Buri Becomes Sensei

Asian Travels Pt 2 - Korea

2010-05-07T21:56:00.001+09:00

I was really excited for Korea since I have been watching more and more Korean dramas. I even printed out some basic Korean phrases to learn before going, lol, not that I really remembered them. Anyway, when we got there it was foggy and rainy, but that’s ok because we were in Korea. The airport was on an island and you drove across this really long bridge to get in to Incheon where our hotel was. Our hotel was nice and the staff spoke really good English, but it was really far from Seoul. Actually it was kind of far from the airport too. When we were trying to get a cab at the airport these guys in a van taxi tried to get us to go with them for some really expensive price and we ended up just going in a regular cab. When we got to the hotel the price counter thing said about 50 dollars, and then when he asked for the money he had apparently clicked it up to 70 and wanted that much. Then the hotel bellhop went all crazy on him and started taking money from him and giving it back to my dad. After that we found out that it is usually only like 35-40 dollars from the airport. I think. Anyway, lol, after that we only took taxis associated with our hotel to make sure we weren’t getting ripped off.

That Sunday we took the subway from our hotel which is practically underneath it through a shopping area called Tomorrow City and then trains into Seoul and while we tried to find my dad’s old ward on the internet, we couldn’t since it appeared they changed the names and boundaries. So we ended up going to a different ward and even got to hear a talk in English by the wife of an older missionary pair. Then we were invited to have lunch with them afterward and that was good. After lunch we went to this Korean marketplace and looked at all the different foods and stuff they had there. It was really cool and they had some weird stuff. There was seafood everywhere, chicken feet in bags, people cutting off chicken feet, people cutting up chickens in front of you, live seafood like crabs and stuff, etc. This was one of my dad’s favorite places and he got us these really good pancake looking things with like cinnamon and brown sugar in the middle or something delicious like that. I forget what they are called but they were delish.

After that we found the temple up in the middle of Seoul. It was small and in the middle of apartments and things, but very pretty. On the way we saw a bunch of the food stalls that have the tarp covers where people eat and drink on the streets that I saw all the time in dramas so that was exciting for me, lol.

Some of the odd things I saw in the bathrooms while there were things like plastic toilet seat covers where you push a button and it rotates around and gets cleaned before you sit down, call buttons in the bathrooms in case you need help for something. My mom actually pushed one thinking it was the flusher once and someone started talking to her on it, lol. Then there were these touch sensitive doors that when you touched would light up and tell you if someone was in there or something. A lot of the bathrooms at the different locations had some pretty funny names too. Here are pictures of that.

Anyway, on a different day we went to Suon where we went on a castle tour in a sweet dragon monorail thing and a traditional Korean Folk village that they saved and created to preserve old Korean livings. At the castle there were a bunch of stone piles where if you place a stone on it you can make a wish, and at the folk village there was a haunted house (which I went in by myself since no one else wanted to lol), silk weaving, traditional Korean dancing, and then at the end we dressed up in traditional Korean clothes and took pictures. So that was pretty fun.

The second to last day in Korea we went to a national park with a mountain called Seoraksan. Oh, and this day and the other when we went to Suon we had a tour guide named Hans and a driver (I forget his name). Hans was only a few years older than me and spoke really good English. Before going up to the top of the mountain he bought some silk worm larvae for everyone to eat. It was disgusting I must say. Anyway, Seoraksan was really pretty and there was snow everywhere on the top. Hans and I had a race to a tree near the top (I lost, lol) and there were lots of snowball fights along the way. It was actually mostly just my dad throwing snowballs at me from behind. I rarely got a hit in. And then toward the end Hans even threw some at me (I think after he figured out it was ok for him to join in). On top of the mountain however I stepped in a snow pile that went up to like my knee and my shoe and sock got soaked. That was not the most pleasant thing and no matter how many socks we kept buying, they just automatically got soaked again because the shoe was wet.

So the next day when we went to this Korean shopping area I got some cheap shoes that are super cute. I really liked the shopping place and was sad that we couldn’t spend more time there. When we were riding the trains and subways home this guy started talking to my dad in half English and half Korean and then sat by me and kept telling me that my shoes were really clean and stuff and I was like, well, they are new. Lol, he was kind of strange and it was hard not to laugh, but when I glanced up there were a couple guys across from us also trying not to laugh at this guy. So I didn’t feel so bad.

Before going to this shopping place though we went to the palace and burial grounds. We had had a tour guide for 2 days in a row and decided we didn’t want someone talking to us anymore so we didn’t hire one, and then when we got to the burial place, a lady stopped us and became our tour guide for free anyway. She took a really long time. Much longer than we wanted to spend in that place, but it was still cool to see. Anyway, that was the day that rained quite a bit and my poor pink umbrella did not survive. So I bought another one. Always before I would get the 1 dollar umbrellas that were cheap, but this time I got one that actually cost some money and it is still working well, lol. Go figure.

So ended our time in Korea. After that, the next day I went to the airport with my parents but we boarded separate planes and met up in China.

Asian Travels Pt 1 – Japan (Shikoku)

2010-05-06T23:13:00.001+09:00

As many of you know, my parents have visited me over here in the past few weeks and we went traveling a bit. Our first few places were right here in Japan. While I was with them we traveled around my island of Shikoku, and then for a week after while I worked, they went to Kyoto and Tokyo. On Shikoku the first day we had someone from my ward here show us around Kochi, the city, and we went to a place called Katsurahama. This is a really famous place around here because it is the scene of some happenings for Ryoma, a guy who helped change the Japanese government from the feudalistic era. Anyway, it is down by the beach and quite pretty. And yes, that last in this first bunch of pictures is a square watermelon lol.

After that, we went back and ate at the Hirome market place in town where it was super crowded and we got to see them cut up a huge fish (bonita I believe it was) in front of us, get some sashimi from it, and eat it. It was good. Here I have some pictures of the guys doing it.

Oh, before we went to Hirome and ate we went to the castle in Kochi and here’s some pictures of that. For the rest of the time on the island we rented a car and I drove. Now, getting around in Japan is not at all like getting around in America. For one thing, a lot of the streets in towns and cities just don’t have names, lol. On top of that, if there is a street name or sign, it’s all in Japanese. Plus, you could be going along a perfectly sound looking road, and then all of a sudden it turns into what looks like an alley street, or it just kind of ends. And you have to pay attention to your driving because while you might think it would be ingrained to stay to the left when driving after 8 months of driving that way, when you are distracted by looking for the right streets and signs and stuff, it is easy to just all of a sudden realize you are pulling onto and driving on the wrong side of the road. Anyway, luckily our car was equipped with a GPS unit. Unluckily, there were no English options. When we rented our car,

the lady showed me what buttons did what for the basics, and then we were sent off to fend for ourselves. It’s kind of cool here that because the addresses can be vague and stuff at times (lack of street names and all), that the GPS does phone numbers as well. You just have to enter a phone number of a place and it just knows the address. I was impressed, lol. Anyway, I was surprised to find out that I understood most of what the GPS would be saying about toll roads, amounts we need to pay, gas stations coming up, what lane to stay in, which way to turn, etc. So that was kind of cool.

Our first place we went to was Imabari which is on the top middle part of the island (I am towards the bottom of the island on the right). It’s right on the coast and there are huge bridges spanning little islands in the sea between my island and the main island, Honshu. We drove around Imabari for a little while trying to find the hotel with the GPS, which proved to be a little difficult because of the construction they had going right around our hotel, but we found it and then the next day we went to Imabari castle, which had a huge moat, and like all Japanese castles, extremely steep stairs, and drove across all the bridges to the main island and back. It took a while, and cost quite a bit because of the toll ways, but it was pretty and when we got back we went to Matsuyama.

In Matsuyama we went to the castle which was really cool and had trees in bloom and quite a few foreigners as well as people dressed up in traditional Japanese clothes, posing with you for free. To get to the castle was a chore since parking by the castle was full and parking in Japan is kind of scarce anyway, we had to park at a supermarket a ways away and go in and buy a candy bar just in case before taking a cab over to the castle. Since the castle is on a hill, you take a lift up to it and it is like the coolest thing ever and would never fly in America. It’s a bunch of single chairs, like chairs you would find at the desks for kids in a school, hanging from the lift to take you up – with no bars or seat belts or anything like that. Just you, hanging in a chair, being taken up to the castle, lol.

Anyway, after that we went to a shrine which was kind of hard to find because we didn’t have any phone number or address to plug in on the GPS unit, and I had no idea what the Chinese characters were to be able to look for a sign, but eventually I saw a sign back behind some buildings on a wall that had characters that might have been for the shrine, and we backtracked back to the place, and we found it! It was really big, but hidden in all these trees on the hill and looked in bad shape, not cleaned up at all. After leaving it and driving toward the Dogo Onsen where we went next, we of course found the front entrance right along a main road we had gone back and forth on several times, lol. We had to park way up on the top of what seemed like a mountain and travel down a million steps and traverse a few streets before we got to the onsen, but eventually we did. The onsen was really cool, and we didn’t really get any pictures of it since everyone’s cameras were left in the car or out of batteries, but it was all lit up at night and we got a private changing room and after soaking we got treats and water (we were automatically brought tea with our treats and I had to tell a very disbelieving lady that no, we really didn’t drink tea). Anyway, by then it was really late at night and we finally made the trip back to my little town and the next morning I was dropped off at work and my parents drove the car themselves back to the rental place in the city and caught their train for Kyoto. The next time I saw them, it was in Korea a week later.

Genki Musical!! - げんきミュージカル！！

2010-03-16T21:15:00.001+09:00

So I think I have mentioned this already, but I’m going to be in the Tosa-ben Musical that a bunch of the JETs here are putting on in order to raise money for a scholarship for a few students. Tosa-ben is the dialect here so that is what the musical is written in. Don’t worry, I have no speaking parts, I’m just a dancer. I’ll be in 3 of the dances. There is the waltz, the zombie dance (Micheal Jackson’s Thriller), and the finale which is a naruko (these japanese wooden clapper things) dance. We have had a few practices, and a couple weekends ago there was a dance retreat where everyone who was in any of the dances for the musical went to this one place far away and learned all the dances and zombified clothes and made props all weekend. On the way there I left my purse in the restroom on one of our restroom stops. I had my wallet with like $200, my DSi, my Ipod, my license, ID, and everything in there, but I got a call like an hour later because someone had turned my purse in. And nothing was taken. I swear, only in Japan does this happen, lol. So I picked it up on the way back from the weekend retreat. Anyway, the musical is going to be AWESOME!! The storyline is a mesh between Kochi’s most famous story revolving around the Harimaya Bridge and the fairytales we all know, like the three little bigs. It’s called Kanzashi Fantasy. Marisa was nice enough to translate a brief preview of what it’s about so here it is with the flier after it:

Kanzashi Fantasy

The familiar tale of the Harimaya Bridge meets a collection of twisted fairy tales in this adventure-fantasy!

After a series of misfortunes, the star-struck lovers Junshin and Ouma happen upon a mysterious old lady who tells them that their future depends on a kanzashi hair accessory. They manage to find the legendary hairpiece at Harimaya Bridge and begin to swear their eternal love. But, before the kanzashi can work its magic, the two lovers accidentally drop it into the river! In a moment of panic, they dive in to save it.

On the other side of the river, a magical world awaits. With the appearance of Cinderella and the Three Little Pigs, Junshin and Ouma’s out-of-this-world adventure begins!

What will happen to Junshin and Ouma?! Come see for yourself!

土佐の皆さんにはお馴染みの、はりまや橋とそのちょっと変わったおとぎ話の冒険物語。純心とお馬は幾多の苦境に陥った末、謎の老婆に「将来は幻のかんざしにかかっている・・・」と告げられる。その後、はりまや橋でかんざしを見つけた二人は、運命を決定しようとするその瞬間、痛い目に合い、かんざしと共に橋から落ちてしまう。川の向こうには幻の異世界が待っていた。シンデレラや三匹の子ブタたちによる、別世界での冒険が始まる！果たして、純心とお馬の行く末は？！お楽しみに！！

Graduation

2010-03-16T20:27:00.001+09:00

So this past Saturday I went to my Junior High’s graduation ceremony. It was pretty interesting. There was lots of standing up and then sitting down and then standing up and bowing a lot and then sitting down, and then standing up and singing songs and then sitting down, and then listening to a bunch of speeches and seeing each kid get up, bow to the city representatives, then the teachers, then the presenters, then get their diploma thing, then walk back and bow to the city representatives again, and then the teachers again, and then sit down. And all this while, just like in the dramas where there is dramatic heart-wrenching music in the background to get the emotions peaking, they had that same music playing, lol. It was very drama-esque as one student made her speech with this music playing in the background, and then as each graduating student stood and mentioned some memory about some of their underclassmen that they would remember. Then there was the slideshow of the students in their 3 years at the school. During some of the speeches I admit that I zoned out and started going over the dances for the musical I’m going to be in in my head, but when you can’t really catch all of what they are saying, it’s hard to try and listen after a while. Plus, the gym was sooooooo cold so moving my feet in vague resemblance of the Thriller dance was keeping my circulation going. No central heating in the schools is a real downer. But overall it was a pretty interesting thing.

School’s Ending

2010-03-16T20:25:00.001+09:00

On my last visit to my junior high before the graduation, instead of having class I went out with the 9^th graders and we played a game of capture the flag. It was kind of hard though because we played in the wide open, so there was no sneaking around and no one ever really won because it was too hard to get the flags. Then in the classroom they gave me this little square tile thing that they had all written me notes on. It’s sooo cute. I think they must have found a phrase book somewhere and copied some of the phrases out because I’ve got some pretty funny stuff on it, but I love it!! One student said he was sad I was leaving and he’s out of his mind with loneliness, another said she’s on cloud nine and that my smile is sun, a couple said it’s great to be alive (I have no idea where that came from, lol), etc etc. Then one of my elementary schools gave me a notebook with a picture of me and the school on the cover and a note written to me from each of my students, these all in Japanese, but most are simple so I understood them. One kid was like, I don’t really understand English, so thanks for the chocolate. Lol. They are so cute. The Kindergarten sang some songs for Marisa and me, and I had another elementary school sing me a song that was half English, half Japanese called Goodbye Good day or something like that. Then today I went to the Kindergarten for their Spring concert, and while I thought that Marisa and I were going to be teaching the kids the song Amazing Grace, it was really that Marisa and I were going to sing it by ourselves for the concert. Lol, surprise! We were first, and then we just got to sit with the rest of the audience and watch the kids sing. They also had this really good pianist that lives here play. I think she is younger than me. Anyway, the school year is ending here and my last class is tomorrow morning at the junior high with only the 7^th graders. Then it is Spring break (for the kids. Teachers and ALTs still have to go to work).

Dead Spiders and Flying Nuisances

2010-03-16T20:01:00.001+09:00

So recently since it has been getting warmer the flying bugs have been coming back. Somehow they get in my house (I suspect they wait around my front door till I come home everyday and swoop in once I open my door) and are annoying as heck. I just keep my pink slippers on the floor, one in the kitchen and one in the front room, to be on hand in case I see one land so I can swat it. Also, when I am sleeping I get woken up by buzzing around my head in the middle of the night as one of the little nuisances tries to attack me in my sleep. So then I pull the blanket over my head, only to start suffocating with the lack of fresh air. It has been a rough couple of nights and the battle wears on.

Then there are these weird occurrences of dead spiders. At first I called them huge, but as Marisa pointed out to me, there are much bigger ones here, so I guess I am left calling them medium sized spiders. Anyway, I have found them dead in my house. I never see live ones in the house, only these dead shriveled looking ones that are about the size of a nickel without the legs spread out. They are just in a ball, dead, on the floor. The first time I found one I was stepping into my shower, and I almost stepped on it. It was just dead there on the shower floor. Freaked me out. Had no idea where it had come from. This last time I was walking to my front door and it was right in the middle of my hall way. I mean, I guess I can understand if a spider dies against the wall or in some corner or hidden place, but both of these were like in the wide open, where I step often. What is with that? And where are they coming from? And why do they just die in the middle of the floor?

Earthquakes and Tsunamis

2010-03-16T19:01:00.001+09:00

Remember the earthquake that happened in Chile a few weekends ago? Well, this is the story of that weekend for me. So on Saturday, I had to go into the city because I'm in a musical that the JETs in Kochi prefecture are putting on (I'm just a dance person, nothing more, lol) and we had rehearsal for the people in the waltz. And I was supposed to be there at 10:30am. Then I have church in the city every Sunday, so I was like, I don't want to go back and forth, back and forth, so why don't I just get a room somewhere. So I started doing it at work, but then was like, I guess I shouldn't really book a hotel room at work, so I decided to do it at home. This is on Friday btw. So I get home, and I try to make the reservation online, only to discover that I had to have made the reservation earlier in the day. So I had no reservation. Then I figured that it wasn't meant to be. So I would be going back and forth and waking up extra early. Ok, so I wake up the next morning and have plenty of time to get ready because I actually wasn't feeling tired. I even had time to eat breakfast (a rarity). So I get to the station, think that I have plenty of time, and that I will catch an express train which costs more, but takes half the time. I thought it left at 9:04, and I got there like 7mins before it left (our station is tiny so it was plenty of time), only to realize that the express left at 8:53, and the regular train at 9:04. So when I thought I would get there at 10am and have 30mins to get to the other side of the city by street car and reach the place just in time for the 10:30 rehearsal, in reality, I would arrive in the city at 11am, and then get to rehearsal an hour late (11:30 - the express train takes an hour, and the regular takes 2). So again, I am thwarted. I get to the rehearsal and stuff and then it is over by lunch time. So ya, missed most of it. Then we all go eat and it is good, and I figure, I am in the city, with the day ahead of me, why don't I do stuff that I can't do while in Kubokawa. And I have been previously thwarted every time I have tried to watch a movie in the Theaters in the city, so I was determined that I would get to see one. So I check the bus schedule at the station, and have 35mins before the bus leaves to the mall where the only movie theater is. So I go to Book Off (a store that you can buy and sell a bunch of used books, manga, games, consols, etc - I love this place) which is at the station there and I finally have the chance to sell back my DSlite and get a DSi. So I do that, and it had been like 35mins exactly. So I run out and across the station to the bus terminal, and turns out the bus was like 2 mins late. So I guess that worked out for me. Anyway, I get to the mall, and to the theater. I stand there for a while because I kind of feel dumb being there and wanting to watch a movie by myself, lol. But I said, who cares, you don't even live in this city. So I look and of the movies playing in English that weren't dubbed, most had just started and wouldn't play again for hours. So I just kind of have to wander around the mall for 4 hours by myself. I ended up buying a bunch of bread from a bread store and sitting and eating and reading at a table for most of the time. After I went and bought a toy hamster from Toys R Us, lol. I go to the movie theater 20mins early and the guy said they weren’t letting people in and I had to wait a while. So I got to stand there on date night by myself waiting to go into the theater, lol. I had decided on the movie Valentines Day to boot, lol. I am let in, and I go to the theater, and it is empty for a while and I think, well, that isn't too bad, no one to see the weird foreigner who watches movies by herself. Then people started coming in. So I guess I did finally get to see a movie too, after a 4 hour wait. Then I walked outside, and it was dark and late, and I asked this traffic director guy about the buses and he told me the buses had stopped running at that hour. So I have to get back to the station to catch my train, but I can't really figure out where the cabs go to pick people up at the mall. So the traffic director looks around and he sees this one cab on a street at a stoplight and says that one is open. So I wait and cross the street when the little man turned green, but that was also the cabs signal to go, so it was gone. Lol. Then I just start walking along the dark street until I hit a supermarket, and figure it was light enough to be seen, so I just kind of stood on the side of the road waiting for a cab to pass by. However, I have never in my life had to hail a cab down. I always just found them waiting somewhere and got in. So I stood there not knowing what to do, and 3 cabs passed me, lol. I had never seen anybody whistle for a cab in Japan, and don't even know how to do that, lol, so finally I just leaned out into the road when I saw one coming and started waving around, and the guy pulled over. And I went home. The next morning I got up for church but not in time for the 7am regular train that I always take, so I decided to go on the express again but that got me to church late even though it was an hour faster since it left at 9am. I didn't make it in time for them to confirm my calling. Which is greeter, lol. Like the only thing I can do. So I get to church late, and find out everyone is leaving right after because a tsunami was coming. Although they kept saying big wave when they tried to explain it in English (even though I understood them in Japanese) and kept asking what tsunami was in English. I kept answering tsunami and they were like, ya, that's the word, what is it in English. Lol. Anyway, they took me to the station and I was going to leave on the 1:50pm train, trying to avoid the tsunami which was supposed to hit between 2:30 and 3pm. Kochi city is at sea level. I got to the station around 1:20 only to discover the trains weren't running. So I figured I would hunker down and wait till it had passed and catch a later train. I waited and waited and the news people showed up (shown below), they passed out free tea, made the same announcements a bajillion times, etc. I ended up waiting for 9 hours, just to discover that the trains weren't running at all and might not even be running the next morning either. Geh. So it's late at night, and I have to go out in search of a hotel. I find a cheap one, and sleep. Not having a computer to check when the first trains left, I woke up early and headed to the station. When I got there, I found out I had missed a train by 2 mins and had to wait another hour and a half about. So I did, and finally got on a train home. I made it back at like 11am missing the first half of the day at work. But don't worry, I had filled Marisa in and she told them, and then Tagashira-sensei called me and asked about stuff. When I got back in to work, I had to fill out a form for half a day of my 3 days off left. So now I only have 2 and a half days left for all of summer when the kids are on break. Sigh. And that was my weekend.

A Blossoming Tree by Ximu Rong

2010-02-17T18:37:00.005+09:00

This is a poem that is read in that same drama the song posted is from (Hi My Sweetheart). Lovely. You might want to pause the song before reading it though because they don't really go together, lol.

A Blossoming Tree by Ximu Rong

How you would chance upon me
In this most beautiful moment
For this, I have prayed to the heavens for 500 years
Prayed for our earthly fate
The Heavens destined me as a tree
Rooted aside the road of which you will walk
In the sunlight, flowers abloom
Each bloom, the hope of my past lives
As you draw near, listen carefully
Those shivering leaves are the fervor of my anticipation
And as you finally walk passed disregardingly
Behind you there falls...
Friend, those aren't flower petals
It is my withered heart

Head Over Heels In Love

2010-02-17T17:37:00.004+09:00

I recently watched a Taiwanese drama called Hi My Sweetheart and absolutely love this song that it opens up with. It's called Head Over Heels In Love by Show Luo. Sorry if it's not your cup of tea, lol.

show luo head over heels in love mp3 | lyrics

free music downloads | music videos | pictures

If you want to watch the video that goes with it click here or go to this url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3KXCdqJUIc

Long Time No Blog

2010-02-13T01:31:00.001+09:00

So, as you all might have noticed, there hasn’t been a blog update in, well, quite a while. That is part busyness, part absence, and part laziness. Lots of stuff has happened, so I will just have to summarize and leave pictures to look at. Before the winter vacation started, I went to one of my elementary school’s festivals that the first and second graders put on. They wore little fall outfits, played some music on random instruments and ran booths and games. I think that the festival was put on for all the old people in the town, because the students’ grandparents were all there and that’s about it. When I walked in I was given money (fake paper money of course) and told I could spend it on whatever I wanted. So after listening to the concert, everyone was let loose. They had several games including pinecone bowling, and hoop throwing (whatever you are able to throw a hoop around is yours), lots of food options (popcorn seemed to be the favorite), and little crafts that the kids had made for sale. So that was a pretty fun event, and I got to go during work hours so that’s cool too.

Anyway, then there was the first snowfall in Kubokawa. Marisa and I went out to the crazy flavored ice cream place that night which is where we came to have our snow pictures here. While that was the first and the snow from that time didn’t really last, it wasn’t the last time either. It was snowing the day I left for America for Christmas. You heard right, I was home for Christmas, and it was great. My travel itinerary was kind of complicated, switching trains, booking hotels, getting flights cancelled and not just planes changed, but airports changed, both on to and from, but I ended up getting there and back without too much trouble. I will save the Christmas pictures for a separate post right after this.

Because of the times of my flights leaving and coming, I had to actually stay the night the day before I flew out of Japan and the night I flew back to Japan in a hotel next to the airport. So, since I flew out of Hiroshima, I got a chance to go around that place. It was a good city. And I was proud of myself because I hadn’t looked up how to get to any of the places that I wanted to see there before actually going, so I had to find my way around this impossibly big train station that has multiple underground tunnels and stuff that pop up on all sides of different streets around the station, and then find the bus station, street car station, and which stops I needed to get off on. So the day before I left I was able to visit the atomic bomb dome, and the peace memorial museum, which was kind of intense I might add. They had display with a red glowing background of burnt buildings and these wax figurines that were eerily real looking with their arms reaching out and their skin melting off their bodies and bone and other stuff showing through. Then they had pictures that children who had survived for a little while after had drawn of people with skin falling off their bodies, and bodies littering the streets, and people screaming for water.

There were a lot of school kids there, from like middle school or something, and then there was me, an American wandering around the place by myself. It was kind of weird, but I didn’t get any more than the usual amount of stares. At the atomic bomb dome I saw quite a few foreigners that looked like tourists that had stopped in the city for a few days.

Then when I flew back from America I had most of the next day in the city since my train didn’t leave until later in the evening. So I went to the island Miyajima and to the really famous shrine there. I had always seen pictures of it, and finally got to go. It was really cool. And I didn’t know how to get there before I was actually in the city either, and found my way just fine, took the train to the ferry which got me to the island. Everything was surprisingly cheap after being on Shikoku, where transportation is more expensive because there isn’t a whole lot of it. So here are pictures of that here.

Christmas Break

2010-01-25T19:46:00.001+09:00

Christmas break was full of good stuff. I got to see everyone I planned on seeing, and it even worked out that I got to see some people even more than once so that was cool. And I got to see 4 movies (Sherlock Holmes, Avatar, Did You Hear About the Morgans, and New Moon), Avatar twice (both times 3D, but once in the IMAX), New Moon was way better than the first Twilight movie, and my dad was able to get us tickets to this movie theater with huge comfy reclining chairs where they serve you dinner and stuff during the movie. That was really cool. I definitely want to try that again. I also got to go see the musical Mary Poppins down in LA. It was amazing. I must admit that I wasn’t ever completely in love with the Disney movie, I mean, it was alright, but I never had an urge to watch it or anything, but this was so good. And I still listen to the music from it at home and have the songs stuck in my head for days at a time. And they aren’t the same old songs from the movie, there are new ones and good ones, and the story actually follows the story in the book, instead of the Disney version, although most the songs in the Disney version are still in the musical, but just seemed better. It’s darker than the Disney one with toys that come alive, and an evil nanny with disgusting medicine, but it is still magical and touching, and Mary Poppins was really good and funny. Practically Perfect. Lol. Ok, I will stop going on about it now. But it was good, so if you get a chance to see it, then please do.

Let’s see, when I got home I got some welcome home balloons and a slight scare as I came through the door, lol, but it was cool, and I got to meet Kevin’s fiancé, who is also cool.

Christmas was excellent, as always. I’d say that my biggest and most exciting thing was my Kindle. There are no book stores with English books here, so I was running low on things to read, and suddenly my problem was solved as I could buy and download as many books as I wanted to read onto it and read it wherever I want.

And it’s the global version, and works on a 3G network (like cell phones), so I can download even here in Japan (all of Japan is a 3G network so it works anywhere). I also finally got an IPod. My very first, lol. It took a while to go through and organize all my songs and play lists again on ITunes, but the job is finally done.

And we went to Disneyland!! I will let the pictures show the awesomeness that happens when someone goes to Disneyland.

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

Space Mountain and California Screamin

Hollywood Tower of Terror

Need a closer look to find me? Here ya go on the left. That is not pretend. That is real terror you see on my face, lol. And Splash Mountain is on the right here.

Toy Story above and more Buzz Lightyear below

It’s a Small World

Dumbo

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

Body Alphabet Game

2010-01-25T18:14:00.001+09:00

I have started playing this game in my classes whenever I do the alphabet, or days of the week. I found that the students almost always already knew the alphabet by sight, as well as the song, but they don’t start to write the letters themselves until middle school. So I started doing this as a type of prep for that. I split the class into teams and call 3 students from each team to participate at a time. Then for the alphabet version I call out a letter of the alphabet, and the students have to make that letter, using all 3 people, with their bodies. The fastest 3 to make the letter gets a point for their team. Then, they get stickers for their points or something at the end. For the days of the week version it is the same, except that the kids make the kanji (Chinese characters) for the days of the week after I call one out (Sunday 日, Monday月, Tuesday 火, Wednesday 水, Thursday 木, Friday 金, Saturday 土). The kids especially get creative on Friday because there are more strokes than the others that they have to make. I even had some kids pull off their shoes to use, lol. I don’t have pictures of the days of the week that the students did, but I have pictures of one school doing the alphabet, which are the ones I have posted here. I made a small album with 2 of the 4th grade classes here with only 9 pictures, have a look. I especially enjoy the one where the kids make L, and since they had to use all 3 people, the last kid just up and plopped himself on top of the other, lol. So cute.

View Full Album

Laziness brought on by Cold

2010-01-25T10:25:00.002+09:00

So as some of you already know, I have opted out of using the actual heater in my house, not wanting to pay for it since I hear it is kind of expensive. It’s kind of weird because I actually have money to pay for it now, but I still have the mindset I had at BYU that I can’t spend more money than is necessary. And since I have a kotatsu (coffee table that has a heater thing on the bottom of it, where you put a blanket over the whole thing and sit under the blanket), and it is cheaper to use since it doesn’t have to heat up the whole apartment, but just the small space under the coffee table, I just use that. While I have undoubtedly saved money, it definitely has its downsides as well. Like seeing my breath every night in my apartment, lol. Also, for a while, I didn’t want to get out from under my kotatsu and would just sit huddled in my blankets and be warm there, so my apartment got dirtier and dirtier. All my dishes were dirty, my clothes unwashed, and my fish water was turning a darkish brownish black (and yet the fish lived on). I had piles of random things everywhere, my trash was overflowing, I didn't cook real meals hardly ever (it took far too much time standing in the cold), and I didn't even go into my room to sleep on my futon anymore, lol. I would just stay and fall asleep under my kotatsu. So I was always sore, because that left me sleeping half on the couch, half on the wood floor, and not being able to turn freely in my sleep because the table was too low. Lol. It was shameful. The cold made me lazy, and I was gone for a couple weekends in a row and I do most of my cleaning on the weekends. So I had like 1 plate left that was clean (I stooped to using tupperware as a glass as well as for my cereal), my clothes were running out, my fish lived in filth, my floor had cereal and other food bits scattered on it, my body ached, I would sleep in normal clothes, my nutrition had taken a plunge, and I had bags of trash waiting to be disposed of. Lol.

But don’t worry people. I shaped up. Before I left for Christmas I decided something had to be done, lol. Obviously. It was disgusting. I finally did my dishes, swept and vacuumed my floors, and even vacuumed my couch since I ate my meals there too. I washed the table and stove and stuff, and things felt a lot better. Marisa is actually the one who cleaned out my fish water (props to her especially since she is not the biggest fan of fish). So while they were still living in a plastic mixing bowl (had no idea where to buy an actual fish bowl), at least their water was clean, lol.

Now I have things worked out. I still don’t use my heater, and I still sleep under my kotatsu, but I change into my pajamas before going to sleep, lol, and I have put cushions under it and arranged it so that I have room to turn in my sleep. I got a mat to put by my sink so that my feet don’t freeze off when I do dishes or cook, I got a clear fish bowl so that I could see when the water was getting disgusting, and I whipped out my water heater-upper thing that makes water for drinks super hot (I make hot chocolate and herbal tea mostly so I can warm my hands on the cup while its heat lasts). So now I have a clean apartment, better meals again, and no more aching muscles. Although my neck does kind of hurt right now. But I am not putting that down as a result of my sleeping arrangements. Also, I’ve done my laundry, lol. That is important as well. Although it is a pain since I have no dryer (most people don’t here) and it’s so cold that the clothes just hang wet for days, and you can never really tell if they are still damp, or just really, really cold. I still have the problem of being fa-reezing while I go to and from the shower, but I’m working on that.

Plane Tickets

2010-01-25T10:25:00.001+09:00

Recently I have had to buy lots of plane tickets to different places. I bought my round trip to America for Christmas, my tickets to Korea and China for when my parents visit, and I tried to buy another trip to America for when Kevin gets married, but ran into problems. I had booked with Travelocity before, and everything was fine, but that was using my debit card. After being told that I should have used my credit card and then just paid that off with my debit so I can build up good credit, I decided to try buying the of my trips with my credit card. So I go through everything, have a good priced ticket, and then when I click the confirm reservation button, it says it had trouble processing my card, so I tried it like 5 or 6 more times, with no luck. Then I check my account and there is zero credit, and I was very confused, because that should definitely not be the case. I thought that maybe since I had used my credit card while in the states for Christmas once at the post office that maybe they had frozen my card since I hadn’t told them I was back in America, so I called the bank, and they said that they had a plane ticket charge and then like the same thing charged 5 more times.

So I had no plane booking, and yet there was all these charges from all those tries on my credit line. So I called Travelocity and they said they should be dropped within 24 hours, and within 24 hours, it still wasn’t dropped, and then Travelocity said it would be dropped within another 48 hours, and then it still wasn’t dropped so I had to make several calls back and forth between the bank and Travelocity, finally get them to talk to each other, get codes, send faxes, etc and finally the charges were dropped. So after getting advice on how to do it from the Travelocity agent, I tried again, and the exact same thing happened. No booking, and yet it took credit from my card. This time though, since they said to wait so many days before, I waited 5 days and the charges were dropped by themselves. However, by then the good ticket price was gone. I had to go with another ticket, through other means. So everyone, be careful when trying to book online with cards. I have purchased many things online before and this is the first time it has gotten out of hand, but once was enough of a pain.

Front room light

2010-01-25T10:24:00.000+09:00

My front room light is out. It has been out for a month or so and I had recently decided to buy more bulbs for it. It’s actually 2 bulbs and when you pull the little string, they both light up, pull it again and one goes out, pull it again and they both go out, but a little red bulb lights up (reminds me of a night light), and pull it a fourth time and everything goes out. So I had thought it was a little weird that both the bulbs went out at the exact same time, but not knowing anything else to do I just got another 2 lights and switched them out. Those don’t work either, so I have come to reason that it is something else, lol. Now I am still without light. Anyone know what might be wrong?

Picassa

2010-01-25T10:22:00.000+09:00

So recently, as those of you in my family know, I have made a picassa photo album so that everyone who took pictures over Christmas break at my house could share them all and everyone could have them. What I didn’t know, was that in order to actually download pictures that were uploaded by other people, I had to have the Picassa program on my computer. So I downloaded the program, not really a big deal, but then it started going through all my files and drives looking for every picture and video that I have, and that is a lot. It took forever. It turns out I have like 17,000 pictures and like 60 or 70 movies. Then, as if that weren’t enough, it started doing facial recognition. I thought it was cool at first like, “cool, now I can have who is in what picture, nifty” but with that many pictures to go through, and me having to confirm every single face in every single picture, whether it is the tiny blurred face of a passer-by in the background, or even a drawing I did in paint, if it looked like a face it would have me ID it. And for some reason, it seemed to have me having doubles of everything. Even after leaving my computer on all day, it was only through 30% of my pictures with almost 2000 faces for me to confirm or label. I don’t know if I will ever have them all labeled and confirmed. It is just dull, time-consuming work. So those are my Picassa woes.

Embarrassing

2009-12-02T14:54:00.001+09:00

Today, when being dropped off at the train station after church I practically fell on my face a few steps out of the car and in front of everyone. I usually get stared at anyway because of the blonde hair, white skin factor, so that practically ensured that everyone there was watching this humiliating act. Luckily I was unharmed and got immediately on the train where thankfully it was mostly empty, and is actually where I am sitting now, writing this.

Church

2009-12-02T14:20:00.002+09:00

So I’ve realized that I haven’t written a blog about church yet. So I have church from 10-1pm every Sunday which is really a very nice time, but there are some complications. Namely location and trains. My closest church building would be in Kochi city which is 2 hours from where I live. Then there are the trains. Since I live on Shikoku, the smallest and most rural of the 4 islands of Japan, the trains are few and far between. So I have to take the 7am train, having me get to Kochi by 9am, then wait an hour for church to start. Not all bad except that puts my alarm going off before 6am. And since I am not a morning person I of course hit the snooze button an million and a half times which most always results in me leaving my house late and then biking furiously to the train station and barely making the train. I’ve actually even had a guy run ahead of me and have to stall the train and then once I was just told to go through without paying because there wasn’t time and then pay when I got to Kochi. Not the best of me, I know. But I have for the past 2 Sundays discovered that I have plenty of time if I just shower the night before. Anyway, so then I get to church and once chutch is over, the next train isn’t for another 2 hours until 3pm, and then another 2 hours till I get home. I get home around 5:30pm usually. So the act of going to chutch takes about 11-12 hours of the day. Luckily it doesn’t cost as much to get there because I have a discount card called the Young Weekender’s Card which gets me 40% off the roundtrip price so I end up paying ￥1680 ($18) instead of ￥2820 ($30). It would of course be more for the express train which only takes an hour, but that gets to Kochi when church starts so that wouldn’t work.

Anyway, about the actual church going. The people are so nice. They tell me it gives them encouragement to see me come from so far away to church every Sunday, but I really think it is them that are the amazing ones, coming every Sunday when it is so different from the rest of Japan. There are so many Japanese who don’t know anyting about Christianity, it being such a foreign thing, and then not drinking tea, coffee, or alcohol is unheard of. In America there is so much cariety in preferences and life style that it may be a surprise to learn that about someone but you can get over it pretty quick because you are more used to differences fgrom all the different cultures that make America. But in Japan, they seem to be a lot more sheltered when it comes to cultural differences because there simply aren’t any (or hardly any) when it comes to this sort of thing. Everyone drinks tea all the time. I feel like I’m offered tea every time I sit down somewhere. Once I decline the tea, coffee always comes next. Once I decline the coffee it’s like they don’t know what to do with themselves. Every once in a while I will get offered a sports drink after that. Then there is the drinking. Drinking is a huge part of Japanese culture. Because of the very separate personal and private way of life, it is hard to get to know anyone. Their way around that I guess is after work drinking. For even the littlest occasion, they could set up a get together where everyone drinks. Like a drinking party. I have been told (more like lectured) many times by Marisa’s section head guy, while he was drunk, that it is the Japanese culture to drink and let the guard down so to speak to connect with eachother. So by not drinking, I’m not wanting to connect with the Japanese or my co-workers. So to live such a foreign way of life with so few others doing the same, and not being able to claim being from a foreign country, is the amazing thing I think.

Anyway, the people at church try to make everything easier on me since I come from so far away. They give me food, rides, English printouts, clothes, etc etc. they try their best to include me in the lessons, which I must admit, is sometimes too kind, seeing as I mostly don’t know what they are talking about so when they call on me and ask what I think everyone just stares at me while I probably look like a deer caught in the headlights, having no idea what to say. It’s rather stressful actually. And they ask me to give prayers and such as well. I was asked to give the opening prater in Sacrament Meeting the other week and I was so nervous that I forgot half of what I was going to say, stammered over the same word 4 times, and ended it rather abruptly after like 2 lines because of it all. Then, as if to confirm how bad it really was, I swear every member came up to me after and said it was beautiful and thanked me, lol. Anyway, since then, when they ask me to give a prayer, they always say that English is fine, lol. Sad isn’t it?

Bonding with the Kids

2009-11-26T15:23:00.001+09:00

So now that I have been here long enough to have met many of the kids repeatedly, I think they are more comfortable talking to me, even if I don’t know what they are saying, lol. At the festival in town a few weeks ago a few of my junior high students were there and they came running up to me and tried talking to me, but it ended up being short because we all didn’t really know how to say anything other than the simple things that they learn in class. And I guess as you get older it gets harder to just talk to someone even if they don’t understand, which is what a lot of the elementary students do with me all the time. Not to say that I don’t understand anything of what they are saying, I understand a lot more these days, but still. Anyway, while I was at the elementary school closest to my house the other day, I was visiting the 1st graders, and they pulled me outside to play with them between classes. We played a game called Daruma-san ga koronda (Daruma-san fell down), which luckily I already knew how to play. The game that is most like it in America is Red Light Green Light, except I have to say, the Japanese version is a little more fun with its variations. Then we went inside and I did my next class, and then they all converged on me with their notebooks and all wanted me to sign their stuff and were shoving hands in my face to sign there as well, lol. Then they just wanted me to write random words in English , like America, and Happy Birthday, and stuff. When I was about to leave, a little boy ran up to me and handed me a little ripped paper and was like, it’s a letter to you! And then ran off. So I put it in my bag and left, and then when I got back to the office I read it. It essentially said his name, Kakeru Nakao, and that it was ok if I wanted to go to his house, and that I should also come again to his school. Lol. It was the nicest thing ever. There are a lot of students at that school and I always end up going away with something like some stationary, a phone charm, some origami, or something, but this was by far the best (not that I didn’t wholly appreciate the others). Anyway, at my junior high this past Wednesday, in one of my classes they had to come up and do a conversation with me and I had to ask what certain people were doing in this one picture, and the three times that this one girl, Karin, came up, I asked about the same person every time. “Emi is buying an ice cream.” Lol. So when she said it the third time, I looked up and realized, and I mentioned something about it, and we both laughed. I guess she was excited about our little moment because she told the teacher about it after class and he mentioned it to me that she said “Buri-chan (what they call me) and I laughed together.” And I had a conversation about what boys this one group of girls liked, “nice, cool, etc” and then they did this weird thing where they all sat on each other and wanted me to be the person sitting on top of all of them, lol. I don’t know why. Today I went to the 6th grade at the local elementary school and taught about Christmas in America. Then we played a bunch of games with Christmas related themes. After which a few girls stayed after and were talking to me, asking questions, and one girl kept trying to tickle me so a small war broke out. And on my way out of the school a little 1st or 2nd grader (I don’t remember what grade she actually was in) saw me, put her hand up to her mouth in surprise, and ran all excitedly toward me to give me a high five. And once she slapped my hand she just kept running, lol. Little weirdo, lol. Anyway, those are my stories of my small bonding times with some of my students. I hope more come, and that I’m not too foreign or intimidating for more students to talk to me. Gotta love it.

eNgLiSh

2009-11-17T13:24:00.000+09:00

There are a few things that are kind of weird that I’ve seen since being here, the most recent of which happened to be something written on a shirt I saw at school the other day. I was in an elementary school, watching Candice teach when I saw a jacket that a little girl wearing. On the back it said, “Playboy makes me happy” and had the playboy bunny next to it. What is that about? I’ve read some pretty crazy things on people’s shirts, with weird English that doesn’t make sense, and sometimes even swear words written all over the shirts. I wonder if they even bother to get the things proof read by someone who speaks English at all before sending it to be printed for all the world to read on the back on some small child. I admit that the grammatically incorrect attempts at English are sometimes highly amusing, but in terms of swear words, since there aren’t really swear words in Japanese, I understand that it might be harder for them to grasp what is actually being conveyed, but still, find someone to look at it who would understand first.

Pictures of stuff from the past month

2009-11-10T18:54:00.001+09:00

Discovered this display of scarecrows when we went to go get some delicious and oddly flavored ice cream (seaweed, salt, black sesame, chesnut, etc).

This is another time we went to go get ice cream.

These next ones are of the park that Marisa and I took a look at in town.

That huge slide is a slide of death. It has rollers that you slide down and by the time you reach the end there your bum is burning.

Ya, they have little go-karts for the kiddies, lol.

These next are of the TV station and from the time Marisa and I were interviewed there.

Then there was Halloween in Kochi. We went to a couple parties, but I didn’t want to carry my phone around so I didn’t get many pictures.

And although it’s blurry, this is when we went to the onsen. It was hidden in this remote part of the mountains.

And this is my office and then my desk. And last is the picture that was put in the town pamphlet that I just got today advertising my dance class that starts on the 20th.

Festival Dancing

2009-11-10T18:11:00.001+09:00

ひさしぶり皆さん、ごめんなさい！ It’s been a while everyone, Sorry! This past weekend on both Saturday and Sunday there was a festival in town. It was pretty fun. I had signed up to dance in it with the Town Hall’s team. I had the 3 nights in a row at 45 mins each before Saturday to learn the dance. Apparently they had done this same dance for the past 3 years so most people already knew it, lol. It was broken up into 3 or 4 parts and the first part was done to the song “We Will Rock You” by Queen. Except it was some of the guys from town performing it and I guess they were asking Marisa how to pronounce some of the words in it. Lol. Good stuff. Anyway, I finally got the dance down, and then when the festival started, I discovered that it was actually a competition with other groups that had formed in the town. There were a couple elementary schools and some other groups that put stuff together. At the end, this one elementary school, which I go to teach at, won first and my team won second. When they presented the prize they had us three foreigners go up and claim it and the man that was waving the flag gave me the flag to take up there with me, lol. So it was pretty cool. Oh, and they had the camera people out there filming again so the camera was in my face a lot while dancing I’m guessing because I am the foreigner that stands out the most, and then again when they presented the award, and then again they tried interviewing us after the dancing and awards were given. All I said was it was fun, lol. I’m going to try and catch it on TV with my webcamera so we’ll see how that goes. It’ll be on TV from the 12^th to the 19^th. Then I tried my hand at the fish game again, but I lost. I had the fish in my little paper hoop, but it broke. The guy gave me 2 fish anyway, which I still have. I wonder when they will die. Not that I am hoping they will by any means. But they are probably the lamest fish in existence, sitting at the bottom of the bowl all day long so I wonder if something is wrong with them. I have to tap the bowl to get them to swim around and see if they are alive still. I hesitate to name them because these fish won at games usually only last a day or 2 at the most before dying because of their traumatic lives. Also, these fish had it especially bad because they were being man-handled in the bag by a little 1 year old who seemed fascinated by them, and then had a rather bumpy journey back on my bike, as well as going through the trauma of getting swished around and caught before even encountering me. Anyway, I visited a bunch of stalls set up and bought too much food that I couldn’t finish, and helped out at Marisa’s Hawaii booth for the international club where I was told, as I have been told many times before, that I have a small face. Still don’t know whether it’s a compliment, observation, or what. Also, for some reason, a bunch of people think I’m Russian. They think Russians are petit with blonde hair, which does not seem to be the case in my mind, but oh well. Nordic I would think more than Russian. Oh, and I was also told I was like a fairy, and some older guy came to the booth a little drunk and bought the rest of the phone charms, and then started asking how much it was for me. Don’t know whether I should have been insulted or not, as I don’t think he meant it in a demeaning way, lol, but he put down a little pile of money which I think was around the equivalent of 30-40 dollars, lol. Overall it was lots of fun.

The Dangerous Harry Potter Game

2009-11-10T17:30:00.001+09:00

The last time I went to the Kindergarten, we did a huge Halloween party. We explained the origin of Halloween and the Jack-o-lantern (I even told part of the story in Japanese from memory – yay for me!) and what Americans did on Halloween and then the kids said trick or treat and got some candy, and we made paper jack-o-lanterns. It was a success. Here are some pictures of that.

Today however, I went to the Kindergarten alone since Marisa is at a conference in Tokyo. All yesterday I had planned out doing this Harry Potter game. It was going to be awesome. First I would have about 14 cards with pictures of different animals on them, and would teach the kids the name of the animals in English. Then we would play charades (what they call the Gesture Game) with the different animals so the kids could get familiar with acting like the different animals because they would need to do that for the Harry Potter game which would be next. So then, the kids would have rolled up newspaper wands and 1/3 of them would be Voldemorts (sorry for mentioning his name), and the other 2/3 would be Harry Potters. The Harry Potters would get 10 seconds to run away, and then the Voldemorts would chase them down. If a Voldemort caught a Harry Potter, then they would wave their wand and say an animal at the Harry Potter who would then have to act like that animal. The only way that Harry Potter could be human again would be if another human Harry Potter came around and waved their wand at them and said the animal that they were acting like to break the spell. And then game would go on. What actually happened at the kindergarten was craziness. The first two parts of teaching the names of the animals and charades was fine, although the kids kept shouting Harry Potter and waving their wands sporadically. When it came to playing the game, because it was raining we had to keep it inside, which meant cramped space with 40 kindergarteners running around shouting and brandishing newspaper wands. The English names were forgotten almost instantly as kids just tried to run as fast as they could and hit as many other people as possible with their wands, lol. As the game went on, they got the idea more and you could see more and more kids acting like certain animals (gorillas, snakes, rabbits, frogs, etc), but they were using the Japanese names for the animals instead of the English. That’s ok though. They are only Kindergarteners. It’s mostly just supposed to be fun for them anyway. So in all the chaos, lots of things happened. Kids were slamming into each other, being thrown onto the floor, tripping over each other, knocking heads, etc. I even saw them corner an adult with a baby in the corner of the room and start attacking her with their wands shouting animals. At one point a kid ran up to me in the middle with a bloody hand raised. He started shouting at me asking if there was really blood on his face and if I could see it. He had a little stream of blood coming down and when he showed me his head I could see a little hole there where it looks like he was somehow punctured. Luckily he seemed in control of himself and wasn’t crying but more in shock. So I led him out of the fray and one of the teachers took him aside. Apparently he had been hiding under the piano and when he went to get out he stood up too early and hit his head on the corner of it. So then he sat in the corner with his wand and a towel held to his head. Poor kid. Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun and other than the bloody kid and one that hit his head on someone else and started crying, there were no other injuries. Anyway, then I went and played with the kids for a half hour and had lunch with them and played this playground game that I kind of got the idea of after having played it outside with the kids last month. One kid is sitting with their head down and the others hold hands and circle him singing some song. Then they stop and start pushing the kid on the floor around and ask him a question at which time the kid answers saying they are going home. Everyone asks why and he says its dinner time and they ask what he’s having, and he answers with something like curry and everyone says “thank goodness” (except in Japanese of course) and starts again. But if the kid answers with “snake,” then everyone runs away and the kid has to catch someone. (or something like that). So we played that game after which the kids saw fit to climb all over me like monkeys and have me drag them around. Then I returned to the office where I am now. Pretty crazy.

For You Michael Jackson Fans..

2009-10-10T20:43:00.004+09:00

So this is totally unrelated to my stay in Japan, but I was thoroughly impressed and had to share. So if you love Michael's music, you have to watch this:

Thanks be to Kevin who showed me this.

Things to Do

2009-10-09T11:25:00.003+09:00

When talking with co-workers Marisa and I said that we wanted to join some groups or classes around town and found out that they have some people that get together to play basketball every Monday night for a couple hours. So I was invited to go watch and play with them. I didn’t have inside gym shoes (required to play in there) so I just went and watched the other week. I finally found out a place where there are young single people. The team was made up of single guys in their 20s or early 30s. There used to be girls, but I guess they all got married and pregnant, so they don’t play anymore. That’s too bad. So I watched, and it looked like it would be playing with a group of guys like I used to up in Seattle or Portland, but this time around I wouldn’t know anyone, and I wouldn’t even be able to really get to know them, because I can’t really talk to them. Plus, I think I make them nervous being a foreigner with blonde hair and such. So it might be awkward if I go play. And I haven’t played in a really long time, so I wouldn’t even be very good. Right now I’m still debating on whether to actually play with them. They said I could just show up when I wanted so I don’t have to like join their team, so we will see.

On another note, my request to start a folk dance class was approved. It'll be starting on November 20th. I wouldn’t be nervous except for the fact that again, I can’t really speak freely about things because I don’t know the language that well, but I will just have to see how it goes. I’m really excited for it. I have no idea how many people will show, if any, but whatever. I hope it will be fun for the people that do come. There is going to be an ad going out in the next town newsletter, so we’ll see how many people respond. Here are some links to watch the dances I will be teaching that I found online for anyone wondering:

D’Hammerschmiedsg’selln - Germany
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=D%E2%80%99Hammerschmiedsg%E2%80%99selln&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

Doudlebska Polka - Czech Republic
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=D%E2%80%99Hammerschmiedsg%E2%80%99selln&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#q=Doudlebska+Polka&hl=en&emb=0

Cumberland Square - England
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5061717781478339729&ei=G6HBSsakMYzOwgOOi8DaCQ&q=Cumberland+Square+&hl=en

Canadian Barn Dance - Scotland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cReYv8NfNpw

Road to the Isles - Scotland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8atNdDA3oQ0

La Bastringue - Canada
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7kXysxLtpA

Rustemul - Romania
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkcWd4uJFQ8

Korobushka - Russia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luv6fbUr1qw

Bucimis - Bulgaria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzScEd5wy4A

Mona’s Festvals - Sweden
no vids found.

Armenian Miserlou - Armenia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKHxZfU32o

Salty Dog Rag - USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6zSOC9FZTs

My Little Lizard Window Friend and the Flies

2009-10-09T11:18:00.003+09:00

So almost every night I get a little scare when I walk into my kitchen. I walk past the window and out of the corner of my eye I see what looks like a hand pressed against the window and of course I jump and sometimes even let out a little scream/shout only to discover that it is a lizard’s underside. I don’t know why he chooses my kitchen window as his post every night, but no matter how often I see him, he continually makes me jump in small moments of fright more often than I would like.

And speaking of my kitchen, I have had a problem with little mini beasts flying around because of fruit peels and such. Trash is collected every Monday and Thursday morning, so Fruit peels just sit in a little bag in my sink and no matter how tight I tie the bag, the little devils are there. They are too small to be killed by the fly swatter because they just go through the little holes, and bug spray seems to have little or no effect. The first time I encountered them, after trying everything I could think of, I resorted to using my vacuum to suck them out of the air, and probably looked ridiculous to anyone who might have seen me thorugh my window, waving around the vacuum in the air, but that’s what I did. It wasn’t the most efficient way to go about it because it seems the vacuum only sucks like right where the hole is, so I had to sneak up on the little things and slowly draw them in, but I had to be rid of them. The whole operation was too troublesome. Yesterday though, I didn’t have my kitchen light on so the only light was from the sliding doors in my front room, and I discovered that they had migrated over to the sliding doors, and I simply had to open the doors and they all flew out. It was amazing. And Marisa told me her trick is to put her fruit peels and such in a bag in the freezer until trash day, and the little flies stay away. What a relief.

Typhoon and Freddy Dream

2009-10-09T11:06:00.003+09:00

So there was a typhoon that came through the other day. It was raining for a couple days before it actually hit, and the day before it was getting pretty windy. Apparently it wasn’t very big, but it was the strongest Kochi has seen in 21 years. The winds were at 60km/second. People around town were calling the office about it and meetings were being held in schools about it and all that, but everything turned out alright. I closed my storm shutters and went to sleep around 11pm, with the typhoon having been predicted to hit around midnight. However, I didn’t wake up for anything, so how bad it really was I don’t know, but when I went outside to head to work that morning it was sunny with a few white clouds in the blue skies. The only evidence that the typhoon had even been through was the wet ground and remaining winds. Well, that and the fact that 2 of the umbrellas that I’ve already broken were strewn about in front of my house, lol.

Anyway, so that morning, because I had shut my metal storm shutters on the outside of my windows, it was pitch black when I woke up. I actually woke up from a scary dream and that whole morning while showering and getting ready I was all jumpy and scared. For those of you that have heard some of my dreams, you know that they can get kind of crazy and intense. It was a dream about Freddy Krueger. I don’t even know how his horror films go normally since I don’t think I’ve even seen one, but it was kind of like The Ring in a way. This particular dream was kind of disturbing and scary so you don't have to read it, but it went like this:

The idea in the dream was that if you watched one of his movies then he would come after you. After having watched his movie you would get a warning and start bleeding because of something, like cutting yourself or being hit with something. And then online you would get a riddle about how you were going to die and if you figured it out you could escape being killed by him. So it was night and my friend had a guy over and they were going to watch a movie. I told them that they absolutely couldn’t watch a Freddy Krueger movie and then I went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and walked into the front room to find the only light being the snowy screen of the TV and my friend and the guy asleep on the couch. I walked up to the DVD player and found the Freddy Kruger DVD in there and knew they had watched the movie. Then they woke up and I was frantic about them having watched the movie. Because I was in the house, even though I didn’t actually watch the movie, I was now implicated. Then something flew across the room and hit my friend in the head and she started bleeding. That was the first sign. She was the first target. So we got online and sure enough, there was a riddle waiting for her. It had the numbers 20,000 and 8,000 repeated twice in it (that’s all I remember of the riddle). We were sitting on the couch trying to solve it and thinking of how much time we actually had until he struck, and then I had a flashback to something. It was like I had been involved in the same situation before but was the only one to survive the last time. I saw flashes of blood, people dead, and how they died, and I thought, it’s happening again. And then I woke up.

So anyway, I was thoroughly freaked at home that morning, but once I left the house I was fine.

School

2009-10-01T15:58:00.003+09:00

First of all. There are a few things that I have discovered about students in Japan. First, every elementary student knows how to ride a unicycle. Second, . And third, . Anyway, school so far as been good. Well a few weeks ago I did have this class with a bunch of wapaku boys (misbehaving). They called it the ichiban mondai class (number one problem class) for all of Shimanto. They were a little crazy to say the least. Paper airplanes and balls flying all over the place, shouted conversations across the room, jumping out of seats, etc. The poor teacher, she would go to one area to try and settle them down and the rest of the class would be going crazy. Then this teacher came in and just smacked a kid on the head and told him to be quiet. In another class this one teacher grabbed a kids arm and started yanking him out of his desk really hard and then tried to fornce him to sit on the floor in the same fashion. In other words, discipline in schools here is way different than in America. I'm still working out exactly what the rules are because it seems to be the opposite for most of the time, where the teachers just ignore the problem children and continue with class. Perhaps it was just becuase I was a guest that they were cracking down. I don't know. Anyway, in Japan, kids all have the right to be in the classroom, so if they are really bad, they don't get sent out or to the principal's office but are just ignored for the most part. I hear carious stories from different ALTs of bizarre situations like this. For example, this one ALT was in class when all of a sudden a student just took out scissors and started repeatedly stabbing the wall, but the teacher just kept teaching. Discipline is done outside of class time I guess. And it's not the parent's responsibility, but the teachers's. Even if the student gets in trouble outside the calssroom and school, like with the police, they go to the school first, not the parents. The school and teachers are responsible for a large part of raising children. Therefore, teachers are a lot more respected here and it's harder to become a teacher. Pretty different huh? Anyway, I guess I will end that there. Till next post.

TV Interview

2009-10-01T12:56:00.004+09:00

So. I was interviewed for TV the other day with Marisa. In retrospect it was fun to do, but while actually doing it I felt like a big idiot. And I dread tomorrow. That's when it first airs. Then it will continue to air for a week...14 times a day. And it doesn't stop there, they'll continue to show it periodically for some time to come. They still show interviews of people who have already left Japan. Oh gosh. Everyone is going to watch it. My students, the parents, the other teachers, my coworkers, neighbors, etc. How can they not see it when it's on 14 times a day and there are only like 4 channels to watch?! Oh gosh. I don't think I'll be able to show my face anywhere. It was all in Japanese so just for that reason I'll sound weird, and then my answers were kind of ridiculous as well. I said I was from Palmdale and it was hot there but Shimanto was more humid, and that I started getting interested in Japan when I was younger becuase my brother watched Dragonball Z and played video games and I watched and played with him. Yes, Kevin, I mentioned you (but not by name), and now they will all know what a nerd I am. Sigh. And I was talking all stilted because I was nervous. Luckily I was barely saved from 1 major embarassment. After asking what I thought of Shimanto (I said it was a lively town) the lady had skipped a question and asked the one after, which was to ask the people of Shimanto if we had a request for them, and since I was so nervous, I wasn't listening to the lady's questions, but Marisa answered first and I realized she was looking at the camera making her request. So I didn't give an answer to a different question. Ugh. That would have been the worst. Anyway, I just said that I wasn't good at Japanese yet, so please take care of me. The guy who drove us to the interview said Marisa sounded fine but he could tell I was nervous. Lol. What does that mean??!! Lol. I almost don't want to watch it. But I will. I have to. I have to find out what all the other people in this town will be seeing. Plus, we had to smile like the whole time and the muscles on my face were protesting in the form of spasms. Maybe they will edit it so I don't look so unfortunate, but I don't know if they can work such miracles. They have only had cable since April afterall. Well, I guess that is all. Pray for me people. Lol. I have to face these people who will have watched it tomorrow.

Wakayama

2009-09-26T14:45:00.002+09:00

This past weekend was my first trip while in Japan this year. We went to Wakayama (as the title suggests) which is actually on the main island of Japan (Honshu). We actually almost didn’t make it there the first day because we couldn’t find the ferry in the morning, lol. We were in like a 5-10 min vacinity the whole time, but couldn’t actually find it. The signs were not the best. We asked for directions from this one guy and he got us to a ferry terminal, but it was the wrong one. Finally, with only like 5-10 mins before the ferry was supposed to leave, we made it there and got on safely. We were the second to last car to get on the ferry, lol. Pretty crazy. Here are some pictures from the drive there and the ferry ride (the first is the same ferry we were on except going the other way).

That last one there was me, lol. It was cold on the water in the early morning. I think it was like 6am. So when we got to Wakayama we drove another few hours to this open air onsen (public bath) that was right on the beach and relaxed there and then drove another couple hours up into the mountains where we went to Koyasan which is on a mountain surrounded by other mountains above the clouds. It was really pretty. Although when we were going through the clouds it was suuuuper foggy and scary because the roads were windy and narrow with cars going both ways. Here are some pictures of that.

That second to last one is Marisa and that last one is me (or at least a silhouette of me). Anyway, we got to Koyasan at night and then spent the whole next day walking around and seeing everything. Koyasan is a small place on top of the mountain built in respect of the beginnings of this one school of Buddhism. So it’s one temple after another and a whole lot of history. There was this one place, not exactly a grave yard, but a memorial place with monuments and markers everywhere for like a 20 minute walk and at the end, there is a bridge that once you cross, you aren’t allowed to take pictures anymore because you are in the place that the founder of that school of buddhism is. He is said to still be there meditating and people bring offerings of food and stuff for him. Here are some pictures around Koyasan.

That’s me on the bridge in that last one. Pretty isn’t it? The video above was at the end of the cemetery place. There was a line of statues and a line of people in front of them to splash water on all of them. I’m not sure why exactly, maybe to purify them or something, but there it is. Anyway, that was our trip to Wakayama. Fun times!

Undokai (Sports Day)

2009-09-25T19:06:00.003+09:00

This past Sunday was my junior high school’s Undokai (sports day). It’s not really something that they have in America so I will explain. It’s like a big sports competition between the school. The school is divided into groups (mine was in 2 groups – red and white – because there aren’t that many students) that compete against each other. With each event the winners get a certain amount of points and whichever team ends up with the most points at the end wins. Actually, because there aren’t that many students and the elementary school is right next door it was a combined thing with the elementary school. So they compete, but not in the traditional sense. The track events were pretty standard, but then there were weird activities and relays that were pretty funny to watch. Oh, and all the parents and people come to this event as well to watch. So, I guess I’ll go through the activities and post pictures about them.
First here is a picture of just a regular race being ran and then after that is a picture of a relay the elementary students did where they had to climb a bamboo pole and grab a paper banana hanging from the top, then run back to the line for the next person to go.

After that there is a picture where the students each got a corner of a circle of rope and then tried to grab the flag that was sitting just out of reach in a cone. Lol.

This next event was really funny. It was with the junior high students and it was a sort of obstacle course. They first had to run to an area with a bunch of baseball bats and then with the bottom of the bat touching the ground, put their heads to the top of the bat and spin around like 10-15 times. Then they had to walk across a balance beam, and then crawl under a stretch of net. After that they had to run over to a huge pad (like the pad you land on after high jumping) and blow up a balloon enough to pop it when you sit on it. Then they of course had to sit on it and pop it and run over some hurdles to the next phase. At this next place they had to splash water on their faces, and then dig something out of a box full of wheat powder with their mouths and eat it. Then, with the white wheat powder all on their face, they have to read this statement into the microphone and then run through the finish line. Lol. The statement was usually some weird embarrassing statement. I could only catch what a few of them meant but the kids always laughed and looked embarrassed or something, lol. Here’s pictures of that one.

Next was the course for the elementary school students. They were so cute. They were all wearing blue plastic capes and rain boots. First they had to race their scooters down a stretch, then throw a ball to hit a target, and then climb up on a platform and jump onto the high jump pad to pop a balloon, then run to the finish line. Lol. It was funny because the balloons were being held the the pad by tape at first but the kids were getting tangled up in the tape so they stopped using tape and then the balloons kept drifting in the wind every time a kid tried to jump on it, lol. But they were able to do it after some time.

The next event was a junior high one where there was a person from each team (red and white) who had a basket on their back and they ran around trying to avoid getting bean bags thrown in the basket by the other team.

The junior high also put on some uniforms and did a cool cheer thing before that.

Then the elementary students lined up and as a teacher beat a huge drum he would stop and call out different poses, and the students would do the poses (like v, airplane, tokyo tower, etc)

Then there were some relay races where they students competed against their parents or siblings, and there was an race where the the different teams would launch bottles into their air and another student after students would have to catch the bottles, and there were some dances done as well.

The dance above in the middle picture was the elementary school dance. Then I posted the junior high dance. The junior high also did a dance competition between the teams, which was really funny because some of the guy students on the team that won were dressed up as rocker chicks and playing air guitar right in front of the judges, but I couldn’t get pictures because I was actually a judge for that event. Then my camera ran out of battery before I could get pictures of the really cute grandma and grandpa relay that the elementary students did. They put on little vests that old people wear here and had a cane and then slippers that were tied together so they had to shuffle their feet. Then they had to race all hunched over with the cane on the ground, one hand behind their backs, shuffling their feet. It was the cutest thing ever and they really did look like little grandmas and grandpas, lol. I got to participate in this event called Dragonball. It was all the teachers split into 2 teams partnered up, where one person stomps on one end of a small teeter-totter thing making a ball that was on the other end fly up and the partner has to catch it, then run back to the line where the next pair would go. I was the stomper. Anyway, this was a long post so I will go ahead and end it there, but it was tons of fun to watch. I’ll post some videos throughout the blog of some of the stuff too.

Grape Picking

2009-09-25T12:23:00.000+09:00

The other day Marisa and I went to this place where you can pay a set price and then pick and eat all the grapes that you want. The ride was a bit far and it was up and down this big hill, but it was sugoku kirei. Really pretty. The colors of all the fields and flowers were really bright and vivid so all in all it was a nice bike ride.

At the actual place of picking grapes it wasn't exactly what we expected in that we each only cut one bunch of grapes down and then just sat and ate grapes for a while while they brought us more of different kinds instead of us actually getting the grapes for ourselves, but they were really good. Japanese grapes are a lot bigger than the grapes you normally eat in America and the skin is a lot thicker. Most people don't eat the skin here because its thick and dries your mouth out leaving a kind of bitter taste, but luckily the skin separates from the grape easily.

Here are some pictures of all the scenery on the way too and from the grape place and then a couple in the grape place. The white bags hanging around me are the grapes. I don't know why exactly they have the bags over the grapes, but there it is. The picture of the frog is because there were like 6 of those little guys hopping all around me the whole time. They never actually came into contact with me, but they were everywhere! Lol, cute, but I wasn't about to let one of them land on me. I had to be ready to move at any second.

Anyway, this is what it looks like where I live right now for the most part. Country with nothing to do really yes, but really really pretty.

Temple in my Town

2009-09-24T20:42:00.004+09:00

One of the things Shikoku is famous for is the 88 temple pilgrimage. People from all over come to Shikoku and make the trek around to all 88 temples wearing white outifts with hats and sticks. You can see them all over. A lot of these people come through Kubokawa here because we actually have one of the 88 temples. Here are some pictures of it that I took.

Discovery

2009-09-24T19:00:00.001+09:00

I just discovered that if you click on the pictures in the blog they get enlarged. Lol. Everyone probably already knew that, and I'm just late in finding this out, but on the off chance that there was someone out there who didn't know, and was thinking, I wish I could see it bigger, now you know you can click on it and see it. Lol.

Yosakoi Extras

2009-09-24T17:49:00.005+09:00

Hey there everyone. So I just got pictures from Yosakoi that were taken by other people of Marisa and I actually dancing in it, lol. So I will post them here. You can see how ridiculous we looked, but it was still way fun. These pictures are mostly from the first street we did which was also the least crowded (thankfully).

Welcome Party/Karaoke

2009-09-24T15:30:00.011+09:00

Apparently one welcome party at the beginning of my stay here wasn't enough because they went ahead and scheduled another one. Lol. This one was going to be with the people in Taisho (town next to us) as well, but they didn't end up coming so it was just our Board of Education again. Anyway, at the beginning Marisa and I had to make a speech (in Japanese of course) and I was so nervous. I was like shaking and it was kind of ridiculous, lol. I said, "Because of my love for stories, I studied English literature at college. But because I thought Japanese food, culture, and language were interesting, I also studied Japanese. The time i spent studying Japanese was really fun, so I wanted to come to Japan and let the students here have fun learning English. So when I heard I was coming to Shimanto Town I was really happy. Thank you for taking care of me until now and please continue to take care of me." It is kind of a literal translation so it might sound a bit weird in English but you get the jist. Anyway, there was lots of food but Marisa and I got whisked away to go greet the head honchos and we had to pour them all sake so we didn't get to eat a lot. It was kind of weird to be pouring drinks for other people when I don't drink, but it's a show of respect and culture here I guess. Anyway, toward the end I had had some conversations with people, and then a group of office workers were asking me questions about being Mormon (as they always do in a drinking setting becuase I don't drink) and what I can and can't do/eat/drink. I had actually found out that one of the girls from the ward I go to knows one of the girls in the office. They went to high school together, so that was pretty cool because she already knew a Mormon, and a Japanese one at that. Then, a few of us went out for karaoke after. Lol. I didn't want to sing by myself at first, but after a while we were all just choosing songs and singing whatever we wanted. All the songs I sang were in English (got some Boston, Mama's & Papa's, Disney, Backstreet Boys, and Queen in) and then the last song I sang was in Japanese. My voice was a little shakey and I couldn't catch all the words because it was hard to read it (it was going too fast), but I got through it with applause at the end, lol. Fun times.

Welcome Camp

2009-09-07T19:12:00.007+09:00

I have been remiss in posting in my blog, but am determined to make up for it now with a bunch of entries about the past month. To start, like a month ago I went to a camp with a bunch of the kids from around Shimanto. We went swimming in the shimanto river and jumped off a bridge and a dam into it as well. We stayed in cabins and Marisa and I were even in charge of one of the cabins of girls (although there was another supervisor who did most of the work).

The night we slept in the cabins they had a haunted walk around the camp grounds where the leaders dressed up in scary things and popped out to scare the kids, lol. Marisa and I went with different groups and the little girls were clinging to us. There was this one girl in a pink outfit (you can see her in the picture of me with the group of girls with the guy in an eyeball costume behind us) that was holding onto me for most of the time screaming "kowai!!" "mou yada!!" which pretty much means I'm scared! I've had enough!

Or something similar, lol. It was really funny and cute. The only frustrating thing about the camp was that I couldn't really talk to the kids at all. I had no idea what they were saying becuase they talk to fast and short and kind of slurred. But I guess that is ok. When you can talk with kids then you are fluent I hear, and fluent I am not, so I shouldn't expect to be able to. Also, I keep seeing the kids that went to the camp in my classes that I go to and I feel bad because I don't remember their names. There are too many of them. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!

Haircut

2009-09-07T12:57:00.006+09:00

So I got a haircut a while ago. I told them that I wanted my bangs, and to keep it relatively the same length, but other than that they could give me a haircut that suited me. So, as I suspected, the guy thinned my hair out like crazy. It is the same length, but the amount of hair that is actually the full length has drastically been reduced. It's still the thickness on top though. When I put it into a ponytail though it's like there is nothing there but a few wisps. It's really weird. It reminds me of a mullet in a way, but it doesn't look like it. Or at least I hope it doesn't anyway, lol. I actually quite like it. It's really nice in the heat because there isn't that much hair around my neck anymore. Also, it works really well with my hair when I don't do anything to it. Before when I just let it air dry it was a mess all flat against my head and then waving in ways that weren't at all a pretty site but now when it starts to wave or curl it kind of works with the haircut and doesn't look so bad. Anyway, a picture that I took the same day with my webcam.

Ayu Matsuri & the 24 Hour Charity

2009-09-07T11:41:00.014+09:00

Well, it's been like 2 weeks since I actually went to the Ayu Matsuri (festival) but I guess it's better late than never. This was an exciting festival for a few reasons. It was small, but unique. At night, the men from the near-by towns went out into the river on small boats and demonstrated how fishermen used to catch fish with fire. So they floated around with lanterns waving huge burning sticks over the water. It was pretty cool looking. Here are some pictures. They are kind of dark because it was after all at night, and they were a little ways out in the water, but I think you can make out some people. Another reason it was a cool festival was because we dressed up in our yukata to go. It wasn't really a festival where you dress up in yukata, like the Nakamura one would be the following week, but Nare (from Korea) was finishing up her year here in Shimanto-cho and was leaving before that next festival, and Marisa and I had volunteered to help run a booth at the 24 hour Charity the same night as the Nakamura festival, so we made the most of it. Luckily there were a few others there that were dressed up, so it wasn't like we were completely out of place (excepting the fact that it's impossible to completely blend in as well because of the tall, white skin, blonde hair factor). Anyway, we ate shaved ice, watched the fishermen on the river with the fire and then the fireworks.

The next week was the 24 Hour Charity event. There was a 24 Hour Television Charity going on where there were celebrities doing stuff like one lady was running some marathon, or something and different celebrities did a drama to show, and in our town, they hosted what seemed to be almost a carnival.

It seemed like a matsuri (festival) because of the food stands and games set up, but then there was entertainment as well. There were clowns, hula dancers, people dressed as turtles dancing, the kid's taiko (Japanese drums) group, kindergarten classes (which I got video of but it turned out sideways for some reason), etc all performing. Oh yes, at the end of the night there was a group of 3 guys who did a little break dance thing and said they were always looking for new members. I got some video of that (sorry it's a little blurred - I took it on my cell phone). I'll try and post that here and hopefully it isn't all out of sync like the Yosakoi videos were. Anyway, our dart blowing stand was pretty fun, and this one guy even got Marisa and I some yakitori (teriyaki chicken on a stick essentially) which was soooo good, and then some curry, which, of course, was also delicious. We also got some cream soda, which contrary to what you might think, ended up just being a float (like a melon soda float, or coca-cola float). Anyway, enjoy the pictures!!!

Firtst Week of School

2009-09-07T11:30:00.002+09:00

It's been a while. Things have been really busy. My first week of school is now past. While I say first week, it's actually just 2 days with classes and 1 where I introduced myself to the school. On Tuesday I went to my junior high and introduced myself to the whole school. Now, I say whole school, but really there are only like 33 kids in the entire junior high. There is 1 class per grade and each class only has like 8-12 students. So I did that in English with a little bit of Japanese like they said and then got a tour of the school. The next day I went back and I had all 3 classes. I pretty much did my self introduction in detail that time and then had question and answer time with the students. I was asked some pretty strange questions like `does Palmdale have camels?` (because it's a desert), `you have good taste, why?` and `were you in Harry Potter?` (because I showed them a picture of me dressed like Hermione). Sadly when I answered the kid I said yes joking around and he started telling all his friends. Then he found out it wasn't true, lol. Poor guy. My second years were the most responsive and thought my brothers in my family picture were very `kakkoi` (cool) and that my niece and nephew were so `kawaii` (cute) and everyone was surprised that Jonathon was like the same age as the teacher I team teach with. Anyway, the next day I went to an elementary school and did grades 1-5 all at once seeing as there were only 11 students. They were really cute. When I was leaving, one of the funny boys was like `come back because I love you` lol (in Japanese of course). Marisa came and watched me do that and then did the head, shoulders, knees and toes song with me and the kids. This afternoon I go to watch another ALT teach and then Tuesday I go with Marisa to a kindergarten in the morning and meet up with the junior high teacher to talk about what to do for Wednesday's classes. We'll see how it all goes!

A Good Day

2009-08-24T11:04:00.002+09:00

Today was a good day. (This was actually written a few days ago, just not posted). Not that anything especially exciting happened, just some small things. I got to work and then went with a co-worker to a bunch of the schools I'll be going to. He speaks relatively good English, but still quite a bit in Japanese. So we had kind of a mixed conversation for the 3 hours we were gone from the office and I actually managed to put together what I considered a complex sentence. I felt all proud of myself, lol. Most of the time I get by with simple statements or questions and lots of gestures. So it was raining, and I was driving (uwaa!!), and all these cars were driving all fast and going into the oncoming traffic's lane to pass me when I was already going 10 over the speed limit. So I told him that in America, if it's raining when people are driving, they usually slep down, becuase it's dangerous, but in Japan, it's different and people are still driving so fast. Maybe it still sounds simple, but I was all proud of myself, lol. Also, I met my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) for the junior high I'll be teaching at and had already met him. We'd danced at Yosakoi together, lol. He was on the team. He had told Marisa and me that this one kind of tree that lined the roads smelled really bad or something and then before we actually went up to the tree and started sniffing it we found out that he was joking. Anyway, while I was there I talked to some students and then introduced myself to some kindergardeners. So nothing big, but I drove for hours on narrow roads that the car barely fir on with a vertical drop into water on one side and a wall of overgrown bushes on another and didn't die, and made a small step towards better Japanese fluency. And I found out that my co-workers are amazed at how much I eat because I don't look it. I didn't think I ate a particularly large amount of food, but I guess they only see me when really good food is around and I'm stuffing my face. Oh, and another good thing that's small but still good, is my last 2 meals have been curry. It took a couple hours and a couple phone calls to figure out how to get my rice cooker to work (all the buttons are in Japanese) but I finally ended up with some rice and could have curry. Gotta love the curry.

My Town

2009-08-16T20:06:00.012+09:00

So I just discovered that this never actually got posted. SORRY!!! But here is some stuff on my apartment and town that I put together in the first month I was here. So my apartment has some additions like a couch, but it's essentially the same. I’m on the bottom right when looking at the place. You can see my sliding door there. And my laundry hanging out to dry, lol. Also, there is one road that’ll get you there. It’s a 2 way road even though 2 cars definitely can’t fit side by side. As you can probably tell in this picture here. The walk outside my place has a lot of frogs at night so in the morning you can see some of the frogs smashed from the cars on the ground. There's a picture. It's really sad. Then there is a video of my apartment above. I was going to include a video of the walk from my apartment to work (which is kind of long - 7mins) but the video doesn't seem to load. Anyway, towards the end of the walk there is this path that has plants and trees all around where cicadas are always screeching non-stop and I always have a fear that a cicada will leap out and cling to me with its little claws, screeching all the while.
Cicadas can be heard all over the town. I’ve seen a few live ones, and some dead ones on the ground (as seen in the picture), but for the most part they are hidden in the greenery constantly making noise. And they are loud. Outside my back window too where there's the river that runs right behind the bamboo trees. Here’s a video I took of outside my back window while recording the song that plays over the speakers throughout town everyday at 5pm. In the old days, they would have a siren go off at 6am, noon, and 5pm to let the farmers know what time it was. These days they have thankfully foregone the 6am siren. Nowthey only have the siren at noon and have changed the 5pm one to a song. Have a listen.

Now here are some pictures of the different places around town. These first ones are the train station. I go here at least once a week for the 2 hour trip to church every sunday.

This next is Miyata, the supermarket closest to my house that I go to usually for my food.
And last are a couple pictures. The big brick one is the bank next to my work and the other building is my work. Then there is the main road by my house. If you see the orange sign on the left I live like right behind the store that that sign belongs to.

Weather and Hair

2009-08-16T19:53:00.002+09:00

Perhaps you have heard on the news about the typhoon and earthquake that hit Japan. The earthquake was actually up north, so I didn’t feel it since I’m in the south, and the typhoon hit the west coast and I’m on the east. So instead we just got a torrential downpour (as some of you experienced through the poor connection online while trying to talk to me – sorry about that). Anyway, don’t worry people, all is well here in Kubokawa. Although, with the recent rain came an increase in what was already humid weather and my hair has become ever more wavy/curly than it was getting. Now don’t picture super curly hair like some type of perm. But it’s started going in ringlets on its own. Weird gross ringlets I think, but ringlets nonetheless. And my bangs that aren’t long enough to form ringlets go about half way, so really they just flip out on either side of my head like little wings. This picture might not look so bad, but believe me, this is on a good day. I suppose it would be mildly amusing if I didn’t have to sport the winged look every day. Straightners do nothing but make you that much hotter when you start your day. Hairdryers too. So I’m going to be getting a haircut soon to trim my bangs and hopefully cure the wing madness and get a cut that actually fits the length (a few inches past the shoulders). I’ll be finding pictures on the internet of styles to show the cutter so if you have suggestions comment and let me know or just leave me a link to a picture in the comment box. Alright. I’m out.

Gaijin Moment

2009-08-16T19:43:00.001+09:00

So I had a gaijin (foreigner) moment today while I was in Kochi. One of which will almost surely not be that last. I was on the street car/tram and I had a ¥500 coin while my fare only cost ¥190. So I get to my stop and start putting my ticket in where you put money, then after motioning to put my money in the slot I did, and change came out and I took it and started to get off when again I was stopped, lol. That slot was just to get change, not actually to pay. So by now there are at least 5 or 6 people waiting to get off so I hurry and give the guy 2 ¥100 coins and start getting off when I have to be stopped again because I left my ¥10 worth of change. Lol. After all this happened things came back to me from last time in Japan on bus procedure and such, but apparently a little over a year without it is enough to forget. So, the next time, in order to make things run more smoothly so the tram stays on time (the Japanese public transport os ALWAYS EXACTLY on time), I got my change from the change maker before I got to my stop, and put the money and ticket in the right slots. Now paranoia has set in every time I do anything related to transportation tickets. Well, there’s kind of a constant paranoia and stress that comes with wondering if I’m doing something wrong and/or offending someone at any second anyway, so it’s nothing new, but still perhaps a little more of an acute panic attack than the constant worry that looms over you while living here where social norms and etiquette are so different. Perhaps by the time I get a little more comfortable with it it will already be time for me to go home and then I’ll have to adjust to the old way of life again. Or maybe no one ever is truly ever comfortable with living in a different culture no matter how many years. We’ll have to see! So for now, ganbaru. I’ll try my best and hope my gaijin moments decrease with time, lol.

First Driving Experience

2009-08-16T19:41:00.000+09:00

Wednesday was my first day driving in Japan. Really scary. Lol. We went out with Toda-san, the guy in our office that has been handling all o four accommodations and dealing with all our problems. Marisa went first and did a pretty good job, except, because the blinker and windshield wipers are on opposite sides, like everything else about driving in Japan except the break and gas pedals, she kept turning on the wipers instead of the blinker, lol. So after driving for a while down the road toward Taisho and Towa she pulled off on the right and we switched places. So I make a U-turn, and because I was so relieved about not hitting anything, wasn’t thinking and started driving on the right side of the road, lol. Or in other words, the wrong side. With a few screams and flailing hands as I flip the windshield wipers on and off instead of the blinker in my panic, I was back on the correct side of the road…the left. By then, we were all laughing. At least there was no oncoming traffic. Poor Toda-san. He kept saying “bikkuri shita” which means I was shocked essentially, lol. We drove to my junior high school that I’ll be teaching at as well as two elementary schools that I might be teaching at. To get to these places I had to drive on some super narrow roads and make some tight turns, but everything was ok. I had some small freakouts while a car in the oncoming traffic was trying to overtake someone, meaning he was coming right at me and barely made it back into his own lane before we would have had a head on collision, and then I had to swerve into the oncoming traffic while I passed a bike guy. Then, because we stopped at those schools, the bike guy would always catch up and we had to pass him another 2 times, lol. Anyway, there were lots of tight squeezes on two lane streets that are really only big enough to be one lane, but it was all pretty funny. Toda-san seemed to be having a good time seeing us freak out at tight squeezes and such. It’ll take some getting used to the fact that people swerve into oncoming traffic at any time to pass bikes or parked cars or overtake traffic, and of course making right turns the way I would make a left back home, but I think I’ll be able to do it. Now I just have to decide whether to get a car of my own or not.

Yosakoi!!

2009-08-15T20:29:00.046+09:00

Tuesday I went to Yosakoi (the dancing festival I mentioned in an earlier blog). I went with the Shimanto Town dance group called Yui to watch them perform. They were good! It was really cool watching the different groups do their dances. We even got to see the first place group from last year. I've put some videos and pictures here. The red, tan, and blue outfitted dancers are the Yui group from my town, and the pink and purple with stripes on the back is the first place group from last year. Any other groups I don't know. You HAVE to watch the video of the really good guys from last year that I filmed (it's the very last video at the bottom of the page).
They are a-MAZE-ing. (the video and sound are off by a fair amount of seconds when I play some of the videos so maybe it will be when other people play it too, which is really too bad, because they are really good) While these guys were hard core awesome, there were other groups that had just students, or had old people and children dancing alike. The little kids dancing were the cutest things ever. After watching a few groups go, it was our groups turn and then we went to the bus to go do the same dance down around six different streets. Marisa and I were all of a sudden given naruko (the traditional wooden clappers used to dance in Yosakoi) and told to follow behind out group and try to do the dance. So Marisa and I, bringing up the rear, paraded down the street in our normal clothes, looking ridiculous as we tried to imitate the people in front of us and do the dance. Lol.
So there I was, the totally conspicuous tall, blonde, white foreigner in normal clothes following a parade of dancers, trying to mimic them. Marisa on the other hand is Japanese American, so she looks Japanese, and doesn't standout as much. But I don't know what would be worse, being totally noticable as a foreigner and making a fool out of yourself, or looking Japanese but still making a fool out of yourself while everyone wonders what's wrong with you (like you should know what's going on). Lol.
Either way, all the people on the streets there to watch the biggest festival Kochi has with people from all Japan coming, were staring. And that's not the whole of it. Throughout the streets there were camera crews filming for live TV all around with the camera men weaving through the dancers getting up close footage of faces and such. They started walking backwards right in front of me filming me as I was trying to dance. And then because they were right in my face, I couldn't watch the person in front of me and would have no idea what I was supposed to be doing. So I was broadcast to who knows where all over Japan, and for sure to my town, lol.
But anyway, even though it was midday, with the sun beating down on us and the humidity at a high from the recent rain, and the sweat was constantly dripping down our faces, it was really fun. So we kept it up and joined in and did all of the six streets that were anywhere between 150 meters to a kilometer in length. We were going to stop at one point, because Marisa's shoe broke, but then the old lady helping us dance in the back, Yayoi-san, up and bought her another pair of shoes from a stand real quick so she could keep dancing. Throughout the streets, along with the cameramen weaving through the dancers were officials that went through and gave medals to the good dancers. I actually got a medal on two of the streets. Everyone in the group kept saying "sugoi! sugoi!" "jouzu" and stuff meaning amazing! great! skillful! etc. but I'm pretty sure it was given more along the lines of me being a foreigner participating or feeling sorry for me rather than for actually dancing well, lol. That night, at 11pm when I finally got home, I was pretty disgusting and sticky from sweat and dirt, but it was still awesome. So I danced through the streets of Kochi all day and won two medals for it. Who would've thought.

We're on the Map!!

2009-08-15T02:21:00.012+09:00

The town of Kubokawa in Shimanto-cho where I live is on the map!! If you type this into google maps: 786-007 高知県高岡郡四万十町古市町, click on the marker and zoom all the way in, it should take you exactly to where I am! You can even see my house!!

All you have to do to see my house is look a little to the right just passed the green building and there is a small rectangle with コーポ藤戸 written on it (it reads Koopo Fujito if you recognize that from my mailing address). That's my place!!

Just click on the satellite button to see an actual picture of my building. Or you can just look at these pictures I took of it from my computer screen below.

Here's a list of the readings of the 3 places on the map that I most frequent here in town if you wanted to find them: my house, the supermarket, and my work. Also, I'll be making a blog about my town where I will upload a video I have taken of my walk to work. So look for that in the next few days as well. I'll title it "My Town" to make it even easier to recognize.

I would suggest zooming out 2 clicks before trying to see these places because then you can see all three of them at once.

コーポ藤戸 : This is my building where I live

みやたエイト窪川店 : This is the smallest, but closest of the three supermarkets in town.

四万十町_____センター : This is the Board of Education where I work. It's inbetween the 2 gas stations that show after zooming out 2 clicks. I don't actually know the 4 kanji in the middle to write them, so there are blanks there. Lol. Sorry.

The writing furthest to the right in the very last 2 pictures here, again saying コーポ藤戸, is my house.

Lately

2009-08-11T00:19:00.001+09:00

So I’ve finally received furniture and dishes from my predecessor. Now, since I have a stove, I don’t have to eat bread everyday for lunch and dinner, and I have a table to actually eat on. The dishes I got had roach droppings on them so I spent Saturday washing and soaking them in scalding hot water over and over. But now its nice to have them. At work I mostly do nothing but get things set up like banking, cell phone, internet, and doing self introductions to everyone still. Today they had me stand up in front of everyone and they gave me a cake and present for my birthday. That was pretty cool. Tomorrow I will be going with a bus full of kids to Yosakoi up in Kochi city. Yosakoi is a huge festival where different groups have times where they dress up and dance through the streets of the city. I’ll probably post pictures and video of that in another blog after I’ve actually gone so wait for that. It should be sweet. I’ve actually said I’ll participate in an upcoming dance thing like this that happens in November with my town’s team. We’ll see how that turns out, lol. Also, something I’ve been noticing around here is the security measures people take. Or the lack thereof I should say. I think all in all that they only have like 2 police cars in my town. Or at least I heard something like that. People just leave their doors and windows unlocked and open and they leave their cars unlocked and even running with the keys in the ignition while they go into a store because they want it to stay cool in the summer or warm in the winter while they are inside. Lol. It’s so weird.

My Festival Fish

2009-08-11T00:06:00.004+09:00

So a few nights ago I went to a festival and played the fish catching game. You get a plastic hoop with a thin sheet of paper over it and you try to catch a fish with it. But if the paper gets too wet, it rips. So you have to be fast and efficient. After trying to catch a fish for a few minutes I got one but since it took me so long it just ripped through the paper and I ended up catching nothing. I guess the stall owner felt bad for me so he gave me three fish anyway. Lol. I actually didn’t want the fish at all, but just wanted to try and catch one, but I took the little guys home with me anyway. So then I was stuck with three fish. I had actually heard that the trauma of the whole festival game with children batting at them all night and then being caught and bounced around in a bag made the fish die really quick, so I thought that the fish would be dead by morning. However, when I woke up the next morning all of them were still alive. Faced with the knowledge that the trauma wasn’t going to kill them, I couldn’t exactly let them starve, so I immediately went to the store and got some fish food. I fed them and an hour later I checked up on them. Two were dead. The third was a trooper and lasted a little longer. Maybe a day, and then it was the toilet for that one too. And so it was, the sad story of my fish’s short lives.

Creatures in Japan

2009-08-10T23:57:00.002+09:00

Already I’ve had my fair share of experiences with different creatures in Japan; bugs to be specific. Spiders are everywhere, but thankfully stick to places that are less used. I have a few of them who hang around outside my front door, and I would get rid of them except they eat things like cockroaches and mosquitoes. There is this one kind of spider that is really big, like the size of my palm or bigger that seem to like hanging out around Marisa’s (new CIR) apartment area. One night we saw three of them just on the stairway going up to her place. Here’s a picture, although it’s hard to tell its size since there’s nothing to compare it to in the picture. There was no way I was getting close to that thing. We also found a centipede on the stairwell too, but we think it was dead because it wasn’t moving and the next day there were ants swarming all over it. Then, last year in Japan I had the experience of a cockroach flying at me and landing on my bare leg, and again last night getting a surprise visitor scurrying around Marisa’s kitchen floor. That roach was fast. Luckily my apartment has only seen a couple spiders and no roaches or centipedes.

Cell Phones

2009-08-10T23:45:00.002+09:00

So right now I’m in the process of getting a cell phone. I should have one by the end of the day. Cell phones in Japan are pretty crazy. Depending on the phone you can get things like HD video recording, an 8.1 megapixel camera, 3D gaming, a solar panel on the front to charge the battery, and other things like that. The phone I got has the 8 megapixel camera since I don’t know when my current camera will end up freezing for good. With the excitement of looking at the phones though, comes the confusion of setting up a plan. There are three major cell phone providors in Japan: Docomo, au, and Softbank. For those of you with Iphones, Softbank is the only provider compatible, but also has the worst coverage (from what I hear). I went with au. First you pick your provider, then your phone. After that you go through getting a plan for calling minutes, a plan for data (texting, downloading, etc), and then a plan that goes along with your circumstances. Like a special deal (family plan, data plan, friends plan – whatever works best for you). With each choice the other prices change, so it’s like a puzzle trying to figure out wwhat combination is cheapest but will still work for you. On top of that there is the base pay for just having the phone and using the service, and you pay for your phone in installments over the months instead of up front. Also, you can decide on contract time which will also affect the amount of your monthly payment. When the craziness of figuring out a plan and everything is over however, you are left with an awesome phone. Here’s a link to a page of some crazy au phones and here's a picture of the phone I got, the SH001 by Sharp.

Matsuris

2009-08-03T15:13:00.006+09:00

So already I’ve been to a few matsuris, or festivals. There is a festival like every weekend in summer in these parts and they almost always end with a fireworks show. The really good festivals are coming up in the next 3 weeks so I should get some even better pictures then, and I will for sure have my camera charged and ready. My camera actually died when I went to the beach this past weekend and I only got a few pictures of the festivals before that. Perhaps all is for the best since I look pink anyway. I didn’t put any sunscreen on until like barely before we left the beach, and we were there all day. At night we went to another festival and watched the fireworks and then I went home while others went back to the beach to camp. There was a chance of rain and I was so tired I would have just fallen asleep anyway so I went home. Plus, I had to find out how to get to church the next day. After finally figuring out where it was, at like 2am, I went to bed and either my alarm didn’t go off or I shut it off, but I woke up at 7am, when I was supposed to be boarding the train. So I missed church, but at least I know where it is now. Anyway, my first festival was in my town and is actually one that happens like 3 weeks in a row. So it’ll be happening again this Friday. I was invited to hang out with a bunch of old drunk men again this Friday at the matsuri, lol. The place I’m in really likes to drink and especially likes women who like to drink. It’s unusual. So here are some pictures of my town’s mini matsuri.

Japanese Driving Tests

2009-08-03T14:31:00.002+09:00

So getting a license in Japan is kind of intense. Many ALTs (assistant language teachers) stay for more than a year, and if that happens, your international driver’s license expires and you have to take the Japanese driving test to get a Japanese license. However, it is not as easy as it is in the states. The Japanese almost pride themselves on how their test is better and more difficult than any other foreign driving test so even if you have been driving for years, you still aren’t good enough until you pass the test. Here there is like a simulation driving course set up, and there are 3 different routes on the course you might be tested on, so you have to memorize them all. You go to the driving center with a huge amount of paperwork that has to be filled out just so, and then at 11:40am on the dot they will draw straws to see what order the people will be tested in, and then draw straws to see which route you will be tested with. Then there is lunch for an hour, at which time you get a chance to walk the course. During the actual test you use one of their cars and have to say out loud exactly what you are doing and then any number of things can get you an automatic fail. Also, if you test with an automatic, you only have license for an automatic, and the same goes for manual. Plus, the test is actually administered by real police officers who don’t really want to be there. After the test, they will tell you maybe a few things you did wrong, but not all, so if you fail, many times you don’t even know why. The average amount of times to fail before you get your license is probably around 3 or 4, and you have to pay for every time you go. You also have to pay if you want to practice driving on the actual driving course they have set up, as well as have a driver with you who has had their license for more than 3 years. If you come and have only had your license for less than 3 months you have to take the Japanese written exam as well as attend driving school. There are those few who have passed on their first try, but there are also those who have failed up to 12 times. So start trying for a Japanese license a few months early if you want to drive after your international license expires.

First Week Here

2009-07-31T21:43:00.009+09:00

So I have arrived in Japan and been whirlwinded around and have now had 2 days of work at my Board of Education. The first 2 days in Japan were spent in Tokyo in a hotel in the Shinjuku area. The hotel was almost 50 stories high and housed about 1000 JETs (Japan Exchange Teachers). It didn't really feel like Japan after sitting in conferences and presentations all day surrounded by 1000 other English speakers, but ah the wonders of the Japanese bathrooms.

Especially the toilets. There is the western toilet, a copy of what we are all used to of course, but decked out with gadgets and functions in a true Japanese style. As you can see. There is the heated seat, a given, and then the bidet, spray, and air options. Then on the wall, there is a sensor that starts making water noises when you enter so that no one will hear you, and then if you cover the sensor with your hand, it will flush. Then of course there is the Japanese style toilet where you just pop a squat and go. The sensor and noise maker are naturally included in those stalls as well.

In the rooms, your personal bathroom includes the western style toilet, as well as a phone and a mirror heated in a certain area so that it won't fog after you shower. The bathroom also includes Qtips, a toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbands, brush, and the regular soap, shampoo, lotion, and conditioner complimentary with a sign letting you know that that isn't their full inventory of items and to call the front desk should you require anything else.

Orientation went by pretty hast and then we headed off to our prefectures where we'd be living. I flew into Kochi city where I was met by 2 other ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers), my CIR (Japanese-English Fluent administrative JET), and my supervisor's assistant (Japanese). We ate and picked pu my luggage then went to my place. Here's what it looks like:
All that was in there was a futon. There was no stove, table, couch, chair, cushion, and most of all, no water. So the toilet and shower were out. But the place is nice and I'll get those things when my predecessor leaves on the 7th. Oh, and the water works now.

So far at work I have a desk that I sit at and do nothing for the most part since it's summer vacation. I have however had to introduce myself in Japanese to what feels like that whole city as I went around and set up my bank account and foregner card at the town office and board of education and was told I'll have an official sit-down with the mayor next week since he's currently out of town.

Last night I went out to eat with a bunch of other JETs in this area and heard some scary stuff about where I live such as the abundance of centipedes, huge spiders, tatami mat beetles, cockroaches, and wasps that kill that people find in their apartments. So fat I've only seen one of these killing wasps that are jet black with a couple tiny yellow strips and some huge spiders. Thanksfully not in my apartment.

Then I heard about typhoons and the 8.5 earthquake that is expected any time in the next 30 years that will bring tsunami with it. Apparently we'll have 20 mins after the earthquake to get to higher ground. Kubokawa, the town I'm in (1 of 3 that make up Shimanto), is at 1000 ft so up here the tsunami wave will get to only 5 or 6 meters high as opposed to on the coast, but that's still over 15ft.

Kubokawa is actually kind of up in the mountains. When driving from Kochi city all the green moutains reminded me of Kauai. It's really pretty and green. And hot. And definitely humid. I guess the nice thing about that is I don't have to use conditioner here. Anyway, people in the office are really nice and have taken care of everything for me. I'm very lucky. Both with people and the building (it's air conditioned).

I've also found out lots of things to do in the town and prefecture and am already thinking of joining a Kochi soccer team with some other JETs, a taiko (Japanese drums) town group that performs in festivals, and doing some type of cooking or dancing class. There's lots going on. Well, I guess since this is like 10 years long I will end here, but things are good. That's it for now!