Balinese Christmas: Baby, It's Hot Outside.

It's remarkably easier for me to post pictures on facebook, so that's where they are. Check 'em out.

I'm lazy, I apologize, but a Bali story or two is pending post vacation. The parents are now in Japan, to be picked up shortly, and after New Years with Mr. Yamada (my boss) then we are off to Hiroshima and Fukuoka for the next week. Once I am back to the school routine, I will tell tales and add other photos for your perusal.

So this will be Christmas:

I'm Bali bound from the 21st till the 29th with some JET friends. Then back to Japan to adventure with the parents for a week. Not your typical Christmas but I think I'll survive in the sun, on the beach, in the mountains, with the monkeys...

Admittedly there will be a part of me wishing I was in cold snowy Canada with family, friends, Handel's Messiah on the stereo, eggnog, and Christmas carols around the piano. I suppose (or rather a friend of mine supposed and I agree with him) that it takes one experience to properly appreciate the other.

Wishing you much love, peace, and (of course) joy from this corner of the world to yours. May you have a very merry Christmas and the best of beginnings to your new year.

Shrimp: The Chicken of the Sea?

Recent evaluations of myself have led me to conclude that it’s time I find some self-motivation. There are a few things on the list, and tonight I tackled the idea of going out for dinner in my town alone. Self-motivation comes into play here because normally I prefer going out for dinner with someone, and not go out on my own.

So, I went to what I assumed to be a restaurant/bar that is literally just down the street from me. I was the only person there aside from an older woman (later to say she was 63) with something of a mannish face, and a younger girl, (maybe 25ish?) in a brown velvet tuxedo shirt (which only looked 1/2 as crazy as it sounds) who were behind the bar. I used my poor Japanese to say that I wanted to eat, which led to some funny looks, that I couldn’t interpret, between the two women, and finally they came to some sort of conclusion and said OK.

The older offered me fried chicken and fried shrimp, and I chose chicken. Here’s what I had for dinner:
-Friend shrimp (maybe 6 decently sized prawns)
-Salad Japanese style (aka shredded cabbage, some lettuce, carrot, and corn)
-Five pieces of sushi, which were given to me as a “presento”

The salad and sushi, I am quite sure, the younger went out to get from the supermarket once I showed up asking for food from, in retrospect, what seems to be largely a karaoke bar with some snacks. The shrimp were battered and freshly made by the older. Salad was nice, but the sushi unfortunately was old supermarket sushi and included fish eggs and squid, which I felt obligated to eat as it was a presento. The ladies were very friendly, despite the fact that I was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time asking for the wrong things, and invited me to come back.

Let's Go!team

Last week Wednesday I went to Osaka to see the Go!team, a fantastic band from Britain. I have only just recently been introduced to their music, but I had the urge for some good "indie" band rock show goodness. I haven't seen live music (aside from at festivals) since I left Canada, a serious change from living in Sackville where there are shows every weekend. I skipped out of work early, caught the train to Osaka meeting up with friends on the train, and danced for over a solid hour to a fantastic energizing band, that was only 5ft away from me.

Differences between Canadian and Japanese concerts of this nature:
-the show started at 7:15 and ended at 8:30, then they shoo-ed everyone out off the dance floor and out of the club
-it was pricey (especially compared to my discount student life) at about $48
the club was on the 8th floor of a building, so when the dancing got really energetic, the floor moved, and a brief thought of the floor caving in flashed through my mind
-the "uniform" of all indie shows isn't as strictly followed. While there was a good amount of converse all stars and vintage ts, there was also a girl in a cream sweater set and pearls.

After the show we caught the train back and was in bed by 1am, to get up again to be at work by 7:50. Randomly and fantastically, I was in the Osaka station when I met Nobuko, the Japanese conversation partner of my roomate last year! Osaka station is HUGE and it took me a minute to realize who she was, but we exchanged details and I hope to meet up with her again and my conversation partner too.

Today's Lessons:

There was a man called Mike. He didn't want to take anything from anyone. He just wanted to give things to people around him. One day, when he was walking near a lake with his friends, Bill and Tom, he fell into it. Bill was going to help him and said, "Mike, ____ my hand, and I will help you." But he could not help him. Then Tom said, "Mike, ____ me your hand." Mike did as Tom said, and Tom helped him. Tom knew what Mike always did , so he knew what to say to Mike to help him.
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I don't know why he __ so popular.
I don't know why she __ happy.
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In 1993 the people of Sudan experienced war and hunger.
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In 1947 the British left India, but their language remains.
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Recess!

At some of my elementary schools I go out for recess with my students and play. Here are two things that I forgot about recess.

Playground Drama
I was skipping with 3 kids and there appeared to be some sort of fight going on between the 2 girls. I was turning the rope and the other rope-turner would always intentionally make it impossible for the girl jumping in to jump. The girl who stopped the rope would then take over turning the rope. This annoyed me as well because it seemed like no one was having fun, and things came to a head when one started crying. I had no idea what to do, but some older girls came over and let the girl cry on her shoulder, talked about it (I assume) and then left the other girl who was part of this fight standing alone looking very lost. I had no idea who was in the wrong or why, but I decided that the girl alone didn't need me to abandon her too so we kept skipping. I'm happy I'm not 7 anymore.

Energy Levels
As in kids have way more than I do. After the first bell at Ohyama I joined in on the "morning run" where the WHOLE school runs outside around the track (apparently they do this until February) for about 8 minutes. After the run and a break, I taught one class (Do you like banana? Yes, I do!) and then it was recess time. I joined the roku-nensei (6th grader) girls in a game of tag, and realized that they could both run faster and were far cleverer than I at tag strategy. One of the girls was really sweet and when I was exhausted from fruitless chasing, let me tag her so she would be "it"* and I could take a rest.

*they don't call it being "it" in Japan, I think it's more like dragon/demon, but I'm not quite sure.

My Birthday (week) in Japan

(I fear Blogspot will never post my pictures as I'd like, just turn your head as needed)

Did you know I turned 22 on November 20, 2007? I did! Yea 22! So young, I know. This was my first birthday out of the country and with a “real” job: conditions previously not experienced on my birthday. So there wasn’t a day of well wishes by friends on campus, nor birthday dinner with family. Instead I woke up on the day (Japan time) to my phone ringing (which I had wisely placed next to my bed in anticipation of such a call) and my fantastic family greeted me by singing happy birthday. It was perfect timing as my alarm was set to go off in just a few short minutes, and instead of hitting my snooze button for 20 minutes, I got to talk to them all on speakerphone. Tres nice. Then it was off to school, where my supervisor at Awaga gave me a lovely present of a bottle of wine and a very cute and useful agenda (and not cute in the “I have the taste of a 7 year old” which Japan likes, cute in the "ah, this is nice and cute" way). That was pretty much the highlight of the day at school. A few teachers wished me a happy birthday, I got a plethora of messages on Facebook, some text messages on my phone, and a few emails. When I got home from school I had a perfectly timed package from my cousin waiting for me, and a birthday card from another one of my supervisors.

As luck would have it, the majority of my friends were unable to make any festivities on that night, so I had a low key, and quite lovely dinner with George and Mary Ellen, 2 local friends, followed by some nice cake and the borrowing of movies. I got another bottle of wine, some Canadian treats, and a CD entitled “Joy of Canada’s British Beats.” Apres, I went home and did laundry, (a true birthday tradition?) and got another fantastic phone call from my Aunt and Uncle and a really sappy e-card from a friend back home. I went to bed feeling older, wiser (well, not really wiser), and very thankful for the birthday well wishes, if not missing the hugs, extensive English conversation, and such that usually accompany my birthday celebration.

My first day as a bona-fide 22 year old (in both birth and current time zones) was pretty uneventful. One of my classes sang “Happy Birthday” and another had a small child give me high fives. I did some more laundry and watched “Whale Rider” (borrowed the evening before), as I had to read the story for the JHS and had a need to see the actual thing. Thursday, I had an uneventful day at school, however it was the night of our last Japanese class and the beginning of the long weekend. Our teacher gave the 5 students who showed up (out of the 20 who are registered) chocolate and after class we celebrated by going to a restaurant so fondly nicknamed “dirty escalator.” There we met up with some friends from northern Hyogo who drove down to start the weekend. After some drinks and fried mochi, I caught the last train home while the others continued to celebrate my birthday into the night.

Friday morning I headed to Himeji and met up with the music teacher from my JHS and we drove to Kobe to check out Kobe Biennale, a very fun art exhibit in a park, in which about 50 different artists took a shipping container and did what they wanted with it—very creative and fun. We did a little shopping and he helped me find out that it would be practically impossible for me to buy women’s shoes in Japan unless I went to a big store where they import foreign brands. It was tragic news for the shoe lover in me. We parted ways and I headed to Osaka to meet up with the now rested Himeji friends.

One in Osaka we went to a fantastic Mexican restaurant where we met up with more friends and all indulged in fajitas, quesadillas, burritos, and other such wonderful things. By the time we finished it was still early to go dancing, so we walked around Shinsaibashi a bit. Some people hung out at a bar, but Myrie and I felt the need to keep walking post dinner and found a fantastic store that sold hilarious men’s underwear, Santa suits, cheap shoes, (Myrie bought a fantastic pair of 999Yen (about 10$) boots and I cursed large feet) feather boas, inappropriately shaped cushions, etc etc. I bought a pair of all black converse (thank goodness mens’ shoes fit) and promptly changed into them on the street and threw out the pair I was wearing, which were smelly and not so nice. I had decided to buy myself a birthday present and they were it.

We met up with the bigger group and proceeded to go to the same club that we always go to, ironically named Pure, but first I met up with another JET who was visiting Osaka. We lost luggage together in Tokyo and have kept in touch, so it was nice to see him again if not briefly and we randomly made plans to go ice skating, sometime in his prefecture. After dancing up a storm our initial group of 6 broke into a group of 4 and of 2. Four were bound for Kyoto the next day and left a bit early to find accommodation. Two had decided to just do some shopping and touring of Osaka the next day, danced some more and cabbed to a nearby friends house to sleep and have a fantastic breakfast which included pancakes. Naturally, Myrie and I went shopping. I’ve been to Osaka maybe 4 or 5 times now and am pleased with my ability to pseudo-navigate my way around. We browsed and felt very urban-chic. At nightfall we went to the Umeda Sky Building, (previously visited during the day way back in August) which was full of couples and had a German Christmas market below it. Very odd but also festive and lovely, once finished we took the train to Harimacho for dinner/drinks and stayed at Paul and Caoimhe's (pronounced Queeva) apartment. The next morning we went to Kobe and after looking at some ruins from the 1995 earthquake, I checked out flea market finds and relaxed in a park, and I convinced Myrie and Caoimhe to check out the Kobe Biennale exhibit. The day wrapped up with me going to the International Service at a Baptist church, followed by a United States thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey and pumpkin pie. Now it’s Monday, and I have received an excellent package in the mail from my penpal, which rounds out the week quite nicely. I think the birthday celebrations have finished and I am settling quite nicely into being 22.

Sleeping With the Monks

I went to a temple overnight last weekend. It was in to Koyosan, which is about 4-5 hours away by train/subway/cable ca r(!)/bus in the eastern part of Wakayama prefecture (a prefecture is like a province). There used to be a sort of "monk university" there and they have temples you can stay at (originally for pilgrims, but open to anyone, Buddhism is very open to all things, as there is no absolute truth, or so I think I understand from a monk who was talking to me). I went up with some friends from the area and met up with a bigger group of JETs. Group travel can be overwhelming but its nice to not have to plan anything.

We got there around 12:30-1 ish, wandered about, found the "international cafe" run by a French woman and her Japanese husband. AMAZING food. brown rice! real espresso. fantastic. found the group, stashed our stuff at the temple. Then we went touring about where the "university" part was originally, along with checking out the largest rock garden, eating the monks dinner (high in tofu in various states, which didn't seem to go over to well, but I liked it) made jizu/prayer bead bracelets (the first 6 for your good qualities, then next 14 are wishes/dreams/hopes, and then 6 more for your bad qualities) and after a little onsen/public bath goodness, we went to bed feeling very relaxed, Zen even.

We woke up early (6am on the weekend, gah) the next morning to go to the morning prayers of the monks who live in that temple. Imagine a low ceilinged dark rectangular room, 3/4ths of the room is where the monks do their praying and the other 1/4 (long and skinny)th is for people to watch. In the praying bit, there is a dividing wall and on one side is a monk sitting in front of a small fire which he puts spices and oils onto. The other half has monks praying and chanting, there were about 7 or 8 monks there. Some were Japanese, one Swiss, on woman from Holland, it was eclectic, like I said, Buddhism is welcoming.

After prayers we went to breakfast (more tofu) and then toured the giant cemetary. It was over 2km long and full of graves, monuments, and little buddhas. Some of us ducked out a bit early as it was cold, starting to rain, and we were tired. We went back to international cafe for more amazing lunch (leek quiche, chocolate cake, espresso) and made it there before the huge rush of the others from the tour ruined the atmostphere. We managed to catch an earlier train home, which put me home by 5, (only 4 1/2 hours) .

Scenes fom the seat of my bike

I love Japan

My friend in China always says "I love China" when something that you wouldn't expect to see back home happens, and seems to be very Chinese (at least that's my interpretation of it) I think this is something that makes me say I love Japan
Happy belated Halloween.

Four days of being a tourist in Japan

I went on a trip to Hirsohima Friday-Sunday with friends and then Kyoto and Nara with my grade 6 classes Monday-Tuesday. The pictures are in reverse order that I took them, so bare with me. (I'm still not friends with blogspot's treatment of photo placement)




On my field trip I saw 7 temples in 2 days. That's a whole lotta Buddha. One of them is also featured on the 10Yen coin (check it out on Wikipedia) Another one in Nara is home to one of the biggest wooden Buddahs, and is, if i recall correctly, over 2,000 years old. It's also huge and has many deer who live around it. The deer are very friendly and poop everywhere. For the rest of the day the bus smelled
vaugly of deer poop. lovely.



































The one of me standing on a mountain is on Miwajima Island, just off of Hirsohima. On the Saturday we took the cable car up most of the way and then climbed the the very top for some spectacular views and then clambered down. Miwajima is also home to the "floating" tori, apparently one of the most scenic spots in all of Japan, and also, like Nara, many deer. The deer here were more depressing though and I saw one eating garbage off the beach and it saddened me. But it was quite beautiful aside from that.


















At night we went out for Hiroshima- yaki, which is Hiroshima's special version of Okonomiyaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki) and walking about the town. For a city that doesn't have a single building older than 60 years old it's pretty impressively built up. I found the random orb on an early morning walk, and looked at the cities rather uniformly modern architecture.



We spent Sunday in Hiroshima visiting the A-bomb dome (a building that was still standing-more or less- after the bomb was dropped,) and the Peace Museum. It was very well done and fairly even sided. The park surrounding the museum and A-bomb dome is full of memorials and paper cranes. The cranes are have become an international symbol of peace, due to the story of the little girl, named Sadako, suffering from leukemia, (a byproduct of being exposed to radiation when the bomb went off) who tried to make 1,000 paper cranes, which upon completion would make her wish to get better come true. She didn't finish them but every year kids come and bring their own 1,000 cranes with the wish that no bombs will ever be dropped again.

Highlights of the past 2 weeks

In no particular order...

-Purging Myrie's apartment of all the random crap her predecessor left, and finding a closet in the process
-Holding 2 small salamanders/newts/geckos(?) in my hand at Ochidani after school. I was hesitant at first, but last time I was there I held a tooth so I thought I should keep up this new tradition of holding strange things
-Dancing in Osaka from 12-5am because the train station where we locked our stuff got locked up at 12, and at 3:30 when we really wanted to sleep it was only there was only 1hr 1/2 left till we could get it. Also, there were models to dance with! Hilarious.
-Hosting a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner attended by 3 Brits, 4 Canadians, 1 Aussie, 2 USA-ians and 4 Irish
-Playing poker in Wadayama with Myrie and some other ALTs and making 10Yen instead of losing it all like last time
-Attending a Fall Festival (aki matsuri) complete with men (who weren't wearing pants) carrying portable shrines, simple tea-ceremony, and drinking a beer with my boss in front of my neighbourhood at 11am
-Wearing pants comfortably
-Meeting a former professional volleyball player who lives in my town and lived in Holland for 5 years
-Finding boots in Kobe that fit me! First time I’ve seen women’s shoes in my size!
-Baskin Robbins “pumpkin pudding” and “ghost world” ice cream, it’s no DQ pumpkin blizzard but it’s pretty good.
-Teaching the ni-nenseis (grade 2 kids) in Awaga solo while the teacher escorted a kid to the nurses office as he was bleeding from the head (he then went to the hospital to get stitches) and having them actually listen to me
-Having a conversation in Spanish for about 30minutes with an Irish friend, while waiting outside a “police box” for a cab, that a police man had nicely called for us, at 3am.
-Finding a church that had headsets so I could listen in English, after over 2 months of no church I was in serious withdrawl
- And by finding I mean approaching a 6ft black man at a train station, asking if he could help me, as I was trying to get to church. He said he was also going to church and showed me the bus that was waiting.
-Having dinner at a Spanish bar in Kobe’s Chinatown

So they let me be a teacher...

(Photos of Ochidani)

I have just realized that I haven't really talked about what it's like to actually be a teacher while in Japan, which is the main reason that I'm here. I guess that's because it hasn't really be routine until recently. There have been a lot of days off, random practice days for Sports Festival practice etc. but now things have settled into a rhythm, which I shall now try to explain.

The basics are that I work Monday-Friday. Monday-Thursday from 7:50-4:35, Friday from 7:50-11:50. I don't teach the whole time I'm at school, the most is five 45 minute lessons/day, but that usually is just on Thursdays. Most often I teach three 45 minute lessons/day and fill my time doing miscellaneous things.

Mondays and Thursdays I teach at Kanzaki Junior High (JHS). I have 2 JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) that I work with, Kimura-sensei and Fujimoto-sensei. Fujimoto-sensei I think is more in charge of me that Kimura, as he's usually the one to explain any changes to the class schedule of the day, but that might just be because we sit at the same block of desks. Regardless, they are friendly enough and classes with them are easy for me. I mostly act as a tape recorder in class, pronouncing words in my wonderful Canadian accent, sometimes ad nauseum. (Today's loveliness was saying "toilet" about 20 times). Sometimes I feel bad for the students because it doesn't always feel like learning so much as 45 minutes of "test how fast you can memorize" but ultimately, languages do involve memorization I just wish it wasn't so rapid fire.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday I work at an elementary school. Either Awaga (the biggest with around 250 students in total), Ohyama (about 100 students), or Ochidani (about 60 students). Usually I will work two days at Awaga and one at either Ohyama or Ochidani. I am given lesson plans to work with, but because there are so many schools and so many kids, even though I teach more days at elementary schools, it takes about a month for me to have taught the same lesson to all kids. This too can feel a little repetitive, but because every time I go into the classroom at elementary schools, even with the same lesson plan, things change based on the homeroom teacher's understanding of the lesson and understanding of English. Added to this is that I teach the same lesson from grade 1 through to grade 6, so "It's a cat" "It's a monkey" changes difficulty levels. It means that I get creative, based on how tired I am of a lesson.

Yesterday at Ochidani a highlight was playing "erase a man" (instead of hangman, suicide is a touchy subject here so I thought I'd leave that alone). After teaching them the new vocabulary, I would draw a person on the black board along with the blanks for a word. There are a few tricks-- there are many 3 letter words, and to keep it interesting I usually have the first few guesses be wrong. The last word I did was monkey, and I made my stick person a little girl. Sure enough, things started going well but then there was a conspiracy to have the little girl die. A kid guessed "z!" when "monk" was already up. In the end it was just a skirt and an arm left. tear :(

I haven't had any terrible experiences, well except for when I asked a girl "What's this" holding up a picture of a monkey, and she started crying! I felt like a monster but the homeroom teacher kept coaxing her along to say it when I would have left it alone. (She eventually got it and stopped crying, but the next time I asked her I let her pick the animal) But aside from that I usually have fun. I haven't had any serious trouble kids, and my fear of "kancho" (See kancho.org for an explanation) has so far proven unfounded. The kids tend to energize me and there is always a cute face smiling at me (sometimes in sheer confusion but I take what I can get).

I also get school lunches, but I'll save that for another time when I haven't been so long winded already.

Sports Festival

I mentioned this in an earlier post, and instead of regaling you with a complicated description, here is a link to photos from the days: http://mta.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026694&l=c6d9e&id=164200203
they pretty much say it all.

Today I took the bus to Ohyama...

Which seems pretty straightforward. On Tuesday I took the bus to Ochidani. Got on the bus. Got off the bus. Full stop. Ohayama... not so much.

So for 2 of my 4 schools, I have to take the bus. The first time I went, I was picked up by teachers and took the bus home. It was lovely. However, now that I know where the schools are, I’m on my own. My supervisor gave me a bus schedule and highlighted the times and places for me to take the bus. Except for Ohyama she didn’t realize that I couldn’t take the bus from the regular bus terminal, so last time I went to Ohyama I had to call her and she had to drive me. Today, now informed of what bus stop to go to, I rushed out to the stop to make sure I wouldn’t miss the bus. I have an unstoppable paranoia about missing buses. Trains I feel run on time, buses seem less reliable and more likely to just not stop at some places. Anyway, I got there super early and was waiting, and thinking, "my, it's odd that the bus stop I was told to go to has traffic going the other direction.. hmm oh well, maybe it pulls into the parking lot."

No.

The bus approached, it did not put on its signal, it did not look like it was going to stop, so I frantically waved my arms and tried to catch the eye of the bus driver. He thankfully understood that the big gaijin girl waving her arms wanted his bus, so pulled over on his side of the road to the bus stop that I should have been waiting at. I get on, do my usual bit where I say my destination and the driver confirms it. But then, as we are going, it turns into the Awaga bus
terminal-- where my bus schedule says it doesn’t go... where it would have been much easier to catch the bus. but whatever, after a brief stop picking up some Senior High kids, it carries on back the way I know we are supposed to go.

The closer we get to school the fuller the bus gets... of small children. They don’t have regular school buses here like back home, everyone just takes the city bus and elementary school kids don’t pay. So now it’s me, about 5 senior high kids who are taking up 2 spaces each, and about 25-30 elementary school kids packed onto this bus. At one of the stops I see one of my teachers from Ohyama and she waves, I wave back, thinking, "hmm, why would she send her kid to her school by bus and not drive them?" The answer, as I learned once I got to school was that she had seen me, waiting on the wrong side of the road and decided to make sure that I caught the bus by just checking at one of the stops. Why she didn’t stop and point me to the right bus stop, or even give me a ride instead of me having my crazy wave down, I’m not sure.

Anyway, on the bus and we get to the Ohyama stop and all these kids start streaming out, in a rather orderly fashion. So I get up when it seems to be my turn, and proceed to walk off the bus, BUT the bus driver notices that I haven’t paid (I just totally forgot, getting caught up in leaving) and reaches out and grabs my arm-- but there is no way I can stop at the front to dig out my money because there are still a good 15-20 kids behind me waiting to file off. So I try to give him the, *I know, just a sec* look and wait just outside the bus door, getting the stare down from the bus driver whose look is full of *You better pay...*, get out my 200Yen and once the kids are all off pay him.

Now I’m at Ohyama, waiting to teach 1st and 2nd graders stand up, sit down. or as they will surely say it, stand up, shit down. Just another day.