Busiest day yet. Easily.

Well today, as it says in the title, was easily the busiest day Ive had yet. It was far from the worst day, and it wasn't the most tiring but it was tons and tons and tons of work packed into a day with no breaks in the schedule.

This is partially down to Erling being ill. I still dont exactly know whats wrong with the lad, all the lights were off and he seemed to possibly still be in bed when I got in so I left him be, but I woke up this morning to a note telling me not to wake him up because of him having some kind of illness. Many complications arose from this. Each lesson we teach, one of us goes with Barney and one of us goes with a part time teacher and we each teach half of the class in seperate rooms. This meant that there was always one teacher without a volunteer so I ended up doing half of each lesson with one and half with the other, and considering Barney teaches in a seperate building it meant far too much travelling between classes (on the positive side, it meant that each student in the classes we teach got a taste of the awesome that is Mike-sensei). And also at one point Christina (a german exchange student) joined us in teaching one of the classes, which was cool - its always nice to have some of the western exchange students to help us teach, someone to have a good crack on with, etc. Despite the running about it was fun though, teaching students I don't normally teach (some that I knew or recognised) and it really made me realised how I've progressed with confidence and teaching. I now feel nothing in the way of nerves (even in front of students I didnt know, and even when they clearly say things about me in Japanese - which scared me to hell at the start), when a few months ago I crapped myself at the idea of standing infront of someone, even just saying a few sentences. I could really see myself teaching in the future now which I couldn't not so long ago, I don't really intend to but if I ever needed work then teaching in Japan would easily be an option.

I also taught a lunchtime class today (meaning I missed out on my only free period AND my lunch time) which went well, but I ended up having to miss a part of it due to club pictures being taken over lunch, which wasnt going to be a problem when Erling was going to be in. This meant I had to teach the lunchtime class by myself (which I dont usually) and then rush off early to change into my Shorinji gear and get some pictures taken in the JM Hall with the Shorinji Kempo lot, only to have less than a minute to make it to my 1-7 class (meaning I completely missed out on lunch, something that I'd very rarely let happen. Not a huge amount can get between me and eating). Hopefully, I'll be able to get a hold of the picture to put on here - have to see.

And then after the hour of Japanese and 5 straight periods of teaching, I had another class to teach which worried me. The PTA. Normally a nice and relaxed lesson of chatting and working through the textbook with the intermediate students, I had to take over Erlings class aswell. The problems here were that I had no clue about what he was teaching them, and that the number of students I was teaching just quadrupled. Luckily, some last minute 'planning' in the ten minutes before the lesson and the lesson went smoothly. About 25 mins of talking about what we'd all done in the past week was then followed by Barney's invention: 'Beatle Bonus Time'. Barney is a huge Beatles fan and now with all of his classes he starts with a 5 minute game where you listen to a Beatles song and fill in the blanks left in the lyrics. Sounds easy, but its not so easy considering they arent native English speakers. The PTA loved this game. They were all huge Beatles fans and really got into it. After that there was only 5 minutes to go, not enough to play the next 4 games I had planned so I ended with a quick game of Pictionary, which, again, they adored. A fun end to an exhausting day.

But it wasn't the end! We agreed the day before to record a listening CD for the junior students' midterm exams, so I spent an hour after the PTA class doing this, which wasnt too bad in all fairness. The thing which made it fine was knowing that the kids, while sitting through hours of painful exams, will have to listen to my voice. Over. And over. And over. Mwuahaha. The mp3s of the listening tape will be posted next week hopefully, my tape voice is a beast! Those kids will no doubt pass all of their English exams because of the clarity... and if they fail I put all the blame on Barney's american accent putting them off.

So a very busy day, but fairly rewarding and fun. Completely enjoyed it. I just hope Erling gets well soon because Im not sure I could do that very often haha.

Well, now I'm off for the rest of the week due to the exams so I may go travelling. No ideas yet, but Im hoping that, wherever I go, the regional dish is gyoza (chinese dumplings and the best food, in the world, ever. By far). And on that note, I'm off to get some gyoza and egg fried rice!

Sayonara!

Oh and the pictures are just some pictures I've taken so far. Just thought I'd break up what would otherwise be a boringly huge block of text.

Kawagoe!

Me, Erling and our friend Hina travelled to Saitama prefecture (about 35 minutes from Oji) to go to the yearly Kawagoe festival. Kawagoe is an amazing city. Its intensely picturesque with tons of shrines and temples all over, I've seen many shrines since arriving in Tokyo (hell, I walk through one every day on the way to work) but Kawagoe was something else. There is a shrine on every block (slight exaggeration but the amount we accidently found was insane), and each of them - despite some being really small - were just as traditional, attractive and awe inspiring as the rest. Seriously, some of the views in that city were amazing, it killed me when my camera ran out of battery minutes after arriving - but never fear! I intend to go back some time soon to take a memory-card full of pictures (enough to win me every Project Trust photo competion they start, anyway!). The city's known as 'little Edo' (Edo being an old name for tokyo), because the architecture of some of the preserved traditional buildings is supposed to be the best insight into what Tokyo was like before it lost most of its historic qualities after the 1923 earthquake and the WW2 bombings.

The festival itself started in the year 1648 and is held every year on the third weekend of October. Each area of the city decorate a float to push around town during the weekend and the floats are incredible. Theyre really tall, beautifully designed and decorated and have an army of people on them playing the flute, taiko drums and dancing. Each float also has its own 'character', which is the only way to describe it, essentially someone on it dressed up and dancing on it. One we saw had a guy dressed up as a monkey, another a dragon, another a woman dancing with a fan, and so on... each one more colourful than the last. Seriously an amazing sight, especially when two met down a street and they'd continue playing their music and dancing, trying to knock the other float out of beat. I'll have to steal some pictures off the others because the festival was seriously class.

Aswell as the dozens of shrines and thousands of street stalls we visited, we also took ourselves to see Kawagoe castle, or atleast the only bit of it which is still left (the lord's residence which was built in 1848, the rest of the castle, which was built long before that, I assume was either pulled down or destroyed at sometime because in paintings it seems to have been huge with moats and tons of other structures). It was a really nice building, tatami floors in most rooms, the style of rooms that you think of when you think of traditional japan and an amazing traditional garden. Infact the garden was probably the best bit because for a while the three of us just sat on the edge of this wooden platform chatting with the view of the garden infront of us. Really nice place, definitely intend to go back.

As we were heading back to leave, the other two raided the candy store (Kawagoe is also apparently famous for its traditional sweets) and then I went and got meself a banana coated in chocolate on a stick. It looked so nice on the stand I couldnt help myself but it just reaffirmed my beliefs that fruit and foods that taste good should be kept WELL apart. Ergh. That wasnt the only thing I picked up though. I also managed to get a hold of two amazing masks, not quite traditional ones but a pokemon mask (piplup for any really sad people out there) and a naruto mask. I mustve looked really weird walking back to the station with a kids anime character mask on but never mind, it was a good laugh. People seemed to be amused, and kids nearby loved it, and luckily I was behind a mask AND had the anonymity of being in Tokyo (where you're very unlikely to see anyone you know unless youre in your local area) to protect me from embarassment. It was a festival anyway and I wasnt the only one wearing a silly mask (admittedly the others were about 7, but still). Pictures to come.

Also, another post to come for what Ive been upto in the past two weeks, I just wanted to get this jotted down so that I didnt forget anything!

Sayonara!

(Pictures by Erling Garriock)

Haunted prisons and men in skirts

Here I am again, I have a fair amount to say here so no promises on this post being short but Ill try if I can.

Last saturday, after work (yes, work... on a saturday - what is this madness?) we went to Shibuya with a bunch of people for a meal in The Lock Up. The only thing I'd heard about The Lock Up before going was that it was a restaurant themed around a prison, but in all fairness that doesnt really prepare you at all for what its like in there. After going around a haunted house style passageway to get to the actual restaurant we were sat down while we waited for our table, and when the waitress came to take us to the table one of us was handcuffed (yup, me) and dragged by a chain to our table - fairly interesting so far. Then about 5 minutes after being seated, the lights go off, a siren starts blaring and men dressed in hockey masks and the like jump into your 'cell' and scare the living hell out of you. This we werent expecting, and although it sounds like a cheap halloween trick it was terrifying (especially since the door to the 'cell' is a large metal sliding prison door which makes one hell of a noise when these guys crash it open to dive in). And it wasnt a bad price either, about £17.50 per person, all you can drink and a decent amount of food. So a pretty amazing night out.

And the fun of the weekend didnt end there, on sunday Steve and Mai took us to the scottish festival in Makuhari (about an hour away from Oji by train). I didnt really have my hopes up for anything amazing but tbh a day of drinking beer and whiskey, watching huge scotsmen throw heavy logs and weights, and laughing at men in skirts is a pretty good way to spend your time. I saw a fair amount at the festival like bagpipe playing, highland dancing, the aforementioned throwing of the heavy objects (the highland games was great fun to watch to be honest) and aload of grown men (huuuge grown men) losing to kids at tug of war. Success.

[Quick disclaimer, The skirt wearing comment was a joke intended towards a specific person. No offence was intended... except towards Steve. The Scottish festival was great fun, and I laughed at no men in kilts... except Steve. Thank you.]

I'm now about a week into Shorinji Kempo and Im still really enjoying it, although every day I do it it makes me miss karate more and more. The worst thing is that I spent the past year getting used to being in strong, wide stances, learning certain moves and katas; and now I have to forget all of that and learn something completely different. I mean, I dont want to stop doing Shorinji because of that... but itd be good if the higher ups in whatever the Shorinji organisation is could just... well... forget everything and start teaching everyone Shotokan Karate. Possibly a wee bit too much to ask? Oh and when I said that that was the worst thing, I lied. A worse thing by far is in the warming up when they make you travel across the hall... by way of pressups. Thats right, it kills - you do a press up, move one arm forward, do another press up and so on until youre across, and its a pretty big hall. But again there is something far worse... forward and backward rolls over your shoulder. I cant do them which is embarassing and as much as they try to help me to do it right it kills my knee and back to do them (which is odd because you wouldve thought the gammy collar bone wouldve been the worst bit... but if anyone who might worry is reading *cough*Auntie Susan or me mam*cough*, I dont use that shoulder, its fine).

On a positive note, my dogi (my white suit, not a pet) should be coming on friday and it has the kanji for my name on it, I believe its: 舞華流 for Maikeru, I could be wrong because thats just going from what I can remember of the kanji although Im pretty sure the first two are right - if any kanji experts read this please correct me. The kanji mean (or they should if theyre the right ones) dance, flower and flow. Conjures up a pretty image doesnt it - which is sad because the kanji I wanted to use were: 魔育 which mean (I think... the second one doesnt quite look like the kanji I know for iku) demon and grow - so growing demon... sounds a bit better than dancing flower flow, jesus. But yeah, apparently its bad luck to have a sign for satan in your name. Who'd have thought?

Anyway, I've babbled for far more than enough this post, so laters.

Mike