The Sake Factory and Ramen Alley

Yet another post that should have gone up about 3 weeks ago. Kudos to all my faithful readers. I REALLY PROMISE this time to keep up with things.

Most educated people in the world know that the Japanese make and drink a very unique and distinctive type of alcohol that is commonly referred to as Sake. In Japan, sake is also a general term for alcohol, and the smooth, usually clear rice wine is often called Nihonshu (Japanese liquor). While we were in Sapporo, Brenden, Denise and I decided to stop in at a factory that gives free tours of their facilities. It was quite fun, as they showed us where they polish and mash the rice, where they let it ferment, and the big tanks where the substance is distilled. They also showed us some big industrial thingamajig which the guy explained was the filtration system. It looked like some enormous version of a contraption I remember from the children’s board game, “Mouse Trap.” In fact the only thing that looked as though it belonged in the factory were the distillery tanks and the rice equipment. Everything else appeared amateurish.

I can now say I have been to the manufacturing facilities of four different types of alcohol.
1. A Budweiser Brewery in Florida when I was a kid and the Coors Brewery in Golden Colorado when I was older. The Coors Brewery was the most memorable because: 1. I like Coors better than Bud. 2: They give away free beer and 3. I was old enough to drink it when I went.
2. A winery in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia. It was a tiny place that was only memorable because it was in a beautiful location on a hill overlooking some mountains. They made a delicious Gewürztraminer.
3. The Nikka Whiskey Distillery in Sendai. I actually blogged about this one. They gave away lots of free samples of whiskey (which made for a lively tour bus on the way back).
4. A Sake Distillery in Hokkaido

After wandering around aimlessly through a retail arcade, we found ourselves getting rather sick of each other and we each wanted to do our own separate things. I went to an onsen (hot spring spa) to warm up and recharge before photographing the snow sculptures once more in the evening twilight. Debbie hunted different souvenir stores for a rare, special, coveted kind of candy found only in Hokkaido. She reasoned that this candy was so delicious, it would compensate for all the resentment and ill will she created with her supervisor and office staff after failing to mention she was taking the day off to see the snow festival. Brenden went to McDonalds.

As Debbie was too tired, I met Brenden for dinner that night at “Ramen Alley” which is a little passageway through some buildings filled with about forty different ramen shops. As Hokkaido is famous for its unique ramen, (every other town in Japan professes to be famous for its ramen) we decided we had to have the local variety. This is the first time I’ve eaten ramen with crab though. It was mighty delicious.

Ghengis Kahn in Sapporo

Almost two weeks ago, and I still have not updated in any decent amount of time. No doubt all my readers have abandoned me. Who can blame them really? Anyways, the following comes from my trip to Sapporo that I have failed to update on:

While Sapporo is most famous for its Snow Festival, it legendary for the Sapporo Brewing Company that bears the city’s name. As Sapporo is my favorite draft beer, I grew quite excited at the opportunity to have it really fresh on tap. Going to the Sapporo Beer Garden and eating heaps of baby sheep and assorted vegetables grilled in front of you with an endless supply of Sapporo Draft Beer right inside the brewery is one of Sapporo’s simple pleasures. Like many Meiji Era buildings in and around Sapporo, the large, red-bricked Brewery betrays a Western/European influence from the 19th century. Brenden and Denise (who have both been to Germany) tell me the building replicates the atmosphere numerous places in Do-i-tsu (as it is called in Japanese)

Escorted through an enormous restaurant with over 100 tables, we put on our paper bibs and began feasting on Genghis Khan, which is piles of cabbage, onions, pumpkins, seafood, and endless heaps of raw lamb brought out to your table for you to fry on a griddle at your own pace. In Japanese, the words are tabehodai (all you can eat) and nomihodai (all you can drink). The servers allot you two hours in which to finish all you can. We all noticed that the first plate of lamb they brought out was the largest, and the next plates had subsequently fewer slices on them. By the time the fourth plate came around, there was only a laughable pittance of lamb on the plate and we all joked about eating more plates until they brought out a plate with one single slice of lamb. We never achieved this goal though, because at that point, we were all so completely bloated that we won’t be requiring any sort of nutritional sustenance until sometime in early March.

Brenden and Denise’s friend Debbie showed up with her friends in the middle of our meal. Some faithful readers may recall her coming down with Brenden to watch the Fire Festival in Sukagawa. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend any time with them.

During the remainder of the evening, we went to Susukino, which is an entertainment district reminiscent of Tokyo (only extremely cold). Dozens of beautiful ice sculptures filled the central avenue. And while they didn’t constitute the main Snow Festival attractions (the enormous snow sculptures in another part of town hold that title) they were fun to look at and run around in. There were plenty of commercial tie-ins, as Baileys and several vodka companies were out promoting their products in buildings constructed entirely of ice.

Brenden: The Human Bowling Ball

While in Sapporo, my friends Brenden, Denise and I decided to visit the Winter Sports museum, which presents a history of skiing and Olympic Winter Sports in Japan. It was good fun. After the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, the Japanese decided to convert the one time Olympic Ski Jump into a museum for winter sports.

Despite lacking somewhat in large, impressive things to stare at, (I have come to expect museums to have exclusive artifacts, paintings, and other knickknacks.) it was a very cool museum. They did have lots of different activities for you to do, including a speed skating simulator, a cross country ski simulator, a device that simulates the way figure skaters use centrifugal forces to spin around really fast. I almost fell off the last one while my face turned bright red.

They also had a super-duper high tech virtual-reality ski-jump simulator. Considering I had to make a reservation 2 hours ahead of time, it was definitely disappointing. The fact that I could only jump 114 meters may have played a part as well.

The real highlight of the trip was that they let people go tubing down the old ski jump from halfway up! What a great idea! I think Brenden, myself, Denise, and some Russian guy we met were the only people older than twelve to go on the jump. Brenden and I did it twice. You hike halfway up the ski jump, two guys control the traffic, and you cruise down real fast on a rubber donut before crashing into enormous safety pads held in place by other staff members.
For those of you who know my friend Brenden, you know that he has a somewhat substantial physique. Standing six feet and five inches tall, he towers over most everything in Japan (including most doorways and telephone poles). But Brenden is more than just tall. He will also be the first to tell you that he’s a big guy. And he is a big guy. He's the guy who shops at "Big & Tall" retail outlets.

Consequently, upon rumbling down the mountain, he plowed right through the padded barriers and knocked down all the staff members and innocent bystanders before smashing into a vending machine. The large pads that children crashed against as the waves break against a rocky shore were swept aside like bowling pins. Nothing emerged intact.

The Brighter Side of Life

私は札幌のスキー所へ行ったときにたいそう不平を言った。そのときにいたことが大変でした。今から一日柔に一つだけたいそう不平を言う。　

Once again, I seemed to have ruined a whole day for myself through my bad attitude, short temper, and unrealistically high expectations. I took a Friday afternoon in Sapporo to go skiing. But being as lazy as I am, I slept in and didn’t get around to skiing until about 10:00 or 10:30 in the morning. I got to the station and went to a tourist information center to find information about local ski resorts. They directed me to a Japan Railways counter that sold day-long ski packages that included transportation, rentals, and everything. As I did not have my skis with me, I thought the prices were quite reasonable. I asked them about the transit schedule, as the place I was most interested in going would require a train trip and a bus trip. They said the next train would leave in 10 minutes (which I thought was perfect) and that there were many buses from the train station. I would only have to buy one ticket for everything.

So I got on the train, which took until about 12:20. I got to the station and looked for the bus, but it was nowhere to be found. I finally asked about the schedules, and indeed there were several buses to the area every hour, but also a 2 hour break which I had arrived just in time for. I wasn’t able to get on a bus until 2:00. Needless to say, I was quite angry.

In retrospect I suppose I have only myself to blame (and a misleading saleswoman), but I was so incensed that I could hardly think straight. Perhaps I should have gotten out of bed and left earlier. Perhaps I should have double checked with the misleading saleswoman and insisted on an accurate bus schedule. Regardless of my part in the fiasco, I still felt like the woman committed a big lie of omission.

The worst part was, I let it ruin the rest of my day. I allowed little things that would normally be a minor irritation during a day of skiing turn into fully blown outrageous travesties. My goggles were clouding up, the skis didn’t suit me. But thinking back, from the point I arrived, nothing was quite so terrible that it should have ruined the rest of my day. But I allowed it to do so. Not once did I consider myself lucky enough to be able to travel and ski in a beautiful location with spectacular views of Sapporo. Nor did I consider all the other things God and everyone else blesses me with. I had a roof over my head that night courtesy of a Philippine graduate student from Couchsurfing.com. I was meeting good friends that evening to feast on Sapporo’s famous seafood (the crab was especially delicious). I could only obsess about several irritating things that are simply a part of living life and just sometimes come with a day on the slopes. When did my expectations from life get so high?

So, from this day forward, I hereby resolve to complain about only one thing every day. After I decide what that is, I will no longer complain about anything else that day. This is my new policy. Eventually I will reduce it to one thing every weekday, then once or twice a week, and finally once a week and once a month. If you hear me complaining too much, let me know!

The Sapporo Yuki Matsuri

札幌の雪祭りへ行きました。楽しかっただよ！でも札幌はすごい雪があります。寒いですね。私の大学の友達札幌で会いました。彼は岩手県の花巻市に住んでいます。

During the weekend I traveled to Japan’s Frozen Prefecture, Hokkaido, to visit Sapporo City’s world famous Snow Festival. The Snow Festival draws thousands every year from all over Japan to see enormous snow sculptures people carve on their main street. The snow sculptures definitely live up to their reputation as big and impressive. The city of Sapporo’s image as a frozen winter landscape drowning in snow is also well deserved. Both the City of Sapporo and Hokkaido Prefecture are regarded as a frontier in the way Americans regard Montana or Alaska as a frontier. Japanese only recently settled in large numbers during the 19th century. The whole island is teeming with virgin forests, bears, deer, seals, walrus, and other wildlife, and even its own population of indigenous people (the Ainu) devastated by a brutal colonization.

Sapporo hosts their “Yuki Matsuri” (Snow Festival) every year sometime in February, and people come from all over the world to see marvelous sculptures of famous buildings around the world, Japanese cartoon characters, and other frozen art of all sorts. The highlights (according to my infallible opinion) included a reproduction of a large palace in Thailand, a famous Japanese castle, and sculpture depicting the story of two Japanese sled dogs that “miraculously survived” in the Antarctic. There were also hundreds of sculptures of animals, Disney, Hello Kitty, Japanese cartoon characters most Americans have never heard of, reclining buddhas, and other assorted things to look at.

Slacking off at the Gym

From right before the snow festival. I'm almost caught up now.

最近私は怠け者です。先週は運動しなかった。今年はよくトレーニングをしたい。たくさんトレーニングのゴールがあります。私のいとこに尋ねる。私のいとこはトレーニングについて知っています。

For the last week or two, I neglected my almost daily exercises at the gym in favor of watching my friend Dan’s Battlestar Galactica DVDs. When he went to Hawaii for the winter holiday, he brought the second season’s DVD set for the Sci-Fi Channel’s program with him. So I have been busy watching Captain Apollo and Starbuck kill Cylons instead of pumping iron and working up a sweat at Peare, my local health club.

I am a little concerned now, because I am off track for one of my new year’s goals, which is to train myself and build muscles and a body I am truly proud of. And while this may seem to be a vain and worthless goal to many of you, I have discovered that this makes me feel better about myself, both physically and mentally, and gives me much more confidence than I normally have. My social confidence improves, as well as my self-esteem. I always compared myself unfavorably to friends and relatives of mine in both high school and university when it came to fitness. And while I realize now that most of my friends were far more active than I may ever be, I still have many lingering insecurities about my body image. Is this is a result of unrealistic standards in the media or a projection of deeper self esteem problems caused by school bullies and the misguided efforts of authority figures in my childhood? Or its some other combination of trendy psycho-babble buzz words from a sappy Oprah rerun that remains to be sorted out by a competent therapist in the future. Whatever my problem may be, I’m going to pump more iron until I figure it out. So despite the risk of becoming someone who admires himself in the mirror far too frequently (if I ever reach that point) I have resolved to return to the gym in the evenings with the goal of attaining a “respectable buffness” by the end of July. Yesterday, I returned with the utmost fervor and zeal.

A “respectable buffness” shall include the following attainable, yet ambitious physical goals:

1. A flat stomach with at least partially visible muscle tone. I don’t necessarily think I will achieve the “washboard” abs one sees on late night infomercials for exercise equipment, but some noticeable definition and shrinkage in the midsection. This will require an alteration in diet, a beefed up cardio regimen, and a more comprehensive set of midsection exercises (something I often neglect despite the amount of time I spend in the gym). And while I am resigned to the fact I that my ultimate ideal goal (Brad Pitt’s abs in “Fight Club”) is out of my league, a partial approximation of this cinematic standard would prove satisfactory.

2. More defined shoulders and upper arms. Since training in Japan, I have definitely improved in the shoulders through the military press. I would like to see further progress in this area, as well as biceps and triceps especially. I do not necessarily want an increase in size, but an increase in muscle tone.

3. Larger and more defined forearms. Since student teaching and coming to Japan, I have found that my forearm strength is slowly decreasing. This trend must stop. A perceptible increase in forearm size and strength is definitely in order. The daily use of my hang board is in order.

4. The ability to do 3 sets of 15 pull-ups and or chin-ups on a daily basis. This being another area in which I have slacked since my rock-climbing days, a discipline to work toward this on a daily basis should be sufficient. This could also be because my weight has increased slightly since coming to Japan. While a miniscule increase that is mostly muscle, I wonder if I am losing that critical “strength to weight ratio” that is necessary in the sport of rock climbing.

5. I wish to successfully complete the Koriyama City 10 mile run in 60 minutes or less, and complete the other local Towa Road Race Half Marathon in under 1.5 hours. My time last year for the 10 mile race was 73 minutes. I finished the Half Marathon in 1 hour and 43 minutes. As long as I start training regularly now, I think the 10 mile race goal of 60 minutes should be achievable with few problems. I have done the race before, and I think I am more experienced with both pacing during the race and good preparation. The first half of the Towa Half Marathon was uphill and I wasn’t adequately prepared for that at the time. My half marathon goal will definitely be ambitious, and I will definitely focus on my “hill-work” this coming spring. I also did the Half Marathon after an English Camp where I got no sleep. This shouldn’t be a problem this year. Training for these races should also provide most of the necessary boost to my cardio regimen necessary for objectives one, three, and seven.

6. Increased flexibility. During high school as I trained daily in Taekwondo, I attained an exceptional flexibility, especially in my legs. This is slowly disappearing as I frequently neglect this aspect of fitness. While my flexibility is still impressive for someone my age, I think that it should be better. I hereby put forth my objective: do the splits by the end of July. I will hereby resolve to stretch at my house daily after school.

7. A more defined back: A noticeable increase in visible muscle-tone would be nice. I do not wish to add muscle, only make the muscle I have stronger and more visible.

8. I will try to be more active on the weekends. As this year’s ski season is turning out to be a bust, I find myself spending less time than I thought doing physical activities. I must resolve to spend more time outside, and resist the natural impulse to be lazy and stay in my house. I am always happier when I do something physically active, even if motivating my self to do such things is often challenging.

Other challenges are appearing with my fitness and lifestyle lately. Since acquiring a Japanese driver’s license, I am spending more time driving (especially during bad weather) instead of riding my bicycle. To make matters more difficult, my main schools during the last two years fell within biking distance of my home, and gave me an extra 10-20 minutes of light aerobic activity. As my employer requires me to go to two much more distant schools in an all-expenses-paid taxi service, I spend much more time sitting on my big fat お尻 than I would prefer. I have tried to replace some of this activity by spending more time with the athletic clubs at school and joining PE classes when I have the time. Unfortunately, I am finding myself much busier than I was last year and lack the necessary free time at school.

Sampling Monja for the first time

木曜日はもんじゃを食べました。私の友達知っているレストランへ行きました。カメさんは郡山市駅前に働いているからたくさん面白いレストラン知っています。そしてもんじゃとおこのみやきのレストランを案内しました。日本の料理の中でチーズは珍しいですね。レストラン行った前に全の日本の料理を食べると思いました。
ちょっと油っこいですね。　
私の友達カメさんは大阪に行きました。カメさんの写真を見ました。

Just when you think you’ve seen and done it all in a country, you find something new that you aren’t familiar with. On Thursday night with my friend Kame, I tried Monjya for the first time. For those who don’t know, monjya is made from fried mochi, which is a heavy paste that is often translated as “rice cake.” But the chunks of mochi are only the beginning, as other minced vegetables, meats, and sauces are thrown in before the mix is poured and flattened on the table’s large griddle and sprinkled with cheese.

Cheese is what makes monja unusual, as it is virtually absent from almost every other Japanese food. Cheese is definitely here in Japan, but it isn’t present in most of their foods, and I think most Japanese people wouldn’t know what to do with it if their lives depended on it. The schools sometimes serve up cheese based dishes for lunch, and their lack of endearing flavors betrays the Japanese incompetence with cheese. The Japanese should stick with raw fish, consumer electronics, and stylish cartoons, not delve into making foods with cheese.

The most entertaining part about eating monja however, is getting it from the fryplate into your mouth. You use a tiny spatula (about the size of a dessert spoon) to cut and scoop pieces off the cake of frying monja into your mouth. It requires a deft process of cutting, flipping upside down and pressing it into the pan to make the monja flake stick to your tiny spatula. If you don’t do it exactly right, you will never get the monja off the plate, or it will fall into your lap and get greasy cheese all over yourself. I embarrassed myself throughout the evening.

But I still had a fun time catching up with my friend Kame. She works in a retail store by the station as an assistant manager. She showed me some pictures after just finishing a trip to a forested peninsula off the coast of Kansai. Looked like fun.

The English Language is Crazy

Another very late post. If it makes you feel better, this one is from only 2 weeks ago.

英語は難しいですね。英語を教えるときにたくさん問題がありました.

Nothing terribly out of the ordinary happened today, but I would like to relate to all my readers something that still happens relatively frequently. Whenever I complain too much about how difficult Japanese is, I am always reminded by my students and the lessons I teach that English is just as nutty, if not crazier than my mother tongue.

This morning at Katahira Junior High, I was teaching my class of 1st year students (equivalent to American 7th graders) and I had written up a worksheet for them. Our primary objective was to teach students the past tense for simple verbs. We required the students to turn walk into walked, play into played, and perform the same task with other easy verbs they know. Irregular verbs are planned for next week.

My previous lessons on subject/verb agreement apparently proved to be a little too effective, as all the students were filling in the sentences on their worksheets with the likes of this:

He walks to the store everyday. > He walksed to the store yesterday.

Misaki plays tennis after school >> Misaki playsed tennis yesterday.

Careful readers should immediately recognize the problem, as subject verb agreement in the present tense requires one to write or say: I play; He plays; They play. But in the past tense, the subject makes no difference and the verb is the same.

I was a little embarrassed at my failure to anticipate this outcome, as I have taught this lesson the previous two years. To my own credit though, I have never seen this particular anomaly such a pervasive mistake among all the students in one class. The co-operating teacher I was working with is going through a difficult pregnancy. So she was sitting down and leaving me with a much bigger role in explaining grammatical points to the kids than I am typically accustomed to. As a native speaker to whom such nuances come quite naturally, I simply don’t anticipate all these little asinine snafus. Next week they throw irregular verbs into the mix. Oh boy, what fun!!

English Camp Happened Awhile Ago

I wrote this awhile ago on a USB chip when I had some free time at school, and have only now gotten around to publishing it. This probably happened over 3 weeks ago. To all my faithful readers, I apologize about the delays, as I have been super busy.

My city puts on an “English Camp” for the most motivated and advanced English
students in the city. English teachers select one to three students from each school depending on the size, and send them after school to a place with us foreigners to do various English games and educational activities. So far, we have done different games, sports, trivia events, relay races, and other sorts of educational and not-so-educational activities for the kids to give them a chance to learn new English and practice the English they know.

Unfortunately, they typically select the most academically advanced students, and not the best English speakers. They don’t seem to understand that the most successful speakers in camp are students with outgoing personalities (something rarely observed), and talkative students with better verbal skills who are naturally inclined to speak more regardless of the language. Most of the exercises are based on speaking and listening, and yet the Japanese teachers fill the camp with bashful bookworms who can probably write and spell better than most of us native speakers, but are simply too shy to say much of anything in English.

This isn’t always the case and it is changing somewhat. I must concede that the students at camp definitely seem more motivated to learn and try speaking than their peers who don’t come to the camp. But I still constantly meet kids at the camp, try to have a simple conversation, and wonder why anyone chose them. On the occasions where they involved me in the decision on who to send to the camp, they always try to select students who do well on tests, and not always the ones who will succeed. I tried to explain all of this, but I was still constantly at odds with my Japanese colleagues on the subject of which kid to send to English Camp.

Once they get to the camp, we do a number of activities, some of which are good, and some of which leave a little to be desired. We have so far done a murder mystery, where groups of students must go around to different places to gather clues. I ALWAYS play the dead body in this one. We also do a scavenger hunt, types of English relay races, another group game we made called “Welcome to the Jungle,” and introductory classes on amusing aspects of our different cultures. I taught the kids how to play “Casino Craps in Las Vegas” and have previously done American Football. Our city’s Indian National Lydia teaches “Bollywood Dancing” Joelle Kuiper from New Zealand teaches a Maori dance called “Haka.” Other people teach other stuff from other places including cooking and games. I just pulled out the chips and salsa for 5 minutes after the craps game.

They bring in several teachers, and our bosses from the Board of Education, but after the activities are finished, there is little to no supervision. Overall, it is about what you would expect from an overnight retreat with 50 unsupervised 8th graders. They stay up all hours talking and running around where they aren’t supposed to. To be honest, I am always surprised at how well they behave (by American standards anyway), but they still manage to break and bend the rules.

During my first year working in Koriyama, I actually enjoyed doing the camps, but as time wore on, they became less and less appealing. We previously did about 5 camps a year, and due to budgetary changes, last week was the last overnight camp I believe we will do. Here are some pictures from a previous English camp from last year when I enjoyed things more. This is our (unfortunately retired) Scotsman Jolan Martinez with my student Chiemi. Chiemi is now finishing her third year of Junior High at Katahira-chu (she is roughly equivalent to an American 9th grader) and will be headed to high school sometime this April. Chiemi is actually a pretty good speaker when she wants to be.

The Beginning of the End

２００６年七月からアメリカへ帰るかもしれない。それから悲しいですね。まだ準備してないんですね。まだアメリカへ行きたくないです。日本の食べ物と飲み物を淋しがります。私の友達と日本の文化を淋しがります。２年前からたくさん友達います。日本語を忘れるかもしれない。いろいろを淋しがります。でも今アメリカの仕事のために捜します。アメリカで私は社会科の先生です。今心配ですね。


I am facing an uncertain future for the first time in three years. Due to city budgetary considerations and the expiration of my visa, it appears unlikely I will have a position in Koriyama after July. So I began a preliminary job search back in my home country. I am finding this very difficult at the moment because after 2 1/2 years of living in Japan, I now feel my home and my life belong in Koriyama City.

When I finally do leave Japan, whether it is this year or the next, I will probably miss Japan much more than I ever missed the USA when I left 3 years ago. Departing the United States two years ago, I didn’t give much thought to everything I would miss. Leaving behind the dizzying array of everything permeating my environment and my own self that I concomitantly referred to as ‘America’ was new to me, and without precedent. I was woefully terrible at predicting what things and people would be sorely missed and everything that would be gladly forgotten. With the situation now reversed and the experience of hindsight, I now know precisely what I am walking away from this coming July, and I know exactly the place I will be returning to.

Moreover, I left the United States always knowing that I would return someday in the future, or at least always had the option of returning. While I was initially ignorant of how many people and things I would miss upon leaving the USA (and there was much that was sorely missed), the knowledge that I could return if I desired always assuaged my cravings for all things American. I always knew I would someday come back, so I stopped worrying about the lack of Mexican food, Arizona sunshine, or Christmas trees. Everything is still there waiting for me when I return. I currently have no idea whether I can or will ever return to Japan on terms that would be appealing to me. I am uncertain how much will be lost forever.

But the vast array of exotic customs, sights, sounds, smells, amusing idiosyncrasies, language, food, drink, products, services, textures, styles, people, and architecture that are now as familiar to me as a 4th of July BBQ will disappear forever after 15 hours over the Pacific Ocean. I may be able to go to a Japanese restaurant in an American city, but I will always know how many foods are lacking from their menus or whether the rice tastes right. And no matter how authentic the Japanese restaurant in America may be, I will never again eat another school lunch, dishing up healthy bland slop with the students and listening to them complain about it. I will never again go to a harvest festival and buy overpriced greasy morsels of salty pork on a stick. I may never again ride the bullet train, sleep in a capsule hotel, and drive a car smaller than a riding lawnmower on the left side of the road.　And what restaurant in the United States serves up 4 different cuts of raw horsemeat?

When I was initially struggling to make sense of the culture and my place in this country, a former teacher told me, “When you were back home you had 24 years to meet friends, build a career, and find a place in the community. You have family connections. You don’t have that here, and you have to actively make a life for yourself.” After taking this advice to heart, I now have a wide circle of friends and co-workers that care about me. People everywhere know me by my name and greet me on the street. I finally built a real life for myself that I am proud of, and now I must abandon 95 percent of it forever.

But at the same time, I wonder how much I am seeing Japan through rose-colored glasses. Other advice I received as I “adjusted” to life in Japan was not to compare Japan to my own country. People told me to, “Find and focus on the positive.” But in this effort to adapt to my surroundings, have I so thoroughly twisted and distorted the perception of my environment that I no longer recognize its glaring flaws?

I don’t look forward to the extended period of adjustment on the approaching horizon, and I don’t think I am ready to return to my own country just yet. Please keep me in your thoughts and pray that God would show me what to do next.

More Korea Trip Pictures

私の冬休みの写真です。勧告と日本に行きました。

Here I have more pictures of my trip to Korea and southern Japan. I apologize for the lateness with these posts, as I have been extremely busy here lately. There is always something that I have to be doing around here.

English Camps

My city puts on an “English Camp” for the most motivated and advanced English students in the city. English teachers select one to three students from each school depending on the size, and send them after school to a place with us foreigners to do various English games and educational activities. So far, we have done different games, sports, trivia events, relay races, and other sorts of educational and not-so-educational activities for the kids to give them a chance to learn new English and practice the English they know.

Unfortunately, they typically select the most academically advanced students, and not the best English speakers. They don’t seem to understand that the most successful speakers in camp are students with outgoing personalities (something rarely observed), and talkative students with better verbal skills who are naturally inclined to speak more regardless of the language. Most of the exercises are based on speaking and listening, and yet the Japanese teachers fill the camp with bashful bookworms who can probably write and spell better than most of us native speakers, but are simply too shy to say much of anything in English.

This isn’t always the case and it is changing somewhat. I must concede that the students at camp definitely seem more motivated to learn and try speaking than their peers who don’t come to the camp. But I still constantly meet kids at the camp, try to have a simple conversation, and wonder why anyone chose them. On the occasions where they involved me in the decision on who to send to the camp, they always try to select students who do well on tests, and not always the ones who will succeed. I tried to explain all of this, but I was still constantly at odds with my Japanese colleagues on the subject of which kid to send to English Camp.

Once they get to the camp, we do a number of activities, some of which are good, and some of which leave a little to be desired. We have so far done a murder mystery, where groups of students must go around to different places to gather clues. I ALWAYS play the dead body in this one. We also do a scavenger hunt, types of English relay races, another group game we made called “Welcome to the Jungle,” and introductory classes on amusing aspects of our different cultures. I taught the kids how to play “Casino Craps in Las Vegas” and have previously done American Football. Our city’s Indian National Lydia teaches “Bollywood Dancing” Joelle Kuiper from New Zealand teaches a Maori dance called “Haka.” Other people teach other stuff from other places including cooking and games. I just pulled out the chips and salsa for 5 minutes after the craps game.

They bring in several teachers, and our bosses from the Board of Education, but after the activities are finished, there is little to no supervision. Overall, it is about what you would expect from an overnight retreat with 50 unsupervised 8th graders. They stay up all hours talking and running around where they aren’t supposed to. To be honest, I am always surprised at how well they behave (by American standards anyway), but they still manage to break and bend the rules.
During my first year working in Koriyama, I actually enjoyed doing the camps, but as time wore on, they became less and less appealing. We previously did about 5 camps a year, and due to budgetary changes, last week was the last overnight camp I believe we will do. Here are some pictures from a previous English camp from last year when I enjoyed things more. This is our (unfortunately retired) Scotsman Jolan Martinez with my student Chiemi. Chiemi is now finishing her third year of Junior High at Katahira-chu (she is roughly equivalent to an American 9th grader) and will be headed to high school sometime this April. Chiemi is actually a pretty good speaker when she wants to be.

The Crazy English Language

英語は難しいですね。英語を教えるときにたくさん問題がありました。

Nothing terribly out of the ordinary happened today, but I would like to relate to all my readers something that still happens relatively frequently. Whenever I complain too much about how difficult Japanese is, I am always reminded by my students and the lessons I teach that English is just as nutty, if not crazier than my mother tongue.

This morning at Katahira Junior High, I was teaching my class of 1st year students (equivalent to American 7th graders) and I had written up a worksheet with a game for them. Our primary objective was to teach students the past tense for simple verbs. We required the students to turn walk into walked, play into played, and perform the same task with other easy verbs they know. Irregular verbs are planned for next week.

My previous lessons on subject/verb agreement apparently proved to be a little too effective, as all the students were filling in the sentences on their worksheets with the likes of this:

He walks to the store everyday. >> He walksed to the store yesterday.

Misaki plays tennis after school. >> Misaki playsed tennis yesterday.

Careful readers should immediately recognize the problem, as subject verb agreement in the present tense requires one to write: I play; He plays; They play. But in the past tense, the subject makes no difference.

I was a little embarrassed at my failure to anticipate this outcome, as I have taught this lesson the previous two years. To my own credit though, I have never seen this particular anomaly such a pervasive mistake among all the students in one class. The co-operating teacher I was working with is going through a difficult pregnancy. So she was sitting down and leaving me with a much bigger role in explaining grammatical points to the kids than I am typically accustomed to. As a native speaker to whom such nuances come quite naturally, I simply don’t anticipate all these little snafus.

Next week they throw irregular verbs into the mix. Oh boy, what fun!!

Pictures at long last

At long last, I have some pictures from the trip I took to Korea and Southern Japan.

The first picture is a cool changing of the guard ceremony at Gyeoungbokgung Palace in Seoul. This feudal palace was destroyed not once, but twice by the Japanese, a fact driven home by the Korean guide posts. Like the Atomic Bomb dome, all marks of tragedy and war are gone. But the Koreans are understandably still upset about it.

The iconic Atomic Bomb Dome memorial on a chilly December morning. Now a thriving city, this building and a sleek modern museum are the only reminders of the tragedy. Walking through Hiroshima's busy streets, it is difficult to believe the planet's first nuclear attack ever took place here.

And as we're doing these in reverse chronological order, you can see mountains in Japan's Nagano Prefecture where I went skiing in the town of Hakuba. This was were they held skiing for the Winter Olympics back in the day. Pretty Mountains, but lousy skiing conditions that day.

Eric Hanson's World Race

My friend Eric Hanson has embarked on a "World Race." In this race, he will work for a short term missionary organization and visit 11 countries in 11 months if I am reading things correctly.

A great guy that I've known since he was in diapers, our families have been very close for a long time. He and I later hung out from time to time at Northern Arizona University, where we went to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and did other stuff together. He and I share a passion for the outdoors and rock climbing, somthing he's apparently taken up during my stint here in Japan.

He's a great guy who comes from a great family. Always easy-going and ready for a good time at any moment, he's a fantastic choice for this mission. As long as I don't do something crazy that winds up in Dear Abby, I'm sure I will see him again someday in the future. I'm sure Eric Hanson is having the time of his life sharing his love for the Lord in all sorts of cool places. You can read all about it on his new blog here.

Check in with him from time to time.

Brenda Clark

When I was a young lad of 15 or so, my father introduced me to his longtime business associates and friends Gary and Brenda Clark. I recall meeting them when we stayed at their home for 2 weeks during our tour of Washington D.C. Gary Clark, an avid hunter and fisher, took us out into the Virginia wilderness on a quest for small mouth bass.

I did know, from that trip, and subsequent meetings at Servicemaster conferences that Brenda has spent many years struggling with cancer. I don't know if it started after I met her, as I don't recall that being an issue then. I do remember she was a wonderful host and a good friend to my parents. They lived (still live?) in a lovely home modeled after a famous estate in Colonial Williamsburg.

My father reports that Brenda passed away while I was in Korea. He is attending the funeral. While I didn't know her very well, I do know that she will be dearly missed by my family and others at Servicemaster. Let us all keep her in our thoughts and prayers.

Back in Koriyama

Well, I finally arrived back in Koriyama early this morning, and I'm not feeling 100 percent. So it will be the first lazy day in awhile. I'm currently in the midst of all sorts of things and will be a very busy man for the coming months.

The first order of business is to thank all the people who allowed me to stay with you during my vacation. The Couchsurfing Project has turned out to be fantastic. Cheers to Jiyoung, Nathan, Debbie, and of course Kate. Every one of you were absolutely fantastic! Jiyoung, I don't know how you do it with so many people coming and going all the time. You must be a truly generous soul!

Well I have arrived back in Koriyama and I don't see a winter wonderland anywhere! Instead a really cold and dreary rain greeted me at the station! This doesn't bode well for the ski season!

But, as I am resolved to KEEP THIS BLOG POSITIVE, I should say I am happy to be back and am looking forward to relaxing and getting my health and sanity back. I have lots to say, write, and lots of pictures from Korea to show! Please be patient with the pictures, as they will be up soon.

Back in Osaka

Yesterday, I arrived safe and sound back in Fukuoka Japan on the Southern Coast

While I love it here in Japan, it will never be a major tourist attraction for the simple fact that traveling here is too darn expensive. Before leaving Japan, I stopped at a travel agent to try and pick up bus tickets back to Koriyama, because the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) is simply too expensive, and I don't have any money left. Unfortunately, due to the New Year Holidays, most people are traveling and almost all the buses were booked! So I had to bite the bullet and pay for the shinkansen to Osaka, where I managed to get a bus back to my town this evening.

I wasn't able to secure any hosts on couchsurfing.com, so I had to stay in the next cheapest option in Osaka, the capsule hotel. While they are fun to stay in once, after that they are just dreary depressing places filled with chainsmoking middle aged alcoholics who missed the last train.

Unfortunately, my train today doesn't leave until 8:30 tonight, and I have about eight hours to kill in Osaka without spending any money. So hear I am in an internet cafe writing up about everything in Korea.

Dog Food for Breakfast?

As my train arrived in Busan at about 11:00, I realized I would have a couple of hours before my ferry to get some breakfast. It was still early, and I was afraid that many places would be closed, and I hoped some shops might be opening for lunch soon, especially around a busy train station.

Turns out I was lucky, and several places were open around the Busan station. I quickly found one with a picture menu and easy to read prices and took off my pack for breakfast. I was perusing the menu, when I noticed a familiar character for which I had halfheartedly searched for since my arrival in Korea. In Seoul, my couchsurfing host Jiyoung Lee had written down what to look for (discreetly she urged, as the Koreans are somewhat sensitive about this subject) to keep in my pocket. I fished through my pockets and the top of my pack to finally find a little piece of paper with the cryptic Hangul characters depicting a curious eccentricity of Korean cuisine. I found the slip of paper and confirmed that this was indeed on the menu. I had at long last found nothing less than dog meat soup.

The middle aged man gave me a bit of a look when I pointed to what I wanted, but promptly left to bring me my dish. I hate to admit it, but the primary reason I wanted to eat dog meat was simply to be able to say truthfully, "I have eaten dog meat before!" So at some point in the future, I will be able to brag about this and gross out any young children I talk to. The organism currently incubating in my sister comes to mind.

While it was pretty good, it was somewhat anti-climactic, and tasted like a couple of other soups I had tried in Korea. The soup was a little bit salty, but delicious, while the surrounding vegetables were very spicy. The meat itself was somewhat tough, and very lean. I can say that it didn't taste like chicken, and tasted more like pork, only slightly leaner and stringier.

The following is a list of all the types of meat I can recall eating in my life. Can you top this?

1. Beef: An American staple

2. Pork: The other white meat.

3. Chicken: The cheapest meat in Japan, and my main staple for three years.

4. Turkey: Great on the American Holiday of Thanksgiving. Makes you sleepy.

5. Lamb: A staple on Easter Sunday, and probably the cutest meat on the list.

6. Buffalo: Another American staple, they were nearly extinct in the early 20th century, but have since made a modest revival on the great plains. Now health nuts bill it as a great alternative to beef.

7. Deer: Venison is great, but kind of pricey unless you hunt.

8. Elk: I suppose this is also technically venison. A friend of David Hanson's gave me a heap of steaks in college once. Not so hard to come by if you live in Northern Arizona. Jerry Driesens in Pagosa Springs always has it around as well.

9. Horse: This is a delicacy in parts of Japan. Basashi, (raw horsemeat) is great and I have had several different cuts, including the underbelly, hind legs, and mane. The mane is the leanest and tastiest.

10. Fish: I have had too many types to recall, so I will only mention the unusual ones in the posts below.

11. Dog: See above description. Koreans are somewhat sensitive about eating dogs, because they love their pet dogs so much, as my couchsurfing host Jiyoung tells me. They have a special breed that is just for eating. It is also kind of a macho food as I am told.

12. Whale Meat: School lunches in Japan are usually quite delicious. While whale meat isn't so bad, but I'm not sure my strong environmental convictions will allow me to eat it ever again (provided I pay attention to what I'm eating).

13. Kangaroo: More of an Australian staple, as we don't have these in America.

14. Crocodile: Another Australian staple. Tastes more like fish than chicken.

15. Rattlesnake: When I was a kid, I recall my dad telling me I was eating rattlesnake. From the beginning of high school, I grew less naive and became more skeptical of his often dubious assertions. But I believed him then, and that's good enough for me. (Mom, can you confirm or deny this?)

16. Shark: Another one of those foods that I probably shouldn't have eaten for environmental reasons, but my curiosity beat out my ecological conscience. Delicious, but just another fish. If you haven't had this, you aren't missing much.

Revisions/ Additions Since this Day:

17. Pidgeon: An Egyptian staple I suppose. Had this for the first time in Luxor. Tastes like dark chicken meat or turkey, although slightly more greasy. The Egyptians stuff it with rice and you have to dig around it and the bones to get at the meat. Tasty, but too greasy and too many bones.(Modified January 5th, 2008, although events took place December 29th, 2007)

18. Ostrich: Eating an ostrich steak was disturbingly like eating a beef steak. It was just a little bit more like....game. But not much. If you served it to me and told me it was a cow, I probably wouldn't notice until several bites into it.

19. Rabbit/Hare: Probably even cuter than lamb. Had this at a Moroccan restaurant with my parents in Denver. I never blogged about it though. Pretty good. I only wish I could say the rest of the food at this establishment was more than mediocre.

Dash through the Seoul train station

Yesterday, my schedule dictated that I leave Korea by boat from Pusan at precisely 1:00 PM. As my previous Couchsurfing buddy Nate was unable to host me again (and I couldn't locate anyone else) I decided to stay one more night in Seoul with the woman who hosted me there. The only real downside to this was the early train to Busan.

As the previous train took 3 hours, I was confident I would find a fast enough train to get me from Seoul to Busan if I just showed up at the station. But like most people do at some point in their lives, I slept in just a little too late and took a little too long getting ready. I wasn't out the door until about 7:30 AM in Seoul. This included a 15 minute walk to and through the subway, a 20 minute ride, and a mad dash through a busy train station to catch a train.

My predicament dawned on me as I was taking the subway. What if I couldn't catch a train in time? What if the only trains they have available aren't fast enough? By the time of my arrival at Seoul Station, the stress had sufficiently impressed upon me the need to make extreme haste. With my overloaded expedition pack full of unused ski gear (the blue one with 5500 cubic inches if anyone is interested), I sprinted out the subway door and up the escalator, skipping steps and knocking everyone over with my enormous load.

The best Broncos running backs had nothing on me that day! I seriously didn't realize I had such strength, as I dashed up a stairway that ascended four to five floors from the subway to the surface with 40 pounds on me.

I had been dashing for 2 minutes when I realized I had run in the wrong direction! I gathered my bearings and ran back with more zealous fervor than I had ever mustered before. As I startled slow walking old men from behind, I could hear tons of them cheering me on. Perhaps the old men had not seen such a sight since US marines and the ROK army stormed the beaches at Incheon 50 years ago!

In the end, I managed to get on a train with 4 minutes to spare. Plenty of time to catch my breath and remove 3 sweaty layers. Upon my arrival in Busan, I looked at the schedule of trains arriving from Seoul. The one immediately following from Seoul would arrive at 1:30! Four minutes stood between me and a heap of trouble.

The lesson from all this: a good, disciplined training regimen and proper nutrition pay off in the long run. Get out and work those muscles!