Pictures!

So here are a few photos I snapped with my iPhone (about all it's good for here in Japan, sadly). Some are great "Engrish" pics, one of a little "friend" we found outside our apartment (green bug) and one of my fly ride, a green Suzuki Alto (3 cylinders of fury!). Enjoy!

Up (to) date

So yeah. Japan is great! We live in a small rural (and I mean rural) town in the Ibaraki prefecture (like a Japanese state) called Namegata. There are rice fields as far as the eye can see. I'll probably post pictures of them later when we get internet access at home (hopefully at the end of May). Right now I am posting from our local library. I have seen one white person here other than Tessa and I since we have been in Namegata.

It is the start of Golden Week in Japan, which is three seperate holidays conveniently placed at the start of the week, so including the weekend, we get 5 days off in a row. We probably won't be able to do much during this time (money is still a bit tight until we get our first paycheck) but at least we'll be able to relax. There is a really nice aquarium in Oari that we'll have to visit sometime.

In case I hadn't said yet, I work at two Japanese Junior High Schools, one three days a week, and one two days a week. Basically, my job entails planning games and worksheets to be used in the classroom during my planning periods, and providing a native English speaking example in the classroom. Everyone at both schools has been very nice and accomodating. I like both schools for different reasons. Sakuragawa JH (which literally means "Cherry Blossum River") is very small, but very new, clean and high-tech. It's easier to get to know the teachers and the people there because there is less of them to know, and I'm there more often. Edosaki JH on the other hand is HUGE, 2-3 times larger, which is nice because I can blend in a bit better, and there is another ALT there too. His name is Lito and he is from the Phillipines. He's very nice and has a wealth of knowledge about living in Japan, which he has done for 7 years. The children at both schools are great. They are always very excited or embarassed to talk to me, and most of the time very curious. The Japan JHs have 3 grades: first year, second year, and third year, which by American standards would be 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. The fist years have little to no English experience. They are very eager to learn, though. The second years are somewhat eager, and the third years...not so much. Some of the third year students blatantly do no work at all in the class and either sleep or sit there and stare.

That is all for now, hopefully I'll be able to post one more time during the holiday, maybe even some amusing stories and annecdotes! Ja, ne!

Blogging at the Tamatsukuri Library

Hello again! Wow, two blog posts in one week, all this internet access is too much for me to handle!!! Haha...nothing could be further from the truth.

Japan's Golden Week begins tomorrow (although unofficially, people started celebrating last night). It goes from May 3-6, and basically combines several different holidays, including former holidays that have been replaced by new ones. I think (don't quote me on this) that during Golden Week, Japan celebrates the current Emperor's birthday, Greenery Day, Kid's Day (or just Boy's Day in the past), and a few other things. Of course, anything that gives Chris and I 3 days off (plus the preceding weekend) is fine by me!

On the list for these 5 days:
-tomorrow there is supposed to be a big boat festival on our lake, complete with a really old-fashioned boat being launched and cruising around for awhile
-maybe a trip to Tsuchiura, a city with a pop. of around 150,000 where there are actually things to do! We just want to explore the options.
-On Tuesday C and I celebrate our 3rd anniversary of unmarried couplehood, so we're driving to Tsukuba (pronounced Scuba) to find the only Mexican restaurant in our prefecture. C is really looking forward to beans and cheese and tequila!
-Maybe a drive out to the eastern coast to the town of Oarai, where there is a really neat-sounding aquarium. I'm talking big - they have dolphins! We drove past the town on our way to Mito for training, and it really reminded me of Santa Cruz, CA.
-Rest and Relaxation!!!

In global news, Swine　flu has now hit Japan. Our coordinator just emailed us with an official warning from the Japanese Ministry of Health, basically telling us not to travel to Mexico, and if we leave Japan for a trip, when we return we'll have to be tested at the airport. Otherwise, it's not a big deal. We're so used to seeing the face masks everywhere by now, that it wouldn't make any difference seeing more of them. I haven't worn one yet, but if I start getting sick I'll be expected to wear it at work, at least between lessons.

The other day, one of the homeroom teachers I work with asked me how many Japanese words I knew. Doubting myself, I said "uh, maybe 15??". Later, I realized I had completely underestimated my language acquisition during the last month. I actually wrote down all the words and phrases I've learned, and it's near 80! I'm sure I left a few off the list, too. So hurray for me! I'll be fluent in no time, right?

We signed up for home internet service, but it takes a month, apparently, so some time around May 30 I'll actually be able to post pictures! (I don't want to put them on any public computers...)

Over and Out.

3 Weeks of no internet is too long!

Hi Everyone,

I know you've all been holding your breath since our last post, so sorry if anyone has died of asphyxiation in these long 3 weeks. We still have no internet in our apartment, but hope to get that taken care of ASAP. We can check email at some of our schools, but it's not a place where we can blog from.

SO....We are living in a small, but fairly comfortable apartment in Asou, Namegata City. Asou used to be a tiny town, but 4 years ago it joined with a bunch of other nearby towns and became Namegata City. Think of it as a kind of neighborhood. All of Namegata City is extremely rural. We are practically surrounded by rice paddies and vegetable fields. We are constantly driving past old Japanese farmers, standing in the middle of their rice paddies working, or driving tractors down the highway very very very slowly....It's like this all over our prefecture, apparently. So no internet cafes, only one library (30 min away from our apt), and a few different shopping "plazas" we can get to within 20 or 30 min.

We loaded up at a few different 100 yen stores, where we found housewares, clothes drying racks (no dryers here!), and other miscellaneous goods. It took me at least a week to find some kind of lotion that was meant for my face (the first time I bought something that advertised a "beautiful skin experience" it turned out to be soap). Yes, aisles full of products labelled in Japanese characters is always an adventure.

School is pretty good. My first week was exhausting, what with meeting all the teachers, principals, etc, and going through a lot of the cultural niceties that I don't quite understand yet. Lots of green tea, lots. Now that I know how to drive to each school, and know the teachers I'm working with, it's much easier. I am provided with one lesson plan each week that I teach to all of my classes, with minor differences depending on the teacher. So on Mondays I am just getting a feel for that week's lesson, but by Friday I could do it in my sleep. Sometimes a class is doing a test or something, so the school throws a younger grade at me, assuming I have a lesson I can do with them. At first I was a bit overwhelmed - but grateful for all my preschool/daycamp experience. At least I know kids' songs and games I can pull out of my back pocket to do with younger kids.

I don't think anyone wants to read a 5 page blog post, although I could write 50 at this point. So I'll save some for next time. If you have Q's, please post them and I'll try to answer them in my next post.

Hope life is busy and happy for all of you - without internet we're fairly isolated. We don't even know what's going on in global news, so if something huge happens, don't expect that we'll know immediately.j

Take care, and practice your hashi (chopsticks) skills so you can keep up with us when we come back!

-Tessa Sensei / Miss Tessa (all my students call me one or both of these titles)

Japan, like woah.

Sorry for the lack of updates! We dont yet have net access at home, and we can't update our bog from the schools. More exciting info to (hopefully) come soon!!!

Training is done!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibaraki_Prefecture

Here's the link to the general area we will be living in, the Ibaraki prefecture. Our apartment will be in the town of Tamatsukuri, which is roughly 13,000 people. We haven't seen it yet, but Chris will be doing his interview with his Board of Education in Inashiki tomorrow, and he'll see some of the landscape on his drive down. Wish him luck!

I don't start till the 13th, so I don't know yet when I'll have my interview. These interviews are more for the BoE to get to know our personality and make sure we look presentable and capable. Today we practiced some Japanese, and worked on creating a short, formal introduction to the BoE or principal (and a more fun one for the first day of school when we introduce ourselves at an assembly). I'm feeling pretty good about pronunciation, but of course I need to really memorize my intro because I'll be doing at least 4 or 5 at each school I start at - that's 5 *8, so roughly 40 intros!!!

So for the next few days, we'll be hanging around our hotel in Mito, getting our hankos (signature stamps with a special character that we like or find special meaning in), and maybe doing a few local train trips to check out the region.

Hopefully the next time I post I'll have pictures to post of our area - it's a neat city!

Over and out.

Done with Training Day Two

Today was less intensive so that was nice. Now I have more time to post, so I'm going to try and give as much of that info as possible.

We have been in Japan for 4 days now I think. I haven't quite had a huge culture shock yet, but things are still a bit strange. Here in Mito, there is a lot less printed English around, but it is there in some places there is, like on the cars. There are all the makes of Japanese cars that you would find in the States, like Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mazda, etc; but not the Models. The Models are all written in English on the backs of the cars, but they are weird ones I've never heard of, like the Toyota Noah or the Honda Wish.

There are vending machines EVERYWHERE. Not snack machines, but beverage machines that dispense everything from soda to juice to water to hot coffee in cans and even beer. In one city block there usually is at least one machine on each side of the street, at least from what I have seen in Mito and Narita.

If you have ever seen pictures or videos of Japanese people wearing white surgical masks, I can tell you, they really do wear them here. If you have a cold or flu or any type of illness like that you are expected to wear one, and I have seen people wearing them everywhere I have gone.

The Japanese do not sign their name. On anything. They have a small stamp called a "hanko" that is about the diameter of a dime in the characters of their name. Tessa and I each need to get one to secure a "gaijin card" (basically a green card) and need that to get a Japanese bank account. Our name will have to be in Katekana (one of the scripts the Japanese use).

Oh, and tomorrow I have a meeting with the Board of Education in the area I am teaching in...hopefully that goes well.