miyagi camping trip

abbriviated version of our camping trip in Miyagi ken. Pictures to come.
Started off with a samurai battle reenactment by the banks of the river. It was a lot of waiting around for a little bit of action. Some foreigners got to be Samurai too. Their glorifiying moment was crossing the river in full armor to go to battle the opposing samurai. But now that I know how much waiting around in the blazing sun that that requires, I don't think I will be doing it next year. I did however manage to cross the big river 3 times later that day in my underwear.
Near our camping spot there was a beautiful river with crystal clear waters, chock full of swimming holes and waterfalls, a million times nicer than the Patuxent. but it gave me good memories of home. When we were hiking it was raining a little and the water was so cold that we couldn't swim in it really. I hope to go back there and hang out in the clear river someday soon! Our second night of camping we were happily drinking beers and plum wine and sake, singing along to Jeff and his guitar. Then Jeff plays this demonic death song on his guitar that comes out of nowhere. (It was pretty funny for a death song). After that we go to sing yellow submarine. Despite the massive winds that are going on and the rain around us, we are under a covered area with tables and a cooking fire so things are manageable. Then the wind tarp blows off posts of the covered area and we see our behemoth tent blown over on its side. It was as if Jeff summoned the wrath of the gods with his death song. Craziness ensued for the next hour. Everyone sobered up quickly. And the random jeep that conintually passed our campsite with its headlights didn't reeapear for the next hour. We were like ants in an army trying to dissasemble and reassemble tents. protect everything from the crazy wind. We moved our tents to a grassy area below the toilets. safe at last. 1:30am. Then the weird guy with the jeep starts shining his lights at us. What the hell. How creepy. Jeff and I go over to investigate. The sky is dark with brilliantly lit stars and gray clouds. There is no rain but the wind is still wrapping itself around everything in its path. We approach the jeep. "sumimasen" we call out. But the man in the jeep doesn't answer. It is very weird and odd. I got one of those uncomfortable, this-could-be-dangerous feelings which I rarely ever get in this country. We stand there for 4 minutes calling out to him and shining our light towards his truck and on ourselves. No answer. He drunkinly stumbles out. "mutter mutter mutter, I like my car, mutter mutter mutter" what?! He apparantly lives in the house but decided to hang out in the car parked in the driveway and watch some gaijin entertainment for the night. He was confused. I couldn't sleep for most of the night with the winds howling and creepy drunk man on the prowl. but when I finally did fall asleep, I woke up early the next morning anyways. I saw our drunken friend and he said he had been drinking since 4 am that morning. Which would have meant that he had gone to bed for 2 hours, then woke up at 4 and started drinking again. What?! Anyways, the next day was glorious and beautiful. The wind had pushed away every cloud in sight. We had a nice involved slow food brunch of eggs, fruits, hot coco, tea, yogurt, granola, coffee, juice, ancient salad, onions and tomatos, and fired toasted bread. Delicious and perfect. Later that day we played some fun American touch football. It was weird to play football after being so used to rugby. All the Brittish people were still in rugby mode too. Dorie, was the star of the game. For her first time playing, she scored 2 goals and did really well!

Sakura!

I just went to the wierdest Yoga class of my life!!!! The teacher warned me that this would be different then Yoga I was used to. Then she told me it was Hatha yoga so I thought "oh, ok, I can do that, I did Hatha yoga back home". However, whatever we did was not Hatha yoga. You know how Japan just takes everything and Japanizes it (for example: Katakana, Christmas, Spaghetti, Pizza, Hip hop, bread, Valentines day)well, this was definately Japanized Yoga. The teacher yelled through the entire one minute of savasana. Savasana was done during the middle of the class rather than at the end And at the end we had partners that we gave some very strange somewhat uncomfortable massages too. The teacher choose me to be her partner since I was new and pretty soon she was jumping on the backs of my thighs. Then there was confusion and I ended up pathetically trying to follow her instructions to give a tiny japanese man a massage. He was trying to tell me what to do but his face was down and he was speaking Japanese so I didn't understand anything. Anyways. That was my day. Oh yea, and at work I was left in the teachers room all alone so I hopped out the window onto the balcony and I got caught by the gardener. He asked me why I didn't use the door and I told him to keep it a secret. I love being strange!

Here are some pictures of human chess and stuff

what?!?>

Weird things JD and I have noticed this week about Japan:
Knee extenders to make you taller (essentially "cartilige builders")
Penis reshaping tools
cream to remove almost nonexistent facial hair
(These first 3 things were found in a fasion magazine left at the climbing action park) In the magazine the cartilige builders had pictures analogous to those seen in weight loss adds with before and after photos of completely different people. If you took the cartilige enhancer, you could grow up to 18cm taller in 6 months!!!!!
oh, and on TV today we saw a class showing woman how to prevent a vaginal prolapse.
There are more weird things but thats all for this week!

driving miss daisy

So, after months of bumming rides off of Joey D and co, I am somewhat reluctantly acquiring a "free" car. Nicole asked if I wanted her car for free, and I said yes. Its not really free though, because I have to pay the shaken that comes up every 2 years, plus car insurance. Not to mention other hidden costs. Lately, I've been remembering why I didn't want a car in the first place. Mainly because of enviornmental reasons, secondly, I don't want to become lazy and I want to continue to ride my bike the hour to school, and lastly, because roads in Japan are narrow and I have a tendency to get lost. But it will be very convinient for next year when I work more English camps and do CCM stuff. I can't keep going back and forth about it and at this point I am in so deep with the paperwork that there is no backing out. I should have the car by the end of the week! I drove it on sunday for an hour and that was fun. It was really weird to drive though. It has taken over a month for the teachers to help me with all the paperwork. And just when I thought things in Japan couldn't get any more ridiculous, Haga sensei pulls out his measuring tape to measure my parking space. There needs to be a map of the place where my car is parked he explained. "OH! of course!" I should have known. If only I could remember all of the absurd WTF moments of my life in this country up until now. Actually, its probably better that I forget some of them. Yesterday would be one. I went to the wrong school. It was opening ceremony day and I didn't know I was supposed to be at my base school. They called me. But everything worked out ok. There is always a lack of communication with things that they assume I know but I don't. For example, I went to school once only to discover it was a holiday and nobody told me. Anyways, I met one of the new teachers I will be working with. She is really good and smart so I am excited to be working with her. I haven't seen the other part time teacher yet though. I will post a couple of pics from the morning of the ducks with Kyoko.

email

Hello and good day to everyone! The day started off rainy and then turned to sleet and now to snow. And to think I thought the relentless winter was over! Cherry blossoms are blooming in Tokyo and 80% of the snow had melted when I returned from my spring break but now it feels like the spring of the last couple of weeks was just a dream. I’m going skiing tomorrow too, which will further prolong the onset of spring in my mind. Spring is definitely in the air at school though. The students graduated March 3rd. It was a very touching ceremony although I didn’t understand most of it, I felt the emotion in the students. I went into their classroom to say goodbye to a few of them after the ceremony. They had written on their chalkboard in paper flowers “go away”. I thought it was really funny because they obviously didn’t understand the English connotations of “go away”. I wrote in many of their yearbooks and they all said “wakaranai” ( I don’t understand). I hope they will someday. I am sad to see the 3rd year students go because they were my favorite and smallest classes (around 20 students per class compared to the 40 some students in other classes). Very few of these students will go on to college. Maybe 50% will go to trade school. I’m also very sad because every spring there is a changeover of teachers and administrators. They go by the lottery system and the prefectural government randomly decides who will go and who will stay. The teachers who must leave are given just under 2 weeks and are told they have to change to said school in said location. Usually they also have to move from their apartment. This is done ostensibly to prevent corruption in the school system that could occur if one person remains in the same location for too long. I think it is both good and bad. It sucks because the teachers don’t get much say in the matter. I think they can put in a request if they want to leave, but sometimes it is not granted. It also sucks because some teachers are very well established and do well at their current school. However it is good because it gives the teachers a chance to work at a variety of schools that they might not otherwise get to experience. In Japan they group schools by high academic, low academic, technical, agricultural, and industrial. So if you are at a low academic school for your entire teaching career you are bound to become a little jaded. I went to both going away parties for the teachers and administrators who were leaving. I’m very sad because my 2 closest Japanese friends at both schools are leaving. Also, the cute science teacher is leaving :(. One friend who is leaving is my supervisor and my lifeline. We have built up a very strong relationship over these past 8 months and it is hard for me to see her go. But its good because she is going to a high academic all girls school and I think it will be really good for her. Also, both Kyoto sensei (vice principals) are moving and changing jobs. This is also sad because I really like both Kyoto sensei. One of them will be promoted to Kocho sensei (principal) which means I won’t see him as much since he won’t be working in the staff room. The Kyoto sensei is the supervisor in the staff room who okays everything and with whom I clean the staff room after school everyday. The Kyoto sensei at my technical school keeps everything playful and fun. You can always count on him to slurp down a huge bowl of ramen with the other teachers at lunch. Unwittingly I got myself into the dangerous realm of sake wars at the going away party. I would pour Kyoto sensei some sake (because that’s what you are supposed to do at these parties) and immediately I would have to drink the next cup he presented to me. But he kept wanting more so I kept having to refill and the cycle continued. My Japanese magically got better.

Onto spring break and the penis festival. I wrote a little about this in my blog already and posted some pictures. I will also post this email in my blog. At the penis festival there were drunk men, free sake, and wooden penises abound. Nuf said. The farm was fun and I think I might find another one to work at during golden week but I hope I get to speak more Japanese for the next one. I learned a lot at the farm but want to learn more.
pics that are sometimes and randomly updated: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwickizer/

penises, farms, sakuras

What a week! Haru yasumi is over and I am sad. Its cold back home! The shink back to Nagai was ridiculously packed. Even the aisles of the unreserved cars were filled. Anyways, vacation. Its difficult to retell everything that happened because there was so much.
I'll start with the penis festival. There was a 2 meter, 620 pound phallus and a group of men paraded it through the town to the shrine with the waiting female counterpart, i.e. vagina. The festival was orginally celebrated to herald new growth and fertility. Regeneration, new growth, substenence for survival, all encompassed in penis and vagina. The paradigm of reproduction.
I will put some pics up of the festival. When I arrived in town, it was very early because I had taken the night bus to Nagoya. It was almost like a ghost town, but by 1pm, the town was full of gaijin and Japanese people waiting to catch a glimpse of the phallus, chow down on choco penis banana, penis sautee, yakisoba, penis pops, and food on a stick. When the crowds were starting to grow, a man wanted me to pose with him in a picture with the penis and all of these huge nikon lenses and expensive looking cameras popped out of nowhere. I have no idea why, but he wanted me to put his yellow cloak over my large pack too. I had to stand there for almost 5 mintues while numerous pictures were taken. Other Japanese people who were waiting to have there photo taken with the phallus were visibily annoyed. I still don't know why there were so many pictures of me with this man and the penis.
Nagano ken rocks! Other stuff happened like a party at Logan's with a very interesting keg. It was good to see where Logan lived. He has some nice inaka life going on there.
Then it was on to the farm in Yamanashi ken. I thought I would be staying with the Farmer's mother who only spoke Japanese. But apparantely there had been problems with that in the past so all current Woofers stay at his house. So, it ended up just being me and the farmer hangning out one on one all day for 4 days straight. I was dissapointed because he spoke mostly in English and I didn't get to practice nearly as much Japanese as I would have liked. Also it was a bit strange hanging with this old dude who kept calling me cute because of my blonde hair. All in all, it was good though, planted some grapes, learned a few things, went to a winery, strawberry farm, etc. He also had a really cute hyper black retreiver. Not golden, black. So I got to walk/run the dog every morning.
The night hike for wednesday night was canceled because of rain. I was really dissapointed. Then the alternate hike for thursday fell through too because of weather. Bummer again. But I met a random Yamanashi JET and we went to a nice Italian place, then to Tokyo.
Later, in Tokyo, I met up with Erin and Gengo. Went to the museums, Ueno, tokyo tower, harajuku, etc. The usual Tokyo fanfair. This is ending now because I'm going to bed.

graduation, etc

Recently I started remembering why I decided to stay in Japan for another year. I want to watch the seasons change again. Its beautiful watching spring come. Some days winter seems to resurface with a vengeance. But then the melt of spring quickly overtakes. Clare, Joey D and I went to Zao on Saturday, most likely the last ski of the season. The end of my first year is quickly approaching.

So graduation was the other day…It was weird to be on the other side of graduation, watching all the students graduate instead of being the one graduating. Some of the girls cried and I felt for them. And afterwards some students came up to me and actually told me “Rebecca, Thank you” It was very touching. Then, I went into one of their classrooms to find they had written “Thanks” and “Go away” in paper flowers on one of their chalkboards. It was hilarious. Shows how much English I have taught them over the past 6 months. Then I got to sign all the yearbooks and make the peace sign repeatedly for numerous pictures. I will really miss the san nen sei, they were my favorite students. Today, the new students are in for testing which means the teachers are really busy but of course…not me!! I got rid of 3 years worth of Bang the Drum ALT publications, old contracting procedures, and tons of other paperwork that my predecessor never bothered to clean out. Yay cleanliness!!! Lets see…what else has happened lately? I woke up at 6 to go see the swans and sunrise with Kyoko Koyama. It was beautiful. We fed them, watched them squawk and pur, I saw a fox. It was a good morning. Ill put some pictures below….maybe.