Rainy Day Enkai

 I just got home from a teacher party tonight. It's also been raining quite a bit for the last couple of days. Here are some photos of us leaving the hotel where the party was at.

Hanami and the Misadventures Thereafter

Hanami is an event that signifies the beginning of many things here in Japan – for me, they became the beginning of my misadventures of the week (last week).

The cherry blossoms are still in full bloom in many places in Iwaki, but most of the cherry blossom celebrations happened the weekend before last. These celebrations are called “hanami,” where basically, people go to sit beneath the cherry blossoms with food and drink and enjoy the beauty of the flowers.

I went to one of these celebrations, which was organized by the international association at city hall – basically, some people at city hall suggested that we all go to a park together. It was a bit more complicated than this however, as the park apparently gets quite busy, so some of us arrived early, about 10am to reserve a spot with tarps and blankets. The place where we met was more extravagant than I expected: the park was actually somewhat of an amusement park with old derelict rides and food vendors and was decorated with sponsored lanterns. When we arrived, there were already several Japanese people drunk with their families; one guy who seemed particularly inebriated was dressed up in a Draemon costume complete with face paint – although the paint was starting to run and held a “why so serious?” likelihood to the Joker.

The day itself was actually quite fun. Cherry blossoms are very symbolic of the new year’s beginnings. The cherry blossoms usually mark the beginning of new jobs, the new school year, and outdoor social events begin once again after the anti-social coldness of winter. It was good to see many people who I haven’t seen for quite a while. After an afternoon and evening of Japanese snacks and Ozeki One Cup, before I knew it, it was almost midnight. People were still in the park at this time and there were a few lights that gave illumination to the blossoms.

Many people from our group had already left for an evening of karaoke, but me and a friend decided instead on a hot bowl of ramen before heading home. We had parked our bikes on either side of the park, so we agreed to meet each other at the Nissan dealership on the road nearby. We met as promised, although, I had misplaced my bike key at some point in the day and was without wheels.

At this point, you may be wondering how many embarrassing stories I can possibly post on this blog, but yes, this is another one of ‘those’ posts.

I was feeling a bit bummed about the situation, so Don, being the kind person he is, agrees to go back to the park to help me look for the key. We have friends that live close by, so we stopped in and borrowed a lantern to help us look. The light wasn’t good though, and we looked without any success. I even jumped over the fence to examine the train tracks beneath the sky-pedalling ride that we went on earlier, but still, no dice.

Our friends, the lantern owners, had gone to a bar that was on our way home, so we stopped in to return their light before walking to a ramen shop downtown. The shop is one of my favourites because they let you squeeze fresh garlic into your bowl with the garlic presses handy at each seat. I usually go for about 3 or 4 cloves before popping a whole one into my mouth for fun. I won’t be kissing anybody for another few months, so I enjoy myself while I can.

After ramen I walked home without my bike.

The next day I searched multiple times through all of my clothes and phoned people asking them if they found my key in any of the tarps/blankets we sat on the night before, but still no key. I phoned my supervisor in the hopes that the school might have a spare key – or that they may have some other solution to my problem; I couldn’t have been the only irresponsible ALT that this has ever happened to.

I forgot to mention that the night before, I ended up walking my bike to a Mini-Stop convenience store, where I had hoped in a last ditch effort, that my key had fallen out of my pocket while reaching for my wallet to pay for my Ozeki One-cups. They didn’t know where my key was either, so I ended up leaving my bike there. My supervisor suggested that I check with the Mini-Mart people this next morning to make sure it was okay to leave the bike there for a day or two while we figured out what to do with it. I had already decided to walk back to the park to look for the key in daylight and the Mini Stop was close by.

At this point, I should also clarify that nobody in Japan locks their bikes “to” anything. Instead, most bikes just come with a collar attached to the back of the bike, where, when locked, immobilizes the rear wheel. Hence, by walking the bike on its front tire, I was able to get it to the Mini Stop.

After checking with the clerks at the store, they assured me that they did not find my key and that it was okay to leave my bike there, I walked back up to the park to look one more time. It was noon, but people were already set up on their tarps with food and drink. I bothered a few people with my bad Japanese, who were in the area we occupied last night, but with no success. Some other friends were having their hanami event later that day, so I hung around and took photos before meeting them for more hanami.

The next day I was at one of my visit schools, which is about a 40-minute bike-ride from my apartment -- and there are no buses. It’s also about a $20 cab ride each way. I managed to borrow a bike from another friend for what turned out to be a very wet ride. It poured rain all morning and the zipper on my bag opened while I was riding, so I spent the day wearing wet jogging pants; I also didn’t bring a change of socks.

During my day at work, in a moment of sulkiness within my damp clothes, a teacher phoned me for directions to where I had left my bike. He said that he wanted to drive the school’s truck to retrieve it and bring it back to my base school. Once at the school, he would try to “break” the lock. Now, I grew up with a mechanical engineer for a father, so when this teacher used the words “break the lock,” I cringed slightly. I would prefer the words “cut the lock” or “dismantle the lock”; as it is, I can only picture my teacher with a screwdriver and a hammer – or maybe some kind of heavy rock, pummelling my bike until it is able to move once again. I try to persuade him to let the school’s handyman to take a look at it, but also try to brush his choice of words off as a possible vocabulary misnomer.

The following day I was back at my base school, which I often walk to as a change of pace, where my teacher told me that he could not get the lock off and that maybe I should talk to one of the school’s maintenance staff, but it is also the first week of lessons for me and I end up too busy to do anything for the next couple of days.

It ends up being Thursday when I go to another visit school, but this one by bus. I ended up very lucky this day for a couple of reasons. The first was that as I walked out the door of my apartment in the morning, I realized that I may have spent all of the cash in my wallet to buy groceries the night before and that I would have to run back inside to grab some change. The other fortunate moment was when I decided to check my wallet, there was in fact a gaping cavity where all of my funds had been depleted, but, because there were no extraneous amounts of cash to obstruct my view, I was able to catch a glimpse within the bottom crease of my wallet, where I found a glint from the toothy smile of my prodigal bicycle key returned to me.

Typhoon Day

I mentioned yesterday that Japan would be on a typhoon alert for most of today. The morning today, was a bit nasty as it rained pretty hard and it was also quite windy. As such, the school I was supposed to go to today cancelled its classes. The trains had also stopped, so I had no way of getting there. Most schools in Iwaki were in the same situation and I woke up to many posts on Facebook about how everyone had the day off. This wasn’t the case for me as my base school still wanted me to come in. Actually, they suggested that I didn’t come in today, but that I would have to take a holiday day.

Grudgingly, I grabbed my lunch, arranged a spare set of clothes, and prepared myself to ride my bike into potential typhoon weather. By the time I left my house however, the rain had mostly stopped and the wind had died down quite a bit. The air was actually quite warm – maybe because the winds approached from the south? In any event, most of the city was closed up and I rode quite easily through the empty streets of Iwaki. I think that it ended up that most of the typhoon missed Fukushima and hit most of the East/North East of the island.

Upon arriving at school, I was a bit annoyed, and relieved at the same time, to find that classes had been cancelled here as well, but that teachers were still expected to come to school. Many teachers were amazed that I braved the weather on my bicycle, but again, there wasn’t much weather for me to brave.

I spent most of the morning doing some much-needed studying of the Japanese language. The more I study, the more I find I don’t know anything. The teacher I share my office with has spent so much time working with me at this – I owe him a lot.

The students were also supposed to cook a lunch for the teachers today, but because there were no students in the school, and teachers were worried about the food going bad, we all went to the home economics room and cooked the meal ourselves. We made Oyokodon. The name “oyokodon” includes “oyo,” which means “parent,” and “ko,” which means “baby,” which in this case refer to the fact that the dish includes both “chicken” and “egg.” It is served over a rice bowl, which is the “don” component to the name. Lunch was delicious, free, and I learned how to cook a Japanese meal. I might try it out by myself sometime in the near future.

After lazing around the office, full of oyokodon, for a while, a few teachers invited us to play volleyball in the gym – and play volleyball we did. We played six each side for probably a good couple of hours, which meant that I had to put in a bit of overtime, but I didn’t mind. The only downside to the day was that I split my pants, almost in half, while going for a dig on the ball. That, and the blisters I have on my feet from playing with no shoes.

In conclusion, this nasty typhoon day ended up turning into a beautiful, “I-wish-I-brought-my-camera-day.” I had my phone, but it’s not exactly ideal. Next time, hopefully I’ll get to experience a real-life Japanese typhoon.

Nagano Soccer Tournament

I guess I owe you some recap from the weekend’s shenanigans in Nagano. The last few days have been hectic and full of aches and pains, but a great time overall. This post will be equally hectic and painfully long.

I left school a few minutes early on Friday in order to catch a ride with some people to Koriyama where we would catch a bus to Nagano. It was sunny in the morning, so I neglected to bring a jacket to work. This turned out to be a big mistake as, come noon, it began to rain. By the time I left school, the rain had become torrential. Because I knew that I was going to get wet and inevitably have to take a shower before the bus trip to Nagano, I stripped down to undershirt and pants (‘pants’ in the North American sense, not the ‘pants’ the Scots use to denote underwear), and rode home barefoot in the rain. At home, I wrung out my clothes, had a quick shower, and was out the door to catch my ride. It had mostly stopped raining at this point.

FUJET, the group organizing the trip, had rented a bus for us to use for the weekend. We caught the bus from Koriyama at about 7pm and arrived in Nagano at about 2:30AM. We pretty well had a full bus with 43 people, so it was good times all the way there. I don’t remember much about getting to the hotel that night, but in the morning, one person woke up with a sprained ankle and the other with an injured thumb. It was no small coincidence that these two were into their cups more than most that night.

The next morning we were up at 7:30 for breakfast and then on the bus by 8:30 to go to the soccer fields. We had geared up in our soccer equipment and each of us sported our new “Akabekos” jerseys. Akabekos are sort of a mascot for Fukushima-ken – they are red polka-dotted cows that look like small red dogs.

The hotel and soccer fields are quite high amongst the ski runs in the mountains of Nagano. Yet, still a bit shocked as we stepped out of the warm hotel in our shorts into the sleet and rain that was coming down outside.

To be honest, I don’t remember much of the first game that we played. I don’t think that my brain or my body was awake until about noon – just before our second game. All I remember was being very stiff and quite useless throughout the game. The game was against Fukui and I think we lost 4-0, even though this was the game that we thought we would have a chance to win. The other two teams had played each other in the finals at last year’s tournament – each placing first and second respectively. We didn’t think we’d have much chance of winning either of these. Nonetheless, I think it was a decent game and we ended up quite close with our Fukui brethren.

We then had to sit through three 40-minute games until our next chance to play. None of us brought enough clothes and we were still tired from not sleeping the night before, so we spent our time freezing on the ground trying to get some rest. There was also a lack of concession and water at the fields – although I came prepared with my standard fare of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (a few of which went to sustaining our team for the day).

Our next game was against the British Embassy. They were the team that won the tournament last year and you can view their website here: British Embassy website. Despite the team’s rigorous schedule and team sponsorship, we must have had one hell of a practice last Saturday because we ended up winning the match 2-1. This would be the Akabekos’ only win in the team’s two year history. It was an intense game as we had scored early and we both played hard to win. We may have been a bit lucky as we had about 3 shots to their 20. Nonetheless, we became somewhat heroes in the tournament, as nobody really likes the Embassy. Like great soccer players, they bitched every call, played dirty, and took digs at our goalie. The few shouting matches from the day happened during this game.

By this time, the sun had come out and it was a beautiful day.

We had a break before we played our last game of the day against the Real Osaka. Again, you can view their website here: Real Osaka Website. I think that last year they played the British Embassy in the finals and lost to them. This year, they have an amazing team of really good guys. Our team didn’t have much soccer left in us for the day and we were no mach for them. Still, they played a really friendly game and only beat us 5-0 (it could have easily been 15-0 if they wanted). I’m still not sure we could have done anything to stop the goals that they put in.

After the games were finished and our referee duties done, the day wound to a close and all of the teams left the grounds to go back to the hotel. In the meantime, our team stood in the, now cold-again, mountains waiting for our bus. The upside to this was that we got to see a full moon rise from behind the mountains. I wish I had my camera because the light was also low enough that it may have actually exposed correctly in the dusk.

Anyway, the night consisted of a delicious dinner of food – any food really would have sufficed at this point, a hot shower, and then a night of party. Although, I must say that at this point in my Japan experience, I’m a bit partied out. I had a few drinks with my team early on, but for the rest of the night, I hung out with a couple of good friends.

After only a semi-late night, we rose again at 7:30 for breakfast, and were out of the hotel by 8:30. The sun was out today and we played at the proper soccer pitches today – due to the rain yesterday, we were moved to alternate fields, which weren’t quite as nice.

We had high hopes going into our first game of elimination. The team we were playing had lost one game 12-0 yesterday. Since then however, they picked up a couple of players who were very good. One of them scored a hat trick on us and they beat us 4-0. It was a good game nonetheless and we got to leave the tournament early so that we could all get home and catch our local buses while they were still running.

After receiving a curry lunch at the fields, we headed back to the hotel for showers and then were on the road for our seven hour journey back to Fukushima-ken (and then another hour and a half bus back to Iwaki). This ride was a bit tamer than the ride up – with only a couple of people drinking. It made for a long ride though – even with a small snooze.

By the time I got home, it was after 9pm. I had time for a bit to eat and then pretty much crashed hard into bed.

I think that the highlight of the trip was when an older Japanese man, who had refereed one of our games and was impressed by our play, found us at our dinner table and yelled, with both arms in the air, “Fukushima has the fighting spirit!”

Adventures in Bicycling... and Fukushima Orientation

I arrived back in Iwaki last night from our Fukushima orientation where JETs from around the prefecture were gathered to attend several seminars about anything from teaching to Japanese pop culture. It was a long two days and my exhausted mind and body was looking forward to a hot shower and a warm bed.

I had left my bike parked in a bike lot near Iwaki Station, where we caught our bus the previous morning. In this lot, there are probably about two thousand bikes parked at any given time, but I was pretty sure I knew within a reasonable area where my bike was parked. Of course, upon arriving at the lot last evening, I could not for the life of me, find my bike. It was dark out and the lighting in the lot is not particularly good so I spent a good amount of time checking and re-checking the area where I had left my bike. Then I thought that the bikes looked much more organized than when I had originally parked my bike and figured that maybe someone had arranged the bikes – or maybe I had put my bike in the wrong area, or maybe it got ticketed and placed somewhere else. I progressed to checking all of the bikes in the lot with no luck. So I checked again – still no luck.

The lot is beside a taxi depot and so I asked one of the taxi drivers if it was okay to park my bike overnight. They said it was and that was all the communication that we could manage in Japanese. He suggested I go to the police station down the block.

My first experience with the Iwaki police was an excellent one. Although our communication was very broken and lengthy, I eventually managed to communicate that I was an ALT at Iwaki High School and that I had lost my bike in the Iwaki Station parking lot and that it was very dark and that I might have missed it and that I came from Vancouver and that the Winter Olympics would be held there in the coming monthes and that I thought that my bike was a mix between purple and brown.

Our solution was that I would walk to the lot with three police officers with flashlights and take one more look before pursuing our next option. Within 3 minutes I found my bike and discovered that its colour was actually black.

I dropped off some British Columbia pins and some candies for them today as thanks for finding my bike – and also as a bit of an apology for being a dumbass. I also lost my bike outside of the supermarket the other day. It turned out I was looking on the wrong side of the building.


Another story of note involves my initial journey to the bus station two days ago. It was a rainy morning, but usually when it rains in Vancouver, one needs only carry an umbrella to keep themselves mostly dry. I walked about 3 blocks with my umbrella and I was soaked up to my chest.

I only had one change of clothes and I knew that I would not be able to survive a 2 hour bus ride, a day of seminars, a night out, another day of seminars, and a day back. I ran home, quickly grabbed another change of clothes and put on shorts and a T-shirt and rode my bike to the station.

Most people that I was meeting at the station were smart and took a taxi, but I didn’t know where or how to call one – or how long it would take. Needless to say, they were a bit shocked to see me arrive soaked worse than – well… anything. After wringing out my clothes in the toilet and drying myself off with toilet paper (Japanese washrooms seem to be devoid of any paper towels whatsoever), the only articles still soaked were my shoes. I spent most of my bus ride raising my core temperature and catching a bit of sleep after the whole earthquake debacle of the night before.


Overall, the orientation was pretty good. Lots of good info on Japan and teaching. The night out was a lot of fun – we went to “the Big Apple” for another all-you-can-drink night. This made the next day pretty rough though. Most of us spent the morning seminars trying to stay conscious. I think many of us are eager to start the school year so that we can stop drinking.

Didn’t take my camera to Fukushima on account of the rain. Instead, these are two photos of my apartment as lit by the lightning from the other night. The other is of a skull, which is a representation of how I was feeling last night as a result of fatigue and shame.