January, AKA Why is it snowing? This is why I left Canada!

Look at me, attempting to get better about posting.  I feel so accomplished!  (That'll last about half a week.)

After finishing up my holidays at home, I headed back to Japan, which was something of a nightmare.  I had my window seat, as always, but next to me was a rather broad man who couldn't help but constantly encroach on my space.  For thirteen hours.  And the Air Canada movie choices kinda really sucked, so I didn't have much to do.  Joy.  My flight was scheduled to get in just after 5, so I'd have time to head into the city, grab food at the station, and then make my way home on the shinkansen.  For reasons I don't understand (since we took off on time) we were a half hour late getting into Tokyo, and then I had to wait almost an hour for my luggage.  Then after customs & immigration, it was another 20-ish minutes for me to ship one of my suitcases to my apartment.  Slow walkers in front of me meant that I reached the platform just in time for the doors of my train into the city to close in front of me.  I waited the four minutes for the next one, and headed to Shinagawa.  I had to wait in line while four trains I could have taken left without me, because apparently they don't actually believe in keeping the office fully staffed until the last train in Tokyo.  Three service desks closed up while I was in line, leaving only three open to service all of the people in front of me.  I got a ticket on the last train I could possibly have taken into Nagoya to make it back to my place in time, and had to hasten, Princess Diaries-style, for the platform to catch my train.

When I got into Nagoya, I could wait and take a series of trains that were the last ones for the night, meaning I would have to make all of my transfers perfectly, or I could pay more money and get a seat on the faster, fancier limited express trains.  Given how everything else had gone that evening, I elected to pay the extra for the reserved seat.  My one lucky break was that I found the bag of cookies my mom had given me to put in my carry-on that I'd forgotten about, so that kind of made up for not having time to get food?  I guess?  In any case, the sugar improved my mood slightly.  I got home at 11:45 at night, and then tried to wind down as fast as possible, since I had to go to work the next day.  Moral of the story?  Never fly back the evening before you have to work unless your flight actually flies into where you need to be.

The beginning of the next week was our annual ALT Skills Development Conference, which is exactly as boring as it sounds.  Probably 80% of it just involves me trying to stay awake.  Also, it decided to snow a lot, and was generally cold and miserable outside.  The cool part was that on the evening of the first conference day, our AJET group had planned a Pub Quiz, and I was invited to join a team.  The even cooler part is that we won, thus proving that we knew more useless information than everyone else in the room.  That's....something to be proud of, right?  We won Mie JET hoodies/shirts (whichever one we wanted; I chose hoodie) and a bottle of wine, which we shared with snacks in the park after the second conference day because that's legal in Japan and we're classy like that.

That Saturday, Mary and I celebrated her birthday by traipsing about Nagoya and eating all of the food.  Seriously.  So much food.  We also apparently did a lot of impulse shopping, since the phrase, "Oh yeah, I forgot I bought that..." was used more than once.  We got Turkish food for lunch, bought some small snack bags of some really great chocolate & orange flavoured popcorn, hummus (!!) at a Halal grocery store, English books (!!!!) at a rather large secondhand store, and then hit up an American-style sports bar for dinner.  The last part was especially awesome for me, because I'd been craving a quesedilla since 4:30AM, and they had that on the menu.  I will definitely be going back there.  We also stopped in at this super tiny and adorable Alice in Wonderland shop that I had no idea existed but was thoroughly awesome.  It's so tiny you have to wait in line because the store holds so few people at once!

I think the only other thing of interest this month was finally getting to play the Zombie Outbreak game that Ros and I designed in September.  Those of you who have played the game Mafia or Werewolf (I think it's got another name or two as well...) will recognize elements, as will anyone who's ever played Wink Murder.  It's like those, but also really not, and with learning objectives!  We spent an entire day developing this thing over text messages at work (I had no lessons, Ros was bored), and I'm pretty proud of the outcome.  (So many times I'd start typing out "official" rules, and then have to text, "Wait.  What if such and such situation happens?"  And then we'd have to redo part of the game again.)  The kids really seemed to enjoy it, though I think it needs a bit of tweaking, numbers-wise.  My initial instructions made for too many doctors and not enough zombies when we actually played.  For those interested, here's the initial instructions (numbers to be adjusted for different class sizes as necessary).  For those not interested, skip over the red text.

Zombie Outbreak!

There has been a virus outbreak!  Some people are only a little bit sick, but other people have been turned into zombies!

The goal is to quarantine (“out”) all of the zombies!

 

Each student is given a card.  There are 3 doctor cards and 3 zombie cards to start.  Everyone else has a symptom and a temperature on their card.  Everyone should look at their card secretly.

 

Doctors should sit at the back of the room (their “offices”). 

 

Other students will walk around the room and speak to each other.  After greeting each other with “Hello,” the pair will play “rock, paper, scissors.”  The loser must ask the winner, “How are you?” and the winner will answer.

-       If the winner is sick, they should say “I have          “. 

Ø  If there is a doctor available, the loser should answer, “You should see a doctor.” 

Ø  If the doctors are all busy, the loser should answer, “You should get some rest.” (If the loser is a zombie, they should always say this answer.)

-       If the winner is a zombie, they should say, “I’m a zombie!”

Ø  The loser should bring the zombie to the Check Point (ALT).

²  The pair will be given a pop quiz from the ALT.  If the zombie gets more points, the other student is given a zombie card (unless they are “immune”) and both are released.  If the other student wins, the zombie is quarantined (out of the game), and the other student goes back to the game.

Ø  If the loser is also a zombie, they can say “Me too!” and end the conversation.  A zombie should not bring another zombie to the Check Point.

-       If the winner has been cured by a doctor already, they should say, “I’m fine, thanks.”

*******The conversation should only go one way.  Students should NOT use “And you?” or ask how the other person is feeling. ********

If a student goes to see the doctor, they have this conversation:

Doctor: What’s the matter?

Student: I have             .

Doctor: I see.  What’s your temperature now?

Student:         .

Doctor: OK, I’ll give you a prescription.

After this conversation, the doctor will hold out a set of cards (“prescription”) to the student.  The student will choose one and look at it.  The card will either say “Medicine” (not sick anymore) or “Immunity” (not sick anymore AND can’t be turned into a zombie even if they lose at the Check Point).  The student gives their illness card to the doctor and keeps the new card.

The game ends when either all the zombies are caught (the remaining students win) or there are three more zombies left in the game than students (zombies win).

Pop Quiz!

-       ALT will point to a body part.

-       Student has 5 seconds to say the name of that part.

Ø  If they get it right, they get a point.

Ø  If they get it wrong, or don’t answer in time, they don’t get a point.

-       Each student will be asked three questions.

-       In case of a tie, each student should cut a deck of cards.  The higher cut wins.

Obviously this was something we were doing at the end of their unit on injury and illness.  It was a bit chaotic, but like I said, they seemed to enjoy it, and it was a good way to incorporate all the parts of the unit.  I still feel indebted to the Australian teachers who were here with the exchange group back in September/October, because I coerced them into reading the instructions to make sure they made sense to people other than Ros and I.

And that's about it.  It's still snowing at least once a week, which I thoroughly do NOT enjoy.  I'll have a post about some February stuff soon (ish).

Another Tokyo Adventure

So it`s been three weeks.  Again, I kinda forgot that this was something I do.  I think partly it`s because I`ve been reading, and partly because I`ve hit a wall of ennui due to the utter lack of work I`ve had for a month now.  Everyone who knows me knows I don`t do well with boredom. 

Almost literally nothing has happened to me since my last update (again, see my lack of work).  But I guess I can tell you about my trip to Tokyo?  I mean, most of it was focused on Disney again, because I`m me and I really don`t go to Tokyo for anything else, but I can still tell stories.

So I got into Tokyo at 6AM on March 16th, thanks to the glory (torture) that is the overnight bus, and made my way to Disneyland without incident, despite having to change trains at Tokyo Station (AKA Hell on Earth).  I met up with Ros, and we stood in line for a little less than an hour, waiting to get into the park.  We`ve never done actual restaurants at Disneyland before, so we`d decided that was something we wanted to do this trip.  We headed over to the Crystal Palace and had a lovely breakfast wherein Ros was startled by five different Winnie the Pooh characters as they came around to our table from behind her.  Did I laugh every time?  Yes, yes I did.  I`m such a caring friend.

When we finished breakfast, people were lining the streets for the first run of the event parade for Frozen Fantasy (the reason we were there - I still don`t love the movie as a whole, but it`s pretty, and Let it Go is a fun song to sing at the top of your lungs while flinging your arms about dramatically, which is something I already did so it justifies it).  The park wasn`t terribly busy, though, being a Wednesday of a non-holiday week, so at half an hour before parade time we got bench seats right outside the restaurant.  It was a big deal, and so luxurious-feeling!  I held our spots while Ros went to get Fastpasses for Space Mountain.

We managed to get done everything we wanted to, but a lot of our day was just spent wandering around.  We got a lot of Fastpasses, and other things didn`t have particularly long lines, so we just sort of strolled, ducking into shops and people-watching.  There were some really interesting pseudo-costumes (often known as "bounding", but that`s a lecture for another day)!  Ros also managed to get us some priority seats for the stage show One Man`s Dream II: The Magic Lives On. 

It`s your typical "characters on stage, with lots of dancer extras (most of whom are white, and that`s actually kind of really jarring)" thing, but it was really well done.  Plus the fact that we managed to get tickets was kind of awesome, because priority seats are given out via a lottery system that I can`t really explain.

Thursday was my lazy day.  I got to sleep in (thank god, because I didn`t really sleep on the overnight bus, and then going all day at Disneyland... I was exhausted!), and then just spend some time wandering around wherever I wanted.  I`ll be honest: Tokyo doesn`t thrill me, as a whole.  It was huge and exciting the first time I was there, six years ago, but since then it`s lost a lot of its awesome factor for me (I don`t think it helped that I went to Hong Kong).  So I went and got my train ticket for Sunday, and then wandered (AKA got lost in) Tokyo Station City, had some lunch, and then headed over to Ueno Park with my book to sit in the sunshine for a couple hours.  Turned out a couple of the park`s cherry blossom trees were blooming early, so I got to see those before I found a nice bench to park myself on. 

In the evening, I headed into Yokohama for the first time ever to meet with Ros for supper.  Yokohama has a really large Chinatown, and I`ve been craving Chinese food for months.  That craving hasn`t entirely gone away, because I want the sugar, MSG-infested, highly Americanized Chinese food, and what they have there is, like, legit Chinese food, but they still had sweet and sour pork, so that was alright.  Then we wandered around the harbour area so that I could see some of it, got brownie sundaes courtesy of the local Hard Rock Cafe, and called it a night.

Friday I got the chance to meet up with my friend Hitomi, who was one of my housemates for a while when I lived in Florida.  We met up in Asakusa, where the Kinryu no Mai (Golden Dragon Dance) was happening at Senso-ji.  This was actually a new experience for both of us, since being somewhat local means Hitomi doesn`t often do the big tourist things.  This was also her first temple visit of the year, so we made sure she did the obligatory fortune telling and such as we watched the giant dragon-on-a-stick parade around and dance.  It was really neat! 

We stopped for lunch at a really famous ramen restaurant, and I was surprised at how much I liked it!  I`m usually rather indifferent to ramen, but this stuff was really good!  Then we took a stroll around Hibiya Park before heading to our reservation for afternoon tea at The Peninsula Tokyo.  Hitomi had never done afternoon tea before; I`ve had it a few places, but The Peninsula Hong Kong was my favourite, so I knew the one in Tokyo would be high quality.  I was right!  The service was sakura (cherry blossom) themed (like everything else in Japan at the moment), but not overly so. 

The savory plate had a poppy seed waffle cone filled with green pea butter (this was actually my favourite savory item), egg and shrimp salad on a sakura bun, smoked salmon and cream cheese in a wrap, and I honestly have no idea what the tiny triple-decker sandwich was, but it was pretty good.  The scone plate featured both plain and strawberry scones, with dishes of Devonshire cream and raspberry-mint jam for spreading.  I didn`t think I would like the jam much, but it was actually delicious!  The dessert plate featured two kinds of cake (raspberry mousse and strawberry sakura, both of which were typical Japanese cakes), a strawberry tart, and a strawberry sakura madeleine that I probably could have eaten an entire pan of on my own.  We ate at a leisurely pace, so we each ended up having a different kind of tea with each plate.  I started out with the chocolate mint tea, moved to a rose hibiscus (which was much stronger and more hibiscus-y than I`d anticipated, unfortunately), and finished with some kind of vanilla tea that was really smooth. 

Saturday involved getting up at the crack of stupid to head out to DisneySea (worth it, always).  As soon as we were through the gates when the park opened, we waited in the half hour line for Fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania (which were for, like, 5:20-6:20 that night, and it was only 8:45AM!).  It started spitting while we were waiting to get into the park, and it just kept going, often a bit harder, for most of the day.  By the time we were out of the Fastpass line, we discovered that you can actually fit, like, four fully-grown humans under a standard umbrella when you`re not worried about silly things like personal space (welcome to Japan).  We went back and forth across the park I don`t even know how many times that day, checking the times on various rides.  Despite the fact that, at one point, the standby line for Toy Story was 4 hours long, all the popular rides were still at least an hour and a half wait, with most of them sitting around the two hour mark.  After hitting up the Arabian Coast for our beloved Nap Ride (it`s not actually called that; that`s what we call it.  It`s like `small world` but telling the story of Sinbad, and it`s very relaxing) and the carousel (which Aladdin was riding while we were waiting in line, and it was forty different kinds of exciting), we were able to get a Fastpass for something else, so we grabbed one for Tower of Terror and then went and stood in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth for two hours.  It was relatively warm, and definitely dry, so we were happy to wait.  Plus it`s not like we had much of a choice at that point.  We had a nice lunch of barbecue pork sandwiches at the Cape Cod Cook-Off, by which point my jeans were soaked from ankle to knee and my shoes were sloshing with every step.  It was gross and cold, but there was good food so I only complained a little.  We grabbed a Fastpass for StormRider, which was the only thing I was adamant that we needed to do that day, because they`re closing it permanently and I`ll never get to ride it again, and then... I dunno, did some shopping?  Whatever.  Not important.  We circled back to do all of our Fastpasses (once we returned to Toy Story, we still had to wait at least a half hour in line before we got on the ride), and then we had dinner reservations at Magellan's, which is one of the two fancy restaurants in the park.  It was so good!  It was a four course meal, with hors d'oeuvres, a soup or salad, a main course, and a dessert. 

I would definitely go there again, but there are so many other places to try!

Sunday was my last day in Tokyo, with my train departing in the late afternoon, so I coerced Ros and Hitomi to come with me for lunch to the Kawaii Monster Cafe.  I'd been wanting to go to this place for quite a while, because bright colours and cute things, so it was awesome to have willing company!  The food was pretty good (though Ros's sandwich took forever to come to the table), the atmosphere is awesome, and there's entertainment, too!  ...Ros and I ended up being part of the entertainment, which was unexpected, but a lot of fun.  We're just standing there, watching the Merry-Go-Round stage like everyone else, and then one of the hosts comes over to us and reaches out her hands to us, and we're like, "O...kay?"  So then we get pulled up onto the stage, and they're like, "We're going to dance together!" So we're taught this basic dance that's vaguely reminiscent of the Thriller hand motions, and we go round and round on the stage, doing this.  I felt a bit ridiculous, especially since my outfit was a clear statement of "Yes, I'm out for lunch, but then I'm going to sit on a train for three hours," so I wasn't exactly at my best to be stared at by everyone in the restaurant like that. 

And then we hung out around Harajuku and Shibuya until it was time for me to head off.  End of vacation!
 

WTF, Sports School?

Hey guys.  Still not much going on around here.  The school year is winding down (Japanese school and fiscal years run April - March), so I`m teaching my last few classes this week and next week, and then I have pretty much zero work to do in March.  I`m going to go out of my mind.  I predict another "What`s Happening in Mel`s Head" post in your future.

I was talking with one of my first year teachers today as we were walking back from class, and she said that she was surprised that one of the boys in the class was participating.  Apparently he was bullied at the beginning of the year by the older boys on the soccer team, so he is always really reserved (even for a Japanese kid).  I am choosing to take some credit for his new confidence.  My English classes are just so awesome and engaging that he can`t help wanting to participate!  And he`s quite good at English, too.  At least, his reading aloud is, which is what he usually volunteers for.

Oh, and I can also tell you about the school marathon, because that happened right after my last post.  So every year at the end of January, my school has a race that all the students are required to participate in (first and second years - by this point, third years are pretty much exempt from everything).  I use the term "marathon" here because that`s what the Japanese say, but it`s not a legit marathon.  The Japanese use the term "marathon" as a title for any distance footrace, regardless of whether or not it`s 26 miles.  In the case of my school, there are separate races for males and females.  Normally, the girls` race is 6K and the boys run 8K; there was construction along the usual route for the boys though, so they ran 6.5K instead.  I knew about the race in advance, and had even considered joining the students.  Then I got the plague, and there was no way I was putting my lungs through that, so instead I joined my supervisor at her assigned post near the finish to cheer the students on.  It was while I was chatting with her that I learned that not only are the students required (unless there`s a legit reason for them not to) to run this thing, they have to do it in a certain amount of time.  If they don`t manage to complete it in time, they have to do it again.  I don`t think they have to do it again the same day, but I didn`t really get clarification because my mind was too busy freaking out about this.  What the heck, sports school?!?!?  The girls have 50 minutes to complete the 6K.  That`s a pace of 8:20 per kilometer.  I can do that on a good day.  With a lot of warm up.  And if I`ve been keeping up with my training.  It seems less insane now that I`m doing the math, but at the time, I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment (I still kinda think that anyway, but that`s because I`m normally about as athletic as a stick of butter).

But yeah, really not much going on.  I have another trip to Tokyo planned for mid-March.  There are events happening at Disneyland that I must experience!  Extra characters!  Limited merchandise!  Decorations!  Also, we`re going to the Kawaii Monster Cafe, because it looks like most of my dreams come true.  Seriously.  It`s ridiculously flashy, with bright colours and cute things...  My childhood dreams met with Lisa Frank and then plastered themselves all over every inch of a restaurant.

I think I`m also going to make some cards for my graduating students.  Not all of the third years, obviously, because I don`t know most of them.  But my class of 20, plus Mayu (the English Club VP that Haruna and I confused with our excitability over anime with strange premises) and Tetsuro (the boy I had conversation lessons with on Friday).  That should occupy me for a while, especially if I make them at school!  ...Except our graduation is on March 1st, so really I have to have them done by next week... Rats!  There goes my plan to keep myself busy during my dead month.

Heh.  My supervisor is talking with the Japanese teacher who sits across from me about Disney.  It`s funny.  There are so many times I`ve caught conversations about Disney around the room, even on the opposite side.  Like I`m conditioned to automatically start paying attention when that name is said in the same room as me.

I`ve also decided that Friday is Tea Day.  When I had the plague, and Morita-sensei came back from her flu leave (seriously, it`s policy that you are not allowed to work if you have the flu, and you`re given five paid days to recuperate), I brought in some Organic Detox from David`s Tea.  I`d talked about tea before, when I got here, and when I got care packages/gifts from home.  But she never really understood the scope of Western tea-drinking.  So when I brought that stuff in, she went on the website to check it out.  I have never seen a woman so excited over everything before.  Like, I think I was less crazy when Ros and I discovered the original David`s store in university.  Everything was "so creative" or "so cute" (because she looked at the mugs and stuff as well)!  And the idea of chocolate tea pretty much blew her mind.  Last week I brought in Forever Nuts for her to try, since it`s my favourite and I now have a metric tonne of it thanks to Christmas.  She was so startled by the colour!  It took a bit to explain, though, that "herbal tea" to us means "hot flavoured drink made of dried things that are not tea leaves," and doesn`t always have healing properties or a purpose.
Morita:  So this is herbal tea.  What is it for?
Me:  ...To...taste good?
Today was Yogi Berry.  Less exciting than Forever Nuts, but still pretty good.  And oolong is a flavour the Japanese are much more familiar with.

Mostly Deer

Monday was my first day back to regular classes at my high school.  I was kind of dreading it, because I had this (completely justified, I swear) fear that I`d forgotten everything about teaching and I was going to screw up, or my lesson was horrible and wouldn`t work with the students...  This is why I just shouldn`t have breaks, ever.  Objectively, I knew I would be fine, but there was still that panic in the forefront of my mind going, "You`re gonna crash and burn so bad."

I was fine.  I asked for feedback from the teacher after my first lesson, and he was really enthusiastic about it.  "I think it was much better than the lessons before!"  Ouch, dude.  Way to trample on my professional feelings.  I know I have no idea what I`m doing, and I`ve been making this up as I go since I got here, but I didn`t think I was doing that badly.  I mean, I`ve always thought my first year lessons sucked in comparison to my third year lessons, because I get to do the crazy stuff with my third years, but they don`t have that comparison to make.  On their own, I thought my lessons last term were okay.  Ah, well.  Maybe this will teach them to actually communicate what they want with the ALT.  (But probably not.)

With my crazy schedule this month, I`ll be teaching my Monday and Wednesday classes Part 2 of this lesson before my Thursday and Friday classes have gotten Part 1, so I`m all over the place with my lesson plans.  Since I did a Canadian World Heritage Site lesson for Part 1, I`m thinking Part 2 will be a reading comprehension exercise.  I`ll write a short travel journal entry, but out of order.  The students will have to put the sentences in the correct order, and then practice reading it.  Man, this is not an easy lesson to make materials for.  I mean, the Sphinx?!  Who, in their right mind, thinks something so far removed from their daily lives is a good lesson topic for students who have to be reminded that there`s an `h` in `where`?  And then.  THEN.  We`re doing the comprehension quiz (true and false), and the first statement is, "The head of the Sphinx will fall off in a century if nothing is done."  This is true, but none of the students know this because the word century is not in their vocabulary and wasn`t used anywhere in the passage.  The passage they`re being tested on says "one hundred years."  Ridiculous.  I heard a rumour that we`re using different textbooks next year.  I can only hope they`re more relevant than this.  Except then I`ll have to remake all of my lessons so that I have relevant activities.

Monday night and Tuesday night were horrible.  Out of nowhere, the weather decided to get super cold and ugly.  The wind was blowing so hard that my windows rattled, and every little thing the wind picked up got flung against them, so I didn`t really get much sleep.  At least Tuesday was a Junior High day at my special needs school, and that doesn`t really involve much thinking on my part, because the teacher there plans the lessons out so well.  You`d think the Elementary lessons would be the easiest, but the teacher for those classes has less English, so it`s harder for me to figure out what she actually wants me to do.  Wednesday morning I woke up to snow.  SNOW.  And it snowed pretty much all day, blasting around in ridiculously high winds.  I was less than pleased.

Thursday and Friday were team-teaching conferences for JTEs and ALTs together.  They were... interesting.  And some were definitely more helpful than others.  It was definitely fascinating to hear from other ALTs and JTEs about the activities and work they do in their classroom, and their students` skill levels.  Many of my students are definitely below par.

On Saturday I went to see a mountain on fire!  No, seriously.  Mountain.  On fire.  On purpose.  It`s called Yamayaki Matsuri, and it`s a festival that occurs every year on the fourth Saturday of January in Nara.  This means I got to see the deer again!  I haven`t been to Nara in about two and a half years, so I was definitely excited to be going.  And I dragged my friend Mary with me, so I wasn`t babbling at the adorable baby deer by myself.  It was COLD, though.  Really cold.  But we didn`t really care.  We had an enjoyable, relaxing day.  It`s about an hour and a half trip for me to Nara (Mary was already on the train, because it`s something like another forty minutes to an hour for her to get to me), so we sat on the nice, warm train and caught up, because we hadn`t seen each other pretty much since we met in August.  I found the greatest train snacks EVER (Kinako Ritz Bits Sandwiches)!

Our chat somehow came around to pizza (likely my fault), so we decided to search out pizza once we got to Nara.  Turns out there`s a Pizza Hut about a five minute walk from the station!  Huzzah!  Once we got there, though, we discovered it was strictly a take-out location, so we had to order our pizza and then head back out into the cold to find a bench somewhere to eat it.  The problem: it`s not really a thing to just eat in public in Japan, so things like park benches are really only found at bus stops, and something like wide, sit-able planters are few and far between.  Finally we found a bench in the area outside another train station, so we could stop and enjoy pizza-y goodness.  

The street leading up to the park and temple was peppered with festival food stalls, and despite being utterly stuffed from our pizza, we just had to get these chocolate-coated bananas.  Because reasons.

After that we strolled through the park, just chatting and bothering random deer.  I also heard the deer for the first time.  So, for anyone back home, the white-tailed deer that you see while camping or in your backyard sound a lot like sheep.  They bleat, okay?  Not so much the Shika deer (which is somewhat redundant.  The Shika is the only kind of deer in Japan, so the Japanese word for "deer" is "shika", but technically that word still only applies to the specific type of deer...).  The Shika deer squeak.  Not like short, high-pitched mouse squeak, though.  This is a long, drawn-out squeak like a dog`s squeaky toy being slowly squeezed.  Basically they sound like Wheezy from the Toy Story movies.  

So anyway, we chilled out in the park for a while, until we got to the point where we couldn`t really feel our hands or faces anymore, and decided to go warm up a bit.  It was still a little early for dinner, plus we were planning to grab festival food from a stall and that really wouldn`t help with the warming up, so we found a cafe that wasn`t packed and grabbed some hot beverages.  Then we dragged our rears out back into the cold for dinner (yaki udon, so basically hot noodles and cabbage with sauce), and found a spot for the fireworks and mountain-burning that would be starting shortly.  Around this time is when it started raining.  Partway through the fireworks, it started raining harder (and colder, I swear, and the rain was already pretty cold), so I stopped taking pictures and pulled out my umbrella since I could barely feel my fingers enough to operate my phone properly anyway.

  The fireworks were pretty spectacular, but the mountain on fire was kind of anti-climactic.  All of the pictures we`d seen for the festival showed honest-to-god mountain on fire.  So we went there expecting the monks to come with a few torches and for the mountain to kind of go "fwoosh".  It did not.  The monks all stood on the mountainside (which seems really unsafe when you`re about to ignite the thing) with their torches of sacred fire, and the mountain was ritually lit up using some sort of system that was impossible to determine from where we were standing. 

Many people were heading out, so we went and got Mary a baked potato (it`s a thing here, baked potato as a street food in the winter), and then came back to see if the mountain was more spectacularly on fire yet.  It wasn`t.  Given the rate at which it seemed to be burning, it wasn`t likely to be burning well until probably at least 9 or 10 at night, and there was no way we were staying that late in the cold and wet, plus we would miss our trains.  So we called it a night, and headed back to our homes.  Overall, I would only recommend this festival if you`re actually staying overnight in Nara, so that you can actually witness mountain on fire. 

NOTE: This was posted two weeks after I wrote it, because I got, like, the plague.  Nothing interesting has happened since then, though, so you haven't missed anything.

Mochi, with a Pinch of Stardust and Potions

FOR MAUDLIN INTROSPECTION, BEGIN READING HERE.

So this week sucked.  Not because of anything going on here, mind you.  Life here is the same as usual.  But the world lost two great artists, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, within a few days of one another, and that`s a sad thing.  Both of these men were very much ingrained into my teenage years thanks to Labyrinth and the Harry Potter films, and while we still have those, it`s an incredible downer to know that these men will no longer dazzle us in new ways.  As I said to Ros last night (before I vowed never to check my Facebook or Twitter before bed ever again, because upsetting news before you try to sleep just makes it worse), if someone else dies shortly or one of my unwed celebrity crushes gets engaged, no amout of ice cream will fix this.

That comment really made me stop and question myself for a few minutes (well, honestly I`m still questioning).  Normally, I have all the emotional capacity of a Vulcan nearing Kolinahr.  The only emotions I achieve easily are frustration and anger (excitement, if a Disney park is involved).  Most of the time I`m just this five-foot package of almost Zen-level contentment, emotionally neutral.  I laugh easily, sure, but I don`t have ...  Hm.  I don`t have a lot of deep attachments, I guess is the best way to put it?  Either positive or negative.  So when I actually feel really upset about the deaths of these two people whom I was familiar with only because of their work, whom I had never met...  It just seems really weird and out of character for me.  Then I think about all the other times something like this has happened, and how I was affected then, too.  Why am I so hung up on these people who I have never met, will probably never meet (the live ones, more of the celebrity crushes, I mean; obviously I will never meet the dead ones)?  Objectively, I get celebrity culture and the way it works.  It stems from fantasy, escapism, things like that (Woody Allen`s The Purple Rose of Cairo does a great job of demonstrating this).  But to find myself wrapped up in it to the same extent is just... odd.  I mean, I live for fantasy, and I spend more time in my head than I do in the real world, but...  No, maybe that`s exactly it.  Maybe I`m more attached to fantasies, to people I have no real connection to, because I spend more time with them than I do with real people around me in the real world.  Huh.  That`s... somewhat depressing, and perhaps a little scary.  Maybe I should work on that.

TO SKIP THE MAUDLIN INTROSPECTION, BEGIN READING HERE.

Leaving my introspection behind (if I ignore it, it`ll go away), the rest of this week has been pretty awesome.  Saturday was grocery day, nothing particularly exciting there.  On Sunday, I went to Ise because they were doing some New Years-related activities all weekend.  I was interested in seeing the mochi pounding event because mochi is everywhere at New Years in Japan, and I`ve heard many people over the years talk about mochi pounding. 

For anyone who has seen Big Hero 6, this is Mochi:

But the cat is actually named after a traditional Japanese food.  Mochi comes from mochigome, which is a very sticky rice.  So basically the rice is cooked, and congeals, and then is ceremoniously pounded into a paste and then shaped, usually into a small ball or dumpling-type shape.  The texture is probably somewhere between a prepared bowl of instant oatmeal and a balloon.  It also doesn`t taste like much on its own, because it`s just rice, so it`s usually filled with something, coated in something, or served in something to make it palatable.  Most common are mochi filled with bean paste, mochi with kinako (soy flour, with a taste that very much reminds me of butterscotch or peanut butter.  I`m moderately obsessed with it), and mochi in sweet red bean soup. 

So back to Sunday.  I arrived in the folk village in Ise in time to catch the end of a taiko drum performance, which was really cool.  I love listening to these drums. 

After that, I meandered the shops for a while, and headed over to the shrine for a visit, and to pick up the hamaya. Literally, hamaya is "demon-breaking arrow", but basically it`s a charm to ward off misfortune and attract good luck in the shape of an arrow.  It usually also has a charm with the Chinese zodiac animal for that year.  So I did all of that, and made my way back to the village area to see if I couldn`t find this mochi thing.  I hadn`t seen the events schedule when I was there for the drums earlier, which turned out to be because I was standing right in front of it with my back to the stupid thing.  When I got there, I had just missed the last demonstration (they were finishing the line of people for free mochi), but there was another one starting in a bit less than an hour.  So I grabbed a steamed dumpling from a vendor (I think it was pork, but it might have been chicken; all I know for sure is that it was delicious) and took a seat near the front of the pavilion to wait.  My friend Jaclyn kept me company through the wait via Facebook messages.  As the performers/mochi pounders were setting up, one of the men from the group was looking through the audience and choosing children to come up and participate in the mochi pounding.  This was awesome, and adorable, and I was excited to see the tiny children using the giant mallet because that would be even more adorable...  And then he saw me.  Me, the lone, pasty, dark blond/light brown haired foreigner right near the front of the crowd.  And I was chosen.

Mochi Guy:  Please.  Please come. *gestures*
Me: Uh...  *deer in headlights look*
Old Lady Next To Me: Go, go!  *giant smile on her face on my behalf*
Me: O....kay?

So I pounded mochi.  I wish I had some good pictures and video of the professionals, but it was difficult from where I was standing at the side of the stage with the small children (and let me tell you how awkward that felt).  You`ll have to make do with a YouTube video of the process. 

(PS, this is actually the group I saw, just in a different place.  The old guy turning the mochi and handling the water is the one who called me out.)

But because I was obviously alone there, one of the other guys in the group offered to take photos for me when it was my turn.  I`ve heard people say it`s really difficult to do (pound mochi, I mean, not take photos of me).  I didn`t find the actual motion of the pounding difficult.  My problem was trying to keep a proper rhythm up with the song they were singing and the man in the front, whose job is to reach in and turn the mochi between pounds.  On a regular day, I have all the rhythm of a drunk, deaf chicken.  With a heavy mallet in my hands and a hundred unfamiliar eyes staring at me?  Yeah, that clearly wasn`t going to happen.  But no one died, I didn`t send the mallet flying, and I didn`t seem to do worse than any of the small Japanese children, so I`m calling it a win. 

The mochi we pounded was then served as two different flavours.  The first (which I originally thought was bitter green tea, but according to my supervisor is some kind of local seaweed variety) was gross.  I already don`t like mochi very much, and adding to that some nasty kind of water plant?  Not cool.  Plus it was green.  The second piece, though, was kinako, and that was alright (see aforementioned obsession with the stuff).  Overall experience? Pounding mochi is fun, but I still don`t like eating it.

Monday was a holiday already (Coming of Age Day, to celebrate all of the people who have turned 20 in the past year), so I relaxed, did my laundry...  Normal boring weekend-type things.  On Tuesday I was at the hospital, where I taught the kids about New Years in Canada.  Which was extremely underwhelming to them, I think, because we don`t really do anything, you know?  Not like here, with all of the tradition and gravity they have.  I brought pictures I found online from downtown Toronto, showing the rink at Nathan Phillips Square, and the fireworks at midnight, but I had to explain that that`s not really a normal thing outside of big cities, and that my family doesn`t really do much.  I also had to explain that there aren`t traditional New Years foods in Canada (obviously, though, I`m partial to a New Years pizza).  I told the English teacher at the hospital, Itou-sensei, about my adventure in Ise, and she said I should have tried it in the red bean soup!  I nearly threw up a little at the thought of it.  She also said that it`s apparently popular to put in minestrone in place of noodles.  This is a much less disgusting thought, but I`m still going to stick to noodles, thanks.

Wednesday and Thursday were not particularly exciting.  I`m working on a special project that I`m not allowed to talk about yet, but it mostly involved sitting quietly, and being paid to read or knit.

I didn`t have any normal classes today, since it`s my first day here this week, and my lesson for next week is already planned.  The topic is a bit dense (the Great Sphinx, and the damage being caused by the rising salt water table), so I want to wait to see how well they do with this lesson before planning the next part of it.  I had my first lesson for the students going to Australia in the spring today.  We covered what they would need to know to clear Customs and Immigration (my specialty!  Yay!).  We have seven students going, plus the art teacher who doesn`t really speak English (I have extra lessons scheduled with him, starting at the end of the month, so that he can at least read through his introduction speech when he arrives). They seemed to enjoy the lesson, which was good.  It was straight from the traveling-student-textbook, though, so it didn't really require much prep from me.  But having a tiny class like that, where they're all genuinely eager to learn because the need to use it is imminent... Yeah, that was pretty great.

And that`s about it.  I might go back to Ise again this weekend, because they`re doing lion dances in the folk village, but I probably won`t.  I`ll probably just end up being lazy and staying home.  Maybe I`ll watch Labyrinth and Harry Potter...

Holidays in Japan

I meant to write this during  the holidays, just after New Years, to encompass both of the holidays.  I got distracted.  Frankly, everyone should be used to that by now.  It`s ingrained into my nature as much as the sarcasm and tea-drinking.

Please be advised that the following post is mostly going to be about food.  You might want to grab a snack before continuing.

So rather than being a lonely hermit for Christmas (we`ll get to that later), I decided to play tagalong with Ros, helping her to invade our friends Lina and Roland up in Hokkaido.  Classes for me ended on the 22nd, and the 23rd is a national holiday (Emperor`s birthday), so we flew out on the 23rd and met up at the airport in Sapporo.  After lunch at one of the airport restaurants (PIZZA! 100% legit wood fire pizza!) we made our way out to Lina and Roland`s place on the outskirts of Sapporo.  We had some time to veg and catch up (Ros was there for Halloween, but I haven`t seen them since 2013), and then we went to their part-time job location for a Christmas potluck. 

Things you need to know (or remember, if I`ve already told you) about Japanese Christmas before we continue:
1. In Japan, Christmas and New Years importance/traditions are basically the opposite of Western culture.  Christmas is the day you go out and party or just hang with family/friends, and New Years is the important time for family and fancy foods and gifts (monetary).  Businesses are all open and do a good turn on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Wikipedia says that 84-96% of  the population are Buddhist or Shinto, so being closed on those days would help pretty much no one.

2. Turkey is rare in Japan in general, and turkey for Christmas is relatively unheard of unless you know a Western person, or really like Western films.  Chicken is the name of the game in Japan, particularly of the fried variety.  KFC takes pre-orders for Christmas, and if you`re not wise enough to do this, you might be waiting around for two to three hours for a bucket of original recipe.  Good luck with that.

Lina and Roland work part-time at a farm/stable-type place that runs English camps as well (guys, feel free to correct me if I`m wrong about this), owned and operated by a dude named Steven and his Japanese wife, Aya.  There were about 20 of us in this big, wooden farmhouse dining room around a couple tables pushed together that were pretty much covered with food.  Most of the people in attendance were Japanese, but almost all of them spoke great English, and they were all extremely welcoming and friendly.  It felt really home-y.  Roland and Lina brought (and Ros and I helped carry) some traditional Western food to throw into the mix (Japanese contributions included rice balls, sushi, and chicken wings), including a full turkey.  The Japanese people went nuts.  I`m reasonably sure that most of them had never seen a full cooked turkey in real life before.  They all whipped their phones out and were clamoring around, taking pictures.  It was great, if a bit bizarre from the viewpoint of someone who has turkey dinner upwards of three times per year.  After dinner we played bingo, and I won a candle!  (More importantly: a candle wrapped in bubble wrap.)  Definitely a great way to start off the holidays.

 Adorable Christmas rice ball brought by one of the potluck guests.

On Christmas Eve Lina had to work, so when we finished watching Gremlins, Ros, Roland and I went to do some shopping in downtown Sapporo before meeting up with Lina at the station.  We also had ramen, because Hokkaido is famous for it or something.  I don`t know.  Whatever. 

Photo of Ros's ramen, lovingly stolen from Ros.
 


Once Lina had joined the party, I was subjected to two hours of karaoke (not my favourite thing to participate in, but watching them is entertaining).  Dessert was involved in this karaoke adventure, so my caramel nut parfait (Ros and I are still trying to figure out where exactly the "nut" part came in, because we couldn`t find any) made up for any trauma my off-key singing may have caused to my ego.  We left karaoke as the sun was setting (aka, just after 4PM) and made our way towards the TV tower, where the big light display and German Christmas market was set up.  This was so much fun!  We walked around and enjoyed the lights, window-shopped at all the little booths selling Christmas decorations, and drank hot chocolate (or hot spiced wine, but I`m not really a fan of hot wine, so chocolate for me). 

 We also met Santa, because these things are necessary.  Once we were finished there we headed to Nuts, a popular cafe, for some nachos, fries, and wraps, and to work some feeling back into our fingers. 

As per Lina and Roland`s tradition, we stayed up until midnight on Christmas Eve, and then opened gifts before heading to bed.  In theory, this is so that you can relax and sleep in on Christmas morning and then have all day with your new stuff, but Lina had to work again, so that really didn`t work out for her.  But we did wake up to snow on Christmas!  There was already some on the ground, but it snowed pretty much all day on Christmas Day.  Mid-morning, we headed to the car to pick up Lina, along with another friend, Miki.  It started snowing harder while we were waiting for Lina to get out of work.  Once our raiding party was complete, we moved on to conquer Costco!  Yes, you read that right.  Costco.  Japan has Costco.  It is glorious.  First of all: PIZZA.  Available at the Costco cafeteria thing is honest-to-god, greasy, cheesy, fast food pepperoni pizza.  (Do I have a pizza problem?  Yes.  Deal with it.)  Also available at Costco: basically everything you can get at Costco in North America.  It was fantastic.  And apparently you can have things shipped as well, so I`m debating the merits of getting a membership.  I`m pretty sure the closest location is at least a two hour trip away.  Anyway, not the point.  So we grabbed some lunch, and then shopped for Christmas dinner, as well as some other necessities, and then grabbed a takeout pizza from the cafeteria on our way out.  It was really snowing by the time we got out, to the point where it was sometimes hard to see the road.  But we made it (obviously).  Another of their friends joined us at the apartment for dinner, and we had an evening of Die Hard, Wii games, pizza, BLT pinwheels, chicken wings, and canasta (with me playing over Miki`s shoulder while knitting, because while I don`t enjoy the game, I understand it).  Not even remotely a normal Christmas by my standards, but still a lot of fun.

Roland had work and Lina had a party to go to the next day, so after chatting with my family, Ros put the two of us on a train to Otaru.  It`s a town that re-invented itself as a tourist location, apparently, famous for music boxes and glassware.  It was super weird, because I`ve never been in a place before that was such a juxtaposition.  Standing in Otaru, you feel that you are simultaneously in a traditional Japanese town and a quaint European craft village. 

It`s insane.  The music box shop is absolutely glorious, and I could probably spend at least half a day in there alone (not to mention, a lot of money).  We stopped in a sushi place Ros recommended for lunch, and then continued on to the vast number of glass shops in downtown Otaru. 

Photo lovingly stolen from Ros.

 

We also got samples at the chocolate shop(s) along the way - the same chocolate shop has, like, four locations in a three-block radius, I swear.  In one of the glass shops, I found a product that was screaming my name so loud it`s a wonder I didn`t hear it from outside.  ...Not literally, obviously; that would be weird.  But it was perfect.  It`s a steel bookmark, and dangling from the top is a metal-and-glass charm in the shape of a streetlamp.  I`m reasonably certain the only way you could ever make a product more perfect for me is if there was a hidden Mickey somewhere on it.  When we could no longer feel our fingers (a running theme for our time in Hokkaido), we stopped into a dark, barn-like cafe for a hot chocolate. 

After that, more shopping, and then a warm-up in the cafe above the chocolate shop for tea and cheesecake. 

Some final bits of shopping, a trip to the canal to see it lit up with Christmas lights, and then back on the train to Sapporo to meet with Miki for another Hokkaido specialty, soup curry.  Apparently the place we went to is the best place ever and has already ruined me for having soup curry anywhere else, ever, according to Ros and Miki.  I can believe it, because it was delicious.

Also lovingly stolen from Ros.

We were lazy on the 27th, just kicking around and watching anime and strange Japanese game shows with Lina and Roland until the early afternoon.  It was their anniversary, so they were going to the movies in the evening.  We all headed out for burgers and fries, and then to the Sapporo Factory (mall) so that they could get their movie tickets and we could kill some time at the arcade before Ros and I headed to the airport.  I`m pretty much useless at an arcade, outside of basic-level DDR and the occasional shooting game, but Roland has some scary skills with a claw machine.  On his first try, he managed to hook the ewok that Ros and I had tried for earlier (Ros actually doing things, and me backseat-clawing).  I am now the proud owner of a fluffy, fluffy ewok to cuddle during times when I miss my fluffy, fluffy dog named after an ewok (or the other fluffy, fluffy dog named after a Gremlin, but he doesn`t usually stay still long enough to be cuddled).

I didn`t get back into Osaka airport until after 10PM, at which point it was too late to get trains all the way home, so I had booked myself into a capsule hotel at a spa/bath place in downtown Osaka.  Capsule hotels are...  I think the easiest way to describe them, generally, is a cross between bunk beds and a piece of honeycomb.  For me, it`s really no different than most of the dorm-style hostels I stay in, because I usually just sleep with my backpack at my feet in my bunk anyway.  The capsule areas are divided for men and women, just like the baths, and mine in particular had multiple rooms for the capsules (my room had only four capsules in it).  If you`re familiar enough with me and my physical capabilities, you`ll know that I`m utterly lacking in grace/co-ordination and a total klutz.  In my first experience with Japanese bunk beds, back in 2010, I slipped on the ladder and twisted my ankle.  I haven`t gotten much better since then.  Japanese bunk bed ladders are completely vertical, either part of the frame or flush against the frame rather than angled against the frame, and usually have a gargantuan gap between the last step and the floor.  Capsules are, like, the next level up in difficulty.  There were three steps sticking out, like that tree fungus stuff, with grip bars at the top, and then about a four-inch-wide ledge along the bottom of the capsule opening, with a grip bar over the top as well.  So it`s after midnight when I arrive at the hotel, the lights are off in the main room area because people are sleeping, I`m using my cell phone as a flashlight to figure out which capsule is mine, and then when I figure it out, I have to Lara Croft my way into it.  Somehow I managed to do this more than once without injury.  I had planned to check out the baths in the morning before I left, since it was included in my hotel fee, but I barely got any sleep that night, so I just packed up and headed home as soon as I got up and moving.

I did a grocery run the day after I got home, and then didn`t leave my house again for three days.  To all of my Japanese acquaintances (and likely some of my Western friends as well), this is extremely odd, since it means I spent New Years alone.  There are many traditions involved in Japanese New Year`s celebrations, too many to list, but one of the most popular is the first visit of the year to your local (or preferred) shrine for charm burning, charm aquisition, and a prayer for the coming year.  So not only was I not with other people on this important people-holiday, I didn`t go anywhere.  To the Japanese, that`s basically like saying you spent Christmas alone in your apartment, eating leftovers; odd, and kind of sad.  But I enjoyed the quiet.  I could sleep in, read, and knit to my heart`s content.  I could also drink copious amounts of tea, including the peanut butter cup tea from David`s Tea that I got for Christmas and is really, really nice.  No one expected me to show up to something, to put on socially acceptable clothing, or to even speak.  For a socially awkward introvert like myself, it`s exactly the kind of recharge I needed after enjoying a more social Christmas holiday.  In a nod to some of the Japanese traditional New Years foods, I made a Thai coconut curry soup that included shrimp.  I also had a glass of wine in deference to Western traditions.  Yay.  (I basically stopped caring about New Years as a holiday when staying up until midnight became a regular thing, and not something to be excited about.  For me, it`s often a time to be lazy, and to either lose marginally at Solitaire Frenzy to the majority of my family, or lose spectacularly to my sister and brother-in-law at Settlers of Catan.)

After that, I alternated between relaxing and getting all of my necessary adult errands I`d been putting off taken care of (stupid bills).  I also went out to lunch with the science teacher who speaks English.  We went to the Nepalese curry place up the street and around the corner from where I live, and he showed me pictures from the trip he and his wife took to Bali.  I now want to go to Bali (but not in the cave temple that looks like a very literal Hellmouth).  Nepalese curry place had soup curry.  Ros and Miki were right; I`ve been spoiled for any place other than that restaurant in Sapporo.  I also had a good laugh when he was so excited that they saw squirrels on their trip!  He had pictures and video and everything.  Squirrels are a rarity in Japan, rather than the plague that they are back home.

January is going to be a very busy work month for me, with a number of meetings booked and extra language classes beginning for our students going to Australia at the end of term.