Everybody Wants to Go to Japan

let's play catch-up

2010-09-09T20:21:00.004-04:00

I am abysmally behind. In my defense, blogger got blocked at school (where I usually played catch up, during exam time), and then I was busy, you know. Moving back to America.

So let's back, back, back, back it up (back it up!). The last big thing I wrote about -- other than the tragic passing of frisbee man -- was my brother's visit. ...In January. Hah! Needless to say, about a million things have transpired in the interim. Highlights!

Shamisen concert and enkai. Back in late January (I know, I know) my shamisen class did a free performance at an old folks home. Our teacher is a care worker there for his day job. I only found out about the concert three days prior, when Kawai-sensei casually mentioned it, and asked whether I wanted to come. I'd never seen the group perform before, so I thought it would be a good chance, and agreed. Then he said, "Good! You'll be playing four songs." What. I'd only been practicing for three months! Then he added, "And you'll play this one by yourself. Solo!" WHAAAT. I was pretty nervous about it, but in the end, it went off fine. Any mistakes I made were drowned out by the rest of the group, and the old people were mostly chill -- except for one sort of strange lady who was like an elderly groupie. She kept shouting compliments at me in English, and exclaiming about how handsome Kawai-sensei is, hahaha. Before the solo, Kawai-sensei had me stand up to introduce myself. First, he asked the audience, "Now, where do you think this young lady is from?" and one adorable old lady, who must not have been able to see very well, querulously suggested, "Kameoka?"

The enkai party afterwards was held in a colorful little crab shack all the way in Maizuru. We drove for a few hours to get there, and proceeded to eat an obscene amount of crab. There was also bar-wide karaoke, but fortunately, we were the only customers, so we could sing with abandon. The ladies in my shamisen class -- who upon further conversation, turn out to be mostly brassy old bachelorettes -- insisted that I go up and sing "the Titanic song!!!" And then I fell asleep in the van on the way home.

The Higashi-Uji English Seminar. Taking place in early February, this was round two for several of us AETs. Sponsored by Joanna's school, we went to a hotel in Kyoto city for two days and pretty much had nonstop English time with a class of her students. Games, cultural presentations, the city-wide photo scavenger hunt, and of course...the English skit contest. The students' skits were all pretty cute, and we AETs tried to make a Japanese one to break the ice. The premise was this: famous characters at a singles party, trying to make romantic matches. The cast list ended up something like this:

Joanna as Nami (a character from popular Japanese pirate show "One Piece")
Kristi as Hello Kitty
David as Batman
Sam as Sailor Moon (a Japanese schoolgirl turned fighter for justice)
Robbie as the Terminator
Ryan as Doraemon (Japanese blue robot cat from the future)
and myself as Hermione Granger, host of the party

It went over pretty well. The kids especially loved Batman and Doraemon's costumes, I think. In the end, only one match was made -- Hello Kitty ran off with the Terminator.

Day out with sannensee. So, a couple of third years from my school had been trying for some months to arrange an outing with me. (Extra cute because they aren't even students that I had taught! They just came to the teachers' room and started chatting to me.) We went to Kyoto Tower, which is pretty silly but has a nice view of the city. Then we stopped by a big temple called Higashi Hongan-ji, which I'd never visited before. This turned out to be hilarious, because there was a whole crowd of pigeons that you could feed some bird food. Saika, the slightly spastic ringleader of our group, decided to give it a shot, and was immediately set upon. I managed to get a video of the pigeons repeatedly dive-bombing her as she shrieks in a very un-Japanese way. It still makes me crack up every time I watch it! Afterwards, we wandered over to Kiyomizu Temple, where despite the cold rain, Saika convinced me to take my first and thus far only ride in a rickshaw. We finished it off with a return to Kyoto Station, and a nice round of student/teacher purikura -- photo stickers for everyone!

International Kids Carnival. On the last day of February, I volunteered at an event set up by the local International Association. Essentially, we set up a number of big booths representing different countries, each with different games and activities. I, of course, was working at the America booth, along with a few other local AETs and two student volunteers from my school. (Mimi and Yuiko, from my favorite class!) I ended up manning the face paint station all afternoon. Apparently, face painting is not something they do in Japan, but after a little coaxing, the kids all loved it! I even managed to convince the cameraman from a TV station covering the event to let me paint his cheek...and a few minutes later, he came back to get the other one done!

After all that, we had graduation, and a few staff parties, and preparations for the new school year. But during spring break, before the new school year got going in April, Joanna and I took an adventure trip to...VIETBODIA!!!

farewell, frisbee man

2010-02-14T19:57:00.004-05:00

I can barely throw a frisbee, and this still makes me a little bit sad.

Besides, look at the guy's picture! Like if Christopher Eccleston had a mischievous younger brother. Who really liked space.

You know he had to be awesome!

winter break with onii-chan

2010-02-11T21:59:00.002-05:00

Okay, just a little more catching up to do before this blog is actually up to date for once. Starting from the end of December!

For winter break I didn't travel anywhere...because my brother came to visit! We had a great time. It'd been ages since I had seen him, and even longer since we had much time just to hang out by ourselves. Reid stayed at my apartment in Sonobe, and we took a zillion day trips into Kyoto and its surrounds. (Plus one relaxing Sonobe day, where we just visited my school and took a walk around town.) I don't remember the exact order we did things in, but here's the basic list!

Sanjusangendo -- You may remember this place and a few of the following from the recap of my parents' trip. A really long and old wooden hall, filled with 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity Kannon...and that's not even counting the assortment of other important figures.

Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavilion) -- Literally coated in beautiful gold leaf, this was originally built as a summer palace by some important guy whose name I have forgotten, but after his death, the guy's son converted it into a shrine. This is one of my favorite spots in Kyoto, especially on sunny days, when there's an equally lovely reflection in the pond next to the pavilion.

Yasaka Shrine -- Just a little Shinto shrine that leads into Maruyama Park. This is a great way to enter the Higashiyama district, which is famous for several shrines and temples, plus some great traditional streets that really preserve the atmosphere of old Kyoto.

Kiyomizu Temple -- Probably the most famous temple in Kyoto, which is saying something. It has an iconic stilted deck, and provides great views of the city.

Nara Park and the Daibutsu (Big Buddha) -- I really love Nara, if for no other reason than the deer. Nara Park especially is infested with these totally unskittish deer, and the population can't be thinned because they just so happen to be sacred deer. You can buy deer crackers to feed them, and will immediately be swarmed. Don't let them eat your pants, even though they will try. Also, the Big Buddha at Todai-ji is always cool.

Fushimi Inari Shrine -- Another of my favorite places. A shrine that literally covers an entire mountain. There is a central shrine at the base, and various paths lined with sacred orange torii gates lead up to other mini-shrines and a spectacular overlook. Reid later cited this as his favorite place that we visited.

Universal Studios Japan -- It was really busy on the day we went, because it was a national holiday, but we got to do everything we wanted. (Well, except for seeing the Waterworld show. But maybe I'll go back one more time before I leave Japan.) I may have liked the Back to the Future ride the best, though our boat captain for the Jaws ride was pretty hilarious.

Arashiyama Monkey Park -- A bit of silliness. Haul yourself up this little mountain, and there are at least a hundred Japanese macaques lounging at the top, running free. You can feed them apples and peanuts and such, but only from inside a fence, so that the monkeys can't all mob you. (Thank goodness!) Also, you are strictly instructed not to look the monkeys in the eye, or they will lash out. Danger zone! It was a funny time, though, and Arashiyama was kind of pretty through that day's falling snow.

Osaka Castle -- The stronghold from which Toyotomi Hideyoshi united Japan. The inside has been converted into a museum, but the outside is still a gorgeous and imposing castle structure. We went here with one of my coworkers, Ueda-sensei, who is young and adorable and has the best English pronunciation of all the teachers at my school.

Koga Ninja Village -- This was a weird little park out in Shiga. It took forever to get there, and was sort of strangely dilapidated, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. The best part was probably the preserved ninja house, which had all sorts of neat booby traps and hideyholes. In other news, turns out that I am awful at throwing shuriken ninja stars.

...And those were our main stops during the trip. Other than that, we mostly chilled in my apartment and watched an obscene amount of Doctor Who. (I got Reid hooked! Success!) Even though we were busy pretty much every day, there was just enough time in the evenings to watch all four seasons of the new show, plus a few specials from the last year. We may be crazy.

my students can be pretty creative when they want to be

2010-02-07T23:32:00.003-05:00

Today in my third year junior high class, we were practicing making excuses. We played a game that involved presenting them with a situation, which they then had to improvise a response for. Here are some of the highlights:

-Don't use your cell phone in class!
-It was my sister. My mother is dead.

-You shouldn't eat that cake!
-The cake says "Eat me."

-You should buy me a ring!
-The ring has a demon.

-Why did you hit your friend?
-He killed my best friend.

-You should buy me a ring!
-I already bought it. (This boy is going to be popular with the ladies, I can tell.)

And to top it all off, one boy has created the premise for the next movie in the Speed franchise:

-Stop using the computer!
-If I stop, poor Africa children will die.

the paperwork is in

2010-02-02T18:59:00.003-05:00

Okay, so it's official: I'll be headed back to America come late summer. After a lot of agonizing internal debate, I've elected not to renew my contract with the JET Program for another year. This was a difficult decision, because I have no real complaints about my position here; I have a great school, great coworkers, (mostly) great students, great friends, and a pretty sweet apartment. Moreover, I know that at least two out of my three closest friends are staying, and possibly all three of them. (If Neil will make up his mind, already!)

So really, my decision is not because I want to leave Japan, or any of the people here. I'd love to stay. (And/or airlift all my favorite people back to the States with me.) However, there are other things I want to do, too, and one of those things is to go back to grad school and get my teacher certification. As my plan stands now, I'm going to apply to a school in the Atlanta area, and if all goes well, start classes next spring.

I feel some guilt about leaving, because many people at my school have often and vocally expressed their wishes for me to stay, but I am at least relieved to say that Paul has decided to recontract. As long as he's here, I don't feel quite so bad, because he can train the new hire and generally hold down the fort. (Had we both left, which very nearly happened, it would have been a little bit crippling for our department -- they've come to rely on we AETs for a lot of lesson planning and various support. I'd hate to throw two totally green teachers at them when they're so busy already!)

For now I feel pretty good about this decision, though come July I'll probably be crying everyday. Already I'm making plans to try and keep in touch with my school in a meaningful way. And as for the students, well, thank goodness that my unofficially favorite class has recently discovered facebook!

So, that's that. On a slightly more frivolous note, here's some more cute student stories! Brought to you by class 2-5's country project presentations.

First, from Vatican City (which couldn't fail to be hilarious, as explained by clueless Japanese teenagers). Their presentation was fine, actually, until the Q&A. That class just so happened to have a German exchange student named Anja, who raised her hand and asked, "Do you know the pope's name, and what country he's from?"

Immediately, the girls starting sending each other panicked looks. Clearly, they don't know, so Paul starts mouthing "Germany!" at them. Saki, their de facto spokesperson, squints at him for a minute before proudly declaring, "His name is Pope Tommy!"

I'm still not sure the rest of the class fully understands why suddenly all four teachers (and Anja) burst into delighted laughter.

And Italy had a moment which was comical, and yet, sort of true. Upon listing their country's exports, the Italy group listed such gems as, "Wine, machines, and the mafia."

and oh yeah, silver week

2010-01-26T00:16:00.003-05:00

So, just realized that in those two massive posts this morning, even despite their massiveness, I managed to forget about an entire vacation. Namely, when me and Jo went to Tokyo for Silver Week. Ha! There is a disparaging remark just waiting to be made here, but Tokyo is pretty okay, so I'll skip it.

Silver Week, much like Golden Week except that it doesn't necessarily happen every year, is a series of national holidays in September that line up to make a long weekend. In this case, a five day weekend. So, what do you do with a five day weekend? You grab a buddy and jump on the shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo!

In no particular order, the sights:

Harajuku -- So, anyone who even has a peripheral awareness that Japan is "hip" or that Gwen Stefani is a famous person has probably heard of Harajuku. This area of Tokyo is notorious for being populated by the young and the weirdly dressed. There is a particular bridge always photographed in travel books and fashion guides, where moody teens dressed as punk rockers, goth lolitas, and everything in between loiter to...well, to do nothing. Glare at the crowds, maybe. There is also a lot of shopping to be done here, much of it for clothing, and much of it for the type of clothing that would appeal to the above teens (and their less grumpy alt-rock counterparts). It's interesting, to be sure, but not quite as out there as people make it sound. Most people are dressed relatively normal (for Japan), so it's not like you've been swept away to a Marilyn Manson concert. At least, not quite.

Meiji Jingu -- Shrine to the Meiji emperor. Though it may surprise you, it's located right next to Harajuku, about a five minute walk from the Harajuku train stop. In fact, you have to cross the aforementioned weirdo bridge to get there, and the entrance to the shrine is visible almost immediately. Once you get through the first torii gate (marking your entrance into the realm of the gods), it gets remarkable peaceful for Tokyo. Broad paths lined with huge trees, winding through the forest for a pretty good distance before you reach the actual shrine. It's not the biggest shrine (though that might be my Kyoto snobbery talking), but it's a pretty nice one -- very serene and pleasant, and the surrounding forest grounds make up the space. There are also some little shops selling souvenirs (including cherry blossom sugar crystals, which sounded so charming that I almost bought them) and some mini museums. We stopped into one housing imperial relics. The most impressive thing was the full black coach emblazoned with the imperial chrysanthemum.

Sensoji Temple -- This is actually more of a temple complex in Asakusa. Probably the most popular in Tokyo, even. To enter the grounds, you have to go through a gate with a giant red lantern, done up with huge black kanji that read kaminari-mon, or, "Lightning Gate." Sweeeeeet! Once you're through, there's a long covered shopping arcade, with various gift shops. And finally, at the end of that, the temples. There's a whole collection of them, and wouldn't you know, there're festival stalls set up everywhere in honor of Silver Week. The temples were nice, but we probably spent as much or more time snacking on weird festival foods. Chocolate covered bananas, check. Shaved ice, check. Takoyaki fried octopus balls with whole tiny octopi inside? Well, that's different from the way we do it in Kansai, but hey, I'm game for anything. In the end, I think I prefer one small tentacle piece at a time. But we had fun naming the octopi as the were devoured, tiny faces and all. Alas, poor Franz, the last to go.

Ueno Zoo -- In terms of actual visibility of animals, this has got to be the best zoo I've ever been to. There wasn't a single one that we just couldn't see. The gorillas were just chillin', the elephants trundling merrily along, and the tigers were all like, "He~ey!" My favorites of the day might have been the big black bison, who just looked shaggy and huggable, and the giant anteater, who is my new boyfriend. As an added and geeky plus to this trip, I realized at one point in the zoo that we were walking through the location where a semi-important scene of the Japanese drama "Hana Yori Dango" had been filmed. Me and Jo both adore that show, and proceeded to have total girly meltdowns. I think we even took a video of ourselves just being there.

Meganebashi and the Imperial Palace Grounds -- You can't, of course, actually enter the Imperial Palace. Neither can you meet His Imperial Awesomeness. But you can poke around the gardens, and ogle the buildings from a safe distance. Perhaps the most picturesque place to do this is the area immediately surrounding Meganebashi, which literally means "Glasses Bridge." It's called this because of the double arched undercarriage, which reflected in the water forms two whole ovals that together resemble spectacles. As if this effect was pretty enough, from certain vantage points you can also see the white palace buildings in the background, making for a really nice composition.

Sunshine City Aquarium -- Let me be honest with you. If you are taking a vacation to Tokyo, do not bother with Sunshine City, nor its aquarium. Actually, Sunshine City is a pretty decent shopping mall, and the aquarium isn't bad. (Definitely nowhere near the enthralling grotesquery of Mongolia's Natural History Museum.) It just isn't worth going out of your way for if you've got limited time. Some neat fish, a brief birds of prey show, a mystery mammal that we couldn't find the name for, but suspiciously resembled a jackalope. (But those aren't real, right? Right?!) Also, why so many birds and mammals? Isn't this supposed to be an aquarium?

Yebisu Garden Place and the Yebisu Beer Museum -- Okay, let me be honest with you again, but this time in a "confession of my dorkitude" kind of way. At Ueno Zoo we accidentally found a scene from "Hana Yori Dango," but we specifically went to Yebisu Garden Place in search of one. (Specifically, the one where Domyouji waits by a sculpture in the rain for three hours because Makino has stood him up for their first date, but a guilty conscience makes her show up way late, and she discovers that he's still there just waiting for her, and then later when they get trapped in an elevator it turns out that Domyouji's got a fever from all the waiting. Ah, true love!) Of course, here comes the big cosmic joke. Perhaps the only time when I didn't want to see a beer festival, there is a great big beer festival totally surrounding -- and therefore, obscuring -- the sculpture where Domyouji spent those three hours. Curses, foiled again! On the upside, we did find the other two (peripheral) targets of our trip there, the Yebisu Beer Museum (the cretins sponsoring the festival) and the first official MLB restaurant in Japan. The beer museum was short and all in Japanese, but there was a sampler available at the end, and we had fun pretending to know about beer. And the MLB restaurant served seriously butt-kicking hamburgers, of a kind we hadn't had in at least a year and a halfish. Go figure, the chef owner had spent many years in America, no doubt perfecting both his English and said butt-kicking hamburgers.

Yasukuni Shrine -- A place that Joanna actually feared to go, but agreed to because I am geeky for war history and have big manipulative puppy eyes. The thing about Yasukuni Shrine is that it's extremely controversial. Every time a prime minister stops by, the entire nations of China and Korea start flipping out big time. You see, Yasukuni Shrine is dedicated to the Japanese war dead, and this makes China and Korea particularly nuts because there are fourteen class-A war criminals enshrined there. Your first impression upon entering is the usual torii gate, except that this one isn't usual at all. First of all, it's massive in size, probably one of the biggest, right along with Heian Jingu here in Kyoto. (According to wikipedia, it was in fact the largest at the time of its construction.) But more unusual, and more eerily striking, is the material. Almost all torii gates are made of wood, or occasionally stone. But the Yasakuni torii is weathered steel, and right away there's a perhaps unintentional feeling of the industrial, of ships and planes and war. Inside, the shrine itself is about what you'd expect from a shrine (especially if you'd been living in Kyoto for a year) but there is also a really interesting museum attached to the complex. I found this part absolutely fascinating, because it is a history of Japan's various wars...from Japan's point of view. Reading their take on conflicts up to and during WWII was totally captivating, partly because of the things they said, but more for the things they didn't say. I wish I could remember all the details now that I was spitting at Joanna then, but I guess that means I'll just have to visit again (and write my thoughts down this time).

Hie Shrine -- Even as someone who sees a lot of shrines, I found this one really lovely. It's set up on a hill in Akasaka, in the middle of Tokyo, quiet and surrounded by trees, but you can see buildings on the horizon (particularly, Prudential loomed nearby). Maybe it was that proximity between new and old, or maybe it was the lack of people, or maybe it was just the nice arbor we were sitting under, but this shrine absolutely relaxed me. It was so peaceful that I didn't want to leave -- Joanna eventually had to drag me away.

I think that about sums it up. We had a good time bopping around town, having constant and impromptu writers workshops, and accidentally running into parades of half-naked men. Oh, Japan, I love you.

fall term, part 2 (November - December)

2010-01-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

On November 6th, class 2-5 (our aforementioned unofficial favorite class) went on a field trip to Make Elementary. It was a student teaching excursion, where they had to have simple conversations in English with the 5th and 6th graders. Since we weren't especially busy that afternoon, Paul and I got to tag along. I literally took over a hundred photos, and mostly just hovered around grinning like a proud mom. Really, I would adopt almost anyone in that class. America, be warned; they're all coming home with me!

On November 22nd, I had one of those great and hilarious Japan experiences that I will always treasure. Together with Fig and our pal Amanda from Wittenberg, who is now doing the English thing in Osaka, I made my way to the town of Takarazuka. Now, this town is famous for one major thing: a popular all-female theater troupe of the same name. I can only guess that it was started as a reaction to all-male kabuki troupes, and there are some vague similarities (mostly in the outrageous overstyling), but this is about as far from traditional Japanese theater as you can imagine. It is a grand spectacle of singing and dancing and crossdressing and outrageous costumes and really, shockingly amazing settings. Modern Japan, nutshelled?

To make the inherent craziness of this theater troupe even crazier, the show that we went to see was a Japanese language musical adaptation of "Casablanca." By funny coincidence, I had just seen the movie for the first time one week prior, when one of the English teachers decided to screen it for a class. Thank god, because I never would have been able to follow the plot of the musical if I hadn't already known what was going on. Anyway, the songs were mostly great, though sometimes the greatness was directly tied to the silliness. Mainly, the silliness factor was in the constantly rehashed Japanese cover of "You Must Remember This," and the totally bizarre blackface performance of "Knock On Wood." Oh, Sam. Sam, Sam, Sam. You are not really a black person.

That said, the actresses playing Rick and Victor Laszlo were completely awesome, and had really interesting and compelling singing voices. (Made intentionally deep, as they were pretending to be men.) I may have a weird girl-crush on one or both of them. There was also a revolving stage that they used to amazing effect, walking on and off of it while it was moving, and going from room to room in Rick's cafe. There was even one section in the middle of the revolving bit that could raise and lower like a box, revealing an entire room inside. (And the sets themselves, let me reiterate, were stunning.) Mostly, it was faithful to the film, following the story with very little deviation, but some embellishments. It ended the same, with Rick striding off into the fog, and I start getting my stuff together to leave.

LITTLE DID I KNOW. Apparently, it is a Takarazuka tradition to follow every performance with a crazy four or five song encore, in which the cast reappears in insane costumes that have been bedazzled with in an inch of their life and does a few gratuitous dance numbers. In the grand finale number, a huge set of stairs came out from the back wall of the stage, and everyone came dancing down them to thunderous applause. The three protagonists, for some reason, had these crazy massive turkey peacock feather halo tailpieces that bobbed around while they danced, and we just stared in awe. Fig said to me, "Let's cook them up for Thanksgiving!" and I said to her, "Humphrey Bogart is rolling in his grave."

Anyway, if you can't tell by my veritable essay of description, Takarazuka was awesome. We have tentative plans to go again this spring -- they're putting on "The Scarlet Pimpernel," which is one of my favorite stories. Score!

Now, back to normal life. On December 1st and 2nd, we had our annual Mid-Year Seminar for Kyoto JETs. I had to give a presentation on the exciting topic of, "Effective Use of the Textbook With Other Materials." With some input from my vice-presenter, Takemura-sensei, I put together a pretty respectable powerpoint presentation, and the whole thing went off without a hitch. I can honestly say I've never had a lot of trouble with public speaking, and its times like these that I'm glad for that skill!

That Friday was the end of term staff party, at which I ended up sitting beside my BFF, Hosoi-sensei (surprise, surprise). We're like staff party magnets -- we always, always end up sitting together. He's a little bit of a maniac (in the best sense), so more fun for me! Unfortunately, Paul couldn't make it to that or any other of the staff parties, because his friend David suffered a punctured lung and was in the hospital, so Paul went to be with him. It just punctured on its own while David was sleeping. Scary! Apparently it can happen spontaneously, especially to young, tall, slender men -- all of which apply to David. (Fortunately he made a full, if long, recovery, and is fine now! Bless his heart.)

On Sunday the 6th, as a culmination of several months' work, I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I only took level 3, which is the second lowest, but I think I rocked it. The results still haven't arrived, alas, but I'm 90% positive that it was a pass, and maybe even a high one. I spent the day before in my apartment studying, and being total sweethearts, my Sonobe buddies Alex and June came by with cake for a study break Saturday evening. It's nice knowing people locally! Also an interesting point, when I actually got to the test site, in addition to seeing a lot of Kyoto JETs that I knew would be there, I ran into John Neal. (For those of you who don't know, John and I have lived on the same street in Atlanta for years and years, and went to school together from kindergarten all the way through high school graduation. He's now a JET in Shiga, a neighboring prefecture.) We hadn't seen each other in over a year, so we had a nice time catching up.

Then things started winding down into exams and Christmas classes at school, though I ended up missing most of the latter, thanks to...SWINE FLU!!! That's right, I survived the epidemic of the millennium. (Bearing in mind that there've only been ten years in this millennium so far.) I started feeling sick on a Sunday, but just crashed early and didn't worry about it. (On an unrelated note, that was the same day that I encountered a horror movie insect on my laundry: a hornet, longer than my thumb! TERRIFYING.)

Anyway, the next day I got up and went to school, though feeling a bit off. I thought maybe it was because I had skipped breakfast, or that I was coming down with a cold. The flu did cross my mind, but I dismissed it as the opposite of wishful thinking. Dire circumstances thinking? I sat at my desk for the first two periods, feeling kind of floaty and having trouble concentrating on my work. Then I barely made it through my third period class, actually having to sit down after giving them instructions. As we returned together to the teachers' room, Ueda-sensei asked me if I was okay, and suggested I go see the nurse, which I decide to do. I ask the nurse to check my temperature, and the results seem to startle her. "38.5 degrees!" Of course, celsius means nothing to me, so I ask, "Is that bad?"

Apparently, it's really bad. She told me that I should go home immediately and rest, and that I should go see a doctor tonight. Not tomorrow, not tomorrow morning even, but TONIGHT. I go back upstairs, and in the thirty seconds it's taken me to get there, the nurse has apparently phoned my supervisor (Wakabayashi-sensei) and explained the problem. He comes running over and pronounces, "You are not okay!" Within five minutes, they've shuffled me out the door, into a car, and back to my apartment, where I take the nurse's advice and go to sleep. A few hours later, Wakabayashi-sensei returns to take me to the doctor. The doctor is nice, but he tends to repeat himself a lot, and so for an hour I am sitting on a backless stool, getting progressively dizzier and just wanting to go home. They check my temperature again -- now, it's up to 39 -- and do a flue test. Bingo! I'm given some medicine and Wakabayashi-sensei informs me that, due to medical procedures outlined by the government, I am officially banned from school...for a WEEK.

To make a long story short, I spent that week eating Saltines and tangerines, watching TV, and not leaving my apartment. (Also forbidden!) On the upside, I had visibly lost weight by the end of the week! Too bad I probably gained it all back and more over vacation. :P Now I just need a record of my accomplishment -- maybe, "I Survived the Swine Flu and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt!"

The day that I was pronounced safe to leave my house was, conveniently, also the day that my neighbor Sabrina was hosting a dinner party. I was so glad to get out of my apartment. The party was actually a matchmaking scheme by Jo Kan, an adorable New Zealander who lives one town over, who has seemingly made it her mission in life to set up all her single teachers with foreign girlfriends. There were some cute guys, and some numbers exchanged, but nothing has come of it so far, so let's leave it at that for now.

And that's the gist of it...at least, until MY BROTHER CAME!!!

But that's a story for another post.

fall term, part 1 (September - October)

2010-01-25T20:02:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure when, exactly, we skipped from summer vacation to winter vacation. It may have something to do with fall term having been the absolute busiest of the four point five I've now lived through in Japan, both at work and in my personal life. At work, I and Paul have been kept hopping on any number of projects and requests, which can be hectic. However, I take it as a sign that we are considered useful members of the department, and plow cheerfully through!

As for extracurriculars, in addition to tea ceremony (which I've been studying a year now, since I got here), I've also been attending Japanese classes and shamisen lessons. The Japanese classes are actually not super useful, but it's been a good opportunity to connect with a few other foreigners in town. Sonobe now boasts seven of us altogether -- three JETs, three Interac (another English teaching company), and one mystery cyclist that we all see around town or in the grocery store. Out of that number, five of us attend the Japanese classes. Actually, we reached the end of the first run of lessons just before winter break, but if there's continued interest, the lessons will hopefully start back up again sometime.

My shamisen class, on the other hand, is populated by a bunch of old ladies, one middle-aged guy, and me. All the better -- Japanese ladies are hilarious! Our teacher is a man called Kawai-sensei, who is fantastically patient, especially with me and my bumbling. Shamisen, by the way, is a traditional Japanese instrument that looks something like a banjo. It's a lot of fun, but a bit tricky for me, A) because my hands are really small, and B) because most shamisen compositions are traditional Japanese folk songs, which I don't know and don't follow what I'd consider to be an intuitive western melodic progression. That is to say, sight reading is nearly impossible for me, because I can't figure out what the song is supposed to sound like!

So that's what's going on now. But, what's happened in the meantime? Let's see, starting from...September!

Before classes got started up again, we of course had the school festival and sports day. Both English clubs carried out a project. Junior high put together a pretty good performance of Snow White, and senior high made an absolutely hilarious video reenactment of the Lion King. It wasn't actually supposed to be as funny as it was, but we had no time, no budget, and no costumes, so it came off pretty slapdash...if by slapdash, you mean awesome. There was more dancing than usual too, this year, which was fun to watch. There were two separate presentations of "Thriller," complete with sweet Japanese zombie teenagers. And our unofficial favorite class won about a thousand awards -- every award they were eligible for, actually. The best part was during their traditional dance. The girls were all in little cotton yukata, dancing all cute, when suddenly they jump apart, and their homeroom teacher springs onto the stage and starts dancing with them! This is extra hilarious because the teacher is really tall, like a foot taller than any of them, plus he was wearing cat ears. (???) I got the whole thing on video, holla!

During sports day, I somehow ended up helping at the reception table for parents and guests, despite the fact that I'm not fluent in Japanese. It all went okay, though, because I only had to tell parents where to sign in, then give them a flyer and a visitor ribbon. Paul and I also ran in the teachers' relay...and lost, of course, but what do you expect us oldsters to do against the track team?

At the beginning of fall term, our work lives were dominated for weeks by the annual English speech contest. A lot of students made great speeches, but the two school-wide winners were both first years -- Asuka, who got first for her excellent pronunciation, and Ayaka, whose speech about children's books was well-written and frankly charming. Asuka even managed to pass through the next round, and went on to the area competition, but unfortunately, couldn't make it farther than that. They both performed well, though.

On September 12th, I and my pal Joanna went to a really cool art exhibition at Kyoto Kaikan. It was a huge show of the works of Seiji Fujishiro, who does stunningly intricate paper cutouts. They are displayed backlit, so the colors and scenes shine vividly. His work was really dreamy and childlike, and we enjoyed the exhibit a lot.

Time passed, some Australians visited our school, my umbrella got bent in a typhoon. On October 10th, a group of us JETs got invited to help out at a neighborhood festival in Momoyama. We got dressed up in festival coats, and the boys had to carry a giant contraption called a mikoshi on their shoulders. It had to way several tons, seeing as it took like forty guys in rotation to carry it. About halfway through our march around town, I and Kristi, a JET from Rokujizo, got tagged to help pull the ropes that stabilize the mikoshi. You see, now and again the men would stop and start jumping up and down with it, so we girls would just start hauling on the ropes and jumping backwards to maintain balance. It was fun, but actually really exhausting! I can only imagine how tired the boys must have been.

Through October and November, Paul and I taught the same five-week course for elementary school students that our school offered last year. This is lucky, because it means we got exchange holiday during winter vacation, saving a full three days of our annual leave. We also trucked our way through a series of Halloween classes, and on the Friday before Halloween, we both dressed up. Paul was an emperor penguin, and I had a full-body suit of Rirakkuma, who is a popular Japanese character. (He's a teddy bear, and his name is sort of a pun -- it literally means "relaxing bear.") Between the costumes and the candy that we were handing out, we caused a mob scene at school. Especially, when I made a special trip to visit class 2-5, they all started shrieking and pulling out their camera phones. I felt kind of like a rockstar, hahaha!

I wore the same costume on Halloween itself. We spent several hours at a party at an Irish pub called McLaughlin's, hanging out with nurses and greasers and President Obama. Then we stood around outside for awhile, being attacked by excited Japanese strangers who apparently love Rirakkuma. Finally, I joined the Kameoka crew on a trip to a rave at some place called Club Metro. It was crowded, and hot, and for some reason, the club is in a train station. But we had a pretty awesome time. I did, however, remember that I am officially getting too old for all-nighters. The train ride home at six a.m. was a serious struggle that I don't intend to repeat any time soon.

OH. MY GOD.

2010-01-25T18:52:00.001-05:00

One of my students just came in 2nd in the 2010 Miss Japan Contest. WHAT. WHAT IS THAT.

15 year old Sayo Kojima

Go for it Sayo! English club co-president for the win! BAAAAAM!

facts you didn't know about the world around you

2009-11-19T00:37:00.004-05:00

So, we're currently doing variations of the infamous "Country Project" in four classes -- three low-level first year classes, and in the second-year international course. Essentially, students have to research foreign countries, make a poster, and give a presentation about it in English.

Without further ado, I present you some of the first-years' funnier presentation quotes.

“People eat many food in Austria. For example, they eat potato food.”

“People eat many foods in Egypt. For example, they eat dove. It is doves chicken.”

“Many picture are famous in Italy. Monaliza is very famous. It is by Reonald."

“Europa is in Prague.”
Oh, yeah? Do they know that?

And, my personal favorite:
“People eat many foods in Australia. For example, they eat Genghis Khan.”

!!!

Tokyo Orientation, and Hoooong Koooong~!

2009-09-29T21:02:00.000-04:00

I swear, time flies. Mostly when you're having fun, but sometimes when you're just plain busy.

I see that last time, I left off just before Tokyo Orientation. On Saturday, July 25th, I caught the shinkansen (bullet train) up to Tokyo, to the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku. It's the same hotel where we had orientation when I arrived last year -- that is to say, super swanky. The first day, we had some information meetings for orientation assistants. Then on Sunday, we spent most of the day at Narita Airport, directing incoming JETs to buses back into the city. I was the leader for bus #7, which got back to the hotel around 8 pm. That was a lot of fun, because as bus leader I got a microphone, and was able to answer questions and tell funny stories to the newbies on our way back.

The next few days were a blur of meetings and introductions and my j-pop presentation, all of which went well. My partner for the presentation, Hui Ling, was an adorable girl from Singapore. All the new Kyoto JETs, for whom I was solely responsible, seem to be a good crowd. There is a certain someone that for all his friendly and outgoing energy seems a little bit KY (kuuki yomenai -- unable to read social situations) and I think he may give Amy, our prefectural advisor, a heart-attack. But otherwise, everyone is lovely, and I made several new friends among the other orientation assistants.

My new coworker at Sonobe is this South African guy named Paul, and he is wonderful. A psychologist by trade, he is just the sweetest, politest, most optimistic person. All of the students love him -- especially the girls! Paul doesn't speak any Japanese, so I'm always trying to tell him what the girls are saying: "They think you're really cool," or, "They want to know how tall you are," or even on one occasion, "She thinks you smell really good." (By the by, at 190ish centimeters, Paul is the tallest teacher at our school, just beating out the principal.)

Just a week after Paul got here, though, I abandoned him to go on vacation in the last stretches of summer holiday. Together with my erstwhile travel companions, Jo, Fig, and Mike, the four of us set off for...HONG KONG!

If you count the travel days at either end of the week, our trip totaled 10 days. We stayed at the Prudential Hotel in Kowloon. It was a great stay, and I would recommend this spot to anybody! First of all, the rooms were super nice -- more than large enough for two people. Double beds for all, holla! And we had a nice view out of our giant window. There was a lot of interesting stuff and nice restaurants within walking distance, besides the hotel sitting practically on top of the nearest train station. Plus, the rooftop swimming pool was almost always empty, so we popped up for a leisurely swim whenever we had nothing else to do and the weather was nice. (Alas, the weather got really rainy for several days in the middle, thanks to typhoon Morakot. But we just used those days as an excuse for museums!)

Anyway, on to the highlights!

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Po Lin Monastery and the Tien Tan Buddha -- On Lantau Island. The train system doesn't cover all of Lantau, so at the last stop, we had to switch onto the Ngong Ping cable car. It was a really long lift ride, and pretty scenic, going over a bay and some mountains to reach the village around Po Lin. The walk to the monastery was a quaint cobbled road lined with souvenir stores and gelato shops. The Tien Tan Buddha, which had been massively visible even from the cable car, loomed over the area. The big bronze buddha is 34 meters (that's 110 feet) tall, seated on a lotus throne and surveying the countryside from the top of a high hill. Po Lin Monastery faces the buddha, across a sort of courtyard at the base of the hill. It wasn't huge, but it was very ornately presented. I particularly loved the winding dragons carved into the stone columns which supported the building. After wandering around for some photos, we ate lunch at the monastery's famed vegetarian restaurant. It was a set lunch, and apart from the soup appetizer - weak, dirt-flavored potato water that made me feel not unlike a medieval peasant - it was all pretty good. We ate until stuffed, and still couldn't quite finish everything. As elsewhere in Hong Kong, there was bizarro Mao merchandise available, and I made off with a tin-sided Mao CD case. Red, of course.

The Peak -- On Hong Kong Island. Pretty literally what it sounds like. The Peak is a mountain overlooking the city center, reached by a steep train line ending at a mountaintop shopping mall. There is a fantastic view from the roof, from which you can see the ocean on several sides. There are also about a million more souvenir shops (many of which we patronized) and apparently a wax museum. We didn't visit the latter, though I did insist on having a picture together with the promotional Jackie Chan figure. Heart Jackie!

Avenue of the Stars and the Hong Kong Light Show -- The southern tip of Kowloon Peninsula, at Tsim Sha Tsui. This is Hong Kong's answer to the Hollywood Stars. All the greats of HK cinema - many of them martial artists - have left their name and handprints here to be goggled at. We found Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and many more...including, of course, the untouchable Bruce Lee. He has a statue near his star, in front of which we all posed, mimicking his fierce kung fu! I also geeked out over a little store dedicated completely to Jackie Chan. In addition to all this, the avenue runs along the harbor front, with the absolute best view of the famous Hong Kong skyline. In the evening, the avenue is crowded with visitors, all eyes on that skyline for the Hong Kong Light Show. Music comes on over the PA system, and in a cool feat of collaboration, decorative lights go crazy on the opposite shore's office buildings, choreographed with the music. Not super amazing, but charming, especially to think how all those big corporations came together just to do something trivial and fun.

Hong Kong Museum of Art -- Near the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui. This museum was honestly so-so, but that may be due in part to several of the exhibits being closed for renovation or change or something. Much of the painting, especially modern, didn't suit my taste, though...a little too on the simple folksy side. After a point, I feel like any five-year-old could have done the same, you know? But I did get one nice print in the museum shop, of someone playing a flute.

Temple Street Night Market -- Smack dab in the middle of Kowloon, near Jordan, and thus, our hotel. I think we walked over after dinner one night. There were lots of wacky stalls selling wacky merchandise, much of it probably knock-off. There was a ton of Mao stuff here, so I bought a few funny souvenirs, and some interesting old communist posters for myself. (I've been pretty into art lately, as you may have noticed.)

Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas -- In the New Territories. The first and only Chinese graveyard that I've encountered, this was one of my favorite spots in Hong Kong. Really interesting! As opposed to headstones, there are rows upon rows of cubical rooms, almost like a rental storage facility in layout. (But nicer, of course, and peppered with buddha statues.) Inside each room, the three free walls are covered floor to ceiling in memorial plaques, most often with a photo of the deceased. I'm not sure whether ashes are interred behind each, or what. In any case, this temple went up and up and up a mountain, and it was fantastic and oddly enchanting, even in the seriously pouring rain. My only regret / complaint is that the upper reaches were sealed off - a shame, because we could see an interesting and different landscape starting just beyond. At least I befriended the temple cat, after an intensive ten minute petting session. BFF!

Hong Kong Museum of History -- Somewhere in Kowloon...I forget, but we walked there from the hotel. Now this was a fascinating museum. I didn't know much about Hong Kong to begin with, apart from it being sort of colonized by the British, and this museum was a great way to learn more. The exhibits were vast and detailed, with pretty much an entire period piece neighborhood contained inside. Really, you could go up back alleys from post offices to school rooms to grocery shops temples to western dining rooms. It was like stepping back in time!

Man Mo Temple and Cat Street -- On Hong Kong Island. Man Mo temple seems to have an interesting story, being dedicated to two deities that I would not intuitively associate; the god of war, and the god of literature, respectively. But the temple itself was not super extraordinary. As in some other HK temples, I found myself mostly captivated by the huge spirals of incense hanging from the ceiling. Even apart from smelling wonderful, they were aesthetically captivating. Cat Street is a nearby street market, selling much of the same weird Chinese goods and statuettes. I found a little statuette of a dragon, but instead of the dog-lion dragons I'd normally associate with Chinese tradition, it looked more like a panther. Now it lives on my coffee table.

Peking Restaurant -- Okay, this isn't exactly a sight, but if any of you ever go to Hong Kong, definitely visit this place. It's on Nathan Road, right across the street from Jordan station. We liked it so much, we actually ate here twice. The wait staff were super nice, even though we were the only foreigners in the place on both occasions. But more importantly, the food! Everything we tried was good, from the crispy rice soup to the fried bananas, but the real show stopper was of course the Peking duck. I'd never had it before, and let me tell you, in China is the way to start! So delicious. I can't even put it into words. Except that now I'm hungry.

The Noonday Gun -- Along the waterfront at Causeway Bay. We more or less found this by accident, and I'll admit, including it here is sort of a joke! We'd read about it in the guidebook, and its historical significance...something about the British firing it at noon, I don't know. So we were kind of amused to find it, especially since in real life, it is a really small old canon, painted blue. End of story.

Jade Market -- Kowloon, A long building crammed with stalls selling exactly what you'd expect -- anything and everything jade. (And, for some reason, Bruce Lee playing cards.) There was a lot of jewelry, beads, figurines, and the like, on and on and on.

And also, our day trip from HK to Macau!

St. Paul's Cathedral -- Only the front facade of this cathedral remains, which makes it almost more striking. The facade, though the only wall standing, seems in almost perfect condition, beautifully constructed with carvings and statues. Through the gaping windows, there is only open blue sky. You can see the facade for some time coming, as it sits at the top of a rise, with gentle European bricked roads winding down through the city, lined with sweet shops and souvenirs and even a Starbucks. The whole area was the most beautiful mix of sub-tropical and what I imagine Italy or Spain to look like. Thank you, Portuguese colonialists!

Monte Fort and the Museum of Macau -- Situated right next to St. Paul's, this old fort holds a commanding view of Macau. You can see all the nice pseudo-European architecture, right next to a variety of surprise!casinos. Many of the casinos were actually quite pretty, though, not necessarily detracting from the view. There were a ton of old cannons and the like still stationed around the ramparts, and the center of the fort now houses the Museum of Macau. This museum did a lot of the same things right that the Hong Kong Museum achieved -- intricate reconstructions, photo exhibits, et cetera, though generally on a smaller scale than the aforementioned.

Casino Lisboa -- I suspect named for Lisbon. This crazy golden structure dominates the Macau skyline, but somehow sort of compliments the scenery around it. It's like something out of George Lucas' mind, were he designing a delicate, futuristic elf city.

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So there you have it. A nice trip, complete with a real-life Miyazaki character ("Fried noodow?!"), Polish escape tactics ("What? What?! I don't understand!"), insistent salesmen ("You look very nice! I respect you!"), and Giordano shirts for everyone (except for Mike, even though - or more likely, because - his last name is Giordano.)

the past two months

2009-07-23T22:59:00.001-04:00

The upcoming weeks will be quite busy, so I'd better try to fill in the gap between Mongolia and the present before things get even more out of hand!

May 16th was a barbecue at a park in Kameoka. A lot of people turned out, and we had a really nice time. Nelis was in rare form that day, being totally silly. A bug got in his shirt, so he named it She and claimed it was his girlfriend. And during a conversation about mukade, the giant poisonous centipedes that roam Japan searching for victims, we had the following exchange.

Nelis: I like mukade.
me: What?! They're little black death machines!
Nelis: Have you ever spoken to a mukade? They're actually quite nice.

Nelis and I also made friends with a part-time English teacher named Minako, who by all appearances was a normal delicate little Japanese woman. When she heard that Nelis was South African, this happened!

Minako: Oh, I've visited there twice.
me: Really? Why?
Minako: For the World Power-lifting Championships.
me: What?! Did you compete?
Minako: Yes.
me: Did you win?
Minako: Second place.
me: !!!
Nelis: Could you lift me?
Minako: Easily.

Quelle suprise! Anyway, Joanna and I had to leave the barbecue a little early, which was maybe for the best, because shortly thereafter the police arrived to break up the party. I guess it was a slow day for crime in Kameoka, because apparently there were thirteen officers -- probably the entire staff of the local police box.

After the barbecue I went with Joanna and Alex R. to see a kabuki play. I don't remember now what it was called, but it involved probably the wackiest stage fighting I had ever seen, despite most of the play being a drama. These two guys staged a fight at an old mill, which actually had a giant pool of water with it on stage. First they fought across the roof, then one fell into the water, and then we he tried to climb up the waterwheel, the waterwheel actually started spinning him around on stage! It was ridiculous! Eventually the two samurai were both in the pool having a splash fight, not to mention intentionally soaking everyone in the front rows. And at one point they lost their swords and started hitting each other with carrots. Very funny!

On May 23rd, a group of us (me, Joanna, Neil, Alex, and Joy) climbed Mt. Hiei, which is along the border of Kyoto and Shiga prefectures. There are some nice temple complexes at the top, not to mention some absolutely breathtaking views of the surrounding area. By the time we got to the top, though, we were all sweaty and tired...so now that I have the moral superiority of having climbed it, next time I'll take the cable car!

Towards the end of May, Alex R. kickstarted a series of movie nights at his apartment, beginning with Jean Claude Van Damme's epic "Bloodsport." In later weeks, this would be followed with "Big Trouble in Little China," "Half-Baked," and the JCVD classics "Kickboxer" and "Double Team." I also had the boys over to my place one afternoon for a "Space Jam" and "Live Free or Die Hard" double feature that was pretty grand.

We also went to see the new Star Trek movie as soon as it came out. Totally awesome! When it ended, I just wanted to stay in the theater and watch it all over again.

The evening after our recontracting seminar (which was largely not worth mention), Hosoi-sensei had organized a staff party with the teachers from our old section, like a mini-reunion. We had a lot of fun, and I got to spend most of the night talking to Kaneshiro-sensei, who I would definitely marry, if only he weren't married already. In the process, though, I managed to make a Japanese mistake that is now tied for first with one I made in college. (The college mistake was during an interview test, where adding an extra syllable changed "Where does your family live?" to "Where does your pirate live?" Apparently Imai-sensei's pirate lives in Tokyo.) The mistake this time was when I was trying to say I was recently being kind of lazy about studying. I switched the word for lazy person, "namakemono," with the word "bakemono." Kaneshiro-sensei looked mighty surprised, and upon consulting my dictionary, we discovered that I'd just told him I was the boogeyman. Whoops!

After a few drinks, Hosoi-sensei decided to make a short speech about each person present. They were all like, "Oh, Ueda-sensei has finished her first year, congratulations..." and "Kristin always works so hard..." I was sitting next to him, so the speech about me was last. Hosoi-sensei is my best buddy at school, and was a little drunk by this point, so his speech about me went something like this. "Anna wore her hair down at work today. I asked her if she had cut it, but she didn't." Okay, what? And then, "Anna is...crazy." THANKS, HOSOI-SENSEI.

On June 6th, we went out to celebrate my friend Neil's birthday. We got together eight people and went to Karafune-ya, a huge ice cream parlour. Neil had preordered a one hundred dollar parfait. It was gigantic. The size of my entire torso. The eyes of every Japanese person in the restaurant were transfixed as the eight of us faced off against the parfait, and eventually (eventually) won. I think we needed closer to twelve people, from the way we all staggered out afterwards.

School has been busy, with various exams and interview tests and the speech contest, not to mention 800 goodbye Kristin classes. A lot of the junior high kids sang songs for her, which were totally adorable. "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 was a particularly challenging choice. We also had goodbye English Club meetings, for one of which I shelled out money for a nice goodbye cake. It was a pain to get, but made worth it by the students' joy for cake.

After school on June 26th, I went with Kristin and Sumiko (our tea ceremony teacher) to a really cool pottery exhibit at the little Sonobe museum. We were the only people there apart from the potter, so we were able to talk to him for awhile. His art involved a lot of animals and sea creatures. My favorite was this beautifully detailed and stylized octopus that sort of resembled Cthulhu, if Cthulhu were pretty.

On July 12th, we went to see kabuki once again, this time in Osaka. It was a kabuki production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" (my favorite of his comedies), and it was absolutely stunning. It opened with three little boys singing a beautiful rendition of "O Come O Come Emmanuel" in Japanese. The same actor played both Sebastian and Viola, with by far the most unbelievable quick-changes I have ever seen. The sets were all gigantic, and there were probably a good ten of them, including a boat that actually traveled around the stage and an intricate cherry tree that actually had blooming branches drooping down over the actors. Everything was perfect and wonderful and lovely and comic. It was a great performance.

Tuesday the 14th, I took an hour and a half of annual leave to escape school early. Then I caught a train through Osaka to Hyogo, for my very first Hanshin Tigers game! It was so exciting. I adopted the Tigers as my Japanese baseball team three years ago when I studied in Osaka, but I'd never had a chance to go to a game. I wore my Toritani jersey, and bought a matching hat at Koshien stadium. The crowd was crazy, with all sorts of organized cheers that were specific to each Tigers player. The Tigers won 5-4 over the Chunichi Dragons, and the fans went wild! Twenty minutes after the game ended, we were all still in the stands, singing the Tigers theme song and the song for Hiyama, the MVP.

Finally, this past weekend! Sunday was the JET goodbye party in Kameoka, for all the folks who are leaving (or have already). We were walking to the venue, Liz's apartment, when the bottom dropped out and we were caught in the middle of a freaking flash flood. Our umbrellas helped almost none, and by the time we got to Liz's place, everybody was completely soaked. She gave us some towels, thank goodness, and the party was a lot of fun from there on out. A bunch of us stayed the night, and then went out for a late breakfast the next morning. Liz was kind enough to lend me an overshirt -- the one I had been wearing the night before had gotten crazily stained during the rainstorm (I think from my leather bag, somehow).

Monday was a holiday for Marine Day. (Marine as in the ocean, not the people. When I heard this was a national holiday, I thought, "Marine Day? Really? Well, I guess we have Arbor Day. But wait, we don't get a day off for Arbor Day. So it's still silly!") We did some shopping and said goodbye for now to Alex Ma. As Alex R. said, "It smells like burning marshmallows. Is Alex Ma on fire?"

After school on Tuesday I had to run back into the city, this time for Alex R.'s goodbye. We ate donburi at a restaurant we are fast becoming regulars of, had a beer at Ing Bar for old times sake, and did purikura together. Alex technically left Wednesday, but it's terrifically strange to try and envision our group without him. I hope someday we can really have our 2009 JETs Reunion Party back in America.

Nelis has also gone, and I probably won't see Liz again. The newbies start arriving in Japan on Sunday. I am leaving tomorrow morning for Tokyo, where I've been tagged to serve as a Tokyo Orientation Assistant. I get to meet them at the airport, and answer their questions at the hotel, and present a seminar about J-pop to several hundred people. (Death!) Then I will help escort all of the new Kyoto JETs back here. Among the group will be Paul (my new coworker), Paul's significant other (Liz's replacement), and Sabrina (my new neighbor). I haven't spoken to or messaged any of them yet...I hope they are cool people!

And wish me luck on my presentation. I have a sneaking suspicion that we're going to end up kind of winging it. :P

everybody wants to go to MONGOLIA!

2009-07-17T22:56:00.001-04:00

I finally finished writing about Mongolia! It's practically a book. Please bear with me.

So, Mongolia was a pretty wacky experience, and I know no other way to do it justice than in excruciating detail. In fact, there is far too much to say for one post, so I am hitting it day by day. If you want to do things chronologically, please scroll down down down to the first post about Ulaanbaatar and work your way up from there. I think you'll have to go back a page, actually.

After this, I get to play catch up for the past two months. Oh boy.

Mongolia -- Day 10 and 11 (the end)

2009-07-16T22:29:00.003-04:00

The last two days are a little blurry now, because I didn't make any notes at the time. (Whoops!)

One morning we went to Choijin Lama Temple, which was maybe my favorite place in UB. It was small, but beautiful and ornate. The art of Chinese-influence Buddhism is significantly different from the Buddhism in Japan -- namely, more violent and prone to linger on the Buddhist hells. It was really fascinating. In the makeshift gift shop (housed in a ger), I bought a bunch of little hand-painted cards as omiyage (souvenirs) for some of my coworkers and friends.

We found a statue of Lenin, and visited the Victims of Political Persecution Museum. It was contained in an old house (belonging to a previous prime minister that had been persecuted). The exhibits were mostly about the occupation by Soviet Russia, only half translated into English, and consisted of a lot of old photos and personal stories. The most suddenly stunning part was when you walked into a small room upstairs and came face to face with a plexiglass case full of human skulls, most with bullet holes. They were from a mass grave of 600 people that had just been discovered in about 2006.

We also tried to find the Modern Art Museum, but when we finally did, we discovered that it had been pretty much destroyed in a fire that caught from the bank next door.

At the guest house, we spent more time hanging out with Nasaa, as well as this guy Go from Tokyo. We watched a pretty crazy and kind of low-budget music competition show (essentially Ulaanbaatar Idol), and helped Go learn the words to "Stand By Me."

At last, it was time to depart. Nasaa and Urnuun's mother came with us to the airport. As we drove there, we passed the end of some Buddhist festival, and saw these flaming lanterns flying up into the sky. It was a nice image to end on, I think.

We had a great time in Mongolia. I wouldn't mind going back, though I'd much rather spend time in the countryside than in the city!

Mongolia -- Day 8 and 9 (Back in the UB)

2009-07-16T21:56:00.004-04:00

The day after we got back from our tour, Chanaa escorted me, Fig, and Pasi on the one hour walk to an absolutely giant outdoor marketplace that was literally called "The Black Market." It was divided into vague quadrants, where you could find clothes, or antiques, or furniture, or anything else that occurred to you. There were probably fifty stalls just selling shoes.

We bought various souvenirs, and I managed to get a copy of the epic kayak album by Javhlan that we'd been listening to all week. It is amazing in the absolutely silliest way. Javhlan's sound is difficult to describe, except maybe like weird nomad opera? I saw him filed in a music store under "Country," which kind of made sense thinking about the actual Mongolian countryside -- though it is definitely Mongolian country music, bearing little or no resemblance to the American counterpart.

We grabbed a late lunch at a cafe Chanaa recommended, stopped by Hi-Fi Music for a few more Mongolian CDs (I think Fig had accumulated something like six by this point), and then Fig and I went out for dinner.

The next morning we spent some time watching the music channel with Nasaa (the hostel housekeeper), and then walked to Gandan Khiid. Gandan Khiid is a pretty cool monastery in the north-west corner of Ulaanbaatar. There were a lot of students there for some kind of graduation ceremony or trip, and a huge flock of pigeons trying to terrorize the public. The main building had a giant bronze statue of a standing Buddha, and a ton of smaller Buddha figurines lining the walls top to bottom. There was also a long line of these things that I think are like prayer wheels, stretching all along the inside and spinning constantly as the line of people ran their hands over them.

After lunch we next went to the Fine Art Museum and the attached Red Ger Gallery. Both were quite interesting. The Fine Art Museum had a lot of traditional works, including some intricate and heavy-looking festival masks and an absolutely stunning mandala model. It was about as big as a car, built in the shape of a finely detailed palace with various deities and decorations abounding. The Red Ger Gallery held more modern art, several pieces of which really impressed me. I particularly liked the paintings of one E. Tsolinonbat, but I can't seem to find him (or her) online anywhere for more information. (By the way, Dad, this is where I bought your painting!)

That night, Chanaa had invited Fig and I to dinner at her house. It was our first opportunity to see an urban dwelling. Chanaa lived with her husband and her two or three year old daughter, Anojun, in this tiny one room house tucked into a crowded neighborhood. (What we in America might consider a slum or at least projects, though I think it was fairly standard for UB.) There was no bathroom (or, I think, running water) so there was a tiny outhouse shack in the yard and Chanaa had to fill the teapot from a bucket. But inside the house was clean and decently furnished, and Anojun was an absolute pistol. She and I played a sort of strange game that involved spinning a plastic radish, which for some reason tickled Anojun to no end.

After a while, we were joined by a friend of Chanaa's husband, who was a big merry guy. (He lied to us about being a Mongolian wrestler, and told us that Japanese men must be crazy if we didn't have boyfriends.) Also, a neighborhood boy of perhaps seven came over to play with Anojun. The food was plentiful and great (oh, that I could cook like Chanaa) and we had an all around lovely time.

Mongolia -- Day 7 (the return)

2009-07-16T02:59:00.004-04:00

The fifth day of our grand countryside excursion was mostly consumed by driving back to Ulaanbaatar, being forced to practice the "mama song" a million times in the van. None of us were totally eager to get back to the city, so instead, Ankha kept insisting that we were driving to the moon.

We stopped at the same Nowheresville town that had surprised us with the maid uniforms on the first day, and several children kept eying us through the windows. Taking the initiative, I grabbed a can of Pringles we'd brought in the van as a snack, jumped outside, and started dispersing stacks to them. ("Pringles For the Children" has a nice ring to it -- brand new charity?)

We stopped on a hill with a nice view of the rolling countryside to have lunch, Ankha getting up to his usual antics and dancing around on the roof of the van. But all too soon (boy, I cannot stress too soon enough) we were back in UB.

After fifteen minutes at a police checkpoint, we entered the city, passing a building called "The Akuma Center." (This elicited another laugh from all of us, because "Akuma" means devil in Japanese.) Back at Idre's Guesthouse, Ankha led us in our final rousing rendition of the "mama song," delighting (or at least amusing) the Mongolian staff. We bid farewell to our tour mates, and immediately ran for our first shower in five days. I don't think I've ever needed one more in my life.

Tired, we just grabbed some spicy ramen noodles from the weird little grocery store across the street. But at nine o'clock, we had agreed to go out with Pasi, our pre-tour Finnish friend. We walked across town (which I definitely wouldn't do in Ulaanbaatar without a male escort) to the so-called Club Dorgio. It was sort of underground, with tables arranged in tiers like auditorium seating. There was a live band, and we were just enjoying the atmosphere when, bam! The lights go out.

And they stay out. They stay out for fifteen or twenty minutes. But no one leaves! The bartender dispenses candles with such competence that I think this happens not irregularly, and then service continues as normal. (Though finding the bathroom in the dark was something of a challenge.)

Then we made one more stop at a mostly empty though quite swanky place called The History Club, which had the most eccentric menu I've ever seen. (The only thing approaching it is Ing Bar in Kyoto, which boasts the "world famous garlic festival.") The History Club's menu offered such amenities as:

African Salad
Vodka with traditional horn glass
Traditional throat song
Mongolian girls dance
"History"

But they were out of pretty much everything we ordered. No African salad...no History (that's right, no History at the History Club). All they had was french fries, so we ordered them twice back to back. (And no, we didn't have the guts or the money to order the Mongolian girls dance.)

Mongolia -- Day 6 (Kharkhorhiin and Erdene Zuu)

2009-07-16T02:30:00.005-04:00

In the morning we bid farewell to ger number three and Mogi, our horse guide. He grinned his mostly toothless smile and blushed heavily when I told him, "Mogi, bi chamd hartzee!" ("Mogi, I love you!")

In the afternoon, we arrived via our bushwhacking van at the (very) small city of Kharkhorhiin, site of Karakorum, the ancient capitol and vaunted city of Chinggis Khan. Our fourth ger was among a whole cluster of guest gers, and we were excited to finally take a shower after four days running around on smelly animals...only to discover that the shower facilities were out of water. One more night among the unclean!

While Chanaa made lunch, Ankha decided that he was going to teach us the so-called "mama song." By this point, we had been listening to Javhlan (the kayak guy) on repeat almost nonstop for the past three days, so we all knew the tune like it was our national anthem. He painstakingly wrote out the first couple verses in the English alphabet (though Mongolians actually use Cyrillic) and started drilling us mercilessly. "Study! Study! Boma, come in!" I'm pretty sure we mangled the pronunciation, because Chanaa just started laughing when she heard us.

Next we visited Erdene Zuu monastery, the oldest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. There were several buildings with various Buddhas enshrined inside, with stunningly colorful decorations. The ceilings in particular were painted in breathtaking patterns. The monastery was also host to a tiny marketplace, simply of blankets on the ground covered with trinkets, where we did some souvenir shopping.

To our surprise, there were several more girls in French main uniforms. I looked at Chanaa askance.

Me: Wait a minute. Chanaa, are those uniforms for every school?
Chanaa: Yes!
Me: Did you wear one in high school?
Chanaa: Yes!
Me: Oh my god! I want to see a picture!!

Alas, I never did. But Chanaa did explain to us that the uniforms had been imposed when the Russians took over. (Figures, hahaha.)

After Erdene Zuu, we stopped in the actual Kharkhoriin market to by (yet more) mutton, which was basically kept just sitting in huge chunks on tables in a bare white room. Fig and I didn't linger, instead wandering around outside, watching children in raggedy three piece suits playing pool on outdoor pool tables. Yuichiro wanted to stay and look around, insisting that he could walk back when he was finished, so we left him there (despite Ankha's cutely parental protests).

In the hour or so that it took Yuichiro to make his way back to the ger, Ankha spent most of it rolling around on Yuichiro's bed moaning, "Why, Boma, whyyyy? Boma where? Boooomaaaaaa!" And according to Chanaa, he wouldn't let her start dinner, because it needed to be hot when Yuichiro came back to eat. Hahaha, what a little dad.

That evening, a man (with excellent English) came and gave a concert at our campsite. He demonstrated traditional Mongolian throat singing and a several Mongolian instruments. (One which greatly resembled the Japanese koto.) Fig bought his CD, and I'm pretty sure that between the two of us we got the entire concert on video.

Afterwards, a group of Americans from another ger came and chatted with us for awhile, apparently using their recent layoffs as an excuse to travel abroad. At least one of them had been to Japan recently, so we spent some time discussing the things he'd seen and done.

But after they left, the gobi monster finally made his move! Switching off the lights, Ankha started growling and laughing like a crazier and more threatening Vincent Price. Needless to say, there was a lot of shrieking and pouncing and me holding a chair in front of me in self-defense.

Mongolia -- Day 5 (to the lake and back)

2009-07-16T00:55:00.004-04:00

We started the day with bathroom adventure #3 -- no bathroom at all. We three girls (I, Fig, Miho) had snuck out the night before into the nearby woods, yelling "Hootie-hoo!" to keep track of each other in the dark. (A brief homage to Top Chef's Carla.) But in the morning light, it became evident that the woods were not as thick as one might hope for privacy, so there was some definite unease as we each tried to find a secluded enough spot and then keep our eyes peeled. This might have been all fine and forgettable, but...

As I was walking back to the ger, I suddenly heard Fig shriek in the woods behind me. "Oh my god!" Turning, I saw the source of her distress -- a guy on a motorcyle passed me with a vague grin, having evidently just motorcycled right past Fig. So much for the empty Mongolian wilderness.

We rode for two more hours on horseback, this time up into the wooded mountains that bordered the valleys. Most of the time we had to ride single-file, so it was very quiet and peaceful. Our goal was a pretty lake, which was still largely covered in ice. In some patches, the ice had melted into strange, spiky sheets stretched across the surface. We rested for awhile, took some pictures, and then rode the two hours back.

During our return trip through the valley, something spooked Miho's horse. I was riding right behind her when it started rearing like a wild thing, Miho clutching the saddle and flopping like a rag doll. My horse tried to follow suit, and I hauled back on the reins, thinking in a panic, "Oh my god, she's gonna fall! Oh crap, so am I!" Moments later, Miho was on the ground, but miraculously uninjured. I had managed to get control of my own mount, thank goodness, so it was just a matter of calming her horse. Miho was understandably wary, though, and since we were almost back to the gers, she elected to walk the rest of the way.

Chanaa made us khushuur for lunch (flat meat pastries), and I bribed the small children with candy and wet wipes. They were really into the wet wipes, for some reason...they watched the way I was cleaning off my face, and then mimicked me like little duchesses.

At last, it was onto the horses once again, to ride back across the plains to meet Ankha. By the time we were halfway back, my thighs were in pretty serious pain, so to distract ourselves Fig and I had a long conversation about Batman and other 90s cartoon shows. Then, Yuichiro had a spill of his own. It was quite odd actually. His horse wasn't going very fast, but when it stopped suddenly, Yuichiro just rolled over its shoulder in slow-motion, landing in a somersault that put him back on his feet in one smooth move, the way you only ever see on TV.

Finally we were back at the second homestead, Ankha running out to meet us and effectively stealing Chanaa's horse. We dropped off our mounts at the gers, had a cup of tea, and went off again to explore a nearby waterfall. Except, there had been no rain, so there wasn't actually any water. As Miho pointed out, it was less a waterfall, and more "just a fall."

So, we're all super tired and achy from the horseback riding - altogether, we had ridden for twelve out of the last thirty hours. But Ankha assured us that the just-a-fall was nearby, and we were willing to stretch our legs a little. What Ankha did not (and probably could not) tell us was that to get to the waterfall, we would have to scale down a practically vertical cliff. I think we must have looked pretty stunned with disbelief, because Ankha grinned and yelled, "Spiderman!" before bouncing down like a freaking mountain goat.

Eventually, we all made it down to the riverbed in one piece, but after about fifteen minutes, we just had to scale up it again.

We walked back (through a herd of yaks and a gang of herd dogs that I had to keep intercepting to protect dog-phobic Yuichiro), and had buuz for dinner (mutton dumplings). While getting ready for bed, we encountered bathroom adventure #4. As it turned out, while there was at least an actual outhouse this time, it was several hundred meters away through the yak herd. Fig went to find it in the dark, and just after she left, Chanaa came to tell us, "If you need toilet, please use near the ger. There are wild dogs." Whoops.

So, at least fifteen minutes later, Fig came back, looking frazzled, and having apparently crossed through some kind of dimensional rift in her attempt to find the outhouse. Lost amongst the yaks, she found a completely different set of buildings, and never encountered the outhouse at all, though it stood alone in the middle of a field and should have been easy to find. But at least she didn't meet the wild dogs!

Mongolia -- Day 4 (the grasslands)

2009-07-16T00:31:00.004-04:00

We got up early to pack up our stuff, load into the van, and bid farewell to the desert. As was his wont, Ankha kept us all pretty entertained with his constant (and quite operatic) singing, pronouncing at intervals, "Mongolian pop star!" A few hours of bumpy off-roading took us out of the scrub and into some very pretty grasslands. They were these broad, open valleys surrounded by mountains, and occasionally cut by cool blue rivers still laden with ice. It looked like we had just driven into Lord of the Rings, or something.

Around lunchtime, we arrived at another homestead, where we ate some pseudo-spaghetti and outfitted ourselves for the next leg of the journey...on horseback. As it turned out, despite worrying about it when I was packing, I was the only one wearing acceptable shoes. So everyone else borrowed some pretty funny Mongolian boots (Miho's were HUGE on her), handed over one little overnight bag for the packhorse, and saddled up.

Chanaa had gone to great lengths to warn us that Mongolian horses are more dangerous than western horses (despite looking kind of smaller). Fig has a lot of riding experience, but mine basically distills to a week at a ranch in Arizona last year, Yuichiro's to one time in Peru, and it was Miho's very first time. We all found it funny that in Mongolia, instead of kicking your horse into a trot or gallop, you instead say, "Chuu, chuu!" (Mostly funny because we all knew that it was Japanese for "Kiss, kiss!")

Ankha stayed behind at the gers, temporarily replaced by our horse guide, a smiley middle-aged guy named Mogi. He was uber cheerful, and sang a lot. (A distinct trend of every tour guide we had in Mongolia, barring Chanaa.) We rode for four hours across the pretty valleys, and through the rivers (one of which Fig's horse almost fell into), passing sheep and yaks all over the place. As we approached our destination (yet another set of gers), Mogi's horse had a brief showdown with a big shaggy black yak, who (I kid you not) actually pranced back and forth like he was saying, "Hey, hey, whatchu doin'? Whatchu doin' here? Hey! Hey!" I wish I had it on tape.

Finally we got to that night's lodging, a cluster of gers populated mostly by small children and goats. The childrens' two favorite games seemed to be, grab-the-baby-goat-and-run-away-thus-freak-out-the-mama-goat, and try-to-ride-the-already-very-unhappy-mama-goat. Yuichiro, who was usually kind of weird and vaguely prissy, decided that these were the best games ever. He joined the two little girls in totally terrorizing the goats, and had this ridiculously big grin when he finally managed to catch one baby of his own. Baby goats are, by the way, called "ishik."

When it was time for dinner, we were realized there was no electricity, so the rest of the evening was mostly spent in conversation by candlelight.

Mongolia -- Day 3 (the Gobi desert, sort of)

2009-07-15T02:23:00.007-04:00

The beginning of our grand countryside tour. We were up bright and early to meet our tour group and head out of the city. The tour was six people in total: besides Fig and I, there was a Japanese girl named Miho (from Chiba, near Tokyo), a Japanese guy named Yuichiro (from Saitama, coincidentally also near Tokyo), the tour guide, and the driver.

The tour guide was a really nice woman in her mid- to late-twenties (28?), named Chanaa. Her English was kind of funny, but good enough to do the trick. The driver was a 23 year old crazy man named Ankha, whose English was virtually nonexistent (apart from "Why? Why? Why? Why?") and who provided 90% of all entertainment during our trip. On our way out of UB, he stopped and bought a tape from a freestanding cassette stand (cassettes? REALLY?). It was by a really famous Mongolian singer named Javhlan, who was featured on the front, for some reason in a kayak. Little did we know that this cassette would become so integral in our lives.

Driving through the Mongolian countryside was interesting, but also very soporific to all us passengers who had gotten up early. After some general self-intro (in which we discovered that 22 year old Yuichiro had somehow already been to 57 countries) we all sort of napped. Part way through the morning we stopped for a bathroom break -- the first of a devolving set of weird countryside bathroom adventures.

The place we stopped was a community of perhaps 300 people, and we stopped to use a set of old wooden outhouses by the road. They were next to a tiled building, outside of which we were surprised to discover three girls wearing french maid uniforms, complete with stilettos. Why on earth were they dressed like that, in Nowheresville, Mongolia? And as we watched, more and more of them kept appearing, walking around the building's packed dirt courtyard. What could it mean?!

Back in the van, I asked Chanaa.

Me: Why are they dressed like that?
Chanaa: It's uniform.
Me: A uniform for what?
Chanaa: Uniform!
Me: Like a school uniform?
Chanaa: Yes, school uniform!

WHAT. We all boggled at that for awhile, then napped some more until lunch. Yuichiro slept in the weirdest and most uncomfortable looking positions, with his head wedged between the seats or, a few times, conked out on my shoulder. We of course took some clandestine photos to mark the event.

Whatever lunch was, it was awesome. We had hot tea and some kind of noodles with mutton (Mongolia's meat of choice) at this totally abandoned restaurant. There was a TV in one corner playing music videos, which Ankha settled down to watch. Pointing at the screen, he insisted, "Mama song! Mama song!" After a minute, we realized that it was the same as a song he had pointed out to us earlier in the van, off that very Javhlan cassette. (And so it begun...!)

In the late afternoon, our sleep was well and finally interrupted when we suddenly turned off the paved roads onto no road at all. The van flew along over the bumpy desert landscape, and upon seeing we were awake, Ankha cranked up some techno music and turned on a set of flashing blue lights that he'd strung around the inside of the ceiling. Laughing and dancing and half-falling out of our seats, we had a most improbable moving techno rave through the Gobi desert. (Video to follow!)

At one point we stopped for about twenty minutes to explore some sand dunes. Thanks to the wind, our clothes and skin were immediately covered in grit. Ankha started chasing us around, pretending to shoot us with a stick-cum-machine gun, wrestling Fig (and losing), and carrying me to the edge of a little lake in an effort to throw me in. The whole time, he was grinning and growling and shouting, "Gobi monster!!!" (Which immediately became one of our tour catch phrases. When in doubt, "Gobi monster!")

At last we reached our berth for the night. Tucked in the lee of a mountainous outcropping stood a herd of goats and sheep, and three canvas gers (a.k.a. yurts). One was set aside for us to use, with a wooden floor and several cots. As it turned out, there was another tour group staying in the second ger, almost entirely consisting of Japanese people! At least eight of them. We were seeing more Japanese people in Mongolia than actual Mongolians! Anyway, one of them had a Japanese <---> Mongolian phrasebook, which we used to learn our very first (and most often used) Mongolian word: liar. So when Ankha came back from rustling goats (no kidding) we gleefully declared him to be a "hotarch!"

The bathroom situation continued in its steady devolution. Instead of an outhouse, this homestead had a pit cordoned off by two blue tarps. But the tarps were only waist-high, and formed only two sides of a small triangle, leaving the back of the latrine open. Now, this wouldn't be a huge concern had they positioned the tarps against the outcropping. But for some reason, they had positioned it sideways, leaving your backside open to the plains. We had to go in groups to use it, so that at least one person could keep an eye out for any approaching goat herders about to get a surprise eyeful.

After we threw our stuff inside the ger and got a quick look around, it was time for a camel ride! We went in pairs, me and Fig first. The camel guide was a wizened little Mongolian man who had to be at least 65, and spent most of the hourish-long ride singing Mongolian folk songs. The countryside was breathtaking, all wide desert and craggy mountains and grassy plains. We found out that "batok" is evidently the word for baby camel, as we were being followed by an adorably gangly baby camel that tried to eat Fig's boot. The singing guide kept pointing at it and happily exclaiming "Batok baby!"

Chanaa made us all the Mongolian version of chicken noodle soup for dinner, taught us a complicated card game called Camel that involved giving each other piggy-back rides, and then Ankha renamed everyone. Apparently, Miho resembled a Mongolian friend of his, so he decided just to call her by the same name. Then, he gave the rest of us Mongolian names for good measure.

Miho = I forgot, actually...something like Zolha (a common girls' name)
Yuichiro = Boma (a common boys' name)
Fig = Ulanaa (meaning "red girl," because her cheeks were flushed)
me = Tsetsgee (which is a kind of flower. Pretty good deal for me!)

Then we played around outside for a while. There was a totally cute and incorrigible dog named Sara that kept chasing us around, we took photos of the moon, and Ankha was full of mock threats about the Gobi monster. That light in the distance? Gobi monster! After we go to sleep? Gobi monster! Sara? Definitely Gobi monster!

It's a wonder any of us could sleep with that dire threat hanging over our heads.

Mongolia -- Day 2 (Ulaanbaatar)

2009-07-15T02:14:00.000-04:00

Our second day in UB began with a schedule change. Originally, we had been scheduled to go on a five-day excursion into the Mongolian countryside from May 3rd, accompanied by a French person and a British person. But one of them pulled out at the last minute, and so could we leave on the tour tomorrow instead? Of course this was fine with us, and imagine our humor when we discovered that our new travelmates were two Japanese people.

After that, we set out for the Natural History Museum. Along the way we were pseudo-accosted by a man brandishing a shovel -- mainly, he ran at us shouting just to freak us out, eliciting laughter from his friends and some colorful language from Fig. We grabbed lunch at a restaurant called Nomad Legends, which was quite good, and proceeded into the museum.

It was really weird. Apart from the oft Engrishy exhibition text (for some reason I was particularly tickled by odd phrasing of "the big science of biology"), there was an eerie plethora of taxidermied animals. Though one would of course expect some stuffed animals in a museum of natural history, the sheer number of them -- and worse, their sometimes blatantly amateur construction -- was striking. Birds' feathers were tatty and mussed, fish were affixed with dollar store googly eyes, and snow leopards wore expressions of almost comical surprise. In short, the museum often walked a narrow tightrope between morbidly comical and just plain sad. Of course, that said, my suspicion is that the funding for the museum was so lacking that they didn't have much of a choice. Apart from the dinosaur section, which was decently impressive, the exhibits (while interesting) had a distinctly unembellished and haphazard air.

Next, we took a brief spin through the Parliamentary Gardens, such as they were, but most everything was brown and dead, so we kept walking on through to Sukhbataar Square. This was perhaps the first place in Ulaanbaatar that honestly impressed me. A broad open square in the middle of the city, it boasted the huge parliament building at one end, with statues of Chinggis Khan and some of his generals. In the middle of the square was another statue of the eponymous Sukhbataar, who evidently led some revolution in Mongolia in 1921. (From what I gleaned of history while we were there, I think that's the one in which Mongolia ousted the Chinese in favor of the Soviets...but don't quote me on that.)

There were people loitering around trying to sell things like postcards to foreigners, sometimes using English. To fake them out, I would speak in Polish instead -- "I'm sorry, I don't speak English. I'm a Polish woman." It worked like a charm.

Fig and I then attempted to visit the Mongolian Artists' Exhibition Hall, only to discover that they had just finished taking down the current exhibition. However, one of the artists stopped to show us some of his work, which was for sale fairly cheaply. In the end, we both bought some. As we were taking the paintings back to Idre's Guest House, though, they sustained minor damage when a Mongolian teenager essentially body-slammed Fig. Well, body-slammed might be exaggerating, but there was a definite collision. As consolation, we decided to write off the little crinkles on the paintings as part of the "genuine Mongolian experience."

That night we ate dinner at a spot called the California Cafe, did a little preparatory shopping for our countryside excursion (i.e. toilet paper, wet wipes, tea bags, etc.), and then had a nice long conversation with another traveler at the guest house. His name was Pasi, a Finnish guy somewhere around thirty years old, who was on vacation from his job as a market analyst in Lithuania. Pasi was super friendly, if also super talkative, and we decided to meet up again when we got back from our tour.

After that, it was just a packing extravaganza as we reorganized our luggage for the tour, and I managed to squeeze five days into one backpack. Mongolia, ho!

Mongolia -- Arrival and Day 1 (Ulaanbaatar)

2009-07-15T02:00:00.000-04:00

The day of our departure was among the busiest days I have had in a long long time. Our flight was at about five in the evening, but I had to go into work that morning because Kristin had taken the day off, and I had classes to cover. I was scheduled for class in every period until lunch, but fortunately the first two periods were rescheduled, and I had some extra time to prepare information and such for Mongolia. (And to steel my nerves for third and fourth period, which were two new classes that I was teaching with two new teachers, one of whom I'd only even met the day before.) In the end, the classes went okay, and I was amused to see that I'm now teaching a kid who lives on my street, and has just moved up from another local junior high. His name is Ryoma, and I think he's going to prove to be a funny character.

Fourth period ended at 12:35, and I was in a hurry to go get my luggage and get on the train by 1:08. Fortunately, Hosoi-sensei had kindly offered to give me a ride. He was waiting at my desk when I got back from class, looking a little sheepish, and he said to me, "Are you ready? ...Actually, I forgot, I don't have my car today, because there is a party tonight." (Meaning: he intended to drink, and was using the train to avoid Japan's zero blood alcohol law.) There was a moment of surprise on my part, but before I could even process the problem enough to be distressed, he hurriedly told me that Kawabe-sensei, the funny PE teacher, had agreed to take us, instead. I guess Hosoi-sensei felt obligated to come along, even though he wasn't actually driving anymore, so all three of us piled into Kawabe-sensei's van.

To make a long story short, I made the train and my connection at Kyoto station for the airport express, and arrived at the airport around 3:45. Fig was already there, and after checking in, we grabbed a late lunch/early dinner and hopped on the plane! It was about two hours to Seoul, where we found out that our next flight had been delayed about two or three hours. So we mucked about in the airport, had an encounter with a really sketched out Korean Air clerk who looked incredibly nervous as if we were hydras come to devour him, and finally got on our next plane. We arrived in Ulaanbaatar after one in the morning, and were met by Idre, the guy who runs the guesthouse where we stayed.

(I'd like to take a moment to comment on an advert we saw in the UB airport. It was for one of the major banks -- maybe Khan Bank -- and the tagline was, "Your inevitable business partner in Mongolia." Um, WHAT? They sound like the mafia!)

The drive into UB was strange and vaguely post-apocalyptic. It was really dark, and there were these huge smokestacks with orange lights looming over the city. There weren't many people on the street, but there were some wild dogs, a whole group of them besieging a parked SUV.

The guest house, though, was very nice on the inside, with computer access and laundry service, a kitchen and several public sitting areas. Plus, we were the only two in our room. Not bad for four dollars a night!

The next morning we got our first daylight look at UB. Outside, we could see a battered playground slide, dirt, broken concrete, and some pretty miserable looking buildings. My first reaction was, "It looks like Soviet Russia!" Which was in some ways accurate, but probably a little harsh. The city was just much greyer than I was expecting, and maybe moreso than any other place I've been. (It was even more intimidating than my first visit to Wittenberg, in which we accidentally drove through the south side of Springfield.)

The first thing we did was exchange our yen for tugrik, the Mongolian currency, and set out to explore town. We had tasty dumpling soup for lunch, did a little souvenir shopping at the State Department Store, and each picked up a beautiful tablecloth from this tiny hole-in-the-wall quilting shop we stumbled across in the ubiquitous apartment complexes. (I hesitate to call them tenements, because like many other places in UB, they were probably nicer on the inside. ...Probably.) We looked at a lot of cool antiques, but they were unfortunately out of our price range. Our quest to find the North Korean restaurant listed in our guidebook ended in failure (though we did pass a bar that claimed to be, "probably the most stylish lounge in UB"), so we ended up at Dublin, Mongolia's first Irish pub.

At the guesthouse that night, we befriended the young housekeeper, Nasaa, and a little boy named Urnuun, who lived en suite with his mother, who also worked there. We sort of taught them gin rummy, and then they taught us a Mongolian card game, which we played for hours. Urnuun had amazing English, even though he was only about ten. I guess it came from living in the guesthouse, where English was the most universal mode of communication. As a person, Urnuun reminded me of no one more than Short Round, the mischievous wise-cracking kid from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." He continually used his abracadabra black magic to curse us other players into being "jumpers," which is about the worst thing you can do in the game. And he changed the words to "We Are the Champions" to make a new composition -- "We Are the Jumpers."

Of course, he beat us all in the end.

in which my students continue to be hilarious

2009-07-15T01:56:00.003-04:00

Here's some recent greats from the genius minds of my students! If these kids were any more adorable, I might just have to hug them to death. I mean it...to death.

One of my all time favorites. When asking students to look at a picture of an umbrella and make a sentence using 'though':
“Though I put out the umbrella, my body got wet because the umbrella is a picture.”

On Yoko Ono:
“She and John Lennon gave their massage to the world.”

“I have no time to enjoy because I got many homework. I have to finish the homework. So, I didn’t go somewhere. But, I went to stroll with dog lover. When I go there, I looked dandelion fluff. I think, I want to fly to not homework world.”

“I couldn't visit any places because of many many homeworks, from 3 to 6. But I had to catch some crayfishes or big frogs for Creation Rika, so I and Isojima went to drains between fields near the Kameoka station on May 2. After a while, we hadn't found any crayfishes. And I asked to a woman working in the field where crayfishes are. She said “They will be seen in the rice-planting season.” Oh my god.”

Well, it's the first time I've seen that word as a verb.
“People tend to have prejudice against people who coffin a dead person.”
“Someday we will been coffined.”

“Track and field athletes use their cerebral, too.”

the rainy season

2009-06-18T20:28:00.003-04:00

It is supposedly the rainy season in Japan right now, though actually, it's only rained about twice. However, I became too lax and made several cardinal mistakes yesterday.

First, on my way to school in the morning, I considered taking an umbrella, but then decided not to, because the weather report wasn't predicting rain until after 6. MISTAKE. Then, when leaving the teachers' room that afternoon, I glanced out the windows and thought, "Oh, it looks like rain." MISTAKE. Next, as I was changing my shoes at the teachers' entrance, I smelled coffee from the infirmary, and thought, "A hot drink would be nice. Oh, no, that's silly - by the time I get home I'll be so hot that tea is the last thing I'll want." MISTAKE. And, finally, the last nail in the coffin. As I walked through the parking lot to the gate, I thought, "It would be a nice night for a thunderstorm." MISTAAAAKE.

Literally within ten seconds, as I was still crossing the lot, it started to rain. And I don't mean sprinkle. These were huge, fat drops, which hit so hard that I momentarily wondered if it was sleet. But they were widely dispersed, so instead of going back into the school, I hurried onwards. By the time I'd gone a block, it was an out and out shower. Even occasionally dodging under awnings when the rain moved from steady to torrential and back again, I was completely drenched by the time I was halfway home.

At one point as I sped along in the wet, I was considering all the aforementioned mistakes, and realized that all the conditions had been fulfilled - it was raining, cold, and I definitely could use some hot tea. The only thing missing was the thunder, and even as I thought it, there was an ominous rumbling from the sky. I actually laughed aloud and said, "No kidding." It was like some bored kami had just decided to mess with me.

Of course, I eventually made it home in one piece, though that was a particularly wet one piece. The bottom well and truly let out about a block from my apartment, and I gave up the ghost and ran the rest of the way. Of course, when I got to my building, I duly discovered that all my second floor neighbors were out in the hallway with their children, and were having a good laugh at my drowned rat expense. When I came up the stairs, looking like someone had thrown me into a pool with all my clothes on, they just lost it. (They lost it again when I came out of my apartment in dry clothes ten minutes later, at which point I said in Japanese, "Wow, it's really raining, huh!" That really set them off.)

The moral of this story is don't tempt fate, and especially don't tempt it a good four times.

how to make a silent blog

2009-06-03T00:41:00.003-04:00

One part busyness, two parts laziness. Shake with ice and serve with a sprig of mint.

Really, though, it's Mongolia that's holding me up here. So much happened, and it was all so utterly different from Japan, that I feel compelled to share the trip in excessive detail...and it's taking forever.

But somewhere in the semi-near future, I intend to finally put up the series of posts recounting our adventures with the Mongol hordes. So please continue to be patient!

Thanks,
The Management

off to join the hordes

2009-04-27T21:36:00.002-04:00

Two more classes, and I'm off to Mongolia.

WHAT?

rolling along

2009-04-20T21:12:00.004-04:00

Classes are finally getting into full swing! ...And I am totally confused at all times. Our schedules have finally been more or less decided, but it's a totally different dynamic in almost every class we teach. (Excepting certain junior high classes, which are thankfully still headed by the indomitable Nakatani-sensei.)

But not to worry, I'm slowly getting a handle on things. It helps that I now have the schedule in writing.

Last week we had club introductions. All the new students were gathered in our mini-gym, and then every single club at the school gave a short presentation to entice new members. It was a pretty charming experience, and I couldn't help but have a running list in my head of which clubs I would join if I could. The HS girls' soft tennis club was hilarious, for one -- their attempt to demonstrate volleys really just resulted in a lot of their own members cowering and shrieking, a near constant chorus of "FAITO!" and one stray tennis ball that got tangled in some window blinds near the ceiling. The brass band was also charming, playing a rendition of Dreamgirls with fully choreographed dance moves. Plus, the adorable Kaneshiro-sensei briefly marched around with them, playing his trumpet. (So cute, ha ha ha!)

Of course, some clubs were legitimately cool. Imagine my surprise, for example, when the JH girls' basketball team did a demonstration, and the shortest little girl on the team was suddenly dribbling between her moving legs like a pro. It was like a little Japanese Mugsy Bogues, or something! And there's some kind of dance club that involves fans and katanas, which was altogether pretty sweet. (Even when one girl hit herself in the head with a spear, bless her heart!)

Last Friday, in the midst of an already (and unexpectedly) chaotic afternoon, Kristin and I also had to go get chest x-rays in this little portable clinic that had parked itself on campus. The look on the poor young doctor's face when the two of us stepped inside was pretty humorous -- it clearly said, "Oh no, foreigners! I'm going to have to use English! Help!" But we understood enough of his Japanese to get by with the help of gestures.

My weekends have been mostly just shopping and hanging out with friends, with a little more flower viewing thrown in. But already the cherry blossoms have done and gone for the year, so I guess that's that!

The most exciting thing going on right now is probably this super adventure that Fig and I have been planning. (And by that, I mostly mean Fig.) You see, there's something called Golden Week coming up, which is three national holidays in a row, making for a five-day weekend. It is the most, the MOST popular time for traveling in Japan. No kidding. It's going to be crazy! (Especially living in Kyoto!)

So Fig and I are taking advantage of the days off to take a trip. In fact, we're taking a great big 11-day trip...to MONGOLIA!

It happened really suddenly. Apparently, Fig just up and decided she wanted to go, and I was lucky enough to be invited along. To make a long story short, it essentially went something like this:

Fig: I'm going to Mongolia.
Anna: Mongolia, huh?
Fig: Yeah. Do you want to come?
Anna: Sure. ...What's in Mongolia?

Evidently, there will be markets and museums and horses and yurts.

Especially yurts.

priorities

2009-04-13T22:20:00.003-04:00

It's raining with intent today, and so it was during my walk to school.

At one point, I passed an old man walking what appeared to be an equally old dog. And despite the rain falling on him, the man was bent over, holding the umbrella over his pet.

:)

rest for the wicked

2009-04-08T22:10:00.005-04:00

Turns out we sometimes get a break, after all.

I spent a lot of time relaxing this weekend. Friday night I met some folks at Good Bar for dinner -- specifically, I met Brad and the new Interac person replacing Tim. This person was theoretically a guy named Charles, but when I arrived, it turned out that Charles had quit the program before even making it to Sonobe. Instead, there was a Chinese-American girl named June, who seems alright. She reminds me of Dawn, my freshman year roommate, except maybe less awesome.

Saturday I accomplished pretty much nothing, unless you consider sitting around or watching "Road House" an accomplishment. (FYI -- if you said yes to "Road House," I have to disagree. It is a stunningly terrible film. If it weren't for Rifftrax, I probably wouldn't have made it through. The one good thing about the movie is Sam Elliott, because I think it is scientifically impossible for Sam Elliott not to be awesome.)

On Sunday, I trekked out to Yamashina for (I thought) Rob's flower viewing party. I met Fig at the station, we got pseudo-lost for thirty minutes or so, and then I phoned Mike, only to discover that the party was actually this upcoming weekend. Whoops! But Neil was on his way, the cherry trees were lovely, and we had a tarp, so the three of us just had a little picnic instead. We sat around for a bit over two hours, watching kids get into trouble and swapping stories of weird things done by people we know. (Josh, this is where you came in.)

We then killed some time in Sanjo, waiting for Joanna and her parents to meet us for dinner. At the bookstore in the BAL building I picked up "Mansfield Park" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (they have a pretty excellent English classics section). I also chanced across a copy of Edward Gorey's "The Gashlycrumb Tinies," which I had been wanting for ages. As a bonus, it has text both in English and Japanese! I geeked out a little. (They also had several others, including "The Doubtful Guest," which I considered. Maybe later!)

Fig and I then had kaitenzushi with Joanna and her folks, who were altogether lovely individuals.

School this week has been slowish. The worst was when we had three ceremonies in two days -- the junior high new students entrance ceremony, the term opening ceremony, and the senior high new students entrance ceremony. Even though the weather has turned nice, the gym remains stubbornly cold. Plus, we had to wear suits.

Oddly enough, there was at least one, possibly two foreigners in the crowd of parents at the senior high welcome. Me and Kristin are very speculative -- might there be some half-Japanese kids entering the school? It's a mystery!

Since it's the beginning of the year, there have also been some staff changes. Altogether, I think there are around thirteen or fourteen new teachers, including two or three in the English department. (None of whom we've actually met yet. Curiouser and curiouser!) I am sad to say that we lost Shiroshita-sensei, who was a nice woman and a great baker. The vice-principal has also vanished, which I almost feel worse about, because I didn't know ahead of time that he was leaving. By the time I got back from vacation with my parents, he was already gone. He was friendly, and I miss him.

The desks in the teachers room have also been shuffled. Now Kristin and I are sitting back to back, all the way across the room from where we sat before. It's not bad, though I miss bantering with Wakabayashi-sensei, who sat across from me before.

On the recommendation of my mother and Bill Price, I have started watching "The Mentalist." I was hesitant at first, since it struck me as someone deciding to remake "Psych" as a serious show, but it's actually pretty good. The main character reminds me a lot of one of my college professors, if Fitz Smith had a mischievous brother or something.

The cherry trees are blooming in Sonobe, and it's positively gorgeous. One of the streets I take to school is almost completely lined with them. They're like ghost trees, or trees covered in snow. Walking home from tea ceremony yesterday under the nearly-full moon, they were spectral and amazing.

Spring may be my favorite season in Japan.

invasion

2009-04-05T21:29:00.007-04:00

I'm a bit behind. Let me start with the weekend before the folks got here.

Thursday I went into town after school, meeting Liz, Laurel, and Mike. We went to the photo exhibition that my coworker, Kristin, had helped put together with a bunch of other Canadians. It was all pictures of Canada, some of them really nice!

On Friday I was back in town for a going-away party. Fig's coworker Naoko, who I'd met a few times, was moving to Germany for a year or so. (Her boyfriend is German, and she's trying to learn the language.) Fig actually wasn't there, back in the States for her cousin's wedding, so it was all Japanese people except for myself and this other JET named Ashley, who's pretty great. The party was at this (Spanish?) restaurant in Demachiyanagi, which was really tasty.

I was shy at first, but eventually was able to practice my Japanese a bit with some of Naoko's friends. One of them, Taka, I'd met before. He is a pretty hilarious little guy! Afterwards, a few of us went for coffee, and Taka (the only guy present) paid for everybody. Naoko said, "But you're the only student!" He looked a little taken aback, because it was true -- we all had jobs! But then he smiled and said, "That's okay. Because you're ladies." Apparently, chivalry isn't dead!

On Saturday, I was in town YET AGAIN. I had arranged to meet Kristin and Sumiko (our tea ceremony teacher) at 1 o'clock Kyoto Station, so we could go together to Toji Market. Toji Market is like a big flea/antiques market on the 21st of every month, and it was lucky to have it on a nice sunny weekend day. I arrived at the station early, but even though I'd let them dictate the schedule, Kristin and Sumiko arrived over an hour and fifteen minutes late. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased, but there wasn't really anything to be done about it at that point.

Anyway, the market was awesome. I bought myself a lot of presents -- a stone bracelet, a hand-made scarf, and two gorgeous pieces of pottery. The pottery was killing me, really. There were probably twenty stalls just of hand-made pottery, and I wanted at least one thing from every booth. Next time I'm going back for more!

Afterwards, we took an atrociously crowded bus to the Higashiyama area, because Sumiko wanted to show me around before my parents came. We walked the path from Yasaka pagoda, past Kodai-ji, through Maruyama Park and out Yasaka Jinja. It just happened to be the last day of a festival, so we were able to stop and watch two real maiko (junior geisha, if you will) perform some fan dances. It was gorgeous!

Then I walked upriver to Sanjo, where I met Joanna, Neil, Joanna's visiting friend Rachel, and eventually Mike for dinner and drinks.

Monday was another uneventful day at work, followed by a run into town to hit Uniqlo -- a clothing store recommended as a place where foreigners can actually find things in their size. I needed some pants, having royally destructed one of the only two pairs of jeans I brought with me. (It was a gradual destruction. First, I broke one of the belt loops. Though generally bad at sewing, I took great care in repairing it, and returned with great result. But later that very same day, I ripped a hole in the inner thigh. Blast! Still not deterred, I fixed that split, too. Two days later, another opened in the exact same place on the other leg, except about five times bigger and impossible to sew up. Utterly foiled!)

And on Tuesday, my parents arrived.

They traveled with another couple we've known for years, Bill and Norma. I met the four of them at their hotel, the New Miyako, which is conveniently located across the street from Kyoto Station. (Which is, appropriately enough, the largest and best-connected station in the city, containing about a zillion different train lines.) They were tired, but also a little peckish, so I bought them an array of Japanese snacks from the 7-11 across the road.

Wednesday we got off to a good start. First we went to Sanjusangendo, famous for having 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity Kannon. They are a muted bronze and quite imposing in sheer number, and if I recall correctly, it took 70 or 80 craftsmen over 100 years to make them all.

Next we hit the Kyoto National Museum. The central collection is closed for construction right now, but they had another exhibit open of some really nice traditional paintings and scrolls and fabrics, et cetera. My dad bought a really lovely print of one. I'm a little jealous -- they didn't have a print of my favorite, which was a huge painting on a set of sliding doors, I believe of a blossoming plum tree.

Then we struck out to Nijo Castle, preserved close to its original state and containing a still functional nightingale floor. *geek out* I think I may have failed to explain this when I went in August. A nightingale floor is one specially crafted to squeak with every step, producing sounds like the chirping of birds. This is in defense of the shogun, so that assassins cannot sneak through the building undetected. So clever!

On Thursday, we started off with an hour and a half boat ride down the Hozu River. The weather was great, and the boat guys as funny as ever. One got really excited when Mom told him, "Good job!" and exclaimed in English, "I love you!"

We ate lunch in Arashiyama and stopped by Tenryu-ji, a nice temple with a simply gorgeous garden. The cherry trees and a lot of flowering shrubs were beginning to bloom, and I took a lot of close-up flower pictures.

Then we hopped a train up to Sonobe, where I showed them my apartment and my school. Dad and Bill made overtures about setting up my space heater (though survived the winter without it and won't need it soon, anyway), and at school they were able to meet several of my favorite teachers. Hosoi-sensei, in particular, made a good impression, being his usual outgoing and irrepressible self. He tried to tell my parents that I was a wonderful teacher, at which time I pointed out that we didn't teach together. Lovable little scamp!

We also ran into two of my all time favorite students. Erisa from 1-5 is possibly the most ADD person I've ever met in my entire life. It takes her several rounds of "Oh, hello! What? Hello! Ah, what? Hello, hello!" just to get out greetings, because she's so distracted she can't focus on the conversation. Her life dream is to be a pirate like Jack Sparrow. And Takuya S. from 2-5 is just plain adorable. I can't explain my affection for this kid except that he's like a friendly puppy, and I just want to give him hugs all the time for no reason. (But I don't -- that might break down the student/teacher hierarchy a bit too much.) I won't lie, it made me feel pretty great about myself when he saw me through the window, shouted my name, and came running across the classroom and into the hallway just to say hello. Hearts!

We ate dinner at one of the only real restaurants around, a nice place called Bisque where Kristin and I often go for lunch. We had a ton of super-great food -- so much that we had a box of fresh, wonderful sushi left over, which we later gifted to Sumiko and her husband (who had fortunately not eaten dinner yet).

At Sumiko's house, she showed off her hina-matsuri dolls and then treated us to a lovely tea ceremony. She made me and Kristin also make two bowls each. I think the tea itself came out fine, though I made a few dumb procedural errors -- having an audience really distracted me! Sumiko also gave each of the four visitors a really lovely piece of calligraphy that she had done herself. I was a bit envious until, at our last lesson, she gave extras to Kristin and I as well.

Sumiko and her husband were nice enough to give us a ride back to the train station. I rode alone with her husband, and we had our first conversation ever. Turns out he's a pretty nice guy -- just a little shy, I think, because he doesn't speak English. But we talked in Japanese about sightseeing and sumo and baseball.

On Friday we went to Osaka. First we saw Osaka Castle. My dad bought a really nice framed woodcarving of the castle as a souvenir, and Bill and Norma kindly bought me an awesome thank-you present for playing guide: Monopoly, the Osaka edition. (Or, as I like to call it, Osakanopoly.) I opened it when we got home that night, and found that the chance cards (thankfully written in Japanese AND English) were particularly hilarious. My favorites were "Daddy wins the public lottery" and "You drank too much" and something about getting an inheritance from Mammy. Yes, MAMMY.

After Osaka Castle, we went to an afternoon of sumo. You've heard me wax poetic before -- suffice it to say that it was just as fun the second time around, and worth every (admittedly kind of expensive) penny. Or yen, as the case may be. Mom bought me a really cute sumo wrestler plushie, who I named Yamayamayama. (In homage to the aforementioned Yamamotoyama.) He's cuddly and wonderful.

On Saturday, Fig joined us for our trip out to Nara, which consisted of equal parts souvenir shopping, giant buddha, and deer. As cool as the giant buddha is, the deer are fast becoming the draw for me, bordering as they are between overly friendly and outright aggressive. I bought some deer crackers to feed them, and before I could even get the pack open, about ten deer swarmed me. One particularly impatient bugger proceeded to try and eat my jeans when I couldn't get the crackers fast enough. They chased me in a big circle while my companions and some Japanese school girls watched and laughed (at my expense! The deer were chewing on my pants!). In desperation, I thrust some crackers at Mom for a distraction. When that was insufficient, I gave another stack to one of the high school girls, who all fell into a chorus of laughter and shrieks. In the end, we all made it out alive, but there's a frayed patch on my back pocket which I'm not sure was there before.

Man, those deer are cool.

We split up for dinner, I, Fig, and my parents going to Sanjo for okonomiyaki (which they both loved) and a stint in karaoke, just so they could say they did it. Plus, crepes. Yum!

On Sunday we went to Fushimi Inari, one of my very favorite places in Japan. I think there are some nice pictures of us at the overlook nearish the top of the mountain, not to mention plenty of us with the innumerable orange torii gates.

Next we stopped by Nanzenji for a look at the aqueduct. It's really pretty, and I'll probably go back now and again for walks now that the weather is getting warmer.

Dinner was kaitenzushi, which everyone enjoyed. Bill particularly loved the mini bullet train that brings special orders -- he's a train nut! (Not to mention cars and motorcycles.)

Then Mom and I made a brief pilgrimage back to Sonobe so I could pick up some different clothes, and she let me yak at her about my various writing projects. She's so very patient with me and my lack of a significant attention span.

Monday was a particularly special day, both because I was not in charge and because we went somewhere I'd never been before. Namely, Hiroshima and Miyajima. Miyajima is an island famous for Itsukushima Shrine and the big torii gate built out in the water. It was beautiful! The water was a very deep blue, and contrasted most strikingly against the green pines, pale beaches, and gray stone lanterns that lined the shore. We were traveling with a tour group, and the guide was able to tell us all about the island's history. I also befriended this great Indian lady named Padma, from Bangalore. She was frankly inspirational, and I talked to her for a long time about her life and travels. She has resolved in recent years to shy away from material things and use her money to go places and create new memories. But since she wasn't able to keep her train ticket as a souvenir (which I knew she wanted to) I bought her a good luck charm with a picture of the floating torii before we left. It was just small, but I hope she can look at it and remember her trip fondly!

After an amazingly delicious lunch of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (which is decidedly different, but excellent!) and grilled oysters (a Miyajima specialty), we went into Hiroshima proper to visit the A-Bomb Dome and the Hiroshima Peace Park/Museum. The A-Bomb Dome (or genbaku dome) is a large building near the blast's epicenter, which before WWII was famous for its architecture. It has now been left standing in its partially-destroyed condition as a testament to the power and horror of the atom bomb. It stands at one end of the peace park, which is dotted with various monuments. At the other end is the museum. The most wrenching part is the final exhibit, which displays items recovered after the blast, each with an accompanying story of the person who had owned it, and their fate. It was an interesting but sober experience. I was glad to finally go, though -- it's been number one on my list of places to visit in Japan for two years now.

Tuesday was, sadly, the group's last full day in Japan. Bill had a meeting with some business associates in Osaka, so I saw him to the train that morning. Norma was feeling a bit wrung out (understandable, after our busy week!), so after a brief shopping trip with my mother, she elected to rest at the hotel. My father and I made a short and only semi-successful souvenir run back to Fushimi Inari, and then I and my parents all headed out to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion.

It was the nicest weather we had all week, and Kinkakuji shone in the sun. It is quite literally a pavilion covered in gold leaf, and it sparkles beautifully among its green gardens. Dad bought a pile of charms for his coworkers, and I lusted after a stunning metallic rendition of the pavilion, which I have more or less resolved to buy before I leave. It's a bit expensive, though -- about $50 US unmatted, and about $80 framed. (The frame looks worth it!)

We grabbed a Japanese-style buffet lunch and then wandered through Higashiyama, along the same path Sumiko had shown me. There was yet another surprise festival going on, so we were able to look at the food booths and listen to music and eat green tea ice cream. At first I thought this foreigner playing the guitar was really the background music for this extreme juggler, and was really puzzled by his choice of "Scarborough Fair," before realizing these were most definitely two separate acts.

Back at the hotel, we had drinks in "Bar Lagoon," and my mother got silly. It was capped, I believe, by her rendition of the Mission Impossible theme song in the hotel hallway. :)

Wednesday morning went quick. My mother started tearing up, which I quickly had to put a stop to, lest I start crying, too. They made it off to the airport in one piece (despite stealing my new yukata robe and the special momiji manju cakes I had bought at Miyajima for my coworkers, ha ha), and I made it back to Sonobe to collapse for an afternoon nap.

Then it was Wednesday night tea ceremony and Thursday work and straight back into the swing of things. Thirteen out of fourteen days spent downtown, and no rest for the wicked!

OOC

2009-03-22T21:48:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I'm going to ask a favor which is slightly out of character for me. Tomorrow my parents and two of their friends hop on a fourteen hour flight to Japan, and I am being a worrier, so...

If you guys could spare some thoughts, prayers, well wishes, good karma, or what have you, I would really appreciate it.

May they all have a safe trip!

yossha!

2009-03-17T01:55:00.004-04:00

I did approximately nothing at all on Friday and Saturday, apart from sleep and chill out, but Sunday! Sunday was...

SUMO DAY!

I don't know how to describe it. The majesty of hefty men in loincloths shoving each other out of a wrestling ring...it defies verbalization.

A largish group of us met in Osaka and, after grabbing okonomiyaki for lunch, arrived at the venue just in time for the afternoon sumo matches to begin. It was the first day of the Osaka tournament, so all of the wrestlers were still qualified. Most bouts took less than a minute, with each wrestler fighting in only one that day. Watching the fights, which were short, sudden bursts of activity, was actually really interesting. Some bouts were just concentrated shoving, some involved more head slapping than a catfight between teenage girls, and one even employed an surprisingly agile sidestep maneuver that showed why sumo is the root of jujitsu.

There were a lot of incomprehensible announcements and strange mini-ceremonies in between bouts, but somehow we didn't get bored. Between figuring out exactly what was going on (and by the end of the afternoon, we were fairly well-informed) and spouting semi-baseless speculations about upcoming matches, we actually kept ourselves well entertained.

We chose favorites from match to match, largely based on frivolous reasons, like "That guy's picture in the program looks nice" (Joanna), or, "He's way smaller than the other guy" (me), or, "He weighs over 540 pounds" (everyone in our group), or, "He's from Osaka!!!" (everyone in the arena). We all had a good laugh that the biggest wrestler, that of the aforementioned 540 pounds, was dubbed "Yamamotoyama" -- funny because "yama" means mountain, and it was appropriately in his name not once, but twice. (Though probably not because of his size, as we liked to think.)

I was particularly eager for the last match of the day, because it involved the only sumo wrestler I actually know anything about -- the notorious Asashoryu. Originally from Mongolia, Asashoryu is one of only two sumo wrestlers to currently hold the highest rank of yokozuna, which is the only title that cannot be revoked. That said, he is constantly getting into trouble with the JSA (Japan Sumo Association) or with critics, for stuff like wearing street clothes in public (against traditional rules), or for skipping tournaments citing an injury, only to be caught on tape playing in a charity soccer match in Mongolia. But besides holding an irrevocable rank, he's the most popular wrestler in the league, and a giant money maker, so they can't do much but occasionally suspend him for bad behavior. I for one haven't decided yet whether I think he's a punk or awesome.

...That said, I may or may not have bought a rockin' Asashoryu t-shirt for a souvenir. It was just so cool!

The very next day (a.k.a. yesterday), I press-ganged my supervisor into buying another round of sumo tickets for my parents and their friends. Because really, you have to see it to believe it.

In other news, 7 days until my parents arrive!

reconnaissance

2009-03-12T01:39:00.003-04:00

So, after Joanna and I had our evening of moderately successful cooking attempts and the Nodame Cantabile specials on Friday, the whole weekend was busy with sightseeing. I am scoping out a few more places to take my parents, and trying to plot how to get everywhere effectively.

On Saturday, Fig and I went to two temples called Nanzenji and Eikando, both of which I'll take my parents to if we have the time. Then on Sunday, after waking up early and doing trash duty at my apartment complex, I met Fig in town again for explorations at Tofukuji and Sanjuusangendo. I'll probably skip Tofukuji with the folks, because while pretty, it's not exceptional. But we will certainly go to Sanjuusangendo, which has really cool statues...alas, I cannot say more than that now, because I don't want to spoil the surprise for them before they arrive! (Mom, don't you dare google any of this!)

This week my high schoolers are all stuck in exams, so we've only had junior high classes. Yesterday we were cooking in JH English club, which meant that we had to go grocery shopping after fifth period, and also stay at school an hour and a half after our day officially ended. Kristin and I were both pretty tired and ready to go home, but there was only enough time to grab dinner before we had to meet again for tea ceremony lessons at Sumiko's house. At least that's fun, though!

Today I got to watch the JH second-years perform these funny little plays in English, about a girl who meets some talking puppets. Four groups each did the same play, but the performances were actually pretty distinct. I liked the all-boy group, who had drawn signs with pictures of their characters, and cleverly changed their lines to make the only overtly female character (Chris) into a male (Christopher).

And today, I am officially beginning the countdown.

12 days until my parents arrive!

“It is very delicious and eat you, please.”

2009-03-05T19:35:00.004-05:00

Or, if you prefer, here is a gem from a debate on the merits of living in Japan vs. living abroad:

“They can eat Japanese food.”
“But they can eat America too.”

I knew Japan's competitive eaters were good, but that is taking it to the limit!

So, on February 27th we had graduation. You see, in Japan, the school year begins in April, and ends in March. But the third-year students graduate about three weeks before the end of term, hence the end of February.

The ceremony was pretty nice, though the gym was kind of cold. There were some touching speeches, not to mention some tears from both students and teachers. When the students marched out, I'd say about 75% of class 3-5 was crying, which made me tear up, too, even though I barely knew the third-years. I only knew two of them by name, in fact, but they were both 3-5 students, and bright and cheerful and good English speakers, besides. Shiho and Michiko, we'll miss you!

That night we had an enkai (staff party) to celebrate graduation, but it may have been one of the least enjoyable so far. There were long (and in Eriko's case, again tearful) speeches that I could only moderately understand, and I ended up sitting with teachers I didn't know and who didn't talk to me much. Towards the end of the night, Hosoi-sensei and Kaneshiro-sensei (the adorable music teacher) came to visit me for a bit, but there wasn't much time before we all had to leave. Alas!

Saturday the 28th I tried to do some shopping in town, though all I actually succeeded in buying was an English copy of "Kafka on the Shore" by Murakami Haruki, probably the most famous contemporary writer in Japan. I've just finished his book "Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," which is fairly trippy and occasionally difficult to understand, but a marvelous piece of literature overall. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested!

That evening, I somehow got roped into returning to Arabian Rock, for more fun and shenanigans. They performed "Beauty and the Beast" again, which only lost its puzzling charm in terms of the element of surprise.

On Sunday I and my neighbors went to Kameoka for kaitenzushi (conveyor-belt sushi). The kids are a merry handful, but we had a nice time. Later that day I met Joanna for a little while, and we got dinner at a coffee shop we like. Their drinks and desserts are great, but honestly, their savory food leaves something to be desired.

This week at school has been a little crazy, up to and including my epic fall (see yesterday's post). It's the end of term, so everyone is rushing about doing exams and finishing projects. Yesterday I was finishing interview tests from 3rd period all through lunch, so I had to eat an entire sandwich in approximately thirty seconds before running off to my next class for more interview tests. When things finally began to calm down around 2 o'clock, I felt as though I'd been tossed around by a tornado all morning.

My walk home yesterday was also a little out of the ordinary. I think perhaps it was Appreciate Your Foreigner Day in Sonobe or something, because literally every group of people I passed on my way home spoke to me. First, an old man (who I'd never spoken to before, mind you) stopped me and asked in Japanese, "Do you eat daikon radishes?" I must have looked pretty confused, because he tried to mime it out. So I said yes, and he proceeded to give me three giant, sweet potato sized radishes, all freshly pulled and still covered with dirt.

At that point I must have looked pretty funny, a foreigner in nice work clothes, with a skinned knee and carrying three huge dirty radishes. Next, a group of girls (I think from Tim's junior high) called hello in English, at which point I tried to answer dropped one of my radishes. As they walked away, I could hear them asking each other, "Why was she carrying daikon?" I was sort of wondering the same thing. Then I walked past three kindergarteners who said hello (again in English), and freaked out when I answered. As I walked away, they shouted "Hello! Nice to meet you!" in a constant loop for about two minutes. Then came the group of junior high boys on bicycles, who said "Hello! See you again!" and the mob elementary schoolers by my apartment complex, who also said hello.

I don't know, maybe radishes and a skinned knee make me look really approachable.

Now I'm just wondering: what am I going to do with three daikon the size of my forearm?

Well, Joanna's coming over to dinner tonight. I hope she likes radishes.

Anna vs. concrete

2009-03-04T21:31:00.003-05:00

Concrete - 1, Anna - 0.

Yesterday, I was on my way to first period, and I was crossing this outdoor walkway on the second floor, arms absolutely laden with a stack of papers, 30 student folders, and a basket containing my dictionary, my pencil case, and about eight sets of crayons. Asking for trouble, right?

Well, I missed the last step, and had the most epic fall of perhaps my entire life. I stumbled frantically forward for a few paces before giving up the ghost and flopping sideways like a beached whale, scattering folders and papers. I landed on my entire left side, busting my elbow and scraping my knee like I haven't done since probably elementary school.

On the upside, I don't think many people saw me, and I remarkably didn't hurt myself that much. I was shaky for the first half or so of first period, but it was more out of nerves than anything else. And besides, those tights already had a hole at the toe, so I was replacing them anyway.

When they noticed my wound this morning (barely covered by a conspicuously too-small bandaid), some kids in 2-4 asked what had happened. I told them I got in a fight.

With a lion.

my students are sometimes adorable

2009-02-26T23:36:00.002-05:00

Here's a short cultural presentation put together by two of my first-years for some students visiting from England.

Names changed to protect the identities of those responsible.

Hello, nice to meet you.
My name is "Yuki". My name is "Shin".
This class is little time though please make friends with us.
I belong to a kendo club. I belong to a tennis club.
What clubs do you belong to? Let’s talk proudly and complain about our club.
Kendo is very mental sport. You practice kendo and become the strong mind.
I am a strong fencer! "Yuki" is a samurai!
Tennis is a gentlemanly sport and learn the good manners. I’m a gentleman.
If you played tennis, you would be interested in tennis.
Do you take a bamboo sword? So, you are Japanese samurai!
Wow, you are cool.
By the way, please listen to yours.

Ha ha ha, the samurai and gentleman bits made me smile. How charming they can be when they try.

"I want have a strange heart."

2009-02-23T20:06:00.007-05:00

Or so says one of my students.

So, a month has passed, and there is plenty to say about it. I hardly know where to begin.

On the last day of January, met some buddies in Sanjo to celebrate my birthday. All in all, I believe the group included myself, Joanna, Fig, Mike, Alex, Neil, and Rob. At Neil and Mike's suggestion, we decided to try a restaurant called "Arabian Rock," which had apparently been in turn recommended to them by a group of drunk Japanese businessmen. The outside was styled to resemble a middle-eastern palace, and if nothing else, we figured it would be funny to say that we had been inside.

Funny doesn't begin to cover it. The inside, apart from being possibly the biggest restaurant I've ever entered, was entirely set up like an Arabian paradise. Booths were separated into structures resembling tents and huts and turrets, in which there were hanging curtains and piles of cushions for diners to sit upon. The servers were all dressed appropriately, and at one point we saw someone go by wearing a costume of the genie from Aladdin. We ordered plenty of food, some of which was set on fire at our very table, and were treated to a personal show by a wandering magician. The highlight, though, came towards the end of the meal.

There we were, minding our own business and eating dessert, when all of the overhead lights started flashing, and thunder rumbled over the speakers. A man started narrating in Japanese, and several people in costumes appeared, running up and down the aisles between tables. One girl was inarguably dressed as Disney's Belle, followed by a man wearing a lion mask, and we realized: for whatever reason, Arabian Rock was reenacting "Beauty and the Beast." This is bizarre enough in and of itself, but the actual production was also strangely askew. The character meant to be Gaston was wearing a mask that resembled Jay Leno, a set of purple wizard robes, and toting two pistols. He proceeded to shoot the Beast, who was in fact a lion, but some smoke machines started blowing and suddenly Gaston had lost. I suppose the evil curse was broken, because the Beast proceeded to strip off his outer costume and transform into...Aladdin in his Prince Ali regalia. NO JOKE.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time, followed by purikura and a round of karaoke. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday.

Next, February 9th and 10th was the long-awaited English seminar hosted by Higashi-Uji High School. We stayed overnight at the hotel "Heian no Mori" in Kyoto, a group of one actual teacher, 6 JETs, and 30 students. The 6 JETS were me, Joanna, Alex, Ryan, Pat, and Rob. The kids were remarkably friendly, and it took no time at all for us to befriend them, whether or not they were assigned into our own groups. That said, my group was also great. The were four girls and two boys -- Kokoro, Yoshika, Mai, Satoe, Ryo, and Shunsuke. Within about thirty seconds of meeting them, Satoe had confessed to me (in English!) that she had a crush on someone in the class, and pointed him out to me. We were bound to be a good team.

After starting with some self-intro activities and eating lunch, Ryan gave a cultural presentation on Scotland which was really interesting. He showed a video clip about haggis, and the kids' faces were amazing. Then, in our groups, we set out on a photo scavenger hunt. For three hours we ran around Kyoto, specifically the Sanjo/Kamogawa/Marutamachi area, speaking English and taking pictures. My group were really troopers, even the boys (who obviously didn't want to be there, but did their best all the same). We got pictures of 25 out of the thirty items on the list, plus some purely self-indulgent pictures of ourselves around town.

That evening after dinner, we saw another cultural presentation by Pat, who spoke about Canada, and made the kids hog-tie a teddy bear. Shunsuke was feeling ill, so he escaped at that point, while the rest of the group and I proceeded to work on a poster summarizing our scavenger hunt experience. (By then the photos had already been developed.) The girls were creative geniuses, so Ryo and I pretty much let them do their thing and delegate whatever they needed to us. Eventually, there was only photo decorating to be done, and Ryo was hesitant to get involved because he didn't like to draw. So, to keep him involved, I essentially made him my creative consultant. I would pick a photo and ask him what color pen I should use, or what I should write, then segue into questions about his life. Eventually, I tricked him into talking to me in English for a good thirty minutes, bless his heart!

After the kids went to bed, we JETs practiced our skit in Japanese, and then raced for the baths. They were Japanese-style public baths (gender separate), and were only open until midnight, meaning that at that point we had fifteen minutes to get in out. Joanna and I had never tried a Japanese bath before, but luckily there were a few young women inside, and I managed to ask them in Japanese how to proceed. In any event, the bath felt GREAT. And now me and Joanna are that much closer for having been forced to see each other in the nude, ha ha!

The next day was mostly last minute skit practice for everybody, as well as poster presentations. We JETs snuck into a dining room to practice our skit, while two female hotel workers were inside cleaning and moving things. It soon became evident that the workers were trying to act like they weren't listening to our horrendous Japanese, but one of them let out a damning giggle. All of us JETs went suddenly silent, looked at each other, and then burst out laughing, soon followed by the hotel workers. Ah, camaraderie.

The skit seemed to go over well. Essentially, each of us was some archetype from Japanese TV. (I was the snotty rich girl.) I think the favorite character was Rob, who was playing a ganster...when he started speaking his Japanese with a special gangster accent, the students freaked out. The students' skits were equally as cute. The best involved four girls in animal costumes giving a boy a makeover. (Including floral toga.) My group based their skit around Anpanman. Shunsuke was awesome as Baikinman -- a.k.a. Mr. Germ.

At last we held an awards ceremony, in which my group won awards for Best Scavenger Hunt Poster and 2nd Best Skit. I was proud of them! And Ryan, bless his heart, sprinted to the shop down the block to buy a bunch of sweets as consolation prizes for groups who didn't win anything. He really is a great teacher, I think.

Friday the 13th I literally spent the whole day studying Japanese. We had entrance exams in place of classes, so there was nothing for Kristin and I to do except work on our correspondence course. (The test of which was coincidentally coming due.) Essentially, I did the whole book in one day. Really, the ENTIRE book. I was a giant headache by the end.

For Valentine's, me and the Kyoto crew went out to a Mexican restaurant that was expensive, but tasty. The owner, a diminutive and older Japanese man, played mariachi guitar and sang to the diners in Spanish.

Last week, school was both busy and not. We had no classes for the first three days, but we ended up staying over an hour late each day to help with after-school exam practices.

On Saturday, I went to a birthday potluck party for Maiko, Rob's Japanese girlfriend. We had a really nice time, and it was an opportunity to use my Japanese. (An opportunity which is rarer than you would think, conversationally.) I spent a lot of time talking to this guy Teru, whose English was also pretty good, so we faded in and out of both languages.

Today, there are nineteen British students touring our school. It's been a little bit of a circus so far, and is bound to become more so before the day is through. I chaperoned about twelve of them in an art class, meanwhile badgering my Japanese students to talk to them in English. They're off at lunch right now, but they'll be back in about ten minutes, and then it's all Britain all the time for the rest of the day. They seem to be nice kids, though, and the teachers are friendly, so it's no trouble. I just hope that both they and our students can enjoy the visit!

it's official

2009-01-27T00:51:00.003-05:00

So, I know my last post is only a few hours old (and probably no one has even read it yet), but I mentioned that Kristin's recontracting decision was due today, because she is a third-year, and they have different procedures. Well, word is in: she's heading back to Canada and/or parts unknown.

"And why do we care?" you might be asking. Well, let's consider this my official announcement, as well.

I'm staying another year.

I'd mentioned it to a few people already as a likely possibility, and even though my paperwork is not quite due (another week yet), I feel certain of my decision. There is still much I haven't seen or done, and a lot I want to learn. Plus, most of my students are adorable, and my coworkers fantastic. I can't step away just yet.

So, how is all this connected? With Kristin leaving, it means I'll probably have a new coworker next year, should they choose to fill her position. I'm at once curious and nervous. I like Kristin fine, now that we've sort of established an equilibrium, but it would be nice to work with someone I connected a little more with. On the other hand, Kristin is really efficient and good at her job. It'll be tough for a newbie to fill her shoes. Ack, come August, I'm suddenly going to be the senpai!

My South African neighbor, Nelis, is also leaving. Somehow, he swung some weird job offer in Canada, to go be part of an extreme martial arts team...? I wish him all the best, because he really is quite a nice guy. As things stand now, I somehow don't see him that much, even though we live maybe fifty meters apart at most. So, I'm (not so) secretly hoping that my next neighbor JET will be someone I can hang out with on a more regular basis. Weeknights can get pretty slow in Sonobe, I must say.

In short, I'm already eagerly anticipating the next year. As the Japanese say, tanoshimi!

senpai / kohai: Japanese terms for the senior and junior in a relationship, be it at work or in school. This relationship dynamic often carries on far through life, so that your senpai or kohai technically remains so forever, even after you part ways.

another year

2009-01-26T20:25:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow, I will have been 23 for exactly one week. It was my birthday last Wednesday, on the 21st, and I've received many kind messages from folks here and at home. Thanks, everybody!

On Saturday, four teachers from Sonobe High School came over to my apartment for a little birthday potluck. I spent most of the day cleaning and grocery shopping and cooking in preparation, and folks started arriving at about 7:30. I made garlic mashed potatoes and baked cinnamon apples, both of which seemed to go over okay. (A relief, since cooking is most certainly one of my weak points.) Kristin, Ueda-sensei, Tanaka-sensei, and Nakatani-sensei all brought great food, as well, and it was a really nice meal. Mostly, we chatted about other teachers and school stuff and whether or not Kristin is going to extend her contract for one more year. (A question which will theoretically be answered by noon today.) Alas, Tanaka-sensei had to go pick up her daughter around 9:30, and everyone else took it as their cue to leave, so the party was a little bit short. But it was fun while it lasted, and I intend to host another some time in the future!

As for my Kyoto friends, we haven't had a chance to celebrate yet, but there are some tentative plans being formulated for this weekend. The past two Friday evenings, you see, have been dominated by seminar meetings. After work, I'd catch a train into town and meet five other JETs at a cafe in Sanjo, where we would discuss a seminar the six of us are attending/running in early February. Joanna's school, Higashi-Uji, is sponsoring the event, and we have to get prepared in the meantime. It sounds like a lot of fun, actually...but I'll fill you all in on the details after the actual event.

On Sunday, I went to visit my friendly neighbors (Juri and Mitsuru Sakamoto, plus their kids Yuu and Haru) for the first time in several weeks. The flu had swept through over New Years, apparently hitting everyone but Mitsuru, so they weren't really up for company during vacation. I had dropped off a little Christmas basket for them the day I left for Korea, and while visiting Mitsuru's family in Ehime over the holidays, they bought me a really pretty little picture book of famous haiku poetry. I think it'll provide some good language practice, albeit that haiku Japanese is sort of archaic. (Fortunately, since the book is really for children, it has explanations for each poem in more modern-day, easily understandable Japanese.)

Other than that, things have been largely normal. We're having exams at school right now, so I've spent a lot of time today and yesterday helping Kristin make this month's ESS board (Valentine themed) and studying Japanese. I think kanji are going to start pouring out my ears soon.

winter windows

2009-01-14T18:44:00.006-05:00

It snowed again overnight, and is still snowing like mad beyond the window panes of the teachers' room. I hope that it lingers longer than twelve hours this time, though pragmatically as a person whose primary mode of transportation is walking, I should probably wish the opposite. But even after four winters in Ohio, I can't help but find something magical in downy crystals falling from the sky.

Today is a day for Sigur Ros.

snow!

2009-01-12T19:57:00.004-05:00

When I woke up this morning, there was barely even frost on the ground. But it began to snow fast and heavy as I walked to work, leaving me resembling a snowman by the time I made it to the school. Now, after only first period, everything is buried in white, and I couldn't be happier. I love love LOVE snow!

Now, to back it up a bit. The Monday before Christmas, a.k.a. my last day of work in 2008, we had a staff party for my section. It was at a restaurant in Kameoka, and after only a small misadventure finding the place (as the directions listed the name incorrectly), Kristin and I made it there in one piece. One teacher from our section couldn't make it, and our supervisor left early because he was ill, so it ended up being us two foreigners, two English teachers, the music teacher, and a P.E. teacher. We had a very grand time. Many of us were fairly young teachers, so Hosoi-sensei and Kawabe-sensei took it upon themselves as our seniors to A) pay a little extra to subsidize our meals, and B) peer pressure us into joining them for karaoke.

Karaoke with coworkers was absolutely brilliant. Hosoi-sensei was pretty tipsy, and Kawabe-sensei somewhat more than tipsy, and both proceeded to sing lots of vaguely silly old Japanese songs. I, Kristin, and Ueda-sensei (a young female English teacher) sang mostly Christmas carols, though I was occasionally conned into attempting some Japanese. I and Kaneshiro-sensei (the painfully adorable young music teacher) more or less managed a SMAP song together, he now and then leaping into a startling falsetto for no apparent reason. Highlights of the evening include Hosoi-sensei valiantly attempting as an English teacher to sight-translate a Japanese song into English as he was singing it, immediately followed by Kawabe-sensei making the same attempt. Except, Kawabe-sensei doesn't teach English -- he teaches P.E., so his translation largely consisted of, "I am drinking, and I am crying. Now I am sleeping. Ohhhh...I am drinking again, and crying and drinking. My father's sake!"

Hosoi-sensei also hooked me up with two tickets on the airport shuttle bus, so me and Joanna had no trouble getting to the airport on Christmas Eve. All in all, the trip to Korea was pretty fun, particularly visiting with my dear Juli, who seems to be getting along fairly well despite little to no knowledge of Korean. We did some sightseeing, including the Korean War Museum and several palaces (named Changyeongung, Jongmyo, and Gyeongbokgung, respectively). The architecture was really lovely, particularly at Gyeongbokgung, which was my personal favorite. It's similar to that of Japanese temples, but with distinct and vibrant patterns painted on eaves and bricked into walls. Jo and I were on our own for several of the sites, since Jules had to work, but we managed okay. Plus, on our last day of sightseeing, it snowed on us as we walked around, which was fun.

Otherwise, we spent a lot of time going out for food or loitering in Juli's apartment. We went and saw the Jim Carrey movie "Yes Man," which was by all accounts much funnier than we were expecting. Juli and Jo, who immediately bonded, also took it upon themselves to introduce me to the new run of "Doctor Who," an exceedingly popular British sci-fi serial. I am now irrefutably hooked.

I caught a bit of a cold sometime during the trip (probably from Joanna!), so I spent the rest of my vacation largely cooped up inside my apartment, watching the aforementioned "Doctor Who" and putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Joanna did come stay over New Years, but all we really did was watch "Hot Fuzz" and part of a Japanese countdown special, and drink a little bit of sparkling wine.

School is getting back into the swing of things, and Friday we had a New Years staff party. (I'm not entirely certain of the ratio compared to other schools, but it seems to me that Sonobe High has an awful lot of staff parties. Not that I'm complaining!) I had a chance to practice my Japanese a bit with teachers who didn't speak English very well, and ate plenty of good food. Plus, I could scope out the hotel where my parents are staying in March, because that's where the party was held! Afterwards, a group of twelve teachers including myself, several teachers from the last party, and both the principal and vice-principal, stopped by a cute little bar in Sanjo that may or may not be run by three very merry sisters. It was a nice time, and Kawabe-sensei continues to be very entertaining in social situations.

On Sunday, Fig dropped by to Sonobe for lunch, and then we hopped a train north-west to a little town called Ayabe. There was some sort of street party going on, and a mass-invitation had been sent out by the local JET, Danien. It was my first time to go further into the countryside than Sonobe, which is technically the last stop on my train line. We ran into Phil and Liz at Sonobe station, and made the hour train ride together through some absolutely lovely scenery. It had snowed the night before, and the white-tipped mountains were breathtaking. Liz, who is from Colorado, commented that it reminded her of Breckenridge.

As it turned out, "street party" was somewhat literal -- evidently, the festival was to commemorate the paving of a new street, with a ribbon cutting and everything. There was a taiko drum performance, and a big jazz band, and lots of free food and drink. It was pretty cold outside, but even so we had a lot of fun.

Yesterday (Monday) was a national holiday ("Coming of Age Day"), so there was no school. Instead, Kristin and I went with our tea ceremony instructor Sumiko to what is called a tea gathering. A tea gathering is just what it sounds like -- a somewhat fancy tea party, in the strict tradition of Japanese tea ceremony. Though sitting in seiza for almost four hours threatened to paralyze my calves, I had a better time than I had anticipated. Largely this was due to the adorable little dictator of an old woman who sat next to me for most of the day. She was evidently the senior expert of tea ceremony present, and often made asides correcting her students' posture or whathaveyou. Fortunately, since we weren't her students, we were largely exempt. Plus, either despite or because of my awed silence, she seemed to take a shining to me, and spent much of the afternoon regaling me with hilarious stories that I only half-understood. (There was one about a mystery leg and a refrigerator that Sumiko had to explain to me later.)

And at last, we are back to the present. Some of the snow has already melted, but more of it keeps falling, and I got photos in the meantime. Success!

Happy 2009!

2009-01-02T07:43:00.005-05:00

So. I'll get around to reporting on Korea sometime soon, but in the meantime, a long-awaited announcement: I've updated my photo page! It was about time, already. The most recent photos up there were from the first week of September.

What's New:
- new photos in Sonobe High School Festival
- Orix Buffaloes game
- Osaka Nightlife 101
- Fushimi Inari
- Nara
- Miyama hike
- Alex R's birthday by the Kamogawa
- Momoyama festival

What You Can Expect:
- pictures of scenery
- pictures of my friends
- pictures of cultural significant what-have-yous
- pictures of myself in various ridiculous and/or stupid poses

Click here for a good time.

from the mouths of babes

2008-12-22T00:15:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas (in advance), everybody! Today is my last day at work before the holiday, and I'm shipping out to Korea on Wednesday. Before I go, here's a little gift from me and my students to you: hilarious and/or charming quotes lifted from their English papers. Guaranteed to give you a smile, or your money back.

First, some gems from the notes of our recently-completed country project. (First-year high schoolers.)

Attempting to describe Big Ben:
“There is big time.”

“I think Ireland is grand.”

“Egypt is mysterious.”

“I like Australia. So, I felt good.”

Sphinx = "sfincs"

Problem = "ploglam"

And, perhaps most tragically,
“Her poster is very pimple.”

Next, let's hear some of the junior high third-years' Christmas wishes.

"This Christmas I want a Gundam because it is cool."
(Note: a Gundam is a type of giant robot.)

"This Christmas I want some money because I want money."

"This Christmas I want smile because I love happy."

"This Christmas, I want a car or motorbike. But I cannot drive."

And last,
"This Christmas I want a lot of knowledge because I want to defend people."

Bonus! A scrawled nonsequitur from the back of the same student's paper:
"Yes I can. Obama said that yes we can."

Well, I hope you enjoyed those...I know I did.

Happy Holidays!

backsliding

2008-12-17T01:04:00.001-05:00

I must confess, I've had this entry half-written for about two weeks. I suppose I'd best go ahead and post it before it's so far gone as to be totally irrelevant.

November ended with the ladies only staff party, at a restaurant in Kameoka which was quite good. The decor was also cute, a sort of homey, crafty sort of feeling. We had a very nice time all around. As usual, the seating was decided by lottery, but somehow every English teacher but one ended up sitting at our table, which was really great. We conversed in a mixture of the two languages, depending on who all was in a conversation at any given time.

One of the courses was roast beef, a rarity in Japan. It also ended up being hilarious in that they had only given us chopsticks...and it is nigh impossible to cut beef with chopsticks. Ueda-sensei, a young, first year teacher attempted to bite off a piece and refused to give up when it wouldn't tear, pulling at it like a puppy dog while we cheered her on. It took her probably a good two minutes. There were various other ridiculous attempts, until we settled on an equally ridiculous system of cutting that involved chopsticks and spoons. Utterly impractical! Yet none of us bothered to just ask for a knife.

Saturday the 29th, I cleaned my apartment up, and then met some kids in town. We ate some great Indian food and then went to a particularly friendly pub we knew in the area called Ing Bar, where we played cards for awhile. Afterwards Fig came back to Sonobe with me to spend the night. Despite our best intentions, we were up until about four in the morning just watching movies and such. It was the latest I've stayed up since coming to Japan, discounting that one all-nighter.

Somehow, though, my internal clock seems to be adjusting to normal-person hours, where once I habitually slept until (or even past) noon. Saturday I had woken up just after ten, and even though I went to bed at four a.m., on Sunday I awoke at nine forty-five! I was awake a full two hours before Fig roused. What could this mean? ...Adulthood?!

When Fig woke up, I made us tea and pancakes. Breakfast success! Then we spent the early afternoon watching my current obsession, "Hana Yori Dango." It is a very silly live-action Japanese drama show, about a girl who gets caught up in a war with the four spoiled rich boy bullies that rule her school. There are a lot of dramatic pauses, and Japanese fashion, and misunderstandings. The leader of the bullies is Domyouji, who is a slightly twisted, emotionally challenged, and kind of a moron. He is also, however, perfectly adorable, and I want to marry him. One of my favorite scenes (which I know will make you cringe in particular, Shonkwiler): Domyouji's sister quotes Hemingway when giving him advice, and in his usual mixed up manner, he incorrectly quotes it back later to someone else, saying scornfully, "It's HUMINGYAY! Read the book, the book!" Oh god, his face when he says it...just perfect.

That evening, we went into Kameoka for dinner, at a restaurant Phil had taken some of us to after the Hozu River Ride. The restaurant was small and almost empty, so we could clearly hear the table next to us exclaiming excitedly that there were foreigners, and were busy trying to pretend we didn't notice when one of the gentlemen approached us to ask where we were from. Suffice it to say, it was all downhill from there. The guys were all middle-aged and friendly, including a teacher, a firefighter, a government official of some sort, and the restaurant owner himself. I think some of them were well into their cups, though, based on the way they kept repeating themselves and forgetting what we had said.

"Canada?" "America." "Oh, America."
"Canada?" "America." "Oh, sorry, America!"
"Canada?!"

It was pretty funny, though, and they were quite nice, even going so far as to pay for our dinner since we put up with them for a full hour and a half. It was also decent Japanese practice. By the time we left, though, Fig and I were both a little shell-shocked! We retreated to a coffee shop to recoup a little afterwards.

The following week was marked by exams and the Kyoto JET Mid-Year Seminar. Basically, we sat around listening to various lectures and speeches for two days on the 3rd and 4th. On the second day, we had to present lesson plans to a group, so I and Takemura-sensei presented our "James and the Giant Peach" project. It was so well-received in our initial small group that our table chose us to present to the group at large. Also, the seminar gave me the opportunity to meet a few more of Fig's teachers, who all seemed pretty nice. We went out and got Thai food together, which I must say was excellent.

That weekend was largely uneventful as I recall, and school was more of the same. One of our exchange students returned to Colorado, and though she was a nice enough girl, it was with some relief that we saw her off. She consistently had trouble with her homestay family, to the extent that at one point we almost moved her.

Christmas classes have been ongoing. Trivia, crosswords, wordsearches, and carols. Through no real desire of my own, I now know most of the words to Wham's dubious classic, "Last Christmas."

This weekend was largely devoted to Christmas shopping, and still I didn't quite finish. I'll just say this: it is exceedingly difficult to shop for men in Japan, because guys over here are in some ways (read:fashion) what we would consider as more effeminate. But also, guys are hard to shop for anyway. Fie! Other than shopping, Fig and I just made cookies and watched "The Santa Clause." (A classic.)

Friday night was also the English department staff party, at a restaurant near my school. It was ever so fun, especially because I sat across from Hosoi-sensei, this adorable little man who speaks with an Australian accent and is an absolute riot. I want to take him everywhere with me!

Saturday morning (pre-shopping) I met Sean and Alex Rogals in an area of town called Gion, which is famous for its geisha and maiko (geisha-in-training?). As it happens, Saturday was the day when, once a year, the geisha and maiko all go to give their instructors some kind of thank-you gift. What it really means is that they are out on the streets in great numbers, so we (and many other people with giant cameras) went to snap pictures of them. Their kimonos were gorgeous, and some of them were so young! The ages of my students, even!

Later that evening (post-shopping), I met Fig, Joanna, and Mike. We went to an Irish pub in the area, where there was a "traditional Irish" band playing. And by "traditional Irish," I mean four Japanese guys playing some sort of Irish-jazz fusion using pipes, a box drum, a fiddle, and an upright bass. They were even joined for two songs by a probably-British woman, who was actually singing in French. In any case, the music was actually quite good. One of Mike's teachers was also in attendance (which is how he'd heard about it and dragged us along), and she was a pretty odd bird. Strange in an indefinable way when we were first introduced, our consensus by the end of the evening was that she was A) drunk and B) kind of a crazy groupie for this Irish band. All in all, though, we had a good time.

Yesterday I took a half-day of "special leave," and went to the immigration office in Kyoto to get my re-entry permit. (I want them to let me in again when I come back from Korea!) I met a nice girl from Maine who was getting her permit to visit her boyfriend Italy over the break, which was funny because at dinner, I ended up seated next to a businessman who was actually from Italy. Small world!

I'm sure there are a thousand other things to say, but I am exhausted, and it is only 1:00 on Wednesday. Wait for it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-25T02:43:00.006-05:00

So. Once upon a time, way way back on the 15th of November, I had the last of my Saturday classes with the elementary school kids. I took a picture, but unfortunately only three out of five families could come that day, so I missed a few of our attendees. I'm really glad to have full weekends again (for the first time in almost two months), but I'll also miss those kids a lot. They were always cheerful and enthusiastic -- a nice change from occasionally catatonic high schoolers!

After class, Kristin and I had to sprint to catch a train to Kameoka, because that afternoon was the regional English speech contest, to which both students from our school had gotten through to. They both did a wonderful job, with not a single mistake or sign of nervousness, but somehow, neither made the cut for the next step. Though I don't want to harp on a matter that really upset me at the time, I must say that I in many ways don't agree with the judging. Several of the students chosen for the top five spoke unnaturally, with ridiculous, overlarge gestures, or worse, had noticeable grammar errors in their speeches. (Neither of which were problems our students suffered from.) And just for the record, this isn't entirely my bias as their teacher, because JETs from other high schools also relayed their surprise that neither of our students had made it, so perhaps my surprise is a little justified.

At the time, it just upset me more that Satomi, one of our students who is characteristically reserved, was crying uncontrollably afterwards. We spent ten minutes trying to cheer her up, but she was still teary as she left. Suffice it to say, I was indignant for awhile on her behalf.

But I'd best move on before I get worked up again. That night, Joanna and I met some local JETs in Kameoka for dinner. We went over to Liz's apartment, and she cooked some yummy Japanese curry for the whole group, who besides Joanna and I included Kameoka JETs Phil, Laurel, and Margaret. It was really nice to spend time with them, since besides Nelis and Kristin they are perhaps the closest thing that I have to JET neighbors.

On Sunday the 16th, I woke up early for my first installment of bimonthly trash duty at my apartment complex. Essentially, there are three buildings of three floors each, and every week a different floor is responsible for cleaning up our little garbage hutch. Each apartment on the floor must send at least one representative. Overall, it's a nine week rotation. In the end, I wasn't much help, because I didn't really know what we were doing, and none of the neighbors gave me much guidance. Mostly I just held bags or passed things to people, but it's good that I went, because they took attendance at the end and there's a five thousand yen fine if you have an unexcused absence. (That's about fifty bucks!)

Afterwards, I met Kristin and Sumiko at TASK, a local arts college. They were having an open school day, with food booths, art exhibitions, and even some hands-on activities. We ate lunch, explored the student works, took part in tea ceremony, and even tried our hands at wheel pottery! The pottery was so much fun, and my student helper was really great. (In the time it took Kristin to make three pieces, I made six!) We even got to choose one which they would fire in the kiln and deliver to us for free, though it will probably be a few months before they arrive. Though I ended up really loving all six of the pieces I made, I chose a very round bowl to keep. I can't wait until it's finished!

On Monday, I was visited at work by Amy Lichty, the JET Prefectural Advisor. She observed four of my classes, gave me some advice, and asked questions to see how I was settling in and enjoying life in Japan. I was nervous beforehand, but Amy is a pretty laid back individual, so I think it all turned out alright.

Not too much else to report from school. One interesting tidbit from the past few weeks: we have two exchange students here from Colorado, until December and January, respectively. And somehow, in a building full of native speakers, the staff decided to put ME in charge of teaching them Japanese. So not only am I an English teacher, but I'm now a Japanese teacher, as well! It's fun, but also a little frustrating, because sometimes the preparation for the two Japanese classes we have a week takes as much time as every other class I teach combined. My Tuesdays, in particular, are endlessly hectic trying to be ready for Japanese in 5th period, and I inevitably stay late making worksheets for 1st period Wednesday. Plus, one of the girls is having issues with her homestay family, so we're all scrambling to figure out where to put her for the last two and a half weeks of her time here. If worst comes to worst, it looks like the principal may take her in.

But that's neither here nor there. Both of my E-classes have finally finished their presentations on "James and the Giant Peach," and I'll never be able to look at that story the same way again. At least it's over! What an exhausting project that turned out to be.

This past weekend, though my first full weekend in ages, was remarkably busy. Friday night I straightened up my apartment a little and dragged out my kotatsu, a table covered with a blanket that houses a heater on the underbelly, so that your legs and middle are warmed when you sit at it. It is a wonderful invention, and I think I may just live under that blanket for the rest of the winter! Alas, for central heating!

On Saturday, I got up early to meet Nelis, Liz, Phil, and Laurel in Kameoka for a boat ride down the Hozu River. The scenery was really nice, as the river winds its way through the mountains between Kameoka and Arashiyama. Many of the leaves had begun to turn, and the weather was unusually sunny and temperate relative to the chill we've had recently! We all took about two hundred (extraneous) pictures of trees.

We didn't end up spending much time in Arashiyama, as it is absolutely choked with tourists right now, and the crowds were maddening. Instead, we hopped the train back up to Kameoka, grabbed lunch, and did a little shopping. The group broke up to various engagements, but I was joined in Kameoka by Joanna. We set up camp in a cute little cafe for about an hour and a half, chatting about various things. Mostly, we've taken to talking about various writing projects we're working on in our respective spare time, as it turns out we have similar taste and a similar penchant for fiction writing. It's nice, because even waiting in the cold for a train, we can turn the wait into an impromptu writers' workshop, and the story I'm playing with at present is already growing by leaps and bounds thanks to Joanna's seemingly endless supply of insightful questions.

On Sunday, I met Fig and her mother, who was just wrapping up a visit to Japan, in Osaka for lunch. We wandered around Shinsaibashi, did a little bit of Christmas shopping, and had some great okonomiyaki. (Nobody does it like Osaka!) Then I met Joanna and Alex Rogals to go see some bunraku, Japan's traditional puppet theater. I had seen it once before during my study abroad, but it's a pretty interesting art form, and I was glad to have the chance to see it again! It's a very detailed and beautiful type of theater, I think.

Monday was a national holiday -- Japan's equivalent of Labor Day, I believe -- so I got the day off. I didn't accomplish much, though, apart from getting breakfast with the neighbor family I have befriended and then falling asleep under my heated table for much of the afternoon. If I'm not careful, I'll come to spend all my time at home hibernating, just to fight off the cold!

Otherwise, not too much is going on. I've finally started studying Japanese with some focus in the past week or two, because our first test for the JET correspondence course is coming up. It's sometimes difficult to make myself study at home, but I occasionally have enough free time at work that I can work on it during off periods.

Some of the kids in town are going out for an expensive turkey dinner tonight, but I have no special plans for Thanksgiving... unless you count washing the dishes and going to the convenience store to pay my gas bill. (In Japan, instead of paying via mail, almost every bill is payable at your local 7-11 or Lawson's.) I'm not too broken up about it, though. Christmas will be a little sad, but fortunately I have travel plans to keep me afloat...

Because over Christmas, Joanna and I are going to SOUTH KOREA! Specifically, we are going to stay with my college roomie Juli Jones for about a week, so it'll be a holiday of adventures and familiar faces. (Juli is teaching English near Seoul, like the Korean equivalent of JET!) Something to look forward to over the next three or so weeks of school until the break.

Anyway, though, I hope all you folk at home have a lovely holiday weekend, and eat some extra turkey for me! Tryptophan is my drug of choice. :)

smelling the roses

2008-11-13T23:06:00.001-05:00

So, it occurs to me (usually when I'm walking around town, seeing things first-hand, or otherwise away from the convenience of a computer) that with all the time I spend relating my (often banal) adventures here, I've done very little of detailed or expressive description. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a true shame, because this is not a vacation - it is everyday life, and I think that in many ways it is the quiet beauties that really breathe life into the everyday.

So let me try to break it down a little.

Sonobe. Sonobe in some ways defies explanation. It is the border between city and countryside, a patchwork layout of cheesy apartment aesthetic and stunning traditional architecture. There are a few main thoroughfares, and a myriad of quiet lanes, my favorite of which is a back street between my apartment and my school, which lined by trees, gardens, and even a little rice field or two.

Autumn has finally come, and with it, a change in the weather. When I wake up in the morning, blearily rolling off a flat futon and padding across tatami covered floors, there is a nine out of ten chance that the world behind my windows will be covered with fog. Sonobe is almost completely surrounded by mountains, one of which looms beyond my balcony, but often the mist is so thick that the mountain, though nearby, disappears in its entirety.

It is often cool when I set out for school just after eight o'clock, though it's generally even cooler in the evenings. Early in my walk I pass a simple railing, on which several spiders have made their webs. The webs always glisten with dew, so clearly visible and crystalline that it's almost surreal. They look like decorations for Halloween or even Christmas, but for the abrupt shock of finding an actual, and often uncomfortably large spider presiding in the center.

On Wednesday nights, I make the solitary trek from my tea ceremony instructor's home back to my apartment, usually between 10 and 10:30. I take my favorite lane back, and in its quiet I become so engrossed staring upwards that one of these days I'll probably walk into one of the ditches lining the road. In Sonobe, set back from larger cities, you can see more stars on that shady lane than I ever see in Decatur. My favorite nights are the just slightly cloudy ones, the misty dark of the clouds making the visible stars twinkle all the brighter. There is a feeling of closeness to the heavens, like if I took off running I could outrace gravity and leap into the sky.

The relative darkness of Sonobe also lends itself to the full moon. Walking along that same path beneath a full moon, everything is clearly illuminated in its pale light, so bright you could read your watch by it. Every shadow is strictly defined by the light's silver edge, every detail visible but wan. The moon shines so brightly that it always seems as if I've wandered onto a quiet, empty movie set, where they are imitating the moon and overdoing it.

Sonobe is really amazing in the little ways.

unexpected windfall!

2008-11-07T01:57:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned before, this year is my high school's 120th anniversary, so there have been various little goings-on. Today, fifth and sixth period were preempted by a ceremony with an alumni guest speaker.

So, there we are, in the gym, and this guy is on stage talking about who-knows-what in Japanese. I'm only catching every third word, until he plays a video on the projector. The video is a timeline of his work, and suddenly I know EXACTLY who he is.

SHIGERU MIYAMOTO. Oh my god, he is an alumni of my school. Shigeru Miyamoto, inventor of Super Mario, Nintendo guru, and granddaddy of all video games existing today. SHIGERU MIYAMOTO CAME TO MY SCHOOL AND I MET HIM FACE TO FACE. Shook his hand, had a conversation! Thanked him for being awesome and enriching my childhood!

And I thought today would be a normal Friday! :D

time flies

2008-10-31T04:53:00.008-04:00

Has it really been two weeks? Really? Looks like I need to play catch up, and they've certainly been a busy two weeks!

Saturday the 18th, my coworker (and fellow JET) Kristin hosted Canadian Thanksgiving at her apartment. It was a potluck type affair, comprised of her, myself, Miho (the cooking teacher), and Nakatani-sensei (one of our English teachers). We spent several hours just chatting and eating a really nice meal, with everything from tomato basil pizza to salad to parmesan curry chicken (SO GOOD) and even some nice homemade crackers and dip. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal, in some fashion. And Nakatani-sensei was kind enough to give me a ride home afterwards.

Friday the 24th was something of an accidental adventure. Fig had previously introduced me to one of her fellow teachers, a young woman named Naoko, and Friday was Naoko's boyfriend's birthday. I met them briefly in Sanjo, though it took so long to get there that I missed most of dinner. When Fig and I finally left, we split up in Sanjo station to board our respective train lines. When I reached mine, however, I discovered that I had missed my last train by about a minute! Hurriedly, I ran back to Fig's line and jumped on a train, sending her a desperate text message to let her know I was following her, so please wait somewhere!

I knew that I'd have to get off at Tambabashi station to change trains, and hoped that I wasn't about to get stranded their for the rest of the night. Fortunately, Fig was there, and there were still trains running to her stop (Shin-Tanabe). So we ended up having an impromptu slumber party, Fig being kind enough to let me stay at her place.

The next day we got up on the early side, because I had to be back in Sonobe by about noon to get to a school function at 1:00, and it takes a really long time to get from Fig's house to mine. (On the upside, this was the only Saturday I had off during the run of our elementary school Saturday classes, so it was my good luck not to have to be back in Sonobe by 8:00!) Including walking time and train changes, around two and a half hours, I'd say. I stopped only to pick up some cat ears for a halloween costume that night, otherwise breezing through Sanjo and getting back to Sonobe just in time to inhale lunch and change into work clothes for my school's 120th Anniversary Celebration thing.

Which turned out not to be such a big deal. Most of the teachers weren't even there, which rankled a little with Kristin and I, because when we asked whether we needed to be there, we had been told to show up. What we got was literally two hours of speeches in Japanese, which we could barely understand, much less care about or benefit from.

On the upside, the speeches were followed by an hour-long performance by Takigawa Maiko, a locally famous enka singer. I'd encountered enka before -- when I was living in Japan two years ago, my host grandmother and I sometimes watched it on TV together -- but I hadn't had the opportunity to catch a live show. It's a very theatrical and entertaining genre, if not generally my style of music. (And by theatrical, let me just say this: Kristin and I came to the common conclusion that enka singers shared certain mannerisms with lounge singers. Vegas meets Japan?)

When it was over, I had another hurried flight back to my apartment, where I threw things in a bag and changed into my Halloween costume (more of a Halloween outfit, really), before racing my butt to the station. (If you hadn't noticed, I spent this particular weekend running pretty much everywhere I went, because my schedule was so tight. I wish that were more of an exaggeration.)

I rode the trains all the way back out towards Fig's place, getting off two stops early at Terada station, where I met Fig and her coworker Ashley. We joined some other local JETs at a costume-mandatory party at Guys Bar, a local hangout. Fig was a pirate (though lackluster in comparison to her usual getup), Ashley a gypsy, and I a black cat. Other notables include Steve, whose gorilla monster mask suited him far too well, two Japanese boys dressed in drag who we mistook for actual girls for several hours, and the DJ, who made a very convincing Michael Jackson. Basically we just met people and chatted, and watched a pretty rad dance competition towards the end of the night. I think that the two girls doing karate-inspired dance was the best (plus, they were dancing to my favorite song from the soundtrack of the 2003 Zatoichi movie), but the post-danceoff freestyle break dancers were also pretty sweet. Especially the one who kept putting his hat on me.

There were lots of nice people there, from one Japanese girl who spoke such perfect English that I mistook her for a JET (she grew up in the states), to Yoshi, a twenty-something guy who wrote down some book recommendations for me on a torn bit of cardboard. It was, overall, a good evening -- even the part where we got lost on the way back to the station. We got back to Fig's somehow! :)

Once again on Sunday morning, I had to get up and get back to Sonobe for previous engagements. You see, earlier that week, I had been walking home from work, minding my own business, when someone called in English, "Excuse me!" Now, I live at the end of the street inhabited by young families, where there are approximately eight hundred small children between the ages of 3 and 10. Everyday I walk by and see the happy children, along with their mothers, and wish I had some opening gambit with which to meet some of my neighbors. But almost three months in, and I still didn't know anybody. So imagine my surprise and delight to see a (really cute) young woman with two small children, waving me over. As soon as she established that I spoke Japanese, she explained that she wanted to learn English, and did I have time to visit sometime? So we exchanged contact information, and via email, arranged for me to visit her house for tea at three o'clock that Sunday.

I took some cookies with me as a gift (as Japanese protocol demands), and showed up to tea that day, only to discover I was not just spending time with Juri-san (the wife), but also with her husband (who may or may not be named Mitsuru) and her two small children (Yuu, a girl aged 3, and Haru, a boy aged 1). Essentially, we introduced ourselves and chatted in a combination of English and Japanese, and they invited me to stay for dinner, and I played with the kids. One of the best parts was when, after deciding that I was not a scary monster, Yuu sat me down and systematically explained every picture book she could shove into my willing hands. This worked out well, as I apparently have just the right amount of Japanese to converse easily with a three-year-old.

I was definitely on cloud nine when I walked home that evening, filled with glee and success at having finally made friends in my neighborhood -- and they are definitely wonderful people! When I admitted that I'm a pretty poor cook, Juri-san even gave me two packs of Japanese noodles to make at home, explaining how to cook them.

So now we are at last Monday, the 27th. It was a busy start to an equally chaotic week. Our school was playing host to a visiting teacher from England, named Oliver Wells. His school (Westminster Academy) and ours had a tentative letter exchange in the works, and he came to set up some more specific project goals for the relationship. He was a nice enough fellow, though he did have something of a tendency to bulldoze over other people during meetings, and it was obvious that his concerns were firmly seated with his own students and their benefits. Which is as it should be, really, but it was sometimes difficult for us to form a compromise. On the upside, though, he was a youngish guy (28, the same age as Kristin, actually), so he seemed to feel a certain camaraderie with Kristin and I.

Plus, his coming gave us an excuse to have a little dinner outing on Monday, with him, myself, Kristin, Hosoi-sensei (who I adore), and the principal and vice principal (who are both named Mori). It was then that I discovered that the principal has a love for making terrible puns in Japanese, and is generally a hilarious guy. I don't know if I've made this entirely clear, but I love my coworkers. They are all great and distinctive people, and I want to bring them all home with me when the time comes. But anyway, as for Oliver wells, he was hanging about all week while we were busy getting ready for SELHi.

Oh, SELHi. That was an adventure. We've been running top speed in our E classes to prepare our projects on "James and the Giant Peach" for the dreaded SELHi open house. I had extra classes with E-3 almost every day last week, getting ready for the big event. And Thursday night, we were all at school later than usual making print outs and packets and generally getting everything perfectly prepared. I feel for the full-time teachers, who were probably here a lot longer than we were. It was all pretty stressful. There was also fun throughout the week, though, as we did several Halloween-themed classes with the junior high kids, and in junior high ESS we made some really tasty mini pumpkin cheesecakes. I don't usually dig cheesecake, but these were decidedly good! I have, in fact, ferreted out the recipe for future attempts.

The SELHi presentation itself also went decently well, I think. There were around 70 guest teachers wandering the halls, moving from class to class to observe. The E-3 students were quieter than usual, probably hyper-aware of being observed, but it was quieter in a good way. (They do tend to be a little rowdy and distracted usually.) They were, in fact, very cooperative, so much that I think I might take them a treat on Thursday.

Friday night, there was also the post-SELHi, hooray-we-made-it-through-somehow staff party. We went to a really nice restaurant in Yagi, and just sat around eating and socializing for several hours. It was a really nice time. I ended up sitting between Ueda-sensei (one of my team teachers, who is a young woman the same age as me) and the cute young music teacher that sits near us in the staff room. I forget his name. And across from me was Takemura-sensei, also a young female teacher, and coincidentally the teacher with whom I manage E-3, so we could really share our relief that the presentation had gone well.

The next morning were Saturday classes as usual, and then meeting Joanna and Neil in Uji to go visit Byodoin, the famous temple featured on one side of the ten yen coin. It was smaller than some sites I have visited, but for some reason I found it particularly beautiful. It probably helps that it was a stunning day, bright and sunny and surprisingly warm. There was even a nice little museum, with a very interesting collection of Buddhist statuary. We took a whole lot of pictures.

Saturday night was our normal routine -- friends and karaoke at Sanjo. Alex's girlfriend, Louise, was visiting from the States; she seemed decent. Neil and I spent the night with Joanna, then went out for lunch and a little bit of shopping on Sunday afternoon. I picked up a cuddly scarf and some more cookies to take with me that evening, when I returned for a second time to Juri-san's house. She enlisted my help in making okonomiyaki (which is nice, because now I know how to make okonomiyaki), which was delicious. She even gave me three extra to take home, all of which I happily ate yesterday.

And that, hopefully, is the extent of it. There are plans on the horizon, but this week is shaping up to be quiet compared to those that have just gone by, and that's fine by me.

yoi yoi yoi yoi

2008-10-14T20:06:00.004-04:00

So, this weekend was fun, the first half being nonstop action and the second half being largely chill.

Saturday morning, Kristin and I had our first elementary school class. Those kids were so cute and enthusiastic! It almost makes me wish I had been assigned to junior/elementary instead of junior/senior. Even better, the parents participated even in our silliest of activities. They were all really good sports about it, especially this one father named Seiji, who was really funny and really good with his daughter.

After classes I ran a few errands to the post office, bank, and grocery store, returning to my apartment only to eat lunch and pack a bag before heading into Kyoto. I met Joanna way on the other side of the city, in a town called Momoyama. It was time for their autumn festival, and we'd been kindly invited to participate! The invitation was levied by Ono-sensei, a nice teacher from Joanna's school who resembles my friend Will, if Will were fifty or sixty years old and Japanese.

We were also joined by Amy, Chris, Rob, and a handful of people I didn't know (who I believe were named Simon, Thomas, and Matt.) Ono-sensei led us to an apartment complex, where a bunch of people were gathering, and we changed into festival clothes. (Luckily for the girls, all we had to do was put on jackets and headbands. The boys had to go all out!) After a few speeches and a sake toast, the group from our complex gathered in the street and set off for a covered shopping arcade that led up to the shrine.

It's difficult to describe what exactly was going on in our pseudo-parade. There were children with brightly decorated umbrellas, men dancing precariously with umbrellas literally the size of a car, and one traveling shrine topped with three of said car-sized umbrellas, which a whole group of men had to carry on their shoulders and dance around with. This last is the group our boys were impressed into, and it looked like no easy business. Meanwhile, we girls just got to trail along in our blue jackets, shouting along with rousing but ultimately meaningless chants of "YOI YOI YOI YOI." There was much bobbing and bouncing and even some destruction of the three-tiered umbrella float, though that wasn't exactly intentional.

Made several more acquaintances along the way, including another teacher from Joanna's school named Mitsuoka-sensei. Remarkably, it turns out that she's good friends with one of my English teachers, Nakatani-sensei. (Who is actually one of my favorite teachers to work with!)

When the dances and displays were over, we went back to the apartment complex for a sort of night-time picnic. Our group ended up sitting around the edges of a sandbox, watching adorable kids come down the slide and eating the best curry ever. EVER. I was pleased to have the opportunity to use my Japanese some, which has been unexpectedly rare thus far. Also talked a bit with Thomas, who was from Switzerland, and amused him with my very poor German. Very, very poor. (I did, however, almost manage to make him snarf his drink with surprise at one point, and felt very accomplished indeed.)

Joanna and I have decided to start a band called Swiss Army Thomas, except that neither of us play instruments.

I stayed at Joanna's apartment Saturday night, and on Sunday we wandered over to Sanjo, where we met my friend John for lunch. I have actually known John since kindergarten; he's lived on my street in Atlanta for some twenty years or so. We couldn't really decide what to do with ourselves, so we actually just spent most of the afternoon wandering around Sanjo, shopping or sitting by the river. There was a little orchestra playing some amazing jazz at the riverside. It amazes me that there is always some performance group doing something wacky down there! What a perfect hangout!

Eventually Alex joined us, and we went and had Indian food for dinner. I had really only had Indian food maybe once before, at age nine, when I really didn't like it that much. I have seen the light now, though; turns out that Indian food is absolutely delicious. I want to go there every day!

As usual, this was followed by karaoke, some purikura, et cetera before John and I followed Joanna home to once again crash at her place. Monday morning (yet another national holiday) was something of a bust; we slept too long to go see this parade thing we'd been planning on, and the flea market we went to was really crowded and full of old clothes that we didn't want to buy. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

Instead, I went back to my apartment, straightened up a little (though actually, it was already really clean), did some laundry. An older gentleman came by to install my internet, which he theoretically did as there are now routers and business beside my phone jack, but I haven't been able to effectively set it up on the computer end yet. The instructions are all in Japanese, and worse, full of kanji. (CANNOT READ.) Sometime soon, when I get the patience and inclination worked up, I'll sit down with my kanji dictionary and see if I can't suss it out. Boy, this is a labor-intensive process!

The only thing notable from yesterday was that we had the finals and picked the two winners of the school-wide speech contest. Second place was a girl I didn't really know, but one was this guy Yosuke, who is really sweet! I couldn't get over how proud I was of him for coming in first place. He looked so surprised. :)

Sometimes I love my students.

drifting along, singing a song...

2008-10-10T02:12:00.003-04:00

So last Saturday was my buddy Alex's birthday. He got reservations at a yakiniku restaurant in Sanjo, where about twelve or so of us met in the evening. We had a good time chatting and eating -- I ended up between Sean and Neil, which is a recipe for fun.

Afterwards we went and chilled by the banks of the Kamo River, which is really pleasant in the evenings. Also there was a group of hilarious Japanese hippies having a drum circle with big African drums, which we watched for awhile. As they really got into it, some of the hippies pulled out some batons and other implements which they set on fire and twirled around. It was entertaining, in a dangerous amateur sort of way. The first guy had these sort of flaming nunchaku, which briefly set his dreadlocks on fire, and the second guy (who was for some reason only wearing a very flowy, obviously-meant-for-females skirt) managed to set his skirt on fire. Neither of them was hurt, and the performance just kept on going, but it was pretty funny in retrospect.

I spent a good portion of our time by the river running around to different friends and taking what we all identify as "MySpace photos" -- pictures where you hold the camera away from yourself and try to squeeze into the shot, while aiming the camera by guesswork. First we would do a smiley one, immediately followed by the classic MySpace emo shot.

Sunday...well, I don't actually remember doing much of anything on Sunday. Washing dishes, maybe. I don't know.

Normal classes on Monday and Tuesday, followed by these three long days of mid-term exams for the students. We had very little do help with during exams -- mostly just showing up in certain classes and reading things aloud for listening comprehension -- so much of these three days has been spent trying not to fall asleep or pass away from boredom. On the upside, we've gotten some good work in on various projects and worksheets, as well as readied the lesson plan and materials for our Saturday classes, which begin tomorrow. (Though this is a junior and senior high school, Saturday English classes are offered for five weeks in autumn for elementary schoolers and their parents. I think we have a grand total of 12 people, apparently up from three or so last year.)

Last night Phil, a JET in Kameoka, just happened to be in Sonobe for an office party, so I agreed to meet him afterwards for a quick drink and mini-tour around town. However, he didn't finish his party until after nine, which meant we had to hurry. I managed to meet him at the train station at 9:30, get him to Good Bar around 9:50, swing him by to have a look at my apartment at quarter to eleven, and get him back to the station by 11:15 for the last train to Kameoka. I think that over the course of the "tour," if you include the solitary trips to and from the station to meet Phil and see him off again, probably amounted to three or four miles. By the time I got home at 11:30, I was a tired puppy.

We did have fun, though, especially when we were greeted at Good Bar by a humorously drunk stranger that took pains to introduce us around.

I'm working on getting photos and stuff uploaded, so hopefully in the next post I can give you guys some links to actually see what I've been hopelessly rambling about all this time. I get (legit) internet at my apartment on Monday! Huzzah!

Yakiniku: Essentially, you are brought various plates of meat (beef, pork, chicken, etc.) which you cook yourself on a little grill in the surface of your table. You eat them with different dipping sauces, salad, and rice. The meals are generally large and somewhat pricey, but delicious!

Nunchaku: Or "nunchucks," as were common in bad karate films from the late 80s and early 90s. See: Three Ninjas.

Emo: For the record, this is slang, not Japanese. Emo is a recent and oft-mocked social movement embodied by pop-punk bands like My Chemical Romance. It is (over?)generalized as moody tweens, teens, and twenties who feel persecuted, wear a lot of eyeliner, and always look sullen in photographs.

let it all out

2008-10-02T02:03:00.003-04:00

It's official: there is only one class I teach that has the ability to make me truly dispirited, and that is class E-3.

Today we were making acrostic poetry in simple English, using words about autumn. The assignment seemed pretty popular with the students in E-1, which I found encouraging, as they are sometimes distractible. They wrote some really nice poems, as well as some really clever ones! It made me really, really happy. So I was (foolishly?) optimistic for E-3, even though I know they are my most challenging class.

Let's just say it went over like a lead balloon. A handful of students accomplished something like a poem, but some students just didn't understand (though I had Hosoi-sensei explain it in Japanese, so they really have no excuse but inattention), and some students ignored the assignment altogether. At one point, I think five people were sleeping.

This is extra frustrating because I can't really do anything to them. I have seen no evidence of disciplinary measures beyond chiding, and I have even less authority because I'm really just an assistant teacher. So I just continually harass them to do their work, which is tiring to me, annoying to them, and largely ineffective in E-3.

They aren't bad kids (necessarily), but they mostly don't care about English and lack any motivation. I'm a bit stumped as to what to do with them.

To add insult to injury, this was a test run for possible SELHi activities. (See the prior post for details.) This is the class I have to teach in front of guests and peers, and the class where nothing I've done has worked so far. I am suddenly less than optimistic.

too many speeches

2008-10-01T00:12:00.003-04:00

Last weekend was a blur, spent mostly (as always) at Sanjo. Friday night we met for karaoke. Saturday, Fig and I did some shopping (wherein I spent too much money, but buying things I mostly needed, like cardigans) and then met my buddies for yet more karaoke. We like to sing and all, but we're beginning to run out of songs! We did manage to discover that we have almost the perfect range of voices to perform songs by the B-52's, though I'm not sure if that's awesome or scary. (Probably awesome. The way he sings, Alex Rogals pretty much IS the male B-52. It's hilarious.)

On Sunday, instead of sleeping in (as is always tempting), I got up even earlier than usual and hauled my sleepy self to the park next to my school by 8 a.m., where a crowd was congregating! The crowd was actually a tour group taking buses up to the town of Miyama for an 8km (roughly 5 mile) hike. Parenthetically, Miyama is famed for its abundance of thatched-roof houses, preserving a more traditionally rustic Japanese aesthetic. We managed a few photos during rest stops before and after the hike.

Anyway, I and my coworker, Kristin, had been invited along by Sumiko, the lovely Japanese woman who teaches us tea ceremony and calligraphy on Wednesdays. (For FREE.) There were about 130 people all together, most of them middle aged women. We divided into groups and tackled the mountain trail -- which contained a few feats of questionable safety -- with gusto! It was by far the coldest day since I've arrived in Japan, not to mention damp, but we had a good time. It felt nice to really get out and do something, and by that I mean something that didn't involve eating or shopping or neon lights. I was really tired by the time we got back to Sonobe just after five o'clock, but it was a good kind of tired. The weariness of productivity.

On the downside, since I was too busy this weekend to clean, my apartment is a mess. A really big mess. All I've managed so far is half of the dishes. Bad Anna!

This week at school has been speech contest, speech contest, and more speech contest. We judged speeches for six and a half periods on Monday and four yesterday, managing around 150 speeches altogether, I think. I am SO SO TIRED of speeches. Twelve more to go on Friday, but otherwise we can put this stage behind us! (Alas, the specter of the contest will live on, because next is the school contest, then the area contest, then prefectural contest...assuming our students get that far, of course.) Once we've picked out two kids to represent our whole school in the area contest, apparently Kristin and I will be spending a LOT of time at lunch and after school prepping them. And I mean a LOT. Ah, well. C'est la vie!

In other news, I just noticed that the decently young music teacher that sits across from Kristin is wearing a pastel pink sweater vest today. Tee hee!

The next big thing on our plates is an event called SELHi (Super English Learning Highschool) Open Class. Since we are one of the aforementioned SELHis, we have to have an open-house school on a Saturday for teachers from other schools and representatives from the Kyoto Prefectural Board of Education to come and observe our classes. It's a little nerve-wracking, especially since in I and Kristin's cases they'll be observing our most difficult and recalcitrant students. (Figures.)

hot topics

2008-09-23T20:41:00.006-04:00

Saturday classes proceeded well. Since it was a very unusual schedule, I only went to one class, and did very little for that one. Pretty much handed out worksheets, talked to a few visiting students, and smiled at all the guests. Look, a friendly foreigner! Let's go to this school! :P After classes, we were supposed to have a visiting student to ESS, but they never showed up, so we just sat around chatting and drawing inexpert self-portraits. Well, inexpert except for Nao, who has mad drawing skills.

Sunday, for once the beginning of my weekend, I met my co-worker Kristin at Kyoto station, and we walked to the nearby home of one of our school's English teachers, Waki-sensei. She had kindly invited us over for lunch! To get there, we had to walk through Toji temple, which was holding its monthly crafts market. When we arrived at Waki-sensei's house, we were surprised to find the door opened by Shiroshita-sensei, another English teacher who was apparently joining us! They had both cooked, so there was a selection of sandwiches, pasta salad, and some weird (but good!) little chicken vegetable wrap things, as well as fruit, coffee, and some really nice wine.

Pretty much, the four of us just sat around snacking and chatting for several hours. We had meant to go look around the Toji market, but it started raining like the dickens, so we just stayed where we were.

On the way home, I ran into Joanna Mirsky (who is my new favorite person, because she made me an absolutely awesome mix cd) and Alex Rogals, who are both JETs in the area. We went to a Starbucks and hung out for awhile, which mostly entailed me watching the two of them get into heated and hilarious arguments. Then I went home and watched the movie "Shoot 'Em Up," which I strongly discourage you from doing. Even though it is starring Clive Owen, who I generally like, the film was absolutely unsalvageable. For those of you who can make the comparison, think "Crank."

Monday passed with little of the noteworthy, but on Tuesday I met the aforementioned Joanna and Alex, as well as our friend Neil, for a trip to the city of Nara. (Tuesday was a national holiday for the autumnal equinox, so we didn't have to go to school.) Nara is home to a large temple called Todai-ji, which is in turn home to the Daibutsu. "Daibutsu" means something along the lines of "big buddha," which is exactly what it is -- a humongous buddha statue, so large that a trim person could theoretically fit through its nostril. (I do wonder how they figured that out.) It is surrounded by a bevy of other largish and interesting statues, buddhas and otherwise.

Plus, the whole of the surrounding Nara Park is full of interesting little shrines and shops and, most of all, deer. There are thousands of deer that wander the park unchecked, because they're sacred and can't be harmed. They can, however, be fed, and most vendors around sell crackers specifically for the deer. The deer are now so used to humans and being fed by us that they practically chase people around the park looking for snacks, and don't mind at all if you want to pet them, or take some pictures (which is, of course, exactly what we did).

After some hours of aimless but fruitful wandering, we made our way back to the station and thus back to Kyoto (though we got charged extra for accidentally getting on the super-fast train), where we grabbed dinner before going our separate ways. Already we're trying to decide on our next outing -- I really like the group dynamic we've got going! Huzzah, friends!

Since then, it's class as usual. Next week is the almost school-wide English speech contest, so we are busy checking the kids' memorization and pronunciation. They were more or less allowed to choose their own topic, but many gravitated towards the same sort of themes. All I can say is that hopefully, after this, it'll be a good while before I have to hear anything else about global warming, metabolic syndrome, or smoking.

It is Saturday.

2008-09-19T20:24:00.002-04:00

Therefore, I shouldn't even be awake yet. But today we have classes for a thing called "Open School," basically like an open house enticing people to enroll here next year, so I must be here. All day. XP

On the upside, there was a whole mob of my students walking along across the street from me on the way to school today, and when I turned to wish them good morning (in English, of course), they shrieked in excitement like I was a rock star. Thank you, girls. Maybe I'll be okay, after all. :)

into the swing of things

2008-09-16T22:46:00.005-04:00

So, last week's school report! In senior high ESS (English Speaking Society), we were in the cooking room, attempting to make home-made ice cream sandwiches. Through a bit of guess-and-test we managed okay, except that the cookies had no time to cool, and started melting the ice cream on contact. The end result was messy, but delicious. In junior high ESS, we played board games. I had the exciting job of trying to explain the ins and outs of Monopoly in very simple English. Thank goodness the kids were natural game players!

On Thursday I finally encountered what is likely to be my most troublesome class. They aren't bad kids, per se, but they are exceedingly noisy. It's very difficult to teach when no one can hear you, and only half of the students are paying attention. By the end of the period, I understood how teachers must sometimes feel the need to throttle a few teenagers.

I relaxed in my apartment Friday night, and did some cleaning and grocery shopping and such on Saturday. I met the Interac boys at Good Bar for a bit Saturday evening, but nothing too exciting.

At last, on Sunday, I took the train into Kyoto and met my cool friend Joanna at Sanjo (a popular shopping district). We went to a kaitenzushi restaurant, which was extra fun because Joanna had never been before. She's not so into raw fish, so we had a somewhat impromptu round of I-Spy identifying the sushi she could and would eat. Meanwhile, an older Japanese man sitting next to Joanna (we were at the counter) took it upon himself to serve us tea and ginger, not to mention correct my sushi-eating etiquette. For some reason Joanna received no tips; we decided she was either accidentally perfect, or beyond all hope.

After lunch we took the train to Fushimi Inari! Fushimi Inari is an amazing temple that I had visited on my last trip to Japan. It was, in fact, among my favorite places last time. Essentially, Fushimi Inari encompasses an entire mountain with multiple paths winding between small shrines and clustered grave memorials. To top it off, the paths are all lined with hundreds upon hundreds of torii, making everything extra scenic. We had a great time hiking around, though after climbing hundreds of stairs up the mountainside, we were getting a little shaky.

Along the way, Joanna and I chatted about everything from Jane Austen to Errol Flynn to Stargate. It is bordering on eerie, the number of common interests we have. I wish she lived closer to me, so we could hang out more often!

Anyway, after we were thoroughly hot and exhausted from all the hiking around, we went back to Sanjo and took a breather, sitting on the banks of the Kamo River while we waited for Neil to join us. Then the three of us wandered the shopping area searching for something to eat, finally settling on okonomiyaki! The first and only one I've had since returning to Japan. Ah, my Osaka roots...

We shopped around a bit to kill time, took some purikura, and then met my friend Fig from college for karaoke. As always, there were some silly (and nigh shameful) songs involved -- I won't get too specific, but there may or may not have been both some Ace of Base and some Cyndi Lauper. At least I can honestly say that it wasn't my idea.

That night I stayed at Fig's place in Kyotanabe, a suburb southeast of the city. (Though, in the end, I'm not so sure it saved me all that much time.) We had fun, though, and it was nice to hang out with a friend I've known for longer than a month.

Monday was a holiday (no school!), so we returned once more to Sanjo (which, if you haven't already guessed, is pretty much the place to be in Kyoto). There we met a young Japanese woman who works at one of Fig's high schools. Her name is Naoko, she teaches English, and is generally a lovely person. We shopped, Naoko took us to a really nice cake shop, we shopped yet more, and we had a long dinner together. The three of us have tentative plans for a movie night somewhere in the nearish future.

Otherwise, this week has been fairly normal. Class class class ESS class class sleep class class tea ceremony class class class. I have to teach one of my classes alone today, because Hirose-sensei is off in Osaka doing god knows what. It'll be my first solo flight -- wish me luck!

Torii: Traditional orange gateways, often inscribed with some kanji. The ones at Fushimi Inari are mostly paid for by local businesses, who sponsor them for good luck.

Okonomiyaki: Sometimes called Japanese pizza, but that really only makes sense because it's round and flattish. The comparison pretty much ends there. Okonomiyaki is an Osaka specialty made from a base of batter and shredded cabbage, probably with some other minutely chopped vegetables involved in there somewhere. It is fried up with any number of toppings ranging from cheese and corn to beef, shrimp, or squid, and then covered in a sweet sauce reminiscent of barbeque.

from the mouth of babes

2008-09-09T20:41:00.002-04:00

A 16-year-old Japanese girl sums up "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy:

"Nine people get over many trials to throw a ring into a pond."

Well put, miss. Well put.

I love the nightlife, I love to boogie!

2008-09-07T21:09:00.007-04:00

Classes on Monday and Tuesday proceeded well, nothing really notable. Over the course of those two days, however, I managed to rack up five hours of overtime staying after school to work on our video project with ESS. (Too bad I don't get paid for overtime!) I, being the local expert on Windows Movie Maker, was charged with the task of putting the final product together, among various other things leading up to that point. Kristin and I put together a very nice and very time consuming display at the back of the Language Lab, where our presentation was held, and shuttled the ESS kids in groups to the A/V room to record their narration.

On Tuesday, in fact, I was at school until after seven, and feeling pretty worn out. Then, as I walked home, this little guy comes roaring up to an intersection on his unnecessarily loud motor scooter, and I am feeling pretty grumpy about it...until he hits the horn, which beeped out the opening strains of the Godfather theme song. Cracked me up!

There were no classes on Wednesday and Thursday -- it was time for the school festival! There was a lot going on. The first-year classes had all done art displays themed around movies. I think the winner was a model recreation of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, and second place was a big mosaic of a scene from Jaws. The second years all did prolonged dance displays, most of which involved pom-poms and boys in skirts. I now have more video of dancing Japanese teenagers than I will probably ever want or need. And the third-year classes all put on plays. The first place winner was an adaptation of the courtroom drama "Twelve Angry Men" (now "Twelve Angry Japanese," as there was only one actual boy in the cast), and second place was a somewhat hurried and edited for time production of the musical Annie. I liked the girl playing Rooster the best -- she did sleazy well. Besides those two, I also quite enjoyed the funny adaptation of the traditional Japanese folk tale Momotaro ("Peach Boy"), and perhaps most of all, their version of Snow White. It was greatly altered -- Snow White, besides being played by a boy in drag, pulled a gun on both the hunter and the seven dwarves when threatened, continually refused to go on a date with the prince, and eventually made up with the evil queen (so that they no doubt continued a joint-reign of terror). One of the funniest parts, though, was when Snow White kept refusing the narrator's attempts to make him go out with the prince, until the narrator finally conceded that Snow White instead "lived happily ever after with the seven dwarfs, the end." The prince, of course, took exception to this, and through some argument, the play continued. Over all, much fun!

Wednesday night, Kristin and I met at seven-thirty to go to the house of a very kind middle-aged woman named Sumiko, who has apparently been teaching Kristin and my predecessor about Japanese tea ceremony and calligraphy. Tea ceremony actually looks more interesting than I had suspected, but as for calligraphy, well. Let's just say that I'm pretty awful at it. Painting never was my medium! Anyways, Sumiko is a very nice lady, and we've arranged to all go on a nature hike together in about two weeks. I look forward to it!

There were no classes on Friday either, due to it being sports day. We got to watch all the students performing various feats, several of which were probably dangerous. It was a lot of fun. What Kristin and I didn't realize ahead of time, though, was that we would be invited to join in the teacher race against the track team! I was in running shorts and a t-shirt, but had worn sandals to school. So, I traded shoes with Hosoi-sensei, who wore my sandals while I ran. What you must keep in mind is that Hosoi-sensei, besides being the section chief of the English department, is a middle aged man. :P He really is a hilarious guy, though. He was announcing during the race, and during my leg of the relay evidently announced that I had come from Atlanta specifically to run. He and I were joking about my skills as a professional athlete -- he made a crack about a triathlon, and I told him I'd run to California, swum to Japan, and then biked to Sonobe.

Anyway, for the rest of the day teachers kept coming up to me and saying enthusiastically in English, "Nice running!" :D

At the end of the day, Kristin and I went to our respective homes for a shower and a change of clothes, and then returned to school at about 6:40. We were having an enkai! Sort of a start-of-the-new-term, hooray-we-successfully-finished-the-school-festival double hitter. It was held at a pretty good restaurant called "Rainbow," where we had a private tatami room for the forty or so teachers who came. Seating was held by lottery; I picked number eight, and sat at the end of one table, across from and next to two teachers I didn't know, and who didn't speak much English. They were friendly, though, and we had a good time talking about Atlanta and baseball and fishing. Eventually we also pulled in the teacher sitting diagonal to me. I hadn't met him either, but recognized him from a picture shown to me by predecessor Stephanie as "Richard Gere-sensei." (As you might guess, he resembles a young, Japanese Richard Gere.)

"Richard Gere-sensei," which she of course never called him to his face, is apparently an English teacher! But me and Kristin don't teach with him, which is why we hadn't met yet. In any event, he's pretty young and rather good looking, and comes to sit by me for awhile after the principal steals his seat. We had a nice chat about language, and time spent abroad, and books.

A few teachers even did some karaoke, including the principal and vice principal! I got promising video footage. After about two, two and a half hours, though, it was time to go. Our friend Eriko (another third year English teacher, with whom we don't actually teach) was kind enough to give Kristin and I rides home. Since I had to get up early on Saturday, I went to bed semi-early (for a weekend night, anyway), at about 11:30. However, I received a rude awakening around 1:30 in the morning, when there was a big crash in my apartment. I came awake with an exclamation and a faux heart attack, thinking I was being somehow attacked or murdered. I fumbled for my glasses, and turned on the light, only to discover that a wall shelf had collapsed. I took a few minutes to rehang it and halfway clean up the mess, before going back to sleep.

Seven o'clock I'm up and moving to get to the train station. An hour into Kyoto, where I meet Sean, Alex, and Alex to hop a train to Osaka. From there, we took a taxi (which was really cheap with the four of us) to Costco for a shopping adventure! The cabby was a hilarious guy who spent most of the drive talking about boxing, and got really excited every time Sean named a fighter. "Osukaa de la Hoya! Ohhhh!"

At Costco, we mostly bought bulk foreign food, which was expensive or difficult to find in your average Japanese grocery. However, we couldn't get anything perishable, because we had to leave the stuff in a locker at the train station for several hours. Sean was funny while we walked around though, because he got excited about everything he saw.

"Oh my god, guys, look at this corn soup!"

"Check out these water bottles, who wants to split them?"

"Oh, yes! They have bay leaves!"

All actual examples. Needless to say, we've all developed a pretty good Sean-impression with which to tease him.

We grabbed lunch at a McDonald's, and then spent a while trying to puzzle out where to catch a taxi back to the station. Miraculously, Sean overheard two people at the bus stop speaking Phillipino, and starts talking to them in the same! (Sean is a Philippino-Chinese-American.) Well, call it instant friends, because by the time we get a taxi, we know it's the girl's birthday and Sean has both of their business cards.

After stowing our shopping at the station and some mild shenanigans finding the correct train, we make it to the Osaka Dome for our next stop: baseball game! We were a few innings late, but quickly joined up with a bunch of other Kyoto JETs, a bit behind third base. It was the Seibu Lions versus the Orix Buffaloes. We were rooting for the home team, the Buffaloes, who lost miserably, 7-1. We had a good time, though.

Next, our now larger group headed to Shinsaibashi, the shopping and nightlife district. We grabbed dinner at a Chinese restaurant and wandered for a bit until 8:30, when we met a crowd of JETs from Hyogo, a nearby prefecture. They were hosting a pub-crawl to introduce the area (called "Osaka Nightlife 101"), and about six of us joined in -- myself, Neil, Mike, Liz, Joanna, and Pat. Over the course of the evening we stopped in at six bars and one so-called "club," though it was so small that I would call it a bar with a dance floor. From about the third or fourth bar onwards we were constantly dancing, so my legs are pretty sore today! But it was probably the best exercise I've had in a while. My favorite new people of the night were Lester, a nice guy from Guam, Yuko, an adorable Japanese girl who'd help put the crawl together, and Gina, a random non-JET New Zealander who'd come along by merit of being friends with the organizer. She was probably in her thirties, and either drunk or a crazy person. She sort of freaked Mike out, but I thought she was hilarious.

In any event, there was much dancing and socializing. At the last club/bar place, I even got pulled out onto the floor by some Japanese guys, but they weren't great dancers, so mostly it was just us making a spectacle at which Mike and Neil laughed a lot. Finally we all dispersed. Me, Mike, and Neil ran into Lester at a convenience store, and then proceeded to get lost on our way to a train station. We found another, though, decided it would work, and sat down on the curb until it opened up for the early morning trains. By now we were all sleepy zombies, but we found our way back to a recognizable train stop and went our various ways. Since I was had to kill a few hours before meeting Alex Ma at Kyoto Station, and was already in the Osaka area, I stopped in at Hirakata, an area I frequented when I studied abroad here two years ago.

I killed some time at Starbucks, and got a maccha frappacino. So delicious! Then, since the book store opened first, I bought a book and sat reading in the park for awhile. While I was there (minding my own business!), this guy wandered over and started talking to me in Japanese. We had a decent conversation, until it became obvious that he was looking for a date rather than a friend, and the conversation ended a trifle awkwardly. Sorry, guy!

I did, however, achieve several of my shopping goals, collecting a pencil case, a water bottle, and a little lunchbox. (So I can stop buying lunch at the convenience store every day, and hopefully save some money!) I also bought a work shirt on sale, and some little cakes for the office, which I intend to bring in tomorrow. Me and Alex Ma met at Kyoto station, he kindly bringing along the bag of Costco stuff that he and Sean had babysat the night before, and caught a train back home together. (Alex lives past me in a town called Fukuchiyama, I think.)

And that's pretty much the end of my story. I got home and fell asleep almost immediately around five, and didn't wake up until it was time to go to work! Finally, a good night's rest!

Enkai: a Japanese office party held at a bar or restaurant, which generally involves a lot of food and a lot of drinking. Karaoke optional.

Maccha: Japanese green tea.

countdown to the school festival

2008-09-01T00:36:00.003-04:00

Taught several more classes last week, with variations on the self-intro lesson I already described, or time spent checking students' English speeches. There's a speech contest near the end of September, and everybody is getting ready! I think it's even more fun when I edit a stack of them at my desk in the teachers' room, because I can spend time really sussing out what they're trying to say. I look at it like a puzzle (and sometimes, it really, really is).

Have also been pushing through with the ESS (English club) kids. Some of their drawings look really good (particularly because they seem to have foisted off most of the actual drawing on this one artistic girl Nao, while everybody else just colors). We're getting down to the wire, though, and there's still several things to get done! If they haven't finished the pictures when we meet this afternoon, there might be trouble.

Some friends and I were going to make a little pilgrimage to the beach on Saturday, but it was raining pretty much everywhere within several hours' drive. So we convened at Good Bar on Friday night to rework our plans, and settled on going into Kameoka for bowling et cetera.

The mini-trip was much fun. The group was myself, Nelis, Tim, Brad, Yuki, and Yuki's nice friend Tan. We even ran into Kristin at the train station, so that the entire foreign population of Sonobe (read: five people) just so happened to be standing on the same platform at the same time. Tim dodged out to do some shopping while we bowled, with I and Yuki on one lane, versus the remaining three on another. Though my first game was miserable, I earned the title of 'Most Improved,' while Yuki was the all around MVP. (Followed closely by Brad and Tan, who are also pretty good.)

Then we got purikura and played around in a nearby arcade, where Tim rejoined the gang. Games were played, and we stopped in at the bookstore for a mo, and then we had to get back to Sonobe, because Yuki had an appointment to keep. We did go get dinner, though, at a good little restaurant by the station that I hadn't previously known about. Half of the menu is Korean food! I am excited to go eat chichimi sometime...

Even though it was medium early, we all went home after dinner. I can only attest for myself, but I was feeling pretty tired, for whatever reason.

Yesterday (Sunday), I was productive around the house. I did some laundry (including bed linens), the dishes, unclogged my shower, sorted through (and trashed some of) the precariously large stacks of paper I've acquired since my arrival, vacuumed the living room and my bedroom, took out the trash, and just generally straightened up. I felt like such a good kid by the end of the day, and my bedroom looks soooo much cleaner now! It's nice to sleep in.

Today is back to school, and back to work! One more intro lesson, and some work with the ESS kids this afternoon. In between, I'm also trying to keep tabs on Hurricane Gustav - hope everything turns out okay!

workin' for the man every night and day

2008-08-25T20:57:00.003-04:00

Kristin and I spent a large portion of Thursday and Friday putting together a beautiful bulletin board for the English club (ESS). Pretty much, we are creative geniuses with construction paper. I promise photos sometime later.

On Saturday, we and our supervisor, Wakabayashi-sensei, had to judge an English speech contest here at the school. About seventeen kids from local junior high schools came to Sonobe and performed one from a selection of recitations, and we gave them points on delivery, English, and memorization. At the end, we gave out one first prize, two second prizes, and three third. It was an interesting experience, particularly since I hadn't even begun teaching yet. (Plus, since I had to come to work on a Saturday, I'll get a half-day off somewhere in the future! Hooray!)

Saturday evening, after a nice nap, wandered once again to Good Bar, now to meet Mike's replacement, the new Interac guy. His name is Timothy Vickerman (a.k.a. "The Vicar," a nickname we made up before he even arrived), and he's from somewhere in the north of Britain. (He didn't specify where, simply citing supposed "nomadic savages.") He's twenty-seven, likes a lot of the same music I do, and speaks about the same level of Japanese as Brad and I. We've heard there might be a Japanese language teacher somewhere in the reaches of Sonobe, and the three of us are thinking about going in for group lessons, if we can work it out.

Sunday I did a whole lot of nothing, if nothing includes watching the TV show "Spaced." (Or what I could manage to load of it, thanks to my neighbor's spotty wireless.) It's a really funny British comedy starring my beloved Simon Pegg, recommended to me by Brad. I think I owe him many thanks. (Most of it is on youtube, if you're interested.)

Yesterday was the official first-day of school here at Sonobe Senior High. There was an assembly in the morning, at which I had to give a short introduction speech in Japanese. The gist of it was something like, "Everyone, good morning! It's nice to meet you. I'm Anna Denson; please call me Anna. I am from Atlanta, in America. I've been to Japan before this, but I'm very happy to be able to return! Moreover, I'm happy to have the opportunity to teach you English and about America. I would really like to learn Japanese and about Japanese culture, so for both Japanese matters and American matters, let's work hard together!" Et cetera, et cetera. I think it went off without a hitch; Wakabayashi-sensei, at least, said it was perfect.

Then the principal spoke for awhile, I think about the Olympics, and they gave out some athletic awards to students, and some other incomprehensible speeches, while me and Kristin stood at the edge of the gym eying the students and getting sleepy. It was a long time just to be standing around!

Afterwards, there were a few afternoon classes. I had to teach my first lesson, to class 2-5. It was pretty much just a more detailed self-introduction (not to mention, in English), with a slideshow of photos and some maps and stuff. I gave them a worksheet to test comprehension, and let them ask some of their own questions (which ranged from "What is your favorite Japanese food?" and "What is your hobby?" to "What kind of boy do you like?" and "Do you have a boyfriend?" Nosy little things). We finished up with a name game activity that we didn't quite finish, but I think the whole thing went okay, overall!

No class today, but I'll probably have a few more before the week is out. Besides, there's ESS today and tomorrow after school, probably for approaching two hours. (We have a lot to do before the school festival next week, at which the junior high kids are singing a song from "High School Musical," and the senior high kids are putting together a video narrated in English.) Busy, busy, busy!

Slam dunk!

2008-08-20T20:05:00.003-04:00

My presentation went really well. Most of my feedback was along the lines of, "You've pretty much got it. You'll do fine." Boy, I hope they're right!

Moreover, the seminar was kind of fun. We got to pretend to be students in each others' lesson presentations, and I luckily got seated next to Sean in all the workshops and lectures! I swear, that kid is a trip. We were having a grand old time. Plus, one of the two recontracting JETs that worked with me and Sean on our lesson plans was this amazingly energetic and entertaining individual named Mark Miller, this big black Canadian guy with boundless enthusiasm.

After the Tuesday session, a group of us went and got kaitenzushi in Sanjo, and then explored a giant arcade for awhile. (In our business clothes.) After Wednesday's session, which ended at noonish, I grabbed lunch with Liz, Joanna, and Mike, and we took a turn through the Imperial Gardens. (Though they're really more like a park than real gardens. Still nice, though!)

There were plans for karaoke in the evening, so I wandered back to Sanjo to kill time until people were done with their various errands (or for the unlucky city kids who had to go back to school, until they got off from work). Funnily enough, I ran into Phil, Neil, and Alex Ma at the Sanjo Book-off (a really large used book chain), so we wandered around together. After awhile Neil went home and Alex went to Sean's for a bit, so Phil and I just shopped around Sanjo and grabbed dinner for several hours until it was karaoke time. I bought several things, including: a pair of earrings, two more punny stamps, a book about post-atom bomb Nagasaki, a Gackt CD, and some really helpful looking kanji flashcards.

At 8ish Phil and I finally met up with the gang and headed to a nearby karaoke place. Said gang consisted of us, Sean, Alex, Alex, Mike, Mike's friend TJ, Amy (our prefectural advisor), and Amy's fiancee Chris. Much silliness, perhaps most notably "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Anyway, we had a fun time, and a nice end to the Kyoto Seminar.

Today is back to work, and finally some real productivity!

Waving goodbye to summer hols.

2008-08-17T00:23:00.004-04:00

Well, it's back to work tomorrow for me. I have the feeling we JETs are about to hit the ground running!

The vacation has been nice while it lasted, though. I didn't accomplish too much on Wednesday; mostly just did a bit of organizing and laundry in my apartment (which, despite my best efforts, is already messy again. Looks like more straightening up this afternoon!)

On Thursday, I and Nelis met Brad and Mike (the two Interac guys) at the station, and took the train to Yagi for the annual Yagi Fireworks Exhibition! (Yagi Hanabi Taikai.) Lerato joined us there, and we walked maybe a half mile through streets lined with various festival vendors, from food to children's games. Eventually we reached the river, along the banks of which thousands and thousands of people were camped out, waiting for the show to start over the water. Our group managed to snag a really nice spot on a nearby bridge, where we had a great view of everything!

The show got started with a bang, and we were soon joined by Brad and Mike's friend Yuki, and his friend Aya. They were both really nice, and Yuki speaks very good English! Anyway, the fireworks were amazing. All in all, the show lasted over an hour! Hands down the longest fireworks display I've ever seen. (Factoid: the Yagi fireworks show is super super popular, because it's the biggest one in Kyoto Prefecture! No wonder it was so rad!) I also made friends with one of the local police guys, who was apparently really into American baseball. When he found out I was from Atlanta, he was all, "WOAH! Atlanta Braves! Tom Glavine! Greg Maddox! Chipper Jones! Andruw Jones! John Smoltz!" He would also say, "You know Houston Astros/Philadelphia Phillies/et cetera?" and then start naming players from those teams. For extra hilarity, he kept doing impressions of the players he was naming -- but they were pretty much the same two impressions over and over again, consisting mostly of him miming out pitching or batting.

After the show ended, we all adjourned back to our various towns, and the Sonobe crew (myself, Nelis, Brad, and Mike) proceeded on to Good Bar, which is really one of the only places in town to hang out. The atmosphere is really nice, though, so I don't really mind! It's not a bar in the sense of noisy twenty-somethings getting trashed (thank goodness), rather catering to the thirty- and forty-something after work crowd. Envision Cheers, if you will; pretty much everyone who goes there is a regular, several of which I'm already getting to know. I think my favorite so far is Ken-san, a thirty-something guy with a great sense of humor, who owns a local sports store and a gas station. Really, they're a good crowd, and I look forward to hanging out with them more!

On Friday, me and the boys spent maybe two hours wandering around town (in the scorching heat) looking for the Sonobe Festival, which didn't actually exist. Mike gifted to me a region-free dvd player (of which he for some reason had two), though I'll have to go buy some cords for it before it can be put to use.

Around eight-thirty, there was once again a mass exodus to Good Bar, for Mike's goodbye party. It was a grand time! Lots of people came, and we were there for hours. Probably between six and seven hours, actually. It passed so quickly! I got some cute pictures, as well as some truly hilarious videos of Yuki singing. I think he'd been drinking a bit before he arrived, and apparently he turns into a jukebox when he's had a few! During some of them, I was laughing so hard I was in tears.

On Saturday I took the train into Kyoto (once again to the Sanjo area), for Daimonji! Our group was organized by Todd, a really funny recontracted JET who had met us all by helping out at Tokyo and Kyoto as an orientation assistant. We had a crowd of perhaps fifteen prefectural JETs, as well as a handful of unassociated friends. We staked out a spot on the banks of the Kamo River, where we could see the mountain pretty decently, and put down tarps and towels and such while we waited for dark to fall. Really, though the lighting of the giant mountain fires was cool, the whole experience was more about having fun with other JETs. Liz from Kameoka and I had some nice conversation which included the "resolution" to put together some sort of street-dance performance, Pat and I chatted about Paul Gross and regionalism in Canada, and me and Mike talked about religion and spirituality. Really, I want to make Mike, Sean, Alex and Alex into a posse with whom I hang out a lot. They are such great guys!

After the whole fire bit was over, we wandered for awhile in search of dinner. I spent most of the walk getting to know this really interesting guy named Sebastian, who is half-Japanese and half-Mexican! He is fluent in both Japanese and Spanish, as well as speaking really good English. (He went to an international school. Trilingual! I'm so jealous!) Funnily enough, when we finally found a place to eat, it was (much to my surprise) a Mexican restaurant. The portions were a bit small, but actually it was quite good. I had some pretty yummy chicken enchiladas.

I have also befriended a girl from New Jersey named Joanna (as opposed to "normal Anna," who is me). She is a self-declared New York Jew, and a barrel of laughs. "'What are you gonna do with your art history major?' 'Be witty at dinner parties and appreciate Europe more than you.'"

By some miracle (and some fast walking on our part) I made it on to a train back to Sonobe before they stopped running, narrowly avoiding the necessity of crashing at either Joanna or Sean's apartment. On the upside, now I have a better knowledge of the train schedule! If I can make it to Nijo Station for the 12:11 back to Sonobe, I'm golden.

On the agenda for today is preparing my self-introduction lesson, which I (and every other new JET) have to present at the Kyoto AET (Assistant English Teacher) Seminar on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

p.s. New photos up at webshots. Check 'em out!

Photos!

2008-08-12T08:03:00.003-04:00

I managed, with much trying of my patience, to get some photos from Kyoto Orientation and Nijo-jo put online for your perusal! They can be found here. Let me know if there's any trouble with that link, but I think it should work fine!

Saturday was quiet, but on Sunday I met Fig and a friend from Wittenberg, one Megan "Megzatron" Hauser by name, for a delicious curry lunch and some shopping. I finally found a purse (patterned with a cute little bear cartoon called "rirakkuma" -- a pun that translates to "relaxing bear"), which is great, because I'd been searching for one since before I left the states. In the meantime, I was using the Daily Yomiuri bag they gave us for free in Tokyo, which was solid, but not stylish. :P I also picked up some other little stuff like earrings, an English language book about Japanese folktale monsters, and some rubber stamps with hilarious Japanese puns on them. Me and Fig spent a good fifteen minutes reading the selection available and just cracking up.

It might be hard to get the full effect for those who don't speak any Japanese, but in case you're wondering, the two I ended up choosing were: "Soo desuneeku" and "Shizukani." Essentially, "soo desu ne" means, "is that so?" And "suneeku" is just Japanizing the English word snake, so the combined caption had a big grinning snake on it. "Shizuka ni" means "quietly," and "kani" means "crab," so that one had a crab. I swear, they're funny if you see them. You'll just have to take my word for it. (Next time I go back, I plan to buy "Maachigattora" -- "I made a mistake" and "tiger.")

Meg eventually had to run off and meet her host family, but Fig and I got some ice cream and continued on shopping for awhile before heading back to the station. Though I needed to do some chores at home, we decided on a whim to go sit on the banks of the Kamo River for a little while. LITTLE DID WE KNOW! Despite my best intention to do laundry and dishes, Fig and I walked straight into a riverfront street festival! Complete with crafts, food stalls, fire-eating jugglers, free handouts, drummers, paper lanterns, and the fattest ducks I've ever seen. We wandered through and back over the course of maybe two hours, and had a marvelous time. Both of us bought these really pretty owl windchimes (which I just now my mom is going to try and steal).

On Monday, I finally met my JET coworker, Kristin from Canada. She seems quite nice. We spent most of the day chatting about various things, from JET advice to that beheading in Manitoba to the parliamentary system of Canada. (The last of which I now know a great deal more about. Minority government took a moment to get my head around.) I also met the teacher who is more or less in charge of our section, Hosoi-sensei, who just returned from chaperoning a school trip to Australia. He seems quite pleasant! In fact, he and Wakabayashi-sensei sent the two of us home early, just because it was hot in the teachers' office. (They said that the air conditioning had broken, but frankly, I didn't notice a huge difference from other days. It's always hot!)

Last night I discovered in the mail a care package from my dear Dr. Jones. (College roomie from this past year. Her name is Juli Jones, she wants to be an archaeologist, and she owns a brown fedora. She is my Dr. Jones, and I am her Short-round.) She sent me the last of those Stephanie Meyer "Twilight" books, "Breaking Dawn." I have already read the entire 752-page monster. It was a good day. :)

Today was the start of my four-day summer holidays, which all Kyoto prefectural JETs apparently get. No work until Monday, hooray! I'm not sure that the municipal JETs get summer hols, though, because Fig hasn't heard a word about it from her supervisors. Sadface.

Apart from reading "Breaking Dawn," I spent today doing laundry and dishes and even vacuuming a bit. I don't know if tatami mats are super easy to clean, or if this is the best vacuum ever, but I almost enjoyed myself, it was so effortless! Then Nelis walked with me to the grocery store, even though he didn't need anything, and kept me company while I did my shopping. The sweetheart even carried most of them home for me, despite my protests! (No, mom, don't get any ideas -- he's got a girlfriend in South Africa. Nelis is just a gentleman!) I picked up takoyaki for dinner, which has made me an extra happy Anna.

Yum.

Kyoto Orientation

2008-08-08T10:23:00.004-04:00

Was largely a success. Much cozier that Tokyo Orientation, having, oh...17 or 18 people, as opposed to 1000. Also, the information sessions tended to be less, shall we say, sleepy.

Upon arrival Wednesday we checked into our rooms and had a brief meeting about how the orientation would proceed, and then that was it. One large group went out to dinner, but I opted to go on a shopping expedition with Nelis, Lerato (the sweet South African girl who lives in Arashiyama) and my orientation roommate, Elizabeth. We headed via subway to the same shopping district Lerato and I had been to together for kaitenzushi with our respective predecessors, at Sanjo. There is a whole set of roofed shopping arcades; a whole network of streets, really.

The excursion was kind of fun, but there were a few downsides. A) On our way to the subway station, we got caught in a massive, MASSIVE downpour. By the time we finally reached the underground (which was some way off), we were all wet to the skin. B) Elizabeth, while a nice enough girl, is a little bit...socially unaware. I won't go into detail, but let's just say that by the end of the evening, all three of us were thoroughly frustrated with her. (Only I couldn't escape, since we shared a room!)

On the upside, I did manage to pick up a shiny new camera, as my dear old Charlie outright refused to take any pictures in Tokyo. It even matches my phone! *geek out*

On Thursday we had time-consuming welcome and appointment ceremonies, some decently useful lectures, and this time, I elected to go out with the main group, while Nelis and Lerato escaped on their own to try and buy laptops, and Elizabeth (who is evidently a picky eater) elected to just hang out by herself.

So about fifteen of us, plus prefectural supervisors, all piled down to an izakaya, where we spent a good two or two and a half hours just eating and chatting! I really like the prefectural JETs here in Kyoto, and am so glad I got the chance to bond with them! We had so much fun!

In fact, afterwards, my new pal Phil (who is from Boulder, CO, and is now posted in Kameoka, just a few stops from my town) suggested that we go do some karaoke! I was game, so we grabbed anyone who wanted to come, and headed out! The party ended up as myself, Phil, and five other guys, all of us piling into a subway train back to Sanjo. (It's the place to be, if you hadn't guessed.)

The other five guys were: Alex (from NY/LA), more different Alex (from Illinois), Sean, Mike, and Neil (who I met in Tokyo). They were all super nice and fun to hang out with, and I was really glad I decided to tag along. We sort of haphazardly exchanged contact information; I'll be sure to get it in more detail at our next seminar, in two weeks!

After singing such classics as Aerosmith, Metallica, 3 Doors Down, Soft Cell, Journey, and the Spice Girls, we managed to make it back to the Kyoto Rubino Hotel (our accommodations) in one piece, and all split off to bed. I had a bit of trouble, seeing as Elizabeth had gone to bed and turned out all the lights (ignoring the same courtesy of a lighted room that I had given her the night before), but at length I got into pajamas and off to dream land.

This morning was something of an early day, and it was all I could do to get up, showered, packed, and breakfasted before our 8:45 round up. We had a few more information sessions, this time put on by current JETs, and at last were released. Some people had to go back to work, but some of us luckier ones decided to make the most of our trip into town! I, Nelis, and Lerato were joined by Phil, his (and our) neighbor in Kameoka, Liz, and a blonde named Kate. We grabbed a quick convenience store lunch and then went to see Nijo Castle! (Or, Nijo-jo.)

I'd actually been to the castle before with my host parents when I studied abroad, but it was still amazing. (And I think there were a few bits I missed the first time?) Anyway, I took lots of pictures which will get posted someday soon.

After that, it was just the long ride home, and an afternoon trying to recover. We were all exhausted by the time we got back! Still, not a bad trip at all!

karaoke: Yes, this originated in Japan. In Japanese, it literally means "empty orchestra." Also, in Japan, you can usually go to an establishment of "karaoke boxes," which means you and your friends get a private room and two microphones with which to sing, so the rest of humanity doesn't have to be subjected.

a plea for help

2008-08-05T19:52:00.006-04:00

Okay, so this isn't totally related to Japan, but I wanted to start of with a message to all my buddies in the Atlanta area:

These guys need your help!

Alerted by my good friend, the Duke of Shonk, I am greatly distressed to come across this news. For those of you who don't know, Wordsmiths is, while not the largest store, an absolutely lovely place to be. Their staff is friendly and outgoing, their special events often and fun, and their hours unusually long. It's nice to know that if I've got time to kill on a Saturday night, there's somewhere I can go that is not a restaurant or a bar. (And I've killed a lot of time at Wordsmiths in the past!) I've seen plenty little indie stores come and go in the boutique monster of Decatur, but this is one worth saving. Even if you don't want to donate your money outright, maybe go have a look around and throw them some business. Every little bit helps.

Alright, and that's the end of my public service announcement. News from abroad!

I arrived home on Monday to find that Stephanie had done an absolutely killer job cleaning the apartment. Seriously. I wish I had taken before and after photos. She packed away a ton of stuff, did the dishes, vacuumed about a million times, even moved furniture! The feng shui is way better now.

I began unpacking a bit while she stepped out to post some packages, and got most of my clothes, toiletries, et cetera put away, as well as setting out a few framed photos I had slipped into my luggage. I think my favorite is the one of myself and Reid at my high school graduation (it's a seriously good photo), so I gave it a place of honor in its own little cubby on the TV stand.

When Stephanie got back, I let her bum some illicit wireless on my computer, and then we went and got takoyaki. (So delicious.) We watched "Death to Smoochy" to kill some time, and finally went to bed.

Yesterday was her last day in town. I got rescued from my endless language study to go with Wakabayashi-sensei and Matsushita-san, a really nice guy who works in the main office, back to my apartment for the realtor check. Mostly Stephanie and I just stood around while they talked to the realtor lady about the broken kitchen fan and getting my name put on the contract. I would like to take a moment, though, to remark on how funny Wakabayashi-sensei and Matsushita-san act together. For a good portion of the ride to my apartment, they were debating (in English) which of their cars was "scrap," and from there proceeded into really slangy Kansai-ben Japanese. Also, Wakabayashi-sensei calls Matsushita-san "Macchan," which is essentially a really cutesy nickname. Me and Stephanie just looked at each other and giggled when we heard it.

Afterwards, I got to kill more time by accompanying Steph and Wakabayashi-sensei back to the phone store to finish canceling her keitai, and then she and I went to lunch. (Once again at Bisque. Anyone who comes to visit me will get taken there, because it seems to be among the best restaurants in town. I really like it, anyway.)

Back at work, I did more of the same, though Tanaka-sensei thoughtfully brought over a Japanese sweet called o-dango for me to try. Then I got money and maps for my trip to Kyoto Orientation, and then we went to see Stephanie off at the train station. By then it was almost four o'clock, and I get off at four fifteen, so Wakabayashi-sensei suggested he run me by the grocery store and just take me on home.

I met with Nelis briefly yesterday evening to suss out our travel plans for today, but other than that, accomplished very little. We're meeting today around 1:30 at Sonobe Station, from which we'll travel together to the Rubino hotel in Kyoto for our prefectural orientation. Somehow, I'd almost rather stay here, but maybe I'll do some shopping while I'm in town.

Well. Wish me luck.

Kansai-ben: a particular dialect of Japanese spoken by people in the Kansai area (which is often co-opted by comedians, if that tells you anything). It comes across as pretty casual and slangy, with a lot of "-nya" sounds in it.

o-dango: a type of Japanese sweet made, I believe, from flour. It's got a chewy texture, almost doughy, and tastes a lot like cinnamon. I quite liked it.

tee hee

2008-08-04T02:02:00.003-04:00

Okay, still at "work," but this is just a funny thing I wanted to share with you guys.

Everybody know the movie "Dreamgirls," that came out a year or two ago and made a big splash with the critics? The musical one? Well, I can hear my school's junior high band practicing next door, and guess what they're playing a suite of music from? :D

So far they've played the title track once, and that one about "Move, move, move on outta my life!" about ten thousand times. It just made me giggle when I realized why the music sounded so familiar.

Nothing else to report, really, except that I've spent a large portion of my late morning and afternoon filling in about twenty Japanese crosswords. (Decidedly for beginners. I'm not that slick.)

This keeping myself occupied business is trickier than it sounds. Alas, short attention span.

Monday, Monday.

2008-08-03T20:45:00.004-04:00

I've only been in the office an hour and a half, and already I'm sleepy. (And a wee bit grumpy, as my back hurts. Must have slept in some funny position.) Excluding yesterday, though, I've been relatively busy since my last communique on Thursday afternoon.

True to my word, I got paid at four o'clock (already about five hundred dollars, and I'd only been on the job, what, four days?), and then we drove around town a bit. I remained glued to the car window, trying to fix the location of everything in my mind. I haven't gone on any long excursions into the wilds of Sonobe from the apartment yet, but I also haven't gotten lost yet, so I'll count that as a win.

Thursday evening, Stephanie and I hopped the train into Kyoto city to meet a few friends of hers for kaitenzushi. I have quickly discovered that I have an extra stomach just for sushi, allowing me to eat great amounts. Fortunately for my weight and my wallet, I managed to restrain myself from going overboard. (Though it didn't stop being tempting.) I was introduced to Stephanie's pals Nick and Jane, who both live in Arashiyama (another stop on the same train line as Sonobe, but much closer to the city). Jane is staying on another year, but Nick is leaving soon, and being replaced by a South African girl named Lerato. I recognized her from orientation, and we had a few nice conversations.

After dinner we wandered around a nearby shopping arcade for a bit, where I bought two pairs of lacy dress socks (huzzah dollar store) and a box of blueberry tea. When we went home, Stephanie got off with the others at Arashiyama. It was her last night to say goodbye to Nick, and they were going to set off some fireworks. I was really tired, though, so I went on home. By some miracle, I did not get lost in the dark during the twenty minute walk from Sonobe station to our flat, though there were a few nervous moments when I thought I had.

Friday at work was spent, like most everyday in the office so far, alternately brushing up on my Japanese or chatting with Stephanie and Wakabayashi-sensei. He is a trip to talk to, and we had some nice long conversations about law, and politics, and international relations. I was surprised to learn about the North Korean Mass Games, which somehow I had never heard of. That is some serious business.

Stephanie and I grabbed a large lunch at this really tasty restaurant called Bisque, and in the afternoon we went to get me a keitai and to have Stephanie's cancelled. It took two hours to get my plan and everything set up, and then have the phone activated, so we ended up getting off of work an hour later than usual. Poor Wakabayashi-sensei hates bureaucracy and paperwork, and he got stuck translating for me! (I think I'm going to give him some peach coffee I brought from home as a thank-you.)

On the upside, the phone is rad. Cute, pale pink, with an (admittedly not great) camera, text messaging, internet access (though I'll use that sparingly), et cetera. Through much trial and tribulation, I even navigated a Japanese website to download myself a fun ringtone; "Hikari no Machi" by the band TOKIO.

Friday night we went and met the other local foreigners at a place called Good Bar. The local foreigners mainly consist of: myself, Stephanie (who is leaving tomorrow), Nelis (the SA kid in my apartment block), Mike (an American here on another English teaching program, who is leaving soon), and Brad (a British guy here on the same program as Mike, but who is staying on). There's also Kristin, who will be working with me, but she's in Canada on vacation currently. Also, Mike is being replaced by some British person named Timothy Vickerman. I suspect he might hate us when he arrives, because we have already nicknamed him Vickers.

We arrived to find Good Bar closed, actually, but Mike just called the owner up, as they are apparently good friends. We poked around in the supermarket to kill time, and after fifteen or so minutes, the owner, Hiro, appeared to open the bar for us. I ate a decent ham and egg sandwich on garlic toast, and we all mainly got to know each other.

On Saturday, I woke up naturally around 9:30 a.m., and spent the morning laying around the apartment and finishing the second season of Dexter. (Whoa, by the way.) Stephanie had left before I awoke, off to visit her sister in Hiroshima for two days. Around 10:30, I received a text message from Brad, who was going into a local town called Kameoka for some shopping, and wanted to know if I'd join him. I got myself cleaned up and met him at the station at 12:30, only to discover that he was driving! So we piled into his little two-seater car, and hit the road.

In Kameoka, Brad mostly showed me some good shops to get used goods (called "recycle shops" here). I bought a cute pink umbrella, which I'm really tempted to use as a parasol against the melting summer sun. Then we went once again to kaitenzushi (it never gets old, I'm telling you), and headed back to Sonobe. As we approached town, Brad mentioned that there was a lake nearby, and did I want to see it? Neither of us had anything better to do, so off we went, driving on through Sonobe and up to Hiyoshi Dam. The lake was quite pretty, and we spent a good hour just driving on these nearly empty mountain roads around it, listening to KT Tunstall in the background, with everything all green and sunshiny and overlooking the water. It was a lovely time. Often we weren't positive where we were going, but we just followed the edge of the lake and rivers as best we could, stumbling across a little campsite, the town of Hiyoshi, and managing to accidentally find our way back to the Dam in the process.

At last on our way back, Brad was kind enough to take me by the grocery store, so I wouldn't have to lug my purchases home through the heat. I only bought a little bit to get me through the weekend; bread, jam, some truly good camembert cheese, Japanese rice snacks, and a bit of pre-marinated beef that didn't cook up so well in the end.

We broke for dinner at five o'clock, having had a four and a half hour adventure, and then made another short trip to Good Bar that night with Nelis. Poor kid had to work that day, even though it was Saturday, because his school was having an open house. He seems a bit stressed every time I see him, and for a variety of reasons; most of all, because this is his first time ever out of South Africa, and he doesn't speak any Japanese. I think he's beginning to settle in, though, and we're all trying to help him out where we can.

As for yesterday, I did a whole lot of nothing. I read some, sketched a little picture, and watched a whole lot of Japanese television. My excuse is that it's improving my comprehension. Yes.

Stephanie got home in the evening, and we cleaned out a lot of old food in the kitchen, and then, under the cover of darkness, she snuck a microwave left here by Kristin out to the garbage pile. Evidently, it would cost some 100 dollars to dispose of properly, which is why she was sneaky.

I also finally spoke to my parents via Skype, which was nice. I miss all of you guys in the States! Get this program, it's golden!

And this morning so far has been, continuing endlessly, studying Japanese. There is so much I've forgotten! (And also, I have nothing else to do, as Stephanie's last day was Friday, and Wakabayashi-sensei is in Mie Prefecture for the day. On my own, and trying to look busy!) Ah, well. Back to it, I suppose.

kaitenzushi: Literally, "revolving sushi." You sit by a counter, and a bunch of tiny little plates with usually two pieces of sushi each come scooting by on a conveyor belt. You just grab off whichever ones you want to eat, and then get charged for the number of plates you consume.

keitai: Japanese word for a cell phone.

Hikari no Machi: Literally, "City of Light." It's a good song, so check it out! :)

For those that have been asking:

2008-08-03T02:49:00.001-04:00

Gurando Haitsu Sonobe E-mune 202
Oyama-nishi machi nomoto 13-2
Sonobe-cho
Funai-gun
Kyoto-fu
622-0043
JAPAN

Addressed to me, of course.

And if you people give me your addresses, I can send you post in return! :D

Sonobe-cho!

2008-07-31T01:42:00.003-04:00

The last day of Tokyo Orientation was not so great. A bit of stress, a lot of sleeping. I woke up to a thunderstorm at one point, which meant a sweet view of the lightning from our room on the 36th floor. I slept through dinner, woke up to Briana returning at midnight, and watched two episodes of Dexter on my computer before crashing again.

Wednesday morning was check-out and get out. All the Kyoto JETs met downstairs at 9:15, hopped the train to Tokyo Station, bought lunch and then boarded the shinkansen just after 11. On the two-hour ride I sat between Fig and a nice girl from D.C. named Christine, who reminded me just a bit of the indominatable Jen Roust. Then we hustled through Kyoto Station, up two thousand escalators with all of our orientation luggage, and into some sort of international center. As we waited in line to be let inside, I met Cornelis Van Staden, the South African guy who is living in my same apartment complex. When we realized how close by we lived, we agreed to travel to next week's Kyoto Orientation together. (These orientations never end!)

Finally we went into a small meeting room. Inside were a bunch of Japanese people wearing business suits: the supervisors from our contracting organizations. Waiting for me was a friendly middle-aged man named Wakabayashi. After a short ceremony and some introductions, we were sent off to our various towns. Wakabayashi-sensei and I boarded yet another train out of Kyoto, northwest until we hit Sonobe, my new hometown! Along the way I learned that Wakabayashi-sensei is a kind and funny human being, who has done a lot of traveling and loves fast cars and guns. (Both of which surprised and tickled me, considering that this is Japan. Apparently he goes to a shooting range, and is a pretty fair shot. Also, he owns an Alpha Romeo, an Italian car of which only 1000 were made. He drives it on a closed course.)

Our first stop in Sonobe was at Sonobe Senior High, my new workplace. (Being ogled by students all along the way. Boy, we surprised some girls in the train station.) I met the principal, Mr. Mori, and a thousand other staff members whose names I'm working on. Also, I finally met Stephanie, my cheerful kiwi predecessor, with whom I've been exchanging emails for some time now. She strikes me as a lot of fun, and has been very patient and helpful so far. Too bad she has to leave just as I arrive!

The apartment isn't huge by American standards, but is very reasonable for Japanese. Three rooms plus the bath; kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom. All in Japanese style, with tatami and a futon for me to sleep on. There's sort of stuff everywhere, as Stephanie is just in the middle of moving out, but I think it'll be nice when I finally unpack properly sometime next week.

I and Stephanie were also kindly taken out to dinner by the principal, along with Wakabayashi-sensei and another English teacher named Takemura-sensei. She seems very sweet! The meal was delicious, and we had a pretty decent conversation -- half in English, half in Japanese. Back at the apartment, Stephanie and I watched Knocked Up and hit the sack. (We're sharing the apartment until she leaves.)

This morning Stephanie and I walked to school, and she showed me around me a bit and gave me a packet of information. Then Wakabayashi-sensei and I went and got me some passport-sized photos taken, and applied at City Hall for an Alien Registration Card. (For which I needed the aforementioned photos.) Coincidentally, we ran into Cornelis and his supervisor, who were there doing the same. It was nice to see him again; I hope we can become friends!

Next we stopped by the apartment to pick up a tax form I'd brought along from the IRS, which we gave to the office lady, whose name may or may not be Takaya-san. Stephanie and I braved the abysmal heat to go get lunch, a fried-chicken bento from a little stand run by two middle-aged ladies. It was quite good, but I couldn't eat it all, because my stomach was a bit queasy. (I think from being overheated. I drank a lot of water in response, and now feel much better.)

After lunch Wakabayashi-sensei took us to the local bank, where I opened an account, and Stephanie closed hers. And that's up to the minute! At four o'clock or so I get to go pick up my very first paycheck, for the five days I'll have spent here in Japan, and then we're going to go poke around town. (In Wakabayashi-sensei's car, thank goodness. It really is unbearably humid. Makes me feel faint!)

To make a long story short, I'm optimistic. Sonobe is small, but it seems like a nice enough place! :D

shinkansen: the bullet train! It goes 300 km an hour...so about 170 miles, maybe? Anyways, it's super fast, and costs almost as much as a plane ticket. Thank goodness I didn't have to pay!

sensei: the Japanese word for teacher, used in place of san

tatami: woven mats used in place of rugs or carpets

futon: a padded pallet placed on the floor and slept on instead of a western-style bed

san the Japanese equivalent of Mr. or Ms.

bento: quite literally, a lunch box. A plastic carry-out box of assorted foods, that usually come in pre-determined sets.

Tokyo!

2008-07-28T04:59:00.007-04:00

So. We're here! It was a long and grueling trip, but we made it. Somehow.

As I wrote out this story, I discovered that a lot of Japanese words had drifted in, which not everyone may be familiar. So, for your reading pleasure, all words in bold are defined at the end of the post. :P

Friday afternoon was the mandatory pre-departure orientation, after which Fig and I went with my parents to our last dinner in America: delicious Lebanese food at Mezza. Then it was all packing all the time at my house, with only a brief one and a half our interlude in which we stepped out to say goodbye to a bunch of my friends.

We packed until all hours. I took a brief thirty-minute power-nap at 3:30, and then took a shower and finished getting my biz together. We were out of my house by 5:30 (a.m.), and at the airport by 6.

Checking in didn't take long, so we spent a good two or two hours sitting at the gate with our group of sixtyish JETs, all just chatting about the trip. Two-hour plane ride to Detroit, a three hour layover, and lunch at a place called the Jose Cuervo Tequileria. Goodbye, Mexican food.

Then the exhausting and uncomfortable twelve hour trip to Narita airport. I sat between two other jets; a 27-year-old guy named Jacob, and a black chick named Christine. We chatted a bit, I did something like eleven crosswords, watched two episodes of Dexter on my laptop, and tried unsuccessfully to take a nap.

Finally, sleep-deprived and slightly crazed, we landed. Breezed with surprising ease through customs, picked up our luggage, and were escorted by a veritable fleet of current JETs to a bunch of buses. We shipped our big luggage on to our host organizations and took our carry-ons with us to the buses, which then loaded up and proceeded on the two-hour drive to our hotel in Tokyo.

The Keio Plaza Hotel is a four-star, super-fance building in the middle of Shinjuku, a popular district on the west of Tokyo. Our room is really nice, with all manner of amenities, from a heated toilet seat (that automatically runs water when you sit down...boy, did that surprise me), to free hairbrushes, toothbrushes, slippers, and more! (The slippers, of course, have already disappeared into our suitcases.)

My roommate turned out to be Briana, a girl from Atlanta whom I just happened to know already. (We got in touch over the Atlanta JET forums online, and went to dinner with John and two other guys in June.) After briefly settling in, we met Fig, John, our friend Mari Christmas from the orientation, and a couple other kids in the lobby. The whole massive group of us caravaned into the Shinjuku surrounds, seeking dinner. We settled on a quick and cheap noodle joint, where I got curry udon better than any I ever faked in the states. Mmmm!

Then back to the hotel, where Fig and I met a different girl named Mari, who was a friend of ours at Wittenberg, and happens to live just south of Tokyo in Yokohama City. We went to a nearby izakaya called Watami, and had a few drinks. I learned that "blue apple" and apple-mango are both delicious flavors. Mari kindly picked up the tab, as a dual-purpose "Welcome to Japan!" and "Thank you for always treating me in Ohio!" gesture.

At long last, we stumbled back to Keio and our beds. It was by then 11:30 here, which would be 10:30 a.m. Atlanta time. (Meaning that I had been more or less awake for almost 48 hours.) I and roommate Briana watched the last bit of a Mythbusters knock-off show, and then finally, sleep!

Today was lots of sitting around listening to people talk. We were shepherded into a decently sized rooms, and divided to sit amongst the other JETs in our prefecture. The chairs were really uncomfortable and really close together, so we were hot and our bottoms began to hurt very quickly. On the upside, many of the presenters were pretty funny, so at least the morning sessions were interesting.

Lunch was a fairly nice affair, apart from the somewhat unpleasant faux-beef made from soybeans, and I met a very nice French girl. She suggested, quite cleverly I thought, that when approached by some undesirable (read: desperate host), you simply reply in nonsense Japanese. Her example: "Nihongo o tabemasen!" ("I don't eat Japanese language!") That way, they really think you have no idea how to say anything. If you try English, on the other hand, they'll probably just try to speak to you in that. The other option being to speak in an entirely third language. Upon reflection, I was pleased to realize that I can probably say that I don't speak Japanese in Polish.

The afternoon session was less entertaining, though the panelist from South Africa was pretty adorable. Already I was getting sleepy, and on several occasions closed my eyes because they felt sore. At last we were released, and after stopping by the AJET Information Center and being bombarded with free objects and flyers, Fig and I wandered about in the Shinjuku streets for a bit. I bought a cute little pocket notebook to write down anything important, we ogled some cameras, and bought a snack of onigiri.

Dinner was a crowded sort of a reception, with a welcome toast and more meeting of the prefectural JETs. I've met several very nice people in Kyoto-fu so far: Neil from New York, a guy from Canada whose name I forget, Liz who may or may not be from Colorado, Crystal from...somewhere, a cute guy from Scotland who has a very nice accent, and Todd, the guy in charge of us newbies, who has gauged earrings and recently married his Japanese girlfriend. (Shout-out to Reid: Todd is from St. Louis, and we had a nice chat about Ft. Leonard Wood, and why it was smart to be an MP!)

After dinner we finally changed out of our business clothes, and Fig and I set off into Shinjuku to meet our friend Alicia from Wittenberg, who has been living in Tokyo for two or three years. We were supposed to meet her at the station. Of course, we didn't realize until we were out in the streets getting not-quite-lost that there are something like four different train stations nearby with "Shinjuku" in the name, and we didn't know which one Alicia would be waiting at. After wandering for thirtyish minutes and making a few educated guesses, though, we finally found her! It was great to see her, and she's looking good. Tokyo (and a Japanese boyfriend) have really treated Alicia well.

We wandered into Kabuki-cho for karaoke, which was much fun. I had my first takoyaki of the trip, which made me a very happy Anna, indeed. As we left, Alicia and I were waiting for Fig outside the bathroom, and two Japanese teenagers in a karaoke booth were squatting on the floor and staring at us through the glass door. So I waved, and they waved back in great excitement, much to my and Alicia's amusement.

Afterwards, we moseyed a bit farther and stopped in an arcade to take purikura. Turns out the first machine was broken and wouldn't print, which was too bad (those pictures were cute!), but we got to use a different machine for free, and they turned out pretty cute. Fig and I dropped Alicia off at the train station, made promises to get in touch again today, and headed back to the hotel. On the way we coincidentally acquired John Neal and a drunk guy, who was a new JET looking for the hotel. His name was James, I think, and he was from Melbourne, AU.

When I got back to my room, Briana was hanging out with a very nice black guy from London, named Deji. He also had a great accent (there are a lot of them here!), and the three of us talked until 1:30 a.m. about politics and racism and the media in the US and Britain.

And that's about all so far! More orientation today, to be reported on later. :)

curry udon: thick wheat noodles usually served in soup; in this case, a spicy curry sauce specific to Japan

izakaya: sort of a Japanese tapas bar, where you order little plates of snacks to go with your drinks

host: a decently attractive young man who works at a host bar, where his only job is to sit and flirt with female customers, making them feel attractive and convincing them to keep ordering drinks (to spend money at their establishment, not for any creepier reasons)

onigiri: rice balls wrapped in crunchy (and delicious!) seaweed, usually with some kind of protein-based filling in the middle

Kabuki-cho: an area of Tokyo that abuts Shinjuku, and is known for its abundance of host and karaoke bars

takoyaki: delicious, delicious balls of fried dough that contain a bit of octopus inside, and are topped with a tangy sauce (among my top three favorite Japanese foods, fo' sho'!)

purikura: little photobooths that print out photo stickers, which you can decorate in a fashion somewhere between photoshop and mario paint

t-minus three hours

2008-07-26T02:16:00.001-04:00

Bye bye.

no kidding

2008-07-25T03:09:00.002-04:00

I am in super pack mode. So many clothes, so little luggage space!

Fig has arrived safely in Atlanta, and we are entering the final maneuvers in my long campaign to prepare for this trip. Oh god, I feel entirely unprepared. Alas, deadlines!

total insanity

2008-07-22T14:13:00.003-04:00

That's the inside of my brain right now. This week has been super busy so far, and it's only Tuesday.

...But, then again, on Saturday we ship out. So I guess we're pretty close to the finale!

I've been emailing back and forth pretty regularly with my predecessor, a lovely New Zealander named Stephanie. She's been very bright and chatty, not to mention exceedingly helpful. I'm a little bummed that she'll be leaving just after I arrive, because she seems very lovely! (On the upside, we'll be sharing the apartment for about a week, and she's offered to show me around town and introduce me to people. What a sweetie!)

So, new info:

* Stephanie confirms that Sonobe is, in fact, an hour by train from Kyoto. Rad!
* I'll be working with a Canadian girl name Kristin who also seems nice.
* There may or may not be a South African JET living in my same apartment complex?
* The apartment is within walking distance of both the school and a grocery store.

Also, I have been productive!

* registered with the U.S. Embassy
* bought a pretty fair amount of omiyage
* half-heartedly began packing
* amassed a fair amount of business clothes
* bought toiletries, classroom tools, and tabasco (it's important!)
* copied important dates into my new planner
* ripped a lot of cds to my computer
* saw "The Dark Knight" twice...so far (I definitely count that as productive!)

Last but not least, the updated to-dos:

* buy a new camera
* finish transferring files from my old laptop
* set up a GoLloyds account to transfer money home
* continue packing, now and forever
* try and see people to say goodbye
* PARTY TONIGHT!

High-fives to Allison Maier, who always throws me a party. As Joanna good-naturedly commented last night, "We always have parties for this girl, whenever she does something! Anna's going away, Anna's coming back, Anna's graduating, Anna's got a haircut!" And it's true. But our friends like any excuse for a party, and I'm happy to oblige! :)

my favorite kiwi

2008-07-16T03:41:00.002-04:00

It's late, and I'm crazy for being awake, but I just want to brag:

MY PREDECESSOR IS AWESOME AND RAD!

Brag brag brag brag braaaag!

Placement!

2008-07-08T22:09:00.003-04:00

With a slightly awkward timing that I should have expected with my usual luck, my placement info finally arrived last week. I say that because it arrived in an e-mail the morning I was leaving for almost a week's (internetless) vacation, when I needed the few hours standing between me and the airplane to finish packing and post officing and other such things. Of course, with my standard level of willpower, I completely ignored the pressing nature of all of those things, and instead spent an hour dicking around on the computer, looking for (and largely failing to find) info about my town.

Here's what was tricky. The letter they sent said, in essence, only this:

Hey, Anna, what's up? You're teaching at Sonobe Senior Highschool. Raaaaaad.

(Paraphrased for your convenience.) But, so, they didn't say where this school was. So I googled it. And found one page, written by a former JET some fivish years ago. Fortunately the school sounded neat, and it had an address, so I went looking for the town in said address - Sonobe.

And I looked. And I looked. Google, Wikipedia, Google Maps, Diddlefinger. Nothing but a train station of the same name. After forty-five minutes, I was feeling kind of crazy, until finally, in some tiny corner of the Wikipedia hive, I found this sentence:

"On January 1, 2006, Sonobe merged with the neighboring towns of Yagi, Hiyoshi and Miyama to form the new city of Nantan."

NO WONDER. Essentially, the town I was searching for no longer exists. >_<

But, I found a little bit of info on Nantan, which seems to be medium rural and pretty nice? I'm guesstimating that it's an hour or so by train north-west of Kyoto. Now I'm just waiting to hear about accommodations from my CO (contracting organization), and any info my predecessor wishes to dump in my head. Let's hope it's good.

In other news, I continue to be almost productive.

* mailed in my yakkan shomei
* mailed in my visa application / passport
* applied for a credit card

But there is a whole bunch left to do. I've gotta see about making a To-Do list.

Derelict.

2008-06-28T21:19:00.003-04:00

That is what I am. Derelict in my duty.

Some news, sort of. I still don't know precisely what town I'll be in, but I should be finding out within the next two weeks, according to a slightly middle-of-the-nightish phone call from a local government representative for Kyoto-fu. She called me with some vague information, and to confirm my contact information, and to basically get me all riled up for not very much of a reason. :P

Since then, though, I have officially received my copy of the contract. Twenty days of annual leave, holla!

Also, I and the aforementioned Fig and John went to an optional Q&A session last week, which was decently helpful. Some more of that never-ending "ESID" nonsense ("Every Situation Is Different"), but since it's pretty much the truth, nothing to be done about pinning down definitive answers or advice on many subjects. I will say this, for it: all of the volunteers and staff were very friendly and willing to answer our (sometimes stupid) queries. Good biz.

In the meantime, I still have things which I should be but am not yet doing:

1. visa application
2. some silly prescription nonsense forms >_<
3. studying my long-lost japanese
4. not being a general lazy person

On the upside, I have:

1. sent in a bunch of consulate junk
2. begun, slowly but surely, to buy new clothes
3. been janking audiobooks onto my computer (so I'll have some English narrative without completely skewing luggage weight limits)
4. gotten new hipster-academic glasses
5. had eight hundred doctor's appointments

In other news, I may have been adopted by a British man in his seventies or so with the most amazing handlebar mustache. This guy looks like what you'd expect from a nineteenth-century British colonial explorer, or something. All giant mustache, gold signet ring, fashionable cane, using the word "leftenant" instead of "lieutenant." He looks like he's about to shout "I say!" or "What ho!" or "Jolly good!" at any moment. In fact, I sort of wish he would.

RELEVANCE. This fellow, Richard by name, has apparently decided that I restore his faith in the younger generation, and has been showering me with advice, maps, and travel books. Like, two full sized maps and probably eight to ten books. Seriously. Just for being polite and having a "genuine smile." What can I say, my charisma is at maximum around old people.

It is slowly sinking in what a big move this is going to be. I'm working on shoving off the realization for a while to come.

Oh nos.

2008-06-03T03:56:00.003-04:00

Someone on the Atlanta JET forum just mentioned that people placed only at the prefectural level so far (i.e. ME) may not know their specific town placements until pre-departure orientation, or even TOKYO orientation.

NO, PLEASE, NO. I can and will die from suspense. D:

Totally impractical.

2008-05-30T01:28:00.003-04:00

The words to describe my approach to pre-departure preparations.

Instead of sending in necessary forms, which is timely and important, I keep making abortive packing maneuvers. Observation: it's nigh impossible to begin packing for a trip that is two months away, especially when you're either still using or don't yet own the things that need packing.

Tonight I spent ten minutes ineffectually moving around toiletries, fifteen minutes cleaning out my closet, ten minutes putting things in my closet, and at least half an hour trying on the ridiculous (and in some cases, outright bizarre) articles of clothing that I had weeded out for the Salvation Army. (Or, as my father likes to call it, Starvation Army.)

My already half-hearted attempts at productivity were interrupted by this man:

He's so schmoozy cute in that last one that I want to die, just a little bit, and in a good way.

Edging towards a verdict.

2008-05-27T14:49:00.002-04:00

I have been accepted by the JET Program, a fairly competitive system sponsored by the Japanese government, wherein native English speakers with an undergrad degree in pretty much anything move to Japan, and help teach English in public schools. So have several of my good friends, including one Fig and one John.

According to the powers-that-be, I am to be placed in Kyoto-fu; that is to say, Kyoto Prefecture. Hopefully that will put me close-ish to Kyoto proper, but the prefecture is pretty stretchy, so I may end up out in the country somewhere. Either way, I'm pretty happy. (Coincidentally, both Fig and John are relatively close to the Kyoto area, so we may be able to see each other now and again.)

Whereas most people know their exact city, though, I haven't been placed that specifically, yet, so the waiting continues to some degree. I can't wait to find out.

In the meantime, things which need doing:

1. Buy nice clothes for the workplace.

2. Send a few things to the Japanese Consulate and my recently departed alma mater.

3. Save up some cash working for the man, a.k.a. the DeKalb County Library System.

4. Spend time with as many friends as I can wrestle to the ground.

5. Review my quickly fading Japanese.

6. Many, many more things that fail to come to mind at present, I'm sure.

As Beck might warble: "People gettin' busy."