Biking in Kyoto - Part II

Here's a shot of some beautiful yellow and red and green leaves. The scenery was indeed nice.

And here's more leaves for you.

After Nanzenji we decided to ride over to Heian Jingu, which was nearby. The red shrine is a beautiful place.

Here's another part of Heian Jingu.

Biking in Kyoto - Part I

Yesterday my wife and I visited Kyoto. It's the time of the year when the leaves on the many maple trees at the shrines and temples and parks in Kyoto change colors, and we wanted to enjoy the many beautiful sights.

We took the train there. It takes about a little over an hour from where we live. Once we arrived in Kyoto, we rented two bicycles and we were on our way.

The first place we visited was Nanzenji, in the eastern mountains of Kyoto (pictured left). As you can tell from the pictures, the red and orange leaves were in full force, as were the crowds. One thing you have to prepare for when you go to Kyoto in the fall to look at the leaves is dealing with the crowds. It seems that everyone in Japan loves to view the fall leaves.

To the left is some aqueduct-looking thing on the grounds near Nanzenji. It's popular for some reason.

Here 's me standing next to another temple-looking building.

Latest Update

I just noticed that my blog has gone over 200 total posts. This is number 201. Congratulations to me!

Sorry about no recent posts. There hasn't been any exciting news from the Japan front. My wife and I will be visiting Kyoto tomorrow to peruse the orange, red and yellow leaves as well as check out some of the temples and shrines. My camera will be in tow, so I'll make sure to post some pictures about the trip when I get a chance!

Saipan Trip - Day 4

On Sunday, November 2, we woke up, had breakfast, and prepared to check out of the resort. We called the front desk to get one of those guys with the golf carts to come and pick us and our luggage up and take us to the front desk. We planned to catch the bus to town to do some last-day shopping after we checked out. But the golf cart guy was running late, so I ended up pushing the luggage to the front desk, which made me sweat in the humid Saipan heat. However, we made the bus on time.

We didn't do too much in town, it turned out - just ate at McDonald's and looked around a bit. I was happy to see the soda machines there where you can get refills; they don't have those in Japan except at the family restaurants with the drink bars. What they also don't have in Japan are the promotional games where you have a chance to win money, and a much better chance to win a free drink or something. They had a Monopoly promotion when we went, and I won a free McFlurry. However, the M&M McFlurry that I ordered was far too sweet for me. I guess I'm getting used to Japanese tastes.

After shopping, we went to the airport to return to Japan. The wait in line to check-in at the airport was the longest I've ever been in, because they had security there checking every single bag and suitcase. Seriously. They opened each bag and checked everything, from underwear to eye drops. I've never seen such thorough searching before. I asked one of the staff if it is always like that, and she said, "Security is always tight in Saipan." Indeed.

We felt a lot better, though, when the Northwest Airlines counter lady gave us each a $5 gift certificate for use in the airport snack shop because we checked in online. We got $10 worth of snacks free. That's a very nice parting gift!

On board, the flight attendants handed out these cookies to the left. If you click on the picture to make it bigger, and you look carefully at the top, you can see my name. Why did they go through all that trouble to personalize my cookies? :)

Overall, the trip was okay. It was relaxing and enjoyable. If you want an active vacation, though, don't go to Saipan. There's not that much to do besides relax.

Rain in Paradise?

While the trip was nice, we weren't without occasional rainstorms, such as this one around breakfast time one day in Saipan. Still a nice view, though.

Saipan Trip - Day 3

On this day, we woke up to partly cloudy but beautiful skies. To the left is a picture of the villa grounds - so pristine and beautiful.

We continued to do what had become routine: we went to eat a buffet breakfast at 7:30 AM. After that, we went back, dressed in our swimming gear, and once again went to the beach for some snorkeling and swimming. We hadn't reserved a Nature Beach BBQ lunch that time, but around noon the grill was going and the crowds were coming. So my wife asked me to ask if there was enough for us as well. Luckily, there was. One good thing about the Mariana Resort and Spa is that the staff was friendly.

Well, maybe too friendly. There were two Japanese girls there that had lived in the U.S. for a while. They chatted with the local guys manning the barbeque grill, and the staff responded by going into the sea with the girls and swimming (and flirting) with them. That's life, huh?

Anyway, we swam a bit more after lunch. While snorkeling, we came upon this fish, in the picture to the left. Can you see the fish? You might have to click on it and see it close up. Just another of the many, many fish we came across off of the Saipan coast. Amazing. We saw everything except sea turtles (my wife said she saw on the Internet that Tinian, just south of Saipan, is the place to go for finding turtles). That was some of the best snorkeling we've ever done.

That afternoon, we went once again to the spa and enjoyed it one last time. We had a frugal night: a Cup Noodle and instant yakisoba night in the hotel room. We watched TV and relaxed. This was the core of our Saipan trip: relaxation. When we travel, we usually are running around all day seeing the sights. It was nice to take it easy for a change.

Saipan Trip - Day 2

On Friday, we woke up and ate a buffet breakfast at a restaurant with an ocean view. The breakfast was okay, but not worth the $18 price tag they put on it. (Luckily we had the Lady's Plan.) After breakfast, we headed down to the beach for some snorkeling.

At first sight, the beach looked disappointing. There wasn't much sand at the beach; the coast was very rocky there. We had to slowly climb our way into the water, so that we wouldn't fall and break our heads open. However, once we made it in, we could see immediately that it was worth it. Take a look at this picture:

My wife and I had been snorkeling before in Hawaii and the Maldives, but we don't remember ever seeing as many fish in one place as we did in Saipan. There were schools everywhere, even close to the coast where the water was only a few centimeters deep. We spent hours swimming and looking at the various fish.

Here I am with a few of the friends I made while snorkeling.

We snorkeled for the rest of the morning. At lunchtime, we ate a "Nature Beach BBQ" meal - just chicken, pork chops, weiners, a potato, a kabob with onions, scallops, and a rice ball, all barbequed. It was good, though, and we enjoyed the ocean view while eating.

After that, we did some more snorkeling, then headed back up the hill to go back to Mandi Asian Spa.

This is a shot of the jacuzzi. Immediately to the right is the wading pool, which was not too cold. You can see the ocean view in the background.

My wife loved the mist sauna there; she literally spent hours in that thing during our stay. I tried to go in there with her, but saunas are not my cup of tea. She says that sweating makes her feel good. But me, I don't need a sauna to sweat, and in Saipan, I was sweating enough. And when I sweat, I don't feel good. So that didn't work.

That night, we thought about eating at the restaurant at the resort where we were staying. One quick look at the menu changed our minds; the prices were too high! It was about $50 a meal per person. So we took the free shuttle to the DFS Galleria in Garapan, which is basically Saipan's downtown. We ate at - of all places - Capricciosa! If you don't live in Japan, Capricciosa is an Italian restaurant chain here, a bit similar to Olive Garden. Capricciosa must get a lot of business from all the Japanese tourists that visit Saipan. (They certainly got ours!)

Once we were full on pasta, we went to the DFS Galleria to look around. We didn't buy anything (not at those prices), but I did get a good picture of the world-famous (?) Saipan-da!

This memory will remain with me forever.

Chillin' In the Villa

Here I am, enjoying the living room part of the Saipan vacation villa.

A view of the villa from the outside. A bit run down, but not too bad.

Saipan Trip - Day 1

On Thursday my wife and I went to Saipan for a three-night stay. The flight was free, as we had saved up enough miles through Northwest Airlines to go there. But I was wondering if this trip would be anything like the trip we took a few years ago to Guam, when we felt like we never left Japan. The conclusion: it wasn't bad in that respect, but probably because there weren't as many tourists around as we had expected.

After leaving the small, old airport, our first impression of Saipan - other than the old concrete Japanese WWII military bunkers just outside the airport grounds - was that the buildings and houses seemed run down. A lot of buildings hadn't been painted in years, and some looked like they needed repairing. It looked more like what we saw in Malaysia during our honeymoon. The driver of the van we were in quickly drove past all of that, and we were on the other end of the island in a short 20 or 30 minutes, at our hotel: the Mariana Resort and Spa.

At first glance, the resort also looked run down, if the front entrance was any indication. Things looked better once we made it to the Center House. We checked in (with explanations given in Japanese), then a busboy in a golf cart kindly took us to a villa: a small cottage that would be our hotel room for the weekend. We didn't spend much time there, though. We unpacked a bit, then headed over to the spa area, called Mandi Asian Spa.

The spa was part of a package called the Lady's Plan (their spelling, not mine!). For $65 each, you can get unlimited usage of the spa area for up to 7 days, plus free buffet breakfast every morning. I was able to get a Lady's Plan, too, because I was with a lady.

The spa was nice. They have a jacuzzi, a wading pool, a flower bath, a warm reclining pool with a great ocean view overlooking the cliff that the resort sat on, and several massage rooms. That night my wife and I had a "cream bath" massage, where they put a bunch of scented cream stuff in our hair while massaging our head, neck, shoulders and arms. It was a good massage, but they made us sit upright on bamboo stools - quite uncomfortable, if you ask us.

The villa was a bit run down on the outside and in need of painting, but inside it was good. The bed was situated on a loft above the ground floor, and there was a nice stand-in shower as well as a bath for Japanese tourists. The room came with slippers, robe, toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, razor and lotion. There was also a hot water heater for tea (although we used it for instant noodles that first night, to save money). There was also a refrigerator with drinks and cola, but if we wanted to drink a can, it would cost at least $3! Needless to say, we didn't touch them at all during our trip.

Work Week Recap (Ho-Hum)

This past week was only ordinary. At the junior high school I work at...

Oh yeah. I need to think of a nickname for that school as well, to compliment Controlled Chaos Senior High School. Well, the junior high students I teach are, for the most part, very smart, and many will go on to some of the best universities in Japan. However, they are 13 years old, and they have been pressured to study, study, study and be good students and good Japanese children. So some of those kids tend to lose it every now and then, and that includes in my class. So, let's call this school Wild Brainiacs JHS.

OK, now where was I...

At Wild Brainiacs JHS, things were easy. We just gave back the midterm exams and went over the answers. An easy two days for me.

At Controlled Chaos SHS, things were... well... chaotic. There were prospective students showing up in class unbeknownst to me (sometimes while I was teaching), there were students who usually don't come to class coming to class, students who usually come to class not coming to class, students who usually come to the morning class switching to the afternoon class all of a sudden... you get the idea. The nice curriculum plan I worked out at the beginning of the term is completely shredded now. A rough two days for me.

At the HR office, things were easygoing, but we did receive a teacher resignation, meaning I am going to have more work to do on my office day for the next couple of weeks. A not-so-interesting day for me.

Oh Deer

Saturday, October 4th, was a mild and beautiful day, so the wife and I decided to drive up to Nara and go to Nara Park. You may remember that a few years ago I blogged about Nara Park here and here. This is one of my favorite areas in the Kansai area. With all the trees, open grass fields, and, of course, lots and lots of deer, Nara Park is a very relaxing place, even when it is crowded.

Did I mention that there are deer at Nara Park? Here I am below with two of the main attractions:

Weekend Recap

Recaping the weekend, on Saturday I did a little training in preparation to occasionally do young kids' English classes on weekends. My company has a division that has a few young childrens' schools and several in-home schools. I'll keep you posted on how those go.

Today, we did basically nothing except watch a few Grey's Anatomy episodes and some soccer. A nice weekend overall.

Controlled Chaos

Strange things keep happening at the senior high school that I talk about.

I'll get to that in a moment, but isn't it confusing that I talk about the senior high school I go to part of the week, and the junior high school the rest of the week? I need to think of some good nicknames for them... let's see...

Okay, the senior high school is now called Controlled Chaos SHS. That is how I will refer to it in my blog posts. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

You might remember my English Buddy post and how I tried to make a challenging lesson for the new morning class student, but it was way too easy for her. One of my co-workers at the company office yesterday handed me a book with conversation ideas and role-play topics - perfect for students with a high level of English. I thought of a good high-level lesson and prepared it. All seemed well.

This morning, I went to class confident in my lesson, but when I got to the classroom, the girl wasn't there. Instead, there was another girl, another new student! After talking to this girl for a few minutes, I knew that there was no way she could do the lesson I prepared. I had no choice but to think of a lesson out of my head. I thought of as many games as I could to do with her for the first hour, until we took our 10-minute break and I could sneak up to the office and grab a more suitable lesson.

During that first hour, I felt so underprepared, with no lesson plan to refer to. I'm sure the games I did had no connection, but the girl was a good sport, participated well and had no complaints.

I suppose the problem is this: It seems that at Controlled Chaos SHS, it's okay if the staff brings a new student to my class, introduces him/her to me, and expects me to take care of him/her for the next two hours without any prior preparation. Handling classes containing students with varying levels of English ability, I need to be more prepared than I would at, say, a public senior high school.

Yeah, Controlled Chaos is a good nickname for this school.

English buddy

It was a dark and stormy night...

Nah, I'm just pulling your leg. But it was raining today.

As with every Tuesday, today I worked at the small private high school in Osaka city I told you about before. In that post, I also told you about the infamous morning class. That class had a new student today, a 17-year-old girl with amazing English skills! I guess living abroad for several years will do that to you.

I was actually at a loss as to what to do in that class. I prepared a lesson I did previously with other students, but made it a bit harder for her (I had some knowledge of her level before class, but obviously not enough). That lesson was way too easy for her, and she finished it up only halfway through the class. I was left with nothing to do except talk, which she had absolutely no problems doing in English.

But I wonder if I actually taught her anything, or if I was just her "English buddy" for the day.

This small senior high school is really keeping me on my toes, I tell you.

A Monday Holiday

Today was a national holiday, so we didn't go to work. We decided to go to the IKEA store in Osaka. My wife went to look at the furniture and the household goods; I went for the hot dogs with the fried onions. :o)

The IKEA in the port area of Osaka is one of only two in the Kansai region and one of four in the entire nation. It seemed to have the same layout as the one we went to in Kobe; I'm glad we don't have to go that far anymore.

We didn't spend too much time there. We bought some red and white pillow covers for our couch pillows, a few dishes, a plant, some potpourri, and a shade for our bedroom (although once we came home we found out it didn't come with any screws!).

After that, we stopped for some kaiten-zushi (a sushi restaurant where the sushi goes around on a conveyor belt and people grab what they want), then we went home and watched some TV. All in all, it was a relaxing day. Back to work tomorrow!

A Ho-Hum Saturday

Today my wife and I haven't done much. We did laundry, made yakisoba for lunch, and watched a bunch of recorded Grey's Anatomy episodes. Speaking of which, getting a digital television with a hard drive recorder has changed our lives! We look on the on-screen TV listings for shows or movies we like, press a few buttons, and presto! It's set to record. No videotapes to mess with, no worrying about if the tape is rewound or fast-forwarded to the correct position. The shows record on the hard drive for our perusal at any time, and in glorious high-definition! How did we live with VHS tapes before?

My Life Unplugged

In order to keep this blog active, I'm going to (try to) talk about something that happens to me every day, whether or not it is interesting. So get used to it, Bub!

Today, like every Friday, I worked at a small private high school owned by the same company that owns the outsourcing division I work for. By small, I mean VERY small: there are probably 30 students total in that school. It's a sort of alternative school, attended by kids who want to or need to be challenged in their studies. I teach two English conversation classes there. The classes are formerly called Gaikokujin Eikaiwa ("Foreigner English Conversation"). Not so subtle, huh? Can you imagine a class in the U.S. called "Foreigner Spanish"?

Anyway, the morning class consists of two students. One of them, a boy, has only shown up twice since the start of the academic year in April. The other, a girl, does not want to be the only student in class, so she often does not come to school for my class. That was the case today - or so I thought at first. After waiting 20 minutes for students to show up for the morning class, as is protocol, I went down to the staff office and discovered that the girl was talking with one of the staff members, who didn't seem to be in a hurry to shoo the girl upstairs to my classroom.

That's not the first time that kind of thing has happened there. Back in May, there was a student coming to the morning class, and unbeknownst to me he was not supposed to be in the class. One day, a staff member came up to my classroom, apologized to me first, then turned to the student and quietly told him in Japanese, "You are not supposed to be in this class." The boy, who is very good at speaking English, turned to her and cursed at her in English, using some choicy four-letter words. I don't know if the staff member understood, but she abruptly left the classroom, leaving me to teach a boy that was not supposed to be a student of mine.

No More Mr. Nice Guy?

For a while now, I've been thinking about two things that people commonly say about me:

"You're nice, but you're too nice."

"You're a serious guy."

These things bother me, especially the whole "too nice" thing, which goes back to high school.

One day back then, I walked into English class a few minutes early. Waiting in there was a girl that sat at the same table as I, and we struck up a small conversation. Then the girl breaks out this line: "You know, Herman, you are a nice guy. You are nice to everyone around. But you're too nice. You need to be a little meaner; you need to tease a little." I was taken aback; I had no response.

That line stuck with me for years, especially because since that time, both here and back in the U.S., other people have said similar things. What the hell is wrong with being nice? I thought to myself. The world is full of mean people and people that don't show other people respect. Now you're trying to tell me that in order for me to be more popular, I have to stop being nice? I have to insult people to win their favor? I began to resent such people. Maybe they're upset because I treat people nicely and they don't. They want me to come down to their level.

Since I started working in schools here in Japan, I've heard the "You're serious" line a lot. I don't know; maybe it's because I concentrate on my work and try to be professional. But my bosses say I'm serious, and so do some co-workers. And I thought, What's wrong with being serious? Isn't that what you want out of a teacher, or any employee? What's wrong with being serious about a job, or a task, or anything?

Then the other day, it finally hit me. Those people were not really saying that I was too nice or serious. They were saying, in a nice way, that I am boring. They were trying to tell me, without hurting my feelings, that I'm not an interesting guy.

I wonder why I didn't notice that before. I do try to be nice to everyone. I'm careful about what I say to people, to minimize the risk of getting on the wrong side of people. I do that to make friends with people, but those people seem to hang out with other people, including some that tend to be jerks. How come they want to hang out with that jerk, who calls people names and say bad stuff about people behind their backs, but they don't want to hang out with me? I used to think. But it had nothing to do with being nice; it had everything to do with being interesting. To them, the jerk was more interesting than me, Mr. Nice Guy.

I guess what they say is true: Nice guys do finish last.

Since then, I've been wrestling with myself. Do I change myself, or do I say, "Forget those losers and punks!"? How would I make myself more interesting, anyway? Tell jokes? Pull pranks? Wear bright clothing? This has messed me up, big time.

Sweet Home Ala... England?

Oh, man... this is hilarious. It's not often my birthplace ends up on the BBC, but this is worth it:

BBC NEWS UK England West Midlands Chiefs admit Brum skyline mix-up

Watching Medical Interns

...sounds like an X-rated movie. Anyway, my wife and I spent the past holiday weekend watching the first two seasons of the American TV drama Grey's Anatomy on DVD. My mom told me about that show way back in 2005, but for some reason I wasn't interested. However, during the obon holidays, we were bored, and we saw Grey's Anatomy sitting there at the video rental store and decided to give it a try. I must admit... I am not a big fan of hospital dramas. But this one is very interesting.

I wanted to spend today watching Season 3, but since those DVDs are considered "new", they are not half-price, and you know how much my wife loves saving money. Thank goodness for her, because that money would be gone by now, and I would be watching Grey's Anatomy now.