Filed under: Happenings
Last Sunday was my first concert with the Iida Orchestra. Another English teacher named Michelle came down from Tatsuno to enjoy the festivities with me, which made the weekend all the more interesting. Before the big concert, on Saturday we enjoyed a Bunraku performance by the Imada Puppet troupe. It was Michelle’s first chance at seeing bunraku, and my first time seeing the play “Kesei Awa no Naruto,” a moving Japanese story about a estranged mother and daughter who are briefly reunited by happenstance but must part their ways again.
I was suddenly woken up Sunday morning by my cell phone going off; I usually have it off but had luckly turned it on last night to see what time it was. Ando, the nice college student from my same town who drives me back home after orchestra practice was already outside my apartment waiting to pick me up for pre-concert rehearsal! From the start, it was aparent that this orchestra was much more hard-core than the orchestra I knew back in Jefferson City. Meeting over once a week was just the beginning. I gave Michelle my apartment key, a concert ticket, and a map to the concert hall, dressed in a flash and was out the door.
Orchestra Practice
We practiced for about three hours, had a break for lunch, and then it was concert time. The concert went well; while I didn’t hear any gasps from the audience for seeing a foreigner on stage, nor get to do any interviews with the local newspapers (darn), I was aware that people were aware of me. On the schedule, I’m the only person in a 60+ member ensemble (including the out of towners they recruit to fill the gaps in teh orchestra) that has a foreign, non-Chinese character name. While the people of Iida are used to seeing foreigners perform music in their city, the Affines music festival brings sister-city musicians from Germany to Iida every sumer, this October and the time when Iida takes a break from all the summer festivals.
After the concert, there was cleaning time, and I used this time to run away and take Michelle to the train station and we said our good byes. Afterwards was the after concert party. Still having a bit of a cold remaining and not getting a full nights sleep, I was exhausted by this point, ate some food, was forced into giving a completely un-Japanese Japanese speech, and then left for home early.
Concert Poster
Overall it was a good first concert and I look forward to more. Music is my way of getting involved in the community and meet people and it seems to be working out ok.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Thursday was a beautiful autumn day; a few white fluffy clouds spread across a deep blue sky from mountain range to mountain range, making today an absolute perfect day for the long walk/run my school does anually. As much as I wanted to participate and gain the benefit of working out and being part of the student body, I was sick and opted to stay in. Other teachers who were wearing facemasks to protect others from getting their cold (a common site in Japan) dressed in tracksuis today and went out nonetheless. I think that’s one minor difference between Japanese and US teachers – I love to participate but if I’m not feeling well I’m not feeling well. I took it easy in the office and then snuck home for a nap before going to my second school.
It starting after climbing Mt. Fuetsu with the muscle aches, and then by the time I recovered I had gained a headache/small fever. This then turned into a nasty sore throat that I had for a few more days, and then into a bit of a cough, and then into a middle ear infection, for which I went to the doctor’s office on Friday. Amazing.
On Friday I felt like all my cold symptoms were gone and was very happy except my right ear hurt. One of my teachers was kind and took me to the doctor’s office after our first class together. After having weird stuff dabbed in my thoat and having to suck on a strange tube of air that made my ear ache go away I told my teacher I didn’t want to go back to school. I used some of the supplementary holiday from working English camp and went home after being fed and pampered by my teacher in her home. She’s so great!
Instead of the one big ol’ pill I’m used to receiving from the doc, I got a set of three small ones and some powder to swallow with water beforehand to coat your stomache so the medicine does not hurt it. I have to take this three times a day.
Kat came to Iida for Saturday and Sunday. I was pretty much better so I took her around and we watched Japanese puppetry together, went to a Buddhist temple, went shopping, etc. It was fun to have her here. Monday is a national holiday which means I don’t have to work but Kat does. This is a good time to take a break again.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tragedy brings families together; closer in ways they never were before. 7,000 miles away from home, I just learned that my great grandma has passed away at the ripe old age of 101. (She would’ve been 102 next month) She lived a good, long life so tomorrow’s funeral will be more of a celebration than a mourning – or at least I assume; being 7,000 miles away I’ll just assume the church service was full of people wearing ridicious hats and dancing the afternoon away. I learned from this day though that family members, including my grandma watch my blog and enjoy reading my posts. I’ve been recently inactive, not necessarily because I don’t have the time, but I just haven’t had the motivation. Knowing that my blogs are not only read, but printed out and shared, I will definitely post more often and add more details.
Backtracking a bit, I realize I posted nothing about my first trip to Toyohashi, which happened the weekend before. My friend Kat got a job in Toyohashi as a teacher at an afterschool English school. I’ve been meaning to visit her for some time and the weekend before worked out perfectly. Toyohashi and Iida are the two largest cities on the Iida Train Line so I was easily able to take the train. I’d never riden anywhere South past Tenryukyo (where the puppetry is) and was amazed to see how close the trainline follows the Tenryu river. (I knew this looking at google maps, but maps can never portray the immense beauty of it all). The Tenryu river is one of the most beautiful river’s I’ve ever seen and to follow it so closely… For a good image (mine were taken through the train windows in bad lighting, check out this blog http://japanvisitor.blogspot.com/2006/08/tenryukyo.html)
Being the train nerd that I have become during my daily trips riding the train to school every morning, I wanted to collect all the train stamps at all the major stations on the Iida Line. So I took the first train at 6am and stopped at the 3rd furthest major train station to collect the stamp. (After the Ina-Kita stamp mishap where I went to the furthest stations last and ended up having to go back again for that stamp, I decided that the best strategy is to go to the furthest places first) This was a good strategy, only this stop actually had a quiz. The idea behind this year’s train stamp collecting game is that at certain stations there’d be questions you’d have to answer and venture to other places around that certain town before receiving the stamp. Every other “quiz” stop I’ve been to just had the stamp waiting for you at the station. Either they forgot or they didn’t care. At this station, however, the train station man told me the answer – that I’d need to go to Sakurabuchi Park.
After receiving instructions from a local traffic director, I made my trek to the park. It was a considerable distance and after searching the park for at least an hour or so I still didn’t find the train stamp. I was pretty bitter by then, but still took in a bit of the beauty of the park. There were some people training to do kayaking, some rental boats waiting against a shore of these breathtaking red flowers. I wasn’t the only one photographing the scenery.
Sakurabuchi Park
Japanese bride and groom
Inari Foxes
This was one of the most impressive Shinto temples I’ve been too. There was lots of different buildings and areas spread out on the grounds, including this area where hundreds of little stone foxes were placed. Kat and I spent some considerable time trying to figure how to best take a picture of all the little foxes before heading off to souvineer stands and lunch at an Indian restaurant. I bought my first Daruma doll (here’s some info about Daruma: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma) which now sits proudly on my TV; When I come back to the US I plan to use him to teach kids about Japan.
The rest of the weekend in Toyohashi was spent going around to various shops and places we’d both wanted to visit but didn’t have a friend to go with. Since Toyohashi is about 3x the size of Iida, I got to go to a Starbucks, and shop at a book store with a huge English section. Kat talked me into going to Kappa sushi (a cheaper and sadder version of the nicer sushi restaurant I frequent – look at me, already a sushi expert). Another notable place we visited was an arcade where I won my first ever arcade prize! In Japan, arcades are actually fun places where the prizes are really cute and desireable, AND it is possible to win prizes. There’s considerable strategy that goes into winning a prize in some of these games and it was fun to watch the high schoolers win prizes.
My trip to Toyohashi was a lot of fun and I had such a great time not only catching up with Kat but seeing all that her new city has to offer. I hope to make my way back down there another time.
After sleeping for over 12 hours, I think I’m over the headcold I caught the day before as well as some muscle aches from climbing up Mt. Fuetsu. I’ve been trying out different ways to stay get fit and think I have a few ideas on how to get started. (Note to self: don’t leave the windows open when you go to bed = head cold = no work out.)
Thursday I met up with some other ALTs prior to the meeting we had to go to the next day. We went to karate practice, which was pretty cool and intense. At the meeting the next day we really didn’t learn anything new, except that there are some pretty awesome 5 year ALTs who have been practicing their respected martial arts for 4 years in Japan and really kick butt. They planned a community activity where they and local Japanese people introduced ALTs to these martial arts. Fortunatey (unfortuantely) for me, I’m already involved in two activities – orchestra and puppetry (not to mention being a grad student) and don’t want to overcommit myself.
Saturday I met some teachers and people from the Iida orchestra and we climbed up the mountain that is behind my school. Fuetsu san, or Kazakoshi yama is the biggest mountain and most symbolic mountain in Iida. While climbing up, we encountered various sekibutsu (stone buddas) and jinja (shrines). it was a really wonderful experience. What baffled me was that someone recently built a large new shrine near the top of the mountain. Unless they helicoptered supplise in, the only way to get up here is to walk across narrow paths and use ropes and/or roots to climb up one steep part. How did they do it? At another part, some monk carved a staircase out of a large stone. I can only imagine how long it took and wonder when this stone staircase was built. Could’ve been 1000 years ago for all I know.
Afterwards, we climbed back down, and while it took a lot less time to go down, I was about ready to collapse by the time we got back to the car. We went to a wonderful eco-friendly, homegrown ingredients curry shop for lunch and then went our separate ways.
The next day I was feeling quite sore and miserable so I had a relaxing day at home where I was able to view the pictures from my trip.
