Saturday, March 27, 2010
KitKat Collection
This is a project I started way back when I first got here, collecting weird flavored KitKats. Because there are a lot in Japan. A LOT. I've amassed quite a collection over a year and a half. Take a look at some of the crazy flavors they've come up with. There are still many more out there, and I'm going to keep adding to my collection as I find them!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
I'm back!!
It's been, like, 6 months since I've updated this blog... Sorry to anyone who still reads it! (Mom...)
Briefly, here's what has occurred to me as to why I've stopped blogging. Basically, when I got here, I was "living abroad in Japan," and my time here was like a reeeally protracted vacation or study abroad experience. Now, in my second year, and particularly in the last 6 months, it's started to feel more like I LIVE in Japan. My life is here. I've gotten into a routine. I'm abroad, but this is my life now. At least for now. You know? Anyway. With a mindset like that, the everyday things seem less noteworthy, and any travel I do tends to be to places I've already been. However, I will try to update periodically, with pictures and things.
Here's an overview of what I've been doing for the last 6 months:
Fall 2009
Birthday Party: Lee and my birthdays are pretty close, so we had the 2nd annual joint birthday party at my place. Of course, like all our parties, it was... a costume party (though tame in comparison to the ones we've been having this winter. See below). Check out the pictures.
Hiroshima Sake Festival: In October, right around my birthday, we went to Hiroshima, like we did last year, for the annual Sake Festival. Of course we also went to Miyajima and the floating torii gate. Sadly, this was the weekend I got the phone call that our dog Midnight had passed away... Then as we were preparing to drive home, we discovered Emily's car battery had died. Luckily fate (and Lara, from half way around the world) intervened, in the form of jumper cables Lana had reluctantly accepted from Lara when she left, and swore she's never need. Fail. Photo gallery here.
Shiso International Festival: The Shiso International Festival was in October. The Shiso ALTs worked 2 booths, selling "American food," aka corn dogs and ice cream sundaes. Yum... Also, my friends from Kobe came all the way for the festival! Int'l Festival pictures.
(Oh, in the first series of pictures, we were having a welcome party for Julie, who replaced Andrea as the teacher at Tsukasa School, when Satomi mentioned she needed a haircut. So Caitlin said: "Got a pair of scissors?")
Halloween: We had two Halloweens this year: One in Himeji, a JET party, and one night out in Osaka (us and the hundreds of other crazy foreigners packing the streets of Shinsaibashi in costume and scaring the locals, who had no idea what was going on). Halloween pictures.
Kobe JET Conference: Also known as the biggest waste of time EVER, this is an annual two day conference run by JET which brings ALTs and JTEs together to listen to lectures (read: sleep), participate in workshops (read: do the Hyogo Tourism Board's job for them by spending half a day coming up with promotional campaigns to increase tourism), and come to a better understanding of effective ways to team-teach English (read: accomplish absolutely nothing). But we did have a fun time getting Mexican food and bar hopping at night! Also a few random pictures from dinner at Julie's house and a game of Cranium. Kobe Conference pictures.
The rest of my pictures from roughly September through December, I've thrown into an album I'm just going to call Miscellany. This includes:
- All night clubbing in Osaka, where we made some new Japanese friends, including a guy who studied abroad at UMSL! Woo St. Louis!
- The Shiso JHS Speech Contest (my kids won again--4th year in a row!)
- A trip up Mt. Shosha in Himeji, where they filmed The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise
- A weekend trip to Kyoto, where Caitlin, Emily and I met Emily's friend Nami and her boyfriend Hiroshi (they've since gotten married!)
- A day at the Kobe Outlets with my friend Sayu
- What I guess was effectively my first date with Takuya, when we went up to the top of Mt. Rokko in Kobe.
- Some crazy birds
- A day trip to Okayama with Lana and Heke
- 2ND ANNUAL SHISO THANKSGIVING!!
-Kobe Luminarie
- Yakiniku in Tajima to meet Matt's fiancee Khwan, ahead of Lana, Caitlin and my trip to Thailand, where we attended their engagement ceremony!
That takes care of fall. Now on to...
Winter 2009-1010
THAILAND!: Over New Years, Lana, Caitlin and I went to Thailand! The trip coincided with our friend Matt's (a fellow JET) traditional Thai engagement ceremony, in the small northern town where his Thai fiancee lives. We were so lucky to be invited to that, and they even had us participate a little! It was really amazing. We spent a day there, then went to Chiang Mai, a really cool city in the north of Thailand; spent 2 days at the beach in Hua Hin, near Bangkok; and then finished the trip in Bangkok, where we shopped saw the sights for three days, before flying home. We had some amazing experiences, and some I'd rather forget (the 12 hour overnight train ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, followed by the 5 hour train ride with no AC in 100 degree weather on wooden benches to Hua Hin on New Years Eve day).
Matt and Khwan's Engagement Ceremony (professional pictures)
Parties: We've upped the ante for parties this winter, with the last three becoming increasingly more ridiculous.
1. Feliz Derelicto (Christmas / Zoolander themed party) (December)
2. Alice in Wonderland party (Caitlin's birthday party) (January)
3. Mardi Gaga (Mardi Gras / Lady Gaga themed party) (March)
January Recap: January sucks. The holidays are over, and it's freezing cold and dark. So we livened it up with some fun trips. One day, I went skiing (only the second time in my life, and possibly the last if I don't get my back in shape) with Takuya, Emily and Takuya's friend. Takuya and his friend are decent snowboarders. Emily and I both suck at skiing (it was her first time, and for all intents and purposes, mine too). We took a lesson, and were the only people over the age of 12. No joke. Also in January, we took a trip to Kyoto to see Caitlin's sisters play soccer with their team from Mt. Holyoke. (That's why they were at the Alice party). January pictures.
February Recap: February was a busy month! There was a masquerade party in Osaka; a (small) matsuri in Ichinomiya for the Japanese holiday Setsubun, with a big bonfire and yummy stall food; a Superbowl party; a "superdate" (initially supposed to be like a massive double date with all the couples, but turned into "everyone date Paul," because Heke's boyfriend was visiting from the states); a sushi eating contest at a 100 yen kaiten (revolving) sushi restaurant (people are STILL full. The winner, Lee, ate 32 plates. For point of comparison, I ate 9 plates. I usually eat 4 or 5 plates. 9 was pushing it for me); and, saving the best for last, the OKAYAMA NAKED MAN FESTIVAL!! (Hadaka Matsuri). It's an annual festival where thousands of men dress up in fundoshi (loincloths) in the middle of winter, get drunk, and run around the temple splashing themselves with holy water and yelling, before gathering in the middle of the temple to battle for the holy sticks dropped into the crowd by the monks, which, if you get them, will bring you good fortune in the coming year. I know. You totally wish you had been there. February pictures.
That's it for the recap of the last 6 months. Enjoy the pictures. I'll try to update periodically (though hopefully in smaller installments, because no joke, this took ALL DAY. Luckily, it's spring break right now! So I'm just hanging around the office).
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tokyo Silver Week
Caitlin and I took the Shinkansen up on Saturday, and hung out in Asakusa, where we were staying. We had dinner in Shibuya, burgers, real burgers, with cheese and bbq sauce and pineapple. Due to the stupid fact that Tokyo subways stop at 12, we decided not to go dancing like we'd planned, but go back to our hostel.
Sunday we scoped out a flea market and then met up with Lana in Harajuku. We shopped and saw Meiji Shrine, and a bizarre store called condomania, which is exactly what it sounds like. We had Thai food for dinner, which was great, and then met Caitlin's friend Cameron and his 3 friends back in Asakusa. Since there's nothing much to do in Asakusa, we ended up getting an all night karaoke room and hanging out there, until circumstances required that we return to our hostel.
Monday we went to the Tsukiji Fish Market, and had really fresh sushi at a little place in one of the many maze-like alleys around the market. Walking (or, more accurately, squeezing and staggering) through the market area made me feel like I was really in Asia, the foreign smells and the jam packed little streets with severed fish heads staring at you and weird creatures floating in icy water. In the afternoon we walked around Ginza, the fashionable shopping district. I came across a print shop where I found this gorgeous print by a Japanese wood block artist from the early 20th century names Kawase Hasui. I've fallen in love with his work, it has a very realistic and yet very picture-book feel to it. It's very idealized, peaceful and calm. You can take a look at some of his prints here. The one I bought is below.
Monday night we went to Tokyo Tower, because the view at night is really cool. Then Tuesday we went to Nikko, about 2 hours outside Tokyo, where there is an impressive collection of shrines and temples. One of the shrines has carvings of monkeys on it doing the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" pose. Apparently these carvings have something to do with the origin of that phrase, though I don't understand how. Due to unfortunate circumstances, we were forced to stand the entire 2.5 hour train ride back to Tokyo, and were exhausted when we got back. We had dinner at a little place near the hostel, and accidentally ordered spam patties. Then we went back to Ginza to have dessert at a place called Alice Cafe, which is a theme restaurant where the waiters dress like Alice and the place looks like Wonderland. It's dark, like you really are in a rabbit hole, the walls are draped with blue fabric and there are mirrors on the ceiling. It was a lot of fun, but I was very conscious of being the only foreigners in there. Clearly it was off the beaten path.
Tuesday night, Cameron and his friends were supposed to come in to the city again to meet up, but due to what I'm not sure, lack of consideration or immaturity and poor planning, they chose to wait until 10 to let us know they were actually still in Hanno, where Cameron lives, an hour outside of Tokyo. But why didn't we come out there? We could have a house party. Long story short, Caitlin and Lana and I disagreed about whether such a plan would be a lot of fun or a mind-numbingly juvenile throwback to freshman-year frat parties, and we parted ways, them going to Hanno and me going back to the hostel.
We met up again the next morning. I had breakfast at a little cafe in Asakusa, did a little last minute souvenir shopping (I bought a gorgeous silk robe and a Starbucks mug-I'm collecting the different ones from the major cities). We went to Roppongi Hills, the huge shopping/housing/entertainment complex for lunch, and while Caitlin and Lana shopped I went to try to find the studio of Murakami Takashi, a Japanese artist I like. I assumed his studio would include a gallery, which it did, but the building was closed, probably because of the National holiday. So I didn't get to see it, but it was still cool to see where his studio was.
We left Tokyo at 3 and got back to Yamasaki around 8 or 9. It was a fun trip, but it was tiring. The hostel we were staying at was in no way relaxing. It deserves its own entry, but I'll try to do it justice here. The only redeeming quality was the price, which at under 20 dollars a night is unbeatable. That said, I would at all costs avoid staying there again in the future. It was not too far from the subway, which was good. But Asakusa is not the most exciting area of Tokyo. The guidebook actually used the word "yawn" to describe it. There was one toilet per floor (one physical toilet) and it kept running out of toilet paper. One of the girls in our room the first night came back at 6 am and had forgotten her key, she knocked and woke us up to let her in. There was no one at reception at that time. The other 3 nights we moved into an 8 bed mixed dorm. There was no lock on the door. Again, 1 toilet for the entire floor. The common space was a kitchen (cockroaches) and through the kitchen was the one sink and shower (no lock) on the floor. Zero privacy. I showered on Sunday night because there was no one around at 3 am when we got back, but that was it. I couldn't shower again until I got home Wednesday night. I know. Disgusting. The security was a joke. They told us that after 12 the front door would be locked, and we would need a code to get in. When we came back at 3 Sunday night, the door was open, which meant we were able to walk right in, and right up into our dorm room, which, you will recall, also had no lock. There was one guy sitting up in the kitchen on his computer at that time, a guest with insomnia, I assumed. It turns out he wasn't even a guest there. His friend was, but he had nowhere to stay, so he was just hanging out in the hostel. He made himself perfectly comfortable in our dorm. We came back one day to find him sitting with his laptop on Caitlin's bed, which he had clearly climbed over to plug in his cords. Caitlin was understandably annoyed. It's common hostel courtesy, don't enter another person's bed space. I've stayed at a lot of hostels, and some of them were pretty dirty, but I've never stayed at one that was so completely oblivious to the convenience and comfort of their guests. They didn't even have individual bed lights, so when you got back late, like we did every night, and the lights were off and people were sleeping, you had to fumble around for your things in the dark, or use your cell phone light.
Anyway, other than the hostel and the unfortunate disagreement about Hanno, it was a great trip. Here are pictures:
Japanese Drivers License
Finally, after months of agony and defeat, I passed my road test on the second try and got my Japanese license. Yay! No more biking around the inaka. I can go to the gym again. I can drive to Himeji. Life is good.
The process of actually getting the license started in July before I went home, when I started the whole process of filling out the paperwork and such. I had to schlep to Akashi, which meant taking the bus an hour to Himeji, then taking the train to Akashi, for my road test, which I failed the first time. You drive on a closed course, which sound pretty simple, right? Well, driving on the course, that is to say, what they expect you to do, bears little resemblance to what I've known for the last 8 years as "driving." In fact, all the road test tests is your ability to take the test. Not actually drive on a road, where you're more concerned with paying attention to the real-time action on the road than with following the procedure.
My second road test, scheduled on the earliest available day, which was a month after my first road test and luckily on a day I had off from school, I left the house at 7:30 to catch the bus to Himeji. I caught the train to Akashi, and the bus to the driving center, where I arrived at 10. I checked in to the test window, and then had to wait until 12, when they let you walk the course. Since it was the same course as last time, and I spend the whole 2 hours that time stressing and studying the course map, this time I decided for my own sanity to get out of the building, and I went to Starbucks and read until 12. I walked the course twice. I chatted with a guy I assumed was American (Japanese-American) but who turned out to just be Japanese, though his English was completely unaccented and fluent. All these things helped calm me down, and at 1 I was the first to go. I was really nervous, but I stayed calm, and drove the course without incident. Though, that alone is not enough to ensure you pass, they're so anal. When I finished, the cop was trying to tell me my result, but I didn't understand what he was saying. He repeated himself about 5 times before (a little exasperated, I think) he said "Ok! Ok!" Which I took to mean I had passed. I was so relieved, I was shaking. They told me to go and sit inside and wait.
As it turned out, I was the only one of the group that day who passed. They test all the foreigners together in that 1 o'clock block, and there were about 12 of us. I waited until 2, then they took me to another office, handed in some paper work, and took me to another place to wait until 3. At 3 they had me go wait in the lecture with all the Japanese people who had passed their tests, and take our pictures. Finally at 4:30 or 5, I got my license and left. I got back to Yamasaki at 7. It was a 12 hour day.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Back to School
School has started again, and that means it's sports festival time~! The sports festival is an annual event, like field day or color wars, but WAY more ritualized, because, after all, this is Japan. The actual thing isn't until the 13th, but the week and a half before are dedicated to practicing everything from marching, to singing the school song, to dancing, to more marching, to group calisthenics. There is not much going on in the way of classes, which means a continued light load for me. I'm spending the time working on my English boards and re-vamping my Miriam Dollar system. In light of the recent crime wave (ie kids stealing Miriam Dollars from one another, and in on instance, a second year setting up an extortion racket), I decided to change the rules. Now the students have to write their names on the Miriam Dollars (or I have to do it for them) so no one else can use them. The tricky bit is while I know many of the kids names, I have trouble recalling them from nowhere. If I see a kid's name written, I can usually find the face, but going from face to name is much harder. So we'll see how this works.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Himeji Beer Garden
Last weekend we took Lara to Osaka to see her off as she returned to America. Before she left, she and Lana had their long-awaited sushi-eating contest. They tied at 16.5 plates each. To put that in perspective for you, they each usually eat about 7 plates for a meal. I usually eat 4. Here are some pictures of the epic battle:
Friday night I had an enkai with my teachers. We went to Himeji, to this really nice hotel with a Western-style buffet. It was delicious. I voluntarily ate two helpings of salad. They had cheese and crackers, bread sticks wrapped in prosciutto, pasta salad, roast beef, meat sauce pasta, soup, salad, fresh fruit and fruit tarts. It was delicious. Then we went for karaoke afterwards. Karaoke with the teachers is always an experience. But this time was the first time we got a private room instead of going to this one karaoke bar in Yamasaki which is just public with everybody in the same bar. So it was a little more awkward (to me) all sitting around in a U and singing. I think I preferred the other way, and the izakaya style dining. The big round tables at the hotel restaurant made it hard to talk to many people. Usually I enjoy talking with some of the other teachers, but this time it wasn't quite as homey and relaxed a feeling as it is at an izakaya. Oh, and the worst part of the night came when the vice principal, who I really like usually, called me over to him (he was drunk by this point) and said "Miriam, you gained weight in America." Just said it, just like that. I've heard stories from other JETs about co-workers saying things like that, which we would consider totally inappropriate, but I'd never experienced it before. On the one hand, because of the nature of the comment I was annoyed, and started worrying he was right. But on the other hand, I kind of feel like the fact that he said it means I'm considered more a part of the group. Maybe. I don't know.
Saturday night we were all itching to get out of Yamasaki. There was a party going on with some JETs up north in Hyogo, but it became a logistical nightmare trying to figure out how to get there (3+ hours on the train, or 3 hours driving?) so we decided to skip it. Instead, we went to Himeji and went to a beer garden. Beer gardens are these things in Japan in the summer, on the roofs of department stores, where for a flat rate (usually 25-30 bucks) you get all-you-can-drink and eat. There are all these long tables set up, and you just hang out and drink beer or watered-down chu-hi and eat lots and lots of fried food until you feel sick/ get your money's worth. So we did that until 9:30 when it ended, then we went over to this Irish pub we know, and had some more drinks and snacks. We were considering doing karaoke, but since we were tired we decided to skip it. We were waiting until 12 to go check in at the Toyoko Inn, because if you arrive after midnight you get your room for half-price. Well, we got to the Toyoko Inn at 12 and guess what? The one in Himeji doesn't do the half-price deal. We were really annoyed. I thought, oh well, I guess we have to pay full price. But Lana and Caitlin said "ok. So let's go sleep in the car." I couldn't believe they were serious. There we were, in the hotel, we could still get a full 8 hours of sleep, and they wanted to walk all the way back to the car to sleep. We argued about it for a while, and finally I said, "ok, well you guys can go sleep in the car, I'm staying here." So that's what we did. I got a single room and they went back and slept in the car. Honestly, if it had been, like, 4 in the morning, and we were totally stranded with no where to go, and we just needed a place to crash for a couple hours, I'd have thought sleeping in the car sounded like a fun adventure. But since we had a place to stay, and the entire night ahead of us, I wanted to sleep in a nice comfortable bed. Anyway, we met up the next morning for breakfast, did some shopping, went to the flea market, got sushi for lunch, and came back to Yamasaki.
Also some miscellaneous pictures of the rice paddies around my school. I was biking home and the light was really nice so I took some pictures.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Return of Blogging
I'm going to try to start up this blog again, though probably less frequently than I was doing before. For now, a brief recap of the last month:
The first term of the Japanese school year ended in mid-July, and summer vacation began. I went home to the US for three weeks, from July 24th. It was my first time back since I came to Japan last year. I spent a week in Boston visiting my parents, then a week in St. Louis visiting friends from college, then another week in Boston. My brother Benjamin was working in Williamstown, MA on the Williamstown Theater Festival, so we went to visit him and saw a few plays (one so-so, one GREAT, and one absolute crap).
I flew back to Japan on August 14th and went straight to Okinawa to meet up with Lara, Lana and Caitlin for a last hurrah of a tropical vacation before Lara left to move back to the US. Then I came back to Yamasaki and, the very next day, schlepped to Akashi to take my driving test, which I failed. The test here is insanely picky, they make you drive this closed course and they pick out stupid little anal-retentive details to fail you for, like not checking your left side twice before turning, or signaling 20 meters, not 30 meters, before the light. I was so pissed about failing, and I can't take the test again until September 14th. In the meantime, though, I have time to take a driving class at the driving school here.
The new JETs arrived in Shiso while I was in the states. I met them last week. We had a big Karaoke marathon. They all seem really cool, which is good, but I'm still so sad Lara left, and George is leaving soon. It's a lot of upheaval, and in case you didn't know, I don't handle change well.
We went to Osaka this weekend to see Lara off. She left early Sunday morning. We had planned to have a big last night out, but we were all so exhausted we kind of crapped out by 2. Lara left at 5, so we had a sleepy goodbye as we put her in the cab. It feels really weird in Yamasaki knowing she's not here. I think I'm kind of in mourning.
School is starting again. The student are back for their term tests. Classes start next week. Then we have a few weeks of half-school, half-sports festival prep, before the sports festival happens on September 13th. Luckily, that means I get that Monday off, so I don't have to take vacation time to go to Akashi for my road test.
Here are the links to the pictures I've put up.
Here are some from the trip to Matsuyama we took just before I went home. Matsuyama is a town on the island of Shikoku, famous as the setting of the famous book Botchan. There is a very famous, very old onsen (hot spring) there.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Attack of the Swine Flu!
So obviously the big news around the world lately has been the swine flu outbreak. Japan was obsessively trying to control its borders in a spectacularly failed attempt to stop the flu from entering the country. We are now in the midst of an outbreak centered--where? Hyogo. My prefecture.
It started this weekend with a few cases in Kobe and Osaka, both within two hours of my town. Now I've heard there are cases in Himeji, which is the nearest city to me. Basically I'm sitting in the middle of the outbreak. No one in my town seems to have it yet. However, the government is freaking out, and they've closed all the schools in the prefecture for the rest of this week. Though the teachers still have to come in.
Everyone is wearing face masks. We've been urged to do so. While this might seem scary to Americans, who aren't used to (a) seeing face masks in use regularly, and (b) people freaking out obsessively about getting sick, keep in mind that many people in Japan wear face masks all winter long, simply to avoid getting the flu. It's not weird here. To us, seeing people all over wearing masks makes it seem like there's an outbreak of some deadly disease. But here they use them all the time. The stores are sold out because there was a rush on masks this weekend after the first cases were announced.
I know that the WHO is classifying this as a level 5 pandemic or whatever, and I'm doing my best to take the necessary precautions, but I have to say, honestly, people need to CALM DOWN about this flu. People over here have been acting like it's an outbreak of the plague. The Board of Education called all the ALTs in for a meeting yesterday to ask us if we'd be willing to hold off on going home for a while, instead of this summer, waiting until the fall or winter. They admitted this was kind of a moot point now that the flu has actually arrived here, but they're worried it's going to get worse in the next two months, not better. If this thing is still around in two months and still at a level 5 categorization, I am going to be incredibly surprised. Actually, the real reason they didn't want us going was not out of fear of us getting the flu, but more out of concern that we could be in the US, and the WHO would raise the alert level to 6, and we wouldn't be able to get back into Japan (I guess level 6 includes closing borders?)
Acceptance of cultural differences aside, if they had told me definitively I couldn't go home this summer, I'd've had to open up a can of whoop-ass on 'em.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
More Photos
New pictures up. Posts to follow soon!
A new ongoing album dedicated to those little idiosyncrasies that make Japan the magical place that it is.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Spring Break
It's spring break, and with it has come an enormous sense of relief. School is so stressful for me here, I think because I am running blindly and not getting any feedback, so I constantly feel like I'm failing and not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. But now that it's break and I don't have to be doing anything particular, I feel so much more calm. The funk and depression I was in for most of March seems to have disappeared. I've been working full time, despite the break, because I don't have enough days off left to really go anywhere, and I decided to get a big jump on the new year by doing a lot of planning and preparation before the term starts.
I've been kind of stumped as to what I ought to do with the second living room in my house, and so far I've just kept it closed off as a kind of empty storage room. But now that I've been here 8 months (woah...) I'm really sick of the set up in my house. I hate not having a table to sit and work at. The one decent sized table in the house is in the kitchen. Back when I moved in, I tried to bring it into the living room to use as a desk, but it was too big and I couldn't get it out of the kitchen. So it kind of became a counter top for me to pile all my crap on. I'd eat all my meals at the little table on the floor in the living room, I'd do all my school work (if I had any) at the table in the living room. But the problem is that the little table on the floor is so comfortable, and I can't focus sitting there. If I'm going to be doing something where I have to focus, like working, or writing, or studying Japanese, I have to be sitting at a real table in a real chair. So, I'm redecorating! I cleaned off my kitchen table and moved it so I can actually sit at it, and that's where I'm going to eat my meals. I also took down the hideous curtains that hung in the kitchen, and I'm going to get some nice new ones. While I was sick a few weeks ago, someone came to clean up my garden. There was a little bamboo grove of sorts at the back of my house, which partially obscured the view. But the person who cleaned the garden ripped out the bamboo. So now the back of the house is exposed to the view of the houses across the rice paddy. I've been trying to open the screens more, because one of the things I love about spring is throwing open the windows and letting the natural light in. My house is so traditional, it's anything but light and airy, which is a bummer. But I'm working on it.
I've been planning on redecorating for a while, but I'm finally getting it done. I went to the home goods store Nanba to buy a desk. I actually ordered one, but then Caitlin took me to this used goods store, and there were all these really nice desks and things for WAY cheaper, so I cancelled my order at Nanba and I'm going to go get a desk there. I bought a beautiful painting of a woman wearing a kimono, apparently its an original painting (by a local or what, I don't know) but it looks old, the way the picture was mounted was not modern looking, and the frame and everything is really weathered. I hung it over where the desk is going to go.
This used store (recycle store, its called) is AMAZING. Caitlin's been talking about it for ages, but I kind of got the wrong impression of it, and didn't realize how awesome it is. It's a huge warehouse-like place, piled to the ceiling with second hand stuff. There are tables, chairs, desks, lamps, dishes and glasses of every kind, jewelry, artwork, movies, CDs, pillows, exercise equipment, mirrors, wardrobes, so much stuff and I can't even think what else, but I'll put it this way: a child with an active imagination would have the time of their life in this store.
This has been my spring break. I come to work at 8 (or a little after, since no one's really there and there's no morning staff meeting) and I'm only supposed to stay until noon, but I've been staying until usually 2 or 3, sometimes till 4 or 5, because I'm trying to get work done. Also I'm trying to build some good credit at school by putting in the time to show that I'm not one of those ALTs who just wants to jet off and get away from school.
Anyway, I'll post pictures of the room as soon as it's finished. Which will hopefully be soon. Right now, I'm in that phase where you start cleaning and making improvements at home, but it gets way messier before it gets better. But I'm trying not to let it bug me. It's going to be so much better once I get everything in order.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Hitting the nail on the head
While doing some research into teaching Phonics online today, I found a page written by a former ALT who had some thoughts on the dichotomy between theory and practice in the Japanese English education system I've been trying to put my finger on in the past few months. He kind of hit the nail on the head, I think. This is what he had to say:
"[Japan has] a future generation whose government has the proper resources, yet constantly robs them of future opportunities and chances because they lack the knowledge to properly teach a foreign language or are too proud to rely on 'outsiders' to play a pivotal role in the education of their youth."
All of this does nothing except help me form a better understanding of why my job is so damn frustrating 95% of the time. At least I know it's not just me.
Boys will be boys
It is refreshing to see that men are the same in every country. Right now Japan is competing in the World Baseball Classic, and everyone is following it. Today was the last day of school, and the students left at lunchtime, so now all the teachers are just hanging around with nothing much to do. So the men are glued to the TV in the corner of the staff room watching Japan vs. Korea. Every few minutes there is an eruption of sound from that side of the room. It's ironic, all last week and yesterday and today, I had nothing to do and was sitting at my desk trying to not fall asleep. Then, today my JTE gave me an assignment, and now I actually have something to do. And this is when the other teachers decide to watch a baseball game in the middle of the day (though to be fair, they're nowhere NEAR as obnoxious as American sports fans. And being form Boston, I know obnoxious sports fans).
My principal is really funny, he's like a little boy (always, actually, but especially while watching the game). Every time something good happens, he jumps up and turns to the rest of the room, like "did you see that? Did you see?" He's carrying a yardstick or something around and swinging it like a baseball bat. But he's doing it with the over-excited happiness of a five year old. It's really amusing. I like him, I'm sad he's going to be leaving. He and a few other teachers are being transfered. This is common in April, when the new year starts. The BOE redistributes teachers all over the district. Both of my JTEs are staying, though. While I think we need to improve our communication to work more effectively together, I really like them both. One of the teachers who is leaving, I just found out, is the music teacher, who I really like. She's retiring I think. Also one of the math teachers who I don't know so well, but who I like, is leaving. The PE teacher is leaving, but I don't know him at all, and he's kind of gruff and has no interest in talking to the ALT I think.
Tomorrow is the first day of spring break, and I'm going to be spending the time planning my curriculum for next term. It's only a week and a half break, so it's actually the perfect amount of time for what I need to do. I think. I guess I'll see.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Road Trip to Fukuoka
A while back, we decided that we wanted to do a big trip this weekend, because it was a three day weekend, and it was Lara's birthday. We were going to go to Okinawa, but we couldn't get cheap tickets. So we decided to do a road trip to Fukuoka instead. Fukuoka is in Kyushu, and it's about a 7 hour drive south of here.
We rented a car and left on Thursday after work. We drove about two hours and stopped in a town in Okayama called Kurashiki. It's a very small city, but it has this one area with canals running through it, and cute little shops and things on either side, little bridges, vendors selling things, it was really cute. We spent the night and Friday morning there, then drove down to Fukuoka. We got in around dinner time. Saturday we saw some of the sights in Fukuoka. We went to a temple with a big statue of Buddha inside. Fukuoka is far enough south that the cherry blossoms were already starting to bloom. There was one big tree in front of the temple that was blooming, it was really pretty. Then we went to Ohori-koen, a big park. There is a big lake in the park, and the park kind of wraps around the lake. There were things like museums and gardens around the outside of the lake, and a stretch of land linked by bridges cutting across the middle of the lake. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was about 70 degrees, sunny, with a clear blue sky. We wandered around the park, went into one of the Japanese gardens, saw the remains of the castle walls where Fukuoka castle once was. Then we did a little shopping, and went back to the hotel for a little rest before dinner. For dinner we went to the Canal City area and had ramen from a vendor along the river. Fukuoka (or rather Hakata, which is part of Fukuoka) is famous for its ramen. While we were eating outside at this vendor, it started to rain. Most people left, but we stayed there, sitting at our table in the rain. The waiters brought us umbrellas. I think they thought we were crazy foreigners, sitting there eating ramen in the rain. We were determined to have the Hakata-ramen-from-a-vendor experience.
Saturday night we went out to celebrate Lara's birthday. We went to a club that ended up being full of foreigners. It took us a while to find a place. Going out in Japan is not at all like going out in the US, or even Europe. Back home, you know you're going to get either a bar, a lounge, or a dance club (roughly). You see a building, with a door and a sign, and you know what it is. In Japanese cities, things are stacked on top of each other and every inch of the block is exploding with signs for places you can't even see. Most of these buildings have maybe 6 to 10 floors, say, and on each floor is a different business--a restaurant, a club, a bar, a hair salon, I don't even know. There is a huge sign sticking off the side of the building with the names and floors of the places inside. It's like a vertical strip mall. But there's a much wider variety of types of places you can go. There aren't just "bars." There are hostess bars, the male equivalent host bars, sex clubs, karaoke bars, karaoke boxes, dance clubs, one place we found was a virtual golf bar, where you could hang out, have drinks and snacks and play virtual golf, and I don't even know what else. Everything is just MORE. So it took us a while to find a place. But once we did we had fun.
We got back late and slept in Sunday morning. Then we checked out of our hotel and went to get breakfast, did some last minute shopping and got on the road around 2pm. We drove straight back with only a few rest stops and breaks for meals, and got back to Yamasaki around 9:30.
Nara
About two weeks ago, Lara, Lana, Caitlin and I went to Nara for the weekend. Nara, like Kyoto, is a very historical city, and many of the old buildings still remain. We arrived early on Saturday morning and checked into our hotel. We decided to splurge a bit and stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese style inn. This one was very small, on a little back street in the center or town. It had a beautiful Japanese garden in the middle, traditional rooms with futon, Japanese communal showers--the works. It was an interesting experience. It was fun and I'd do it again, but I do kind of prefer the privacy of a Western style hotel.
On Saturday we walked around a bit in the center of town and did a little shopping as we walked towards Nara Koen, a big park and the location of many of the sights. One of the things Nara is famous for is the deer that roam freely in this park. They are considered to be messengers from the gods, and are given the status of National Treasures. There are about 1200 of them wandering around (it's a big park), and you can buy deer crackers to feed them. We had a lot of fun feeding the deer (and running from them when they chased us looking for food).
We went to Todai-ji, supposedly the biggest wooden building in the world, and home of the Daibutsu, a giant statue of Buddha. After that we wandered around the park, enjoying the weather and seeing a few other sights. We had a relaxed dinner at a little jazz bar we found (its name was Gentry. We thought that was pretty classy, until we realized they had meant it to be Gently. Whoops. Typical Engrish mistake).
Sunday we were planning on going to this one garden in the park, then traveling a bit outside of the city to visit another famous temple, but at that point I was starting to feel sick (the feeling which subsequently turned into pneumonia and a week home sick). We made it to the garden, which was pretty, but I was feeling really sick, so I decided to come back early. Caitlin's knee was hurting so she decided to leave too, and then Lana and Lara decided they might as well leave as well. So we came back early. But Nara is not that big, so I felt we got a nice little taste of it in the day and a half we were there.
With spring comes the return of traveling (I hope!). First stop: Osaka
A few weeks ago, I went to Osaka for about 24 hours. We went on a Friday after work, with the intention of going dancing, because we hadn't in a long time (there are no clubs in Yamasaki). Lara, Heke and I took the bus to Osaka, checked into our hotel and had a late dinner at a really cute izakaya near where we were staying. It was dimly lit and we were in our own little room at our table on the floor. It was warm and cozy and we ended up staying until they closed at midnight. Then we went dancing, and ended up staying out all night. I had planned on staying all day Saturday and coming back Sunday to Yamasaki, but I was so tired I was thinking I might just go home on Saturday morning. Heke did do that, but I rallied and stayed Saturday with Lara to do some sightseeing. I'm glad I did, because it was a gorgeous early spring day and I've been wanting to see Osaka (not that I really "saw" Osaka. It's a HUGE city with a lot to do there's no way to get in all in in one day). We went to Osaka castle (which is not as impressive as Himeji castle, since it's actually a replica of the original) but it was still cool. There were some beautiful views of the city from the top. We ate sakura (cherry blossom) flavored ice cream and wandered through the park. At the base of the castle there was a vast plum orchard and the blossoms were just starting to come out. Since the weather was so nice, many people had decided to picnic under the trees along the river beneath the castle. In the afternoon Lee joined us and we checked out a temple, then I caught the bus back to Yamasaki in the evening.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Quickly checking in
Well, I've gotten bad about keeping up with this blog. Partly, though, there hasn't been that much to tell. The first few months I was doing a lot of exciting new things, but then winter came and I settled into my routine, and I don't think anyone really wants to hear about how I got up, had breakfast, went to work, came home, made dinner and went to sleep.
It's almost spring here. It's kind of battling its way in. We keep having these infuriatingly spring-like days that turn into snowstorms or rainstorms, and then it plunges back into winter. But it's getting there. March is the end of the school year in Japan, and the 3rd years are graduating, in about 2 weeks actually. Then the other students finish at the end of March. We get two weeks of spring break, then the new year starts in April. There will be a whole new class of 1st years coming in. I know most of them already, because I teach at the two elementary schools that feed into my JHS. So I'm hoping that will be a plus.
There really isn't very much going on for me to write about. Since it's been so cold, no one has been really up for traveling. Hopefully we'll start traveling again in March as it warms up, so I will have some interesting stories to tell.
Well, this was a thoroughly uninteresting post. Sorry.
Friday, February 20, 2009
And now I've come full circle
I think I just had an epiphany, but not necessarily the good kind. All this time, I've been thinking that the lack of classes where I'm actually doing constructive communicative activities with the students was my fault, that I didn't know how to plan, or I wasn't taken advantage of the times when I was allowed to contribute to planning the lesson. But now, as we are nearing the end of year exams, I realized something. It was like making a connection where before there was a huge disconnect, and suddenly the light came on.
The teachers here don't want the kids doing constructive, communication-based activities. All along I've been thinking they wanted them to, but didn't know how or were worried it would make the class unmanageable. Now I see I was wrong. They want to kids to pass their exams. That's all. They want them to learn Testing English, they don't want them to learn Actual English. I'm kind of stuck in a corner, because the English teachers tell me what kind of lessons to plan, and that doesn't give me much leeway. The worst part of that is, they always tell me to prepare the same kind of lessons: listening practice and reading practice, or worse, the dreaded, asinine wordsearch. That the teachers only care about the testing was the first part of the epiphany. The part that hit me like a bucket of ice water was when I realized that if that is all they want, then I really serve absolutely no purpose with my presence here. If all they want is for the students to learn grammar, the English teachers are perfectly capable of teaching that themselves. What JETs provide is the other component, natural English communication, and an ability to actually speak the language. THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE JET PROGRAM. In typical Japanese fashion, they have set up a system whereby they say one thing on the outside (we want our students to actually be able to speak English, not just learn the grammar), but then do something completely different in reality (like focus on testing and ignore the communication part).
For some reason, this reality just solidified in my mind today. The students have tests next week, so I'm going to the third year class on Monday, and I assumed I'd me preparing a review of some sort for the students. Nope. I've been asked to prepare listening practice and reading practice. That's all. I understand because they have a test coming up that those become the priorities. But this is always how it is.
While it's a bit comforting to know it is not entirely due to my failing that we never do communicative activities in class, it is also incredibly frustrating to realize that because a component of it is out of my control, there's not much I can do to fix it. All along I've felt like the English teachers and I were kind of in the same boat. I've been struggling trying to figure out what I was doing wrong in terms of planning effective lessons. I thought it was my fault, my inexperience. But today I began to see the situation as me battling furiously against the current (trying to bring effective communicative activities to the classroom) while the English teachers threw up roadblocks every step of the way. They never give me the opportunity to bring anything constructive to the classes. They do, but within the narrow confines of the type of activities they want. The few times I managed to force a few (slightly more) communicative activities into the classes, I felt like I was slipping one in the back door, manipulating and circumventing the JTEs. I felt sneaky. And I shouldn't feel that way, since it's my job.
It seems like everyone and everything is working against the students actually learning English. The first years are apparently complaining about the younger JTE. They say she doesn't explain the grammar in a way they understand, they play too many games in class, and she does inappropriate things like show her wedding pictures during class (it was a little booklet, and she passed it around while they were working silently in their workbooks, and many of the girls were really excited about it). I don't know how many students are complaining, but it can't be that many. In any case, the students never speak up and say when they don't understand something. When you ask them "do you understand?" you are met with blank stares. No one says anything. Of course, I'm hearing all this criticism from the other JTE, who heard it from the vice-principal, who heard if from the parents, who heard it from the kids. So that, plus the language barrier, and I'm not sure how accurate a representation I'm seeing. But it really pisses me off. The "games" the first year teacher uses in class are what I would call closer to communicative activities, the point being to get the kids' noses out of the books and have them actually speak English. But they don't seem to like that or think it's worthwhile, because it isn't directly leading to passing a test. The worst part is, I know exactly what they're feeling because I was that student in junior high. I didn't see the value of immersion in French class. I got angry because I didn't understand, and I lashed out at my teacher because of it. Now years later, and after having had much more experience with language learning, I realize there is a huge difference between "learning a language" and "learning a language for academic purposes." They are completely different things. In the short run, getting these students through their tests is the goal. That is the teachers' job. In the long run, getting the Japanese population to be able to speak better English is the goal. That is the government's job. That's why they hired the JETs. BUT. But but but but BUT.... this puts the teachers' goal and the government/JETs' goal completely at odds, and makes my life a living hell.
This is the closest I've been to completely losing it at school since September.
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