Joe Carter and Tom Cheek

If you were a Canadian alive in 1992 and 1993, you will remember that the Toronto Blue Jays was the best team in major league baseball. The following year, to protest a Canadian team winning the World Series (twice), everyone went on strike and baseball sucked until recent years.

This was the call by Blue Jays' voice Tom Cheek when Joe Carter hit his famous walk-off homerun in the bottom of the ninth with two out, two strikes on him. I swear, I tear up every time I hear this.

Twisted.

This is a picture I should've posted a long time ago, multiple times. He is Hasegawa and works next to me at the Board of Education.

Waitin For a Train - Chris Smither

This guy is amazing. The video is crap, but you stop caring after about 30 seconds of watching and listening to him...

GRADUATION 2007
Two weeks ago my junior high 3rd years graduated (the school year in Japan ends in March and starts again in April). It's a happy occasion for the most part, but I was kind of sad. The sad part wasn't so much that I would probably never see most of them again (although that is sad), but that most of them will probably forget me shortly. This is kind of an egocentric concern, I admit, but the truth is that I really like some of these kids and I wish I could get to know them better. But these kids aren't going to drop everything and come running to me every time they see me. I've only been around for 6 months, I've only taught some of these kids maybe 2 or 3 times in class...
I read somewhere recently that we humans like to consider ourselves to be the stars of the show but the truth is that we are mere extras in relation to most people we interact with. And much as I would like to think I am a significant presence in some of these kids lives (because they are special to me), I have to accept the fact that I am only an extra, a brief walk-on presence. Having come to terms with this, I've decided that the most I can do is act my part as well as I can.

Still, I will miss them.

OK, enough emoting. Below are some pictures of graduation day at my three schools.

Kubo Jr. High had a cool arrangement where all the 1st and 2nd years lined up along the driveway and gave gifts to their "sempai" (elder/mentor) as they filed through.




Members of the Kudamatsu Jr. High Brass Band, before playing out the graduates.


The famous Mizuki two-time English speech contest champion.

Hiroshima San Fecce soccer fans. Mark, Brett, Ross (fellow JET lads) went to Hiroshima for the day on Wednesday (national holiday: Vernal Equinox Day) and took in this game. Hiroshima got their butt kicked by Osaka but it was fun to watch. There was one leather-lunged young woman (late teens? Early twenties?) beside us who, when I first heard her shouting, I thought it was one of the teenaged boys behind us. She was a real hardcore fan and didn't hesitate to cuss out a player if he messed up. All four of us kept peeking glances at her, in awe and admiration.




We went to Freshness Burger for lunch - delish! Mark ordered a mini salsa burger for dessert.


This picture was taken way back in October, I think, but I don't think I posted it. It's Hiroshima Castle. And that's me in front.


Brett drinks a lot of Coke. He is, in fact, a Pepsi man at heart but Pepsi is hard to find in Japan.

Student Art.


Amazing. I don't know who drew it, but it was on display at Suetake Jr. High in the art wing.


Also in the art wing. Wooden carvings which were painted... by students, presumably.


A poster for a candidate running for student council at Suetake.

MIYAZAKI HAYAO - genius.

For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of watching this man's films, well, please do. My memories of Miyazaki's works of art goes back to when i was a wee child of 7 or so and I saw "My Neighbour Totoro". I think one of the first movies our family owned. Anyways, the characters are so alive, and the stories so great. I've only seen a few of them, but the ones I have see are great for kids as well as adults. Please watch them. Below is a poster for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

The Day American Journalism Died.

The other day, Brett (who is a journalism major) and I were checking out the news on CNN. The site is broken down into several categories: Art, Science, World, etc. That day, the top three stories in the "World" section were (something like) "Eight Shiites Killed In Iraq Bombing", "Three Britons Kidnapped In Afghanistan" and "Earthquake Kills Seventy In Indonesia".

The top three stories in the "US" section were: "420-pound Woman Gives Birth Without Knowing She Was Pregnant", "Lawyer: Police Chief, Dog Have Diplomas From Same School", and "Teen Defends Giving Kids Pot".

Brett said, with great feeling and sadness, "Today, this day, is the day journalism died in America. What is wrong with you, Americaaaa??" He loves America, though. But the comparison of those headlines was pretty hilarious.

RANDOM


This was from Christmas.

DAZAIFU - Kyushu Island.

Shoko, Jennifer, Brett, and Ken. We (Shoko, that is) drove 3 hours south to the main southern island of Kyushu to see an exhibition of an artist that Shoko loves that was showing at the Kyushu National Museum, which is, by the way, an amazing building. Brand new last year and just acres of space inside the large dome-like interior. The featured artist's name is Itoh Jakuchu (1716-1800) and the man could paint. Unfortunately I couldn't get an original otherwise I would've scanned it and posted it. Incredibly vivid and confident paintings of nature, mainly.... tigers, cranes, and roosters being his specialty.

After the museum, we went wandering about in Dazaifu which has a nice big shrine with tons of people. As I watched all the people bustling about the ancient temple grounds, I remarked wistfully to Brett, "Imagine what this place would've been like a thousand years ago..." And Brett said, "yeah... all trees". Smartass.




The fattest plum blossoms I'd ever seen. I was one of the millions under that tree taking photos.








This very energetic 65-year-old man and his monkey act. When he took his hat off to bow to the crowd we could see he had bright green hair. His shirt said in big letters across the front: "Every day is hell".

Oh yeah, I'm staying another year here! I don't know if I've told anybody that yet.

Shamisen Awesomeness - YOSHIDA BROTHERS -- Tsugaru Jongara 2007.1.1

Shamisen is a traditional Japanese stringed instrument. It's fretless, has three strings and the strings are plucked with a flat, car-window-ice-scraper-like thing that you will see if you watch this. Please enjoy these brothers rocking out.

RANDOM8



Little Kanji, from the taiko group, flings a ball down the alley. Me, Yoshie + Kanji (big sis, little bro), Chika + Suguru (same) and Nagisa, all went bowling a week ago. We had the gutter-guards put in for Suguru and Kanji which meant those who would've done terribly normally did better than those who would've done alright without them. It was fun times!


Shoko's big dog, Daikichi (or Dai-chan). Shoko took me to her absolute favourite place in the ken (more favourite than the previous places that we saw in the autumn)...it's a gorgeous hike through bamboo and other trees unknown to me to the top of this huge hill from which you can see Kudamatsu on one side and neighbouring Tokuyama on the other. About halfway up the hill Shoko let Dai-chan loose and man that can dog run. Energy for daaays. Just tore all over the forest without missing a step.


Angela Aki - the only taste of "J-Pop" that I've really taken to. She writes her own songs, plays her own piano, and sings with her own voice. A rarity in pop these days, I think. She's half American, went to uni there, and is fluent in English. She also has a lovely down-to-earthness which I judge from her appearences on TV. One time she was playing one of her songs with a full orchestra at this beautiful concert hall and she walked out in jeans, t-shirt (not a tight sexy one, but a regular, kind of baggy t-shirt) and a zip-up hoody sweater. Awesome.

Below are two pictures (in a series of 5) that Mike or Anna took while I was napping in their apartment over winter holidays. I discovered them by accident later when I was previewing that pics on my camera.

Better late than never: My Grandma plays the electric organ. [Originally shot in August of 2006]

She didn't know I was taping....the room is what the call the "store"; lots of random craft-like things my grandpa makes, as well as an enormous collection of jazz and old rock albums that my great-grandmother accumulated.

Kids Say The Darndest Things.

One of the games I play with the kids as a warmup is the ol' "Who/What Am I?" game. It's basically a riddle game; I describe myself and the kids have to guess "Are you ----?". The following are two episodes of this game that actually happened this week. *Note. most of the kids, as you might very well do when listening to a language you are just beginning to learn, pick out certain key words they know and skip over the words they don't know. Which explains what happened.

"What am I? I can be short, I can be long.
I can be small, I can be big!
I am in every school and house.
I know everything! There are many of me in the library" [answer: a book]

One 7th grade girl, Reina: "Are you poo?"

Mr. Tadachi, who I was teaching with that day, thought of this one:
"Who am I? I was the president of South Africa.
I fought for freedom and equality. I was in prison for 26 years.
I am over 80 years old. I am a black man. Who am I?"

Mischevious boy: "Michael Jackson!" and then did a little dance.

Illness - Ill!

Just a short story to let you know I am well cared for here.

Two days ago, on Tuesday, I woke up in the morning feeling like I might, just might, throw up. But I said to myself, no, Ken, this is probably just from eating two suppers the night before. So I went to school, did my lessons for the day (all in the morning that day) with my usual vigour and good energy but then felt a little weird afterwards. Munechika sensei (English teacher) told me that Okuda sensei (another English teacher and my private Japanese tutor) was absent that day because she came down with the flu. Well. I was at Okuda's house the night before for my lessons so I thought, hmm. Maybe I've caught something ( I was later informed that flu takes at least 5 or 6 days to manifest itself after contraction).

In any case, I was starting to develop a fever so Munechika called the Board of Education office, talked to Kawamura (one of my supervisors, she of the ginger tea) who promptly drove over with Komatsu (my other super) and picked me up from school, like an ambulance or something. They drove me to a nearby clinic where I met one of my students, 3rd year girl. Komatsu asked me if I was embarassed that this little girl was here by herself and I was escorted by two adults. After getting some drugs, they drove me home and commanded me to sleep.

At this point you're probably thinking to yourself, wow, what considerate teachers and supervisors he has, that they would take time out of their day to do all this for him. Wait til I tell you that those two showed up after work with a big grocery bag full of appropriate food for feverish people. Moreover, when they arrived, they brought in another big bag full of fruit and juice that Shoko (she of the awesome daytrips and encyclipaedic knowledge of everything Japan) had dropped off and hung on my doorknob, so as not to disturb me (I had told her of my illness via cell txt). While we were marvelling over all this goodwill, Munechika sensei dropped by with a hot take-out okonomiyaki (one of my fav foods, as she recalled from one of my lessons) and a box of strawberries. Wow.

The entire inventory of gifted foods is as follows:
5 packages of rice gruel (soft, hot rice soup stuff)
3 cups of Doraimon chocolate pudding
2 cups of fruit yogurt
2 big apples
2 packages of fresh rolls from the bakery
1 cinnamon roll from the bakery
2 packages of multi-vitamin juice
1 pack of omochi
1 quick-make udon set
1 okonomiyaki
1 bottle of apple juice (355mL)
1 bottle of Aquarious (2L)
1 bottle of Pokari Sweat (1.5L) [these last two are like energy
drinks...very delish]
1 box of strawberries.

My parents called the next day (I had emailed them about this wonderful generosity)and they were very happy and thankful to know I had such good friends looking out for me. 'Are they all women [who brought this food for you]?` asked my Dad. `Incidentally, yes they are', I replied. 'You are your father's son', he said with a laugh. Whatever THAT's supposed to mean!

The point of the story here, is that I am not alone, even when ill. Fear not for your little Kenny, he is in good hands.

Just some random thoughts, lest the blog become stagnant.

Has anyone else noticed something peculiar about the minty chewing gum industry? Remember back in the day when they were all going nuts about how chewing Trident/Dentyne/whatever would help to PREVENT cavities? Nowadays, if you look carefully, they proudly display the fact that this gum 'Does Not Cause Cavities'. What the heck. Next they'll be selling us with, 'Does Not Cause Dizziness, Headaches, Back-pain, or Diarria' (P.S. Does ANYBODY know how to spell 'Diaghrria properly??)
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The other day after school I was biking towards an intersection when a kid I passed shouted 'Oh! Ken!' So I looked back and waved and when I looked forward again, the flashing green man had turned to a solid red hand and a whole bunch of my students were all there to see me run through a stop-signal. Sigh. This probably made the news at many a dinner table conversation, and I will probably be fired for it.
Japan is a very letter-of-the-law society and most Japanese pedestrians will wait at a deserted crosswalk until the light turns green even if they were the last people on earth. This is in stark contrast to certain people I know in Canada, who shall remain nameless, who will routinely ACCELERATE through familiar stop signs when no cars are coming (ryan baer). What? Who said that?

However, as evidence of the changing times, I am seeing more and more rebellious youth and adult alike darting furtively across an empty street EVEN THOUGH THE LIGHT SAYS STOP.
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I made an extremely delicious meal from scratch. It consisted of stir fried veggies and fried beef strips with some delish spices and melted cheese and ground flax seeds and yoghurt and brown rice. I do this kind of thing all the time.
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Just to show you how awesome my supervisors at the ol' Board of Education (BOE) office are, I was sick this past week with a nagging cold and cough. So Kawamura-san brought me a steaming cup of GINGER & HONEY TEA to my desk, just like my Mom made back home! Wow!

NABE. I realized that after writing a great deal about nabe in my last email, I had failed to post a picture of it. To be technical, this is real nabe, where food is already prepared and all cooked at once inside the nabe. The piece-meal method of tossing stuff in to cook and eat instantly is called "Shabu shabu" - a key feature of shabushabu is the thinly sliced raw meat that is dipped for like 2 seconds and eaten post-haste. I think that's all correct.


Giant seafood NABE that Shoko took us to. To eat.

Winter Holidays Part III: Yokohama - Eisuke, Eiko, Hidemi, Jun.

From Yamanashi, Anna, Mike and I travelled onwards to Yokohama where my Dad's little sister's family doth dwell. FUN TIMES! The first night we got there, my cousins (Hidemi and Jun) were both there as well as Jun's wife, Rieko who bears a striking resemblence to my mother. Anyways, it was so great to see the whole family there together, I hadn't seen Jun or Hidemi for a long time (Eisuke and Eiko came to visit me in November). Good food, lots of pets, lots of English (they were all quite able when they really put their minds to it) and lots of laughs.

ほんとに　たのしかった！ありがとうございました！


My cousin Hidemi and me.


The Yokohama family. Hidemi (holding Harry), Jun (holding Chatta), me, Rieko (Jun's wife, holding their cat, Giovanni), Hidemi's friend Takahashi, Anna and Mike, and Eiko (my dad's youngest sister).




We went for a 2.5 hour hike over a range of hills into the ancient city of Kamakura. GLORIOUS hike through bamboo, spruce, cedar trees... this is a giant graveyard ("hakaishi") that we saw on our way.


My cousin Taiki (from my Mom's side) met up with us for this little walk since he couldn't make it to our grandparent's place. Good guy.



Amazing old temples in abundance at Kamakura. Enormous wooden structures, not a single nail in any of them.


The ceiling of one particular temple.


We took a jaunt into Tokyo for a day. Exhausting. This is a picture Mike took of the train routes at Shibuya (I think) train station in Tokyo. Finding my way around the public transport system was probably the only thing that I had any anxiety about when preparing for my time in Japan, oddly. Turns out it's really not that bad, and really well organized, so all you gotta do is ask someone if you're lost.

Ken's TAIKO!
This is a video of a special performance that I was asked to do for my Aikido club's Christmas party. I got together an elite team of drummers: Chika, Nagisa, Saori & Tao (two leaders of the group). Get this: the night of the performance, I get to the place where I was meeting the others and Tao told me Nagisa had been sick all day - fever and vomiting, poor girl. I felt bad because I know she was really looking forward to doing this. Not only that, her absence threw a wrench into our format because now Saori would have to play both timekeeper AND do Nagisa's part. Turns out this was a blessing in disguise because Saori is SO GOOD. I learned later in the night, she was a professional at one point. She is the one behind me.

Let me just say that this was EXHAUSTING. By the end of the performance, I was half past dead. Very physically strenuous, but very impressive to watch too, if done right (see Saori!).

Special thanks to Brett Plotz for taking this video!
Enjoy!