Pride Comes Before a Fail

Well, they say pride comes before a fall, but I'm going to use the new "fail" slang that seems to have developed without informing me since I've been here as "pride comes before a fail" adds an extra air of embarrassment, which is fully appropriate for the amount of egg on my face after three recent events. Indeed, bad luck has come in a lovely set of three, as if the God of Japan has read my blog, noted everything that I have boasted about and has decided to teach me a big fat three tiered lesson.

Firstly, I told you how wonderful I am at riding a bike now and how I glide along around the rice fields of Ita-where, with farmers gazing at my grace, speed and control. Cue me cycling into a bollard the other day, trapping my foot between it and a pedal whilst the other foot was still pushing forward on the other pedal (obviously over confident in his counterpart's foot's cycling ability), creating a space between said pedal and said bollard which was far too small for a foot, yet had a foot in it. This happened at a light, embarrassingly holding up the car that was about to turn the corner into the street, which decided to turn anyway, just in time to see me yelp and yell a couple of awful profanities and for the child in the car, who I teach, as the lovely lady of fate would have it, to shout "Hello" out of the window (I was still mid-profanity at the time, so they did not get a response).

Secondly, I have boasted a little about Japanese fashion and having tried out a few bits, some succesfully, some unsuccessfully. Also, in conversation, and in my own head, I have been bigging myself up for saving enough money at the end of last month to go on a fashion splurge in Harajuku, and having made such wonderfully fashionable purchases, which all suit me, were good deals and fit well...perfection. Cut to me on Monday morning prancing around my flat, posing in my new clothes before packing them all for a three-day conference that I was heading off to at about 10 O clock. Such pretty clothes, which would work so well for post-conference drinking and karaoking with other teachery friends. Pit I forgot about the actual MEETINGS that would take up 70% of my time there and forgot to pack a change of shirt for three days...H+M stop off necessary. Total fail.

Thirdly, I do believe that I boasted to a ridiculous extent about my amazing omiyage skills and how all of my presents are superb quality and all go down so well. I sent three sets of Christmas crackers to Japan from the UK at Christmastime, by means of omiyage for three of my primary school. I also sent a card with a quick explanation that they are a British tradition and not common in most parts of the world, even the rest of the English-speaking world or Europe and that if they didn't know what to do, they should ask the fourth grade teachers as we made some in December's fourth grade class in every school. I didn't get many thank yous at all, for what I thought was a very original and fun present. In reality, it played our rather differently. I saw a few teachers with them still on their desk at one school in mid-Feb when I first went back to my primary school shifts, and a whole unopened box (out of one that I sent) at another. At the third school, I got a couple of thank yous and didn't see any lying around, so I reckoned that they had gone down better there. This was until, the rather bolshy (for a Japanese person) librarian, who said "What was that cracker thing?" "Mine didn't make a sound." I couldn't believe it, I've never had a broken one ever. It turns out that she had no idea what it was or how to use it as no-one had shown her the card and the fourth grade teacher hadn't said anything, so she tried to pull in ON HER OWN....and...wait for it.... OVER HER HEAD (I didn't know whether to laugh or cryat that image). We then did a quick survey of some other teachers in the room, to find that two still had their sitting at home because they didn't know what to do and one thought that it was supposed to be eaten!! BIG FAT CRACKER FAIL.

BLANK Of The Day 4

I was in a class the other day and the teacher was doing a quiz where she held up pictures of a typical breakfast from various countries to see if the students could guess which country it came from (answers ranged from names of towns to continents to other islands of Japan, so the answer was obviously no, but it was worth a try). She told about the quiz on the way into the classroom and proudly told me that she had an English breakfast photo in honour of me. I grinned and semi-bowed (I was over the moon that she had remembered I wasn't American to be honest!). We get to the second question, which was a picture of beef stew and cupcakes...I was thinking where the hell do they eat that for breakfast and did my best shock face, in tune with the students (I'm getting pretty good at the Japanese reactions now) and peered over the shoulder the teacher to read the answer...England! This was one of those "I had to laugh or else I would cry" moments. Cupcakes and beef stew. BEEF STEW AND CUPCAKES?? Where did she get that information?? To make it worse, I had been sitting opposite her in the staffroom for half of the morning...wouldn't asking the English person about the English breakfast, or even just checking quickly have made sense? She was so proud of her quiz though that I just didn't have the heart to say that it was complete rubbish and just span some line about everyone in England eating something different for breakfast. For instance, I eat toast (lack of shock faces there). I suppose one way to get them interested in foreign countries is just to lie about them. I now have 20-odd students who thinks an English breakfast is beef stew and cupcakes, when, in reality, I can't think of a combination that is less accurate...I hope they never go there and order one!!

Random Event Of The Day 5

I was shopping (or doing very good just-looking-not-even-touching due to lack of funds) in a Japanese fashion shop called Comme Ca in Shinjuku the weekend before last. Comme Ca is pretty cool and funky...bit top-shoppy but not quite as out there. Anyway, they had a song on loop where the first couple of bars featured a voice over with somebody shouting "Hello" in English and I actually reacted to it and looked over my shoulder THREE TIMES as if someoby was talking to me!! It sounded so realistic and is testament to the fact that my new call sign is simply "Hello" as most of my kids forget my name so don't ever make it past "hello" and for half of the rest of Japan, that's about as far as in English as they can get...very embarrassing and a true sign of what my life has become!!

BLANK Of The Day 3

My turn to BLANK this time, although I think it's fair enough. There is a new K-Pop group (Korean Pop) out called Kara...I say new in that they are new to me as I don't follow K-Pop because I like good music, but I think they might actually have been around for a while. They are a girl group who are a big hit in Japan and I think are currently here for promotion or a tour or just in an attempt to take over my TV. Anyway, K-Pop is cooler than J-Pop so I've given in a little bit and I was loving one Kara song because I thought it said "choppy choppy choppy now" in it, which I thought must mean something in Korean, but it just gave me funny images of them all smiling (it's a very happy song as most J and K-Pop is) and chopping onions or something. However, I've just learnt that they are actually supposed to be singing English there and it's "jumping, jumping, jumping up!!" Youtube it and see what you think!

Random Event Of The Day 4

Actually stopped and stared at some dog poo on the pavement yesterday...I may have pointed as well, because I honestly believe that is the FIRST time I have seen some in 18 months in the country! Either Japanese people are incredibly responsible or their dogs are very very well trained...or perhaps, like Queen Elizabeth, they just don't poo.

Random Event Of The Day 3

Saw an old woman out of the corner of my eye who lives across the road bending down the other day in an almost right angled position under this really low window ledge and thought "What on Earth is she just standing there bent down like that for?" She proceeded to walk forward a bit from under the ledge, still in the same position, and then I realised that she is just a naturally right-angle-shaped person...Remind me not to fall asleep in the aforementioned semi-wedge kotatsu position again!!

Fuss of The Day 3

For once, this was a fuss I fully took part in and supported whole heartedly. We had ramen (thin noodles in a soup) for school dinner yesterday...we've never had them before and they were a NIGHTMARE to serve...it took me and two other teachers around the big pot, one for holding the bowl, one for scooping the noodles with one of those sort of wannabe-ladel half spoon half fork things and me with a normal ladel scooping soup up. Serving it took twice the time it normally did and towards the end there were simply no actual noodles left and just soup...everyone was pretty excited about getting ramen for the first time, so serving some people ramen without any ramen in it would have been a bit of a slap in the face...cue wannabe oversized ladel being used to scoop a few floater noodles out of some small bowls and into the ones that had only soup. One guy still wound up with a bowl of ramen that didn't even have one noodle in it!! If today is anything to go by, that could be a joke that lasts the rest of this year!

Teachers' Trip Take 1 - Travelling to Matsushima

The way Japanese people travel is truly astounding...sometimes a colleauge goes away for a couple of days or so and I get an omiyage from somewhere ridiculously far away like Italy on my desk. On enquiring what they could possibly have been doing in Italy for only FOUR DAYS or so, considering almost a whole day of it would be the plane journey alone, I get an account of the 18 or so cities that were visited, the pizza and spaghetti that was eaten and the one hundred and twenty five thousand photos that were taken, all featuring said teacher doing a peace sign in front of various sights and not smiling...probably didn't have time to smile.

So, with these ridiculously tightly organised and regimented travel stories in mind that I rather nervously accepted an invite to go on a trip with my teachers to Matsuthshima (松島）(left) in Miyagi prefecture　（宮城県, a city towards the North of Japan's main island (the one that Gunma is also on, in the middle somewhere), Honshu. It's just next to the city Sendai. The main aim of the trip is to bond (mainly achieved through drinking yourself silly) whilst seeing ever single thing that Miyagi has to offer, including many things on the way, soak in an onsen, eat a lovely dinner and take a million photos, all in the space of just over 24 hours. That was a CHARRENJI if ever there was one, especially as this story actually comes from over a year ago, when I still couldn't speak much Japanese. Departure was at ridiculous O'clock, on a coach from the school carpark. I was handed an enormous bag of snacks for the ride, which more than slightly scared me as to how long this coach trip could be...just how many dried squid things can one need for one journey???

Somehow, in spite of it being about 5am and in spite of us all arriving in time, within about 5 minutes of setting off, we were 'running late.' By this time, we were also already a bag of squid snacks down each (not me) and halfway through a can of alcoholic beverage (I was further due to nerves). I sat with the young teachers at the back of the bus, like the naughty kids, and we played drinking games and I chatted to many of them for the first time and it was really fun...the only annoying bit was the 15 minute interruptions to pile off of the coach, go to toilet, take a photo in front of a random tourist site and buy some omiyage that that region is 'famous' for...everywhere is supposedly famous for something in Japan, even Ita-where is famous for cucumbers, in spite of them just being normal cucumber and Ita-where not being famous full stop. Lunch was in a place that couldn't have been famous for anything more unfortunate...TONGUE. I was tucking into my tongue curry (the restaurant only did tongue dishes and it was the least tongue-y looking picture on the menu) downing more alcohol, cameras flashing all around me...I definitely felt like I was in Japan!

We continued rushing, because we were 'late' for the next couple of hours, with rushed pit stops and many sights, so remote that people literally couldn't tell me what they were. It was like a race for the omiyage shop and then back on to the coach. In the end, we arrived at the onsen hotel late-afternoon and it turned out that what were late was to get into the onsen! An onsen that is attached to our hotel and is open all night anyway!!

It's funny how sitting naked in a hot bath in the freezing cold knocking naked knees with your naked 40-year-old English teacher can sober you up. Let's say no more about onsenning with teachers.

left: one of the unknown sights

We then enkaied in a very drunken fashion (pretty enkai food to the right) and got up at the crack of dawn the next day to begin the same journey back down the motorway, but finding an incredible amount of unstopped at omiyage shops along the way. We went to a massive fish market that was really interesting, if a little scary, especially on a hangover, (amazing sushi though, BIG step up from tongue curry) a shrine (or two, or three), a history museum and went on a lovely boat trip around one of the most famous sights in Japan. It's loads of sort of mini cliffs and islands off the coast. It was very beautiful, but most of the teachers had already been, so spent the trip throwing leftover crisps from the giant snack bag to seagulls and queueing to buy omiyage at the boat's shop...I kid you not.

All in all, a fun, if a little stressful experience. Usually, a single guy going on holiday, coming back to say there was nudity and tongue would be a big success...slightly different here though! Here are some more photos....I have about 80 photos from 24 hours and I imagine that most of my teachers had at least three times that amount.

My Japanese teacher is off to Spain in a couple of weeks and is officially visiting more that one town per day, changing hotels every single night for 9 days...I feel the photo session could well be a long one!!

Fuss Of The Day 2

Last week we had a Japanese Paralympian come to give us a speech at school (as you do). This preparation fuss was immense with letters and announcements being given out on a seemingly 5 minute basis informing us of important things, such as changing the time we would get the second grade students to take their chairs down from 1.25 to 1.20. This ongoing fuss for such an important person seemes slightly hypocritical considering that at least half the students and even more of the teachers FELL ASLEEP during the speech (literally). The actual fuss of the day was surely the only detail that we managed to overlook...what to put the water in that was going to be put out for her on the stage in case she needed a drink mid-speech. Lack of bottles, jugs and time to go to a shop for a bottle (not sure why) led to her decanter being a vase, not a particularly cryptic one either as it had cartoon flowers all over it...even more planning needed next time!

Random Event of The Day 2

I am currently watching a competition on TV about who can do the best impression of trains (including the announcements) and it is actually really making me laughing out loud...not so much AT but WITH. Weirdly enough I was actually DOING impressions of train announcements with one of my teachers today....been in Japan too long much???

BLANK Of The Day 2

"I'll cook you some traditional Japanese food...like croquet potatoes!" Clue's in the name mate.