英語の先生になった日曜日です。 Ｔｈｅ ｓｕｎｄａｙｓ Ｉ ｂｅｃａｍｅ ａｎ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ Ｔｅａｃｈｅｒ

At the end of the fall semester, my landlord approached me to see if I would interested in teaching at her English school once a month in the new semester. I thought it would be fun, so I said yes and waited for our first class. It was the last Sunday in January when I'd be starting to teacher and that Sunday is a day I'll most certainly never forget. Not because of the school, but because of how much snow Nagoya got on that day! It felt like I was back in Canada when I looked outside. In some respect, I wish i could have stayed inside the whole day, as when I went outside it was obvious Japanese people weren't used to driving in snow. Driving from our house to her school, I remember closing my eyes preparing for death several times as my landlord raced around turns and speed down narrow streets. Thankfully/surprisingly we didn't crash, nor somehow did I see any other accidents. Literally have no idea how...
Arriving at her school, I was surprised at how nice it was. A single level building with about 5 classrooms. Brushing the snow off ourselves, we took off our wet shoes, put on some comfy slippers and went into the classroom.

The first class of the day was children aged 4-6. They were simply adorable! Obviously knowing very little Japanese, let alone English, in this class we sang various English songs and played some simple games. It was a lot of fun, thought I must say I'm not much of a singer...

Following this class was the 6-8 year olds. We started the class off much the same as the previous one, with some classic songs like incy wincy spider, and then moved on to learning some vocabulary. I would first read through all the words, and then one by one read them as the children repeated after me. After that was a chance for some questions for the Gaijin (me!) having everyone be so shy, my landlord asked some questions and I got to tell them a bit about my background and where I come from, which is always nice.

Next up was the Junior High School students. It was obvious that they had very little practice actually speaking English, which wasn't surprising because I know in Japanese schools the teachers only focus on grammar, but even simple questions had the students stumbling over their responses. This class saw the exact same start as the previous two but now had an additional reading component. Very similar to the vocabulary, I would read out a sentence and the students would repeat it back to me. Fun stuff...

The final class of the day I think was still Junior High School students, just more advanced. They were able to introduce them selves and answer basic questions. That day's class had the students prepare a self introduction to present to the class, and I was able to help out with them. Trying to explain why certain words are spelt the way they are or why different words are used at certain situations really made me glad that English is my first language, as I can imagine it's hell to try and learn!

This past Sunday was the last time for me teaching at the school, and my landlord had a sort of party/games day for it. It started about 2 hours before the class usually started and with the children we made various crafts and such. It was a really nice way to wrap up my teaching at the school, and was really nice to see all the children having so much fun, rather than just sitting in class.

Farewell Party

Really? Is it this time already? Where did this semester go...I seriously find it impossibly to believe that it is already this time again. I can still remember last semesters farewell party like it was yesterday. I guess time surely does fly when you're having fun (or worrying about glowing in the shower/discovering a new super power that you have)!
During the weeks leading up to this party, our Senseis had been very eager to have us perform some sort of skill for the party. I tried to resist, but their passive aggressive ways took the better of me, so myself and my friend Adrian agreed to do something for the party.

Left to right, top to bottom-
Basa-San, Adrian, Alanna, Doi-Sensei, Kelsey, Me, Fukutomi-Sensei, Cha-San, Caleb, Mashida-Sensei, You-San, Jenny, Gengu-San, Samantha, Imon-San, Odeileku-San, Tario-San, Deigulu-San, Fukata-San, Inoguchi-Sensei, Joel, Kao-San, Antoni-San  

Now, lets run down what I can do to perform...um, there's juggling, err, I can juggle, and oh yes. juggling. Looks like i'll be juggling...Mind you prior to this I had only ever done this in front of my family and maybe a few friends. As for my friend, well his skills were limited like mine to one area, and that? Playing the Ukulele! Oh I could tell from that point that this was going to be incredibly embarrassing for both of us.
We got together a few times to practice, but lets be honest, there was pretty much zero synchronization in our separate skills, so it usually just ended with a bunch of Japanese people crowding around us taking pictures.
As the morning came, we met one last time for some practice (and a Chuhi!) and proudly (for now) went to the party. I did forget to mention that these farewell parties have a tendency to be overly awkward from the get go. I still remember back to last semester when this fool, Indiana Bob (as we called him) was showing us a type of martial arts when he fell on his back and put his foot through the tea ceremony room door...Then preceded to lay on the ground for a few minutes swearing to himself under his breath...
Adrian and myself were the first act, and got up and performed (kinda?) Of course there is video, so watch and you decide! :)

Hanami (Flower viewing)

Come spring time in Japan, if you're not out with friends at a park enjoying the beautiful Sakura blossoms, then there is something wrong! With some friends and teachers (Sensei), we went to probably the largest park within Nagoya, Tsurumai Koen. It was an absolutely beautiful day with barely any clouds in the sky and a nice cool breeze in the air, wafting the sweet smells of the cherry blossoms throughout the park. Not much more to say other than that it was amazing!

Alanna and Myself under the Sakura Trees

Left to Right,
Me, Inoguchi Sensei (And her adorable child), Machida Sensei, Doi Sensei, Alanna

River that ran through the park. 

Nothing to do but be sad? I THINK NOT!

One can only sit in self misery for so long before your sad tale of missed friends, worried family members and fear for growing a third arm become boring and old news.
With this in mind, we decided to plan some fun.
First order of business was a party. Our house was empty of roommates, so what better time would there be to have a huge house party? I think none!
And as for what to call such party, I think our chosen name of "Meltdown Drunk" suited the circumstances quite nicely. It was a great opportunity to have some fun amidst all the bad that was happening. We even created our own "Radiation Cocktail" for the evening. I'm not quite sure what was in it to make it that colour to be honest.

As fun as parties are, doing that every weekend for the rest of the semester was a recipe for failing our courses, so we came up with other stuff to do. Certainly one of my favourite activities that we got up to was heading into the Mie Prefecture to enjoy a day at the Nagashima Spaland. 

Showing our ride bracelets. Ya, we're that cool!

Full of awesome rides, tons of roller coasters, and a butt load of good'ol fun, this was an amazing day. I made it a point of going on every single ride, and left the craziest one for last. The seemingly 100 story high Giga Coaster was almost more than I could handle, if nothing more than the 2 minute clime it took to get to the top...I think I can safely say one of the most terrifying (and of course most fun! ) rides I've been on. 

Seconds before we fell to our doom!!!

30 some odd rides later, a bunch of tasty, bad for us food in our bellies and feet as sore as ever, we headed back to Nagoya, and back to the life we were oh so pleased to get away from if only for a day. All in all, this was by far the most fun I'd had for quite some time! 

Weeks after the Earthquake

Following the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty surrounding everyday life. Whether it be waking up to another large aftershock, reading reports of the extent of the damage in Sendai or watching coverage on NHK (national news agency) of the various reactor housings exploding, there was a lot to keep your mind racing. I think what possibly affected me the most about these few weeks was the misinformation coming from news sources around the world, but in particular from America. News agencies made it seem as if everyone in Japan had been washed away in the tsunami and that the nuclear crisis was immediately effecting everyone on this small island of Japan. Yes the crisis was bad. Yes there was reason for concern. But No there was no need for the amount of fear caused in the US.(Though causing fear is something America is known for, so why am I so surprised...) I remember reading that people in California had started to take Potassium iodine to combat the increase amounts of radiation that they were being exposed to. Really?...

 As the time passed, my class sizes began to diminish as my friends and classmates where being summoned back to their universities. The earthquake happened right as people were leaving for trips back home as it was our 10 day spring break. Many of them never got a chance to come back. Two of my roommates, Rene and James, left for home with every intention of returning after the break, and instead got denied by their schools and were forced to stay away. Rene's room still sits full of all his belongings waiting on him to return. Everyday that passed more of my friends lost their battle with their home universities to reject having to return home, and so day by day I said goodbye to friends who were devastated and heartbroken for having to cut their exchange short. I will never forget the complete empty feeling of sitting in a class that a week ago was full of discussion and chatter of friends and classmates that was now reduced to 3 students, sitting quietly taking notes to try and take our minds off of our departed friends.

8.9 Earthquake, 6th largest in recorded history

Yesterday was I day i'll certainly never forget. At 2:46 I was sitting in my Japanese Politics class on the top floor of B building when I started to feel my chair shake. Initially I thought my friend, Alanna, was kicking my chair and i turned around to tell her to stop. When i did, though, I saw she was also looking around in terror. At that point I noticed that the blinds on the windows were shaking fairly profusely against the window. It felt as though we were sitting in a boat on the ocean. The feeling of seasickness passed through everyone as the building began to sway. Though reportedly the earthquake only lasted a few minutes, i'm pretty sure our building swayed for almost 15 minutes. Now consider how far Nagoya is from the epicenter near Sendai. I can only imagine the feeling of the people who felt it there. Following the earthquake, an announcement came over the loud speakers at my University stating that it was only about a magnitude 3 earthquake (in Nagoya), and not to panic. We were able to feel the aftershocks for the remainder of the class, and I was all too happy to leave and get to solid ground when my class was finally over. One of my friends, Joe Blanche, was able to contact his girlfriend to get some information about what had just happened. Until his phone cut out, he was able to gather that the earthquake had indeed been a lot worse than we had thought, and that fires were ablaze in and around Tokyo. 

Originally planning on going out that night, I decided instead that getting more information on this disaster would be a good idea, so I headed home. Once home, I immediately found tons of information about what had happened and promptly told my roommates. This was of grave concern for them because 2 of them were planning on flying through Narita (Tokyo's airport) the following day. Ben in fact was planning on getting on a train only a few hours later when I told him what had happened. Spending the remainder of the night trying to get as much information as possible, it was hard to think of what we should do. One of my Japanese roommates, Yappi, ran us through emergency protocol for our area if another earthquake were to strike. What people fear here is that the series of recent earthquakes will lead to the Tōkai Earthquake. "The Tōkai earthquakes are major earthquakes that have occurred regularly with an interval of 100 to 150 years in the Tōkai region of Japan. The Tokai segment has been struck by earthquakes in 1498, 1605, 1707 and 1854. Given the historic regularity of these earthquakes, another is expected in the near future." 

As for now, all I can do is simply wait and see what will unfold in the wake of this disaster. My heart goes out to all my friends and the families of people affected by this disaster. 

Trip to Ise and Kyoto! =D

This past week I was lucky enough to have completely off from school thanks to the entrence exams at Nanzan for all the poor new university students. Crappy week for them = awesome week for me. Life just ain't fair! For the month leading up to the week off, a bunch of my friends and I knew we wanted to go somewhere, but just couldn't come to a consensus on where to go. Some people wanted to head back to Tokyo, some wanted to fly to Okinawa and a few even wanted to head off to Korea. After a bunch of meetings and much planning we decided a nice, easy trip to Kyoto would be a great way to spend a few days, and also wouldn't break the bank. We also thought it'd be nice to pass through Ise on the way and take a wander through the most sacred Shinto shrine in Japan and visit the famous Meoto Iwa (The Wedded Rocks).

After all the planning and reservations were in place, and we could do is sit back in anticipation until Wednesday morning rolled around. The train we had planned to take would be leaving Nagoya Station at shortly after 10:30, so we arranged for everyone to meet at around 10. I left my house early that morning with 2 of my new roommates, Ben (from the Netherlands) and James. On a side note, my roommates this semester are 1000 times better than last semester!

Left to right : Jenny, Whitney, Yukiko, Me, Kelsey, Keely and Alanna 

We met up with Yukiko (a Japanese student who came to Carleton last semester), a friend from last semester(Whitney), my friend from Carleton, Alanna, and her two new roommates Katri (from Finland)  and Kelsey and two new friends from Nanzan, Keely and Jenny. The train to Ise took about an hour and half, so we arrived around noon. It was interesting getting off the train in something other than a huge city. This was really my first time seeing Japan's countryside.

Our first stop in Ise was to head to the Wedded Rocks. As we moved away from the station and got closer to the ocean it got much colder and extremely windy. For both Alanna and myself, this was our first chance to see the ocean up close, and we decided we wanted to touch it. As for myself I timed it so the waves had gone out when I walked down and swept my hand through the low waves. Alanna on the other hand failed to realize the size of the waves and as she bent over, she was soaked by a huge wave. Being the good friend I am, I was able to get a great photo of her.

We then moved down the beach towards the Okitama Shrine and the Wedded Rocks. After spending a while there taking a bunch of pictures we headed to a nearby resturaunt for a quick bite to eat. Following lunch, it was back to the station, a quick train ride into Ise-shi (Town of Ise) and a short walk to the Inner Shine (Naiku), which enshrines Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. Naiku is located near the foot of densely wooded hills and has many smaller shrines spread throughout the forest.

Seeing as it was getting a bit late, and we still had a lot of travelling to do, we decided to leave the shrine early and slowly make our way to Kyoto. After a 2.5 hour train ride, with a few transfers, we arrived at Kyoto station. It was now time to try and find our way to our hostel. As Ben, James and James' friend Wei Wa were staying at a different hostel, we split up at the station and went our own ways to find our hostels. After wandering around for almost an hour, we finally got the proper directions to our hostel; checked in and dropped our stuff off. That night we explored Kyoto station a bit, but returned early as we were all very tired and had a busy day planned for Thursday.


Nekutei bendeingu mashinnu (Necktie Vending Machine) I found near the station.



Off to an early start Thursday morning, we headed to our first destination of the day, the Sanjusangen-do temple. This temple is known for the thousand and one armed Kannon statues that line the interior along with thirty statues which stand in front of the Kannon-Bosatsu. These are statues of spirits called "Ninju-hachibushi" that attend to Kannon-Bosatsu through such qualities as beauty, wisdom, prosperity, wind, thunder, etc. are deified.

This temple is also very famous for the Toh-shiya (Archery Contest) which still takes place today around January 15th. This ceremony apparently dates back to the middle of the 12th Century. It is said that master archers were able to hit their targets across the 120-meter space between northern and southern ends of Sanjusangen-do Temple. In the Edo Period, a contest began based on the number of arrows hitting the target during the 24-hour period from 6 o'clock in the evening to 6 o'clock the next day. The greatest record so far achieved was by Wasa Daihachiro in 1688 when he successfully shot 8,132 arrows, achieving a hit ratio of an astounding 62% at an arrow being shot every 9 seconds...FOR 24 HOURS!!!

Our next stop was Kiyomizudera (Pure Water Temple), founded in 780 on the site of the Otowa Waterfall in the wooded hills east of Kyoto. Kiyomizudera is best known for its wooden stage that juts out from its main hall, 13 meters above the hillside below. Behind the main hall we went to see the Jishu Shrine, a shrine dedicated to the deity of love. This Shrine has two stones about 18 meters apart. It was quite funny watching high school girls attempt to walk from one stone to the other to see if they would find love. Apparently successfully finding your way from one to the other with your eyes closed is said to bring luck in finding love.

Along with the amazing sightseeing, there were many shops from the top of the hill winding all the way down the old road to the bottom. This reminded many of us of Diagon alley from Harry Potter. For dinner we headed towards the Gion district, which is famous for seeing Geisha and Maiko (apprentice Geisha). We saw a few Maiko, but were unable to get our pictures taken with them. We ate a quick meal and headed back towards our hostel with plans of going to sing some karaoke. We sang some songs, had some drinks and headed back to our hostel.

Funny statue in Gion

 For Friday we had plans of going to a few places but one of our friends had a bit of an 'exciting' night and we didn't get going until around 2. On an extremely crowded bus ride to Kinkaku-ji (Golden temple), I guess our friend wasn't quite feeling as well as he thought and fainted and fell on the ground of the bus. This was not a fun experience for him or the rest of us as we tried to get the bus to stop, get the Japanese people to move and help him off the bus. As we were getting off the bus, he fainted once more and fell. Skipping the more graphic details, 2 hours later we were back on the bus for the temple minus a few people who went with him to help. After a long, packed and hot bus that took some 50 minutes we finally arrived at Kinkaku-ji.

Once there, it was an amazing sight to see. Probably one of my favourite temples i've seen thus far. We had wanted to get a group picture in front of Kinkaku-ji, so we found a nice couple and asked them to take the picture. They happily agreed and we lined up. What we didn't expect was that a bunch of other people started taking pictures of us with their own cameras. Just goes to show that even in front of a famous temple, foreigners are still picture worthy. Kinda disturbing though to think photos of us are on some random Japanese person's camera... After such a crazy day, no one was really in the mood to go out, so we headed back to our hostel and just hung out in our rooms for the rest of the night.

The following day we had plans of going to  Koga to see a Ninja village, but I, along with a few others didn't really feel up to it, and choose to just make our way slowly back to Nagoya. It turns out this was a lucky choice. Our friends who did go found that the Ninja village was a fair bit away from the station and ended up getting driven there by a creepy old man. Apparently the village itself was also creepy, with few tourists and a really scary atmosphere. To make matters worse, on their way home, Koga was encompassed in a fierce blizzard and all trains to the station were cancelled for some 4 hours. During this time they had the pleasure of being hit on by a bunch of Japanese Salary men. Not a good way to end a trip.

Even with the little speed bumps along the way, i'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we had an amazing time in Kyoto with many memories we'll certainly never forgot, whether good or bad.

Back to Japan!

Well I knew that the good times of my winter vacation would soon have to come to an end, and today was that day. With another early morning flight, I had a nice long day of traveling to look forward to. With traveling comes long periods of waiting and with it I had a nice chance to look back on how wonderful the past 3 weeks have been. From the moment I arrived in Ottawa to the cold brisk air and being greeted with my loving parents, I knew I was home. Well maybe not quite. With the unfortunately circumstances around Jessica's exam schedule, I wasn't able to see her until a while after being home seeing as she was writing an exam. But once I had her in my arms again, everything felt right again. For the first week or so I had a great time visiting all the people important to me. Whether it was a relaxing night spent with Serena and Jess to a nice sit down with my caring neighbours, it never felt so nice to just be home.

For Christmas it was wonderful to get a chance to see my brother, though for as short as a stay it was. After I’d had a chance to see everyone I finally got to spend some quite time just relaxing with Jess.

We went and saw a Sens game together (that the Sens unfortunately forgot to show up for...), went out with a bunch of Jess's friends and spent an awesome evening enjoying the amazing Cake Boss Buddy Valastro. All in all I couldn't have asked for a better vacation.

My flight to Japan the second time had a completely different feel than 5 months prior. Though I was still extremely sad to be saying goodbye to my friends and family, the fear of the unknown I had the first time wasn't present. Instead it was a feeling of familiarity and confidence of where I was heading and what was to be expected. For this flight, unlike the others I’ve had, decided to route me through the Dullas airport in Washington. As the only part of the trip that was new to me, I expected to have a bit of difficulty navigating around. And boy did I ever. When I finally found my way onto the shuttle, got off at the correct terminal and waited what seemed like ages in line at screening, the final boarding call had been issued for my flight. Not a great way to start a 13 hour flight; hot, sweaty and hungry. It took me about 10 minutes into the flight to finally get settled at which point I realize that we did in fact have our own personal TV screens. From there on in, the flight started to get better :) I arrived in Nagoya around 7 pm after taking a quick flight from Tokyo. My friend was meeting me around 9 coming from China, so I had a while to wait. And of course while I’m sitting minding my own business, not causing trouble, not making noise, just being a foreigner I got approached by a pair of police officers. I guess I was wrong in assuming that a place I was safe from that kind of harassment was inside an airport, where 1000s of other foreign people go through daily. It was somewhat more challenging this time seeing as my Japanese was a bit rusty after not using it for more than 3 weeks, but after about 10 minutes they let me get on with what I was doing...oh ya, which was nothing.

I met with Rene around 9:30 after he cleared customs and we made our way back home. With no roommate or landlord to pick us up this time, we had to get home on our own. Not exactly what one wants to be figuring out after 20 some odd hours of traveling, but we managed and we were glad to open our front door and be home. I have now only met one new roommate, named Yuu from China, and look forward to meeting the rest tomorrow.