English Recitation Contest and Lunch with the Murayamas

I just had another busy weekend with a English speech contest for Kure city and a nice lunch with my old English teacher.On Saturday, all the JETs from Kure made our way to Yasuura for the annual Junior high school speech contest. I had been helping my first year and third year students for the past 2 months and I was pretty excited to hear them perform.

I was also one of the 3 judges along with my supervisor, which made the day long but more enjoyable as I had really had to concentrate to grade all the performances. In total there were about 50 speeches spread among the 3 Junior High School grades and another category for students who have lived abroad. (Picture above: My supervisor, Mr. Sakata)

There were some really good performances as some of the kids’ pronunciations were great. Unlike last year, there was a good variety of stories and it was actually quite hard to grade some of the students. The second graders were especially close as only a point separated the top few scores. My first year student Sho did pretty well, but not enough to get a top 3 placement. He’s a great student in class and I really wanted him to show a bit more enthusiasm but he was to shy to put on a great speech.(Picture above: My first year student)

My third year student, Tamaoka placed second in the returnee category. I felt she should have been in the third graders grouping as she hadn’t lived in an English speaking country, like some of the other participants. Tamaoka is half-Chinese and was born in China, so her Japanese isn’t completely fluent. I had a lot of fun practicing with her and getting to know her after school the past few months and I was very happy that she got second prize, as some of the returnee participants were pretty much fluent.(Picture above: My third year student)

On Sunday, I went my old teacher, Ms. Murayama’s house for lunch. We had a takoyaki (octopus balls) party and I spent a few hours playing with Sougo and her new baby Kaho. It was really nice seeing the family again as I hadn’t seen them for a few months. Seeing her really makes me miss her at school since we had such a great relationship and had a lot of fun teaching together. (Picture above: Me and Ms. Murayama)

The new baby was really cute and chubby. She didn’t cry much and spent a lot of the time sleeping while we ate. I brought them some roots clothing from my trip back home and got a Canada T-Shirt for Sougo.

Sougo had grown the past few months and was still a lot of fun to play with. We visited this local shrine near there house and me and his Dad, Shinji had fun playing hide and seek and carrying him down the shrine.

Japanese Factoid #37- In Japan, when you go to a shrine there is always a stone basin or fountain near the entrance. As you can guess, the purpose of this is to clean or "purify" your hands before you enter the temple. Usually, you are suppose to pour water on your left hand first , then your right. There is usually just a bamboo shoot trickling water into the basin, but more elaborate shrines sometimes have water coming out of stone dragons.

Halloween and a weekend of Birthday Parties

The last two weekends was spent in Hiroshima. I went to a big Halloween party with a few JETs and then also went to 2 birthday parties for various friends. I sandwiched the two parties with another climb up Mt. Noro in Kawajiri and a short week of classes.

On the Saturday before Halloween, Rob, Jackie and I went to Hiroshima for the annual Halloween bash at a venue called Chinatown. Rob and I made our way to town early and picked out our costumes for the night.

The party was a lot of fun as Rob and I decide to dress up as a mixture of Dragon ball and a vampire. We wanted to call ourselves Aryan vampires, but at the end of the night we really weren’t sure who we were, whether it was a dragon ball character, vampire or superhero. The party had some great costumes. I saw a male Jet that bats for the other team from last year who dressed up as a cheerleader and a few JETs dressed as Shredder and the four Ninja Turtles.

The only sure thing was that I couldn’t lose Rob at the party because of his large hair. We ended up drinking way too many Tequila Sunrises, but had a blast mingling and chatting with a lot of the JETs we knew. Jackie dressed up as an angel- but after her free drink, she got too drowsy and a bit too sick to stay so I walked her back to our capsule hotel. Too bad Jackie wasn’t able to stay there more then an hour, the pitfalls of having Asian alcohol blood. On the way back to the Club, which is in the shady entertainment area of Hiroshima, I had tons of hostess girls and other guys hollering at my hair and my flying cape. Most people knew it was Halloween, but since it isn’t that big here, I’m sure a few people thought I was just some nut running around in a costume.

The party really was a lot of fun as Rob and I managed to wreak havoc all night long at the party and also to ourselves. We stumbled back to the hotel around 5ish and somehow crashed into bed after taking a dip in the public sauna at the capsule hotel. It was a great night and amazingly, not too bad of a morning. (Picture below: The lake at the top of Mt.Noro- you can actually ice skate there is the winter!)

The past weekend was another 3 days off, so on Friday Jackie, Rob and I decided to climb my local Mountain again. We started around 11 and made pretty good time going up and then back down. The leaves hadn’t fully changed color yet, as it has still been warm the past weeks. We explored for about an hour on the top of the mountain, as it has a lake and tons of little temples and various sightseeing spots. (Picture below: Pouring water over five O-jizo-sans)

That night was also Vicky’s birthday, so we went into Kure and had dinner with Beth at a Pizza joint in town. The restaurant was really big and had a western aesthetic to it, so it really reminded me of restaurants back home. After dinner we went to our local bar, “Memories” for cake and a few drinks. (Picture below: Beth, Vicki and Jackie in front of Moderns) The bar is really homey and cool, but lately the company inside the bar has been really bad as we’re getting a few obnoxious American sailors and an obsessed “Yankees” fan, named Tomo. We’ve run into him a few times and lately he’s been sort of stalking a few of the girls. So needless to say, it wasn’t all that fun and after a few drinks Rob, Vicki and I left. The owners of the bar are actually opening a new bar later on this month, which will be members only on Friday and Saturday so they can weed out the undesirables. (Picture below: Picked up goat boy and some armored dude from the movie Narnia at Mcdonalds to keep us company at the bar)

The next day was another birthday for two other JETs in Hiroshima, Rebecca and Sonya. It was a “formalish” dinner, where most of the JETs dressed up in nice suits and dresses. Rob and I tried to relive the magic of last week in town and somehow, we managed to fail completely. The dinner had about 30 people and was all you can drink for 2 hours. Needless to say, I maybe abused this “2 hour limit” a bit and by the time we walked out of the restaurant- I went straight to a capsule hotel and went to bed. Robbie didn’t fair much better and after wandering around with a few JETs, then he too crashed at the hotel. In the end, it was probably for the better on both our wallets and bodies to be out that early in the night. (Picture below: Morgan, Robbie, Me and Molly)

The dinner sounded great on paper, but the execution just wasn’t their on our part. In the end, it still wasn’t a bad night as the two birthday girls had a great time and it was nice catching up with a few friends from around the prefecture. The coolest part of the night was meeting Adriana, who is from Boulder, Colorado. We chatted about hockey and the Avalance and then I mentioned Casa Bonita, from an episode of South Park. As some of you know, I love South Park and "Casa Bonita" is one of my favorite episodes. Adriana actually went to Casa Bonita as a kid and told me tons of South Park related facts, like how Chef is an actual person from her College...cool!(Picture below: Me looking beet red with Adriana, Beth and Vicki)

I woke up the next morning and remarkably, felt pretty good. Asuka had a volleyball tournament so I went to this town between Hiroshima and Kure, called Saka and watched her play two games. Her team did well and placed second in the tournament. (Picture below: Asuka is No.14 on the red team)

Well last night the winds were blowing hard as I think winter has finally hit Japan. I’ll really miss my t-shirts and shorts and I’m not really looking forward to getting out of the shower and freezing my ass off... literally. As for the coming weekend, there is a speech contest on Saturday in Yasuura and I’m having dinner with Murayama sensei on Sunday. I’ll get to see Sougo again and also meet the new baby in the family, Kaho-chan which I’m really excited about that.

Japanese Factoid#36- For most foreigners the ultimate litmus test for how "Japanese" you’ve become is Natto. What is Natto you ask?, well it’s basically fermented Soybeans. Nattō is definitely an acquired taste due to its powerful smell, strong flavour and sticky consistency. When I first came to Japan, I absolutely despised the smell and taste and refused to eat it. Sadly, I now eat Natto quite regularly and usually mixed with egg and soy sauce on rice. Natto is a great source of protein and is quite healthy for you. Being able to eat Natto now really makes me ask the question, “What is this Country doing to me?”