What a nutty week!!! I think it might have given me an ulcer, but that's okay because I'm coming home for Christmas! Last night I had an enkai (banquet thing with people from work) which was great because I got to talk with a lot of my otherwise shy coworkers. Then there was a JET Halloween party. It was okay, but a little crazy. I got two pictures from the whole evening. Here is one of them. (Great job on the music Bento Brothers.)


I went as a member of Team Zissou. It was a damn fine costume if I do say so myself, even if only two people knew who I was. Or was it three?


Dan from Kosugi was my team member! You rule, Dan. (Thanks for the picture Jake.)

More Nagoya for fast, effective relief

Even though staying in Kurobe for another weekend and nursing a 135's hangover seemed like a cool idea, I decided to roll down to Nagoya for some city action because I like cities, Will is fun and the bus is cheap. I got in, had lunch and walked around for a while. Saw lots of Osu Kannon and then went to the Science museum for fun. It's pretty big, and you ATliens will be happy to know that I represented old school Fernbank by catching the planetarium show. Afterwards I met up with Will and we went out on the town, met some of his friends and hit up a sweet "rock and roll" bar which truly earns its moniker because they always play the best music.
Sunday we went down to Nagoya port and ran into an Okinawan Festival. There was lots of dancing, food, music and professional wrestling. I would say this was one of my favorite parts of the city. Had steak for lunch and headed back home.
(On a side note, my Kyoto sensei just won massive amounts of cool points because he's trying to ban smoking in the teachers room. Seriously, there's nothing worse than having to work in a smoky office all day.)


The science museum has the first water fountain I've seen in Japan, so I felt the need to document it. I almost wonder if it was part of an exhibit.

This was way scary. It was supposed to help me learn about fire safety, but I actually wept in a corner instead.

Bar tender who gave me free pears and Makoto, the owner.

View of Nagoya from the train station.

WTF?

Bridge.

Nagoya Port.

Dancin' Japanese folks.

Okinawan taiko players.

Taking in the fresh air, maybe a kancho or two.

Good times

What a cool week. I was on T.V. Wednesday night. A news channel taped some of us ALTs at the elementary school. I think it was in reference to the merging of Kurobe and the neighboring town Unazuki and how English is important and all that stuff. One of my junior high students saw me, and now my cool points are positively through the roof. (Like they could get much higher anyways.) Yesterday I had a great day of Show and Tell with the kids. Admittedly, I did get way tired of hearing about baseball gloves and ping pong paddles, but it was totally fun. I'm also currently working on a large cardboard sketon for the Halloween Festival next week, and I think he's looking scary, or at least in proportion. And today was my very first kancho. I didn't even see it coming! That's what happens when the kids are below knee level. For those of you who don't know what a kancho is...well, let's just say they're surprising. My iPod is working again, for the time being, and I'm headed out of town this weekend for some fun. Score!


Saw this girl in Kyoto. How much more Japanese can you get? (Especially considering that's prolly a Louis Vuitton hand bag.)

Sigh

Yeah, so I decided to go to the nurses office today and weigh myself-ya know just because. If you ever want to be really unhappy, weigh yourself in kilograms and then convert it to pounds. How do I move to a country like Japan where everyone is pocket-sized and gain weight? They told us this would happen at JET orientation, but still.
Oh yeah and my iPod isn't working....at least I can't eat it.


The Rub a Dub Reggae Bar. Internationalization at work!

Karaoke

I'm going to say it, if I had my choice I would never do karaoke. Now I know what you're thinking "But Kate, you moved to the wrong country if you don't like karaoke". Yeah, well who the hell asked you?
Be that as it may I will, in the spirit of being part of the group, participate. It's really not so bad once you get going. But like everything, there are rules to be followed. Below are my own personal rules that I feel every participant should read if they want to do karaoke:

1) Don't hog the mic.
2) Avoid songs that suck for karaoke. You're not going to impress us with your knowledge of esoteric music, so stop. If I wanted elitism I'd move back to Atlanta and drink PBR at Lenny's every night after I got off work at Junkman's. Save it for your iPod, put on some Poison and let's rawk.
3) Don't hog the song book.
4) Don't get drunk so early that you end up singing all of your songs laying across three seats. Try to sit up straight for at least a few.
5) For God's sake don't hassle people to sing if they don't want to. You're not gonna convince me, and I've been perfecting "I don't care, and I'm not participating" since middle school. Just ask my Mom.
6) Don't hog the pitcher.
7) Do sing your britches off and have lots of fun.

Good form, Adam.


By the way, last night in Uozu was a flippin' blast! Thanks everyone for making it happen.

Kyoto

For the long weekend, I went to Kyoto with a group of Toyama JETs. We left on Friday night from Toyama with three vans, twenty five people and a pocket full of dreams. After many stops and getting lost on the way, we finally found our hostel which might be the nicest place I've ever stayed. Seriously, it was like some sort of Super Hostel that looked more like Bed, Bath and Beyond than cheap lodging for dirty foreigners.
Saturday it rained the whole damn day and we went to Yasaka-jinga shrine in the Gion district-saw a wedding going on. Then went to the modern art museum. I wasn't terribly excited about it, but I saw a Max Enrst that I really liked. We tried to go to the other museum which has pieces from the Louvre, but they were about to close. That evening everyone went to a Mexican restaurant. I went to bed early after a stroll around the hostel.
Sunday the weather was perfect, so Warren, Phil and I decided to hit the touristy spots around Kyoto. We went to Kinkaku-ji(Golden Temple, reconstructed temple covered with, you guessed it, gold), Ginkaku-ji (Silver Temple-once the villa of a Shogun) and Kiyomizu-dera (has several buildings and a sacred waterfall). Will, Straight Outta Nagoya, was in town for a concert so I met up with him and we tooled around town. We found the Rub a Dub reggae bar, met some friendly Japanese kids and chugged daiquiris after looking for a working ATM for like three hours.
Monday we walked around the palace and the shopping district. The van ride home was pretty. I'm so tired.


Kyoto tower outside the station.

Wedding.

Gion district graveyard. Supposedly there's monkeys who steal offerings, but we didn't see any.

Yasaka-jinga.

Ginkaku-ji. It's not really silver, but the walk through the mountainside was great.

Kinkaku-ji. What they don't want you to know is that under the gold foil is delicious chocolate.

The Kiyomizu waterfall has sacred powers.

Ah, young lovers.

Kiyomizu. Maxin' and relaxin'.

Kiyomizu

Gettin' stung.

View of Kyoto.

Comfortable

We got our first batch of Pen Pal letters from Macon for my English elective class. I wasn't really sure how it was all going to go, but the kids had a blast reading them and asking questions. And if you ever want to have an interesting conversation, try to explain "soul food" to Japanese students. They got a lot out of it which made me feel good. And after school, a group of girls stopped to talk to me, voluntarily, for about 10 minutes. This was also great because I didn't have to assault them to get an English conversation going. It seems like things are getting a little more comfortable for the time being. I'm going to Kyoto this weekend!

I was sitting at a stop light in town the other day and saw this.

Soundtrack to my Life

The current soundtrack to my life is as follows:

"What a Feeling" by Irene Cara. Yeah, the song from Flashdance. They play it every morning over the intercom at school. I imagine nobody's ever seen the movie, but I may give them a taste when I bust out my leotard and do a dance to make it into the ballet school because working as a welder isn't my real dream. I love leg warmers.

"Elevator Love Letter" by Stars. Will can't get enough of this song.

"Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones. Only because the first note of the bell is the first note of this song. Seriously, about eight times a day I think they're about to play it.

Everyday near my house at exactly 6:00pm, there's this churchy type song that's played for about 20 seconds. I have yet to figure out where it's coming from, but it's gotta be a hymn of some sort.

"Shake Appeal" by Iggy and the Stooges. Cuz I got it, baby.

"Copacabana" by Barry Manilow. The play this at lunch time everyday. It's kind of killing me slowly.

"Boys Don't Cry" by The Cure. This song's been in my head for over a month. If I ever do karaoke again, and by that I mean if I get suckered into doing it by the sweet promise of nomihodai, I might consider doing this one. More on karaoke later.

Speaking of music, here's a picture from Nagoya. P.S. Those plaid pants don't go away after the teen years. Every man in this country owns at least four pair.

Fun Sized Sports Day

So today was the yochien sports day and it was so cute it hurt my teeth. Seriously, they were adorable. They did lots of relays, song and dance numbers and the parents got involved too. I did some relays and rocked it if I do say so myself. There's nothing like out running five year olds to make you feel good about yourself.

Opening ceremony.

The youngest kids did a little song about sandcastles or something. Kawaii!!!!

Wait where'd they......?

Oh, there they are!

Closing ceremony-showin' off the bling.