Fukuoka Auto Show

This weekend I went to the Fukuoka Auto Show with some friends. I got to sit on the most powerful motorcycle in the world (Kawasaki ZX-14) and in an army vehicle of some kind. It was pretty much like any other auto show I've been to, just a little smaller and more cramped. There was a small room showcasing alternative fuel powered vehicles, which was pretty interesting. I saw a scooter made by this college team that runs on ethanol and/or old beer.

Ouch! Snowboarding.

Last weekend I went on a road trip to a skiing spot in Shimane prefecture (north of Hiroshima). To say the least, it hurt a lot. But, it was really really fun and I can't wait to do it again.

We left Nagasaki around midnight on Friday and drove for 6 hours.  We took an hour nap in the parking lot waiting for the rental shop to open and then dove in.  To our disappointment we happened to choose Family Day and Ladies' Day, so there were a lot of people there, namely a lot of families. On the plus side, I got a free soft drink for being a lady.

It took me awhile to get the hang of snowboarding. I started out learning with my friend, but I decided to go out on my own for awhile and just practiced over and over and finally I started getting it. By the end of the first day I had improved a lot.  However, this process did not come painlessly. In fact, by the end of the day I had a very sore butt, sore knees and a swollen hand from all the falling and sliding I'd done. But the pain was worth it and I was excited to get on the slopes again the next day. 

The weather the next day was not quite as pleasant, although there were far fewer people. It was very foggy, snowy and cold, so I was a little hesitant and didn't really like going down the hill without being able to see much, so I wasn't too eager to try many new things. I did get a little better and was much more comfortable. However after a few hard falls (since I was going faster now, I was falling faster, which hurts more!) on the same spot on my hip and bum, I decided I needed to take it a little easy.

It was so much fun! There are spots closer to Nagasaki, but I hear they aren't as good. So we'll see when I get to go again.

On another note, we have been getting quite a bit of snow in Omura lately. Today, it snowed for a good few hours and even stuck to the ground for a bit. The snowflakes were huge! It was fun to  play in it with my elementary school kids, but boy was it cold! I'm not a fan of being able to see my breath in the hallway! I haven't left my house with less than 5 layers (3 being jackets!) in a long time. I don't understand how some of my students can run around in shorts and a thin a jacket, they're crazy!

Usually the snow doesn't stick for long, but a few years ago they had about 6 inches, so maybe we'll get some of that this year too.

Horses, Yards and Mayonnaise

As you know, I spent 18 wonderful days in the US over the holidays. Seeing that I was with most of you for the majority of my time there, I am not going to recount it.

I did, however, have to tell some 500 odd students about it. I can't say it was really an exciting vacation, not to say it wasn't fun. But really, sitting at home with my family watching three seasons of the IT Crowd is not exactly something my students want to hear about.  While preparing my lesson about my vacation, I was saved by my foresight of taking pictures of pretty normal things in America that I thought might interest or even blow-the-minds-of my students. And blow their minds I did.



While I have told them all that we keep a horse (now horses), it was probably a year and a half ago that they heard it, so they all forgot. In preparation of the first photo, I asked them if they remembered what kind of pets we had, mentioning that two are "very big animals". They most often shouted out "lion," "elephant," and for some reason, "snake." So, as with the response I got the first time around, seeing this photo of me riding Festus made jaws drop and kids start yelling "okanemochi" (rich person).

I didn't expect to get quite the explosive reaction as I did for the next jaw-dropper. I pulled out a picture of this play-set that was in someone's backyard in Ann Arbor. My students spend a lot of time at school and at parks; they don't have yards to play in, so when it's time to play outside it's on the dirt "field" and the jungle gym at school. Every time I showed this picture I had to restate several times that this was in fact not in a park, but in someone's yard. They couldn't believe it and again the "okanemochi"'s rang out.


The funniest picture for me to show was this picture of the mayonnaise selection at Hiller's. Mayonnaise in Japan is not really like the stuff at home. With only a single producer (maybe?), Kewpi (read Q-P),  it comes in a squeeze bottle, more like ketchup, it's a little more sour and it's used as anything from a salad dressing to a pizza topping. I asked my students to raise their hand if they liked mayonnaise and surprisingly usually only a handful would, but, regardless, it's a national staple. So then I dropped the bomb shell. I'd point to every row and repeat "mayonnaise". In unison the entire class (and often times the teachers) would exclaim, in the oh so Japanese way, "eeeeeeeeeh?!" I got similar, but not quite as impressive reactions for the Oreo selection and the bread aisle.

It's funny how such simple things in one culture is mind-boggling in another.

I also showed them one dollar bills. To my surprise, kids as young as 4th grade would start spewing the current exchange rate and talking about Freemasons (the latter of which I can only postulate that they learned from the movie National Treasure).  I still have no idea why so many of them knew the exchange rate.

Happy Halloween!

If you didn't know already, Halloween is my favorite holiday.  Halloween in Japan, while not non-existent, lacks the substance and creativity of Halloween in the US. There is no trick-or-treating, no American candy (which I find to be far superior), few costumes and most kids don't really understand it.  So, I teach extraordinary Halloween lessons. This year, I made 3 girls cry from fear/ disgust.

The first part of the lesson was just introducing Halloween words, then we moved into the serious stuff.
First, I got very serious and told them that I had cut off the fingers and skin, and took out hearts, brains and eyeballs of last year's bad students- then to make sure the current students would be good, I made everyone touch said items. 


I prepared 5 bags of said items:
Eyes= pickled quail eggs (better than grapes because they pop if you squeeze too hard).
Brains= konnyaku (http://www.kki.yamanashi.ac.jp/~t04kg014/konnyaku.gif).
Skin: katsuo bushi (sliced, dried bonito).
Heart: one day peeled tomatoes, the next day canned peaches.
Fingers: Chikuwa http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Chikuwa.jpg

After feeling everything and getting thoroughly grossed out the students guessed what each item actually was. It so fun!  

At school, I dressed up as a black cat, but for the annual ALT Halloween party, I dressed up as a mummy.  The party which is hosted in my town at a campsite, is really fun because for all the ALTs and friends not from the US or Canada, it is a special treat because they didn't have Halloween growing up.  Almost everyone gets really into it, with great, often homemade, costumes. The winner this year was Muammar Gaddafi, although there was a great Mr. T, trio of Wizard of OZ characters, and the three blind mice.

For my costume, I went to the "dollar store" and bought A LOT of gauze and wrapped myself up from head to toe.  I wrapped over some leggings and a sweatshirt to ensure warmth!  People really liked it. The only problem was that my face got really itchy after a few hours! 

Mr. T and Gaddafi

Wizard of OZ

Mummy!

Jean Clawed Van Frog and the Disappearers

Last weekend I got myself an aquarium and some new friends.  Picking who and what would come home with me was very stressful.  I wanted fish, but I also wanted frogs and I also wanted a sea crustacean, but there was no way they could all live together. I finally decided on 3 frogs and 5 mini- shrimp.  The frogs are African Clawed frogs, two white, one black. The black one I named Hot Rod, but I couldn't decide on names for the white ones for a few days.

Unfortunately, the next day one of the shrimp was dead.  As sad as I was, I took him out of the tank with chopsticks.  I thought the worst was over, but then...

When I got home one night, after being away for only a few hours, one white frog and one shrimp were gone.  Not dead, gone.  They were nowhere in the tank. I checked the filter, I checked around the tank (despite having a lid, who knows what these guys can do?) NO LUCK! They disappeared. Either they got buried under the dirt and have yet (a week later) to float up, or they were eaten by the other frog.

Still no signs of them but thankfully none others have gone missing.

The other day I decided on the name for the other white frog, Jean Clawed Van Frog-get it? He's a clawed frog.

Oh Noh!

This weekend I attended a free Noh performance in Shimabara (the southern peninsula of Nagasaki prefecture).  Noh is a very traditional classical drama.  This particular production was supposed to be outdoors, lit only with bonfires surrounding the stage, known as Takigi O-noh.  However, due to the rain, it was moved into an indoor location.

So, as you know, where most people have problems falling asleep, I have problems staying awake. It's not hard to imagine what happened; dark, warm, incomprehensible....as hard as I fought my eyes would not cooperate.  Unfortunately I was dozing in and out for the first 4 plays and was out cold for most of the final (and apparently, best) one. 

I did see some of it though. The night started out with some short performances by a children's noh group which was really cute. They also were the main actors in one of the 5 primary plays about a fisherman. 

Two of the plays had live music with drums and flutes, which was... interesting. At points I questioned whether it was music or just noise, but it was cool nonetheless.

The final play, about demons and ghosts, featured special masks used in noh. Depending on the angle the actor positions his head, the expression on the mask changes. I didn't actually see this (sleeping) and didn't learn about it until after. So maybe, if I ever see it again, I'll keep my eye out (and open) for it.

Noh actors manipulate their voices in such a way that makes singing/speaking sound pretty goofy and they used very classical Japanese, so even Japanese people had a hard time understanding. 

All in all, I'm glad I had this opportunity to see it and I am pretty annoyed I couldn't stay awake. However, not sure if I'd go out of my way to see it again.

Camping at the Bottom of a Volcano

Okay, I admit, it's not quite as exciting as the title makes it seem.  I took another trip to Kumamoto prefecture to see Mt. Aso, the most active volcano in Japan.  Despite not having lava, it's still really cool because it has a green lake of aqueous sulfur.  It was really clear this time around so I could see it a lot better.

My two friends and I were planning on going on a two day hike and camping somewhere out in the wilderness, but plans changed so we ended up just hiking somewhere else in the day and stayed the night at a campsite. 

Our hike was really fun, we walked up to the highest peak around. Within the hike we climbed 850 stairs. The view from the top was really nice, but would have been better if it weren't so hazy. 

Since it's fall, the nights are pretty cool. So in anticipation of the chill of sleeping in a tent, I went to sleep with 3 layers of pants, 4 layers on top, a hat and my sleeping bag. I was well prepared and miraculously didn't get cold! Amazing!

It was a short, but fun trip. Perfect weather.




Sidenote: We met an old man selling rocks who told me 23 is getting old and I should hurry up and get married. Haha! No way old man!