I'm alive, I swear it!

Sorry for the delay in posts everyone, Silver Week was a busy time, and as soon as I got home, I turned around and went back to the mainland for a speech contest. As I mentioned previously, I spent 5 days (well 4 because of the ferry schedule) in "lovely" Osaka with several of my Irish friends. And several of their Irish friends. And some more Irishmen who happened to be in Osaka. Anyways, I'm not a fan of that city. It was, and still is, quite dirty, at least by Japanese standards, and, despite its considerable size, there is very little to see or do there other than shop and party. My new travel guide had a few more notes on the place than my last one, so I was hoping to see at least a few new things, but alas, twasn't meant to be.

We arrived Saturday evening, after a 3 hour cross country train ride through the absolutely gorgeous countryside of nearby Tottori Prefecture, and a 45 minute Shinkansen (that's the bullet train to you) from Okayama to Shin-Osaka. After we made it to the hostel district, my friends and I went to our separate hotels, because by the time I was on board for the trip, their hostel was totally booked. Upon checking in, I learned that my hotel had a curfew of midnight. Please keep that in mind. After everyone got settled in and showered, we went to an Irish Pub on the north side of the city for dinner and a few drinks. Afterward, we hung out in near a zoo, till about 2 am, which then forced me to crash on the floor of Martin's tiny hotel room.

The next day, we got going around noon, with four of us heading up into the southern half of the city to check out the crazy stores in Amerika-mura (American Village). Apparently this is the same area I wandered around to find my Engrish shirts the last time I was in the city. It was much nicer during the day though, I must say. We even stumbled across a break-dancing contest. The real thing I was look for, however, was a Southern restaurant that the Atlanta JET alumni had recommended. After hours of searching, we finally found the place, only to learn it had shut down a year ago. In fact, nearly every place I had wanted to go to shut down during my absence from the country, including my favorite bar, the Peace Street Grill, where Sohei, the bartender put on spectacular flair bar tending shows complete with juggling and fire-breathing.

The Mexican restaurant that I knew was alive and well though, and we ended up having dinner there. Afterwards, we made it to our first real "landmark" in Osaka, Murphy's - Japan's first Irish Pub. Later we went on to Karaoke. I had the most Japanese experience of the eleven or so people present though, which forced me to be the go to guy for payment anytime someone left early or wanted another round of food or drink. This got very tiresome, but I still staid out till 6am. This time I made it back to my hotel in time for it to reopen for the day and actually slept in my own room.

After waking up and rendezvousing across the street at the good hotel, some of us decided to go to Den Den Town, Osaka's electronics district, before finally getting in some sight seeing. Some of you may remember that I've been here before, and walked into a two-story building totally dedicated to Gundam. Well I went back and bought two more models, after consulting with my students on which ones all the cool kids were after. We continued to walk around, and I eventually bought speakers for my iPod, and my friend Shane, having served three years in the Irish military, bought a replica Irish-made assault rifle, for airsoft competitions. By time we were done though, it was after 5. Meaninig all the sights were closed. So we instead headed back into the city for dinner and a final night of partying. I missed curfew again and had to once more crash in a friend's hotel room. I'm starting to think that it would be cheaper in the future to just split a single room with two people, as the hostel never really caught on to what was happening. By time I woke up, it was well after checkout, and time for Martin and I to head back to Matsue, so that we could catch a ferry the next day for the islands.

One word for Osaka: "Blingtastic!" (Pictured above: 2 Mercedes Benz Crystal Editions)

A mere two days later, I returned to Matsue for the annual Lafcadio Hearn Speech Competition. Hearn, an Irish writer, is quite famous in Japan, and in Matsue especially, as he lived there for a number of years. He was the first westerner to write about Japanese culture in Japanese, thus providing a new perspective on their history and culture. I had been coaching my student, Maria, for over a month now, and she has gotten quite good in her pronunciation and intonation; so good I felt sure she could at least get an honorable mention, i.e. 10th place or better, out of the 38 competitors. However, due to the ferry schedule, she had to go first, which I think always works against you unless you're the absolutely best competitor there. We had to leave after the fourth student went, but if they were an indicator of the quality of speeches to be given, I felt for sure Maria had this in the bag. Unfortunately, when we called in this morning to learn the results, we discovered that she hadn't even placed. The judges, it seems, were far more interested in showmanship, i.e. gestures and making a big scene out of the story, than they were in quality of English. I feel terrible for Maria, because she's such a great student, and her skill level is far superior to most 2nd years I've met or taught. She has one more year to go on the Junior High level though, so I'm hoping she can bring it home next year, and win a trip to Ireland.

Well that's all for now. After Osaka, absolutely everything has just felt like work to me. Even building my models or updating this blog. Blah. Now I have to remember how to do my job, at least until the weekend, when Martin comes to the Douzen islands for a visit.

Week in Review

So I know it's been a while since I've posted, and I apologize. I also apologize for once again having no pictures. I know I said that I was going to go check out Nishinoshima this past weekend, but I just never got around to it. It rained Saturday, Sunday was Ama Jr. High's school festival, and Monday I took my car in for its biannual inspection.

The school festival was pretty interesting. The school was divided into three groups, each with an assigned number of teachers. The students have been working since their summer vacation on self-written one act plays. I couldn't understand any of them, but they seemed interesting enough. My team's play incorporated a student, peter pan, cinderella, a not-so-evil witch, and a pig-man of some sort. I've no idea why, but it's not important. What is important is that my team won, and I'm confident that it was due in large part to my tremendous contribution of hard work and time spent casually observing from a distance and not actually getting involved. The point is we won the trophy. After the plays we were treated to presentations on Ama culture and ecology that several students would be presenting at a conference in Tokyo, as well as speeches from our two Japanese Language Speech contestants, and our one English Language Speech contestant.

I can actually say, in honesty this time, that she is very good, and has come a long way since I came in to coach her. She learns quickly, and has memorized her story in iambic pentameter with appropriate emphases, facial expressions, and hand gestures. The contest is in Matsue on the 27th, and she is the first of 50 entrants to speak before the panel of 5 judges. If she wins, she gets to go to a language camp in Ireland for a couple weeks (I doubt that I get to tag along though :( ).

After the plays and speeches and presentations, it was time for the folk dance. Why it's labeled a folk dance, I've no idea, because it had little to do with traditional Japanese culture (at least that I could see). It did however involve polka music and a circular group dance reminiscent of good old fashioned square dancing. I participated in this as well, but, because we were running early, they decided to stretch the 15 minute dance out to 45 minutes. By the end, everyone was panting heavily and sweating rivers. Because I didn't have indoor shoes, I wore slippers and ended up with rather large and painful blisters on my feet. Fun times though.

Since I spent all day at school Sunday, I had Monday off. I decided to use the time to get my car inspection and health insurance renewed, because I was under the impression it wouldn't take long nor cost much. That was on Monday morning. Tomorrow afternoon, 4 1/2 days and 100,000 yen (about a grand in USD) later, I'll be getting my car back. Nothing was wrong with it to my knowledge, that's just how they go about "inspecting" cars in this country. Did I mention the thing is rusting, the seats are falling apart, the a/c leaks in the car, there is no sounds system of any kind, and it's over 10 years old?

Ah well, tomorrow marks the beginning of Silver Week, a 5 day weekend of national holidays in Japan. Originally, I had planned to go to Nagasaki with some other JETs. However, the people with whom I really wanted to go decided that Nagasaki is too far away, and decided Osaka would be a better bet. So, despite having lived a half hour outside of Osaka for 3 1/2 months the last time I was here and being sick to death of the city, I will be leaving Saturday morning for Osaka. Not because I want to go, but because I want to spend time with fellow gaijin (that's foreigner in Japanese). It should be fun though, there are still some sights I haven't seen, and some others that I'd like to see again. Admittedly though, Nagasaki is at least 10x more interesting.

2 for 2

So I finally started teaching Thursday, although it was only with the 3rd and 2nd year students, i.e. 8th and 9th graders. Personally, I think it went really well, and my only real complaint is that my class room has no air conditioning/heating/ventilation other than an open window. We started off with a map of the US. I asked if anyone knew where North Carolina was, and of course, nobody answered, so I pointed it out and instead asked, "who likes basketball?" To which a few would always raise their hand, and then I would wow them by informing them Michael Jordan was from North Carolina.

Afterward, I just went through some photos I had brought along. I showed a pic of my house, which they thought was enormous, and my truck (because we don't use trains and buses in NC). I also brought my Panthers Jersey along, which they thought was pretty cool. The wow factor though, came from something I bought in Japan: a plastic Gundam model. Some of the boys almost fell out of their chairs when I pulled it out and told them I liked Gundam. To be fair to the girls though, I also showed a photo of me and Jenn and talked about her for a couple minutes. The whole class loved it and at the end of class we played Andrew Jeopardy for stickers. To sum things up, if you want to impress your students in this country, just bring a toy robot into class.

On another note, this weekend was the annual AJET meet the new kids camping getaway at Mt. Sanbe. Due to the ferry schedule, I decided it would be too much hassle to try and attend, so I staid in Ama, which worked out pretty nicely. Friday I met up with the JET who takes care of all the Oki highschools. He comes to Ama twice a month. It was nice to have someone to hang out with, and even more he knew some of the restaurants around town, and we ended up having Oki beef, which, in Japan, rivals Kobe beef. They export most of it from the islands to Tokyo, but this one restaurant sells it locally, and it was absolutely delicious.

Saturday, we met up with the two other Douzen Island JETs on Nishinoshima, which is about 10 minutes by ferry from Ama. Nishinoshima is the biggest of the three Douzen Islands, and has some beautiful scenary. I didn't go sightseeing, but I did go to the beach, which was beautiful. The water was pleasant, and incredibly clear. In truth, the only beach I've ever been to that compares to the beaches in the islands was at St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands. Absolutely beautiful. After the beach, we met up with the rest of the JETs and their friends for a small community concert. The Englishman from Nishinoshima was actually the frontman in the main act (They did a lot of Bon Jovie). At the concert, I met the English teacher at Douzen High School. She just moved to Ama in January, and her English is incredible. Like me, she doesn't have many friends in Ama yet, and, also like me, she is a Christian. She was very excited when I asked her if she goes to church around here, and as it turns out, she does on occasion. So Sunday morning, we met at the ferry port and took the boat back to Nishinoshima for church. It was a fun time. The building was small, with only 6 pews and maybe a dozen or so people in attendance. I was able to sing along to most of the hymns, but I couldn't recite the Psalms or the Confessions of Faith. I also couldn't understand the sermon, which was based on Genesis 12: 1-9. Yuko had a hard time understanding too though, and she's Japanese, so I didn't feel too bad. After church, we returned to Ama, and I went back to the beach for the afternoon, while Yuko went home. She's getting baptized in a couple of weeks at a church on the mainland. The pastor is apparently from Minnesota and preaches in English, while his wife translates into Japanese. We have three consecutive days off work after that, so I plan on attending and then doing some more mainland sight seeing, though I haven't decided where to go yet. I think next weekend I will go back to Nishinoshima and rent a car to go view the colored cliffs, the ruins of a 13th century imperial palace, and some wild horses.

Temple Hopping

So today was my very first day of school. I did absolutely zero teaching, but I did give a brief introductory speech at the start of our opening ceremony. Afterward, I spent my day grading the sixth graders' spelling tests (abysmal) and surfing around CNN trying to find interesting articles for my adult class that I'll be teaching soon. At least that's what I'm going to tell anyone who asks why I'm on the internet all day instead of doing work. I also ordered a Denshi Jishou, or electronic dictionary, from Amazon Japan. The day went well, but I was kind of on my own, as my JTE (That's Japanese Teacher of English) has been in Matsue since last night. As you know, Matsue is a lovely city, and I spent a great deal of time there over the last two weeks. In fact, that's what this article is about. Matsue, Part III - Sunday.

So Martin, Leonard and I had to kill sometime between our 9am checkout of one hotel and our 3pm checkin at our next one. So I suggested we hit up some of the local temples and shrines. Martin, being a fellow history major, had no objections, and neither did Leonard, so we took off toward Tera-machi (literally "Temple Town"). This place was block after block of Buddhist temple, with a few Shinto shrines thrown in as well. As we wandered aimlessly about though, we started to realize that most of these were regular places of worship, in fact we didn't enter one of them because there was a service of sorts in progress. Furthermore, with the exception of one or two buildings, the temples were small and unimpressive. After about a half hour of wandering, we decided to check our maps, and hit up the big names to the west of the castle.

The first on the list was Tenrin-ji, renowned for having one of the 10 best views of Lake Shinji in all of Matsue. It was a hot day, and the stairway leading up to the temple gate was quite long. Luckily it was a shady area for the most part, and the view of the lake and temple grounds, as you can see, were absolutely gorgeous. Aside from the view of the lake (partially covered by trees this time of year) there was a massive cemetary at the temple, and it was kind of creeping us out. So on that note, we climbed back down the stairway, hopped on our bikes and set out for the next one on the list, was Daioji, a temple famous for its massive stone gate. On the way there however, we hit a snag, as we one, ran out of water with no vending machine in site, and two realized I had no idea how to read a map. Eventually we found a vending machine, and before you know it a, well a small shrine. It was pretty cool though, it was on top of a giant hill with an enormous staircase leading to the top. There was only one tiny building up there, but the stairs were too tempting not to climb.
That red dot is Martin.

Eventually we regained our bearings and made our way to a different temple on the map, Gessho-ji. This was by far the most impressive of all the temple complexes in Matsue, and was so big that they even charged a small admission fee. Originally a Zen Buddhist temple from the late 16th century, it had fallen into disrepair by the Edo Period. That's when the new feudal lord of Matsue domain, Matsudaira Naomasa, had it rebuilt and renamed, in honor of his mother in 1664. Falling Naomasa's death, his son and second lord, or daimyo, of Matsue turned the Gessho-ji into the family temple. It now hosts the graves of all nine generations of Matsudaira daimyo, a very rare case for temples today. Each of the graves has its own small shrine, which I found to be most interesting. Shrines, you see, are associated with the indigenous religion of Japan, Shinto, and are most easily recognized by their stone gates, called tori. Temples on the other hand, are Buddhist, and are marked on maps with a Buddhist peace symbol (ironically similar to a swastika). The ji in Gessho-ji denotes that it is a Buddhist place of worship, but each of the 9 graves within was made in a Shinto style, complete with 9 stone tori.
But unlike Western religions, Japanese religions can easily coexist, and it is quite common to find shrines on temple grounds, and vice-verse. In fact, on the other side of the temple grounds was a giant Buddhist statue. The graves were also surrounded by stone lanterns and moats, which really added to the atmosphere. Perhaps the most fascinating feature of all though was the giant stone tortoise at the heart of the temple. This thing was massive, and to make it even larger, it had an enormous stone pillar driven through its shell, to prevent it from awakening at night and rampaging around the city, as it did in the local folk lore.

After our visit, we swung back by the brewery to enjoy a nice summer ale before biking back to the hotel. We stopped at one more shrine, dedicated to Inari, a fox deity, but I was quite disappointed by it. Inari shrines are famous for their fox statues and orange tori gates, and while this one had hundreds of stone and porcelain foxes, the gates were scarce. So instead of writing about it now, I'm going to wait until I visit the major one in Tsuwano, where Leonard lives.

Anyways, I hope you all are enjoying the blog, and the layout I gave it. Check out all my pics on facebook, and please, please leave me some feedback. It's like getting mail, I love it.