Hanging Aboot

Welps, nothing of great consequence has been going down in the last little while, but I figure I'd show what few pics I have of things recently and just give you guys a small update.

First up, meet 'Meester Leezard', as I like to call him. I first saw him when I strode into my w/c one night and he was plastered to my wall. I rushed off to get my camera so I could take a pic, by which point he'd moved, but I managed to snag this blurry little shot of him. Unfortunately, when I then went to find something to scoop him up with so I could let him outside, and when I returned he skittered away behind furniture. I went on a little chase/search for him for about half an hour, but lost track of him completely near the door. All I can is figure is he got out somehow, 'cause I've kept my eyes peeled for him every since. Yesterday I spotted him, or a similar one, outside the apartment, and he slithered up under the door! I whipped it open to shoo him out but he'd dissappeared. O.o This lizards are tricky, the move like lightning! Good thing they're cute as the dickens.

Since my weeks tends to consist of 'school-then-home', my week-ENDS are when I get to boogy. Or at least do something marginally interesting. Like I did last Sunday! Every thursday I head over to a place called the "Fureai' center to take part in a Japanese conversation class. Its a chance to talk one-on-one with someone in Japanese and learn a lot from it, and so far I'm really enjoying it! In particular because I met a girl named Sumire ('soo-mee-ray') who is my age and into drawing as well! So on Sunday we got together to sing some Karaoke, do some drawing, and a touch of shopping! It was a lot of fun, and she took me to her favourite restaurant for dinner. I think it was called "Bikkuri Donkey", which translates to "Surpise Donkey!" It was like a family restaurant that specializes in meat. O.o It was really noisy in there but very tasty, it was great to find another place to go downtown.

Sumire is the cutest thing, she's an incredibly cute, quirky girl. She tends to dress in tonnes of layers, and likes to wear knit-hats. You'd never think that she has a total love for Scandinavian Power Metal. *laughs* I just about fell over when I first heard that, but her favourite band is 'Helloween'!

Monday was a holiday, 'Health and Sports Day', so I spent all of that sitting on my butt. Aaaah, just like home.

Wednesday was my first day to visit 'Rou Gakkou', the nearby school for deaf children. Its not too far from my home by bus, and though I'd like to try and bike it, its all uphill, and I'm not sure I'd make it alive. *laughs* I didn't get to take pictures of the kids but I will sometime. Its a Junior High school, so kids range from about 12-15, and in the whole school there are 7 of them. Their first language is actually Japanese sign language, then Japanese, and I'm there to help them with a little English. For the most part their English level is very low, so I make lessons as I would if I were teaching to Elementary school chid'lins. Most of them have no hearing at all, but a few can hear sounds, and they tend to do a little better. They are encouraged to try and speak, and they all try, making sounds and moving their mouths in the way they think will make the word. One girl is always clicking her tongue, another constantly makes kissing noises, its pretty fascinating to see how they try.

Just about every child has a set of hearing aids, I suppose to amplify any sounds they could hear, so throughout the day I constantly hear the high pitched squeal of their frequencies bouncing off each other. Often times teachers will reach over and push gently on a child's hearing aid to stop the high pitched sound, the students usually pressing into them as well to try and stop it. For those of us who can hear it that sound gets a little much after a while. *laughs* One boy in particular needs to get his tuned or something, because he was constantly having to push into them to make the sound stop, for the benefit of others.

I actually learned a handful of Japanese Sign Language while I was there as well! I really love sign language, and though I never learned much ASL, I still remember what I learned. I think that when I go back home I might start taking classes to learn it. While I'm here I'll try and pick up as much JSL as I can, so I can interact with the kids a little with it! Just small things of course, but its better than nothing! Anywhoo, this picture was taken from 'my' desk in the office. There's maybe 12 teachers on staff - way different than the 80 back at Sasebo Nishi! Every morning they have a short JSL lesson to refresh and learn new things, which I thought was really cool. Everybody there was also very nice, despite the language barrier.

The school is South of the city, and actually the area where its located has a kind of 'rural' feel to it. Beautiful trees and scenery of course. This was just taken from one of the windows in the school.


Just next to the school is a large shrine. I didn't go in, and this picture kinda stinks, but you can sort of see this low canopy that was made out of vines and branches. The trees in the background had ornaments strung around them, in honour of the festival that has been going on for the last couple of days.



Here is a picture of the gate that opens into the canopied area, with the two large guardian dogs in front.

You can see the school behind the fence there. Its actually quite big considering that there are maybe 9 students there all the time (two elementary school kids also attend with their own teachers), but apparently there used to be a higher number of students there. At least the kids have lots of room. *laughs*

At Rou Gakko I get out at 3:30, which feels uber-early for me, but I certainly am not complaining. That evening I had promised my Taiko kids I would come see them perform at the temple next to the school, so I hopped on my bike and motored down to the school. It turns out they were performing at the temple's little festival, so I took a few pictures of the happenings around there.
There was a candy-apple booth, and in the back there you can see the grilled corn on the cob booth. I bought one, only to find out it was 500 freaking yen ($5), for one cob! I got it anyway, and it was tasty, but crimeny I miss cheap produce!


There were the usual games booths for kids, where they could play for trading cards and toys and such.

This is the temple itself, with a special dragon-boat brought out for the festival. People line up to stand at the entrace, pull a rope with bells attached, and pray. I think maybe to Buddha, for good health and luck and such, but I could be wrong. I think its a blend of Shinto and Buddhist traditions.

There was a stage set-up where acts could perform, with the names of all the sponsors of the festival up on boards nearby. These two guys were pretty good, actually!

So not long after I got there the Taiko guys showed up, carrying their drums and stands towards the stage. They have these very cool uniforms, which sometimes includes flowing pants, but that day they were just wearing their decorated habis (light coats).

I went over and camped down on some tatami mats that had been spread down over the ground to wait for the guys to start. Mostly old people and little kids were on the mats, but dangit I didn't feel like standing. I didn't know at the time, but they were behind a couple other acts.

The first was a group of women wearing various disguises, doing a traditional dance. Some of the older women around me motioned along with them, apparently also knowing it, and the music was really beautiful. I have no idea what was up with the wigs and the masks though.

Then this man came up on stage, wearing a little dress, bunny ears, and a pair of fake wings. Apparently he was a volunteer at the festival, as all the men wearing orange were, but he had his own act to partake in. One thing I've learned that I don't like about Japan is the way they like to HUCK things at crowds. The man with wings was soon joined by three men dressed in drag with slightly obscene plastic breasts under their shirts, to mime along to a cheeky sounding song that blasted from the speakers. While they danced, 'Wings' hucked candy into the crowds. Next thing I knew I was being completely run over by children and get this, ELDERLY PEOPLE, diving frantically for the sweets.

Really what I should have done was stand up, gather my things and move off the tatami mats, but I didn't realize that people were going to be diving for the candy like they did. I actually got a lap-full of 8 year old boy at one point, and numerous times old ladies shoved their way into me to snatch at candy near by. For the first time since I've been here I was really put off by behaviour I've seen. For me at least, scrambling to get things thrown at you seems to just rob you of all possible dignity, yet twice now I've been in a group situation where I'm supposed to grab for random crap. I really didn't like it, and found myself a little angry that people were acting that way. I try to be pretty open to all new things and customs, considering that I'm somewhere so foreign, but I really hated being in that situation. At least I'll know in the future to get the heck out of the way!

So thankfully, after the free-for-all, the Taiko group performed! First they all lined up, said a greeting and bowed to the crowd. This isn't the whole club, just the second years. The newer members watched them from the sidelines.

Here's a pic of a few of the audience members, with our one boy member doing some of the baton-motions during their set. He's wearing the full costume with the pants, I believe to hide his leg brace.



Here is the last picture in the series, and its a big one, sorry for the crazy size. This set had all the members playing together, and I was pleased to snap this during one of their changes in position.

ANYWHOO, that's about it for now! I'll post again next week, sorry for the slow updates guys but my life is pretty boring a lot of the time out here! *laughs*
Thanks again for visiting here, I love knowing you guys stop by.