Himeji (pronounced He-meh-gee), is a castle town in Hyogo prefecture, west of Osaka, which we visited for a day last week. As stated on the Nara post, I'll fill in the details later.
Himeji Jo and Himeji Joe Soap
As usual, click on the pic above to see the rest , from Himeji.
We felt our second earthquake on Sunday morning which was a strange experience. Check out the story on the BBC.
We've felt the odd after tremor too. Scary dary.
Caroline at Nandai-mon in Nara park
We're just back from our trip to the Kansai area, that kicked off in Nara. Click on the picture above to see all of our snaps of Nara.
I'll slaver some mince about our time in due course.
A funny coastal, wooded lump with a temple on top,
Sado's eastern coast
We've had a relatively quiet time since Christmas, between the weather and Caroline's studying. We have managed out for the odd bit of fresh air as there has actually been a few sunny days amongst the cold ones. Click on the picture above and it will take you to some pictures of us mooching up a big lump of rock and around a light house, both on Sado's eastern coast near Maehama JHS, where I teach once a fortnight. I had a great last lesson with the really nice third grade class there recently. There's only four in the class and just one girl, whom I tryed to teach how to play the guitar now and then. I think this was requested after I did an impression of Elvis singing and playing 'House of the Rising Sun' (a beginner's favourite) on the guitar in class. I can actually do not a bad singing impression of Elvis and try to belt out a few of his numbers at karaoke - Devil in Disguise, King Creole and I tried Big Hunk of Love once but the version of the music wasn't up to scratch. I've also had a running gag about sausages in the class, which started for some reason last year, but we've managed to keep laughing at it every week since. The best was the other week when I was asking them about what music they liked and they were reeling off the Japanese pop bands - SMAP, Mr Children, Orange Range and a pile of other bollocks that I couldn't care less for (it all gets played on school radio at lunch time). There's also a band called Bump of Chicken that aren't as bad as the other J pop guff. It has to be said that the Japanese bands have some poxy names. I however, asked one of the boys if he liked Bump of Sausage, continuing my sausage theme. For some reason this resulted in the biggest sausage laugh yet. Good old sausages, funny in any language. Anyhoo, for the last lesson the students requested that I let them listen to some popular music that I like. Great idea, and a nice way to depart in English class. Music for me isn't something that I want to ram down other folks ears, it's a matter of personal taste, but they were genuinely interested to hear what I was into. I wasn't being a self indulgent plonker. I've been listening to all sorts of stuff over here. There's a chain store in Japan, a bit like HMV and Blockbuster combined where you can rent CDs on the cheap. I've been listening to some older stuff, as is my want, the best of which has probably been Neil Young, who has me burning for my guitar, and some talent, at home and in my dreams respectively. I've also been listening to the odd Blur album. They were the best band of the Brit Pop generation, hands down, in my opinion. Because of them I've also given Demon Days by the Gorillaz a good grilling. It's a few years old now but is a very different and great album from start to finish. Between this lot and other odds and sods, I've been listening to some probably very popular music. I'm not that bother where it comes from these days, just as long as it's agreeable on the sound palate. It's funny, at school I would only listen to a very certain kind of dance music though my out look on life was very open. Nowadays, I'll give anything, within reason Robbie Williams, a listen though my opinions on life are hardening faster than a teenage bump of sausage at the back of a bus. There's a directly proportional relationship in there somewhere. As mentioned previously we're going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers next week. I've really love their last few albums dearly. We saw them play Murrayfield after they released By the Way. This concert should really have been in Glasgow, but. The latest offering is a double album and is simply excellent. There are only a couple of tracks that I'm not that fussed about but there is so much good stuff and such variety. For me it's the RHCP's white album. The Killers' latest album is a belter too. I read a review on rolling stone's website about this, which was so wrong that the reviewer can't have given it enough time to infect his rocking melody bones, dumplin'. I therefore made a CD of recent songs that I liked including; RHCPs, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Daft Punk, Gorillaz, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, The Strokes, The White Strips and even flung on a bit of patriotic Franz Ferdinand. I've been listening to the Magic Numbers' and Muses' latest LPs, which I'm enjoying. In the pipe line is the Kaiser Chiefs new album, I've heard a couple of songs on the radio both which I enjoyed. I really liked their first album 'Employment'. We saw them perform a great show in a small venue in Osaka, last winter, and felt very privileged. The Views' album is also on it's way, along with the Kooks, who we saw just before the Artic Monkeys (both great) at Summer Sonic with Nez and Suzi in Chiba. For the last class I managed to convince the English teacher that we should go along to the music room, which is isolated out on a limb in this small new school, as it has an awesome sound system that can be cranked right up. He was right up for this and is actually a bit of a sound system buff (that's not cockney rhyming slang). I introduced each band and song and gave them a little bit of information about the band, where they are from, ages, etc., which album the song was on and previous albums. I ended up playing 'When you were young' by the Killers, I like this simple yet catchy tune. Next, one of the kids wanted the Artic Monkeys, so I played 'When the sun goes down', and didn't explain the great lyrics. I gave them a taste of an old Daft Punk tune 'Around the world' and tried to give them an idea of what dance music is about. Gorillaz nicely quirky 'Feel Good Inc.' was next. Last, I finished with 'Knights of Cydonia' by Muse, which was immense when it built into a face melter of a guitar riff blasting out of the quality Japanese sound system. Easily the most sublime lesson yet as along with the nice people, blasting music, sausage gags and facilities, the scenery surrounding the classroom is unbelievable. On one side we look out over a few terraced rice fields, the land then drops sharply over a wee cliff into the sea, beyond which we could see the mountains of the mainland faintly on the horizon. Out of the other side we can see a fantastic view of Sado that encompasses rice paddies, old Japanese dwellings, hillside forests and the largest mountain on the island, snow capped Kinpoku San, all on a sunny day.
I've had a few other good last classes lately with a couple of my third grade English elective classes, where we baked short bread. Not easy to get the kids through this in fifty minutes without making a mess, and I had to take the time to bake everything in the oven afterwards. But still good fun none the less.
It's been my usual few months of inactivity resulting in the inevitable guilt threshold saturation. Guilt is a terrible motivator. This was one of the few lessons I really learned at University. By myself I might add. There was no Basics of Guilt Motivation 1h unfortunately, pointless really, no one would turn up apart from for the exam, only to sign their name. That would be good enough for a pass though.
It's the end of the junior high school year at the moment in Japan. The third grade students 'graduated' on Friday with a very formal ceremony and more half bows than the sea bed at Pearl Harbour. It's pretty boring the second time through, though there was one guy who had the best Japaneses bow that I have ever witnessed. As the Japanese flag was displayed on the stage, everyone who had to make a speech, after bowing first to all of the invited dignitaries seated down one flank, then second to the teachers seated down the other flank, would march up to the stage, climb the steps, get onto the stage, stop facing the flag, bow properly, make it to the podium, bow again and then make a speech. When the speech ended there would be an exact reverse of the whole stage mounting manoeuvre. The head punter from the dignitaries was from the head education office on Sado, and therefore the ichi ban (number one) dude there. His bow was a belter, and the best he did was to the flag. His approach to the stage was not super robotic so I wasn't expecting such a great bow, the juxtaposition of his actions soon to fuel my enjoyment, as when he stopped walking in front of the flag he paused for a moment then went completely spastic. First he stood as tall and straight as he possibly could with a violent jerk, as if he'd just had a cattle prod rammed up his bahooky. This he held perfectly still for a good moment before a second spastic jerk into a very low, long bow. He could give a cracking head butt if anyone's interested. This he held again perfectly until one last spastic movement back to straight and tall. He then relaxed and went about the rest of his business. This made the whole ceremony. Especially as I got an action replay on his stage exit.
The Japanese are always surprised, they mock shock, that we don't graduate at school. My favourite Japanese sound is their sound of surprise. They say 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' where you start off on a low note and end on a high. The amount of surprise can be measured by how long it lasts and the difference between the low note and the high note. This is a great sound and the king, or I should say emperor, of all surprised Japanese people is the Kyoto Sensei (deputy head master in the UK, or vice principal in USA) at my base junior high school. He's a really nice and capable chap whom I like, but the icing on the cake is to hear him surprised. He's that good at it that he actually changes gear a couple of times to accentuate his feelings - 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh', only whales can hear this, gear change 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh', around 20 - 20,000Hz spanning frequencies that the human ear picks up, gear change 'ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh', all the stray dogs run for cover though strangely pedigree ones don't and the odd crystal champagne flute that litter the teachers' room shatters. The Japanese kids graduate from nursery school, elementary school, JHS, high school and University. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a ceremony for their first successful keich in a toilet, whereupon they are formally presented, in the typical bowing delivery, with three sheets of bog roll rather than a certificate. You could also tie a piece of, invisible to the human eye, thread to the kids neck and attach it to the flushing handle. Then when they bow the toilet could simultaneously remove the ceremonial cack. In some ways it is good to have an event that marks the end of an era, at the very least a flushing noise. At primary school, we had a prize giving which basically did the same job in a slightly less stiff manner. That was good. At high school though most didn't bother going to the prize giving and even for those that did it wasn't personal at all, more like a Tory party conference. We should have had some sort of ceremony, not necessarily a graduation, but something to bring school days to a proper close. The whole 'graduation' thing comes from the states where you have to actually pass each year, otherwise you have to do the year again, until the last year, where you graduate. This sounds fair enough. The Japanese have taken this system and changed it around a bit. No one fails a year here and basically everyone graduates. Last year when I attended a large graduation (this year I was at a very small, but my favourite school, that only had five students graduating) and I didn't recognise some of the kids who graduated. There were the school refusers or the kids who hang around in the nurses room because they can't handle being in class for various reasons. I'm not going to say much on this matter other than I think the whole Japanese 'graduation' process with respect to passing anything other than a first planned dump, is mince and that special needs kids aren't dealt with effectively at times.
We had an enkai (work party) the evening after in Ryostu. I was absolutely pished. It has to be said that my drunken memory is really poor these days as my last memory was singing 'I want to break free' by Queen (what a tremendous singer Freddie Mercury was, I'm sure I did him justice), in some wee bar, I couldn't remember getting home at all. Needless to say but I was as rough as a buzzards crotch on the Saturday. After the headache goes I always have a kind of melancholy after a good booze up, which meant I wasn't quite as blabbery on the Saturday night when we went round for dinner with Matt and the rest of the ALTs in Hamochi. I haven't seen some of them in a while and it was nice to see them and hear how they were getting on. I've been liable to rant a bit lately. Not exactly sure why it is, but it may be because I don't get a chance to have proper conversations with people during the day. This is mainly due to my Japanese inability. I'm still studying a little bit when I can but I'd have to improve immensely before I was able to get a decent conversation. I can get around and understand enough now so that 95% of situations are fine, and I'm not going to need the language much after the summer which doesn't help. I understand a bit of what is said to me but I find it difficult to construct a decent reply that maintains a dialogue. So, Caroline probably get's a lot of bull from me, nothing new there, and my family, particularly my old man get's a bit of earache from me. Doesn't do him any harm as he's headered too many footballs in his time. I think that I am far more opinionated than I used to be. I was very easy going at school but I think that I was a late developer and lacked a bit of confidence. On Saturday, I was sharing my feelings about computer games (which I did enjoy playing but believe that they are a complete waste of time) and maybe over egged the pudding. I'm sure I've expressed my feelings about the French government and mad cow disease that possibly caused a raised eyebrow or two in the past. In some ways I enjoy a good argument but maybe I'm needing to tone it down a little so that people aren't worried about replying or getting upset at all. Maybe I need to start ranting on here as at least you can just stop reading should you wish. Maybe you have already done that with this blarb. Fair enough, no knickers in a twist and no creams in a puff.
On Sunday I took part in the Toki Marathon. This isn't a marathon but a 3, 5 or 10 km race for school children and any fun runners. A toki is a red crested ibis - Sado's endangered bird, a bit like Norfolk and one of Bernard Matthew's turkeys. Last year I did the 10km race and there was sleet, which was murder polis. I signed up for it again this year as I've been trying to keep ticking over with the exercise during the winter months, and saw this as something to keep up a little training for. I ran round with one of the chaps from the English conversation class that we hold once a week in Ryostu, he kept a nice steady pace. We managed the 10km in around 44 minutes, which wasn't bad. There are a few more 10km races in spring around different towns on Sado, which I'll enter too. My aim for these races is to beat 40 minutes. Yesterday, the weather was still cold and windy and there was a little snow and hail. At one point we were running by some terraced rice fields, where cedar trees lined the road. The snow was floating in the air all backed by the largest mountain on the island. A truly Japanese and thoroughly beautiful moment. This was quickly blown from mind as I turned a corner and puffed my way up a hill whilst a strong wind, not of my own making, did it's best to stop me. The Japanese love all this type of stuff and doing these sorts of challenges together, which I think is great. I admire their spirit. It's good that so many kids and adults took part. I can bet my bottom yen that had it been in Scotland in similar circumstance there would have been a few people there, and only to fulfill bets. The Japanese, including the kids, are a pretty healthy bunch, even though they are fond of a wee puff, sorry the odd fag, forgive me, a cigarette and a drink. Not so many fatties over here. The kids all eat the same school dinners and you want to see what we eat. Rice, fish, squid, octopus, prawns, mussels, seaweed all sort of stuff. I give it all a go and most of it is pretty good and I'm much healthier for it too. Many people in Scotland, never mind fussy kids, would turn their noses up at this 'muck' as they'd call it. We have such a poor and ignorant attitude to food in Scotland. It's a crying shame too as we have the best of gear, be it fish, meat or veg, great booze too, that all gets shipped to London, Paris and even Tokyo. I have to admit that if I come back to Scotland and go into primary school teaching I'll be taking a leaf out of Jamie Oliver's cook book when it comes to school dinners. With the completely shocking and embarrassing (that would be a four gear change 'ehhhh' from Kyoto Sensei) statistic that 900,000 people in Scotland, a quarter of them children, are living poverty, school dinners should be free for all (eliminating any stigma attached to freebie dinners) and compulsory. I think the ideal is that the whole school sits down to a meal and has time allocated only for lunch, and then separate time afterwards for play time. We could definitely learn from Japanese school dinners.
We're going to see Kyoto and Nara next week and are managing to squeeze in the Osaka leg of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium tour, which we are really looking forward to. I'll get some pictures of that up next.
I better go and do something else.
