Sumo obsession and Weekend in Hiroshima

I just had a pretty good 3 day weekend, as Friday was a holiday. On Friday I just went into Kure and hung out with Peter, Rome and Melody. Had a nice dinner that Peter made and spent the rest of the day cleaning up the apartment and watching sumo. Pete and I spent like 3 hours watching on Friday. It pretty damn interesting and they really lay a beating on each other sometimes. We are going to try to catch the next sumo tournament as a few of us here really want to see it live. The cool thing about sumo right now is that there are a lot of foreign wrestelers. The yokozuna is Mongolian, called Asahoryu and this pass weekend he staged a huge comeback against this Bulgarian sumo wrestler, kotooshu. The Bulgarian has a huge fan following and he was undefeated for most of the tournament. Really interesting and they fought twice during this tournament with Asashoryu winning both matches. In one match he did a 360 and shoved kotooshu down. Both Pete and I got really into it and had a great time watching the matches. http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20050925p2a00m0sp005000c.html

On Saturday I made my way into Hiroshima to meet up with Asuka and three of her friends. She came back from Tokyo on Friday but went straight to Miyajima for the night. I was supposed to meet Masato and Melody on the train to Hiroshima, but they never showed up and I had to make my way to the peace park myself. I tried to contact Masato but he didn’t pick up his phone. Luckily, it all worked out as I actually ran into them at the peace park. They had missed the train but 1 minute. To the shock and dismay of all of Asuka’s friends and mine, we both decided that we aren’t going to get cell phones. In Japan, this is considered crazy talk. But we feel we won’t really use the cell phones that often and the prices here aren’t as affordable as they are back home. The phones that I have seen are super high tech and cool, but we’re thinking it’s a convenience we won’t use too often. But we’ll see as the weeks go on because it was definitely needed yesterday. Picture below: Me, Asuka, Aki, Minori, Melody, Mari and Masato at the peacepark.

After meeting up with Masato and Melody, we met up with Asuka and her friend Aki who lives in Hiroshima and two friends from Tokyo, Mari and Minori. We decided to grab lunch and had okomiyaki and then made our way to the A-bomb museum. The museum was quite extensive and the stories and pain of those who died is really horrific. They had a few wax models and lots of testimonial stories of those who died and suffered the after-effects of the bomb. It was a really extensive museum and I was glad to have seen it.

After seeing the museum we made our way back into Kure and met us with Pete at an izakaya. We had a great meal as the restaurant served really good food. I even tried horse sashimi (horse lovers don’t kill me) and the restaurant had a great setting. That’s one thing you’ll notice when you’re in Japan, the restaurants here are really nice, they have great décor and the atmosphere is always really good. They spend a lot to effort and money to make the restaurants look nice here. After dinner, we made our way back home and Minori and Mari slept over. Picture below: The flea market outside my apartment

Yesterday, we just had a good breakfast in the morning and then made our way back into Hiroshima to say goodbye to Mari and Minori, as they took the shinkansen back to Tokyo. However, in the morning there was a flea market outside of our apartment. We made our way downstairs and got some pretty good deals. Brought some more chinaware for really cheap and a nice plant for the apartment. Asuka as some of you may know is a notoriously slow shopper and she actually went back down to get another plate. Well after dropping of Mari and Minori, Asuka and I did some more shopping in Hiroshima, then made our way home at night. Unfortunately, it took us a bit longer to get home. This leads to Japanese factoid #5. Well in Japan the transit system is amazing. The trains are pretty much accessible everywhere and travel is quite convenient. The transit system can get quite pricey at times but the convenience out ways the cost. I’ve decided not to drive as the price of a car, gas and various governmental checkups can get quite pricey. So train is usually my only way of transport. I got a train pass that allows me to commute from Kawajiri to Yasurra unlimited for about 50 dollars a month.

So the trains are also known for their punctuality. If the trains are even late a minute, the loudspeaker announces an apology. This definitely isn’t BC transit. So keeping trains on time is of the uttermost importance to the train companies as I’ve heard that they even get their wages garnered if they are late. Hence, the tragedy a few months ago in Hyogo prefecture, when I train conductor went to fast and caused his train to derail and slam into a apartment complex killing a 107. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4492267.stm . So yesterday, we were two stops away from home and the train stopped as we heard there was an accident at one of the crossways. So essentially we were stuck in Hiro station. We decided to grab dinner and by the time we got back, the trains were running again. We heard lots of ambulances go by, some hopefully no one got too injured. But since the train times are so important, if you cause a delay, like getting your car stuck their is a hefty fine. Hence, the reduction of train suicides because people knew that if they killed themselves and caused a delay in the trains, their family would still get a fine for the disruption. Well that was my weekend, it ended not too well with my grandma's passing back home. She was quite sick for awhile so it was expected. I heard that she looked really peaceful after her passing.

Teaching in Japan and the Dangers of Kanchou!

Well it’s another sunny day in Kure, it’s about 30 degrees out and a tad humid. The weather hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be and I’ve been able to stand the humidity so far. Fall is just around the corner and it should be getting much cooler pretty soon. Yesterday I visited another one of my elementary schools in Ato, the stop between Kawajiri and Yasuura. The funny thing is that they want to pick me up from Yasurra by car, even though it is much easier for me to just go there myself by train as I pass Ato to go to Yasuura. Anyways, I have 5 elementary schools that I visit on a rotating basis, averaging 2 per a week. Elementary school is lots of fun as the kids are just adorable. Last week, I taught at this one school up in the mountains and I had 5 kids in one class and 7 in the other. The kids are were great and I really enjoyed spending time with them.

The school yesterday was a bit bigger and the most formal out of the 3 I have had so far. The principal welcomed me and I chatted with this portly middle age woman in Japanese, she was really nice and I was able to understand most of what she said. Then I went into the gym where the kids had a welcoming ceremony for me. The principal introduced me and I gave a short speech in Japanese, then this one kid marched in front of me and gave me a welcoming card. It ended with the kids singing “It’s a small world after all” in Japanese, why they sing that, I don’t have the slightest clue. I then taught 4 classes and the kids were great. Doing my self introduction with them is a lot more fun as you get tons of ooohs and ahhhs when you show them the pictures. They also love getting the free penny and ask me like a million questions. This one kid had like short shorts on and his hand never went down as he kept on asking me the most amusing questions. During lunch I played basketball with a few of them and just chatted with some of the kids. They are just so innocent and energetic, it always causes me to crack a huge smile and I really enjoy these days immensely. A few kids made me a welcoming necklace and drew me some pictures. Pretty damn adorable I must say, even though one kid did a light KANCHOU, which is a super weird Japanese custom or gesture they you do on friends. Adult and kids basically put their hands together and form a large point with their index finger and try to stab you up the ass! I kid you not, luckily the kid just kind of did a half kanchou and didn’t hit any vitals, I turned around and told him a stern no. I remember during the Tokyo orientation, they told us to beware of the Kanchou.

As for Japanese factoid #4, it has to do with elementary school. Well for recess all the kids and teachers go outside and usually do an exercise. Most schools have a stretch session with a set pattern and it has funky Japanese music in the background. It’s actually really quite cute and fun to watch, asuka knows the movements so feel free to ask her someday. However, at Ato elementary, the kids do jump rope. The teachers and kids seriously go nuts and some are pretty damn good at it, I tried to join in as best as I could.

Also, for lunch in Japanese schools, it’s usually made at the cafeteria and the whole school eats the same food. In the boonies where I live, all my schools prepare their own lunches, and the calorie content is even listed. I eat pretty much everything they give me, though sometimes I wish I got a bit more to eat cause by 4^th period I can eat a panda. The only thing I don’t eat is natto- which is fermented beans. You either love it or hate it, and a lot of Japanese people love it. It smells like crap…seriously and it’s a sticky gooey bean. Ughh, I’m actually going to get it for lunch today. Yea but anyways, so since the whole school eats the same thing, the students help to bring lunch to the classrooms and they wear a costume that looks like a doctor’s outfit. It’s pretty cute to watch, especially when the grade 1 and 2’s carry these lunch pails on the stairs with their outfits. Yea the kids are all pretty darn adorable and I have a lot of fun teaching those classes. You also get lots of hugs and kids asking you to do stuff. Oh the pikachu statue at the bottom is a time capsule the elementary school made in 2000, only in Japan I tell ya.... Also check out the new politcal posters I put up from 2 blogs ago.

Asuka's arrival and Furnishing the Apartment

It has been an eventful and interesting week since I last wrote. First off, as some of you know, Asuka finally arrived in Japan to join me in Kawajiri. She came Tuesday night and was pretty impressed with the place. It’s been a busy week since she got here, we spent most of last week visiting all the 100 yen stores and buying things for the house because I really hadn’t brought much before she came. We made like 5 visits to these 2 shops in Kure and got a lot of china ware and a bunch of house supplies. Asuka got a bunch of stuff that no man on earth would know you would need in a house and lots of stuff to make a place feel like home. We also decided that we really needed a couch, so went spent all Friday looking for one. We visited about 3 stores and spent the whole day walking until we finally decided on this big white sofa bed, its really nice and a lot cheaper that I would have thought. We also picked up a table- that we plan on taking back to Canada with us-called a kotatsu. The table is really utilized in winter because it has a built in heater. Basically it looks like a regular table but has two parts where the top part opens up and you slip your blankets in between and a heater warms up the blanket allowing you to stay toasty when it gets cold in the winter. Hard to explain, but I’ll illustrate with pictures very soon. So the place is really starting to feel like home with more furniture and more personal touches, I’m planning on doing a big picture taking of the house next week and I’ll post it up on the blog. Other than that it has been nice having Asuka here as my dinners have improved about 10 fold, as she has made lots of yummy Japanese food. I was getting a tad sick of grilled fish with rice, as I had been having that for 2 weeks straight. On Thursday we stopped in Kure for dinner and went to an izakaya (Japanese bar/restaurant) and had a huge dinner with some friends. If you wanna try an izakaya, there are 2 in Richmond that I know of, both on Alexandria beside Kam Do on the huge bubble tea strip. Has lots of good food and drinks. Picture above: me cleansing my hands at the temple in Miyajima

As for work it has been a fun week in the most part. Last Friday I had the bad 3^rd year kids again, and some of them sure are little shits. This one kid I swear has ADD and just has these weird schizophrenic manoeuvres, and a lot of the kids just chat during the class. The bad kids have basically given up in school, but I try to create lesson plans that they can enjoy and the majority of the kids give the class a shot. But I usually entertain myself by mouthing the kids of in slang cause they have no clue what i'm saying. But overall most of the kids are good, it just that school isn’t there thing and that’s understandable cause its not for everyone. But I try to make sure they at least try and have some respect for the teachers, cause Ms.Asatani the Japanese teacher I work with tries so hard to get the kids to listen. As for the other grades, they have been great. Both the first and second year kids try really hard and I really enjoy their classes. Today was the last day of my introduction lesson in Junior High school with the 1^st year kids, who were listening really intently. This one kid told me he loves Star Wars and drew little action poses of the characters on his self-introduction sheet, pretty darn cute kid. At the end of my self-introduction I usually have a question period and every kid that asks me a question I give them a Canadian penny. You’ll be amazed by how this motivates them and how quickly the hands go up. I got lots of normal questions and lots of weird ones. Usually they ask what is my height, age, birthday, favourite foods, color, marriage status and where I live. I get some interesting ones too, like blood type- which is really popular in Japan, shoe size, what brand are my glasses and also some tough ones like who is my favourite Japanese singer, comedian or celebrity. Overall, class has been good and tomorrow I head to another elementary school. They called me this morning and spoke to me just in Japanese, luckily I caught most of it and I’ll have a welcoming ceremony and then more introductions. I’ve done it about 20 times already and I still have 3 more elementary schools to go to, can’t wait till I finish them all. Picture above: Crack of dawn at Mt.Fuji

Oh I also have a 3 day weekend coming up known as Autumn Equinox on Friday. Asuka left on Sunday for Tokyo to meet up with some friends and family and will be coming back Friday, where she and two friends will be in Hiroshima city. I might go meet up with her in Hiroshima city and visit the peace park and Atomic bomb museum or I might take a day trip to somewhere close with some friends. So yupe, all in all Japan is treating me well and I’m still enjoying my time here. As for Japanese Factoid #3, I will talk about Japan and some of their little etiquette stuff that foreigners sometimes don’t know. For instance, during meals when you get those wooden chopsticks you aren’t suppose to rub them together to get rid off the wood splints, its considered rude. Also, you really aren’t supposed to talk on the cell phone on the train or bus, though looking at dirty mags is okay. Shoes are really big here as you they have outdoor and indoor shoes distinction. At school I have to bring a pair of slippers and I can’t wear my outdoor shoes in the school. There are also separate shoes for the indoor gym, like when you actually go workout you must have shoes that haven’t been worn outside. There are also bathroom slippers that you put on when you get into the bathroom and take off when you leave. Also, everyone house as its own little cornered off area that actually has its own step so that you know the division between outdoor and indoor shoes. So yupe, you really have to be cognizant of what shoes is needed as sometimes it can get quite confusing. Oh did I also mention that I’m a size 11 and in Japanese people have elf feet. The largest size you get usually find is a 9. So, shoes are definitely damn hard to get here for me. Fortunately I think I brought enough and Asuka was kind enough to buy me a new pair before she left. Picture above: Last night in Vancouver playing Catan!

Typhoon, Conferences and the Start of School

My first week at Yassuura Junior High school was an intresting one. On Tuesday I was suppose to have more first official day of teaching, but a Typhoon decide to sweep into town and both Tuesday and Wednesday classes were cancelled. Typhoon#14 (Japan users numbers instead of names to classify typhoons) wasn’t too bad where I was, but a few people died on Kyushu and there was a fair amount of flooding in certain parts of Hiroshima ken. The night before the typhoon I stopped by the supermarket and just stocked up on food and spent both days just relaxing at home. The night when the typhoon hit, there was some heavy rain and winds but nothing in the Katrina scale of things. Since I live by the water I had a bunch of city workers making sure that kawajiri didn’t flood with their water pumps outside and that was pretty much the disturbance I got.
( The pic above is me on rangadori, the main street in Kure) (Picture of the Typhoon on Kyushu, Kawajiri wasn't as intense )
Since school was cancelled for two days, I started real classes on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday I had the grade 3 students, which are basically grade 9’s in Canada. Junior high school is from 6-9 in Japan. Those kids were a bit disappointing as I guess they are in the highest grade in their school and they have a lot more attitude. Also, for my first class I did my self introduction and it consisted of 2 3^rd grade classes being combined into one. The 3^rd graders are split into an advanced class and a regular class which basically means the good kids and bad kids are split up. Luckily I wont have to teach the bad kids too often, probably just once every two weeks, cause some of them are don’t listen too well. You would expect that the discipline in Japanese schools would be very strict, but actually the kids really get away with a lot more here then they do in Canada.

So after the first day I was a tad disappointed, but I had my second day on Friday with the second graders and they were a vast improvement, fairly energetic and much more responsive. From what I hear, the first years will be even better. Not sure what causes them to stop caring, but from what I have heard from other JETs their 3^rd years are just as bad. The first years are pretty friendly and I think I will really enjoy their classes alot. They are usually the ones that greet me in the hallways. Also, I really can’t say enough about my three Japanese English teachers, as they are super nice and allow me a lot of control. I was also surprised by how seamless the transition to a teacher became. The weird thing is that I have been a student my whole life, since like preschool and my student days just ended like 5 months ago when I graduated. So it’s really weird to suddenly switch roles and be the teacher now. I am grading papers and I have been instantly been given the respect and expectations of a teacher. I work in a Japanese public school and the fellow teachers really do treat me as a peer. Sometimes that still floors me a bit. (The pic below is a group photo at the Saijo conference i had in August. I am in the front left row, Pete is holding me tightly because i kept on poking him when we were taking the pictures , they took alot of photos and this one turned out without Pete making a funny face) This pass weekend has been pretty lazy just hanging out with friends and lounging around the house. Oh yesterday was the national elections in Japan. Not sure how much you fellow the Japanese political situation, which I think is probably nil. But the Japanese prime Minster dissolved parliament on August 8th and called a election for Sept 11^th because a postal reform was rejected from some members of his own party. So essentially he is cleaning house and removing all those that aren’t loyal to him. President Koizumi managed to win a landslide victory and gained more seats in the two houses then he had before. Japanese politics is actually quite interesting, as Koizumi enlisted a large number of celebrities to run against his opponents, the media dubbed these celebrities as “assassins” and a few of them won their seats.

Well anyways that leads to Japanese factoid #2, so in Japan, the traditional method of campaigning still involves the loud speaker bus. What that is you ask?, well it consist of a little white or black minivan with a speaker system that hits the higher decibel levels driving around town screaming campaign slogans through the loud speaker. Often this starts early in the morning and well into the night, I kid you not, the whole damn block can hear. They always have some dude or lady waving out the window with a white pair of gloves and smiling at the people on the street. If you are lucky enough to see one stop and get out and greet the public, odds are a young damn attractive Japanese girl will step out of the car at the same time. The campaign posters are hilarious too, as the have strategic billboards all over town with numbered sections so that each party can put there campaign poster on. So you get a large board with 5 or 6 Japanese dudes wither looking friendly, fierce and often waving a fist in the air or acting cool by looking away from the camera.

The Climb up Mt. Fuji

Climbing Mt. Fuji

There is an ancient Japanese proverb that says, “He who never climbs Mt. Fuji once is a fool. He who climbs Mt. Fuji more than once is an even greater fool.” Well after one of the longest weekends I have endured for awhile, I must say this is very true as I spent about 14 hours climbing up and down Mt. Fuji and about 20 hours on a bus. I had an awesome time, but this was definitely a one time shot. So Mt. Fuji is the largest mountain in Japan at 3,776 meters or 12,388.45 feet. The trip was organized by AJET, which is an independent JET group that often organizes trips around Japan.

The journey to Mt. Fuji in Yamanashi prefecture began on Friday night as I slept over at Peter’s house, as the bus leaving for Mt. Fuji was earlier then my first train into town. That night I didn’t get to sleep till about 2:30am and woke up at 4:30am and made my way to the bus terminal. There were three pickup spots for Mt. Fuji and ours in Kure was the first at 5:20 am. The bus ride to Mt. Fuji lasted from 5:20am to about 6:00pm, with lots of rest stops on the way. Mt. Fuji is pretty far away from Hiroshima, so we managed to travel through about eight prefectures. It was long but we had fun on the bus.From Left to Right: Simon, Brian, Rome, Me, Masato
We arrived at Mt. Fuji around 6pm and grabbed a bite to eat and got ready for the climb. Around 7 pm, five of us from Kure, Simon, Brian, Rome, Masato and myself departed from the 5^th station at 2300 meters. The first part of the climb went really well, though Simon, Masato and I separated from Rome and Brian and went ahead. Both Simon and I wanted to keep a fairy strong pace, so we went really hard and got up to the 8^th station at 3,350 meters in about 2 hours. The recommended time is about 2.5 hours so we made really good time. However, we soon realized that if we kept on our pace, since we started at 7.00, we would be at the top of the mountain by 12, and then we would have had to sit around for 5 hours doing nothing at the top. Therefore, we decided to slow down and rest a bit.

During the climb up one of the funniest things was our buddy Masato, both Simon and I felt really good climbing the first 3 stations, but Masato seriously looked like he was going to die. He kept on repeating that he “had to go at his own pace” and at certain parts he had the funniest walk that I dubbed “dead man walking,” because it really looked like he was on death row with his slow walk and their was so much pain on his face. The reason why was that the higher you got, the more the altitude affected you (reminded me a lot of when I was in La Paz, the highest city in the world and got altitude sickness). Luckily, at this point both Simon and didn’t get altitude sickness like Masato, who was a trooper and kept on pace.

So we made our way to the 8^th station and decided to rest for awhile and spent about 30 minutes eating snacks and gazing at the stars. The climb at night was gorgeous and I have never seen the big dipper that close. We just sat and chatted and then met up with a few more of the 47 JETs from Hiroshima that made the climb. After stopping for a bit, the cold really started to kick in. At the beginning I was just climbing with a tank top, but as we got closer to the top it started getting really cold. I put on my layers that I brought with me and we went into one of the rest stations and had some warm miso soup. We sat around for a bit, then made our ascent to the main 8^h station and then decided that we should get some rest to kill time. Both Simon and I thought that we had found a warm spot, and decided to take a nap. However, about 10 minutes later we realized how wrong we were as all our extremities started to freeze and we curled up into fetal position while screaming about how cold it was. We sat there for what seemed like forever until the rest station hotel/restaurant opened and we went inside and got a bowl of warm noodles, that literally felt like heaven. Oh we could have actually gotten a futon in one of the huts and slept, but they were charging a ridiculous amount of money, so the three of us decided that it really wasn’t worth it. Once we finished our noodles we started the last 2000 meter climb.

This part was by far the most brutal, a total opposite of the first 3^rd of the mountain. The time was about 3am, and at his point the mountain was full of climbers and it was pretty much gridlock. So the last leg took awhile to climb and at this point after resting, we were cold, tired and at this height is when I started getting a bit of a headache from the altitude, as your body starts to lack oxygen due to the thin air. However, Simon and I made our way up- Masato had gone with another group- and got to the top a little past 4 am. The interesting part of the last climb was how every one had a flash light, as it was pitch black and most people didn’t say a word while climbing, so you had tons of people all marching along a path up a mountain looking like ants or the Orc army from Lord of the Rings. Really eerie to look back and just see lines of lights leading up to the mountain.

So Simon and I made it to the top finally and just then we caught up with Brian, Rome wasn’t feeling to well and decided to rest at one of the stations. The three of us found a spot and watched the sunrise at a little past 5. It really was breathtaking to see the sun appear at the horizon then light up the sky. Definitely a moment I will remember. We stayed at the top of Mt. Fuji for about an hour, even though it was absolutely freezing with the wind chill, and even colder as I somehow managed to lose one glove. We took lots of pictures and met up with Masato who also made it to the top. Around 6ish we made our way back down the mountain. Going down was in some ways harder as you took a different route that consisted of plan steep dirt paths that were really tough on your legs. However, Masato was a beast going down as he mastered this interesting like trot where he shakes his ass and manages to almost run down the mountain. I managed to take a video of it and it still cracks me up seeing it. We got back to the bus and made our way to an onsen and soaked out all the dirt and some of the fatigue from the climb. Everyone on the bus was exhausted and we had a quite bus ride back to Hiroshima-ken. Overall, it was a fun and challenging. I took some awesome pictures and had a real good time laughing at Masato and even freezing my ass off at the top. Definitely got lots of good memories and stories to tell and isn’t that what its all about? Canada conquers Mt.Fuji!

School Assembly and Life in Japan

As September finally came around, it meant the new school year has arrived. In the Japanese school system, students do not have a three month break like they have in Canada. Instead, students have a summer break for one month, and the school year resembles more of a three semester system. So September is actually the second semester of the school year. Today we had our first official day of the new semester. I arrived at school around 8:15 and made my way to the staff room, the crummy thing is that there is a staff meeting at 8:05, but my train only arrived at 8:10 and I can’t make it any earlier then that. So whenever I come to school it will always be in the middle of the morning staff meeting, I talked to the principal and he says it’s no big deal but I still wish I could come earlier. Luckily my predecessor was a banjo playing Yankee, who had a tendency to twitch whenever he talked and usually came minutes before school starts. So I think that the precedent has been set quite low.

The thing with living in Japan and with the JET programme is that there are rules in place and certain expectations, but if you choose to not follow them, more often then not, you won’t get reprimanded for it. I have heard of some JETs who haven’t taken the initiative to be included in lesson planning, just doing the bare essentials and spend most of there time sitting around and reading novels at their desk being bored. But there have been many JETs who have asked for responsibility, shown initiative in helping out at school and have gone the extra mile, and in turn they have been accepted in the community and have the respect of their teachers. So the job is really what you want to make of it. If you choose to come right on the dot everyday, it is well within your right to do so. However, most of your other teachers will usually come an hour early and stay well into the night. So if you want your teachers to respect you and include you, you should try to follow their lead to a certain extent. As a foreigner, I am given a certain leeway on many issues, but I am going to try my best to follow my teachers lead and be as immersed in Japan as possible.

After the staff meeting everyone got ready for the school assembly. The assembly consisted of me giving a speech introducing myself that went not as smoothly as I wanted. As the procedures of bowing and waiting at prearranged times are never explained to me. So I almost began my speech prematurely; however, it all went alright in the end and I gave my introduction in Japanese. After my introduction, a trio of students welcomed me in with a speech in English explaining how they can’t wait to learn more about Hockey and Canada. It was a really nice speech and I’m excited about teaching the students and learning more about them. The rest of the day was pretty slow, as I won’t be having any classes till Tuesday, and my first week will consist of giving an introduction about myself. I spent the past month blowing about a lot of postcards and pictures from home to show my students. So if any of you are walking around Japan sometime soon, and people recognize you, it is probably because they saw you in my introduction.

The days will really pick up once I start teaching, as I’ll usually have 3 to 4 classes a day. The rest of my spare time will be spent preparing for lessons and studying Japanese. Which is pretty important to me, I’ve set it as my goal to be able to communicate at near fluent level when I leave Japan. My friend Pete and I have signed up for a Level 3 Japanese language Examination in December. This certificate in officially recognized and a Level 1 means that you are completely fluent at a college level. What I have realized being in Japan is that there is a difference from studying Japanese and actually being able to use it. I’ve studied a fair bit, but my practical usage is quite poor, I know different grammatical structures but it does always occur to me to use them. Hopefully, I can rectify this problem ASAP. Another reason why I should really get my Japanese language level to a higher fluency is that life would be a lot easier for me in Japan. Essentially, I am a retard in Japan! As not only am I Asian, but I’ve been told by almost everyone that I look Japanese. Which makes life a lot tougher over here, as store and shop workers would ask me a question, and when I don’t understand I usually pause and sometimes answer “Hai.” So when I don’t do what they ask me, they just conclude that I am must be retarded because I’m not answering them properly. When they finally realize I’m a foreigner, they are surprised that I’m not Japanese, and I have to go into a lengthy explanation that I’m Canadian, and that my parents are from Hong Kong. So, learning the language is definitely a priority that will make life a lot easier here.

This upcoming weekend I’ll be heading to Yamanashi to climb the famous Mt. Fuji. We will be leaving saturday morning and will be climbing the mountain at night, starting around 8. It is suppose to be a pretty tough climb, but its something that I’m really looking forward to. We’ll be catching the sunrise at the top in the morning, then heading to an onsen (hotspring). Looking forward to it and will let you all know how it goes.

I leave you all with my Japanese Factoid #1: In Japan it is considered rude to eat and drink when you walk. Typically, there would be benches or seats near a convince store where you can sit down and drink or eat, then go on your way. In Canada, we always eat and walk, it’s convenient and when you have food or something that you want to drink because its damn humid outside you just do it. But not in Japan, so I often have to catch myself and try not to do it, even though it is sometimes pretty hard to resist.