Kris in Japan

花見... again!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:08:00 +0000

I realize that it's taken me a year to get around to updating, but now that I'm writing again, I hope there's still someone around checking this thing!

To try and lure you back in, I'll tell an anecdote about my day-to-day life in Japan:
While eating dinner, I was watching one of the weekly variety shows on basic cable. In Japan, it's not uncommon for variety shows to feature a little box in the upper left-hand corner streaming the reactions of celebrities who are watching the same variety show -- somehow this is exciting/entertaining. Anyway, this particular show was hosted by two members of a popular boy band and featured about 6 high school guys, dressed in drag, walking around backstage at a famous Tokyo fashion show. These 6 guys were chosen from over 2,000 students who auditioned and were being paraded around the backstage area meeting (and shocking) all of the show's most famous models. At the end of the show, they get to walk the runway at the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show to shouts of "oh my god, they're SO cute!" from the audience. The end. This was an hour-long show from 8-9pm on a Tuesday night, only in Japan.

I've just seen the end of my third cherry blossom season here in Japan, this time seeing the best sakura in Inokashira Park. The sakura opened 6 days ahead of schedule this year, throwing Tokyo into a panic because many well planned hanami parties would be taking place a week too late. In addition to that, we had a streak of rain that took some of the fun out of trying to enjoy the blossoms, but I still managed to take some good pictures:

Other than that, not too much to report. A quick run through of the past 12 months -- traveled around the Kansai area, finally went to Nikko, matsuri-ed through the summer, finished up my 2 years as an ALT, moved to Tokyo, started a new job, have been to Hong Kong twice -- once for shopping, once through work, made my way through Hakone and Kyoto during a long weekend, stayed in Japan for my first traditional New Years experience, bought a Wii, got over the whole Wii-thing, went home to America for a week or so in March and have been enjoying the last few weeks of spring!

Hong Kong

Aquarium in Hakone

Hong Kong

I'll try and update again sometime soon. In the meantime, please leave a comment and let me know that someone out there is still reading!

花見　~ Hanami!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 01:09:00 +0000

'tis the season... cherry blossom season, that is.
As I mentioned last year, the blossoming of cherry blossom trees throughout Japan is one of the most exciting, symbolic, and anticipated events of the year. It also coincides well with spring vacation, so people travel all over Japan to view the sakura... then sit underneath them picnicking, taking an inordinate amount of pictures and enjoying Japan's lack of legislation against public alcohol consumption.
☆mini Japanese lesson:
Hanami （花見）takes the 2 Chinese characters for 花＝"flower" and 見＝"view," sticks them together and creates... can you guess? "flower viewing" ...did I just blow your mind?
This year I attended 2 hanami events, one in Tokyo's Sumida Park (along the Sumida River in Asakusa) and once in Gunma, taking advantage of the week-or-so delay in peak sakura viewing. Both days came and went with the threat of rain, but we stayed dry and had a great time.

Last month's graduation was a day of mixed emotions. It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to that particular group of students, but I'm also excited for them... entering high school is a major life change for them at this point and I'm looking forward to the days when they wander into the staffroom to say hello.
Today is the first day of school and the sakura are still in full bloom... which makes everyone happier than you can probably imagine... even me.
...that's all the news for now. Hope you're enjoying the spring!

random things 1-7

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:12:00 +0000

As I mentioned the other day, classes are officially over for the 3rd year students--their days are filled with 'studying,' entrance exams and sitting through a million meetings about high school--which leaves only three 1st and 2nd year homerooms... and amounts to almost no class for me this week. So I've decided to use that time constructively (?) and blog about random things. (don't forget that you can double click to enlarge any of the pictures)

random thing #1: school lunch
Have I blogged about the wonders of Japanese school lunch yet? I can't remember...

Anyway... despite bringing my camera with me this afternoon, I still forgot to take a picture of today's course, so the focus of this particular 'random thing' section is the how and where of school lunch.
How: school lunch is not prepared in a school kitchen (like mine always was in America)... instead, all of the city's school lunch is prepared at a central facility and delivered to each school. 4th period is over at 12:45 and the students who are in charge of carrying lunch back to their classrooms flood the delivery room to collect the various plates, breads and food containers that were delivered by the city. Although there is an extremely high potential for chaos, the carrying of food up and down 2 flights of stairs (by clumsy junior high or elementary schoolers) is actually an extremely orderly process.
Where: once the school lunch makes it to the classrooms, it is dished out into perfectly even portions (I don't know how they do this, but they always do) and everyone sits at their desk to eat. 15-20 minutes later, the students clean everything up, carry the dirty plates and empty containers back down to the delivery room and set to work cleaning the school. Seriously.

random thing #2: the "dream aquarium"
The landing between the 2nd and 3rd floors of my elementary school is decorated with an "aquarium" of marine life, mostly fish, that has been exactly the same since I arrived 18+ months ago. Upon further examination, I think that the fish are actually glued to the wall... indicating that it's a much more permanent fixture than I'd originally assumed. It's an incredibly cute idea, but some of the fish are starting to look a bit... decrepit... and I can't help but wonder how long this little installation has been in place. 2? 5 years??

random thing #3: student calligraphy
These pieces were entered in a city-wide contest sometime last fall and have been hanging in the hallway ever since. Since it's one of my favorite things at school, I thought I'd share. (^-^)

random thing #4: walking down the hall in elementary school

Everyone's seen those documentaries on the nature channel where they drop some food in the water and suddenly there are a bazillion piranhas coming out of no where, from every direction to try and get a taste... well, that's what it's like to walk into the kindergarten or down the hallway in elementary school... except, instead of piranhas there's a swarm of adorable, smiling children who just want to shout "hallo!!" and get a high-five.
(*note* these kids are actually pretty subdued because they think I'm taking a picture and know that jumping up and down like maniacs is not conducive to good picture taking)

random thing #5: my personal battle against boring English names
The five English speakers featured in our textbook series are named "Mike Davis," "Judy Brown," "Ann Green," "Lisa" and "Bill." I think this is boring, so when I make worksheets I give my characters names like "Austin" and "Madeline," with hobbies like surfing and looking for a girlfriend or talking on the phone. Luckily I work with Japanese teachers who think this is a great idea and I get to giggle when my boys answer the final exam question about their interests with "I'm most interested in girls."
(*note* I realize this isn't an earth shatteringly clever idea, but try to tell that to my students.)

random thing #6: unicycles
Things that are taught in Japanese elementary school/Cirque du Soleil training camp: team jump rope, walking on stilts, walking on parallel beams of varying heights, riding a unicycle forwards and backwards. Seriously.

random thing #7: all the singing
There is considerably more singing in Japan than I ever experienced in public school on Long Island. All school events begin with the school song and there are several events during the year where the main focus is singing (and don't forget that the students also play the piano and conduct the chorus). Last week's farewell party for the 3rd year students was no exception, so for your viewing pleasure, I've uploaded 2 videos.

Above is the rehearsal for the 1st and 2nd year students... my favorite thing about this is the ridiculously dramatic drop in height where the 2nd year boys are standing next to the 1st year boys.

This is the final performance from the 3rd year students... they're considerably better than the younger kids, not only because their voice changing has calmed down a bit, but also because they're one of the best student choruses in the city. I think this is amazing because it's not a voluntary performance, but almost all of the kids actually sing.

As far as I can tell, there are 2 major outcomes to all this singing: 1- Japan has 10 million pop stars and 2- any Japanese person, at any time, will be better at singing karaoke than every foreigner in the room.

other random February news...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:16:00 +0000

...I've been a bad blogger again, but since things are pretty quiet during the end of the school year, I have some time to catch up.

Other than the HoriMara, I don't think there are any major events to report. The third semester of the Japanese school year (January to mid-March) is incredibly short, but very busy. Compulsory education ends with junior high school in Japan, so continuing with high school is considered more of a privilege than a right... which means that students need to apply to high schools and pass an entrance examination (sometimes an interview test as well). In big cities, the more competitive and prestigious schools are private, usually with ties to large universities, but in the more rural areas (where parents can't always afford to pay for private high school) the best schools are public. This can amount to a lot of pressure being put on 14-15 year old kids, to not only get into the best possible school for the sake of their own future, but also for their family's economic situation. Needless to say, the 3rd year students start to become walking zombies, with many of them sleeping less than 5 or 6 hours a night and doing nothing but study in their time outside of school. It's both exciting and heartbreaking to be around when the test results come out, as they are dealing not only with the individual pressure to get into a good high school, but also with the fact that they probably won't be going to high school with most of their friends...
To break up the monotony of test prep, we had our second ALT Day a few weeks ago and the 2nd year students prepared a 2-hour "farewell celebration" that was held last Friday afternoon.
The 1st and 2nd year students sang some songs, made some nostalgic/funny slide shows of the 3rd year students, a "which teacher's baby picture is this?" quiz and performed a funny parody of Cinderella... then the 3rd year students sang a few songs (and some students cried). It was a great afternoon, but reminded me how soon the 3rd year students will be leaving (graduation is the 13th).
Their regular classes are already over and they're starting to plan their spring vacations... sad! I'm definitely closest to the 3rd year students as a group and am so sad to see them go, even though I know I'm supposed to be excited for them and blah blah blah. I could never be a real teacher and say goodbye to a new group of students every year... it's too hard!
Finally, I went skiing again in Naeba this past weekend. It was beautiful and sunny, but far too warm for good ski conditions... the road sign reported an air temperature of 68ºF when we drove home on Sunday (up in the mountains!!). I think we're already seeing the end of the mildest winter I've ever experienced... I haven't seen it snow once all year.

Kiryu Hori Marathon

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:05:00 +0000

this is a bit late, but...
On Sunday, February 11th, I participated in my second community "marathon" event--and much like the school marathon, this one was definitely not 26.2 miles... more like 6.25.

The "HoriMara" has been held on the 2nd Sunday in February for the past 53 years. It's a huge community event that involves students, families and serious runners from all over Gunma Prefecture and the surrounding areas (but as far as I can tell, most of the nearly 6,000 participants are students in the city schools). The morning begins with 3 separate groups of "family" 2km participants--mostly groups of parents and small children from local nursery schools and kindergartens-- who parade through the main streets of Kiryu with unfathomable amounts of energy and enthusiasm. Around this time, the half-marathoners begin their 13 mile run through the city toward Mt. Umeda... where the halfway point is the top of the mountain (absolute insanity). Throughout the morning there are a long series of races: 3km elementary school, 4km jr. high girls, 5km jr. high boys, 5km high school girls, 5km adults, 10km high school boys and 10km adults. Needless to say, anyone not participating in the day's event (or hiding from the winter wind in the comfort of their living room) have to figure out how to drive through Kiryu when the main road running N-S through the city center is completely closed off for nearly 5 hours.

I wandered over to the starting point at Shinkawa Park about an hour before my race began and spent the morning chatting and taking pictures with the track and volleyball teams from my junior high school. Even though we'd talked about it in school, my students were amazed to see me actually show up to the race... maybe they thought I was only joking??
Around 10am I lined up with nearly 900 other people (only 46 women!!) to run the 10km... I'd never run more than about 5miles and was incredibly nervous--and ran a little bit too slowly at the start--but finished in 1hour 3minutes. When I came around the corner to run past the park to the finish line, my elementary and jr. high school students had lined up along the road and were cheering/running along the sidewalk with me for the last 2-300meters... they're so cute!

Anyone who's known me for a while knows that I've never been particularly excited about running, so entering a race like this was a bit out of character for me, but I'm so glad that I did. Taking part in these community events, seeing my students and their families, and doing something with them outside of school, is what makes me feel like I'm living in Japan rather than just working here.

It's so windy that...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 06:45:00 +0000

...we looked out the staffroom window to see that my bike had not only been blown over, but was launched about 15 feet into the parking lot. Naturally, this was the start of a conversation about whether or not I should park my bike at an alternate angle on windy days (parallel to the bike rack, rather than perpendicular to it) and general agreement that from this point on, no one intended to park anywhere near the bike rack.

...we looked out the (other) staffroom window to see that our dirt patch of an athletic field has risen up with all the swirling fury of a desert sandstorm. The field is only about 100meters deep, but at times the dust was so dense that we couldn't see across the school grounds. There was a bit of oooh-ing and aaaah-ing as we all stood at the window, then someone had the sense to run downstairs and turn on the sprinklers... and the fun was over.

Yay for the strong winds that Gunma is famous for (along with silk, cabbage and a million other "famous" local specialties).

ski trip!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:00:00 +0000

Although it's been ridiculously warm in Japan this year (almost no snow in "snow country," prefectures being forced to cancel their Snow Festivals and daily news reports about the panic over pre-mature flower blossoming), I've had no reason to complain. Spending my life on a bike or in my uninsulated apartment has given me a special appreciation for mild winters.... but the opportunity to go skiing aroused my first pangs of concern--had global warming ruined my ski season??
Thankfully, not. In fact, it was one of the best ski trips I can remember... no wind, temperatures in the 30ºs, sunny, with fresh snow. The worst part was that my hands were hot and I had to go through the trouble of taking my mittens off every time we got on the lift or I would have sweat to death... tragic stuff, right? To make my story even sadder, my ski pass was free! (and the lovely people at the rental shop let me switch to skis when it was revealed that snowboarding was simply NOT going to work out for me)
...try to resist. (^-^)

In other news, I'll be running in my city's "marathon" this weekend. Much like my junior high school's marathon, it's not a marathon at all, but rather a series of long distance runs (2, 3, 4, 5, 10 or 20km). It's a huge city-wide event and almost all of the athletic teams from elementary school through high school participate, not to mention the nursery schools and people from all of the local businesses... 5,795 participants this year! I'll be one of 46 women (there are 346 men) running the 10k on Sunday morning. As you might imagine, I'm terrified, especially since all my talk of warm weather is certain to jinx me and I'll find myself running uphill, against the wind, in the snow... wish me luck!!

non-update

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:46:00 +0000

I've been trying to think of something to post about all week, but I've literally got nothing to say. Things have been pretty much the same since getting back to Japan--keeping busy at school, trying to talk myself out from under the kotatsu (heated table) to be social or go for a run in the freezing cold... typical winter stuff.

You might, however, notice that I've joined everyone else I know in adding a little "who's reading my blog" map to the right margin... I'm hoping that this doesn't provide ego-damaging evidence that no one in world is reading this (in which case I plan to abandon resolution #3!!)

Hope everyone's new year is off to a good start!

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:15:00 +0000

Resolution #1- Keep my apartment clean (read: no clean laundry on the floor!) for more than 3 days at a time.

Resolution #2- Pretend to study Japanese more often.

Resolution #3- Avoid 6-week long lags in blog posting... sorry!!

...in the name of making Resolution #3 a reality, I'll happily take my first morning back at work to give an update. However, since a million things have happened since my last post, I'm going to follow a 'random highlights with much less information and fewer photographs than usual'-format... if you want more information about something, you'll have to stop being a silent partner in this blogging relationship and COMMENT!! (feedback makes me happy and validates the hours of my life that it takes to post frequently and upload pictures)

Thanksgiving Dinner
Like last year, the Gunma JETs threw a Thanksgiving dinner in the prefectural capital, Maebashi. Turkey is a rare commodity in Japan, so for most of us, this dinner is the only time that we eat turkey during our year-long stay as an ALT.... yummm.

Hiroshima
We had a long weekend after Thanksgiving, so I stretched it out a little bit and took a trip to Hiroshima. It was rainy on the afternoon that we arrived, but I'd caught a stomach flu from one of my precious elementary schoolers, so I didn't mind the lazy pace that resulted from the weather. Our hotel was barely a block away from the Atomic Dome and Peace Museum, and the neighborhood had a ton of shopping areas preparing for Christmas... perfect rainy-day locations!
On Friday, we caught the trolley down to Miyajima, a small island off Hiroshima city, to check out the floating torii (shrine gate), several famous temples and shrines, the giant wooden rice scoop and an unbelievable number of wild deer (and monkeys!) wandering the island. The weather was beautiful and we were there at the perfect time of year to enjoy the blaze of fall colors, especially in Miyajima's famous maple tree parks.

GAJET Christmas Enkai
An enkai is a party, featuring a huge meal and all-you-can-drink, usually thrown by co-workers or teammates to celebrate the start/end of the year, the season, the semester, or any major event... basically, any excuse to throw a party. This year's Gunma JET enkai was held atop Mt. Haruna at a hot spring resort overlooking the lake. The location was beautiful, the company was great, and perhaps best of all, I received this excellent Pokemon hat as my Secret Santa gift:

Trip to America!
For the first time since I left for Japan in July 2005, I went home to visit family and friends. While I certainly can't complain about last Christmas on the beach in Thailand, there's definitely something to be said for waking up and opening presents with your family on Christmas morning (not to mention all of the festive holiday food that said family will prepare when they haven't seen you in 18 months!!) I ran around for over 2 weeks trying to see as many people, eat as much delicious food and do as many home-related-things as I could possibly do, but inevitably felt that my trip was too short. Several pounds and many hours of shopping later, I find myself back in Japan, freezing to death in my apartment and wishing that Gunma was experiencing a freakish New York-style heat wave.

omedetou gozaimasu!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 05:32:00 +0000

...means 'congratulations!' and was definitely the phrase of the day at my friend's wedding two weeks ago.

When we resumed our "English circle" meetings after a short summer break, everyone went around the table discussing their summer adventures. Most of the members are farmers and late summer/early autumn is the busiest time of the year for them, so most people felt that their "vacation" had been anything but. Then we got to the end of the table, where one of our members announced that he recently got engaged! Naturally, we were thrilled and his wedding planning became the cornerstone of our weekly check-in.

All of the circle members were invited to the wedding, including me, and when they realized that it would be my first wedding in Japan, they went to great lengths to make sure that I would feel comfortable and understand exactly what was going on. However, even after all of this preparation, I was shocked to realize that I had been invited to the ceremony itself (I had expected to only attend the reception). The couple was planning a very traditional ceremony at a local Shinto shrine, which is usually only attended by family and close friends, so I wasn't sure that I belonged in that group, but they insisted. He said that our English circle gave him a great cultural experience and that he wanted to return the favor.

The wedding day was rainy and cold, but the ceremony was being held indoors and the bride arrived by car--protecting her beautiful white kimono from the elements. The ceremony itself was beyond my level of comprehension, yet it was much easier to understand when to bow, clap, etc. than I had expected.
The ceremony begins with the Shinto priest purifying the alter and beckoning the gods. Then there are a series of prayers, and although I can't remember the order, the bride and groom exchange rings, vows and each take a drink of sake from the same cup. Everyone in attendance is also given a bit of sake, which we drank at the same time. As I understand it, this symbolizes that their union is being recognized by all of us and that through their marriage, their family and friends are also brought together. (wedding bands are not nearly as common in Japan as they are in America, so I was interested to see that this couple had chosen to exchange rings)
After the ceremony, we caravaned over to the reception hall, where another 20-30 people joined the celebration. I dropped off my envelope (people only give gifts of money
in Japan) and headed upstairs to help at "reception" and tell the incoming guests where to sit. When the newlyweds made their way into the hall, the bride had changed into her second--more colorful--wedding kimono. We toasted to their happiness and started to eat.
At some point, I realized that the bride and groom had disappeared from their table to change their clothes for a third time. I remembered being told that she had wanted to wear traditional Japanese clothing for the ceremony, then a western-style gown for the reception, but the hairstyle for her kimono was so complicated that I couldn't imagine how the stylist would be able to change it. They definitely did change it though, just in time to cut the cake!

*as always, you can click on any photo to enlarge it*

little things to be thankful for...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 02:29:00 +0000

I lead an "English conversation circle" that meets in a small, agricultural town just outside my city. The members are mostly middle-aged or older, with the exception of a pig farmer who is about the same ages as me. Almost all of them have a farm, or make their living doing a traditional Japanese craft (such as embroidery or paper-making), and every time we meet I am showered with gifts of produce. Off the top of my head, I have received: roasted corn, eggplant, apples, pears, plums, peaches, mikan (clementines), peanuts, daikon (the giant white radish in the picture), cabbage, potatoes and butter (lots of dairy farmers). 95% of the stuff they bring to share with the group comes straight from their farms, usually harvested that day. It's developed to the point where they worry that I don't know how to properly prepare whatever food they're giving me, so many of the women write down a recipe for me in English before class... then the men tell me how to make an even easier dish. They're so sweet!

Speaking of sweet--I now visit elementary school at least once a week and am getting to know my students much better than I could last year. This has lead to increased participation in tag, kickball, dodgeball and jump rope during recess, as well as a variety of nicknames along the lines of "kucchan" or "kurichan." The suffix "chan" is an expression of familiarity and endearment, often used for small children or between close friends. At some point it becomes used much more frequently for girls than boys, but some of my teenage boys still get chan-ed by their oldest and closest friends. (in Japanese pronunciation, my name ends up sounding like "kurisu" (Kris) or the semi-dreadful "kurisutiine," which most people mis-hear as "Kristy" and that makes me crazy, so I've started introducing myself as Kris)
I taught 3rd grade on Tuesday and we studied "family"--so when I introduced Thanksgiving to them at the end of class and asked them to draw a picture to complete the sentence "I am thankful for ____," I assumed they'd take the hint and draw their family. Some of them did include their families, but the stars of this exercise were friends, video game consoles, sports, ice cream and other sweets... I even encountered more than one rendering of poop. Then, immediately after my last elementary school class, I rushed back to teach third year (9th grade) elective English. Every class begins with 10-15 minutes of writing in an English journal, so we briefly discussed Thanksgiving and I gave the same thankfulness prompt (hoping to get more responses about family than about poop from this group). They wrote the sweetest entries about their parents, teachers and friends, and I had a breakthrough moment where I realized how much their English has improved since I met them over a year ago. Then I had another realization about how quickly time has passed and that they're going to graduate and leave next March... I'll be so sad!
(though the elementary school students still win the cute prize, as one of them included me in the things they are thankful for.. check me out in the lower-right corner of the first worksheet)

We also recently celebrated fall at the Harvest Festival at a nearby winery, which draws thousands of people each year to drink wine and picnic on the steep vineyard terrace. Most of the ALTs in my area decided to attend the Saturday festivities, when the weather was absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, it turned cold and rainy for the next two days, literally drowning out Kiryu's fall Ebisuko festival... which was a big disappointment. We went anyway though, and nearly froze to death trying to visit the shrine and enjoy some festival food.

I'm heading to Hiroshima this weekend and the forecast calls for rain. Take a moment, wherever you are, and do your best anti-rain dance for me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kyushu Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 04:56:00 +0000

In the past year, I have learned 2 important things about traveling in Japan:

1- Asking Japanese people "what should I eat when I visit ____?" yields much more useful/interesting results than asking "what should I do/see when I visit ____?"

It is my impression (largely influenced by the non-stop food on Japanese television) that sightseeing is something that Japanese tourists do to pass time between meals. Every region, prefecture, city and neighborhood in Japan claims to be *famous* for one type of food or another. For example: the neighborhood that I live in has *famous* sauce katsu (a type of pork cutlet), sembei (rice cracker) and manju (a type of Japanese sweet) shops. How my silly little neighborhood is home to not one, but THREE *famous* shops is a bit of a mystery to me, but probably wouldn't surprise a Japanese person (which makes me question the over-usage of *famous*). Another example: Osaka is famous for takoyaki (a type of battered octopus ball... it's better than it sounds!) and okonomiyaki (a... dinner pancake? it's cooked at your table on a wide, griddle-like surface and features seafood, pork and veggies in a non-sweet pancake-ish batter). I'm sure that Osaka has many other things to be proud of, but if you come back from vacation and tell your Japanese co-workers that you went to Osaka, they don't say "how was the new aquarium?" or "did you visit Osaka Castle?" Instead, 100% of the time, they will ask "did you have takoyaki/okonomiyaki??" It's the only thing that matters.

2- If you forget to ask a Japanese person what to eat, don't count on Lonely Planet to have the answers. Stop in the train station gift shop and look at the regional Hello Kitty charms, as they will give you all of the information that you need.

Starting in 2004, to celebrate her 30th birthday, Hello Kitty charms were made to commemorate the specialties of every region, prefecture, and famous city/neighborhood in Japan. Gunma Prefecture's Kitties feature Hello Kitty nestled in a cabbage (a famous Gunma export?) and wearing a raven costume (the crows are really big and scary in Gunma?). A city like Osaka has many Kitties, including Kitty in a takoyaki costume and Kitty making okonomiyaki. These big cities have dozens of different Hello Kitty charms and give an interesting overview as to what the ares is *famous* for.

-----------------------------------------------

Kyushu was a whirlwind 4-day trip through 5 cities, with at least 20 hours spent on trains/planes. It was exhausting, but I'm so happy that we went! Here's a brief rundown, tailored largely to the 2 principles of travel explained above:

Thursday, November 2nd -- Nagasaki
*famous foods*
Nagasaki champon and sara udon--both feature a gooey mixture of seafood and veggies over noodle soup or crispy, dried noodles (in that order)
Castella--a cousin to pound cake, borrowed from Portuguese traders in the 19th C.

*featured Hello Kitties*
Kitty in a castella costume, inside some fruit/bean/seed (we had no idea what it was), inside a tulip... and a dozen others that I don't remember

Nagasaki City is now remembered best as the second (and hopefully the last) city to suffer the destruction of an atomic bombing, but before WWII it was home to the largest Church in all of Asia and was the only major Japanense port open to European trade during Japan's isolationist period... hence the tulips, castella cake and Christianity.
The Peace Park was much bigger than I'd expected and was filled with statues/sculptures from all over the world. It was fun to wander through them, looking at how the various countries decided to represent their hopes for peace. Most memorably, though, I thought that the sculptor's explanation of the main statue was really interesting... so I'm sharing it with you:
"After experiencing that nightmarish war,
that blood-curdling carnage,
that unendurable horror,
Who could walk away without praying for peace?
This statue was created as a signpost in the
cause of global harmony.
Standing ten meters tall,
it conveys the profundity of knowledge and
the beauty of health and virility.
The right hand points to the atomic bomb,
the left hand points to peace,
and the face prays deeply for the victims of war.
Transcending the barriers of race
and evoking the qualities of both Buddha and God,
it is a symbol of the greatest determination
ever known in the history of Nagasaki
and the highest hope of all mankind."
--Seibu Kitamura, Spring 1955
We wandered to the church that was once the largest in Asia, but from more than 1/2 mile from the bomb's hypocenter was completely destroyed, and from there to the hypocenter itself.
I'm a huge sucker for all of the paper cranes (they're so beautiful!), so I took a million pictures.
Then we made our way to the atomic bomb museum. The subject matter is obviously very serious and I was anticipating a solemn experience, but within minutes of our arrival, a school trip of about 200 elementary school students rolled in behind us, split into teams and armed with treasure hunt-style worksheets. I literally stopped walking and stood still in the middle of the first exhibition room as they rushed in and filled the open space around me like water. For about 5 seconds I was annoyed, wondering how I was going to get close enough to read anything in this sea of 9-year old children... but then I overheard them "whispering" to each other about whether or not they should practice their English on me. These are always the funniest conversations to overhear, because they usually feature a giggling rehearsal of what they might say: "hello. *giggle* how are you? I'm fine, thank you. And you?" *more giggling* In the end, I did my best impression of an approachable friendly person --eye contact, smile, small wave-- and ended up squatting down, talking to a group of school children in an excited blend of Japanese and English as some of the most gruesome war images I've ever seen flashed on the walls around us. Looking back on it, it's a bizarre memory that makes sense only in the context of my experiences in Japan. Sometimes it's easy to forget how old this country/culture is, especially when compared to America, and it's also easy to forget that only 60 years ago it was a country ravaged by war. Thinking about how much the world has changed during those 60 years is almost overwhelming, as I'm sure the bomb-survivors whose stories are echoed throughout that museum never imagined that their grandchildren would find themselves on a school field trip, speaking English to an American 20-something whose own grandparents include a Japanese war-survivor, as well as 2 American soldiers who served on the Pacific front of WWII. It's almost surreal to consider how small the world has become.
Anyway, after the museum we went in search for food (how's that for anti-climax?), deciding on *famous* Nagasaki champon with castella for dessert.
And wrapped up the day with a nighttime view of the city from atop Mt. Inasa.

Friday, November 3rd -- Kumamoto and Aso
We were on a train by 7:30am and checked out the city of Kumamoto in a 2-hour sprint. Due to the shortage of time, we decided to focus on Kumamoto's main attraction--the castle.
It was a pretty cool castle (though I think Himeji was better) and we got to see some cute kids visiting the local shrine for the holiday in November when 3-, 5- and 7-year old children get dressed up in cute clothes, and well... visit the shrine (maybe there's more to it than that, but that's all I know). Then we caught the trolley back to Kumamoto station and jumped on another train to Aso.

*famous foods*
milk

*featured Hello Kitties*
Kitty in a dairy cow costume

Mt. Aso is a 20km wide volcanic caldera, containing not only a city, but several mountains, cinder cones and stratovolcanoes. Japan has record of 167 eruptions from the volcano Naka-dake between 553 and 1993, making it the record holder for "most explosive eruptions" of any volcano in the world. These mountains/volcanoes seem to jump out of the otherwise flat landscape and vary dramatically from smooth, rolling green mountains to jagged, tree-less piles of rock.
We went to the top of Mt. Naka (which was covered in dry, red rock) by gondola and peeked into a crater of steaming blue water. The stench of sulfur was shocking, but Japanese tourists were delighting in buying powdered sulfur from the volcano to add to their bathwater at home (I should note that many natural hot spring baths have a similar smell, and sulfuric water is considered both healing and soothing).
We ran around taking pictures of the mountains at dusk, then caught our bus back to the train station.

Saturday, November 4th -- Beppu
*famous foods*
kabosu--a type of citrus fruit (that I'd never heard of before arriving in Beppu)
mushrooms and other mountain-y vegetables
hot spring-type foods--eggs boiled in hot spring water, etc.

*featured Hello Kitties*
Kitty enjoying a hot spring bath, dressed as a devil who is enjoying a hot spring bath, in a kabosu costume, in a pink monkey costume holding a kabosu (apparently Beppu is famous for rounding up all of the local monkeys who were terrorizing rural homes, sticking them in a "monkey park" and calling it a tourist attraction. They have sent Beppu monkeys all over the world as gifts to other countries... kind of weird)

Beppu is a *famous* hot spring city, which is not at all uncommon in Japan. Japanese people LOVE to visit hot springs, so it seems like there are a million regions that are *famous* hot spring getaways (including western Gunma). What makes Beppu stand out is that many of the pools are too hot for bathing, with water ranging from 80-100ºC (about 200ºF), so they have been dubbed "the hells" of Beppu and harnessed as a tourist attraction.
What's amazing about these hells is that they are all within walking distance from each other, but the content of the water is dramatically different at each location. There's red, cloudy whiteish-blue and chlorine-blue water, plus the various colors of the mud water (which produces huge gurgling bubbles) and the hell that features a geyser.
At each hell, there is a place where the water is cooled through pipes and run into a small bath where you can soak your feet in the different types of mineral water.
After visiting the hells, we went further up into the mountains to take a bath in a cooler version of the gurgling mud baths. It was definitely an interesting experience because the water was somewhere between the consistency of water and mud, but the mud didn't just sink to the bottom of the pool (if that makes sense)... I'm not sure how it works. Apparently it's great for your skin.
One of the things that I liked most about Beppu is that the steam from the various hot springs fills the skyline in every direction, seeming to come out of even the most random places, and is visible day or night.

Sunday, November 5th -- Fukuoka/Hakata

*famous foods*
mentaiko--a type of fish eggs, usually spicy
tonkotsu Ramen--my favorite ramen!

*featured Hello Kitties*
Kitty in a mentaiko costume, Kitty making and eating ramen, in a flower of some sort, wearing a silly festival hat that's covered in flowers...and a dozen or so more that I can't remember

We arrived in Fukuoka on Saturday night and had a mini-adventure trying to find our hotel for the evening... it was my first experience at a capsule hotel and we were pretty excited about it (they're usually only for men).
Having gone out to explore the city that night, we were exhausted and decided to sleep in on Sunday. By the time we woke up, showered and packed our bags, it was time for lunch. After a bit of wandering, we stumbled onto a ramen shop (which turned out to be famous?) and had a delicious bowl of tonkotsu ramen.
Then we took a loop of the shopping district and headed back to the airport, where we bought omiyage for our schools and caught our flight home to Tokyo.

...an incredibly long post for a very busy weekend!!

Kris runs a marathon.

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 04:01:00 +0000

...well, not really.

I did run in the school "marathon" last week though. It's an annual event, like the sports festival or chorus contest, where the whole school walks down to the riverside running path for an afternoon of running and drinking sports drinks.
The girls run 2.5k and the boys run 4k. At most schools there are a handful of young teachers who want to (or are peer pressured into) running with the students, but I'm the youngest at my school by more than 10 years, so our PE teacher was slightly ruffled when I asked to join the race. All week leading up to the marathon he repeatedly asked if I was really going to be alright, which only agitated me and started my campaign to run with the boys (which he was definitely not comfortable with). My mind was made up for me on Friday morning when some of my girls asked if I would run with them, so I bore the harassment from some boys about wussing out of the 4k and ran in the girls' race.
I ended up with a pack of girls running with/behind me, repeatedly shouting through the first 500m that they were NOT going to lose to me, but whining that I had started too quickly. So I slowed down a bit and we all ran together for the rest of the race. I ended up finishing 22nd of 65+ students and all of the girls in my group ran their fastest times ever! Everyone was happy.... and tired.
Then it was time for the boys to run, and since some of them had lined up along different points of the course to shout "USA! USA!" when I ran by (inevitably making me laugh), I decided to return the favor. I ran around to different points on the course to take pictures and shout encouragements as they ran past. There were a ton of teachers and PTA parents doing the same thing, but the students would laugh or shout back to me, or pose for the pictures I was taking... maybe this is why the cranky gym teacher didn't want me to run with them? In the end, my words of encouragement turned into running alongside one of my students for the last 1k or so, trying to cajole him into finishing the race without walking. We pretended to sprint through the finish-line in a dramatic fashion and once again, everyone was happy... and tired.
Everyone stood around trying to loosen up, then the kids had to sit on the ground and listen to boring speeches, but one of my students' legs were so tight that he couldn't sit... so I spent most of the speech-time giggling at him.
Then we were supposed to walk around the park and pick up trash before heading back to school. I started out with the best intentions, but ended up gossiping with some girls, taking pictures and looking for 4-leaf clovers. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing a good job at the whole "positive influence" part of being a teacher...
Once we finally got back to the school, we were greeted by a ton of PTA moms who had made massive quantities of tonjiru (miso soup with pork and fall veggies) for the tired runners, so I sat outside with the students eating, talking and taking more pictures.
It was a great event that I missed at both schools last fall due to my rotation schedule, I'm so glad that I got to participate this year! ...and much to my PE teacher's surprise, I didn't have any muscle soreness at all...

ALT Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 01:34:00 +0000

To quote myself from a February entry:
Every now and then all [thirteen] Kiryu ALTs gather at one junior high school to do a big English conversation workshop. It's fun for the ALTs to visit a different school and meet new students, and it's wonderful practice for the kids--they don't get many opportunities to have an unscripted interaction in English, so these ALT days really help them to realize how much English they know and gives a lot of positive reinforcement and motivation to improve.
Last week my school played host to 11 ALTs from different junior highs around Kiryu. It was our first ALT day and the students were excited beyond even my expectations. We themed the event "Travel the World with English!" and I designed a "passport" where they could write the questions that they prepared for each ALT. My teacher and I assigned each ALT an international flag and wrote "travel itineraries" for each group of students--each group visited 3 "countries" (for 10 minutes each) to have an in-depth conversation with the ALT at that station. Then for the last 10-15 minutes of class, the students were encouraged to get up and wander the room asking each ALT at least one question in exchange for a stamp in their passports. We were thrilled that most students got somewhere between 9 and 11 stamps by the end of the activity and ended up having to forcefully throw them out of the room once the bell rung for the start of their next class.
These activities have a tendency to draw out even the quietest students and to give the best students room to be more impressive than usual. They asked silly questions and some of the more outgoing kids ended up dancing, hugging or asking ALTs out on dates. By the end of the last class, the ALTs were raving about how great my students are... things I obviously know already, but it made me feel like a proud momma to hear it from so many other people. (^-^)v

randoms...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 01:14:00 +0000

Last month's Nagano soccer tournament was a great time, but it took ages for everyone to send their pictures around the team list. I finally got my hands on a team photo:

Apple season is starting up again and while Japanese apples are certainly delicious, I can't help but think that they may be a little bit too big. Seriously though, who can eat one of these in a single sitting? We need more fruit designed for single people in Japan. Bananas don't hit the shelves until they're already 100% ripe and they're sold by the bunch rather than by weight... this means that you have to buy 6 or 7 very ripe bananas, which is stressful when you know that they're going to get mushy and brown in barely 2 days. Around that 2-day mark, I come home from school to an apartment that smells like a banana farm and suddenly I hate bananas. On those days I resent Japan for forcing me to buy too many bananas, as well as $2 apples and $4 peaches.

Leaving for a long-weekend in Kyushu tonight, pictures and stuff to come soon...

Sports Festivals!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:08:00 +0000

Life at school throughout the month of September was dominated by preparations for the sports festival. From the moment the students returned from summer vacation they were off and running--choosing their captains, organizing relay teams, practicing team events (like 20 person jump rope), planning with the festival-committee they've been assigned to, choosing music, making pom poms, banners and signs.

Last year the school was split into 3 evenly mixed teams of first, second and third grade students, but this year each homeroom stood as it's own team (1 first, 2 second and 2 third grade) and competed against the rest of the school.
I was doubtful that this method would work... how can scrawny first graders compete with third graders who stand at least a foot taller? In the end, there was a lot more competition than I'd expected and my team, class 2-1, ended up coming in 2nd place (!) pushing one of the third grade teams to 4th.
We had perfect weather and because I know the students much better than I did a year ago, it was easy for me to mix in with them to talk and cheer... I would much rather be "one of the students" than "one of the teachers" during school events.
some of the girls from class 2-1 (our team color was yellow)the blue team is class 3-2, the eventual winners of this year's sports festival
third year (9th grade) boys
my team, class 2-1!

I was also invited to return to my old school for their sports day the following week. It was great to see those students again (I even visited with the kindergarteners!) and fun to spend a day hanging around Hirosawa-chu for the first time in months.
The events chosen by each school tend to vary a bit, so even though each sports festival fits into a similar mold, the experience can be completely different. There was very little overlap between Minami and Hirosawa's festivals, but my camera battery died much earlier in the day than I expected. I did manage to take some video of a crazy capture-the-flag-esque competition before that though, and I hope you can see it:

the second time around

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 16:24:00 +0000

It's been a little bit more than a year since I started teaching in Japan and up until 5 minutes ago, I'd taken nothing but comfort in the repetition and predictability of school-life this semester. I haven't felt lost or out of the loop when everyone disappears from the teachers' room and I know all of my students names...smooth sailing. Then, for today's lunch, we were served the same exact dessert that I wrote about in this post last year and I felt a pang of loss for the new-ness and everyday excitement that characterized my first year on the JET Program. The rabbit-shaped jelly was still cute, but not as cute/interesting as it had been last year when a handful of teachers had explained it's significance to me. hmmm...now that I think about it, I hope that my students don't feel that way about me sticking around for a second year!

To keep them on their toes, I've recently started wearing these lovely green Crocs as my "indoor" shoes at school. Although I've seen them around Japan, my students are obsessed with them and they continue to dominate our conversations even after several weeks. I think that they're almost offensively ugly, but they're incredibly comfortable and perfect for my lifestyle at school (sometimes I'm on my feet all day, sometimes I lounge at my desk for 7 hours). I'm starting to think that I should import a shipment and sell them from a kiosk outside the school gym...

Finally, a lot has happened in the past few weeks, but I haven't blogged about any of it. The truth is that I've spent excessive amounts of time writing "sports day" posts only to have my Mozilla crash on me not once, not twice, but three times. I'll try to get them up asap!

canyoning

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:40:00 +0000

I meant to get this post up a while ago, but better late than never...
Two weeks ago, I went up into the mountains of northern Gunma to go canyoning in beautiful Minakami with about 40 other ALTs. Famous as a resort town for skiing and natural hot springs, there's a lot of outdoorsy stuff going on throughout the summer and we wanted to make a trip before it got too cold.
We were supposed to do a moderately challenging course that involved an decent-sized waterfall, but our guides had been scared out of the area by a momma bear and her two cubs earlier that day. So we piled into our wetsuits and hiked up a trail to do a more laid-back course consisting mostly of natural waterslides.
I had been worried that the river water would be freezing cold, but after hiking for 30+ minutes, it was the perfect temperature. We played for a while on some of the longer slides, then slid most of the way back to the bottom of the trail... making it well worth the sweaty hike to get there.
A yummy BBQ and night out with the group rounded out the weekend.

A great weekend away from home, but still in Gunma! ...I'll count this as a step toward my goal of seeing more of my backyard this year--Kiryu, Gunma and Japan in general.

back to school

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 00:35:00 +0000

I realize that I was a bad blogger through the month of August, so I'll try to recap...

Traveling with my family was great--but SO unbearably hot. After leaving (rainy) Tokyo, it was 35-39ºC (95-102ºF) everyday in the Kyoto area, which is where we did the most walking and outdoor sightseeing (unfortunately, Japanese historical temples and palaces are not air conditioned). We occasionally hid in our hotel room or grabbed some frozen treats to escape the heat, but even with those breaks we covered a lot of ground. Some highlights:
As I returned from Osaka I looked out the window of the train, saw a big electronics shop and decided that I needed a new cell phone. Immediately. So I took a little detour and bought myself a present:
...isn't it cute? It's about the same size as my last phone, maybe a little bit thinner and more squared around the edges, but its much better. The built-in camera is over 2 megapixels and the screen flips over so that you can use it like a digital camera display to take pictures (the screen is much bigger and better quality than anything I've seen in America). I think it's one of the new phones that are capable of receiving TV and video feeds (though the service is prohibitively expensive) and it can hold up to 1 GB of music/pictures. Finally, it has a sensor on the back that I can hold against certain vending machines, tickedispensersrs and payment points in convenience stores and other shops to pay for things without needing cash... a definitely luxury in cash-based Japan.

I was home for about a day before I packed up again for a 3-day trip to help at orientation for the new Gunma ALTs. My city has increased in size from 8 to 13 ALTs this year, which goes against the trend for many cities to use "private" ALTs instead of those on the JET Program. The role of English in Japanese school is spreading from junior high and high school all the way down through elementary school and kindergarten (sometimes even nursery school). This means that every school is in want/need of an ALT and amounts to a huge expense for the city and prefectural governments. I've heard that they can save a bit of money by using private ALTs, but the training and support networks aren't as extensive as those offered by the JET Program--which may amount to higher turnover and less satisfied ALTs. Whatever the political climate might be, the new Kiryu ALTs are great and I'm really happy to have more people around.

I also made my first trip last weekend to the Shibukawa kokeshi doll factory/museum. Shibukawa is a city in Gunma not too far from where I live, but without a car it's impossible to get to the museum. We wondered around the shop for a while, watched the professionals making hundreds of dolls and decided to paint our own kokeshi dolls. I also ended up buying a little doll that had been hollowed out to serve as a bank for ¥500 coins (about $4.30). It holds roughly 45 coins, so if I fill it I'll have saved $200! (which I will promptly use to buy myself a present)
Finally, classes started again this week and I'm grateful to have the students back at school--sitting in the teachers' room during summer vacation was incredibly boring. It's nice to hear a constant buzz throughout the building and to chat with the students between classes... they're so interesting! For example, four of them went to a neighboring prefecture to conduct additional research and present their experiment at a science conference, and others played in traveling sports leagues all over Eastern Japan. I think that's exciting stuff for junior high school kids to be doing, though it's not much of a summer "vacation."

That's all I've got for now... interesting trip coming up in a week or two and thoughts stirring about where to go this fall during one of the long weekends, let me know if you have any ideas.

Lost and Found

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:07:00 +0000

It's 2am and I'm exhausted, but in honor of a great day I decided to do a quick post...

We made a Tokyo day-trip to visit with my grandmother's family (who hasn't seen my dad since he was 12 years old). Needless to say, it was an emotionally heavy meeting for everyone involved. In a good way! We had a wonderful time--chatting, taking pictures, playing with the baby and eating delicious food prepared by my aunt. It was great to meet some of my cousins and see my aunt and uncle again.

Here are a few pictures to round out this mini-post:
More when I return from Osaka!

visitors!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:40:00 +0000

My dad and brother flew into Japan on Thursday evening and since then there hasn't been a spare minute. Friday we woke up bright and early (they were up much earlier than me, thanks to jet lag) so we took advantage of the morning and visited my schools. It just happened to be the hottest day so far this year, which meant that we were worn out by lunch... but what better way to relax and cool off than to shop? The Kiryu summer festival began that night and everyone wanted to wear summer yukata, so we went in search of some new festival-appropriate clothes. The festival was great! We met a lot of people who I work with, saw a ton of students, received several compliments on our new yukata and even danced a bit of yagibushi (the traditional festival dance).
Saturday we woke up early again and made our way uptown (in excruciating heat) to attend the opening ceremony of our cocoon race. We found out that our cocoon had been put on display upside down and didn't look much like a hot dog at all, so we rolled it over and voted for ourselves to make up for the voting time lost (haha). After the ceremony we went out into the festival to find some lunch, but realized that we weren't hungry at all and drank several bottles of water instead. Finally it was time to race and even though our time-trial-partner team was much faster than us, we had a great time and finished strong. Most importantly, we weren't the slowest team! Steering that giant cocoon with only 3 people was no small task, so I think we did an outstanding job.
From this point onward, things become even more hectic so I won't update again for at least a week. Wherever you are, stay cool!

Koshien!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:16:00 +0000

Even from America, it's easy to see that baseball is HUGE in Japan. The past few years have seen Japanese players on MLB All-Star teams, as Rookie of the Year candidates, MVPs, World Series Champions and winners of the World Baseball Classic. In fact, when I ask my students "what is the national sport of Japan?" the first answer is invariably "baseball" (which is wrong... it's sumo wrestling).

Baseball was introduced to Japan in the late 1800s and their professional baseball league got its start in 1936. However, the brightest star in Japan's baseball universe is without question the National High School Summer Tournament--usually just referred to as "Koshien" (which is the name of the stadium where the final rounds are played in Osaka).

Koshien starts sometime in mid-June as more than 4,000 high schools across Japan enter single-elimination tournaments at the local level. Excitement for the tournament swells in late-July as each prefecture holds their championship series, sending the winner off to the national tournament in August. Japan has 43 prefectures, 1 metropolis (Tokyo), 2 urban centers (Kyoto and Osaka) and one 'circuit' (Hokkaido). Each of these 47 regions is permitted to send one team to Koshien--except Tokyo and Hokkaido, which are large enough to warrant 2 teams each. These 49 teams continue the single-elimination tournament over 15 days on the sacred grounds of Koshien Stadium. Enormous "cheer teams" travel with their local ballclub and engage in non-stop cheers and formations that are taken almost as seriously as the game itself. These cheer groups are highly organized, uniformed, rehearsed and armed with limitless energy and enthusiasm (which they need to stand for hours each day in the shade-less stadium). In addition to the stress of playing in a national tournament series, Koshien is located in one of Japan's southern regions where summer temperatures are usually in the mid-90s. At the end of each game, the teams bow to each other, sing their school songs and one group tearfully packs up for home... where they will immediately begin training for next year's tournament (sports are a 12 month/year commitment in Japan).

Koshien engages Japan like nothing else. People who are not regular fans of baseball (or any sport, for that matter) crowd around the office tv at lunchtime and track the tournament in the daily news. Everyone seems to know the tournament standing at all times and tracks their local team with amazing dedication.

...at this point you may have lost track of what's happening here, this is merely the high school baseball tournament. I can't imagine any other high school sport that captures the same number of passionate fans as Japan's Koshien tournament (even high school football in America doesn't dominate the attention of an entire nation). These high school ballplayers are on national television for several hours a day, replayed in the evening news and featured in the national newspapers. It's one of the largest professional baseball scouting events in Japan (for MLB scouts too) and for many of these students, their make-or-break chance to play professional baseball (Ichiro and Matsui both famously left their mark at the Koshien).

The big news is that a Kiryu high school will be the team representing my prefecture, Gunma-ken, and people are pretty excited about it. Although I don't know any of the players, one of my students from last year is on the cheer team and it's exciting to root for a hometown squad in an event like this.

If you can read Japanese, the Asahi newspaper provides running coverage of the tournament. Otherwise, I'll update after the tournament and let you know how Kiryu made out.

a year gone by

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:16:00 +0000

Today is the one year anniversary of my first full day in Kiryu, but I'm having a hard time articulating how I feel after a year of living in Japan. I'm experiencing that mixed sensation of "time has passed so quickly, but the beginning feels so long ago" which comes standard with any interesting phase in life... but I wish I had something more profound to say. Shouldn't I feel changed somehow? wizened?

The truth is that I feel mostly the same.
...my palette is more sensitive to sweets and I've encountered more types of seaweed and mushrooms than I could have imagined, but I still get a little bit too excited about colored markers/pens and stay up too late every night.

...my Seinfeld dvds still top my "most played" list and my homepage is still espn.com, but I have a handful of new stamps in my passport and 3500 pictures from my travels and school events.

...spending my first Thanksgiving and Christmas away from home made me feel like my childhood was over, but shouldering the tears of un-returned teenage crushes and joining 4-year olds crawling in the dirt to find bugs made me think that childhood is never over.

...at this time last year I was literally trying to find the summer festival, but this year I'm trying to sir up a fan base to come watch me participate in a festival activity.

I'm not sure where all of that paradoxical babble leaves me, but I've really enjoyed this past year and look forward to the next. My dad and brother will be coming to Japan next week, then I'll be coming home to L.I. at Christmas time. I'm excited to see family and friends (and to eat bagels and Antons)... to see the ocean.
So thanks for keeping up with me on this little adventure. I hope the year has treated you well and that you'll stick with me for round two.

In the past month...

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 13:45:00 +0000

...I finally got a membership at the video rental place and started to watch Japanese dvds on my new entertainment center--a new tv and questionable dvd player (my laptop won't play the region 2-type dvds found in Japan). Many Japanese video stores are organized into categories like "action," "drama," "new release," "television," "Audrey Hepburn," "Robert DeNiro," etc... any system that you could possibly imagine, but never alphabetic order. One shelf in the "comedy" section reads like this: Kindergarten Cop, Zoolander, Adaptation, Bringing Down the House, Twins and the Austin Powers series. Needless to say, I can never find what I'm looking for.

...my digital camera died. Sad. Plans are in motion to replace it sometime very soon.

...I signed my family and I up for the まゆ玉ころがし大会 (silk cocoon rolling contest) at Kiryu's summer festival on August 5th. We won't actually be rolling a silk cocoon. Instead, I've started to build a giant "cocoon" made from paper mache on a bamboo frame, 2 meters long and 1 meter in diameter. It's huge. Click on the Japanese link to see some pictures and get an idea about what we're getting into... should be interesting. We'll be wearing team tshirts and dazzling all of the people in Kiryu with our spectacular performance as foreigners in a festival event. Since you won't be able to watch us on local tv, I'll be sure to post a ton of pictures after the event.

...I said "see you soon" to one of my schools at the junior high and kindergarten levels (I'm not scheduled very often at the elementary school and my departure is below almost everyone's radar there). The teachers aren't amazing at keeping the students up to date with things like this, so many of my junior high students were caught off guard by my "sayonara speech" before the summer pep rally. I received a stack of unbelievably sweet letters and have gained a few e-mail buddies... it's so hard to leave the kids. Hopefully I'll be able to visit every now and then.

...we received the replies to our pen-pal letters and I learned that New York is famous for the following things: bagels, apples, New York City, beaches, garbage on the side of the road, welfare and taxes, and money. I also saw phrases like "he's a total hottie" for the first time in ten years. Whatever their content, the letters absolutely thrilled my students and they'll be writing back as part of their summer homework.
(some of these students specialize in looking disinterested when I take pictures, but it has nothing to do with their pen-pal letter excitement!)

...I've had to say goodbye to some really wonderful people, especially one headed back to Australia and one to Canada. My stay in Gunma won't really be the same without them around. I'll miss them so much.

To end on a happier note:
...they're just so cute!

カレーパーティー

noreply@blogger.com (Kristine) — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:00:00 +0000

oooooh, the Kindergarten Curry Party... I've spent some time thinking about it and there is a 0% chance that I can narrow it down only a few pictures for this post, but I doubt you'd be disappointed by a bit of excess. Man, these kids are CUTE.

I wandered over to the kindergarten around 9:30 to help the "older" (5-6 year old) classes chopping vegetables for the curry. Since everything is designed for people under 3' tall, I had to kneel down on the floor to share cutting board space with the kids already working on carrots, onions and the potatoes that they had harvested from the school garden the day before. If you're not already amazed by this scenario, then I don't know what's wrong with you. These were 5 year old kids dicing raw vegetables (that they grew themselves) with sharp knives! No injury, no reckless behavior... just lots of patient kids in aprons and bandanas.
We reviewed the next steps in the recipe by singing the curry cooking song and the kids headed up to their classrooms for play time. I didn't want to stay inside just yet, so I sought out the "younger" (4-5 year old) classes to see if they were doing something more adventurous than coloring.
...and were they ever! I caught them just as they were putting on their cute little hats and being briefed by their teachers about the rules for recess. Wednesday was by far the hottest day that we've had so far, so the plan was for the kids to take off their socks and shoes to cool down even the slightest bit and play in the shade. We walked outside and pulled out all of the good equipment for digging in the dirt, then (to my surprise), the teachers pulled out the hose and filled two basins and left the hose running for the students to fill their buckets at their own pace. Predicting chaos, I took a walk over to the poles where barefoot 4 year old girls were climbing around like acrobats.
Surprisingly, the mud pit construction center seemed to be a chaos-free zone, so I went back to the shade to check it out. By this point, my little kindergarten boyfriend/bug-hunting partner had fastened himself to me and was running around posing, making faces, giggling and begging me to take pictures of him. Naturally, he's one of the cutest kids ever and I couldn't resist...
These kids played in the mud for an hour. Several things about this hour shocked me:
1- no one tried to break the "shady area only" rules and run out to the other side of the field where all of the fun playground equipment is. I've spent a lot time with groups of little kids, in America and now Japan, so while I know they can be very good, I'm still blown away that 30 munchkins listened to instructions, took them seriously and remembered them 15 minutes later. If some stray wandered 10 feet out of the shade, one of their peers would stand up and say "hey, come back into the shade, we're not allowed over there" ...and the escapee would return!
2- none of these kids soaked themselves or anyone else with the hose or mud water. How is that possible?
3- the shady area isn't very big at all, but there were no territory disputes or issues about "my" bucket/shovel.
4- the teacher looks at the clock and quietly says "maybe we should start cleaning up" and the entire process is completed in less than 5 minutes... including the cleaning/drying of muddy feet.
These are easily some of my favorite pictures that I've taken at school this year.

After the younger classes went back into their classrooms for inside activity/play time, the older group came barreling down the stairs to take over the field. I strolled around for a few minutes taking pictures of them in different places on the playground, then got recruited to play dodgeball and was too busy to take pictures.

This is part of my dodgeball team... they're as hardcore as they look.
Suddenly it was noon, so we split up to wash hands and regroup for the curry party. The teachers and I set up tables in the auditorium space and the students filed in one class at a time. Each student went to the back to get a chair and (with very little prompting) seated themselves evenly with about 2 students from each of the 4 classes at each table.
Deciding where to sit at these events is always the hardest part of my day because all 60 students seem to ask if I'll sit next to them (and you know I wish I could). I usually just loiter until the teachers put me somewhere, making it their fault, not mine when I can't sit next to everyone. Honestly, I was quite happy with my placement -- right up front with my little boyfriend and a handful of my most outgoing boys from each class. We giggled, took pictures and talked about bugs, trains, and cartoon characters for about an hour.
Then it was time to clean up, say goodbye and make my way back to junior high school... this amounts to endless high-fives, "see you!!"s and a little swarm of cuties.
These visits to kindergarten are magically rejuvenating. The summer humidity is really starting to set in and I've been having a harder time getting myself excited to do just about anything, but then I get there and their energy is SO infectious. I wish that I had time to stop by every day or two during play time.

On a sadder note, I just found out that I won't be visiting this kindergarten (officially) anymore starting in August. Even though I'll remember/miss them more than they will me, I really don't want to say "goodbye" instead of "see you!"