Jeanneabeck’s Weblog

It always seems as though we accidently meet up with our host family at the most opportune times.   We were in the store one day, packing our groceries into our backpacks and eco bags when all the sudden Takako appeared beside us.  We found her mom and she told us about a charity bazaar that would be happening at the church on Sunday. (last Sunday)  I didn’t catch who exactly the charity was benefiting but I caught that there’d be Japanese curry rice for lunch and that apple farmers would be selling their typhoon damaged apples for cheap.  So the next day we went.

We could hear the bazaar from quite a distance.  Since the Luthern church runs a preschool, nearly all the stuents were at the bazaar running around, playing games, and buying trinkets with their parents. We met my host family’s grandma and grandpa who insisted on buying us lunch and all the apples we wanted.  The curry was for little kids and was surprisingly very sweet.  After telling my host family we’d need to leave within an hour because some students would be coming to our house to practice for the English speech contest, they bought us more apples to feed the students.  We ended up leaving with a dozen apples, greatly pleasing the apple farmers.  

The recent typhoon came at a the worst time for Nagano fruit growers.  So many apples fell off the trees because of strong winds, ruining unripe apples and damaging ripe ones so that they are unsellable. 

Typhoon-damaged apples in Iida City, Nagano, Japan

On Sunday last week I had orchestra practice and Monday was our annual concert.  I had felt a little sick and so I did not have that great of a time performing.  Ryan came to the concert and sat in the very back, taking pictures for me.  

Iida Ochestra Members and Guest Performers

I haven’t decided if I’ll re-contract with my school and stay in Iida another year, but this will be my last concert with the orchestra. It has been enjoyable, but being a member of the orchestra has been quite expensive, actually ridiculously expensive. Also, it’s been quite time consuming with the walk to the practice hall being long and the practices being even longer.  I haven’t been able to really meet and make friends with people.  (This might be because a lot of my spare time goes towards studying for my master’s degree classes and not Japanese, and that I’m not always that genki (energetic) at orchetra.)  Also, since I have to do one big classroom research project before graduating from my master’s program, I’m going to need extra time so that I’ll do a good job. 

Some advice for ALTs – perhaps I tried to jump into doing community activities a little too quickly.  Because I had been to Japan and Iida before I thought it would be great, if not impressive to do so.  If I would have given myself a couple of months first to see the demands of work and my online classes, I might have found a cheaper and less time consuming activity to join that would have helped me meet people. Just an idea.  

Tuesday rolled around and all the sudden we were back in school.  The next big English events, the English speech contest and debate contest will be coming up soon so despite not feeling so well I ended up staying late at school helping students.  On Thursday and Friday one of the teachers I teach with was gone so on the first day I went through class without him but on the second day I told the class since I didn’t think I could explain the grammar well that we’d just have a free day.  The students were so happy, laughing and shouting, but less than two minutes later they were dead silent, studying their individual English books to prepare for their college’s entrance exams.  It was scary.

 The last period on Friday was dedicated to gardening.  Once a year the students put on their gym uniforms and go to work pulling weeds.  I noticed that not everyone was serious about this.  Some students were goofing off, throwing stick-tights at each other.  A lot of the work was half done at best at the end of the hour but the school grounds did look noticeably better.

Gardening Day

Wow, it’s been forever since I updated. I had been sick and with my Linguistics for Educators class just ended this weekend and work in other classes due I’ve let my blog slide (again). I’ve thought about doing a video blog someday, but if I can’t keep a normal blog…

Anyway onto a recap of the past week+. On Thursday the 8th we had a lovely typhoon which rattled the windows and blew down small trees around Iida. Nothing serious happened and while school was canceled for students because the trains refused to run that day, of course teachers still had to go. Most of the teachers took time off so the school was pretty quiet. (I ended up sliding out a little earlier than normal. Shh!) After school Ryan and I hopped on a bus to go to Nagoya and then got on a Shinkansen bullet train for Himeji.

I should probably back up and tell you why we went to Himeji. My friend Yuko’s mother, who is an elementary school music teacher in Himeji was given the job of also being the English teacher for the school. Elementary schools around Japan are beginning to implement English lessons – right now students at her school receive 15 hours of English lessons total for the year, but this will increase in the years to come. Since she was also given this job, I told Yuko’s mom I’d come and visit her English class some time. The problem with visiting another school is that I have to find a day where school is normally in session (no national holidays) but where my school doesn’t classes. The Friday before last Fuetsu had a 24k/30k (girls/boys) walk/run marathon giving me a chance to go.

In Himeji, we were greeted by Yuko’s mom who took us to our hotel to drop off our things and then took us to another hotel for live jazz in English! Two Japanese ladies played the piano and sung songs beautiful; apparently Yuko’s mom is friends with the jazz vocalist and pianist so the final song for the hour was a love song dedicated to Ryan and me – “My Heart will go On” from Titanic. Ha ha! I’m sure my dad would’ve been pleased. Out of all the fun things we did this weekend, those first few hours looking out over Himeji’s skyline drinking whatever kind of fruity virgin drink we got and listening to good jazz was Ryan’s favorite memory of this trip and one of mine as well.

On Friday we got up early, ate at a French bakery, and met Yuko’s mom and her vice principal at Himeji Station. We had four classes to visit that day, all 6th grade classes. Ryan opted to sit in the back and take pictures while I taught about America in simple English and Mrs. Nishikawa chimed in and translated perfectly. My picture book of Missouri came in handy, as well as the maps, coins and other things I had brought to Japan but seldom used.  The students were very excited to see and play with everything. I told the students about America’s quarters but told them I knew nothing about this part of Japan. After drawing “Nagano’s quarter” as an example, the students drew all kinds of pictures displaying what Himeji and Hyogo Prefecture were famous for. They helped Ryan and me learn a lot! 

The day was very tiring but very rewarding. After each class, students came up and gave us gifts of origami, letters and drawings. We were so touched. One class even asked Ryan and me to sign their textbooks (textbooks are cheap and each student buys his/her own copies each year). The teachers gave us some wonderful gifts as well! We were so surprised to receive so many nice traditional gifts. I felt sorry for not bringing more from Nagano. All in all, I recommend ALTs to take some time and visit a school that’s not yours.  It was a nice change of pace and very rewarding.

We had dinner with the principal, a really nice lady, at a traditional Japanese restaurant. I was so proud of Ryan – he tried to eat everything and enjoyed some of it too. Also, before leaving the area, one of teachers walked us over to a nearby shrine where the world famous Neba Fighting Festival was to be held just a few days later. The shine was nice and there we were able to see the portable shrines that were to battle each other soon. I hope we can visit Himeji next year and see this festival.

On Saturday we got to hang out with Yuko which was really cool. It’s great to find Missouri people in Japan and Yuko is definitely one of us now. Sporting a Missouri shirt and casual American attire I felt for the first time in a while that I was with someone like us. I had mentioned the day before that I wanted to buy a protective charm, like I did in Nagano City. Little did we know that Yuko’s family then decided to take us to the famous Ensouji temple. On the way, Yuko’s father drove us to a rice field where he and hundreds of other Himeji residents had planted different kinds of rice to make a image of Himeji. After we had taken a cable car up the mountain we were able to see it. Because it’s October the image wasn’t as clear but it was still interesting.

 The temple, Ryan and I found out, is actually a series of temples and traditional buildings spread on top of this small mountain. We also learned that parts of the movie “The Last Samurai” were actually filmed here! Coincidentally, Ryan and I had just watched the movie the month before (well we mostly listened to it while playing video games) so parts of the temple grounds did look familiar. We took some of the main paths and uneven smaller trails that ran through the mountain’s forest. It was quite an experience. We all decided that it would be nice to live in a place like this.

Later that day we went to Koko-En, a beautiful traditional Japanese garden beside Himeji castle, walked around Himeji castle (but didn’t go inside because walking around a mountain was tiring enough), bought some souvenirs, ate lunch at a wonderful Caspian restaurant, laughed at ridiculous misspelled English shirts at a popular shopping mall for younger students, drank coffee at Starbucks and bought real Pizza Hut pizza for the trip home. As we rode the Shikansen back to Nagoya, eating pizza and watching a movie we reflected on what a great time we had in Himeji. It’s neither the biggest city nor the most impressive. In fact, the city itself really isn’t famous – just the World Heritage castle within it, but the people here were extremely kind, the places here extremely beautiful, and the food here extremely good.  We had such a great trip and are so thankful to Yuko’s family and everyone at Mrs. Nishikawa’s elementary school.

The past week has been a busy one. On Tueday last week Ryan and I went took the train to Nagano City and back to get his $60 visa re-entry sticker.  While the best way to travel to Nagano City from Iida is certainly the bus, the train can be a good option if you get motion sickness, need more space and/or want a more scenic view.  Ryan opted for the train for all three of these reasons so away we went. 

Before going to the immigration office (they were on lunch by the time we got there) we stopped over at Nagano’s famous temple, Zenkoji.  I had been there one time before; after the welcome meeting for new Nagano JET ALTs we were given a guided tour of the temple by a group of high school girls who tried their best but were a bit hard to understand for a number of reasons.  It was nice to get out, stretch our legs, and see a beautiful temple before getting down to business.  Here are a few pictures:

Walking up to Zenkoji

Warding Off Evil

Zenkoji

There were quite a number of tourist and visitors despite it being a normal Tuesday afternoon.  We enjoyed walking around, watching people wafting insense smoke over body parts that ailed them, rubbing warn down statues for good luck, and throwing money into the offering box and bowing.   Buddhism in Japan has a lot of symbolic rituals like this.

I ended up buying a protective charm from the temple for traffic saftey.  Usually drivers will buy these charms and attach them to their rear-view mirror or car keys.  I now have mine hooked onto my backpack which I carry around town every day.  Whether this charm will actually prevent me from getting run over in Japan, I don’t know.  I do like to think I’m making some type of statement while walking around town with this on.  Maybe I’ll start collecting these traffic saftey charms now.  There are also charms for passing exams, having an easy birth, health, etc.  Inside the little pouch is folded paper with the charm inscribed on it.  You can’t know for sure though because if you open it the charm will no longer work. 

Ryan found some Nagano snacks for ourselves and for the Japanese family we will visit in Himeji next week.  All in all, we had a great time before having to hurry back, wait in line, pay $60 for a sticker, then catch the next train back home.

On Friday I had an ALT Meeting in Matsumoto.  It was a good meeting and I learned a few new things so no complaints there.  Being able to stop by Starbucks again was also a nice bonus.  After talking with a friend in another prefecture who last year took a four hour train ride to sit through a one hour meeting where the fellow JET Program workers read directly from the meeting notes, I now see my prefectures meetings in a new light.  These meetings are well planned out and they try to bring in interesting guest speakers and plan useful workshops that pertain to life in Japan and life after JET.  I hope the communication between the JET Program representatives who work in the Prefectural offices will continue to improve so that other prefectures can have the type of meetings we are used to here in Nagano.

After the meeting I got home at 8pm, and was up early the next day making last minute preparations for English Camp.  Overall English camp went well.  A total of 8 ALTs from four different countries who work around the area came and helped out.  We stayed the night at the Matsukawa Youth House and played a variety of games with the students.  My favorite event was cooking yakiniku (Japanese BBQ) and yaki-soba (BBQ soba noodles) outside and having a campfire.  Unfortantely I can’t post any pictures of students so you’ll just have to imagine what camp was like.

http://www.japantravelinfo.com/2010/win.html

Best of luck to all applicants! 
-Jeanne