So long Smacky, hello Bucky

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

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)

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 ^_^

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!

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

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

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

Today we had

whole squid. mmm mmm mmm.

//sarcasm.