Weddings & Volleyballs

What a strange title for a blog post. Well, I got 2 emails the other day that were very exciting and inspired me to this level of literal greatness. Firstly, my friend Kirsten emailed me to say she'll be coming to Osaka soon. Kirsten is, even amongst all my amazing friends, very impressive. Not only is she a lawyer in Toronto, but she is a pro beach volleyball player. Just like that great old movie "Side Out". OK it was never a great movie but my friend Kirst is certainly great. She and her partner will be playing at the Osaka stop on the international beach volleyball tour FIVB at the end of May. Check out the details here. Yukiko and I will definitely go to watch some of it, and something tells me it won't be difficult to cajole my friends into watching womens' beach volleyball.

The other neat email was from my friend Don. He and his longtime girlfriend Susan (check out their blogs on the right side of this page) have decided to get married at the same place that Yukiko and I did. How cool is that. Actually they won't technically be getting married at the same place as we got married in a chapel at the Hilton and they'll be getting married on the beach. That was my first idea for our wedding too though. They're staying at the same place though. The fabulous Waikoloa Villas. I'm sure they'll enjoy it, the place was fantastic. Great prices and right across the street from the mega hotels (free use of their facilities) and turtle infested beaches. Of course I use 'infested' in the best possible sense.

Earlier I had been complaining, nay slightly bitching, about the utter subservience of anything and everything to baseball at my high school. So my friend Don and I decided to go to Koshien stadium and check out one of their games at the All-Japan High School Baseball Tournament. It was my first time going into the stadium and it was pretty nice. Nothing fancy but a certain warm feel that I'm sure many old ball parks in the States have. Most of the outside was covered in ivy and that certainly gave it an old-school charm. Even better was the fact that all the outfield seats were free. Hey, in a country that even charges for oxygen sometimes anything free is a minor miracle. The (covered) infield seats incurred a fee but it was only nominal. The left and right sides of the stadium were reserved for cheering sections of the playing teams. Our game was between my highschool vs Keio high school from Kanto (near Tokyo). Despite being the local team Keio had far more supporters. They also had female cheerleaders that were heads and shoulders above the 5-boy screamers that led my school's cheers. What are you gonna do with a boys only school though? Winning the cheer award would be the only thing that Keio would achieve this day though. My school went on to trounce them 15-1. Bless my boys, it's good to see them do something they love and do it well. As opposed to watching them in class. I still felt proud though, and wanted to stand up and announce to the crowds that I, yes I, was a Kobe Kokusai English teacher. This thought quickly vanished as I shuddered to think of someone in the crowd asking any of the boys a challenging question in English such as: tell us how the game went? or what was your strategy? or even, how are you?
Beside enjoying the stomping going on in the baseball diamond it was very enlightening to hear my friend Dan's comments. He is somewhat of a baseball afficiondo. Just check out his blog (listed on the right) to see what I mean. He knows the game inside out. He can even make it interesting for regular humans like me that usually find the game very, very, very boring. For instance, once my school was up 10-1 Dan noted that it was strange that they continued to bunt and try to steal bases. According to Dan, in American baseball, this would be considered very 'cheap' and if it occured the losing team's pitcher would intentionally hit the next batter. He said the winning team wouldn't stop playing to win, but they would try to do it by really hitting ball, not resorting to "small ball". Fascinating stuff.

Another exciting day we had included a birthday party for our friend Fuka. We also invited her mum and several other friends to celebrate too.

Mama Yoko, Fuka and Yukiko.

Fuka is really focused on eating this whole thing.

Fuka, Yoko, moi and Hiroko.

Sumo & Enchiladas

The previous Friday was my friend Dan's birthday. I believe he's still in his 20's or some ungodly age like that. Hasn't nearly accrued the wisdom I have at my ripe old age, which I sometimes have to recalculate to remember what it is. So we went to the annual Spring Sumo Basho in Osaka. My friend Craig joined us too. We got to the Osaka prefectural stadium sometime after 1pm to get our tickets. In previous years I had bought the absolute cheapest standing room tickets and then proceeded to find a much nicer (meaning closer to the dohyo) seat. On weekdays the stadium is basically empty until about 5pm when everyone gets off work and you are allowed to sit anywhere until the designated ticket holders show up. Then you've got to shove off. Well being the high rolling types we are, we decided to splurge and buy the second cheapest seats. What a waste! Dan you fool! After being led to our actual seats we never laid eyes on them again. We spent most of the day in a box seat about 10 rows back from the dohyo.
We really lucked out too. While the boxes around us slowly filled up no one came to claim our until the day was just about over. When they finally did come we just moved a few rows back into another empty box. The matches were very fun and (like all sports) nothing compares to seeing it live. You can see the sumo wrestlers walking around the halls when you go to use the washroom or buy yet another beer, and they are certainly big. It's amazing to see how flexible and fast they are. I'm sure one guy won his match via suplex. Craig was a little disappointed that the lone Yokozuna, Asashoryu, won the final match of the day. It's a tradition in sumo that if a Yokozuna (top ranked wrestler) loses to a non-Yokozuna then the audience all throw their cushions into the ring.
On a side note, when we moved into the box seat a little further back we saw a famous gaijin sitting in front of us. Well I don't know if he's famous, but I see his picture in the local magazines all the time. He teaches a Tai-Chi-Chuan martial arts club in Kyoto. Craig saw him and immediately asked me if I could kick his ass with all the training I've done. The answer... absolutely, but I didn't see anything big and heavy laying around that I could use to blind side him with, which would be my preferred strategy. I'm also too nice a guy to beat up everyone he meets for the first time. Although I'm sure I could. Don't you all know that I'm a ninja?!

The top level Rikishi are introduced and enter the dohyo before their matches.

We were sure these 2 guys were brothers. Must be the chops.

A sumo tradition that is better left unspoken. You really don't want to know what the sword is for.

The crowd waits for the final match to begin.

The real stars of the show. Craig & Dan stretch out in a couple of box seats. How they expect 4 big gaijin to squeeze into one of these, even though they haven't paid for them, I don't know.

I thought Sumo guys were supposed to be fat, not tall?

After the sumo we rushed off to Shinsaibashi in Osaka for some Mexican food. We met up with Yukiko and a bunch of Dan's other friends. Now I have to say that in all my years in Japan I have never once had good Mexican food. So I was a little hesitant about this place. It turned out to be great though. Excellent food, big servings and reasonable prices. That's El Pancho in Shinsaibashi! I went for the vegetarian course meal that included a delicious avocado burger. The only thing we weren't happy with were the margueritas. Great taste but almost no alcohol.

The birthday boy. And he's single ladies!

Dan, Abby, Matt, Yukiko, ninja, Kiyo. Must be Craig taking the picture.

Westcoast Trails

When my mum got sick last month I realized how long it had been since I'd last her. 18 months to be exact. So during my school's Spring break I packed up and headed home for 10 days of relative warmth and sunshine. It was really nice to be home and see lots of my friends again. The other major bonus is getting to eat my favourite foods and go to my favourite restaurants again. Ahh, the Capitol Hill Szechuan Restuarant, where would I be without your $5.50 lunch special and vegetarian menu. It's also very fun to see my dogs again. Seeing them makes me want to get a dog here in Japan, but our apartment is just too small and Yukiko & I are just too busy.
My mum is doing just great after her illness. She found out that she has developed diabetes so she is eating a special diet and making sure to gets lots of exercise (which she was already doing before though). She is eating about half of what she did before and yet she feels fine. So probably she was overeating before. The result is that she has lost a lot of weight and is looking great. Way to go mum!

Here's the new & improved Mum & the same old beagles.

The old dude on the right is my dad. He's lost weight too and is looking mighty fine. So now I'm definitely the family fatty :(

Everyone will be expected to memorize which beagle is which below. You will be tested on this:

This is Jean-Luc (yes he's named after the Star Trek captain). He's the fast running, high leaping one. Our vet called him a harrier.

This is Lancelot. He's the lazy, lap-dog one.

Have to get at least 1 shot of me and the dogs.

I was able to meet up with a bunch of my friends in Vancouver too. Some of them I hadn't seen for a few years.

My friends Neil & Rachel recently bought a big new house in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. It dwarfs everthing but sports stadiums and adult video shops here in Japan. It's also located next to a nice, big park so their neighbourhood is very quiet and green. Made me realize how much my neighbourhood in Japan is covered in pavement and jammed full of little tiny houses and little tiny cars. Neil & Rachel are also expecting something wonderful in about 2 month's time.

Neil & Rachel

I didn't want to say anything to Neil but I think Rachel has put on a few pounds since the wedding. Must be those yummy Money's Mushroom Burgers.

The pic is a little dark but check out the size of their house. That would cover about 3 city blocks in Japan!

Next up on the chopping block is my friend Chris. He used to be a teacher in Japan but is now living out his dream by working at a video game design company, Radical Entertainment, in Vancouver. He took me on a tour of his workplace and it just awesome. The employees lounge is the size of a school gynasium and features; a movie theatre sized screen for conferences & gaming, a pool table, ping pong table, old classic arcade games, big screen TV & loads of DVD's, free food & drink bar, and probably lots of other stuff that I just didn't notice. I also got to try out the new game his team is developing, but because it's not listed on the company's webpage it is probably a secret so I won't mention the name here. He and his wife Eunjoo were also in negotiations to buy a house. Hmmm, all my friends are buying houses while I'm still struggling over whether to upgrade my mobile phone or not.

I also got a chance to see my friend Mark for the first time in years. He was a roommate for awhile at UVic and a fellow Creative Writing student. He's working for the world famous anti-corporate magazine called Adbusters.

Another highlight of the trip was going to see a live play. My parents have always had season's tickets for the Vancouver Playhouse and I used to see plays all the time while I was in Vancouver. I was lucky enough to get an extra seat and join for an evening of Copenhagen, a somewhat difficult piece about physics, memory, and morality. A good explanation of the play can be found here.

As an added bonus I ran into a friend who I used to play soccer with. He was working at the airport and recognized me when I gave him my ticket and passport prior to boarding the plane. I didn't recognize him at all until he told me his name. What a dummy. We chatted for a little while about we've been up to but then I had to board the plane. All in all it was a great trip. It would have been better if Yukiko could have joined me but she couldn't take the time off from work. Oh well, in a sense she payed for my trip and that's not too bad!

Baseball is King pt2

The other day I got a call from the head teacher at my high school. He said there was some problem with one of my student's grades. Not exactly sure which student he was talking about, and not having my grades' book with me, I said I would could in the next morning. Then he said that there was an 8:30 meeting the next day so could I come in before that? I'm pretty sure this teacher knows I live 90 minutes away from the school and it's my holiday so I was a little ticked off. Why couldn't I come in after the meeting? Oh well, I'd go and get it over with. I had a feeling this was going to be about something stupid and I'd be finished in about 5 minutes. Well, I was right. I got to the school, picked up my grades' book and asked for the student's name again. I looked up the student's markes and asked the head teacher, "so what is the problem?" He replied, "why did he get such a low grade?" I had in fact failed him. In Japan the grading scheme goes from 1-5. 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest and a failing grade. Normally students don't receive anything lower than a 2, technically a pass, unless they are really, really bad. Japanese schools also grade on a curve, so only 1 or 2 students will get the top grade while the bottom 2 will get the lowest. Everyone else fits somewhere in between. Not wanting to get into the inherent problems with this system now, the student in question was ranked 18/18 in the first 2 terms of school. He scored about 30% in term one so I gave him a 2. In the second term, after taking two exams he accumulated a total of 1 point out of 40. This was such a low score that I gave him a failig grade of 1. Of course all he had to do was work a little higher in the 3rd term and he would pass. However the 3rd was very short, and many classes were cut due to holidays, graduation ceremonies, practicing making letters for baseball pictures, etc... So we only had 1 exam in the 3rd term, on the last day of classes, and he missed it. He knew there was an exam because he went to the previous class where we spent the entire time preparing for it. He didn't just miss the last class though, he missed 40% of them. So I did for him what I did for the other students that missed the last class, I averaged out their previous terms' grades to come up with their 3rd term grade. Well this student did so badly that his average grade was a 1. So that's what I gave him and his final grade also averaged out to a big fat failing 1. I explained this to the head teacher and he quickly replied that this student is on the baseball team. And couldn't I change his grade to a 2? Not really having many options I agreed and changed the number on the computer. With two 2's and a 1 his final grade would change to a 2 and he would pass the course. The head teacher still wasn't happy though. What about that nasty second term 2. Couldn't I change that to a 2 as well? I should have offered to give him straight 5's and make him the top student in the class but the head teacher probably would have thought it was a good idea. So there it is. At my school, if you're a bad student but play on the baseball team you don't have to worry about your grades. Actually at this school, pretty much no one has to worry about failing. I've got a 2nd year student in the English-intensive 'International Program' who understands absolutely no English. 3 times a week for 2 years and he still can't answer 'how are you?" I've tried to fail him multiple times but the other teachers won't allow it. And he's not even on the baseball team! Not only is his English ability hovering around zero but he disturbs everyone in class by constantly using his mobile phone, chatting with his friend and randomly yelling out English words that he thinks are funny (I'm impressed he's memorized them though). I had a long talk with the head International Program teacher about him and he agree with me that he is a problem. Apparently he is the same way in every class he takes but no one has ever failed him. When I proposed failing him the head teacher replied that it would be better to give him a good talking to about the need to clean up his act. Because, according to this teacher, there's no way he'll be able to pass the 3rd grade and graduate with his current attitude. I don't see why though. He's had no problems sailing through the first 2 years at the school.


Here are some random photos that deserve to be seen:

Yukiko making her first ever pizza. Of course it was delicious.

Eating at a Turkish restaurant in Namba with Emi and Emi's mama.

Here's a good picture of our group outside the restaurant.

The bellydancer really got the crowd going -- or at least got them clapping politely.

The Hinamatsuri (Girl's Day) display in the lobby of my hotel in Tokushima.

Yuki & her friend Tsuji dressed to impress.

My kimono fitting. Yes I bought a kimono! I want to be the penultimate samurai.

Baseball is King

While baseball is America's national past-time it certainly has taken a good hold here in the land of the rising sun.
My highschool (Kobe Kokusai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou) is one of the strongest teams in Japan. In fact they are the regional Kinki champions. Congratulations! So there has been a very festive feeling at the school lately and it is very nice to see the local community supporting the team, as you can see here. The team is so strong this year that they have been invited to the annual Senbatsu tournament (All-Japan Highschool Baseball tournament) which is held at the Hanshin Tigers home stadium, Koshien stadium. This tournament is probably the equivalent of the NCAA Final 4 Tournament in the States. It is huge. Highschool baseball is just huge in Japan. So our team making it into the tournament is big local news. Here's where things go a tad askew though. As part of the pre-tournament celebrations a helicopter came to the school to drop off a banner to be hung in the school gymnasium. In preparation for this the school organized something called 人文字 hitomoji, which has the students line up in the shapes of letters to make words. OK, this is a little corny but too weird. The amazing thing, to me, is that the school decided to cut 13 hours of classtime for the entire school in order for the students to practice! I see 2 glaring problems here. A, how can spelling out a word on a field be more important than 13 hours of classtime right at the end of the school year? And B, why the hell does it take 13 hours of practice to do this? This isn't the friggin' Olympic Opening Ceremonies!
Here's some pics of the rehearsals:

Upside-down, but they are spelling out 'Kokusai'.

13 Hours of time well spent.

Odds & Ends & Everything In-Between

What have I been up to lately? Well obviously not blogging.

While I was away for the weekend Yukiko was visited by Keiko & Yuka-chan.

Keiko & Yuka

Yukiko & Yuka

Yuka-chan


Yukiko also went for an overnight trip to an onsen (hot spring bath) resort with a group of her friends.

Picturesque Ryokan (Japanese Inn), except for those ugly power lines.

Girls gone wild.


My birthday rolled around once again and I was planning to have a big dinner party at a delicious vegetarian, Chinese restaurant. However, as often happens in Japan, once you find something you like it is quickly gone. Yukiko phoned the restaurant to make reservations and discovered that it had closed down in December, shortly & without notice after our last visit. As I alluded to earlier this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. The Subway restaurant that I frequented in Sannomiya was replaced with an adult video store (despite the millions already nearby). The video store near my train station was replaced with a bookstore. My bank's ATM, which was also next to my train station, has closed.
Anyways, I was really hoping veggie Asian food when I remembered a place my friend Sara had told me about. She had even drawn a map for me (thanks Sara!) and I ended up making reservations at Yum Jamu in Sannomiya. There was a nice mix of Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese dishes. This restaurant went both ways (veggie and carcass) so I think everyone was happy.

The birthday bashers: Olivier, Craig, moi, Tomita Sensei, Cliff, Kelsye, Dan, Owen and Yukiko.


During the 3 day weekend Yukiko joined me on my weekly trek to Tokushima. We went to see one of the big 'touristy' things in the area, the Naruto whirlpools. Naruto is a small town about 1 hour away from Tokushima that is known for 3 things:

1) the above mentioned whirlpools
2) the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company, which makes Pocari Sweat among other things.
3) the Otuska Art Museum, home of thousands of ceramic reproductions of many of the world's greatest art pieces.

Due to our fabulous wealth we decided to pony-up an extra thousand yen to get seats on the 'Aqua-Eddy' glass bottom boat so we could see what whirlpools look like under water. Unfortunately you really couldn't see anything underwater. Looking through the boat windows was almost the same as watching a laundry machine in the middle of a cycle. Lots of white water and bubbles but not much else. The view from up top was much more impressive but less so than I expected. I was hoping for giant drag-ships-to-the-bottom kind of whirlpools but there were none to be found. In fact the Naruto whirlpools only last for seconds at a time. They are caused by currents of water from different directions colliding. Our boat was never in any danger whatsoever. What a drag.

Our mighty vessel, the Aqua Eddy.

The interior of our special underwater viewing boat

The water is that-a-way

My internationally acclaimed blowfish impersonation

The famous Naruto whirlpools

Biggest, scariest one I could find

On our way to the bus station in Tokushima I saw this really tiny fold-up bicycle. Designed to fit in the trunks of really tiny cars I suppose.
The new style hybrid bike. Rear wheel for riding through whatever Nature throws your way. Front wheel for negotiating those difficult supermarket aisles.