Please forgive me while I briefly rant...

OBC has made me dread halloween.  I would have never thought it possible that I could grow to loath my once favorite holiday, but OBC found a way.  Every year, OBC has a short, less then two hour Halloween party for the elementary and junior high students.  The format is pretty simple, each of the three teachers plan a short 5 minute game that can be played by up to 6 people at a time and that involves simple to moderately complex English depending on the skill level of the students participating.  Each teacher is responsible for planning the game, drawing up a plan for the room and then doing the actual decorating.  We are also assigned an assistant for the party itself, and that assistant is supposed to help us with the decorating and brainstorming phase.  This would all be well and good, but OBC has had us planning this party for 3 full months already.  I have only been in this country for 3.5 months!  And remember, the whole party is less then two hours!  A two hour party does not warrant a weeks worth of stressed out sleepless nights and three months of planning.  The general stress level, and the increased workload has finally succeeded in destroying my love for the holiday once reserved only for drunken debauchery and silly antics.   

Thank you for indulging me in a few minutes of work related whining.

On Shinto and Japanese Shrines

On Saturday, I had one of the coolest experiences of my time in Japan so far.  A friend of mine took me to the Shinto shrine in Ise city.  This shrine is one of the most famous in all of Japan, and it is where the Emperor himself comes for special occasions.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I will have to post pictures that I have stolen from the internet.  I hope the internet doesn't mind too much!!


First, a little background as explained to me by my friend and local expert, Chinatsu.  The basic idea of Shinto, as I understand it is that every single thing has a spirit within it.  It is for that reason that people who believe in Shinto are very caring towards the world in general, from bugs and weeds to rocks and trees.  Chinatsu told me that around her house when she was little, there were lots of frogs and spiders.  Her mom told her to be kind to the spiders and the frogs, because the frogs were her grandma, and the spiders were her grandpa.  (It might have been the other way around, she said she forgot which was which, apparently the lesson didn't stick that hard!)  I thought that was pretty cool.  


When I say Ise Shrine, what I really mean is a sort of gathering of shrines centered on one main shrine called Naiku, which is dedicated to a Shinto goddess.  The whole gathering of shrines is set deep in the woods, and it is some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever scene.  The the entrance to the Shrine gathering is a bridge over a river, and the moment you cross the bridge, you step into a beautiful forrest.  The walk to Naiku is maybe fifteen minutes at a pretty slow pace, and you really wouldn't want to walk any faster.  I found myself stopping every few minutes to look around and see the massive trees or a smaller shrine off on a smaller path.  


Every shrine in Japan, as far as Chinatsu knew, is built in the traditional style using historical tools and methods.  Next to each shrine there is an open area of the same size as the Shrine itself.  This is there because every twenty years, every shrine is rebuilt out of new materials.  They do this in order to pass down the knowledge and craftsmanship from one generation of shrine builder to the next.  


Apparently, when Sydney comes to visit in January, I shouldn't bring her into the Shrine proper, because the goddess to whom the shrine is dedicated is apparently a very jealous woman.  She will make life very difficult for couples who visit the shrine together.  Also, within the shrine gathering area, there are a whole bunch of chickens!  My expert couldn't explain the origins of the chickens, by she did tell me that I shouldn't try and chase them or bother them at all.  I asked what would happen if I did, and she said that the main priest would be very unhappy with me.  I decided that I did not want to be responsible for the next big typhoon or earthquake that hit Mie Prefecture, so I left the chickens alone!  


All around the shrine area, there are wonderful little shops and things.  After we saw the shrine, we walked around the shop district and did the tourist thing for a while.  It was great!  The highlight of the shop district was a little place that sold locally brewed beers, and I was lucky enough to find a micro-brewed porter!  It was fantastic!  Also, we ate some clams, some Ise udon, and some green tea ice cream.  All in all, a fantastic day. 

Tsu Festival

I think that these weekend would be among the top qualifiers if I held a competition for most "Japanese" weekend.  I'll follow that sentence with a brief, situational definition of "Japanese."  In this case, I mean that I got to experience a whole lot of Japanese culture, and see what the people who live in Tsu city get up to when they throw a party.  


This was the weekend of Tsu's annual city festival.  It was cool to see how the city has slowly been preparing itself for the festival; watching the city's many industrious workers prune trees, clean sidewalks, hang banners, signs and flags, and generally scour the city for any unwanted dirt.  One thing is certain, Japanese festivals definitely win the cleanliness award!  The actual festival was amazing as well.  It was a two day shindig centered on the city hall and Phoenix street, which is one of the main thoroughfares in the city, and it featured Japanese dancers from all over Japan, and a wonderful variety of Japanese festival food.  As far as the former goes, Japanese dance is awesome.  The dancers themselves were crazy animated, and they all looked like they were having the time of their lives.  It was also really cool to see the wide range of ages in the dances.  Some of the dance groups were all university students, some were obaachans (old ladies, literally grandmas) some ojiichans (grandpas) and every once in a while, a couple a little kids!  The little kids were the best.  They were usually lost, hidden behind the legs of their elder compatriots, but whenever they made an appearance in the front row, they were most definitely the most entertaining people in the whole festival.  They also had really cool flags that they used in their dance routines! 


I also ate a ton of Japanese food!  The first day I kept it pretty basic, I ate various fried things, some chicken, and a pork chop sort of thing.  I also at some yakitori, which I believe is chicken.  The most interesting food experience was when I bought a kebab sandwich from a stand on the street.  The guy had the most excellent mustache, and he spoke fluent english, so we were chatting about the festival, and how we came to Japan.  As it turns out, the guy was from northern Iraq, and made several jokes (at least I hope they were jokes, other I owe the friend I shared the sandwich with an apology for getting her killed!) about poisoning my sandwich.  It made for an interesting lunch, let me tell you!


It has also been determined that I look like a Japanese cartoon character.  His name is Anpanman, and he is pretty awesome.  He is made out of bread, and he feeds hungry and needy people by breaking off bits of his own head and giving it to people.  Pretty cool, right??  Unfortunately, when he gives away too much of his head, he starts to get weak, and he can eventually die, I think.  Have no fear, though!  Anpanman is friends with a first-class baker who makes new Anpanman heads and replaces the diminished on when Anpanman starts to get too weak.  Anpanman's favorite means of disposing of his enemies is by "An-punch"-ing them.  I was skeptical at first, but I have grown fairly fond of the little guy.  He is also delicious.

The second day of my festival food adventure was a bit more... well.. adventurous.  I ate takoyaki for the first time, and it was... intimidating.  Tako means octopus, and takoyaki is a fried octopus ball.  As you can see in the picture to the right, they make no qualms about the contents of the little guys.  Honestly, they were pretty decent.  A bit chewy, but the taste was not so bad!  Karroll, if you're reading this, we are going to Osaka when you visit, and we are going to eat Takoyaki!  Osaka is the birthplace of takoyaki, as far as I have been informed.


Thats all for now folks, its off to bed!
Good night!!!

Japanese Lessons!

Exciting news!  I just observed a friend's private Japanese lessons, and if all goes well, I should be starting lessons of my own as soon as next week!  The lesson was quite interesting to watch, and it was a major confidence booster, because I actually understood a fair bit of what was going on, despite the fact that it was picking up about 2 lessons after where I stopped studying at SJU.  I have to call Ishikawa-sensei and have a longer conversation about what I want to get out of my Japanese lessons, and where I would like to start in the textbook, and that should happen relatively soon.  After that, we will decide when I can start, choose a day and time, and then I will officially be studying Japanese in Japan!  I'm very lucky, because Ishikawa-sensei lives fairly close to my apartment, and I can get to her house by bicycle relatively easy.  I could also take a train (and when it gets colder I probably will) because her home is quite near the next station down the line.  It will only cost about 150 yen to get there from OBC, and that is less than 2 dollars.  Life is good.


Apart from that, life in Japan has settled down quite nicely.  Work is going really well, and I am starting to get more and more comfortable living in this country.  At the beginning of October, our teaching schedules got solidified for the next six months or so, and I really enjoy almost all of my classes.  As soon as I finish writing this, I will be going back to OBC for the second part of my teaching day, and my first class will be two junior high kids, one boy and one girl.  This class might be my most difficult class, but not for the reasons you would expect.  The kids are both very smart, and their English comprehension is quite good.  The problem is one of motivation.  The girl is very busy with her school sports clubs (a common problem with Japanese school age kids) and she usually shows up to OBC about 15 minutes late.  The boy is self-described as timid, shy, and quiet.  It was actually kind of funny, I asked him to describe himself, and he got out the Japanese-English dictionary and specifically looked up the word timid.  Timid and self-aware seems like an uncommon characteristic for a 12 year old boy.  Both of the kids will do everything I ask them to do in class, and they usually do the work correctly, but as soon as I ask them to be loud, creative, or anything besides just sitting there, I hit a wall.  We're working on it though, and I am trying to make them do more creative activities and get comfortable being silly.


My last two classes today are both low level adult.  The first adult class is one man who just recently got married, and a woman of about 50 years or so.  They make a pretty decent class, and they seem to get along with each other as well as can be expected given the age gap.  Both of them are learning English as a hobby, so they both enjoy coming to their lessons, which is always nice.  My last class of the day is interesting.  It is two women a little older then me, maybe 25 years old or so.  They are easily my least punctual class, and sometimes they show up as much as a half hour late, or they don't come at all.  When they do come though, they are my noisiest adult class by far.  They are both super excited to come to OBC, and they love to talk, both in English and Japanese.  Sydney, skip this next sentence please!  It doesn't hurt that they are both pretty cute!  Sorry Sydney, I love you!!  That class always makes for an interesting end of the work day.


Outside of OBC, I've been doing as many things as I can.  I have sort of adopted a new habit of saying yes to everything I can.  So far, it has worked out pretty well.  In the last couple of weeks, I have gone to Osaka and Nagoya, I have gone surfing, I went to a theme park, and too many other small adventures to count.  In some ways, it feels like I'm not really doing anything worth writing home about (which is why I haven't posted anything in so long) but when I stop to think about it, I have been all over Mie and I have done a lot of really wonderful things lately.  Life in general is pretty wonderful over here, and it is finally starting to feel like I live here.  That on its own seems like a pretty grand accomplishment!