Going Faster Miles an Hour

Ah screw it...

2009-03-10T12:38:00.002+09:00

The number of 8th graders home with the flu reached a certain cutoff today- they're sending the rest home early. without lunch.

i thought it was funny when they handed out a data table of influenza in the student body.

But my Yiddish, however...

2009-03-09T12:45:00.003+09:00

In the middle of class today I stopped by a group of students to explain a grammar point. Not getting the gist across in my native tongue, I switched to Japanese.

"Oh my god!" said one girl, "he speaks japanese!"

the boy next to her looks at her quizzically. I keep explaining... whatever it was that I was explaining.

"Wow, he's really good!" she's just spitting with amazement at this point.

the boy on her right interrupts. "he lives in japan! what do you expect? you need japanese to live here."

way to go, dude on her right. it's not uncommon for people over here to be shocked a foreigner who's even somewhat comfortable in their language. while in the states complementing someone on their English would be unthinkable, we foreigners get it all the time in japan

ex:

"Good morning."
"My god, your Japanese is AMAZING"

point being: next generation seems to be stepping up

Flatware

2009-03-05T13:51:00.000+09:00

i'm correcting papers right now.

One of my students misspelled the past-tense of "speak" as "spork"

The Ghost of Jumper Cables Past

2009-02-24T12:41:00.002+09:00

Last night I was washing the dishes, my doorbell rang.

It was an older man (somewhere between the age of 30 and seventy five - this country doesn't age for fifty years then BAM! they're older'n hell). He stood leaning forward into the doorway, hands on hips, making very direct eye contact.

"do you drive that suzuki?"
"yeah, i do" i reply
"yer light's on"
"oh, thanks!"

i shut the door for just a moment to put on my shoes, but when i open it again he's gone. completely. i checked the street as i walked to my car. he just went [poof] in that single instant.

Thank you headlight fairy.

Me too, kid, me too

2009-02-20T08:33:00.002+09:00

one of the questions that invariably comes up in my conversations with japanese middle school girls (don't look at me like that - i'm a teacher, remember) is whether or not Adam-sensei has A Girlfriend. In Japanese or suprisingly enthusiastic English, it always comes out.

Just yesterday a student took that conversation in a direction i hadn't heard before. hearing that yes, i had attained A Girlfriend, the 8th grader clasped her hands and looked hopeful.

"ohhhhh I definitely want to marry a foreigner." (she's assuming that Girlfriend is Japanese - she's not)
"why's that?" I ask
"I want half babies! they're soooooo cuuute."

PS japanese middle school girls are also fascinated with my arm hair.

Mornings are hard....

2009-02-19T09:20:00.002+09:00

Here is an actual email I sent to my office in order to explain why I was late to work (rarely happens!) a week or so ago. Reading over it today i decided it belongs here:

On January 30th, 2009, I arrived at [middle school x] at 9:45 AM. Though I did not miss any scheduled classes for that day, I did come to work an hour an a half late. I apologize for my tardiness and offer this explanation.

The night before I had driven down to Otsuchi-machi in Iwate to stay at a friend's apartment. The times I had done this previously I would leave for Takizawa at 4 AM and arrive back in town well before the start of school. This particular morning, however, I bumped back my departure to 6 AM, thinking I'd drive straight to work. While I left promptly at that time, traffic apparently caused by an accident on one of the small roads outside of Otsuchi meant that it took a full hour to get out of Kamaishi, a trip that usually lasts 20 minutes. Soon my car and i found ourselves trapped in the bumper-to-bumper shuffling grid of south-central iwate rush hour (which, confusingly, exists. When I realized, quite belatedly in retrospect, that I would not arrive at work anytime around 8:15/30, I pulled over to call the company. I also purchased a sandwich at this time (delicious). My car soon was soon back in that bizarre phenomenon of inaka rush-hour traffic. Escaping this, I made good time heading west through the mountains at my car's top alpine speed of 60 km/hr. At some point, most likely while busy wondering if I would actually get there in time for my first class, I missed a turn somewhere and ended up... somewhere else. I don't know where. Lots of cattle, though. I followed signs for the misleadingly-named Kamaishi expressway (which curiously starts in Hanamaki city and ends at Hanamaki Aiport... rougly 60 km short of its namesake). I picked up that highway and took the toll road north traveling at speeds previously thought impossible in my current vehicle. Deemed impossible, in fact, or at least a very bad idea, by my mechanic at my last inspection. I got to school just in time for second period, grabbed my materials, and spent a surprising amount of time teaching some 15-year-olds how to pronounce "discipline."

[from then I do some very sincere knee-scraping which I will spare you. in the end, nobody got hurt and i didn't get fired. hoorah.]

TEST IS OVER

2009-02-19T09:14:00.001+09:00

ok, so... I'm really going to try to get back to posting on here. once a month. I'm done studying, my life is in order, and you have a right to know what's going on in my life. Maybe.

Oma uh-oh (written in October, sorry)

2008-10-29T10:33:00.002+09:00

I've talked about the Oma Tuna Festival before on here (there should be some pictures if you sift through the posts from two years ago). This year would have been my third time attending.

Would have been. Things didn't turn exactly as planned.

The problem provably wasn't so much that I volunteered to drive, it's that I volunteered to drive Sam and Allie. Since Sam lives several towns to the north, it only made sense that we try to drop his car off on our way up to Aomori to save him two hours on the way back.

We came up with a plan. A very bad plan.

Sam would take the slow route north, avoiding the highway in favor of the tamer route 4 - yes, that route 4 - which gave Allie and I time to grab her stuff from the station, jump on the highway, and reach Sam's exit exactly when he would arrive. Sam parks somewhere nearby, hops the fence, and away we go!

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

So Allie and I head north as planned. Reaching the agreed-upon exit, we pull over, drape our legs out the window, don sunglasses and enjoy ourselves a nice summer day. Allie cracks open a chu-hai (open container laws? wuzzat?) and browses my ipod.

I call Sam. He's late. Not just late, lost. We're gonna be here a while. Allie digs around her purse for the second chu-hai (there's a reason we're friends).

My phone rings. "I'm at the exit," Sam says, "but the guys at the gate are giving me weird looks." Whatever. He makes a break for it, sprinting up the entrance ramp.

About this time my car's noticed by a passing patrol car in the oncoming lane. bit of an uh-oh. a small man in full patrolman gear (bright blue fireproof suit and a gigantic, shiny white helmet) dashes across the highway frogger-esque, protected the large yellow "Slow down!" sign he is waving frantically at vehicles barreling towards him.

He's perched on the guardrail at the median when I roll down my window.

"Is there a problem officer?"
"No stopping!"
"I'm just waiting for a friend."
"No stopping!"

We're shouting across a pretty busy highway (for Japan). I'm wondering if I'll get deported if he loses his balance and dents somebody's bumper.

"He's on his way now, though..."
"You can wait at a rest stop just ahead."
"Gotcha, sorry..." I start the car and head off. Deportation: postponed

Sam, meanwhile, had rounded the bend in the ramp just as we drove off. Poor guy has to run BACK through the toll booths and get back in his car.

Eventually we do the smart thing and get off the highway together, leave Sam's car at a convenience store, and head north.

We don't make it in time for the festival. Too many booze stops.

(worth it)

Kappa Hunting in Tono

2008-09-25T17:48:00.008+09:00

Just south of me there's an area called the Tono Valley, famous for a race of mythical creatures called the "Kappa". They're man-sized creatures that resemble turtles with small bowls of water carried on their head (so they can survive outside of the water)

Take a look:

Usually they're depicted as cute, cuddly creatures with a mischievous streak. This is their friendly, marketable, plush-toy-on-a-keychain side. It helps you to forget that Kappas also ravage crops, feast on sleeping children, and might just suck your soul out of your body through your ass.

How do you protect yourself from something so unpleasant?

Bow at them. Being polite themselves, these creatures will return your gesture, spill the water from their heads and be forced to flee into the nearest body of water.

On the way there:

This is the Kappa Pool behind a small shrine in Tono. Legends claim that Kappas helped put out a fire at the shrine many years ago. Point for cuddly.

Stake marking the Kappa Pool:

Another local legend tells of the Horse Lady (there is probably a more literary-sounding title). Basic plot summary: girl-meets-horse, girl falls in love with horse, girl becomes man and wife with horse in the barn.

Girl's father discovers the relationship and is very disappointed.

The probably very shook up old dude freaks out and drags the horse outside and cuts its throat under a tree, where the girl finds it the next day. At this point I skipped to the end of the pamphlet to avoid further plot developments and the two ascended to heaven.

This is their house:Inside is the trunk of the tree where the horse died. It's a place of pilgramige (sp?) for expecting women and young mothers.

Which is a little weird, when you think about it.

Another temple complex nearby that we went to:

The sky is burning!

also:
SLAM

I have posted nothing on this website for so long but now I am doing not that

2008-09-15T16:46:00.017+09:00

Sorry for not having written anything for so long, but I've had a run of almost comical bad luck these past couple of months and have just recently started getting my life running again. I know people back home read this to see if I am alive and, well, I am.

TWO MAJOR DECISIONS:

1. I will update here once a week from now on, if only for something to do. THAT MEANS THAT you may only be reading an awkwardly shaped hunk of my consciousness scanned into internefinity. But there will be pictures. I promise.

2. I am not going to recontract. I think that also means I am headed home sometime next year, but when exactly isn't so easy to figure out. I... really can't think more than one or two steps ahead (see: my horrible chess game and shuffling walk)

The stuff I have posted below is from my sister and mother's visit to Japan. the large number of photos may mean this is the biggest. post. ever. but enjoy

HIROSHIMA

Nice little garden behind the art museum there. Try to find the turtle...

Alyson and I meandering about the park:

Alyson does her best Godzilla-Rocky impression:

Now she is looking heroically to the east where there is air conditioning.
(it was hot. really really hot)

view of (most of) the garden:

we found air conditioning.
and ice cream.
thank god.

on to miyajima, the island shrine on all them postcards

there are deer... there

FLAPJACKS???

at the main temple:

we hiked! about 50 feet up to a smaller temple to take this picture looking down on the complex

at another shrine nestled away in the mountain:

We get to Kyoto:

stopped at this very, eh, interesting? restaurant that sold vegetarian food.
it looked cool, but, maybe not again...

this moss does not respect your opinions

the moss other moss wants to be

the common people

NIKKOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

yup, this too:

AOMOOOOOOORI

also continues her search for air conditioning
at the lake of death!

hanging out with some mutsu friends:

(mutsu is the place I used to live, but dont anymore)
(only in my heart)

explan ation of post below

2008-05-04T19:58:00.002+09:00

something went wrong with the webiste i use to maintain this blog, so i couldn't edit it or something after a certain point. Anyway, short, brief, i'm-frustrated-after-trying-to-fix-this-and-don't-really-care-anymore explanation is:

i moved to a new place. some friends came down for a weekend, which we spent roadtripping through the area. Went to an area with well-maintained old samurai homes & gardens, and also a nearby lake.

My New Life

2008-05-04T19:20:00.006+09:00

So I moved a month ago to a new town called Takizawa, just outside the city of Morioka. It's a lot nicer than where I used to live and am extremely excited to be here. My new place is located here:

View Larger Map

The exterior of my new place (i liv e in the lower bit):

inside:

hakkoda opened

2008-01-28T19:28:00.000+09:00

made a trip to everyone's favorite powder source (hint: not bolivia) and spent a whole day on the mountain.

white out conditions at the top:

...meant that there was plenty of good powder.

so i filed for a transfer in april, but i haven't heard back from the tokyo office yet. i would love to live in one of tokyo's major cities but i haven't heard from the main office yet. howeve,r i ahve been offered a position in a larger city (about 300k) which would be fine. will update when there is more news.

it's coming...

2007-12-20T21:35:00.000+09:00

I bought new bindings for my snowboard in preparation for the coming season. they are toe-clip bindings, whihc are more comfortable than plain old foot-strap bindings. hooray.

will sell my old board (which I transferred my next-newest bindings to) and will get rid of my oldest bindings... which I've had since high school.

diagrammed below:

Leave for tokyo tomorrow! looking forward to america on sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-12-03T19:15:00.001+09:00

My Thanksgiving went a little better than expected. No massive failures, only small ones.

For instance, i forgot to defrost the turkey (shipped from the states for about $50). dried out half of it trying to warm it up.

while roasting the turkey in the small convection oven, we baked other stuff in the two other ovens my friends brought. we overloaded the electricity three times before finally just waiting for to cook everything in order.

the funny part is, the bottom wasnt done. at all.

EATING.

SO MUCH.

The JLPT examinees ponder kanji.

I am tired from cooking etc.

wrap it all up with some late night poker. until about 3 or so. i kept trying to lose but could not, but when I tried to win i lost quite easily...

Updating

2007-11-24T12:02:00.000+09:00

sorry. it's been a while, hasn't it?

ANYway. Not much is new/has happened. Notable events are: me, asking for a transfer from the company so that I could live in a city. i figure, if i was at home right now, i'd probably just move to new york and just mess around until i figured something out. why not just do that in Tokyo (or, you know, sapporo... fingers crossed) will find out in Januaryish.

Side note:
My house is where dragonflies come to die. I am concerned. I never find live ones in my place, just dead ones on the ground. Every day, at least one or two shrivelled dragonfly corpses can be found lying on my floor, coffee table, or hidden behind my toothbrush. a little strange. is my name synonymous with death in the dragonfly world? ("how's your father?" "oh, he went to Adam's house a few years back" "oh, sorry to hear that") I mean, it's not like I want tons of healthy living dragonflys buzzing around my house or anything. that would also be bad. But this... this is just plain sinister.

hosting thanksgiving today (two days late, whhatever, we were busy). pics will be posted soon.

My trip to Kyoto with Anne... one month later

2007-10-29T16:24:00.000+09:00

so i should've posted these photos almost a month ago now. sorry.

Basic explanation: had a three day weekend in the middle of the week (...just accept it) and met my aunt Anne in Kyoto for two days of sightseeing.

Starters: my first time in a sleeping car, which I was so taken by that I actually took this picture of. Surprsingly comfortable rest. The swaying motion of the train rocked me to sleep, just like the earthquakes do, but without the internal struggle over whether I should find safety or chance the structural stability of my house and get those extra few minutes of sleep.

First temple was Ryoan-ji: a very famous rock garden that was designed and constructed something like 500 years ago. nobody has moved these rocks since.

The fact that these rocks have stayed put for five hundrend years without being moved awakened my inner seven-year old... "just a half a foot to the right... that'll mess with EVERYone..."

Anne at Ryoan-ji:

The gardens of Ryoan-ji:

Zuiho-in rock garden at Daitokuji:

This is a picture of moss:

The Imperial Villa and gardens at Shukagin:

ridiculously old tea-room with correspondingly ridiculously old sliding-door art:

The tiny discovery of Sekizan-en

THIS place was cool. Called Kurama, meaning "Saddle-Horse" it's an area of temples and shrines hidden waaaay up in the mountains. half of the areas arae only accesible by a footpath that runs over the mountain between the two main temples.

The front gate. After this it was a bit of a hike up well-paved stone path up the mountain to the main temple:

Stuff we saw on the way up:

This is, I believe, the main temple. It's up there, and has a great view.

I NEED TO GO FOR A RUN:

followed the path behind the main temple over the mountain towards the next temple. saw lots of little shrines along the way, including this one:

I wish i could remember the anems of these places. From now on, I take pictures of kanji to remind myself.

Sorry sorry sorry

2007-09-10T21:16:00.000+09:00

Sorry sorry sorry I should've posted this like a month ago but things happened like me being extremely lazy and it did not come to pass.

ANYWAY

I went to the Ohmawari Fireworks Festival in Akita-ken a few weeks ago. it was awesome. we left at like 3 am to get there in time to grab a good spot. We got there about 9 am and set up to wait out the whole day for the fireworks to begin. Thanksfully, we arrived early enough to get a good spot so we could see the fireworks from our campsite. The pictures:

Our little campsite:
As the day wore on, it grew hotter and buggier. some of us barely escaped with awful farmers tans. Kathleen, however, emergd unscathed:

At one point the tents turned into spas and we were sweated out of them. grabbbing what tarps and poles and pole-like objects we could find, we built a shelter on the back of Satoko's car.

Our inner hobos beamed with pride:

Yoshika celebrates driving six hours and without falling asleep by having a beer at 10:30 am. In short, we are friends.

Two shots of our CREATION:

This bridge/walkedway was filled with people for the entirety of the day. It was a constant stream of people for 12 hours. The closest thing I have ever seen to fleeing refugees.

Eventually the shelter was abandoned and we took up final positions behind the tents/cars.
The crowd of spectators/refugee camp was humoungous (sp?).

Daytime fireworks! who knew?

Best firework: the Gumbah from Mario Bros.

I should've posted this about a week ago

2007-08-24T18:29:00.000+09:00

First, I want to let everyone know that while I did fail my driver's license test three times, there is a good reason. Take a look:

Mess up once, and FAIL!

My summer vacation ended today, rather unceremoniously. Had work today for some reason, but no classes. Spent the entirety of the day studying. Summer vacation was fun, as is any extended period of time when you have A) money and B) lots of free time. The ALTs in the area have changed, some went home, some became career english teachers elsewhere in japan, and some became ski bums. all very exciting. the new group of replacements should do just fine (think "first night in Shawshank" - FRESH FISH! FRESH FISH!).

So last week I spent some time a little north of my town. Went for a night to Oma, for the town festival. My friend Kathleen teaches there so we hung out with some of her friends, one of whom lent me an evidently expensive yukata (traditional summer clothes).

Kathleen & I with one of the locals:
Us in front of one of the floats that are pulled through the town fo Oma during the festival. Each day, a different group of men pull one of four through different sections of town, stopping periodically at particular houses to eat and drink. At 10 pm, on the last day, they stagger towards the town temple with the floats behind them, reuniting the shrines they're pulling at the main temple.

Singing some sort of chant upon reaching the temple and opening a gigantic barrell of sake:

Us with some of her adult students from town- the lady of the far right lent me the yukata:

On the stairs leading up to the temple:

The next day kathleen and I hopped on the ferry to Hakodate, a city in Hokkaido just across from Oma. Two of our friends had already spetn the night there and we met up with them for the day.

Exploring the morning fish market:

the morning market just looked like this, but for several large blocks and open warehouses...

Toby is suspicious that other might push him into the crab tank:

Joann in the clutches of a GIGANTIC (...) Hokkaido bear:

Me in the clutches of a Hello! Kitty knockoff:

Lucky Pierrot's! Best burgers for thirty longitude:

At Lucky Pierrot's, two things are in large quantitiies: grease and hyphens

Hakodate was one of the first ports to open to foreign trade after Japan opened itself up to the international world (well, after Admiral Perry almost blasted them into nothing over a few buckets of miso). That means there's a lot of old Western!-style architecture around Hakodate; a treat for them, nicely familiar to the rest of us.

Hakodate had excitement at every corner:

we went to a tropical plant garden. It also had monkeys. The monkeys were filthy.

Our little group around sunset in Hakodate harbor:

You can get a gondola ride up Mt. Hakodate at night to see the "Third best night View in Asia"

Taking the midnight ferry back. Note that instead of seats, they have small areas where you just take off your shoes and sit on the floor. Hey, it's clean. It's Japan.

THE NEXT DAY was the Oma Blue Marine festival (unrelated to the festival about; this was not religious and more of a public relations deal).

People line up to get tickets for chance at famous Oma tuna sashimi:

They had boat races!

...and power rangers!

...and ladies with fish hats who danced!

and fireworks!

This was taken on the way home from Oma. Dave (new Mutsu ALT) and I noticed the squid boats at work in the bay, which is an incredible sight. They light up the sky like a small city, strung with lots of high-powered light bulbs to bring the squid to the surface.

Some pictures of those of us who made ti to Oma, mostly newbies, some grizzled vets like myself:

Aomori Nebuta

2007-08-04T12:37:00.000+09:00

Nebuta is aomori's most famous festival. Basically, people pull gigantic floats through the streets of the city; each float (or nebuta) is commissioned by an organization or company that does business in the prefecture. The power company has one, as does a local superconductor factory. Each year the english teachers are allowed to dance with the prefectural government nebuta.

First, you gotta get your dancing clothes on:

I don't remember what these particular outfits are called, but they are specific to the nebuta festival. Basically, they're supposed to become unraveled as your dance and stuff. they're also covered with bells that fall off as you dance. These are given thrown to the crowd for good luck.

These are all the english teachers/tranlsators in the Shimokita region, i.e. the only non-japanese people I can hang out with if I'm willing to drive about two hours.

English teachers assembling before the dancing starts. "No drinking booze," we're told, "stay hydrated." Half of those rules are obeyed.

This is the prefectural government nebuta. It's basically colored paper over a wooden frame. You can't see, but below the lit part are about thirty guys pulling the thing.

Oma-machi teacher Kathleen poses in front of the nebuta. you can see the underside of the nebuta better in this picture.

the parade route. getting ready and waiting.

...and we're off! we're held in a roped off area (the rope is carried by lots of guys so we can move within the parade).

how to dance in the aomori nebuta parade: jump on your right foot once, slide it forward once, do the same with the left foot, repeat for two hours.

as we danced, small children stood at the side of the parade route with fans, helping to keep us cool in exchange for the bells that fell off as we danced. if your bells werent falling off, you werent dancing hard enough.

there's large musical groups playing flutes and drums and assorted traditional instruments/music.... this si the only shot that really turned out ok.

these guys pulled a PA system in front of the dancing group. we he started shouting "RA-SE-RA, RA-SE-ERAU" you shout back "RA-SE, RA-SE, RA-SE-ERAU!" and start shuffling those feet:

I hope this works:

one of the bands:

all I gotta say is this: shin splints.

still alive

2007-07-14T17:51:00.001+09:00

A few interesting pictures.

While looking at my middle school english textbook this week, i realized what a ridiculous depiction of the US/West this is:

Ahh, yes... America: white people, beagles, and yachts. How I miss it.

Also this...

...is, surprisingly, exactly what it looks like.

am staying in Japan this summer vacation to take care of some paperwork (visa, driver's license). Decided to take a few days to go exploring record shops in tokyo as well. have yet to see a Japanese recrd shop, and gosh-darn-it I need that new-album fix soon or I might just lose it.

hope all's well with you, Outside World.

A history lesson

2007-06-23T12:34:00.000+09:00

I got a history lesson late last night during a nomikai. We got into a discussion of social studies in both systems, and the senior teacher there stood up and did a very dramatic re-enactment of the arrival of Commodore Perry.

Perry! BIG Ship! Black! Many many! Bam bam! Japan... open!

It was very entertaining.

By the way, the translation of nomikai is "Drinking Meet."

avril does japan

2007-06-11T21:50:00.001+09:00

it's getting late, but i'd like to get these pictures up.

anyway, hung out with my friend justin for the past week or so in tokyo. his dad works for reuters news service, so his family just moved here and he'd come to visit. took two days off of work plus a long weekend to get out and around the city. in ultra-quick fashion, here's my past five days:

in justin's folk's house, located five minutes' walk from Shibuya station, which was awesome for our evenings out (trains here stop at 1 am. which means if you go out, you... ahem... "go all night." so we were lucky that we weren't so restricted).

as insanely fashionable as it is crowded, harajuku is a must-go location in tokyo. it's the center of late teen/college age fashion. some of the popular "looks" are beyond the bizzare.

Shibuya crossing, busiest intersection in the world. 4 million people use these crosswalks daily.

ran into this translation on a tourist map outside the imperial palace. it takes a lot for me to laugh at Nihonglish these days since i see so much, but this is primo stuff:

Both being Red Sox fans, we checked out a Tokyo Giants game for a measly $10 standing room seats. it was wild.

standing room was, um, crowded

these are the professional cheer leaders hired by the stadium (the ones in red jackets and white gloves). they organize the crowds to cheer for their appropriate team. home team cheers from right field, away from left. you're only allowed to cheer during your team's at bat. there are untold numbers of possible song/gesture/sound combinations, and how these people still have lungs after nine innings of such energy I have no idea.

kids like baseball too.

BEER GIRLS. this is one of our favorite parts of Japanese baseball. these are near-perfect specimens of the young women of Japan. they carry half kegs of beer on their backs for nine innings, filling your cup whenever you would like.

gorgeous? strong? carrying beer? ...possible wife?

shibuya crossing at night. not for the epileptic, but a haven for the young and tragically sober. justin, like most foreigners, was disappointed by the quality of japanese beer. we stopped at one of the major chains' bars in the area during our evening. justin gave the Kirin Lager a "better-than-coors" rating. we then tried the Kirin Black, which is a darker beer which tastes remarkly like the Kirin Lager. Also on the menu was a Half & Half, which I had never heard of before, so we ordered a round.

the bartender filled the glass partway with Kirin Lager, the rest with Black, and handed us our two beers. that is just. plain. lazy. brewing

adrian's webpage

2007-06-03T20:07:00.000+09:00

another Interac ALT keeps a photo journal of his time in japan:

http://www.xanga.com/space_cowboy

i'm adding it to the links on the right, but you can consider this a formal announcement

Long time no post

2007-05-31T22:16:00.001+09:00

First of all, I'd like to start off with this amazing picture, something I saw hanging on a wall at one of my schools:

It reads: "I can't read what's inside the heart of Remi-chan." Which is clearly awesome.

Undokai (field day) season is upon us. Most schools had theirs planned for last weekend but were rained out. Mine is re-scheduled for this weekend. mainly, eight hours of elementary-school-level track and field (the 1st grade 400 meter run is amazing to watch). Schools go crazy with anticipation. Yesterday I was treated to the site of a pickup truck pulling the vice-principal and janitor of a school back and forth over the entire playground "in order to flatten it."

other than that, have not been very busy. took a short, uninteresting trip to Sapporo during golden week. am teaching two adult english classes per week after after, which is some nice extra cash.

At cleaning time...

2007-04-26T21:39:00.000+09:00

today, had an entrance ceremony at one of my small schools. the 3rd and 4th graders wrote haikus for the guests of honor, the 1st graders (hence, "entrance" ceremony). one young wordsmith composed this knockout piece:

we clean the toilet at cleaning time
cleaning the toilet is hard
do your best while cleaning the toilet

no one laughed.

Spring Vacation Photos

2007-04-05T21:16:00.000+09:00

Just took a ten-day vacation backpacking across random areas of Japan. I hit Nikko, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Himeji, and Kyoto in that order, all worth it. Luckily I was traveling while the sakura or cherry blossoms were in full bloom (Many Japanese folks absolutely love sakura). What follows is a "best of" collection of pictures from the trip:

NIKKO

This bridge is at the entrance to Nikko, a collection of temples and shrines (shrines are shinto, temples are buddist) . In olden times, only the emperor, being a direct descendent of the sun, could walk across this bridge. Now it costs about three bucks.
Temple at Nikko:
This five-story pagoda is really, really old. It has accomplished this feat because it is constructed around a large pole, with each floor being a seperate piece attached to the pole by a large chain. This allows the building to survive earthquakes, since each floor moes independently of the other with the tremors.

Grounds of main temple at Nikko:

This is where you wash your hands before entering the temple...

The main temple:

Looking up at the carvings on the main gate:

Looking down from a small shrine at the top of a hill:

TOKYO

So that was where I stopped on my way down to tokyo. Met up with another english teacher and his girlfriend, went out for tako-yaki (baked balls of octopus and other tasty stuff). Crashed in Tokyo for about three days, wandered, did stuff, it was cool.

At one point I got really overwhelmed by the sights of Tokyo. It's a lot to see, all the lights, the fashion, the ungodly hair; it's a bit of a sensory overload after spending so much time in the country. So I sat down in Shinjuku and took this picture of one of the side streets.

HIROSHIMA:

Besides the obvious A-bomb stuff, Hiroshima had a lot of cool museums and gardens that I visited. It's a surprisingly walkable city. I managed to avoid paying for public transportation for the entire day I spent there.

Went out with some folks I met at the hostel, trying to find a place to get some drinks. Snapped this shot of the A-bomb dome at night:

International Peace Park during the day:

We were having trouble finding the bar district in Hiroshima. Finally we asked a guy walking down the street, and he told us to just look for the sign. "What sign?" we wondered.

Hiroshima castle:

Garden at Prefectural Museum of Art:

Bamboo!

Miyajima is a small island off the coast of Hiroshima. It's packed with temples, shrines, and tourists. It's also on all of those "Japan" postcards, mainly because of this big shrine that's built on the ocean.

A little farther up in the hills, the tourism hadn't usurped good taste yet, and there were some interesting temples hidden in corners of the island.

HIMEJI

Stopped at Himeji on my way from Hiroshima to Kyoto, a city famous for its castle. So I went to it.

KYOTO

Everything in Kyoto was done on a larger scale than anything i had seen before. Being the old spiritual capital of Japan, the temples were a little more impressive in stature, though they didn't seem to have the detailing that I saw at places like Nikko.

The Philosopher's Walk, which provides access to a lot of temples:

Ginkakuji, The Silver Temple:

Moss Garden at Ginkakuji:

Gate to Choin Temple grounds:

I was climbing up these stairs, passing a struggling middle-aged Japanese woman whose husband and two smalls boys were encouraging her from the top. Her son told her, "It's ok mom, you can take a little break." But the deteremined lady wouldn't have it. In between huffs and puffs, she said "I came here to see the pretty cherry blossoms, and I am going to see them!"

Choin Temple grounds:

I forget the name of this cemetery, but it was absolutely huge:

Pagoda in Kyoto:

Inari Shrine, which is made up of five shrines linked together by lots of little shrine gates:

view from above:

These gates follow a few trails all the way to the top of a mountain. It's really cool.

Sakura light-up at Nijiojo Castle:

Japanese girls taking close-up pictures of sakura with their cellphone cameras:

After walking through the garden, we came upon this:

It was cool.

NARA

Made a quick shot over to Nara with someone I had met at one of the hostels.

Daikakuji Temple gate:

Daikakuji Temple. This thing was absolutely huge. Those little dots by the base of the temple? Those are people.

Why do you need a temple that large? Well, where else would your store your collection of gigantic buddha statues?

Kinkakuji Temple, back in Kyoto. Yup, it's lacquered with gold.

Then, of course, it was time for karaoke with some co-travelers:

He finally posted it

2007-03-31T20:24:00.000+09:00

Chris FINALLY put up this picture of a somewhat hilarious crash I had at hakkoda. Since there was a lot of powder, i didn't see this root. Then I fell.

Though chris has made claims that I was unhurt by the incident, this is a bald-faced lie. My shin, nay, no-one's shin handles a direct hit by a root very well.

I'm in Hiroshima. Traveling. It's spring break. Have been to Nikko, Tokyo, and Hiroshima, heading to Himeji, Kyoto, and a city to be named later i.e. when I figure out where else I could go, probably Hitachi.

Hakkoda weekend number....

2007-03-20T17:00:00.000+09:00

A couple of scenic shots from a weekend trip to Hakkoda, maybe the last of the season. Unexpected heavy snowfall last week meant great powder this Sunday. Might even be able to go again next weekend, which would be awesome.

Here's a shot of the mountain i can see from my house, Kamafuse, but from the south across Mutsu bay:

Ran into this Air Force guy from Misawa who showed us a new way down the mountain, under the gondola ropes. Really nice and steep and a lot of good snow to ride down. Getting there is kind of a hassle/dangerous/awesome as the woods are somewhat thick and generally downhill. They opened up and offered this view of Aomori City, close to the bottom.

It really cleared up during the afternoon. Had pretty good views closer to the top. Found a place to stop where I wouldn't sink (it's a real problem) and took this:

When Chris posts his pictures there should be a few good ones, including a shot of a little accident I had in the forest.

Yet another weekend!

2007-03-13T18:52:00.000+09:00

I have no pictures from this weekend, but it was exciting.

Went to the town directing south of me, Rokkasho, for their annual international fair (subtitle: "Yet another excuse for ALTs to get together and party). Basically, there were a bunch of tables with stuff "representative" of our respective nations. The French people who worked at the nuclear waste facility in town definetly won, since they served ham, cheese, and wine.

There were also german, korean, british, american, canadian, italian, and austrailians there. Sometimes just one of them, but there were a lot of different nations. Who all brought food. It was like the Noah's ark of cuisine.

Then, off to Noheji (even further south, but not out of shimokita) to hang out with a couple of spanish guys who were staying at the inn run by a friend's parents. These dudes worked on the windmills in town, and also cooked pretty decent food. Conversed in spanish, english, and japanese at the dinner table; cured the resulting headache with homemade spanish wine.

then back to rokkasho for the international fair after-party. simply put: a ruckus.

THEN hakkoda in the morning. got three magnificent runs in before wind shut down the gondola. has been snowing all week. Should be awesome this coming weekend.

I am still alive, but not exciting

2007-03-04T21:38:00.000+09:00

Just checking in, don't have much to say. Went snowboarding last weekend. Really clear and beautiful day. Here's a pretty cool picture of Hakkoda-zan from way far off (the parking lot of our usual post-snowboarding onsen).

I should probably describe what an onsen is right now. It's essentially a public bath, typically heated by geothermic something-or-other. There's a men's and women's section, and you go through a sequence of baths at different temperatures, getting increasingly hotter before you finish up with the inhumanly cold one. That's about all there si to it. Oh, and everybody's naked. Except for the "privacy towel." It's actually quite relaxing right after snowboarding.

The funny about this onsen is that the staff is entirely younger women (30ish or below, i think). Usually there's at least one much older woman who is the caretaker of the men's section, while her apprentices mind the women (i don't know if they're actually apprenticed to her, but that would be cool). This woman typically wanders around, using all of her concentration to mop the floor. ANYWAY, at this particular onsen the floor-mopper is a youngish gal who has a strange habit.

She peeks.

No. Scratch that. She cannot control the desire to stare. She absentmindedly swipes at the floor, mouth agape, eyes darting to each new entry into the room. You can pretty much read her thoughts through that facial expression ("Oh my god! a naked man! ...oh my god! a naked man! ...oh my god! [etc]") It's kind of... disconcerting.

In a somewhat related note, I bought a exercycle:

Explanation: finally got a membership at the local video rental place and a DVD player (i didn't have TV service in any way, since i wouldn't understand it). found that I couldn't sit still that long with a clear conscience. So, now I have something to do for the hour and a half each day after school.

Three day weekend...

2007-02-11T18:58:00.000+09:00

I went all Home-Depot on my house today, cleaning and organizing, and took out the sliding doors that seperate my thre contiguous rooms. This was, i see now, a very good decision:
Look how ROOMY it is now.

Dear mom: this is clean. There just happens to be a little clutter and some laundry hanging. When viewed room by room, the clutter is less copious. The farthest room, in fact, is quite well organized and clean. Don't worry.

I get Made

2007-02-09T17:30:00.000+09:00

This thursday, some of my co-teachers asked me if I had given myself kanji (that is, the chinese symbols that make Japanese impossible to read) for my name. I said I didn't, so they helped me pick some out. No. That's not right. Name-kanji, I feel, are like nicknames: you can't choose them, otherwise everyone will think it's lame and repeatedly refuse to call you "The Professor." Such things must be bestowed.

Here is the given Kanji:

Let me explain a little more. Japanese is a syllabic language made up of a consanant followed by a vowel or single vowel sound, like ka, ta, ra, shi, or ah. Each of these sounds has their own symbol.

You with me? Ok.

Since this si phonetically limiting and the Japanese language doesn't use spaces (like this: ), Kanji make things easier(ish) to read, since each kanji has a meaning. For example, kee-tay-mah-soo (usually romanized to kitemasu) can mean both "listening" and "coming." In written Japanese, only the Kanji differentiate between the two.

So. My name, usually, is pronounced Ah - da - mu Ru-oo and written in the five syllabic symbols of those sounds. My co-workers foudn kanji with these sounds, and chose the ones they liked.

Let's look at that kanji again:

The first is ahda, meaning "vengeance." The second is mu, representing "dream." The third is Ruoo. It can mean "the flow of a river" or "style/manner/custom" as a suffix. My name, therefore, is "In the Style of a Vengeful Dreamer."

Which is wicked. fricking. cool.

Oh, and here is a shot of the cabin we stayed in last weekend at Hakkoda-zan

Note the presence of comfortable beds, chairs, and easy-to-use plumbing, none of which is in my house.

Snow? No snow? Snow.

2007-02-05T15:36:00.000+09:00

Past week was... fine. Did a lot of cleaning. Mixed it up a little by switching over to "mending" at times, occasionally going all the way to "fixing." Didn't really hang out with folks. Read two books.

Until Friday. It was Mexican food night with the locals, so we gaijin got our fiesta on. Had this get together with the folks who we teach English to recreationally, the SIFA folks. People came all the way from Oma and Rokkasho for this one, so we knew it was big. Real big. And real delicious.

Saturday, headed down to Aomori city for the weekly visit to Hakkoda. Except we couldn't go again because the wind was too strong. Went shopping for new snowboarding gear instead. Bought some boots (less leaking) and new snowpants (less sagging, more freezing). Might buy new bindings. Maybe next week. Not sure.

Check back later for updates on the bindings situation.

Crashed at a cabin near Hakkoda-zan. "Cabin" is an extremely deceiving word: this place had a full kitchen, central heating, all sorts of plumbing in the bathroom, and a heated hardwood floor. Compared to my house, this "cabin" was pret-ty swanky. To make up for the unusually comfortable living situation, I slept on the couch.

The next day was windy. Very windy. I pretended to be Korean to get a discount on lift tickets. Couldn't ride the gondola, but the lift was working. Still had fun. Didn't fall as much. Snow was more packed, more like home, easier for me. Plus I had changed my stance a little to be more helpful in these conditions. True story. Went home, fell asleep, that was that.

Tonight i watch the superbowl.

I'll upload some pictures later, not that I have any good ones. Nobody likes this text-heavy stuff.

Paying homage to the pow-pow gods

2007-01-30T19:02:00.000+09:00

Hello. Allow me to regale you with tales of my weekend, or, the story of how I got really really sore.

The plan was to go to Hakkoda for two days and tear it up there. We got started a little late on Saturday, which was actually quite lucky, since the weather looked a lot like this:

Couldn't see five feet in front of us by the mountain. Winds were crazy at the summit, reportedly 30 or so meters per second. Not that we got up there. The gondola was closed due to the winds, but the road was closed too. Evidently a bus had tipped over, blocking the only access in or out of the mountain, trapping a handful of folks at the top. It sounds as though they made the best of it, since some of those who were trapped up there were pretty hung over the next day. They barricaded themselves against the weather with a space heater, beer, and all the instant ramen they could eat. Some were able to leave at 11 pm when the road finally opened, but at least one dude stayed the night and got the first lift in the morning.

Since we had to turn around, we went to the resort with groomed trails (as opposed to the veritable open country of Hakkoda) that was next door. It, however, also sucked. We couldn't see, the wind made the snow hurt, but we paid $15 for those tickets, darn it, and stayed most of the afternoon.

The next day was much better. Here's a pic of the road to Hakkoda, you can see some sort of structure covered with snow, a la the Shining:

To get a good idea of how much snow there actually is up there, here's a picture of Chris in the parking as we geared up for the day. That wall behind him is, indeed, snow.

I didn't take my camera up the mountain, so these are stolen from Chris. Here's me snowboarding (with difficultly) near the top:

We tried going off the trail into the really thick, untouched powder at times, cause it is better. That is, if you don't get stuck:

That's me (rear) and Chris' girlfriend, Satoko, trapped in luxorious powder, which you can't stand up in. It's too deep, you just sink, and sink, and sink, and sink... Concurrently, we (I) had a lot of trouble off the main courses.

Here's a nice pic of the top, for all you crunchy types.

I need new bindings (broke 'em), a new board, since I'm no longer riding on the lethal ice-cliffs of the Northeast U.S. Plus, I just realized my boots are like 10 years old... and leaking. Somebody gets paid soon!

peace.

Hakoda

2007-01-24T17:45:00.000+09:00

picture of me (in the background) on hakoda w/ chris.

2007-01-22T18:34:00.000+09:00

Came back about two weeks ago, have taken a while to get this post up, sorry. Here's what a remember (nostalgically):

The flight back was extra-long, since I flew to Japan out fo San Francisco instead of Chicago, so there was more lateral distance across the earth. Sat next to a middle-aged Thai lady who was visiting her homeland (her husband teaches at Berkeley [sp?]). She asked me why I was teaching in Japan, and not Thailand. "Thai people are so relaxed" she said, "All we do is hang out and read and sit in the sun."

Why not Thailand indeed?

Kidding. Snow trumps sun in my book.

So I spent two days wandering aroudn Tokyo, crashing at the apartment of this guy who I met during training. Here is a cool picture of the Ueno section of tokyo

Here is a picture of me in aforementioned section:

Brief side note: while walking through this area the next day, headed towards the museums in Ueno Park, a Japanese fellow spotted me in a crowd and called out "Hey, are you Canadian?" He turned out to be a transient author witha bit of a crazy streak, and dragged me into an hour-long conversation ranging from American poltics, Nietzche, and the deviousness of Japanese women, all the while accosting me with a copy of Don Quixote. Definetly worth the time.

The art museums were interesting, too. Somewhat weird and commenting on a culture I don't understand too well myself, but cool nonetheless.

Here are some pictures I took from the bullet train on the way up. They really show how the population is squeezed in along the coast, right up to the mountain ranges that dominate the geography of Japan.

I finally managed to take a picture of the little trolley that services the Shimokita peninsula. I ride this thing for about an hour and half the get up to where I am. It is here pictured at Noheji station, a fairly decent-sized city at the southern end of Shimokita.

You might also notice that while it is not snowing in the pictures above, it sure as heck is in Shimokita.

Went to Hakoda last weekend, my first experience with snowboarding in Japan. A little rough at first, as I'm not used to the amount fo snow they had and I'm pretty out fo shape for aerobic activity. Needless to say, I'm still sore, but I had an awesome time there. Will hopefully eb back next weekend for more.

I'll tkae pictures up there, too. It's pretty cool looking. The snow is deeeeeeeeeeep, Allen-Ginsburg deep.

I can somewhat understand this:

2006-12-21T13:55:00.000+09:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6197921.stm

I found this online

2006-12-15T10:57:00.000+09:00

E! S! O! P! H! A! G! U! S!

I get organized.

2006-12-12T17:29:00.000+09:00

I bought a desk!
Only took me four months.

Oh, and it snowed.

When the temperature finally holds steady below freezing, I am pretty sure this place will be covered. It rains or snows at least every other day here.

snowboarding.

First graders are dumb

2006-12-08T13:47:00.000+09:00

"Adam-sensei, what is kame in English?"
"um... turtle"
"Ding ding ding! Good job! Wow!"

...are ya serious?

I need to get a paper route immediately...

2006-12-04T15:07:00.000+09:00

Yup.

This is no joke.

I am not going to explain this. Or myself.

2006-11-30T16:24:00.000+09:00

I get my passport squared away, kill time

2006-11-29T18:49:00.000+09:00

Sorry about not posting for a while, i will try to keep it to a post a week from now in order to prove the fact that I am still alive, also to encourage myself to do more interesting stuff.

Today I was granted a holiday to go to the prefectural capital, Aomori City, to get my re-entry visa taken care of. This meant a big trip. First, the day before, I went and bought my ticket for that and my bullet train (shinkansen) ticket to get to Tokyo and fly home. Did the entire thing in Japanese, which I was especially proud of. After I did that, I was pretty amazed that the whole thing had gone so smoothly. I'm wicked excited about that, but on with the story.

First, I parked at Shimokita-eki, the local rail station:
Parking there is fuh-ree for an unspecified amount of time (the question now is whether or not I can leave my car there for the entirety of my three-week trip home). A single train car pulled up and I got on board, excited as possibly could be for my first venture (a solo attempt at that) outside of Shimokita. Swithed trains at Noheji, then after a total 2-hour trip I emerged from Aomori-eki to see this:

A glorious city of 300,000 people. I was totally elated to be among civilization again. I was not dissuaded by the torrential rain and hail that accompanied me everywhere, as I was just happy to be there and umbrellas are wicked cheap.

Found the Immigration office after a little wandering. Ended up in the Passport office for Japanese people, but evidently this sort of thing happens a lot as they produced a map in English that showed how to get to the proper place. The strangest thing about being in this city was that people didn't immediately assume that I spoke Japanese, as they do in Shimokita. People would attempt English first (Information desk girl: "Oh-fee-su... leh-fto...! Offeesu Lefto!" Me: "Hidari des ne?" Relieved Information desk girl: "hai, asoko des.") then try Japanese when they realized that I understood some (not at lot, still, but some). Getting the actual passport meant going to the office, handing over my IDs, going to the fifth floor, paying for the visa, and then pickin up the visa in the immigration office on the third floor. This may seem inefficient, but in retrospect it prevented me from waiting at all. By the time I was back in the third-florr office, the old dude was done with my new visa.

Then I hit the streets (I hit 'em twice...) and headed towards this Indian resturant that my friend reccomended called Akbar's. I was having a little trouble ordering in Japanese since the name of the Indian bread they served, nan, is remarkably similar to the Japanese word for what (nani). So the owner comes over and points at the menu and tells me "You get a free drink with this set" in perfect English. Turns out the dude used to live in Boston when he worked for Bose, so we talked for a bit before my food came.

He was not the first person to laugh at me when I said I teach English in northeastern Shimokita.

Then I stalked the streets for a bit, shopping and people-watching for a few hours. Saw a few curiosities, such as this shop advertising a Ku-ree-su-ma-su Feh-ah

I don't need to translate that, right?

Have I mentioned the vending machines before? They're EVERYWHERE here, even down little country roads here in Higashidori. Check 'em out:

On every street corner, your basic needs: drinks and cigarettes (In the words of Laura T: "You know, for the kids.") Having them everywhere kinda makes sense in a country where the smallest bill is approximately $10. I usually have around eleven bucks in change in my pockets, and sometimes I'll walk by a vending machine and think "Hey, I should get rid of this change AND cure my thirst" or "Hey, you know what's better than lots of change? Dying."

Scratch that last one.

Other curiosities include running into this at a trendy shopping mall:

Ah buh? good music taste here? word? I'll take it!

That's another big difference between my area and this city. There were lots and lots of young people (read: hot girls) EVERYWHERE. In my town it's mostly old people and the very young, and the folks that are my age are married. But there are tons of actual twenty-somethings in that place, which was awesome to be around.

Which brings up another point. Japanese fashion is really really weird. The girls are, for the most part, above average looking, but always dress in untold layers for some apparent reason. It's disconcerting, to be honest. See?

It's like they go shopping and wonder "Hm, that jacket is nice, but can i fit a cardigan and two shirts underneath it?"

The other ALT helped explain that a little. His theory is that since they basically have to wear a uniform from the age of four until they're 18 (and probably also at work afterwards), they get overloaded once they acquire the freedom and means to dress themselves. Like that South Park episode where the homeschooled girl turns into a gigantic ho.

Also hit up a foreign foods store, bought some gummy bears and a Reed's ginger brew and Twinnings Earl Grey Tea. They had tons of stuff actually, that i was too cheap to buy for myself. Not that the day was cheap, I laid down a lot fo dough in tickets, the $60 visa, and various shopping expenditures. Oh, that foreign foods store also had this:

Why? Why? Why?

Homogeneity Joke! ...slash actually happened to me

2006-11-13T18:19:00.000+09:00

"Adam sensei, in America, are there people with blue eyes?"
"Yes, there are many people with blue eyes."

[pause]

"Do you know any of them?"

...um

2006-11-10T23:01:00.000+09:00

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061110a4.html

Weekend!

2006-11-10T17:42:00.000+09:00

There's some ridiculousness that happened this week. Let's start small, with the "bingo" board I made today so that the kids can learn prepositions (in, under, on). They started off simple enough, but I got bored... and got creative:

The chair is on the bear! The Kangaroo is under the box! The Rhino is under the desk!

The main event was wednesday, when my junior high school had some sort of open house for all the teachers in the area. Not only did every school from Higashidoori send a contingent of teachers, but so did some from neighboring towns/Mutsu as well. It was intimidating to be doing a class and having a good 10 extra people in the room, most of whom you know and one is from Oklahoma.

In the end everyone seemed pretty happy with what I did. It seems to have opened some sort of door, too, because folks at my main school actually started conversations with me today, which was exciting.

Also saw a Japanese play about conserving energy. I didn't pay to get in. A friend (another ALT) was the token foreigner randomly inserted into the play to excite the crowd. I won't go into details, partly because the whole 2 1/2 hour ordeal was very boring, but mainly because I couldn't understand a single blessed word they said.

"Ok, so that's the dad right?"
"The grandmother is a guy in drag, right?"
"Why is that dude dressed like a horse?"
"Wait, wait, are the lyrics to this song actually 'please save energy, Shimokita'?"

Oh, and at Oippe I helped make the third graders make squid-stuffed-squid. Sorry the picture is crooked, but, um, deal.

Two crash, no ride: madness

2006-11-05T15:29:00.000+09:00

Yo, so a good weekend was just had by ME. Three days off on account of boonkahee, or culture day. Friday was the local International Friends Association Halloween party, which was ridiculous. The Japanese take on Halloween was very interesting to see: about 150 kids dressed up mostly as witches, some as vampires, but a lot of kids just wearing trash bags with halloween-themed stuff stuck on it (jakc o lanterns, etc).

All of them, running around yelling "treek-oh treet-oh!!!" very cute.

They also hired a Ronald McDonald to come, which was an intense experience. In Japan, actuall, he's Donald McDonald, I'm not sure why. I forgot my camera, but I can link to other folks pictures sometime; this is worth seeing.

After cleanup, it was time to head out to a couple of parties (the official SIFA party and then hanging out at a JET's apartment). Stayed up til 4 am, just chillin.

Saturday was movie night...

This post isn't actually as interesting as I thought it would be when I started. I didn't really do anything I wouldn't have done in the US. If I get my hands on some pictures I'll set em up.

I need a shower. Bye.

Jumble Jumble

2006-11-03T09:58:00.000+09:00

I got to use my history major today:

Let's look at that more closely:

This is what happens when you only teach one class per day. All the other teachers were asking why I took so much time with it, but, I mean, what else was I supposed to do?

I also made one for Halloween with very little explanation, so the JH kids were like, "Halloween, wha?" Hence the high descriptive level of this particular one.

(BTW, "Indian" is acceptable these days; I believe it's been reclaimed. It's best to use the tribal name or American Indian (its shorthand AmerIndian), and now I'm done talking about this.)

Toady is the Shimokita ALT halloween party, so I looked over the wardrobe I brought with me from New England... and I will be Paul Bunyan for Halloween.

Word.

Rise and shine, all you goldigger mothers...

2006-10-27T16:23:00.000+09:00

Hey, I was just driving home and the sunset was cool so here's the sun going down behind Kama-fuse...

I know, I know, sunset photographs are lame hippie cliches, but hey, it was beautiful. I had a freakin moment out there.

PS I was also singing along to Bowie.

At the time you were a rake and a roustabout

2006-10-26T21:13:00.000+09:00

I don't really ahve anything to add for today, except for a few curiosities...

For instance, today the other Higashidoori ALT invited me to go to McDonald's with him because he had some coupons that were going to expire today. We ended up challenging ourselves to finish as much as possible, eaching making it about three full sets in (they're small... the Japanese medium size is the American small). I havent been to McDonald's in maybe three years, but there was something necessary about this, as a Big Mac sounds delicious after two months of FISH NOTHING BUT FISH ALWAYS FISHY FISH FISH.

That being said, nether of us had the shrimp burger.

The past couple days have been cool... at my small ancient school, Oippe (like Oi! then "peh"), pictured below...

...during one of my free periods, I was invited to calligraphy class with the third graders. It was pretty funny, but a lot of fun. I'll post a picture of the result later, if I ever get ti back (I had to leave it to dry). After our first practice with the word we were drawing, the students were told they could check out how everyone else had done. Of course, they all rushed over to see how I had done. I was the coolest kid in third grade.

Today, at that same school, they had a fire drill. Now, Japanese fire drills are unlike American fire drills in many ways. The best way to train a kid to be ready for a fire, of course, is to set an actual fire in the school. This made me a little nervous at first (see above picture of really old school). Turns out it was actually just a fog machine which the fire fighters were using to fill a room with smoke. They then taught the children how to move through a smoky room (which is applicable in any burning building, not necessarily one's school), by having the kids form a line and then squat down and go through the entire room. It was pretty interesting, the kids with their hankerchiefs over their mouths as they exited the smoky den.

At the end, they held a meeting to talk about it. They love meetings over here.

Then they let the kids play on the fire truck:

INEVITABLE.

Oh, another thing of note I saw today: a woman smoking a cigarrette as she drove along with the windows shut and her baby in the backseat.

Cultural difference?

A final PS: the new TV on the Radio album is awesome.

G'night

Do the interns get Glocks?

2006-10-23T20:12:00.000+09:00

So this post will be made up of pictures I had wanted to post previously, but hadn't been able to on account of firewalls and not having internet access at home. It's chronologically a mess, but you'll get the picture. We'll begin with my trip to...

OSOREH-ZAAAAAAAN (scary mountain)

Here's the cool little kanji sign posted at the door to the temple complex at the foot of this place:

What is Osore-zan? The buddhists believe that it's where souls go to have their fates decided, i.e. whether they'll go to heaven and hell. The cool part of this idea is that Osore-zan is a physical place, a mountain that is considered the actual gateway to the spiritual world. It's been the site of religious activity for over two thousand years as the sulfur deposits and geothermal activity is pretty wild looking.

Before we step inside the underworld, we'll have to cross the river of the dead, which is passable by this charming little bridge...

... and a two-lane highway. Here's the view from the bridge, looking towards the lake:

This picture was difficult to take because of the horrific smell of sulfur. You get used to it after a while, but your lungs start to burn a little if you spend too much time here. The lake is so full of sulphur etc. that it contain absolutely no marine life. Pretty cool place, if you ask me.

Here's the temple complex itself:

Inside that main temple, you (or a paid professional i.e. priest) can do ceremonies to help your deceased loved ones reach heaven. The alterior goal of coming to Osore-zan, it seems, is to help out everyone you know who is dead. This cna be done in many ways, by having a ceremony done in the temple or one of the many shrines that dot the area, heaping rocks on top of each other, etc. Here's one of the cooler shrines:
See? people have piled up rocks to help the spirits of their loved ones attain heaven. In the winter, oni or demons come and knock down the piles. You can burn incense, offer something to the small buddha statue, or leave money in the little box. On the pile of rocks itself, you'll notice little pinwheels and other trinkets. The trinkets (sandals, favorite objects, etc.) belong to the dead loved one, while the pinwheels are to encourage deceased children to reach heaven. The pinwheels are everywhere, it's a pretty tough tear-jerky to see how many there actually are here.

This picture is sweet:

And if sacrificing to the small buddhas isn't good enough, you can always upgrade:

Here's a view of that same shrine from a little ways off. It give syou a better idea of the weird landscape of this area.

For something a little happier, here are some pictures from my trip to Shiriyazaki, the northeastern penninsula near me. First, the wild (penned-in) horses:

Shrine on an island! Shrine on an island!

The lighthouse at the very end of the cape:

From near the lighthouse, where I climbed a little rock outcrop to get thsi picture of a small buddha statue/shrine and the extension of the cape.

Ok, now the pictures start to get a little out of order, fo' flippin' real. This is from my walk out to the lighthouse, the reverse of the picture you see above:

NEXT CATEGORY OF PICTURES

These are jsut snapshots I took during my daily commute. On my way to Shitsukari Elementary, I took this picture of a small village, which is actually what most every settlement in Higashidoori looks like, sans the ocean.

More local to me, there are lots of rice paddies:

Intersection of some kind. Don't remember what settlement this is.

This is pretty much the first thing I see every morning after leaving my house, as all my schools require me to drive along this road:

NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT WHERE I LIVE

First, a picture of the view from the back of my house. I took this a while ago (early september), so imagine this same thing, only colder...

One of my three non-kitchen rooms. Traditional tatami mats on the floor, traditional sliding doors, traditional lack of a blessed heating system...

Head-on view of my house. If it looks crappy, that's just it blending in...

...And my car! it's tiny, it drives on the left, and it's surprisingly comfortable. Can't wait to see how it handles the snow...

PS my interac boss came up today and took me out to sushi for dinner, which was cool, we talked about random stuff, and he mentioned that he went to a few of my schools today, one of which he said was wicked old. He described as being the sort of thing one sees in a movies about stuff that happened a long time ago... I'm going to try to start taking pictures of my schools and putting them up here, as they are very very different looking. One's a multimillion dollar modern luxury palace 'o larnin', while the other is a glorified log cabin with attached gym.

peace.

I rock like prudential

2006-10-22T11:58:00.000+09:00

TUNA FESTIVAL!

So this weekend a couple of ALTs and myself droe northwest to a little town called Oma, the northernmost point on the island of Honshu. It's famous for it meguro, or tuna , and this weekend was the annual festival in the honor fo this magnificent fish. We were kind of concerned about traffic, crowds, etc., but it just turned out to be a little more than what you see above. There were a few other tents hawking food and souveneirs (sp?) which was really cool to see. The main event, however, was the tuna itself, which was being cut up and sold in the main building you see in the picture above. Like the Blessing of the Fleet in Provincetown, each fishing boat has a banner which was hung over the doorway fo this main hall:
Or so I'm told. I don't speak Japanese. These could be advertisements for cellphones for all i know, I'm relying on the translations of the other ALTs that were with me. But like I said, the main event was cuttin gup the tuna, which people were lined up down the harbor to purchase. It was pretty cool, they had a big fish that they just slowly carved up, starting with the big tuna itself and then slowly passing the successively smaller hunks down the line to folks who would cut & then package the stuff to sell to people. Pretty cool:

While we were watching this, a local camera crew caught us off gaurd and began trying to interview one of us in broken English. When they were down with him, they said "next!" and moved onto the next guy, which was my cue to go hide behind some Japanese people. Later on, we were talking with some other Aomori ALTs who we ran into, and another TV crew came at us. THe one they spoke to luckily understood Japanese, and they asked him such interesting questions as "meguro is delicious, yes?" and the perennial "Can you use chopsticks?" Then they filmed this fat English kid eating for about ten minutes. It was at best, awkward.

I know some of you have expressed doubts as to whether I'm in Japan at all, or just in my house playing with my Xbox, so I had one of the others provide undoctored proof of me being in Japan:
Oh, and also, there was a lot fo good food. We ate some barbequed Tuna and Tuna jerky, plus this delicious scallop:

After a while we got kind of bored, so we decided to leave. The Shimokita Penninsula is shaped a little like a westward facing axe, and we were sort of at the most northwestern point. We decided at that point to just drive the hell around the whole thing and do a little exploring. So we drove along the coast, which is very mountainous and there's a lot of cool geology goin on out here:

At one point, wicked high up in the mountains, we found a small rest stop that looked out on these cool rocks along the coast. Huzzah, rocks!

Then we ran into monkeys!

The money shot:

So with our adventure complete, we returned to Mutsu and went out to an all-you-can-drink karaoke place, which was excellent.

I'm cold. I'm going to take a shower now. Take care.

Two albino scouts swim with the ship

2006-10-16T19:42:00.000+09:00

Hey, just hanging out on an ordinary monday night. Had a good weekend, hung out with a lot of people, which was a nice change. Friday night and Saturday I was over at the other Higashidoori ALT's apartment, where three of us played some military tactical simulators for a very, very long time. It was wicked fun, the most video games I've played since, well, actually the only video games I've played since being here. There was lots of "Cover me!" and "I need artillery on this intersection!" and "Mediiiiiiiiiiiiic!"

We also made tacos and fajitas. It was a good time.

Saturday night we joined the local gaijin crew for a game of Texas hold 'em, which I had never played before. I came out 150 yen ahead in the end, which was cool. We also watched Peewee's Big Adventure because it is a very sweet movie.

Sunday was spent cleaning etc. It amazing how much time I can kill getting stuff done around the house.

Tomorrow I head off to the school that's the most difficult for me, the one with only 18 students total. This time they've combined the lower four grades into one class, which should help me, but I don't know how effective it'll be for the students. I'll give it my best shot, though. I've prepared like crazy for tomorrow, so I'm not too worried about it. That doesn't mean it can't all blow up in my face.

I've been working out like crazy recently, just because i finally have the time and the routine to do so. The other ALT here makes fun of me, because I live like I'm in prison, playing guitar, doing pull-ups, and making a weekly phone call to my friends and loved ones. Speaking of which, I now have internet phone, which I will try to use more often, probably before I go to school for like twenty minutes so that I can catch everyone at normal times.

Also sent out some postcards to folks whose addresses I have, which is not a lot. Basically, if you are on Facebook or are my grandparents, you get a postcard. There's some pretty sweet Ingrish or just plain bizarre ones that I grabbed, mostly rabbit-focused.

Got excited about having internet access at my house, so I kinda went a little nuts on iTunes music store. Unfortunately, I download from the US store, so I basically have to leave my computer on for a week to get everything I bought. Awwwwwkward.

Well, time to cook me some dinner for the week. Take care.

Base Camp is up and on line

2006-10-12T20:26:00.000+09:00

FINALLY

I HAVE INTERNET AT MY HOUSE*
*due to the lack of plumbing, central heating, and an actual bed, "my house" shall hereafter be referred to as "base camp"

I am alive and well, have internet, and now life is truly complete. Accessing the web from this insect infested hole (japan) has been quite a difficult process, but finally, I have succeeded. And I have DSL.

My iTunes Music Store, however, is now the Japan version. If I so desire, I can access all the J-pop and Pixar my heart could desire.

This week has been pretty lonely, but mostly because I've been kind of out of the ALT loop. Friday, I don't remember what I did, I think I cleaned a lot and then fell asleep. Saturday I hung out with the other Higashidoori ALT and then took off when he went out drinking, since the next day I had the...

CULTURAL FESTIVAL
which was kind of cool. At my main elementary school, as I've mentioned, there was a lot of preparation for this day. It counted as a work day, but all I did was hang out and watch plays and dances and stuff. It was pretty cool, each grade did their own play or dance or song or whatever, with an intermission and lots of shouting. They love yelling over here. It makes them genki.

I would've taken pictures to post here, but I think I can lose my job for that, so I won't. Maybe I'll email the Hokubu ones from the other day to folks, now that I cna do that without the principals looking over my shoulder.

Sunday night, post-festival, was another staff "drinking party" (principal's words, not mine). Technically, it was a farewell party for a transferring staff member and a woman going on maternal leave while also my technical WElcome party. We all had to give speeches, and I was made to give mine in Japanese, which went surprsingly well. Spent the rest of the night swilling beer and sake between conversations in some kind of Japanese/English creole. One guy said to me, "to learn Japanese, you need a Japanese girlfriend" and immediately one of the younger lady teachers interrupted: "how old are you???" which made me feel good about myself for a bit. Not that I didn't feel good anyway, after all that delicious sake (made locally, within the village... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm tasty)

So after the all-you-can-drink (nomitai) sushi place, it was on to the official "second party," a karaoke nomitai (if you haven't noticed, these things require a great deal of self-control). Some folks headed home at this point (at least one staggered there), but pretty much everyone kept going. I was made to open the evening with a wonderful rendition of "Let it be" with my fellow English teacher.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of Sunday indoors. These people love to drink, it's a big release (one of the few allowed, it seems, in Japanese culture) since nothing that happens at a drinking party is spoken of the next day. The other ALT and I noticed that the guy who you finally made a connection with at the drinking party is, the next time you see him, the same cold sensei he was before. At least now they know I speak a little Japanese.

Thursday was also boring

2006-10-06T11:33:00.000+09:00

It's surprising, really, that for being so far away from home I can get so bored. It's tiring, in fact, more exhausting than working with the kids. The boredom of work (like say, having only two or fewer one-hour classes in an eight-hour day, no preparation to do, no nothing besides sitting here and adding onto the blog or studying japanese etc.) is physically tiring. Yesterday, after a non-intense day at the local junior high, I wanted to work out after school but was just too bored-tired.

It's not like I don't ask around for stuff to do, it's just that there isn't anything to do. So sometimes I go down to the dimly lit, pillow-filled break room and try reading or studying Japanese. Usually I just end up asleep, so i only do that once I'm done with classes for the day.

So here I sit, waiting until fifth period (about two hours off). Lunch is in forty five minutes, though. Yatta, Lunch!

Oh! and Pictures

2006-10-04T09:13:00.001+09:00

For those of you with Facebook access, I've managed to put up a few pictures in my profile there. Enjoy. I should have internet at my house by the end of the week so i ought to be able to post pictures here at that time.

Also my cellphone number & new land line, if you'd like to be friendly (and are, officially "Friends" with me on facebook. That section of my profile is set to private). Check the "Websites" section of my Contact Info for instructions on how call Japan.

Why doesn't Adam do anything at work these days?

you know, I'm glad you asked me that question. I've got a three-day weekend coming up, during which time my main elementary school has its culture matsuri (festival). Instead of class, the kids just practice practice practice their dances, speeches, plays, costume changes, singing (two-part harmony is mandatory! I couldn't do that at this age...) No classes means no English, so here I sit.

PAX

I'm having a hard time keeping busy at work...

2006-10-04T08:39:00.000+09:00

Nothing much has happened since monday, but I'm back at my main school even though there's no English classes on Wednesdays. I basically spend days like this online or napping in the special "break room" which is decently swank.

Funny story from yesterday: I tried to teach action verbs to the 2nd and 3rd graders at one of my schools, a supposedly innocuous task. I was having them do the action and chant the verb, ("Jump! Jump! Jump! Wave! Wave! Wave!") which turned a little awkward when we got to "Clap!" Like most Japanese, these poor kids cannot pronounce "l" so they replace it with the closest thing in their own language: "r".

Which means I had 8 2nd & 3rd graders yelling "CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!" at the top of their lungs.

So, after a few beatles duets I returned home and eventually went out to dinner with a few other people. I work with one of the other ALT's girlfriends and we've hung out some over the past month. I asked her if it was ok if I called her by her first name at work, since we were friends but she replied that although she doesn't care, such informality would irk the other teachers. At work, then, she is also sensei.

We were also talking about different Japanese and American customs and went over gestures, including:

Daijyobu! I'm okay! [Using wrist motion only, wave your hand in front of your face]

Iie! No! [make a big, adamant X with your arms. This may make sense already, but try using it in conversation and you'll see how awkward it is]

Koko ni kitte! Come here! [same as the American motion for "shoo!" which is very confusing]

Watashi Me/I [point a single finger at your nose, not your chest]

We taught them "knock on wood" and other such things... and also explained that the Japanese style of pointing looks suspiciously like giving the finger.

An aside about special education in Japan

This is from an email I wrote to my mother this morning, but is sufficiently interesting to be posted here...

"They have a special classroom specifically for the special ed children. It's a bit like the U.S. where they are sometimes shuffled in and out of classes. The other kids are actually very supportive: they'll play with and support the special ed kids.

For instance, I was once playing soccer with a couple of children at recess, one of whom had severe Down's Syndrome. This particular child muttered something and walk away a bit and sat down, obviously upset. The game immediately stopped, and one of the girls picked up the soccer ball and brought it over to him. He hugged the ball for a bit, and gave it back when asked. For the rest of the game, the children would pre-emptorily bring the ball over to this boy at regular intervals to placate him.

I also heard this story in training: an ALT in the midst of class noticed that one student was getting extremely tense and upset. This boy began shaking, clenching fists, grimacing, etc. Quickly, the student sitting behind this child leaned over his desk to whisper something in the upset student's ear. Immediately the boy relaxed. Later in the lesson, however, the student began shaking and grimacing again. This time the young girl sitting next to him stood up, walked behind the upset one, and placed her hands over his eyes. Again, he calmed down immediately...

That's the way it is here... the Japanese really take care of their own within their small group units. The sense of community is so strong that individuals within a group most subordinate itself to the least able person in the group. The special ed children are treated exceptionally well by the vast majority of the other children."

peace.

The best part of this weekend was driving through downtown Mutsu City blasting Talib Kweli

2006-10-02T08:03:00.000+09:00

A quick note on how the Japanese dress: take American fashion sense, get it drunk, watch it stumble into the street trying to hail a cab and then get hit by a bus. I stole this phrase, but it's a little like they get dressed in the dark.

This weekend was a little lonely. All the other ALTs were at a JET soccer tournament in Nagano or something, so I just hung out by myself most of the time. Played a lot of/guitar/violin, studied Japanese, did a lot of cleaning. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have such a clean house if I didn't have oodles of free time (that's right, I used the word oodles. Deal with it).

Remember how I mentioned that the least senior female teacher serves coffee to everyone? Today I caught myself lacking coffee and thinking to myself "oh man, she's really behind schedule today..." I chastized myself, but still, this country is definetly infiltrating my psyche.

Discipline!!!

So at one of my schools the other day, one of the special ed students was brought into the teacher's room, where it was announced that he had been striking another student with the handles of a jump rope. He was made to stand next to the vice-principal and the third-in-command, both of whom traded muttering... something, I couldn't really understand. Soon, of course, the kid starts crying. He cries for the rest of the day, as he takes his classes in the principal's office, away from the rest of the students, so that he might be shamed for his action.

This is a big difference between Japanese and American school systems. Whereas Americans punish their kids through the deprivation of the freedom of choice (detention, suspension, etc.), the Japanese have turned shame into a powerful weapon. In such a group-oriented, conformist society, public shaming and ostracization (sp? who knows...) is a pretty damaging punishment. And, since they don't have detention etc, it's pretty much all they can do.

I got a haircut

It's no so bad. I thought I would end up with the Asian bowl cut that pretty much all Japanese dudes end up rocking (think anime characters meet the Gap). It's wicked short, I miss being a curly strange dude, but I think everyone here likes me better the harder I try to look like I'm from the 1950s.

I also went to the drycleaner's

Not as exciting, but I'm still proud of myself for figuring this out.

Oh Glorious Monday

2006-09-25T08:44:00.000+09:00

Hello all,

nothing really new to report, as I've finally settled into a pretty decent routine. On saturday played a game of ultimate frisbee with assorted folks, mostly other ALTs and their Japanese girlfriends (western women don't come to Japan as much, it being harder for them, I guess). It was pretty funny to send a long huck towards the wide open Korean girl in the end zone, only to see her whip out her cell phone to reply to a text she just recieved.

Other than that, I've just been hangin out, doing nothin, playing a lot of guitar. Reading a lot. Last week read a book on the Whiskey Rebellion, Murakami's Norwegian Wood, and got halfway through Guns, Germs, and Steel (which I have never read but regularly plagiarize as my own opinion to impress people and by people I mean girls and Alex Teague).

Still waiting on internet, phone at the house. Hopefully will have both by the end of this week. Who knows...

Great Gasping Betty Freidan...

2006-09-22T13:01:00.000+09:00

I just realized that the teacher's room here is divided in half, with the men's desks on the right and women's on the left.

I have figured out how to buy stamps

2006-09-22T10:41:00.000+09:00

Slowly but surely, I am in increasing contact with the world at large. Now I can do snail mail, as I figured out how to buy stamps at a convenience store (in Japan, they are truly convenient).

If you want a sweet postcards (possibly involving "Many Rabbit!") email me your current mailing address.

This week marks the official beginning of culture shock, I think. Before it was kind of like I was a tourist, but now it's starting to get weird and even frustrating at times. Even with folks who speak English, social interaction is very different here. Things that are incredibly rude in the States are part of daily life in Japan, and of course vice versa. People don't ever say what they mean; in the words of the other JET in town, "you always ask around the question."

Folks will ask every possible question of you but never the actual request etc. that they desire because being so forthright is rude or something.

There is no such thing as being frank in Japan.

Oh, and I bought an electric guitar online for cheap $$$, but discovered that a hamburger here costs around 2.00, a cheeseburger 2.50

This is important when your social circle refers to the local McDonald's as "The Embassy"

I actually taught a lesson on American fast food yesterday. The teacher requested that I make a menu of popular American fast food, so the kids learned things like "French Fries!" "Hashbrown!" and "Double Quarter Pounder!"

'twas a proud day for me

Still not allowed contact with the outside world, I forsake aforementioned world and create my own/I actually meet other english-speaking folks

2006-09-20T08:29:00.000+09:00

I'm at school today, for no apparent reason. No classes, but eventually I'll spend time preparing for tomorrow (making fun things like flashcards! and pictures! and worksheets! to entertain my pupils).

Yesterday I was at the hard school, the one with a total student population of 18 kids. It went a lot better than before, in that all classes when pretty much according to plan except for the second and third graders with whom I get about twenty minutes to teach before they tap out and start to run amok.

The principal over there, however, may be the most entertaining Japanese person I've met so far. This school's staff doesn't speak a lot of English, so I'm using equal amounts broken English and horrific Japanese; the principal, a very outgoing guy, opted to resolve this by going to the 100 yen shop and getting a small english phrasebook.

So I walk in yesterday morning and am greeted by "Ah, Mr. AdamRoux, long time no see!" flip flip flip "I am lonely!" He also presented me with the lyrics to "Hello Goodbye" by the Beatles, asking me if I knew it. I said yes, of course, and in a very Japanese way he asked me to teach it to his students (for instance, he just so happened to have brought the CD with him, etc.)

We do a great a cappella version of "Love me do," by the way.

So today I'm here, have been for about an hour, not much to do, even confirmed with my company that I needed to come in today regardless of whether I have classes or not, but evidently I am desperately needed here today, which is fine, I need to figure out how to get my computer to work with the printer here anyway. If all else fails I can go to the teacher's lounge and read/take a nap ("Tomorrow, Mr. AdamRoux, you... eh-toh, you..." flip flip flip "take it easy!")

The weekend of American-ness

Met all the other area ALTs this past friday at a get-together for foreigners and local english teachers/eccentrics. Went out to karaoke as a group. I started the party with a heart-pumping version of "Like a Prayer" during which I managed to down two beers, and so the night began.

Funny moment:

Me, sarcastically: "Hey, somebody drank my beer..."
pause
Third-year ALT: "I bet it was one of the Asians."

All of 'em seem to have a little bit of bitterness under the hood, but are pretty happy to be here.

There's about six or seven other teachers in my area (i.e. within a half-hour's drive from me, as is just about everything besides abandoned houses and cattle) who are all good folks to hang out with. Spent more time with them this weekend, just chilling, and it's nice to have a social network finally.

OK. Time to wrestle with the printer. Take care, everyone.

The routine

2006-09-15T08:59:00.000+09:00

for lack of anything else to put on the internet, I'll use today to tell y'all how it is i spend my days. I don't have internet yet, but I do have a cellphone. Which took forever to get. And is a story worthy of telling.

Hold off on the daily-life stuff for a bit.

Adam attempts to buy a cellphone, wanders the streets of Mutsu City, annoys Poseidon, kills the Cyclops, and all his men are turned into pigs:

So my recruiting company's branch manager comes up once I get my foreigner-registration card and helps me go to the two cellphone companies in the area and borrow, for free, a cell phone from each to see if it works out in the stix where I live (more on that when I have glorious ol' internet).

I eventually decide on one, and drop the other off first. Which is awkward, since I don't speak Japanese and sat there for a full three minutes insisting that I had only borrowed the phone, not bought it, I wasn't trying to buy a new one or return it for a rebate, I just wanted to give it back, while they kept saying, yeah, we know, you can go home now, really, please, you can go, why isn't he leaving?

You can probably figure out where this is going. I stop by the other store fully intending to buy a cellphone using what Japanese I know and pure headstrong idiocy. This takes a full two a half hours.

Explaining that I want to buy a phone is easy enough. I ask the girl which phone have English interfaces, and she says all of them. Alright, I think, and pick out the of the free-with-contract phones. We sit down, she pulls out the paperwork, and goes searching for the phone in the stock room.

They're all out. Does she tell me straight away? No. She is fully committed to getting me this phone, but doesn't know what to do. A little nervous, she doesn what any Japanese person does in event of unforseen events. She calls her superior.

After she rings him up the third time, I ask her what the deal is, and she tells me that there's no phone. Ok, so I pick out another. It's got English right? yeah, of course!

No it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. Definetly not after we finish a half-hour's worth of paperwork and micommunication. Certainly not when I realize that I'm forgotten my hanko (name-stamp, like a signature here) and run home to get it. Of course, the phone's activated, ready to go, but there's no English, not on this phone.

And not, for that matter, on the next two we try. each time, the same pattern: it has an English interface, right? Oh yup! sure does! I think so! Possibly! Pretty good chance! Maybe! I don't know! Nope! Why would it! You're in Japan, jackass! Pick again, fatty!

But now, I do have a phone, so if you want the number so you can pay bijillions for a the sweet sound of my sonorous voice, email me and let me know. Also, I found some wonderful postcards so if you'd like one send me a mailing address.

ok. now we start

My Daily Routine

Usually, I wake up at six a.m. Which is inherently awful. I make a big pot of coffee, take a shower, pick through my business-style attire, and head out the door sometime between 7 and 7:30, depending on where the school is and if it's my first day.

Commuting times vary from 5 minutes to 40 minutes. If it's my first day at that particular school (I have about six) I arrive a half hour early. Otherwise, I aim for fifteen minutes before. Most schools give me a desk. One gives me a folding chair only. It's a little uncomfortable but looking around the room I don't know what else they would do with me.

When I get to school, the least senior woman on the faculty serves everyone coffee. It's sort of like the 50s in that regard. Then at 8 am there's the teacher's meeting, of which I understand nothing, and then class begins.

Usually I have between 2 and 5 classes each day. In the bigger schools, there is an English teacher on the staff who incorporates me into their lesson. At smaller schools, I may be alone with about 5 kids at once. Big classes are easy, because there are more kids participating. Smaller classes are difficult, because if you have two first-graders and one is grumpy, well, half the class isn't going to participate.

After about four periods, it's lunchtime. I always eat with the kids, and school lunches are very different here. A truck pulls up to the loading dock of the school, and the kids themselves unload the large, rolling metal cases that contain their meals. These are pushed by anywhere from five to two kids to their classrooms, where the process of serving begins.

The students who will serve the rest now don aprons and white bandannas. There are no lunchladies here. There are usually four different things to eat, and one server per food: rice, a meat, a soup of some sort, and vegetables. very healthy, always. usually tasty. when it's bad, it's reallllly bad. remember complaining about your lunches at school and how you didn't know what was in it? Well, sometimes I'd rather not know. For example, the squid is particularly awful.

As students take their seats with untouched meals in front of them, cheery kid's music gets pumped through the intercom. A designated person now stands up and hands are placed together, thank-you-Jesus style. With a cry of ttadakimas!!! the feast begins.

Everyone is amazed that I can use chopsticks. Every time.

When we're done (gochiososama!!!) the students seperate their plates, throw out their straws, wash out their milk cartons and place them in the recycling. They get a few minutes to brush their teeth once the garbage is sorted (but no toothpaste and no braces in this snaglle-tooth utopia). In elementary schools, they get a bit of recess to run around after lunch. This is a dangerous time for me.

Usually, only two or three will jump on board the H.M.S. Adam, but a few times I've had a couple of kids wrapped around each leg, a few clinging to my torso, with the rest of the pack waiting for their turn to bite. One time, the students were so surprised at my ability to move with such a load of proto-human leeches that, all of a sudden, the children released their grip. I was more surprised when I was suddenly proffered one end of a jump rope. The moment I took hold of it, every child that had just been swarming me threw themselves to the ground and grabbed ahold of the other end. Evidently, they expected me to drag grades 1 thru 4 around the gymnasium.

After recess or maybe the period after, the kids break from studying and begin cleaning time. Most schools have one janitor, a person who is more of a handyman because the students spend an hour each day cleaning the school. Every floor is scrubbed, every surface wiped, every stair swept, every eraser vaccuumed clean by teams of kids. Designated groups of students clean every classroom; for instance, in one school out of the four who clean the 1st grade classroom only one is a 1st graders. After completing their cleaning session, the students greet the teacher assigned to this area in the at-ease stance to report what they cleaned that day. The teacher dismisses them, and cleaning time for these few is over.

Then a few more classes am I'm off at 4 pm sharp every day, unless students need to train for a English speech competition, in whcih case I may spend an hour after school helping them with pronounciation. I've only done one training session so far, and I'd rather not brag, me being a Humble Farmer and all, but I will here: one of my kids won the regional competition. That's right. I'm vicariously number one.

Then home, cleaning, shopping, cooking, ironing (more than I expected), etc. until I hit the sack between 9 pm and 10. Sometimes I make dinner, sometimes I pay a buck fifty for a sandwich or ten bucks for a cheap meal of sushi. When I'm way too tired to move (it happens) I usually hit the kon-bi-ni (convenience stores), which are fantastical worlds where I can get a six pack of watery Japanese beer, buy stamps, or pay my electric bill.

Ok. Classtime. Say hi sometime. Wish everyone the best.

What??? A post without pictures? Screw that.

2006-09-08T14:21:00.000+09:00

So I've got internet access here at my school, but I can't add pictures to my posts. I think I'll just wait until I have internet at my house and then unload on this page.

Stay tuned to hear about:
Adam crossing into the underworld and then returning to the land of the living
Adam spending an entire week trying to get the smell of the underworld out of his clothes
Adam attending a Japanese junior high pep rally, gaining a fear of 13 year olds in headbands
Adam tragically persihing in a swarm of 60 kindergarteners
Adam's exile to the land of small village schools, where he teaches the two first-graders how to twiddle their thumbs.

Also, pictures of my car and free house.

Hope everyone's well. Thanks to those who wished me a Happy Birthday via Facebook & Myspace. If I didn't respond, well, that's because I'm a jerk.

PS I'm still alive

First day of actual classes

2006-09-04T15:59:00.000+09:00

I am the most tired individual in the history of tiredness and competitions.

Children have a lot more energy than I do. Take, for instance, this lunch break. Some of them decided to take me to play badminton (they ignored my insistence that we rob a bank instead) and what ensued was a little unlike badminton and more like me getting my ass whupped.

Mainly, i got dragged down the hall, three kids on each arm, to the gymnasium. We played badminton, some sort of tag where you just run around yelling "touch" (and backsies - wtf kind of kids play with backsies?), and then it off to outside for some good old fashioned getting-pulled-around-by-first-graders. PS, I'm in a suit.

Anyway, you'll have to wait until friday here to hear more, as I'm off to the House of Ludd again, it being four o'clock.

I am, in fact, alive

2006-09-04T09:01:00.000+09:00

Ohayoo gozaimasu! It's 9 am here in Higashidoori Village, and I am at school, before morning classes. I have three today, mostly introductions, so it should be easy.

ANYWAY.

I am actually alive, I just have been cut off from the world by virtue of the fact that my free house does not come with internet. It doesn't come with a lot of indoor plumbing either (flush toilets, evidently, are not common in the older buildings here), but the place fits into my budget perfectly.

So, here's what's happened since Hachinohe. My branch manager picked me up at the hotel, and we hit the trains, traveling by increasingly smaller vehicles until we were finally on a single trolley car traveling alongside the seashore. Totally nuts. Reached Mutsu city, the closest to where I live, and immediately met with the Higashidoori Board of Education.

I haven't understood a word since.

After introductions and a flurry of business cards (I met the BoE, the Superintendent, one Principal, and the mayor; in Japan, upon meeting someone in a professional setting, one bows and holds their business card with both hands, facing so the recipient can read it, and passes it to the other person), I finally got to my free house. It is predictably somewhat old, but in decent enough shape for me to live in.

Oh, PS, it's freaking beautiful here. Rice paddies, sudden mountain ranges, huge beaches, wild horses, windmills, all that good stuff.

Afterward, made the rounds and introduced myself (in a combination of Japanese and English) to the staff at all the schools I will be working at. Everywhere I went, it was explained by some BoE staff that I nihongo o wakarimasen (do not understand Japanese).

First day of school was an Athletic festival for the district, which was an awesome and easy way to get introduced to the students. Each school in the district had their own uniform (and keep in mind some of these schools are tiny, about ten to twenty students) and sent their 1st through 6th graders through the 100 meter dash, a kilometer relay, and a kilometer race.

Yeah. Think about that.

The kids are so freaking cute, it's unreal. They are fascinated by everything I do, not limited to eating with chopsticks, speaking in Japanese, having hair on my arms, or my nagai hana (long nose). I was like a new car; they swarmed me, poking, prodding, punching my stomach (steh-ki gah skides ka? Do you like steak; for the record, I kept my mouth shut, but wanted to say iee, urusai otokonoko o taberu no gah skides: No, I like to eat loud little boys).

Oh, you know how we were into dinosaurs as kids? Well, these children are really into f-ing beetles. Yeah. For instance, I was at a small kindergarten (about 6 kids in total), where the children insisted on showing me a small cage in the back of the room. I expected a hampster, gerbil, or some other cute little animal.

But no. It turned out to be a scarab-sized beast with the Jaws of Life for pinchers.

Anyway, spent saturday with Geran, the JET ALT from oklahoma who also works in the district. he took me to Hell. When I can, i'll post pictures.

Am spending most of my timing cleaning and driving to Homu Centah, Sunday! A place somewhat akin to a Home Depot minus the construction plus a Linens and Things. Actually, it's just a Bed, Bath, and Beyond with tools and a ridiculously bad name.

Off to class, more when my free house gets internet.

City of Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture

2006-08-28T20:15:00.000+09:00

I'm a hotel in Aomori prefecture, right next to the Shinkansen (Bullet train) station. Finished up training this morning and hopped on the train immediately, rode twoa nd ahalf hours to here. The countryside on the way up was absolutely beautiful, really stunning stuff. Japan's terrain seems divided into two categories. Huge, stark mountains and flatness, which occur in some pretty interesting combinations. I tried taking pictures as i drove, but didn't figure out i could change the shutter speed on my camera until later tonight.

I mean, I'm not sure how I could've made it not be blurry. I took the damn picture from a freaking bullet train.

Last night the whole class went out together as a group, trainers included. We went to an all-you cna eat/drink resturant, which was one floor below a all-you-can-drink karaoke bar. Needless to say, certain individuals (possibly including myself) found themselves a little less tharsty. Karaoke is wicked fun, we sang everything from "Living on a Prayer" to "Twist and shout" and some lame-ass girl wanted to sing the japanese pop songs she liked but we discussed the matter as a group and decided to boo the hell out of her and skip the song.

Ended up at a bar with three other folks attempting to communicate about yakyu (baseball) with our poor waitress.

Oh, check this out:

That, my friends, is the light switch for my room. yeah. I couldn't figure it out for the first ten minutes, but then i stuck my key in the damn hole and the room lit up. I think that's wicked cool, even if it doesn't make too much sense.

A note about Aomori: in the words of one of my trainers, "it's really Japanese up there." Basically, I may be the only foreign person the locals have seen in the past six months. In tokyo, it was strange to be looked at all the time, but there were plenty of other gaijin (foreign-people) around so the Tokyoians were very accepting. I mean, if you stood outside with a beer in your hand they would immediately assume you were drunk and going to assault them, but you can just smile. During training, we would gather outside the hotel during breaks, standing in the alley between the two lobbies of the hotel, and cars would drive by with the passengers' faces plastered to the window, oggling the crowd of gaijin. One of my trainers finally said, "hey, if they're going to stare, you may as well wave..."

Here, I can tell already, folks are not really sure what the deal with me is. Lots of stares, but nothing more. It's totally fine, I've just never expereinced it before.

Tomorrow: Higashidori village, the town of 5000 people where I will live for the next seven months. Booyeah. That's what's hot in the streets.

More pics because today was suprisingly nuts.

2006-08-26T20:35:00.000+09:00

HEY.

TODAY WAS THE ANNUAL ASAKUSA SAMBA FESTIVAL.

THAT'S RIGHT. A SAMBA FESTIVAL. THE DANCE.

A 7-hour parade went right by the front door of my hotel. The streets were packed:

And the traditional Japanese sterotype of polite, quiet folk completely disappeared today. Gradmothers, small children, skinny little men throw elbows, shoulders, their body weight at you if they thik you're too slow or in their way. Definetly the most aggressive crowd I've ever been in, surprsingly. But not to such a degree to distract from the event, just surprising from such a fanatically polite people.

The costumes etc. were crazy, reminded me of pics I've seen of Carnival in Rio. The few photos that came out well don't do the event justice, but as soon as I figure out how to post the video I took with my wee lil camera, I will; it's pretty great.

Anyway, hit the streets afterward in pursuit of a new pair of headphones. Paid around $25 for what may be the best pair of headphones I've ever had. I heart this country.

Went out to dins alone since everyone else was out partying and I was committed to finding a pair of headphones before I left. Left the resturant and the street looked cool, not Shibuya or Roppongi cool, but interesting nontheless:

A quick picture post to prove I'm still alive...

2006-08-25T23:40:00.000+09:00

Went to a temple after waking up at like 4 am. Here are some pics I took, wish they could be in better resolution here, but hey...

Inside ceiling of the actual temple...

Like this woman, people would just stop for a brief second and pay their respects to statues of buddha or the doors of the temple themselves...

Tokyo is full fo little streets like this, just full of small shops and stuff, but some of these tiny alleyways have major attractions on them. This particualr street was decorated with the red posts due to the close location of the temple...

The other side of Japan: lots and lots of people and modernization. This is a view of the area outside Shibuya station, where the crossroads look something like the battle scenes from Braveheart. Keep in mind that this is after the main mass of folks crossed the street.

This, well, this is just kinda funny but really demonstrative of what I've seen of the big J-P so far:

You. littering. bastard.

Training Day 1: I fail to sleep in, find coffee

2006-08-23T19:27:00.000+09:00

What is like to be in a bathroom in Japan?

I am Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. I am the Incredible Hulk in a clown car. I cannot take a shower without feeling like I'm about to pull a Kool-aid Man move and bust through a wall. And the directions on the toilet don't make a lot of sense:

I hope you can read that. They're instructions for the dials on the toilet seat.

I'm not complaining, by the way. It's just so new.

Woke up at 5:30 this morning, dashing my belief that I'd already beaten jet lag. Wanderd around the neighborhood early in the morning, realizing that Tokyo is completely like New York in the fact that everything shuts down between 2 am and 7 am.

Honestly, I couldn't get this until 7 am:

Thank you, globalization gods.

TRAINING AND ACTUALLY FIGURING OUT STUFF

Began going over company policy today, haven't gotten into teaching style yet. The most important news I learned today is that my situation in Aomori proves as wonderful as it is intimidating.

It's kind of Yin & Yang. I drive a company car (wonderful) over about a 100 kn stretch of highway (intimidating). My position is in a beautiful, remote area (awesome) where the company has never had a contract before (the contact for the closest branch office, whom I met today, gave these instructions: "Please, let us know you're alive"). My board of education offers government housing in a [ta-da!] house of my own, but, um, I don't think anyone on the board of education speaks English.

It feels somewhat like speeding down a slope, aiming my snowboard at a huge kicker; exhilirating but scary. I'ma ctually really lucky though, because in light of my situation the head of my branch office, a native Japanese, will be the one escorting me to my town.

Anyway, I'm wiped. I figure if I can stay up two more hours or so I'll have a better shot of getting on nihon no tokee [japan time].

Oh, one more thing: the japanese can make a damn good hamburger.

I AM ACTUALLY IN TOKYO, JAPAN.

2006-08-22T20:59:00.000+09:00

Hey all,

arrived yesterday, 3 pm. I'm completely exhausted. Here's what happened:

First, a 13 hour flight, Sandwiched between a fat, friendly guy from Queens and a grumpy old man. Not so comfy, glad when it was over. Narita Airport (Tokyo) was immediately intimidating, but customs was extremely efficient (actually, Customs proved to be the first of many impressively efficient things I've seen over the past three days.) Found my pickup at a designated "meeting point," and we picked up two more guys before leaving. I've basically spent the past two days with Jon (Denver) and Brandon (NYC & Babson).

Took an increasingly crowded hour & half train ride from Narita to the hotel with our Interac contact, a young Iranian woman who grew up here (three impressive things on Tokyo trains & subways: 1. You can eat off the floor 2. or the plush seat cushions 3. but not in the cell-phone free section of the car)

Essentially what happened next was a night on the town. We got some food (adammantly ordering in Japanese, regardless of our waitress' responses in English), wandered around a lot (it's totally safe here; saw a twelve year old girl bicycling down an alley at 1 am in the morning), and got more food and Asahi beer at a Yakitori joint (food on a stick; in our case, octopus). Crashed about 2 am after struggling with phone cards, an event which became an epic journey from public phones to embarassingly complex conversations with the guys at the hotel desks.

Oh, this is what it looks like outside of my hotel:

And I took this early today, the view from my hotel window:

Pre-tty wild.

Today was awesome. Did a LOT of wandering. Started out going for breakfast at a japanese fast-food joint (you buy tickets, hand then to the waitress, and get a bowl of rice with stuff on it. Curry & seaweed actually work together). We then hit the subway system, traveling first to this place called asabashi (i think), a gargantuan electronics store that sold anything possibly technological (DVDs, CDs, computer parts, electric pianos, cell phones, books). 7 floors. lots of lights and blinking.

Then on to the imperial palace in downtown Tokyo (Chiyoda-ku), which meant a long ride on those clean-ass subways. Beautiful, but unfortuneately I forgot my camera. Brandon took a lot of pics for us, I'll post them later. Then more wandering: Roppingi shopping area, wandering around looking for lunch, finally stopping at a 7-11 for directions (which we promptly misunderstood).

Yes. A 7-11. They also have Denny's.

Finally, found some dinner and hit the trains again, sumimasen!-ing our way through the crowded rush-hours subways, this time bound for Shibuya shopping district, where we found what we figured Tokyo would look like.

LIGHTS. TALL THINGS. LOTS OF PEOPLE.

We returned here, and we're are ready to cras. It's 8:15, and I don't know how much longer i can stay up.

A few Tokyo observations:

1. Walk on the left, drive on the left, stay to the left on escalators, but get the hell out of the way of bicyclists.

2. Always smile. Period.

3. There's almost no graffiti, litter, or smoking on the streets of Tokyo.

4. Want a refreshing bottle of soda? Try the 20 oz of green tea instead.

5. Sumimasen, sumimasen,sumimasen.

6. No Jaywalking. If you're in an alley, there's no cars coming, and the light hasn't changed, there's still no jaywalking.

7. Ambulances use their megaphones to ask you, "please, get out of the crosswalk." We think.

8. Japanese is HARD. Especially if you're fourteen hours out of whack with a few beers in you.

9. Sumimasen, there's no jaywalking.

10. If I can stay up tonight just an hour more, I'll be on Japan time. Word.

T-minus three days

2006-08-19T12:29:00.000+09:00

Before I begin, a bit of filler...

How I spent my summer vacation:
1. Spread 24 cubic yards of mulch
2. Visited Vicki in NYC a bunch
3. Did lots more yardwork and hung out with my parents.

DONE.

Actually relevant stuff:
At 9 am on sunday morning, I board a flight to Chicago, where I will catch a 14-freaking-hour plane ride to Narita Airport in Tokyo. I'll spend about five days in Tokyo in training, a day in Hitachi for orientation (which is, perhaps, different from "training") and then I am sent to the town where I will be working for the next seven months. It is called Higashidorimura. It is located here:

I'm on the northernmost end of Honshu, the largest island of the four that make up the mainland of Japan. It's pretty exciting, evidently a very cool, remote area, about 500 miles north of Tokyo.

Hope everyone is well.

Oh, actually, just wanted to point out that the title up there is from the song "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers. It pertains in no way to me traveling to Japan besides the fact that I will listen to it at least four times on the plane due to the song's absolute encompassing sweetness.

Introduction

2006-07-19T05:58:00.000+09:00

Hello! This is how I'll keep in touch with lots of people during my stay in Japan. But right now it'll stay empty and like it.