Korean DMZ

When I went to Seoul, late last month/early this month---it was my first time there. I was in Pusan before, but mostly for shopping and eating, so I wanted to make sure I could get a lot of cultural and learning stuff in, this time around.

Christina and I took a day tour of the Demilitarized Zone.

Here, on the way, in our tour bus, we could catch sight of North Korea, across the river.

It was definitely a very serious trip. We had to be dressed modestly. We were told over and over again to be calm, respectful, and weary of our surroundings.

It was a strange day to go, especially because everyone was on very high alert. The high alert was because at that time, in the Joint Security Area, there were very high level talks occurring about the sinking of the South Korean ship in March.
Above is the actual Demarkation Line. The soldiers on the far end of the picture, stand away from the camera are North Korean Soldiers. We were only given literally less than 30 seconds to take pictures. We were under strict 'orders' to not wave to anyone on the other side, not make sudden movements, and to not even smile. There were some North Korean tourists on the steps on the other side. Whether or not they are government workers paid to pose as tourists or not, I will never know.

That South Korean soldier behind me yelled at me for taking a picture when I wasn't suppose to, on the bus! I didn't know! Our tour guide told us each of the places we could take pictures (like 2 spots, for 10 seconds). But her English was very hard to understand, and I thought that she said we could! I'm still scared of his wrath! (I had to delete the beautiful photo right away!)

Here is one of the fences at the border. These are wishes and prayers hung by South Koreans. The whole situation is so devastating. I can't even imagine, yet it still brings tears to my eyes to think about how families were torn apart. The isolation of the North Koreans.

That day I went and visited the DMZ was chilling and enlightening.

I hope that anyone reads this makes it a point to learn something new. Something about a part of the world you are unfamiliar with.

...and then hopefully one day, the world won't need weaponry like this...

TOA

So officially, all the new JETS that are coming for the 2010-2011 school year, are now here! Welcome everyone! :D

I was Yamaguchi Prefecture's welcome wagon for the first group that came. The prefecture flew me up to Tokyo, to be part of the orientation held at the fabulous Keio Plaza Hotel.

It was such a blast!

The first day I got there, was training and organizing and stuff like that. Each prefecture sent one person to Tokyo, so I made a lot of new friends!

The first night, I was sent to Narita Airport, to stay, because I needed to be up bright and early, to start my "airport duties". For my terminal, I was at "station one" meaning that I got to literally hold the "WELCOME NEW JETS" sign at the airport!

For the rest of orientation, I was doing things like working the Information Desk, participating in Prefectural Meetings, etc. 3 more nights in the Keio Plaza, walking around like I knew everything. Lol.

But when I wasn't on duty, I was chilling with other TOAs, exploring Tokyo, and .........

Drinking Starbucks EVERYDAY!

Oh how I miss Starbucks. :)

A nice view from the Keio Plaza Hotel.

I really love Tokyo! But I don't know if I could actually live there. Maybe if I had a job that paid like 4 times as much.

Speaking of, a recent study still puts Tokyo as the most expensive city in the world! Taking into account many many different factors: i.e. Housing cost, cost of 1lb of rice, cost of a movie ticket, etc etc.

Working the Hospitality Desk (Welcome to Japan!), and chatting with my old friend Mike who I was friends with years ago at U.C.I. I was very surprised to see him coming off the plane! He told me that I was the one that planted the idea of JET in his head, 7 years ago!

Tokyo Orientation was so fun. I totally would do it again and again and again if I could. We should just have JETS come in on a rolling basis, and I'll wait for them at the Keio Plaza. Grand idea.

Until that happens, back to lesson planning...

Toilet humor

A whole year later.... Japanese toilet instructions still strike me as hilarious.

See last year's even funnier toilet instructions --- here ----.

Octopus Balls

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Osaka! More coming, more coming (eventually) but here is one little tidbit on Osaka...

Osaka is famous for Takoyaki, which are Octopus Balls! Well, pieces of Octopus in a doughy-ball. Its a very unique flavor. I must say, when I first came to Japan, it was definitely not my favorite, due to the sweet brown sauce and mayonnaise that is usually slathered on top of them.

But I've come to really appreciate them! The ones I ate in Osaka were "Oishii!" (delicious)

Below: Making Takoyaki is very simple if you have a Takoyaki grill. You can buy the mix, or make it yourself. Add water. Start cooking the ball, and while its still juicy juicy, you pop on the top of the half-ball the octopus, some ginger, maybe some cheese, and then you flip the ball while its still wet. So the half-ball becomes a full ball because the batter was still runny enough. Wow, I don't think I explained that very well. Sorta like carefully flipping ball-shaped pancakes.

Hope everyone is well!

Cultural Bit

Here in Japan, many people adhere to certain superstitions. Although I don't think superstition is the right word, because what I'm about to share with you is connected to a Japanese Shinto belief. I'm not sure if its an official part of the religion, but here is the sign in front of our famous Hofu Tenmangu Shrine:

The character above the highlighted pink lettering is the Kanji for female, and the right side is for males.

The pink side shows three different ages. 19 years old, 33 years old and 37 years old. The male side shows the ages: 25, 42 and 61.

The Japanese version of TODAYS DATE IS: 22/8/2. (August 2nd, 2010). That is because we are in the 22nd year of the current emperor's reign. When the current emperor dies, the clock will reset, I guess you can say.

So in this 22nd year, for females, the unlucky ages are 19, 33, and 37. And if you are a 25, 42 or 61 year old male, you best be prayin'.

I found out about this because my amazing supervisor at one of my schools (O-sensei) is 33, and she does have the feeling that bad things have been happening to her.

So she bought the good-luck charm below, specifically designed for those in the ominous year of their life, and often prays for much needed good luck.
If you are interested in getting clearer information about this practice, please e-mail me at steffieyoung@gmail.com, and I shall get you more information! I think that this little bit that I know now is really interesting, and would love to have the excuse to pry more into the culture, so ask away! :D

Yamaguchi Baseball

I guess its that time of year! I'm not a sports person, so I don't know about what season is what, or what team goes with what sport, etc.

But it was definitely baseball time recently!

As far as I can tell, all the high school's baseball teams had a big tournament. I attended my school's first (and only) game on my day off! Ok, well, technically I used it as an excuse to get a free bus-ride to the side of my prefecture that serves Mexican food...

I really enjoyed the game! It was a really hot day, but the kids worked so hard! My school lost, but to be fair, they lost to the team that went on to win the whole championship! Its like Scotland going against Spain in the world cup-game one. Or something like that. :/ maybe?

Apparently the champion team gets to play in an all-Japan tournament, and that is where the scouts are. I think our team was awesome, and deserves a chance to prove themselves to a scout or two. I'm very sad.

The cheering was amazing. Much more organized cheering than I'm used to in America. But our cheerleaders need a wardrobe overhaul... At least we have cheerleaders! The winning team was an all boys school---so they had cheer leaders in white gloves doing cool hand routines.

Go -insert my school's name here- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hydrangea Day

Hydrangea day was back on June 20th.

I think hydrangea flowers are super beautiful.

Hydrangea Day isn't a national holiday or anything! I'm pretty sure its a special "Hofu Only" festival, and is celebrated at Amidaji temple, which is not quite in walking/biking distance to me, so I've only been there a couple of times. I will definitely go again next spring! So beautiful...

Like all festivals here, there was a lot of special "festival food" which is a lot of fried octopus balls and such. Its special festival food in the same way that "funnel cakes" are special in American festivals/fairs.

There was also Taiko drumming, and a lot of being "one" with nature (the mosquitos weren't even in full force yet!!! Those were the days...)

I only found out about Hydrangea day at the temple because of one of the essay homework assignments that I gave out! I think the prompt was something like this:

"I'm a stupid gaijin,..teach me something new about your country."

hahah. Not quite like that. But one student wrote about this festival, and invited me to go. It is actually very often that my students enrich my life here.

I love my students!!!!!!!!

I wish it were still March/April, for lots of reasons...

but its not! So as for now...it's time to start wearing a surgical mask while on my bike, so as not to accidentally eat a dozen bugs a minute!

Leavers

Its that time of year. Almost a year ago today, I embarked on a journey across the world! And then decided to stay... There are many other people who were either "termed out" or just decided to go home. And I will miss them so much!!! I really really will.

We had a beachside BBQ up in Hagi to celebrate our time here, and say goodbye!

I was one of the three people that just stuck to BBQ'ing the whole time. I wasn't going to swim, after the whole jellyfish incident a few weeks back!

The BBQ was great, and I want to thank everyone who helped organize it!

Hagi is a beautiful city, and it was my first time there. It is very out of the way for most people in Yamaguchi, so I'm glad I had a reason to force myself to make the trip.

We had end of the year awards. We voted for people in categories such as "The Alcoholic" and "The Slacker" and "Worst Japanese". Luckily, I was voted "Most Dedicated"!!! I was actually very happy! But next year, I will be hugging Mike for "Biggest Nerd!" Its not a category yet, but I'm going to start lobbying for it to be, soon.

Fireworks on the beach were awesome.

Of course, no ALT gathering would be complete without an ambulance! During a game of Dodgeball, two of our bravest went down. One even got a surgery out of it! (hand surgery) Luckily, I was nowhere near that ball-o-death.

The after-party involved some Brittney, Michael Jackson, M.I.A., etc. :D

Monica, Brooke, Whitney, Callie, Matt, Sophie, Mathieu, Mack!, Cyndi, Tiff, Alex, Charles, Tim and just freaking everyone that will not be here soon..... Farewell! I will miss you!

Burned

I've been getting better in my old age at putting on sunblock everyday. Its just hard when this is the biggest sized bottle of sunblock I can find here in Japan, and its like 10 million dollars. ;) Oh, how I miss Costco, how I miss Costco.

Next up--getting better at wearing bug repellant. urg.

Star Festival!

Here is a post I'm pretty excited about! I don't know why I'm so excited, I just am! :) Well, I learned about something new yesterday and today, that I've never heard of before. Its of a Chinese holiday, that is also celebrated here in Japan.

I want to tell you about it, the way it was told to me, so don't necessarily trust everything I say. Here is something about it (that I'm not reading) from Wikipedia. click. But I want to tell you the best I can based on what my students taught me.

So yesterday was a holiday called: tanabata The students in-class assignment was to brainstorm on everything they knew about the holiday, and then teach me about it, the best they can in English, with gestures, and with drawings.

So a long long time ago, the god of the Milky Way, (or as I learned: 天の川 translating directly to heaven/sky river) was this dad, who was kind of possessive... but probably only wanted the best for his daughter Orihime (actually the star VEGA!!) She was a master 'weaver' (or something like that...they couldn't explain this part well). She spent all her time making beautiful cloth---pure perfection! But since she spent all her time in her endeavors, she didn't have time to find a husband. Then this "Cowboy" came along (YES the best way they could describe the word in English was Cowboy!!) They got married and fell deeply in love. Oh, by the way, his name is Hikoboshi (otherwise known as the star ALTAIR).

pic source

They were so happy spending all of their time together that Orihime no longer spent any time weaving. She spent all her days and nights "playing" with Hikoboshi. So the grumpy father separated them. She must weave, and never see her husband at length again. :(

They were separated on opposite sides of the Milky Way, and can never pass. (Just as Vega and Altair are are separated by the Milky Way.

There is only one day out of the year that they can see each-other, and that is July 7th--Tanabata! So it is a really important celebration, for love! The suckie catch is, is that they only get to meet on Tanabata if the skies are clear. But this is rainy season!! The skies are rarely clear! So On July 7th, everyone wishes for clear skies, so the separated lovers can meet once again.

There are many other things that go along with this holiday. Of course, I'm not sure why. But there is a special kind of bamboo called Sasa or: 笹. People are suppose to write their wishes on long strips of origami paper, and tie them to the Sasa.

For at least a month now, the main mall here in Hofu has been FILLED with Sasa, and beautiful strips of paper. I had no idea why. Now I know! I tried to ask both my classes that had this lesson if they only get their wishes fufilled if the sky is not cloudy, and Orihime and Hikoboshi can meet. No one knew. You know how traditions go. There are so many traditions that we don't even know why we do them.

I know -below- isn't right because they are not hung on Sasa, nor are they strips, but for the purpose of English class, they wrote their wishes in English here...

Other things about this holiday---there are special foods to eat. Cold soman noodles. Also some kind of pudding/Jelly with three different layers, and the middle layer being white, representing the Milky Way.

Hmmmm... Did I miss anything that they told me? Maybe...but cheers! And fathers--don't punish your daughters for finding love! I know if it were my dad, he'd just sit down and do the sewing for me, while I "played" with my love. <3>

(point of reference---every Japanese student tries to translate this one verb to 'played' when they really mean "hang out"!!!! No matter how many times I try to tell them, I will still get 90% of my high school seniors telling me that after school they will play with their friends at the mall).

Lesson Idea:

Here is what I was trying to describe to my students:

And here is an example of the outcome!!

Can you call this dictation? Whatever it was, it was a really fun warm up exercise for English class!

:)

I love all my friends in Japan!!!!

(Of course this is in no way a represenation

of all my friends in Japan,...

I just had this picture in my queue to blog about!)

But I miss all my friends in America!!!!

(of course, this is not a representation of

all my friends in America, I just grabbed a pic!)

And I hecka miss Vietnam!!!

(Hi EAP peeps!)

So where should my next adventure be? My mind keeps floating towards Buenos Aires...

San In Beach Party

This year was the last year that Tottori Prefecture would host the relatively famous "San In Beach Party." I was going to go with JET, but it would have cost me an arm and a leg, so when I was invited by some friends that were going to drive--I thought, YaH!

We left around 7:30p.m. We all had to work, so we couldn't really go any earlier. The drive was scheduled to take around 5-6 hours. So its really great we left late, because we took the toll roads. Usually the price one way on that toll road is $70!! But because we exited the toll road after midnight, it was only $10! It was pretty funny, because we had to pull over and wait it out. Heck yeah, I'm all about stopping on the side of the road for 20 minutes so that the clock will hit midnight!

Here, the girls are planning our trip out at the first rest stop we came across. I'm in love with Japanese rest stops. No sleezy looking characters. Free tea. Free maps. This trip planner (the machine they are on) that was suppose to get us where we needed to go easily.

As I would find out a few hours later, the machine was just about as good as Mapquest. Darn you Mapquest! Darn you Japanese map-machines!

We got pretty lost. The whole area we were in was pretty countryside. So there were barely any roadsigns, no streetlights, no gas-stations, no McDonalds. :) No one to help us if we didn't find our way. I think the being lost took away about 2 hours. Not too bad, right?

We finally made it to the beachside campsite at 3:30a.m. Step one-bring in the tent, and set it up. We had to wind our way through people that were dancing, laughing, and others that could barely walk. But we managed to get the tent up!

We ended up having a party in the back of the car, because even though ALL three of us brought in ONLY a tent on our first entry, no one happened to tell us that any form of liquid would only be allowed in on that first entry. Not even water! But we met many cool people out in the parking lot that encountered the same problem as us. No one was aware of this "first entry only" policy.

After trying to get some sleep (the dance music was on all night!) we got some "sun" (it was a very gloomy weekend), made some more friends, and got stung by Jellyfish!!! Ohhhh I want to say that this was the first Jellyfish sting of my life, but I can't really remember. I knew exactly what was happening to me, but was kind of powerless to stop it! It was a terrible terrible sting! The color on my legs there, is just iodine. But a closer picture would show a terrible, bubbly rash, that freaked me out! (and hurt)

Here was the view from our tent. The beach was really nice. I want to guess there were only about 600 people there this year. Don't know why it was the last year, but its really a shame, because its awesome. Here is some info from a previous year, if you want to get a feel for what went down. click click.

Goodbye Kozumi Beach!

Laser Disc

Apparently these "Laser Discs" were much more popular in Japan, than they ever were in America. I had never before seen one in my life, before this trip to Hard Off.

Hard Off by the way is a secondhand Hardware store. Japan also has: Book Off, and Hobby Off. And something else "off" where I like to find secondhand clothing, cause thats how I roll.

Yamaguchi's famous 5 story Pagoda

I just love trees. Today, each time I walked under a tree, I stopped and looked up. Think I freaked out all the people that were of course staring at me (the staring happens regardless of the random stops/skyward looks).

Yamaguchi City has some pretty beautiful sights like this. I still think Hofu is the best place though....