Anna's Jet Lag

Shimanami Bike Tour

2008-07-23T11:00:00.002+09:00

A quick update:
I am currently packing up all my things and preparing to return home! I've been crazy busy, so no blogs.

I wanted to share this little tidbit -- Last weekend I went on a 3 day camping/bike trip with my friends. The place where we rented the bikes took our picture and put it on their website :)

http://www.sunrise-itoyama.jp/index.html

Scroll to the bottom to see us with our mamacharis (bikes for moms and grandmas!)
See you soon!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Tadaima! I'm home!

Aack! Where did May go???

2008-06-05T14:54:00.002+09:00

May has passed me by with such speed -- I completely forgot to write that mega update blog.
:-/ Sorry!

Here's a mini-update (minus pictures -- I may add them later).

March:
I went to Tokyo for a quick weekend trip the first weekend of March. We stayed in a youth hostel and wondered around Tokyo for about 2 days before I headed back to Amagasaki and the rest of the group went to a conference for returning JETs (I wasn't allowed to go because I've only been here for 1 year). While in Tokyo I also got to catch up with a sorority sister who works for GAP in Tokyo, which was pretty cool since I haven't seen her in years!

Later, my family came to visit for a week. We traveled all over and I got to show them where I "hang out". They also got to meet a bunch of my crazy friends and we all did puri kura together (sticker pictures). They're pretty hillarious. We went to Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima... It was a pretty packed week! We also ate a lot of good food and I introduced them to the wonderful okonomiyaki!

As my family left to go back to the US, 3 friends and I went to South Korea! We stayed in Seoul and basically had a "girls' vacation" -- we shopped and spa-ed and a couple girls pierced their ears! We did try to do at least one cultural thing everyday. We went to one of the palaces, a Japanese atrocities museum (in an old prison - you can go in the cells and they have moving manaquins mimicing how Japanese soldiers tortured the Korean "patriotic ancestors"), ate spicy spicy spicy Korean food, and the most interesting: we went to the DMZ. The DMZ is the De-Militarized Zone between South and North Korea - a sort of no man's land. On the tour we actually got to go into the DMZ and ride (on a bus) around the buildings where North and South Korean governments have their discussions. Usually on the tour you are allowed to go into the meeting building, but it was "under going maintenence", which in military code means: the day before our tour there were protests on the North Korean side of the DMZ and it was deemed unsafe. That's my theory anyway -- there really were protests that day! Anyway, on the tour we also got to go into one of the tunnels that the North Korean army has dug underneath the DMZ, trying to invade South Korea. They have found 4 tunnels -- the most recent one was found within the last 20 years!! That was pretty cool. So, I got to see into North Korea, which was so so so interesting.

April:
School started April 8th with a new batch of first year students. It's so nice in the beginning because they are so well behaved. (Now they are not so well behaved.)

I also went to my first baseball game in Japan. The local team is the Hanshin Tigers and they are known for having the craziest and most loyal fans. (Side note: I thought Ichiro was from the Tigers, but actually he was on the Kobe team, the Blue Wave. Sorry to whoever I may have told that to.) The fans are pretty crazy! They get all dressed up and have these special plastic banging sticks that they make a lot of noise with! Each player on the team has a special chant or song... It's pretty wild.

May:
At school we had the first round of midterm exams. Always a hoot.

My friends and I had many many BBQs to take advantage of the spring weather before the rainy season (which has just started - early June).

Last weekend I was invited to go to Kyoto with one of my teachers. We went to Kiyomizudera temple, Ginkakujin temple (its supposed to be silver, but was never finished...so it's just normal, but famous for almost being covered in silver leaf), and an old samurai's hermitage -- this was my favorite. This samurai was the assistant to the shogun in Hiroshima about 900 years ago or so. When he retired, at the ripe old age of 33, he decided he wanted to study Chinese poetry. So he moved to Kyoto, built this beautiful house with a gorgeous garden where he could study. He became a master of Chinese poetry and had many students. He lived to be about 90 years old!! Now his house is open to the public and many famous people have visited there (there were pictures of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, a couple Japanese princes, etc.).

Oy! I think that's mostly everything. There's only 3 weeks of school until finals week and then I'm done with school! I'll be home before you know it! Actually, my flight is on August 5th!! Only 2 months away!!

I have to go - a student is patiently waiting for me to finish :)

A brief update

2008-04-28T09:44:00.004+09:00

I promise to write March and April updates soon! Until then, here's a link to check out.

http://www.hyogo-c.ed.jp/~kabutoyama-hs/
I just discovered my school's website! It's all in Japanese, but you can see the view :)

Last Friday was the teachers' Welcome Party. Every school year, several teachers are transferred to different schools. Eight of our teachers were sent to different schools, so eight new teachers were transferred here. I don't understand who gets transferred or why, because the teachers have no say. The board of education just decides who goes where. It's very strange. But it's also an opportunity to have a party :) Our party was at the Takarazuka Hotel. The food was pretty good and there were many many many speeches (from new teachers, old teachers, the MC, principal, vice-principal, etc, etc). Teacher parties are hard for me because I think the teachers feel intimidated by me. So, I did my best to speak Japanese to get people to talk to me! After the party, I met up with some friends who live in Takarazuka and we stayed up talking and watching a movie (She's The Man, which is beautifully awful).

The first years are going to camp this week -- to learn school related stuff, like the school song -- which means no first year classes for me starting Wednesday! Woo! And tomorrow (Tuesday) and next Monday and Tuesday are national holidays! Yay!! I don't have any plans...yet.

I'm at school, so I should get back to work.

Japanese phrase of the day:
Ashita wa yasumi desu. Tomorrow is a holdiay.

Update: February

2008-04-20T16:41:00.005+09:00

Sorry for the delay! Here's a quick update on what's been happening on this side of the world...

In February, I went to the northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido, with a group of JETs to see the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival). The festival is in Sapporo, which you may know from the beer of the same name.

The Snow Festival was pretty awesome. They spend weeks sculpting snow and ice into these huge sculptures and stages. Here's one in progress:
I spent the majority of my time wondering the main park/festival, looking at the cool sculptures and enjoying yummy festival food like yakisoba and crab legs.

This one is of a famous castle in Hokkaido...I don't know it's story, but it was really impressive. The detail was incredible!
At night, they lit up the sculptures with different colored lights.

Here's a video of some J-Pop group performing in front of the sculpture of Sapporo Station. This guys are what most of my boy students try to look like... :)

(The dancing people in the crowd in the green coats are my friends who were really rocking out!)

Most of the other JETs went skiing or snowboarding. I opted to go snowmobiling instead. Watch out! It's dangerous!!

This was a really fun weekend trip -- definitely one of the highlights of Japan!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Abunai desu yo! That's dangerous!

Healthy!

2008-02-28T20:10:00.004+09:00

I just remembered a funny "conversation" I had with a couple students the other day.

I was coming back from the vending machine (vending machines are EVERYWHERE and it is WONDERFUL) with a nice tall bottle of tea to soothe my aching throat when,

Student 1: Give me?
Me: No! No! Kaze desu! (= I'm sick!)
Student 1: Me too!
Student 2: Cold?
Me: Yes, I have a cold.
Student 2: Healthy!

This is a pretty typical "English conversation" that one might have with my students. I have another student that likes to ask me questions after class, but it's not so much a question as words said like a question...

"High School Musical?" (Points to himself, then me.)
--> I interpreted this as, "I have seen High School Musical, have you?" Last week the question was "Favorite movie?" (points to me). A couple weeks ago it was "America election? I like Obama." (Side note: apparently, all of Japan supports Obama but not for any real reason other than they like him.) I appreciate that he tries, but I don't know if he understands my answers!

Or you might run across one of the handful of students who are practically fluent. Then the conversation starts something like this:

"This school is very boring. It is too easy. I should have gone to a different school."

Or:

"Please only call on me today. Do not call on him (pointing to the only other student in class who volunteers answers). I want all the points. Please don't call on him."

Fun times at Kabutoyama High.

Japanese phrase of the day (part 2):
Odaijini! Take care of yourself! (Which is what that student might have meant by "Healthy!")

And the winner is....

2008-02-28T19:30:00.005+09:00

In an attempt to update my blog, I'm going to write about the Inoshishi Matsuri I went to Jan 26th. (Sorry this is so late -- I've been super sick and had to write 2 final exams, both of which took several drafts to satisfy my JTEs...anyway).

Here they are, the inoshishi a.k.a. wild boars. Sasayama city is known for it's wild boars (apparently) and so the fine people decided to dedicate a day to the inoshishi as only Japanese people can do.

The main street was closed down and this interesting cage was sent up. At one end was a hole for the boar cage to butt up against (also the Start) and the other end had a Finish sign that the boars would rip as they ran through. There was a race every hour on the hour all morning.

There they are -- whizzing past! Actually, I thought the races were pretty sad. They used the same 3 boars for each race and they were pretty beat up by the last race. If you didn't already know, boars are kinda aggressive. Shocking, right? So the boars would race down to one end of the cage and then, with nothing else to do, would start running around attacking each other. Then the boar handlers would step in and push the boars, using a wooden board, back into the Start cage. By the last race, they were bleeding and one had a broken leg!! It was really sad and felt bad for them. The winning boar's name is "Shishi-Fire" and although they said they wouldn't eat the winner, seeing how bad of shape they were in, I doubt it.

Also at this festival was festival food. Not just any festival food, but festival food made from, you guessed it, boar meat! I enjoyed a shishi-burger and shishi-sausage. The flavor was a bit different. Gamey?

Yum!

There was also plenty of souvenirs to buy and a mascot to pose with. Here I am with my Sasayama friends and the friendly inoshishi:

It was quite an experience and I'm glad I went, even though I felt bad for the little boars. I think they're kind cute in an ugly kind of way. :)

Japanese phrase of the day:
Inoshishi no niku wa oishii desu! Wild boar meat is tasty!

Snow day

2008-02-13T09:36:00.000+09:00

I have much to write about: Inoshishi Matusuri, Yuki Matsuri, and lots and lots of snow! Tonight I'm going to get all the pictures off my camera, so another mega-blog is on it's way!

In the mean time, today when I got on the bus to go to school, the bus driver said, "Nishinomiya Kabutoyama Koko? Kyo wa yasumi desu..." (Nishinomiya Kabutoyama High School? Today is a holiday) and some more Japanese I didn't understand. I said, "Yasumi? Wakarimasen!" (A holiday? I don't understand!). It's Wednesday, and there isn't a holiday today! Luckily there was another teacher on the bus and he explained to me that because of the snow, school was cancelled for the students....BUT not for teachers. So, I had to go to school anyway. Poo. Here I am, at school, with nothing to do. And most teachers didn't actually come to school today, so I think I'll sneak out early... :)

Snow!

2008-01-24T11:30:00.000+09:00

One of the benefits of going to school up in the mountains is all the snow!! It snowed earlier this week, but had melted by lunchtime. Today, however, it just keeps on coming! I snuck a picture with my cell phone, but it really doesn't do it justice.

You can't see the snow as it flurries around. All over the school little snowmen are popping up. One of my students called me over to show me the one she made (it had pinecones for ears -- maybe I'll try sneaking another picture).

(I guess he lost an ear since the last time I saw him... He's about 8 inches tall.) :)

Unfortunately, snow also means that the students do NOT pay attention. My first class this morning was full of buttheads and the second was full of sleepers (worn out from snow fights maybe?). Ugh.

Alright, I'm going to go enjoy the snow some more :)

Japanese phrase of the day:

雪　が　すき　です。　Yuki ga suki desu. I like snow!

A week in review

2008-01-19T19:48:00.000+09:00

This past week has been hectic!!

On Sunday, Casey and I went to Koyasan, a small mountain village in Wakayama-ken. Koyasan is a religious retreat founded in 816 by a Buddhist grand master. To get there you have to take a cable car up the mountain! When we got there it was -1C and snowing! There is a famous cemetery there surrounding the Okunoin Temple. The temple is deep in the woods with more than half a million tombs. It was absolutely beautiful and so serene. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures because taking pictures in a cemetery is very dame (bad). We saw some interesting tombs there. A lot of major corporations have tombs for their to employees come to pray if they don't have a family tomb. Another interesting one had a gigantic rocket ship. Casey and I could not figure out why there was a rocket ship on this tomb! The kanji was too complicated and we couldn't ask any Japanese people to translate for us because they were avoiding us (we were the only non-Japanese people there and I think they could tell we wanted to ask someone about it!). Another funny one was for an extermination company. Because they're Buddhist, they had a tomb representing all the termites they had killed. How very Japanese! Apparently, after a family member dies, you are supposed to bring a lock of hair or some of their ashes to this temple so that when Buddha comes again, he will know how to find them in the afterlife and give them enlightenment. Very very interesting. We also visited the Daimon, or Big Gate, which is a very big gate. It marks the entrance to Koyasan from the valley on the west side.

(A side note to AXiDs, the Buddhist grand master that founded Koyasan entered "eternal meditation" in 835. He is believed just to be meditating until Buddha comes again. This eerily reminded me of "chapter eternal." Are they just waiting for the second coming of Cora?? Yipes!)

Monday was a national holiday, "Coming of Age Day", where young men and women who are 20 years old (and legal to drink or smoke, btw) dress in their finest kimonos and visit their local shrine/temple to celebrate becoming an "adult." Some friends and I met in downtown Kobe so we could watch all the pretty young women walking around the city -- because after visiting a shrine, what else is there to do but shop?

Tuesday was just another day at school. One of my teachers (the annoying one that asks me all kinds of strange questions) kept hounding me about creating a lesson plan for the conference we were going to attend later in the week. Almost every 30 minutes he would ask, "Have you finished the report (meaning a lesson plan) yet?" I gave it to him after lunch and he quickly pulled out his electronic dictionary and asked me questions about the words and abbreviations I used, like "comp. questions" for "comprehension questions." Good grief.

Wednesday, my alarm failed me and I woke up at 7:30, an hour and a half late! Yikes! At that point, there was no way I would make my bus that goes up the mountain (at 7:55AM) and the next bus wasn't until 9:30. So, I called the school to tell them I was going to miss my first period class (oops). When I did get to school, the teachers all told me it was no problem and that Kabuto-sensei was able to hold class without me. Kabuto-sensei is fantastic -- if it had been any other teacher, they would have canceled class and would have had to make it up later.

Thursday and Friday were spent at a conference for ALTs and JTEs. All the ALTs and one JTE from each school in the prefecture attended. Usually this means 1 ALT and 1 JTE from each school. Because I'm lucky and teach at 2 scholos, I had 2 JTEs with me -- 1 from each school. My JTEs that were chosen to attend: the annoying one that asks me strange questions, and the one that never speaks to me. Fantastic choice!

I was hoping that the conference would be helpful and give me ideas on how to make my classes more engaging or make my students more motivated. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Everyone was supposed to create a lesson plan to share in small groups. Of the lesson plans in my group, none were very helpful for my situation (being at low level schools). Oh, and I forgot to mention, both of my JTEs tried to take credit for my lesson plan!! How rude!!

On Friday were were "taught" how to use debates in our classes to teach English. This is a good idea, but it won't work in my classes. The kids won't speak unless they have exactly what they're supposed to say written down. And they would NEVER stand up in front of the class and express an opinion that hadn't been OKed by at least 3 of their friends. All in all, the conference was a waste of time. And I still have to make up the classes that I missed on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday night was a lot of fun, though. Because EVERYONE was in Kobe for this conference, I got to see a lot of friends that live farther north in the prefecture. A very large dinner was organized at the Sky Buffet restaurant. It's on the 24th floor of the tallest building on Kobe harbor and has a fantastic view. Plus, it's all you can eat buffet and an open bar! Weeee!! After dinner, Joy and I went to Casey's apartment and had an impromptu girl's night/sleepover. We got in our jammies, gossiped, and watched LOST until the early morning. So much fun!

Also last week, or maybe it was the week before, I had to officially tell my school if I was going to re-contract or not. After I told my supervisor that I wasn't planning on coming back, I think he was either sad or mad or both because he didn't speak to me for an entire day (which is very strange). When he did talk to me, the first thing he said was, "When you go back to Seattle, what will you do? Where will you work?" which is the polite Japanese way of saying, "I'm upset that you're leaving." I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I had no intentions of staying more than a year and I already know that this is not going to be my career. But it still made me feel so bad! :(

Well, that's all for this week! The next week should be a little more normal -- and I'm going to an inoshishi (wild boar) race next weekend! Stay tuned 'til next week!!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Shashin o torimasu ii desu ka? Is it OK to take a picture?

The first day of school

2008-01-08T09:04:00.000+09:00

Well, it happened again today.
I'm sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when I look up and...all the teachers are gone. The teachers' room is empty!
It's a little frustrating when things are not communicated to me either because they forget or because they don't think they can speak enough English to explain it to me. Last time it was because they were having an earthquake drill and when I wandered out of the teachers' room, they were herding the students out onto the sports field. This time I think it's a cleaning day -- I'm not sure because when I asked one of the English teachers what I should be doing he said, "Sit down and enjoy yourself. There are no classes today. Today is just a ceremony."

???

So, I am taking his advice!

Today is the first day of school after a very long holiday. I have to admit that it was VERY hard to get myself up at 6AM this morning and get back into the routine. Luckily for me, this term is the shortest of the year, with finals week during the first week of March. I counted up the lessons and I will see my first year students only 5 times because of random holidays and the short term. The second years schedule is a little wonky because of the holidays - I will see 2 classes 8 times, 1 class 7 times, and 1 class 6 times. Hmm... I will see my third year students (my favorites!) only 4 times before they graduate! I will miss them - their excitement and desire to participate make the job worthwhile.

On the first day of school, (apparently, because I am watching from my desk) students spend a good amount of time cleaning the school/classrooms (because they got so dirty while everyone was away?) and most likely they will have an assembly soon that is entirely too long and too cold (it's in the gym which has no heating). Oh Japan, how you confuse me!

Most of my JET friends are coming home today from their vacations. It was much too quiet this weekend without them. I ended up watching way too much TV (thanks to the DVDs I received for Christmas!) and not studying my Japanese.

This post is a bit random. I blame the sleepy haze surrounding my head!

I have to go. There's some sort of emergency about a conference I have to go to next week. I have to create a lesson plan for an English 1 class, but I teach Oral Communication 1. I made the mistake of asking if I could make a lesson plan for a class that I actually teach. Oh no! What will the Board of Education say! Ugh :-/

Japanese phrase of the day:
わたし　の　ベードー　が　すきです。 Watashi no bedo ga suki desu. I like my bed.

Happy New Year -- Part 2 -- read the previous post first!

2008-01-04T16:21:00.000+09:00

So apparently my previous blog post was too long!! Weird! So here's the continuation...

The best of the goatee pics:

After the goatee had been sufficiently shaved off, we went for an elephant ride!! I had been looking forward to this for a loooooooong time. Of course, we got the grumpy grandma elephant who didn't want to be giving a ride in the first place!
The handler had to keep encouraging her to keep going and not go off the path. The elephant in return went very slowly and rather bumpily. The other two elephants were very friendly and were always asking for bananas!
So much fun!! I'm glad we did it. These elephants used to be "working elephants", but because using elephants is becoming less common, now they give rides to tourists!
That night we explored Walking Street in downtown Pattya. It's like Vegas, Thai-style. Food vendors, beer bars and go-go bars everywhere, and lots of neon.
The next day we took a boat ride out to a nearby island called Koh Lahn. The beach was gorgeous - much prettier and cleaner than Pattaya beach.
That night (New Year's Eve) our hotel had a NYE party (that we had to attend/pay for). The party was totally lame, so we hung out in our room watching TV until about 11:30pm. We ran down to the party just as they were going to give away prizes from a drawing. Mike told me, "If they call my number, I'm jumping in the pool." As luck would have it, just at that moment, Mike's number was called. I didn't have the camera ready, so I don't have the actual jump on film, but it was glorious. The rest of the hotel guests gasped and cheered as Mike ran and canon-balled into the pool. It was like no one else had thought of it! Well, here's a soggy Mike with his prize: a cheap blingin' watch!
After the pool-jumping spectacle, we counted down the New Year and watched the fireworks from all the surrounding hotels.
The pool and stage:
Our last day in Thailand, we spend shopping and wandering about. We met an artist who makes sculptures out of old car parts and metal things. His sculptures were fantastic. He told us that he had a huge one up by the movie theatre and we should check it out. Lo and behold: Predator.
Mike loved it! We stared and studied this thing for a long time (in my opinion). I think Mike was inspired...
Anyway, we also spent some time relaxing on the beach before heading to the airport.

Bye Thailand! And so ends our wild adventures! Mike left last night and is greatly missed :(
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Japanese phrase of the day:
あけましておめでとう Akemashite omedetou! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Mega Blog!

2008-01-04T14:54:00.000+09:00

How time flies! Happy 2008!

For this Christmas and New Year, Mike came to visit -- and we had quite an adventure!

I picked Mike up at the airport on Friday (12/21) night -- and by picked up, I mean we took the bus to my neighborhood together -- and immediately took him out to dinner to meet some of my crazy friends. We went to a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant where you grill the meat right in the table!
We had a fun time despite Mike being slightly jet-lagged. :) The next morning we celebrated Christmas early. Mike brought me a suitcase filled with presents from my family! Yay! Here's a picture of one corner of my massive apartment - the main focus being the Christmas tree I found at the hyaku-en store (i.e. the dollar store).
And because I know you're all dying to see what the rest of my apartment looks like, here's my kitchen/bathroom. At the far end (behind me) is the kitchen sink and my single gas burner. The bathroom sink is in the bottom right corner -- why it is set up this way is beyond me. Next to my left arm (with the peace sign) is the door to the the shower/toilet area.
Which looks like this! On the left is the tub/shower/water heater and the pink polka-dotted shower curtain separates the shower from the toilet (which is to the right). Lovely cement floor, no?
For dinner that night we went to an Okinawa restaurant -- serves food from Okinawa, the tropical Japanese island!
I made a mistake while ordering our food. My Japanese proficiency is minimal at best and so we ordered by pointing to the pictures in the menu. I ordered what I thought was "pork leg" according to the waitress. However, the word for "leg" and "foot" is the same in Japanese. What I had actually ordered was pig's knuckles!! Gross!! Here they are...
Mike and I both tried one just to say we had. They weren't very good - really fatty. According to Mike's former exchange-student-host-sister who is from Okinawa, Japanese people think pig's knuckles are very good for your skin. Right.

A bit of funny Japanese culture: On Christmas everyone eats Kentucky Fried Chicken. Why? Because that's what Americans do, of course! In fact, some people even make reservations at their local KFC!! And to celebrate, every KFC dresses up their Colonel Sanders in a Santa costume! Hooray!
Anyway, the next day, we went to Kyoto to check out some temples and shrines. I don't know their names, but it was cool to wander around the huge park and see the different temples and shrines. For those who don't know, temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto. Typically, shrines have a large orange entrance, like this:
Temples aren't quite so flashy. After wandering around a bit, we met up with my friend Olivia and her husband Osamu for tea and snacks. We were on the 8th or 9th floor of a department store and had a great view of the city.
After tea, we went to Osaka to see the German Christmas Festival!
Of course! A German Christmas Festival in Japan makes perfect sense! They had sausages, hot cocoa, mulled wine, and.... a Japanese Santa!!
Japanese people crack me up :) Here's a little video of the experience:

Sorry it's sideways -- it wasn't sideways before I uploaded it to Blogger.com... oh well.

The next day we laid low, talked with family, and went to Kobe for dinner and karaoke. We ate dinner at an izakaya (no pig's knuckles). Here we are with the plastic food out front:
It's really very convenient because you can decide whether it's what you want to eat without looking at the menu!

The next day was Christmas! Merry Christmas! Here we are just before leaving to...

THAILAND!

We decided to take a trip to Thailand for our vacation. We flew in to Bangkok that night, and when we got there we met up with a couple of my friends who were already in Bangkok on their vacation.

The next day we took a boat tour up the river and visited the temple of Wat Po, or the Resting Buddha.
It's huge! And very very gold!
All around the Wat Po are lots of little temples and huge spires made out of tiles. They were so pretty! (Mike's in the bottom left corner for size comparison.)
Bangkok is very tiring. We both were completely culture-shocked. Everywhere you go there are people trying to sell you something or haggle some money out of you. You have to be pretty vigilant and not get scammed. So, for our second day, we decided to take it easy and took the Skytrain (like a monorail) to the classier part of town and found several giant malls.
We wandered around, went back to a couple shops we liked the day before and had a traditional thai massage.
It's a lot of bending and stretching, but felt sooooo nice after a hectic day in the city.

For dinner we dressed up and had Thai vegetarian pizza!
The next day we traveled south-east to the beach city of Pattaya.
This is definitely more our vibe than Bangkok. There are still people trying to sell you junk, but they aren't nearly as aggressive and there's always the beach...
The next day we spent on the beach...And we went para-sailing! Here's me:
And Mike:
So much fun! Like most things in Thailand, at first it seemed a bit sketchy and jerry-rigged, but the guys knew what they were doing and had the system of hooking people in and out of the harness in seconds down pat!
While in Pattaya, Mike decided it was time to shave off the goatee...but not without having some fun with it first! Here are my favorites:

New Old Friends

2007-12-09T00:50:00.000+09:00

Ok. Wow. I didn't realize that it had been almost 2 months since my last blog. I sincerely apologize to all my faithful readers (who are not so faithful anymore)! I have been extremely busy, but now the school term is winding down so I will try to update more frequently.

I am very inspired at the moment and HAVE to tell someone this story!

Tonight I went to a Christmas dinner organized by the Hyogo JETs. We went to a really nice all-you-can eat restaurant in Kobe right on the harbor. I know that "all-you-can-eat" doesn't scream "Christmas" or "nice restaurant", but the food was really good and there were Christmas decorations.

Anyway, I was the only person from my area to go to this thing, so I expected to meet a lot of new people. At the table where I was sitting, there were 3 guys who were talking about where they were from. The conversation went like this:

Guy1: I'm from Illinois.
Guy2: I'm from Michigan.
Guy3: I'm from Indiana.
Me: I'm from Seattle, but I lived in Indiana for awhile.
G3: Oh yeah? Where did you live.
Me: Bloomington and some other places.
G3: No kidding! I lived in Bloomington my whole life!
Me: Oh yeah? What elementary school did you go to?
G3: Childs.
Me: Me too!
(Shocked looks across the table at each other.)
G3: How old are you?
Me: 25. How old are you?
G3: I'm 25 too.
(Jaws drop simultaneously.)
G3: Were you in Mrs. Sykes' class?
Me: No, I wasn't in her class, but I had her for math.
(Blank stares.)
G3: Who did you have for 3rd grade?
Me: Mrs. Watchicowski.
G3: I wanted to be in that class. She was fun...
Me: For 5th grade I had Mrs. Hefernan and Mrs. Acton.
G3: Me too!
Both: We were in the same class!!

I kid you not. I just met someone who I went to elementary school with in JAPAN!!! We spent the next half hour going through our classmates and he updated me on all their lives. He's still really good friends with quite a few of them because they all went to middle school and high school together. He told me that he saw my name on the list of people who were going to come to the party and sort of half recognized it somewhere in the back of his brain but couldn't place it... I can't tell you how strange this is! I think my brain exploded.

So, now I have a new old friend who lives about an hour away.

Japanese phrase of the day:
Watashi no shitte iru hito ni yoku nite imas. You look like someone I know...

Midterms and Matsuris

2007-10-16T09:34:00.000+09:00

I realized the other day that I have neglected my blog again. Sumimasen! (すみません〕 I've been so busy with school, Japanese class, and traveling, I forgot to write it down :)

This week is midterms - from Tues through Fri the students only have 3 class periods and 1 or 2 tests each day. I am in charge of writing the midterm for my 1st graders. Fun fun fun. But this also means that I have a lot more time during the day to plan lessons (or update my blog!).

Let's see, this past weekend, my friend Scot visited from Sasayama (in the north countryside) and we went to Osaka for a Beer Festival under the Sky Building. The festival had beers from all over the world - really! We had beer from Palestine, the Netherlands, Greece, everywhere! Of course Guiness and Heiniken were there, but I skipped those for the more exotic ones. I think the entire gaijin (foreigner) population showed up - approximately half the people I saw were English-speakers. :) How do you get a large group of foreigners in one place? Offer them beer, of course!

After the beer, a group of us went to Nishinomiya for dinner. We went to this fantastic Italian restaurant that had *real* Italian food - not Japanese-Italian (they like to put squid and squid ink in their pasta, weird). It was wonderful and only about $25/person for appetizer, entre, desert, and 2 glasses of wine!

The weekend before, Erin (another ALT that lives in my building) and I went to Miki for their matsuri (festival). Miki is a very small town northwest of Kobe. We ran into a group of ALTs from Awaji Island, so we hung out with them for the day. During the festival, all the men in the town carry these huge wooden floats, called danjiri, through the streets starting at about 8:30AM. (To help them gain strength, they take beer breaks about every 30-60 minutes.) There were about 50 men per float and 8 danjiri! We got there around 1PM, and everywhere we went people were shocked to see "so many gaijin!" (there were 6 of us). But everyone was very nice and wanted to talk to us or offered us beer. Around 4PM, the men carried the danjiri towards the town's shrine. The shrine is located at the top of a very steep hill - you have to walk up a long flight of stairs to get there. And those drunk men carried the danjiri up the stairs and paraded them in front of the shrine! It was amazing! I wish I had pictures, but my camera ran out of juice and the batteries I thought were charged, weren't. Pooh.

Here's a picture I found online that is similar to what I saw:

It was pretty crazy! The town I was in was much smaller than this picture - all the residental streets that they carried the danjiri through are only one lane. There was only one two-lane road that went through the town to the next town. Again, I wish I had pictures!

Well, I should probably get back to work. Midterms and all. I'll try not to wait so long between postings next time!

Japanese phrase of the day:

Tomodachi to matsuri e ikimashita. 友達と　まつりヘ　行きました。I went to the festival with my friend.

An amendment

2007-09-27T22:21:00.000+09:00

I need to amend that last observation. Apparently manga is only forbidden at Kita HS. Today (at Kabutoyama HS) one of my 1st grade students was blatantly reading his comic book instead of paying attention and the JTE didn't do anything. I was a little peeved that this kid was so disrespectful, so I took it from him - as he was reading. He was so engrossed in his comics that he didn't notice me until I had taken the manga out of his hands! He looked completely bewildered! Then, I turn my back for 10 seconds to walk back to the front of the classroom, and he pulls out another comic book from his desk! This time, however, he saw me coming, so he shoved it back in his desk before I got there. I said to him, "NO!" several times and I'm pretty sure he understood because he didn't try it again. Meanwhile, the JTE did nothing!! (Granted, this particular JTE is a bit difficult to work with because he's just coasting until retirement...but I digress) After class I told the kid, "Don't do this again!" and gave it back. When I told my supervising teacher about it later, he just laughed and said, "Oh yeah!" like it's no big deal.

My two schools are like night and day!
I guess it's to be expected because they are two different schools, but it's hard to know what goes!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Wakarimasen! I don't understand!

Don't bring your manga to school!

2007-09-25T22:31:00.000+09:00

An interesting observation about Japanese schools:

I find it funny what teachers let slide in class and what they don't. For instance, students can have loud conversations, stand up, talk back, sleep, text on cell phones, and basically completely disregard the teacher with little to no reprimand. However, if you are caught reading manga (comic books for those of you not in the know) in class, this is a serious offense! First you will be yelled at in class. Then you will be taken to the teacher's room after school and be yelled at by your homeroom teacher in front of all the other teachers. Manga is where they draw the line!

Today, in a class of 35 I counted at least 8-12 students sleeping at any given time (you can wake them up, but they just go back to sleep - plus most of the monsters were sleeping, so I let them!) and there are always a couple students texting on their phones, but the student who was caught reading manga was yelled at, called "dishonest", and later reprimanded.

I don't get it!

Zombies and Monsters

2007-09-24T19:42:00.000+09:00

I have a bit of time, so I figured I should write a bit :)

The past few weeks have been very crazy. My schedule doesn't allow for much free time during the day, so I spend every extra minute trying to plan lessons. I'm getting the hang of it, but I still feel pretty spastic.

One hurdle I find rather difficult is the group mentality of the quiet students. No one wants to stand out, so no one says anything. In each class there is maybe 1 or 2 genki students, but everyone else is a zombie. And it's so funny because after class, I think that the lesson was a complete disaster since no one responded to me at all, but usually one of the zombies will tell me later that they really enjoyed the lesson and thought it was very interesting! Why couldn't they act interested during class? Because then they would stand out and being different is bad. Sheesh!

Hurdle number two is dealing with the monsters - those students that won't shut up, sit down, or pay attention. I had a class the other day where 4 boys in the back were throwing things at each other. The JTE didn't do anything, so I yelled at them "hey!" This brought their naughty behavior to the attention of everyone, so they stopped...for approximately 30 seconds. Other students will make fun of me or the JTE right in our faces - and what do you say to a kid who is making fun of you in Japanese and barely understands English? I usually just tell them to sit down and ignore it. They're trying to get attention, but they won't get it from me.

So there you have it: my students are either zombies or monsters...or 3rd graders who are wonderful. The 3rd graders actually want to speak English so I try to plan the class around at least 20-30 minutes of just talking. It's great. :)

I started going to a Japanese tutor once a week. It's through the Takarazuka International Friendship Assoc. What a great name! Anyway, the tutors are volunteers and it's one-on-one, which is fantastic. My tutor, Suwa-sensei, is a very nice lady who is very patient with me, but also pushes me pretty hard. The first lesson was pretty tough because it is primarily in Japanese. I'm getting better, but still have a long way to go!

So, I have quite a lot to update. I'll go back to where I left off in the past...

8/11 (Remember way back then?) I decided that I needed to explore Kobe by myself because all the other times I had been there (or Osaka), I had been with other ALTs that I just followed around. So, to figure out where things are, I dedicated the day to wandering around.

I started at the main shopping strip called Center Gai. It spans many many blocks, has 3 levels of stores, plus a basement of just restaurants. Not much else to say - but if any of you come to visit and want to go shopping, it's a great place to start!

Then I wandered up Ikuta Street to the Ikuta Shrine. I basically just took pictures because I don't know or understand the traditional way to approach and pray at a shrine/temple. I know that you're supposed to get a fortune and if it's good you take it with you; if it's bad you tie it to a tree near the shrine and pray for the gods to prevent it from happening. There's also some sort of ritual I noticed where you approach the shrine, throw money at the shrine, ring a very large bell, bow, clap twice, and bow again. I think it's to let the spirits know that you're there...?

I went up to another shrine, the Kitano Tenman Shrine, that had a fantastic view of Kobe and the harbor. There were about a million stairs to walk up, but it was worth it for the view! Same rituals, etc.

After this I wandered up Kitanozaka Ave to the Kitano-cho Plaza. This is where the "heritage architecture," also called "historical foreigners' houses," is centered. There are maybe 10 houses up on the hillside that used to be consulate housing, but now are restored and for 300-500 yen you can tour the houses. Each house represents a different country: England, France, etc. I didn't go inside because I didn't feel like spending the money to walk the houses alone (and I can save it for when someone comes to visit).

I did, however, visit the American House. I had to. Why? Because it has been turned into a Teddy Bear Museum! The woman in charge of the house was a little bit crazy and very chatty just as I was about to leave. She wanted to take my picture many times, in several poses. She also kept telling me "this is famous" and that I should take a picture! Then she would wait for me to take the picture! She invited me back "anytime" so that I could catch up on the Kobe gossip. :) I have many many more crazy pictures of the American House and all of its teddy bears... If you are interested I can share some more!

I met some other very nice people and found some very cool little shops in this neighborhood. It's much quieter than Center Gai and I had fun wandering around. It's definitely worth checking out.

Japanese phrase of the day:
Anata no shashin o totte mo i desu ka? Can I take a picture of you?

Busy, busy, busy

2007-09-22T14:53:00.000+09:00

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while - I am terribly behind. As my excuse, I offer all of the time I've been putting into work. School is taking up a lot more time than I thought it would. Mostly it's because I have so little time to plan lessons during the day (so I end up staying late). I promise to catch everything up soon. But not now - too busy! :)

Japanese phrase of the day (or past two weeks):
Watashi wa isogashi desu! I am busy!

Week 1...Oh what a week!

2007-09-07T21:08:00.000+09:00

So, I have officially been a teacher for an entire school week! And what a week it has been. I hope you're all caught up on what happened the first day, because that was my last day of peace...

My first day at N.Kita HS (visiting school) began much like the previous day: kyoto-sensei introduced me to all the other teachers during the teachers' meeting and I gave the same speech. This time it went over really well and several teachers came to me afterwards and told me they appreciated my joke. :) I had met the English teachers there the week before and we had discussed our first lesson - I created a lesson to introduce myself to the students:
Anna's First Lesson!
1. Quick intro - go over some hard words that they will hear a lot from me (i.e. laboratory)
2. I read a speech and they listen
3. Pass out worksheet that has my speech with a few fill-in-the-blanks (stuff like Seattle, America, younger brother, etc.)
4. I read the speech 2 more times (btw, I've pretty much got the speech memorized now. I think I've read it to 7 classes and I still have 6 more classes next week)
5. Go over answers - hopefully students volunteer?
6. Pass out worksheet that has comprehension questions about the speech (What country does Anna come from?)
7. Go over answers
8. Students work in pairs and write down 2 questions to ask me - they can be anything (students at this level may want to ask some racy stuff, but don't know how so I wasn't worried - mostly it was "How old are you?" "What do you like Japanese food?" "How you like Japan?")
9. Students ask their questions

The JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) had warned me last week that their classes are a little rowdy. They kept telling me, "These classes are not so well behaved. But please do not get furious. Take it easy!" Way to bolster my confidence!

If I may digress: Japanese high schools are not like American high schools. In Japan, high school is not required. Once you finish jr. high, you have officially left the public school system. However, something like 98% of students continue on to high school. To get into a high school, you have to take an entrance exam for each school that you are interested in. There are different levels of high schools and also public or private high schools. Where you go to high school will most likely determine where you go to college (or "university" as they say here). High school is basically 3 years of prepping you for the university entrance exams. The 2 schools that I am in are very low level schools. I don't know what the passing rate is, but it doesn't really matter because everyone graduates. You can come to school 3 times in 3 years, fail every class and still graduate because your parents paid for it...(it won't help you with those university entrance exams, but most students who really want to go to university are also taking classes at a "cram school," which is why we don't give homework, but anyway...) So, like I said, my schools are pretty low level, which means maybe 10-30% will go to university - maybe. The other kids are there probably because their parents are making them. In other words, most students don't want to be there.

Because these students choose to come to school, they can pretty much do whatever they want. They have a right to be in the classroom while we are teaching -- but that doesn't mean they have to pay attention. We can't remove them from the classroom if they are being disruptive because we would be taking away their right to an education. (There are extreme cases where a student has been removed from class because they were so disruptive they were affecting the education of every other student in the room - only then can you send them to the vice-principal's office.)

So, back to my first day. I had 3 classes that day: two 1st grade classes and one 3rd grade class. (Note: high school is 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade = sophomore, junior, senior). The first class was the "best of the 1st grade classes". While I was trying to teach, the students were talking to their friends, texting on their cell phones, sleeping, staring out the window... I think I had the attention of about 2/3 of the class for most of the period. And this is pretty good because I'm new, so they're interested in me! There were a few boys who always wanted me to call on them so I would give them attention. The other 1st grade class was the "worst" of the classes. I probably had 1/2 of their attention. They would get up and walk around, write on the blackboard in the back of the class, whatever. As I was passing out worksheets, if I miscounted and forgot one, they wouldn't speak up, probably because they weren't going to do it in the first place. One boy kept saying my name so I would look at him, then he would put his hand over his heart and swoon. I've already got some crushes! Woo! We didn't get through the entire lesson with this class - we had to spend the first 10 minutes of the period actually getting the students into the classroom... The 3rd grade class has only 2 students! So we talked a little bit, I showed them some pictures, and they took me on a tour of the school. Our conversation consisted of, "This room music room." "This room staff room." "Do you have boyfriend?" Two very sweet adorable girls, but cannot put two sentences together in English.

So ends my first day. I was pretty wiped out and went to have dinner with a couple friends so we could complain about our days (we all have low level schools).

Second day, Wednesday: I'm back at my base school, N.Kabutoyama and I only have one class (3rd grade) because the 1st and 2nd graders have testing. This 3rd grade class has 17 students. I went through the same lesson as the first graders, but went a little faster because I figured they would understand more...I was wrong. Although they muddled through all the questions and directions, at least 10 students didn't understand what I was saying most of the time. Oy.

Oh, and at this school, 2 of my 3 JTEs have no interest in the class. I do everything. I plan the lesson, I give the lesson, I grade anything I give out, I create the exams...they don't care. They come to class to moderate or speak in Japanese - which I find frustrating. Especially the 3rd grade JTE. A little beef: First of all, I didn't even meet her until halfway through 1st period that day - our class is 4th period and she has classes 2nd and 3rd periods. She's a part-time teacher so she only shows up for her classes, not any of the teachers' meetings or after school meetings. When I asked her what should be covered the next day (because we teach the 3rd graders twice a week instead of just once), she looked at me like I was an alien (which I am, but you know what I mean). She said, "Didn't Jamie tell you?" Jamie was the ALT before me. I told her no, he didn't tell me what to do. So she said that I should just make worksheets like he did and make sure we get through all the lessons in the text book by the end of the school year (there are about 9 lessons left). And then she left! During class, she stood at the back of the classroom and after I would give some instructions, instead of trying to help me make myself more clear in English, she would just tell them what to do in Japanese. Which will really help their English. And I find completely irritating. Blah. The only "help" she gave is telling me that most students didn't understand me.

Anyway, despite the 3rd graders not being able to understand me, they were all really sweet and gave me recommendations on what to eat from the cafeteria. :) During the lunch period, I ate my lunch in the teachers' room, but a handful of 3rd and 2nd grade girls came to me and asked if I would talk with them. I said sure!! So we talked about Harry Potter and Disneyland :) Also, later that day, another student came and found me. She told me she is going to be doing a one-month home-stay in Spokane this October and wants to practice talking with me before she leaves. Also very cute. I've talked with her twice now and she's mostly worried about bathrooms, showers, and farting! :P My supervisor told me today that it's very good that students are coming to talk to me - especially the girls - because they didn't do that with the previous guy. Hooray! I'm approachable!

Thursday, I had 3 classes at N.Kabutoyama and 2 classes at N.Kita (I have to use my lunch period to take the bus between the two schools, which is not good). At Kabutoyama I finally had two of my 1st grade classes. I was expecting the worse - just like at Kita - but more so because the JTE isn't involved. At Kita, at least the JTEs are in control and I'm the assistant - I don't have to tell kids to sit down, shut up, turn around in their seats, etc. BUT..... The 1st graders at Kabutoyama are the exact OPPOSITE of Kita. They were silent! Not a peep! When I asked if anyone knew the answer - even when I saw it written on their papers - they would stare at their shoes. All I saw were the tops of heads. There was one boy in the back who volunteered for pretty much every question. That's it. I tried going around and picking people to answer, but their answers were barely audible. It was almost worse than the rowdy kids because I didn't know if they were alive! I'm going to work on these kids... They will have to speak to me eventually! The 3rd grade class this day went waaaaay better than the day before. I took a lesson from the textbook - about pets - talked very slowly, and tried to start a dialogue about pets for the first part of the lesson. For the second half, I reviewed easy past tense and got them to talk to their partners about what they did yesterday, what they did over the summer break, etc. Much more successful! The stinky JTE agreed that class was much better.

Friday, there was more testing, so I only had one 2nd grade class. Now, this is interesting: as motivation for speaking in class, Jamie created "passports" and every time a student volunteers, they get a stamp in their passport. The 2nd grade JTE (who is very nice and will actually talk to me about lesson plans) told me about this, so I decided to use it. It worked wonders! Kids were waving their arms around wanting to be called on - just to get a stamp! At the end of the term, the stamps count towards their final grade, so they want as many stamps as possible! It was awesome! I'm going to use this on the 1st graders.

The JTEs at Kita said that I handled the rowdy classes pretty well because through it all, I still kept smiling. I was smiling mainly for the students who were paying attention because I appreciated them listening to me! Plus, what the heck, I was told that my primary goal is not to teach English but to expose these kids to another culture. So, if they don't want to listen to my lesson, fine, but I will get through to them some way or another. Probably exploiting the schoolboy crushes! ;) Just kidding, but seriously...

Ah, this has been a long one. A lot of ranting, a few raves. I know my schedule will be even more hectic next week because the testing will be over. I tried using my downtime this week to get ahead in lessons - making worksheets from the textbooks - so that I can concentrate on the fun stuff. I want to spend half of the class on textbook stuff (required) and half of the class on fun stuff. More speaking, less staring out the window.

That's all for now. I think I will hit the hay! (BTW, I want to do a lesson on American slang, so if you feel that there are some words, phrases, or expressions that an American just can't do without, please tell me!)

Japanese phrase of the day:
Eigo ga wakarimasu-ka? Do you understand English?

First day of school

2007-09-03T17:37:00.000+09:00

I'm going to jump into the future a bit and tell you about my day - TODAY!

Today was the first day of school! The first day is pretty much reserved for the Opening Ceremony and for students to catch up with the teachers after their vacation.

Japan's school year is a bit different than ours. School starts April 1st and ends March 31st. The year is split into 3 terms and after each term is a long break. Students have all of August off for summer vacation, so when I arrived most students weren't around. The next break is in winter (Dec 12-Jan 7) and spring break is in May (they call it "Golden Week" because everyone goes on vacation -- it is very expensive to travel at this time). Teachers, however, do not get this time off. We have to use our nenkyu, or paid-time-off. :(

Another bit about Japan's school culture: students and teachers take their club activities VERY seriously. A hobby is not just a hobby, it is a life-long pursuit! So even though school was out for summer, there were students at school every day for baseball, soccer, tennis, dance, ping-pong, volleyball, Junior Red Cross, orchestra, guitar, tea ceremony, home ec, etc, etc, etc... Clubs also go all year round - there are no seasonal sports. You have to pick one and stick to it! I've gotten pretty good at telling who is what club: the baseball players all have buzz-cuts, the dancers all wear leggings (circa 1984) all the time, guitar players are boys who don't want to have to run around a field all year long... It's fun to guess!

Anyway, back to my first day. Everyday before school starts is a teachers' meeting. At the meeting this morning kyoto-sensei, vice principal, introduced me to all the teachers. I had to make a short speech:
"Hajimemashite! Anna Amen to moshimasu. Amerika no Washington-shu, Seattle-shi kara kimashita. Watashi wa nihongo ga hanasemasen shikashi eigo ga totemo jozu desu! Dozo yuroshiku onegaishimasu." = Hello/Nice to meet you! I am Anna Amen. I come from Seattle, Washington, America. I do not speak Japanese, but I am very skilled in English! Please treat me nicely as I will treat you (sort of, this phrase doesn't really have an English translation). I got a few laughs, which is what I was going for.

After the introduction to the teachers and the rest of the teachers' meeting (all in Japanese so I don't know what was said) I was taken to the gym to the Opening Ceremony. All the students sit/stand in rows: boy/girl and by year. The kocho-sensei, principal, made a long speech and they played a song (school song? National Anthem? no idea!). Then kocho-sensei brought me on stage and introduced me to the students. I know he said something about how I'm from Seattle and something about Ichiro, but that's all I could catch. Then I had to make another little speech, this time in English (basically, I'm excited to be here and look forward to speaking English with all of you). After that there were more speeches by various teachers about bus schedules and who knows what. It was stinking hot and we all had to stand... And for the occasion I wore a suit, so I was dying!

After the assembly, students were dismissed to their homerooms. The first day of school is also "cleaning day" where all the students are assigned a classroom that they have to clean. I guess this happens every week, but today was special (?). I am in charge of the International Classroom (my classroom!) and so a handful of students came to clean it up. They didn't really talk to me, just called me kawaii, cute! (Side note: my school does it a little differently - usually the students stay in one classroom and the teachers come to them. At my school for English class, they come to the International Classroom instead of me going to them.)

Not much happened the rest of the day... I actually start teaching tomorrow! But not at this school -- Tuesday, Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning I go to my visiting school. So my first lesson will be there! Yikes!

In other news, last night I had my first encounter with a cockroach! AAAAACK!! It was hiding in my towel! As I was getting ready for bed, I grabbed my towel and out it came!! Yuck yuck yuck!! I screamed, dropped the towel, ran into the tatami room, and slammed the door! And I didn't go back in the kitchen/bathroom until morning. Mike tried telling me that it is more afraid of me than I am of it, but I don't think so. Regardless, I've decided that this cockroach needs to die! This apartment isn't big enough for both of us! After school today I went to the drug store and stocked up on gokiburi hoi hoi, roach motels, and gokiburi supurei, roach spray. I put 5 motels all around the kitchen, so we'll just see how long he lives...

That is all for today!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Kata no chikaro o nuite yaro yo. It helps to have a sense of humor.

Brought to you by the Letter C!

2007-09-02T20:36:00.000+09:00

Celebrity endorsements!

I had to write a quick blurb about this because I just watched two commercials in a row with celebrities in them (Ichiro and Orlando Bloom). Here's what I've seen so far:

Ichiro takes his car to be detailed at a gas company called Eneos!

Orlando Bloom loves Shiseido's Uno hair gel!

Cameron Diaz only uses Softbank as her cell phone company!

Tommy Lee Jones drinks Boss Coffee everyday!

I've also seen Meg Ryan on a huge billboard in Kobe, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was for...

Anyway, I think celebrity endorsements are hysterical! Right up there with Engrish!
I have seen so many examples of very fine Engrish, that I can't take pictures of them all. Here are a few of my favorites:

There are a lot of sad looking puppies on gift bags around here. And also a lot of strange sayings... On Friday I found a bag that said," God chooses our families, thank God we can choose our friends" !!!! Who would you give that to?? What kind of gift would you put in these bags??

(It's hard to see, but on the bird's crest it says, "1994 Seattle Teenage. This is a shirt that I had to have!)

Fantastic!

Aug 7th-9th: Banks and Fried Food

2007-09-02T19:16:00.000+09:00

Aug 7th and 8th: Not much to report. A lot of signing papers, getting used to getting to school by myself, setting up the apt.

Oh Aug 9th, I had an interesting day at the bank. A word about Japanese banks:
Japanese businesses as a whole are very honest. They won't charge you hidden fees (except maybe cell phone companies), they won't accept tips (even cab drivers!), and will chase you down the street if you forget your change (even if it's just a few yen!). With utilities - gas, water, electricity - cell phone, and rent, you can have it set up so that the money is directly taken from your account to pay your bills. Kind of like what you can set up with online banking, except Japan has been doing this for years. For someone like me, it's rather convenient since I wouldn't be able to read the bill anyway! (If you don't have the direct payment set up, when you get a bill you don't send them a check -- checks don't exist in Japan -- you take the bill to the convenience store, they scan the barcode on the bill, and you pay cash.) Also, Japan is primarily still a cash society - they don't use checks, credit cards, debit cards, anything like that! So keeping track of your cash is very important. And pretty much everyone carries around a lot of cash all the time (this is still hard to get used to - being someone who rarely carried cash).

Also, the post office is also a bank. The post office was the first government run organization to act as a bank before banks existed in Japan. Most Japanese people still have accounts at the post office -- usually they have their paychecks deposited into the bank and they use the post office as a savings account.

When you open up a Japanese back account, you get a banking passbook -- kind of like a check book. This contains all your bank account information (I'm pretty sure it's coded). When you go to an ATM, you put in your ATM card and your passbook and it automatically updates the passbook for you! It's fantastic! No more writing in your checkbook trying to remember when you took out some cash or used your debit card -- the ATM does it for you! And if you don't have your passbook with you, that's okay - you can have it updated the next time you go. I love it :)

Anyway. Back to the story. I went to the bank to exchange and deposit the last of the money that I had brought with me. I knew this would be difficult, so I brought the point-and-speak phrasebook that Mike's mom gave me, bookmarked at the bank section. I mimed to the bank greeter lady that I wanted to exchange and deposit my American dollars. She helped me fill out the forms and get in the right line. The teller who was helping me was also very nice and tried to speak English... HOWEVER... While she was exchanging my money, she LOST my bank passbook!! My proof of my bank account!! I had given it to her with my money and she misplaced it while calculating the exchange rate or something. Oh you should have seen how they fussed over me! The teller, the greeter lady, and another teller who wasn't with a customer were frantically looking all over the desk and shelves. They kept talking to me in Japanese, trying to reassure me, and I tried desperately to get a hold of someone who spoke English and Japanese so they could talk to them for me (sadly, no one answered their phone). After what seemed like hours (but was probably only 20 minutes) they found my passbook and apologized over and over. As a parting gift, they gave me some dish soap and wet wipes to compensate me for my trouble :) I was escorted to the door by the greeter lady while she kept bowing all the way to her knees!

Now I can look back and laugh, but at the time, I was sooooo scared that my bank account was going to be frozen!

Later that night I met up with some other ALTs at an English Pub in Kobe called The Hub. (For all you Huskies, funny right?) Most Friday nights the ALTs in the Kansai area meet up a The Hub for happy hour and then go get some dinner. It was decided to take me someplace new (again!) for dinner...

We went to a kushi-ya, which basically means "a shop to deep fry food." Again, pay by the hour and built into the center of each table is a pot of hot oil. There's a buffet of various foods on sticks -- like shish-kebabs -- meat, vegetables, sea food, all sorts of things. You dip your selected food in batter, roll it in bread crumbs, and put it in the pot to fry! Not the healthiest meal, but it was very fun.

(This isn't my picture, but looks pretty close to what I experienced...I should've taken a picture!)

Okay folks, I should be going -- school starts tomorrow and I need to work on my opening speech! Wish me luck :)

Japanese phrase of the day:
Gambatte! Try your hardest!

Aug 5th & 6th: Dancing Queen

2007-08-31T16:45:00.000+09:00

On Aug 5th I went to a town north of Amagasaki, called Sakasegawa, to check out the festival. Every town, city, neighborhood, etc. has their own festivals all summer long. You can go pretty much anywhere and find a festival going on. I met up with my pred, Chris, Emmy, Mukonoso-Dave, and Richard. This festival was mainly for the kiddos - games where you could win a giant blow-up Disney animal, goldfish, and other toys. The food was very interesting: giant hot dogs on sticks (didn't taste like our hot dogs), shaved ice, yakisoba, tako-yaki (deep-fried octopus dumplings, I haven't worked up the courage to try these yet). The kids are adorable all dressed up in their yukata.

For dinner we went to an okonomi-yaki restaurant. Okonomi-yaki is sort of the Japanese version of pizza; it's a savory pancake topped with cabbage, meat, mayo (of course), fish flakes, and some other things. At the restaurant, every table has a giant hot plate built into the center. You order whatever types of okonomi-yaki you want (mostly the sauces are different, but you can get garlic, kimchi, and a whole bunch of different flavors and innards), the cook puts them together in the back and then brings them to the table and puts them on the hot plate to cook. It's interesting to watch because the fish flakes are on top and while they cook they curl up and it looks like the food is moving...strange! It's very tasty (however, I don't recommend the take-home version from the grocery store - didn't turn out well).

On Aug 6th I ended up going back to the festival by chance. I had decided to sign up for Japanese tutoring at the International Center in Takarazuka (about 2 train stops from Sakesegawa) since a lot of the other ALTs recommended it. I met up with Richard, Chris, and Casey and they helped me sign up before their tutoring sessions. The tutors are little old ladies who volunteer their time (so they have someone to talk to, I think) and it costs only 500 yen (about $5)!! Afterwards, we walked back to Sakasegawa to check out some dancing - Casey's bf is a dance teacher and his students were performing. I guess I was expecting traditional Japanese dancing...what I saw instead was hard-core hip hop! It was like something out of a rap video! Apparently this type of dance is very popular and even really young kids like the "sexy dance."

After the "dance recital," we went to a ramen restaurant for dinner. You wouldn't believe all the types of ramen that are available - not just your regular Top Ramen!

We went back to the festival and I was so excited to see some taiko drummers setting up. I so was busy watching the taiko drums, I didn't notice the circle of grannies that had formed a circle around my friends and me. They started doing ban dancing, a traditional type of line dancing! I was thrilled! After the first dance, a couple of the ladies convinced me to join into the circle (but, really how hard is it to convince me to start dancing?) and I just followed along the best I could. I had a blast and the ladies were all so nice!

Well, it's time for dinner! I'm going to a spaghetti dinner at a friend's house (yeah, some ALTs actually get houses instead of tiny apartments! I'm a little jealous...).

Japanese phrase of the day:
Dansu ga suki desu-ka? Do you like to dance?
Hai, dai suki desu! Yes, I really like it! (~it's the best!)

Observations from Aug 2-4

2007-08-30T13:29:00.000+09:00

I've been debating whether I should keep going in chronological order or write about more topical things...maybe I'll do both. I've also been wondering how I should deal with people's names. According to a friend, you should never use anyone's actual name in a blog (for various reasons), but considering my audience hasn't met the people I'm going to be talking about, nicknames might be a bit hard... I suppose I'll just stick to first names? Arg, the difficulties of writing a blog! :)

So, Aug 2nd, my pred, his friend Chris, and Chris's gf Emmy took me out to dinner. We went to a restaurant that serves Shabu Shabu. Like many all-you-can-eat restaurants, you pay by the hour. At every table is a giant pot of boiling water. The waitress brings you fresh vegetables and thinly sliced raw meat (we had beef and pork). Also at every table are several different types of sauces -- Japan has some of the BEST sauces I have ever tasted! First you put in all the vegetables, so the pot begins to look like a soup. Then you add the meat - and because the water is so hot and the meat so thin, it cooks almost instantly! Then you grab a bite, dip it in your sauce of choice, and enjoy! It's amazing and delicious!! Also at this restaurant was my first taste of ume-shou, a plum liqueur that is served on the rocks. Oh my goodness, it is wonderful. I will have to send some home for everyone to try!

After dinner we went to karaoke! Karaoke here is not like it is in the US. Again, you pay by the hour and depending on the level of karaoke plan (so-to-speak) that you choose, you get different drinks or food as all-you-can-drink/eat. (The 1st level is a-y-c-d chou-hi, a vodka-like fruity drink, the next level is beer, and from there the drinks get more fancy and food is in the picture...) You get a private room with booth seating, a huge tv, karaoke machine, a couple mics, song books (in English if you ask), and neat remote control thingys to chose your songs. There is also a phone so you can call the front desk and ask for more drinks/food, too. Basically, you pass the song book and remote control around and everyone plugs in their song(s) of choice -- as soon as the first song is put in, the singing begins! I have found that the most fun is had when you have a large group of people squished into the booth and everyone is singing along, regardless of who picked the song or who holds the mic. It was harder having only 4 people thinking of enough songs to sing to fill up our 2 hours... Anyway, karaoke is awesome and I am no longer shy about belting one out!!!

Some observations I had written down at this point:
1. Cicadas are the most irritating, ugly creatures I have ever come across. They begin chirping when the sun comes up and don't stop until they die, which is what 24-48hours later? So it pretty much doesn't stop!
2. Everyone carries around long umbrellas if there is even a hint of rain. You can't find the nice, small, compact umbrellas you can throw in your bag around here.
3. Women carry dark parasols all the time - it is fashionable for women to have very pale skin. So, they don't let their skin see the sun! It is very common for you to see women with a parasol, a visor that completely covers their face, gloves past their elbows, and long pants in 100+degree weather! I don't understand how they don't sweat themselves to fainting, but they don't!
4. Everyone also carries a handkerchief or small towel with them everywhere. This is for 2 reasons: a. because there are no paper towels in the restrooms, b. to mop your sweat whiles dealing with the heat and humidity. Women use designer towels/hankies - I've seen Vivienne Westwood, Anna Sui, Burberry, the list goes on... Quite expensive sweat rags!

Aug 3rd: Opened up my bank account, got my keitai (cell phone), and applied for my Alien Registration card. A nice thing about being a registered alien is that I get a driver's license-type card that I can carry instead of having to have my passport on me at all times.

Aug 4th: Fireworks festival!
The Japanese love fireworks and will come up with festivals just for the fireworks! Pretty much any weekend you can find some fireworks somewhere. This time we went to a place near Osaka, along the river (don't know the exact name). The fireworks were amazing! The show lasted nearly an hour and the fireworks were huuuuuuge!! The audience oohed, ahhed, clapped, and on the really big ones yelled sugoi! (fantastic!) It was strange being American and watching the fireworks because there is something inherently patriotic about fireworks for us. Someone else mentioned that they kept expecting a band to break out in the Star Spangled Banner because every round of fireworks felt like the big finale! It's true though -- we only see fireworks on the 4th of July and New Years. It was hard not to think about the 4th of July while watching the show, especially since it was just the month before. But I digress. Because it is a festival, everyone dresses up in their summer-style kimonos called yukata. They are much less complicated than kimonos... It's very cool to see huge crowds of people dressed up in yukata.
I just bought my own yukata this past weekend while I was in Kyoto visiting a friend of mine from high school. Her husband tied it up for me :)

For dinner that night (before the fireworks), pred, Chris, Emmy and I went to one of those conveyor belt sushi places. I think they wanted to take me "someplace new and exciting," but I've been to a conveyor sushi place before.

Something I've noticed about food: don't let people fool you into thinking that Japanese people eat sooooo healthy. Most foods are fried, covered in mayo, or both! I'm surprised more people don't keel over from heart attacks because their arteries are clogged with mayo! Yes, you can eat healthy if you eat at home, but most restaurants are not the place to go for health nuts.

I think this is where I will stop for today!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Oishi desu-yo! This is delicious!

July 29-Aug 1st: Tokyo Orientation

2007-08-28T20:11:00.000+09:00

I think I will start at the beginning; it's a very good place to start.

We left SeaTac around 4pm on Saturday July 28th and arrived in Tokyo around 6pm Sunday July 29th. The group from Seattle is one of the largest JET groups - we had about 60 people.

The fligh
t was very long, but had great in-flight entertainment. :) Every seat had it's own tv screen and you could choose what movies to watch - or you could play games, listen to music, all sorts of things. You could challenge someone sitting in another seat to a video game - crazy! I watched about 4 movies...I don't really remember which ones, but it doesn't really matter, does it?

When we got to the airport we were shuffled through security and customs and loaded onto a bus to take us to the hotel. We were the last group to arrive, so all the other ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers, to be used from here on) were freshly showered and ready to take on the town. I however, went to bed. Exciting.

The next few days were spent in a training conference. We covered all kinds of topics concerning the state of English education in Japan - all very thrilling (I will spare you the details). There were a few useful sessions about money management, travel, etc., but generally the time was best used meeting people and making connections (who's living in the next town over? who's living in a huge house in Hokkaido so when you want to take a weekend trip you can crash on their floor?)

One evening, a group of older ALTs from Hyogo-ken (that's the prefecture, or state, that I'm living in) organized a night out so we could meet some new and some old ALTs. We went to a theme restaurant, very common in Japan: the theme was Haunted Chinese Railroad. No lie. Inside, the walkway was down the center of the restaurant and looked like you were walking through and iron skeleton - the iron "ribs" went down on either side. Through the ribs you could walk to your table. The cashier was behind a cage like at an old train station. I wish I had taken pictures! Ah well...

Leaving Tokyo, the Hyogo-ken ALTs took the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. From Osaka we took a bus to an educational center in the middle of nowhere (nicknamed Yashiro Prison, this will come up again later). This is where the representatives from our base schools came to pick us up. There was a very quick introduction and very quick good-byes to our friends before we were shuffled off into separate cars an went our separate ways. (Side note: at this point it was very hard to keep contact with these new friends. We didn't have land lines or cell phones, we didn't have access to internet so email was useless, we didn't even know necessarily where we were going to be living. I think being so disconnected made me spazz out a bit...I felt like I had left my left arm at home!). From Yashiro I was taken directly my base school, Nishinomiya Kabutoyama High School. Here I met principal, was shown my desk, signed some papers, and was whisked off again, this time to my apartment.

I still have not taken any pictures of my apartment - mainly because when I moved in, it was rather scary. Now it's not quite so scary, but I'm still rearranging things and actually I just got a brand new kitchen cupboard this afternoon! So, I promise an apartment-dedicated blog in the future...

Back to the day that never seemed to end: my supervisor and my predecessor (the ALT that I am replacing) carried my bags to my place (I'm on the first floor, but the bags were extremely heavy) showed me around a bit (not that there's much to see) and took me out to dinner -- to an Italian restaurant. :) Later that evening, my pred took me out to an izakaya, a Japanese family-style restaurant, to meet some other ALTs that live nearby. Old ALTs, new ALTs, incoming and outgoing. It was nice to be around people. We weren't out too late, but I was dead tired, so I was escorted home, since I had no idea how to get back, and crashed.

There you have it: my first 4 days in Japan. A bit of a whirlwind, huh?

Japanese phrase of the day:
Tsukaremashita, uchi ni kaerimas. I'm tired, I'd better go home.

First blog post!

2007-08-27T22:46:00.000+09:00

Finally! Internet!
I never thought I would be so happy to receive a package at 9:30pm - I had been waiting all afternoon for my modem! The JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) that I asked for help told the courier to come to my apartment at 10pm instead of 2pm like I specified.
Ten.
Two.
I've only been here 3 weeks and this type of mistake doesn't surprise me anymore...but more on that later. I have quite a lot of catching up to do and I hope to do so fairly quickly. I've been keeping notes about my life to help my memory since pretty much everything is a completely new experience. But I can't start now - it's almost 11pm and I have to get up at 6am to make it to school by 8:25am because of the long commute (very different from my previous job!). I hope this blog helps to keep us in touch (yes, you), so please leave comments and send me emails.

Japanese phrase for the day:
Oyasumi nasai! Good night! (used when going to bed)