kyoto!

What a time to be in my favorite city in Japan. The leaves were at their peak and the weather was perfect. Julia, Caitlin, and me spent the majority of our weekend in Kyoto on foot going to temples and exploring downtown.


On Saturday, we walked from our ryokan (traditional japanese guesthouse) to a temple that was a few kilometers from where we stayed. There was a zen garden and tatami (woven straw mats) rooms where you are encouraged to sit enjoy the view of the garden.


A stone path made its way around the structures in the garden. Most of the ground was covered with deep green moss, reminding me of the rocky/mossy terrain of Iceland.


This is what you'd see when you would look up. The sun made the colors look almost electric and we were in awe of the sight of it.






Julia, taking a break in the first temple.


Caitlin, all "Zened up".


Me, exploring a path outside.


After some coffee, we headed out to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. We knew that it would probably be crowded with packs of tourists but headed up the hill to see it at night. it was an impressive sight so we snapped a few photos and made our way back downtown.


The night ended at an amazing restaurant downtown where we ate dinner with some of Julia's Yamagata-ken friends. Afterwards we all went to bed, having been needing some rest because of walking all day and also due to staying up until 8:00 am the night before. In most Japanese cities, subways stop running before midnight so you either have to go home early or stay out until the trains start running again the next morning, which is usually around 5:00 am. Taking a taxi is always an option but in this case we went to Osaka on Friday night to go to club that Julia and me visited a few months ago so we were nowhere close to our ryokan.

Well, weather it was the lack of sleep or something I ate over the weekend, I ended up getting really sick once I got back to Naruto. Around 8:00 pm on Sunday I crawled into my bed and wrapped myself in blankets but could not stop shivering. I drifted off to sleep shortly after that and awoke at 7:00 am the next morning. I knew that I couldn't teach like this so I called my supervisor and told her that I was staying home. I fell back asleep and woke up at 3:00 pm only because my body needed some kind of liquid put in it. Somehow, I managed to get up and make my way to the Sunkus (a convenience store) down the road to buy something to drink. It was HOT this day as well, which made my condition a lot worse. I was running a high fever and feeling delusional as a result...my back was sore, I had a massive headache, non-stop stomach pains, etc. So what did I do? I drank a ton of Pocari Sweat.


Japan's ubiquitous "ion supply drink" actually did make me feel a lot better but I still needed to rest off my headache and I could tell that my stomach problems weren't going away anytime soon. I went to bed early again and in the morning I decided to stay home and rest so that I could shake this as soon as possible. I called my supervisor once again and she said that she'd call my school to tell them that I'd be home sick that day. Well, at 9:00 am I got a frantic text message from one of my co-teachers saying that I "have a class to teach at 9:30!! We are waiting for you!" I don't have the phone number to any of my teachers at this school or the school itself so I didn't know what to do. It turned out that my supervisor had forgot to call the school to tell them that I was at home with a fever. Knowing that it would be impossible to explain the situation though a cell phone text, there was nothing left to do but...yep...hop on my bike and go teach some classes. High fever, no sleep, no lesson plans and all- somehow I survived the day. The teachers were all very understanding at the circumstances and, actually, my supervisor forgot to call my school because she was out buying me sushi and okonomiyaki (she knows how much I like both), so there were good intentions on all ends.

This weekend I was going to run a 10k in the mountains a bit south of Naruto but I decided to skip out on it because of the whole sickness ordeal. Instead I'm spending this Saturday night catching up on some letters, doing some reading, and watching the movie The Holy Mountain. Next weekend I'll be visiting an orphanage near Tokushima City with some other JETs and we'll be spending a few hours with the kids there. I'm excited for it because I'll be buying a gift for a 13 year old girl and I'll be able to give her some company on a Saturday afternoon. In the evening I'll be having dinner with one of my favorite teachers at her house so it'll be a good day.

At the JET mid-year conference this week I was inspired to refine some of my lessons for the Naruto Tech kids. I met another technical high school teacher who was introducing a curriculum for her very low level classes that I'm excited to try. Now that I'm a hit with the students there I think I can now really get down to some meaningful lessons that may have some good effects on them over time...even if they don't realize it.

So that's about it here. Things are busy as always but being busy and sick in a foreign country is NO FUN. I'm happy to be recovered now, though. Oh, I've also been doing a bit more exploring on my bike throughout Naruto. Last night I went to a really fun yoga class and a few days a go I found an awesome retro/thrift warehouse that's right near my house. It's funny how places around here can look uninteresting or even closed down from the outside and then on the inside you'll find something really worth checking out. On the agenda for tomorrow is spending some time a coffee shop that's a stone's throw away from my apartment. Ahh, it's nice to take a weekend to relax once in a while, isn't it?

quote of the day

"I want to be a fireman so that I can delete fires."

-7th grade student, Diini-chu middle school.

naruto technical high school culture day

What a good day. Culture festivals are a great chance to get to know the students and faculty at your schools and I was hoping to be able to converse a good deal because I was taking part in the events of the day. Wow, I shouldn't have worried because I feel like I talked to almost everyone there.


These guys insisted that I take their picture and of course I was happy to do so. The student on the right did karaoke for what seemed like an hour on the main stage...his wig blew off about two songs into the routine.


Every homeroom either sold food or had games that you'd pay money to play. I was given multiple cups of french fries and small pancakes (they have a name but I forget what it is) and felt obligated to eat all of it in front of the students who were watching to see if I'd like it.


One of the first performances of the day was a group of teachers and students who did a dance to some really crazy, loud, fast techno music. As with many things in Japan I didn't understand it but enjoyed it anyway.


A big crowd started to gather once my band was up. I soon realized that we were the main attraction of the day.


We played and sounded great. I didn't mess up at all which was good.



Well, I can truly say that after I played with the band that there were students fighting for my attention. It was great because I got to learn some more names and become more of a familiar face to my students.





After the festival I took off on my new bike and headed out to pick up some things for dinner. Having a nice bike has made me so happy...my travel time has been greatly reduced and I can sleep in more on weekdays without worrying about giving myself an hour to get to my schools that are far away.



New bike.


Old bike.


On my way home I stopped at the sports park and happened upon some archery.


And I finally stopped at one of the temples that's only minutes from my apartment.

Yeah, it was a good Sunday for sure.

things that happened yesterday

Well, I am really happy because yesterday I discovered that there is a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi restaurant in Naruto. Theo, Jill, myself, and our supervisor Sato had lunch there and I spent about $12 but I felt like I could eat twice as much as I actualy did. It's funny because around dinnertime I was considering more sushi but decided against it because bento (packaged lunch) sushi doesn't stand up to the taste of kaiten, mostly because the latter is generally made minutes before you eat it.


Later on in the day I biked over to Naruto Tech for band practice. Our three songs are solid and we're pumped for the show on Sunday. Practicing in this space is cool because it reminds me so much of the places back home where I spent years writing and playing music. These guys are so funny to hang out with. The guitar player is always straight up with me if I mess up or my tempo is off...and if we play a song well he'll look at me and say, "OOOKKKK!!"

waking up sore

So I found this picture on my camera this morning and was reminded of a great dinner that I had a few weeks ago. My neighbor Hiroki (holding the baby) invited me over and I spent the evening talking about psychedelic music with her husband Taka (in the back). A good night for sure.

These past few weeks have been busy. I've been buying a lot of things for my apartment and I finally found a new bike that I'll be picking up tomorrow. Having a a reliable bike is putting my mind at ease because I cycle for miles each day and I don't know anything about the one that I am currently riding now. Last night Theo and me practiced with the Tokushima women's basketball team. My legs are in shape from bike riding so I could handle the running (there was a LOT of it) but I still need to work on my shooting. Looking forward to doing it again next week.

naruto monthly dinners

Last night the Naruto teachers got together for our once-a-month dinner event. This time it was my turn to host the meal and I was happy to have the chance to cook for five people (Caitlin was there as well) instead of just myself. Here is what I made:

Mixed fruit/veggie salad
two bundles of spinach
one head of red leaf lettuce
1/2 of a sliced pineapple
4 sliced kiwis
3 sliced carrots
2 sliced onions
one container of cherry tomatoes
basil leaves
broccoli
one handful of sliced scallions
one package of clover sprouts
cashews
sesame seeds

Homemade sweet and spicy citrus honey mustard dressing
juice from one squeezed orange and 3 squeezed mikans (Japanese citrus fruit)
apple cider vinegar
pure honey
black sesame paste
sesame and olive oil
spicy dijon mustard
two large scoops of nutritional yeast
crushed black pepper

Sauteed sesame-style veggies
3 sliced red peppers
one large bag of mushrooms (sliced)
2 sliced onions
sesame seeds
sesame oil
salt/pepper as seasoning
(sauteed for 45 minutes on low heat and served over brown rice)

Pineapple yogurt granola
Three cups of yogurt
1/2 of a sliced pineapple (put in a food processor in with the yogurt)
2 sliced bananas
one bag of prunes (pitted and diced)
2 cups of granola
pure maple syrup for added sweetness


And the best thing about hosting is my fridge full of leftovers. Nothing like coming home to prepared food to make my Monday a little easier.

the highs and lows of motivation

If someone would have told me at 10:00am this morning that I would end this day in a positive mood I would have never believed it. The kind of experiences that I am having today while teaching are analogous to many of my thoughts about living here: many highs and a good number of lows. But the one thing that will keep me interested in this job is that you honestly will never know what will happen next.


I woke up this morning feeling pretty high spirited (or 'genki' for those that know the term). My usual routine of finding something to wear while prepping a nice bowl of miso soup went by quickly because of my excitement for the weekend. I got to school just before the morning meeting and looked over my lesson plans for my classes. Three classes to teach and then band practice after school. Should be a good day. Well, my good mood soon crashed after attempting to teach my first lesson. I walked into a room of about 15 high school students who were all busy doing their own things before class. The top three things that fall into this category are: 1) reading manga (comic books) or drawing; 2) listening to music via headphones; and 3) messing around with his/her keitai (cell phone). All of this is fine. All of this is usual at this school (it is technical high school, mind you) but today the lack of motivation in these kids hit me harder than it has since I've been here. I began my lesson (the 'lesson' was a simple game where groups wrote down words that fall under a category...i.e. RED- tomato, strawberry, etc.) and explained the rules in simple English as always. My co-teacher translated and we split the class into groups and I began our simple activity after passing out papers to the groups. Now, I knew that a lot of these guys (the school is 95% male) were just going to put their heads down, listen to music, eat convenience store food, or do whatever else that would keep them from participating. That is par for the course here and I have learned already to not let it bother me when I try to teach the really unmotivated classes. But in this case EVERY single student ignored the activity kept up the laziness/rudeness that was there even before I walked in. In most classes like this here I just take it as a challenge and handle it from there but every bit of my energy and encouragement hit a brick wall with this class. There are lots of 'bad' kids here at this school but I usually get along with them and feed off their energy in really positive ways, but the thing that puts me in a corner with unmotivated students is the COMPLETE lack of discipline at the majority of my schools. Since there is absolutely no punishment system at all for these kids then they have no reason to listen to authority at any time. I have never seen a teacher take any action against a student and I have already had kids jump out of a classroom window as I was teaching and I witnessed one student punch another in the face just to show off in front of his friends (this happened in front of me and another teacher...she looked at me and just shrugged her shoulders). At one school I brought up the discipline issue to a teacher by mentioning possible consequences for bad behavior and she shot me a nasty look as if to say "how dare you question our education system...."

I could go on and on with arguments and examples but the fact is that it's my opinions versus an entire society's beliefs and that's a fight not worth taking on. I really never thought that any school would discard many (if not all) ideas on discipline. The fact remains at some of my schools is that I am the 'token Westerner' and I'm not there to teach but to 'promote internationalization' simply by showing up. This may sound like I'm getting really down on my job but I knew about this stuff before coming here. As my predecessor Jane once put it, "80% of my job is my existence." Right on, Jane.

But here is the other side of the coin.

After finishing up some sushi and tea for lunch I headed down the hall to attend my last class of the day. My co-teacher, Ogawa sensei, and I were talking about lesson plans as we walked to the room and I was feeling relieved that my last class of the week was finally here. As I entered the room I still felt a bit numb from that terrible first class of the day and thoughts like "What I am doing here?", "How am I a teacher?", and "Again, what made me decide to move to rural Japan?" were floating all around my head. So, I walk in to class. I see the eyes of the students all at once light up and am absolutely showered with positive energy and affection. "Ahh, Brad sensei! Good morning! How are you?". It was exactly what I needed to validate my existence here and to kick start my ambitions for doing what I am doing. This was homeroom 35- possibly my favorite class in the school. I see many of them around town and they are all such nice kids. One of them came up to me before the lesson and said (in Japanese) that he saw me at the local Kyoei (a grocery store) last evening. I remembered that I stopped there for a bottle of water and some lettuce after my Japanese lesson. You would have thought that this kid saw his favorite celebrity on the streets by the look in his eyes.

So, I do the lesson (Around the World Jeopardy) and it goes soooo well. At times where my teaching is right on like this I wish that there could be a audience witnessing it. The students are literally jumping out of their seats to answer questions and they're doing very well with some pretty difficult questions for high school kids. I know that they think I have some kind of prize at the for the winner...and that's fine because their motivation is very real.

At the end of the class, the student from before approached me again about my grocery store visit.

"What did you buy there??"
"Lettuce."
"Lettuce??"
"Yep."
"That's very cheap."
"Haha, yep...I'm cheap."

So that's how it is here sometimes. I think of my time in Asia as a long-term adventure because there will be a point when I say goodbye to all of things that I deal with in here, both good and bad. Every day has its challenges...but that's life, you know?

practice with the blue hearts

I'm glad to say that my drumming 'ability' will be put to use again on November 18th at Naruto Technical High School's culture festival. Me and three of my students will be performing three songs by the Japanese rock band The Blue Hearts- a group that I have not heard of until I was handed some sheet music and a CD by one of my band members. Our first practice was last week and I admittedly showed up without listening to the songs beforehand. This did not go over too well with the other guys and I realized that they wanted me to play the drum parts note-per-note with the original version instead of playing by ear (which is what I usually do). So I spent my free time on Monday afternoon listening to the songs on my ipod and mapping out the song structures for my own visual reference. Needless to say, practice went a lot smoother after I put some effort into my end of the deal. We all had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to pounding the drums again tomorrow after school.


In other relevant news...I finally squared away my plans for the winter vacation. I was debating on where to go for a little while but a week ago I decided to buy a ticket to Bangkok, Thailand. From there, I will be catching a flight to Chiang Mai (Thailand) to meet up with Caitlin and her sister who is currently living there to work with Burmese refugees. As of now the plans are open ended for once we all meet but Cambodia and Laos are on the radar of places to visit. I'll be arriving in Bangkok on December 26th and I'll make my way out of southeast Asia on January 7th. It feels good to finally have my plans set. The other travel option that I was considering was a solo bike trip through New Zealand but think I'd like to give myself at least a month for that one. Maybe next winter, we'll see.

camping in the iya valley

This weekend I ventured out west to sneak in some camping before the winter weather settles in Tokushima. Caitlin was also up for an outside activity so after meeting her in Ikeda we drove even further west to the Iya Valley, also know as the 'Tibet of Japan'. Many guidebooks claim that the Iya vine bridges are the biggest attractions of the area but I think that just spending time camping in the valley was worth it alone.


We lucked out and there was a fall festival going on this weekend. On Sunday afternoon a traditional march took place on the one street that parallels the river in the valley. Although it blocked our exit from the campsite, we weren't upset that we had to stay and take part in the the event.






We did see a vine bridge and even attempted to cross it (although from the wrong direction) until someone yelled at us because we didn't pay. Thankfully, we were on it long enough before being scolded to get whole bridge experience under our belts and we walked away without giving up our 1,000 yen.