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December23, 2007 to May 27, 2008
School has certainly been busy. The school year ends on June 6 here because they start in the middle of January. So I have about two weeks left and in that time about 5 contact days with Them. I thought I would take some time from handing out detentions and asking for quite to write an update. My apologies for the quality of the photos as they are from my cell phone camera as the real one is at home.
Recently I have had them work on building roller coasters. Some didn't turn out too badly either.
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We also had to accompany the grade 8's to Tokyo Disneyland. "Okay not a bad day to be had" I thought. "The kids go nuts on rides and whatever and I can enjoy myself". Disneyland was a zoo on a Friday morning and apparently every morning. We arrived at 10:30 am and all the rides had cues of 2 hours long (according to the signs). So no rides for me because I am not standing in line that long for a 3 minute ride.
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There we some interesting features to see. The glass art studio had an artisan from Florida making a glass Mickey Mouse in front of everyone. One of the buses bringing people from away way designed to look like 1950's future.
On my way home, I saw everyone leaving with enormous bags of Disney stuff. The drive for presents for family and friends from wherever you visit is a very strong cultural tradition. They must have spent hundreds of dollars on stuff. It still amazes me. On my way home by train I couldn't get a seat so I hung out near the front of the train to look out the front. I still appreciate the service offered here in Japan. All the train drivers wear clean white gloves and go through a series of pointing movements and other things that show a certain degree of professionalism and service you just do not see anywhere else in the world.
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Happy Mothers day to all the mothers out there.
It has been a very busy three weeks. With Chris and Darcy and their two little ones here for two weeks as well as Mike and Arlene also here for one of those two weeks. Of course Mika and I have had to work the whole time and on top of that I developed strep throat which took me out of action for four days and Mika got a cold or something after she returned from New Delhi.
Mika was in Delhi for a week for a conference of Consular officers from the asia region. She got to see a little of it but not as much as she liked so she is interested in returning to see more.
It turns out that the conference that Mika helped organise a month or so ago on child abductions and the Geneva Convention on Childrens something or other may have been a success. Mika said the Asahi tribune on friday reported that Japan is planning on becoming a signatory by 2010. A step forward.
In my news, the school year ends in 3 weeks and then I'm free. We'll see what I end up doing next. With the large change over of Canadian staff at the embassy some of the positions their spouses are holding will become open and I may be able to compete for those.
While the gang of people were here we had a good time catching up and hanging out. Little Catherine has reached the "Why?" stage and when she gets tired, that becomes her automatic response. They did quite a bit of travelling around Japan. Since Mika and I were working we couldn't go but we did manage to do some sightseeing. It is a whole different thing to go sightseeing with a four year old and a 10 month old. A completely different set of criteria dictate how you go about your day. You start looking for parks nearby the sites you want to see. Planning meal times more carefully etc.
We took the whole troop to one of my tea lessons and I served them tea. Which was nice for me to be able to share what I have been learning with them. On the train I was astonished, although I should know better by now, how interested the Japanese were in Catherine and John. Very cute was the remark. The Japanese like little kids to begin with and when they are foreign kid and have blond/brown hair they are especially interesting.
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In other news, it is azalea season. As I have mentioned before, flowers play a very important role in marking times of the year and changing of the seasons. At every point during the year there are flowers blooming and usually some temple or shrine or park that is heavily dedicated to that flower. More and more I can see why it becomes such a marker since each flower season the city seems to be covered in them. At cherry blossom time the whole city is carpted with the pink and white blossoms. Now I notice azeleas everywhere on streets and in corners. They are quite lucky to have all these flowers so easy to see.
Henry is the most affectionate cat I have ever seen. You can't seem to give him enough attention. We're still working on training him not to jump onto the kitchen table/counters but I think this will be a long battle. He loves being around people and getting pets. Especially if he can cozy up to you. He does have a nickname though: Mr. Whiney Pants. He meows A Lot. Here are some more pictures.
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Chris and Darcy and family are coming to visit today. I imagine with a 4 year old and a 1 year old that it will be a long trip.
Last weekend was the spring ocha-kai (spring tea session). A gathering for tea of the members of the school. Some tests take place and other tea ceremonies performed by some of the teachers. This one was a special occasion as it was also the celebration of the grand masters 10th anniversary as grand master (Iiemoto sensei). This year is also his 60th birthday party. So in light of all this we celebrated the tea ceremony at the tea house in Tokyo Dome hotel which also has a very famous restaurant from Kyoto. The food was amazing and so many courses. I took pictures. WARNING! If you are hungry or haven't eaten yet, wait or you may drool over your keyboard and that's just disgusting.
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Henry has made himself at home and is an extremely affectionate cat. He likes to be petted. He even tried to help Mika with her prison visit reports but I think it took too much out of him.
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March break is over and it doesn't seem to have tamed Them. Not too much longer to go with Them though.
As I mentioned in the last blog, the cherry blossoms are out. I have since learned that there are at least 20 different types of cherry blossoms (or trees I guess) and they bloom at different times. I learned this tidbit of info at Shinjuku Gyoen park where you pay about 200 yen to go in and they have all the different kinds of trees. I also mentioned how important, or perhaps seriously, people take viewing the photos. A week or so ago we went to Asakusa where there is a walkway lined with cherry trees. A mountain of people were enjoying the blossoms as can be seen in the pictures below. Lots of drinking and socialising. It really is quite pleasant and fun.
Since the path is buy a river there were also people piled onto tour boats and private boats cruising the water to see all the flowers too. A million cameras clicking away from the humble cell phone to the most expensive hobby camera available. Where do all those photos go every year?
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We also have a new addition to our family. Now calm down! It's not a baby. We have acquired a furr ball whose name is Henry. He has been with us for a few days now and is starting to get settled although I think the space in the house is freaking him out a bit. He has taken to the two of us though and demands many pets and this elicites lots of purrs. I am in the process of designing a cat tree so that he can scratch that instead of the carpets in the house. Here are some pictures. He is very cute.
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It's March break for me. A chance to get away from Them and try to recharge. Unfortunately for me, They have discovered my website so I have to be a little more judicious about what pictures I put up of me. They have placed them as wallpaper on school computers and who know what else They are doing to my likeness. The down side to the internet.
Since it was March break I managed to convince Mika to go on a little holiday to Guam. A US territory that is about a four hour flight from Tokyo. It's proximity makes it one of the biggest beach resort destinations for Japanese. I was practically the only non asian guy on the packed plane. All the tourist stuff on Guam and pamphelts etc. have Japanese first then English (even though the main language is English or the local language of Chamorro). The prevelance of Japanese tourists requires that everyone hired in the hospitality industry take Japanese language lessons to get some basics.
We stayed at a rather nice, smaller hotel (Castle Santa Fe) that was right next to the water. A three star hotel for a reasonable price. Unlike the Westin, Sheraton and other upscale hotels, the pool area is about 4 feet from the ocean (at high tide) and it faces West so you can watch the sunset while relaxing in the infinity pool.
The weather there is warm all the time and scorching hot at noon. Sunscreen is a must as I discovered while snorkeling. I slathered copious amounts of sunscreen on but forgot the back of my legs so they got scorched. Thank goodness for Aloe Vera gel. The snorkeling on Guam is excellent though. A number of the bays, including the main tourist bay, are wildlife preserves so there was a lot to see with no boats or fishing to interupt. We had an underwater camera but when the film was developed it was all black. Not good and quite disappointing as we saw quite a few colourful fish. Guam is also, apparently, an excellent place for scuba diving with some of the best wreck diving in the world and may other natural wonders to see underwater. So I'm told anyway.
We enjoyed the relaxing time there and touring around the small island. There isn't a lot to see in terms of architecture or cultural monuments. Most significant places are marked by plaque but there isn't much else to see despite Europeans having been there for almost 400 years. Beautiful scenery though. There are pictures up in the photo albums section for you to peruse.
When we returned on Tuesday we found that the cherry blossoms (sakura) are starting to come out in Tokyo. In another week or so all the blossoms in Tokyo will have disappeared though. They come and go so quickly. Although they bloom at different times across Japan depending on local temperatures. Thus some Japanese follow the blossoms across Japan travelling to different locations to view the trees. They really are something to see. The cherry blossom season gets a lot of attention and it is a time when the Japanese sit under the cherry blossoms all day and eat and drink with friends in what's called a Hanami party (which literally translates to a flower viewing party). The parks are going to be really crowded this weekend I think.
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Finally, the tea ceremony "sweets of the week" for your visual enjoyment. The creativity with pretty much the same ingredients is amazing. I've forgotten what they are supposed to represent. Oops.
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If I hadn't mentioned it before, Mika managed to convince an important person from the Hague Convention for Child [something, something] to come to Tokyo for a symposium. This is all in effort to convince the Japanese goverment to sign the convention and thus would lead to a variety of legal "things" that would help deal with child custody issues between countries (the big problemt being child abductions. It's a long story).
Well the symposium is this Friday and by all accounts the goverment has taken notice of the interest expressed by other countries. This is a good thing and maybe it will move the Japanese government along to a more enlightened view of child custody issues. Congratulations go to Mika. Yeah!
This also means, I hope, that I get my wife back in a week.
It's not as bad as all that but she does work hard. We still do stuff though. The last weekend that John was here we went back to Hakone to look around. We were there in the fall and there are pictures up of that. This is a resort area outside of Tokyo and things do not look nearly as green as they did last September but they look nice compared to images we have seen of Canada.
It turns out that Hakone was a checkpoint on the road into Edo; the name of the capital city before it was called Tokyo. This checkpoint, along with others, were there to control the flow of goods but more importantly to stop women from leaving Edo without permission. The women were "brought" to Edo to be wives and such and had a tendency to want to run away back home. So they put up strict rules and punishments to make sure that didn't happen. The various VIP's got to keep their wives I guess.
They have reconstructed the check point so we went to visit. It looks similar to a lot of other period buildings with tatami mats etc. but also has a nice view of Lake Hakone.
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Next door to the checkpoint was the Imperial family's summer home. Very small considering they are imperial. We learned that the Japanese half was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 192(something). The modern side is still there and is now open to the public. They had the best view of the lake and also Mount Fuji in the distance.
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It was a fairly clear day by Japan standards so we went back to the top of a nearby mountain to see Mount Fuji in the winter. I think it is a much more impressive mountain in the winter with snow on it.
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I continue to police (or is that teach) grade 8 science and it turns out that grading at this level sucks just as much as it does from the high school. Reading the same answers on labs over and over again 80 times is a bit mind numbing. March break in a week and half though.
Busy, Busy. The past week we have had a friend of mine from university visiting: John Balog. He was finishing up a holiday in Thailand so he wasn't too jet lagged. So the day after he arrived we went down to Kamakura to show him the sights and see some of the ones we had missed before. One of the shrines called Zeniarai Benten. To get there you walk down a bunch of little streets with new and old buildings. The plum blossoms are coming out now and we came across a really nice house that looked very traditional from the outside.
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You also have to climb some hills (no surprise there since Japan is essentially mountain). One residents made good use of a hollow in the mountain to make a garage.
The entrance to the shrine is through a tunnel and when you come to the other side it is like finding a secret complex. At all shrines you need to wash before going near so as to purify yourself. Here is John cleansing.
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The main shrine here though is inside a cave. After lighting some prayer candles, cleansing ourselves with smoke from incence we were ready to enter to wash our money.
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Yes, I did say wash your money. At this shrine there is a natural spring in the cave and if you wash your money in the waters it should bring you properity. A little extra cash can't hurt so why not give it a try. So I washed what I had, bills and coins.
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After we all washe our money we went off to see the giant Buddah that I have mentioned in a previous blog. It's still there and looks pretty much the same as it did before. Big. Buddah like.
Anyway, off to Hase dera (Hase temple) where you get great views of Sagami bay. That's the same bay near Enoshima island that I mentioned a few blogs ago. Kamakura and Enoshima are very close.
When you climb the steps up the mountain to get to the temple where the 12 headed wooden statue of Buddah is there is a smaller temple for the souls of unborn children. It is quite sad to look at since it is easy to see how many unborn children there were in the last year. Family's buy little statues in which they entrust the souls to be watched over. There are new ones very year and quite a few of them too. Still I guess it is comforting to the families of the children.
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You are not allowed to take pictures of the 12 headed statue and there is a long and interesting story about it and a similar one that was thrown into the ocean, but you'll have to visit us to find out about that and see the amazing statue.
Finally, there is a building which houses the Kyozo Sutra Archive. the Sutra scrolls are in a rotating bookshelf called a rinzo. Here is the great part. If you turn the rinzo one turn it is supposed to give you the same merit as reading all the sutras. Something like the Coles notes version I guess.
Yipee! No School. I have two days off for winter holidays. So I have had a chance to catch up on some chores as well as add another blog and organise photos. I've been looking at all the family and friend pictures and it's quite interesting to see how people change, physically, over the years. It also reminds me of the good friends and family we have.
In other news, Nick's dad sent us an email and I thought I would share the info he sent. The Classics Drama group at Trent University is dedicating their performance of Feb 29 of Euripedes's "Alkestis" to Nick. Nick was a member of the group while he was at Trent University and served in various roles backstage including Production Manager. I thought that was real nice of them and I thought you should know if you don't already.
Arriving at Futako-tamagawa station where I get off to go to the school I noticed the lines of people waiting to get on a different train. It is something to behold. The number of people that take the train everyday is staggering. This station represents one of hundreds in Tokyo and thousands in Japan everyday. Everyone lined up with the markings on the ground where the doors will open. Patitently waiting their turn to get onto the train. The trains become very squished indeed. Fortunately I travel in the opposite direction to most people so I don't get squished. (sorry about the quality. It's from my cell phone).
My students have discovered my webpage and my facebook profile. Not a problem I suppose except that they are 13/14 years old and defacto mean and cruel. Unfortunately they are not cruel enough to give them detentions without raising questions from parents etc. Where are the days of the Iron Maiden. Anyhow.
Friday, the 15th, as part of my duties as a middle school teacher, I had to supervise the middle school dance. Now I know it's a boys school but the girls come from the other all girls schools and it is an interesting thing to witness. Although once is probably enough. It appears that dancing has degenerated into jumping up and down with the occassional soul attempting a side shimy. As the dance began all the boys were on one side talking to each other and scarfing down food and all the girls were talking to each other and dancing. In fact the boys really didn't dance much at all. This state of affairs persisted for the better part of the dance with periodic closeness of two adventurous souls. I was getting depressed when the students spent more time trying to get me to dance with them than them asking to dance with a girl. Despite my urgings to them in this regard, the situtation did not improve. One can only hope they will do better next time.
Mika has scored a coup of sorts at work. She has managed to get someone from the Hague convention to attend a conference the Canadian embassy is hosting on child abductions. This is of concern here because Japan is not a signatory and this presents trouble (somehow, I don't know the details) in the area of Japanese national married to a foreigner. Usually a Japanese woman, becomes unstatisfied with the marriage and takes the kids back to Japan without allowing the spouse to see the kids. There is no legal recourse for the spouse in Japan. It's a long thing to explain and I don't know many of the details but the fellow from the Convention is a big wig of sorts and having him come to talk to the Japanese with other embassys present will hopefully help move Japan in the direction of signing the convention. Anyway, yeah for Mika.
Finally, I had an audience of three women at my last tea lesson who were, I think, interested in taking lessons. I was to demonstrate how a lesson works etc. That's a lot of eyes watching you learn and make mistakes. We had two sweets. The yellow one is a daffodil (egg anko inside) and the second one is a camellia in winter (the white specks are snow).
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Clearly rutabaga is not something Japanese cultivate. I found half a small one in a supermarket for about $8. Can you imagine! I guess we won't be having any of that.
Last weekend we decided to try and get away from all the buildings, noise, bells, announcements by going down to Enoshima Island, near Kamakura. It is quite a nice place that is not too hard to get to and has trees and such that present a relaxing atmosphere.
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It has the obligatory shrines and after seeing so many of them you start to appreciate the subtle differences in architecture and especially in setting. This entrance way is in a particularily nice setting.
We did find a shrine to the dragon which is unlike most shrines that we have seen. I'm not sure exactly why there is a shrine to the dragon but it looks like an underground lair compared to typical shrines.
The island offers some very picturesque views of Sagami bay. A nice reprive from the skyscrappers and concrete monoliths of our downtown neighbourhood. Particularily important now that I am teaching grade 8 boys at St.Mary's international school. What a handfull.
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There were lots of recreational fisherman on the end of the island trying to catch something. They look very serious with all the equipment; but then that is to be expected considering how the Japanese take up a hobby.
Walking around the tidal pools Mika was interested to see who was home and we discovered one pond with some sea slugs in them. I've never seen them before but it seemed to fascinate everyone including a young boy who insisted that he poke them. Turns out they are soft and squishy. Don't worry the slug survived the encounter.
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In other news, it snowed again on Sunday. Enough this time that it stuck around and made all the roads very slippery. Since they don't have equipment to deal with this in Tokyo, the roads remained slippery until Monday afternoon. Monday was a school "snow day". My first ever. The school buses apparently couldn't drive safely on the icy roads. Oh darn, no kids to teach.
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Finally two pictures of some tea sweets from our lesson last week. The first one is Kimamori which is a tree guardian. When you harvest fruit off a tree you leave one piece for the pests and birds so that they will not attack the tree but the fruit (I think that's how it works).The second one is Tsubaki which is a camelia flower.
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It snowed in Tokyo yesterday! I know you don't believe me so I took a picture.
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So I have started teaching full time at St. Mary's international school today. I'm full time until the end of the school year teaching grade 8 science (all of the kids) and one class of grade 8 math and a class of study skills. Clearly I'm still alive but some kids are a real pain already.
Not a whole lot interesting has happened here. Mika continues to be busy with passports, notaries and visiting Canadians who have managed to get thrown in prison. Last weekend we had a nice meal with the other members of the tea school. The annual welcome to the New Year. My teacher is determined to get me to the Shihan level (teacher level) by the time we leave Japan which sounds exciting.
I forgot to put up pictures of my latest project which was Mika's Christmas present. I made her a jewellry box with a carving on the lid in the style of carving that I am learning called Kamakura-bori. Actually I made most of the box in Canada and did the carving and finish work here in Japan. Here it is and there are more pictures in the photo section.
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Oh and here is a picture of another sweet from our tea lessons. It is supposed to be a bud of a flower covered in snow.
Happy New Year! We are back in Japan. We've been back a week and a half but I have been feeling so ill the last week and half from jet lag and a cold that I haven't got around to doing much of anything except substitute teaching.
Our Christmas in Geneva and Paris was fun. All the pictures are in a photo album in the photo section. It was nice to have the whole family together for Christmas for the first time in a while. Despite Geneva being cloudy for a good portion of our time there, we did manage to see the mountains before we left. The whole city looks quite different with the backdrop of the mountains. The air is better than Tokyo too.
Apart from visiting Bern we went for some walks around the city and saw many large estate looking houses. I can't believe that people can afford them in a city as expensive as Geneva. Then again there are some people with a lot of money in the world and the banks in Switzerland are a good place to keep it.
We travelled by TGV train to Paris just after Christmas. The high speed train is not so fast when you have to come out of the moutains. I think we only spent one third of the time going at high speed just near Paris. Paris, like all of Europe, was under a blanket of cloud when we arrived but we did get one sunny day in to take pictures. While everyone kind of did their own thing during the day we all met up for supper each night. Mika and I toured the various areas of the city looking at the landmarks etc. A lot of the buildings in central Paris seem to have the same architecture or late 1800's design. But what do I know about design. We even did some shopping even though places were packed with people. As bad as, or maybe even worse than, shopping in Tokyo. Paris is also not exactly a cheap city to eat in. Most lunches seem to cost about a minimum of 10 Euro a person ($15 dollars). Tokyo you can get anything good starting at about $4. I certainly don't think Tokyo is the most expensive city anymore that's for sure.
After spending several days in Paris we returned to Geneva with a day or two for us to get up into the mountains and see the view. What a view! The mountains are really beautiful when you can see them. We also managed to pick up a lot of chocolate to bring back. Very essential to bring presents back to Japan after your travel (usually food).
Mika's replacement for the Human Resources section arrived the same day we got back so now Mika can focus on just her Consul job. I hope this relieves some stress on her. Anyway the pictures are in the photo album so you can look at them there.
We're in Geneva. That's right Matthew and Sandy, Tim, my parents and Mika and I are having Christmas in Geneva. We have all arrived safe minus one piece of luggage of Matthew and Sandy. It was a long trip for us from Tokyo. 14 hours aboard a cramped Air France flight to Paris. A 3 hour wait in Paris and then a one hour flight to Geneva. We left Tokyo on Friday night at 10 p.m. and arrived in Geneva at 8 a.m. on Saturday. The hours just don't add up.
The weather here is a bit dismal. Here is a picture of Geneva, the lake, downtown and Mont Blanc. Beautiful eh.
Hopefully the fog and mist will lift sometime this week. So yesterday when we arrived we went to an outdoor market which had a sorts of food you either cannot buy in Japan or have to mortgage your house to buy. So many different cheeses and deli meats and bread. Lots of drooling by yours truely. I will feast while I'm here.
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My first impression of the parts of Geneva I have seen is that it is stuck in the 60's. All the apartment buildings in the area all look alike and are quite dismal looking. But I am told that they are very expensive because they are in town. Apparently there are nice buildings around but I have yet to see them.
Today we drove to Bern which is about a 2 hour drive away. Lots of fog and mist continues but we did finally get some clear air when we reached Bern. The town looks like it does in movies. Long cobblestone streets with a lot of shops and a lot of people.
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The was a wonderful gothic church in town that we went inside. The organist was practicing for something. Probably Christmas. We also climbed the steeple to have a look over the town.
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Of course there was chocolate and I had to buy some and try it. We hope to go to another special chocolate store tomorrow.
I'll have more pictures of these two days up in an album after we get back. After Christmas we are off to Paris for a few days so I may have another update after that before we return to Japan. Then I can give you all the pictures. Merry Christmas!
| Page last updated: July 23, 2008 |