Angela's Adventures Abroad: October 2010

As promised, I will begin this post with tales of my Japanese lessons. A friend of ours gave me my sensei's (teacher's) name about a month ago, and I've since set up a regular lesson schedule with her. I take the 150 yen train ride to her home on the other sideo f Tsu for an hour-long lesson. We meet once a week and have now met three times - twice for official lessons and once for an interview of sorts. First of all, I have the sweetest teacher anyone could ask for. She is patient and kind and has a great sense of humor, which you can imagine comes in handy when teaching someone with absolutely NO familiarity with the language. Each day when I get there, she has a cup of water and a couple of cookies on a plate waiting for me. Of course, I'm usually too busy trying to keep up with her during my lesson to eat them, but it's the thought that counts. And boy, oh boy, do I have to keep up with her. I took French classes for 5 semesters between high school and college (and know far less than that number implies), and the learning there was very progressive: get introduced to some new vocab, review it, play a game, do a worksheet, use it each day in class for a week or so, and then take a quiz on it. Not so much with sensei. We read through new vocabulary once, and then she excitedly exclaims "Okay, now you know the days of the week (or numbers, or cities, etc.)!" We then proceed to practice questions and answers that I stumble through because I can't tell her that, hey, it takes me more than a read-through to really learn the vocab! In our first lesson alone, I learned the numbers, learned how to tell time, learned how to ask the time, and learned how to ask when someone's holiday is. She even made me call Matsubishi, the local department store, and ask their hours of operation and when their holiday is. "It's good practice!" she said with a smile. Yeah, good practice. And crazy.

In all seriousness, though, I really couldn't ask for a better learning environment. My primary goal in taking these lessons is communication, which I told her when we first met, so I am learning everything in Romaji (roman letters phonetically). I have a separate practice book with which I can study the Hiragana and Katakana (two of the three sets of Japanese characters) on my own. It's fun to learn the sounds and recognize some, especially in my own name, but first and foremost, I want to be able to speak to people and understand what is said when I'm spoken to. But learning numbers has already helped me understand a lot more. Plus, I haven't been studying that much lately, and it's a really low-pressure lesson. She constantly tells me to learn things "little by little," so I know she understands that I'm not really staying up late into the night studying. Luckily, the lessons are fun for me and a good way to relax during my now-busy days.

And what am I busy with? HALLOWEEN! As some of you know, I have been super busy planning for the OBC Halloween party. They don't celebrate Halloween in Japan, but since OBC is an American English conversation school, the Halloween party is the biggest event of the year. We started planning it in August, and we haven't stopped since. Right now, as you can imagine, is crunch time, and in the past week I have spent every free moment cutting letters, gluing pictures, painting boxes, and generally constructing what will be the OBC Movie Theater. That's right - each of us teachers have a room to decorate and create a game in, and I chose a movie theater theme. It has actually been a lot of fun seeing all of this come to life, but it has been time consuming and more than a little stressful. The plan alone for my room was 5 pages single-spaced, with details about game rules, decorations, theme, and a way that the students will be challenged to use new English words while still having fun. The party is next Saturday, the day before Halloween, and I can't wait to see it all put together. For a taste of what's to come in my next update, check out the sketch of my room:

Complete with a red carpet, box office, gold rope, and "Coming Attractions."

This past Sunday, Sarah, Peter, and I went to Iga for their festival. We had heard from the past teachers that we really needed to go to this one. It's called the Ueno Tenjin Festival, and it is famous for its Oni-gyoretsu, which is a demon procession. Yep - demons. A number of people dress up in terrifying masks and walk around (seemingly) drunkenly and literally scare the hell out of little kids. The demons get rid of bad luck and illnesses, and also make kids scream and cry while their parents laugh and take photos. Well, their parents and the Americans.

So they had super scary demons and super cute kids. I don't get it.

Loved this kid. He just crawled behind everyone, sat down, and missed the whole thing.

This guy got less scary because when he scared a little kid before this picture, the kid freaked out and knocked him to the ground! This was during the random break they took during the parade so that parents could make their kids sit on the demons' laps and take photos.

She was so scared.

I can't help it. The tears are kind of adorable.

The parade consisted of several Shinto shrines. These are very famous and normally kept on display in the Iga Museum.

Before the parade, we visited the Iga Castle. It is surprisingly beautiful. It is full of ninja pieces, because Iga is the ninja city of Japan. This is the top city where ninjas used to train. We didn't make it to the ninja museum, but the castle gave us a good idea of the history of the city.

Ninja armor (Is that what it's called?)

Can you spot the ninja?

Beautiful ceiling in the castle.

The title of this blog post is the numbers 1 through 5, by the way. I'm pretty proud of my new number knowledge.

I hope that you all are reading this in good health and with plenty of that great Midwest (and elsewhere) fall weather soaked up for the long winter ahead. And don't forget...it doesn't get as cold in this part of Japan as it does in Minnesota, in case you're thinking of traveling!

Note: I read this column in the New York Times this morning and ached for the last place I called home while keeping this blog. For those of you who, like me, need a trip down a magical memory lane, please enjoy: http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/travel/24ireland.html.

Slainte.

It's official: I have been in Japan longer than I was in Ireland. From here on out, the abroad experience is totally foreign to me (pun completely intended). In all seriousness, though, I was pretty excited to celebrate our 3-month anniversary on October 9. On the one hand, so much has happened in the past 3 months that it's hard to believe I haven't been here longer, but on the other hand, time is absolutely flying by, and I can't believe it is almost November. Where is this year going? I am filling up every hour of my days here just as I would be at home, and I am constantly amazed by how busy I am. I am getting a lot done work-wise, tourism-wise, and life-wise (cue introverted self-discovery here), but at the same time, part of me can't believe that I only have 9 more months here. I have so much to see and do yet!

The title of this blog post comes from the class I just finished teaching. It is my 8:00 on Monday nights, and the class consists of one woman at the free-talk level. She is young, super sweet, and likes to just chat during our 50 minutes together. It's a great way to end the start of the week. Anyway, due to a busy work schedule for her and the coincidental placement of random Monday holidays, this was her first time in class in a month. We had a lot of catching up to do. I've been teaching my students about the American tradition of homecoming recently, and I've shown them pictures from last year's CSB|SJU homecoming. I always show a picture of Chris, Alex, Andy, and me, and she asked if any of them went back to homecoming this year. I said no because they are all in different places now - Chicago, Colorado, and Montana. She asked how far it is from Montana to Minnesota, and I said 10-15 hours, depending on where you're going. Of course, I told her, it feels like longer because you have to drive through the Dakotas. She got a kick out of that. (Sorry to all my SD relatives, but it's true!) Anyway, at the end of class I looked at the clock and told her we're finished and that time really flew tonight, and she said to me, "Yes, this class was not like driving through South Dakota." Hilarious! It's moments like that, when I'm really connecting with students, that I realize I couldn't have a better job at this point in my life. It was the perfect way to end my day.

I guess this post title has another meaning, too. Yesterday (Sunday), one of Peter's students drove Peter and me to Kyoto. The drive was absolutely breathtaking. The drive to Kyoto is entirely tree-covered mountains, and at a few points in the ride, Peter and I both interupted each other to say, "Look at this!" We were driving over bridges that were hundreds of feet above the ground and going through mountain tunnels and looking out over incredible landscapes. It was nothing like driving through South Dakota.

Our tour guide is an older gentleman, and he is quite the character. Let's just say that traffic laws in general don't really apply to him and that he's not one to linger at tourist destinations. The traveling with him part alone was enough to make the trip well worth our while. I went to Kyoto with my mom, so I'd already seen Kinkakuji, but it was nice to go again when it wasn't so hot and as the leaves were starting to change colors. We also went to Tenryuji Temple, which has a beautiful Japanese garden and is the holiest Zen temple in Kyoto. Finally, we made it to Sanjusangendo Hall, which is a temple with 1,000 golden Buddhas. Seriously--a thousand of them! And they are all about 4 feet tall. It was one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen. Naturally, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but they were all lined up in about 10 rows, and they just kept going and going and going. In the middle was a giant gold buddha similar to the ones I've seen in Nara. Once we got back to Tsu, we went out to dinner with Peter's student and then to his favorite little sushi bar. This guy does 3 things with his retired life: swims at the beach, plays the Japanese game go, and drinks. Needless to say, he is a character, and on more than one occassion I found myself missing my Grandpa Murray during the day, especially since it was the day after his birthday. I toasted my beer to you that night, Grandpa!

I could visit Kinkakuji a hundred times and never stop being amazed. As Peter said, it's so perfect, it looks like it's from a video game. Yes, indeed.

Gotta find new angles to shoot this from. I kinda like this one.

The first hints of autumn were beautiful.

Tenryuji Temple

I couldn't get a shot to capture the grandeur of the moutains, the beauty of the landscape, and the peacefulness of the garden. You'll just have to trust me on that.

I love this part of Japan.

Best. Tour Guide. Ever.

So remember when I said our tour guide wasn't much for leisurely sightseeing? Well, I was too hurried to take a picture of the temple with a thousand Buddhas. But this is the field where they have archery tournaments on January 15 each year (my birthday!).

Dinner in Tsu! Yakisoba is delicious.

It was a very busy travel weekend for me because the day before Kyoto, Sarah and I didn't work so we took off for Nara. It's my third time visiting Nara since arriving in Japan, and it never gets old. This time, we stayed away from Nara Park and the central tourist hub and visited the temples on the outskirts of the city. First, we visited Heijo Palace, which is the big celebration site for the 1300th anniversary since Nara was the capital of Japan. The festivities end November 7, so we wanted to visit before that. Well, we didn't really need to. All I can say is that it was much ado about nothing. I mean, yeah, the palace is cool, but I guess once you've seen all the other awesome temples in Nara, it's really not that amazing. Plus, there was nothing else there. I mean, even the gift shop was disappointing. It was a lot of organization and transportation and advertising (there are fliers with "1300" and Sentokun - the deer Buddha - in every train station in the Kansai region, I swear) for a big temple and then a big field of emptiness. Needless to say, I'm not taking any future visitors there. The best part of that trip? A free shuttle from the train station to the Palace. Plus, there was no admission fee.

So the only really special thing at Heijo was the museum they built for the 1300th anniversary. As foreigners, we could get in for free, but instead of walking around the museum, we just took a picture of the highlight from outside. A real...replica! (Like so many things in Japan.)

The Suzuku Gate

In honor of my dear sister Amanda, a senior picture.

The inside.

This is one of the things from the rooftop.

See them there?

Sarah was so stoked to find sweet potato ice cream - her favorite since studying abroad in Tokyo. We finally found it at Heijo!

After that, we took the train two stops toward home and visited Toshodaiji, which is another very old temple made entirely of wood, and Yakushiji, a temple with two huge pagodas (my favorite thing in Japan). These were so much cooler than the Palace, and they were at this little podunk train station that I'd never think to get off at had I not researched them before. Aside from the sweet temples, the best part of the day was how easy transportation was. Sarah and I didn't miss a single train, we never waited more than 10 minutes for the next one, and we didn't get lost once looking for any of the temples. Travel was so smooth that it wouldn't have mattered if we hadn't seen any temples at all!

Yakushiji Temple

Sarah now knows just to grab my camera from my hands and take pictures of me in front of landmarks like this.

The old pagoda

The already-renovated pagoda

This tree fascinated me for reasons I really can't explain.

Hints of fall.

I'll never stop appreciating places like this.

Naturally, there's an outer shrine, too.

Toshodaiji - like a mini Todaiji

Cool plants

I wanted to capture the quaint, rustic quality of the walk between the two temples. It's rural Japan, and I absoulutely love it.
Cue Sarah saying, "It's like you've never been outside before!" Well not in Japan in autumn, I haven't!

I realized after this weekend how lucky I am to live where I do. I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again, but Tsu City really is the perfect location to live in Japan. I mean, aside from Tokyo or Hiroshima, which are two places I really want to visit in Japan, everything I want to see I can do in a day-trip. I mean, I went to Nara and Kyoto in one weekend and still made it home in time to see this month's Beatles cover band concert and get a good night's sleep. Train fare is reasonable, and I get just enough of a tourist fix without overdoing it. I can't believe how lucky I am to get to see and do the things I do on my days off. Add to that the fact that I absolutely love my job, and I'd say I picked a pretty good way to spend my first post-college year.

Okay, this is getting long, but one more thing: two weekends ago was the Tsu Festival. It's the biggest celebration we have here, but sadly, it downpoured the first day of the festival. But Sarah and I don't take this whole living-in-Japan thing for granted, so we grabbed our umbrellas and walked around in the rain anyway. And the festivities went on! You gotta love the dancers who keep smiles in their faces when they're drenched with rain. Sunday was absolutely beautiful, though, and was the perfect weather for a festival. We saw some awesome dancers, part of the parade, and ate some great food. Best part of the day? I went to an English mass! They have mass in English once a month here, and it worked out that I could attend. It was such a good feeling to know exactly what was going on. I know, I know, cue jokes about Angela being in Japan where less tha 1% of the population is Catholic and her finding a Catholic church where they speak English, but it's exciting to me! I gotta have some reminders of home, right?