Just a little bit of art

Hey everyone, I just realized that I have some good pictures to post from two weekends ago when my girlfriend Elizabeth came to visit me from Korea, but I don't have time to post them now. I'll post them soon. These scarce pictures are of some artwork I've done (really all of the artwork) since I've been in Japan. The first ones are cartoons I was asked to draw last week by an English teacher at my first junior high school, Ichuu. The older students (san-nensei), who are moving on to high school soon, are preparing to take their entrance examinations and the English teacher wanted me to draw some good luck pictures for them. She said she would make them into stickers for the students. The second batch of pictures are of some Japanese calligraphy I did while staying at Koki and Kazue's house in Tokyo over winter vacation. Koki taught me how to write a couple Kanji (Chinese characters) and did a few of his own. We each drew some pictures beneath them to remember their meaning.



Koki helping me write my first Kanji in calligraphy...

I asked Koki to to teach me the Kanji for 'delicious Tuna.' The top part means 'tuna' and the bottom part, read from the right and down, then the left and down, means 'beautiful taste.' It really fascinated me to find out that Japanese people actually describe tastes as having beauty, and also that I had been using the word that represents these Kanji (oishii) super loosely up to then. I realize now that many of my school lunches didn't deserve that title, even if I said they were only sukoshi oishii (having a little bit of a beautiful taste).

This Kanji, called 'aji,' means 'to taste.' My cartoon makes it look like the Kanji means 'burn your tongue on a cheeseburger...' Anyway I think my cheeseburger looks way better than my Kanji.

Koki, the true Japanese artist, with his Kanji. The one on the left is 'Tuna' (maguro) and the one on the right is cow (ushi). And 2009 is the year of the cow.

My winter vacation

Hey everyone, these are photos of my recent trip to Tokyo, Saitama prefecture, and a ski resort called Manza in a neighboring prefecture called Gunma. In Tokyo, I stayed with Koki and Kazue, who are my grandmother's cousin's son and wife. They hosted me the entire trip, and I stayed at their place in Tokyo from Christmas day until New Year's day. On New Year's Day we traveled to Saitama prefecture to meet up with Koki's father, Seiichan, and some other family members. After spending a night in Saitama (and a pretty cold one at that in Seiichan's old house - I woke up and my face was freezing) - everyone crammed into two cars and drove to Manza ski resort in Gunma prefecture. It took about 2 hours to get to the resort from Seiichan's house in Honjo city, Saitama. Also, it was about a 6 and a half hour train ride (via bullet train, or Shinkansen) from Fukuoka city to Tokyo.

Tokyo from a tall building in Shinjuku, the area with Japan's federal buildings. When I arrived in Tokyo neither Koki, Kazue or I had planned anything to do from Christmas day to New Year's. So the day after Christmas, while Koki and Kazue had their final day of work, I traveled to this tall building (called Tocho) where they have a lot of tourism information on Tokyo. It was funny arriving in Tokyo and realizing it would be a good idea to look for worthwhile things to do the week I was there.

Fish flags flying outside Tokyo Sea Life Aquarium, an awesome aquarium in an oceanside area called Kasai. The weather the entire week was really clear and a little windy, and much, much warmer than the winter vacation days I remember in Oregon.

Kazue at Ueno Park Zoo. Koki, Kazue and I were really excited to see their pandas, but the big black and white one they had actually died a few months earlier. The only ones we saw were red and black ones, which were small and barely looked like bears. We were a little disappointed.

A picture taken at Yoyogi park during a weekly flea market. This area of Tokyo was really neat to see because of all the hipsters and funny people that hang out there. Some of the people I saw reminded me of characters you would see at Venice Beach in Los Angeles. One guy was wearing a bright green joggers suit with reflectors all over him and some giant headphones as he cruised around the park on his bike...

Koki and I taking a tour of the American and Japanese naval bases at Yokosuka, a famous port city in Yokohama Bay. The ships we saw were long and big (both the American and Japanese). This well know spot is the port where the American Commodore Perry came in the 19th century with big black battleships to essentially force Japan to open up to trade after having about 250 years of isolation. Oddly, I saw Perry's face sort of commemorated on the city's man-hole covers, as well as 'Instant Perry Curry' which you could buy as a souvenir.

As a more personal anecdote, this is also the spot where my Japanese grandmother met my American grandfather, who had enlisted with the marines when they met in the 1950's.

Yokohama city.

Yokohama was really interesting to me in part because of all the Western style buildings and Christian churches we saw. This church is in an old area of town where there are primarily Western, older style houses and churches. I also liked Yokohama because it was very easy to walk around and see a great deal.

Yokohama at night, probably downtown.

Koki and I at the gate to enter Yokohama's Chinatown.

Koki and Kazue in Yokohama's Chintown.

This was taken from Koki's apartment in Tokyo. If you look near the bottom middle-right of the photo you can see Mt. Fuji. The moon was also out at this time, and the weather was great.

From Koki's apartment, taken by Koki.

For New Year's we went to a local temple in the area of Tokyo where Koki and Kazue live called Nishiarai. We walked to this temple at about 12:30 am on New Year's Day, and it was bustling with people. Just walking from Koki's apartment to the temple I noticed a lot of people generally being 'out' to celebrate the holiday. I also noticed a lot of families together. Here I saw a lot of festival food and New Years' items being hawked. The line of people to our right in this photo are going to a shrine to toss a coin and say a prayer for the New Year.

Another tradition in Japan is the ringing of these enormous bells with these enormous wooden sticks. I think at midnight they ring them a certain number of times signifying what year it is according to the Japanese calendar. Then, they open up the ringing to the public. I must say it felt really satisfying to ram this heavy stick against a giant bell and hear such a deep, full ringing sound. I hope someday to find out what it meant.

From left to right: Hideki (Koki's brother), Koki and I in front of a mountain called Asama Mt., or Asama-yama, in Gunma prefecture.

Asama -yama.

Koki, me and Yoshi, who is Koki's sister's husband. It was pretty cold this day but the snow was pretty good for skiing and boarding (not too icy, with some powder towards the higher parts of the mountain). Also, I should mention that this area is really famous for its hot springs (onsen) where people come from all over to check out. At our hotel there was an outdoor onsen where the men would bathe separate from the women (and everyone was naked). It was really a neat experience to sit in the onsen at night with snow flurries and chilly winds coming down off the mountain. When I told my brother Matt about it he said "Yeah, there's nothing that rings in the New Year like sitting naked in the tub with a bunch of Japanese..." Don't push it pal.

On the right is my Grandma's cousin, and Koki's father, Seiichan. He's holding Kentaro, his daughter Ikuyo's 14 month-old boy. On the left is Seiichan's wife, Kyomi.

Me checking out Kentaro, his first time in the snow.

Yoshi and Ikuyo (Seichan's daughter and Koki's sister) with their son Kentaro in front of the hotel we were staying.

My Japanese relatives and I. From left to right, Seiichan, Kazue, Hideki, me, Kentaro and Kyomi, Ikuyo, Yoshi and Koki. I was happy to spend time with them this winter vacation.

Christmas and New Year's in Japan

This Christmas and New Years I'll be spending time with some relatives in and near Tokyo. My grandmother's cousin's son and wife (Koki and Kazue, who took me to Mt. Aso earlier this year) will be having me over to their place in Tokyo on Christmas day and for a few days after. Then, the 3 of us will go to Koki's father's house in Saitama prefecture, about an hour and a half by train from where Koki and Kazue live in Tokyo. At Koki's dad's house, I will be able to see a few other relatives as well. On New Year's Day we will visit a famous shrine in Tokyo. And somewhere in these 10 days of vacation I have, my relatives and I will travel together to a ski resort - where I am lucky enough to go snowboarding on a mountain in Japan! This is the first winter vacation I have spent away from my immediate family (the Meuse 5). But, this is also the first time anyone in my family has spent these holidays with our Japanese relatives. I am happy to be keeping our family connection going, but I am more immediately excited to eat lots of their food, get to know them better, and check out New Year's in Japan. I've heard it's the biggest holiday celebrated in Japan.

Christmas, however, is a different story. Though I've seen lots of Christmas decorations hung up in department stores (which I spotted even before Thanksgiving!) - and it's hard to walk into any store lately and not hear Christmas music, or flip on the TV and not see some sort of ad with a Christmas jingle, I've seen very little religious connection to the holiday. I asked one of my co-teachers if Japanese people celebrated Christmas, and he told me that on December 24th families and couples get together to have food and drinks. Also, one of my new friends here, who has spent 3+ previous years living in Japan, told me that Christmas here is more like a couples' holiday, while New Year's is more about family time. And, I've asked students a few times now during a warm-up activity, "What date is Christmas?" - and more often than not I've gotten the answer "December 24th." I understand that to expect a largely non-Christian nation to be celebrating a traditional Christian holiday wouldn't make much sense, but it's funny to me to see so many Christmas decorations and hear so many Christmas songs (including ones sung by students) while the true meaning behind the holiday seems to go largely unnoticed. Though I can't speak for all of Japan, and I'm sure there really are lots of Japanese people do celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday, I think this generalization more or less holds true for most of Japan.

Well I wish everyone reading this a Merry, Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Happy New Year. And for all who are enjoying plenty of holiday sweets, I leave you with this picture, taken at the local "Trial Supercenter..."

Asparagus Biscuits anyone?

Back at Shonai Chuu

I feel like I've been through a lot this last week and a half. Today I played some basketball with a few of the older boys from Shonai after having school lunch. I've been playing with these guys pretty regularly now in my short time (3 and a half weeks total) at Shonai Chuu. On the court I couldn't be happier - having a nice pick-up game, usually with fair teams and pretty upbeat and polite dudes. Off the court, in the classroom, is a whole different situation. It's not that I've been the direct target of disrespect. In a way I actually feel respected by these kids because they're willing to listen to me in a way they don't with their regular English teacher, and they are almost always friendly with me.

What really bothers me is that they are allowed to do things in the classroom that are beyond what I consider near to acceptable but are considered a part of everyday life at Shonai Chuu. I can see that when clumps of kids are chatting and not listening to my "American English pronounciation" of a few words - this may not be so bad. But it seems these kids are being brought up to think that it's ok to talk while the teacher is. Or to bring a stray dog into the classroom (this happened yesterday). Or to eat their lunch before everyone else begins eating (a huge cultural no-no). Or to tackle and write on each others' faces with big black pens (I was with one of the English teachers when this happened, and she barely looked up as we walked past these 2 kids). Or to go to the bathroom using urinals that don't have water running in them (this bathroom is also the one the men teachers use, and it really reeks and needs cleaning...its the worst place I can think of at that school). Or to grow up learning to pronounce the word "were" like "waar" because their teacher teaches them that its proper English. Or to hit each other during class and bully one another (one student was punching another student kind of hard in the kidneys, to a point where I felt the need to get in his face to stop him from continuing).

I don't mean to dwell on the negative here...because there really is a lot of good I can say about these kids, their teachers, and the school. I'm just complaining to feel a little better and to give everyone a small sense of what I've been going through lately. Last week was a lot more difficult than this one, and 2 grades of students will be watching "Shrek" tomorrow, so maybe I won't feel like I have to be on high alert like its been so often (to be fair, this 'being on guard' feeling only applies when I've been working with the 2nd and 3rd graders (14-15 year olds) - the 1st graders (+/-13 year olds) have been really awesome to work with). Also, I'm finished working at Shonai on Friday, so I have only three more days there for a while. And, one of their English teachers is leaving on Friday as well, so when I come back I'll be working with a new teacher. Things might be better when I come back...

A Weekend in Seoul

The reason I haven't posted lately is because I've come down with a cold and I've been keeping pretty busy with laying around. After days of taking it easy, I'm feeling much better now, and I'm happy to be blogging again. The weekend before last I went to Seoul, South Korea, to visit my girlfriend Elizabeth. The plane ride from Fukuoka City (a 45-minute train ride from Iizuka) to Incheon international airport in South Korea took about an hour and a half. I could have taken the ferry across the ocean to Pusan, a port city in South Korea, but because I was going to Seoul (much further inland) the cost of flying ended up being about the same, and overall a lot more convenient. Getting through customs and immigration was pretty easy, going there as well as coming back to Japan.

I had two distinct moments that weekend that gave me a sense of my living in interesting times. The first happened when I was at Fukuoka airport, checking out the crowd about to board a plane for Korea. I saw mostly Japanese and Korean people - older, younger, and of both genders - but I also saw one African lady. She might have been African-American, or African, or of many backgrounds, but it really struck me at that moment how internationalized the world we live in actually is. I was thinking that a few decades ago seeing her there would be something that was unbelievably rare, but now it's a part of everyday life. In any case, I still really wanted to know her story.

The other moment that gave me a funny feeling of our times happened when Elizabeth and I were visiting a temple in the middle of the city (which, by the way, has about 11 million people living in a centralized area - as well about 8 million in the suburbs). As I looked over the Asian style roofing that made up the perimeter of the temple, not only did I see tall buildings but I also saw a big, colorful video screen. We stood in the middle of a temple that was hundreds of years old (though it had been rebuilt and so was new in that sense) - and were looking at a brand new, bright video screen showing an advertisement. This was the second time I thought "Wow...what a funny world to be living in right now."

I can't think of much else to say other than to explain the few good pictures I took and give a big thanks to Elizabeth for being my awesome guide and helping me to a very enriching weekend...

The temple we visited in Seoul.

An area of Seoul called Insadong, which has many small shops, street food stalls, craft booths, and restaurants lining this main pathway and the narrow alleyways on it's sides. I was surprised to see so many people there, but Elizabeth told me that it was comparatively not crowded at that time.

Me at a restaurant in Insadong famous for its dumplings, or mandu. Here I'm about to pick one up with Korean chopsticks, which, unlike in Japan, are made of metal. After getting used to the lighter, wooden chopsticks in Japan, these heavier ones were a little difficult to use. But, on the plus side, I got a nice little hand workout during the meal.

A photo of the subway in Seoul - cheap, convenient, and extensive. Elizabeth and I covered quite a bit of ground in just a few days on this thing. Compared to the subway in Tokyo, the price was significantly cheaper, though the Tokyo subway is also quite extensive. One difference that really struck me as being non-Japanese was seeing people hawking goods on the subway. This is something I don't think would ever fly in Japan, where keeping to yourself (especially among the older generation) is the preferred norm, and having to sit there on a commute to and from work while someone with a raised voice tried to sell you a pipe cleaner would be considered downright rude.

A busy street in Seoul at night...

Fall Pictures

This was taken in early Autumn, sometime in September. I ride by these rice paddies everyday on my way to one of my schools, Ni-chuu.

Near the same rice paddies, taken last week. I heard that farmers plant wheat to grow after the rice is harvested. I think the dark green rice crops in the picture above might have been where the light green strip of plants are in the background of this picture.

This is a neighborhood near where I live in Iizuka. It looks pretty typical of most of the hoods near my apartment.

Someone's front yard near my apartment.

Iizuka Station, a "Japan Rail" station 2 minutes walking from my apartment. I think these taxis stay in the same spot almost all day as the cabbies wait for passengers.


Namazuta station, a Japan Rail station 3 stops north from Iizuka station. I get off here to go to one of my schools, a 10 minute walk from the station.


The train departing northbound from Namazuta station.

A gas station in Fukuoka City. Do they have this nozzle set up in the states?

A one-car train in a neighboring prefecture called Saga. The one-car trains I've seen tend to be "local trains," stopping at every platform along their route; the "express trains" are much bigger and skip over the less populated stops.

The Colonel, in his proper gi (ghee). This was taken in Kitakyushu, one of the biggest cities in the prefecture (though not as big as Fukuoka City).

This building I found so ugly I had to capture it. In Iizuka, along my bike route to Shonai, one of my schools.

A typical police bike in Iizuka.

Taken a few days ago in the morning on my way to school. These rice and wheat fields are across the narrow road from which I took the first two pictures.



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Part II - Mt. Aso

I realize this post is a bit overdue - being written a month after I visited Mt. Aso, or Aso-san - but I figure better late than never. So, after spending a spectacular day in October with Taki-san and my cousins in and around Fukuoka city, we spent the next day at Mt. Aso. The drive to get there took about 2-3 hours, taking us through Saga prefecture and into Kumamoto prefecture, where the great crater and mountains reside. Mt. Aso is one of the largest volcanic craters in the world, and still has some volcanic activity going on near Mt. Naka, one of several mountains lining the rim of its crater. The crater was once an enormous volcano that erupted hundreds of thousands of years ago and tens of thousands of years ago (maybe 4 times total) to form a bowl about 12 miles across. There is a small town currently in the middle of it named Aso.

Before we reached Mt. Aso, we went to a beautiful area with large rocky cliffs and a gulley that you can float through on rented boats. We wanted to rent a couple of boats and paddle our way through, but the wait to rent one was 3 hours. It was a three-day weekend in October, and there were plenty of tourists that day. After taking a bus down a steep road leading to the level of the gulley, we ended up hiking a short ways through the shaded area near the water. The sky that day was clear blue, and it was pretty warm out, so the jaunt through the gulley was really refreshing. On the hike Taki-san read a Japanese sign for me that told of a spot where samurai used to try to vault themselves over the river using large sticks. I asked "Did any of them fall?" He knew some English, and told me a few did - as the sign had pointed out. On the short hike we saw some people paddling their way through the gulley. As one boat slowly rammed the rocky cliff edge, Taki-san looked at me and said, "No technique," and we both started laughing.

It was great being able to visit this magnificent place with two nice families. On the drive there and back I was able to sit in the backseat of the car and check out the scenery without having to worry about finding my way around; this is something that hasn't happened too often for me since I've been here. Also, every meal we had that weekend was like an event, whether I was being shown the proper way to slurp up cold udon noodles (it's pretty easy actually - you just pretend you're using a straw with your lips) or being fed several dishes of delicious Japanese food in one sitting. I wonder how in the world I ended up being with such a nice and funny group of people to show me around Japan. At the ramen-dinner, I asked Taki-san what was in this green bottle sitting at the table. "It's spicy," he said, "has a spicy smell." He then lifted his right arm and pointed to his armpit with his left hand. "Like this," he said. I know his son Futa heard that one because at the end our trip, after we got back from Mt. Aso, he looked up as he took his shoes off in the car, smiled, and said "Spicy smell..."

The tops of the cliffs lining the gulley near Mt. Aso

Futa and Koki walking towards the gulley

Also, I forgot to mention it had rained the day before this picture was taken, so the air was extra fresh, especially walking down by this gully...

This is a picture taken from a park in the middle of the volcanic crater of Mt. Aso. The mountain in the background is one of several that line the outer rim of the crater.

I know my posts have been a bit sporadic but I hope to post another one soon. In general I'm doing fine at the moment with my schools and everything else, and I hope everyone is gettin' along alright.