This week, or whatever this post turns out to be about

Hey again all, greetings from the land of the rising sun. And thankfully, it's starting to rise a little earlier - we're through the worst of winter over here, and moving into the days where it doesn't hurt to get up in the morning. Everyone's saying it's surprisingly warm this year, I guess we're having weird weather just like the rest of the world, but it's plenty cold for me, thank you.

This has been an eventful couple of weeks. Sorry about last week, the cold is getting better, but still hanging around. Basically, the only thing it really affected was my ability to talk and shout and be as enthusiastic as I want/need to be at elementary school. That's too bad, too, because this week I had my last meeting with one of the classes at elementary school, and I was hoping to be really up. Even though I will be in Shibukawa until next August, Toyoaki does not use an ALT for the first of the three school terms (the school year starts in April here), so I won't teach any of those kids again! *sob* It's tough for me. They're all so cool and full of energy. Some of them were really my buds. Here's some photos.

This is a game I played with the 5th and 6th graders to practice spelling. The target point of the lesson today was the th, ch, sh, and ph sounds. It's kind of an anagram game, it's a race to see who can spell the flash card word fastest. The answer is "SANDWICH" by the way, I know it's tough for you guys out there.

This weirdo here is Zenyouji-sensei, kind of my coordinator at Toyoaki elementary. He's a really cool guy, and his English is very passable - sometimes you need to spell a phrase out on paper, but not usually. I like giving him advice on how to impress his wife, since he's a little bit of a traditional Japanese guy in that he doesn't have much time to spend with her. It's funny, he goes all red, and laughs really hard, and says those are excellent ideas, but he'd be embarrassed.

Class 5-2 (Fifth grade, classroom number 2)

Class 4-3 (It was my last class with them this Wednesday! It's so sad!)

Just some other random stuff - here is a picture of an onsen hot spring in Shibukawa that I really like going to, called Sky Therme - the actual baths are on the fifth floor, and if you use the outside bath, there's a fantastic view of the town and the surrounding mountains. It's really cool, and really relaxing.

From the outside, it appears that an alien spacecraft crashed on top of a building, but inside it's very nice and spacious and hospitable, with a complete lack of probes.

One of the eventful things that happened this week was a trip to Takasaki to hang out at a bar I really like there called "Odessa." That's where a lot of the ALT's in Takasaki hang out, and the bartender is American and his wife is Japanese, and they're both really cool and speak perfect English, and there's generally live music and fun people there. Fun times. However, every time I go there are difficulties, in what will happen at the end of the night. See, the trains stop running pretty early - the last train to Shibukawa leaves at about 11PM, and taxi service all the way home would be outrageously expensive. You could elect to stay out all night and catch the first train, but that generally means arriving home at about 7:30, which pretty much wrecks the rest of the weekend for me. The last couple of times I was there, I just shelled out about 5500 yen (~45 bucks) for a hotel room, which I shouldn't have to do! Ah, well. You'd think a country that has REALLY strict drunk driving laws would have either a train service that runs really late, or affordable taxi service or something, but that's not the case. I guess they just don't want people to have a good time. It's annoying.

Wow, a lot of separate topics this week. And now, for something completely different.

So the teaser photo last week was of my trip to Tokyo with Brigg over the winter holiday - this was a couple of months ago, but it was an excellent time and worth mentioning, so I'm going to catch up on it. Here are a lot of photos.

The first thing we did on the first day there was hit the Tsukiji fish market, which is worth seeing for the hustle and bustle. Nearly all the fish consumed in Tokyo (which is a fair quantity) is circulated through this one facility, about the size of a city block. There is a real danger of being run over by a motorized cart or fifty, but it's worth the risk of life and limb to check out the atmosphere. Plus, there are sushi restraunts where you can get a sushi breakfast that is not to be outdone.

Second thing we did is check out the Meiji Jingu, the famous imperial Shinto shrine. Every new year, about a million people come to this shrine to pray - we hit it on about the 6th, so the crowds had died down a bit. This is the big famous Tori gate at the entrance to the shrine walkway.

Me and Brigg. It was pretty cold and rainy, but hey, we're in Tokyo, how bad can it be.

There was another big Torii gate at the entrance to the shrine proper.

Well, it's starting to get late, and I have plans today. I'll continue the trip photos later in the week. Take care!

Excuses

Hey all. I'm not feeling very good today, and I'm pretty tired and have been busy all day. Whine and gripe. Therefore, I'm gonna crash and play video games instead of blogging. Look for a new post later in the week, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, here's a teaser for what's next:

It's my Californian buddy Brigg examining frozen fish carcasses! Woo!

A touch of the flu has been circulating around school, I really, REALLY hope I don't have that. Send some good feelings my way! Even though it's been shown in double-blind testing that good wishes to get well soon don't really help! Whatever, I'm desperate!

The Holiday that Nobody Knows About

Hey again everyone! Yeah, last week didn't really happen, but this weekend I have a three-day weekend, so I'm gonna get some quality blog time in. The past couple of weeks have been kinda boring, but one thing happened last weekend that was interesting - Setsubun!

I will now attempt to wipe away some of the blank looks.

To start with, here's the wiki on Setsubun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setsubun

It's one of the more minor holidays in the Japanese calendar, but some people celebrate it. Basically, it's a celebration of the start of Spring in the lunar calendar. Because it's a new season, and really a new life cycle for the year, people want to start it off by getting all the evil spirits out of themselves and their houses, kind of a spiritual spring cleaning. Now, the popular way to accomplish this is by hurling dried soybeans, which apparently demons (oni) are afraid of. I don't quite understand why, but the wiki says that some Buddhist monk excorsised demons by throwing soybeans at them. Whatever. These days, kids sometimes wear little paper demon masks while other kids throw beans at them. Also, many people visit Shinto shrines to pray and to throw beans at shrines, statues, trees, large rocks, small inoffensive rocks, birds, fish, people they don't like, people they DO like, and random clumps of air, just in case there's demons there. To me, it just seemed like a national excuse to throw stuff at stuff. Slightly eccentric, but I can get right behind throwing stuff at stuff, it's fun.

I celebrated Setsubun by going to the Mizusawa-dera temple in Ikaho, which is the major temple in the area. I heard there was a biggish to-do going on there, maybe a celebrity or two, so I figured I would check it out. Many people were there, and it was a pretty cool time. Here are some pics.

This is the line that I waited in for about 40 minutes without knowing what it was for. When I came to this shrine at O-shogatsu (New Years) with my friends, there was a similar, even longer line that we did not wait in. That line was for the main temple, to pray there, which is a big deal at New Years. This time, there was a similar line, but it was a bit shorter, and I figured, what the hey, I got nothing else going on, I'll wait to pray with everyone else. However, the line was not for the temple as I had imagined, but rather for a lucky draw game. Apparently, in the local papers for a few days before the event, the temple had a flyer advertising the event, and on the flyer was a ticket for the lucky draw game for nifty prizes, the top prize of which was a television. However, I did not know this, and did not have any tickets for the draw, and for twenty minutes or so I was unaware that I was standing in line for a game I couldn't play. Fortuitously, I met an old couple standing in line that asked me how many tickets I had, and I said, um, what are those, zero I guess. So they took pity on me and gave me three tickets of the dozen or so that they had. From those two tickets, I won one packet of beans (lowest prize) and two medium-sized wooden bobble-head boar statues. This is the year of the boar, see. I was extremely fortunate, most people got nothing but beans. So I really lucked out there, apparently fortune doesn't ALWAYS favor the prepared. However, the couple I was with walked away with a massaging footbath, so I didn't feel guilty about taking their tickets. We were all celebrating together, it was fun.

A photo of one of the aforementioned lucky piggies. Upon closer examination, it's made of heavy papier-mache, not wood, but still cool. I gave the other one to the principal at Kanashima, he put it on a counter near the front of the school, with a little sign saying that it was from me. Slightly embarrassing.

These guys dressed up as demons did a little dance while some others played flutes and drums. This kind of dance is very traditional, and it's the first time I'd seen it. Now, it's noteworthy that these guys were the only things that looked anything like demons that I saw all day, and they were also about the only things that DIDN'T get beans thrown at them. Go figure.

I chatted with the head demon for a little while, he seemed pretty cool. You know, for a demon and all.

People praying at the main temple. There was no line to actually pray.

A pavilion off to one side of the main temple complex, which included a central stand mounted on the ground that was open on six sides, had three different statues of the Buddha on each side, and, get this, spun slowly when pushed. A Buddhist merry-go-round of holiness. If there's symbolism, it's lost on me. Maybe the reincarnation cycle or something. Whatever. It got so many beans thrown at it that I'm surprised they didn't jam it.

This was the main event of the day - local dignitaries, temple officials and even a celebrity or two tossed beans and other stuff (tissues, pairs of work gloves, snack food, even some fruit) into the crowd. People had brought shopping bags to catch the stuff. The wiki says that this kind of event turns "wild," but I think that's an overstatement of the mood here. However, people were kind of scrambling, and it was out of proportion of what was actually being thrown. I was near the back of the crowd, so I didn't get much, and what did make it out my way was thrown pretty hard. However, I like any holiday where there is the possibility of being beaned (heh) by a ballistic tangerine. Keeps you on your toes. If anyone can spot the celebrity, please let me know, I don't watch much Japanese TV.

Well, that was about it for Setsubun. Interesting times. This past Friday, there was an event in Isesaki for the local ALT's called a "red light, green light" party for valentine's day. Basically, if you were single, you wore green, involved you wore red, and keeping your options open was yellow. It was pretty cool, but it was basically another gaijin party. There were some Japanese people in the club, but mostly they were Parapara dancing, and that's very difficult to do. That night was the first time I'd seen it done in a club, it was kind of trippy. For those who don't know what parapara dancing is, here's the wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapara

I wish they had a photo or video or something, it's interesting to watch. That's it on this end. See you next week, maybe!