Valentine's and White Day

On February 14th, women give men chocolate in Japan.

On March 14th, we have White Day, where men give women chocolate.  The chocolate given has to be more expensive and greater in quantity than that which the woman gave the man.

I went to Nagoya with a friend on the Thursday before Valentine's Day and they had this huge chocolate selling thing happening.  Different chocolate companies from around the world had booths set up and were selling chocolate for outrageous prices!  They were also giving out samples.  I didn't buy anything, but I did sample.  The place was packed with women! I had been silly and brought my backpack that day and I felt like a turtle with a shell that kept bumping into people.  Walking through there was like swimming against the current there were people trying to go every which way.

After February 14th, the stores seamlessly changed their Valentine's chocolate to White Day chocolate.

  

A Visitor from Canada

Last Thursday, the 19th, Adam's dad came to visit us in Tarui. It was really great for us to see Japan again like everything is new and different through his dad's eyes.  Now that we've been here six months, we've kind of gotten used to Japan and we've forgotten how at first everything was so striking and different to us.

We had the weekend to travel around with Adam's dad.  Adam and I really haven't traveled much this since November, so it was nice for us to get out.  On Saturday, we headed for Hikone and looked around the castle and castle gardens.  Adam and I had been there in the fall, but it was nice to see it in the winter with the view of the snow capped mountain range behind lake Biwa.  The garden hasn't come back to life yet, but we still enjoyed a picnic sitting in the sun.

Hikone Castle

Snow capped mountain range.

Hikone town mascot.

At the castle gardens

 After lunch, we went to Nagahama where there was a bonsai potted plum tree festival/exhibition.  I had heard about this festival the first time we went to Nagahama and was wanting to see it.  The festival seems like an art exhibition.  There's blooming plum trees in two rooms.  The trees are really old too, we saw two that were 400 years old and others ranging from babies to 100, 150, 250 years old!  I found it really amazing how some of these trees seem to only be growing from a piece of bark too.

This tree was 400 years old.

Lots of people bustling around.

Some of the baby bonsai trees.

The garden outside the exhibition.

 After the festival, we were on our way to look at some shops and passed a micro-brewery, so we all had a beer. Who knew Nagahama brewed it's own beer?

The view from our table at the micro-brewery.

Buying some battered deep fried fish.

 On Sunday, we went to Nagashima to Nabanano Sato.  Normally Nabanano Sato is a flower garden, but during the winter they put up Christmas lights throughout the park.  We got there early and had time to walk through the gardens.  I could tell in a few weeks that place will be bursting with flowers.  I could see hundreds of tulips and daffodils poking their heads out of the earth.  The plum trees have a few blossoms with buds getting ready to open.  The park was nice and has pansies growing outside for the winter.  They also had two large greenhouses with flowers blooming which was really amazing.  I couldn't help thinking about how much my granny would love to be here with me.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Pansies growing outside.

These begonias were huge!

A room full of fuchsias

Check out this giant trailing petunia!  It's like a tree hanging from the ceiling.

Have you ever seen this before?  We sure hadn't.

Yes, we're sitting on a heart shaped bench.:)

This is just beautiful!

Back to the outdoors with a drizzle and only a few plum blossoms.

 We ate supper at the park which has many little buildings with restaurants around and when we were finished they had turned on the Christmas lights.  The lights were beautiful!  The main exhibition this year was Niagara Falls (last year was Mount Fuji), I didn't actually find that part very impressive, but I really enjoyed the rest.

A tunnel of lights.

Niagara Falls

Another tunnel, this time with green lights.

I hope you aren't all tired of looking at pictures of flowers now.  Believe it or not, I didn't post all the ones that I have. :P

In other news, I bought my first article of clothing in Japan, it's a sweater and it's a large.  I don't think my body shape has changed since we got married which is probably the last time many of you saw me.  From what I saw, the sizes just get bigger in terms of length and not as much in terms of width.  I thought it was pretty funny though, since all my other sweaters are "small".

Cold Schools and Fancy Meal

February 15, 2015

Let me begin by saying that Canadians are wimps about the cold (I know that’s a gross generalization).  I say this because we act like we’re all tough because we live in Canada and it can get down to -40 and we walk to school uphill both ways through a blizzard.  Of course, the only part of that that’s true is the -40 and we usually stay inside.  In Canada, I only occasionally wear long johns and I never wear thermal shirts.  Here in Japan, I’m wearing both every day.   As I mentioned before, they don’t have central heating in their homes or in the schools.  The schools are really what I want to talk about.  If the weather is 10 or higher the schools don’t put on the heat.  When I went to the elementary schools, I was freezing.  Being outside in the sun and riding my bike was fine.  Inside the schools, they leave the windows open to let in some fresh freezing cold air drafts.  I think they go by the idea that fresh air is good to fight against germs.  The teacher I was with, thankfully, would use the heaters during class, but then during recess turned them off and opened the windows.  Perhaps recognizing the puzzled look on my face, she explained, “We have to open the windows during recess because of the flu.”  Out with the germs, in with the cold, I guess.

Many of the heaters in the schools are broken and when the work, they aren’t able to heat up the classrooms all that well.  I found myself always standing in the sun or by the heater in the classroom when I wasn’t needed.  I definitely understood why Adam wears so many layers to school.  Essentially, the temperature inside is the temperature outside except colder because there’s no sun.  The kids don’t have to put on jackets to go outside, they just change their shoes.  I also haven’t seen anyone wear toques here.  So, Adam and I have decided that it’s really the Japanese who are tough about the cold.  I heard in Hokkaido, which is the northern part of Japan, that people use fridges to keep their vegetables from freezing inside their homes.  I’ve been using part of our home that we don’t heat as a fridge lately.

The second thing I would like to talk about is one of the fanciest meals I’ve ever eaten.  Last night, my boss invited Adam and I, along with the other two teachers of the school out for dinner.  We went to an Italian restaurant here in Tarui.  I guess there was a man in Tarui who owned some business, but the business went under and now the house he built was turned into this Italian restaurant.  It’s really beautiful with a garden around the house.

Garden view from the restaurant

 When we first got to the restaurant, someone took our coats and we sat in a waiting room until everyone arrived.  We were then led into a private room.  I won’t bother describing it, as Adam took some pictures.  We had a multiple course meal.  When they brought in each course they would explain what we were eating.  My co-workers would then explain in English what the food was.  It wasn’t what I would have expected in terms of Italian food, but it was oishii (delicious).

Appetizer

A dumpling type thing stuffed with cod, asparagus, and fiddle heads.

Clam pasta dish

Veal wrapped in cabbage.  Probably the most beef I've had in a while.

Dessert

School Visits

I’ve been much busier than usual the past couple weeks with going into the elementary schools to teach in the mornings.  Starting last week on Tuesday, I went to a different elementary school each day for seven days.  I got to visit all the elementary schools in Tarui which was a really cool experience. 

I first went to Aihara Elementary School.  I actually had to take a taxi there since it was “too” far to bike.  (I could have done it, but it probably would have taken 45 minutes.)  When I arrived, I had tea with the principal before going up into class.  This school only has sixty students, so they combined a few classes for my visit. 

At the beginning of each class, the English leader comes to the front of the class and says, “Let’s start English time!” which everyone repeats.  They then get everyone to stand up, ask the teachers how they are today, and finally sing a song.  The English leader will come to the front during different points in the lesson to introduce the next part.  This is adjusted to age level.  Adam has told me that in junior high school the students often will be starting the class or group study without the teacher in the room.  I’m thinking it’s because they teach them in elementary to be the leaders in the class. 

I appreciated their seating arrangement organization as well.  In the classes, all the desks are in rows facing the front.  When they transition into a new classroom, even one without desks, they all line up in their rows.  The person at the front of the row stands with their hand in the air until their whole group is there standing straight and quietly.  At that point, the person in the front will sit down and the whole group will follow.  It’s really cute to watch and a pretty efficient system.

The homeroom teacher is also in the room and the lesson is more team-taught than anything.  I really enjoyed getting to watch all the teachers and see their different styles of teaching.  One male teacher just went up to the front of the class and all the kids got quiet.  Another one was super exuberant and I really appreciated how into the actions of the song he was. 

After the song, I had about 10 minutes to talk about a topic.  The topics included: Christmas and my trip to Ishigaki Island, my daily routine, sports in Canada, Canadian festivals, elementary school in Canada, insects in Canada, and my dream.  While classrooms don’t have smartboards or projectors, the English teacher had a smart board to use in each school.  I made up powerpoints for my topics so that the kids could try and understand what I was talking about by looking at the pictures.  I also had the teacher translating for me.  One interesting thing that I was reflecting on was that I got to talk to the kids about Christmas and Easter as religious holidays.  When I was in France, I was told that I couldn’t let the crucifix that I wear show.  That’s in a country with a pretty strong Christian background.  In Japan, I went ahead and told all the kids that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because it’s Jesus’ birthday.  When talking about Easter, I told them how I go to church three days in a row (which is crazy for them since they maybe go to a temple once a year) to celebrate how Jesus died and rose again.  Now, I don’t know how much they got out of this, since many of them had never heard of Jesus or knew that Christmas was a religious holiday.  I don’t know if they had heard of Easter, but I know the English teacher didn’t know it was a religious holiday.  Also since all of this was being translated, I’m even less sure of what they heard.  I hope at least it’s a small introduction to Christianity, if not for the students, then for the teachers.  

After my ten minutes of fame, we would have some kind of activity or game to play.  For the little ones, we played a traditional Japanese game called Fukuwarai.  I taught the children the words, “eye”, “nose”, “mouth”, “up”, and “down”.  Then one partner covers their eyes while the other one hands them a paper copy of an eye and then tells them “up” or “down”.  Once all the face parts are placed, they open their eyes, and roll on the ground laughing.  I had to appreciate how something so simple can be so hilarious every time for six year olds. 

For the older kids many of the activities involved interview games.  They would learn a question like, “What subject do you like?” or “What time do you get up?” and then go around asking each other this question.  I really enjoyed this format as I got to interact with the kids in a way that they could understand me and I could understand them. 

At the end of each class, they do a “Today’s Treasure.”  This involves students standing up (they always stand up to respond to questions) and giving a mini speech on what they learned or liked during the class.  (Note: This is what I think it was, I actually could only understand the words Janelle-sensei when it came up occasionally.)  Then, I would give them some affirmations about what they did well that day which was then translated by the English teacher.  At the end, I gave out stickers to the kids.

Most of the students and teachers are wearing masks these days either because they are sick or they don’t want to get sick.  One class I was supposed to have got cancelled because of the flu, apparently 11 kids were absent, so fourth grade was closed.  I’m not sure why we couldn’t have done the lesson for the remaining 20 students.  The language barrier kept me from asking that question.

I got to see some of my students from ALS at their respective schools.  It was fun watching their surprise to see me out of the usual ALS environment.  I also got lots of stares in the hallways of the schools.  In general, I’ve either stopped being stared at or I’ve just gotten used to it, but these kids got wide-eyed looking at me.  That being said, I was in one class where there were a couple Portuguese students and another with some Middle Eastern students.  Of course though, I’m not even used to seeing white people, so I don’t blame them for staring.

Before leaving the school, I would always have to say good bye to the principal.  Which I didn’t realize the first day, until I was stopped from leaving the school.  At every school, I had to greet the principal and often the vice principal when I got there and when I left.  I got my fair share of bowing in that’s for sure!  At the second school, I went to, I was greeted even more courteously than at the others.  They had a sign that welcomed me to the school.  I didn’t realize this at first since the only thing in English on it was “Welcome to Fuchu School” my name was in katakana.  Once the vice principal came out to greet me and read my name off of it, I realized it was for me.  I was ushered into the office and served green tea.  I enjoyed trying to communicate with the administrators between the English they knew and the little Japanese that I know.  At recess, I had tea with the principal and had tea once more before I left. 

It was good for me to go into all these schools and see a little more of Japanese culture in the school environment.  All the schools except one had school uniforms.  While giving my presentations, I got to share about Canada, but I also got to ask the kids a bunch of questions about Japan and compare the similarities and differences.  Overall, I think it was not only good for the kids to meet a native English speaker, but for me to meet them too.

I apologize for the lack of pictures.  I didn't take any, but in every school they had a designated photographer who took pictures of this "special event".  I asked the English teacher what they were going to do with the pictures and she said they'll be in the school newsletters.  She also informed me that I will now be more famous than Adam in Tarui since I've gone to all the elementary schools.  I was kind of liking my lack of popularity to be honest.  :P

    

Kerosene Heater

To all my faithful blog readers: today, I have a story for you.  This particular story involves Adam, a kerosene heater, and myself.

When we first arrived in Japan, the weather was warm.  The weather was too warm in fact, it was scorching.  Logically, we weren't too concerned about the winter months and how cold it would become.  Before we knew it, winter came along and we decided to pull out the 10 year old kerosene heater and see if it still worked.  Many of the former AETs didn't use the heater having heard that you need to keep a window open because of the CO that is produced when the kerosene is burned.  Leaving a window open, just seemed like it would defeat the purpose.

Well, Adam and I weren't going to be deterred by some deadly CO gas and we got to work.  We bought a CO detector (off amazon of course) and kerosene.  Then on a warmer day where we could keep the windows open, we started 'er up.  A puff of dust came shooting out of the heater and a terrible smell.

We got back to work.  We researched how to maintain a kerosene heater and found out that you're supposed to replace the wick inside the heater every year.  Well, our heater was ten years old and we were sure that it had never been replaced, we figured that if we replaced the wick that would help with the smell.  We watched youtube videos of how to replace the wick.  Then, came the job of trying to purchase a wick.

I took pictures of the kanji for wick.  I took pictures of our kerosene heater and I went to two stores in town to ask if they sold them.  I really have no idea what happened at the first store- eventually with some "Arigatou gozaimasu" I managed to leave the two store personnel who were speaking to me.  At the second store the guy seemed to communicate to me that I didn't have the proper information about the kerosene heater by pointing to the make and model number on other heaters in the store.

That evening, I asked my boss where they usually get wicks for their kerosene heater (my boss kindly arranges to have kerosene delivered to our house whenever we need it).  They called a store in Ogaki and got the price for me and told me that I need to know the make and model to get the proper wick.

That night, I tried looking on amazon and online for what kind of wick our heater used.  I found a pdf manual for our heater and everything.  

The next day, I went back to the same store in Tarui with more pictures of kerosene wicks and with the make and model of our heater.  I went up to the same guy who probably wished he had looked busy.  I said my "sumimasen" (ie. excuse me) and then showed him my pictures.  He left me for a moment and came back with a flyer that showed some kerosene heater parts.  He seemed to be saying that they have wicks for this other brand of heater, but not for ours.  I was defeated.

I came back home and then it dawned on me, maybe the reason that no where sells wicks for this heater is because it actually doesn't have a wick.

I go back on the computer to verify if my hypothesis is correct and sure enough, not all kerosene heaters use wicks (at least, I hope so).  It all made sense.

In the midst of all this researching about wicks, I had also learned how to properly maintain a kerosene heater.  One of the things you need to do is clean the "oil" filter by running clean kerosene through it, or you might have to buy a new one.  This filter was actually one of the parts that it looked like they sold for our heater.  So I get my rubber gloves on and go and pull out this filter and clean all the hair and dust out of it.  I still can't get the kerosene to run through it that well though, so Adam decides to get a new filter.  At this point, I don't want to go back to the same store and "ask" about filters. So Adam takes the kerosene soaked filter in a plastic bag and goes off to the store.  I guess he tried to show it to a guy, who probably wasn't too interested in something dripping with kerosene.  He came home and ordered a filter on amazon.

The amazon guy comes a couple days later and we're all excited to finally use our heater.  Unfortunately, the filter was the wrong size.

In the end, we ended up taking off the front panel of the heater and vacuuming out ten years of dust (which is also when Adam confirmed that in fact there was no wick- probably should have done this first and would have saved us a good couple weeks of struggling).  We've been using the old filter and while it still does make a stink, we just leave the windows open.  The heater really does work really well and it can heat up our whole house fairly quickly.

That my friends, is the story of our kerosene heater and how difficult it can be to get information in a country where you don't speak the language.