. . . everybody's having fun

Merry Christmas!

I'm at work today, because Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan. It just doesn't feel like Christmas, not at all. Not that I am not having any fun: I got to play hangman and fruits basket today with the first graders, who are just young enough to enjoy playing games (the second graders are too 'cool' for them).

I was looking forward to a white Christmas, but the weather has been doing some very strange things recently. The bitterly cold weather of the middle of the month has ended, the snow has turned back into rain and the sun has come out. It looks like spring is on it's way already, which is ridiculous. The grass even looks greener than it did the other week. Yesterday the ticket booth lady at the train station told me it is the first non-white Christmas she can remember seeing in Konoura, ever. She placed the blame on the shoulders of Global Warming, ignoring the fact that last year's winter was the snowiest in 86 years, with blizzards for the two weeks leading up to Christmas.

Kamagadai however is an utterly different story. 20-30 minute drive away (depending on the driver) though it may be, it has been covered in a constant blanket of snow for three weeks now. I won't be going back to Kamagadai until the start of term three in mid January. By the time I return there, the snow will probably be several metres deep.

On Friday I went to an end of year work party. We all stayed at a onsen/hotel in Yamagata Prefecture all of 30 mintes drive away. We had a dinner and played a lot of silly games, like charades. We also played Secret Santa Bingo. I won a string of Christmas lights, the type designed to be put in ones garden or on ones Christmas tree. As my Chritsmas tree is 10cm tall and I don't have a garden, I have put the lights up on my wall. They look a bit funny because the cables are dark green and my wall is white, but that's okay.

I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep that night because four male teachers in the room next door were playing Mah Jongg until three in the morning, and having a fine time of it if the noise level was any indication.

Yesterday I took the train into Nikaho to pick up my tickets to Seoul. There is a two and a half hour wait between when one train arrives in Nikaho and when the next train back to Konoura leaves. It took me less than 15 minutes to pick up the tickets. What to do with the rest of the time? Go shopping of course. I went to Daiso and surprisingly did not buy much. What I did buy was mostly practical stuff like new kitchen cloths which are cheaper there than at the supermarket, a new paring knife etc. Then I went to the drug store and bought such interesting things as soap, air freshener, pain killers and obscenely cheap sanitary pads. (New Zealand should be ashamed of itself, charging women so much for their necessities. Here in Japan a woman can get a double pack of Whisper pads, 44 in all, for the equivalent of about NZ $3.50 so long as she goes to the drug store and not the supermarket. You can't even get 20 pads for that much in NZ unless you buy No Frills brand, which can't absorb a sparrow's piddle. The downside is that all tampons here are applicator.) Then I went to Max Valu and bought things that aren't available at Konoura Max Valu such as cheese that doesn't taste like soap, croissants that were baked on premesis and not in a factory on the other side of the country somewhere, and a turkey leg. Then I caught the train home again. I am turning into such an adult.

I ordered a Christmas present for myself over the internet, although it probably won't arrive for another couple of weeks. I didn't think of doing so until last week. I ordered three items through Amazon.co.jp's marketplace, from an England-based discount book and CD distributor. What I ordered was two CDs by a group called Mediaeval Baebes: Mirabilis and The Rose. They are not my usual fare, but what is? The Mediaeval Baebes sing songs that for the most part borrow lyrics from mediaeval poetry, to music that they compose that is inspired by real mediaeval music and played on mediaeval instruments such as citerns and recorders. They sing in all sorts of languages: Old English, Latin, 11th century Irish, 15th century Spanish, French, Russian . . . Good stuff. It's not all flowery high-brow stuff either. One of my favourite songs of theirs tells part of Chaucer's 'Milleres Tale' or possibly another fabliaux of very similar theme. Another song on the same album is a 15th century Welsh poem that was outlawed because it was in praise of female genitalia. It's such a pretty sounding song too; what a laugh! Not all of their songs are crude; they have also done renditions of Scarborough Fair and the story of Tam Lin.

The third thing I ordered for myself is the new book by Bryan Sykes, Blood of the Isles. I already own 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' and 'Adam's Curse'. I can't wait to get my hands on Blood of the Isles. I guess that not everyone is as interested as me in books on human genetics, but if you are, you really ought to read Bryan Sykes' books.

Anyway, everyone reading this either: I hope you have a merry Christmas or; I hope you had a merry Christmas.

And let's all have a Happy New Year.

Kiritanpo

The other week I made kiritanpo for myself for dinner one night. Kiritanpo is a traditional dish of Akita Prefecture.

The ingredients I used were:
Chicken soup stock that came in a packet from the supermarket

Kiritanpo. These are made of rice that has been wrapped around a stick and then lightly grilled by an open fire.

They are cut like this before being cooked.Chicken
Vegetables. Specifically, leek, chinese cabbage, Japanese parsely (both leaves and roots), burdock root and long white mushroom thingies.
Here it all is boiling.
And here it is served.

Sick, sick, sick

I have a cold, a real one this time not a mini-cold caught eating lunch with hundreds of kids. I feel wretched.

On Saturday morning I helped out with a Christmas party for the Challenge Club kiddies. I think I mentioned it last week. Anyway, it was lots of fun. We made advent calendars, ate junk food (only one mother brought along nice healthy fruit to the tea time - everyone else brought chocolate, cookies, chippies etc.) and then played a few games. At the end I read 'The Night Before Christmas' to them. Someone else read the Japanese version of the book to the kids. Whoever did the Japanese translation did not bother to rhyme the sentences or even to put any rhythm into them; it is pure prose. It sounded odd.

That evening Miwa came to my house and we looked at some travel books for Korea. I couldn't read them of course, but I pointed out pictures of places I thought looked interesting and food I thought looked good. I really should start studying some Korean phrases and written Hangeul. It will make things easier for me.

Yesterday I had to go shopping because there were some things I had to buy. I didn't really want to go because I already had a cold, but I had no choice. Because I went out into the cold while sick yesterday, that is why I feel so bad today.

Flicker and Dash

My airplane ticket to South Korea is ordered and hotel room reserved. I went to the travel agents with Miwa last Friday. There is a bit of trouble with my travel insurance in that because I have health insurance through the JET Programme I only want to buy baggage insurance, but the travel agent will not sell me it separately. Either it comes as an add-on to health insurance or you can't buy it at all. I'm sure I will get it sorted out. Either that or I will go without my luggage insured. No biggie, I suppose: I didn't have my baggage insured when I went to England last year either.

Things have been a bit boring recently because (shhh) Atsuko has a new boyfriend although that is a secret, at least from people on this end, and the weather is bad so I can't muster the motivation to go somewhere by myself on the weekends. But inversely work has been fairly busy recently. I have been asked to help at the Nikaho City Challenge Club (weekend English club for elementary kids) this Saturday. We are going to have a Christmas party. Yay! I will make Xmas cards with little kids and then read them a simple Xmas story book. Also, this week and next week I will be spending my Thursday evenings teaching useful English phrases to the 13 Jr. High kids and their parents who will be going to NZ in January. They will be staying in homestay, and since they are mostly 1st graders their English is not very good. I don't get to go with them, despite how much I could help out, being a Kiwi myself and all; I just get to teach them a bit of English. In one month time they will be in Christcurch and then in the Wellington sun and I will be here in the Akita snow . . .

AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Today there is more than 80 yen to the NZ dollar! I want to send money home, but the exchange rate is against me. When will the NZ dollar weaken? I've been waiting for months and months . . .

Nanhan

I see that I haven't been blogging much recently. This is a combination of being eternally just a little bit sick, of being up to my eyebrows in 'The Dark Tower' series by Stephen King, and of being lazy.

The reason I can't get entirely well is because every week I go to the elementary school, and so every week I am exposed to kid-germs. The perils of being a teacher.

I haven't really done anything over the last two weeks. Last Sunday I went to the school festival at Kamagadai. Because I had to get up early in the morning, I did not go out on Saturday night. Anyway, at the festival the students performed speeches, research projects, a piece of music and a play. Because there are so few students at the school, every single student had to participate in the concert, all the elementary students had to talk about their research, and all the Jr. High kids had to perform in the play.

Afterwards we had a mochi-zuki taikai (rice-cake making competition). We all had to take turns at bashing the rice with a mallet, me included. What we made was mochi - a sticky heavy play-doh like food. I know it sounds disgusting, but actually I'm quite fond of mochi. Then we ate lunch: mochi with boiled red beans (azuki), mochi with white bean powder (can't remember the name) and mochi in vegetable soup (zouni) and one mandarin each. Although I like all three dishes, especially zouni, eating them all together is very hard on the stomach. Straight after lunch there was volleyball. Although the volleyball was a student vs. parent tournament, I had to play too because of the scarcity of Jr. High students. I hadn't played volleyball for a decade or more. Despite that I did better than the parents if not as good as the students, so I didn't embarrass myself.

When I got home I ate some left-overs from the night before and then lay down to take a nap. I woke up 45 minutes later with the most painful stomach I can remember having experienced. It had bloated up up so that I looked 7 or 8 months pregnant, and was very hard. Moving sent stabs of pain shooting through me as if my stretched flesh were about to give way and rip open. It must have been the mochi of course. My stomach is just not used to eating so much of it at once. It probably didn't help that the left-overs I had eaten had been curry. I actually wondered if my appendix had burst, and if I were about to die. But I told myself I was being stupid, that it was my own fault and that there was nothing I could do about it. So I went back to bed for another 3 hours and when I woke up again I was mostly better again. But I still had a sore stomach on Monday. Then, horror of horrors, the school lunch was curry bread and zouni, the lumps of mochi floating therein laughing at me I'm sure. *sigh*

I have one other bit of news. It looks as if I will be going to South Korea over winter vacation. Nuclear missiles, bird flu and -7 degree temperatures aside, it is a great opportunity. I will be going with Miwa, and Miwa can speak Korean. As well as being able to navigate Seoul with ease, Miwa can also book hotels that only locals usually know about, instead of the over-priced ones tourists usually end up in. This means as well as my trip being language confusion-free, it will also be cheap. Yay!

New Arrivals

Congradulations Gillian and Ant!

Winter or merely Autumn?

The weather today is a perfect example of mid-winter Wellington region weather: it's alternating between rain and sleet, it is very windy and it's about 5 degrees. But it is still officially autumn, and will remain so until the first snow falls.

The kerosene heaters in the staff room have been fired up, so I have a headache from the fumes. They stink!

For the past two weeks there has been a thunderstorm practically every day. I don't remember there being so many last year or the year before. Last Wednesday there were only three people at my English conversation class because no one wanted to brave the weather, even with cars. I had to go, and of course I had to go by foot. I walked there last night too, in the middle of a thunderstorm. I didn't take an umbrella with me because I thought it would be a bit dangerous.

Last Saturday I went shopping in Akita City. I went by myself, by train. My umbrella broke while I was walking about. On Sunday I went with Atsuko and Toshi to Sakata City. We ate at a tonkatsu (pork cutlet) restaurant. It tasted rather ordinary to me. Then we went to a big new butchery that we had seen an article about on TV. The butchery is owned by a farm outside town, so the meat you buy there has never been frozen. They sold all sorts of things there, but mostly made out of pork. A friendly employee let us try lots of little bits of cooked meat. I ate little sections of sausages, bacon, raw ham, cooked ham, sausages with peas in them . . . I'm not usually a big fan of pork, but the meat from that butchery is delicious, it really is. I bought an uncut section of bacon to take home with me.

It was very cold that day. My cellphone told me that the weather was snowy. It didn't snow in Nikaho or Sakata, but it did snow in Akita City, apparently. And I heard on Tuesday that it had snowed that weekend up at Kamagadai, although it had not lasted long. It looks as if the snows will be coming early this year. Although it has been horrible leaving my apartment to go out places recently, it has been nice to listen to the rain on the window panes and the wind whistling around the building in the evenings. I ought to enjoy those sounds while I can, because soon they will be replaced by the gentle fall of snow, and the blanketed silence that follows.

Another Brick In The Wall

I found it! There are several different videos for Pink Floyds 'Another Brick In The Wall' but I finally found the one that I remember seeing on TV when I was 2 or 3. I remember being freaked out by the teacher mincing the kids, but I didn't remember the walking hammers at all. Enjoy!

This Post Has No Title

For some reason last week did not really leave a big impression on me. I had Monday off because I'd had to work the previous Saturday. I can't really remember what I did that day. In the evening I went to Yosakoi practice, I remember that much.

Last Tuesday I spent all day doing Halloween lessons at Kamagadai. The elementary kids even dressed up and went trick-or-treating around the school. The staff all got into the swing of it, and the school principal, vice-principal, elementary teachers and all Jr. High teachers who did not have a class that period were walking around with bags of candy ready to be trick-or-treated. It was so much fun. I wish I could do such things at my other schools, but it is impossible when you have lots of students.

On Wednesday my English conversation class was on holiday because the Community Centre was busy.

On Thursday I went to work only to find that Mr. Togashi was on a business trip and therefore I would have no classes for the entire day. Did he tell me before hand so I could prepare and bring something else to work to do? Of course not.

Friday was a public holiday. It was raining so I did nothing other than mess around on the internet, wash dishes and read comics.

Saturday evening I went into Honjo to say goodbye to Sayaka. We drank a little at an izakaya (kind of the Japanese version of a pub, i.e. there is both alcohol and decent food). I was going to stay out later and go to a bar as well, but for some reason my stomach started hurting. I went home early with Atsuko (who had a cold), all the while thinking that as soon as I got home I would feel better and regret having left. But I was wrong. My stomach got worse and I spent the rest of the evening feeling very uncomfortable indeed.

On Sunday morning I could not eat anything because I still felt icky. But I went out anyway. Not far, just to the supermarket and then to Atsuko's house. Atsuko, Toshi and I ate shabu-shabu (again). Before that, we were watching TV. There was a travel special on, and it was all about New Zealand. These two rather bizarre people went to NZ and showed us their adventures. But I use the word 'around' lightly. First they were in Auckland, and the very first thing the man did was go to a fish and chips shop. Then they bought wine, went to an expensive restaurant and stayed at the Sky Tower Hotel. Because normal tourists do that all the time. Then they went to Matamata to look at hobbits. They spent about 15 minutes of the programme on Matamata. They also went to Rotorua to learn the Haka, to a kauri museum up north, and then they stayed on this guy's farm in some teeny weeny place up north and helped with the sheep. And that was about it. They didn't go any farther south than Rotorua. I hope this programme continues next week, and that is not all of NZ that NHK thought worth showing.

This morning I once again woke up with a painfully stiff neck, this time on the right side. It happened to me for the first time two weeks ago on the left side of my neck. I thought at the time that it was a one-off event, but apparently not. I guess I must be turning into an old woman.

Enough, already

I have been feeling unwell for several weeks now, off and on. It's an on-going cold that just won't go away. Yesterday was bad and today is possibly worse. Of course I have to work today; it's PTA day. Can't have a cold on a Saturday without also being busy at the same time, now can I? The good news is that I look so damned wretched that all the staff noticed and started giving me various medicines. This alerted the Principal to my woes, and I will be able to go home after lunch even though I was supposed to have a class this afternoon. Yay for bloodshot eyes and sheet-white complexions!

It is hard for me to keep my head up as I type. It keeps sagging like a windsock in summer.

I got to go home early on Wednesday too. I looked wretched that day, and since there was a big meeting for all teachers that afternoon and no one would even be at the elementary but the cleaner, the elementary Principal said "Go home and get some rest."

I really must look as bad as I feel. Usually when I am sick no one notices unless I sneeze, but not this time.

Photo Treasure Hunt

Here are the photos I entered into the photo treasure hunt competition.

1. Most Classic Gaijin Moment
This is me doing one of the early steps of the tea ceremony. I am cleaning the spoon with a ceremonial cloth. The first year ALT who held the competition introduced this photo as "Someone sitting on tatami reading a book." I had to yell out and correct him, first time of many.

2. Oldest Fruit And Vegetable Vendor

Unfortunately the ancient old woman who usually works here was on holiday, and her daughter (?) was on duty.

3. Most Beautiful Japanese Panorama

4. Most Shocking Fashion Statement

This time the guy doing the competition only showed the top half of the photo and said "It's . . . a girl in a kimono . . ." and I had to yell out "Show the legs, that's the whole point!" Because that is the point: every Japanese person who has seen this photo has gasped and said "I can see her legs!" in a scandaled voice. But I suppose I shouldn't have expected ALTs to understand that.

5. Biggest Beer Container

Everyone seemed to miss the point that in this photo the 'beer container' was Toshi, not the cans. I feel so misunderstood, just like a real artist. When I asked Toshi to pose for this photo, he said "Wait," and put his sunglasses on first. I don't know why.

6. Least Appetising Item In The Grocery Store

7. Most Appetising Item In The Grocery Store

8. Best 'Engrish' T-shirt

I won this category.

9. Most Classic Japanese House

This picture was taken at Atsuko's house because it was after Toshi had abandoned us there with no car so that he could go and get his hair cut.

10. A Picture Of A Buddhist Monk

I won this category too. Because everyone else did the competition only with ALTs, no one else had a friend with them who knew the family of a buddhist monk well enough to ask one to dress up and pose even though the temple was officially closed and the monk in question was just about to go and play golf in a purple paisley shirt.

11. Most Creative Use Of A Daikon

This is the Shirase Memorial Museum in Konoura. And a daikon (Japanese radish).

12. Most Shocked Bystander

Yes, it's posed. You try getting a photo of a shocked bystander when you have to wear an armband saying 'photographer' on it.

13. Biggest Item You Can Pick Up Using Chopsticks

This apple clock used to be famous among ALTs as being the strange clock in the legendary Amanda's apartment. But no one seemed to remember it.

14. Funkiest Keicar (small car with a yellow numberplate saying it has different insurance because it is so light and would get creamed in any accident)

There were no funky keicars, so I just entered a picture of a normal keicar to fill in the blank. People booed this picture. Gaijin are so rude.

15. Most Interesting Rice Field

This picture got lost and didn't even end up in the competition.

Bonus: Most Delicious Thing You Ate For Lunch

Gusto soup (not that good, but better than the rest of the 'meal.' This picture got lost too, and I got made out to look like an idiot because I 'neglected' to send a picture of food.

I guess you can tell I still feel very bitter about the competition. Getting booed and having no one cheer for you in a cheering competition does that to people.

One conclusion I came to during the conference last week is that gaijin really are very rude. Not just the competition, but during the lectures and speeches and such. Half the ALTs there were so disrespectful, it made me so stressed to witness it. There, I've said it. Japanese = polite. Foreigners = rude. And yet I still hear so many complaints about Japanese 'stereotyping' of foreiners as having no manners.

Tired . . .

I am feeling so tired at the moment, so I am not sure if I will even be able to remember everything that happened to me over the last week or so.

Last Tuesday I felt unwell. I held out until I had made and eaten dinner, but then at 7 o'clock I fell asleep on top of my bed. I woke up at about midnight to change into my pyjamas and have a cup of tea before going to sleep again. Despite sleeping nearly twelve hours, I had trouble getting up on Wednesday morning. I had a headache, but I had to go teach English at the primary school. I also had my English conversation class that evening.

On Thursday and Friday I was at the prefectural education centre for a conference. It was the same conference as last year and the year before. How boring. On the Thursday evening at the ALT party, the previous weeks photo competition was judged. (Speaking of which, I haven't yet uploaded the photos I took that day . . .) Anyway, there were only four teams competing but I only won two of the fifteen categories. I am bitter about that, but not because I didn't get many prizes. That doesn't bother me. I am bitter because I lost many categories due to my being unpopular. Pictures were judged on the volume of the applause they received, and team members were allowed to cheer for their own pictures. The other teams were made up of 3, 4, or 5 members who all cheered for themselves, and they all had friends who cheered for them. I was there by myself, so often after a thunderous applause for another team's photo, mine would be shown and the only people cheering were myself and a few people who felt sorry for me. It was so harsh.

On Saturday I still felt unwell, so I stayed home. The Sandman graphic novels I ordered from the US (because supplies in Japan ran out indefinately and now even dog-eared copies are going for several hundred dollars on the amazon.co.jp marketplace) finally arrived in the mail. Yay! I now have the whole series. Because the end had already been spoiled for me (by an internet review which lacked a spoiler warning) I risked skipping forward and reading sections of the last volume. The artwork in the last book is absolutely beautiful, and the story so touching. If the story had not been spoilt for me and I had read everything in order I am sure I would have been bawling my eyes out and smiling at the same time.

On Sunday I performed yosakoi (again . . .) at Akita University. In the evening I met with Saya, Miwa and Saya's Canadian boyfriend Gary who is in the country for two weeks. We went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and then to Gusto for cake and the drink bar. I spent most of the time at Gusto translating the instructions for the stone spa at which Miwa works into English, so that she can make an English version for the foreign customers who visit. (Because of the close proximity of TDK, many foreigners visit the stone spa.) Apparently, you have to have a shower after you get home from the stone spa because the far-infrared energy from the rocks remains in your body for five hours. "Heat?" I asked. "Your body remains warm for five hours?"
"No, it's special far-infrared energy that is good for your health."
"But that's just heat, right? Can't we just say heat?"
"No, it's special energy."
"Okay . . ." *translates the misleading pseudo-scientific jargon into English to trick all the foreign TDK employees out of their money*

Today it is Monday and I already want it to be the weekend again so I can rest. But of course, come the weekend I will be doing something that doesn't involve resting, like every week.

1.5

Today I have about a week and a half to summarize, so this post is probably going to be long.

On Saturday 7th, Konoura Jr. High had its school festival. I went in to school shortly before 8.30am like on any workday and ended up judging posters before the festival started at 9am. For most of the day I was in the nearly pitch-black hall watching many performances. There were speeches and presentations, and I actually managed to understand some of them this year. I had to judge the class chorus competition, which was difficult. There was a play about chickens (?) and of course the cross-dressing fashion show. What’s really funny is that because the girls mostly have short hair, they just look like normal boys, and because the boys are so young when wearing ribbons in their hair they just look like normal girls. Anyway, the festival finished and I helped clean up the school before heading home to get an early night.

On Sunday 8th I got up shortly after 4am in the morning, got picked up just before five, went to Kisakata and got on a charter bus to Sendai. My yosakoi team performed at a big festival there, but because staying in Sendai costs quite a bit in hotel money, my team decided to go and come back on the same day. We got to Sendai about 9am, left our stuff on the bus and set out in our costumes with only a small purse each. We performed in various parks around the city, using the subway to travel between them. The weather was very strange: sunny and showery, at the same time so there were a lot of rainbows all day. It was also very windy. We did four stage performances (one of which was right in front of Sendai Station) before heading to the centre of the shopping district to do two parade dances. We didn’t dance on Oomachi, but the next biggest pedestrian road, the one that is still under cover. I can never remember its name, but it is the street with the expensive shops on it. We started from outside the Louis Vuitton store. We finished dancing shortly before 6pm, and by 7.05 we were back in the bus on our way home. I got home at 11.30pm and crashed.

The next day was a public holiday. Miwa picked me up from Konoura Max Valu (supermarket) and took Saya and myself to Akita International University to look at a Halloween festival. Miwa and I went in costume, and we constructed a partial costume for Saya out of a pair of devil horns and a Korean toy that was in Miwa’s car. When we got there we found that the only people who were in costumes were the university students who were running the stalls. Oh well. First we went to look at the food stalls. They had all sorts of food there. Saya wanted to see the Indian curry store because the posters had taken her fancy. She took a picture of the guy who drew the posters, and asked for a signed copy. So embarrassing. Saya told them she was Canadian. Miwa was wearing a traditional Korean costume, so she was telling people she was Korean. And because it is an International University, everyone believed them.

I ate a Korean something and some little pancake things called dorayaki. Then we went inside to look at some more stalls. We found a fair trade coffee shop. I had a chamomile tea that, because it was fresh actually worked and I started to go to sleep right there. Then we found a massage parlor where students were giving hand, face and shoulder massages. I had a shoulder massage for only 150 yen, and I got a free cup of tea too. Saya told the girls giving the massages that she is Canadian, and they believed her too. “Wow, your Japanese is so good!” they said.

Because so few people were wearing costumes, the newspaper journalist covering the event was hunting us. Or rather Miwa. It was hot so I took off my cape-thingie and didn’t look like I was wearing a costume. Miwa’s costume was eye-catching and even though she ducked and dodged the camera whenever she saw it, a picture of Miwa and Saya ended up in the paper the next day. I was behind Saya so only my arm was visible.

When we got bored of the festival, we went to Aeon Plaza which is not far from the University campus. We had an early dinner and then I went to Kaldi Coffee, which is a shop that sells coffee beans and lots of foreign food. I bought my standard feta, blue cheese and edam, and two bags of muesli. We also got puri kura taken, although now I think about it, I can’t remember where I put mine . . .

Last Tuesday I went to Kamagadai like normal, but in the afternoon I went to Kamihama Elementary to watch and English class performed by John (the Kisakata ALT) and then to participate in a lengthy and boring meeting about English in Elementary schools. Yay.

On Thursday I had a day off because everyone at Konoura Jr High had a day in lieu off last Tuesday when I went to Kamagadai. The reason for the day off was the school festival on the previous Saturday. Anyway, I went nowhere on Thursday but Max Valu. I cleaned, I uploaded stock photos to DeviantART and I read an entire Discworld book.

On Saturday I traveled all over Nikaho City taking pictures for an ALT photo treasure hunt competition that I entered. I had from between 8.30am and 5.30pm to take as many pictures of the list I was e-mailed that morning, and then send them to the person running the competition. Toshi picked me up at 9.30 and we went to Nikaho Max Valu to take pictures there. I had to wear an arm band showing everyone I had permission to take the pictures. We picked up Atsuko and ran around taking the rest of the pictures. I might post them here separately later, with explanations.

After I had finished sending the pictures, we three made dinner at Atsuko’s house. We do that from time to time because it is better to eat with company. Toshi spent all night until 5am on Atsuko’s Playstation, so it was as if he wasn’t there. If we talked to him, he wouldn’t answer. I slept on a futon in Atsuko’s living room. In the morning Toshi played the Playstation again, so I had to wait for him to finish before he would take me home. I got home at 1.30, had a shower and a nap before going back to Atsuko’s house again for dinner. We ate shabu-shabu, and then Miwa came over with a home-made pizza. I got home last night after 11.30. I feel very tired today, and it is only Monday.

I Love Sleep

This is my answer to a question I, amongst other people, was asked: What do you love?

I love the smell of rain on concrete, the smell of storms, and the smell of dettol. I love being inside when it is stormy out, warm drink in my hands and a blanket on my knees. I love wearing my skirts long, as well as my hair. I love reading. I love creating; pictures, stories, whatever. I love onions, cheese, and chocolate (but not together). I love tea; I drink it every day. I love going to the beach on cool stormy days more than on sunny days. I love snow and rain when they fall without a breeze. I love strong wind right before the rain arrives. I love plants even though I kill them. I love ginko trees and ferns, because they remind me of the distant past. I love Orion: he is the first constellation I search for when I look at the night sky. I love the first day in spring when it is warm enough to go to bed without socks on, and the first day in autumn when it is cool enough to go to bed with them. I love vegetables more than fruit. I love things that are decorated with leaves. I love money spiders, even though I like no other types of spiders. I love frogs more than humans usually do. I love mountains although I don't climb them. I love thinking, I love dreaming, I love sleep.

Kanmanji part 1

(I actually wanted this post and the one below it to be in the same post, but I had too many pictures and it didn't fit. Please keep reading down as if it were one post.)

Yesterday both Atsuko and I were bored, so we decided to do painting. First we had lunch in Kisakata. On the way back, as we were passing the turn off for Kanman Temple, Atsuko said "Do you want to see the temple?" I said I did, so we turned around and went back.

Here is a statue of Basho, a famous poet (artist?) who came to Kanmanji however many hundreds of years ago.
Before I show you the rest of the photos, I should tell you a little bit about the history of this area so you know what you are looking at. In the past, both Kisakata and Konoura were actually the sea. About 2500 years ago, a large eruption of Mt. Chokai blew a large hole in the side of the mountain. The rock that was blown off the mountain fell down in large island-sized boulders into the nearby ocean, creating the famous '99 islands of the north' (of which there were actually 103. They were named after the 'real' 99 islands, which are somewhere near Nagasaki I believe.) The density of these islands caused the water between them to be more like a lagoon than the open sea.

A long time ago, I heard 1200 years, the original Kanman Temple (Kanmanji) was built on the largest of the islands. The road to the front gate ran along a beach. Waves lapped at the feet of the graveyard. Since the island was made out of one giant rock, the ground was solid and dry enough for such things.

A couple of hundred years ago, a large earthquake raised this whole area up. The lagoon drained, creating the land that Konoura and Kisakata sit on today. But that left the islands stranded on dry land. You can still see them today. They still look very definitely like islands. Islands sitting amidst a sea of rice.

This stone bench at the side of the old road used to be on the shore. People could sit here and look out over the sea, and the 99 islands.

Here are a few islands. You can see that they are certainly islands and not hills.

Here is the old road up to the front gate. Now the road approaches from another angle. I am not to sure why there was an old road. I mean, who needed to use it when everyone approached the island from the other side by boat? I guess it's just traditional for a temple to have one of these.

Japanese people are so hospitable they even give clothes to their statues.
Continued below . . .

Kanmanji Part 2

This plant took my fancy. I asked Atsuko to pose with it so you can see just how big it is.

I like this picture.

This is a bell tower.

This post used to be what visiting boats were tied to, back when this was a beach.
This tree is 1000 years old.

I thought this building looked delightfully shabby. It looks haunted.

But a good angle makes the other half of the building look rather nice.

The 1000 year old tree from a distance.
Kanmanji is painted in an archaic colour scheme. The purpose of the red paint is to scare demons away.

This appears to be a family memorial. The jars on the side are urns for ashes.
I have known for a long time about the geological history of the area, but I have never seen it so clearly as I did yesterday. I could almost see the sea that had once been there.

After Kanmanji, Atsuko and I went back to Atsuko's house and did some painting. Then we decided to buy gyoza from Nikaho Max Valu for dinner. Just as we got to the car park, a call came from Toshi. He said he had just bought a shabu-shabu pot, so the three of us ended up eating dinner together. We had shabu-shabu and gyoza.

Autumn rice fields

Akita means 'autumn rice field.' Since I am living in Akita, I decided that it was very important of me to take photos of rice fields in autumn. So that is what I did on Saturday.

Not far into my walk, I ran accross this guy - Peter the Suicidal Mantis.

Peter was an old senile mantis, who was wandering around in the middle of the road oblivious to the danger. He was having trouble walking, and looked rather like he was boogie-woogying. I was concerned for his health, and after taking his picture I was standing there trying to decide whether I would intervene and usher him to the side of the road when I saw something out the corner of my eye. My head whipped around in time to see a snake snaking its way up out of the gutter a few metres away, it's eyes on me. We stared at each other for a few seconds before he (who I have decided to name Snape) retreated.

In short I didn't save Peter because I was too busy putting distance between Snape and myself.

Encounters with scary creatures could not dampen my resolve to take pictures of the fields. I quite like this picture - it's nice and orderly.


Taking this picture involve contorting myself into an awkward position, and stopping my breathing. And then waiting for the wind to quit being a pest.

The owners of this field dry their rice naturally. This the traditional rice-drying method used in this area. Further inland they use another method.

Three wise men.

I like this field. So far I have taken pictures of it in spring, summer and autumn, and said pictures are always picturesque (that statement is entirely redundant, isn't it?).

After taking a few more pictures on the way back home, I looked to the left and saw this: That time I did not jump, because in truth I was kind of expecting to encounter Snape again. He did not jump either, and I managed to take a few pictures (with zoom). But then a car went by and he did get spooked, so my snake-picture-taking was cut short.

I looked further up the road and saw a non-moving blob, and knew that the worst had happened. Peter the Suicidal Mantis had achieved his goal - he had been hit by a car. He was in a different part of the road to where I had seen him earlier, so he must have continued boogie-woogying up the road, you know, just to make sure he got hit.

As a tribute to the poor soul of Peter, here is a beautiful picture of some dead trees.

Now all I need to do is go for a walk amongst the fields in winter too, and my '4 seasons' collection will be complete.

Starsiren

Do you think I am getting better at digital art?


Starsiren by *togiren on deviantART

Autumnal Equinox

Saturday the 23rd was the autumnal equinox. There was a sports exchange that day, so I spent the morning at work. In the evening I went to a barbeque in Kisakata.

For a long time now Sean (the Nikaho ALT) and I have been asking Jon in Kisakata to organise a party, because Jon has a whole family-sized house to himself that is near the beach. He finally got around to it. Unfortunately Sean could not come because of a sad occurence, so at the party was Jon and friends of his I had never met before and myself with my friends Jon has never met before. The two groups did not mix. Maybe they would have mixed under better conditions.

With me were Atsuko, Toshi, Miwa and (later in the evening) Saya. We had a barbeque near the shore but not actually on the beach. Now, it is well past barbeque season. It was cold, and dark because the sun went down quickly and the closest streetlight was broken. No one thought to bring any lights. One of Jon's friends ran his car to light the party area with headlights. If anyone wanted food from the table they had to use the light on their cellphone to find what they were looking for. The stars were pretty though.

This of course is the reason why the party stayed split into two groups: one set of people were huddled around the 'barbeque' (coals glowing in half a section of cement pipe) and the other half was huddled around Atsuko's portable gas burner that we cooked stew and Yakisoba on.

I guess we were just unprepared. It seems as if Jon forgot to tell his friends to bring stuff: some people brought some meat, but as for non-meat food, they were all eating the foods that Astuko and I brought with us (I took a lot). We couldn't eat Toshi's fruit because we didn't have a decent place to cut it. We all thought Jon would have paper bowls and stuff, but he didn't. We had to go to Max Valu to buy some.

I don't know what was with Jon. He wouldn't let us use his house, he wasn't prepared, and he cut the party short by going off by himself and crying. I don't know why. I kind of feel sorry for him, that he was sad, but I don't know why he was. The rest of us had a good time despite being cold and unable to see. Come to think of it, maybe that is why he was sad. Maybe he felt left out?

Anyway, after the party died, Miwa went home because she had an early start on Sunday, but Saya, Toshi and I went to Atsuko's house. We stayed there until 4am drinking red wine and soba (buckwheat) tea. About two or three o'clock in the morning Saya's friend came to pick her up, but he ended up drinking soba tea with us. Then he (whose name I cannot remember) gave Toshi and I a ride home as well as Saya. I live near Atsuko and Toshi lives near Saya, so it wasn't so far out of the way.

I had Monday off because I worked on Saturday, so I spent two lazy days doing nothing. At dance practice on Tuesday I finally received a DVD of my trip to Sapporo, complete with the actual footage of our team on the Yosakoi Matsuri TV coverage. We were on TV for about three minutes. I was at the back so there were no closeups of me, thankfully. If I figure out how to convert footage ripped off a DVD into a web-friendly format, I will see about YouTube-ing it and sharing it here. I also received photos of the trip last week. I really ought to see about scanning them up.

As yet I have no plans for the coming weekend, so I don't know if I will have anything to write about next week. Maybe I will go shopping.

Too much beef

Last Friday I went to eat yakiniku (grilled beef) with my friends. On Saturday I didn't go anywhere but instead stayed home watching Noh theatre on TV while crocheting, just as if I were in my seventies. But I had fun, which come to think of it is probably the most disturbing thing. That evening I made from scratch a steak and cheese pie, because I really do crave those from time to time. At nine I watched the last episode of 'My Boss, My Hero,' a TV program I have been watching recently. It is a school / yakuza comedy drama, which sounds like it wouldn't work but does. I am sad that it is over. Maybe I will buy the DVDs when they come out. Afterall, I didn't see all the episodes, and they may come in handy for studying Japanese some time in the future *innocent look*.

On Sunday I went with Sumiko and Atsuko to Akita AEON Plaza. I bought a new pair of jeans because my old ones have about 10% the pigmentation they used to, and a new pair of trousers for work. I also bought muesli, Twinings tea and cheese. And what wonderful cheese it is: feta from Greece, Edam from Holland and blue cheese from Denmark.

On Monday I went with Atsuko to a concert in Kisakata that I had received a ticket for. The person playing was Karen Nunis Blackstone, who lives here in Akita because her husband is a professor at Akita International University. She is from Malaysia, and apparently is fairly successful in her home country. She is a singer/songwriter who sings the blues and other jazz related stuff, although there really are a lot of influences in her work. Playing with her were two professional musicians from Malaysia, a base guitar player and a percussionist who played rare folk instruments. There was also a guy who might have been a professor playing the electric violin and the banjo, and Professor Blackstone on the harmonica. Billie Nunis Blackstone (11, daughter of Karen) entertained the audience from time to time with cute spontaneous dances of the type only children can do. The concert was spoilt for me slightly by Atsuko laughing hysterically at a song about Namahage.

After the concert finished, everyone was invited to stay and talk with Karen over snacks and drinks. Most people left. Atsuko and I were going to as well, but first Billie stole Atsuko's cellphone, and then right after the confusion ended the base player Adrian came and personally invited me to stay. I talked with all three of the Malaysians. They are all very nice people.

After I had finished socialising, and Atsuko had finished fighting with Billie, we went to meet Toshi and eat Shabu-shabu. It was my first time to eat it. Shabu-shabu is food that you cook yourself by holding it with your chopsticks, swirling it in boiling water, dipping it in sauce and then eating it. Foods available were leeks, tofu, mushrooms, cabbage and lots and lots of beef. It was delicious, but very expensive for food that the cook only had to chuck on a plate raw and give to us to deal with.

On Tuesday I watched the last episode of 'Kekkon Dekinai Otoko,' a TV program I have been watching lately (TV programs here run quarterly on fixed seasons, so everything finishes about the same time, and soon). The name of the program means 'the man who cannot get married,' and is about a man who cannot get married. A very strange man. Very strange, although in truth I have known stranger.

So in summary, my last week has consisted primarily of music, TV, shopping and beef.

Pictures part 5