Shimanami Bike Tour

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???

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 :)

Update: February

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!

A week in review

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?

Midterms and Matsuris

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.

Zombies and Monsters

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?