Kyle's World

The Owakare Jiai

2006-08-02T17:04:00.000+09:00

Today I played in my own wakare jiai today. A wakare jiai is like a sending off, final game. Since I'm leaving in a few weeks, this applies to me. I had been helping Mr Tokuzumi with our school's baseball practices and games since April; I even made it up to the title of coach. It was really fun, like hitting infield grounders and attending the games on weekends and cheering my head off in English when no one knew what I was saying. Very good memories these four months, my first four month stint as a baseball skipper and four months that I won't soon forget.

As for the game itself, it was the grade 9's and I against the grade 7 and 8's. Before the game, I outfitted my team with team Canada caps, so we had the international angle down. If we had fielded a lineup with everyone playing their own positions, we would have pasted the other team, but we were just having fun so we had the real first baseman pitching, the right fielder playing catcher, the catcher playing left field and so on. I grabbed first base, my position of choice as an 18 year old ball player. It was mighty hot in the blazing sun (think 35 degrees C) and when the other team exploded for 7 runs in the third inning, I was out there on the field with sweat pouring off my head for a mighty long time.

At the dish in the 4-spot, I had a pretty non-descript game. 0/1 with 2 walks, a fielder's choice, a strikeout, 2 stolen bases and 2 runs scored. We were down 10-2 at one point, but then we exploded for 8 runs in the bottom of the fourth. The kids didn't want to have the game end in a tie, so we went to extra innings. I thought we were in trouble in the top of the 7th, but with the grade 7 and 8 team threatening with a man on second, a couple grade 9's hooked up on the ol' hidden ball trick to nail the guy. The hidden ball trip works every time. I was laughing so hard in centre field after witnessing that. They ended up scoring that inning anyway, to take an 11-10 lead. Mr Tokuzumi said that if we didn't score in our half of the inning, that the game would end in a tie. So batter 3, Shogo, grounded out. 1 away. I walk to the dish, stare down the grade 7 pitcher, and dig in for my at-bat. The count goes to 3-0, so I start thinking walk. The fourth pitch comes in...it's at my shoe laces. I hear Mr Tokuzumi call strike behind me. I look at him with a smile and he says "you don't want to walk right?". After hacking at the next pitch, I draw the walk. Tying run on first, winning run at the plate. I steal second base, then watch as the next pitch to the fifth batter Kengo sails over the right field fence for a game-winning, sayonara two-run home run. It was Kengo's second 2-run jack of the game. Of course, the entire team mobbed him at home plate as the crowd went wild. What an owakare jiai!!

Out of Hibernation

2006-07-24T15:28:00.000+09:00

The peanut gallery is calling for more updates. Thank you to my 3 loyal readers. I have listened to your requests, and have decided to oblige you with more posts (disclaimer: no one knows how long this new found desire to post will last...enjoy it while you can).

Mind-blowing Japanese invention

2005-11-06T23:07:00.000+09:00

Yet another mind-blowing Japanese invention. This time, it's Genghis Khan flavoured caramels. What is Genghis Khan you ask? The picture on the box says it all. Yes, yakiniku flavoured. If you were ever dying to try salty meat tasting caramel, well now here's your chance. Honestly though, how did this ever make it to shelves? Don't they test the product with an audience before green lighting its production? Mine was so bad I spat it out the window of my speeding car. Who comes up with this stuff? Chalk another one up for, "only in Japan".

English Recitation Contest Part I

2005-10-29T22:14:00.000+09:00

Every year, in October, all junior high schools in the former Shimomashiki Gun, hold their English Recitation Contest. For me, it's a huge event, perhaps the biggest in the school calendar. It's bigger than the Sports and Cultural festivals even. I think this is because I have more responsibility than anywhere else since I'm the coach. I get to pick the students, and the programs of the text that they will recite. And mostly, I would practice with them, mornings, lunchtimes, after school.

There are 12 junior high schools in my Gun, all competing for 6 prizes: 3 bronze prizes, 2 silvers and a gold. If you get the gold prize, you get to compete in the Kumamoto English recitation contest against the other winning schools.

The contest this year was held on Friday. Since this was to be my third and last English Recitation contest, I felt that all students, especially the grade 2's (grade 8 back home), were really giving their all for a shot at the Kumamoto competition. This year we started practicing like 3 months ago, about the start of the summer vacation. I love having support from the other English teachers, Mr Izuno or Mr Sudo, but they were often too busy to attend the practices, so I was often left alone to coach the students and help them improve before the contest. Try doing that when the kids go off and play, don't really listen to you, and when your words of advice just aren't enough when spoken in Japanese.

Still we chugged along. There were certainly rough stretches, like morning practices from 7:30AM and so on. Gradually the students improved. Call it "blinded by the pride of your school" if you want, but I really felt we were great this year. We were certainly in a good position to improve upon last year's showing when the grade 1's and 2's won a bronze prize. 2 girls on the grade 2 team were members of the grade 1 team last year.

As far as predictions and/or expectations go, I thought the grade 1's might grab a bronze, but I wasn't sure since it's always so wide open with the grade 1's. There's not much to distinguish them from the other competitors. I thought the grade 2's would grab the silver if not the gold. They were so sure of themselves, so full of confidence that I went with it. Also the grade 2 ace-in-the-hole spoke a very long, important part of the text last. As for the grade 3's, I unfortunately didn't think they would get anything. I kept thinking their pronounciation was off in places during practice. Also the girl I chose has a soft voice, I wasn't sure it would reach the judging table.

The grade 1's got a raw deal as far as their order of presentation was concerned- they got the lead off slot. Since the order is grade 1's, 2's then 3's, my grade 1's presented right after the opening ceremony. Not that they weren't already nervous enough. Their presentation was flawless, as far as it going the way we'd been practicing. After looking at the other 11 schools, I thought we were definitely in the top 6 so that meant a getting a prize.

The grade 2's had a bad placement too, being the last grade 2 team to present. Going last is good in the sense that you can see how good the other teams have presented (although I guess that's bad too since you might start to think too much), but it's bad in the sense that, at least as far as I'm concerned, the judges have basically already finalized the best 6 teams by the time they get to see the twelfth team. But the presentation went really well, I thought they'd nailed the performance and there was a strong chance they'd get a shiny colour prize. Bronze isn't that shiny after all.

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me

2005-10-16T17:11:00.000+09:00

Chikako and my shadow, Kusasenri, Aso

Crisis? What crisis?

2005-07-18T22:33:00.000+09:00

I've heard so often about how Japan is in a population crisis, what with the aging population, and low birth rate, Japan's population is actually expected to shrink within the coming years. My old Board of Education head (now since retired) urged me to find a nice Japanese girl, settle down back in Toyono, and have lots of babies to replace the low numbers of enrollment my town is having. The picture is generally seen as bleak.

The thing is that, looking around the country, it doesn't seem so bleak. I don't doubt the seriousness of the issue, nor can I speak for 130,000,000 people. But while in Fukuoka this past weekend to catch some baseball games, the stadium had healthy numbers of young expecting mothers, or young mothers already. It's a random sampling of 30,000 people, but who knows? The future might be rosey. Either that or pregant women like going to baseball games so my sample was skewed.

Post script: Don't Japanese women look young? I guess men too. But going back to these prenant women at the baseball games, many looked like they were in their late teens or early twenties. And alot of the mothers of kids at my school look young too. There's the fact that Japanese women seemingly start families earlier than Canadians. There's also the element of, as I said, Japanese just generally looking younger. You could be talking to a 35 ear old, and think they just graduated university.

Noah's Ark

2005-07-11T15:47:00.000+09:00

Going by the old saying that when it rains, God must be watering his lawn (I don't know if it's an actual saying; I just remember thinking it as a kid), God must have gone to the Supermarket and left his sprinkler on, since it hasn't stopped raining here recently.

It's definitely the rainy season here, so I guess it's supposed to rain. But after starting the rainy season off really dry with no rain, I saw a segment on the weather channel that was expalining the dry phenomenon. You knew, of course, that as soon as they made mention of how dry it was, that it would start raining buckets. And it did. I don't think it's stopped raining since that broadcast.

This past weekend was particularily bad; I saw footage of flooding in and around Kyushu, people's homes being washed away, and people shovelling mud and debris from areas that were likely once indoors.

To the big guy upstairs, you've left your sprinkler on. Please turn it off as you are wasting water.

中体連tournament

2005-07-06T00:41:00.000+09:00

This past weekend was the annual "chutairen" sports tournament. Students from all over participate in tournaments for their respective sports; the reason that this is the big one is that the grade 9 students will retire from bukatsu. The idea is that they'll now turn their attention to studies so that they can get into good high schools.

Last year was my first chutairen. Although all my school's teams lost on the first day, my heart was nearly broken as the kids lined up, tears streaming down their faces, and thanked us for supporting them. I have great pride for my school anyway, but you sure realise it when you see that.

This year, although confidence in my school's teams wasn't terribly high (my principal didn't even schedule any spectating for day 2, the Sunday), my kids gave it all and competed with their hearts on their sleeves.

I started off watching the soccer team, who ended up getting pasted 7-0. Hmmm, not much to say about that except 'where was the defense'?

My first love is baseball and the baseball team, and I got to watch them play next. When we got there, we were leading 3-0. Keisuke belted a mammoth homerun. Shinji was on the mound, and things were looking good. Then the skies opened up...

There was a rain delay for about an hour as we all took cover. We really wanted to get the game in, since we hadn't played 5 innings yet, if the game were to have been cancelled, the score would have reverted to 0-0. Not that we couldn't have taken Matsubase anyway, but hey. The weather cleared, the field was drained (I helped with that; nothing like a little work in the mud for the benefit of the boys), and we continued. We went on to win the game 4-1 and advance to the semi-finals on Sunday.

Although I wasn't gonna receive a time-in-lieu day off from my school, I wouldn't miss the baseball game on Sunday for the World. Toyono pride runs in my veins after all. Shinji was on the mound again, and despite a first inning homerun, he settled down and started to mow down the opposing batters. Still, down 1-0 we needed to get the bats going. It's weird, back home when I was playing baseball, you'd pitch for maybe 3 innings at the most, then a new pitcher would come in. And you didn't often throw back-to-back games, not to mention that bench players would get to see some action. Well in Japan, there's no thought of potentially burning a kid's arm, thus Shiji could get back-to-back starts. And just like the pros, when you get a start as a Junior High School pitcher, you are expected to go as deep into the game as possible. And bench players have about just a chance of seeing game action as Steven Seagal has of seeing an Oscar in his awards case.

Anyway, Shinji settled into a groove, and we ended up scraping 1 run around the 6th inning. After 7 innings, or a regulation game, the score was tied 1-1. Shinji had now thrown 14 innings in less than 24 hours (the rubber-armed wonder, or a future Tommy John surgery candidate?). After 8 innings, still 1-1. In the 9th, Shiji beaned the leadoff batter, then got an out before being pulled in favour of a fresh Yohei. Outstanding work, 8 1/3 innings, 1 run given up. That's crazy. Yohei ended up escaping the inning without further damage. In the 10th inning, each time was given an opportunity with bases loaded and no outs. No worries. We surrendered 3 runs, making the score 4-1. It was our turn. But we could only muster 2 runs before our luck ran out, final score Tomiai 4, Toyono 3.

Outstanding work guys. You are my heroes. You make me proud to be your teacher...Great game, and what a great bunch of guys.

2005-07-06T00:16:00.000+09:00

The team

2005-07-06T00:15:00.000+09:00

Yohei

2005-07-06T00:14:00.000+09:00

Shinji

2005-07-06T00:13:00.000+09:00

MaeShin

2005-07-06T00:11:00.000+09:00

Aki

Live 8

2005-07-04T15:51:00.000+09:00

The series of global concerts aimed at educating people and pressuring G8 leaders wrapped up yesterday. Let me say, I am thoroughly impressed at the power of one man to change the world. Perhaps some people think "what can I do to help Africa?" or "my contributions are insignificant in the grand sceme"...well I look at Bob Geldof, with help from friends in high places, and I feel inspired.

Too often is Africa the forgotten continent, the place that people ignore all together, the place that is brushed off as "it's not my problem". I've been made aware of my ignorance, and my eyes have opened in a big way. I would have flown to Tokyo to attend Japan's installment of Live 8 had I not had a special day of work on Saturday. But spending an afternoon at a concert, rocking out and enjoying the vibe is easy. The real work begins now, in a real continent that has real problems.

Thank you Bob Geldof, for opening my eyes and showing me a deeper, greater understanding of the plight of Africa, and for showing me the power one man has to change the World. Let the work begin...

The Grand email error

2005-07-02T22:40:00.000+09:00

If you needed to see with your own eyes why we should be careful when emailing to a list serve, check out this email from this afternoon (names changed and personal info not included).

Miss C,
This is Mr. L. Maybe you recall going to karaoke with me and 3 other ALTs last night? It was the first time that I enjoyed Karaoke in about a year. I came late, and for some reason you had to leave early. Whatever the reason, it is not important. Although, as a participant, we expected everyone to pay their even share. I'm not sure how much you recall the events around the time of your departure, but one fact remains clear. You didn't pay.

I don't know what your intentions are/ were, but I am very disappointed in you as a PA, and more than upset with you at a person. I paid your share, seeing as the other ALTs are all leaving the country in a few weeks. That was not the last memory that they were hoping to have. I kindly hope you will pay me the 5000 yen that was given on your behalf.

Please contact me through my keitai:

I hope we can settle this in a timely manner,

Mr. L

Hahahahahahaha. Ouch!!!

School Tests

2005-06-28T14:58:00.000+09:00

I've got a lot of topics for future blogs, just not all of them can be drawn out into full blog length. Maybe I'll do a whole series of rapid fire mini-blogs in the coming days. For now though...

We had the first term tests at school last week. Whenever these tests go down, I usually have some hand in it, from making the test questions, to correcting and so on. Today we gave the tests back. There's something weird I noticed about what Japanese teachers think is a good score compared to what we as Canadians (I use the term generally, however this is what I perceive to be true back home) think.

A few students get in the teens and 20's, for example 10 out of 50. If you're keeping score at home, that's 20%. On the comments they get at the bottom of their page, my teacher wrote stuff like "I can see you are doing well", "your effort is finally paying off" and so on. On the one hand I can see not damaging someone's fragile confidence, especially when it comes to learning a language like English (I'm not sure what goes on in the other subjects when a test is returned), but creating a false sense of confidence also seems not good for the kids. I don't think these kids should get complimented after pulling a 10 out of 50; instead they should be offered constructive criticism and hints on how to improve the next time around.

On a related note, we calculate the average score for each class. When these classes are pulling an average of 32 or so, they get complimented. Why is that? That's only 64%. The academic level when I was in Junior High on a test like this was like 40...it seemed that everyone could pull or pulled at least 80%.

I really hate that

2005-06-15T11:39:00.000+09:00

Back from a very good month with my brother, that means (hopefully) I'll be back blogging on a regular basis. To kick things off, this is something that really annoys me to the point of making my blood boil: people who are too stupid to use email properly.

Here's what I mean. Most people know what a list serve email is, and probably most people are either on one, or have been sent an email by one before. List serve emails are general in nature, as their contents apply to everyone who gets the mail. Or at least that's how it's supposed to work.

I belong to a list serve of fellow Kumamoto Jets; the emails sent are updates, upcoming events, things for sale and so on, the kind of stuff that is somewhat important to read. What drives me absolutely crazy is when people reply to the general email specifically to one person, yet don't change the address of the receiver. Are they stupid, or do they just forget? AHHHH. It's kind of common courtesy, not to mention common sense. Here's an example of emails that often appear in my inbox:

Hey John,

Are you going to the party this weekend too? Hell yeah, rock on bro. Can you give me a ride? I'll bring my futon and sleeping bag and liquor, so if you could pick me up that would be great. Failing that, we could meet at Starbucks.

Later dude,

Steve

Of course that email is sent to the list, so everyone gets to read it, although it was only meant for John's eyes. And people like Steve are often repeat offenders, they commit the cardinal sin of emailing on a regular basis. I don't think I need to read any email that appears in my inbox, but giving people the benefit of the doubt that they can't possibly be that stupid, I always read them and get disappointed. Maybe I should order a case of emailing for dummies rom Amazon...

Baseball Ruminations

2005-05-12T00:12:00.000+09:00

Japanese baseball games can end in a tie. What's up with that? What kind of bastardized version of baseball do they play here? Part of the beauty of baseball is that you play till someone wins, whether it takes 6 hours and 18 innings or not. There are no ties in baseball. So it's so foreign to see ties in the morning paper boxscores.

A foreign relief pitcher, Marc Kroon, apparently hit 159km on the radar gun when he pitched tonight, a new Japanese baseball record. Since there's 1.6km's in every mile, he almost hit 100mph which seems strange that it's a record. I think pitchers (whether on steroids or not) regularly hit 100mph and beyond in the big leagues.

And further eveidence of just how Kiyohara is a turkey. He homered today, then was hit by a pitch in his next at bat. Well he sparked a bench clearing brawl. The pitch may have been intentional, but there's never bench clearing incidents in Japan. I think he thinks he's hot shit...not the case. I can see through you Kiyohara!!

Getting tickets in Japan

2005-05-09T22:41:00.000+09:00

If you read my post about Japanese photocopiers a while back, you'll know that a certain level of faux-efficiency is here in Japan. I don't know how that started; the Japanese certainly don't do a lot of patting themselves on the back saying "Look how efficient we are". I guess it is us, the non-Japanese living here, who propagated the rumours before coming. You can think that Japan is the most efficient country in the world before coming, then when here, you'll start to believe the opposite.

This is not to say that Japan is the most inefficient country, just that Canada has it beat on a few things.

In Canada (or at least Vancouver, but probably the rest of Canada too), when you buy a ticket to an event, you know what you're getting. You know the price range you want, you know if you're standing or sitting, you know what section, aisle, row, seat whatever. The clerk will find out just what kind of ticket you are looking for, will search for it, if it's available you can get it, and if not, the clerk gives you alternate selections with which to choose from. Sometimes even a map of the venue is pulled out. For example, if I wanted tickets to an event at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, I might be able to choose lower balcony row 15 seat 6. No problem, it's all easily layed out for the customer's benefit. And all very high-tech I must say.

Let's forward to getting tickets in Japan. First of all, there's no Ticketmaster here, or equivalent option of getting tickets through an agent. I don't know, maybe it exists in Japan but just not inaka places like Kumamoto. For the most part, you have to get tickets through a machine at a konbini. If you're lucky enough to know what buttons you are pressing, you can proceed to looking up your tickets (this is really challenging; one wrong button can send you spiralling back to the beginning). From this machine, you are pretty much flying blind. You can't see the stadium or concert-hall where the event is taking place, you don't know if what you pay for your ticket is worth it and what not. Completely ridiculous how the cutomer doesn't really have the final say...

Here are three examples of dicey ticket purchasing moments I've experienced:

I bought a ticket for last year's Summersonic concert, as did my friend Mihoko. That was all fine and well; festival ticket, general seating, we were in good right? Not exactly. Apparently my ticket stipulated that I get a green wrist band, while Mihoko's said blue. We were gonna have to sit in different parts of the venue, even though we went together. Did the comp at the konbini tell us what colour wristband we were to get? No. But luckily we ended up together after all.

I bought yet another ticket to the Japanese-American all-star baseball tour last year too. When the price menu came up, and knowing that I effectively wouldn't know where I was sitting, I ordered the most expensive tickets. Well I ended up getting burned with right field nose bleed bleacher seats at Fukuoka Dome, so far from the action that I needed binoculars to see the game. Of course I didn't bring binoculars though.

And most recently, I bought tickets for my brother and I to the Giants-Lotte Marines game at Tokyo Dome. I had to get these seats just right though since I really want to show my brother the craziness of Japanese baseball. I asked where Giants fans sit, and these two girls at the Family Mart called their supervisor, who then called the ticket broker, who then probably called someone in Tokyo all because I wanted confirmation of where I'm sitting. Seem like a waste of time? Yes. At least I kind of got an idea of what ticket to buy... stgay tuned however for whether it's the ticket I wanted or not.

日本語で

2005-05-07T15:03:00.000+09:00

今日俺の友達からＭｉｃｒｏｓｏｆｔ　Ｏｆｆｉｃｅ　２００３を借りた。そしてすぐに日本語が出来るようにプログラムをinstallした。まだその使い方全く知らないのでめちゃくちゃに書きます。

あまり面白い話がないけど一応日本語で書きたかった。又自身が上がったらメッセジを書きます。

3333 steps

2005-05-06T20:35:00.000+09:00

A couple of friends came up from Amakusa the other day. For some reason, one of them, Kensei, wanted to climb the 3333 steps which are near my house. I think it had been his dream to climb the steps ever since he was a child. I guess the steps were more famous than I thought. Meanwhile, my other friend Yuichi and I weren't really into the whole hiking thing, but since Kensei was visiting from Amakusa via Vancouver, we thought we'd let him choose the day's schedule.

So we embarked on our hike, everyone with a 2 litre of their favourite drink. Yuichi hiked in camouflage cargo pants, and Kensei in jeans. Needless to say, they hadn't done such a good job preparing. I had shorts and a sweat preventing coolmax shirt on.

People tend to think that steps are easy, but they weren't. Especially with 3333 of them. We took our time, making sure we had ample time for breaks or what not. We knew Kensei was the most fit, but between Yuichi's smoking and my not-built-for-excercise body, we wondered who was the most unfit.

After like 2 hours, we reached the top, appropriately all arriving at the 3333 step at the same time. Going down was pretty easy, and it was much faster, though plenty of people told us that going down is what kills.

Anyway we did it...I thought I should do it at least once while I live here, but actually my more ambitious plan is to do it every Monday after school since there's no baseball practice on Monday's and that's the only day the gym isn't open. We'll see if I hold myself to it, and if I do, how it goes.

Spiders II

2005-05-03T21:52:00.000+09:00

I got home from dins tonight, to find another giant brown spider on my wall. I'm on a pace where I see one about every month. But what is it about giant spiders and my apartment? How do they get in? I don't leave my doors or windows open. Maybe they start off as little spiders then grow big in my apartment before I find them.

Of spiders, cockroaches and mukade (poisonous centipedes), which is the worst to find in an apartment? I ask my faithful readership on that one. The thing is that I seem to have a problem with these giant brown, ping-pong ball sized spiders. I guess they eat the cockroaches. I really dislike spiders, but I suppose it's alright that i find them every month or so, even though they all invariably meet the same fate.

I sprayed and drowned this one is a puddle of Febreeze, making this one clean smelling dead spider and livening up my kitchen in the process.

Current score (since I've started keeping score on my blog): Kyle 2-0 spiders

Electrical Storms

2005-05-01T13:54:00.000+09:00

I remember growing up in Ontario, where there'd be electrical storms fairly often. I would look in fascination at the lightning bolts outside my window, and I'd fall asleep to periodic thunder and the lighting up of my dark bedroom. Then we moved to BC, which produced electrical storms very rarely, I'd say once every 3 years or so. I guess Vancouver's weather is much too moderate to have decent electrical storms.

Well, Kumamoto has some pretty decent electrical storms too. I saw a good one yesterday as I drove home from the city. It was raining so hard yesterday that I couldn't clean my windshield of rain at the highest wiper speed. But I digress...I'm happy that Kumamoto has more 'extreme' weather patterns, where warm air masses collide with cold air masses. This summer should once again provide me with endless entertainment as I watch these magnificent electrical storms.

Mitsui Greenland

2005-04-24T22:58:00.000+09:00

I had a rare day off on Friday. So naturally, I assembled some friends, and went to Mitsui Greenland, Kumamoto's amusement park.

I wasn't expecting much, I thought it would be somewhat small with some not-too-exciting rides, not unlike Playland back home. But after paying 5100 Yen entrance fee, I knew I'd be in for a pretty good day.

First, since it was a Friday in the middle of April, there was hardly anyone there. There was a few high school groups (shouldn't they be taking school trips to museums or something?) but there were hardly any lines. I tried a few kinds of coaster that I had never tried before; one where you are strapped in standing up, and another where you are suspended. There were definitely some good coasters there. As for other ides, there was a giant ferris wheel that promises a view of Nagasaki, a couple haunted houses that weren't scary at all (unless you're a high school student) and a few water rides. They also had a bunch of rides with engines, such as the bumper boats, two different go-kart courses, and a slalom cart course.

A couple of highlights: I stepped up to the plate of the game where you have to swing a hammer and hit a target, then a scale will tell you how strong you are. When I went in, there was no one around, just my friends, but before I took my first swing, a whole bunch of Japanese high school boys came out of nowhere to watch me. Since I look big and strong, I didn't want to disappoint, but it made me a bit nervous and the potential to be embarrassed was there. It reminded me of when tons of Taiwanese people watched me play a punching/boxing game when I was there. With the pressure on, I swung, and luckily got a perfect 100 points much to the delight of the onlookers. I won an inflatable hook that I planned on giving away to a student at school, but I think it was poorly made cuz it kept on deflating. Oh well, several people witnessed my 100-point swing, so that can't be taken away. I also played this cork shooting game where I knocked two boxes of candy off the shelf. Meanwhile my friends didn't win anything combined all day. It's all about the bragging rights sometimes.

2005-04-24T22:43:00.000+09:00

sign of information from the Greenland of Mitsui. very incorrect, very poor. I receive pat on back because of find it.

PTA Enkai

2005-04-23T23:12:00.000+09:00

Okl, let's try to write a drunken update. This'll be a first...

I went to the PTA enkai tonight. This was the second time I went; it's a bit more boring than regular staff enkais, but for some reason tonight's worked out ok. I drank lots, started spewing Japanese, and talked with lots of people. It's always fun to have the parents of your students come up to you, offering you a drink, and asking how their son/daughter is doing in English. Well, first you gotta get past your amazement that the person in front of you is the father/mother of so and so student. Often the resemblances are uncanny. I remain pretty quiet if I'm not drunk, but luckily tonight I consumed my fair share of bevvies so I could talk with everyone with ease. It's funny to how little these parents know about me. I guess it's one thing to impact the lives of the students, but another to impact the lives of the parents. As such, people were asking me what my last name was, how long I've been in Japan, and what country I'm from. But as a second year JET, those questions seem no longer relevant. Oh well, I threw them a bone and answered them....PTA enkai, until next year.

2005-04-23T17:29:00.000+09:00

Found a picture of Kazuhiro Kiyohara. Unfortunately, no huge diamond earrings. Well he's a primadonna anyway...

Ensoku

2005-04-19T01:01:00.000+09:00

Last Thursday we had our annual school ensoku. Last year we hiked to a place relatively close to my school. Not the case this year. For some reason, someone had the bright idea to do a 16km round trip hike to a park in the next town over.

Now some of the lazier teachers were assigned car driving duties, since loads of stuff needed to be brought, and just in case any kids had any accidents or what not. Perhaps as a compliment, thinking that I'm not lazy, I was assigned walking duty with the kids.

It was largely fun walking and talking and hanging out. And traditionally, the ensoku day is the only day of the school year that the kids can bring snacks and what not to school. So doing snack exchanges was also fun. As was not getting to use my own sunglasses and walking stick that I brought, since the kids always took them from me to use themselves. Oh well.

But the fun and enjoyment soon gave way to legs hurting and sunburns. Summer-like heat has definitely come to Kumamoto, but I haven't gotten prepared yet, ie I don't have any sunscreen yet. So after going sunscreen-less for the duration of the 16km hike, with the strong sun beating down on me, I burned my face, arms and the back of my neck. If I could have taken a picture and posted it, I would have. But it's not pretty. And this morning I got an earfull from my mom for getting burned. I learned my lesson, it won't happen again.

Movie Theatre Love Seats

2005-04-17T20:23:00.000+09:00

I went to see Constantine with my friend kara yesterday in Kumamoto City. Since it was opening day, it was probably going to be busy, so they had the seating chart and we were asked where we wanted to sit. There was three rows in the middle, prime seating, that only had 3 seats in each. Interested, I asked the staffer about those seats. We were laughing at this point because we sort of knew what they were, and also the language factor. So anyway the staffer explains that they are indeed date seats.

We thought about grabbing a date seat, but then we were told that they cost extra. Besides, we weren't on a date and Constantine isn't a date movie. So even though we thought long and hard at the novelty of sitting in date seats, we turned them down.

But when we got into the theatre, the seats looked way to inviting to pass up. They were these two-seater "love" seats, with tons of leg room and table space for drinks and food and stuff. After not even 5 minutes in the seats we payed for, we moved down and stole the date seats. We reasoned that no one would stop us because we are gaijins. Ah yes, the all important and oft-used gaijin card. It goes anywhere you want to be, don't leave home without it.

Kiyohara

2005-04-14T19:21:00.000+09:00

As I sit in my living room watching the ball game between the Giants and Tigers, I thought of a good update.

Well there's this player for the Giants, Kiyohara Kazuhiro. He's their first baseman and cleanup hitter. I think he was injured for the most part of last season. Anyway, he's 37 and he's come back healthy this season. The team he plays for, the Giants, are widely beloved across Japan. And they strike me as a rather conservative team from the top down, starting with the owner and ending with the manager.

Well Kiyohara has huge diamond stud earings in each ear. I must say he looks ridiculous. First, he's a 37 year old Japanese man. And he plays for the Giants, so his image doesn't really fit unless the team has suddenly become way more liberal since last year. Who does he think he is, the Japanese Barry Bonds?

I just saw him hit a homerun, and when he crossed the plate, he pointed skywards with both hands. Please Kiyohara, give me a break. This new image doesn't suit you. It's time for yet another image change.

PS: If I can find a picture of him, I'll post it as well.

2005-04-14T00:18:00.000+09:00

Me in front of a big ass Cherry (Sakura) Tree up in Aso. They come from all corners of Japan to see this famous tree, which, believe it or not, was only 30% full bloom at the time of the photo.

Coffee

2005-04-12T10:07:00.000+09:00

One thing I've noticed from living here in Japan for two years is that the Japanese love their coffee black. Just black is fine, as is black with sugar, but very rarely do any Japanese seem to put milk or creamer in their milk. I thought it could just be my co-workers, who are obviously all teachers; you know how it gets with the teachers lifestyle, long hours of marking, endless meetings with the occasional late-hour drinking party mixed in- it's no wonder the Japanese teachers would need strong, black coffee. But my theory might be lost. If you walk into any ordinary konbini, the rows and rows of canned coffee they sell are usually black, and other variants of dark. If you are lucky enough to find a can of coffee with milk (assuming you were able to read the label) then you'd also find an insane amount of sugar inside. It would be appropriate for me to ask the konbini staff if they sold sugar with coffee in it. Since I absolutely need milk in my coffee, I often struggle to get a good cup here. There's usually freshly made coffee at my school, but there's never any milk. Sometimes if there's extra milk cartons left over from school lunch, they will appear in the fridge ready to be consumed in my coffee. But that's asuming I remember to hide it. If I don't hide the milk, it'll get taken and drunken by another teacher. Or I can remember to bring my own milk from home, but that also doesn't happen so often. What a man has to endure to get the perfect tasting cup of coffee...

2005-04-11T23:54:00.000+09:00

Probably the finest wildlife picture I have ever taken. At Matsushima, Miyagi-ken, March 5 2005.

2005-04-06T22:51:00.000+09:00

Sand bath at Ibusuki, Kagoshima. Really interesting and fun, though I wonder if it's what hell feels like?

Radio

2005-04-06T22:46:00.000+09:00

In the absence of a traditional blog (not because I have nothing to write, but because I'm feeling lazy tonight), here are the lyrics to one of my current favourite songs, one that I can't seem to get out of my head. Perhaps more lyrics to come in the future, but for now, I give you:

Never fell in love until i fell in love with you Never know what a good time was until i had a good time with you If you wanna get the feeling and you wanna get it right Then the music gotta be loud for when the music hit i feel no pain at all

Warm summer night i was drinking with my dad He tried to give me the love that i never had But he gave more love to his bottle of wine So i had to go out and find love of another kind

Here it is Here i am Turn it up fuckin' loud

Radio, Radio, Radio...

When i got the music i got a place to go

Radio clash magnificent 7 I was a choir boy you showed me no heaven Two tools surely lost no remorse ignoring the cost

Here it is Here i am Turn it up fuckin' loud

Radio, Radio, Radio...

When i got the music i got a place to go

Mish and Co.

2005-04-04T12:10:00.000+09:00

Over the past few months, I've either visited lots of my friends or they've come see me. It's such an event that I really should be updating about these 遊び会 with my friends. Sorry to Russ, and Hiro, Yuuki and Rika, and Takeshi because I never updated after I met them. But another friend, Mish, and Mish's friend came to Kyushu this past week. I shall start my summit updates with them.
They landed in Fukuoka sometime on Thursday morning. I couldn't get them because I had to work, but I put them in touch with Kanako, a native Fukuokan. That was good for them because Kanako could show them the sights and sounds that otherwise they would have had to do by themselves. Thanks Kanako. I guess they hopped on the train, and arrived in Kumamoto that evening. So after work I jetted into the city to pick them up. Mish and her friend had heard how good Kyushu (and in particular, Kumamoto) ramen is, so that was their request for dinner. I took them to Kokutei, one of the famous shops in the city, but unfortunately it was closed. So instead we went to Aji-sen ramen, not famous but still delicious all the same. And with our stomachs full, day one winded down.
On the Friday, I still had to work so I lent the girls my car. Mish had never driven on the Japanese side of the road before, so she was out, but luckily Mish's friend could, so by default she became the driver. I went to work, and the girls went to Aso. That was funny because I barely explained to them how to get there, but they went on their excursion just the same. I fully expected to get phonecalls from them during the day asking me to help them out because they were lost, but power to them, they never called. I gather they had a nice day in Aso; they later said that the weather was perfect. They tried horse meat, so their journey to Kumamoto was complete. It was weird too, they never got home till like 10:45PM. It was on their way home that they finally got lost. I asked them to bring me some milk so I could have Kraft dinner, and they said fine, but like 30 minutes later, I get a call saying they're on their way to Minamata, and if that was correct. Hmmm, they way overshot Toyono, but small detail because they are native to Ishikawa. They came back to my town, only they never found my house. They called again from the police box, so I directed them again to my apartment. But I didn't get my milk till like an hour later. Hahahaha. Bold move on their part to explore a prefecture on their own.
Day 3 had us drive to Kagoshima. The girls wanted a sand bath, so that became the purpose of our visit to Kagoshima. They have this really good sand bath at Ibusuki, so that's where we headed. After loads of driving, we finally arrived. Of course we stopped at Lake Ikeda for some lunch before hand. We were worried that the rain would innterupt out sand bath, but it was covered so that was good. We got in the sand bath and couldn't stop laughing. Mish and her friend were really excited. My nose was itchy, but the staff was kind enough to itch it for me. Only she missed soothing the exact spot, so it made the itching worse. We ended up staying in the sand bath for like 20 minutes; any more and I'm sure I would have collapsed from dizziness. After the sand bath we took a regular onsen to wash all the sand off. Then we went back to the beach area to take pictures with the staff. Fun fun. I'll post some pics of our experiences a bit later on. After the sand bath we returned to Kagoshima city and just drove and hung around. Fun, but yet another long day.
On Sunday, a friend of Mish's and Karen's, Kathy, who incidentally also lives in Kumamoto, came out with us and Kanako on the Nagasaki day trip. Again, lots of driving, but I can't help thinking that Mish and her friend had loads of fun and saw lots of Kyushu. Since Nagasaki is a bit difficult to drive in, it was a bit stressful, but in the end we figured everything out. We walked around China town for a bit, and had lunch. Then we hit up the Atomic Bomb museum and Peace Park. That was really interesting, I think I read every single English sign in the building. Afterwards, time was almost lost, so all we could afford to do time wise was go up to this peak and look around and take pics. Then it was drive back to Fukuoka, say goodbye to Mish and her friend, eat dins with Kanako and Kathy, say goodbye to Kanako, then drive back to Kumamoto.
What a whirlwind, tiring, yet fun weekend. The weekend went by so fast, it's hard to believe that it's already Monday and I'm back at work. I hope the girls enjoyed Kyushu. Mish is welcome back to Kumamoto any time she wants. It was good seeing her again (always nice to see an ex-CA in Japan).

Hahaha

2005-04-01T20:11:00.000+09:00

Not that there was any posts anyway, but everyone should disregard the previous post. Instead, I hope everyone had a very happy April Fool's day.

String of luck

2005-04-01T08:39:00.000+09:00

What an incredible string of luck recently. I played pachinko the other day and won 80,000Yen. I'm losing tons of weight since catching the intestinal virus from last week. And I've been offered a job to teach at the University of Kurume after my tenure on JET is over. Of course that's a long ways away, but still, teaching at a University? Offers like that don't come along that often. I'm gonna have to think long and hard, but at least it's on the table for the taking. It's all about Strings of luck. Yay.

Shaken, not stirred

2005-03-23T12:13:00.000+09:00

This update will serve as a lead in to an update that I'll do in a couple days. But for now...

The other day, Sunday March 20, a strong earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale rocked the Kyushu area where I live at 10:53AM. Apparently this earthquake was the largest to hit Kyushu in some 110 years. It was caused by a previously unknows underwater fault extending into Hakata Bay and the Sea of Japan.

I was on my way to Fukuoka when the earthquake struck, though I didn't feel anything. They announced that the expressway would be closed, so I wondered how we'd get to Fukuoka but actually we could keep driving till our destination. But the Urban expressway was closed, and all train, shinkansen and subway service was stopped. You can imagine the gridlock of Fukuoka that day...

The day turned into a damage tour for us; we eventually saw piles of bricks and other rubble that had come off walls and buildings, ruptured water pipes, and huge cracks in streets and sidewalks. Our ears were filled with the constant drone of helicopters overhead and non-stop emergency vehicle sirens.

What a day I tell you. Some of my other friends have had other earthquake experiences in Japan or Taiwan, but this was my first significant one. Craziness. Next up is typhoon season...what kind of dangerous country am I living in?

2005-03-20T01:42:00.000+09:00

I had the 1-year anniversary of owning my first ever car on March 8. In honour of that momentus occasion, and to pay tribute to the beast that drives me around, here is a pic of it.

Spiders

2005-03-19T20:09:00.000+09:00

I awoke from a nap this evening to see the first huge spider (think a bit bigger than a golf ball) gracing my wall sitting in the shadows. Last year I seemed to have a real problem with spiders, but as Japanese people tried to convince me of, spiders are good so having them around isn't really a problem. But I've yet to find the symbiotic happy medium where I can co-exist with spiders in my cramped little apartment. So the spiders I find usually become clean bits of garbage as I empty entire bottles of household cleaners to drown them. Just call me the Lemon scent spider hunter. I think having huge spiders around, even though I absolutely hate them, is much better than either cockroaches or mukade, the Japanese psychotic centipedes. With cockroaches, your apartment must be dirty, and with mukade, well that's just wrong. Since there's no reason that spiders enter my apartment, and since they are a little beneficial, I can live with seeing huge ones every so often. 2005 spider score: Kyle 1 Spiders 0.

Looking for, finding, and keeping a job

2005-03-18T17:10:00.000+09:00

Too often I hear of people (also my friends) in Japan who want to quit their jobs. A few observations on this trend. Since it's such a soft job market right now in Japan, if you had a decent, well-paying job, wouldn't you want to hang onto it? It's certainly not the 80's and early 90's anymore, Japan before the bubble burt, where employees were thought to give life long dedication and employment to their companies. Today, a Japanese person seems to change jobs every few years. So are they quitting their jobs in hopes that something they truly love will come up? Are they quitting because they really hate it? Will they go through their life doing what amounts to odd jobs? Or will they truly find a job where they can put in 10, 20 years of service? This is just something I noticed, but it sure does spawn a whole lot of questions doesn't it?

不審者Training

2005-03-10T10:52:00.000+09:00

I guess you hear about it on the news and stuff, but Japan has had a rash of crimes in recent years, many taking place at schools. By our standards, Japan is still a very safe country. But still, we bristle at the thought of violence in schools, so necessary training was needed.

The other day at me school, we had 不審者 training. A 不審者is loosely translated as a suspicious person, ie. someone that might come into a school to commit a crime. This 不審者 training was something else. We had a staff meeting after school, complete with a demonstration. We played janken to see who would become the 不審者 actor. I lost, but then I jankened with Shimazaki sensei, and ended up beating her. So I thought that she would be the 不審者 but then I was called out to demonstate suspicious activities in front of the whole school. Sure, pick on the gaijin since I'm the most likely to be suspicious.

I was told to attack my vice principal as he tried to defend himself with a plastic pole. Sure, seemed easy enough. I attacked him, threw his plastic pole aside, and started punching him, much to the delight of the other teachers.

But then he told me to attack him again, but this time he'd use defense techniques. I tried, but he ended up winning. He pushed me hard with the pole to my sternum, perhaps revenge for my punching him. Then he tried to pin my knees with it.

The next volunteer has to attack vice-principal with a paint brush. I know it wasa simulation, but c'mon, a plastic pole? A paint brush?

If a 不審者 comes to out school, one of several things will happen. We'll all be screwed. Or we'll all run away. Or we won't remember what we learned in the simulation because it was too far from reality. Or the plastic pole and paint brush combination will work wonders and we'll run the 不審者 off. Give me my aluminum baseball bat any day of the week, and I'll run the 不審者off myself.

25

2005-03-07T00:01:00.000+09:00

Today I turned 25. Wow, it seems like such a milestone. Well it is, only it's tough to say it. I guess I'm getting older. But I was never before able to say that I'm one-quarter century old. I've also calculated that I've spent 12% of my birthdays in Japan. But birthdays are definitely losing their lustre. I had a great day, hanging out in Sendai with friends, doing the tourist thing, but despite phonecalls from back home on my keitai and mails from my friends, it still seemed like a regualr, just-your-average day. Chalk it up to age...well here's to the next 25 years. I'm looking forward to the day I can say "I'm a half century old".

The Ju-on

2005-02-22T11:53:00.000+09:00

I went and watched the Ju-on (the Grudge for North Americans) yesterday night. Having only heard that it was scary, I thought I could try my luck and see it. There were a few points in the movie where I was peeking through a crack in my fingers that were covering my eyes, and some parts I didn't watch all together. You know when the music starts to get creepy, and speeds up, that something is about to happen. However, I must say that lots of the movie was funny, kinda like The Excorcist was funny. I had heard that the Exorcist was the scariest movie of all time (don't forget that it was made back in the 70's), but then I watched it, and there was seriously many laugh out loud moments. I wonder if I could have watched the Ju-on without looking away. Even so, I drove home with the light in my car on. One thing that was creepy was the boy with the voice of a cat. I've got an injured-sounding cat that sounds just like that that lives near my apartment. And it meows like that, especially at night. The next time I hear that cat, the hairs on the back of my neck are sure to stand up.

Funny Engrish

2005-02-21T15:24:00.000+09:00

The translated menu of a yakiniku restaurant in Okinawa prefecture...

■Guidance
I fully take the sun of a southern country, and the Ishigaki cow which grew in an island of longevity to be full of green receives evaluation as a brand cow nationwide now.The Ishigaki cow which we Kinjo group brought up carefully at "Yuimarl ranch" of the direct management was used as a main dish in a dinner of Okinawa summit opened in July, 2000 and It was praised highly than each country leaders.With a summit, the Ishigaki cows increased with a national brand cow at a bound.

A Kinjo group takes pride in ing biological parent of Ishigaki cow in this sense.Ishigaki, Okinawa island,There is average temperature more than 24 degrees Centigrade through a year.In this island of high temperature high humidity, growth speed of a plant is not compared with it of the inland.Fresh grass is produced many times in a year.

The Ishigaki cow which I fully eat grass of this fresh south island, and grew is the best health food materials there is much it, and to include high quality protein and fat.Nourishment source or the trout which it is not possible for of balance is good and can take vitamins, a mineral raising metabolism if I eat the part where Ishigaki cows are various, and missing it for the working of life between people. and missing it for the working of life.I increase with elderly appetite to support health of all people to from child if I eat Ishigaki cow with appetite materials and a dish of Okinawa that is a country of longevity.From a child to an old man, I increase with appetite to support health of all people if You eat Ishigaki cow with appetite materials and cooking of Okinawa that is a country of longevity.For a human being, it is very happy to be healthy.

I omit waste of the circulation from production of Ishigaki cow to sale, processing in hope of all of you being healthy and I load it with a heart and manage it and I am low-priced and can seem to offer Ishigaki cow of the highest grade that selected carefully deliciously and try every day.

■Menu guidance
"Kinjyo set" 1,580 yenA：Sirloin /Short ribs/Internal organs meat (170g)B：Sirloin /Short ribs (150g)
"Korean barbecue set" 3,150 yenA：Sirloin/Short ribs/ Internal organs meat (400g)B：A salt tongue/ Select short ribus/Select sirloin(200g)Rice, soup, kimchi, a cabbage stick to both courses.
"Ishigaki cow steak set" 3,650 yenSurloin steak (200g)Salad and rice, soup stick.
"Family set"6,300 yenThis is 4.
"Group set" 11,340 yenThis is 6 from 4.
"One piece of article"
Draft beer mug 380 yen
The meat which selected carefully.Select fillet 1,550 yenSelect short ribs ribs 1,550 yenSelect sirloin 1,550 yen
Short ribs 780 yenSirloin 780 yenSpecial tongue 720 yen Lever 500 yenInternal organs meat various 400 yen or more In addition, menus of marine products of Ishigaki-jima Island prepare to a lot and increase.

■store introduction
Korean barbecue Kinjyo Cyatan shop〒 904-0100Nakagami-gun, Okinawa Cyatan, Kitamae 1-11-10A telephone:098-983-7566
Korean barbecue Kinjyo Ishigaki-jima Island Hamasakicho head office〒 907-00132-3-24, Hamasaki-cho, Ishigaki-shi, OkinawaA telephone:0980-83-7000
Korean barbecue Kinjyo Ishigaki-jima Island Misakicho shop〒 907-001311-1, Misakicho, Ishigaki-shi, OkinawaA telephone:0980-84-2929
PC homepage address
http://www.yukai.jp/~point/kinjo/
English and Japanese i-mode address
http://www.yukai.jp/~point/kinjo/i.htm (Japanese)http://www.yukai.jp/~point/kinjo/e.htm

Congratulations if you made it to the end of this document. Join me in labelling this simply apalling butchering of English.

Lack of Sports

2005-02-07T15:34:00.000+09:00

I really love living in Japan. Maybe that is why I decided to re-contract for a third year last Friday. But one thing continues to grate on my nerves: lack of live sports. Today as you know was Superbowl Sunday (or Superbowl Monday here in Japan. The Superbowl is a huge staple for me. Even if I wasn't interested in the teams, I'd usually have a few buddies over for beers and pizza every year to my house to watch on the big screen. This year marks the second year in row that I've watched the Superbowl from the comfort of my computer screen. Nothing let's you follow the action of a championship football game like hitting the refresh button every minute or so. And who forgets that I had to watch my beloved Red Sox championship run from the computer in the teachers room at school? A 1 in 86 year event, and I'm left scrambling. Damn. I outta get my satellite dish set up fast, or if not, I'm sure I'll appreciate all future sporting events on TV when I come home.

Please Mr Ojisan, don't pee there

2005-01-31T15:27:00.000+09:00

I've noticed that Japanese older men will pee anywhere. I'm not sure if I'm generalizing, or if it's really the case. A while back, I saw an ojisan in plain view, broad daylight, peeing on the side of a major highway, in full view of the passing motorists. He wasn't even peeing on grass or anything, it was like a parking lot or something. Then yesterday, I saw another man unzipped and peeing. To his credit, he was behind a shopping complex and peeing on grass. But both men had available facilities near by, which begs the question, why pee in public like that? And I've only ever seen ojisan do it. High school boys don't do it. Mind you I did see some elementary school kids from my apartment complex peeing in the runoff gutter, but they're kids, you'd expect that from them. Maybe Japan has lax public urination laws. Who knows, but it's quite the mystery.

The Terminal

2005-01-28T18:13:00.000+09:00

I went to see The Terminal last night. I had heard that it wasn't that good, but I went anyway. I can't say that I was pleasantly surprised, cuz I thought it might be a decent movie. Anything having Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks in the credits is usually decent. And it was a good movie. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. It's always good when that happens, cuz I'm usually the only foreigner in the theatre. Yesterday I was the only foreigner in the theatre, and there were only like 7 other people. Yes, my laughter was distinctly heard. Anyway, check out The Terminal if you get the chance.
On a side note, Viktor Naborski living in an airport terminal kinda reminded me of when I lived at ELI during the bus strike. I too shaved and showered at the ELI. I neevr had to scrimp for food mind you. And I don't think I ever walked around in a bathrobe, although my personal belongings were often seen by everyone. It's no wonder Wally got mad at me. Hahaha, but those were good times. I'm sure no CA has lived at the ELI since.

Fortune Teller

2005-01-27T17:40:00.000+09:00

First of all, a belated happy New Year to everyone. Happy year of the Rooster (or is it Chicken?). Anyway, I'm back from my month in North America, I still have lots to do, but updating the blog is one of them, so I will try to do lots of updates for the next little while till I'm caught up. Here's a good place to start...
After school today, there was a man standing in my teachers room. Now guests come and go at my school, and I usually don't pay attenion to them, but this man was holding my principal's hand. Good stuff, a palm reader and fortune teller at my school. And apparently he was free. What good fortune did I owe to to get my palm read by a fortune teller. I learned that he was actually an inkan seller; why wouldn't an inkan seller be able to read hands too? Only in Japan I guess.
Anyway he came over to me, and we got started. But he was missing a few front teeth, and his breath smelled bad. I think he had just smoked a cigarette. I put up with him for the sake of my fortune. I thought my JTE would be translating, but his attention seemed to wander part way through. I got a gist of what he said though, I've got a calm and gentle disposition, I have a good relationship with my family, and so on. He said I cry easily, and he mentioned that if I got a bit better at speaking Japanese I'd be able to cry if I saw a Hideki Matsui homerun. Yeah, whatever, I don't even like the Yankees. I guess what he said was largely accurate. Every now and then, he'd let out a loud "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" when he saw a hand line that looked interesting.
When he finished, we talked about my inkan. I showed it to him, and he said that it was cheap and crappy, and it was probably bought for 300 Yen. He said I should have a round one, not an oval one like I have. At that point, thinking he was insulting me, I got my back up, and told him that my inkan was given to me by my BOE, then he thought that my BOE was dirt poor. Hahahaha. He proceeded to do everyone in the teacher's room at the time; I saw loads of teachers laughing behind this dude's back, and others who would take a large detour around him just so they wouldn't have to have their palms read.
To top off my exciting afternoon with the fortune teller, when he went to leave, he went into the coffee room, thinking it was the exit. Good times.

Japanese Photocopiers

2004-12-19T01:26:00.000+09:00

What's the deal with Japanese photocopy machines? We'd all agree that, by and large, Japan is far more advanced technologically than North America. Yet Japanese photocopiers seem to be straight out of the stoneage. Let's use the photocopier at ELI as a reference. All you ex-CAs out there will know what I"m taking about. There, at the simple push of a button, you could photocopy stacks upon stacks of papers (like Activity Central), having them stapled and hole-punched, and of course photocopied back to back. Perhaps this is evolving into more of a gripe at the photocopier in my school. The one at school is largely useless. For back to back copying, you have to re-load the one sided papers back into the feeder, then get it just right with te placings that you can have them two-sided. Talk about an ineffient waste of time. Then if you need to make packets, a la Activity Central, you lay all the finished copies in a row on a table, run along and collect them, and hand staple them yourself. What the hell's that about? I've been in the staff room where we've had staple parties, where all available free hands do the assembly line thing. If you're wondering about hole punching, forget about it. Now why can't they set the copier to do like it did in Van.?

What it takes to be a REAL Canadian

2004-12-08T22:46:00.000+09:00

Let the rampant updating continue. I saw an interesting article online today that irked me, although it could have just as easily made me think that we were being complimented. Check out the link to follow along with what I'm saying: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/12/07/canada.tshirts.ap/index.html
So apparently an American T-shirt company has made a Canadian kit for American travellers to disguise themselves in. It's useful for when the travel abroad, particularily to Europe, but want to avoid all the hassles of being American. First things first, what happened to American pride/the over-confident feeling of being the "best, most powerful" country in the world? Has that feeling eroded so much that now you have to parade around as Canadians, who obviously live in the real best country in the world? Americans have to realise that they'll never be Canadian, so they may as well not even try, and you know something is wrong when they have to pretend to be Canadian through a kit that costs $24.99. Oh and one more thing, smart Europeans will definitely be able to tell the difference between a real Canadian with a real maple leaf patch sewn on to his or her backpack and someone who buys it online and who practices putting an "eh" on the end of sentences in the airplane.

How cool is that?

2004-12-06T15:29:00.000+09:00

I was at shogakko today. When I arrived, I saw that my schedule was 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th periods with 2nd period being off. I saw the kanji 行事 and wondered what that was. Well, 2nd period rolled around, and instead of having time to work on my lesson and perfect it, the bell rang...fire drill! That was cool to see a Japanese fire drill. I remember practicing them once in a while at South Park Elementary school and even high school when a badass pulled it. Well all the kids calmly ran outside wearing their inside school shoes (in a real fire, who actually has time to change into their outdoor shoes?) although I had time to change into mine. Oops, some rotten simulation that was. Out on the field my town's firemen were waiting to give a speech. And not just a speech mind you, but a full on demonstration. So we went over how to use a fire extinguisher, and then they lit controlled fires on the field. At the morning meeting I was asked if I wanted to use the fire extinguisher for the demonstration, but I didn't know what they were asking me. After I asked what that was, they said it was a "しゅしゅやつ". I guess I still didn't get it cuz I thought they were asking me to help them wax the floor with some kind of machine (you had to see the gesture they made also). So I volunteered. But then I was called to the front, in front of all the kids, to put out the blaze. Fun times. I've put out a blaze before, in university at Totem Park during advisor training, but I thought it's really cool that they do this kind of stuff in elementary school. Never mind the fact that most kids can't lift the extinguisher. Whenever I go to elementary school, the kids already make me feel like a hero, or celebrity or royalty. But after putting out a fire in front of them, my legions of fans seemed thoroughly impressed. Hahaha, just kidding but I think they got a kick out of it anyway.

The Meat Weekend

2004-12-05T23:45:00.000+09:00

A little note before we begin. After being lazy for a good three weeks, hopefully the updates will come fast and furious for the next little while till I go home for the holidays. On with this 'hisashiburi' update...

I think I had a meat weekend these past two days. And none of it intentionally of course. Now I like my meat as far as the next guy, but I have to say I'm meated out. It all started on Saturday. We had an uchiage party for the English Recitation members. We ended up going out for all you can eat sushi and yakiniku (even though they really only deserved Joyfull). So I gourged myself on said sushi and yakiniku. Then today, after I went to Costco with the Okamuras, we went out for a fine steak dinner in the city. We all ordered combos, but for some reason they ordered my steak to be 350g. When it came, it was like an inch thick and the size of a VHS tape. Plus it came with mountains of vegetables. I tried eating everything, but needless to say I'm full, I'm meated out, and I went down a few notches on my belt.

Costco, part III

2004-11-15T01:26:00.000+09:00

Costco grabbed my money yet again today, 40,000 Yen to be exact. But Costco today wasn't even my primary intention. I drove to Fukuoka thinking I could grab a ticket and watch the first day of the Kyushu sumo tournament. But that wasn't to be, apparently they had already sold out. No problem, I'm always happy to unload my money at Costco. Some observations from this time around: I never thought Costco in Fukuoka could ever get to the busy levels seen back home at the Costco in Richmond, but boy did today ever come close. I wheeled around in my buggy, but the back of the store was super-clogged so I soon parked my cart and did my shopping by hand. And I think the people were on edge today...I watched a scene unfold in which the was nearly fisticuffs. You gotta remember to have patience when you go to Costco anyway, but there was this polite-looking Iranian family walking in the aisle. They couldn't move either since there was someone in front of them, and so on. Anyway, this old ojisan type comes behind them, and starts yelling to get out of the way. I actually think he was xenophobic. Then in perfect Japanese (not to mention a loud, booming voice) this Iranian father started yelling back, and so on. A short blurb of their conversation translated in English: ojisan says "get out of my way" polite foreigner says ""what are you talking about? I can't mover either" then the wheels rapidly fall off. ojisan says "don't yell back at me, damn you" polite foreigner says "leave me alone" then further along it was more like "shut the hell up" and "stop speaking to me". It was interesting to see the Costco staff come over and try to diffuse the situation. He gets in the middle, he's apologizing, then later he's telling the stupid ojisan to shut up also. I love it. There's no other place with such customer service as Japan. And there's no other place that starts fisticuffs like Costco. I remember one time I got in a fight at the Costco in Richmond over a parking space, and this was of course at my mom's urging that I don't lose the space. Fun times...

2004-11-11T00:00:00.000+09:00

Looks like I wasted 1200 Yen supporting the wrong guy...

The Wave

2004-11-09T23:57:00.000+09:00

So as you can see from the pics below, I went to a baseball game in Fukuoka today. It was my first time to the Fukuoka Dome. So good times all around. First I couldn't believe that my 5000 Yen ticket was only good enough for nosebleed seats. I thought surely my seats would be much closer to the action. It's too bad my friend Yoshiko ended up ditching out on the game, cuz I ended up going by myself. I know, I know, it's about time I got myself a girlfriend. Anyway, an observation about the game. A few rows below me sat a whole bunch of rowdy, foreigner ALT types. I say good on them for being in the spirit of the game. But the wheels fell right off shortly after they started engaging in the wave. I realised then and there why I despise the wave, and I scoff at the fans who try to start it. In this case it was a handful of gaijin among thousands of Japanese people which made it all the more funny. This girl went down to the front of our section to lead the wave. She kept shouting "ichi, ni, san" and then started the wave. But I guess her Japanese stopped cuz after that she merely pointed at the other sections as if that was going to make the wave catch on. She plugged away for about 4 or 5 times then mercifully returned to her seat. I thought perhaps that was the end of their shenanigans, but no, not even a couple innings later, they were at it again. This time their whole crew devoted 2 innings of the baseball game trying to do the wave. This one guy shouted random, undecipherable things in Japanese at the other sections. Thankfully the wave started and died in my section. I don't fault them for trying, but here's the deal about the wave. People who engage in the wave at sporting functions either haven't been paying attention to what's going on at field level or have gotten bored or drunk. So please don't do the wave at sporting events. I hope the Japanese fans in my section realised that I wasn't a part of that other group of gaijins.

2004-11-09T23:46:00.000+09:00

picture 6: final boxscore. As expected, the MLB all-stars crushed the NPB all-stars.

2004-11-09T23:45:00.000+09:00

picture 5: the baseball super-fan

2004-11-09T23:44:00.000+09:00

picture 4: Big Papi David Ortiz himself, taking a swing for the fences

2004-11-09T23:42:00.000+09:00

picture 3: good Canadian kid, well at least good kid from a Canadian team. It's Brad Wilkerson of the Expos playing a mean first base.

2004-11-09T23:41:00.000+09:00

picture 2: Moises Alou patrolling right field

2004-11-09T23:40:00.000+09:00

Major League All-stars vs Japanese all-stars picture 1: view from my seats

2004-11-08T23:26:00.000+09:00

My friend Hide came to visit from Tokyo. Besides going for a basashi (raw horse meat) lunch, seeing Kumamoto castle along with celebrities, and going for a hot bath in Aso, we went to a kaiten sushi restaurant. For some reason the sushi chefs wanted to take a picture with us. Good times, 23 plates and two satisfied sushi chefs later...

2004-11-08T23:22:00.000+09:00

Celebrities at Kumamoto castle. What the heck were these two doing in Kumamoto on a random Sunday?

Collateral and Sushi

2004-11-02T11:27:00.000+09:00

Peanut butter and jam? Not quite. Tom and Jerry? Not quite. But yesterday's double dip of amusement was a good combination. After getting off work at 5:30, I went home for 15 minutes before Okamura san, my Toyono hostt father, picked me up. The plan? Go see Collateral because it was cheapy movie day as is always the case on the 1st of every month. We made it to the theatre in plenty of time. Of course I paid. Whenever I go out with the Okamura's, we always have a battle over who pays. I usually lose, but yesterday I flexed my muscle and won. So, movie review. Collateral was pretty good, it certainly held it's own in the action genre that Okamura san and I like. The plot has a few holes in it, but they don't detract from the flow of the movie. And it's interesting to see Tom Cruise as a villain, although we feel a little sypathetic to him. Anyway check it out, good bang for your buck. After the show, we went to the local Sakae sushi. I think their sushi is really good, but Okamura san thinks that it's a bit big. Anyway, delicious is delicious. So we sat, ate suhi, and I picked his brain about things that were still bothering me about Japanese culture. And for some reason, I also defeated Okamura san to pay for dinner. Final score Kyle 2, Okamura san 0.

2004-10-31T15:52:00.000+09:00

This little fella wishes everyone a Happy Halloween 2004!

Something off my back

2004-10-29T09:28:00.000+09:00

I'm sitting here at work, and I just gotta get something off my back or else I'll be bummed all day. Yesterday I was tod that we'd have a charity collection box out all next week to support the victims of the Niigata earthquake. I was asked if I might say a few words about it. Absolutely. I spoke, rather fast cuz I was nervous, but nonetheless I think I made my point. I called upon the school and my students to open their hearts to the victims of the earthquake. I then pulled out a 5000 Yen bill and put it in the box.
Now those who know me know I don't shy away from charity, you know raise money for cancer and so on. 5000 Yen doesn't seem like much when you consider the thousands of people living outside, in cars or in gyms. It doesn't seem like much when you consider that thousands are still without electricty, hot or even running water. Some of the folks are living on 1 onigiri a day. Many people have died, including the wife and three-year old daughter of a family of 4. 5000 Yen doesn't seem like much.
After I spoke, my principal came out, dropped 1000 Yen in the box, then also talked about the earthquake. Great, 1000 Yen. If that's what you feel like donating, then that's great. Except a couple things bothered me. He spoke of how foreigners have big hearts and are more likely to donate to charity, but that Japanese people were weak at donating to charity. What's that, an excuse for only donating 1000 Yen? That's like me saying that Toyota made cars have a history of breaking down, so I'm not gonna take my Toyota on the road trip. Simply doesn't make sense. He seemed to say to the students, "it's ok if you don't donate so much, after all you are Japanese". Then after coming back to the staff room, he mentioned about how I had donated 5000 Yen. We're having a staff drinking party tonight, and it will cost 5000 Yen a person. I told this to him. My logic was if I can spend 5000 Yen on a drinking party, then surely I could spend 5000 Yen for the people of Niigata. On those lines, if someone can lose 20000-30000 Yen a couple times a week, then surely they could afford 5000 Yen in donations. My principal said that both he and the vice-principal much prefer drinking parties, then my principal admitted that his 1000 Yen was a pity donation. Then they started laughing. I'm sure people in Niigata don't need pity donattions. I don't know, sometimes I really don't get this country or the people who live here. Are they wrong or am I just being preachy? I just realised that I'll probably be in a badmood for the rest of the day.

Died and gone to heaven

2004-10-28T22:18:00.000+09:00

My beloved Red Sox, yes those same 'cursed' Red Sox that had endured nearly 9 decades between World Championships, finally struck gold when they ousted the Cardinals in a brisk 4 games. I am in baseball heaven now (although I admit baseball heaven in Japan is much different than baseball heaven back home). First of all, I had no satellite with which to watch the games. Secondly, the games were usually on while I was at work. Nothing quite says fired like a Red Sox celebration in the middle of the staff room. I went through the more quiet, subdued, keep-it-to-myself type celebration, but I did get several pats on the back and handshakes from other teachers. I remember back in the day, having both a "Rocket" Roger Clemens and a Wade Boggs poster on my wall. How is it that I've always liked the Red Sox? Maybe it was constantly being accused of being from Boston as a kid. That type of trauma (now I'll call it a treasure) sticks with you. I'm so glad I'm a Red Sox fan. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I'm so glad they won the World Championship. Just think, Bill Buckner is fully absolved of his sins now. I realised that if I have to wait another 86 years to watch the Red Sox win another World Series, then I'll be a fan at the ripe old age of 110. With medical advances, anything is possible I guess. But I also realised that I'll really enjoy this one, despite being so far removed from Boston, in case it doesn't happen again for 86 years. Let me just say in conclusion to all those Red Sox haters out there, you know who you are Eugenio, Joon Young, half my school...I laugh in your general direction. Red Sox forever.

Another successful trip to Costco

2004-10-27T22:10:00.000+09:00

I had to run to Costco again today in a bit of an emergency. I deked out of work at 2:45 and was on my way. My mission: to purchase a whole bunch of pumpkins. I had this great idea to steal a few English lessons to celebrate Halloween. Luckily it got the green light from the higher powers; I was even given an ok to get up to 15,000 Yen worth of pumpkins. I tell you, the look on the faces of the staff and customers as I systematically picked through the crates of pumpkins to find only the 17 best. Great looks, actually stares, but priceless as I walked to the checkout counter with a shopping buggy full of pumpkins. I went back in to get some of my own personal shopping done. As always, good times. I ended up with such items as an electric blanket, two sweaters (sense a pattern here...yep, it's getting cold) in my size, a Rock against Bush CD, BBQ sauce, ribs, salmon, Halloween candy and on and on. The damage? 38,000 Yen. Wow, that's over 50,000 Yen in one day at Costco. I suppose only the best stores can capture my money like that though.

2004-10-27T22:05:00.000+09:00

The previously mentioned Bunkasai 2004. This is a picture of the song competition. See even boys can sing, and sing well at that. (A picture of 3-2 who finished second: from left Ryota, Aki, Yoshichika, Hiroshi and Taro)

Toyono's Cultural Festival 2004-

2004-10-25T15:49:00.000+09:00

Saturday marked the last 文化祭 as 豊野町. From next January, we'll be swallowed up by the larger fish that is 宇城市. By the way, sorry for this Japanese/English intermixing. I'm at the 小学校now and there is a keyboard that types in Japanese. Anyway, the students put their hearts and souls into preparing for the 文化祭 which makes it a great event. Seeing the students come together as they did makes me so proud to live here. Anyway I'm starting to ramble. I was part of this play, so I had to act in front of everyone. I had like 4 lines in Japanese, I think I did a good job although I'm sure I was a bit stiff. Afterwards, everyone told me how good I was. My 校長先生 said I was like Sly Stallone out there. Is that a compliment though? Isn't Stallone supposed to be a lousy actor? There was an area where we put pictures of the teachers when they were younger and people had to try to guess who they were. I got my mom to send a picture of me on going out for Halloween (stay tuned till Sunday when I'll post it). I thought for sure mine would be the gimme question; after all, I'm the only white guy on staff...pretty unmistakeable I thought. Well, I should have known, my students found a way to screw it up. There was another picture of 豊野中's 理科先生 Mr Takimori who submitted a black and white photo of himself wearing sunglasses. Let's see, dated picture of a Japanese baby in from the 1960's or colour photo of me when I was about 4. Several of the people guessed me as Mr Takimori and my rival Edo (my predecessor ALT) as me. Weird, but funny. At the ふれ合い学習 I learned how to make 絵手紙. I'm sure it's 見苦しい but I tried hard anyway. During the song competition, apparently there was a 3 年生　 student who botched her piano part, apparently causing her class to lose out. My seasoned musical ear didn't notice anything though, I thought that class did rather well. But as is the Japanese way, and good eveidence on how the students wore their hearts on their sleeves during the 文化祭 she was upset and crying several hours after the performances had ended. I felt sorry for her.

2004-10-20T17:06:00.000+09:00

My name is Valerio Rodriguez Lopez Martinez, and I am Pedro's daddy. All you Yankee gringo bastardos can kiss my latin ass. Burn in hell with the worst case of Nalga del Fuego damn Yankees. Go Red Sox! Son, I'm proud of you...

Go Sox!

2004-10-19T21:43:00.000+09:00

The Boston Red Sox are finally making it a series. Not even 48 hours ago I was at home thinking the Yankees were surely getting out the brooms to sweep my Sox out the door. Then I witnessed the Sox magically win two in a row, in extra innings no less. Now they are only down 3-2 heading back to the Bronx. Can the Sox become the first pro sports team to come back from 3-0 down? I'm starting to believe. Go Sox, stick it to those Yankee, 185 million, I-buy-my-pennants, steriod using arrogant pricks.

Kanako in Kuma

2004-10-19T21:37:00.000+09:00

Kanako came to visit last Saturday. I hadn't seen her since April; it's always nice when a proud Kyushu-an has a homecoming. Neither Kanako or myself are any good at making decisions, so it was a bit tough to figure out exactly what the plan was for the day. Finally, we decided on an Amakusa/Hondo driving tour. But that actually turned into a Best Denki tour since we were looking for my friend Yuichi to suggest a good restaurant to us. Alas, he wasn't even working on Saturday as I found out. Figures as much. Anyway, after driving from one end of the town to the other several times, we finally settled on a quaint little family restaurant to quench our hunger. Not bad, except there was absolutely no one in the restaurant. Alao I wasn't really feeling up to anything since my throat was so sore, I guess the sign of my upcoming cold. And to boot the curry was a bit salty. Anyway we left Hondo, driving tour accomplished, but we had to boot it home to make it to the evenings fireworks show. Of course we stopped for mikans though. Well we must've left Hondo too late cuz, despite taking the highway to get to the fireworks, there was still a huge traffic jam just to get off the highway. That's right, a good 3km in 1 hour pace. I must say it was the worst traffic jam I may have ever seen. It was nice to see what fireworks we could from the car though, as well as try not to let any cars cut us off. In the end, the fireworks were not to be. We soon gave up sitting in traffic and went for ramen instead. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

2004-10-19T21:22:00.000+09:00

Me and Kanako, in front of Pepe

2004-10-19T21:21:00.000+09:00

It's Morizo, the unofficial sponsor of Aichi's World Expo 2005. Cute, but kinda looks like Totoro to me...

2004-10-19T21:19:00.000+09:00

Something cool...stare at the 4 dots for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, close your eyes and slowly tilt your head back. What do you see? Post a comment of what or who you saw and I'll publish the results later on.

Sick Bay

2004-10-15T22:37:00.000+09:00

I'm currently layed up with the most severe of sore throats. Bronchitis? Not sure. All I know is that it really hurts to do such menial tasks as breathing and swallowing. That ends my amazing streak of some 10 months, like 46 weeks, of great health in Japan. Yep, I haven't had a cold or anything since December 4, 2003, whereas back home I'd get sick every month or two. I've been trying to sleep since 6PM today, with mixed success. But my friend Kanako is coming to visit tomorrow, so I'd like to be fine for that. Damn sore throat.

The World's most expensive U-turn

2004-10-14T22:24:00.000+09:00

If there is such a thing as the World's most expensive U-turn, then certainly I did it. After making my way to Oita and subsequently Matsuyama, by car, alone, 9 hours with no map, I was understandably a bit confident on the return trip. I totally thought I could find Kumamoto by myself. I came upon the 150 yen toll road that I drove on to get to Oita, so thinking I should simply re-trace my footsteps, I got back on it. My confidence was spilling over at this point, but not enough to stop me from asking the toll booth guard if this was indeed the right way to Kumamoto. After all, everything looked the same at night. The guard told me that I was travelling in the wrong direction, and that I'd have to turn around. So I paid the 150 yen toll and asked the guy where I could turn around. Very clearly I was the dumb gaijin who didn't know where he was going. It was a situation I've played to perfection time and time again. The gaijin card really comes in handy. Anyway he said I had to drive up 30 metres, and there would be a turn around point right there. I did exactly that, but who was there to greet me? None other than the toll booth guard, telling me I owed him another 150 yen. What? For a U-turn? I only used the toll road for 30 metres. What a rip off. Bastard. My gaijin priviledge card had been revoked. Mean, cheap old men work in toll booths in Oita. But hey, I left with a funny story.

SASUGA Hotmail

2004-10-14T01:08:00.000+09:00

I checked my email today at work as I always do, except today was a bit different. When I logged in, I saw that hotmail had increased their storage capacity to 250MB. That my friends, is outstanding. I first heard about this plan back in the spring. I guess Bill Gates needed to pull the necessary stops to stay competitive with Google and Yahoo. After not happening in the spring, I heard I'd have to wait till the fall for the increase to happen. For the longest time I've been at like 98% full, so I've wanted this increased storage capacity for a long while...still I thought it would only be an increase to like 10MB. What!?! 250MB?!? That's craziness. But over the course of one night, I went from 98% full to only 1%. Great job Gates, great job hotmail (nope, I'm not secretly a Microsoft employee shilling the product).

2004-10-13T00:28:00.000+09:00

Me with a semi-famous Pachinko peddling statue in Matsuyama. But why is he pointing to his nether kintama region? Only in Shikoku...only in Matsuyama.

2004-10-13T00:20:00.000+09:00

Me and B, in front of a Gastow Steamclock ripoff, Dogo, Matsuyama, October 11, 2004

2004-10-13T00:18:00.000+09:00

Me and Yoko, on the Ferris Wheel in Matsuyama, October 10, 2004

Mikan Season!!!

2004-10-12T23:57:00.000+09:00

Oh yeah, it's finally Mikan season here in southern Japan. For the uninitiated, I absolutely love mikans. I did a semi-mikan diet last year to no great results, and I'm thinking about doing the same this year if my stomach holds out. I got my first bag of the delicious orage coloured treats last week. My supervisor at work gave them to me. And of course they didn't last too long before I ate them all up. The thing with mikans is that they don't fill you up, so a bag of them is quite easy to finish. Also, they are so easy to peel, they have no seeds, and much like chips, once you start eating them it's hard to stop. I bought my next three bags while in Matsuyama, the self-proclaimed mikan capital of Japan. I ate one bag one the ferry, and another bag at my desk today. But after all that, you pay dearly for it. I ended up being late for my last class of the day because I was getting aquainted with the students washroom. Maybe like that kid in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who turns into a blueberry after eating too much blueberry candy, I'll turn into a mikan by year's end. Results may vary, but good times.

2004-10-03T01:23:00.000+09:00

Surfing in Hawaii!! And I got up 3 times in only one hour alongside my instructor Kaz. Except apparently I'm a goofy. But a natural.

2004-10-03T01:13:00.000+09:00

Me and Kaz, on the katamaran cruise in Hawaii

Possessed AC

2004-10-03T01:04:00.000+09:00

I think the Air Conditioner in my house is definitely possessed. I may have drawn that conclusion a while ago, but today's Air Con doings definitely sealed it. First of all, you have to realise that my air con's company is Sylphide. That already sounds a bit sketchy to me, like a type of rat poison or something. Since the beginning of summer, I've been cranking out the air conditioning at a chilly 16C. Everyone was concerned that I'd catch a cold. But my air con's 16C must be like a comfortable 25 or 26C on an aircon that works. Believe me, if I could have gotten it down to 11C or so I would have. So back in the day, it was honest to goodness snowing and raining ice chunks out the slits in my aircon. What the hell? It's 36C outside, where's this snow and ice coming from? Not to mention that it hurt when the snow and ice blew down on you at a Randy Johnson fastball pace. Anyway, after not seeing snow or ice for a long while, I was using my aircon today when it started to gush water. It wasn't a waterfall type gush, but it wasn't Chinese water torture gush either. I'd say I would have been able to wash my hands with soap including getting a nice lather going and then washing it all off with all the water that dripped. Craziness. What's the lesson learned here? A) Never by a Sylphide air conditioner B) Keep a bucket under my aircon at all times C) There's hope yet for an indoor ski resort in Kumamoto

Elementary school

2004-09-13T17:52:00.000+09:00

As is the case every Monday for the past 13 months, today I found myself at the Elementary school teaching grades 1 and 2. Now at first, Elementary school kind of freaked me out. It was a source of stress for me, then I gradually warmed up to it as I ironed out my teaching technique. But I still think I love Junior High School more. There's still a little bit of the "damn, tomorrow is Elementary school" feeling. But I realised that it's no longer the teaching that gives me a weird feeling, after all the kids are all cute and great kids. They all seem to try hard whenever I come to class. On a side note, a grade 1 kid started to cry when he was eliminated from winning a prize I brought to class today. Am I that mean a teacher to make the kid cry? Or was the prize so desirable? Who knew, a pencil and eraser could launch you into the upper echelon on popularity...Anyway, I realised that no matter how much I thought I was part of their world before, I'm just a hired gun for Mondays, and not an actual Elementary school teacher. During the morning meetings, they announce that the ALT has come. All of a sudden, I have no name. And today, they were passing around a sheet for who would attend the drinking party. Right in front of me, they asked teachers "are you coming?" but of course they didn't ask me. An invite would have been nice, even though I would have turned them down. Hawaii seems way better than drinking with a bunch of co-workers who feel indifference to you...

Ahhh, autumn in Japan

2004-09-09T18:39:00.000+09:00

Yes, autumn has come (although it is still technically summer). The days are getting shorter, the breeze is getting cooler (what am I saying, it's still 30 scorching hot degrees here) and the Japanese farmers have turned into pyros. The Japanese seem to light anything on fire, at any time, anywhere. It's not uncommon to drive around my town and see several unguarded fires burning on the sides of roads. There's a smokey haze in my town, and everything smells like smoke too. That's ok, cuz it reminds me of when I go camping. The countdown is on for my next vacation. Yes, that's right: only 7 more days till I'm sitting on the beaches of Hawaii. Cue Hawaii 5-0 music now...I managed to escape work for a week, and managed to get my parents to meet me down there despite my dad's admission that he "won't do anymore travelling this year". It'll be my first jaunt onto Western soil in a good 13 months; each passing day my shopping list grows larger and larger. I can't forgo this opportunity to stock up on various goodies, especially clothes (distinct lack of XX sizes), reading materials and snacks.

These pigs wanna blow my house down

2004-09-07T13:35:00.000+09:00

That's what I kept thinking about as typhoon 18 hit my area today. That of course is a lyric from Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Membrane". Pigs aren't exactly a typhoon, but it's the closest I could come. Anyway, I woke up this morning with my walls shaking (there was also the phonecall at 6:40AM telling me that I had to come to work). When I arrived at work, none of the teachers who told me I had to be there were there themselves. What's up with that? Were they trying to be deceptive on purpose? I figured out that any teacher who wanted to be absent from school would have to use one of their precious 20 days vacation time. I thought I could make the 5 minute trek, even in adverse conditions and save one of my days off, say for something better like travelling. Using holiday time in the event of a natural disaster is further evidence of some eccentricities on the part of the Japanese. I'd say the typhoon was most severe between 10:30AM and 12:00PM. All the teachers had great views from the windows in our teachers room. We watched the roof of the barber shop across the street blow away one shingle at a time. Then there was a giant piece of sheet metal that came screaming towards the teachers room, but luckily it was picked up by a gust of wind at the last minute and instead blew all the way down the street. All the teachers ended up at the gym, cuz it was flooded. I had to take my socks off, roll up my pants, and bail water into a bucket. I mean, if I wanted to go to a waterpark, I would have gone. A waterpark has no business being in my school gym. I'm sure when I go home I'll find I don't have a balcony anymore or some other drastic happening. That's ok though, I've finally seen a typhoon that's lived up to it's billing. I swear I'll never get excited at a typhoon coming again, once is enough for me...

Forgive me, I'm new at this

2004-09-06T12:56:00.000+09:00

So what exactly goes into a 'blog' anyway? I'm a 'blog' virgin, so this post is historical in a sense. Maybe I should just ramble enough that it makes sense to only me...who knows. Well nothing out of the ordinary is going on. I popped into work today despite it being a Sunday. Now how many other ALT's go to work on a Sunday? We had an English Recitation contest practice with the first years; I must say they are pretty good although they still have a long way to go. I'm hoping that some of my kids can hit the podium this year, it doesn't matter what place. Getting shut out last year really left a bad taste in my mouth. Speaking of bad taste in my mouth, Japanese spaghetti sauce really leaves something to be desired. Maybe it's the fact that it comes in a bad that throws me off, or maybe it's the slightly salty tin taste it has. It's meat sauce in a bag, which makes me wonder what they did to the meat to make it last on the store shelves. How many years am I shaving off my life by eating it? Luckily I found a Costco, my culinary saving grace. Today I realised why I rarely eat balanced meals in Japan. I think it's the outrageous prices that have something to do with it. Today I bought two nectarines for 580Yen. I'm guessing that's a bit over 3 bucks Canadian a piece. Did I get fleeced? But I felt like a nectarine so I had to spring for it. In Japan, your money goes first, followed soon after by your arm and your leg. 10 buck oranges anyone? (that's a story for an entirely different time).

2004-09-05T21:15:00.000+09:00

The hamburger that conquered me, even the most seasoned eater. If you look carefully enough, you can see the bun just laughing at me. Incidentally, my buddy Yuichi, all 160 pounds of him, finished the burger and he too was mocking me in the end.