After another long and fulfilling hiatus, yours truly is back to catch you up on what's cracking here in Nihon. October, November, and December were all distinctly unique and memorable. Now that I'm accustomed to the cycle of the job, time has been absolutely flying by...queue another excuse why I haven't been writing blogs regularly.
Anyways, let's start with October. My lasting impressions of October 2011 will always be constant Halloween preparations and strain that went along with the preparations. We OBC teachers spent about 2 1/2 months preparing for an event that lasted a little under 2 hours. In fact the event itself seems like a blur when trying to look back on it. The room I designed for the kids was a haunted pirate ship theme, and my costume was a wanna-be Johnny Depp impersonation, but damn I looked good! If things don't work out as an English Teacher, I may hit the high seas for my next career.
Anyhow, the English games that I designed for the kids were mostly successful. I was able to get the kids to use vocab and counting numbers all within the context of my game. However, there were a few difficulties. First, my game took too long. The game was supposed last about 7-8 minutes, but mine was closer to 10-12. This meant there were kids piled up at the door waiting to get in while many kids were having to rush the last part of the game. Also, there were about 5 little girls who either 1.) didn't want to even go in my room because they were scared of the big white pirate or 2.) started crying in the room because I used fake snakes and lizards as part of my props. My fellow teachers, Sarah and Andrew, both had pretty successful rooms, as well, and they even managed to get their kids through the game in a timely fashion. kudos.
After the kids finished with the game, the three of us gave a dance performance for the kids to tune of two Halloween classics. The Monster Mash and Ghostbusters. My only hope is that those videos never find their way onto facebook or any other social network site. We had fun with it, though.
All in all, October was both challenging and rewarding. I was excited to get November started.
November
The month of November proved one of many firsts for me in Japan. For example, I attended my first Japanese wedding on November 3rd in Nagoya, the third largest city in Japan. The groom, Aki, is a good friend to all OBC teachers and was kind enough to invite all three of us to his Wedding ceremonies (There are 3 different weddings!). Anyway the wedding was held in a large Catholic church in downtown Nagoya. This fact is especially funny because I think I was the only Catholic at the wedding that day. Many Japanese like the idea of a wedding in a big, western style church, whether they have a religious affiliation or not. Another interesting aspect of the event was that Aki's mother and father are both originally from China, however; they have lived in Japan for many years. Aki's heritage is still very important to the family and so there were many Chinese elements interwoven in the ceremony as well. For example, all the music was Chinese and many of the speeches/announcements were said first in Japanese before being translated into Chinese. Also at one point, the bride and groom stamped what appeared to be some sort of Chinese dragon parchment. In summation this was the ultimate cross-cultural experience. Here we are in a big western-style church, with a unique blend of Japanese and Chinese ceremony. Also funny, I was certainly the only the westerner there and also the only "smart" guy without a jacket and tie. What can I say....I'm sort of a rebel. I really had a great time at this event though and am thankful to have great friends like Aki and Asuka, who by the way make a lovely couple.
Another first for me in November was traveling to Tokyo to meet with my main man AG Albert Griffin. Albert is an English teacher in Kanagawa who also plays in an Japanese football league (American Football of course). AG is also originally from Marin county and went to my same high school, Marin Catholic. I owe a great debt to Jim Nelson who put us in contact. Anyways, before I get further into the story I want to give you folks back home a little background on how the X League works. X league teams are sponsored by large companies in Japan, for example, Albert plays for IBM and the team they played against was sponsored by FUJI-XEROX. A player's contract with their team greatly varies depending on how good the team is and how valuable of a player that person is. Some teams provide their players with all encompassing contracts, meaning they get salary + many other benefits like paid travel expenses, and even part time work outside of football! Every team is about 90% Japanese but according to Albert there are 2-3 foreigners on most teams. Also the teams do not practice during the week so if a player does commit to a team he can pretty much say bye-bye to his weekends during the season. The teams play a regular fall schedule and then I believe the top 4 teams go to the playoffs where the league champion is determined. As you all well know, football has and will always be a big passion of mine and if I stay in Japan another year I most certainly will try to play for one of these teams. That was a another big part of my wanting to go up to Tokyo.
Back to the game, although it wasn't much to write home about....At least not for the other team. I arrived a little late but the IBM Big Blue was already up by 28 and the final score was 70-14 I think. It was hard to get a read on the competition level just because Albert's team was so far superior. After the game AG was nice enough to take me out to big night club in the Yokohama area called Bay Hall and also let me crash at his place. I then spent most of Sunday whooping his butt at Madden, hopefully he won't be reading this part. He needs to be spending his time practicing on his game anyway! Here's a pic from the night, repping marin county 4-1-5. AG has been a big help in getting me connected to the football community and also helping me look for job prospects for next year. He's a good dude.
Also did some other traveling in November. Took a holiday to travel to Kyoto with Andrew and our friend Etsuko. Got to see many of the beautiful sights and sounds that the great city of Kyoto has to offer. Visited Nanzengii and Kyomizu, two of the more famous temples in the entire city. Andrew and I even got some holiday shopping done while we were at it. Great city, good times with friends.
Oh also in November, went with a big group of friends to climb Mt. Gozaisho, very scenic and famous mountainside in Mie prefecture.
All in all, two pretty great months. I think I finally kicked whatever writer's block that was holding me back so these entries should be much more regular. As always much love to everybody back home!