Sports Day was today, and it was quite an experience. The weather cooperated for the entire day, and it didn’t start raining until I got home. The kids did great, and it was a lot of fun to see the flags that they had created for each class. The amount of creativity and detail that went into them was amazing.

They had the typical track and field type events, but then they had some other unusual relays. Some involved wearing the uniform of their sports club, and I felt sorry for the kendo guys that had to put on all their armor and run around the track beating each other up.

One event took me by surprise – the event was called “bouhiki”. The girls split up into two teams of about 100-200 people each. Each team stood on one side of the field, and between the two teams, a number of large bamboo poles were placed on the ground lengthwise. At the sound of the starter pistol, 400 screaming Japanese girls charged to the middle and started trying to drag the poles back to their side. They were pulling these poles all over the place, with sometimes 20 or 30 girls at one pole, pulling it in opposite directions.

The event I was looking forward to, “kibasen” is like some kind of strange sanctioned street fight, and was a lot of fun to watch. For this event, it is only the boys that play. Three boys support one other boy on their shoulders, and walk him around. Kisaben roughly translates to “cavalry” in English, and the rider wears a hat that must not come off no matter what. There are many “horses” in the first round, and while they play “We Will Rock You” by Queen in the background, the horses circle and finally start to scuffle. Once a player loses his hat, he has to leave the field. After the first round, the remainder take each other on one-on-one.

All together Sports Day was a lot of fun. I got a free lunch – a bento box from one of the nice department stores in town, and it was delicious. Much better than the cafeteria food I’ve had before. After the long day out in the sun, I was looking forward to the party that night.

About a week ago, the Hanshin Tigers, usually the bottom dwellers of Japanese professional baseball, clinched the Central Division title. The Tigers play right near where I live, and so the whole area is excited about their success. The train line I take to work everyday also owns the Hanshin Tigers, so I see advertising all the time on the train, telling me how great the team is and how I should be buying season tickets for next year.

I went to Akashi and met Mr. Komuri and friends to celebrate the Hanshin Tigers victory. He had a giant “keg” of sake, completely made out of wood. Mr. Komuri is a huge fan of the Tigers, and he bought the keg to celebrate. The sake takes on a bit of the wood flavor, which I guess is part of the appeal. We met at a bar that served Guinness on draft, and had three dart boards. The name of the place was “Donkey”. Not “The Donkey Bar”, or “Donkey Pub”, but “Donkey”. I went to “Donkey” last night.

The keg needed to be broken open, and there were several large hammers to use. Mr. Komuri had taped the game when the Tigers had clinched, so he replayed that, and at the moment of truth, he cracked open the keg. Everyone cheered, and then they sang the Hanshin Tigers song, which has two lines in English so I could only join in briefly. We passed around cups of sake. The cups are also made of wood, and for some strange reason, they are square. Drinking a lot of booze can be hard enough, but then putting it in square cups really ups the challenge level.

Everyone had a great time, and there was plenty of food to eat – shrimp, sashimi, sandwiches, and quiche, of all things. Another foreigner from Texas came in, so I talked to him a little bit. He’s got a teaching gig in Takasago that he wants me to take over, but I think my timing would make it impossible. He has been living in Japan for quite a while, and he’s going to move back to Texas.

About half the party took off, but I was still hungry, so I joined a couple of the other teachers and we went to get some okonomiyaki. The little Japanese pizza-type things are delicious, but very hard to eat with chopsticks. The restaurant that we went to was a bit of a locals only place, and everybody watched me carefully. The owners of the restaurant were very impressed that I knew how to use chopsticks, and they were very patient with my limited Japanese.

After the restaurant, I went back on the train with one of the teachers at my school who lives in the same apartment. He’s a computer teacher, and he speaks only a word or two of English. It was a real challenge to converse with him, but I think we managed. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. He called ahead and his wife was waiting for us when we got to our station, and she drove us home. His wife was extremely outgoing, and I think she was really excited to meet a foreigner. I got home relatively early, thanks to the ride I got, and so now I’m looking forward to a domestic weekend – doing chores, laundry and cleaning house. I’ve been running around so much lately, this will be a relief.

This weekend I was leaning towards catching Tomb Raider, but Miss Kageyama called and had to bail, as she found out that she had passed the first stage of a job interview in Osaka, and this weekend she is going in to interview in the next stage. Miss Kageyama is a part time teacher, and so that means that she doesn’t have a lot of job security.

She has been applying at different schools, without much success. This is the first time that she has gotten a bite, so she’s cautiously excited. The school is supposedly one of the top English schools in Osaka, which means a lot. I get the impression that Miss Kageyama is a big city type, so hopefully she will land that job. It seems like a good match for her.

Today I spent helping translate a speech for one of our students who plans on entering a speech contest. I had fun with the translation – if she doesn’t make round two, the contest must be rigged. I am hoping I’ll get a chance to watch her deliver it and cheer her on.

Today I came into work wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and I even brought ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ just in case it got really boring.

It turns out I didn’t have to worry about that.

It is pretty clear that Sports Day is taken pretty seriously around here. All the kids march into the field area during the practice, and they stay out there until lunchtime in the heat. The poor kids had to sit out of the field and cook during the day, while the teachers got to sit under a tent. The weather hasn’t been as hot lately, but it’s still tough out there. All the kids knew how to march, which surprised me. They marched in their teams around the field, and then stood marching while the band finished up the tune. On Friday I will bring my camera and get some pictures of the official event.

Sports Day is going to be pretty exciting on Friday, judging from the events that I saw today. The students do some traditional sports in the track and field vein, but they also do some really strange ones. My favorite involves a couple of boys carrying another on their shoulders, and then attacking another set of kids. The object is to tear the headband off the other team. They didn’t actually do battle today, so I’ll have to wait for Friday.

I also got to walk around and chat with the kids. All day long I walked around and chatted, and the kids were great. I posed for pictures with some of them, and had some good talks.

One of the girl students came up and tried to say hello, but couldn’t stop giggling. Mrs. Tsutsumi (one of my English teachers) was there and was laughing too, and I couldn’t figure out the joke. Mrs. Tsutsumi talked back and forth with the student for a bit, and then the student said to me in clear English, “I love you.” I don’t know what the proper response is in America, and I certainly don’t know what it is in Japan. I think I just smiled and said “Thanks.” Mrs. Tsutsumi didn’t think anything about this was unusual, so I just kind of played it off like this happens to me all the time.

Later on I was talking with Mr. Hayashi near the offices and the school nurse came running up and spoke urgently with Mr. Hayashi – and the next thing I knew we were both running towards her office. They gave us a stretcher, and we walked out onto the field, where a girl was kind of passed out on the ground. She wasn’t unconscious, she just couldn’t get up. Some of her friends got her positioned on the stretcher, and we lugged her across the field back to the nurse’s office. I guess she was OK, because I saw her competing later in one of the events.

Towards the end of the day four boys were caught playing poker in one of the classrooms instead of being outside with the rest of the school. One of the teachers was yelling at them, and even slapped one of the kids around a little. At the closing ceremony, they each stood under the flags so that they had to look everyone in the school in the eye as the flags were lowered. I got kicked out of the library for playing poker when I was in Junior High School, so I kind of empathized with the poor kids. Maybe I can get them to join my poker group! (just kidding)

Tomorrow it’s back to regular classes, and then the big day on Friday. I’m going to try to see Tomb Raider 2 this weekend with Miss Kageyama, but it may be very busy, as this weekend is opening weekend for Tomb Raider 2 in Japan.

I just got back from dinner in Kobe. As you probably know by now, my master teacher Mr. Hayashi is crazy about expensive restaurants. He is always going into the Kitano area of Kobe and eating out, and knows a bunch of restaurant managers and owners in the area. Every couple of weeks he comes up with some new deal where we can eat at a five star restaurant for about half price. Tonight, he drove four teachers and himself to Kobe to eat at Kitano Club.

When we got there, the manager came out and said that they had unexpectedly booked up that night, and asked us to eat at their sister restaurant, Port Of Pacific. We went in there, and you could tell they spent a lot of money on interior design. The food did not disappoint, and I was finally able to get my first taste of Kobe beef. We had a four course meal with Kobe beef, foie gras, and plenty of beer, and it came out to just about 4000 yen ($32). I don’t know what strings Mr. Hayashi pulled, but it worked out great. I was resigned to the idea of paying $60-70 for Kobe beef.

As for the beef, it was excellent. The size of the portion was OK, and the tenderness was perfect. It was a small filet, but the taste was intense all the way through. Mr. Hayashi drove us all home, and now I’m getting my act together for tomorrow. We have a Sports Day rehearsal, so I have no classes. In fact, they said that I can wear shorts and a t-shirt since I will be lounging around outside all day long. Sounds good to me.

Today I woke up around 9:30 from as restful a sleep as I have ever had. I’m serious – I woke up feeling incredible. I’m not sure why – today was a holiday for me, and I had no big plans, and so I just slept in and my whole body felt refreshed.

My big goal today was to get a haircut and buy an alarm clock. I looked up a few words in my dictionary and then went down to the train station. Two stops down the road is Befu, and there I found a big barber shop and got my first haircut in Japan. For 1500 yen ($12.50) you get a haircut and then a shave. They have a shaving specialist that walks around after the barber is finished with you and shaves you the old fashioned way. I skipped the shave since I had just done it at home, so the haircut was only 1000 yen. The barber was able to understand my limited Japanese, and I’m pleased with the cut.

I also picked up an alarm clock, but strangely, I found only one that let you wake up to the radio. Mine makes an annoying beeping sound, which will certainly crank me out of bed each morning.

I cooked up some curry and rice for dinner, and was working on my budget and finances when Melanie called down and wanted me to come up with my laptop and watch a movie with her and Jenny, her friend from Ireland. I brought up my computer and we all watched “Almost Famous” on the laptop while munching on salty, fishy snacks.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to head to dinner at Kitano Club in Kobe. I guess I can’t wear shorts, though.

Today Antoine and I awoke to screaming children in the playground, and my community announcement, which always makes me feel like I’m waking up in prison. Not that I know what that feels like. Anyway, my folks called soon after, so I got to talk to them and also had a great conversation with my Grandma.

I took Antoine back to the train station, and then called Miss Kageyama. We decided to go out to a coffee place that she knew and study English and Japanese. We spent a couple of hours in the coffee shop, talking back and forth. I tried out some Japanese, and she was really good about correcting me in the right places. She had taken an exam as part of a job interview in Osaka on Saturday, so she told me all about that – it sounded really difficult. I don’t think I would have done that well, and English is my native language!

Afterwards we went out to eat at a new ramen shop that opened up near my place. We decided what to order, and Miss Kageyama ordered the food. Then the server asked question upon question, and it became apparent to me that I am missing a lot of things by not understanding the servers. Miss Kageyama described it just the way she wanted it, and it came out great. I just would have said, “Two ramens, please.”

Now I’m wrapping up my laundry and thinking about next week. I’ve got short classes because our school is preparing for the annual sports day. The entire school participates in a sports festival, so I’m eager to see all these hyper kids in action. Mr. Hayashi wants us to go out to dinner on Tuesday at Kitano Club, one of the top three most expensive restaurants in Kobe. It sits atop a hill overlooking all of Kobe. Originally we were going to a local restaurant that serves ostrich steaks, but at the last minute it sounds like Mr. Hayashi changed his mind. Lucky that Tuesday is payday – I think this is a pretty swanky place.

The falls above Kobe were pretty spectacular, and it was a pretty good hike up some serious steps to get there. We started at the bullet train station in Kobe, and went right up the hill behind the station to find the falls.

Melanie was a trouper climbing up the steps. She’s a smoker, so I thought she’d have a tough time, but she did fine. At the top we enjoyed a pretty good view of the falls, and then climbed some steps to enjoy the view right above the falls. We were pretty bushed by then, and so we sat down on some rocks and just spaced out for a while.

There was a trail that continued up the mountain, and we were debating whether to continue up, or just head back down and go back into Kobe. We decided to go ahead and go up, and after about a two minute hike, we turned the corner to find a tiny little bar at the top of the mountain surrounded by jungle and rocky terrain. We went in and sat down, and enjoyed the view from the open air building out over the waterfall, while drinking beers and relaxing even more. It was the best payoff for a hike that I’ve ever had.

The little bar was almost empty, but there was a foreigner in there writing in her journal over a big bottle of beer. She stopped by and talked with us, and it turns out she is from Tennessee and participating in the Semester At Sea program. It was interesting to hear about her experiences. She was just finishing up five days in Japan, and now she is headed to China for another five days. It sounded like a lot of fun, and so we exchanged e-mail addresses to keep tabs on each other’s adventures.

After a few beers we went back into Kobe and stopped in at a ramen shop for a bowl of noodles. They had an interesting system where you bought a “meal ticket” at a vending machine on the side of the restaurant, and then handed the ticket to the server. Kind of strange, but they had pictures and numbers associated with each dish, so we could figure it out on our own.

After the noodles, we stopped in at a bar that had a Belgian Wheat Beer that Melanie was raving about, so we had a few there, and then we walked a bit around Sannomiya station, enjoying the crowds and live music. There were a ton of people there, and it was fun to see all the action running around there.

After getting home, I did some errands around the house for a while, and then called Antoine, and we decided to meet up at Like, Like for a couple of glasses of wine. We met in Kobe at around 8 o’clock, and then split a bottle of wine and talked about week two of teaching. I invited him to come over and check out my place, and head back to Takarazuka the next day, so we jumped on the second to last train of the night and pulled into my station around midnight.

I went down and did my clean up duty around the apartment this morning. It was pretty light duty. I’m not sure how everyone knew what to do, but I just picked up a rake and dragged it around for a while. I helped pull down a small tree that they were trying to cut down. My height was helpful for that.

Afterwards, we signed a little book to prove that we were there to help, and they gave us a free soda to say thanks. Yasu’s mom, the one who helped us out when Andrew went to the hospital, invited Melanie and me over for some juice. Juice turned into a four course breakfast, and we only just got out of there. She is such a nice person.

We’re gearing up to go to the waterfalls in Kobe right now.

I’ve just uploaded some pictures for some of the previous entries, so make sure to dig through the archives and check them out. I have lots more, so if you see a subject you like, make sure to let me know.

Right now the typhoon has pushed a storm along the coastline to the south of me. There is some serious thunder and lightning going on. I managed to get a picture out my back window of the lightning, but since it is so cloudy it didn’t turn out that great….

Ah, finally connected. I’ve updated the postings, and they are in chronological order below. You might need to scroll down a ways to get up to speed.

I was getting ready to go out for yakitori when the doorbell rang. Usually it’s Melanie but I knew that she was out tonight with some of her teachers. I cautiously opened the door, and it’s a delivery guy with my DSL modem. I had it up and running in 5 minutes, despite the whole thing being in Japanese. Yes!

After hooking up the DSL, I went over to the yakitori place to celebrate, and had another great experience. I didn’t see anybody I knew besides the master, but I got invited to another table to eat with a family that actually lives in my apartment complex. They were very friendly, and they made their poor kid try to speak English with me. Talk about high pressure – poor guy. I mixed in as much Japanese as I could to help him out. I tried a bunch of new dishes, like roasted pimentos, shitake mushrooms, and a new chicken skewer he had.

Tomorrow I am supposed to help clean up around the apartment complex – the entire group of residents are going to help out. It was raining today, and the typhoon that was coming has aparently changed course. If it is raining, we’ll postpone the cleanup until Sunday. Melanie and I were going to try to go out to Kobe to see some waterfalls in the hillside, but if the weather sucks, we are going to skip it.

Today I spent a pretty mellow day at school, and then Melanie and I went over to Akashi for some beers at Murphy’s, and Irish bar that is run by a genuine Irishman. It is located in the red light district, and the bartenders tend to drink more than you do. It was a lot of fun. I actually bumped into another JET there that I had been trying to get in touch with. He was chugging away the Murphy’s Irish Stout, and so I was able to get his number. He wants to be part of the poker group.

Melanie’s friend Brendan came in and promptly started chatting up a Japanese girl in the bar, so I think I served my purpose, and the heat is off her. After a few beers we got going down the road and beat a big thunderstorm home. Tomorrow is the Friday before a long weekend so I’m pretty excited.

Today I heard at school that a typhoon is approaching, but it is still 600 miles away. It is supposed to be about the same size as the last one, which was pretty impressive. It is expected to hit in the next couple of days. Yikes!

In between classes I was talking with Miss Kageyama, and she agreed to be my Japanese language conversation partner. It might seem weird to seek out someone in Japan to speak Japanese with, but Miss Kageyama’s English skills are so good that she can listen to me, and then correct me where I went wrong in English, if necessary. When I screw up my Japanese with your everyday Japanese person, they look at me strangely and I don’t learn a thing. We tried it out today while the other teachers were at a staff meeting, and I think it worked well. She is also teaching me some of the local dialect to impress my friends.

On the way home I did some heavy shopping for the weekend, and then I had a strange combination of salad, sausages, and quesadillas for dinner. Kind of my version of leftover night. I am busy reading the Count of Monte Cristo, and really enjoying it.

Today was pretty uneventful – I spent time today teaching three classes, and for the most part, the students were enthusiastic. One of the exercises is to write the answer to some tough questions like “What is your teacher’s name?” and “What are his hobbies?” One student today wrote my name on the board with a little heart at the end, so I just ignored it and pretended like I’m used to this sort of thing.

I spent my off time at work learning some new Japanese verbs, and the teachers were amused to walk by and watch me practicing. I think it helps them to realize that I’m not some sort of amazing trilingual genius – I have a lot of work to do.

When I cooked up my tacos in the microwave, it filled the teacher’s room with a smell that must have been new to everyone. A couple of people stopped by to ask questions. At my desk, I gave Mr. Komuri a sample of a taco, and then one of the girl’s P.E. teachers showed an interest so I gave her a quesadilla to try. She went nuts – I couldn’t tell if she was being over-polite, but I think she really liked it. She passed on a bite to another teacher, and so a little Mexican food went a long way. When other teachers arrived after their 4th period class and found out that they missed it, they were pretty bummed out. I’m going to have to bring in some more Mexican food soon. I also found out who teaches the Japanese calligraphy class, or shodo, at my school – it turns out it’s the same teacher that kicked my butt in ping pong. I’m going to ask him to help me out with shodo as well.

After school I shared a train ride home with one of my English club members, and we had a great conversation, half in Japanese and half in English. On the way home I stopped in at the shaved ice stand, because it had been so long since I had talked to the shaved ice lady. She was really happy to see me, and I was dreading what was going to happen after I got my shaved ice. She usually tries to give me something special each time I’m there. This time I sat down, and when I had finished my shaved ice, I went up to say goodbye. She had been in there making takoyaki for me, and gave me 10 pieces for my dinner. She is so nice – I’m looking for the right gift for her. I have a couple of ideas, though.

I dropped by Melanie’s place and gave her half the takoyaki – I didn’t know what her dinner plans were but she’s in a financial crunch until payday, so I wanted to help out a bit. Melanie asked me to go out with her and a guy named Brendan that we had met at a party a while back. The guy is kind of annoying, but I guess Melanie agreed to go out with him. I guess I am there to keep things legit. I don’t know why she agreed to go out with him if he’s a loser, but I’m not going to turn down Murphy’s on draft.

Tomorrow I’ve arranged to have conversations in Japanese with Miss Kageyama for about an hour once a week. I’m hoping we can do it more often, but for know we’re going to try it out and see how it goes.

I got to work early this Monday morning, and for some reason, the girls were giggling more than usual today. The whole day had some kind of strange vibe, and I was asked some unusual questions in class. Usually kids are too scared to ask questions at all, but some kids in my first year class asked me my age, where I bought my shirt, if I had a girlfriend, and my favorite question of the day, if my hair color was real (it is).

One of the exercises I had the students do was come to the front of the room with a partner and talk about their name, hobbies, and favorite food. I had grown used to the same one word answers like “baseball” “television” and “movies”, until a student today said his hobby was “collecting Japanese Mafia goods”. I asked him about it later, and it turned out he was talking about swords, weapons, and other items used by the yakuza, the Japanese mafia. I had this mental image of him riding around a bike extorting 80-year old shopkeepers. Go figure.

The rest of my day was pretty uneventful, but while I walked home I was smiling at everyone and I got a few smiles back, which is unusual.

For dinner I cooked up tacos and quesadillas with the somewhat bland cheese I have available to me. The flour tortillas that I had bought here turned out to be quite good, and the meal turned out great. It was a simpler version of tacos as I don’t have access to beans here, so it was ground beef, cheese, lettuce, onions, and Tapatio hot sauce. I’m taking my leftovers into work tomorrow and I can’t wait to see their reaction to that meal.

Melanie had bought an English language newspaper, the Daily Yomiuri, and had left it in my mailbox for me to read. As I settled down with the first newspaper I had read in more than a month, some kids started to scream across the street. It was not an alarming scream, more like some kids fooling around. For the next 45 minutes, they just kind of screamed at random intervals. I think the parents probably had just said, “Fine, go ahead and scream. See if I care”. After about a half hour, I was cracking up. I wanted to join in, just for fun, but what would my neighbors think?

We woke up at Nel’s place around seven in the morning, and decided to go out and do a little hiking. The area around his apartment is really nice, with lots of trails that lead all over the mountainside. I was pretty envious of his set up.

Below his apartment complex is a small lake, and as we stood on the bridge looking down, about 15 turtles swam up and waited expectantly for us to drop food down to them. Since we didn’t have anything to give them, we walked around a bit more, and then gathered up our gear and went into town.

Near Nel’s train station is a place that has “Morning Service”. Depending on who you talk to, this can mean a lot of things, but in Japan, it means a light breakfast. We ordered some iced coffees, and with your drink you get a giant slice of buttered toast and a banana. The good news is that the food is free, you just pay for the drink. We got out of there for just a couple of bucks.

Next we took the train one station over and went to the beach. The weather was perfect, and although I didn’t bring a suit or a towel, I kicked off my shoes and walked around in the waves a bit. The water temperature was warmer than what I’m used to, and it was fun to walk around a bit and watch the locals. The girls swam with their clothes on – there were no bikinis in sight. The guys were wearing bathing suits, and people were just kind of lounging around. There was a lot of trash laying around, and I was surprised that they didn’t really take care of the beach.

After having a Zen moment at the beach we went back to the train station and went our separate ways. It was good visiting these guys, and I’m looking forward to our next visit.

I relaxed around the house, doing laundry and taking care of chores. In the evening Melanie came down with some beers and we compared notes on our weekends. I was getting ready to cook up some udon soup with pork, so I invited her to stick around. She brought down some frozen gyoza (pot stickers) and so I cooked up the lot and we had a couple more beers. The udon soup turned out nicely, and it was fun to cook for someone. The only downside was that we were eating hot soup on a hot day, but overall it was nice.

After dinner Mel took off and I made my weekly pilgrimage to the local 7-11. The 7-11 is not the closest convenience store, and not even really that convenient. The big attraction in this store is one of the employees, and she always works on Sundays. I usually take the 20 minute walk to the store for an ice cream on Sundays. The employee speaks in the most incredibly high, squeaky voice I have ever heard. You really must hear it to appreciate it, but it is amazing. It is worth a 20 minute walk, and 100 yen for an ice cream. She gives you great service, and finishes with an extra deep bow and the strangest, squeakiest “arigatoo gozaimashitaaaaaaa” you’ll ever get.