Weird/Strange/Cool Things

Hey folks. This week (up until Friday) is going to be a slow week. What with essays, class presentations, and a three-hour "first semester" exam on Thursday to prep for, my days aren't going to be much more than school, work, sleep, rinse and repeat. So in the interim, here's a collection of things I've spotted during my four weeks here (can you believe it's already been four!?) on the street.

A vending machine that's covered with pigs. Why pigs I have absolutely no idea..

This is a sculpture in a park near my house that I think is supposed to be some sort of bird creature attacking? eating? approaching? kissing? some buildings, but according to my host mom (and me) it just looks like poop on stilts...

Random artwork I saw in a window on the street and thought was cool. They have a thing for animals apparently.

An entire class of elementary school students all wearing identical yellow hats walking into the colored spiral at the 21st Century Museum. I just thought it was so funny and couldn't help taking a picture.

There's two interesting things in this photo to me, maybe three. First. The weird pink thing in the upper left. I have no idea what it's an ad for, but it reminds me of Telly-Tubbies. Second, the ad for "urban homes" in the bottom left. No idea what the UN stands for. And third, the window that says "Dogtag us". I find it rather creepy, especially when it's next to this ad for (probably) upscale urban living...And when you put all three of those things together I just think it's an interesting juxtaposition (SAT vocab word for you there).

Carnation Breakfast Essentials! But in a shortbread form! Essentially it's a cookie thing that has vitamins and minerals for when you need to eat something/ get energy quickly. Tasty. I eat them in between class periods sometimes to stay awake.

Incomprehensible English on T-shirts. I just. I don't understand....

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Homecoming

This is it. It's Friday, February 3rd and in less than 24 hours I will leave this house for Tokyo train station, which will take me to the airport, which will take me...home. Most of this week has been taken up with goodbyes: to schoolmates and teachers, and later, close friends. There were tears involved. I think the photos will do it a lot more justice than I could: Kohei, from tennis group. All the tennis people got together for dinner at an okonomiyaki (think cabbage pancake, with yummy stuff like shrimp in it) but first we went to a boardwalk which had nighttime light shows. Top: Anime Club. They threw a small party for me, where we ate lots of food and watched (what else) anime and talked. Bottom: one of my English classes. They asked me to teach them an American game for the last day, so I taught everyone how to play Heads-Up 7-Up. They were pretty good at it. The other exchange student, Nom, and my Japanese teacher. The last view of school: the walk leading u...

Enoshima: The Heavenly Maiden and the Dragon

This past Monday was a national holiday -- Mountain Day -- so, of course, Troy and I headed to the beach instead. Well, to an island near a beach since (as some of you may know) I'm not exactly the beach-going type. Plus I'd just climbed Mount Fuji, which was more than enough mountain for me. Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, fairly near Kamakura. It's connected to the mainland via a bridge, so you can just stroll on over from the train station. The entire island is dedicated to Benzaitan, the goddess of everything that flows -- time, water, speech, music, and knowledge. According to the "Enoshima Engi," (a history of the shrines and temples on Enoshima) there's also a legend associated with the creation of the island involving Benzaitan and a dragon. In brief, the area around Enoshima was once wracked by violent storms and earthquakes. Eventually the tumult ended and a heavenly maiden (Benzaitan) descended from the clouds....

In Praise of American Teachers

SPOILER ALERT: This post is going to be part rant, part commentary and part revelation, so be prepared for a lot of text and some opinions (which may be rather harsh). Since I've had about a week of school I think I'm just about qualified to make comments about the type of education in Japan, and a bit of confusion I have about world education rankings. Let me be rather blunt at first: a dull teacher at an American school is already more intersting than a teacher at a Japanese school. The best examples I have for this is comparing American math and science classes to Japanese math and science classes. Science and math classes that I've always had have been very teacher-student and student-student interactive, with discussions, questioning, and interactions with the material. Japanese math and science classes are completely lecture based, where the teacher either reads directly from the textbook or instructs the students to. Even when the teacher wrote on the chalkboard (y...

Rice and Ramen

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