Well, I hope you're all recovered from your weekend of culinary indulgences! I took the day off on Thanksgiving Day (because, of course, it's not a holiday here!) and went up to the base in Sasebo where I was very fortunate to have dinner with my friends on the USS Guardian. And a big Otsukare sama deshita! to the Guardian chefs/cooks. Gochisou sama deshita! Good job! It was all delicious! I'm still dreaming about the turkey and gravy....mmmmm...
After dinner, one of the guys showed us around the ship. I really missed having my dad and brother there* on the tour, because they're much better at understanding all the stuff our informative guide told us, but I still thought everything was pretty cool! In the picture you can see the mine neutralization vehicle up on the deck. It's a remotely operated submersible used to hunt, identify, and neutralize underwater mines.
Sometimes the concept of war and its um... shall we say... various "accoutremements" is so abstract to me as I sit here safe in my little Japanese academic school. But seeing these men and walking on Guardian's decks, I got a little taste of reality. I mean, come on, how many of you run over & detonate mines all in a day's work? So, thanks again for having me for dinner, and thanks for everything you do, guys!
*but don't get me wrong, I missed you guys at dinner, too!!! In fact, I miss you just in general...can't wait to see you :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Shhhh...don't let their moms know I'm going to take these cuties back to the States with me! They were so adorable as they worked hard to trace their hands and feet to make these.
(but, yes, they had help with cutting them out).

Well, I hope your turkey is plump and juicy,
that your gravy is just right,
that your stuffing is as stuffing should be (?)
and that you can hug your family tight!

OK! OK! I'm stopping, I'm stopping! ...no more Dr. Seuss for me...
but seriously, cheers!
And a big THANK YOU to all of you who read this & make comments,
THANK YOU to all of you who send me letters & care packages!
I hope you know that it's because of you that I'm
strong enough to do what I do here.
You have really been there for me, and I truly appreciate it!
Happy Thanksgiving!

PS - have fun with the little Thanksgiving food survey
I set up over in the left margin there ;)

My kyoto sensei is an artist!

Wow! I had the neatest experience last week. In my Japanese painting class, I'm working on designing and doing my own nengajo (New Year's card). People send nengajo out at the end of the year and I believe they are all delivered on New Year's Day.
My teacher gave me a list of kichigo ("lucky/good fortune" expressions) and in deciding on which to use for my card, I asked the Japanese teachers here at school for their recommendation. Suddenly they got the kyoto sensei (assistant principal) involved, and he started showing me books he's made of all the inkan (stone/wood carved stamp or seal) he's done!


Here are some of his designs - oh - sorry - I forgot to put in something for a reference to the size of these. They're quite small, these are at most about 5cm long...so that makes them really difficult to carve!


I don't know what these say, but I'll print out this page for Kyoto sensei, and maybe he'll make a response... :)

just hangin' around...

The other day I rode my bike up to Omura (about an hour ride along the coast) to take a really wild dance class. I'm sure there will be another post about the class at a later date once I catch my breath...
Anyway, on the way home I saw some of these persimmons (kaki) hanging, and I can only assume they were doing this to make hoshi kaki. I wondered if the person who did it realized what an excellent example of a complementary color scheme this is!

Here are the hoshi kaki 'in context'. I love all the colors. Notice the basket on the right - that's all the peels. It looks like they used some kind of fishing basket, which would make sense, since this house is nestled right in a little fishing neighborhood right on Omura Bay.

Hoshi kaki & Mogura

So one of the otoshiyori is campaigning hard to be my Japanese boyfriend. Heh! No, the furry guy below isn't a picture of him! This morning after I did my little run and joined up with my friends, my wanna-be suitor handed me these 2 shrivelled things wrapped in plastic. Fortunately it wasn't the first time I'd seen hoshi kaki (persimmon that have been 'dried' while they hang on a line - you can even see part of the tie on the left one), so I didn't think he was really trying to be a dirty old man. (but the jury's still out on that one!). I like kaki - but prefer them when they are hard and ripe - this version is a little too sweet for me. But they're generally perceived as beautiful objects as seen drying on the line.
So once I was settled with my kaki, another man pulls out a sizable dead mouse/rat and gingerly picks it up and asks me if I've seen one....WHAT?

No one else seemed remotely concerned...the ladies even seemed to think it was CUTE (remember, I've seen some of them FREAK OUT over a moth that got trapped in a room). Upon closer examination, I realized it was not what I'd thought, it was actually a mole! Apparently they're quite rare in these parts, and I don't know why he had it, but I (hopefully) graciously declined his offer to give it to me to bring to school...

my fans

One of these days I may, just may, begin to like running...but for now, I really count on my smiling supporters I see every morning at the sports park. I've been dragging myself out there most mornings before school to run, and afterwards I try to practice my Japanese with the otoshiyori ("elderly people") who gather at the park every morning to do rajio taiso (an exercise routine set to music that is broadcast every morning). I happened to see these extra fans on my run this morning ;)

snail mail

I love getting real pieces of mail. Some of you reading this are reeeally good about feeding my mailbox every now and then, and I reeeeally appreciate it. When I was at university, my mom wrote me all the time, and it really made me feel grounded. Today is her birthday (I'll be celebrating by throwing a "ChocoChoco Party" on Saturday - you're welcome to come! I figured it was a good way to rationalize eating a bunch of chocolate without feeling overwhelmed with guilt). I kind of wished I could have used one of these pretty gold stamps on a birthday card to Mom, but at this point she'd probably tell me not to waste postage and just have a bit of chocolate for her :)

ps - I scanned this one, so you can click on it and see it clearly on the enlarged photo

Happy Halloween!

I ordered some pumpkins for my students & the neighborhood kids this year and they had a great time carving them. Everyone was so surprised that these pumpkins are hollow! So cute! I think they first thought something was wrong with them!



Here are the little ones tasked with the job of finding & cleaning all the seeds, while big brother and sisters were designing their jack-o-lantern faces. If they're lucky, they might even get some of those seeds back roasted...but they're reeeeally tasty, so I don't know! ;-0

Kominkan Matsuri

Yea! I'm an exhibiting artist for a few minutes! My painting teacher hung the painting I did of the higanbana flowers in the little matsuri show in the neighborhood where she lives. It's amazing how much better my work looks mounted and framed :)



Here's the room with the art, calligraphy, and flower arrangment displays. It was actually surprising to me how many students take extra curricular calligraphy classes. It's nice to see the young ones taking an active interest in such a traditional art.


It was fun learning how to sign my name in a "scripty" kind of hiragana (bottom right). I spent most of the last class practicing, because I only had one chance to sign my work. I also reworked my inkan a little bit, so you can see that printed in red underneath my name. And I think that the signature is supposed to go on the left side, but I thought it was more balanced on the right. It's good to be the gaijin :)

Man, I have a goofy smile in that photo. My teacher was taking it with my cell phone camera, and the kids behind her were teasing her & making funny faces because my teacher was squinting so much to take the photo. These kids were later climbing all over me (I made the mistake of letting one climb up on my back so she could see the performance on stage) and playing with my hair, and asking me a million questions. Hilarious. Elementary school kids are the same everywhere I guess.
Sorry the photos are so small...I'll be stuck with my cell phone camera until my other one gets fixed...IF it can be fixed... :-(

Okunchi

One recent Saturday I had to work, so I had the previous Thursday off. My painting teacher had sent me to Nagasaki to buy a stone and carving tool so I can make another inkan (seal to sign my paintings), but it was an exercise in futility. However, the trip wasn't a complete bust, as I was able to attend part of a festival called "Okunchi" in/around/for (?) Suwa Shrine in Nagasaki. It's held every year October 7-9, and since they don't change it to make sure it falls on a weekend, many people have to work and therefore miss out. Here are the torii (archway/gate/s) leading up to Suwa Shrine, where this dance took place. I think there were 2 other locations around the city where representatives from a select 7 machi (towns or sections inside the city).




Groups from the machi do a dance or perform with a large boat-like thing...
Here they are pushing it up the stairs to the very small! stage area in front of the temple.

















Here is a look at the crowd in the stands watching the performance. If you look closely, you can see many people have a cloth over their head to keep the sun off of them...it's still pretty hot in Nagasaki!








Here is a look at the performance - and behind that, a glimpse of downtown Nagasaki. At this part in the performance, the men work together to spin the boat - it really gets the crowd going wild (I think I must be missing something, but it DOES look pretty hard). There are also some guys holding poles with globes on top - I think a combination of percussive music and these pole guys help to direct the guys pushing/pulling the boat. I think this whole thing is a really interesting way to build community spirit :)

Feel free to comment if you've got any experience with the Okunchi festival!

Well...I'm definitely not bored lately!
I've been helping my students practice their speeches (never ending task) and now I'll be heading to my Japanese ink painting class. Here is my teacher's mom (the one who always makes and gives me tasty food) showing one of her calligraphy scrolls to some ladies from the neighborhood.

Hope you are all well and enjoying Fall's cooler temps and harvest!

Having a ball at the Navy Ball

Just thought I'd put up a quick pic since you all have probably forgotten what I look like.
Work is reeeeally getting in the way of my life here! ;)
My friends at the base were kind enough to include me in the Navy's Birthday Ball, and so I got to get dressed up AND I had some place to go :)
Thanks, Skii for the dress! I felt like a million bucks!
(ok - now back to my regularly scheduled craziness...which at the moment, includes teaching the Monster Mash to some elementary school kids...)

Today, on the second anniversary of Mom's passing,
I will be saying a few prayers at noon and midnight my time
(which is 13 hours ahead of Florida - you can do the math ;) )
You are welcome to do so, too...

Prayer for the Deceased

Remember, Lord, those who have died
and have gone before us marked with the sign of faith,
especially for Noreen.
May she, and all who sleep in Christ,
find in Your presence
light, happiness, and peace.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:
where there is hatred let me sow love,
where there is injury, pardon,
where there is doubt, faith,
where there is despair, hope,
where there is darkness, light,
where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be comforted as to comfort,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.

Because it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


Thank you all for your continued prayers...
I can definitely feel them here on the other side of the world :)

And thank you, B, for the flowers - they're really lovely!

inkan

Here's my first "art" inkan (personal seal ~ my 'signature'). I have another one (that's registered in Japan) that has my full last name on it in katakana, and I have to use it when I "sign" for important things. This inkan, however, only includes part of my first name, "rei" (which is really To-RAY-shi in Japanese). This kanji for rei has to do with beauty. So, since I think beauty is such an important ideal, I thought this would be fitting.
It's carved out of stone, and reeeeeally difficult because of the tiny surface and shape of the stone. I honestly think this is a little kawaisou (pitiful), considering my previous block printing experience, but this uses completely different materials than anything I've tried before. I'm itching to go back in and carve a little bit more to make some of the lines a little stronger/thicker, but my teacher won't let me because it's so much more precious to be "imperfect"...

Funny how when the sun comes out everything can magically feel a little better.
(of course, I never underestimate the power of prayers and nice emails, either...thanks :) )
***
This week in my painting class I actually painted from a live subject. I usually paint from a book (twisting every step of the way...but I'm not the teacher...), however, this week my teacher let me paint some higanbana, a flower that's blooming now (& the one in the previous post). I'm going to need more practice with this subject, but I thought you might like to see my first attempt. The red thing is my inkan (name seal). I'll photograph that and explain it a little better in another post.

Here's a photo I took of my workspace at my teacher's house. It's a really interesting place. From what I understand, my teacher lives with his parents in one (Japanese style) house, the grandparents are in a separate one on the same property, and then they have this painting building. It looks like they might have a garden on the property, too.
In my workspace you can see my practice paper on a piece of grey felt, my ink well, water (brush rinse), the porcelain container that holds water to add to the ink to get various shades of grey-black, fude (brush - it almost sounds like "who-day"), blotting towel, my subject, higanbana, and, of course, some delicious tea and treats (this week it was homemade veggie tempura) from my teacher's mom.

Hello - I've been out most of this week doing various things for work, but on one of my rides here and there, I stopped to take a photo of this flower that's blooming now, higanbana. It's really lovely, and it seems to just sprout up everywhere in white, cream, and red. I believe the name has something to do with sparklers/fireworks.

And I'm doing my level best to be as genki as I can, but as the second memorial day for Mom approaches, I'm just feeling like I've lost a lot more than just my mom, and it's really wearing me down. Sorry in advance if I'm a little quiet for a while.

Art...the universal language... (?)

One night in Sapporo I took a little field trip to a park designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Very interesting stuff, but by the time my several forms of transportation delivered me to the site, it was dark :( . I do have a few shots I'll share later, but what do you think of this sign? I would really like to know what the 3rd one down means...

Monkey magic...

Well, though Sam's still hungry (when is he NOT?), he did make two new friends. My student remembered to bring her Show and Tell monkey doll today, so Rirrakuma was saved from being Sam's dinner and got to go home with his rightful owner tonight.

Music survey

***
On a sad note, I just found out my supervisor
(26 year old Japanese Teacher of English who sits next to me)
lost his father last night. Prayers, onegai shimasu.
***
When I was in Sapporo studying Japanese, one of the things I did for homework was a music survey of the locals. Whereas my classmates primarily hit the beer gardens for their research, I tried to find other colorful subjects as well. Here are some of the ones who weren't too shy to have their photo taken.

These students were just hanging out after class one night, so we had a nice little chat about music and their graphic arts studies.










These cats cracked me up. It seemed like these two men had been friends forever with the rapport they had with each other. The one gesturing really likes Elvis.






This was a really cool little store run by a lady who'd been to Egypt. I was lured here by the sale on skirts...I bought that maroon one I'm wearing in the photo of me with the girls in yukata.










Meet Faye-Faye. S/he performs almost every night in a little restaurant/bar in the arcade. His/her favorite music is old Chinese and, of course, his/her own. :)








Here are the 'yukata girls' I met in the park at the beer garden. They were having a party for all of their nursing colleagues.






I walked up to these guys and told them they were the coolest looking guys I'd seen that night, so I figured they'd be interesting blokes. They were just some students out enjoying themselves. Too bad you can't read the shirt on the guy in the middle. Claaaasic English, but not quite appropriate for my (mostly) "G" rated site here :)

Don't forget...

I don't know if it was a Boy Scout thing, or if it was just a genius idea that my dad (a Scoutmaster) had, but whenever a scout forgot something somewhere, he'd have to sing to get it back. I did this kind of thing in my art classroom, because students invariably left negatives in the enlarger. Today one of my students left her Show and Tell object (apparently a monkey doll) home, making it difficult for her to SHOW it. So, I took her Rirrakuma omamori charm* hostage until I get to see the monkey doll tomorrow. We'll see how long it takes for her to remember :)
Rirrakumachan hopes it's soon - Sam seems a little hungry...

*the kids all have these kinds of handmade charms hanging on their bags. They can be characters, symbols of the sport (ie: volleyball), etc. Usually someone involved with their club makes them for each of the members to commemorate an event or to get them psyched up for an upcoming competition.
Rirrakuma - I think that roughly translates to "Relax Bear"

In the US, the "big" high school events seem to be things like Homecoming and Prom, and they are somewhat exclusive (usually the upperclassmen participate more). In Japan, it's been my experience that the "big" school events are the "Bunkasai" (Culture Festival) and "Taikusai" (Sports Festival). These events involve the entire student body in various ways, culminating on the festival days, which happen to be last weekend and this weekend for my school this year.

In this little slide show, you see the drawings the students did of their homeroom teachers. The numbers you see in the pictures are the year & grade of the students - ie: 3-1 = third year, class number 1. Which translates to class 1 (out of 8) of the senior class. I wish you knew the teachers in the pictures - it would make them even funnier. My favorite is the one of the two teachers sitting at a table in a "snack bar" (not like those in the US - Japanese snack bars are basically places where men pay for female employees' (hostesses) drinks so that they'll keep them company).
Note - the teachers in that picture are both male...

You can click on the slide show to see the pictures & comments in my Picassa web album.

Sam here making a few friends with the locals in Hokkaido...

The Wall

Did I mention this before?
I've taken up climbing. Well, I've only been able to 'take it up' about half way on this wall, but I'm giving it a go. It's much more difficult than I expected. I kind of feel like there's no way to practice or train, I just have to DO IT. I'd really like a vertical wall for warm up, but, I guess I just have to grit my teeth and just push myself on this one. The guy at the bottom there on belay keeps egging me on - telling me that it's so easy to make excuses to not come and climb, but he's doing a good job of ticking me off enough to make sure I keep coming back and challenging the wall :)

One of the great things about being here in Japan is that I never quite know what to expect. That can certainly work for or against me. But this time I lucked out. I ended up finding this wall when I was at our sports festival at the gym here in Nagasaki city. I was curious, so I wandered over to see what this was all about. I think I still prefer rapelling, but this will do for now.

Just a couple of reference shots for my sketchbook...



Here's a museum at the botanical garden I visited on a school field trip in Sapporo. It was nice to see something different than the traditional Japanese for a change.















These maple leaves will be turning scarlet soon to herald the arrival of fall...I'd like to see this pattern in fabric.




















Here's a little nod to Weston -
(since I didn't have any peppers :) )
Actually, I'm thinking this could be inspiration for a new kind of potato chip...

YMC Yea!

Hmmm...can't seem to upload photos at the moment. But I hope you enjoy this very short clip from one of the most amusing performances at our culture festival! This teacher must be the KING at karaoke!

Yea! It works again...Here's a shot of the teacher, now donning a red bow, joined by a few energetic cheerleaders.

It's funny how we can "see" things, and then through the help of the camera, we can "see" things differently. That's probably why I like photography so much. That and because it's kind of a legacy of sorts from my dad, I guess. Speaking of Dad, I paid special attention to this glass ball sculpture because Dad used to have several of these green glass balls around the house. He made really cool macrame hangers for them and hung them about. I think he got the glass balls from his USCG stint in the Pacific. Well, here I am on the other side of that ocean and obviously some other artist thought that they were an interesting medium, too. I'm not crazy about my compositions here, but I was fascinated in the material (the green glass) and it's reflective, refractive, and transparent qualities. It was also kind of a natsukashii (nostalgic) moment for me because they remind me of "home" (a little ironically, since I think they actually originate in Japan!).


Here's what the sculpture looked like in the hotel entrance way.

You know it's a
good party
when you can barely set foot in the genkan...

(for those of you unfamiliar with a "genkan" - it's the entry way in a Japanese house or building where you leave your shoes.)
Thanks for the pic, B!

Hello, sushi lovers!

Here's a helpful sign I found in Sapporo -

Which is your favorite?

(don't forget to click on the picture to make it big enough to actually read)

omochi yori/kaeri pa-ty!

So it looks like the winner is...Bernie! Yeah - out of all you who SAID you were going to come visit me here in Japan, this guy is the only one of you lot to actually follow through, yo. ;o I had a really good time showing off my little corner of the world to my American friend here. The night he came down to my place I hosted an "omochi yori" (pot luck) party so B could taste all sorts of Japanese food (and so I wouldn't have to cook ;) ).
OHMIGOODNESS did we ever have lots of food!

And people! I think there were 28 people in the apartment at one point!
I didn't know that I knew that many people!
And, 15 minutes before the end of the party, those amazing creatures - otherwise known as Japanese ladies - were a whirlwind in my kitchen and suddenly everyone had a take home plate, all the rooms were clean, and my kitchen was spotless. They're just brilliant those J-ladies!