Just after I posted the last update, I got hit by another earthquake. Second one in the same day. No worries, it just rattled my house for about a minute. I’ll live. I don’t need an amusument park. I have one. It’s called Japan. It’s rides go from 1 on all the way to 9.6.
Archive for October, 2003
Senmaya Chuugakko Bunkasai
The following is a picture blog of the event and the setup day before the event. This is a real bunkasai with real chuugakko students. Please enjoy responsibly. The theme of the bunkasai was, “Grow Cooperative Hearts.
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Best Smile. First Prize.
Brush your teeth or else.
My students. Some of the 400 total.
More of my students.
This was practice day.
How cute. Bweeee.
Grow Coop Hearts. Oh yeah.
Woodwork!
That’s a big sign!
me and the Students.
Kanji Art 1.
Kanji Art 2.
What?
My Favorite Kanji Art.
Shodorific or Shodotastic?
Morioka Party!
The three Senmaya JET’s took a trip to the capital of Iwate(Morioka) and went to a dance club. We started the evening off with a two hour drive there. Then we went to a great bar for supper with all you can drink alcohol. This took me from sober to drunk in a little under an hour. Then we walked over to Bardai and danced. We danced until 5am then went out for breakfast. After that we drove home just so I could sleep for three hours, wake up and then go to kids halloween party and do some storytelling. What a weekend! My legs are still sore. Met some great people there as well. One of them one named Megumi. She’s quite the awesome person. Speaks perfect english, and has a great sense of humor.
Today, I made my first ever Keitai Purchase today. I took three months to settle on one, but I finally broke down and bought this little guy:
This makes Star Trek look amish.
Phone or Shuttlecraft?
It also picks up reverse tachyon particles.
The manual is in english and is 768 pages long. Is that big or what? It does everything. It even had a 1 megapixel camera built in. And the nice thing is that it only cost 11000yen. And the monthly plan is 4000 yen and this includes email. Soon you’ll be able to send me email right to my keitai. Sugoi.
Senmaya Education Office
Yamagata Trip - Part 2
We wake up at 7:30am, and head for the onsen. There is nothing better in the morning then soaking in an onsen with a group of naked men. Sorry, I don’t have any pictures of this to share with you. After that, we buy our souvenirs and get on the bus. It’s time for more fun. where will we head next? We’re going to the Takara Winery:
Wine for me, wine for you.
Keggerific.
Distilltastic.
Of course we got a step by step lecture about the making of the wine, all in Japanese. I picked up like 50% of the talk, but it was still very interesting. Also, I picked up a bottle of ice wine at their store, nicely placed at the end of the tour. Hmm, I wonder why that is…^_- The winery was too much fun. But there was yet a more powerful experience on the horizon. We were heading up Mount Zao. The most awesome mountain in Yamagata:
A helicopter taking stuff up to the peak.
We were up quite high. OMG!
There is a ski resort on the mountain and we stopped there for lunch. Bento lunches are so awesome. They are also quite healthy too. But the biggest shock was what was at the top of the moutain. The crater left by a volcano that went boom 300 years ago. It’s called okama, and the only way I want you to see this picture is big. so please click on this link:
Greetings from The Senmaya Education Office!
And that was the trip. It took two hours to get back home and I slept quite well that evening. It was my first trip to another precture, and I’d say a damn fine one. Thanks for sharing in this wonderful trip with me.
Back to reality. Oilers kick Avalanche 6-3. Oh yeah!
Senmaya Education Office
Yamagata Trip - Part 1
This trip took place on October 11th and 12th. I’m sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been busy. Let’s begins. This trip begins with me waking up at 7:50am when I’m supposed to be at the bus by 7:50am. After a few moments of rushing around, I run out the door and make it to the bus with 1 minute to spare. The office had some thing that would help my relax for the bus trip though:
Beer!
After about an hour of travel, we settled down for a pit stop. Drinking beer at 8am isn’t good for the bladder:
And goodbye square.
Our first stop was the temple of yamadera. This temple is perched in a mountain and it require 1000 steps of walking to get to the top. Here is a picture I took of it after we climbed it.:
Autumn = pretty.
These were carved into the rock in 800AD.
From the top.
Me and the boss.
I have many more pictures of this trip. If you would to see more. Email me and I’ll send you some. The actual pictures are very large.
The next place we went to was the basho poetry museum. I don’t have any pictures, because they would let me take any…>_
Busty.
After the museums we went to a beautiful garden. Its construction took 8 years and the stones and plants in it come from all over the world. Here’s a pic:
The office ladies and the garden.
The fun begins. In the later afternoon we went to LINAWORLD. An amusement park. Here are some pictures:
Kawaii.
Engrish in Action.
Beautiful as the sun goes down.
After that we went to our hotel and drank the night away. That is the most I’ve ever drank in one day. Cheers. Part 2 is coming up tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Reviews coming soon. I swear. Many Yamagata pics. Must sleep though. Tomorrow!!!
Tomorrow I will start my review of the Yamagata trip with the Senmaya Education office. But fist, check out some of this fetish action. BTW, this is the funniest site I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you somethingawful.
Today I will open with a list of the names that my students calls me in school(other then Jason)
I’ve been called:
jacob-sensei(we was the JET before me, easy mistake to make)
jonson-sensei(okay, why not)
jonston-sensei(sureee…)
jaso-sensei(works for me)
jackson-sensei(O_o)
and the number one favorite: chainsaw-sensei (This is no joke. This is what I have been called)
In other news, I will be going to yamagata-ken for the next two days on a trip. I will be out of radio contact, but I will bring back pictures and other goodies. Please enjoy…^_^
I am typing this with a wad of toothpaste in my mouth. On the way home from school today I got the chance to see rice harvesting in action. First of all, the only people I’ve ever seen harvest rice are the elderly. I’ve never see a person between 20-75 harvest rice. Only the really old and the really young…O_o There are two ways you can do it. You can pull out each plant by hand and place them on a hand made wooden rack to dry out. Or, the new modern method. A machine comes at plows right into the rice paddy, effectively turning it into poo. To my surprise, most people still do it the old fashioned way. Going to spit out toothpaste….Now…
So the temperature went down here in the last few weeks. I was surprised because even though it says it’s like 10C outside it feels like it’s -2C. I’m thinking that maybe the humidity here is killing me. Making me hot and sweating in the summer and frozen in the winter. So I decided I’d go out for a run this evening. In my tshirt and sweat pants. After an hour of running, I was feeling great, and now the temperature is just fine again. So I think I just need to get used to it again. They say it only gets down to -10C. But without central heating and poor insulation, that also means that it will be -5-8C in my house. Yay! I’ll let you know how that goes. Must get to sleep now. I have a 10 minutes train trip and 40 minute walk to school tomorrow. Looking forward to that one. Take care.
