Gaikokujin Taikusai, Onsen, Camping, & Caving

After A LOT of time trying to figure out why my internet browsers weren't working... after a lot of help from my unlce... and after having the computer guy at my technical school mess with my computer for a few hours last week - my computer is finally back to normal. I have no idea what the problem was, though. What it came down to was that, after trying everything in the book... and then some... the computer guy suggested that I just completely restore my computer back to how it was when I bought it. So I did - and now it works again. Luckily I didn't lose anything because I have my external hard drive... which I back everything up on anyway. So my internet browsers work again and my computer is basically like new : )

Anyway. Last weekend was a lot of fun. There was a Yamaguchi AJET event. A bunch of us went to Mito city on Saturday and we had our own "Gaikokujin Taikusai"... and it was a lot of fun! "Gaikokujin" means foreigner and "taikusai" is what they call sports day. So if you look back at my post from October 7, 2008 - I talk about sports day at my technical high school... that was all about their "taikusai." But like I said, we had our own last Saturday and it really was a good time. I haven't had that much physical activity in a very, very long time. I was so sore afterwards... and for a few days afterwards... but I love that feeling! After the taikusai in Mito (we had it at Mito Junior High School - where one of the JETs works), we went to an onsen... which is an outdoor hotspring type of thing. It was the first time I'd ever been to an onsen because when I was in Japan before I was really weird about the whole thing and didn't want to go. But I finally went to an onsen - and it was actually really nice. Next, we made our way to a camp site at Akiyoshidai and camped out that night - bon fire and all. Akiyoshidai is a really interesting area in Yamaguchi - "The area's interesting geology has its roots in the Paleozoic Era (543 to 248 million years ago). Three hundred million years ago, the plateau was a large coral reef. Fossils from Fusuline, Coral, Brachiopod, Bryozoons and Calcaleous algae are abundant in Akiyoshi Plateau's limestone rock. Today, the plateau is well above sea level and is famous for its lush pampas grass landscape which is spotted with grey limestone boulders." I took that from this website - so check it out if you're interested. Anyway, Somebody knows a guy in the military who's stationed in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi... actually, she's dating him... and he gave us stuff to make s'mores which were bought on the base. The camp site had this really awesome jungle gym... it was SWEET! The next day we went caving... excuse me, spelunking... at Kagekiyo-do Cave. All in all, it was a very enjoyable weekend : )

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I had a lot of classes this week - a few more than usual. I've started teaching my Halloween lesson plan to the first year students at Ube Nishi - my base school. They seem to enjoy it... but by the end of the lesson it's hard to keep their attention going from a game back to a dialogue. Oh well. Sometimes I don't have time for the dialogue and it's actually better that way. Yesterday at the boys technical school classes went really well... so that was nice. One of the JTE's who I work with took me to the bank after 5th period. They all think it's strange that I get paid in cash and suggested that I talk to the office people at my base school... because that's a lot of cash to carry around and it's hard to get to the bank before it closes. Although, she did teach me how to use the ATM to deposit money. I hadn't actually used the ATM yet. My bank's ATM - Yamaguchi Bank - doesn't have an English option... so I've just been avoiding it... because ATMs can be confusing and it's hard to read all the kanji (Chinese characters that they use). But it wasn't that hard and I now have confidence that I can withdraw AND deposit money by myself at an ATM. ATM's in Japan are really weird though... because they "close." Some ATM's shut off after a certain time (say 6pm-ish)... and the ones that don't shut off charge you for using the it after 6pm, on Sundays, and on holidays. That is just strange and really inconvenient! She also helped me set up automatic withdrawal for my water bill because for some reason I have to pay that bill at the bank - as opposed to at the convenience store like all my other bills. Banks close at 3pm, so it's really difficult to find time to go... so automatic withdrawal of my water bill is definetely better.

So, now is the beginning of another 3-day weekend. No holiday on Monday... just the second of my "no working days" that I get in October since there are more than 20 working days. It's pretty nice. Tomorrow morning (Saturday), I'll head over to the commercial school I teach at (Ube Shogyo) because they are hosting an English speech contest and my 4 English Club students are in it. The only thing we've been doing in English Club thus far is preparing for this contest... I think they'll do a good job. Last week all the 2nd year students at that school got to go to Tokyo for the week for their school trip. I know they went to Tokyo Disney Land... and probably some other important parts of Tokyo. Two of the English Club girls are 2nd years and they both got me souvenirs from their trip... it made me really happy : )

I was cleaning my apartment today and found 12,000 yen that I had left in an envelope! That made me happy too.

One last note: the exchange rate is beyond shocking today...

$1USD = 92.685 yen

but that is definitely in my favor considering I get paid in yen and not USD : )

Hiroshima Sake Festival and random trip to Osaka

Things have been pretty good here lately – with the exception of my computer problems. I guess for the time being I will just write things out in Microsoft Word and then post them from Meng’s computer… and I can change the posting date and time to match when I actually wrote this out.

But anyway…

It was another 3 day weekend because Monday was another random holiday – Health and Sports Day. Nice.


There was a sake festival in Saijo City, Hiroshima Prefecture Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning I took the 3 hour local train with Meng. It’s only about 1.5 hours on the bullet train, but that’s much more expensive. Lucky for me, I live on the Sanyo Line which runs all the way up the coast to Tokyo. You usually have to switch trains a few times, but we managed to catch a train that went straight from Ube Station to Hiroshima Station. We dropped our stuff off at our hostel and then made our way to Saijo. Some friends met up with us there. It was pretty fun. You pay 1,600 yen to get into this enclosed area – enclosed by some wall – and you get this little sake cup and you can go around to the booths and drink as much as you want. There were a lot of people there… including children! We got there around 2pm and there were already people passed out – it was hilarious. The booths were set up by region so you could taste the many different regional varieties of sake. What I learned from this experience is that I don’t like sake … nor did anybody else in my group… but we drank it because we paid for it and it was all you can drink!


It went from 11am – 8pm. During the course of our 6 hour stay we all managed to talk to a lot of random people – Japanese and other foreigners… and there were A LOT of other foreigners there. Right before we were about to leave, my friend Ian ran to get his backpack which he had randomly laid on the ground earlier. He came back over and this random, angry, drunk, Japanese man grabs his arm and was yelling. Ian asked me what he was saying because he had no idea what was going on. I thought the man was yelling because he thought Ian had stolen someone’s bag so I was trying to tell him that it was, in fact, his own backpack he had picked up. But apparently that’s not what the man was yelling about. He was slurring A LOT, so it was really hard to understand. All I really got from him was that Ian kicked a paper???... or something like that. My friend Mike comes over and tries to see what the guy is saying because he seriously would not let Ian leave and kept grabbing his arm even though we kept saying in Japanese that we were really sorry (for whatever it was he was pissed off about). Mike got frustrated and started telling the man that he was being rude and un-Japanese and that we couldn’t even understand what he was saying because he was slurring too much. We eventually make our way out the exit, but the man followed us and threw his own backpack at Ian! All I know is that I turned around, saw Ian get tangled in a backpack on the ground (which was the guy’s backpack). So Ian picks it up, runs through the exit, and throws it in the bushes! It was hilarious! The man had to leave the walled-in area to get his backpack that he had thrown at Ian, which meant that he couldn’t go back in – because once you exit you’re not allowed to re-enter. It was crazy.

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On the 35 minute train ride back into Hiroshima City we met these really awesome Europeans who are studying abroad at Hiroshima University for 6 months. Let’s see… they were from Poland, Denmark, Portugal, and a few other places. There was this really crazy girl from... crap , I forget. Oh well. It was a pretty noisy train ride back – considering it was packed with people returning from the sake festival. Most of the Japanese people were passed out because Japanese people CANNOT drink. This woman had the nerve to come up to us and tell us in Japanese that we were being “urusai”… which basically means we’re being rude and obnoxious. COME ON LADY… give us a break, geeze. She got off the train as she was saying it.

I went to dinner with the awesome Europeans. We got Hiroshima Okonomiyaki. It was really good.


I finished out my night at an Irish pub with some Yamaguchi JETs. They didn’t go to the sake festival Saturday because they were planning on going Sunday. I didn’t feel like going to the sake festival AGAIN on Sunday. Don’t get me wrong – it was a lot of fun… but like I said above, I don’t even like the stuff. Ian wanted to go up to Osaka Sunday morning, so I decided to go with him. We took the local train for 6 hours. It was nice to see Japan that way… but it was pretty much an all day trip. However, there’s this special ticket we bought (which you can only buy from around October 1 – 19). It’s only good for local trains from Yamaguchi to somewhere around Osaka. It costs 3,000 yen, but it’s all you can ride – in a day. So we took a 6 hour local train ride for only 3,000 yen as opposed to somewhere around 6,000 yen. The bullet train would’ve been 10,000 yen. So it was definitely worth it – especially because we weren’t in a hurry or anything. We got there around 4:45pm and his friend met up with us. We went to this really cool building and went to the top to see the sun set. It was really nice. Then we had some Italian for dinner, played some pool, and met up with one of my friends. It was a nice, random, trip. We ended up leaving sometime around 5pm Monday. We took the bullet train. It was my first time! It was really fast!! It took about 2.5 hours for me to get home and longer for Ian because he actually lives in Kyushu. ACTUALLY, to be even more specific, he lives in Saga – which is where I did my homestay in 2002!

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So that’s the end to my 3-day weekend.

Last night I was on the radio. One of my Japanese friends, Mitsue, called me Monday night and asked me to go on the radio with her because her friend is the one who does it every week and they wanted some guests. It’s a really small, local station. Every Tuesday night from 9pm – 10pm there are these 2 American guys, 1 Japanese guy, and 1 Japanese woman who talk (in English mostly) about American culture. They always have a topic – yesterday the topic was American food. They actually just started it about 3 weeks ago. It was cool. One guy is from New York and has been here about a year teaching at a private school. The other guy has been here somewhere around 10 years and he actually started an English School called Amerigo. He said he plans to be here forever. He was really nice. The Japanese guy was really cool. The woman wasn’t there that night. It was actually a lot of fun. I’ll probably go back sometime and do it again.

Tonight I’m skipping my Japanese class because I’m losing my voice and I needed some time to clean up my apartment and have a night to myself. I’ve been pretty busy, so it’s really nice to be home and get some laundry done, clean up my stuff, and just relax.

Oh, and before I forget… it’s rice harvesting season! Everybody is in the process of cutting down the rice that’s been growing all summer in the rice paddies. After they cut it down they hang it upside down like this:

Computers are frustrating

I am having some issues with my computer. The other day it automatically installed a newer version of Safari and now it won't open any websites. This same exact thing happened with Internet Explorer - which is what I was using when I first got here. It worked until a newer version was automatically installed. Firefox doesn't work either. I know it's not my internet connection because AOL AIM works.

So until I can figure out why they won't open any websites to let me surf the web then I won't be able to update. Right now I'm at work, but I can't update from here... especially not any pictures.

Last weekend I went to a sake festival in Hiroshima Prefecture - it was a lot of fun!

I met my neighbor last night - he was nice!

I was on live radio last night - it was fun!

Whenever I get my computer situation figured out I will be able to elaborate more and post pictures. But until then... there's not much I can do.

Anybody know what would be causing my internet browsers to not work?

The Economy

I've been following this whole US economy going to crap thing in the Japan Times over the past few weeks.  It's not pretty.  I am SHOCKED at the exchange rate today.  When I came to Japan a little over 2 months ago, this is what it was (approximately):

$1 = 107 yen

and I thought that was bad.

Today, however, the exchange rate is:

$1 = 100.4 yen

That is unbelievable.  I really wish I had some yen saved up that I could convert over to dollars because I'd be making a lot more now than ever.  When I was in Japan 6 years ago the exchange rate was about $1 = 125 yen.

Wow.

Sports Day at USTS and Exam Week

Well, this week is exam week at 2 of my schools. That means that I only have 1 class to teach at the all boy’s school on Thursday and the rest of the week I sit at my desk and do pretty much nothing. Oh! Sidenote: I was handed my re-contracting papers today. Wow, that’s pretty early. For now, I will set them aside until the February Deadline. Anyway, I was off Monday because it was one of two scheduled “no working” days that I get in October. If there are more than 20 working days in a month, then I get them off… why?... because it says so in my contract. It doesn’t occur all that often though. There are 2 this month and then I think there’s one in April and two next June. Some people get to choose when theirs are, but mine have been scheduled in. I took the day to get some important things done though. Let’s see… I went to some city hall type of building to FINALLY pick up my foreigner card. I registered for it THE DAY I arrived in Ube – before I even got to my apartment. I was supposed to pick it up at the beginning of September, but I haven’t had time to… because when the building is open, I’m at work. I thought maybe they’d say something like “why didn’t you get this a month ago when you were supposed to”… but they didn’t. The woman just handed it to me and smiled.

After that I was on my way to Shimonoseki – the largest city in Yamaguchi (about 45 minutes away by train). I went there because I needed to get a re-entry permit in my passport and my options were either Shimonoseki or Tokuyama. Shimonoseki was closer, so I went there. Ube has a place where I can get this re-entry permit, but they're only open 2 days out of the month – both of which were days I have to work. Basically, a re-entry permit is needed if I plan on leaving the country and then returning. If I didn’t have it and then left the country then my visa would become void and everything would be a mess. So I purchased the MULTIPLE re-entry permit for 6,000 yen instead of the 3,000 yen single entry permit. Which means I am now even more determined to leave the country and return more than once… gotta get my money’s worth! Right?! When I got to Shimonoseki I hopped in a cab (after a stop in KFC of course) and just handed the driver the address. I wasn’t about to find this place on my own – especially with no map. It was actually pretty far away… but the cab driver talked to me the ENTIRE way and was a rather friendly man. I had an entire conversation with him in Japanese… I impressed myself.

After the 10 minutes it took to actually fill out the form and have a woman put a sticker in my passport I decided to walk around. I made my way over to the famous bridge that connects Honshu (Japan’s main island) to Kyushu. (Shimonoseki is on the southernmost tip of Honshu). I’m always surprised how short the bridge is and how close the two islands are to one another. I took these picture standing on Honshu – no zoom. They’re really that close together. Crazy! Shimonoseki is a very important city in terms of trade. It’s got a HUGE port. It’s really pretty down there too. There was actually a naval battle there back in 1863 involving the US Navy. If you’re interested you can read more about it here.

Anyway, before my little excursion to Shimonoseki on Monday: I had a pretty good weekend in Ube – consisting of karaoke, beer, and restaurants. I also went shopping at this place called Uniqlo for warmer winter work clothes… and also bought a new bag : ) Check out this car I saw in a parking lot... only in Japan...

Saturday morning I went over to Ube Technical High School (the all boys school I go to every Thursday) to watch their sports day. It was a lot of fun and I was seriously given the best spectator seat. There was an area set up front and center for important people to sit in the shade and watch and drink tea – this is where they put me. I sat next to the principle the entire time. I didn’t realize at first that he was the principle… but around noon I realized that’s who it was. He’s really friendly and talked to me all day. Here are some pictures from the day:

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And now, to end this incredibly long post, I have a story about what it’s like whenever I leave my apartment:

I live near 3 very large grocery stores. The closest one to me is this one called Maruki. While it's close, I ALWAYS feel so uncomfortable in there. Maybe it's just the people who go there? I don't know. In my quest to stock up on Peach Fanta, I got stared down by a little girl there yesterday. At first it was cute, but then it was just kinda creepy. Once, this old woman walked up to me, looked at me, and got all startled and screamed. I'm serious. I thought she was going to have a heart-attack. It was awkward. Whenever I walk into Maruki, there are at least 5 people who make that stupid noise Japanese people make when they're surprised. As soon as I leave my apartment, somebody is looking at me. If I pick a wedgy, somebody will see it. If I trip over nothing (which I often do), somebody will see it. I've begun to get used to this... but it's still kinda weird.

On a somewhat relevant note: everytime I leave my apartment, I run into students. Seriously. Teaching at 3 schools means I have A LOT of students and they are always out and about. I hear my name from every direction. They get really excited when they see me outside of school... ok, well actually, they get really excited when they see me AT school. It's kinda nice.