A ceremony for me?

Today there was a farewell ceremony at my small Jr. high (only 55 students!) for all of the teachers leaving the school... which is a group of people consisting entirely of me. 

I wasn't given any warning about the ceremony but at least I had a well-rehearsed farewell speech in English and Japanese ready to go. Unfortunately I choked pretty hard during the Japanese part because I was distracted by the kids laughing at my accent (Note to self: don't laugh at anybody's accent). 

So even though I was only here of 6 months and was just one of many ALT's that these teachers and students have encountered, it made me feel really good when they took the time to gather in the gym, write me a thank you note in English, give me flowers, and include me in a small part of Japanese culture. 

Sorry for the picture of a picture. Being illiterate, I'm not in the mood to go to 7 eleven and try to figure out their scanner. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Another unexpected great day

Last Friday started with the graduation ceremony for my favorite junior high school. The graduation ceremony was similar to American graduations in many ways; they called each student for a diploma, the band played music, parents and other important people came, there were a few motivational speeches. But there was a huge difference in the atmosphere. Overall it was very formal (parents and teachers wore black suits/dresses), you could have heard a pin drop throughout most of the ceremony, every movement was rehearsed and preformed with military-like precision, and NOBODY was smiling. It was a very serious occasion.

I've never taken graduations seriously at all, so I spent most of the 2 hour ceremony fighting back laughter at the sight of 9th grade girls crying as if it were a funeral. I felt bad, but I couldn't help it. Fortunately I managed to keep my internal laughter hidden.

Then I had to teach some elementary classes in the afternoon, which would normally be a total drag, but it was my favorite elementary school so I didn't mind. At one point I had a severe giggle attack when I realized that the 1st graders would mimic ANYTHING I did. I started doing some pretty silly stuff and they were as happy as hell to follow along. First grade Japanese kids may be the cutest beings on earth.

Later in the evening was the graduation enkai (party) for my favorite Jr. high. It was another Japanese dinner with a 2 hour open bar. I got to sit with the principal and the vice principal, who I really like. They tried to teach me a few dirty words in Japanese (all of which I immediately forgot), and made fun of the look on my face when the restaurant brought out a BBQ'd tuna head. I was anxious to try it, but I guess my shock was obvious as the waitress mixed up the eyes and brain and face muscles and scooped it into bowls for everybody. It wasn't bad.

Lastly, the cool, young social studies teacher invited me to dinner at his house before I leave. Awesome! I hit it off with him a few weeks ago during the ski trip when I found out that he's done a lot of traveling, most of which was by himself. I guess his parents want to meet me too!

That didn't last long

Last week I said I was going to watch my spending but this month I've already signed up for another school enkai (party!) and gone snowboarding. I went on Sunday with Rob (snowboarder from Sacramento!), Joe (skier from Colorado), and Amy (from England). We had a great time... here is the video I made.

My February

It has been an interesting month. To start things off, I received a painfully small paycheck at the beginning of the month so I had to cancel some trips and budget for the rest of the month very carefully.

The first bit of fun I had was during the first week at Franchesca and Kelsey's wedding dinner. Congratulations! There was some joking about how informal the dinner would be, which I took too literally. As a result, Matt (the only other American) and I were the only two people wearing jeans. This event was another 2 hour open bar, so I was again determined (along with Matt), to get my carefully budgeted $40 worth. I called in sick the next day.

Pictured from left to right is Josh (?), Franchesca, Matt, Kelsey, and yours truly.

Things were slow until last week when my friend, Phil, came to visit from San Francisco. We spent the week having dinner with friends I've made here (actually, they're not really friends, but girls that put up with my limited Japanese speaking abilities in the hopes that I'll teach them English). Here is Phil, me (doing my rock-n-roll face), and 3 of the English leeches.


And here are a few pics from our drive down the coast.






Then we had some AWESOME snowboarding. It snowed most of the week and it was the best day of snowboarding I've ever had.




So with some carefully budgeted fun and lots of top ramen I made it to payday (today) with 351 yen. Even though I splurged on groceries after I got paid a regular sized paycheck today, I'm going to try to watch my spending again this month so I can have a little more than 351 yen left at the end of the month ;-)

Settling in

I was trying to figure out why it's taken me almost a month to update the blog and I finally came up with an answer. It's because I'm starting to feel at home here. I've settled into a routine with work and socializing so there have not been any big surprises this month. I'm also getting used to all of the weird little differences in Japan and as a result they're not weird anymore. So nothing lately seems noteworthy enough to write about.

To recap the last month, I spent about a week after my Tokyo trip resting (by myself). I did a little exploring and went to an old onsen (hot spring), which was amazing. Then I spent the last few days of my vacation hanging out with friends. Since the vacation ended I've just been working, going to the gym, and occasionally meeting with friends. Even my weekend parties have been regular... it seems I've had 2-hour all-you-can-drink dinners every weekend. I usually can't remember much from those, so I always assume I had a good time ;-)

But something entertaining happened today. The students had to write 3 sentence stores. The subject of one story was the school secretary, who didn't seem to like me at first. She was always minimally polite and never friendly (but after two months she started to lighten up). Anyway, the student's story went like this

"Mrs. A is stronger than a tiger. She ate one yesterday. Mrs. A is the strongest person in Japan".

I think that's pretty good for a 9th grader.

Tokyo Adventure

Actually, nothing noteworthy happened. I basically wandered around Tokyo for 4 days. The pictures do a much better job at telling the story. But here is the rough outline in writing.

At 10:30PM on Tuesday, Dec. 23rd I set off on a night bus towards Tokyo. We arrived at Ikebukuro station at 4:30AM, so I headed over the the Tsukiji fish market. It was a total mad house with lots of dead sea creatures for sale. Then I explored Ginza, went to the Imperial Palace, Hibiya park, Tokyo Tower, walked to Ropponggi district and then Shibuya. I spent the afternoon in Shibuya exploring and looking for a specific capsule hotel and I ate all-you-can-eat pizza to Shakeys (yummm). I finally found the hotel, checked in and then went out for a few drinks. That was Christmas eve.

Christmas morning I walked over to Harajuku and checked out the Meiji temple and Yoyogi park. Then, once again, I spent all afternoon looking for a specific place. Once I found it, I met up with a bunch of other English teachers (mostly from England) for an extremely expensive and miniscule turkey dinner. Then we went off to the sticks for extremely affordable all-you-can drink karaoke. Back at their apartments we continued to sing and party until very late. I got an unclaimed bunk which was nice and private but totally bare, so no pillows, blankets or pads for me.

On Dec. 26th I got to sleep in (on the empty bunk) and then one of the hosts made amazing breakfast sandwiches. I took off back to the main city and stopped by the SONY building and then Akihabara, the electronics/computer geek capital of Tokyo. I spent the night there in an internet cafe. 

The next day was probably my favorite day, which I spent at Ueno park. It is a great park with statues and museums and a zoo. I spent all day there and I could probably spend another day there. There were also some really good street street performers. That evening I headed to another part of the city to catch a band, but I could not find the venue... even with the assistance of a bilingual college student. It turns out I had the address wrong. Even though I initially wanted to go to Harajuku on Sunday morning to see the people who dress up, I decided to save some money and the struggle to find a cheap hotel and just head home. So I caught the shinkansen home and met a really nice old guy that bought me a beer in exchange for English conversation practice. 

It was a good trip. Very challenging and lonely at times, but I'm really glad I had the experience. And I learned many new things. For example, even if you have a map and an address, it can still take hours to find an establishment in Tokyo.

Japanese hospitality

Last night was the gathering at Tamura-san's house and I finally got a real Japanese home experience. There were two other football players, Franchesca, Kelsey, Me, and the Tamura family, which consisted of grandma, grandpa, Tamura's wife, and two children. The guests were treated like royalty. The made us eat home-cooked Japanese food and drink large amounts of beer and good sake... it was horrible! (sarcasm)

The whole evening was spent sitting on the tatami mats around the low heated tables (kotatsu). Early in the evening I got to chat with grandma which supported my generalization that little old Japanese obaasan are super easy to talk to. The always seem to talk very simply and slowly for me. Grandpa was the opposite. He sat right next to me and mumbled everything, but I think it was because he was perpetually smiling. He looked at me and we laughed together every time something was said, even if it was in English and not even particularly funny. 

The kids are unbelievably cute and very good at English for their age. I could tell Tamura-san was ecstatic to have 3 native English speaker in the house. Much of the evening was a language lesson (both English and Japanese). 

The picture is of Kelsey, Franchesca, the Tamura kids and me. I'm sure Grandma was just being polite, but she told me that she is waiting for me to come back and eat with them again because I live fairly close. Tempting. 

PS- It took me like 5 minutes to figure out how to flush the toilet... which was operated by remote (why is a remote necessary for a toilet ?!?!?!?!?!). I couldn't read any of the buttons and only a few of them had illustrations. But I survived without making a mess.