Boar Butcher

My favorite sign in Ichinomiya:



Right by our house too. Get to see it when we go just about anywhere. That boar seems just a little too happy to be getting sliced up like Wonder Bread. Love it.

The way of tea ceremony

Tea ceremony is one of the ancient Japanese traditions that still has a strong presence today. At many schools, including the one I work at, there is a Tea Ceremony club, so students can learn and practice this peaceful art. I joined in a couple times, and it does seem like it could takes years to master! There are special tools to prepare the tea, certain sweets to be served at different times of the year, questions & answers between guests and host(ess), etc.

Here are a couple pictures from 2 ceremonies I attended...





I love the peaceful, simple sentiment that tea ceremony teaches; to concentrate on each moment, living it fully. Not thinking about the past or future. But I really don't know enough about it to do it justice here, so please take a look at this website a teacher shared with me: Info on Tea ceremony

-Colleen

Yeah, We're Watching

Oddly enough I find myself rooting for the Japanese team & not caring about the US, except the snowboarder who has the same name as my cousin - Jeremy Bloom. I can't root against almost-family like that.

There's much ado over here about the Japanese teams zero medals so far. Serioulsy, the leading story on the news every night: STILL NO MEDALS. It's kind of hard to explain, but Japanese nationalism makes American patriotism look completely bush league - horrible pun i know. There is a complex web of patriotism here in which every good/bad thing done by a prominent Japanese person or entity affects everything else. Hence: Honda motors has a great quarter = we rule! Japanese team wins no Olympic medals = what the hell is wrong with us? Very strange.

Of course most people we know laugh that thinking off & just go about their business, but for every one of them, there are like 20 guys in Tokyo drinking themselves silly due to the lack of gold. It's crazy. I don't care about any of that though. I just want to watch Half-pipe Snowboarding and Women's Curling for the rest of my life.

-Mike

A walk behind the temple

We took a walk behind the buddhist temple near our house,
and ended up seeing a lot of beautiful religious statues and offerings.
At the end of our walk, there was a small, humble shinto shrine, with the sunset hitting it just right.
tottemo kirei desune?!!
-Colleen

The last class of the year (school year)

This week I'm wrapping up the Oral Communication classes, as next week the final exams begin. Normally I'd be all fun and games, with music, games, snacks, and a party... but unfortunately, I had to fit in an oral interview test during class time so that I can meet with each and every student. All is not lost, because 2 weeks ago, we received a package from students in America with a cultural exchange video and Pop Rocks! It works out perfect; we start class by watching the video together, then the students work on writing letters to America while I call them one by one to have a quick oral test in the next room.

Kind of a bit much to fit in one class, cause realistically how can I expect them to work hard to write a letter, when they're about to have a test?! Yes, if I was them, I'd be studying. Good thing the students are really kind and dedicated; they have decided to finish their letters outside of class. Even if English is their least favorite subject, most of them are motivated by our exchange project with the ACES program in the States (We love you ACES!). I wonder if I mentioned this project before? If not, my students did group projects last semester. They had to choose some kind of Japanese product, and create a commercial for it, in English! The other requirement was that it should share some aspect of Japanese culture; old or new. We had a great mix of things like sushi, green tea, & Pocari Sweat (a sports drink kinda like Gatorade). We filmed the commercials, sent the video to America, and waited to get a video from ACES. And this is the video we're watching this week.
Back to thoughts of the day...
It's a bit sad to have a test on the last day of class, but at least this way I get to speak with everyone ;) I've learned so much about teaching this year. Mostly because my supervisor trusts me with a great deal of responsibility. I know what I want to do different next year! I hope to lighten up a bit and have more fun in the classroom. Imagine that coming from me!? I tend to take things pretty seriously, which can work for or against me. At this school, it seems to work against me. Sooooo, April: a whole new group of students, a whole new attitude! Slang, games, special guests like Kanye West, and maybe we'll even make a snack or two. How many ways can you top a Ritz?

Wish me luck!
-Colleen

They're Building A Wall

Around the slab of asphalt we call a yard. Bummer. If they didn't want me sunbathing in the nude out there, they could have just said something. It would've been a lot cheaper.

In all honesty though, I have no idea why they are doing this. One day a truck pulled up with bricks and the next guys started building a wall. I guess you don't keep an employment rate like they have here without finding a little pointless work every now and then.

I hope this wall comes with a Habatan mural.

-Mike

Japanese Snack Roundup

A list of some of the snacks I recieved for my birthday. Note these were given by someone who knows very well that I am vegetarian and there's a lot of meat. Trying to figure out if this is malicious, in jest, or simply innocent:

Dried Ramen (chicken-flavored)
Potato Wafers ("Fried Chicken"-flavored)
Big Katsu no idea what this is, but kastu-don is breaded pork & this looks just like it.
Kamu Kamu Dried Squid
1 Piece of Beef Jerky
Steak-Flavored Strips (of something?)
The Choco Bat baseball bat meets malt ball meets disgusting.
TAKO San dried octopus strip
3 Umai - like giant, horrible-tasting cheeze puffs, sans cheese.
Konbu pickled(?) kelp snack. actually pretty good.
Wasabi Nori wasabi = wasabi. nori = seaweed. exactly what it sounds like.
Ra-Mu-Neif someone took the powder from Bazooka Joe and compressed it into little balls.
Ra-Mu-Ne Cola haven't opened yet, but sounds pretty obvious.

I also got two packs of alcohol-filled chocolates (very popular here) from other people. One was filled with sho-chu, the other with brandy.

Birthday Two: at the Sea of Japan

On Mike's actual Birthday, we woke up and had "garbage omlettes" (made from taco leftovers: green onion, tomato, salsa, cheese: Oishii!). No cake, but I think Mike prefers eggs anyway.
Then we took off on Route 29, heading North until the road ends, at the Sea of Japan!! We went to the city of Tottori, which is a tourist attraction for the huge sand dunes. It's only a 2 hour drive from our house. 1 hour into it, houses were covered with 3 feet of snow! But once we left Hyogo-ken, the snow slowly disappeared and the valley grew wide as we approached the shore...




While taking a picture of Mike, the waves crashed in on him, filling his Adiddas with FREEZING cold surf and sand. I played it safe when rinsing off a shell. The ocean was beautiful, and we had this beach to ourselves while the tourists all checked out the dunes.




I had to see the dunes though! (see one below) For some reason, there are camels and horses to ride, but I think it's much more fun to walk. Mike went and had a Pepsi while I hiked up the mountain of sand. A perfect workout; it warmed me up enough to take off my hat & coat. The view was gorgeous! I had fun watching the wind slowly erase my footprints. The wind was also kind enough not to blow sand in my face ;)



All for now! Happy Valentines day!!
love, Colleen

Birthday One: Tacos & Beyond

Birthday celebrations started early when we had a taco party Thursday night with the local English Conversation Club. We bought most the ingredients in Himeji & Pippa provided some killer guacamole. I think I had five tacos total and then ate all the leftovers for lunch on Friday. Wish I had the skills to make them more authentic, but beans and tortillas are good no matter what.

And then we followed up the tacos with a second party Friday. We ate & drank with about eight teachers from Colleen's school and had a great time all around. I mostly talked with our neighbor Kishine who we barely know, despite spending most our time less than 200 feet apart. The teachers also got me some killer gifts:



There's the sake bottle, candy necklace, and of course the crown. It says "FUNNY," and rightfully so - just look at that hilarious face. It was made by our other neighbor Saito who is awesome and quite funny herself. Not pictured are the (mostly gross) Japanese snacks, the bamboo foot massager or the model car (?) and traditional card game I got the night before.

Mushi + Monkeys = Weekend

Midday Saturday we met up with Marie Claire & Owen and headed to The Herb Garden, an all-organic, grown-on-the-spot restaurant about 45 minutes away in this little town called Kosai. (Repeat visits soon, I'm sure.) After the amazing food, we decided to visit the local beetle dealer. I don't know if we've mentioned it before, but Japanese kids love fighting beetles (aka cockroaches) and there's a freakishly popular - like Pokemon-ish - video game with all the different beetles of the world. Owen & I went in joking about getting mushi pets, but both left actually wanting them. Some of the bigger ones (we're talking 5" or so) aren't my thing, but I don't mind the little guys so much. The pic above is actually my plastic mushi Nokogiri. He's the closest I've come to making the jump... yet. I was pretty close Saturday too, but I don't think Colleen is sold on the mushi yet.



Sunday was pretty relaxed all around. Colleen disappeared for a few hours when on a "short" walk, she ran into the vice principal of her school, who lives pretty close to us, & ended up having a lengthy visit & tour of his property. After dinner we managed to catch some sort of Monkey Olympics on TV. They had them golfing, rollerskating, driving go-karts, and competing in other equally-stupid and hilarious events. Topped that off with the Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman flick "High Crimes" (nothing but the best of the best American films on TV over here...) and called it a week. Yes, I am turning into a Japanese nine-year-old.

Mike

Kids Vs. Demons (Setsubun Fun)

First off, apologies for the compression on that pic, apparently even though our cellphone can take huge photos, it will only let us email thumbnail versions of them. Bummer, but Aoi's too cool not to post. So Setsubun is a end-of-winter/beginning-of-spring holiday not unlike Groundhog's Day in the States. Only it involves demons & throwing dried beans at said demons. Kinda silly, but hard to laugh at when you're busy paying attention to a wannabe beaver's shadow.

I got invited to watch the Nonohana pre-school's celebration on Thursday and it was great. Two of the male teachers were in full demon garb - great masks and all, but the pics I got of them were horrible - and the kids were TERRIFIED! It was amazing. Maybe I'm sick, but something about a hundred kids screaming at a guy in mask just really makes me laugh. The other teachers seemed to agree - when they weren't busy comforting the REALLY upset criers. It was pretty awesome all around and I got to follow it up with a killer kindergarten lunch during which I saw one of the biggest - no THE biggest - crybaby bullying another girl. Funny and a little perplexing that she can bounce from teary sweetheart to lil' miss toughstuff so fast.

We followed it up Friday with an actual Setsubun celebration at Iwa Shrine. It was much more mellow than expected. No demons other than white devils to be seen. I was actually pretty bored most of the time. Those kids are a hard act to follow. There was a massive bonfire though so I was alright.

-Mike