Kyoto

We took advantage of Chelsey's week off to go to Kyoto. It's one of the top places to visit in Japan, since it was the cultural center (and official capital) of Japan for several hundred years. Conveniently, it's also fairly close to us, so we could just go as a day trip. There are sites to see all over the city, but we decided just to concentrate on the east side and walk around. Our theory was, we're definitely going to have to come back to Kyoto, so there's no need to try to cram everything in today.
Our first stop was Sanjusangendo, a Buddhist temple with 1001 golden statues of the god Kannon. 1000 of the statues are life-size, standing statues. They're almost identical, except for some small details in the faces and the items that each statue's 40 arms hold. The last statue is a giant seated Kannon, situated in the middle of the 1000 standing ones. The whole room was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, they were pretty strict about no photography, much to Chelsey's chagrin. (the picture is one that we found on the internet)
We next walked up to Kiyamizu dera, one of the most famous shrines in Kyoto. It's set up on a hill, with part of the shrine built over a wooded gorge. In fact, part of the attraction of this shrine is the view from the terrace in front of the shrine, which overlooks the woods below and then the city of Kyoto beyond. There's also a waterfall. Drinking the spring water is supposed to cure any illness. I got in line and filled my Nalgene bottle so Chelsey and I could each sip.
After that we walked north to the Philosopher's Path, and then strolled along the path (which runs by a stream). It apparently got its named because a noted philosopher would take a daily constitutional there.
After philosophizing, we started heading back through town to the train station. We stopped for dinner, and when we finished it was dark. Fortunately, that was in time to see the Gion district, which is sort of the entertainment area and where the geishas work. According to our guide, it's best seen after dark. We wandered down a few streets that were fairly interesting, including one charming lane that was lined with paper lanterns. It had a very cool effect.
We were very impressed with our first visit to Kyoto, and found that navigating the Japanese train system wasn't too hard. At least not for a trip as straightforward as to Kyoto. The biggest trick might be finding seats on the busy train.
-Jason
P.S. Chelsey is working on her pictures and will post them soon.

pictures

I added some pictures to the picasa site from one of my elementary schools, the castle at night, and from the community center welcome party, where they dressed us in kimonos.

What flavor?

Why has Chelsey suddenly turned into Angelina Jolie?













It must have been the collagen ice cream.

onsen

We made our first trip to an onsen (a Japanese spa/hot spring). It was wonderful. We really had no idea what we were doing when we got there, or even if we were in the right place, but after some pointing/gesturing things worked themselves out.
It's an incredibly relaxing and peaceful experience -- once (or if) you get past the fact that everyone is naked and they're probably staring at you because you're tall, white and blond, and therefore you stand out.

Daisen and the Sea of Japan

On Monday one of the English teachers at Chelsey's junior high took us for a drive through some of the country near Himeji. She and her husband picked us up in the morning and we drove out through some small mountains until we got to Mt. Daisen, the biggest mountain in the area. (Apparently it's known as the local Fuji). We pulled off at a pretty spectacular viewpoint. Unfortunately, clouds were obscuring the top of the mountain, so we didn't get to fully appreciate it. Our hosts also planned to stop and walk around in the town at the base of the mountain. However, it was a holiday and everything was very busy. Most importantly, the parking lots were full. We drove around for awhile, but it was getting near lunchtime so we headed on to Japan's west coast.
It was busy there, too, but it was nice driving along the sea. We stopped at a traditional Japanese restaurant for lunch. Nothing was in English, so our hosts ordered for us. What came was a giant tray of seafood, in various states of cooked. There were three separate fish: one fried, one grilled and one baked in a sauce, as well as some sashimi and octopus. (The sashimi included eel). Chelsey was brave and tried just about everything, I think. After lunch we walked through a couple of grocery markets.
Our final stop was Hakuto Beach, or White Rabbit Beach. Apparently it was so named because of a local legend. A rabbit was stuck on a small island off the coast, but he wanted to be on the shore. The rabbit couldn't swim, but there were lots of sharks in the water, so the rabbit asked them all to line up so he could count them. He proceeded to do so as he jumped from one shark to another. Just before he reached the shore, he revealed his trick to the sharks. An enraged shark then gave the rabbit a thrashing. As the rabbit lay in pain on the shore, a god came along and told him to bathe in sea water and roll in the sand. The rabbit did, but this made things even worse. Fortunately, another god (possibly the first god's brother) came along and told the rabbit to wash in cool water and lie on the grass in the shade. Finally the rabbit got some relief.
The beach was quite picturesque, and we stopped and looked out over from a vantage point by the road. There was a statue of the rabbit and a god in the parking lot, and the little shop across the street had lots of rabbit-themed items for sale.
-Jason

Sports Day

Schools in Japan have “Sports Day” this time of year. It is a very big deal. Since I started at my junior high school three weeks ago, the students have spent time every single day practicing and preparing for sports day. In the last week, there were days when the students had no classes – they spent the entire day preparing. I was often included in their preparation. Since the students weren’t having class, I had nothing else to do. So I would go and help.

I saw bits and pieces of their preparation, but when sports day came, I really had no idea how they were going to fit together or what the order of events would be. I’ve broken it down and below are several items about the various events of sports day.

Preparing for Sports Day

One of the first things I noticed was the amount of time that the teachers had the students practice marching. Hours. They all line up in special formation and they march. The teachers want them to keep doing it until they are all picking their knees up to the perfect height and swinging their arms at the perfect angle, and the longer the teachers try to get them to march, the more they act like junior high students and put forth half-hearted effort.

They were also very concerned about the appearance of school for sports day. So there were a few days when our preparation time included sweeping, raking, picking weeds, etc. so that the campus would look nice. Yes, I even helped with these – it was common for the homeroom teacher to work with their students. But, there was one landscaping task that I helped with one day and then did my best to avoid the rest of the time, and that was picking up pebbles. The field where the students have all of their activities is entirely dirt – there’s no grass. At first I thought this was strange and that it would be a disaster after one of the storms blows through, but it’s a fine enough dirt/sand mixture that it can rain all morning and the field is ready for use by the time school’s out.

One day we finished the marching practice and then the students all went at got buckets. I asked one of them what it was for and he told me it was cleaning time. The all of the students lined up shoulder to shoulder so that they spread across the entire field, and they all bent down and started picking up pebbles off the field. We’re not talking about big pebbles, either. They were tiny, grain-of-rice size pebbles. But every single student was bent over picking them up as they moved across the field. I helped out, and after cleaning time was over an hour later I’d had enough. I’m trying really hard to fit in and go with the flow, but that was just a little too much for me.

Sports Day –- Human Pyramids

Many of the events in sports day are part of a long and important tradition. One of the events that is a symbol of honor for the school is the human pyramids. If the students perform them well then it reflects well on their school, but if they don’t then they bring it shame. So the students try very hard to get all of the formations correct – and they sometimes push their boundaries because they don’t want to let others down.

The formations start with each student doing some solo formations (putting their arms up, etc). Then they grow from there. With students combining to form groups of two, then three, then four, five, etc. Each time the group grows, the formations become more complicated … and more dangerous. By the time they reach 10 students, they are forming a pyramid where the top person is a full three-body lengths off of the ground. While we were practicing for sports day, it was not uncommon for the students to fall while in their formations, sending bodies flying (especially the girls, who just didn’t seem strong enough for some of the formations). Students were getting hurt every day, and it was not uncommon for a teacher to have to run somebody to the hospital – but, as far as I know, there weren’t any really serious injuries this year.

This was one event that I watched and thought “oh my gosh. This is a little crazy. I can’t believe they’re doing this.” But, I know that it’s my place to observe, participate and help where I can – not to question their tradition. So I was a “spotter” to help catch falling students and tried to be a positive part of the event.

Luckily, thankfully, none of the students collapsed during the formations on sports day.

sports day -- centipede race

One of the sports day events that I really liked was called the 100 foot or Centipede Race. Only the 9th grade students participate in this event. Each homeroom has a rope with straps for each student to tie around their ankles. When they are all tied in, the entire class (about 40 students) is in a single-file line -- each holding the shoulders of the person in front of them. There is one student who is not tied in who runs along side the rest of the class and blows a whistle to keep rhythm (one.two...one.two...), and there is a second student who is not tied in who runs backwards at the front of the line to try to help keep them headed straight.
In the two weeks leading up to sports day, the 9th grade classes were out practicing this every morning before school. I often went out and joined them. I took some videos of the students while they were practicing. The first shows what it looks like when everyone keeps the rhythm.

[I'm having trouble getting it to post -- I'll try again tomorrow]


The second shows the all-too-common wipeout. It's particularly funny since when one student goes down and there's a domino effect since they are all tied together.

Sports Day -- Bamboo race and "walking on backs" race

The 9^th graders participate in the centipede race, the 8^th graders the bamboo race and the 7^th graders the “walking on backs” race.

The bamboo race involves groups of four students holding on to a bamboo pole and then running down the field. When they reach a cone they must make a circle around it and then continue on. Upon returning to the rest of the class, they lower the bamboo and then run through the class. All of the waiting students must hurdle the bamboo as it passes. Then, the pole gets passed to the next group of four students who take off to run down the field.

This race was funny because the students try very hard to make tight circles around the cones – which often results in the inner-most person stopping and trying to swing the pole around and whiplashing the person on the outside.

The “walking on backs” was fun to watch, too. The students would bend down on their hands and knees and one designated student runs across their backs. After being stepped on, the kneeling student would jump up and run to the front of the line to kneel down again – creating a continuous platform for the running student. I was impressed at how quickly the students shuffled through the process. Japanese schools focus on the group/team mentality, and events like this show what it enables the students to accomplish together.

Sports Day -- Jump rope

Another one of my favorite events was the jump rope. All of the classes participated in this event. Each class has one, long rope. Two students from the class swing it on the ends and the other 38 are in the middle jumping. When the students were out practicing before or after school I would join them and jump along. They always thought this was very funny because many of them said I was too tall and that the rope would hit my head on the way around the top – so I’d always promise to duck. They seemed to enjoy it when I’d join their class, and whenever I was there we would count our jumps in English. I told them we had to because I can only really count to 6 in Japanese and we were surely going to get more than that. I think that the highest a class ever reached while I was jumping with them was 27 – which is pretty good. On sports day the class who won reached 41. That’s impressive for 38 students having to jump together.

Sports Day -- Sweden relay

One of the final events of Sports Day is what they call the “Sweden Relay” and roughly translates to what we’d call a medley relay – one student runs 50m, the next 100m, the next 150m, etc. But for this event the teachers also have a team. The teachers don’t stick to the pre-assigned distances, however. It seems they take whatever they can get from whatever teachers they can cajole into participating. They asked me to run and I said sure. They said how far, and I told them I could run 100m, no problem. They asked if I could run 200m, and I said, sure, no problem. They were very excited. It turns out for the 1000m relay we had 10 teachers, and I was running 200m. There was one other staff member who ran 200m and then it went down from there – to the teachers who contributed just 20m.

It was fun and the students enjoyed seeing me run and cheering for me. I think that I had a respectable race, but it’s hard to tell because our team was so far behind before I even got the baton – one of the earlier teachers had tripped and fallen over.

Sports Day – enkai

Throughout the year there are several enkai (or teachers’ parties), including the night of sports day. These are parties where the whole staff goes out – no spouses allowed – to celebrate having survived some event at school. I’ve heard stories from other foreign teachers about the enkai getting out of control with copious amounts of alcohol being consumed by all of the teachers and even the principals. They said it’s not uncommon for everyone to be completely drunk and acting crazy (remember, karaoke is very popular here), and that one strange thing is that nobody mentions Monday morning at work. It’s like nothing ever happened.

So I was a little nervous to see what was going to happen. It turns out, I’ve got a very tame, mild school. Several of the teachers had a few drinks, but it was very much in control and there was no karaoke – other than when we all sang the school song.

The restaurant we went to was very interesting and I’m excited to go back and take Jason – and anyone who comes to visit. It’s something like fondue – except instead of frying your meal, there’s a grill in the middle of the table. They bring out various meats and things and you grill them yourself.

Throughout my life I have not been the most adventurous eater, and I’m not a big fan of seafood, but I am making a conscious effort to try everything that comes my way while we’re here. At least one bite of everything.

Our meal started with whole crawfish. Eyes and everything. I really don’t like it when my meal can look back at me. But I tried it, and actually, I ate most of it. It’s not my favorite thing, but it was ok. Then we moved on to some more fish. Again, not my favorite, but ok.

The third thing they brought out was beef. I thought “finally, something I really like.” As we were grilling it one of the teachers at my table said something about mouth. I thought, “yes, you put the food in your mouth.” Then I realized she was trying to tell me that the meat was cow tongue. I was fairly grossed out, but determined to try it. It was actually good. You squeeze fresh lemon and put pepper on it, and just don’t think about the fact that it’s tongue.

Later in the meal we did get some “normal” beef, and it is absolutely delicious. Come and visit and I’ll take you down to try some.

manners/etiquette

I'm intrigued by the Japanese and their manners/etiquette --
consider:
1. Every morning when I arrive at school the baseball team is on the field practicing. When any of the players spots me, he stops and signals his teammates. They then all stop playing, remove their hats, turn toward me, bow and say "ohayo gozimasu" = "good morning". They do this, without fail, every day. Oh, and I'm not really that special, they do this for any teacher.
2. I was riding home from school on the bus. This particular bus had rows of one seat on the left and two seats on the right. I was sitting in a row on the left. On the right, there were three rows where one person was occupying the entire space. There was a small boy, a teenage boy and an adult man. The bus was full when a grandmotherly woman got on (I'd guess she was in her 80s). She walked OK, but she wasn't so steady on her feet. She walked up to the three rows each with one person and looked at them to try to figure out where she could squeeze in or which of the three people would move for her. None of them did. They all completely ignored her. I was very surprised. I quickly jumped out of my seat and offered it to her. She was shocked. Really. Shocked isn't even a strong enough word to describe the expression on her face. She thanked me very sincerely (there are different levels of thanks in Japanese, and she used the highest level) and took her seat.

I just think this is an interesting contrast of how polite they are in some circumstances and not others. Also, as a side note, I couldn't help but laugh when thinking about Prague where the little old ladies on the trams would verbally (and possibly physically) assault you if you didn't get up out of your seat fast enough. :)
-Chelsey

castle pictures

I've got the captions on the castle pictures on the picasa site.

Turtles

Chelsey and I planned to go the traditional Japanese gardens that are next to the castle on Saturday, but we got rained out. Sunday, however, was a nice day, so we went running in the morning. My running route goes down by the castle, along the moat. There are lots of fish - some big fish - swimming around in the moat. I think most of them are carp. Sunday, however, I noticed a turtle in the moat for the first time. Then Chelsey and I stopped and looked, and we spotted maybe a dozen or more. Once we stopped, it wasn't that hard to find them, actually; I think people stop along the banks and feed the fish and/or turtles, so when we stopped there were quite a few of both waiting below us for the food that wasn't forthcoming. One turtle, in particular, was anxious to get to us, and was trying to figure out how to climb up the bank.
After the run, we decided to pack up a picnic lunch and eat down by the moat, so we could watch the turtles.
-Jason

hiatus

I apologize for the blog posting hiatus. We had some issues with our internet connection and we had to use the public computers down at the library. They are fine for email, but they don't allow you to post to social networking sites, like blogger.
But, we're back online now, so we'll catch up and fill you in on what's been going on here.
-Chelsey

The Castle

We went and toured Himeji Castle on Saturday. We were excited to get out and do it because, for one thing, it's the most impressive site in Himeji, and for another thing, it will undergo a five-year restoration process starting sometime this fall. While the castle will remain open for the entire restoration, parts of it will be closed at various times, and the main tower may be covered with scaffolding, so we wanted to see it before that began. We also had free tickets (thanks again, Audrey and Josh!).
The castle was well worth our time, and well-presented. When we passed through the ticket gate, we asked about an English tour, and promptly got an English-speaking guide who took the two of use around the castle for about an hour-and-a-half. He was very good. We found out the castle was built in 1603 as the base for the local feudal warlord during the Shogun period. However, the feudal system collapsed about 20 years later, peace settled across Japan, and the fortress was never attacked. The main tower of the castle is on top of a hill, and so towers over the city of Himeji and is certainly the most striking thing in town. However, because the main tower was designed as the emergency spot in case of attack, it appears it was never really used. Its main threat probably came in World War II, when Allied bombing raids burned nearly everything around the castle...but the castle itself survived nearly unscathed. This is one of the reasons it's the best-preserved castle in Japan and considered the prime example of a Japanese shogun castle.
The interiors, which were almost all wood, were quite interesting, and very different from European castles. There was no real interior ornamentation, but the simplicity of the woodworking was quite beautiful. Some parts of it were also quite impressive. The seven-story main tower was supported by two main beams, each consisting of a single tree (originally, one of the beams has since been replaced). Those were some big trees.
[The second picture is of Jason standing by the original beam. He's barefoot because we were required to take off our shoes before entering the castle.]
Saturday night the teachers who were already here hosted a welcome party for us newcomers at a rooftop bar across the street from the castle. As I said, the castle sits on top of a hill (the combined height of the castle and the hill is about the same as the Statue of Liberty) and it's lit at night, so it looks quite spectacular - especially from the roof across the way.
-Jason
Chelsey has posted the pictures on the picasa site, but she hasn't had time to add the captions yet. She said she knows there are some pictures that won't make any sense until she explains them, so she'll try to get those done this week.

Beach day

Monday some of the returning teachers organized a beach day to celebrate the last day of summer. Himeji's on the water, but mainly it's a port, so we traveled about 30 minutes by train to reach our destination. (Granted, it was a slow train). It was a nice day for the beach, and a nice spot. We could see big ships, including a couple of big cruise ships, going into and out of the harbour. Our beach spot was very calm, so there was no boogie boarding or anything of the sort, just lazing around in the water. The water was also very shallow, so we walked out quite a ways.
There was a group of Japanese hairdressers having a party on the beach, including a game of beach volleyball. Chelsey and a couple of the other teachers joined in the game. Everyone seemed to have fun; the hairdressers wanted their picture taken with us, even after Chelsey tried to kill one of her teammates with a jump serve.
There are pictures on the picasa site.
-Jason

first day of school

I survived my first day of school. I found the right bus and got off at the correct stop -- something which is much more difficult here than it was in the Czech Republic. Not having any idea what's going on is a powerful motivator to learn the language.
Everyone at my school was very helpful and friendly. I had to give two speeches today (both in Japanese!!). I had some help figuring out what to say, and I did my best to pronounce everything at least close enough that they would know what I was saying. The first speech was to all of the teachers during the staff meeting and the other was to the entire school during the welcome assembly. I think that they both went well -- people at least told me they understood what I was saying.
The students at this school are very friendly and not as shy as it seems many Japanese students are. I was told that the Japanese are hesitant to talk to you in English. They want everything they say to have flawless grammar and be pronounced perfectly. They'd rather say nothing than risk not saying it perfectly. Luckily this was not the case at my school today. All day I had students coming up to introduce themselves, and many students stopped by the teachers' room while I was in there to meet Chelsey-sensei. Most of them can say "Hello, my name is ___. Nice to meet you." I was pleasantly surprised to find that several of them can say quite a bit more. I had a pretty good conversation with a group of 8th grade girls. They wanted to know about me, so they were asking questions. But when they first started they'd ask me "question?" to make sure it was ok to ask me another question. I thought it was very funny.