田舎Life

Softball

2009-06-03T15:25:00.002+09:00

Yesterday, the teachers played the girls softball team in an impromptu game. I got to choose my position so I chose third as I used to play third base the summer that I was 7. I made a couple good defensive plays out there, but did manage to let one squeak by. It didn't matter though cause we showed those girls just how softball is played. The bats were hot, the defense was tight, and after 5 innings the game was called with the teachers up 5-0. Good times.

High Alert

2009-05-13T14:04:00.002+09:00

Last week the 3rd year students went on their trip to Okinawa. On the second day of their trip a number of kids started to complain of stomach cramps and the like. Incidentally, I also started to feel terrible around then, and was sidelined for the weekend. A couple of them threw up during the trip, and diarrhea was running wild. After they came back they had 2 days off school, but during that time a bunch of their younger brothers and sisters ended up getting sick as well, the culmination of which was 2 kids throwing up yesterday within an hour of each other.

One of the kids actually ended up throwing up during English class. It was pretty weird for me cause one of the other students just pointed it out, and here was the kid with some vomit on his desk and the floor, but cupping the majority of it in his hands. I went and got a bucket for him to put it in while the other teacher went to get cleaning supplies. All the while the kid just sat there like a trooper, cupping this vomit. By the way, it was also one of the rankest smelling vomits I've ever had this displeasure of smelling.

Today, we found out that the cause of the illnesses is Norovirus. So now the whole school is on high alert trying to stop the spread of this before too many kids get sick and they have to close the school down for a couple days. Despite the fact that it is an incredibly easy to transmit illness from what I've read this morning, I'm not too worried about getting it again so quickly since I've already had my share of it. What I've been wondering more about is just where we got it all since I didn't have any contact with the 3rd year students last week, I can only assume that the mutual source of our illnesses was on of the places in the area I visited during last week's Golden Week holidays, namely the local onsen, or the soba shop.

In any case, as much as I'd love a couple of free days off, I hope the spread does die down as I wouldn't wish to put anymore of my students through what I went through last weekend.

2009-04-25T10:20:00.003+09:00

I am still alive. Busy, but alive. The new school year has started and this year's new first year students are really a great group. Much better as a whole then last year's new students.

Things have been progressing for me as well about future grad school prospects. I have a meeting with a professor who has tentatively agreed to supervise me bearing a few things falling into place. So Monday's meeting will be a matter of working out all the details, and hopefully, I'll be able to come out knowing much more concretely whether Kyoto University is gonna happen or not.

I hit another mile stone yesterday. My lovely 50cc scooter roller over to 10000km. Since the odometer is only 4 digits plus the decimal, I got to see it roll back to 0000.0. Of course, I documented the occasion. Moments like that are ones that every man dreams of.

バイクの修理屋さん

2009-03-10T14:19:00.003+09:00

One of the great things about riding a 50cc is the little amount of maintenance it requires. Fill up the oil every 1000km or so, keep an eye on the battery, and that's about it. Everyone in a while you do need to go get it checked out though, and that happened to me yesterday. I'm incredibly lucky to have a small motorcycle shop minutes from my house, and even more lucky that the owner is incredible.

Last week I started to notice that my bike was having trouble starting up. The same thing had happened about half a year ago and the problem was a worn out spark plug. Rather than wait and see if it would get as worse as it did last time, I rode over to the shop and told the man what was going on. Right there he gave my bike a full inspection, replacing the spark plug (which was on it's last legs as I had thought), tweaking the carburetor and brakes, and checking all my filters and fluids. 15 minutes after I had pulled in I was back out and riding like new. Total cost to me, 2000 yen. Now that is some good service.

Surprisingly

2009-02-24T17:10:00.003+09:00

Japan is widely considered to be one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and to a certain extent this is most definitely true. What might surprise you however, is how completely technologically inept a large number of people are with things like bank machines, self-service machines of any kind for that matter, and most shockingly, computers(!).

At my school, some teachers can barely even create a word document. Of course there are those who know how to work their way around the computer, but it's really only a handful. We recently had a worm virus infect a number of computers, mine included. I managed to clean mine up by myself in about 30 minutes, but there are still other teachers who are having troubles nearly a week later. An IT guy has been visiting my school for the past few days, and it looks like today he managed to finally get it all sorted out.

So while, it's true that Japan has some of the most technologically advanced items and facilities in the world, the average person's ability to comprehend/use this technology on the whole, seems to be rather lacking.

水泳大会

2009-01-19T20:38:00.002+09:00

Yesterday, my city held it's first ever (annual) open swimming contest. The focus was on students from elementary to high school, but there was a general division that was open to any competitor. The general division was limited to the 50m events which was a bit disappointing, but since for the sake of time, each competitor was limited to two events, it probably was for the best. Not that it really mattered though.

When I arrived at the pool for warm ups I was given a program with all the events and competitors. I checked my two races to see what kind of competition I was up against. Lovely! Me and one other guy. My chances of winning now stood at a solid 50%. Then my competitor came into the change room, all 5 foot 6 and 72 years of him. Make that 100%.

But it wasn't about winning for either of us. Both he and I just wanted to get out there and see how we held up. First up was the 50 breaststroke. I forgot what stroke I was doing when I first jumped in and flutter kicked a couple times. At the turn I noticed the old guy wasn't that far behind and I picked up the pace for the last 25. Either I flew, he slowed down, or a bit of both, cause I finished 10 seconds in front of him. Still my time, 38.9 or so, was nothing spectacular, especially when I heard that one of the elementary school students I teach does a 40 second 50. She also happens to be in the Japan Junior Olympic program though, but that's another story.

The 50 free went pretty much the same way. I finished in 31.6 seconds. I was really hoping to just barely crack 30, but it wasn't meant to be. This time was also around the best time posted by the top elementary school student.

Considering I went in with no practice, having not swam competitively in 10 years, I think it went pretty well. I got a couple of nifty certificates too, and had the lovely support of some of my fellow English teachers who came to cheer me on. Also as I was leaving I heard one of the parents in the crowd remark "This was on heck of a competition huh? Even a foreigner and an old man came out to compete!"

Burgled

2008-12-02T15:55:00.003+09:00

It appears that someone broke into my motorbike over the weekend. I was down in Kyoto over the weekend so I parked my bike Saturday afternoon at a local train station.

When I came back to the station Sunday night I noticed that my gas meter didn't rise and said empty. I knew I had plenty of gas, so I just thought that it didn't move because it was so cold at the time.

Monday morning it didn't move as well so I thought I would take it to the bike shop to get looked at, but as I was driving close to my house, suddenly the bike died, and I realized it really was out of gas. Luckily, I was close to a gas station, so I walked it over to fill up. That's when I noticed that someone had broken the lock. The gas cap was also gone and the tank was completely empty.

It's only a 5 litre tank and it couldn't have been more than half full at the time, so I can only wonder who steals 300 yen of gasoline?! Maybe they tried to steal the bike itself, but couldn't because of the lock I always have on it. If that's the case, I guess I got off light, but still now I have to go through a bunch of hassle with the police, my insurance company, and I have to bother my supervisor at the board of education to help me with it all. All for 300 yen of gas and a gas cap.

I'm thinking of trying to set up a sting Friday night, but I'm wondering what are the chances that they'll strike twice, and even if they're tempted, seeing the same bike in the same place, might seem a little fishy and scare them off. I still might give it a shot though, cause I'd really like to get this guy, and I'm sure the cracker-jack police force will spend little, if any time looking into such a small matter.

Go Lakes!

2008-11-20T20:13:00.003+09:00

Last weekend I was down in Yasu to see Shiga's brand new professional basketball team, the Shiga Lakestars, in action. While it was no NBA, it certainly was a great game. We were up against the league leading Ryukyu Kings from Okinawa who were 9-0 at that point.

The first quarter was very sloppy on Shiga's part. Rebounding was terrible, they couldn't get the ball inside, and were moving it poorly around the perimeter. Down 14-33 at the end of the first quarter things were not looking good.

I'm not sure what happened after that, but the team game alive after the poor 1st quarter. Nailing threes, getting the important rebounds, both defensive and offensive, and controlling the tempo of the game much better. They went 20-3 in the second quarter to finish the half down by 2 at 34-36.

The second half of the game, they played just like the second quarter. The action was tight, and while the Kings were still ahead, one of the players decided to showboat on a break and ended up slamming a dunk into nothing but back iron. It reminded me of the jam that Jordan missed in the All-Star game. Everyone was loving it when the ball flew back to center court.

Shiga took over the lead and held on to a comfortable 6 point lead to finish the game 81-75, handing the Kings their first defeat and improving to 4 and 6 themselves.

The 52 game season runs until April, so you can bet I'll be going back to check them out. Quality ball at a quality price (2000 yen for 2nd floor, 3000 for 1st floor, 6000 for court side) and it's right in my backyard.

Halloween

2008-11-05T21:39:00.002+09:00

With the help of my mom I was able to order and ship a Dark Knight Joker costume to Japan for this year's Halloween festivities. A buddy of mine who teaches with me in town was kind enough to go along with my theme and dressed as Batman. Aaron and Ken from Kyoto, as well as Sho an Komo from Tokyo made the trip out to Shiga for the party as well, and a good time was had by all.

The costume was fantastic and went over well both times I wore it. People kept saying how creepy I looked, and some people even had a hard time looking at me. I thought I was a shoe-in for the scariest costume prize at the JET Halloween party, but Sarah Palin beat me by a vote (good thing it didn't happen that way yesterday too). I can't complain though cause it was an excellent night and weekend. One of the best Halloweens ever even if I do say so myself.

すげぇ

2008-10-23T16:27:00.002+09:00

The yen has appreciated so much to the Canadian Dollar in the past month that my yearly salary which was equivalent to 35,000 CAD last month is 46,000 at today's exchange rate.

じっくり考えないと。。。

2008-10-21T15:27:00.003+09:00

Yesterday, I used my day off from work to visit Mori-sensei, an old professor of mine from Kyoto University. I had written him an e-mail last week asking if he would discuss some things about graduate school with me. He graciously invited me over to his house for dinner with his wife. We discussed many things over the course of the night, and Mori-sensei gave me a lot of good questions to think about over the next little while.

If I want to get into graduate school it seems like I have a good shot. However, before that, I really have to think about what it is specifically I want to study. I would like to do something economically related, but I am a little worried because I only did a minor in economics. I do know however that I would like to steer clean of analytic economics and take a more pragmatic approach, focusing on real world events and things like the why and how government policy.

Of course, I also really need to think about what I want to do with my life after that. Like, I told Mori-sensei yesterday, the most important thing for me is simply to find something I enjoy doing, and do that. Simply working is easy. Anyone can go out and get a job if they want to, but that doesn't mean a damn. Like my dad told me, "First you gotta find what you love. Then, you gotta find someone to pay you to do it." So, I've gotta think about whether grad school really is for me. I think it would be, but I have to be doing it for the right reasons.

So now, I think.

足痛い

2008-10-02T21:54:00.002+09:00

Yesterday, a friend of mine invited me to the Taekwondo dojo he trains at in Kyoto for a trial lesson. The master of the school was (maybe still is?) the Japanese Olympic coach and seems like a really nice guy. He extended an open invitation for me to come back anytime I have some free time. One of the other instructors there took first prize at the All Japan Taekwondo Tournament for sparring. Lucky me, I had the chance to go toe to toe with the guy my first time back in real action in a year. Obviously, I got whooped, but I did manage to get him with a couple of the moves I picked up in Toronto with the Martial Art One team. He teaches at a place in Shiga on the weekends and also extended an invitation for me to come by anytime I had the chance. The other students as well were a really good bunch. Mostly university students, and the others were all adults, so it was all business and everyone was working hard. I tore up my feet pretty bad though since they've gone soft after a year of light training. I ripped up both of my big toes so bad they were bleeding. My legs are useless today as well. I've been hobbling around like an old man all day, but it was a fantastic night, and I'm looking forward to training more often with other people for a change.

この一ヶ月

2008-09-23T22:18:00.002+09:00

Well, it's been about a month since I've wrote anything and that either means one of two things.

1) I've been too lazy and just don't care anymore
2) I've been busy doing all the things I need to get done leaving me with little/no time to write.

The truth is kinda in between the two, but for the most part I have been quite busy recently. The second semester kicked off Sept 1st, and we had our sports day event two weeks following that. This year I was actually given a job to do just like any normal teacher. I was in charge of video and photography during the event, and it was actually a very fun job, but there were times when I felt that some of the parents who were also trying to take videos were annoyed because I was up so close and maybe getting in their way. I told a couple other teachers about it at the party we had that night and they said not to worry about it cause it looked like I was doing a pretty good job.

After sports day was over practice began right away for the upcoming culture festival. This year I will be performing again, but not with an all girls band this time (unfortunately). This year I managed to get a couple other teachers and a couple of the older students to form a band for a one day only performance of Coldplay's Yellow. This year I'll make sure my camera is fully charged so I can get a video of the performance up.

There's been a lot of other stuff going on personally for me as well, some good, some not so good, but that's life, and I don't really feel like going into it much more than that on here. Hopefully, I'll write something else before another month passes.

噛まれた

2008-08-29T10:00:00.002+09:00

Yesterday, I was out for a run and as I was crossing one intersection there was a lady with a huge golden retriever. It looked pretty chill as I approached, but as so as I had passed behind it, the beast turned around and bit my ass. I never wanted to kick a dog in the face more, but I just kept running as the lady wrestled with her dog who was looking for more. It didn't really hurt and I didn't think much of it until I got home and saw he had managed to break the skin and leave me with a reasonably sized mark. He didn't make any holes in my shorts or underwear though so I don't think I really have to worry about rabies or anything, but perhaps I should still get it looked at.

Summersonic 2008

2008-08-11T21:34:00.009+09:00

Saturday, Andrew and I headed to Maishima in Osaka for Day 1 of Summersonic. For those unfamiliar with Summersonic, it's a big 2 day rock festival held annually in the summer in Tokyo and Osaka. The majority bands in Tokyo for Day 1 come to Osaka for Day 2 and vice versa. It's a good mix of Western and Japanese bands, and they tend to get a few fairly huge bands to come every year as well. The big draw for us this year was Coldplay headlining Day 1 in Osaka, but of course they were on dead last. So without further ado let's take a look at the line up we enjoyed throughout the day.

First up was Silversun Pickups. I really wanted to see them, and their show was at the indoor, air conditioned stage so that was just a bonus. They were pretty good, but the bass player was just standing around, not getting into it at all. She didn't even look like that good of a bass player either. Luckily, the singer/guitarist and drummer saved it with their enthusiasm.

Vampire Weekend was next on the main stage. The lead singer/guitarist looks exactly like my dad when he was young. The guy loves minor chords too. Too much, in fact maybe. A good listen, but I wouldn't pay to see them alone.

Moving to a side stage we saw the Japanese band, HY. I looked around and I was the only white guy in the crowd as far as I could see which was a little weird (there are a lot of foreigners at Summersonic). I had heard a bit about them from some of my students which was the reason I wanted to check them out. Overall, I'd say they're a very good live band. More specifically, a good summer festival band, but again, probably not a band I'd pay to see playing solo.

We took a break here and got some food and went back to the air-conditioned stage. Slept through a band called Biffy Clyro. From what I heard, they were nothing special.

Back to the main stage to see The Kooks. My buddy James, who taught here in my town and came the same day as me, is friends with the bass player, but aside from that I didn't really know much about them. They were very solid. Nice solid catchy (not pop-catchy, but riff-catchy) songs and lots of energy.

We stayed at the main stage the rest of the day. Next up was Radwimps. I knew nothing about these guys except they were Japanese, and I was blown away. Aside from Coldplay, hands down the performance of the day. The had the whole crowd going from the first song and kept it at the high the whole set. The bass player and guitarist had an amazing jam session in the middle of their set as well and it was just awesome. Very impressed, and I'm looking forward to seeing them sometime soon playing solo.

Alicia Keys was on next, and while I didn't think she really fit in with the rest of the bands on the schedule, she put on an impressive show and it was cool to see her, because I doubt I ever would otherwise. She is an impressively beautiful person as well, and has a fantastic voice.

Finally, Coldplay rounded out the day. It was a long wait, but well worth it. We were really close, probably about 100 feet away, and halfway through their set they moved to a side stage closer to us. At that time we were probably about 20 feet away and it was incredible. They played mostly songs off their new album, but mixed in some of their older number ones as well. Because it's in Japan too, they don't waste time talking to the crowd so it's just song after song after song.

It was pretty tight for time for me to make it back to Shiga cause their set went long, but I managed to see the whole thing and make it back home which just left me feeling good as I crawled into bed after a long, fantastic, music filled day.

The Past Two Weeks

2008-08-10T16:38:00.002+09:00

Since I've been pretty lazy about updating this in the past few weeks I thought cover the past couple of weeks in one go.

Last Friday there was a 10,000 firework, fireworks spectacular in Hikone. I was sitting ridiculously close and it was fantastic.

Saturday, I had organized an event at the rooftop beer garden of the ANA Hotel in Kyoto. It's right by Nijo castle so the view was fantastic and it seemed like a good time was had by all.

Sunday, I headed to Taga to check out the illumination/festival they were having at the shrine there. Also very beautiful.

The new teachers for the year are here now. I've only met one of the five new teachers who are in my city. He's a fellow Canadian, and seems like a decent guy.

A couple days ago I also found out I passed the entrance exam for the JET translation and interpretation course this year. I forget how many people they take every year, but it's a pretty small number (40-80) from all over the country and somehow I managed to squeak in there.

Thursday and Friday night were spent at beer gardens in Kyoto saying goodbye to friends who are heading home.

Yesterday I went to Summersonic with my buddy, the Ha, who just started JET this year as well and is living down in Osaka. Summersonic deserves it's own post and it was only yesterday so I'll try and get my impressions up soon.

Today I've just been chilling, doing laundry and watching the Olympics. I've been pretty impressed with the coverage NHK has been doing so far, and I must say it looks and sounds spectacular with the LCD TV and surround sound speakers.

淡路島

2008-07-29T22:54:00.002+09:00

This is a bit late but a couple of weekends ago we had a long weekend for Marine Day. What better way to celebrate Marine Day then by heading to the beach. Keiko found a nice cheap hotel on Awaji Island in the inland sea so we headed there for some quality R&R. The hotel was on top of a hill so it gave us a great view of the surroundings. There was a golf course as well and I was interested in potentially playing a round, but they had this asinine rule that golf shoes were absolutely necessary to play. Since they didn't rent shoes, and I only had sneakers (which are perfectly fine to play golf in by the way) so I couldn't get out on the course.

The beach was very nice and not crowded at all. Although I wish it would have been a little deeper. You could go out 50 meters or so and still only be knee deep. It's nice for little kids, but I wanted to get out in some deeper stuff.

Food was fantastic as well. The first night we ate at a small local restaurant and chatted with the locals. It seems to me that even more so than Osaka or Kyoto people, Awaji locals are intensely proud to be from Awaji Island. The second night we ate at the hotel which was featuring a Korean/Japanese buffet. It was nice, but I ate way too much.

The drive wasn't too bad either. We hit some traffic both way through Kobe. Why a city of 2 million only has 2 lane highways I'll never understand, but maybe that's just because Toronto's highways are massive. Anyway, once we got through that it was clear sailing.

涼しいっす

2008-07-24T17:08:00.002+09:00

For the past 3 weeks or so it's been unrelentingly hot and humid here in Shiga with no signs in the forecast of any changes. Even at night when it gets a little cooler the air is still so humid that you feel a glaze coat you the second you step out of an air conditioned room. When you have crazy nappy hair like mine too it gets annoying when it's long in this kind of humidity.

I'd been thinking about it for a little while, but yesterday I decided to chop of all my hair and go for a buzz. Luckily for me, James, another teacher in my town had a hair clipper set so I was able to head over to his house and take care of business. Now I'm rocking a 6mm buzz and I must say it looks a fair bit better than I initially expected. It seems a little bit cooler as well, but maybe that's just all in my mind.

Deal of the Year

2008-07-17T21:33:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I went to Nagahama to pick up a 32 inch LCD HD TV and surround sound system. A JET teacher who is leaving this year was selling trying to sell them before he went home. If was thinking of buying an HD TV this month anyway so when I saw he was selling his I jumped. After a tiny bit of haggling I got him down to 75,000 yen (about $750) for the set. A deal by any one's standards. I checked a Japanese used electronics specialty website and the cheapest they were offering the same TV for was 100,000. The speakers are 400 bucks new so all toll I got it for just a bit over half price. Probably half if you consider sales tax as well. Monty Hall would be proud.

Setup was a breeze, but I haven't got around to setting up the speakers. Playstation games look fantastic as do sports broadcasts. Can't wait to watch the Olympics on it.

耳鼻科

2008-07-13T20:29:00.002+09:00

Last week I made a trip to the ear, nose and throat doctor to get my right ear looked at. When I was swimming in the school pool water kept getting stuck in my ear and wouldn't come out no matter how hard I shook. Eventually, it got so bad I went deaf in my right ear for a day so I went to get it checked out.

The best thing about going to a doctor in Japan is that you don't need an appointment anywhere. You just go. So I went, filled out a short form, and about 10 minute later I was in the doctors office getting checked out. He took a look and found my ear was packed solid with wax. He said the water got in there and the back and forth motion of my head swimming laps helped to pack it down so that's why I couldn't hear. He cleaned it out and I must say it was pretty gross looking earwax. I looked a bit like mud actually, but 10 minutes and 10 bucks later (the portion of my bill national health insurance doesn't cover), I could hear perfectly. Not bad at all if you ask me.

京都校外学習

2008-06-22T20:08:00.007+09:00

Friday I was lucky enough to skip the days classes so I could go on a field trip with the second year students to Kyoto.

The first stop in the morning was the Yatsuhashi factory. Yatsuhashi are a famous Japanese style candy from Kyoto. They're very popular as souviniers, and I enjoy buying them just to eat myself because the baked/roasted ones are covered in cinnamon, and cinnamon flavoured treats are money.

After that we headed to a temple where the students were dropped off. They broke into their pre-determined groups and went off in the city to go about visiting various places. When I think back to field trips I had when I was in 7th/8th grade I couldn't even imagine being allowed to just roam free in a city the size of Kyoto. Everything was so tightly planned and supervised when we took field trips. Granted all the kids had to make it to certain checkpoints, and they all were given a cell phone to use in case something happened, but still, everyone made it back safe and sound, no problems at all. It was really quite impressive actually.

The weather coulda been better though. It rained off and on the entire day, pouring in a couple of instances. I got lucky though because when the heavy stuff came I was under a roof at Yasaka Jinja, the checkpoint I was responsible for, and managed to stay nice and dry. While I was there I also tried my hand at taking what would become my first HDR picture. I'm not even gonna try to explain what it is and how it works, because I don't really understand it myself. I just know the basics about how to make one, and personally, I think they look really cool. Click the link if you want to know more about the technical stuff.

All in all, a very enjoyable trip. Even as a teacher, field trips are fun.

Yasaka Jinja in HDR

2008-06-14T12:51:00.003+09:00

At the beginning of every class there is a greeting where I ask the students how they are. No matter how they are actually feeling they answer in unison "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" Yesterday I told them I was very excited. When they asked why I said "because Metal Gear 4 is on sale now." The girls stared blankly while all of the boys in unison let out a big "OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!" For the rest of the class they kept talking amongst themselves about Metal Gear which is kinda, bad, but it was the last class of the day on a Friday, so I didn't really mind.

Good Times (Part 2)

2008-06-01T21:50:00.008+09:00

Well, on the way back from Tokyo we decided to take the long way home by driving through the southern Japanese Alps which run through Yamanashi and Nagano. It was a long ass 10 hour drive back, but the views in the Alps were pretty crazy. We found a nice waterfall and enjoyed some fresh spring water.

The next day we headed to an abandoned village called Ibarakawa located out in the Suzuka mountains. Driving to get there we quickly realized why it's deserted today. If you drive down the road I take to get to the tiny elementary school you continue for another few kilometers past the end of any of the still settled areas. Then, turning off the main road you have to drive 10 kilometers down one of the crappiest roads I've ever driven on. You can't go more than 20 kilometers down the thing cause it's so chunky so it took us somewhere in the area of 40 minutes to actually reach where the village is, or was. There is a barn type building there that was built and maintained by some students from a university in Nagoya. It looked liked there was a group of them that made annual trips out there. As for the leftovers of the village there were no standing houses left. A couple of collapsed houses and a well were all that was noticeable. There was a shrine that was in good shape, but it was most likely maintained by those university students as well. It was very peaceful out there. For me it was the most I've ever felt separated from modern society while I've been in Japan. The only bad thing about the place was because of the river that runs through the place everyone but the Legend ended up getting tagged by at least 2 leeches. A-bone and J-Mac especially got a couple really good bites on them.

Tuesday was A-Bone's birthday and to celebrate we went to Nagashima Spa Land which is an amusement park and onsen not too far away. When we got there they told us that the Steel Dragon, their main attraction complete with a 300 foot first drop and top speed of over 150 km/h wasn't running that day which was a let down, but about an hour after we got there it was up and running. We rode everything in the park at least once. There were some disappointing rides, but the good ones and the lack of lines on basically everything but the Steel Dragon made it a very worthwhile time.

Thursday we all went to elementary school. The elementary school kids are much more open from the start so it was easy to get them going. Recess is always a great time at elementary school as well.

Our final weekend was spilt between the rural and urban. Friday we climbed Amagoidake, the second highest in the Suzuka Mountain Range at 1238 meters. It was a long hike, but we made a really good pace, and the views were fantastic. We finished the day off with a dinner at Ousho, a chain Chinese style eatery. My local Ousho has a Friday special where you can get an order of dumplings for 120 yen down from 200 yen. Throw in a rice dish with a couple orders of dumplings and you've got a fantastic cheap meal. Actually, we finished off the day with a visit to Mano-san's temple. Aside from being the office worker at my school, he's also head priest of a local temple. It's really new and looks fantastic so we took a little tour of the place at night.

Saturday we headed to Kyoto and visited Sagano onsen. There are no pictures of the onsen, but let me just say it's money. 9 different kinds of hot springs, well one is cold, and a sauna make for a great way to spend a couple of idle hours even if you have to be naked the whole time. At night Mano-san had invited us to a BBQ he was holding at the LSD Consert House. A bunch of his friends were there and they treated us to an impromptu jam session complete with Zepplin, Beatles, The Band, Doobie Brothers and more. We at our fair share of beef and yakisoba as well, and one of Mano-san's female friends really seemed to have a thing for Peter. Too bad she was 50 something...

Now with all this stuff going on it doesn't sound like there was much time for good old-fashion jackassery, but oh you better believe there was. An NHL 08 best of 7 series between A-Bone and Peter which culminated in A-bone taking out the garbage in nothing but a pair of boots, me burning a hole in my jacket with a firework, a surprise beatdown on A-Bone, and the creation of a nickname for Peter "Can't Buy a Break" Hynd were among the highlights of our downtime.

Good Times (Part 1)

2008-05-29T15:17:00.014+09:00

Well, it's finally over. It was a whirlwind 2 and a half weeks, but at the same time it didn't really feel like it flew by at all until it was over. On May 8th my brother and 3 best friends all came over to Japan for a vacation I'm sure we'll all remember.

Since I live kind of out there I rented a car in preparation. I managed to find a place they had a really good deal on, the only thing being that the car was a beast of a van. It seems no matter where I go I can't escape driving a van. The three cars I owned/had access to in Canada were all vans. Granted, I did use my grandmother's normal sized car occasionally, but for the most part all of my driving experience has been with vans. This turned out to be a really good thing though because Japan's roads are really tiny in comparison. Driving through Tokyo I almost lot it, but somehow managed to escape in tact. We even drove one road that has cement blocks placed on it with a 2 meter gap between them so anything bigger can not pass. The rental van squeaked through measuring a svelte 1.9 meters across. If I had never driven a van before I can only imagine how terrified I would have been driving this thing through the streets of Japan.

We toured a decent part of the country, covering ground from Kobe to Tokyo. In Kobe we enjoyed the sights food, and met some skateboarders who Andrew and both Justin's had a little fun with. The next day my buddy Yoshi had invited us to a party at my buddy Aaron's bar. Turns out it was a 1 year anniversary party for his childhood friend. I knew none of the other people aside from Yoshi, and I'm sure they were all wondering who the hell we were, but we had a decent time drinking, eating and chatting amongst ourselves.

Sunday, we stayed local taking in some of the local sights like Eigenji Temple and Tarobo Shrine. On the top of Tarobo Shrine there is a path that leads further up to the top of the mountain and on a whim we decided to climb it because as Peter put it, "It was in our way." On the way down we visited the LSD Music Consert House, which lies at the bottom of the mountain Tarobo is on. It was built and is run by my good friend and co-worker Mano-san. Staying local we visited the ruins of Nobunaga Oda's Azuchi Castle, and the still standing (in it's original form) Hikone Castle.

The next couple of days were spent at my school, going around the different classrooms and having the students talk to (well try to at least) the guys. The kids were really shy at the start, but by the end of the two days the kids had cooled down and were a bit more forthcoming.

That weekend we headed to Tokyo. It was a hell of a trip and driving that beast van in Tokyo was wild. Luckily, our hotel offered free parking. Actually, I chose that because of that reason alone since driving and/or paying for parking in Tokyo is death. Saturday we classed things up and all wore suits, except for my bro, who forgot his pants at my place. Instead, he looked like a jackass in jeans and a polo shirt. We visited all the big areas of the city and met up with my friend Asumi who recently moved to Tokyo for work for lunch. The night, Andrew, Peter and J-Mac got crazy drunk and we walked idly through the city taking in the sights.

The highlight of the night was J-Mac's drunk reading(?) of a Japanese sign. He said he couldn't see anything, but managed to transcribe the thing perfectly from 40 feet. We got it all on video too.

Well, that's enough for now I think as Tokyo was the exact halfway point of the trip. Look forward to part 2 when I get some free time to write it up.

Money

2008-04-21T12:58:00.002+09:00

At lunch time we have daily broadcasts at school. Usually music videos or comedy tv shows. I never thought in a million years I would see this, but today am I watching Speed Racer as I write this. So money.

Well I've lost them for the year

2008-04-17T17:20:00.002+09:00

So I'm in with a class of second year students today and I'm going around handing back quizzes when one girl stops me and says "Tyler um.." I'm thinking there's something stuck to my shirt or something and ask her if there is anything there. "Nope there's nothing stuck to your shirt, but..." and I notice. My fly is all the way down. Usually, the fold of the pants will hide even you fly being down in dress pants, but I got unlucky with the way the fabric folded and it was wide open.

The worse part is that this was 40 minutes into a 50 minute class. Pretty much every student had realized and I had no way to get out of this one smoothly. So I zipped up and just felt the heat rise as I sensed my face turning red. Tomorrow I have a class with them as well so I've planned to go in and deliberately check my zipped up fly at the beginning of class. Should be good for a laugh and make me look a little better after an embarrassing episode.

Now for some picture I took a couple weeks back of the cherry blossoms because if you're in Japan you need to have pictures of cherry blossoms in spring. That is the rule, nothing I can do about it.

新学年準備中

2008-04-04T14:50:00.003+09:00

This past week has seen a lot of changes at school. With the start of a new school year teachers all across the school board can change positions. There's some kind of rule/guideline in place so that a teacher can stay at one school for around 10 years at most. Generally, it seems much shorter however, closer to 3 or 4 years. The thing is most teachers don't find out if and where they are going to be moved until about a week before they transfer. Kind of stressful if you as me, but I guess they're kind of used to the system.

We saw 5 teachers leave this year and got 4 new teachers to replace them the following day. One less, because this year there are 2 special-ed classes instead of 3 like last year. I am no longer the youngest teacher as there is a fresh new 22 year old PE teacher in training who just graduated last month. Interestingly enough he is a local boy and grew up in the area where I visit the elementary school in the mountains.

The students have been divided into their new classes and the teachers have been divided into their respective classes as well. I'm with the 2nd year teachers again this year, but the old 2nd year teachers are now the 3rd year teachers and my direct supervisor is a 1st year teacher now so I'm with a whole new group and in a new spot. It's been a refreshing change so far and I like my spot because the teachers around me have things piled high on their desks and I feel like I'm in a fort.

I've also found out that I will be in charge of the 3rd year elective English class. I don't know how many people will take it as the students decide next week, but since it's elective I'm assuming mostly the kids whose English is a bit more advanced will be taking it. Since it's elective too I am not constricted by the textbook and can really do some interesting things.

ありえない

2008-03-29T18:11:00.002+09:00

Not two minutes ago my doorbell rang. I seldom have vistors and when I do it's usually the mailman delivering a package, so I open the door wondering what it is he has for me now. To my surprise it is a sharply dressed man and woman. They ask me if Japanese is ok, and I say yes. Then he passes me a little booklet opened to an English passage....

Jehovah's Witnesses!

Even in Japan you can't avoid em.

A Taste of Home

2008-03-24T20:13:00.002+09:00

I have these two bottles of maple syrup in my cupboard. My brother sent them to me months ago and they've just be up there collecting dust. I thought it would be nice to make some pancakes and use the syrup, but I always managed to forget to buy pancake mix because I always gave it a passing thought.

Last week I finally remembered to buy the mix and tonight I cooked myself some pancakes for dinner. I made 3 decent sized pancakes and enjoyed a nice short stack soaked in 100% Canadian maple syrup. The pancakes themselves were a little dry, but still delicious.

花灯路

2008-03-18T20:15:00.003+09:00

Last Friday in Kyoto an event started called "Hana Touro" in which they light up the streets of old Kyoto with a bunch of different old laterns, and the temples in the area are all open late with illuminations of their own. Since Friday was White Day (Valentine's Day for girls since in Japan on actual Valentine's Day guys do nothing) Keiko and I headed down to Kyoto to take in the sights. It was a little rainy, but the rain died off pretty quickly and the night air was cool and refreshing.

The illumination was quite the sights as well. It's always a bit of a time slip heading to that neck of Kyoto, but this night in particular as fire lit the way instead of electric light. It's about as close as you can get to how it probably looked in that area about 100 years ago. If you're in the area it's running until the 25th or so I think.

3年生の皆さん、さよなら

2008-03-11T19:17:00.003+09:00

Today was the graduation ceremony for this year's 3rd year students. For me it was a fresh experience, not only because it's my first time at a Japanese ceremony, but also that whenever I have attended a graduation ceremony in the past, I have always been among the graduates. I also finally understand the sense of pride parents/teachers have to see their kids graduate and why my mom was always so gung-ho about graduation.

The ceremony itself was pretty long, but there were a number of speeches from the principal, PTA president, and a city Board of Education member. There were also a number of songs that the class performed as part of the "Parting words" section of the ceremony. It was during this part when one of the girls, a student that I have become pretty close to, was addressing the crowd and started to cry uncontrollably. I had to stop watching her because I knew if I kept watching her I might have lost it myself.

Even though I've only been teaching these kids for about 7 months, and I'm sure I'll see most of them again some day down the road, in the end as all the students walked through a crowd of all the students, teachers and parents out the doors of the school for the last time as middle school students, I couldn't help but feel as if a tiny piece of me was being lost.

Serenity Now!

2008-03-03T12:02:00.003+09:00

I'm choosing a shirt off my clothes rack this morning when I notice it seems to be a bit heavy on one side as if it could tip over any moment. Hoping to remedy this, I give it a shove back in the opposite direction. This shove is proceeded by a loud snap as a hard plastic piece breaks, sending my clothes to the ground in a crumpled mass of cotton and wire hangers. I had no time to try and fix it, so they're all lying there right now waiting for me to go out and buy a new clothes rack. I knew I shouldn't have jiggled it!

Edit: The day just kept getting better!

Missed the bus to go into town to buy a new clothes rack (Bad)
Sent money back to Canada to pay of my student load (Good and bad)
5X points on all purchases at the dept. store (Excellent)
Bought some ready made food at the grocery store for dinner. Sit down at the bus stop ready to eat as I wait...but, oh, no chopsticks (not particularly bad, just frustrating)
Lost my bank book somewhere (VERY VERY BAD)
Get home ready to assemble my new clothes rack and can't find a screwdriver in the house (again, not bad, but frustrating) I managed to get it up by using a knife as a screwdriver. I also learned the Japanese word for a Phillips Head screwdriver (Plus driver)

Glorious isn't she?

職員バレーボール大会

2008-02-29T22:55:00.002+09:00

Today after work I joined a few of the other teachers from my school for a city-wide junior high school teachers volleyball friendly tournament. Since my school only had 4 participants and we were had teams of 9 on the court at a time, we were paired up with another one of the smaller schools to make a full team. I should also mention this morning we had our first, and only practice where we played against the girls volleyball team and we destroyed 25 to 9.

Each match was 2 sets first to 21 with each team playing twice. To make a long story short we lost all 4 sets. Although, we did lose to the top two teams of the tournament if that can be any kind of consolation. I was hoping I would get the chance to really smash one down hard too (I was even gonna call it a "Gaijin Spike" if I got the chance), but I was playing to close to the net and couldn't really get a good chance to get a decent run up and blast one down.

I was really surprised how hardcore some of these teachers were going. You'd think it would be the younger ones going all out too, but actually the middle aged men were the biggest threat on any of the teams we played. One team had their 60 year old principal playing with them and he was smashing down ace jump serves like he was taking a piss.

The matches finished earlier than expected so each team played once more. This time we played a team more on our own level and beat them pretty good. I was happier with my performance in this match too, as I scored the final 2 points for my team. I managed to get a 50% power Gaijin Spike off too, but still couldn't get one with a prime run up.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to take my camera with me, but there's another match in March or April so I'll take some pictures that time. Instead you'll have to settle for a picture I took in the toilet today of a spider that was just chilling up against the wall while I took a crap. Probably one of the fastest craps I've ever taken too since I was worried he would jump on my leg at any second. I didn't want to kill him cause I was just wearing thin, kung-fu style shoes and because of the position he was in I wasn't sure I could get the job done properly.

山田さんは永中に来校

2008-02-25T18:13:00.003+09:00

Last week we had a special guest at Eigenji. Mr. Yamada, a friend of mine, and the father of my friend Aki, came to visit our school to give a talk to the students about his experiences with English, and how they can use English later in their lives to widen their world.

Mr. Yamada spent 8 years in Los Angeles working for Sanyo Electric. Currently his work with Sanyo takes him back and forth between Japan and China. He's had a number of great experiences in his life, and he is an extremely intelligent man. It was an honour to have take the time out of his busy schedule to come and speak at our school as a favour to me.

After each lecture, the students had to write a little reflection on what they thought of Mr. Yamada's talk. I was reading through their short comments the following day and it seemed to me that pretty much every single kid got something out of Mr. Yamada's talk. Even those kids who aren't interested in learning English or don't feel they will use it later on in life got something else out of his speech. I was quite happy about that. I can't force a kid to like English, but if I can help open their eyes to the possibilities that exist in this world for them, then I think I'm doing my job as a teacher here.

There was a nice snowfall the day before so I took some pictures of the mountains that day too. And of course, once again, a huge thank you to Mr. Yamada.

節分

2008-02-09T17:54:00.000+09:00

Last weekend was Setsubun. Setsubun is a festival for luck in the coming new year. The day following Setsubun is traditionally the first day of spring, which under the lunar calendar is the start of the new year. Setusbun's most important tradtion is the throwing of beans at people dressed as demons while shouting "Out with the demons, in with the luck!" In households, the oldest male will usually play the role of the demon. At shinto shrines there are always a number of people playing the demons.

To partake of the Setsubun festivities, Keiko and I headed to Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, and Heian Shrine in Kyoto. At Kitano Tenmangu they had a small kyogen play followed by a maiko peformance. Kitano Tenmangu is very close to one of the most famous remaining geisha-districts in Kyoto (and Japan). At Heian Shrine (the biggest shrine in Kyoto, I think BTW) the focus was more on the demons who marched from the gates to the main shrine about 300m away, scaring small children in the crowd along the way. Then they were summarily driven out by a group of middle aged men (most likely important people of the community, but I can't say for sure).

After both performances the VIP's gather and throw roasted soybeans into the crowd. Eating your age in beans is supposed to bring good luck for the coming year. Being part of the crowd in both cases was quite the experience. It can get pretty crazy with everyone trying to get their hands on a pack of beans. Surprisingly, it's the senior citizens who you have to watch out for the most. Eating beans for seniors is suppsoedly especially lucky, and as such, they go buck wild. If you don't pay attention you can get nailed in the head by a pack of beans or clubbed by an over-zealous crowd member. At Tenmangu, we were too far back to catch any of the beans, but there were plenty to go around at Heian Shrine. I managed to get 4 myself rather quickly before escaping from the chaos of the assembled crowd.

Today it has been snowing non-stop since I woke up and I love it. I picked up a concert ticket early in the morning, took a warm bath and spent the rest of the day reading, watching Seinfeld DVD's and sipping cocoa while watching the snow fall outside for the comfort of my warm bedroom. A fantastic lazy winter day.

インフルエンザのおかげで

2008-01-28T18:07:00.000+09:00

Today after lunch one of the two first grade classes got to go home early. They have tomorrow and Wednesday off as well.

The reason - influenza.

Six kids in that class alone were out with the flu, and a few others were showing some pretty heavy symptoms. Turns out there's kind of an unwritten rule (maybe it is written somewhere) that when about 1/3 of a class is absent or showing signs of illness that class gets effectively quarantined for a few days in order to prevent it from spreading to other classes. For the kids who are sick it's nice they can recover and not worry about having to catch up on a bunch of missed lessons. For the kids who aren't sick, well, they're just rolling in a few free days off school. The kids who it sucks most for is the other class of first graders. For them, the next few days is business as usual. Nothing they can do, but hang their heads in disappointment as they walk past the neighbouring classroom thinking "If only it could have been us."

Hot Water Troubles

2008-01-28T17:40:00.000+09:00

I was lying in my bed Saturday evening playing some video games. I had the kerosene heater beside me going strong and a kettle on top of it with hot water ready to go for cocoa and tea. Generally, I get up to pour a new glass, but Saturday it was especially cold and I didn't feel like getting out from under the covers. I placed the cup in my lap and proceeded to pour the hot water in gingerly, so as not to spill any. Then out of nowhere my left hand slipped and my thumb went flying into the glass. Since this was freshly boiled water I ended up giving my left thumb a pretty good second degree burn. As a result of the shock I ended up flipping my mug, spilling tea all over my blanket which ended up scalding my left leg as well. Since the tea leaves were loose in a strainer over the mug they scattered across my bed and floor as well. Luckily, there was no staining on my blanket and clean-up was relatively easy even if my finger was killing me for the rest of the day.

Today when I woke up I was freezing. It must have easily been the coldest night this winter and my core temperature was way down. I headed to the shower as per my usual routine only to find when I turned on the hot water nothing came out. The cold water worked fine, but not a single drop from the hot side. I checked both my sinks to confirm but it was much the same. With no real options and a cold shower out of the question I scrubbed down a few key areas and took a small French bath. The water is working fine now though so it makes sense to assume the pipe froze up overnight and thawed out during the day. It seems like this is a fairly common occurance over here as no one was surprised by my lack of hot water when I told them. Most Japanese bathe at night so not having hot water in the morning may only be a minor inconvenience, if they even notice, but for a morning bather like myself it's a crippling blow, especially when you need to get your core temp up quick. I only had 2 classes today though, so after they were over I spent the rest of the day in the properly heated staff room.

冬がいよいよやってきた

2008-01-24T17:17:00.000+09:00

Today in my mind was the first true day of winter we've had so far this season here. Sure we've had some snow before but it was always too warm and never stuck around for more than a day. Today however, we've been having steady snowfall all day. At first it looked as if it would be like the snowfalls before as it was melting on contact, but then around 11 the winds picked up, the temperature dropped, and it started to stick and pile up. It's still falling at a good pace now with no signs of letting up. Tomorrow's forecast is looking very similar as well so it looks like the snow will be here to stay for a little while at least which is great. I was really getting sick of all the cold rain.

Another interesting thing to mention is the very perceptible change in temperature that occurs in the short 3 km or so between my house and my school. I'd say on average, it's generally always about 2 degrees Celsius warmer at my house than at school. The reason of course, being that the school is that much closer to the mountains and the cool mountain air funnels down there but dissipates by the time it reaches my area (if it even does). Japanese weather can be very random from place to place even within a relatively short distance. Back in Toronto there's nothing really like that. Whatever the weather is like in Toronto it's gonna be pretty much the same in Mississauga, Scarborough, Newmarket, or Ajax. On the other hand, in Taga for example, they generally get much more snow than here and it's maybe 15 km north where I am. Not what I would call "far" by any means. In any case, keep this snow coming, I'm loving it, even if my house is freezing.

Preach It

2008-01-18T17:33:00.000+09:00

Quote of the week right here:

"Speaking from a psychiatrist's point of view, being able to see oneself urinate the furthest possible distance brings joy to men in a feeling that stems back to the old days of hunting and gathering"

Found here

ギリギリセーフ

2008-01-16T20:41:00.000+09:00

Recently, for one reason or another I haven't been getting enough sleep and I'm well aware of it. In an attempt to get back on track I went to bed fairly early last night. I ended up waking up naturally this morning 15 minutes before my alarm went off. I turned the heater on and went back to sleep waiting for my alarm. Well my alarm went off. Five times to be precise, and I kept shutting it off. The snooze will only repeat 5 times max so after that if you don't get up you're SOL.

I woke up again naturally at 7:28 and looked at the time. I normally leave my house at 7:35 to get to the bus stop to go to work. Realizing I only had 7 minutes. I threw on some clothes, and brushed my teeth. No time for a shower I but the deodorant on thick and used an extra spray of cologne. There was still some left over wax in my hair so I didn't have to worry about bed head. No time to eat a proper breakfast, I threw a couple of oranges in my pocket and was off. I arrived at work same time as always and smiled to myself knowing that I had woken up only 25 minutes earlier and no one was the wiser.

Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you're just good. Today I was a bit of both.

Bike Troubles

2008-01-10T20:45:00.000+09:00

I was heading to Kyoto over the past weekend for a party with a couple old Kyoto University friends and a bunch of their friends as well. I planned my trip out, figuring out exactly which trains to take to get there on time and it was all perfect, until I stepped outside that is.

To my surprise, I found my bike tire completely flat. I tried pumping it up, but could easily hear the air escaping. I ran back inside checking the bus schedule. Next bus at 3:15, what time is it now, 3:16. Damn. Even if the bus is a couple minutes late, which it generally is, I couldn't make it even running full out. The next bus wouldn't be around for another hour or so either. So, with my options exhausted I did the only thing I could. Walk 6 km to the train station. Sure I'd be late for my train, and ultimately late for my meeting, and perhaps I could have ran or taken a taxi, but I checked the train schedules on my phone and found out I could take another train that would only have me arriving 10 minutes after I was supposed to meet. I didn't want to be all sweaty, and spending 3000 yen on a taxi so I wouldn't be 10 minutes late wasn't an attractive option either, so I just hoofed it. I figured the return trip would be good exercise after and all you can eat/drink party as well.

Turns out I ended up staying out all night. I took the bus home in the morning and slept till 2 in the afternoon which messed up my sleeping schedule for a couple days, but that's a different story. This one is about the bike.

A couple of days ago I took my bike to the repair shop and got my tire patched. It was riding fine when I rode to the station the yesterday again going to Kyoto, this time to see Masahiro who is back from Hong Kong for a while, as well as Aki and Asumi. I come back last night just after midnight and find my bike tire once again flat. Dead tired, and fed up I started to walk home when the tire fell of the rim completely. I put the bike back in the lot at the train station, left the key in it and found a taxi.

I knew the thing was on its last legs. Recently the chain had been falling off a fair bit (once or twice a week) and it's considerably rusted. I figured I could hold on to it until the chain rusted through and snapped, but the tire was just the final straw. Two times in one week. Unacceptable. So I'm gonna have to break down and get a new bike now. Not that it's a real hefty expense or anything. Considering the old bike was here when I got here, I've got my share of free rides out of it anyway. Better to have a new bike I can depend on so I don't end up having to take any surprise expensive taxi rides back home in the middle of the night.

謹賀新年

2008-01-04T13:55:00.000+09:00

Today was my first day back at work since the New Year holidays. New Year's in Japan is like Christmas in Canada. People get together with their families, sharing stories and having big meals. Instead of church there is the first visit to a Shinto shrine for the New Year.

I spent my New Year's in Hikone at Keiko's house. Her brother and his family were there as well so I got to meet her niece and nephew while I was there. New Year's Eve, Keiko and I were in Taga, a nearby town with a large shrine for our New Year's shrine visit. I managed to see a few of my students as well and when I went to say hi, it always took them about 10 seconds to realize who I was. I think perhaps it was difficult for them to believe that I exist outside of the school environment, but then again it was most likely because I haven't shaved in a while.

Actually, I arrived in Taga quite early so I spent a fair bit of time just walking around the town at night. Taga is small town Japan at it's finest. Tons of old houses, narrow winding roads, a stream running through the town and a huge shrine to boot. Create an image in your head of what you think the stereotypical Japanese small town looks like right now. That's Taga.

A big thing in Japan for the New Year is the first time you do certain things and there are certain words for these special things. The top three are probably the first sunrise, first dream, and first shrine visit. I wasn't up to see the sunrise, and I can't remember my dream, but I did manage to get the shrine visit. Another big first happened on that day as well. We got our first snowfall of the year. It had snowed before, but only on the mountains, and never stayed long. This time it was snowing everywhere and actually sticking. It's all melted now where I live though, but we did have a good 5 cm or so.

New Year's day the family headed to Nagashima in Mie prefecture. In Nagashima there is an amusement park, hotel, onsen, and outlet shopping mall. The purpose of our visit that day was for the outlet mall. From far away it looked like a normal Canadian mall which is pretty rare in Japan, but when I got close I could see, that while it still looked like a Western mall, it was set up more like a mall you would see in California or Florida. It was all open air, with covered sidewalks. The colours were brighter pastel colours I associate with warm climates in the States, a lot of bright white. Even the pavement was reminiscent of something you'd see in the States. The stores, were by and large famous American brand name outlet stores with some European top brands and a few Japanese stores thrown in for good measure. Keiko was the only one who bought anything, although I did sample the Cold Stone Creamery they had there. It was pretty good, but too expensive to warrant another go. Not that there are any stores around here I could actually go to...

After Nagashima we headed to a place called Nabana, also in Mie which has the most famous light display in Japan. It costs 2000 yen to get in, which I thought was a bit steep, but once I saw the amount of lights in this place I realized the power bill to run this place for an hour must be equivalent to at least a full year of my power usage. It's gorgeous no doubt, but I can't even begin to think about the number of man-hours used to make it or the price of upkeep. They also give you a 1000 yen coupon you can use to buy anything inside, which is decent. Most of the lights they use look like the normal Christmas light variety and I couldn't help but thinking, what if one bulb blew and then everything just went dark. It would suck for whoever had to find that blown bulb, but since it wouldn't be me, I'd be laughing.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you have a great one.

Taga

The Outlet Mall and Nabana

クリスマス

2007-12-26T09:59:00.000+09:00

Christmas has come and gone in Japan just like any other day. I spent my Christmas morning at school participating in the year end volunteer clean up. I was partially wrong about what I said before about it not actually being a volunteer event, but rather mandatory. For those who didn't have sports club practice it was voluntary, but for the students who were here practicing for sports, their participation was pretty much mandatory. I guess technically you could say you didn't want to do it, but your entire team would look down on your for it most likely.

I ended up on garbage duty with the baseball team. A couple 2nd year students and I walked about the small residential area behind the school for about an hour picking trash up. Halfway through we me the younger brother of another 2nd year student who was outside playing. With nothing else really to do, and probably wanting to look cool with the older kids, he decided to help us out. He was actually really into it as well, and was diving into narrow spaces trying to find any piece of trash he could.

The principal let me go home at 12:30 so I met up with Keiko and we went to an electronics store to get her Christmas present (DS Lite).　Imagine that, shopping for a Christmas present, on Christmas! After we went for dinner to this really nice buffet style place. The shape of the buffet and style of plates is very American country buffet style, but the foods themselves are all very Japanese so it was pretty interesting, and delicious. Most of the ingredients and foods are all locally grown and handmade as well so it seemed very healthy.

Even though it didn't feel like Christmas at all, all in all it was a pretty decent day. I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas as well. All the best for you and yours this holiday season.

男のユーモア

2007-12-21T22:23:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I made my last visit to elementary school for the year. This week's school was the closest of the four I visit so I can take my normal bus and it drops me relatively close to the school. Actually, 3 students from that school ride the same bus with me during the morning, so when I get to visit their school I also get the chance to walk with them to school from the bus stop.

Yesterday, the youngest of the three (a second grader 7 years old) started asking me about what certain words were in English. He started out with the normal stuff (foods, animals, etc.) but quickly moved into the territory of bodily functions. None of his questions were bad words, so in hopes to continue to foster interest in the English language among the youth of Japan I taught him how to say burp, pee, and poop. Then he asked about fart. and actually having to fart at the time I knew this was one of those moments where the timing is so perfect you've have no other choice, you've just gotta do it. Young boys, hell even grown men enjoy toilet humor, and nothing gets a group of young boys laughing like a majestic fart. I knew this the perfect chance. I told him first what the word was then held my hand up motioning for silence and proceeded to rip one. It was a pretty beastly one at that too if I do say so myself. Nice and deep with a classic fart ripple effect that carried for a couple of seconds. Being the young boys they are they ate it up and died laughing.

After a couple more minutes of walking we ran into one of their friends who joined us for the rest of the trip. The young kid who was questioning me started to tell his friend about all the new English words he had just learned, and of course eventually he came to fart. I must be blessed by the gods, because just as this boy was telling his friend how I taught him the word and then actually farted, I felt another one coming and held my hand up again asking for silence and blasted another one. Naturally, once again they all died laughing.

Then it hit me, this one kid is pretty talkative and before the day is over it's quite possible that everyone in the school will have heard of my farting exploits, which although interesting, is not the image I want to convey, especially if these kids decide then to go and tell their parents about what the English teacher is teaching their kids.

Luckily, I was yet again blessed by the gods and the kid asked me how I managed to fart with such perfect timing on two consecutive occasions. Without any hesitation I puffed out my coat pocket and told him I had actually had a whoopee cushion in my pocket. Having the whoopee cushion also explained why the first fart was more powerful than the second, since I had no chance to blow the cushion back up. Since he's seven he bought the story hook, line, and sinker, no questions asked leaving T-Mac to walk away scot-free with his image as the good English teacher intact.

運転免許

2007-12-20T17:27:00.000+09:00

Four months after arriving in Japan and two months since my last appointment at the DMV, I finally received my Japanese driver's license on Tuesday.

When I went Tuesday morning I handed over all the forms I had ordered from Ontario and translated as well as a a little paper I prepared on the Ontario licensing system. I was told to wait in the same room I did last time. This time however, there were no questions though. The lady (the one I wrote about last time that I wished I would have had then) told me she just had to confirm the forms. After that I signed a paper saying I had no illnesses that should preclude me from operating a car/bike. I had my picture taken, took my eye test and paid my fees. 45 minutes later I had my license in hand. If only it could have been so easy last time.

The design of the Japanese license is pretty nice, but it's made with fairly thin plastic. I was playing the newest Initial D game in the arcade the same day, and got a "license" with my saved info on it from the game and it was considerably thicker and sturdier than my actual license which was a little surprising.

変なの

2007-12-18T20:22:00.001+09:00

Strangest thing I've seen in Japan since I've been here happened last weekend. I was in the bathroom at the train station and a guy came up beside me to take a pee as well. He pressed the button to flush as soon as he got there, once more during the middle of his pee, and then yet again at the very end.

3 times for one pee!

The flush at the end is a given, even the one before urinating is understandable, but a flush mid-pee is just crazy.

Dir en Grey

2007-12-10T17:29:00.000+09:00

This past weekend I headed to Kyoto with my friend to see Dir en Grey play at KBS Hall in Kyoto. The show was all standing and KBS Hall isn't really that huge. There were probably about 1300 people and even though I had ticket 1253, being a foot taller than everyone else standing at the back was no problem. By the time Dir en Grey came on stage the crowd had packed so tight up front I could move halfway up no problem as well.

I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but I think this is the first Japanese tour they've done where they had an opening band. In Toronto, they had 2, neither which were really anything special. Interestingly enough, the opening act was an American band called 10 Years, and they were actually decent. Best song they played was called Actions & Motives, but it turns out it's from a new upcoming, unreleased album, so there are no samples to be found anywhere yet.

The concert itself was fantastic, mostly new stuff, but they threw in a pretty old song in there as well and it threw off the Japanese fans. See they have this thing, where basically everyone in the audience is co-ordinated. Everyone knows exactly when and how to move at each part of each song. This is also a little strange for me, but standing at the back I can just do my own thing and not attract evil eyes from the synchronised fans, not that I would really care, but whatever. So, when they threw in this really old song no one knew what to do. Many had probably never been to a show where they played the song, and for the few who had it had been to long ago for them to remember what to do. So I'm standing at the back, doing my own thing, and everyone else is standing completely still, just watching.

The encore was crazy. Non-stop rocking with everything cranked up to 11. It was during this part that I was hit on the forehead by a pick thrown by Die, on of the guitarists. I couldn't catch it, but I knew where it landed on the floor and quickly managed to step on it and drag it closer so I could retrieve it.

A couple of other random things:
I was surprised at the number of older women (40+) fans in the crowd. There was actually a lady standing right next to me who could be 50 and was wearing this crazy short, tight, leather dress. It was actually quite off-putting and threw off my mojo for a little bit.

After the show as we were waiting in line to get our coat check stuff back there were two girls who must have been boiling or just trying to draw some eyes, because they proceeded to take off their shirts, and wait in the line, wearing only their bras and short mini-skirts. Very nice, but also very strange. Completely throwing that shy, Japanese girl stereotype out the window.

All in all, an excellent night.

違う雰囲気

2007-12-02T13:00:00.000+09:00

In my town there is a main road that runs from West to East basically splitting the town in half. In the main part of town most of the shops, the train station, and schools lie north of the road. Once you get past that main section of town the north and south sides of that road are like two different towns.

Normally, I am heading to the main section of the town so I ride there on a street a couple of blocks north of the main road. Riding this road all you will see is small patches of houses in between blocks of fields. There's an electric substation on the way as well, but that's about it. It's a pretty quiet road and you can ride it straight into the city though so it's very convenient and easy for me to use. As a result, I had never really ventured into the area south of the main road until about a month ago.

Riding a road about an equal distance south of the main road as the one I ride on the north side I was very surprised to find that the south side of the town is like a completely different world. There are no fields, houses both new and old dominate the landscape. There are also a bunch of small shops, restaurants, and little bars all along the way. There are a couple of factories on the south side as well. It just generally has a much busier feel to it. The first time I was riding back home down the south side I was just blown away by how the atmosphere was completely different from the north side. It was if I had discovered a whole new town in the town I thought I had pretty much seen everything in.

Winter is Just Around the Corner

2007-11-21T17:53:00.000+09:00

Within the past week it's become noticeably colder rather quickly. Monday I woke up to find the mountains snow-capped. While it had only rained where I lived, the difference due to altitude must have been large enough that there was snow up there. Even the smaller mountains closer to my school were fairly covered which depressed me a little. Fortunately, by the afternoon the sun had melted all the snow except for some on the peaks of the taller (1000m+) mountains off in the distance. So while it's not quite winter yet, it's clearly just around the corner.

Winter in Shiga is generally warmer than in Toronto, but it feels much colder. This is because all houses in Japan are built without insulation or central heating (although some newer houses now have one, the other, or both). Apartments like mine are also generally made with a large amount of concrete which makes is quite cold in the winter. Single pane glass on all the doors and windows doesn't help either. My space heater works fairly well if I close the door to my room, but once I turn it off the heat goes away generally in 30 minutes or less. It also sucks power like a beast and if I were to constantly have it on I can't even imagine what my bill for the month would be.

Winter does signal the coming of something good though. As the seasons change Japanese breweries release seasonal beers. The various winter brews are some of the best around, and really do seem to capture the essence of the season in a beer. How exactly they manage to do it I'm not quite sure, but it's lovely.

I've also recently be afflicted with what (according to some quick research on Wikpedia) I believe to be a stye on my right eye. It seems that they tend to go away over time by themselves and cause no harm. They just make it hurt to blink which is a bit unfortunate for me seeing as I tend to blink somewhere upwards of 1000 times on any given day.

紅葉

2007-11-15T18:42:00.000+09:00

Today I headed up to the elementary school in the mountains. This time I took my camera as well. It's not quite the prime season yet, but a good deal of the trees have changed colour and are in their full autumn glory. On the way home since I have to wait 40 minutes for the bus I decided to walk down to the nearby temple and take some pictures there. It's actually quite famous throughout the Kansai region and draws tourists from all around. There was even a tour bus there from Tochigi (maybe 700km away). Quite a haul just to look at the foliage if I do say so myself. I'm glad it's only a 15 minute bus ride for me.

ソウル

2007-11-08T18:47:00.000+09:00

Last Friday Keiko and I headed to Seoul for a little 4 day, fall vacation. My main motivation in planning this trip at this particular time was to give myself the chance to see the World Taekwondo Hanmadang, being held in Suwon, just south of Seoul from the 2nd until the 4th. At the same time it would give me the chance to experience Korea, a place I've wanted to go for some time, but never had a great opportunity to make the trip a reality. For Keiko, it was also her first trip to Korea, and it also gave her the chance to meet with some old friends she met in Toronto at English school, as well as do a bit of shopping in the extremely cheap (compared to Japan/Canada) stores of Seoul.

For me this was the first time I had ever been to a country where I had basically no knowledge of the native language. I thought it might make me feel a little uncomfortable like I had this little bubble around me, but I think it just opened up all my other senses to take it all in since I was paying no attention at all to the language and trying to translate things in my head. I'm thankful though that most transportation signs have English on them as well so getting around wasn't a problem at all.

Friday, we arrived at the airport late in the afternoon, and by the time we had taken the bus to Seoul and reached the hotel it was getting dark. We headed to a nearby restaurant located in a back alley for a huge pot or spicy chicken stew. The meal comes in one of those old style hand laundry tin tubs filled with vegetables, spicy soup, and a whole chicken. Fantastic meal for two. After that we headed did a bit of walking around and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we went to an area called Itaewon which apparently is a foreigner paradise, as probably 75% of the people I saw while there weren't Korean. It also happens to be home to a number of leather clothing and jacket stores. Korean leathers are a hot item in Japan and Keiko was in the market for something distinctive, but unfortunately, unlike everything else in Korea, the leathers weren't cheap and she was left empty handed.

After a bit of walking around and some lunch we went to Gyeongbukgong, the old palace of the Korean Emperor. The buildings were destroyed by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea, but the Korean government has made it a priority to restore the palace to its former glory, and I must say what they've done so far is fantastic. The palace grounds are massive, and the first thing I noticed after experiencing a number of Japanese castles, which are surrounded by greenery and gardens, is that the grounds of Gyeongbukgong are predominantly stone-covered. The architecture is also quite different and seems to have a greater Chinese influence than buildings of similar age in Japan. Following the tour of the palace was dinner where we had an incredibly spicy stew. I also started to feel the symptoms of my uncoming cold around this time.

The next day we headed to Suwon to take in the last day of the Hanmadang. I had seen some on tv the previous morning and was pumped to see it first hand. The Hanmadang is a little different than a normal tournament in that there is no sparring. The focus is on patterns, breaking, and team demonstrations which combine, patterns, breaking, and pre-planned demonstration fights with flashy techniques. It took a fair bit of time to reach Suwon, and being the last day the tournament finished in the afternoon, but I still managed to see quite a bit and a number of impressive things. I was a bit surprised at the crowd (or lack thereof) which was mostly made up of other competitors. The tournament was free to watch, located in a largely populated area, and they had free drinks and snacks so the lack of a crowd was pretty surprising to me. I don't think it was because it was the final day either, because when I saw the tv broadcast from the day before the crowd was looking just as thin.

Most of the competitors were (surprise!) Korean, coming from various universities around the country. By far the most impressive was the team from Yong-In University. After doing a bit of research afterwards I found out Yong-In University is one of the premier martial arts schools in the world. One of their faculties is the College of Martial Arts where it's possible to take a 4-year university degree in Taekwondo! Students who complete the program graduate with a sport instructor's license, the 2nd level playing instructors license (not really sure what this is), and a 4th degree black belt. Anyway one of their team members managed to break 49 boards that were only being held by one hand in 30 seconds with consecutive reverse turning kicks to take a breaking title. Another girl from the team won the jumping front-snap kick breaking with a break at 225cm. I didn't get to see their team performance, but I did see team performances from India, Mexico, and Taiwan. The Taiwanese were by far the best of those three and Keiko commented on how they seemed to be much better showmen, and far more entertaining than the other two teams.

Another reason for coming to the tournament was to see level of competition of other countries and whether or not the Toronto level (particularly the black belt team, Team One, that my brother and I are/were are part of) is up to par. I've gotta say hands down that their is easily enough talent on Team One to compete at next year's Hanmadang if they wanted to. While I don't think we could win or place top three, the team would most likely be better than the Mexican and Indian teams I saw, and very close to the Taiwanese team's level I think.

Since the tournament ended rather early we did a bit of sightseeing in Suwon, home to Hwaseong Fortress, Korea's only walled city. I came to Suwon to see Taekwondo, but Hwaseong fortress for me was easily the highlight of the entire trip, attraction-wise. A 5.74km wall circles what use to be the entirety of Suwon city before urban sprawl took over. Four main gates at the cardinal directions along with other guard towers, observation posts and the like make up the wall. Inside, a castle and archery range among other historical things, as well a large number of modern buildings make up the fortress city. I can not adequately describe what a site Hwaseong fortress is. I can only say that is the most magnificent man-made structures I have seen in either Korea, Japan, or any other place I've ever been, and even some of those I haven't. If you are ever in Seoul and have a day you can take to go to Suwon and experience Hwaseong Fortress DO IT! You will not be disappointed.

That night we headed back to Seoul and met up with three of Keiko's friends from English school in Toronto. One of them couldn't stay around long, but the other two took us on a whirlwind night tour of Seoul where we visited Seoul Tower, the Han River, a 24 hour grocery store popular with Korean music and TV stars where we picked up kimchi and other food stuffs to bring home, and Dongdaemun, the famous shopping district home to a number of department stores which never close so Koreans and tourists alike can get their shopping done any time of day, any day of the year. It's really kinda crazy when you think about it.

Monday we met up with Keiko's friends again and since our flight was later in the afternoon we had time to have a group lunch and do a last little bit of touring around the popular shopping district for young people. While Keiko and her female friend were in some girly store, her other male friend and I waited outside. While we were standing outside the store we were approached by some workers from a Christian TV station who asked if we wouldn't mind giving our opinions on gays and lesbians. It was pretty uneventful, but all the people walking by were giving us looks, probably wondering why the cameras were focused on the one white guy in the area.

After lunch we headed to the airport and the two friends who took us out on the night tour escorted us all the way to the airport. Riding the train to the airport were interviewed yet again, this time by what Keiko's friend told us is a fairly large and popular national business news network, about what we thought of the airport train we were riding on. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. It's fantastic. Spotlessly clean, fast (but not Shinkansen fast), and is mindblowingly cheap. The total fare for the express train is 3100 won ($3 CAD, 360 yen) for a trip that distance wise would cost you at least 2000 yen in Japan (more if you took the Shinkansen) and probably $10 CAD on the not nearly as nice GO Train. Keiko's friend said the clip will most likely be up on the internet soon, so she'll try and find it and send us the link. So if I get it I will put it up here as well. Maybe if all else fails there a job for me on Korean TV with all this recent exposure???

Finally, I'd just like to share a few random observations I made during the trip.

- Seoul has to be one of the most hilly cities I've ever visited, and I was surprised considering how big the city is. I thought it would be more flat like Tokyo, but there are hills everywhere and they are aren't just tiny little things either. More often then not they are fairly steep and long. There are a number of residential areas in these steep hills throughout the city and they are fantastic to walk through to see the beautiful terraced houses and experience the "real Seoul."

- No matter where we were in the city there were always an incredibly diverse group of people: young, old, couples, all guy/girl groups, families etc. In Japan many place you go to tend to be frequented by a certain group of people. You don't see girl only groups in ramen shops, or young people in snack bars, but it seemed like wherever we were or went there was always a healthy mix of different groups of people and I found it very refreshing.

- Before I came to Japan and went to Tokyo first hand, the image I had in my mind of what Tokyo was (outside of famous areas who's appearance I already knew) is basically what Seoul is.

- Seoul, unlike any other big city I've ever been in is CHEAP! The subway costs 1000 won ($1 CAD, 120 yen), you can get a great meal basically anywhere for 5-6000 won, and even a huge baller-style meal is at most about 10000 won a person. If you want to drink as well a bottle of soju (350ml) is 3000 won and beer (750ml bottle) is 4000. The hotel (which was actually like a little apartment) cost about 50000 won a night and was right in the heart of the city with easy access to everything.

- Driving in Seoul seems a lot easier than in Japan. Despite the volume of cars the roads are a lot wider. There are actually a number of roads that run throughout the city that are 10 lanes or wider. There is a ton of horn honking though and taxi drivers at night seem to go colourblind and run red lights like crazy.

- Unlike Tokyo, which I get sick of after 2 or 3 days, spending 4 days in Seoul I only wished my trip had been longer. It seems like Seoul is a very easy city to live in. Of course, I really have no idea about daily life there, as a tourist, but I was thinking about all the English teachers here who lost there jobs when Nova closed down and I got the impression that if you were just coming to either Japan or Korea just for the hell of it as an English teacher with no knowledge of the country's native language or customs, Seoul would be much easier to get used to than Tokyo or Osaka and Japanese life.

- We travelled out of Nagoya airport rather than Osaka because it's much closer to Shiga and Keiko had never been there and was probably the best decision we madeaside from actually going to Korea. The place is deserted compared to Osaka airport. Leaving we made it through check-in, security, and to the gate in probably 30 minutes. Coming back we cleared immigration, got our bags and made it through the final security to the train in a similar time. From now on, all my trips will be from Nagoya unless it's impossible to do so. Easily the most hassle-free airport experience of my life since I have been old enough to travel on my own.

My Kingdom

2007-10-28T15:55:00.000+09:00

Today was a gorgeous day. Abnormally warm, with plenty of sunshine. A couple of farmers were busy plowing up the field behind my house since about 8 o'clock so even though I would have loved to, the sound of their tractors prevented me from sleeping in. It was probably for the best though. After taking care of some laundry and hanging it out to dry, I set off on a bike ride. Today's ride was different from most. Usually, I head west towards the city, because I have some shopping to do or some place I'd like to go. Today with nothing to do I went east, camera in hand, to where my school and the other elementary schools are for a leisurely afternoon ride.

Some kids were practicing baseball at one elementary school. Some seniors were getting ready to play a game of ground golf at my school. A couple of 3rd year girls were hanging out in the shade near the school ground, hanging out and eating bento lunches they bought at the local classic Japanese-style restaurant. After chatting with them a little I kept riding, heading for a nearby river though the main village where most of my students live. When I reached the river I found my way down to the riverside and ate the lunch I had purchased just before at the convenience store.

After lunch, I headed towards the local temple, Eigenji. It's famous around Kansai (maybe Japan?) for it's fall foliage, and even though most of the trees are still quite green, there was a fairly decent crowd around there. I didn't bother going to look though, as I plan on heading back in a few weeks when it's peak season. I turned around and headed back at a relaxed pace taking it all in.

I made this image in paint by pieceing together 5 or 6 other pictures I had taken from the same spot. There's some discrepancies in the alignment, but I wasn't planning on making a panorama, and have no idea how you actually do it right, so all things considered I think it's decent. It's about a 180 degree view of the area where all of my schools are which I have titled "My Kingdom"

太郎防宮アンド瓦屋寺

2007-10-21T12:43:00.000+09:00

This is ridiculously old, but one weekend maybe a month ago I decided to take in some of the local shrines and temples. I'm not particularly religious, but hands down one of my favorite things about being in Japan is being able to go and visit temples and shrines wherever you are. I recently read somewhere that even though there are convenience stores EVERYWHERE in Japan, there are still more Buddhist temples in the country. I found this to be quite reassuring to me, but I'm not exactly sure in what way it was.

On this weekend I decided to head west to Tarobogu, a shrine built on the side of a local mountain. The shrine guardian is a tengu called Tarobo, and the shrine god is the god of victory, so when I was there I saw many wooden prayer cards with things like "Let me pass the high school/university entrance exams" or "Help me find true love" written on them. I always enjoy reading a few of the prayers written down by previous visitors. There's usually a couple of really unique ones, but this time most were pretty casual and nothing really stood out. Another attraction of the shrine is what is known as the "wedded rock," Two large rocks with a split between them just wide enough for a person to pass through. It's said that if you have evil in your heart the rocks will come together and crush you as you pass through which leads to a lot of children running through trying to avoid being crushed. I managed to make it through walking at a leisurely pace unscathed.

After visiting Tarobogu, it was still rather early so I headed around to the other side of the mountain where there was a Buddhist temple called Kawarayaji. When I got there I was the only one there and felt a little like an interloper who had discovered a hidden hideaway meant only for a select group of people. The temple and it's surroundings are all covered by a canopy of tall trees and moss covered the majority of the stone walkways around the temple. Around the rear there is an old stone staircase which stretches for what seems about 2 kilometers and takes you down through a forest down the mountain and back into the town. I couldn't make it all the way because I had left my bike on the opposite side of the mountain near the bottom of Tarobogu and had to turn around before I had gone too far, but I have to say that Kawarayaji and its environs have to be some of the most etherally serene I've experienced. It reminded me a lot of my time in Shikoku in the mountains doing the temple tour.

文化祭

2007-10-11T19:56:00.000+09:00

Last weekend was the school culture festival. It's called a culture festival but it's really more like a school play/concert type deal. Each class puts on a short play and does a performance of two songs. The teachers actually get to judge the song part of the day and the winning class and runner-up get a trophy and/or certificate for their excellent display.

This isn't to say that there is no really unique cultural things, but they take up a rather small amount of the full day's events. There was a taiko drum performance which started off the festival and shortly after that there was the unveiling of this year's "hari-e" picture. Hari-e is basically a mosaic picture. A large number of students spent the better part of a week gluing tiny 1cm by 1cm pieces of coloured paper onto larger master key sheets. These sheets were then assembled into the final picture which was a shot of the school from the rear garden, and it was hung from the back of the gym. Watching the kids work on the smaller sections it was hard to believe that it would form the picture it did so I was actually rather impressed when I saw the final product.

In the middle of the day, in between the plays and the class song battle there were a few free performances where people and groups put on music, dance, or entertainment performances without any kind of restriction. I ended up playing bass in a band performance with a group of 3rd year girls.

On day I was just messing around with the school's bass guitar when these girls came into the room ready to practice for the festival. When they came in I figured I'd better leave them to their practice, but seeing me playing around they asked "Oh Tyler! Can you play bass?!" I said "Not really at all, I was just messing around." and figured that would be that, but one of them followed up asking "Well, do you want to join us for the Culture Festival?" I said again that I'm not really good at all and probably couldn't learn the song completely with the limited practice time left. "No problem, just play what you can" she replied and I was trapped. I actually surprised myself and learned about 85% of the song with about the 3 hours of practice I had over the remaining few days. I tried to take a video of the performance with my camera that I had set up side-stage, but halfway through the batteries died and nothing got saved at all. Luckily, the school was taping everything with one of their cameras so I should be able to get a copy of the video shortly and then I can put it up on here. So until then, you're stuck with my few, and very poor pictures I tried to take in the dark gym.

Adventures with Mano-san

2007-10-03T19:52:00.000+09:00

Mano-san is the head of the office at school. Over the past month we've done a few things together and become decent friends. He's really into music having played in bands for over 30 years, and he likes going around to different places, trying out new restaurants and such. A couple weeks ago we had a three day weekend and Mano-san suggested we go out to Osaka for udon. The thing is Mano-san is also a Buddhist priest and had a Buddhist event he had to attend to that day until late at night, so he said it would be a bit later at night. I said it was fine, and would wait for his mail.

Around 11:00, I got a mail on my phone saying. If you're still ready I'll be there at 11:30 to get you. After picking me up, we picked up a couple of Mano's friends. One of them, said he must be crazy for agreeing to go to Osaka at midnight for a 600 yen bowl of udon. Even on the highway it took us a good couple of hours to get to Osaka. We got there around 1:30 and walked around trying to find the restaurant in question.

I wish I could say something like "So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Mano-san, and his friends, breaking into that little udon shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopkeeper and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really, but sure enough we got the udon, and left feeling most satisfied." (+20 points if you get the reference) But I can't.

Normally, it's supposed to be open until 6:00, but it turns out they close at 11 on Sundays. Before, we'd even left Shiga the restaurant was closed. It was so deliciously ironic that we all laughed about it on the walk back to the car.

The urge for udon was still ever present though, and we drove around trying to find a restaurant somewhere with late hours. No luck however, but we managed to score some udon at a service area along the highway. I gotta say the Japanese service areas really trump anything in the States or Canada. The service areas are fully stocked. Every one has a food court, along with at least one convenience store like outfit, and a number of vending machines for warm and cold beverages, and snack foods. They are staffed 24 hours a day as well, so anytime you're travelling you can get anything your heart desires. Excellent service. The only downside is, all highways here are toll roads, and they're rather expensive as well. It costs you roughly about 1500 yen per 100 km.

Anyway, I made it home around 5 am just as the sun was coming up, went to bed, and woke up at 10 when the guy came to set up my internet.

Trouble at the DMV (Imagine that?)

2007-09-27T20:07:00.000+09:00

Well, my fiber optic internet has finally been set up. It's running smooth and incredibly fast so hopefully I'll be able to get some more stuff up here pretty quick. I've got a few different interesting stories to tell about the past couple of weeks so I'm gonna try and catch up on all of that.

Anyway, last week I took a day off work in order to go to the prefectural driving centre to get my Canadian license converted into a Japanese license. I had gotten all the prerequisite forms completed, had my Canadian license translated into Japanese, and booked my appointment at the DMV in hopes that I could get my license that day and buy a 50cc bike the upcoming weekend. Well, obviously things didn't go quite as planned.

I woke up at 5:30 (an hour before I normally wake up for school) in order to get the the license centre between 8:30 and 9. I made it there no problem and then was escorted to a room where another Korean guy was doing the same thing I was. First, we had to fill out a questionnaire about how we obtained our license in our home countries (driving tests, time period between permit and full license etc.) The DMV employees came in after we had finished and asked us a few questions about the questionnaire and about our licenses. Then they left again and we had to wait for about 45 minutes. The lady dealing with the Korean guy came back first and finished up the paperwork with him and he moved on to the next stage. I was still waiting when my guy returned and told me that it was going to be necessary for me to get my driving records from Ontario before they could process my application and there was nothing else they could do at the time. There's no mention of any of these forms being necessary for the license conversion process on the DMV website, but according to the man who interviewed me they are essential (in my case at least).

With nothing left to do I slinked out of the meeting room feeling quite defeated. I can't say it was a total surprise though. The guy I had seemed like a bit of a jerk and was giving me the run around during my interview. I later learned that many of the DMV employees in Shiga are former police officers, who for one reason or another, were cut from the force. I had done my best to be extra polite with my language and answer the questions the best I could, but I guess it wasn't enough. I do think that if I had the lady the Korean guy had interviewing him I would have my license now though.

On the plus side, when I go back I still don't have to take the road test like Americans do. The road test takes place on a closed course and is extremely strict. It's said the first time you go it's basically just for show and so you can book your second try. This isn't just for foreigners either, most Japanese fail the first time as well, and it takes people upwards of 4 or 5 attempts before they pass. In the history of the Shiga DMV, there is only one foreigner who has passed the test in one try.

And this is the story of how I wasted a day of paid vacation at the DMV.

体育祭

2007-09-16T23:02:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was the school sports festival. Ever since the 2nd semester started classes have only run for half the day. After lunch is dedicated to sports festival practice. Even though most of the day is taken up by various athletic events the majority of practice is spent working on the roughly 5 minute dance routine each team is required to perform. The school is divided in two teams, red and yellow, with each team being made up of one of one of the two classes from each grade. All of the teachers were part of a certain team mostly based on their homeroom classes, but not having a homeroom myself was teamless. I quickly affiliated myself with the yellow team since my supervising teacher was part of the yellow team.

We managed to do pretty good in the races. We swept most of the first place spots in the running events and the 3 legged race on both the boys and girls side, but we lost a lot of the higher point events like the individual grade competitions and the handball throw. We also lost the all important dance competition which has a huge point value attached to it. Just how high, I'm not quite sure, but it's gotta be big if we spent 2 weeks trying to get it perfect. The red team had a high energy dance to the tune of Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" and, disregarding the song choice, they really did have the better dance. This isn't to say that the yellow team didn't give it their all, but in the end it wasn't enough.

I competed in two events myself: the PTA vs. students tug of war, and the mixed relay which was a red team vs. yellow team vs teachers team 1400 m relay. I ran 100 m in the 4th and 14th positions. The first time was a fairly decent run and I was able to maintain our lead, but in the middle we had some weak runners so when it came back around to me again we were in last place and my shoe came undone so I was only able to gain minimal ground on the students in front of me.

I also managed to get a wicked sunburn even though it was overcast with patches of rain yesterday. It's mid-September, but you wouldn't know it with the weather here. The temperatures are still pushing the 30 C mark. It got cool for a bit last week, but the heat and humidity picked right back up. People say it's autumn already because in Japan when the first school semester ends at the end of July "summer" begins. When school starts again "summer" ends even though only a month has passed. You can say it's autumn all you want, but you aren't fooling me. Summer is sticking around.

Anyway, after the sports festival all the teachers headed out for a party to celebrate the job well done, but that is a different story for a different time, so for now enjoy the pictures and taiko performance while I enjoy being off until Wednesday. Tomorrow is a national holiday and because the sports festival was on the weekend we get the following school day (Tuesday) off as well. How sweet it is.

First Visit to Elementary School

2007-09-13T20:48:00.000+09:00

Today, I made my first trip to one of the four different elementary schools I'll be teaching at. Incidentally it happened to be the farthest one away as well, taking over an hour by bus to reach. On the plus side, because it's so far out there the first bus to the school doesn't run until 9:25. This means I get to sleep a whole hour and a half compared to my normal schedule. It was quite nice I must say.

When I made it to the school the students were in the middle of a practice for their sports festival. There's only 17 students between the six grades so the teams are quite small, but nevertheless the had an impressive routine of some complex formations with the older kids supporting the littler ones. After watching this for a few minutes the vice principal led me into the principal's office where the three of us had a bit of a chat about the school, Canada, and some Japanese history.

The kids had a recess after this before some more sports day practice. During the recess all the kids came up to the window at the principal's office to get a good look of the new foreigner. One of the first grader's took a particular interest in me and she ran off screaming "He looks like him! He looks like him!" Although I never found out who this "him" was. She's absolutely adorable by the way. Super cute, very talkative and friendly. Throughout the rest of the day she would hang off me, hold my hand, or grab my leg, or climb all over me any chance she could.

Anyway, after the second sports day practice there was a class before lunch and the vice principal invited me up to the computer room for his science class with the 6th graders. The plan was to watch this internet video from NHK (Japan's BBC) about growing rice, but only the sound would play so the students just ended up playing games on the NHK website, all educational of course.

After this my little first grade admirer came to the teacher's office and led me down to the lunch room. After lunch was dodgeball in the gym. I think these kids must play everyday cause they're pretty decent. Obviously the bigger kids we ganging up on me to see who could take out the new English teacher and a few of them actually tagged me pretty good as I tried to dodge the onslaught.

Following recess all the kids gathered in the gym for my English lesson. At first all the kids introduced themselves one by one. Then, they got to ask me some questions about myself. Next, I introduced them to a variety of body parts via the oh so classic "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" song. We learned a few animal names as well, and the remainder of the time was spent with each of the classes trying to see if they could keep pace with the pre-recorded "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" which kept getting faster and faster. All in all it appeared like a good time was had by all.

With my first and only class for the day done I had about an hour and a half to wait until the bus back home. This school is out there, really out there. 3 buses come by the whole day so if you miss one and you had some important place to go you're gonna be SOL. Pretty much everyone has cars though. It's basically a necessity living way up in the mountains like that. In this hour and a half I spent some more time in the teacher's office as the kids had their last class and got things ready to go. The first graders didn't have a last class so once they were all done getting there things together to go home, my adorable friend popped her head into the teacher's office saying in her sweetest voice (translated from the Japanese, of course) "Excuse me, Mr. Tyler. Can you play?"

Adorable. And yes, of course I could. All of the first graders and I played a tag like game in the gym for a while. Then my little friend wanted to show me Kamishibai story she had made about a family of birds going for a picnic. We all gathered around to listen as she told her story. Again, also adorable. It was almost time for me to go, so we headed outside to wait for the bus, and to pass the time played another classic game "Red light, Green light." I'm not quite sure of the Japanese title though. All of the students had made their way outside just before the bus came and we said our good-byes as the kids shouted "See you next month!"

As a final note to this trip, the bus ride, while long, is definitely the most scenic bus ride I've ever taken. My predecessor had recommended to take a book for the long ride, but I don't know why as I was more than entertained looking out the window trying to take it all in. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me, but next month I definitely will.

The Forgotten Umbrella

2007-09-07T18:31:00.000+09:00

As I left my house yesterday morning for school I took my umbrella as the sky was looking rather ominous. A typhoon hit Japan yesterday night, but it landed more west towards Tokyo. In any case we had a bit of rain and some strong winds as a result nearly 500 km away in Shiga. This is all beside the point though, the thing is I left my umbrella on the bus stop bench yesterday morning rendering it completely useless in the event of the impending rain. This morning the skies were looking rather gloomy as well and I thought to myself "it's a shame I left my umbrella on the bus stop bench yesterday. I'm gonna have to buy another one at the convenience store today." However, I arrived at the bus stop to find, lo and behold, my umbrella, right where I left it. This tells us one of two things. Either:

1) I'm really out there in the countryside. So far in fact that no one else but me uses the bus stop on a daily basis.

and/or

2) Japan is the only country where you can leave something that's easily stolen, like an umbrella, somewhere and can come back the next day to find it right where you left it.

The First Day

2007-09-03T17:02:00.000+09:00

My internet seems to be pretty steady and fast at the moment so I'm gonna try and do this. Still don't have my good fiber optic internet yet. The guy came to look at the set up and gave me a form to be stamped by my landlord giving me permission to get the wire and internet installed in my apartment. The funny thing is the JET before me had the same internet set up so the wire is already there and in my apartment. So basically I'm forced to wait another two weeks for the internet company to receive the form from my landlord saying it's ok for them to install the wire (which is already there) for the internet in my apartment. Gotta love the formalities of certain things in Japan, right?

All that aside, today was the first day of the second semester. We had our opening ceremony and I was formally introduced to all of the students. I had met a fair deal of them in August as I wandered the school watching various club activities, but this was the first time I've "officially" met them all. After that was cleaning time and I wandered around a bit chatting with some students. The baseball team students seem to have already taken a shine to me and they spent most of the cleaning time teaching me about popular gags, their nicknames for each other, and other subtleties of the daily life of a Japanese 2nd year middle school student.

I also had a bit of fun with the kid, who's name I have yet to learn, who seems to be similar to the student body president of a Western high school as he gave a little speech at the opening ceremony welcoming my supervisor teacher who is returning from maternity leave and I. We were up in the dojo and he was trying to grab me and I just tossed him around like a rag doll for a little while. He kept trying to best me, but just didn't have what it takes to tackle the T-Mac just yet.

There were no English classes today so I still haven't taught, but tomorrow is a double lesson with all of the 3rd year students. 100 minutes with 65, 15 year olds should be quite fun, especially when I'm doing an introduction lesson with pictures and all kinds of personal information.

Anyway to wrap this all up since my internet seems to be moving quite well today I'm going to try and upload some pictures of my apartment. Let's see how this goes...

Nagayama Heights

Entrance

Sink at the end of the entrance hall

The washing machine and doors to shower and toilet

Shower. It's a little separate room and not part of the bathroom like in Western houses

Toilet. No bidet, but the seat is heated.

The kitchen. I didn't buy the Pooh towel. It was in the closet and I just hung it up

More kitchen

The living room. I bought the "sha-cho"(company president) chair and the cushions because the ones that were in here before were paper thin and cushioned jack squat.

Some of my clothes in the living room

The bedroom

The view from the bedroom veranda. A freshly harvested rice field and what I can only assume is a rice threshing plant or storehouse.

Another view of the bedroom

From the veranda looking east. Somewhere way over those mountains in the distance is Mie Prefecture.

It Begins

2007-08-20T15:23:00.000+09:00

I'm on a piss poor wireless connection until my fiber optical internet is set up later in the week so in efforts to get a post up before my internet cuts out again I'm gonna copy an email I sent to my parents a couple of days ago after my first day of work where I actually went to school.

Today was my first actual day at school. Classes don't start until Sept 3rd though, but a lot of kids were there for their sports clubs so I got to meet a fair bit of the kids including 3 kids on the 15 member baseball team named Yuya. They all have the same haircut but one of them is shorter so he's little Yuya for me. As for the other two I'm sure I'll find a way to distinguish them soon enough.

The school is actually quite nice. I was a bit shocked actually cause a lot of the schools I have seen here are fairly junky looking. They have this new buidling to the side that was built when the school amalgamated with another school. Inside there are actually rooms for the students to stay in if the roads get closed in the winter. One of the feeder schools (that I'll be making a number of trips to about an hour bus ride away) is way up in the mountains and prone to heavy snowfall. Since the kids come so far they built that building with facilities to keep the kids if necessary. There's also a massive dojo on the second floor which got my heart pumping. It's way bigger than any one I've ever been in before.

As for my place, it's not massive by any means, but it's bigger than where I was before and is quite sufficient for myself.

The place I'm in is kinda out in the sticks though. The nearest train station and the center of my city is about 30 minutes by bike. I have a bus pass to get to school but it's only good for the ride between my school and home and school is in the opposite direction of the city. The train that runs through my city is pretty slow, expensive and doesn't run often either. So for me to get to some place like Kyoto I have to leave about 2 hours before I need to be there. I think I might buy a little scooter just to get from home to the station or to get to the main train line. Scooters are fairly cheap, they get decent milage and I don't need to take a motorcycle driving test to get one.

The heat here has been killer. Yesterday was record setting all across the country with some places seeing temps of 105+. Luckily for me I was at the ocean with Keiko and her parents so I got to enjoy the cooling ocean waters. I did get a bit of a sunburn though.

Once my good internet is up I'll put up some pictures and stuff.