bst wkend EVAR

So this weekend is starting to seem like the best weekend ever. And it's only just started! Counting Friday as the weekend, it snowed yesterday! In Tokyo! IN TOKYO! It didn't lie or anything, which was too bad, but it does mean that Britain has nothing over Tokyo now. Unless you count proper chinese food, of course (what is this steamed dumpling madness? Where is my curry egg fried rice and chips?!?). I didn't think I'd actually get to see snow in Tokyo, so I'm amazed that I finally did. And it was on a friday, my least busy day, which meant I could make the 20 metre trip between the main building and the ELC as many times as I wanted for the opportunity to act like a kid in snow. It was like arriving in Hokkaido again, only with bigger buildings, noisier roadworks and more homeless people.

To tip the start of the weekend even further up the Awesome Scale, last night I went for my usual Chinese (12 gyoza and rice) and the amazing gyoza lady (my new favourite person ever, beating Bruce Lee to the top) gave me 6 gyoza for free! I don't know why, perhaps it's because my custom brings in atleast half of their income, I eat there so often, or perhaps they had gone off and that was their version of a practical joke, either way this was awesome. And then to really destoy the Scale of Awesome, I woke up at 4pm today! This weekend is only going to get better on Sunday night when Craig arrives, back from Hokkaido, for a night of drunken Tekken in the arcade before he goes back to Britain.

Anyway, less on my amazing weekend, last weekend was pretty good too. On Sunday I went to Asakusa (every picture in this post was taken there). Here's a little bit from Wiki about the temple there (Senso-ji):

The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon, also known as Guan Yin or the Goddess of Mercy. According to legend, a statue of the Kannon was found in the Sumida River in 628 by two fishermen, the brothers Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari. The chief of their village, Hajino Nakamoto, recognized the sanctity of the statue and enshrined it by remodeling his own house into a small temple in Asakusa, so that the villagers could worship the Kannon.

The first temple was built on the site in 645, which makes it the oldest temple in Tokyo. In the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu designated Sensō-ji as tutelary temple of the Tokugawa clan.

It was a really cool place, but what suprised me the most was the fact that something so traditional, on such a big scale, exists in Tokyo. I mean, it always feels like I need to travel far out of Tokyo to find something really spectacularly historical or traditonally Japanese, when in reality its on my doorstep.

Also in the past two weeks, was the Speech and Recitation contest. I was one of the judges for the senior contests, where the first year seniors would recite a speech made by a famous person (e.g. Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, and others) and the second years would do a speech which they wrote themselves. Me and Barney had already seen all of the speeches when they did their 'auditions' to see who from each class would be selected for the finals, so we had a fair idea of what to expect - but not everything went as we expected. The english orientated classes (the classes who do more lessons of English than any other class, and the only class in the second year who get english conversation lessons) 1-7 and 2-6 did abysmally. It was embarassing, really, because with them being english orientated students (and we picked more of them than any other classes for the finals) they have a huge headstart! And yet their failure ranged from students who got too nervous and screwed it all up, students who get too close to the microphone and shout - the pain of her speech still rings my ears and yet she got a prize (is there no justice?!), and the students who generally failed at doing anything interesting.

The real heroes of this speech contest were a mix of people, some expected and some unexpected. The first place winner of the first year seniors wasn't an english orientated student, but she was a gaikokugobu (foreign language club) member, and although I don't think the club itself is enough to make you a good english speaker - only good speakers seem to join it, so it wasn't too much of a suprise. She did really blow me away with her speech though. Her heart was in it, her pronunciation was cracking and her intonation was in all the right places. As for the second years, lets just say two shorinji kempo students got first and second places *wink wink*. I jest, the top two were shorinji kempo students I knew, but that was only because they were the only students who impressed anyone (which amazed me, because as friendly as they are, they struggle to say much to me at all). 2-6 class had some really good speakers, all who froze up under the pressure of the Hokutopia stage, can't blame them really - I cracked up under the pressure of that stage in my frist week here, its huuuuge (I have to show you some pictures of that stage sometime, its where in an earlier post, I did my speech in Japanese).

The girl who got first place (if I remember the order of the winners correctly) is the captain of the shorinji club, and she gave a really intense speech about pets and how much they can improve your life, and despite this, how many dogs and cats are killed in Tokyo every year (huge figures, so big I cant even remember...). Second place was won by another shorinji black belt who did one on the nerdy ways of life... the Otaku (wiki it sometime). A really good speech, I was so impressed, especially since he was so nervous - he seems to be really shy, in terms of public speaking, and yet he gave his infront of almost a thousand seniors. Really good effort from him, especially since he had the nerve to come out of his "otaku-closet" on stage infront of everyone (which everyone proceeded to laugh at) - took some guts, i tell thee now.

One last shout out before I wrap this up goes to one of my 1-6 students. Also a shorinji kempoist, but one I have never really talked to due to him being in my 1-6 class (I get on so much better with shorinjiers that I dont teach), 1-6 being my worst class - I really despise that class, they have no will to do english, even attempting to teach them is painful (and on an unrelated note, this coming wednesday theyll be my last lesson of the year). But he gave a really, quite good speech. He went on stage, uber confident, and when his class shouted his name (customary for each class to cheer on their mates), he turned around and gestured to them to do it louder, and louder. And then made a gesture, when behind the podium, to shut them all up. The judges, including me, loved this. Infact everyone in the hall loved this, even though his speech was quite good, this comedy act made it all the better. He didn't get a prize, but he deserved one for being the only student to set out to make me laugh and succeed (I did laugh at others but only ones like the Annabell Lee speech, where he leant over the podium and gave his speech in (what I could only comprehend, due to his weird stance and even stranger intonation/pronunciation, as) the character of a sex offender.

Nice long post there, may take a while to read - sorry about that.

Laters.

My feet...

Well, I'm writing this while recovering from several injuries. Injuries sustained by fault of refugees. My feet are blistered, my legs are kind of sore and I'm tired. Ok, I may have exaggerated slightly there but after running an 8km race in an insanely unfit state, I was left in a fair amount of pain/tiredness. I was asked to take part in an 8km run for charity, by Junten, and I was well up for it to be honest, despite the fact that the last time I'd properly ran was back in year 10 or 11, running around backhouse park for an hour in the winter Games lessons in school (against my will).

We were told well in advance so I should've properly trained but these things can't be helped and laziness got the better of me. I didn't really see the need to train, if I'm honest, especially since we were racing against the first and second year juniors (11-13 year olds). I figured it would be fairly easy to beat them but oh how wrong I was. I didn't take into account that just about every single one of them are in a sports club of some kind, like football, baseball, tennis, running, etc. It turns out a fair amount of them are atleast ten times fitter than me.

Anyway, a bit of an explanation: the race was to raise money for Refugees International Japan, a charity dedicated to helping refugees around the world. All of the junior students who took part raised sponsor cash, and me, Barney and Erling were required to do the same, so we sponged the teachers in Junten for all they had. Apparently, collectively, the juniors raised twice as much as the entire school did last year, so this was a fair success (and I think I heard that the numbers reached nearly £1000, although I'd have to check on that cause I'm not entirely sure), and coupled with our sponsorships and the money raised by every class in the school, a huge amount will have been raised.

I still thought it was fairly harsh to force the juniors to run 8k (although the girls only had to run 5k), especially since some of them (very few) are fairly unfit. And apparently one of my students agreed with me. A certain unnamed second year student of mine, who is notorious for his fear of English (and social situations in general), refused to get out of bed. I assumed he'd just walk the course but he went one further and decided it would be easier to disobey his mother than the teachers. Either way, as harsh as it is, the majority of people finished the race (and the ones who didn't reach the end will do it again next week. Junten really knows how to forcefully raise money for charity, eh?).

And onto the race: after tanking up on caffeine - my trump card (two red bulls and the last two pro plus tablets I had left from England), a few speeches and some warmup laps of a small field, we were ready to go! I decided to try to keep up with Nakahara sensei (a marathon runner) for a while because I figured I'd best make use of what little stamina I had fast and then rely on my fighting spirit for the rest of the race... this didn't work, infact I should've realised it wouldn't work because just typing it makes me feel like an idiot. Nakahara sensei was taking no prisoners and went far too fast so I was dead after the first km. I think I managed to keep up with him until the second km until he left me in the dust.

Anyway, I fought on, stitch in chest, blisters on feet and insane heat (for some reason in the middle of this winter period it hit around 25degrees - it felt like summer - and since I was wearing a jacket I nearly died). I still remember thinking, from about 2km onwards, that I really wished I had done some kind of training, but it was a little late for that. Anyway, I finished not too far behind Barney and Erling, who had both done weeks of running in prep, and came in at a respectable 47 minutes, which Barney said was his and Matt's time two years ago. So for the English department the results were: Barney: 40 minutes, Erling: 44 minutes, Me: 47 minutes. Not too bad, I thought, especially with little or no preperation.

After the race, we had to stand and listen to more speeches, awards given out to the fastest students, all while I could barely stand due to 4 massive blisters, but we were allowed to leave, finally, and on the evening Nakahara sensei invited us around to his house for a massive meal. It was a big lamb dinner and I tell you now it'll be the first and last time I eat such a big roast dinner in Japan. And since both of Nakahara's daughters speak Queens English in a perfect southern accent, I might aswell have been in England for the evening.

As Of Late...

Ok, so I've finished blogging Winter Vacation, now for a short catch up (mostly because I can't remember much about the last 2 months that needs to be said, damn my memory). The picture above is from when the New Zealand students came to Junten for about a week. I only really did a few things with them, since I wasn't invited to disney land (pfft...). On one saturday, some weekends ago, we took them around parts of Tokyo. What a disaster that was. I was one of the three group leaders but since they hadn't told me where we were going or at what time, I was pretty much lost and had to follow the PTA members. So much for group leader, eh? Nothing really happened that day, we went to a series of places but actually did nothing, at all. Never mind.


The only other activity I participated in, with the New Zealanders, was the setsubun (sp?) celebrations. Setsubun is the Japanese day before the start of Spring in the lunar calendar. Essentially someone dresses up like a devil (an 'oni') and the others pelt beans at him. And then eat the beans. Can't say that's not an epic household festival, can you? Was a pretty good day: only a half day at work, I pelted beans at some students in masks, got some free food. Not bad, not bad.

I don't think I ever mentioned them much here, but we lost two men in action. Trevor, the Pennsylvanian exchange student, and Mikhal, the Pennsylvanian (turned New Zealander) exchange student, both went home after spending a fair slab of time here. It was quite weird to see them go, since they've both been around since I came to Junten and its been alot quieter since they left, as we're now down to one exchange student. Anyhow, this pic here is the last pic of the three Mikes O' Junten. Sadly, we never got a picture of Quadruple Mike, when Paxman was here, so Triple Mike will have to do.

Will try to keep more up to date so that I don't find myself stuck for things to say like now, but I'm not making promises.

Laters

Hokkaido

Ok. It's february. I haven't made posts about anything since New Years. Laziness seems to have taken over. In a vain attempt to get over the laziness, this will be a big picture post about our time in Hokkaido with a little bit of text. Hopefully when the winter holidays are all blogged about, I can finally get on with updating now and again with other stuff. Have to see I guess, anyhow, as promised:

First of all: SNOW! I know to you lot back at home this may not be the most amazing thing you've ever heard due to the recent weather in Britain but THERE WAS SNOW IN HOKKAIDO! It just didn't stop snowing. In some places the snow was upto my knees, which was ace until me and the toya vols went for a bit of hillwalking (if you can call it that, we walked up a fairly large hill and then back down). Due to no one being suicidal enough to go walking in the hills, the snow was untouched, and so immensely deep. Made for a pretty tough walk since I didnt have snowboots and nearly caught frostbite, but was amazing fun nonetheless. I miss the snow =(

During our time up in the far north, we had a bash at snowmobiling. I got well excited at the idea of this because I kind of assumed it'd be a case of: "here's a snowmobile, theres a field and some hills, try not to die", but instead it was a case of: "I'll be driving fairly slowly around this quite boring circuit, follow me and try not to have too much fun, now!". Don't get me wrong it was tons of fun driving a snowmobile, and the sights up there were intense, but it just wasn't quite what I expected. Damn you dad, ruining my expectations by taking me quad biking and go karting too many times.

Toya-ko itself is one of the nicest places ever. Some cracking views, tons of snow and some of the friendliest people I've ever met. Seriously, despite having very limited English ability, these people really tried their hearts out when talking to you, especially the people in the Toya Penshon where we stayed. This old couple owned it, and despite having not a word of English under their belts I had a few amazing conversations through insanely broken Japanese and lots of pointing and hand gestures. I couldn't believe how friendly they were, especially considering the language barrier. Still, despite how much I loved the place, I doubt I could live there. I think I've been spoiled by being sent to Tokyo because I doubt anywhere else in the world will seem even remotely liveable after this gap year, its such an amazing place.