Hideki!

So I got a kitty!!

I named him Hideki (from Chobits), male, 7-8 months old.
He's a crazy little acrobat who loves to jump all over the place including my shoulder.
He loves all the attention he can get and tries to give me kisses -_- it's cute i know but i don't want animals kissing my face.

I got him off a fellow JET whose friend found under a bridge abandon with the rest of the litter. In the long run he ended up with 2 kittens, which was too much for his tiny one bedroom apartment.
After posting a help post in our local Gunma forum i offered to give a new home to this little kitty and i plan on taking him home with me when my time is up. (I've already looked into it...it's not that hard to bring cats into California, but i have to do a lot before i leave from Japan)

He now has the run of my living room/kitchen.
oh and he loves to sleep with me, either next to my face or curled underneath the covers with me. ^_^

Comments

so this is my response to all your comments about the car

yes i know it's tiny and box shape
i wanted a tiny box car and that is what i got ^^

it seems small but it fits four people comfortably even thou i have yet to sit in the back but so far those who have sat back there had made no complaints...one even fell asleep.

those of you who have been or are planning on visiting Japan, do and/or will understand why cars are made to be small.

the roads here are small, especially those that goes off into small neighborhoods, like mine. the walls of houses are only inches away from my car as i drive up the road to my house.

and up here in the mountains the roads seem to get smaller. at first glance they look like big one way roads... in reality it's a two lane road that sometimes barely fit two cars let alone a big truck and a small car like mine...those situations start my heart pumping.

then there are times where people decide to stop on these small road to run into a store and some cars take turns to go while others don't want to wait and pass each other with just a inch of space between them. ( i have only been in a car while this happened, it hasn't happened to me...and hopefully it won't)

the small tires make sense...it adds to the cuteness of the car ^^
and the fact that it is a small car, why would u put normal size tires on them, plus my car is a kei car (yellow plate car) which means the engine is no larger than 660 cc (more info if you want it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car)

i don't remember how high the gauge can go in the car to tell me the kph but most road signs are posted to go 40 kph to 60 kph ... in other words 24 mph- 37 mph.

i have yet to drive on the express way (not FREEways) so i don't know if there is a speed limit for that or what it is. one day I'll be brave to actually drive on one of those....but i don't want to pay the toll. it would just be easier and cheaper to drive to the station and take a train.

Additions

So I added a new link, it goes to the pictures i have taken in the middle of fall.
oh the pretty colors ^_^
the ting of amber painting the mountain sides

now the trees are starting to get naked but it was pretty to see the leaves dance to the ground as they die.

Car

So I finally got my car last week and i've been able to drive it since last Wednesday even thou i haven't technically paid for it yet...i'm going to to do that today.

Isn't it nice of them to let me drive a car that i haven't put a cent to yet ^^

It's not as hard as it may seem to drive on the wrong side of the road. I think it was easy for me since i've been a passenger in Rebecca's car for 2 months now.

What I found a little hard was adjusting to the fact that i was sitting on the wrong side and that things in the car are on the opposite side. I'm so used to have certain things that i can do with my left hand, like turning on the turn signals, if i do that now, it turns on the windshieldwipers.
The other thing is that i'm used to having the drive shift handle on the right and i keep reaching for it while i'm in car, but the stupid thing is on my left. And i can't control the radio as easy since that's also on my left.

Other than that, the car is normal.

oh yeah, the kinda car i got is a Daihatsu-MOVE, which is a small cube, yellow plate car. Just like i wanted ^_^
Yellow plate means it has a smaller engine than normal cars so everything about is economical.
and the color of the car is silver. and even thou it is a small car, the inside feels almost like a van, a really, really small van. so Edmund will have to problem fitting in it with all the baggage n stuff.

STRANGER ALERT!

So today they told me that we were only going to have 10 minutes for class for the 3rd years for a Stranger Drill.

stranger drill? Stranger drill?

I thought i heard Takamitsu wrong but he explained to me that they were going to have some one to be a stranger to sneak into the school and pretend to attack them.

?!?!?!?

It is like a practice drill for earthquake and such, except if a stranger comes onto school grounds and tries to kill us. so we were doing an escape route and everything.

The so called stranger was a worker from the Board of Education and he came here with a cop. we were to conduct classes like normal but 10 min into class a "stranger" is to lurk into the school. We were playing an English game when we heard noise down the hall of the "stranger" checking other class rooms. so they quickly locked the doors and windows. then some of the 1st year students came running from the balcony trying to get into class, after we let them in the "stranger" came banging on the door trying to get in. he had sunglasses, a mask and a "knife"

After he left Takamitsu opened the door (dumb) to make sure he was gone so we can try to escape and he called the 'cops'. In the mean time, the stranger came back but they tried to stop him from coming in to give the students a chance to escape thru the balcony which leads to other class room, while some of the other kids went thru the other door (i was trying to get some of the kids to escape thru the other door instead of all rushing to go thru one) There was a little struggle of the stranger trying to get to the kids.

By that point all the kids escaped from the room and were making there way out of the building. At that point some of the male teachers had these long pole that's used to keep strangers from harming others, so in other words to pin him down and keep him at a distance.

After all this was done I asked if this type of thing was common now. Takamitsu said he didn't know (in other words, he didn't understand my question).

I asked Shigeko, my supervisor, and she said that it has in thin time in age and that it was regulated to have "Stranger Drills" in school about 2 years ago.

Well this is the first time i heard of it and i kinda had fun watching it all go down ^^
I wish i could have recorded it.

Culture Festival

So this weekend we had the Culture Festival aka School Festival, it's basically like open house back in the States except the kids put on a show as well.

Usually the school have a competition between each of the classes and clubs. But since there are a few clubs and only 3 classes, they didn't. Each class did a performance, the 1st year formed a band; the 2nd year made a skit involving their class, their homeroom teacher and a camping trip; and the 3rd year did a skit about their Australian trip.

They still had a competition, a singing competition which the teachers had to evaluate and judge which class sang better, harmony, etc. and which was the best conductor and pianist. That was fun to do ^^

The students who were in clubs and wanted to put on a performance did...that was three out of eight. The music club, which is the school band that's made up of 4 saxophonist; the English club made up of 3 students and put on a music video we made of 'Girlfriend'; and a guitar club which was 3 students playing the acoustic guitar and a pianist. They were all good and i didn't even know there was a guitar club.

And then we teachers also performed, we sang in a choir. It was a nice Japanese love song written and popular like in the late '70s. They made red bow ties out of paper for all of us to wear, which was cute and funny ^_^
A few of the students were shocked that we were going to sing (i think it's partly cuz the gaijin was singing in Japanese as well)

The students also had all the work they have done so far in the school year ex: from wood shop, home ec, and their art work from the fall art competition.

The whole day went well and i had fun... even thou i couldn't understand the play or the speeches that were made.

Update

There has been an update on my Photobucket with more pics and short films of me, Gabby, and Thien while visiting Tokyo ^^

I will add more of whats happening in Kanna soon

Enjoy

THEY'RE EVERYWHERE

Ok so one thing that since I've been here in Japan is that there are owls EVERYWHERE. And I don't mean the actual bird, i haven't seen any of those. What i mean is that they're all over place in shops! From the 100yen shops to the Tokyo National Museum store. Practically every shop that you go into you are more likely to find something in the shape of an owl.

So instead of just wondering why the hell they are everywhere i decided to ask Takamitsu. His response "wakarinai"...meaning 'i don't know'

Well i finally got an answer when we took a Shugakko staff trip to Izu. Again i noticed that they were everywhere from key chains to cute purses. This time I asked the nurse from the school since she was standing next to me. She said "in Japan owls bring goodness." So i finally had an answer to why they're all over the place like the Welcoming Cat of Japan. When i told Takamitsu he was, "ah yes, of course, that's the reason, they bring people good luck (kinda)."

So now i know why they are everywhere.


By the way, i ended up buying a hanging bell charm thing with several owls that i found while in Izu. Couldn't help myself, they're cute ^_^

Sports Festival

So this Sunday was the Sports Festival for Kanna-machi, Monday is the offical holiday. YAY! My first sports day ^_^. I've been seeing the elementary kids getting all the preperation ready since it was going to be held at their school. I've seen both the elementary and junior high kids practice like crazy for the competetion they werwe going to participate in.

When last week finally rolled around I was handed schedule for the day, what event was going to happen when, which students were helping out with the races and what they were going to do, and what races the teacher were going to participate in. As I was looking things over the last list caught my eye since the only word I could understand in it was Allie written in Katakana...WHAT!! ^0^ I look over to see what I was doing and my name was under the... i don't know since most of the stuff they gave me is in Kanji!

So I asked Takamitsu, the English teacher that I work with, what i was suppose to be doing for the sports day. He was "oh, your going to be doing the pan rellay." and left it at that...he's not good at explaining things. Well i thought yay, i get to do the pan relay...i kinda wanted to do that.

I was able to get more information out of the teacher i sit next to at the elelmentary school since she used to be an English teacher. I was going to do a three legged race with some student's parent and she pointed it out on the schedule.

The actual day was long with it starting at 830 and finishing at 4 pm. I was also going to attened an enkai(a drinking party) 530 for the new teacher and it was kinda for me as well. So it was a nice and sunny day which later turned to a hot day, it was about 80 degrees that day. Anywho the schools have three teams each, red, blue, and yellow.

This is how the day passed:
30 min- opening ceremony
10 min -a weird stretching routine that the whole town knows how to do, seriously (i got that filmed and will be posted in my photobucket)

it was then...elementary race, elderly people playing a "throw the birdie into a basket thing", elementary dance, elementary race, kindergardent dance and then race, elementary race involving rolling a big paper machi looking ball with the team matching the ball color.

Elderly people playing croket, kindergardenters game thing:split into two teams, one wearing a red hat, the other with a white hat, siting on ther parents shoulder trying to get their classmastes hats off (this was really cute espcially with the song they were playing along with it)^_^

It was then the jr high relay race with the winning team already predicted since no matter what during practice always ending with the same results. A weird group game, consisting of some students, adults and some elderly people. It continued like this for the whole day.

Then my event came up, didn't know who i was paired up with. they explained what was going to happen but it was all in Japanese but Takamitsu didn't explain any of it to me -_-
well, i got the idea of what was happening when we actually started. well we got second ^^ woo-hoo!

All in all it was a nice day and it counted as if we went to work...i didn't know that so i got up tuesday thinking i had to go to school but no one was at the bus stop. since sunday was a day of work we got tuesday off... no one told me this -_-

oh well it was another day off.

Photobucket

So i've also updated my photobucket. If you people want to see some more pics and a few videos of my little vacation just go to the link under My Photos on the side --->
or go to the bottom of the page .

enjoy ^^

Little vacation

We had a nice three day weekend so instead of just going into the city and shopping me and Rebecca went to Niijima Island ^_^
A three day camping trip on a nice little island off of Tokyo bay...with a 8 hr ferry ride sleeping on a deck.-_-
It was nice, people having little picnic parties, i brought vodka, some one else had juice, some had snacks. We meet some nice Japanese people on this trip who were really kind and helpful throughout the whole trip.

We played on the beach, got sunburned. Went snorkeling(another FIRST) the next day, i burnt my back. oh good burning times ^^ the onsen was beautiful and the water felt great both at the beach and in the onsen. We were able to meet a lot of great people from around the world (the group that we went on the trip with is called "Tokyo Gaijins") but don't know if we'll ever see them again.

I had fun during the trip but at the same time i didn't enjoy the whole experience.
I was eaten alive by mosquito, they just loved me. We had a cramp small tent, my ass was hurting from the bike we had to ride around in for the three days ( i haven't ridden a bike for like more than 5 yrs). My bag was heavy and had to put the straps on my burnt shoulders which made them a nice raw skin color.
other than that i had fun and would luv to go snorkeling again and hiking....just stay in a cabin or even hotel next time.
Well here's some pics of the island.

first week of class

So my first day at school i gave my self-introductory,one to the office staff and then in front of the students. after that i did nothing all day. ok thats a lie, i looked thru all the stuff that was on my desk.

After that i've been a human tape recorder ^_^ YAY!....-_- this makes the first half of the class kinda boring. in the last 10 minuets of class we get to sing a song. if i know the song the teacher has me first do a run thru of the songs words and then makes me sing them with them repeating after me. after that we sing the song along with he music. thats like the best time of the class.

other than that i'm sometimes asked to play a game with the students to go along with the lesson plan. now those can get out of hand once the kids get a hand of it especially if it's getting them out of there seats.

this is all with just the jr high kids.

now with the elementary school, the head teacher tells me what he wants me to teach the kids for the week and i have to make up a lesson plan for that. so far this has consisted of greetings, flash cards of the lesson and then a game to follow that. I love going to the elementary school since they're more energetic play also they're so freakin cute you just want to hug them ^^

Typhoon

ok so I was going to talk about my first week teaching but not anymore.

I am currently at the tip of a typhoon YAY :D
I'm so lucky, my first big storm.
This year will have a lot of first times for me ^^

The storm will really hit us (Gunma prefecture) around 9am tomorrow but we won't be under the eye of the storm. There really hasn't been any big announcements... well there has been announcements i just can't understand them. The last one they made is about the tv going out, but thats ok I got the good old internet to entertain me ^_^

So I got let out of school early since I don't have a car and have to take the school bus home (yes i take the bus with most of the students so I get to go home earlier than the other teachers^^) all due to the storm, even though it wasn't that bad yet.

I got back to my part of the town, so I decided to go to the bank just so i have some cash on me (this is a cash based society, not much for cards here) and to one of the local stores. I bought a few things and a pair of rain boots and i'm kinda glad i did now. While i was in the store the clerk took out the town hall's type of monthly paper which had a picture of me and a introduction( i've been doing A LOT of these) that i wrote when i first got here. She kept pointing at it and trying to talk to me. The only thing I understood was how this is my second time here in Japan. As i started walking home, thats when started pouring, a few minutes after i got into the house it REALLY started raining hard.

A couple of hours after I got home the English teacher that i team teach with called me to inform me that there would be no school tomorrow. YES my first time staying home from school because of the weather!

So yes a big storm is a comin'...kinda here already cuz it's getting hella loud out there. the wind is REALLY picking up and it's starting to rain a lot harder now. Tomorrow will be a lot worse thats for sure.

I'll talk about my first week in school once I get the pictures downloaded from my camera.

oh, the power just went out for a bit, kinda used to that back home ^^
good thing i had a candle burning just in case it did.
i wasn't that upset about the light, i was upset cuz i had no more internet :(
But it's ok now, we got POWER hahahahaha, i'm going to get ready for bed now...or make some somores ^_^

Ja nee.

here are before and after pics of the river in my town

Meeting people

Ok so before i left from the states they kept saying at the orientation that we should join a club here while in Japan so that way we get to meet natives. So yesterday I decided to go to the badminton club that meets every Monday nights. I go and there are only 5 people there, 3 guys and two women. None of them speak English, Miko, the aunt like figure there, can say a few English words and me who can only understand a few words. Next thing i know one of the younger guys left to get the English teacher at his school ( i thought this guy was one of the students at the local highschool).

well they come back a few minutes later and they are both apparently in their early 20's teaching at the Manba Highschool. After a few minutes of introduction we start playing, i haven't played in like 4 yrs and the English teacher, Aiko, doesn't really play she plays tennis instead so its been a while for her as well. After 30 min of just hitting the bird back n forth they tell us to play Ja Kin Po (RockPaperScissors) and then we start a little competition pairing up with the guys.

It was a good thing that me and Aiko get to play against each other b/c we were both pretty bad. Aiko team won the first round, I won the second. It was a pretty fun experience and they're expecting back next week and even want me to join the a tournament they'll be having on Sept 9th, so i guess i just joined a club.

Tomorrow will be my first day teaching even thou I won't be doing anything until 3rd period.

KEITAI!!

I'm so happy i got a keitai ^_^
YAY!

i got a DoCoMo FOMA SO704i in silver it's soo pretty ^^
i luv just looking at all the new functions and video chat and the cute characters i can use and put on my main display screen, i'm using the LocoRoco characters :)

the phone service is cheaper than in the States (i think it is at least)
i can only talk for 55 min/ month which is fine for me since i generally want to use it if i get lost or if something happens to me while driving (hopefully none of that will happen).
i can email 100x per month for 1000 yen on top of the service i got.

i felt so weird not having a cell phone to use my first few weeks here, especially when I got a bit lost trying to find the main post office in Fujioka City (the closest city to me). i'm so glad Ahmed was able to rent a phone when he first arrived and was able to call my supervisor for help.

That's all that's new

Settling in

I finally have internet, it only took them a week to set it up.
Now that I have it i've been on everyday talking to my family and Ahmed almost everyday.

Since I arrived to Kanna-machi, hachi gatsu youka (aug.8th), I've been able to unpack everything, fix the desk and bookshelf area, clean up a bit, do some laundry (do that almost everyday), etc...

After have a few days to myself Ahmed arrived and was able to spend a few days of showing him around and just hanging out. After having him here for a few days I had to go to Maebashi, the capital of Gunma, for a three day orientation. The best day of the orientation was the last day, we were able to have culture days and got to do calligraphy, shiatsu and play with traditional Japanese instruments the Koto & Shakuhachi.

But the best outing was on the second night tons of us all went to, yup you guessed it KARAOKE!!!! All you can sing and drink for 2 hrs for just 2600 yen. It was hella fun and we all had a blast!(especially those who drank all the alcohol they cud ^_^).

The 19th was a bit of a sad day, Ahmed had to go back to the States :(

Since then I finally got my Alien ID and was able to open a checking account.
now all i need is a car.

What I do on my free time is study Japanese and watch weird Japanese tv game and shows. Some of them are hella out there but i luv watching them ^^

So I've also been taking lots of pics and have now opened a account at photobucket, thou i'm still trying to dwnload pics and short movies i've been taking with my new digital cam.

Chat with you all later.

Flight to Japan

Hello everyone!
I'm finally in Japan. Landed about 11:30 a.m. States time, so about 3:30 p.m. Japan time. I didn't get to the hotel till 6:30 p.m.

I called Asami,my Japanese friend for those of you who don't know, and we went out to eat. I wish there was enough time for us to go shopping but most of the shops closed at 10 p.m. and we finished dinner at 9:50 so that didn't give us enough time to do anything.

I was finally able to go to sleep about 10:30p.m.(around 6a.m.) and slept 6 hrs straight, woke up at 4a.m. for some odd reason and then woke up again at about 6:30 a.m. I got a full 8 hrs of sleep last night so I'm happy.

Had breakfast, went to the nearest Starbucks and now I'm about to go to all the orientation type stuff at 10.
bye now

My House

Here's a new update about were I'm going to be living. I'm getting a one bedroom house, fully furnished! YAY FOR ME ^_^
So theres a small kitchen, living room, bathroom with washer/dryer and the toliet, another bathroom with the shower and tub, and then there is the bedroom.

I found out what schools I'll be teach at. I'll be teaching 4 classes a day at the middle school, except Wednesday where i'll be teaching at the elementry school. I'll have 60 students at the elementry and 47 at the middle school.

Well thats all the new info I have.

^_^

Gunma Info

So I finally found the actual location of Kanna so if you guys want to see it here are the coordinates 36°7′N, 138°55′E have fun finding it and getting a glimpse of where I'll be living.

I've been going to JET Alumni outings and got to talk to a few former JET's and new JET's. Some are from San Jose of course I didn't meet the only other person who was placed at Gunma.

Well here's a good quote that another fellow JET wrote me:
"Twenty years from you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

I also uploaded links to the homepage of Gunma and the JET site.

Enjoy ^_^

Intro

Hey all, well this is my first blog ever and Ahmed gave me this idea to insure a way that I can keep in contact with you all. So, for now on any information regarding myself, JET, and my departure will be posted on this blog instead of trying to send mass e-mails or texts.

This of course will actually be more handy once I actually move there.

Right now i'm just setting allthis up to see how it wud look. If you have any suggestion please help. umm...oh I also set it up so anyone can post if they like.

hmm.....I guess thats all for now. Its hella late already and i'm starting to get a bit sleepy so I will add more when I get more information.

g'nite