Pirates! Part I

This is the follow up to the last entry. Yes, I own an inflatable canoe. Yes it is sturdy. Yes, I bought lifevests. And yes, mom, Pirates do travel in canoes... They do whatever they feel like.

All this fuss about Pirates has probably been due to the recent celebration of "Talk like a Pirate Day", which was Sept 19th. I was off of school that day, due to it coincidentally being "Respect for the Elderly Day" in Japan. Jill, John and I all went out in the canoe (which we named "S.S. Boat") and pirated out along the islands in the bay area between Fukushima and the mainland. I don't know if Pirates are allowed to say that things are pretty (other than wenches), but I'll say it: "It was gorgeous!" Some islands had caves, and others had small bay areas that looked like an island from the Goonies, or any other Pirate type movie.





I think another contribution to my thirst for Pirating (and playing the accordion), is the intense reading of "The Pirates! In Adventures with Scientists." Quite an hilarious book, to say the least. It takes place in the mid 1800's and speculates what would have happened if Pirates had boarded "The Beagle" in search for booty and unexpectedly finding Charles Darwin himself. Of course Darwin's theories in the book are quite different from real life. One of his theories include his belief that if you dress up a chimpanzee and teach him how to be a gentleman, then he can become an active member of society. In fact, he believed that this "Man-Panzee" (as it were) would be indistinguishable from regular humans (except for he fact that he has to talk with flash cards). I loved this book, and thought it was hysterical. I found it funny but, the bad science in this book would make my mother cringe in disgust (for the record, she hates the Pokemon movies, too).



So, all these doings of things in a piratical nature led me to the creation of this map. I hope you enjoy it. It is a hand drawn map of Fukushima; colored in Photoshop. In the upper right quadrant, you can see our route to the islands we went to. You can click on the picture for a larger size.

Canoe

I bought an inflatable canoe. I am a pirate. More to come in a few days.

Melon Ice

Melon is a favorite flavor in Japan. They have melon ice cream, melon soda, and melon bread. This was one kids journal from summer vacation. I think it pretty much explains itself.

Also, you can click on the image for a larger size.

Peacocks, Waterfalls, and Donkeys....

I went to a Peacock Park this weekend. Now, when I say Peacock “Park” one might automatically assume that there is a park that exists where peacocks roam around and you can feed them or whatever. This peacocks park is located in Kawatana and is incidentally what the town is known for, I figure, its got to be good, right? Well, If you want to see about 200 scraggly foul looking a few days from death, I would highly recommend going to this place. No free roaming peacocks, just one giant pavilion-type cage where they all just kind of muddled around. What do you get when you put this many peacocks together in one place? One awful smell, that’s what. I only saw about two birds that actually had tail feathers. One interesting part was that there were also a few albino peacocks in a separate cage. Albino peacocks remind you why peacocks can be beautiful: Their feathers. Without colorful feathers a peacock looks more like a glorified turkey than anything else.

Not as cool as you would think.


On deaths door...


One ugly bird!

By happenstance, Kawatana is also near Higashisonogi, which has many beautiful waterfalls. Some friends and I went on Saturday and swam in the cold, cold mountain river. There was a rope that you can swing out on, but my fear of heights came through and left me merely taking pictures of others swinging. The waterfalls were very beautiful and the area was fairly deserted. Afterwards, whilst looking wet and bedraggled, we went to Bikkuridonki (a restaurant) for coffee, and dessert. Bikkuridonki literally translates into “Donkey Surprise.” I think they should start franchises in the States: Its delicious, cheap, and has an irresistible name. Americans would love it!

Beautiful!


Jill swinging into the pool. Hmm... looks dangerous.


Donkey Suprise! Jill on the left, Kate on the right. Incidentally, the menu folds out like a Catholic Confessional.

Sky Perfect TV

Japan does weird things to your TV watching habits. Pretty much anything that is in English is fair game. This includes infomercials, bad movies, movies you saw last night, and sports. Now if you’re reading this and you know me, you will be surprised to know that I watched an hour and a half of soccer, yesterday I watched women’s college volleyball, and have been known, on occasion, to frequent the golf channel. Walter’s been inadvertently paying for my satellite TV for the past two months, and just realized it. This means at the end of the month, I will be faced with a choice: Either start paying for shows I wouldn’t normally watch, or cancel satellite TV all together and actually do something worthwhile with my time. It's a toss-up, really. I’ve fallen into the dangerous trap of reacquainting myself with an old friend: Television. Any thoughts on what I should do?

Elections

Well, Monday finds us with relatively the same Japanese government. Yesterday was election day for the Japanese parliament. I don’t pretend to understand the processes of Japanese government, but suffice to say, its pretty similar to what they had 4 years ago. Japan’s Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi (who looked a lot like Richard Gear 4 years ago) decided to hold a surprise election and dissolve parliament after facing many suppositions that he wasn’t living up to his promises of change. Well, that apparently set him off. He fired the entire parliament and held elections. Surprisingly, this is exactly what the public wanted and rallied giving a landslide victory to Koizumi giving him 296 of the 480 seats in the lower house of parliament. That roughly works out to a 61% approval rating for him and the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party).

After asking around a little bit, I found out that people were a bit disappointed with the outcome. Koizumi apparently has a mind geared towards war and the changing of the constitution that was set up after WWII. Also, now that his approval is reaffirmed he will begin the privatization of the postal system. There are some pros and cons to this from what I have heard. One pro is that it will reduce the amount of government in people’s lives (a goal that Koizumi is constantly striving for). The cons, however, are many. Privatization of the postal system means privatization of the bank accounts linked to the postal system (my account is through the post office). I would also cancel the government-backed insurance of one’s account. Up until now, if someone were to steal money from the Post Office, the clients money would be reimbursed. After privatization, this would not be the case. In fact, many lost their entire life savings in the 90’s when Japans economic bubble burst and private banks started going under. Another con would be the problem of “unprofitable” rural routes. If you are trying to make money at a business, why would you even set up mail boxes, office, etc. at anyplace where you would get a low traffic volume?

Things have been fairly good in Japan for the last 4 years, so we'll see if things end up ok. Perhaps that's naïve of me, but I really don’t have a choice. After all I can’t vote like in the States.


Bush on the left, Koizumi on the right. This can't be good...

The Schools...

So about my students and the school:

I really like Fukushima Middle School. But, honestly, I haven’t really taught there yet. Last Friday was the first day of class for me, but all grades were taking tests. Pretty much the only thing I did was give the oral portion of the tests. The students were nice and very well behaved, but I don’t really have a feeling for how the classes are going to go yet. This week was a bust, because half the students were on field trips, and half were doing some kind of “life learning”. This is where each student spends two days at various shops and businesses around the island and then has to write a report their experiences. I didn’t teach those days, but I was able to go around to all the businesses and see all the kids at work. Some of the highlights included two of the kids using a giant fire hose, and a middle school girl selling a bottle of whiskey to a customer. I think their alcohol laws are much more lax here… I was riding around with Shoji-sensei the PE teacher, who also happens to be my neighbor. As an extra bonus we got to drive around in his Skyline GT R (picture below), and even let me drive it to a couple places! It was my first time driving stick in Japan (the shifter is on the left) so it got a little hairy at times, but over all a very fun ride. (I mean, this thing has got 400 horsepower and can go 0-60 in 5.2 seconds, how could it not be fun!)



Here's a couple of pictures of Mr. Shoji and the students working with the firefighters for the day. Mr Shoji is the one flexing his muscles.







Once I’m on a regular schedule, I will be going to Fukushima elementary school on Tuesdays and Yogen elementary school on Thursdays. This week, however, I went to Fukushima Elementary for my welcoming ceremony. I told them a little about myself in both English and Japanese then played violin for them. It was hard to think of anything good to play that would be short and sweet, but I eventually settled on the National Anthem (America’s, not Japan’s). afterwards, I got to teach my first class! They were fifth graders, and they were all very genki (full of life). If all teaching it going to go as well as this, then I’m in for one great year!

Next week I’ll go to Yogen Elementary for my welcoming ceremony there, and play the violin as well (same song). I’ll post something about that after it happens.

Magic Eye

Ever since 6th grade, I haven’t been able to see those stupid magic-eye things. But I’ve been sitting around the office looking at these magic-eye fans and I finally got it! I can now proudly say that I can see a teddy bear, two penguins, and a turtle! (As unrewarding as this may seem), I am extremely excited! Once I could see it, I (of course) wanted to know how it works and if I can make my own. “Magic Eye” the company does not sell software that you can make your own creations, but I did find a German program that will run on windows. I’m actually much more worried about the program being in German than anything else. Whilst doing my research, I also found out the reason that I probably couldn’t see them for so long. According to magiceye.com, “People with impaired depth perception or people who have one eye which is extremely dominant (as in amblyopia) will have more difficulty seeing the image.” I’m going to go ahead and write this one off on my left eye dominance (which I’m now beginning to think is much more dominant than any normal person’s). Anyway, we’ll see if I can make any magic eye pictures myself. If I can, and you’re able to see them on computer screens, I’ll post them.

My Car (in America)

Just thought I'd post these for comparison. This is was my car back home: a 1988 Toyota Corolla.

My Car

I’ve made many friends here, both Japanese and American. Now that I’m driving around, I’m able to see them all much more frequently, as I am not dependent on the ferry, or other friends to drive me. Posted at the bottom is a picture of my car. It's a Toyota Mark II, which is quite a step up from the Toyota Corolla I had back in the States. (Sorry mom, I know it was free, and you know I loved that car!) I think I have resigned myself to the fact that I’ll always have a car with a scrape on the back-side. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I was not responsible for the damage to the Mark II. That was all Walter’s doing.

I've Survived!

Well, now that I’ve been here over a month, I figured it would be about time to write a little bit about Japan. I hope this can entertain some people (especially fiancés at work with nothing to do).

So far I’ve survived sweltering heat, massive spiders, and a very large typhoon. For those concerned, the typhoon was pretty much a bust. Strong winds, and constant rain only led to a complete dissemination of the storm over Kyushu. I felt a little over paranoid for driving into town to stock up on canned goods and filling all the water bottles I could find with filtered water. But, in light of Katrina, one can never be too careful.