I'm writing this during the teacher's meeting, something I find very interesting. Apparently the teacher's meetings are done so that teacher's can talk about various things, but the most importatn thing seems to be that it's from an old practice to allow the teacher's to practice their public speaking skills with people they are more comfortable with. Judging by the views of the majority of teachers in here (after Kasuga-sensei has been talking for about 40 minutes about several things, but mainly test scores) I can see why many places are phasing it out. Typically this is the time I run off to the english teachers room to do Japanese practice, but today I wanted to stick around and get some stuff accomplished online. :-P
So, Friday evening I made my way over to Komagane and to an Izukaya to celebrate Jessie's birthday with other ALT's. It was a great time, lots of laughter and fun. As well as getting to have lots of great food (mochi and cheese on toasted bread reminded me alot of goat cheese pizza in turkey, how i miss it :-P) I gifted Jesse a pack of my beef jerkey, no light present; I'm sure he'll enjoy it.
I left before everyone else to catch a train back to Iijima and because I had decided Friday afternoon that I was going to make it up to Nii-gata for the wall of man meet. I ended up getting home around 11:20-ish and got to bed just before midnight. I had to wake up at around 5:20am the next morning to catch the first train out from Iijima at 6:02. Ugh. Always a bad sign when you head out in the morning and you can still see stars. The mountains in the east as well as a few clouds above them left it pitch-black in Iijima. In fact, it I didn't see the sun until after 7. We still have two weeks until the shortest day yet. Crazy. I can't imagine if we actually used daylight savings time here. I had no problems making it up to Nagano city, but unfortunately, my late train in Matsumoto made me miss my train out of Nagano by just a couple of minutes. I went into the help area at Nagano to purchase my ticket to Kita-arai (where I was meeting Joe) and when I asked for help, the guy checked the book (leaves at 9:23) and then looks at the clock (9:24), looks at me, sighs and says "that's too bad, huh?" and i just chuckled and said yes. The next one was at 10:30, about when I was originally supposed to arrive, what a shame. :-P I got on the later train and got to Joe's without any trouble. It was a nice ride (good comfy train) as well as some very pretty views along the way. The last bit heading into Nagano was set up in a very rural area in the mountains and overlooking the valley far far below. The bit from Nagano to Joe's was full of rural areas that had lots of character and was through the wilderness as well. Absolutely gorgous. I met Joe and we headed out for Marshall's place, about an hour and a half away by car. The drive was also very pretty. We arrived at Marshall's town with no problems and met him and Marcus, then proceeded to snag a delicious lunch of soba noodles which his town is supposedly famous for.
afterwards we made our way over to a local store that had an international alcohol selection, which made me eccstatic. due to lack of liquer taxes in Japan, it's as cheap here for alcohol as it is in the states. We also grabbed a couple of Dr. Peppers, and I was a happy happy man later that evening as I got to drink a dr. pepper.
After that we went to a grocery store and picked up stuff to make burgers for dinner (as well as my now famous bloomin' onion, thanks again to bethany for that idea, i get requests for that almost weekly now.) After that, we retired to Marshall's place to spend the evening enjoying each others company, playing Wii games, and making dinner (which turned out splendidly.)
Although we were all ready for bed by about, oh, 7pm, we ended up staying up until about 3am with intermittent dozing going on. I woke up from my nodding off to join in with Joe and Marshall about the chances of Japanese being a unique language over the next several centuries, and if the spread of information will allow Japanese to persevere and never go extinct or if it will speed the fall as it becomes increasingly easy for a global lingua franca to be established (most likely mandarin and english).
The next morning Marcus was off by 10, and Joe and I waited around for Marshall to get back. Afterwards we went off to snag a delicous lunch at a fast food place(i had a bowl of curry rice, so good!). Sunday morning also saw tons of snow on the ground, although the warmer weather/ground was causing it to disappear quite quickly. While Joe and I made our way home (after bidding farewell to Marshall), we stopped to take some pictures of the beautiful scenery and Joe got to put his new camera to use (and boy it's a doozy.) We got back to his hometown and I checked out his apartment (and was totally jealous of his internet TV he has hooked up to his nice TV), then made my way back home. Took about 6 hours from when I left Joe's place to when i got back to my apartment (if you skip the 2 hours from Marshall's to Joe's), and the evening seemed to be gone all too fast. But in all it was totally worth the trip there. I had a fantastic time and hopefully we'll be meeting up again in the middle of January. I have to plan around Stephanie and her friends visit to Japan in later January though, but I'm so excited to see them!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Nagoya Day Trip
The time for our trip was moved up from 8am to 7am, so I made sure to set my cpu and clock alarm both for bright and early, and then I proceeded to wake up the next morning at 7:15 and freak out. Somehow my cpu alarm went off but didn't make any sound, something that is bothering me. Also, after changing the alarm time on my clock, I guess I just forgot to turn it on. This resulted in me causing everyone going on the trip to have to wait 15-20 minutes for me. Wow, I felt like a POS.
This was quickly forgotton though, as I was introduced to another unique aspect of japanese culture: it's totally ok to drink in the morning no special event days. So here I am, riding a bus to Nagoya with my co-workers drinking at all of 7:45 am. By the time we arrived in Nagoya, several of my co-workers (and myself to a small extent) were already inebriated. Wow, I think that's a cultural thing I should bring back state-side.
The first place we went was the Kirin Beer Factory/Beer Park. We kinda got blindsided as outta nowhere Iijima's administrative staff showed up and we ended up touring with them.(this included the mayor.) All the teachers kinda had a 'shimatta' moment when they realized it was their bosses that were showing up, and here we were after several hours of drinking. A shame. It was also awkward having to talk to the mayor about things like how I like my bike and stuff. I'm also ready to be done w/ the 'meta-boru' jokes that keep getting cracked at my expense. In Japan, meta-boru is a deriviation of something along the lines of metabolic disorder or something that is used in reference to people who are overweight. Thankfully the alcohol helped take the edge off that and relegated me to just thinking 'you laugh short stuff, I could still put you through this window' instead of actually doing it.
Afterwards, we went to Meijimura, a meiji-era villiage (Meiji era was Japan's westernization period, 1868-1910). The place was very nice, including lots of western and japanese style architecture often side by side or even within the same building. It also included some buildings they had brought in from around the country. Some of the buildings reminded me of Old Main, since they are roughly comparable in age. But before we went to all of this, we had lunch. I sat with five of the male teachers, and apparently lunch was the peak time to try and down beer. Who knew. The meal itself was delicious, sukiyaki, aka meat and veggies cooked in sugar and some sauce. The meat was phenomenal.
Afterwards, lots of the teachers I was with were just going back to the bus to sleep until it was time to go. The rest of the teachers had left earlier to get some wandering in. Luckily, I was able to meet up with Oomori sensei and we made our way around the area. It was lots of fun, relaxing, enjoyable. In fact, we came across a large catholic church: the first I'd been in since coming to Japan. The stained glass was very beautiful and there was someone playing music in there as well, a nice touch. It was fitting too that this week the papacy is beaficating 187 martyrs who were killed in Japan over 300 years ago. Unfortunately we had to high-tail it outta there becuase we were running late. We hopped on one of the old meiji-era trollies, and ended up going the wrong way, which was funny, but we met up with two of our other teachers and the four of us continued on out. We briefly stopped and looked at a house built by Frank Lloyed Wright, and then headed on out.
The last stop was at an outlet mall. This was a nice way to end the day, but I didn't expect to be getting anything. I poked around a sketchers but didn't see anything. I then stopped in an Adidas store and saw that they had many shoes from 22cm - 30cm. I wear 30's or so. Well, I wasn't having any luck seeing any as I was poking around, so thinking they might be in the back, I asked an attendant to help me out. She said they didn't have any for the shoe I was looking at. I asked her if they had any at all in my size, she started looking around, and eventually found one that was a 32cm (14), and I tried it on. It was too big, but not terribly so, but I asked if we could keep looking. She found one more pair, but they were in a color I didn't want. She then went into the back and poked around for about 5 minutes, and came back with just one box. I opened it up, and they were perfect, blue shoes, exactly what I wanted. They were listed as 12's, but fit perfectly, and best of all, it was about 15$ cheaper than the ones I had been looking at earlier! I felt pretty stoked.
Afterwards I went through a few more stores, but didn't see anything in particular that I wanted. Unfortunately, there wasn't an electronics store, so I couldn't get my USB controller. I did end up finding a present for Pete though, and talked with the vendor in both English and Japanese about it. He seemed like a cool guy, and I hope pete likes it!
I had a delicious whip cream, caramel, and nut crepe to end the time at the outlet (after debating buying a pair of pants at a nice store, but I couldn't justify the 60$ tag, even if they were good pants.)
That pretty much rounded out my day, the ride home was uneventful and all.
Here are the pictures: Nagoya Day Trip
here are a few of the highlights:
This was quickly forgotton though, as I was introduced to another unique aspect of japanese culture: it's totally ok to drink in the morning no special event days. So here I am, riding a bus to Nagoya with my co-workers drinking at all of 7:45 am. By the time we arrived in Nagoya, several of my co-workers (and myself to a small extent) were already inebriated. Wow, I think that's a cultural thing I should bring back state-side.
The first place we went was the Kirin Beer Factory/Beer Park. We kinda got blindsided as outta nowhere Iijima's administrative staff showed up and we ended up touring with them.(this included the mayor.) All the teachers kinda had a 'shimatta' moment when they realized it was their bosses that were showing up, and here we were after several hours of drinking. A shame. It was also awkward having to talk to the mayor about things like how I like my bike and stuff. I'm also ready to be done w/ the 'meta-boru' jokes that keep getting cracked at my expense. In Japan, meta-boru is a deriviation of something along the lines of metabolic disorder or something that is used in reference to people who are overweight. Thankfully the alcohol helped take the edge off that and relegated me to just thinking 'you laugh short stuff, I could still put you through this window' instead of actually doing it.
Afterwards, we went to Meijimura, a meiji-era villiage (Meiji era was Japan's westernization period, 1868-1910). The place was very nice, including lots of western and japanese style architecture often side by side or even within the same building. It also included some buildings they had brought in from around the country. Some of the buildings reminded me of Old Main, since they are roughly comparable in age. But before we went to all of this, we had lunch. I sat with five of the male teachers, and apparently lunch was the peak time to try and down beer. Who knew. The meal itself was delicious, sukiyaki, aka meat and veggies cooked in sugar and some sauce. The meat was phenomenal.
Afterwards, lots of the teachers I was with were just going back to the bus to sleep until it was time to go. The rest of the teachers had left earlier to get some wandering in. Luckily, I was able to meet up with Oomori sensei and we made our way around the area. It was lots of fun, relaxing, enjoyable. In fact, we came across a large catholic church: the first I'd been in since coming to Japan. The stained glass was very beautiful and there was someone playing music in there as well, a nice touch. It was fitting too that this week the papacy is beaficating 187 martyrs who were killed in Japan over 300 years ago. Unfortunately we had to high-tail it outta there becuase we were running late. We hopped on one of the old meiji-era trollies, and ended up going the wrong way, which was funny, but we met up with two of our other teachers and the four of us continued on out. We briefly stopped and looked at a house built by Frank Lloyed Wright, and then headed on out.
The last stop was at an outlet mall. This was a nice way to end the day, but I didn't expect to be getting anything. I poked around a sketchers but didn't see anything. I then stopped in an Adidas store and saw that they had many shoes from 22cm - 30cm. I wear 30's or so. Well, I wasn't having any luck seeing any as I was poking around, so thinking they might be in the back, I asked an attendant to help me out. She said they didn't have any for the shoe I was looking at. I asked her if they had any at all in my size, she started looking around, and eventually found one that was a 32cm (14), and I tried it on. It was too big, but not terribly so, but I asked if we could keep looking. She found one more pair, but they were in a color I didn't want. She then went into the back and poked around for about 5 minutes, and came back with just one box. I opened it up, and they were perfect, blue shoes, exactly what I wanted. They were listed as 12's, but fit perfectly, and best of all, it was about 15$ cheaper than the ones I had been looking at earlier! I felt pretty stoked.
Afterwards I went through a few more stores, but didn't see anything in particular that I wanted. Unfortunately, there wasn't an electronics store, so I couldn't get my USB controller. I did end up finding a present for Pete though, and talked with the vendor in both English and Japanese about it. He seemed like a cool guy, and I hope pete likes it!
I had a delicious whip cream, caramel, and nut crepe to end the time at the outlet (after debating buying a pair of pants at a nice store, but I couldn't justify the 60$ tag, even if they were good pants.)
That pretty much rounded out my day, the ride home was uneventful and all.
Here are the pictures: Nagoya Day Trip
here are a few of the highlights:
Friday, November 28, 2008
The Mid-year conference...
...was surprisingly enjoyable. Kasuga picked me up bright and early and we left just after 8 on thursday morning, making it to Shiojiri right around 9:30 when the doors opened. turned out that the event didn't start until 10:30 though, so we just kinda pattered around for an hour to pass the time. The place we were having this conference at though was fantastic. Not only was it really pretty, but it was set up on the side of the mountain with a beautiful view of the valley below. I still just can't get used to how cool it is to see for nearly twenty miles and see everything in between. The events we had for the day were a mixture of enjoyable and not so. The keynote speaker was engaging in the fact that he talked about some of the problems we face as ALT's and how we can try to be creative in our ways to address the innate probelms of the educational system we're a part of. The two afternoon sessions we had weren't fantastic though. One included 'how to team-teach' which was annoying to me, and I've only been here for four months. I just know it was terrible for the people who are in their 2nd or 3rd years, because it is so counter-productive to show demo lessons for 10 minutes as a presentation when 1) lessons are actually 50 minutes and 2) we've all been team-teaching already. If anything, it just showed me that some of the other ALT's are really rude and inconsiderate people, a vibe I could get in just watching them lead a demo lesson for 10 minutes. Yikes.
Afterwards we made our way up to the hotel for the evening. The SHS and JHS ALT's all went to different places, and we had been given a warning not to be too hectic and get too inebriated as apparently had been the issue in the past. Kasuga was one of just 2 or so JTE (Japanese teacher's of english) who was spending the night up at the place, since we are being reimbursed for the cost (and at 90$ a head, I'm very glad of that!) So we followed one fo the buses that was taking students up to the hotel. Kasuga was laughing pretty hard at the nickname Jesse and Matt had given the bus (prison buses) because of the fact we were taken even further up into the mountains with no way to go out and get away and had no access to shopping etc.
The place was pretty nice and we had a fantastic dinner served in the traditional style. Before dinner though, I had kasuga take myself and one of my roommate on what I guess could only be called a 'beer run'. We had no luck finding the Lawson's conbini we were given directions to and dropped into some random guys little liquer shop and stocked up for ourselves and others. I felt deliciously delinquient.
So there was a very nice general mood of revelry at the hotel, as is per the norm whenever a large group of us ALT's get together.
After dinner and lots of chatting with friends I made my way to the onsen. FINALLY I made it to an onsen. It's pretty despicable that I hadn't hit up a japanese public bath yet, but that's fine. It was extremely relaxing to shower off and head into the very hot water. I opten to head outside (considering it was about, oh, 35 degrees) and relax in the water. Also surprising is how quickly your western worries of modesty drop away (also aided by the alcohol, no doubt) and you just enjoy it for what it is.
Afterwards, it was only 9:30 and I felt like I could just call it a night, but I went with one of my roommates to a room that was having a little party of sorts. I spent the next couple hours there, and by the time I left it was getting pretty out of hand but was still just a blast altogether. I ran into Kasuga a couple of times, completely blitzed, and I guess he was pretty popular because he kept running into people out and about in his imparied state. When I saw him, he was in the process of trying to find his coat, but to no avail. (When I asked him about it this morning, he had no recollection. a shame.) This mornings breakfast was a traditional japanese breakfast, which was about the worst thing ever on a morning after stomache. Lol.
The sessions this afternoon were both good and bleh. The sessions on dealing with JTE-ALT communication issues was great because I think we really got to drive home to point to the JTE's how important it is for us to get feedback and talk to us if there are any issues. There was also one on how to internationalize the classroom and I was able to come up with some good ideas for that while I was doing my 'secretary' work for that presentation (aka writing up a 1 page report on it so people could re-create the lesson if need be. :P)
The one on recontracting with JET was little more than an interrogation with veiled threats that we should re-contract, which was lame as hell.
There was also an interesting one to end the day going over information gleaned from a survey given to JTE's and ALT's. One of the most interesting things we discussed was the results of "Should ALT's be expected to use the exact same accent as the speakers in the textbooks?" 25% of JTE's said yes, and 0% of ALT's said no, which was really interesting.
We wrapped it up and then made our way home. Tomorrow at 7am the bus leaves with the teachers for Nagoya. We're going to a meiji-era village, beer factory, and a shopping center. I'm hoping to get a USB video game controller adn green food coloring (so I can make x-mas wreaths for one of my classes! :-D)
Next up: pictures!
I spent two weeks growing a beard for no-shave november, but I had to bail on it due to the fact public servants in japan are discouraged from having a beard.
the room we stayed in last night
view from the window this morning, the rain coming down was washing away the snow we got last night.
in one of the presentations today.
the view on the way out after we were all done; note kasuga's determined stride/look in the bottom left.
heck of a view! really beautiful the first afternoon, the clouds were just thick enough so you couldn't tell where the clouds ended and the mountains began.
Afterwards we made our way up to the hotel for the evening. The SHS and JHS ALT's all went to different places, and we had been given a warning not to be too hectic and get too inebriated as apparently had been the issue in the past. Kasuga was one of just 2 or so JTE (Japanese teacher's of english) who was spending the night up at the place, since we are being reimbursed for the cost (and at 90$ a head, I'm very glad of that!) So we followed one fo the buses that was taking students up to the hotel. Kasuga was laughing pretty hard at the nickname Jesse and Matt had given the bus (prison buses) because of the fact we were taken even further up into the mountains with no way to go out and get away and had no access to shopping etc.
The place was pretty nice and we had a fantastic dinner served in the traditional style. Before dinner though, I had kasuga take myself and one of my roommate on what I guess could only be called a 'beer run'. We had no luck finding the Lawson's conbini we were given directions to and dropped into some random guys little liquer shop and stocked up for ourselves and others. I felt deliciously delinquient.
So there was a very nice general mood of revelry at the hotel, as is per the norm whenever a large group of us ALT's get together.
After dinner and lots of chatting with friends I made my way to the onsen. FINALLY I made it to an onsen. It's pretty despicable that I hadn't hit up a japanese public bath yet, but that's fine. It was extremely relaxing to shower off and head into the very hot water. I opten to head outside (considering it was about, oh, 35 degrees) and relax in the water. Also surprising is how quickly your western worries of modesty drop away (also aided by the alcohol, no doubt) and you just enjoy it for what it is.
Afterwards, it was only 9:30 and I felt like I could just call it a night, but I went with one of my roommates to a room that was having a little party of sorts. I spent the next couple hours there, and by the time I left it was getting pretty out of hand but was still just a blast altogether. I ran into Kasuga a couple of times, completely blitzed, and I guess he was pretty popular because he kept running into people out and about in his imparied state. When I saw him, he was in the process of trying to find his coat, but to no avail. (When I asked him about it this morning, he had no recollection. a shame.) This mornings breakfast was a traditional japanese breakfast, which was about the worst thing ever on a morning after stomache. Lol.
The sessions this afternoon were both good and bleh. The sessions on dealing with JTE-ALT communication issues was great because I think we really got to drive home to point to the JTE's how important it is for us to get feedback and talk to us if there are any issues. There was also one on how to internationalize the classroom and I was able to come up with some good ideas for that while I was doing my 'secretary' work for that presentation (aka writing up a 1 page report on it so people could re-create the lesson if need be. :P)
The one on recontracting with JET was little more than an interrogation with veiled threats that we should re-contract, which was lame as hell.
There was also an interesting one to end the day going over information gleaned from a survey given to JTE's and ALT's. One of the most interesting things we discussed was the results of "Should ALT's be expected to use the exact same accent as the speakers in the textbooks?" 25% of JTE's said yes, and 0% of ALT's said no, which was really interesting.
We wrapped it up and then made our way home. Tomorrow at 7am the bus leaves with the teachers for Nagoya. We're going to a meiji-era village, beer factory, and a shopping center. I'm hoping to get a USB video game controller adn green food coloring (so I can make x-mas wreaths for one of my classes! :-D)
Next up: pictures!
I spent two weeks growing a beard for no-shave november, but I had to bail on it due to the fact public servants in japan are discouraged from having a beard.
the room we stayed in last night
view from the window this morning, the rain coming down was washing away the snow we got last night.
in one of the presentations today.
the view on the way out after we were all done; note kasuga's determined stride/look in the bottom left.
heck of a view! really beautiful the first afternoon, the clouds were just thick enough so you couldn't tell where the clouds ended and the mountains began.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
morning game and today
Yes yes, I know it's been forever since I've posted. I'll try and turn that around here. :P
So this morning, Kubota sensei was giving speaking tests to the class I was with, so she had me practice some new dialogue with some of the students for a bit. Well, we finished in like 20 minutes, so we had nothing to do for the next 40. So we played a game called castles. The best part of this though, was that the boys team wanted to be called 'Barak Obama'. So on the top of their castle, I drew an american flag as their flag, and then i drew a little barak obama underneath it.
the game was going pretty well, the students were having a good time with it. Then i drew a cannon on their castle, and before I knew it, we had an 'Oooobama cannon' thing going on. it was pretty lulzy, since every time the boys got a question right, they would 'fire' the obama cannon at the girls castle.
also a bonus was one of the students who the boys called 'boss', as well as a couple of the boys getting really intense when it came to writing on the board.
Next period, I'm going to the bank to make sure I can send money home this week, since I have to start paying off all that debt I've accumulated. :P
Tomorrow I'm going to the mid-year conference in Shiojiri near matsumoto for thursday and friday. we stay in some dorms and go to 5 different presentations. i'm the secretary for one of them, which means i have to take notes on the presentation and turn in a paper talking about the points presented. it looks to be pretty blech, but whatevers, I'll survive.
saturday i'll be going to nagoya with about 15 other teachers for the day. we'll visit a meiji era villiage and have lunch there, and then spend the afternoon in a big mall. i'm hoping to pick up a usb video game controller there so i can play some of the games on my computer i have, particularly ken griffey jr. 's baseball, lul.
i also agreeded to go to the end of the semester party in december the day before i leave for china, so i have a feeling the trip to nagaoya and to seoul that day will be pretty long. haha.
So this morning, Kubota sensei was giving speaking tests to the class I was with, so she had me practice some new dialogue with some of the students for a bit. Well, we finished in like 20 minutes, so we had nothing to do for the next 40. So we played a game called castles. The best part of this though, was that the boys team wanted to be called 'Barak Obama'. So on the top of their castle, I drew an american flag as their flag, and then i drew a little barak obama underneath it.
the game was going pretty well, the students were having a good time with it. Then i drew a cannon on their castle, and before I knew it, we had an 'Oooobama cannon' thing going on. it was pretty lulzy, since every time the boys got a question right, they would 'fire' the obama cannon at the girls castle.
also a bonus was one of the students who the boys called 'boss', as well as a couple of the boys getting really intense when it came to writing on the board.
Next period, I'm going to the bank to make sure I can send money home this week, since I have to start paying off all that debt I've accumulated. :P
Tomorrow I'm going to the mid-year conference in Shiojiri near matsumoto for thursday and friday. we stay in some dorms and go to 5 different presentations. i'm the secretary for one of them, which means i have to take notes on the presentation and turn in a paper talking about the points presented. it looks to be pretty blech, but whatevers, I'll survive.
saturday i'll be going to nagoya with about 15 other teachers for the day. we'll visit a meiji era villiage and have lunch there, and then spend the afternoon in a big mall. i'm hoping to pick up a usb video game controller there so i can play some of the games on my computer i have, particularly ken griffey jr. 's baseball, lul.
i also agreeded to go to the end of the semester party in december the day before i leave for china, so i have a feeling the trip to nagaoya and to seoul that day will be pretty long. haha.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Beautiful fall
I'll snag pics hopefuly tomorrow, because it's just strikingly beautiful here. The mountains are green, brown, orange, red, yellow, white on the tops. There are reds in the leaves here I have never seen before.
Today, I was pump faked and found out that for Kawaii sensei's 1-1 class, I was going to have to teach on my own since she was gone. I was a bit worried because I wasn't sure what we'd cover, but I ended up lucking out that it was the 1-1 class (since they're a big class they're split) that I really like, so that was a good thing! It also turned out that today we have some head honcho's visiting or something, so Kubota sensei was sent to my class as backup for me, which was nice beacuse then we just did basic textbook stuff while the bigwigs were in the class looking on, and then I played the 'typhoon' game with them in the 2nd half.
My next class was with Kasuga sensei, and we did a 'skit' where we talked about similarities between Xmas in america and new years in japan. It was pretty cool and the head honcho's showed up again and the principle talked to me afterwards about how interesting he thought it was, so I think we made a good impression. I also lucked out by wearing a tie today and looking spiffy. whew. The class with kasuga also moved into the next lesson, where we did the new dialogue about 'silent night' etc. We also got to listen to the song, but the boys in this class are so freaking rowdy. Kasuga chewed them out for me, which was nice lawl.
It's also been getting pretty cold here, which has helped outline just how weak my cardboard walls are. I've been getting into the style of making sure to cordon off sections of my apt. so that I'm not stuck leaving the header on constantly, and I need to run to a store and pick up some more socks and maybe wool slippers or something. wahh! It's also brutally cold in the hallways at school, since some parts are open air and they just have heaters in the different rooms.
during cleaning time, I decided to head on outside and help some of the students doing the raking of leaves. BRR! it was so cold! I ended up helping severl different students, but included one of the girls from the super shy 3 girl class, but she's the most extroverted of them. she did a little jump and looked genuinely shocked to see me come out and start helping her. I laughed pretty hard to myself about that.
Today I get to have 'mediterranean sea curry' and i bought the hottest one they have, because japanese curry is so freaking weak. nom nom nom.
Today, I was pump faked and found out that for Kawaii sensei's 1-1 class, I was going to have to teach on my own since she was gone. I was a bit worried because I wasn't sure what we'd cover, but I ended up lucking out that it was the 1-1 class (since they're a big class they're split) that I really like, so that was a good thing! It also turned out that today we have some head honcho's visiting or something, so Kubota sensei was sent to my class as backup for me, which was nice beacuse then we just did basic textbook stuff while the bigwigs were in the class looking on, and then I played the 'typhoon' game with them in the 2nd half.
My next class was with Kasuga sensei, and we did a 'skit' where we talked about similarities between Xmas in america and new years in japan. It was pretty cool and the head honcho's showed up again and the principle talked to me afterwards about how interesting he thought it was, so I think we made a good impression. I also lucked out by wearing a tie today and looking spiffy. whew. The class with kasuga also moved into the next lesson, where we did the new dialogue about 'silent night' etc. We also got to listen to the song, but the boys in this class are so freaking rowdy. Kasuga chewed them out for me, which was nice lawl.
It's also been getting pretty cold here, which has helped outline just how weak my cardboard walls are. I've been getting into the style of making sure to cordon off sections of my apt. so that I'm not stuck leaving the header on constantly, and I need to run to a store and pick up some more socks and maybe wool slippers or something. wahh! It's also brutally cold in the hallways at school, since some parts are open air and they just have heaters in the different rooms.
during cleaning time, I decided to head on outside and help some of the students doing the raking of leaves. BRR! it was so cold! I ended up helping severl different students, but included one of the girls from the super shy 3 girl class, but she's the most extroverted of them. she did a little jump and looked genuinely shocked to see me come out and start helping her. I laughed pretty hard to myself about that.
Today I get to have 'mediterranean sea curry' and i bought the hottest one they have, because japanese curry is so freaking weak. nom nom nom.
Last week...
Wasn't particularly exciting, since it was only a 4 day week and all. I did get caught off guard one day and had to do games with two classes because Kawaii sensei had planned for me to do them over a month ago, but we had moved them because of Bethany's visit etc etc.
High points for the week consisted of getting to do the 6 differences game with Kawaii sensei's 3f class (the lowest 3rd years) and her being shocked by how into it they got as we played. Once again proving i'm worth my weight in gold (pfft lol). I also finally found the stuff to make chinese food too, which turned out to be awesome. :-) Taste was great and it was cheap to make. win win! The weekend itself was uneventful as well, just relaxed and took it easy.
today i got pump faked as I found out kawaii sensei is gone and I have to teach her 1-1 class today, so i'm going to do a little bit of studying and then play a game with them. whee! :-P
High points for the week consisted of getting to do the 6 differences game with Kawaii sensei's 3f class (the lowest 3rd years) and her being shocked by how into it they got as we played. Once again proving i'm worth my weight in gold (pfft lol). I also finally found the stuff to make chinese food too, which turned out to be awesome. :-) Taste was great and it was cheap to make. win win! The weekend itself was uneventful as well, just relaxed and took it easy.
today i got pump faked as I found out kawaii sensei is gone and I have to teach her 1-1 class today, so i'm going to do a little bit of studying and then play a game with them. whee! :-P
Monday, November 3, 2008
rest of the weekend
On Sunday morning, after waking up at noon, chad and I went down to the showers. The next stage in our fun time at the nanner house involved us having to use our t-shirts to dry off after we took our showers. lawl. I also had a weird moment where I didn't realize a person had started using the shower next to mine, so as I was rinsing out my hair, I saw soap go rolling by under my feet and I was trying to figure out how it bounced off the side of the wall or whatever. It was only later that I figured out that someone was in there, whoops!
We then headed on out for Kyoto, as we were going to go to Heian-jingu for the day. The trip takes about two hours if you include the walk from the nanner house, but it was a nice way to just relax and enjoy the day. Chad and I laughed at mistakenly saying 'good morning' to people instead of 'good afternoon' because we had woken up so late. The ride was nice and relaxing on the way there,one of the benefits of starting from the osaka end was that it isn't difficult to snag seats on the express lines.
We got to our stop, and gave alberto a ring and were able to meet up with Haruna and Alberto, which included chad and I getting a hug in the middle of a busy street from Haruna, which was super adorable. I think we'd all forgotten just how awesome she is.
So Chad and I grabbed some lunch (it was nearing 3 lol) from a conbini and then we made our way over to the temple. We caught up with Haruna and also enjoyed the beautiful scenery (as well as the nice weather, lucky ducks down in Osaka) as we made our way to the temple.
Once there, we started snapping photos of pretty much everything, and then chad and I sat down and had our lunch. Afterwards we made our way into and through the temple grounds, laughing like fools and snapping pictures the entire time.
We got some great ones that included the scenery and just us having a great time through and through. It was a good way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.
Afterwards, we made our way to the train station and bid farewell to Haruna, then Alberto, Chad, and I meandered Kyoto for several hours. We started by just wandering around the city to see what was going on and such. Along the way, we had a great time walking along a path down by the river that snakes through the city. while doing this, we found a spot where rocks had been placed through the river so we could hop across. This led to a frenzy of silly pictures and general shenanigens in the middle of kyoto river and us just having a great time. We paused for a rest on the other side next to a group of japanese and french chatting and playing the guitar and violin. It was a good way to pass some time, for sure.
After this, while walking along the banks, we saw a couple standing at the front of a room (their backs to us, as they were back along the windows and we were behind the building walking) who were at what appeared to be their wedding. I decided it would be fun to snap a picture of them from down where we were, and I set up my camera (set to night settings) so i could get a nice exposure. I pressed the button, and then FLASH! which prompted a yell of 'CHEESE IT!" from alberto and us sprinting away like fools. Ahahah.
This led to a ton of laughing by us and then we finally made our way to an okonomiyaki place for dinner. The best part of this dinner was either alberto finally breaking down and throwing his ice cube on the hot stove to watch it melt, and then as it's boiling having the waitress come up with our food and alberto having to look really guilty, or the lady refusing to let us put the sauce on our own food and alberto telling her 'i can do it myself' several times. Also great was that there was a contingent of what we figured must be engineering majors at the store, who all decided to leave at once.
Afterwards we made our way to a conbini and snagged some crepe's as dessert (there was a crepe store in it) They were really delicious!
After that we made our way back to the station and started to head home, since it was about 2 hours to make it all the way back to Osaka. We got back with time to spare and went to bed around midnight since We had to leave the nanner house by 8:30 in order for me to make it to Kyoto in time to catch my bus. Unfortunately, I had a terrible time falling asleep that night, as a combination of a hot bed, and mosquitoes in the room pretty much drove me insane. That, and I had only been awake for 12 hours when i tried to crash. Things were made worse by the fact that my phone, which was going to serve as our alarm, died at 5am.
But then I was finally able to get some sleep, and Japanese technology came to the rescue. The phone turned itself on to set off the alarm, and then shut itself off again since it was so low on battery. awesome.
so we got up and headed on out by 8:30 and made our way to Kyoto station. It ended up actually being a bit of a close call, as we got into kyoto station with just 15 minutes until my bus left, and this station is HUGE. Luckily, Chad's Japanese skills saved the day as we were able to ask and get directions to where we were going, and I got on the bus with time to spare. I bid chad farewell and made my way home. The layover in Nagoya was a bit long, but I was able to pick up some cookies for the staff as a gift, and I also got to ride on buses that were larger this time, so my knees were very thankful that they had some room this time. I got in at just around 6 and started to walk home.
I was surprised by one of the ladies who was on the bus with me stopping and asking me if I wanted a ride home. Turns out she is the wife of one of the teachers (I'm pretty sure that's what she said!:P) and she was kind enough to take me home. Awrw!
All in all, I had an exceptionally great time this weekend haning out with old friends, and I laughed harder than I had in a while. Greatness. :-)
We then headed on out for Kyoto, as we were going to go to Heian-jingu for the day. The trip takes about two hours if you include the walk from the nanner house, but it was a nice way to just relax and enjoy the day. Chad and I laughed at mistakenly saying 'good morning' to people instead of 'good afternoon' because we had woken up so late. The ride was nice and relaxing on the way there,one of the benefits of starting from the osaka end was that it isn't difficult to snag seats on the express lines.
We got to our stop, and gave alberto a ring and were able to meet up with Haruna and Alberto, which included chad and I getting a hug in the middle of a busy street from Haruna, which was super adorable. I think we'd all forgotten just how awesome she is.
So Chad and I grabbed some lunch (it was nearing 3 lol) from a conbini and then we made our way over to the temple. We caught up with Haruna and also enjoyed the beautiful scenery (as well as the nice weather, lucky ducks down in Osaka) as we made our way to the temple.
Once there, we started snapping photos of pretty much everything, and then chad and I sat down and had our lunch. Afterwards we made our way into and through the temple grounds, laughing like fools and snapping pictures the entire time.
We got some great ones that included the scenery and just us having a great time through and through. It was a good way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.
Afterwards, we made our way to the train station and bid farewell to Haruna, then Alberto, Chad, and I meandered Kyoto for several hours. We started by just wandering around the city to see what was going on and such. Along the way, we had a great time walking along a path down by the river that snakes through the city. while doing this, we found a spot where rocks had been placed through the river so we could hop across. This led to a frenzy of silly pictures and general shenanigens in the middle of kyoto river and us just having a great time. We paused for a rest on the other side next to a group of japanese and french chatting and playing the guitar and violin. It was a good way to pass some time, for sure.
After this, while walking along the banks, we saw a couple standing at the front of a room (their backs to us, as they were back along the windows and we were behind the building walking) who were at what appeared to be their wedding. I decided it would be fun to snap a picture of them from down where we were, and I set up my camera (set to night settings) so i could get a nice exposure. I pressed the button, and then FLASH! which prompted a yell of 'CHEESE IT!" from alberto and us sprinting away like fools. Ahahah.
This led to a ton of laughing by us and then we finally made our way to an okonomiyaki place for dinner. The best part of this dinner was either alberto finally breaking down and throwing his ice cube on the hot stove to watch it melt, and then as it's boiling having the waitress come up with our food and alberto having to look really guilty, or the lady refusing to let us put the sauce on our own food and alberto telling her 'i can do it myself' several times. Also great was that there was a contingent of what we figured must be engineering majors at the store, who all decided to leave at once.
Afterwards we made our way to a conbini and snagged some crepe's as dessert (there was a crepe store in it) They were really delicious!
After that we made our way back to the station and started to head home, since it was about 2 hours to make it all the way back to Osaka. We got back with time to spare and went to bed around midnight since We had to leave the nanner house by 8:30 in order for me to make it to Kyoto in time to catch my bus. Unfortunately, I had a terrible time falling asleep that night, as a combination of a hot bed, and mosquitoes in the room pretty much drove me insane. That, and I had only been awake for 12 hours when i tried to crash. Things were made worse by the fact that my phone, which was going to serve as our alarm, died at 5am.
But then I was finally able to get some sleep, and Japanese technology came to the rescue. The phone turned itself on to set off the alarm, and then shut itself off again since it was so low on battery. awesome.
so we got up and headed on out by 8:30 and made our way to Kyoto station. It ended up actually being a bit of a close call, as we got into kyoto station with just 15 minutes until my bus left, and this station is HUGE. Luckily, Chad's Japanese skills saved the day as we were able to ask and get directions to where we were going, and I got on the bus with time to spare. I bid chad farewell and made my way home. The layover in Nagoya was a bit long, but I was able to pick up some cookies for the staff as a gift, and I also got to ride on buses that were larger this time, so my knees were very thankful that they had some room this time. I got in at just around 6 and started to walk home.
I was surprised by one of the ladies who was on the bus with me stopping and asking me if I wanted a ride home. Turns out she is the wife of one of the teachers (I'm pretty sure that's what she said!:P) and she was kind enough to take me home. Awrw!
All in all, I had an exceptionally great time this weekend haning out with old friends, and I laughed harder than I had in a while. Greatness. :-)
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