Hiking

Today was the day of my elementary school visit. I enjoy my weekly visits to the little schools and their pint sized inhabitants. I am still a K-6 teacher at heart, and while I enjoy teaching the middle school students Monday through Thursday, it is Friday that I look forward to. I am given the opportunity to play games and really be myself. After the fun commute last week I was expecting another morning of rotten weather. I was pleasantly surprised when I looked outside to see peaceful and soft snowflakes drifting down towards the ground.

I could tell that it was plenty cold outside so I began to bundle up. I suppose that one nice thing about not having central heating or insulation in the walls is that it is plenty easy to tell how cold it is outside. When I finally did fire up the ol' kerosene heater this morning the thermostat read a chilly eight degrees and if the temperature inside was eight after a night of having the heat turned off, the temperature outside would be even lower. I pulled on an extra sweater and headed off for Shima Elementary School.

Last week I had to travel about twenty minutes to get to the school I was visiting. Today the school I was heading to is the farthest I am willing to travel by myself. I figure that a half hour bike ride is about the limit of my willingness to commute by bicycle. I hopped on my bike and began to ride. It is a pleasant ride through the briskly cold morning, and I was glad that I wore the extra layer. Thirty minutes later I was approaching the school. I noticed a softness to the rear tire as I was nearing the entrance. The security guard met me at the gate and helped me find a place to park my bike. I confirmed that the tire was low as I parked my bike under the eaves of the school. I hoped for the best and headed off to teach the morning away.

I had fun teaching the third grade though sixth. The fifth and sixth graders were working on the months of the year. We made a month mini-book and identified our birthdays. In third and fourth grades we practiced colors and I read the book "Green Eggs and Ham." I ate lunch with the third grade students in their classroom. We had soup, rice, salad and fried fish. I thought that the fish was so-so, but many of the students told me that they did not like it. We also had a small packet of roasted soy beans in celebration of setsubun.

My heart sank when I left for the afternoon. When I went into school in the morning I noticed that the rear tire of my bike was low, but now it was completely flat. Here I was clear out by the lake and I would have to walk home. I began to hike. I figure that it must have been close to four or five miles home. The silver lining is that not only did I bundle up this morning but now it turned out to be fairly nice for a cold winter day.

I started walking and about an hour later I found myself at home. A pleasant day of teaching and a nice long walk all on the same day. The only thing that would have made my walk better is if I did not have to drag my old granny bike (mama-chari) along with me.

As I am sure that you have noticed I have figured out how to embed links in the post. A few people have mentioned that they were curious about my infatuation with the character of tanuki. I have included a link to an article here.. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Noise

I sit here waiting to hear a song. I want to hear it, but at the same time I don't want to. I know that once I hear the sounds of that catchy refrain through the still night air I won't be able to get it out of my head. I don't know the words. There are a few that I can recognize, but as a whole I can not make any sense of it. I just know that tomorrow I will be whistling it as I walk through the halls, and the children will laugh at me. I don't care. Hearing this song will warm my heart and solve a few of my problems. I want to hear the kerosene truck and its song.

Loud music used to be a bane in our old life in Michigan. For a time we had a neighbor who would sit in his blazer for hours on end with the stereo turned up to eleven. The bass was loud enough that it would shake the pictures on our walls and give me a jarring, rattling headache. Then a couple of years later we had a few neighbors who would sit on their porch till the wee hours of the morning talking, arguing, and drinking. On a hot summer night it is a hard decision to have to decide; do I want to be kept awake by the loud neighbors, or do I close the window and be kept awake by the suffocating heat. Now loud music is the cue to which we live our lives. If we listen close we can time our daily existence by what is played over the town loudspeaker. It must be close to dinner time if we hear the pleasing theme to Greensleeves. It is played every evening at five O'clock. I hope to have Logan asleep by the time we hear Auld Lang Syne drifting trough the night. The song that I had associated with New Years Eve, here is played for the whole town every night at nine. I am awoken every morning by our neighborhood temple. Seven thirty-five on the nose the drums begin to bang, and the voices begin to chant sutras. I know that I have to hurry if I am not out of bed when the chanting starts. We time our lives in accordance to the noise in our environment.

So now I sit and wait to hear the sound of the truck that will come around and fill our big blue can with kerosene that we will use to heat our home for the next week or two. I try and distinguish the sound of the kerosene song from the various other sounds that crash through the air. Is that it? No, that is the hot potato truck. Yeah you read correctly. There is a truck that drives around the neighborhood selling baked Japanese Sweet Potatoes. That song could be it, but it's the guy who drives around collecting unwanted electronics and scrap metal. And don't get me started on election season here. I thought negative ads on TV were horrible, but at least you can change the channel or turn the television off. Here the candidates drive around town in a car with a giant megaphone strapped to the roof giving their campaign speeches at full volume. Over and over, starting at about seven in the morning. Imagine being woken on a Saturday morning by, "Hi I'm Fred Thompson. Let's work together. Please vote for me!" It gets even worse when the Hillary car and the Gulliani car drive into your neighborhood too. They all duel it our to see who can be the loudest. They smile and wave their white gloved hands at you while they deafen you with their rock concert volume campaign promises.

I still have not hear the sound I am listening for. I hope he comes soon because I am really cold and the kerosene can is empty and I would like some heat. I sure hope he gets here before Auld Lang Syne.

Ramen Meguri (pilgrimage)

The good book states that the wages of sin are death. I found out that the wages of eating sinfully rich food might be even worse than death. I hesitate before I answer the question, “Was it worth it?” with a resounding, “Yeah, I think so.” When it comes to good Japanese ramen no price is too high.

Ramen here is a thing of beauty. Forget what you know about the block of dried noodles that poor college students eat to survive. That’s not really ramen. Ramen is so much more. Fresh ramen that you order from a restaurant is one of the greatest foods to be made from the combination of noodles and soup. Jenny knows the answer before she can ask the question if she queries, “Do you want to go and get some ramen for dinner?” The answer is always a resounding, “Yes!” I can almost smell it now as I type, thin noodles immersed in a thick rich soup, slices of pork, crispy vegetables. All of the ingredients grasped with a pair of chopsticks and brought to my lips where they are pulled into my mouth with a resounding SLUUURP.

One Friday I found myself done with work very early and I was able to come home at noon. I walked through the door and asked if Logan and Jenny had eaten lunch. They replied that they had not. I suggested that we head off to Kyoto and cross one of the things on our to do list off. I have wanted to go and eat ramen for lunch and dinner. We rushed off to the station and were on our way. While we were on the train we studied the guidebook and the map to plan our pilgrimage route. We decided on two restaurants from the book that were within walking distance of each other.

We got to Kyoto and boarded the subway hungry for delicious soup and noodles. We walked through neighborhoods and along busy streets before we found the first shop on our list. We found much to our dismay that they were closed. This shop had hours that left them with a siesta time in the middle of the day, and we had just missed the lunch period. We decided that it would be best to save this restaurant for dinner. We began to retrace our steps so we could hike over to the other restaurant and begin from there.

We walked to Santoka Ramen. It was a very nice looking restaurant in a little strip mall near a subway station. This was the shop that I had been itching to visit. I desired to eat the Tokusen Toroniku Ramen. Our book recommended this bowl as being one of the more decadent choices available. The toroniku is pork cheek and if I understand correctly only 200 grams are available from one animal. Now two hundred grams is about half a pound, so I take it that pork cheek is a real delicacy. And at about eleven bucks a bowl my hopes were high for having the most delicious bowl of soup.


I ordered the Tokusen Toriniku and Jenny and Logan decided to share a bowl of miso ramen. Our food came shortly and we began to eat. The food really was delicious. The noodles were perfect. I slurped them with gusto. The pork cheeks were so tender that they quite literally melted in my mouth. In retrospect now I wonder if the melting in my mouth was more due to the high fat content and the heat of the soup turning the fat to oil. I will still attest to the fact that it was one of the most appetizing bowls of soup I have ever indulged in.

We figured a good way to kill some time between lunch and dinner would be to stroll on over to the shopping area a few blocks away and do some window shopping as we passed the time. It was as we were perusing the stacks of books in our favorite bookstore that we got the first clue that this experience was not going to end well. Logan had the look of someone who needed to use the toilet in a hurry, but before we could make it there it was too late. So we abandoned the search for good reading material and began to hunt for some new clothes for the little guy to wear. We managed to find a cheap little sweat suit in a department store.

Never ones to let a little bit, or a lot in this case, of crap stand in our way of a good time we decided to proceed with our plan. After all, Logan was saying that he actually felt fine and was not sick. So on we trudged convinced that Logan’s little accident was just that, an accident. I should have recognized foreshadowing when I saw it.

With all the time spent dealing with getting a change of clothes for Logan it was now time to begin the walk to the other restaurant for dinner. We wandered back through the city streets of Kyoto, Japan. We were able to walk parts of the city that were new to us. We walked through alleyways and streets lined with traditional houses and businesses. The sun was beginning to set and the streets were beginning to light up. Neon signs and lighted lanterns beckoned to us, welcoming us to enter and enjoy the hospitality found within. We truly were pilgrims wandering through a valley of temptation. We resisted and soon found ourselves at the second of our two destinations. Our quasi-spiritual journey was almost at an end.

Where the Santoka Ramen building was a marvelously modern chapel in the church of ramen, Karako Ramen was more of a storefront ministry. We arrived and found a bench at the counter. We had to sit at the counter, not because all the tables were occupied by other worshipers, because that was all there was. The restaurant was very narrow with seating for about fifteen along the counter. We perched ourselves on the stools near the end of the bar and ordered two bowls of kotteri ramen which is the house specialty. The soup was very thick and quite tasty. The most wonderful part of the experience was the friendliness of the proprietors who had laid out small bowls of various pickles, salads and even something that was like a curried tofu. The cook even went into the back storeroom and got a banana for Logan to enjoy with his dinner. We ate the delicious meal with relish.

After dinner it was time to head back to Omihachiman. We walked back to the subway station and started to trip home. We made it home in short order and soon enough found our selves in bed, or in futon as it were. It was in the middle of the night that I had the first premonition that something was amiss. Throughout the night and into the morning my stomach felt queasy, but I chalked it up to rich food and thought little more of it.

It was in the middle of Saturday afternoon that I really began to get sick. Suffice it to say that I had a difficult time and could not leave the house for much of the next three days. I even had to call in sick to work on Monday. It was probably the worst I have felt in a few years. It harkens me back to the days of yore when in college I drank too much peppermint schnapps and found it difficult to brush my teeth for a few weeks because the taste of the mint made me relive the whole experience. While we took our ramen meguri on the last day of November I am writing about it here at the end of January because the wounds are still fresh.

I have begun to eat ramen again, but I still have not eaten at a restaurant since the “episode”. When I do I will be sure to do so in moderation. Maybe that is the best way to deal with any vice. Lesson learned. All things are best in Moderation. And never let a bit of crap spoil a good time.

My Weekly Elementary Visit

Yesterday was the day of my weekly visit to an elementary school for some english fun and game time. This week it was time to venture out to Okayama Elementary School. I had a premonition that the weather would be less than pleasant, and I was correct. It started to snow on Thursday morning and it really has not stopped. I knew that the weather would be awful because the one major snow storm that we had last year happened on the day I was to go to Okayama School. I just had a feeling that the time I went there this year it would snow too.

Okayama is about a twenty minute bike ride on a nice sumer day. And it is a lovely ride too. I can hop on the bike path that leads to the lake and ride most of the way with no worries about cars. Last year when about six inches of fresh, wet, sticky snow fell it made the ride unbearable. I was forced to walk part of the way, and where I did have to ride along a street I was constantly splashed by slush thrown up by the tires of passing cars. I arrived at the school forty minutes after leaving home soaking wet and terribly cold.

I was hoping for the best on my bike ride yesterday. Luckily there was only about an inch of snow on the ground and it was not to difficult to ride through. The hard thing was beating the wind. I had to ride against a cross wind that lashed my face with stinging wet snow. I ended up pulling up the hood of my jacket to protect my face. I made it to school in about thirty minutes and this time I was rather hot from all the exercise. In fact as I was sitting in the principal's office in my short sleeved green eggs and ham t-shirt the school secretary asked if I wanted the air-conditioning turned on.

I taught the morning away and was invited to eat lunch with the sixth grade class. I usually eat lunch with the students during my Friday visit. I was glad to eat and goof around with the sixth graders as they will be coming to my junior high school in April. Lunch was a scary combination. It was the usual assortment of rice, soup, salad, and meat. The salad was a very bland combination of wilted and vinegared greens. The soup was actually the best part of the lunch. The boy next to me told me it was kim-chee soup. It tasted like every other school lunch soup I have ever eaten except it had some spice to it. Not a lot, just enough to give it a kick as it ran down the back of my throat. The rice was rice. The chicken was the single worst piece of chicken I have ever eaten. The best thing I can say about it was that it wasn't big. I had only what can be described as a knuckle of stuff. There were about three or four little chunks of meat all held together by connective tissue and skin. It was all covered with a slimy sauce that can best be described as greenish yellow in color. The meat itself had turned almost reddish and to be combined with the green sauce it was not very appetizing. I did it though. I ate the whole thing. I felt like I was eight again. "Plug your nose. If you can't smell it, you can't taste it." I kept telling my self. Well I couldn't plug my nose and still be polite so I went with my other maxim, for eating green beans and the like, from my childhood. Take a bite of something gross, then a bite of something good. So I ate in this fashion. Bite of chicken. Bite of rice. Bite of chicken. Bite of rice. (This is the procedure for eating much of the offerings of Japanese hot lunch, which is often actually served at room temperature or slightly above, never hot.)

After Lunch the sixth graders invited my outside to join them in a snow ball fight. I accepted figuring it would be fun to toss some snow balls around with them. I did not envision that their invitation meant, "Come outside so we can all throw snow balls at you." Which apparently it did. I also forgot what a Japanese playground is constructed with. Playgrounds here are gravel. Gravel has a tendency to turn into mud after a heavy wet snow. So I find myself outside running through the slushy mud with every kid in the school throwing ice missiles at my crotch. How do I know that they were aiming for my swimsuit area you ask? Well the fact that when the whole ordeal was over I looked like I had had an accident in my pants would be the biggest indicator that they were aiming for my "stuff." I ended up retreating to a section of pavement where the school would be behind my back giving me a more fortifiable position. I also managed to make friends with some of the first grade girls who kept me supplied with plenty of snow grenades to lob at the attacking forces. I was very relieved when the bell rang and it was time for the kids to begin cleaning time. They ran off to go and look like they were cleaning, and I ran off to lick my wounded pride.

While I was teaching the day away, and getting blasted by some serious snowballs, Jenny and Logan were off on their own adventure. After school Jenny and Logan wandered off to see what Hachiman Shrine and the canal looked like all covered in fresh snow. Logan's school is about halfway to the mountain so it was not too far to walk after school. The shrine sits at the base of Hachiman-yama, and the canal was built hundreds of years ago to force ships sailing on the lake to pass by the castle that sat on the mountain thus having to pay taxes to the lord of the castle. The canal has a great old world feel to it. One evening we were watching a period drama on TV set in medieval times and we recognized Hachiman Canal in the movie. Jenny managed to get some very beautiful pictures of the snow covered canal. She also took one of the snowman that you see. The snowman was outside of the army recruiting station. As they walked to school in the morning the recruiters were hard at work building the snowman. One of the men was only doing so in a short sleeve white t-shirt. On the way home from "The Yama" Logan fell asleep while getting a piggy-back ride from Jenny.

雪
(yuki)
snow

New Year Resolution

This year I resolve to update my blog with increasing regularity, hopefully to write something everyday. Oh sh*t, I guess that I already blew that one. I never have been one to make and meet my New Year Resolution. I almost did not even make one this year. And then around the second week of January I thought that it would be a good motivator for me if I resolved to write more. I was doing fairly well updating more often, because I was using my free periods to write and then bringing it home and posting it in the evening. Then came winter vacation. We had plenty of little of adventures that I hope to write up and add to the blog, but i will also try to keep people updated with our lives.

This week the weather has turned colder. I thought it was cold before, but it has become winter in the last couple of days. As I type there is snow falling outside for the second time this winter, and this time it is cold enough for the snow to stick to the ground. The worst part of the cold is the mornings. We wake up in the morning and the temperature hovers around forty-five degrees in our living space. It is even colder in the hallway where the bathroom is. We have taken to showering in the evening because there is no way we are going to bathe in the morning when the air is so cold we can see our breath. I guess that Japan is a nation of extremes. In the summer it was unbearably hot. Now we go to the store to escape the cold.

Monday I quickly got ready to go school. I had to because of the cold. I pulled on all fifty layers. Sixteen pairs of socks, long-johns, pants, five or six shirts, seventy-five sweaters, all in a vain attempt to stay warm on the ten minute bike ride to school. On my way to school I saw one of the students from my school in front of me. I sidled up to her and bumped the back of her bike with my front tire. She jumped about three feet in the air. Then she saw it was me and she started to laugh. Yelling at me the whole time, "Kebin yamete, Kevin stop." We rode together for a short way. Me all bundled up in my winter gear and her in a sweater and knee length skirt and over the calf socks.

I passed her after a block or so of riding together. It was as I was stopped at a traffic light that she joined me once again. I noticed that sitting in the helmet that was hanging from her handlebars was her cell phone. She was using her phone as an MP3 player. I pointed at it giving her my best school yard, "ooooohhhhh your going to get in trouble." She looked at me with pleading eyes and begged me not to turn her in. I told her that it would be our secret. It was then that she offered me the last thing I expected to seal our bargain. She held up the pinky of her right hand. She wanted to pinky swear with me to seal our secret. I did the only thing I could in the circumstance, I locked pinkies with her and pinky swore that I would never tell. It was not until later in the day that I realized how binding our contract was when all of her friends wanted to pinky swear with me too.

Tuesday brought an unexpected change of work duties for me. I was contacted about eleven in the morning and told to be at city hall at two-thirty to meet the mayor. And I would be helping to give him a tour of the city. Oh yeah sorry, this was not the mayor of Omihachiman who of course knows every inch of his town, but the esteemed mayor of Grand Rapids; Mr. George Heartwell and his beautiful wife. At first my going on the tour was canceled because I had a meeting with a teacher in the afternoon, but the investigation went higher up the totem pole and by the time the vice-principal was trying to find out about it, it became apparent that "it would be best if Kevin went on the tour." So it was time to go and change into my suit and go to meet the mayor. I was brought to the new hospital where we would be given a tour of the facility. I was very impressed with the new hospital and the Mayor. He was a very nice fella, down to earth and impressive at the same time. We toured the hospital, a crematorium, and a museum/art gallery. The hospital and even the funeral parlour made sense to me. Both were beautiful facilities that are recent additions to the city. The art museum however, I am at a loss to describe. It was like a special needs art facility. The best way to illustrate my point is by painting a picture of one of the areas. I will do my best to describe the area know as, "けんちゃんのファテジランド" or Ken-chan's Fantasy Land. An autistic man of about 18 years old has created an amusement park out of old milk cartons, curry boxes, paper and cardboard. It is very similar in every regard to the creations Logan's classmates make in kindergarten. (editorial comment: I don't say this to humiliate or degrade the art, because it really is quite impressive and cool. I describe it as such to provide the most accurate picture.) After the museum it was time to call it a day. I headed off home while Mr. Mayor and the first lady of Grand Rapids were driven off to their next appointment. A chance to meet the mayor of my home town was quite an honor.

I will do my best in the coming weeks to keep you better informed of our time here. I will continue to write about our adventures and describe the more mundane parts of our life in a fun and informative way.

またあしたね
(mata ashita ne)
see you tomorrow

Operation Tanuki Town

Our mission should we choose to accept it was to infiltrate the town, view pottery made in one of six ancient kilns in Japan, purchase a tanuki statue and return home. The main objective of the mission would to be the purchasing of the tanuki statue. We had to go to the source. We were bound for Tanuki Town. In the middle of Shiga is a town that crafts the majority of the tanuki statues that are seen in Japan. The name of the town is Shigaraki. Shigaraki is a tiny little town that is situated out in the middle of nowhere. We did our research and planned the best route to the town. This trip would take a total of six train rides, three there and three home. We did not encounter any problems until we went to board the third train of the morning. It should not have been a complicated procedure. We needed to get off the train, exit the terminal, buy a ticket for a new train line, and head off to Shigaraki. It should have been easy. But as it seems, nothing is ever simple.

We exited the JR line and proceeded to the other train line. There was no ticket machine so I walked up to the window and asked for two tickets to Shigaraki. The gentleman on the other side of the glass responded by crossing his forearms into an X and speaking far too rapidly in Japanese for my ears to comprehend. As he did this, his comrade began to point toward the other side of the station and motioned in an arc. All in all I understood the meaning perfectly. We were in the wrong place. This was not the train line that traveled to Shigaraki. That line was somewhere “over there”. Now all we had to do was to locate the third train company that operated out of this tiny station. This proved to be a tricky proposition. By the time we finally located the hidden entrance to the needed train line we found that we had missed the train by two minutes.

On the up side we had located the hidden entrance, but now we were left to entertain ourselves for one hour in the middle of nowhere. So we did the only thing that seemed reasonable. We went to Seven-Eleven. Convenience stores here sell all manner of treats and we walked out with a box of chocolates called “Melty Kiss”, an apple Kit-Kat, and some rice balls filled with tuna salad. We hoofed it back to the train station and we sat on a bench eating our lunch.

Finally the appointed hour came and we went to board the train bound for Shigaraki. The train was one of the smallest trains we have ridden. It was a total of two cars long. We found a seat in the back car and prepared for a trip through the countryside. I thought it very interesting that I found the ride on this quaint little train to be more romantic than the ride we took in Kyoto that was billed as a romantic train ride. I was impressed by the myriad of fall colors that we could see as the train winded its way through the valleys of the Shiga countryside. The blazing yellows, reds and oranges that covered the hills and low mountains were striking and beautiful. It made me realize that I will always long to be near the mountains. I enjoyed watching the track drift off in the distance as the train progressed. The majestic view and tranquil country almost made up for having to wait to ride the train.

We arrived in the town of Shigaraki and were immediately greeted by the largest statue of tanuki I have ever seen. It made me laugh when I looked at his midsection and sitting in the middle of his tummy was a pay phone. It could have been worse and have sat a bit lower. That is not a phone I would like to place calls from.

Our first destination after arriving at the Shigaraki Station was the ceramic institute and museum. We were lucky that we found a giant map of the town and plotted our course. The walk to the institute was about a mile. It was a very pleasant day and the weather could not have been any better for a nice long walk. We finally reached the ceramic institute and took the opportunity to look around and admire the beautiful pottery creations made by some talented artists. It was a cross between a gallery and a museum. The art created was stunning. There was a vast array of styles. Some of the artists created cutesy knick-knacks, while others produced pieces of abstract modern art. We opted not to tour the actual museum because the price was too high for our liking. We also took some time to tour the grounds of the institute. The campus is situated on a very large hill that afforded an awesome view of the fall colors found in rural Japan.

The afternoon was beginning to wane and it was time to move on. We still had to find and purchase the perfect tanuki statue. This would not be a little decision. On our walk to the ceramic institute we had passed not fewer than ten large shops that displayed hundreds of tanuki statues each. We would have thousands of statues to choose from. We found the perfect one after much browsing and searching. I hope to one day set outside the front door of our home. Carrying the wrapped statue under my arm because it was too large to fit in the backpack we headed back to the train station. The sight of a very picturesque and vacant shrine just off the main road distracted us. We took advantage of the opportunity and entered the shrine to take in the sights.

In doing so we missed the only train out of town. Once again we found our selves stranded in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. This time the length of time we had before the next train was an hour and a half. We started to look around for someplace to eat dinner. Not far from the station was a sukiyaki restaurant that looked delicious, but at almost sixty dollars a person it seemed too dear for us. There was another restaurant next door, but the sounds of off key karaoke coming through the walls deterred us from entering. We were left with only one reasonable choice. Once again we would go to Seven-Eleven. This time we left with a snack. I had a can of hot coffee and a sandwich; Jenny had a bottle of hot milk tea and a box of milk cake. We wandered back to the station where we ate our food in quiet solitude until the stationmaster approached us and said that it would be okay to board the train that had arrived forty-five minutes before departure.

We rode the train back to Omihachiman and walked to the only restaurant still open at eight-thirty in the evening: McDonalds. We stumbled through the front door wearing and exhausted from our day of being stranded in small town Japan. We had to laugh that we headed off to a small town and found ourselves spending time in two small towns. It made us realize how fortunate we are to be located in Omihachiman. Our city is a fair size, not too big, not too small. Omihachiman station has trains that depart on a very regular basis. We find life and traveling to be convenient and simple.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!