東京 (Part 2)

the journey continues. . .

day three began at the imperial palace, which i am sure is amazing. . . as tourists, however, we were only able to see . . . precisely what you see in the pictures below. . . a guy on a horse, some lovely gardens, and the outer walls. . .

after that exciting experience, we moved on to join the rest of japan under the cherry blossoms. . . ueno park was absolutely packed with business men and tourists and families having hanami (cherry blossom viewing) parties. . . i happen to enjoy the less crowded versions experienced by those of us in the inaka. . . but it was not an event to be missed. . . rows of pink are always a nice touch after a dull winter. . .

once we decided that we had enough of the crowds, we headed out to asakusa. . . asakusa was actually one of the first places i went when i came to japan. . . my first night in tokyo, toshi met me at the hotel where i had orientation and asked me what i wanted to do (to which i had absolutely no reply). . . i was so jet lagged. . . all i remember doing was falling asleep on the subway and toshi asking “大丈夫？” (are you okay?) a million times. . .i was exhausted and completely overwhelmed by the lights and language and complete change of my surroundings. . .

this trip to tokyo, one year and seven months later, was so different from those first two days in japan. . . the big surprises this time came not from the differences in language, food, money, or culture in general but instead from the move from rural japan (my town of 5,000 people scattered throughout the mountains) to one of the largest cities in the world. . .

anyway. . . after asakusa. . . we continued to ginza, which is possibly the ritziest area of tokyo. . . prada, gucci, etc., etc. . . .i don’t think that we were particularly impressed. . .

instead of spending a fortune at ginza, we made a trip back to akihabara (the electronic district). . . only at night this time. . . all the techies were out and about. . . some people in japan are insanely obsessed with manga (japanese comics) and game centers. . . it’s kind of a crazy side culture. . . anyway, nina and i managed to sneak in one round of DDR (dance, dance, revolution) – which i am absolute crap at despite being a dancer. . .as we were browsing around, we eventually found a maid café. . . we considered going in but thought it would be weird to have a girl wait on us and call us master or whatever it is they do. . . one guy was playing a card game with his personal maid. . . kind of odd. . . but fun to see anyway. . . (sorry, no pictures. . . although we probably could have requested to have our picture taken with them if we went in and ordered something). . . yeah, so. . .

thursday, we had plans to meet up with nina’s friend, anthony, who is in the navy. . . when we got to the main station, someone informed us that there had been a suicide attempt in the morning which threw all the train schedules off. . . the news of the attempted suicide didn’t surprise me too much but the mans almost casual tone in telling us this did. . . kind of like it was just another day. . .

after a few minutes our train arrived and we were able to make it down to the base at tokyo bay. . . anthony showed us as much as he could on our tour of the base. . .followed by lunch at taco bell and shopping at the base’s walmart type store, which only accepted american money!. . . it’s always so strange to see these mini-americas inside japan. . .

after that taste of home, we went back to tokyo. . . and i went to a dance lesson!!! . . . my instructor recommended a studio called aoyama dancing square where a lot of professional dancers teach. . . i took advanced jazz with YOUYA, who was amazing and amusing. . .BUT. . . the classes are all open (as in anyone can take any day). . . so the day i went there happened to be forty-five students in the class!!! that is a very, very, very large class. . . it is extremely difficult to move with that many bodies crammed into such a small space. . . just one of those experiences that made me thankful to be where i am in kochi with amazing teachers and rarely more than eight students in a class (and sometimes as few as two). . .

to finish the day, i headed back to ikebukuro to meet up with nina and some of her japanese friends from college to do/take puricura. . . they’re really popular picture machines where you pose with your friends and then go absolutely crazy with the decorations (see below). . . they are nice keepsakes but very addictive. . .

to be continued. . . only one more entry about tokyo. . .

東京 (Part 1)

after sitting in the office for a full two weeks of spring break last year, i decided this year’s break would be a good time to travel a bit. . . so. . .nina, the alt at the local high school, and i decided to pay the ￥40,000 for roundtrip tickets on the shinkansen (bullet train) to tokyo. . .one of the major drawbacks of living on shikoku island is that transportation off the island is insanely expensive. . . .it was worth it thought since we managed to hit almost every district of the city in the one week that we were there. . .

after viewing the first cherry blossoms of the season, our first stop was tokyo tower. . . tokyo tower is essentially the eiffel tower in tokyo . . .only it’s orange and white to comply with aviation standards and it’s a full 13 meters taller and 3000 tons lighter than the eiffel tower. . . trivia everyone in japan seems to know . . . weird, right?

anyway, it really was the perfect place to start. . . we went up just before the sun went down and were able to see the entire city by day and night over the course of approximately two hours. . .

after that romantic experience (the tower was packed with couples after dark), we headed out to roppongi to find a club where i could dance salsa . . . after several attempts (including one club with bongs . . . and a number of customers who we decided were quite high), we found a great club with a nice dance floor and two or three experienced dancers to lead me around the floor. . .guess that will have to be enough to last another year or so. . .

day two included. . .
a trip to akihabra, the insanely large electronic district. . . not particularly my thing, but it’s a large part of japanese culture. . .
lunch with a japanese friend from kochi who has been living in tokyo for the year. . . we met a really peaceful neighborhood, where a lot of the foreign diplomats live with their families. . . it felt quite separate from the rest of our time in the city. . .
and, finally, glass blowing. . . all my kochi friends found it amusing that i went to tokyo to blow glass (an activity typically associated with life in the inaka). . .

we made our own wind chimes from start (blowing the glass into a nice sphere) to finish (painting our own designs. . .which I found to be quite stressful). . . I mostly just enjoyed the fact that I understood his instructions when not a word of english was spoken. . . anyway, he let us try once all on our own, which resulted in random bubble-like things. . . and then guided us through our second attempt. . .

here are nina’s attempts. . .

and mine. . .

to be continued . . .

quick update on the situation at work. . .

kagamino junior high school, the large school in tosayamada, wanted me to work there next year as the main/only ALT, but. . .

1) that would mean teaching only junior high school. . . since i am still bitter about losing my preschool kids, there is no way i am about to give up my elementary kids as well. . . they are so adorable!

2) that would also mean that i would never even begin to know my students. . . the junior high has well over 400 students. . . i already have trouble remembering my students’ names in my small schools. . . at a large school, i couldn’t even remember all their faces!

3) finally, my (now former) JTE (japanese teacher of english) asked me to push the board of education to let me stay in kahoku to help train in the new JTE. . . side story: my JTE had been at kahoku junior high for five years, which meant that her time had come to transfer. . . teachers in japan rotate schools every five years on average (which i think is why they find it so easy to continuously change the ALT positions as well). . . anyway. . .

i apparently got what i wanted, which was to stay at my schools in kahoku (elementary and junior high school) and to gain two smaller schools in odochi (again elementary and junior high school). . .now i just hope the other two alts are satisfied with their new positions. . .

also relating to changes at work. . . tsuyoshi was transferred again this year. . . he will now be an elementary school teacher at a teeny-tiny school (18 students grades 1-6) in the middle of the mountains near the dam he likes to fish at. . . the picture is actually of him fishing on his lunch break in a suit (don't worry, the students are still on spring break). . . should be a much more peaceful year for him!

the art of the apology in japan

foreigners in japan tend to make a lot of mistakes . . . which require apologies. . . for those of you who are planning to visit me in japan next year, this should be a good chance to begin your cultural studies. . .

http://www.glumbert.com/media/apology

mother do not read this post!

whoa! kochi made the news . . . international news none the less!

** japan plane in emergency landing **
a japanese plane completes a dramatic emergency landing, sliding along kochi runway on its nose.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6444819.stm
here's the story from the national news. . .
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20070314a2.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070314a4.html

(if you ignored the title and read the post anyway, please note that it made a perfect emergency landing and no one was injured)

まだ？いやだろ！

i’m going to save myself some time . . .

go to stephen's blog (stephen is the alt in the town next to me . . . which is technically part of my town since we all merged last year):
http://www.golly-in-inaka.blogspot.com/
find the post called ‘pissed off’ written on march 8th . . . remove / read past the bad language, and you have our current situation. . . the two of us are not too happy about it. . . especially since we already signed the papers to stay a third year. . .

while you are on his blog, take a look at the cherry blossoms. . . i like the last one with the river and mountains in the background. . .

february showers bring march flowers?

this weather is insane. . . the lady on the radio this morning was talking about the cute cherry blossoms that were already coming out in parts of kochi. . . we never even had winter (aside from a thin layer of snow one morning that melted by noon). . .

guess it is only appropriate that i went to see 'an inconvenient truth' (al gore's documentary on global warming) last weekend. . . i thought he did a pretty good job of presenting the facts on a level that everyone could understand and clearly see what was happening. . .

i didn't actually realize there were so many people out there who still thought this whole thing was a myth. . . and then there are all the people who have the knowledge and can see what is happening but just don't change their ways (i'm guessing we all fall into this category). . .

living in japan has made me more aware of my actions. . . i'm sure i have mentioned how insanely hot the classrooms are in the summer and how insanely cold they are in the winter. . . while i still don't fully agree with making my students suffer like that, i have learned to adjust my clothing before adjusting the thermostat. . .

it is also mandatory that people sort their garbage (and therefore recycle). . . t/th/s are for burnable garbage, every sat for plastics, 1st and 3rd thurs for PET bottles, other days for metals and old appliances. . . the list goes on (i was so confused when i first got to japan that i couldn't throw my garbage out for over a week). . .

i am required to walk or ride my bike to work every day, as are all city employees who live within one kilometer of the office. . . many areas of japan have excellent public transportation (somehow kahoku got left out of that system. . . guess it's too rural??). . .

my house has no dishwasher and no drier (this is common to most houses in japan). . . the dishes are washed by hand and the clothes are hung outside. . . takes a bit more time, but it's the japanese way. . .

so, yeah. . .these people have some good ideas. . . they still have their downfalls (like tons of excess packaging on everything), but they are way ahead of americans. . .

anyway, if you haven't yet, go see 'an inconvenient truth' . . . here's the website: climatecrisis.net . . .

don't just watch it and then forget about it the next morning. . . do something about it. . . oh, and look for the line during the credits that includes 'tell your parents to stop ruining the world you live in' as one of the solutions (i found that to be rather amusing wording) . . .　じゃね