Saturday, November 1st

You know that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and the air around you feels frozen, it’s completely silent outside despite the howling wind from last night, and you’re absolutely certain that when you look out your window you will see everything covered in fresh-fallen snow?  Yup, that’s how I felt this morning, only when I looked outside, instead of white I saw brilliant red and yellow and green and brown colored leafs.  For the first time in a long time the sun showed its face and is predicted to actually stay out all day long.  Another first in a long time was being able to sleep in without an action-packed day ahead of me – well at least until the Halloween Party tonight.  The cold weather and the rain and the non-stop life that I’ve been living, and my sick students and colleagues finally got to me, and I desperately needed this morning and afternoon to rest, relax, and catch up!!

Happy Halloween (Friday, October 31, 2008)

Happy Halloween!!  Halloween doesn’t really exist here beyond the cute little pumpkin and witch decorations in 100-yen shops and candy stores.  In fact, I’ve come to learn that most people think that a Jack-O-Lantern is Halloween…???  (show them a picture of a carved pumpkin and they say ‘Halloween’ or ask them what Halloween is and they say ‘pumpkin!!!’ or ‘kabocha!!!’ which means pumpkin)  I guess that’s understandable since it’s not a nation-wide understood holiday, which really becomes more intriguing and fantastic to and insider living on the outside.  I mean wow, everyone in the US just knows to buy candy and be at home to give it out on Halloween!!  I mean, WOW, that’s marvelous, right!?!?  Sorry, I jut had a moment. 

Anyways, to make Halloween feel a little more like Halloween to me, I decided to plan out all Halloween lessons…(wow, that’s a lot of Halloweens in one sentence, which makes 4 – happy Halloween!! – 5, haha).  Luckily I was at an elementary school that gives me complete control over the lesson plans and what I teach the children…muhahahaha!!  Thank goodness for the Halloween pictures of a ghost, mummy, scarecrow, etc that Hiki-sensei gave me.  With those, we learned the words, colored, and made pop-out ‘Happy Halloween’ cards.  With the older kids, we played had Halloween Olympics.  The games consisted of mega-karuta (racing up to the board and slamming the card I called out), charades (haha, how do you act out a haunted house??), pictionary, and super janken (or super paper-scissors-rock: teams start out at opposite ends of a line of Halloween cards, say the names of the cards until they reach the same one where they have to paper-scissors-rock.  The winner gets to move on, and the looser must go to the end of their line, and the next person from their team begins from the beginning until they meet with opponent.  Points are awarded when a member from a team reaches the other end.)  They went totally crazy, which made me totally smiley.  

That night, I was planning on taking it easy so that I would feel better for the Halloween party in Niigata tomorrow night (oh yeah, I’ve been miserably sick all week long).  I kind of sort or made plans to go karaoke-ing with some teachers from my middle school, but with no one’s phone numbers, and not really sure if they had mine, I was questionable about how the night turned out.   But then bam, I got a phone call, and I went karaoke-ing with two other teachers and it was fantastic fun!!  Well actually it was fantastic fun with them because they have phenomenal voices and got really into the songs they chose to sing – one teacher even did a crazy dance with a fan!!  Me, on the other hand, on top of not being able to sing in the first place, had a scratchy voice, a plugged up nose, and stuffed up ears – that’s all I’m going to say.  Haha…all you can do is laugh, right?

Sadogashima (Sunday, October 26, 2008)

Sado-ga-shima, or Sado-the-island is a spectacular place that just has a different feel than the rest of Japan.  I’m not sure exactly what it is; maybe it’s the laid-back feel of a small town, perhaps the influence of the Brazilian-hippie culture, or just the fact that it’s an island; that makes it so great. 

I took the last ferry from Niigata to Ryoetsu, where Courtney picked me up in her outdated and over-heated car.  We almost immediately went to meet up with Josh, Jamie, and Wayne for a couple free drinks (some dude gave Josh one maan (roughly $100, well probably more with today’s economy) and karaoke.  Courtney was right about the wind howling at her apartment windows at night.  Her place is located near a coast, and boy oh boy was it blasting!!

Saturday: after some of the most delicious ramen at Daimaru, we drove up the Aikawa coast to take in some spectacular views of the sea, and then headed to Ogi area to be in the magnificent mountains.  We met up with the other ALTs of the island: Jessica, Susan, Matt, Josh, Jamie, Wayne, Sveta, Katie, and Yuuki (Sado man), for some cabin-in-the-mountain fun and dinner.  Dinner consisted of the usual medley of various delicious Japanese foods.  First came the salad, followed by the egg pudding, vegetables, potato fries, sausages, pasta, soup, pasta, onigiri, and kaki.  Needless to say, I found myself uncomfortably stuffed for the billionth time since arriving in Japan.  The cabin was a very tall structure that lacked warmth and running water.  A fire was made in the stove, and we spent the evening playing games, eating Japanese snacks, and drinking hot cocoa and then some.  Just when it was time for bed, we discovered hundreds of bugs in the futons and bedroom, so ended up all sleeping in the common area (and me with my ears covered to avoid any bugs crawling in). 

Sunday: most everyone had to be up early due to Bunkasais and whatnot, so got up, packed up, cleaned up, and drove back down the mountain.  Courtney had a few Bunkasais of her own to attend to, so in the mean time, I went to a Capoeira class which was AWESOME!!!  We danced and kicked jumped to the beat of a berimbau (bow and arrow-like steal string instrument), panderios (tambourine), and atabasque (bongo-like drum).  The ferry ride back was bouncy, and slightly entertaining with the live jazz cover band.  

Some more pictures from Jessica Saiki:

Iwafune Matusuri (Sunday, October 19, 2008)

Before the matsuri, I wanted to visit one of my elementary school’s bunkasai.  Each room displayed the students’ various artwork.  There were paintings, calligraphy, pottery, woodwork, sewn projects, books, and more.  While walking from room to room and viewing this fantastic work, I can honestly say that I was impressed and inspired by all of the creativity!!

After the bunkasai, I had exactly an hour and 15 minutes to kill before meeting people in Iwafune, so I decided to get a pretty fall-view of Oshiro-yama (the mini-mountain in my backward).  Oooo it was so pretty, yes it was!!

I think the Iwafune Matsuri marks the end of the Matsuris for the year, and it was a big one!!  It was a two-day celebration that went from 4am to 3am on both Saturday and Sunday.  Instead of having to deal with parking and since it was such a beautiful autumn day, I decided to basket-bike it there (I teach at a school in Iwafune, and it’s one of the places I was taxied to and now drive to).  There, I met up with Jess and Flo and a trio of Flo’s high school students.  With them as our matsuri guides, we walked around to see some of the oshagiris, and were introduced to one of the girls’ family.  This led to an invitation to eat lots of sushi and beer later on that evening, and also a more immediate invitation to go to some upstairs house to eat and drink with some tattooed locals.  After an hour or so there, we left to see some more of the crazy oshagiri parades.  In the middle of that, Jess decided that he was chilly, so stopped into a ma and pa clothing store at which he received a free yukata from a nice old woman.  We then headed over to the house that we were invited to earlier that day.  When we got there, we were shuffled into our own little room with three massive plates of sushi and other Japanese deliciousness.  The ol’ man then came into talk to us and saw that Jess was wearing this yukata, and ridiculed him for a good while about that which was…awkward.  When we were completely stuffed and exhausted, we left and Katrina, Flo, and Jess headed home.  I stuck around and met up with Hannah and her crew for a walk through the Iwafune shrine, which was absolutely striking with the lantern lights in the darkness of the night.  When they headed home, I met up with some of my students and walked around the matsuri stands with them.  After a banana-chocolate-crepe, I headed back to my basket bike and called it a night.  The whole day and night was just a fantastic bizarre chain events that left me saying to myself: ‘oh Japan.’

Bunkasai & Nomikai (Saturday, October 18, 2008)

It’s Bunkasai season!!  Schools all around Japan are going crazy with preparing for and carrying them out, and yet I had no idea what they are until mine was going on.  Bunkasai means Art or Culture Festival.  In the weeks leading up to a school’s bunkasai, middle school and elementary school students paint, build, cut, paste, and sing in preparation for the grand event.  It always happens on a weekend, there might be an assembly to open the day, and then the school is open to the public as it displays that students’ work.  At my middle school, the art viewing was followed by culture classes for the students.  Naturally, I was to create an English-conversation class.  The teacher who I put it on with suggested that I do something Halloween.  So with Halloween as the theme, lots and lots of candy, and various games in English, our class ended up being a huge success!!  Some of the other teachers even commented on hearing about how much fun the students said it was!!  Woot!!  After that, the entire school was bussed to a concert hall where each class took turns getting up on stage and singing a song.  I was told to sit with a 3^rd grade class where I had a little too much fun joking around with the boys around me.  ¾ of the way through, I realized that this was a huge singing competition among the classes.  Apparently the head teachers vote on which class did the best job, and the students want more than anything to win it all.  I was so shocked and confused when they announced the winners and all of the girls started crying.  Some were crying with joy because they had just won, and others were crying because they couldn’t believe that they had just lost. 

After that was all done with, the teachers arranged for a nomi-kai, or an eating and drinking party.  When I got there, I found out that this was also going to double as another new teacher and my (from July) welcome party.  The set up was two long rows of 10 places facing each other, and then 3 places in the middle and at the so-called ‘head of the table.’  Since no one wanted to sit at the center of attention and be farther removed from the rest of the group, they made me and the other new guy sit there with another teacher who got forced into the most unwanted spots.  As soon as the ‘kampai’ or ‘cheers’ was said, instead of eating, some of the teachers got up and started moving around the inside of this rectangle, talking to other teachers while pouring more and more beer into their tiny beer cups.  It’s Japanese custom to never pour for yourself.  It was explained to be that in order to make things like this more social, you always pour for others, and expect them to in turn pour for you.  The thing is though, that no one waits for you to be done with your drink.  Even if your cup is still 9/10 full, they will insist on filling that 1/10 of space, and you feel obligated to drink what they had just poured or to make room so that they can pour some more.  Needless to say, these guys were getting pretty bright red, and loud.  People who never talk to me or even acknowledge that I exit in school were becoming my best friend.  The principle even came up to me and expressed his most sincere gratitude for me being there to teach and interact with the students.  He couldn’t thank me enough, and I really can’t remember when the last time (if ever) he so much as even said ‘hello’ to me in school.  All in all this enkai was a blast, and I learned a lot about my colleagues that alcohol would not have given me the opportunity to find out.  After our 2 hours of all you can drink was up, a smaller group invited me out to the ‘nijikai’ or round 2 party.  There we ate more, and drank more, and some people left all wobbly on their feet.  One of the teachers let me ride in her taxi back to my apartment, which was nice.  This was a great night, and immediately afterwards, I was so excited that I had made so many new friends, and that everyone would be more social with me the next time I saw them at work.  Well, I’m writing about this event weeks later and I can say that nope, nothing’s change and I guess the unwritten rule is true: what happens at an enkai stays at an enkai.  

Sasagawanagare Sunset (Wednesday, October 15, 2008)

Wednesday is one of the free evenings (for now) that I have during the week.  The drizzly weather brought some pretty picturesque clouds, and since I’ve been craving a trip to Sasagawanagare beach, and now have a car, why not??  

Sunday, October 5, 2008: All Japan ALT Soccer Tournament

This post belongs further down... but it's up here... :~)

Right now I feel like I’ve just run ¾ of a marathon.  My legs and body ache but I can still do stairs, which is why I say ¾.  This past weekend was the All Japan ALT Soccer Tournament, held in the mountains of Sugadaira, Nagano.  There were 16 Men’s teams and 9 Women’s teams that showed up from all over Japan.  Niigata represented with a strong men’s team and a total beginner woman’s team (except for the pro, Courtney).  The group I carpooled with, Janelle, Yolanda, Laura, and Lauren stayed in Joetsu with Sam on Friday night and then continued the journey to the BEAUTIFUL Mountains of Nagano on Saturday morning. 

Courtney and Janelle attempted to give us the basic rules and points we needed to know about playing ‘football,’ like don’t use your hands, how to throw a ball in, and offside rules.  We were scheduled to play 4 games and referee 2 on Saturday to make the seeding for Sunday.  I’ve decided that refereeing is the worst possible job on the face of this earth, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing but I fell in LOOOVVEEE soccer!!!  Seeing as our first game was also our first time playing together, we weren’t too beat up loosing 0-7.  Many of the participants come from countries like Britain, Ireland, and Australia yelling and cussing using funny ‘football’ words that we were just like ‘huh…???’  The second game we lost by less and were ecstatic with how much we had improved.  We actually scored in the third game and ended with a TIE, and couldn’t be happier.  Then we found out that our final game of the day was against one of the strongest teams.  We rocked the first half, holding them only to a couple goals and then all but gave up second half.  We were SOO exhausted and looking forward to the onsen, fancy hotel meal, and party that night!!  One of the onsen tubs was outside in the cold, which made the hot water feel sooo relaxing.  The party was SO much fun, dancing and meeting people from ALL over!!  Not only from Japan, the US, Britain, Ireland, Australia, but also Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and on and on!!

Everyone was hobbling the on Sunday from the previous day’s events, but up and ready for the next round of games.  Niigata girls were seeded 8^th, and only played at 83%.  We ended up tying in the sudden death tournament, which meant that the game would be decided with a shoot out and darn it, we lost (which meant we were done running around on super sore legs and could sit and relax and watch the boys play in the middle of beautiful mountains for the rest of the day J).  The boys were SPECTACULAR and wound up placing 3^rd overall.  GREAT tiring but FANTASTIC weekend, and I can’t wait until the next tournament in June!!!