A week in two parts(part 2)

Yello Everybody,

This past week as you know I spent 3 days in Hita, which i've already covered so i'll talk about the rest of the week. Well thursday was a day of and I was pretty exhausted after my business trip so I just relaxed and did a bit of prep work for summer school. Friday and Saturday were both office days so I was in the office wearing a suit and doing more prep work for summer school. Saturday there was a street festival in central kumamoto(in the Kamatori and Shimatori shopping arcades) there were many stalls and lots of people were wearing Kimono's. The Kimono is an amazing garment, it makes men handsome, women beautiful and kids cute. There was Balloon fishing(Balloon Yo-Yos(a water filled balloon on a rubber string) in water which you have to fish out)), scoop fishing and for some reason massive table sized blocks of ice with confectionary items frozen inside(you could pay and scrape and melt away at the ice until the candy in side was accessable).

This coming week is a bit out of synch, due to schedule issues from the CM etc. i'm doing to makeup days, Tuesday is in Okuchi, so i'll be on a one day/night business and Wednesday is in Ozu Kikuyo. Thursday is a day of because Friday through to the following friday is Summer School(8 days straight, 2 days per school and 4-6 classes per day), it's going to be really big long and exhausting, so i'm not sure if i'll be able to keep posting at my usual rate, but i'll try my best.

No Otaku Section today, i'm feeling tired and no series or aspect is jumping out in particular(I can think of hundreds but none stand out at the moment). Todays picture is yet another from my trip with my parents, this one is a shot of my mother and myself at Kiyumizu Dera over looking the stage. In future posts due to some requests i'm going to be taking shots of more normal and everyday things that might be of interest.

A week in two parts(part 1)

Yello Everybody,

This past week as you know I spent 3 days in Hita, which i've already covered so i'll talk about the rest of the week. Well thursday was a day of and I was pretty exhausted after my business trip so I just relaxed and did a bit of prep work for summer school. Friday and Saturday were both office days so I was in the office wearing a suit and doing more prep work for summer school. Saturday there was a street festival in central kumamoto(in the Kamatori and Shimatori shopping arcades) there were many stalls and lots of people were wearing Kimono's. The Kimono is an amazing garment, it makes men handsome, women beautiful and kids cute. There was Balloon fishing(Balloon Yo-Yos(a water filled balloon on a rubber string) in water which you have to fish out)), scoop fishing and for some reason massive table sized blocks of ice with confectionary items frozen inside(you could pay and scrape and melt away at the ice until the candy in side was accessable).

This coming week is a bit out of synch, due to schedule issues from the CM etc. i'm doing to makeup days, Tuesday is in Okuchi, so i'll be on a one day/night business and Wednesday is in Ozu Kikuyo. Thursday is a day of because Friday through to the following friday is Summer School(8 days straight, 2 days per school and 4-6 classes per day), it's going to be really big long and exhausting, so i'm not sure if i'll be able to keep posting at my usual rate, but i'll try my best.

No Otaku Section today, i'm feeling tired and no series or aspect is jumping out in particular(I can think of hundreds but none stand out at the moment).

EDIT: added an image to show you the common festival game of scoop fishing.

Can-tastic

Yello everyone, yes that's a can.

It's a Harry Potter can.

Let's open it up.

What's that?

It's a Harry Potter Kubrick collectable. With a rubber wizard jacket, a broomstick and a wand. Yes that's right, it's Harry Potter in a can.

I just thought I'd share this cool little collectable with you as a tribute to the final Harry Potter book and the release of the latest Harry Potter movie. In case there was any doubt, Harry Potter is quite big here(the Japanese seem to be able to become obsessive about any craze, be it national or international), the books in both english language and japanese are in the bookstores in large numbers and the cinema's are all screning the movie.

Hita Japan

Yello Everyone,

Today was my day of after my business trip in Hita, I spent the morning in Hita, travelling home took 2-3 hours and then I was pretty exhausted so i've had a restful day.

My time in Hita went well, the school there was nice and so were most of the students(there are always a couple who are overly excitable but thats normal for any group of kids). In Hita I stayed in a nice western style hotel called the Socia, it was about a 1-2 minute walk from the station and a short 10 minute walk to the classroom. The hotel was very nice with all the mod cons like air con, TV, refridgerator etc., it even had a couple of restaurants(which I didn't try because of the expense) and a nice public baths(indoor man made onsen) which was up on the top floor(for my sister, brother in law and parents, it was a bit like the hotel in Caloundra with a pool on the roof). Hita is actually quite a large town and the area I was staying and working was very much the center of town and the commercial area, so I didn't get to see much of the cultural aspects of the town. For some strange reason the school turned out to be in a very Otaku area, with a computer game/anime shop underneath and a nice manga and models shop a few shops down. The models shop was very cool, it had a manga section, a lot of cool models both new and old(not old as in bad but old as in collectable) and a slot machine section which played very old retro game music including some from the original sonic the hedgehog game. All up it was a good few days and I had fun.

The picture today is a map of Oita province, and the dark green area is where the Hita town is. As you can see its directly above Kumamoto province, beside Fukuoka province and borders on Miyazaki province in the bottom corner. All of which I've mentioned in previous posts.

A Windy Week

Yello Everyone,

Well my week went pretty well, I was at Ozu Kikuyo school for most of the week(a local school about 30 minutes by train and 10 minutes walk away) barring wednesday when I had the CM which ended up being a local one with only Kumamoto teachers due to torrential rain down Kagoshima way. Saturday as I mentioned was a home project day due to the Typhoon warning. Speaking of the Typhoon, it well and truly dissapated in this area by Sunday with winds dropping from 20 km/hr down to only 6 km/hr. Yesterday was pretty normal, some cleaning, some study and at night I went into town(nice to be able to do after being shut in at home for a day or so thanks to the Typhoon) and had curry for dinner followed by going to a bar for a few drinks and chatting to the best of my ability to some nice Japanese people that I met. One note on Japanese its fairly easy to talk to people, it's just not so easy to make lasting relationships, without a better knowledge of the Language and without a direct association(same work, same school etc.).

This week is usually my office week, however i'm doing a short replacement business trip Monday-Wednesday in Hita, Oita province(the province just north, near hiroshima, fukuoka etc.), i'll be staying in a hotel tonight, tuesday and wednesday and then returning on thursday(which is a day of in exchange for working today). Friday and Saturday are both normal office days, however I might end up working in a couple of classrooms preparing stuff for summer school.

On the otaku side of things, I want to give a quick rave about the store animate (a large chain of stores stocking all things otaku related- manga, anime, cds, models, merchandise). They have a store here in Kumamoto which has a nice selection of interesting things to look at and buy. The store also has a major shop in my favorite part of Tokyo- Akihabara. Incidentally, the store animate is getting a fair number of short clips in the show Lucky Star(which I mentioned a month or so ago), in a quite humorous way(with the staff members all appearing to be from some totally different anime(a hotblooded 80s one instead of a current life parody comedy)).

I might not be able to post for the next few days, but the picture today is one I found online of a fish trap in Hita(where i'm going) and apparently this is the season, so i'll see fish traps and salting fish in Hita.

Typhoon Man-Yi

Urgent Update,

Today instead of my usual small things on Japan, i'm going to talk about a Typhoon. Typhoon Man-Yi is currently a category 1 storm(74-95 miles per hour wind) and is passing through Kyushu.

Why is this important? Well most importantly I live in Kumamoto, which is in Kyushu. Luckily the Typhoon is passing furthur south, however Kumamoto is still getting winds up to 20 Km/hr and this will continue(maybe getting a little stronger) tommorrow before hopefully abating by Monday. Luckily my house in in the midst of a lot of apartments and as such has good wind breaks and I haven't noticed anything more than it being a bit more windy than usual. However because of the Typhoon and its unpredictable nature, all the classes for Peppy Kids club in the kumamoto and Kagoshima areas have been cancelled today(and thats more than 40 schools. I myself am having whats refered to as a home project day, where it's still a work day but I stay at home and work on lesson plans, props and preparing for the upcoming summer school.

As a sidenote, while this is the first major typhoon since i've been here(which has effected my imediate area) it's by no means unusual. The sea around Japan is known for creating such storms and they are considered a fairly regular event.

Anyways, i'll give you another update on the storm front in my weekly post tommorrow or monday. The picture today is of the typhoons path.

Japan: Stationary

Yello Everbody,

Today in my series on small things about Japan I'm going to talk about stationary. I'm sure a few people are wondering why stationary and what it has to do with Japan, but the truth of the matter is that the Japanese have an obsession with stationary, to the extent that school children quite often spend a fair amount of their own money on it.

here are an incredible amount of completely random stationary items which we don't often see in Australia but are seemingly everywhere over here. Just recently I found a cheap little notebook made from water proof paper, some pens which write in gold ink with a colored ink border, a pen with a revolvable clip, a pen with a sports style shackle so that you can clip it to your bag or clothes, some incredibly cool HB pencils which are entirely black(lead, pencil, eraser, everything) and a bunch of great stamps(the ink kind not the letter kind). And this stuff and much much more are everywhere, 100 yen stores(equivalent of 1 dollar stores but much more common and more popular) have rows and rows of it, book stores have large sections and the number of shops specializing in stationary is amazing. Plus there are all the chains like Helly Kitty which do a large amount of stationary products. Every stationary item comes in every size shape color and with every character or branding imaginable. I personally seem to be making a collection out of notebooks and for some strange reason a lot of them despite being sold in Japan and made in China or Korea have little inspirational quotes in english on the cover "Whenever you feel you need a friend to lean on... here I am" is quite strange to find on a B5 notebook. Anyways I know that many of these items do make there way over seas or even originate over seas from however its the magnitude and the interest in them which I find amazing.

The picture for today is of some "Gloomy Bear TM" stationary, Gloomy Bear is one of the many little japanese mascots around similiar to Hello Kitty but without its prominance.

Hot and Sweaty or Wet and Miserable

Yello Everyone,

As the title suggests its very much summer and rainy season at the moment here in Japan(and more so where I am since I live on the southern island of Kyushu). Washing Clothes and hanging them out to dry on my balcony is a thing of the past, hanging them inside or taking them to the laundromat(one which conveniently opened a short distance from my apartment within the last few months) is the new trend. Airconditioning is now often a prerequisite despite the cost(at least for half hour or so when I return home) and the little tower fan I bought is seeing almost non stop usage(the thought of my electricity bill is making me shudder). Despite all this there are some nice things about summer, stone fruit and watermelons are easily available and cheap, Beer gardens have opened on the top of some major buildings, ice blocks and creams are appearing in numbers and nifty Japanese Fans and little glass windchimes are springing up all around the place.

Last week I went on my regular business trip to Okuchi, the teaching was good and Okuchi was okay, but it rained almost non-stop the entire time I was there, Tanabata was unfortunately missed(see last post for more info) and the last couple of days have been my days of rest, almost literally although I did manage to get a few things I needed to done.

No otaku section this week, i'm planning to do a seperate post for it later. Todays picture is of a glass Japanese wind chime or Fuurin.

Japan: Tanabata

Yello Everyone,
Today in my series of small things about Japan I thought i'd talk about Tanabata or Star Festival which is a quasi religious festival here in Japan which is today(the 7th of July).

The legend of Tanabata goes something like this, a weaving princess(star) and a cow herder(star) fall in love and get married, but then in marriage the princess stops weaving and the herder lets the cows roam free, this angers the princesses father(star king) so he splits them apart one on each side of the river(milky way), the princess cried and cried until her father relented and allowed them to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month every year, however if it rains the princess cannot cross the river and they have to wait till next year. (This is a very rough version of the story, if your are interested just google Tanabata)

Anyhow in modern Japan they celebrate this by having festivals, wearing Kimono's, having big decorations in the street, fireworks and by writing a wish and tying it to a tree(in the belief that the wish might come true). I was quite looking forward to this and was going to find a good festival, however for 2 reasons it didn't quite pan out the way I wanted it too. The 1st is the fact that i've had a long business trip week and i'm very exhausted and the 2nd(and more relevant) fact is that ironically its the raining season and it has been raining quite heavily tonight(although its calmed down a bit now). However since officially Tanabata is on the 7th day of the lunar month(in a couple of weeks), I'm holding out some hope that another festival might happen then.

The picture today is of some Tanabata decorations.

Japan: Language

Yello Everybody,

Today in my series of posts on small things about Japan i'm doing the language of Japan. Japanese(Nihon-Go) is the universal language of Japan allthough in Okinawa(the southern most small island) and in some parts of the northern islands, there are people who speak their own unrelated native dialect(many parts of japan didn't become actual japan until the last few centuries). This is not to say that there aren't differences in how Japanese is spoken between the regions, regional dialects(or Ben) are quite common and have a few differences on basic wordings and pronounciation, Osaka-Ben is particularily known for being different from standard japanese.

Japanese in terms of pronounciation isn't all that hard once you understand that the entire language is based on a set of 42 different syllables and has no real use of the tongue(unlike english). What trips people up with Japanese is the fact that it has a lot of extra words and concepts which are based around social status and situation, traditionally this was to do with the feudal system and the difference between nobles and common people, however in current society it still is in operation in the workplace between subordinates and superiors and in the school system between students and teachers. One of the most common ways this is expressed is the suffix used when refering to someone, for instance Luke-San or Gration-San, where -san is the standard suffix sort of like mr/mrs but less formal, also using someones first name is a reflection of a closer relationship. Other suffix include -kun and -chan which are mainly used to refer to children(although also between close friends, family and lovers) -kun is mainly male and -chan is mainly female. -sensei is the suffix for teachers, -sama is a suffix of high respect(seldom used), -dono is a suffix of utmost respect(almost never used), -sempai refers to a person senior to ones self in terms of school or in a workplace(part teacher as well),k -kohai is the opposite and refers to a junior, -bozu is a highly informal way of refering to a boy(similiar to brat although it can be an endearment). The strangest suffix is actually the lack of a suffix which is only used between very close confidants(long time married people, friends since early childhood) and is rare even then. There are also a bunch of suffix for family members.

Anyways in terms of writing there are 3 different alphabets, the kana- hiragana and katakana are based on the set of syllables and are functionally the same the only real difference being that katakana is used predominantly for words of foreign origin. The 3rd alphabet is Kanji, which is based on chinese pictograms, there are several thousand Kanji in total of which about a thousand or so are required to be considered literate, a problem with kanji is that while every kanji represents a word, some words are created by mixing 2 or more kanji and the new words are not always understandable from the original kanji(for instance adolescence is made by combining green and spring). Kanji is often used with peoples names and Japanese people sometimes introduce themselves as suchandsuch written with the kanji for this and that.

EDIT: added a table with the kana, the top is hiragana the bottom is katakana.

A Standard Week

Yello Everyone,

it's my weekly update post and as the title suggests it's been a pretty normal week this week. I taught for 4 days at Kusunoki(one of my 3 normal schools) and spent 1 day in the office doing class prep work. Sunday was my day of rest and I did some cleaning and relaxed most of the time. Today there was a small staff meeting focusing on summer school(end of july start of august) and the huge Combined Meeting that we're having before that. Lots of class demos and stuff. This week i'm going on my regular business trip to Okuchi, so unfortunately i'll be out of contact for a while, however my plan is to do a post tommorrow morning and a post on saturday to continue my twice weekly series on Japan the small things.

I have to say I was underwealmed by the usage of my new shoutbox feature(A big shout out and thanks to my friend Beck who's currently teaching over in the UK, for taking the time to leave a message). I know that most people don't regularly check the blog but when you do, leaving a short Hi message or an maybe an idea of something you want me to write about would be nice.

The image today is a photo of myself and my father at the hotel we stayed at in Tokyo, it just goes to illustrate the height difference in terms of doors than what we are used to in Australia, I have to duck down in quite a few places to avoid hitting my head.

This week in my Otaku section i'm doing a brief rundown of a few of the biggest ongoing manga's and animes in Japan(series that have been running for years and are still popular and ongoing). One Piece is currently running at 461 chapters of manga(which started in 1997), 316 anime episodes(which started in 1999) and 8 feature films. Naruto is currently running at 360 chapters of manga(which started in 1999), 220 anime episodes(which started in 2002), 18 new Naruto Shippuden anime episodes(which started in 2007) and 3 feature films(with a new Naruto Shippuden feature film due later this year). Bleach is currently running at 281 chapters of manga(which started in 2001), 131 anime episodes(which started in 2004) and 1 feature film(Bleach: Memories of Nowhere, which I actually saw in the cinema(without subtitles) during my training period in Osaka). All 3 of these manga/animes have weekly prime time episodes on major Japanese television channels and a weekly release in a major Japanese manga magazine. One Piece is a story about pirates and a boy(and his crew) who wants to become the new king of the pirates, it's set in a fantasy world entirely unrelated to this one, it's mainly aimed at teenagers allthough it's popular with younger kids and adults as well. Naruto is a story about ninja's and focuses on the story of Naruto a boy who despite having a cursed monster inside him and starting as an outcast wants to prove himself and become Hokage(the ninja leader) of his village, it's set in a fantasy world but one which is a bit more related to this world(similarities to china, japan and other places as well as technology are seen), it's again mainly aimed at teenagers although it's darker than One Piece and has a bigger following amongst adults. Bleach is the story of Ichigo(his name means strawberry and he has orange hair) a shinigami(death god who fights corrupted souls called Hollows), it's set in the real world(well to an extent), with its darker theme are spiritual overtones it's aimed at older teenagers and young adults but has a following amongst many adults. Anyways i hope this gave you some info on a few of the biggest series in Japan, for more info you can check the wikipedia link or google them.