I wanna be a Toys-R-Us kid!

I remember one time when my brother and my mom and I went shopping in Knoxville, Tennessee and we went to the Toys-R-Us. My brother made some joke involving the Toys-R-Us song, "I wanna be a Toys-R-Us kid, There's bikes to ride and video games, it's the biggest toy store there is! I don't wanna grow up, cause if I did, I wouldn't be a Toys-R-Us kid" You know the song. Anyway, for some reason this picture reminded me of that, and I don't know why, but I thought I'd share. So these pictures were taken on April 2nd, so about a month ago. Markian and I went to Hiyajima park just to explore. It's basically a mountain that you climb up and the whole mountain is the park. There was this really cool playground there and I made Markian hold my stuff and I played on the slide and sat on the camel and had lots of fun. This old lady laughed at me, which made it ten times funnier. haha. The bottom picture is a weird slide thing, but the whole structure is shaped like an airplane which is pretty neat, or at least I was amused by it. But, what do I know? I'm easily amused!

As of this moment I'm officially on vacation. I just got off of work so now my Golden Week holiday has begun! I can be a Toys-R-Us kid again! Yipee! :-D

Itsukushima Shrine: Part 1

I have so many pictures they need to be in more than one post! The is the shrine on Miyajima that the big floating tori gate belongs to. It's the main attraction on the island. The shrine is actually on the sea. It's really pretty when the tide is high. It wasn't that high then, but not low either when we visited. The shrine is actually one of the few shinto shrines in Japan where you have to pay a small entrance fee to get in. Usually these are free and the temples are what cost money to enter. This was well worth the 2 or 3 bucks I spent to get in. It was really neat, and like nothing I'd ever seen before. The shrine is built basically on a big dock and it feels like you're walking out on the sea.

Work is keeping me crazy busy, but after today I'll have a week off for Golden Week! I'm very excited, and ready for this much needed break. Now I'm off to school to plan more lessons and then teach my classes today!

The famous floating tori at Miyajima

More pictures from my huge Miyajima collection. Here is one of the most famous sites in Japan, the famous, floating tori gate. It's so beautiful here that words can't describe it. A picture doesn't capture it either. I think it's the contrast of the blue sea against the huge orange tori that I like so much. The picture of Markian and I together is crooked because I sat the camera on a rock and had it take it in auto mode.






Tomorrow is another work day. :-( No more play and sleep. I have to get back to planning lessons. Later!

Oh and by the way...for those that haven't figured it out yet, if you want to see the images closer or see details click on the image and you get a nice high resolution image! Keep the comments coming!

Hard Gay in Hiroshima!!!!

Alright, I can't contain my excitement so I had to post about it!! Hard Gay, Razor Ramon as he's also known, is going to be here in a week at the Hiroshima flower festival!!! hehe!! I just read it on http://www.gethiroshima.com and I'm super excited. This dude totally cracks me up, and I was amused by his comedy last time I was in Japan in 2006. I can't wait to see him live! I have to find out exactly where he's playing so I don't miss it! I think it's free too cause it's part of the festival although I could be wrong.

So, for those that don't know...Hard Gay a character that Razor Ramon plays that is incredibly gay and he annoys people and thrusts his hips at everything. It's the strangest, most disturbing, yet funniest thing I think I've ever seen. Download some videos with Hard Gay on http://www.youtube.com and you'll see what I mean. Search for Hard Gay, Razor Ramon.

Anyway, I'm so excited now. Golden Week is going to be so much fun!!!! Between sleeping and Hard Gay, and yummy food, and pretty flowers, and no work....yipee!!!

The entrance way to Itsukushima Shrine

More pics from Miyajima. These are from the entrance way to the very famous shrine there, Itsukushima Shrine. This is the first tori gate. It was such a beautiful day, and the water was so pretty and I love the lion statues. I want to go back in the fall and see the pretty leaves.

Tonight marks the start of our weekend which is much needed. I gave myself a head injury yesterday. I bumped heads with a kid while leaning over to pick up a dice. He was unhurt and laughed and thought it was the funniest thing ever. Granted, that kid cracks me up because he laughs at anything and everything. Other kids when they make a mistake they whine or cry. This kid will point to his paper and go, "No! Wrong! hahahahahahaha!" like it's the funniest thing ever then fix it. I love how easily amused he is. Thank god he wasn't hurt. He stopped laughing when he saw that I was crying. I got a huge knot on my head and I was all dizzy so Mark was like, "Maybe it was a mild concussion or something." I had a splitting headache and it hurt to tilt my head. I still have a headache and it's sore today. The kids were pointing to my head in the middle of the lesson and yelling the Japanese word for bruise. I didn't know what they were saying till I'd left. haha

The ladies in my night class at the community center asked me what had happened. They are so awesome. This time a lady brought me french chocolates and they gave me another ride home so I didn't have to walk 30 minutes! Seriously, great people and wonderful students. They're beginner level, but they try so hard and really, really want to learn English. Friday is my worst day because it's so long, but that class makes everything so much better.

I'm waiting for my rice too cool off. I'm fixing some sushi for supper, crab cucumber sesame rolls. Good stuff! Easy, cheap, and not bad for ya. Finally something green. It's very difficult to eat my diet here. Vegetables and fruit are so expensive! ONE apple will cost you around 4 or 5 dollars! ugh So no fruit for me.

Children cry and it sucks

Yeah, so the cutest little girl ever cried on me today. It wasn't cool. I actually am still confused as to what upset her. She is in my beginning kid's class. She seemed cranky at first today because if she wasn't the first one to do something she whined a lot. Well, for some reason about ten minutes before the lesson was over she started screaming and wailing. I have no idea why. Her sister tried to calm her down, but that made her scream louder. The owner of the school came over and game her tissue which she threw back at him and wailed even louder. The sister called her parents because the girl wouldn't get up to go home when class ended. I hope this doesn't happen again. I hate seeing a kid cry, plus it disrupts the other students. That little girl was so cute and happy last week. I wonder what was different today that had her so upset.

I have to go out to the high school again tomorrow so I have to get up really early so I should get some sleep. I'll leave you with this huge tower of plastic pasta.

What we teach

This picture is from a branch school that Markian teaches at. I observed a class here during training, but I don't teach out here. So, what we teach is different depending on who and where the class is. I'll run through a few examples. We are teaching English conversation, not the type of English class you had in middle school where you underlined the verb and circled the direct object...etc. It's basically the methods I learned in the CELTA (certificate in teaching English language to adults) course. We don't use the grammar terms if we can help it. We want the students to use the language as much as possible. The teacher needs to talk as little as possible, and the students talk as much as possible. English is the only language used in the classroom, as these classes are full immersion. Classes run from complete beginners to advanced students who are basically fluent, but maybe they have trouble with writing or just need to use English in order to not loose it.

The basic children's classes have five levels. I teach three beginner classes and I teach the children phonics. Some of the kids in the classes may know the alphabet, but they don't know phonics so they have to start at the bottom. I play games with them that get them to use the language. We teach phonics to the junior high schoolers too, the beginners anyway. Other than the phonics the adult classes are the same, activities that make them use the language, but they still have fun at the same time. Different activities work better for different groups. Private lessons are basically whatever the student wants. Some are working towards passing a test, while others need English to travel or give presentations...etc. I really enjoy it so far. My students are wonderful. The kids are so well behaved, and polite and motivated. The adults really want to be here, and even the beginners try, so so hard to speak and come up with the right words and ask questions. Oh and we also teach company classes. Markian teaches in the University because he has a master's degree and can do so. His university is really far away and he has to ride the bullet train (shinkansen) to get there!

A typical day teaching

This blog entry, and maybe some more if I don't cover all I want to here, is made by request of my uncle. Thanks for the request. If anyone has more, please let me know through a comment, because I don't always know what people are interesting in hearing.

So, I'll run though a typical day teaching. I work Tuesday through Saturday. I thought I'd mostly be teaching at the main school here in the center of Hiroshima City. However, I was wrong, I teach about everywhere but there! I only teach at the main school on Saturday, which is my lightest day. The school is a fifteen minute walk from our apartment. The school pays for transportation from the main school to the other branch schools and public schools that I teach out at. The job itself is great, but the schedule is very tight and the traveling makes me exhausted and gives little time for planning as you will see here in a moment.

My most hectic day is is Friday. On Friday I get up at 7:00 AM and leave the apartment about 7:45 to walk to the train station which takes 20 to 30 minutes depending on how fast I walk. I then ride a train to a smaller city called Kure which takes around an hour. It depends on if I take the local or rapid train. I usually take whichever is available. It's a long, but beautiful train ride along the coast of Japan and the inland sea. I can see mountains and island being reflected in the water. The train goes through lots of tunnels too. I enjoy the train ride, and it's not a crowded train, unlike the first train I take to get to the main station where I can hardly breath and the doors don't want to close because so many people have decided to cram on the train, myself included.

When I arrive at Kure station I walk for 25 minutes to a private (I think) junior high school up on a hill. It's very nice, you take off your shoes upon entering and put on slippers, and I have my own desk and cubby, mailbox and locker to keep all my stuff. I spend the majority of two of my days here. I am the only junior high school native English speaker here. I will elaborate more about the types of lessons later, but I teach 7th, 8th, and 9th graders here and the classes are 45 minutes a piece.

My classes on Friday are done at 2:30 and I must rush back to the station in order to catch another train back and ride the hour back. Then I catch a bus for a 10 minute bus ride to the south side of Hiroshima City to teach a beginning kids class (1 hour long). After this I must rush back up to the northeast side of town to teach an adult class (1 hour and a half long) at the community center. By the time this is over, it's 8:00 and I have to either head back to main branch to grab some stuff (20 minute walk) and then walk to the grocery store and then home. So most days I don't get home till after 9:00 and then I have to cook dinner and I'm extremely tired, and I have to plan lessons. So the traveling is nice and tiresome at the same time. Wednesday and Friday are very tight like this, and I can't miss a train or bus or I will miss my class. Other days are rushed, but not quite as bad.

So, hopefully I didn't bore anyone, but that's my workday schedule for Friday. I don't know how else to show how far I travel and where all I go. I shall elaborate on what types of things I actually teach in another entry.

Salt-water eel (not unagi)

At our day at Miyajima, we had some yummy food. Mark tried the salt-water eel, since it is a specialty here and he likes the fresh water eel a lot. He said it was different, not as buttery and more fishy. His meal is the one pictured on top with the miso soup, pickled veggies, and salt-water eel over rice.

I ate tempura with rice and cold soba noodles. The tempura is pictured below and includes a prawn, eggplant, Japanese pumpkin, shitake mushroom, and a hot pepper. It was good, but I've had better at other places. Later, and sadly I don't have a picture, we tried oysters because this region specializes in them. They were ok, but I'm not a huge fan. We got the cooked ones.

Yesterday and today are our weekend. It's coming to an end, so quickly. I have lots of planning to do for next week! Only two more weeks and we'll have another long holiday, which is something to look forward to!

Lucky Cat Meow

The kitty cat is beckoning luck with his paw. He is a lucky kitty cat! Meow! Kitties like this can be seen everywhere made of different materials and of different sizes. This one was taken at Miyajima. It makes me happy and is nice to look at after a stressful week at work. It makes me think of Miw, who I miss, so, so much!

Work itself is great, but the traveling between different places is long and tiring. A typical day starts at 7:00 AM when I wake up and I'm traveling and teaching all day and don't get home til 9:00 or 10:00 PM. It's very tiring, and finding the right bus, train, way to walk...etc... is very stressful. I'm hoping next week will be better. The directions I was given were horrible. Such as, "walk past the McDonalds and turn left" and then there was a note next to that saying, "McDonalds is no longer there". haha so worthless! I was also told the wrong buses to get on and it was crazy bad and scary. That was Friday, which was a particularly bad day. However, it ended very well. I taught a beginner level adult class at the community center and they were so nice and tried so hard. They gave me Japanese sweets and a really cute change purse. One of the students drove me home and saved me a 30 minute walk! Really, really, nice people. Although I got lost so many times people are very friendly and willing to help. I like that about here. In the US, most people wouldn't stop to help a foreigner. Here, you just look a little lost and usually someone will come up and say, "Can I help you?" or "Where are you trying to go?" and they will try their best to get you there.

Today is our day off and now we're off for some yummy Indian food! I'm excited! I've missed good spicy food!

The biggest rice paddle EVER!

I seriously think I found it. This has to be a pretty freaking huge rice paddle, and I don't think I've ever seen one bigger. I challenge you to find a bigger rice paddle and a huge bowl of rice to use the rice paddle on. This picture was taken on Miyajima island. They are known for making really great rice paddles there . You can buy them there, but they're not this big! Apparently the rice doesn't stick to it, and it doesn't get the flavor of the wood in the rice. I didn't buy one, but I'm sure I'll be back to Miyajima again before I leave Japan. I'm planning on going in the fall to see all the beautiful leaves on the mountains.

The reason for lack of updates is that I'm actually working full-time now and am incredibly busy. I haven't had much sleep or food lately, as I'm trying to adjust to this new schedule. Many of my schools are very far out and I do a lot of traveling within a day. Since I'm afraid of being late and I don't know where I'm going, I have to leave extra early to make sure I get there. Teaching is going well though. So far the groups I've had have been really great, especially the kids. They're very well behaved and really try and want to learn. I couldn't ask for more. Mark seems to have good groups as well. I rarely see him though except for at night. I'm glad we have the same days off so we can spend time with each other then. I saw him in passing once at the school today, and that was it till he came home about 9:40 at night for dinner.

More details later, but for now, I'm extremely sleepy and want to go to bed cause it's midnight and I have three more long days ahead of me before Sunday. Markian needs to go to bed cause he has to catch a train early tomorrow and I know he'll just stay up till god knows when unless I say, "Hey, let's go to bed." and then complain about being tired tomorrow haha So goodnight everyone!

Petting deer makes me happy!

I love animals, and to find out that Miyajima is a lot like Nara in that there are tons of sacred deer running around the island made me really happy. The deer are friendly because they want food, so most of them will walk right up to you and sniff you for food. I just pet them cause I can.

As soon as you step off the ferry boat onto the island you're bombarded with tons of deer. If you make the mistake of feeding them, they will chase you and jump on you, and get all crazy (see the bottom picture with the poor guy that got surrounded by them--this wouldn't have happened if he didn't feed them! I don't know, maybe some people like to be followed around by a hoard of deer. They make really weird noises too.


I walk around trying to pet a bunch of them, but Markian never wants to pet any of them! So I told him he was missing out on all the fun. I'm like a kid when it comes to animals, cartoons, or amusement parks. My first time in Japan last year I spent two hours in this huge toy store in Tokyo.

I love my new camera. It's making blogging so much easier. Well, I think we're off to possibly Mitaki-Dera today...I'm not sure.

I am sure that I want to eat before I go though! So hungry!

The journey to Miyamjima

Yesterday, Friday, Markian and I finally got to take our trip to Miyajima island. I'd wanted to go there since my last visit to Japan, so I was incredibly excited. We had been putting it off, as I wanted to make sure I timed it right to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom on the island.

I am cheap so we rode the street car instead of the train down to Miyajima-guchi station, which takes about an hour from the city center of Hiroshima. I enjoy riding the street car, because I like to look out the window and see the sites, so I didn't mind the ride. It's also nice when you get on early and there is a seat to sit in. The street car far within the city is only 150 yen a ride...but once you go west and south towards Miyajima the far slowly increases. It costs us 270 yen one way to Miyajima-guchi station which isn't bad at all.


Then you take a ferry, either JR (Japan Rail) or another company which we ended up taking. The price is the same, so it doesn't really matter. We did notice later though that JR has ferries that leave earlier in the morning and later at night than the other company. The ferry is a little under 400 yen round trip. The ferry ride itself is nice because you can see the huge Tori gate on you approach to the island. It seems to get bigger and bigger as you see in my pictures as you scroll towards the bottom. We were the only nuts out on the balcony on the top of the boat and not inside. It was so cold with the wind blowing, but I was so excited and happy to be there and I wanted my pictures!
Speaking of pictures, I have a new camera!!! Yeah!!! So, no more picture disasters or mishaps or hours trying to download! I took over 300 pictures yesterday and still have many more from earlier to share with you, so many more posts about Miyajima will be made after this when I get around to it! Today we go to work to get our schedules. We're finally going to know what classes we will be teaching! I'm nervous and excited!

Sakura at Hiroshima Castle

More pictures from yesterday's cherry blossom outing. I was hoping to have another today, but the weather didn't cooperate. It was freezing cold and we went down to the marina, but that's a story for another day. And tomorrow we're stuck here waiting for the fridge and the repairman. So, Friday is our next outing.

So Hiroshima Castle is a reconstruction of course, since most of the city was destroyed during the war. The castle is in it's original place that it used to stand and I think the foundations may be original. I'm not sure cause we didn't go in because the inside is a museum and I've been in a reconstructed castle before, Osaka Castle, and it wasn't that exciting and I didn't want to blow cash on it. The grounds are particularly beautiful at the time of year as you can see from the pictures. I have plenty more, the ones I've posted here are views from outside the castle walls on the other side of the moat. The moat is lined with Cherry trees and some of my pictures turned out postcard perfect after about 30 tries to get one photo to work. I think this camera is seriously shot. Today it took about 30 shots to get one picture. I was about ready to throw this thing in the marina!

There were a lot of people walking around the area. When we walked up here the first week there was no one here. Next year, I would like to try to go to Himeji castle and get photos. It's a few hours from here and is totally original and is supposed to be beautiful under the cherry blossoms. I'm just agitated I have to be stuck in this apartment tomorrow when I'd planed to go to Mitaki Dera and take more pictures! :-( It's too pretty to be stuck inside! The blossoms are starting to fall off the trees. They won't be here much longer.

Sakura

Yesterday was spent walking all over town, and I do mean all over town, viewing as many cherry blossoms as we can before they're all gone. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so all the pretty blossoms probably will all be gone in a couple days. I took over two hundred pictures on our outing out. These are just a sample from the beginning, so there are many more to come.

The majority of these photos were taken near or in the Peace Park and along the river near it. The riverside is lined with cherry blossoms and is so beautiful and you can smell the sweet blossoms when the wind blows. I see why people pay so much money to come here during this touristy time. It's spectacular. You have wonderful weather, not too cold not too hot for the most part, and everything is just prettier with cherry blossoms. The park, the castle, the garden...it was awesome to begin with and now it's like 10 times better!

So the walk was even longer because we walked along the river when possible because it was so pretty. We walked from our apartment on the west side of town up to the Castle in the north and over towards the main train station and then back down and east towards a mountainous park, where the entire mountain is covered with cherry blossoms. I now have blisters on my feet (I'm sure you wanted to know that), but it was totally worth it.

My camera has decided to act up in another way now. Sometimes it will not take a picture. I just get complete blackness. I think the shutter is screwed up. I guess I'm going to have to invest in a new one because I take so many pictures and well, life would be boring without wonderful pictures.

Today was very cold, though there were still people picnicking out under the trees drinking sake and eating bentos in the cold.


Markian and I spent the evening exploring the rest of our neighborhood in the cold dark. We saw a family having dinner under a cherry tree which they'd hooked a light up too, which was kinda funny. The rest of the neighborhood further west seems very residential, so there really wasn't anything interesting other than some love hotels. I know my dad is going to get here and be like, "You said there weren't other hotels. What about that one?" haha And they'll all be love hotels and we'll have to explain it's not the type he's looking for.

Japanese BBQ Party

Last night Markian and I went to a student of mine's house (well I'd only taught him once, but still...) for a Japanese style BBQ party. It was a wonderful experience. We had loads of fun and met many wonderful people there. It was very kind of the student to invite me; he's a really, really nice guy.

A lady at our work was invited too and she met us so we could find the place and get on the correct bus. It was very nice of her, and I don't know how we would have got there otherwise. She's a really cool person. I talked to her a lot last night.

So, basically food was loads of meat and veggies that were placed on a grill and then you pull off what you want into your bowl and dip it in a Japanese Style BBQ sauce. It was really yummy! I only ate veggies, but Mark tried all kinds of strange meat. Including chicken skin on a stick. We had custard puffs and Japanese pancakes with custard for dessert.

I had a kid there who was really nice take my camera and take pictures, so it was cool downloading and seeing what she'd taken. Here are only a few of many. The dog in the picture was very friendly. He barked, but only because he wanted attention. I sampled a variety of beverages as well....which was rather interesting. So, fun was had by all. I'm hoping I get this student in my class because he's very nice and interesting to talk to!