Re-entering the Matrix - Life in Boston

Computer Tech Support Pic

2010-08-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

Utsunomiya Test

2008-04-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a test. I'm back.

Spongebob Squarepants and the7 dwarves

2007-05-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

So I was looking through all of my old e-mails piling up in my inbox (I have trouble deleting and do so in mass usually, eliminating them back down to one page all in one go from over a 100 emails sometimes), and came across a picture e-mailed from my friend Thomas in Nagoya. The picture was of the water-logged Patrick of Spongebob Squarepants fame. We were discussing whether or not he would actually increase 5X his size (or whatever was advertised, I think it was 5 times). It turns out he had a gash in his belly and may have lost girth due to this during his waterlogging process. Oh well. In case you don't know who Patrick is, here's a good pic (I'll admit, I didn't know).

The other conversation we had that was whether or not you knew all the names of the 7 Dwarves. I realized that although I knew about 4 or 5, I didn't actually know all seven. Do you? Think it over...... Grumpy..... Sleepy..... Happy..... (keep going on your own now)

Good luck!!!

Happy Birthday Girl

2007-02-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to my friend Andrea in Chile (it was this past Saturday). Still awaiting on pictures from her of her new neice...

I will also be eventually updating my blog with some pictures and comments of the lifestyle here in Columbus (rather London), Ohio. Work is going well, I'm learning a lot of Japanese and spending basically most of my day either studying it or using it, both during work and outside of work, so doing a reasonable job of keeping up the language.

Next up is to find a school to sign up for weekly lessons or employ one of my associates wives for 1 on 1 lessons.

Hope all is well with you all, give me a call anytime: 614's the area code, then 843, followed by 1858. If computer hacking programs are good enough to find that number, then I'll be darned.

The Costume Series

2006-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

So while I was in Japan, I had an attempt to take pictures with as many costumed people as possible. Here was the pig the Fukuoka.

Regionals....

2006-10-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

Regionals for frisbee was last weekend. My team, dog, played well, giving up 16 points on the weekend, finishing it off with a near-perfect game against Twisted Metal (15-6). Here's two pictures that went up of me online, getting the first block of the game at 2-2. Other pics are in the general directory posted below.

Dog vs. Twisted Metal Pics

Here's the two of me, middle and after shots, got some fingers on the disc to swipe it away....

Tune-up

2006-09-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

I was just in Chicago spending time with the grandparents, family, and playing frisbee. My attempts to take pictures were foiled by my camera telling me my battery needed to be recharged even though I just took it out of the recharger; I need a new camera. These were the only pictures I could find online. They are taken after I did not position myself correctly at all and got torched for an easy score. Not good.

Then the right after catch shot with my tired and not so happy face.

Son, be a dentist

2006-08-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist today. My last checkup was in December of 2004, a long long time ago. My time spent there was not more traumatizing then the scenes in a to be guessed classic musical:

Good news is though no cavities. My two baby teeth still need to be taken care of, but otherwise, I was discharged from the dentists with just a sample toothbrush and some floss. :)

The beginning...

2006-08-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

All that is currently on my mind besides ridding myself of jetlag fatigue is employment and the possibilites of what to do. Hopefully various anecdotes and fond memories remembered will continue to be posted.

The bikers, relaxed pose.

2006-04-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

Here we are we before tacking on massive amounts of carefully selected materials on the back racks of our bikes for our ride through insanity and back. Enjoy.

paypal for donations...

2006-04-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

So I have created a paypal account for those overseas (back in the US) who wish to support me. I will then transfer everything to my account from Japan to the US and add any donations from abroad and submit it all to the Lymphoma Society via online.

My paypal account e-mail is pallaver@hotmail.com

I will be hopefully updating the site we have set up for this trip with this information as well, but seeing as things posted on this blog get forwarded through my yahoogroups, figured it best to post here as well.

I would appreciate your support, and lots of little donations add up to a big donation, so don't feel shy about even a small sum.

Since, Neil

Temple Ride Blog Website

2006-04-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

Here it is. Done wonderfully so far by Ashley. I've got to get my butt in gear and work on the translations (to the best of my ability).

http://88temples.blogspot.com/

I am also working on a paypal account, etc., so others of you may support my crazy biking trip.

Adding to the collection...

2006-04-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

One of my goals in Japan is to have as many pictures taken with the various promotional goofy people-dressed-up-as-animals or whatnot that you frequently see when just walking around. Here is the latest: Me n' Kumo-chan (熊ちゃん)

Pre-April Fool's Prank

2006-03-30T16:01:00.000-08:00

So this year, April Fool's falls on a Saturday, and since I won't be going to school on a Saturday, I decided to play the joke on Friday. First though, a quick stroll in the past:

Last year for April Fool's, I took a small piece of paper and had my teacher write "koshou" (故障). I then took that piece of paper and in the morning taped it over the microwave timer-dial. Come around lunchtime, there came to be a crowd of about 10 people including kyotou-sensei (the VP), and somebody from the jimushitsuu (staff room) all wondering why the microwave was broken and if somebody was going to fix it or if the repairman had even been called. It went over extremely well as a joke it seemed, but it did backfire somewhat; The first teacher who had seen it had shrugged her shoulders and gone to the convenience store to heat up her lunch. Oops. I had to apologize in Japanese and explain it was an April Fool's joke. That wasn't so funny.

This year, I decided to put a sign on the door to the teacher's room that is closest to the entrance which read: "This door is broken. It will be fixed on April 1st. Please use the other door. Arigato." I wrote the date April 1st to give people a reminder or hint at it being a joke. The only problem is that the sign was too small and all in black (I went back and added some red marker lines and boxes), but it just wasn't believable or seeable enough. A few people actually opened to the door and THEN saw the sign, wondering ever so briefly what to do now that the door is already open, but walking in anyways...

So all in all, a very good idea, but poorly executed. The sign was not big enough, and technically there should have been two, one for each door, and there should have been a little bit more visible with red perhaps. Here's a picture of what I had, the "Arigato" on the bottom being a super hint.

Japan on my jitensha

2006-03-29T16:52:00.000-08:00

So Katy, Ben's Mom, asked me a good question: Where have you been on Japan on your bike? Well, I sat down with a map, and drew out approximately the areas I have been with colored lines. The big routes of interest are:
Red line - 8 day summer trip, 1200km.
Purple line - 4 day return from Kumamoto last golden week, 550km.
Brown line - 4 day recent Oita charity ride trip, 550km.
Brown line - 1 day 225km ball-buster from Tamano to Osaka.
Red lines - CJ's area, unknown how many km, but 4 days, think that's approximately right. He'd know better.
Blue line - 3 day weekend, local trip to Tottori, 400km.
Light blue line - Weekend trip to play soccer on Awajishima, 250km.
Green/Gray line - Kobe, recontracting weekend trip with CJ, 2.5 days, maybe 300km?
Brown - Kasaoka, one day ride for a soccer tournament, loop near Fukuyama, 130km.
Don't remember the approximate distance of that one.
Numerous trips from Tamano to Okayama City.
Other frequently visited areas are Bizen (60km 1 way) and Kurashiki.

And that's all she wrote. I am over 13,500km, or over 8,400miles. My goal for the year is 18,000km, but that will take some serious riding, over 1000km each month actually. Below is a route showing all the temples, numbered, in Shikoku that I will visit during golden week for the temple ride, thus covering a fair bit of ground (most previously uncovered in Shikoku).

Golden Week Plans

2006-03-27T19:52:00.000-08:00

I fixed the spoke and have begun working on my plans for Golden Week. Here they are both in English and Japanese (although the Japanese has not been corrected yet by a native speaker, so there most likely errors aplenty). If you could think about donating to my ride, I would greatly appreciate it.

----------

I intend to during golden week, bike Shikoku's 88 Temple route. I am doing it for charity as well (Lymphoma Society, specifically since I have had hodgkin's and time to give something back I think).

Golden week is 10 days. The plan is to set off Friday afternoon and continue on for 10 days and get as far as possible and to as many temples as possible, then go home (it may actually be 9 days, the 10th used to return home to Takamatsu). The total distance of the route is approx. 1400km (have seen 1100km as well as 1640km, so unsure really). If I do not finish during golden week, which is highly probable, I intend to finish using my weekends if possible...

Right now it is myself and possibly my neighbor, Ashley, but others are more than welcome to join at any stage of the ride.

Here's the challenging part: There will be no (at least probably, unless I can convince somebody) assistance van or supply car. Everything you bring, you carry. Thus, things to bring at the minimum (which is the way I always operate on long rides) is a tent, a thermarest (no need for a sleeping bag, it'll be hot in Shikoku), everything you need to fix your bike, and one spare change of clothes. That's it. But that's already another 10-12 pounds (or about 5kg). I would suggest all of this being on a rack too since day after day with a backpack and riding will hurt your back possibly.

The other goal is to put on about 140km a day of riding. Not fast riding, but consistent, averaging probably somewhere between 20-22 km/hr (there are lots of hills in Shikoku).

Last but not least, biking and camping means operating by daylight, thus wakeup will be at about 4am, on road by no later than 5am. On the flip side, you're in bed by no later than 8pm, thus you are still getting 8 hours of sleep a night (more than most of you get on a regular basis probably).

The daytime will be filled with riding, visiting temples, eating, and a morning or two for an onsen if possible because riding ten days without a shower is seriously rough.

This ride is a "back to the basics". You will smell after a day, you won't shower every night (although I towel off every night since that tends to help), but it's a great way to get back in touch with nature and the simple things in life.

Things you would need to participate:
Road bike (might be tough to keep up in a mountain bike)
Rack with all the aforementioned stuff
Money (so you don't starve and can eat at conbini's and stuff)
Adventurous mindset.

If you're interested, let me know and we'll talk more.

Otherwise, great riding, and hope to see some of you on two wheels on a road in the woods, pallaver

-----------------

八十八ヶ所巡りの内容

今年の五月のゴルデンウイークに八十八ヶ所巡りを自転車で走るつもりです。十日間中自転車のラックに全部を持ってキャンプの物も運ぶので毎晩そんな風に泊まりますし日の間に自転車に乗って寺を訪れます。更にあの旅は施しの旅になりたいです。おさらく、私は二千三年にホジュキンスと言う癌があった事を知らなくてやられたのせいで今年のゴルデンウイークの旅はホジュキンス癌の基金に寄付したいエベントになりたいんです。私が私にやられた癌の慈善基金に寄付するようになりましたと思いますから皆達が寄付の事で感謝しています。出来るだけ参加して下さい。

二つの寄付する方法があります。一つは合計総額の寄付をする。他の方法はそれぞれの訪れた寺の寄付の慈善の方法です。二番目の方法は私を全部の寺を訪れるようになる激励です。

旅をする時にお偏素の服を着たり全部の寺に寺の納経集まったりすると思います。後で私のウエブサイトに(www.npallaver.photosite.com)写真を入れるつもりし納経の写真も取って置くつもりです。

それも、二つの寄付方法があります。あげた封筒に入れて渡してあげられる。でも、振込みも出来る。郵便局の口座に与えられる。どちらでもいいです。

よろしくお願い致します。

Weekend Tally

2006-03-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

The tally for the weekend was also intriguing: 3 flat tires and a broken spoke. I broke the spoke too on Saturday morning heading to Sakanoichi for the meeting point.

While I was retuning the backwheel to compensate (first tightening all the spokes, there were quite a few loose ones it turned out, probably where I went wrong and the reason for breaking a spoke in the first place), I dropped the spoke tuner. Looking down, there was a grate right next to my bike, and I chuckled thinking to myself, had I dropped it and had it fell in the grate, I would've been in trouble.

A minute later, I dropped it again (clammy, cold hands), and it almost did fall into the gutter. That was the end of playing with the devil, I picked up the bike and moved it ten feet forward before finishing the tuning job.

Ended up riding over 400km with a broken spoke on the back (and still going, will fix it tomorrow afternoon in the city). Impressive, I think I'm getting pretty good at self-tuning my tires.

2006-03-23T19:27:00.001-08:00

Catered food. Expensive though. Most people brought on their own food like I did.

2006-03-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

HUUUGE parking lot. There were two levels of parking too!

2006-03-23T19:26:00.001-08:00

Diamond Ferry Building.

2006-03-23T19:26:00.000-08:00

Bike with Omiyage and food, bound for Kobe (as the paper sign says).

2006-03-23T19:25:00.004-08:00

2006-03-23T19:25:00.003-08:00

2006-03-23T19:25:00.002-08:00

2006-03-23T19:25:00.001-08:00

2006-03-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

Too bad it was a little hazy, or else the pictures would really show just how far you could look out. Incredible.

2006-03-23T19:24:00.003-08:00

2006-03-23T19:24:00.002-08:00

2006-03-23T19:24:00.001-08:00

2006-03-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

Here's proof, me in a picture finally. It was chilly, and I believe soon after this picture is when, going downhill at about 60km/hr, I blew a flat in my front tire...

2006-03-23T19:23:00.003-08:00

2006-03-23T19:23:00.002-08:00

2006-03-23T19:23:00.001-08:00

2006-03-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

2006-03-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

Ok. Now on forward are day 3. It was CJ, Guy (really good rider from Miyazaki-ken), and I, the slowpoke of the group. Great pictures. Again, that story from previous about us leaving first yet being behind everybody still holds true.

2006-03-23T19:21:00.000-08:00

Again, the 3 riders. We convinced Kei to come with us even though he was tired. His price: A free icecream. Deal. Mike (who owed us 20km from the day before when he got a flat and rode in the van the rest of the way in), whimped out from going with us. Lame-o.

2006-03-23T19:20:00.002-08:00

2006-03-23T19:20:00.001-08:00

2006-03-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

Ah, scratch that, those are all still day 2. Oops. Here's the cool bridge right before our lodging for night 2, a great big cabin that made me really feel like we were out in the middle of nowhere.

2006-03-23T19:19:00.002-08:00

2006-03-23T19:19:00.001-08:00

2006-03-23T19:19:00.000-08:00

Day 3. We took a detour, the following photos are all beautiful pictures from that day's riding. All in all, our detour actually gave us an extra 20km, but do to it being solely hills, actually put us behind everybody despite leaving about 45 minutes before everybody else.

2006-03-23T19:18:00.000-08:00

Money shot. Everyone riding the Neko (cat) Bus. From left to right: CJ, Laten, Kei, and I.

2006-03-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

This was our 15km side trip on top of day 2's 80km. We stopped off at Totoro's Forest, which was this random place with LOTS of Totoro's.

2006-03-23T19:16:00.001-08:00

2006-03-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

2006-03-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

More pretty coast. This is from the lookout point they had listed on the map.

2006-03-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

Day 2, beautiful costal ride. Day 1 = 185km biking in the rain. Thank you CJ for letting me draft for about 80km of the 100 with the charity ride, else I would've had no chance.

2006-03-23T19:13:00.001-08:00

I almost camped out here for the night. Note the pretty blossoming tree (sakura?) in front of the shrine with a great backdrop.

2006-03-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

Here is me taking a picture of myself at the entrance to the Ferry's Main Lobby.

2006-03-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

These are all pictures from Oita, the Ferry from Oita City to Kobe, and the weekend in general.

2006-03-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

Fully loaded Yoshi, last conbini before hitting the wilderness and camping for the night. Back rack includes food, sleeping bag, thermarest, tent, tarp, 1 spare set of clothes, and bike repair items. All in all, a smooth ride.

Weekend in Oita

2006-03-22T18:46:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a weekend in Oita spent biking. It was a charity event organized by Oita's AJET, and went very well. It was a somewhat expensive weekend for me (little over 5man), but I did get a solid 4 days of biking and nearly 600km in, so that's good.

Unfortunately I'm sick now, and feeling pretty crappy, so heading home for some rest.

Hopefully in the next week I'll update this blog with many many pictures that are long overdue using the new picture system I loaded onto the other computer here in the teacher's room.

Sayoooooo nara.

2006-02-23T01:48:00.000-08:00

whatever one more time

The ultimate moshpit experience

2006-02-22T21:49:00.000-08:00

This is what Hadaka Matsuri is all about.

To keep things short since you can look at Ashley's Blog too for information about it (as well as info and pictures on Thailand, she was one of the 7 of our group trip), I will just post my personal thoughts and a link.

This year I was a "veteran", having ran last year. This year my goal was to get my picture in the paper, and have a go at touching the stick at least (before surely getting it wrestled away from me or pummelled). I did get in the picture, but the angle made it so that you can unfortunately only see my arm, not my face. Bummer. I'm hoping to get online pictures that I can edit to show you where I was.

As for how things were this year: Well, being part of Okayama AJET, I actually was far more involved in dealing with how things went than just being a spectator on the crowd. The latter is far easier. I don't think we lost anybody during the 15 minute walk from the buses to the changing tent, although that is highly possible considering everyone's intoxicated state and the difficulty to see our signs and follow everybody, although gaijin usually aren't too hard to spot.

At the tent it was, as usual, a free for all. This year I avoided the 1000yen charge to get your fundooshi wrapped by one of the guys in charge, instead opting to make friends with a Japanese guy who was tying other peoples and ask him to tie mine. Interesting how in less than five minutes you can go from chatting to have somebody wrap your naked, cold body with a cloth diaper.

Then it was off and running, although this team I only did the loop once. This is because I didn't hitch up with a Japanese team like I did last year which made the suggested (required if you follow culture) 3 loops around the temple. I did manage to drag a newly made Japanese friend all the way around the cold cleaning pool, and boy was it cold. An interesting difference this year was that there were no photographers shooting pictures at the far end of the pool, instead a make-shift wall was put up. I'm really curious to know if this has anything to do with my (and others perhaps), back flopping and splashing (both intentionally and unintentionally) of the cameramen last year.... Who knows.

So what's it like way in the middle. Well, a little bit more violent than the outsides. There is a lot more jousting for space rather than just trying to stay on the platform since once you're in the middle, chances of you getting forced off an edge are slim to basically none. Therefore most of the time you're just making sure you get as close to the front wall and solidify your position as possible. It's quite a painful and laborious process, lasting about an hour and half or so until finally midnight when the melee begins.

The lights go off, flashes from pictures being taken strobe light the scene, and then you start to scene picking kicking into overdrive, smelling the nutmeg/sage like scent of the sticks. I didn't get close to one this year or touch one, but I had honestly had enough, and was more than happy to wade my way slowly off the platform.

Things that I incurred: Several scratches, as well as bruises from elbows most likely on my back and shoulders, very sore feet with cuts on my left foot (I lost my left foot tabi, or shoe: my foot got stepped on, and rule number one when that happens is remove your foot as quickly as possible, and in doing so, I lost my tabi), and overall soreness from constant pressure/activity.

Overall, a total success, although there were some tough parts with the organizing: i.e. people still managed to get on the buses for free, and the buses left late since people got lost or were late. Not easy, but things worked out in the end. The after party at Ultra Blue blazed on until about 5:30am when they shut things down, so a great time.

Here is a link to the Hadaka Matsuri in Saidaiji website. Goto the bottom of the page and click on the link next to the camera: This is a link for a video of the Matsuri. You will see just how crowded it is and how people move like waves of the ocean, ebbing and flowing, and always pressed for room. It really is amazing to think that I was in that for over an hour...

Saidaiji Hadaka Matsuri Video Page

Can I have ....

2006-02-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

So the computers here at the high school at for everybody (unless you bring your own and link up at your desk). Most people do that, though some use the public ones.

Whenever you signup into hotmail, it gives you the option of remember your login, login and password, or nothing. The person before me chose to have their login remembered. The login was:

can_i_have_69@hotmail.com

No students use this computer AT ALL, under ANY circumstances. Therefore, the real question becomes then: Which teacher does this e-mail correspond to? Wowsers, what a fun guessing game to play!

Cuteness

2006-02-15T20:24:00.000-08:00

Thanks to previous cool Okayama JET Carolyn (or Cho), I bring to you cuteness to the max.

For more cuteness, go to:
Cute Overload
or
Adorablog

Denied Drive-Through

2006-02-14T18:29:00.000-08:00

So the other day in Okayama I attempted to go through the drive in at McDonald's on my bike (yes, my once in a couple of months itch), but to my surprise I was rejected. I was told bikes couldn't be served.

I was quite annoyed and attempted to reason with the voice from the speaker that I was a 駐輪　or wheeled-vehicle that I should be let through. This didn't work. I then explained that I use the roads and go as fast as scooters, therefore shouldn't be denied. Didn't work. Then I say there's no way I'm going into the store so it's either this or no go. Well, no go.

I debated coming back a minute later and being sure to put my hand over the little camera next to the speaker (used to identify the person/vehicle for sure), but figured that that was too much effort for it to be worthwhile. I left.

This weekend I also passed 12,000km, or roughly 7,500miles on my bike. Only another 4,000 to go before I hit my goal for the year, so right on par.

This weekend is Hadaka Matsuri, or Okayama's famous naked man festival. I will be attempting this year to go in with a disposable camera strapped to my arm (first taped to the underside of my fundooshi since I think the cops will confiscate it, but after going through their legions and entering the platform I will transfer it to my arm/hand) and get some super close and exciting shots.

Broom Solo

2006-01-18T18:07:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken in the kitchen of my H.S. while I was baking pumpkin pies with Claire in preparation for the massive Thanksgiving last month. The reason for serenading with a mop? There was a power ballad being played on Claire's mp3 player stand and I couldn't resist the urge to belt out along with it.

New Year's Resolution

2006-01-17T23:13:00.000-08:00

One of my New Year's Resolutions (I have a list, although this is one which I have thus far adhered to quite successfully, although successfully since it's a twice a week resolution only) is to wear a tie for class at Tamano Commercial H.S. Yes, I know what you're thinking: I've never worn a tie before here at school consistently, ever. Well, hopefully that will change.

I wore the suit which I miraculously recovered from the marine liner (more on that story when I begin my Thailand-saga posts, which will hopefully happen soon seeing as tonight I will get all of the pictures and videos onto my external hard drive) last Wednesday, sparking a lot of "kakoi's" and surprised teachers and students. Today I am wearing sweater, shirt, and tie, although can't really see the tie with the sweater on. Just knowing it's there though is really what counts for now.

I will be hopefully wearing bowties in the spring, although need to buy some. Bowties are expensive. I should've asked my secret santa for a bowtie. Darn.

Keep your eyes peeled and toes curled for the huge never-ending slew of posts that will probably be a poor attempt at describing just how awesome my trip to Thailand was.

Thailand - The simple reflection

2006-01-11T00:20:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I do not have the time and moreso the energy right now to go through a piece by piece dissection of my time in Thailand. I am still absorbing some of the realities of life there, and some of the experiences and scenes I witnessed.

I do have to say though, that between all the harrassment and events I was a part of due to mainly being a foreigner, both positive, negative, and sexually-charged, really made me shocked and unable to comprehend the full extent of how much a country like Thailand relies on tourists such as myself to fuel their economy, even if only for a short period of time, and for only once sometimes.

In only my first day in Bangkok, I was already annoyed with the amount of times I was being bothered by people on the street when just trying to walk somewhere. It was impossible to get from point A to point B without being confronted or poked for money somehow. I also was surprised at just how cautious, nervous, and untrusting I immediately became of native Thai, especially after having been around Japanese people for over a year and assuming a high level of trust, pride, and honesty. It is a shame to have to constantly walk around suspicious of everyone and everything.

The unyielding danger of a third world country such as Thailand was never more apparent than actually reading the newspapers the next day after New Year's Eve. There were 2 people abducted from the same beach where I was for New Year's, with another 1 abducted, raped, then drowned the 1st night of 2006. On New Year's Eve on the island where I stayed, there were 34 deaths. For a population of 10,000 natives and approximately 6,000 foreigners, 34 deaths is pretty high I think. I was also amazed at the lack of common sense displayed by many foreigners on the beach who overdrank and proceeded to pass out in various areas of the beach. It was a scene straight from a National Lampoon movie.

All in all, I am very happy to have walked away from 20 days with a full appreciation of a struggling country such as Thailand. I am also very happy to have done the entire trip with 6 other JETs of various backgrounds and nationalities and points of view, allowing for some interesting conversation and reality-checks. Hopefully over the course of the next couple of weeks I will be able to break it down day by day, or at least place by place, but for now, this brief synopsis will have to do.

Thailand: Here I come

2005-12-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

I leave tomorrow for Thailand. No idea how much time I'll have and if I'll want to post anything during my time there. I return the 9th of January, so look for something to come up that mid-week.

良いお年を　(Happy New Year's in Japanese)

Last but not least...

2005-12-14T23:16:00.000-08:00

Goodness GOO!!!

Tufts Pride

2005-12-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

Boy, she looks surprised to see me.

An essential tool?

2005-12-14T23:13:00.000-08:00

At least the price is right at half off (though off what nobody knows)!!! :)

"Show me what you really think of the Turkey!"

2005-12-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

Neil and one of his 8 birds...

The changing of the (Cell Phone) Guard

2005-12-14T22:55:00.000-08:00

My cell phone endured much pain. In fact, I think I dropped it more than anything else I can remember in my life. It was a warrior. This past weekend, it could not handle the fierce colds and snows of Hokkaido. I took it up the mountain in my jacket, and although it survived the 1st run, I decided to wrap it in a bag for the second run, and pulled it out of that soaking wet for some reason. My only thought is that the bag was from a warm environment, and when wrapping it up, warm air got caught in the bag and bringing it from 20 degrees celcius to -10 degrees celcius, the moisture in the air came out in the form of water, and since my cellphone was wrapped in this bag, it became like wrapping one's phone in a bag of water.

Does that theory sound appropriate? I think so. Now that I think about it, I could test it by doing the same here and seeing if it happened. Anybody smarter than me want to take a shot at another theory or agree with mine?

Regardless, here's my old phone (these are pictures of the internet, not my actual phone).

It used to be the superiority of its class: It had a 2.1 megapixel camera, it was sleek, came in black, silver or blue (the color I picked), and could be used in English or Japanese. Also with an external display, this keitai (cell phone in Japanese) was a trooper. The camera broke actually a couple of months ago, but even then, everything else worked despite constant torture and harm.

I went to the DoCoMo store to talk to Kyoko, the one and only DoCoMo girl on getting a new phone. Options for Mova (more coverage than Foma, although DoCoMo is trying to promote Foma since it's got much more options and gadgets, although it's coverage is still sub-par compared to Mova or AU, another cell phone brand). That being said, I insisted on Mova, and she brought out my options. Here's the phone that I picked:

This one's pretty wild. It's a fat square basically. Doesn't look like a keitai at all. Has a horizontal display (very cool actually), all the usual functions (a crappy 1.3megapixel camera but at least it works!), the ability to not only listen to the radio but also play mp3's (yeah, I know, I already have an mp3 player, but this is conventient as well, no), but here's the kicker: It's only available with Japanese directions and such. Therefore, I have now successfully forced myself to use my keitai solely in Japanese, zero English. Very good. Also, another advantage is that it was free since I've been a DoCoMo phone-holder for over 10 months (the other options were about 5000 and 7000yen). Even better was since I'm friends with Kyoko she gave me a used charger cable for free, thus avoiding an additional 1800yen.

So the only cost I will pay is the 2000yen for deactivating my old phone and activating the new one. So roughly twenty dollars to switch phones. Not a bad choice considering the options I think!

Hokkaido - The Adventure, Pt. II

2005-12-13T22:19:00.000-08:00

First off, where is Hokkaido? Well, it is the northernmost prefecture in Japan (the BIG island).

Here is a map of Japan with Hokkaido being in dark blue. Okayama is in Chugoku region (light blue), roughly between Hiroshima and Osaka (Okayama's eastern border is the border with Hyogo Prefecture which is in the red kansai region).

We landed at Chitose and took a bus (over 3 hours) from there to Hirafu, the name of the ski resort in Niseko.

On the way to the ski resort, we stopped at a rest stop at a little after 5pm to a really funny site: Tons of high schoolers frolicking in the snow, complete with boys throwing snowballs and girls in short skirts screaming. Turns out (I asked) they were from Oita prefecture, 2nd year students on their school trip, and for many of them, their first time seeing snow. They were absolutely thrilled. We took some pictures and marveled at the willpower of the girls to wear school uniforms, i.e. short skirts, in such cold weather. Here's a picture of Sarah with the ladies on the little hilltop.

Finally we arrived at Hirafu. There was only one other person with us on the bus. Actually, here's a funny story: We reserved seats on the bus such that they knew we were coming and just in case it was full. We got on and there is one other foreign looking male and us. We wait. It is past the departure time for the bus when two asian males get on the bus. How fitting, comments Sarah, that for as punctual as Japanese usually are, here's juxtaposition with a bus of foreigners waiting on the Japanese. This theory held up until about 5 minutes in when finally one of them spoke up quite loudly and we all realized that it was definitely not Japanese, but Chinese that came out of his mouth. Oops.

So we call Morio, who is the owner of "Log Kanon" where we were staying, and have him come and pick us up. He was very low-key and helpful, and didn't feed us with the usual BS of most Japanese people hosting foreigners. All in all, a perfect and wise choice by Sarah (albeit convenient since it was the cheapest by far out of all the possible lodgings at Hirafu, and why I don't know because it was seriously comfortable, warm, and homey).

It only being about 7pm, we decided to suit up and go for some home-schooling lessons on how to snowboard from Sarah. It was quite cold but I had bought a snowsuit for 4000yen (roughly forty dollars) from Daiki (used to be DIK, a do-it-yourself hardware store in Tamano), so I was totally warm and cozy despite sub-zero temperatures (in celcius), and some awesome snow falling everywhere. Here is me on one of my runs down the little hill we were using as a practice ground.

On the way back, I got a nice shot of the slopes from the bend in the road right before our log cabin.

I cannot begin to express how much snow there was, and how hard it was snowing all day Saturday and Sunday. I was just flat out amazed/impressed, and this was still considered the "pre-season". The season actually starts on December 22nd so the slopes and everything was not very crowded at all, and overall seemed a little bit like a ghost resort almost except that everything was fabulous.

Hokkaido - The Adventure, Pt. I

2005-12-13T21:50:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend, I went to Hokkaido to go snowboarding for the first time in my life. Why did I choose to go? Well, my good friend Sarah (who's picture you will see below) told me about it at a fall bbq sometime back in September. They were use 誕生日切符 or birthday tickets, which are 12,500yen one-way, or for Japan, a deal.

Due to some strange problems or rather inconveniences, the plan was to fly out of Okayama on Saturday morning, and return through Kansai on Monday night, but as usual, things didn't go as planned but this was not for the worse actually.

First off, who did I go with? I went with my two Interac (another program which sends foreigners to Japan to teach) friends: Sarah and Rosey (shown below).

We all stayed overnight at Sarah's house northwest of the city, rode into the city on train then got on the bus (490yen one-way) to Okayama's airport. We did this carrying all of our luggage and borrowed (at least in Rosey's and my case) snowboards and boots. A little bit cumbersome, but possible and done nonetheless.

Sarah did all of the planning (she was playing the role of big sister), so she bought the tickets. She might have been complaining about something in this picture, but this shows the flight (379) in the background to Sapporo as well as the amount of stuff each of us was approximately carrying.

Now off to our gate! We bought Omiyage (presents usually representative of a place/prefecture visited) for Taka, who was a Japanese near-pro snowboarder who was going to come and join us on Sunday (unfortunately there was so much snow on Saturday and Sunday that he mailed that morning to say it was too dangerous to drive up to the mountain).

On the way, we came across this priceless view of the hedges spelling out OKAY(ama)!

Don't have much to say for the plane ride other than it was packed. Why? Because there is only one flight a day leaving Okayama for Sapporo. Just one. It being a weekend too, yep, as you would imagine, it was packed. I had an interesting discussion with Sarah on how her father asks her questions about her vacation such as: How packed was the plane? Or how far from the city center was the hotel, and was breakfast free, and if so, continental or western? I consider these normal and imformative vacation questions whereas Sarah preferred the classics: How was your vacation? And did you have a good time?

Here was our first view of snow, from the video screen on the plane showing the movement of the plane and descent (this is supposed to lessen the effects of motion sickness because you have visual cues of movement to supplement those that your inner ear feels).

Then it was off to the bus to go to the mountain in Niseko. Times and all had already been researched on the web, so there was no hastle, struggle or stress, allowing us to dine at Mos Burger. Here is what Mos Burger's burger menu looks like.

This is a picture of the first witnessed snow. Walking outside we realized a bitter truth, it was ridiculously cold in Hokkaido, even moreso than the already annoying biting cold temperatures of Okayama.

The Yankee Squat

2005-12-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

So somebody previously asked me what a "yankee" is. In Japan, students that don't conform to the usual rules of high school are called "yankees". This means that they do any one of these things:

Dye their hair.
Wear lots of makeup.
Roll up their skirts or wear their ties loose.
Unbutton blouses/shirts.
Talk using lots of slang and are rude.
Don't pay much attention in class, either sleeping or causing disruptions.
Walk around acting like they are the class of the school, bullying others at times.
And last but definitely not least, they sit in the style that is described as the "yankee squat".

I was unable to find any pictures online of Japanese highschoolers sitting in the style of a yankee, or even any pictures of yankees online... hm... I did find though a picture of baseball players sitting in "yankee" style (a common way to rest in Japan if you're tired of standing but there are no seats around).

I find myself occasionally getting into the stance without realizing it.

Haado Gei

2005-12-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

So I was in elementary school awhile back when during school lunch (給食) I had a student ask me, "Niiru (pronounced nee-roo) sensei (teacher), Haado Gei, do you know?"

My response of I had not heard of him prompted some students to demonstrate his signature move: putting his hands on his head and gyrating his hips, thrusting into the air.

So Haado Gei, or Hard Gay, is a comedian here in Japan who portrays and stereotypes homosexuals. He is well-known amongst adults and children since for some reason despite the heavy sexual content of his humor and shows, he still airs on family shows and normal times.

Here is a picture of him as well as a link to an article written about him:

Greg, a JET in Champclair (the "mansion" or apartment building in the shi (Okayama City) where most of the city JETs live), came dressed to the halloween party as Hard Gay. An interesting costume choice, indeed.

The yankee baseball students

2005-12-07T01:18:00.000-08:00

So in my last class today, a yankee baseball student was asked the followed question: "How do you spell the word 'straight'?"

Since, as most of my baseball players are, he was not the brightest star in the sky, he relies on the student, his friend (and not a baseball player) behind him to whisper him the answers so that the teacher doesn't hear, thinks the baseball player knows what's going on, and doesn't ask him any more questions.

Unfortunately though, this time around the student behind him misheard the question and thought the teacher had asked to spell the word "street," so he whispers s-t-r-e-e-t. The baseball player dutifully repeats each letter.

The teacher looks at him, shaking her head. "That's wrong, I asked you to spell straight, not street!" chuckling even. The baseball player annoyed that he made himself look bad (although everyone in class knows about this whispering-deal) turns around and smacks his friend behind him on the head reprimanding him in Japanese for spelling to him the wrong word.

Oops, he blew his own cover. I knew what was going on, but was having more fun just watching it knowing he was going to be wrong. Much of the class burst out in laugher, and the next time he was called on, his friend behind him had to stand while he was answering the question so his mouth was readily visible.

A sure-fire way to get in trouble in Japan

2005-12-07T01:17:00.000-08:00

Don't pay rent for four months.

Japanese Green Tea Ceremony

2005-12-06T01:24:00.000-08:00

So after playing soccer in Bizen, as I had explained before we went to a nearby temple for a tea ceremony amongst other things.

Here are some simple explanations for you on what to do at a tea ceremony:

First off, you sit souzan style, or with your feet tucked underneath you. This is very painful for me and some people, but classically the entire duration should be attended in this seating position.

You will receive sweet treats on a square sheet of paper that has been folded once. These are two be eaten before the green tea.

When you receive the tea, bow and thank to thank the person.

Then, moving the bowl to the right so it is in front of your right leg, closer to the person sitting to your right, say: "もう一服いかがでございませんか？" (mou ippuku ikaga de gozaimasenka?). This means in very formal Japanese, "Would you like another one (bowl of green tea)?"

A formal response to this is, "いいえ、もう結構です。”(iie, mou kekkou desu), or "No, no thank you." You can actually say yes, implying that you would like another bowl of green tea, thus effectively taking it from the person and having your second, but this is rude and not done.

Then you move the bowl of tea in front of your left leg, and say to the person to your left: "先にちょうだい致します。”（saki ni choudai itashimasu), or again in formal Japanese, "First, I will drink." (implying excuse me).

Now you may move the bowl back to directly in front of you, and pick it up. Before drinking though, holding the bowl in your left hand, turn it clockwise three times in your left palm with your right hand. Then drink once. The second time you drink, finish the entire bowl, thus if you take a very small first drink, you will have to take a large second drink. Make sure though that the first drink is shorter than the second.

After drinking all the tea, rotate the bowl counterclockwise three times again using your right hand to turn the bowl.

Put the bowl back down on the tatami and say "ごちそうさまでした" (phrase said after drinking/eating something given to you to thank them for it).

If you are sharing bowls (i.e. they are not being washed between people, rather just returned and used directly again) then you are to take the paper which the sweets were on, and bending it around the rim, wipe the rim where you drank, folding the paper when you're done with the wipe so that when you put the paper back down on the tatami clean sides are touching the tatami, not where you wiped.

At this point, if there are other bowls circulating or the person making the tea is busy, you are encouraged to examine the bowl. Green tea is usually served in very ornate bowls, and the pictures convey stories or folklore. Do not though, lift the bowl off the tatami but tilt it instead. Also, sometimes on the bottom of the bowl is interesting information written. Again, to look tilt and lower your head, do not lift the bowl off the tatami.

This process is repeated with people being served in a clockwise fashion.

I think you can converse during it, although for very formal ones, I am not sure. We talked during ours and asked questions on what to say, do, etc. (although I remembered quite a bit from the first tea ceremony I attended with Jimbo-sensei for the full moon showing last year).

Perhaps this all seems a little trite, but I find it very interesting and really enjoy the process as well as green tea. There is also a whole process associated with how to make it (taking out the box with all the utensils, what order to use them in, how to orient the spoon, how to whisk, etc.) so as you can imagine, this really can get complex and that's why there are tea ceremony clubs at some middle schools and high schools: For students who are interested in the complexities of the Japanese tea ceremony.

This was quite the informative post. If I made an error on something or forgot to include something, please let me know!!!

Thanksgiving

2005-12-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

I organized a Thanksgiving feast in Tamano this past weekend. There were supposed to be 50 people, but only 40 showed, so there was as expected LOTS of extra food. I took home two whole turkeys (8 13lb'ers total made). A large statistical error on food amount, so will have lots of turkey for the next couple of months, but it's all in the freezer, so no big deal!

Took some pictures, but was really busy running around the kitchen, but felt amazingly at home. Slept all day Sunday since I was thoroughly exhausted. Pretty busy today at school but with my own list of things to do.

I will hopefully get some better pictures from friends and put them up. I will also scour other people's blogs and post their thoughts on this so I don't have to write as much. On another day I'll go through the day in more detail, but for now, it was a world of fun and a huge learning experience (never have I organized such a large event before).

Karma and the mysterious phone call

2005-11-29T18:52:00.000-08:00

So I biked into the city, as I do every now and then (read: about once a week), only this time at night with my full light set up. This involves a flashing red beacon on the back, my 6lb motorcycle battery strapped on the rack, and my 25 Watt homemade light velcro'd onto the front.

Yes, it's serious, but very enjoyable: The light is so powerful the signs actually glow as they would normally if you were driving a car at night!

I rounded a corner right near Champclair, and almost ran over a small black object on the ground. Despite only getting a split second look at it, I somehow (and correctly) knew it was ... a wallet. I go back and pick it up, stuffing it in my pocket to check out later.

Turns out it was a hefty thing, black, with some fancy brand name that I'd never heard of. There was one of those special 2000yen notes in it, along with a handful of change, but no serious cash, and TONS of cards.

I decided to return it myself to the police station. I went with Kanae in case there were any serious problems, but there were none. We actually went at 9pm to the "konban" or police branch, but there were no policemen there are all. Then we went after the bar at about 2am, and there were 5!!! Fancy that, at 2am the place is packed, an hour when nobody would go most likely, yet at 9pm, still a reasonable time, it was deserted.

Yes, that's Japan for you.

So I show the wallet, say how I found it and am turning it in, and the policeman pulls out a pair of rubber gloves and starts to sort out all the contents. Hello, I've been touching the thing, what's the reason for the professional gloves? Anyways, they count the money, take inventory of the important cards, then have me fill out a form which has my address, phone number, etc. on it. I do so, and when putting in my apartment address, they ask what kind of building I live in.

An apartment I say. Oh, then what's the room number, they ask. "There is none," was my reply. "That's impossible," the policeman told me. ??? Huh, uh, hello, I know my address. So he keeps telling me that's not right, and after a minute I finally whip out my gaijin card and shove in front of him and ask him if he's got any other questions or can I leave (this was taking much longer than I thought it would or should).

Regardless, all said and done, it took about a half hour. Turns out if they are unable to find the owner of the wallet in 6 months, then the money in the wallet is mine (all 2000yen and change, whoo hoo).

Two nights ago, at nearly 10pm I got a call. I expected it to be from CJ since I had e-mailed him to call be before 10, and since nobody else calls really, I picked up the phone answering with some slangy English rhetoric like "yo, nagasaki homeboy," and get instead silence, then a Japanese voice explaining that she is sorry for calling so late and her name is Katayama-san.

I completely forgot about the wallet (the gal's name was Yuka Katayama, hopefully posting this doesn't get me in trouble with the law somehow), and how I had put my home phone number on it.

Regardless, after about 3 minutes of me asking who she was, and finally understanding her answer (in my defense, she was using TONS of polite Japanese, like itadaku and keredomo), so I was super confused. Finally it dawned on me, and my reply of "aaaah.... yuka-chan" broke the tension.

I told her no worries, and have a good night.

Bizen Soccer Experience

2005-11-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

So last week, just as I had done last year, I biked to Bizen again to help out with their "Intercultural Soccer Day". The four volunteers were Sarah, Claire, Andy, and myself.

I as usual biked in from the city, thus putting me over 640km (now over 700km) for the month (remember my goal is 640km each month, or 400 miles, coming out to roughly a hundred miles a week).

Soccer was fun, I proceeded to put the pink jersey on my head, tucking it into my hat, since it was ideally far more fashionable than actually putting it on correctly.

Afterwards, we all had a marvelous (and plentiful) yakisoba lunch. The first round was quickly gobbled up by most of the kids, but I was able to make a killing on the 2nd and 3rd, taking home a total of 5 bowls of yummy food to the stomache. The fear of being sick on the ride home prevented me from eating more. In retrospect, since I didn't end up riding home until well later, attending instead the full length of the temple visit, I should've gone in for more.

The temple was nearby, about 5km away, up the side of a very steep hill. We ended up first witnessing a chant (I could not remember the phony chant I was taught as a joke, how disappointing!). I took a serious video, but unfortunately have still not figured out how to post videos on this, so maybe another time. Afterwards I did take a lot of pictures of the very pretty room. After that was a tea ceremony, then a poem recitation and dance by one of the ladies who served us tea.

Technical Difficulties

2005-11-25T01:10:00.000-08:00

There have been some tech problems with my blog and the forwarding system I have in place. Hm... working on it. Hopefully this solves the bug.

Near Iwakuni - Night from the bridge

2005-11-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

A very neat shot at night.

Dinner at the Kondos

2005-11-25T00:50:00.000-08:00

So two weeks ago from today I had dinner with the Kondos, rather just Junko and Keiko. They were Ben's last host family.

This was the delicious meal that was served up. Very good. I took a picture.

Otherwise, nothing new there. Junko is the coach of the hachihama elementary school volleyball team, and since I was at hachihama that day, I stuck around to watch/help with practice, then followed her home for dinner. The kids got a real kick at being able to practice with me, and while doing bumping drills asked that I spike it at them. This basically was more like target practice for me then bumping for them, seeing as they just held their arms out, closed their eyes, and prayed. If I hit it just right and where their arms were, it would turn out to be a decent bump. A small challenge when you're dealing with kids shorter than 5 feet tall too.

Speech Contest

2005-11-25T00:32:00.000-08:00

So last week was midyear seminar (16-18th of November). My school though, got me out of quite a bit of it since, for one reason, I had a speech contest on Wednesday afternoon at Minerva (a previously rented out place for Thanksgiving dinner, but I passed on it because it wasn't free, and wasn't as nice as the Sukoyaka center).

But, since the seminar started at 10am, and I wasn't supposed to be at Minerva until noon, they asked that I go for the first 45 minutes to see just the key-note speech, then leave. Wow. Well, this may seem annoying, and it was, but let's just say I may have gotten paid to bike 50+km and sit down for fourty minutes (reinbursement for train fees required for round trip, not much though really).

So I went to this last year, and there were a total of 8 judges, 4 foreigners, and 4 Japanese people. This year it was 3 and 3. As usual, it was more of a "recitation contest" than a speech contest since students went on stage and recited the mesmorized speech which they had picked; There were 6 different possible speeches they could give.

The best speech was definitely one which talked about ET, and only one student attempted it. The favorites were the foolish king who bought a magic suit that was really nothing at all and he was naked, and one talking about sign language and how it is useful.

After each of us finished scoring, we retired to pick the winner. I was satisfied with the original winner, but then they realized that they had made a mistake on the order of the participants on the sheet, and the previous winner was in fact second place, and the girl that did ET, who before had been 2nd, was in fact the winner.

Myself and another ALT disagreed completely. Although she had picked the harder speech, her pronounciation (which was supposedly 50% of the final score and more important than attitude and presentation, or so they made sure to tell us specifically in the meeting before the start) was the worst of all of the students. In the meeting before, the organizers emphasized that the person with the best pronounciation should win, not the one who is the loudest and most theatrical.

So, despite myself and another ALT, both native English speakers, giving this girl the worst pronounciation score out of all the participants on our scorecards, this girl somehow managed to win. I was appalled. After all that, after all the emphasis on pronounciation, they allowed her theatrics to take over and get her the win. Foolish Japanese judges, since she had the worst pronounciation score (overall mid-to-low score for us), but due to their appreciation was given 優勝 or top prize (yuushou).

After the speeches and before the prizes, there was a mini-group discussion of sorts, each circle of chairs getting a foreigner to lead the way asking questions and maintaining conversation (i.e. preventing silence).

Here are some pictures from the event:

And the winner, ET speech in mind. I took a video of it actually since I wanted to catch it seeing as I thought it was the strangest speech of them all...

More interesting news...

2005-11-11T01:28:00.000-08:00

I went to elementary school today. Shonai, the school which I called in sick last Tuesday and told to reschedule on a Monday since I was going to the hospital with a fever and a finger infection.

They were great and really nice to me, asking if I was feeling better, and concerned that I would be biking home in the rain today (which I did, hopefully I don't catch something, though think it should be okay).

I came back to my H.S. to check mail, talk to my JTE, and some other things. As I was sitting here checking my mail my vice principal comes up to me with ... the black book. The black book is the book with all sorts of information and stuff, but the only thing I know it for is it's the book where you put in the paid-vacation you are going to take and sign off on it. He comes over with this book, and asking if now's a problem (my reply no), and then starts talking about the 1st of November (which was that Tuesday). I say yes, I was sick and went to the hospital, and even before he has a chance tell him that I would like to file that under bokkyuu, or sick leave. That stumped him. He paused, looked around nervously, then proceeded to retreat back to his desk. I have been waiting to see if he will return demanding I take nenkyuu, or paid leave, but it seems this is not the case.

Therefore, I guess what we have learned here is something that JETs knew all along: Your school will attempt to take off your paid leave without informing you about your other options because they don't want you to use your paid leave. JETs are not Japanese people; We value our vacation time like loose change for a homeless man, and we don't give it up easy. Japanese teachers take pride in never using any vacation, JETs take pride in using all of our vacation days.

This was the first vacation day I have taken yet. I also am not missing the school since they are making it up on a monday. I think in the back of my mind that this was the reason why the school gave me monday off in the first place: knowing that I would miss days and they could be made up on mondays, and my desire to leave on weekends perhaps adding on a monday and if there were no classes then I wouldn't miss anything.

This is all just my thoughts. I could be wrong.

A funny anecdote from school today: A kid comes running after class, and boldly asks me in Japanese "何人ですか？”or "Where are you from (literally what kind of person are you?)?" The appropriate response is american, but I shocked even myself when the joke response came out even faster from my mouth, "にんじん", or "carrot". The reason why this is funny for japanese people is because both have "jin", the question being in romaji: nani jin desuka? The funny answer: ninjin.

We were also playing bingo, and I had a little cup full of small white balls with the numbers 0 to 60 on them. The cup device worked where if you lifted it up then returned it, a ball would be pushed up and out of the cup, same thing as a bingo wheel or something. Well, I was shaking it, asking if students were ready when the top came off, and all 61 balls went EVERYWHERE! Amazingly kids everywhere sprung to action and every single ball was found and replaced in a matter of less than a minute. Wow, what bad luck though to have the top come off!

Apologies for these being purely text. I haven't had another exciting weekend of picture taking yet. I still have to put halloween pictures up on my photosite, as well as post some other random pictures of things that I took such as the bike-pile near the 7-11 and my finally managing to get my plastic bottle collection out for PET bottle day.

Elementary School Madness

2005-11-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

So yes, for those not aware, I put down my foot last year on elementary schools asking that they give me no more than 5 classes a day, and no more than 3 in a row (i.e. not all 4 morning classes). This I think somewhat worried them and put some 4 class days into the schedule along with 5, but lately it seems they have forgotten it and I've had a couple of 6 day'ers again, with already 2 more in my upcoming schedule.

Wow, this is seriously tiring sometimes. I really do enjoy elementary school, but sometimes think that the method in which my time is being used is as fruitless as trying to up-root telephone poles by hand. I will write a letter one of these days and shoot it off to my superviser, principal, and the BOE (Board of Education) at Tamano. When I do, I'll be sure to post it.

But another interesting thing happened to me yesterday on a day where I was to go to Ozaki Elementary School. I actually didn't put down in my cell phone which school and didn't have the plans, so decided that I would just go to the H.S. early and look for myself, then head off to wherever I had to go.

After finding out which school, I proceeded to putz around a little bit before heading out just after 9am, giving me plenty of time to head to Ozaki, about 20-25 minutes away. Right as I got on my bike though, I noticed a problem: My front tire was completely flat. Strange considering I had just biked to school a half an hour ago and had no problem. I must've gotten a flat just pulling in and not noticed, or a small sized leak.

I called Ozaki and explained the situation. Usually I carry spares and all the equipment, but just this past weekend on Saturday, biking up to Okayama, I blew two flats and hadn't had time to repair either of them. Also, I didn't have the patch kit or tire removers on me, so there was no way of getting the tube off, fixing it, then heading out. So, the VP of the elementary school came to my high school to give me a ride to the elementary school.

She seemed pissed about it too. I know since after school was over I told her I was ready whenever she was, implying any time to leave is fine, but my translation of said phrase into Japanese must've lost its sincerity. Also, my answer to "Where do you want to be dropped off, your house or school," where I said my house since it was more convenient for her being closer to school (implying the elementary school) got an answer in Japanese of "this isn't convenient for me."

Now I realize that yes, this is a hassle. But seriously, the previous JETs in my job position have all relied upon rides to and from elementary schools. I am the first to actually make it my own priority by biking there myself. On top of that, let's imagine I had a car and I got a flat tire, would the VP still have been as annoyed about the inconvenience? The way I see it, a flat tire is bad luck, and you shouldn't make any judgements on poor luck.

Maybe I'm wrong and she was completely understanding of the situation and held no grudges, but somehow I don't think that's the case given how Japanese people NEVER tell you how they feel or their opinions. If anything, I think it's a fair and safer bet to say that she was even more displeased about the situation than I even think, and that is truly disturbing.

Also, I think I may have posted this before, but another elementary school is asking that I show up 2 and a half hours before my first class. This is the only school asking that. I am tempted to ask for a ride to and from my house and lunch (which they also don't offer) to counteract this, but figure just showing up whenever I want to is a better idea.

This last post was also created in the bitter aftermath of interview tests with the first year's where they are specifically told to answer in complete sentences, yet when asked if their sentence has a verb, are unable to answer yes or no, and unable to identify which word is the verb if they did use one. Another fantastically surprising charasteristic of the Japanese student taking an interview test is the remarkable ability to mumble to one-self as if attempting to divine the answer while in reality just stalling, and stalling, and stalling. I could seriously take a nap or just wait out the rest of the 45 minute period and there is a good conceivable chance that the student would continue in this manner for the rest of the period without ever forfeiting and admitting that they don't know. Incredible. I wish they would take this hard-nose stance with actually studying, then maybe we'd get somewhere.

The sickness, the drugs, the recovery

2005-11-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

Last week I got sick. This was the first serious illness of this winter/cold phase. It started after the weekend debacle that was Halloween. I woke up on Monday feeling just cruddy, went to school (although pulled a halfday), and then woke up on Tuesday morning with a raging fever.

I called my elementary school and told them I was not coming and to reschedule on another Monday (yeah, I think that may have been partially the reason why I have no classes on Monday this year: so that any time a holiday falls on an elementary Tuesday or Friday, or I miss one for some reason, they can slap it on Monday).

To make matters worse, my right hand middle finger got infected, and swelled up to a large elephantitic size. This all prompted me to go to the hospital to get it looked at (and the pus drained).

So this is my second time in a hospital. Still just figuring out how it really works, and explained what I wanted (somebody to look at my finger). I get in to see the doctor after about a ten minute wait, he looks at it, says that it is infected and wants to take an x-ray. An x-ray? What? I refuse the x-ray saying I had one taken 2 months ago when I thought I broke my hand, and this has nothing to do with bones. If you can drain it, do so, else anti-biotics now would be nice.

I think I frustrated/humiliated the doctor a little with my adament put-down of his suggestion for an x-ray and ensuing directions on what I think should be done about it (most Japanese people do not offer their suggestions on what should be done, especially to somebody 先輩 or senpai (elder) like a doctor). Enough to not only get 3 nurses to come and watch the spectacle, surprised to see me half running the show, and to also call in another doctor who spoke better English than him.

It was finally decided that there wasn't much pus yet (which I still disagree with considering how swollen my finger was), but he prescribed anti-biotics and I went on my way. In the end, all is well, I think. I got the pus out of my finger myself using a need, and everything healthwise seems to be back to normal, though my training for the duathlon in Iwakuni on the 20th took a serious hit. Oh well, it's all for fun anyways, not like I'm going to win it.

Proof of Engineering

2005-11-02T00:34:00.000-08:00

So Halloween has came and passed, and you may all wonder after my "can of chu-hai" last year, how did this year's momochi project actually go? (A picture of last year's costume is below!!!)

When Amy asked me whether or not I would be able to top last year, all I wrote her back was, "it's been topped," and quite frankly I think it is a safe bet to reiterate that.

Momochi was alive, and livin' large. Yes, I went with a ridiculously oversized hat as well as a large oversized torch. The only decent picture I actually have is from Chris' camera (thanks Chris in advance, none of my pictures are as good or appropriate). I also included some pictures of the torch on the lovely runway model known as Nancy so you can get an idea of it's ridiculous proportions and looks.

Now you may all be wondering how I managed to make such a monstrous (and yes, cool) hat. I took pictures to demonstrate the steps.

It began on a Tuesday morning with me covering my head in seran wrap and self-papermache'ing my head. Afterwards, I ended up borrowing Ashley's hairdryer to help it set, then let it dry fully. Later I ended up putting on a second layer to strengthen the "helmet" for my star hat.

Next up, I went to the drawing board (using school time of course). I decided the tip of each point on the star to the tip of another I wanted to be 1 meter. Then figured that I wanted the pentagon to have a side of a little under a third, finding online that somewhere around 30% is the visually aesthetic star body to point-point length. Therefore I decided 26 centimeters for the pentagon edge. Going online again, I found out the measurements for the center of a side of the pentagon to the center of the pentagon. Lastly, I decided that the hat would be 15cm high.

With all that set, I set out to make the cardboard pieces of the hat. This required painfully cutting out each piece to fairly exact dimension 5 times over (since a pentagon has five sides). The first picture you see is actually all 5 pieces completed (I measured out the appropriate notch distances too so that all the pieces would interlock accordingly. I realized afterwards though, that when I cut out the pieces I should've taken into account the tapering to a point, but instead cut that afterwards which proved to be annoying and should've been avoided). Afterwards, I glued all of these together, leaving me with 5 exactly alike shapes which you see below.

Then the test, taking those five, and taping them together. The reason for the cardboard extending to the middle was because I figured (and rightly so), that this would make the entire structure much more rigid and sound, and be a good base for the hat as well as something to mount the helmet directly to.

If you look at this picture, you'll see some cardboard look like newspapers. That's because I thought since the cardboard cutouts were made over bends in the cardboard (taken from boxes that weren't that big, so couldn't get flat sides), I thought that paper-mache'ing the outside would make them strong. This was a nearly fatal mistake, proving instead to weaken the cardboard due to the water/flour mix in paper-mache, and gave me limp pieces instead. They dried half-way when I put them on, and seemed like they would stiffen further, so I deemed it okay to continue.

After this I cut out a little bit of the bottom of the triangle, and putting in the helmet went to the mirror and took a guess with a pen at what really should be cut out for the hat to fit snugly. This was daunting, seeing as a messup could prove difficult/time-staking to fit. Luckily all went well, and the headpiece was firmly glued into the framework (twice actually, just to make sure).

Lastly, another seriously tedious part, was to then take long, white A5 sheets of paper (8.5"x17"), and tape them around the points, top, and bottom. Each point required 4 sheets (a sheet for each quarter of the point), and the top and bottom I just used paper and tape cuz I was getting really fed up (in retrospect that was a mistake because the spray paint did not stick to the plastic tape very well at all). No pictures of this, but as you can imagine, it was not fun, and very very very very annoying.

Last but not least, I wasted an entire can of yellow spray paint to get the sucker yellow. I also made a torch, but didn't take anything but the end picture. Cool things about the torch are the two tubes which i used for the frame, adding paper around one to make it fit snugly into the other, and the bottle top inserted in the top to hold a flashlight which backlit the red celophane to give the appearance of flames. Here is the final picture of both...

So yes, that completes the costume. I actually thought it was lost after Saturday night's party (I gave it to Yarek after figuring the hat's time was done, but luckily Sarah picked it up and will give it back to me this weekend), but no, it lives on. I will weigh it since people were curious as to its actually weight.

Kokutai - Fall Events

2005-10-30T18:05:00.000-08:00

So remember how Okayama Prefecture hosts the national games this year and during August I went to beach volleyball? Well, indoor volleyball and cycling came this time, and school was again cancelled for three days.

The volleyball game I saw was Hiroshima (red) versus Osaka (blue). Osaka was supposed to be the better team, but they lost in three, and Hiroshima ended up losing in the finals to Aichi (I think) Prefecture. Volleyball was actually pretty exciting, and confirmed that tall Japanese people do exist: All of the players were highschoolers and the shortest person on each team was about my height!

Some action shots, and then the end handshake. Hiroshima won because they had two serious goons that Osaka had no answer for!

I also went that same afternoon (finally, after over a year of not having gone considering all the biking that I do) to cycling, or keirin. Although my students went in the morning, I had a make-up day for elementary school so I went in the afternoon. It turns out that this was lucky because the morning there were only time-trials, thus only one rider at a time, and it was VERY boring. I got to see races in the afternoon where 15 riders would start, and after one preliminary speed-up lap, each ensuing lap the field of riders would narrow by one with the last rider in the pack dropping out. This continued until there were only 6 riders (then the next day those 6 would get into a pack and do the same thing again, just many many heats really). This was actually very exciting, and boy these riders are going fast. One lap (which I am guessing is your standard 400 meters) takes a good rider under 40 seconds. The track is also very sloped, allowing for some wild turns. I'd like to try, even though it does look slightly dangerous.

Here's the building, and written in English inside. You would think the mascot would have huge legs and tiny arms (since that's what most riders look like), but no, his upper body is weightlifter-esque!

Here are some riding shots. This was during the groups first lap, so I think there are 15 riders, count them! When I went, there were only old people who were watching, nobody even close to my age. The supervisors of teams also came to cheer on their riders and watch, and they wore their team colors in ridiculous outfits like this green/white ensemble from Nara.

I was fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to actually see a crash, since although they aren't exactly rare in the sport, considering I was only there for about an hour and a half, I guess I picked the right time. In keirin, what's really interesting is that it's not the first person that goes down that is hurt the most, it's the people behind him. They not only snap their feet into place, but strap them into the pedals as well, so there is no way to quickly dismount from their bike. It is also a fixed gear bike, so if the wheel turns, the crankshaft does too and your legs must turn, so it is impossible to stop the bike quickly anyways. Regardless, after the first speed-up lap, on the first turn of the first lap, a rider went down and the three people behind him were royally screwed. One flipped completely, the front wheel of his bike snapping like a twig, and two others just wiped. All four had to be carted off the track (the race immediately stopped). The rider that flipped wasn't moving at all right away, just motionless.

What really impressed me the most, but not really in a very good way, was how quickly they cleaned up the mess. People appeared from everywhere to help, moving the bikes off the track, sweeping it clean, carting people off, etc. All the old people watching were all murmuring about how dangerous it was and how he flipped and wasn't moving. So after about 5 minutes, everything was spic-and-span, and they started the race again (albeit with 11 riders instead of 15), and seconds later, what had happened was just as quickly forgotten. Nobody dwelled on it at all, confirming that although dangerous, it's just considered to be a risk you take in cycling.

Ferry Ride Return

2005-10-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

After a heated game of competitive up and down the river, we retired to the main lounge where Masa decided his 7 servings of udon was not enough, and the ferry udon gods tempted him. Nobody else had the stomache left to join him:

I decided to head outside to see what kind of good shots I could get of dusk, and came up with these interesting shots. Note the buoy to the left of the shimmering water. Postcard-esque, n'est pas? The second one though I would've liked to have snapped sooner since there were LOTS of oyster? beds, but you can only catch the tip (all those dots in the water) in this shot.

Last but not least, sweets and coffee

2005-10-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

So after all the udon, the ladies begged for some sweets and coffee, so before riding the ferry back to Tamano, we parked and walked into a coffee shop called Azumaya.

As any restuarant or shop in Takamatsu, you can not only have coffee, cakes, and sweets, but udon as well, and we witnessed a grandmother near us polishing off an apple tart after her udon. Masa being insane as he is, pulled the "udon/chocolate parfait" combination, but I opted just for the 280yen cheesecake.

Whereas Maddo went with the cold udon, chocolate cake, and coffee combo.

Gun Hunting

2005-10-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

Is prohibited in just this small area of Kagawa Prefecture.

A new week

2005-10-30T17:11:00.000-08:00

Although it is Monday and interesting things happened this weekend, I still have to finish my Takamatsu udon post, so that's first. Before I continue though, I must admit to an error previously: Shrine in romaji is Jinja, not Shinja. Apologies for all you checking my Japanese/English (Jez and Claire).

So after the 2nd place, we made a brief pitstop to see Kampira Temple near Kotohira station. This temple is to revere the God of the Sea, and is well known (I just asked a teacher how to read the kanji for the station, and he asked me if I went to see Kampira Temple!).

Then it was finally off to what ended up my last udon meal, a place in the middle of the countryside with a small sign advertising it. I thought we were going to somebody's ranch almost...

Walking in, here's what you would see waiting in line to pay. Same exact options on the menu as the 2nd udon shop.

A picture of my lovely meal (but thankfully the last udon meal of the day). I decided that it would be wise to put how much money it costs on the tray so when I took a picture it would be easy to remember how much it was; Smart thinking! So, how much you ask? That's 320yen, or roughly a little under three dollars.

Last but not least, a view from the car after exiting the shop, proving that yes, we were well outside of the city. But this udon shop was listed in the book of tasty udon shops in Kagawa Prefecture!

Taima Town

2005-10-27T00:05:00.000-07:00

We're driving along to the third (and what was supposed to be 2nd to last, but people were really starting to feel the throngs of udon and the lulls of the road and being in a car for an extended period of time), and all of a sudden Masa yells at Maddo to take a picture of the sign.

"Taima Townu!!! Taima Townu!!!" They kept repeating.

I asked what was so funny and why it needed a picture when all of a sudden Masa burst out laughing again, saying in Japanese "ah... look, Taima Shinja (or shrine)!!!"

We ended up pulling a uey (spelling? u-turn for all those non-northeasterners), and pulled into the road leading to the ginza. Masa went out and took pictures, and I did too, finally realizing why they thought this was so funny; Taima means weed in Japanese. Thus, this was weed-town, and we were visiting the weed shrine. I have a funny video of this, but I can't figure out how to post videos yet...

Udon Shop - The Second

2005-10-26T23:41:00.000-07:00

The second udon shop was about an hour drive away. During this time, our energy was still high, and our tolerance levels for udon was still high as well, so it passed pretty quickly. We were well out of the city that I thought we were lost, but no worries, everything was under control.

Here is the shop from the street.

I took a side slanted shot to show the background better and prove that this shop was truly in the middle of nowhere, yet people were flocking to it. We came just before a crowd of 15 assembled!

This is a shot of the inside. There's two sections: Normal dining area, and Japanese-style tatami area. Since it was so crowded we split up: The women ate together at a table in the tatami room, and the guys at at the bottom right table in this picture.

Here's the menu. Here you could order three different sizes, as well as you could order hot/hot, hot/cold, cold/hot, or cold/cold, the first temperature being that of the noodle, the second that of the soup! Since it was a pretty chilly day, most of us had hot/hot, though I tried the cold/hot that Maddo ordered, which was, interesting but not that strikingly different. The menu on the left is the same thing as on the right, but with the little blue/red symbols it's a little more user/visual friendly.

Here is the table before the udon came. We all have tempura (I have chikuwa tempura, which is fish past in a log-like shape fried tempura-style - note my blue, old cell phone next to the plate. the camera broke so I may look to upgrade, but not sure I really want to spend 50 dollars just to get a brand new phone with a camera that works that I rarely use. The phone has started to cut-off and restart without warning though, so soon it may be necessary). Also on the table: Ginger on the right, and pepper in the red cylinder.

To your right as you walk in is where all the tempura is. So you just grab what you want and put it down on the order form which you fill out and hand to them behind the counter on your own.

The remnants of my udon. I forgot to take a picture before I started eating, and didn't have the heart to ask a random Japanese person if I could take a picture of their food when it came before they started eating. That sounds very strange.

This place was decent. The total bill came out to 330 (small udon and the tempura was 100yen).

First Udon Shop Pictures

2005-10-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the shop. That is the line of people waiting to get in and it's only just before 10:30am !!!

Here is the inside of the shop. Pretty crowded/tight, somewhat hot. I realize that none of the pictures show how just to the left of the camera in every shot is the wall, so all of what you see is the open space of the little shop. In the picture, to the right the guy is rolling noodles, the old lady is somewhat in charge of selling gift-bag udon sets (although more just socializing), there is the cutting machine to the left, and in the back is the big stove manned by another woman(which you can't see).

A better shot of the old lady and folk. Each person is manning a different machine/area. You'll see the old lady in the magazine shot.

The cash register! Yep, 500/100/50/10 yen coin baskets. Put whatever amount in, and take the correct amount out. A very trusting system.

The lady in charge of the noodles. Note how the baskets are lifted up out of the boiling tub, probably for easy cleaning. This gives a pretty good idea of how hot/steamy this was. There was a serious gas flame heating up this gigantic tub.

Another shot of the same thing, only this time you can see the noodles and baskets that they're in...

An up close shot of the cutting machine. This machine's pretty neat, although very 1-dimensional. There's one in Genkotsuya Ramen shop (the ramen shop near my apartment that I frequent a couple of times a month, and who play mahjong).

The tempura selection. You can also pick an egg. Prices are listed below on a very short and simple, yet not easy to comprehend if you can't read Japanese menu!

Here it is. The menu in all it's glory. Udon-70yen. Egg-30yen. Tempura-100yen. The one below that in the orange/yellow is a joke or perhaps an off-beat way of advertising the 70yen price of their udon: "shi-awase ippai (ichi-mai) 70yen", or for 1 serving of lots of happiness, 70yen.

Serious flames. This udon shop was the only one where everything was in front of us and laid out, hence the amount of pictures. The others definitely had a more restaurant-like feel to them, whereas this was like an organized bbq or something.

And the final product before consumption (yes, that's a raw scrambled egg, and the green is a spicy/hot kind of chai or something).

Here are the folks and the background/restaurant after our first meal. Physched and off to a good udon start!

Last but not least, the magazine. Doesn't that face look familiar!! I laughed when I saw that.

Udon Fest: 1st Stop

2005-10-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

So what I will do is post a description and then pictures of the place for each place, so each store will get it's own post.

That being said, to back track a bit; Masa met me in front of my house (Chie knows where I live), and we hopped on the ferry. I had brought a deck of cards with me, and we played Up and Down the River. They finally got the hang, and we also played a much faster and cut-throat game on the way back to Tamano that afternoon.

Landing in Takamatsu, we drove to the first shop. It was tucked away behind the main straight, almost in what seemed like a little neighborhood; not your usual location for a restaurant.

This place was cheap, and despite it being just 10:30am, it was pretty packed. I was surprised. The price for Udon was 70yen (100yen if you wanted to add an egg, which I did). As you can see, the menu didn't really contain much. Another interested thing about the place was that you ate outside (crammed into the little tent area if it was raining. People shuttled through the inside to pay and get your food. Speaking of paying, it was very nonchalant; Put your coins in the appropriate dish and take whatever change you need. People were too busy to pay much attention, and the Japanese place quite a bit of faith in the honor code that I guess it works.

So there was the option of getting some tempura to go on top as well, but I passed for the raw egg instead (after putting in three pumps of shouyuu, or soy sauce). Scramble the egg (already scrambled in picture), and then eat away. Nearly everyone agree: Despite the cheap price, this was the best place we went to the entire day.

Lastly, we were able to find these places using a "Udon Shops of Takamatsu" book (basically a book on all the Udon shops in Takamatsu and Kagawa Prefecture. They have books like this for Ramen, Udon, Yakiniku, Sushi, Tempura, etc. etc.; The Japanese love their food. The best part was the old lady in the shop is in the picture in the book too!!!

Udon Eating Ryokou

2005-10-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

Only in Japan would you actually go somewhere to take a "eating tour". In this case, it was Masa n friends all piling into his sweet spring-break-esque van (seats six, four seats in the back facing each other instead of all facing the front), and headed on the ferry to Takamatsu to go on an Udon eating fest. I thought this was actually going to be a Masa and foreign friends ordeal, but quickly realized that I was the token foreigner, and everybody else was Japanese (Masa, Chie, Miwa, Tsugo, and Maddo). Oh well. The next series of long posts will involve pictures and descriptions of the entire day (and it was an all-day long trip). I tried to take pictures of all the food, but inevitably forgot one or two.

In order from left to right: Chie, Miwa, Tsugo, and Maddo.

And Masa from very up close. He is mid-30's, used to live in Tamano but now lives in the city. I met him in Ibara during the all day concert festival I went to (will post a picture of that below). He's pretty wild, knows a pretty good deal of English, and says the craziest things in both English and Japan. Basically, a really really cool friend to have and good person to know. The concert (picture taken at night), started at about 1pm and ended at somewhere around 8pm I think. This is a neat shot I thought. Fun times. I actually ended up going with Chie, who is in the above picture, and below in front of Masa's massive van.

Here's a picture of Masa's pimping ride. These wheels would have been uber fantastic for string break.

AZZ

2005-10-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this place is a little conspicuous. Note the real helicopter on the roof. This place is the notoriety of the sex-toy world in Japan. There was debate on whether or not this year's halloween outfit should be bought from here, but that was short-lived I think. I will actually be Momochi this year for halloween.

Momochi! He is the mascot for Okayama (Peach Boy), and this is the interpretation of him for this year's national games, which are being held in Okayama Prefecture this year (hence an appropriate costume I think!).

I am making a huge yellow star hat and oversized torch using paper-mache, although I am a little behind right now in the costume. Hopefully today I will be able to finish most of it... Last minute job, again.

Love Hotel

2005-10-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

New York Dream. Japan's personal "love-take" on the US. 4800yen for a 3 hour stint, or roughly 50 dollars for 3 hours. Must be an exciting place, and no, I don't actually know...

Tamano - Elections?

2005-10-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

I believe this is for elections for something in Tamano. It is pretty normal around Japan to hear blaring "arigatou gozaimashita"'s followed by somebody's name and more around town even before you see the car finally pass (amped up speaker cars). That being said, this was at night, and they were going down the snack-bar district area of Tamano stopping at each storefront handing out thankyou's and waving little flags with the person's name written on them. Strange. The crowd too was families, some elementary school kids recognized me and acknowledged me with the usual "niiru sensei!"

Finishing things up...

2005-10-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

There was the 100 meter race (originally scheduled for the morning, but since the whole day started late it was pushed until after the block dance-offs), then the tug of war.

I'm not sure how the format really worked, but the yellow team kept winning and had to pull three times in a row, and well, after the third time (which they lost, the finals I think), things weren't looking pretty.

Dance Shots

2005-10-21T01:48:00.000-07:00