave and I rolled off our futons and headed over to Miya JHS. My students (the boys especially) had been eagerly anticipating this day since my JTE and I told them Dave would be visiting. It's been a REALLY long time since they had a male foreign English teacher; at least 2 and a half years. Which means they were all in elementary school the last time it happened. But I digress.

We began the day just like any other at school, with the exception that I shouted "Merry Christmas!" after the usual "ohio gozaimasu!" (good morning) as we entered the teacher's room. We had our Tuesday morning meeting, in which they made Dave get up and introduce himself, heh heh heh. He did a good job though.

Hard at work on Christmas Day. Trying to figure out my Japanese cell phone

ok I admit, I played with it too ^_^

We taught 4 classes that day, of which I remembered to take my camera to only one >.< Ichinensei was just a regular English class but they got to have two Americans doing the dialogue instead of just one. The ninensei listened to Dave talk about himself, and once they found out he played baseball, peppered him with questions about what position he played and what his favorite team was.

For the sanensei class we did Christmas! And I remembered my camera. We started out just talking about the holiday, with informative stuff like "we eat lots of food"

and a turkey is too big for a Japanese oven

And then we followed that high-brow discussion by making snowflakes!

After the sanensei English class it was time for lunch. And Dave got to experience his first kyuushoku (school lunch). I was hoping they would feed us something like the dreaded shishamo, whole fish stuffed with fish eggs

but he got lucky and we had chicken.

And special Christmas dessert, either this pancake-looking thing or a kind of pudding. I got the pudding

He spent the hours leading up to lunch furiously trying to remember how to say "I don't understand" (wakarimasen), but I went easy on him and had him sit next to the best English speaker in the school. From where I was sitting it sounded like they had a nice conversation, and I'm sure the boy was thrilled to have another American to converse with ^_^

I sat next to one of my favorite students, who told me he wasn't looking forward to winter vacation because "I won't get to see Jen". Awwww. A+ for him!

After lunch, Dave was dragged off to the gym by the ninensei boys, who were keen to see just how good his soccer skills were after he said he liked to play. Heh heh heh, he was really sweating that one too. "Why didn't I say I liked basketball? Everybody can play basketball..."

But he did ok I think. There wasn't really enough room in the gym for a wild game of soccer, what with those of us playing badminton and all.

During soji (cleaning time), the boys took turns trying to tip him over in this arm-wrestling-balance-game-thing. They all failed, of course, as Dave is like twice their size at least. Although, and this is especially for Derek-sensei, Dave told me to point out that it wasn't just his size, he was "extending Ki".

All in all, I'd say he's picked up quite a few fans at MJH. The girls all thought he was handsome and the boys all thought he was cool. Well done Dave!

After school finished up we had to haul ass home to get ready for Christmas dinner! At my apartment. Once again, my contribution was apple pie. Which I had to make. From scratch. After school...

This time I put a full top on it. Always gotta be challenging yourself...

This time dinner was a rather small affair, with only four of us who live here still being around. My friend Sandy had a couple of friends in town that she brought along, Theresa came, and another ALT from Takayama, Martin was there. Martin, Sandy, and Sandy's friends are all from Canada, so as it turned out there were more Canadians than Americans at Christmas dinner this year. Although, technically speaking, we were all Americans, just from two different countries. It's too bad we didn't have anybody from Mexico, we could have rounded out the whole North American continent.

We managed a pretty good dinner. Ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, salad, bread, cheese, wine, and good conversation

We finished it off, as all good holiday parties end here it seems, with tacos from home. mmmmmm.

And of course, pie!

I even went all-out and bought a special pie server for the occasion

And just to prove that I did it, since it seems all of my pictures are facing into the kitchen for some reason, here is the wreath I made. Yes, I DID decorate for Christmas! And I made that wreath all by myself. Well, I didn't make the wreath itself, it was given to me by a friend (her dad made it), but I decorated it. It's amazing what you can find at the 100 Yen Shop these days.

Kurisumasu Omedetou! Merry Christmas! Part 1 - Christmas Eve

2007-12-24T22:05:00.000+09:00

Christmas may be a big holiday here in Japan, but it's not one of those fabulous ones like Respect for the Aged Day, which you get off. Unfortunately, as fond as they are of Santa and Christmas trees and giving gifts, I still have to work on Christmas day. However, thanks to the Emperor's birthday (December 23) falling on a Sunday this year, we did get Christmas Eve as a "substitute" holiday.

One of the ALTs in Takayama, a fantastic Irish lass named Fiona, hosted a party at her place this afternoon. My contribution: sugar cookies ^_^ I'm becoming well-known for baked goods, it seems.

My favorite part of the sugar-cookie-process is the making part. Eating them is enjoyable of course, but there's just nothing quite like putting together a bunch of seemingly unrelated ingredients and coming out with something that's soft and tasty and looks like home.

Since the party was this afternoon, we made them this morning. Meanwhile, Theresa was busy making mashed potatoes on my stove, ha ha

As everyone knows, you can't have good sugar cookies without an unhealthy amount of butter... which I softened in my microwave prior to mixing in as I have to do EVERYTHING by hand here.

And I mean everything. I really should invest in a mixer I think..

I put Dave in charge of "shape-engineering"

He did a pretty good job ^_^

And I baked them in my little toaster oven. It worked pretty well!

In fact, it worked so well that I was swatting Theresa and Dave away from the cookies so we would have enough to bring to the party, ha ha

The party was pretty awesome. We had a big crowd and lots of tasty dishes. Whole chicken, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, various other things...

and the dish that got the biggest oohs and ahhs from the Americans and Canadians

mac and cheese! KRAFT mac and cheese! sent from one lucky ALTs wonderful wonderful mother in Canada (^-^)v
Santa made an appearance

we won some hats..

Dave tried a Hot Toddy

And our favorite Brit, George, provided the Christmas pudding. Which tasted suspiciously like fruitcake, only less dry. And more British.

After all the afternoon festivities, our partying wasn't quite over yet as we had been invited to dinner by one of my Japanese friends. Patty, you should be proud, even half way around the world I ended up in church on Christmas Eve.

We sang songs, the kids played bells

We ate Christmas Cake

We played games and made balloon animals

And we even had a sermon. In Japanese, of course, but everybody knows the Christmas story so we weren't too lost. I think.
All in all, it was a fun party. A bit more wholesome maybe, than the one before it, but it was cool to be celebrating the other side of Christmas, in Japan, with Japanese friends ^_^

Take another little piece of my heart now...

2007-12-12T20:31:00.000+09:00

A tragedy of mammoth proportions has befallen my humble apartment. Ok, not really the apartment so much as me, but it happened in the apartment.

About 2 months ago I purchased an external hard drive to store important data on, a place to keep all my pictures and various other questionably-legal (ie tv shows) items. Sunday night, while transferring my computer from my desk to my fabulous kotatsu, I knocked the hard drive over >.<

I've dropped it before and it's been ok, but this time apparently my luck ran out as my computer refused to recognize it when I plugged it in. I took it in to the local electronics store, but they've told me that it can't be fixed.

So, all of my pictures... ALL OF MY PICTURES from October on that were on the hard drive are gone. Yep, vanished, erased, little bits of 1s and 0s etched onto a disk that shall never spin again.

I managed to recover some of the pictures from the recycle bin on my laptop and I have some low-quality versions that I posted on the web of others, but for the most part, they're gone. I am especially disappointed about the pictures from Osaka, as I didn't ever save those to my desktop so there was nothing to recover on them.

Let this be a lesson to us all - save now, save often. And back it up, yo!

A wedding, bowling, Thanksgiving, and football

2007-11-25T20:37:00.000+09:00

It's been a busy weekend.

Friday we had off for the "Labor Thanksgiving" holiday. More akin to labor day in the US than Thanksgiving, for the most part I spent it hanging around my apartment, studying, and cleaning a bit. It's actually been a while since I've had a free day like that, it was nice (^-^)

Yesterday (Saturday), I headed up to T-town to drop in on the wedding of one of my taiko group members. I wasn't technically a guest of the wedding, I was just there to see the drumming performance put on by some of the group for the reception. They gave me very specific instructions NOT to dress fancy, seeing as they would all be in their takio clothes. I felt a little funny not getting dressed up for a wedding, but since they told me to be casual, I did. I opted for a nice sweater and some jeans; and immediately regretted it when I got to the wedding >.<

Everyone looked so great! Of course they were all very gracious and actually quite thrilled that a foreigner was there, but I couldn't help but wish I had worn different pants. I tried my best to blend in with the wallpaper when I was in the banquet room (or heck, in the hallway outside), but being the only person in there with blond hair I managed to attract quite a lot of attention without doing anything at all. Ah well, c'est la vie.

The bride looked great. In fact, something I didn't know about Japanese weddings, they change clothes at least three times. 3 times! Can you imagine? And the kimono alone costs a small fortune to rent. I got to see all three outfits my friend wore, a beatiful green kimono, a stunning white western wedding gown, and a pretty black party dress. Her new husband had to change three times as well, from traditional Japanese wedding clothes to a white tux and then a black tux. It was amazing.

Since we weren't regular guests we actually got a little bit of the behind-the-scenes and got to spend some time with them where they were changing and whatnot. I probably got to chat with her more than most of the guests, ha ha
The taiko was pretty good too ^_^

After the taiko performance was finished we said our goodbyes and I headed off to meet some of the teachers from MJH for bowling as part of this Takayama teacher's-union type thing. It was technically for teacher's who were under 30 I think, and I had fun pointing out to 3 of the 4 guys who came from Miya that they were all over 30, ha ha

Japanese bowling shoes. Don't they remind you of the velcro shoes from the 80's? And they're purple too! ^-^

After bowling I ran around Takayama trying to find ingredients and utensils for making pie. You may be asking yourself, "self? why would she want to make a pie? I mean apart from the obvious reason that pie is delicious and everyone loves pie." It's a reasonable question.

The answer is that today, the ALT's of Takayama (and some local friends) had Thanksgiving dinner. At my apartment!

It was pot-luck, and we ended up with tons of yummy dishes. Including stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, tofu, two scrumptious noodle dishes, bread, cheese, and fruit

We even dressed up my humble, yet beloved, kotatsu for the occasion in a turkey-day table cloth

We then proceeded to stuff ourselves silly, just like at home. In fact, I don't think I've been this full since I came to Japan...

Kyle made a new friend...

And then, after the third round (for some), we broke out the dessert...

Including my pie! (^-^)/ And I am really quite proud of it. I made it from scratch. There is no such thing as pre-made crust here. I made the crust, rolled it out, peeled and sliced the apples, made the filling, even made a pretty lattice top

And on top of all that, I baked it without an oven. That's right people, I cooked that pie in my microwave. Then I stuck it in the toaster oven to brown and actually toasted the top a little more than I would have liked but it still tasted good. I was worried the bottom wouldn't have cooked fully but it turned out great.

Angela also made a scrumptious apple dessert from scratch and another ALT sent along some chocolate desserts so we ended up with a fantastic sweet finish to dinner.

After we finished eating, it was such a beautiful day today that we just HAD to go outside.

We decided to head down by the river to play a little touch football, since we didn't have the luxury to watch the college games on tv. We new folk from CO are apparently a bit more sporty than the old group of ALTs as we were, along with a couple of others, the ones most pushing to get outside to toss the ball around. I guess the spontaneous football game just didn't happen here very often over the last couple of years. To me, it just felt like what always ends up happening at this kind of gathering...

Anyway, I went down to the river with the 4 guys to toss the ball around before the rest of the girls showed up. Isaac, Kraig, you would have been proud to see how well I threw that ball. Perfect spirals, good power. Heck, I threw it better than half of the guys there, and definetly better than all of the other girls. Not to brag or anything... but I was awesome. ha ha

Once everyone showed up we played some touch football and of course, the team I was on won. It was actually akin to the CU/ Nebraska game, we beat the pants off the other team.

I'm actually in the second picture there. Can you find me? Ha ha ha. Where's Jen? I'll give you a hint in the next one I'm chasing the ball before it bounces into the river, but my head got cut off O_o

After football we headed back inside, ready for round two of dinner....

Tacos! mmmmm.

And then we watched episodes of The Simpsons. It was such a fantastically American day - Thanksgiving dinner, football, and The Simpsons. I can't imagine a better way to spend a holiday away from home ^_^