spring break

I spent a little over a week in the Kansai region for Spring Break. Most people take the bullet train when they go from the Kanto ( Tokyo) region to the Kansai (Osaka) region. Some people fly, and some people take buses. Very few people take the local train all the way there, but I did just that. Every spring, JR (Japan Railways) sells something called the "Seishun 18 Kippu," which allows you to ride JR trains as much as you want on five separate days during a specified time period. The days do not have to be consecutive. This year the pass was even cheaper than usual – only 8000 yen – and I had time to kill, so I gave it a try. It took about eleven hours and seven transfers to get from my apartment to Osaka Station. I like riding trains and I don't mind traveling for long periods of time, but the scenery wasn't much, and I was exhausted and useless both upon arrival and when I returned. I don't regret the experience, but next time I'm taking the overnight bus. It's almost as cheap.

So. Kansai. I arrived on a Saturday night and my friend Joe met me at Hep 5 (a huge shopping center and amusement parlor topped by a big red ferris wheel) and kindly hauled my suitcase back to his apartment, where he even more kindly let me stay for most of a week. On Sunday I had lunch with my friend Miyuki, who I hadn't seen in five years. We had okonomiyaki and wandered around Umeda. I first met her when I was on the overseas program at Kansai Gaidai in 2001, and then stayed with her family in Mie Prefecture and with her in Osaka when I was in Japan doing research for my senior thesis in 2002. It was good to see her again.

Me & Miyuki:




I spent Tuesday through Thursday with my host family, which was nice. My host sister (Kanako) got married just after I left in 2001, and she has two kids now. The oldest, Kotoha, just turned four. She's really, really, cute:



And here is Kazuha, who was born in November:



My host family's older daughter, Yukie (who is I guess technically my host sister, but she lived in the States when I lived in Japan), was also in Japan visiting with her Taiwanese husband Yushan and their baby boy, Elvin:



Needless to say, it was hard to do much going out with the munchkins around. That was actually nice, though -- it was cool to just hang around the house with them and do family stuff for awhile. Hopefully I'll get to do it again in a few months. I didn't take any photos of the adults, but here are a couple shots from a quick trip to Tofuku-ji in Kyoto:






A good chunk of Spring Break was spent walking, walking, walking with Joe.

We walked around Shinsaibashi/Dotonbori. Here's the famous Glico man:



And one of the famous crabs:



We walked all over Ikeda, hiked through a park, and saw the ruins of a castle destroyed by Nobunaga:



We explored Joe's neighborhood without our cameras.

We went to the aquarium (kaiyukan):





I figure all that walking may have justified gorging ourselves on all-you-can-eat sushi. Between the two of us we had fifty-four plates. The couple behind us did a triple take as we walked out in slow motion. Here's my stack:




On Friday Joe and I met up with our friend Trane and spent hours taking photos at what is probably my favorite place in Japan – Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto:






Then on Saturday, my last night in Osaka, I caught up with my friend Erik for the first time since graduation. We had both the same major (East Asian Studies) and minor (Japanese Language & Literature), so we had a ton of classes together. He currently runs a website about the party scene in Osaka, so when he invited me to the club he was bartending at, I couldn't refuse. My trip ended perfectly – with seven hours of dancing. Here's a party light at the club:




In sum, it was a great trip and I took way too many photos. You can see the rest of them here.

fifteen seconds

a photo i took on the rafting trip i did last summer was used in the oregon environmental council's cleaner rivers report! you can check out the report here.

here's the photo:



yay!

cherry blossoms and changes

a good friend of mine from michigan once told me that the first time he visited portland (which was during spring preview week at reed college) he felt like he'd stepped into a doctor seuss book -- there were fluffy pink trees everywhere! apparently they don't have those in michigan. anyhow, now i know how he felt, because there are cherry blossoms everywhere you look! if only they'd stick around a little longer -- but i suppose some of the magic would be lost if it weren't so short-lived. thankfully the warmer temperatures are here to stay for awhile. i've had enough of wearing long johns, thick socks, and four shirts every day.

in addition to the weather, there are a few other changes underfoot:

the board of education announced what school i am going to next. as i expected, they are sending me to the school that is farthest away. i'm a little disappointed that biking to school is not really going to be an option for me anymore, because i enjoy (and, er, need) the exercise. still, i understand this placement is best for everyone -- the other ALTs don't have cars, and would either have to bike an unreasonably long distance (about 10 km each way on dangerous roads) to and from work or spend a lot of time (about an hour a day) walking to and from train stations.

the closing ceremony at my old school was on march 23rd. i gave a speech in english and japanese, but i was crying so much by the end of it that i'm a little unsure how coherent the japanese was. the most intense part of the speech for me was telling everyone that i never planned to be a teacher, and i was really pretty petrified when i started this job. thanks to the teachers i worked with, i became a lot more comfortable with teaching and essentially was able to do something i wasn't sure i could do. one teacher in particular was incredibly helpful and inspiring. goodbyes are tough.

i'm starting classes at the new school on thursday. i'm a little worried out about the stress of beginning all over again, but ultimately i think a fresh start will be nice -- and this time i'll have a much better idea of what i'm doing.

another change this semester involves the adult english class i teach at the community center. instead of teaching half of the beginner classes, i will be teaching all of the intermediate classes. on the plus side: i should be able to have some pretty interesting conversations with this class, and going every week means i'll get to know them pretty well. on the minus side: my schedule is getting increasingly busier and busier, and i'm going to miss my old students.


i went to the driver's license center today. i'm going back tomorrow. i'll tell you more about the process when it's finished. also stayed tuned for school photos and a spring break recap!