A nearby building that had collapsed over the winter under the massive snowfall.

ha ha ha

So, my base school put out a little guide to the teachers for the new students that included photos and a brief description about goals and hobbies. First of all, I was the only one of 35 or so teachers that was smiling. Then, in the 'hobbies' bit, I had previously written something down that someone typed in...but apparently they couldn't read my writing because it said "skiing, fishing, suing." I don't even remember what I wrote but it wasn't "suing". I guess the Japanese really DO think all Americans are sue happy!

Otherwise the weather is great and it's one of those rare days where when I pull out to route 117 I can see the peaks all the way in Nagano prefecture. Today I taught two classes with Ms. Yoshizawa who likes to stand at the back of class while I run everything, which was a little frustrating, but I had fun with the kids and they thought the monkey quiz game I made was kick-butt.

I'm drowsy and have to finish planning my private lesson for tonight and then it's VACATION TIME! 10 straight days off (I had to take some vacation days to make it work like that). Tomorrow I'll hop on the train that goes near my apartment, which will take me all the way into Nagano City. Then, I'll take an express train down to the city of Nagoya where Marco lives. All in all it will be a 6 hour train trip. I'll check out Kyoto and the World Expo if I can and maybe some more sightseeing type stuff.

I don't know when I'm coming back home but I want to try to see as much of that area down there while I can. Some Japanese people never even get to see Kyoto in their lifetime so I should take advantage of it and try to get motivated enough to really spread around the area and see tons of stuff.

I'll report back maybe in a week or so with some travel stories/pics!

Monday night party

Last night I had to go to an enkai (work related drinking party) for my apartment...it was the dumbest enkai ever, and I've been to about a dozen enkais by now. It was basically a guy telling us all the rules that I don't understand or follow anyway...and that next month we have to wake up at 5:30 AM twice to move some boards around and cut some grass. I tried to express my disapproval but couldn't...

After the enkai a teacher gave me a ride into town where I met Martin, Debs, Judas Priest the Buddhist Priest, Yuki and Mieko at Kimamaya (a little izakaya near Lion Dior). We had some drinks and eventually got into some decent conversation (everyone spoke good alcohol-enhanced English other than Yuki).

Judas Priest the Buddhist Priest (Hiro) had some interesting things to say that made me think...he'd been to England a couple times but is afraid of America because he thinks everywhere in America is dangerous due to there being 'guns everywhere!'. I had to explain to him that there are certain areas of my country where there are lots of people with guns, but many of them just happen to be kind of stupid, and shoot each other a lot. But they wouldn't shoot him, I said...

Then he reminded me why some Japanese people view America as a place where around every corner there would be an angry screaming racist person pointing a gun at them...in 1992 a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student in Louisiana named Yoshi Hattori was trying to find a Halloween party but mistook the address. He knocked on one door and then another trying to find the party...but instead it was answered by a paranoid gun owner who thought the boy was an intruder. He yelled 'FREEZE!' with his handgun pointed at him, but the boy didn't understand, probably thinking he said 'please' which in Japanese translates to 'doozo' which also means 'come on in'. The boy walked towards the man and the man shot him in the chest and killed him.

It got lots of press in Japan and I think it has permanently skewed their perception about being safe in America.

Also, I had to explain the Wendy's finger incident to him and why people in America work so hard to sue everyone else (there are also sue con artists in Japan and elsewhere, but we all know how sue happy Americans are).

Otherwise, I learned a little bit about his buddhist sect (he practices Sotoshu buddhism, a kind of Chinese influenced Zen buddhism that's heavy on meditation), and he talked a bit about why he swears, drinks, womanizes and adores heavy metal even as a follower of a strict doctrine that doesn't allow these things. In his own words, "I know that the Buddha says 'no', but I can't help myself!" he said as he chugged down a draft beer. We talked a bit about the new pope and compared between both religions how young people just aren't keen to follow religious-based social rules these days...and how electing such a conservative pope was definitely a step backwards in that respect, in dividing the church even more.

All in all it was a fun night, played some darts and then I made the long walk home cuz it was a nice night...about 40 minutes. Got to bed by 2 AM and had a long day at Mizusawa Junior High today, but had a fun day with the kids. A few of the boys are giving me a hard time about my NBA team the Portland Trailblazers not making the playoffs. I had to hit them over the head with the plastic squeaky hammer more than a few times...

On the way home from skiing

Okutadami Maruyama ski area at the end of the day, and the power station that it is built next to (they poached it for it's service road...nowhere else in Japan has such an easily accessible high altitude ski area with snow lasting into summer) . There is still about a 14-foot base at the end of April.

spring skiing...in the high country

Today I slept in till about 12:30...I had decided the night before that I would go skiing today, but slept through the alarm. When I woke up I looked outside and saw it was a perfect day, which is pretty hard to come by around here. So I left the house around 1 and headed for a ski area called Okutadami Maruyama, which is near Yunotani Village, about 1.5 hours from here. I've never been but it has a reputation for getting insane amounts of snow...in fact it gets so much snow that it is closed from January to April because it is inaccessible. It opened up a few weeks ago with a 5 meter base, which is something like 16 feet, and might be open into June.

The drive there was insane. Apparently the ski area was built near a high-country electrical station where there is a big mountain lake that is dammed up. The only access is this weird maintenance road that consists entirely of 2 long Indiana Jones-like mountain tunnels with a short break between them. I entered the first tunnel and it started to climb pretty steep...I began to get worried as it never seemed to end and just went higher and higher. The next tunnel was just as long and it was 30 minutes before I emerged out the other side of the mountain. As far as I could tell I entered at the bottom of a big mountain and came out at the top on the other side, where the ski area was sitting among electrical wires and dams.

I didn't get going until 2:45 which only left me a couple hours to ski, but it wasn't crowded and it was good spring skiing. The views of the alps were awesome and it was nice to be out again, might be my last day for the year unless I come back to the same place after my vacation next week. There was some soft spring powder-crud in the trees and I was able to get at least 10 or so runs in.

On the way back down I checked my odometer...the tunnels were about 21 km long, or around 15 miles or so.

I came home and went to the new sushi place nextdoor. I ordered the next expensive plate from what I had last time just to compare, and it didn't exactly get bigger or better, just weirder and more exotic. I ate stuff that I normally hate (like sea urchin) but because it was top-quality sea urchin, I tried it and while I still didn't like it, I could appreciate why some people do (because they like to eat things that taste like gym socks). But everything else was just awesome and I even got a free plate of the best sashimi I've ever had because there was a mistake...I had only asked if they had sashimi but didn't order it, but it ended up in front of me anyway...I offered to pay for it cuz I ate it but they refused. So that was a bonus. I've decided to hit that up once a week now...

So now I'm just prepping for a busy four days, and then I have an 11 day vacation, the first big vacation since christmas. I'm planning on heading down to Nagoya to see my college friend Marco, and maybe make some side trips to Kyoto and other must-sees. I'm excited to see the rest of Japan. This will be my first real big trip outside of the area around here...yay! I'll probably leave Friday and maybe come back a week later. Not sure yet. The Kimono Festival is in my town that week too but it looks like I'll miss it.

Last night I taught an English comprehension class at a juku (cram study) school, and then went for some yakitori. I ended up at a bar called Nonta with Yuki and Lupin's master, after seeing Nate and some of his teachers at Takada's place. Nonta's master made me a sashimi dish from this whole fresh fish, which he had caught that morning in the ocean an hour away. I don't know what kind of fish it was but it was my first time eating it, and like all sashimi it was awesome.

today's random rant...social life

Yesterday I got my first Japanese haircut. 'SHORT PLEASE' I said in Japanese, and she showed me a magazine of all the latest J-boy fashions. Not for me...so I just said 'SHORT'S FINE' again. So, she did just that and made it - very - short...and somehow, she very skillfully was able to cut it so that it revealed the exact progression of my steady balding pattern. THANKS A LOT LADY. But it was cheap. Most Japanese haircuts will run you between $30 and $50 bucks but this one was $16.

So, my students crack me up. One came up today and asked me how to say "okama" in English, which is essentially a male transvestite (which I thought was strange that I had just learned that word last night in a slang book). So I told her it was "crossdresser", which she couldn't prounounce all that well. Then, she went up to a female teacher and said "Mister Yoshizawa, you are closs dessa!"

Last night I stopped in at Alex's friend's bar...Nate has been spending a lot of time there and practicing Japanese, and I have been looking for a new place to drink and meet young people other than Lupin. I was happy that this place opened up...It's sort of Nate's place but I'll be stopping in a lot too.

I'm noticing here how people can start creating social circles and being protective of them...sort of keeping them to yourselves so your new Japanese friends don't get distracted by the other foreigners in town, and it seems that they want to fullfill whatever agenda they have with them on their own...either just making friends, practicing Japanese, meeting other people, learning about how to live in this country, etc. Occasionally I feel resented for wanting to just be friends with everybody I meet and overlooking who doesn't like who and who's cooler than who, who should be excluded from a night out, etc. Immediately when I came here the locals were telling me who I should like and who I shouldn't like and that sort of rubbed me the wrong way because I don't always appreciate people telling me what to think about others before I've even had a chance to meet them. Small town politics I guess, same as anywhere. I don't even want to know what weird fictitious gossip is going around about me in this town...for instance when people see me walking around with a girl...ERIK THE SKINNY BALDING AMERICAN HAS 6 GIRLFRIENDS starts or something...

NEWS FLASH: I'll be going out Monday night with Judas Priest, the Buddhist Priest who sings Judas Priest (as Jodi aptly named him). Please check back for possible humorous karaoke photos.

As for me, I've finally gotten my Japanese to the point where I'm not fully bewildered and I can follow along in basic stuff. Last night after seeing Nate I stopped at Lupin...only one other customer came in that night so Master popped in a fishing video (not that exciting but made me want to go flyfishing in a serious way). But as I sat and sipped on a Chinese apricot wine, I talked to the guy that was there and I felt like I'm in a stage of my language learning where it's going to increase in an exponential way...I understood about half of what he said which was pretty good. And, now I can say male transvestite too.

In a 3rd year classroom, Mizusawa Junior High

Teaching

so I am in the full swing of teaching...and it looks like some weeks might be busier than last year. This week is maneageable, but I'm amazed at the extra side work I have to do because so many of the teachers don't understand the concept of 'Team Teaching'. The JET program is based on the idea that we ALT's are not teachers, but assistants who put a real life native speaker in the classroom to support the trained original Japanese teachers. It is meant to be a dynamic team effort in the classroom full of dialogue, and my role should be to make English more fun for the kids by speaking with them, telling them about my country, making friends with them and making English real for them. However, with some of my teachers, it is more like I am the main teacher and they are the assistant...except they don't participate AT ALL. Today at Nakajo Junior High I taught two classes of 2nd year kids (7th grade back home). Normally you are supposed to meet ahead of time and the teacher will help you decide the activities and timing for the class...but today, as usual with Ms. Hiroi, I was asked to create all activities for the class and teach the grammar too (difficult to do without a little help, since I can't translate much). So, since today isn't too busy I was able to brew up a kick-butt lesson full with dialogue, Doraemon cartoon cut-outs, a bingo quiz, a plastic squeaky hammer to smack the noisy kids with, and a writing exercise along with a lively grammar intro. I tried to spur the teacher on to help make it a team effort so the kids would get the most they could out of the lesson, but all she did was make copies for me and then stand in the back of class and look scared. Meanwhile I had to figure out how to explain past tense grammar to a bunch of 13 year olds who only understand maybe half of what I'm saying, and that's when I speak very, very slow and stick to basic English. But most of them were OK and tried hard, and a few cracked me up with some random questions like "you many muscles?" and "very tall! yes, isn't? OK, OK, yay!"

Some teachers really embrace the Team Teaching method, and really have an idea of how the class should go and where the ALT should fit in...but those who don't, about half of them, really wear out my week not only by the extra demands but just by frustrating me with the fact that they don't understand or respond to my explanations and expectations of how it's supposed to be and why I'm here.

Anyway, other than that, I met up with Annie last night at the Sabbath restaurant, but my allergies have me so wacked out I could hardly hold a conversation. Oh, and at the store, mangoes are in season now...for $16 dollars a piece. So I bought a $2 apple instead. And I found a store that sells real Skippy peanut butter.

Finally, in very happy news, a fantastic little sushi bar named Matsumizushi opened up down the street from my apartment. It really helps my boring little neighborhood, which only has one tiny old-guy bar, one so-s0 ramen shop, one liquor store and one vegetable place. It is high-class quality sushi, not the cheap kind on the roundy-train things...I went Friday night and it was the best fish I've had in a while. I'll look forward to having that within a two minute walk ( but I'll be spending a LOT of money there in the future).

hanami

Saturday night was the peak of hanami (sakura cherry blossom viewing) in Takada Park, which is in Joetsu, about an hour away. I met up with Debs, Aimee, Sally, Mel, and tons of other people like Kiwi Dave and Mississippi Mary. We sat in on a huge social group of Japanese people from the area and drank with them as well. Takada Park has some of the best blossom viewing in Japan and thousands and thousands of massive cherry trees in full bloom. Looking at trees sounded strange at first until you really get into the spirit...I had never seen so many Japanese people in one place, all happy and smiling (maybe 20,000 people). The cherry trees are awesome and they are planted specifically just so people can check out their blossoms for a couple weeks a year. They don't actually make cherry fruit, just blossoms. Everybody had fancy set ups on a tarp underneath a good tree, sort of like the tailgate parties at the opera...but this had sake, takoyaki octopus balls, noodles, etc. The whole idea of it is just to feel 'serene' and take in the new spring life.

drinking and doing hanami under the sakura (cherry blossoms)

Octopus balls

A couple nights ago we made takoyaki in my apartment with the Pink Takoyaki Maker. Takoyaki sort of translates to grilled octopus balls, which really means a piece of raw octopus that you put in this dough mix with pickled ginger and onions and other things, and then you whip it around with the giant toothpick until it becomes a hot batter ball with a raw octopus nucleus. Then you cover it in brown sauce and seaweed flakes and mayonaise and eat it on a stick. It's goooooooooood!

Some of my Minami Junior High 3rd year students who just moved on to high school. One thing to notice about this pic is how even at 15, the boys and the girls will NOT fraternize and will make a solid effort to make sure they are separate in everything they do or attempt. Hence, all the boys are on my left, and all the girls are on my right or behind me. They fear each other like toxic waste.

Back to reality

So after a lot of free time during spring vacation and no classes, I am back into the full swing of heavy schedules. I had a little quarrel with my Tuesday school today because they have me scheduled for every single class of the day, six classes, which is about twice what Japanese teachers have to do. This problem came up before at different schools and I have to argue for a couple free periods a day to breathe and do my lesson planning for the next day, next school. The problem is that each school usually only has me for a day or two a week and they can't see the big picture of my weekly schedule, so they cram me into their daily schedule to take advantage of my short time there...but it wears me out fast and my motivation gets slowly sucked away. So that put me in a foul mood, which I alleviated after school by stopping in at the spa on the way home and taking an hour-long hot soak followed by 30 minutes in the massage chair with a cold Kirin.

Tomorrow I have four classes in a row and then my base school on Thursday and Friday which always keeps me busy. But it's been fun meeting all the new 1st year kids (who still think they are in elementary school and haven't learned that they should act too cool for English yet) and doing my self introduction again, which I have down to an art. Between my introductions and everyone's little questions about me (like "What do you play sports?" and "Are you a good ski player?",) I've gotten pretty good at telling people all about the most basic of things, like what I like, what I don't like and where I'm from. All in a fun but sometimes mind-numbingly slow-wittingly remedial-vocabulary filled day's work.

Heavy Metal Society

Last night was a night out, and after a nomihodai and meal at the Gourmet House with Debs, Martin, Neil, Keiko, Kozue and someone else, we played some darts then ended up at Lupin. I stayed on my own to talk to the locals and found myself sitting in on a meeting of the local chapter of the Tokamachi Heavy Metal Society. The guy on the left is Hiro, the president. To his left is Whiskey Man, the vice president. Hiro is a buddhist priest at one of the big temples in town. He calls himself Judas Priest. No joke.

Morning, Trash Rant

I was on time everyday this week but it was difficult, and I am very proud. I've tried to explain it a few times, but the Japanese just can't understand the concept of morning person vs. night owl. I explain, "I'm a night owl. I hate the mornings. In fact, I have to set three alarms spread all over the room, which I sometimes sleep through." "EEEEEEEEEEEHHH?" they say. They are amazed that on weeknights I will stay up until 2 A.M. just for the fun of it, or on weekends I will sleep until 2 P.M. because no alarm was set. Work schedules are run very tight, but apparently personal schedules are always exact as well...to bed at the same time at night, awake at the same time every morning, including weekends. Which is why sometimes I will get a ring on my doorbell at 9 A.M. on a Saturday morning. When this happens, I just stay in bed and don't respond, hoping to teach them a lesson. I hope this will help them understand the concept of a morning hater.

My night owl tendencies are at odds with the local trash schedules. Because of my rushed and last-minute morning routine, there is no time to take the burnable trash out on Monday and Thursday mornings because I have to walk a few minutes up the road, cross morning traffic on route 117 and place my meticulously separated garbage in a trash cage for pickup. Therefore I just build up huge piles of full trash bags on the balcony of my apartment until I can't take it anymore, and then I finally take the trash. But it's supposed to be done only in the morning and no one puts there garbage out at night except for me, and about once a month I'll do a special operations covert mission where after midnight I'll put on a dark hooded sweatshirt and toss all of the trash bags off my balcony to the parking lot Then I'll put my hood on and stealthily run up to the road with a load of trash, look both ways for possible witnesses, and quietly place my trash in the green cage. Now that the snow is melting it is harder to do because the walls of snow helped to conceal me. I usually have to make about 4 trips to get all my trash up there, and be careful to make sure anything I have from American products isn't showing through the bags so they won't know it's the local foreigner.

They are insane about their trash separation policies and I've heard of ALTs who didn't do their recycling/burnable trash right and actually had their trash bags opened or brought to school and inspected in front of the whole office. Because the recycling is more difficult to get away with at night and each material is given its own pickup day only once a month, I have been building up huge piles of newspaper/plastic/glass/aluminum/carboard/magazines in my shoe closet. However it is busting full now and I find myself occasionally making small inconspicuous trash missions to the local 7-11 to use their bins. I did make one morning recycling run last year with plastic bottles, but became discouraged when an old woman frowned at me and gave me a talkin' to for not taking the hard colored plastic caps off the all the clear plastic bottles the right way. So I gave up after that. And now my closets and balcony are becoming nearly unbearable with overflowing trash and recyclables. Sooner or later I'll just have to get out of bed and follow the trash schedule like a normal Japanese person.

Tea ceremony picture from the snow festival

Like the military

Today the students are having 'line training' at Minami JHS. I asked the principal about it because I sit with him at lunch, and he speaks good English. He chuckled and said "yes, practicing straight lines. Like the military!"

They are deciding where and how students should stand during events and ceremonies. I peeked in on it because I was tired of sitting at my desk putting off lesson planning, and I watched how they put it all together. The students were all in one group but were organized first by grade, then by class, then by sex, then by height. They made perfect lines and had to make sure there were exactly arms-length apart. Then they practice sitting and standing in unison. A teacher at the stage gives commands and everything is done together. He says "Rei!" and they all bow together while he counts "ichi...ni...san". They bow for exactly three seconds and then back up.

I noticed the group of rowdy boys at the back who are going to cause trouble this year. And as they goofed around during all this, the teachers merely chuckled awkwardly and didn't know how to deal with their aggressive behavior. If I had the authority and ability to do discipline here I would have put a smack-down on them immediately because you can tell they are already exploring the limits that they can take their screwing around, and will do so all year now. The bowing and lines in Japanese schools may be "like the military," but when it comes to enforcing actual discipline, it's far from strict. Students don't get suspended, they don't get expelled, there is no detention and no going to the principal's office unless it's something really, really bad. Discipline is normally left up to their peers and their parents.

Opening Ceremony

I think I got a new supervisor! Today is a hopeful day. Apparently with all the April 1 changes, I also got a new supervisor. I guess no one was going to tell me about it...I only found out because I showed up at the BOE to request some time off for Golden Week, and Hayashi Sensei was like, oh, talk to your new supervisor. Crazy! He's younger and his name is Shimada Sensei. I'm glad I had my suit on this afternoon when we met and I think I made a good first impression...maybe his being younger and more separated from the older innefficient way of doing things will actually help get stuff done in respect to supervising the ALTs...today is a hopeful day.

Today Minami Junior High, my main school, welcomed all the first-year students. It was just as formal as graduation which was surprising. The older students sat in the back in perfect lines, with the parents flanking either side of them. The parents were mostly only mothers and some dressed up in their finest kimono. The new students sat up front in the middle and were flanked on one side by the teachers (including me) and the other side by the PTA and school board. Everyone was well dressed and somber looking and were very careful not to do anything aggressive or that would make them stand out.

Kocho sensei (principal) made a speech, they played the national anthem (only time i hear it is ceremonies like this, and baseball games) and even bring out the Japanese flag which is rare. Under the headmaster's command, they all stand and bow in unison, always bowing to the flag, the school board, and the teachers. Anytime anyone nears the stage they have to stop and bow to the flag for at least 3 seconds.

The school song is played by the band, which is sort of a Japanese polka and the words are written in kanji to the right of the stage in a huge golden frame. Everyone sings the song, from the shy kids to the way-too-cool kids, and they do it with heart too.

The rest of the ceremony was boring except for when they introduced me and i had to stand up and bow in front of all the kids and parents (I wonder if people can see my bald spot when i bow?). The most awesome part was at the very end, the new students (all 109 of them) had practiced some sort of cool maneuver where they all pick up their chairs in unison and march out of the room in pairs and perfect lines. But something went wrong, and one single chair was left directly in the middle of the front center of the gymnasium...it was like a sore thumb sticking out and everyone just sort of stared at it for a while and didn't know what to do, like it was a bomb that was about to explode or something. A couple parents chuckled and a few teachers looked horrified and embarrased. After a long awkward silence, they sent the new young trainee teacher out to fetch it with his head down and dash off with it. Then, the ceremony wrapped up.

Went for yakiniku (barbecue meat and stuff) with Debs and Martin and Keiko. Debs just got back from Papua New Guinea and showed us some pics. Looks like a cool experience. She even brought Martin and I gifts...some sort of tribal penis sheath that they wear in battle. It's going on my wall...

This was the Hina Matsuri dinner at Setsuko's house. I teach her private lessons and her daughter, Kanako (on my left) and Minako as well. The Hina Matsuri is a day on March 3 for girls...a set of dolls representing kings and princesses and what not are placed out for three days. If they aren't taken down on the night of this dinner though, your daughters will never marry...which is like a catastrophe in Japan.

Internationalizing at one of my elementary schools

I came to allergy hell

Why did no one tell me this? Apparently Japan is one of the worst places in the world for cedar and other pollen, because after WWII they did tons of reforestation partially because so many homes had to be rebuilt after the war, and they planted tons of cedar trees which spit out tons of pollen. So, I'm preparing myself to head to a Japanese doctor for the first time...a little nervous about that language barrier but I'll just tell them the names of my favorite allergy drugs and hope it all works out. The Japanese end up wearing funny allergy masks and goggles all day but I'm not ready to be that Japanese yet...

Also, today is the welcoming ceremony for the first year students, which I assumed was the same as the opening ceremony yesterday which wasn't too formal, but no, this one includes all the PARENTS and school board and I was frowned upon this morning for not wearing my suit, which I only brought for big meetings and graduations. So, at lunch I'll drive home and put my suit on. Nobody tells me anything!

Had another little earthquake last night. I've felt six earthquakes in the past two weeks, one of which was big enough to rattle all the windows and knock the bottle of TUMS off my fridge, and one last month that broke a new beer glass. These are still aftershocks from the massive earthquake we had 6 MONTHS AGO in October...I'll put up a retropost on that someday. Crazy to still have aftershocks but it is the same fault, same place, same depth. Someone said they think it has to do with the snow melting and changing the dynamics of the geology somehow. Not sure if I believe that.

at the fish market near Kashiwazaki. Stick a fork in it! 

Me and the torii gate for a little rock shrine that was made because of a priest that came and died here in 1264 after a strong wind blew him to sea. At least, that's the story that I'm making up after trying to look at the pictures on the sign.  

To the beach on a whim

Lately I had sort of forgotten that I live 40 minutes from the Japan Sea. Today because it's the end of spring break and I haven't had classes, the principal of my base school gave me the afternoon off and I took a friend with me and went to the ocean. It was a nice day trip and spring is finally creeping around, though there is still about 4 or 5 feet of snow out there which will never melt (down from 10 feet a month ago). Anyway, we went to Kashiwazaki which is a nice but strange town...it's famous for having the largest nuclear plant in the world and also the site of the North Korea abduction situation, when North Korea randomly came to the Niigata coast some years back and abducted some Japanese citizens to brainwash and turn into spies. No joke. Anyway, the beaches were messy like most Japanese beaches but it was refreshing to go, not only because the weather was nice and it was the beach, but it just reminded me of something nice and different that is so close. It reminded me of the landscape in Oregon, and how you can be skiing and then on the beach an hour later. We checked out a couple beaches and some shrines, and then went to a really nutso fish market with lots of strange, fresh, raw Japanese sea delicacies. I ate fried imitation scallops (not sure why they said they were imitation, when i bought them at a fresh fish market) and some fresh-as-can-be sashimi of fatty tuna and some other white fish. I love going to those fish markets and it reminded me of driving up and down the coast, home from college with mom, or on trips to Cali with family, and just stopping at random seaside fish markets and eating super fresh stuff. Only this one had 4 foot long octopus tentacles and fresh cod sperm sacks. mmm...

Anyway I've been in a good mood because I've had so much free time after having such a hectic schedule at my many schools for so many months. Today was the opening ceremony for the new teachers and tomorrow we'll bring in the new first-year students. April 1 the new school year starts, as well as everything else...from a new garbage and bus schedule to a new fiscal year. April 1 should be New Year's here...everything changes and starts over and there is so much symbolism that ties in with spring. The cherry blossoms are coming anyday now too....

Saying goodbye to graduating students, was a bummer cuz I really liked the san-nensei (third year) kids. They got flowers and took their old school shoes away with them.

Summary of the last 8 months

So here's a quick timeline to catch up to this point on my experience.

August 2004
So, I left my good job with the opera, all my good friends, my family, northern New Mexico and Sarah to come do something completely strange and new. August 1 we arrived in Tokyo for the new ALT orientation. There are 6000 ALTs in all of Japan, and a couple thousand new every year. I flew out of Portland after spending a couple of days there doing more orientations, and arrived into the hottest wall of muggy air I've felt since Sydney, Australia. They put us up at the Keio Plaza hotel in Shinjuku district, which is a very upscale hotel and very, very nice. It was basically three days of strange meetings, teaching workshops and how-to-live-in-Japan talks, none of which were all that helpful. I was just more into the experience of being there and trying to meet some new people at the time. We went out once as a group when all the Niigata prefecture people got together, and finally we all shuttled onto the Shinkansen and headed up to our respective towns.

I arrived in Yuzawa town which is a ski town with a shinkansen station. My predecessor Alex, who is fluent in Japanese, met me there with my supervisor Mr. Hayashi. I could only say hello in Japenese and nice to meet you, but I managed to fumble it as we were both nervous. I was disoriented as they drove me to town and tried to show me around, get my hanko stamp (like a signature in Japan), and feed me some food. I was tired out so they took me to my apartment which is about a 45 minute walk from the center of town and a 10 minute drive, but still in town in Nakajo district. It is the teacher's housing for one of my Junior High schools (Nakajo Junior High) and is not that nice but not that bad either. There is a little bamboo forest and it is fairly quiet and off the main highway. There are busses that run once an hour nearby and a train that runs once every 2 hours (though no one ever told me about it so i didn't learn about it until the fall). When we got to my apartment, it was still being cleaned (by the financial officer for the BOE) and was still a mess from the previous tenant, but they left it to me and I had to assemble the rest of the furniture. I had expected to move out anyday into nicer apartment in town because Alex said that might happen in the next week. But when I later asked about it after being tired of living out of my bags for a few days, they changed their story and said I had to stay there.

August also had the Earth Festival on Sado Island, which was a really great music festival on a famous island in the Japan Sea. We took a ferry out there and Annie talked me into coming. It was a good way to relax and see some incredible Japanese drumming and folk dancing, and get crazy with the rest of the JETs. The rest of August was all just a strange blur of trying to figure out my town, my schools, my apartment and just plain living. I remember a lot of sweating, walking about, confusion and frustration, but mostly excitement at being there and having everything be so strange and new. After a couple weeks I met the other ALTs. There are four ALTs in Tokamachi with a few more in neighboring towns. The local ALTs are Debs and Martin - Brits. Aimee, Nate, Annie - Americans. I met Martin at the conference so I knew him first, then I met Nate cuz he ended up in the hospital with a bug bite, then the rest at the Niigata City prefectural orientation at the end of August. We really stuck together a lot after that and did everything together. I met the rest of my teachers and Alex showed me around a few times before he left. August also had a few more festivals, including the end of August main Tokamachi festival which was a really fun intro to Tokamachi and the insanity of drunken summerfests here. We met Keiko who is now Martin's 'friend' and she helped us settle in a bit too and introduce us to some other Japanese people.

September 2004
September marked the first classes and meeting all my students and other teachers. There were lots of opening ceremonies where I had to wear a suit, stand up in front of the entire school, and make a speech which I could only do in English but I threw in a few Japanese greetings and well-timed bows. I sorted out my desks and tried ot figure out my schedules (which i still don't understand). There were lots of introduction lessons which I really enjoyed and I met probably 800 students in those first few weeks. They seemed to like me and were intrigued that I couldn't speak Japanese, which is good for their English education because my predecessor only spoke Japanese with them. September included a million more enkais, which are office parties, and welcome parties for me. By October I had had 8 welcome parties from my various schools, all of which were a nice way for Japanese people to drink away their reservations and get up the guts to try to talk to me and sing some karaoke together.

September also marked a happy time as I bought my car, a Suzuki Wagon R miniwagon thing. It is a tiny, 3 door box with a 660 cc engine, but I got a killer deal on it and it's been awesome. It's a 4x4 with a 10 CD changer and it came with a set of mandatory snow tires too. I got it just in time too because the typhoon season was in full swing and was driving me absolutely nuts. I would show up late for school cuz i took the wrong bus, and had to walk forever and would show up so wet that people gasped when they saw me...but were unable to help me figure out what went wrong with the buses (I still don't understand the buses).

Having the car gave me the freedom to roam around the area a little so I discovered all the mountainous areas nearby and some beautiful little side roads that end up way in some mountain rice fields with shrines. I also started to get more involved with school events and went to some sports festivals and school cultural events, which are big in September and October.

October 2004
The first parts of October were marked by some side trips into Nagano, Nagaoka city and Ojiya, exploring Onsen hot baths for the first time, exploring local towns, and a couple more JET parties and school enkais. Adjusting more to school life and figuring out how to work with each of my 10 or so Junior High english teachers. I started getting more comfortable with my lesson plans and how to relate and have a good time with the students. October was still super rainy and a huge Typhoon hit around October 21, which soaked everything and killed a lot of people down south. I continued to have some frustrations with my supervisors as my bills still hadn't been set up and my phone and internet had just recently been set up.

Earthquake

On October 23, a huge 6.8 earthquake ripped through my area. It was epicentered just outside of Ojiya which is a town about 2o minute drive from here, or 10 miles away. It was a 6.8 but was only 10 km deep, which means were were basically standing right on top of it which is what made the shaking so violent and intense. I later read that it was the most intense earthquake in Japan's modern history as far as how fast the actual ground accelerated when the fault shifted. I was in my apartment at the time and at my computer, and when i felt it start to shake i just ran to the doorway. It was dark by then so I ran outside into the darkness but all the other teachers were gone because it was a Saturday so the all returned home to their families by then. I found some neighbors because the power was out and i didn't know what to do...we finally ended up at the school where we ended up in my other school's music teacher's car with a 7-11 clerk. The aftershocks were insane and there was a 6.5 or so aftershock that was centered in Tokamachi and did a lot of damage there. I couldn't reach the other JETs and the phones were down so I spent the night only with Japanese people in the car. It was pretty tough and scary. Anyway, I found the rest of the JETs and we spent the next few nights in a shelter at Tokamachi High School (luckily we were given a small room of our own for most of the time) and stuck together a lot. Then we all returned to my apartment becuause the damage wasn't much beyond a few cracks, and stuck together for four days in my apartment. We just sat through aftershocks for about a couple weeks and after two weeks, school resumed. I started my first Elementary school on my first day back to school, but in the middle of my first classes we were hit by a 5.9 aftershock and had to evacuate the school. After that, life more or less resumed but we were tortured for a long, long time by daily or weekly aftershocks.

The whole thing sort of put my experience on hold and really jumbled things around for me. But I feel I came out of it with a good story and a hardened attitude that I can go through anything in this country. The damage in my area was just overwhelming, especially towards Ojiya, and a lot of those next few weeks were spent just wandering or driving around with my mouth agape, amazed at how screwed up my new home was now but impressed that it was getting back on its feet.

November 2004
November had more aftershocks but became mellow. The only real interesting things were a few cool places I discovered, ski area scouting, a nice thanksgiving dinner at Annie's place with tons of JETs, and Aunt Susie and cousin Mia visiting from Okinawa. They came up for 3 days and one night we stayed in a real mountain Snow Country ryokan, which is a very Japanese style inn. It was pretty neat and had a really nice outdoor onsen bath and some pretty wild food. Mia thought it was mostly pretty weird and Susie was way into it and I was just happy that they came to visit me and that I had a car to drive them around and see some stuff. We checked out Naeba ski area which had a little man-made snow and I saw a big fat Japanese monkey. The other night they stayed in my apartment and slept on some futon.

December 2004
December was mostly just a busy teaching schedule. A group of us also went for English earthquake trauma counseling in Nagaoka which was interesting but useful I suppose. The rest of the time was waiting for the first snow which should have fallen in November but never seemed to come...it was a rainy December. I had been planning on heading to China or Thailand over Christmas. Rowan invited me diving/snorkeling with him to Thailand but I declined because I wasn't sure I wanted to go there because I wanted to see Gary in China (turned out I would have been right in the middle of the big tsunami. Rowan was underwater at the time on their island, and our friend Emma got smushed around by the wave but came out OK). I was all set to go see Gary in Shanghai, even if I knew I'd be homesick, because I couldn't get home because the prices shot up and I wasn't able to make my reservations in time because of the earthquake. But I couldn't go to China because my passport got lost in the mail and they couldn't process my visa, so they refunded my plane ticket and I was at a loss for what to do. Then, around December 22 my passport showed up and Aunt Bonnie said she'd give me my one-shot travel money then. So I used it and bought a ticket on December 23. On December 24 I flew out of Tokyo and headed home. Between the travelling and everything, it was by far the longest Christmas Eve of my life. Actually, it was really like 38 hours long officially because I gained a day as I flew over the date line. It was so strange coming home not only last minute like that but after being in Japan and going through so much trouble in 4 months. It worked out really well and I was blessed that night to be at the Abrums for the xmas party, have a regular Christmas morning with a healthy family, meet Zen for the first time, see Amelia, Mom, Jacob, Aurora, and all my friends. I saw Anna, Ely, Kim and Ian, Yvonne, Jill, opera people, ski buddies, and I went skiing in Taos and Pajarito too. Spent time in Santa Fe and enjoyed the good old Norteno cooking. It was awesome. Spent New Years at Jacob's and Sarah came down for a few days too which was special (though difficult sometimes). I wasn't sure if I would see my Dad cuz he was back in Mexico. I was set to fly out on January 8, but he changed his ticket and flew in late at night on January 7. So I picked him up, we crashed in a hotel for a few hours, and I flew out at 6 the next morning. It was a short hello but nice as well. All in all, it was a great trip that really refreshed me to head back to Japan and tackle it in a positive way. It really helped get over the earthquake, and by then snow had been falling and I was ready for a good winter.

January 2005

After so so long of a travel day, I ended up in a real Niigata blizzard getting stuck on trains and got back to Tokamachi at midnight. My car had been parked at the station for two weeks and was completely submerged in snow. My keitai battery was dead and I had to get to a pay phone to have people come dig me out. After that, I just started skiing through all January and went to a great fire festival in Nozawa Onsen village in Nagano, which would soon become a favorite place of mine. After that I started trying new ski areas on the weekends and teaching all week. I wandered through massive piles of snow and tunnels that used to be sidewalks. The snow by January was about 7 feet deep. School was fun and I taught 65 Minami Junior High kids how to make tortillas and burritos from scratch. That was a blast. My birthday party was held together with Martin's and about 20 ALTs came to Tokamachi for a snowy, drunken birthday party complete with cake and beer and snowball fights and karaoke in a velvet draped Philipinno bar. The end of January closed out with a stupid mid-year ALT meeting in Niigata City.

February, 2005

February was both an awesome month and a depressing month. The awesome bit really had to do with the incredible powder skiing that had been missing from my life ever since I was robbed of my ski-bum year by a low-snow winter. I had a few days at Ishiuchi Maruyama and Nozawa Onsen that are called "snorkel days". The snow was so deep and soft that every turn I took I disappeared into a cloud and could neither see nor breathe. That was a great boost to my soul and kept me very happy.

The depressing part came in having problems with Sarah and in early February we broke up. It was a really difficult thing to do from so far away and after being together for four years. So that was really horrible.

Also, the Tokamachi Snow Festival took place but on a much reduced scale because it's theme was basically being sad because of the earthquake. The town's budget was hit so hard they had to have a small festival and couldn't even pay for fireworks. Then, on top of it all, it rained all over the snow festival and melted all the awesome sculptures. But overall it was fun and I look forward to next year's.

March 2005

March continued with some pretty good skiing, and the end of the school year for the students which meant more free time at work for me. Graduation ceremony for the 3rd years was held with lots of pomp and formalities. I was sad to see those kids go because I really liked the 3rd years and I hope next year's kids take their place well. Otherwise, there was also the Hina Matsuri girls' day festival, where I went to Kanako's (private student) family's house for a traditional sushi dinner and sake-drinking fest. That was great to be invited into a Japanese person's home for a more traditional meal. I hit up Ishiuchi Maruyama, Nozawa Onsen and Joetsu Kokusai for some more snow and had a couple good days with Debs and Martin too.

So that catches me up more or less to April. Of course I can't cover my entire 8 months in those paragraphs and I did a million other cool things but I'll just have to keep up on my new experiences now.

Does this make me a dork?

OK everyone, so I've decided to go dork and make a BLOG. It's basically an online journal that I'll keep for myself and for everyone else if they are at all interested in what the hell is going on in Japan, which I sometimes wonder and hopefully this will help me sort it all out. I wasn't keeping my own journal and i'm sad that i'm forgetting all the cool things that i do, so i figured that having people expecting me to post what i'm doing would keep me motivated. It won't be too personal but definitely will just be me streaming my thoughts and experiences so sorry if it does go strange or personal or whatever. But it's all kosher for your viewing.

I am an Assistant Language Teacher on the JET program, which means that I sort of teach English to tons of kids. I live in Tokamachi City (more like a town) in north-central Honshu, Niigata prefecture, Japan. It's a pretty rugged, mountainous, and recently cursed area of the country. I work in Junior High and Elementary schools and I've been enjoying it.

So, it's April 5 (Happy Birthday Aurora yesterday) and I have been in Japan now for just over 8 months. I'll try to backtrack a little for everyone so they can get a quick idea about how the last 8 months have been for me here. And then I'll pick up and try to keep a regular journal about my life here and hopefully you'll think it's interesting. I'm kind of curious if my own life is interesting sometimes anyway so it'll be good for me to look at and say 'that guy's life is boring' or 'wow that guy does cool shit. Hey, that's me!' So, here's a few lines describing the past 8 months in a nutshell:

-Japan. Japan is crazy
-Luck. Lots of bad luck with weather and natural disasters. I was in the center of the big Niigata earthquake on October 23, 2004.
-Snow! The best powder skiing in over a decade.
-Food! I freaking love Japanese food.
-Students! My favorite part of Japan. My students keep me cheery and make me feel appreciated here.
-Frustration. My patience has been tested here as my supervisors are completely incompetent, there isn't much in place for someone like me who doesn't speak Japanese (my predecessor was fluent so people don't really get that it's hard for me to live in rural Japan without any language skills). Transportation problems. Schedule problems. Apartment problems. Difficulties breaking into the Japanese social circles and people's fear of foreigners in this area. Etc... I guess I knew there would be challenges like this but because of the way my predecessor described what my situation would be like, so much turned out to be wrong that it sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Not all his fault but maybe just the poor communication systems set up in the Japanese workplace.
-Culture. Definitely a new culture which is partially why I wanted to come to Japan. Hadn't seen the real Asia yet and wanted to be in the thick of it. The culture is very interesting and will get more interesting once I can start to understand what is happening around me.
-Challenge. Every day there is a new challenge which is why I gave up the nearly perfect and relaxing life, job, girlfriend, rental house and proximity to family that I had when I left. I am thriving on the challenge of everything that I face everyday because it is definitely keeping my life interesting and unpredictable. I think I thrive on that. Not sure why.

So that's that in a nutshell. I am still really excited to be here and look forward to tons of new things, but the continuation of little frustrations has worn down my attitude, so I'm in the process of an attitude revamp. Trying to keep the positive on top and the rest in perspective...

Anyway, I hope this blog stuff works as I jump even further into a complete digital life...but hopefully it will help me keep in touch with people back home and help beat away my homesickness, and keep you on top of what's going on here if you are at all interested...