March 2006 Archives

My days seem wasted lately. I spent way too much time in a very dull meeting trying to figure out what English review games to teach to a bunch of Elementary school teachers. Lets just say the high point was when I chimed in an idea, only to find out that they had moved onto the next topic several minutes ago. Besides that, I spent a good deal of time writing post cards. Yup. It was a very productive day for me.

But the most productive thing of the day for me was making a Domokun travel webpage. Its a work in progress, but I kind of wanted to screw around with iWeb and my .Mac account. Its kind of silly. Mostly the same photos I put in my Domokun Kyoto Trip photo album. Anyways, hopefully I can keep traveling around and taking random Domokun shots. The holy grail of which would be if I somehow got Snoop Dog to pose with a shot of the little guy this next weekend.

A small earth quake hit southern Japan today. It was only a 5.5 and hit a bit before noon. We felt it in Fukuyama, but not enough to cause a panic. Actually several of the ALTs at my office completely missed it. I felt it as a wave of disorientation, a slight nausea. All the Japanese workers in the office got up and ran to the window to see if anything had fallen over. Go Japan.

Heidi and I were ridding our bikes downtown when I noticed that there was a sign on a fence with a very unhappy poo on it. I had apparently missed this sign the past 1,000 times I had ridden this road in the last six months. Heidi snapped a quick picture. Clearly any dog at gets near that fence will be scared away by the angry poo. Japanese poo always has this particular look to it, which just goes to show how cute everything in Japan is. Though usually the poo isn't that evil looking.

I think there was a small fire down the street. Sirens were going off and firemen were running around. All my neighbors came out to look (much like I did). I would have found out what was going on, but unfortunately my Japanese lessons have not covered the critical "Your neighbors have started a fire in their homes run for your life" conversation.

In the ongoing saga between Japan and whales, it seems the whales have started to fight back. Apparently high speed ships running between Korea and the Japanese city of Fukuoka have been hitting whales. Or maybe, the whales have been attacking the ships. I'm sure the eventual Japanese solution will be to just try and eat the whales.

A new Zelda game for the Nintendo DS? Darn... now I want to buy one... must resist the urge to buy a DS in Japan. The DS has quickly become a super popular game system in Japan, hitting 5 million sales recently. I see people using them all over the place, and their cult status has started to catch on everywhere. One really cool feature is the ability to play multiplayer games over the internet via wireless. The big kicker for me is the fact that the DS is region free, which means I can buy it here and continue to use it where ever. Yeah... maybe after I buy a new camera....

School is now officially over for the year. Thursday was the last day of class for this academic year. The kids now have a two week break before the next school year starts up again. The students have a break, I have jail time at city hall. AKA, spending the next two weeks behind a desk trying to look busy. Today I kept myself busy by labeling a whole lot of photos and turning them into photo albums! Here is what I've put online: Hadaka Matsuri (The Named Man Festival), Graduation at one of my schools, Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival), My trip to Kyoto with Heidi, and a very special album. See this last album is also a trip to Kyoto, but not mine. Its Domokun's Trip To Kyoto. From the pictures it looks like he had a good time. Maybe if I'm feeling up to it this summer, and amass quite a few pictures, I may be inclined to make a webpage just about Domokun's travels....

Speaking of Domokun... a first year girl in one of my classes gave me an 'end of the year' gift, much to my surprise. It was a little keychain Domokun. Who had a takoyaki suit on. Thus combining the two words I use most in class: Domokun and takoyaki.

While sitting around at work, doing nothing, the ALTs were all handed a plastic sheet (the kind the students all use). Something that was going to be handed out to the students this next school year. The sheet is all about apples for some reason. No idea why. On one side are various drawings that show off the 10 steps to growing apples in Japan. I've scanned this sheet in and would like to provide a loose translation of what it all means.

1) Deforestation.
2) Waving at insects.
3) Cut the lawn.
4) Drive your mini car around.
5) Watch out for disembodied heads and giant insects.
6) Give your apples a sausage.
7) Give your apples a massage.
8) Wrap your apples in a towel.
9) Shake the apples vigorously.
10) Pick your apples.

I hope this clears things up about apple and Japan.

Sad news today. Seems our office doesn't have enough money to send all seven of us to the recontracting conference in Kobe this summer. I'm mostly sad because theres a Wendy's in Kobe and I wanted to go visit it again. I could really use another chicken sandwich. Plus who wouldn't enjoy tooling around Kobe for several days. Plus the chicken sandwich. Nothing beats that. Well, it beats us all having to spend several days at the office while all the other JETs go to Kobe.

Heidi and I headed over to Kyoto last weekend for some fun sight seeing. We headed up to Kyoto on Sunday afternoon via Shinkansen after a very hot bowl of curry. The two hour Shinkansen ride was very relaxing, but was then followed by a half an hour ride on a super packed bus, where we couldn't actually exit without stepping on people. Bus hell.

Thanks to my wonderful Japanese teacher Aki, we were able to get a very cheap hotel located right next to Nijo Castle in the heart of Kyoto. I do love Kyoto. Lots of fun things to see, fun places to eat, and exciting activities to do. But you have to wonder, why is the last movie showing at 7 pm at night? Sunday night we wondered around the city trying to find a nice place to eat and figuring out the subway lines. I picked a nice Japanese place that ended up being horrible. But luckily the kind of horrible that ends up being funny by the end of the night.

Monday we went to Kiyomizu and Kinkakuji. The thing to remember about Kyoto is that while the city is not very spread out, it takes forever to get places and that taking a bus is very helpful. As opposed to walking several kilometers somewhere. I'd been to both places before, but was always up for another visit. Especially in the Spring when so many trees are in full bloom! We were fortunate, and the weather proved very nice for our first day out. I even managed to score a Sprite (スパライト) at Kiyomizu (not the first time I've done this), as well as have a fun filled Wendy's meal afterwards (not the first time for that either). Mmmm.... so darn good. To add to the list of things I've eaten or drank in Kyoto that day was a bottle of Final Fantasy 12 Potion drink. The horrible tasting promotional drink was actually, in theory, trying to energize me for the day. I think they need to rethink the formula because it didn't do much of anything besides taste bad.

Tuesday, though overcast, also proved to be a nice day. We walked around Nijo Castle for a bit, and then took a very long bus ride (again, crammed full of people) out to Ryoanji. I had never been to Ryoanji before, but I had seen pictures of it. I can see why the place is considered to be the #1 Garden in Japan. Too bad one of the walls around the zen garden was being worked on. None the less, the place proved to be quite impressive in its scope and ascetics. The overall garden complex had to be several acres and included a lake and tea house.. After a lunch of fun filled Jolly Pasta we headed over to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. Another very grand garden and impressive sand/ rock placements.

After that we headed back to Fukuyama, where I was happy to be around my Dreamcast once again. I'll be posting some photo albums tomorrow, seeing how I have nothing to do all day at work.

Happy birthday Bill. Who is now something like 32 years old. Or as some people have said, he is a "3 year old trapped in a 30 year old's body." Which brings up some very sticky legal and moral ramifications to the whole ordeal. Dinner, karaoke, and fun were had by all. Especially since Bill's birthday falls on St. Patricks day. I would go into great detail, but I think pictures would be far more fun for everyone. (Guess which gift I game him)

Yeah. We're a classy bunch of people.

Frogger is better when played with real cars. I wish I could do this, or had the ability, or the time, or the effort, or the will. Ok, so I guess I never will do it. But I'm happy that there are people out there doing it for the rest of us.

More specifically, my name. Or how to spell it in katakana. I recently received a batch of business cards I had printed up from VistaPrint.au, and my Japanese teacher was wondering about how I spelled my name. I have it spelled out as ジャシュ (ja-ya-shu), but it seems that most Japanese people spell out my name as ジョシュ (ja-yo-shu). I've just always spelled it as ジャシュ, and it sounds a lot closer to how you actually say my name. I guess it really doesn't matter as most people can't actually say my name correctly in the first place.

This time of the year kind of sucks. Theres only a week left of the academic year, so classes are rather light. But the worst part is the fact that my teachers might not be around in another two weeks. See school districts shuffle around teachers at the end of each year, and no teacher will know if they're or not until a week or so before the new school year starts. This also sucks for me because my favorite teachers would be shuffled away from me, and replaced by some not so nice teachers.

Natasha was really bored last week and made a picture book about me. She's got quite the knack for drawing and writing fun little stories. I scanned it in and made a PDF out of it. Enjoy. (I like I how I grow larger on each page)

Someone has finally gotten Windows to boot on an intel iMac. I guess this means that I'll eventually be able to natively run Windows, and maybe play a few games, when I eventually get a new MacBook Pro. Though honestly, I've not booted into Virtual PC in a very long time, so I doubt that I'd be using it very much even if I had the option. Then again, I could always go back to System 7. Lord knows it was super stable and cool for its time, and some people continue to use it even now.

At times I miss Wisconsin, because they take care of their squirrels. Or at least tell people not to molest them. Simple times, simple peoples.

But I am starting to hate tofu. Friday night my office had an enkai for the new office workers that have moved into our office from Kanabe. The location of the enkai was just happened to be a very fancy tofu place with a very nice view of the city. Now being a very fancy tofu place we ended up eating 6,000¥ worth of tofu, which really was weird. Usually I enjoy some tofu in my meal, but when the entire meal is just variations on tofu, you feel like its missing out. At least it wasn't killer tofu.

Friday was also graduation at most of the junior high schools in my town. This is odd for me, as we don't really have any graduations at junior high schools in the US. The kids were really intense. A whole lot of kids were crying, hugging, and overall sadness. While this may seem odd (even to me), you must realize that most of these kids won't be seeing each other ever again. Everyone will head off to different high schools all over the prefecture, or even in another prefecture. Heck, one kid told me he was going to have an hour and a half commute each way every day for his high school of choice. Thats some serious high school love. I personally found the entire graduation rather... dull. Mostly because I had no idea what was going on, or why the kids were breaking down during their speeches. I can only imagine the teenage drama that ensue in the next couple of weeks.. Good luck to you little dudes.

Saturday Heidi and I headed down to Tomonora to check out Hina Matsuri, the doll festival. Starting on March 3rd, "Girls Day", families display dolls for all to see. Tomo is quite famous for this in my area and the displays were quite wonderful and extravagant. An unexpected upside to the day was several glasses of fresh sake provided by local brewers. Hmmm... fresh hot sake.... We conversed with quite a few locals, and I even saw some of my students milling around town (I think I embarrassed them by talking to them in Japanese). We even took a ferry out to an island where we saw packs of 'lesser pandas' (which look like a cross between a raccoon and a possum) harass people for food. At one point in the day we went up to the temple where I once saw a noh play, and were taking some pictures. I saw this guy walk though a gate that led into a really cool garden, and asked him in Japanese if we could go in. His response, translated, would probably be something like "Duh, its a temple." Japanese people are fun. I'll throw up some pictures of everything once I get them all labeled and sorted out. Dolls are crazy fun out here.

Heidi seems to have come down with tonsillitis. I think my apartment is cursed. Beware. All who enter will face a horrible fate. Props to Alun for driving us to the hospital, where the only person who spoke English (on a Sunday)was a surgeon, who seemed a bit annoyed that he had to come down and help stupid foreigners.

My neighbors may finally have gotten annoyed with my trash disposal methods. Last week I stuck out four, well sorted bags, all at one. As opposed to on certain days. Today someone came by and shoved a 'trash chart' on my door. Eh, whatever.

My parents have replaced me with yet another dog. The further away I go the more animals they seem to get. At least this one looks cute, or so the video chat of her showed. I doubt Murphy (the other dog) will have issues with the new pup, but I wonder how the two cats will handle it. Especially when she grows up to be quite large. I guess this means I'll have to come for a visit again....

I've come to realize that much of what I do in Japan scares people. Like walking around. Or ridding my bike. Hell, even the simple act of me buying food sometimes creates weird scared looks from old ladies and small children. So when I learned that my next door neighbors were moving out I found myself not so surprised. I honestly wouldn't want to live next to me. But in all seriousness I can't say I ever spoke to my neighbors all that much, and I'm quite sure I didn't do anything to tick them off. At least that I know about it. (It may have been one of my bi-weekly raves, but we will probably never know for sure) With them gone that leave my building entirely devoid of any Japanese people, and me being the sole occupant in a building with 4 apartments. Shoot, even the other building to my little complex only has two of its four apartments occupied right now. But there is a really nice upside to my neighbors moving out, which is the fact that Matt will soon be moving in next to me. Which also means that I have someone to split my internet bill with. Which also mean that the two of us will have a massive co-birthday party come this next year. Think massive BBQ of death. Only, without the death.

I've found some disturbing news about my favorite phone company in Japan. Seems Vodafone is trying to sell off its Japanese division. What does this mean for me and my fellow Vodafone users? No one knows. But I can see why Vodafone has lagged behind in the Japanese market. In comparison to other phone companies the Vodafone phones probably don't appeal to the Japanese people. They appeal to me, but not to the Japanese population. Heres why. Vodafone has been spending a lot of money building up and marketing a 3G network in Japan as well as trying to get people to move over to 3G phones. A 3G network across Japan would allow for phone to phone video conferencing, web access, and access to new future technologies. These are very cool features with endless possibilities thanks to the high speed of this network (like being able to use Skyp over a 3G network and call anywhere in the world for pennies a minute). The downside is that the coverage isn't as great as the regular phone network, though I haven't had any issues in my area. Ahhh, but this does not explain why the Japanese are not loving Vodafone. The issue here is cuteness. Vodafone phones are not cute. In fact they are the same phones they market all over the world. They do not have the fun, typical, Japanese cute phone features or looks. For example, my phone. I have a Nokia 6630 phone, one of the flagship 3G phones Vodafone has on the market. Its a rather weird looking phone, being a non-flip style. It is in no way cute and clearly has no silly animal animations, crazy ring tones, picture drawing abilities, or mp3 playing skills. Most importantly it has no little spot on the phone body to hang massive amounts of 'Hello Kitty' bling off of to impress your friends. In a country where people seem to exchange their phone at least once a year Vodafone seems ill-equipped to deal with a market that thrives on cute.

My ongoing love of comic books has recently caused me gain pains and great joys. A couple of days ago a new trailer was released for the upcoming X-Men 3 movie, which has me excited and worried. I'm excited because it looks really really good (for a trailer), but worried because director Brett Ratner doesn't have a very good track record. In fact his most notable contributions to the film world thus far have been a bunch of Madonna videos and Rush Hour 2. Yeah. Be afraid. Though I also found out there are going to be several 'direct to DVD' Hellboy animated videos. This production blog tells all there is to know, and I would really love to see the finished product.

I want to see Michelle Cross do a live concert in Chicago, as she apparently does every week. I love her music and would totally buy it if it was on the iTunes music store. Someone get the word to her, or just check out her music. She can be my Sushi Queen any day.

Only in Japan can a monkey attack a woman, and its all blamed on hay fever. Damn dirty apes. But it could be far worse, Japanese banks could be giving people a next to zero interest rate. Oh wait, they do. What the heck! I don't get it. Considering how few Japanese people save money, you'd think banks would want to up the interest rates to get people to save more cash? Then again I'm screwed in two ways. First the money I save does nothing in my Japanese bank. Second, the exchange rate sucks so much right now that sending money back to the US causes me to lose a large amount of it.

I am a food leech. As a single guy living alone I find it difficult to take time and effort out of my day and cook myself a decent meal. It's not that I can't cook a meal, its that I am just really lazy. Which is how I've become a food leech. I keep finding myself hanging out with couples who tend to cook a lot of really good food, and I keep finding myself at their place eating it. Such as the meal I had at Michael and Julia's place Saturday (oh my god it was good) and the wonderful meatball meal that Bill and Ustume made. Luckily my wine collection makes a nice gift, and I don't feel like a total tool. (Unlike Zach Armstrong who is a total tool 24-7!)

Actually I'm not a total leech. I had a get together Friday night where 14 English teachers managed to spread peanuts all over my apartment. Though really, card games, drinks, snacks, and silly Canadian TV shows make for a good Friday night.

I added a couple of JET blogs to my link page. Casy Lary and Lisa Van Muyen have interesting blog articles about life in Hiroshima, and are worth a look. We JETs have got to stick together.

If any JET needs free Business Cards that look good, here you go. They ship to Japan.

I find it funny how air brushed people in the media are. Computer image manipulation is so cheap and easy now you can make anyone attractive with just a small amount of work. Even I'm super impress with the amount of editing done in these photos. The best part is we see this every day, no one ever notices or cares. I think we're all overly obsessed with perfection, and lose sight of whats real.

Sometimes I really wonder whats up in America. A place where Christians are now calling themselves a persecuted minority, yet we have states trying to pass bills which make Christianity the official religion of certain States. Though when in doubt, get a rich guy to build a special town to keep all the 'unworthy' out and set up your own little private world. I do wonder sometimes.

Once you go Mac, you don't go back.

Probably the most funny webpage I've seen in a months.