goin to tokyo!

So this weekend I'm going to Tokyo for the v-rock festival. There will be about 50 bands playing over 2 days, saturday and sunday. You can watch the live stream if you google "v-rock festival 09", click on the "translate this page" of the first link, and download a special plugin. Leaving via highway bus today, woohoo!

special class, big trip!

Yay busy weekend. Friday was the special English class at Tomikusa elementary school. Basically all the 14 teachers of the school came to watch, plus Mr. Kojima from ichu, plus an official person from who-knows-where. The kids had lots of fun, although they got a little too rowdy sometimes and I had to settle them down while the classroom teacher was teaching. We played a type of team card game similar to go fish, reviewing colors, numbers, and types of fish, as well as "I want". When we started the game, to make it more interesting, both us teachers wore aprons (because we were fish sellers) and crazy hats (he was a pirate, I was a clown). After the class, there was a one and a half hour meeting about how we did, all in Japanese. What I got out of it was 1. more greeting like how is the weather, how do you feel, etc. at the beginning of class (we usually do that every class but there was no time today); 2. my way of praising the students every time they got a right answer was good; 3. using hand motions and doing the Italian talking with your hands is good (I did it a bit, didn't even notice it until they praised me!); 4. The game looked really fun and the teachers wanted to join in. So all in all, it went very well.

After the class, all the teachers went to a place in Iida to celebrate, and Nick joined us there too. It was a sit-down fancy meal with as much food and booze you can eat, overall okay. The price tags on these things takes alot of the fun away from them, $50 per person. Afterwards, Nick and I went with the secretary (a young lady) to a bar that Nick recommended, and met up with 2 of our ALT friends Cris and John. Nick thought the pool was free, it wasn't, it was $6 per person, and then he got really really ticked off. We went to the foreigner-favorite bar "Blood" to chill, Nick steaming the rest of the night.

We actually ran into longtime ALT Wolf. Everyone talks about him, he's been here maybe 11 years, and started with the same program Nick and I are on, coming from Alfred to Anan. Nick, John, the secretary, and her friend that we ran into in Blood also went to karaoke (at this point it was around 1 in the morning) while Cris and I went to her apartment and crashed.

In the morning, Cris took me to an aaaawesome bakery nearby, and we filled up on pastry goodness. Then she had to go to work and I was left to kill close to 3 hours by myself before the next train back home, which I nearly fell asleep on. Then walked from Nukuta to home and passed out, completely wiped.

We started off at about 7 Sunday morning for Iida to meet Mrs. Watari for our big trip. It started off good, and she evn offered us homemade rice balls (onigiri) for breakfast. I had already eaten, but wanted to be polite, so I ate one but then she kept insisting I eat another, so I did, and also some of the grapes she gave me. After the GPS was figured out, we kept driving onwards. We stopped at an archaeological museum and learned about rocks, minerals, and the people of the area from long ago. It was sooooooo fun. The best part though, was the playground. There was this huuuuge slide that was maybe 50 meters long and wrapped around a small gorge where it ended at the bottom. Unfortunately, Watari seemed to be in a hurry so I didn't go on it, but I went on the mini one instead.

During all this, Watari kept forcing food on us every hour, a full meal every 2 hours. Delicious, but I was about to pop.

We finally reached the seaside, and I got my first glimpse of the Japan sea! It didn't smell like a sea at all, but looked really nice. we drove to the place we were staying for that night, a really nice refurbished 130yr old Japanese-style house with a thatched roof. The room was a tatami room, with a table in the middle, a tv, and futons in the closet. You could slide any of the walls to open it up to the next room, and we were right next to the main eating area.

We all went to the attached onsen (bath) and soaked for a bit before dinner, changing into the provided yukata, traditional Japanese wear you use at places like this. And then we ate a snack. And then it was dinner.

Dinner was great, including tempura and red snapper. After dinner, we took another bath and ate some more. We turned in a it early to get ready for breakfast at 7:30. The cook came in with a crash boom bang at 5:30. Then we ate a Japanese style breakfast of fish, rice, miso soup, pickles, and a raw egg that you break over the rice (which I didn't eat, last time I tried it didn't turn out too well.) Then we soaked in the bath again, ate some more, and started the journey back.

Nearby there was a fish market of sorts. Many types of fish were on display, including alot of king crab, which Watari-san bought for us. First time eating crab, it was okay, but I prob. won't eat it again unless given to me. We drove to this awesome gorge and took lots of pictures, etc. and ate. Then we went up this windy crazy road to a pond in the mountains and relaxed ab it and ate soba, the best soba I've had. We started back again for home, and near the end I was feeling a bit queasy from all the food so I said I was carsick. This prompted an immediate reaction from Watari-san and we switched places so i was in the front, and she offered me food but didn't force the issue when I turned it down this time. We made it back to her house, where our car and her husband were waiting. He wanted to take us to dinner. We went to a nice restaurant and I had a full meal of deep-fried pork, miso soup, rice, greens and pickles. Nick needed meat so we stopped at the grocery store for some, then went home.

Summary of the weekend: the sea is beautiful and I will never EVER eat again.

Okay

Just post to say that I barely even noticed the typhoon, and am home safe in my apartment. Much more to tell, but that'll have to wait till tuesday or wednesday, as I'm dead beat and need to get up early tomorrow. Night!

And if you're curious, here's a google map of where I live - on the southern edge of that lake/pond thing. Let's hope that works.

http://maps.google.co.jp/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=35.32486,137.821341&spn=0.008561,0.01929&z=16&msa=0&msid=114636960454558692583.00047592844aa3983eabd

There's a typhoon a'comin!

So apparently tomorrow a typhoon is gonna hit us really hard. There hasn't been one that has come this far inland that's this big in 50 years, and I guess that one was pretty bad. Right now its foggy and cloudy, with steady rain (I forgot my umbrella, darnit). Tomorrow the principal and vice-principal will meet before 6:00am to discuss whether or not to close school. But, even if they close school, I still have to come because it's a paid day. Poo.

I'm especially worried because this is a mountainous area and landslides are really bad. This is probably the first time I've lived in an area that I have to worry about things due to natural disasters and really bad weather (other than a good blizzard or ice storm). Thankfully I'm not living directly on a slope and there's a pond between me and the hill nearby, just in case.

In other news, I visited 2 elementary schools yesterday, finding a few minutes in between to wolf down some lunch at the jr high school. Today I'm beat. Because of a combination of that and my leg muscle randomly spasming (not painful, just wierd) I'm gonna take a break from kendo tonight. Rest is good.

My weekend schedule is already filled up, after the huuuge English demonstration class Friday (nervous!!!) there is a party in Iida with the Tomikusa elem. teachers. Sunday Nick and I meet a person from our conversation class in Iida and drive about 4 hours to a nearby city for the night, to sightsee and such. This is to thank us for helping out on her farm later in the month picking persimmons. Bzzzzz goes the busy bee. :P

Looking forward to some r+r tonight.