November School Events

Okay so I have officially ruined my status as a good blogger. Sorry, I kind of lost track of how long it's been since I last wrote. Some interesting things have gone on the past few weeks. You can read about the Shimizu S-Pulse game, Halloween, and the Daidogei street busking festival at Kelly's blog. The one thing I'll add is this picture of my jack-o-lantern that I carved at school.

















It's a cat!

Other happenings include my school's 100 year celebration last Friday. The whole school met at the Rose Theatre (the same place we saw the musical) for the whole school day. We had a practice ceremony in the morning so the students would know exactly what was going to happen. In the practice ceremony the speeches were much shorter. The real ceremony started in the early afternoon and the place was packed with honored alumni, PTA, donors, families, etc. I understood almost nothing that was said during the 2-plus hour ceremony and might have even dozed off a bit during the keynote speech by some famous Japanese soccer player/coach who I can only assume went to school there. But I did participate in the singing of the school song thanks to a translation from Kanji to Romaji by Andrea. I knew the tune because ever since the October 1 school assembly where the students sang it unsatisfactorily, they have been playing it during lunch every day. The students didn't sing along during lunch but I guess it was a threat to say, "If you don't sing it better at the 100 year ceremony we'll keep playing it during lunch every day for the rest of the year." I guess the principal was satisfied because they haven't been playing it anymore. The ceremony was capped off by a performance by our nearly-Olympic qualifying rhythmic gymnastics team. It was pretty impressive. And then a taiko drum performance finished it all off which was amazing and very loud. Also a little awkward when a few of the drumming guys came on stage in nothing but what appeared to be a sumo-type diaper. The reaction of the students made me realize that these students are not all too different from American students after all. So despite my inability to understand much, it was a nice ceremony and a good chance to be around all of the students and teachers in a different setting. I also got to wear my suit for the first time since Tokyo orientation.

Yesterday was Sports Day at my school. It's the annual day in the fall where everyone participates in sports instead of going to class. This is something that would never be allowed in American schools where parents would call and complain that their child shouldn't be forced to play sports. Here everybody did it and they took it seriously, evidenced by the high number of injuries that occurred. The school nurse was very busy. The first-year students played handball, second-years played volleyball, and third-years played basketball. I was an alternate for the 36 homeroom boys basketball team because they only have 5 boys but I would only play if one of them got hurt. I wanted to play but I didn't want anyone to get hurt so I didn't mind not getting to play. I'm also not very good at basketball so it was probably best that I didn't play. I did get to play on the teacher's handball team that played the winning boys handball team at the end of the tournament. I've never played handball before so I was kind of thrown into the fire a bit but I guess I held my own. I definitely had the biggest cheering section of anyone that was playing with constant cheers from all of the students of "Kory gambare!" I have to admit that made me feel pretty good. In the end the students won 8-7 in a sudden death overtime. And I got a nice scrape on my knee. Battle scars.

So sports day was fun. In May or June there is another sports day that involves more team building exercises, many of which look extremely dangerous to me. So when that happens I'll try to take some pictures. Other than all that, it's been mostly work and regular daily life. I'm definitely feeling like I've got a pretty good routine. I'm enjoying work and the cooler weather. Mt. Fuji has been looking very pretty lately with snow appearing on the top. It's amazing how much closer it looks when it's clear outside. Yesterday I could actually see the fifth station with my naked eye from a window at school. So we'll try to get some more pictures of Fuji-san soon. Please remember to check out our Flickr site for all of our pictures.

I hope everyone is doing well. Sometime soon for anyone who is interested I'm planning to do a post about some of my lessons so you can see exactly what I do in class. But I'm tired of typing now so it'll have to wait.

さよなら

Eventful Yet Relaxing Week

It's been a pretty easy week this week. Mid-terms were going on so there were no classes. Monday was a public holiday so on that day we slept in and then went and had sushi for lunch. The rest of the day was spent lazing around the house sleeping and doing whatever. Then on Tuesday Kelly had the day off because she worked on Saturday, so I took a day of paid leave since there was only testing going on at school which doesn't require my assistance. So we went to Shizuoka to get our multiple re-entry permits so if we want to leave the country we will be allowed back in. We heard about a good Mexican restaurant in Shizuoka and we were going to go check it out. It was raining so we bought some umbrellas at the train station and headed into the city. The map we had turned out to be very inaccurate but we eventually found the place after about 30 minutes of looking all around the area and of course it was randomly closed at 1pm on a Tuesday. Very disappointing. The sign out front said closed Sunday but said nothing about Tuesday. And it even said Tex Mex on the door which is exactly what I needed but alas, it was not to be. So we went and had ramen and gyoza. Always a good substitute. After that we went and got our permits done and headed back to Fuji. We would've gone to see some stuff in Shizuoka if not for the rain.

Tuesday night I finished reading a book that I started on Monday. A very quick read for me who usually takes at least a few weeks to read any book whose title doesn't start with "Harry Potter and the..." The book was called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I strongly recommend it. It is a great story that gives a little boost to your outlook on life. Certainly a fictional view of Heaven (for all we know) but very well written with a great view on the meaning of life. So anyway, check it out if you haven't already. It's by Mitch Albom, the same author as Tuesdays With Morrie.

So back to the week, Wednesday I went back to work, planned lessons for next week and played in a teachers badminton tournament. I haven't played badminton since elementary school but I had a blast. It's amazing how you can play a game with a bunch of people who speak a different language than you but once you get started, you just play. Ahh sports, the universal language. My partner, Ito-sensei and I lost both of our games but it was still fun. I'd like to do it again sometime. Then I spent Thursday planning more lessons and grading Oral Communications I mid-terms. It was a listening test about everything we have taught so far this term. We recorded the listening part ahead of time and they played it over the speakers in their classrooms. There were questions from my self-introduction on there. In the recording I mentioned Kelly's name several times and then asked the question on the test, "What is Kory's wife's name?" In my lesson I had talked a lot about Kelly and also mentioned and showed pictures of Kerry and Amanda. So the options were A. Kerry, B. Amanda, C. Kelly, and D. Lucy. Now remember that Japanese students have problems with the L sound because there is no L sound in the Japanese language. So they usually use the R sound for words that require an L. Hence the constant confusion between Rs and Ls. So anyway, Andrea and I graded a total of about 240 tests and we discovered that somewhere around 85-90% of them marked A. Kerry as my wife's name. So there you go Kerry, you're now a girl and my wife apparently. I have to admit that I kind of expected that to happen, but the rest of the test was so easy that that was really the hardest question on there. So I don't feel too bad.

And finally today we had school excursion day as an end of testing week reward for everyone. I went with the first year students. We went hiking to some waterfalls on the Izu peninsula. It was pretty fun and an easy hike. I got to talk with some students a lot so that was very enjoyable. They love practicing their English with me especially in a non-formal setting so it was good that they could break out of their shells a bit. I made hiking buddies with a couple of girls and may have accidentally promised them I would eat lunch with them at school next week. It was neat though because at first they would ask me a question and then I would answer and then they would discuss their next question with each other and decide how to say it in English and then ask me. But eventually as we found out more about each other, we started actually having a conversation, which was nice because that's pretty much what my role is here. Conversational English. So it was good to see it come to fruition a bit.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

The 16HR students on the bus before we left school:













The "haunted" tunnel we walked through:



My new best friends:














Some waterfall pictures:





































My Wasabi ice cream I tried for the first and last time:













Some of the 16HR guys:













Back to regular classes next week. But then Halloween is coming up and the kids love that. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to share of that too. That's all for now.

Rescue Mission

Not many updates lately. Sorry about that.

The past few days have been devoted to a very important happening. Yesterday Kelly and I made a trek to the Tokyo area, not for a weekend checking out the coolest city in Japan but for something even more exciting. Caspian finally arrived in Japan! After months of preparation and worry and tons of e-mails going back and forth between us, Gwynn, Animal Quarantine, and who knows who else the day finally came for him to arrive. We got to Narita around 3:30pm and his flight was scheduled to arrive around 4. We first went to Animal Quarantine who immediately sent us to the American Airlines Cargo office where we had to turn in some forms and get some other forms and wait. After we got the forms from them we went back to Animal Quarantine who checked the forms and then sent us back to American Airlines. At this point we met a Japanese couple who happened to speak good English. The husband was actually raised in Dallas. How about that for a small world. They were picking up their cat so we went everywhere together to make sure none of us went to the wrong place. When we got back to American Airlines we went up to the next floor where we handed in some more forms and then all got into a van to go back to Animal Quarantine and in the back of the van were two kennels. One with the cat and one with our Caspian! I had to sit in the front seat so I couldn't see him but I heard all of the high pitched squealing from both of the girls in the back seat. Once we got to Animal Quarantine again I finally got to see him, and they let us take him out. Kelly got him out and held him while they scanned his microchip. He was visibly shaking from fear because he had no idea what was going on. Definitely glad to finally be out of the kennel I'm sure but it was short lived because we had to put him back in and go fill out more paperwork. We did that in the Animal Quarantine office while they checked him out and then we went to Customs to fill out even more paperwork. I impressed everybody by pulling out my hanko instead of signing my signature (at least I imagined that they were impressed.) For those that don't know, a hanko is a red stamp that is used in Japan as your signature. It's your name in kanji. Anyway, after customs we all walked back over to American Airlines cargo where we paid and finally were officially reunited with Caspian. About a two and a half hour process altogether. We bid farewell to the other couple and thanked them for translating everything for us. We were definitely lucky to have run into them. Once we got out of the cargo facilities we finally let him out of the kennel and let him walk for a little bit. We fed him and gave him water on the sidewalk (in his bowls, not literally on the sidewalk) because he obviously needed them. We then set off for a long trip back home. We finally got back to our apartment around 1:30am. Train times are really screwy here. He was stressed out and didn't like having to stay in his kennel on the trains and in the stations with so many potential petters around. I also didn't like having to carry his kennel around everywhere because though he is a very small dog, the whole unit became quite heavy. But we all got home in one piece and we're doing good. Many thanks go out to the Haseltines for helping take care of him until he was able to come. It may not be as exciting for him here but we are certainly very excited to have him back. We feel complete with him.

So anyway, that is the story from our end of Caspian's coming to Japan. A world traveler! In other news, we went to a local musical that one of Kelly's students was in today. It was definitely interesting and even entertaining despite the fact that we understood very little of it. I could pick out a few words including a very touching moment at the end where the main character said to her mother, "Okasan, gomennasai." (Mother, I'm sorry.) The dancing was very good and the staging was good enough that we could basically understand the plot. Definitely different from American theatre though. Including the opening where two characters asked the audience to be kind to them (Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu) and the end after the curtain call where one actor offered a formal thanks and bow to the audience along with an echo from the entire cast (Domo arigato gozaimasu.) Of course that kind of goes back to the prologues and epilogues that Shakespeare wrote into some of his plays, proving once again that theatre is a universal art form no matter what language it is in. But all in all it was very enjoyable. And the theatre was close to McDonald's so we got dinner there afterward. Always a good thing.

Edit: I just realized that some of you who didn't know us before Japan might not know who Caspian is. Check out our pictures of him to get up to date on our baby:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/koryandkelly/sets/72157604692137436/

Random Day Off

There are many holidays in America that we do not get to experience over here in Japan. We worked on Labor Day and will have to take paid leave to get days like Thanksgiving and Christmas off. But I guess all things even themselves out in the end. Because today we got a holiday to celebrate the fact that the night and the day were the same length. Yes that's right, Autumnal Equinox Day! So even though today was a Tuesday and we had school on Monday, there was no school today. Not a bad way to break up the week. So when we go back tomorrow we will have a short three day week left. I can handle that.

We celebrated the day off by going out with friends last night and stuffing ourselves full of Japanese food. We have a friend that speaks and reads Japanese very well so we just made suggestions, handed him the menu, and he went to town. Edamame, 7-spice chicken, crab croquettes, caesar salad, two kinds of soba, gyoza, and the main course...lots of sashimi. It was all very good and very affordable. Gotta love the cost of living in Fuji.

Today we went to Lake Tanuki with some people to enjoy our day off together. It is a beautiful lake not too far from here with a great view of Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately that view was covered by clouds as usual but it did peek out a few times. Once the weather starts cooling down the cloud cover will disappear and we'll get a more regular view. Kelly took lots of pictures today so we'll get those up sometime soon.

Speaking of pictures, we've got some new ones of our trip to Osaka up on Flickr so check those out if you haven't already.

So back to work tomorrow. I've got a new Oral Communications I lesson tomorrow after doing my self-intro lesson for all of them. I've done that lesson 15 times and have two more to go. I'm definitely a bit tired of talking about myself. But now the new lessons will start now so that will break up the monotony. Before long, I'll be wishing I could do some more self-intros.

That's all for now.

A night never to be forgotten...or repeated

We climbed Mt. Fuji this weekend. Yes that's right. The tallest mountain in Japan. The dormant volcano. The wonder that people travel from all over to see that we get to see on a regular basis. But seeing it wasn't enough so we climbed it. Am I glad I did it? Yes. Are my legs glad I did it? Absolutely not. But that's okay because I can now look at the mountain every day knowing that I have conquered it. It can't taunt me. It's like the beginning of that old Alabama song: "You see that mountain over there? One of these days I'm gonna climb that mountain." Well I climbed that mountain. And hear this: I will never do it again. Though rewarding and satisfying, it was one of the most difficult and trying things I have ever done in my life. The saying goes like this: "If you never climb Mt. Fuji you are a fool, and if you climb it more than once you are a fool." I concur. One of the teachers at school said that Mt. Fuji is only for looking at and not for climbing. Oh well. I climbed that dude and I'm proud of myself for doing it. I recorded a lot of footage which will be posted on either mine or Kelly's blog as soon as it goes through the editing room (Kelly sitting on the floor with a Dr. Pepper, some flan, and the computer.) But here's the basic story for the meantime:

We meet at Fuji station at 7:30pm where we are picked up by a bus and head with about 25 ALTs from all over the prefecture to the Fujinomiya fifth station. The fifth station is the highest you can go on the mountain by car and believe me it would be impossible for anyone who is not a professional mountain climber to start anywhere lower. We get to the fifth station at around 9:15pm and acclimate ourselves to the altitude for an hour, starting the climb at 10:15pm. Yes pm is correct. It's pitch black and we are equipped with flashlights, layers to add as it gets colder, food to eat along the way (they say you burn 7,000 calories on the climb), rain jackets, and of course the official Mt. Fuji walking stick. It takes about an hour to get from station to station with station 10 being the final one. It gets colder as we climb so you try to add layers but then you start to sweat because you're climbing a mountain so you're constantly adding and removing layers. We walked through some clouds which required us to put on the rain gear because you don't want your clothes to get too wet. Kelly and I got separated after the 7th station as I left her in the hands of other people not knowing that they would leave her as well. But I had to go at my pace or I might not make it. It's kind of like when you're running and you have to go at your pace because you'll get too tired if you go any slower or faster. At least that's how I justify leaving my wife behind on a mountain. So anyway...I eventually get to the 9th station around 2:00 or so after climbing by myself for a few hours. I say by myself. There were hundreds if not thousands of people on the mountain that night, but I was not with anybody from my group which basically translates into: anybody that spoke English. But at the 9th station I finally found about 6 people from my group. They were sitting in the station resting and magically out of nowhere this station was serving hot food. So I got a plate of 1000 yen curry and some green tea and suddenly had the energy for the rest of the climb. So we set out for the top of the mountain. Little did we know this would be the hardest part of the climb. It was basically a single file line the rest of the way because the path was so narrow and every step was a step up 1 or 2 feet at least. But then finally at about 3:50 we reached the top. And let me tell you, it was freezing up there. And I don't mean freezing in the general sense. It had to have been in the 30s Fahrenheit and very close to freezing. We found a place to sit down and have an oxygen tank party. Very necessary because the air up there was thin, but we all had these small light oxygen cans that we carried with us the whole night. So anyway, the reason for the overnight climb was so we could watch the sunrise from the highest point in the land of the rising sun. I used my compass that Adam gave me as a groomsman's gift to figure out where east was and we sat and waited in the freezing cold. It was cloudy so it was hard to see, but the sunrise was still pretty cool. We could see different cities around the mountain and how they looked in the sunrise. All in all it wasn't as great as I heard it would be, but I didn't care. I was watching the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji. When we made the decision to drop everything and move to Japan we said that we wanted to experience as much as we could. And this was one of those experiences.

So after the sunrise, I checked out the crater, found Kelly, took some pictures, changed my socks, ate some bread, and began the descent at around 5:30. I won't go into too much detail about the way down except for this. People kept telling us beforehand that the way down was harder than the way up. I didn't believe it until I started. To start with, you're already completely exhausted from the 6 hour climb up, but then add in the fact that this is a volcano so all of the ground is loose ash and volcanic rock. We were basically slipping and sliding the whole way down. Kelly fell once, I almost fell about 10 times, I slowly sprained both of my ankles and both of my big toes started to bleed from my shoes pressing against them. Advice: if you climb Mt. Fuji, cut your toenails beforehand. I'm notorious for being bad about cutting my toenails and it came back to haunt me this time. So anyway, we finally got back to the fifth station at around 10:30 and collapsed until everyone else got back. We got back on the bus around 11:30, got dropped off at Fuji station and took the train back to the station next to our apartment. Kelly went to eat lunch and I went home. I fell asleep around 2:30pm and didn't get up until the next morning when I got up to go to work. That was a rough bike ride, let me tell you.

So in the end, it was an experience like none I have ever had and none I will ever have again. Ever. Ever. But you know what? I CLIMBED MT. FUJI!!! I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from doing it that has the opportunity. Just know that it will be very difficult, but it will also be an experience that you will never forget. I will be telling my grandchildren about it someday, and that to me is worth every step.

In other news, I gave a speech in front of the entire student body on Monday, which was the first day of the new term. It went well. I made a joke in Japanese and some people actually laughed. Here it is: America no Texas kara kimashita demo watashi wa cowboy dewa arimasen. Translation: I am from America's state of Texas, but I am not a cowboy. I had a welcome lunch with the English staff today and surprised everybody by eating sashimi. Apparently there is a misconception here by some people that Americans don't eat raw fish. But I love it and it was great today. I sat at the head of the table with the principal who talked to me about the Astros, and I lamented how they were good in August as usual but that it was too little too late as usual.

Here is a picture I took from the top of Mt. Fuji with my iPhone. It's not great but like I said there will be a video coming soon. Take care!

In memorium

Most of my posts will be about Japan, but I have to take time now for a personal note. I found out last night that Leroi Moore, the saxophone player for the Dave Matthews Band passed away last Tuesday from complications involving an ATV accident he had in June. I am realizing that being here keeps me a little disconnected from the world back home even with the internet. The fact that a member of my all-time favorite band died and I didn't find out for a week is a little strange. I was shocked to find out while just randomly surfing the web. He was an incredible musician and one of the founding members of the band. Dave Matthews actually gave Leroi his demo tape back when he was a young musician trying to make a name for himself. So in a way, he was responsible for the forming of the band which is pretty amazing because he was always kind of the one in my mind that stood in the background and let the other guys get the glory. There have been many nights that I have sat back listening to DMB alone or with friends and just being amazed by the smoothness of Leroi's sax. I don't know anything about the instrument, but I know he's one of the best I've ever heard and I personally will miss listening to him play.

I'm including a YouTube video of one of my favorite live songs by the band. This song kind of features Leroi Moore and he has a great flute solo followed shortly by a sax solo that all builds up with the violin and drums to a pretty cool climax. That to me is what this band is all about, and I think he had a lot to do with that. The song is called #41 and this is from the Listener Supported live album. It's about 10 minutes long. You can watch the whole thing if you want, but if nothing else skip ahead to 3:45 and listen to the classic DMB jam session that follows. If you've never heard Leroi play you're sure to be impressed.

He will be missed.

Video!

Well those who have checked Kelly's blog in the past few days know by now that we have internet in our apartment finally. Kelly has put up some pictures on her site that we took a few weeks ago as well as some new ones and also on our Flickr account so you should check those out. I'm going to put up a video that I recorded on our first morning in Fuji back on August 1st. It was very early and I was very tired so please excuse my lack of energy and cleanliness. But you can see a tour of the other apartment that I use basically for showering in the morning in the middle of my roughly 3.5 km bike ride to work. That's kilometers for all of you Americans out there. Yeah I still don't quite get the whole metric system thing. I do know that I am 176 cm tall though. Or something like that.

I was at the Yoshiwara High School camp in Susono for the past few days. We had a lot of fun with the 40 students and 10 ALTs. I recorded a lot of video and as soon as I have a chance to sort through it I'll get some of it up on here. It was great to finally get to meet and work with some of my students. They are very good and for the most part did a great job with their English so I'm looking forward to working with them some more.

Anyway, enjoy the video. Keep in mind that I had been in Fuji for just over 12 hours when I filmed this so obviously I know a little more about things now. It's a bit long and choppy I guess but I didn't really feel like doing any major editing tonight. Hey there's nothing wrong with a little extra Kory in your life. Later!