Winter Sports

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

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

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

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.

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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

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

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

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