Journal 11 - Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree .... la la la la

Hello all ... So, it's Friday, December 17 and I was in the shower thinking about the day and how many classes I have, blah blah blah ... and then it just dawned on me. Next Friday is Christmas Eve. I can't believe it. So, in case some of you are wondering, I do have some Christmas decorations up and I even have a tree. It stands about 3 feet, but it's a tree ... Just call me Charlie Brown. Let me tell you about 100 yen shops in Japan. 100 Yen shops are the Dollar Stores of North America. The difference is, the quality of the products are absolutely amazing. I was trying to figure out why and I think the reason is, Japanese people are so big into giving gifts all the time that they need to get something affordable, but not look so cheap. So, because there's a huge market for 100 Yen shops, they can have the extra quality product and still make an excellent profit. Any of you teachers need things for your classes, let me know ... that's where I go all the time. So, anyway back to the Christmas Tree. I went to our local 100 Yen shop to look at some Christmas decos for our school. Then I noticed the Christmas Trees they were selling. For 300 Yen ($3), I could get a good quality tree ... In Canada, for a tree like that you're paying at least $10, so I bought one. Hell, even if I can't bring it back, I'm not losing on a lot of money. So, adding a few decorations, some lights, I got myself a beautiful 700 yen tree ... Stop rolling your eyes!!! Moving on ... So last week, I went to an Outlet market in a town called Gotemba. This had a lot of different name brand stores selling things at discount prices. Actually, I was quite amazed on the prices of items you can buy. These were name brand stores like Gucci, Swatch, Versace, Reebok, Nike, Gap, Eddie Bauer, Helly Hanson ... tonnes of different stores. Japanese love their name brands, if you don't wear a name brand item, people actually turn their noses up at you ... it's quite amusing. Anyway, I need to go back to this place ... not for the shops, but because there is an amazing view of Mt Fuji, close up. Unfortunately, there was a huge cloud covering the mountain, so I couldn't get a very good picture of it. But, Gotemba has one of the paths to Mt Fuji if you want to climb it. Which I intend to do next summer. I'm going to climb that sucker and then stomp on it and go ... "WHY HAVEN'T YOU BEEN SHOWING YOURSELF FOR ME!!!!!" ... I'll show him who's boss. Anyway, I went back via train. I decided to take the local train instead of the bullet because the local actually has a lot more scenery and although it's slower, I really wasn't in much of a hurry to get back. I was going back at the perfect time because it was getting close to 4:00 and the sun was starting to go down. Mt Fuji, did decide to pop out and yes I did have the perfect chance to take a picture, but the battery's died on my camera ... go figure. Anyway, I sat in the train, was listening to music (Christmas music of course) and was watching this amazing view in such awe. It was interesting seeing the rest of the people were pretty much oblivious to the whole thing. I guess they see it everyday, so to them it's just another mountain. I was the same way in Calgary, driving early in the morning and seeing the mountains behind the city ... If you think about it, that's quite a spectacular site. But, we usually take it for granted. To me seeing that site made me realize that I am a lucky person. Not a lot of people do get the opportunity to see a wonder like this and I'm sitting here seeing it with my own eyes. Anyway, you don't realize this, but it's taken me a few days to finish this, so I'm going to close pretty soon. It's now Monday ... yesterday we had our Christmas party and ended up going bowling. Not really the typical Christmas party I'm use to of course, but I had a good time. The day ended quite early, maybe around 11, which was fine. We had a not bad turn out, maybe about 15 people ... 4 kids included. The kids are so hilarious, they desperatley want to talk to me, but keep on forgetting that I don't speak Japanese. So, they try to teach me and get a good laugh when I try to pronounce the words ... ah kids. Ah, so just to let you know, I finally decided to buy myself a TV and DVD player ... The TV's pretty small, but at least it's something. I can watch all the Japanese TV I want. Actually, what's nice is I can get english movies, which is basically what I wanted to get the player for. Anyway, I will close now. It's now Monday, December 20th and only 5 days until Christmas. The next time I update this will probably be after my vacation. I am hoping to visit Kyoto, Kobe and Osaka. So, I will have some more interesting things to tell you. Until then I hope everyone has a very Merry Chsitmas and all the best in the New Year. Take care.

Joe

Journal 10 - There will be no Thumbs Up for this boy!!!

Hello everyone ... hope you're doing well. Wow, I can't believe it's December already. Only 17 days until Christmas. I'm sure you all wanted to hear that. Yeah, well at least you're not working on Christmas like I am (well, maybe some of you are). Yes, Christmas Day is a regular day here in Japan. It's not exactly considered a family holiday. Although, some families do celebrate it and children do know about Santa and presents. But, since this is a country with no christianity, it is understandable why Christmas Day is not an important holiday. New Years is the time to celebrate with families. On New Years Eve, everyone goes to their local shrine; some even travel to major ones. Everyone goes to pray, usually for families who have died, young children and their future and then there is a huge celebration. The Japanese do not pray to 1 god. There are many to them! So, New Years should be very interesting here. I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to take pictures or not, but I will try.

So, moving on. This week I experienced a mixture of aggravation and a rather pleasant surprise. First the aggaravation ... I think I experienced my first major bout of culture shock. I say major because I know I experience previous one's, but very minor one's. Anyway, for those of you who do not know, culture shock is actually considered a disease. People who travel to different countries usually experience it. It's pretty much unavoidable ... those who say they have never experienced it are either lieing or are not aware they had it. There are lots of symptoms and only 1 cure. The cure is dealing with it ... embracing the culture with open arms (how cheezy was that). Anyway, so one of the symptoms is frustration, which is what I went through. I am one of those people who usually takes matters into my own hands. If I want to find out information about how to send mail for example then I'll just pick up the phone and ask .... Well, it's obviously not so easy to do that here and one down fall with Japanese people is they really hate confrontation. So, they'd rather avoid it and accept what they think they know instead of asking and finding out the real information. My manager is very bad for that ... I had to do 2 things last week. The first was to send parcels and the second was send money to my bank. Let me tell you it was an absolute chore getting my manager to go with me to the post office and do these things. When we finally went, he would not translate anything to me, he just told me to fill out certain information and give the money. When I ask what was going on, all he said was "It's OK, no problem!!!" Well, I would've rather decided that for myself. So, I think I sent the right things and spent a lot of money, so it better work out or else culture shock symptom # 2 will occur ... murder!!! So, anyway, long story short, I came back to the school and pretty much went into my classroom and stayed there. I didn't talk to anyone for a while ... except my students of course and it was difficult not letting them realize what was going on. Today, I'm much better, it's one of those things you have to deal with and get over. Part of the package as they say. So, about the pleasant surprise ... Stage mom!!! She did 2 things I didn't think would ever happen. First, she came to the school early to pick up her "wonderful" child and saw that he was not listening, was not even speaking english and enjoyed doing cart-wheels everywhere. Which is pretty much the norm every week. So, she realized that her child isn't so wonderful and tore a strip out of him and made him apologize to me. Then the second thing she did was tell me that I am a good teacher and also apologized. I was pretty much in shock. So, now I'm not sure if things will change with this child, but at least she knows what I go through and how much work I put in to try to teach these kids. I think the real problem is, the mother spends so much time having them practice english that the kids are probably just sick of it and just want to be kids. So, that was my interesting week.

I went out with some of my students on Saturday as well as my JET (Japanese English Teacher), the manager and the previous teacher (yes, he's still lingering here). Anyway, we went to a Thai restaurant called Bali Hai. Excellent food, a little pricey, but very good. So, we spent the evening talking and having fun. Of course having some drinks and oh yeah making fun of the foreigner at my expense which is also pretty much the norm. But, I usually get them back by correcting their english and telling them what they just said was pretty much a sexual connotation. Anyway, one of the things I found out was "thumbs up" does not mean the same as it does to us. When someone (usually female) holds their thumb up, it means they have a boyfriend and when someone (usually men) holds their pincky up, it means they have a girlfriend. So, I was kind of laughing actually because one of the things I would teach my kids was "How are you?" and I would use the thumbs up to indicate "Great". Yeah, I don't think I'll be doing that again ... no wonder everyone was looking at me strange. Hmmmmm, I thought it was because I was just a foreigner. Nope!!!!

Monday (2 days ago), I went to Kamakura for the day. Kamakura is one of the oldest cities in Japan. Home of the great Buddha and it's many temples, it's one of the major tourist hot spots. The great Buddha is the second largest bronze statue in Japan and it's interesting because it was actually built inside a huge temple, but the temple was washed away by a huge tsunami in the late 15th century. So, for 5 centuries, it survived the outside weather. The only bit of reconstruction that was done was a little bit of repair around the neck and the base was lifted to avoid damage from earthquakes. That was all done in 1961. Although it does look quite warn down and weathered, it's quite fascinating to see. I went to visit 2 major temples. The first was the Hachimangu which is very beautiful. It's hard to explain the detail on the building. But all around are carvings of ancient Buddha's, warriors, dragons, tigers and others. I actually took a picture of one of the dragons to give you an idea of how much work was put into it. The next was the Hase Temple. This has a huge statue of the goddess Kannon which stands almost 10 metres and has 11 heads which represents the different characteristics of the goddess. This is an amazing looking temple. It sits on the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Kamakura. The gardens are quite beautiful to see and again the detail of the work is quite extraordinary. All in all the day it was a great trip to take. I decided to take the local train which, although is slower, you can see a lot more and guess what I finally saw ... Mt Fuji. I actually managed to get a picture from the train. I'm hoping I will get a better one, but this one will have to do. When you look at it, you will understand why it's such a fascinating mountain.

Anyway, I better close now ... sorry, yet another long one. Before I go, thank you to all you who gave me suggestions on a new name. Now, it's time for everyone to vote on the best one. Here they are:

Joe's Japanese Adventure
Joe Does Japan
Tokyo Joe
Typhoon Joe
Sushi With Joe
Japanization With Joe
Joe's Japan
The Journey of Japanese Joe
Joe's Japanese Journey
Joe on the Go
Just Your Average Adventurous Joe
Joe Vs The Volcano [Mt Fuji]

Or ... we can just keep The Adventures of Joe

Thank you to all who have posted comments or sent emails, it has been great hearing from you, especially during those "culture shock" times.

Take care and I'll talk to you again,
Joe