Sports & Clubs

This is just a quick note to say how much fun I had after school yesterday with the track team! Japanese junior high schools are packed with club activities (what we'd call sports teams, except these kids don't try out, they just join): baseball, softball, volleyball, basketball, track & field, tennis, judo, kendo, table tennis, brass band, art, home economics. . . there are probably more but I can't think of them right now. The school day finishes at 3:55, and club activities go from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

Since we've been having such nice weather recently, I've felt the pull in my bones to get outside and DO something! Honestly, I've always been kind of anti-sports: my physical activity usually consists of yoga or mountain climbing, not chasing a ball around. But recently I've really enjoyed throwing Frisbees or kicking a soccer ball, so I figured I'd try my luck with sports at school.

I changed into my snazzy track pants and t-shirt and went out on the playing field, which was crawling with students! The basketball team was running laps, the soccer team was out playing, the softball and baseball teams were playing, too, each in their own corner of the field. I wanted to run with the track team, since I did such a good job at it in 7th grade in 1995 (school record: 1 mile in 7:02!!!). The track coach actually wasn't there; instead, one of the 3rd grade girls was leading the 30 students through practice.

First we ran around the perimeter of the school to warm up, then we did stretching excercises. We lined up and skipped halfway down the track before taking off in a dash to finish. We did these weird walking excercises to stretch your hamstrings. And we ran a little bit more.

Later, everyone in the team split up: some dragged out heavy mats and poles and practiced high jump, some got shot puts and started thowing them, some jumped over hurdles (hu-ru-du in Japanese), and others just ran laps. I skipped around from group to group, doing a little jumping, a little shot putting (terribly), discovered I can't do one pull-up on a bar, and finished off playing jump-rope with 7 first and second grade boys. The whole experience was in about 70% Japanese and 30% English. I was so impressed with the students' ability to go through with practice even though they didn't have anyone there yelling at them. Sure, there were some girls who ended up gossiping on the high jump mats instead of actually practicing, but overall, everyone was doing something.

When I said goodbye to everyone, one girl said, "Mata kitene!" (Come back!) I was so inspired that I went directly to Saty after school and bought another pair of track pants so I can join again! Now my schedule will be: Monday and Wednesday, Japanese class; Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, track practice!

Maybe I should try out all the other sports, too. . . maybe I'll discover I'm not as incapable as I thought I was. It's actually fun!

In the Spring Time, the Only Pretty Ring Time . . .

 “. . . when birds do sing / hey ding a ling ding / sweet lovers love the Spring.”

I’ve been singing this ditty from Willy Wonka (stolen from our friend Will Shakespeare) for the past few weeks. It’s because it’s actually SPRING here, finally, after The Long Winter. Gunma actually has SPRING like God intended: warm, sunny days, periods of rain, and cool (but not chilly) nights. I used my heater once in a while up until the beginning of May, but since then, it’s been nice enough not to need it. My only complaint is Gunma wind, which whips around with a tornado force and sends my hair flying in my face and almost topples me on my bicycle, but when it’s calm, the weather is perfect. I feel so lucky.

Today after I failed my driver’s license test (more on that later; it needs its own post), I went to Mitsudera Park to write letters and study the ol’ Nihongo. I kept looking up, though, from my perch on a wooden bench, to the beauty that was all around me: the evening sun sinking into the pond, the flowers, the green grass, the waterfall, my students passing by in their bright blue uniforms (haha), and thought to myself, “I am so lucky.” Spring is so beautiful!

Side note: While I was sitting there studying, I heard feet behind me and a man’s voice saying, “Benkyo? (Study?)” I nodded without looking up and he guffawed loudly, coming around to the front of the gazebo. There were actually two of them, in their 40s or 50s, wearing painter’s clothes and smoking cigarettes. “Can we come in?” First Guy asked, and I said, “Dozo.” I wasn’t particularly scared—it was still light out and they seemed harmless enough—but I wasn’t particularly sure what they wanted, either. The more we talked, though, I began realize that they were just two country guys taking a walk in the park after work, and weren’t going to chop me up into little pieces and eat me (although that one guy was missing his top four front teeth, which made understanding a little difficult). But I was happy to notice that we were talking relatively smoothly in Japanese. And even when No Teeth’s cell phone rang and he answered it, I understood about 90% of what he was saying (“I was just taking a walk in the park . . . did you finish work? . . . I met this nice girl who teaches English . . . can you speak English . . . ?” etc.) punctuated by loud cackles. OK, so our conversation was really easy, but it was able to happen! I wondered how a Japanese girl studying in NC would feel if the men at Southern States (before it burned down) started up a conversation with her. Would it be hard for her to understand their country accents? 

Back to the spring, though: Last Saturday and Sunday were both as gorgeous as today was. I’m happy I was able to spend almost the entire two days outside soaking up the sun and the sky.

On Saturday, my friend S from Canada invited a good 20 or 30 people to a park in Shibukawa for what was deemed an EPIC BBQ. And it lived up to its name! I ate a hamburger, a couple of bites of steak (shared between four or five of us), assorted marinated meats, grilled corn on the cob and peppers, and lots of snack foods. Too bad I missed the chicken—it was all over before I got there—but I will not complain.

Among the guests were a Japanese woman and four or five kids between 4 and 10. After we ate, I spent the rest of the afternoon with them and a few ALTs, playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” (I forget the name, but it involves dropping a handkerchief into the goose’s hands), “Freeze Tag,” (Koli Oni), “Hide and Seek,” (forgot that name too), and “Red Light/Green Light.” It’s lovely that children’s games across the world are the same. How did that happen? I taught one girl Miss Mary Mack, and she in turn showed me the Japanese version, which is a little more complicated and whose story I couldn’t follow at all. We played on the monkey bars and the slides, and soared down a 20-foot long zipline, too.

Later on, our group joined forces with the group of older Japanese men at the table next to us. We all shared our food and got a bite of everything. Then we started an epic Frisbee game with five Frisbees and 15 people, adults and kids. Luckily no child got a black eye, so I consider it a success. Frisbees apparently promote internationalization, which is what JET is all about!

I stayed till almost 6:00 p.m.; afterwards, I went with six guys to an onsen nearby. They all disappeared into the men’s section for two hours, and I soaked alone in the women’s one for about thirty minutes. Onsens can be so relaxing, but nerve-wracking too when you feel like everyone is staring at you and you can’t stare back because you don’t have your glasses on. I just crashed when I got home; being in the sun all day and then in the hot springs made me sleepy.

On Sunday I returned to Maebashi Catholic Church for the first time since Easter, this time with my friend H from Colombia/Australia. The church only has one Spanish-speaking mass a month, and I had been wanting to go for a while! I can’t describe the happiness I felt when I walked in and saw the smattering of brown-skinned Latin American folk and heard them chattering in español. I felt so at home! There weren’t too many attendees, 20 or 25 at the most, but it was good because I could meet most of them afterwards. Almost everyone was from Colombia, Venezuela, or Peru, plus three nuns from Spain. The priest was Colombian, too, even though his white skin and reddish hair made him look Irish to me. Everyone except the priest had been living in Japan for the past 10-20 years, raising their families here. Having fluent conversations in a language besides English made my day: I haven’t forgotten Spanish yet!

In the afternoon, I met my friend M in Maebashi Park, studied some more Japanese, and threw around the Frisbee some more. It was so relaxing.

These are my favorite weekends: no huge trips anywhere, nothing complicated, just enjoying the weather and friends. I feel so grateful. 

Look for my next few posts about the driver's license debacle, and a list of all the food I want to eat when I go home this summer. 

Golden Week

In case you don’t already know, Japan has a set of holidays that put together are called Golden Week. May 3^rd is Constitution Day, May 4^th Greenery Day, and May 5^th Children’s Day. Schools and offices close and it’s a super busy travel season as people take advantage of their days off. April 29^th was also a holiday – Showa Day – which means that my work schedule was knocked completely off-kilter: Monday-Thursday work, Friday-Sunday off, Monday work, Tuesday-Thursday off, work Friday, then off for the weekend. Tomorrow is May 9^th and back to normal! If I had wanted to, I could take taken off Monday and Friday and used those 10 days to go somewhere spectacular like Okinawa or Hong Kong or Taiwan or the Philippines, like a lot of my friends did. But my monetary resources are running on the low side and I need to be saving more, so I decided to take a more subdued approach to the holiday. I hosted a dinner party on Sunday night for my Japanese friends (and a scant few foreigners) and spent Tuesday-Thursday around Tokyo, not exactly a cheap city, but cheaper than a plane ticket.

I spent half of Friday shopping at Costco for my dinner party, and the other half in Saitama at a farm! It was a beautiful day, and I got to see mother and baby goats, wooly white sheep, all-black and black-and-white spotted cows, and huge expanses of fields nestled in the rolling mountains. Hayato and I even took a butter-making class, which really only involved shaking a glass jar of cream until it solidified (Laura Ingalls Wilder taught me that a long time ago). The farm was one of the singular most beautiful places I’ve been to in Japan: the countryside feel of it, the green grass, the farm animals, the barns. It all reminded me nostalgically of home and I felt very happy there.

Of course, that relaxed feeling was pretty much ruined at Costco; there were so many people and so much to buy that I felt stressed out! I had originally thought of inviting 12 people to dinner, since I had a 9-pound turkey left over from Thanksgiving to feed them. I wanted a Thanksgiving-y feel, to celebrate life being normal in Gunma again after the March catastrophe. But because I’m way too social and like big parties, I ended up with 20 invitees! In the end, though, I realize I shouldn't have been too worried; I asked some people to bring food to share, and we had more than enough!

We set up a table in the corner, and on it were:

A turkey, which got demolished quickly

KFC chicken (thanks, Garry)

Mashed potatoes

Herbed stuffing

Green beans (which I forgot to take the ends off of and which hardly anyone ate—oops)

Cranberry sauce

Meatballs

Cheese & crackers

Andy’s delicious chilaquiles

Saori’s rice balls

Amy’s chocolate cake

Nozomi’s pumpkin cake

Tamura’s chocolate chip scones

A ton of assorted cookies (literally, 2,000 pounds!)

A ton of fruit

Sangria and other assorted beverages

I feel like there was more but I can’t remember right now. In any case, it was a feast, and everyone filled up! There were 9 Japanese people (including three teachers from school!), 7 Americans, and 1 Scot. The other three couldn't come. Before we ate, I had everyone sit on the floor and go around in a circle saying what they’re thankful for, which was kind of silly but kind of fun. People answered either in English or Japanese, and it was mostly, “Friends and family,” “My job,” “Peace,” or “Cell phones.” It was so much fun hanging out with everyone that I was sad to kick them all out at 11:00 so we could go to work the next day.

Tuesday started my real vacation. I met my friend Liz at Harajuku Station in Tokyo at 11:00 to go to a Cirque du Soleil performance! Liz and I were friends when she lived in Gunma, but she has since transferred to Yokohama, which might be a little bit cooler than Haruna. We saw “Kooza,” which was fabulously amazing. I had never seen a real live Cirque du Soleil performance before, and I was astounded at everything I saw! The music is spectacular, the contortionists still make me inwardly cringe, the tightrope walkers/bicyclists made my mouth gape open. . . all in all they beat any other performance I’d ever seen. I also felt cool because I could understand some of the Japanese the artists said when they were telling jokes or wandering around making fun of the audience members. And anything I didn’t understand, Liz did because her Japanese is amazing!

After the show was over and we neglected to buy a $40.00 umbrella with “Kooza” stenciled on it, we went outside in the drizzle to meet my friend Stephen. After a short debate, we decided to go to T.G.I. Friday’s for dinner. Now I’m not much on Friday’s back in the States, but it was so nice to get a little taste of home there in Tokyo. Stephen and I ate huge cheeseburgers and fries, and paid about $20.00 for them, too! But they were so worth it -- !

We cut the night short and parted ways soon after: Stephen and I to Omiya, and Liz back to Yokohama.

Wednesday’s weather was much better than Tuesday’s: lots of sun and a fresh breeze. Stephen and I started the day at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, strolling around the gardens and looking at the gates that led to the Emperor’s residence (absolutely off-limits now). We toured a small textile museum as well before heading into Yokohama to meet Liz for lunch.

There was really no debate – Chinese food in Chinatown, of course! – but we couldn’t find a good restaurant without an hour-long wait. The streets were absolutely packed with people. Golden Week, huh. We ended up deciding on an a la carte place whose maitre d’ spoke flawless English. Lunch was served upstairs in a tatami room (Really? In China? Guess so.) at a low table. We ordered egg soup, chicken and cashews, sweet and sour pork, and something like fried chicken pieces. Oh yum!

After we ate we wandered around Chinatown, Yokohama Bay, and Cosmo World (a big amusement park). Liz wanted to go inside the “Ice House” at the park, so we paid our 500 yen for a two-minute race through a -30C (-22F) house full of Christmas decorations and penguins. It was cold.

Later that evening, we stopped for dinner at Bubby’s New York City Diner: Pie and Coffee, which was like another little piece of America right there in Japan. They didn't have either cherry pie or a glass of milk, but I did get a slice of apple pie and an incredibly sweet hot chocolate that I couldn’t finish (should have gotten the karai chocolate, huh). It was a lovely experience and made me nostalgic for diners back home.

We cut that night short as well, and went home to sleep.

Thursday was Museum Day. Stephen and I toured Ueno, the part of Tokyo with the Zoo and a bunch of national museums. We saw famous statues, a cool pond, the National Museum (Japanese history, art, and other famous things), which was really three buildings in one, and the National Museum of Nature and Science, which was two. I’m really happy I went to all of them; I learned a lot about Japan AND saw a lot of cool exhibits. The science museum was particularly awesome; I want to go back there again soon! It was really hands-on-y, and well laid-out.

I had to get back to Gunma, though, so I left Tokyo after lunch. I’m happy I had such a great little vacation there in the middle of the week! I still had one more party to go to, though!

After work on Friday, which I managed to get through somehow, the school had its beginning of the year enkai (drinking party). Most of the new teachers and the old teachers showed up, as well as those of us who just stayed. I got to see some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, which was lovely. The music teacher graced us with some piano music as we had our four-course dinner in the fancy Georgian House (the same venue as the October one) and even I played a song because they asked me to. It was also “Hook-Jaimie-Up-With-Mr.-M-Night,” apparently, because everyone kept encouraging us to talk to each other all night. There was a while there when the two of us sat alone at one table in the middle of the room while every other teacher was sitting somewhere else. If someone tried to sit down at the same table with us, they were immediately shooed away by Ms. O and Mr. S at the next table over, who were playing Cupid. Alas, it’s just not meant to be, but it’s a fun joke I suppose. Here’s to hoping Monday at school isn’t awkward! Around 9:30 a group of us old-and-regular teachers went to an izekaya (Mr. M not included, zannen) and stayed for a few more hours talking and drinking. I got home around 1:00 and started my weekend of doing absolutely nothing, which I accomplished with no problem whatsoever.

Fully recharged, refreshed, and relaxed, I am ready to tackle this next week coming up.