Exceptional Excerpts From My Life

Don't miso it!

2010-11-29T16:40:00.002+09:00

Just in case anyone still looks at this, or has stumbled upon it randomly and can't get enough of my witty prose and fabulous photos, head over to http://twobetsubara.blogspot.com/ for more Japan adventures of a primarily culinary nature. Mata ne!

Extended Absence Greeting

2009-09-23T03:44:00.004+09:00

As you may have guessed, there was a lot going on during my last 3 months in Japan, and not a whole lot of time to work on the blog. I don't know if I have the patience to get entirely caught up again, but I will try to highlight some of the major events.

For pictures of some of my latest traveling adventures both in Japan and back here in the US, please take a peek at my Facebook albums. More to come, I promise!

As far as being back in the States, overall the adjustment is going pretty well. My first week back, I struggled with jet lag and a bit of an identity crisis. But now I am back on AZ time and the US dollar, so both of those issues have been resolved. I really miss my friends and some of the freedom I had in Japan (own apartment, regular paycheck, no car!) but being able to explore a wider variety of career options, eat non-Japanese food at regular prices, wear a size M and reconnect with old friends makes me think that I made the right decision to come home. At least for now--Japan probably hasn't seen the last of me yet!

I am currently applying for some part time positions in tutoring, working as a volunteer in the Planning/Development Department to learn more about the field before applying to graduate school where I would like to earn a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning. Progress in this area has been slow, but it now feels like it is starting to come together.

I may no longer be in Japan, but this blog is far from over! Please check back for more updates.

Love,

Wendy

We're not in Japan anymore, Toto!

"Welcome back to civilization"

2009-09-23T03:38:00.004+09:00

That is a direct quote from the lady printing my boarding pass in Las Vegas for the last stint of my journey home from Japan. Um, thanks? I haven't really been living in a jungle or anything for the past two years...and if Vegas is what civilization is all about, I might have to rethink things a bit.

I had no idea you could see the Strip from the airport...but hey! why not?

Down with the 英語ノート！！

2009-05-29T16:51:00.003+09:00

Teaching English in Japanese elementary schools has always been challenging. Most homeroom teachers don't speak much English, and would rather stand back and let the ALT teach the whole lesson. The least helpful ones grade papers during the lesson, use the time to leave the classroom or catch up on sleep in the back of the room (true story). This of course is not the picture the Ministry of Education wants to paint for the new ALTs who arrive every August. Instead, they give us all an outdated copy of "Team-Teaching Activites for Elementary School" which leads you to believe that you will always be the assistant, demonstrating the activities and modeling your flawless "native speaker" pronunciation.

This semester, my 6th in the Japanese school system, is the first time I have ever taught at a school where this sort of "team teaching" actually occurs in all of the classes. And, let's just say it's not as fun as it sounds. Sure, planning the whole lesson by myself and often providing most of the materials took some time, and yes, most days I would have appreciated more support from the classroom (appologies to the several enthusiastic and helpful teachers I have had the honor of working with. But I am afraid you are in the minority.) I blame a good part of blandness of this semester's classes on the evil 英語ノート:

This is not a textbook, at least not according to the Ministry of Education. Rather it's a "guide" for the 35 hours of English time 5th and 6th graders are required to have this school year. Well, it's a pretty crappy "guide." It's hard to see in this picture, but the open page is one of the first lessons, "Greetings from Around the World." Hmmm, OK, that sounds like a good warm up, what's next? WHAT?!? This theme is supposed to last for 45 minutes? For three full lessons? Spare me. Also, I was hired to teach English, I am afraid I can't help you with the pronounciations of "Hello" in Russian, Korean, Chinese, Mongol or Swahili.

Repetition is definitely essential to learning a new language, but having 5th and 6th graders repeat only the four answers to "How are you?" included in the book during two or three 45-minute English lessons is a really good way to have them hating English forever. I'm sure one 20 minute section on "How are you?" would set them up for life. When I taught this same lesson to 2nd graders, we did 8 different answers and they knew them all the next time I went back to teach. English is difficult, but these kids are much smarter than the Ministry of Education gives them credit for (just one frustrating aspect of Japanese education, catering lessons to the slowest students, so no one falls behind. The result: everyone is bored and doesn't want to participate, making them seem dumb when really they need more of a challenge.)

Today though, I had a really good time at elementary school. It was somewhat of an unusual day, instead of just me and the homeroom teacher in class, an English volunteer was also in the classroom. This particular English volunteer also teaches classes when I am not scheduled at the school. She is a master of lesson planning, and shares my dislike of the 英語ノート ("I don't know how to speak Russian!") Loosely following the lesson after "Greetings from Around the World" we practiced "How are you?" with a variety of skits, gesture games and chants. Don't tell the Ministry of Education, but we gave them seven answers to choose from! And guess what? They got it and appeared to have fun at the same time. I really think this particular English volunteer needs a promotion straight into the upper divisions of the Ministry of Education, or at the very least get paid for all the work she does for the elementary schools in her area. Exciting English lessons take a bit of time and effort, but are not impossible!

*****

Since I am on the subject of school, it seems like a good time to share some recent amusing anecdotes.

Following my self introduction in 3rd grade two weeks ago, children asked many questions about the pictures of Arizona animals I had put on the board. Sadly, since most of them were along the lines of "How many scorpions are in Arizona?" I wasn't able to give them very good answers.

Today was the first time I've had a budding geologist in the audience. He asked two questions, the first pertaining to some rock called the "desert rose" and the second being whether you could take rocks from the Grand Canyon. No, you can't. It's a National Park. He seemed very disappointed.

The rest of the week was at junior high. The new batch of 7th graders are pretty annoying. I know they are only 12 and were in elementary school just two months ago, but they should know better than to talk while the teacher is talking and forget their notebooks everyday. It's time to grow up a bit...the collared shirts and neck-ties of their uniforms seem to have had no effect.

In 8th grade, we played "Scattergories" or at least a simplified version of it. I would announce the topic, and each group would write their answer on a small white board. The same answer was worth zero points. They did fairly well in categories like "breakfast food" or "something you can see at school," but had a harder time with "famous places" (I didn't know a "bookstore" was a famous destination.) By far the most challenging was "boy's name." The teacher told them it had to be a foreign name, not a Japanese one. The following answers were good tries, but sadly got their creators no points: "black peat," "Iverson," and "Brown." Thanks to Tiger Woods, we had to allow "Tiger" and the teacher thought we should be generous with the spelling, so "Bil"s and "Danieru" got points. I hate to say this, but I think they need to watch more TV!

After school, I spent some time chatting with part of the basketball team. I think only 3 of the dozen or so boys are my height or taller. One of the 9th graders is shorter than most of the new 7th graders on the team. But what he lacks in height, he makes up for in awkward, enthusiastic attempts at English communication. When I arrived in class recently, he greeted me with a "Hello honey!" and yesterday he was calling all of is friends "crazy faces" until one said he was a "playboy face." I am not really sure what that means, but it was enough to make the original taunter be quiet for a bit. Oh boys...

Food of the Philippines

2009-05-24T12:33:00.004+09:00

Since the main Philippines post was rather technical, and it wouldn't be one of my travel reviews without talking about what I ate, here's a brief recap.

Dinner from the first night involved walking across the street to the fish market full of fishy smells and buzzing flies to pick out the catch of the day to hand to the cooks at the restaurant. About 15 minutes later, the following spread was put in front of us. Lots of garlic. Yum.

My preconceived image of the Philippines involved lots of fresh fruits. I was rather shocked to not eat any. The only fruit I saw for sale were whole watermelons on the side of the road. I did enjoy a fruit shake from the AIDFI coffee shop. Melon, banana, sweet potato and avocado mixed with milk and ice. Interesting, yet refreshing.

Possibly the most refreshing thing I ate the whole trip was the homemade peanut flavored ice cream bar purchased off the back of a motorbike near Mt. Kanlaon. Amazing. How these people live without ice and frozen confections in such a hot climate is a mystery to me. Bad picture, great popsicle.

At other meal times, a general rule of the more disgusting it looks, the better it tastes seemed to hold true. One example was a raw fish coated in vinegar entree I ate for one lunch, and the grey matter-esque banana flower salad I had at lunch the following day (see annoyingly sideways photo below).

Due to the hot, humid weather I was not as hungry as I usually am in milder conditions. But by my last night there, I think I had adjusted because when my dinner arrived, I was too ravenous to take a picture first. So what you see is the what was left of my chicken inasal (local specialty) and garlic rice. For someone who doesn't particulary enjoy eating meat off the bone, I think I did a pretty good job!

To further enhance the flavor of the chicken, we made a dipping sauce of soy sauce, juice from a small citrus and sawsawan. Sawsawan is a vinegar based, garlic, chili, ginger tonic. Everyone has their own recipe, often served in old liquor bottles. If I had any time to souvenir shop, I would have liked to have found a bottle to bring back. Delicious!!

Golden Week '09--Philippines

2009-05-17T13:16:00.011+09:00

[Author's note: The following is a piece I wrote up for Green Empowerment, the group that was originally sponsoring the group trip. As you may or may not know, when the time came to book a ticket and actually put down some money, everyone in the group but me disappeared. Rather than pay $500 to cancel my ticket and sit in my apartment for Golden Week, I decided to go on my own. A gutsy move, which thankfully turned out really well. I feel so lucky. If you are inspired by the following, please visit Green Empowerment's website and make a donation!]

Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Incorporated (AIDFI) was a wonderful host for my five days in the Negros Occidental region of the Philippines. From the moment they met me at the airport to the very comprehensive schedule they prepared for me, I could not have asked for a better experience. During my time with them, I got to see first hand the many components of their organization in action.

DAY 1. Visiting ram pump sites
After Liloy and Roy picked me up from my hotel, we headed east out of Bacolod City to check on two existing ram pump projects. After driving for almost 2 hours on muddy dirt roads, swerving around overloaded tricycles, we reached our first stop. We were greeted by half a dozen members of the water association standing under the corrugated metal awning that served as the association hall. Roy explained to me that out of the dozens of projects AIDFI has implemented in Negros, this is the only community to build an association hall. Not surprisingly, the ram pump project in this community is well maintained; the result of a strong community leader and real sense of ownership among its members. After a brief conversation, we went to look at the pump. From the center of the community where we parked the car, it was about a 15 minute walk. The last 200 meters were a bit of challenge, weaving through trees on a steep, forested slope. We found the pump clanging away, providing the 45 members of the association with clean water for drinking and washing, 24 hours a day. After almost slipping twice en route to the pump site, it was easy to see what a difference having access to water close to home makes for the association members.

[Near the first stop. Many people in this area support themselves by raising roosters for cock fights. Apparently, buyers from Manila will come all the way out here to buy the best! I had never seen a cock farm before.]

We got back in the car and headed to stop two, a slightly bigger installation that serves 150 people who live along a four kilometer span of road. When we arrived at the leader’s house, there was no one standing out front to greet us. Closer inspection revealed there was no one home; my guides explained that everyone had gone into town to shop at the Sunday market. The walk down to the pump here was less treacherous than the first stop’s, but we did have to walk daintily around some large cattle that were also using the path. Since there was still one more stop on the agenda, we couldn’t wait for the association leader to return. As we drove back towards the main road, we passed several families walking back home from the market with huge sacks of rice and sugar across their backs.

[Stop 2--Wendy and a waterfall. And the top of a ram pump. That small blue cylinder makes a big difference!]
After a lunch break, we made our way to the last community of the day. We took the car as far as it would go on another narrow, uneven dirt road, then got out and walked almost a kilometer to reach the house that would host that afternoon’s organizational meeting. Since it was raining, everyone tried to fit into the small, dim living room, but once the rain stopped, the group, which was mostly women, went outside to better accommodate everyone. I couldn’t understand much of the content, but their excitement and enthusiasm was easy to recognize. After electing the officers for the new association, everyone signed their names onto a list, agreeing to help with the installation and maintenance of the ram pump, and verifying their understanding of the monthly dues. Dues would be around 20 pesos a month, or less than US$0.50.

DAY 2-3. Staying overnight in Mambugsay
The next morning, I met Toto, an expert in organic farming and composting, who accompanied me on the three hour journey to Mambugsay, south of Bacolod City. The community we visited is not only home to a ram pump project, but also has an organic lemon grass oil industry. Each member of the association has a small plot of land (usually under one acre) which they use to grow lemon grass. At harvest time, lemon grass from different growers is combined in the communal distiller to produce oil, which is then packaged and sold at the AIDFI office. On the afternoon I arrived, preparations were underway for processing a batch of lemon grass the next morning. These included removing the remains of the last batch from the distiller and chopping a few hundred kilograms of grass into short pieces so that it would fit into the distiller without being too bulky.

[Chopping. A few of the locals were afraid I would lose a finger, as was I until I got the hang of it.]

Next on the afternoon agenda was checking up on the composting program Toto had started the last time he was in Mambugsay. The existing piles were home to some disgusting looking white grubs, which meant they were progressing well and full of nutrients. The next step was to start a pile for another member of the association. Half a dozen people worked together to gather materials from nearby. We used dead lemon grass, green and brown banana leaves, chicken manure, and sticks and leaves from a cacao plant to form a cone. The outside layer was protected by fresh banana leaves. Toto said the pile should sit for 45 days, then be turned and left for another 15. At the end of two months, the compost would be ready to use. Using compost made of local materials is more economical and much healthier than spraying pesticides, and insures that the oil produced in the community can be sold with an organic label.

The next morning was spent back at the oil distiller. There was still a sizable mountain of lemon grass to be chopped, and the chopped pieces needed to be scooped into bags and weighed before they could be put into the distiller. All together, this batch of oil used about 200 kilograms of grass. The grass was poured into the top of the distiller. A fire was built underneath. As the grass heated up, it produced steam that was diverted into a separator. Once the steam cooled, it would condense and separate into water and the desired oil. Since water is denser than oil, it left the separator out of a spigot at the bottom, while the oil dripped out from one at the top. The whole process took about 3 hours, and at the end there was 1.2 liters of oil to take back with us to the AIDFI office.

[Sucess!!]

DAY 4. AIDFI Office and TechnoPark
After seeing a few projects in person, I was looking forward to seeing the place where they started from, the AIDFI office. The office is located on a main road leading out of Bacolod City. Downstairs is a coffee shop and a garage where the technicians work hard manufacturing different components for the ram pumps and other technologies. Upstairs there are desks and computers where the director, community organizers and human resources department work. Out back is the TechnoPark, where several AIDFI technologies have been installed.

[Nifty map in the office of all the ram pump projects in Negros. On an adjoining wall, there was a map of the Philippines proper as well as a world map with similar pin points. Pretty amazing!]

[The TechoPark with AIDFI office in the back.]

On the day I visited, AIDFI staff led two groups of local college students through the park, explaining how each project worked and could be used to benefit communities in sustainable ways. After the tour groups left, I spent the afternoon working with Toto; feeding the pigs that produced the methane used for cooking in the coffee shop, sifting the substrate from the worm culture pen, and tidying up the grass and small vegetable garden. In addition to serving as an outdoor classroom for interested members of the general community, the TechnoPark allows the technicians to test their products right on site! Overall, I was really amazed by the efficiency of the whole operation. The TechnoPark wasn’t much bigger than a football field, but contained about a dozen different, yet complimentary technologies.

[I admit, this picture doesn't look like much, but it shows how much vertical lift one ram pump can provide with water falling from a height of only 1 meter.]

DAY 5. Mt. Kanlaon Area Projects

[Sugar cane fields and Mt. Kanlaon.]

Each day of my itinerary with AIDFI involved something different from the previous day, and the last day was no exception. Today’s agenda took us to three communities in the scenic area near the base of Mt. Kanlaon Volcano. From our approach on a rocky, narrow dirt road, the first community looked just like any of the other ones I had visited. But a short walk from where we left the car revealed something entirely unique—a community managed swimming pool! I was so surprised to climb up the stairs and almost fall into its clear blue waters. Clearly, quantity of water was not an issue here, although like so many other small villages, accessing the water involves a climb over steep, wooded slopes. This community already has a few ramp pumps which provide water for irrigation, so the purpose of today’s visit was to talk with the leaders about the installation of a small hydropower generator. While Liloy, Roy and Carl talked about the specifics of the project with community members, I jealously watched the younger residents enjoy the pool. The pool is a wonderful asset in the hot climate, and has the capacity to be enjoyed by members of neighboring communities, but the bad conditions of the roads in the area leave the pool under utilized.

[Young bathers, very curious about the random white person standing in the shade.]

Our next stop was at the home of a farmer, who like almost all of farmers in the Negros region grows sugar for giant corporations. This farmer though, has been specially recognized for his high yield crops. The secret to his success---growing organic! While we were there, we also got to sample some of his organically grown coffee. This farmer’s commitment to not using chemical pesticides and fertilizers has paid off with contracts with foreign companies. From what I understood, he was currently seeking organic certification with a distributor based in Germany. These contracts help diversify his income, helping to protect his livelihood if one crop fails.

[Coffee and chit-chat with the award winning sugar farmer.]

[A rare section of pavement. Where they were paved, roads were much too useful to be used solely for drying. Here you can see rice drying; in other places they served as basketball courts.]

The last stop of the day was to visit members of the AIDFI team who are currently living in a community and preparing the parts of a ram pump to be installed there. The community had loaned the technicians the use of an empty house to sleep and work in. Since there is no electricity, they were using a generator made out of an old motorbike engine to power the tools needed to manufacture the pipe connections. This is the kind of thing I would never think about, since I have always lived in place where electricity is available at the flick of a switch. This stop exemplified the commitment of the AIDFI staff to their work. The technicians had been working away from their families for a few weeks, and when AIDFI does projects in other parts of the Philippines, the technicians are sometimes away from home for more than month.

With AIDFI’s busy schedule, I feel very honored to have been able to spend a week with them. Reading about the projects before I went to the Philippines, it was easy to come to the conclusion that the work they are doing is important. But to actually visit the projects they have completed and see the enthusiasm in the communities were the work is just starting gave me a much deeper appreciation for what they are able to accomplish. The ram pump technology may be simple, and consist of door hinges and old tires, but it so much more than just the sum of its parts, freeing up precious time that used to be spent collecting water for other economic pursuits, family time and leisure.

[And to finish, a cliche sunset picture.]

National Living Treasure

2009-04-30T18:50:00.003+09:00

Yesterday Jamie and I met one of the "National Living Treasures" of Japan! His name is Manji Inoue, and he is a porcelain master. His larger pieces sell for just under $20,000!

You can look at some of his masterpieces here.

We met him at his studio/showroom in Arita, Saga-ken while we were out with Naoko sensei and Nakano san for a long over due "Girls Day." He was standing out front when we approached and asked me where I was from. When I said "Arizona," he commented on the hot weather and the large size of the airport in Phoenix. He then told us he has made some 18 trips to New Mexico to give special lectures, and often has to change planes in Los Angeles and Phoenix. Just as he was about to disappear into the backroom, we snagged him for a photo.

As Naoko sensei would say, it was "amazing" that we got a chance to meet him!

Matzoh ballin' aka My First Passover Seder

2009-04-25T00:27:00.006+09:00

I forget exactly how he brought it up, but around the end of April, Dave asked me if I wanted to come over on a Saturday night and help him make matzoh balls to feed 16 people. After the fun we had making strawberry jam (speaking in hick accents, pretending like we lived in a "little house on the prarrie," see photo below) I decided this offer was too good to pass up.

And true enough, stirring together chicken fat, matzoh ball mix and water was outrageous fun. This time, the hick accents were replaced by a plethora of "ball" themed jokes. Apparently, we are no more mature than the junior high school students we teach. The best and worst part of the evening was "quality control." I think the best part is fairly self explanitory, the worst part was limiting the quality control to only one or two matzoh balls each. Patience, patience!

The following night was the actual Seder dinner at the lovely Naoko sensei's house. When I arrived, the table was set beautifully and I couldn't wait to eat! Dinner could wait however, as we had an hour of history, symbolic nibbling and badly pronounced prayer to get through first. If you want to learn more about what we said or munched on, I suggest speaking to your closest Jewish friend or a Google search, since it can't really be summed up in a just a few sentences.

Washing our hands like one big happy family. It really was nice to be surrounded by gaijin and Nihonjin alike to take part in an ancient non-Japanese ritual.

And finally the feast!!

I was literally full for about 2 days after we had the Seder. I am sad I won't be around for next year's.

Spring Break '09

2009-04-13T21:29:00.003+09:00

Spring Break 2009---Cherry Blossoms and English Camp. I am sure I had interesting things to write about both of these things, but since it's now December 2009, less is more.

Cherry blossoms in Kurume were amazing this year. I sort of saw what all the fuss was about.

English Camp with high school students who actually enjoy and study English. What fun!

The High School Musical Skit. I was the teacher---shocker!

Haikingu!

Hawaiian culture!

Arizona culture aka Line dancing!

Group Jump shot!

2nd Annual Ichigo Gorging

2009-04-13T21:27:00.004+09:00

It seems only fitting that a post about strawberries should be short and sweet. This one will certainly fit the first description, and you the reader can decide whether or not it fulfills the second.

The Sunday after graduation, Jamie, Vanessa and I left the jutaku at the seemingly un-godly hour of 10 AM to catch the bus south to Hirokawa Town. Shortly getting off, we saw this descriptive man hole cover. We were in the right place.

The all you can pick/eat in 60 minutes strawberry "patch" was a decent 30 minute walk on some narrow streets from the bus stop, but aside from the cars coming within inches of us, it was rather pleasant and the appetite we worked up came in handy among the rows and rows of fruit.

After we paid our 1200 yen, we were outfitted with small baskets, a small pair of scissors and the all important VIP "Hungry Strawberry Eater" badge. We were then let loose in the greenhouse where the temperature was around 26 C. Heaven!!

Jamie and Vanessa show off the all access passes.

Rows and rows of strawberries, some not quite ripe like the neato "ha-fu" ones below, but we had no trouble eating ourselves almost sick in just under an hour.

The aftermath.

The long walk back to the bus aided in the digestion process, allowing Jamie and me to jugde this year's fest as a big improvement over the coma of last year. "Berry" nice work!!

Tears of Joy?

2009-04-13T21:25:00.005+09:00

Alarmingly fast, mid-March rolled around for the second time, which means it was time for the 9th (and 6th) graders to graduate. The ceremony was similar to last year's, so it included a copious amount of tears and sobbing, but I think (and most of the teacher's agreed with me) that the speeches were better, and this year's class would be sorely missed.

Following the ceremony, everyone gathers in the courtyard in the front of school for final goodbyes, yearbook signing and a marathon of picture taking. This year happened to be freezing, overcast, and windy with a small bit of stinging precipitation, but luckily this didn't seem to put a damper on the more festive part of graduation.

Below are some of the kids I miss already:

Without Kosei, who will inspire the soccer team to ask me all the inappropriate, yet grammatically correct questions?

Teeny Anna and taller Mako were not afraid to speak to me in English.

The class president, Yuki. His speech left all the girls and many of the boys sobbing into their hand towels. Most of the these kids have been together since 1st grade and are parting for the first time. Awwwwww.

Some of the "high tension" girls.

I thought that I might be among the crying masses this year, but the only thing that almost made me cry was when the 9th grade homeroom teachers said that I couldn't pass out the candy grams I made for all 150 students since they broke the "no candy at school" rule. I was not a happy camper, which I guess showed, since one of them did appologize and said it would be okay after the ceremony (I had no intention of giving them something to suck on/litter on the ground before the ceremony. I may be young and foreign, but I have common sense!!) but it hurt that they were so adamant about adhering to stupid rules on a once a year special occasion. I really wanted to pack up and leave Japan right then and there. Attending graduation for the second time definitely made it feel like I have been here a long time.

Before graduation, there was some uncertainty about whether I would be returning to one of my favorite elementary schools in the new school year. It turns out I will go back, but it won't be the same without the 6th graders. I really appreciated their enthusiasm for English class!

Thank you and good luck in junior high!

Take me away

2009-03-06T23:28:00.004+09:00

I thought February 20th would never come, but it finally did. The poor children I taught that Friday didn't really get me on my best day. I was counting the minutes from the moment I woke up until Keizo arrived around 4:30 to whisk me away to a small bungalow in the middle of nowhere.

We arrived a little after 5:30. Japan is so small, the middle of nowhere is just over an hour away. Our accomodations consisted of a sleeping area, eating area, bathroom and two baths, indoor and outdoor.

After enjoying our welcome snack, and arranging dinner and breakfast times with the room lady who would not stop talking, we got right down to it...soaking in the hot sulfur smelling water. It was glorious!

Just as the tension of the week was melting away, we had to get out and make ourselves decent for the room lady to bring us dinner. It's really not everyday you get served dinner in your bathrobe. I felt like a princess!

First course: lots of small Japanese things, including some tofu and potatoes dressed up as Hina Matsuri dolls.

Next: Pumpkin "fondue" with vegetables to dip into the secret soup. The room lady who wouldn't stop talking about everything else (including the annoying gaijin questions "Can you eat Japanese food?") kept her trap shut when it came to the recipe. It tasted a lot like pumpkin puree, water and butter to me.

Obligatory raw creatures from the sea. I wasn't so sure about this tentacled guy, but shut my eyes and swallowed him without too much trouble.

We finally got some cooked meat and rice to round out the main course. Dessert was the juicy citrus below. Normally, I think fruit is too healthy for dessert, but this was delicious. I hardly noticed all the vitamin C.

More soaking. Sleeping on large fluffy futon. Breakfast at 9 AM sharp. What kind of vacation is this! !

Keizo trying to look awake with our bountiful breakfast.

In addition to delicious food, this place had an amazing collection of ceramic dishes. I loved the little shoyu (soy sauce) duck!

Sadly, they made us leave around 11, so we hopped in the car and drove towards Kumamoto city. We hadn't gotten far when I spotted a large head peeking above the trees in the hills. Keizo asked for directions and we shortly arrived at the base of this:

Ewwww. Much tackier up close than from the road. Oh well.

Next stop, Kumamoto Castle. As you may recall, this was the first Japanese castle I saw, way back in September of 2007. It is also the first Japanese castle Keizo has ever been inside of. He has seen/walked around Osaka-jo. That's it. I have been to nine Japanese castles! There's something not quite right about that.

The castle had some nice ume trees.

After the castle, it was back in the car for the drive home, which we broke up stopping to buy some of the delicious oranges we had for dessert and a box of taiyaki, fish shaped wafers filled with sweet beans, which we ate in the car, and for breakfast the following two days. All in all, an excellent escape; one that I would love to be able to repeat every weekend.

Once a month?

Love is a funny thing...

2009-02-14T23:30:00.006+09:00

In Japan, Valentine's Day is when women give chocolate to men they like. On February 14th, men have little more to worry about than gracefully accept said chocolate. A month later on March 14th (White Day), the men are supposed to give marshmellows to the women they like. Whoop de doo. While the men receive something solid that contains antioxidants, women get airy goop that causes cavities. Just one of the ways Japan has yet to fully embrace equality for women. Hmph.

Despite my disapproval of the way Japanese celebrate Valentine's Day, Thursday night found me madly melting chocolate in my kitchen to make fudge for the occasion. All this despite the fact that I spent all of about 10 mins of today with my Valentine (hmmm seems a like this has happened once before :-/ ) As far as excuses go, Keizo had a pretty good one...today was the last game of the rugby season; the one that would determine their team ranking. Last year they were 12/14, and I am happy to report that with their win today, they moved up one whole spot and are 11/14 teams in their league. Whoo hoo!! A win at the end of a losing season was a nice change, and in addition to the chocolate, my Valentine's gift to Keizo is letting him spend it with his first love, rugby.

[P.S. He's making it up to me next weekend, when we are going to take a much overdue vacation to a traditional Japanese inn, complete with private hot spring bath. Ooo la la!!]

But, lest you think my weekend has been lonely, let me tell you about our fantastic Valentine themed NPP dinner on Friday! Eight lovely ladies from around Kurume battled the wind and rain to dine at Artino and exchange "Secret Cupid" gifts.

Mmmm pink ice cream!

Happy V-day lovely ladies!

Finding Nemo

2009-01-15T15:33:00.028+09:00

While it may have been unusually humid in the Outback while we were there, 30% doesn't really compare to a billion, which was roughly the relative humidity in Cairns. Welcome to the tropics!

Our first full day was spent aboard an Ocean Spirit cruise, which we boarded right outside of our hotel (the Brendan Vacations tour people hooked us up!) This lovely catamaran took us out to one of the hundreds of cays on the Great Barrier Reef.

Upon reaching the cay, the parents and I were content to float around near the top of the water, but my adventerous, scuba certified brother set off for the deep with a other "certified" people. That's them below:

We all had a great time, as the underwater views were unbelievable. It looked just like an aquarium...there were so many fish and corals. Some fish were really friendly and would swim right up to you, others prefered to keep their distance. Unfortunately, jellyfish were abundant and were of the more "friendly" persuasion. Despite long sleeved suits, we all got stung anyway. Luckily, the burning sensation only lasted for the afternoon. I saw one stingray, maybe 1/2 a dozen giant clams that could have eaten my legs had they been so inclined and really enjoyed listening to the scraping sound the parrot fish made as the gnawed on the coral. It's all thanks to them that there was a cay for us to stop at!!

After lunch, we boarded a funny looking semi-submersible boat for a guide tour of the reef. Above the water line, the captain sat in a little box, and a staircase led below to the glass room were we sat on benches and oooohed and ahhhed at the captain's percision boat steering (and the marvels of the reef). The best part? No jellyfish!

Since I don't own an underwater case for my camera, the semi-sub ride gave me the chance to attempt photographing the marvels I had seen before lunch. This hardly does it justice:

I would make the long trek back to Australia just to spend more time on the reef. It was spectacular.

Cairns isn't just a beach town. Head inland and there are sugar cane fields and mountains covered in lush tropical forests. There's even an unlikely railway that will take you up one of these mountains to said forest.

I think this train station looks like something out of Disneyland, and it took a few sweaty hours of walking around its adjoining town to to convince me that it wasn't.

The weather in Cairns practically required excessive consumption of frozen dairy to survive. My dragon fruit/lime gelato in Kuranda (the town on top of the mountain) helped prevent me from expiring. You can tell my mom keeps up with my blog...she has the pose down pat.

To get off the mountain, we took a gondola over the trees. Gorgeous!

The last morning in Cairns, Mom and I went out for a special Mommy/Daughter breakfast at a coffee shop we had passed near our hotel. We ordered a Light Start breakfast (toast, yogurt, coffee) a muffin and an iced coffee to share. Boy, were we surprised when our order came out! I found it kind of odd that everyone in Australia drank hot coffee in the middle of summer, but it began to make sense when I saw the "iced coffee":

Whoa! One of those a day would be pretty dangerous. At least that will be balanced out by some toast and yogurt. Nope!! Whether it was our lousy American pronunciation or that the cashier didn't take us to be "light start" types, we were served a plate of toast, smothered in ham, eggs, holandaise and avocado. It was delicious!!

A parting shot from Cairns of the public pool in the middle of park. Next time I definitely want to go swimming!

From Cairns, we flew to Melbourne, the last stop on our packed intinerary. The weather in Melbourne threw us all for a loop, as it was cool and breezy.

View from the hotel:

Flinders Street Station.

In Australia, Melbourne is famous for its tram cars. This historic one makes a loop around the downtown area and you can ride it for free!!

The one organized tour we went on in Melbourne took us to some near by mountains which were full of exotic birds. Mom was happy. But who wouldn't be when the birds were as interesting as this one?

For our "last supper" as a family we headed to Lygon Street, a four block stretch home to around 200 restaurants, the vast majority of them Italian. We stuffed ourselves with pasta and then went searching for our last gelato together. Looking at the photo below, is there any doubt I am that woman's daughter?

After dining, we hauled our very full selves toward the Southern Star, Melbourne's newest attraction. It claimed to be like "nothing else on Earth" but it looked a lot like the London Eye to me.

We arrived at the perfect time, and got to see the city as the lights were coming on. It was quite beautiful, if not a tad bittersweet since this was our last activity together as a family.

The next day, I bid them farewell at the hotel and went souvenir shopping before meeting up with my friend Megumi. I met Megumi when I went to teach 4th grade at one of the elementary schools here in Kurume shortly after I first arrived in Japan. I let her and another teacher know about an English conversation group some other ALTs had organized, but it was a few months before they showed up. But when they did, we always found a lot to talk about! About a year ago, Megumi decided that she was done with teaching for a while (who can blame her!) and that she was going to go to Australia to study English. It was a great bit of luck that she moved to Melbourne, and I would have a whole day to kill after my parents left. She showed me around the Exhibition Hall and Melbourne Musuem before taking me to her apartment, where I spent the night. She and her boyfriend were excellent hosts, and I am sad that I only got to see them for a little while. The last we spoke, Megumi is planning on returning to Japan in July, so I hope to see her again before I head back to the States in August.

The fabulously over the top Exhibition Hall in Melbourne.

Thus concludes the much overdue and slightly abreviated chronicles of my trip to the Land Down Under. Thank you.

東京！

2009-01-15T15:33:00.025+09:00

Apparently, two weeks in warmer climates ( I spent mine Down Under and Jamie was in Hawaii) wasn't enough vacation for the two of us, so we packed some bags and headed to Tokyo for 4 days before returning to the druggery of school.

Important places on the itinerary included: Tokyo Disneyland/Disney Sea, the Great Buddha of Kamakura, Harajuku, and Yokohama/Chinatown.

Day 1. Left Fukuoka. We were two of about four people on the plane not wearing a black business suit. Checked into our hotel, and went straight to Disneyland. Bought our two day Adventure Passes. There is no park hopping in Japan. You buy the pass and have to tell them which day you want to go to each park.

Why thank you! I am happy to be here. :-D

Excellent travel coordinator that she is, Jamie had looked up the opening hours of both parks before we left. Both parks were open longer on Saturday, and we were debating which one we should spend more time at. Thankfully we decided to stick to the original plan, which was Friday afternoon at Disneyland and Saturday morning at Disney Sea. Friday was grey and misty, which definitely cut down on the number of the people at the park. The longest line we waited in was for the Winnie the Pooh ride, and that took only about 25 mins.

Goofing around in Toon Town. Everything was wet, so I couldn't really sit down!

Sadly, due to the drizzle, the Electric Ligtht Parade was canceled. As the park closed, we made our way back to the station area for some dinner and shopping at the New Year's sales.

Day 2. Up and at 'em somewhat early, since we had a lot to fit in. I was the only foreigner at our hotel's "viking" (all you can eat buffet) breakfast, but it was a nice sunny day and we were on our way back to the Disney Resort. Today we hopped on the Mickey Mouse Monorail to get to Disney Sea. This was not a free ride however, and cost us $5 round trip! From the monorail, we saw that we had made the right choice by sticking to our original plan. The ground at the entrance to Disneyland was hardly visible through the crowd of people! But when we rounded the bend to Disney Sea, we were greeted by a large swath of pavement and maybe 6 people in line at the ticket counter.

Just inside the entrance, most of the characters were out in their sparkly 25th Anniversary outfits, so we had to stop for some pictures. Here I am with the perpetually pantless Donald Duck.

We worked our way around the park counter clockwise, starting in the "Little Mermaid Lagoon", then heading to the "Arabian Coast", the "Lost River Delta" (South America?), and the "American Waterfront" before arriving back near the entrance and the "Mediterranean Harbor." Sadly, the Indiana Jones ride was closed, but we did go on a tiny rollercoaster with a 360 degree loop! I also got to experience the aquatic version of my favorite childhood ride at Disneyland--Aquatopia!

At the "Arabian Coast", before riding on the 2 story Aladdin carousel, I made my impulse souvenier purchase. Every kid we saw was walking around with either some large eared hat or a plastic popcorn bucket around their neck, and I really wanted to fit in. So I paid $13 for a collapsible, collectible, Mickey Mouse New Year's bucket filled with black pepper flavored popcorn. I really felt like my Disney trip was complete!

C'mon! Act your age, not your (American) shoe size! [This pithy saying is pretty useless in Japan, since shoe sizes range from 22-30]

Our last stop before heading out of the park and on to other adventures was a pastry shop for some sweets and coffee. We sat in some glorious sunshine and enjoyed our snack. While we may have had to pay for the monorail, I was somewhat shocked to realize that my cake and coffee cost less at Disneyland than it does at Starbucks. I guess I always knew Starbucks was a rip-off, but worse than Disneyland?!?!

Sadly we told the man at the gate we wouldn't be needing our hands stamped for re-entry and went on our way. Our last image of the wonderful world of Disney was this talented street sweeper.

We hopped back on the train into the city and got off at Kappabashi Dori, the place to go if you ever wanted to open a restaurant in Tokyo...or just wanted light up ice cream cones, industrial sized sieves and plastic display food for your own kitchen. It was fascinating!! I was a little disappointed that there were not more "sample" stores of plastic food, but the ones we did see had some amazing offerings.

Resistance is futile, you just can't ignore delicious looking plastic food! The displays outside have lured me into many a restaurant here in Japan.

Tiny sushi to hang on your cell phone!

Large illuminated soft cream cones!

After walking up and down the block, we got back on the train and headed to Harajuku for more shopping! Harajuku was definitely crowded, but not quite the fashion parade I had expected, due to the winter weather. Friends have gone in June and said it's a much crazier place.

The main street, whose sign is obscured by the holiday balloon display. (Which, if Harajuku is anything like Kurume, is still up. The giant Christmas tree outside Nishitetsu Kurume station is still up in mid February as I write this!)

Apart from people watching and crepe eating, our main goal in Harajuku was to visit one of Japan's two new H&M stores. (For those of you who don't know, H&M is the IKEA of clothing, and since it's not a Japanese company it actually carries sizes that run into double digits!) The fact that it took us a while to find is kind of sad, when you actually see the size of the building:

But to be fair, we were on the same side of the street. Like my first ever trip to H&M in Pasadena, CA it was a little overwhelming. The Harajuku store had 3 floors of just women's clothing. Not a whole lot was on sale, but it didn't have to be. Compared to other Japanese clothing stores, it was pretty cheap. I took a whole pile of things into the dressing room with me, but ended up only buying a pair of black pants suitable for work.

We shopped 'til we dropped, ate some delicious champon near our hotel and went to sleep.

Sideways champon. I uploaded it twice, yet it insists on defying gravity.

Day 3 we left the Tokyo city limits in search of a giant Buddha and mouthwatering nikuman.

First up was the Daibutsu of Kamakura. The train to Kamakura was really crowded, as were the small streets near the station. We walked along with the crowd until we realized they were not heading where we wanted to go. We circled back to the station and got on a bus. Disembarking and the appropriate stop, I was sort of expecting a bit of a walk into the hills to see the giant Buddha. But no, once you are thru the gate and turn the corner, there he is about 100 yards of neatly raked gravel away from you!

Contemplating the little visitors.

Not so giant now, are we?!?

Frankly, as large statues go, this famous Daibutsu ranked 3rd on my list. The big wooden Buddha in Nara is much more imposing, and having lived in the shadow of the giagantic white Narita-san for 18 months, the Kamakura Daibutsu looks puny. He hardly shows above the trees and could never be used as a navigational beacon like my Narita-san.

On our way to our next stop, we partook in some excessive snacking that pretty much rendered lunch unnecessary. In retrospect, one beni-imo croquet would have been a sufficient snack (no need to add the dango and the ice cream).

Next up, Yokohama, a giant city that serves as a suburb of Tokyo. We arrived in Yokohama a bit earlier than we had planned, since after viewing the Buddha, there wasn't actually that much to do in Kamakura. And since we had just eaten a lot of snacks, we weren't quite ready to hit up Chinatown yet. Conveniently located right outside of Yokohama station is Landmark Tower, the tallest building for miles around, full of shops, restaurants, a hotel and of course, and observation deck! Oddly enough, it was sunny and we decided to go up. To get to the observation floor, we rode on the world's fastest elevator. It was a lot like every other elevator I have ever ridden, except I did notice that my ears popped!

From the top, one can see the harbour, some mountains including Fuji-san in the distance obscured by clouds, and miles and miles and miles of concrete jungle filling all the space between the water and the mountains. Incredible.

Slightly out of place chandelier and miles of cityscape.

After descending the tower, we hopped on the quiet subway to Chukagai, or Chinatown. We were greeted by some large gates.

Only about a block in, we stopped for our nikuman (steamed pork dumpling) at one of the places with the longest line. They were a bit expensive at $5 each, but they were huge!! And so fresh from the steamer we could barely hold them.

Clearly we weren't the only people looking for steamy, flavorful goodness.

We checked out the cheap-ish Chinese imports and tried to decide where to eat dinner. Every restaurant looked about the same, so we had a little difficultly choosing. I think we ended up at the one we ate at mostly because we were tired of walking. The food was pretty good, but since I had already eaten sooooooo much, it kind of just added to the misery. It was straight back to the hotel for us!

Day 4. Our last day, and given the packed agenda and overeating of the previous three, we opted for a morning at the Tokyo National Museum before heading to the airport to catch our plane back to Fukuoka. The National Museum is very reasonably priced and houses a massive collection of artifacts from Japan and other Asian countries.

The main gallery which houses a series of rooms that chronicle Japanese art through the ages. They rotate the displays regularly to show off the many, many pieces in their collection.

And the parting image from our Tokyo trip is this elaborate kadomatsu, (New Year's decoration made of bamboo and pine fronds) at the National Museum.

Happy "Moo" Year!!!

Chicken Soup for the Soul, Part II

2009-01-15T15:33:00.006+09:00

I am putting your Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Bobsey Twins skills to the test. Look at the pictures and short descriptions and try to piece together what happened (or didn't).

A) View from my bathroom at 7:30 AM, January 13, 2009---the first day back at school.

B) View from kitchen at the same time. (Hint: There's a lot more white than I am used to)

C) January 13th was a Tuesday, which meant that I had Japanese class at 6:30 PM. I took some leftover chicken soup out of the freezer and put it on the counter with the idea that I would have a quick dinner ready when I got home.

D) Kitchen counter, 5:00 PM that day.

Did the last 8 hours not happen? It looks exactly the same as it did when I removed it from the freezer.

E) Maybe Thursday of the same week. My alarm clock that has a thermometer in the the bottom right corner. This is right next to where I sleep, and had read 39.9 before I turned on the space heater and ran to get my camera.

So for those of you who live in even colder climates, it's not that Japan's winters are really that brutal....it is usually above freezing, but older buildings (like my apartment) and elementary/junior high schools (where I teach) have no insulation or central heating. The clothes I wear inside are often the same clothes I wear outside---coat, hat, and scarf on top of the long underwear, turtleneck and wool sweater underneath.

To paraphrase another ALT, how is it that Japan has some of the most advanced technology in the world, but cannot properly insulate a building?

Into the Red Centre

2009-01-15T15:32:00.017+09:00

Australia is roughly the size of the continental United States, so it shouldn't surprise me that everywhere we went was completely different. However, I have never been anywhere quite as different as the Australian Outback.

Driving from the airport into Alice Springs, the biggest "city" for miles and miles, we saw a herd of feral camels and crossed the raging river below. A river of sand? I was beginning to feel right at home! (The camels, not so much)

Our first afternoon in Alice Springs, we took bus tour of all 4 places of interest. The reptile center, the somewhat sad armed forces memorial, telegraph relay station and Royal Flying Doctor Service Station. Since we happened to be visiting during a "school holiday," we didn't get to see the School of the Air, which broadcasts radio lessons to children at remote stations in the Outback. The inhabitants of the Australian Outback are really tough people. Dealing with the hot, dry weather is one thing, but the remoteness is something entirely different.

In the evening, we attended an Aboriginal Culture Performance and Dinner at a little outdoor theater. Our host was interesting, and we got the chance to eat kangaroo! There it is on my plate, front and center:

It didn't have a whole lot of flavor and was rather chewy. I don't feel a need to ever try it again.

Our second afternoon was spent wandering the galleries of the town's main street where we happened along this ingenous sign. Australian is a completely different language!

And lastly, in addition to all of the amazing things mentioned above, Alice Springs is also home to some beautiful eucalyptus trees, which makes it smell really nice!

After spending about as much time as anyone would possibly want to spend in Alice Springs, we were picked up by a loquacious bus driver named "Smiley" who narrated the entire 5 hour journey to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Oh, wait. I take that back. He did play a few songs about kangaroos on CDs and killed about 25 minutes with a Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter video! His commentary, while a bit much to absorb all at once, did liven up the scenery, which looked pretty much exactly like this the whole way, quite a bit.

The Outback apparently received a lot of rain in November, which left it much greener than I had expected.

We made it!

After checking into the hotel, where we would actually spend very little time (and almost none of it sleeping) we got back on the bus with a bunch of other tourists and headed to Kata-Tjuta, the sort of sister rocks to Uluru (the proper name for Ayer's Rock).

The path to nothing in particular. It was pretty hot and there were a ton of flies. The rocks do look impressive against the blue sky.

After our hike, there was another stop at a viewing a point where you could look one way and see Kata-Tjuta and then look the other way and see Uluru. Nice, but pretty far away from either of them. Gosh, there is soooooooooooo much space in Australia!! Our last stop of the day was at the designated tour bus sunset viewing area. We were greeted with some complimentary wine and extra salty trail mix to tide us over while we hunkered down to watch the sunset. It was recommended to stand in the same spot and take pictures about every 10 minutes until right before sunset, when you should up the frequency to every few minutes. When you got home, your time lapse shots would come together and show Uluru in an astounding rainbow of colors. I followed these instructions pretty closely, but ended up with about a dozen nearly identical pictures. And just as the sun actually set and the sky was the most beautiful, my battery died. Still, the one below isn't too shabby:

After sunset, we climbed back on the bus to be returned to our hotel. We ate dinner (not one of the better meals I had in Australia) and attempted to sleep before our 3:30 AM wake up call which would allow us to be out in front of the hotel at 4 AM for the Uluru sunrise tour! It was dark and a little chilly, but anticipating the high temperatures later on, I didn't bring a jacket. We drove to the park and they served us some awful coffee as we huddled around waiting for the sun to rise. I can't say it was particularly spectacular, but going on the tour did allow us to start our trek around the rock while one side was still in the shade.

Not a bad picture, especially considering this was about 6:30 AM.

Our hike around Uluru was one of my favorite parts of this Australian odyssey. Uluru has always been a sacred place for the Aboriginies, and while I don't want to get really hippy-dippy, it's hard to deny that it has a sort of other wordly feel to it. Uluru is a huge monolith in the middle of a lot of nothing. The path around the bottom took us about 3 hours to complete, and you would have to spend years studying it to get to know every little nook and cranny.

Yup, we went all the way around!

One of the biggest surprises for me was that Uluru is really lumpy up close! This shouldn't really be a surprise given that I know Uluru is a rock exposed to the elements, but in all the pictures taken from a distance (and with special filters?) it looks pretty smooth. There are countless holes and divots from water running down and sheer faces where pieces have broken off. Several of the more interesting features have especially sacred meanings for the Aboriginies and photographs were prohibited.

On the far side of the rock, away from the road, we only saw maybe 4 other people. The solitude was pretty amazing. Of course, we weren't really alone, as there were many caterpillars, beetles and even a snake making their way through the red dirt.

Returning to our hotel a little after lunch time, there was no time for a shower (gross) before we got on another plane, this one bound for Cairns.

See you in Sydney!

2009-01-15T15:32:00.016+09:00

I suppose I must have said some version of the words to my parents on the phone in December, but it's so long ago now, I can't be 100% sure.

I do remember it was cold and rainy the day I left Japan (just like it had been the day before, and like it has been most of the last two weeks. Seriously!) but the weather doesn't look so bad on the way to my transfer in Hong Kong.

The flight from Fukuoka to Hong Kong took about 4 hours, and the flight from Hong Kong to Sydney another 8. I flew Cathay Pacific, which I would not recommend for the long haul if you can avoid them. While they do have the in-seat TV screens with lots of options, their seats don't have seatback pockets (the magazines are under your seat, real convenient) and the seats don't so much recline as slide out from under you. They also find it necessary to give you dinner at 10 pm and wake you up 5 hours later at 3 am for breakfast. Anyway...

...Australia! After confusing several customs/currency exchange people with my pale skin, American passport and Japanese yen, I took a short train ride into the city, found my hostel, checked in and shucked the tights and scarf and took off on a self guided walking tour. Downtown Sydney isn't too big and I managed to see a lot of the big stuff on my very first day.

The Sydney Opera House gleaming in the sunshine!

Opera House and city skyline. I also stopped at the art museum, which was really nice because it was free and had a large wing of Aboriginal Art.

When it started to rain in the late afternoon I was amazed to see people walking out in the open without umbrellas! I've gotten used to living in a country full of neurotic people who check the weather forecast religiously and won't be caught without an umbrella if there is even a hint of rain.

Another sign I wasn't in Japan anymore. These exotic looking birds roamed the parks like pigeons. When I took this picture, I was a little afraid that he was coming over to nibble on my bare toes with that long beak!

The rain sent me back to the hostel for a much needed break, some dinner and an early night before the fire alarm went off at 1 am. As I made my way down 8 flights of stairs to the street in my pajamas, I marveled that this was the 3rd time I have had to evacuate a hotel/hostel in the middle of the night.

After spending a good 48 hours alone surrounded by many people I didn't know, I was really eager to meet my family at the airport. Eventually we checked into our much nicer hotel and began exploring Sydney together. Our first stop was "Wildlife World" for an introduction to Australia's many wild and wonderful fauna, including a 6 1/2 foot tall fringed lizard. Ha ha.

Inside we saw everything from gigantic insects to wallabies and koalas real lizards the size of baby alligators. The lovely specimen below is a perentie, the 4th largest lizard in the world!

The next few days in Sydney have turned into a bit of a blur, but the highlights included riding on a double decker city tour bus in the sunshine, walking across the Harbor Bridge (the structure in the back of the photo below,) taking a tour of the Sydney Opera House, a Christmas Harbour Cruise on a fake steamboat, and seeing people in bathing suits with red velour Santa hats at Bondi Beach.

Bondi Beach was full of Christmas revelers. It was interesting to spend Christmas south of the equator. Since there's not a whole lot of snow in Australia, the Aussies have come up with their own Christmas lore. Santa arrives in a beat up truck pulled by 6 white kangaroos, and can also be seen sporting aloha shirts while surfing.

The tour of the Opera House was really interesting. There was a lot of controversy surrounding its construction, and what follows is a pretty poor summary. There was an international competition held, and the winning design turned out to be nothing more than a few curves drawn on a cocktail napkin (or that's about how much actual thought went into it) The architect had no idea how to build the structure he envisioned. A relatively buget conscious project ballooned way out of proportion and took forever to build. No one liked it. But now that it's internationally recognized, I think they like it a lot more. One thing you can't tell from the outside is that a lot of smaller performance spaces are underground. Very interesting place, and I was intrigued to see that the main orchestral hall seemed to serve as a model for the Disney Concert Hall in L.A.

In addition to all the sights, Sydney was also a treasure trove of tantalizing food. We ate really excellent Indian food, seafood, pizza and breakfast treats. I think my lunch on my first day is still my favorite meal from the whole trip, and it's sort of a pity that I didn't take a picture of it; a grilled chicken, sun dried tomato, avocado and brie sandwich on focaccia bread. Sigh...if such a delight actually existed in Japan, it would probably cost about $18.

Next, we leave the coast for the Outback...

The Little Tree that Could

2009-01-15T15:32:00.006+09:00

...made an appearance for second year. Once again a lovely group of neighbors came over to help me take it out of its box and decorate it. I saved the ornaments Hannah, Allison, Jamie and I worked so hard on last year, so the process was much shorter and less messy this year. After the tree was up and the requisite “oohs” and “ahhhs” were muttered, I brought out some apple crumble and vanilla ice cream a la Naoko-sensei. Happy Merry Christmas 2008 from the Kamitsu-machi Kyoushokuin Jutaku!

Chicken Soup for the Soul

2009-01-15T15:31:00.002+09:00

The lovely Naoko-sensei wasn’t the only one taking care of me when I came down with my cold in December. Keizo came over twice to fill my larder and provide some distraction from my symptoms. The first night I could feel the cold coming on, he brought over some hot udon for dinner, some OTC cold medicine and a package of masks, which he thought we both should wear. While eating the udon, I commented that in the U.S., chicken soup is popular fodder for sick people. He left and I went to bed early.

The next day was the day I went to the doctor. The day after that is when I wrote the last post. I failed to mention Keizo’s second care visit because I didn’t think too much of it until I got better and started putting the pieces together.

He let me know he was coming over in the afternoon with some food for me to eat. When he arrived I was napping on my porch, so he let himself in and told me to take it easy. I stayed on the sunny porch for about 10 minutes when I realized there were no sounds coming from the inside of my apartment. I went inside to investigate and found Keizo sitting on the couch starring at the wall. He showed me the bag of stuff he brought, which was a lot of raw produce, and I asked him if he had picked up any apple juice, which was my one request. He had missed the message, so he went back out again and I ate some soup that Vanessa brought me the night before.

When I was feeling better, I went through the bag of groceries Keizo bought. Inside there were carrots, broccoli, onions, chicken and even some hard to find cilantro. There was also a box of chicken boullion cubes and a box of instant chicken consome. As I was putting them away, I noticed there was a picture on the back of the instant consome---carrots, broccoli, onions, a chicken leg and a green herb-y thing. The picture and the contents of the shopping bag matched exactly! My quiet knight in shinning armor had done his best to get me some chicken soup, but once all of the ingredients were in front of him, he had no idea what to do with them. Hehe. Maybe it didn’t have quite the healing effect he anticipated, but they do say that laughter is the best medicine.

Before I left for my winter vacation, I used up the ingredients in the bag and made my first ever chicken soup from scratch courtesy of a recipe from the internet. It came out pretty well, if I may say so myself.

Would this make you feel better?

2008-12-03T22:05:00.004+09:00

After biking home from elementary school on Monday, I barely had the energy to climb the stairs to my apt. Oh no, my cold like symptoms picked up at last week's Mid-Year Seminar in the building that felt like a meat locker had finally caught up to me. So I stayed home Tuesday and the lovely Naoko-sensei took me to see her doctor. I was the youngest person in the waiting room by about 40 years until an 8 year old girl and her mom walked in just before my name was called.

When I saw the doctor, he looked at me, at the chart the nurse had prepared and back at me and started to chuckle. The nurse had put 男 (male) instead of 女(female) on my chart by mistake. Although sometimes elementary classes I have never taught before come to the teacher's room looking for a male teacher. Hmmmm. Then the doctor, who kind of looks like a Japanese Tom Selleck (maybe it was just the mustache) asked some questions and looked at my tonsils (which he quickly diagnosed as "dekkai" or large) and wrote me four perscriptions to be filled at the pharmacy next door. In Japan, they appear to only make pills for one symptom, so if you have multiple symptoms as one often does with a cold, you get a whole cocktail of drugs to take in various combinations at different times of the day. I have two pills that are to be taken after each meal, a package of throat tablets and way too many packs of purple powder which are to be added to water and gargled 4 times a day. When mixed with water, it looks like this:

It doesn't smell or have a taste, and I am not supposed to swallow it, but still, gargling purple water 4 times a day really is not that appetizing. I suppose it's working, as I am feeling much better tonight than I was last night. Still not 100%, but better than even this morning, which is a good sign, and somewhat of a relief considering that I basically slept all day--in bed, on the tiny couch, and later outside in the sun. Hopefully, I will sleep better tonight than I did last night with my dreams about crashing helicopters and invading martians. But first, I have to do my 4th gargle of the day...

Frolicking in the Foliage

2008-12-03T20:21:00.007+09:00

Well, maybe not so much "frolicking" as just standing around and admiring the brilliant colors, but that doesn't make for a very catchy title.

Last Sunday actually lived up to its name and was unually sunny for Japan and this time of the year, so it wasn't too hard for Jamie to convince me to abandon my chores and join her on a mini-trip to Dazaifu. While it's more famous for the ume (plum) blossoms in February, Dazaifu didn't disappoint with its abundance of momiji (Japanese maple leaves).

After picking up some hot mochi filled with red bean paste to keep our hands warm and tummies happy, we took a right at the end of the street lined with shops. At the end of the block was a small temple with an amazing courtyard of trees, moss and rocks.

After removing our shoes and leaving them out front with everyone else's we walked into the traditional Japanese building that surrounded the courtyard. Obviously, we weren't the only people who thought a sunny weekend afternoon was the perfect time to look at leaves.

Despite the crowd, the small building was quite serene and Jamie and I enjoyed looking at the leaves and taking pictures for about a half an hour before our feet couldn't take the direct contact with the cold floor anymore. Luckily, there were some more leaves on the outside that could be appreciated with your shoes on!

Still inside the courtyard. Gorgeous reds and yellows...

....and a blindingly orange tree at the entrance!

Walking back towards the main street, we happened across some trees we could actually get close to and a mini-stream full of floating leaves.

Then we followed the colored leaves along a path up a hill which dumped us out in the back of the larger Tenmangu Shrine, where we saw this magical looking tunnel for the first time. The it was back to the shops for some soft cream (the fall flavor was maron or chestnut) and Christmas shopping before getting back on the train to Kurume, where we both accomplished our neglected chores in record time before heading to Tatsunoya for our first ramen dinner in a long time.

A pictoral essay of Osaka and its environs

2008-12-03T20:18:00.009+09:00

I don't know where that title came from and it in no way conveys how much fun I had collecting the images below.

Day 1: Osaka-shi.

The Open-Air Museum of Old Farmhouses, Osaka castle, din-din and iruminashion at the aquarium. These places are so different that I hope you will be able to figure out which pictures are which.

Hmmm, there's the sky...and an old building of some kind...

...and another! It's like a museum or something...

Wait! That's not a farmhouse! It's a fire engine!

Looking at old buildings ages you. Let's take a break under this red tree.

The following is obviously not a farmhouse.

A sign at the ticket booth. Sorry, no cannibalism for me today, thanks.

Now, that's a gold fish!

Osaka-style okonomiyaki. Thick and juicy!

After taking the train out of the city center, following the signs through the wrong exit at the station and walking in a big circle on deserted streets which cost us a ride on the "World's Largest Giant Wheel" we found what we were looking for---illuminated sea creatures!

I don't make a very good manta ray.

Can you guess the animal below? Bio-luminescent plankton? Nope! It's the whale shark on super zoom. Duh!

Day 2: Out of Osaka

Stop 1: The Instant Ramen Museum, which is a legitimate museum with security guards in the parking lot directing traffic.

Hall of Ramen through the Ages. I have never seen so much sodium on one wall before.

Edible airplane food? At least it's not rubbery meat. "Ramen de sky" anyone?

The man behind it all, Momofuku Ando. A real noodle head if you ask me.

Stop 2: Himeji Castle. The castle of Japan. What can I say, it was really big?

So pointy.

OMG!! Look, a wedding party!! The bride and groom were lucky to get a ride, everyone else had to walk from who knows where in their formal wear.

Stop 3. Kobe. Since it was already dark when we got there, we didn't do a whole lot of exploring and went straight to the harbour, which could have very well have been an American shopping mall, except there were a few too many Japanese people there.

We finally got to ride a ferris wheel, only this one was pretty small. Nice view though.

Ginourmous tree inside the mall. Where am I again?

I never knew I wanted a small dog so I could dress it up like a strawberry until I went into this store with Jamie.

Day 3: Osaka in the rain

Day 3 had basically one stop, the Umeda Sky Building. Kind of like a tower in that it has nice view, or will at least until all the construction around it is complete.

Going up to the "Floating Garden Observatory." I don't recall seeing any plants up there.

Out the window on the rainy side of the building. Jamie and I do have a knack for visiting high places on days with severely limited visibility. Nice.

The dry side. Lots of buildings, and even more that we couldn't see. Osaka isn't Japan's second city for nothing!

The End.

Flu Season

2008-11-12T10:21:00.003+09:00

The weather has definitely shifted here. The thermometer on my alarm clock informed me it was a brisk 59 degrees Farenheight in my apartment this morning when I woke up. At school, the hallways and teacher's room are about the same, the classrooms are a bit warmer from the collected body heat of close to 40 students. But the changing weather is a bit of a shock to the system, and flu season has started. Kids are more boogery than usual, people are wearing their oh-so-fashionable surgical masks in public, and a week ago, Jamie actually lost her voice! Washing hands every 30 minutes and eating multiple mikans a day has become a daily routine. If only Japanese restrooms had soap in them (which I am sure is better at preventing the spread of germs than a piece of cottony paper with ear straps from the dollar store)!

It appears flu season has also started at home in the U.S. as well. How do I know? I read about it in the NYTimes. As usual, many interesting articles today including one about the dimming of the iconic Manhattan skyline due to improvements in lighting technology and rising energy costs. There was also one about Google, and how they have started tracking searches with keywords like "flu" and "muscle aches" and mapping them to see where the next potential influenza outbreak might occur. Probably not entirely what the creators had in mind back in the day, but postitive unintended consquences are a great thing in my opinion.

Read it while eating a mikan, and be sure to wash your hands when you're finished.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

A Beautiful Fall Day

2008-10-24T22:42:00.009+09:00

A few weekends ago, Jamie and I bid farewell to Kurume for a few hours and went into Fukuoka for a "girl" day. First stop was Yasu's magical hair palace, where we got the star treatment and emerged with lovely new fall looks. Jamie got her hair trimmed and Yasu gave her some fabulous shampoo comercial waves; I asked for a chin length angled bob with some bangs and got just what I asked for.

Looking fab, we ate lunch at an Italian restaurant we discovered a bit on accident before one of our monthly meetings. The restaurant is located on the second floor, behind a frilly boutique and is always full of women. I like to refer to it as the "lesbian lunch lair." The food is really good, and for just under $10, you get a salad, amazing crunchy bread, a huge pasta, drink and two, yes two, tiny desserts. No wonder it's always crowded ;-)

Full of lunch, we hopped a bus for the ferry port, took the ferry to Nokonoshima, and got on another bus to take us to the "Island Park," with it's famed hillside of pink and white cosmos flowers. The weather was really nice, so we weren't exactly the only people there, but the people watching added to the fun.

Follow me to the cosmos patch!

Oooo look, we made it!! Gorgeous!!

Throughout the afternoon, the sun kept going in and out from behind the clouds, making it hot, then cold, too bright and then too dark to take pictures. We had some creamy soft cream and hot from the fryer tempura sweet potatoes before boarding the bus back to the ferry, back to the bus, back to the train, back to Kurume.

The day's (and this post's) parting image--Fukuoka skyline from the ferry.

Halloween!

2008-10-24T22:42:00.007+09:00

Based on this picture alone, it's going to be a good one ;-)

* * * *

As soon as the calender hit October 1st, teachers at one of my junior high schools asked me to give a lesson about Halloween. For the 7th graders, I gave a short speech about the three things most people do--1) decorate the house with jack-o-lanterns, spider webs and the like, 2) put on a costume, and 3) go trick or treating. I show pictures of me in past costumes, like the Spice Girls and as an Oompa Loompa from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, but sadly I am met with a whole classroom of blank stares. Some things (old pop culture references) just don't translate. After the speech, there was a quiz, and then we played Halloween bingo.

Outside of school, I had two Halloweens! Imagine that, in a country where no one goes trick or treating! Last weekend, I headed into the city with Vanessa to attend "Halloween Salsa," a party/concert/dance event which made me really confused as to which country I was in. I was given free tickets by a teacher at one of my junior high schools. After school hours, he is the lead singer of "Salsa del Oriente," Fukuoka's (only?) salsa band.

The event gathered a good crowd, there was delicious Spanish food, fun music and many talented salsa dancers. Most people dressed up in costume, Vanessa and myself included. We fit right in at the party, but I felt pretty rediculous on the train home.

Not wanting my costume to be "lost in translation" again this year, I opted for the not so subtle "kabocha." Between West Coast (used clothes) and the Daiso (100 yen) I think the whole thing cost me less than $8.

October 31st started out as a school day like any other at a mildly disfunctional elementary school. The first class I was supposed to teach forgot about me for a good 20 mins, and then the class I was supposed to eat lunch with forgot about me completely, so I ate with a mixed group of office staff and volunteer mothers in the principal's office. The all comented about how weird the day's menu was, and I would have to agree. The main dish was a tasteless concoction of tofu, boiled cabbage and quail eggs in a gelatinous sauce. At least the rice and soup were good.

Friday's main event was going bowling in costume. Nine ALT's and two slightly embaressed Nihon-jin met up at Kurume's Sports Garden to share candy and hurl brightly colored balls at unsuspecting pins. Everyone looked pretty amazing in their costumes. Our group had a cowgirl and cowboy, devil, James Bond, turkey, Santa Claus, reindeer, pumpkin and a pirate. We all called it a night after two games, but in that was plenty of time for me to eat enough candy to feel sick!

Keizo's first Halloween!!! I made sure he went all out costume wise, but I don't think he got a stomachache.

Heart and SEOUL

2008-10-03T15:08:00.012+09:00

Hisashiburi readers!! Long time no see. Let's get right down to it:

Last year, I did a pretty good job of hitting most of Japan's hot spots. Almost every Japanese person I talk to now can't believe the list of places I've been in just a year, and admit to only having been to a fraction of them themselves (yet somehow it's a crime that I have never been to NYC). So this year, I wanted most of my travel destinations to be outside of Japan, and I am proud to say that less than two full months in, I have knocked one off the list.

Seoul, South Korea is geographically closer to Fukuoka than Tokyo, but a visit will still get you a passport stamp! For Jamie, it was her first (and possibly last?) stamp from a country other than Japan or the U.S. For me, it was my first stamp from a country where I didn't speak one word of the language (even coming to Japan for the first time, I knew konnichiwa and arigatou.) Thankfully, Koreans seem to take their English education more seriously than the Japanese do, and even the bus drivers and convenience store employees spoke in English to us.

When traveling throughout Japan, cities are very similar. The public transportation usually works in the same way and people conduct themselves pretty similarly. We had no idea what to expect in Seoul, and thankfully we ran into very few problems, but being used to the efficiency, politeness and cleanliness of Japan, we found Seoul to be a very different place indeed.

Welcome to modern Seoul. The Incheon Airport. Built on reclaimed swamp land about an hour from the heart of the city.

The road from the airport into the city was wide and recently paved. People drove American-sized cars on the American (right) side of the road. There were lots of converted motorcycle flatbed scooters to transport goods from one neighborhood to another. Each area seemed to specialize in two or three completely unrelated things. The neighborhood where we stayed was the packaging, lamp and sewing machine district. We walked through the stainless steel (ash trays, industrial kitchen counters etc) and tennis raquet neighborhood and passed the puppy and desk chair district on the bus. Really, there was something interesting to look at pretty much everywhere!

Seoul's central post office. Pretty cool building, eh?

After locating our hostel, we decided to forgo lunch (shock!) and have a light snack so we could eat a hearty dinner later on, and head to sight number one, Gyeongbokgung Palace. [Most Korean words, especially place names had too many letters and the money, the won, had way too many zeros. 1000 won was roughly $1 US when we went.] We saw three different palaces in Seoul, and but I can't really tell you the differences between them. They were built by different people I have never heard of, and are all pretty spectacular. Gyeonbokgung was quite extensive, and after walking around for over an hour, Jamie and I decided we should probably move on to palace #2, only to discover when we looked at the map that we had missed about 1/2 of it.

Main hall of Gyeongbokgung. Quite large, made of wood with every exposed surface, like the ceiling and the roof supports exquisitely painted in bright colors. I was awed by the fact that this was all done without the help of modern machinery. Quite the accomplishment.

Palace #2 was Deoksugung Palace. Much smaller but accompanied by two buildings that closely resemble the White House. They were built in the early 20th century and used to receive foriegn dignitaries. The traditional style buildings were also painted in the same fashion as palace #1.

The back cover shot for our short guide to Seoul. Tip #1: the shopping isn't as good as you were lead to believe (read on for more explanation).

The old receiving hall for foreigners. Today it is an art museum. The building above and the building below are right next to each other. Weird, huh?

A little palace-d out, and getting hungry, we set out towards one of Seoul's landmark department stores. On the way there, we saw lots of cool public art, as well as some signs from home.

A tower made of concrete and old headlights!

Subway art.

Sculpture above one of the subway station/shopping arcades. In person, you could see the activity below reflected in each of the silver spheres.

OMG! Krispy Kreme! No wonder Koreans are normal sized human beings!

After dinner and some light shopping, we called it a night and went back to the hostel to rest our weary feet and watch some high quality English television in the form of "The Girls Next Door."

Day 2 was set aside primarily for shopping, since most of the cultural landmarks were closed. We left our hotel and headed indirectly for the Dongdaemon market. We passed through an open market selling all sort of odd, supposedly edible treats. Quite a lot to take in first thing in the morning. Vats of spicy, homemade kimchi abounded, but weren't enough to mask the smell of fish. There was fresh fish and dried fish (chirimen jakko, one of my least favorite school lunch ingredients. They are served whole and impossible to remove from whatever they are mixed into, usually rice or salad) of every size imaginable!

Gross, gross, gross.

Following the detour through the open market, we found our way to a large building we thought looked like a mall, but when we entered quickly found ourselves to be the only people wandering about leisurely. The entire 7 or 8 story building, with wings A-E was full of people on a misson--designs and fabric swatches in hand. It was fabric and trimming wholesale warehouse, the likes of such I had never seen before. Slightly frustrated that we were wasting precious shopping time, we wound our way out, stopped to take a picture in front of an imposing gate (which will not post properly) and headed back across to the other side of the river where the pre-made clothes were for sale.

We were not much more successful on the pre-assembled clothing side of the river than we were in the fabric mecca. Minus my purchase of a t-shirt and a two knit hats, all we came across were hideous grandma clothes made out of synthetic fabrics. Yes, they were cheap, but who cares? We sat down to lunch tired of being on our feet and rather discouraged. Lunch--bim bim bap (hot rice bowl covered in veggies and a raw egg) was easily the best purchase of the day.

Hats, hats and more hats outside of the shop where I bought mine. Undoubtedly made in sweatshops somewhere in SW Asia.

Discouraged by the shopping, Jamie and I decided to head to Seoul Tower. We made a brief stop at a traditional Korean Village, but there weren't any nifty craft demonstrations as advertised in the brochure. We did take a nice little kyukei on a big rock to plan our next move. We could see Seoul Tower from the village, and read in Lonely Planet that we could walk from the Seoul Tower exit of one the major subway stations. So it was back on the subway, and immediately outside of the exit, the up hill climb began. We went up two smaller hills before takings two massive sets of stairs and were completely exhausted. From the Lonely Planet, we determined that we were less than 1/2 way there, so we started to evaluate our options. 1) Keep walking, being bitten by mosquitos and getting sweaty; 2) Give up; 3) Try one of the other methods of getting to the tower, a yellow bus or a taxi. As luck would have it, we sat down right across the street from the bus stop and a yellow bus pulled up within minutes. The driver was very nice as he literally drove us back to where we had come from (the village), around the hill where the tower was located, and finally up the hill. We climbed the hill for a good 10 minutes in the bus and passed several crazy people walking up. When the bus finally let us off in the parking lot, we still had about 400 yards of steep up hill road to follow to the top. It was pretty rediculous. And I don't think Lonely Planet did a sufficent job warning the reader about the severity/distance of the incline. Or maybe it was in metric, which even after a year of living in a metric country, I am not good at judging.

Anyway, the tower. We finally made it...on probably one of the most overcast days Seoul would see all month. So we decided to save the $8 or whatever it cost to go up and just look out from the outdoor observation deck at the bottom of the tower.

The tower from the approach. Probably more magestic against a blue sky.

The chain link fence around the observation deck at the bottom of the tower. Apparently, when things start to get serious among young Korean couples, they come up here and afix a lock with their names on it to the fence. This is maybe 1/10th of the fence, not even. The yellow sign says "Don't throw your key away," whatever that means in the midst of a couple thousand locks.

The "view." How much was weather and how much was smog was difficult to determine. Despite the gray, the hundreds and hundreds of massive apartment blocks and several huge huge TVs for advertising were visible.

We ventured toward the gift shop, where we bought some cute postcards. Cute postcards of a tower, you ask? Yes. There were maybe 3 awful photographic ones, and the rest of the rack was adorable cartoon versions of the tower with big smile, surrounded by cute forest animals or local elementary school student's wobbly looking crayon renderings. Adorable. We located the snack bar and spent $10, (yes, $10) on a large shaved ice, ice cream, fruit and condensed milk concoction that came in a bowl better suited for taco salad. It was huge and delicious! I don't know if I should ever spend $10 on some thing that is basically frozen water ever again, but it makes for a good story.

Preparing to indulge.

Don't remember anything too remarkable about night two. We looked for dinner and ended up back on the street we explored the first night, where Jamie bought ballet flats and some scarves. Overall though, we completely over budgeted for the trip...I returned to Japan with about $300 in won. Bad plan. The selling rate in Japan is awful. I was lucky to "give" some to Vanessa, but still have about $100 in won that would turn into about $70 if I were to exchange it here. Not sure what I will do with it.

Day 3. Morning came and we dragged our tired bodies out of the hostel. While in Seoul, we relied heavily on the subway to get us around, and it worked beautifully. It was pretty clean and safe (not quite up to Japan standards, but acceptable to anyone else's) the trains ran frequently, and cost us about $1 every time we got on and off, which seemed like such a bargain compared to Japanese public transportation (I spent $10 today getting to and from school using the train and the bus). However, taking the subway, or more specifically getting to and from the subway via stairs definitely took its toll on us. I swear we climbed millions of stairs in the short time that we were there, and were moving noticably slower on the last day there than we were on the first day.

Day 3's agenda really only had one stop, the last of the big palaces. This one you needed to be on a guided tour to gain admittance. So we showed up and bought our tickets for the English tour and hung out in the back of the group. If I had been a member of the Korean ruling class, Changdeokgung Palace would definitely be were I would have wanted to live. The main halls looked quite similar to the other palaces, but the grounds were extensive and woodsy. My favorite part though was the romatic looking library perched above a lily-pad covered pond. Beautiful. The picture below is the last picture I took in Korea, and I think it's pretty fitting.

Goofing around under a veranda.
The library.

While we were standing near the library, a muffled thundering came from the direction we had come from. We turned around to see a huge group of Korean school children barrelling towards us. Our group started moving again, but not fast enough and for the last 20 minutes of the tour we were in the middle of a sea of 6th graders. While not exactly ideal, it was a telling experience. The group was completely unorganized. The teacher in the front was jabbering away on a cell phone, kids trailed behind and beside him in groups of 3 or 4, bumping into people on our tour, playing with their Nintendo DS, and listening to their iPods. On a school trip?!?! It looked like a lot of chaos to me, and made me appreciate all of the organization and rules of Japan.

Several hours later, after a flight where Jamie's herritage thouroughly confused all the flight attendents (she was spoken to in Japanese, Korean, and what we thought was Mandarin. Dang, those Korean Air flight attendants are a smart bunch!) and mine was as clear as day (English, English and more English) we arrived safely back in the jutaku. An excellent way to spend a long weekend, but now that I've been, I can put Seoul on my been there, done that list.

There's no place like home

2008-08-31T18:24:00.005+09:00

Where to even start…maybe a little over a week in the office with very few things which actually need to be done will provide me with the just the opportunity I need to catch up. It would be really nice to start the “new year” (as far as my JET contract is concerned) up to date and all ready to chronicle the next adventure. [**That plan sort of worked. I wrote all of the text and uploaded it. I didn't add any photos or publish it until now, September 19, 2008. School started and I have been too distracted by past seasons of Project Runway to finish what I started so diligently almost a month ago.]

August 2-16, 2008 already feels like a distant memory. My time at home was such a nice, clean break from my life in Japan. The differences were immediate after stepping off the plane in San Francisco. The immigration official didn’t even bother to answer my “good morning,” and I waited almost an hour for my bag to appear on the conveyor belt. Once I had my bag, customs went quickly, until I rounded the corner to re-check my bag to Phoenix. There was a Disneyland-esque line snaking in front of the four open check stands. The line took another hour, preventing me from catching my scheduled flight. The whole time, the baggage handlers yelled across the crowd and stood around idly. Welcome home!!

The gorgeous Sonoran desert, home sweet home.

Phoenix looked almost exactly as I left it. Riding home from the airport, I felt like I had just woken up from a strange Rip Van Winkle nap, rather than actually having spent a whole year in a foreign country. The presents in my bag assured me that I was indeed conscious and living in Japan for a year. Phew.

Things got off to a good start with a late lunch at Chipotle. I didn’t eat nearly enough tortillas while I was home. Jet lag hit hard my first night, and I was passed out on the couch at 7:30 PM. I moved to my bed and slept for 14 hours. The next night, I fell asleep a little bit later, but woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep. Just when I was getting used to Arizona time, we left for my cousin’s wedding in New Hampshire.

Friends and family aside, the three best things about going home:

1) Clear blue pool to swim in.

2) Huge fridge full of food that I didn't have to buy. (Really, what kind of nerd takes a picture of a fridge?)

3) La comida de Mexico!

The wedding and New Hampshire were both really lovely. It was the first time in about 10 years that almost all of my mom’s side of the family was together. And the cake was delicious.
New Hampshire was much the same as when we were last there, sometime when I was in high school. The weather cooperated for the most part, and we did some nice hikes, stargazed, ate homemade ice cream and scrumptious pancakes, and enjoyed all of the greenery. Everyone was feeling nostalgic and talks of a reunion every 5 years or so are in the works. Count me in.

ハイキング！

My family cleans up pretty well, don't you think?

チョウ　カワイイ　church where my cousin got married.

The beautiful bride, Anna and her husband, Mike. Congradulations!!!

Andrew and I reliving the old times on Trot-Trot. We used to fit a bit better than we do now.

Back to AZ. Less than a week to go shopping in stores with sizes to accommodate curvy persons, eat all the food I missed with all the people I missed and swim in the pool. That may not sound like a whole lot, but I was really busy. Linda came to see me, and we spent quality time scouring the sale racks of our favorite bargain haunts, Target and Old Navy, and working on our tans. Before I knew it, I was crying at the airport on the morning of the 16th. I wouldn’t get back to Japan until 8 PM on the 17th, and I was not looking forward to the trip. Once again, SFO proved to be a problem, and I spent an additional two hours there waiting for the plane to take off.

Linda and I conquer hiking in the desert in August and the self timer on my new camera. Is there anything we can't do? I think not.

Initially, I was not too excited to be back in Japan. But since Monday [8/18], I have mostly recovered from my jet lag, eaten Naoko-sensei food, and experienced some of the outstanding customer service that I missed so much while at home in the States. I have also mapped out my vacation days, and the weather has been eerily nice the last two days. I think these are all good signs, which confirm my initial reaction about being back: the weirdest thing was how not weird it felt to be here.

Yukata

2008-08-31T18:23:00.006+09:00

My last weekend in Japan before my trip home, I went to a festival in Omuta with Keizo and Allison. While we all wanted to see the dragon floats and mullet-ed denizens of Omuta, I think the main reason we went was to eat all of the great festival food--takoyaki (battered octopus balls), yakinikku (grilled meat on a stick), potato fry (French Fries) and kakigori (shave ice). I also wanted to wear my new yukata that I had bought with Jamie a week or two before.

Yukata, or summer kimono, are very popular during the summer festival season. Naoko-sensei, calligraphy teacher/cook extraordinare taught me how to tie the belt and Allison helped me get the bottom all even before we headed out. While it looks nice, you can only imagine how hot it gets with your legs wrapped together, mummy style. And since you have to mince your steps, not a whole lot of air flow is created when you walk. It was fun for a night, but I am quite relieved I don't have to wear something like this all the time.

The End of an Era

2008-08-31T18:21:00.002+09:00

Allison left Japan for the foreseeable future on July 28th, bringing the tremendous trio down to a dynamic duo. While Jamie and I may find new people to share our dessert and purikura passion, it will never be the same.

We needed to finish strong, so after the “Sayonara Party” for Allison and Johnathan, we went to Hagen-Daz for ice cream and ended the night with two sets of commemorative purikura. The mad skillz (multiple poses, sultry expressions, and fast draw decorating) acquired over the course of the year really help take these to a whole new level.

Baby Rice

2008-08-31T18:20:00.002+09:00

As soggy and moldy June is, it is essential to the Japanese way of life because it is when the rice is planted. After biking past fallow fields since the harvest in late October, it was nice to see little green shoots sticking out of the ground again. But they did not stay little for long! I experienced a strange sense of pride at their growth; strange because I had absolutely nothing to do with the planting.

When the rice is young, you can see the muddy paddy and standing water between the plants. The fields become tiny eco-systems, full of snails and frogs, and of course the long-legged birds that like to feed on them. At night, the frogs are audible from my apartment.

When it is sunny, the water reflects the blue sky and clouds.

Sunsets are twice as nice, mirrored in the standing water.

[Note: Before heading home at the beginning of August, there was still some space between the plants. Upon returning however, the paddies closest to my apartment are solid green, and the rice is about 6 inches higher than I remember it being last year!]

Straight Hair

2008-07-07T18:59:00.002+09:00

Hard to believe that two short weeks ago, for about 36 hours, my hair looked like this:

That's Yasu on the right, the man with the magic (a.k.a. a professional straight iron and about four times as much patience for straightening hair than I have.)

And now it's back to it's normal nest-y appearance. I think once the summer sweat fest is over, I am going back to chin length or so again. What's the point of long hair if I am never going to do anything to it except sleep on it wet and then put it up when I see the resulting mess the next morning?

News Flash!!

2008-07-07T16:59:00.003+09:00

At 5 PM on July 7th, 2008 the current temperature in Kurume is 91 degrees Farenheight. With 63% humidity, Yahoo Weather says it feels like 104 degrees Farenheight!

No wonder Allison said she felt like she was in Mexico while we were biking home.

No wonder I was a sweaty mess after teaching four classes of "actions" (stand up, sit down, walk, run, stop etc) in un-airconditioned classrooms on the 3rd floor.

It's officially hot now, and don't want anyone trying to tell me otherwise.

おたんじょうび　おめでとう　アメリカ！！

2008-07-07T15:52:00.007+09:00

Happy Birthday America!!! How 4 Americans, one New Zelander and one very out-numbered Japanese person celebrated the 4th of July.

It all started several months ago--I was over at Dave's apartment, and he was showing me the newly cleaned grill sitting un-used on his patio. We were both thinking the same thing, that it was about time for a barbecue! However, many weeks passed and it took the combined birthdays of my glorious motherland (July 4, 1776)

and the handsome Keizo (July 7, 1981) to actually make it happen.

Last Thursday I sent Dave a text message asking if had plans for the weekend, and if not, would he be interested in a 4th of July barbecue? I had also causually mentioned the barbecue to Allison and Jamie, so it's a good thing that Dave wasn't busy. We decided that after a tiring week at school, it would be better to have our little potluck on Saturday rather than Friday; and hey, with the 16 hour time difference, we would be partying right along with heartiest of the 4th of July revelers at home! I had already made tentative plans to celebrate Keizo's birthday with him on Saturday, but why not just combine the two?

Preparations got underway in my apartment Friday night, when I went out in search of ingredients for "Mocha Ooey Gooey Cake." I found most of them, although the box of chocolate cake mix was much smaller than the ones I know from home, and there was no instant chocolate pudding mix to be found. I substituted regular pudding mix and added some melted chocolate bar. These ingredients with some butter and eggs form the bottom layer of the cake. The top layer consists of cream cheese, more butter, more eggs, strong coffee and powdered sugar. These were all readily available at "Amusement Food Holes," one of the more upscale grocery stores on the main road near my apartment.

I started baking on Saturday morning after being rudely awoken at 7:45 AM by an army of landscapers. I am awake and practically out of the house by 7:45 AM on any other day of the week...WHY DID THEY COME ON A SATURDAY?? I was not a happy camper, but in retrospect it probably was for the best, as there is a lot to do to get ready for a party. I had the first layer of the cake in the pan and had blended the second layer into creamy goodness when I realized that the proportion of bottom to top was way off--nor would all of the top layer fit in my small pan without serious overflow. So I used about half of it, and the rest is sitting in my fridge, waiting for another half of a cake to cover. I haven't baked in ages, so I was a bit worried about the results, but how could so much sugar and fat taste bad? Plus, I made sure to serve it with ice cream, so that any unsavory parts could be covered up by more sugar and fat. No one complained.

Going into the oven. Unfortunately, I was too slow to capture the few moments the finished product was adorned with glowing candles.

After the cake, I started on the potato salad. Nothing too extraordinary there, just good, old American barbecue side dish. I am pretty excited to eat the leftovers this week. Then it was lunch, a trip to the 100 yen store for some decorations, and some vaccuuming. Keizo told me he was going to come over at 5; but he walked in the door at 4:30. As a result, I wasn't quite ready for him and he had to decorate for his own party. Kinda lame. But at least the party itself was a surprise!

Everyone was told to come over around 6 for delicious eating. Jamie was there, but Allison, Dave, and Dave's downstairs neighbor Murray, were all missing. Jamie left and came back, Allison returned from an afternoon of shodo, and around 7:30 Dave and Murray came over with the burgers and to rescue Keizo from the intimidating trifecta of hungry, noisy girls. Let's just say, the burgers were definitely worth the wait!

OMG! Delicious!!

After the burgers, cake and ice cream, it was time for the fireworks. When Dave went out to buy charcoal for his grill, I asked him to see if he could find some sparklers. He came back with what looked a bit like sparklers, but packed a whole lot more punch. The picture on the back of the bag showed them sticking out of an empty bottle, but we had not ventured outside prepared. Jamie stuck one in the ground and lit it. It shot up, over Keizo's car and straight towards the neighbor's window with a shower of sparks and incredibly lound BANG! at the end. We decided to move to an area with more room for the rest of the pack, which we split between the rice fields and a nearby park. As far as we know, fireworks are completely legal, hence the relative ease Dave found them, but I am still surprised no police were called to investigate.

The night ended with some hose spraying, and watching the New Zealand/South Africa rugby match in Murray's apartment. I asked Keizo what he thought of the party and my friends. His only comment was directed at Jamie and Allison, and it was "Are they always like that?"

Yes, yes they are. Happy Birthday!!

Rain, rain go away...

2008-07-07T15:51:00.012+09:00

There’s hardly any point in reading the weather report for the whole month of June. It’s pretty much guaranteed that you will get rained on everyday. Welcome to tsuyu! Hope you have a kappa (condom-like, non-breathable, rubber suit to wear while biking, which may or may not keep you dry)

With rain coming down in sheets, severely limiting visibility and flooding the roads, it may seem like a less than opportune time to rent a car and test one’s ability to drive on the opposite side of the road. Blame our soggy brains, but the usual trio of intrepid explorers thought otherwise. True, I was very reluctant at first---but two wet weekends confined in my apartment made me change my mind. There’s only so much poorly whitewashed wall and tatami mat that can be appreciated before going insane. Let’s go!! Anywhere but here…

Starting out, looks like it's going to be a wet one to me!!
Luckily, Japan as a whole and Kyushu to an even greater extent, is pretty small. A few hours drive can take you to an entirely different prefecture and offer a glimpse of a completely different way of life.

Small car for a small country with small roads.
Different Area 1: Miyazaki-ken. In a nutshell--hilly, redicuously green, rivers at full capacity and swollen waterfalls, a random hostel and delicious cuisine.

Our main destination in northern Miyazaki-ken, Takachiho Gorge. What we might have seen in nicer weather...

...and the brown sludge we actually did see. The biggest disappointment? No boat rides. Next, we drove around to get a feel for the area. We stopped for a brief snack and consulted a poorly drawn tourist map to determine the next sights on the agenda. We picked a waterfall and senic overlook called something like "Sea of the Clouds." Since it was rainy, we thought it would be pretty impressive. The waterfall turned out to be way better.

The road to the watefall trail head was narrow and wind-y. I felt like I manuevered our little car over at least 2 huge mountains in the process. We chose Justin Timberlake for the soundtrack during this portion of the adventure, and thought we were probably the first people ever to listen to his music on this particular stretch of road. Taking "internationalization" to a whole new level.

We parked in a deserted parking area and took our umbrellas along for the very soggy hike to the waterfall. Water was running down the concrete stairs and it was rather slippery. Luckily no one slipped, and the somewhat precarious trip was definitely worth it. The waterfall, which looked pretty in the brochures was swollen from all of the rain and shooting out of its crevasse with a loud roar.

Not your typical hiking look.

This picture hardly does the watefall justice. Imagine an intense roaring sound and lots of spray.The "Sea of Clouds" lookout was the next stop. It was pretty, but nothing like the photos which showed thick blankets of clouds at sunset.

Yay for the self timer on Jamie's camera.Lots of driving, and a few u-turns later, we arrived at our odd little hostel at the edge of an odd little town that was already in the middle of nowhere. The building reminded me of my summer camp counselor days. The entrance opened up into a huge common room with a long table down the middle and a basketball hoop on the wall. There was an industrial kitchen behind the front desk and two hallways leading back to the rooms. The room looked like every other Japanese style hostel room I have ever stayed in, but the bathroom was an odd configuration and had the tiniest sink I have ever seen. The lovely proprietors, recommended a local izakaya for dinner and we set out to enjoy chicken namban, the local specialty of the region. A simple description is chicken tempura. I think the plate below cost 600 yen and tasted like twice that much.

After dinner we took in a odd play at the local shrine and headed back to the hostel for an early night. I think we were all showered and in bed before 10. There's really not that much to do in the inaka.

A final view of picturesque Miyazaki-ken before we head to Oita.

Totally different area 2: Beppu, Oita-ken--touristy with tacky themed steam vents.

Stop #1. Somewhat surreal monkey mountain. We hopped on a tram that took us up into the forest. We hadn't stopped yet when we saw the first "wild" monkeys. From what I understand, these monkeys are wild in the sense that they can walk away any time they want, but when you get fed three times a day by a man with a microphone, no one is going anywhere. The monkeys are very accostumed to humans, and you can get really close to them, as Jamie demonstrates below.

When it was feeding time, the monkeys came out of the forest in a disgusting rat-like surge, screaming and running all over one another and some small children that stood too close. It was a little disturbing in my opinion. The babies were incredibly cute though!!

Monkeys weren't the only animals we saw in Beppu. In the heart of the city are the famous "Hells" or natural steam vents that draw people from all over Japan to soak in their warm fabulousness. Since every steaming pond looks pretty much the same, enterprising people have added themes to a bunch of them, and for a special price, you can buy a booklet of tickets that admits you to each of them. We started out at the Umi Jigoku (Sea Hell) which had a lovely turquoise color and a quaint basket for boiling eggs sticking in it. While some hot springs are acutally this color, Lonely Planet informs me that the Sea Hell is dyed.

There were some mud spurting hells...

...and the graphically named Chi-no-ike Jigoku (Blood Pool Hell).

Even more shameful than dyeing the water were the "hells" which claimed the steamy temperatures were ideal for breeding exotic animals. It was really unfortunate to see very large animals like a hippo and an elephant in impossibly small quarters, but at the same time, I don't know when I will get to feed them again. That was kind of fun and really disgusting at the same time.

Hungry, hungry, hippo for real.

At the completely rediculous Oni-yama Jigoku (Devil's Mountain Hell) only trained professionals (i.e. a local high schooler earning minimum wage) were allowed to feed the animals, which were a variety of sullen looking crocodiles, caiman and alligators. The kid who feed them clearly loved his job and putting on a show, dangling raw chicken over a pool full of about 30 huge animals, causing them to climb on top of one another and smash into the concrete walls to get at a piece of the action. I could hardly watch the whole thing, convinced that he was going to lose an arm in the process.
We also made a brief stop at the Sex Museum, which was...an experience. The whole building was lit in soft pink light, and various dioramas and the porn theater made for an interesting soundtrack. The first floor was dedicated to small ceramic figurines in various positions, a large collection of wooden dildoes, and a section with life size replicas of large mammal genitalia. Upstairs was a collection of erotic prints with all of the crotches blurred out. If you are in Beppu and want to experience something other than the onsens, stop by. Do not however, make a special trip.

Thus concluded our brief weekend adventure that took us to two completely different areas of Kyushu via a completely different mode of transportation than we are used to. While we were in possesion of our little car with its fancy navigation system, we felt so adult and free!! Bad weather? Dark out? No problem!! We can conquer it all. As soon as we returned it to the rental place (conveniently within walking distance of the jutaku) we were reduced back to our normal, less glamourous and at times severely limited, bicycle riding selves. Sigh.

What am I [still] doing here?

2008-06-13T16:38:00.003+09:00

As I approach month 11 in this crazy place called Japan, I find myself wondering "what am I doing here?" quite often. Like today, when I was riding my bike home, and a little old lady opened her front door to toss out the mop water and hit the front of my bike square on. I only got a few splashes myself, and was really too shocked to be the least bit angry. It was like a scene from a period drama from a previous century. Really, how many of you can say that has happened to you?

Or yesterday, when I was talking to the lovely Araki Junior High office lady, and she asked me if the steering wheels in American cars were set up differently from Japanese cars. Which side was the blinker on? What about the wiper control? I couldn't for the life of me remember. Yeah...I've been here that long.

Even if these moments happen a bit more often now that they did a few months ago, they are as always, tempered by entertaining moments, many of them involving my students (which is the best answer I can come up with at the moment to the above quandry.)

A few weeks ago, I taught 6th grade at an elementary school. I had taught these students before as 5th graders, and I asked if they remembered my name. They knew I wasn't Allison, and someone threw out "Johnathan" too before I wrote a "W" on the board followed by four blanks to jog their memories. Someone eventually remembered, but not before one kid shouted out "Wario!!" Yes, I am Wario. My go-kart is parked out front, and I shaved off the mustache before class.

At the same school, in a different class, I was giving out stickers to the students who volunteered their answers to a worksheet we did about the weather. At the end of class, a very persistant boy came up to me asking for more stickers in Japanese. I told him if he could say it in English, I would give him one. He couldn't figure it out, but he did call me beautiful, showed me that his eyebrows had been shaved off (?) and after a hint from a friend, said that I was "charming." Even my junior high boys haven't used that word yet! Alas, by this time there was a large crowd and I didn't want to give just him a sticker because then everyone else would want one too. I'm mean, I know.

Last week, I was as Tachiarai Junior High School, and the 8th graders were practicing the phrase "There is/There are" and simple prepositions (near, by, on, under etc) Their activity was to draw their ideal bedroom. Then they each picked one thing from their room to tell me, and I drew it on the board. There were some amazing things in the rooms to be sure...but the most unusual were a soundproof chamber, a 7-11, and a baseball stadium. Last Friday, I was scheduled at elementary school, and the lesson plan fax just said "Where is _____?" so I thought I would try and repeat the activity. In hindsight, it was rather ambitious of me, considering the 8th graders weren't even comfortable making the sentences. So after the first class, I dropped the sentence aspect and taught some furniture vocabulary and just let the 5th graders go for it. I liked their rooms even better than the 8th graders'. On the worksheet, I had drawn a rectangular room with one door and three windows. Most students stayed within these boundaries, but at least one added stairs to an upper and lower level, and a few added more windows. I was really impressed with the number who made toilets and shower rooms! I had sort of intended for those to be down the hall, but kudos for the kids being prepared. In my example, I drew an indoor pool and an ice cream stand in my ideal room, so there were many others with those features. I wasn't prepared for the dozens of room sized aquariums though, and the boats needed to get to from the door to the bed. Several girls drew large closets, one girl had a tree which grew every kind of fruit you could want, there was one bowling alley and a boy added a Shinkansen track. So much fun!

This week at junior high, my students lack of English knowledge actually came in handy. In 8th grade we filled a few minutes at the end of class with some Hangman. I had just won a round with the word "cloudy," and wrote up the blanks for the next word. Many times, the first three letters guessed are "s" "e" and "x" and if I am not paying attention, I will inadvertantly write "sex" on the board much to the delight of the boys in the class. Thankfully, this appears to be the only raunchy word they know, or at least know how to spell. My second word was "passport," straight out of the textbook, and after the normal first three letters were guessed, the next one was "a." Only the teacher and I seemed to notice what was on the board. It did seem to take an eternity for them to guess the other letters correctly though.

Today, I got to teach "vegetables" to 2nd grade elementary students. This is only the 3rd time since the beginning of the new school year in April that I've taught a class under 5th grade. I've missed the little ones!! While the lesson was pretty standard--introducing vocabulary, making them repeat, repeat, repeat and then playing some games; lunch was more memorable. First, I'd barely peeled the the seal off of my milk bottle when this crazy boy ran up to show me his empty bowls, and then proceeded to demonstrate how he ate so fast. Gross. The teeny boy I was sitting next to is a little behind the rest of the class, but soooooo adorable. He continually wanted to line up our milk bottles to see who had drunk more, and towards the end, insisted that we link arms and finish our lunches this way. I am not sure he would have suggested it had he been the one sitting on the left. Conveniently, his right arm was free to weild his chopsticks, while mine was now pulled down by his shorter height and trapped next to his body by his left arm. Luckily, I only had my rice left, and managed alright. If I had needed to eat my miso soup though, it would have been a disaster.

私はスポーツファンです。

2008-06-09T16:42:00.006+09:00

I spent the weekend of May 31/June 1 braving the sun's harmful rays to support my favorite athletes--Keizo, my cute, professional rugby playing arm candy; and my cute, semi--uncoordinated Araki Junior High School students.

On Saturday, Jamie accompanied me on the trek to "Gurobaru Arina" to watch the Fukuoka Sanix Blues rugby team take on a team called the Liners. The train took an hour and a half, and the taxi to the arena took another 20 minutes and cost more than the train (at least one way.) How can the Blues have any fans when the stadium is so far out in the middle of nowhere, I wondered? The answer is, they don't really. The crowd consisted entirely of the players wives, their adorable children, aspiring junior high school rugby players, and two gaijin with nothing better to do than watch men in short shorts crash into each other on a glorious Saturday afternoon.

I had seen parts of a few rugby games in college, but can't say I ever really paid attention to what was going on. So before heading to the game, I watched Video Jug's (www.videojug.org) "The Armchair Fan's Guide to Rugby" to brush up, I mean learn for the first time, the basics of the game. Rugby is sort of like American football, with smaller players and way less padding. The scoring is pretty similar (5 points for a "touchdown," a chance to get 2 extra points after scoring, and 3 points for a "field goal" during regular play. The video said this is really hard to do, and after watching the game, it seems like being able to walk off the field at the end is somewhat of a miracle in and of itself.)

In action! The Blues were actually wearing yellow, since the other team had the same colors I guess. Keizo is the yellow person on the far right. He played very well, scoring the first points of the game!!

When all was said and done they lined up for their uber-Japanese bow. The Blues emerged victorious 56-24. Keizo has just spotted me in the stands and is sticking his tongue out above, but I don't know if you can see it--he's near the middle of the line.

Sunday's athletic event was of an entirely different nature. While the rugby game was a "short" (only when you are watching, I'm sure) 80 minutes long, Araki's "Sports Day" lasted close to 7 hours. The reader might recall a very early post about Kurume High School's Sports Day in September. Same idea, but a little different. In fact, when I mentioned how excited I was to see my first Araki Sports Day to my teachers, they asked if I had any idea what to expect. I told them about watching Kurume High School's, and they all kind of shook their heads, and told me not to expect too much from the junior high students. Everyone also wanted to know if we had "Sports Day" in the U.S. I had to say "no" and a few times tried to explain the number of lawsuits that would come about as the result of forced physical fitness in the hot sun.

The day began around 9 AM with a parade around the "field." The band lead the way, followed by the student council and each of the "blocks." At Araki, there are 4 classes in each of the 3 grades. For Sports Day and Culture Day, all the class 1's (7th, 8th and 9th grade) combine to form the yellow block, the class 2's form the blue block, class 3 is green and class 4 is red. On Sports Day in particular, it's a fight to the death to win events and points for your team. Four 9th grade boys are chosen by their peers to be "block leaders." They are popular, athletic and tend to be somewhat noisy in class. But it's nice to see them excell elsewhere, right?

The beautiful band girls (there are two, maybe three boys in there too.)

After the parade, the first event was the 7th grade relay. Here are the boys lined up for stage one: balancing a rugby ball on a platform while running around 1/4 of the track. Look how tiny the ones in the front are!! I've only taught two classes to each class, so most of their names are a huge mystery to me. I want to call the one second from the left Harry Potter though because he has glasses.

The girls rounding out the last leg of the relay with a "mukare" (centipede) race. Their ankles are all tied together. Surprisingly no one fell over.

Why the radio-led stretching happened after the first races of the day, I am not sure. I was the only teacher not participating though. I spent the whole week prior to Sports Day at my other junior high school so I wasn't around to practice with them. Hopefully next year's schedule will work out better. Note the principal's nicely neutral white jogging outfit. Hehe. I also wore a white shirt and some jeans, trying not to be prejudiced to one block or another (although I was a little disappointed that the yellow block didn't do better.)

Next item on the agenda, bamboo climbing!!

Now it's the 9th graders turn for the relay. Mako, Akiko and Rika all lined up and ready to go. I don't remember who was representing the yellow block because Tsutsumi-sensei had an unfortunate habit of getting in front of a lot of my pictures.

And the boys' leg of the race, pulling each other on tires.

Pyramid building. I don't know what this portion of the event is called, but it involves only the boys, and it demonstrates their team spirit. Unfortunately, after stacking themselves all up, the yellow block dropped their banner in the unfurling process. You can see it on the ground below. You can't see the enraged block leader on top of the adjacent pyramid though...whoops.

More boys activities. Weird cordinated areobics.

The girls program--dancing!! Unfortunately my camera died mid-way. (I really need a new camera, mine has no battery life anymore and the right side of the screen is going black. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated :-P)
And finally, one of the last events of the day was the "demonstration relay" (for a lack of a better name.) All the students put on their club uniforms and lined up. Not surprisingly the track team won, but I thought the kendo team (far right) was unfairly burdened because they had to wear their full uniforms, including long, wide pants and heavy breastplate as well as use their kendo sticks as the baton. So not surprisingly, they came in last.

In the end, the green block won. We then put away all the supplies and took down the shade tents. I went home and took a much needed shower before meeting the triumphant teachers for an enkai. The enkai was shorter than usual though because they were all exhausted from the weeks of practice. They also had Monday and Tuesday off for all their hard work, but yours truly had to go to work.

Yay for スポーツ！！！

Case of the Mondays

2008-06-09T16:17:00.003+09:00

My alarm didn't go off this morning.

I got stuck behind slow old ladies at both the train ticket machine and the grocery store, making me almost late for two trains.

I bought the wrong ticket, then thought I lost it in transit.

I have blister on the bottom of my right big toe from playing a rather sweaty, thirty minute game of soccer with the 5th graders today.

Discovered a complete lack of decent snacks in my apartment.

Thankfully, none of these things are really the end of the world. I made both trains, playing soccer was a lot of fun, and I have to go to the grocery store later anyway if I plan on eating anything for dinner.

Speaking of food...I found this in one of the annoying free magazines that get shoved into my mailbox:

Of course the Japanese have the perfect (albeit inverted) food pyramid. For a while I have been saying that the USDA food pyramid should have a moat around it symbolizing all the water you are supposed to drink. Not only have the Japanese added a large glass of water on top, they have also incorporated the exercise component of a heathly lifestyle with a running person on top of their "Nutrition Cone" (which you may notice has no "Oils/Fats/Sweets" section...sneaky). I am not sure a country with so much soft cream and caffinated small children should be allowed to exclude that section on the food pyramid, but then again, Japan is all about appearances.

Need a custom paintball jersey?

2008-05-26T18:01:00.003+09:00

Go here:

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=2662656

Not in the market for a jersey? Maybe you'd like a t-shirt instead:

http://www.tropicalts.com/

Technology is great, allowing me to shamelessly promote my precocious younger sibling from thousands of miles away.

Keep up the nice work, lil' brother.

Okinawa ABCs (M-Z)

2008-05-10T12:13:00.009+09:00

Mellow margarine
From the moment we stepped off of the plane, Okinawa was noticeably more laid-back and casual than the rest of Japan. Men were wearing aloha shirts instead of suits and Crocs seemed to be the footwear of choice for everyone (bonus points if the whole family was wearing the same color.) Even the condiments weren’t as serious.

Not so good beer
After a long day in the hot sun, what would be better than a nice cold beer? Not much, which is why the sub-sub-par quality of “Orion” was such a complete disappointment. Take the cheapest, weakest beer you can think of and add water following a 1-1 ratio. Now put it in a can with some stars on it, and you have “Orion.” On the bright side, it made the other Japanese beers which are normally just so-so (Asahi, Kirrin Light) taste practically gourmet.

The picture makes it look a lot better than it was thanks to the juicy, American-sized, blue cheese burger. A cheese other than the Japanese equivalent of Kraft singles? Heaven on earth! [Side note: My Japanese skills are improving and I can read some food labels, although maybe I don’t really want to know. I recently discovered that Japanese cheese comes in two types: hot for melting, and cold for cold sandwiches or serving with crackers. Does anyone else find this a little disturbing? Shouldn’t one cheese be able to do both?]

Okinawan soba
Maybe initially, hot noodle soup isn’t exactly the most appetizing meal on a warm day. But there’s a reason why it’s famous, and that would be because it is good. Instead of the thin, buckwheat noodles commonly called soba, Okinawa soba uses thicker, almost udon-like, white noodles. The noodles aren’t as starchy as udon though. Served in broth with some fish cake (better than it sounds, I promise) and a slice of sweet, marinated pork (with lots of fat) and some pickled ginger, it makes an excellent lunch or dinner. Perhaps the real reason I liked it was that I always had room for some beni-imo soft cream afterwards.

Purikura In an uncharacteristically slow Jamie, Allison, and Wendy fashion, it took us a whole day to find a purikura machine in Okinawa. Once we found one though, we found a whole “purikura house” and got to try out several machines, including a special Okinawa version that had Okinawa themed backgrounds and stamps. Fabulous!!

Quiet garden
On our last day in Okinawa, we took our time getting ready in the morning and checked out of our hostel, stashing our bags in a locker at the monorail station. We had some delicious breakfast sets at an Italian café (and the best part, soooooo cheap! Mine was 450 yen.) Then we said good-bye to Kokusai-dori and headed towards the Fukushu-en Chinese Garden. The garden was free, unless you wanted to feed the fish, and was a beautiful, relaxing spot to spend part of our last day of vacation.
Rope van
We saw this as we were waiting for the ferry to take us to Tokashiki Island for the day. Where does the driver sit?

Shisa
You can read all about the guardian dog/lions of the Ryukus here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shisa

You can look at the different varieties here:

In front of a house.

Many mini ones for sale along Kokusai-dori.

Recycyled roof tile shisa.
Tiny bathroom guardian shisa. It did its job; this was one of the cleanest public restrooms of the trip!

And, last but not least, Mexican luchador shisa!

Ta-ko-ra-i-su
Another “Okinawan” tradition that I took advantage of 3 of the 5 days I was there. Taco rice is basically ground beef seasoned with taco seasoning, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese topped with salsa served on top of a plate of rice. It tasted amazing, probably because it was so different from anything I have eaten in the last 9 months. I now have a use for the taco seasoning my mommy kindly sends me. Mmmmmmmm.

Umi
Technically, umi means ocean, which we saw a lot of, but this part is going to be more about the beach. Beach was a requirement for Allison and me when we set out to plan our Golden Week vacation. Initially, we wanted to go to Thailand, but when the cost of airplane tickets more than doubled overnight, we had to set our sights a little closer to Fukuoka. Okinawa turned out to be a pretty good place to be, and we got in 2.25 beach days.

Our best beach day was the one we spent on Tokashiki Island. The beach there had lovely, clear turquoise waters and white sand.

The second beach we went to was Emerald Beach (see “E”) which wasn’t exactly ideal, but way better than anything we have in Kurume (ha ha, nothing!) The last “beach” we went to can hardly be called such, and we didn’t even touch the sand for fear of disease.

Naminoue Beach is right in Naha city, and is little more than some sand dumped at the edge of the water below a highway overpass. Like Emerald Beach, the whole place was roped off with blue buoys, and the water inside of them looked a bit stagnant. We perched ourselves on a concrete wall to people watch instead and were treated to some highly entertaining “shows.” Off to our left, was a group of two guys who resourcefully used an empty chip bag to bring water up to their sand castle, which they built almost entirely with their feet. It also didn’t change shape or appear to get any bigger in the 30 we were watching, even though they worked on it the whole time. In front of us on the right were 6 guys who succeed in burying one of their friends so deep that he couldn’t get out without help. Later, a different group of guys about the same age (junior high or so) showed up in their baggy shorts and tight Under Armor shirts and not so subtly proceeded to check out the girls in the water. And the best performance of the day award goes to a “metabolic” (that’s how the Japanese refer to you if you are fat) boy who conducted solo synchronized swimming routines in the water, complete with dramatic hand gestures and splashes. When he tired himself out, we decided it was time to pack up, grab some lunch and head to the airport with all of the other tourists who chose Okinawa as their ideal vacation spot for Golden Week.

Vending machines
It makes sense that Okinawa would have even more vending machines than the rest of Japan because it is hot and sunny most of the year. Even so, isn’t this a bit of over kill?
Okinawa is probably the only place with protected vending machines.

Whale shark

(See "A" if you need more of an explanation.)

X-rated displays

[Allison has these pictures, and she is currently on another vacation]

Okinawans were a horny bunch. Or at least a lot more comfortable with the facts of life than the rest of Japan. In the carbon copy tourist shops along Kokusai-dori, there was a plethora of Okinawa themed condoms in various flavors; and the aquarium seemed to take a special pleasure in discussing every part in the life cycle of a sea organism. The tickets, which featured one of the whale sharks in cartoon form, had a rather detailed drawing of the whale's underside.

At the sea turtle pool, the ramp leading to the underwater viewing windows had been stenciled with the life cycle of a sea turtle. They started out very small and cute on the beach and made their way to the ocean where they grew larger and started humping.

The "Shark Lab" as it was called, also had a detailed display about shark reproductive practices. I actually did learn something though: there are two methods by which sharks can reproduce. One kind produces the egg sacks that you can sometimes see on the beach; while the other type has a womb where 6 or so babies are produced. The strongest two eat the rest. Talk about indigestion.

Yui Rail
Yui Rail is the official name of the monorail that runs through Naha from the airport to the castle. We rode it a few times; it was faster than the bus and provided nice vistas of the city. Our hostel was about a 3 minute walk, plus a 1 minute of stair climb from one of the stations.

Zamami
The island we didn’t get to go to. All of the boats were booked because it was Golden Week. The lady behind the counter brightly told us that there were openings on Monday to get out to the island, but no return boats. Kind of a problem for people leaving on Tuesday.

Okinawa ABC's (A-L)

2008-05-09T21:05:00.007+09:00

Aquarium
“Come see the world’s best and many world firsts!” is the claim on the front of the English language brochure handed out at Okinawa’s Churaumi Aquarium. Thanks for the sound bite, but we had already made the 3 hour trek from Naha (see “L”) by the time we received the pamphlets and weren’t about to get back on the stuffy bus without seeing all the aquarium had to offer. The pamphlet could have said pretty much anything and we would have gone.

The main attraction at the Okinawa Aquarium is one of the largest fish tanks in the world, which is wrapped in “the world’s best” acrylic panel (22.5 meters wide, 8.2 meters high and 60 cm thick). It was even featured on the Discovery Channel. For all of its claims to fame, it was quite impressive. Inside the tank were 2 (or was it 3?) whale sharks, the largest in captivity, dozens of smaller sharks and manta rays, all swimming around peacefully while hundreds, if not thousands of Japanese tourists (and the random gaijin like myself) snapped pictures with digital cameras and cell phones. Cleaning time!

In addition to the large tank, there were many smaller tanks and displays very similar to the exhibits at every other aquarium. The touch pool was so crowded with small children that it was impossible to get close enough to touch any of the poor organisms inside. One smart starfish with an uncanny resemblance to Patrick of the Spongebob fame, had lodged himself in between the rocks out of everyone’s reach.

Beni-imo soft cream
So good I ate it all 5 days; Jamie, Allison and I became regulars at the Blue Seal ice cream shop on Kokusai-dori. The purple sweet potato flavor went perfectly with vanilla; memories of the sublime combination continue to haunt me. Upon returning to my apartment, I thought the linoleum in my kitchen kind of looked like a beni-imo ba-ni-ra mikusu cone.

I should know by now that pictures of me stuffing my face are bound to be unflattering.

Castle
Shuri-jo castle in Naha is an impressive labyrinth of big stone walls broken up by even larger gates. The castle itself isn’t too large, but what it lacks in size it makes up for by being painted a bright red.

Dragon Boats
Every year in early May, Naha hosts Dragon Boat races. I am not too up on the history of the event, but we were lucky enough to catch the last race while we were there. Three boats full of strong armed men line up and then must paddle quickly out to a flag, turn around and come back again. We watched the blue, black and yellow teams (their official names, I am sure). The blue boat started off with a bang (probably because they were the only team who could hear the pitifully quiet starter’s gun,) but were a bit too powerful, overshooting the flag and having a difficult time turning around. The black team paced themselves better, and had their turning technique down pat, which allowed them to finish first. The poor yellow team was a bit out to sea the whole time.

Emerald Beach
A short walk from the Aquarium is Emerald Beach. The name and the pictures in the brochures had us expecting a glorious stretch of white sand and turquoise-green waters. Alas when we got there, we only found a weird shaped (most likely man-made) peninsula, covered with small children, speakers blaring one of the worst beach soundtracks ever (think uncensored Eminem and Avirl Lavigne) and a ring of blue buoys around the whole thing, severely limiting the inflow of fresh sea water. But the sun was shining, and after the 3 hour bus ride we weren’t about to pass up a beach opportunity.

Farmer’s tan
Allison is genetically blessed and tans almost instantly without burning. Jamie and I were a little more worried about the harmful effects the sun’s rays would have on our skin and took care to apply lots of sun block. The sun screen did its job…sort of. Most parts of our bodies hardly changed color at all (still pasty!) but our hands and forearms are now noticeably browner. Not really sure this is an improvement, since the disparity will just continue to worsen as it gets warmer and we ride our bikes around.

Goya Galore
One of Okinawa’s claims to fame is an odd looking fruit called a goya (or bitter melon in English.) As the English name suggests, it is incredibly bitter. I like it in small doses. One day for lunch I ordered a set that came with goya champaru, and had to leave some behind on my plate because it was a little too much. Much better than the fruit itself are all the goya-themed products it has spawned—plush toys, t-shirts, fans, public benches…

That's Mr. Goya on the left, with his Okinawan friends Ms. Pineapple and Mr. Beni-imo.

It's hard to read, but the naked Kewpie is saying "Okinawa is too hot!" and has stepped out of her goya outfit.

The coolest way to keep cool.

Hibiscus
What can I say? They were everywhere. And I took pictures of a lot of them as if I had never seen such a thing before (not true.) Flowers do make such great subjects though.

Ick
Remember my very first blog post? The one about the snake in a bottle I found while cleaning my apartment after I moved in? Well, now I know were to get more, should I so desire. And much bigger ones too (for the bargain price of almost $700)!!

Another food specialty of Okinawa is pork, and when they say pork, they really mean the whole entire pig. Face, feet and everything in between. We saw it all at the open market. Mmmm mmmm good.

Jacks
I think Japan has maybe one or two rivers that still run wild with out dams or concrete channels, and I think there are an equal number of beaches without massive concrete jacks placed along the shoreline or out in the water a bit to prevent erosion. On the 3 hour bus ride to the aquarium and back (see “L”) we drove past some dock yards where they were made in giant molds. Seeing them really makes me think about scale (so much concrete, and they’re all over Japan) and the impact humans have on the environment.

Kakigori
Overall, Okinawa felt much more like Hawaii than it felt like a part of Japan. But, if they really hope to become the true Hawaii of Japan (maybe that’s not their goal, what do I know) they really need to improve the quality of their kakigori (shave ice.) All of the kakigori I saw and ate was the crunchy state fair variety, a far cry from the soft powdery versions from Waiola or Matsumoto’s shave ice on Oahu. And while I don’t need an overwhelming number of flavors to choose from, I would appreciate a few more than “strawberry” and “remon.” Jamie ran into another problem with the Okinawan variety. At home in Hawaii, she is used to being able to order her shave ice with ice cream on the bottom. In Okinawa, this is not a standard menu item. After giving a detailed explanation of what she wanted, she was usually able to get what she asked for, except that instead of being inside the mound of ice, the ice cream was left on top, making the whole thing very messy.

Long bus ride
Since we didn’t rent a car and were not part of a tour group, the only way for us to get from our hostel in Naha to the Aquarium north of Nago was to take a bus—a city bus, and then transfer to the direct bus at the Nago Bus Terminal. We boarded the city bus rather early in the morning with a bunch of old people. Luckily, we got on at only the second stop and had seats for the interminable trip towards Nago. Being a local city bus, it stopped many times…the board at the front of the bus displaying the fares was almost full by the time we reached Nago. Having boarded early on in the route, we racked up quite the fare as well--almost 2000 yen (not quite $20), but when we reached the front, we could only pay in coins!! We disembarked at the bustling Nago terminal, and were disappointed to find…nothing. Because we had left rather early, we were planning on grabbing some breakfast at a coffee shop or bakery at the Nago Bus Terminal; the name at least makes is sound important enough to contain all the amenities I have come to associate with public transportation hubs. A bit hungry, we crammed onto the express bus to the Aquarium, which thankfully didn’t stop until it reached the Aquarium’s parking lot. We disembarked, thankful for the fresh air after the 3 hour bus adventure, and went straight to the closest snack stand which sold nutritious breakfast items like corn dogs and iced coffee.

3 days!

2008-04-29T11:48:00.000+09:00

And I will be here:

Sakura, sakura, sakura!

2008-04-18T21:20:00.004+09:00

Japan is world renowned for the beauty of its blooming cherry trees (sakura). Something would definitely be missing if I didn’t include a post about them in my blog. While I didn’t attend any official hanami, or flower viewing parties, the usual threesome of Jamie, Allison and I did our best to take advantage of the season with long lunches in the parking lot of the Board of Education, as well as a whole afternoon spent biking to three different parks to view the trees in all of their glory. Picture-wise, nothing else too exciting has happened this month. In the folder April 2008, there is nothing but pictures of cherry blossoms.

One of the long lunches. Looking good while looking at the trees.

Kirei deshoo?

Park #1

Park #2. Beautiful, minus the troll hiding behind the tree.

Park #3. The lovely Narita-san.

Other “Kindy” Adventures

2008-04-18T21:19:00.004+09:00

Kim and I returned to Kurume late on Thursday night, leaving her with three more days to go in her Japan adventure. We started out kind of slowly on Friday, taking the train to Dazaifu in the afternoon. We enjoyed soft cream (sakura for me, wasabi for brave Kim) and manju along the road with all the shops; Kim bought some more presents to take home and I purchased a spring scarf. Friday night, we had a special appointment with my calligraphy teacher, Naoko-sensei to come over for a lesson and dinner with her and her husband. Kim got to try her hand at shuji, and I got some good pointers on improving my technique for the monthly test. Dinner was as always, delicious. We had cabbage rolls and the usual assortment of yummy sides all washed down with root beer floats left over from last week’s pot luck. A very enjoyable evening, and a good chance to experience something different from what most people do during their trips to Japan. Friday night was also our chance to catch up on season 4 of LOST, watching six episodes back to back, just the way I like them, into the wee hours of the morning.

The characters don't look that hard, but...

Saturday was spent enjoying local offerings such as West Coast, Daruma restaurant and strawberry picking. Since we had stayed up so late the night before, Kim and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to comb the racks at West Coast, but it was a still a good way to start the day. After, Jamie and Allison joined us on the bus downtown for a lunch of okonomiyaki at Daruma before boarding the local train out into the strawberry fields for an hour of fruit eating frenzy. I vaguely remember picking strawberries with my family when I was younger, and most of that memory is of baby Andrew, sitting under an umbrella, making a mess. This reminded me not to wear white. I vaguely remember having to crouch or sit in the dirt between the rows of plants and searching for the tasty fruits, and was expecting a similar experience here.

Mmmmmm. Lunch time!! Okonomiyaki (egg pancake with cabbage and pork,) Hiroshima style with noodles inside. Delicious!

After walking a good distance from the station, we arrived at “Berry House,” a strawberry tabehodai operation located in a large, peaked-roof green house. We paid our 1150 yen, received small plastic bags for the stems and watched a brief picking demonstration before heading out on our own into the rows of ingeniously arranged plants. No crouching on the ground here. The plants were grown on “shelves” that had mesh “counters” hanging off of them, which made the strawberries ridiculously easy to find and pluck from the vine. So easy in fact, that after a mad 20 minutes of eating, we all had to take a break and wash the strawberries down with some water. After a good rest, we were ready to head out again, this time each of us armed with our complimentary cup of sweetened condensed milk to dip the strawberries in. The addition of a new flavor made it much easier to eat more. When our hour was up, we wiped the stickyness from our hands and slowly waddled back to the train station (in the most round about manner.) Uff! After the strawberry indulgence, everyone was a bit out of commission for the evening. Kim and I planned out our day in Fukuoka and went to bed.

Welcome to "Be-ri--Ha-u-su!"

Rows and rows of easily accessible ichigo for the picking (and eating!)

Enjoying the fruits of our (very marginal) labor.

Sunday dawned grey and rainy…a perfect day for shopping and art viewing in Fukuoka! We took an early-ish train and arrived just as things were opening. Our first stop of the day was the “Pieces of Peace” exhibit, a traveling exhibit of World Heritage sites built out of Lego. Very cool. Some of them I’d even been to, like Kinkakuji, Itsukajima??? Shrine in Hiroshima, but most of them I have just seen in pictures, or now, as Lego replicas. All of the “pieces” (ha ha) were very well done. There were even Legos you could play with, so Kim and I sat at the wee child sized tables and constructed some things to leave our mark.

Exhibit from above. I really liked the posters for it.

Recognize this? It's Kinkakuji in Kyoto.

I really hope you know what this is.

Next we started shopping with a stop at Spinns, where I bought two used dresses and started a point card. If I spend $500 at Spinns in the next 18 months, I will get a whopping $30 off! At orientation, veteran JETs recommended collecting point cards from everywhere—they were your tickets to saving money. Yeah right! I have yet to have one pay off. After Spinns, we walked across the street to Solaria Plaza, started at the top of the building and worked our way down. We stopped for lunch at a very popular doria café, steaming rice covered with sauce and your choice of toppings was an excellent pick-me up on a rainy day. After lunch we finished our tour of Solaria Plaza, went to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, searched unsuccessfully for a shichirin, or table top grill for Kim’s mom and ended our day at Loft, department store extraordinaire, where two of its seven floors are dedicated entirely to stationary, photo albums and desk supplies. (Although it was not something we wrote on our roommate housing forms five years ago, a fondness for pens, colored paperclips and the like is just one of many things Kim and I have in common.) I was thinking Loft would take about 40 minutes, allowing us to catch the train back to Kurume and meet Jamie for dinner at the ramen shop down the street from my apartment. Loft took about twice that long, (Kim and I are also unable to make decisions, another common trait) and we didn’t eat dinner until almost 9. But on the bright side, we worked up quite the appetite, and for the first time ever, I didn’t feel overly full upon leaving Tatsunoya.

Monday morning, I took Kim to the train station and put her on the bus for the airport. After seeing her off, I went home, changed and headed into the office for the rest of the day, thus concluding the first week of spring break and my vacation time. The second week was much less remarkable, or at least seems that way since most of it was spent in a food coma. When we are in the office, we eat lunch out everyday, and there were various functions that prevented me from eating dinner at home in my apartment until the next Saturday!

“Kindy” Does Kyoto—Parts II & III

2008-04-18T21:18:00.010+09:00

This post is very long. When I realized how long it was going to be, I thought maybe I could break it up, but since the draft had been saved for a while, and I have posted since, it would have been all out of order. ごめん。

Day 2

With many places to visit on our itinerary, we started early-ish and grabbed breakfast at a café on a corner with many other tourists. Places that serve breakfast in Japan are few and far between, limited mostly to fancy hotels and coffee shops. After indulging in some waffles, we hopped on the bus to Nijo Castle. During my last visit to Kyoto in January, the castle was closed in observance of the New Year, so I was very eager to see it.

Nijo from the outside...
...and looking down from the inside.

Nijo-castle isn’t really a castle in the traditional sense—it isn’t a multistoried fortress, but rather a residence of the Imperial family. The main building is impressively large though, especially considering it was built in the 1600’s. The most notable feature of the castle is its “nightingale floors,” a security feature installed by a paranoid shogun to alert him to the presence of ninja attackers. The squeaky floors still work, and during one’s tour of the castle, it sounds like there are many peeping birds under the building. The main building also houses impressive screen paintings in each room, which are now starting to be restored. All the screens around the exterior of the castle are closed now to protect the screen paintings, keeping the castle in the dark, but with all the gold leaf, the screens must have been quite impressive in their day. The main “castle” building is surrounded by a moat and nice Japanese style gardens, which we took in before hoping on another bus to our next destination.

Stop 2 was Kinkakuji, which was just as crowded, if not more so than the last time I was there. It is quite impressive to see the glowing, gold pavilion on the lake, but it would also be much nicer with fewer people. We did a brief tour along the garden path (mostly because you have to in order to find the exit) and stopped for a snack before heading back to the bus stop.

Snack Time!!! ソフトークリム　for me, and chocolate covered mochi, or だんご for Kim-chan.

The next place we intended to visit was Toji Temple, the highest pagoda in all of Japan. We eventually got there, taking the long way around on the loop bus (whoops!) Like so many old structures built of wood in Kyoto, Toji Temple has been reconstructed several times due to fire. Toji differs in that four of these fires were caused when the pagoda was struck by lightening. How smart do you have to be to build the tallest structure for miles around out of wood? Over and over and over and over again? I trust that now they have taken special precautions (i.e. a lightening rod) to prevent it from happening again. Toji is quite impressive, and is a symbol of Kyoto. The actual site is made even more lovely due to the fact that it is in a rather shabby, industrial looking part of the city.

After doing our tour, we got on the last bus of the day and headed east towards Tofuku-ji. Like the hostel, it proved a tad difficult to locate. Just when we had gone under the big gate, we were kindly asked to leave because they were closing. Rather disappointed, we asked how long the walk was to our last stop of the day, Fushimi Inari and set out.

Fushimi Inari is a shrine located on the south eastern edge of Kyoto city. It is dedicated to the fox, considered to be the messenger of the gods. Fushimi Inari is best known for its miles and miles of red torii gates of all sizes, lined up through the forest. It would have taken hours to hike through all of them, and Kim, Karl and I agreed that our 40 minute foray among them in the dwindling daylight was sufficient. Back to Kyoto proper for dinner and an early night.

Front entrance of Fushimi Inari. Can you see the fox statutes standing guard on either side of the gate?

They go on and on!!

Day 3

Another full agenda for Kim and me; the first item was to check out of the hostel and accompany Karl to the station to see him off and put our bags in a locker for the day. That accomplished, we got some nourishment at Starbucks, and got on a bus headed towards the eastern side of Kyoto.

The four-bite sandwich I ate for breakfast.

The first official stop was Sanjusangendo Temple. The name refers to the 33 columns that hold up the roof of a very loooooooong building which houses 1,000 statues in the image of Buddha. This was another stop my family didn’t get to during our trip—we arrived just minutes after the last entry of the day, which is why Kim and I thought we should hit it first. In addition to the seemingly never-ending collection of statues, highlights at Sanjusangendo include mentally trying to recreate the annual archery competition held there, and omikuji (paper fortunes)written in English. We deposited our 100 yen into the box and chose a folded up strip of paper from the bin. We both drew “good” fortunes, which we decided to keep instead of tying them to the strings and leaving behind at the temple. A good start to the day.

The loooooooong building. Unfortunately, no photos of the statues inside. :-(

From Sanjusangendo, we walked up the hill to Kyomizudera. While it was impressive when I saw it with my family, bright sunshine and the first cherry blossoms of the season made it more lovely the second time. It was also just as crowded, but not so crowded as to discourage Kim and me from waiting in line to drink some of the “holy water” thought to fulfill wishes. We also disposed of our “relationship challenges” by writing them on a special piece of paper and watching them dissolve in a bucket of water. So interactive!!

Kyomizudera's pagoda building through some budding sakura trees.

The station where Kim and I watched our troubles disappear!

Getting them out on paper.

Watching them disolve. Quite therapeutic actually.

Waterfall where we sipped magic water.

From Kyomizudera, it was more walking, this time in a northerly direction to get to Heian Shrine. The entrance to Heian Shrine is the largest red torii gate I have ever seen…it spans four lanes of traffic and is visible from very far away. The shrine itself differs from the many others I have seen and confuse in my mind because it was built in a very Chinese style, with a huge, bare gravel expanse in front. Behind the shrine is an extensive and beautiful Japanese garden, which took a good half an hour to meander through.

Big gate. We must be getting close.

There it is! Heian Shrine.
A picturesque sakura tree in the garden.

Heian was our last major stop of the day. We started the trek back to Kyoto Station by way of Gion, the geisha district. Gion was a bit like Hollywood, very romanticized, yet when you get there it’s full of ugly tourists. As we walked down the main street, groups of people with cameras were just standing around on the corners, looking as though they were waiting for something to happen. We did happen upon a very pretty street near Gion which had cherry trees starting to bloom on one side and willows on the other…pink and green together. Along another quieter street, we did get to see a geisha on her way to work, which was pretty exciting, but also had the effect of turning us in to paparazzi-ish stalkers.

With the sun setting on our time in Kyoto, Kim and I returned to the station, got our bags from the locker and after spending about 20 minutes walking around in circles in the underground shopping area, found some suitable souvenirs and some dinner. We got on the train, relieved to be off our feet. Yes, I am getting old.

“Kindy” does Kyoto--Part I

2008-04-18T21:16:00.012+09:00

While there are many perks associated with my job here, one of the best ones is not having to give up the school break schedule I have become accustomed to since starting kindergarten those many years ago. The breaks in Japan are slightly different from the ones in the U.S.—the most noticeable disparity being the length of summer vacation (6 weeks vs. 3 months). Spring break in Japan is two weeks long, and is all the time the students and teachers have in between grades. But two weeks without classes is two weeks without classes, and since I am sort of an auxiliary member of the teaching staff with no clubs to supervise, I am free to take time off.

Spring Break 2008 started off with a brief visit from my friend Monica, a fellow Arizonan who I met at orientation so many months ago. She stayed in my apartment with me for a few days and did her own traveling while I finished up teaching at school. We checked out a few of the sights of Kurume, Narita-san, the Chikugo River and the Ishibashi Art Museum before I sent her on her way. Originally, Kim, my roommate from college, was scheduled to arrive about 40 minutes after Monica’s flight left, so I was going to go hang out at the airport, but instead, Kim’s flight was delayed a whole half a day, and she had to spend the night in Tokyo. So I ended up meeting her on Monday afternoon.

Wendy, Narita and Monica

After the initial set back, the rest of the Kindy adventures were carried out without too many problems. The ones we did encounter (the Shinkansen tickets not working in the station gates, bad directions to our hostel) were pretty easily overcome. Half of Kim’s trip was spent in Kyoto, where we packed more into 2.5 days than I ever thought possible. By the time we boarded the train to return to Kurume, we were both exhausted and I had a couple blisters from our miles of walking.

Day 1

Getting ready to leave Kurume

We left Kurume around 10 AM and arrived in Kyoto a little before 2 PM. We grabbed lunch at Kyoto Station and left the main exit to look for our hostel. I had copied down the directions from the website, and it seemed easy enough to walk there: take big street to Shichijo-dori, turn right, walk past three stoplights and turn left. The hostel would be a large yellow building on the right side of the street. Apparently, since the website was last updated, an additional stoplight was installed. We turned left after the 3rd stoplight and found nothing but private homes. After a few trips around the block, we decided to go one more light, just to see and BAM! There on the right side of the street was a huge, new, yellow building. When we checked in, the clerk at the desk told us that we were some of the first guests in their new addition. Not too shabby. Not that we spent a lot of time there. Later when Karl came in, he also got lost in search of the hostel, so I didn’t feel so bad about the lousy directions.

You know you are in Kyoto when you see this.

Once we finally located the hostel and dropped our bags off, Kim and I caught a bus to Kitano Tenmangu Shrine to partake in the last few hours of the monthly flea market held there. The wares being offered seemed pretty typical; Kim bought the first of what was to be many pairs of no-show socks and I bought a hand towel, since I forgot to bring one and felt very unprepared without it. We did a quick tour of the shrine, and took some pictures of the last few ume blossoms before getting back on the bus and heading toward Shijo-dori and the main shopping area for some dinner and browsing. Most of the stores closed at 8, and then we decided to go back to the hostel for some showers and wait for Karl.

Kitano Tenmangu's impressive gate.

Enjoying some satsuma imo fries at the flea market.

Catching Up

2008-04-18T21:14:00.001+09:00

I guess it’s been a while. I don’t can’t remember the last time I updated (graduation sounds about right.) Since I am sitting in the office all alone due to a glitch in the scheduling, I have no internet access that would allow me to check. But I do have seven hours stuck in the same desk without any other pressing business. As soon as I wrote that, I was informed of the office-wide gardening hour! My supervisor told me I didn’t have to participate, and frankly I wasn’t dressed for it, but why sit inside breathing a bunch of recycled air, when I could be outside, up to my elbows in scratchy plants? I couldn’t think of a good reason either. Too bad I didn’t have my camera to capture the ultimate in Japanese office cooperation.

“Spring” is a busy time in Japan. One school year ends, and rather shortly there after, the next one begins. The cherry trees bloom in full force, and there is a frenzy of parties before the blossoms fade a mere week or so after they appear. While many people organize their own parties with a small group of friends, there are some larger ones too, like the one in the park behind my apartment which involved a loud speaker, karaoke and a raffle at some un-godly hour on a Sunday morning. Now, all of the leaves on the cherry trees have come out, obliterating the last few flowers and students are back in school, so the quasi-relaxed state the cherry blossoms inspired has come to an end.

Spring It On!!

2008-03-17T21:08:00.007+09:00

[Although I hardly think that my blog has the power to change the weather, I am a bit afraid to announce that spring has arrived for fear that the mere mention of it might make it change back to winter. At least now it's officially "spring" on the calendar, no matter what the weather says. I guess I can proceed]

Last Sunday, the ladies of the Wednesday night shodo lesson spent the day in Yame, doing a variety of activities in honor of spring. Our first stop was a "craft center" for the lack of a better description where we got to try our hands at making our own washi, or Japanese paper. The first step was to pick the size paper you wanted to make (postcard, business card, tall and skinny etc) and dip the appropriate frame into the bath of pulp. Once your screens are adequately covered, you can use tweezers and a small stryofoam tray to pick dried flowers/leaves to add to your paper.

Kendra, Allison and Jamie getting ready to decorate.

Carefully so as not to spill your tray of very light petals (as I did...whoops. Thankfully it wasn't a major crisis and I was able to pick everything up using the handy tweezers), you arrange the petals artfully on your wet paper. Then you pour some thinner pulp on top to seal them in. So far, everything was done quite traditionally, apart from the collecting and mashing of the pulp which was kindly done for us. The next step, which was to run your screen over a vacuum to suck out the extra moisture, did not exactly follow the "traditional" trend. But with several other activities on the agenda, who has time for "traditional" anyway?

My postcards, pre vacuum.

After the vaccum, we handed our pulpy squares over to the paper master, who put them on a hot metal wall to set. He carefully rolled out any lumpy patches and peeled our paper off the metal when it was done.

After we finished trying our hand at paper making, we browsed the other goods for sale, and while rest of the party had some tea upstairs, Jamie and I were lured outside by the sun and food tent. We ate some sweets besides the world's largest stone lantern. Sitting below it, it was quite big, but it grew by at least a 1/3 when I went to stand by it for a picture. Holy cow.

ランチタイム Logically, after all the snacks, it was time for lunch. Naoko-sensei took us to a buffet where everything was made from local, organic ingredients. I can't say it tasted any different from the other buffet lunches I have had in Japan, although there were slighly more vegetables perhaps. It was quite a deal for 1260 yen though. And it had great plates with 9 little spaces for you food, allowing you to try almost everything without it touching!

After lunch we spent nearly two hours getting a very thurough tour of a sake brewery. Unfortunately for me and the other non-native Japanese speakers, the whole thing was in Japanese, but our tour guide was a very happy chap who made it quite entertaining. We started by watching a video about the sake making process. This too had Japanese subtitles, but all of the numbers were numerals, so at least I could understand the quantities, grades of rice, temperatures and times. From what I can remember almost a week later, the rice is delivered and then washed and boiled in the tanks below. There are different grades of rice, but even after looking at the grains through the magnifying glass, I couldn't tell the difference.

Next the rice is "massaged" in a very hot room. This is when they add the malt, which makes the rice start to ferment and turn into alcohol. Then the rice and the malt is stewed in more large tanks.

And that's about all I got. Clearly, since our tour lasted 2 hours, there is a lot more involved. After the alcohol is drained from the tank above, the remaining rice mush is crushed to extract every last drop of alcohol. Then the solid part is saved...もったない...and bagged and given away at the end of the tour as a snack? My bag is sitting in the kitchen, unopened. I have no idea what to do with it.

The end of the process. After starting out really really hot, the sake has to cool down. By this point, its nice and clear, and smells like, well alcohol.

The pine ball below is the traditional sign of a sake brewery. The one we visited had several different ones hanging around.

The collection of fashionable rubber slippers we wore inside. They came in both M and L sizes, and several faux textures, the moccasin, quilted and woven.

After the sake, we did our own soaking in an onsen before grabbing the last snack of the day, macha soft cream and getting back in the car for the journey back to Kurume. We got stuck in some traffic and saw some of my students on their bikes, and it took me about 3 minutes to actually recognize them without their uniforms on. :-/

Since Sunday, the weather has been mostly good, with a few cold, rainy days. And some insane wind. I had to peddle my bike downhill to actually get anywhere. What?!?! The next day, Allison's glass bathroom door shattered in the gale force winds. I hope mine isn't next.

Strange weather aside, it is now officially spring break!!! No more school until April 8th!!

卒業　おめでとう

2008-03-17T20:30:00.005+09:00

[Happy Graduation]

At 10 AM, Saturday, March 15th, the 61st class of 3 年生 [nensei, or 9th graders] graduated from 荒木中学校[Araki Junior High School]. The ceremony was very Japanese, minus the outpouring of tears from the students (boys and girls alike) and some of the teachers. So much emotion!!!

Being highly efficient, the Japanese start their ceremony by handing out the diplomas. The students went onto the stage by homeroom, were called by name by their homeroom teacher, responded with a はい, or yes, and then walked up to the principal for their special piece of paper. After all the students recieved their diplomas, there were speeches, songs and presentation of gifts. The student body president passed the torch onto the class president of the 2年生. Many important old men and a few women came to graduation and were each asked to say a few words, mostly to honor their presence I presume. They all had to stand up, and said pretty much the same thing; "sotsugyou omedetto" or happy graduation. You may work hard to become an important person in Japan, but once you get there, it seems like a piece of cake to me.

While I helped the 2 年生 clean up the gym and stack the folding chairs, the 3 年生 returned to their homerooms to give their teachers presents and do some last minute bonding. All the parents stood in the hallway watching through the classroom windows.

When that was over, everyone gathered outside for many, many photos. One of the English teachers described the ordeal as "endless" and the no longer crying (thank goodness) graduates had to be shoo-ed off campus so the teachers could go eat lunch. The photo shoot was much happier than the actual ceremony and more closely resembled the graduations I am accustomed to.

3の2, probably my favorite class. Shhhhhh don't tell.

Happy students. We are all looking fabulous in our navy blue blazers. Graduation was pretty formal. The principal, one of the English teachers and several mothers were wearing special graduation kimonos. The VP was wearing a suit and jogging shoes as usual.

Some of the boys and the math teacher (right side of the picture.) Many of the girls wanted pictures with their favorite boys, who would sort of stand off to the side while all the girls would huddle together in the middle. For the picture below, one of the boys wanted his bicycle included, front and center, but the teachers and some parents objected, so it was put off to the side instead. This is much more the kind of behavior I would expect from them, none of the crying stuff I witnessed inside.

At the teacher's party later that night, there was a lot of reminiscing. Many of the teachers were sad to see this class go, but apparently it hadn't always been that way. As 7th graders, this class was sort of a hassle, but it's a testament to the teachers at my junior high how well they turned out. I am too a bit sad to see them go, but I am excited for the 2 年生 to move up. I have taught them the most, and feel like I know them better than I knew any of this year's graduates. I didn't cry this time, but might next year.

Mission hilarious

2008-03-07T23:39:00.001+09:00

Watch this video. Laugh and be glad it wasn't you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0TshnSDADo

The Japanese are crazy.

T.G.I.F.

2008-03-07T21:01:00.006+09:00

I've been waiting for what seems like forever for Friday. It's rather inconvenient that they only come once a week.

I don't even have anything particularly exciting to look forward to this weekend, aside from the absense of teaching elementary school. Today was the 10th consecutive work day I have spent at elementary school, and it was a doozie. While elementary school has its perks, like shorter hours and the ego boost from having an entire classroom crowd around asking for your autograph, they kids are walking germ dispensers and it is incredibly exhausting to keep coming up with new and exciting games utilizing English. I don't know how the full time teachers do it.

Aside from getting my ass kicked by elementary school, what have I been up to recently? The weekends since the Snow Festival have been full; celebrating Jamie's birthday, hunting for ume blossoms/any signs of spring, and experiencing some "firsts" in Japan--like my first Japanese haircut, my first Japanese movie theater experience on my first Japanese date, my first Japanese lesson and first "Japanese" cooking class.

Jamie's birthday was good fun, celebrated in the typical Jamie/Allison/Wendy fashion with lots of food and equal amounts of gossip. We lunched at the local Pietro's (Japan's Olive Garden, more or less) and Allison made an amazing chocolate moose cake in her microwave oven. I helped stick candles in it. We went over to deliver the delectable dessert and rang Jamie's doorbell hoping to surprise her, but alas, her music was up too loud and the great doorway unveiling was thwarted after about 5 minutes of ringing the doorbell and banging on the door went unanswered. The door was unlocked, so we just let ourselves in, but the great cake reveal wasn't nearly as dramatic as we were hoping it to be.

I had to leave the movie watching/cake eating celebration a bit early so I could get my beauty sleep for my hot date the next afternoon. The day dawned bright and sunny, which I took as a good sign, and proceeded to get dressed as if if was going to be a balmy 65 degrees out. Alas it was not; it snowed while I was on my way to catch the train, and again while I was on the train. I was mildly consoled however, when I arrived to find my date wearing a similar "date but not exactly weather appropriate" outfit. We even coordinated...black and tan on top, jeans and brown shoes. Another good if not slightly weird sign? But the very best sign in my opinion was that in the middle of dessert, he said he was still hungry and the only thing that would fill the void in his stomach was two large size scoops of ice cream. A very excellent sign indeed.

The date was good (and since, there has been a second, and potentially a third, if I actually manage to get myself out of bed at some point tomorrow). We ate lunch, ice cream and browsed the foreign music section at Tower Records before catching a showing of "American Gangster" at the movie theater. It was my first Japanese movie theater experience, and it was a tad different from the ones I am used to in the U.S. In Japan, you pick your seat when you buy your overpriced ticket (around $18), so even though there were probably only 20 other people in the theater with us, we were all concentrated in the same middle area. Hmmmmm. No Japanese person would ever think about sitting in an empty seat to which they had not been assigned. Second difference was that the floor of the theater was amazingly non-sticky. I guess Japanese people don't spill things either. Other than the Japanese subtitles at the bottom of the screen, the rest of the experience was pretty much the same. No moveable arm rests though.
:-/

The next weekend was haircuts and ume blossom hunting. My hair desperately needed a trim, since it hadn't seen scissors since before I left the good ole U.S. of A. in the end of July 2007. I paid a visit to Yasu, hair artist/antiques dealer who cut some much needed layers and made it amazingly curly using just his fingers and a blow dryer. You can check it out on his blog: http://blog.nakamura-biyoushitu.com/?day=20080223 or in the picture below. It's not really noticeable, but a few people, including a very observant 2nd grader I last saw in October or November, have noticed.

Allison and I eating some ume soft cream from the place with 25 flavors at Dazaifu (see earlier post.) The actual ume blossoms were not quite out in full force. It's been pretty cold (snow on dates, and then this week it actually rained and snowed at the same time, gross) so only about 2/3 of the blossoms had opened. There was a nice variety in the color though. Some blossoms were white, and others ranged from pale pink to dark magenta. Mostly, the ume has just made me even more excited for the sakura or cherry blossoms that come out in April and inspire entire hanami, or flower viewing parties.

Hot pink ume bonsai tree!

Maybe the first week in March is still a bit early to wish for full-fledged "spring," especially since Puxcatawney Phil did see his own shadow when he crawled out of his hole thousands of miles away from here. But there are a few signs that winter might actually come to an end within the foreseeable future such as the ume blossoms, daffodils and later sunsets.

My favorite place to observe these changes is the forest-y area just behind our apartment. Allison introduced me to various pathways through the trees just after we returned from winter vacation, and I have since taken several walks back there, enjoying the quietude, especially after elementary school.

And while ume soft cream is delicious, strawberries are by far the most delicious harbinger of the change in seasons. I swear the strawberries I have eaten in the last few weeks have been some of the most delicious strawberries I have ever eaten. Most of this is probably due to the fact that I am really sick of mikan, or the small oranges that are about the only fruit available from October onward until the strawberries hit the shelves in late February. I am not entirely sure why strawberries are a late winter/spring crop in Japan, but I don't really care. All I know is that they are delicious!

What better way to eat them than on a puff of cream on top of a golden-y delicious sugar cookie? Combining our love of eating sweets with a need to get out of our cold apartments on weekends, Allison and Jamie signed all of us up for a cooking class at the local mall. It was hardly cooking, and more just mixing all of the pre-portioned ingredients in a bowl and then listening to the sales pitch while we waited for the cookie part to bake. Whatever, it only cost $10 and was a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Not so enjoyable that we signed up for one of the expensive course options that would require us to spend every weekend for next few months at the mall, but good times nonetheless. Here we are with our creations, which sadly collapsed on the bike ride home.

The cooking school required you to bring your own apron. I bought mine from the amazing West Coast. Now that I have one, its a great excuse to go back for another class. I mean, I really do need to get my $2 worth out of it, and then some.

Now it is time to feed my bad television addiction with an episode of The Hills, another reason Fridays don't come nearly often enough.

Ice, ice baby

2008-02-12T21:00:00.004+09:00

The subject of this post is the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival), the most fun I have ever had, probably ever will have in sub-zero temperatures.

My fellow adventurers and I began our northern adventures on Saturday with a flight to Sapporo from Fukuoka. Almost immediately upon landing, we could tell we were no longer on Kyushu; the sun was shinning (well, actually it was more the snow on the ground that gave it away)!!! After a long, overheated train ride into Sapporo proper and a short subway ride followed by an interminable underground trek from the subway to the exit for our hotel (I am pretty sure we walked further than we rode the train) we emerged onto the street in front of Odori Park, where the largest snow sculptures are located. We made a bee-line for our hotel to drop off the bags and put on a few more layers before setting out for some late lunch in "ramen alley." While Kurume/Fukuoka is known for its tonkatsu, or pork based ramen, Sapporo is known for its miso based broth. One local specialty is butter corn ramen, and its as much of a heart attack as it sounds like, but oh so oishii.

Would you look at that big pat of butter!?

Ramen alley was convieniently located in the Susukino district of Sapporo, where all of the ice sculptures were located, allowing us to walk off our lunch while admiring beautifully crafted blocks of ice. Tour guide Jamie helpfully informed us that all the sculptures were made from naturally frozen ice brought in from a lake somewhere on Hokkaido. How did she know? The internet probably, but once we knew what to look for--natural ice is clear, while refrigerator frozen ice is more opaque--we too could see that this was some high quality ice. Jamie also says that there is a man who lives by this lake and makes his living monitoring/extracting/shipping the ice from the lake to Sapporo for the festival.

The ice sculptures came in many styles:

1) Fishy

(Real sea creatures frozen into this one!)

2) Japanese

3) Borderline tacky

and 4) Refreshment related

Sapporo's famous ra-me-n...giant ice bowl with real noodles on top. Weird. Made even weirder because the sign read "Wonderful Sapporo Lamian." Pick up any Japanese-English dictionary and within the first few pages (if not on the inside of the front cover) is a chart that converts hiragana and katakana into the roman alphabet. It's not that hard!

Ooo the Bailey's ice hut. Creative marketing at its very best. Build a small square building out of ice with large bottle outside. Offer small servings of hot Bailey's and milk/coffee at 200 yen a piece. Watch repeat customers come through again and again.

As night fell we made our way back toward the hotel/Odori Park to see the "iruminashion" of the large snow sculptures. The first thing we noticed was not actually made out of snow:

Yet another Japanese city with an impressive T.V. tower. Sapporo felt the need to add a rather large clock to theirs, which provided us with endless "Gee, I wish I knew what time it was," jokes. The tower was at one end of the park, the other end was 12 whole blocks away. In the middle were all of the sculptures as well as some vendors selling "Japanese culture" on a stick, "fried potato" and other carnival faire, plus a huge variety of souveniers--earmuffs, towels, t-shirts, pins, ketai charms, hats, yadda, yadda, yadda. I picked up a few charms to bring back to people in Kurume, but my purchases paled in comparison with Jamie's. Some people buy drugs; Jamie buys Hello Kitty charms. Aware of her addiction, she budgeted 2-man (around $200) for all of the charms she wanted from Hokkaido. Luckily though, she brought extra cash because she ended up spending almost 3-man on over 70 charms (for her own collection as well as for omiyage ). There were so many in fact that she bought a huge lavender Hello Kitty bag to transport them all home in. She wasn't the only person at the airport carrying one however...

Back to the sculptures. There were many of them. I have not included too many pictures because I think this post will be long enough as is. There were maybe 10 really big ones; one was Prince Caspian themed, there was a weird Cup-o-Noodle "Freedom" themed one; a Japanese castle, and a Japan Airlines landmarks of the world one. My favorite was the large eskimo/mammoth/polar bear one. Great use of medium. You can get a sense of its massive size by looking at the shadowy crowd at the bottom of the picture.

There was also a nature-themed ice stage which hosted a piano player in a heated box and some awful local radio personalities. I think it was better off empty and lit from behind as I have captured it below.

Hokkaido is hosting the Toyako G8 Summit in July, which will have a special focus on the environment (I think I should be paying a lot more attention to this than I am) and there were a lot of posters and a few premature welcome signs up in Sapporo this weekend. As one might assume, a festival based completely around snowfall is very concerned about global warming. The theme of this year's festival was "Stop the Global Warming" (soooooo effective considering almost everyone probably took an airplane to get there) and global warming spokesman Al Gore (or A-ru Go-a in katakana) made a guest appearance:

in the form of a snow statue. He was on the same block as most of the Japanese cartoon character effigies. At least he was there.

After 12 blocks (really more like 24 beacuse we went up and down both sides) we were cold and in need of some more refreshment, having skipped a real dinner in favor of the yummies on a stick. Where does one go when they need snacks and warmth? Karaoke of course!! Several beers, a platter of fried goodness and many, many horrible renditions of songs that were once great later, we called it a night.

Day 2

Off to a bright but not too early start, we hopped on the bus to Satoland. Designed primarily with children in mind, Satoland was basically a snow covered field about 40 minutes outside of the city where a smattering of snow themed amusements had been set up. There were a few slides, a maze, another stage, children's dig-in-the-snow-for-treasure areas and more food, but the best part was the build your own mini "ra-vu" daruma. The snowman building also had the shortest line. The lines at the other attractions prevented us from going on them. I am pretty sad that I missed going down the big snow slide on an intertube. Maybe next year?

The slide I didn't get to go down. Harumph. I think my age regressed back to my shoe size while at Satoland.

The field of mini-snowmen!!! Chou kawaii!!

After ooooing and ahhhhing over the work of others, Jamie, Hannah, Allison and I set to work on our own. At first we wanted to make one with snow boobs, but since this was a family venue, we decided on a cute mouse instead for the Lunar New Year (I just added that last bit.) Getting started was a bit tricky (the building committe was 3/4 Arizonan, Californian and Hawaiian after all) but after seizing control of a jug of water to help pack the powdery snow into the large mixing bowls they gave us to use as molds, we ended up with this:

It was a bit hard to leave him behind when we had to leave Satoland for the next destination. We hopped another very crowded bus back into the city and got off at the stop for the train station. We followed the signs down some stairs, and then some more stairs, and some more stairs and came out in the middle of a huge underground shopping mall! What? After battling our way through the crowds and past the temptations of sales at our favorite stores (although we did have to stop for ice cream--c'mon Hokkaido is famous for its dairy products) we finally made it to the train for Otaru.

View from the train. Really lovely. We even saw some ocean out the opposite side.

Otaru is known for two things: its canal and glassblowing. We went to see both. During the Snow Festival, the canal is lined with what can best be described as giant snow luminaria. People built lanterns and altar-like structures in snow and then light candles in them when it gets dark.

Otaru Canal, pre-darkness.

Snow lanterns, also pre-darkness. These were outside of the Otaru Brewing Company.

Along the canal, after dark. Really crowded, a bit slippery and very difficult to photograph.

Away from the canal is a street filled with glass shops. They are filled with some beautiful pieces, and an over abundance of sickeningly cute, ultra-mini glass animals. While the below isn't exactly an animal per-say, I think it fits in with the theme of this post better.

Like the sculptures in Odori Park, only the complete opposite, the scale of this snowman is a bit hard to determine from the photo. I would say that the card in front of him is written in 10 or 11 pt font. They were soooo small.

And while Otaru isn't exactly known for them, it is home to some very impressive icicles. I still think real icicles look fake. To me, "icicles" are fancy Christmas lights that look oh so snazzy hanging from the eaves of a stucco house.

Day 3

Day 3 was a bit rushed, trying to cram in last minute attractions before joining what felt like all of Japan at the airport. Allison and I sleepily stumbled around the city before breakfast because I wanted to see the clock-tower (not to be confused with the TV tower with a clock.) The clock tower is a big draw for Japanese people; one guy was even taking a film of the stationary building. I am not sure what all the commotion was about, but thought "when in Sapporo..."

The clock tower and...

...its plush likeness for sale at the airport.

All around the city we saw these "layer cakes" of snow along the edges of the streets that had been plowed. Some were really big, others not very impressive. I think this one was in the middle somewhere.

Sapporo Eki with its huge underground shopping mecca.

The crowded airport. A light snow was falling, so a lot of flights were delayed. Thankfully ours wasn't one of them, but we still had plenty of time to kill.

So we ate lunch. Pasta with creamy crab sauce. Sapporo/Hokkaido is famous for kani and this was my last change to eat some. And it was perfect...hardly resembling the animal it came from and any seafood-y flavor was drowned in the creamy sauce. Yummy. In a side note, check out the size of the water glass--not thimble sized!!

A very cool weekend to be sure. I need another vacation just to recover.

Itsumo omoshiroi

2008-02-08T21:53:00.000+09:00

Just when you think you've seen it all, Japan will throw some interesting things your way.

For example:

--School lunch yesterday. Some noodle-y soup, bread/strawberry jam, and a bowl of "meat" covered in glaze. Some of the pieces were chicken, and some of the pieces were...? Having heard tales of whale in school lunch from other ALTs, I was terrified. The chunks were dark and smooth, and since I have no idea what whale looks like, (I think Jamie once said it was dark and weird looking) and was prepared for the worst. I poked at it a bit with my chopsticks, and it didn't really appear to be a muscle (nothing stringy about it) then pushed it aside so I could eat the chicken. Later, the school nurse came in and sat at her desk beside me and comented to the science teacher about lunch. It was all in Japanese, but I know enough to understand "liver" and "kirai" (I hate liver!!). The mystery of the mystery meat was solved. And although I still didn't eat it, I was very relieved that it wasn't whale.

--Hehe. Riding home from school yesterday I saw a little old lady jump off of her tractor and do her own "Chinese firedrill" to make the light change so she could cross the road. It was quite hilarious.

--Today I met a Buddhist monk. He's married. He said in perfect English that he got married first and then became a monk. A bit un-orthodox. When I told him his English was really good, he of course played it down in the usual Japanese fashion, but he is the first person I have ever heard say, "my English is grassroots." He also speaks Thai and some other language. He then proceeded to tell me that he and his wife (who volunteers to teach English at one of the elementary schools I visit) sometimes talk about languages at home. The conversation went like this:

Monk: If a person can speak two languages, we call him bilingual. If they can speak three languages, he is trilingual. What do you call someone who can only speak one language?

Me: Hmmm, unilingual? (although now monolingual sounds better)

Monk: An American!! Ha ha ha.

I was not expecting that one, and it hurt a bit, coming from a monk.

-----

I am sure there are more, but considering I leave for the snow festival in Sapporo (sooooo excited!) in 10 hours and have yet to do the dishes from dinner, clean my apartment, pack, shower and get a bit of sleep, I will save them for another time.

Better Late then Never

2008-02-05T21:26:00.001+09:00

Family trip continued.

Deer Park, Nara. Where are the deer you ask? Good question. Their poop is there on the bottom right. Almost immediately after getting off of the bus, my mom suggested that we buy some deer wafers to feed them. So I did, and was promptly surrounded by deer. I threw the wafers at my mom and let her get bucked by the mangy creatures. Gross. The baby ones were cute though.

Todaiji Temple. Huge.

World's largest wooden Buddha at Todaiji Temple. Very difficult to get a sense of scale. One of his fingers is probably about the size of an adult person. Our tour guide on this day was full of information...she talked the whole two hours on the bus from Kyoto to Nara (or so I'm told, I was sleeping off the buffet lunch) and throughout our time at the temple. Unfortunately she had the bad habit of saying "ahh" in between every 4th or 5th word. I don't think I really heard anything she said, just the "ahhs."

Approaching Kyomizudera in Kyoto. At the top of a big hill. Lots and lots of people.

A rather pale me standing next to Kyomizudera's intense support structure.

Like so many other Buddhist temples in Japan, Kyomizudera shares part of its grounds with a Shinto shrine. The one at Kyomizudera was dedicated to the god of love and relationships. The couple-lyness of it all was a bit much. Maybe I should have at least tossed in a coin though, Valentine's Day is coming up!

Beautiful garden we stopped at on our last day in Kyoto. We almost didn't make it inside, we walked around the whole thing before finding the gate. Worth the walk.

If it looks this good in December, just imagine it in bloom in the spring!

Sand sculptures at Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavillion). So intricate, so perfect. This flat expanse represented a lake. A cone off to the right represented a mountain. Go figure.

The weather wasn't quite as nice on the day we went to Ginkakuji, but it actually made it rather atmospheric. Ginkakuji isn't all blinged out the way Kinkakuji is...the guy who built it ran out of money before he could put on the silver leaf. Whoops. Still a very nice garden though.

Need a fan?

Kyoto Tower at night. Did not go up this one.

New Year's Eve at Narita-san in Kurume. I had no idea what to expect, but I had heard that you had to go to a temple at midnight to hear them ring the bells 108 times, chasing away the 108 and sins to start the new year off right. All of a sudden, it sounded like people were counting down, and then it was over. Hmmmmmmmmm. Maybe next year I'll understand more (oh yes! That's right! I officially signed my recontracting papers and will be staying another year)

Street leading up to Narita-san. It was actually snowing! which was really cool (pun intended) but it made things very cold and soggy.

And that concludes the Phelander's Holidays in Japan 2007-8 entries. Yosh!

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

2008-02-05T21:00:00.000+09:00

Since this is late anyway, I hardly feel any pressure to present these in the proper chronological order. If you must know, I met my family in Tokyo and we had about a day there before taking off for Mt. Fuji/Hakone, Inuyama/Nagoya and then went to Kyoto/Nara. Once the tour package expired we spent another few days in Kyoto on our own which was really fun (finally able to take things at our own pace, not that I regret the tour at all. I am so glad that I saw everything that I did) before catching the very crowded Shinkansen down to Kurume for New Year's.

Nagoya-jo. Probably the most impressive castle I've visited. Completely reconstructed. Highlights include the golden dolphins on the top and the (original!!) carvings in the rocks that form the battlements. Samurais were required to haul large rocks to the castle site, and many of them scratched their family names into the rocks. Can't remember if they had to in order to get credit for their work or just wanted to show off to the competiton.

Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto. The first of many, many, many temples, but definitely one of the more scenic ones.

Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavillion), Kyoto. In the old days, rich people didn't so much wear their bling as put it on their garden gazeboes. We were so lucky to have nice sunny weather the day we visited.

Mommy and daughter at the Imperial Palace, Kyoto. Getting in was quite a process. Everyone on our tour bus (and the other two buses out that morning) had to line up in rows of four to be counted (and re-counted until things we just right.) But they didn't even glance into the backpacks/large purses people were carrying. Oh Japan.

Sadly, I have no idea what this temple is actually called. All I know is that it's on top of a hill and has an amazing view of Mt. Fuji on a clear day. The temple itself isn't too shabby either against the blue sky.
Top of a hill above Lake Ashi, another spot we went to see Fuji-san. I am looking in the wrong direction, but the view is still pretty amazing. It was also rediculously cold up there, with lots of wind and some ice patches on the ground.

Inuyama-jo. The only original castle I have been too. Much smaller than any of the other ones too. Full of charm i.e. the steepest stairs ever. For not being too large, it had a very nice panoramic view.

Snazzy building in Nagoya. Future home of a fashion design school. When viewed in conjunction with Inuyama-jo above really demonstrates the fusion of Japan's old and new architecture. (Ugh that sounds like something from a bad paper)

Shadow of Nagoya Tower. Something to love about Japan--almost every city builds a huge, potentially ugly TV tower and adds a platform, turning it into a tourist attraction. They do provide some amazing views. At the top of this one is wall commemorating all the couples who have been married at the top. Awwwwwww.

The family prior to their first onsen experience. It took some convincing to get them to walk downstairs in just their yukata, but after the initial uneasiness, I think they enjoyed it. They went again at the next hotel.

Even though we're hardly around each other enough to fight these days, I still think this is a nice picture of peaceful sibling interaction---on the Shinkansen no less. Snazzy.

One of the highlights of our tour. When we went to Inuyama, it was just the four of us, so we all got dressed up by the local kimono dresser. It was pretty incredible. Mine had a full under-robe and about a bazillion ties in the middle. Then they made us slip into a pair of narrow sandals and hobble (mince?) our way down the street to this photogenic gateway for a full-on photoshoot. We attracted quite a few stares. When we returned to the shop, we were undressed...and I let out a huge sigh, relieved to be able to breathe again. That's when the dresser told our tour guide in Japanese that they had made mine "loose" and if I was really going to wear a formal kimono, it would be much tighter. Sheesh.

This probably ice cream picture #87 on my blog, so by now you know that no sightseeing trip of mine is complete with out some "sofuto kurimu."

Hmmm, back to Mt. Fuji. Maybe I should organize these...sorry. Again, really lucky with the weather.

Lovely family portrait in front of Mt. Fuji. This is about as close as we got. I think I am going to start using this picture for my self introductions at school instead of the one I have from Costa Rica where we're all wearing helmets and harnesses after riding the zipline.

Tokyo Tower!! Another TV tower all gussied up as a tourist attraction. Nice views. I think the Japanese are very proud of the fact that their "famous" tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower (by 6 meters or something rediculous like that.)

Andrew, mom and me looking down from inside of the tower. Neat-o.

Hahaha. Trying out the ride-able animals at Lake Ashi. Unfortunately, we were a bit big, so they didn't move too well under our weight. My lion barely moved and when Andrew tried one, it didn't budge. But it was worth the 200 yen just for the rediculous pictures in my opinion.

Mmmmm, pickles. Since we were traveling right before New Year's, all of the temples had large displays of sake offerings from local sake brewers out front. This temple in Nagoya also had numerous barrels of pickled veggies. Interesting.

Choose your own cliche!

2008-02-05T20:34:00.001+09:00

Even though January seemed to drag on in parts, now that its February 5th, I have no idea where time has gone. I think in part this has to do with the fact that everyday is quite similar...I wake up when it is grey and cold outside, replace the layers of clothes that I've slept in with more work appropriate ones, go to work, come home when it is grey and cold outside, sit under my kotatsu...lather, rinse and repeat. The only variation has been that some days it was raining. Yesterday was the first day the sun has shone in a while; I got to dust off the sunglasses and take an extra long lunch with Jamie and Allison to sit on the front steps of the Board of Education basking in its radiant glory until a huge grey cloud came and blocked it out again. Booooo. There were even birds singing at one point...spring is trying to come, I just know it!

As much as I dislike winter, it hasn't been all bad. Winter vacation was great! Which brings us to the main point of this entry. It's now February, and I have not written a single word or posted a single picture from my travels with my family over Christmas/New Year's. Unfortunately it has gotten to the point where it just seems entirely too overwhelming to try and cover everything that we did, so pictures of the best parts with some captions are going to have to do. After all, "a picture is worth 1,000 words," and "better late than never."

Retail Therapy

2008-01-26T17:57:00.000+09:00

There is no one online for me to brag to about my amazing shopping experience today, and I need to tell someone!

I bought 8 items of clothing for 2415 yen today, which averages roughly $3.00 per piece!! I got two hats, two button-up shirts, a turtleneck, a cardigan, a skirt and a blazer---excellent payoff for the 40 minute bike ride to "West Coast," Japan's greatest second hand shop. There is one much closer to the apartment, but it isn't as large, and since it is so close, I think either Allison or I have snatched up all the good stuff already (and there have been some great purchases). We knew we would probably rewarded for our trek, but little did we know that everything in the store was going to be 50% off the regularly very reasonable prices. So after two rounds of scanning the racks and trying on clothes, Allison, Jamie and I each emerged with a large grey bag of spoils. Happy day.

Back with a bang!

2008-01-14T19:27:00.000+09:00

While I was bored out of my mind at school the first week back from winter vacation, thankfully there was a lot going on outside of school to keep me entertained. From the "burning buns" at the Daizenji Fire Festival to the ecclectic statues in the Peace Park in Nagasaki and ending with an all night club crawl in Fukuoka, it was quite the week.

*****

Last Monday night was the annual Fire Festival in Daizenji. Men of all ages dressed in nothing more than white loincloths to protect their most precious parts from the January cold, drink lots of sake and then run around the temple with burning torches. These smaller torches are then thrown into some bonfires, and larger torches, each carried by a few men are lit and brought in front of the temple. There's some ceremony and chanting and then the 5 huge torches supported by long sticks are lit. Once the huge torches are lit, the January cold all but disappears as the heat spreads over the crowd. A few crazy men shimmy their way up the big torches to cut of the ropes that bind them together so that the ropes don't burn through and fall on the people standing close by, but this seemed to be entirely optional, so only the craziest men with the neediest egos climbed their way to the top.

1. Bonfires
2. The big ones all lit up
3. Death wish

After the crowd has watched this all in awe for the appropriate amount of time, the men hoist up the large torches on sticks and start to carry them away. We didn't stay long enough to actually see where they ended up, but it was pretty amazing to see how the quickly the dense crowd parted when the torches headed their way.

*****

On Saturday, Jamie, Allison and Cory decided to chance the rainy weather and go to Nagasaki for the day. We took the highway bus with all the old people from Fukuoka and spent the day walking around the city. First stop was the Peace Park, which was more of an impromtu outdoor art museum with some really awful peace-themed statues donated by different countries from around the world.

1. And the award for ugliest statue goes to....the one above! Entitled "Triumph of Peace over War" the silver boxes represented the chaos and horror of war, while the shinning red ball on the top is peace. It was donated by Argentina; they probably got it from a minimalist Scandinavian country and didn't like it, so they renamed it, made up a cheesy description and sent it to Nagasaki, glad to get it off their hands.

2. This one is a little better. The faces in the middle are of the bomb victims, and the shape of the crane is a hope for peace.

3. Who doesn't love interactive art?! Peaceful Jamie and Cory of the future moving forward hand in hand.

4. Hmmmm, I cannot figure out which country donated this statue. I wish it said or something. But really, where's the peace message in this one?

5. The biggest statue in the park, with a whole lot of symbolism attached. The hand pointing up points to the threat of nuclear weapons. The other outstretched arm is pointing towards a world of tranquilty and peace. His eyes are closed because he is praying for the souls of those who lost their lives to the bomb. The tucked-up leg shows repose and meditation while the other one is poised for action to help humanity. Got all that?

6. Shrine for the unknown vicitims of the bomb. The offerings of bottled water and tea are a bit much, and certainly not much to look at. Oh Japan.

7. The fountain was my favorite part. Of all the statues, I think the spraying water in the shape of two wings expressed a hope for a peaceful future the best. As you can see, by leaving Kurume/Fukuoka, we also left the grey, rainy weather behind!

8. Just down the street from the Peace Park is the Hypocenter Park, marking where the bomb exploded. The Peace Park was on the top of a hill, but the Hypocenter Park is in between two hills, and there was lots of "borrowed scenery." And that's pretty much the only impression it left me with.
9. As a port city, Nagasaki has long been a center for trade with other countries. And as a result, it's a pretty international city, as evidenced by its food. Nagasaki is famous for castella, a nice spongy, yellow cake brought over by the Portuguese. Its sooooo well renowned in fact, there is a mini-castella shrine!!!

10. After paying our respects to the castella gods, and thanking them wholeheartedly for bringing such a lovely sweet to Japan, we sat down for an afternoon tea/cake set. Only I had coffee. Still quite delicious!

11. Fresh from our sugar rush, we took the lovely moving walkways up to the top of an area called Glover Gardens, sort of a foreigner enclave in Nagasaki built by Mr. Samuel Glover and his successful merchant buddies.

12. The view was quite nice, but what is that gigantic orange ball?

13. The garden part with a view of the shipyards.

14. Jamie's dream house. You can see the corner of mine in the upper left of the picture. Both had amazing views, but for a historical tourist attraction were a bit run down.

15. We went to China-town to try and find dinner, but all of the restaurants we passed we disappointingly empty and we were kind of full of cake, so we bought some nikuman dumplings from a cute old lady instead and headed back to the station for the requisite purikura and a bit of browsing at the New Years sales before dropping exhausted into some nice plastic chairs at the smelly bus station to head back to Fukuoka. All in all, it was a fun day; and I am really glad I went to Nagasaki, but I am not sure I ever need to go back.

*****

Last night and into the wee hours of this morning were spent in Fukuoka at "Nightwalker" and event where a $10 wristband bought you cover into 28 bars and clubs that were open all night. Most places required you to buy a drink ticket at the door, but it sure beat paying a bunch of different covers. There was a great crowd, foreigners and "natives" alike. We made some friends, saw some rediculous outfits and were amazed at how fast the night went! [The way the trains run, if you really want to go out in the city, you have to make it an all night affair. Things don't start to pick up until around 11 or later, which is when the last train leaves for home :-( ]

1. This guy was at the first club we went to. Missing in this picture are his sunglasses, white sweatpants and lazer pointer. Notice the shirt tucked into the boxers. I guess this is how they roll in France. Just watching him, and he could dance, thankfully, was worth the price of the wristband.

2. Some friends we found later. Pretty much all I can remember about them is that the guy in the jacket with the tan sleeves kept saying "crazy japanese" in English and pointing to himself. They invited us to come to one of the clubs with them, but then in line, a mini fight broke out and we bolted for the tiny elevator.

If the rest of 2008 is as exciting as this first week, its going to be one helluva (exhausting! but great) year!!

I read the news today, oh boy...

2007-12-10T17:14:00.000+09:00

This post is for Kim, Morgana, and anyone else in Paul Faul's seminar last year.

Today was an elementary school day. I was scheduled to teach 4 classes, eat lunch and play with the students outside. Recess ends at 1:50, and after that, there is not a whole lot for me to do except take up space in the teachers room (usually blocking someone's desk) so most schools let me go early. The last time I was at this particular school however, the Board of Education sent a fax for me around 2:15, by which point I had already vacated the premises. Sadly, the school got a lecture and told me that I would have to stay until 4pm, even though I would be done teaching after the usual four classes. Usually I carry around a book with me, but this being Monday, I was really slow to get moving and didn't pack one. Crap. Two long hours to sit in the office and stare at the cracks in the wall (there were quite a lot, one part of the wall actually looked like a map). The desk I was sitting at did have a computer, and without asking I decided to take advantage of the internet. Once again, I am so glad the NY Times has a website.

I tried to start with world news, but found it less than captivating, so I moved on to U.S. news, which was a bit more interesting (i.e. the escapades otherwise known as the 2008 presidential election,) then went to the science section. So many interesting articles there, which I feel the need to share with you since I can't talk about them in class like I used to.

If It’s Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? Raises so many interesting questions. Just when you thought you had it all figured out and were doing something good, there is something else to consider. Being pretty much illiterate when it comes to reading Japanese food labels, I have no idea where my food is coming from or what it is made out of. Is the tofu in Japan made with soybeans harvested in Brazil on what used to be Amazon rainforest? Probably. At least one thing I don't have to worry too much about is the transportation of my food on my end. It's either by bike or foot, 99.9% of the time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/business/yourmoney/09feed.html?ex=1354856400&en=a939fa58956e6e41&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Canadian Retailer Bans Some Plastic Bottles Oh Nalgene. I would have been so lost without you at college. You were there to make sure I was hydrated, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now your bulkiness sits in my cupboard. I'll blame the bisphenol-a. Please don't be jealous of the other recycled, plastic water bottles of a smaller sizes I use these days. They fit so much better in my bag with all the other crap I seem to need to tote around with me these days (teaching supplies, wallet, dictionary, hand towel, keys, phone, scarf, gloves, chapstick.....) and it would be a shame to use them just once anyway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/business/worldbusiness/08water.html?ex=1354856400&en=e781c97ce702fce3&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Hydrogen Car Is Here, a Bit Ahead of Its Time Hydrogen cars! It's like the future is now! Mostly I thought about two things while I read this article: 1) There was no mention about the volitile nature of hydrogen (remember the Hindenburg? Although I am sure technology has improved since then) and 2) is how does Toyota feel looking at this car, which looks very similar to its Prius and even has the in-dash gear shift?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/automobiles/autoreviews/09HONDA.html?ex=1354856400&en=cf11cdface8d7793&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Oil-Rich Nations Use More Energy, Cutting Exports I found this article very interesting. I don't understand much about oil; the supply, the demand (in part because the numbers are way too big for me to comprehend) and especially the politics and social components are rather mysterious to me. But this article made sense. What a crazy, out of control world we live in.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/business/worldbusiness/09oil.html?ex=1354942800&en=eac03669b348352f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Radars Taken Out by Arctic Warming Whoops. This would be amusing if it wasn't so serious.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/cold-war-radar-taken-out-by-arctic-warming/

Western States Agree to Water-Sharing Pact Another scary article. Should the lack of water in my home state factor into my decision about where to live when I return stateside?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/us/10water.html?ex=1355029200&en=2471f2594380d01a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

And finally, this last headline is hardly a surprise, U.S Rejects Stiff 2020 Greenhouse Goals In Bali. I guess it takes more than a few million people without water in the fastest growing states and some lost Arctic radars to convince the government that something needs to be done about global climate change. C'mon people.

A Japanese Thanksgiving

2007-12-02T16:51:00.000+09:00

[Pack a lunch; this is a long one]

Thursday, November 22, 2007 itself is not much worth writing about. I was at junior high, and class seemed to never end. I came home and ate leftovers. I watched TV. At 8:40 pm, I thought it might be prudent to start cleaning my apartment. I cleaned until 11. I took a shower and went to bed. Ye-haw.

Friday, November 23rd was a holiday, thank goodness. And it was the start of another Jamie-Allison-Wendy adventure. This time we escaped north, leaving Kyushu entirely (gasp!) and went to Hiroshima.

We had a pretty packed itinerary, which involved the usual Jamie-Allison-Wendy activites: primarily some sightseeing, lots of picture taking, and frequent stops for food. We arrived in Hiroshima around lunch time and set off. The weather was really nice, and we actually got, dare I say, hot, walking around in the sun. Why Hiroshima was warmer than Kurume I don't exactly know, but maybe it has to do with their location next to the inland sea.

One thing I never learned in history class was that Hiroshima is built on a river delta, so there are many bridges throughout the city spanning 4 large rivers as they make their way out to sea. The bridges were attractive by themselves, but were made that much more senic by the abundance of fall color along the edges of the water. See below:

First up on the itinerary was the Peace Park and Memorial Museum. In a rather uncharacteristic fashion, we sight-saw (?) right through lunch to make sure we got it all in. The park was really beautiful, and amazingly lush. After the bomb was dropped, it was said that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for 75 years. At the center of the park is the Children's Memorial, where childern from all over the world have placed paper cranes. Some are in long strands of 1000, others are arranged in patterns like this:

For pieces of paper, the cranes have a powerful, emotional message of peace. The whole city of Hiroshima seems to be dedicated to spreading this message.

The iconic A-bome Dome is a short walk across the river from the actual park and is one of those places that you can hardly believe you are looking at in person. It resembles the pictures so exactly and has so much importance connected with it, it still doesn't seem real.

We couldn't put off our visit to the museum forever, so with a few deep breaths we headed in. Our first stop was the underground Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. Above the hall is this statue of a clock, forever frozen at 8:15 AM, the time the bomb was dropped. Inside was very modern, and after seeing the memorial room itself, you were led into a smaller room with computer screens which contained testimonies from surviors about that fateful morning. It was a lot to take in, and we still hadn't gotten to the main museum.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was packed with tourists and Japanese people alike. I got the audio tour, which I think was essential considering I could hardly get close enough to many of the exhibits to read the text. There were a lot of dioramas, showing the city before and after and lots of artifacts, like concrete walls with glass embedded in them from the explosion. Towards the end was a whole room dedicated to the human costs and health effects associated with radiation. It was a necessary stop on our itinerary, but after just over an hour there, we couldn't take much more.

Heading my mother's favorite piece of advice, "You'll feel better after you eat" we grabbed some soft cream, to re-energize us for the trek to the next spot of interst, Hiroshima Castle.

One the way to the castle, we came across the first of what would be several amazing signs in Hiroshima. I think it looks like the bike is trying to escape from the rider.

Hiroshima Castle is only the second castle I have visited in Japan, but I am already starting to sense a pattern. Japanese castles are tall and well fortified. We ran up the several flights of stairs to the top to catch the view before it got completely dark, then walked down a bit slower to take in the displays of samurai weapons. At the bottom was a dress up corner (Kumamoto Castle did not have this!) where Jamie humored me and dressed up with me.

As we left in search of dinner, we passed by this torii gate in front of a shrine right next to the castle. I thought it framed the last bit of daylight quite nicely.

For dinner, we sought out some Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki in the basement of a department store. It was alright. Dessert was much better, crepes served out of the back of an old bus. We had to wait in line before they even took our orders, and then wait again while the two people working inside made them. It was worth the wait though. Soft doughy crepe filled with all sorts of creamy goodness. I ordered Tiramisu flavor. As I recal, Allisons had something to do with blueberries, but it looks more like ecstacy to me.

We bedded down for the night in a hostel, which was much nicer than our apartments. The tatami mats were newer, the bedding was warmer, the heater worked, and the shower rooms were actually designed for showers. Damn, we thought. Until we remembered that the cost of two nights there was equivalent to about half of a month's rent in our subsidized apartments. You get what you pay for I guess.

Day 2 we got up bright and early and set out for Miyajima, a small island easily reached by ferry from Hiroshima. It took almost 40 minutes on impossibly slow street car to get from downtown to the port, and like the Peace Park the day before, it was packed. So many people stealing our great ideas for weekend activites.

Boat!

There are three reasons to visit Miyajima: to see the famous red torii gate in the water, to see
momiji, and to see monkeys. We accomplished the first two with ease, but the monkeys were being difficult.

The red torii of Itsukushima Shrine is one of the "Three Views of Japan" so I am sure you have probably seen a picture before. The picture I took below of the gate at high tide is almost identical to the postcards they sell in town. Yes, I am that good. For more on the "Three Views" check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Views_of_Japan

After our gate viewing, we started up towards the cable car, or "ropeway" that would lead us to monkeys. We passed this sign (amazing sign #2) on the way up.

We didn't run, and instead we took many side paths meandering through lots of lots of red leaves which took the better part of an hour. When we finally reached the ropeway station, we were given a number and told that it would be another hour before our number would be called allowing us to board. So we ate some snacks, and took some pictures.

Me hoping to attract the monkeys below. But is was all in vain. When we reached the top a.k.a monkey territory, there was a hand written sign on a white board that said "Monkeys have gone to the forest to eat." Stupid monkeys.

At least we saw another good sign as we got ready to be crammed 8 people into a small swinging car. Please wait in quiet while suspended indefintely in impossibly small car above deep ravine...uh sure.

The view. Hiroshima in the distance.

After the monkey-less mountain ascent, we rushed back down to the water to catch the gate at low tide. While the ground was still quite soggy and covered in lots of green seaweed, everyone and their mom was squishing through it to go take pictures and stick coins into the waterlogged wood for luck.

The shrine was not the only red thing on Miyajima. There were millions of red leaves, or momiji, as well. So many, in fact that there is a park named for them, Momijidani Park. So of course we had to take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.

Some with just trees in them...

...and some with us in them, enjoying the leaves.

And another postcard worthy one. I bought a postcard that looked identical. Ask my grandma if you don't believe it.

Then we walked around town. Which was slightly less packed in the afternoon than it had been in the morning. Even though it was 3 ish by the time we finally got around to lunch, we still had to wait for a table. This time, the okonomiyaki was worth the wait. I ordered mine with mochi inside, and it was delicious, all warm and gooey.

Then it was more photo ops with other "landmarks" like the golden Hello Kitty outside of the Sanrio store, where Jamie bought almost $100 of her beloved Hello Kitty cell phone charms. I must admit though that the Hiroshima/Miyajima ones were especially cute. Hello Kitty on a paper crane, Hello Kitty with a leaf hat, wielding two okonomiyaki paddles, Hello Kitty under the torii gate....and on and on.

There was also Hello Kitty sitting on a rice paddle, because Miyajima is home to Japan's largest rice paddle or something like that. I am not sure exactly of its claim to fame, but it is a large rice paddle. Pretty impressive, but would have been better with a giant bowl of rice next to it, or at least a few big grains stuck to it.

After the last round of pictures, it was almost dark, and we decided to head back to the city for dinner. One last view from Miyajima:

Back in Hiroshima, we tried to walk off our late lunch and scout out a place for dinner. We went to take purikura (which is so amazing that is deserves its own post, look for one later) in a store?/building dedicated to photobooths decorated in bright colors playing obnoxious music. If I recall correctly, there were four floors to choose from. It was glorious. We are becoming purikura masters.

Day 3 was just a half day, so we could get home in time to digest and prepare for the JET Mid-Year seminar on Monday and Tuesday. So after some breakfast, we stashed our bags in a locker at the station and walked to Shukkeien Park for a last look at the leaves. The park was beautiful, done in the tradional Japanese style. We even saw girls in kimonos!

Glorious reds and oranges

Can you spot the tourist amidst the leaves?

And sun shining on more leaves

It may not have been Thanksgiving in the turkey and mashed potato sense, but it was a great weekend, and it helped me realize how much I have to be thankful for, which is quite a lot.

Falling for fall...

2007-12-02T15:33:00.000+09:00

You can take the desert girl out of the desert, but you can't take the desert out of the girl. Or something like that.

This is the first year since 1992 that I have lived somewhere with four distinct seasons. Central Arizona has two seasons, hot and not so hot. Southern CA isn't much different, although I do remember there being ice on the ground when I returned to Claremont last January, which should definitely qualify that time of year as winter in my book. In Japan, I am experiencing (almost for the first time really) these fabled four seasons. When I arrived in August, it was definitely summer, miserably hot and sweaty, and green. While this lingered on until the end of Septemeber/early October, the past few weeks have witnessed a rather dramatic change. Leaves are no longer bright green. The weather is not hot and sweaty, even in the sun. I can see my breath when I bike to school in the morning. By 6 pm, its almost completely dark out.

At first, this was a welcome change. It was nice being able to open the windows in my apartment. But this lovely temperate weather was short lived. It seemed like the day after I shut the windows, I had to drag out the space heater. All of a sudden, the all-cotton clothing layers I relied on to keep me warm back home in the states became rather insufficient. This wasn't fall---it was winter!! I was outraged, and moreover pretty dang cold. Until people in other places reminded me that 65 F really isn't that cold. So decked out in some new wool sweaters, I've tried to embrace the season.

One way to enjoy "fall" is to do "fall" things, like picking kaki with your calligraphy class. Just look at all the fun we had.

Setting out. It was a chilly grey day when we started. Note that not just the crazy desert girl is bundled up.

An innocent kaki blissfully ignorant of its doomed fate.

The lovely Miss Shepherd demonstrating how to pick a good one.

Photo shoot time. We spent about 10 minutes acutally picking fruit and another 20 running around taking lots of pictures. Like the oh so tasteful one above.
The location of this kaki picking fest. Lovely.

After kakis we headed to winery where amidst the fall leaves we saw several tourbuses full of Japanese wine enthusiasts finding another way to take the chill out of the air. And we played in the leaves.

We took a break for lunch at a restaurant that looked like a log cabin and had a fantastic heating system. It also had a glorious view of the surrounding country side. After finishing our 5 course lunch (Naoko-sensei takes such good care of us, its rediculous) the clouds had moved on, leaving a sunny fall afternoon behind.

Perfect weather for visiting a pottery factory (not quite the right word, workshop maybe?) With Naoko-sensei and her infinite number of connections, we not only got to see the beautiful pieces for sale, but got a behind the scenes tour and saw the gigantic kiln the ceramicist built himself in his barn, complete with brief tutorial. It took me back to those camp counselor days when I had to trudge up the hill in the middle of the night to check on the kiln, gah! No, really it made me want to try my hand at pottery again.

Beautiful blue cups.

A whimsical little bird.

The kiln to end all kilns. It was huge! The potter said it took two days to do a complete firing, and I think he said that it takes all of the wood you see piled up around it to get it started. And I was complaining about the not-so-automatic ones at Girl Scout Camp. This man obviously loves what he does.

After the pottery, our lunch had settled enough for our last stop of the day...an onsen. This one was outdoors and if you were brave enough to raise your nekkid self out of the hot water a few inches you were rewarded with an incredible view. However, it was quite cold.

That, in a nutshell is how I began to fall in love with fall. How could I not?

[Author's note: Sadly, this feeling was short lived, when I woke up later in the week and could see my breath in my bedroom. A highly scientific experiment invoving all of my alarm clocks, which happen to have thermometers included in their displays and a few quick conversions from C to F concluded that I was indeed sleeping in the coldest room in my apartment, which made sense in August. Not so much now or for the next 4 months or so. So I dismantled my bed, moved it to the warmest room and moved some of the clothes into the other closet. The temperature in this room hovers around 60 F when I wake up, which is surprisingly a whole lot better than the 55 F the other room likes to stay at.]

'Tis the season...

2007-11-28T15:34:00.000+09:00

...for sharing and caring.

My multi-talented-not-so-little-anymore brother is not content just being a freshman at U of A, so he has taken up t-shirt design. He has submitted a design to Threadless.com and could potentially win cool prizes and have his shirt printed if it gets enough votes. Should you need something to distract you from finals or whatever else you are doing, go and vote! And take a look at some of the other t-shirts. Christmahannukwanzakah is just around the corner, and there is no such thing as someone with too many t-shirts!

Why should I vote for a kid I don't even know, you ask? Well if you are reading this, you probably know me, his older sister and I am hoping this is just the beginning of a very lucrative design career for him so that he can take care of me in my old age. Thanks for your support!

Exceptional Excerpts From My Life

Don't miso it!

Extended Absence Greeting

"Welcome back to civilization"

Down with the 英語ノート！！

Food of the Philippines

Golden Week '09--Philippines

National Living Treasure

Matzoh ballin' aka My First Passover Seder

Spring Break '09

2nd Annual Ichigo Gorging

Tears of Joy?

Take me away

Love is a funny thing...

Finding Nemo

東京！

Chicken Soup for the Soul, Part II

Into the Red Centre

See you in Sydney!

The Little Tree that Could

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Would this make you feel better?

Frolicking in the Foliage

A pictoral essay of Osaka and its environs

Flu Season

A Beautiful Fall Day

Halloween!

Heart and SEOUL

There's no place like home

Yukata

The End of an Era

Baby Rice

Straight Hair

News Flash!!

おたんじょうび おめでとう アメリカ！！

Rain, rain go away...

What am I [still] doing here?

私はスポーツファンです。

Case of the Mondays

Need a custom paintball jersey?

Okinawa ABCs (M-Z)

Okinawa ABC's (A-L)

3 days!

Sakura, sakura, sakura!

Other “Kindy” Adventures

“Kindy” Does Kyoto—Parts II & III

“Kindy” does Kyoto--Part I

Catching Up

Spring It On!!

卒業 おめでとう

Mission hilarious

T.G.I.F.

Ice, ice baby

Itsumo omoshiroi

Better Late then Never

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

Choose your own cliche!

Retail Therapy

Back with a bang!

I read the news today, oh boy...

A Japanese Thanksgiving

Falling for fall...

'Tis the season...

おたんじょうび　おめでとう　アメリカ！！

卒業　おめでとう