The Golden Temple

This is Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, one of the most beautiful temples I've seen in this country. Yep, the walls really are lined with gold. This is a must-see for anybody in Kyoto. Beware the crowds, though. I went on a Tuesday and even then the walkways were packed. 

Memoirs of a Maiko

Here's a picture of me with some maiko in Kyoto. They look happy, don't you think?

That's The Way Of The World

I swear to you I'm not making this up. I get on the train this morning to go to the office. I stand in a space right in front of this salaryman jamming to his headphones. He looks up, takes one glance at me, then looks at his iPod, presses a few buttons, and starts listening to his music at a very high volume. It was so easy to hear the music, and when I did, I noticed he was listening to some Earth Wind and Fire! I guess seeing me in all my blackness put him in the mood for some 70s funk. You never know, man, you never know.

Don't Panic... They're Just Arrows

Another kikuningyo from Hirakata Park (see the previous post). You know what... U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald "You-go-to-war-with-the-armor-you-have" Rumsfeld needs to look into using chrysantheums to protect the troops in Iraq. They worked wonders for this guy. 

Sure Beats Aloha Shirts

This past weekend, I went with my GF's family and her mother's cousin's family to a place just outside Osaka called Hirakata Park, scene of something called kikuningyo (lifesize dolls with clothes made from chrysantheums). The creator of these beautiful dolls passed away recently, so the Park is planning to discontinue the display after 90 or so years. Apparently, the dude didn't train someone to become the master after he passed. Anyway, this year is the last to see something of a tradition here in the Osaka area, so we took advantage.

It turns out we weren't the only ones taking advantage, as the place was packed to see these kikuningyo. We had to wait 40 minutes just to get in the building, and once inside, the corridors were full of people trying to squeeze their way through, pushing and struggling to get that perfect view of each scene. Not exactly a fun time. To give you an idea, the above picture, from the time I said "Hey, this is a good spot for a picture" to pressing the shutter button, took about 5 seconds. That's all we had before the masses would push us to the next set of dolls. A great day out, huh? At least the amusement park rides made up for it. 

Needin' A Fresh Cut

Perhaps all foreign men in Japan have it a bit tough every now and then. But only black men stress about where they can find a barber shop to cut their hair. You see, most foreigners have hair not too much unlike Japanese - in other words, straight. A person used to cutting straight hair just doesn't know how to cut a black man's hair. Yes, they can learn fairly easy. But how many barbers in Japan have had the opportunity to learn how to cut a black man's hair? Right.

Lately, my hair has been a mess. I've been searching on the internet, trying to find a barber shop around Osaka that can cut a black man's hair. The best I could do was find a place in Tokyo and another in Yokohama. But I'm not about to travel 3 hours and pay 40,000 yen ($400) return just to get a haircut.

I do have my own hair clippers, and I can cut my hair well enough so that it looks okay. But lately, I haven't had much time to. Besides, there's nothing quite like the feeling of hopping in that chair and letting a barber do his thing. Ah well... I'll just wait until I'm in Florida in December.

Rumbly Tummy

I love Japanese food. There's hardly a better cuisine in the world. That doesn't mean that there's not any food that I miss from back home. For example:

-non-Korean, big slab-of-meat-style barbeque. You know, ribs, chicken, fat hamburgers, corn-on-the-cob and some baked beans. Speaking of beans...
-pork and beans and wieners
-Taco Bell
-Burger King fries
-jambalaya
-Krispy Kreme
-real apple pie
-Arby's roast-beef sandwiches
-cornbread
-oatmeal
-Chick-Fil-A
-fettucine alfredo
-Honey Smacks

"Practice?!? We talkin' about practice!!!"

Not long after I wrote about how things were about to go bad at my high school, a good thing happened yesterday. After classes, I didn't have anything in particular to do, so I decided to lace up my sneaks and shoot some hoops in the gym. To my surprise, when I walked in, I saw a group of my favorite ichinensei already playing a pickup game of basketball (most of them were girls). Out of all of my ichinensei that actually complete each worksheet and pay attention to me in each class, probably 80% of them were present on the basketball court yesterday. Amazing.

There were 9 of them, so they were eager for a 10th player and they called me over. We played 1 1/2 hours of good, fun ball. They oooohed and aaaaahed my amazing dribbling, passing and defensive skills while laughing at my terrible shooting. The best part was that during the breaks, many of them were actually begging for some English conversation. That's the kind of stuff I've been dreaming about.

Of course, the question is, Why don't they do this in the classroom? These same students are also among the most quiet in my classes, but you wouldn't have known it from their on-court trash talking. Ah well... I'll just wait for more opportunities like this.

Student Strike

It's November, and you know what that means... time for things to start going downhill at the high school. Consider what happened this past Monday. In one of my classes, about 90% of the students (including all the girls) quit on me with 10 minutes to go. There I was, finishing a fun game and starting to explain the last writing exercise, when these students just came up and handed in their unfinished worksheet, went back to their desks and started talking to each other. The main teacher and I tried in vain to get them to get their worksheets and do the last part, but to no avail. They just ignored us. So the last 10 minutes of the class were taught to only 3 students. I've never heard of anything like that happening before.

I mean, these were not just the usual troublemakers I'm talking about here. As a matter of fact, this was usually a well-behaved class. So it's shocking that 90% just quit on me like that. It couldn't have been the lesson, either; I've used that lesson for 2 weeks in other classes, with relative success. I guess it's just time for things to go wrong. I knew the relatively great year I was having here couldn't last that long.

Update

Sorry I haven't written here for a while, but I've been major busy recently. Here's an abbreviated version of what's been happening lately:

• Last weekend, I got my first driving ticket ever, for illegal parking. The GF and I go by car every now and then to visit her family, and we've always parked in that same spot for about 2 years now. I guess the police weren't busy watching crime dramas at that time. Anyway, since I was driving, I had to pay a fine of 15,000 yen (about $140 US) and got 2 demerits on my license that come off in 3 months.
• On Tuesday, I taught at a kindergarten for the first time. I had four lessons, and man, did it wear me out! I could barely stay focused the rest of the day. But it was a lot of fun. Those 4- and 5-year-old kids were awesome, and smart, too. Once the buzz got around the kindergarten that there was a big foreign guy named Herman there, kids started visiting the office during my breaks, saying, "Herman-sensei!" How amazing is that? At my high school, there are students I've known for over a year and a half that still can't get my name right. (Well... either that or they choose not to.)
• For the first time ever, a foreign manager (Bobby Valentine?!?) won the Japan Series, the equivalent of the World Series here, when Chiba Lotte beat the (Osaka) Hanshin Tigers in a 4-game sweep. To realize how amazing that is, check out Robert Whiting's cool books You Gotta Have Wa and The Meaning of Ichiro.

"I love what you do for me..."

Apparently I had a little too much coffee in Biei, Hokkaido. 

That's Cold, Man!

Chillin' with a pal at the Asahiyama Zoo, Asahikawa, Hokkaido. 

Singin' The Blues

Me and a friend jammin' in Niseko, Hokkaido. 

"I have to praise you like I should..."

It's well over halfway through my second year at my high school, and I must say that this year's ichinensei (freshmen) are much, much better than the ichinensei last year, in terms of both behavior and English ability (relatively speaking). It's actually been a pleasure to teach them this year (well, most of them).

Take, for example, my daily morning routine of walking from the train station to the school among with masses of students. Often, there are a few students who will greet me. Last year, it was always in Japanese: "ohayou gozaimasu, ohayou gozaimasu." This year, some students, usually ichinensei, actually greet me in English: "Good morning!" Some students go farther than that: "Good morning, how are you?"

Another example: Every ichinensei class, I start off by saying "Good morning" to the class. Last year, I could count on one hand the number of times a student actually said "Good morning" back to me. This year, in the great majority of my classes, there are a group of students that say "Good morning" back to me every time. In addition, some students make the effort to say "Goodbye" to me after class! That gives me goosebumps.

I know some of you are throwing your hands up, wondering what the big deal is. But unless you've been in that situation, you probably can't understand the joy that it brings. When your job is to try to get your students to be interested in English, and then some actually make the effort to use English with you, even if it's just "good morning"... man, that's cause for celebration. So, kudos to my ichinensei students for making this year a pretty good one.

See, we were just wondering around the woods in Hokkaido, enjoying the wildlife and all... and this big 'ol bear just waltzed his way by and scared the crap out of us, messing up a pretty good picture in my opinion. 

Finally, after a crazy week, I have a chance to get back to the computer and send some more Hokkaido pictures. As you can see, despite a busy itinerary, I had a chance to help a local farmer with his plowing. 

ER meets... The Insane Asylum?

Since Tuesday, I've had this huge stressful feeling in my body. You know, it's the kind of stress you get when you're about to do a big event like a college exam, a public speech or asking that girl that you have a crush on out for a movie and some Red Lobster. Or when something's bothering you a lot, like your job or somebody you know. You know the feeling: a lot of pressure in your chest, mild shaking, nausea, loss of appetite, muscle soreness, throat tighness, heart palpitations. I've had all of that since Tuesday. It was so bad yesterday that I just bought a salad for lunch, and I couldn't even finish that.

It certainly feels like stress, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why. My life is good. The high school is... well, like it's always been. I've learned to deal with students' shenanigans (did I just say that?) , so it doesn't bother me anymore. At the Osaka office, even though things have been busy since last Thursday, I feel pretty relaxed working there nowadays. My relationship with my GF is at its best point in the 4 years we've been dating. I can't think of anything that has happened recently that would stress me out like that. I even thought back to what happened to me at my high school's sports day, but that was last Friday. This started on Tuesday.

Thinking that something was terribly wrong with me, I went to see a doctor after work last night. However, after checking me out, he said that nothing was wrong with me physically. My blood pressure was good, and my pulse was normal. Only thing he saw wrong was that my shoulders were very hard and tense (usually a result of stress). His conclusion was that I was very stressed about something. He asked me if anything had been bothering me lately, or if I'm dreading anything that's coming up in the future. I told him I couldn't think of anything at all. The doctor said either I'm lying or I'm too shy to tell him what's really going on, because from what he could tell, I was stressed out. He gave me something to increase my appetite, told me to exercise and eat healthy, and sent me on my way.

After leaving the clinic, I thought, OK, I'll trust the doctor on this one. So from last night, I've been trying my best to relax. I've been taking things slowly, breathing deeply and listening to bossa nova. And guess what? I've felt a lot better. I'm probably at 85% now. Maybe the old doctor was right after all. But that still doesn't solve the mystery: Why am I stressed? I still can't figure it out.

Roll Tide Roll!

Okay, I don't talk about sports that much here, but I had to on this occasion.

Alabama 31, Florida 3.

That's all I need to say. Looks like my alma mater's gonna have a pretty good college football season. Of course, now that I said that, they're going to lose the rest of their games.

Chariots of Fire meets ER

Today was my high school's Sports Festival, when the students (hopefully) show their best school spirit and participate in many different athletic activities. I missed it last year because of a typhoon, so I was looking forward to seeing it this time around. Unfortunately, because of my stupidity, I ended up missing half the festivities.

The very first thing on the schedule was a 4 x 200-meter relay. There were 3 of them, divided by grade, and every time, there were 6 teams of students and a teachers' team. Originally, I wasn't scheduled to participate, but by the third round, some of the teachers were too tired to continue. One of them called me over to fill in. Excited, and without stretching, warming up or anything like that, I immediately went over to the baton exchange area, about 30 seconds before the baton was handed to me. At that point, we were in 2nd place. My goal was to not let us slip into last.

But then, as I started running, I kicked it into a gear that I didn't know I had. I couldn't believe how fast I was going! It was like running on air. I hadn't run that fast since my own high school days. Not only did I maintain our 2nd place position, I almost took over 1st from the kid in front of me. Unfortunately, the anchor, who was after me, couldn't capitalize, and we wound up finishing 2nd. As I made my way back to my chair on the sidelines, teachers and students alike were coming up to me, saying Hayai! (You're fast!) I was enjoying the attention and basking in the limelight.

About 10 minutes later, I was feeling kind of dizzy, so I took a walk away from the festivities to try to calm myself down. But I ended up having to lay on the ground, too weak to stand up. The vice-principal, who happened to be nearby, panicked and went for help. Next thing I know, I was in the nurses room and being told to take a nap until lunchtime. The consensus among the nurses and the P.E. teachers was that running that fast without doing the proper warmups put sudden stress on my heart, which caused me to almost faint. Oh well... I had my 200 meters of glory. Anyway, the moral of the story: do your stretches and warmups, kids.

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye...

I was walking back from the restroom at my company's office, heading back to my desk when all of a sudden, I meet with our receptionist, who tells me that this week would be her last week working for us. Since I'm working at the high school tomorrow, that meant that today was the last time to ever see her, which made me sad. You see, this woman is very kind and friendly, and in a frustrating environment, many times she cheered me up with her smile and great attitude. It's going to be hard to replace someone like her.

Later on, while I'm clocking out, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to say goodbye to her. I'm terrible at goodbyes in English; I didn't know how I was going to pull off a good one in Japanese. The best I could think of was iroiro arigatou gozaimashita (Thank you for everything). Apparently that did the trick, because as I waved goodbye for the last time, tears started rolling down her face. Oh great, I thought. I made the woman cry in front of her co-workers. Way to go. The moral of the story: Even a few kind words can make someone's day.