Bye-Bye Brandon!

Tomorrow we've gotta take Brandon to the airport. He's been here for two weeks, and we have tons of stories to tell yet (in time, all in time, people).

Fly safe, Buddy.

大阪料理 - Osaka Cuisine

After enjoying the view from the Floating Garden Observatory, Shige led us to a swanky okonomiyaki restaurant somewhere on the 17th floor of one of the many buildings in Umeda.



That's what it looked like before it was cooked. We didn't waste much time taking pictures after it was done cooking.

After the excellent repast, our man Shige took us to one of his favorite haunts, Org. He said he likes it for the ambience and because it's food is so "...organic" It was here that Shige and Laurie both agreed that, despite being full, one always has a second-stomach for dessert. I’ve since learned that there is a Japanese term for such a thing. It's called 別腹, (betsu-bara, literally "separate-stomach"). And good thing we all have them, too! Because the dessert was excellent!



Many thanks for showing us around, Shige!

Fushimi-Inari Shrine

Before heading south to Osaka, we stopped for a visit to the famous Inari Shrine in Fushimi ward. Best known for a walking path made of thousands of torii gates, it's also worth visiting if you want to ensure yourself a good harvest, as Inari is the Shinto god in charge of such things.







Inari is often depicted as a white fox (above), and Inari shrines are to be found throughout Japan. You'll know you're at one when you see statues like this one. Another indication of an Inari shrine, I am told, is that typically the torii gates at Inari shrines are painted vermillion.





You can see on the map that the torii gates cover quite a distance. (They are the orange scribbles following several sloping hills towards the mountains in the background.) There are literally thousands of gates there, each one donated by some individual, family, or company. While unfortunately we didn't have time to trek the entire path, we did get to see the first few hundred meters or so, and it impressed us enough that we're eager to return (someday...).

Umeda Sky Building

We met Shige at the Umeda Sky Building sometime after sunset. This worked out nicely, though because the view from the "floating garden observatory" is equally as incredible at night as it is during the day. I can say that because now I've been there at both times (coincidentally, the last time was with Shige, too).

The Umeda Sky Building is really two buildings, capped off at the top with the aforementioned "floating garden observatory". The observatory is round-shaped, and on certain days I've heard tell that they have some type of fogger device that makes it look like you are viewing Osaka from on a cloud once you are on the outside deck. It is well worth visiting if you ever find yourself on the North side of Osaka with seven hundred yen in your pocket. For that price, you can go up to the top and see for yourself what I'm talking about. If you happen to have more than that in your pocket, then check out the basement. Down there they've reconstructed an Edo-era street and filled it out with Japanese style restaurants. We didn't go, but I saw some photos and ads for it while we were on our way through.

On clear days you can see quite a few local landmarks, and on clear nights you'll see quite a bit too. We counted five or six ferris wheels, among other things. Osaka Castle seemed like a tiny plastic model of itself among the modern buildings. Here is what it looks like from between the towers, looking up from ground-level through the ring of the observatory.



Unfortunately, only one picture of the view turned out, but here it is:

Pigeons

While in Kyoto, I happened to get a really nice close-up of a pigeon. I don’t particularly like pigeons.

Kiyomizudera

Chip liked the view at Kiyomizudera too.

In Kamakura

Me and Brandon took a quick two-day jaunt to Kamakura, thanks to the advantagest of the "Kamakura Free Kippu", a ticket that goes round trip from Chiba City to Kamakura and back, allowing unlimited travel on trains within Kamakura for the two days.

One of our stops was Hasedera, a temple in the Hase district of town known for it's really old Kannon statue that purportedly washed up from the ocean some eight hundred years ago. It's a beautifully laid-out temple and enjoys perhaps the best view of the ocean of all the places I know of in Kamakura, owing to the fact that it snakes along the side of a steep hill overlooking the shoreline.

Anyway, at the temple, if you go in, you might get the opportunity to gain mucho-karma. By spining one of these babies around (it works much like an old fashioned, by-hand grain mill), you gain the same amount of karma as you would if you'd read every one of the sutras (=scriptures) inside.

Brandon's Here!!!

NW19 arrived at 5:26 p.m. safe and sound! Then we met up with Laurie in Chiba city forty minutes later and hit the nearest kaiten-zushi for a late supper. Currently, Laurie's demonstrating one of our favorite PS2 games here: The Taiko Drum Game (I don't know the real title, but that's close enough for now).

Details to follow. Pictures too.

Ah Um...

'pologies for the dearth in posts lately.

Our computers are both broke.

But keep yer fingers crossed, for we are due to be visited by none other than the Digital Magician, the Samurai of Silicon, the Hotwired Handyman of the West: The Great Brandoni!!!

[Check back in a few weeks for updates]

Typhoon

Since 11 a.m. it's been raining, raining, raining. Wind and rain pelting our flimsy apartment walls and windows. I don't find it scary at all, but it is rather fascinating to be on the edges of a typhoon. They told me today that it's supposed to be here in Chiba sometime tomorrow, which I guess means this is just the outer part of it now. I sure hope it means that they don't run the trains tomorrow. Then we get a three day weekend!

Engakuji - Kita Kamakura

A carving on a door to one of the buildings at Engakuji, and some yummy iced green tea.

Jizo Statues at Hasedera

Rather than continue this long dry spell of no posts, no news, and no pictures, I figured I could at least pop off a picture.

These are Jizo statues. Jizo are bodhisattva who are considered to be guardians of unborn, aborted, and miscarried children, and also they generally protect and are merciful to those in need. All around they're a good deity for most general purposes and are among the most widely visible icons in Japan.

It is common for people to put a red bib on the statues, or to dress them somehow (usually the color is red) when they mean to thank the deity for services rendered, or to mourn someone's loss and pray for their guidance through to the next life.

These ones here have been given baby clothes and toys, most likely for a child who died young or was aborted.

Asakusa

Melissa and Laurie in front of the famous (and huge) lantern at the entrance to Asakusa Shrine.

A Bug's Life

We met this big little guy on our way home today.

We took our time getting out of the apartment this morning, and made it to Onjuku by this afternoon. At about five or six o'clock, we were waiting at the station for our train home. Sitting on a bench, reading, Laurie and I were surprised to find this beetle bumming around. And bumming he was. You'd call it moping except he didn't seem depressed. At first I was afraid he'd scare Laurie, since the first I saw him, he was maybe three feet from her feet. But she wasn't scared. Then we took some film and pictures of him as he went on his merry way, antennae wiggling, towards the far end of the platform by the smoking section (I didn't see him light up, though).

It was either that or more pictures of Onjuku, in which case I may as well rename the blog. We've been there six or seven times, now. More than almost any other destination. But that's not a complaint! This time we got me a bright pink inner tube and I went out to catch some waves with the surfers!

Idioms

Today being the first day that's muggy enough to turn on the fan, we've been having quite the conversation here in the English department while enjoying the breeze. Amongst several interesting tidbits I'll share just a few that I wrote down (the rest simply got lost in my terrible memory, but anyway, here goes):

The Japanese have a nifty expression when speaking self-deprecatingly about their garden:



うちの庭は、猫の額ほどのひろさです。
Uchi no niwa wa, neko no hitai hodo no hirosa desu.
"My garden is as small as a cat's forehead."

Another interesting expression is used when Japanese wish to comment unfavorably on the small quantity or size of something. For example,


私の給料は、雀の涙です。
Watashi no kyuuryou wa, suzume no namida desu.
"My paycheck is as small as a sparrow's tears."

Lastly, though this one isn't an idiom like the two above, it's still relevant because I wouldn't have heard it were it not so hot out today.



暑いな畜生!!!
Atsuina chikushou!!!
"this weather's for the beasts!" Or possibly, "Damn, it's beastly hot out!"

I'm told not to use this last one in formal, polite, or any but the most casual of situations.

Perquisites

I just wanted to brag a little.



I came home for lunch and managed to get a photo of it before I ate it all. Salmon fried with pineapples and onions, a bowl of rice, and miso soup with a cup of houjicha tea...(only the main dish and the tea cup are in the photo, but you get the idea).

Indeed.

This is one of the best parts of this job. I live five minutes' walk from school and get a forty-five minute lunch break everyday. And on days when Laurie's not working, she makes things like this for me. All the time!

Onjuku Redux

This weekend I decided to keep the backpack on my lap.

So we made it to Onjuku Beach with all our stuff.

The weather was wonderful. The sun felt all the more warmer and closer because it was hiding right behind a waxy layer of clouds. Every once in a while it would peak out along with a hint of blue sky, but mostly it was a delightfully overcast day, the perfect atmosphere for being at the beach.

Friday night at eleven I'd started reading a novel, Eragon. (Laurie caught me around five in the morning sitting at the kitchen table with a headlamp--still reading.) So naturally, yesterday, I had two items on my agenda: finishing the book and having a nap!

I finished the last couple hundred pages as soon as we found a spot to lay down.

Then we played in the water for a while.
Next time I'll wear swimming trunks when we go to the beach.
(wet underwear makes for a sore train ride home...)

There were lots of surfers out, too. It looks really fun. If only surfboards weren't a thousand dollars...

Lastly, I had a nice lazy nap. Long enough for a weird uneven tan-burn to mar my otherwise lovely skin.

Onjuku

A lazy hour or so ride to Onjuku. The kind of train ride where, when you get off the train, you stretch, yawn, and look about with glazed eyes before plodding off to leave the station. The kind of train ride where, if you put your backpack full of the day's supplies (things like, say, "lunch" "swimming clothes" "beach towels") up on the train's overhead carrier, you forget about it when you get off the train.

Yup.

It was just that kind of train ride.

Star Wars III 1/2: Sith Vacation

Today the 1A students continued their journey to computer mastery.

We have been working on a tutorial where they learn how to find images on the internet, copy them and import them to Photoshop, and then manipulate them. Today we succeeded in finishing the tutorial with modest success. Overall, I am pleased with their performance. The force is strong with this bunch.

The finished result looked something like this:



They seemed to get a kick out of it. Of course, the hardest part was getting them used to the basics. From there they had few problems. Clearly, when students are interested in the subject matter, they can overcome almost any language barrier.

A Red Herring and Then...

Found this today at the Devil's Dictionary. For some reason I thought it was funny. It reminded me of a very productive hour I spent in philosophy class once. Something about Hegel, I think.

That, and I was just reading peoples' online opinions about the latest news from Apple (they are switching to Intel chips). Of course that was a rabbit trail which led to another set of opinions about the slow death DRM (Digital Rights Management) is causing the Fair Use / Creative Commons community.

But that has relatively little (if anything) to do with life here at Toke.

* * *

Today's classes were Monday's classes. That's because yesterday (Monday) we didn't have class.

Why not?

Well, because we had Tuesday's classes on Saturday.

Yup. On Saturday we had 4th, 5th, and 6th periods from Tuesday's classes during the same time that we normally have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd periods during the weekdays.

We had class on Saturday so that parents could come and see what they are like (it had something to do with the PTA I think). As Murphy's Law would have it, I had nothing to do from noon until 4 except be at work (the weather was lovely), and nobody came to observe the classes I was in!

もったいない. [That's Japanese for "such a waste"]

But I had a really great time with the students. For whatever reason it didn't seem to register with them that they were in school on a weekend. (All I can say to that is, when I was in school, weekends were sacrosanct. You couldn't get me to take classes on a weekend. That was a special kind of punishment.) So it was actually really productive. We did a warmup game and some brainstorming, and their enthusiasm seemed to really spark their interest in the lesson at hand. It was just the thing to raise my spirits, too. I actually didn't mind going into work after that. And sitting around all afternoon wasn't too bad, either, since there's always more lessons to plan and papers to shuffle.