(no longer) LOST IN JAPAN: January 2006

2006-01-31

What a morning!

I'm sorry that I haven't updated but when Mediocre Writing updates before me... I know it's about time for me to update too. I've been fighting off an illness the last couple of days. I was worried that it was the flu because it's been going around... Luckily, it wasn't. I think I won the battle this time but I'd rather not celebrate...
This morning was insane... I was running around like a giant stress-ball... I'm starting the final project in my Oral Communication class and for some reason, I remember it going much much more smoothly last year... Maybe it's because I'm teaching to 40 students instead of the usual 20... The students will each be presenting a scene from the movie "Stand By Me". 2 of the students started crying because they didn't get the part that they wanted... The one time I ask them to make an effort, there are tears... This is one of the reasons I handed in my resignation... There is no desire to learn English at my school... why should I hold on to my desire to teach it... Let someone fresh-faced and unjaded by the Japanese English education system take over...
OK, I am admittedly in a bad mood. Maybe it's the fact that it's been raining for 2 full days... Apparently my moods in Japan have become subject to the weather... Sunny days: Happy, Rainy days: Irritable...
At least I have TheSuperficial.com to keep me sane. CAUTION: HIGHLY ADDICTIVE CELEBRITY GOSSIP. Click at your own risk...

2006-01-24

A change in the wind...

Well Mister Moore, Canada elected Harper as their Prime Minister. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. See what happens when we're told what to do. Harper didn't get a majority government though, so he's going to have to cooperate with everyone in order to get legislation passed. So maybe this is for the best.
In my news, January is #$%@^!* COLD. And thanks to the non-insulation of Japanese apartments, the temperature indoors can hover around freezing. I'm sleeping under 2 duvets and in fleece PJs. Getting out of bed in the mornings is torture... more than usual. And at Oji, even though I love the school... I hate that I have to go outdoors just to go to the women's toilet... I have to leave the heated teacher's room, run across to the building next door to the toilet... It's not pleasant, let me tell you...
Speaking of unpleasantness... I will leave you with this little gem. I wonder how much my petrified vomit would bring in...

2006-01-23

Dear Micheal Moore

OK. So Micheal Moore, you may actually be the only American who cares and I give you props for that but dude... for someone who is so anti-Bush, you are being very Bush-like... MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! It's our election, don't tell us how to vote. The Liberal party doesn't just have some "splainin'" to do... they need to take responsibility for their actions. If Canadians don't want to be at the mercy of a corrupt government, they should have that right. The Liberals were caught red-handed. If the same thing happened to Bush in America, you'd be calling for impeachment. Mister Moore, you said yourself that if we elect the Conservatives, we'll be playing fetch for the Bush administration. It's true that most Canadians don't want that. Why? Because as Canadians, we don't want loudmouthed Americans telling us what to do...

Thank you,
Samantha

2006-01-19

Thursday

The first-year high school prefectural listening exam was this morning. What does that mean? It means that my crystal-clear voice was heard by 10,000 first-year students all over Nara prefecture. How's that for something to write home about? I did the recordings for the first and second-year exams back in August and had completely forgotten about it until yesterday my JTE says "Samantha, tomorrow is the exam. Everyone will hear your voice!" Fun times... especially when you're monitoring the broadcasting and every time your voice comes on the teachers say... "Yappari, Samansa no koe wa wakari yasui" (As usual, Samantha's voice is easy to understand) What can I say? I love the attention.

Filling out my bar school applications is worrisome... I am slowly realizing that I'll be going home in just 6 months and that is causing very conflicting emotions... I'm also realizing that I've forgotten very basic information... like my social insurance number and how to speak French. God knows how I'm going to pass the bar in French... But I guess those are problems for another day. I have to get accepted first and at this rate, unless I find someone who is "habile a recevoir le serment", I don't even know if that will happen...

2006-01-17

Oji

I love Oji. I don't like the fact that I have to get up earlier than usual and that I have steep hill to climb just to get there, but once I'm there, I love it. The students and teachers crack me up. The kids are well-behaved and active. The teachers seem to have a really good rapport with the students. Class time always goes by much too quickly. The students participate and they actually look like they have fun. My 6th period class made my day. The JTE I work with, Ichihara-sensei, told the students that they needed 2 stamps on their participation sheet if they wanted to graduate. Needless to say, that had the students fighting each other off just to answer my questions. It was hilarious. Who knew 18-year-old boys could be that cooperative?
Unfortunately, next week will be my last lesson with the 3rd years though and that makes me a little sad... But that's the life of an ALT. Bounced around from place to place without warning. I guess it's best not to get too attached...

2006-01-15

Reason #138 Why I love Japan

STRAWBERRIES IN JANUARY!!!!

Monday Morning Head Brigade

I'm back in Oji today after a weekend that went by way too quickly. Things seem to be going back to normal here in Japan. My Okinawa vacation seems to be quickly fading into the backround. I don't actually have very much to say, to be honest. This weekend was interesting but relatively uneventful: taught French, slept, Osaka all-nighter, slept, made dinner, talked to parents, slept...
I start teaching this week... This term is really short though so I only have 3 lessons to teach at Kashiba and 2 lessons with the Oji 3rd years. I'm told that starting in February, I'll be teaching the Oji 1st years but that may be a myth. We'll see.
In other news, I started on my Okinawa diet again. New Year's Resolution to stop eating conbini food and to go to the gym... probably starting the second bit of that tonight.
OK. Going to stop boring you with my life. Just before I go, I would just like to know who reads my blog... I don't really want to keep posting for nobody. So if you're out there, post a comment or something... I missed de-lurking week last week but better late than never, right?

2006-01-10

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Happy New Year!
As we begin the Year of the Dog, let me just say welcome back to "Lost in Japan". I've been back in Nara for over a week now but I've been a little bit busy re-adjusting to my cold apartment and have thus been unable to fulfill my blogging obligations. But I'm back at school now and I have some time to kill today, so now is as good a time as any. And as my 101st post (seeing as my 100th was short), this one will make up for it.

Okinawa was a lot of fun. It's really beautiful down there and to be honest, it really doesn't seem like the Japan I'm used to. Aside from the streets swarming with American servicemen, there are also the palm trees and bougainvillia lining the streets, white sand beaches stretching for miles, the ocean so clear you can see the coral reefs at the bottom, the lack of concrete on mountains and riverbeds... Okinawa really is a tropical paradise.
Unfortunately, we had pretty crappy weather while we were there, but the 4 days of bright sunshine and blue skies that we did have were great. Besides, we were having such a great time that even the 9 days of cloud and rain couldn't dampen our spirits. So here is my first post of 2006, and it's a big 'un.
In addition to the stuff I did, I'm posting pictures and a few notes on Okinawan culture and history so if you're interested, you can take the time to read it. If not, the pictures are pretty.

Okinawa-honto: This is the largest island of the archipelago. It is also home to 50,000 American military personnel (and family). It's a little bit strange seeing them walking around among the natives though. Seems almost unnatural. But I guess that's life in Okinawa.
We had 2 days in Naha in the beginning of our trip. First we saw Shuri Castle, which is a modern reconstruction (from 2000) of the old Ryukyu Kingdom capital. The Ryukyu Kingdom had very strong ties to China so you can definitely see more of a Chinese influence in the architecture, making it very different from traditional Japanese castles. I think I read somewhere that the layout was also influenced by China's Forbidden City, but don't quote me on that. The original was destroyed during World War II.

The King's Residence

Shureimon: The Symbol of Okinawa and also on the World Heritage list (this is on Japan's 2,000 yen bill). This is also a reconstruction but from 1958.

Tamaudun: The Royal Burial Grounds

View of Shuri Castle from across the lake

The last 4 days of our vacation were spent in Naha again. We rented a car and drove around the island: to the North (Motobu Hanto for the aquarium and Manzamo cliff) and to the South where the Battle of Okinawa took place and most of the war memorials are.

A little bit of backround: The Battle of Okinawa lasted about 3 months with the heaviest fighting taking place in June 1945. Everyone had been brainwashed by the Imperial Government and when the high school students (boys AND girls aged 14-19) were mobilized for war, nobody asked any questions. Everyone was convinced of Japan's ultimate victory and everyone had been told to fight and die for the Emperor (or else be killed...) Over 230,000 Okinawans died in the Battle of Okinawa--68,000 military--so there is some resentment towards "mainland" Japan because the Okinawans felt deserted. Laura and I went to the Himeyuri Monument which commemorates 220 high school girls and their 18 teachers who died in the war. The museum was surprisingly moving and everything was translated into English making it on my list of top museums I've been to in Japan.

And now back to something less depressing. The car we rented was decent but the navigation system.... oh it was the GPS from hell... It was super old and since Naha seemed to have had a serious facelift in the last 3 years, half of the places we wanted to go to weren't in the GPS. OH MY GOD! One night, Laura and I were driving around for three hours trying to find the stupid movie theatre (it was raining so we wanted to see a movie). When we finally found it (3 hours later... FOR REAL), the place was huge and could have been seen from space... it was also only about 10 minutes away from the hotel... stupid GPS.

Here are a few choice pics from our second stay in Naha.

Aquarium Front

Aquarium Back

Weirdest fish in the place (Frogfish)

Shark and Ray Tank (This tank was cool. The Osaka Kaiyuukan has 1 whale shark but the Charaumi Aquarium in Okinawa was actually built to breed them. So in this tank there were 3 big ones PLUS baby whale sharks. Neat huh.)

Dolphin Show (YEAH! this was excellent... well by excellent I mean really lame but the dolphins were cute and I'm very easily amused.)

Manzamo Cliff at Sunset (you couldn't actually see the sun because it was cloudy...)

Cool picture taken from behind a waterfall in a Chinese style garden in Naha

Limestone cave in the south (considering it takes 3 years for stalagmites/stalagtites to grow a millimetre so imagine how old this thing is...)

Habu-shuu is Awamori (the local liquor) with Habu inside. It is the grossest thing EVER. And you can see it everywhere! A jar of the stuff goes for 20-30,000 yen. 60,000 in the jars that have 2 snakes. If you think a tequila worm is bad, try a frikkin poisonous snake... EWWWWWWWW. That's all I have to say.
Not saying I'm surprised though seeing as pig ears and pig feet are sold in snak-paks at the convenience stores... How come my Okinawa Diet never mentioned that?!

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Yaeyama-shoto: This area has two big islands: Iriomote and Ishigaki, the 2nd and 3rd largest islands of Okinawa. We didn't explore Ishigaki much but there are supposed to be some nice beaches. We did however find the A&W... Root Beer Floats, baby! Oh YEAH!!! Ishigaki is also famous for its cultivation of black pearls... so there are pearl stores everywhere and I developed a love for the precious gem (prompting my not-so-secret admirer to give me a lovely little pearl necklace for Christmas^^).
We did go to Iriomote though. Iriomote is a World Heritage Site because it has the last jungle in Japan. It is also home to all 3 types of mangroves found in Japan. Laura and I signed on for a day-trip with a Japanese tour group to visit Iriomote. We were a little worried at first but it turned out to be a really good day. The tour included a boat trip down the Urauchi river, hiking through the jungle to see 2 waterfalls, lunch at a super swanky resort, collecting starsand (for the 3rd time) and then crossing a river on water-buffalo carts to see Yubu-jima (a tiny little island with a botanical garden).

Mangroves on the Urauchi River

Mariyudo waterfall on Iriomote

Kanpire waterfall on Iriomote

Looking for Starsand (in case you missed the explanation in my post a few weeks ago, starsand is the skeletons of tiny little sea creatures. There is sad legend surrounding it though...

Finding Starsand... Can you spot it?

Crossing on water-buffalo cart (water-buffalo are not as cool the second time around, by the way... the one in the Philippines was WAY better!)

We also took a day to explore Taketomi-jima, a cute little island famous for its red-tile-roofed houses and starsand (although they never mentioned that starsand is found basically everywhere in Yaeyama Shoto). It's only about 9km in diametre so with 4 hours on rent-a-cycles, we were able to see the whole thing twice over. We ran into our friends Andy and Mamie on this island, much to our surprise. They had just finished a 2-day trek through the jungle of Iriomote... sheer cliffs, dead pigs, leeches... the whole nine yards... Craziness

Red rooftops

Cute kitten (If you look closely, this kitten looks like it's a giant watching over 2 tiny little people. Pure coincidence but I thought it was cool when Laura pointed it out)

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Miyako-shoto: Miyako island is the 4th largest island in the archipelago. It has some of the best beaches and dive spots in Japan. Odd little fact, it also has a German Village in commemoration of a German merchant ship that crashed off the coast of Miyako-jima sometime in the end of the 19th century. The nice people of Miyako saved the crew and, as they say, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
These 3 days were quite possibly my favorite and most eventful vacation days even though it rained every day except on the last day. It was raining so hard one day that the roof in our guesthouse room leaked... And this after we had spent the whole day outside sightseeing being battered by the storm. We had rented a car for the day to explore the other parts of the island but unfortunately, we picked the worst possible day to do it. Awesome. We made friends with the other guests at the guesthouse, ate together, drank together... It was really nice. Our last day was beautiful. We took a glass-bottomed boat to see the coral reefs near Ikema-jima (north of Miyako). It was AMAZING. I'd never seen anything like it. There were fish and coral and anemonies... we also saw 2 sea turtles and a Manta ray! It was absolutely beautiful. Two thumbs up!