Cate in Japan

Sayonara Japan

2008-03-18T02:42:00.006+09:00

Thanks very much for reading my blog! I've been home for about two weeks now, so this will be my last post. I'll leave you with three of my favorite pictures of Japanese English. The flying pan cover came from a big discount store near my house and the green content of crab head is from a sushi place in Kyoto. The menu notice about horidays was in a curry shop in Kurashiki.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog, I really enjoyed writing it!
Catie

Onomichi

2008-03-07T07:31:00.003+09:00

Onomichi is a little port town about an hour from Hiroshima. It's famous for having a very, very high concentration of temples, and there's a big loop walk that takes you to see most of them. Our guidebook warned that the temple walk takes most of a day and that you'll be sick of temples by the end, so we opted to walk to the beginning of the ropeway (seeing a few temples along the way) and take the little cable car to the top of the hill for a view of the sea. We saw plenty of temples on the way to the ropeway and it was nice to see the pretty, pink plum blossoms which are blooming at the moment. The views from the top of the hill (the third picture) were really spectacular and I've heard they're even more extraordinary when the cherry trees are blooming, but cherry blossom season hasn't started yet.

Thanks for reading! I'll write one more post about Japan and then I'll have to stop because I'm home in America now.
Catie

Kobe

2008-03-05T08:22:00.003+09:00

After Himeji we spent a night in Kobe, a city famous for its beef. We saw the beef advertised all over, with lots of pictures showing heavily marbled steaks, but we didn't try it, so I can't tell you if the freshest steaks of the best beef in the world are really worth the price (the lowest price we saw was about 50 dollars). Kobe doesn't have too many attractions, so I don't think it's too popular with tourists from outside Japan, but people who live in other Japanese cities like to visit for the shopping, sea views, and nightlife. Apparently a few foreign teachers who lived in the city where I lived visited Kobe and immediately applied for transfers to the Kobe branch of their school.

The first picture I posted shows Kobe's Harborland, which is a tiny amusement park. Next is the Kobe earthquake memorial, which I found very poignant. Instead of creating a memorial, the city preserved a small section of the harbor as it was just after the quake so you can see the devastation firsthand. It's an idea that I think they must have gotten from Hiroshima's famous (and also very poignant) A-Bomb Dome, which is the shell of a government building from very near the epicenter of the bomb, preserved just as it was. The third picture is a view of the Maritime Museum and some of the harbor from our hotel balcony.

Thanks for reading!
Catie

Himeji Castle and Kokoen Garden

2008-03-05T08:02:00.002+09:00

These are a few shots of Himeji Castle and the garden next to it, Kokoen. We went on a rainy Tuesday morning and it only took us about two hours to tour the castle and the garden. Himeji Castle is the most famous castle in Japan because it's very well-preserved and very beautiful. Many of the famous castles you can visit in Japan are reconstructions, but Himeji is an actual feudal castle, so it was nice to see it and walk around inside. There are some interesting ghost stories associated with the castle and my favorite was about a servant girl named Kiku who was framed for stealing a dish after she foiled an assassination plot. The would-be assassin framed her and she was tortured to death and then thrown in a well, and apparently you could hear her crying from the well until she was honored as a goddess, which appeased her spirit. The first picture is a view of the city taken from the top of the castle, and the second picture is the castle taken from the grounds.

We also went to the lovely garden next to the castle. We probably wouldn't have bothered with it because it was such a rainy day but we bought the combined ticket for the castle and the garden (admission to the garden was only about a dollar when combined with castle admission) when we went in the castle, so we thought we might as well take a look and I'm glad we did. The garden was divided into small sections, unlike any of the others I've seen in Japan, but the sections were about the same with streams and ponds filled with koi, stone bridges, and trees. The third picture shows my favorite stone bridge and the biggest pond in the garden which was filled with huge koi.

Enjoy the pictures, I'll update soon with pictures of Kobe, where we stayed the night after seeing Himeji. I'm back home in America now, so I'll do two more posts to finish up my pictures and then finish the blog. Thanks for reading!
Catie

Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Man Festival)

2008-02-25T17:33:00.004+09:00

The Hadaka Matsuri is a traditional Shinto (the native Japanese religion) festival in which almost-naked men fight for a magic stick, called a shingi. The man who touches the stick is guaranteed good luck for the entire year, so it's a pretty big deal. I think the date of the festival was originally determined by the lunar calendar, but now it's set as the third Saturday in February. The festival is celebrated at a few different temples in different parts of Japan, but one of the biggest celebrations is in the town of Saidaiji, just twenty minutes from where we live.

The main event doesn't take place until midnight, but in the afternoon and evening there are other activities, including an all-female taiko drumming group performance, fireworks, and a contest where little boys compete for rice cakes or treasure tubes. Unfortunately we missed all of that because most people were working in the daytime, so we got to Saidaiji around ten. The streets leading up to the temple are all lined with food vendors and they are absolutely jam-packed because it's a small town and ten or fifteen thousand people go to see the festival every year. Up until about ten thirty anyone is allowed to look at the temple but after that they make an announcement (in English and Japanese, lest there be any confusion) that only naked men are allowed in the temple. It's easy to get swept up in the excitement of the event, and all four of the men in our group ended up participating, even though only one of them had planned to partake!

Any man is allowed to participate, all you do is go to the changing tents and buy the requisite outfit: fundoshi, which is the loincloth that sumo wrestlers wear, and tabi socks, which are a bit like slipper socks, I guess. After changing you have to run through some sacred pools to purify yourself and stop to pray on your way to the temple. The temple gets more and more crowded and then finally at midnight they turn off the lights and a priest throws the shingi into the center of the crowd. After that it's all over in about five minutes. No one I know has ever even seen the shingi, much less touched it, and I think that's partly because some of the Japanese teams have 30 or 40 men working together and strategies to make sure they have a good chance.

I hope you enjoy the pictures, I didn't have much luck getting good shots because it was dark and crowded. The first shot is a food vendor on the road leading to the temple, then a shot of the temple around 11 when the naked men were starting to gather, and finally a fundoshi-clad man on the street after the festival.

I've only got one more week in Japan and then I'll be heading home, so I'll probably be doing one more post. Thanks for reading!

Catie

Ikura Caves

2008-02-19T14:47:00.002+09:00

A few weekends ago I went with my friend, Jess, to see a cave in the tiny town of Ikura, about an hour and a half into the mountains from the town where I live. It was a cold and snowy day and the town was almost entirely deserted. The first picture shows the shops that line the path to the caves, but they were all closed and dark. When we asked the people at the ticket office if there were any restaurants close by they told us that everybody was on vacation and our best bet was to walk slowly back to the train station (Ikura only has one train per hour) and eat when we got home.

It cost us 1000 yen (about 10 dollars) to get into the cave, and they gave us a map (with English translations) that named the formations we would see and also informed us that the cave walk is about 1200 meters long. The entrance to the cave is at the bottom of a cliff, close to the Takahashi River (which formed the caves) so we pretty much just walked up and up once we got in. The walk was very nicely done with lights and a little bit of music and recorded explanations playing (which we, of course, couldn't understand). Some parts of the path were a bit narrow and there was water everywhere but we made it through with just a few bumps on our heads and wet shoes.

The last picture shows a formation that may have been called 'soldier's pavilion' but I can't remember for sure. My favorite formation name was 'appearance to wear clothes of water' or maybe 'waterfall in which it hears only of sound.'

Thanks for reading! Soon I'll post about the Naked Man Festival, which I went to last weekend!

Catie

Japanese Cemeteries

2008-01-29T19:28:00.000+09:00

I got hopelessly lost on the way to Korakuen the other day and stumbled on this cemetery on a hill. There were paths up the hill all along the road so I took one and it led me up past lots of different graves and into a wooded area. The path was slushy so it was a bit dangerous going back down, but it was a nice walk on the way up.

I don't know much about Japanese graves, but according to wikipedia there's a space underneath the stone for the ashes of the deceased (nearly everyone here is cremated). I also read that sometimes when someone dies before his or her spouse the spouse's name is engraved on the stone as well but it's painted red and then the red ink is removed when the spouse dies. I've never seen that, though.

My apartment in Fukuyama, where I used to live, looked out over some temples and there was a graveyard right behind my apartment building. From my balcony I could see memorial services and people tending the graves. The whole place was very clean and new-looking, unlike the graveyard you can see in my pictures, but even in this old cemetery there was plenty of evidence that people had been there recently, like the fresh flowers you can see in the last picture.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Korakuen in the Snow

2008-01-29T19:04:00.000+09:00

We've had a bit of snow here lately so today I went to see Okayama's famous garden, Korakuen, which I'd heard is extra beautiful in the snow. Korakuen is considered one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan and I've been there twice before: once in November, 2006, right after I arrived in Japan (I wrote a blog post then, too) and once last summer in the evening to see the garden lit up.

The snow was starting to melt by the time I arrived at the garden but there was still quite a lot. In the first picture you can see Okayama Castle, which makes a nice backdrop for the garden. Thanks for reading!

Cate

Japanese Apartments

2008-01-17T13:42:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

I wrote a little about my apartment when I first moved in, but I have a few pictures I took when I was moving out (when it was actually clean!) so I thought I'd post those now with a note about Japanese apartments. Apartments here are generally very, very small but mine, at least, was well-designed. When you walked in you would be in a hallway with the shower and toilet on your left and the washing machine, kitchen, and cupboard on your right. At the end of the hallway there was a door into the living/dining/bedroom. The closet in the main room was designed so that the clothes hang in the top half and the bottom half is where you're supposed to store your futon in the daytime. The room was probably about nine feet by eleven or twelve feet, so it was cozy but it heated up quickly in the winter and cooled quickly in the summer.

Bathrooms are designed so you can wash yourself before getting in the bath, which means that there's a drain in the floor and you can just soak the whole thing when it's time to clean it. The kitchen was just a sink, a burner, and a mini-fridge below the burner. I attached two pictures of the main room so you can get an idea of the size. These pictures were obviously taken when all of my stuff was already gone so they make it look more spacious than it actually was. One big advantage of Japanese apartments is that they always come with balconies because almost no one has a dryer so you need somewhere to hang your clothes.

I enjoyed living in my wee little apartment and it was a good experience to live like many young Japanese people (although it's very common for young people to continue living with their parents until they get married, and sometimes after they're married), but now I'm living in a house with an actual kitchen and a bit more room to spread out, which is a treat!

Thanks for reading,
Cate

Universal Studios Japan

2007-12-22T11:44:00.000+09:00

For Mark's birthday (Dec. 14th) I took him to Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. We went in October when it was decorated for Halloween, but now it's "Wonder Christmas" season, so it was nice to see the park again with its new decorations. I haven't been to Universal Studios in America but Mark has and he says the American version is much bigger (maybe it seemed bigger since he was 8 at the time?). We managed to do just about everything in the park in one day, including Waterworld, which is a stunt show with lots of splashing (the seats in the splash zone were mostly empty this time of year). One of my favorite parts is the rollercoaster where you can choose your own background music! You can choose from a Beatles song, two J-Pop choices, an Eminem song, and something else I can't remember.

The pictures are Mark with a snowman, a different snowman giving a high five to a little girl (he was part of Santa's Toy Party), and me with a takoyaki sculpture at the "Takoyaki Museum." Takoyaki is doughy balls with octopus bits, and when they say museum they actually mean four restaurants and a shop.

We're off to America tomorrow, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Cate

England and Scotland 4: London and the Queen!

2007-11-14T14:03:00.001+09:00

At the end of our trip we spent two days in London. Mark and I went on our own one day and the next day we drove in with Mark's parents (and here's something that surprised me about London: when you drive in you have to pay an 8 pound "congestion charge," but you don't pay at a toll, you can pay on the internet before or after your visit or they'll bill you! That's about 16 dollars, by the way.). The first day we went to The British Museum and the Tate Modern and the second day we saw the Queen in the morning and wandered around the rest of the day seeing some of the nice neighborhoods.

I loved the British Museum, which is huge but very well organized. The map of the museum even includes a list of highlights, so we made sure to see all of those even though we didn't have time to see absolutely everything. The Tate Modern was also very nice, though I can't say that I understand modern art very well, so some of the pieces didn't do much for me. It was a real mix of styles, from fairly representational to completely non-representational, so I'd say there was something for everyone. The first picture is Mark in the Tate Modern with his foot in a crack that extends the length of the bottom floor, starting from a tiny little crack on one side and getting deeper and bigger as it goes across.

The next picture is the Queen in her carriage! I have one picture that's a bit closer, but I like this one because it shows that this is a woman who truly travels in style! After that is me at King's Cross Station, pushing the trolley that's attached so it looks like it's halfway through the wall at platform nine and three quarters, and the last is a little barge on the Thames that I liked because it says, "I eat rubbish."

That's all for England and Scotland, thanks for reading!
Cate

England and Scotland 3: Scotland

2007-11-13T18:11:00.000+09:00

On Halloween we left Mark's village for the 6 hour journey up to Scotland. We stayed in a hotel that was made to look like a castle (see the first picture on the left), which had been renovated to make self-catering apartments. We stayed right in the middle turret, which was cool.

The first day we visited a whiskey distillery and took a tour, and we also tried haggis, which is a meaty concoction traditionally made of the heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep and boiled in the sheep's stomach. It looked and tasted like very peppery ground beef, and it was served with neeps and tatties (mashed turnips and mashed potatoes). The next day Mark and I went to Edinburgh and took a bus tour of the city (the second picture is Edinburgh castle taken from the bus). We also visited a few pubs and a really nice art gallery. On that last day we took a bike ride around a loch, which was beautiful, but Mark's mom fell and needed stitches in her knee.

The last picture on the left is a bagpipe player who was playing for tips just outside the station. Thanks for reading! My next post will include London and the Queen!

England and Scotland 2: Cambridge

2007-11-13T17:58:00.000+09:00

Our third day in England we went to Cambridge where Mark's uncle and his family live. Before meeting the family we had some time to explore, so we went punting down the river with a tour guide and then visited a nice art gallery. Cambridge was beautiful, and it was a really nice day, though very cold.

The first picture was taken while we were punting and it's a bridge that was supposedly modelled after the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, though I don't think they look alike at all. The next picture is the quad of one of the colleges where they filmed a scene from Chariots of Fire (people try to run all the way around the quad while the bell is striking twelve and make it back before the last note ends - 42 seconds, I think - it's only been done three times). The next picture is on the streets of Cambridge, and the last one is Mark's parents and our guide while we were punting.

Thanks for reading, next post: Scotland!

England and Scotland 1: Stonehenge

2007-11-13T17:49:00.000+09:00

Hello! Mark and I just returned from two weeks in England and Scotland! We went sightseeing and met Mark's relatives, and it was a very busy two weeks so I'll post about it in a few installments.

Our very first day we went to Stonehenge, which was top on my list of things to see. There's a fence around it so you can't walk amongst the stones like you could years ago, but you can still get close enough, I think. It was very cold and cloudy when we were there, but that only added to the mysterious atmosphere. There was a free audio guide, so we learned a bit about the stones while we walked around. The most interesting thing I learned is that no one knows who actually put the stones up (all this time I thought it was the druids for some reason).

The first picture is the stones (I took a lot of shots, and this is the best one for showing the whole thing without too many tourists in the way) and the second is Mark and his dad (can you see how cold and windy it is?).

Thanks for reading, more soon!
Cate

The Sake Festival

2007-10-16T15:30:00.000+09:00

Hi! Long time no see! Thanks for checking this, and I should be doing a few more updates soon because my time in Fukuyama is ending and soon I'll be moving to a town near here and then going to England for a two week vacation (!).

Anyway, last weekend we went to the annual Sake Matsuri (Festival) in Saijo, a small town near Hiroshima. Apparently the festival attracts 200,000 people every year, and it was pretty crowded. We arrived a little after 10 and spent the first part of the day wandering through cool old sake breweries and trying a lot of free samples. We had one of my friend's students as a guide, and he was really into sake, so that was a big help. We stayed about six hours just looking at sake breweries, trying food and sake (even sake ice cream!), and then sitting for a while to recover from the drinking and wandering.

The first picture is my boyfriend, Mark, our friend, Paul, and our guide for the day, Shintaro, with sake cups made from bamboo. The next shot is a display with flowers and sake bottles, and then some people testing the temperature of the sake they were about to serve. The last one is me and my co-worker, Chris, with a raccoon mascot.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Fukuoka and Kumamoto

2007-08-15T14:37:00.001+09:00

Hi! Right now I'm just finishing a week of vacation for the Obon holidays. It's been nice having some time off and it gave us a chance to spend a long weekend in Fukuoka and visit a couple who used to live here but moved in April. We went to Fukuoka Sunday morning and spent the afternoon at Canal City, a big shopping center. We went to the ramen stadium there, which is a big, crowded area with many shops selling ramen. Fukuoka is famous for a special type of ramen called Tonkotsu where the soup is made from pork bones, I think, so it's white. The shopping center also had a "dessert museum" but it wasn't very impressive - just a few coffee shops with expensive cakes. That evening we traveled to Omuta where our friends live. The next day we went to a beach outside Fukuoka, which was a lot of fun, though I got a small sting on my foot from something in the water. Tuesday we went to Kumamoto to see the castle there. It's a really nice castle with lots of things to look at and English explanations of everything. We came back last night (Tuesday night) and I have one more day off before starting work again tomorrow.

The first picture is of the restaurant we ate at in the ramen stadium. We waited in line for maybe 20 or 30 minutes then bought tickets at a vending machine and then waited a bit more before being seated in the restaurant. Next is a picture of Kumamoto Castle from the outside and then an example of the English explanations they had (this is for the gun windows in the guard tower). The last picture is a view of Kumamoto and the guard tower from the top of the castle.

Thanks for reading!

Summer Festivals

2007-08-06T19:59:00.000+09:00

Hi! Sorry again for the long silence and thanks for checking back, anyway. Not much has been going on lately, just trying to get through the unbelievably hot summer. There are lots of summer festivals and fireworks in Japan, and yesterday we went to the festival in Okayama, which involved stages at various places around downtown and a big parade. It was so hot and crowded that we couldn't really watch much of the parade (I'm not much of a parade person, anyway, and I couldn't help thinking how hot the performers must have been in their beautiful costumes so it wasn't such a big loss) but it was fun to watch the dancing.

Here are a few shots of a dance we saw at about two in the afternoon outside the station. I think it was about 110 (no joke) and very high humidity so I have no idea how the dancers all managed to look so cool and sweat-free, but they did it. We saw a few groups of dancers sitting in the shade later after their performances and they were starting to show the effects of the heat and exertion then, but they were all smiles onstage.

After two more days of work I have a week off for the Obon holidays so we're going to visit friends in Fukuoka, and I'll write an update after that. I hope you're all enjoying the summer!

Cate

Takamatsu and my birthday

2007-06-23T10:39:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone! Sorry for the long silence, I haven't been doing much that's worthy of a blog update, just enjoying the warm weather (which is already starting to get uncomfortably hot, unfortunately). Also I've been busy because my boyfriend, Mark, had an accident when we were playing a game in a park two weeks ago and knocked a few teeth out and injured his jaw, so I've been busy helping him.

Anyway, these pictures are from Ritsurin Park in Takamatsu, which is a town on the smallest of Japan's four main islands, Shikoku. The park is not one of the "big 3," (the park's considered the three most beautiful in the country) but apparently there is a campaign to change that. The park was lovely and it was a perfect day to see it. The theme of the day was "The Amazing Race" because we'd been watching that show a lot, so Mark had set up a treasure hunt in the style of the show.

Ok, enjoy the pictures! I hope you're all enjoying the summer,
Cate

Vietnam 2: Halong Bay

2007-05-16T16:37:00.000+09:00

We arrived in Vietnam late Sunday evening (I think it was around midnight when we finally stepped into our hotel room) and spent Monday and Tuesday exploring Hanoi, then Wednesday morning we left for Halong Bay. We were picked up at our hotel at 8:30 or so and rode in a van for about three and a half hours to the dock in Halong. The trip of course included a stop to buy souvenirs (which they pretend is a bathroom break). There were four couples in our van, so when we stepped out at the souvenir stop, four Vietnamese employees attached themselves to our group, and then as the four couples started going to different parts of the shop we each had one employee shuffling along behind us.

Anyway, one other couple from our van was on our boat (the other two were on another boat), so the four of us got on the boat and sat on the deck drinking sweet tea for maybe half an hour until another van of people arrived. Eventually we set off and had a big lunch while we sailed into the bay. After lunch we saw a floating fishing village and some amazing scenery, and at four Mark and I set off for a kayak trip. We were the only two going in the afternoon, so it was just us and our guide, which was really nice. We kayaked for about two hours and the best part of that was going through a little cave into a lagoon where we were the only three people (that's where the picture above was taken). After kayaking was dinner and then drinks on the deck.

The next day after breakfast we got out to see "Amazing Cave" and then before we knew it we were back at the dock and on our way back to Hanoi. We have tons of pictures, but I didn't want to overload this post with images, so I hope you get the idea of what it was like. The first picture is our boat, the Dragon's Pearl, and then it's Mark and me in our kayaks, then two pictures of Halong Bay, one around sunset, and one at five in the morning when we got up for sunrise (though as you can see, it was too foggy to see anything).

Thanks for reading!
Catie

Vietnam 1: Hoa Lu and Tam Coc

2007-05-08T22:26:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone! We just arrived back from Vietnam yesterday (at five in the morning) and now I've just finished my first day back at work. I want to write a lot about Vietnam because it was a really great trip and I'll start with a day trip we took to the old capital, Hoa Lu, and Tam Coc, a place about two hours from Hanoi with really amazing scenery.

Mark and I were the only two people signed up for the trip, so it was just us and our guide, Binh. We started with a two-hour car trip out of Hanoi (punctuated with a stop at a souvenir shop, as always). Then we went to a temple dedicated to the first king of Hanoi and then a temple maybe 200 yards away dedicated to the second king. It was a smart area to have the capitol of the country because it was all surrounded by amazing limestone cliffs so it was well-protected. They moved the capitol to Hanoi in 1010 so in three years there will be a huge celebration in Hanoi for the millenial anniversary of becoming the capitol (I plan to go back for that, who's with me?).

After that we walked up the road to get our bikes and while Binh and I were in the bathroom (or the 'happy room' as our guides liked to call it) Mark was accosted by village ladies trying to sell him things. The people in that area all studied French for talking to tourists, so we were monsieur and madame all day, which was interesting. The bike ride wasn't too challenging, even for me, and I learned to ride a bike less than a year ago, though we did get stuck in mud once and had to change our route a bit. It was rough going when we first got out of the mud but we passed some villagers who were cleaning motorbikes so they gave our feet, sandals, pedals, and wheels a power wash. After that we rode for maybe an hour and a half enjoying the amazing limestone cliffs, traditional villages (with children who asked for candy and one little girl who spat at us when we didn't give her anything), and wild animals (I nearly ran over chickens twice). Then we stopped to eat lunch and dry off and cool down a bit before a quick cycle to a dock where we got on a sampan rowed by two women (well, one rowed while the other stood and steered with a big stick). The boat ride was about an hour and a half and included a ride through a cave where the women stopped and tried to sell us crafts. Finally we had another short bike ride and then packed back into the car for Hanoi.

It was an exhausting day but really fun and a great way to get out of the city and see the countryside. The first picture is me and Binh on our bikes, the next one is the scenery on the bike ride, and the last one is from the boat ride.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Visiting Uncle Ho

2007-05-01T19:13:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone, I'll write a lot more about Vietnam when we get home (right now it's the end of day 2) but for now I wanted to quickly write about the surreal experience of seeing Ho Chi Minh before I forget the details. Also this is our last night in a place with a computer and internet in the room so I wanted to take advantage of it. Tomorrow we're doing a trip to Halong Bay, which includes a night on the boat and then we have three more nights in Hanoi and we're staying in a different hotel.

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum is a bit far from where we're staying, so we took a Cyclo, which is a little cart that's pushed in front of a bike. It's a good way to get right into the crazy traffic while still feeling relatively safe (and we took a bunch of pictures during the ride that I'll put up when we get home). When we got there we saw a huge line of people waiting to get in but as we were walking toward the end of the line a man told us he could get us past the line to a special shortcut only for foreigners if we'd slip him five dollars (turned out to be five each). I'm not sure what the deal with that is, though we ended up in a line with all the other foreigners and it was much, much shorter, so he wasn't lying. I suppose he makes a deal with the guards, and I'm guessing the reason he said it was 'only for English, Australians, and Americans' is because the Vietnamese wouldn't be willing to pay that.

Anyway, after lots of waiting and passing through a metal detector and then more waiting to check cameras we made it into the mausoleum building. There were lots of guards inside and they shush you and push you into two lines and herd you toward the room with Uncle Ho himself. The room is a big square with the casket in the center and four guards standing around it. You walk on a narrow little path around three sides of the casket and then back out and it all happens very quickly, though you don't really need any more time because all you're doing is looking at a body. The guards grab your elbows and keep you moving along and they also pushed the children to a center track for walking around so that they can see, which is nice. The whole thing felt a little strange and it felt like a lot of hubbub for such a short visit but, hey, how often do you get to see the body of a national hero? Apparently you're supposed to watch the faces of the Vietnamese people in there because they're so reverant but I forgot to do that because I was too busy looking at Ho Chi Minh.

Ok, that's it for now. We've been keeping very busy walking around and seeing things and eating ice cream. This place is pretty fascinating and very different from anywhere I've been before (and an interesting change from Japan). Thanks for reading!

Cate

Kyoto and Nara

2007-04-23T10:45:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I went to Kyoto and Nara with my parents and Mark. We left Monday morning and that evening we visited the Golden Temple, kinkaku-ji, which is in the bottom picture. It was originally a retirement villa for a shogun, but now I guess it's a Zen temple (thank you, wikipedia). It's covered in gold leaf, so it's a really striking structure, and I enjoyed seeing it again (I also visited it last time I was in Japan, three years ago).

The next day we went to Nara, which is famous for its big Buddha statue and herds of tame deer. The deer are actually pretty pushy and as soon as they saw me going to buy food they surrounded me and put their pushy little faces in my bag. One of them even bit me, which surprised the heck out of me, but I guess they know an easy target when they see one. They are all trained to bow their heads for food though I didn't know that at the time so I didn't get to try it out. The picture above the Golden Temple is of the building that houses the big Buddha and that's me lighting incense before going in.

That afternoon Mark and I went to Kiyomizu Temple, one of the most popular temples in Kyoto. It's on a hillside supported by big stilts (you can kinda see them in the top picture) and it gives you a really nice view of the city. The second picture shows three waterfalls coming from the hill that you can drink from. You can get one of three things, depending on which fall you drink from: money, beauty, or wisdom. We didn't know which was which but found out later that I drank from money and Mark drank from wisdom.

Thanks for reading! Next week we leave for Vietnam and I can't wait for that! I'll post pictures when we get back.

Cate

Tokyo

2007-04-10T22:43:00.000+09:00

Here are a few pictures from Tokyo, which I visited with my parents the weekend before last. They arrived in Japan on Saturday and I took the train to meet them on Sunday. That day we went to dinner with my old host family in Tokyo and met their two current students, which was a lot of fun. The next day we mostly just walked around a few of my old favorite neighborhoods and enjoyed people-watching and window-shopping. The first two pictures are from Harajuku, a neighborhood that is popular with young people for great shopping (and is now very famous thanks to Gwen Stefani, I guess). The bottom picture is Shinjuku at night, which I like because it's got all the neon that people expect of Tokyo. That picture was taken in Kabuki-cho, Shinjuku's red-light district, though it doesn't feel as sketchy as other red-light districts I've seen (still, I wouldn't walk there along late at night)

After Tokyo my parents came back to my town, Fukuyama, and they did some sightseeing in the afternoons while I was at work. Then Monday we went to Kyoto along with my boyfriend, Mark, and I plan to post pictures from that little trip soon.

But that's it for now, thanks for reading!
Cate

Osaka

2007-04-04T09:39:00.000+09:00

Last weekend Mark and I had to go to Osaka to get our tourist visas for our trip to Vietnam, and we decided to see the sights while we were in the big city. We went up Sunday morning and spent most of Sunday afternoon wandering around an area called American town, which is the hip, young shopping area. It reminded me of being back in Tokyo and shopping in Harajuku, actually, so that was neat. There wasn't actually anything very American, unless you count lots of t-shirts that say USA or have random states or confederate flags on them, and you see those everywhere, but there was a statue of liberty on top of a building (the second one I've seen in Japan; there's one on Odaiba, too). We had some beer tastes and edamame at a Kirin restaurant when we got tired of walking (the first picture at the top). That evening we had okonomiyaki, which is like a big pancake with cabbage and seafood. Osaka is famous for food, so I wish we'd had more chances to eat out, but we didn't have a lot of time.

Monday morning we checked out of our hostel (nothing stinks like very old tatami mats, but you can't beat 3000 yen - about 25 dollars - for a night in Osaka) and went to find the consulate. That was a fun adventure because addresses in Japan are not sequential. Every city is divided into wards and then each ward is divided into numbered boxes and then the boxes are divided once more, so you find the ward, then use the zipcode to find the area, which gives you a square block and you just have to find your place. After that we went to Osaka's famous aquarium, Kaiyukan, which is one of the world's largest. That was fun, though it actually wasn't the best aquarium because the displays didn't look very natural and a lot of the tanks seemed too small, especially for the dolphins and penguins. We had a good time discussing which would be the worst tank to be dropped into - the giant crabs with huge skinny legs or the creepy, crawly jellyfish.

Finally we stopped by Namba, Osaka's entertainment district. I've heard it's also the place with the highest concentration of love hotels anywhere in the world. We had fun looking at those, though I've read that love hotels are in the process of going up-market and are therefore getting less interesting (it's getting more difficult to find a hotel shaped like a whale or a spaceship, for example). Anyway, the picture at the top is the sign at one called Bali, which I took because it shows the options - you can go for a "rest" (from one to three hours) or stay longer. The next picture was a hotel called Mickey Cookies which had an all-pink room. Surprisingly the area is not too seedy, though I imagine it changes a bit at night.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

New Year's Resolutions

2007-03-27T23:35:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone! So, around New Year's we asked students to write their New Year's Resolutions on little paper hearts and then used those to decorate a bulletin board. Now that it's Spring we rearranged the hearts to make a cherry blossom display (the top picture).

I thought it was pretty so I wanted to share it with you all, and I also included detail shots of my favorite resolutions. I hope you can read them on these pictures, because they're pretty great. I made one, too, and it's "to practice Japanese every day," which I certainly do not do.

Thanks for reading, I should be updating again soon because I'm going to Osaka next weekend (to get a tourist visa for my big trip to Vietnam next month) and then the week after that I'm meeting my parents in Tokyo and then going with them to Kyoto the next week. So I should have lots to write about!

Cate

Baseball Game

2007-03-07T23:12:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I went to a pre-season baseball game to see the Hanshin Tigers play the Eagles. Japanese baseball is fairly similar to American baseball in a lot of ways, but the fans are completely different. The Tigers are famous for having rowdy fans, though the stadium wasn't too crowded because it was Spring Training and it was a Monday afternoon. Every time the Tigers were at bat, everyone around us (we were in the Tigers cheering section) was singing and making noise along with men who were shouting encouragement and playing trumpets. Each inning there was a different man leading the crowd.

Instead of a seventh-inning stretch, they had a big balloon release. We all blew up big ballooons with special caps on the ends (to release air slowly) and then let them go during the special balloon song. It was a very pretty sight to see all the balloons fly into the air and I also enjoyed the balloon cleaning squad on the field who waited for the balloons to fall and picked them up before the players came back out. A single balloon escaped their attention and was flying around but the right fielder got it in the end.

American Bar

2007-03-03T07:32:00.000+09:00

These photos were taken at an American Bar called GB's that Mark and I go to a lot (because it's halfway between the train station and his house). The first picture shows my dinner, 'Country Morning,' which was an omelette filled with ground beef and cheese and covered in ketchup, plus a giant piece of toast (that was the only time we had dinner there - usually we just get Miller and American potatoes, which are french fries with a pat of butter on top). The other two pictures show the decor, which is very heavy on license plates. The plates seemed to all repeat the same ten or so states, but they had my favorite plate, Utah, so that's ok. They also have American food containers on a shelf along the top of the walls. You can't see the containers in the pictures, but they have a random selection including Folger's coffee, macaroni and cheese boxes, corn, Nestea, spam, and ketchup. I'm always interested to see how America is portrayed abroad, so I hope you enjoy this little look at American-themed dining in Japan.

And a side-note about how the rest of the world sees us: we were doing subjunctive in class the other day, and a student made the sentence, "if I were American... I would eat hamburgers every day."

Bye bye,
Cate

Hiroshima

2007-02-23T10:03:00.000+09:00

I went to Hiroshima on January 3rd for a day trip. This was the second to last day of my New Year's Holiday and I hadn't done much for most of the break so I decided to make a trip to the big city for some shopping and sightseeing. I went to Hiroshima three years ago with my family when they visited during my study abroad semester, so I've already seen the Peace Museum and the Peace Park, which meant I could focus on shopping on this trip. Unfortunately everyone else in Western Honshu (the main island of Japan) apparently had the same idea so the stores were crazy-crowded. It reminded me of riding the trains in Tokyo at rush hour, actually, though there were no white-gloved employees pushing people in the doors like on the trains.

I did walk to the Atomic Bomb dome, which is the third picture. It was a government building very near the epicenter of the blast that somehow managed to survive more or less the way you see it there. It's a very famous monument so there were lots of people around taking pictures of it. After that I did a little shopping and looked around Hiroshima. The first picture was just a wall somewhere that happened to have those neat sculptures and the second one is a fountain outside the art museum.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Kurashiki

2007-02-21T21:56:00.000+09:00

Kurashiki is a city about half an hour fom Fukuyama, where I live. It's famous for a small area of old buildings, willow trees and picturesque bridges around a nice canal. It's not a huge tourist attraction (we were the only foreign tourists, though there were big groups of Japanese tourists) but it's a nice place to spend an afternoon. There's a small art gallery with a nice little collection that was put together by a textile magnate named Ohara. Our favorite part of the museum was a small garden and a stream full of very hungry carp. There are many little stands selling fishfood for 100 yen a bag so we spent a nice few minutes feeding the fish.

The first two pictures up there are of the canal area and the third one is Mark standing in the garden behind the Ohara gallery.

Oh, and I have internet in my apartment now, so hopefully I'll be updating a lot more! Thanks for reading,
Cate

Valentine's Day

2007-02-08T21:44:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone! Once again, sorry I don't update much and thanks for checking, anyway. I got the official notice in the mail that I will have internet installed in my apartment in one week, so then I plan to update more and add lots of pictures.

Valentine's Day is a little different in Japan, as you may know. Women give chocolates to men and men don't have to give women anything (though I made it clear to my boyfriend that as he's dating an American he's still expected to give me something). There are two kinds of chocolate gifts, obligation chocolates that you give to your boss and co-workers and chocolates for that special someone. Many women (most?) make their own chocolate treats, so there are all kinds of cute little kits for making and presenting truffles or brownies or some such thing. There are also lots of adorable little boxes of chocolate and other sweets for sale in the department stores, in the grocery stores, and even in the 100-yen (one dollar) stores. I've heard that the holiday is mainly between women and men, though a student told me today that when she was a child all the girls gave chocolates to their friends, and today she gave me a beautiful box of Godiva chocolates, so I guess that's not entirely true. Also, despite most things being much more expensive here than at home, you can get really beautifully-packaged, high quality chocolates for a very good price.

Next month is White Day, when men have to give gifts back to the women who gave them chocolates. I think these presents are usually more expensive, like jewelry, so that's a good deal, I guess.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Interviews

2007-01-30T15:32:00.000+09:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't updated much lately, and thank you for reading my blog, anyway. I'm still working on getting internet in my apartment, and once that happens I will be able to update more and add pictures, finally. Apparently Yahoo needs to check my information with some other internet/phone company and then check with my landlord and then they can do it. Ridiculous.

But anyway, I've been thinking that I should put something here about how I spend my time at work and one of our main jobs is interviewing prospective students, so I'll tell you about that. The interview has two main goals - to place the student in the right lesson for his or her level, and to get him or her to come to our school instead of one of the many, many other schools (I'd say the second goal is most important as far as management is concerned). So when you have an interview, you check that your jacket is on and your company pin is straight on your lapel, then you get out a business card, which you hand to the prospective student when you walk in. During the interview you're supposed to fill out a sheet called 'My First Lesson at (Company Name) ' while you ask the student lots of questions. The sheet has spaces for phrases, vocabulary and pronunciation, so you write things down when the person makes mistakes and go over it with him or her, just like in a lesson. The idea is that they can see some improvement after just the 15 minute interview and they'll want to sign up for more. Usually students are very shy, but sometimes we get some talkative ones, and those interviews are especially fun. I've had two prospective students tell me in the last couple of days that they saw my picture on our website and wanted to meet me, which is a little strange but I guess it means I look friendly. The guy I interviewed today told me that he's not sure which lesson he would take, but the important thing is that it's one of my lessons and he kept mentioning places and saying we should go together. I felt a little strange about that, but one of the Japanese teachers told me it's good I can attract students that way, so maybe I should be flattered. She told me not to mention my boyfriend to him or he might leave our school, but I think she was joking.

Ok, thanks for reading! More soon, I promise!
Cate

Advertising

2007-01-14T16:14:00.000+09:00

One of the most popular ways to advertise in Japan is to pass out small tissue packets with little brochures inside or stapled to the packets. You get so many of these walking around that eventually you have to stop taking them or they'll take over your life. I really don't understand why stores here even sell tissues. Anyway, my company does this and our branch puts the pictures of its three foreign teachers on the little fliers that they pass out, which makes me feel like a celebrity. They also have our pictures on the sandwich-board sign that sits outside our building but the pictures are so dopey that I'm not particularly proud of that one. I took a picture of the sign that I will post on here when I get my internet access. Maybe if I work here long enough I'll make it into one of the brochures that they use all over the country so I can be famous all over Japan and not just in my little home.

Ok, I hope you enjoyed this little culture note. Oh, and this can serve as incentive for you all to visit me - you can stock up on kleenex!

Cate

New Year's Eve

2007-01-08T17:38:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone! Akemashite Omedetou (Happy New Year)! Sorry I haven't been updating much - I'm hoping to finally get internet access at home sometime in the next few days and I plan to put up a bunch of pictures then, so I've been waiting for that.

New Year's in Japan is a very important holiday, and, it turns out, a quiet, family time, which we discovered when we tried going out on the 31st. I went to Okayama, where I had my training in November, because most people I know here in Fukuyama went out of town. I met a teacher from Canada who arrived here recently and we had dinner with a few other people at the apartment of an ex-Marine who has lived in Japan for 13 years and now writes textbooks. He also does the voice of one of the characters in one of our textbooks, so it was very exciting to meet him. After dinner we went to an Australian-themed bar for the countdown to midnight, and a teacher from Stratford Upon Avon had written out Auld Lang Syne a bunch of times so we could sing at midnight. They play the tune here when stores are closing, so everyone knows it. After midnight we went dancing until maybe 4 or 5 in the morning and finally went to bed.

Part of the Japanese tradition for New Year's is to go to a shrine on the 1st, but I didn't end up doing that. They also have lots of traditional New Year's dishes called Osechi, and my coworker, Marina, and I did make one of those yesterday. It was made with sweet potato and chestnut. For more information on traditions of Japanese New Year's, you can look at my host mother's blog linked on the left (okasan's blog) and see pictures of the huge crowds that turn out for the post-New Year's bargain sales. They definitely do look similar to the after-Thanksgiving sales in the U.S. I think it's best to avoid setting foot in a store for the first few days of January if at all possible.

Thanks for reading! And thanks for the comments!

Christmas in Japan

2006-12-27T13:07:00.000+09:00

Christmas was a few days ago now, so most places have already replaced Christmas decoration with New Year's decorations (which are totally different here - the Christmas stuff is all Western-imports like lights and trees and the New Years stuff is traditional Japanese). New Years is much more important here (Christmas is a relatively new import, after all), so I'm excited to see how that goes.

Fortunately, Christmas fell on a Monday this year, which is a day off for us. I think I would be sad to have to work on Christmas. We had a little North American Christmas celebration at my coworker Marina's house. It was me and Marina plus Chris, who works with us two days a week, and his coworker from his other school, Brian. Christmas was the first time I met Brian, but I liked him immediately because he is a fellow Seattle-ite. Anyway, our day consisted of homemade eggnog (DELICIOUS! I will be making this every year from now on), a small gift exchange, stuffed cabbages, immitation almond tarts, and lots of alcohol. It was a lot of fun even thoguh all we did was sit around eating and drinking from 3:30 until after 11, which is what Christmas is all about, I guess.

Today is my last day of work before 8 days off for New Years, so I'm looking forward to that. I think maybe tomorrow I'll take a trip to Hiroshima (about an hour and a half by bus) and Saturday I'm going to my tutor's house in Kasaoka (about 15 minutes away by train), but other than that I have no definite plans so far. Thanks for reading! I'll try to update more over the break.

The Office Christmas Party

2006-12-18T13:32:00.000+09:00

First a big thank you to my parents and my brother who both sent things that I received this week! Merry Christmas!

So yesterday was the big office Christmas Party, which included about 30 of the students and all the staff. It was very structured, complete with announcements about when we were allowed to start drinking (non-alcoholic beverages only because there were high school students present), when we could start eating, and when the party was over (!). It was about three hours long, which was just about the right amount of time, I would say, especially considering that a few students arrived as much as half an hour early, and basically everyone was there by ten after 1:00. We had a small gift exchange, so everyone brought a little present worth 500 yen and we played a game to see who would get to choose first: everyone had an animal taped to his or back, and we had to ask questions to find out what the animal was (can I jump? Can I swim? What color am I? etc) and then find someone with the same animal and once we were in a pair we could choose a present. It was kinda fun and I got a nice little bath set. After that I had to make a little speech because the party was also my welcome party (they like to combine parties like that). That's the second time I've had to make an impromptu speech like that, so I just said 'Thanks for coming and Merry Christmas' pretty much. Then we played bingo for some little prizes but sadly I did not win anything. But the highlight for me was a student who was doing magic tricks! I really love magic so I watched him for quite a while. He kept saying that he wanted to talk to me but couldn't (he just started studying English). Maybe I'll ask him to be my Japanese boyfriend! Although first I think I should check his file to see how old he is -he looks young but I can never guess people's ages here.

After the party I went out for drinks with the other foreign teachers, followed by karaoke, which was really fun. Then today I had a lesson with my tutor and then she took me out to lunch (a ramen place in a little alley right by my office - I'm glad I know about it now because it's super-convenient, so I'll definitely go back!) and now the weekend is pretty much over. The Christmas party did feel a bit like work to the other foreign teachers and me, because we were required to be there, we were still expected to talk to students the whole time (instead of the staff or each other), AND we had to pay! The students all paid, too, and supposedly the money was for the bingo prizes, but we have a suspicion that perhaps it was also to help us make expenses for the month...

Oh, and one final thing - I finally have a cell phone! It's pink and it has a Japanese-English dictionary, a very nice camera, and lots of fun little programs, like a fortune teller, a daily proverb, and it will even play rock, paper, scissors with me! And it says, 'hai, chiizu' (say cheese) for the shutter sound on the camera!

Thanks for reading!

My Tutors

2006-12-13T11:41:00.000+09:00

First of all, I wanted to thank Kory for the Christmas card, because it's the first piece of mail I've received here, so thank you, Kory!

Also, thank you all for reading even though I can't post very often and I can't put any more pictures up until I get internet access on my own computer. I've heard that you can pick up a signal at Mr. Donuts, so some weekend I may try carting my laptop over there and then I could upload some pictures!

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my two Japanese tutors. Fukuyama has a program called FAGE, which I think is the Fukuyama Association for Global Exchange (or something) and one of the things they do is hook up foreigners with volunteer Japanese tutors. So I signed up with them right away when I got here, but I also got the name of the tutor that the man I replaced was seeing, Kaori. Kaori is a young woman (maybe in her 30s?) who speaks a lot of English and sells kimonos at one of the fancy department stores in town. Unfortunately, because her English is so much better than my Japanese, we spend a lot of time talking in English and I'm not sure how much I've actually learned from my first two lessons with her. However, it's nice to have someone to ask questions of and get some practice in every week.

My other tutor, the one I got through FAGE, is an older woman. I've only seen her once so far, when we met at the FAGE office to exchange info and set up a time for tutoring. She seems very sweet and I don't think she speaks much English, so hopefully we'll be forced to communicate in Japanese! We will be meeting at her house, which I think is great because I like seeing people's houses and it's not something you get to do very often here.

And even if I don't get to practice as much Japanese as I'd like during tutoring, I have to practice every day, so I'm sure I'll learn a lot, anyway!

I guess I'd better head to work. I don't have class until 2 today (I start at 1 or 2 Tuesday-Friday and finish my last class at 9; on Saturdays everything is an hour earlier), but I need to finish preparing the article my discussion classes will be reading next week. Thanks for reading!

Cate

My Students

2006-12-03T15:20:00.000+09:00

I wish I could update more often, but my internet access is pretty limited right now, so I can't. In two weeks I will get my Alien Registration Card, and then I can get a cell phone and hopefully start the process of installing wireless, but until then it's internet cafes for me!

Anyway, I wanted to tell you a little more about my wonderful students. Most of my students are women (at least two-thirds, I would say)and they're mostly older than I am, though I have quite a few high school students as well. The system is set up so that Japanese teachers teach the beginning levels (the first two or two and a half years) and the native-speaker teachers get all the advanced classes. My students vary from people who have been studying for just two and a half years to people who are nearly fluent, so it's never boring! The lower-level students are fun because the classes are more active and they are great at asking questions I can't answer (why do we always put "the" in front of the name of a theater, but not in front of a restaurant's name? And when would you use the word "candies" instead of "candy?" Every sentence I could think of worked best with "candy" and not "candies.").

The more advanced students are fun, though, because they are better at expressing themselves in English so I can get a Japanese perspective on a wide variety of issues. I especially like my article classes because I get to choose the article and the questions so I can hear what they think about whatever I happen to find interesting that week.

Yesterday I finished my first full week here, and I can't believe it's already been more than three weeks! I'm sure my time here will just fly by.

I was going to try not to publish anything on here that would connect me with my company in case I ever write something they don't like, but I can't resist putting up my school's website, because I really like it: http://www.aeonet.co.jp/school/school.php?sno=3412

If you click on the second option under "school menu" on the right you can see me and the other staff, and if you go back to the front page and click on the third option in that same menu you can see student testimonials. The staff are constantly taking pictures of us doing strange things like holding paper flags and pretending to teach. It makes me feel like a celebrity now, but I have a feeling I will get a little tired of it by the end.

Ok, that's all from me. Thanks for reading! Cate

My Apartment

2006-11-27T16:55:00.000+09:00

I moved into my apartment Saturday night, and it:s a relief to finally be there, but it means I no longer have internet access. I am planning to get wireless, but I can:t even start that process until I get my Alien Registration Card in two and a half weeks. Anyway, let me take you on a tour. So, you walk in the door and take off your shoes and on your right is a closet with a nice little library of books left from the last few teachers (including a few good Japanese language books and quite a few others I:d like to read) and then you go into my little hallway and my washing machine is now on your right (it:s a good size and I did laundry today and it seems to work okay) and the shower and main sink are on your left. Walk a little farther and now my "kitchen" is on your right and the toilet room is on your left. Now let:s turn our heads to the right to take a closer look at the kitchen. There;s a mini-fridge at the floor and then above that is a small sink and one burner. Then a cabinet. And... that:s all! There are a few old-looking appliances in the cupboards around the kitchen, but I:m not sure about any of them. I think I may buy a 3000 yen toaster oven that I saw today because I really can:t do much with just a single burner and nothing else. We:ll see, though. I splurged today and bought a 2000 yen laundry rack because the one I had was completely unacceptable, so I need to be careful how much money I put into this apartment (because a toaster oven certainly would not be coming back to america with me, so it would have to be worth it for however long i:m here). Ok, please continue on down the hall to my main room. This room is probably 9 feet wide (if not a little smaller) by about 12 or 13 feet, I would say. Once I have internet access with my computer again I:ll upload some pictures, but it:s basically just a small room with a chest of drawers, a low kidney-shaped table, a regular table with a folding chair and.... that:s it! Oh, actually there:s a t.v. and dvd player, too, and the teacher before me left a small dvd library of things he bought here, so that:s nice. Last night I watched Napoleon Dynamite (or Bus Boy as they translated it) while I cleaned and unpacked.

Ok, I:m almost out of time (and it:s 100 yen every 20 minutes), so I suppose our tour has to end. But please note as you leave that my nice view (I:m on the fifth floor) includes two cemeteries right below me.

Also, please note the blank, depressing walls. If you send me a decoration for my walls I will be ever so grateful! Thanks for visiting!

Cate

Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T23:38:00.000+09:00

Today is Labour Thanksgiving Day in Japan, which happened to coincide with American Thanksgiving (or maybe it’s always the same day?) so we had today off. It’s nice to have a day off after only two days of work, but I wouldn’t have minded another day to observe the teacher I’m replacing, either.

This morning a group of us (the other full-time foreign teacher, the teacher I’m replacing, one of our two assistant managers, and about six students) met at the station and then we left in three cars to drive somewhere to the North (away from the sea). After a very long time sitting in the back of the car on some very windy roads we stopped for lunch and then a boat trip. The trip had been introduced to us as some kind of canyon and cave visit, but it was actually just sitting on the floor of a boat for about half an hour going through a canyon and listening to narration in Japanese. The boat was pretty packed, mainly with older people, and it never fails to impress me how all Japanese people seem to be able to sit so still with their legs folded under them for as long as they want. Also, they never mind removing their shoes, something that takes a little getting used to for westerners. The boat trip was interesting, but I would imagine it’s prettier in any of the other three seasons and it must be more interesting when you can understand the narration (I kept thinking, “welcome aboard the Washington State ferries…).

After the boat trip we stopped at an onsen, or hot spring. We always think of the Japanese as very modest people, but no one here seems to have any problem getting naked together, so maybe our definition of modesty doesn’t quite fit. At the onsen you disrobe and then go into the room with the baths and wash (you can never be too clean for the onsen!) then go in the water. There are usually a few different baths, and they may be different temperatures or have different things floating in them (today there was some kind of apple-mint tea bag type thing floating in one of the smaller pools). My favorite onsens are the ones that have both indoor and outdoor pools, but this one unfortunately did not. Most of the time if you go in a medium-sized group there are a few people who don’t go in (they never explain why) and today only three (out of seven) of the women went in. Anyway, you hang out in the water for as long as you can stand it and then wash again and leave. The post-onsen feeling is similar to the feeling one gets from a bath, but even better.

After the onsen we drove back to the city and then went to a restaurant for a goodbye meal for James, the teacher I’m replacing. We had at least four courses, most of them based on tofu, and plenty of alcohol. It was nomi-houdai, which means “all you can drink,” a very popular style here. And on that note, I suppose I should get to bed! Tomorrow is my last day to observe James and then Saturday I am on my own (but then I have two more days off to prepare for next week).

Happy Thanksgiving!
Cate

Fukuyama

2006-11-19T10:26:00.000+09:00

Last night I took a 5:00 train to Fukuyama, my home for the next year. One of my school’s two assistant managers met me at the station with flowers and a hug, which was very nice! Then we walked the two blocks to the school and I put my training stuff with the rest of the luggage and hung out at school for a few hours.

I arrived at the school a little after 6 and had a quick tour (I think there were about 8 classrooms, a prep room, a staff room, and two for storage, plus a lobby and reception area) and then I talked to one of the other foreign teachers, Chris for a while. After that I sat in on a discussion class with James, the teacher I’m replacing. The class was about an article in the Japan Times discussing how Prime Minister Abe is very popular with women despite what feminist’s consider backwards policies. Only one student (out of three or four, I think) showed up, so we mostly just listened to his opinions. I think discussion classes like that will be very interesting for getting a Japanese perspective on a variety of issues.

Class ends at 8 on Saturday (9 Tuesday-Friday) but there are a few things to do after classes (call students who didn’t show up, clean up, etc), so we didn’t leave until 9. The three other foreign teachers (Marina, from San Francisco, Chris, who I mentioned above, and James, who I’m replacing) helped me and the assistant manager who met me at the station carry my training bags to the hotel (I won’t have all my stuff until I move into my apartment next Saturday). After we put my bags in my room we went to a pub-type place next door to the hotel and had curry pizza and beer. It was a good way to end a slightly stressful day and to start my stay in Fukuyama! Also, I tried two new Japanese dishes yesterday, curry udon and curry pizza, and they were both great! Japanese curry is different from any other curry I’ve tried – the flavor and texture are almost like stew, but usually a little spicy. Fortunately it’s easy to make and easy to find in Seattle.

Today is Sunday and I have today and tomorrow off to explore. I think I’m meeting Marina tomorrow morning and she will help me set up Japanese tutoring, a free service that is arranged through city hall. Hopefully she can also help me apply for my alien registration card because I need to get that process started so I can get a cell phone and bank account!

Thanks for reading and thank you for your comments, I really enjoy them!!

Cate

Teaching Practice

2006-11-16T20:41:00.000+09:00

Introductions yesterday were just fine, so that’s a relief. It was fun to see our division's headquarters and meet some of the important people there. After a short tour of the building, we waited for a minute in the hallway before being led into a room where a line of people were waiting and applauding as we walked in. Then they went down the row saying a few sentences in English (“My name is Mr. Suzuki, I hope you enjoy your stay…” etc). Then it was our turn and I said, “watashi wa keito (Cate) desu. Fukuyama kou ni ikimasu. Dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.” That means, “I am Cate. I am going to Fukuyama school. It’s nice to meet you.” Then I bowed and they all clapped. It was nice.

After that we had a short introduction to the company from the head of the education department. Her English was flawless and she didn’t say “eh” once, despite having studied in Canada. Next we practiced interviewing, which is something we’ll do at our schools to help assess the level of new students and also to try to convince them that our company is worth the money (close to $2500 a year for one 50-minute class per week). We practiced on two Japanese people who pretended to not speak English as well as they do and that was pretty fun. Since half the point of the interview is convincing them that our classes are fun, we get to make some small talk and just generally be as welcoming as possible.

After lunch we had a few more hours to prepare and then our first real Japanese students started showing up! They were very nice, although most of them seemed nervous at first. We practiced “lobby talk,” which is just the term for conversing with students outside of class and making them feel welcome as soon as they walk in the door and helping them switch to English mode. After a few minutes of that I got to teach a class! Fortunately, my students were just about the right level for my material and I think they actually learned something from the class (I hope). It was nice to get their feedback and I feel so much better about teaching now that I’ve tried it out.

Today my sample lesson was about reported speech, and it’s framed in terms of a break-up (“my boyfriend broke up with me. He said he needed to focus on his career. He said he doesn’t like my friends” etc). So it’s a little more advanced than yesterday’s class was and I was lucky to have students who were about at the right level for that grammar. Today’s class went well, too, though it was harder. I guess it’s good that I’m starting to feel ready to teach because I only have two more days of training!

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Teaching Practice

2006-11-15T07:53:00.000+09:00

Today is the first day we will teach a sample lesson to real Japanese students. This means that we will have to teach for 50 minutes and try to cover a whole lesson correctly! I’m pretty nervous about it, but I guess we’re ready. My lesson is about tag questions, which we use to check information (i.e. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?” or “You haven’t climbed Mt. Fuji, have you?”). It’s hard for non-native speakers to know what words to use at the ends of those kinds of sentences.

Today we are also going to be introducing ourselves to our bosses at our division headquarters. Apparently they will introduce themselves to us in English and then we have to introduce ourselves in Japanese. Fortunately, Marcus and I both know enough Japanese to get around, and most people do not know any when they get here, so the intro they have for us won’t be very difficult. I’m sure I will be nervous enough, so knowing a little Japanese is a big comfort! And I don’t think you can get deported for bad Japanese, so I should be ok.

Thanks for reading!

Cate

A Few Pictures

2006-11-14T09:41:00.000+09:00

Per Darcy's request, here are a few pictures:

The first is of Korakuen, the large garden in Okayama (by garden they mean a large space that I would call a park with beautiful landscaping). The next one is of Okayama castle, which Marcus and I visited Sunday, when we saw Korakuen. Sunday had perfect weather, so it was a good day to see the sites. The last picture is a statue of a dog. There are statues all over Okayama but this is my favorite.

This morning I went to Mister Donuts because they have FREE REFILLS on coffee!! It was amazing, and the coffee was pretty decent.

Also, this is Marcus's blog, and he'll have a few more pictures of our adventures: http://sdsumarcus01.blogspot.com.

Thanks for reading!

Cate

Japan Part Dos

2006-11-12T23:03:00.000+09:00

Today Marcus and I went to see Korakuen, a large garden, and Okayama Castle. The garden was very beautiful but my favorite part was seeing all the little girls in pink kimonos. The castle was fun but there wasn’t really all that much to see and all the explanations were in Japanese only so we didn’t learn much from it. I’m glad we went, though, and the weather was beautiful all day.

This evening we went out for a walk again before dinner and had a long conversation with a very dedicated Yahoo employee who wanted to sell us internet connections. I had a really good time trying to communicate with him (mostly unsuccessfully) and it was nice to see that I actually do remember a fair amount from the last time I was here. I can understand a lot, at least, which I guess is the first step. It helped that he was determined to make us understand the offer and his colleague even tried calling their office to see if an English-speaking employee was in but it was his day off, so no luck.

Thanks for reading! I’m about to get a lot busier because we actually have full-time training for the rest of the week, but Saturday I’ll head to Fukuyama and hopefully settle in to my life there as quickly as possible.

Cate

Arrival in Japan

2006-11-11T19:47:00.000+09:00

I’m here! The trip really wasn’t bad, though I’m glad it’s over. Things are strangely familiar, though I’m just starting to remember a lot of things I hadn’t thought about since I left nearly two and a half years ago, like the cigarettes everywhere (and cigarette vending machines everywhere), the bright colors and neon lights, and the crazy hairstyles.

I’m training in a city called Okayama with two trainers and one other trainee. We’ve only had a half-day of training so far, but it was fun and I feel like I’m learning a lot. I especially liked the Japanese lesson, and I’m surprised at how quickly I’m remembering the language. Not that I don’t feel awkward most of the time, but I can pretty much get by, which is great. The other trainee, Marcus, is Asian so people assume he speaks Japanese whereas I am clearly not Japanese so people are surprised (and pleased) when I manage anything at all.

Tomorrow is our day off so Marcus and I are going to visit Okayama’s two big tourist spots, a garden called Korakuen and a castle. Korakuen is supposed to be one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan (the Japanese love making lists like this – the ten most sacred shrines or the five oldest hot springs, etc).

Oh, and the best thing I’ve seen so far: make-up for men. I know what Nick’s getting for Christmas!

Ok, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

Cate

Pre-Departure

2006-11-06T01:37:00.000+09:00

Please e-mail me if you'd like my address in Japan (it's Cate (dot) my last name at gmail.com). Thanks!

I leave for Japan on Thursday, November 9 and will arrive at my school sometime around the 20th or 21st. Thanks for reading my blog, I plan to update when funny or interesting things happen.