My house is so cold that heaters here should be called heaters, they should be called “not quite so much frost coming out of your mouth” ers. Hell, I am basically sitting with my back against a heater right now, and I can still feel the beginnings of a teeth chatter, despite very many layers (thanks for buying the absolute biggest jacket in existence mum, it is actually really awesome, once you get over the whole “stupid in public” thing).

I am 100% sure that it is colder outside my fridge overnight than it is inside it.

And it aint just my house either. I went to a party at a friend’s house down south of Sendai this past weekend, and while the house was all kinds of AWESOME, and probably as big as most houses back in Australia (a rare occurence here), when that heater goes off so you can sleep at night without carbone monoxide poisoning, you might think you will be obliviously sleeping away the coldest hours. But your body tells you how much it hates you and that you are a bastard for bringing it to this disgustingly cold place. Or at least that’s what mine does.

That’s the whinging part out of the way, anyway! (For this entry anyway.. since this is DECEMBER and the coldest months are JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, probably expect more :s).

I think the experience has transformed for me over the past month or so. For the first 3 months solid it was one super long holy crap what the hell is going on experience. Now, it is settling. I don’t want to say it is settling into a rut because that isn’t what I mean, but for me it feels less like I’m trying to find my way around in a place I don’t know, and more like a place where I have my things that I know and I do, and I seem less likely to move outside that familiarity. This past weekend was a lot of fun, I am dissapointed that I haven’t been able to get down to muck around with the sendai south guys more often – they are a great bunch. Hopefully after everyone is back from christmas stuff, there will be more time for that. Other than that, I have a done a whole lot of stuff that I don’t remember much about!

It snowed back in November. I was more than somewhat surprised, as you might imagine. I opened the front door to my house 5 minutes past the time I should have actually left (as I always do), and couldn’t help but be a little concerned that I couldn’t actually see my car, and someone seemed to have dropped some kind of white box in my front yard. I was a tad late that day (but of course, I still don’t have my snow tyres on).

Ive been keeping up with my Taiko, doing it twice a week now – it is one of the things I really enjoy actually. Not only the Taiko itself (because let’s face it, bashing on a big drum with a massive  stick is fun anywhere, any time), but also the people I do it with. The group is run by the mother of my favourite kid, and while the group officially runs 7:30 to 9 Monday and Friday, I would say about 30 minutes of that is Taiko practice, and the other hour is the parents chatting, and the kids (LOTS of kids, ALL my students) running around like looneys or playing basketball or dodgeball. It’s great, and it’s a highlight for me – it’s that part of “normal” life that is to me in no way actually normal.

I went to a Tea Party the other day – not the Japanese kind, but an English tea party for Amy (my nearest neighbourhood ALT, about 5 mins from my house). It was great, but I was somewhat dissapointed by my own input into the party – these bags of “Aussie Billy Tea” are not gum flavoured or eucalyptus flavoured or any other kind of flavoured… they were just normal regular black tea. Glad I didn’t give it to someone as omiyage like I was  going to, I am sure they would have “acted” thoroughly impressed despite being thoroughly nonplussed!

The schools are following the same sort of pattern as the rest of my life – the honeymoon period is mostly gone, and this is where you find out which kids are actually nice kids and which ones were just mildly interested in the new foreigner. Let me say, my main school lives up to its name. The second and third years, while they have some real terrors, are overall pretty good – the third years in particular are very spunky and I’ll miss them when they go. The first years are in a world of their own, and if they were in Australia I am sure half the year level would spend half their lives in detention, suspended or expelled. It is hard to explain without wittnessing, and I am happy for 2 reasons. 1. I don’t envy the first year teachers, ONE LESSON in each of the classes is enough to make me want to strange some necks. 2. I have a very thick skin and I feel at least a little bit good that if the worse kids aim some shit my way it is at least a little less that the main teacher has to deal with. Poor woman, seriously!

The other school is still the polar opposite, all the kids are angels. Sometimes a bit  shy at lunch time but usually if I whip out my DS (電子辞書だけだよ） it usually gets them keen enough to want to know what I’ve got on there to get them chatting. The elementaries are a mixed back for me. I think a lack of self confidence makes me fret and procrastinate about what I am actually going to teach each week, but usually it seems to go just fine (and if it isn’t noone is telling me so in my Australian brain that tells me it’s a-ok.) Kindergarden is amazing!

That’s it for now, long one I know but it’s been a long time. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do! If you had asked me a month ago whether I was staying I would have been 95% yes. But as we move into winter I think it might be  sliding on me. Knowing myself, it will be at LEAST the day before before I actually decide, but it is funny watching my own brain work and I can see myself thinking pros and cons all the time. Right now, I could not even venture a guess as to a yes or a no. まだわかんない！

See ya soon. REALLY wish I was down in SUNNY Australia right now, but I have heard spending a winter in the snow builds character. Id be happy to be characterless and with sun than sunless and with character, I think!

The people – I lucked out big time in placement (though some would disagree – more later), in that I have both awesome locals living around me and also awesome JETs nearby. I think it has helped a heck of a lot that I speak enough Japanese to usually enable Japanese people to find some way of explaining what they mean to me, even if it is super simplified! Of course, for a lot of people it takes a long time to warm up to new people, especially new foreigners, but recently even the people I know who barely speak any Japanese have been more friendly – especially post-enkais As a result I haven’t spent a day at home for … well, basically at all so far; nor do I have one coming up for a long time yet. Which leads into;

Busyness – I’ve got to learn to say no to some things! Haha. Ok so that isn’t true, as much as I whinge about being so busy I love it and hope it continues this way!

Inaka – Some people hate the isolation of the inaka but I am quite fond of it. When I am actually at home it is extremely quiet and peaceful, and I really love the fact that 10 seconds walk from my house there are a bunch of rice paddies! I also have the added benifit of being 20 minutes drive from a “city” despite being in the countryside, and I happen to enjoy driving. I also bug the crap out of people on the internet when Im bored – sorry guys!

Combini’s – Short for conveiniance stores (think 7-11). Unlike the ones in Australia where you go in only because the supermarket is closed and you are resigned to pay at least twice the normal price, the combini’s here are frikken awesome! The food is only slightly more expensive than a supermarket, and they have a massive range of stuff in there too!

Nomihoudais – These things are the stuff of legends in Australia. If they existed there the places that did them could not possibly make any money. For as little as $10 depending on where you go, you can order as much alcohol as you like, of any kind, for 2 hours usually. Basically you and your group get led to a room, you sit down, and you order drinks. There is a button to push which brings a guy to your room/table to order more drinks.  Sometimes they are sneaky and take longer than they should to bring them (particularly near the end) but lets just say that I probably get my money’s worth 4-5 times over every time I go to a nomihoudai compared to what it would cost in Australia. Alcohol in general is just amazingly cheap here – I think it would be hard NOT to be a social drinker here, it’s basically a necessity of the culture haha.

National Holidays and festivals – Im not sure which section to put this in really. I don’t think I have worked a straight Monday to Friday week in the last month – either I worked a weekend day instead (for a school festival of some description, usually more fun than work) or there has been a national holiday. Now, I’m not complaining but due to the way my schedule works, the fact that the vast majority of these days off have been on monday or tuesday means that I have only actually been in classes at my base school about 3 days since I got here (Jikoshoukais aside). Crazy huh?

Most of the students – I have some seriously awesome kids, I just love them. A couple of bad kids aside, the kids at Monou are really spunky and a few in particular I can’t help but play favourites with haha. At the other main school I work at I am pretty sure there isn’t a single bad kid, they are all perfectly behaved little angles.

What is frikken strange about Japan (again, in no particular order):

The way schools handle discipline – this is totally about the system and not at all about the teachers, but one of my schools is renowned for badly behaved kids. This isn’t a big deal – every country in the world has misbehaving kids. The problem is that the teacher’s hands are so tied in dealing with them. If kids acted like some of the worst ones here back in Australia, they would get booted out of the class so fast it isn’t funny! It seems really unfair on the kids that want to be there. This is compounded by the fact that kids who turn up are garunteed to pass middle-school…. WHAT THE? Every teacher I speak with seems to agree that both points are bad, maybe I’m missing something?

The food – for the most part it is awesome but the things that I am getting seriously tired of is miso soup and FRIKKEN PICKLED VEGETABLES! haha. Also for a country that doesn’t have a lot of home grown meat, I seem to get served a ton of it at school…. and not nearly as much fish as I expected! All that aside I feel like I’m definately eating more healthily here than in Australia.

Roads – I understand the need to make the roads going through little town centers and stuff quite narrow – it’s a good idea to maximize the space, but frikken hell sometimes it goes too far. If you need a mirror on every corner just to avoid people running into each other the roads are probably too close! Furthermore, why are the vast majority of fast moving highway-like roads not only one lane, but frikken narrow! And the speed limits are so slow :s Roads that would be 100 for sure in Australia are 70 or less in Japan! Thankfully everyone ignores the speed limits and the police drive around with their lights flashing all the time!

Onsens – Ive only had one, but I must be the only person on earth who doesn’t like these things! What a strange custom. I guess it’s the prude in me coming out   The one I went to was so frikken hot I couldn’t stay in it more than 4-5 minutes, and I think that is pretty common. Personally I’d just as soon take a shower at home – you can adjust the temperature so it is perfect, and you don’t have to walk around butt naked in a room full of old men. It’s like the change rooms in the local YMCA on steroids! I guess I just don’t think it is any more relaxing than warm/hot water available in the comfort of one’s own home

Fin
Still having a great time here It’s finally starting to feel less hectic and more structured, although again I dont know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.. I kinda like the whole never stop and never know till the last minute what you are going to be doing kinda thing. Nevertheless it’s starting to feel less like I am on holiday and more like I am here to live here. Speaking of which, last week I got my recontracting papers – yeah that’s right, I’ve only been here less than 3 months and already have the papers asking if I want to stay another year. Not sure why they send them out so early, they aren’t even due till February unless you want to change where you are living, but it makes you start thinking about it in ernhest so much earlier.

At the moment I am 90% sure I will stay a second year – it feels like 1 wont be enough. But as I said, I’ve only been here 3 months, whose to say that after another 9 I wont be completely done here? It’s hard. It’s the procrastinator coming out in me – I am seriously bad at making decisions and sticking with them. Anyone who knows me will tell you that even I don’t know what the hell I am doing until I am already doing it, so the thought of deciding something 6 months in advance is a bit of a freakout!

Missing everyone, and loving the continual packages from home! I promised I’d send out postcards and I know I haven’t done it yet, again because I’m a forgetful bastard! Speak to everyone soon.

So a few of the highlights are:

Haneko Matsuri
As I mentioned last time, I was asked to dance at a fan dancing festival that Monou holds every year. What I didnt expect that it would be on a stage in front of about 25,000 people – that bit was a shock. Even so, I dressed up in the blue outfit and got up on stage and danced with 6 of my school’s teachers, and despite getting slightly lost due to the dance being changed without my knowledge, I didn’t totally make a fool of myself! We won a prize of some sort, I think we were in the top 5 or something like that – not sure. There was a $100 prize though!

After the competition part of the festival there was a big amalgamated dance session with various groups of people dancing the haneko dance up and down a street nearby my school, where I danced with my third years.. it was interesting, to say the least. Photos (and video) on facebook!

School extra-curriculars
Aside from the fan dancing Ive also been doing other stuff at my schools to fill the time. At Monou I’m playing trombone in the band to help out for the culture festival, which is interesting since I haven’t played trombone for like 7 years. I can remember how to play surprisingly well, but I can only play for about an hour before my lips are quivering and feel like they are going to split apart! I also said that I would play trombone in a Jazz group this coming weekend which will be very interesting, since Jazz will typically require me to actually think something up to play rather than reading from a sheet… yeah. Could be a bad move! We’ll see, haha.

At my other school, Kanan Higashi, I have been helping out a student with an English speech competition. Last year she won the Ishinomaki section but I think she didnt get any further than that. This year she didnt win the Ishinomaki part, but she was in the top 5 so she went on to the next section in Sendai – I’m assuming all of Miyagi. She got through that as well, so now she is off to compete in the Touhoku region competition! Not sure when or where it is, but a friend thought it might be in Aomori which is the northernmost town on the main Island, in which case I’m going to see if I can tag along, hehe

As well as speech contest, I have been playing soccer with the kids at Kanan too. Unfourtunately it is outdoor soccer, which is quite a bit different to indoor soccer haha. In indoor soccer the goal and field are much smaller, so the game is much more about reading what is going to happen and already being in the way, whereas outdoor soccer is much more about reacting and getting there once it’s happened - I’m good at the former, not the latter :p Still, I do ok, and the kids love it.

Aside from all that, there has just been lots of socialising and a bit of travel with both Japanese people and other ALTs. A couple of weeks back (the same weekend as the fan festival), there was a second festival in Monou that involed carting a 300kg shrine down the middle of the road, as well as a dragon float thing and a bunch of dancing. Following that I drove to Morioka in the next prefecture with a couple of the guys from Ishinomaki for another festival, as well as to do wanko soba, again videos on facebook speak better than words! We actually got a bit screwed on that trip since we went to see horseback archery, but it wasn’t until the day after we left Very sad.

This last weekend, I had a party out at my house in Monou for ALTs around the region. About 15 people turned up in all which isn’t bad since I am so far away from.. well, anything, and we had a blast. Good to know the house can take it too Following that, on the Sunday we headed down to Sendai to see Sendai Vegalta playing a soccer game, which was surprisingly awesome for a small crowd. There were about 13,000 people there but they do supporting big over here. Tonnes of chants, banners, flags, the works! Unfortunately Sendai got beaten by a goal on the very last minute, thanks to the sucky work of the defense and goal keeper!

After coming home I went to a party at one of my teacher’s houses, thankfully on the same street as me. They cooked all sorts of food, including octopus balls, nabe, and ramen, which were all totally amazing! I need to learn to cook with Japanese ingrediants because well cooked food is fantastic here, haha. I also drank a fair bit more alcohol.. which was no problem since my house is 2 doors down.

So yeah – there is no homesickness yet (sorry Mum!) Thankfully the majority of people around me are very cool, it makes life very easy. Maybe I’m just oblivious to it but thus far I haven’t noticed any drama between anyone in the whole area, which is pretty amazing. Due to the kinds of people that JET draws, I thought there would be some big personalities around the place but nothing so far! Well, big personalities for sure, but noone is clashing yet – lets hope it stays that way! The internet also helps to allieviate homesickness, since I can basically talk to everybody whenever I like – although Mads needs to get better internet up there!

I still haven’t worked out when the best time to come and visit me will be – there are basically 3 options. Christmas Holidays I will be able to take around 2-3 weeks in a row off but it will be very, very cold in Japan, not ideal for travelling. However it also wouldn’t be THAT expensive. The second option is Golden Week which is a week long holiday in May next year – upside being the weather, downsides being that everything in Japan is super expensive and busy that week, and that it is only 1 week or so. The last option is to wait until next summer holidays, which would probably be the best time, except that it is another 10 months away and who knows what will happen between now and then?

At the moment I’m feeling like I’ll almost definately stay at least a second year, but I still have that feeling of ‘what the heck am I gonna do afterward’ going on. Teaching the kids is great fun but I have no delusions that being a regular teacher would be anything like this gig. There is barely any planning to be done and I still feel somewhat like a fish out of water when I do have to plan – of course, I dont have any formal training so that is to be expected a little, but that is just the point. I cant just come back to Australia and step into a teaching job, I’m not a qualified teacher at all. I’m good at what I do here, but it isn’t teaching in the classroom teaching in Australia sense of the word. So, if I stay another year, it would mean I would get back to Australia 27 years old, and if I do another degree of some description.. yeah.. scary! Anyway, no need to worry about all that just yet, plenty of time to decide!

Long post, but it’s been a while! Hope everyone is doing well over there. I haven’t heard that much since Mum and Nancey slinked off up north for 2 weeks! Speak to everyone soon.

To be honest, I feel like I haven’t stopped running for 3 weeks now, I haven’t been this busy for as long as I can remember.

Im not going to give a blow by blow because I cant remember what happened yesterday let alone three days ago, so instead I will cover some of the highlights.

HEADBANGING!

I am singlehandedly reinventing the idea of headbanging. Metallica fans have nothing on tall people living in Japan. I have lumps ony my bumps on my humps on my head. It’s not so much that the doors are short – it’s more the fact that while they are short, they are not incredibly short – they are at almost exactly the right height that if I have a momentary lapse in concentration (which often happens at 6.30 in the morning having just woken up) I simply forget and do not notice that I am not going to simply hit my head on the doorframe, but grate my head against the doorframe. It really, really hurts!

SCHOOL!

So School has (almost!) started properly now, and it feels like it’s been a long bloody time in the making. So far I have done about 6 self-introduction classes and they are being incredibly well recieved. It helps that I have so much stuff to show – In the month of having very little to do during Summer holidays, I made a 100 slide powerpoint presentation covering everything from my family (dont worry Mum and Mads, I chose flattering photos… hehehe) to my home to all about Australian culture and in particular Aboriginal culture, which they go crazy over. On top of this I have all my props, and lastly the didgeridoo, which I am pretty sure would be able to cover an entire class if I needed it to. With only a little bit of coaxing every kid in most classes wants to have a go, so I usually have to forcably stop them from playing it so I can continue! That was the best idea I ever had. The other things that really really get them riled up are the videos of football and cricket. I have a highlights video of AFL and every time a guy goes up for a mark, the whole class screams… “ITTAI!” which literally means ouch! They also freakout at the cricket because I have a cricket catches highlights video and, since baseball is so popular here, they find it hard to believe that they take the catches without gloves! They also go a bit nutty when I say games can go for 5 days.

Aside from intro classes, the schools are very suddenly extremely busy. The teachers bustle about like their feet are on fire, and I think they almost are! I dont think I have ever been the first one to school yet despite trying – today I went to my main school early to pick up my clothes that mum sent me (thanks mum!) and got there about 7.15 am, but the vast majority of the teachers were already there. I am almost always the first or one of the first to leave despite frequently leaving well past my alloted time of 4.15. My hours are officially 8.30 to 4.15 but I think the majority of teachers here work at LEAST 7.30 to 6 or 7pm most days. Insane.

Both my schools have had undoukais in the last week, or sports days. They aren’t what you think though – a large portion of undoukais (and indeed Japanese school life in general) revolves around ceremonies of various degrees. Tomorrow a bunch of kids at one of my school are going to run in a relay marathon, about 12 kids or so. In order to wish them well the entire school of 260 had an assembly in the gym which involved parading into the gym, singing the school song, a lot of speeches (one from every runner), a lot of shouting good luck, and so on. Its pretty crazy how much ceremony there is at school. So yeah, the undoukai. After an opening ceremony they had the following events: Lots and lots of running races. Tug-o-war. Walk around on a human pyramid and try to steal other team’s pirate hats. School song singing/cheerleading competition. Jump rope. Followed by a closing ceremony. I ran a 100m stretch of the teacher relay, pretty sure we didnt win though, haha.

As for what it is like being in schools, currently I would equate it to being a rock star in almost every class in almost every school. I arm wrestle about 50 times a day. My girls ask me all day long about Naruto, about what I like to cook (I showed the photo of the trifle I made and it makes most kids think I am a trained cook or something), and more. I get called “kakkoii” (cool) 500 times a day, “Kawai” (cute) 1000 times a day, and I get told “I love you” at least 1500 times a day. It’s pretty crazy.

Last Friday was my first Elementary, and it’s a whole different kettle of fish! I thought teaching in JHS was tiring, but my god, teaching a full day of Elementary kids is like playing a game of soccer for 6 hours straight! The kids have a ludicrous amount of energy, but by the same token, they are interesting in EVERYTHING! I could show them a photo of a wall and they would go ooooh ahhhh I think.

LUNCHES!

These get their own section, because they are ace. It’s about $2.50 for lunch every day at school. Every day it is some combination of a vegie dish of some sort (I dont know what any of them are called, nor do I overly like them, but I do eat them!), a meat dish (so far: fish burger, something I thought was pork but apparently was fish, a ramen and beef dish which was bloody awesome!), a soup (most soups here are basically a hotch potch of vegies, tofu, and sometimes an unidentifiable meat) which usually tastes great, and rice, or a roll on Wednesday. Also, a small cartoon of milk. Awesome value! I eat with the kids every day, going from class to class. They eat FAST! You guys know how fast I eat, I usually struggle to finish in the alloted eating time – today I was only halfway through my rice and halfway through my pork-tasting fish before they said gochisousamadeshita! Crazy, crazy fast eaters.

HANEKO DOURI

So, I am dancing a fan dance with my local community on Saturday week. It is HARD! I have it down now, but only because I practiced my frikken ARSE off. Look for a video of me making a fool of myself in the near future! I also get to wear a snazzy blue outfit which somehow fits me – Im guessing it’s meant to be hanging around the kids ankles or something to be able to fit me well enough to dance in! lol.

DRINKING

Some say the national sport of Japan is Baseball, but I say it is Alcohol. They have these things called Nomihoudais, which is basically this: You go into a bar type place, and you pay for a Nomihoudai – around $15 for just alcohol, or ~$30 for food as well (tip: the food sucks, get alcohol). Then, you get a set period of time, usually around 2 hours, to drink. All you can drink. For Japanese people who way like 10kg, this is bad value. For people like me, this is ludicrously good value! Most of my socialising thus far has been at nomihoudais, hence the lack of interesting photos – pictures of random people you dont know arent very interesting! I am starting to get out sightseeing now, so more photos will be coming.

MY KIDS!

No, not my students, I already talked about them! I bought goldfish last week – thanks to the fishtank that Noriaki gave me! Actually, he came and helped me pick the fish too. They are very cute, already know exactly what it means when I pick up the food thingy…

WHAT ELSE!?!

Well, tomorrow I am going to yet another Nomihoudai with my main school’s teachers, so that should prove interesting! After that I am going to sleep at a friends house, so that on Saturday morning I can meet up with about 15 other people and drive down to Mt.Zao to go for a hike. Google Mt.Zao for information, its kinda awesome!

I got the box of stuff from mum, including all my left over clothes! I also got a fantastic blanket that Lorraine made for me – Lorraine, if you read this, it’s awesome! My kids love it, and every time one of the (usually female) staff sees me with it slightly open, they jump all over it and I have to talk for 15 minutes about what it is! (This is a good thing, haha).

CULTURE SHOCK?
Well, so far I have had little to none – for a few reasons. First of all, helpful, friendly Japanese people! There are some really, really awesome people around Monou, and thank god I can speak Japanese well enough to get by! It makes life so much easier, since I dont have to go asking for a translater for every conversation! Alex, I seriously dont know how you did it! Secondly, the other ALTs nearby to me are frikken cool. I had a few girls over for dinner last weekend, made some spaghetti, it was great. We get together often, and I found out that there is a JET living in the next city over who is actually only about 5 minutes from me (I am right at the north of Ishinomaki and she is right at the south of Tome). She is awesome and has a British accent, so yay! Im also pretty close to Kat, an American living in Kanan (where half my schools are) who is also awesome, and all the JETs in Ishi itself where we do our socialising are aweswome… in fact, all the ALTs that live anywhere near me currently seem to be awesome! Makes life very easy.

OK, I think that’s it for now! So far I have been uploading all my photos to facebook, which I know some people dont use. I am going to start putting them into these posts when they are relevent too for those other people!

Hoep everything is going well over there (apart from the sad news about Nanna – let Nelson know how sorry I am, it felt really really aweful not being able to be there), and speak to everyone soon!

Bye for now,
Duncan

Last Thursday we had a bit of excitement at my school, a couple of the sannensei kids came in screaming about a kitten who was trapped under the building. It ended up being tiny, could not have been older than 5-6 weeks, if that. One of my JTEs (Japanese English Teachers) decided she wanted a cat, so after about an hour in a box trying to calm it down a bit, she took the rest of the day off to take it home and settle it in. I actually havent seen that teacher again since then yet, so I dont know how it’s going! It made me miss my own pets a lot too, hehe. A few other JETs are trying to talk me into getting a cat and passing it on to someone else when I head home but I think changing owners every couple of years would be way too harsh on a cat.. Ill probably just get a goldfish or something instead.

Thursday night Kat and I were treated to dinner by our Adult conversation group at a Chinese/Japanese restaurant. It’s an awesome group of people and I can tell the group is going to be quite a bit of fun. Since I cant drive yet and the group actually runs in Kanan, I was picked up by a man named Saito, a 70-odd year old guy who recently retired as an education bigwig in Kanan, and who (despite having almost the best English I have heard from a Japanese person so far) continues to tell me that his English is very poor and so fourth. I had what they call a ハンバーガーセット, or a Hamburger set. Only thing was, it was nothing like a Hamburger! Was a beautiful meat patty thing with really nice sauce, salad, and a plate of rice. Strange Hamburger, but I can’t say I was remotely dissapointed having ordered it.

Like almost everyone here, I was pretty much the first person Saito-san had seen who was either as tall or as big as I am. It is really, really funny to watch people’s reactions, and for some reason everyone seems to think I play a lot of sport and that I have really strong muscles! Every new kid I meet at the school, the very first question they ask me is “What sport do you play?” Very strange! Of course since soccer is popular here, when I say I used to play soccer as a goalie they all get really excited, it’s funny stuff.

On Friday I went out for the day again with my supervisor to visit the last of my schools, and more importantly, to organise my insurance for my car. I am keen to get full coverage because as I said in my last post getting into an accident in Japan can get extremely expensive, but what I hadn’t counted on was that the insurance I will need to be comfortable is going to cost about 100000 yen for the year, or about $1000 Australian dollars! Running cars in Japan is ridiculously expensive! I thought it was going to be quite cheap but in the end I think owning my own car will be almost exactly the same price as Kat’s car in Kanan (the town next to mine) – she is paying about $200 a month to rent the car in total, and mine is going to be about $2500 for the whole year – only she doesnt have to worry about taxes, insurance, or anything else! On the flip side, I think it is quite a bit more expensive to have an accident in a rented car even if you do have insurance. Oh well! Since most JETs pay about $500 a month in rent, about $200 a month for a car is a good deal even so, I think.

Friday night was the welcome party put on by the Kiwi Club in Ishinomaki city, which is another conversation club but one that is taught by the JETs who live in the city itself. The party was at a small restaurant thing in Ishi, $45ish for all you can eat/drink – these two hour all you can drink parties really give you that feeling that you have to drink as much as you can in as short a time as you can to get your money’s worth! Something Ill have to get used to, they seem pretty common here.

On Saturday Kat and I headed back into Ishinomaki to meet up with Mike (another new ALT) and an ALT in her second (third?) year named Jane, who kindly offered to show us around some of the better shops in Ishinomaki. Before we went to meet up with them we headed to Aeon, a big shopping complex about 20-25 minutes from my house. Lots of cool shops but the highlight of the day is that I was able to find shoes that were actually in my size! Amazing. All that worrying about shoes (I ended up bringing over 6 pairs of various types), and I really could have bought a lot of them here. I bought a new pair of sneaker type shoes that cost me about $40, since the ones I brought had half of the dirt from Elcho Island still attached to them.

After that we met up with Jane and Mike. First off we headed over to a wonderland known as Daiso, the hundred yen store. It’s kind of like a $2 shop only it’s more like $1, and the range of stuff they have is absolutely MASSIVE. I bought a bunch of western sized glasses (I really hate the glasses which let you drink maybe 1 mouthful of water at a time), as well as some wrapping paper and bags, a couple of extension cords and power boards, a few housy items and some other stuff which I forget now. The majority of this stuff was $1 each, a couple of the bigger things (a clock, and the powerboard) were $2 each.

After that we headed over to a recycle shop. The recycle shops are totally different than op shops in Australia too – probably the best way to describe them would be upmarket… everything is in great nick, all shrinkwrapped, and some really really nice stuff! Ill probably buy a printer from here (you can get simple inkjets there starting from $20), but all I bought this time around was a massive Toy Story clock for my house, which cost me 500yen.

Finally we headed to a shop called Yamaya, which is sort of like a massive alcohol store combined with a western style food store (actually, I think it is mostly Mexican food but I didn’t really look at that section…) I still havent started sorting out my photos yet but if I had this is where I would insert the photo I took of the FOUR LITRE bottle of Whisky which I just had to buy. I havent even opened it yet but I am sure it will taste aweful, since it cost about the same as 1.5 litres would in Australia. Alcohol is insanely cheap here, which I guess is why the social drinking culture is so strong. Someone ask Ian to read this and tell me how much his beer costs to brew, I would be interested to see if it was cheaper to buy in the store here than to make in Australia!

We had planned to go to Aeon again because we wanted to look in the pet shop which Kat and I had somehow missed previously but it was already getting late so we headed to an Izakaya instead. Izakaya are strange places.. kind of like a Japan style pub+restaurant combined into 1, but obviously nothing like an Australian pub . We didnt drink this night since we were heading back home soon after but we ordered a bunch of things including Gyoza, balls of octopus stuff, a really strange tasting ceaser salad, a couple of types of bbq chicken skewers, and more. Came out quite cheap, around 1000 yen each.

On the Sunday I had been invited to an awesome festival thing at my school, which is going to be a bit hard to explain without photos. Basically, a few of the teachers and all of the third year students caught the bus about 10 kilometers down the river which runs behind my school to a part of it that runs through a neighbouring city. From there we all went down to the riverside, donned life jackets, and jumped on board a 52 meter long log raft, and proceeded to float down the river back to school over the course of about 3 hours. I didnt count or ask but I think there were about 150-200 of us on the boat. As well as the raft which was cool enough as it was, we also had a bunch of canoes and  motor boats which people were taking rides on, as well as 3 massive blocks of polystyrine wrapped in plastic tarps which the kids were surfing on, and finally a bamboo bike boat – basically the back wheel was covered in fins, so that when the person riding it peddled, they (at least in theorey) paddled the boat forward. In reality all the paddles did was spray water all over the back of whoever was paddling – hilarious when the first kid did it. The water was really warm and only about waist deep, so I and a lot of the kids went swimming, and I also had a ride in one of the motor boats. It was great.

Following straight on from that, we had Somen for lunch. Somen is basically a big bamboo contraption where water runs down a bunch of chutes and people stand at the high end feeding ramen down the chute. People stand along the length of the chute and catch the ramen as it passes, dip it into a bowl of sauce and eat it. As far as I could tell with my limited Japanese, the only point of it is for the ambience, which I admit was pretty awesome! Saturday night Yasko invited me to come to her house for Dinner again, and afterward we went to another fireworks show in Kahoku, where she lives.

Monday through Wednesday we had the Miyagi training in Sendai, which was great. Lots of workshops on how we will actually go about teaching which were the most useful workshops so far I think, but more importantly we got to meet up again with the other people around Miyagi a week into our stays – lots of people have new contact information, lots of socialising planning going on, and so fourth. We also got to meet the people that came in group B, a week after I did, which was cool as well. I have come home from it with extraordinarily sore feet – like almost everyone I think! Not many people took Gym shoes to the orientation, so the first night when we spent about 3 hours playing soccer and basketball in the gym most of us played in socks or bare feet – blisters galore! It was great fun though.

Finally, last night (after getting back from the orientation), my supervisor informed me that the insurance for my car was ready, which means that I can now drive myself around! Which is great, because this morning it is pissing down with rain! After getting all my papers, I headed over to Kat’s house and picked her up and headed to Aeon so I could buy my mobile phone, which I now have! I ended up getting quite a nice phone, but then almost all phones in Japan are quite nice. No SMS in Japan, or atleast it isnt widely used – it is all done by email. This basically means that I can send regular emails from my phone! On the flip side, it’s almost impossible to get by cheaply with mobile phones in Japan, but with the plans I have it should not cost me more than about $45-50 a month, which isnt too bad. Oh yeah, and I can also watch TV on my phone too, location dependant

I think that is pretty much it for now! Im not going to deal with photos or the other videos I made until I have internet at home, it’s too much of a pain to upload them from government pcs. I still really have no idea when I am actually going to be able to use internet from home, which is a real pain in the arse. When I leave Japan, the one thing I am going to make damn sure of is that my successor has access to net when they get here, because I think it would alleiviate a lot of the stress of the first couple of weeks just being able to easily contact people from at home whenever you needed to, rather than at work under prying eyes or without the ability to use skype or sometimes even MSN. HOPEFULLY I should have it next week, or at the latest the week after.

Bye for now!

Tokyo:
Tokyo was crazy, not much like I had expected. Us Aussies arrived on Sunday morning the day before the orientation conference started, so we had the entire day to vege out in Tokyo. My first order of business after the drive through Tokyo to the Keio Plaza was to find my way to Akihabara to buy some electronics stuff (I could not find a suitable adaptor for my pc in Australia, but in Akihabara they must have every cord ever known to man I think.) Did some exploring around the millions of electronic alleys in Akihabara and went to a couple of the multiple story gaming arcades which were kinda cool. EVERYTHING in Tokyo is like 5+ stories high.. shops don’t go out, they just go up. I went to a stationary shop to buy some wrapping paper and stuff and the paper was on the 5th floor, while the tape was on the 3rd floor. Crazy.

We then headed over to Harajuku and walked down the streets around there, where there was an insane amount of people. There are times where being big and tall are a big bonus, and making my way through a Tokyo crowd is one of them… these streets were just nuts, and some real nutty people there too. Headed back toward the station and over the bridge to Meiji Jigun, a temple which had the most awesome wood smell I’ve ever smelt. Pretty sure they had to cut down a forest to make the place but it was stunning inside. There was a poor security guard whose job it was to tell people that they could not take photos from the middle of the prayer bit, but only from the sides ? in the two minutes I was in that room I swear I heard him have to tell at least 30 people not to take photos…

On the way back we had to buy another ticket at Harajuku and although we had worked out how to buy them at that stage, we must have looked like we couldn’t because a guy came up to us and offered to help us out which was great. BUT, he ended up being a con-artist and insisted we pay him for his assistance! Thankfully we only had a couple of yen each in coins so it was just as easy to give them to him, but what a nerve! That is the only experience of a con artist I have had in Japan so far, it was totally out of left field!

The conference itself had its good and bad points. On the negative side, we spent way, way too long sitting in ridiculously small chairs crowded together in a not very well air conditioned room (1000 people with no aircon is not pleasant in Tokyo), and a few of the workshops were ludicrously boring. On the plus side, some of the workshops were fantastic, and everything else about the hotel was really nice. I was on the 33rd floor which offered and extremely good view of Tokyo, especially at night and ESPECIALLY during a Thunderstorm which there was. Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera to record that ? I had literally JUST stepped out of the camera shop, a 10 minute walk from the hotel, when the skies opened and more rain fell in 10 minutes than you see in an entire year in Australia.. Of course, this was after I had packed my bag to send to Miyagi and the only dry clothes I had were the ones I had prepared to wear the next day… real pain in the butt.

Monou:
So we caught a charter bus with all the other Miyagi JETs from Tokyo to Sendai, about a 6 hour drive. It actually wasn’t that bad, since it was air-conditioned and we had at least two seats each. At Sendai we had a little ceremony (they sure love their ceremonies) which involved sitting in an incredibly hot room for a while, and then went off with our respective supervisors. My supervisor is a man in the Ishinomaki Board of Education called Yushi Abe, who speaks pretty good English and is actually in Sydney as we speak with a group of Ishinomaki students. He drove us from Sendai to Ishinomaki (another two hours, but we stopped at Matsushima on the way which was stunning ? it is one of the top 3 sightseeing spots in Japan supposedly). At Ishinomaki we had another small ceremony, only this time they asked us to introduce ourselves, in Japanese! I actually didn’t do too badly remembering what to say which was suprising at the time, but since then I’m finding I can actually get by pretty well with my limited vocabulary!

So from Ishinomaki I was picked up by my Monou supervisor and a teacher at the local Chuugakkou (Junior High School), named Saijo-san and Yasuko-sensei respectively. Yasuko-sensei speaks fantastic English and invited me to her house for dinner that night, which was really great. My first experience of eating at a sit on the ground table! I think mum would be shocked at some of the stuff I have eaten since coming here…

Since then I have spent most of my time at Monou Chuugakkou, my base school. Two days though I spent with my supervisor, who speaks almost ZERO English, which was petrifying! Somehow I have so far splashed my way through, and he has managed to set me up with a Hanko (personal stamp/seal), bank account, phone, and coming soon are my alien registration card, mobile phone and INTERNET! Thankfully I can use the internet as much as I like at my school, else I would be going crazy by now without it!

My little town is great. My house is less than 5 minutes walk from my main school (where I will spend Mondays and Tuesdays), but most of my other schools I have to drive to. Here’s a short video of the walk from my house to school:

My other main school (Kanan Higashi Chuugakkou, or Kanan East Junior Highschool) is actually about 20 mins or a bit more drive away, but it is in a STUNNING position. The school is on top of a mountain (maybe not a mountain, but certainly bigger than a hill), and it has a clear view over the whole surrounding area. Really stunning views from up there! I feel sorry for the kids there though ? they have to park their bikes at the bottom of the hill/mountain and walk up every day, and some days here by 8:30 in the morning it is steaming hot. Thank god I am not further south is all I can say, Monou’s climate seems perfect ? it is bearably hot most days, some days (like today) are too hot but I survive, and in winter it is going to be freezing cold but not Hokkaido style cold.

I don’t have a car just yet ? I have one parked outside my house but ownership can’t be transferred without my having my foreigner registration card, and I can’t get insurance for it. Apparently in Japan blame for traffic accidents isn’t black and white ? you get assigned a portion of the blame ranging usually from 90/10% upward, which means that even in the lightest of crashes you are going to be up for some money. So, I definitely don’t want to start driving before I have insurance!

My nearest proper shops are about 10 minutes walk away, or a bit more. I have all the necessary stuff; supermarket, hardware shop, electronics shop, and a couple of convenience stores. Prices of stuff here are really strange. I won’t say Japan is more expensive than Australia or visa versa, but certain things in Japan are super expensive while cheap in Australia, and the opposite is true as well. Drinks here are really really cheap unless you buy them at a restaurant ? for example, you can be cans of alcohol and stuff for less than $2, but at a restaurant it’s more like $5-6. Bread is like $5 for about 5 slices, whereas rice is about $5 for 5 kilograms.. It’s really back to front compared with Australia!

My house is awesome, I think most people reading this saw photos already, but soon (when there isn’t crap everywhere) I will make a video of it that isn’t sideways! It’s not quite as big as it seemed in the photos but it is still plenty big ? I think just the fact that I am so tall makes it seem smaller to me. I hit my head on every single doorway in the place! Lots of bumps on my head in Japan so far. It has two tatami rooms, one of which is my bedroom, and the other is a storage room and also houses what is apparently the Miyagi JET library ? tonnes and tonnes and TONNES of books in my house. Everything from lonely planet guides to Japanese books to Harry Potter. If any Miyagi JETs want a book, come see me! Then, I have a reasonably sized Loungeroom with two big opening door style windows, which means that when I come home at night and my house is a sauna I can cool it down quickly. Attached to that is the kitchen, with a couple of sliding doors meaning that I can combine the kitchen and lounge areas, though previous JETs have taped one of the doors closed to make room for a microwave and stuff. Also, obviously, I have a toilet and a bathroom/laundry type with.

My house is on a street with a bunch of identical teacher housing, so the teachers go home over the weekend. It makes for a very quiet weekend if I want to stay in, which I don’t mind at all! I live next door to the Vice Principal and another teacher, and the Social Science and Science teachers are in my street as well!

Well, this is an extremely long entry so far so I might leave it there for now! More photos to come now that I have my camera back!

OK so I haven’t OFFICIALLY been told where I am going yet, so there is still a bit of trepidation in the back of my mind that says oh dear, what if they change it last minute! So, take this as a warning that although I am 99% sure the following is my house, I might end up in a dumpy 1 room apartment yet!

So a week or two ago I got a message from a girl on facebook asking me if I knew any more information about where I was going, because she was looking for her successor and I might be it. Unfortunately I was more in the dark so I couldn’t help at the time. She got back to me a week or so later though, with great news that I was in fact her successor, which is bloody awesome for me since it seems like my living conditions are at the top of the possibility tree!

So, that’s my house and car! There are videos of it too but since they belong not to me, not even to my predecessor, but the person before that, I don’t think I’ll post those I’ll do my own when I get there.

The best part about the house and car is the fact that its all frikken cheap! The car is going to cost me 129,000Y straight up (about ~$1300), which is not all that much since it has a year of shakken on it (think a 2 yearly mandatory EXPENSIVE roadworthy). The house is.. wait for it… NOTHING! No bond, no key money (think non-refundable bond), and NO RENT! I’m kind of shocked at that, especially looking at the size of the house.. if it is as big as it looks I’ll need someone to live there with me so it doesn’t echo so much…

My pred also said that the BoE (my employer) would probably cover some of my travel costs since I work not only in my own town but one next to me as well.. apparently I can expect to visit 9 schools all together.. crazy.

The only downers I garnered from my pred when we had a chat are that:

1. One of my main schools has kids from hell in it – lucky I have a thick skin! The rest of the schools are meant to be great too, so I’ll be ok there, and
2. It gets frikken cold in the winter, which has me more worried. Despite the fact that I am a very big guy, I really feel the cold and I hate it. My pred didn’t use kerosene heaters but I will have to seriously consider it.. and buy more warm clothes

I guess that’s it for now.. the first of our training session/get together things is at the consulate this Saturday so that should be interesting… other than that it’s just a matter of buying about 50 billion more items of clothing and dealing with my 30 billion accounts and other things I have to close in the next 20 days… :s

石巻市、宮城県、東北　(Ishinomaki shi, Miyagi ken, Touhoku)

Touhoku is the region that covers all of northern Honshuu, the main Island of Japan. Miyagi prefecture is on the eastern side of the island, and Ishinomaki is a coastal town/city of the Pacific ocean. The main city itself is a port and somewhat industrial, but I have been told by someone already there that I am more likely to be placed in one of the surrounding townships which are much more rural, and probably not coastal.

Because we are on the east coast of Japan we avoid the heavier rainfall and snow so it wont be AS cold as it could have been, but apparently Miyagi is still damn cold in winter.. -5 to 10 in winter and 20-30 in summer.. so just slightly colder than Melbourne all year round, which I am happy with.

The place is about 1-1.5 hours by public transport to Sendai which is a small big city and apparently very popular with younger people, and about 5 hours from Tokyo on the Shinkansen.

Late on Friday last week, Mum rang me at work with the news that she had in her hand a letter from the Japanese Consulate in Melbourne. She didn’t want to open it until I was at home but seeing that I had basically done no work for the past 2 days, I was well and truely over waiting so I made her open it and tell me over the phone.

It said that I had been shortlisted for a program called JET, which basically means that barring any life threatening diseases showing up on a chest xray I had done this morning, I will be placed somewhere in Japan somewhere around mid may, and fly over there in late July to work as an assistant English teacher in Japanese schools.

Since reading blogs of other past JETs is one of the things that has kept me so keen and interested since I found out about the program a couple of years ago, I decided that I want to keep a record of what I go through on the way to the finishline and beyond as well, for posterity and for the perusal of anyone else who goes through what I’ve gone through in the future.

So whenever I tell someone I’m applying for (well now I guess I say have been shortlisted for) JET, the initial reaction 9 times out of 10 is “what the heck is JET”? Straight from the horse’s mouth:

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, now in its 21st year, is aimed at promoting grass-roots international exchange between Japan and other nations. The number of countries sending participants has risen over the years, as has the number of participants. In 2007, the Programme has welcomed 5,119 participants from 41 countries.

No matter where you go in Japan today, you will find JET participants developing strong relationships with their local communities through foreign language education and international exchange activities. After completing their time on the Programme, many former JET participants use their experiences in Japan to continue enhancing relations between Japan and their home countries.

The Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR) administers the JET Programme in cooperation with local government organisations; the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC); the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA); and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). CLAIR provides support for both JET Programme participants and their Contracting Organisations by arranging each JET participant’s arrival, holding orientation seminars, as well as providing counselling and distributing a wide variety of essential resource materials and information.

The JET Programme has gained high acclaim both domestically and internationally for its role in advancing mutual understanding and for being one of the world’s largest exchange programmes. We hope many more individuals and regions will participate on the JET Programme during the 21st century so that even more progress can be made in the internationalisation of our local communities.

Of course, there is a bit of talking up going on here, but in a nutshell, JET is a program that takes youngish uni grads and employs them in (mostly rural) Japan as language assistants and (from my understanding more importantly) figureheads of “internationalism”.

The Application
The application process is ridiculously long and annoying. The application package comes out in Septemberish, and involves:
8 page application form
2 page medical self-assessment
2 page statement of purpose (an essay on why you should be in JET, basically)
2 referrals with letters and a form supplied by JET
Proof of graduation if you have it, or proof of upcoming graduation otherwise
Official transcripts (marks)

The due date is the start of December, and if you are a day late, there are no second chances. The next you hear is whether or not you will be interviewed, which you hear about in late January. In early February, you are actually interviewed, a process which needs it’s own discussion which I will come back to later.

After you are interviewed, it is another long wait, until now. In early April, you hear back from the embassy with one of 3 replies – shortlisting, alternate, or refusal. Shortlisting means you are on the final list of candidates and very very likely on your way to Japan given nothing else goes wrong, Alternate means you are a backup if anyone else drops out for some reason, and refusal means just that.

In late may (in theorey anyway, I have read of people not finding out until June or later), you receive a contract from your contracting organization assuming you reached the final stage, which tells you where you will be placed, and also pretty much guarantees that assuming you want it, you have a job on JET. I have never heard of a shortlisted candidate not being offered a contract unless is was their own decision, which makes me feel very good – at this point I am very very likely to be offered a spot (the acceptance letter states “is possible in almost all cases”).

The Statement of Purpose
The SoP is a stumbling block that basically revolves around deciding what about your past would make you the most desirable candidate for the JET program. There is a lot of advice to be had about how to write one, but I have read a tonne of them and seen successful ones written in comedy and written like a business statement, and failures of each as well, so I don’t know what one “should” write an SoP like. I know I wrote mine reasonably formally but I was very worried about being too wordy and stuffy. I concentrated a lot on my travel in Australia and also my (very limited) interaction and contact with Aboriginal culture, which I think probably helped me over the line. A couple of friends of mine also got interviews but have been Alternated, and I was sure they would have at least as good a chance as me – one volunteered as the president for his Uni campus for a year which I thought was a very good thing for a JET application, so I don’t know. All I know is that mine apparently went down well.

The Interview
Like the SoP, I had read all kinds of reports of what the interview was going to be like (I am the kind of guy who finds out as much as possible before doing something like this – I must have read every JET Interview related website result on google a couple of times each ). Mine was nothing like the horror I had concocted in my head; in fact it was quite the opposite. I interviewed in Melbourne, AUS, and had the standard panel of 3 (past JET, head of the consule, and another middle aged Japanese lady who’s vocation I wasn’t sure). The majority of questions were asked by the ex-jet; the head of the consul asked a few questions (including the ones in Japanese), and the elderly lady literally did not talk in the entire interview.

The questions I got were not remotely broad reaching; compared with some of the lists I had prepared answers for, they were positively boring:

Why JET?
What can you offer JET?
You didn’t make a specific placement request, why not?
What parts of Australian Culture do you think you would like to share?
What made you change course in life? (I started a Bachelor of Music that I didn’t finish)
You have a lot of cultural experience, what would you do if your Japanese Teacher didnt give you the opportunity to present this?
How would you go about incorporating “Australian Culture” into your English Teaching?
Do you mind if we ask you a few questions in Japanese? (Like I was going to say no..)
In Japanese: What type of Japanese foods do you like?
You don’t like raw fish? (I had said I wasn’t a great fan of sashimi, but then I recovered by saying I love seafood in general and I would come to like sashima in Japan probably Mad)
Who’s the current Prime Minister in Japan?
Do you have any questions for us?

After all the build up, the interview was quite easy. I don’t tend to get nervous at all during interviews which certainly helps, and all 3 members were nodding and obviously understanding what I was saying (a big point in the interview is clarity of speech, since if the Japanese Consulate staff members can’t understand you, the chances of Japanese kids doing so are very small). I obviously did ok, since I am shortlisted now!

After the interview I went out and had a chat with the program coordinator who was very nice and helpful, who indicated that there were about 100ish applicants through Melbourne and Tassy. Not too bad!

So that’s where I am at now – I have done my medical (waiting for xray results, back on Thursday), applied for my new passport (my last one was for the Eltham High band tour back in 1996 or something O_O), about to apply for a police check, and that’s it, it’s totally out of my hands. I think it’s just starting to sink in that it is going from a possibility to a reality, so I’m starting to get really restless at work and wanting to get on with it, haha.

Anyway, this is an extrodinarily long post, so I think I will finish there for today. More as it comes to me!