Autumn in Ishikawa

So due to my iphone meeting a watery grave, I don't have as many pictures to contribute to this post. I don't have my camera on me as often as I did my beloved iphone. Thus, I'll do the best I can to describe and you, the viewer, must use the power of imagination.

Anyway, its been pretty much a roller coaster these past two weeks of events both good and bad. On the down side, I was immobily ill last weekend and didn't get a chance to do too much. (Ah the joys of working at the germ distribution center that is an elementary school.) I did, however, have to go to a mandatory team-teaching conference put on for all the JETs. Thus, exceedingly groggy and still rocking a wicked cold did I attend said conference. One of the highlights from the conference was listening to the main speaker who added quite a bit of humor to the proceedings. One amusing story was his experience going to Whitney Houston concert in Japan many years ago. Evidently, when Whitney asked the Japanese audience the traditional "How's everyone doing tonight", the whole crowd responded in unison, "I'm fine thank you and you?" (The stock phrase that we, the ALTs, teach at the beginning of every lesson).

One a brighter note, Autumn is now in full stride in the Noto as the leaves are finally starting to turn into really spectacular colors. Coupled with this firework display of nature is the arrival of my favorite holiday, Halloween! Although Halloween isn't really celebrated in Japan to the extent that is in America, many of my students are familiar with it nevertheless and love doing halloween lessons. My lessons consist of halloween bingo, making paper pumpkins (actual pumpkins would cause me to go bankrupt due to the number of students I have and how expensive pumpkins are), and doing a trick or treat game I made up where the student have to a ridiculous task (such as dancing with me in front of the whole class) in order to win the coveted prize of candy. It never ceases to amuse me when one the students picks the "do a dance with Sam-sensei" card as they will usually stand there in stunned silence and in horror at the impending task for about 20 seconds before they decide that candy is a worthy price for their dignity. (I suppose free candy sounds like a pretty good concept to anyone). For my costume, I chose to be Monkey D. Luffy from the manga/anime One Piece (which is insanely popular over here) and all of the students seem to get a good kick out of it.

Luffy!

Recently, one of my schools had several classes canceled and there were a large string of meetings held in their place. When I asked why, it turns out that one of the students had actually punched a teacher! This certainly blew the lid off of my preconceptions that all Japanese students were nice and polite. It was further revealed to me that this was such a huge deal for the school as this was the first time it happened in twenty years. Still, keeping in mind the chaos of student life in Hopkins and how well behaved the rest of my students are, I still believe that there is no comparison between American and Japanese students in terms of bad behavior. My students generally win by a longshot.

In terms of weather, it's starting to get a bit chilly at night and inside some of my schools as many Japanese buildings are somewhat notorious for their lack of insulation. Coupled with gas heating costing an arm and an ear, this predicament makes for some creative ways to beat the weather. Thus far, I`ve been wrapping up in layers at night and firing up my trusty kotatsu, which is a table that you can turn on and heat up to warm your blankets and your butt if need be. I`ve also joined a gym which has a small pool and exercise equipment, but more importantly, also has a hot tub by the pool and an onsen in the locker room. I daresay this place will become a regular haunt for me as the weather becomes steadily colder. A definite plus of this change in the weather, however, is the truly beautiful scenery Noto has to offer while the leaves are changing.

My partner in warmness the kotatsu

Leaves by my house

Gym/Onsen anti-winter fortress

In other news, I've also booked a ski trip for Hokkaido this coming February. For once, I'll actually be looking forward to that abomination of a month.

りんご、運動会、千枚田 Apples, Undokai, and Senmaida

I keep telling myself to update more frequently but alas, I am often too tired after work to update. I have recently become an old man as I usually only have the energy to stay up until 10:30ish on the weekdays now. Suffice to say college Sam is very displeased.

Anyway, a few weekends ago, I kicked off my break by going apple picking with some of my fellow JETs. Fruit over here is ridiculously expensive over here (for example some watermelons over here can be up to 50$ depending on how well they’re wrapped!) thus, I really enjoyed the chance to pick some delicious fruits at a more reasonable price for once. The orchard was a small farm owned a family and the apples we picked there were quite tasty.

Delicious apples!

The rest of the day was followed by lunch at a delicious udon restaurant and then some epic Mario Party gaming over at one of the JETs apartment.

An udon feast afterwards

The next day was my towns’ undokai (or exercise gathering). This event turned out to be very similar to my school’s sports festival except for adults representing their respective villages (my “town” is technically more a collection of villages rather than one cohesive unit). The event occurred took place in Kiriko park, which was a rather cool park with a giant monument of a kiriko not too far away.

Kiriko Park

I got to participate along with several other adults from my village of Ukawa.  A few of the events that I personally did included: a game where all members stood in a line and passed a bunch of balls bucket to bucket in order to throw the balls at a cardboard fire, a relay, tug o’ war, and of course, a janken race.

Some of my teammates and I

Again, each of these games emphasized teamwork and group cooperation in a similar vein to my school’s sports festival. One highlight from the undokai was catching a glimpse of the increasingly ubiquitous Spiderman, who is becoming rather like the Where’s Waldo of events over here. Being the only “foreign” looking person at the undokai, again I attracted a lot of curiosity but my favorite moment was sitting down and having two kids (not my students) come up to me, barrage me with questions and then commence a grass throwing battle with me. They were too cute! 

Silly kids sitting next to me

A glimpse of the omnipresent Spiderman

There he is again!

Some food we were served at the Undokai. I think these were either pickled cucumbers or eggplants. They were ridiculously salty.

Our main dish at the Undokai proved much more palatable then the pickled  mystery veggies however.

After the undokai, I went to yet another Enkai, this time hosted by my board of education (thankfully however, they covered all the charges so I didn`t have to empty my wallet.) The delicious menagerie of food consisted of sushi, sashimi, veggies and meat. I was later informed that one of the fish I consumed was the infamous fugu, a fish equally known for its delicacy in Japanese cuisine and for its potential lethality if prepared incorrectly. Thankfully, it seems that our chef knew what s/he was doing as I am currently blogging to you fine folks today.

One of the dishes at the enkai (the white fish in the back are fugu).

The next day, my landlord stopped by my house and asked if I wanted some squid. Always jumping on the chance to acquire free-food, \i accepted and recived the following. Thus, I began my first time gutting a squid. Gutting it was disgusting...yet oddly satisfying. I was quite unprepared for the level of ink hidden in that little cephalopod and my cutting board is now stained a permanent black. I@d say the end result was pretty satisfactory as the stir fry I made with the squid turned out pretty well.

This last weekend, several JETs and I volunteered to set up and light candles at the Senmaida rice paddies for their annual festival. The scenery at the event and the surrounding ambiance was really quite spectacular.

Walking down the rice paddies

Fellow JETs setting up the candles

Pumped up!

There was quite a significant amount of critters roaming around the rice paddies such as this snake.

Lighting the candles

Very scenic and relaxing

The end result was truly quite beautiful.

This light up was followed by all the volunteers waving torches in the dark. I had more pictures of the event but alas, my faithful iphone met a watery grave in a puddle before I could upload the pictures. Living without it really really stinks as it was a dictionary, music player and map to me. I also found out that getting a new ipod will be exceedingly frustrating as I either have to do a 3hour drive back and forth to Kanazawa (the only place that carries them according to an electronics store employee in my area) or I have to wait 1 to 4 weeks for a new one to arrive via Japan amazon :( Part of the package of living in a rural area I suppose.

Races, Pokemon, and Markets

Update time! Thus far, life in Japan is going pretty splendidly and it seems that getting accustomed to things over here is getting easier by the day. My speaking level of Japanese is probably at the level when I last left Japan (which makes sense I suppose considering I studied abroad for two months and I`ve been here for two months). Anyway, here is a collection of anecdotes about what I`ve been up to since my last update.

Two weekends ago, I ran a 5k in one a neighboring village called Yanagida. The village, which is situated in the middle of the mountains, offered some truly spectacular scenery during the race.

After I finished the race, I was welcomed with an assortment of stalls selling food that would be quite uncommon after a race in the States. Deciding to purchase whatever seemed the most popular with the masses, I celebrated my completion of the 5k by buying a fish on a stick (much to my chagrin, it was incredibly salty, which being dehydrated after a race did not for a merry Christmas make). 

After I consumed my salty little friend, I noticed that a very long line had started in front of one of the stands, which was emanating a most pleasant aroma. The long wait turned out to be worthy endeavor as this stand sold these very delicious pastries, which I can only describe as pancakes with fillings (I purchased the sweet bean paste and custard filled ones).

so delicious!

While waiting in line for the dessert, I had a very interesting conversation with a Japanese lady who spoke English pretty well and she told me all about her experience as a medical volunteer in Mongolia. Indeed, speaking with her and listening to her adventure has really made my fervor for travel throughout East Asia burn ever stronger.

School continues to provide interesting learning experiences and amusing anecdotes as well. One interesting thing I noticed is that the world maps in Japanese classrooms all seem to place Japan and East Asia at the center of the world, rather than the Euro-centric one we often see in the west. I guess it`s to be expected though that any culture will obviously view themselves at the center of the world, but it is nevertheless interesting how that message is conveyed either intentionally or even unintentionally by maps.

Japan-centric map

Another observation I’ve made is that some things are more or less universally popular at every Japanese school I’ve been to thus far and indeed, it has been interesting how much overlap in interests there seems to be between 1^st graders and 9^th graders. Virtually every student loves Pokemon whether a boy, girl, 1^st grader or 9^th grader. (One of the most common questions I get asked at BOTH elementary and junior highs is “what is your favorite Pokemon?”). In addition, virtually every student has told me that they like the manga (Japanese comic) One Piece. Again, there is very little variation between older and younger and between boys and girls. Furthermore, boy bands and girl bands are insanely popular over here as well (The most popular of which is a group called AKB48, which has 48 members!) The popularity of these bands definitely brings me back to the 90’s and the glory days of the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls.

On a more amusing note, however, last Friday I was told at the last minute by one of my teachers that I would be conducting a class all by self! Adding to my shock was that she gave me a worksheet for the students to fill out and told me that after 20 minutes I was to provide another worksheet with all the answers. My first thought was that there was no way in hell that the students would put any effort into the assignment and my thoughts turned out to be quite accurate. Thus, realizing that I was fighting a losing battle, I gave up any pretentions of them actually working on the sheet and did my best to just chat and have fun with the kids in English. This led to a very amusing conversation explaining the concept of a ladies’ man to some of my students. The topic came up when one of the kids was goofing around and writing in English about how his friend “loved” a girl in the neighboring class. Remarkably, when I told the English what had transpired she really didn’t seem all too upset and indeed even told me that she thought it was a good idea so I guess it worked out in the end.

Also, at one of my elementary schools, one of my students drew a cool Samurai picture for me that now stands proudly on my fridge. (Not too bad for a fifth grader!)

Better artist than me already

Last weekend, I was invited to go out with Jillian (my fellow JET in Noto) and one of my coworkers for dinner. I had a great time ordering trying out all of the cool flavors at the all-you-can drink soda and latte bar (melon soda and strawberry lattes are excellent) and honing my Japanese skills with all of them. The next day, I went to Kanazawa for night of fun at a local club and stayed a fellow JETs place for the night. I really am in love with Kanazawa it has also the niceties and conveniences of a city without the urban blight and overcrowded feel of Tokyo.

After the night of revelry, I awakened and wandered around Kanazawa and did some exploring around my friend`s neighborhood. Much to my satisfaction, there seemed to be some sort of Sunday market going on that was selling an abundance of delicious food and cool looking lacquer ware. I personally bought some steak slathered in teriyaki sauce and some chicken tikka masala from of the stands that was selling Indian food. 

There were also various performances going on and I stopped to watch some Tahitian dancers and a hip-hop group putting on their moves. 

At this point however, the effects of a typhoon were in full swing and my umbrella turned into more use as a projectile weapon rather than a protective measure against the torrential wind and rain so I retreated back to my friends place.

Well that's all for now folks, plans for the future include pear picking in a nearby town, and going to an event called Undokai but more on that in the ne