Softbank Hawks versus Rakuten Eagles

I went to see a real live Japanese baseball game on Saturday the 12th. It was fun~ ! Too bad travel is so expensive in Japan... It took me about $70 roundtrip to get to Fukuoka...and only $20 for the game. I went with Sherese, Chris, (2 closest sitting next to me above), and Dustin and Ryan, on the other side of me, not pictured.
Here is the baseball arena in Fukuoka, Japan. I guess the dome can be covered, or not, according to the weather. Can baseball fields in the United States do that? Anyways, Fukuoka's team is the Softbank Hawks. It only took me a little while in the game to realize that I was ta fan of the opposing team...the opposing team had cuter players, and their fans were so cool! I guess we were sitting closer to the opposing section.
The Rakuten Eagles were dominating most of the game...but in 6th or 7th inning (spelling?) the Softbank Hawks made a comeback...Just not enough to win.
I totally had a crush on Number 3 of the Rakutens. He had some great catches and stuff too. :) I wonder if right now, in this pic, they are speaking Japanese to each-other or English. Is the lone white guy on the team like real friends with them, or only teammates on the field?

Above: Just a bit of video from the game... In general, I think Japanese games are very lively compared to American ones. I'm not sure though...I don't know if I've actually been to a major league game in the U.S. But from what I've heard, most are pretty serious and quiet. In the Japanese game, there was ALWAYS loud cheering or music playing going on.

P.S. What was quite interesting to me is that the main announcer guy..I don't know what you call him, but the main MC of the game...he was a white guy, speaking in the most perfect Japanese around. Even the Japanese people didn't realize he was white until they saw him up on the screen being all rowdy and interviewing people in the audience (in Japanese). Cool~!

Shrimp Catching Festival

I can't believe that I haven't blogged about Shrimp Catching festival yet! I just found unopened pictures from it in my email. I get so behind....blogging is hard guys. I'm just lazy I guess. When I get home from a long day of work (they are long!!) sometimes the last thing I want to do is blog. Anyways, so... sorry this is late...I think shrimp catching was around August 20th.

Those of us that drove down in Akiko's car had to make a little trek to the beach...I think we parked in the wrong stop, which is amazing, because the walk was beautiful and fun. Akiko there, is Brent's wife. I don't know her too well, but she's pretty much amazing!!! Brent's cool too. I think he was my first friend in the Ken. (I might accidentally talk about the Ken a lot...so I'm working it in here....so Ken means Prefecture). "the Ken" would be our prefecture. :) aka. Yamaguchi Prefecture.

This tent was set up for us when we got there. The table in front of the tent said ---"Here" foreigner. We were incredibly lucky for being able to get tickets to this. There are only a certain number of people that may participate...and many many Japanese people just couldn't get tickets. My supervisors friend tried REALLY hard to get tickets :( Lucky us! I really appreciate all that this club did for us. The organizers in this club just kept feeding us and feeding us and feeding us, and smiling at us, but not really talking to us that much. I guess they assumed we couldn't speak Japanese (they assumed right for me!)...but it was just so gracious of them, and I will always remember it.

So we all (I think about 3000 people) had a chance to line up and in pairs carry a crate of shrimp down to the ocean. While we were eating lunch, people had been putting up nets about 20 meters into the shore, so that the shrimp would be stuck on shore :( We all lined up to be part of the opening ceremony where in crates, we carried the live shrimp out to the ocean, and dumped them in. There were 1000's and 1000's of shrimp swimming around. Then we all lined up, heard the gun shoot off, and booked it to the ocean. We carried a bag in one hand, and a gloved -other hand had to catch.
Above: This is the gal that interviewed me. She first asked me in Japanese how many shrimp I caught. I understood the question. So I formed my hand into a zero, and put this zero on my forehead. haha. She then said in English "how many shrimp did you catch?". I said, "no, I understood! This is for zero! I caught zero shrimp, but I had a lot of fun!" This bit was put on the main news channel, so probably a million people or more saw me being an idiot with my zero shrimp. I only know that it was actually aired because an old friend from high school who is currently living in Tokyo facebooked me... "I just saw you on TV! You're in Japan too?" haha.

Above: Here, the actually shrimp catching is winding down....but people stayed in looking for them for a LONG time. I think 90% of the shrimp were caught in the first minute though... :)

NOOOO JAMIE NOOOOOO! At least peel it and dip it in Soy Sauce first! :)

Everyone handed in all the shrimp they caught, and the organizers (I'm not exactly sure who these organizers were! I think they were part of a Japanese club called "friends of foreigners"!) barbecued them up. Not all of them. Many we just dipped in soy sauce and ate raw. Fresh and raw. It was really really yummy. I don't think I've ever eaten raw shrimp before...

Click on the video above, to see a short clip of what the shrimp catching looked like.

Enkai

Here are a few pictures from my Enkai, or welcome party, that was thrown for me by the Japanese Teachers of English at my base school:

Above: the end of the night. Empty table, empty glasses: Time to go home and go to sleep!

Above: This is not even all the food we had. Many dishes had to be put on the table next to us, because there was just too much. It was really really delicious! We celebrated at a Korean restaurant called Mana. And it was actually owned by a Korean! I was excited to able to use a little of my Korean, and impress the cook and my co-workers. :)

The lady sitting the right of me is my supervisor. She is so nice and funny. Her English is as close to perfect as it comes, which is a big plus. Not every ALT (assistant language teacher) gets a supervisor that they can easily communicate with. They are all really cool people. I sit next to the guy on the far back on the right side of the picture, and his English is great too, and we both enjoy video games and such, so there is always lots to talk about.

Kon-pai! Enkai's are always all you can drink. Yay for that!~ So it was $50 per person, but I think it was well worth it for us. Even without the all-you-can-drink, I ate at least $50 of the most delicious food I've had here.

P.S. I think it was extra fun because I taught them about Truth-or-Dare. 6 adults, all WORK colleagues.. Playing that. It was fun. But I can't talk about it. We all pinky-swore. :) Don't worry, nothing immoral or anything. Unless you count a bit of workplace gossip. ...

Student Essay

Here is my favorite essay of the day... these kids are so cute!!!!

"I wish I lived a house which can fly in the sky. If I lived there now I could go to school, shopping and all over Japan without walking, because the house made me take to a place where I wanted to go. The design would be very cute. It was ecology because it worked on wind force."

A-plus, student! I especially love that last sentence...so how exactly can I correct that...? :) By the way, the movie "Up" hasn't come out here yet, so I don't think she was infringing on any kind of copyright. ;)

I wonder if this will sound as funny via writing...

So I've been going to my schools for a while now. I've been to my base school, what, like 40 times now? The other schools, numerous times. Out of my 3 schools, none had Western Style toilets...they were all like the one shown above, left... (or so I thought).

Does anyone else do this????...Once I use a bathroom, I always use the same stall if available. I don't know why. Some subconscious thing. I just pick a stall and stick with it. The pictured one is the one closest to the door...then there is one in the middle, then there is a far one. In each of my schools, I gravitate towards the farthest one...I guess subconsciously so that people can not hear me use the restroom from the hallway. (Well this is a moot point because there is always the automatic "manner flush sound"...the little box that makes a flushing sound...did I already talk about this?...I thought it was ridiculous at first, but it turns out that I LOVE it).

Okay, yes, getting off track...I know this is a difficult blog to follow, but I'm trying to paint the whole picture. So the middle stall, pictured above, is never cracked open. I guess when I daintily pushed it to see if it was free, I thought it was occupied, because, as I know now, the middle stall is the only stall that opens out.

Anyways...(I wish you could have just been there to witness this all).... Yesterday...after using the bathroom SOOOO many times before, I go in, and that middle door is cracked....and I see a Western style toilet inside. I didn't comprehend that I had never actually seen inside the middle stall. So I grab my supervisor, and force her into the bathroom...exclaiming "WHY IS THAT THERE???" while pointing to the Western style toilet.

You see, I thought that it was new, and that they put it in just for me. I was trying to show my exasperation with them putting in a regular toilet just for me. But she looked soooo confused. I said "WHY IS THAT THERE????".... I kept repeating myself, waiting for her to say...oh they just put that in...or something. But she kept saying "I don't understand the question", "I don't understand the question".

When she said again "I don't understand the question" I repeated "why is that there?"... she must have thought that I was CRAZY (which I am)... and she finally said "Because this is a bathroom, so there is a toilet to use, in the bathroom." In an instant, it all came together, that the Western style toilet was there the whole time, but my mind filled in for what I never actually witnessed, and filled in a "squat toilet" where the regular toilet was. Crazy mind.

Today I checked my other school..and sure enough, there is a Western style toilet that I had never seen, and would have never known was there. And I'm sure tomorrow, I will find at my last school, a Western style toilet.

My supervisor had a good laugh with the entire office about me. She totally understood what happened...I'm just afraid that something got lost in translation when she told the Japanese speakers. She then kept telling me "Steffanie, you are CERTAINLY the MOST INTERESTING ALT that we have ever, and will ever have".

Lesson: Don't use the same stall every time you go into a public bathroom. You might be missing something better on the other side of the stall door. Dozens and dozens of squats, that I did not have to take....

why we do it...

Yes. Because people speak English. haha!

(this site has been helpful for my afterschool English clubs....but WHY do we have English Club? because...!...)

5 random pics

Hello! So here's my post for today. Just some pictures basically. Not new and hip, but a few days old. :)

But to give you a taste of today... for reals' two separate students at two different times at two different spots in the city.... Greeted me like this today:

[stared at me intently...making sure they have my attention....and instead of giving the normal "HELLO" or "I AM FINE" (haha.. they really greet with I am fine sometimes) they say]:

A RU NO DO SU WA JIN E GA RU

Which for those of you who don't speak Engrish means: Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I get greeted with "Arnold Schwarzenegger" rather than hello! All my students know I'm from California... :)

Moving on...

So we all decide to chill out on the third floor balcony...needing some peace and a cool breeze, after having to practically sign autographs for the kids. But a couple of kids spotted us, and ...who knows what they were saying, but they were making a lot of noise and pointing up at us! Yes, its us! The foreigners!

Here's me and my supervisor at this school. Like the size of my snow-cone? Celebrity treatment I'm telling you. :)

This was a picture I took at the cultural festival at my 2nd school. And I can use it without worrying because it doesn't show the students face!!! Notice how I never actually name my schools either. No using school's names, kids names or anything like that online. Anyways, this is one of my favorite pictures out of all the pictures I've taken here. I only intended it to be Kholo in the picture (blue shirt guy...ALT/JET in a neighboring city)..but the kid saw what I was going for, and without any words, he got in the picture...and then left. No words were exchanged. It was just an understanding. haha.

I'm not sure if I included this in my previous post..but after the culture festival last Saturday, we all came back to my apt in Hofu and had a lot of fun! I pulled all my little futons into the living room with the air on full blast, and it was still steaming hot! These two are my friends Hozumi and Ryan. Hozumi may very well be the nicest person I've ever met. Sorry whoever just got bumped to number 2.

This was from bowling this past Sunday. The bowling in Japan is just like the bowling in America, except for some reason I am a worse player here. But the drink holders and the winners! (my team!). The non-drink holders had to buy us the drinks :)

The Mundane Stuff

So basically, I'm still just living life here. There are a lot of day to day things that haven't been getting much glory on this blog...and its probably better that way... But here are a few things that I thought of in my day, today alone. (If I were to include the small and quasi-interesting bits of my life from, lets say, yesterday too...this might get a bit too long...like how I am learning Japanese sign language for my 3rd teaching gig).

Mundane tidbit #1--Every morning I wake up. Well obviously. Many times I make myself a cup of coffee. I need to buy a new coffee maker. So for now, I boil water and then use it to pour some instant coffee. In theory I pour the water over the instant coffee. I add a little milk, little sugar, and enjoy! In reality, no matter how early I get up, the coffee never gets drank. drunken. whatever. Its always poured but never drank. Its always poured but never drank. I'm already done with an entire bottle of instant coffee, and not once have I finished a cup in the morning! I am very annoyed at myself. I pour, but I have to wait for it to cool. And it goes on cooling all day long. I woke up 10 minutes early to drink coffee today! Somehow it took me 10 extra minutes to straighten my hair today...

#2--The 2nd school that I teach at.. Like I mentioned before, its hard to get there. I have to ride to the train station, get on the train, and then walk from the train to the school. Its tiring. Even though I only have 1 class on Wed...there is no going home early or anything, because I have English club after school, until 5:00p. That is one full day. To make it to school on time I take a 7:08a train. So my real point to #2 is: I have loads of free time...to do nothing, and NO TIME to do important things. What I mean is that I've had these postcards to send out for weeks now, but I can never find time to get to the post office. Throughout the work days, all I have is time-but it is expected that I look busy. Lesson planning through 2015. Studying Japanese. Cutting construction paper (no real purpose necessary...the act of cutting is very well regarded). Its just so annoying to have sooooo much time on your hands, but not be able to do what you need to do.

#3--They changed "ladies day" at the theatre to Mondays. It was Wednesdays, so today I went to go see a Japanese movie by myself--which by the way confused the heck out of the ticket seller--and it came out to 1800 Yen! I was able to figure out that "Getsuyoobi" is the new 1000 Yen day. I still wanted to see it, but I can save myself 8 bucks and see it Monday... Sexy Toshiaki Kawasawa and his crazy world-saving gang can wait a few days.

And this picture is not from today...It was my lunch on Monday. Just wanted to throw a pic in, so its not just "ya-kitty yack yack" only... :) As you can see, its Octopus, inside these little donut thingies. Topped with dried fish, some green stuff, and OF COURSE Mayonnaise. Freaking Japanese and their Mayo. (You should have seen the look of horror the McDonalds lady gave me when I was very clear I wanted no mayo on my burger. You should also see how many food items get a splash of mayo, for no reason whatsoever. Sushi? Mayo. Noodles? Mayo. Pizza? Mayo. Octopus balls-check!)

School Festival

This is my second school. Not my base school...but I go there twice a week (just as much as my base school). So I don't know the teachers or students very well right now, because I've only been there 2 or 3 times. Only once so far as a teaching day...since school started on Sep 1st. I like the school a lot...I just hope that I can handle getting up and taking the train and then walking pretty far to get there, twice a week. Well I guess I shouldn't say "I hope"...I mean I have to.

I heard that they were having a school festival on Saturday, so I invited some friends in nearby cities to come join, and then go hang out in Hofu for the rest of the day. It was the first time that this group saw "The City of Christina and Steffanie".

The following is a quote from Christina's blog, because I think she said it well:

"On Saturday, one of Steff's schools had a bunkasai, a cultural festival. The entire school is decorated and food stands are set up. A couple of us ALTs went and it was a lot of fun. One of my students from my school actually recognized me! Being an ALT kind of makes you a mild celebrity around your city. We stayed to watch the brass band perform, since we were told they were the best in the prefecture. It was incredible - I've never heard a high school band play like that. There was singing and dancing, too!" -Christina (Steff's friend and JET who lives in apt right under her)

Here's all of us on the road between the train station and the school. And when I say road, I mean treacherous journey through rice fields that had to be artificially heated by some alien lifeform harnessing the power of 21 suns.

The festival was pretty cool, I think. There were booths all over the place selling food, shaved ice, and more shaved ice. The problem was that I guess I was suppose to buy my tickets for these items BEFORE the day of the festival. So when we all show up hot, and gross, they said there were no more tickets for shaved ice.

Its so hard to explain how this day went...but basically Kholofelo was so popular among the students there, that they pulled some strings and got us shaved ices. I wonder who didn't get one because of us... :) But really. Both Kholo and Ryan were so popular among the students, that we had to take a million pictures with excited students. Both Kholo and Ryan were literally like rock stars. All the high school girls had crushes on them, and all the high school boys wanted to be them. But us girls had fun too!

I think most, if not all of the rooms in the school had something going on in them. Like each room was a festival station. The teachers have a homeroom, and each homeroom class did their own thing in that room. This room was a "Love the Earth" room, which had a big balloon Earth in the center. Maybe they passed out environmental literature? I don't know. We came at noon, and were a little late for most of the festivities.

The set-up reminded me of a church function during Halloween. Anyone remember Trunk or Treat??? Some rooms had games, some had food, some had music. There was a parade through the halls before we got there. Don't ask me what the festival was for...? Just the yearly school festival?...

(press play on the video above... whenever there is an arrow like that, its a video)

The band was quite amazing. The band director is the guy who sits next to me in the teachers room: Satoshi Sensei. He is very very nice, and its great because even though he's not an English teacher, he speaks English (usually only the English teachers at each school talk to me). He lived in Sri Lanka for 3 years, and learned English there. I wish I could buy a recording of some of the stuff they did...

Honestly, its unbelievable... In the middle of playing something, they all stopped playing, and started singing it instead. A band/choir! And they had things choreographed too, like 3 of the players would put their instruments down, and start dancing like pros! :)

I know Upland High's marching band ruled the world...but its just been so long since I've seen something so crazy good, and from high-schoolers! Yay for them!

Hikari

Happy Birthday Callie!

This last Saturday, for Callie's birthday, many (most?) of the JETs in our prefecture got together in Hikari...the nicest beach around.

It took me about 45 minutes by train to get to this beach. I have yet to find water in Hofu, even though my pre-conceived notion told me I would be living in a beach city. But even if I could find water, I'm sure Hikari would have been nicer. It was a beautiful day, with lots of friends.

Also, thank you Cyndi for letting us stay at your place that night!

And double thank you Cyndi for recommending we eat at that burger place. Wow...a real burger, like my dad would cook up, and my mom would put together...

Grading

Hey ya'll. So I start teaching tomorrow. Today I had that speech in Japanese, and a lot of time for lesson planning. Towards the end of the day I noticed that my supervisor had stacks and stacks of papers to grade, so I offered to help!

So I stayed over an hour late grading papers, which was soooooo exciting! I'm serious though! I really really enjoyed it. Probably because it was the first time that I felt like I had a reason to be being paid! So far work has been TOO chill, and it was just nice to have something concrete to do. Staring at the wall and reshuffling my desk is only okay for so long. :)

I bet starting tomorrow, I will be wishing for the good ole' days of summer when I didn't have to do anything.

SHHHoes... ;)

This morning I had my opening ceremony speech in front of the entire school. I think it went well. I actually think that it went smoother than most of my practices in front of the mirror. Lets just say that everyone understood my Japanese. :)

Well, we walked from the teachers room, downstairs, and accross an outdoor corridor to the auditorium where the ceremony was being held. Since we started in the teachers room, of course I was wearing my indoor shoes. It was perfectly appropriate to walk accross to the auditorium in these shoes. We changed into slippers provided once inside the gym.

So the last hour of the ceremony was just the head guy checking every single students style and dress. Making sure, one student at a time, that shirts were tucked in, skirts were to the knee, hair styles were not "silly"...so I was given permission/told to go hang out in the teachers room rather than endure the bordom in the hot gym.

So I walked back through the corridor, and like I have done EVERYDAY for over a month...I changed my shoes before going into the main part of the school.

So I don't know if you followed that...but without realizing it, I was wearing my OUTDOOR shoes, indoors, all day. Like: I didn't need to change my shoes, because I was already in my indoor shoes.

Now, 6 hours later, I looked down and with dread thought... "why am I wearing these shoes?" Darn auto-pilot. I'm really glad no one noticed, but I'm still embarassed...that is such a big thing here.