Cobu Night

Yesterday I thought I was going to see Taiko Drumming, which I've talked about before on this thing. I bought the tickets in advance for me, my supervisor, and another Japanese Teacher of English (JTE). We have dinner (which was actually hard, because most restaurants are closed on Mondays). Then we go to the Taiko.

First of all...we hand the tickets to the ticket takers, and are subsequently told that they are the wrong tickets. We were trying to use tickets to some other performance from Oct. 17th. I was so mad and embarrassed. Its my fault because I bought all our tickets. But on the other hand, whoever sold me the tickets is responsible, because I have NO IDEA where she would have gotten the idea that I wanted tickets for that other show. I basically bought the tickets by continually pointing at the flier that was the Taiko flier. It was very very clear what I wanted. But I should have thought to check the tickets. I feel terrible still...Still waiting on word if they will give us a refund for those.

So we bought 3 tickets at the door for Taiko.

It was very very different than I expected. It wasn't traditional Taiko at all. Definitely some form of Taiko, but not traditional. It was Taiko/Hip Hop Tap Dancing/ EVERYTHING. These gals basically did the most rad variety show ever. They sung, they flipped, they played traditional Japanese guitars, they did some sign language. Everything they did went "BAM" in our faces. It was really cool.

I thought the show was too racey for Hofu. This town...not very racey. Some of the dance moves they did, made me feel awkward...worrying about all the 日本人 around me. Like how I felt during Bella and Edwards kissing scene in Twilight while watching with family. But everyone seemed to enjoy it. The one complaint that I heard was about how they wore their Kimono's. They were put on for show, and I guess I can see how people would find that a little disrespectful, because Kimonos are such a huge part of traditional culture here.

Anyways, I didn't take any pictures...no one else was... but they are on Youtube. I think you can watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHEJ0ODoJ8M&feature=related .

Or just search for: Cobu-- Fusion of Taiko Drumming & Funk Tap Dance.

I love this city. But how did such a cool group come to Hofu, Japan? haha. "Yeah. I think we should go to Hofu. I've always wanted to perform there."

Separate thought:

Now everyone at once...lets pray for the aforementioned refund.

Choruru (チョるる)

Okay, two posts ago I talked a bit about the green haired dude which is this prefectures mascot. I found out about him. His name is Choruru. The reason that this is cute is because "Choru" is a dialectical word. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it right, but "choru" is an ending form for verbs that is only used in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Most people in Tokyo wouldn't understand it at all...so it is a lot more dialectical than, lets say... California versus the deep south. There are actually different words here. So the mascot being named after our dialect is cute!

Choruru is the mascot of the Yamaguchi National Athletic Meeting in 2011. There are 47 Prefecures in Japan, and the games go to a different prefecture every year, so the next time this important athletic meet will be here will be in...hmmm 2058? So this is a big deal for sure. The games are held all over the prefecture...not just one central place. Hofu (my city) will get to host the volleyball, and cycling. Most of the cities in the prefecture will get to host a couple different events.

Choruru's green hair is shaped based on Yamaguchi Prefecture's highest mountain. Interesting! At least to me...as a Yamaguchi resident. :) :)

Rockclimbing

I think I have put pictures up before, of the rock climbing walls at Seminar Park. This is the wall that we used for the beginners class. So yes...full story: Rockclimbing class is wonderful! I'm so happy that I find out about these kinds of things through all my supervisors and Japanese friends that know that I want to experience everything I can! The class is free, and after taking 3 classes, we get a certification card that allows us access to all the parks harnesses, ropes, etc. To tell you the truth, I loved this so much that I plan on buying my own harness and shoes. I would have been able to try the wall more if I had my own harness, because there was a line to use the harnesses that they had on hand. And their climbing shoes were a little tight on me.

The class had 23 people in it, and 3 instructors. There was an intermediate and advanced class going on at others walls at the same time, which was a little distracting because they were so amazing! At the end, the wall pictured above was moved!! They have controls that can change the tilt of the wall at 2 different joints, if you will. They made this wall super difficult, and put on a little show for us. And showy it was...they were like flipping their bodies around every which way to make it to the top! I don't think I could ever be that good...but I want to keep working at it!

In theory, the instructors taught us how to tie all our own knots and get it all set up by ourselves. But admittedly there was a language barrier, and I think the instructors just didn't know what to do with that, so they just showed us what to do, and I wasn't able to go through it enough times to remember. I do know that this rockclimbing class didn't use a figure 8...they had some other cool kind of mechanism...but they showed us both, and I got the concept.

This was my first attempt out of three. I couldn't make it past that area a couple feet above my head on my first try...but on my second try (on the right side...) I made it up into the 10th or 11th meter area. The first and second time, fear stopped me from going higher. I mean, I couldn't quite reach, but I wasn't yet comfortable with just GOING FOR it and making a leap of faith. The third try --it was physical strength that stopped me from going any higher. I had already exerted myself in my first 2 attempts. I really need to work out my arm muscles. By the way, I went to the class with my friend Anna, who did much better than me! Go Anna!

Coming down was not as hard as I thought it would be. Turns out that being held On Belay by someone below works just as well as those fair type ones that just take you down slowly. This went a little faster than those fair ones, but felt absolutely safe and secure. Here Anna is coming down in a Top Model pose!

Me! Climbing! Its not as easy as it looks people... Only click on the video above if you really wanna see a white girl struggling. :)

Hofu Flee Market

By the way, really...no one pronounces it Hofu. Its pronounced Hohu which just really throws me off. I was doing a game of "hangman" with 4 real smart girls in my Wednesday English club, and the spaces were: "I love Ho_u". They live in HOFU! Its always spelled Hofu! But, it took them many tries to figure out the F. The man was almost hung. I don't understand why they don't just spell it Hohu if no one can say Hofu.

But yay Hofu! I love my city!

This last Saturday there was a famous "flea market" that only comes around to Hofu 1 time per year! I don't think it should be called a "flea market" (and probably isn't in Japanese), because it is more like a city-wide festival. And when I say citywide, I mean that this was 10 times bigger than even the biggest event I've seen in this city yet. Big streets, small streets, shopping areas, taxi areas, where everything normally is---was inundated with food stalls, goods stalls, performances,...all the firefighters were out shaking kids hands, people were dressed up like famous characters. It was a pretty cool day!

It did remind me of the Orange County fair, but without the rides. There were definitely the games. I need to talk to someone about getting some rides up in here. :)

This is a very bad picture of me eating KOREAN food! Yay! There was an international section of the flea market. My friend Anna had really good information on this area, because she took me to a booth were we needed only to fill out a short survey, and we would get 500 Yen of free money to spend in this international area!

So this bowl of Korean food was free, and I spent my other 300 yen of free money on "kim" which is korean seaweed amazingness (which they DO NOT sell in the stores in Japan) and some Korean spicy ramen packs that I'm saving for a rainy day. I ended up spending a lot more of my own money at the Korean booth, which was probably a bad idea since I'm going to Korea in less than 2 weeks... But I needed Kim Chi NOW! :)

Most of the flea market was just that--a flea market where everyone was trying to make money and sell their goods. But I noticed that a lot of it seemed to be non-profit. This "Come Up Smiling" campaign was to benefit those that lost everything in the tragic mudslides here. You can see on the bottom green part it says "Hofu 2009.7.21". The mudslides were literally just 6 days before I got here. And the city seems to be still in recovery. I lot of people lost their lives, and a lot of people lost everything else. Way to go volunteer work and non-profit!

This is Yamaguchi Prefecture's mascot! I don't really know whats going on with him (green haired guy). I can't find anything online, to help me explain. But the best I can gather from just hearing things here and there, and seeing signs in Japanese, is that in 2011 it will be Yamaguchi Prefecture's turn to host some sort of national olympics type of thing. All over the city there are signs with this guy on it. It seems like they are city beautification areas. Empty lots are going under construction to be turned into beautiful parks, etc.

There is also a money collections box in every single school office I've worked at here. Like everyone is getting donations for this Prefectural beautification project. I'm not 100% sure though. Information is a little difficult for me to get here...so I just form stories of the truth in my head. For all I know this is just some famous cartoon character. hehe. No really, its something to do with the 2011 games.

So Hofu was the showplace for the day of the "car of the future". I couldn't figure out what was so futuristic about it, besides the way it looks. The sign about it was in English and Japanese. Didn't say anything about it being hecka hecka fuel efficient. I was pretty rad though. They didn't let anyone take pictures IN it. :(

Cool car! A car like this in Hofu... Its like seeing a car like this, in... Beaumont. Sorry family in Beaumont. Its just like that though! :)

Above: just one of the many performances. I just got a clip of this performance because the little girls were so cute! They were only about 5 or 6 years old max.

Hofu Scenery

On September 24th, I was asked to be one of the judges in an area speech contest. This was a speech contest for Junior High level students, from all over Yamaguchi Prefecture. There were four judges total. 2 JTEs (Japanese teacher of English) and 2 ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers...aka me!) The other JET/ALT (I will use these interchangeably) was Brent, my amigo in Yamaguchi city.

Yamaguchi City is only like 20 kilometers away, but it takes me an hour to get there because of the way you have to change trains and the layover in the middle is never a nice 2-5 minutes. So I don't get to see Brent and Hozumi and Eric (City Folk!) as much as I'd like to. But the speech contest was fun, and the kids were AMAZING. They had to have everything memorized! I couldn't do it. And there they were, doing it, not even their native language.

The picture is of us signing the certificates that the winners got. 10 certificates, and the top 5 went on to the National Speech and Recitation championship. Very cool feeling, having to sign a certificate...like I'm important or something. haha.

When I got home from judging the speech contest, I decided to just take a ride. I set out in a direction that I had never been. An hour out, and hour back. I love just picking somewhere I've never been, and just going. Why don't I do this when I'm at home? I bet there are plenty of beautiful areas that I don't know about when I'm in California. I need to buy a bike when I get home, and just ride freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. :)

These kinds of areas are not right in the middle of town, where I'm used to being, but if you just ride 15 minutes out in any direction, from the city center, you are bound to start seeing views like these.

Beautiful time of year! I wish perfect weather could always last. Inbetween super hot, and super cold, why do we only get like a month (tops!) of perfect beautiful weather?

This shrine is just in the middle of the city. Sort of a shanty part of town if you ask me. Car parts shop, car part shop, strange little liquor store, shrine, car parts shop. hehehe..

Its like walking by some gold on the ground...you know? Why is that there? Cool!

I found this shrine hidden away in a mountainy area. No one there at all. In the back of the shrine I found a nice hiking trail, but haven't hiked up that one yet. Wasn't wearing the right shoes at the time. :)

Updatey update

So I'm skipping my personal archive of blog stuff I still need to put up, to tell you about yesterday and today.

Yesterday I saw the area missionaries for the 2nd time...we were all taking the same train. So they invited me to volleyball last night. It was really fun! Christina and Ryan came (JETs in my city, and Ube city, respectively). The volleyball was held in a local gym, and I guess we used all the gym's equipment...but I don't know what was up with that ball.

I'm so competitive, and hardheaded, I refused to admit that my arms were turning purple, and I was probably overexerting myself. Probably? I'm in so much pain today, its not even funny. If you see my arms, I look like the victim of domestic abuse, and I can't move because my leg muscles are literally on fire. I mean, it wasn't even competitive volleyball! It was a church game!

People there: the 2 missionaries-1 from San Diego, and one Japanese missionary from Fukuoka. The Branch President...Elder Best, his adorable adorable family (Sachiko and their baby Ana). 2 girl church-goers around my age, and 3 boy church goers (around my age). When I say around my age, I mean plus or minus about 8 years, because I really can't tell ages with Japanese people...

It was really fun playing in the mixed group. When I was on a team with Ryan and 3 Japanese peeps, I've never had so much team spirit. And we can't even understand each-other! I was so confused because they kept smiling and yelling "Oshi!" which to my ear was way too close to "Oishii". So they were being encouraging by yelling "close one!" and I was hearing "Delicious food!". Haha. But there was like a team high five every 30 seconds, and we were really having fun.

I'm not trying to be long-winded...it was just really fun. But I could tell by the time we were finished how painful it would be. And it only got worse today.

So today I went to the elementary school, for the 2nd time. It was really amazing. I love love love the elementary kids. But today I played with them at recess, and ooooooooh it was hard. I was pushed into a game of dodgeball...and a game of soccer/rugby/something. My body is dying here. I couldn't even walk up and down stairs, yet I'm being chased with a ball. Gold!

Well, today there was another English teacher there, that wasn't there on my first visit. He's and English guy named Tom, and he is super cool. He's married with a cute cute little baby. I actually saw him and his family at Hofu city's last school/city festival, and we gave each-other the "look there's another Gaijin (foreigner) wave". So we talked, he owns his own English company. But he is also a FARMER! He has this huge plot of land, which I saw because he gave me a ride home, and we stopped at the farm on the way.

So right now, as I type, I have a pot of fresh fresh fresh lemongrass tea brewing. My apartment smells soooooooo good. He gave me so much stuff! The picture on the top is some of it. When I say he gave it to me, I mean that both of us went around picking, and digging with shovels.

I never knew that peanuts grew underground like potatoes. I never knew that peanuts grew underground like potatoes. I never knew that peanuts grew underground like potatoes.!!!!

When we harvested those, I was just in amazement!!! I really thought peanuts grew on trees. Or on Monty Python's famed "shrubbery".

I got among other things: Okra, Sweet Potatoes, Lemongrass (which I will use to make my Japanese soups taste Vietnamese), Spicy Peppers, Bell Peppers, tomatoes, Basil/Eggplant (already used in dinner tonight), Mint...anything else? hmmmm I'm sure there was other stuff. Tomorrow morning--fried Okra and Bacon.

But for now...Lemongrass tea has been calling me for a few minutes, so Bye!

Dinner!

Very short post:

I just bought:

Spaghetti Sauce

A couple onions

3 giant carrots

2 bell peppers

A tub of tofu

2 bag of yakisoba noodles

A great big apple

A dozen eggs

All for 417 Yen.

Less than $5 for all of that! Sorry...shopping on Tuesdays here is exciting. I am becoming a smarter shopper all the time. :)

Fukuoka pt 2

How have I lived without Vietnamese food for 2 months??? I knew that one day, there would be a reunion, like this. The cook was really Vietnamese, we talked a little bit.

Vietnamese food!!!!!!!!!

I'm sad that I didn't go to the Vietnam fair in Fukuoka! I should have gone, since I had a three day weekend this weekend... I had actually forgotten about it until I sat down to do this blog. Goes to show, I need to blog faster, and not get so many weeks behind...

Have you ever seen Red Heineken before? I haven't. They were expensive expensive because we were in this themed British pub, there in Fukuoka. Why can't Hofu have a British pub? haha. I mean, Hofu is a big city. 120,000 people, and no British pub. :) I guess its better that there is not, or I'd be sitting around drinking Red Heineken all the time.

After hanging at this pub, we went over to a cool nightclub where there were lots of friendly people. It was primarily an English speaking nightclub, but there were many locals there that spoke English. There met some JETs there that I hadn't seen since Tokyo orientation in July, so it was like a random little reunion, that made me very happy!

Anna and I found the Hard Rock cafe, after a very confusing ordeal, about which bus to get on. But we made it, and enjoyed a very good lunch. Burger, French Fries, Nachos and Heineken. This was, btw, the first time in Japan that I was able to order a pitcher. Japan just doesn't have pitchers. Which is sad when you just wanna go out with your friends, and share a pitcher. Feel my pain? ;)

So for me, one of the main reasons I wanted to take a trip to Fukuoka was for food. I like most Japanese food. But I am use to eating different kinds of food every day. Mom says "what do you feel like?" and I could say "oh, Mexican, Greek, or Thai". Gone are those days. So being frustrated with the availability of food here, led me to be crazy enough to spend 1800 Yen on a Hamburger. But, in all honesty it was worth the 20 bucks.

Fukuoka pt 1

Whoa! Where are we going? Whats going on?!!!

Hehehe. So as I mentioned, Anna and I went to Fukuoka for a couple of days during Silver Week. We left for Fukuoka on Monday, and came back on Wednesday, so we were there for 2 nights. Fukuoka is about 3 hours away. Hiroshima is about the same distance. I've been to Fukuoka once, for the baseball game that I blogged about a few weeks ago. But I hadn't really seen any of the city, so here was my chance!

Anna and I took a bus to Fukuoka. It was a few dollars cheaper, roundtrip, than taking the train. Expensive both ways, if you ask me. 5000 Yen for round trip bus...which is maybe 60 or so bucks.

Because it was Silver Week, we booked too late, and the first night we stayed, there weren't any rooms available! So Couchsurfing.com came to the rescue, and we stayed with this cool guy named Tim. Tim's apartment was filled with guitars. He is living in Fukuoka as an engineer, but music is his life and love. Which turned out great for Anna and I, because he invited us to a local music festival. Wasn't 'Fukuoka local' though. We picked up his friend Morita, and drove a couple hours down to the festival, which was local, for that local area. haha. But it was well worth the drive. It wasn't touristy at all. And it was also not awkward that a few white people showed up to this Japanese Japanese event. It was just music lovers converging, and listening to some great bands. Its nice being able to do things outside of what is offered for tourists. I live here man. I live here. No tourism. :) :)

So there were three bands, and make sure you click on the videos at the bottom of this post. Especially of Drakskip. Great great Celtic band with a smoking hot fiddle player!

These guys were like the rock group of the night. They were the energetic lady-killers who just had so much fun up there, and got the entire audience to have just as much fun. They were hopping around, changing up genres, and just really entertaining us!

This group was really cool. The only group out of the 3 to have a female in it. I loved her voice, it was very unusual and haunting. This group played traditional Okinawa music, which I had never heard before, so it was quite a good experience.

This was my favorite band of the night. They are called Drakskip. You can actually find them on google, or Youtube. At least you can here, although Japanese Youtube is not the same as American youtube (to my dismay!). Anyways, I was surprised when I was trying to speak to the guy on the right, outside, in Japanese, and he said "You can speak English." His English was perfect, and even slightly accented with some Scottish sounding vowels. hehe. he studied in Scotland for years. Very good group.

Oh no! for below, I have been trying to upload this amazing video from drakskip. But I've waited over an hour, and its not loading. :( Maybe you can just try googleing Drakskip or try

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKbdlEwXbV4

if you want to see how cool they are...

but here is a bit of the Okinawa music...

and some feet hopping fun from the rock/punk/I don't know what type of band...

And after all the bands were done, the music kept on going. Everyone who could find one, picked up an instrument and just started jamming. Tim (our couch lender) was pretty great at whatever her picked up.

At one point, all three bands, together got the entire audience singing "If you're happy and you know it."

There was a surprise... an American girl pushed up to the microphone to do it in English. Guess who that girl was? Yes, I lead "if you're happy and you know it"...in front of so many strangers. But I actually wasn't embarrassed. It was fun. :)

Typhoon time

The title of this post is "Typhoon time" because it is almost 1 am in the morning and I have class tomorrow morning. But the wind is so loud, and the windows are shaking so much, and the walls are creaking so badly that there is no way I am going to be able to sleep. Thus a late night blog... Lucky I can just come home and sleep tomorrow. As long as I fall asleep before the sun goes down, I won't be too scared of the Typhoon. That is, if we can see sun tomorrow...

Here is a scene from me walking back to the train station on a Friday afternoon. This was...Friday September 18th. I don't really understand rice cultivation, but apparently you gotta do some burnin' sometimes. Walking home with little fires next to you, and no people, is a little strange. Where are all the locals who stacked up the rice thingies and set a fire? Its definitely man made, the fires were very neat, and set up in a very organized fashion.

This was a Friday afternoon, before a long weekend. The next Monday thru Wednesday I had off for "Silver Week". This "Silver Week" only happens once every 5 years in Japan. There was a national holiday on Monday and Wednesday, so the government decided to give the Tuesday off too, so it would be a long weekend. The two holidays only fall close like that once every 5 years. Good for traveling. My friend Anna and I took off for Fukuoka on Monday for 2 nights. But more about that to come in the next post.

So this was the third Sunday of September. You know how I remember that it was the 3rd Sunday of September? Because the third Sunday of the month is the only time that we can throw out certain trash items. Milk Cartons are separate. Can't throw them away like normal because they have some kind of hazardous lining in them when burned; all regular trash in Japan is burned. All bottles and cans are good to go on the third Sunday also. For regular cans, and bottles, I usually take a trip to 7-11 every few days and sneak them into their recycling areas. 7-11 probably hates me. But all cans, like for canned soup I must take to the recycling area. Also wine bottles. Also any type of metal. Need to throw away basically anything that is not paper or thin, thin plastic? It must be brought to a certain recycling center every 3rd Sunday of the month. If I try to sneak non-burnables into my trash, my trash will end up back on my doorstep. Don't ask me who digs through the trash to monitor this.

Anna has a car, so she offered to pick me up so she could show me where the recycling place was. Wow. Its so strange. There were over 20 volunteers at the recyling center to help us. I had to show them each piece of "non-burnable" that I brought, and they pointed at which crate to throw it into. By the way, red wine bottles, and white wine bottles are different crates. There was one huge truck to throw things into that didn't fit into one of the 20 other categories. Here we threw "broken glass". Why can't broken glass go in the same place as normal glass? Surely that normal glass pile got a bit broken in transit. Anyways, it was interesting.

Afterwards, we both longed for an American breakfest. It was McDonalds or nothing. So we went shopping, and Anna whipped up a breakfast worthy of la casa de Steffy. Well, it was Anna's house. :) but it was amazing. That is the long story of how I knew that this breakfast was the 3rd Sunday of September. Thanks for bearing with me. :)

Anna made me the best breakfast possible. It was like having an Ihop, but better, right here in Hofu.

School Day Adventure

So a couple of Tuesdays ago, I go to work. Tuesdays I teach at the special needs school up in the mountainous region of borderline Hofu. I absolutely adore that school. Well that day, for some reason my morning classes were cancelled. I teach Junior high there in the morning, and I think the junior high kids were taking their High School Entrance exams. So I was stretching out, getting ready to be on facebook all day. And then my supervisor comes and asks me if I wanted to take a walk! Money!

Another teacher joined, and we walked up and up. :) It ended up being about a 2 hour walk. We would have stayed at Seminar Park longer, but we had to get back for lunchtime.

Side-tangent--lunchtime at Hofu Minami koto shien gakko (special needs school) is awesome. The food is great, and the students and teachers all eat together.

Seminar Park reminded me of the Huntington Gardens, only more chill, and FREE. Love free places. :) Forests all around. Found lots of good hiding spots in case of zombies, or apocalypse.

Don't you love when lily-padded lakes are just silently chilling around your city? I do.

Here are the two teachers that took a walk with me. Okura sensei on the left (my supervisor at Hofu Minami koto shien gakko). and Otsuka sensei to the right. They are both super super nice. I don't even teach with Otsuka sensei, but next time I go there, they changed some schedules around so I can make a "guest appearance" in her class. haha. Okura sensei gives me a ride all the way home every time I work there. That is so above and beyond. Scheduling wise, I still have to walk TO the school, and it is really way far up there in the mountains, but it is good exercise and a beautiful view around me. I went hiking in those mountains with my friend Eric, which hopefully I'll get pictures up of sometime this year. :)

Not sure why I felt the urge to go for the carl's jr. star look. But I think I was just amazed at all the beautiful things around me, and the fact that there was no one else there. I mean, it was 11a on a Tuesday...wonder what this place looks like on weekends?

Above: This is one of the rockclimbing walls I'll be climbing later. You can see the one in the background too. There are four big rockclimbing walls that I will have access to after I get rockclimbing certified. I only found out about the class because of this walk I took with the 2 teachers. So happy I went out. I love beautiful days in Japan. A beautiful day in Japan is about twice as beautiful as a beautiful day in California. Too bad a bad day is three times as bad. hehe.

So later on in the day Okura Sensei brought me to go watch tea ceremony. Like I said, I only had 1 or 2 classes this day, so she wanted to show me a lot of things while I had the free time. :)

I ended up taking part in the ceremony. I got served. It was excruciatingly painful to sit on my legs for the 20 or so minutes. My legs just aren't built like that. I wonder if I'd get used to it, or not. Don't want to have to try.

I really like the tea-ceremony teacher. She also does a lot a hiking and such, so she will go hiking with me one day.

There is a special way to both deliver and to drink the tea. Here the teacher is showing them how they must rotate the cup, right before delivering it to their person. I'm not really sure what all the big deal with tea ceremony is. I know its traditional and important and stuff. I just don't get it.