Bluegrass!!

When we (my co-workers and I) got invited to a New Year's Party put on by the city's international association, we didn't really know what to expect. We were really just going to support someone who was giving a speech. When we got there, we ate really amazing food, met new people and saw a bluegrass band. That's right. A Japanese bluegrass band!! They were great!! It was especially cool because they were all wearing business suits. They even had a slide guitar! It was the last thing I ever expected to see in Japan. Now I can leave happy.

School cleaning

Unlike America, where the schools hire people specifically to clean the schools, the students have the responsibility here in Japan. As soon as lunch recess is over, there are 20 minutes devoted to cleaning the entire school- including the classrooms, the gym, the teacher's office, and the bathrooms. While the students may have less motivation than someone who is paid to do the job, I think the idea is to make them appreciate where they are by keeping it clean. As one of the teachers told me today, they clean the gym without complaining because they want it to be clean when they use it.

School

Although I sometimes wonder if I am actually teaching any English over here, I am reminded daily that my job could be a lot worse. I love the students I "teach". Here are some pictures from the last few days:


These are some of the first graders I played dodgeball with.














As soon as I pulled my camera out, the kids all ran towards me- I had a hard time taking this picture.

Overpackaging, part II

These aren't the best pictures, but hopefully they illustrate the point.

An innocent looking package of knee-high socks for work turns into...


...this mess. That's right, 4 pairs of socks turned into 6 plastic bags, 4 pieces of paper and one piece of cardboard. And I bought two packages! Is it just me, or is there something completely unnecessary about all of this?

The aquarium

There is a really nice freshwater aquarium in my city that I finally made it to. Besides the fact that we couldn'td read any of the information about the displays (except the Latin names of the animals), it was a really nice trip. They had exhibits of the local flora and fauna as well as a whole floor devoted to the "Rivers of the World". We saw frogs, snakes, salamanders, newts and gigantic catfish. One thing struck me as a major difference between the aquariums I've been to and Japanese aquariums- the gift shops in the U.S. tend to have at least SOME educational products, but this gift shop only had CUTE. I couldn't get anything that would help me learn about these animals/ecosystems, but I could get a really cute otter charm to hang from my cell phone.
Anyway, here are some pictures:
I can't remember the name of this frog, but it was just so... fat.



This was my favorite creature at the aquarium- the fire-bellied newt. They would just float at the surface of the water for a bit, then kind of waddle their way downwards. I couldn't read about them to learn what they were doing, but I could have watched them all day.


Also the fire-bellied newt, but the opposite sex (we were guessing) of the others. It was kept in its own little cage inside the tank with the others.


Cool, local (I think) turtles.

produce

When I first got here, I was surprised how reasonable the price of food seemed. I'd heard horror stories about the cost of living in Japan, but my city is small enough (or far enough away from Tokyo) to not have that problem. Yes, produce is a little pricey, but I've dealt with it. Until now. I have only been able to find iceberg lettuce in my supermarket, so I was shocked to see bunches of Romaine and Spinach today. Finally!!! Then I looked at the price. The spinach cost 798 yen. That's right- almost $7 a bunch! I would have to set aside a month's salary just to eat a good salad. So iceberg lettuce it is.

Seki stalker

While a lot has happened since I last wrote (going to Utah for Christmas, seeing family and friends, New Years, having my friends Russ and Katie stay with me here for a few days), I feel like the most interesting thing to write about is our stalker. Russ decided he wanted a knife made in a small city norh of mine- apparently, they are world-famous for their cutlery/swords, so we decided to make the trip to Seki. According to the map, it should have taken us about 40 minutes by train to get there, but the slow holiday train schedule combined with our consistently missing those trains by a few minutes led to about a 3 hour trip. When we arrived at the Mino-Ohta station, we were expecting to just hop on the next train to Seki. Unfortunately, the next one was an hour and a half later. When we were checking the schedule in the station, we noticed this man in a large down jacket and holding a bag with unknown contents, just staring at us. And smiling. At first, we didn't think too much of it- Russ is a really tall white guy and Katie has blonde hair. We get stared at a lot. Because we had so much time, we thought we would just walk around Mino city to keep us busy. As we left the station, we realized that the man was following us. We stopped at every map we saw and pretended to look (even though everything was in Japanese) and he would stop and pretend to be doing something. This is when we started feeling a bit nervous. So we found a store that happened to be open on the holiday and ducked inside. He stopped and stood outside for a minute (trying not to look too obvious) then kept walking. We were relieved until we saw him turn around down the street. We were in this store for about 10 minutes, and we tried telling the storekeeper that we were being followed, but she thought we were telling her to get the mans attention, so we stopped. Finally, he walked back to the station, so we left through the side door and hurried down the street. Looking over our shoulders, we saw that he wasn't following us anymore. Thank goodness. We wasted the rest of our time walking by closed shops and restaurants, then headed back to the station to catch our train. And guess who was there waiting for the same train!! The man was back. Katie and I didn't want to get on, but the next train was another hour away, and Russ really wanted a knife. Our stop was about the 6th one down the line, and at every stop, this man was looking back at us (still smiling) seemingly to see if we were getting off. Katie and I busied ourselves looking up 'help' and 'police' in her Japanese dictionary. As our stop neared, we were getting more nervous- we didn't know what we would do if he got off after us. Katie was ready to yell at him, but we also didn't know what he had in that bag. When we finally got off the train, we started walking fast, and I was too nervous to look back, but Russ did, and the man didn't get off the train. Although we had theories about him just going to the next stop and finding us in the small city, or going back to the main station that we would have to return to to get home, we didn't see him again. We have no idea why he was following us or staring at us or smiling at us, but I hope to never see him again. This has probably been my scariest experience in Japan.