I always liked the fall. In New York, it was definitely my favorite season. Summer is hot as hell. Without mountains, winter in New York means piles of brown snow and a crappy commute, and I believe that spring is German for "raging sinus infection" (stemming from the root word "Schpringhousen") Of course, I would only make two arboreal metaphors in one sentence to underline exactly what comes to mind when we think of fall. Leaf death.
Of course, its not all that bad. Unlike any other creature when leaves die, they look nice, and that's what we look forward to in New York. Since other seasons are extreme or make us sneeze, we like the fall because its comfortable and pretty.
Well, in Japan, its a different story. Here, in a land surrounded by mountains, and close to a beach with decent surf, we are constantly counting the days until the winter or summer. Spring still sucks, I think that is a constant everywhere in the world. Fall is still really nice, but there is simply not much to do. So, you end up with this... an October hodgepodge. Strange random outings every week to fill the void that exists before the start of the snowboarding season.
It should be known, the habit of marking days until the Snowboarding season is not restricted to the Nakano Boys. Our hodgepodge begins with a camping trip in Keiso where a slope and a rail were covered in foam to allow a few boarders and skiers to hold a rail jam. First weekend of October, still far too warm for manmade snow, these guys were snowboarding on a layer of foam continuously sprayed with water to keep it slick. Then, they would pop up onto a rail and ride it without any white fluffy snow below them to break their fall, only dying autumn grass. Of course, it is also not easy to stop without the snow, so after the rail, most of the boarders slammed into the wall opposite the rail. Crazy. After the rail jam, a few bands played, a few teams of breakers broke, (including one guy who held a head spin for like 40 seconds then six stepped right out of it without any signs of dizziness.) While the stage was being used, another dude graffed a huge mural background. As it was an all night event, B and I broke out the ol camping gear and set up.
It should be known that the tent that we inherited from Rita was not a tiny little two man tent, but a Captain Stag 5 man tent. No fools were we, rather than roughing it with sleeping bags, we bought futons and proper bedding which easily fit inside. We also set up a decent patio from which we could overlook the festivities.
Nextly, we had School Festival. I wrote about this last year, so no need to go into it all again, or post pics again. I got the same "(insert non-Japanese invented activity or food here) was invented in Japan" rhetoric. We played the same games. I don't mean to underplay how impressive these festivals are. The students do all the work. I mean everything from start to finish. Staff are there to offer support and help the kids where they need it, but that's it. It is a really good project. The kids also did well. My 3rd years this year are a good bunch of kids. Some are a little too serious for their age.
After the festival, we had a school enkai. These are also fun, but the real fun was afterwards when the karaoke ensued.
I gotta pause for a second to preface with an introduction. This is Shimada-sensei.
You remember Junior High School? Remember all those teachers that yelled at you for not having a shirt tucked in, or falling asleep in class? Do you remember that one teacher that was always smiling, that treated you like a human rather than a little kid? You never fell asleep in his or her class because it was actually interesting. He never punished you for breaking silly arbitrary rules. Not a chump that everyone walked all over, but the kind of teacher you listened to because you liked and respected him. That is Shimada-sensei. In a country where the line between authority figures and students is very clearly drawn, Shimada-sensei brings a sort of energy and informality that is uncharacteristic of Japanese schools (in my experience at least.) More personally, in a culture where people are afraid to talk to me for fear that their English is not perfect, or they will be unable to understand my often strained Japanese, Shimada-sensei, despite having poor English, despite my lack of Japanese skills comes and chats with me every day.About one year ago, Shimada-sensei was diagnosed with a sort of blood cancer (I am pretty sure leukemia, but I don't know, the medical terminology is different here.) Last October, he took a leave of absence (he is the Japanese sensei.) For a year, we had a slew of subs and temps try to fill his shoes. This September, he returned, a bit thinner, but with even more energy and a bigger smile than before. He is my closest friend among the teachers (if you look at the picture above you'll notice the Livestrong bracelet that I got him and the one I now wear.) Anyway, Shimada-sensei rocks.
Ok, back to the School Festival. So after the enkai, Shimada-sensei and I organized a few teachers for some karaoke. Enkais are fun, but still somewhat organized and formal. We needed to let loose.Five hours folks... We karaoked for five hours, from 9pm to 2am. Look at the other senseis (who also did well, mind you). They can barely keep their eyes open. Look at Shimada-sensei (pimped out in a crushed velvet shirt, by the way)
This dude who gets his blood tested almost once a week jammed like it was his job. If you don't think Shimada-sensei rocks, I will fight you... That's no lie.
The following week, I was feeling a bit burned out by lunchtime on Thursday, so I took the rest of the day off and met up with Kaori. After a long time of wanting to do so, we visited the Garu-koen zoo in Suzaka.
Ok, so the zoo was filled with the saddest bunch of animals since the zoo in Naples Florida. The kangaroo is named Hutch and is famous throughout Japan (they clam to have invented kangaroos, actually all marsupials are of Japanese design...Figures, built in womb pouch is pretty efficient.)
That weekend, I went to the top of Shiga-kogan with B and Ayako. We drove up taking pictures, took the chair lift to the summit and hiked down.
It was really pretty. Here are some pics, but there are many more on the Flickr site. Perhaps the coolest was at the summit where we were above the clouds and watched the sun set into the clouds below us. Trippy, but cool as hell.
The big winner of the day was Brooklyn. That little guy hiked all day and was always a few steps ahead of us. What a cool dog. He slept for the next 3 days.
Of course October has to end with Halloween. This years Halloween party had its ups and downs. We hold the party every year for the members of our adult conversation class. This year, the people who came got really into it with their costumes (most of which were homemade.) We had some large pumpkins donated to us which was also cool. On the downside, many people did not show up which was frustrating especially because the only reason they did not show was our requirement that everyone MUST be in costume.
This frustrated all of us mainly because there is this crazy notion that we teachers have the job to teach about our culture along with our language. Of course, we embrace this and love talking about our culture. If you mention October to anyone in America or Canada, the obvious response would be "Halloween" and when you think Halloween, you think costumes. Every day, we immerse ourselves in Japanese culture, eating any food put in front of us, and being expected to participate in any cultural activity or festival. Of course I am not complaining, its why I came here. Our problem is that the people who take this class expect for us to do things like the Halloween party. If we didn't do it, people would be disappointed. So we drop a bunch of money, and put in a lot of effort to make it happen. We decorate the room, schlep pumpkins around, make costumes - for so many people to not show up because they don't want to put in the effort of making or finding a costume makes me sad.
Anyway, that being said, here are some pictures from this year. Since Devin is in China, Joycie, my deputy assistant filled in as the official Devin for the evening. We even told everyone that she is really Devin dressed up as a Guamish girl dressed up as a 50's schoolgirl. That confused people more than they normally are.
Brandon got a bunch of ski apparel from the 70's and was "Ski-patrol" Stokes was and is a Canuck. I made that Batman costume.
This is my humble class from Toyota Mura. The "Beauty and the Beast" costumes (back left) won the costume contest. Both costumes, were entirely handmade (including Beauty's dress) by Hanako (dressed as Beast.)
A blast from the past. I lent Yuriko my Superman costume from last year and she turned it into a Supergirl costume. Here in this photo I show my posing diversity.
...and that's all. Some of you may be saying "last post Rich said he would talk about his kendo tournament and speak about kendo, but he didn't..."
Life is cruel and unfair. You should get used to disappointment.
-R
