Peace Please
Mood:  on fire
I just bought a calender about the Dalai Lama so i will be quoting him once a month.

"Peace starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on. Respponsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job."

from the "Policy of Kindness," the Dalai Lama

Happy New Year
Mood:  special
Happy New Year and may peace reign in your heart.
I've just returned from a nice visit to the states. I arrived on Xmas Eve in San Francisco and rented a car to drive for about 2 hours north to visit my parents, relatives and friends. It was a great visit but i'm very glad to be back in my cozy apartment.
more later.

Zero Population Growth
Mood:  incredulous
Here's an interesting article from the Daily Yomiuri, Dec.22nd, 2004:

The (Japanese) government will set numerical targets for companies and local governments to create an environment that will halt the decline in the birthrate, according to a new program addressing the issue.
The program will be approved Friday at a government panel halting the decline in the birthrate.
The program is an action plan based on an outline approved by the Cabinet in June for dealing with a society with a declining birthrate.
The program has four major goals:
-- To help children grow up to be independent and healthy.
-- To help parents manage work at the office and at home and to review the work environment.
-- To teach young people the value of life and the role of the family.
-- To encourage further cooperation in child-rearing.
The government will work on these goals from fiscal 2005 to fiscal 2009.
Targets for companies include encouraging employees to take at least 55 percent of paid holidays every year; establishing a system of child-care leave in all companies; and cutting the number of employees who work more than 60 hours a week by at least 10 percent.
On average, employees took only 47 percent of paid holidays in fiscal 2003, while 61 percent of companies introduced child-care leave systems in 2002.

(Bold and underscore are my additions)

Kobe Luminaria
Mood:  amorous
I'll be visiting this place on Wed. night but just discovered this incredible website. Check it out.
These are Italian designed round globe lights. It is dedicated to the people of this area in remembrance of the horrible Hanshin/Awaji earthquake. The 10th anniversary of this earthquake will be in January.
KOBE LUMINARIA

Runningu
Mood:  cool
Running a marathon in under five hours seems like a daunting undertaking. I've been a bit discouraged with my times but today i gained a bit of hope when i ran a fairly easy 4 miles in 40 minutes. I think i can!

Sunday, Dec. 12th
Saki and Takarazuka Review

Saki is one of my first "favorite" students who i met after arriving in Japan. She is mature beyond her 14 years. We practiced endlessly together last year for her first try at the All Nishinomiya Speech and Recitation Contest. She did a recitation about Landmines that i felt was very good, but then i must admit a bit of a bias. Anyway, she didn't win last year. She came back as a 3rd grader and won 1st place this year. We are so very proud of her. Her speech this year was her dream of becoming a ballerina. I knew that she was enthralled with this dance troupe in Takarazuka (near Nishinomiya) so i asked her if she could get us tickets to see this spectacle and voila...Sunday we met and had a marvelous lunch together. We browsed through all the shops displaying endless photos, stickers and related paraphernalia on every single woman in these shows! And we got to experience the full Takarazuka Review which was 3 hours long.

This troupe is celebrating its 90th year. The first performance of the Takarazuka was in 1914. "Mon Paris", staged in 1927, heralded the arrival of the revue era. The all-female company has been offering delightful combinations of song, dance and drama while performing both male and female roles in contemporary and traditional productions. The troupe changed its name to The Takarazuka Revue Company in 1940, and divided into separate groups called "Flower", "Moon", "Snow", "Star", and "Special Course" which have performed predominantly at the home stage in Osaka at the Takarazuka Grand Theater.

We watched the Snow troupe perform a drama called "In Quest of the Blue Bird." It opens on the top floor of a New York skyscraper. A party is being held to announce an engagement of the actress Brenda Burton to Jake, the son and heir of the president of El Grande, the number one underwear manufacturer in the US. It is going to be a marriage of convenience only. She is a model and greedy for his big bucks, and he wants only to keep her as a "model" wife (great for press photos). A brother, Vincent, arrives who has denounced Jake's inhumane way of management. Vince has quit the business and is working as an Alpine rescuer. The plot thickens and there's something about a nun who has donated an organ to one of the men. The bluebird speaks to Jake and tells him that his fate lies in another woman named Gina who he spends most of the rest of the show trying to find. Good grief, it's a bit difficult to follow in all Japanese but the acting, costuming, dance and music are great. The story is so convoluted that it's pretty funny, i think.

The second half of the show is a Japanese version of a Las Vegas dance review including the requisite chorus line of long legged can-can girls. The women are fantastic in both male and female roles. The costuming is out of this world. The music ranges from Japanese classic to some tunes that sound vaguely familiar to some wild, electronic, jazz, fusion, heavy metal blends. The stage is more incredible than anything that i have ever seen - much more intricate than Cats or Les Miz. The rotating platform that takes up most of the stage includes at least 3 trap doors where performers can rise from below the stage on different levels. The sets are spectacular and razzle-dazzle. It was thoroughly enjoyable even though i couldn't understand a word that was said or sung. Check it out on the web:

Takurazuka Review

Photos to come later on my web page.

Am i in Heaven?
Mood:  energetic
i'm running 9 miles this morning. The autumn breeze is cooling my face and hot bod. The sun is shining, but it's lost it's power to create much heat this time of the year. Multi-colored leaves are falling like rain from the sky. Life is good.

Unsupervised youth
Mood:  incredulous
Can you imagine taking 13 and 14 year olds to Seattle and letting them go on their own tours of the city? Each group of about 40 kids has a GPS. The teachers are in an Internet cafe somewhere in the city monitoring each group's progress online. That's what happened with our 2nd graders last week. Two hundred students all clambered onto buses on Friday morning and headed for Kyoto. All the 2nd grade teachers accompanied them on the bus. The week before, the kids researched what they wanted to see in Kyoto and mapped out their own personally designed tour. Then each group leader got a GPS cell phone and off they went. The teachers received a printout map of their trip from the GPS company. The biggest issue is that some of the students made plans to eat in a restaurant instead of eating their packed bento box lunches. They didn't lose a single kid and no one got hurt. No parents were upset and no one got sued. Amazing.

Mood:  energetic

Sunday, Nov. 28th
A well needed massage or
Oh, my poor aching legs and feet!

Ah, a masseuse. While Michelle and Justice were traveling back to Tokyo, i decided to find a place to get my sore and tired legs back in working condition. I struck gold, yahoo. I feel like a new woman now. 4500 yen for 45 minutes was worth every penny. It's back to the grind tomorrow. I'm ready to go back to work so i can get some rest! Vacation days are exhausting.

Saturday, Nov. 27th
Universal Studios, Japan (USJ)

Doug and Jane (both ALT's) and their 9-year old daughter, Kayleigh, joined Michelle, Justice and i for a fun day today. We left fairly early so that we could get to the gates as soon as USJ opened. Universal Studios, Japan, is a bit like Disneyland. Tickets are about $55 for adults. The attractions include, Spiderman, Terminator, Back to the Future, Backdraft, Jaws, Snoopy, ET and more. I was amazed that the lines, even first thing in the morning were from 1-2 hours long. Most rides are just too scary for little kids and Justice and Kayleigh backed out of many rides. I'm guessing that the rides were just too real and scary and also standing for over an hour for each is just too long. There were lines everywhere and to tell the truth, i don't think it's worth the money. I did enjoy "Jurassic Park" and "Back to the Future" but it was hard standing in line for over an hour for each ride. Luckily we all had cell phones so we split up and stood in different lines so that big and little kids all got to do something fun. After Jurassic Park, Doug and i discovered smoked turkey drumsticks for only $5.00. Wow, we devoured those just like the dinosaurs in the ride. I never thought i'd be eating turkey in Japan! Everything, of course, is expensive. Beer was $5-6 a glass. There were lots of things to buy and lots of lines for that too. It was a long and exhausting day. Our feet and legs were very sore but the kids were happy and so it was all worth it in the end.



Friday, Nov. 26th
40th Annual
All Nishinomiya
English Speech and Recitation Contest

Michelle and Justice are on their own today. I took the train and bus back up to Yamaguchi on Thursday evening so that i would be ready to go on Friday morning. We coached the kids for one last time at 7:45am in the principal's office. The big All-Nishinomiya Jr. Hi. English Speech and Recitation Contest is this afternoon. I taught my morning classes and then caught a ride with Sasaki sensei to the Hall. I was one of 7 judges who listened to the presentations and agonized over the scoring of each contestant. It was so difficult. There was a 2nd and a 3rd grade representative from each jr. hi. in the area. It was a single individual if it was a recitation or original speech, a group of kids if it was a skit. These kids are trying so hard, and they are all winners to me but someone has to go home with the trophies. One of my favorite students who tried her best last year under my coaching but lost anyway came back again this year. She has matured and is so very confident. She wrote a fine speech (i was only able to help edit it over the internet). It was a thrill to see her presented with the 1st place trophy for all her effort. We are all so proud of her. Hase sensei gave us a ride back to our apartments after the contest where we scarfed some pumpkin pie. Then we ended the day at a nearby ramen shop. Time to get some rest and get ready for our big trip to USJ tomorrow.

Thursday, Nov. 25th
Aquarium Day

Thurs. Nov. 25th
Michelle and Justice arrived around 9pm last evening. It was their first experience on the shinkansen. Justice is 7 years old and was so impressed with the "bullet train." After a full day at school and all that traveling he fell asleep on the couch while Michelle and i caught up on so much news and talked till midnight. Today i showed them the way to the grocery store, bowling alley and two different arcade centers. We walked along a park where Justice can play on Friday. Then we took off for Osaka. I have been wanting to see the aquarium and it was well worth the wait. There's something very special about seeing an aquarium with a super enthusiastic kid.

The Osaka Aquarium, "kaiyukan" is based on the Gaia hypothesis. It supposes that the Earth is a living organism arisen from its volcanic activities and ocean waters. The aquarium faithfully recreates the Pacific Rim volcanic belt "Ring of Fire" and the corresponding Pacific Rim life belt "Ring of Life". The tank is huge and you spiral down and down to deeper and deeper levels. We walked from the familiar Monterey Bay environment to the not so familiar Japan Deeps. In Antarctica it was snowing as we watched a crew feeding the emperor penguins. The penguins were like puppies standing close to their feeders. It was just adorable to watch the feeders gently prod the penguins back into the water after the feeding. It was obvious that the penguins enjoyed the human company and reluctantly returned to the water. The otters from the Aleutian Islands were huge. They cruised past us with only the foot thick Plexiglas separating us. Their looks of curiosity were intriguing. What playful, joyous, energetic creatures. This place is very special to keep such creatures alive and happy in an enclosed environment. I think that one of the secrets is the large and diverse area that they are housed in. We saw 5 types of huge sea turtles that are all on the endangered list, the hugest whale shark that I have ever seen, and the "piece de resistance" was the giant spider crabs of Japan's deep sea. These guys were like something out of a Star Wars movie. We stood entranced while one of them toppled over and looked like a destroyed fragile tinker toy. It lay there as if dead until one of the other crabs slowly ambled over and then this amazing creature managed to untangle it's spidery long legs and right itself. They just didn't seem like real creatures but there they were in front of us. Awesome!

Mood:  flirty
Wed. Nov. 24th
Baking Frenzy

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and it must be in my genetic structure to cook and bake for the holidays. I found myself baking 5 pumpkin pies today as well as chocolate chip cookies and a tamale pie. Gosh, there's no way to stick a turkey in my microwave so it's going to be a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. My friend Michelle and her son, Justice, will arrive tonight on the shinkansen from Tokyo and then we will spend Thanksgiving Day exploring Nishinomiya. They will have to entertain themselves without me on Friday because i have to work that day. I want them to be familiar with the layout of the town so they can have some fun exploring on their own. Michelle is a fellow teacher from Spokane. She landed a teaching job at a military base just outside Tokyo just about the same time that i got this job here. It has been fun to share our trials and tribulations adapting to the Japanese culture. It's also interesting to see the contrasts in our teaching experiences here. She is teaching on a military base with a real international group of high school kids while i am in the traditional Japanese public school junior high system. Very different situations.

Tuesday, November 23rd
Hikingu and Onsen

Today is a Japanese National Holiday. School is out. Actually, we are in the middle of testing at Yamaguchi and i don't have any classes this week except on Friday. I decided to take a bit of a vacation so i took Monday off and will take Wed. and Thursday off too, yahoo. I met Didik, Masa, Zain and Shinobu at the Ashiyagawa train station this morning. We set out hiking around 9:30am and hiked up and up to the top of Rokko Mountain. What a great group of friends to hike with! We reached the summit before 1pm. The sun was out and the air was cool. It was a perfect day for hiking. The trail is well used and it wasn't a difficult hike with only a couple of parts that were a bit rocky and steep with ropes in place to help us. We ate lunch at the top and then headed down into a valley on the other side into the city of Arima. This is the site of one of the three most popular hot springs in Japan, i've been told. We ended the hike with a relaxing bath in one of the traditional onsens there. Then we hopped on the train and headed back to Kobe for a delicious Indian dinner. What a way to spend a vacation day. I'm so very lucky.


Monday, Nov. 22nd
Lost Key Day or
Just Call My Ms. Klutz!

So let me tell you the story about losing my apartment key.

Kid's Opinion of the US
Mood:  sad
One of my last lessons this week included asking the students the following question: "Where in the world would you like to travel?" Hm. Amazing that not ONE student in 3 different classes mentioned anywhere in the U.S. What has my country become in their minds?