Mid-Year Seminar (aka Skills Development Conference) Enkai

Last week, all the ALTs and some of their Japanese co-workers came to Kobe from all over Hyogo to participate in the yearly Mid-Year Seminar. This year however, the name has been changed to "Skills Development Conference". 

We basically spend 2 days in meetings talking about lesson plans, and this year we talked about the new course of study for English students in Japan. Lots of boring but useful things. Luckily, for the past two years, I got to be an ALT helper- one of the helpers who run the individual seminars. It's pretty fun, I get to meet a lot of the JETs, and also stand up front and teach things and lead discussions, and best of all, I don't have to do the homework :)

Every year, all the ALTs go out to dinner afterwards (it's very rare that we're all in the same place), and this year, the helpers all went out as well, along with two members of the Board of Education who are in charge of the JET Program in Hyogo. We went to a really cool Okinawan restaurant with a fish pond inside. The food was really pretty, and quite delicious, so I chose to document it. Here it is: 

Glass noodles, crab, "sea grapes", and shiso in a rice wrap. 

Sashimi with assorted sauce.

"Ceasar salad" (the Japanese seem to have a very loose definition of ceasar salad) with prociutto, poached egg, tomatoes, avocado, mini croutons, and a ton of dressing.

Tempura shrimp with mayo.

Salted pork. 

Umi Budou ("sea grapes"), a kind of kelp. Odd texture, but not a bad taste. 

And here are my fabulous fellow enkai-goers:

Yay work parties!

Engrish!

"Is 'tartlet' spelled with an r or an l?"

"Meh, who cares? Let's just cover all our bases and put both."

For some reason, Japan loves the "No ___, no life" phrase, and they come up with some really creative ways to fill in the blank. 

My absolute favorite are these gift bags that always have puppies saying really cute Engrish phrases.

There's actually an exclamation* point at the end of that, just in case you thought it was just a jumble of words and not an actual sentence. 

*edit: I had originally written "explanation point", because that's the kind of thing you write when you've been in a non-English speaking country for too long. Just like this afternoon when I momentarily thought, in front of an entire class of students, that the past tense of "fight" is "fighted".

This will certainly be continued..... :)

Okinawa! continued.....

I competely forgot to post about these guys from my trip to Okinawa!

They are a much cuter, much more colorful variation on the famous Okinawan Shisa, which look like a cross between a lion and a dog, and are placed in pairs (one with a closed mouth, and one with an open mouth) at the entrance to a building or on the roof to ward off evil spirits.
While I was there, a bought a small blue pair of Shisa figurines, which I keep in my own entryway at home :)

書道: Japanese Calligraphy

Since coming to Japan, I have developed an interest in shodo, or Japanese calligraphy. The kanji for "shodo" literally means "way of writing", and Japanese calligraphy is definitely a very specific way of writing. Each character has a specific stroke order, and each particular stroke itself is done in a very specific way. It reminds me of the Japanese tea ceremony, where every movement is carefully choreographed, and is done the same way every time.
I began taking lessons at school with Yutani-sensei, the teacher in charge of the calligraphy club. I started first by learning the character for "e" or eternity, because it contains all the basic kinds of strokes, and so is good for a beginner like myself.

This was my first try, and I messed up a lot, but I was happy that I had the chance to learn all the strokes. Controlling the brush is a LOT harder than it looks, even with my art background, because all the movements are very specific to this kind of calligraphy. 

I messed around with a few more kanji, and finally I told Yutani-sensei that my favorite style of writing was the more old-fashioned "kana" style, the way that many old scrolls and haikus were written.  She let me try it, and I liked it much better, because, while it's still strictly controlled, it feels freer, and is also easier for me to maintain balance of the characters, since they are more simple than kanji. My art history teacher at Kansai Gaidai also told me that it's a more feminine way to write, but it's always been very difficult for me to read, since it's basically really fancy Japanese cursive. I'm hoping that learning how to write it myself will also help me learn how to read it.

From top to bottom, right to left, this says "yukigeshiki", which means snow.
I'm continuing to practice a few times every week, and hopefully I'll have some better examples to post in the future :)

Silver Week! (Sept. 18-24): Okinawa

This past week, I took advantage of two consecutive long weekends and some daikyu (make-up holidays) and took a week-long trip to Okinawa! I was supposed to go to Zamami (a small island west of the main island of Okinawa) for 5 days, but a big typhoon hit the week of the trip, and although the weather was nice by the time I got there, the ferries weren't running until Wednesday due to some leftover wind. So, I ended up spending 2 days in Naha, and then 3 days in Zamami.

First stop- A&W in the Naha airport for some much needed root beer and chili cheese fries.

Next, we went to Kokusai Dori, an international street with lots of shops and restaurants, where we found lots of fun souvenirs, and even got to try Okinawa's famous Habushu (Snake Sake).

mmmmm... habushu. Made from venomous snakes.

Since the ferries weren't running, we were stuck in Naha the next day and decided to do some sightseeing at Shuri Castle and also visited a beautiful Chinese garden.

And for lunch there were tacos!

Famous Shisa at the entrance to Shuri Castle.

Shuri Castle from the outside. We were too cheap to pay the 800 yen to go inside...

At the gardens....

Yay for 30 second timers on cameras :)

Columns on a building inside the gardens.

One night, we decided we wanted a buffet, so we went across town and got one. Best decision ever. The next day, the ferries were running again, and we were finally able to get to our destination: the island of Zamami.

First view of Zamami from the ferry.

View from the walk to....

...Furuzamami Beach!

Amazing shells I found!

Solid blocks of coral, shells, and sand were washed up all over the beach.

If you can see him, these little crabs were everywhere, and they were lightning fast!

The beach was made up of bits of coral, although there was smooth sand as well.

James skipping rocks in the ocean.

As part of the trip, I had booked a full day of kayaking around the islands, which I didn't realize included snorkeling. Being afraid of fish, I was a little nervous about the snorkeling, but since we were given wetsuits and therefore the fish would be unable to touch me, I decided to give it a try. I'm so happy I did, because I had the absolute best day ever of swimming and kayaking in the clearest, bluest water I have ever seen.

This is called "Suijigai" in Japanese ("sui" means water; "ji" means letter; "gai" means shell), so named because it looks like the Chinese character for water (水). These shells are hung in entryways in Okinawa for good luck.

These guys would hang out near their little coral house, and whenever a person or bigger fish would swim near them, they'd all, as a group, swim back inside the coral.

This little guy was trouble. I suppose we were swimming in a more people populated area, so the fish were used to us, and some of them, this one included, started following us around.

James made me do all the work... :D

These little hermit crabs were everywhere. I actually got a little annoyed because they were inhabiting all the best shells.

I found Nemo! (and Dori as well, although I didn't get a picture of her...)

James had a little trouble with the flippers.

The trip to Zamami was way too short. Stupid Typhoon. Before I knew it, I was spending my last day on the island at Ama Beach, and then boarding a ferry back to Naha.

Bye-bye, seeee youuuuu, Zamami!