lots of pictures

more pictures that were not blogged about, from the homestay. left to right, my homestay family, me, sue, keiko and yoshi, me and my host mom walking, mean in the old senjokaku temple, and a little girl at a wedding at the itsukushima shrine, and then deer, all on miyajima island

some pictures from senior high and elementary school, respectively

the schools

so. this might be my last post. and I'm a week behind. time to get moving

last tuesday we went to an elementary school, which was one of the most invigorating experiences ever. the amount of play going on there was unbelievable. music and art are compulsory throughout all education, and there were first graders singing it's a small world after all in japanese when we walked in. people started crying. the energy there was unreal. out on the playground, they were running all over the place, 500 kids, with about 2 teachers passively supervising. when we asked what would happen if a kid got hurt, they responded "learn not to do it again"

during their 10 minute recess, they spent 5 minutes running around wherever they wanted and 5 minutes mandatory jumprope time

they served themselves lunch and scrubbed and cleaned the building afterwards. I participated in their english lessons, and the first question they asked me was "how tall are you?" the second question they asked me was "have you ever met anyone taller than you?"

admittedly, there was something different in the way, during the music class, they transitioned from activity to activity, song to song so fluidly, at the systematic prompting of the changing music. the music was more for team building, and even nation building than it was for individual expression

after one brave kid started to rub my beard, a slew of them came over and rubbed my face. like a chia pet. we just had so much fun

facts about elementary school:
1) grades 1-6
2) all teachers must be able to swim and play the piano
3) there are no buses (this is for all schools), just local schools. all students walk to school, and parents volunteer to play traffic guard
4) students learn english starting in grade 5 (this is very new)


the junior high we visited on the second day could not have been more opposite. nestled high in the mountains, shrouded in mist, with open-air corridors, somehow, the atmosphere was oppressive. during the welcome assembly, when asked to stand, for five minutes straight, the students scuffed their feet and made squeaking noises -- a subversive activity that is impossible to catch, which is the hallmark of rebellion under oppression. where there was energy and excitement in the english class in the elementary school, this english class went like this:
in a monotonous voice, the teacher said "fff fff fish. fff fff fishing. fff fff fat, now repeat after me" after going through the letters f-j, she had them write each of those words 5 times. then she asked them if they knew what the words meant. there was no interaction, no way for her to check if kids were following along, bunches of kids with their heads down, sleeping. it was teacher as fount of knowledge and students as receptacle. I had to leave. it was one of the most upsetting things I've seen, actively watching students be brainwashed

you know how in the us, we hold japan up as the gold standard of education? we try to replicate things that they do, to get such high scores on international tests. well, they are trying to replicate what we do in that we produce independent thinkers, capable of critical thought. their students do not ask questions and do not express their opinions. to an extreme, creepy extent

the one room that I walked into that was good was the calligraphy room. it had a palpable sense of energy -- students hard at work, admittedly, practicing the same thing, over and over again, but with care and diligence. fascinating to watch

during the 10 minute passing of class, the students were allowed to run all over the place, go crazy, let off steam from being pent up. but then the bell rings and they file back into their rooms

junior high is from 7-9. junior high is the end of compulsory education. I played a gym teacher in pingpong and beat him

last of the school visits was the senior high school, an arts high school. I knew I was going to like the school when the principal gave us postcards with student artwork on it, and a lit mag, which were far better than anything I'd ever seen a high school student produce. we went for a tour of their school and saw more artwork that just blew me away. the building was magnificent, overlooking an ancient japanese castle. the principal then spoke of their emblem being a phoenix, because they conceived of each of their students as a baby phoenix who would eventually grow into a full-fledged impassioned bird of fire. then we sat in a music class and learned (or in my case, tried to learn) how to play the bamboo flute. then we went to a calligraphy class and made (or in my case, butchered) some calligraphy, with students as our teachers

then we went into the classrooms which stunned me with more instances of rote memorization and fount/receptacle teaching. students slept, the teacher talked, he asked them to repeat after him. there was no reflection and no engagement. maybe once in the 50 minute class did the teacher ask a question. just terrible stuff, enough to kill anyone's spirit. it was at such odds with what I had heard and seen. such passion and expertise in the art. expression aching to burst out

then I met an american guy who was teaching english in japan and I invited him out with us for drinks and I got a really fascinating perspective on this stuff


this is actually a good place to end. then I had my host stay, which was unremarkable (sat-sun) back to tokyo on sunday, and lectures yesterday and today (one on environmental education, ben) which were interesting, but not really worth blogging about. tomorrow we have presentations, and I was elected to talk because I overslept today and then thursday I take off. I have millions more to say, without the time (or truthfully, the energy to say it) and you have all temporarily been spared my philosophical musings on the society, the culture, the economy, the education and the experience over here. you will all doubtlessly be treated to that when I return. also, when I get home, I'll probably throw some pictures up as I wade through my 2,000+ pictures, so keep checking occasionally. thank you all for being interested enough to read my ramblings

see you all on the flip side. of the pacific ocean, that is

atomic bomb dome and peace memorial

so, what did we do in hiroshima?

our first day there, monday (I can't believe that was a week ago) we did sightseeing around hiroshima. we saw the atomic bomb dome, which they left in the same state it was in when the bomb exploded on august 6th 1945 at 8:15 am. the building was one of several concrete structures that survived the blast and the ensuing fire (remember, 4,000 degrees celcius, which is about 8,000 degree f). that's the picture with the skeleton of a dome on top of a building. then we walked through peace park, which was the thriving downtown when the bomb hit and was just completely leveled. instead of rebuilding it, the japanese constructed a park there, with the peace museum and the children's statue. on top of the statue is sadako, holding a crane

if you never read the book sakado and a thousand paper cranes stop reading this blog right now and go to your local library and check it out. but to fill you in, sadako was 2 years old when the bomb exploded in hiroshima. she recovered from her injuries, but about 10 years later, she began to get sick. she was diagnosed with leukemia and checked into a hospital. there is a japanese tradition that if you fold a thousand paper cranes, any wish you make will come true. so she fiercely set about folding anything she could get her hands on -- chewing gum wrappers, origami paper, tissues, medicine wrappers. she got up somewhere around 900 and then she died. since then, children from around the world have folded paper cranes and sent them to hiroshima as a call for peace and in remembrance of the innocent children who died in the bombing, and in all wars

these pictures are chains of paper cranes on the left, and paper cranes arranged to spell out the word peace and set up the whole scene. it was very powerful. while we were there, a school group was visiting and they group tons of chains of paper cranes and stood up and sang a song in front of the statue (the picture with the students in the yellow hats). the entire experience was really incredible

while we were there, a woman walked by with her husband, and in a deep southern drawl said "wow, she folded a thousand cranes and she still died? she must've been really bad." that was very upsetting. with a mindset like that, why come?

then we walked further down and came to the memorial monument for the bombing

on the left is the english version of the inscription -- it is in about 10 different languages on different plaques, explaining what the memorial is, that in the middle is a register of the deceased, which they update every year on august 6th as they identify for of the ashes held as city call, and the powerful inscription "let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil"

then it was a remembrance hall where the theme was water, in memory of all the people who died begging for water, and drowned in the rivers as they staggered off to them dazed and dying from their burns

after that we went to the peace museum which was as powerful a call for peace and the eradication of nuclear weapons as you could imagine. it also repositioned the city and the experience we had all just had as tragic of course, but tragedy with a purpose -- and that is to educate the rest of the world of the suffering caused by war and nuclear weapons and to push for the end of them both. tragic, absolutely. but how much more tragic if we do not learn from it

with this as our backdrop, we were ready to go visit schools. and that update will have to wait until tomorrow

hi friends

I have returned to tokyo after galavanting around the japanese countryside. I have to pay 12 bucks a day for internet here, so this might be my last full day of internet usage. I might get it tomorrow too. we'll see

however, it's rather late, so let's get to business. first, a few pictures

off to a homestay

hi friends. so basically, I still have to post about my entire stay in hiroshima. however, my stay in hiroshima is drawing to a close. I have a homestay and then a traditional japanese inn; I will be out of internet range for a while. I hope I catch up eventually. I miss you all and I'll be back in less than a week

some pictures of toriis in kamakura and of miyajima

toriis

so, a torii is a big gate that marks the entrance of a shrine. symbolically it marks the border between the physical world and the spirit world. some shrines have a veritable forest of toriis leading into or out of the shrine. for whatever reason, I'm really entranced by them. I think that they are they are beautiful pieces of architecture and the way there is a concrete moment when you pass from the profane to the sacred is pretty cool. I took lots of pictures of them

before I left for japan, I stopped in a bookstore and was browsing a national geographic adventure magazine and saw there was a special on japan. in it, there was a picture of a torii standing out of the water that I thought was incredibly powerful. I desperately hoped I would get a chance to see that in real life...

the hiking path is not really a tourist attraction. people head on the hiking path to visit the shrines and pray. so we got a chance to see a bunch of people hiking from shrine to shrine and paying their respects. very cool stuff. I wouldn't mind hiking as a form of worship

after the shrines on the daibutsu hiking path, we found ourselves at the daibutsu itself, aka the great buddha. this dude is huge. gigantic. massive. it was pretty cool, although after a quiet day of hiking on the path, this tourist attraction was a little overwhelming

on our way out from kamakura we found our way to the tsurugaoka hachimangu shrine. this was in the middle of a park in the heart of town, but it blended perfectly with the surrounding nature and was just so peaceful. there was a concert going on there and while I was wandering through the shrine I saw a monk sweeping

it's thursday and I've finally finished saturday

sunday

it was time to separate from the people I'd been hanging out with and go with my city group. I think I already told you, everyone is quite a bit older than me in my city group, so I was a bit nervous. we took the bus to tokyo station where we hopped on a bullet train. these puppies go something like 300 km per hour, which is over 200 mph. even though you're going that fast, you don't really feel it because it's so smooth -- that is until another train whips by you going the other direction, so it's like it goes by at 600 kph. fast stuff

on the train, our tour guide, keiko-san told us that she had a special surprise for us. because we were getting there at 3 and had nothing to do for the rest of the day, they would take us to miyajima island. this sounded vaguely familiar from somewhere...

as we were on the ferry going over to miyajima island, I looked in the distance, and sticking up out of the water was a beautiful red torii. I took about 80 million pictures of it when we were there

the island is a mountainous archipelago, which means it was formed by volcanic action deep in the earth's crust, unlike the mountains I'm used to, which were formed mostly by glaciers. they're just jagged and primal in a way I've never experienced. we landed on the island and there were lots of tourists and deer wandering around. we made our way over to the prime torii viewing spot and wandered through the temple there and checked out the five story pagoda

*molly, side note. the five story pagoda has five levels because they represent the elements: earth, air, fire and water. they combine to make the fifth level, the universe. sound familiar?

I took my time, just relishing the beauty and power of the place and then realized that I had lost my group. so that just meant that I didn't have to feel rushed and would just meet them at our meeting place eventually, and I and watched the torii as the sun faded and watched a dad play with his 3 year old daughter in the glinting sun on the water, and a couple walking holding hands, and people taking pictures of everything. it was just one of those crystalizing moment of serenity, y'know?

then I took a ton of pictures, and then sadly it was time to leave miyajima

I know my description did not do this justice, especially since I'm trying to move quickly so I can catch up a bit more before I leave hiroshima and free internet. my description could never do a place like that justice. it is simply one of the most overwhelmingly tranquil, beautiful, powerful places I've ever been. you can just feel things -- energy, history. ok, I'm geeking out, I know. thanks for humoring me

that was sunday

adventure time

finally saturday came, and saturday was adventure time. it was our day off and we got to do whatever we wanted. some people hung around tokyo and explored, some people travelled to hiroshima. I had the tough decision between kyoto and kamakura. kyoto is better, incredibly famous and beautiful, but it's also 3 hours on the train each way and about 250 bucks. kamakura is also famous, and also beautiful, though slightly less so (although the theory is that since I've never seen any of this stuff, no matter what I saw would be amazing), 40 minutes on the train, and about 10 bucks. also, the people I'd been hanging out with were going to kamakura, and if I went to kyoto, I'd be going by myself. although I seriously debated going to kyoto, those of you who know me could have predicted which I would choose

we got off the train in kamakura and went to a beautiful complex of buddhist temples called engaku-ji. like nothing I'd ever seen before. we walked through, I took a picture of a woman wearing a kimono and we just saw some great buildings. as we were leaving, off to the side, I saw a girl training with a bow and arrow. the amazing thing was that she wasn't just shooting at a target over and over. the sequence that preceded and succeded every shot was incredibly long and complex. it took about 3 painstaking minutes for her to take each shot. every move was so slow and deliberate and precise. it was as if the body control necessary for accurate shooting was the result of meditation. it was as if archery itself was a form of meditation. so cool. also, the engaku-ji temple was built to commemorate the fallen warriors in a war in 1274 and 1281 which was the war where kamakaze originated

then we strayed off the beaten path and found the daibutsu hiking trail, which wound its way through along a ridge of terrain I'd never experienced before. it was gnarled and covered in roots and just felt ancient. we walked along that path and stopped at two shrines: the zeniaraibenzaiten shrine and the sasukeinari shrine. point of interest: temples are buddhist, shrines are shinto. buddhism made its way over to japan via china and stuff, shinto is the indigenous religion of japan which is has both ancestor worship and worship of the elements and animals. when buddhism came over, the shinto religion just adopted buddha as another one of their gods. no fighting. happy coexistence. there are shinto shrines in buddhist temples

TBC... I'm off to dinner, and I will resume with toriis

teaser

before I head off to bed, here's a pictorial teaser for tomorrow's blog (which should actually tell the story of saturday, and maybe sunday if I'm ambitious. or perhaps in addition to a saturday update I'll give you my philosophical musings. only time will tell) until then...

conveyor-belt sushi

later

check this out. in japan, they have something called conveyor belt sushi. you sit at a counter and a conveyor belt goes past you with different types of sushi on it and the sushi is on different colored plates. the color of the plate designates how much it costs. a blue place is 105 yen (about a dollar) and not very good. a green plate is 150 yen (about a buck and a half) and pretty good. etc etc, up to about 500 yen for the fat bellied tuna sashimi and the roe which was delicious. I gorged myself on different types of sushi and some good sake and ended up with a pile of about 15 plates and spent around 25 bucks. the range of different sushis I got to try was pretty awesome

we were trying to figure out what type of food this could transfer to in the US. we thought mcdonalds could work if them halved all their portions and we'd become and even fatter nation than we already are. or beer, though that could make for some rough nights. food for thought

hibakusha

on friday, we had the chance to hear from a hibakusha, which is the japanese term for an atomic bomb survivor. now, after hearing from many dignitaries, we had to give little thank you speeches about how we were honored to talk to them, blahblahblah. after hearing this man talk however, I cannot think of a better word to describe how I felt. honored. lucky maybe. lucky that a certain confluence of events conspired that allowed me to be in japan and in that room at the exact same time as this man, who had barely survived. eye-opening

we in the US know about the atomic bomb. yes we used it, yes we feel kinda conflicted maybe, yes it helped end the war quicker, etc. this was different. and there is no way that I can do it justice. this man graciously and humbly, repeatedly apologizing for what he considered to be poor english, eloquently and powerfully described an experience that only a few thousand people left in this world ever experienced. the intense power of the blast, that was around 8,000 degrees at the hypocenter scorched things and people beyond recognition and, two kilometers away, blasted out the windows in the school building he was in. he vividly described the hellish scene of people staggering about with their flesh dripping off their skin and begging for water

with a poise I did not know existed, he explained that the hibakusha did not hate the US; they hate the bomb, and that ultimately, people are people. it sounds cliche, it sounds trite, but at that moment it was staggeringly beautiful

we were in a daze for the next several hours. I bought a dvd recording of his story. I hope that it retains its power back in the US -- perhaps in a classroom

it feels insignificant to go on and describe the rest of the day. I'll post this and come back later with another post to give details on the rest of the day

here is your homework

if you so choose, or are really bored and looking for something to do, google any of the following things: harajuku, kyoto, kamakura, miyajima island, new otani hotel. more will follow. still pending is one more day in tokyo, two phenomenal day trips and the hiroshima memorial peace museum. hope you're all doing well. I'd love to hear from you

catching up

thurs, cont'd

after a jaunt around town and some eating some food, the contents of which I'm still a little fuzzy, although I'm pretty sure eels and squid were major players in it, I'm back

after the fish market on thursday, we had a serious of lectures, one about the educational system, one about the economy, one about the government and one about kyogen theater. education one was good, and we were all shocked to hear that while we hold japan as this gold standard in education, they are trying more and more to emulate us. the government one was fascinating, as I learned that 1) the prime minister has the power to dissolve the senate any time he wishes and 2) the past two prime ministers just got so frustrated by the lack of cooperation on the part of the legislature that they just quit. also, the liberals who are currently in control are losing power as they feel the political backlash of their prime minister who insisted that they rely on a market economy and lo and behold, well, we know what the market tends to do. interesting stuff

the kyogen theater presentation left me thinking that some things lose value in translation and that was the end of lectures

we took off to the times square of tokyo, an area called shibuya, which has the gigantic intersection where the lights all turn red for the cars and the flood gates open for the pedestrians, which was a truly surreal and humbling experience. thousands of people swarming over the pavement all at once

then we went to some stores, shoe stores and saw some crazy fashions and cd stores and listened to some seriously angry japanese bands. seriously angry

next was a bar that looked and sounded and felt like a reggae bar, but they only had italian food to serve us. and then, after sitting around and waiting, the curtain opened, they sang happy birthday to one of the other 7 people in the bar, and then the frontman, instead of starting to sing, tapdanced. lots and lots of tapdancing, no singing, and we decided it was time to go

by now we were in a new district called harajuku, I bought some octopus balls off of a street vendor, we found a disturbing store named condomania that had condoms in boxes that looked like their target audience was preteens, with pink cartoon bunnies and elephants. harajuku is where all the rebellious, amply-pierced goth teens go to hang out. we saw some exciting stuff

we finally made our way to a restaurant where I met some french people, struck up a conversation, and in the end we exchanged contact information with the promise that if either of us are ever in each other's country, we'll get in touch. end of a very long day

one of the pictures is not mine. can you guess which?

more pics

pictures

how to play catch-up?

so clearly, I'm behind in my updating. it's monday and I'm on last thusday, and have only made it through the fish market, which takes us up through about 6 am (did I mention we had to get up super early for the fish market?) I will take a brief hiatus from frantically trying to catch up and give you the brief update, although details will follow

I am now in hiroshima, with free internet. we arrived yesterday (via bullet train, dad) after going through miyajima, which was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. today we went to the atomic bomb hypocenter, the children's museum and the peace museum, which was all unbelievably powerful. fret not, details will follow

on saturday, we went to kamakura, and I will give endless details about that as well. on friday, we had conveyor belt sushi. forestalling the many details that will follow, it's time to give you a few pictures. enjoy. that is, if I cant figure out how

wednesday, the 15th

Pulling out my handy-dandy moleskin notebook, in which I am attempting to record every event and all my thoughts, I realize that my dates are wrong, and the previous entry belonged to Wednesday the 15th. I also neglected to mention that I went out to an oyster bar that night, and ate two different 5 dollar oysters, which are insanely better then the ones in good ol’ cape cod and cape may. Although I’m sure if I paid 5 bucks per, instead of one or two bucks per, they would be comparably delicious.

I’ve made friends, although they tend to be about 10 years older than me. This is amusing, since for now, I believe I am incognito in that respect.

That night, after our welcome reception, a bunch of us went out on the town, and somehow ended up at a karake bar. These are very different from US karaoke bars. if you've ever seen lost in translation a group of people rent a room and have the karaoke machine all to themselves. then they select the songs and sing for each other. less pressure because you're not singing in front of strangers, but you're also about 2 feet away from your friends. I ended up singing "99 red balloons" which went well until I remembered that about half the song is in german. unfortunate. then I led the group in a rousing rendition of "eye of the tiger." Also, on the screen behind the words, there is a music video, which consisted of a japanese dude training, smoking a cigarette and trying to look badass


Thursday, the 16th


In order to take advantage of my jet lag before it disappeared completely, I got up at 4:30 (and my body thought it was 3:30 pm) and went to the fish market. This was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Every type of fish you could imagine, some alive, some dead, some somewhere in between, in every form from already fried up, to steaks of tuna and salmon and everything. And octopus too.

It was gigantic. In this massive abandoned warehouse right next to the ocean, there were rows and rows of booths of Japanese wielding sharp knives, slicing up fish and eels swimming in buckets and everything. We were wandering around while men driving flatbed trucks were whipping down the narrow walkways, not slowing down and assuming we would hop out of the way. They were wheeling all sorts of things around, but there were also guys pulling carts, almost like a rickshaw, except like a flat cart, and in the back of the cart were 8 foot long, 500 pound tunas. We tracked those carts down to their source in the very back of the warehouse and wow. As far as we could see, rows and rows of massive tunas. It was an auction. Someone would ring a bell, and they would all start yelling out, everything being entirely indecipherable to me. Then some guy would wheel in with his cart and four or five guys together would spear the tuna with these lethal-looking hooks they had, and haul it up onto the cart. Then the guy would speed away.

After a good long while of watching this process, we decided to follow one of the carter guys and watch them chop up the tuna. Stealthily as 4 white Americans with cameras in a room full of galoshes-clad Japanese men could, we surreptitiously snuck behind him. For a solid ten minutes we followed him, convinced he was just messing with us, until he finally unloaded him at one of the booths.

Then we heard and buzzing noise and turned around and saw this guy sawing 6 foot frozen tunas into pieces with a huge table saw. Crazy

TBC…

tuesday the 14th cont'd

we went into the National Diet, which is their congress building, which was inspired by british architecture, so not cool japanese stuff, except their assembly hall which was made of beautiful oak.

then we went to an area of tokyo called asakusa, which has some buddhist temples and shrines with a great history behind it. it also left me awfully conflicted because it, like many other amazing historical treasures, was destroyed when we firebombed the place. it's been rebuilt, but it still gives things a very weird flavor. the shrines were beautiful, and there was this great market

that was the end of tuesday, so I'm now only three days behind. here's what you have to look forward to in future blogs:
gigantic fish market with people gutting 8 foot long tunas with massive swords
karaoke
oyster bar
tap dancing italian reggae bar
japanese rap music
insane japanese shoes
mt fuji
the great kyoto/kamakura debate
kabuki theater
unbelievable first hand account of bombing of hiroshima by a survivor
meeting a group of parisians and being invited to come to paris
and much more

if you have requests for specific things, let me know. schwartz and leifer, I'm bringing back resources on hiroshima. powerful stuff

'tis all

post number 2, shortly thereafter

I apologize for the lack of emails and blogging and all that. I haven't had internet access and I've been trying to keep up to date on my computer when I get back to my room every night, but falling asleep while doing so (hence why the most recent blog ends midsentence. I'll type more soon. However, I just realized that the internet in the business center that I'm using now and I thought this morning was 1 dollar for 30 min is actually 10 dollars every 30 min (silly yen, stupid andy) and so I will not be using this method of getting internet again either. tomorrow is our day off and I was trying to decide between kyoto and kamikura, I'm thinking kamikura, because it's about 200 dollars cheaper, and then I leave for hiroshima and a new hotel and hopefully better internet. hopefully I'll keep y'all updated. I'll post this on my blog too

welcome to japan

Hi all,

As some of you know and some of you don’t, I’m currently en route to Japan. For those of you who didn’t know, surprise! I’m in some sort of teacher Fulbright program thingy, where teachers head on a three week trip to Japan, check out their educational system and their culture and then bring some ideas back. Pretty sweet deal

So I flew out of JFK yesterday and landed in San Francisco for a day-long orientation. The orientation was ok – we sat around for an awfully long time given that most of us had had to get up in the wee hours of the morning to catch a flight. Last night we went to the Consulate General’s house for a reception, which was crazy. There were about 160 of us in a house that easily supported that many people and overlooked the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz – some cool stuff. Oh, and the food was unreal. Eel, sushi, dumplings. They called it a prelude. I was hanging out with someone from Texas who was using a fork because she couldn’t figure out chopsticks, so I guess I’m a step ahead.

Also, of the 160 people, there are probably 5 who are under the age of 30. Of the 15 people in my group, I’m the only one under 35, most of them have kids who are older than I am, and they’re all married and stuff. Gonna be interesting.

So I’m in the airport, getting ready for the long flight to Japan. We’ll be in Tokyo for a few days, then we split up into our different host cities with about 15 people in each city. I’m in Hiroshima, which, when I tell people, they get super jealous, which I guess is a good thing. In Hiroshima we have a homestay and I have “I love NY” t-shirts as a gift for my host family, and just yesterday I found out my host family is a 60 year old man and a 57 year old woman. Not really what I would have brought if I’d known. I bought a cool map thing in the airport, but it’s not quite as cool as some of the other things people brought. Like maple syrup and books on architecture and stuff. Oh well, not the end of the world.

Instead of sending you all emails as updates and cluttering up your inboxes, I’m setting up a blog (I know, the apocalypse is near) that I have creatively dubbed http://www.claymaninjapan.blogspot.com/. It’ll mostly be a record of what I’m up to for my students, but it’ll be a nice way to track the trip.

Oh, I don’t actually have email access right now while I’m writing this; I’m writing it in a word document and I’ll send it when I get a chance.

That’s about it. I’ll keep you all updated, and I look forward to showing everyone pictures and telling lots of stories.


10/13-10/14

Looooooooooooooong flight. We took off from San Francisco atabout 11:30 am on Tuesday (which is 3 hours later than East Coast time) and arrived in Japan at 3 pm on Wednesday (which is actually 2 am East Coast time) so it was a little less than a 12 hour flight. Rough stuff.

So instead of going to sleep, like we all wanted to do, we had a reception and met up with Japanese volunteers who had studied in the US on Fulbrights who were supposed to take us out to dinner. Some groups got college students who wanted to go out partying, and some got really cool octogenarians (I’ve always wanted to have a chance to legitimately use that word. We got a 50 year old Japanese woman and dinner was pretty uneventful, except that I’m awesome with chopsticks, they pour raw eggs on their chicken skewers and we had this delicious duck that was cooked in front of us over a charcoal spit, wrapped in something called a Hoba leaf. And two of the people in my group were like “no, I don’t like duck” or “no, I don’t think I’ll try that.” Who’d have thought I’d be the adventurous one trying any and everything. Also, portions are small, so I’m vacuuming up any extra food in sight. I may be gaining a reputation. Oh well.

Then the lame people in my group went off to bed at about 9, but since my body thought it was only 8 in the morning, I wandered around with a few other people and checked out some cool magazine stores – you wouldn’t believe some of the magazines they have here. Everything is manga-style.

Finally went to bed around 11 or so, making it an insanely long 26 hour day.


Tuesday was sightseeing, which was actually not very cool. We rode on a bus for most of the time and never really got a chance to walk around