Happy New Year and other Odds & Ends

Happy New Year to all my readers. All 2 or 3 of you! Today Yukiko & I are headed off to her parents' house in Higashi-Osaka to ring in the new year. I will participate in the modern Japanese new year's tradition of sitting home and watching martial arts fighting programs on TV. All the switching back and forth between K-1 and Pride may give me a slight case of carpal tunnel syndrome but hey, it's the holidays.

In Japan people don't sent Christmas cards. This makes sense because they don't celebrate Christmas. New Year's is the big one here and everyone sends out nengajo, or New Year's cards. They send them to their family, friends, work colleagues, clients, customers, basically anyone who's address they know. Every year billions (yes billions) these are sent. Each family sends out about 50 or more cards. Businesses send out even more. Here is our card for 2006:



Yesterday a big box of goodies arrived from my parents. Apparently there is contest going on within my family to see who can stuff the most and best presents into a box. My mother certainly raised the bar a little.

Here we are posing with the scarf & hat sets, stuffed beagle toy and various baby clothes we got from my parents. Thanks mum & dad!!

Yesterday we were visited by our friends Yoshikawa & Emi, and their 2 kids Kazu and Hiro. Kazu is just entering the terrible 2's and it shows. He was like a cyclone, whipping every which way and leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. He also threw up on himself. Parenting looks tough.

On Wednesday, Yukiko finished her last day of work... ever... or until she decides she'd like to go back. Her work colleagues threw a sobetsukai, or farewell party for her. When she got back home she was heavily laden with gifts and flowers. I'm sure everyone at her office will miss her - but she's ecstatic to be done.

Yukiko with all her loot.

Here's a good shot of Yukiko and our newest mode of transport, the La Festa! It's a veritable party on wheels.

Some odds & ends. Here are some pictures I've taken in the last few months but couldn't find a proper time to post them. So in the spirit of the Japanese o-souji, or big new year's cleaning, here they are:

This is an inflatable Titanic bouncing room for kids at an amusement park in Utazu on Shikoku. I thought this was kind of creepy and worth a photo.

198 yen for 5 small radishes. That's more $2 Cdn. This is why I tried to grow my own. Alas, that plan, and my radishes, failed miserably. But as some great Chinese sage that I imagined might say, "not bad radishes. Bad farmer."

One of my favourite Japanese comedians is Gorie, a man disguised as a woman who just loves to perform cheerleading routines to the song 'Hey Mickey'. I know it sounds wierd but he's very funny. He recently got a gig advertising clothes for my favourite clothing chain in Japan, UniQlo.




My friend recently got me into podcasting. If you don't know what podcasts are - they are downloadable audio shows, usually in MP3 format, that can be automatically downloaded daily or weekly to be listened to on your i-Pod player. I don't have an i-Pod so I've been using Juice software to subscribe to and download podcasts. I recommend it.
Like everything on the internet, amongst the pure crap podcasts out there, there are a few pearls. Some of the shows I really like are:
The Word Nerds: weekly show that examines the etymology of words and phrases.

The Everest Podcast: the story of a guy on a tight budget trying to climb to Everest's 3rd base camp.

SETI: Are we alone? - search for ET's and other fascinating scientific stuff.

Ebert & Roeper's Movie Reviews

A great place to peruse and search for podcast is the yahoo podcast page.

Well that's all for now. See you next year folks.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanuka, and a Quality Kwanzaa to all!
My last post detailed my trip to Tokushima on Thursday. On Friday the sun was shining, the snow was all melted, and the buses were all running. So I wasted over 5 hours on Thursday by leaving early. D'oh!
I'm a little bittersweet about leaving my chapel in Tokushima. The staff are very friendly and I've become friends with many of the locals. But... switching to a chapel that is MUCH closer and not having to stay in a hotel every weekend will be fantastic.

My Wedding Chapel in Tokushima.

The choir.

Oda-san, the chapel coordinator.

Since coming back home I've finally had a chance to test drive the new machine. Despite living in Japan for approximately 7 years this is the first time I've ever driven here. The only other time I have driven on the left side of the road was when I was in Australia for the Millenium Countdown at the end of 1999. My first destination... Costco. Ah Costco, now I can go anytime I like to buy veggie burgers and 2 gallon bottles of cranberry juice. Thank goodness for the Navi computer because I don't have a clue where I'm going. Riding the rails for this many years will do that to you I suppose. Driving wasn't a problem, however I did find it annoying that the turn signal lever and the windshield wiper lever were reversed from what I'm used to. So every time I wanted to turn I started cleaning the windows. Hopefully I'll get through this phase quickly. I did have 1 slightly exciting thing happen along the way to Costco too. While I was stopped behind a car waiting to cross traffic and enter a parking lot the jerk behind me started honking incessantly. The traffic to our left was very busy so there was no way for me to get around the car in front of me, which this guy obviously couldn't see. Yukiko even got angry at him and started yelling back. Nice to see that road rage isn't just confined to California highways.
Yukiko's sister and her family came over to help us celebrate Christmas. Yukiko prepared a nice Costco chicken and we ate a great meal together. Everyone got presents and had a really great time. I opened a big package from my brother Rob and his wife Ann. They are super present packers. It was chock-a-block full of goodies: baby toys, matching Christmas themed pillows and towels, and more! Wow. It's gonna be hard to top that when we, ahem, finally, send our presents off.

Keiko, Yukiko, Seigo and Yuka sit around our little table.

Yuka plays with new fire truck that her mum and dad bought for her at a nearby 2nd hand kids specialty shop.

Snow, Trains and Automobiles

Yesterday evening our new car arrived. The Nissan La Festa. You can read more about the model here. Apart from Singapore, where it's an import, I don't think the La Festa is available outside of Japan. Our friend, and Yukiko's work colleague, Kazu, got us a very good deal on the car through his friend Nishimura-san who is a Nissan salesperson in Saitama (near Tokyo). We basically got the maximum discount possible. Too keep the price low, Nishimura-san delivered the car to us himself. So he had to spend an entire day driving it down on a trailor from Saitama. As a special thank you to him and our friend Kazu we took them both out for a nice dinner at a local izakaya. I was going to drive them but it was very dark and raining out so we decided to postpone my first 'driving in Japan' experience. Taking a taxi also allowed me to have a few drinks.
This morning we woke up to snow everywhere. A few cm on the ground and more falling. I wasn't going to even try to drive in the snow so I spent the day going over the car's Navi manual. A Navi is a navigational computer that should hopefully enable me to drive somewhere and actually arrive. It's also got a built in DVD/CD and i-Pod style music player. That should be fun, once I figure it all out.







Tomorrow is a holiday so I have weddings in Tokushima on both Friday and Saturday. Luckily I booked Sunday, Christmas, off because there is supposed to be 1 bridal fair wedding that day. I'd hate to waste all of Christmas day on a model wedding. Because of all the snow I got a phone call from my wedding office this afternoon asking if I could leave this evening instead of tomorrow. They said that Tokushima has lots of snow and they are afraid they buses won't be able to cross all the bridges and get there tomorrow morning. So I agreed and headed out at 6 pm. Of course once I got to Sannomiya to buy a bus ticket I learned that all the buses for Tokushima had been cancelled, all day long. Now why hadn't my office checked on this and informed me? So I phoned my office and left a message asking what I should do, then I went to grab a bite to eat. No one returned my call so obviously the office was closed for the night. I knew that it's possible to get to Tokushima by train, by a very roundabout route, but it is possible. It was kind of late by this time though so I didn't know if I'd still be able to make it. So I took the subway up to the bullet train station, Shin-Kobe. The woman at the ticket counter told me I would be able to make it tonight so I bought the ticket. It was going to take 3 1/2 hours and 3 trains from here. But when I got up on the platform I noticed that all the shinkansens were running 40 mins late. If I waited for my train there would be no way to catch my connections. I rushed back down to the ticket gate and asked if I could just jump on the first train to come along, even though I had a ticket for a different train. They said sure, but I would have to go in the un-reserved cars instead of using a reserved seat that I had paid for. And, of course, everyone had the same idea as me and the unreserved cars were standing room only. Luckily this first jaunt was only 40 minutes or so and I managed to catch all my connections. Now I'm in Tokushima and can get a good night's rest for my work tomorrow.

Lost & FOUND

Well a postcard arrived at my door on Friday from the police. Someone had turned in my wallet! Excellent. It wasn't at my local koban though, it was at a bigger office in Itami. So I bundled up and headed off. It was actually pretty close by train so it didn't take long at all to get there. When I was handed the wallet to inspect it had everything in it. All my cash, all my coins, and most importantly, all my various cards. I asked if there was anyway I could contact the person who found the wallet in order to thank him or her but I was told the finder wanted to remain anonymous. Please beat me over the head the next time you see me to remind me of how lucky I am. Sure, most of the cards in the wallet are now useless as I have already cancelled them but now I'm ready to try and get my Japanese driver's license again. I've got my alien registration card and my Canadian driver's license back in my grubby little paws so I'm back on track. Also inside my wallet, which I'd forgotten about, was my opera ticket. This weekend the staff at my wedding chapel and I had a little bonenkai, or year end party in Tokushima. The staff are mostly choir members so they found a performance of La Boheme for us all to see. Afterwards we went to my friend Norman's (of the Big Brother's Sandwich shop fame) shot bar called 'Root Down' for some good food and drinks.

Here are some current pics of Yukiko and her growing belly:









Seigo, Keiko and Yuka came up for another weekend visit.

The happy family plays at a park near our apartment.

Is that a Quebec shirt? Is Yuka a separatist?

Yukiko and Yuka at the park.

Yukiko and Yuka at dinner.

Yukiko and Yuka on the bed.

Yuka strikes a pose on the bed.

Not a very clear picture but you can see our little fiber optic Christmas tree in the background.

Here are some other neat Christmas trees I've seen around:

This is from the Clemente hotel in Tokushima. It's a very nice hotel but pretty expensive so I don't stay there. I often take full use of their washrooms after the long bus ride though.

This giant tree is outside the Sky building in Umeda. They seemed to have built a German theme park around it for the holidays.

The maternity clinic that Yukiko and I go to had a Christmas concert for all their customers. We thought there might be another 20 or 30 couples there because... how many pregnant couple can there be at one small clinic right? There were a few hundred couples there at least. The hall was full and they were still bringing in extra chairs for everyone. The highlight of the concert was a demonstration of the various aerobics teams, maternitybics for expectant mother, afterbics for post delivery mums, and everything in between.

Some of these mums are 8 and 9 months pregnant!



The 'Anpanman Dancers'

Here's some shots from my bonenkai party with the staff at my wedding chapel in Tokushima.

We started out at the Tokushima Bunka Center Hall.

Then it was off to Root Down for drinks and eats. The hot cocoa and rums were especially good. Thanks Norm.

When we had come out of the opera it was just dumping snow.

1 of these girls was from Okinawa and didn't care how cold it was as she loved playing in the snow.

The snow and lights of Tokushima.

How the awaodori dance would look in the snow.

Education, Shmeducation

The school I work at is now officially a joke. I used to think it was just some of the students who were really deficient but now I realize it is some of the teachers too. I've been asked to pass students who were failing before because they were members of the baseball team or there were other extenuating circumstances. But this time it is just crazy. In all my years of teaching I have never encountered a student like this. I'll call him Y. Just to set things up, he's a senior student and his school year has just finished. Usually classes finish in April but senior students finish in December. They are 'supposed' to be preparing for University entrance exams from January. At this school if a student fails even one class then he fails the entire year. So if a senior fails a class he can't graduate. So the teachers are hesistant to fail anyone. I'm not sure if it's an official school policy or not. Y did very poorly in the first semester and received a failing grade. He did even worse in the 2nd semester and I had no choice but to fail him again. The school does have an official policy on attendance. If a senior student misses more than 15 classes he fails the class. Well, as of a month before Y had missed 16 of my classes. Another teacher asked me to give him another chance and just erase one of his absences. Y then managed to attend every class afterwards, although he usually just brought a pillow and went to sleep at his desk. Yes, he brought a pillow. I would try to talk to him about it but his response was the same as the times I told him to stop using his mobile phone or listen to his walkman in class. He would get angry and start yelling at me in Japanese. So as you can tell his attitude was just stellar. Not wanting to cause any more commotion in the classroom I just ignored him. At least he wasn't being disruptive. And to put everything in context, his official score was 0/60 on his tests. He wasn't absent for all of his tests either, he would just refuse to do them. So after 3 months of this, of doing absolutely nothing, I was told by the other teachers that I had to give him a chance to pass. I had to give him some sort of extra assignment that he could do in order to pass and to graduate. What can make up for 3 months of missed assignments, tests and classes slept through? The teacher who taught him English Conversation last year told me that he had failed the 2nd year as well. But he had finished his extra assigment so he ended up passing the course. "What kind of extra assignment did you give him," I queried. This teacher told me that he had asked Y to just copy some pages of English text. That's it, copying some text is all that's required to pass the 2nd year English Conversation program. Well, if I had to give him another chance I wasn't going to make it that easy. Copying text has almost nothing to do with a conversation class. Why not just ask him to write something in Japanese, or do some math problems.
So I decided he would have to do an oral presentation. Nothing too difficult, just a 50 word self introduction. I did this in class with my seniors the year before. So I explained it to another English teacher and he was going to explain it all to Y. He'd have one week to prepare and memorize his self introduction. Fast forward one week, and I show up at the school. He's supposed to come to my office at 1pm so I take a book and wait for him there. At 1:30 he hasn't shown up so I go looking for the English teacher that talked to the student. He's surprised when he hears that Y hasn't shown up yet because, apparently, Y had been memorizing his speech for a few days. Then Y's homeroom teacher pops up and says that he told Y that he was supposed to come tomorrow. So Y's homeroom teacher had screwed up and told Y the wrong date. I'm not sure if I can come tomorrow Yukiko and I have an appointment at the baby clinic in the morning and we're not sure what time we'll finish up at. Then I notice the copy of the explanation that the other English teacher had given to Y. While the paper did have the correct date written on it, it explained that Y had to prepare and memorize a 15 word self introduction. Yes that's right, not 50 words but 15 words. I pointed this out and the English teacher just said he was sorry. "My name is Y. I am 17 years old. I like to play soccer." That is very nearly 15 words. It is not an acceptable substitute for 4 months worth of class work. Not that 50 words is either mind you, but it is slightly challenging. I said this was not good enough and asked the English teacher to contact Y and tell him that I would give him another week but that he had to come up with a 50 word introduction. The English teacher refused to do this because it would make him look bad to admit that he had made a mistake. He suggested that if Y did memorize his self introduction I could ask him some additional questions as well. Of course this would be pointless because even if the student was unable to answer them, he did what he was originally asked to do, and it would be unfair to fail him. And he would be right. Doesn't it seem like these teachers are doing everything humanly possible to make this student pass? I'm not sure what a student has to do to fail here. Receive a failing grade of 0? Nope, that's OK. Be rude and disrespectful to the teacher and other students all semester long? No problems here. Surpass the school's limit of unexplained absences? Get outta here. I should add that my class is not the only one he has problems with. Other teachers tell me that he does nothing in their classes too. I've seen him lugging his pillow to other classrooms than just mine. Yet I'm the only teacher who thinks he doesn't deserve to pass a course. I must be a freak or something.
I said I will try to come tomorrow if we finish at the clinic in time. But I'm not really looking forward to it. 3 hours of travel just to listen to Y recite 20 seconds of English. Not only do I feel like I'm wasting my time in the classroom but I feel for the other students. Even the weaker students put in some effort and generally show up. If I was a student, I would be really upset if the student who slept through every class was able to graduate and receive the same diploma I did.
So what will Y learn from all of this? Well not any English that's to be sure. But he will learn that you can get through life by doing nothing. Is it true? Well obviously, just look at how he managed to breeze through 3 years of high school. However, this attitude is sure to hurt him in the years to come and then I'm afraid it will be the school's fault for not teaching him any lessons about self responsibility. OK, I'm done bitching, for now.

Lost in Transportation

Well I've always said, if you're going to lose something, you should lose it in Japan. Because here you have a great chance of getting it back. I'm a pretty scatter brained person and I've lost my share of things here in Japan, but apart from umbrellas I've gotten them all back. However, this time I'm not so sure. When riding my bike to the station my wallet dropped out of my jacket pocket somewhere along the way. I noticed it when I was parking my bicycle in the 'bike lot' under the station and I immediately retraced my route looking for it. No dice. I double checked our apartment to make sure that I hadn't just forgotten it at home (very possible) but that wasn't the case. So I went to the local koban (police station) and reported it. I also checked at every major shop along the road hoping someone may have brought it in. No luck there either. I think I had about 20000 yen in the wallet (about $200, hey Japan is a cash based society) but I'm really not concerned about the money. It's the cards that are important. I have my alien registration card, visa card, bank cards, and even harder to replace, my Canadian driver's license. I was planning to go get my Japanese license the next day so this really chucked a wrench into my plans. I've cancelled all the important cards already but it looks like this wallet may not be finding it's way home. I still have a glimmer of hope though. When I was at the koban there was a young man next to me handing in a 10000 yen note ($100) he had found. Hopefully someone as honest as him found my wallet and will turn it in. Or, at least, someone slightly less scrupulous will just take the cash and leave the wallet where someone will find it. Yukiko tells me that the wallet itself, which she gave me as a present, is worth a few hundred dollars.
Also in the lost & found department - I lent our digital video camera to a friend of our's and he forgot it on a train in Osaka. So far that hasn't turned up either. Hasn't been a great week for holding on to stuff so far.

Some other recent, sad news is that Yukiko's long time pet and companion, Taka, has passed away. She was quite old though and had some difficulty walking so I think it was the right time for her.

RIP Taka-chan