I hike a sulphurous volcano and teach rowdy 6-year olds

On Tuesday I went to one of my elementary schools and taught the new 1st grade students for the very first time. They were all adorable, sticky, loud and totally excited about learning English. As usual I was mobbed, tickled and climbed on. One child decided he didn't want to participate, and turned blind and deaf and slumped to the floor like a pile of ooze while his classmates stepped on his head. Charming. Another child gave me a back massage, but it was hard to appreciate it because another little boy kept grabbing at my chest. What is up with that? Little kids in Japan - read, boys - seem to think that breasts and butts are fair game and it's open season all the time. It's so creepy! Where do they learn these things?

Now that the snow is gone and the weather is warm I've been doing a lot of hiking. Last weekend I climbed to the top of 'Yake Dake', which is an active volcano in the Japanese Alps. It was a great work-out, and the views were gorgeous, but the hike itself was really, really stinky thanks to the numerous sulphur vents. It's hard to enjoy lunch when everything smells like rotten eggs.

Off to Tokyo this weekend for a conference, huzzah!









I took this on my way up. There was still a bit of snow on the peak, and even more down in the forest.

















On the summit. It was really, really windy.


















A Japanese hiker and a putrid, yellow sulphur vent.















I took this picture on the way down.

Remember New Years? Part II:

After getting home I quickly made some soba noodles and incredibly managed to eat some. They're a traditional New Year's Eve food, meant to represent a long life. Then I bundled up and headed out into the crisp, snowy night.

My first stop was the string of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in the Higashiyama Temple District. At midnight the bells at the temples started ringing, and would continue until they'd been rung 109 times. Supposedly this is to banish the 109 'evils', and start the New Year off right.

A Buddhist priest ringing the bell. Locals are lined up to get their chance too.

I walked up the huge staircase to my favourite Shinto shrine which is located high up a hill, surrounded by towering pine trees. There was a special ceremony taking place, and a large bonfire had been lit. I stood in the glow of the fire while the priest chanted and offerings were made by serious looking men in suits. More and more people arrived, some carrying their New Years decorations from last year. Made from straw and paper, they were tossed into the fire. After the ceremony people approached the temple altar, bowed, clapped, and made their first prayers of the New Year. I did the same, and enjoyed a small cup of sake afterwards. Then I made my way back down the hill to Kokubunji Temple, my favourite Buddhist temple in the middle of town. I stood in line to ring the bell, and soon got to climb the wooden ladder up to the bell tower. I rang my first New Years bell ( I was ring number 97), was given a sugar cake in the shape of a flower, and then walked home while the final bells rang through the clear night sky.

A blazing fire outside of a Temple

Offerings for New Years

The bell tower at Kokubunji Temple

The next day I walked through town, visiting more shrines and enjoying the peace and quiet.

At a local shrine a short walk from my apartment

A lion keeping watch in the snow

Naka Bashi (aka The Red Bridge) in the snow

Walking around was also a great chance to admire the many different New Years decorations (called 'shimenawa') that people had displayed outside their homes. Some were very simple straw and paper:



Some were simple branches of greenery (my favourite):


Some were more elaborate. The one's decorated with bright red crayfish seemed to decorate the doors of shops and inns.

Some people don't stop at mere door decorations. This shop had a whole display, including one in the window:

Remember New Years? Part I: I have a bath and eat a lot

So my original plans were to go to Thailand and Cambodia with some friends; however, when it came time to buy tickets I discovered that recently buying a car meant that I had no money. So I decided to suck-it-up and experience a traditional New Years in Japan - not exactly a terrible thing to do. As it turns out, I got sick over the holidays, which would have made for a terrible time overseas. So I guess it was just mean to be.

When my Taiko sensei heard that I was staying in Takayama she immediately invited me over for New Year's Eve dinner with her family. I jumped at the chance. After a rather painful 'conversation' over the phone (it's much harder to speak Japanese when you can't gesture wildly to help get your point across) I agreed to help B.-sensei clean the Taiko dojo, and then help her with dinner preparations.

The dinner she (we!) prepared was incredible. There was nabe (hot pot), huge crabs, a million little dishes of salads and different beans etc. There was fish and mountain vegetables and pickles and fruit. And plenty of beer and sake. I spent the afternoon peeling and chopping and stirring and stuffing and arranging.

Around 3:30, before her daughter's family came over, I was told that it was now time for me to take a bath and relax. Ok. Bathtime. I was given a towel and led to the family shower/bath room. As I was scrubbing myself off (in Japan you wash yourself outside of the bath) B.-sensei walked in! She had an armful of roses, which she proceeded to dump in the bathtub. Then she turned on the radio and told me to take my time. Then she finally left. I finished with the soap and climbed into the bath, which was full of roses. How... romantic? The radio was tuned-in to a heavy rock station that just happened to be blasting AC/DC. So I spent the afternoon of New Year's Eve taking a romantic bath, listening to AC/DC, in my Taiko-sensei's house. I bet you've never done that before!!

After my bath the rest of the family came over - kids in pajamas - and we tucked-in to dinner.



It was great to be a part of a informal, family gathering, and although we couldn't have any truly meaningful conversations, we did the best with the help of several electronic dictionaries. (After much beer and sake had been consumed I was 'asked' why there was discrimination in America. How does one answer that exactly?) In Japan there are some traditional New Years games that are played, and the B. family also had their own. The whole family played Hide and Go Seek and Karuta - kind of like the card game 'Snap'. Then they brought out an elaborate bean-bag toss game which I was terrible at. Whenever the kids 'won', they were given gift-certificates to local toy stores. They had an absolute ball! B.-sensei's 5 year old granddaughter - whose name I can't remember now - drew me pictures and made sure I was surrounded with her stuffed animals at all times.


As the night wore on, more food was eaten and drinks consumed. The grandson spent the night with his face buried in crab shells - he was after a delicacy known as 'Kani Miso' aka. Crab Brains. B.-sensei enjoyed her sake and turned a brilliant cherry red. I impressed everyone with my chopstick skills. Eventually I had to say goodbye, despite B.sensei's protests. (she sat on the hood of my car and tried to tackle me to the ground). It was a fun evening, but as midnight approached I wanted to be out among the shrines and temples.

Natto. I can't escape! HELP!

So today they served natto for lunch. Natto, for those of you who are blissfully unaware, is fermented soy beans. It's stinky, and stringy (think snotty), and absolutely an acquired taste. One of the fist things people ask you in Japan is "Can you eat natto?" They do so with a slight smirk and a gleam in their eye, and are sooo disappointed if you can answer "Why yes! I quite enjoy stinky, slimy fermented soy beans. Why, natto is delicious! "

I cannot eat natto.

Unfortunately the smell wafts and permeates, so I also am unable to get away from it. I'm in for a long afternoon. (And all the teachers are laughing at me)

right now...

i would like a library full of children's books. like this one. i love that place! i'm currently craving some little house, some secret garden. kid's books in general. what i wouldn't do for a quick peek into the moons of madeleine. or to try and find a copy of b is for betsy, which i hear they're re-releasing in paperback. usually my books are there for me when i need them, and i'm used to having many, large libraries at my disposal. *sigh*

now, to change the topic. this is a picture of the february portion of my current wall calendar. doesn't it remind you of allan gardens in toronto?!

Some pictures

I apologize for not updating more frequently. It's a shame too since I've done and seen some pretty awsome things and people (Neko Case!!) Instead here are some pictures:

This is me and K. enjoying ourselves at the JET Mid-year Conference (the second one!) in Gifu city a couple weeks ago.

This is me on the chairlift at Honoki Ski Jo. Back when we had snow. This year has been the warmest winter on record, or so my JTE claims. Normally at this point in February there's still a meter of snow on the ground. Today it poured rain all day, which it normally doesnt' do until the end of March. I wish my apartment would clue-in and start getting warmer.

The teacher's room at my Jr. High School, minus any teachers or students. My desk is in there somewhere. You can just barely make out the Little House on the Prarie stovepipe up at the front. I'm taking the picture from the kitchen area, which despite the stove and fridge, is really the exclusive coffee and cigarettes area.

This was today's Kyushouku, or School Lunch. It was so gross I had to take a picture. In the upper left-hand corner is a bowl of cold, fried tofu, konyaku (tastes like absolutely nothing feels like hard jello, is purple in colour), and a super hard-boiled egg that was so dry it sucked all the moisture from my mouth. Everything is covered in a brown sauce that tasted like... brown. Next to that is a bowl of white rice, the only thing that saved the meal for me and got me through the rest of the day still breathing. Below the rice is a large serving of cabbage salad covered in purple flakes that tasted... bad. I don't know quite how to describe it. Normally I like cabbage salad, but the purple flakes ruined it completely. Bleh. And finally, the plate of purple squid. If it had come battered and deep-fried, all would have been well - although that's a lot of calamari! - but this one came cold, slimy, and with a long spiney thing inside that everyone had to pull-out.

On days like this I would kill for one of thepeanut-butter and lettuce sandwiches that my brother and I used to get back in elementary school. I hated them at the time (who puts lettuce in a peanut-butter sandwich! Dad!), but anything would be better than today's meal of purple.

A Week in Takayama

On Saturday and Sunday I:

• fell on my ass repeatedly. I went snowboarding both days and tried to learn how to carve. It didn't work out so well for me or my bottom half.

On Monday I:

• ate nothing but apple pie for lunch. On Monday, school lunch consisted of cream soup, udon noodles to eat in the cream soup, apple pie, and whole fish tossed with almonds. Because of my lactose issues I couldn't eat the soup, which meant I couldn't eat the noodles, which left the fish and the pie. You try eating a plateful of silver fish - eyes, tails and fins included - tossed with almond flakes! Hence the meal of pie. Oishii.

On Tuesday I:

• received instructions about what to teach next week at one of my Elementary schools. For the 5th years it said: " Teach dairy activities with gestures". Dairy activities. I imagined myself trying to teach 10 year olds how to milk a cow and separate curds and whey. How was I going to do that in English? And it's not like I have a clue. But then one of my JTE's suggested that perhaps they meant 'daily' activites, like go to bed and brush your teeth. Right.

On Wednesday I:

• helped teach a class where we played a song and had the students arrange the lyrics in the correct order. At the end of the class I had written the following on the blackboard : Doo-wop, sha-la-la-la, bulimia, Karen Carpenter. Not that it was my choice in the first place, but perhaps 'Yesterday Once More' isn't the best song to do in an activity like this.

On Thursday I:

• helped teach a class that was suspiciously like a black mass. At one point the teacher had me reading a story out of the textbook, backwards while holding the book upside down. Doing that for too long can mess with your head.

And today I:

• woke-up to find I had no hot water in my apartment. I ended up washing my hair in ice-cold water, boiling water on the stove to wash my face, and all in an apartment with a temperature that was hovering around 7 degrees C.

Viva Japan!

Carols, Christmas Cake and another Cute Cushion

So about Christmas. I had to work on Christmas day, which was a new experience, and I have to admit I was pretty depressed that morning. Christmas is a huge deal in my family, and nearly everyone in Takayama had returned home or had flown-off someplace warm for the holidays. It was rather difficult waking up alone on Christmas morning and then heading off to work. I don't recommend it. However, things picked up considerably that afternoon when I got together with the few remaining ALTs - all of us Canadian - and sang Christmas carols at a local hospital in red Santa hats and white beards. The patients could have cared less but we certainly cheered ourselves up! Then we all met at M's house for a rather non-traditional dinner of Christmas sushi. It was lovely! (We all met up again a few days later for a second attempt at Christmas dinner, this one more traditional and decidedly Canadian. The menu included: a crazy amount of appetizers, including pate from Spain, fresh guacamole - courtesy of moi - and a cream cheese salmon/shrimp spread, roast chicken, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatos, yams, 2 tortierres !!!, salad, rolls, oranges, maple sugar pie, and christmas cake. Oh, and there was mulled wine, beer, plum wine and sake. Everything, minus the crackers and pate, was homemade and everything was deliriously delicious. We all rolled home)

Christmas in Japan is interesting: decorations go up and carols start playing by the beginning of November, all in English, of course. Santas and Christmas trees are everywhere, as are tacky home light displays. But Christmas isn't a holiday, most families don't really have trees or stockings, and children get one gift from their parents if they get anything at all. The only 'tradition' that the Japanese seem to have is the ordering and eating of a Christmas Cake. In Japan, this means a sweet, vanilla cake piled high with lots of sugary frosting, strawberries and little plastic decorations. The dark, candied-fruit version that we're familiar with would NOT go over well here! We actually got some with our school lunch on Christmas Day, and all the students were super-excited. Even the sulky 3rd years who are heading off to highschool in a few months. It was pretty cute. Oh, and as I was walking home after our Christmas sushi dinner, I noticed that every single decoration had been taken down. Not a trace was left. Very efficient I suppose.

My little school lunch Christmas cake. It came in a cute box with directions on how to open it. It was pretty self-explanatory, but still, how thoughtful!

Canadian expats sitting down to dinner

And finally, on the 26th I went to my school's big, year-end staff party, called a "bon-enkai". It was held in a beautiful onsen-hotel in the town of Gero (famous for it's onsens and hotels), and during dinner all the men insisted on wearing their yukatta (light, traditional bath-robes). Fine, they were probably more comfortable than pants and a shirt, but loose cotton robes and free-flowing beer and sake don't mix well. Things become even more liberated when you throw karaoke into the mix. Oy. But hey, remember my sushi pillow? At the enkai the teachers did a small gift-exchange, and I am now the proud owner of a tofu pillow:

If you don't like cute, don't come to this country.

Ken-bu Performance

Back sometime in December - last year was such a blur - I had my first Kenbu performance at the Takayama cultural centre. I wasn't feeling the greatest that day, but we were all happy with the results. Just not our headbands.

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu...

... Meri Karisumasu etc.


first here are some more pictures of my apartment:

Thank goodness for that!

Two weekends ago I was walking down the main street of Takayama when I spotted two women - western women and obviously tourists - holding a map and looking lost. I stopped and asked if I could help them out and we started chatting. Suddenly one of the women turned to me and said,

"By the way, your English is excellent!"

I paused and then replied "Why thank-you! I am Canadian..."

She looked a bit flustered for a second and then said something about how she would have known if only I'd said 'aboot', hahaha. And I explained about teaching English with the JET Programme etc.

They eventually went on their way. I was relieved to hear that my English speaking abilities haven't diminished after 4.5 months of living in Japan.

Wheels, Weddings and Winter Vegetables !!!

The Wheels:

So, I've bought my first car. It's small, red, and zippy, and it has a turbo engine. This helps immensely on the steep, twisty mountain roads here in the Hida region. A few days after I got it I took it on a road trip down to Lake Kawaguchi (at the base of Mt. Fuji - it was breathtaking) and it handled things beautifully. My first car! It's already starting to accumulate a small amount of junk, although so-far there are no plates of toast on the floor (does anyone remember Morello's car?)

I'm already embarrassed about the dorky spoiler so SHUSH!

The Wedding:

Last weekend a fellow ALT married his Japanese girlfriend, and everyone attended. It was a Buddhist ceremony held in the local temple of a nearby village, and it was quite beautiful and dignified, but also seemed quite personal and heartfelt; although they rented traditional Japanese wedding costumes, it was for tradition and not for show. Everyone who showed up for the ceremony was there to support the bride and grooom, and the ceremony itself was fascinating - in short, it was a happy occasion!

The Bride and Groom

Group shot

Exchanging prayer beads with the priest

Yes, they were adorable. And played a very important part in the ceremony! (they poured the sake, several times in fact)

The wedding party

The Winter Vegetables !!!:

My landlords - who I've never met - dropped off a box of home-grown vegetables for me. I was quite suprised and touched! They left me cabbage, leeks, daikon, potatoes, rice and some leafy-thing rather like parsley, all of it grown by themselves. I called to thank them, but since they don't speak English and my Japanese is still pretty rudimentary, the call went something like this:

Me: Hello! This is Erin, the ALT! Thank-you so very much for the vegetables and rice!

Them: something something something - winter vegetable!

Me: Yes! Thank-you so very much for the vegetables!

Them: Ahh, something something something vegetables!

Me: umm.... yes! vegetables! thank you! i like vegetables!

And so on. But they did seem quite tickled that I'd called. I think I'll send them a Christmas card. Anyways, here's a picture of my vegetables!

Sushi Pillow!!

This is 'Ebi'. She's a piece of shrimp sushi. She's also a pillow. She cost me 430 yen. She rocks!

Pictures of my apartment

Chickpeas, I've missed you so

Two weekends ago I was in Nagoya, which is a very nice, modern city I'd like to go back to someday. Amongst other things, Nagoya has a foreign food store. This is what I came back with (I'll only allude to how ridiculously expensive these purchases were).

Two Weekends Ago, Part II

Technically it's Three Weekends Ago, but we'll overlook it this time. And now that I'm finally connected to the internet at my apartment (while sitting under my kotatsu, which I'll explain about in a forthcoming post), I should be able to update more frequently.

I believe I covered the market, temples and gardens of Kyoto, so now it's time for

People

It was C's birthday so first we made him blush by singing 'Happy Birthday' in the Chinese restaurant (it was a decidedly non-singing sort of place) ;then we went out for karaoke.

Some of us at the Imperial Palace

These (japanese) guys were stirring things up at an Irish pub we dropped by, and they were really good! I forget their band's name, but it was weird and had the word 'milk' in it.


Geisha

This is a picture of an old-world geisha disappearing into a modern, urban nightscape *roll eyes here* but seriously, these woman have magical powers. We saw two geisha walking down the street that night on two separate occasions, and both times when we tried to take pictures strange things happened to our cameras. In my case, the camera refused to focus for the 30 seconds or so we had to take an effective photograph, and my friend's camera suddenly ran out of batteries, for those 30 seconds or so only! Crazy.

Look closely: there are two geisha in this photo. You can the backs of their heads. Let's not disturb them though, we want to observe, not intrude. And thus concludes our thrilling attempt to capture the elusive geisha in her natural habitat. The end.


Our Ryokan

Thanks to C, we got to spend several nights at the lovely Casa de Natu Inn, a traditional ryokan. This was the girls room.

Another shot of the girl's room. It was everything you'd expect a traditonal Japanese to be.

Breakfast on the floor in the hallway

This chair was awsomely creepy.



The ryokan garden



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