ahhh... address card mistake!

I JUST realized that the address cards I handed out at my BBQ in July might have the wrong postal code... ugh.

The correct code for my apartment is 376-0007 (I think it may be short a zero on the little contact cards...)

Forgive me for being an awful proofreader...

weekend update

This was definitely an action packed weekend, spent in three cities over two days. Following is a super concise overview and a handful of pictures...

Saturday morning I finished cleaning my apartment, ran some errands and started getting an overnight bag ready. Around this time a local JET-friend of mine arrived in Kiryu to shop for traditional sandals to wear with his yukata, grab lunch and catch a train to Isesaki by 5:30. We somehow managed to do everything exactly as planned, with the added bonus of running into another JET on the train. Arriving in Isesaki around 6, we hung around the station and waited for another friend to arrive on a train out of Tokyo. By 6:30 we were getting changed into our traditional clothes and waiting for our cab in the RAIN! The rain was a huge bummer since our destination for the evening was a big ol' fireworks display, with over 30,000 fireworks scheduled to run for an hour and a half...it would be much less fun in a downpour. The good news is, the rain gods were on our side and the rain stopped only seconds before we got out of the cab and held out for the entire show! From there, we went with our group to a "Tex-Mex" themed restaurant that had...2 plates that could even pass for bad Mexican food. The minute that we stepped out of the restaurant and into a cab the skies opened up again (but at least we weren't walking in it!) We missed the last train to another nearby city, Maebashi, where a group of JETs were meeting at a yukata-themed party. Luckily we could catch a ride and still made it to the party a few hours before it was over. Crashed at a friend's place, woke up to toast, warm showers and the promise of a yummy lunch and shopping a bit.

I got back into Kiryu just in time to enjoy a little impromptu dinner party being thrown by some Kiryu JETs... a perfect end to the weekend!


some of the Isesaki hanabi (fireworks) and a fraction of the people that were littered all over the city to see the show
ahem... doesn't the name "Too Cute" just scream 'tex-mex' to you? ...me neither.
this crazy place is a HUGE pachinko parlor, boasting a three-story parking garage ...the fascination with pachinko is something that I never expect to understand...
I included my dinner from Tuesday night for the people who've expressed concern over my eating too much tofu or stir-fry type veggies, wondering whether or not I still eat 'real meat'... and I do! This is steak and some peppers, with some 'chip' style potatoes...yum. (I realized after taking this picture that there were no greens, so I tried to make up for it by eating a banana and taking a vitamin)

School starts this week with opening ceremonies on Thursday. I'll be giving a brief introduction speech, in both English and Japanese, during the event. The students are all welcomed back by a few days of testing, so classes won't start until next week... but I'm excited to meet some of the students and spend time with the teachers that I'll be working with. More to come on that as the week goes on... wish me luck!

English Room Project.. please help!! (especially with postcards)

As the title of this post suggests, I am starting to gather materials to decorate a room in one of my junior highs. This “English Room” will be my space to decorate and use as I wish, with the goal of encouraging international interest in my students through exposure to different cultures. So…although the materials that I am hoping to collect are not explicitly academic in nature, they are things that I think my students would be interested in and maybe that interest will motivate their study of English, or lead to the formation of goals to travel or study abroad.

These ‘things’ that I want to decorate my room with are everyday items that would be commonplace in American homes and represent the interests of American teenagers. Naturally, these things are impossible to find in Japan. I am writing this post in the hopes that people from home would be willing to send me an envelope of flat, lightweight representations of pop culture found around their home. Please do not think of this as running out to the store and buying lots of souvenirs, my ideal items are:

--Posters (athletes, sports teams, singers/bands, movies, tv shows, maps, local events)
--the pictures from old calendars
--old g-rated magazines (Sports Illustrated, ESPN, teen People, teen vogue, Entertainment Weekly, TIME, even Highlights magazine)
--felt pennants (colleges, sports teams)

I am also interested in children’s books and late elementary school-level chapter books. However, like magazines, books get heavy quickly; so if you think that you are willing to send things like this, please get in touch with me first…there may be a way to gather them all and send them by one of the cheaper book-rate postage rates.

Like I said, flat, lightweight things are the best for me to hang, and cheapest for you to ship…and used magazines/posters/calendars are perfect, I’m not looking for anything new.

If you’re interested, I put the postage-rate information for sending ENVELOPES (its considerably cheaper than sending a 'parcel') to Japan at the bottom of the post.

Finally, and most importantly, I am also collecting postcards from everyone who will send them. This seems like the most interesting way to collect pictures from around the US and abroad, and postage to Japan is only $0.70!! My goal is to use them as wallpaper in my English Room, so if you don’t want to send anything else, please please please send me postcards!!

I’m sorry to be a pest, begging for packages only a month after arriving in Japan, but I think that this is one of the most hands-on ways for me to expose my students to English and I’d like to give it my best shot. If you have any questions, or would prefer to ship to my apartment, please email me… Thank you so much for helping!

Send to:
Kristine Tyson c/o Mr. Iizumi
Board of Education
Gunma-ken Kiryu-shi Orihime-cho 1-1
376-8501
JAPAN

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USPS Airmail to Japan
(price by weight in ounces)
1 $0.80
2 1.70
3 2.60
4 3.50
5 4.40
6 5.30
7 6.20
8 7.10
12 8.40
16 9.70
20 11.00
24 12.30
28 13.60
32 14.90
36 16.25
40 17.60
44 18.95
48 20.30
52 21.70
56 23.10
60 24.50
64 25.90

USPS Economy Mail to Japan - Envelopes
(price by weight in ounces)
16 $4.05
20 4.70
24 5.35
28 6.00
32 6.65
36 7.25
40 7.85
44 8.45
48 9.05
52 9.65
56 10.25
60 10.85
64 11.45

Cheaper International Mail Options
Regular M-Bags
Weight Not Over 11 lbs. $16.50
Each additional pound or fraction of a pound $1.50
Allowable Contents:
--Printed Matter
(Printed matter is admissible in M-bags. Printed matter is defined as paper on which words, letters, characters, figures, images, or any combination thereof, not having the character of a bill or statement of account, or of actual or personal correspondence, have been reproduced by any process other than handwriting or typewriting. Articles that meet the printed matter definition include newspapers, magazines, journals, books, sheet music, catalogues, directories, commercial advertising, and promotional matter.)
--Merchandise
(Articles of merchandise may be enclosed in M-bags, provided that all of the following conditions of mailing are met:
a. The merchandise items being sent are limited to disks, tapes, and cassettes; commercial samples shipped by manufacturers and distributors; or other non-dutiable commercial articles or informational materials that are not subject to resale.
b. The merchandise items relate to the printed matter (see 261.21) with which they are being mailed.
c. The merchandise items are affixed to or are otherwise combined with the accompanying printed matter.
d. The weight of each mailpiece or package, which contains merchandise in combination with printed matter, may not exceed 4 pounds.
e. The M-bag must be accompanied by a fully completed PS Form 2976, Customs - CN 22 (Old C1) and Sender's Declaration, which is to be affixed to PS Tag 158, M-bag Addressee Tag.)

Books & Sheet Music, Publisher's Periodicals
Weight Not Over 11 lbs. $11.00
Each additional pound or fraction of a pound $1.00

Tokyo Pictures

my ticket to Tokyo
at the 57th JASC Forum at the America Center in Tokyomore pictures of Shinjuku at night
the snack aisle in any conbini (convenience store)
a friend of mine told me that his Japanese Jr. High School students thought that McDonald's was a Japanese chain...haha, ethnocentrism at its finest
the entry-way to one of the flea-market-style alleyways in Asakusa, Tokyo
another little strip of shops in Asakusa--the shops down each of these walkways range from fine leather goods to kimono, from Hello Kitty charms to rice cracker shops, right back to Japan's version of a $1 store
all of the people who look at me like I'm crazy everytime I talk about Monchichi Monkeys had me half convinced I'd made them up, but this is proof that they exist!this particular shop had several windows like this, FULL of sembe (rice crackers)...yum a bit of scenery from the trainride home to Kiryu
man...this picture exhibits the two things that Japan has in mass quantity--rice paddies and pachinko parlors
my train car
Shin-Kiryu Station, where my Tokyo trip begins and endson the bikeride home I had to stop and take pictures along the way...this is the Watarase River that runs through Kiryu
the road to Kiryu

more to come..

I went into Tokyo this weekend for a short JASC adventure and didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have, but what I did take will be posted tomorrow. It's nearly 1am here and I'm absolutely exhausted, so I'm heading off to bed with the promise of a real post sometime soon!

bowling

We have Japanese lessons every afternoon this week at city hall, which is good news for two main reasons: 1- it breaks up my afternoon and the day flies by, and 2- the ALTs from nearby towns are coming in as well, so I get to see some of my newbie buddies for a few hours everyday. There are almost as many teachers as students, so I've been getting a private tutor who asks me what I want to practice and designs our two hour lesson around my requests--I couldn't ask for anything better. Anyway.. it poured like crazy today, drenching me on my way back from lunch, but by the time our Japanese class was over it had started to clear up a bit and the remaining clouds were very low and fast moving (like the top of Mt. Akagi this weekend). I decided it was as good a time as any to take some pictures of Kiryu, so I went to the top floor balcony and took some shots. Better pictures may come on a day when there is more visibility...its amazing to me how much the mountains overlap and seem to roll on forever. I think this pic captures Kiryu pretty well... a city of about 130,000 people, tucked into a beautiful mountain valley

I went to dinner with some friends to a sit down, quick service restaurant (like a Friendly's or something)--I had a burger and fries for less than $5, not bad either. After that we met up with a few other people and went to Kiryu's bowling alley "Starlanes." As you might expect, bowling is pretty much the same no matter where you are in the world...but being in Japan, there were a few slight differences:
--newer, cleaner shoes (they come from a dispensing machine where you push a button for your shoe size and they just pop out, no leave-behind-shoe required...when you're done, snap them together and put them through a swinging door like a McDonald's garbage can...no additional fee either)
--new, brightly colored bowling balls (without names like "Thunderbolt," "Timmy Joe Bob," and "Patty Mae" so frequently found on bowling alley balls in America)
--cute cartoon mascots (this is Japan, after all...)

Finally.. I've received a lot of emails and IMs about yesterday's earthquake in Northern Japan. We did feel some tremors here in Kiryu, but they weren't severe and there was no damage in the area at all. Thank you for thinking of me though!

train trip...

This was my first "quiet weekend" since coming to Japan...quiet, but not boring. Friday night I ate dinner at a friends house, watched some movies. Saturday I explored Kiryu a bit, found a UNI QLO with $4 tank tops and accepted a fellow ALT's invitation to dinner at a friend's house. The two of us and a Japanese university student that we hang out with were picked up and brought to the house of a young Japanese couple for 5 hours of amazing food and great company. They are extremely sweet people and I feel lucky to have met a family like theirs so early in my stay here. At the end of the night, we exchanged numbers and made plans to have an Okinawan-style BBQ next month...I'm already excited! Sunday was clear, so I followed up on my plans to day-trip with some JETs who live nearby. I took the most rickety train I've ever seen to the station in Kurohone. The train ran along the bottom of Mt. Akagi, through the valleys, with some of the most beautiful views I've seen so far in Gunma. We got..err...a bit...lost on our way up, finding ourselves at a dead end with nothing but an onsen (hot water spring/bath-house) So we turned around and drove halfway back down the mountain, then back up again...but it was SO worth it. There are two lakes and a little temple at the top of the mountain and when we got there everything was shrouded with this fast moving haze, it was so beautiful. Its great to have fun travel buddies nearby, there's so much of Japan that I want to see!

this picture does nothing to impart just how antique this train really is
scenery from the train
more of the Gunma countryside
the lake at the top of Mt. Akagi
this building in the temple courtyard looked like it was built and lacquered VERY recently...not very authentic, but interesting nonetheless
the temple gate
wash your hands and mouth at the dragon before approaching the temple
the temple
these koi were SO big! some of them were over two feet long and there were a million of them
...a million!
this is a little bridge that runs across the body of water separating the fish pond from the big lake
beautiful.

Maebashi orientation

I just got back from a three-day Gunma JET Orientation in our prefectural capital, Maebashi City. Even though there was a lot of boring logistical stuff to get through, there was also plenty of re-networking with the folks from my Tokyo Orientation and meeting the group that came through Tokyo the week after I did. The JETs who've been running all of our orientation events are a ton of fun and provide a lot of reassurance that life in Gunma is something to be excited about. We got information about travel, skiing, buying cleaning products from the supermarket, joining volunteerism groups, finding a karate class, car insurance...everything you could possibly need to know. I'm thinking about getting involved with the Gunma Habitat for Humanity group...the trip would eat about half of my yearly leave, but it seems well worth it. Last year's group went to the Philippines and the rumor is that this year's trip will also be somewhere in south Asia. What an amazing opportunity to combine travel and community service. And when else will I have the chance to island hop my way around Asia? I'm also going to get involved with the Gunma JETs women's soccer team. Since we're scattered all over the prefecture, we'll only have a few practices before the National JET tourney held in Nagano (I think) sometime in October. Once again, it seems like a great way to meet new people and see a bit more of Japan. Finally, I met a shiatsu massage sensei whose real job is teaching high school, so he looks at his shiatsu classes as more of a hobby. He's generously offered to travel around the prefecture, meeting with any JETs who can round up two or more people in their area for a free lesson once or twice a month. Amazing. I've heard that community service isn't nearly as common in Japan as it is in America, and while I would agree that volunteerism organizations and structured projects seem harder to find, people all over the place have been offering to share their knowledge and talents with me on their own time, for free! And I'm not the only person receiving this kind of generosity...it may be premature to make judgments like this, but I'm starting to think that community service, like so many other things, may simply have a different cultural meaning. There are a group of new guys in my area who seem interested, so I may jump in on their group and learn some healing through the body's natural pressure points.

I'm looking forward to a quieter weekend--sleeping late, reading, and exploring the Kiryu area a bit more. The weather isn't promising, but I'm hopeful that we'll get a clear day either Saturday or Sunday...maybe both! (rain and thunderstorms on and off for days, which is why I don't have any pictures from Maebashi...taking my camera out was too much of a risk)

Some older pictures... just for fun:

This is a t-shirt that I bought during Maebashi orientation, it follows the I (heart) NY format, but uses a semi-heart shaped cabbage instead...I'm told that Gunma is famous for its cabbage production and recent JETs have decided that it makes a catchy/funny slogan.

here's my bike! ...isn't is awesome?
This is a hand dyed wall hanging that I bought in a very traditional kimono shop in Takasaki...the goldfish are a frequently used image representing summertime (I think the idea of swimming around in water is supposed to be refreshing or something) I just think its cute, easily my favorite summer symbol.

haha... these are the best. This is a toilet paper holder, it dresses up your toilet paper a bit and also holds a spare roll underneath. Most people don't buy them in this lovely pink bear fashion, but I think they're too funny to take seriously.

These pictures are dark and stinky, but they're the only ones I have right now of my bedroom and livingroom (taken from the perspective of standing in the kitchen doors, looking in)

Those sheets were on my brother's bed when he was in elementary school...they were the only single bedsheets I could find in my packing panic, I also think they're funny.

This ice cream sandwich type treat makes my dad very "natsukashi" (nostalgic). They're called "monaka," and are basically vanilla ice cream in a vanilla wafer shell...yummy
This is the Rainen Jinja (jinja=temple)...I stumbled on it one day walking home and decided to wander around and take pictures. As temples go, its pretty small, and the older, larger temple in town is more interesting to look at (the woodcarving on the inside and outside is so intricate and beautiful) but I think this one has a lot of character. I love little pieces of another time, like this temple, that get shoved between concrete buildings on a busy street in Japan.

Slight tangent: last weekend, on the last night of the matsuri, a Japanese couple we'd been hanging out with invited us to come to the largely unattended closing of the festival. What this ceremony amounted to was a gathering of the leaders, formal and informal, of every community in Kiryu. They would approach the designated point, one neighborhood at a time, wearing the same yukata and carrying lanterns. It was very quiet and quite beautiful. Afterwards we walked a little bit further down the street to see a building that was built during Japan's Edo period!! The Edo period was from 1600-1867 and we were told that the building was well over 300 years old...absolutely amazing. I complemented the woman running the little shop on her beautiful kimono and she told me that it was over 100 years old, !!! again. I love how Japanese culture and art history aren't just remembered in textbooks and celebrated in museums, there are little elements of it everywhere, incorporated into everyday life rather than set behind glass to be admired from afar.

as promised...

What an amazing weekend. I'm so glad that this festival didn't take place until after my arrival in Japan -- I can see it easily becoming something to look forward to every summer that I'm in Kiryu. As planned, I saw some friends from Tokyo this weekend as well, which really put the icing on the cake for me.

Okay, enough of this. I'll let the pictures tell the story... there are a million of them, enjoy!

(oh..there's no particular sequence...I lost patience with the program I use to import the images to my blog so these pictures are completely random. sorry! hopefully the captions will suffice...)

"a true American tradition" haha, who knew?

this may not excite you, but to me, it was Christmas...skim milk in Japan! I've found the impossible!!

the stage for a Yagibushi singing contest...the finals from the competition I attended Friday afternoon

the Yagibushi band/singers' stage at the main intersection of the festival...there was a smaller version of this every block or so playing non-stop music from at least 7-10 every night, the crowd of people are all dancing

I couldn't get over how cute the little girls were in their yukata...mostly a combination of red, yellow and hot pink

haha...I love Japan for tshirts like this

my cell phone!

a local dance troupe in Sundays "Jumbo Parade"

teenaged girls walking the street barefoot, shoes in the plastic bag... I walked behind them a bit and realized they had been wearing the wooden platform shoes (geta) traditionally worn with yukata...very flat, very wooden, very blister inducing. (one of my favorite things about this weekend was seeing the young people out of their school uniforms and wearing their own style clothing. There was a lot of casual stuff similar to America, but I hear that there were a lot more teenagers in yukata this summer than in recent memory...the best were the girls wearing a super cute yukata, obi tied in a traditional knot, and untied converse all-star hightops...fantastic stuff)

the "mikoshi," a super heavy temple-type float that gets carried down the parade route by a group of hardworking people...usually the close of the parade

this is my Sunday yukata...I had no one to help me get dressed, so I took my obi off very carefully Saturday night and practiced re-tying it so that I could do it all by myself Sunday morning (and did a darn good job if I say so myself, little grandmas everywhere were impressed with my results!)

one of the dueling dragons in the parade..this one was host to a handful of my friends who are here teaching English with JET and other private programs. They had to run around in a big circle every block or so...it looked exhausting

more parade dancers...

a drum troupe performing in the parade

random float carrying a little Yagibushi band in Sunday's parade

the ribbons being worn by these men signify their positions in the local government...important folk (despite the silly pink pompom on their hats)

my friend Eri and I outside a restaurant where we ended the night on Saturday..Eri's mom and grandma came over to dress me in my yukata that night (this is my favorite one!)

a closer shot of one of the Yagibushi stages that I mentioned earlier...you can see a bit more of the band in this shot

the first performer in the Yagibushi singing concert that I attended on Friday afternoon at the City Performing Arts Center

one of my fellow JETs and I (in my Friday yukata) at the restaurant where my office welcoming party was held


from the time they started to put them up last week, these lanterns have been one of my favorite matsuri aesthetics

it doesn't look amazing, but this is the very first meal that I made for myself with all Japanese ingredients and I was quite proud (people take pictures of their food ALL the time here, so its not as weird as it may seem...)

this is the "hapi" coat provided for me by City Hall in the event that I didn't wear yukata...many groups, neighborhoods and companies have a hapi coat that everyone from their organization wears at the festival events

Friday after work we stumbled on the kindergarten parade, where all of the kindergartens were marching around with their little hats, hapi coats and mikoshi...too cute for words

some of the decorations lining the main street in Kiryu

one of the cuter things I saw all weekend...this group of moms and small children were all dressed in traditional clothing, sharing shaved ices and just being adorable (shaved ice is basically a snow cone, only smarter because its always in a plastic cup and never in a leaky paper cone)

a section of the first floor of a 3-4 story bicycle parking garage next to the Kiryu train station...its huge and completely full
one of the signs near my apartment advertising for the festival... the amazing thing about all of these decorations is that they went up gradually over the course of last week, but when I rode my bike to work this morning there wasn't even a hint that signs like this were posted, that lanterns had lined a mile of city streets or that dozens of vendors had sold food on the streets for three days...

Kiryu Yagibushi Matsuri

Today is the official start of Kiryu's annual summer festival, the Yagibushi Matsuri ('yagibushi' is a type of dance and 'matsuri' is the Japanese word for 'festival'). Throughout the week we've watched the city put on its fanciest outfit, getting all dolled up for a weekend of parades, music, dancing, street fairs and yummy food vendors. I have a yukata for each day of the festival and have secured someone to bind me up each morning... today I just wandered into one of the offices in city hall with the most women and asked if someone would help me put on yukata for the festival. (They went totally crazy, I haven't seen people so excited in ages. There must have been four people fussing over the length of my yukata, the size of my obi knot, how I should wear my hair and trying to find me a fan to tuck in the top my obi...so much fun. People everywhere are amazed to see foreigners wearing such traditional Japanese clothes, but they all have something sweet to say about it.) I spent most of the morning and early afternoon watching a traditional contest of solo performances that fall somewhere between singing and chanting, and am hoping to catch some dance later in the day. Tonight is my 'enkai' (welcoming party) with the City Hall Board of Education staff at a local sushi restaurant, followed by as much matsuri as I can fit into the next few days.

I know I'm already behind on pictures, and this weekend is going to produce a million more, so I'll promise to do my best to get them posted as soon as possible. There's a pretty good chance my internet will be installed by Monday morning EST... so maybe I'll put together a big weeklong photo journal to celebrate!

m&m's and other important things...

just a quick note since I'm using the computers in city hall and can't post any new pictures (I'll try to get some up tomorrow though)

Things have been going well since the weekend. Some thoughts/highlights:
-excellent Indian curry lunch on Sunday afternoon
-I finally have a bike! I'm borrowing a 'mama-chan' bike (think scary old lady from the Wizard of Oz...plain grey, bent handlebars and a big ol' basket) from a friend until I decide which type I want to buy. It definitely isn't a cool looking vehicle, but its very practical and popular across age groups in Japan...and I think I kind of like having a basket...
-I went into the nearby city of Takasaki to get my re-entry permit so that I can get back into Japan should I leave anytime during my contract. I was actually a bit surprised at how easy it was to get to the neighboring cities by train and had a good time wandering around the city with friends.
-I bought yukata!! ...2 actually. Yukata are lightweight cotton cousins of kimono worn in the summer, especially to festivals like the one we're having in Kiryu this weekend. I've decided not to post any pictures of the yukata on their own, so you'll have to wait for festival pictures with me actually wearing them...so excited!
-Kaitenzushi (conveyorbelt sushi) for dinner last night, always good times.
-and from the title of this post...I just went to the cafeteria to buy a bag of peanut m&m's and to my complete surprise, there are pink m&m's in place of the green that we get in America! ..blew my mind.