Kate's JET Shmorsgasboard

Allrighty, time for a dump.

2008-03-17T21:18:00.014-04:00

I must have started to write a new entry for this blog about half a dozen times, and each time I either got side-tracked or just lot all desire. So lazy! I have tonnes and tonnes of pictures to share, as well. I uploaded all of the photos from my winter vacation to the Kansai region ages ago, but jut never posted the links here for some silly reason. That being said, HERE ya go!

Osaka
Nara
Kyoto
Fushimi Inari
Ginkakuji - the Silver Pavillion

ALLRIGHTY. So, since then, I have taken about a bajillion pictures, in large part thanks to the new camera that I got just before my trip to Kansai. Here are links to a couple of albums from the local events I've been to in the last few months!

In February a small group of us went out to the Nagasaki Lantern festival in Nagasaki's Chinatown . It was totally crammed full of people, busy as all get-out, but the lanterns were really spectacular. Because Nagasaki is Japan's longest-open port, it had some of the earliest contact between Japan and most other countries, including China. Every year the city celebrates this lantern fest, with most large businesses hanging big red lanterns outside of their doors, especially as you get closer to Chinatown.

Here is a link to an in-browser viewer of all the pics I took and uploaded to bubble share. If you'd like to see them a little larger, go to the album's original link and check them out at a better viewing size. ->
The Lantern Fest Album
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Next up is the Oyster festival, which some of you might remember seeing pictures of last year. Well we all went again, had lots of great sea-food and beer while sitting on the lowest, tiniest little stools you can imagine. Like a champ I wore my boots with higher heels too, so my legs were extra long and extra smushed into my chest. Not so comfortable. We must have been an attractive group though, because at one point a middle-aged lady was first caught taking stealthy pictures of us, and then just flat-out asked if she could take our photo. We couldn't say no, not when all of us had been taking pictures of the Japanese around us all day! ...I have a wierd love of taking candid photos of kids. It gets me teased by my friends a lot but I love catching kids being kids on camera! -> Oyster Fest take 2

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To finish off today I'm just going to post a few pictures taken on my walk home from school, and shots from the marathon my main school ran. I had a post about the marathon last year too so I can keep this one short. These photos are a month or so old now but I like some of them. :) You can see some of what the surrounding area is like and..well...more kids. Hurray for super-zoom!

The Nagasaki Kunchi festival!

2007-10-08T23:13:00.001-04:00

Welps, though I still don't have a proper digital camera, I've been making do with my camera phone. I hadn't been taking a lot of pics (aside from this shot of a statue near my school, with a healthy dose of my finger at the bottom), but this past Sunday (the 7th) I had just the occasion!

Nagasaki city has an annual festival that is arguably one of the best in Japan. It's called the Okunchi (or Kunchi, I've heard both) festival, and it started hundreds of years ago. Over three (!!) days, the city is just a massive throng of people, all come to see the different floats and performances. Gill, Megan, Alex, and I (the right -> pic was taken at the end of the day) piled into Meg and Gill's leased car and made our way down to Nagasaki city, following the van of Kondo-sensei (a teacher friend of Gill's who generously offered to show us around), where a Chinese ALT named Zhang also rode along.

When we got down to Nagasaki station, there were a bunch of high school students handing english pamphlets that described the festival, I think for a school project. The description of the festival that they wrote is this: "Kunchi comes from the ancient custom of holding a celebration on the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, which was considered a lucky day. The ninth day is pronounced "ku nichi", which gradually changed into "kunchi" in Nagasaki. Kunchi came to mean a celebration holiday. Suwa Shrine was built in 1624. Nagsaki Kunch began ten years later, and now has a history of more than 370 years. "

Inside the pamphlet were descriptions of the different things you could expect to see throughout the festival, which included various dances, huge floats pulled or carried by teams of men, and even a dragon dance.

Japanese prefectures and cities are completely divided up, and each address comes with information about which 'town' the person lives in, even within a large city. The Kunchi festival is a celebration where a number of large 'towns' or 'machis' (mah-cheese) get together and create 'floats' and performances to represents themselves.

Since we only went for one day, we didn't get to see all the performances, but thanks to Kondo-sensei we did get a Japanese speaker to guide us to a few spots. It was the first time going for him too, so he wasn't exactly a Kunchi veteran, but he could read the maps and was very helpful with taking us to good places. We had to do a bit of standing around and waiting, which was rough since it was such a humid day, but c'est la vie.

The first place we went was a shrine, where we got to see a procession. The first people to come down the many steps towards the street were teams of men dressed in blue, and for a good while they just stopped and stood, occasionally flexing and stretching their legs. After a little while they tied themselves loosely together with white pieces of cloth, and the procession began.

A few men in white robes (and veeeery tall hats) went first, followed by a series of lovely shrine maidens. Then came men in green with what Alex called 'totally kung-fu' hats, and finally men wearing formal black robes (and bowler hats, in what I'm guessing a throw-back to the popular fashion around the time of the Meiji restoration) finished the procession. I think they might have been company representatives or something, since we saw them ambling around before the official procession began earlier.

After these people were all down the steps and through the crowd, we looked back up towards the main shrine and saw the small shrines being brought down the steps. Around this time people around us started getting stirred up, and the men in blue banded together tightly. It turned out that they were there, I believe, to keep us safe, acting as a human barrier while MORE men in blue came running (yes running) down towards the street with these two huge, obviously very heavy, red shrines. As they ran some money jumped from the shrines, and after the second one had run past us people went look for the loose change.

Since this was apparently the main event, everybody started making their way down towards the street, and the scene there was just a huge mob of people, following this procession. The young men in white that went ahead earlier seemed to be attending to a mounted taiko drum, and I guess the procession was paused because they stood around for a convenient little while, allowing us gaijin to snap away with our cameras. *laughs*

The main crowd stared following the small shrines and people down that street, but Kondo-sensei felt it was a better idea to go down to a parallel street and just meet up with them further down. So, after a pit-stop at a conbini (convenience store) and re-fueling with lemon flavoured water (for me) and coffee (for Alex), we set down the adjacent street. After a few minutes we did indeed see the procession happening again, but with much more going on! We got to finally see something that was a hallmark of this festival - the kasaboko.

I'm going to draw an exerpt from that pamphlet again, 'cause it's handy and I'm lazy! :)
"What is a kasaboko? Each odoricho's (town's) performance begins with a kasaboko: a huge, parasol-like object. The kasaboko has a placard with the town's name, decorations representing the town placed on top, and a veil draped all around the sides. Each kasaboko weighs 130-150 kg, and is carried on the shoulder of one person inside. This person can't see around him, so a second person, the kasaboko-toryo, guides him by using a a small flag."

Pretty nifty eh? The weight of those things blows me away. So, anyway, when we got there there kasaboko were all lined up along the opposite side of the street, and a procession of other people was flowing past them. I'm afraid I don't know why or who they were, but they were pretty much 80% in traditional garb, so that was pretty cool. Here are a couple of pics. Sorry for the crappy quality!

After the procession was finished, the kasaboko were picked up and started to make their own way down the street. They paraded down and away from us, and that was the last I saw of them. As the snippet from the pamphlet said, on top of each kasaboko were decorations representing each town. We didn't know it then, but this golden statue was a small prelude to one of the two performances we'd get to see that day. I can't identify which floats belonged to which town other than that with the golden statue, but they did all look purdy.

Once the kasaboko and crowd had gone the other way (and we found Zhang after temporarily losing her - hate to say it, but it was like looking for a piece of hay in a haystack), Kondo-sensei reccomended we head down towards Nagsaki station. Though the Sawa Shrine was where all the performances came to a head, getting a seat there usually requires camping out ahead of time, and we obviously hadn't done that. Luckily, all of the towns also go to the station to perform, which has a square and lots of places to view it from around and above.

On the way there though, we heard singing and drumming, and followed the sound. It turned out to be a large boat, being pushed and pulled by a team of men, with teams of young children playing taiko drums inside. From what we could tell, they were going from business to business. Each time they stopped in front of a store-front, they turned to it, sang and shouted, and the kids drummed, then the team bowed and moved on. My guess is it's a blessing for that store owner. My favourite part of this boat though, had to be the small boy in the front who was dressed up in special-looking robes, and was completely knocked out. I couldn't get a great picture of him, but if you look, you can see his little sleeping form at the front.

Following the float on foot were a number of women, all dressed in stunning kimono, and again this is just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were the mothers of the children in the boat, or at least wives of the men doing this arduos journey. There was also teams of people running around making these chalk marks on the ground, I'm not sure why, but they looked kinda neat so I snapped a shot.

Right in front of Nagasaki station there is a network of risen walkways, as are so popular in Japan. You walk up some step and cross the street from above all the traffic. While up there we heard a new kind of music, what sounded like a chorus of men singing. Looking down we soon saw where the sound was coming from, as our first 'official' float of the Kunchi festival came into view. This group was from 'Ginya-machi', which means 'metal town'. This town is so called because it was once famous for the number of silversmiths that used to occupy it. The pamphlet says: "The town had a close relationship with the Tokugawa Shogunate who ordered many silver products." So I suppose it's no surprise that this float is carried by rows of very strong-looking men, all wearing what I would assume is traditional metalsmithing gear.

They carry the huge float own the street, singing this really lovely chorus, and occasionally they stop to lift the float up and down in their hands. Considering that it weighs a couple hundred kilograms, this is quite a feat. One move they also did was to actually throw the float up into the air, clap their hands and catch it again. When you keep in mind that inside the float are three young children playing taiko drums to go along with the chorus, every time they pulled this off a resounding 'oooohhhh' went through the crowd. After a short rest, the float proceded into a cleared-out courtyard within the station, where some taiko drums were played (and there were a couple of women players, wut!) , and the men sung, spun, and threw the float around. On top of the float was a huge golden fish, called the 'shachichoko' (ancient fish), which comes from Nagoya castle. If you remember, there was the smaller version of it on the small kasaboko seen earlier.

The station was incredibly crowded, an every available spaced was filled with a body. We tried to see down into the court-yard from the walkways that lined the outside of the second floor, but we were forced to watch the Ginya-machi float perform from a large screen mounted across from us. Alex griped that we might as well have been at home, and he was right, but it was still cool to hear them down below us.

After the Ginya-machi men all moved on, we waited around for a little bit and another of the Okunchi performances moved into the courtyard, which was the Gotoh-machi "Jaodori", or "Dragon Dance". Chinese-inspired, the performers aim for speed and height with their dragon, which also weighs in at over 100 kgs. I didn't get any good pictures of this performance unfortunately, as we again had to watch it from the jumbo-tron and it was too far below to snag any good shots.
I found this really great site for info and pics of the whole festival though, which I encourage you guys to check out, because we really only got to see just a fraction of all that went down during the three day festival. There are some awesome pictures on there, not taken by a camera phone! :D

So, after we left the festival we headed down into Nagasaki's China-town, because Zhang wanted to check it out. We didn't do a whole lot there, but we did come across a pool outside a restaurant with some honkin' big koi. Being a assembly of classy individuals, we of course teased them a little. Hey, we weren't the only ones!

After China-town we lugged our tired butts through a huge line of stalls selling food and games, that was absolutely stuffed with people. At this time I can't remember why we did that. *laughs* Finally we made it back to the cars and made our way home, all very sore and tired, but having had a spiffing time!! I love that word. I love hanging out with UK alts with a sense of humour. XD

So that's the end of this update for now, hope you guys enjoyed it!! Not sure when I'll update again, but I'm going to seriously look at cameras soon, so hopefully I can start taking random shots again. I realize that I'm starting to take the every-day for granted, and while that sense of normalcy is of course important for my sanity, I don't want to let this place get 'old hat'. It's truly anything but.

Much love to all of ya reading, thanks for coming!

Finally, an update!

2007-06-11T21:11:00.000-04:00

H'okay. Welps, I'm obviously faaaar behind on updating this thing, and I feel kinda of e-guilty about that (but really...it's just a blog), but I'm so brain-blisteringly bored at work today that I figure I might as well do something productive.

I started a post about my trip to Kobe and Kyoto months ago, but got interrupted and then totally forgot to continue it. Here is that little blurb I wrote way when in, I think, June:

I had a business meeting (a conference for re-contracting JETs) in Kobe back at the end of May, but it was lined up from Monday-Wednesday. With the weekend before then free, I decided to go up a little early and do some sight-seeing. Originally I was hoping to find someone to go with, but since most of my friends have already been to that area I ended up going solo. Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto are all really close to each other, and since I hadn't yet to been Kyoto I wanted to see this cultural capital the most. It worked out pretty nicely, since I found a great little hostel that offered very cheap board, and my school was already paying for the bulk of the transport to get me to Kobe. So putting down just a bit of my own cash, I got to stay in Kyoto for a couple of days!

My chosen method of transport was the shinkansen (bullet train), and though it was longer than a plane ride, I didn't have to deal with the airport! So I glided across the country in quite pleasant fashion, and got to Kyoto quite easily. My hostel was close to Kyoto station as well, and it was definetly the nicest hostel I've been stayed in - clean, with a great staff and a comfy bunk-bed.

I took so many pictures while I was in Kyoto that I made a bubbleshare album for them, so go HERE to check them all out!

If the above link isn't working, please comment and lemme know.

~~

H'okay, so that was Kyoto and Kobe.

Since then I've been back to Toronto for my three week trip, and had such a great time that my first week back here I was miserable for about a week straight. That wore off though, thankfully, and here I am with September in full swing and feeling good! Part of my happy state comes from the fact that my boyfriend Alex FINALLY got his placement with the English-teaching company NOVA, and next week he'll be heading over here to share my apartment!! Never before have I appreciated having such a big place to live, despite the noisy neighbours, as I do now. Dunno what we would've done if I was given the conventional two-roomer that teachers are usually assigned out here.

I've started at a new school to accompany my previous post at Sasebo Nishi, and things are going better than I'd expected. Nagasaki prefecture is one of the poorest in Japan, and lately the Board of Education has been cutting ALTs to try and bolster their budget. Not unexpected but unfortunate, as they are making those cuts in some pretty undeserving places. Sasebo Chuo high school, for example, is a small school that is attended by a rather 'unconventional' kind of teenager. These are kids who often come from broken and/or very low-income homes, and a handful of them have social disorders. As most can't afford them, nobody wears uniforms, the news of which makes the eyes of my teachers here at Nishi go (O.O). <---that's a little face, by the way.

With no uniforms, these kids are able to express their own style, and this is something that I really love about the school. Not only does it make it easier to remember them ("Okay, so too-much-make-up girl is Ayumi and girly earrings boy is Yuta"), but it shows off their personality. The downside to the school is the more lax discipline, but for the most part the kids are all good young people, and as long as you offer them the respect they're asking for (without going crazy but you know what I mean), they throw you a bone. It takes more effort to get and keep their interest, but the classes are half the size that they are at Nishi so it's muuuuch easier to address each student (about 20 kids to Nishi's 40).

I work twice as hard at/for the new school, but it's very nice having a purpose there, and it makes me really grateful to have this opportunity to work with them. That school really needs a full-time ALT, but since they are small the Nagasaki BOE cut it, and instead told them they'd get a part-timer twice a week. Since that part-timer is me, I get to swoop in there and do as much as I can on Mondays and Thursdays, with maybe a little after-school planning thrown in on Tuesdays. I'm definetly busier, but I really value the chance to get this experience. Chuo is much more like a Canadian style school then Nishi, so obviously that will just help me out in the long run.

I wish I had pictures of the school for ya, but my camera is le broken. I'm going to spend a chunk of a paycheque on a new one, hopefully next month, so I'll try and get this blog more image-heavy again.

In other news, as you guys might remember I bought myself a yukata and took lessons on how to wear it and tie an obi for a while. Well I finally had a culmination of those efforts when I took it out and wore it to a summer festival!! Festivals (or 'matsuri') are really popular in the late summer here, and there are always a few you can choose from to attend. It's common for girls to wear yukata when they go, as they are cute and cool during the hot nights' events.

A small group of us poured into Megan and Gill's little car and we made our way to Emukae, a little town about 45 minutes away that is famous for their summer festival. It was a hot night and the yukata I was wearing proved to be preeeetty freakin' hot, so I ended up sweating like a crazy person pretty much the entire night. Still, it was a lot of fun, full of on-stage karaoke (embaressing yet thrilling!), a goldfish game where I won two little fishies (since named 'Dill' and 'Pickles', 'cause I'm clever like that), taiko and fireworks.

Since my camera was busted, I've ganked a few pics from Meg's collection and thrown them into a hasty album. I have more at home so I'll try and pull those later, but for now, here ya go, some shots from the Emukae matsuri!

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More to come, and thanks for visiting! \(^.^)/

My Nagasaki Quest

2007-05-15T19:54:00.000-04:00

In August I'm planning on returning to Canada for about 3 weeks, and like the last time I went home, I had to get a re-entry permit on my passport. In Japan, if you're living here on a temporary visa, leaving the country requires you to have a permit that allows you not to LEAVE, but to come BACK. So if you don't know about this and you leave, when you come back you just get turned away. Not only that, but to re-enter the country at that point you have to get a brand new visa. Ouch indeed. So I had to go and get myself one of these in Nagasaki city, which is only about an hour and a half away by bus, and lucky for me, I had a day off of work last Friday! With school happenings taking place on the Saturday, we were given a 'daikyu' - or suplementary weekend day, essentially, which was a real blessing because the office where I could get the permit is only open on weekdays, and they close at four. So I was either going to go on that Friday, or take a paid holiday later before my trip. Nnnnnnnnno thanks.

Nagasaki is not what I would call my favourite big city among those that I've seen so far, but its still very nice. There is a 100 yen tram service that runs along the major roads, and of course a lot of historical sites to see. All of the other ALTs I had spoken to made it sound like the office was hidden and incredibly hard to find - and admittedly if I hadn't had directions and a map I would have been in trouble - but I was able to find it pretty readily. 6000 yen and a little paper work later, and I am ready to travel out of the country! So with the rest of the day open, I decided to do some sight-seeing around the city, something I hadn't had a lot of opportunity to do before. I'd seen the Atomic Bomb Museum, but the Peace Park and Epicentre were still on my list.

Ironically, while the unmarked, hidden immigration office was a quick trip for me, I kept getting lost on my way to two of the biggest landmarks in the city!! I just kept getting on the wrong trams, irritating one operator after another, until finally I made my way to the Peace Park. The massive peace statue is the most well known, with his out-stretched arms. I tried to find the significance of the arms online but found differing explanations. A general opinion seems to be though that the right hand pointing up is to warn against the threat of atomic weapons, with the left hand outstretched in a wish for peace (or as a reminder of the devestation).
When I arrived there were flowers and long crane-chains set out in front of the statue, I assume after a recent ceremony or something similar.

I was surprised to find that within the park were a large number of other statues inspired by a message for peace, and though I didn't take pictures of all of them, I grabbed snapshots of a few. The other statues were donated by other nations in memorium of the bombing, and the thousands of lives lost and immeasurable effect that it had on Japan.

Towards the edge of the park there was a large fountain, with a group of Japanese tourists taking pictures and listening to a chipper tour guide. A large black stone was engraved with what I guessed was words of memorium, and all the Japanese were splashing water from a small pool fed by the fountain in front of the stone onto the monument. I wanted to get a picture of this without being too obvious, but it resulted in a slightly crummy shot.

On my way down the steps that led away from the park and towards the epicentre, I saw this grey-suited businessman just standing and staring at these two lounging cats. These cats were just hangin' out, doing some grooming, and this man was just watching them with a small smile on his face (not seen here ;p).

The epicentre is marked with a huge black monument that is apparently planted in the exact spot where the bomb fell on Nagasaki back in 1945. Close to it was a piece of a church that was destroyed in the blast (at least I'm pretty sure that's what it was, from what I remember reading in my friend Ben's blog), since Nagasaki actually had the highest density of Christians in Japan when it was bombed. So up top were a few small statues of saints (I'm guessing), with a down-home Japanese flavour at the base.

If you turned around from the epicentre you could see another large statue, this one having been erected in '95 for the 50th anniversary. Its a mother holding a rather limp looking child, her skirt dotted with flowers. On a nearby plaque there was an English description that spoke about it, saying that the statue was to commemorate how the majority of those killed in the blast were women, children and the elderly (which is pretty obvious I would think, because why would Nagasaki have been full of strapping young men?).

On my way out of the park I stopped to take a picture on a pretty little bridge, and this older Japanese woman who was walking with her husband asked me if I would like her to take my picture. I agreed, but was a little nervous again so I look pretty stiff. *laughs* This is not the first time a Japanese has asked me if I would like my picture taken on my camera, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable! So silly. I snapped a shot of them on the way, and a final picture of of one more statue.

Going home I decided to take the train, and mentally kicked myself for it the whole way back. It was crowed, uncomfortable, and half an hour longer than the bus had been - along with being 200 yen more expensive!! I did get to enjoy some beautiful scenery though. Like I said before, Nagasaki might be poor and a bit out in the sticks, but I love how rich the countryside is.

Anywhoo, that's all for now! Nothing big is happening for a little while, but on the last weekend of this month I'm heading up to Kobe for a recontracting conference and will go picture-crazy then.

Remember to check out my few vids on Youtube! ...I really need to get a camera with better video-taking abilities. Oi. http://www.youtube.com/wyvkate

The Arita Pottery extravaganza!

2007-05-11T23:16:00.000-04:00

So on the last weekend of Golden Week, Sumire and I ventured out of Sasebo and forth to Arita which was...really not that far, only like half an hour by train. The Kyushu region of Japan, and Nagasaki in particular, is apparently well-known and revered for having beautiful property. The Arita festival is one of two that I know of, and is apparently the bigger and slightly more expensive of the two - but with nicer wares. I was actually rather excited about going, even though this is the kind of thing I have pouted over and opted to stay in the car instead of going to when I was a kid. It was raining a little, but not heavily, and the temperature was warm so it was not unpleasant.

When we arrived off the train, the market was spread out in front of us, with what Sumire guessed was traditional Arita music playing from the speakers. It sounded like old dance music and was very tinny, but it gave a very cool, traditional feel to the place for this little gaijin.

Walking around, there were just too many different kinds of pottery to describe them all, but they ranged for 100 - 1000 yen ($1-$10) cups and dishes, to 100, 000 yen+ ($1000+) works of art. I loved these amazing white incense burners, which were incredibly elaborate - aaand expensive.

Never will there be a Japanese festival of any kind that is not well eqquiped with various food stalls, and so Sumire and I each bought a daifuku - which is essentially mochi (soft rice cake) with red bean paste and a fat, ripe strawberry. Delightful!! As seen here in this cheesy picture.

So we continued to tour around, seeing all different kinds of stalls and things for sale, the bags in my hands slowly increasing as I bought presents for my family. The day we went happened to be the very last day of the faire, so not only was everything cheap, Sumire encouraged me to haggle!! I learned how easy it is to haggle in Japan however, when I did it by accident. When walking by a stall I spotted a mug that absolutely screamed my name, and then along with it a bracelet with a similar design. When I asked the clerk how much they would be, she punched numbers into a calculator and offered 3, 800 ($38) yen. I winced a little and said to sumire in English, "Oh they're more expensive than I thought." Next thing I know the woman hurriedly punches other numbers into the calculator and then shows me 2000 yen!
Woman: "2000, okay?"
Me: >.> <.< "Uh...yes!! OK!" So other than knocking off 50 yen from the price of a kercheif later on, that was the extent of my haggling. *laughs* After a good couple hours of walking around and shopping, the rain started to come down more heavily and Sumire and I returned to the train station. One thing I love about living in Nagasaki prefectu - the mountains that surround us everywhere make me feel lucky to have been placed here on a daily basis. So - the landscape is my favourite pro of living here.

My favourite con? Behold.
Oh Navy. Stop giving me reasons to make this face: -_- (I keed. Kinda.)

Next time, my solo trip to Nagasaki city and the quest to find the peace park (it shouldn't have been a quest, I just kept taking the wrong trams).

Edit: We now have you-tube action, folks! I have only uploaded three videos so far, but now that I know this works, I'll start taking more. Let's enjoying youtube!! :D

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=wyvkate

My first stay-over!

2007-05-07T19:25:00.000-04:00

Before I came to Japan, I heard from various sources that I would probably be invited over to people's homes quite a bit, particularly by the parents of students. This has been pretty much completely untrue for me, until last week, when I was finally invited over for a bbq! Albeit, it was to the home of one of the school's secretaries, but hey whatever. She also, however, invited me to sleep over. I've never been a big 'sleep-over' person in the first place, even with friends, so naturally my reply was a bit on the 'shifty-eyed, watery smile' side. Nevertheless I opted to go, and yes even to stay over, despite all of my ALT friends shaking their heads in the contrary.

The bbq was actually held at Y-san's (name changed) SECOND home, which is right on the water-front. I don't know what her husband does, but apparently its good enough to get you two houses! The main home is huge and gorgeous, and the second little house was incredibly nice! They were having some construction done on the steps, which were incredibly steep for some reason, that led down to the house. Needless to say it was a miracle I didn't break my neck.

The house was orange-roofed, embedded in the side of the mountain with a few other such homes around it. Facing the water was the 'back' of the house, with two large doors that opened up to a patio. The day we went was absolutely gorgeous, with a perfect temperature, low humidity, and low wind. This would prove to be a pain for the bugs later, but when we got there it was just lovely.

At first I just chilled on my own a little, while Y-san and her husband got ready for the guests that would be arrving shortly. Turns out it was just a family-affair, but they had plenty of food ready to go. I offered to help but was 'shoo-ed' out onto the patio. I read my book for a little bit, but it wasn't long before Y-san's neice came with her two children, Eriko and Akira. Eriko is my age, and Akira is 25. They both live and work in Fukuoka, she as a law secretary, him as 'salary-man' - his words (actually an IT engineer)! I really lucked out with those two, because they were both friendly AND could speak a bit of English, Akira especially. So I was saved from a night of struggling along in Japanese thanks to them - not that I wouldn't have tried, but I was happy for the alternative. After a while the same convos of "Where are you from?" "Isn't the weather nice?" and "How long have you been in Japan?" wear thin.

Before the rest of the family arrived and the food was ready, the three of us ventured down the (even steeper) steps towards the 'beach' area. It wasn't so much a beach as it was rocks-and-then-water, but having had a bit of experience navigating such terrain at the Lake Simcoe cottage I was able to (somewhat miraculously) avoid tripping and/or cutting my foot on a sharp edge.

The beach was littered in stones, teeny sea-life, and sometimes wierd odds and ends washed in. When walking after Eriko (who had gone off to see just where her mother was going ahead of us), I spotted something I have never seen before. I called Akira over and gaped, "Is that...dude is that a jellyfish?!" After some sufficient poking, we concluded that yes, it WAS a jellyfish! The pattern on it was really beautiful, I hadn't known before that they could look like that. We left it at first, but on the return trip to the house we decided to help it out, just in case it was alive (poking could not establish whether it was or not ;p). Akira scooped it up with two pieces of broken pottery that were on the shore nearby, and we dumped it into a small basin of water. Not long after we saw little tendrils moving the underside! Turns out, it WAS alive! We all crouched around it, watching it move a little, and all of a sudden I was 7 years old again.

By the time we got back to the house, satisfied with out jelly-fish adventure, Y-san's husband was grilling up tiny wee...clams(?) on the bbq. I don't know what they were, but you just picked out the meat with your fingers and ate it, and it was delicious! Eventually other meat was put on the grill, along with some veggies, and we all chowed down By that time more of Y-san's family had come, including a buddhist monk (the baldy if you hadn't guessed) and his family. In Japan, buddhist monks live basically the same as civilians - they get married, have kids, smoke, drink, etc. And boy did he drink! One of these days, I'm going to get a picture of the scooter-monks, I occasionally see around the city. To see their robes flapping in the breeze as they motor down the road always makes me smile, but I have yet to snag a picture. One day!

Around 8:30 a bunch of us loaded into cars and headed down to a different point along the water, that was directly across from Haus Ten Bausch (the dutch park), to watch some fireworks. We just caught the tail end of them, and I only got this one crummy picture, but it was really beautiful nonetheless.

After that, it was time for MORE food. By this point I couldn't believe how much had been devoured by these tiny Japanese people (I was a head taller than every single one of them I kid you not), but for them it was 'Yakisoba' time! Yaki, I believe, is 'grill(ed)', and soba is a buckwheat noodle (and one of the first Japanese words I ever learned)! You put tonnes of it on the grill, splash on some special sauce, mix in vegetables and put the nearest competant young person to the task and voila! Delicious yakisoba.

Most of the company stuck around until about midnight, when the last of them piled into taxis and headed home. I shared the guest room with Y-san, with her snoring husband in the double-bed in the main living area (aside from the bathroom there was only one other room, with almost all activity happening in just one big space). The next day we had a Japanese breakfast of rice-balls, strawberries, and salad (with mayonnaise as the dressing O.o) and then I got driven home. All in all it was a really great experience, and I'm very glad I got to go.

So that's it for this installement, but I'll update again soon with a post about the Arita pottery festival that Sumire and I attended on Saturday!

In the meantime, here is an album showing a trip I made with a couple ALTs to Kumamoto! Its mostly shots of the lovely Suizenji park. Enjoy!

Kumamoto Album

Sakura season! (with a little added woe)

2007-04-09T02:00:00.000-04:00

So for the entire year leading up to this point and prior, I have been looking forward to one time of year in particular - sakura time! Sakura are the cherry trees that are so famous here in Japan, and as a nation I don't think they could be prouder of anything else ("That is my son, yes, he's a lawyer, and LOOK at that sakura tree he planted, we now have THREE in our yard. Yes THREE!") I'm exaggerating obviously but seriously, they are a big deal. Even to the point of hanging up fake sakura branches until they blossom for real!

On Saturday, a group of us went first to Saihi park, which is about a half hour's drive outside of Sasebo (gotta love friends with cars), where there are reportedly 1,000 cherry trees planted. It was a bit windy, because the park is high up on a mountain, but it was really lovely weather. In the pic of me up top, you can see the bridge we crossed by foot to reach the park, which is apparently one of Sasebo's foremost suicide spots. Below is the ocean, but its a huge whirl-pool area, and I guess people still get around the barriers around the bridge. ...kinda morbid, sorry. Here's another picture of sakura, cheer up! :D

After Saihi park, we went back into Sasebo and went to Nimitz park, which is right close to the Navy base. To our surprise, the trees there were much prettier than those at Saihi, with fat bursts of blossoms on the branches! The petals of the flowers are apparently incredibly delicate, and they fall off very easily. Actually, "sakura" in Japanese doesn't refer to the cherry blossoms or trees, but its one word that describes the action of the petals falling from the trees. Its really beautiful, and always reminds me of snow. The Sasebo trees were fuller, I think, because it was less windy where they were, so less of the blossoms had fallen.

When we arrived at the park there was a small group of people already there, some Japanese, some Navy, enjoying the blossoms. There's a tradition in Japan called 'hanami', which mean 'blossom-viewing', and it often involves a blanket, friends, and a looot of booze. Apparently its not uncommon to see Japanese people on their hands and knees in the bushes after a rousing hanami, which is....less than dignified, but understood as being in the spirit of 'fun'. Eeeyah. We all went with our own blankets and food and drinks though, and hung out in the park until dark, where I finally snagged a decent night shot! Hurrah!

Claire and I ended up hanging out after the others had gone off to get some ramen, so we chilled on her blankets for a good couple of hours while the Navy people bbq'd close by. I'm not going to pretend that us quietly making fun of Americans is a GOOD way to spend our time...but it IS pretty fun.

After the hanami, we all headed out and wandered around Sasebo for a bit, hitting up an arcade (or in Jenny's case, the arcade hit up her NYUK NYUK), and when that closed, just hung out downtown. Overall, it was a good night!

-------

Now, for something completely different. I wrote the above section on Monday, when having little to do, I decided to get ahead and just do it, to post later. That night, however, I did the ultimately dumb act which many computer owners unfortunately carry out (hopefully just) once in their lives. I spilled a big, glorious glass of water all on my keyboard.

So currently, its in Chiba, a city close to Tokyo, with the Toshiba people, and I'm waiting to hear back on just how much its going to cost me to get it repaired. Thankfully my info was saved, but my screen is shot, so right now the over-the-phone estimate make it looks like I could shell out between 600 - 1000 bucks.

Wish me luck, I'll let ya know how it went on the flipside! I'm praying for a karmic save! I brake for school-children, doesn't that count for something?!

Town of the dolls...

2007-04-08T23:46:00.000-04:00

Hi guys, sorry for the really long delay again. Good news is that I'm using my laptop at school again, so when I have free time I can use it to update on here. Its a pain to take to school all the time but its handy to have all my stuff in one place.

So I'll recap, starting back in March. As you can see by that picture up there, I went with a small group of Sasebo ALTs to a University about an hour's drive away, where they held a Taiko workshop! It was all beginner stuff, and thanks to my (meager) experiences with my school Taiko, I had a bit of prior knowledge, but I still had a great time. In this pic you can see me playing a floor drum, which were HUGE bass drums that had arm-sized sticks (clubs more like it) to hit with. They are apparently very traditional style drums, where you sit and lean back as far as you can while playing. It gave you an insane ab/arm/leg workout.

So that was one weekend. On another, Claire and Jenny and I went to Hirado. Nagasaki prefecture is surrounded by a lot of small islands, and Hirado is a city on one of them. There's a big bridge that carries you there, and we could see some lovely views of the ocean. In the pic on the right there, you can see where we parked, which was a little harbour area, and up on the hill Hirado Castle is in view. Though we didn't go that day, check back a few journals ago to see Alex's trip to that castle.

The following weekend a group of us from my once-a-week Japanese convo class went back to Hirado, but on that day it was rainy and cold. We were there to check out Japanese dolls, because March 3rd is 'girl's day', when little girls are given a doll. Sometimes its new, sometimes its a family heirloom, and the richer the family is the more dolls she gets. The truly wealthy familes have entire sets, which involves an Emperor, Empress, and their entire feudal court, its pretty impressive, and we're talking thousands of dollars (sometimes tens of thousands).

On the way to some of the places where the dolls were waiting, we came across an outdoor onsen! An onsen is a hotspring, and Hirado had this one downtown just for your feet! The water was really lovely, and silky, and it was amazing how much warmer you felt after sitting ther e for a while. There was also a place for your hands, and I stole a shot of an elderly woman who was taking advantage of that one.

Outside of the first mini-museum with the dolls was this photo-op, so here I am, ladying-it up, with one of the Japanese guys who came along with us. We visited two museums, one that was a big open space run by older women, with a huge collection of donated dolls, small and large sets, and other pieces (like this...paddle?), and then another was in a more private little building, with a few really large, complete sets instead of many different kinds. Hirado is also 'famous' for its kites, that usually have these big faces on them, they're pretty sweet. This one was hung in an upper corner at the second museum.

While in Hirado we also visited this building, which was....a museum I believe, with a gift shop...frankly I'm not sure, but either way it had a really nice little back garden and tea house, where we partook in a tea ceremony for a couple hundred yen.

On the way back I drove in a car with one of the women from the Japanese classes, with Hitoshi and James (another ALT) in the back-seats. Poor little darlings were all tuckered out after their big day though. Just lookit dem faces.

So now we're more up to date! Though a lot has happened in between, my camera seems to be eating a good portion of the pictures I take along the way. Well, at least I can talk about this last weekend all the faster now! Which I will do.....in a few days! :D

In the meantime, here's a preview:

Thanks for reading again guys, comments are always appreciated. Till next time! <3

A gap in time...

2007-03-05T21:26:00.000-05:00

As though I'd been abducted by aliens, I have returned and seem to have no proof of the past month in Japan!

.....or, I can't seem to find photos past the last couple of weeks. I shall seek them out and post them verily. Until then, I'll just update with what I've got.

Last weekend, a bunch of us from in and around Sasebo forayed down to a harbour/park area, where you can enjoy an aquarium, dine at lovely boardwalk restaurants, and take tours in pir ate or colonial themed ships. We did none of those things. We hoveled around a bbq pit, and cooked seafood while sipping beer. Yes. We are high society. WHO ROCK.

It was a beautiful, if slightly cool day when we all headed down there, all of us hoping to sup upon the sea's finest offerings! We weren't however, sure the Oyster Festival was still going on, and when we first approached we wondered if the oysters caking the side of the pier was going to be about as close as we got to enjoying them.

Lucky for us though, when we rounded the corner of shops and restaurants blocking our view, the festival was in full swing! It was l ess a 'festival' and more a 'sit and gorge', but it was still a fun site to see. Rows of high tents were set up to shield us from any weather from above, and countless small bbqs with teeny tiny stools were lined up for us to sit around and cook at. They weren't pits so much as cinder-blocks, into which we would dump hot coals provided by some young guys working at the festival, and a grate to put on top and cook our seafood on. There were a number of food stalls set up where you could buy meat other than oysters to cook - pork, beef, chicken - all neatly skewered. There were these little pieces of cheese wrapped in bacon that after cooking, were a tasty of fatty heaven. Those were definetly a favourite of us poor, cheese-starved souls.

Since there were only so many teeny tiny stools at each cinderblock, and we didn't want to crowd around just one, we split into two groups. At my pit there was Nicola, Claire (both who enjoyed pretending to be old Japanese men while fanning the fire), Kate Meyer, and Bonnie. At the other was Hitoshi, Ben, Ryo, and Alex. Later James, Brent and Jenny would appear to make a third, but they were tardy. Tsk tsk, sooo tardy.

The oysters were sold from one stall, a kilogram for about 600￥ (roughly $6), along with gloves and a small knife to wedge them open. It was my first time eating oysters actually, even though I'm a big seafood fan, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Shortly after I posed for the camera in this cheesy fashion seen here, I ate that oyster, and proceded to suck my face in on itself. I had NOT been expecting it to be so salty, but after a few moments I decided they were actually really tasty! I am officially a fan of oysters. ...even when they sorta looked I was about to ingest Oyster poop (seen left).

So we all hung out there for a food few hours, chatting and munching, it was a great time. Around four or so the festival started to finish and so eventually we too packed up and headed out with full bellies and a bit more sun on our faces. ^^ Those are all the photos I have that you guys haven't seen! Well, all but two.

My school is being repainted. Yes, soon it will be a delightfully NEW shade of pink. For at least two weeks construction workers/painters would come and do no form of painting, but set up scaffolding to encompass the ENTIRE, SCHOOL. It is now the UGLIEST thing on the block. Ta daaaa!

This last one never fails to make me laugh. There is a store close to my school that has HUGE billboards with pictures of white people laughing and enjoy their lives pasted on them. Its...odd. Odder still is THIS little doozy. At first you think awww, what a sweet image, what an attractive couple! Then, if you pause to study the woman's face, you wonder...THAT was the best image they could use?! That is one DOPEY looking bride. When one eye is drooping you gotta wonder just what she took to calm her pre-wedding jitters. Bad Botox, maybe?

Welps that's it, sorry for the long wait, but I finally got this to work on my computer at school. WEE HOO!

Much love, thanks for visiting!

~Kate 'I'm stealing this idea from Hitoshi' Willey

Ooookay then - update time!!

2007-02-04T07:03:00.000-05:00

I suck!

Allright guys, first off, I'm really sorry that I dropped the ball here and haven't updated in literally months. But! Hopefully I will make it up to you...with PICTURES! :D

Admittedly...not in this account, but I have gotten all crafty and gone looking into online albums. Since I'm so behind I figured I would just store the back-log in ways that you guys could easily browse through, instead of trying to narrate from the beginning. I signed for a flickr account, but realized not long afterwards that it was a stupid site that only allowed 200 photos for free. Phooey. None the less I still plan to use it, so I give you, my flickr photos!! Follow these links to the albums. Don't be dissapointed, I captioned them all tonight so it'll be just like you're reading this blog...but over there! Hurrah! :D

The Tokyo Trip (December)

Huis Ten Bosch (Christmas)

Alex's Castle (no captions 'cause I wasn't there, but very cool)

Update:

Woo hoo, got the Bubbleshare stuff sorted out too! They're all captioned, as well, and you can view them like a slideshow. Sorry for the previous slowness, hopefully it's all gravy.

January (misc stuff from that month)

The Bio-Park Adventure

So, enjoy those, and soon I will start ye olde narration plus pics again. Though I might keep up with this online album thing, sometimes I have more pics than I post here.

In the meantime, allow me to supply a new reflection of some things that I have noticed in Japan recently.

One, is that all car colours are basically the SAME. I don't have a picture to back this up right now, but basically, were I to take a photo down the street on any given day in Sasebo, you would see cars in varying shades of metallic greys, black, and white. Once in a while a dark green or blue is thrown in for good measure, and occasionally a red or yellow car will zip by, but basically, everybody picks cars within the same colour-range. Its kinda eerie.

I have also learned what is the 'uniform' for teeny-boppers (...can we still call them that? Or am I 'square' now) in Sasebo. These are girls aged..I think between 13 and around 16 or so. A big ploofy bomber jacket with fur lining the hood, some kinda t-shirt underneath, short-shorts YES even in the winter, and then some kind of boots. I was downtown yesterday and almost every girl between that age range was wearing that outfit. They go from their uniforms at school to their 'cultural' uniform, it was really hilarious. Reminds me of home and the message-Ts and jeans!

That's all the observations I've recently made..that I can remember, anyway. Though I saw a woman walking her two dogs the other day, and she had their leashes tethered to a rope around her waist. It looked like they were walking her, it was so cute. She saw me and waved with a happy 'Konnichiwa!' Sometimes I love the little quirks of this place. So much.

Welps that's about it so far, I shall update again soon.

Thanks for coming!

Whooopsy doodles.

2006-12-06T21:38:00.001-05:00

Man, have I ever been lazy about this recently! First I was lazy, then trip home, then laaazy lazy lazy.

I have all of these pictures to post from the Japanese archery demo, but man that was ages ago! For some really great pictures of that event and funny commentary, y'all should check out the blog of my friend Ben, a nice dude from Boston who is also one of us Sasebo JETs. : See Ben in Japan

He also has pics from the sumo trip, which I missed, so y'all can take a look at what I was originally planning on see as well.

Recently my camera has been pretty much stowed away in my purse, since I've done a whooole lot of nothing, but this weekend my boyfriend Alex is coming to Japan! I'm going to go pick him up in Tokyo on Sunday, and then we'll bum around the city for a few days before coming back to Sasebo. I'll be sure to play the shutter bug then, and post many pictures of the Tokyo that I finally get to see! A night out in Shinjuku just ain't the same. ^^

Anywhoo, that's all for now, sorry for the crappy updates guys but I'll get back on it as soon as I can. <3

On pause...

2006-11-12T23:13:00.000-05:00

Sorry to everybody who reads this, but I have to hit the pause button in here for now until I get the chance to update. Once I'm back from my short trip home to Toronto I'll try and update, or if I get time when I'm there I may as well.

Sorry to all who care, see ya in a little while!

Weekendy Hijinks - part one

2006-10-31T23:33:00.000-05:00

H'okay, so I had said I would talk about the weekend and so here it is! A lot happened though, so this will be another post with lots of pictures embedded in the text and chopped into two parts. I took a BAJILLION photos, but most aren't worth sharing, though I'd be happy to forward any along that you guys wanna see if you ask for them!

So Saturday, after a wonderful sleep-in, I rolled myself out of bed and downtown, having packed my Halloween costume and such things into a bag for later. Friday, Saturday and Sunday held the annual YOSAKOI festival that Sasebo hosts, which is one of the biggest dance festivals in Asia, with people from all over Japan and even Korea come out to compete with their routines. The downtown streets were just teeming with people, and huge groups of dancers in costume, waiting to perform or move towards the stage a few blocks further. Some groups were made up entirely of wee little children, while others were made up entirely of seniors, it was really neat to see their costumes.

I met up with Meg and her friend Erin in the arcade (the long outdoor strip of stores) where dancing was actually taking place, with groups doing their routines whilst on the move. Most of them had large speakers loaded on the backs of small trucks, with their 'cheer leader' of sorts did his part (shouting to the crowd at times, singing, and a lot of "HUP HUP!"s). The main stage and festival grounds were at a baseball diamond farther down, but all of the dancers went through this arcade first, doing their routines until they got to the end. Then they would sometimes dance again on one of a few stages on the WAY to the stage, or just in the street for any onlookers. You couldn't turn your head without seeing some dancing, basically.

While we popped into a department store in search of Halloween candy, the girls and I spotted these two dancers whose routine was basically like an homage to Rainbow Brite and the Power Rangers all smushed together, they were super cute. Some of the costumes, like these ones, were a litle 'out there', but some of them were much more on the traditional side. A few groups who did more 'gentle' dances were even wearing kimonos, but most dancers had to have more movability than that and had to come up with something else, usually something that included pants.

So after a good little while of watching the dancing in the arcade we decided to head to Yosakoi-central, a space that was usually a baseball diamond. On the way I snapped this shot of a few little girls who were part of a group with a very acrobatic routine, just checking out this stream. They were too cute!

The baseball field was divided essentially in half, with space for the stage, dancers, and onlookers to do their thing, and the other half was like a mini-village full of stalls. Games, food, souvenirs were all to be found in excess in the field. This picture doesn't really do justice just how many stalls there were, but at least you can get a small idea.

There were so many groups, some made up of maybe a dozen members, and some that were absolutely gigantic, like the group from Nagasaki University. These guys had the stage completely covered, and their routine was amazing. However they managed to keep that many people in synch I'll never know, but they actually ended up taking first place in Sunday's judging! I wish I'd taken a video of it, but alas, I was too 'into it' at the time.

Here are a couple other pictures of routines, both were groups from Universities if I remember correctly, including the crazy Rainbow Brite Rangers troupe! In Japanese there's the term 'sentai' (I think that's it), which basically refers to all 'power rangers' esque shows. So Ultraman, for instance, is a 'sentai' show, and these kids were similar to that, but it was like sentai on ecstacy. This troupe was dressed up in these really po ofy black and white costumes that reminded me of harlequin get up, which I think was the point. They danced to up-beat remixes of European classical, and some of them even had little black mustaches painted on their faces. I didn't know it at the time, but one of the young boys at the deaf school I go to danced with this group! He's got some hearing, which I think enables him to do the dance, and as such his Japanese and English is actually pretty good! Here is a picture of him and his sister, who I actually teach. They're both totally sweet kids, and it was great to see them (even though I couldn't really do much more than smile a lot and wave at them).

I'm just throwing this picture in here 'cause the troupe was made up almost entirely of little kids, and we were all completely in love with the kid with the mohawk there in the middle. Well, it wasn't so much a mohawk as a huge long fistful of his hair sticking straight-up, but it looked absolutely adorable/awesome.

So after a couple hours of watching the dancers on stage a bunch of us decided to head out for food (we'd met up with Megan and Gill and a few other ALT ladies during the show), and who should I see as we made our way out? My predecessor, Brendan! That's right, the guy who I replaced who now lives in Omura. He was there with a few friends, including his friend/neighbour Brian, a nice guy from the States (can't remember which one though). Brendan (the guy on the right) ended up coming out to dinner with us to Zawatami, a really huge/fancy izakaya that we like to frequent (it was the place we went for Claire's 'pre-party party', if you guys remember). It was cool to get to know him a bit more, as I'd only met him once before. He and Brian are actually 4th year ALTs, working in a special position with Elementary kids, and they both have great Japanese.

After dinner we said 'ta ta' to Brendan and his friends, and headed over to Hitoshi's place for the party. I ended up doing the make-up for a few girls, as my costume was pretty low-maintenance and I didn't take as long to get ready as some of them. Claire and Jenny, the 'block reps' for our area and great girls, had gone over to Hitoshi's earlier and decorated the place with I think black garbage bags or something similar, cobwebs, ghosts, and pumpkins, it looked awesome! Everybody was dressed up and excited to be at a Halloween shindig, so there was a great vibe around the party, despite how crowded it kept getting as more and more people showed up (way more than anybody had expected). In the picture on the right you can see our host, Hitoshi (aka Salary-man Bot) and Alex, an ALT living a couple hours away and a chill guy (who was a thief...a slightly fruity one, according to this picture *laughs*).

For a short while Arlan and her boyfriend (slash practically fiancée) joined us, but because the drinking tolerance in Japan is 0%, neither of them stayed for too long. They're both really lovely people, and he's actually likely to get work in Engineering Sales soon, enabling him to live here with her for a good while!

So the first of us ladies at the party all took a group picture, and while I don't look particularly good in this one all of the other girls do, so its definetly my favourite (despite the atrocious red-eye). I was a schoolgirl, hence the peace signs (which I swear was only part of the costume), but people kept singing 'Britney Spears' songs around me. I knocked some heads that night, lemme tell you! "Oops, I did it again -THWACK-" :P

There were some really awesome costumes that night, with some people actually succeeding in finding ones that were gaijin-sized to fit into! Some people did it a little more home-made style (like moiself), like Jenny's awesome typhoon, Claire's creepily cute roadkill-kitty, or this fellow's last-minute frat-guy get-up (I'm sorry I forget his name, but it was Hindi and I forgot it two seconds after he told it to me. -_-;). Hitoshi's friend Tomoko (who I had coffee with a couple months ago if you guys remember that post) came as Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill, and she looked fab. People kept asking her if that was her real uniform (me included durrr) but nope, she'd made it herself, and I caught her looking particularly manic in this picture (probably from being asked the same question the whole night). I spoke briefly with a guy named Tom at the party who was dressed a highschool BOY, so I had to get a picture of us since we matched. I feel like such a tool with all those stupid peace-signs. *laughs*

So around midnight the police actually showed up, apparently having received numerous complaints. None of us were surprised, but everyone shuffled out to go and continue the party elsewhere. Everyone but me, I was thoroughly pooped by that point so I just flopped down on Hitoshi's mattress and got some zzz. I don't think I missed TOO much, since they all just ended up drinking ouside of a 7/11 until 4 in the morning. *laughs* I'm kinda glad I konked out, I needs mah sleep!!

The next day I woke up next to Tomoko on Hitoshi's mattress, with Alex, Hitoshi, and Ryo (an Asian-Canadian ALT from B.C.) all snoozing in various spots on the floor. I was surrounded by Asians!! After we all cleaned up ourselves and Hitoshi's apartment we went down to a bakery/cafe for some breakfast, where I had quite possibly the tastiest croissant-sandwich ever. Japan KNOWS how to treat their pastries, anytime I get something bread-related here its absolutely scrumptious. And here I thought I wouldn't get bread in Japan, pffft.

So, I've run out of time to update in here, school is ending and I gotta head to Taiko, but I'll update with the archery day as soon as I can (there's not as many pictures for that one). Thanks for reading!

( It's a FUZZY SANDWICH!!)
(Seriously, that guy on the right looks just like Dougie Houser. O.o)

G'ah...lateness.

2006-10-29T20:07:00.000-05:00

Hi ho, sorry everybody for the incredible slowness of my updates. I haven't been feeling so hot in the last week or so thanks to what I believe is a slight iron deficiency, so my energy has been just totally shot. As such I'm still kinda drowsy today, though this time from a busy weekend full of awesome! This'll be short and sweet as a result, but I promise that I'll write the long epic that was this last weekend. ^^

Today I'll just tell y'all about my first trip to Fukuoka, that I took with my supervisor Ogawa-sensei LAST weekend. Ogawa-sensei is someone I'm still trying to 'figure out', she's quite quirky. One minute she's racing around, completely wrapped up in her own dealings, seemingly oblivious to my attempts to say good morning or send her a smile, and the next she's offering to drive me all the way to Fukuoka! She tends to keep to herself, but when I need something she races out to get it, even if I was just asking for ADVICE, not the actual action of getting me something.

"Ogawa-sensei, my drain is clogged, what's the name of a good de-clogging liquid?"
"Oh rearry? Hmm...well, maybe bahblahblah, you can buy it from the blahblahblah store." "Okay thanks!"
-45 minutes later-
"Kate, here, try this for your drain." *plonks draino stuff into my hands*
"Buh?"

So this is kinda what happened with Fukuoka. She asked me if I'd been to the Costco yet and I said no but I'd really been wanting to, and she then promptly offered to take me up on the weekend! Its a 2 1/2 hour drive, mind you, and though I didn't know it at the time and only discovered on the way there, about $75 in toll booth fees has to be shelled out along the way! By the end of the trip I was just offering to pay at the tolls 'cause I felt so awful at how much money she'd spent just to travel on the highways!

Much of the trip was spent in (what I assured myself was) comfortable silence, with a few opportunities to chat here and there. Though I have lots of questions I'd like to ask Ogawa-sensei to get to know her better, I'm still too unsure about Japanese etiquette to go asking more personal questions, I don't want to come off as a gossip or something!

One thing I did notice though was the severe difference in highway speeds from here and home. At least in Ogawa-sensei's car, the highway is ROCKET time! At point she was frustrated because we were behind a small truck that was going slower than us, and she apologized to me for our slowness. I checked the spedometer and we were going 100 km/hr! I was like....wha? Once she was able to pass the truck and get back to her 'comfortable' speed, we averaged about 130! I started to slowly sink into my seat and enjoy the ride, like I was at an amusement park or something. Either way, we got there in good time! *laughs*

The trip to Costco was relatively uneventful, it was just like the Costcos back home really. A huge warehouse stuffed with goods and people, all in portions large enough to feed a small army. I was there primariliy for Halloween candy to give my students, but I ended up getting some bagels and a small pumpkin that I managed to carve out and show to my classes - which was a fab idea, the kids go nuts for the little dude. I took this picture of him on my phone:

WHY did I take the picture on my phone? Because I, the smartest girl in the world, had left my camera in a bathroom at the mall where Ogawa-sensei were last at. Thankfully, Japan is completely awesome and someone turned it in, and the mall offered to mail it to me. Sometimes I love this place. *laughs*

As I mentioned, after Costco we went to a mall which was part of the Grand Hyatt hotel downtown. Fukuoka actually reminded me of Toronto, in the way it was laid out. A big city, but not so SMUSHED as Tokyo. I realized that if I'd been placed there, as I had initially requested, I might not have felt like I'd come to someplace quite so 'new'. I'm actually really enjoying the smaller-city life!

The hotel/mall was mostly outdoor, but it was such a nice day it didn't matter to us at all. We did a bit of light shopping, I bought a cheap sweater from the GAP (I can fit into their Large size shirts now, woo hoo!), and a pair of walking around shoes. Men's shoes of course, but they're a cool pair of runners that look great but are a bit of a pain to put on. D'ah well, live and learn.

The mall was actually somewhat decorated for Halloween, which really surprised me, and they were doing this promotion where they'd hand you a small orange balloon that you could draw on an throw into the pool to make a wish. Ogawa-sensei asked me if I wanted to, but even after I found out it was free I declined. If I'm going to have wishes come true, its not because I took part in some gimmicky Halloween event. *laughs*

They had real pumpkins in nests around some of the trees too, and I was so tempted to just swipe on and stuff it under my shirt so I could smuggle it home and carve it out. >.> Too many witnesses. <.< So we shopped around for a little while, and ended up going to see a movie! Movies here are incredibly expensive to see in the theatre, we're talking $18 before 7 p.m., but cheap to rent, and they seem to come to DVD and video much faster here than back home. Kinda kooky.

After we finished with "Snake Flight" (aka "Snakes on a Plane"), and our laughter at how bad it was died down, we had some incredibly nummy crepes and readied to go home. As we passed a lit-up Halloween display Ogawa-sensei offered to take my picture so I agreed. Ta daaa.

So that was pretty much our trip to Fukuoka! Did some good shopping, finally got myself a bookshelf, and learned that I am not yet ready for Japanese pants sizes. I've entered that awkward/frustrating phase now where the ones I have are all too big (not by TOO much but noticeably so), but the pants on sale here are still too small, as I learned when my big thighs laughed at me as I tried to pull on the largest pants-size they had at the GAP. I need to find me a tailor!

Anywhoo, that's about it for today, I shall update with the stuff from the most recent weekend soon, so I've been so lax!

Thanks for comin'! Happy Halloween!! Rrr.

Paaaaartaaaay!

2006-10-18T19:37:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the long pause between posts guys, but this week I've been feeling a little less than stellar and haven't had much energy to....sit on my butt and wiggle my fingers. ;p Okay hush-up, organizing my thoughts makes my brain hurt!

So again, not much has really been going on, except that last weekend was a hoot and holler. Claire, a second year ALT from England, celebrated her birthday over the weekend! Twice! First a big group of us met at a rather swanky joint downtown, that you pretty much always need to make a reservation at in order to get a table. Though I took few pictures there, in the close space none of them are particularly great, so I'll just skip over that and assure you all it was delicious and much fun. :3

After we were done at the restaurant we wanted to find another place to sit and have a drink, so we ventured back outside and down an alley to a little whole in the wall place. Quite literally, it was a tiny one-room joint that was reggae themed, to the point where the floor was made out of sand!! In the right picture is the owner preparing our orders, and poor Meg caught in my flash.

We all piled around the one table there, ordered a drink, dealt with a random drunken Japanese dude who wandered in and struck up a conversation in English, and had a nice time! In the left picture starting from the left is James, Ben, a huge dork, Claire, Jenny, and Hitoshi's forehead.

So that was Friday I believe, and Saturday was Claire's party 'proper'. We all met up and essentially bar-hopped, buying the girl drinks and just having a good time! All of the ladies ended up splitting from the boys after they went off persuing some random Japanese women, and we ended up at a Phillipino bar. Not before we went to an arcade though, where I snapped this shot of the crane-game you could play to grab, yes that's right, PANTIES!! YES, my first pantie-machine sighting!! Apparently when the guys went to the ninja village the day before they'd spotted a vending machine that I'd missed, but finally I saw one in person!! I dunno if these were supposed to be 'pre-worn' or 'fresh' ones in the little balls, but creepy is as creepy does. *laughs*

The Phillipino bar (which is what Claire called it and I'm assuming because the management is Phillipino or something, IIII'm not sure) was another small place, as most establishments in Sasebo seem to be(upstairs or a hole in the wall are the most common in my experience). We all sang karaoke and took embaressing pictures, where it was impossible to look attractive. XD Here's an example! So chosen because I'm in it so I'm not just offering up my friends to look silly without also subjecting myself to your judging gazes. I have no idea what we were singing, but apparently it had a lot of 'ooooh's in it or something.

The last picture I have is just of the ladies who 'ran' the bar. The place was quite obviously mostly full of men, that our group quite happily ignored (or at least I did, I was there for the singin'!). I felt kind of bad for some of the girls who worked there though, as part of their 'job' was to sit with any of the guys. I don't know if they were full fledged prostitutes, or just 'company' while the guys were at the bar, but it looked like a crappy occupation.

So not long after that the night ended and we all headed home, but I think Claire felt sufficiently celebrated!

In other news....well there's not much in other news. I might be heading to Fukuoka on Saturday with my supervisor to go food shopping, but that's still up in the air. Coming up in the next few weeks are a bunch of festivals and demonstrations, including one for the ancient Japanese art of archery on horseback, and Asia's BIGGEST dance festival happening in my very own city of Sasebo, woo hoo! So while things are a little slow right now, soon I'll be back in the thick of things, taking pictures and trying my best to remember every moment.

I also need to get my haircut. ROCK ON!!

p.s.: I found this article on the Japan Times website the other day and felt the need to share. I've been continually told by people here that I have a 'small face', and for the longest time I wondered if that meant I looked strange or stupid or something. Nope, apparenty I'm IN STYLE!! :D

Hanging Aboot

2006-10-12T22:40:00.000-04:00

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.

My saga weekend - part 2

2006-10-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

For those of you just tuning in who missed part one, check it out HEAH.

Edit: fixed the pics that weren't working!

Okay, so I'm a little torn on what to do about pictures today! Not only do I have a BILLION, but I want to post them all, I have very few that I don't want to show you guys! So I think what I'm going to do is not post the thumbnails of all of them as I usually do, but just post the link that you guys can click on - it'll save us all time, you in loading, me in dragging and dropping. Hoo haa!

The day that we trekked to the ninja village was a grey and droopy one, but much to our luck it never actually rained so if anything, we were saved a sunburn! At the gate was this mascot, who was actually incredibly cute and seemingly enthusiastic about its job. Nothing better then a big, felt ninja-cat who is happy to see ya.

Some of you may know that I worked at the Ontario Rennaissance (I know I'm spelling that wrong but I can't be buggered to look up the right spelling atm) Festival for a number of years. Welps, this village reminded me of the Renn Faire constantly - the people, the layout, the weather even! It was like a Japanese version of the Renn Faire, it was great. Much less people worked there though, I think there were maybe half a dozen actors on staff, plus the handful of merchants, but what I really liked about the park was the set up. Though its a little run down, it was still really cool to see these Japanese buildings that were meant to be recreations of Edo-period architecture. There were lots of little touches, like the water-wheel there on the left, that I really enjoyed seeing, it added a lot of charm to the place.

>Here is a side view of one of the buildings, and the little garden that was set up around it.
>Another shot of a building.

There were also a lot of those standies where you can insert your own face into a picture set up around the park, so of course we had to partake.

I've learned that I also really like the look of bamboo, as it is often arranged or is seen to grow in these areas. Here's Gill posing next to the wall that lined our path, with a lot of the tall bamboo growing up behind it.

In this shot you can see some of the great view that we had from the park, as it was located at the top of a tall hill that looked down over Ureshino. You can also see one of them any little statues that were set up!! I have a couple pictures of other ones, they were adorable.

The park was set up to f ollow a circular path, much of it uphill that we had to hike up, but it was still quite pretty (despite the bare trees and grey day).

Alot of the 'attractions' of the park were passive ones, buildings where you could wander into and look at displays that were usually information about the Edo period (from what we could gather/guess). This was the exterior of one of those buildings, you can sort of see some of the display inside.

This sign post stood outside the building as well, and though I didn't know what it said, I liked it enough to take a picture. oooh, excitement.

An activity that was offered was to paint your own pottery! As I think I mentioned before, Ureshino and Saga are very famous for their pottery and porcelain, so there was some for sale here, and the opportunity to decorate your own inside. Though we didn't do that, I bought two really lovely cups for dirt cheap. Off to the side were some old looking ovens, which might have been use d at one time, or is just a run-down display, either way it was quite neat.

Right next to the pottery shop was a this thing, a huge....chunk of tree, in a box. We had no idea what it as but it was massive, and therefore picture worthy. I later asked one of my JTEs what it was, and he explained that it was something that if you pray too, will help your prayers be fufilled. I asked why it was so special, and he said it was because it was so old. All I figured is that the whole tree must have died, so they took that part of the trun and enshrined it. He nodded and seemed to agree, so there you have it! The wish-tree.

Here's Megan trotting off in search of something or other, and you can see more of the path that we trotted up.

On the right of that last picture you can see this statue, which I found incredibly cute. A sign that translated the Japanese description into Korean and English was near her, and it said that she is a divine maiden of love and beauty, and also gambling I think. She had a few different things attached to her - a multi-tasking maiden (ark ark).

Embedded behind some bushes was this statue, who was quite striking with the huge red flame behind him. There was no translated sign for him though, so we had no idea what he was about, but I really liked him. I'm learning that I'm a fan of statues!

>Another building, wh ich was particularly large.
>A shack where a cou ple of games could be played, including archery which we later hit up.

We were on a mission by this point, because when we'd first entered the park we'd been told to make sure we made it to the ninja show at noon, and since the time was approaching we went seeking the theatre. Lo and behold we did find it!! It was placed on a high point of the hill, so we had to make our way up what appeared to be a no-longer functioning conveyer belt, that had enough traction for us to use it as a ramp. Yeeaaaah, the village had probably seen better days. It was all good though, because there to greet us were ninjas!! Ninjas make everything better!
Inside the theatre was this neat stage, where the drama occured! The two in the left picture were in it obviously, the guy in red being the 'hero' from what we could figure out. Masked-ninja guy was a baddie, one of two going after some kind of scroll the red ninja had. I ended up nick-naming him 'Gopher' because throughout the whole show he kept popping out of places - secret openings in the walls, doors, windows, etc. to try and take a stab at the red-ninja. Gopher also became my favourite. Its the masks, the mystery makes me swoon!

After the show wa s over all the kids in the audience were invited on stag e to try and find three ninja-stars, and those lucky three got prizes. Second prize were tickets to an onsen though, and while I think the mum was happy, the little boy who got it looked a little put out that he didn't get a fake sword like the other two kids. *laughs*

As we exited the theatre to take up the path again, we were way-laid by actors and merchants to come play their games. Since every game was only 100 yen (about a buck) we were seduced, and ended up playing a throwing-stars game! An actor who had played the second baddie during the show ran this game, he was a hoot. I wasn't too bad, actually! The first two came really close to the target, but in my excitement over the third try I whipped it into the dirt. Curses!

Also like the Renn faire, there was a booth where you could have your palm read and fortune told. As always I got that small tinge of temptation, but this time I was able to squish it must faster after I realized I wouldn't know what the dickens was being said to me.

I'm not totally sure what this structure was, but I really liked it and had to take a shot of it.

In another display inside a building was this diorama thingy set up, with information on I think traditional Japanese calligraphy. It was kind of odd, but the guy painting his tongue still makes me laugh.

By then we decided it was time for foodles, and lucky for us (and vegetarian Gill) there was a store selling soup! The inside was quite cosy actually, with a huge tv that was playing "the Last Samurai", fully dubbed over so there was no English. We bought slightly over-priced meals and small glass bottles of coke, and got to relax a little. It was a nice break!

So then came one of the most fun parts of our visit! The dress-up photos. I hadn't known we were going to be doing it, but when I caught up with Megan after she'd trotted off ahead of us, there they were in the small building where you could get you picture taken in 'traditional' Japanese costume! Rather like the Renn Faire. :3 But much cheaper. The girls opted to take their photos together, an d the woman who ran the booth spoke a little touch of English and was very friendly. She was also incredibly fast with putting on the costume, whipping that stuff off the racks and onto our bodies at lightning speed! Megan chose the 'Princess' dress, and though we're not totally sure about Gill, she must have been some kind of Noble-woman or goddess of some kind. They both looked fantastic!

I chose the 'Maiko' costume, which is the word for Geisha-in-training. I just wanted to use the umbrella. Unfortunately I had started to laugh when my photo was taken, and so all the dignity and loveliness I was hoping to keep just melted away from me, and so I give you, MY most embaressing picture ever. My stupid head was too big for the wig to really fit properly, so my hairline in this picture is waaaay too high. I still have this up on my wall though, I like that it makes me laugh at myself a little - you don't want to get too serious out here, you'll just get depressed. ;p

After my 'shoot' was over the girls tried taking a few pics of me without the wig, but we were in a hurry so unfortunately I don't have a non-blurry one. Still, I like it much better than the 'professional' one I have! *laughs*

As I mentioned before we also hit up the archery game, since it was cheap and looked like fun. I have to admit I did like how the game-guy helped us out so eagerly! He even made sure the suckers at the ends of the arrows had a better chance of sticking to the targets by wetting them with a sponge before we shot! Megan even won a prize - a little storage box of some kind that we later saw sold in the gift for 1000 yen! She felt pretty slick after learning she'd gotten a ten-dollar prize, at that point.

There was a house set up that we could stroll into and through, and it was lovely, so I took a lot of pictures while in there. As far as we could tell it was meant to be a recreation/display of the home of a wealthy lord/family. I realized when we were in there that during the park's prime there may have been actors whose job it was to educate visitors on the home, but by now they had been unfortunately replaced by mannequins. Just a guess, but there were a *lot* of mannequins throughout the park.

The home had a really large garden, that looked unkept by then but we could still imagine how lovely it must have been when someone was still able to tend it.

Standing on the porch over looking the garden, I found myself really enjoying the overall 'feel' of the home. I don't know spit about Feng Shui, but there was a feeling of calm that I got that I really rather liked, that I felt had something to do with the way the house was laid out. Also might have been gas.

Obviously not every room had accurate displays of what might have been found in a typical noble-home, including this one, which was near as I could tell was a kind of game or training exercise (from what I could gather from the signs and diagrams) where you had to move the bird around the post with the fan. Honestly though I could make neither heads nor tails of the instructions, so that's just a guess.

On another porch, fenced off from the general public, were also these two huge...somethings. This one looked like it might have been a shrine, while the other looked like a very small carriage. Either it was a not-to-scale replica, or it was made for a very petite person. Either way they were both lovely.

Aroun the corner was another 'something' on top of a tall dresser, and though once again I had no real clue as to what it was, I snapped a picture of it.

Finally I came to a replication that actually had a little sign in English, so I didn't just have to hazard a guess! This was an example of the typical 'sunken earth' ovens that families traditionally had, which was obviously used for cooking, but during the cold winters also served as a focus for daily life. Families would spend most of their time around the warmth of this stove, going about their business in comfort thanks to it. That fish is just neato.

I'm not totally sure what this arrangement was meant to be, other than something to take up space, but I really like that lantern.

Here was another lit tle statue, this time showing the god of happiness, luck and...again something else, his name was quite long because it apparently listed all that he was meant to preside over.

There was a weapons museum which had large display-cases full of what would have been 'typical' ninja gear, and I'm pretty sure they were actually antiques that dated back to the period. I didn't get any shots though because it was very dark in there and my flash would've reflected of the glass. I did get this shot of a diagram showing various hand-signs however, which though I know have some old significance, have recently been made familiar to the general public through a ninja-themed anime called 'Naruto' here in Japan, and back in North America.

I really liked this water wheel, which I learned thanks to an English sign was traditionally used to pound stone, as Ureshino's ability with pottery dates as far back as the Edo period apparently! The wheel would power a large mortar and pestal (again probably wrong spelling/usage) that would pound stone into what could be used to make porcelain and pottery. Though the device wasn't really working, the wheel was still clunking along.

Here's a shot of the building that was in the center of the village, right near the entrace, which we never went very close to because got the feeling it wasn't open to visitors. It was still pretty majestic looking though.

On our way around we also came across a gigantic slug, looking mostly dead on the path. Gill put her hand down for size-comparison - it was the biggest slug we'd ever seen, covered in slimey grossness. It was kinda sad though, just lying limp there on the ground. It didn't look squished, but very lack-luster.

Another picture of a pretty little scene, with a few white and pink flowers near the water.

Finally the day was coming to an end, with the park getting ready to close. It was only 3 but since its apparently open all the time, I imagine their days are pretty short! They closed off the day with the throwing of 'mochi' to the visitors. To anybody reading this who doesn't know what mochi is..I'm not completely sure, but when I've eaten it in the past I was told it was rice in some form or another, and when you toast it it puffs up, and becomes very chewy. It tastes literally like nothing, but I always liked it. ^^ First we were entertained by the actor who greeted us at the door, and then he, the girl in pink and the ninja-cat all went up onto the steps and started to throw handfuls of the uncooked mochi towards us.

After that it was time to head out, but we stopped by the souvenire shop to take pictures with this awesome hat. Again, my ginormous cranium foiled my attempt at 'cool'.

Gopher was there at the gates saying goodbye to people, and offered me a great photo op, sneaking up on an unsuspecting Gill while Megan took her picture. Mwaah, I get great joy from this picture.

While we waited for our taxi, Gopher lead us over to a fenced-off area just near the gate, where two really sweet dogs were leashed up, probably waiting for the park to close so they could come out. He called them 'Ninja Dogs', but if they were ninja dogs they were pretty awful, 'cause they were just the cutie-wutest little things.

And nothing melts a girl's heart like a ninja playing with a dog. I mean, COME ON.

Such ended our trip to the ninja village. We took a taxi back to the bus station and eventually caught a bus back to Sasebo. By Sunday night I was oh-so grateful to be back home and able to just crash, but it was a great weekend.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I think I rather like the embedded links technique! I might have to use it in the future.

Thanks for readin', and if you get the chance leave a comment and let me know you've come by, it always makes my day when I get to hear from you guys. Ta ta fer now. ^_^

My Saga weekend - part 1

2006-10-01T19:52:00.000-04:00

Hullo hullo! Welps its Monday morning, day one of the two-day holiday students get after a long week of tests, and so all of us teachers are here, faithfully in attendence. What are we doing? Well, grading tests, shuffling papers, chatting, and in my case, typing (as always) on my laptop. Thank goodness for this thing, without it I would have becoming a drooling mess weeks ago, having counted all of the tiles on the ceiling and every hair on my head. As it is however the number of tiles still remains a mystery to me, and in terms of my head-hairs, I can only say "alot". And that's the way I like it. (The pic on the right is just to take up space - they actually have Hallowe'en stuff here! ....bwah?!)

So this past weekend, Megan, Gill and I decided to foray outside of Sasebo and out into a whole other prefecture! Here is the best map I could find showing whereabouts we went, although the town we visited, Ureshino, is too small to be listed I suppose. Saga borders with Nagasaki prefecture, so it was just an hour bus ride over there and into Ureshino! Saga, and apparently Ureshino is included in this, is famous for its delicious green tea, its pottery, and its hot springs. One of the big benefits of living on Kyushu island are the hot springs - they are multitudinous and glorious! Megan and Gill and I all really wanted to check it out so we made our way there!

With a bit of research we found out that there was a place we could stay in Ureshino that not only offered its own onsens, but a place to sleep! We got the price wrong and ended up spending more than we'd wanted on it, but accidents happen, and at least we know for the future.

Where we were was kind of like a YMCA, I think, with a big pool that you could pay a small fee to use (though it was closed, much to Megan's sincere dismay), and rooms for fairly cheap. There was a samurai show talked about in the pamphlet, that was a drama of some kind where I believe the cast is all men (Japanese drag is kind of frightening). All around the building were these puppets, as well, huge charicatures sittin' around. It was really rather strange, so we had to take pictures. Here are the happy couple that greeted us at the entrance. Later, as we struggled to communicate with the cute but Japanese-only counter staff, I felt as though their happy smiles became mocking. Stupid puppets.

Behind us was a huge arcade, a kick-arse car that we just had to play in. C'mon...its a huge Sonic the hedge-hog police car!!

On the way to our room we also saw another huge puppet, and I just had to pose. I'm sorry, I just had to.

So anywhoo, enough of my ugly mug for a while. Once we arrived at our room we were really jazzed to find that it was traditional Japanese style! Aside from two small bathrooms (one for the toilet one for the sink and bath and such), it was just one huge tatami mat room. The closets wee stacked with futons and the loooveliest duvets for us to sleep with later on. When we got there, hot water and the the makings for green tea for three were set up, as Megan is so nicely demonstrating.

So on that day when we arrived, we decided to hit up the first of our two planned designations while in Ureshino. Our first stop was the Ureshino Sex Museum!! I didn't take too many pictures, and even those that I did probably won't get posted here, as this is a 'family friendly' blog, but it was definetly an experience. The entire museum was a huge display of Japanese (primarily) erotica through the ages - with a bit of Western cheekiness thrown in. It was really bizarre, and a little unnerving, but we all had a lot of laughs while there.

Outside of the building was a huge golden Buddha (though it might have been a Bodhisatva, I'm not positive it was a Buddha because of the wardrobe and posture...I'm probably wrong on this though), who was guarded by two fierce warrior statues. It was hard to take a good picture of the statue as the light was started to die, but in this picture you can see a teeny tiny me in front of it, giving you some idea of the magnitude of the thing.

Here is a picture of the guardian on the right, who I thought looked particularly cool.

So once inside the museum, and after we'd made it through a rather loud and ultraviolet room depicting the Japanese creation story (where two gods got in on and made little Japan-island babies), there was another really lovely Indian-style Buddha that I wanted to take a picture of. Hurrah, it was fully clothed!

Thanks to a bit of high-tech image manipulation, I was also deftly inserted into this racy little scene. Check me out, getting some manly attention and lovin' it!

After we'd made our way through the museum, a little green but a little giddy, we had to wait for a few minutes for a taxi to come and pick us up. Luckily for us in Ureshino everything we wanted to check out was in close proximity to each other, so we never had to spend too much time/money getting around. As we waited, the older lady in the ticket booth encouraged us to take a seat on their convenient 'bench'. I was going to caption this picture, butI decided I would just leave it all up to you to decide what I'm thinking.

That night we forayed out to get some dinner, and hopped from a ramen place to a small little bar, in pursuit of edamame for Gill. We didn't know where anything was, so we just popped our heads into a couple places and asked for edamame. If they didn't have it, we thanked them and excused ourselves repeatedly and booked it. Finally we found a tiny little place where an older lady said yes she had edamame, so we plunked down at her five-person bar. The interior looked like the bar was just a small offshoot from her home, with her tatami living room right next to us, the t.v. still on the show we'd interrupted when we strolled in. She was incredibly sweet though, and we all felt like we were sitting in our grandmother's house. Drinking. So, not sitting in *my* grandmother's house. *laughs*

She served us heated sake, and it was delicious! It tasted more like dessert than alcohol, I was really impressed with it. She did indeed serve us edamame (which just a reminder is salted soy beans still in the pod), and we even got a hard-boiled egg each! We didn't end up staying for too long, not wanting to impose too much, but it was a really nice little place and we all felt we wanted to return. Here's a picture of Megan and Gill that I took just before we got going.

We retired back to the "Juliplaza" (as it was called) where we were staying, 'cause it was time to hit up the hot springs!! They're called 'onsen' here, so I'm going to just stick with that. They're quite common on Kyushu, one of the benefits of being here, and I absolutely love 'em. They're always very inexpensive and clean - you just have to be prepard to get nekkid in front of other ladies. Though I found the idea daunting, I wanted to try it too much and so, in mah birthday suit, Gill and I tried it out. The onsen at the hostel was really big, with a huge indoor pool and a smaller outdoor one, with different pools for different temperatures. Though it might sound a little unsanitary, in Japan you're hard-pressed to find a place that isn't really clean, especially if you've paid to be there. You sit on stools and wash yourself thoroughly before going in to the pool, and the water is changed often. Though we weren't alone, Gill and I braved the looks of the other women in there and actually really enjoyed ourselves. I loves me a nice hot bath.

So afterwards we all crashed back in our room, but not before Gill and I made a late-night run to the convenience store for snacky foods, we were all feeling quite peckish. When we got back to the room I discovered that Gill had bought a maple-waffle cake, and it was my first Canadian-flag siting since I've been here! It deserved a picture. *sniff* Ooooh Caaaanadaaaa....

That night I slept really well, though unfortunately the other girls didn't, and were feeling a bit pooched the next day. We all roused ourselves for the check-out time though, hoping to go swimming only to find out that it was closed! So with the whole morning ahead of us we ventured out to find breakfast and cash, because Gill had accidentally left most of her money back in Saza, so we went in search of an ATM. After much woe we did finally find one, and even managed to use it correctly, despite a lot of random button-pushing. With cash in hand we were able to get some breakfast at a diner called "Joyfull", which is a chain that serves a lot of different dishes, some even western-style. My first pancakes since Tokyo, it was deeeelightful.

Feeling more prepared for the day we caught a taxi and made our way to destination number two, an Edo-period themed park!! We just called it the 'ninja village'. NINJA VILLAGE! XD It was essentially like a Japanese version of the Renn Faire!! It was a little run down, and under-staffed, but still a lot of fun. Here's a preview picture, I'm going to save the village for tomorrow so this post doesn't go on for too long!

Bye for now, next up - frikkin' NINJA VILLAGE!!

Cooler Weather, Crummier Bike.

2006-09-25T20:16:00.000-04:00

I've gotta start trying to come up with 'cooler' names for these journal entries. Who cares about the weather?

Well apparently YOU guys do, 'cause I'mma talk about it. :D Particularly, the effect that the cooling weather seems to have on the younger kids who use the same pedestrian/bike path that I do to get to school.

So please understand that in no way at all do I try and aim for these kids with my crappy bike. When, however, two five year olds decide that its time to change sides of the path to walk on and they have to beeline for the right as fast as they can, horrible visions of bowling them over and squishing their little heads under my bike wheels flash before my eyes, and I either swerve maniacally or put on the breaks so hard that dogs start to bark in the next town over from the squealing sound my crappy bike breaks make. If my bike bell worked, I'd probably have worn it out by now, frantically dinging it to alert them that a big gaijin on a big crappy bike is coming their way.

The feeling of ominous doom I get when I see a line of black and red backpacks (mass issued by schools, black for boys, red for girls) bobbing all the way across the path, barricading me and my crappy bike from passing is unparallelled to anything I've felt before. Each morning, when the first kids come into sight and I have to take my first evasive maneuvers, the words "It begins" ring through my brain. Now how does this tie into the weather? I do believe it makes them walk in close-proximity PACKS, instead of sparse little pairs or trios that I can easily bike around. The occurence of me saying "sumimaseeeeen!" (excuse meee!) has definetly increased as the mornings have gotten cooler, and this morning I almost bowled over THREE darters. I might be 22, but that many close-calls is gonna put me into an early grave.

The alternative to the perils of the bike path are also completely tiny compared to those on the road. With the streets being as narrow as they are, there is usually no space for a bike to go. People here also seem to be a little horn-happy, honking at me when I literally have no place to go. "Yes THANK you madame in car, because I really SHOULD be on that narrow sidewalk over there, where the mother is pushing her BABY CARRIAGE and those two senior citizens are hobbling with their CANES. Pardon ME for being a foot into your road, sorry you had to GO AROUND." Or today, when I crossed the street and I suppose I surprised a man in his grey little car approaching the intersection. I hadn't seen him because of the sharp corner I have to pass that totally blocks my view of the adjascent street, and I hadn't heard him because he wasn't very close to me yet. He was at least a good 10 feet away from me when I had just *finished* crossing the street as a matter of fact, nowhere close to having to break to avoid me, and still he honked at me! What the dickens? I try to give drivers the benefit of the doubt and think its my own fault when I get a honking, but honest to goodness, what else can I do?

It doesn't really help that after the typhoon my bike has become harder to pedal than ever. The chain is so old and rusted, it actually sounds like its struggling to grind through the gears. Trying to go up even a teeny hill on the first gear is literally impossible, I actually had a couple of schoolgirls giggle with "hee hee hee she's so cute!"s behind me when I got stuck on the small incline into the school, after I had forgotten to switch gears. If I decide to bike throughout the winter, I might need to look into getting a better one. Either that, or just get really good at making funny faces that somehow incriminate the crappiness of my bike rather than the weakness in my limbs (in reality right now its a little of column A, a little of column B).

So when I'm not taking evasive maneuvers around school children, I've been at work, or more fun, out and about on weekends!! Last Friday was Hitoshi's birthday, so he and Jenny and I got together and I took them to the izakaya that Meg and Gill and I had previously visited (see earlier posts) and we had a good 'ol time!

They'd bought a small cheesecake to stick candles in, and Hitoshi posed during mid-blow.

He also then posed for what he likes to now call "the most embaressing picture in the world."

That night we stayed out too late for me to catch the last bus back home (10 o'clock, cripes!), so I ended up crashing at Hitoshi's to save myself the 3000 yen (about 30 bucks) taxi cab fare. The next morning I woke up, and on the futon he'd lent me was a rather worse-for-wear looking bug. A long, many-legged, gggggross little bug. Generally I'm not scared of them, but when they're as long as my pinky finger I start to get a little squeamish. Not sure if it was alive or not I flicked it off the mattress, and it sailed about a foot before hitting the nearby dressing, squirming for a bit, and then seemingly give up to just lay pathetically on the tatami mat. I had to take a picture. Blehiaglehialeha.

Sunday night I headed downtown to meet Meg and Gill at the infamous "MEXICAN FOOD" place on main street. Its a tiny little place, but it does quite well thanks to the navy base, and we had a waitress who spoke great English. I ordered a drink called 'shochu', which I thought was a sweet drink I'd heard about. As it turns out I had that confused with 'chuhai', and ended up instead ordering a big glass of Japanese whiskey. Woof! It didn't burn, went down smooth, and ended up hitting me like a shovel to the face. Word to the wise: shochu will get you *drunk*. I had one glass and I was half-gone, it was ridiculous. Mom, Dad, I swear it wasn't on purpose.

I didn't take any pictures of the Mexican place, but I'm sure we'll head back. But uh, not for the shochu. >.> <.< Afterwards Gill wanted to go to a place just across the street that served more European style dishes, because she's able to get a fairly good vegetarian selection there, and I did actually take a couple pictures in there. Here were our cute, and very short, owners/chefs/serving staff hard at work.

And the last pic in this batch, one of the girls, with Meg fallen victim to my super-flash.

At school this week, aside from yesterday, there are no classes and the students are all just taking term tests. These are tests which I had nothing to do with, and unlike some ALTs, I haven't been asked to help write them or grade them (yet). This all means that until next week, I have absolutely nothing to do at school, except kill time. I AM planning on using this opportunity to make lessons and prepare for future weeks, but at least today I'm just gonna bask in the fact that I'm getting paid to sit at my desk. Tomorrow I'll get serious. Sure. As serious as the teacher next to me, who has been playing with his stopwatch for the past five minutes.

p.s. After hearing from a friend that the sheer SIZE of this site is causing viewing problems (for me too actually), I've decided to start archiving more frequently. To view previous posts just go to the menu on the right, 'cause from now on only posts from each week will show up on the main page. Hope that helps!

p.p.s. Okay I tried to change the settings to make it archive daily, but it doesn't seem to be working right yet. Hopefully...tomorrow? I'm not sure when/how it takes affect, sorry for the continued slow loading time guys.

Typhoon Number 2

2006-09-19T01:14:00.000-04:00

Welps, I'm starting to realize that everytime a typhoon blows through here I can't make a big announcement of it on this blog, because its going to get mighty repetative. We had numba two this last weekend, but actually it would be number 14 since the start of this year - just number two for us new ALTs. It was suggested to me that I take a picture through one of my windows, and I realized this wasn't a shabby idea! This was the best pic I got, on Sunday when it had hit us the hardest:

This particular typhoon swept across Kyushu in particular, which is the part of Japan where I live. Miyazaki prefecture was hit the hardest, with winds so powerful a train was actually derailed off its tracks, and I've heard that there were some deaths - though I'm not sure how many nor from what. Everyone here keeps saying how lucky Sasebo was that we didn't get hit too hard. LUCK O' THE CANUCKS!!

I took this picture because for some reason, after sun-down, the sky changed into this colour. I couldn't figure out why or what caused it, it was eeriely pretty.

So Monday was a day off, thanks to "Respect for the Aged Day" (they actually honour that here, whaddya know! Senior citizens don't dissappear in Japan, what a marvel). Hitoshi's girlfriend, a lovely girl named Jenny, is visiting him for a couple of weeks from Korea, and so we all met up downtown to do some....hanging about. I took their pictures, but it neither one do they both look good, so I'll post them both and you can just piece their collective cuteness together in your brains. On the right, Hitoshi going, "What the-"

On the left, Jenny doing some eyeball re-moistening.

We later met up with Ben and Nicola, who you might remember from English camp, and we did some wandering around. At one point we made a rocking trip to the dollar store (which are absolutely amazing here), and I had my favourite Engrish experience so far:
"DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY time flow slowly when is with the puppy"
Aaaaaaah we got a good chuckle outta that one.

While we were downtown we were all keeping our eyes peeled for our students, considering that if you're not on alert, they tend to ambush you in small packs and giggle until things get far too awkward. Which is...pretty much every time. We were all reporting back to each other the numbers of students we ran into that stopped us, and I won that day, with 3 ambushings and about 8 (or 9, they're tricksy) students coming at me. Crimeny I never know what to say, aside from "How are you? Are you shopping?" because they can't speak English! So after we stand there awkwardly for a few minutes I've just started waving with a 'okay see you at school!' to end it. Harsh maybe, but no choice.

So today I taught "my" lesson for the first time with the first-year students, and it actually didn't go down in flames! Because the lesson is on conveying emotion through stress and intonation in English, I get to be very expressive in the lesson - which keeps the kids' attention. Especially when I show them what anger sounds like. *laughs* They get to see what I would look/sound when I'm pissed off, without actually being pissed off, its perfect! Hopefully they'll think of my angry voice when they try and pull anything in the future. Well...I can dream, can't I?

I got a visit from the woman who will be my Japan teaching-partner at the school for deaf students on Friday. She's a lovely lady, who seems very sweet. At the school where I'll be going on every other Wednesday, there are IN TOTAL about seven kids, whose hearing ranges from poor to zilch. Their first language is Japanese sign language, then Japanese, and now English, and mostly they'll be watching my lips. They're English is quite low level though, so I'm trying to think of what self-intro game I could do that would be fun for 2-3 students at a time, and not at all difficult. Hmmmmmmumum.

English speeches are happening around now as well, and we have to pick which student will represent Sasebo Nishi. I'm going to be a judge actually, listening to speeches from all around Nagasaki prefecture. I'm kinda nervous, this is a big deal! I'm looking forward to it though, and I've enjoyed helping the students. I've helped them with their translation, and I'm really pushing the importance of the WAY they say the Japanese as well. I honestly cannot listen to a girl go on for five minutes about "Randmines". I refuuuuse.

The weather today is really lovely, clear and crisp - so far, fall in Sasebo is quite gentle! All of us from Canada are waiting for winter, none of us have yet quite believed that its going to be as bad as what we've come from. We shall just have to see.

SO, nothing all that interesting has/will be happening anytime soon I expect, but I'll try and keep this place updated with anything I figure y'all might like to know. Thanks for reading again, bye for now!

Catch up - Part Two

2006-09-12T22:05:00.000-04:00

And then there was....the cultural festival. Saturday had the 'opening ceremony', where I, alongside two other English club members, shouted "Catch the Wave!" to announce the band to start playing. "Catch the Wave" was this year's festival title. I'm not sure if they meant 'ride' the wave or not, but I can't help but imagine someone with their arms spread open to try and 'catch' a wave and snigger a little. Each class had a few representatives come up and describe what they would be doing, since the cultural festival is essentially a fair put on by the students. Each class has an idea of what they wanna do, then they host it to the teachers and parents and community members who attend. Right fun what what!

Along with a few other teachers, I wandered around the school and checked out each class' activities. This is Sato-sensei, another English teacher who has helped me with my computer on numerous occassions, and is a real sweetheart. He and I found charicatures of ourselves drawn on the blackboard in one of the classrooms, so we decided to pose next to our likenesses. That's him in the cap. ;p

One class had prepared an underwater themed game and decorations, and they even had an awesome whale made out of balloons!

Another class had worked on mouse-trap style games and puzzles, one of which ended in a number of standies painted in teachers' likenesses falling over in a domino effect. I couldn't get a picture of the 'mouse trap' that did it but I did get a picture of the standies!

Some of classes, or perhaps it was the painting club I'm not sure, had set up displays of their artwork, and some of it was quite impessive. In particular I liked this painting, which was just really well put together.

Now, this is a bunch of artwork yes, but it was for a much...odder display. One of the teachers at my school is named Mr. Matsuda, and he's tall, long, and wears glasses. He's a math teacher who apparently had gone away for a little while. Well unbeknownst to him, one of the classes decided to do a 'Museum of Matsuda', and imposed his likeness on a number of different pop-culture images. Frankly it was hysterical and incredibly frightening. Behold, Sailor Matsuda and Cutie-Matsuda!!

Behold, Pirates of the Matsubbean! That's what it says I ain't makin' that up.

And finally, la piece de la resistance...the Matsuda-Lisa!
Which was just dang impressive.

There were often games to be played in the classrooms, and this was one of them. I'd heard of it before, but it was cute to see it in action. Balloons filled with water or set into a pool, and students have to try and fish them out but hooking a paperclip attached to a piece of wet tissue paper, to another paper clip on an elastic band attached to the balloon! Its pretty tricky actually, since the tissue paper is so fragile, but if you win you get to keep the balloon, and it becomes what they all called a 'yoyo'.

One class prepared a little 'restaurant', where you could order burgers. Of course when I arrived, they had written "BUGERS!!" all over the board. After I told them about the second 'r', they went to work correcting the countless 'bugers' written all over the place. *laughs* The bugers were quite tasty actually!

There is actually a 'tea ceremony' club at our school, where students learn this difficult and fine art. Much to my surprise, on the first floor there is an entire room set up in the tradition Japanese-style, just for this club. They were holding short demos for everyone that day, and I was actually asked to sit where I could have my tea specially made for me! The girl did a very nice job.

I sat Japanese style for about 1 minute, then shifted my legs out from under me. After getting some of the crumbs from the cookies they offered us all over myself, and almost scalding my mouth on the tea, I then sat there feeling like an uncultured lump. *laughs*

The room was big enough to host a lot of people, and a lot of students came to check it out. They were mostly just loud and laughing, but whatcha gonna do, they're teenagers.

Outside there were a few tents set up, selling various kinds of food. I ran into a few of the members of the Taiko club out there, after their performance. I tried to take pictures of it but they came out really terribly, so I'm not even going to both posting their blurry silhouettes on here. Aren't they cute in their uniforms though?!

I actually succumbed and did the peace sign in a picture, dun dun duuuuunn..

In one of the tents you could pay 150 yen to eat something called 'somen', which is really thin noodles. You got a little cup full of a thin brown sauce (which I almost mistook for tea and drank), and a pair of chopsticks. Then you were off to fend for yourself! Two halves of a piece of big bamboo were propped up and had water running down them into a pool. Someone at the top sent the somen down the chute, and by sticking your chopsticks into the noodles' path you scooped 'em up, dipped them into the sauce, and slurped 'em down. It was pretty delicious!! Not particularly filling, but there was plenty else to eat.

This picture is pretty frivolous, but I just wanted to show the girl on the very right. SHE'S TEENY TINY!! She's 18, being in third year, and I have seen her a number of times aren't the school. I'm not kidding, she MAYBE comes up to my bust. She's so kewt!! ...okay I'll stop now.

After this point I had to get to the Audio-Visual room, to get ready for the slide-show that would showcase..me. Here is Goto-sensei, the teacher who runs the English club, who is completely awesome and dresses in trousers and a tie every day. She's a great lady.

The club leader is quite shy, and decided that making a mask to cover her face would e a good idea. Why she chose to make a 'Kate-mask' I'll never know, but frankly I was creeped right out. She didn't end up needing to use it, as about 6 people came to our event. *laughs*

So basically that was the festival. Afterwards there was a staff-wide party at a fancy restaurant close by, with a few parents thrown in to boot. The tables were set close to the floor, with comfy cushions that you could sit on. I of course broke out of the tradition Japanese way of sitting after about...thirty seconds, but nobody cared and actually reccomended that I do it, they know its tough! In this picture you can see Ms. (or Mrs. I'm not sure) Yamamoto, the office's 'secretary' of sorts, who is a really nice lady and likes to chat, despite knowing no English.

Here is some of the spread we got at the party, it was all muy deliciouso. I also got to try sake for the first time that night! It reminded me of tequila actually, but it was much smoother and less face-wrenching. I also had a bit of Japanese beer, which I actually like better than Canadian beer (I think I'm a fan of 'dry' beers), but didn't have much of that, I have no taste for it. A few of the men there got drunk, but mostly people were eating too much, it was a fun night! ...that lasted for 2 hours. Apparently Japanese parties have a time limit.

Aaaand finally, here I am with Fukada-sensei, who was leaving the school and got a bit of a 'farewell' party that night, and, that's right, MR. MATSUDA!! He came over to chat, as did a number of teachers that night. I met Kando-sensei, who has almost no neck, incredibly broad shoulders and a huge boxy upper body. He's a geologist, and completely adorable. He's trying to learn more English so he likes to chat, but he's actually quite shy! I found that that night, many of the teachers I had seen but had ignored me approached me, and we got to chat, it was very nice!

Since then I've just been relaxing at school, not doing too much, but I actually did make a lesson for next week!! Apparently Brendan didn't really use the textbook very much, which meant he made all of his own lessons. This is all well and good, but they want me to use the textbook a bit more. So this week I'm conducting a lesson straight out of it, which the kids find a little boring but not 'gonna sleep now'. When I was in Tokyo I bought a book called "Team Taught Pizza", which is a book full of ideas for lessons for mostly upper grades. Its actually pretty awesome and quite handy. With it I was able to make a lesson tying into the textbook, but about stress and intonation in conversation. One thing I've noticed is that the kids sound completely flat when they speak English, and it makes for pretty ugly sounding English. I have also noticed that when I add intonation when I'm reading something aloud, a dialogue or what have you, they mimic me. I think its partly to make fun, and partly to learn it, either way I don't mind because its good for them to hear it.

What I want them to get used to is the notion that an English speaker will occasionally misunderstand or simple not understand if the inflection in a sentence is off, or the wrong word is stressed. Speaking so flatly all the time not only makes it hard for us to listen, but its a crucial part in mastering the language. So I want them to get used to hearing English coming out of their mouths, and manipulating the sounds in a way that fits the language better. They get enough grammer lessons from their Japanese teachers, my job is to teach them listening and speaking skills. So I'm gonna do just that, as best as I can.

Frankly, my brain hurts.

Thanks for stopping by to read, bye for now!

Catch up - Part One

2006-09-11T19:50:00.000-04:00

Cripes I'm behind! Sorry for how lazy I've been here everybody, I've been busier lately, and when I did have the time to write in here I was usually too pooped. So I have like, two weeks to catch up on! Yeeee.

So in the last two weeks I've been up to a few fun things, and a lot of down time. There has been karaoke, two school festivals, and a staff-wide dinner party among the most prominent (that have pictures), but I also found an absolutely awesome art store that has been one of my favourite things recently. *laughs* The prices here are absolutely great, and for the kind of stuff I like to draw, Japan has exactly what I'm looking for. Sometimes...I love this place.

So a little while ago, Hitoshi, Megan, Gill and I headed out to a huge karaoke parlour called 'Shidax' in downtown Sasebo. Megan and Gill had also invited a Japanese girl (whose name I've woefully forgotten) that they had met at the cell phone store where Megan had gone shopping that day. Apparently she was just really nice, and they invited her to come and she agreed! I was surprised, to say the least, but she was a total sweetheart and it was a lot of fun. She spoke almost no English however, but I think she understood what we were saying half of the time. The other half, Hitoshi and I (usually) vainly tried to peice together sentences.

Karaoke in Japan is incredible, the rooms were cozy but completely soundproof, the range of songs was endless, and you got unlimited drinks with the room for quite cheap! With every song there are background 'movies' to go along with it on the tv screen. Japanese songs had what looked like music videos of sorts, but English songs always just had various footage of England from the 90's. It was kinda bizarre, but pretty funny. Here's Hitoshi, who has a really good ear, that boy can harmonize at the drop of a hat.

Here are Gill and Meg, who both have great voices as well. Gill is actually an amateur musician back in Scotland, playing the guitar and singing in bars occasionally, and she's got a great set of pipes. I'm not usually a fan of karaoke, because my pitch is pretty awful when I can't hear myself or I'm not used to the key, but it was a lot of fun!

So on the weekend before last was Sasebo Nishi's 'Sports Festival', which gives students a chance to showcase their abilities and have fun. Its mostly about fun. All of the students are split into three teams: red, blue and yellow, and then these three teams compete in various events, gaining points depending on how they do. The team with the most points wins obviously, though there were various categories. As far as I could tell, teachers weren't really affiliate with any one team, but I considered myself on the 'red' team from the start because I was assigned as one of the teachers to watch the students before hand, and later competed in an event for the red team too. Red team, red team OI OI OI!!

The students donned bandanas according to their team, and then marched out and around the field in a very military-like fashion. Other teachers apparently find this a little odd to watch as well from what I was told, but its tradition so they still do it.

Here you can see the field, and all of the students lined up with their flags, ready to "fight" (I'm quoting them, I swears)! Its blurry, but you can see each team's special banner behind them as well. That was also a contest, to see which team came up with the best banner. In the end of the yellow team one, but like a champ I don't think I took a picture of it.

So after the opening ceremony, the games began!! I took a billion pictures of all of them, but quite obviously it would take forever to describe them all so I'll just show some of my faves. There were...speed races of varying lengths:

:Obstacle courses that ended in a race to the finish in a potato sack.

And a race where teams of three or four had to hold long, thick pieces of bamboo and race around pylons. Students did it, and then teachers and parents who had volunteered took part too. Including me!! Our team even won!! Of course, the two fathers I was running with dragged me the whole way. *laughs*

You can see me in my 'sports day' gear, including my new pair of track pants that I bought from the men's section of a department store. I didn't even TRY the women's section. The clerk looked at me and politely explained I wouldn't find my size there. Boo. Being men's pants, they tapered oh so unbecomingly, but dang if they weren't comfy!

The teachers were situated beneath tents on the far side of the field, apart from the long rows of parents or other members of the community who had come out to watch the events. Here is Kuzuno-sensei, one of the English teachers I work with and a nice lady. She seems incredibly sharp to me, in wit and tongue, and I get the feeling that if I could speak Japanese better, we'd get along pretty dang well.

This little munchkin belonged to a P.E. teacher who is on maternity leave, but came out for the festival. She actually let me hold him for a little while, as many of the teachers did, as I think she was grateful for the time off. He was a real sweetheart, and in that stage where he's figured out his legs work, and let him bounce on people's lap for ages.

After the sports were done, there were dances and demonstrations! Girls came out and did a lovely little fan dance to a beautiful piece of flute music to start it all. It was a simple dance, very traditional, but they did a good job.

Following that was a demonstration by the kendo club, where members led participants in a short demo of what kendo is. They were divided into lines of girls and boys, and mostly just did running swipes at each other, back and forth.

Then came the judo club, where mats were set up for them to throw each other around. Timing them was the only boy member of the Taiko club, who is incredibly good and a nice kid. He can't participate in sports because of an injury he sustained in a car accident when he was young, which keeps his right leg permanently bound in a splint. He has a slight limp when he walks, and uses a crutch occasionally, but he marched up to that drum with perfect dignity.

So after the judo club came races out from the gates with a hearty cry, they started the demo, which was essentially throwing each other over their shoulders and slamming themselves on the mats. Judo is like a wrestling/grappling form of martial arts, and is about strength and using your opponent's motion/weight against him. We have a new teacher here who teaches it, and he's a brick house.

After the demos came lunchtime, and immediately following that, each team performed a dance! In Japan there is something called 'para para', where at concerts or in music videos, often times songs have their own little dance to go with it. Its usually very simple and silly, but fans learn the dance and do it along with the music. Essentially that's what the Yellow team's dance was, a 'Sailor Moon' and 'Cutie Honey' (another anime about scantily clad fighter-babes) themed 'para para'. One of the teachers even helped out, dressing up as a character from Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask! He was viciously way-laid by a couple evil teachers though, le gasp.

Here were the girls dressed up as the Sailor Scouts. My 14-year old self reared her nerdy little head and I just had to get a picture of them, they were too cute.

And here was the Yellow team's dance, fully equipped with boys in skirts!

Next up was the blue team, who did a jaunty little ensemble in t-shirts made to look like bikinis. And more boys in skirts.

Finally there was the red team who started off their dance with some very cool choreopgraphy in black and red uniforms. Then some animal-based power-rangers showed up and did a little dance.

And then finally...ended off with boys in skirts.

After the dances came a parade of the various sports clubs (which included brass band..I'm not sure why), who all then lined up to show off their teams.

Much to my delight, these teams then had a relay race against each other! Quite obviously the track team 'won', but it was more a thing for plain fun than anything.

Most of the teams also 'showcased' their sport while they ran, so the tennis team bounced a ball on their racket, the basketball team threw the ball back and forth to each other...and the rugby team...

Well, the rugby team tackled each other, over and over, around the entire track. Hopefully its obvious just how hard I was laughing.

And the laughter was NOT helped after I got to watch the girls' tug of war game. For some reason, tug of war is girls only over here. In this version, there were long thick pieces of bamboo set in the middle of the field, and two teams on opposite sides would run at them and try to get each peice over to their side. Often times, it ended up in stubborn lasses getting their butts dragged while being overpowered.

After that, there was MORE dancing! Or rather, this time it was supposed to be a form of 'cheerleading'. It was pretty spiffy! The blue team used fans and sharp choreography, an they won this category, it was very cool.

Then came the yellow team, who used large flags and umbrellas within their routine.

And finally the red team, who did some cute little sashays and such, but was overshadowed by the awesome of the others. Dangit.

So after the events were over, it was announced that the red team won overall (woo hoo!), with the most points. As everybody worked to clean up and take down the tents, I snagged a few pictures of some of the cool stuff up close. I was helping to clean too, don't look at me like that mummy! Here were the 'drums' that the red team used to punctuate their cheer. I asked what all the kanji said, and apparently it was just listing off the student's names.

And finally, here was the red team's banner, which was a representation of the story "Journey to the West", which involves Goku the monkey warrior, a priest, a pig-demon, and a frog-demon. Its actually a story that's been rehashed into various anime, including Dragon Ball, which some of you might recognize by name.

So that concludes 'part one', 'cause this went on forever, but I'll update again soon and show some of the cultural festival highlights!! Thanks for reading! ^^

I've lost my best friend...

2006-08-31T19:08:00.000-04:00

...SLEEP. COME BACK TO ME SLEEP!! I miss your sweet sweet embrace.

Rather, I miss GOOD sleep. And really I shouldn't complain too much, considering that its my fault I'm so tired as much as it is my new job. Having to get up at 6:30 SHOULD tell me to get to bed by 10 at the latest, but noooooo, I have to stay up till 11 and then shuffle around the next day! I think what I hate the most is that coffee makes it better. I've managed to avoid a coffee dependency up 'till now, I don't want to start!! Ah fah, whatcha gonna do.

So! I'm sorry for the lack of an update, but while I was at camp I got into the habit of leaving my laptop at the school since I was barely going to use it at home, and I kept forgetting to upload the pictures I had taken.

As I mentioned last time, I had my (first, since apparently there will be a second!) welcome party! It was a small dinnner affair that had most of the English teachers, minus a couple who were away with school related stuff, attending. They're all really awesome people, especially in social situations when I can get to know them better!

They took me to a restaurant down around the pier where you can take a boat tour of 'the 99 Islands', or the Goto Islands. Apparently the consider a plot of land about the size of your head an 'island' in that title, but there are also more than 99 so I suppose it evens out! The restaurant was called 'Pinnochio' and it served really great Italian food. You can see Rika on her phone there.
Here ou can see four of the teachers who came. Clockwise from upper left is Kuzuno-sensei (who is really awesome but pretty hardcore with her students!), Rika, Sunada-sensei (who sits next to me everyday and is quiet but sweet), and Goto-sensei, who runs the English club and makes me really wish I understood more Japanese, because even with what I can pick out she's a riot.

Here I am, with that wonderful red eye my camera is so fond of, sitting next to the head of the English department (on the right). If I were completely awake right now, I'm sure I'd remember his name! As it is...uh....there ya go. He's really nice, though quite timid, and seems to have a bit of trouble getting words out. He's got an excellent grasp on English though, as I've read his writing and its flawless. Behind us you might be able to see a table that consisted of a party of Americans. I kept zoning on the conversations at my table and craning an ear behind me, to see what they were chatting about. At one point I heard them talk about finally seeing a moose, and I jerked with an internal shout of "CANADA?!?!?!" But nay, as far as I could tell, they were with the Navy. I don't know what was up with the moose.

This man apparently organized the party, and he seemed really nice, but again I've forgotten his name. He also spoke no English, but I was told that apparently its his job to get the parties going so here he is!

I didn't get a very good picture of it, but at one point the teachers ordered an appetizer that seemed to consist of four very long, skinny hotdogs, with ketchup and mustard on the plate. I hope it wasn't expensive, because well...they were hotdogs. The women let Sunada-sensei eat them all, and he was oh so willing.

When I arrived, I was told to order something, so I ordered some pasta for what I thought would be for myself. What ended up happening instead rather, was that every dish was shared, and we all took onto our own plates what we wanted to eat. I managed to realize this before I dug into the pasta I had ordered thank goodness, but I was a little confused at first. All the pizza and pasta I could have wanted as ordered for the table, and we all shared them, it was really delicious!

And for dessert, wonderful wonderful dessert, I had a banana chocolate crepe. Mmmmmn. Anyody who knows me knows how much I enjoyed that crepe. Oh my yes. Some of you may be wondering why I'm posting so many pics of the food I ate. Well, frankly, its my blog and I'll post what I want to. :P

The following night I headed out with a few friends to a Reggae party on one of the Sasebo beaches, and met up with Megan and Gill there. Since it was dark I obviously don't have many pictures, but it was a fun time. The place was crawling with Navy men. Basically you were either a hoochied-up Japanese girl, or an American man, with a few of us 'others' sprinkled in around them. There was a huge stage where performances took place, and then a lower one where dancing happened. I'm 22, and like to think of myself as pretty laid back, but holy goodness, I saw some dancing up there that made even ME blush!!
Allow me to say that Japanese 'Reggae' is pretty amusing. It sounds like Reggae, sorta of, but in Japanese. I'm not sure how to describe it other than amusing. And seeing young Japanese people with Jamaican colours decorating them, their hair in long braids or cornrows, and the various other takes on the Jamaican culture was also....interesting. *laughs*

I don't think I'll be attending too many beach parties in the future however, I found sand pretty much everywhere the next day, and I'm still sweeping it out of my apartment.

So as I said, this past Monday-Wednesday I was at a different school, helping out with an English camp. It was basically a language-intensive experience for a group of about 40 students from this commercial high school, which is from what I can tell a kind of business school. Since the school's population is about 80% girls, the camp was as well, with three boys attending. Apparently most of the students who go there go on to be hostesses, flight attendents, or have other such service-industry jobs where knowing English is greatly encouraged. The kids were there 24/7, and were constantly busy. Their bed time was actually scheduled at 12, with a morning set for 6:30! None of us were surprised when kids would konk out at random intervals between (and sometimes during) each lesson.

Our job was to conduct lessons on such things as 'Future and Past Tense', 'Comparatives (long, longer etc.)', 'Descriptors (pretty, ugly)', Prepositions, Self-Introductions, and so on. They lessons were mostly game-related, but the kids did get tested so they did have to absorb things. I worked with a handful of other ALTs, who I'd all met before and were in the same general area. One the left are Cortney from California, and Nicola from England.

There was also Arlen from California, who is also fluent in Spanish! I tried to get Jon into this picture, but he's just on the side there. Jon was not my favourite ALT there. If I had to hear one more time about how "cute" and "genki" the girls were (who ranged from 14-16 years old), and about how much he wanted to 'adopt' one of them, I was going to strangle him. ALTs fawning over their students inappropriately is apparently my new pet peeve!! :D

The students were all really energetic and earnest, even the ones who could speak almost no English. They were divided into three groups: Basic, Intermediate, and Challenge. Each group was distinct in how we taught them, but they were all good kids. The girls were always very happy to pose for pictures, but the elusive boys made themselves scarce when the ALTs had their cameras out.

On the last day we all took pictures with some of the students, and created a nifty fire-escape hazard on the staircase!

The building we were in was situated halfway up a hill, overlooking a part of Sasebo that actually has quite a rural feel to it. To get to the bus stop I had to hike the rest of the way up the hill, and it gave me a great vantage point to take some pictures!! On the right there is the building, which the highschool owned and I guess uses for events such as ours.

Most of the days were overcast (or pouring rain) and incredibly humid. The building had no air-conditioning. I was sweating like a race-horse pretty much all the time, but I'm actually getting used to it. Not that I enjoy it, but its no longer a "omygoodness I'm sweating how embaressing!" It's more like "Now wheeeere did I put mah sweat rag?"

Now that the camp is over, I'm back at Sasebo West (or Sanishi as its nicknamed, Nishi being 'West' in Japanese), and doing the teacher thing again. Today I was supposed to have three classes, but a number of school festivals are coming up, including the sports festival this Sunday! As such, the whole school is getting ready for it and the two-day cultural festival next weekend. Junior and Senior high schools all across Japan do these festivals, and the surrounding communities always come out to watch them. Different clubs, classes and groups of students around the school prepare events and games, and dances to compete against each other. This was the view outside of the fourth floor window yesterday:

They dance to either music (theme songs from anime most of the time, I've been told) or to drums, and its pretty neat to see them all attemping to move in tandem.

The English club has asked me to join and help them come up with their own attraction for the cultural festival, and much to my surprise/horror, they want to do a picture slide-show of "A day in the life of Kate!!" So this next week I'll be working with them to prepare that, because apparently it'll be a great opportunity for the students to get to know me. And my incredibly boring life. Hurrah!

Lord, give me strength. *laughs*

At the moment I'm sitting in the teacher's lounge almost completely alone, standing sentinal against any students who might try to come in here. While all the other teachers are outside with the students preparing for the festival, I'm sitting here in my work clothes, acting as designated guard-dog. Fine by me! Let's see, go outside and sit in the heat, listening to Japanese speeches and instructions for a few hours orrrr....sit in the air conditioned teacher's room on my laptop? .....actually that's not quite as easy a choice as it sounds, the boredom gets pretty crippling in here sometimes. :P

Welps that's all for now, tonight I'm going out to karaoke with Meg and Gill if we're all up to it, and Sunday is the sports festival, so hopefully I'll have pictures then!

Bye for now. ^^

Nagasak'eeeeeh.....

2006-08-24T02:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of a promised update yesterday, but when I wasn't grading 240 mini-paragraphs about what the first years did on their summer break, I was teaching my first class, or starting in an exhausted daze out the window. I'm slowly getting more used to this schedule of 6:30 mornings, but its been tough to get to bed in time to get enough hours! I'm doing better today though, hopefully I'm getting used to it! Can't wait for my sleep in tomorrow however...mmmmmn sleep in.

SO! Now I need to catch up over the Nagasaki trip! Thankfully there's somewhat less to say on that front, since we were all too busy or again exhausted to do too much while we were there.

Megan, Gill and I all headed out together on the train, which was about 2 hours long and followed the sea-line for the most part, so it was very pretty! On the way we saw the main building in Huis Ten Bosch. Its kind of a 'Dutch town', but its more like a theme park. I'm totally hitting it up for Christmas time! Check it out here: http://english.huistenbosch.co.jp/ It looked really nice from the train, we even saw a windmill!!

When we arrived in Nagasaki, we were at the train station slash AMU plaza, which is just a huge mall right next to the station. From there we took a tram to the JA building, where our meetings were held. Lemme tell ya, hucking a heavy overnight bag in high heels down the streets of Nagasaki is noooot so fun.

So then we had meetings for the rest of the day, but at lunch the three of us wandered down to Dejima wharf, which was just right beside the JA building, and took pictures. The view was pretty spectacular, with all the boats and the sea laid out before us.

This was a shot down the pier of where were standing.

There was a big boat in the water as well, a smaller replica of which we'd see at the train station, and I love the huge face on the bow....stern? .......front.

And ladies and gentlemen if you look straight ahead of you, you'll see the rare, Canadian dork in all of her glory.

So after we had all taken silly poses on the pier, we moved into a restaurant for lunch! There was a huuuuge tank full of fish, and for some reason I was compelled to take some pictures. I'll save you from those however, and just show you my favourite one, of this creepy little eel that was slithering around. Later on, I ate one of his relatives over rice. Eel is taaaasty.

After lunch were moooore meetings, but after that was relax time! Ogawa-sensei had hooked me up with a room at the Holiday Inn in Nagasaki, which was about $80 (+ breakfast) a night, and man was it swank! The room was gorgeous and the bed huge, I totally loved it. We even were given green and purple yukatas (light Japanese robes) to wear, and the three of us all took pictures of each other, but with Megan's camera so until I get them from her I am picture-less.

That night was a dinner and drinking party at another hotel, which was later followed up with a trip to a local club. The girls and I took taxis everywhere in the city, because they were so cheap and convenient. Here, the fare automatically starts at 560 yen, which quite high compared to home, but it goes up very rarely, so every time we took a cab we split a $6 cab fare between the three of us! It was loverly.

The dinner was just a big buffet, but it featured a lot of Western foods! Including, much to my squealy-delight, potato wedges!!! These are one of my favourite foods back home, and so to have them here was just toooooo lovely. This picture isn't with a potato wedge, unfortunately, but a sweet little fuzzy navel I got to try! Yummers.

We met a lot of great people there, in particular a fellow Torontarian named Lana! She's a third year ALT I believe, now living in the close-by city of Omura, and was really awesome. Unfortunately for Meg, she came out looking rather possessed in this picture. The red-eye function on my camera is a little wonky sometimes!

After the dinner, we all headed down to "Club Jah Rule", which was....pretty lame, actually. There were two DJs, and the first played the absolutely worst music to dance to possible, so the people who did attempt looked pretty silly. Gotta give them props for trying though! Most of us chilled on the couch for a little while until the music changed.

Suffice to say, the ALT boys decided it was the night to get their drunken mack on, and so part of the night involved me doing some dodging and assists for the other girls. I've never heard and overheard so many lines in one place in my life, it was pretty gross! We all left around midnight, being too tired and fed up with the club to really want to stick around. Plus we had that early morning hanging over our heads.

Unfortunately, none of us were in great shape the next day, between the travelling and the lack of sleep. Our meeting was over by lunch though, and Megan really wanted to head out to the Atomic Bomb Museum while were there, and so we got a locker for our bags and dragged our tired behinds down to the memorial and museum. Outside of the entrance was, curiously enough, a thing totem pole.

Perhaps if I'd been in better shape I would have attempted to get better pictures of it and the following sites, but a) the road to the museum was totall uphill and b) it was scoarching hot outside, and so I literally couldn't be bothered to muster up the energy to walk those few steps to get a closer view. *laughs* Yeowch.
This was a huge gold statue outside of the memorial. Again, not a great picture. I shall also blame the sunlight for making it hard for me to see if I'd taken a good photo on my screen I shall! Cop-outs for everyone!

I wish this was nicer too, but I thought it was a pretty scene. There were a few statues and memorials outdoors before you got into the main building, and these people were reading the inscription on one. I like her parasol.

In the main foyer, there was this display set up of cranes and crane-sculptures students had made for the recent anniversary of the bombing in Nagasaki. Cranes are stacked on top of each other in either long trains, or even sometimes as shapes!!

Megan and Gill had gone to the Peace Park on a previous trip, which from what I gathered was spread out over the hypocenter of the bomb's drop, and there is a huge statue of a man pointing at the sky. These students had made a replica out of teeny cranes, how neat is that?

Inside the museum no pictures were allowed, but let me just say, it was....interesting. Definetly very difficult at times. The stories and the artifiacts found that show the effects of the heat and radiation of the bomb were jarring. One display that hit me hard was one that showed the 'shadows' that were created on the sides of buildings after the blast. Apparently the sheer heat from the blast changed the colours on buildings, but where the surfaces were shielded, with a pole or laundry or something, a 'shadow' was created on the side. I found an image on the web that shows an example of this:

This phenomenon is pretty incredible as it is, but there was one picture that was incredibly startling. Imagine a side of a wooden wall, with the shadow of a ladder, and man standing next to it. He had apparently been in a lookout, and climbed down just as the bomb landed, and his shadow along with his ladder's were permanently burned (or not burned, as is the case) onto this building. It sent shivers through me, even writing about it hear gives me goosebumps. The other images of the destruction, the death and the decay that occured were disturbing as well, but I think seeing the image of someone that enables you to so easily imagine what it must have been like at the moment of impact was one of the most difficult parts for me.

Once we were outside of the main display rooms, there were two large quilts that had been made by students, each patch pleading in some way or another for this to not happen again. The sheer stupidity of such a weapon is what really infuriates me. From such greed for power comes such suffering, which is still strongly felt by the people here decades later.

So, after we left, we walked by what I think was a huge Chinese style restaurant, that was really quite amazing. But then again, I'm easily amused. :B

After the museum our bodies gave us no choice but to head home, shuffling our way back to the train station. The cars were actually pretty comfy, and not too crowded as we got closer to home.

We all basically sat in a stupor, read, chatted, or dozed. I wasn't actually sleeping in this picture, but the pose came incredibly naturally to me by that point.

While I was gone school had officially started again, what with it being an 'academic' school, full of students who almost all want to go on to University. Wednesday I did more of the same, as in nothing, but yesterday I actually got to work! Hence the lack of updates, as I mentioned. I was given paragraphs to mark that students had written about what they did over the summer break, which was long but kinda fun. From what I noticed one of the hardest things for them are 'ing' words, so saying "tiring" instead of "I found study very tired." Some of them traveled, but many students wrote about how they had to come to school every day to participate in clubs and/or study. Much different breaks than the ones we experienced back home!!

Yesterday I also had to conduct my first lesson, and it was ooookay. I had prepared a game to get them to ask me some questions, which went over moderately well, particularly the part where the question "do you have a boyfriend?" is asked. This might sound a like a bizarre choice to have them ask me, but since I'm open about it, and was going to be asked anyway (as I have been five times since arriving here) I thought I may as well save them the trouble. When I offered the picture of Alex to show, an entire row of girls jumped out of their seats with an "eeeEEEEEH!!?" Apparently that's a very, very big deal here! *laughs*

As part of the intro lesson too they wrote messages to me, along with their names. The boys mostly just wrote "nice to meet you", save the one who wrote "Arm hair, head hair, leg hair" in a column down the page. Yeah...I dunno. The girls meanwhile almost entirely drew little cartoons, with long messages about themselves and complimenting me. "I think you are so cute!" "You are very beautiful!" and the occasional "I love you!!" were the most common. They made me smile, but I realize that all those phrases are easy to remember in English, which is probably why I got so many. *laughs*

After school hours, I went to the Taiko club, of which I am now a member! It means I'm much more busy, but I love all the kids in there to death, and the drumming itself is addictive. I'm very excited to be part of that!

Today I had to give a speech in front of the whole school, and I think I did well. Besides sweating like a race horse and being on stage with two of my buttons mis-matched of course, but still, the all seemed to enjoy the fact that I did half of it in Japanese. Everybody knows my name now, however, which means that packs of boys like to spit it out like a dart at me so that I turn to look at them. One group in paticular seems to like shouting words like "Sushi!" "Tempura!" "Sashimi!" at me. I just laugh, but considering that they stick together and are often bigger than me, I'm sometimes a little inimidated! I can never help but wonder what the heck they want!!

The other class I was supposed to teach today got canceled because of the assembly, so today I'm just relaxing for the most part. Tonight I have my welcome-party/dinner to attend, which I'm looking forward to it, but I'm keeping my expectations low juuust in case.

I agreed to do an English camp next week from Monday-Wednesday with a bunch of other ALTs and Japanese English-speakers, but I didn't realize at the time how hardcore it was gonna be! Three days of hours and hours of workshops. Crimeny. Hopefully it'll go well, and I'll get the chance to steal a few minutes on the internet in the mornings here before I leave.

So that's all for now, I'm pretty much caught up, and next time hopefully I'll have some party-pics to share! Bye for now!

Toilets and Taikos....

2006-08-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

Hey-ooooooooh! (Check out my new jaunty chapeau.)

Sorry for the long wait between posts, but the last few days have been pretty crazy for me. When I'm not running around Sasebo with Megan and Gill (two other ALTs close by), I'm running around Nagasaki listening to stupid seminars and checking out the Atomic Bomb museum! Verdict: Oh dear.

First off, just a few random pictures I've taken around the area that don't really deserve a narrative:

My 'all organic dinner' that I had with Yuka Ogawa at a restaurant inside of a hotel. Mostly seaweed, very chewy and rather tasteless. I ate a lot of things that were, in her words, "Very good for your health" that night. Why can't 'tasty' and 'good for you' coexist more often then not!?

Before the typhoon actually hit us, the mist and haze of was surrounding our area, but I wanted to take a picture of the river anyway. This was the river before the typhoon:

: And this was the river just afterwards. The water level had risen like crazy and it was incredibly rough.

There is apparently a toy unique to the Sasebo area, which to me looks like a kind of top that you would wrap a rope around, then yank off to get it to spin. I forget what its called but the city's mascot is a little boy with one of the toys for a head. Around the city they are placed on top of railing posts that line the streets, and this is what they look like:

I don't know how many of you have heard of 'Japanese style toilets', but they're quite the...experience. In my school there is one 'Western style' toilet, but its in need of a little repair. I still use it however, because that is my alternative.

Ain't it delovely.

I've used it a few times, but goodness, it not my first choice. Squatting is not my bag.

One last one, taken at JUSCO, a huge department store here. As some of you may recall, Dove has been doing a 'campaignforrealbeauty' shtick the last little while, advocating that their products are great for women of aaaaall body types. Their posters and billboards usually showcase girls with big legs or boobs or arms, often with nice little tummies but I digress. Here is the Japanese version of 'all body types, real beauty':
I'm not arguing but....dang. Just dang.

So! I have a bit of catching up to do, it would seem! Megan and Gill are both living in Saza, which is a small town just north of where I live, easily accessed on the bus route. Gill is from Scotland, and her accent just worms its way into my brain, I lurv it. They've been practically inseperable since Megan arrived, as they live right next to each other and get along famously. They're both a riot to hang out with, and man has it been nice to have girlfriends again!

One of the first things we did when we first hooked up was, of course, to go shopping!! Since coming here I've bought a lot of stuff, but most of it has been necessities. That day however, I flitted about the accessory shops with unending glee! One place in particular had a wide array of hats, and the girls and I went a little dork.

Here's Gill looking fly in her awesome touque, and (much to my jealousy) a great pair of shoes that were muy cheap and give her about 4 more inches. Only then is she taller than me!

Then we checked out a used clothing place, but it was one that caters to a particular style. Some call it grunge, I call it 'ew, this smells funny.' They did have an awesome array of glasses however, and this cheeky little CD case that gave me the most lovin' I've had since I left Canada.

Megan's predecssor had left behin some awesome tips of where to go in Sasebo for good food, and the girls had become big fans of what is called 'izakaya'. Though I'm not totally sure what that means, they're small restaurants that serve food and alcohol, basically. And I mean very small. We managed to find one relatively close by, but when he opened the curtain at the door we balked. It had about 6 people already in it, and it was almost full to capacity! Right away the owner came to us though, and beckoned us in so we couldn't turn him down. There was one table available against the wall, and it was just big enough for us! I took a couple pictures of the interior, but they don't do a great job of showing off the size of the place. Of course, I didn't exactly have space to back up. ;p
Above is the view right across from us, and you can see behind the glass the owner working away at the grill. We totally scored with this place too, because he actually spoke respectable english! Sometimes in these places the menu has pictures, but not this time, and I was only able to read a bit of it. He was a big help though, and I think we're going to make an effort to return there, he won us over! Plus the food was taaaasty.

In the arcade there is actually a KFC, outside of which stands a rather tall plastic Colonol Sanders. He creeped Gill right out, but I couldn't resist his charm. Nothing like the feel of hard, clammy plastic against a girl to make her long for cuddlier days!

There was a fruit market still open in the arcade when we were heading home, and I couldn't resist taking a picture. BEHOLD, the reason why I will probably get scurvy!! $20 melons!!

So the next day, Megan and Gill came with me to school (at 9 a.m. on a Sunday) so that we could all attend the Taiko drum club. It was my second time going, and goodness is it awesome. Its a student-run club here at the school, and though its quite large, there's only one boy! Apparently boys tend to do the sports thing instead, but heck, I think that girls wailing on drums is just about the coolest thing evah. Megan and Gillian were just as blown away as I was by their practice. The sound of it literally makes you tingle, and I always have this feeling that I'm watching something much, much, muuuch bigger than myself. I love that feeling. The girl in the black and pink shirt there is the President of the club. She's super nice, speaks good English, and is super pretty. I'm sure that if I was still in high school, I'd secretly hate her. :P Luck being as it is, she's awesome!

Its difficult to really show the instense motion and speed that is involved with the drumming, but hopefully you can get some idea of it by observing how their hands and sticks are basically just blurs.

This is Erika (whether that's her real name or an English name she picked out I dunno, but that's what I call her), and she's cute as a button! She's incredibly small, but man can she play (she's on the far right in the above picture), and she's been really friendly with me despite the fact that she's can't speak much English. Rika told me that apparently she really wants to marry a Westerner, so she can have a 'pretty baby'. Somehow she doesn't think that a baby from two Japanese parents is as pretty as one with caucasian blood, which is completely beyond me. I hope she gets lucky and find a good guy, she definetly deserves it!

Here is the one boy in the class, lounging for a sec while they took a short break. He's one of the best there as far as I can tell, his hands are just ridiculously fast.

Each practice that I had attended lasted around 3 hours. That was during the summer break however, and they're all preparing to pay at the upcoming sports/cultural festival. I don't know how long each practice is in the regular school year, but I wouldn't be surprised if its just as long. These kids are hardcore.

Towards the end of the practice the girls offered the three of us their sticks, each has their own, and the President gave us a little practice! Not to brag, but I ain't too shabby I think!!

Of course, that's not to say I didn't have a tough time of it. Behold my consternation!

After we tried our hands at it, we left and went back downstairs to put our shoes on. Before we had made it out though, two of the girls rushed down, giggling like crazy, and asked, "May we ask you a question?" We said of course, and so they replied, "Do you like Johnny Depp?" ..... Not what we were expecting, but all three of us just laughed and said, "Of course!!" And then we stood around and talked about boys for five minutes. *laughs*

Next on the docket is the Nagasaki trip, but I haven't had the opportunity to load those pictures onto my laptop quite yet, so I'll just have to save it for tomorrow. I was informed that I'm actually going to be having my first lesson tomorrow, instead of Monday as I had expected, so I have some preparing to do! I'll let y'all know how it goes. Wish me luck!!

Byyeeee for now. ^^