Eating kangaroos, seeing monkeys and throwing rubber boots

Have been really busy again, seems to be the theme of this trip. Something is always happening and there is always stuff that needs to be done like food shopping or laundry. Good experience for me at any rate, hopefully it will teach me to start budgeting time or not be so lazy. I've uploaded a whole lot of new photos, I decided I can just post them all and maybe give them titles and/or descriptions later as that's the part that is the most time consuming for sure. Don't forget that I have a comments section and I will address any questions/requests as they come. For example I can easily email the pictures out if you want a full size copy.

Last week was pretty relaxing, one day I was walking to work half asleep again when I stopped, and was like 'holy crap a monkey!' Right in front of me maybe 5 feet away was a monkey! Then it must have been like "holy crap a human!" as it started to run away. By the time I got my camera out it was kind of far away but you get the point. I keep being told they are dangerous but I didn't have any food on me and he looked small and fuzzy. Attached is a picture of him when he was a safe distance away after I got my camera out.

On Wednesday my students at Yayoi had shorter classes than normal as Thursday was the day for their "chorus contest." Each classroom faced off against each other in a singing competition, and let me tell you some of the singing was just unreal. They have been practicing for weeks on end for this and they sounded amazing. Sure I couldn't understand half of the songs, but when they sang "glory glory lord" from Sister Act 2 or "We are the world, we are the children" then I recognized the songs. Brought back memories from when Chris and I sang that in China and how everyone would be pretending to sing along during rehearsals so they could listen to Chris and I sing it a couple times and they could follow suit. Kinda strange though, especially considering they had the song, they could have listened to the chorus and imitated that like Chris and I did. But anyways, I couldn't see the competition direction as it was on Thursday and I was teaching in Tatsuno that day. Pity, they sounded great. Only thing that was strange/funny though was the moderator of the rehearsal. The classes only got 5 minutes each to sing and when time was up she would jump on the mike and firmly tell them to get off the stage in a robot voice. It was especially funny because many of the songs really were moving, you were getting a little emotional and all of a sudden she would boom over the speakers; even when they were about to finish the song off in a strong finale! Good times, we got a kick out of that (went with my caretaker Miss. Matsushima, she was going to be a judge)

I've introduced a project to both my advanced classes in both schools. "Project time capsule" so they have to pick an item and present to the class why it is important to them and/or Japan and/or the world in the year 2007. I like to make them form opinion pieces because those have no right/wrong answers and I am trying to spark their creativity. You can tell some of the students aren't overly confident with doing so but hopefully I can encourage them enough to look past those brutal tests I gave and know that they can do it if they try.

We had some students come visit us from New Zealand as well for a little exchange program, speaking of which I have to interview 4 students from my school to help prepare them to visit New Zealand themselves in spring. Anyways, the one guy was pretty quiet but the girl that came was just loving the experience. I definitely put the idea in her head that she could get her degree and come teach like I am as during their good bye meeting with the Kocho (principal/boss) she mentioned how her goals in the future are to graduate and come back to Japan to teach for a while. I even worked them into one of my classes, getting them to introduce themselves and talk a bit about their home, and having them participate in the English games we played that day (it was hangman). It was fun either way.

So the weekend comes around, 4th 3 day weekend in a row, and Jake and I were up for a road-trip. There was a town festival happening in Kitaaiki village about 2-3 hour drive away. The Australian in charge of organizing the "international team" had a "Gumshoe" throwing competition. In Australia a Gumshoe is what we would call a rubber boot back home. So anyways there we were trying to drive straight to this place that happens to be separated from us by a mountain range. I tell ya, I got new confidence in my car after that treck and a new appreciation for video games. There were all kinds of steep hair pinned turns in beautiful surroundings. At one point I was cruising down a hill when I caught a glimpse in the mirror that showed me what was around the corner and a big bus took the turn! Good thing I saw it and slowed down, there were a couple close calls as it was but it was fun. We gave up being on time as it was taking a lot longer to get there than we hoped so we found a payphone (no cell reception on top of a mountain). The picture attached came from a quick nature hike we took at top, it is now my wallpaper on my compy.

This is a basic excerpt of the conversation: "Hey we're at the top of a mountain, it is taking a lot longer to get there than we hoped and might not get there before it ends" (we thought it was over at 2p.m.) "should we still come out after coming this far? Like is something going on after?"

"What are you talking about? The festival is tomorrow. We're going to a cabin tonight and you're welcome to join us."

Haha so ya, we were in the clear. We stopped at a fancy restaurant and I maybe had the best pasta I have ever eaten, it was so tasty and for a good price too. Just delicious. We met up with some new JETs I havn't met yet (hey there are over 100 in Nagano prefecture alone) and all headed together to the cabin to throw our stuff in and head to the onsen.

Not sure if I talked much about onsens yet (translated: hot spring). Melissa kind of experienced one with her "spa" in South Korea. It is basically a big bath house and they are famous and plentiful in Japan. Now this place really was a spa too with big massage chairs and other goodies. I enjoyed sitting out in the hot tub under the stars (still getting used to the having to be naked bit) and even did the sauna and ice water bit, that was great. We went back to the cabin and ate... Kangaroo meat! The kangaroo is the one on the left and it's sales pitch was "it'll keep you hoppin'!" I found the meat to be a little tough, nothing too special but I guess the price was right, not that expensive. The crocodile was kinda pricey though.

Anyways, so later that night we went out to do a nearby maze with crazy footing as it was built into the side of the hill. You walked around it blind as a bat with crazy slope on the ground but it was lots of fun. Some of the JETs were cold so they had a blanket on their backs. You had to be close to see but when you did I thought it looked like batman! So I started running around the maze saying the batman theme "na na na na naaaa doko da!" (doka da = where is it? as in the exit) I got a little loud so I heard a few "shhhh"s from some people. The song then changed to "na na na na naaaa shitsureishimasu!" (shitsureishimasu = しつれいします = my apologies/sorry for intruding) alot of people got a kick out of it and it quickly became the running joke of the road trip which is great though. My philosophy is that every good road trip needs an inside joke as any body not on the trip wouldn't get the joke but for the rest of the weekend whenever someone started singing shitsureishimasu! we would all bust out laughing. I suppose this picture that was taken on my camera had something to do with it as well as the "excuse me" joke was still going around and this picture was taken completely by accident but helped make "shitsureishimasu" a legend.

It was a lot of fun but we needed rest for tomorrow's festivities. There would be sprinting! A fearful thing indeed, especially for someone of my size and terrible shape. (on that note I am running a 30km marathon tomorrow....scary) It was really neat seeing a whole town come out and play games together. Again I literally posted hundreds of photos and this road trip has its own folder under kitaaiki to see some of the cool and crazy games we played and watched the town play as well. Everything from a relay to tug of war to large jump-roaping. My favorite event was a combination relay where you had to run under a net, eat a mashmellow from a tub of flour, run with a ball on your tennis raquet, pop a balloon, walk a balancing beam, then potato sack jump it to the finish line. I made a dramatic dive at the finish line and took first place by swatting down the finish marker and cutting up my arm on the gravel in the process. I somehow ended up with 3rd place though, guess they only counted it once my sack crossed the line and not my flour-face and now bloody arm. Heh ah well, it was fun. Attached is a picture of some students after eating the marshmallow and having to run with the ball.

We ate the crocodile here too, it was alright I suppose, not a lot of flavor by itself and it had a texture of overcooked chicken mixed with fish. It was good though, I kinda wanted to make a patty of it and eat it like a burger. Maybe next time. This event ended up taking all day and we were really tired when it ended. Jake and I got a bad sunburn and we all went home. This time we went around the mountains and saved an hour plus maybe a 1/4 tank of gas by doing so. The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing.

Back at school later, I wanted to show off photos of my trip but my computer wouldn't boot, it would beep at me instead! I searched google on another computer and found out something was wrong with my ram. I guess one of my sticks died so now I'm running with 1/2 the ram but at least it is running, I'm happy for that. It's almost sad to say how reliant I am on technology but I guess I make myself that way, it doesn't have to be like that. I sometimes feel like being here is something of a camping trip, the last 2 nights for example will be the first of many where I sleep with sweat pants, bunny hug and socks on as it is too cold at night to not do so. I took a quick look the other day at heated blankets and whatnot but they're kinda pricey. Being warm though might be worth the price though, especially considering the long winter ahead of me. Weird how I am getting tips like "sleep with a hat or something on" as most warmth is lost from the head and in turn your digits start getting cold as the brain shuts down their circulation to look after itself. Hence the bunny hug, I've been waking up really cozy and warm thanks to it.

Heh the students are a lot fun. They are opening up even more, asking how I am and stuff. I tell them how I am sleepy because I was up late watching One Piece again (my favorite anime) and they get a good laugh out of it. Also another student today was like "you like Suzumiya Harumi?"(name of an anime character) and I was like "yes, she is funny". After some teacher assisted translating I found out her older sister also likes it and wants to be my friend now. Heh so there I am thinking to myself "I want to be her friend too!" but kept it restrained, might have to follow up on it later. I later found out she is a little bit of an otaku. I may have mentioned it before but being an "otaku" over here is like being a kind of "maniac". Some of my students think I am one, especially when they find out I like video games, anime, have been to the game show AND akihabara in the same weekend. That's ok though, it gets a laugh out of my students and it is a good feeling.

Speaking of which the other day we were drawing groups to work on that project and I had to write the students names on the board as I heard them :) well my students loved that, watching a foreigner trying to write their names and misspelling them terribly. Even I was laughing when it was over they were in such an uproar, practically rolling on the floor. My Japanese is coming along slowly (would go better if I spent more time studying) and conversations are getting better all the time. They love seeing pictures of my family and I love seeing their reaction when I show them "this is half my family" and even go on to show Dale in the yearbook I brought along and comparing him to the family picture. Everyone loves his rock-star hair. They also tell me I look really cool in my grad photo so that is a good feeling :P I even had students stop me in the hallway, take a minute to piece together some English words, then suddenly blurt "You are very cool!" haha priceless. I just hope I don't let it go to my head. A group of students asked me repeatedly if I had a "honey" today. I knew they were trying hard to find the right word "girlfriend" and it was cute listening to them say "honey" over and over while giggling. Eventually they got it and I answered them; I said "honey" is technically correct but girlfriend is the more formal word for it. This teaching thing is great.

Well enjoy the photos, hopefully I have time to put captions on them later but for now at least you can see them. I am running a 30 KM marathon tomorrow (ya I'm crazy) have line dancing Saturday, house warming party later that day, maybe go to a costume party at a club after, then maybe go to a traditional Japanese story telling thing in town Sunday.

Busy, busy, busy...

"If I try to be like him, who will be like me?" -Yiddish proverb

Anthony

Trying times. Perseverance is required.

Bonsoir,

I'm not really in the best of moods, a certain thing went down at work that I wasn't happy about that escalated and became way more complicated and painful that I ever would have imagined. But I don't really want to get into that; you don't want to hear it and I don't want to re-live it. Let's just say asking to use 5 days of my 20 holidays in the contract 2 months in advance was alot harder than I imagined. I'm posting because it's been a while and my memory is poor so good to get it down while it is a little fresh. Even then I rely on pictures I have taken to boost it.

So anyways! Last week was alright, students fantastic again. I gave a test out and after marking them today I still have a long ways to go to making good tests, let's just say the average was below 60. I hope the students don't start hating me, I'm making extra effort now to try and connect with them. It was suggested to me from another JET to invite them to eat lunch with me so they can practice their English during lunch break. It is clear, like he said, that people are very shy here. You really need to reach out to get a response.

One of the students suggest I join an upcoming marathon! Well I must be crazy because I'm all signed up now. Thursday after school I visited the soccer club. (they love me since I taught them Marco Polo, they still yell it at me in the hallways) I did this because I'm going to need to get into shape, and fast. I say that now but of course I haven't done anything slightly aerobic since Sunday or so, nor have I really sat down to study the Japanese I want to study, but for now let's blame it on the drama at work... but I digress...

Soccer practice was alot of fun. I don't think I did too bad and my neighbor is the soccer coach. Just today I saw him whittling wood blocks. I was curious so he told me he is making toy blocks for his new born son. I thought that was really cool, he was doing a good job too. I see his wife often when I walk to work, taking care of the new baby. He is starting to walk I think, really cute kid. But anyways back to Thursday, practice was fun! I was horribly out of shape of course and the students had lots of fun trying to communicate with me about drill instructions or anything really. They get a kick out of me speaking Japanese too. Sure I can't say alot but I think they appreciate the effort. They were still doing the Marco Polo with me during practice, and after my foot was sore as I'm not used to kicking a hard ball with the side of it for as long as I was.

I left a little early to get ready for my other enkai (work party) this time for Tatsuno. It was another enjoyable evening, only 2 people drinking though which I found strange again. They tell me they wish they could drink though but that will have to wait for another party around Christmas or so. I ate strange things again, from cooked grasshoppers to... bee larva.

Yes, bee larva. It was strange, but not that bad I guess. I could only eat a little, too many conflicting mental images of them moving in that small cup. (don't worry they were cooked) The best part of the meal was a small container that cooked in front of you. It has vegetables and meat and stuff inside, really good stuff. I got compliments from my Kyoto sensei (vice principal) about how clean my house is... and how my predecessor always had it messy. I found it strange he lets himself into my house in the first place but I guess I can kinda see it, being something of a landlord and all. I like to run a clean ship, usually things are a little easier to find and it's nice to be able to throw a shirt on the floor and not have to worry about something weird being stuck to it when you pick it up again later. Like those slugs I keep finding around my house (shudder). I found one on my potato chips I think I mentioned earlier, 2 in the shower already while I'm bathing and another one today on the side of my wash basin. Man they get big, and creepy.

I keep forgetting to talk about garbage! Things are much different in Japan! A can of Pringle chips, for example, goes into 4 different garbage containers. The plastic lid goes into plastic recycling, the freshness seal goes into a "burnable" garbage bag, the paper cylinder goes into paper recycling and the metal bottom goes into metal recycling. There are 3 main types of bags: Plastic recycling, burnable garbage and non-burnable garbage. You get coupons from city hall (like quotas so you don't make too much garbage). These coupons allow you to buy these expensive specially marked and color coded bags at a grocery store of wherever. Garbage collection happens on specific days at specific locations in the city for a very specific period of time (6a.m.-8a.m.). Alot of things, like getting rid of your pop cans, only get collected once a month. So if you miss that 2 hour window that stuff piles up! It took me over a month to take out my burnable garbage mostly because it took a while to fill up the bag and I didn't know where to put it. 1/2 the bag turned to a green/brown water in that period... and oh boy it smelt something fierce. Luckily they collect burnable twice a week but again it takes a while to fill up when most of your garbage goes into other recyclable bags.

So Friday comes and I have the day off! The reason for that is because in 2 or 3 weeks time I will work a Saturday for reasons I'm still not sure about. But because I'm working that Saturday I get a day off and everyone got that Friday. I largely had a lazy weekend which was great so not too many crazy stories. Friday night we went to a fellow JET's house who served us lasagna. It was very good and then Saturday night we went to a rave at that Gram House again that I talked about earlier. That was easily one of the best nights of my life, I dance for hours on end. You had room to move, they had incredible music and incredible lights. I rolled my ankle twice while dancing because near the stage there is a little drop that is hard to see. I kept dancing though after the swelling went down, just tied my shoelaces and prayed for the shoe's ankle support. One of those times when I was recovering I asked for some water at the bar. They gave me a bottle of water for free! I couldn't believe it! If I was shocked about that, later at 3 in the morning when the music stopped they gave free coffee and snacks to everyone!

I was shocked. Back home they turn the lights on and the bouncers kick you outside to wait in the cold for a ride; they don't care. Here they came and talked with you, gave you coffee and snacks, I even got a picture with the DJ! I'm a little self conscience about posting it however, I'm sweating like mad in it because I was dancing so hard. I chatted with a bunch of people and it was great. Again for the $15 entry fee you got a towel, and this time they gave us a CD of music too. Oh and one free drink I think. Pretty good deal, I plan on going there again.

Walking from the club I found a stray cat at the station. I stopped for a bit and it crawled on my lap and started purring. I stayed and pet it for a while as it was raining out and I was somewhat waiting for it to clear. (if it's raining, usually it's a long slow affair as I maybe mentioned earlier) I could tell the cat would shed alot but regardless I was pretty close to adopting it. Eventually I decided against it but I was pretty close, someday I hope to get a cat.

Earlier that Saturday we were helping a fellow JET out teaching a cooking class to her students. We made some sweets and it was alot of fun. The students were pretty giddy especially around Noboru who is something of a rock star. (kinda literally too, he plays guitar I found out) The food was good and it was a fun time. We walked around the school and saw other displays the students put up. I think my schools did their school festivals already unless if that's the Saturday approaching where I have to work. Either way I'm looking forward to seeing my students throw together something like this.

So today comes along and there are students from a New Zealand high school doing a home stay with some of my students. I went with them to a calligraphy class and made some calligraphy. It was interesting as we were very much on display. They would watch and when I finished about 6 or 8 students that were standing around watching would start clapping their hands. Most of the kangi I know involve meat (pork, beef, fish etc) so they found it amusing but I guess it is strange when you think about it. I also did the 4 directions too though, not that I can say them in Japanese yet. We later had a welcome party for them where we played games and had snacks, it was fun.

The last 3 days it has got noticeably colder. Sunday it rained all day and I was shivering pretty hard when I went to bed. Something of a bad omen for days to come it looks like, I hope it won't be too bad but I know snow will be coming eventually. I'll have to form some makeshift insulation around my room and get an electric carpet among other things to keep warm. Keeping my laptop in my lap helped yesterday a fair amount, so did that hot shower later too I guess. But at any rate I should get to bed and hope for sunnier days in more ways than one. Staying positive is important.

"When a defining moment comes along, you can do one of two things. Define the moment, or let the moment define you." -Tin Cup

(Having said that quote I wonder if I should put up a stink about this vacation mess...)
Tnoy

TGS07, Disneyland and Akihabara. I need a vacation after a weekend that intense

Well that test I gave my students turned out ok I think, some complained it was tough and the average was 69.5% so in the end I learned a lot and things can only get better. The week wasn't too stressful as I had Monday off and tests were happening so there wasn't much teaching to do. I attempted to back a cake and some potato sauce... but I have a feeling next time will be better too. My oven that I bought is too hot and too fast, not very good for the cake. After trying a combination of things and going so far as flipping it over to cook the raw bottom the middle of my cake was still raw. It was a banana chocolate chip one and it tasted alright, I get gifts all the time at work so I made it for the other teachers. So I brought the cake in to Tatsuno and got many comments like "I have never had a cake made by a man before." Note to self: this is a good way to score big points; just gotta make the cake right next time. The outside rim was pretty good (the part that was cooked).

I should send an email to patty sometime to remind me how to make icing and doughballs. Oh ya and the potato sauce effort was interesting, pretty hard to cook with only one burner. It tasted ok in the end though, only thing was the vinegar here is a little strange from what I'm used to. Washing all the dishes for the week took an hour and a half, half of that time was spent in the dark as I flipped the breaker having the 1000 watt oven and microwave going at the same time. So ya, I was largely wondering why the neighbor had power while I washed dishes in my tiny basin under a flashlight propped on the fridge nearby. I looked earlier for the fuse box but tried again after about an hour of this. I found it above the shower. Oh and in the picture, yes those are sheep in the background. This was at the 2nd Suwa fireworks event I attended.

So that was the week of school and stuff, sorry if it's scrambled a bit, but now it's time to talk about the weekend! I got up at 4a.m. to catch the 3 hour bus to Tokyo at the bus stop a 1/2 hour walk away. It was a good thing I got a good sleep on the bus or things would be very different right now; more on that later. So I got there at 8 in the morning... and everything is closed! I thought big cities never slept. I was waiting for Neal to show up so we could go to the Tokyo Game Show together so I ended up walking around for a couple hours quite bored wondering what was going on. Most places didn't open until 9:30 or 10 in the morning. Ah well, so we took the train to the game show.

Now Neal (like most people I suppose if you hear about a 'gaming convention') was more than a little skeptical going to this geek fest with me. Once we were inside though he forgot any reservations he had. It was fun. It was crazy. There were things to see and do everywhere. We walk into the place and first thing we see is beautiful ladies. After taking pictures of like the first 5 or so we were like "oh right, we're here for video games." One point I didn't know what was going on, just a bunch of people where hurdled around something taking pictures. I lifted my camera up above the crowd and found out they were taking pictures of a girl dressed up as a video game character (cos play). Only reason I knew that was because I checked the viewer on my camera to see what was going on as I couldn't see anything.

There was so much to see and do. We never really played any demos as there was only 4 hours left to see everything the place had to offer. There were booths for different video games, different companies, museum of old games, gifts shops that had lines that were over an hour long... all kinds of awesome things, my pictures can speak about them better than I can. Just so much to see and do. And the outfits were something else! So many people dressed up and I started to scare Neal after a while "that is Cloud, she is Suzumiya, she is Tifa..." and on and on about who was what and from where. He was giving me strange looks later and at one point I got into a conversation with a gamer about Xenosaga as we were waiting in line together to get pics of the cosplayer Kos Mos from the game. He was like "you guys were speaking English but I couldn't understand a word of what you were saying." haha awesome, I have taken my nerd-om to new heights! Posted is a pic of me at TGS07 between posters of some sort.

So ya, the event was a whirlwind of excitement and I was getting sore legs from all the walking we were doing. We stayed at a hostel for ridiculously cheap, it was great. I didn't have a reservation that night because they were sold out when I called but some room cleared up when I got there. I was kinda hoping to stay in a capsule hotel or something mostly for the experience or for the picture of me in the tiny box, an internet cafe would have been fine too. Hotels in the end are just a place to sleep for the night and maybe clean up, I never the expensive part of that but maybe that's because I'm kinda cheap. Ah well. So we went out for supper and explored for a bit then called it a night.

Sunday comes and we get up early for Tokyo Disneyland! It was about $55 to get in or so for the whole day. We went on maybe 10 rides and it was really exciting. So many people were wearing cute hats and eating good food. It felt pretty crowded as lunch time came but we still got lots done. I even waited in line for almost 2 hours to get on space mountain! Not very often I stand in line that long (the PS3 launch doesn't really count because I could sit down at least). Space mountain was my favorite ride and the Pirates of the Caribbean was maybe the most interesting. One thing about Disneyland you notice is everything gets enormous effort and detail. Nothing looked cheap, nothing was dirty/broken/used or out of place.

There were parades throughout the day and at night they had a light parade. It really was something to see. I will post the pictures as soon as I can, just posting 300 or so right now of all the stuff that went on in August. Next time I hope I can go to Disneysea which is nearby and has all kinds of different stuff. After the 14 hours at Disneyland our legs and feet were ready to fall off and we called it a day.

Met interesting people in Tokyo. I ran into a girl from Australia that is also an engineer and she is out traveling a bit. Then we met some Canadians from Toronto that looked lost at the subway and we helped them out. The guy was looking for work but it wasn't coming very easy. It was eerie though, knowing that easily could have been me if JET hadn't worked out. We got contact information and will tell him about opportunities for private teaching that always seems to pop up in my area.

On Monday we hoped to see the fish market that is so famous but it was closed unfortunately for the holiday. Neal showed me Akihabara briefly, the electronics section of Tokyo. I immediately recognized I could spend all day geeking out looking at games and anime stuff so I decided to visit Ginza (means silver in Japanese, very ritzy/classy section) quickly to see the Sony store and such. Unfortunately the playstation branch moved out earlier in the year and was on the other end of town, but it was closed anyways for the holiday.

I went back to Akihabara where I spend the next 3-4 hours alone (Neal went to visit an old student of his to see how he was doing in college and what not) exploring all kinds of stores on my legs that were ready to fall off. One thing I noticed right away is many stores, as soon as you went above the 1st floor the items inside got more and more adult themed. I was so tired that at the end of the day I never did buy anything but I got to see cool things like state of the art arcades and cos-play shops and used video game stores selling super nintendo games and the original famicon (short for family-computer, we know it as the original nintendo) and all kinds of thins. If I was looking for anything, it was maybe posters or something to hang on my walls in my house, the walls are a little bare and I'm still settling in (yes 2 months later) so that's why I haven't really posted many pics yet of my place.

2 months already, still feels like I just got here, especially considering how I just got a cell phone and maybe went on my first major road trip anywhere. So ya my body was breaking down, my thinking wasn't clear so I just went back to the bus station to wait for my ride home. Unfortunately it was raining when I got home so the 1/2 hour walk got alot of my stuff soaked, I think it is ok today, nothing serious. Today was a somewhat relaxed day which was good as I was so tired and still am. I should have went to bed... oh man an hour ago. Oh well, sorry for the brief descriptions in the latest batch of photos, just trying to get them done for now so I can get some rest, tomorrow is going to be a long day. Actually no! The students are writing tests all tomorrow so I won't have much to do, sweet.

"Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up."

Tnoy

Days off are great, photos are trickling in!

I'm back and getting lots done! As I speak I am uploading photos (finally) for everyone back home. http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff93/Aschoenroth/ Enjoy! Sorry for the wait! I am new to this photobucket site too so I am learning as I go along. I couldn't figure out how to add captions or whatever so my captions are now the pictures title. I like the option to make pictures full size if you so desire.

So ya! Thursday! I got a keitai! (cell phone) :) Even the JETs call it a keitai so I was confused the first couple weeks here what they were talking about. It took about 2 hours (they even stayed an hour after closing for me) but I have a phone now and pay about $30 a month. They don't do "test messages" in Japan, they do email. So my cellphone has an email address and it goes on the internet for like cheap. You pay per packet. All this is new to me anyways so sorry if I am boring the tech-elite that may be reading. Like I can check the train schedule on the internet if I need be! I have a lot to figure out yet though, it'll come in time. For now I connect with the outside world a lot easier.

Friday comes around, my students are staying later and later to talk with me and just be friendly. It is a welcome addition, I have been kinda busy lately though, trying to build a test for the students. I have no idea what I'm doing and I already sunk at least 4 hours into this ONE test so far, going so far as drawing my own pictures and making my own dialogues skits (part of the test is oral, they have to listen to me and answer questions) I went to Ina for my welcome work party after work at Tatsuno. I met up with some students that very enthusiastically talked with me whatever they could say. It was pretty cool too because at one point they took out their English workbooks and started reading the first thing they saw: "It was a dark and stormy night... eh?" Haha, it was awesome to see the look on her face when she realized that book wasn't going to help her. That's alright though, with my poor Japanese and our shared interest of Japanese Anime and video games we still had a good conversation. Oh and blood type is important here, apparently I was a good match with one of the girls. "We good match!" she says "Ok" I respond, I should maybe study that blood stuff sometime.

So I get to the party place and it was really fancy. The servers wore kimonos and opened the doors in that traditional way you see on TV every now and then. (On the knees slide open, go to the other side, on the knees slide it closed) and it was all you could eat/drink for 5000 yen (about $50). The food was fabulous, maybe the weirdest thing though was raw squid mixed with fish eggs (didn't like it very much) and the seaweed in a shot glass. Everything else was great though from the traditional Japanese pudding to the tofu and tuna. Many of the teachers had to work the next day or even later that night so things didn't get that out of hand. I might have mentioned it once already but what happens at enkai (work party) stays at enkai so I wonder if I should even be talking about it. At any rate is was a very enjoyable evening, In the picture are most of the English teachers at Yayoi, Miazawa sensei had to leave early. Currently I only do classes with 3 other teachers. I went home and Jake came over to play some Sega games for a little while.

Saturday comes and it was a really great day, I got so much done. Did dishes, laundry, vacuumed, cut my own hair, fixed my broken bed (been broken since I got here), got groceries, and other odds and ends like getting the oil changed in my car finally. Later on we went to Ina to go to a bar. On the way there we met a lady closing shop for the day. She speaks good English and JETs in the area like to eat there, anyways we said hello quickly. Once she found out where we were going (the gram house or something) she was like "are you sure you want to go tonight? They only have 2 DJs and 13 bands playing tonight."

I was like... wha? I'm sorry, didn't know you needed 3 DJs and 15 bands until a bar night turned fun, we usually settled for 1 band and maybe 1 DJ back home. So ya we got there, payed about $15 for cover but we got a towel to go with it so that was kinda nice, if you had a towel you could get in and out of the place freely, there was just a big of a party on the sidewalk as inside (Jake didn't even go inside). Drinks were about $5 but they were pretty generous. This particular club was kinda small but it was still neat. About 6 of us went and crashed at Tonya's for the night.

The next day was kinda strange, apparently invites were given out to a b-day party but (maybe since I'm new) I wasn't on the list and space was limited so I went home alone after a couple awkward moments. I guess that is ok, I got things done again (still no cat) and mostly relaxed, I have a wireless home network setup now and am almost ready to having a care package sent to me (mostly just winter clothes).

Today I went for a couple hour bike ride around town to check out the sights and other things. Discovered new stores but most were closed as today is a holiday. Today is "Respect for the aged day" or something where you spend the day either at the grave yard or with your elders. Did more relaxing and... spending hours posting pictures. It is taking quite a bit of time though, might just do the Tokyo pictures tonight and do more later. Enjoy!

"If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we are always be its victim." -Richard Bach

Typhoon aftermath: I survived!

I'm back and yes the typhoon was kinda over hyped. I saw crazier storms in Sask every month. It was still kinda neat though, the trains shut down and I skipped out on poker night because I had school the next day. Since the trains weren't moving there weren't any classes to teach so I spent the day preparing my 10 minute Japanese speech. I wrote the speech myself but had a lot of help translating it and fine tuning the grammar. Oh and there is a picture of me eating wasabi ice cream for no particular reason (it was tasty, so was the wasabi beer)

So Friday night we went to a restaurant in town here and I ended up ordering two meals. The first one was tacos (really good for $5) and the second one was a small pizza for the same price. The owner is a fluent English speaker that translates music for Sony and big name artists like Bruce Springsteen. Before paying our tab he got Jake's and My opinion on the lyric translations. Thinking about it after, translating music must be one of the hardest jobs out there: most of the time it is vague or just trying to rhyme. It can have different meanings to different listeners. At any rate he has a nice place and I can definitely see myself going back again, I guess Saturday nights he has open mike night! Should be cool to see local talent.

So Saturday night rolls around, I spent the day driving around and shopping. I got a lot of provisions bought, and figured out some katakana (one of Japan's 4 alphabets) labels so now I have the necessary ingredients to bake those muffins I've been wanting to make! (baking soda, brown sugar, icing sugar, etc) so that was an accomplishment. I spent an hour at a cell phone place waiting for service so I can maybe buy a new phone but they were so busy and then I spent an hour driving around trying to find the only electronics shop near my house (about a 1/2 hour drive away) but all in vain. I went back home so I could go to a party with Jake up north.

The original plan was to go to a bar called "Sonic" in Matsumoto but ended up going to a house party north of there instead. It was still a good time but I found out "being a JET involves driving ridiculous distances just to go to an event." Maybe that is true just for Nagano prefecture, it is pretty big. Also Jake drank like 3 beers in the car on the way there, everything goes in Japan! (it is legal here, I drove) Too bad my car's radio doesn't work though, it would make these trips much better.

So Sunday rolls around and I'm kinda hungover, but I had to give that 10 minute Japanese speech! Heh, boy did I get myself into a pickle. Luckily it was later in the day so I was feeling a little better by then. There were 8 foreigners giving Japanese speeches and they all seemed like they were fluent. Oh and I went last. Intimidating for sure. I somehow fumbled through it with my poor Japanese and constant reading of the script in front of me. I even got a chuckle out of the crowd when I told them how our librarian read me children's books!

The judges deliberated and I got questions from other people while they were out. I think it came clear quite quickly where my Japanese level really was but I tried my hardest to communicate and carried on a 5 minute conversation amazingly enough! It was mostly "here is Regina" on a makeshift map we drew and stuff like that, he was definitely interested in the -40 degree winters we have. So the judges came back, and I got 4th place! I got some coupons for a ramen place nearby and a paper certificate: "This is to ensure that Anthony ScheenRoth participated in the Japanese speech." I didn't have the heart to tell them my name was spelled wrong, it was kind of funny. I helped judge the elementary school kids deliver an English speech next, the winner got a trip to New Zealand, to Tatsuno's sister city, Waitomo. Tatsuno is famous for fireflys and Waitomo is famous for their glowworms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsuno,_Nagano

After that we went to my first enkai! (work party) We went to an Italian restaurant in town that I saw a couple times but never really knew if it was open because it was empty usually. I am finding out that it isn't rare at all to see empty restaurants around, especially the mom and pop places. They get most of their business during the day and most stores close by 7 or so. Anyways we had a lot of good Italian food and assorted drinks. The picture is of me from when I was in Nagano and we had the all you can drink (nomihodai) event.

After school Monday I spent over an hour driving aimlessly trying to find that electronics store again, in vain again. I try to find at least one positive thing for every seemingly wasted day, that day I couldn't find much. It was a rather rough day to say the least, trying to find something simple like a store and having consulted a map more than once and still driving around as aimlessly as I had been for as long as I did just didn't sit right with me. I made an extra effort to find the place but it still didn't work out; 1/2 hour each way is a long drive, not to mention when you get lost. By the time I got home it was practically dark and I was driving down a twisty narrow unfamiliar road with many hills and frequent oncoming traffic with their bright lights on. Definetly not fun.

Yesterday I redoubled my efforts yet again to make some progress and somehow a miracle happened! I got stuff done! This is coming from someone who needs his hand held to check his mail and to fill out the most basic of forms. Not only did I find a cell provider but I got lots of useful information from them too! I will be able to go back tomorrow and finally get a cell phone! Then I found the electronic store finally and spent like $80 on stuff I wanted to get for a while now. Like a wireless router, hair clippers, microphone and patch cable. Definetly a night and day comparison, oh and I payed a bill ALL BY MYSELF!! You can take your bills to convenience stores here and they pay your bills for you (you have to give them money of course). But still that is kinda cool, I don't think 7-11 back home would help you pay your power bill. Ah... small victories.

I am having more and more conversations with students all the time and they really help make things worthwhile. Like this morning when I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and it was pouring rain outside. Walking outside in that for 1/2 hour with a broken umbrella going uphill isn't much fun, but those students have a lot of energy and it is easy to feed off of. Like when I walk even near a classroom and they see that I am with their teacher they will shriek with excitement to see me, knowing I will teach them next class. It really is kinda cool, definitely makes you feel good about what you are doing.

One conversation I was having with some students, the girls were saying something about "nagai... nagai..." (long...long) and I am like "what is long?" kinda feeling awkward. Then they were like "your eyelashes are long!" I am like "uh... thanks?" and then she was like "I am jealous." Heh, wasn't the most flattering so I was like "but I'm not a girl!" haha ah well. Oh and I had some of the students from the soccer team try on my shoes. They were amazed how big they were. I suppose I could be some kinda monster if it doesn't require too much effort of course.

So today I met up with Neal and we discussed possible plans for the Tokyo Game Show. There is a lot going on in the coming weekends, I am having a welcome enkai (party) on Friday and the next 2 weekends are 3 day weekends with no school Monday. Midterm tests are in 2 weeks (ya the term just started 2 weeks ago) so I am building tests for the students and tomorrow I will get a cellphone! (fingers crossed). I am also looking into getting a kitten to keep me company. I realize it may be a form of masking loneliness but besides that I love kittens and yes it would be nice to have someone/something be home when I go there. I find myself playing more music when I'm at home than normal just so it isn't so quiet. Now that things are getting done, hopefully my list will shrink enough to allow time to post more photos! But until then here is a picture of me with the Girl's Basketball team.

"When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound. Rebuild those plans and set sail once more toward your coveted goal." Napoleon Hill

Anthony (アンソ二　ションロス）

Der's a Hurricane a Commin'...

Heh, guess there was something to that odd typhoon warning I heard on Sunday. There will be one that will hit tomorrow http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/070924.html they suspect it will hit Tokyo dead on, but Nagano prefecture should be alright, it is one of the safest places in Japan they keep saying. I was reading old JET books that were left at my desk in Yayoi today, and some of them talked about a 7.2 earthquake that hit in 1994 in Kobe. Some chilling stories to be sure, your heart goes out to those people that lose everything and how their world will never be the same, they are giving a new out take on life. They forget the stress of everyday life, everyday expectancies... and are reminded that yes, I am alive. I am here for a reason. Today is a gift and tomorrow is a treasure. Nothing comes easy in this world and possessions are superfluous, so cherish what you have today... Life.

On that note I am kinda excited for the hurricane/typhoon like creation coming this way, I love storms. One thing that bummed me out the last couples years in Sask was it never rained and if it did it was a 10 minute 3 inch dump that just ruined your day. I remember when I was a kid and it would rain softly and steadily all day, and I remember my Aunt Sandy saying those are the perfect days for my Uncle Ken to take a nap on the couch. I was young but I found a lot of meaning in those words and I love the rain now. More than a couple days now we have had a steady stream of cooling showers and I loved each one (got a little cold during the fireworks though). I love the sound of rain on your roof, the freshness of the air, the roads being cleaned, the cooler temperatures they bring to an otherwise scorching day. On that note it has been really hot lately. But enough on that, what I've been up to...

I can't remember if I mentioned, but now that school started I am making an effort to seeing and trying all the different clubs they have here in Japan. (Clubs are sports/activities students pick and spend time every day doing. You don't play more than one sport here) On Thursday last week I attended the formal tea ceremony they have. It is very traditional and very structured. First you eat the snack after you properly folded the paper it came with and then someone serves you tea that has already been filtered to get only the fine powder. Again, very structured and the teacher/volunteer was very strict I was told. You have a special napkin that is folded and cleaned in certain strokes for different wipes (cup, spoon, etc). After receiving the cup there is a special way of bowing, drinking, then observing the bowl when you are done. So you "come for the good food, good tea, and pleasant sights" as I was told. The cup itself you drink out of is a work of art and everyone has a "face" and needs to be turned accordingly. So ya, that was cool and if you are wondering the answer is yes: it is damn hard sitting like that. My legs were asleep and I barely hobbled to my chair after :) One of the tea server's legs were so rough the teacher had to take her arm and lead her back to her shoes (you take a traditional 8 steps or something when you approach)

You already heard about my weekend, after my blog post I went shopping with Kubota from work in Ina. Now something that is very strange about Japan compared to China... is the amount of foreigners you see all the time. To be frank I am kinda shocked. I mean Chris and I were in a capital city of 5 million plus people and can count the number of foreigners we saw there on both hands, maybe 3 hands. I easily saw 2 dozen at one of the shopping centers in Ina, a city of maybe 60,000. So I spent a good $100 I think that day on food and other supplies. I bought a mini oven for $30-$35 or so and a stool for my shower room for $15. My shower only goes up to a little higher than my belly button as showers are traditionally taken sitting down here and let me tell you that stool is one heck of a difference, I really like it. Makes it much easier washing your feet and stuff without worrying about slipping and falling.

Monday rolls around and this day I observed some students in "dance club." They were break dancing, in the school, like 4 meters from the English teachers room. I watched them for a good while and was quite impressed. I kinda wanted to dance too... but after watching them spin on their heads and kicking their feet in all kinds of weird directions while hand standing I couldn't help but feel outclassed. Only thing I did show them was "The Lawnmower" move, but again I just felt kinda petty doing it so didn't do much more. I guess when you practice something everyday for more than 2 hours of course you're going to get good at it. I consider myself something of an alright dancer but I couldn't hold a candle to those guys. I guess they have yet to meet a bar in North America with the sticky floors, broken glass, rude people, girls that walk away from you if you don't like Country music (believe me it has happened more than once) and music so loud you can't even hear yourself screaming. Oh and overcrowded usually. It is hard to do fancy spinning moves on your hands in that situation, maybe I have hope after all ;)

After watching them I headed down to watch their "Soft Tennis" club for a while. Now soft tennis might be just a Japanese sport, as after World War 2 they didn't have much money for balls or anything so they used whatever they could. The ball used for soft tennis is small and rubbery. It was neat to watch but it was getting late at that point so I went home.

Tuesday in Tatsuno (I teach at Yayoi [1 hour commute] Mondays and Wednesdays and Tatsuno [5 minute commute] Tues, Thurs, Fri) I helped out with the Volleyball team. It was the first time I have played in over a year after trying very hard to find a club, any club that would play Volleyball in Regina. Anyways, the high schools I work at have 2 gyms and 1 swimming pool each. I used to think that was alot, especially considering our High school had 1 gym and twice as many students. Wow was I wrong, forgot about the 'club' concept. So the gym was split up into 4 units. Boy/girl basketball on one half, boy/girl volleyball on the other. I am going to assume for now the other gym is split up similarly, using badminton and... maybe another sport. Anyways, I helped out with the boys team peppering and spiking at the 2 setters while the other boys ran drills on their 1/4 of the gym. I was tired after 10 minutes but I think I did alright, they then left for a 1 hour run. I was like "no way" and stayed at the gym. I helped out the girls team for an hour, not really doing much but they were really excited to have me. Then the boys came back and the girls left club for the day. Now the boys volleyball had the 1/2 gym for themselves (basketball did something similar) and then we scrimmaged for 2 hours. So yes, they practiced for 4 hours straight.

Now I am pretty out of shape to begin with, but I held out as long and hard as I could, but I had to give up as I was more of a burden for my team than anything with my heavy breathing and slow movements. I didn't get home until after 8 and went to bed not that long after. Needless to say today was a long day and my body hates me. All the muscles are sore but I'm glad I am getting out and getting active again.

Today after school I was on my way to change my shoes and maybe watch the soccer club for a bit but the drama club called me over and asked me to watch. They rehearsed their play a couple times that one of the students wrote and asked me what I thought of it. "Suugoii!!" (amazing!) and then I clapped. Really I only made out a couple words but I loved their enthusiasm. :) They even dressed up for their roles. I was sitting on a stool the whole time so I never thought much about their height but when we all stood up late to bow and say thank you or whatever we did, I realized I was like 2 feet taller than all of them (about a dozen girls). It was kinda weird and made me feel just a little more out of place but oh well.

Tomorrow Yayoi was to have their "sports day." So what those are, is the classes split up and have their own special class t-shirt and play sports against each other. Guys play baseball or soccer I think they said and girls play dodge ball or pingpong. I might be canceled though, Typhoon pending. Anyways I have some stuff I need to get done (cell phone shopping, laundry, etc) hopefully I can get time soon enough to post the 500 pictures or so I took in Japan so far. I might be playing poker tomorrow night not sure, seems kinda short notice for a bit event.

"if you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can create your own." Stephen Covey

Anthony

I have internet!

Life is composed of moments in time. Each moment contributing to each other to make a novel; one's own story. Thursday, August 30 added another entry to the new chapter that is Japan in my novel. I got internet at home. (Also, there is a picture of me revealing my secret identity as Hercules while lifting a mountain before swimming in a crystal clear stream from a waterfall further up on Sunday. More on that later.)

I know you are probably thinking "well Thursday was a couple days ago, where are the pictures?" I hope to start posting some today and will make a short entry with a link, things have been extremely busy with classes starting and everything but figured the blog entry would maybe be of higher priority. Now to where I left off last time:

First day of classes at Tatsuno were alright, I am learning new things about teaching every hour it seems and the learning curve is great. I took the advice of composing some questions sheets to better help the students follow along with me talking about myself for the period. I have a simple question sheet of 10 questions asking things like "What language is my last name" and "What are two of my hobbies". With this my self intro which was barely 15 minutes when I first gave it last week now takes an entire class as I can elaborate on stories more and explain other things like how "Germany is the name of the country, German is the language/people". German is a stretch for them to learn as in Japanese and similarly German they refer to it as "Deutschland". After teaching my intro to some classes I am learning how to be a teacher doing other things. Again I'm learning stuff every hour or so like how my voice is rather loud so I need to tone it down for a bit for neighboring classes. (I taught the head, shoulders, knees and toes song, probably to the wrong rhythm though. Ah well.) And then Friday (Aug 31) I taught the advanced class by myself! It was intimidating but as long as there is a lesson plan or something similar I can follow right along. Another big thing I noticed, is I don't get nervous at all when I'm in front of the class. A huge accomplishment for me, especially considering how I was shaking like crazy not that long ago giving a speech. Oh and at Yayoi High School those students went and did the fusion dance for me again in the classroom this time. It was still very cool.

So back to the swimming story, we had a "block party" (Nagano is really big so they split it into 6 blocks to help people feel less isolated) We took the train about 1 hour south but I'm still learning the names of all these places so I can't say exactly where. We went swimming in this amazingly clear stream surrounded by these monstrous rocks and beautiful scenery. We later went on a hike up the stream (really tough considering my camera was in my hand and I didn't want to get it wet) had some close calls with slipping on rocks and the current alone but it was fun. Got to the artificial waterfall and took pictures of us standing underneath, it was really cool. Later that night we had a BBQ and I have a new drink, they call it "Chu-hai". It is like a cooler.... except it tastes much better and after 3 of them I was kinda done for the night. Definitely need that stuff back home. I'll post pics of the party later.

Yesterday we went to Suwa lake again to watch yet another fireworks show, this one had 1/2 the people and was pretty much just as exciting. It was raining slightly so I didn't get much pictures and we all got kinda cold. We started the night sitting on a tarp but as the rain started we fashioned a makeshift tent out of it to stay dry. I invited my co-worker Kubota along and he said all the Japanese people around us were astonished at what we were doing. I then asked how to say "crazy" in Japanese then used my broken Japanese to say "All foreigners are crazy" (Zenbu gaijin nekkyoo desu). We both got a good laugh out of that, I'm such a bad influence.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=suwa,+japan&ie=UTF8&ll=36.04785,138.114667&spn=0.00772,0.019999&z=16&om=1
That link goes to Suwa lake. The link might be broken so you might have to copy and paste it. I live 1/2 hour south of there along route 153.

Jake taught me Friday that my burner does in fact have more settings than on and off. Mind you they are so finite it is really hard to get right, but either way it has opened the door to many possibilities of cooking. I had scrambled eggs and hash browns this morning which is a good sign. Going shopping later for more provisions however, such as milk and bread. I'm just glad I can cook stuff again without immediately burning it. When I bought potatoes ($5 for 4 potatoes... yea fruit/veggies are pretty pricey here) earlier this month in my infinite wisdom decided to freeze them... for some reason. They have since been thawed but not until after they leaked their goo over everything and got all rubbery. They still weren't that bad when I cooked them up though, I'll just have to eat them kinda fast. One story I forgot to tell, on Aug 15 the air raid siren ran through the whole town at lunch for an hour. It was to commemorate the end of World War 2. Also this morning kinda early another air raid siren went off and a voice started talking. The only words I really made out were Tatsuno and Typhoon. Definetly got me a little nervous but the weather is fine now, plus I wouldn't mind sitting through a monster storm like that, it'll probably be cool and maybe even give me a day off work ;) It is kinda neat how they can give the whole city announcements through mega phones, it wouldn't be a bad idea for back home but you know everyone would be complaining about the noise or something. Ah well, time to get some more stuff done while I have the day off so I can hopefully get time to start posting pictures. I spent about 2 hours yesterday cleaning my house and other odd chores like that.

"Belief in yourself, belief in your abilities, will override fear almost every time. The only thing we are afraid of is what we are capable of accomplishing." -Rich DiGirolamo

Anthony