Dinner with the mayor

Just got back from dinner at the mayor's house. It's only nine o'clock and I'm pretty tipsy, but the food was freakin fantastic - the absolute best sashimi since I've been here and an ebi mayo to die for. Plus lots of wine and sake, hence the near drunkeness. The new director of the board of education used to be an English teacher so he played the part of translator most of the afternoon. He's pretty entertaining by himself, even more as the alchohol kept coming.

The mayor also seems very sweet. I met him in Georgetown before I came to Japan and he said I seemed so very nervous at the time. He was relieved to see me so relaxed and happy now. He thought I would want to leave Japan because maybe I wasn't happy here. He kept asking me questions, like was I having a good time, was I happy, did I have Japanese friends? Yes, yes, and yes were my answers. Overall a very nice day.

Birthday Party

Last night was my not a suprise birthday party. It was supposed to be a surprise party but when my friend Marie invited me to dinner on Tuesday night I told her I couldn't because I had choir practice. Her response: "Uh...the truth is we're throwing you a party. Can you cancel?"

Yes, I could.

Dinner, friends, presents, and karoake. I even got a pink sparkly tiara. What more could you want in a birthday celebration?


Fellow ALT Jason's birthday is this weekend so we had a joint party.

And then today I got a package from home full of Reese's cups!




I blew the chocolate shavings all over the place when I blew out my candles.

I've mentioned before that I'm famous in Tahara. It's hard not to be when I see over 1,000 students in a month. Weekends are fun because my students freak out when they see me outside of school. Today, sitting at McDonald's, I saw no less than 15 students. It took them all a moment to recognize me without my glasses (contacts are weekend-only) but I got a big hello when they realized I really was Jennifer-sensei.

Five of my first-graders (think American seventh grade) showed off the only English they have really learned so far this year,(remembering that the school year here starts in April.) On the count of three they said together, "Are you Miss Jennifer?"

"Yes, I am!" I answered. Then we laughed and I asked them if they were playing badminton at the community center, having gleaned this information from an earlier student. "Yes, yes," they said.

I sometimes don't like my job because it's boring, especially on those days when I am a stand-in for the cd player, but it's nice to know that my students, some of them anyway, are excited to see me.

Out and about visiting Japan

I'm back from my trip with my parents. Dad took almost 650 but I've managed to narrow it down to 60. We had a lot of fun. Starting out in Tokyo, we visited the Tsukiji Fish Market, Ginza, Harajuku, Shibuya, and Asakusa. My dad bought a new backpack with a compass especially for this trip, which I teased him to no end about.

"Did you think we were going on an urban safari?" It got better when he kept getting us lost. Eventually, I had to take over navigation.

From Tokyo we took the shinkansen to Kyoto where we visited temple after temple including, Kiromizu Dera, Ginkakuji, Kinkakuji, Fushimi Inari (my favorite!), Nijo-jo (actually a castle and not a temple) with a day trip out to Nara to feed the deer and look at the largest Buddha in Japan.

Then it was off to Miyajima to see the famous floating torii gate. Dad somehow restrained himself and only took 50 pictures of it. (You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.) We stayed in a Japanese-style inn, called a ryokan, that night. Sleeping on the floor usually wouldn't sound like an appealing idea but our hotel in Kyoto had been so crappy that futons and tatami sounded luxurious indeed. Besides there was a huge Japanese meal and a small onsen to go with it.

On the way back to Tahara we got off the train in Himeji to see the famous castle there. Then it was back on track to Tahara where I acted as tour guide, showing off my favorite places around town. We had a nice party with friends Saturday night and then I put them on the train back to Tokyo on Monday.

It was a great trip, mostly because my parents are awesome and are great to travel with.

Janken!

Janken - it's the Japanese rock paper scissors and it's a daily part of my life. A day does not go by in school where my students don't janken for something, extra dessert or milk at lunchtime, who is going to go first with their speeches, random games for fun in the hallway before class. If there is a dispute in one of my games, something is a little too close to call, I just say "janken!" and they have to abide by it. There are no hard feelings in janken. It was one of the first things the other English teachers taught me when I arrived. You will need this, they told me.

Some teachers try to teach the English version, knowing the kids will be interested in knowing another version of their favorite game, but the truth is that I prefer janken to the English version. Janken has a much nicer rhythm to it. Sisho gu janken po. You throw on the po. If you throw the same thing then you say aykorasho, throwing again on the sho until someone wins. Some kids shorten it to just janken po and sho, but that usually throws me off so I like the full version better.

What makes me laugh is when they really get into it (which is almost all the time.) We had frozen yogurt with lunch the other day and the shrieking caused by kids who had lost their chance at the extra in janken made me giggle. They do big group jankens for the leftover milk too. What really makes me laugh is when they glare at their hands and shake them with disdain, as if it was the appendage that let them down not their own intuition.

It's one of those things that I will take with me from Japan. I don't know if I'll ever play rock, paper, scissors again, but I will janken.

Shake, shake, shake

I was talking about the earthquake in the Midwest this weekend with my dad. He was awake and heard the house creaking but didn't really "feel" anything. He didn't know what was causing the noise but living in Ohio his first thought wasn't earthquake.

The worst natural disasters we get are tornados and even then I've only ever lived through one that got remotely close (about half a mile) from where I've been. Snowstorms are a hassle but they don't really count as disasters, but earthquakes...I don't know what to think about those.

I felt one small one a couple months ago and it wasn't so bad, but they keep predicting that the "next big one" should hit anytime soon. It's past due in fact. And so with all this earthquake talk I went to bed on Saturday night.

And was woken up by an earthquake.

At the time I thought I was having a nightmare. My bed shook and I swore I could hear sirens. I was in that fuzzy place between sleep and awake and not sure what was real and what wasn't. I'm most easily scared in this in between, I often dream that strangers have come in and are in my apartment, but this night I dreamed that I could hear sirens in the distance and that any moment the walls were going to fall around me. Terror, sheer terror.

Then this morning my co-worker, Jason, asked me if I had felt the earthquake this weekend.

"You mean there really was one?" I asked him. By morning, I had convinced myself it was just a bad dream. So I'm not completely crazy, but I'm still a little nervous.

Spring is in the air

Here are some pictures from last weekend, when the cherry trees were in full bloom. Spring in Japan is stunning.