Train thoughts

I love the way Japan does rivers.

They're always surrounded by lush green. Sometimes manicured with perfectly placed boulders for benches, sometimes wild tangles of grass and plants, sometimes miniature forests of trees and bushes. Almost always there are walkways placed to take advantage of the views, and allow access to the nature, as well as a path to flow back to concrete civilization.

The views are especially compelling when seen fleetingly out the window of a train, rushing over a bridge high above the riverbed. It never fails to make me wish to get off at the next station and wind myself back along the tracks, so that I may pause and take in the scene again at my leisure.

Happy Pocky Day!

Today is November 11th, or 11/11, which means it's Pocky Day! If you don't know what pocky is, you are missing out on one of Japan's best snack foods. See below for picture reference.

My contribution to the pocky pile: chocolate and sweet potato.

Enjoying the leftovers!

I met up with some JETs for dinner in Kawagoe. We followed the resident Kawagoen to Nomad's Diner. We were served eggcelent burgers and fries. I definitely recommend the egg and bacon cheeseburger! The milkshakes were a little off. They were served after the meal like most drinks in Japanese restaurants. Both the vanilla and chocolate ones had some sort of nut chopped very finely and mixed in. The vanilla ones also had raisins. None of us could figure that one out! We then enjoyed our pocky. Everyone brought different flavors, but there were a few kinds of chocolate. I enjoyed the coconut ones and the ones that were heart-shaped and strawberry flavored.

On our way back to the station we took purikura! We had fun, as always, at these Japanese style photo booths. Here are some of the results:

 

All in all, an excellent Tuesday night!

The Making of a Costume

The materials have been gathered. 

The pieces have been cut and pinned.

The dress fits. 

The seams are sewn. The dress still fits.

Sleeves are added.

Snaps are added to the top of the back seam.

The hems are sewn.

An apron is tied on top.

A hair ribbon and light make-up completes the look.

Alice and Maleficent enjoy the party in their fabulous handmade costumes.

Halloween

I have never celebrated Halloween as much as I have this year. I taught a lesson on it at my visit school, used it as a theme for two classes at my base school, and talked about it for English club. I also attended my first real young adult Halloween party. October has been crazy busy! In between the Halloween stuff, I also participated in a volunteer day in Iwaki, Fukushima, had a Japanese version of Tinker Day, and volunteered at the JET booth at the Saitama International Fair.

My Halloween class for my visit school was taught 7 times, because that's how many classes there are. I started out with a worksheet with pictures of traditional Halloween items, pumpkin patch, Jack-O'-Lantern, costumes, haunted house, etc. Students worked in pairs to write the English word, in katakana if they didn't know the English spelling. Pumpkin patch was thrown out in favor of pumpkins as soon as I started making my way around the classroom, checking on their progress. I explained pumpkin picking using the word field as they already know and understand that word. Trick or treat bag was also reduced to candy bag. After they wrote down their guesses, I made them say the answers as a class, which was harder in some classes than others. Once I threatened to pick students one-by-one, the class usually went ahead and answered. After they answered correctly, I wrote the English word on the board and had them practice saying it. Then, I gave a brief explanation of the item and its use in American Halloween celebrations. Haunted house was very easy to explain. I first reminded them of the haunted mansion ride at Disneyland. And if that didn't get a big response, then I brought up obakeyashi, the Japanese version of a haunted house. These 'scary mazes' feature prominently at all school festivals.

The second activity was a Trick-or-Treat dialogue. The JTE and I demonstrated the dialogue, helped by my witch costume (black shirt and skirt and 100 yen witch's hat) and candy bag. Then the students practiced with each other. If they did the dialogue with me or the JTE, then they got real candy.

At my base school, the first year gaigo class is now learning how to express opinions and negotiate. Last Thursday's class was on making plans, so we went ahead and made it Halloween themed. Each pair had to pick costumes and whether to go to a party or go Trick-or-Treating. They had to write up a quick skit and perform it.

For English club, we had Halloween charades and made masks and bats out of construction paper.

The Halloween party was hosted by some JETs in Kawagoe, 6 stops down on my train line (also where my visit school is). It was pretty fun. We had lots of food and drinks (both alcoholic and non), thematic music, and towards the end some very trippy cartoon shorts from the 70s and 80s. A Witch's Night Out was the name of the strangest one. I made my costume for that one. I'll post pictures of it in a separate post.

All in all, my Halloween spirit has been thoroughly exhausted! Halloween isn't celebrated the same way here, but they know about it and are interested by it, which makes it a useful teaching tool. It does have some similarities to other aspects of Japanese culture. Obon is the festival of the dead. It's celebrated in August, but also has superstitions and lanterns associated with it.

Food Observations

It make look the same, but ordering from a subway in a shopping mall is a sometimes fraught experience. First off, the menu is a bit different if course. Small salad shrimp seemed to be the featured meat, at least the day I was there.

Then there are the misunderstandings that happen in any restaurant, such as ordering a ham and egg sandwich and just getting the egg, because it's loud and the server missed the first part. And sometimes you run into one of your students, which is odd in and of itself, but made worse when you still can't figure out how to tell them you only want lettuce. I'm used to getting stares in The States when I don't have a lot of toppings, but here I got looks of semi-panic. Probably because the poor girl wasn't sure if I really didn't want any toppings (who doesn't want more toppings??? Crazy American!) or if she wasn't understanding my request for something.

Thank the world for helpful old ladies! The woman behind me asked, in pretty good English, if she could help me. She looked askance at me when I told her I didn't want anything else, but at least conveyed that request to the server.

Other things, however, remain the same. Club activities, at least the ones I've participated in, usually involve a snack time where everyone brings something to share. I'm both happy and very amused that some snack foods are eaten the same way I grew up eating them. Chip Star chips (Pringels) are made into duck bills before being eaten, and Tongari Corn chips (Bugles) are placed on fingers to make claws or witches fingers and then consumed one by one.

Chip Star reference photo

Quiet Weekend

So, I haven't posted anything recently. I have two drafts on here and two or three ideas for other posts. But I've been super busy; it's speech season after all. And every time someone mentions that I haven't posted in a while, I feel guilty about it, and then I don't want to think about it. So I don't. Which means I don't finish my drafts or start new ones. Long story short: the more you ask for, the less I'll give you.

Moving on.


I had a pretty crazy week, so I made no plans for the weekend. I spent Saturday doing laundry and some home chores, but mostly being lazy. I woke up earlyish on Sunday and Skyped with my parents and grandmother. That was fun. Then I went out and ran some outside errands. Then did a bit of shopping.

I finished earlier than planned, so I finally stopped at one of the two cat cafes in Crea Mall in Kawagoe. It was a really nice place. Petting cats is super relaxing. I wandered around the small space a bit. But I spent most of my 1/2 hour watching this one younger cat playing, trying to get a ball out of a maze. When he stopped and started to bathe himself, I picked him up and plopped him in my lap. He didn't seem to mind, so I sat and pet him till my time was up.

The door sign

Cuties!

On my way home, I decided to get off at Wakaba station and see what movies were playing. It turns out, I got here 10 minutes before Guardians of the Galaxy starts. As I've been meaning to see it, I bought a ticket, and now I'm sitting in the theater waiting for the lights to go down. I should probably turn my phone off though, don't ya think?

Bunkasai Day 2

I'm so exhausted right now. I'm into my 8th day of work in a row at the moment. And have been surprisingly productive despite the urge to giggle at everything.

But the weekend was fun.
Saturday ended with a wonderful performance by the dance club and also some of the finalists from the class dance contest. But most importantly, the workbook and journal for the second years was finished and copies were made! I had a big hand in making most of the second year materials, with input from others of course, but it was still a proud moment for me to see the finished copies.

On Saturday, I watched the guitar club's performance, met a bunch of former students who came back to visit, and went to the tea ceremony and flower arranging clubs. Several of my students are in the guitar club and one is in the tea ceremony club. She was able to explain the ceremony and what we were supposed to do in English. My advisor, the main English teacher, Kato-sensei, is in charge of the flower arranging club and asked us to come visit. They were very nice and showed me how to make a bookmark. Kato-sensei later brought me a small bouquet, which I added to my desk decorations.

We get tomorrow, Tuesday, off as a substitute day for working on the weekend. The other teachers get Wednesday off too, but Jeremy and I go to our visit schools on Wednesdays. Instead, we get to pick a different day, sometime this term, to take off.

I'm planning on sleeping a lot tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll get some cleaning done too, because my apartment needs it.