Back in business!

You know, it's always best to stick to what you know and in this case what we know is blogspot. After months of having limited Chinese access, we finally beat the system. So, since shutterfly has been a pain recently, we won't be desiring anymore of their service. That'll show them. So hopefully everyone enjoys the return of a reliable and dear friend like Mr. Blogspot. Hopefully, that means more frequent blogging.

The Best of Japan

Best Big City
Sapporo/ Hiroshima

Best Small City
Morioka

Best Country Town
Takko

Best "traditional" Japan
Shikoku

Best "Modern Japan"
Osaka

Best temple
Nikko

Best ramen
Spicy Miso Ramen

Best Fruit
Aomori Apples, Yamagata Cherries, Okinawa Passionfruit

Best "American" food
Bikkuri Donkey- Also places first for the best name in Japan

Best place to be when the sun is shining
In the car, on a long drive past rice fields and seeing hazy mountains in the distance.

Best place to spend a rainy day
Round One, Namja Town

Best summer
BBQ in the Akita Beach

Best Winter
Hakkoda Mountain, Sapporo Yuki Matsuri

Best Fall
Onsen in the middle of Kouyo (fall leaves)

Best Spring
Hirosaki Castle surrounded by cherry blossoms sipping a beer

Best amusement
Odaiba

Best chill place
Oirase River in Aomori

Best festival
Hmmm... Nebuta Festival in Aomori, Tuna Festival in Aomori, Sansa in Morioka

Best beer
Enjuku

Best snack
Rice burger from my school's cafeteria

Best sushi
Su no Ya Kaiten Sushi- cold, good quality fish and only 103 yen a plate!

Best thing to eat on a hot day
Dole Fruit popsicles, they do them right in Japan

Best thing to eat on a cold day
Nabe

Best onsen
Name Unknown in Iya Valley, cable car to the top and the valley below as you lie naked in the bath.

Best people
Okinawa people- Trusting complete strangers to drive your car while you are drugged in the back is TRUST!

Best random tourist trap
Tarabune in Sado ga Shima

Worse tourist trap
Chi no Ike in Beppu

Best place to go for "The Japan Experience"
Local festivals with yukata, food stalls, and the goldfish game

Best place for the "Food Traveler"
Kyushu- in it's entirety

Place I could go to again and again
Hokkaido

Tomorrow is the Last Day!

I am really going to miss this school, everything about it. Today, I had three classes with my first years. It was fun even though I realized early this week that these students will not have much sentiment over someone they met only four months ago, but I am really feeling the love from my second and third year students. Enough love to let myself know that I did what I wanted to do. I wanted to give these students a good experience with America and English and I think I've accomplished that. In between my classes, I had some great memories. I was going to the bank when I saw students from the blind school that I had just said "goodbye" to yesterday. They were having an exchange with one of my 2nd year classes. THey all gathered and I watched them play すいかわり (breaking the watermelon). I got to talk with a whole bunch of students and got to even play myself, breaking the watermelon. There was cherring and good things everywhere. Then a group of boys, some that I thought didn't have a care about me wanted to take pictures with me. Then in the office, a 3rd year student gave me a letter. I had trapped her into conversation earlier and she wanted to say her own goodbye. Then one of my 3rd year students that always comes to talk to me came and we had a great reminiscent talk. Tomorrow is my last day, but I feel like I can properly leave this school with my head up high, saying that I have done what an ALT is suppose to do.

Silver Dreams

In the past couple of weeks I have had two creepy dreams with silver in them. Strangely, these did not scare me like most bad dreams do and the story in the dream made a lot of sense rather than just clips of odd things that still makes a choppy story.

The first dream, I was living in an all-girl apartment with my friend Allison. The building and area wasn't very clean, but we didn't seem to mind. One day, we are walking together on the street and a taxi cab pulls up in front of us asking for a ride, we tell him we don't need one although he insists. He then tells us how beautiful he thinks we are and asks us if he can take us out to a big dinner. We imagined a very big buffet with a lot of expensive food, but we say no to him, many times. We returned to our building. A couple dream days later, we realized (in some weird way) that there were many taxi drivers out around the area, all asking for the girls to come in. We further realized that their ploy was to pick up the girls, take them to a really nice meal, drop them off at home and kill them. We did not know how. But then we heard a sound. We looked outside our apartment and saw men in black trench coats and silver masks walking around the apartment. We manage to find a very hot rock that we put on the floor and burned a hole through the next five floors. We looked and all our downstairs neighbors are dead. We realize though, that we are safe because we did not accept the offer to eat with them, but these men we around the halls trying to find the women in the apartment who ate with them.

Second dream, I was at an ALT party with a LOT of people. It was a big park with a fancy restaurant at the end. I was with Ron and an unknown person. As we are walking around, it felt like something was wrong with some of the people. We didn't know what , but it was creepy enough to try and leave the party. We went to the restaurant and managed to hide in the back storage area. During the time of waiting, people would come into the storage shed, in hopes to talk to a talent agent or such and many of them would not come out. Some of them did, but when they came out they had silver coming out of their eyes and nose. After less people started to come, we decided we had to leave since it really didn't feel safe. We left the restaurant and started to run through the park, but when we got to the park it was COMPLETELY empty. There was no one. We wondered where everyone went. Then, the silver people started to come out. They didn't seem to notice us and kept on socializing and BBQ-ing. More of them started to come around us and they knew that we weren't like them but didn't seem to care. We were in this really big group and finally when we knew it was safe to ask, we asked them,
"What happened to everyone?"
The silver people said, "Oh, we ate them. We need them to keep the silver in our bodies."
We asked, "But why don't you want to eat us?"
"Because it's already past our feeding time. We don't need to eat anymore. You're safe."
And we continued to BBQ.

School is starting to suck now.

This week has been painful. Now that I had my Farwell party with my English teachers, which was painful enough, they have started to make me say "goodbye" to my students. I realize that this is the best, saying goodbye to them personally, but it makes the days so much more depressing. Then I can't really read their reactions. Did they know? Do they care? Do they want me out of here? Are they like me and will start crying two weeks after I leave? I'm sure they wonder the same things. Why am I leaving? Why would I leave them? Who will replace me? amongst other questions. I feel like such a cheat going to China when I had planned to stay for three years. I really fear that they'll find out and think I don't care. I have tried to think of good reasons why going to China is better and that makes a perfectly legitimate reason why I HAVE to leave, but it hurts and sucks just the same. The closest I've gotten is that Ron found a job in China as well as me and we both haven't had a job in a while. I know I may not have reached all the students, but I sure hope I got through most. Even half, I'm cool with. Ugh! This is going to be a long, guilt-ridden, suicide-watching week (just kidding on the suicide).

The date is 7/8/09 and the time is 10:11:12 am.

The time is now 4:05:06 am on 7/8/09!

I am the most popular ALT!

On a drowsy feeling Saturday, I went shopping with a friend and our plan was to meet a bunch of other ALTs for a 4th of July BBQ and fireworks. We made it to the park and the day seemed to get more and more tiring and awkward since there was no food or fireworks, something we were promised. Eventually, we started playing frisbee. I was in the middle of a horrible frisbee toss when I hear a group of people scream "JUNI!!!". I turned around and it was one of my Ichiko classes. 40 students coming right at me. It seems that they were all together to celebrate their victory in the Sports Festival and came to the park to light fireworks. This was luckily one of my favorite classes. Any other class would have been much more quiet and awkward. It started to downpour on everyone so the big group of drinking foreigners were mixed in with my students. I got to have so much fun talking with my students and so many of them were saying how much they would miss me and how they don't want me to leave. I felt so lucky with a little too much pride as the other ALTs saw how my students gush over me and how freakin' brilliant they are with their English. Even after the rain stopped, the kids stuck around to light their fireworks so I know that they weren't haging out because they were stuck. I was light on my feet the entire evening knowing that I would be missed in my school.

Our Old Man Part II

Remember our old man? He's a funny guy. He will randomly call or just knock on the door at home with bags of "heart presents." He is usually about 5 beers in at this time and wants to drink more at our house. Ron and I don't really drink on the weekdays anymore, but we let him sit and sip on some sochu while we eat what he's brought for us. He prides himself on being "nonbe" (strong drinker) and that his heart is pure and he continuously reminds us that he doesn't want to be an annoyance. Slowly, but surely though he is becoming one. Not only are we not ready for two hours of his intoxicated repetition, but it always ends up with him lecturing me with how to be a good Japanese wife and playing his game of:

Old Man: OK OK. I'm being a bother. I'm going now.
Us: No, no. Stay. You haven't finished your drink. (fueled by guilt)
Old Man: OK. Ten more minutes.

(Ten minutes later)

Old Man: OK OK. I'm being a bother. I'm going now.
Us: No, no. Stay. (Saying it to say it)
Old Man: OK. Ten more minutes.

etc...

Usually he is tipsy and after a while he heads home, but last night was interesting. Yesterday we had a small birthday party with our old man, and our friends Casey. This is a party mainly because our old man insisted that he wanted to buy me a cake. We are all together while we eat cake and he drinks whatever we got. He's pretty toasty before drinking, but with his NONBE NONBE attitude, we think nothing of it. Pretty soon, we are tired and want to close the party and when our old man realizes this he starts getting really hissy and drinking more, refusing to leave. Finally we get him to stand up and he can barely stand. We try to walk him home and he refuses to move, ending up lying down on our little road. We don't know where he lives and don't want to hurt him by picking him up, so we do what we have to do...we call the police and 10 minutes later they try to take him home but our old man is getting angrier and angrier, swinging his arms and not saying where he lives. I go in the house since his yelling will cause attention to our surrounding neighbors, namely my supervisor and students. Eventually, Ron finds out where he lives and the police are able to take him home. That evening got out of hand really quick. I understand that he is lonely and that's why we don't mind him around, but a line of our own threshold was crossed, no matter what he tries to buy for us. I'm in the middle of feeling really guilty, wanting to comfort this man and give him company, but secretly hoping that he will be giving us a "heart present" rest for a little while.

My Birthday, My Lesson

Lesson Number One
- Completing goals based on vanity is really hard, it's easier just to be accepting.

Lesson Number Two
- Drinking vitamins, sleeping at 10, and going for a power walk at 6am should not wait until you NEED it.

Lesson Number Three
- Making excuses is a habit I need to break COLD TURKEY.

Lesson Number Four
- Depending on people to support my happiness- OK
- Depending on people to make my happiness- Not OK

Lesson Number Five
- Simple willpower can only keep me motivated for a month.

Lesson Number Six
- Friends, even short-term friends are important.

Lesson Number Seven
- Money can be made and memories should not be sacrificed because of it.

Lesson Number Eight
- I do the best I am capable of everyday.

Lesson Number Nine
- Doing things on my own makes me feel a lot better than people doing it for me.

Lesson Number Ten
- By next year, I want to stop making excuses, find what I really want to do, and do it.

The Kunino's

Our Tokyo family came to visit us in Tohoku and we had a great time showing them around, enjoying onsen, eating delicious food, and loving the cool June breeze.





Thank you for coming Fujinami's!!

Sports Festival!

3 days of no study and all play.

Around this beautiful time in June, students finish their vigerous exams and get to rest their brains with an all school Sports Competition. Softball, Badminton, Volleyball, Basketball, Dodgeball, Handball, and soccer are the games of choice. Being a teacher in Ichiko the number of female teachers to make up the female teacher team is quite slim. But this year, we managed to win at Badminton and Softball and win second in Soccer. I was goalie. I hate running. I had so much fun since the students would all be so happy to talk to me. I was having conversations with students the whole time. I felt the love. English, Japanese, they didn't care what language, but they were so willing to take their time to talk with me and I really enjoyed their company since they didn't have the reigns of education tugging on them. Last year, I only got to see one day. I'm so glad I got to experience beginning to the end. My body aches from so much fun.

My First Last Day

Yesterday I got a glimpse of what life will feel like in a couple of weeks. Yesterday and the friday before it, I made my way to another school, Matsuzono Yogo, a school that I visit for about two days while Ichiko has tests. So guess I've been to this school a total of 16 times in two years. But each time I go, I always leave with good memories. The initial smell of the school reminds me of tatami in the winter. The staff room always welcomes me with bright OHAYO GOZAIMASU. The kids in the first lesson are always incredibly shy, but by the end of the day, they are peeking into the staff room to get a HELLO from me. They like me. They want to talk to me. It's a very obvious affection which is what makes me love this school. After leaving Matsuzono Yogo, knowing that I wouldn't come back, it really bummed out my evening. If a school that I have only been to 16 times makes me so depressed, I'm worried about Mo Gakko and Ichiko where I've invested so much more time and effort. It's going to be a depressing three weeks.

Ramen Journal

A collection of delicious ramen over the past 2 years. Please hold a beer in your hand as you look at these pictures. Beer always tastes better with ramen.

My favorite...Local Morioka Spicy Miso ramen

Also from the same restaurant, Genkotsu(think butter-like meat) Shoyu ramen

Sapporo Miso Ramen

In Aomori, Takko Town's Garlic Ramen

Tokyo's Shoyu Ramen

Yamagata Cold Ramen

Kyoto Style Ramen

Fukuoka Tonkotsu Ramen

Nagasaki Champon Ramen

Okinawa Soba



And now, finish the beer!

Beer Party!

So, Ron and I promised ourselves that we wouldn't drink until after the Japanese test...but there are always exceptions to the rules.

Yesterday we met with my co worker, her husband, and his parents for a beer party. We have a local brewery in our city and once a month they hold a beer party in a local restaurant. 4000 yen will get you 6 courses of delicious food and at least 4 types of local and imported beers. We had our first encounter two months ago and we were looking forward to going again. So we spent the evening drinking with this new family and Ron and I were so tickled by all the cuteness of love that surrounded us. My coworker and her husband and his parents regained my faith in affection in Japan. The way they looked at each other and the soft touches I noticed the father giving his wife was so adorable, my cheeks hurt from all the smiling. They raved all night about their hometown an hour away from Morioka, which is renown for their onsen, so we made a date with all of them to have a last "onsen hurrah" the day before we leave.

I wish you could taste these pictures!

My Favorite Shirt

It's so funny how sad it is. Or it's so sad how funny it is.

English Club Cooking

So after feeling huge guilt for not being an active part of English Club last year, I decided to go full force this year. Last year, they never really asked me to set anything up for them and I didn't want to intrude if they had study time. But I did make an awesome Halloween party and nade it to their end-of-the-year banquet, so I got some points there. This year, I get one day a week to do conversation practice with them. The past couple of times have been fun as we tried to get some short conversation out of this ridiculously shy group of girls.

The most fun though, has been the two cooking classes we had, the most recent being yesterday. Last month we made "American style" pancakes, which just meant making pancakes but with chocolate chips, sprinkles, and nuts in them. These girls love sweet food and gobbled it up. Then yesterday I decided to make Tacos, something these students will hardly get a chance to eat. So, I went to our local foreign food market and got a really expensive taco making set. Expensive because of the fact that imported prices are crazy up here. But they got to eat avocado flavored chips for a snack and each of them had a taco-making job and at the end, we made an assembly line of taco making. I could see the happiness in their faces. They were quite shocked with the meat oil dripping from the taco and freaked out when it got all over their hands. I just told them that "eating tacos is very messy." It was also really funny to see them contemplate how to eat the tacos since there isn't much Japanese food that required the tilting of the head. I had a great time. I gave them the recipe in English and sent them off as I heard "oishii katta" and "onaka ga ippai" exit through the doors.

Our Old Man

Ron wrote about this on his own blog, but I thought that I would write the translated version. About a month ago we went to the local bath house since our bath tub decided to turn off the hot water...again. So as I was showering up on the girls side, I heard the voice of Ron on the other side, not surprisingly talking to a Japanese man. Ron always comments about hating the foreigner attention when he is naked. So as Ron and I meet outside, he tells me that this man wants to take us out to sushi. He is a man over 70, whose wife is in the hospital and he as no children. So we decided to go on an adventure and hang out with this old man. We went with him to the sushi place and he destroyed us with the drinking. Beer and sochu were coming at every direction while plates of sashimi, katsu, and tempura were also being forced down our throats. We could barely walk back home, but we figured that our company made this man very happy. End of the story...so we thought.

About a week ago, Ron and I went to our donut shop to try and get some quality studying since we had been recently lagging. A phone call comes and it is our old man. He stops by the donut store and begins to talk with us (good Japanese practice?) When we get the chance to leave he insists of buying us some donuts, which we tried so hard to politely pass on. Finally when we tell him, "OK, 1 ko" He says "no no no 5 ko." We tell him that 5 will make us fat and he says "Don't worry, we will also buy fruit." So after buying us 5 donuts, we guiltily follow him to the grocery store where he buys us tangerines, cherries, and watermelon. I'm sure he would have bought us more if we weren't whining so much. Ron and I were feeling really bad about this until at the check out stand our old man goes to the check out lady and says,

"Do you see them? They are foreigners. They are my friends."

And the biggest smile was on his face. So I guess buying our company makes him feel good and he's not a bad guy. We have a tonkatsu date with him on Friday. Luckily, since that drinking night we've decided to give up drinking for the test. Hopefully, he takes our polite rejection for the real thing. NO MORE SOCHU!

Driving and Musicals

In our 48 hour weekend, we drove for 18 hours, and slept for 11 hours, which equals to 19 hours of being in Tokyo. Not a very long luxurious weekend, but filled with memories. We got a ride from a fellow coworker of mine who turned into our Chinese tutor. He drove us to Tokyo so he could also see his daughter who is a new university student. The first day was filled with driving, arriving in Yokohama, eating Chinese food to our heart's content, and making our way to Tokyo to watch Wicked...in Japanese. It was wonderful. The singing was amazing and since I saw it before in English, I could understand almost everything and it made it as breathtaking as the first time I saw it. Ron and I really enjoyed it.





The next day, we went around Akihabara on the mission of finding a DVD player so we could watch Japanese movies on our computer, no such luck, but we did manage to find some other nice things before we made our way to Yokohama once again. This time it was to watch our friend Kunino perform in Yokohama's 150th anniversary of their harbor being built. It was a surprisingly good performance. It was really interesting to see something historical from another culture. There was another part where they played out the bombings during World War II and it was really frightening to see what they went through. Very eye opening. Well, after the performance and the wonderful singing of Kunino's choir, we met our friend and made 8 more hours of travel until we came back to Morioka. I am so happy that we were able to make this journey, but the next time, we will definately use the Shinkansen.

Whatever happened to studying?

We had a busy weekend. Friday was finishing work, then meeting up with our ~married friends~ for some wedding sharing time. All their friends and our friends are single or dating, so no one but us is really interested in seeing wedding pictures and wedding videos. Besides, since they can speak only limited English and we speak barely speakable Japanese, connecting through pictures seemed very beneficial for our relationship. On Saturday, Ron had a business pow wow with a friend while I strolled the train station doing some errunds and window shopping, something I don't often so and miss so very much. We met back up and went to the next town to have a big family dinner with Ron's boss/priest agent's family. We enjoyed good company and good food and I remembered why children are so adorable. I should mention that it was a big family gathering with little 3 year olds running all over the place. I enjoyed the company of the cutest little 8 year old.

Then Sunday, we woke up bright and early to go to Ron's baseball game. He played in the later half as left field and did a very good job. He even caught a fly ball to get the batter out. We returned home, put on some nice clothes and then make our way to a little chapel where Ron donned the outfit to make him a "priest." I had weird thoughts of it before, but if they are going to hire foreigners to do this anyway, it should at least be someone who has been married and does believe in the faith. It's better than some random guy that hasn't even gone through the motions himself. That's what I figure. I was in the sound room during this time and Ron did great. I can tell he was a bit nervous, especilly when the couple decided that walking in with their 10 month old baby and holding him during the service would be a good idea. It kinda kills the romantic notions of the TWO people. But, it was their wedding. But the baby cried...and cried...and cried... and Ron did not falter. He says he did, but it wasn't big enough to matter. He did great!



We came home and then off to the next event, matchmaking a date between Ron's baseball buddy and a foreign friend we know. We slipped out to our married friends of the meeting and they decided to come too. But we had a great time. Us, not the matchmade couple. They didn't talk to each other much. But Ron and I had a great time and although we were busy and couldn't study much, I think 3 nights of constant Japanese dialogue works just the same.