Junior High School Sports Day

This past weekend was my Junior High School’s sports day. This year, we were really blessed with great weather. The day went off really well and all the students and teachers had a great time.

I went in the morning and helped set up the facilities the students needed to use for the event. Set up didn’t take too long and after a few opening ceremonies the festivities got under way.

There were quite a few events and all the third graders did really well in all the events. The most entertaining to watch was the rope pull event, which reminded me of sports day in elementary school.

There were also many different relay events, ranging from everyone in the grade racing against each other to the various sports teams and clubs competing. The sports day is sort of a town event, so a lot of the elementary school kids also came out to watch their older siblings compete.

My old English teacher, Ms. Murayama also stopped by and we spent some time chatting and then went over to her house after the Sports day ended.

It was nice seeing her son, Sougo again, who had grown much bigger since the last time I saw him. The new addition to the family Kaho, is almost a year old and both Asuka and I had a great time playing with her.

Ms. Murayama was also nice enough to make my favourite dessert, Strawberry mochi- I managed to eat a few of those before I left for my dinner at night with the teachers.

The dinner was to celebrate everyone’s hard work during sports day and I always love these dinners as its fun to chat with teachers and to eat good food. We went to this restaurant called Nada, which has rooms with windows right on till the edge of the water. The meal was fun and I managed to come home quite tipsy.

Japanese Factoid#49- In the countryside-which is still the majority of the country-cultivating rice is still a major industry. Since it is spring, people all over Japan have been planting rice in their paddies by hand the past month. If you travel anywhere outside the metropolitans in Japan you are bound to see rice paddies. Seeing them really makes you feel that you are in the countryside. Both Kawajiri and Yasuura are covered with rice paddies and I often receive rice during harvesting time from friends and teachers.

Trip To Tokyo with Mike

Mike just left on Tuesday, after our 4 day trip to Tokyo last week. We managed to pack a lot in and actually saw most of the friends we wanted to see while there.

We arrived Wednesday night in Tokyo and stayed at my friend Maria’s house in Roppongi. The place is really swanky and nice, which made our stay really comfortable and affordable.

On Thursday, Mike and I decided to go to Dineyland Sea. We had been to Disneyland Europe when we were in France, so we thought we might as well visit another one. All the Disneylands are the same, but Disneyland Sea is completely different. It’s actually pretty cool and the rides were a lot of fun. First off there aren’t that many Disney characters and we barely saw any walking around. It’s pegged as a more adult theme park and in a way it really is.

The scope of the architecture is really amazing as the really went all out to design everything. It’s pretty amazing how real everything looks and the attention to detail.

We spent the morning and afternoon there and just went on as many rides as we could. What made it really easy was that there was no line-ups since we went on a Thursday so we were able to go on any ride with a five minute wait.

At night we met up with our friend Yasu in Shinjuku and went to dinner at a local ramen place and then a pub. We spent a few hours having a few beers and it was just fun chatting and eating until our last train home.

On Friday, Mike and I went to Aakiharbara in the morning and just walked around checking out the electronics. We decided that since we were there we might as well go to a maid café. So we walked around the main areas of Akihabara and decided on one that had four floors. After checking in and finding out that most of the top two floors were booked we just took an open slot that was available. Little did we know that it wasn’t a traditional maid café, but one where girls where kimonos.

The top floor actually had a dance area and everyone was full out on maid outfits. But in our floor….alas, we got a not so attractive maid. We decided to stick it out and we just ordered some desserts. It was a weird as they use real formal Japanese and it’s actually sort of uncomfortable. But, the kicker was one our maid gave us our food and proceed to close her eyes, put her hands together and pray to the gods to bless our dessert. Naturally, it surprised me and I tried not to laugh, but when Mike started cracking up a bit, I lost it and started giggling like a school girl. We felt real bad afterwards, as we just went into this girl’s workplace and laughed in her face while she was doing her job.

At night we might up with my friend Dice who moved to Tokyo about the same time I came to Japan. We met up with him at night and went to an Izakaya. After the Izakaya, we went to Shinjuku and walked a bit around Kabuki-cho hassling the locals who were trying to get us into their “naughty” establishments. We ended up going to a bunch of battling cages and had the winner buy beer. It was nice catching up with a friend from home and both Mike and I had a good time.

On Saturday, Maria spent the day with us and we went to Asakusa in the morning. This temple has the famous red lantern and a long street full of little shops and snacks. We spend a few hours grabbing lunch and visiting the main temple and checking out the shops.

At night, we went to a ninja restaurant. It’s a pretty famous restaurant in Asakasa and though the dinner is a bit steep at about a 100 dollars for a set course. The entrainment value makes it worth it. There are secret passages to enter and the inside looks just like a mini village. You also get ninja related dishes and ninjas serving your food. But perhaps the best part of the meal was our Ninja waiter.

The dude was so nervous and kept on making mistakes, which made the whole dinner even better. First off, he flipped our menu backwards while unrolling it from a scroll. He also ran into the door twice, almost set his arm on fire during a “ninja magic” dish, dropped our cutlery and at the end when we left, he unrolled the “come again sign” backwards again. Maria, Mike and I were cracking up the whole meal. He was actually a really nice waiter and made the entertainment value was off the charts.

At night, we met up with a few of Maria’s friends and went to a local club in Roppongi. Almost everyone there works in the financial district in Roppongi, so there were a lot of foreigners. It was a fun night as we mingled around in the club which had a real large bar. The best part of the evening was when we peeked into a window in one of the karaoke rooms and saw a man dancing with his shirt off. He then ushered us in and we had champagne with him and danced around with his girls for an hour. The dude was such a pimp and we think he’s probably a Yakuza as he had some tattoos and a few of his buddies did too.

On Sunday, we spent the morning visiting Roppongi Hills and saw the Spiderman exhibit there. It was really good as Mike and I had just watched the movie last week and the exhibit was pretty extensive. They had the actual costumes worn by both the red and back Spiderman, as well as Doc Ock and Sandman. Seeing the character’s life size models in full costume was pretty cool.

We spend the rest of the day walking around Harajuku before we took the bullet train home late afternoon. It was a great time and being in Tokyo, and it makes me really wanna live there for a bit.

Japanese Factoid#48- Gacha Gacha refers to the noise toy dispensing machines make in Japan. We have these in Canada, but not to the extent that exists in Japan. In smaller places you usually have a few or up to a dozen. But, if you head to Tokyo or Osaka and go to a big hobby store or electronics store, there are rows. At Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, they have 7 rows of machines in stacks of 4s. These machines have tons of different toys, from anime figures to key-chains and other novelties. It’s fun to just take out 10 dollars and pick from a few of the machines.

Mike's trip to Iwakuni, Miyajima and Extreme Wrestling

Mike arrived last week and he’s been pretty busy as he’s been going to school with me the whole week.

On Thursday and Friday he came to Yasuura Junior High School and we managed to teach my grade 1’s and 3’s. The classes went really well as all the kids where excited to have another foreigner in class. The grade 3’s lined up at the end of the class to ask him questions and some of the girls as some of the funniest things like “Do you like girls who look like hippos?.”

We also took a few walks and a rollerblade trip around my town. Kawajiri is surrounded by water and we spent one afternoon trekking or way around the coastline till we reached a little beach.

Luckily, Mike timed his arrival here during golden week so I had over a week where I didn’t have to go to work. This past Sunday we went to Iwakuni, a small town just outside of Hiroshima in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Iwakuni is famous for its 5 wooden arched bridge Kintaikyo. Being spring vacation there was also a feudal parade across the bridge.

It was neat being able to see many different outfits worn during the feudal period. One of the best parts was the food as there were a lot of stalls selling traditional Japanese snacks.

We also went to Miyajima, the island in Hiroshima with a red gate in the water. I haven’t actually been recently, so it was nice to go back and just walk along the temples and eat the different snack foods.

That night we met up with Rob and a few of his soccer friends at a foreigner bar and then went to a Izakaya for dinner. The Japanese friends are all dentists who have just passed their final exam. We had a great night drinking and ended up at one the dentist’s place and grabbed a few beers at the convenience store until we crashed out a dawn.

We managed to keep busy for much of the week hiking a local gorge in Kure and visiting the local onsen to relax afterwards. The gorge wasn't too long but it was just nice to get some fresh air and exercise.

On Thursday night I saw an advertisement for a live wrestling show in Hiroshima. So Asuka, Mike and I met up with Rob and went to the same club we went to for Halloween, Chinatown. The place is tiny, but they ended up having 4 kick ass wrestling matches. What was really cool was how we were front row for all the action. They had crazy flips, broken tables and some pretty sweet characters. Rob and I managed to go right up to the ring and it was just pretty neat to see these guys beat the crap out of each other a few feet from us.

There were also rap performances before hand, and I often say that Japanese “hardcore” – is really softcore compared to back home. I dubbed this one dude go-jyu-en, which is 50 cent in Japanese. He had all the tattoos and a fake gun in his belt buckle, it was sometimes laughable, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

The best part was seeing one of the wrestlers the next morning staying in our capsule hotel. I guess they don’t pay these wrestlers too well. But honestly, the production value was pretty darn good as they even had a little cage. All in all, a great night and one of the best I’ve had in Hiroshima.

This week, Mike and Asuka also went to elementary school with me. The kids were really excited and the classes went really smoothly. It was really neat showing a part of my life to Asuka and Mike and I think they thoroughly enjoyed being in the teaching environment. Some of the little kids are so cute and having mike and Asuka there really help make the classes even better as they were able to play the games with the kids. We had lunch with the kids at both schools and managed to snap a bunch of good class pictures.

Japanese factoid #47- In Japanese schools, your lunch is provided for you by the schools. You pay about two to three dollars per a meal and lunch is made at school. I really love my prepared lunch as it usually comes with bread or rice and a main and side dish. During festival season or special occasions you also get special treats. It’s great because you don’t have to worry about packing a lunch and it’s always really healthy for you. In fact, every calorie is counted and regulated. The proportions aren’t too bad too, as they give you just the right amount to not to be hungry or stuffed.