Friday, November 27, 2009
Country Gold!
I never would’ve imagined in a million years that Kumamoto, Japan loves country music, but guess what – it does! (The city is actually featured in Brad Paisley’s new music video, Welcome to the Future) In mid-October there is a HUGE country music festival with more Americana than I have ever seen ourside of NYC, the South, and the 4th of July. It was pretty amazing. From competitive square dancing teams from all over Japan to confederate flags for sale, it was quite the experience! Of course my friends and I decked ourselves out for the event, getting in on the line dancing and basically just acting like this is what we do everyday in America. It was tons of fun and I can’t wait for next years festival! Who would’ve guessed, my first country music festival ever was in Japan!
American visitor
After returning home, the ALT from 5 years ago came to visit with his Japanese wife and 1 year-old-baby! She was adorable! We all went to a local preschool together, and then went to my Junior High School to visit with old teachers! Even though all the students asked me if he was my husband (because clearly since he lives in America, brought his half Japanese daughter and Japanese wife to school, and I say I don’t have a boyfriend every day we are married…) it was a lot of fun to show him around and see him reconnect with some of the students that had him as a teacher back when they were elementary school students! He also had offered to bring me things I’m missing from the states, which was really nice. I didn’t want to send him on a wild chase for anything, but he did bring me some parmesan flavored goldfish (hint, hint)
Hiroshima!
Ok ok I know. I’ve been a horrible blogger! But hey – wouldn’t you rather me being out enjoying Japan rather than hunched over a computer? I thought so. So ok…let’s catch up.
First things first – I went to Hiroshima for a long weekend and had a really great time! There was a sake festival that weekend, but the group and I were more interested in seeing the Hiroshima sights, and thought that a festival solely dedicated to drinking might detract from what happened in the city.
Erin and I took a bus and met up with an Osaka friend when we got there. Then we wandered around trying to find our hostel, unpacked when we finally found it, and then went out for some of Hiroshima’s famous Okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki has two styles – Osaka style and Hiroshima style. Hiroshima cooks noodles inside this pancake vegetable mixture - it's really delicious!
The next day the three of us went to the Hiroshima peace park, where we saw the A-bomb dome (building right under where the bomb exploded) the museum, childrens memorial (with the 1000 paper cranes if you’ve ever read that book…) and other really powerful sights. It was pretty interesting being there as an American, and I felt a little awkward at times knowing who dropped the bomb and all, but it was equally as important for me to see it. One thing that surprised me was the many paragraphs of text dedicated to encouraging the Japanese to take responsibility for their actions and involvement as well. While the peace park commemorates those lost in WWII, especially victims of the bomb, the park has a sense of optimism and hope for the future. One of my favorite parts was a wall that had hundreds of letters written by the Mayor of Hiroshima. For every test of a nuclear weapon, the mayor sends of letter urging them not to in hope of peace. Unfortunately, many of these letters were sent to US addresses….
After spending the day in the park, we went to Hiroshima castle and then made our way over to the second hostel we were staying at. This hostel was right on the coast because in the morning we were heading to the island of Miyajima, which is in the top three beautiful sights in Japan. (The Japanese are super into ranking things…everything here is like ‘the 4th largest tree in the southern most region of the central island of Japan’ – and it’s kind of hilarious) The hostel was, well interesting, to say the least. It was the owners birthday that night so when we got there, so he was already really drunk when we got there. He checked us in and then escorted us over to his birthday party! One of the hostel workers had studied in Arkansas (where Erin is from) so she was RIDICULOUSLY excited to meet us. It was quite a night, but we needed to get some rest because we wanted to make it out to the Miyajima floating gate at low tide!
Well, we amazingly did make it to the island bright and early which meant we could walk out to the gate! After taking some pictures there, we toured the rest of the island, including taking a really long hike to the top of the mountain, riding on a steep ropeway, avoiding the aggressive deer (well, as well as we could – they even eat paper!) and of course sampling the famous cuisine (oysters, eel, and these maple leaf shaped pancake treats).
Then we went back to the first hostel we stayed in, dropped off our bags, and hit the town for some dinner, karaoke, etc.
The next day we woke up early to go see a beautiful garden in the city. We walked around and even made some new friends! This old lady wanted to take a photo with us and when I made room for her, she pointed to my other side because she wanted to sit next to Seamus! But then she gave us cream puffs so I couldn’t be that upset!
Afterwards, Erin and I said farewell to Seamus and ventured back to the ‘moto! All and all a great trip!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
TYPHOONS and Costco!
It's typhoon season!!! Don't worry, I'm safe! But it's been pretty windy and raining A LOT for the past couple of days. My prefecture shouldn't be hit too hard, so I'm not too concerned. I'm taking normal precautions in case I were to lose power or what not, but don't fret mom! I'm OK!
This past week and a half has been pretty low key. I've been doing a lot of teaching and I stayed in Aso for the weekend. The students are doing community work this week, so I was able to make my English board for October.
I've also heard from other ALTs that they've had success making English newsletters for their students. I decided to make a monthly paper titled, The Nicole Times (creative, I know!) Each issue has a quiz/word search/cross word etc. and the student from each grade that turns it in the fastest will receive a prize.
Late October is also the English speech contest. The strongest English speakers from each grade (junior high) memorize a passage and are judged on their pronunciation, intonation, speed, clarity etc. I've been working with these students during break time and its been nice to get to know some select students especially well. They are working so hard but there are just some sounds they really struggle with, most notably th's, r's and l's .
The highlight of my weekend was my Sunday trip to COSTCO! Never have I been so excited for shopping in bulk! The Costco is in Fukuoka which is the prefecture to the North of Kumamoto. It took about 1.5 hours to get there by car, but it was well worth the trip! I went with a fellow Aso ALT and we did some damage... The funniest thing about the trip was that most of the Japanese shoppers only bought a few things (which looked ridiculous in their massive carts.) I couldn't help but think, why come to Costco if you're only going to buy a bottle of wine and some laundry detergent? But my reaction to the Japanese shoppers was tame in comparison to the ones they were having in regards to my cart (filled to the brim...)
Everyone that walked by was staring - it was pretty hilarious. My friend is almost fluent in Japanese now (this is her 5th year) so she would translate for me while I witnessed jaw after jaw dropping to the floor.
We had some great finds at Costco, Amy's organic burritos, western cheese (the cheese here is processed and tastes horrible) Halloween candy, and my personal favorite - bread from the La Brea bakery in Los Angeles! I couldn't believe it when I saw it - but I can spot their brown and maroon packaging anywhere! We then drove back to the 'moto (as we are now calling Kumamoto) and I snuggled up to watch Lost in Translation. I hadn't seen it before, but since it is about being a foreigner in Japan, I had been told I needed to see it before I got too accustomed to living here.
So much about that movie is spot on - if you haven't seen it, I recommend it. Then come visit me and watch it again!
Today was an interesting day though. This morning I had a health test given to all employees of the City Hall (where the Board of Education is.) One of my teachers was there and took me under her wing guiding me through the different stations even though she doesn't speak English. Things started normally enough with the usual - eye test, hearing test, height, weight etc. but then came the blood test and they couldn't find a vein. They made me sit with a heating pad on my arm while they all beckoned each other over to see what the problem was.
After finally and successfully drawing blood, they had me lie down while they put sensors all over me. They also put these claw like things on my wrists and ankles to test who knows what. After I passed that stage I had to go to a van for what would be my first ultrasound. Yes - ultrasound. Not being pregnant, this was a little surprising as I had the warm goo rubbed all over my stomach, but hey, it's Japan. I'm sure something they found in there was helpful?
This evening I had my first shodo (calligraphy) class. With every stroke I made, my sensei said 背語彙！which means amazing. I tried hard not to laugh as I had literally just moved my brush across the paper, but maybe the foreigners she had taught before weren't too good. Nice to see my USC Fine Arts education is helping me out in some way!
And now I'm back and about to go to bed. I'm trying to get all rested up for my long weekend in Hiroshima (stay tuned for the post)! Wish me luck with the typhoon in the mean time!
This past week and a half has been pretty low key. I've been doing a lot of teaching and I stayed in Aso for the weekend. The students are doing community work this week, so I was able to make my English board for October.
I've also heard from other ALTs that they've had success making English newsletters for their students. I decided to make a monthly paper titled, The Nicole Times (creative, I know!) Each issue has a quiz/word search/cross word etc. and the student from each grade that turns it in the fastest will receive a prize.
Late October is also the English speech contest. The strongest English speakers from each grade (junior high) memorize a passage and are judged on their pronunciation, intonation, speed, clarity etc. I've been working with these students during break time and its been nice to get to know some select students especially well. They are working so hard but there are just some sounds they really struggle with, most notably th's, r's and l's .
The highlight of my weekend was my Sunday trip to COSTCO! Never have I been so excited for shopping in bulk! The Costco is in Fukuoka which is the prefecture to the North of Kumamoto. It took about 1.5 hours to get there by car, but it was well worth the trip! I went with a fellow Aso ALT and we did some damage... The funniest thing about the trip was that most of the Japanese shoppers only bought a few things (which looked ridiculous in their massive carts.) I couldn't help but think, why come to Costco if you're only going to buy a bottle of wine and some laundry detergent? But my reaction to the Japanese shoppers was tame in comparison to the ones they were having in regards to my cart (filled to the brim...)
Everyone that walked by was staring - it was pretty hilarious. My friend is almost fluent in Japanese now (this is her 5th year) so she would translate for me while I witnessed jaw after jaw dropping to the floor.
We had some great finds at Costco, Amy's organic burritos, western cheese (the cheese here is processed and tastes horrible) Halloween candy, and my personal favorite - bread from the La Brea bakery in Los Angeles! I couldn't believe it when I saw it - but I can spot their brown and maroon packaging anywhere! We then drove back to the 'moto (as we are now calling Kumamoto) and I snuggled up to watch Lost in Translation. I hadn't seen it before, but since it is about being a foreigner in Japan, I had been told I needed to see it before I got too accustomed to living here.
So much about that movie is spot on - if you haven't seen it, I recommend it. Then come visit me and watch it again!
Today was an interesting day though. This morning I had a health test given to all employees of the City Hall (where the Board of Education is.) One of my teachers was there and took me under her wing guiding me through the different stations even though she doesn't speak English. Things started normally enough with the usual - eye test, hearing test, height, weight etc. but then came the blood test and they couldn't find a vein. They made me sit with a heating pad on my arm while they all beckoned each other over to see what the problem was.
After finally and successfully drawing blood, they had me lie down while they put sensors all over me. They also put these claw like things on my wrists and ankles to test who knows what. After I passed that stage I had to go to a van for what would be my first ultrasound. Yes - ultrasound. Not being pregnant, this was a little surprising as I had the warm goo rubbed all over my stomach, but hey, it's Japan. I'm sure something they found in there was helpful?
This evening I had my first shodo (calligraphy) class. With every stroke I made, my sensei said 背語彙！which means amazing. I tried hard not to laugh as I had literally just moved my brush across the paper, but maybe the foreigners she had taught before weren't too good. Nice to see my USC Fine Arts education is helping me out in some way!
And now I'm back and about to go to bed. I'm trying to get all rested up for my long weekend in Hiroshima (stay tuned for the post)! Wish me luck with the typhoon in the mean time!
Janken
This post is dedicated to the main form of decision making I have witnessed thus far in Japan - janken. For those of us who speak English, you might be more familiar with it's other name, Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Honestly, I witness this game at least 6 times a day. If there is an extra milk at school lunch, the kids janken for it. If two students tie in Bingo, they will janken to determine a winner. One JET I met in Osaka who is not well liked by his JTE's actually witnessed his JTE's jankening to see who would have to teach with him! The loser then congratulated the winner, and proceeded to go over the lesson plan with my friend! What's amazing though is that regardless of the result of the janken, everyone respects it. If you lose and some other kid gets that last milk, game over, you lost, that's it.
Sometimes we joke that if we were to walk into the Prime Minister's office during a major policy making meeting, we would probably witness an epic janken match - it carries that much weight!
The other night at Denory's, before the band came on we had a janken tournament. You would pay 100yen to play, and the final winner would take all of the money. Yes - this is what we do for fun at bars.
That's really all I have to say about Rock, Paper, Scissors, because, well, what else really is there more to say? I just had to share the power that this game has in Japan, and warn you that if you come visit, be prepared to play - A LOT.
1 - Jankening at the sports festival
2 - Jess losing in the Denory's janken tournament
Honestly, I witness this game at least 6 times a day. If there is an extra milk at school lunch, the kids janken for it. If two students tie in Bingo, they will janken to determine a winner. One JET I met in Osaka who is not well liked by his JTE's actually witnessed his JTE's jankening to see who would have to teach with him! The loser then congratulated the winner, and proceeded to go over the lesson plan with my friend! What's amazing though is that regardless of the result of the janken, everyone respects it. If you lose and some other kid gets that last milk, game over, you lost, that's it.
Sometimes we joke that if we were to walk into the Prime Minister's office during a major policy making meeting, we would probably witness an epic janken match - it carries that much weight!
The other night at Denory's, before the band came on we had a janken tournament. You would pay 100yen to play, and the final winner would take all of the money. Yes - this is what we do for fun at bars.
That's really all I have to say about Rock, Paper, Scissors, because, well, what else really is there more to say? I just had to share the power that this game has in Japan, and warn you that if you come visit, be prepared to play - A LOT.
1 - Jankening at the sports festival
2 - Jess losing in the Denory's janken tournament
Monday, September 28, 2009
Reconnected!
And I'm back on the internet!
Friday while I was on the train heading to Osaka I received a phone call from someone that couldn't speak English (why they call me I have yet to find out...) the only English they could throw together was "tonight, go home." This of course made me a little nervous as I tried to quickly review all my work obligations in my head, but I couldn't come up with anything I needed to do. I told them to call my supervisor, who then called to tell me my modem had arrived and would be at my neighbors house when I got back from my trip! So no more long runs without internet and blogging!
Since I last posted two big things have happened - one being my weekend of sports festivals and the other being my trip to Osaka.
Sports Festivals:
Sports festival is pretty much awesome. It felt like I was back at camp, but in Japan...
I had three during the weekend of September 12-13 so I went to one on Saturday and 2 on Sunday - one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Basically, the school is divided up into two teams, red and white. They compete all day in running races, cheers, dances, acrobatics - you name it! and since I've found the Japanese to be some of the most detail-oriented and hardworking people I've ever met, it was quite a sight to be seen! The highlight for me was definitely when the youngest of the elementary school kids did the thriller dance. Sitting there watching it I couldn't help but think I love this country!
Some of the events called for community participation. Adults ran relay races that ranged from straight running to sitting on balloons and after popping them, running with paper bags on their heads. The superintendent was at 2 of the festivals I attended and he invited me to join in on a game where you hit a ball through some cones (a large version of golf). Luckily I made it on the first time! I had to represent being the only girl on my team! The mayor was at the other sports festival and he is just a character. In Japan they don't shake hands or wave (they bow) and they don't have the thumbs up hand gesture. Every time I see the mayor he runs up to me, intensely shakes my hand, and follows it up with a big thumbs up. I give him an equally enthusiastic thumbs up back, and secretly hope that he doesn't journey over to America where he might come to learn that thumbs up are really only given by movie critics and hitchhikers...
Osaka
What a crazy place! It felt kind of like Japanese New York...
I went to Osaka for Silver week, which are three national holidays that take place in a row and this year were on a Monday, Tuesday and a Wednesday. I had the Friday before the weekend off from school as well, so Keiko, an ALT from Osaka that I met once randomly in San Francisco and then saw again at Tokyo orientation, invited Erin and I to come visit.
Erin and I met up in Kumamoto city where we tried to navigate the trains to catch our overnight ferry from Fukuoka (the largest city on our island.) We made it in time and were surprised to find that what appeared on the internet to be a sketchy looking boat, turned out to be quite nice! There was kareoke, massage chairs, public bath and a small arcade! We tried to get some sleep, although there was a snorer in our room, to gear up for the 5 day four night trip...
After docking, Keiko met us at the port with one of her JTEs. We then dropped off our stuff and went to her school. All the teachers met up and then we headed over to the Danjiri festival. At this festival, each town/city gets their own danjiri that members of the community pull, dance on, run with etc. in their respective community happi coats. It was tons of fun and was the largest festival I've been to thus far!
The celebration went well into the night and with the amount of alcohol consumed I was amazed that none of the Japanese men fell off of their danjiri!
After the festival we went to a bar in Osaka. Here if you miss the last train (leaves about midnight or so) you have to wait for the first one which is at about 5am. Of the 4 nights, this happened 3 of them so the sleeping on the ferry turned out to be a great idea! After the club we caught about a 6:30am train, napped for about an hour and then started the next day!
There are some really awesome JETs living in Osaka and we all met up at the castle for some sightseeing. There were so many foreigners there, I didn't even feel like I was in Japan! Maybe it's just because I live in the countryside and I'm the only blonde...
After walking around castle grounds, we went to the major shopping district in town where we got dinner and had a little evening purikura and kareoke session. We decided not to stay out all night though because we were going to Kyoto on Monday!
Kyoto was beautiful! I wish we'd gotten to see more but because it was silver week, it was insanely crowded. I'm going to try to make it over there again, preferably not during peak travel time, so I can get in everything! We went to the imperial palace and to the golden temple. Kyoto has shrines on almost every corner, so it was beautiful walking around and taking everything in!
After we took the train back to Osaka and met up in triangle park, which felt a little like Tokyo drift. There were all these skateboarders and people driving really nice cars...an interesting place. After hanging out there for a couple of hours we went to a local bar that had darts, foosball and was just a little more relaxed. They kicked us out around 4:30am and with a half hour to kill before the first train, we did what any American would do - went to the 24 hour McDonalds. The 24 hour McD's is hilarious - it's more like a hostel than a restaurant!
After we took the 5am train back to Keiko's, caught a couple zzz's and met up with a woman that lived with Erin during a homestay in the States. She took us to a great place for lunch with her boyfriend and then we headed out to meet up with the rest of the Osaka crew for an afternoon at the aquarium. It was way too crowded in the aquarium but fun none the less. They had some really interesting fish I'd never seen before and we had a great time making up captions for the ridiculous warning pictures posted throughout the building.
I call this one 'please do not surf on stingrays or you might be eaten by a shark'
The aquarium trip then turned into Taco Tuesday, where we all went to one JETs apartment to cook up some Mexican food. We all missed our last trains so we went to kareoke to complete allnighter #3.
The next day Erin and I said our farewells and took the shinkansen, or bullet train, back to Kumamoto. I slept through most of it, but it was pretty cool going 300+ mph by train! It looks so aerodynamic too!
When I got back to my house I unpacked and passed out circa 8pm. Luckily I had elementary school the next day which is so much fun or else I might not have made it through the day awake!
This weekend I kept it pretty low key. I went out to dinner with one of my JTE's and had friends come down to Aso on Saturday for Denory's night. Previously at school, I was handed a map with a time by an elementary school vice principle inviting me to play tennis, so I also got in 3 hours of tennis Saturday morning with what I think is my new tennis club? It's really difficult not being able to communicate! All in all though it was a really fun weekend - not too crazy which was exactly what I needed!
So now the new week begins! I'm working on planning my next couple of trips including an October long weekend to Hiroshima and a 3 week trip potentially to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and maybe Laos over winter break. Thailand is a definite though - the others depend on price. I'll keep you posted!
Well I must say, if you've read this far you truly deserve a medal! Since I'm not planning on losing my internet anytime soon, future entries won't be this long.
じゃね！
Friday while I was on the train heading to Osaka I received a phone call from someone that couldn't speak English (why they call me I have yet to find out...) the only English they could throw together was "tonight, go home." This of course made me a little nervous as I tried to quickly review all my work obligations in my head, but I couldn't come up with anything I needed to do. I told them to call my supervisor, who then called to tell me my modem had arrived and would be at my neighbors house when I got back from my trip! So no more long runs without internet and blogging!
Since I last posted two big things have happened - one being my weekend of sports festivals and the other being my trip to Osaka.
Sports Festivals:
Sports festival is pretty much awesome. It felt like I was back at camp, but in Japan...
I had three during the weekend of September 12-13 so I went to one on Saturday and 2 on Sunday - one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Basically, the school is divided up into two teams, red and white. They compete all day in running races, cheers, dances, acrobatics - you name it! and since I've found the Japanese to be some of the most detail-oriented and hardworking people I've ever met, it was quite a sight to be seen! The highlight for me was definitely when the youngest of the elementary school kids did the thriller dance. Sitting there watching it I couldn't help but think I love this country!
Some of the events called for community participation. Adults ran relay races that ranged from straight running to sitting on balloons and after popping them, running with paper bags on their heads. The superintendent was at 2 of the festivals I attended and he invited me to join in on a game where you hit a ball through some cones (a large version of golf). Luckily I made it on the first time! I had to represent being the only girl on my team! The mayor was at the other sports festival and he is just a character. In Japan they don't shake hands or wave (they bow) and they don't have the thumbs up hand gesture. Every time I see the mayor he runs up to me, intensely shakes my hand, and follows it up with a big thumbs up. I give him an equally enthusiastic thumbs up back, and secretly hope that he doesn't journey over to America where he might come to learn that thumbs up are really only given by movie critics and hitchhikers...
Osaka
What a crazy place! It felt kind of like Japanese New York...
I went to Osaka for Silver week, which are three national holidays that take place in a row and this year were on a Monday, Tuesday and a Wednesday. I had the Friday before the weekend off from school as well, so Keiko, an ALT from Osaka that I met once randomly in San Francisco and then saw again at Tokyo orientation, invited Erin and I to come visit.
Erin and I met up in Kumamoto city where we tried to navigate the trains to catch our overnight ferry from Fukuoka (the largest city on our island.) We made it in time and were surprised to find that what appeared on the internet to be a sketchy looking boat, turned out to be quite nice! There was kareoke, massage chairs, public bath and a small arcade! We tried to get some sleep, although there was a snorer in our room, to gear up for the 5 day four night trip...
After docking, Keiko met us at the port with one of her JTEs. We then dropped off our stuff and went to her school. All the teachers met up and then we headed over to the Danjiri festival. At this festival, each town/city gets their own danjiri that members of the community pull, dance on, run with etc. in their respective community happi coats. It was tons of fun and was the largest festival I've been to thus far!
The celebration went well into the night and with the amount of alcohol consumed I was amazed that none of the Japanese men fell off of their danjiri!
After the festival we went to a bar in Osaka. Here if you miss the last train (leaves about midnight or so) you have to wait for the first one which is at about 5am. Of the 4 nights, this happened 3 of them so the sleeping on the ferry turned out to be a great idea! After the club we caught about a 6:30am train, napped for about an hour and then started the next day!
There are some really awesome JETs living in Osaka and we all met up at the castle for some sightseeing. There were so many foreigners there, I didn't even feel like I was in Japan! Maybe it's just because I live in the countryside and I'm the only blonde...
After walking around castle grounds, we went to the major shopping district in town where we got dinner and had a little evening purikura and kareoke session. We decided not to stay out all night though because we were going to Kyoto on Monday!
Kyoto was beautiful! I wish we'd gotten to see more but because it was silver week, it was insanely crowded. I'm going to try to make it over there again, preferably not during peak travel time, so I can get in everything! We went to the imperial palace and to the golden temple. Kyoto has shrines on almost every corner, so it was beautiful walking around and taking everything in!
After we took the train back to Osaka and met up in triangle park, which felt a little like Tokyo drift. There were all these skateboarders and people driving really nice cars...an interesting place. After hanging out there for a couple of hours we went to a local bar that had darts, foosball and was just a little more relaxed. They kicked us out around 4:30am and with a half hour to kill before the first train, we did what any American would do - went to the 24 hour McDonalds. The 24 hour McD's is hilarious - it's more like a hostel than a restaurant!
After we took the 5am train back to Keiko's, caught a couple zzz's and met up with a woman that lived with Erin during a homestay in the States. She took us to a great place for lunch with her boyfriend and then we headed out to meet up with the rest of the Osaka crew for an afternoon at the aquarium. It was way too crowded in the aquarium but fun none the less. They had some really interesting fish I'd never seen before and we had a great time making up captions for the ridiculous warning pictures posted throughout the building.
I call this one 'please do not surf on stingrays or you might be eaten by a shark'
The aquarium trip then turned into Taco Tuesday, where we all went to one JETs apartment to cook up some Mexican food. We all missed our last trains so we went to kareoke to complete allnighter #3.
The next day Erin and I said our farewells and took the shinkansen, or bullet train, back to Kumamoto. I slept through most of it, but it was pretty cool going 300+ mph by train! It looks so aerodynamic too!
When I got back to my house I unpacked and passed out circa 8pm. Luckily I had elementary school the next day which is so much fun or else I might not have made it through the day awake!
This weekend I kept it pretty low key. I went out to dinner with one of my JTE's and had friends come down to Aso on Saturday for Denory's night. Previously at school, I was handed a map with a time by an elementary school vice principle inviting me to play tennis, so I also got in 3 hours of tennis Saturday morning with what I think is my new tennis club? It's really difficult not being able to communicate! All in all though it was a really fun weekend - not too crazy which was exactly what I needed!
So now the new week begins! I'm working on planning my next couple of trips including an October long weekend to Hiroshima and a 3 week trip potentially to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and maybe Laos over winter break. Thailand is a definite though - the others depend on price. I'll keep you posted!
Well I must say, if you've read this far you truly deserve a medal! Since I'm not planning on losing my internet anytime soon, future entries won't be this long.
じゃね！
Monday, September 7, 2009
Life without internet
Greetings from my neighbors house! I've been without internet for almost a week, and it's not so fun considering that no one here talks on the phone and most communication is done via email. I can check my mail on my phone, but typing in English is time consuming and a little frustrating. But oh well - I'm on the computer now so I'll make the most of it!
Since I last wrote, I finished my first week of school! On Tuesday I went to one of my elementary schools and it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. There are only 25 kids in the school so I did my self-introduction lesson for the entire school. Then I ate lunch with the 1st years - the youngest kids in the school. There are 4 of them in one class - 2 boys and 2 girls - and they are ADORABLE. They put on their little pink hats and robes and make an assembly line to put together the lunches. Getting served by a 5 year olds and then cleaning the school with them definitely felt a little like witnessing child labor, but it's part of the culture and they really are so cute!
The rest of the week was then spent back at my Junior High. I had a pretty full schedule, which was nice, and got to know some of the students better. There's a break in between lunch and cleaning the school, so I've found that this is a great time to learn some Japanese and talk to my students. On Thursday they told me that I have a great fashion sense, which makes me want to go buy a whole new wardrobe since Japanese fashion is crazy! I also got to go the 'Friends Room' which is the special education room. I drew some pictures with the kids, and I think they appreciated that I came to spend time with them. But who knows - they never tell you anything but compliments in Japan anyways...
I also got to play some more tennis with the kids. On Thursday I wore these hot pink running shorts which aren't short by American standards but definitely don't reach my knees, so between the color, the length, and the fact that I'm blonde and white, I got stared at a lot. I don't know if the shorts are inappropriate, but I also didn't bring any long shorts with me... I know they won't say anything here because culturally the Japanese just wouldn't, so I'll wear them. I told my JTE to tell me if I do something wrong, so I'll trust that she will and keep on playing.
Friday night we had a gun event (pronounced goon) which is basically like a county. It was a great chance to meet some of the JETs that live close to me and I finally got to meet the 4th ALT that lives in Aso. She's on her 5th and final year, so she really knows the ropes. She also really likes the outdoors so I'm excited to have someone active to spend some time with!
We all went bowling and then to an Irish pub in Ozu, the city next to Aso. It was a great night but I stayed out too late since I needed to be up early to head down to the south of the prefecture for the KumaJET beach party. (KumaJET is basically the Kumamoto JET association that plans social events, philanthropy events, etc. through out the year)
The beach was absolutely beautiful! I tried zorbing, which basically puts you inside this giant ball filled with some water and then rolls you down a hill, and also luging. Both were tons of fun! After the beach day, we set up camp at a local campsite and had a bbq and party. I got to meet a lot more of the JETs that had already been in Kumamoto for a while, including randomly, one girl that went to USC, graduated my year AND lived in my dorm freshman year. (She was 9th floor, I was 8th!) I also met another girl that went to Cornell and knows a lot of Newton people (surprise, surprise) so we had a lot of friends in common.
A group of my friends didn't spend the night though, so I left with them and went back to one of their apartments to sleep. The next day we worked on planning our trip to Osaka to go visit a friend from orientation. Silver week is coming up, September 19-23, so we thought it would be a great time to try out the bullet train (goes over 300mph!) and check out Osaka and hopefully Kyoto as well. More details to come but hopefully all the planning with turn out alright. Japanese = difficult.
Overall everything is still going really well! It's hard to keep in touch without the internet, but it's getting me out of the house more! Hopefully I'll be able to post again soon, but for now, さよなら！ (Sayonara)
Since I last wrote, I finished my first week of school! On Tuesday I went to one of my elementary schools and it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. There are only 25 kids in the school so I did my self-introduction lesson for the entire school. Then I ate lunch with the 1st years - the youngest kids in the school. There are 4 of them in one class - 2 boys and 2 girls - and they are ADORABLE. They put on their little pink hats and robes and make an assembly line to put together the lunches. Getting served by a 5 year olds and then cleaning the school with them definitely felt a little like witnessing child labor, but it's part of the culture and they really are so cute!
The rest of the week was then spent back at my Junior High. I had a pretty full schedule, which was nice, and got to know some of the students better. There's a break in between lunch and cleaning the school, so I've found that this is a great time to learn some Japanese and talk to my students. On Thursday they told me that I have a great fashion sense, which makes me want to go buy a whole new wardrobe since Japanese fashion is crazy! I also got to go the 'Friends Room' which is the special education room. I drew some pictures with the kids, and I think they appreciated that I came to spend time with them. But who knows - they never tell you anything but compliments in Japan anyways...
I also got to play some more tennis with the kids. On Thursday I wore these hot pink running shorts which aren't short by American standards but definitely don't reach my knees, so between the color, the length, and the fact that I'm blonde and white, I got stared at a lot. I don't know if the shorts are inappropriate, but I also didn't bring any long shorts with me... I know they won't say anything here because culturally the Japanese just wouldn't, so I'll wear them. I told my JTE to tell me if I do something wrong, so I'll trust that she will and keep on playing.
Friday night we had a gun event (pronounced goon) which is basically like a county. It was a great chance to meet some of the JETs that live close to me and I finally got to meet the 4th ALT that lives in Aso. She's on her 5th and final year, so she really knows the ropes. She also really likes the outdoors so I'm excited to have someone active to spend some time with!
We all went bowling and then to an Irish pub in Ozu, the city next to Aso. It was a great night but I stayed out too late since I needed to be up early to head down to the south of the prefecture for the KumaJET beach party. (KumaJET is basically the Kumamoto JET association that plans social events, philanthropy events, etc. through out the year)
The beach was absolutely beautiful! I tried zorbing, which basically puts you inside this giant ball filled with some water and then rolls you down a hill, and also luging. Both were tons of fun! After the beach day, we set up camp at a local campsite and had a bbq and party. I got to meet a lot more of the JETs that had already been in Kumamoto for a while, including randomly, one girl that went to USC, graduated my year AND lived in my dorm freshman year. (She was 9th floor, I was 8th!) I also met another girl that went to Cornell and knows a lot of Newton people (surprise, surprise) so we had a lot of friends in common.
A group of my friends didn't spend the night though, so I left with them and went back to one of their apartments to sleep. The next day we worked on planning our trip to Osaka to go visit a friend from orientation. Silver week is coming up, September 19-23, so we thought it would be a great time to try out the bullet train (goes over 300mph!) and check out Osaka and hopefully Kyoto as well. More details to come but hopefully all the planning with turn out alright. Japanese = difficult.
Overall everything is still going really well! It's hard to keep in touch without the internet, but it's getting me out of the house more! Hopefully I'll be able to post again soon, but for now, さよなら！ (Sayonara)
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