Ocean, You Meet Whale Shark

Yesterday I took a day trip to Osaka with a few friends. We woke up to a couple inches of snow but we thought nothing of it as we got on the bus to go downtown. At the train station though, it was a bit chaotic, people were running out of the station, clearly in a great hurry. That was our first clue that the rail system was upset by the snow. Sure enough, the special rapid train wasn't running, so we had to take a local train (think "takes twice as long to get anywhere because it stops at every little station") for about a half hour until we could switch to a special rapid. Those were trains #1 and #2 of the day. Finally in Osaka about an hour and a half later, we caught the loop line, but managed to get on the one train that wasn't exactly on the loop line. Unfortunately we didn't notice that until the end of the line. We had to hop off, and wait for a train returning. Trains #3 and #4. Last we caught what was called a subway, but it wasn't underground, so it was Train #5. Finally, we had made it to the aquarium!

The aquarium was great and had a theme: the Pacific Ring of Fire. It had lots of creatures other than fish: otters, seals, octopus, jelly fish, penguins and of course dolphins. For reasons known only to the museum staff, the otter habitat had a huge skeleton of what might have been a mammoth.

Here is curiously Japanese service - if you want a picture of yourself next to a plastic whale shark, you get in line. When it's your turn, you hand your camera over to the museum staff who shoot your photo for you. It's a really cool service and they've got a very efficient system for it. I've seen it at lots of places and think it's something we should adopt in the US.Of the aquarium creatures, I was most impressed by the octopus. They had clay pots (traditional octopus traps) in the tank, and the octopus (octopii?) were moving in and out of them. I love to watch their weirdly graceful movements.

Here we have some squid or cuttlefish (couldn't find a sign to tell me which) and kelp.
Giant spider crabs! Sardines swimming endlessly in circles.

And beautiful orange jelly fish

After the aquarium the afternoon was still young, so we rode the ferris wheel next to the aquarium. We had a birds eye view of a cruise ship and the aquarium and the urban sprawl that is Osaka.

Those of you interested in more aquarium and ferris wheel photos can check out the webalbum. Some of the photos are out of focus - couldn't get the seals, otters, and penguins to stand still for a photo!

A few random things

An interesting article by Jared Diamond (of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame) on the origins of the Japanese people http://discovermagazine.com/1998/jun/japaneseroots1455/

Last weekend I saw an ukiyoe exhibit at Kobe City Museum. Ukiyoe is what first comes to mind when you think of Japanese art - particularly the tidal wave print, and the Mt Fugi series of prints. They're woodblock prints, typically from 1700-1800. And, as is usual for art, it wasn't much valued in Japan, but made a big impression with the Impressionists in Europe at the time. Rumor has it that perspective in a painting was actually first done in ukiyoe, and then later copied by European artists. The exhibit was amazing. Lots of the pieces were on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. We were there on the last day of the exhibit and it was packed. The crowd was about four people deep, so we just took a passing glance at each piece but certainly was worth the afternoon trip to Kobe.

And here are photos from last week's ikebana classes. That's Eiko, our instructor, posing with my bouquet. The branch is from a peach tree, and of course those are daffodils, and another unknown flower.

Last Friday night, I joined Mitch and Merry for yakiniku (basically "grilled meat"). They had been many times to this restaurant and raved about it. For about $20 you get to eat as much as you can within 90 minutes. You cook the food yourself on the built in burner in the middle of the table. Merry had the menu translated into English by one of her teachers at school and that was VERY helpful - and saved us from potentially ordering liver or tongue! Besides all the meat, we had pumpkin, sweet potato, cabbage, and garlic grilled, as well as the ubiquitous bowl of rice, and a Pepsi drink bar!! Things got a little heated when the extra fatty beef was put on the grill, but I'm sure the place has a well-tested sprinkler system!

Mom and Dad's visit - Part II

On Day 5 of mom and dad's trip, we left Kyoto in the morning and took the bullet train to Okayama. There we saw Okayama Castle and the adjacent garden, both I had seen before. But this time of year the garden looked completely different. Mostly it was a lot of dormant grass, but in one corner there was a plum tree grove and the trees were just beginning to blossom! The trees didn't have a leaf on them but had many pink and white flowers.From Okayama, we took a local train to Kurashiki, a nearby town with a little historic district. Little was an understatement. The historic district was about two blocks long, along an old moat. We did meet a friendly Japanese man, who showed us a shrine and huge wisteria tree, and then gave us a really nice picture book of Kurashiki!

Later that afternoon, we hopped back on the shinkansen to continue to Hiroshima. We checked into our hotel, and then found a American-food restaurant recommended by my friends. My bean and cheese burrito was muy bueno!

The next morning we started off at Hiroshima castle, where Dad modelled some samurai clothing.

We walked on to the Peace Park and viewed the Atomic Bomb Dome, the Memorial to Sadako, and the Peace Museum. The park had a flame burning that will only be extinguished when the world is rid of nuclear bombs.

After a sobering morning in Hiroshima, we took a ferry across the bay to Miyajima. Miyajima has the famous "floating" gate. We timed it just right - high tide was at 2:04 pm, and we took the 1:35 pm ferry and even had time for a quick lunch of fried rice before visiting the shrine. And we were even more lucky - there was a traditional wedding that day, so we took a lot of photos of the wedding party and the shrine! I took a ton of photos. Below are a couple of the best, the rest are on a webalbum.

That evening we took the shinkansen to Himeji. My last day with my parents was spent on a tour of Himeji castle. One of my friends is a volunteer guide there and he loves to practice English. He gave us a very interesting tour and I learned lots of new factoids about the castle. We went for okinomiyaki (Japanese omelet) for lunch and then my parents headed off on the shinkansen for Tokyo for a little R&R after their whirlwind trip through Kansai!

Mom and Dad's visit - Part I

My parents were here visiting last week. We saw an incredible amount of things! Some were places I had been before, but most were new sights for me as well! Unfortunately, it was a particularly cold and snowy week as you’ll see from the photos!

They flew into Osaka, so we spent the first day seeing Osaka, starting with Osaka Castle.

Actually we had planned to spend the first day seeing Osaka, but as we finished touring the castle, it started snowing very heavily! And it appeared that it was going to continue snowing for some time, so we cut our losses in Osaka and hopped on the train to Nara. We checked into our ryokan (traditional Japanese style inn) (it has a great website with pictures of the rooms), huddled around the space heaters for a while, and then went out to visit Horyu-ji, a temple which has some of the oldest wooden buildings in the world.

NARA
The next day we went into Nara. I saw this part of Nara before, so I didn’t take many pictures, except this one of the snowmen in front of the five storied pagoda,and several of some monks clad in orange. At first we assumed they were Japanese monks, so we followed them trying to get them in our photos! Later we heard them speaking English and we had to conclude that they were also tourists, likely from another Asian country.

KYOTO

In Kyoto the next day, we started at Sanjusangendo. This place was incredible!! It had 1001 golden statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, and statues of the 28 Buddhist guardians with explanations of how they come from Hindu gods. Fascinating! Unfortunately, photos were not allowed inside, so check out this website!

Next on the itinerary was Kiyomizudera and the streets in front of it lined with souvenir shops. We saw this poor dog dressed in its Sunday best. My father was impressed by the tangle of power lines and I admired this store selling nothing by fans.

I bought a shuincho, an accordion style book full of blank paper used to collect the stamps from Buddhist temples. It's the souvenir to have! For 300 yen, each temple stamps their seal in red ink, then write calligraphy over the page. The end result is very cool and I intend to bring this book along on all my future sightseeing adventures here in Japan! Our last stop in Kyoto was Ginkakuji. It's also called the Silver Pavilion, but it isn’t silver, in fact the building itself isn’t particularly eye-catching. We walked by it and followed the path up the hillslope, before realizing the non-descript building was the pavilion! There was a mound of sand in the shape of Mt Fugi, and this abstract sculpture in the shape of waves. It's supposed to be beautiful to see by moonlight...


The next installment: The Konrads go to Okayama, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Himeji!

Ohtsu Junior High

At the beginning of this school term in January, I started at a new junior high school. In order to provide native English speakers in as many classrooms and for as many students as possible, we ALTs spend one term at a small or middle sized school, and the other two school terms at a larger sized school. So I’m now at Ohtsu Junior High School.
Ohtsu JHS has about 600 students. That’s only 100 students more than Yumesaki JHS, but it is enough to give the school a bigger feel. That, and the fact that it’s more in the middle of an urban area. Yumesaki JHS was at the edge of town with a mountain behind it.
My commute is significantly more complicated, but a bit shorter, which means I get to sleep in 15 minutes later than last year and that makes me very happy! Plus, my friend Sue and I commute together and we have 45 minutes twice a day to catch up! I leave on the 6:57 am bus to downtown where I catch the train. At the first stop, I change to another train and continue on for about 15 minutes. Ohtsu JHS is about a mile from the train station, so then I walk for 20 minutes. Or, I bike. A previous ALT bought a bike and left it with the school for future ALTs. I keep the bike at a bike shed next door to the train station. For $20 a month, the bike is safe and kept out of the elements, and the owner says a friendly good morning to me everyday! (He says more, but I only understand the “good morning” part of it). I can bike to school in under 10 minutes, which during winter is definitely a good thing!
As I mentioned, Ohtsu is a bigger school and has some “big city” problems. Now don’t worry, I’m not talking about weapons or drugs, or even swearing. Remember, this is Japan. Yesterday the entire student body (all 600 of them) was called into the gym after school for an assembly for some “discipline”. I didn’t know exactly what might have happened, but I texted my friend Heather: “Somebody did something and now everyone is in the gym getting scolded. Except me, alone in the staff room”
Heather: “That happened once at my school when a kid got caught smoking”
Me: “I hope it’s more interesting than that” (I was feeling bored and in need of some drama)
Me, later: “Just found out – some kids hid some slippers as a joke” (not exactly the high drama I was hoping for)
Heather then regaled me with text messages about events when she was in high school and the discipline that resulted (or did not result) from them. To protect the identity of who killed the duck, I’ll end the text message transcription here.
But, as I’m sure you’re thinking, in a school in the US, it would have to be something like a bomb threat to prompt the teachers to call all the students into the gym for some discipline. Here in Japan, it’s a harmless practical joke, involving shoes, no less (I’ve told you before how hung up they are on changing shoes!).
So life at Ohtsu is going well, as long as I keep a close eye on my shoes! I’m definitely kept busier here than at Yumesaki! And in addition to the usual after school activities, Ohtsu has lots of interesting clubs – kendo, judo, tea ceremony, and flower arranging. I feel sorry for the swim team though. The pool is, of course, an outdoor pool. Because the students belong to one club for the entire year, the poor swim club only gets to swim for a couple months. The rest of the year they spend running around the building!

Since I'll be gone next week sightseeing with my parents, here is my February 12 on 12, a bit early.

Some girls at school. I didn't realize it last term, but this sailor uniform is by far the most common junior high school uniform in Japan. The uniform (skirt, blouse, tie and blazer) at Yumesaki was unusual for a junior high).The central courtyard of the school.View from the second floor of the school looking towards the tennis courts. You can barely make out the large canal on the right side.A particularly scenic part of my bike ride to school.

Another nice bit of scenery on my bike ride. This is the building, where the community's yatai (the big portable shrine you saw in my festival photos from last fall) is housed.

These photos are of Hiramatsu, the little, unstaffed train station near school.This week's flower arrangement by the school's ikebana club. It has orchids in it. My ikebana arrangement from my community center class. It has gebera daisies in it and tree branches with new leaves.

Next week, my parents and I have an ambitious itinerary filled with temples, shrines, castles, and museums. I'll post lots of photos in a week or so.