I'm home safe and SARS-free from Taiwan. A few pictures are online at http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/sbroshar/lst?.dir=/Taipei&.view=t
If that link doesn't work, go to http://photos.yahoo.com/sbroshar/ and click on Taipei.
Sunday, March 23, 2003
So I have a bit of catching up to do. Last week was graduation. Wow. I can't really describe it now (actaully, I could, I just don't feel like it though), so you'll have to wait. Well, maybe I'll write a little. Basically, all the men in black suits with white shirts and white ties (western men should definetly pick up on this cusom - as usual, they look great!) The 3-nen teachers wore traditional Japanese kimono, had their hair all done up, looked really cool. Graduation ceremony wasn't too eventful. Lots of standing, sitting, standing, bowing, bowing, sitting, bowing. And like usual, the principal spoke for a long time (maybe 45 minutes?) while I daydreamed.
Last week was full of ceremony. Tuesday I went to an elementary school graduation, which was essnetially the same thing. More impressive, though, to sit through a 2 hour formal ceremony at an elementary school where grades 1-5 are sitting silently in rows with their hands neatly folded on their laps. I really don't know how they do it. (both the discipliners and the students!)
I think there was another ceremony Wednesday, but I forgot why. Thursday there was something for student government. And today, the students came to school for the morning to sit through a 'closing ceremony'. It's definetly a different system - students only have 2 weeks break before the new school year, and there are a ton of 1/2 days where nothing seems to happen. Why not give them a month? Japanese are definetly in school more days out of the year (a lot), but their time in class is probably about the same considering how many holidays, half days, and random ceremonies/assemblies they have. This is all just speculation.
I wonder if that goes along with the Japanese notion of time -- Victoria and I read an article last week about how westerners (Americans in particular) view time as a posession - let's get out of work so I can go home and live my life, people 'taking' someone's time with a long question, mistake, long line at a store, traffic, etc. The article points out that since Japan is such a group-oriented society, time here has more to do with group harmony - people will stay late at work, even if they're not busy. They'll work slowly so they can stay late. And many things in Japanese culture have to do with a patient, slow life. Onsens - first spending 15-20 minutes scrubbing every inch of your body, then soaking in different tubs. Ceremonies - things that really don't get anything done from my perspective are -so- important. even greetings and goodbyes take about a half-hour. Really. When leaving Japanese friends, we have to stand around, talk about how much fun we had, talk about doing it again. make little comments, and it's really hard to get out the door. Another example is that snowboarding trip to Nagano - really slow pace, lots of hanging around, talking, drinking, a little snowboarding, sleeping, bathing, etc. I would post a link to the article, but it's not well-written, and I think I've made its point, however incoherently.
I had a very Japanese weekend, both in sense of time and activity. Thursday night was a sento with Becca. After doing various tubs (the whirlpool-thereputic massage, the really hot tub, the green-apple medicated tub, the outdoor tub, and rotating the sauna and the ice cold tub), we hung out in the living room for an hour or so. This sento (public bath) is really close to Sunshine, maybe 5-10 minute walk. Doing a sento on a week night has a really local feeling, and it's lounge really was a community living room. A really cool thing. It's pretty small (maybe 10 feet wide, 20 feet long) and has a couch, television, tables, drink machine, massage chair, and a ton of manga (japanese comics) and other Japanese magazines. And people would just hang out. Some after bathing, some waiting for their friends. We read magazines, painted our nails, and watched a 3-year old girl play with some toys (we tried to talk to her, but she was having none of it). There was an old man in his pajamas in the massage chair the whole time, and some junior high - age kids reading comics, waiting for their friends. The sento itself is a bit different from an onsen; rather than luxery spa feeling it is a 'public bath', and stripping down in a small, brightly lit room with 20 old Japanese woman is a bit different. But still good.
Friday was also relaxed - it was a holiday. I can't even remember it very well. I know I went shopping. Oh yes, I spent the day in Toyama. Went around some stores with various people, had lunch, did a few more stores, went to a bar, went back to the indian restaurant for dinner (I couldn't eat again though), met up with Brian and Victoria there (I was with Justin/Becca in varrying combination all day), then went for kareoke - a great time.
Saturday was also slow. Went to kanazawa, walked around shops, coffee shop, becca got her hair cut, I found a great pair of summer jeans (baggy and just above the ankle), bought a CD at the store I loved from my last trip, ate italian, back to toyama for more kareoke, a movie, and soba sunday morning. somehow saturday and sunday just run into each other. Then more errands sunday (spent 1.5 hours with the travel agent working on my parents trip), pizza and salad for dinner, and a movie last night.
I can't really discribe it, just very spur of the moment, didn't do anything, but really busy the whole time.
Alright, I should get off the school computer - other teachers are busy.
Last week was full of ceremony. Tuesday I went to an elementary school graduation, which was essnetially the same thing. More impressive, though, to sit through a 2 hour formal ceremony at an elementary school where grades 1-5 are sitting silently in rows with their hands neatly folded on their laps. I really don't know how they do it. (both the discipliners and the students!)
I think there was another ceremony Wednesday, but I forgot why. Thursday there was something for student government. And today, the students came to school for the morning to sit through a 'closing ceremony'. It's definetly a different system - students only have 2 weeks break before the new school year, and there are a ton of 1/2 days where nothing seems to happen. Why not give them a month? Japanese are definetly in school more days out of the year (a lot), but their time in class is probably about the same considering how many holidays, half days, and random ceremonies/assemblies they have. This is all just speculation.
I wonder if that goes along with the Japanese notion of time -- Victoria and I read an article last week about how westerners (Americans in particular) view time as a posession - let's get out of work so I can go home and live my life, people 'taking' someone's time with a long question, mistake, long line at a store, traffic, etc. The article points out that since Japan is such a group-oriented society, time here has more to do with group harmony - people will stay late at work, even if they're not busy. They'll work slowly so they can stay late. And many things in Japanese culture have to do with a patient, slow life. Onsens - first spending 15-20 minutes scrubbing every inch of your body, then soaking in different tubs. Ceremonies - things that really don't get anything done from my perspective are -so- important. even greetings and goodbyes take about a half-hour. Really. When leaving Japanese friends, we have to stand around, talk about how much fun we had, talk about doing it again. make little comments, and it's really hard to get out the door. Another example is that snowboarding trip to Nagano - really slow pace, lots of hanging around, talking, drinking, a little snowboarding, sleeping, bathing, etc. I would post a link to the article, but it's not well-written, and I think I've made its point, however incoherently.
I had a very Japanese weekend, both in sense of time and activity. Thursday night was a sento with Becca. After doing various tubs (the whirlpool-thereputic massage, the really hot tub, the green-apple medicated tub, the outdoor tub, and rotating the sauna and the ice cold tub), we hung out in the living room for an hour or so. This sento (public bath) is really close to Sunshine, maybe 5-10 minute walk. Doing a sento on a week night has a really local feeling, and it's lounge really was a community living room. A really cool thing. It's pretty small (maybe 10 feet wide, 20 feet long) and has a couch, television, tables, drink machine, massage chair, and a ton of manga (japanese comics) and other Japanese magazines. And people would just hang out. Some after bathing, some waiting for their friends. We read magazines, painted our nails, and watched a 3-year old girl play with some toys (we tried to talk to her, but she was having none of it). There was an old man in his pajamas in the massage chair the whole time, and some junior high - age kids reading comics, waiting for their friends. The sento itself is a bit different from an onsen; rather than luxery spa feeling it is a 'public bath', and stripping down in a small, brightly lit room with 20 old Japanese woman is a bit different. But still good.
Friday was also relaxed - it was a holiday. I can't even remember it very well. I know I went shopping. Oh yes, I spent the day in Toyama. Went around some stores with various people, had lunch, did a few more stores, went to a bar, went back to the indian restaurant for dinner (I couldn't eat again though), met up with Brian and Victoria there (I was with Justin/Becca in varrying combination all day), then went for kareoke - a great time.
Saturday was also slow. Went to kanazawa, walked around shops, coffee shop, becca got her hair cut, I found a great pair of summer jeans (baggy and just above the ankle), bought a CD at the store I loved from my last trip, ate italian, back to toyama for more kareoke, a movie, and soba sunday morning. somehow saturday and sunday just run into each other. Then more errands sunday (spent 1.5 hours with the travel agent working on my parents trip), pizza and salad for dinner, and a movie last night.
I can't really discribe it, just very spur of the moment, didn't do anything, but really busy the whole time.
Alright, I should get off the school computer - other teachers are busy.
Woo hoo! So the teachers have had their private meetings with the principal, and my two permanant English teachers an Nanbu, whom I love, are both staying! This is pretty surprising - everyone thought my supervisor, a 3-nensei teacher in her 5th year at this school, would be switched. Teachers here are usually only at a school for 4-8 years, and since they move in progression with each grade, when they finish the 3rd years it is an easy time for them to leave. But she will stay! The 2-nen teacher wasn't a full time teacher (she hasn't gotten her certification yet- passed the test) so she only stays for 1 year at each school. Brian told me one of his male teachers will be coming to Nanbu. He apparantly has pretty bad English, but is goofy and from Osaka. That works. Brian also told me that his favorite teacher, the teacher with whom he travels, has dinner, etc., is being transfered to Oizumi. Yay!
I wish I had had my video camera today. I'm not sure how well it would have gone over, but it was really intense in here for the hour when the principal was giving the assignments. Some of the teachers had really funny reactions/expressions coming out of his office. So tense! Everyone (but my supervisor) is acting really busy. My supervisor just sat at her desk all day, wringing her hands, holding her stomach, and giving me worried looks.
I wish I had had my video camera today. I'm not sure how well it would have gone over, but it was really intense in here for the hour when the principal was giving the assignments. Some of the teachers had really funny reactions/expressions coming out of his office. So tense! Everyone (but my supervisor) is acting really busy. My supervisor just sat at her desk all day, wringing her hands, holding her stomach, and giving me worried looks.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Hi all. Graduation is approaching, and we spent the day today preparing for the ceremony. In addition to the key points of yesterday's rehearsal (standing in unison, sitting in unison, and bowing in unison - with both feet and hands just so), today they sang the songs and practiced walking across the stage. After lunch, the 3rd years were let go early and the 1st and 2nd years spent the afternoon cleaning the school - scrubbing every corner, decorating, etc. I spent the day walking around, trying to have conversations with people. At one point, I looked out the window and saw someone about to throw away a U of M frisbee. What a find! I rescued it from the garbage, to the disgust of my supervisor. But now I have a frisbee, and a U of M frisbee, at my school in Japan!
This morning the 3-nensei's came into the teacher's room and presented us with flowers and books of thank-you messages. I also biked over to Oizumi for a similar thank-you ceremony. It was the last time to see the Oizumi 3rd years, since I won't be there for graduation Monday. They're my favorite kids! Very cute and genki, always trying to talk to me. I hope the 2-nen's at oizumi become more charming and less obnoxious (I really like them- they're a bit raunchy and fun, but they're just too much to handle now), and same with 1-nen there, or else I'm going to go crazy. But it's always a good change from the shy, more formal atmosphere at Nanbu.
My computer was fixed Wednesday. I haven't had time yet to try to restore my old software - cooked dinner and saw the Pianist Wednesday night, and cooked again and went to Aikido last night. But I have enjoyed having the DVD player back already. But going back to Wednesday, I loved the Pianist. Loved it. And it was 'ladies night', so the film was only 1000 yen (8.50 - a bargain from the 1800 yen, or 15 dollar standard). But, since it was after 8 it also qualified as a 'late show' for justin - late show price is 1200 (10 dollars).
The teacher's room is so quiet right now. I feel kind of guilty for being in here on the internet, but I don't have anything to do and I'm exhausted (well, actually bored) from walking around the school in circles.
So quiet.
Can you tell I'm bored?
I have plenty of things I could do - study Japanese, write letters (I've got some great stationary, and have been planning some letters, it's just taken me a while, sorry...), I even have a book I could probably get away reading. Maybe I'll plan my parents trip some more. That's a good idea!
So. They fly in Friday May 2, arrive in Tokyo at 4:20. They're scheduled for a 6:30 bus to Haneda (Tokyo's domestic airport), where they'll catch a free shuttle to their hotel and collapse after many many hours of traveling. Then they'll take an 8am domestic flight to Toyama Saturday morning. This won't be early at all, I'm thinking. When I flew in to Tokyo I was ready to collapse by 8-9pm, and woke up by 5 am. Plus, when we flew from Haneda, we were late because one of the JET's accidentally switched passports with her roomate, going to a different prefecture, but didn't realize it till the roomate had left and we were about to take off... got to the airport about 15 minutes before our plane left.
They'll take a very rickety, scarry small plane (with a live camera from the front window and one from the bottom of the plane - so they can see how scary and it really is) over the mountains and land in Toyama by 9am Saturday. I will be there to meet them, either by bus, taxi, or with a teacher. Then we'll hang out a bit. I'll show them my apartment, APA (the shopping mall across the street - the most essential stop on the Toyama tour I think), maybe Toyama castle, the cherry blossoms, etc. Dinner that night - yakiniku horse meat restaurant down the block (but we'll just get cow, I'm sure), maybe with friends.
Sunday is Kanazawa - a cool city about an hour's train away. Monday is more local Toyama things (small town of Himi, maybe the Tonami tulip festival, the Uozu glow-in-the-dark squi|d), and Aikido Monday night. Tuesday, Wednesday - Kyoto. Thursday - Tateyma-kurobe Alpen route. Thursday night/friday night ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel - tatami rooms, including really good meals, onsens, etc.) Sat-Sun-Mon - Tokyo.
Sounds fun, right? I'm very willing and able to plan more exciting trips around Japan - geared towards your interests!
The principal (the strict one!) just gave me a present. Today's white day, the reverse of Valentine's day. Valentine's day, only girls give boys chocolate. White day, boys give girls boxes of cookies. How nice! Today's been a big present day with the various flowers, cookies, and book things.
Sayonara for now,
Sarah
This morning the 3-nensei's came into the teacher's room and presented us with flowers and books of thank-you messages. I also biked over to Oizumi for a similar thank-you ceremony. It was the last time to see the Oizumi 3rd years, since I won't be there for graduation Monday. They're my favorite kids! Very cute and genki, always trying to talk to me. I hope the 2-nen's at oizumi become more charming and less obnoxious (I really like them- they're a bit raunchy and fun, but they're just too much to handle now), and same with 1-nen there, or else I'm going to go crazy. But it's always a good change from the shy, more formal atmosphere at Nanbu.
My computer was fixed Wednesday. I haven't had time yet to try to restore my old software - cooked dinner and saw the Pianist Wednesday night, and cooked again and went to Aikido last night. But I have enjoyed having the DVD player back already. But going back to Wednesday, I loved the Pianist. Loved it. And it was 'ladies night', so the film was only 1000 yen (8.50 - a bargain from the 1800 yen, or 15 dollar standard). But, since it was after 8 it also qualified as a 'late show' for justin - late show price is 1200 (10 dollars).
The teacher's room is so quiet right now. I feel kind of guilty for being in here on the internet, but I don't have anything to do and I'm exhausted (well, actually bored) from walking around the school in circles.
So quiet.
Can you tell I'm bored?
I have plenty of things I could do - study Japanese, write letters (I've got some great stationary, and have been planning some letters, it's just taken me a while, sorry...), I even have a book I could probably get away reading. Maybe I'll plan my parents trip some more. That's a good idea!
So. They fly in Friday May 2, arrive in Tokyo at 4:20. They're scheduled for a 6:30 bus to Haneda (Tokyo's domestic airport), where they'll catch a free shuttle to their hotel and collapse after many many hours of traveling. Then they'll take an 8am domestic flight to Toyama Saturday morning. This won't be early at all, I'm thinking. When I flew in to Tokyo I was ready to collapse by 8-9pm, and woke up by 5 am. Plus, when we flew from Haneda, we were late because one of the JET's accidentally switched passports with her roomate, going to a different prefecture, but didn't realize it till the roomate had left and we were about to take off... got to the airport about 15 minutes before our plane left.
They'll take a very rickety, scarry small plane (with a live camera from the front window and one from the bottom of the plane - so they can see how scary and it really is) over the mountains and land in Toyama by 9am Saturday. I will be there to meet them, either by bus, taxi, or with a teacher. Then we'll hang out a bit. I'll show them my apartment, APA (the shopping mall across the street - the most essential stop on the Toyama tour I think), maybe Toyama castle, the cherry blossoms, etc. Dinner that night - yakiniku horse meat restaurant down the block (but we'll just get cow, I'm sure), maybe with friends.
Sunday is Kanazawa - a cool city about an hour's train away. Monday is more local Toyama things (small town of Himi, maybe the Tonami tulip festival, the Uozu glow-in-the-dark squi|d), and Aikido Monday night. Tuesday, Wednesday - Kyoto. Thursday - Tateyma-kurobe Alpen route. Thursday night/friday night ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel - tatami rooms, including really good meals, onsens, etc.) Sat-Sun-Mon - Tokyo.
Sounds fun, right? I'm very willing and able to plan more exciting trips around Japan - geared towards your interests!
The principal (the strict one!) just gave me a present. Today's white day, the reverse of Valentine's day. Valentine's day, only girls give boys chocolate. White day, boys give girls boxes of cookies. How nice! Today's been a big present day with the various flowers, cookies, and book things.
Sayonara for now,
Sarah
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Good news!
My computer will be fixed by 7pm today, and will only cost me 15,000 yen (around 120 dollars). I'm very happy. I brought it in to school today, and the computer teacher here, a mac fanatic, instantly took it apart and traded the hard drive from his powerbook... checked that it worked, everything was fine, and is going to go buy an identical drive from his friend at some store after school, and I'll pick it up from him at 7. Great. I would have spent at least 5 hours studying the instructions before I even unscrewed the case, and he did it in a matter of minutes. He also took the bottom case, bent it back into shape, (the edge had gotten pulled out), and it fits tightly again. Eventually I might consider replacing it, but I can't wait to have my computer back!
I think my new 6 am habit is killing me, or maybe I'm just a bit stressed... having a hard time sleeping, so if you only get 5 hours a sleep, getting up at 6 isn't going to give me much more energy. But I'll stick with it!
I'm seeing the Pianist tonight.
Hope all is well with the world (well, it's obviously not, but I hope all is well in the personal lives of the people who read this... )
I guess I have to bring this up, now. How are things in America? Are they scary? Is everyone terrified of Bush alienating the US from the rest of the world? Because I am... It's strange to be outside of the US right now. But I guess I'm lucky to be in Japan, maybe the only country whose citizens don't hate America or Americans yet.
Yikes, yikes, yikes.
Sarah
My computer will be fixed by 7pm today, and will only cost me 15,000 yen (around 120 dollars). I'm very happy. I brought it in to school today, and the computer teacher here, a mac fanatic, instantly took it apart and traded the hard drive from his powerbook... checked that it worked, everything was fine, and is going to go buy an identical drive from his friend at some store after school, and I'll pick it up from him at 7. Great. I would have spent at least 5 hours studying the instructions before I even unscrewed the case, and he did it in a matter of minutes. He also took the bottom case, bent it back into shape, (the edge had gotten pulled out), and it fits tightly again. Eventually I might consider replacing it, but I can't wait to have my computer back!
I think my new 6 am habit is killing me, or maybe I'm just a bit stressed... having a hard time sleeping, so if you only get 5 hours a sleep, getting up at 6 isn't going to give me much more energy. But I'll stick with it!
I'm seeing the Pianist tonight.
Hope all is well with the world (well, it's obviously not, but I hope all is well in the personal lives of the people who read this... )
I guess I have to bring this up, now. How are things in America? Are they scary? Is everyone terrified of Bush alienating the US from the rest of the world? Because I am... It's strange to be outside of the US right now. But I guess I'm lucky to be in Japan, maybe the only country whose citizens don't hate America or Americans yet.
Yikes, yikes, yikes.
Sarah
Monday, March 10, 2003
Hello,
Alright, I'm going to be really lazy. Here's my 2 weekends ago, (pasted from the contents of an e-mail, so the context might seem strange)
I had a great time snowboarding last weekend. Sooooo good. It was a little funny, definetly not
what I expected - we got to the departure point at 6:30 not so we could hit the slopes when it
opened, but so we (meaning the 7 Japanese guys) could all drink beer in the car on the way there
and make frequent bathroom stops (5 in a 1.5 hour journey). Then we went to the hotel and changed
before hitting the slopes. The weather was pretty bad Saturday (rain at the bottom of the
mountain, heavy snow on top - no visibility, very wet), and it was crowded, so we got pretty tired
pretty fast. We took the lifts up to the top (there are 4 lifts to get to the top) and did 1.5
runs before lunch.
Okay - good parts. Hotel - bed (an actual bed!!!), heat, an onsen (natural mineral bot) spring
bath in the hotel (open 24 hours), an awesome dinner/breakfast buffet. Skiing - Sunday was great.
Top half of the hill was closed in the morning due to heavy wind, so spent the first half of the
day exploring powder and having snowball fights with the 7 dwarfs (J-guys, also aptly described by
Becca as the Snatch guys - so kooky). Then I spent the afternoon by myself, adreneline running,
very intense Sarah mode, doing the top of the mountain that they opened up - several feet of
powder, steep, sooo fun! The first time was a little rough, so I kept doing it repeatedly, got
into a rhythm - 13 min. to do the lift at the top of the hill and ride back down. But it was
amazing.
Got back to the hotel pretty late - they had all quit earlier. Stopped for tonkatsu (fried pork
cutlets - it really is more Japanese and better than it sounds) which was great.
The bad thing about my weekend was that I didn't have lip protection (ie chapstick) and I got a
huge coldsore. Actually, the coldsore popped out of nowhere Tuesday. Huge. But I got medicine,
and it's no big deal now.
Planning a trip to Taiwan with Rebecca and Victoria for spring break... Becca's ABC (American
born chinese) which means her parents immigrated from Taiwan, and she still has all of her
extended family there. She also speaks mandrin, knows the island. It should be a really great
trip (5 days) - supposed to be a cool city, with beautiful mountains, ocean, etc. Plus good food,
and a real cultural experience, staying with her family.
Alright, the e-mail's over and I'll start writing about this past weekend.
Friday I got my first Japanese haircut - it was a great experience. Japanese attention to detail is wonderful when someone is giving you a 15 minute shampoo, very relaxing. plus a massage, etc. And the haircut was great! It was a pretty funny thing, though. There was my hairdresser (hip, young Japanese guy, what else would you expect?), and his 'aide' (also a hip young J. guy). Basically the aid was at the hairdressers side for everything - to bring him a different stool, to answer his cell phone, to get him necessary supplies, to hold the mirror at the right angle for me to see. the aide was also the one who did the washing and massage, pretty talented!
Sunday I had a 4-hour (no break) Aikido workshop. Fun, a bit sore, especially since I also had aikido last night, and have decided that running every morning at 6am is going to be the only way to give myself energy at school. But i love getting up and having time to drink coffee and listen to music in the am!
School's a bit slow now, classes are finishing and students are graduating soon. such a big deal here! there's been farewell assemblies, posters, dedications, etc., nearly every day. my god!
all for now,
sarah
oh, you can see pictures from toga and the formal if you go to brian's site (they're his pics) The ones that involve me start halfway down the list at Togafestival...
get to his pic. page from the link on his blog: http://brianirwin.blogspot.com
Alright, I'm going to be really lazy. Here's my 2 weekends ago, (pasted from the contents of an e-mail, so the context might seem strange)
I had a great time snowboarding last weekend. Sooooo good. It was a little funny, definetly not
what I expected - we got to the departure point at 6:30 not so we could hit the slopes when it
opened, but so we (meaning the 7 Japanese guys) could all drink beer in the car on the way there
and make frequent bathroom stops (5 in a 1.5 hour journey). Then we went to the hotel and changed
before hitting the slopes. The weather was pretty bad Saturday (rain at the bottom of the
mountain, heavy snow on top - no visibility, very wet), and it was crowded, so we got pretty tired
pretty fast. We took the lifts up to the top (there are 4 lifts to get to the top) and did 1.5
runs before lunch.
Okay - good parts. Hotel - bed (an actual bed!!!), heat, an onsen (natural mineral bot) spring
bath in the hotel (open 24 hours), an awesome dinner/breakfast buffet. Skiing - Sunday was great.
Top half of the hill was closed in the morning due to heavy wind, so spent the first half of the
day exploring powder and having snowball fights with the 7 dwarfs (J-guys, also aptly described by
Becca as the Snatch guys - so kooky). Then I spent the afternoon by myself, adreneline running,
very intense Sarah mode, doing the top of the mountain that they opened up - several feet of
powder, steep, sooo fun! The first time was a little rough, so I kept doing it repeatedly, got
into a rhythm - 13 min. to do the lift at the top of the hill and ride back down. But it was
amazing.
Got back to the hotel pretty late - they had all quit earlier. Stopped for tonkatsu (fried pork
cutlets - it really is more Japanese and better than it sounds) which was great.
The bad thing about my weekend was that I didn't have lip protection (ie chapstick) and I got a
huge coldsore. Actually, the coldsore popped out of nowhere Tuesday. Huge. But I got medicine,
and it's no big deal now.
Planning a trip to Taiwan with Rebecca and Victoria for spring break... Becca's ABC (American
born chinese) which means her parents immigrated from Taiwan, and she still has all of her
extended family there. She also speaks mandrin, knows the island. It should be a really great
trip (5 days) - supposed to be a cool city, with beautiful mountains, ocean, etc. Plus good food,
and a real cultural experience, staying with her family.
Alright, the e-mail's over and I'll start writing about this past weekend.
Friday I got my first Japanese haircut - it was a great experience. Japanese attention to detail is wonderful when someone is giving you a 15 minute shampoo, very relaxing. plus a massage, etc. And the haircut was great! It was a pretty funny thing, though. There was my hairdresser (hip, young Japanese guy, what else would you expect?), and his 'aide' (also a hip young J. guy). Basically the aid was at the hairdressers side for everything - to bring him a different stool, to answer his cell phone, to get him necessary supplies, to hold the mirror at the right angle for me to see. the aide was also the one who did the washing and massage, pretty talented!
Sunday I had a 4-hour (no break) Aikido workshop. Fun, a bit sore, especially since I also had aikido last night, and have decided that running every morning at 6am is going to be the only way to give myself energy at school. But i love getting up and having time to drink coffee and listen to music in the am!
School's a bit slow now, classes are finishing and students are graduating soon. such a big deal here! there's been farewell assemblies, posters, dedications, etc., nearly every day. my god!
all for now,
sarah
oh, you can see pictures from toga and the formal if you go to brian's site (they're his pics) The ones that involve me start halfway down the list at Togafestival...
get to his pic. page from the link on his blog: http://brianirwin.blogspot.com
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Hello!
I'm in a really good mood. Many interesting, fun, or rewarding things lately.
It's a beautiful day here - around 50 degrees, sunny, brilliant mountains and blue sky. I might go running in a bit when I go home. Need to start training - I'm playing in a Japan-wide soccer tourney for Jets this spring... the Toyama girls won the same tournament this fall, so I'm pretty excited.
Just spent the past few hours with the other teachers re-waxing the gym floor. I've known about this for a few days -- it's been on the schedule that the gym floor would be waxed, so I knew abou it, but I didn't know that I was supposed to brings scrubby floors because all the teachers would be doing it ourselves. A pretty funny experience, though, and after about 15 minutes I ran up and grabbed the school's digital camera to record the rest of the afternoon. The gym here is so pretty - lots of windows and wood panneled walls, high ceilings, etc. All natural light.
This morning we had interview tests with the 3-nensei (9th grade). Some of the students do well, some can't even look me in the eye. Before one student, my teacher warned me that she probably wouldn't say anything, because in her 3 years at Nanbu, only 2 teachers have ever heard her speak. She's capable, she just decided at some point that she wouldn't. But she came in, sat down, and answered all of my questions well. The teacher was amazed that she spoke to me- I have now become the third person at this school to hear her voice, which is a nice feeling.
I had a great enkai last night with the office staff of my smaller (and friendlier) school. We took a bus (a story in itself) to a famous Toyama fish restaurant near the beach. This restaurant is in a really old, really large Japanese house - beautiful gardens, tatami rooms, and the okami-san (head lady) and staff in kimono. Please remember that Toyama is known in Japan for having really good fish - the specialities include this glow-in-the dark (I think it's called firefly or something) squid, and some sort of pure white shrimp - these things can only be caught in the Toyama bay. But the real reason for the enkai there and then was because it's kani, or crab, season. So the main course were crab legs, and we also had crab in other dishes (this cool soup with a square of crab in the center, etc.) I took pictures of the food, it's too elaborate (and tedious for you I'm sure) for me to really go into.
The people at this school are very friendly, and even though they don't speak a lot of English, they really try to include me. They're very curious about my impressions/opinions, and my background, so I seem to frequently become the topic of conversation. And after a few beers, my body always becomes the point of scrutiny. Not in a bad way - they're very complimentary. But the Japanese certainly have strange standards of beauty. The fact that they have standards are even strange.
For the past few months, people (random students, teachers, others) have been commenting on my 'small face'. Apparently, it's a very desirable thing to have a small face/small head in Japan, and students who have larger heads are often teased for it. But last night I found out that they have a term for face-to-height ratio. (I forgot what the term is, but it has the Japanese word for 8 somehow incorporated). Basically, they measured the height of my face and told me that there are eight of those heights in the rest of my body, therefore I am well-porportioned. They don't know how tall I am, they could just tell I'm an 8 with their eyes. How bizarre!!!
The bus ride was funny because a huge bus (25 passenger) came to pick up 6 people. The six of us were all sitting in the back of the bus (a little awkwardly, can you imagine sitting in a huge bus with an assortment of random people from you office? Maybe the language barrier makes it more strange), and my principle asked me (in Japanese) what kani is in English. I told him crab, and the bus driver piped in and asked for it again. This started banter back and forth between the prinicpal and the bus driver about foreigners, I could only understand bits of it, but I also heard a bit about russians and bicycles. The reason this was so funny though is something I can't really explain. It was the prinicpal asking me about crab, and the bus driver piping in over a sea of empty seats maybe.
Some good news: I won a free lift ticket to a pretty well-known resort in Niigata. Another excuse to go skiing! I'm going to Nagano this weekend, and have to leave tomorrow at 5:30 am to make it to the lifts by 8/8:30. Crazy!
But for tonight I'm going to try to organize a bit, get things in order since I'll be dead Sunday night when I get home.
Hope you all have a good weekend,
Sarah
ps - I've heard that there's a monkey on the loose in Toga, and the town hall has gotten some sort of monkey cage and device to try and capture it. Isn't that place so exciting?!
I'm in a really good mood. Many interesting, fun, or rewarding things lately.
It's a beautiful day here - around 50 degrees, sunny, brilliant mountains and blue sky. I might go running in a bit when I go home. Need to start training - I'm playing in a Japan-wide soccer tourney for Jets this spring... the Toyama girls won the same tournament this fall, so I'm pretty excited.
Just spent the past few hours with the other teachers re-waxing the gym floor. I've known about this for a few days -- it's been on the schedule that the gym floor would be waxed, so I knew abou it, but I didn't know that I was supposed to brings scrubby floors because all the teachers would be doing it ourselves. A pretty funny experience, though, and after about 15 minutes I ran up and grabbed the school's digital camera to record the rest of the afternoon. The gym here is so pretty - lots of windows and wood panneled walls, high ceilings, etc. All natural light.
This morning we had interview tests with the 3-nensei (9th grade). Some of the students do well, some can't even look me in the eye. Before one student, my teacher warned me that she probably wouldn't say anything, because in her 3 years at Nanbu, only 2 teachers have ever heard her speak. She's capable, she just decided at some point that she wouldn't. But she came in, sat down, and answered all of my questions well. The teacher was amazed that she spoke to me- I have now become the third person at this school to hear her voice, which is a nice feeling.
I had a great enkai last night with the office staff of my smaller (and friendlier) school. We took a bus (a story in itself) to a famous Toyama fish restaurant near the beach. This restaurant is in a really old, really large Japanese house - beautiful gardens, tatami rooms, and the okami-san (head lady) and staff in kimono. Please remember that Toyama is known in Japan for having really good fish - the specialities include this glow-in-the dark (I think it's called firefly or something) squid, and some sort of pure white shrimp - these things can only be caught in the Toyama bay. But the real reason for the enkai there and then was because it's kani, or crab, season. So the main course were crab legs, and we also had crab in other dishes (this cool soup with a square of crab in the center, etc.) I took pictures of the food, it's too elaborate (and tedious for you I'm sure) for me to really go into.
The people at this school are very friendly, and even though they don't speak a lot of English, they really try to include me. They're very curious about my impressions/opinions, and my background, so I seem to frequently become the topic of conversation. And after a few beers, my body always becomes the point of scrutiny. Not in a bad way - they're very complimentary. But the Japanese certainly have strange standards of beauty. The fact that they have standards are even strange.
For the past few months, people (random students, teachers, others) have been commenting on my 'small face'. Apparently, it's a very desirable thing to have a small face/small head in Japan, and students who have larger heads are often teased for it. But last night I found out that they have a term for face-to-height ratio. (I forgot what the term is, but it has the Japanese word for 8 somehow incorporated). Basically, they measured the height of my face and told me that there are eight of those heights in the rest of my body, therefore I am well-porportioned. They don't know how tall I am, they could just tell I'm an 8 with their eyes. How bizarre!!!
The bus ride was funny because a huge bus (25 passenger) came to pick up 6 people. The six of us were all sitting in the back of the bus (a little awkwardly, can you imagine sitting in a huge bus with an assortment of random people from you office? Maybe the language barrier makes it more strange), and my principle asked me (in Japanese) what kani is in English. I told him crab, and the bus driver piped in and asked for it again. This started banter back and forth between the prinicpal and the bus driver about foreigners, I could only understand bits of it, but I also heard a bit about russians and bicycles. The reason this was so funny though is something I can't really explain. It was the prinicpal asking me about crab, and the bus driver piping in over a sea of empty seats maybe.
Some good news: I won a free lift ticket to a pretty well-known resort in Niigata. Another excuse to go skiing! I'm going to Nagano this weekend, and have to leave tomorrow at 5:30 am to make it to the lifts by 8/8:30. Crazy!
But for tonight I'm going to try to organize a bit, get things in order since I'll be dead Sunday night when I get home.
Hope you all have a good weekend,
Sarah
ps - I've heard that there's a monkey on the loose in Toga, and the town hall has gotten some sort of monkey cage and device to try and capture it. Isn't that place so exciting?!
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Alright.
So, I believe I was at Saturday afternoon. We watched I shot Andy Warhol (a little boring) and made sushi in a giant Japanese house. Didn’t get back home until 4:30-ish, and Justin and some of the Tateyama (Japanese) gang were coming to meet us at 6. Only an hour and a half at home! This seems to be the story of my last week – only in and out.
We all went out to dinner at a good Aisian/european fusion type place – really stylish restaurant with good food, pretty cheap, too. I think eating out in Japan is relatively inexpensive. Groceries can often be worse. Afterwards we went to Toyama’s one nightclub, where there was a special ska night. Toyama youth were out in full force, all dressed for ska. The bands were great, and the place was packed. A really good atmosphere, a lot of dancing, Japanese ska is fun!
It was kind of interesting to see how the Japanese are so strict about some laws and lax about others; one of my friend’s high school students were at the club, drinking beer along wth everyone. I’ve never been carded here, never seen anyone been carded, and they sell beer from vending machines in the street. So they obviously don’t care. Same with smoking – many teachers smoke in the teacher’s office during school in plain sight and smell of students.
But the high school boys were very ‘genki’ and fun, and they were pretty excited to use their English combined with alcohol to hit on me while I was sitting at the bar. They even demonstrated their musical skills by serenading me with ‘Stand by me’!
Sunday I was up at 5:15 to catch a train back to Kurobe, to catch a bus to Nagano. A Japanese international group had a day trip planned – all inclusive for around 50 dollars (so cheap!). We had a bus chartered 2 hours to a Nagano resort, where we skiied, ate, and bathed. First the skiing. Really good snow, not the most challenging of resorts, but still interesting. Japanese are very into the group thing, so we were with people of various levels. People seemed surprised that Becca and I were so good – I think we both grew up with frequent ski trips and competitive parents J.
At lunch time (11, but I was starving), we had this enormous buffet – Japanese food, Chinese food, western food. I had curry rice, which is classic Japanese ski fare, and also a tuna sandwich, coffe jelly (jello) with cream sauce, orange juice, and some Chinese dim sum. Everyone but Becca and I had the 1000 yen nomihoudai – all you can drink… I still don’t understand drinking beer while skiing, but it’s very popular here. Actually, they’ll drink beer anytime. Half the people on the trip weren’t skiing, either, they were old Japanese women who came to just stay at the hotel for the afternoon, eating, drinking beer, and going to the onsen.
So after dinner (which was an hour-and-a-half affair), we hit the slopes again. Found and interesting snowboarding park that wasn’t too hard, and nobody was very good, so I wasn’t too intimidated to do it a few times.
After ski – onsen. The onsen is where you take off all your clothes with your friends, people you just met, and complete strangers (this was divided by sexes, but there are some co-ed ones). Then you go into a room with mirrors and stools and shower heads, and you bathe yourself (have I already explained this?). Then, you have fun! This onsen was great – there were maybe 7 or 8 different bathes. An onsen is different froma sento because it is mineral water pumped from the mountains (sento is a public bath – tap water). The first bath I did was really shallow (ankles deep) with arm-chair things built in. So you lay down, and there are arm rests in the pool even, and there are bubble coming from under you. Very relaxing! There’s also a tub that’s very similar to a traditional hot-tub. One was purple-colored, and scented with some sort of lavender. There were also balls and rubber ducks in this one. One was in a ceder tub. There was also an outdoor bath – you could watch the skiiers on the hill throug a window – sit on your knees in the bath and stick your face out the window (there was a loose wooden roof and walls to protect your privacy).
Also an ice-cold tub – my favorite. We alternated this with the sauna a few times. Also a steam room.
Can’t you see how wonderful this would be after skiing? The naked thing really doesn’t bother me. Some people get nervous, but I just didn’t care. Noone else does here, they do it their whole lives.
Took the bus/train home and ordered pizza. I love pizza! The pizza delivery boy had the biggest afro I’ve ever scene, and I’m still wondering if this was real or a wig. A Japanese afro?
Now I’m back in the school/rest/clean/bake routine. I’ve been pretty tired lately, I’m not sure why.
More later!
Sarah
So, I believe I was at Saturday afternoon. We watched I shot Andy Warhol (a little boring) and made sushi in a giant Japanese house. Didn’t get back home until 4:30-ish, and Justin and some of the Tateyama (Japanese) gang were coming to meet us at 6. Only an hour and a half at home! This seems to be the story of my last week – only in and out.
We all went out to dinner at a good Aisian/european fusion type place – really stylish restaurant with good food, pretty cheap, too. I think eating out in Japan is relatively inexpensive. Groceries can often be worse. Afterwards we went to Toyama’s one nightclub, where there was a special ska night. Toyama youth were out in full force, all dressed for ska. The bands were great, and the place was packed. A really good atmosphere, a lot of dancing, Japanese ska is fun!
It was kind of interesting to see how the Japanese are so strict about some laws and lax about others; one of my friend’s high school students were at the club, drinking beer along wth everyone. I’ve never been carded here, never seen anyone been carded, and they sell beer from vending machines in the street. So they obviously don’t care. Same with smoking – many teachers smoke in the teacher’s office during school in plain sight and smell of students.
But the high school boys were very ‘genki’ and fun, and they were pretty excited to use their English combined with alcohol to hit on me while I was sitting at the bar. They even demonstrated their musical skills by serenading me with ‘Stand by me’!
Sunday I was up at 5:15 to catch a train back to Kurobe, to catch a bus to Nagano. A Japanese international group had a day trip planned – all inclusive for around 50 dollars (so cheap!). We had a bus chartered 2 hours to a Nagano resort, where we skiied, ate, and bathed. First the skiing. Really good snow, not the most challenging of resorts, but still interesting. Japanese are very into the group thing, so we were with people of various levels. People seemed surprised that Becca and I were so good – I think we both grew up with frequent ski trips and competitive parents J.
At lunch time (11, but I was starving), we had this enormous buffet – Japanese food, Chinese food, western food. I had curry rice, which is classic Japanese ski fare, and also a tuna sandwich, coffe jelly (jello) with cream sauce, orange juice, and some Chinese dim sum. Everyone but Becca and I had the 1000 yen nomihoudai – all you can drink… I still don’t understand drinking beer while skiing, but it’s very popular here. Actually, they’ll drink beer anytime. Half the people on the trip weren’t skiing, either, they were old Japanese women who came to just stay at the hotel for the afternoon, eating, drinking beer, and going to the onsen.
So after dinner (which was an hour-and-a-half affair), we hit the slopes again. Found and interesting snowboarding park that wasn’t too hard, and nobody was very good, so I wasn’t too intimidated to do it a few times.
After ski – onsen. The onsen is where you take off all your clothes with your friends, people you just met, and complete strangers (this was divided by sexes, but there are some co-ed ones). Then you go into a room with mirrors and stools and shower heads, and you bathe yourself (have I already explained this?). Then, you have fun! This onsen was great – there were maybe 7 or 8 different bathes. An onsen is different froma sento because it is mineral water pumped from the mountains (sento is a public bath – tap water). The first bath I did was really shallow (ankles deep) with arm-chair things built in. So you lay down, and there are arm rests in the pool even, and there are bubble coming from under you. Very relaxing! There’s also a tub that’s very similar to a traditional hot-tub. One was purple-colored, and scented with some sort of lavender. There were also balls and rubber ducks in this one. One was in a ceder tub. There was also an outdoor bath – you could watch the skiiers on the hill throug a window – sit on your knees in the bath and stick your face out the window (there was a loose wooden roof and walls to protect your privacy).
Also an ice-cold tub – my favorite. We alternated this with the sauna a few times. Also a steam room.
Can’t you see how wonderful this would be after skiing? The naked thing really doesn’t bother me. Some people get nervous, but I just didn’t care. Noone else does here, they do it their whole lives.
Took the bus/train home and ordered pizza. I love pizza! The pizza delivery boy had the biggest afro I’ve ever scene, and I’m still wondering if this was real or a wig. A Japanese afro?
Now I’m back in the school/rest/clean/bake routine. I’ve been pretty tired lately, I’m not sure why.
More later!
Sarah
Monday, February 24, 2003
Hi.
My computer's still not back. Actually, it's causing me much grief. But I won't go into that for now, there are much more interesting and exciting things in my life the past few weeks.
Last time I posted was a Monday, I believe. The next day was a holiday, and I headed to Kanazawa, the closest cooler, bigger city (50 minute train ride for about $7.50 - not bad!) Kanazawa wasn't bombed in the war (like Toyama was) and there is a famous garden (top 3 in Japan), castle, marketplace, and geisha and samurai districts. But unfortunetly, it was freezing and raining. And I didn't have a clue where I was going.
I got on the tourist - city loop bus and started getting off where I thought I could sightsee. But the maps were confusing (every map had north pointing a different direction), and in the pouring rain I didn't have much patience. I did make it inside the castle, but was so wet and cold I cared more about being inside than in a castle.
So I took the bus to the shopping/urban area, and the bus stop was right in front of a starbucks. Sitting inside with a book, coffee, and a western-style sandwich was a lovely way to pass my time, and I met some interesting Australians, too. Then I decided to give sightseeing another go, and headed to the samurai district nearby. Again, too cold and wet so I ducked into a book-music store.
This place was really cool - small, but everything it sold was fascinating. There was really good music playing (from the 2 turntables built into the counter) and there was a really cool selection of film/art books, postcards, music, and and childrens' books that were more about the design than the children. I spent an hour or so browsing before I bought a children's book about winter and some postcards. As I was checking out, I asked the guy behind the counter about the music, and he offered to play a bunch of CD's for me. So I spent more time, just hanging out and listening to music. This guy was also interested in learning English (it was the kind of store with a lot of French/German/American style design things, in addition to Japanese), so we talked for a bit. He was also looking for a female native English speaker to sing for his next album (he's a DJ and producer in addition to soley owning and running the store), so I told him I was interested in trying. What an exciting trip/person to meet!
That night I met Victoria at a Japanese-style pub for food and beer, which was nice. A busy day, but worth it.
That weekend was the Valentine's dance. Nothing too exciting happened. Saturday I bought a hat. Sat. night I got dressed up and went dancing. Rebecca and I weren't having too much fun in the bar after, so we called it an early night and took a cab back to sunshine.
Oh, forgot Valentine's day - nothing too exciting - but I did visit my English teacher in the women's pregnancy hospital. Her husband and son were there, and she showed me the videos of all her ultra-sounds. She's very excited, as she's had many miscarraiges in the past 8 years since her first child. She looked great - very young and healthy. I think her rest is doing her good. That night I played Jenga and sequence with Becca in my apartment. Jenga has become quite the popular thing.
Sunday was Brian’s birthday – very low key dinner at the Nepalese restaurant. We were going to go bowling, but were tired and it was late, so we played Jenga in my apartment.
The next Monday was pretty rough – I got a call from Apple. They told me my warranty was invalid since they found physical damage on the computer, and that the repairs would total 125,000 yen, which is over 1000 dollars. No Good! No good at all. So I’ve been playing phone tag with the English translator at Apple Japan, and e-mailing various people for advice. I’ve decided to fix the computer myself – a teacher told me he can order the correct parts at 15,000 yen for a hard drive and 10,000 yen for the bottom case.
That Wednesday I took half the day off and went back to Kanazawa. The guy from the store had offered to give me a personal tour of Kanazawa. Luckily, it was sunny and gorgeous – very warm and beautiful. We walked around the gardens, shrines, castles, markets, and districts, and did the whole city in about 4 hours – stopping once at the cooooolest café I’ve ever seen. It was in the Geisha district (which looks like a nicer version of the small town in Yojimbo – the houses are all connected with the vertical wood paneling). The café was all tatami, and each table was a kotatsu, which means there was a well for your feet, and the floor and under table area was heated. Really dark wood, with a bar in the back. Behind the bar was an indoor garden with bamboo. They had a really great selection of herbal teas, and they came in unique, cool tea cups, beautiful. It was really fun.
That night I met up with Victoria again for dinner and drinks at our favorite Italian restaurant – the pizza there is sooo good. So is the red wine and ceasar salad.
Returned that night and whipped up a pumpkin pie for desert. Or maybe that was Tuesday. Regardless, who doesn’t love pumpkin pie? (besides Justin)
Friday night was a charity show meeting (somehow I’m set designer and videographer which is a little too involved for my tastes, especially if Chris is coming in June). Then went with Becca and Yoko to a small town on the outskirts of Toyama Pref., about an hour away. There was a house party at a Japanese friend’s house (the biggest house I’ve seen in Japan – maybe twice as big as mine, and all traditional Japanese style, so cool!). I hadn’t really met anyone there yet, so it was interesting and fun to make a few more friends. One girl I met is Mahiko, a travel agent with a good sense of humor and great English. This next weekend I’m going to Nagano with her, Becca, and 9 of her Japanese guy friends. Two days, with travel/hotel/dinner/breakfast/ski tickets/onsen all at about 160 dollars. Great! We’ll ski at the place the Olympics were held – it’s supposed to be pretty tough.
But going back. Friday night was a late night, and we had a leisurely afternoon on Saturday at this guy’s house. His mother brought up stuff for sushi, and we sat around watching a movie and making temakizushi – or hand-rolled sushi with the fresh tuna this guy had just caught in the pacific (they have a family fishing company).
I’ll continue this later. I’ve got to get going.
Sarah
My computer's still not back. Actually, it's causing me much grief. But I won't go into that for now, there are much more interesting and exciting things in my life the past few weeks.
Last time I posted was a Monday, I believe. The next day was a holiday, and I headed to Kanazawa, the closest cooler, bigger city (50 minute train ride for about $7.50 - not bad!) Kanazawa wasn't bombed in the war (like Toyama was) and there is a famous garden (top 3 in Japan), castle, marketplace, and geisha and samurai districts. But unfortunetly, it was freezing and raining. And I didn't have a clue where I was going.
I got on the tourist - city loop bus and started getting off where I thought I could sightsee. But the maps were confusing (every map had north pointing a different direction), and in the pouring rain I didn't have much patience. I did make it inside the castle, but was so wet and cold I cared more about being inside than in a castle.
So I took the bus to the shopping/urban area, and the bus stop was right in front of a starbucks. Sitting inside with a book, coffee, and a western-style sandwich was a lovely way to pass my time, and I met some interesting Australians, too. Then I decided to give sightseeing another go, and headed to the samurai district nearby. Again, too cold and wet so I ducked into a book-music store.
This place was really cool - small, but everything it sold was fascinating. There was really good music playing (from the 2 turntables built into the counter) and there was a really cool selection of film/art books, postcards, music, and and childrens' books that were more about the design than the children. I spent an hour or so browsing before I bought a children's book about winter and some postcards. As I was checking out, I asked the guy behind the counter about the music, and he offered to play a bunch of CD's for me. So I spent more time, just hanging out and listening to music. This guy was also interested in learning English (it was the kind of store with a lot of French/German/American style design things, in addition to Japanese), so we talked for a bit. He was also looking for a female native English speaker to sing for his next album (he's a DJ and producer in addition to soley owning and running the store), so I told him I was interested in trying. What an exciting trip/person to meet!
That night I met Victoria at a Japanese-style pub for food and beer, which was nice. A busy day, but worth it.
That weekend was the Valentine's dance. Nothing too exciting happened. Saturday I bought a hat. Sat. night I got dressed up and went dancing. Rebecca and I weren't having too much fun in the bar after, so we called it an early night and took a cab back to sunshine.
Oh, forgot Valentine's day - nothing too exciting - but I did visit my English teacher in the women's pregnancy hospital. Her husband and son were there, and she showed me the videos of all her ultra-sounds. She's very excited, as she's had many miscarraiges in the past 8 years since her first child. She looked great - very young and healthy. I think her rest is doing her good. That night I played Jenga and sequence with Becca in my apartment. Jenga has become quite the popular thing.
Sunday was Brian’s birthday – very low key dinner at the Nepalese restaurant. We were going to go bowling, but were tired and it was late, so we played Jenga in my apartment.
The next Monday was pretty rough – I got a call from Apple. They told me my warranty was invalid since they found physical damage on the computer, and that the repairs would total 125,000 yen, which is over 1000 dollars. No Good! No good at all. So I’ve been playing phone tag with the English translator at Apple Japan, and e-mailing various people for advice. I’ve decided to fix the computer myself – a teacher told me he can order the correct parts at 15,000 yen for a hard drive and 10,000 yen for the bottom case.
That Wednesday I took half the day off and went back to Kanazawa. The guy from the store had offered to give me a personal tour of Kanazawa. Luckily, it was sunny and gorgeous – very warm and beautiful. We walked around the gardens, shrines, castles, markets, and districts, and did the whole city in about 4 hours – stopping once at the cooooolest café I’ve ever seen. It was in the Geisha district (which looks like a nicer version of the small town in Yojimbo – the houses are all connected with the vertical wood paneling). The café was all tatami, and each table was a kotatsu, which means there was a well for your feet, and the floor and under table area was heated. Really dark wood, with a bar in the back. Behind the bar was an indoor garden with bamboo. They had a really great selection of herbal teas, and they came in unique, cool tea cups, beautiful. It was really fun.
That night I met up with Victoria again for dinner and drinks at our favorite Italian restaurant – the pizza there is sooo good. So is the red wine and ceasar salad.
Returned that night and whipped up a pumpkin pie for desert. Or maybe that was Tuesday. Regardless, who doesn’t love pumpkin pie? (besides Justin)
Friday night was a charity show meeting (somehow I’m set designer and videographer which is a little too involved for my tastes, especially if Chris is coming in June). Then went with Becca and Yoko to a small town on the outskirts of Toyama Pref., about an hour away. There was a house party at a Japanese friend’s house (the biggest house I’ve seen in Japan – maybe twice as big as mine, and all traditional Japanese style, so cool!). I hadn’t really met anyone there yet, so it was interesting and fun to make a few more friends. One girl I met is Mahiko, a travel agent with a good sense of humor and great English. This next weekend I’m going to Nagano with her, Becca, and 9 of her Japanese guy friends. Two days, with travel/hotel/dinner/breakfast/ski tickets/onsen all at about 160 dollars. Great! We’ll ski at the place the Olympics were held – it’s supposed to be pretty tough.
But going back. Friday night was a late night, and we had a leisurely afternoon on Saturday at this guy’s house. His mother brought up stuff for sushi, and we sat around watching a movie and making temakizushi – or hand-rolled sushi with the fresh tuna this guy had just caught in the pacific (they have a family fishing company).
I’ll continue this later. I’ve got to get going.
Sarah
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Hello!
Ouch - I'm in pain. But in a good way. Between Aikido twice a week and snowboarding on the weekends, I think my body will be constantly bruised, pulled, and strained. But I'm having fun!
Aikido was really really cool. Basically I threw myself down on the tatami mat repeatedly for an hour and a half. Aikido's about doing and receiving (actually, I'm sure I'll explain this wrong since I've only had one lesson in broken English and Japanese). But basically the attacker grabs someone's wrist, and then becomes the receiver because the person whose wrist is grabbed basically uses the attackers force and balance against him and gives him a flick or twist to send him flying accross the room. It's amazing and looks effortless - they look like they're gliding accross the floor, and they don't seem to break a sweat (unless they're getting thrown around). Apparently it will hurt less once I learn to fall correctly, but for the first few weeks, when I'm repeatedly falling and often not doing it right, I think it will hurt. Both my shoulders are large round brusies (yellow at this point). I think the Monday-Thursday interval is just enough time, though, for the bruises to get better before I genereate new ones.
Tonight I'm going to buy my dogi (cool pajama-like white suit) before Aikido.
Had a great weekend in Toga - another festival in the mountains. Saturday we caught a train and a bus to the snow festival (total of 2 hours travel time). We walked around a bit and saw huge life-size castles and buildings intricately carved of snow. and bridges, igloos, a police box (koban) you could go into, large walrus with stairs up the front and a slide down the body, etc. There were games, dances, a performance of King Lear at the ampitheater, some good music (from Brazil), etc. We had 3 large chunks of snow to carve - 2 were maybe 12 ft. square, one was 12 x 12 x 20 feet long. The two smaller ones became Jaws and an armchair, and the large one became a shinkansen, or bullet train. When it became night, someone went around and put candles in all the sculptures, including one in each window of the shinkansen. It looked great. All the snow sculptures were lit with colored lights at night, and the colored lights of the castle changed with each performance, then were synchronized with the amazing fireworks show which was set off from behind the castle. Did videotape a lot of the day (mostly the parents who made their kids participate in this tube-pusing snow competition, very cute). Also ate soba (it was the soba festival), and have a new appreciation for warm sake (it was freezing rain during the fireworks). That night about 25-30 JETs went back to the local JET's place and camped out, amuzing ourselves with ALT-teaching games such as hangman, pictionary, and charades. Next morning, woke up early and went to the nearby ski-jo, snow valley. Unfortunately, weather hadn't turned colder and it was _raining_. Only mist/cloud/fog on the mountain, but it was so warm that the snow was pretty slushy and gross. Also was really tired. But the resort was good, and I'd like to go back when there's colder weather (I'm sure it will come - it's in the 50's here today, for February!)
Last night I was sound asleep by 9pm, and it was very nice. Time for lunch!
Sarah
Ouch - I'm in pain. But in a good way. Between Aikido twice a week and snowboarding on the weekends, I think my body will be constantly bruised, pulled, and strained. But I'm having fun!
Aikido was really really cool. Basically I threw myself down on the tatami mat repeatedly for an hour and a half. Aikido's about doing and receiving (actually, I'm sure I'll explain this wrong since I've only had one lesson in broken English and Japanese). But basically the attacker grabs someone's wrist, and then becomes the receiver because the person whose wrist is grabbed basically uses the attackers force and balance against him and gives him a flick or twist to send him flying accross the room. It's amazing and looks effortless - they look like they're gliding accross the floor, and they don't seem to break a sweat (unless they're getting thrown around). Apparently it will hurt less once I learn to fall correctly, but for the first few weeks, when I'm repeatedly falling and often not doing it right, I think it will hurt. Both my shoulders are large round brusies (yellow at this point). I think the Monday-Thursday interval is just enough time, though, for the bruises to get better before I genereate new ones.
Tonight I'm going to buy my dogi (cool pajama-like white suit) before Aikido.
Had a great weekend in Toga - another festival in the mountains. Saturday we caught a train and a bus to the snow festival (total of 2 hours travel time). We walked around a bit and saw huge life-size castles and buildings intricately carved of snow. and bridges, igloos, a police box (koban) you could go into, large walrus with stairs up the front and a slide down the body, etc. There were games, dances, a performance of King Lear at the ampitheater, some good music (from Brazil), etc. We had 3 large chunks of snow to carve - 2 were maybe 12 ft. square, one was 12 x 12 x 20 feet long. The two smaller ones became Jaws and an armchair, and the large one became a shinkansen, or bullet train. When it became night, someone went around and put candles in all the sculptures, including one in each window of the shinkansen. It looked great. All the snow sculptures were lit with colored lights at night, and the colored lights of the castle changed with each performance, then were synchronized with the amazing fireworks show which was set off from behind the castle. Did videotape a lot of the day (mostly the parents who made their kids participate in this tube-pusing snow competition, very cute). Also ate soba (it was the soba festival), and have a new appreciation for warm sake (it was freezing rain during the fireworks). That night about 25-30 JETs went back to the local JET's place and camped out, amuzing ourselves with ALT-teaching games such as hangman, pictionary, and charades. Next morning, woke up early and went to the nearby ski-jo, snow valley. Unfortunately, weather hadn't turned colder and it was _raining_. Only mist/cloud/fog on the mountain, but it was so warm that the snow was pretty slushy and gross. Also was really tired. But the resort was good, and I'd like to go back when there's colder weather (I'm sure it will come - it's in the 50's here today, for February!)
Last night I was sound asleep by 9pm, and it was very nice. Time for lunch!
Sarah
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Great! Haven't been able to get onto this site at my other school for some reason. Only have a few minutes to write now before I catch a train home.
A few new things -- First, I'm going to start learning Aikido. I hope this lasts longer than the Brazillian break-dance-fighting, but I think it will. It's at a gym downtown, twice a week, and all adults who've been doing it for like over 20 years. And who speak Japanese. So I'm sure I'll fit right in. Actually there is another JET who goes - she was new last year so she should be able to help me out a bit.
Had the flu last week so I didn't get to go to Nagano. If you read Brian's site you might have seen that the snow wasn't great, but I think from other reports I've heard that only the beginner stuff was icey and the rest of the mountain was _amazing_, but that's okay, because I'm doing a cheap day trip to nagano in a week or two.
This weekend is Toga, please meditate for my life as I brave these crazy mountain roads. Luckily I'm taking a bus, rather than dealing with a foreign city driver and a city car. Saturday is the snow/soba festival -- I'll make a huge snow sculpture with other JETs, eat soba (japanese wheat noodles), and watch some awesome fireworks at night. Then Sunday I'll try to snowboard a bit before heading back -- have heard very mixed reviews about Toga's hill, but I think it will be very small.
Time to run for the bus, I hope I can write some of the entertaining things I'm experiencing soon!!!
Sarah
A few new things -- First, I'm going to start learning Aikido. I hope this lasts longer than the Brazillian break-dance-fighting, but I think it will. It's at a gym downtown, twice a week, and all adults who've been doing it for like over 20 years. And who speak Japanese. So I'm sure I'll fit right in. Actually there is another JET who goes - she was new last year so she should be able to help me out a bit.
Had the flu last week so I didn't get to go to Nagano. If you read Brian's site you might have seen that the snow wasn't great, but I think from other reports I've heard that only the beginner stuff was icey and the rest of the mountain was _amazing_, but that's okay, because I'm doing a cheap day trip to nagano in a week or two.
This weekend is Toga, please meditate for my life as I brave these crazy mountain roads. Luckily I'm taking a bus, rather than dealing with a foreign city driver and a city car. Saturday is the snow/soba festival -- I'll make a huge snow sculpture with other JETs, eat soba (japanese wheat noodles), and watch some awesome fireworks at night. Then Sunday I'll try to snowboard a bit before heading back -- have heard very mixed reviews about Toga's hill, but I think it will be very small.
Time to run for the bus, I hope I can write some of the entertaining things I'm experiencing soon!!!
Sarah
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Hello! Spent the weekend snowboarding and lounging in Tateyama. There was great powder on Saturday - after 3 days of constant snowing, and temperatures finally below freezing, conditions were perfect. Rebecca (friend who also lives in Sunshine) and I went to Tateyama Fri. night to have a Nabae party with Justin and some of his Japanese friends. They are a fun group of people, and also amazing cooks. Nabae is a huge soup-like thing with mushrooms, cabbage, chicken, and the other day it was flavored with kimchee (korean spicy hot pepper stuff). Really nice, and there was plenty for breakfast the next day and to add some noodles for apres-ski. The also made yakisoba (stir fried noodles with a special sauce) and there was a ton of chips, snacks, alcohol, etc. It was pretty fun. Met up with them a bit on Saturday, and Becca and I are cooking for them tomorrow night.
Skiing Saturday was fun. Becca's good, and it"s fun to have a partner to go all over the mountain with. Also brought Justin up to the top of the mountain at the end of the day -- he's improving so fast! His second day snowboarding he was connecting his turns and following my lead pretty well. He followed us down a few black diamond mogul trails, which at this point we took him on for the humor of it -- when we first got to the top of the gondola after lunch, we hadn't spent any time with Justin at all and weren't quite sure of his level. we also misjudged the easiest hill end ended up taking him on something pretty steep. but soon enough, he learned how to edge, and eventually stop, and after some of the really steep stuff, the medium stuff seemed doable, and if he took things slowly he could manage some turns. so presto! good thing he's good natured and adventurous.
were going to go out saturday night but were so tired and sore from snowboarding (the powder was so soft it was really fun to wipe out and do somersaults, today my neck's a bit stiff, though) we ended up watching movies at justin's.
all for now, have to clean tonight and plan menu for tomorrow's feast.
later,
sarah
Skiing Saturday was fun. Becca's good, and it"s fun to have a partner to go all over the mountain with. Also brought Justin up to the top of the mountain at the end of the day -- he's improving so fast! His second day snowboarding he was connecting his turns and following my lead pretty well. He followed us down a few black diamond mogul trails, which at this point we took him on for the humor of it -- when we first got to the top of the gondola after lunch, we hadn't spent any time with Justin at all and weren't quite sure of his level. we also misjudged the easiest hill end ended up taking him on something pretty steep. but soon enough, he learned how to edge, and eventually stop, and after some of the really steep stuff, the medium stuff seemed doable, and if he took things slowly he could manage some turns. so presto! good thing he's good natured and adventurous.
were going to go out saturday night but were so tired and sore from snowboarding (the powder was so soft it was really fun to wipe out and do somersaults, today my neck's a bit stiff, though) we ended up watching movies at justin's.
all for now, have to clean tonight and plan menu for tomorrow's feast.
later,
sarah
Thursday, January 23, 2003
alright, something weird is happening, and it's not been publishing my stuff!!! I've been writing, really!
Here's what I wrote yesterday:
[1/23/2003 4:03:07 PM | Sarah Broshar]
I have so much to write, and there's been no time to write it. And by the time I do have time (like now) my brain's a little too fried to make coherent thoughts.
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
Here's what I wrote yesterday:
[1/23/2003 4:03:07 PM | Sarah Broshar]
I have so much to write, and there's been no time to write it. And by the time I do have time (like now) my brain's a little too fried to make coherent thoughts.
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
I have so much to write, and there's been no time to write it. And by the time I do have time (like now) my brain's a little too fried to make coherent thoughts.
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
But I'll start with the funny things, in backwards order.
Most recent - a moment ago my principal (the one I really like) was walking around the staff room, and I asked him if he wanted to use the computer, he said no, but walked over, and I proceded to show him my blog site and how I write about Japan and people read it. He was looking closely , and I realize the first comments are about my principal (spelled wrong, though) at my other school shoveling snow. I don't think he noticed, but I jumped and scrolled down to the bit about skiing.
Last night I took my wet clothes to a laundrymat (a wonderful thing - more later), and as I was dumping my clothes in the huge driers, I saw a pair of underwear I didn't want to ruin. I stuck them in my coat pocket and forgot about them. This morning, as usually, I spent about 5 minutes after I got off the train searching my pockets for the train ticket. I couldn't find it, and couldn't figure out what was in my pocket, so naturally I emptied my pockets in front of the station attendent and pulled out a thong. I never found the ticket but I got through okay.
Other funny things: about skiing.
Definetly interesting in Japan. Two things were particularly odd - first, that little children are allowed to take sleds up the lifts of the beginner slopes. And I mean little children. They actually have sleds you can rent. Most people don't take them up the lifts, but walk up a bit from the bottom of the hill where the rental shops and restaurants are, and send their 3-5 year olds out of control into a crowd of beginners. I've gotten hit before, and I've seen maybe a dozen other serious wipe-outs. I think it's very strange.
The second was just a random sighting - A middle aged woman, an older woman, and a young man were all wearing plain clothes (jeans, rubber boots, etc.) and walking down the main stretch of mountain carrying umbrellas. This is above the begginer slopes, maybe halfway up the main lift, and far from the gondola. Yet no one else seemed to be paying any attention to them.
As for my computer complaining - it's practically died. I have to send it in, and possibly get the hard drive repaired/replaced. I'm not sure the exact problem - it begins to click and the spinning disc icon happens, can still move the mouse but can't do anything with it. If I shut it down and leave it for a day, it will work for about 20 minutes until it freezes up again. I had thought I fixed it last week by resetting the power manager, and it worked for several days - long enough for me to set up the wireless router (which doesn't reach my room anyways - only Victoria's). But as soon as I had it set up, it crashed, and I haven't wanted to move it again since it's acting so wierd.
On a positive note, I bought a new stereo Saturday. Justin, who has a much better idea of a good stereo, took me shopping and explained that the more features for the same price means worse quality. So he helped me pick out an Onkyo micro system for just a tiny bit more than the one I was looking at - it has a cd player and mini disc, and it sounds really good. really really good. After school, while I'm still sitting in the teacher's room, I dream about going home and listening to my stereo. Only small problem is I brought about 10 CD's with me - the rest of my music is on MP3's on my computer.
Teaching and life is going really well (except for this afternoon, which I won't go into, it's just impossible). I've been working with the teachers and planning some good lessons, and I like being in the classroom (except for Oizumi's 1-nensei). But my apartment is finally clean, and I have several loads of laundry properly dried (rather than hanging around my tiny apartment in the unheated winter - doesn't work and adds to the mess) and in my drawers.
Snowboarding's wonderful, I'm going Sat. and Sunday. Then next weekend I'm snowboarding in Nagano, at the same time and place as hundreds of other JET's in Japan (fun foreign invasion!). Then the next weekend it's Toga - the same secluded small town that did the theater festival, for the winter soba festival. Basically I go eat hot soba noodles, make large snowsculptures with the other JET's, then go snowboarding the next day!
I saw a few of my students on the slopes last Saturday, and it was a great topic of conversation for 10 minutes before class today. I find the better I know them, the easier it is to make small conversations. Lately I've been having good lunches with them, too. We still mostly talk about food, but if we all spoke the same language the same could be true.
All for now, maybe I'll update later.
Sarah
Monday, January 13, 2003
Hello,
I posted last week, but I think I either didn't delete, or I forgot to publish.
My main point last Friday was that on my way into school, I saw the principle outside in his shirttails shovelling the driveway alone. That's what I get for being judgemental.
Sorry if my spelling, typing, or English are a bit off in this post -- I slept terribly last night and am a little uncomfortable in the blazing heat of the staff room. This room is maybe 1/3 of the size of my other school, and it has the same number of heaters (2), each set to 3 degrees higher than my other school (21 degrees c).
I'm also using a Japanese keyboard now. My computer is starting to complain about its overuse (for silly things like watching DVD's and listening to music) so I think I might invest in a stereo (that I would bring home). I'm also in Japan - definetly the place for that kind of purchase. I already have one picked out, just waiting till a friend with a car will take me to get it. Pioneer, and it has 5 CD, minidisc, tape, radio (which wouldn't work in the US) and I think a USB in so I could maybe burn the MP3s from my computer to minidisc, but I'm not sure about that. I could at least make CD's out of them. My computer's getting very cranky - as in making loud clicking noises and randomly not working, so tonight I'm going home and backing up my hard drive, and this weekend I'll probably send it off to get it looked at. It's still under warranty, but I'm not sure how that will work in Japan. I am sad to part with it for several reasons -- I brought back a modem so I should soon be able to hook it up and get internet in my apartment, but more importantly, I am working on some English videos for classes on it.
Anyways, spring skiing conditions on the slopes this weekend. It's been really nice here -- I was only wearing a long underwear shirt and the shell of my coat, no hat, sunglasses. The powder was great, not fresh on Sunday, but still smooth, not at all icey. It's only an hour to the closest resort, and I can go to the train station by my apartment, pay 5000 yen (43 dollars-ish) and get a return train/bus plus lift ticket for the day. The mountain is pretty small, but definetly better than anything in the midwest. I didn't explore too much, but it didn't seem to have a lot of variety, and the runs were pretty narrow. But there was some steeper stuff, and some moguls.
I was surprised at the lifts - there were a couple incredibly slow chairs and then a gondola to the top. Otherwise you could take 3 chairs. The gondola was also slow, though. And some of the chairs were just a single pad for a seat, and a bar, no back or arm rest, no sort of restraining device. And you were 30 ft in the air. Strange.
I like the convenience of snowboarding every weekend (I'm going next weekend too!) but am very curious to travel into Niigata or Nagano for weekend trips to the larger resorts.
Time for class,
Sarah
I posted last week, but I think I either didn't delete, or I forgot to publish.
My main point last Friday was that on my way into school, I saw the principle outside in his shirttails shovelling the driveway alone. That's what I get for being judgemental.
Sorry if my spelling, typing, or English are a bit off in this post -- I slept terribly last night and am a little uncomfortable in the blazing heat of the staff room. This room is maybe 1/3 of the size of my other school, and it has the same number of heaters (2), each set to 3 degrees higher than my other school (21 degrees c).
I'm also using a Japanese keyboard now. My computer is starting to complain about its overuse (for silly things like watching DVD's and listening to music) so I think I might invest in a stereo (that I would bring home). I'm also in Japan - definetly the place for that kind of purchase. I already have one picked out, just waiting till a friend with a car will take me to get it. Pioneer, and it has 5 CD, minidisc, tape, radio (which wouldn't work in the US) and I think a USB in so I could maybe burn the MP3s from my computer to minidisc, but I'm not sure about that. I could at least make CD's out of them. My computer's getting very cranky - as in making loud clicking noises and randomly not working, so tonight I'm going home and backing up my hard drive, and this weekend I'll probably send it off to get it looked at. It's still under warranty, but I'm not sure how that will work in Japan. I am sad to part with it for several reasons -- I brought back a modem so I should soon be able to hook it up and get internet in my apartment, but more importantly, I am working on some English videos for classes on it.
Anyways, spring skiing conditions on the slopes this weekend. It's been really nice here -- I was only wearing a long underwear shirt and the shell of my coat, no hat, sunglasses. The powder was great, not fresh on Sunday, but still smooth, not at all icey. It's only an hour to the closest resort, and I can go to the train station by my apartment, pay 5000 yen (43 dollars-ish) and get a return train/bus plus lift ticket for the day. The mountain is pretty small, but definetly better than anything in the midwest. I didn't explore too much, but it didn't seem to have a lot of variety, and the runs were pretty narrow. But there was some steeper stuff, and some moguls.
I was surprised at the lifts - there were a couple incredibly slow chairs and then a gondola to the top. Otherwise you could take 3 chairs. The gondola was also slow, though. And some of the chairs were just a single pad for a seat, and a bar, no back or arm rest, no sort of restraining device. And you were 30 ft in the air. Strange.
I like the convenience of snowboarding every weekend (I'm going next weekend too!) but am very curious to travel into Niigata or Nagano for weekend trips to the larger resorts.
Time for class,
Sarah
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Hello!
I'm back in Japan, and things are good.
I went home for Christmas and New Year's. I spent the first week lying around the house, shopping a bit with my sister, and attending various family parties. I had jet lag pretty bad -- the first few days I was tired and had little energy, and the next few days I woke up really early in the morning and crashed around 8pm.
Then, Thursday night, I made a sudden decision to go to New York for the weekend. I hung out with Eric and had a really good time being in the city. NY has such a great atmosphere, and I've definetly been craving for big city life after living in Toyama (which isn't so small, I think I just like cities). We saw Adaptations, which blew my mind. I now take back every time I've said that I can't stand Nicholas Cage. Well, actually, I still can't stand him in most other films I've seen him in, but this performance was amazing. Along with other aspects of the film.
It was also good to hang out with Eric for the weekend because I got a sense of what he's been doing with his career, and how much I miss film-related work. Being in Japan is great, but there's no reason to stay for too long when it's not what I really want to be doing. By the time I was back in Michigan, I'd pretty much decided to not recontract with JET, and to apply to grad school for editing at AFI. I'll probably move to LA in September whether or not I'm accepted.
So the second week of my vacation was pretty stressful - the actual decision to apply to AFI came around Tuesday afternoon, and New Year's plans, packing, and flying back to Japan made the application process pretty stressful - the application had to be postmarked January 6 (which it was!)
I had a great time seeing Claire and her boyfriend, Ben, and Annika and her friend Damien. Monday night Claire, Ben and Annika came over and we stayed up really late catching up (it had been a year since I've seen Claire, and years since Claire and Annika have seen each other). Tuesday night we went to Connor O'Neil's, an Irish pub in Ann Arbor, for dinner/party, where a few other people joined us.
New Year's day, my friends had spent the night again so we spent the morning lounging and talking, then I worked on my application while my family watched football. We also had a nice traditional-holiday type dinner, as kind of a special treat since I was returning to Japan.
Saturday night, as I pulled into Toyama, it started snowing. It continued snowing all day Sunday (50 centimeters) and a little through Monday. Insane amounts of snow, and totally gorgeous. It is melting fast, though, because it's well above freezing, the sun is shining, and warm water is continuously squirting from the roads and sidewalks.
So in order to venture out on Sunday, I stopped at APA and bought some rubber boots (Victoria calls them Wellington's, or "Wellies" affectionately - is this a British word?). They are like moon boots - knee high, and a lovely grey and blue. The style is to tuck the pants in, so they don't get wet or dirty. These boots were great, the snow was at least knee-high, nothing was plowed (I haven't seen snowplows here at all!), and my feet stayed dry.
Today was the school-opening ceremony, where the entire school sat silently in the gym to listen to the principal ramble for about 45 minutes about nothing. You might say "Sarah, he might have been saying something important - you just can't understand him!"
But no. I've had my suspicions confirmed today by one of the English teachers that he is a total moron (of course my teacher didn't say this). Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to stumble through a longer-than-necessary monologue... I first noticed this when he introduced me to give my speech at the first day of school - I had no idea how he could be talking about me for nearly 10 minutes when he'd never spoken to me -- of course he did have my JET application for notes. Then, at one of the schools firedrills he talked for about a half hour.
Today I asked my teacher what he says for so long. She said that he never prepares for his speeches, so he usually just gets up and talks. I asked her for specifically the kinds of things he says, and she said "I don't pay attention. I remember him saying something to the students about not being noisy, because he doesn't like it when it's noisy."
Today at the staff meeting he went into an opening speech, and literally half of the teachers were _sleeping_. The system of hierarchy and respect here is pretty strange... I'm sure this man does something (and this middle school has a great academic reputation), but he spends much of his time in his office watching television, smoking, and eating. He rarely comes to school early or stays late, and he barely speaks to the other teachers. When he tells one of my English teacher he's concerned for my safety, and to look after me (after that strange man in my apartment incident), I'm prompted to go bow to him and thank him for acknowledging my existence.
This man entertains me very much, as you can tell. It's just very interesting that he's obviously in a fairly powerful, prestigous position in the Japanese educational system (or at least he thinks so) and his social skills are so awkward. He actually fell asleep at the enkai, or teacher's dinner party.
Changing the subject, I feel my Japanese has really slipped. I'll need to study quite a bit to get back to conversaitional around the office -- my teacher was asking me about my vacation and I had a rough time telling her the basics of what I did, as in I couldn't think of the word for 'weekend'... bad, sarah, bad.
goodbye for now.
sarah
I'm back in Japan, and things are good.
I went home for Christmas and New Year's. I spent the first week lying around the house, shopping a bit with my sister, and attending various family parties. I had jet lag pretty bad -- the first few days I was tired and had little energy, and the next few days I woke up really early in the morning and crashed around 8pm.
Then, Thursday night, I made a sudden decision to go to New York for the weekend. I hung out with Eric and had a really good time being in the city. NY has such a great atmosphere, and I've definetly been craving for big city life after living in Toyama (which isn't so small, I think I just like cities). We saw Adaptations, which blew my mind. I now take back every time I've said that I can't stand Nicholas Cage. Well, actually, I still can't stand him in most other films I've seen him in, but this performance was amazing. Along with other aspects of the film.
It was also good to hang out with Eric for the weekend because I got a sense of what he's been doing with his career, and how much I miss film-related work. Being in Japan is great, but there's no reason to stay for too long when it's not what I really want to be doing. By the time I was back in Michigan, I'd pretty much decided to not recontract with JET, and to apply to grad school for editing at AFI. I'll probably move to LA in September whether or not I'm accepted.
So the second week of my vacation was pretty stressful - the actual decision to apply to AFI came around Tuesday afternoon, and New Year's plans, packing, and flying back to Japan made the application process pretty stressful - the application had to be postmarked January 6 (which it was!)
I had a great time seeing Claire and her boyfriend, Ben, and Annika and her friend Damien. Monday night Claire, Ben and Annika came over and we stayed up really late catching up (it had been a year since I've seen Claire, and years since Claire and Annika have seen each other). Tuesday night we went to Connor O'Neil's, an Irish pub in Ann Arbor, for dinner/party, where a few other people joined us.
New Year's day, my friends had spent the night again so we spent the morning lounging and talking, then I worked on my application while my family watched football. We also had a nice traditional-holiday type dinner, as kind of a special treat since I was returning to Japan.
Saturday night, as I pulled into Toyama, it started snowing. It continued snowing all day Sunday (50 centimeters) and a little through Monday. Insane amounts of snow, and totally gorgeous. It is melting fast, though, because it's well above freezing, the sun is shining, and warm water is continuously squirting from the roads and sidewalks.
So in order to venture out on Sunday, I stopped at APA and bought some rubber boots (Victoria calls them Wellington's, or "Wellies" affectionately - is this a British word?). They are like moon boots - knee high, and a lovely grey and blue. The style is to tuck the pants in, so they don't get wet or dirty. These boots were great, the snow was at least knee-high, nothing was plowed (I haven't seen snowplows here at all!), and my feet stayed dry.
Today was the school-opening ceremony, where the entire school sat silently in the gym to listen to the principal ramble for about 45 minutes about nothing. You might say "Sarah, he might have been saying something important - you just can't understand him!"
But no. I've had my suspicions confirmed today by one of the English teachers that he is a total moron (of course my teacher didn't say this). Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to stumble through a longer-than-necessary monologue... I first noticed this when he introduced me to give my speech at the first day of school - I had no idea how he could be talking about me for nearly 10 minutes when he'd never spoken to me -- of course he did have my JET application for notes. Then, at one of the schools firedrills he talked for about a half hour.
Today I asked my teacher what he says for so long. She said that he never prepares for his speeches, so he usually just gets up and talks. I asked her for specifically the kinds of things he says, and she said "I don't pay attention. I remember him saying something to the students about not being noisy, because he doesn't like it when it's noisy."
Today at the staff meeting he went into an opening speech, and literally half of the teachers were _sleeping_. The system of hierarchy and respect here is pretty strange... I'm sure this man does something (and this middle school has a great academic reputation), but he spends much of his time in his office watching television, smoking, and eating. He rarely comes to school early or stays late, and he barely speaks to the other teachers. When he tells one of my English teacher he's concerned for my safety, and to look after me (after that strange man in my apartment incident), I'm prompted to go bow to him and thank him for acknowledging my existence.
This man entertains me very much, as you can tell. It's just very interesting that he's obviously in a fairly powerful, prestigous position in the Japanese educational system (or at least he thinks so) and his social skills are so awkward. He actually fell asleep at the enkai, or teacher's dinner party.
Changing the subject, I feel my Japanese has really slipped. I'll need to study quite a bit to get back to conversaitional around the office -- my teacher was asking me about my vacation and I had a rough time telling her the basics of what I did, as in I couldn't think of the word for 'weekend'... bad, sarah, bad.
goodbye for now.
sarah
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Alright, now a letter for the masses:
I'm going home! So I'll have actual e-mail access, and can catch up there. Please give me a call if you'll be in Michigan, or if you just want to say hi. I'll be at my parent's house, their number is listed so you can get it off the internet because I don't want to publish it here.
Otherwise, today's been kind of rough. I'm really good about waking up here -- usually up by 6:30, 6:45. Today, I woke up at 9:30, 10 minutes before my first class of the day, when my teacher called. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't good.
Anyways, time to get off the computer, and get a few more papers graded before I take my much-needed vacation! I'm so ready!
Ps, A preview of a future blog: I have finally experienced one of the best things about Japan- sentos. Onsens will come and be better, I'm sure, but the sento is wonderful. More later,
s
I'm going home! So I'll have actual e-mail access, and can catch up there. Please give me a call if you'll be in Michigan, or if you just want to say hi. I'll be at my parent's house, their number is listed so you can get it off the internet because I don't want to publish it here.
Otherwise, today's been kind of rough. I'm really good about waking up here -- usually up by 6:30, 6:45. Today, I woke up at 9:30, 10 minutes before my first class of the day, when my teacher called. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't good.
Anyways, time to get off the computer, and get a few more papers graded before I take my much-needed vacation! I'm so ready!
Ps, A preview of a future blog: I have finally experienced one of the best things about Japan- sentos. Onsens will come and be better, I'm sure, but the sento is wonderful. More later,
s
Sunday, December 15, 2002
alright, my battery will die soon, so this will be short.
in brief:
last thursday i went home and curled in a ball in my bed and shook. friday i went to the doctor and got antibiotics for strep. so i spent the weekend in bed and resting, which was nice because i needed rest, but i'm going to get it next weekend -- i had plenty of things i need to get done before i leave that i didn't have the energy for. and i missed a few parties.
i just was watching cleaning period at school, and the kids outside were instructed to shovel the snow banks _into_ the driveway. i was cracking up, and so were the kids who were watching with me -- it made absolutely no sense! i suppose it's so the snowbanks will melt sooner, but they're snowbanks! who cares! now i won't be able to ride my bike out of the parking lot, because it's 6 inches deep in snow. but good thing the edges are clean.
it's also really funny to see a large hoard of (very obedient, of course) 8th graders in uniforms using shovels.
alas, the doctor only prescribed 3 days of antibiotics, so i think i'll go back this afternoon and try to get more. i'm healthier, but i haven't beat it quite yet.
otherwise, just cleaning, cooking christmas treats for the offices, and organizing my photos this week before i come home. and yes, a bit more christmas shopping. anyone, let me know if you have any requests from japan!
bye,
sarah
in brief:
last thursday i went home and curled in a ball in my bed and shook. friday i went to the doctor and got antibiotics for strep. so i spent the weekend in bed and resting, which was nice because i needed rest, but i'm going to get it next weekend -- i had plenty of things i need to get done before i leave that i didn't have the energy for. and i missed a few parties.
i just was watching cleaning period at school, and the kids outside were instructed to shovel the snow banks _into_ the driveway. i was cracking up, and so were the kids who were watching with me -- it made absolutely no sense! i suppose it's so the snowbanks will melt sooner, but they're snowbanks! who cares! now i won't be able to ride my bike out of the parking lot, because it's 6 inches deep in snow. but good thing the edges are clean.
it's also really funny to see a large hoard of (very obedient, of course) 8th graders in uniforms using shovels.
alas, the doctor only prescribed 3 days of antibiotics, so i think i'll go back this afternoon and try to get more. i'm healthier, but i haven't beat it quite yet.
otherwise, just cleaning, cooking christmas treats for the offices, and organizing my photos this week before i come home. and yes, a bit more christmas shopping. anyone, let me know if you have any requests from japan!
bye,
sarah
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Yikes, haven't written for a while. Yikes seems to be my new word... only when I'm writing e-mails or texts, I don't really say it yet...
So I can't figure out how to stay healthy here. I was doing really well Monday through Wednesday -- I'd been going to the gym, not getting enough sleep, but eating well and keeping pretty busy. Last night after school I was pretty tired so I didn't go to the gym, and I went to a friend's apartment for a long dinner party. (no alcohol, just lots of food). Got to bed by midnight - reasonable. This morning I woke up with a fever, inflated thyroids, and a really sore throat! I can't explain it, but it's no good that I'm always sick on Thursdays - the days I teach 4 classes (1st and 2nd years) with Japanese teachers (alone). But I'll rest tonight and get better soon.
I'm excited to be coming home (Dec. 20). I've pretty much decided I'm going to stay here for 2 years, (not official, but I've been on the fence and last sunday I just had the feeling that I wanted to stay) and I miss home a lot but I don't think I'm really home sick. Regardless, home is where to be for the holidays, especially after I've seen pictures of my house with the Christmas tree this year. I'm very excited.
We had a huge snowstorm in Toyama Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday alone it had snowed 30 cm by 5pm. A lot! It was gorgeous but is already melting because Toyama doesn't really get below freezing. I don't have proper shoes yet, so my feet were a little wet and cold.
The Toyama method of snow removal is ridiculous. There are _sprinklers_ in all the sidewalks and roads, and the water melts the snow and creates large puddles which don't disappear. Plus, the sidewalks and side streets aren't really plowed, so I walk in the car tracks of the road which is very dangerous. The streets are narrow enough anyways... But the snow was beautiful and I really enjoyed it.
Only 5 more days of classes. At this point my classes are pretty fun - singing/christmas themes... V., B., and I made a Christmas video for one of the classes, which was a good little project.
I just had a dried kaki (persimmon) which was really good.
So the big news here is that the one and only English teacher/ speaker at Oizumi, my smaller school, has just had a miscarraige, but not really because the baby is okay, but she's gone for the rest of the year. This has been a difficult thing for me to get from the other teachers -- we spent a half hour with dictionaries looking up medical terms, etc. But I'm very sad, and will miss her. I didn't know that she was pregnant - it kind of justifies some of her crazy behaviour (although I still believe she's a crazy person)
Must run for my train!
Until tomorrow or next week,
Sarah
So I can't figure out how to stay healthy here. I was doing really well Monday through Wednesday -- I'd been going to the gym, not getting enough sleep, but eating well and keeping pretty busy. Last night after school I was pretty tired so I didn't go to the gym, and I went to a friend's apartment for a long dinner party. (no alcohol, just lots of food). Got to bed by midnight - reasonable. This morning I woke up with a fever, inflated thyroids, and a really sore throat! I can't explain it, but it's no good that I'm always sick on Thursdays - the days I teach 4 classes (1st and 2nd years) with Japanese teachers (alone). But I'll rest tonight and get better soon.
I'm excited to be coming home (Dec. 20). I've pretty much decided I'm going to stay here for 2 years, (not official, but I've been on the fence and last sunday I just had the feeling that I wanted to stay) and I miss home a lot but I don't think I'm really home sick. Regardless, home is where to be for the holidays, especially after I've seen pictures of my house with the Christmas tree this year. I'm very excited.
We had a huge snowstorm in Toyama Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday alone it had snowed 30 cm by 5pm. A lot! It was gorgeous but is already melting because Toyama doesn't really get below freezing. I don't have proper shoes yet, so my feet were a little wet and cold.
The Toyama method of snow removal is ridiculous. There are _sprinklers_ in all the sidewalks and roads, and the water melts the snow and creates large puddles which don't disappear. Plus, the sidewalks and side streets aren't really plowed, so I walk in the car tracks of the road which is very dangerous. The streets are narrow enough anyways... But the snow was beautiful and I really enjoyed it.
Only 5 more days of classes. At this point my classes are pretty fun - singing/christmas themes... V., B., and I made a Christmas video for one of the classes, which was a good little project.
I just had a dried kaki (persimmon) which was really good.
So the big news here is that the one and only English teacher/ speaker at Oizumi, my smaller school, has just had a miscarraige, but not really because the baby is okay, but she's gone for the rest of the year. This has been a difficult thing for me to get from the other teachers -- we spent a half hour with dictionaries looking up medical terms, etc. But I'm very sad, and will miss her. I didn't know that she was pregnant - it kind of justifies some of her crazy behaviour (although I still believe she's a crazy person)
Must run for my train!
Until tomorrow or next week,
Sarah
Sunday, December 01, 2002
So much to write, and so little time has passed...
First I'll give you an overview of the past four days, kind of a table of contents for this blog entry.
Thursday - thanksgiving
Friday - Elementary school visit (new school) and English dinner club/kareoke
Saturday/Sunday - Tokyo
Monday - Elementary school number 2.
Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I was kind of sad to be missing out. Thursday night Brian made pumpkin pie, and despite the fact that it had no crust and he had to make it in his microwave, it was very tasty.
Friday I went to a new elementary school and taught 3 classes and ate lunch with the students. It was a blast -- definelty the best elementary school experience I've had. Since I don't usually go there, and I didn't have a chance to talk to the teachers about lessons in advance, I planned all the lessons combining the best bits from my previous elementary school visits. The classes went really well and the students were adorable. I got on especially well with the 2nd graders -- we ate lunch together and I discovered that we could communicate very well in simple Japanese. They speak pretty slowly and with the formal tenses I've been taught, so we had nice conversations about the kinds of food we like to eat, about our dogs, and about how much we all like swimming (we went around a circle during lunch, saying things we like, and after I went last and said I liked swimming, we had to make another round so all the students could tell me how much they also like swimming). Then I played games with them (juggling and a version of marbles -- how cute!). Today I went back to the elementary school for 3 other grades and the 2nd grade class had made me a book - each had written me a letter (illustrated, of course) about how much fun they had with me. And another point of confidence is that I can read everything in the book! I need to hang out with 2nd graders more often.
Friday afternoon I crashed at my desk and researched digital cameras on the internet.
Friday night was installment 3 of the English club, with the Deputy mayor making a special appearance. This time was at nice hotel (the previous had been at restaurants) and I didn't like the formal atmosphere so much. But after champage and a few glasses of wine, atmsophere didn't matter so much. We played bingo (they seem to be really fond of this game) and I was appointed the roller girl (meaning I rolled the thing and called out the numbers). The first prize was a 100 dollar gift certificate to the hotel for dinner (donnated by the hotel - we think it was because the mayor was there) which was won by one of the Japanese men. Second prize - monopoly - went to nadia. I took 3rd prize -- a set of tickets to minority report which opens in japan pretty soon, which I've seen but am very happy to see again. 4th - bing crosby x-mas cd and a photo book of various cities at christmastime. It was won by a Japanese guy who gave it to victoria because he felt bad she didn't get a prize. After much prodding, the winner of the 1st place prize was pressured into giving Brian his gift certificates -- he refused 'a respectable number of times' (victoria) and then had no choice but to take them.
Then on to kareoke - same nice kareoke bar with the whisky that was magically refreshed every 10 minutes.
Called it a night around 9:30, went home and to bed for the tokyo trip.
I had to leave my apartment at 6:15 to catch my 6:40 train, so I meant to wake up at 5:30 to shower, pack, etc. Of course, my alarm didn't go off (which isn't my fault, i discovered a fluke in my cell phone this morning -- the alarm was set for 6am monday, and i woke up a bit before 6 on my own and the alarm didn't ever go off. i was confused and didn't think much of it until i was at mr. donuts at 7:10 and my alarm went off -- i looked at it and the clock is screwed up -- the date says december 2nd, and the calander day says monday, but day written out says wednesday so the alarm went off at what time it went off last wednesday - so something wierd must have happened to my cell phone -- now i need to get a new alarm because my backup alarm sometime stops or randomly skips an hour)
Back on track -- woke up at 6:15, dashed out the door, leaving essentials such as my cell phone, planner with maps and phone numbers, and tokyo guide books in a neat pile on my bed.
made it to the train station with 5 minutes to spare, made the train change (the shinkansen was really cool, although I didn't have a reserved seat, wasn't sure if I was supposed to be on the train, but the connection was only a few mintues and i didn't have time to talk with the attendent when the machine gate thing rejected my ticket so i just hopped on - once the train started it wasn't going to stop until tokyo and i did pay for a shinkansen ticket to tokyo... ) and made it to tokyo.
The JR tokyo station is an underground maze (actually it's not underground and didn't seem at all confusing on my way out of the city - maybe it was just travel fatigue, a lack of maps, and a lack of a plan). But luckily Lorraine Wichern (meghan wichern's mom (NU) whom I was visiting in Tokyo) had sent me a great e-mail with suggestions for things to see and how to see them. So I walked out of the station and headed for the gardens of the imperial palace. it was a gorgeous day (tshirt weather) so I took out the lining of my coat and changed my sweater and undershirt for a long sleeved-shirt. Okay I'm going to start abbreviating because I did so much in Tokyo and all the details will probably get (if they're not already) mundane. Oh but it's just so tempting to tell you about the throngs of Japanese tourists I followed in a big arch around the gardens -- men with florescent jackets and batons waving us on past the 3 entrances, until i saw that these people were then crossing a bridge over the road, climbing a hill, and going somewhere completely different. So I went to the imperial gardens (after I departed the millions of tourists who walk _so_slowly). At the exit of the gardens was the Tokyo Modern Art Museum, so I went there. Spent an hour, stuff in my locker, it was nice.
Then on to Akihabara. I was looking at digital cameras, and I had already figured out which one I want online (a bit out of my price range but i expected that in tokyo it would magically be cheaper -- it was just a bit cheaper), didn't buy one because I was tired, a bit confused, and hadn't really shopped around too much. also was starved, and hadn't been able to find a suitable cafe/western style thing that I was sure would be all over tokyo (and were all over tokyo in the right neiborhoods) so I had a kebob from a street vendor. After my browsing, I found the station and made it to Roppongi where the Wicherns live. Travelling took a lot longer than I expected, so I arrived at their amazing and very western residence just a bit before 5. Other dinner guests - an American couple who used to live in Tokyo and were stopping by on their way back to singapore from florida, a woman from IBM who used to live in France, and a grad student from Brandeis who was studying in tokyo at waseda university (plus the wicherns - i'm probably spelling their name wrong - who recently moved back to tokyo). It was a very international crowd, very interesting hearing all the stories of the ex-pat lifestyle.
Their home was amazing -- a really cool neighborhood, a really nice building, and a very nice and _western_ style aparment. I can't explain what a wierd sensation it was after being in Japan for 4 months to step into a living room (yes, a living room - couches and arm chairs that were higher than 6 inches off the ground, in fact very very nice), and a living room filled with nice Americans who were drinking champagne (with strawberries!) and eating olives, and a very good assortment of music. It was like home but with people I didn't know. It was very strange. I wasn't in Kansas anymore - certainly not Japan. Thanksgiving dinner was great - turkey, potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin and apples, brussle sprouts, beans, shrimp, pumpkin pie, apple pie, a very nice evening.
After the festivites I got to... gasp... sleep in a real _bed_. I can't describe what a wonderful experience this was - just imagine that after sleeping on an elevated futon (it's called a bed but it's really metal bars with the padding _in between_ go figure, so I threw a futon on top and don't feel the bars as bad)... In the morning had a nice shower and relaxed, read an english newspaper, had english muffins with strawberries and a pear for breakfast. Then Steve and lorraine took me out and around Tokyo, which was great. They were so nice and helpful with everything - it was great to have insiders show me around the city, to not have to hassle with where i was going and how i was going to get there and how to read a map, asking directions, etc. We went to an area where a lot of youth go and shop and hang out -- and when I say youth of tokyo I mean jhs, hs kids wearing clothes that make absolutely no sense. There were the goth kids who were crazy looking, but I was totally blown away by the innocent-seeming girls who were dressed in the most ridiculous things I've ever seen -- red plad skirt with matching bag, cartoon sweatshirt and fuzzy leopard print knee socks with little bats hanging off them -- it really is a fashion world of its own.
Went to the Meiji shrine and saw a few weddings and little girls dressed up for the 3-5-7 holiday, very beautiful and cute. Then the Wicherns terated me a really nice Chinese food lunch (gochisoushite kudasaimashita), and we saw a great store where I did some x-mas shopping, and we walked back the their place ( a really nice walk through a graveyard). They escorted me to the Shinkansen platform of JR Tokyo station (with a homemade bento in hand - leftover turkey sandwich and fruit) -- so nice and helpful! and I got on the train for home. I saw 2 people from Toyama on the platform so I had some company on the way home.
The turkey sandwich (on really nice bread, with cranberry sauce) was amazing. I savored every bite.
Stopped by Victoria's last night for a glass of wine and to rehash the details of the trip, so made it home around midnight (my train arrived at 10). A very nice trip, and it made me realize how nice it will be to go home in 3 weeks for x-mas. Yay I'm so excited! But I do still like Japan, the comforts of home are nice sometimes, also.
Whew! This morning I finished elementary school visits at hoshichoshogako. Yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat, which was scratchy all day, and this morning I woke up without a voice. Plus, after waking at 6, drinking way too much coffee at mr. donuts for breakfast while I planned the lessons, I was a little worn out. but i made it through the lessons, and they were very nice and gave me throat drops, plus a ridiculous amount of omiyage (italian chocolate, australian beef jerkey, a box of cookies from a department store, and a gold pained gourd on a pedestal, still trying to figure that one out...)
So now I've been writing this for nearly an hour and it's well past time to go home.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I'm off to mid-year seminar, so I probably won't check my email until Thursday, but of course when I did on Thursday I would love a flood of notes mentioning how you've made it this far through my blog site and you had a wonderful thanksgiving in your respective areas of the world.
Sayonara,
Sarah
First I'll give you an overview of the past four days, kind of a table of contents for this blog entry.
Thursday - thanksgiving
Friday - Elementary school visit (new school) and English dinner club/kareoke
Saturday/Sunday - Tokyo
Monday - Elementary school number 2.
Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I was kind of sad to be missing out. Thursday night Brian made pumpkin pie, and despite the fact that it had no crust and he had to make it in his microwave, it was very tasty.
Friday I went to a new elementary school and taught 3 classes and ate lunch with the students. It was a blast -- definelty the best elementary school experience I've had. Since I don't usually go there, and I didn't have a chance to talk to the teachers about lessons in advance, I planned all the lessons combining the best bits from my previous elementary school visits. The classes went really well and the students were adorable. I got on especially well with the 2nd graders -- we ate lunch together and I discovered that we could communicate very well in simple Japanese. They speak pretty slowly and with the formal tenses I've been taught, so we had nice conversations about the kinds of food we like to eat, about our dogs, and about how much we all like swimming (we went around a circle during lunch, saying things we like, and after I went last and said I liked swimming, we had to make another round so all the students could tell me how much they also like swimming). Then I played games with them (juggling and a version of marbles -- how cute!). Today I went back to the elementary school for 3 other grades and the 2nd grade class had made me a book - each had written me a letter (illustrated, of course) about how much fun they had with me. And another point of confidence is that I can read everything in the book! I need to hang out with 2nd graders more often.
Friday afternoon I crashed at my desk and researched digital cameras on the internet.
Friday night was installment 3 of the English club, with the Deputy mayor making a special appearance. This time was at nice hotel (the previous had been at restaurants) and I didn't like the formal atmosphere so much. But after champage and a few glasses of wine, atmsophere didn't matter so much. We played bingo (they seem to be really fond of this game) and I was appointed the roller girl (meaning I rolled the thing and called out the numbers). The first prize was a 100 dollar gift certificate to the hotel for dinner (donnated by the hotel - we think it was because the mayor was there) which was won by one of the Japanese men. Second prize - monopoly - went to nadia. I took 3rd prize -- a set of tickets to minority report which opens in japan pretty soon, which I've seen but am very happy to see again. 4th - bing crosby x-mas cd and a photo book of various cities at christmastime. It was won by a Japanese guy who gave it to victoria because he felt bad she didn't get a prize. After much prodding, the winner of the 1st place prize was pressured into giving Brian his gift certificates -- he refused 'a respectable number of times' (victoria) and then had no choice but to take them.
Then on to kareoke - same nice kareoke bar with the whisky that was magically refreshed every 10 minutes.
Called it a night around 9:30, went home and to bed for the tokyo trip.
I had to leave my apartment at 6:15 to catch my 6:40 train, so I meant to wake up at 5:30 to shower, pack, etc. Of course, my alarm didn't go off (which isn't my fault, i discovered a fluke in my cell phone this morning -- the alarm was set for 6am monday, and i woke up a bit before 6 on my own and the alarm didn't ever go off. i was confused and didn't think much of it until i was at mr. donuts at 7:10 and my alarm went off -- i looked at it and the clock is screwed up -- the date says december 2nd, and the calander day says monday, but day written out says wednesday so the alarm went off at what time it went off last wednesday - so something wierd must have happened to my cell phone -- now i need to get a new alarm because my backup alarm sometime stops or randomly skips an hour)
Back on track -- woke up at 6:15, dashed out the door, leaving essentials such as my cell phone, planner with maps and phone numbers, and tokyo guide books in a neat pile on my bed.
made it to the train station with 5 minutes to spare, made the train change (the shinkansen was really cool, although I didn't have a reserved seat, wasn't sure if I was supposed to be on the train, but the connection was only a few mintues and i didn't have time to talk with the attendent when the machine gate thing rejected my ticket so i just hopped on - once the train started it wasn't going to stop until tokyo and i did pay for a shinkansen ticket to tokyo... ) and made it to tokyo.
The JR tokyo station is an underground maze (actually it's not underground and didn't seem at all confusing on my way out of the city - maybe it was just travel fatigue, a lack of maps, and a lack of a plan). But luckily Lorraine Wichern (meghan wichern's mom (NU) whom I was visiting in Tokyo) had sent me a great e-mail with suggestions for things to see and how to see them. So I walked out of the station and headed for the gardens of the imperial palace. it was a gorgeous day (tshirt weather) so I took out the lining of my coat and changed my sweater and undershirt for a long sleeved-shirt. Okay I'm going to start abbreviating because I did so much in Tokyo and all the details will probably get (if they're not already) mundane. Oh but it's just so tempting to tell you about the throngs of Japanese tourists I followed in a big arch around the gardens -- men with florescent jackets and batons waving us on past the 3 entrances, until i saw that these people were then crossing a bridge over the road, climbing a hill, and going somewhere completely different. So I went to the imperial gardens (after I departed the millions of tourists who walk _so_slowly). At the exit of the gardens was the Tokyo Modern Art Museum, so I went there. Spent an hour, stuff in my locker, it was nice.
Then on to Akihabara. I was looking at digital cameras, and I had already figured out which one I want online (a bit out of my price range but i expected that in tokyo it would magically be cheaper -- it was just a bit cheaper), didn't buy one because I was tired, a bit confused, and hadn't really shopped around too much. also was starved, and hadn't been able to find a suitable cafe/western style thing that I was sure would be all over tokyo (and were all over tokyo in the right neiborhoods) so I had a kebob from a street vendor. After my browsing, I found the station and made it to Roppongi where the Wicherns live. Travelling took a lot longer than I expected, so I arrived at their amazing and very western residence just a bit before 5. Other dinner guests - an American couple who used to live in Tokyo and were stopping by on their way back to singapore from florida, a woman from IBM who used to live in France, and a grad student from Brandeis who was studying in tokyo at waseda university (plus the wicherns - i'm probably spelling their name wrong - who recently moved back to tokyo). It was a very international crowd, very interesting hearing all the stories of the ex-pat lifestyle.
Their home was amazing -- a really cool neighborhood, a really nice building, and a very nice and _western_ style aparment. I can't explain what a wierd sensation it was after being in Japan for 4 months to step into a living room (yes, a living room - couches and arm chairs that were higher than 6 inches off the ground, in fact very very nice), and a living room filled with nice Americans who were drinking champagne (with strawberries!) and eating olives, and a very good assortment of music. It was like home but with people I didn't know. It was very strange. I wasn't in Kansas anymore - certainly not Japan. Thanksgiving dinner was great - turkey, potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin and apples, brussle sprouts, beans, shrimp, pumpkin pie, apple pie, a very nice evening.
After the festivites I got to... gasp... sleep in a real _bed_. I can't describe what a wonderful experience this was - just imagine that after sleeping on an elevated futon (it's called a bed but it's really metal bars with the padding _in between_ go figure, so I threw a futon on top and don't feel the bars as bad)... In the morning had a nice shower and relaxed, read an english newspaper, had english muffins with strawberries and a pear for breakfast. Then Steve and lorraine took me out and around Tokyo, which was great. They were so nice and helpful with everything - it was great to have insiders show me around the city, to not have to hassle with where i was going and how i was going to get there and how to read a map, asking directions, etc. We went to an area where a lot of youth go and shop and hang out -- and when I say youth of tokyo I mean jhs, hs kids wearing clothes that make absolutely no sense. There were the goth kids who were crazy looking, but I was totally blown away by the innocent-seeming girls who were dressed in the most ridiculous things I've ever seen -- red plad skirt with matching bag, cartoon sweatshirt and fuzzy leopard print knee socks with little bats hanging off them -- it really is a fashion world of its own.
Went to the Meiji shrine and saw a few weddings and little girls dressed up for the 3-5-7 holiday, very beautiful and cute. Then the Wicherns terated me a really nice Chinese food lunch (gochisoushite kudasaimashita), and we saw a great store where I did some x-mas shopping, and we walked back the their place ( a really nice walk through a graveyard). They escorted me to the Shinkansen platform of JR Tokyo station (with a homemade bento in hand - leftover turkey sandwich and fruit) -- so nice and helpful! and I got on the train for home. I saw 2 people from Toyama on the platform so I had some company on the way home.
The turkey sandwich (on really nice bread, with cranberry sauce) was amazing. I savored every bite.
Stopped by Victoria's last night for a glass of wine and to rehash the details of the trip, so made it home around midnight (my train arrived at 10). A very nice trip, and it made me realize how nice it will be to go home in 3 weeks for x-mas. Yay I'm so excited! But I do still like Japan, the comforts of home are nice sometimes, also.
Whew! This morning I finished elementary school visits at hoshichoshogako. Yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat, which was scratchy all day, and this morning I woke up without a voice. Plus, after waking at 6, drinking way too much coffee at mr. donuts for breakfast while I planned the lessons, I was a little worn out. but i made it through the lessons, and they were very nice and gave me throat drops, plus a ridiculous amount of omiyage (italian chocolate, australian beef jerkey, a box of cookies from a department store, and a gold pained gourd on a pedestal, still trying to figure that one out...)
So now I've been writing this for nearly an hour and it's well past time to go home.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I'm off to mid-year seminar, so I probably won't check my email until Thursday, but of course when I did on Thursday I would love a flood of notes mentioning how you've made it this far through my blog site and you had a wonderful thanksgiving in your respective areas of the world.
Sayonara,
Sarah
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