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Hi all, sorry about the blogless, newless void-I'm trying to get organized, and have LOADS of stuff to add, but will start with a small post. On Saturday I went to Tokyo for the day, partly to surprise a friend/former student. I wasn't sure if he knew I was in Japan; it turns out he thought maybe I was, but he was completely surprised to see me at his art show anyway. Here's a link to the video I took of his reaction when I showed up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPkRzXj-8O4
Hi Toyo! Surprise! I'm in Japan!
I'll add more about my trip in the next post.

Beach Trip, Part Two

Continuing from yesterday: The picture on the right is just a view of the midway area of the park. Fairly crowded, but not "I'm-going-crazy!" crowded. We left well before closing time, but it still took us about 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot. Then, after finally getting onto the road, going in what looked like the opposite direction all the other cars were going....we caught up with everyone going the same direction we were going, and sat in traffic. And sat. And sat. And . . . you get the idea. It took us about two hours to get from the park to the expressway, a distance of about ten kilometers. People were not exaggerating when they told me that Golden Week traffic was bad!

The good thing about the crazy traffic, is that I had plenty of time to look at the scenery, and to take the next two pictures (and the video I'll post a link to at the end). We were driving down the road in the town of Mito when somebody noticed a LARGE figure looming in the distance. As we got closer, as you can see in the last picture, we could see that the figure was taller than the houses surrounding it. Nobody in the car knew exactly what it was, so one of the students used her cell phone to call her mother. It turns out that the figure is a giant statue of a local Shinto god. When I got home, I got on the Internet to do some investigating, and found a good summary of the story.

As you can see in the video I'll post below, most of the people on the freeway were going to Tokyo, so after we passed that exit, the road was clear, and we had a smooth trip home from there.

Here are links to...
the story about the statue:
http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/bukyoku/seikan/kokuko/e-ibaraki-report/0603daidarabo.html
the Disko ride in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpVIcIjf5nc
a funny children's ride and a panorama of the park:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtA0L-Ywkbo
a view of the statue and the traffic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXmHLQNGiq8
and us passing the exit to Tokyo, followed by a clear road:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0AtZJwAjxI

Looking east at the Pacific Ocean

Well, I've been fighting with YouTube for several days; for some reason my video uploads have all failed recently, so I only have about half of the videos uploaded that I wanted to link to here, but I'll just post those links for now.

I'll summarize my beach trip and post some pix... May 4th I went to Oarai in Ibaraki prefecture with other teachers and a group of the high school students from U.I.C.S. (Utsunomiya International Christian School, where I teach, for anyone who missed that in a previous post). On the map, it's only about 45 miles as the crow flies, but it took about two and a half hours to drive because of the crazy Golden Week traffic. I didn't really mind, though, because it was a beautiful drive through the country in an area I hadn't seen yet. One of the very interesting things for me to see as we were driving was all the farmers planting rice, which I had never seen before (the farmers planting it, not the rice itself!!!).

Our main destination was a small amusement park near the ocean. The park was having some kind of promotion, so it was free to enter; there was a per ride charge for amusements, and of course the usual fairly expensive "we've got a captive audience" price for food. The park grounds were beautiful and the whole complex was unlike any park I've seen in the US; it was part nature park, part giant picnic ground/sports fields, part amusement park. We walked through the park to the opposite side and then along a road that led down to the ocean. There were a few other people on the beach playing or picnicking, but most of the people there were surfers, which I think you can see in the picture.

After walking back up to the park, we looked around a bit and then had lunch, followed by . . . RIDES! As we entered the park, off in the distance I had seen a roller coaster of fairly promising size, which I was very excited to investigate. Because we couldn't stay for the entire day, I had time to go on two rides. Unfortunately, the roller coaster was fairly disappointing; it had a decent size first hill that disappeared into some trees, but the height was completely wasted. The drop on the other side was very small, and went immediately into a long, slow turn. The rest of the ride was basically a large kiddie coaster. BUT, the ride that was very, unexpectedly fun is the next one in the pictures. In case you can't see clearly in the photo, the name of the ride is "Disko". DUH! I should have known that a ride sharing its name with the world's most fun musical genre would be fun! We didn't have time to go on the large ferris wheel in the background of the picture; maybe next time!

Here's a link to one of the videos I took; it's surfers at the beach we visited:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmbIabbUEi0
I'll continue this next time and post more links. I've got to go to bed . . .

Shakin' N' Quakin'

I was in the middle of a tutoring session this evening when I felt the floor rumbling. My first thought was that it was a truck driving by, but it continued and got stronger. When the table started moving a bit I finally realized, "It's an earthquake!" It stopped pretty quickly after that, but the experience definitely got my adrenaline pumping. I'm told that quakes in this area aren't as common as elsewhere in Japan, and usually aren't too strong either.

I'm organizing pictures and videos I took on my trip to the coast, and will post them soon.

Japanese Mexican-American Food?

Last night Eriya, Shinya and I went to Coco's for dinner (yup, the same chain from the southwestern United States). Shinya said he thinks it's one of the only restaurants around here where you can get taco salad. I had to try it! I was kind of craving Mexican food a while back, so I ordered the salad and quesadillas. (And yes, I realize that those are not REAL Mexican food-I actually spent a couple of minutes explaining what "TexMex" meant.) Well, the taco salad had no cheese, which was disappointing to me because I've been wanting cheese a lot lately (a food that has only limited varieties here), but other than that it was pretty good!

Tonight Shinya and I went to Saizeriya, an Italian food chain, for dinner. I had double cheese pizza and salad with cheese on top. Did I happen to mention that I've been missing having lots of cheese? (Sorry to a certain cheese-despising friend at church in Portland!)

Tomorrow I'm going on a school trip with the high school students to a park near the coast. I've heard that it's kind of a small amusement park and kind of a nature park, so I'm not sure what to expect. I heard a rumor that there might be a small roller coaster there . . . We also might have a chance for a quick stop by the ocean, but I was told that the ocean in that area isn't really that scenic. My report and pictures will be coming soon to a blog near you.

Golden Week

This week is called "Golden Week" in Japan. It's a series of holidays that all come close together, usually at the beginning of May, and sometimes including the end of April. April 30th was one of the holidays, so the young adult group from church went on a retreat to a beautiful resort area about an hour and a half away. The first two pictures are probably pretty obvious: the house we stayed in and a group picture with almost everybody in the picture. I mentioned to Eriya and Shinya that it seems so strange to me to see forests with bamboo everywhere as the undergrowth, so that's why I framed the first picture the way I did, if you haven't already figured that out. The theme of the retreat was "following your dream/vision", and it was a very encouraging time. It was also good just to get to know more people I didn't know, and get to know the people I already knew better.

On the way home we stopped at a beautiful park, and as you can see from the third picture, it also had an observation tower. SO . . . of course I had to pay the $2.60 to go up to the top and take pictures and videos. I think I figured out how to post links more efficiently, so I'll try that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzol9s3yK74

The second video I'm linking to is just us driving through the countryside right before we reached the park. It shows some of the scenery, and also features a conversation (well, maybe it's more of a "verbal exchange"; I don't know enough vocabulary to have a real conversation) about the fact that we suddenly realized that we were near a dairy. You will hear the Japanese words "kusai" (which means "stink") and "ushi" (which means "cow"). Here's that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNUQuV2yfSw

More Hachimanyama (say that fast three times!)

Previously I posted panorama pictures of Utsunomiya viewed from the tower. Here is a link to a video I posted at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSvb2bf0pTo
In the video, I'm walking around the observation deck in a complete circle. And the picture here, if you haven't already guessed, is Utsunomiya Tower. Not tremendously tall, but enough extra height on the top of the hill to give pretty impressive views. The suspension bridge in the picture crosses a small ravine that divides the park in two. I took the picture from the side of the park with the koi flags.

Happy Birthday to . . . . ME! (Join in, you know the tune!)

Today the students all sang to me at lunch time along with another teacher whose birthday is also today (!). I received cards, gifts, and a delicious, personal-size strawberry cake.

Later, Eriya and Shinya took me out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. We ordered pizza, which was the first time I had pizza in Japan. It was very good-CHEESE, hurray!!! We also had a great ice cream fruit dessert thing (sorry, it's late and I'm not feeling very verbally expressive).

Mountaintop Experience (okay... hilltop)

Yesterday afternoon I took a bike ride to a park where we had a school picnic the first week of classes. The name of the park is Hachimanyama (Hachiman is the name of a Shinto god, and yama means mountain). The first time I visited, I wasn't able to stay long, so I wanted to return when I had more time to look around (and take pictures). On top of the hill there is a small tower (named, appropriately enough, Utsunomiya Tower) that you can go up for 320 yen (about $2.60). I took quite a few pictures from the observation deck, and then used my picture software to stitch some of them together. So, here a couple of panorama pictures of Utsunomiya. They are pointing approximately NE (picture 1) and SE (picture 2) . . . I THINK. I'm still getting my bearings here. Click on the pictures for larger versions.
I only got lost once on the way there, which doesn't sound too impressive considering it's only about 30 minutes away by bike, but when very few streets have names, and even the ones that do are written in characters that you can't read, well . . . even a map doesn't always help. Anyway, I stopped to ask a parking attendant for directions, and he was very kind and helpful, even drawing a local addendum map to add to the larger one I brought with me. (It was a good thing that I stopped and asked; by that time I had actually gotten turned around and was headed in almost the opposite direction!)

Part of the park has gardens and landscaped areas for walking, and in another area there's a huge playground for children. In that part, there are several koi flags flying. In Japanese culture, they are traditionally flown on Boys Day by families with sons, but sometimes are displayed in other places. One of my students told me that the grouping of three flags together represents father, mother and son.

Provision

I am continually awed and humbled by God's provision for me here, even in the simplest, most surprising ways. I had a small group English tutoring session this evening with some members of the church. A few minutes after the session finished and the students had left, I realized that I didn't have anything for breakfast tomorrow morning and prepared to go to the store to buy some yogurt and fruit. Just as I was about to leave, someone knocked at my door. It was one of the students returning with a bag in his hand. He said his mother asked him to give it to me; inside was a container of yogurt and a jar of freshly-canned strawberries she made yesterday. Amazing. (Thank you!)

Today I made it to the park that I mentioned in my last post. I took several pictures and videos, but I'll save that for the next post...

First McDonalds, now Starbucks?!

Well, I finally found a coffee drink that I like at Starbucks. Okay, Janelle and others that know how much I hate coffee, don't get TOO shocked-it's a banana coconut frappuccino, and it apparently has so little coffee in it, I can just barely taste a slight bitterness in it. (I think it tastes more like a milkshake than anything else.)

Everyone's probably getting completely sick of hearing this, but I just can't get over how normal it seems for me to be here already.

Tomorrow the high school students are all going on a field trip that I can't join because of a scheduling conflict with my private tutoring students, so I will get most of the afternoon off, and will hopefully use it to take an extended bike ride, if the weather cooperates. There's a beautiful park on a hill not too far away that I visited the second week I was here, but I didn't have my camera with me. I'll try to get some good city view pictures and post them.

Next week is Golden Week, the first week in May that has three national holidays next to each other on the calendar. Many people have several days off, including students. Our school has only two days of classes, so I'll get a little break and might try to take a short trip.

Learning to read

I was very encouraged in church this morning, partly just from the service and worship, and partly because it was exciting to be able to start to read! I've been working on memorizing the first of the three systems needed to read and write Japanese, called hiragana. It's something like an alphabet, but it's generally called a syllabary because each symbol represents a syllable rather than what English speakers would think of as a single sound. Next I will learn katakana, which is similar to hiragana and is used to write words of foreign origin. Finally (and most difficult!) I will start memorizing kanji, which are the Chinese pictographs/ideographs used to represent many vocabulary words. (If you're interested in knowing more about it, just do a search on Google, or go to Wikipedia.com) You need to know about 2,000 kanji to read a newspaper, so that's a much bigger task. Anyway, as we sing praise songs, I look at the power point projection of the lyrics, and try to read as much as I can. This morning was the first time that I was able to follow fairly consistently through quite a few of the songs. I got lost many times, but was usually able to find my place again. I only knew the meaning of a few of the words in each song, but it was still very fun to be able to read the sounds as we were singing!

Back On My Soapbox

A while back I sent out an e-mail to some of you about how Internet radio is being affected by a poorly-thought-out government decision made recently. Several of the stations I listen to have already announced that they are cutting back and/or shutting down in a few weeks unless the newly announced royalty rates are modified. PLEASE do me a favor and go to www.savenetradio.org and either sign an online petition (good) or send a quick, preformatted e-mail to Congress (better). THANKS!

Synthesizer and ladybug

My keyboard (synthesizer) that I mailed to myself just before I left Oregon arrived-hurray! I immediately plugged it in to check that it works okay, of course, and it seems to be fine. From the look of the box, it didn't have to endure too much abuse, and it got here in a little less than a month (the Post Office said typical shipping time for parcel post is 4-6 weeks). Perfect timing again, because this afternoon I'm playing at my first church function, a monthly youth group function (high school and j-high combined, I think).


School continues to go well; I just realized that some people still may not know much about my school. It's a small private school with student enrollment of about 30, most of whom are Japanese, but we do have a few children of missionaries and other internationals who live here. I teach English to all the levels, but focus on high school and junior high. Most classes have about five students. I teach the elementary level just once a week, and preschool three times a week, half an hour each session. Two of the preschool students are Anglo and two are Japanese. It's fun to watch them communicating, because a couple of the more advanced kids are already showing their bilingualism pretty strongly. In class a few days ago, I was reading an activity book to them ("How many cats do you see? Count the frogs." etc.) and when I pointed at the ladybug in the picture and asked one of the Anglo boys what it was, he said it was "tentomushi", but he didn't know the word in English. So, I learned a new Japanese word!

The End Of Cold As I Know It?

One thing that has surprised me here is that it's been rather cold rather often! Almost everyone has told me that this has been an unusually cold spring, especially this late in the season. I just checked the long range forecast, and it says the next couple of days are supposed to be warmer and dry, and even though showers come back in a few days, warmer weather is predicted. Here's hoping...

I ate at McDonalds for dinner tonight, and I SWEAR it's a completely different restaurant here! I had a basil shrimp burger (their currently featured temporary menu item) and "American Barbecue" flavor (the name made me laugh, so I had to try some) shaka shaka fries. (Read the post below for shaka shaka fries if you haven't already--are there shaka shaka fries in the US?)

More videos

Here are some links to more videos that I posted on YouTube. They take you on a short walk through my neighborhood from nearby Utsunomiya University to my house. The tour of my house is coming soon . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H28rnQH61bM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2o3a8kP1co
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12AHW1mSRuk

Shaking, but not quaking

I get asked about earthquakes sometimes-nothing so far that I've felt. But it was so COLD this morning that I was shaking from that. Another teacher at school said that today was more like winter weather, and that she heard that at Nikko in the mountains not too far away it was snowing this morning.
I've already mentioned this before, but I keep waiting for culture shock to suddenly hit me, and so far it hasn't really. It's kind of strange to me how UNstrange it seems to me to be here. The situation continues to seem exciting and interesting, but I'm still surprised that I don't feel more out of place than I do.
I didn't have regular class meetings with all the student groups the first couple days of school due to special activities, so as of today I have met with all the levels. All of the students are great; this is a special place!

"Vacation" is over...well....

Today was the first full day of school. Basically just doing level testing to make sure students are placed in classes correctly, so not much intensive teaching. I worked with the preschool today; at first that was one of my biggest concerns, having never taught that age group before, but everything went well, and the main preschool teacher said the lesson I presented was appropriate. She speaks almost no English, and of course my Japanese is still VERY limited, so after school we tried for about five minutes to communicate before we both started laughing and just went and got one of the bilinguals at church/school.

I just got back from kaitenzushi ("sushi-go-round", "sushi train", or conveyor belt sushi, whatever you prefer to call it. . . ) with Shinya. I ate plenty (seven plates) and my bill total came to 735 yen (about $6.50) amazing! Oh, and no tipping here! Oh, and bonus amazing: free green tea! An equivalent meal in the States would definitely be over $10, plus tip. I think I'll be going to sushi fairly often!

Yesterday my searching finally paid off; I bought . . . . a Dance Dance Revolution pad and a Playstation 2! (yeah, I know, I'm easily entertained) Kind of odd to think that in the country that invented that video game, it was rather difficult to actually find one for sale (the dance pad, not the PS2-THAT was easy to find). (And no, it's not just entertainment, it's exercise!) (What? Don't believe me? YOU try hopping around, alternating left, right and both feet simultaneously for 30 minutes and see if you don't work up a sweat!)

More Hanami

I've been trying to get videos that I post to appear directly on this page, but so far it's not working, so if you recently saw odd videos that have nothing to do with me appear at the top of this screen , please ignore them until I get this thing figured out. For now, copy and paste this link in a new window:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wntRLzFwMd4
It's a link to a video I posted on YouTube. It shows people doing hanami picnics that I described in the last post:

Finally: Pictures

Just a quick post to show some pictures. The mountain is close to the retreat center that I mentioned in a previous post. The two pictures with cherry trees blossoming are what I referred to in the preceding post. You can click on the pictures for a larger view.

Also, Easter is only 25 minutes away here, so: He is risen!