chicken, cake and romance

Merry Christmas everyone! Here we are in front of Tokyo Tower, which we happened to walk by on Christmas Eve night as it was across from the church we went to for a Christmas Eve service.

Christmas in Japan is a bit different than what I'm used to in America. There are still lots of Christmas lights in public places, Christmas music playing in department stores, and Christmas decorations for sale. But when the actual day rolls around, it's life as usual. People go to work, school activities, etc. I had students with band concerts and basketball games on Christmas day. It feels almost sacrilegious. :) I feel like everyone should be cozied up at home with their families, but that comes later, for New Years'.

Here are three things I've noticed about Christmas in Japan: 1) Romance - Christmas Eve especially is a romantic holiday here, almost like Valentine's Day. I knew this, but not to what extent, until this past Christmas Eve just a few days ago when Jesse and I were in Tokyo and noticed that almost everyone walking down the street was a part of a couple. It was kind of creepy actually. There were no individuals, no groups, no children, no friends, no elderly folks, just a continuous stream of young couples. 2) Christmas Cake - Generally white cake with strawberries, it's for sale everywhere. 3) Fried Chicken - I just learned about this one this year. It seems that many people think that's what we eat for Christmas in America. I heard a rumor that this started with KFC. It must be working. I tried to order chicken nuggets on Christmas Eve (long story) and they were sold out. I had been wondering why McD's was doing a big promotion for nuggets.

So that's Christmas in Japan. My Christmas in Japan is a different story. But that's not to say it didn't involve chicken, cake and romance. :)

pottery town

Last weekend, Jesse and I went to Mashiko, a town famous for its rustic, natural-style pottery. We had a great time checking out all the shops and galleries, and even a couple kilns. The whole town was centered around the pottery, with even the restaurants serving food on handmade dishes. We ended up leaving with a teapot and cups that we love.

ode to rice fields

The rice fields turned brown practically overnight last week. The rice has been cut for quite some time, but the weeds/grass that grew in its place kept the fields fairly green and decent-looking. Then it got cold. One day, I was looking out the train windows at a sea of green, the next day at a sea of brown. I knew it was going to happen. It's just that it makes me a little sad, knowing that when the fields are green again, I won't be here to see them. I've really enjoyed watching the rice fields through the seasons. It's something I'll miss. Here are some pictures of the rice fields behind our house.

The picture above is normal winter, the picture below is one day last year when we got snow!

happy thanksgiving

We had some friends over yesterday to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Japan. Thanks to imported ingredients that Nicole and Mike brought us a couple weeks ago, we had mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls, sweet potatoes, chicken, and no-bake pumpkin pie. Our first time hosting a Thanksgiving meal and it was here in Japan! With no oven! Of course almost all of the foods were out of cans and boxes... :) But it was great. Jesse even downloaded a couple of last week's football games to watch as we ate and played games. Although of course we missed being with our families, it felt very nice and family-like.
Going in a left-ward circle starting in front: Donna (teacher), Romanda and Meaghan (teachers and friends of Tessa's), Tessa (teacher), Fukiko (Matt's friend), Shogo (he teaches Japanese at the high school where Jesse used to teach English once a week), Jessica (teacher), 1/2 of Reika's head :) (one of our school managers), Manami (a school manager), and Matt (teacher). There were a couple more that are hiding.

shichi-go-san

November 15th is Shichi-Go-San in Japan, a holiday that honors three, five, and seven-year-old children. Girls who are three and seven, and boys who are five, often dress in traditional clothing and visit shrines with their families in hopes for a long, healthy life. Most families visit a shrine on one of the weekends near November 15th. So last weekend, when Mike, Nicole, Jesse and I were in Tokyo, we stopped by Meiji-Jingu shrine to see the kids dressed up. It's a pretty big deal for the families (and can be a big expense). A lot of my kids are in this age range, so I'm looking forward to seeing pictures that their mothers promised to bring in.

On the left, a five-year-old boy taking pictures of his family. On the right, a seven-year-old girl walking with her father.

A large (for Japan) family all celebrating with their seven-year-old sister/daughter, in the middle.

The weekend before, in Nikko. A seven-year-old girl and her five-year-old brother leave the shrine after a ceremony.

Bonus: There was also a traditional wedding going on at the shrine.

takumi and natsumi

I met these kids while walking around Sakura, a nearby city, when I was there last week with our friends, Nicole and Mike. It was so fun for me to chat with them and somehow became a really memorable time. I couldn't believe how easy it was to talk to kids in Japanese, as compared to adults. They spoke at a good pace and we could understand each other well. They showed us the bugs that they had in their plastic bottle, and then we found a praying mantis which I think they put into shock with while "playing" with it. In the end, they covered it up with leaves and put it to bed. I hope it was able to wake up. :) We talked mostly about bugs and their favorites. And they had fun taking some pictures with my digital camera. When we left, they followed us. For a long ways. I started to get nervous that we were going to be accused of kidnapping, and kept asking them which direction their home was. Eventually, the boy (Takumi) said it was time for them to go and they headed back. I spend time with kids all the time as a teacher, but it was really fun to spend time with kids just as a normal person...especially kids as sweet as these two (I'm sure the praying mantis has a different opinion).

halloween

Jesse and I both had Halloween parties at our schools the past couple weekends. It meant an extra day of going in to work, but they were really fun. At the school I went to, we took the kids out trick-or-treating. The school managers had asked some neighborhood stores to give out candy when we came by. We were a crazy-looking group...about 36 Japanese kids, 30 of which were witches and princesses, some Japanese staff and a few foreigners. I was a rather boring pumpkin, but one of the other teachers was a big eggplant! One little girl shouted "Happy Halloween!" to everyone passing by. We got a lot of smiles. There are a lot of foreigners in this town, and they seemed the most amused. My favorite part of the day: this little 2-year-old, Madoka, held my hand the whole time we were out walking around. She is adorable!

Here's Jesse with some of the kids at his party.

Interesting side-note: We learned that day that eggplants are sometimes used as part of the o-bon rituals in August, when Japanese remember their ancestors. Eggplants represent horses, if I understood correctly, and the idea is that they are sort of a gateway from "the other world." One little girl was really scared of the teacher dressed as an eggplant. I doubt this has anything to do with it, but it seemed sort of appropriate.

film festival

Jesse and I have been trying to catch as many events as we can in Tokyo lately, especially knowing that our time here will be drawing to a close. Last year, we went to the Tokyo International Film Festival and saw a European film (Bye Bye Blackbird) and also sat in on a Q&A with the director. We just happened to find out at the last minute that the festival was back this past weekend, and decided to head into the city to see one of the films, which we did...eventually....

This year, we hoped to see a Japanese film. I suppose that sounds strange since we live here, but we can never go to Japanese movies in the regular theatres, because, of course, they don't have English subtitles. We decided to go to "Notebook of Life" at 4:30pm, knowing nothing about the movie except that there were a lot of beautiful snow scenes (as was obvious from the Japanese-only website).

We got there early, got reserved seats, and settled in. But there were two problems: a) They had double-booked many of the seats, including ours. It took them quite a while to get it all figured out and find a place for everyone. b) When the movie finally started, there were no subtitles, even though we had inquired about this ahead of time.

They apologized and we lucked out in getting the last two seats for another movie at 6:20, and they gave us the tickets for free! Which was great, since they were $15 each. I have to say, all this is quite unusual for Japan in my experience...usually stuff like this is so organized. So since we had time, we walked around the area (Roppongi), which has a lot of interesting architecture (I'll post pictures of it another time).

The movie was great. It's called Chosyu Five and is about five Japanese samurai who went to England to study in the late 19th century, just before the Meiji Restoration. Four of the five main actors and the director were all there before the movie for comments! We had no idea that was going to happen. Afterwards, there was a Q&A with the director, which was also really interesting.

The director, on the left, with four of the actors.

ka ki ku ke ko

One of the things that's interesting to me about the Japanese language is that there are a limited number of sounds. Almost every syllable is made up of one consonant and one vowel, accept in the case of a few blended sounds, and a few de-voiced sounds. Often, the words differ by only one syllable, and this can be confusing. Is it karimasu or kirimasu? Kakimasu or kakemasu?

One of my friends has been going to ramen shops lately and ordering a spicy kind of ramen. The word for "spicy" is "karai." Incidentally, the word for "hate" is "kirai." So lately, he's been going into restaurants, ordering his ramen, then turning to the waitress and saying "kirai." I.e., "I'd like such and such ramen please. I hate it."

charming yukari

Jesse and I went for a walk this afternoon, just as the sun was starting to set. I remembered while we were out enjoying the neighborhood that I used to feel disapointed that we lived in a suburban area "with no charm." While I'd still love to live out in the country, or even in the city, I've come to really love our neighborhood. I was struck by a few interesting scenes today (and I was testing out our new camera) so here they are:

Lots of vending machines in Japan. This one was sort of in the middle of nowhere.

This was at a nearby temple in the setting sun.

These buckets were at the edge of a cemetery. They are labeled with family names, and used to wash family graves.

A random Japanese house.

A family shrine, at the back of their gardens.

Jesse, rice fields, an apartment building and a lady with a dog.

yamagishi

We spent a beautiful fall day at Yamagishi Farm near Narita today. Tetsuo's parents live there, along with two other families. Yamagishi is a community that was founded in the 1950's and that has many locations throughout Japan and in other parts of the world. Mio and Tetsuo met at a Yamagishi when they were growing up, and Tetsuo's parents have continued to live and work in several locations. This is one of the smaller ones. We had a delicious lunch that consisted solely of food from the farm - fresh tomatoes, cooked eggplant, pumpkin, and numerous other Japanese vegetables. Then, we spent the afternoon digging up sweet potatoes and touring the other areas of the farm.

Digging up the sweet potatoes.



These "beans" were nearly a foot in length.

Tetsuo and his father and mother.

A vegetable. We learned so many new food words today. This one slips my mind.

Mio and Tetsuo and grass whistles.

rainy day

That hardly captures it. September is typhoon season. A couple days ago, there were two typhoons near Japan, and we felt the effects. The train line that we live on had an accident on Friday - one of the electric wires they run on broke (due to the strong winds and rain), so the trains stopped running. Our head office called and told us we'd need to take a taxi to the nearest station on another train line. We got ready quickly, packing our work clothes, including a second pair of socks and shoes, in plastic bags and then in our backpacks. We sloshed through water on the sidewalks, our umbrellas flopping around in the wind, for about 20 minutes, on our way to the taxi stand. We took a $30 taxi ride (at least the company will pay for it) thoroughly soaked, and then hopped on a train for a couple stops. Jesse went to the airport that day to pick up a new teacher, and ended up sitting in the airport for over five hours. The plane was due in at 2:10. Apparently, they diverted it to an army base, where it sat for a bit and re-fueled, then flew back to Narita, circled, and finally landed at 7:20. Jesse and the new teacher didn't end up getting to their destination until 10pm, due to trains that were both very late, and very slow. He took another taxi home. While I was at my school teaching that day, rain pelted the windows, water steadily streaming down them all day. All in all, it rained from Thursday night to Saturday morning. I don't know how many inches we ended up getting, but I am going to guess a lot. Today, it's 75 degrees and beautiful. It looks like a different world out there!

bike rides

It all started a few weeks back when I had a little extra time before work and decided to ride down a mysterious path near our house. Shortly after I got on the path, it headed away from the busy street we live on and through some rice fields. There was a beautiful white crane standing in the middle of the path that lifted off as I approached.

That's when I realized that in the midst of this noisy suburbia in which we live, there is a bit of country after all.

I continued on the path past some very old, traditional Japanese homes, a pen of ducks, lots of gardens and flowers, and maybe even a small rice processing shed. I ended up at a driving range. (Hm, hello suburbia.) On my way back, I took an alternate route and proceeded to get very lost. After a while, I turned up at a lake...none of those near us. I shouted at a passing cyclist who very kindly stopped to answer my questions, although the answer was primarily "I don't know." He didn't even know what Yukarigaoka was (the town I live in) and when I asked where I was, I didn't recognize the name of that town either. But we were near a bike trail, so together we guessed which direction I should probably go (I was totally turned around). I headed back quite happy to discover that not only was there a bit of country around...there was also a bike trail!

Last weekend, Jesse and I looked up the bike trail on our map (it said "saikuringurodo"...if you say it out loud, you'll hear "cycling road"). We hopped on our bikes and took it up past the windmill I posted a picture of and on to a history museum we've been meaning to go to for quite some time. Most of the trail was through rice fields and along a river....so nice. The museum was great too. The only bummer was when we looked out into the courtyard of the museum and saw a downpour. The rain lightened up by the time we left and we had a pleasant trip home. Feeling brave, we stopped in a mystery restaurant which turned out to be a pretty good, although quite expensive, sushi shop. The owners (a husband, wife and son who also live there) and the other patrons, were very friendly and nice. The woman even came out to wipe off our by-then wet bicycle seats. What a nice day!

where are we?

We're still in Japan...we just visited a windmill yesterday that's in the next city. It was a gift from the Netherlands about ten years ago.

sports day

Unfortunately, I didn't get to experience Sports Day firsthand, but all my junior high school students have been telling me about it the past couple weeks. Most schools in this area held it last Saturday and this past week, I saw some pictures and video of some of the activities. It's a pretty talked-about, looked-forward-to event and has been going on for a long time (my friend's dad remembers participating in the same event, with the same activities). I was interested to hear what kinds of things they do because some of them seem to reflect certain aspects of Japanese culture that are a little different from American culture.

Almost everything is very team-oriented. Remember doing the three-legged race? They do a NINE-legged race. Along the same lines, they do a caterpillar-type activity where they line up 20 students and tie all the students' legs together...one leg to the person in front of them, and one to the person behind. Then they all march forward. It's pretty amazing. Jump roping with large groups of students all on one rope (I heard of 40 students!!) and tug-of-war are also popular events.

We were also surprised at the number of activities that would be definite liabilities in the states. One of the boys' events is similar to "chicken" fighting in a pool. Four boys create a rather complex formation with one held above the others. They run around trying to knock each other off...but not into water...onto very hard dirt (at least it's not pavement, I guess?). For another, two teams hold large logs upright, while offensive members from the other team lunge at the log trying to bring it down.

Most schools break the students up into red and white teams (i.e., Japanese flag). I've been finding out my students' results this week. Some won, some lost...several had injuries!....but everyone had a lot of fun.

two trips to the beach

We live on a peninsula to the east of Tokyo, so are only a couple hours from the Pacific coast. Last weekend and this weekend, we headed out to the beach for a little swimming. The first time around, we went by a bus, three trains, a taxi and even a little bit of hitch-hiking. This weekend, we took the train for twenty minutes and then rode in a friend's car...MUCH easier. The waves were great...strong and high...the sand was soft and the breeze pleasant. It was a good time. Here's a picture of Tessa and me.

And here are some pictures of a family I was enjoying watching (the undertow was very strong, even in the shallow sections).






Nothing particularly interesting happened this year, but we took a couple trips to the beach last year as well and were surprised by a uniquely Japanese beach-going experience on one occasion. There were loudspeakers playing music, so you couldn't hear the sound of crashing waves (who wants to listen to the beautiful sound of nature anyway). There was a smell of grilled squid. And they promptly "closed" the ocean at 4pm, preceded by "closing music" (the traditional New Years' song). A cultural, if not quite natural, experience.

hanabi=fire flowers

Japan loves fireworks. They've been around here for a long time. We went to a museum a while back that had paintings of fireworks in Tokyo from centuries ago.

Every town has a fireworks festival at some point during the summer. Well, almost every town. Some are dropping it because of how expensive it is. People reserve a spot as early as the day before and show up in their yukatas to meet family and friends and have a little picnic.

We went to the Yachiyo Fireworks on Saturday night with some friends. Mio and I and some of the others we were with wore yukatas. The weather was cool and pleasant. We walked from Mio and Tetsuo's house (she in her geta, me in my tevas). There were loads of people heading in the same direction. Near the river where the fireworks were being shot off were lots and lots of food stands....noodles, squid and other seafood, rice cakes, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakitori, choco bananas, fried chicken, etc. One thing I love about all the festivals is that so many people wear yukata or other traditional clothing, even the young people. Many people talk about how wonderful it is that Japan can be so traditional and so modern at the same time. I love it that wearing yukata is still "cool" and I can't imagine that ever changing.

We sat alongside the river, in nearly the best spot available. Lanterns were sent down the river before the fireworks began, as part of traditional o-bon festivities honoring the dead. The fireworks themselves were so amazing. The hour and a half long show is made up of many sections sponsored by different companies (if I understand correctly), and at the end of each section is a mini-finale. The whole thing is spectacular.

After a great time watching fireworks, we headed back to Mio and Tetsuo's home. On the way home, was a special bonus....we came across a huge rice "vending machine." I could say that we see these all the time and make this area sound really foreign and exotic, but the truth is, this was my first time. Mio and Tetsuo said they've never even bought from one. Maybe they're more popular in the country? Anyway, just the fact that they exist makes me happy. :)

tokyo today

It'd been two months since I'd gone to Tokyo (an hour and a half away by train) and I missed it, so we headed out there today. We saw a little bit of all the things we like about Tokyo...people, shops, art, craziness and more. On our way in, we stopped at Akihabara, the electronics district, to check out some cameras at Yodabashi Camera, a huge, new electronics store that's going to put all the little interesting ones out of business (from a pessimistic standpoint). Then, we headed across the city to Yoyogi Park. We'd been to the area before, but never to this section of the park and we had heard that it could be very interesting, especially on Sundays. A lot of amateur singers and bands come here to perform. There was something special going on today, so a lot of groups were dressed up for dance performances. These two girls (beaming something on their cell phones) were with a large group that I think was going to do a performance...we didn't stick around to find out.
And these guys were practicing kendo...samurai sword-fighting practice.
Our main goal today was to see a dance performance at a local theatre (or so we thought). We're always wanting to go to performances and exhibits but feel deterred by the expense (quite high in Tokyo). But we've decided to just go for it now and then, since we always regret it if we don't. It's a little complicated since we can't always get good English information about what's going on. All we knew about the performance today was that the price was decent and we could get a good discount by mentioning the English magazine we had read about it in. We decided ahead of time that it was a gamble, but even if it was stupid, we'd be okay with spending the money on it. At the time, we didn't know how stupid it could be. At 5pm, we were waiting outside the building, lined up on a cement stairway, when pearl and clear marbles and beads of different sizes started dropping from above. A woman in a rather vintage-looking skirt and shirt with a completely serious (and creepy) expression moved slowly and dramatically down the stairs and into the theatre. We all followed her in...to a very small room that must be a dance studio. There was complete silence for about five minutes as she stood against the wall looking a little crazy and then slumped to the floor. The "performance" went on for an agonizing 45 minutes as she made very slow movements or none at all for long periods of time, punctuated by sudden movements that made me jump. Not to be a total downer, she had amazing control of her body and I was pretty impressed by some of the positions she could keep for long periods of time. And it gave me a chance to think about the meaning of art (as I struggled to see how this qualified). There was one point when the crazy lady was only a foot or two from me with her arms stretched out and I questioned whether or not I was going to make it out okay. :) In the end, after talking about it for a bit, we could see some of the meaning that probably went into it. This woman certainly cares a lot about her art and I suppose it was an honor in some way to be included in it (that's the optimistic view).

Anyway, after this...experience...we wandered back in the direction of a train station. We came across a cool store called Funky Street Star, and saw a few interesting cafes and restaurants and one crazy basket store. We ended up in Shibuya, where we went to eat and then sat and people-watched at the crazy intersection with all the lights and noise.
We also went to a huge famous store where I found some stationary with funny English. I'll leave you with my pick for the night: "I hate traffic jams. It is good if the traffic jam is lost from all over the world. However, being able to talk slowly with an important person in the car is a good thing. I love traffic jams. It settles me down when the tailight of the car is looked at. However, not being possible to go to the rest room is embarrassed."