Miyakonojo

I finally ordered a memory card for my camera online. I've been doing a lot of shopping online tonight. Looking for Christmas stuff to purchase also. I missed last Christmas cause I was in Japan on vacation, now I'm gonna miss it this year also. I feel the need to surround myself with shiny lights and familiar Christmas thingys.

Tomorrow I teach 1st graders at an elementary school. I am normally relegated to 3rd though 6th grade, as they have a tendency to actually learn. Whereas 1st and 2nd graders are like ... I'm at a loss to describe children here....

I wish I had videos to send back home, cause I'm sure all of my family members will have a hard time picturing my typical day with 1st and 2nd graders. Outside of their classroom, I am protected by the older students. There is a ranking system here in Japan, and they start them way young. The younger kids are not allowed to play with the bigger kids, which works to my advantage outside on the playground. However once I enter their classroom, their domain if you will, I am left to defend for myself. I'm fine for the first few minutes as all the kids are thinking "HELP A HUGE MONSTER JUST ENTERED THE CLASS ROOM" I try to work it to my advantage for as long as I can, I hold up my hand to theirs, casually stretch up and touch the ever so short door frame, and generally just go along with their idea of me being a Tall Monster.

It never lasts long. There are always a few kids who can tell I am one of those so called "gentle giants". Those few kids run up to me and clasp on like a leech that has not fed for a whole year. This is when things go sour. Being the cute devils that they are I can't help but give them attention. And as soon as I toss one in the air, or play with one, all the other kids realize that I am suddenly not a "giant monster" but instead "the coolest guy ever to set foot in their class room". There's a calm before the storm. A split second of absolute silence before the gates of hell are torn down in a deafening roar. That's when every other kid in the class decides they want to play with me also. And a split instant after that, I LITERALLY have half of the class hanging off of me. Kids will go to the other side of the room, line me up, and then run at full speed and try to jump as high as they can and cling to me. They will use their classmates as stepping ladders if they are there. They will climb their desks if they are near it, and then jump for my head. In a matter of moments I am unable to move an inch. The teachers... they do nothing. They think its all fun and games. Eventually I try to move. I then pretty much fall to the ground, luckily there a dozen kids to cushion my descent. But I always have to push kids out of the way with my hands and then catch myself so I don't kill children. This puts me at even easier climbing height. Eventually you can no longer see me, just a gaggle of children where my general location should be.

This is what my entire day will be like tomorrow. I'm freaking pumped. Its so fun. (never ever did I think I would say that)

Except for when they attempt to stick their fingers up my but, or grab....places. But thats for another conversation.

Tomorrow there is a hang gliding event on a mountain pretty close to my place. I got special permission from the organizer to show up and crash the pre-party tonight. I found out about this a few months ago, and because I pretty much feel like I am on vacation here, I want to try to do everything at least once. The deal was that I was originally allowed to invite a few other friends with me, but then a few days before I found out that wasn't gonna fly. But because of my extreme interest, the organizer was going to allow just me to show up. I didn't have to pay the dinner fee either, yay. So the plan was to crash the party, and then quickly make friends with everybody who was going hang gliding the next morning. Then being the super awesome cool guy that I am, people would be begging me to jump on their backs while they jumped off a mountain.

Slight problem. In Japan, I am a fat ass. I am about 22lbs over the limit of being able to tandem with somebody. The drunk Japanese men at the party seemed to think they had the answer to this problem though. They swore if I cut off my private parts, it would alleviate the extra 22 pounds. I want these dudes as my wingmen if I'm ever trying to pick up a chick...

So I won't be able to go hang gliding tomorrow, but I will still go and watch them. I won't be able to take pictures, cause I still have not bought a new memory card for my camera... sorry. I'll buy one this week.

But thats not the end of this story. I was debating whether or not to get a motorcycle next year sometime. But now I am thinking I might pick up hang gliding as a hobby instead. I still need to figure out the costs involved, and where and how often I will be able to go. Normally it takes 3-6 months before you can fly solo, but these dudes know of a place where I can do a week long intensive (crash?) course and get my solo license in one week! I can't start until spring cause winter has winds that are too strong I've been told. But that gives me time to get the logistics worked out.

Sorry it`s been a whole month since my last post. Just been busy. Just about every weekend I end up going on a trip, or I end up vegging and catch up on some US tv shows.

The memory card on my camera bit the dust a few nights ago. So I lost a bit of photos. I`ll have to go through my photos on my PC to find out how many I lost. I`ll try to post a few photos soon, but no promises. I`m going out of town again for the next two weekends.

A few weekends ago I went to hike a mountain. They call it the Mt. Fuji of Kyushu. I laughed as we got close, cause it looked tiny. My mistake was comparing it with the real Mt. Fuji. It had to have been taller than the Catalina`s back home though. It was a little tough. Actually, whoever told me it was a "hike" is a #$&!$ liar. It was a climb. The first half you are hiking up very loose pebbles, and its very steep. About 1/4th of the way up I was ready to call it quits. Seriously, it was way too much work. My clothes were already dripping wet from my sweat. There was literally not a single spot of dry clothes on me. But I figured, "meh, it can`t get much harder". Stupid mountain. Oh its actually an active volcano, but has not erupted for about 1200 years. Yeah, it got harder. Much harder. Climbing over boulders, having to get on hands and knees to climb a path of small boulders that are about 2 feet wide and to the left is a sheer drop off from the mountain. Yay.

They say a healthy adult can climb it in 2.5 hours. We did it in 2. There were 21 of us. By the time we got down, I had drank about 1.5 gallons of water and was still massively dehydrated. Seriously, if your not in shape you can`t climb this thing. But the most humbling part was all the other people. About 2/3rds up my pace slowed a little because of a group of people in front of me. The "path" is about a foot or two wide so passing is not an option unless you wanna fall off the mountain trying. But we were still moving at a fairly aggressive pace. I found out later it was being led by a 70yo couple. They were not even sweating as much as I was. They also looked fine, whereas I looked like I had just clawed my way out of a grave. I`m pretty sure when I`m 70 the last place you will find me is climbing this mountain.

Seriously, this was the most strenuous thing I can recall doing. Ever. I hate exercise. Not to mention seeing all the bees and giant hornets up there. There is absolutely no way a rescue squad can get to anybody up there anytime soon. Would take a full day to extract you. Airlift would be pretty difficult or impossible depending on what area of the path you were on.

The next day we ended up going to a hot sand bath. I was thinking being buried in hot wet sand did not sound like fun at all. When I left Arizona, I was pretty happy to leave the sand behind. However this was the most pleasant experience ever. I would try to explain it, but I could not do it justice at all. I gotta say I would climb that mountain all over again if it meant I could take another sand bath. But I think next time I`ll just drive past the mountain strait to the sand baths.

In other news, I made a big purchase yesterday. I could wait no longer. I bought a super duper electronic ass cleaning, ass massaging, heated seat, laser guided toilet seat. It senses when I walk into the bathroom, and it instantly heats up the toilet seat before I can sit down. I`ve tried to surprise it, I even bum rushed it in the middle of the night in pure blackness. It was waiting for me. No more need for toilet paper, this thing has like a gazillion ways to clean your bum. Not only can you set the type of spray, it`s even heated. Another cool function is the green "x marks the spot" laser guided system. During the night when you lift up both toilet seats and take a pisser standing up, it tells you where to aim your stream via an eerie green glow. It also does this startup routine when you sit down that sounds like a mini jet airplane taking off. I think it cycles the water for some unknown reason and turns on an odor fan to keep unwanted smells from... smelling. I paid about $400 for mine. It`s far from the best model, but its well above the entry level. It even comes with a remote control!! Which as far as I can tell is useless for most people. I mean... your sitting down and you can`t move from the toilet what use is a remote you can use from the next room. There is only one possible use, which I will exploit to its fullest. I simply take said remote control out of the room, and find a sucker to test out my toilet. I then turn on the cold water, turn on the painful needle spray, turn it to full power, and hit start. Hilarity ensues.

If your anything like me before I tried one of these, you are fearing for my sanity right now. The first time I tried one, I only did so because I was not sure if I would get the opportunity to try one again. The first thing that goes through your mind is a mixture of "Holy crap what crazy dude thought of something this awkward" and "How have I been living without one of these for so long". I can`t believe it took me 2 months to finally buy one of these things.

I don't belong to a gym here yet. I need to do some scouting. I know there is a good one in the city, but pretty far away and very expensive. There is supposed to be one close by, but not so great. I have not checked either out yet.

I may not need one however. I got more comfortable with being around children, so started playing with them more aggressively. Side story: I don't understand Japanese people. As adults, they don't show public displays of affection. No touching.. no hugging.. no verbal expressions of emotions even. But then you look at their children, and you can't pry them apart with crowbars. Back to topic: This had positive and negative outcomes. I found that they like to cling to me. And Japanese kids are light. So I now use them as free weights. I can do curls and stuff with one on each arm. I get a workout, and the kids think I'm the strongest guy in the world, so it's a huge ego workout at the same time! But now you can't pry them off of me for anything. At any given time I can have 5 children hanging off me. Yeah.. I bet my family can't even picture that. It's fun swinging them around, launching them into the air, it's just a blast. Some are shy at first, but once they see 1 student having fun, they ALL want to have fun. I have not got poked in the ass yet. I do however get my crotch grabbed. By 8yo boys. I don't even know how to react to that. I don't do much about it though(other then pry them off at lightning speed), I do NOT want to draw attention to that, lest every child decides its funny and tries to cop a feel. *shudder*

Also I'm a celebrity at every school. Because I only see these kids once a month, I'm a cool special treat. I'm exotic to them. I can do ANYTHING, and they will pretty much say "OH WOW THATS SOOOO COOL" For example, climbing stairs 3 steps at a time, reaching up and touching the ceiling, waving to them, showing them my shoe size. Pretty much if I do anything, I'm cool. Soon I won't be able to function in society if I return to the States. I won't understand why everybody doesn't treat me like I am the next best thing since sliced bread.

People in general here are very nice. I recently took my car in to have it looked at. The previous girl left it in pretty bad shape, but wasn't really aware of the issues when she sold it to me. She didn't deceive me on purpose, she just assumed because it got her from point A to point B fine, it had no problems. But the car's not a complete loss, and everything will turn out fine. At the dealership though, I got treated better than anybody ever has at any car repair shop in America. I was given a discount, just because they liked me. It was a small one, but they didn't even tell me, I just happened to read it on the receipt. And get this, instead of trying to repair stuff that wasn't broken they told me the exact condition of everything I asked. I was debating on what to do with the breaks, because I am trying to put as little money into the car as possible until I scrap it in April and buy a different car. They thought that the breaks would last until then, but were not positive and it might be pushing it. It would cost a few hundred dollars, a little too much for me. So what does the mechanic do? He goes into his own parts supply that he paid money for and brought out some brand new brake pads and offered to give them to me for free. Not only that, but he did the labor for free also. They are also going to keep an eye out for a good reliable car for me when I eventually scrap this one. Used cars here are not too expensive, at least cheaper than in the states.

Bye for now.

Yesterday was my first day teaching. It went well. Ish.

I taught at an elementary school yesterday. The first class I taught, a combined class of 3rd & 4th graders, the teachers knew no English. Which is not uncommon for Elementary schools. English is not a required curriculum for elementary school students yet. The Japanese government will be implementing that in.. 2 years I think. It was a little nerve racking though being up in front of a class for the first time ever, and having the 2 teachers stare at me with more confusion than the 8yo kids. The vice principle there is AWESOME though. The next class, she came up with me and did team teaching with me. So we took turns and introduced some English and games and what not. She saved me. The teacher from the last class of the day, spoke good English and was Super Genki(uhm..type in "define:genki" into google without the quotes. There is no good translation into English.) so the class was really fun, and the kids were motivated.

The kids thought I was a Giant. No ass poking happened, but I did turn into a jungle gym for a small amount of time. My neck/shoulders are killing me. Played with them at lunch also, kick-baseball and dodge ball. I behaved myself and restrained from kicking the ball into next month(It'll reappear next week...), and did not really throw the ball during dodge ball... The kids were super cute. They got into like an argument over which team I should be on and what not.

I have pictures that the Vice principle snapped of me while teaching. I'll upload them tomorrow maybe. I said that about the monkey pics too didn't I....


Today I went to teach at Jr. High. The kids there are a little more shy, and don't want to stick out as much. In class. Outside of class they were really happy when I even walked by and made eye contact with them. heh.

I was told to get there early today so I could give a little self introduction to the office and staff in Japanese. No problem, I didn't bother to prepare a speech like they asked, as I have given this to everybody 90000 times now. Self introductions are big here. Evidently I miss understood something, because after I did that they said "ok, now lets go to the auditorium so you can give a speech to the students". I thought that was odd, since I would be giving my introduction in class to them as my lesson. I walked in and there were 250 students waiting for me to give them a prepared speech in Japanese. I'm not one to panic or get stressed.. but pretty much I thought "oh @*&!#, this is gonna be interesting". Then the principle gave a simple intro of my name, and where I came from. He did that from the side of the auditorium, and not from the gigantic stage set up in front. I felt relieved, as I thought I wouldn't have to stand up high having everybody stare up at me. I was handed the mic, and then shoved up the huge ass stage. Great. I believe the first thing I said in Japanese probably translates to this "holy crap there are a ton of you, I'm freaking out a little" Then from there I attempted to make a speech in Japanese. I learned something. I can not BS a speech in Japanese yet. I'm not ever sure I said anything comprehensible. After half a minute I gave up and gave a speech in English. One of the teachers translated for me. Afterwords some of the teachers came up and said "great speech". I think I just taught Japanese how to use Sarcasm.

The rest of the day went smooth.

I gotta go assemble a bicycle now. Catch you all later.

Ps. Oh. I was just about to post a photo of me in the class room. I just remembered that I can't do that. I am not allowed to post photos of students in class. Illegal or something like that. Because they are minors. I'm not really clear on the details, but I was specifically warned about posting photos of students on blogs and stuff. Sorrrrrrrry.

Today for lunch I had my first hamburger after living here. I got a recommendation from a friend to hit up this place that has "sasebo" style burgers.

I'm now on a mission to find a GOOD hamburger in my area. This burger I ate was GROSS. I wont even describe it to you, the horror would be too great. If I can't find a good burger joint in my area before I come back to visit the states.. I'm going to be eating in-n-out 4 times a day. Woe to the man who tries to stop me.

Getting there was interesting. My predecessor sold me his craptastic bicycle which he described as "really awesome and wish I could take it with me". The thing is a giant rust bucket. The kickstand would not even go up, it was fused together with rust. I had to bend the kickstand frame 90 degrees out, just so I could ride it. Now the kickstand juts out in just the right position that allows it to remove Japanese peoples kneecaps. I'm naming it the kneecapitator.

But you probably don't have much to fear, as it's about as much fun to ride as going to prison and dropping the soap. Besides being a rust bucket, its also a "mama-chari". Which means its a old style bike with no suspension, a basket on the front (quite useful in Japan actually), and small tires on it. It's rickety, it makes your ass sore and whenever I hit a small bump I can hear thousands of my unborn children cry out in anguish. And when I hit a large bump, I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

I'm buying a mountain bike soon. Real. Soon.

But until then, you Japanese moms may want to send your children out with knee pads.

So things are going well here. I still have yet to settle in to my apartment though. This weekend I was planning on doing some organizing and cleaning up, but plans came up and I left for out of town.

Friday night, some of the Japanese guys at work wanted to go out for a night of food and drink at the top of the local mountain. I had really wanted to go and do this ever since they took us there for a tour in the daytime. I'll be heading back there in November for some hang gliding also! The 4th and newest member of our ALT team arrived that day also. Pictures are up!

Then Saturday we left for a road trip down south to Kushima. In Cape Toi every year, they do a "Fire festival". This consists of a pole that's 9 stories high, with a basket full of fireworks at the top. They get a bunch of guys drunk and then give them these balls of fire on a rope, which they twirl around and then launch into the air trying to make it in the basket. Once somebody makes it, which can take as long as 90+ minutes, some fireworks in the basket goes off and everybody cheers. Then the pull the 9 story (90 feet) high wooden pole down.

Wanna know the fun part? The crowd is about.. 85-90 feet away in a circle. So the first danger is when these fireballs go off on a tangent. I mean its on a rope, so its really easy to accidentally let go at the wrong time and have that thing go flying backwards. Which happened. This year only 1 went wayyyy off course. It managed to nail my friend also. It would have hit him in the head, but it was pouring rain the entire time, so it just caught his umbrella on fire! Then when they pull that thing down, you gotta run for your life again or get crushed. That was Freaky! This festival would have been banned in the 1950's for being too dangerous if this was the U.S. Luckily Japan ROCKS. I've got no pictures of this, because it was pouring rain and I didn't want my camera to break. Next year maybe.

Later that night we drove down to a little tiny beach area and camped out. We had our tents up in the sand, made a pretty large fire, I bought some fireworks and had some fun and we sound of crashing waves sent us to dream land. Or they should have but it was so freaking muggy and hot, especially inside the tents, that I really only got 2-3 hours of sleep. It was fun though. And then going for a swim in the morning was pretty nice.

We drove back Sunday afternoon, and then stopped at a tiny little place that fed us, and let us use their bath and hot spring. I don't actually know if we stopped at a little bed and bath place, or a retirement place, or what. But it was nice and the atmosphere was very relaxing.

Oh, I forgot to mention that before we headed back on Sunday we took a little detour to check out Kojima, otherwise known as Monkey Island. I have not got my pictures up on Flickr yet, but they should be up soon. Pretty much it's a tiny island that has a bunch of monkeys. And since people go to visit all the time, they are completely used to people. Also, since your not allowed to feed them, or touch them, they ignore everybody. Much better than monkeys who go nuts for people food and try to steal stuff from everybody. You could get within a few feet of these guys and they would just ignore you. Here is a little taste of some of the photos I took:



I have not started teaching yet. That happens next Tuesday I think. Looking forward to it!

My camera came a few days ago. So I took some pics Friday and Saturday. You can see the first set by clicking here. It's some photos of around my city and a few pics of from Friday's night out. A bunch of current ALT's and new ALT's got together for a welcoming party.

The other set which you can see by clicking here, is from Saturday when some friends of mine took me out to go see Kagoshima. It's a city to the west of me, about a 90 minute drive. There is a volcano and such there. It was hot. Very very hot. Not Tucson hot, but still hot enough.

I'm not so used to the humidity here. Overall its not as bad as Tucson, but in Tucson you wouldn't go outside all that often. I'm used to sweat evaporating as soon as it appears and buildings having their AC set on permafrost. AC isn't so cold here. They try to help the environment by using less energy. But then they go ahead and burn their garbage pretty much wherever you look. Often it stinks so bad because some dude has a bonfire going down the block. They pretty much separate their garbage into 3 things. Recyclable, burnable, and non-burnable. From my understanding, burnable means "Hey Daryl, this'll burn durn guud *her huck*" Where as the logical approach one SHOULD take is "While this will burn, it is covered in lead paint so I probably shouldn't throw this into the bonfire" Sadly, I don't think this is given any thought. I could be wrong though.

There are bees like mad out here. Lovely Japanese Giant hornets. The size of humming birds. I thought it WAS a humming bird. They can actually spray you with caustic venom, that also calls in every other single Giant hornet in Japan to come kill you. Something like 50 people a year die this way. Don't matter if you have an allergy or not to these bastards. I was thinking hiking was a nice hobby to pick up... now I'm thinking Flamethrower 101 is a good class to enroll in.

Notice my work car in the set of photos. I was driving the same day I took that photo, and a Bee came and overtook me. My car can't even outrun insects here. Sigh.

Sorry for the lack of info everybody. I have been really busy with everything.

My work day consits of being at the office at 8:30 and then filling out paperwork, signing contracts, visiting schools(I have 15), and various other tasks that are required for me to setup. Yesterday I took one of the City`s cars and was told to go try to find some of my schools on my own. Driving here is not so bad, I got used to it fairly fast. I`m having issues with the speed limit though. It`s 40-50Km/H, which is a whopping 25-30mph. In the city its fine, because you are literally passing by cars/people/bikes/scooters/telephone poles/guard rails/EVERYTHING within a few inches of clearance. In the more rural areas though, its hard to stay that slow.

After work, I usually am out shopping. For food, furniture, daily needs. I`m not at home that much currently. And when I am home, I am cleaning up, doing dishes, cooking, laundry, etc. Just last night (2 weeks after being here) I unpacked my suitcases! Yay!

I ordered my camera online a few days ago, it should be here by early next week I think. Hopefully by then I can get the rest of my stuff unpacked, and after that I should have some free time.

I still have to make lesson plans for the 6 different grades I am teaching, at 15 different schools. I also have to go out of town for 3-4 days next week for another orientation. The following week I have to help prepare and judge speech contests. And then the following week maybe school starts. So don`t expect too many updates yet.

I arrived in Tokyo yesterday at about 4pm. I managed to spend the first 6 hours on the airplane sleeping, and also did a bit of prep the night before at the hotel in LA. By the time we landed at Narita I was already accustomed to the time difference here in Japan.

I'm staying at the Keio plaza hotel, and the view of Tokyo from my room on the 27th floor is stunning. Last night blew me away. This morning I woke up about an hour before my alarm went off cause I heard my roommate get out of bed. And as soon as looked out the window, whatever shred of tiredness was instantly wiped out by an amazing view of Tokyo city.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27986255@N06/ You can head there for the next few days and see when my roommate uploads some new photos. They can't capture the feeling of being here, but hopefully it'll give you an idea.

Ok I have to run get ready. Talk to all of you soon and bye for now.

This is my last day in Tucson, at least for a while. Tomorrow morning I have to get up early and drive to Phoenix to depart for L.A.. I'll spend then night there and then head to Japan the next day. I'll probably be busy for the first week or so, so probably no updates for a while.

There are a number of people I was not able to meet up with before my departure. My apologies friends. But I'm sure I will see many of you again.

Here's a little picture I took last week, to remind me of the sunsets I will be missing.

Pretty

Hi everybody!!!

So for the duration of my stay in Japan, this will be the main website I will be using to keep in touch with everybody and let you all know how I am doing.

I will also be keeping a photo album online here. I will be uploading some of the pictures I take to this blog also, but the majority of them will be at that website.

To get a good idea of where I am going, check out this website. My city is called Miyakonojo, and the closest city near me is Miyazaki. But all of those places are not too far away from me, 2 hours max to the furthest.

Below is a test to make sure I am able to post slide shows in the future. It's from when I was in Japan last winter. Enjoy.