Smiling happy faces

Typhoon #15 kept the school closed for two days, meaning that today is the only day of school in a three day week (Monday and Friday are public holidays). Given that today (sep 22) is the only day they will be at school from the 16th to the 26th you would hope they would be a little more interested in their lessons with me, their preccious, exotic, ALT. But no, blank stares and un-filled-out worksheets prevail. Not that I don't feel partially responsible for the little brats' lack of interest. Walking about in the typhoon like a bloody idiot has given me a cold, and I feel like my head is full of cotton wool and my arms have fallen off. The combination of unmotivated students, and cold, has left me slouching around the school feeling down in the dumps. That is... Until.... I saw the hands-down happiest face I have ever seen in my life. No jokesies. Let me tell you all about it.
During the summer vacation s student approached me and asked if I would talk to him in English, a request I was only too happy to oblidge. It took me a long time to work out what exactly he wanted to talk to me in English for, but eventually, using a combination of mime and written English, I understood that he wanted to know English for a job he was applying for. Thankfully I actually had experience in the position he was after, check out at a supemarket, so I was able to make him a list of useful phrases, which we practiced together.
The boy started coming to see me once a week or so, and through conversations with his home room teacher and his guidance counsellor, i found out that he was pursuing this career path instead of going to university, and that to get the job he would need to sit an entrance exam and pass a panel interview. This was quite shocking to me, I couldn't imagine having to sit an exam to get a check out job in Australia! The penny dropped further when someone explained that the supermarket is owned by the much larger Hankyu company, a massive organization that owned train lines, shopping malls and department stores, hotels, and even an all women theater troupe. Far from being just a job working at a checkout this position provided a foot in the door of this massive company, a chance to work from the ground up. In Japan a lot of hiring for management and executive positions is done internally, and provided you keep your nose clean and work hard there's a good chance an entry level employee will never work for another company. It was a shame that this bright, charismatic kid didn't plan to go to university (the path you have to take to be a manager or executive of a large company in Australia or america) but aiming for this job certainly wasn't a cop out.
He kept coming to see me, excited to be able to say in his interview that he was taking private oral communication lessons, and I taught him useful phrases like "the eggs are in aisle five" and "would you like that in a seperate bag".
Last friday he sat his written exam (which included a written English section!! For a supermarket job!!!) and had his interview.
Today, when I was walking back from the canteen, with my four dollar packet of fried rice and fried chicken (there was a token cabbage leaf included to break up the beige and brown) I saw him talking to his home room teacher and guidance councilor. He shook the councilors hand and turned to his home room teacher and that's when I saw the happiest face I have ever seen.
Congratulations _____ kun! I think you are awesome! I hope you have the best long weekend ever, and enjoy the rest of your last year of high school knowing that you're future is secured!!!

typhoon days

Today classes at my visit school were cancelled because of typhoon #15.

See the peninsula roughly in the middle of Honshu (the main island)? Then to the left of that peninsula is Shikoku, the island that looks a little bit like Australia? And between Shikoku and the peninsula is a tiny island (Awaji island). Nishinomiya is NE of the tiny island.

I am feeling like an unstoppable badass because I walked to my visit school today even though there was a heavy rain warning (it's a fifty minute walk up a bloody mountain). The teacher who told me that classes were canceled thought my massive grin was because of my laziness, rather than self satisfaction at hiking in weather deemed too dangerous for students to venture out in. Which isn't to say I'm not stoked that classes were cancelled. The OC1 classes of forty 15 year olds at my visit school are the most challenging ones I teach, and I'm not very confident about the lesson I prepared for today. It's boring enough to incite a riot, much like a soccer game. Now I have a full day to prepare a better lesson, get ahead on my lesson planning, study Japanese, and finally get round to writing a blog post.

What to talk about.... Let me think... I am going to start with what I've been up to on the weekends since I arrived in Nishinomiya.

1st weekend (30-31 July) I was staying with the principal at my base school this weekend because my pred was still living in my apartment. It was there I wrote the blog post I just posted today, with what must be a confusing title. I was writing it on my iphone in such exhaustive detail that I couldn't be bothered actually getting round to explaining why it was titled 'going to a funeral'. On the Friday night, after welcoming me into his home, and introducing me to his mother, Kocho Sensei announced that tomorrow we would be going to the funeral of the father of one of my new co workers, on Awaji island (you guys remember where that is, right?). Thankfully, for the first time in my life, I had a suit with me, so at least I didn't have to worry about what on earth I would wear. Before leaving for the funeral (which was a two hour drive away from Takarazuka, where I was staying) Kocho Sensei (now to be referred to as Kocho) took me to a temple near his house. Nakayama temple was beautiful! And apparently quite famous. The emperors family pray there once a year. It was great being shown around by a local, he showed me how to tip water on my hands to purify them, and which boxes to toss coins into, and when I can ring the bell. The temple was more a complex of temples, with each compound in the complex devoted to a particular object of prayer. For example there was the road safety compound, where you pray to avoid accidents, the entrance exam compound, where you pray for good grades in entrance exams, and the lost children compound, where you take your new born if you can't look after it. It felt a bit weird touristing it up amongst all these people there to pray so I got right in there with them and prayed for my family. Each of us got a little candle in the main temple. Then Kocho and I got in his flash convertible and  rocketed down to Awaji, across the Akashi Kaikyo, the worlds longest suspension bridge.

My attempts to not think about earthquakes while we were driving across it were thwarted by Kocho, who told me that in the Great Hanshin Awaji quake of 95, when the bridge was still under construction, one of the two pillars the whole thing is suspended off of moved TWO METRES!!!!!! Thanks Kocho!
The funeral itself was pretty fascinating. The town was in the middle of the island, in super inaka. There was only one conbini, and no train line! The funeral home was in this spanking new box like building, rising out of the surrounding rice fields. It was a Buddhist ceremony and the room it was held in was FULL of fake flowers and hampers of food, all arranged around a blown up photograph of the deceased. I was the only foreigner there (of course) and was mortified to be seated inside the room, when other people had to sit in the hallway outside. Maybe mortified is not the best word to use in this context.... anyway.... Two monks chanted in Sanskrit for about 45 minutes (super cool! the combination of chanting, incense, and fake flowers was quite hypnotising) at which point everyone at the funeral filed up the altar, bowed to the family and the coffin, and sprinkled incense onto a pile of coals in a bowl. I'm pretty sure I mucked that bit up, but I hadn't been in the country for a week at that point so I refused to beat myself up about it. At least my bow was ok (I think). By far the strangest thing about the whole experience was the man in the white gloves taking pictures of everyone and everything during the ceremony on a custom made white canon digital camera. When I asked him about it later Kocho told me that this was one of the ways that funeral homes like that made a little extra money, selling a funeral album to the family, or including the cost of one in the funeral package they buy. This must be something that happens in places back home but I'd never heard or seen anything like it. The rest of that weekend I spent relaxing in the air conditioned comfort of Kocho's rad trad Japanese home. Very necessary after everything that had happened in my first week in Japan.

This is the room I stayed at during my first home stay with my go between, who also lived in a rad trad Japanese home. That's the bed, folded up in the bottom left hand corner. The tatami mats are made from woven reed and are quite thick. They aren't soft, but they have a bit of give, and with a futon underneath you, they are plenty comfortable to sleep on.

2nd weekend (6-7 August) On Friday night I had a few drinks at my new local, Argento. The bar tender and his regulars helped me to work out which of the two fireworks displays going on the next night I should go to. Kobe's display would be over Kobe harbour, and would be less crowded. The Osaka display would be over a river and would be much more hot and crowded, but there would be over 20,000 rockets set off. It didn't take much persuading for me to choose the Osaka fireworks. My new friends also taught me how to ask where the fireworks were in Japanese, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. The sheer number of people heading to the foreshore from Hankyu Juso station made it impossible to go anywhere else. There were stalls selling 500ml beer cans and festival food lining the streets, and a smattering of girls wearing yukata, mincing along in their wooden sandals. I felt rather sorry for these girls after I had arrived at the foreshore and realised you had to pay to get anywhere you could sit down, and if you didn't want to pay you just had to crouch in the dirt on the sidewalk that ran along all of the pavilions. At least I was squatting in my comfortable black shorts and t shirt, not trussed up in a brightly coloured summer kimono.

This picture was taken from where I ended up squatting for an hour, you can see the pay to enter areas on the slope behind everyone and in the tents in front of everyone. Thankfully, due to the nature of fireworks, the action happened above, rather than in front, of us. Despite the heat, the dirt, and the slight claustrophobia it was totally worth it. The fireworks were incredible! 80% of them would have been larger than the chrysanthemum that ends the lotto sky works, and the show lasted for 50 minutes. It was amazing!! On the way back to the station I had my first okonomiyaki (a pancake type thing with shredded cabbage and spring onions mixed into the batter) and my millionth 500ml asahi. The next morning I woke up bright and early to head back to Osaka and pick up Nick. True to form we didn't organise a concrete place for our reunion, choosing instead Umeda station. Anyone who has been to Osaka knows how ridiculous this was because Umeda station could be any one of four different stations (JR, Hanshin, Hankyu or the Osaka subway) and each one of those four stations is HUGE! After an anxious two hour wait we eventually found each other, and I spent the rest of that Sunday showing him around what parts of Nishinomiya I had got round to exploring myself.

Third Weekend (13 - 14 August) I'm not gonna write about this here, cos there's too much to write. Except that in my post about it I forgot to mention the sweet museums we went to. We went to sweet museums! They were cool. One of them was full of statues of Buddha, and the other had an incredible illustrated scroll telling the story of this Chinese monks travels to India to make exact copies of the Sutras to take back to China. As Nick said it was essential a comic that went for several hundred metres. Really seriously awesome.

Forth Weekend (20-21 August) This weekend we explored Osaka, and went to a party in Kobe.

These stand guard outside the Dontonburi hotel in Osaka. We weren't the only person who found them picture worthy.

This graphic on the front of a box of omiyage reminded us of a friend of ours. He crops up everywhere, but we can't work out who he is exactly.

The party in Kobe was good fun, and it was nice to meet some of the people living in Hyogo. Unfortunately it was at a rooftop garden in Kobe, and the torrential rain kept us huddling under umbrellas and the awnings over the food and the bar. I'm so glad I've been placed in Hyogo, there are so many of us here, and it's a really cool place.



Fifth weekend (27-28 August) This weekend saw Nick and I heading back to Osaka to do more exploring. I was looking for one of the fabled electronics stores in Den Den town where I hoped to buy a modest flat screen tv so I could continue to watch Japanese talk shows. Nick wanted to find Mandarake, home of the Otaku (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=otaku). Neither of us were successful but we did find some cool stuff, like an amazing art supply shop that had a dazzling array of pens and paints. Here is one of the paintbrush displays:

We had a bagel lunch at Namba Parks:

This must be the worlds most incredible shopping mall. It's beyond huge, and when you're on the ground floor looking up you feel like you are standing at the bottom of a canyon. My mum sent me a picture of it and we had to check it out, it's much more surreal in person. After our bagel lunch we continued wandering around only to be caught in what felt like monsoonal rain.


You can't really see it in this picture but that guy is riding his bike, holding an umbrella, and texting on his phone, all in the torrential rain.
Nick and I found shelter in a covered shopping arcade (There are an endless amount in Osaka) but not before being thoroughly soaked. This arcade was a little different from the super glossy or super pachinko-y arcades near Shinsaibashi and Dontonburi, it was like a giant supermarket spread along a street. You could buy anything from mops and bleach to fresh fish and exorbitantly expensive watermelons. It was packed with people doing their weekend shop. Following the network of arcades eventually led us to a softbank, where we got Nick an iphone, a process which took 150 mins. We were supposed to then meet up with some of the guys from Nishinomiya who were checking out a light festival at Osaka castle, but we were too zonked from phone contracts, and still a bit damp and cold from our soaking, so we trudged home instead. The next day, Sunday, we went for our first hike in Hyogo. The trail went along a river through the mountains north of Takarazuka and followed an abandoned JR line that was made obsolete when they introduced electric trains. It was very hot, but just beautiful! The trail went through four or five old tunnels, the longest one so long you couldn't see light at either end when you were half way through it. It was technically illegal for us to do but there were heaps of people enjoying the trail, from groups of students, to families with young kids, and a group of retirees, led by a nature guide.


Most of the track still had old railway sleepers embedded in it! Even though the neighbourhood where we're living is relatively tree-y it was lovely to be out in the mountains and surrounded by all this green! The hike took about two hours, and at the end of it we found a tiny town built onto the banks of the river. This town had a super fancy onsen, below which was a free foot spa for hikers. Very civilised. We caught the train back to Takarazuka from there, and the train station was amazing! It was built into the tunnel at the end of the bridge spanning the river.


Sixth weekend (3-4 September)

Hung out with some folks in Amagasaki on Friday night, spent Saturday in Osaka and managed to find Mandarake which was not nearly as awesome as we were hoping it would be. Instead it was vaguely unsettling. The dance music was very loud, and the middle aged men looking at pornographic comics set in high schools were unashamed. We didn't stay very long. That night we watched the next to last Ghibli film to be released, The Borrowers Arriety. It was charming, and the movie focused heavily on world building, which is good because there wasn't much of a plot. Sunday saw us heading back to Osaka (if it seems like this is what we do every weekend you would be right. It's too damn alluring, and we haven't even begun to explore it, it's so huge!) to get Nick a bag for his week in Tokyo. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, cleaning, doing laundry, cooking dinner, and getting ready for the next school week.

Seventh weekend (10-11 September)
Weekend started with a very late night at our local bar, where everyone was very happy to see Nick back from his travels in Kanto. We had a game of Pandemic (Nick found a copy in Japanese of this game, which had been one of our favorites in Perth) and tried to entice the other patrons to play with us, and then had a good time catching up with friends. I gave the bartender a gift, my first two attempts at Japanese calligraphy. He seemed pretty stoked cos he stuck them up on his wall straight away, above what Nick affectionately refers to as his 'six-inch harem', his collection of plastic Neon Genesis Evangelion dolls. On Saturday night a friend of ours from Amagasaki came over to our place and we had our first dinner party in our new apartment (one pan stir fry ftw!) and played a game of princes of Florence, another board game that Nick bought in Tokyo. Sunday was another relaxing day of housework. Teaching during the week is much more exhausting than hanging out in the office during summer vacation, meaning that by the weekend I'm too tired for big adventures. When it cools down maybe...

Eighth weekend (17 18 19 September)
The first long weekend. Monday the 19th was respect for the aged day. Some friends of ours from Shiso (inland Hyogo) came to Osaka for the weekend, and we spent Sunday evening with them in Shinsaibashi. We ate all you can eat meat (which literally means we ate as much meat as we could for two hours...) which we cooked at a little bbq on our table, and then went out to a night club.

You can see a round fish tank, on the left hand side of the bar. There are three tiny black tip reef sharks in there! Pretty awesome. That was the only awesome thing about club jaws though, the cover was steep, the place was dangerously crowded, and most of the people were unfriendly. On the upside it was good fun dancing with my friends, and you got a free drink ticket with your entrance fee. On Sunday Nick and I spent the day in bed, in his case sleeping off the night before, and in my case catching up on my reading. On Monday we went out for lunch at one of our recent finds in our neighbourhood. It's called Ho-Fame and it claims organic, modern cuisine. Whatever you make of that the food was delicious, and we'll definitely be going back. That evening we caught up with our friends in Amagasaki back in Osaka and had vegetarian shabu shabu, another kind of all you can eat restaurant except that instead of grilling the food on a barbecue you dip it into a bit iron pot of hot broth. Good fun! We needed the double dose of vegetables after our Saturday night out on the town.

And there you have it! I'm all caught up on weekends. Crikey but this post is long! I'm ending it now

Weekend in Nara

 On my third weekend in Japan (13 14 August)  Nick and I went to Nara. At this point I still imagined I would have the energy to work all week and then travel somewhere awesome each weekend, plus there was a light festival on. Nara Park, the huge park that takes up the centre of the city, and where all of the historically and culturally significant stuff is, was lit up by 20,000 candles. I thought that it looked incredibly beautiful, but Nick was less than impressed. Probably because he was suffering from a mild case of heat stroke. Nara was really really hot.

Nara is famous for the tame/wild deer that live in Nara park. If you feed them these wafer things they'll pass on a message to the gods or something. The cartoon mascot for Nara (of course there's a cartoon mascot for Nara!) is a Buddha with deer horns.

 

Super weird! Anyways so these deer are everywhere, and for some reasons parents of small children find it hilarious to put packs of wafers in their kids hands and then watch the screaming brats get mobbed by twenty deer. I found it pretty hilarious too. I asked a teacher about it at school (she had also just been to Nara with her young son) and she said it was character building. No comment.

I can't remember the name of this garden, but it was really neat. You had to pay to get into this one but the garden next door was free if you were foreign. I liked the one next door a lot, mainly because it was a little bit more run down, and therefore more like what I thought a garden should look like. It also had a beautiful moss garden, and a little pond that promised views of lively tadpoles. The garden in this picture was worth the entrance fee mainly because for the first time I felt the 'whoa you are in Japan right now' slap in the face.

The first of these two pictures was one of the guardians at the gate leading up to the massive temple where big Buddha lives. On the right is big Buddha himself. His left pal (his left, not your left) is big enough for five monks to stand on while they clean him. He was cleaned to week before we got there so he looked nice and fresh for our visit (he only gets cleaned once a year). I tried to put a picture of the temple he lives in up here but for some reason it isn't oriented the right way and I don't want you to crick your necks looking at it so I left it off. It's apparently the largest wooden structure in the world, but I've heard that about another building so I am skeptical. Hang on I'll pinch a pic from the internets.

 

That's a better picture than the one I took with my iphone anyway. The name of the temple is Todai-ji and the statue of Buddha is called Daibutsu and it is almost 15m tall. Thanks to my visit to Nakayama temple with Kocho two weekends previous I knew exactly what to do, and this time I bought candles for all my friends and my family, and said a little prayer for everyone, so lucky you guys! It was really crowded because we were there at the start of Obon, the festival to honour the dead.

This a picture of the five stories pagoda of Kofukuji temple. The Goju-no-to (Five Storied Pagoda) was built in 725 by the Empress Komyoh, and the current structure was restored in 1426. It is one of the symbols of Nara and is the second highest pagoda in Japan with a height of 50.1 meters. I copy pasted those last two sentences from somewhere else. It was the first of the ancient buildings in Nara that we saw, we were super impressed.

Nick and me lit by some of the 20,000 candles in the park.

While we were in Nara we took a side trip to Iga Ueno, where Ninjas come from. This picture was taken from the top floor of Iga Ueno castle. Cool roof hey? Iga Ueno was a bit of a tourist trap. The ninja museum was super hokey, the live ninja demonstration was super duper hokey, and the other attraction in the town, the museum dedicated to the famous Haiku poet Basho, was completely incomprehensible (don't know why we didn't see that coming...). We had a good laugh though, and got to take a long train ride through the backwaters of Nara and Mie prefectures to get there. Also good for a laugh. We also checked out a school for the children of local Samurai, which was probably the highlight of the side trip. It was nice to sit in the massive tatami mat lecture room and look out on to the ornamental gardens.

Also in Nara we found an amazing 'vegetarian' restaurant (that served fish) where we made up for the lack of veggies in our diet, this rad wool and fabric shop that hand spun all of the cotton they sold (we bought two cotton blankets which we found out last weekend cure hangovers! And we're not even in the land of magical realism here), bought a ton of omiyage (it's hard to know what to buy, so I bought everything), saw rice being pounded with giant wooden mallets to make rice cakes for the festival, and stayed at a pension style hotel called cotton 100% The family style hospitality gives you the feeling of 100% cotton.