A Collection of Photographs from My Ride Home

This afternoon my wife informed me that she would be coming home a little late. So, since I was in no particular rush, and since it was a relatively cool afternoon with a nice dramatic skyline, I thought it was a good opportunity to create a photographic comic strip of my bike ride home from Matsusaka Commercial High School in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture.

This photo was taken on Route 756, the road that my school is on, and I'm looking in the direction of home, with my school behind me. 

Not far from the school you will find this very picturesque little cemetery. I think it's Shinto, but I'm not really sure.

Just opposite the cemetery is this little vegetable garden. Here I'm looking back in the direction of my school. You can see my silhouette on the pavement. :D

I live in a residential part of Matsusaka. Between my school and my home is a big rural area, and the main roads run around the rural area more-or-less a giant U-shape. There are some smaller roads inbetween that I attempt to navigate on my way home.

So from the previous photograph, I continue down the road for a while, turn left off Route 756. On this side of the road is a few rows of houses.

This panoramic shot didn't come out quite as clearly as I would have liked, but it's one straight road. Between the houses in this area are fields that are used for vegetables and occasionally rice. So even though the area is residential, there is some farming going on as well.

This photo came out a little better. Surprisingly again, this is again one straight road distorted by the panoramic function of my camera. (Go Samsung S3!) This road runs between a few rice fields. The field on the left has already been harvested, and only the stalks remain. The field on the right has yet to be harvested. In Japan, they are able to get about 3-4 yields of rice per field, per year.

The unharvested field above in all it's undistorted glory! :D

Similarly, this is the straight road I was talking about, with a beautiful view of the clouds that threatened rain... and delivered on it's threat! (But in truth it's bark was worse than it's bite.) 

Samurai Scarecrow. Hmm... sounds like the name of a band :D.

A groupie of Samurai Scarecrow ;).

My journey home takes me literally under this tetanus threatening train track.

You can see where I emerge from under the train tracks in the diiiiistant right. Although it's not very clear, in the middle column here, in the distance is a romantic looking wire frame structure.

 

 An undistorted view of the rice field and now I'm facing in the direction I am travelling. The illusion of being in a completely rural setting is about to be temporarily shattered.

But not before granting me one last beautiful view from an elevated perch at the top of the hill.

This K-store, a little convenience store ("combini" in Japan) is one of four or five K-stores I pass on my way home.

On the left is the combini I mentioned above. I'm facing in the direction of home. This road never looks busy, but a surprising number of cars pass through here daily.

(Yes I've recently discovered the panoramic shot option on my phone. :D.)

On this road I still get to enjoy lots of nature. There are farms on the left and the right, and here you can see some bamboo forest in the background.

This man was kind enough to allow me to photograph him while he worked. I'm so surprised that the people harvesting the rice etc are really quite old by South African standards. Ok, some of them use a lot more machinery to get the job done, but I've literally seen woman that look like they're about 80 years old riding tractors through rice fields and as you can see here, elderly people are not afraid of doing physical work. Perhaps it's this physical work that keeps them strong and healthy for so long?

If I could widen the field of view here you would seen the elderly gentlemen above in the bottom right of this photograph.

Further down this road is a tantalizing entrance to this bamboo forest.

I'm nearing the end of the road now, but not far from the end of the road is this beautiful Japanese building. I'm not sure whether it's a temple or a restaurant, but irrespective, it makes a pretty cool photo :D.

The little dot you see suspended in the air is actually a spider suspended between tall trees on either side of the bicycle path.

At last you can we reach the end of the road.

On the left hand side you can see Matsusaka's private school. Mie High School, or in Japanese "Mie Koko".

This is a full frontal photograph of Mie High School. At Mie High School I turn left into Miekodori, which is basically Mie (the name of the prefecture) Ko (school) Dori (street).

Miekodori is an urban street, and a fairly big road in the area. It doesn't stop them from farming rice wherever there's space however.

This photograph was taken further down Miekodori and represents a fairly typical view of the roads in my area.

I finally turn off Miekodori and an quite close to home now. Manicured Japanese gardens punctuate the sides of the roads on the way home. As you can see, the Japanese have a very different style of gardening :D.

Here is a panorama of the "pond" near our house. People fish here... often. It's not huge, but it's big enough to be difficult to circumvent.

Behind the pond is another beautiful view of the residential area that I live in.

And finally I turn left into my road; and I'm home :D.

Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed this fairly detailed look at a segment of my experience that I re-live every day. :D

Baseball

Well, many that know me well will be surprised when I tell you that I spent a significant part of this weekend watching high school baseball :D.

A mid-pitch photo taken during Saturday's match.

Why baseball, you may ask? Well, baseball is super-popular in Japan! And even school level games are periodically broadcast on national television.

My school, Matsusho (a.k.a. Matsusaka Commercial High School), has been doing very well this season, and this weekend was the semi-final and final of the season's local baseball tournament (on Saturday and Sunday mornings respectively).

A slow moment in the game.

I'm very pleased to say that Matsusho won the final this weekend in a very dramatic game against Matsusaka Academic High School. The score was 10-11, and the academic school had been leading for 4 of the preceding 8 innings before the final inning, during which Matsusho made a dramatic and very exciting comeback! I believe that their victory will allow the to compete at prefecture (similar to provincial-level) later in the seasons :D.

So why the sudden interest in baseball you may ask? Well, I'm interested because it's my school... and because they're my students. I recognise that if I want to develop a relationship with my students, then I will need to nurture that relationship, and that is what I've been trying to do this weekend... I've been trying to make it clear to the students that I care; which I do... which is why when Matsusho completed that last home-run, I was genuinely excited, ecstatic actually, at their victory.

In the image above, you can see how the sports heroes clean up the field after play in preparation for the next match. I'm constantly surprised and respect that in Japan, the cleaners are the students. What better way to help them realise the importance of not littering, not being destructive, and not taking for granted the things we have. South Africa should certainly consider the effect that this kind of work ethic, instilled at such a young age, would have on our often petulant and even periodically destructive youth.

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For the fans, please forgive the infrequent blogs, I'll try and keep them coming as quickly as my schedule allows :D. Thanks for coming back, and I hope to bring you more interesting, and with any luck, insightful glimpses of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Mie Orientation, NOT a Real Earthquake, and Some Urban Philosophy

Mie Orientation

Yesterday and today my wife and I attended the Mie Orientation. This orientation is meant to follow on from the orientation as presented to the JETs in Tokyo earlier this month, but is geared at providing more region specific information.

Yesterday's orientation honestly contained some repetition of some of the themes presented at Tokyo, but in my opinion the seminars presented at the Mie orientation seemed a bit more polished. (Well done guys!)

The Mie Orientation was held in Tsu, the main city in Mie, about 45 minutes drive from Matsusaka. We drove to the orientation the first day, which was a first drive that far away from our home town. We still don't have cell phones and subsequently we still don't have GPS for now. So it was a little bit stressful, but mostly in a fun way. Yesterday evening we visited what I think may have been a Gaijin (foreigner) bar in Tsu, which was organised by the JET community here in Mie. It was a good opportunity to meet some new people, particularly some of the existing JETs that have not been involved in the Mie Orientation.

Public Transport

Today was also a particularly interesting day because I used the public transport for the first time. Taryn had already used the buses, so she introduced me to the bus protocols involved. From our apartment to the Matsusaka Train Station it cost about 250 yen per person (about R25). From Matsusaka Train Station to Tsu station it cost about 320 yen (about R32) per person. The trip itself was way more relaxing than driving, the condition of the trains and buses are very good and very comfortable, with more than adequate cushioning and air-conditioning. All in all considered I would be very happy to use the public transport again, but it is quite expensive by South African standards. In South Africa I think that the bus trip probably would have cost about R8-R9. I'm not sure about the train trip to be honest.) Japan's transport is very expensive, I would think it be prohibitively expensive for the poor people here, but then again, I can't really tell how many poor people there are, nor the extent of their poverty, so it's all quite hard to tell.

In conclusion, the trip cost us R114 for both of us to travel an hour-and-a-half, so I suspect that it would be less expensive to drive if there were 2 people going. At R57 for one person however, using public transport may be more efficient financially.

Earthquake

Ok, so as part of our introduction today we did something that was pretty damn interesting. We went on a little bit of an excursion up the road to an earthquake simulator. The reason for this is because Japan is an earth-quake prone area. Very earthquake prone to be honest. And since we will be in Japan for a few years it seems probable that we will be exposed to some kind of earthquake while we're here. Hopefully the earthquakes we're exposed to will be minor earthquakes, but to better prepare us for the real deal, the earthquake simulator was deemed to be an appropriate introduction to this terrifying phenomenon.

The earthquake simulator is actually performed in a truck that has been specially modified to have a flat ground-like surface that rocks like no other truck I've ever seen!

We were exposed to simulated earthquakes that measured up to 7 on the Richter scale (if I understood correctly). Thankfully we were only exposed to this for about 7 seconds, but it was more than enough time to realise that if it happens we'll be (a) powerless to resist, (b) powerless to control our movement, and (c) powerless to do anything about it. One of the symptoms of being exposed to a #7 is that you can find yourself spending some of your time in the air (as in off the ground) as the effects of gravity take a while to kick in once the Earth releases you from the highs of its undulations.

The really good consequences of the simulation experience is that (a) is scared me into taking the preparations for earthquakes a bit more seriously, and (b) is that it showed us how to brace ourselves. Bracing yourself basically means kneeling (in a very Japanese way) and lowering your centre of gravity forward such that your weight is as low as possible and somewhat distributed between your knees and your hands. I suppose that in this way you're able to adjust your position on the ground so that you're not using your face like a pogo-stick during an earthquake. This is good advice, and advice I'm certainly going to be trying to apply in the event of an earthquake.

So I'm going to leave this post with that advice. When in an earthquake try to avoid being like an overturned turtle and floundering on your back by using the prescribed brace position. Furthermore, try and avoid using your face as a pogo-stick. If you can do either of these, you're probably doing a good job. Bonus marks will be awarded if you can do both at the same time.

Some Urban Philosophy

The good news is that Earthquakes are a fact of life, and have been since the birth of the planet. This is not a new phenomenon, what is new is that news channels are now able to communicate and broadcast each one in a dramatic, rating-earning and hence, money-earning way. So when it happens... help if you can help, pray if you believe in prayer, and try and remain positive. 

There's a super-awesome quote from Logen Ninefingers, a character created by fantasy author Joe Abercrombie in his book The Blade Itself that said, 

Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.

I love this quote because to me it encapsulates a philosophy that I believe should be applied to life itself. At it's core I believe that fear should never be the only reason you do or don't do something. In fact, if the only reason your don't want to do something is because of  fear, then you pretty much have to do it... otherwise you're being lived instead of living. 

Welcome to Matsusaka

The busy streets of Tokyo.

On the 1st August 2012, Taryn and I left Tokyo for the relatively rural city of Matsusaka.

In order to get to Matsusaka, we left our hotel and walked to Shinjuku station (which we were pleased to recognised from our Pimsleur course in Japanese). From Shinjuku we took a normal train to Tokyo station at which we boarded the Shinkansen, Japan's high speed "bullet train". Embarassingly I can't remember whether we transitted off the Shinkansen at Nagoya or Kyoto :(. Either way the train we took, took us down to Matsusaka via Tsu.

Taryn and I thought that when we arrived at Matsusaka we would have to split up, but we were relieved to discover that our supervisors had coordinated the activities of the day somewhat; which meant that our first day was pretty much spent together.

The first order of business was to register our residence at the City Office. This is part of a process that requires the registration of the place of residence of every foreigner living in Japan. This has to be maintained throughout one's stay here and although it may seem like an imposition, it may also be quite practical when living in a disaster prone country like Japan. For instance, I can imagine it being handy to know the whereabouts of foreign citizens when trying to reassure foreign embassy's of the safely of their citizens during times of emergency.

Once this was done, I was taken to my school where I met some of my co-workers, including another ALT (Assistant Language Teacher), my principal, vice principal and other members of the administrative team. I also got to meet some of my future students (as it's currently their vacation). They were all girls and seemed quite excited to meet me. Taryn was with me at the time, and when she was introduced as my wife, this seemed to reignite the excitement as students chatted to one another and gestured at virtual rings on their fingers.

Our new favourite restaurant in Matsusaka

The first week of us staying in Matsusaka is blur of administrative tasks, authentic Japanese food, some interaction with students and generally trying to make our new nest feel like home. Mostly the time was spent trying to acclimatise to the many names, faces, essential Japanese vocabulary and other nuances of daily life that one is presented with when trying to harmonize with the pulse of Japan. Add to this the lingering Jetlag and the effect of being put on slow-motion by having to travel by bicycle instead of having a car, and one's disposable time is quickly found to be insufficient for any but the most essential tasks.

Having been in Matsusaka now for a week and a half, I can feel my perception of time starting to normalize a little. For one, I have time to write a blog entry today. Hopefully there will be plenty more of this to follow :D.

We have our bank account all set up, our car should hopefully be here next week, or the next week at the latest! Cell phones will hopefully arrive this week as well. The timing of these things is complicated by the fact that this week the Japanese people will be celebrating Obon, which I'll endeavour to write about in a subsequent blog. Because of this, many teachers will not be at work, including our supervisors (who often act as intermediaries between ourselves and officials), and subsequently our ability to deal with complicated matters will be greatly diminished. Nevertheless we are hopeful that this week we will finally be plugged in to the internet, not just at home, but while we are at work as well as when we are on adventure!

To close off this blog I will include a few photos we've taken while exploring Matsusaka.

The skyline from just outside our new home. No kidding :D.

The "pond " about 100m from our apartment.

Rich and poor live side-by-side, all under the canopy of the electric wires above.

Taryn defiantly straddles a Gaijin-("foreigner ")-trap!

A look down a residential street.

There are a surprising number of creepy crawlies around!

Matsusaka has many beautiful rice fields distributed throughout the city.

After witnessing the rain last night, it's quite clear why Matsusaka has these!

Please check my blog later this week as I hope to add posts about the Japanese festival of Obon, Nara's lantern festival, and about our fishing trip last weekend!

Tokyo Orientation 2012

Man, I've been meaning to do a blog about Tokyo Orientation now for a while, but I just haven't managed to get around to it. It's probably totally atypical, but I've been so incredibly busy this last week (that's right, I've been in Japan for over a week now and a lot has happened!) but the intention of this blog entry is to bring us to the end of last Tuesday evening, our last full day in Tokyo.

After a brief and unspectacular transit at Hong Kong airport...

the group of 31 South Africans arrived at Narita airport, just outside Tokyo. Here we were greeted by airport staff that asked us cordially whether we were with the JET programme, as our name badges implied. We seemed to be given some degree of preferential treatment and we were ushered through customs with the minimum amount of fuss. Once turned over the the real Japanese populace, (as opposed to the less regular airport variety) we were greeted by a multitude (and I mean a lot!) of JET representatives that politely and quite efficiently ushered us towards the buses that were to transport us to the Keio Plaza Hotel; the massive 40+ story, 5-star hotel at which we were to stay for our 3 nights in Tokyo.

Please see my blog called Touch Down in Tokyo for the details of our first night in Tokyo.

During the 2 day orientation, there was little time to do anything other than attend the organised events, unless you took the time and went AWOL during the conference... which I think many people did. Since I have no teaching background, and because I'm generally a conscientious person, I tried to maximise this opportunity to learn about my new work environment, so I attended as many seminars as I could. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself...

The format of the orientation was basically divided into 2 days; morning, afternoons and evenings.

The morning slots contained presentations relevant to everyone. The afternoon slots consisted of a selection of seminars from which you could choose a subset to attend. The evening slots were, at least for the South African's, for scheduled social events.

The morning sessions were quite good and quite relevant, although at times a little repetitive. This is not surprising considering the number of people presenting, from both the Japanese and expatriate communities. Off the top of my head, the morning seminars consisted of a formal opening ceremony which I'll describe in a bit more detail below, an introduction to the purpose of the JET Programme and our role as teachers and catalysts of cultural exchange as well as an introduction to a brief description of the role of the ALT in Elementary, Junior High and Senior High School.

The afternoon workshops we attended on the first day were on Technology in the Classroom which was very disappointing (because the gist of the message was "face it, all you're gonna get is a blackboard."), a seminar on how the JET opportunity can be used as the springboard to a career in education, and I can't even remember the other topics...

On the second day we attended the seminars on teaching methods (which was very well presented and worth attending) and getting your Japanese driver's license, presented by one of the cutest (in a Thumper-from-Bambi kinda way), most adorable woman I've ever seen. The information presented here was also quite relevant, and the cute-factor caused me to enjoy this seminar possibly more than it was worth.

One of the evenings was used to host a semi-formal social which provided an opportunity to get to know the people from our newly designated prefectures. The hitherto (yes, it's a word) unmentioned timeslots of the orientation will covered in the highlights below.

So in retrospect would I have gone AWOL on some of the seminars? No, I probably still wouldn't because you don't have foreknowledge on which seminars are going to prove to be useful.

Highlights

Some of my highlights of the Tokyo Orientation were:

• A super-super formal opening ceremony which was attended by various Japanese ministers of government. These people were clearly very important because each minster was let to his/her seat by their own personal usher whose sole responsibility seemed to me to make sure the minister knew at any point in time, simply by looking at them which seat was for them. The ceremony was very solemn  but also very interesting because it was probably the first demonstration of Japanese formal custom that many of us had ever seen first hand.

• The ambassadorial function hosted by the South African Embassy was awesome. It was really a networking and marketing session, but the staff were excellent and the ambassador herself was the image of African sophistication in a typically down-to-earth way. I really enjoyed her company, and the people that attended the meeting were people worth chatting to. I found at the end of the evening that I hadn't had time to eat properly because there were too many interesting people to talk to. :)

• I even enjoyed making time in the evenings to explore Tokyo until it felt like my feet were going to explode!

• One of the highlights of going to the orientation for me was arriving for breakfast each morning and joining a bunch of South African's that spontaneously met to have breakfast before dispersing for the rest of their days. This familiarity was welcome in our new alien worlds, and I hope it helped to solidify the newly formed relationships between the members of the South African delegation. And as an added benefit, it made me feel very patriotic and proud as well :).

• After the South African ambassadorial cocktail party (on the last night of our stay) my wife and I went for the most expensive iced coffee we've ever had (R115 each) at the top (43rd floor) of the Main tower of the Keio Plaza Hotel with a bunch of South Africans for a multiracial talk on race and other things. To discuss race is typically South African, but to discuss it openly with a multiracial constituency is far less typical. The conversation was thought provoking and frank, and I left the conversation feeling like it was one of the kinds of conversations that South Africa desperately needs in order to bring healing and understanding to South Africa's diverse population.

A picture taken from the top of the Main Tower of the Keio Plaza Hotel