Stella!

The great search.... Last year my wife bought a Stella, which is produced by Subaru and is considered to be a 'K- class' car or Konpakuto car (yep that's compact car). The advantage of owning a compact class car is that they are better on gas mileage (though my lovely Vitz gives it a run for it's money) and they fall under a lower taxation bracket so they overall are economically sound. You can usually really quickly tell that a car is a k-car by it's yellow licence plates (regular sized engine cars have white licence plates). Well last month my wife pointed out to me that she has never seen another Stella when driving around. Since then the search has been on, every time I see a yellow licence plate, I quickly look at the car maker and almost always it is either the Honda 'H' emblem or the 'D' announcing that it is a Diahatsu (Toyota does not make kompact class cars- The third most popular k-class car is probably Suzuki). I have yet to see another Stella. To me this is great- in a country where there are so many cars and a tendency to place higher value on what is a popular seller rather than being unique, it's great to be driving a unique car! The other thing is that it is actually a pretty good car, our previous car was a Suzuki Wagon R which I thought was just slightly better than a go-kart, but this car has some pep and is very easy to drive.

My wife attended a funeral for one of her co-workers' son today. He was only 20 years old and passed away in a car accident. What movie was that line from - "no father should ever have to bury their son"...? I think it was a Lord of the Rings movie- but it always held to me as a great quote, there would be nothing sadder than burying your own child.

On a lighter but also sad note, this Saturday marks my last class teaching at Arai's NL Farm. It's been a fantastic year and a quarter teaching there and I am really going to miss teaching the children there, but the hour long travel time really wore me out last year, so I have to take my chances finding work closer to home.

Stuff and things

Picture.I always found Monet's pictures interesting and bought a Page-a day calendar this year. I really liked the picture from today, titled Seascape, Night Effect.

Clearance Sale! Last week, the wife and I took some older furniture to a recycle shop- and were quite disappointed that they only offered us 2000 yen for it. Well, we took it anyway, but we are still left with two things that we would like to find a home for. If you live in Japan and you need a tv- we have a (I'm not sure how many inches it is- maybe19-21?) Toshiba Wide bazooka tv- that we will part with cheap! If you are interested let me know and I will see if I can dig up any information. We also have a Thomas hot oil heater that is good for small rooms, but relatively ineffective for big rooms. That can be had for free- again just let me know if you are interested and I can find some more information for you.

Serika, Natsumi, Neo, Ryuya, Mi Chan from ESLC

Happyokai. I have worked at ESLC for one year now! Sometimes it feels like it has been longer, but it's been a good experience for me all the same. Both Chris and Hisano, the owners and my friends at the school, have been great to me there and helped me feel welcome and really have been understanding considering how hectic my schedule has been at times! On Wednesday we had the end of year show held at the local Bunka Center (Cultural Center) and the show went really well! All the students had worked so hard over the last month memorizing their skits and there was some anxiety about my students, but everyone did a fantastic job! After we finished with the show, a small group of us went to Mainichi Bowl to say goodbye to one of the students that is moving to Tokyo. A large part of the group was made up of returnees that had spent time in America or other countries, and their English was fantastic!
Chris particularly was putting up some good scores, seemingly enjoying victimizing the poor children!
The gang had a great time.
I was just trying to creep everyone out...
I still don't know what she was doing...
We capped the day off with pizza and soft drinks (yes- really- only soft drinks). It was a tiring but fun day!

Okuni jinja

One of the more popular local shrines is known as Okuni which is located in Morimachi. The shrine has stood for about 1400 years (I am sure that some renovations have taken place) and is widely regarded as one of the more interesting Enshu region shrines. Pictures posted near the shrine speak of some famous visits including the emperor's son and some famous Japanese celebrities. Many regard the shrine as a good place to go to pray for safe driving and there is even a side road to take your car to have it blessed. After my accident we had decided that we would hedge our bets and go to the shrine to pray for safety on the roads. While neither of us are Buddhist, we both have always agreed it's a good idea to play it safe!

After crossing through the awesome, large torii shown above, to the left on the path is an interesting little brown pond with a red bridge crossing to a small hut.
A bit more of a short walk you will find yourself at the temple itself. In the courtyard there was this lovely looking tree.
And finally we were able to throw our 5 yen into the box and pray for safety on the always scary Japanese roads.

It was quite a serene setting nestled in between some rolling hills and a nice quiet walk to a nearly empty temple. I could see why it is popular and enjoyed by many, and I will definitely go by again sometime!

That's Japan! (Issue 3)

Folks, it's time once again to revisit the whacky, astonishing, beautiful and sometimes not so beautiful world of Japan. In this weeks installment- we will talk about the convenience of bank machines, Policemen in a box, traditional festivals for every city, do it yourself restaurants and we'll introduce one of the most famous Japanese-style hamburger fast food joints. It's a big issue, so let's get started!

1. The ATM

Got big plans for the weekend? Your friends call you up late at night on a Friday to go out to the nightclub? Taking your family on an exciting trip to Ise jingu? You'd better plan ahead! The ATM's run at only set times most bank's ATM's closing at 7 pm or earlier (not to mention the banks themselves close at 3pm!) and don't open at all on Sundays. The times seem to be getting better lately, you can hit the ATM at the local 7-11 and pay an additional fee of 150 to 300 yen, but you just learn to bank during normal hours. Sheesh, it's not like they have to pay the machines overtime for working late or anything. Guess sometimes we take the 24 hour convenience for granted in Canada... Oh, and of note, if you are visiting here from another country, come prepared as Japanese ATM's aren't on the Plus system so you can't use your Debit or Visa card at a machine.
2. Koban

There are big police stations here, but a good idea to spread the police force out amongst the communities to improve accessibility is the koban, or police boxes spread out everywhere. The boxes can be simply a small room or like a mini-office if they are covering a larger area. Sometimes you will find the koban empty if they are out patrolling, but you know eventually they will turn up! I think this is a fantastic idea, and immerses specific police officers in a community so may make the police seem more a part of your neighborhood.


3.Matsuri

In Japan virtually every city, actually every ward has their own matsuri or festival. I have never figured out when the local Shinpara matsuri is, but throughout summer, almost ever week a different community is having a small celebration. Usually they set up little food kiosks called yomise and will cart around large beautiful floats called yatai (or dashi or mikoshi - my main source my wife wasn't sure what I was talking about) as pictured above. In Hamamatsu, the main matsuri is held in late April/early May and is predominantly a kite festival, where people congregate at Nakatajima Dunes and competitively fly their large kites. I have yet to see it though!
4. D-I-Y restaurants

One of the bigger chuckles I got out of the movie Lost in Translation was when the two main characters go to a shabu shabu restaurant and are handed a big plate of raw meat to cook for themselves. I think this is one big thing that people won't get back home- some of the most popular restaurants involve cooking the food yourself. It's actually quite fun, but most of us have the idea that we go to a restaurant to be served food- but if we go to a Yakiniku, okonomiyaki or shabu shabu restaurant, you better be ready to cook the food yourself. The hot freshly cooked food is just delicious and it come highly recommended!

5. Featured- Japan's answer to McDonald's Mos burger

Of course in Japan, you can very easily go to Mc Donald's or in the bigger cities, Wendy's but the biggest burger shop in Japan is MOS burger.The initials of MOS burger represent Mountain, Ocean and Sun- I guess it gives the place an earthly feel. The MOS burgers are actually quite delicious and kick McD's butt,but as a gaijin the big complaint about the place is that the burgers are actually quite small and the price is higher than other places! Anyway, if you have a hankering for a delicious teriyaki burger, or their main item, the MOS burger which is coated in onions (which means of course that I can't eat it- since I hate onions) give it a whir!

Wacky? Unbelievable? Exhilarating? That's Japan!

The fine art of shopping

An early test picture taken at NL Farm in Arai

Still catching up with myself!

Last week after my picture taking adventure on Sunday (a week and a half ago now) Ritsy and I went to the local Electronics shop- Yamada. Let me backtrack a bit for a moment. About 2 or so years ago, I had finally managed to remove myself from the world of using consumer debt and did not ever want to go back to relying on it. Consumer debt is a neat little trap that a lot of us fall into when we are young and become to depend and rely on from the time, when college aged, that we are able to get our first Visa card. When I finally paid off my Visa card- Ritsy and I decided to save in advance of making big purchases instead of buying first and paying off later. Every month the two of us set aside 10,000 yen (roughly $100 CAD) each towards the big purchase fund, and have already been able to make some upgrades around the house. Last week we had enough for the Dyson Vacuum cleaner that we wanted- roughly 80,000 yen. To make a long story short, we only ended up spending about 45,000 on the vacuum thanks to a sale and our point card (which was worth 150% of the points we had).

Excited that we were walking out with some money in our hands, I mentioned to Ritsy that I wanted a new digital camera and wanted to take a look. Again making a long story short I ended up buying a new camera as well. Many of my students had recommended Cannon for quality, but I didn't choose their top of the line models- the Powershot, I went for a compact version of their Ixy camera- named the L4 here in Japan (IXUS i7 zoom in Canada). It is compact, has a good Megapixel rate, has many picture modes, and can film some good quality video shots- so I think the camera will prove to be a good pickup.

Naturally in the end, I will personally refund the money into the big purchase fund for our next target, a washer/drier, should be able to get it about this time next year maybe....