Birthday Party

I had a joint birthday party on Saturday the 29th of July. My birthday was on July 23rd while Nari (beside me in the back row) celebrated his birthday on the day of the party itself. The party was held at the usual local restaurant called Wakatsuki which is always good quality. The food was very nice (including venison) and there was plenty of beer and wine to drink.

My only problem is that I get drunk too easily these days. I think I need to drink at a slower pace and make an effort to fill my stomach with sufficient quantities of food. I was lucky enough to receive some equipment for my camera and a nice hand fan (useful in the Japanese summers) as birthday presents. Thanks to the Sato family for organising the party.

I've been fairly busy today (Monday). I went to the Board of Education to receive a certificate of thanks from the Shimogo Mayor and I also received envelopes of money from my colleagues. Giving envelopes containing money when someone leaves a job seems to be the tradition in Japan. When a person receives money from colleagues, it becomes their responsibility to return a gift as thanks (at about half the cost of the money received). I'll be busy looking for suitable gifts to buy. I have to say that during my 3 years at Shimogo BoE, I've always been treated very well.

I will travel to Tokyo on Wednesday morning and probably spend a few hours doing some shopping in Shinjuku. I would like to buy some books and a few others things before I fly to the Philippines on Thursday night (August 3rd).

I think my next blog update will be on August 11th or 12th and will give you all my stories about my trip to the Philippines. Bye for now.

Tajima Gionsai

We went to Tajima today to see a festival called Gionsai. The weather was lovely and I thought it would be a good chance to test out my new camera for the first time. I have now managed to load all the software into the PC and now it is time to start using the new camera with a vengeance.

I'm fairly pleased with the results so far. The colours seem to have been reproduced extremely vividly and I think the quality compared to my last camera is much improved. What do you think? The picture at the top shows a takoyaki stall. Takoyaki (octopus balls in batter) is an extremely popular Japanese snack. I saw at least 10 takoyaki stalls at the festival today. The other photos are of Clara messing about on one of the floats used in the festival parade.

Goodbye Shimogo JHS

That's me semi officially finished work at Shimogo JHS. I feel sad to leave the students but relieved that my 3 years on JET has come to an end. Don't get me wrong - I had many great experiences but it certainly is the right time to move on. I'll visit Shimogo JHS for a few hours next week to help coach some of the students for the upcoming speech contest in August and then that'll be me finished.

I was again deeply touched by the students kindness towards me. Many wrote letters of thanks to me and many actually gave me gifts e.g. beer, face towels, pens, key rings, cards etc. I guess they wouldn't do these things if they didn't like me so it was nice to get this positive feedback from the students in my final week of classes. They're really a great bunch!!

A week at work would not be the same without some form of irritation. On Tuesday I was informed that my school farewell party would be held on Thursday night. Thanks for telling me in advance! I had other plans on Thursday and so couldn't attend my own farewell party. Thanks for the notice. I was pretty peed off about it to be honest, but after 3 years I'm used to this kind of thing.

I've posted a few photos from my final classes. The top picture is a 1st grade class, the middle picture a 2nd grade class, and the bottom picture shows a 3rd grade class. Good memories.

The Hike, the Japanese Inn, the Lost Key.....

On Saturday the 15th of July, I set off with two colleagues (Akitaka and Shoichi) for a hike and overnight stay in a mountainous area called Nasu. On Saturday, we left Shimogo at about 8am and drove to a remote car park from where we would begin our trek. It has been the rainy season in Japan for about the last 6 weeks and on Saturday it was pouring down.

We set off in the rain but were unconcerned as our plan was to hike only about 4 hours on the first day of the trip. We reached the Japanese inn at about 1pm and I immediately noticed the smell of sulphur (due to the high volcanic activity in the area). After 15 minutes, the smell of sulphur faded and I did not notice it again for the duration of our stay.
The inn is situated in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest and is only accessible by foot. I believe that supplies are flown to the inn by helicopter. We were extremely happy to change into some dry clothes and to escape from the heavy rain. After we were shown to our small tatami mat room at the corner of one the buildings we paid ¥8,000 each (about GBP 40), got organised, cooked some lunch in our room, and drank some beer. We also found time to take a bath in the rotenburo - an outdoor bath heated by geothermal energy. It was lovely to sit in the boiling hot water and look across the forested valleys to the mountains in the distance. A special memory.
The dinner drum sounded at 5pm, signalling us to move to the dining hall.

After dinner, we returned to our room for some more beer and banter. The generator was switched off at 9pm, so we had to continue our party using torchlight. I slept extremely well that night - probably because of the fresh mountain air and the 12 cans of Japanese beer which I managed to drink.

The next morning, after another visit to the rotenburo, we set off after breakfast. We decided to take a circular route back to the car park as this would allow us to reach the summits of several nearby mountains. The weather was okay at the start of the hike but deteriorated as the day wore on. When we reached the car after 8 hours of walking, we were again soaked but in good spirits and looking forward to returning to the comforts of our homes. Unfortunatelyy Shoichi had lost the car key which meant another considerable walk towards Shimogo!! It was raining and the day and my mood were both beginning to darken. We eventually managed to call Yuki once we received a signal on Akitaka's mobile phone and were picked from a dark forest road at about 6.30pm.

Despite the lost key and heavy rain, the weekend was a great success and I would love to visit the area again sometime in the future.

Things are starting to wind down with my job at Shimogo JHS. I'm really looking forward to my trip to Nagasaki and my week in the Philippiness. I'm also hoping that the rainy season will end soon - it's really starting to get me down and it feels to have lasted much longer than in previous years.

Olympus E-500

I'm hoping that the quality of pictures on this blog will dramatically improve as I'm now the proud owner of a new Olympus E-500 digital SLR camera. This camera was a gift from the Minami Aizu education office for my 3 years service in the JET Programme. Unfortunately, the manual is in Japanese so it might take me some time to work out how to take a decent photograph.

We had our official goodbye party on Friday night in a place called Baichikan in Tajima Town. Along with my camera, I received a certificate and a bunch of flowers (which I promptly gave away to another English teacher).

The party was nice enough but a bit of an anticlimax. After the party, all the other ALTs and myself headed off to karaoke for a short time and then it was time to go home.

This will be my final week at Shimogo JHS before my contract comes to an end. I'll be sad saying goodbye to the students but I'm sure I'll bump into some of them during my final 8 months in Shimogo.

This week has started in a relaxed fashion as today is a Japanese national holiday called Marine Day. Japan has a total of 14 national holidays - Marine Day is the newest and started in 1996 as a day to celebrate the sea.

Elementary School Sayonaras

Things are starting to draw to a close with my current job in Shimogo. I have now visited all the elementary schools for the last time. I was pretty sad to say goodbye to all the students as they've all been great fun to teach for the last 3 years. The pictures I have posted are from the 3 different elementary schools which I have visited over the last 3 years.

At the schools, I received many lovely messages from the students and some great pictures. Two of the schools held large leaving ceremonies and I felt sad to no longer be their teacher.

However, I leave the elementary schools with many happy memories and a feeling of satisfaction at a job well done. The elementary school teaching has generally been a success and provided great job satisfaction.

I have a farewell party to attend tomorrow night and then I'm going hiking on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday we'll have a new car delivered (which we are leasing for 8 months). Next week will be my final week at Shimogo JHS.

Crazy Kim

Last night I saw 2 JASDF (Japanese Air Self defense Force) F-4 Phantoms flying at medium height and at high speed over Shimogo at about 7pm. It is very unusual to see these planes over Shimogo (especially at that height and time) but it certainly perked up my evening.

Recently, there has been a lot of regional tension regarding the development of long range missiles in North Korea which are capable of hitting targets in Japan and the USA. For several weeks, Japan and the USA have been aware of missile test preparations going on in North Korea. The new missile has been called the Taepodong 2.

Sure enough, the test fire took place at 3.30am i.e. 8.5 hours after I saw the F-4 planes fly over Shimogo. I have come to the conclusion that the Japanese Government and military were aware the test was going to take place and therefore raised their level of readiness.

Another interesting fact worth speculating on is that the Taepodong 2 missile failed after 40 seconds in flight. It is highly possible that this missile failed due to a technical problem. I think it is also possible that this missile failed due to some sort of covert interference from the USA. The USA has been spending vast amounts of dollars over the last few years to develop ways to defeat North Korean missiles. Money has been spent on anti-missile missiles, microwave weapons to destroy sensitive electronics, and airborne laser technology. Did we see the first application of such technology when the North Korean missile exploded in flight last night?

North Korea always features in the Japanese news programmes. Over the last few decades, many Japanese people (and South Koreans) have been abducted to North Korea, there have been disputes regarding the exploitation of mineral rights in the Sea of Japan, North Korea has a highly active currency forgery programme, and Kim Il Song's son was arrested trying to get into Tokyo Disneyland. Of greatest concern is the current North Korea nuclear weapons programme.North Korea looks set to feature in news programmes for many years to come.