Happy!

I am so HAPPY!

Why?

Because I went to the `Happiest Place on Earth:` Disneyland Tokyo.

Disneyland Tokyo is actually two parks, Disneyland and Disneysea. (Yes, I will wait as you reread those names.)

Tokyo Disneyland is larger than the original in California, but it is laid out in the same manner and has many of the same rides, usually reproduced exactly. It was funny to be on a couple of the rides and know that only me and a handful of others could understand what was being said. The gravestones at the Haunted Mansion, in English, is a prime example.

Fortunately, on Star Tours, C-3PO was translated into Japanese--he is, after all, fluent `in over six million forms of communication.` R2D2 still spoke in bleeps. Many of the filmed characters such as the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion or the humans in Star Tours were still the original American actors, sometimes dubbed, sometimes not.

I was disappointed by Disneyland, not only was it so similar to every other Disneyland on the planet--and way too crowded--but it was hard to compare after visiting Disneysea the day before.

Disneysea is only six years old. Instead of having areas based on land themes (Adventureland or Tomorrowland) they are all water-based. There was American Waterfront and Mysterious Island. It was the most expensive park ever built and it shows. It is absolutely gorgeous.

Arriving an hour after opening made me sad, but we quickly got into the swing of things. It is more adult-styled--even having alcohol for sale.

The park emptied at dusk and we had a great time enjoying it in the dark. Unfortunately they closed at 10. Or maybe that is good, my feet were really tired from walking.

I would like to show you pictures from Disneysea, but I accidentally deleted them all. Oops.
Disneyland Tokyo is celebrating its 25 Anniversary, but I suppose it would have been crowded anyway! Not only were the lines longer at Disneyland than Disneysea.

One good thing, I never had to compete with adults for silly things...
The adults were constantly amused that I, a gaijin, would try any old silly thing. I even got my friend Mutsumi do a few too. Most Japanese adults seemed to be way to wary of the eyes of others on them to do anything though. Toontown, the place with the best silly places to be, is a place I had never been before. Yes, I have not been to Disneyland since Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out! The rides might be for kids but I am always happy to clamber over any obstacle and play with any toys. And no, no children were harmed in the shooting of these pictures.

It was an exhausting 2 days, but well worth it.

Wish you were here!

Testing

Today, the second Friday of the new school year, is testing and so I have lots of time to write a new blog. Not many pictures though. I did make some diagrams though.

Remember, I am an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) at Mizuma Junior High most days of the week. On Mondays I go to Araki Elementary school, unless there is one of our monthly meetings in Fukuoka. Mizuma JH is about five minutes by bike for me. Araki is further, almost 30 minutes, although I haven`t rode there in months. I drive, even though I am not supposed to. It appears that I am not supposed to because they are afraid my mom would sue them if something happened while I was driving to work. (They must have had a bad experience before because they are not sue-happy like we are in the States. In fact, I would say they have the fewest lawyers of any more developed country.)

Here, elementary school starts at first grade and goes until sixth. Then kids go to junior high. And start over with the numbering system. Here, we have grades 1-3, even though the kids are 12-15.

Many elementary schools have dress codes. The local elementary school that I ride by on my way to the junior high has a dress code where the boys wear shorts and white socks and the girls where blue skirts. In the morning on their way to school, groups walk together (part of the system where the senpai, an older kid(or kids) are responsible for helping the kohai (younger kids) get to school safely). They make me think of little ducks, all walking in a line. The little yellow clothe hats they all wear helps with that image.

Araki Elementary is in Kurume proper. (Remember me talking about how Mizuma is part of Kurume? No? The blog is just from January. You can check it out if you want.) Like most schools in Kurume city, Araki kids do not wear uniforms. I keep getting kids wearing shirts that say Salt Lake City on them, which cracks me up. Anything with English on it is usually cool, no matter what it says. I had one second grade kid at Araki with F*** printed on his shirt. I am the only one who noticed though. I have taken pictures of all of these kids. I am not supposed to publish those pictures on the web without parental permission, so you are out of luck to see them.

Here at Mizuma (where I am writing this as the teachers are all in a whirlwind around me trying to get things ready for the next round of tests), the students wear a pretty standard Japanese school uniform. There is the winter and the summer uniform. We are still on winter, which means the girls wear navy blue sailor`s blouses with blue handkerchiefs over their blue skirts. The summer uniform is a white sailors blouse, still with that dark blue handkerchief. These two pictures are from last October`s English speech competition (remember that?). The girl on the left is wearing the winter and the girl on the right is wearing the summer. They had a few days to change their uniform. I was told they were allowed to wear the summer longer than usual because it was so warm here last year.

I do not have a picture for the boys (and I cannot go take one, they are all taking tests and I do not have parental permission either). The boys wear black pants summer and winter. In the summer they wear a simple button-down, short sleeve, white shirt. In the winter they wear a black jacket with huge buttons and a short, stiff collar called a Nehru jacket (a Nehru jacket`s collar is the one that just sticks up stiffly from the jacket about an inch, no fold over).

At all times, they have name tags sewn onto their tops. It says Mizuma Jr. High with their name underneath. They are even color coded for grade: light blue, dark blue and red. I know I will never mistakenly say `hi` to a student who is wearing a similar uniform because of those name tags.

All the kids wear white athletic shoes. I am not sure if this is required or fashion. The boys wear white socks, while the girls wear black. This is fashion, I know. I have noticed that some of the new first grade girls are wearing white socks. I would bet money that changes soon!
Mizuma Jr. High is in a building that is over 50 years old. There are more classrooms than we need. The population of the area is in decline. In general, Japan has a negative population growth, albeit a very slight one. Many more developed countries have a negative or neutral population growth--the United States just happens to be an anomaly in this area. The main reason, I think, for the population decline in the area is that it is inaka--the countryside. People are moving to the cities. Here you can see lots of rice fields (actually, wheat is growing now, it is almost as high as my waist) and our tallest building is the hospital. I have been told our town is `rice-rich` because of the amount of subsidies the town gets from the government for growing rice. (Fun fact, while Japan imports 2/3 of the food it consumes, the Philippines imports more rice than any other country in the world.)
The south side of the school is where the regular classrooms are. We are only using four of seven for each floor. The first grade only has three home rooms instead of four, like the second and third grades. Fewer students is the reason.
The students stay in their rooms, all together, all day--well, except for gym, science, computers and home economics and even then they go together to that class. Math and Japanese are exceptions at my school, the classes are split into two--Math for two levels of skill and Japanese for the ease of teaching, but it may be for levels too. The teachers share a giant office (I am right in the middle of it, right now) and go to the classroom when scheduled. It was like this in Zimbabwe.

Also, like in Zimbabwe, the schools are very test oriented. We have had 4 sets of school wide tests since September. And today is the first time they only took one day instead of 2 or 3. At the end of junior high, there are lots more exams for the third graders, in and out of school. These exams help the students get into high school, which they are not necessarily obligated to do. Most want to. If the students do not do well on the tests, they may not get into a government school and then their parents have to pay to send them to a private school.

After school study programs at private institutions are very popular here. Sometimes I feel the students who go there view school as a time to relax, sleep and socialize--they get a lot more work done at the study sessions.

All the students are all in the same English class. The students who can talk to me about what they did last weekend are right next to the student who has trouble reading the alphabet.

And nobody fails.

My friends and I have speculated that the main lesson to learn in JH is how to be Japanese. Work together, play together, eat together (the students eat in their classrooms together too, turning their desks together to make tables for six students)--it is all very socially centered.

The students all (well, 99% of them) belong to a club too. Most of the clubs are sports, but there is art and the band too (which only has two boys!). The kids come early, stay late and even come on weekends to practice. Games with other schools are often held on Saturday mornings or holidays. And the teacher who is in charge of the club is usually there for most of it, too.

The teachers spend a lot more time working here than they do in the states. I often thought teachers in the states worked hard--they really deserve and need that summer break--but Americans have nothing on the Japanese. Summer break here is 6 weeks, from mid-July until the beginning of August, but for the teachers that is only just time they are not actually in the classroom; they are still at the school.

I missed something you think I should talk about, or if I was unclear about anything, let me know!

Kyoto

Yes, it is two months later and I a getting around to writing about Kyoto. With a little luck, you will hear about my trip to Thailand shortly...

First, an update on hitting my head on the door frames in my apartment. Since the last report, I have had a few close calls and one square hit. That hit was not as painful as the one where I fell to my knees, but I would call it the second worst. I was even in my stocking feet when it happened. Ouch.


The new school year started last week, with lots of changes. We had some time off between the school years, hence why I went to Thailand.


Ok...

Back in February, there was a 3 day weekend. Monday, February 11, was National Foundation Day. It celebrates the (unproven) foundation of Japan as an empire in 660BC. Sounds good to me.


Kyoto was the capital of Japan for a long time, around 500 years, before Tokyo. It was rarely bombed in World War II, and, for that reason, there are many older buildings there unlike in many other cities. Kyoto was even on the list for the atom bomb. The theory was that because there are so many intellectuals there they would appreciate the bomb. Fortunately, Kyoto was taken of the list.

On Saturday I rode the Shinkansen (the high-speed train) to Kyoto. It was snowing heavily there. This was unusual. Kyoto, which is near Osaka, is like Tokyo in that they do get snow, but rarely does it snow all day like it did that day. It was a heavy wet snow like New York snow, not like Utah`s light powder.
That`s not a snowball in your hand is it...?

After dropping off our bags at the hotel--we were too early to check-in--we took a bus to one of the temples, Kiyomizu-dera. It is Buddhist temple and a World Heritage site. One of the most famous in Kyoto, even. It is on the hills (well, they call them mountains...) in the east part of town.

There is a 3-roof pagoda and balconies built over the edges of ravines. Because of the snow, we could not see the rest of Kyoto from the temple.
That day was fabulous, even with the mobs of tourists (we like to joke that the rude ones are Chinese, but unfortunately there is some truth to this). I really enjoyed my biggest day of snow this year.

That evening we ordered Domino's and watched Lost. Fun, eh?

The next day was sunny and warm. The snow started melting pretty quickly. Our first stop was Nanzen-ji. It is a Zen Buddhist temple that was founded in 1264. It is famous for a few things, including the main gate (sanmon) which was built in 1628. There is also supposed to be beautiful rock gardens, but we skipped them in part due to the snow (couldn`t see them under the snow) and they wanted us to pay a bit for everything at the temple--they were trying to nickle-and-dime us to death!

Most people know about Sakura, the Japanese cherry blossoms. These happen in mid-spring (and just so happen to be the same time the year starts here!). What many people do not know is the plum blossoms that bloom in February. They came early this year because of our mild winter, but the snow storm meant we could not see them. At Nanzen-jin, the trees were covered with small patches of ice where the snow had clung to the blossoms. As we walked around the temple the ice-covered flowers would fall and break on the ground.

In the rear of the temple, we found a beautiful aqueduct.

We took a nice walk to the next temple. Close to the temple, we stopped and had the meal that Kyoto is famous for: Tofu. As there are so many monks, Kyoto is famous for tofu. With the meal we had fresh soy milk and about 7 different tofu dishes (or similar to tofu dishes). I really enjoyed this. I remember reading an article in the New Yorker a few years ago that was a travelogue of the journalist travelling and trying the many different kinds of tofu there are--not just the types you see in the store in the states! It was really interesting to try a few different types and to eat them in a way that I have not eaten it before. Here in Mizuma, I buy tofu at my cheap store (the one without the produce if you remember from the bread blog). It is only 29Yen, about 29 cents now. Super cheap. Generally I freeze it before I use it, letting it defrost in the fridge. This gives it a much firmer texture. I make a lot of curries with it and even burritos now and then. Yum!
After our tofu meal, we hiked up the hill to the `Silver Temple,` Ginkaku-ji. It is actually called Jisho-ji (Temple of Shining Mercy). It was built in 1474 by a guy who was trying to imitate his grandfather`s Golden Temple. Perhaps he was going to cover it in silver, too, although it is only wood. It was a great place, with lots of trees and a few paths up the hills. A small pond was located near the main building. In the picture, to the right, you can see the snow covering the rock garden.
From there we took a bus across town to the Kinkaku-ju, the Golden Temple. Originally built in 1397, it had, sadly, to be restored in the past 50 years. It is covered by real gold.
Here we encountered the most people we had seen yet.

At all the places we visited there were many buildings. The last two were originally retirement homes that were dedicated, on the owners request at their death, to be temples.

I took the Shinkansen home on Monday. The second to last stop, and the only other one in Kyushu besides that last one (which is my stop) is in Kitakyushu. The train stops in the old center of town: Kokura. Kokura was the second choice for the first atom bomb. If Hiroshima was covered with clouds or smoke, they were going to drop the bomb on Kokura. The day was sunny and clear and no cities were burning nearby, so the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Kokura was the first choice for the second bomb. Unluckily for Nagasaki, the second choice, a nearby city was burning and Kokura was obscured. The bombing of Japan by regular bombs is often overlooked by the atom bombs. Technically, the total poundage of destruction on Tokyo was more than either of the atom bombs. Japan suffered through their own Dresden firebombing a few times over.


Japanese are often amazed by our, Americans`, curious desire to visit the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their war memorials. They recognize we are not gloating but it is hard to describe why we go. Guilt? Pride? Respect? I hope to go to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Nagasaki is only 3 hours by driving from my place while Hiroshima is hour by Shinkansen.