Voyage Junkie

Because Japan is the land of superfluous holidays, on Tuesday, 11/23, we had the day off and headed to a little mountain town called Takayama (literally "top mountain"). One of Matt's good friends at work suggested the town as a good place to see fall foliage. My friend Mari from school came along with her friend Kana. It was nice to have some Japanese tourguides, and Matt got to practice speaking a lot. To get there, we took a special express train over the river, through the woods, and up some mountains. It was about 2 hours one-way, and it was a lovely, if expensive, ride. Unfortunately I was too busy gawking at things out the window to get any good pictures, so you just have to hope that I go back that way again! It was beautiful, with bright red Japanese maples, red and blue bridges spanning sparkling rivers, mountain towns nestled in tiny valleys, and two of the most amazing dams I have ever seen. Takayama is not unlike a small Colorado mountain town, minus a l...

This is a crazy incredible building in downtown Nagoya that houses three creative schools, the specifics of which I forget. I just like the way it twists. It feels like the future.

BLACK MELON-PAN: A snack Matt bought, with over 200% of your minimum daily requirement of what the eff. A brief explanation. I'm the world's biggest fan of melon-pan. It's the greatest invention Japan gave the world, bar-none. It is made by baking a flaky pastry bread into a cookie shell, with melon flavoring and sugar. There are a few varieties, with different amounts of melon paste, or chocolate chips, or cream filling, or even orange marmalade. This "special new product," however, went that extra, casually racist mile. For whatever reason, afros make a(n) hilarious addition to any anime/manga. It's the cornerstone of most of the humor in Yakitate! Japan (an otherwise wonderful show that substitutes bread baking for violence), it was brought to the States in the Samuel L. Jackson-voiced Afro Samurai, and now it's in some other show that's apparently doing product tie-ins with one of the big convenience store chains. So, in order t...

A few months ago I went to Mino for a Lantern Festival. Mino is famous in Japan for its lanterns, and it's clear why. They are absolutely gorgeous, all hand-crafted right there. This post took awhile to create because I had to choose the best pictures from quite a few! I headed to Mino with Matt, our friend Rachael, and Ai, the teacher from my school who went with me to the Oda Nobunaga festival. To the left you can see us in a fantastic lantern store holding some hand-made lanterns. I'll get Matt to translate what they say: Abby's: Goyou (Imperial Business - pre-modern police) Matt's: (probably) Kamiuchi (a place) Ai's: Mino (the name of the town) Rachael's: Kanamori Nagachika (another place) This lantern store was unbelievable. We went into two that night and this was by far my favorite. It is very small, and one woman runs it. Where we are standing is a small walking area where most of the ready-to-purchase lanterns are displayed and...

On Sunday, November 14th, I had the opportunity to attend a combined dance recital at a local performance hall in Ogaki City. The woman I helped with the English concert ballet performance took Matt and me to watch her daughter (the cat from the video). It was her daughter's first performance en pointe , and even if I have serious reservations about 10-year-olds in pointe shoes, I was honored to be asked along. I just kept my mouth shut. Well, mostly. Two ballet studios and one modern dance studio partnered to put on the recital. They performed in that order, and by the time the modern dancers took the stage, most of the people had cleared out. That reminded me of America, most definitely. It's not often that I see fully dedicated modern dance schools, so I will give Japan props for that. In many ways, modern dance is much closer to traditional Japanese dance roots than ballet, so it is considered less strange and as a result, it enjoys a bit more popularity. Usually studio...

Japan knows what's up when it comes to fitness. Why look to any other source for body image? Here's the thing, though: this product is an appetite suppressant. So, what does it take to get the body you want? One word: Sacrifice.

A few weeks ago, my school had a parent's day. This consisted of two classes in the morning where parents came to watch, lunch, and a parent v. teacher volleyball tournament all afternoon. The morning passed without incident, although I did get to see many fashion victim parents, which was fun. The volleyball, however, was some of the silliest, strangest activity I've ever been involved in. Let's begin with the ball. A true volleyball has some substance to it, does it not? It packs a punch. It doesn't travel obscenely high. It is often white. Our volleyballs? Foam. Bouncy. Yellow. Moving on to the rules. To be fair, it's been such a long time since I played volleyball that I can't remember most of them. I think I have a vague memory of a 3-hit rule on each side of the net with the basic setup being bump, set, and spike, and just get it the hell over, already! I remember that anytime in the 3-hit limit the ball can go back over the net, you just...

Today I spied with my little eye a special Engrish sentence that went something like this: "the macaroon looked like a swag." Not "the macaroon is swag," but specifically "the macaroon looked like a swag." If it were a swag macaroon, I could be persuaded to agree under certain conditions. For example, according to the Urban Dictionary, swag refers to one's appearance, style, and/or carriage (from swagger). I suppose a macaroon could have a swag appearance. It could be one hella cool, super stylish macaroon, for all I know. However, while this may be what the sentence is going for, it is not what it achieves. I scoured the definitions of swag looking for what I thought was the perfect interpretation of its usage in this sentence. Other urban definitions of swag include: -Free merch given away at concerts for the sole purpose of promotion, not profit -An approximation or educated guess (acronym of "scientific wild-assed guesses) -Stolen prope...

Cute update: two 9th grade boys looking in their English books during lunch, discussing questions to ask me. They did a great job, too!

Yet another hair salon in the great Gifu. By the way, kuma means "bear."

1. Why the windows and doors are always wide open at school, no matter the weather. 2. Why it's November 9th and the heat isn't turned on. 3. Why in such a cold country, there is no such thing as central heating. 4. Why you can heat a table. 5. Why the girls can't wear tights in winter, or any kind of leg covering.

Today I had the most wonderful time with a third-year class during lunch. I had the good luck to be seated in the group with the most outgoing and gregarious girl in the class, who guided her group in asking me many questions. We talked quite a bit, about everything from "Who makes your lunch?" to "Do you live with your boyfriend?" Yes and yes. They were very sharp, asking follow-up questions such as "How early do you get up?" to which I replied, "6:30, but I make my lunch the night before." It was the first time a group of kids began to carry on a full conversation with me on their own during lunch. I don't know if the success of that conversation carried over into cleaning time, but my luck continued. Two girls came shyly up to me and asked, "Will you clean with us?" in sweet, halting, and very clear English. Well, of course! So they handed me a broom ( hoki ) and told me to sweep ( haku ). As we worked, they continuousl...

This is a graveyard in the middle of a rice field, beside a residential area, between two very busy streets with many corporate businesses. This, in a nutshell, is Japan.

Matt and I attended a Halloween-themed English production on Sunday night. We proudly donned our costumes again and headed out in quite a lot of rain for a three-hour show (yes, THREE HOURS). A mom of one of Matt's students runs a juku ( cram school), and asked me to choreograph a little dance for three girls as part of the show. They wanted to do "Chinese Tea Dance" from The Nutcracker, and I was happy to oblige with a little Western-influenced ballet. The girls are amazing, as you can see from the video. I set the dance in one rehearsal of less than an hour, and practiced it with them only one other time for about a half-hour. What I wouldn't give to be this talented! Check out the video, linked via youtube: Our new ALT friend Tony, who actually taught at both of our schools last year, came and participated as well. He played Sherlock Holmes in one skit: Tony also created "animal charades" where teams of one parent and one child ...

This weekend was full of Halloween fun. Matt and I celebrated like we were kids again, which we haven't done in... well, quite some time. We both dressed up for classes on Friday - I was a pirate and he was the Devil - and then we went out for karaoke on Saturday. Matt stayed the Devil and I became a 50's pop star or something. First, my costume for school: I borrowed Rachael's shirt, put it over leggings, tall brown boots, and a chocolate miniskirt. I added a silver undershirt and a silver headscarf, mis-matched earrings, many bangle bracelets, and old-fashioned necklace, and a black eye. Everyone kept asking me what happened to my eye! They were amazed it was make-up, or as they say, "make." We started spreading a rumor that I got into a fight with the vice-principals (both of them). I gave candy to all my teachers, saying, "Trick-or-treat!" and "happy Halloween!" They loved it. Next, karaoke: We went out with so...