Tall Guy, Small Town: An ALT in Tokushima-ken

My life as an ALT with the JET Programme living and working in Mino-cho, Miyoshi-shi, Tokushima-ken.


My Photos

Thursday, October 26, 2006

seeing sites, spooky nights

In the past few weeks, travelling has occured!
I made the trip up to Kyoto to visit Jess and Jo-el, who I met in Tokyo. We did some temple site-seeing, went up the Kyoto tower for the killer view, shopped, and partied it up Saturday night. One of the local alts was celebrating her 30th birthday, so copious amounts of karaoke, drinking and obnoxious behaviour were bound to follow. The following day was spent in Otsu, just outside Kyoto, enjoying the lake and re-hydrating.
Last weekend was the big Osaka trip. Julie (from Mikamo), Christina and Lisa (from Tokushima-shi) and I all banded together to get some hotel rooms and see the city. Before leaving, we had a "conference", aka exploiting the foreigners on the weekend for a really nice and new school's open house day. The event wasn't terrible, but the real reason for having us there was pretty transparent. Regardless, we met a bunch of great kids and had fun.
After that, we headed to downtown Tokushima to catch the bus to Osaka.
Upon arriving, we dined Mexican style and checked into the (very nice) hotel. After some pre-drinking, we hit the streets for a night of clubbing and terrifyingly memorable cabaret shows. The following day we met up with Angelina and her friend for a bit, shopped, rode the Hep Five ferris wheel, shopped, ate, shopped shopped shopped and headed back. My wallet is a little lighter, but the memories are more than worth it. Interesting fact, Osaka is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Its a shame, because it would be a wonderful place to live.

In other random news, I was invited to a woman's house in Ka... Ka..., some city near Tokushima where Eric and Louise live, last week for dinner and to meet some new people. Sounds harmless enough, but an hour and a half drive there led me into a trecherous plot to exploit my being in Japan. The woman runs a private cram school out of her home, and I arrived to a house full of children waiting for me to teach them English. The woman had the nerve to tell them all that I would be coming twice a month to teach them too! Arrrrgh. Awful. Apparently, I'm not the first person this has happened to, as the woman has a reputation with the local English teachers (which explains why she began looking so far from her city for fresh meat....). Oy vey. But again, I met some great kids, who I will never see again.

Here in Mino, I've been doing mad Halloween lessons, and the chugakko ichinensei have been making paper-mache halloween decorations for the party we're having on Tuesday. Many a crossword, spooky story, and historical Halloween fact have been shared with every class from shogakko 1 through chugakko 3. God I love this season. My adult night class is also enjoying the Halloween vibe, and together with Julie's Mikamo class and Sally's Miyoshi class, we'll be having a nighttime costume party on the 31st. Should be a blast, and pics will follow.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Much ado in the past week or two...

Right, now the first month of teaching has passed.

I'm really into the groove of this thing, although elementary classes continue to be a new adventure every time.
In JH, my one class of first years (re. grade 6 in Canadian years) are so damn quiet still. They know how to speak but just don't. So frustrating. Ahhh well

Sports day (えんどかい) at the JH and 1 elementary school was lots of fun. I got to get to know the students out of class and had fun playing with them. (pics in my photos) Although I did get a horrid sunburn, I'm so glad I was ever so sporty for two days of the year. I'm also learning that I'm a lot better at volleyball than I originally thought. Curious..........

In adventure news, Jill came down to visit (see My Photos) for the long weekend, and we did some serious Tokushima siteseeing. We went all over Mino - to Takiji the waterfall temple, the Forest of Health and Contact, Sunkus and my house.. ohhhhhahhh. Then we went to see the Zorb in Ikeda, Kazurabashi no hashi in Nishiiya and dinner and karaoke with the Miyoshi-gun English teachers. We also finally found Kamo no Otsu, the 1000 year old camphor tree in Mikamo, the town next to mine. It was beautiful, and the obaachan who looks after it told us some stories while we were there. Woo hoo. It was nice to catch up with Jill first driving in the mountains experience. As I'm sure Jill can attest, I get a little crusty when I'm scared and driving.

I still haven't entirely figured out how to use my oven.... and as you know Saori's birthday was this month. I tried to make her a cake, but instead of cooking my oven decided to beep angrily at me instead.... so I went to Julie's house in Mikamo and we cake-baked together. Bliss. They were so cute, and tasty, and Saori really liked them. again, pics are in myphotos

Yukino's getting big, and I discovered the secret to calming her down - watching tv. If I do anything in the house she want to play EXCEPT when I sit in one specific chair to watch tv. She curls up on my lap and falls asleep on me as soon as I sit there. Its like magic.

I also got my DVD player. I'm so happy! Yay for Hong Kong region-free imports. I watched copious amounts of Golden Girls last night, and I'm bringing the player to English conversation class (eikaiwa) tonite so we can watch so shows or a movie.