Our little Christmas

Our humble lil tenenbaum. I owe it all to my mom, who made sure to sent it complete with battery-op lights and a star. Our friend Tamako made us a cute little snowman ornament, and I was glad we had a place for it.


(Mike as "wild cat")
We spent part of Christmas eve doing Karaoke carolling at the festive "Bar Ahau", with a couple friends, and friendly strangers. Madonna's "Like a Prayer" had the whole bar clapping and dancin along. Who can resist Madonna on xmas? I also sang the Christmas song by Nat King Cole.


Here are the Christmas gifts we got for each other.
Mike was really sweet. He was sneaky enough to get me a yukata (a light summer kimono) without giving any hints. Pretty hard in such close quarters. I wasn't sneaky at all. I asked someone where I could find a good music shop right in front of Mike. Even so, he's rockin out on his guitar. Now I just need to find a drumset that will fit in our apartment...

Not pictured are the many, many great American snacks friends and family have blessed us with. I have absolutely no regrets about the pounds (kilograms?) that I'll be puttin' back on. We can't thank you all enough!

Feel free to leave a comment about your own Christmas (or an email, letter, phone call, etc... ;)
Love to you all!

Christmas in Japan

Yes, that's old Santa-san promoting a Pachinko parlour. People've been asking what Christmas is like over here and it is our duty to report that it is surprisingly similar to the American version. There aren't ornament-strewn bonsais all over, no. There are fake firs as fine as Wal Mart would make I assure you. I'm sure they're made in China like their American counterparts. There are of course minor differences:

- not much emphasis on the whole CHRIST thing,
- Families gather and eat a special cake on Xmas Eve
- Light on gifts as New Years is much heavier on that

In fact, New Years seems to be the important holiday. Seems the opposite of in America to me... we celebrate New years for festivity, etc., and have a more family focus (or religious focus) on Christmas.
Here in Japan, people seem to spend xmas having fun; going out with friends or lovers, etc. Then New Years is spent with family, at the shrine, at home etc. Families might go to the shrines together either on New Year's eve or NY day. We've heard people stay up to see the first sunrise of the year. My friend Tomomi will climb to the top of one of the mountains around here for that 1st sunrise. This is what I hope to do too, if I can find a trail that leads up far enough.

Here are some other seasonal shots that could very well have been taken in your own locale:




Homemade cards are big too. We got a brick from some students:


And of course, there are always honky Gaijins around to spread the Christmas cheer:



One major Christmas-y thing we missed out on was the luminary in Kobe. We went down there, but two days after it shut down apparently. It's more "Winter Celebration" than Christmas-specific, but you can see it at fellow ALTs Marlene's BLOG.

Bou Nenkai

"Bou nenkai" = end of the year party. (Earlier I had mistaken it for "Bon enkai") It started with the staff of Iwa Senior High piling onto a tour bus at 8:00 am Saturday, December 3rd. We were lookin' forward to an 8 hour bus ride! Yup! We drove 8 hours to the southern end of Honshu. Since most of the weekend was spent on the bus, people started passing out booze and snacks as soon as we pulled out of the driveway. "Work hard, play harder" is a fitting motto. We stopped for lunch, had more beer, and got back on the bus. By the time we reached Yamaguchi prefecture, it was around 4 or 5 pm.

Before checking into the hotel, we visited the largest cave in Japan! It was amazing, and well worth the wait. We spent an hour hiking through in admiration.




After the cave, we checked into a very posh, very traditional Japanese-style hotel. I've never felt softer futons, or seen prettier flower arrangments. I stayed in a room with 4 other female staff, and Mike stayed with the guys. Here's the view from Mike's window...

After soaking in the hotel's onsen (large public bath), almost everyone changed into "yukatas". These are light robes that look like summer kimonos.
Finally, the REAL "Bon Enkai"...
We feasted on dish after beautiful dish. The food came as fast as the beer and sake. We ate the infamous blowfish, which is called "fugu" in Japanese. the Fugu sashimi had a light, citrus-y taste. Very good. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance.
And what's a party in Japan without Karaoke and Bingo?! Mike joined in with Hirota-sensei...



The party ended around 9 pm or so. After rescuing Mike from the party next door (stayed tuned; Mike should add a comment about this), we headed to the hotel bar. Our tour guide did magic tricks while we drank cocktails. I think there was a green-tea martini, but I can't remember. Go figure.
The bus ride home was pretty quiet. Any drinking was just to calm the hangovers, I'm sure. Even though I'm not a heavy drinker, it was an awesome time. It was definately a bonding experience for all of the teachers, and Mike is now a popular topic of conversation.

ichi-SNOW-miya

Even though the first official snow was about two weeks ago, this weekend brought our first layer to actually stick around more than a few hours. We have a good four or five inches as I type and it's still coming down. Looks like this might be here for a while. Pretty funny how the mountain elevation affects with the snow. Our friend a few minutes north has several more inches than we do, the town 20 minutes south barely has a light brushing, and further south I don't think it's snowed at all yet.

I also thought this was pretty funny. Seems our neighbor Yajima shoveled and decided to play a little joke on our other neighbor Kishine:

In Lieu of Posts, A Poster

Not much in the exciting foreign adventure arena (well one thing, but we're waiting on photos before posting) so take a gander at the lovely new wall decoration. Give it a click on it to check out a larger version that includes more of the image. Sorry for the lack of posts. Pre-Christmas insanity knows no borders.

Animal Yoga at Nonohana

Nonohana is one of our favorites. Our friend Tamako-san works at Nonohana as a chef. These kids eat well! We frequent Nonohana for our cooking exchange and Mike's weekly English conversation circle. In early October, Tamako's boss asked her what they should do for their pre-school "fitness day". She jokingly brought up that I could lead Yoga. He didn't take it as a joke, and next thing I know I'm getting paid to teach Yoga!

But, before the Yoga, each preschool class took turns showing off some moves they'd been working on...

We also distracted some of them quite a bit.


The kids welcomed us, and had even practiced an English greeting for the event!

Well... I can't really say I taught any Yoga. We just made shapes with our bodies and while listening to Lullatone. It seemed to be just what the kids and all their parents needed. With about 50 kids plus all their parents, we needed the whole gym. We had a little powerpoint of animal pictures projected, but the kids seemed much more interested in the animal sounds Pippa yelled into the mic as I demonstrated a pose.



I have a lot of "favorite" days in Japan, but this will probably top them all. The highlight of the day for me was when we did "dragon", which was really a big conga line version on follow the leader snaking around the whole gym.
After tiring out the kids, we went out to lunch with the Nonohana staff. Couln't have done it without Pippa, and wouldn't have a bomb soundtrack and pics without Mike, and, of course, wouldn't have had the gig if it hadn't been for Tamako's innocent joke about me "teaching" Yoga. Much love!