Songs, Sleighs and Santa hats!

So this week is my last week of school, and the last week before Christmas. AS the big day draws near, more and more festive activities are happening! My 3rd grade elective English class today made Christmas cards, wrote letters to Santa, and had 'Santa photos':


The closing weeks of school mark the final choral contest. The singing ability of Japanese school students is remarkable! Check them out:

So proud! I'm gunna miss these kids over winter break!

書道Shodo-the art of Japanese Calligraphy.

Recently I joined the Japanese calligraphy club in the next town. Every Wednesday I go to a little old lady’s place hidden in an alleyway and take lessons in a big old musty room, filled with ink stains. For an hour and a half I sit with my legs folded under me, my brush poised just so, and my back as straight as the scroll-clad walls behind me. My Shodo Sensei guides me in the correct swishes, hooks and strokes, and before long I’ve written my first: 永久 ‘Forever’ (I think this will be the hint for how long it will take me to perfect calligraphy!) I leave with a new calligraphy kit in hand, and a zest to spend the rest of the night with my brushes and ink. The kind of calligraphy I’ve enrolled in is graded. Every month I submit a certain number of calligraphy to get marked, and if I pass then I move to the next rank. At the moment I’m 新 (new). There are about 25 ranks and the highest are held by most of the elderly population. I’ll most likely be an “obaachan” (old lady) before I get anywhere near there!
So, word had gotten around that I had joined the calligraphy class. (As long as they don’t look at my attempts thus far I’m fine!) My supervisor’s calligraphy teacher, who was taught by the grand master of calligraphy, also had heard. She wanted to give me private lessons but has retired due to poor eyesight. Instead she wanted to give me her personal Shodo tools. I was beside myself when I heard this. My supervisor took me to her house and at once I was overwhelmed with beautiful hanging scrolls and perfectly written calligraphy from wall to wall. This woman got the highest possible rank. She handed me her shodo set, a soft brown leather case with well-worn brushes lain inside. I felt like I had a little part of this woman’s history, and felt so priviledged that she chose to give it to me. As she handed it to me she said the equivalent of “The importance of practice is the success of Shodo.” Those words rang in my ears for hours afterwards..
Since retiring from Shodo she has taken up Japanese classical singing, and she treated both my supervisor and I to a personal concert. It was so incredibly beautiful.
I hope that in my years in studying Shodo I can come even as close as a 5th to what this woman has become.

New Kitty!!

On Sunday of last week, I acquired my very own kitten! She is the baby of a friend’s cat, whose owner wasn’t too keen on having more kitties to take care of. So Sunday afternoon I get picked up and taken to this friend’s place where I was able to choose a kitten! There were three to choose from, and I picked the shy-est and gentlest one of the three (the other two were a little too…shall I say…genki?! Well, I wouldn’t want to be getting them unless they came with a mute button put it that way! Plus no-one ever picks the shy kitty!). I picked her up and she snuggled into the small of my neck and stayed there! I knew it at once.  For this reason, I’ve decided to call her “Shizuka” 静花, which means ‘gentle blossom’. I picked out the characters to mean this specifically. (She told me that she’d like to be called ‘Shizu’, or perhaps ‘Zuzu’ by her close friends though hehe)
So far she has explored my little house and has a fondness for sprawling herself across the back of my neck…like a nice fur scarf….except not…\so much so that I may consider re-naming her parrot! She’s also serving to be a good investment (hmm…even though she was free!), as she heats my cold, wintery bed at night! Sometimes I think I’ve dropped some cotton wool on the floor only to find it’s her huddled in a ball…everyone now “awwwwwwwwwwwwww!”
The cutest, cuddliest thing you’ve ever seen!

Wheels Baby, Yeah!

Oh yes. I have a car! There’s a rather interesting story that accompanies my acquisition of aforementioned car, so please listen well..
Firstly, the need for a car arose after Betty, my once-trusty bicycle, suffered a near-fatal puncture whilst her owner was riding her on the road to nowhere in inaka-ville. Trapped and immobile for half an hour til a passer-by stopped to help, I decided then and there-punctured tyre in hand that I would get me an automobile!!

So..I needed a Japanese license. Being an Aussie (yay!) I was able to switch over to a Japanese license no questions asked. Or so I thought. On my first attempt, after driving two hours with an armload of forms and photos, I was denied because my license has no date of issue (despite me telling the poor girl that my license was issued two years before the expiry date). Second time around I was successful, and after an eye test and an awwwwwful mugshot I walked out with my Japanese license.

Then I needed a car, right? So, I contact a car dealer used by many JETs-thankfully he’s an Aussie so there’s no translation worries, plus I don’t have to do any nasty paper-work. He gives me a list of possible cars and funnily enough I end up picking my predecessor’s car! (Which means I could have bought it off her at the start and saved a whole lotta yennage!) So, the same day I get my license, I get my car. After handing over a wad of cash I’m ready to drive. And here she is:








Quite roomy, many a snowboard and shopping bag will be jammed in the boot don’t you worry! She’s already been a-Costco-ing, and her first big road trip has already been planned-a 10 hour round trip to Hakodate complete with road trippin’ tunes, m&m’s and gaijin madness! (Oh, and a Halloween Party thrown in the works as well!)
She has been affectionately named “Dingo Chaser” by one of my American JET friends, and I think it’s quite becoming. Though if we’re going to cutesy it up Japanese style then she’s DC-chan ;-)
Niseko here I come!
DC-chan and Saa-chan sign out ;-)

The impossible has happened...

I bought shoes in Japan. And they fit.




Oh my goodness...

My First Elementary School Visit!

Wow. These kids are GENKI!!! I'm still exhausted from chasing them around all day! I had two classes, which seemed a little strange as there are NINE students in the whole school!!

At first they sat and listened attentively, as we tried to find my home on the map:



Then things got more exciting as we traced away:



Then before you know it we're playing 'Red Light, Green Light' and runnning from wall to wall!



Please note my incredibly patriotic attire..

Visit number two is next week, stay tuned...

Photo Booth Fun!

The beloved pastime of every junior high school student: print club (or purikura in the Japanese ‘let’s-shorten-everything style). Simply put, they are the super successor of the passport photo booth. Not only can you take an incessant amount of differently posed shots, these machines can superimpose various images over the top of your carefully positioned photos-see below for our watermelon adventure (that actually took place behind a big green plastic block):

You can also, if you so wish (and I did), chose to include props and or costumes to enhance your lovely photos. There are racks upon racks of costumes-any get-up you like from French maid to a baseball player to a Disney character or a soldier. Although what better costume than a Japanese school uniform!


And when all of your options are exhausted and you’ve finished your paparazzi stint, you can then proceed to draw/stamp/embellish your photos of choice:
There is also an option to have these little gems sent to your mobile phone, for free!

Japanese teenagers have been known to spend all day in these booths, jumping from one to the next (there are whole floors of these machines) in a bid to fill up their purikura books. Often this is their most prized possession as it contains years of photos. A common story is that when a Japanese girl has lost her bag, the first thing she is worried about is this book. Sadly mine is a little empty at the moment..

Overall a very addictive experience, and at $4 a pop it’s definitely one I’ll return to!