[Taylor]
We’re flying to Alaska this week to attend a wedding. It’s been two years since we’ve been there so we’ll be seeing lots of people we haven’t visited in a long time. We also have a 24 hour layover in Vancouver, B.C. which, surprisingly, will give us an opportunity to visit Julie’s parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephews.
Exciting times ahead. We’ll be sure to document it with our digital camera and post a summary or two when we return next week.
[Taylor]
Sports Festival
Last Friday my high school held their annual sports festival. I think we’ve mentioned attending other school sports festivals in the past (Julie’s junior high and elementary schools, mostly) and this one was very similar. The student body was divided into four teams — purple, red, green, and yellow. Each grade has four homerooms so each team was comprised of three homerooms, or about 110 students.
To make sure everyone participates, group competitions and feats of strength are held. We of course had a tug-o-war but there was also a timed battle to see how many rubber balls a team could throw into a wooden basket on the top of a tall pole. And, in my favorite event of the afternoon, four students from each team lifted up a fifth teammate off the ground. The teammate they carried wore a cap and charged at the opposing team who were doing the same thing. When the two groups met in the middle of the field, the two students supported in the air tried to take off each others’ hats. The game was repeated several times so that many people could participate.
Individual competitions were also repeated several times. Although a single 100 m dash produced a single winner, the race was repeated as many as 10 times so that a total of forty students could participate and help their team accumulate points.
There is nothing like this in America. The complete absence of individual accolades, teams of 100 plus, the formal and traditional greetings, march, and flag presentation before and after the festival — it would never work at a high school in the United States. There are simply too many cultural differences.
Something else happened that struck me as being different. During a student’s second and third year of high school, he or she may choose to enter the sports homeroom class. In order to join you must play sports year round and, consequently, our best athletes belong to these two classes. The third year student (seniors) sports class was on one of the teams, making them heavy favorites. Yet they were narrowly beaten at the end by another team, the one featuring the sports team of the second year students (juniors).
In America, the land of the underdog, this would have been cause for celebration, and to be fair, there were a lot of students and teachers celebrating the surprising result. But to me it felt a little sad and I sensed that in some of the people with me at the time, too. The sports team was supposed to win. It’s what they’re known for and they couldn’t quite pull off the victory. I was reminded of all the episodes of Iron Chef (Japan) that I’ve seen over the years. Eventually you reach a point with the Japanese version of Iron Chef when you stop cheering for the challengers. You want the Iron Chef to win because it’s right. Winning a cooking battle is part of their essence and when they are upset by a challenger, their excellence is called into question. You want the Iron Chef to win because that’s what they’re supposed to do. I felt the same way about the team with the senior sports class.
[Taylor]
Julie likes surprises. This year for our anniversary I decided to surprise her with a trip to Hakodate, a city located on the Northern island of Hokkaido.
Believe it or not, there is a train you can catch in Noheji that will take you to Hakodate. How is this possible? The Seikan Tunnel that links Honshu and Hokkaido underneath the Tsugaru Strait. At 53.85 km, it’s the longest undersea tunnel in the world.
We arrived at the station at around 8:00 on Friday night, ate some tempura for a late dinner, and then went back to our guesthouse. Here’s the view from our room:
We spent most of Saturday walking around the city.
Russian Orthodox Church. One of several old churches (including Roman Catholic and Episcopalian) in the same area. These vestiges of Western culture and architecture stem from the Kanagawa Treaty which opened up Hakodate to trade with the U.S. in 1854.
Eastern harbor
For lunch we decided to find some fresh sushi down by the harbor. It was probably the best we’ve had since our trip to Otaru (also in Hokkaido).
From left to right: squid, king salmon, and scallops. The squid sushi was easily the best we've ever had.
View from the Goryokaku Tower overlooking the star-shaped Goryokaku Fort.
Goryokaku Fort/Park. In spring this place is bursting with cherry blossoms.
Squid boats on the Western shore. The lanterns are used at night to lure squid closer to the surface. The owner of the guesthouse said we'd find many cats in this section of the city and we did. In fact, we probably found more cats than people in the neighborhood.
Raise the squid lantern.
In the evening we feasted on a Hokkaido specialty: soup curry.
Hakodate is famous for having one of the best night views in Japan. The owner of the guesthouse was nice enough to drive us up with mountain to see it. He also took this picture.
All in all, a lovely anniversary weekend.
[Taylor]
On Tuesday Julie and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. Rather than go out to eat, we decided to try some new recipes.
Miso soup with daikon and green beans.
Tofu appetizer with ginger, green onion, bonito flakes, and shiso leaves.
Homemade sushi: Cucumber, scallop, and tuna.
Julie did a much better job of rolling her sushi. My rolls were more like burritos.
We’re also celebrating this weekend by going on a trip. I’m keeping the location a surprise for Julie though so we’ll have to tell you about it when we get back.
[Taylor]
Last weekend we ventured South to the Oirase Gorge to participate in the annual Aomori trivia contest. Fun was had before, during, and after the actual contest. Here are some pictures of us exploring famous Lake Towada before the competition on Saturday afternoon.
Swan and pink dinosaur paddle boats.
Our friends opted for the swan boat.
Oh, and our team tied for third.
[Taylor]
Last week I drove back from a conference in Aomori City with my friend Bryan. We decided to take what we believed at the time to be a shortcut over a mountain rather than the somewhat congested main highway along the coast. Neither of us had taken this road before and weren’t quite sure what to expect.
The road turned out to mostly be a narrow, serpentine lane of gravel, dirt, and boulders surrounded by a dense, lush, green forest. The last time I remember traveling in a car on such a road, I was living in rural Alaska.
Our journey through took a few surreal turns. As the road narrowed and Bryan’s car jostled through an increasingly steep and side-winding terrain, we remarked that we appeared to be in the movie Jurassic Park. A few minutes later Bryan’s iPod, on shuffle, played the theme song from the aforementioned film. Laughter ensued.
When we reached the summit of the mountain road we drove through a cloud and began our descent. The road widened a bit and eventually we reached pavement again. Then, out of nowhere, we saw an enormous building. It’s green, aesthetic metal roof and concrete building blocks were completely out of place. As we crawled past we noticed other buildings (much smaller), a few pagodas, and shrines and no people. Clearly we had left Jurassic Park and entered Spirited Away.
Naturally, we hopped out of the car to explore. Despite all the infrastructure, the place was completely silent.
Out of place
Desolate
A few minutes after I took that last photo, we saw a single human being walking across the parking lot in the far distance. We decided to head back to the car and drove away, relieved that we did not find and eat delicious food that turned us into pigs.
So what was it? An abandoned village? An ornate but low security prison? A secret hotel? Or did the cloud that we drove earlier transport us to a post-apocalyptic future? We asked a friend who lives in the area about it and he explained that it’s an ascetic religious community. A while back somebody founded a religion that blended Shinto and Buddhist teachings and set up headquarters along that particular mountain road in Aomori. The followers live and work in the mountains and they even have a private school on the premises for the kids in the community.
The whole thing makes me wonder what else is lurking in the woods of Aomori. Julie and I have done our fair share of traveling around the prefecture, but I’m sure there are plenty more roads along the farms and fields worth exploring.
[Taylor]
During one of my recent lessons, I had my students make superstition manga (comic books). I basically gave them three panels to tell a story and encouraged them to use as much English as possible. It was one of those fun intercultural lessons I get to do every once in a while. I taught them about some superstitions from North America and Western Europe and they explained some of the local superstitions in their comics. They include:
Pretty interesting, eh? Keep in mind these are superstitions. I’m sure if my students don’t cut their nails at night it’s not because they think it’ll kill their parents, they’re probably just being polite.
A teacher I worked with said that a few of the superstitions listed above only pertain to Aomori. Superstitions in Japan, just like every thing else it seems, vary from region to region. In some places whistling at night invites mice and in other places thieves. In Aomori you get ghosts or snakes.
[Taylor]
I just finished reading an update on our friend’s website. As you may recall we had a visitor stop by a few weeks ago who is riding her bike across the world. Her journey through Northern Japan, including stopping by our place in Noheji before venturing North to Hokkaido, can be found by clicking here.
Despite some nasty weather, she appears to be doing well! Also, I still can’t believe this, she will be in Valdez, Alaska! Our hometown! She’s taking a ferry from British Columbia to Whittier to Valdez later this summer.
Small world, indeed.
[Taylor]
Although it’s not quite summer, the grass is green and growing in Aomori. How do people mow their lawns here? I’ve seen people do it three ways. People who have a large territory to cover seem to prefer riding lawn mowers. I’ve also seen a couple people with a small amount of grass to trim use simple push mowers.
The most popular method, however, seems to be Japan’s version of the weed wacker. Most weed wackers that I’ve used in the United States cut plants by whirling a hard plastic wire around in a circle at a high velocity. There is also a safety guard preventing grass, twigs, and other debris from flying into your face.
All the weed wackers I’ve seen in Japan are basically buzzsaws on a stick. There is a safety guard, but it’s much smaller and affixed halfway up the pole rather than directly atop the cutting mechanism. Japan’s weed wacker is essentially a terrifying, circular metal blade at the end of a pole that loudly spins around with the push of a button. It doesn’t look very safe. Sometimes when I’m at my desk at work I can hear the metal screech loudly against the ground or a the edge of a building or sidewalk. I know our grounds crew are trained professionals who know exactly what they’re doing, but that sound is still cringe-inducing and makes me nervous.
It’s also not uncommon for people to let the grass and other plants, flowers, and weeds grow tall before cutting them down. Often the debris is left in the field (like in the picture above) rather than raked up, collected, and disposed. I suspect all the caterpillars we’ve seen lately appreciate this.
Well, congratulations for making it through this post. I know it’s not particularly illuminating or interesting, but we’re trying to update more regularly. We had to start somewhere.
[Taylor]
Spring is over. We’ve been experiencing the rainy season of Japan for at least the past two weeks, if not longer. Here in Northern Honshu the weather is cool but humid, the landscape green and gray. Although it’s the middle of June, it doesn’t feel like summer at all. We’ll have to wait until the end of July for that.
In the meantime, with all the extra humidity, we’ve had to step up our mold prevention effort. This weekend we swapped out all the moisture absorption packets in our closets and drawers.
Over 48 packets replaced.
Rainy season is also, apparently, caterpillar season. We’ve seen them everywhere we go. Most of them tend to look something like this.
Slightly smaller than my index finger.
Weekend Stuff
On Friday we had a wonderful time hanging out at a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant with friends. The following morning Julie helped out at a local nursery. She met many kids under the age of five and, for most of them, it was their first time meeting a foreigner. In the afternoon I played Go at the community center.
On Sunday, I went hunting.
By “hunting” I mean watching animals in the woods with my friend Bryan without weapons (though to be fair Bryan surprised me by brandishing a fake pistol that he hilariously explained would be used for self-defense). We ended up in a moist forest on the outskirts of Shichinohe and at times I felt like I was back in Oregon.
Bryan thumbing through a guide book of birds in Japan.
So did we find anything? Yes. Just when we had given up hope of spotting large, interesting creatures, a Japanese serow (wild goat-antelope) came trotting across a ridge about twenty feet away from us. It was, understandably, surprised to see us and stared us down for a few moments before venturing deeper into the woods. Success.
Looking ahead to this week, we’ll both be pretty busy with school visits. However on Thursday afternoon I’ll be participating in a teacher softball match. On the weekend we’ll be heading to the Oirase Gorge for a night of trivia, charity fundraising, and fun with friends.
|
pacificloons
