Saturday, February 28, 2009

Friday, February 20, 2009

Nothing New

Just a video of sumo when we went (taken by Ricky). Not great quality but you can make out the important parts of it. Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

104 degrees and some rumblin'

There were some crazyyyyy wild winds last Friday. Oddly, the winds were warm. Supposedly, its called "spring winds". The reason for the strongwinds was because the winter winds and spring winds were passing each other and created this typhoon like wind. Many people started to get Hayfever, which is odd since hayfever/allergies start around April in NY. Friday morning, I was up at 7 with a bunch of other teachers for a PR event. Cute kids and all just way too early. I went to work after and worked a nutty schedule with 4 10 min breaks for 8 classes. That night, I was headed on a night bus to Nango in Fukushima to snowboard. The mountains a little smaller but I have to admit, even though it was drizzling, the snow was still pretty great.
From Japan - February 2009
From Japan - February 2009

Unfortunately, half way through the day, I started to burn up and was not feeling alll that great. I decided not to go back out and went back to the minshyuku (almost like a family owned bed and breakfast except japanese style) Males and females are split up and are in separate rooms. This was the womens room.. there were probably 9 of us though this was during the day before bed time.
From Japan - February 2009
After I woke up from a three hour nap, I was just burning. I took my temperature and had a fever of 39.8 celsius - 104 Fahrenheit. I was taken to the hospital and the ride seemed like forever. I felt so delirious and just sick. The hospital was so dark and dingy, it did not look like a hospital. There were no lights on except for one room. They gave me the flu test, whcih is a long long thin cotton swab up your nose. I swear the doctor was scared of me bc he was scared of the flu. I sneezed bc he had a cotton swab up my nose (really far back) and he jumped a mile! Then he gave me some TamiFlu which is are th meds they gave for the bird flu years ago! Then the doctor went on telling my friend that everyone was going to be infected, etc, etc and was very negative about the whole situation. When i got back to the minshyuku, the owners were very hospitable and offered for me to sleep in their daughters room who doesnt live at home anymore. They brought me dinner and breakfast and were really awesome. This was dinner:
From Japan - February 2009
and this was breakfast:
From Japan - February 2009
Never ceases to amaze me how much they eat. Everything looks like small portions but it adds up!

Last night, I woke up to some rumbling. Usually I just sleep through the trains, doesnt really phase me anymore. However when I woke up, it was 4:55am. Trains dont start running until 530-6am so I knew it wasnt a train... not to mention my entire apartment was shaking left and right. Yup, it was an earthquake!! My second one here that I've noticed so far. Guess these mini earthquakes dont phase anyone here.

I went to the supermarket today and I bought some of these:
From Japan - February 2009
Mangosteens!!! they're imported from Thailand. EVen though they were imported, they're cheaper than oranges! for the two mangosteens, it was 158 yen (about 1.60 USD) and for one orange it was 98 yen (about a dollar USD). They werent the best ones i've had but they were still delish!

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Setsubun (節分)

Japans got all these festivals and cultural stuff, its hard to keep track of when is what. Today was Setsubun. It basically means the day before the beginning of each season (celebrated yearly on Feb 3). The name literally means "seasonal division" but usually refers to the Spring. The special ritual that is associated with this day is called mamemaki (豆撒き aka bean scattering).The reason for this is to cleanse away all the evil from the past year and drive away all evil spirits in the coming year.

With that said, this morning a few people and I went to Narita Temple (成田山) to witness this insane event. My students have warned me about all the craziness that goes on. Last year 4.3 million people were recorded visiting Narita Temple on this day. We arrived a bit after 9am. We had no idea the bean throwing started at 1130... When we got there, we started to get barricaded in by security.We were basically barricaded in for 2.5 hours.
From Japan - February 2009
From Japan - February 2009
From Japan - February 2009
From Japan - February 2009
We just had to create our own fun while waiting but it really wasnt so bad. The nice old man in the picture above was a origami teacher so he made us all these cool paper cranes and things like that. But the crowd was insane, we were at the very front but people from the back kept pushing adn the ppl in front (though we were second "row") kept pushing back. These old women were just way too genki (げんき). Since you are supposed to catch and eat the beans that famous actors/actresses/sumo wrestlers throw, everyone was scrambling for them and it was every man for himself. Some of the famous people that went were the sumo champs (highest and second highest ranked sumos)
From Japan - February 2009
You can see the sumos in the back and all the others in front are famous people of some sort or another. Maybe politicians, actors, actresses, etc. We also saw the ex prime minister's son (Kotaro Koizumi) and he is a looker, one handsome man.

From Japan - February 2009
All the girls, well even grandmas were going nuts over him. People actually paid over $100USD to take a picture with him! It was a good experience though and today was an amazing day for the event. There was a ton of food and souveniers, I just wish I had more time to explore before work... damn work.

Anyway, heres a picture of the group minus Fab who was taking it and my lucky beans, which are just toasted soy beans. (more pix to be found on Picasa including the last of January)
From Japan - February 2009
From Japan - February 2009