Kyoto

Finding Balance

Well I feel like I am finally settling into life here in Japan. It has been a roller coaster ride so far, but things are starting to level out. There have been so many things to adjust to and figure out. From navigating the city, moving into an apartment, and trying to speak Japanese, to understanding my class schedule, figuring out what's expected of me, and coming to terms with the Japanese school system. The time is really flying by. Faster than I've ever known it to. Perhaps partly because of all the changes and newness. But I feel more comfortable now. I am slowly regaining equilibrium. And it feels good.

Lastest flower arrangement

cute kids

About once a month I go to a mother's and kids English group. Even though I don't have a kid I am a novelty English item, so they let me join. I love it! The kids are adorable and the parents are really great. It's a lot of fun. In fact it's probably my favorite day of the month. Plus it's a potluck, so I get to try lots of delicious homemade Japanese food. Yum!

Persimmons

It's persimmon season in Japan. (And chestnut season for that matter, but you already know what chestnuts are.) What is a persimmon you ask? Well, let me tell you.
It's a fruit that grows on trees
like this one right across the street from my junior high school. (I wish the camera on my phone had zoom!) The trees are everywhere; there are gardens everywhere too if I haven't mentioned that.
There are sweet and bitter persimmons. The sweet kind you can eat fresh and the bitter kind are usually dried or soaked in alcohol to make them sweeter.
They have a tough skin which is not edible and fairly large seeds, rather like the seed in a plum. The texture is somewhat like a soft pumpkin, and
the flavor is slightly similar to a cantaloupe. As they ripen the get very sweet. Apparently they grow in the U.S. too, but I have never seen them before.

keep in touch

I have internet in my apartment now, so for anyone who might like to call me on the phone, lets video chat for free instead! If you don't have skype its easy and free to download and the video and sound quality is good. The only thing you really need is a microphone so I can hear you, but if you have a video camera then I can see you too! It's really great, it's almost like being in the same room. So download it!
www.skype.com

weekend adventure

Hello all,
This weekend was very welcome. Often during the week I get a little frazzled because I feel like I have no time to relax. I usually get up around 5:30 and get ready for work and get home around 5:30 or 6 and after making dinner and taking a shower it's getting close to bed time. I stay fairly busy at school too, I correct tests or worksheets or journal entries when I'm not in class, but sometimes I have a little time.
Anyway, this weekend I had my first flower arranging lesson. The secretary at the high school speaks English and offered to teach me, so she came over to my apartment on Saturday and brought flower and tools. It was fun, she even taught me the customary bow and greeting to start and end the lesson. Afterward we chatted a while, and I learned that she still lives with her parents which surprised me since she seems to be in her late 30's or early 40's. It's actually quite common here, in part because traditionally the first son gets the responsibility of caring for his parents in their old age. In some ways it seems to foster a lack of knowledge about real world things but I'm sure it has plenty of benefits as well, sharing the cost of living, maintaining a close relationship (maybe), and help with kids if you have them. But I digress.
I wanted to make brownies for the occasion of my first official guest. And as some of you know I don't have an oven so I've been experimenting with alternative ways of cooking baked goods. After some initial resistance I have come to appreciate the challenge as inspiration for creativity. Also baker's chocolate is, as far as I know, non-existent here, but I was lucky enough to find some unsweetened cocoa powder, so I was off to a good start. I had all my ingredient minus the flour mixed together and as I switched from whisk to wooden spoon I gave the whisk a lick...
and discoverd to my horror that I had used salt instead of sugar! Heartbreaking. and disgusting. So now I have a giant bag of salt in my cupboard that I probably couldn't use even if I stayed for five years. Why would they sell a bag of salt so big, and in the same section as sugar? Certainly not as some twisted practical joke to play on foreigners. As I thought about Japanese food I concluded that it must be for pickling. You add salt when you pickle things right?
Anyway, I told my flower arranging teacher the story and she not only confirmed my conclusion, but also gave me a good tip: salt comes in paper bags, and sugar comes in clear plastic bags.
so as tragic as it was to waste so much good chocolate, my only consolation is that at least I didn't serve them to her!

Field trip!

Yesterday I went on a field trip with the 8th graders to Kanazawa which is a city about an hour and a half away from Fukui. It's a bigger city and is a popular destination for tourists. Apparently many things in Fukui were burned by bombs in WW2 but in Kanazawa many historic things have survived. I visited one of the three most famous gardens in Japan (according to my vice-principal) and perused an art museum. I saw a national tresure that was made over 1000 years ago, and lots of other incredible pieces of art. There was caligraphy from the 9th century, and sculptures, pottery, paintings and lots more.
The students had a lot more independence than students in the U.S.; they prepared itinteraries beforehand and were only required to visit one of three places in the city where teachers were stationed. Other than that they stayed with their groups and wandered freely.
Another highlight for me was finding a starbucks, it may have been the best latte I've ever had.

Trimming the trees

Many of the roads are lined with trees, and recently there were workers climbing up them and cutting off all the branches. I asked someone about it and the reasoning was that in the winter sometimes it snows so much that the branches break. But still, it was sad to see trees looking like this, turn into this.

Some things don't change

I've been eating school lunch everyday, and somethings are the same no matter where you go. Sure the food is different, but the government is still trying to feed children at as low a cost as possible, which inevitably leads to lower quality food. We get either rice or a huge loaf of white bread on alternating days, then an entree, usually a piece of fish or some kind of mix of vegetables and seafood or meat, and often a bowl of soup and some kind of fruit. Oh yeah, and a jar of milk, which I choke down everyday. (I'm not a big fan of milk) The only thing I haven't had the stomach to eat was this fish, which looks innocent enough besides the head and tail still being intact, but they are actually pregnant mother fish, so the inside is filled with fish eggs.

authentic Japanese food

Bryan and I have gone out to lunch on the weekends a few times and it's always a bit of an adventure. First we ride our bikes around and say that looks like a restaurant, lets try it. Then we look at the menu and point to a random choice and see what they bring us. We've had some delicious food.

A picture is worth a thousand words

I have been so busy lately that I haven't had time to do much of anything, so I have neglected the blog for a week or two. Since I can't remember all that has happened I'm going to just post some entries about photos I have taken. This first one is a chorus competition between the homeroom classes at Asuwa Junior High.

I think it's the glasses

I was recently informed by one of the English teachers I work with that the students at the junior high nicknamed me Angela Aki. She is a popular singer-songwriter in Japan who is fluent in English and Japanese.
So it's official, I'm a teacher. I have a nickname.

Autumn and Buckwheat

The rainy season is upon us. It seems like I went to sleep one warm summer night and woke up to find fall. I'm going to go out on a limb, after being in Japan one month, and predict that fall and spring are the most wonderful times of year. Yes it rains furiously at times, but the temperature is perfect. The only downside is the shortening of days. It is dusk when I leave school at 5. Which makes biking home and running up asuwa mountain difficult. The photo is a couple of bikes parked outside the junior high school. These are not student's bikes, the students have a large covered parking area that fills up everyday. They must be teachers' or visitors' bikes. I just liked how they are keeping their seats dry.



The buckwheat fields are in bloom. The are so many fields along my train ride to school, that I look out the window into a sea of white. I came to Japan right as the rice was being harvested, and I meant to get a picture because the rice fields are also a sight to behold. Recently people have been burning the now barren plots, so it's common to see plumes of white smoke rising all around or be assaulted by the thick, smokey smell of burning vegetation.
Fukui is famous for making delicious soba noodles, and "soba" in Japanese means "buckwheat". They are also commonly sold in the U.S. and are full of protien. They are as easy to make as spegetthi and taste wonderful. In fact I remember a dish I used to make with just soba noodles, green beans and tofu. You cook the noodles and beans and cube the tofu then mix with a dressing made of soy sauce, lemon or lime juice, and seasame oil. You eat it cold, and it is delicious. You could easily substitute or add ingredients. So for those of you who haven't tried soba noodles, I recommend it.

settling in

Things are starting to settle down here. I've figured out how to get around and where things are. (at least the basics). There's a train that runs near my house and stops right near the junior high school, so between that and my bike my transportation needs are for the most part figured out. (although the train costs about $3 each way.) Bryan lives about a mile away on the other side of Asuwa "Mountain" which is really more of a hill. There's a tunnel that takes you right through, which is kind of fun.
My house is is an older neighborhood so the houses and shops around me are in a traditional japanese style, and its literally right at the base of the mountain. I can walk a block down and come to a huge square red archway and a huge steep stone stairway leading up into the maze of paths that wind their way through the jungle to temples, old abandon looking playgrounds, great views of the city and even a zoo! (The picture is the first temple I came upon)
Downtown the buildings are huge, and you can find department stores, restaurants, the train station, convenient stores, and little shops. There's also a mall near my house that is huge, and has a Tully's coffee which I have already visited twice.

At school I'm getting into a routine, although my schedule alternates on even and odd weeks, and some of the other English teachers have a different schedule, so I'm never really sure when I have classes. The classes have been going well, the teacher's styles vary, some follow the textbook more, some are better at getting the students to interact and speak, it's been a mix. But I am learning a lot about what works and what doesn't. Students here can be so shy. Usually no one will raise their hand or volunteer for anything. So it would be interesting to teach in the U.S. after this experience. Also I've been staying after school every day to help a girl prepare for an English speech contest, so I haven't had much free time.

On sunday Bryan and I went to meet our "host family". We signed up for a program that connects JETs to Japanese families for cultural exchange. Our family consists of parents and two sons, one in high school and one in junior high. Only the father and older boy could meet us because the younger one had his sports festival that day. But they are great! They speak English really well, and Akira (host father -see photo) is a neurosurgeon in the ER of a small hospital. He told us if we ever need anything to call which is so nice. His wife is a radiologist in a different hospital. The older boy (Tsuchida) is planning to study in the U.S. next year. Tsuchida has some plans and had to leave but Akira took us to Tojinbo which is a beautiful cliff overlooking the ocean. We got to touch the sea of Japan! Then he took us out to eat at a restaurant. We had soba noodles (which Fukui is famous for) and tempura. It was delicious. He also bought us a traditional sweet treat. It's a rice biscuit with sweet black bean paste filling. We had great conversations with him, he's very nice and well educated, it's a great fit. I look forward to meeting the rest of the family.
That's all for now. Take care.

My New Magical Bike

Sports Day

This weekend at my junior high school there was a culture festival and a sports festival. I didn't have a camera with me for the cultural festival unfortunately, but it included performances by the students like singing, dancing, playing instruments, game show style competitions, and videos. It was fun, but boy was that gym hot.








Then on Sunday, camera in hand I was back for the sports day, which was unlike any sports day in the states. First there was an opening ceremony which included singing, flag raising, speeches, cheer performances, bowing, stretching and even a torch lighting.





































Then the events began. The students were divided into 3 teams, red, yellow and blue and have been practicing hard for the last two weeks. I was assigned to support the red team, and even got my own red bandanna to wear.







This teacher has got some real team spirit.













Among my favorite events were:
the big pants relay












Pole tipping:
where two teams each have a pole with a flag on top and both try to steal the other team's flag. Only boys in this event, no shirts, no shoes.










Hopping bunny, which is based on this Japanese myth in which a rabbit wants to get from one island to another and persuades some crocodiles to let it hop on their backs in exchange for counting to see if the crocodiles are more numerous than the other creatures in the sea. When the crocodiles realize that the rabbit tricked them and had no intention of counting them, they bite off his fur. Girls only in this event.





Good 'ol fashioned chicken fighting, where each team tries to steal the other's hats.












The final scores: go red!














Here's a video of the red teams cheer performance



It was great fun. But I was glad to have monday off. No more 7 day work weeks please!

This friday the teachers are having a party to celebrate a successful festival and to welcome me to Japan!