More posters

so like i said previously i'm going to add pics of posters whenever they change them.

These are educational posters about:
pregnancy, defecation,
proper care of a wound and the last one is about a star head child pointing out melting icebergs and minefields.

All the posters will be put in my photobucket so you may have a better look at these. ^_^
Enjoy

Posters

Ok so one thing i noticed while teaching here are the poster that they have on the walls. Especially the ones that are at the elementary school.

They have movie posters(ex. they had the Simpson's and the Golden Compass), educational posters (about WWII) and then there are the one's that are supposed to teach you life lessons.
Most of these posters are cutely drawn while other use people.

But the weirdest ones they got are the one's about life. They had one about smoking (drawn and some people) with a pic of brain activity of a smoker vs non-smoker and how active the girl (who didn't smoke) was and how the boy was lethargic and kept thinking about smoking. *note* i didn't get a chance to take a picture of this

Then there are the ones about what places to avoid playing so you don't get grabbed by a stranger. There is one about pregnancy and shows an image of a new born baby still covered in goup. There was one about brushing your teeth and how "germs" attack and cause cavities.
Oh and my current favorite is the one about poop.
Yes pooh.
They have pictures of the difference of good and bad pooh (3 images) and how pooh is created in the intestines.
(i'll put a pic of this one later this week)

so every time there is a new one i'll post it up cuz they're always fun to look at. ^^
All of these posters are there all the time. if you want to see them better you can go to my photobucket.

Kyoto!

Me and Rebecca (バカ先生）went to Kyoto for our last (so sad ;_;) 3 day weekend, it cost us 14,000 yen to get there and it cost us the same to get back -_-

Anyways, as the Shinkansen is getting closer to Kyoto the towns/cities that we pass are covered in snow. (We were in a hurry that morning so i didn't get a chance to check the weather before leaving) When we get there, it's snowing. I of course don't really care cuz it's snow. It was soo pretty... then we had to try to find our hostel with unpaved streets -_- not very fun. Every where you go it's really slippery. We took about 20-25 min walking from the station to our hostel(the next day all the streets were paved and it took us 10 min to walk to the station).

On our first day we saw some temples and we went to a handy-craft store where i painted my own fan ^_^
dinner we went to a Japanese-Kyoto restaurant where i drank sake...yummy

On the second day we went to Nijo-jo (castle) where they have nightingale floors which make the floors "sing" as you walk on them.
For lunch we had some awesome ramen in a little mom n pop ramen shop.
after that we tried finding the Anime Museum, but didn't see it (ok so we really didn't "look" for it, just looked around while we headed back to the station).
We headed back to the hostel for a bit, it was getting hot under all the layers of clothes since we thought it was going to be cold like the day before.
Wrong!

After that brief detour we head for the Golden Temple.
while there we noticed that there were no toilet paper there and that you had to have some tissue or buy some, oh and you can't flush it either.
*note* there is a gold and silver temple but only the golden temple is covered in gold

Later the night we had a Japanese dinner and then did some karaoke with of course something to drink
*note* at karaoke places you can order food, dessert, and drinks (alcoholic or non-alcoholic)
We then went to the lovely Starbucks to cool down.

When we got back to our hostel they were still recording a TV show, which is like a comedy hour kinda thing. We thought we were coming back late enough to be over, so we stood by the side and watched....
then they asked if there were any other American's around. I whispered "we are" thinking no one will hear us, but no, the nearest guy to us did and he was part of the crew and when "the audience" (other guest) didn't respond (which i didn't know, couldn't see them) they quickly turned the camera to us to ask us about if we knew the American comedian they(the American guest taking part of the show) were talking about.
we of course didn't know who the hell they were talking about since i only know Hispanic comedians.

Next day we went to see the temple with over 300 tori (red gates). i didn't expect to stay for an hour there, it's a temple. We were just going to take some photos and leave....we ended up staying there for 2 hrs! but it was fun so it was ok.

We finally left for home around 2 pm and we didn't get home til about 8 pm.
It was a long commute but we still had fun ^_^

Jump rope festival

Since the beginning of the year all the kids at the elementary school have been practicing jumping rope. At first it was all the kids by themselves, seeing who can jump the fastest and longest. Then it was the whole class jumping together.

So after all that work, they finally had a chance to show off to the whole school. All the classes were going to see how many time the whole class can jump rope for 3 min. The most was done was 318 by the 4th graders (with 14 students) and the least was 238 by the 3rd graders (with 4 students) and this is with the whole class participating.

Next week we will have fire training where the local firemen will come to school and teach the kids how to operate a fire extingushier. Ten kids from 3rd to 6th grade will actually put out a fire made by the firemen.

yay fire ^_^

Sumo

Last weekend a few of us JET's from Gunma went to Tokyo to watch some sumo.
Some may wonder whats the fascination with watching a couple of fat guys in what looks like thongs (mawashi) push eachother around. Well it's a Japanese sport and i thought i might as well see for myself why it's considered interesting.

* women aren't allowed to touch the ring since it is seen as violating the purity of the ring or it is so by tradition.

We were told to be there no later than 930 since the event is supposed to be from 8am to 630 pm. But when we got there we found out that the thing wasn't going to start until 1030 (which happens only on certain days).

Well me and Rebecca didn't want to be there for the early matches of the rookies and we were planning on going to the Tokyo National Museum. We finally left around 1040 just to see how they start and the rookies matches ended really quickly.

We came back after lunch to watch the juryou and makuuchi matches, the top ranking sumo's. These were way more exciting than the rookies. We actually started betting, ok not really but we started to pick to see who would win. We even got to see Asashoryu Akinori, a Mongolian yokozuna (the highest ranking sumo) in a bout with Hakuhou Shou, another Mongolian. It was kinda amazing to see these 320 lbs+ guys be able to pick some other guys up n throw them out of the ring.

* the aprons that they're wearing are worth thousands to tens of thousands dollars worth. some are even encrusted with jewels and some light up.

I had fun watching sumo and wouldn't mind seeing it again...of course it would be better if we were a little closer, but then again it might be too expensive.

If you want to know more about sumo, wiki it. If you want to see a short film of some bouts and more pics go to my photobucket page.