Last night's 'farewell' enkai was fun, though I'm a little sad that some of the English teachers are being transferred to other schools in the Nagasaki prefecture. The evening ended with all 70 or so teachers making a large circle with arms around each other, swaying from side to side while singing the school song. These kind of events help create stronger bonds in the workplace..something the Japanese put a lot of emphasis on since people generally spend more time at work than anywhere else!

I'll be leaving bright and early tomorrow for Tokyo where I'll be doing a homestay with a Japanese family as part of the 2 week Japanese course I'm in enrolled in. I'm not sure what to expect, we'll see how it goes!

I just received directions to Iwakura san's (NSA member) place where I'll be staying the first night. Although the transportation system in Tokyo is very efficient, it's also very complicated..there's so many different transportation services, each of which has many different lines etc. I hope I can find my way to her place.

I have to leave the house around 5:30am tomorrow...better go catch some Zzzzzz...nite nite!

Happy Birthday Mom!

You're the best Mom in the world!! I love you!

Today was the last class for this school year.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the school where I work, a little garden overseeing the beautiful view of the bay was added recently.

It's such a beautiful day I had to take a picture of what I see from the staff room...it's such a beautiful view!

After school, I had an interview for a job with a company hired by SONY to teach english to its managers. It went well, and the 2 hour meeting ended with a visit to the SONY plant where I will be starting classes when I get back from Tokyo.

Kurokawa Onsen

The fast is over!! Happy new year! :)

Since today is a national holiday, Erica, Terumi and I made plans to spend the day at Kurokawa onsen in Kumamoto, where the ryokans (Japanese style hotels) are often booked upward of 6 months (according to one of my teachers).

On our way through the Aso area, the normally lush looking green hills were all black..looked like the aftermath of a war..!

Apparently, burning the ground allows for better harvest the following year.

It was quite a long way to get to Kurokawa, but it was well worth the drive...it's a goregous area , with quaint narrow little streets, surrounded by lots of greenery and has TONS of onsens.


We spent the day dipping in different onsens and just taking it easy..

On our way back to the port, while driving along a narrow road we find ourselves facing a bus coming in the opposite direction...the road was not wide enough to accommodate both the bus and the car, so we had to reverse a good 25-30 meters to a point where the road widens ever slightly to allow the bus to go by.

I wonder if this is the bus' regular route?...

Despite the crazy driving (which I've become more or less accustomed to), it was a very relaxing day, spent in good company!

While correcting the students’ journals today, I came across the entry ‘…and I really love LADOKURIFU...’ At first glance it may not seem obvious who this is, but once you read it aloud it becomes clear that the student was trying to spell ‘RADCLIFFE’. That’s the kind of English spelling you get when students learn English using katakana..!!

It reminds me of when I first arrived in Japan, and thought that katakana (phonetic alphabet used for foreign words brought into the Japanese language) might be the most useful of the three alphabets to learn first.

I quickly realized that once you read the word in katakana, you then still had to guess at what the English equivalent is. For example: a – i – su – ku – ri – mu = ...........

That’s right! Ice cream!

It used to take me a while to verbalize each sound, and once I did, I’d have to figure out what it might correspond to in English...

After school, we had a small get-together at Miyamoto sensei's place where we made temakizushi together. It was a very nice evening!

Hyaku Nin Shyu

Another “baby day” was organized at school today. A bunch of babies with their moms came to visit. During my free period, I went down to see what they were doing..They are so adorable!!

The afternoon was spent with everyone in the gym playing hyaku nin shyu. I was dreading having to be a reader..!!

There were 4 sets of games that were played. Kitano sensei and I were readers for the last ‘exhibition’ game. It went horribly. I'm glad it's over..

Everyone else seemed to have enjoyed the game very much!

A fellow ‘hospitality club’ member, Chris, was going to be visiting Nagasaki today and staying over at my place. Since I wasn’t around during the day to show him around, I thought Ryo might want to have a chance to practice his English, and sure enough he was more than happy to act as a tour guide.

I met up with both Chris and Ryo later in the evening, and we took the ropeway up to Inasa yama. The night view is gorgeous.

Chris turned out to be a really friendly, laid back kind of guy. It was nice getting to know him and I wish him all the best for the rest of his travels!

Ureshino Overnight trip with Teachers (March 16-17)

There was an overnight stay at a ryokan (Japanese style hotel) organized for the Bunko teachers. We stayed in Ureshino, famous for onsens (hot spring) .

It was a huge hotel, with several onsens, some indoor, some outdoor, cafes, massage parlours, banquet halls, etc. Staying at this hotel costs a pretty penny but it's subsidized by the school.

Okubo sensei and I went exploring around the hotel, to find our way to the many onsens before dinner. We accidentally entered an onsen in the newer section of the hotel where, we found out later, an extra fee is required, which explains why it was empty when we got there..but since it was empty, we took pictures in the onsen!

We rushed back to the opposite end of the hotel to find the banquet hall where the 'end-of-year' enkai was going to be held.

Here are more pictures of some the onsens.
Before heading back to Nagasaki, we stopped by this pottery place where you can decorate your cups.. After it’s been glazed and ‘ovened’ they mail it to you. It was a lot more difficult than it looked…The activity made me appreciate the talent of the people who are able to get such beautiful designs on the cups being sold in the stores!!

We had a little end-of-year dinner in Isahaya this evening, with Yoshida sensei (the wife of the Yoshida sensei at my school).

We ended the evening at Baskin Robbins, you can never go wrong with chocolate ice cream :)

White Day

I’d never heard of ‘White day’ before coming to Japan…but here, everyone thinks ‘white day’ is celebrated all over the world…!

What exactly is it?.. ‘White day’ is basically the sequel to ‘Valentine’s day’. It’s the date that’s been agreed upon for guys who were given chocolate/cakes/sweets to reciprocate the gesture by offering something (ie jewelry) to the girls.

I should have brought something to give to the people who had given me sweets on valentine's day...hmm oh well..

After school, I headed over to Oozaki sensei's place. Since both of the older daughters are home (school holidays till April), they had helped prepare dinner and made everything look so beautiful...It was delicious!

I spent the evening with them, chatting..they had assumed that I had brought my things to sleep over.

They are such a nice family...!!

Isahaya school's international day

I woke up this morning to Sheila’s wakeup call. While making my way to the bathroom still half asleep, I rubbed my eyes and thought ‘ouch, that hurt..” When I looked in the mirror, I noticed I had a bruise! I look like I’ve been punched in the eye! Well, maybe not that bad, but still. Guess Mitarai sensei’s foot hit me harder than I thought it did…!

I spent the day at Isahaya Commercial High school, where Amber and Alex work as ALTs. They had organized an ‘English international day’ and invited 8 ALTs to participate. We were each placed with a group of 5 or 6 students. Here's the group I was working with:

We spent the day doing different kind of activities together: a treasure hunt, jeopardy, songs etc. . The main show is a skit which each group puts on. The weeks leading up to this day, the students work on writing an original skit and creating lots of props. I dread having to participate in it… I think I must be the most non-drama oriented person ever.

Prizes were given to the winning groups, and what a surprise it was to find out that our group received first prize for the skit…!

Sports day

Twice a year there is a kyugi taikai (ball sports day) held at school. All the students are divided into teams and compete in one of 4 different sports: badminton, volleyball, soccer or basketball.

Each sport is run in a tournament style, with the winning teams moving on the finals at the end of the day. While waiting for their turn to play, students are warming up all around the school.

The classmates who are not in a game will cheer for those who are, so there is always a lot of cheering going on.

Before the start of one of the basketball games, here are some students getting themselves psyched up!
Then they go on to play!

This year, the teachers formed a team and competed against a couple of the volleyball teams. It was loads of fun!! During one of the games, I dove for a ball at the same time as another teacher…he did some kind of summersault thing and his foot hit me right in the eye! It hurt, but in the rush of the game, I forgot about the pain and we kept playing.

Here are some of the girls who were on volleyball teams.

The weather was gorgeous today, as it has been for the last few days. took my camera up to the Oral Communication room and took a picture of the view. What a gorgeous day it was!

A little misadventure..

It was a gorgeous day today so decided to make a day trip up to Saga, a neighbouring prefecture. It was an enjoyable day until the drive home… I had a bit of a misadventure……but luckily no one got seriously hurt.

When driving long distances, there are two types of roads that you can follow…either the Highway (which are ridiculously expensive toll roads) or 1-lane-roads which take you along a more scenic route. I usually opt for the scenic route because they are pleasant, you can stop along the way when you find something interested and they don’t usually make that big difference in the time it takes to reach your destination.

Along these scenic routes, people usually drive fairly fast…at 60 to 80 km/hour (sometimes a little faster..) So I was driving along when suddenly a car pulls out into the road from a side street without checking for oncoming traffic..the car infront of me slams on the breaks and just misses the idiot driver. But I couldn’t stop in time and hit the driver in front of me. The driver behind me also bumped me…

So we all pulled over to see what the damage was…. Surprisingly, only a little paint got scratched off which I’m oh so thankful for.

The driver in front of me gave a good yelling to the retard driver, who was of course very apologetic. I didn’t understand everything that was being said, but it wasn’t really necessary to understand the words coming out of his mouth: his gestures and tone of voice got the message across loud and clear.

No one was hurt, but even so, I was really shaken up. The prospect of having over an hour drive to get home was not very appealing…

What started off as a pleasant day finished off not quite the same. But hey, no one got hurt, and the cars are all right, so I’m thankful it wasn’t any worse then it was!

How adorable is this!! I want to meet the human equivalent of this little guy..!

Origami

Look what I made!


Can you tell I had way too much free time at work?... heheh

Talking sidewalks??

Leave it to Japan to come up with embedding computers chips in sidewalks…!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/070305/technology/technology_japan_chips_everywhere

I usually get to school early enough to give myself a few minutes to set up my computer, put my lunch away etc. So I arrive at school this morning, and my supervisor says ‘oh good! You’re here early. The morning meeting today and tomorrow will be starting 10 minutes earlier than usual.’. Well, that would have been nice to know....umm yesterday.

As I look around, it feels like everyone is dressed to attend a funeral…everyone’s in black suits. Also, about a third of the teachers are wearing white masks covering their mouth and nose, as a preventive measure. I don’t particularly like being surrounded by so many people wearing the ‘sick mask’…it makes me feel like I’m surrounded by SARS-infected people.

This crazy weather we’ve been having can’t be good for people’s health. One day it’s a beautiful sunny 22C day, everyone’s out in short sleeves. The next day, it’s dark, cold, windy with a high of 9C. Definitely not a short-sleeves kinda day… Today looks like a beautiful clear day, but it’s so cold…

For 3 days starting tomorrow, there are ‘achievement tests’ being held at Seiryo, which means no classes for me. Junior high school students applying to attend this school in April will be writing tests and having interviews. I’m not involved in any of the activities so will have tons of free time.

The afternoon was spent getting the school ready for the Junior high school students who will be coming tomorrow. Kitano sensei said it’s ok for me to be excused from school for a bit if I have some errands to do…which is great, because I did. I got groceries done, and other stuff done. On my way back to school, I stopped by this little bakery in Yagami that Uchida sensei had told me about. The lady who was working there turned out to be such a friendly (and talkative!) person. When she found out I was Canadian, she was ecstatic because it is ‘one of her favorite countries’… we chatted for a while, and before leaving, she gave a beautifully wrapped (everything is beautifully wrapped) box of cookies as service (which is Japanese-English for 'free’). That was a nice surprise!

Day 4 of the fast and so far, it’s going well. The wakeup calls I get from Sheila in the morning are a definite help! We’ve been meeting on Skype in the mornings to have devotions together after breakfast.

There’s a tradition at Seiryo to play a game of ‘hyaku nin shyu' at the end of the year.

What is ’hyaku nin shyu’? If I understand correctly: there’s a collection of a hundred short poems. Students are placed in groups of 6. Teams will take turns playing against each other. Each group will have one set of the poems placed in front of them. However, the poems on these cards are not written in their entirety. Only the last few words of each poem are written in hiragana (Japanese phonetic alphabet). A judge has a different set of cards where the poems are written in their entirety. The judge chants the poem. The students must recognize the poem, know how it ends, find the card that corresponds to it and slap/grab the card. At the end of the game, the team with the most cards wins.

These poems are written in old style Japanese, so many students don’t understand the meaning, and are sometimes not even able to read the kanjis properly. This game is a way of encouraging the students to learn many of these poems by heart..

There will be about 20 teachers who will be reading poems. Today, I was given the 10 cards that I will be responsible for reading. It should be interesting…!

Happy Birthday Dad!

I noticed that the number of candles on the cake dropped down to only one...was there not enough room on the cake for all the candles?? :)

I'm so proud to have you as my dad!! I wish I could have been home to celebrate your birthday with all of you..I love you!

Bunko's Graduation and Closing ceremony

High school graduation ceremonies across the nation are held on March 1st. However, at Bunko it was held today because the powers that be decided that it would be better to have the formal 'closing of the school' ceremony follow the graduation ceremony.

Bunko will be shut down as of March 31st - the official school year end.

There are very few teachers at Bunko, which translates into a lot of work for each of them on this day.

With only 36 students in total graduating, it was very different from yesterday's graduation.

The 'closing of the school' ceremony was a very solemn event, attended by many high placed officials..the whole ceremony had the feel of a funeral. There was a minute of silence that was observed. This was followed by many people who gave speeches.

Then everyone trudged out of the gym and made their way to the front of the school where the sign of the school hangs. The bringing down of the school sign was a very elaborate ordeal. First more speeches are said, then white gloves are worn. The sign itself is only about 20x80cm, however 4 people were involved in taking it down: the principal, the head of the PTA, the head of the Board of Education and the student council president all took down the sign together, carried it together over to a table where it was wrapped in a white cloth.

I've never attended the ceremony for the closing down of a school in Canada, perhaps similar actions are done?...

From there, many of the important officials went to the Grand Palace where the evening enkai was going to be held. I stayed behind with the teachers for the 'last homeroom'. This is when the students are given the certificates, their inkan (signature), and each student has a chance to share their thoughts about the year they've spent with their classmates and about what they hope for the future. There was a lot of crying, and even though I couldnt understand everything that was being said, I was touched and couldn't help getting a little teary-eyed.

Then we all car pooled to join everyone else at the Grand Palace. The teachers were responsible for MCing the event and making sure the evening goes on smoothly. So, it wasn't too enjoyable for them..Finally, it was time for everyone to go home, or to the nijikai (second party).

Before heading home, we had some drinks together:

Today was also the first day of the Fast. Although it was difficult to get out of bed this morning, I was surprised at how fast time went by before it was dinner time...guess it helps that it was a crazy day!

Seiryo's Graduation

The graduation ceremony was held today. It was a very stuffy complicated affair of standing and bowing.

After the formal part of the ceremony was over, everyone gathered in the atrium for the more relaxed portion of the program.

The students graduating this year are the first students I taught when I arrived in Japan. I'm proud to see them graduate..!

In the afternoon, many students came to the staff room to get their yearbooks signed, and take pictures with teachers.

All important school events are followed by a mandatory enkai (drinking party - for teachers, not students..!) in the evening. Today was no exception!