Christmas and travels in Shimane

Merry Christmas to everyone back in Vancouver. I just got back from Shimane prefecture, which is the prefecture directly above Hiroshima. So I’ve just had my first Christmas in Japan. In a way it really didn’t feel a lot like Christmas because it isn’t that big of a holiday over here. I spent Christmas Eve eating dinner in Kure with some other JETs at an Indian restaurant. As some of you might know, I really don’t eat spicy food at all and this was only the second time I’ve been to an Indian restaurant. The food was alright since I got some mild chicken for dinner, but Indian for Christmas eve dinner sums up the not-really-Christmas atmosphere. It sure doesn’t beat the huge potluck family dinners I get back home. Since my dad has 9 siblings that all live in greater Vancouver, Wong family dinners are always packed full of people and good food and Indian won’t beat that. As for Christmas dinner, Asuka and I met Aki in Hiroshima and we just ate at a nice café.

Overall, it was a pretty uneventful Christmas, except that I finally got a “Keitai denwa”- or cell phone. I had delayed the inevitable for about 4 months now, but after frequent..umm lets say missed trains and various delays, I concluded I really needed a phone. So Asuka and I picked up a family plan and got identical new phones from vodaphone. It has an mp3 player built into it, which I doubt I will use, and a pretty nice camera. It was tough to decide which one to get, as there was this one phone that came with a 3.2 mega pixel camera. But in the end after much deliberation, we decided on the one above. (Picture below: Asuka's family)

Well on Boxing Day Asuka and I took a bus to Matsui-shi, the main city in Shimane where Asuka’s grandma’s house is. Both Asuka’s parents, who came from England and Asuka’s sister who came from Queens arrived the day before we did. Asuka’s grandma’s house is traditional Japanese house, so it was neat staying a few nights there (traditional also meaning really really cold). The first night in Matsui, we made our way to an onsen and spent the night at the ryokan there- which is a Japanese inn. In most ryokans you get served breakfast and dinner. So after a relaxing soak in the onsen, we had a nice set dinner. I’ve been meaning to go to a ryokan for awhile, but haven’t had the chance yet till now. The food was pretty good and it was fun just relaxing with Asuka’s family. (Picture below: View of Matsue Castle)

The next day we made our way around Matsui city and visited the local castle there. I’ve actually been pretty pumped to see Matuse for awhile even though Asuka has told me numerous times that there is absolutely nothing to do there and that Mastue is very inaka- or countryside. The castle was neat, as I always enjoy seeing Japanese armour and exploring castles. We took in a few more of the local sights that day, seeing a famous samurai house and a museum of a famous Caucasian author who lived and married in Japan. We also visited a famous Shrine called Izumo Taisha which is the oldest shrine in Japan. As legend has it, every October all the gods meet at Izumo Taisha. It is also a shrine for marriage and many couples visit the temple for good luck during married life. (Picture below: Main building at Izumo Taisha)

At night we had a big dinner at a sushi restaurant with all of Asuka’s dad’s cousins. The food once again, was great as I managed to drink and eat a lot. It was a lot of fun actually because some of the relatives were getting quite tipsy and me being a foreigner, they got into asking me questions about how I like Japan and how work is. Even after dinner, all the men made there way to a bar, where an old lady in a kimono kept on pouring us drinks and everyone kept on asking me questions. (Picture below: Set dinner at the Ryokan)

The following evening was my last day in Shimane and we had a big dinner for Asuka’s uncle who just got his PhD. Dinner was a feast again and I met Asuka’s two uncles. Interestingly, Asuka’s uncle is a teacher too and now works for the Board of Education. Asuka’s other two aunts are also elementary school teachers and one of her dad’s cousins is a principal. So everyone knew the JET programme and we spent a lot of time chatting about the education system in Japan and the pros and cons of the program. All too complicated to get into here, but it was a fun discussion that left my head sore after the night ended. It was enjoyable to get the other side of the coin and see the teachers perspective of having JETs in their classrooms. (Picture below: Samurai helmets from Matsue Castle)

The following day I made my way back home by bus, while Asuka flew with her family to Tokyo to spend New Years with her mothers side of the family. All in all the trip was a lot of fun and Asuka’s grandma was a really sweet old lady. I tried to converse as best I could with her in Japanese and we had a lot of funny moments in Shimane as Asuka’s grandma’s memory comes and goes sometimes. But she is still one healthy lady who works on her farm every morning. (This small heater/aircon in one tries really hard to heat up my room)

Well as for Japanese factoid #14. It has to do with heating. As I mentioned I stayed at a traditional Japanese house, which really translates to, its really freakin cold. Actually, all houses are really freaking cold here because central heating doesn’t really exist in Japan. So how cold it is on the outside, is indicative of how cold it is inside. My electric bill this month has just skyrocked because I have to keep my heater going all the time just to stay warm. What’s worse is the schools have no heat too. Well my elementary schools do but not my junior high. So when I’m teaching I really have to layer or I will freeze. Luckily, my supervisor brought me a pretty neat heater that's a heater and humidifier in one.

Last Week of School Before Winter Break

After Tokyo I have just been busy finishing up the last week of school. Since its Christmas season right now, I’ve been doing some Christmas activities with my students. My current weekly schedule has 3 days at Junior High school and 2 days at elementary school. I’ve mostly been doing Christmas words searches and teaching them vocab, like what a mistletoe is. With my junior high classes I got some help from one of the teachers and printed off about 7 large Christmas trees. Then during class I had the students trace there hands on construction paper, cut it out and then decorate the hands. On one side they wrote a Christmas wish or hope and on the other side they wrote their name. When they were all finished decorating their hands, we pinned them up on the Christmas tree printout. The assignment went pretty well, the girls as usual, put way more effort into it than the boys. Some of the hands were decorated beautifully and …some of the boys hands were pretty darn plain. But in the end I think the kids had fun and it was a fun wrap up for the semester.

I’ll say the first semester in school went pretty well. I’m getting more and more comfortable by the day with teaching. The occasional miscommunication problems with a few classes occur here and there, but overall I do find teaching quite rewarding. Since I have so many schools, I have some pretty colorful vice-principals. Some speak to me in just Japanese and think I understand everything, while this other vice-principal refuses to use Japanese and will only speak to me in broken English. I have one VP that picks me up in a car that I swear is going to explode if it goes another 10 kilometers as it shakes violently every time I enter. In the end though they are all really nice and I don’t have any real problems with them.

I also had my year-end party or “bounenkai” with my teachers this week. These parties exist for every organization and school in Japan and just consists of a big dinner to "forget" the year that is about to finish. I was looking forward to seeing some more of my teachers outside of school where I would be able to chat with them a bit more. That night I made my way into Kure with Ms. Murayama, my English teacher. Out of all the English teachers I teach with, she is my favorite, and she speaks almost perfect English. Unfortunately, she’ll be leaving in April, as she’s due to give birth this year. I’m happy for her, but pretty sad that I’ll be losing her as a teacher. Hopefully, I won’t get some English Nazi coming into Yasuura. I’m actually quite scared that I’ll get a bad teacher so I’ll be praying to the gods that a nice teacher comes. Well as for the dinner, we had to draw seats for seat placement. By chance I sat beside the principal and sat across from the vice-principal, which actually turned out great, as my vice-principal is a pretty funny guy- even though he has the worst smokers cough ever. I was also able to get to know my principal a lot more, as he has always been really quiet. He was actually an English teacher 20 years ago and actually taught Ms. Murayama when she was in high school. Well after a few drinks all the teachers became quite boisterous and it was nice seeing some of the teachers relax. The food was great and I even had “Fugu”, the poison blowfish (remember Homer from the Simpsons?). Overall the dinner was fun as it was in a private room and had these funny 60 year old oba-chan’s (old grannies) in Kimonos pouring us beer. Well next week I head into Shimane with Asuka to visit her relatives. I get about 2 weeks off for winter vacation and Shimane will be my only trip out of town. It should be interesting meeting some of her relatives.

Japanese factoid # 13: So Japanese electronic stores are a lot of fun to visit. Deo-Deo is the Future-shop equivalent in Hiroshima and it always has the latest gadgets. They have cameras with like 8.5 mega pixels now and some pretty neat phones and computers. I always go to the massage chair section and get a super massage with one of the machines and since it's Japan, no one ever kicks you out too. As for the weight loss/diet section, its pretty big and you get some of the funniest contraptions sometimes. I’ve been eyeing this one for awhile. Its basically a horse saddle that apparently helps you lose weight because you have to use your abs and back muscles while you ride it like a horse. When I first saw it I cracked up pretty hard. Especially with the instructional video showing 80 year old Japanese men and woman straddling a horse saddle and riding it with a grin. So therefore, there is a picture of me riding it with a grin.

Jocelyn's Trip in Hiroshima and Tokyo

My sister made her way back to Canada on Monday and we managed to see quite a bit of Japan while she was here. On the 10^th we went to Miyajima, where the famous gate is and snapped some nice pictures of the island. We also took a ropecar up to the top of the mountain but it was a tad cloudy, so we weren’t able to see very well. In the summer they also have monkeys that can get pretty violent if you have food lying around. But, i think they hibernate in the winter as we didn't see any monkeys when we went up. However, we did manage to have a nice walk around the island and sampled Miyajima’s famous dish “anago” (which is a type of eel). (Picture below: Monkey warning signs at the top of Mt. Misen and Miyajima- Click to enlarge)

We also had dinner with the local JETs in Kure and visited Hiroshima castle and the Hiroshima A-bomb site. Jocelyn had the unlimited two-week rail pass so she was able to take day trips to Kyoto, Nara and Himeji (where I plan on going with Joel in the spring). So she was able to see a fair amount when she was here. I also took two days off work and went to Tokyo on the 8^th and 9^th. It was my first time since the summer and I was able to see most of the major sights in Tokyo. The thing is with Tokyo, unlike Kyoto, it doesn’t have too many scenic spots to see. Tokyo is more of a hanging out kind of place but we did manage to see some interesting areas. We stayed in a good central location at a hotel located in Shinjuku. The first night we walked around Shinjuku and checked out all the shops and light. (Picture below: Cinderalla's castle during a full moon at Disneyland)

The second day we made our way to Disneyland. Yea, Jocelyn really wanted to go, so we took a train to Disney land the next morning. Its pretty similar to the one and L.A and France, except that Mickey speaks Japanese. I gotta say it sounds better then Mickey speaking French. We went on all the major rides, and the lineups weren’t bad at all. One of the neatest rides was the Haunted Mansion because it was decorated with scenes from a Nightmare before Christmas. We spent the whole day there and we both had a good time eating Mickey waffles and seeing all the disney Christmas lights.

The next morning we woke up pretty early and made our way to Tsukiji, where they have a famous fish market. The Tsukiji fish auction is the biggest in the world and over 2,000 tons of fish are handled daily. Jocelyn and I made our way through the market and brought fresh Sea Urchin, Ikura and also had some huge steamed clams. It was neat seeing tuna the size of dolphins getting chopped up with an axe and seeing some seafood that that I’ve never seen before. After walking around the auction we sat down at a local rice stand and had fresh fish rice bowls. (Picture below: Man chopping tuna with an axe)

After the fish market we made our way to Akihabara, the famous electronics district. We just spent the time walking up and down the streets and checking out all the neat gadgets. They have huge electronic stores around 11 levels high. Akihabarba, like the rest of Tokyo, is pretty busy so we didn’t stay long, nor did we really buy anything. Though some of the new cameras and computers are just crazy looking. (Picture below: Front entrance to Senso-ji)

After Akihabara we went to Asakusa and saw the Senso-ji temple. The temple was built in the year 628 when legend has it, two brothers fished a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, out of the Sumida river, and even though they put the statue back into the river, it always returned to them. It’s Tokyo’s oldest temple and since it was close to new years when we went, the place was packed full of people. The really cool thing about Akihabara is the main strip leading to the Temple, which is kind of a tourist trap type area, but its still neat visiting all the little shops. (Picture below: Japanese puppet vendor)

In addition, the temple grounds have tons of booths selling elaborate puppets for new years. The prices of most of these are in the hundreds and even inching to the thousand mark for the really elaborate ones. We made a prayer at the temple and then snapped some pictures with the five storey pagoda and walked around the grounds a bit. The temple has two large red paper lanterns at the front entrances of the temple and is the main image of the temple. (Picture below: View from the Mori Tower)

At night we made our way to Roppongi Hills, a newly developed area in Tokyo with a trendy shops, cafes and restaurants. At the center of Roppongi is a 54 storey building, called the Mori tower. At the top you can get a commanding view of the city, including Tokyo tower, an imitation of the Eiffel tower that is actually taller, but doesn’t dominate the skyline as it does in Paris- because they are so many tall buildings in Tokyo. Jocelyn and I had checked out the skyline of Tokyo for about an hour, which is just huge when you get a nice panoramic bird’s eye view of it. We also checked out the local museum in the tower, which was also quite interesting. We spent the rest of the night grabbing dinner in Shibuya, where most of the young kids hang out and then we just walked around and then called it a day. (Picture below: Me and the local priest at Meiji)

The next day was my last day in Tokyo as I took the Shinkansen home that night as Jocelyn’s flight was the next morning. On the Sunday, we made our way to Harajuku. Harajuku is where the famous Meiji Shrine is. Named after Emperor Meiji who was restored to power after in 1867 (same emperor depicted in the Last Samurai). The park surrounding the Meiji shrine in huge, so it took a bit of a walk to actually get there. At the shrine grounds we walked along the main courtyard which was surrounded by 4 gates and then made a offering at the front. We also saw a traditional Japanese wedding procession and managed to snap some nice pictures of the bride and groom. I even saw a white gaijin (foreigner) wearing a kimono at the back of the line.

After the shrine we walked around Harajuku, where as some of you might know is where the “freaks” are located.

Leading into Japanese factoid # 12. As some of you know there is a culture that exists in Japan where people dress up or “cosplay” as it’s also known. People in Harajuku take it to a whole new level, not only do they dress up, they congregate every week by the entrance leading to the Meiji shrine. When I went there was about 40 people just standing there and hanging out with their fellow weirdos. They wear gothic clothes, anime characters, pretty much anything you can think off. They don’t mind you taking pictures, so I managed to snap a few good pics of them. The interesting thing is that sometimes you see these people just walking around in the streets. They usually wear Victorian dresses or gothic clothes and they paint their face with 6 inches of makeup and then roll around town in that. I remember when I was in Tokyo in the summer with Asuka’s friend Aya, we saw a few of them on the train and I couldn’t stop staring at them and she was cracking up and scared that they might notice. So it’s definitely a sight to behold when you visit Japan.

Trip to Hong Kong and Macao

It has been a busy week since I returned from Hong Kong. I left on November 18^th and got back on November 27^th. Hong Kong was interesting and I had a lot of fun walking around and spending time with my family. It was nice being around Asian people and actually understanding what they were saying for a change. Hong Kong wasn’t as surprising to me after being in Japan, as it is similar to Tokyo in many resepcts. I know the impact would have been greater if I had gone before my time here in Japan. The city isn’t that big but it is amazingly dense. Hong Kong has about 7 million residents, comparably Canada has 30 million. The best way I can describe the city is that half the city is like downtown Robson. There are many shopping malls and complexes. What also helped was the exchange rate right now is very favorable for Canadians, $1HK is about $6.6CDN, which made everything in Hong Kong amazingly cheap. So I ended buying lots of dress shirts, shoes, pants and even got 2 suits tailored made for less than 200 dollars. picture below: famous church in Macau

While in Hong Kong I took a side trip to neighboring Macau we spent two days there touring the city and seeing my godmother and god brother. We also took a small trip into China and shopped a bit and walked around. Very different then Hong Kong I must say and it was interesting seeing the people there. A small amount of beggers on the street and lots of vendors selling you products. They can get pretty aggressive to grabbing your arm and wanting to sell you stuff. Being there you really get a sense of the economic power china is becoming as their capacity to build and modernize is amazing. You see some of the most gorgeous buildings. China is a really interesting place and I wouldn’t mind visiting it again sometime.

The majority of the trip was spent shopping and eating. Being in Japan, I really missed good Chinese food and when I was in Hong Kong I ate an enormous amount of food. I really didn’t stopped eating and by the end of the week I could barely put anything in my mouth. We went to a few buffets and I just constantly snacked and had large meals with my family. Hong Kong definitely has great food and I look forward to going back there someday. I’m definitely entertaining the idea of spending a few months teaching English in Hong Kong after Japan as I can stay at my god mother's place. Picture below is off a lamb pot. Had lots of neat and intresting food when i was there; including snake skin, frog umm..let just say "special parts" and even almost went into China to try a certain domesticated animal.

I also met us with maria from High school and we had a good time chatting and walking around hong kong. Even though it took her awhile to find me as I didn't know what exit to come out of. Sorry maria. We managed to grab Pho noodles for lunch- which i really missed eating. For dinner, we went to a coffee shop and had 3 pieces of cake. The sad truth was how we finished all 3 pieces but the table of 4 beside us didn't. Overall, it was fun seeing a old friend and a lot of fun spending time with my parents and sis, and walking around Hong Kong.

This past weekend I went to Hiroshima and played hockey on Saturday, then stayed over at one of the player’s house, Hiki san. At night, the hockey organizer Tawara san, invited Hiki and I for dinner at his house with his family and we had oyster nabe (similar to hotpot). It was a fun night and I had a good time practicing my Japanese and eating good food. Check out the hockey website. http://hiroshima.plala.jp/HIHL/ The next morning we woke up at 6am to make our way to Okayama prefecture for a hockey tournament, but while driving we got a call to tell us it was canceled due to rain. So that was a bit of a let down. Other than that, the week has been good. Doing a bunch of Christmas lessons with my kids.

On tuesday night my sister arrived in Japan. The next morning she came with me to Noro-Nakagiri, one of my elementary schools. We had fun teaching the kids and we managed to snap some pretty good pictures with them. They are all 1st and 2nd graders so they are all adorable and pretty funny at times. On the weekend, Jocelyn and I are heading to Miyajima and then to a old city about an hour from where I live, called Onomichi. Jocelyn is going to head to Kyoto on early next week and then we are both heading to Tokyo where she flys out from. Should be a fun and interesting week.

Japanese factoid#11, well this is more of a Chinese factoid as i took this picture on a bus in Hong Kong. You can draw your own conclusions as to what purpose this compartment serves. Signs in english are quite amusing in Asian countries. Actually Japan has some pretty good Japglish, as translations are usually done literally. An amusing pastime for me in class is reading what kind of english my students have on their pencil cases. I'll make sure i post some of the more amusing Japglish in the coming months.