Weekend excursions

Since Jinny was my first visitor I was a bit nervous about choosing the best things to show her around Fukuoka.  I'm still getting to know the place myself!  The city itself seems most exciting at night, so during the day we set off to visit some of the places I'd read about that sounded cool.On Saturday we went to Futumigaura Beach, about an hour from my apartment.  It is popular with surfers and tourists who want to see the famous white shrine.  We had burgers at a beach cafe and watched the surfers.  It was the first really pleasant day I've seen here, weather-speaking.  It was sunny but not humid, perhaps a sign of the coming fall.  
On Sunday we took the train to Yanagawa, an old city famous for its canals.  We took a boat ride through the canals with our wonderful guide who sang to us along the way.  

Yanagawa was beautiful and I'm sure I will return there often.  We had steamed eel for lunch, a Yanagawa specialty, and enjoyed watching other groups go by in their boats.  I hope to go back in November for a nighttime lantern festival.  The fall and spring colors must be especially lovely.

Here is my lunch, Yanagawa-style steamed eel, rice, and eggy "noodles".  If you want to see more pictures, check them out here:

Jinny's visit

Jinny!

My friend Jinny from Korea arrived with a friend in Fukuoka by hydrofoil ferry today! I've been here seven weeks now and hope I know enough places to take them to! We had dinner downtown at a yatai stall in Tenjin. Two yatai stalls, actually. At the first one we were forced to order a big beer (the girls don't really drink so I had to take care of most of it myself) and some grilled chicken and pork skewers but what we really wanted was ramen so we paid our bill and moved to the stall next door!
On the way home we stopped at a convenient store where I had some sake in a box!  It looked more appealing than the "Zima flavored sparkling water."  Today we're off to the beach!

Dazaifu at night

After work today Lori and I took the train back out to Dazaifu because I read there was a nighttime festival honoring the scholar guy the whole shrine is dedicated to.  We arrived to find the main pedestrian street lined with painted paper lanterns.  

Visitors to the shrine carried paper lanterns with candles inside.  I really wanted one but we couldn't figure out where to get them!  When the festival started, people used their lanterns to light the candles tied to ropes along the bridge and around the pond.  

It was too crowded to get a good view of the dance performance but if I raised my camera above my head I could sort of capture it.  Unfortunately the guy in front of me had the same idea.  

It was a simple, beautiful, warm night lit by candles twinkling in the pond.  Next year we'll go earlier to get a good seat on the bridge and figure out how to buy our very own lanterns!  

Hiroshima

I boarded the Shinkansen (bullet train) Sunday morning and an hour later found myself 125 miles away on the island of Honshu.  Japan has had high-speed rail since the sixties and I can't figure out why the rest of the world hasn't jumped on board this soul train!  Seriously, it is awesome.  Not cheap, exactly, but for roughly the same price as a flight it sure is a lot easier.  I'm not sure what the fuel source is but if you could power these things with renewable energy then we could get around without the high costs and pollution associated with air travel.  Apparently there is a proposal in the California legislature to build a bullet train from LA to San Francisco and I hope they hurry it up and extend the line to Portland!  

I arrived in Hiroshima in the rain and was promptly invited to lunch with two staffers at the hostel.  Hiroshima is famous for its version of okonomiyaki, a sort of Japanese omelette/pancake.  This local specialty features layered goodness including udon noodles, a fried egg, bacon, shredded cabbage, a thin pancake, and heaps of special sauce.  They cook it right in front of you and give you your own spatula to serve yourself with.  Mmm.
When the sun came out I took the tram to the Peace Park, located at the epicenter of the atom bomb attack.  The "A-Bomb Dome" is the hollowed shell of a former government building that is one of the few structures to remain standing after the bomb.  Everyone working inside the building was vaporized so it is an eerie and powerful reminder of the destruction of the last century.  
Across the river from the Dome is the main Peace Park, with several monuments to the victims.  Colorful paper cranes fill glass cases around the children's monument.  Nearby is the eternal flame, which one hopes will not burn forever as it is scheduled to be extinguished when nuclear weapons are gone.  The main attraction at the park is the excellent and haunting museum, chronicling the role of Hiroshima as a military city and why it was chosen as the first nuclear target and displaying artifacts from the victims.  It was so strange to walk around the busy shopping streets of Hiroshima after viewing the aftermath of the bomb when nearly everything was destroyed.  
The next day I took a ferry to Miyajima, a famous Shinto shrine island.  Here is the famous torii guarding the main shrine.  I met up with a few guys from my hostel and spent the day wandering the hills above the shrine.
My new friend Jarrad and I found several shrines on our hike around the island.  I was hoping to find the monkeys I'd read about in the Lonely Planet, but we did of course see deer roaming free all over.  

On my third and last day exploring the Hiroshima area, I took a local train to Fukuyama, then a bus to the coastal town of Tomonoura.  I'd read about it in my guidebook and it sounded a bit off the beaten path.  I certainly wasn't the only tourist, as I was often overrun on the street by streams of older Japanese tour groups, but I was one of the only foreign visitors to this small town, and I had a good day just walking around and enjoying the scenery.
Tomonoura has a fantastic harbor on the Inland Sea and the surrounding hills are dotted with shrines.  
I enjoyed mango shaved ice with condensed milk and the view of the harbor from my seat outside a row of old buildings, including one that housed a group of rebels in the 17th century.
This shrine had the best view of the islands off the coast.
I ended my day overlooking the Inland Sea, the island-filled body of water between three of Japan's main islands, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.  One of the shrines I visited honored a famous haiku poet, so it was appropriate that I was wearing my favorite haiku teeshirt:

Haikus are easy

But sometimes they don't make sense

Refrigerator

Anyhow, I'm back in Fukuoka now and had another great day at school!  Here is a map showing all the places I went this week, and here is a slideshow if you're hungry for more photos!  

View Larger Map

Hiroshima

Sports Day

Today was Sports Day, the all-school games extravaganza on the beach.  Here is a picture of me and my friend Kumi, who works in the office at school, has been super helpful with my settling-in issues, and is really fun!  She came to watch the friendly competition on Momochi Beach.  
All 200 students were divided amongst 6 teams and assigned a color for the day.  Some of the games we played required the participation of all team members, from the preschoolers to the 12th graders.
It was really fun spending the day with all of the students!
I was one of the captains of the black team, thus no pictures of us in the tug-of-war competition when I was busy pulling on the rope!
I did let go of a hand to take some pictures of my team during the "pass the hula hoop" game.  
Here the students are working together to cross the beach while stepping only inside the hula hoops.
Teams raced to move the giant ball across the beach without letting the parachute touch the sand.  
These second graders loved the three-legged race!
Here the high school girls are trying to knock each other out of the circle while hopping on one leg.  Good times!

I had a great time at Sports Day, even though it was bloody hot on the beach!  I loved seeing all the students having fun and working together in the games.  After Sports Day the teachers had an afternoon party at the Head of School's apartment.  Good times!  

To compensate for "working" today (Saturday), we don't have school on Monday.  Tuesday is another Japanese holiday (probably something to do with honoring ancestors) so we have three days off.  Tomorrow morning I plan to board the bullet train for Hiroshima.  Stay tuned for tales of my trip to the Inland Sea!  

Free Bollywood!

I entered a contest online with Fukuoka's International Magazine and I won two free tickets to the Asian Film Festival. Lori and I picked an Indian movie and it was awesome! Check it out:

Make sure to watch it through the tennis scene...

Who is reading this?

So it has come to my attention that I might want to set stricter privacy settings on this blog.  I googled myself and found a link to "Fukuoka You!" even though I had set the blog not to be accessible via search engines.  I'm a big supporter of the 21st century and all, but there is a point where a little privacy is necessary.  Not that I think I'm so important that many people would spend their time reading about my life here, but I do hope that some of my friends and family like to hear about my adventures from time to time.  So if you are reading this, and want to continue reading this, please post a quick comment or send me a private (is there such a thing?) email and I will soon set a password to the blog and share it with you (what a pain!).  Okay, dear readers, hope you are well.  Sayonara!  

Political Blog

I'm still addicted to the election news, so I decided to compile my own thoughts and those I appreciate the most on my own blog site.  I will try to keep this blog free of my political rantings and focus on my life in Japan.  Please see my other blog if you care to hear my opinion about the sorry state of American politics:

http://alispoliticalblog.blogspot.com/

Three Day Weekend

As much as I'm loving my new teaching job, I am also glad to be enjoying a three-day weekend.  I was pooped on Friday after a busy week and joined some other teachers for some "HRC Therapy", also known as happy hour cocktails at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Not exactly my scene, but I had a good time anyway.  

On Saturday morning I went up to the nearby mountains for some greener scenery and a short hike.  Technically still in Fukuoka City, the rice fields felt miles away.  The streams in this area flow into the Muromi River, which flows past my apartment and school into Hakata Bay.  

With the new Head of School, Linda, at a small waterfall.  The tassled rope hanging in front of the falls has some significance in the Shinto religion, but I'm not sure what.  Just next to the falls was a small Buddhist shrine.  Japanese culture blends the two faiths and finds peace in nature. 

After all that nature I had a good time hitting the town Saturday night.  

 We expected a typhoon this weekend so decided to stay closer to Fukuoka and save a Nagasaki trip till next month.  Instead, today Lori and I took the train to Dazaifu, a popular shrine town just 30 minutes from here.  The main Shinto shrine was built in the 10th century in honor of an important scholar/governor (imagine that- an academic politician!  How elitist!).  Japanese families flock to the shrine year-round but apparently it is especially popular during school exam time as the honoree is known as the patron saint of scholars.  

I wonder if these two ladies are scholars and whether they would wear those fabulous outfits to school.  

Carp!

Across from the big Shinto shrine is an old Buddhist temple known for its beautiful and serene Zen garden.  I will have to come back in a month or so when the leaves turn color.

Visitors to the temple take off their shoes and sit quietly contemplating the garden.  

From this viewpoint you can see the garden and the peanut gallery.  It was so cool sitting like these people "watching" the garden.  

The main street of Dazaifu was lined with touristy shops and lots of sweet treats.  Check out the creative ice cream flavors!  I had grape, which tasted like a purple cow!  

Even with all the interesting flavors of ice cream, the sweet treat of choice in Dazaifu seemed to be these red bean filled mochi cakes.  Mochi is a sticky pounded rice substance and red beans are the ubiquitous dessert in East Asia.

After all those sweets Lori and I returned to Fukuoka and had ramen at a yatai stall on Nakasu Island.  Mmmm, ramen...  

Tomorrow is a national holiday, something about honoring the ancestors (I think all the holidays serve this purpose).  Depending on whether the predicted typhoon shows up (no signs of it today!) I may bring some history books to the beach or check out a festival at a shrine downtown.  Next weekend we have a school-wide "Sports Day" at the beach on Saturday followed by a comp day off on Monday and another Japanese holiday on Tuesday.  I'm thinking of taking the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima and visiting some nearby sites in Western Honshu.  During the week I should be busy planning lessons but one night I'll also see a movie at the International Film Festival.  There's so much to do!  (For more pictures of my weekend so far check out my Picasa page.)

Climb on!

Most nights after work so far I come home to my apartment and try to read/prepare for school but usually get sucked into the internet.  Tonight I got off my butt and onto my bike and rode for about half an hour into unknown territory in search of a rock gym I found online.  When I felt like I'd reached approximately the right neighborhood I started asking people on the street where we were.  I showed the address of the gym to an old man who tried his darndest to help me, finally flagging down a woman about my age to translate.  Her name was Emi and she learned English studying in Vancouver, B.C.  She helps out the English teacher at an elementary school near the climbing gym.  She wasn't sure where the gym was, but I had the phone number and she called it for directions.  Then, instead of merely pointing me in the right direction, she walked with me until we could see it.  From there we said goodbye and I found my gym.  Nobody spoke English at the gym but I smiled, paid my entrance fee, and entered the climbing zone.  It was smaller than the Portland Rock Gym, and it seemed like only the bouldering area was open for use tonight.  I far prefer top-roping but it still felt good to boulder and watch other climbers.  Nobody spoke English, or at least nobody tried to talk to me.  In fact, nobody really even bothered to look at me.  I was totally anonymous, until the desk guy walked over to me with the telephone.  It was Emi.  She called to make sure that I got in alright.  So now I have her phone number and we made plans to meet up sometime.  I didn't make any friends at the gym yet, but I may have found a new friend in Emi!  Anyhow, I climbed until my hands hurt too much then I got on my bike to go home.  Somehow I missed a turn because I ended up in a completely foreign neighborhood, felt really lost, but kept pedaling ahead.  Somehow I made it home!  

Tomorrow is Friday and then we have a three-day weekend.  I'm probably going hiking on Saturday morning with some teachers then I may go to Nagasaki for a couple days with Lori.  Or somewhere.  I heard there was a typhoon headed this way but it sounds like the threat has passed.  I just read that there was an earthquake in Hokkaido but that is really far from here.  

I hope everyone is doing well and staying sane throughout the campaign ad season.  McCain is a total scumbag with his attacks and I hope more and more people will see that.  I can't believe all the hullaballoo about lipstick.  Geez!  And trying to frame Obama as a pervert for wanting to teach children how to spot sexual predators.  I could go on and on...  Maybe I will, but not here.  I'm thinking of starting another blog for all my election observations.  Stay tuned.  

Ancient World History, Modern World 10th Graders

This is my 10th grade Ancient World History class.  They are fantastic!  About 9 kids in the class want to put in the extra time to be in my AP World History club.  They are all super nice students and I had another great day at school!

I'll take what's behind door #3...

These are all restaurants just a couple blocks from my apartment.  I haven't been to any of them yet because I don't know what's inside.  There's something about the ubiquitous lanterns and curtains and sliding doors that are so intimidating!  Someday, though, I will try all of them.  Each one usually has a specialty, such as sushi or ramen.  I did venture into one eating establishment in a different neighborhood the other night.  Andrew, the new science teacher, and I just picked one at random and sat down at the bar.  We didn't know what to do so we ordered beers and watched what other people were doing.  The owner started handing us food from the charcoal grill behind the bar.  This is great, we thought!  But eventually he wanted us to actually order something.  The menu had very small and not very useful photos, and of course no English, so we weren't sure what to ask for.  We asked if anyone spoke English and the chef got out his cell phone and called a friend.  What service!  And it was after 9pm and I know how expensive those cell phone calls are at that time of night!  His friend said hello and I said we were hungry, but not too hungry, and we'd eat pretty much anything.  I handed the chef back his phone and he got to work, mostly grilling meat for us on the barbecue.  Any grilled meat on a stick is called yakitori and I was hoping to the get the simple chicken kind (and not just chicken skin) but instead was treated to chicken (or was it beef?) liver.  On a stick.  I can't say I loved the consistency of the liver, but the next few dishes made up for it.  I will definitely go back.  And will try some of my local eateries, too.  

Tomorrow is Parent Night at school.  High school parents often don't bother but I hope to meet a few parents and tell them how awesome their kids are.  I'm going to be offering a special AP World History club for students in my Ancient World History class who want an extra challenge.  So far most of the class is interested so we're going for it.  I'll coach them once a week but they have to read a college-level textbook, read 500 extra years of history, take practice exams, and write several AP essays throughout the year to prepare for the text in May.  It's extra work for me that I'm not exactly getting compensated for but I think it will be great!  Teaching world history to kids who are motivated!  What a treat!  

I'm still addicted to the election blogosphere.  I've written to the New York Times four times in the past four days!  My comments may make it on the website, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed to get a letter in the Sunday Magazine.  But mostly I just keep writing because I can't believe what is going on and I feel better after articulating my opinion in writing.