Better Than Sunday

(video; yatai matsuri rocks the weekend. More on that story later.)

Let me set the scene. I'm at my desk at Ogawa JHS, the teacher next to me is counting an unusually large amount of money and the space next to me is empty save for two spare laptops and a laminator. The windows behind me has a view of students playing tennis, baseball and other club activities and the P.E teacher and another young teacher are standing at the door watching as well. They can't leave as they're wearing inside shoes and they can't go outside in inside shoes as that would defeat the whole point wouldn't it! Other teachers are milling about doing god knows what and I'm maintaining a lightly smiling face so everyone thinks I'm a pleasant person which I am - but it doesn't hurt to make it more explicit right? A new teacher has just sat down, the counsellor, who studied in Canada for 5 years so has a fairly strong grasp on English. Score.

I have an hour and 10 minutes left before I can go home but with nothing to do so I thought I would begin to write my blog and then send it home and finish it off there. I supposed the news to cover in this blahg is the news regarding my apartment and the new school I started at. To recap for those playing at home, I had starting teaching at Bato JHS a little while ago which I love and I was living in this enormous backhouse in Otawara of the general manager of the Otawara branch of Joytalk. It was a nice place (tatami mats. Again.) but I couldn’t work the gas cook top and I knew I would be leaving the place soon so I couldn’t really see it as much of a home or anything.

While I was staying at this backhouse I started at Ogawa Junior High School (JHS); which is actually smaller than Bato JHS and I’ll be honest, doesn’t look quite as nice from the outside. Class sizes on the whole are smaller and there’s more of a ‘city feel’ to everyone. By that vague sentiment I mean that these guys aren’t as instantly nice as the country-ish folk of Bato but they’re probably easier to get along with. My desk (a.k.a party central) is opposite the school nurse and both of the English teachers here speak very good English and are both a lot of fun. On my first day after I briefly introduced myself for the second time to the head English teacher (Hirasawa-san) she informed me that her son was sick and that she had to go home. Which was… you know… awesome. I was placed in the care of the other English teacher (Fukuzawa-san) and I began my whole new rounds of introductory classes. I was told I needed to stretch out my 10 minute introduction to fill in a whole class which was tricky as I’m actually not that interesting to the untrained eye but I spun gold (ala Rumplestiltskin minus the whole stealing of the child thing) and in every class Fukuzawa-san would ask the same questions and act equally surprised each time for the student’s sake. The fact that we sometimes eat Kangaroo was met with surprise and then 3 seconds later I’m told they eat horse - This was not met with surprise.

I’ve gotten a lot more confident in front of students so I wasn’t that phased to find the students of Ogawa were noticeably quieter in class than the Bato-ites. The teachers are making every effort to make English enjoyable as apparently students have been saying (in English no less) that they really hate English. So I guess they're not so worried about proper learning when the foreigner is in the classroom which works well for me!

I'm at Ogawa for 4 days, then Bato for 6 days. Lather rinse and repeat stopping the pattern only for public holidays and proper holidays but it evens out with those anyway. Both schools have different good points and it seems the only bad point I have had so far are the down times at my desk trying to keep my eyes open. I have a very short attention span at the best of times so when faced with 2 hours with absolutely nothing to do except drink enough tea and water to make myself go to the toilet frequently I find my head falling to the desk. I've gotten into making flash cards and I'm strolling around the school more and more but I plan on joining a club to com - what does everyone think of Archery? I think it'd be cool.

This weekend past was special for 2 reasons; 1) I moved into my new apartment, and; 2) the Yatai Matsuri! Yatai are these elaborate and intricate cart-type things that contain 3 drummers, flute players and a varying amounts of percussion. Each town around Otawara has their own yatai and from Saturday morning to Sunday evening each yatai is playing a particular rhythm over and over again. It was a pretty amazing way to be welcom

ed to my apartment by having these awesome carts wheeling past my window and playing some steady drum beats and then having so many delicious food stalls to choose from. I had okonomiyaki, karaage (freshly deep fried chicken chunks in a cup), a crepe, a snow cone and some imagawayaki.

I chose to hyperlink that last one as it's probably the one that most people will want to see and not read.

(photos: left; the view from my apt window, right; a yatai at dusk)

And my apartment! Oh, my apartment (♥)! I had a run through of the inside from the previous owner and she told me about what's not so good and what's great etc. She also left a whole lot of things in the place for me to use like a microwave, toaster oven, a fridge and so on. I made a video to show everyone instead of trying to take a photo of each room. She says it's haunted but, I don't know, I felt like it was one of those 'I'm American pay attention to me as I'm SPECIAL' sort of things... Sorry Americans.

Yes. Missing tiles, ripped paper doors and more! I will say that this place is enormous and bigger than what I need - it's tatami mats which I'm a little over at this stage - but it's location in Central Otawara is awesome! I think it's great so I'm very, very happy. We'll see how I feel when it gets either really hot or really cold and it's the same temperature outside as it is in because there's no insulation but until then I'll keep enjoying myself.

So all in all both of my schools are great, my apartment is rockin' and everything seems to be going very smoothly! I'm really pleased with how things have turned out! Boy these things keep getting longer and longer.

(public Facebook link; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=245434&id=680155088&l=ce333b6df3 )

In the Flowers

(left and right; sakura!, middle; sake!)

Pretty sure I've eaten an entire wheel of Camembert in two days. This was a culmination of a lengthy search through a supermarket for Ritz crackers. I met two Americans in-store and although they doubted my chances I was victorious. This supermarket trip was of course on the tail end of my search for a wifi connection due to mine mysteriously disappearing (which I believe turned out to be a problem with my laptop and not the wifi as it's baaaack). The Americans and I struck up conversation as we were all obviously foreigners (Imagine if two oranges found themselves next to each others in a giant barrel of ants). They were very nice and although they work for a different company they're ALTs AND they also they also happen to live in my area! We exchanged names for Facebook etc. as I still don't have a phone and I hope to catch up with them once I move in which will save me a half an hour drive to go see people which is still a hassle as I have not yet moved into my apartment... BUT there is news about when I'll be moving in...

...

...This weekend I've been told! Apparently it took so long because they were cleaning the place up but I think that should be translated as 'woops we forgot about it - I'll dash in there sometime during the week and pick up all those small bits of rubbish that people never bother to pick up like the part of the chopstick wrapper that you tear off and then it'll be good as new!'. But still, it'll be my place and that's just awesome.

School is still going quite well! As of today I have gotten through my awkward forced 10 minute introduction of myself to every. single. class in the school except 3 of the 1st year classes as they just can't understand me and neither can the English teacher so it's easier not to bother. The classes are getting better and better as the students are starting to speak up more and have some more fun even though most can't understand a hefty portion of what I'm saying. There is one student that has been doing several peculiar things which I hope is because I'm the new thing and nothing more but the rest all still giggle and say hello as I walk through the halls. Some Americans have come to the school as part of a sister city type program. Bato uses the kanji of horse and head and the students come from a place called Horseheads in New York. GET IT?! Well I wonder if the American students did as they never actually learnt Japanese in highschool but I think they're managing. I taught English to one of them yesterday... cheater.



(I'm not 100% if this is my school but it looks very, very similar to this. Schools don't like you to take photos of the children or the school so I had to scour the internet for this and it says this is a school in Bato and Bato isn't very big so...)

I've started to have lunch with the students now which is part of my job as an ALT but it's kind of difficult when there's such a language barrier. At the moment I'm in 2-1 and the kids are all really nice and I must admit they have music playing in the background so no one really talks anyway but I feel like I should. The school lunch today was interesting as not only was it a hotdog (+ extras) but it was to be eaten with a FORK! I should explain the school lunches briefly; there is a bowl of something hot whether it be stew, noodles, soup or whatever but it's the only hot componenet of the lunch. The carb component is either a container of rice or a big bread roll, I'm sure it could be more but I've only have 3 so far. There is a small carton of milk which is overly sweet and reminds of 'malk' (now with vitamin R), a salad of some sort, something sweet and then something that should be hot but isn't - for example, cold gyouza, a cold croquette and today... a cold hot dog. It sounds gross but there's usually something wierd saucewise to put over the top to change the flavour completely so it's usually pretty good. The whole lunch is actually quite tasty despite my dismal descriptions and it's a nifty way to try new foods so for $50 a month it's not bad at all!

After period 6 we often have cleaning which I know I've mentioned before but I found a clip that describes how I view it and the person sweeping is pretty much my contribution.

But onto Hanami! I was stressing before last weekend as I hadn't done (Seen? Been to? Experienced?) Hanami yet and as I might miss it year I could miss it FOREVER so I was happy when someone bothered to organise something and even though it was about 3 train transfers away it was worth it as it was with the Gunma people that I met in my otherwise disappointing trip to Gunma earlier in the month. Worth it now huh? It was at a really nice park that had food stalls, a ferris wheel, a roller coaster and pretty much anything you could need to have a good time. I drank sake and eventually some chamisul but I didn't drink more than a certain member of our group who passed out or another that ended up crying for 20 minutes over the passed out member.

So the day was pretty much spent sitting around enjoying the sights and the food/drink, followed by a few rides, followed by karaoke and then the next day we hung out at a mall and got lunch etc. I really like the Gunma peeps so I'll be sure to visit them again. Possibly this weekend as they're holding Hanami again but I'll be moving in so it's probably best not to. I'll have to force them to come to Otawara and stay at my place. It's big enough!

I'm going to the second school I'll be teaching at on Thursday so I'll let everyone know how that goes but even if it's crap I'm still loving Bato JHS and I'm there most of the time so it'll be alright! My next blog might cover my new apartment and the new school. How does that sound?

Something About Us

I was told today that I handle chopsticks as good as a Japanese child. I'm pretty sure it was directed as a compliment but was the comparison necessary? Perhaps it was in response to my teaching efforts today. That's right, today I taught English for the first time. It was a fairly basic lesson plan; say hello etc. Do a 10 minute introduction of myself and Australia and then have each individual student greet me, say their name, number and then three things they like and then I was to ask them a question.

Generally it went pretty well, some students struggled and some were so quiet they could easy have been repeating there name over and over again without me noticing. But as the classes went on it got easier and the students got better, but now they all know my name which means I am assaulted with 'Hello Kris' when I leave the teachers room. This is going to sound unusual but I imagine this is closest I may come to being a celebrity; everyone stares at me as I walk by and while most smile/bow/say 'Hello Kris' , others just gawp at me. It's weird to think they are so unaccustomed to seeing a white person but I suppose since Bato is considered quite country-esque then people like me wouldn't be that common.

Towards the end of the day Ms. Kishi (the head English teacher) and I went down to the local park with the students to look at the cherry blossoms and watch the students on the play equipment. The students decided that I was handsome and that I smelled nice (I honestly couldn't smell anything) so now as well as responding with 'Hello' I have to awkwardly thank them and smile and wave. I was asked to be part of several photos and had brief conversations with some students in Japanese and English.

We also cleaned today! I was sent to the roof to clean. The roof, of course, has a fairly large surface area (being a roof and all) but I had some of the 9th graders shouting out "Kris! Kris!, kakkoii..." which motivated me to do something at the very least. So I stood there idly sweeping my broom this way and that until I was called inside. I think I actually created more mess than what was originally there but apparently we clean every day so I might go back to it tomorrow.

I have a nasty habit of being stuck bored at my desk doing nothing of use. In the future I'll ask to go into other classes or I can create work sheets but until then I was stuck reading a clockwork orange (which they could never, ever decipher because I can barely do it) until I got some tea, or we had lunch or something else like that. The teachers are all really nice and they try really hard to speak some English but generally it takes a mix of Japanese and English to reach an understanding. The students don't really like to learn English (I know... I asked them) and they all give Ms. Kishi and I puzzled looks when we speak English to them but hopefully by the end of the year they will have learnt something other than my name and a greeting. Maybe I should teach them swear words.

I'm joking.

I now have 6 hours to sleep before I begin getting ready again. Blerg. But then it's Hanami on Saturday in Isesaki! Hana meaning flower, and mi meaning I'm going to get really really drunk.

One By One All Day

(left; celebrating Hayleys birthday / right; some Engrish)
I don't plan on this being a long blog but I'm just going to type and see where my words take me. Read closely as my words take us back to yesterday when I visited the Board of Education with my guide Sha Cho-san and then to the highschools I'll be working at for the rest of my time in Japan.

I keep hearing about people stressing out about meeting the B.O.E which I guess is fair as if these people don't like you then you don't have a job anymore. I dressed up sharply (with my trademark bodgy shaving job included) but I didn't really have to do much except for my 6 sentence introduction that simply stated my name, country of origin, age and then several other things rounding it off with yoroshiku onegaishimasu which means something like 'let's work hard together' or 'please take care of me' or something along those lines. It's just what you say in that context and I'm sure I'll be saying it alot at the highschools.

Speaking of! The first school we went too was a bit run down but it was still nice. I introduced myself to the teachers and I met the head English teacher who (like most Japanese teachers of English [JTEs]) was a bit embarrassed to speak English but she seemed very nice and showed me my desk, the laptop i'll get to use and a note from the previous teacher who worked there. God the concept of that letter freaked me out. Who writes a letter and leaves it like that? It must be a warning right? but I'll touch on that later. The next school was a bit of a drive away and it's up a very steep hill which my car s.t.ruggled to get up. It looks much nicer and the teachers all wore casual clothes which will be good for me because wearing a tie makes my head look funny. I was told to bring my own cup and inside shoes and I'll have a different JTE to work with for each year of Junior high! So if one is difficult to work with then I'll have the others. Of course if they're ALL difficult to work with then there's a problem.

Only it wont be a problem as the contents of the letter that was left for me basically stated that the two schools are really something special. That the staff and children are very friendly and that he had the most amazing time teaching at the two schools. So all in all I'm exceptionally happy with what I've seen of the schools so far :D I begin teaching tomorrow though which I'm not very ready for so I can update everyone on my heinous mistakes and every faux pas committed in the future.

I just like saying faux pas.

A New Sky

(left and middle; Otawara graveyard. Right; Kris at Karaoke!!!)


I just ate two croquettes from the shop opposite where I'm staying in Otawara and they were delicious. Would you like to know how I came to Otowara for me to have eaten the aforementioned delicious croquettes? Yes I imagine you would.

Well to continue from my last post where I was just about to go to Gunma for some more training. The car ride was so boring that I'm worried if I mention it or even think of it then the world will send it to me again like 'The Secret' dictates (I honestly have no idea how 'The Secret' works that was just my understanding? Ellen Degeneres mentions it a bit and she got on the cover of O Magazine with it so it must work). The hotel we stayed in Takasaki city was nice and may I say it was awesome to A) have internet connection and B) Have a BED to sleep in. Breakfast involved croissants (YAY) breadrolls (Carbs YAY) and this spicy, salty, rice ball that made me seriously contemplate my salt intake whilst in Japan. That is to say, everything is very salty so I'll have to reduce salt intake or drink more water.

Anyway the training was identical to the Tochigi training and it even lasted for 4 hours too! But I did get to meet some really cool people so it was well worth it in case I decide to go to Gunma again. Which I probably will as immediately after the training was done we were back off to Ujiie City in Tochigi. Which means the mountains and the scenery I was so excited about were completely missed and was replaced with night scenery (= no scenery). There was a sunset though...

I don't want to bore you with all the details but Joytalk decided to give me a car and send me to live in this enormous house at the back of a general managers house (Honda-san) in Otawara. It's actually quite a large place but I am again back to tatami mats and futons. Not that I have an issue with tatami mats and futons ........ you know I think the biggest issue I have with tatami mats and futons is the pillow component. It's either a rice pillow or this wierd structure-y type pillow. I just want a normal pillow for my soft and delicate head. No it's not bad, I'm just pulling something out of nothing.

I saw my apartment from the outside and it does look as big as people are saying. It is also about a metre away from the Joytalk office in Otawara which probably means that I will be raked in to teach there in my free time. Which is fine as that's moneyyyy for meeee. The previous owner of the place has told me that it's old and pretty much falling to pieces and that I should ask for a cheaper price but I don't mind living in a hole - it will give me something to do.

I also got my car! It's tiny and blue and I love it. I want to name it something kawaii but I can't decide what. I'm thinking it looks like a Ben, but I like karo-chan or Bossa Nova-kun or Tadakichi-san. Thoughts anyone? No? Yes? I also just went for a walk through this awesome graveyard/forest and I had a brief if completely broken conversation with a nice old Japanese lady. I really like Otowara at the moment, it isn't exactly close to anyone or anywhere but it's peaceful. I don't mind driving to Utsunomiya and Tokyo is only about an hour and a half away by Shinkansen (bullet train). I'm sort of blogging everything now as once I start teaching (next week I think) then I imagine I will run out of things to say. But I'll find out soon enough.
Yoshi!





Some pictures of Otowara; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=239177&id=680155088&l=66da790f1d

Some pictures from Utsunomiya; http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=239168&id=680155088&l=34ae1123f3

(everyone should be able to access them even if you don't have facebook.)

Evening Rain

First of all. I've probably mentioned the cold temperature right? Yesterday and last night it POURED! A friend and I were on our way home from Utsunomiya City after trying the 'best gyouza in Japan' when it started raining on us and after I guided her back to the hotel I ran to the office trying to see if I could get internet access (no) so I entered my hotel room soaking wet and red faced from the wind. All in all. Unpleasant.

I cranked up the heating, changed out of my wet things and slowly began to warm up, fell asleep and woke up freezing. I have heard 3 different people say that its the coldest hotel they've ever stayed in which I believe can be traced back to poor insulation and LACK OF INTERNET (actually its probably due to the first one - the latter just annoys me). The whole traditional aspect was fun, now its not as fun. Communal showering weirds me out and although I havent run into anyone and I lock the doors I'm worried that sometime soon I'll be sumimasen-ing my way out of a tremendously embarrassing situation.

Today I had a physical. A physical you ask? What is that? Do you pit each other against one another in a year-7-esque form of athletic competition to determine a social ranking? Close. But no natto, a physical is something that all teachers need to go through before becoming a teacher which includes, blood pressure test, hearing and sight tests, urine tests, a chest x-ray, poking and proding, and me taking off my shirt in front of Japanese men who had no time for my Gaijin-ness. I believe I passed. I'm not sure I can fail but no matter.

Theeeeen I met a whole bunch of other ALTs and awkwardly tried to introduce myself in Japanese. I did meet some cool people though so hopefully I can stay in closer contact with them at possibly visit them later when Otawara is boron. I also met an enormous Bogan named 'Lachy' which was like a cross between an irritating mature aged student and a hardcore Carlton supporter who managed to criticise the place I was going to live in about 5 seconds after meeting me. He's... he's just awesome...........

Very soon I am off to Gunma! Beautiful, cold, windy and cold are only a few adjectives that come to mind but I'll be driven there and have essentially free accomodation so I really have no complaints! Except the whole cold aspect, but its coming into Spring soon which means CHERRY BLOSSOMS. I am so keen. Are you? Mmm yes I imagine you are. After Gunma I hope I can my way to Otawara, my future home and possible country hick town. Immense.

Yey!