Well, blogger has decided that it will no longer allow me to upload photos, because apparently I have too many. And as I am too cheap to buy more photo space, I have created a new blog for all my future adventures. Please enjoy it at
http://theviewfromturtlehill.wordpress.com/
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Kinki Block Orientation
Today was the CIR orientation for the Kinki Block (which is made up of Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Wakayama, Shiga, etc. Prefectures).
Since it was held in Kyoto, the Kyoto CIRs were in charge of keeping the orientation running smoothly. This was a bit nervewracking at first because we thought we had to run the discussions and give speeches about them, but we were really grateful to find out that we were the discussion leaders which meant that we could make other people give the speeches.
Unfortunately it was fairly useless and was a bit of a waste of time. No one really wanted to be there and the discussions were assigned. We had assigned groups and assigned topics which meant that we ended up talking about different work projects that some people knew nothing about. One of my topics was "school visits" but half of my group never went on school visits....
The only part about this orientation that was useful to me was the fact that my supervisor, Koshio, was there too, along with all the other supervisors. We all got to discuss any problems we were having. I was not in the same group with my supervisor, but she got to hear other CIRs which I think was still useful.
Since it was held in Kyoto, the Kyoto CIRs were in charge of keeping the orientation running smoothly. This was a bit nervewracking at first because we thought we had to run the discussions and give speeches about them, but we were really grateful to find out that we were the discussion leaders which meant that we could make other people give the speeches.
Unfortunately it was fairly useless and was a bit of a waste of time. No one really wanted to be there and the discussions were assigned. We had assigned groups and assigned topics which meant that we ended up talking about different work projects that some people knew nothing about. One of my topics was "school visits" but half of my group never went on school visits....
The only part about this orientation that was useful to me was the fact that my supervisor, Koshio, was there too, along with all the other supervisors. We all got to discuss any problems we were having. I was not in the same group with my supervisor, but she got to hear other CIRs which I think was still useful.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Speech at Tsutsujigaoka Elementary
Today I got to go to Tsutsujigaoka Elementary to give them a speech about American student life and Valentine's Day.
It was a huge change since the first time I gave this speech about a year ago. I felt a lot more comfortable, and on top of that, I had the courage to ask for someone to look over my speech and fix any grammatical errors before hand so I knew it was a better presentation. My presentation skills have also improved. I have figured out how to get the kids involved and moving during speeches. I organized my speeches so they have True False quizzes, which are really popular with kids here, scattered throughout them. I have them stand up when they think it is true. And I try to ask questions that will surprise them. I ask them things like "summer vacation in America is 3 months long, true or false?" or "students at most American junior high schools travel between classrooms throughout the day rather than staying in one classroom, true or false?"
Some people argue that it is better to focus on cultural similarities rather than cultural differences, but I think that if you can catch their attention with the cultural differences they'll notice the similarities too.
The speech went really well. The students had studied specific aspects of American culture and presented their findings to me. Then I gave my presentation and answered their questions.
I think the funniest question was "What is your favorite type of hamburger?"
A lot of the kids actually seem to think that all Americans eat are hamburgers.... :(
Though I did learn that there are some things about Japanese culture that the kids don't know about. I asked them a true false question about Valentines Day, asking whether or not we have giri choco in America. Giri choco is chocolate that women give to their male co-workers on Valentine's Day. But the kids didn't know what I was talking about. Thankfully Kojima-san was there to help me explain :)
I really like getting to know the kids, and getting my face out in the community means that I might get more gigs as a presenter and get my butt out of the office.
It was a huge change since the first time I gave this speech about a year ago. I felt a lot more comfortable, and on top of that, I had the courage to ask for someone to look over my speech and fix any grammatical errors before hand so I knew it was a better presentation. My presentation skills have also improved. I have figured out how to get the kids involved and moving during speeches. I organized my speeches so they have True False quizzes, which are really popular with kids here, scattered throughout them. I have them stand up when they think it is true. And I try to ask questions that will surprise them. I ask them things like "summer vacation in America is 3 months long, true or false?" or "students at most American junior high schools travel between classrooms throughout the day rather than staying in one classroom, true or false?"
Some people argue that it is better to focus on cultural similarities rather than cultural differences, but I think that if you can catch their attention with the cultural differences they'll notice the similarities too.
The speech went really well. The students had studied specific aspects of American culture and presented their findings to me. Then I gave my presentation and answered their questions.
I think the funniest question was "What is your favorite type of hamburger?"
A lot of the kids actually seem to think that all Americans eat are hamburgers.... :(
Though I did learn that there are some things about Japanese culture that the kids don't know about. I asked them a true false question about Valentines Day, asking whether or not we have giri choco in America. Giri choco is chocolate that women give to their male co-workers on Valentine's Day. But the kids didn't know what I was talking about. Thankfully Kojima-san was there to help me explain :)
I really like getting to know the kids, and getting my face out in the community means that I might get more gigs as a presenter and get my butt out of the office.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Birthdays and Anniversaries
Today a huge group of us went into Kyoto to have dinner with Dave and Paul, the two ALTs from South Africa who live in Liz's old apartment. They were celebrating their birthdays as well as their anniversary.
We don't actually get together very often, so it was great to get a chance to see them. We all met up at a rather small but really nice cafe restaurant near Sanjo Keihan station. I had grabbed a cup of coffee there about a year ago and really liked it, but had never gone back.
This time we had a full dinner there. I am not sure if it was cultural or not, but Paul and Dave started the evening with a really sweet welcome speech. It was almost like it was a real adult dinner party.
The restaurant was pretty small and we all had to separate into a couple of tables.
The boys even left little packages of chocolate at each seating place.
We started off with a buffet of vegetables, salads, etc.
Then we chose between two different pasta dishes, one with a tomato sauce and one with a cream sauce. I went with the cream sauce.
We also had a choice between pork and chicken. I got the chicken and Atsushi got the pork, but both were really good.
Afterward, a large group went to club World, but Atsushi and I didn't feel like going. I'm not a huge club fan, though I went a lot during college. Maybe I'm getting old...
We don't actually get together very often, so it was great to get a chance to see them. We all met up at a rather small but really nice cafe restaurant near Sanjo Keihan station. I had grabbed a cup of coffee there about a year ago and really liked it, but had never gone back.
This time we had a full dinner there. I am not sure if it was cultural or not, but Paul and Dave started the evening with a really sweet welcome speech. It was almost like it was a real adult dinner party.
The restaurant was pretty small and we all had to separate into a couple of tables.
The boys even left little packages of chocolate at each seating place.
We started off with a buffet of vegetables, salads, etc.
Then we chose between two different pasta dishes, one with a tomato sauce and one with a cream sauce. I went with the cream sauce.
We also had a choice between pork and chicken. I got the chicken and Atsushi got the pork, but both were really good.
Afterward, a large group went to club World, but Atsushi and I didn't feel like going. I'm not a huge club fan, though I went a lot during college. Maybe I'm getting old...
Friday, January 29, 2010
Go Ninja Go Ninja Go
Today I had a New Year's Party with a group of city hall workers that I have lunch with every once and while (Koshio and Fukuchi from my division, Uemura, Yamauchi, Iwamoto, and Dara). We started of at a really nice restaurant called Rakuza. It is one of those restaurants that I never would have noticed if I hadn't been introduced to it. I honestly don't know how places like these get business. There are so many restaurants in each tiny narrow building and the signs don't stand out at all. How do people find them?
Anyway, we sat down at these really nice triangular shaped tables (which I thought was much better than a rectangle or circle because it was perfect for being able to talk to everyone. I really like that. Also, the windows looked out over the river. It was really nice.
As with most course meals in Japan, there was a lot of food. It began with an appetizer.
After the appetizer came the plate of sashimi. Uemura and Yamauchi were in the mood to be photographed so they became our food models. This is Uemura modeling our sashimi plate.
Next came the salad, modeled by Mr. Yamauchi. Yamauchi is one of the men that I go to eat ramen with every few months and it was cool to see him with a different group of people. Actually it was great to hang out with all of them. I was worried that I would have trouble keeping up with the conversation, but I think I did ok, that is, until they got me to confess all the details about my relationship with The Boy. They all already knew about us anyway, so I figured I might as well tell them the truth. Some people may say that's not the right way to go about it, but I am uncomfortable with the Japanese way of keeping everything about their personal lives a secret. I can understand keeping a lot of details secret, but they don't even tell close friends when they get engaged.
After the salad we had a fried tofu course.
After the fried tofu, they brought out some raw meat and a rock....Modeled by Iwamoto.
The rock was really really hot, and we cooked the duck meat on the rock. It was delicious.
We paused during eating to take a bunch of pictures. You can't see her because she is hiding, but Fukuchi is in this group as well.
Koshio (my boss) and Yamauchi posed for us. Koshio is adopting the oh so cute Japanese girl pose.
They even got me in a photo o(>< )o ｏ( ><)o
Next came the tempura course.
Followed by a giant pot of rice modeled by Uemura.
The rice came with miso soup.
Yamauchi modeled the soy milk pudding dessert. Sounds kinda gross, but it was good. The flake things on the bottom are corn flakes, which the Japanese love to put in parfait and other desserts.
Our next stop was the Ninja restaurant, appropriately named as it is ninja themed. It has a maze and everything, so that only the ninja can find their way around inside. Uemura adopted the ninja theme with his oshibori, or hot towel, while Koshio and Yamauchi tried to be cute.
We got to Ninja too late to be able to go through the maze, but we did get to go in and get dessert.
On the way inside, Uemura and Yamauchi sneaked in like ninja.
Our waitress was dressed up as a ninja and adopted older speech styles.
This was the chocolate cake dessert.
I don't actually know what this is, but I think it was something vanilla in the shape of a frog with shredded cheese on top.
This is a Japanese style mont blanc.
I have no idea what dessert this is.
I got a tower of chocolate brownie and azuki red bean ice cream with a hot chocolatey dressing.
It was good until it feel down :(
At the end of the night, we all posed as ninja, at Uemura's request. He and Yamauchi were quite hilarious. They were goofing around all night. They were hiding in the hallways at the ninja restaurant and adopted a ninja stance while walking everywhere. It was adorable.
Anyway, we sat down at these really nice triangular shaped tables (which I thought was much better than a rectangle or circle because it was perfect for being able to talk to everyone. I really like that. Also, the windows looked out over the river. It was really nice.
As with most course meals in Japan, there was a lot of food. It began with an appetizer.
After the appetizer came the plate of sashimi. Uemura and Yamauchi were in the mood to be photographed so they became our food models. This is Uemura modeling our sashimi plate.
Next came the salad, modeled by Mr. Yamauchi. Yamauchi is one of the men that I go to eat ramen with every few months and it was cool to see him with a different group of people. Actually it was great to hang out with all of them. I was worried that I would have trouble keeping up with the conversation, but I think I did ok, that is, until they got me to confess all the details about my relationship with The Boy. They all already knew about us anyway, so I figured I might as well tell them the truth. Some people may say that's not the right way to go about it, but I am uncomfortable with the Japanese way of keeping everything about their personal lives a secret. I can understand keeping a lot of details secret, but they don't even tell close friends when they get engaged.
After the salad we had a fried tofu course.
After the fried tofu, they brought out some raw meat and a rock....Modeled by Iwamoto.
The rock was really really hot, and we cooked the duck meat on the rock. It was delicious.
We paused during eating to take a bunch of pictures. You can't see her because she is hiding, but Fukuchi is in this group as well.
Koshio (my boss) and Yamauchi posed for us. Koshio is adopting the oh so cute Japanese girl pose.
They even got me in a photo o(>< )o ｏ( ><)o
Next came the tempura course.
Followed by a giant pot of rice modeled by Uemura.
The rice came with miso soup.
Yamauchi modeled the soy milk pudding dessert. Sounds kinda gross, but it was good. The flake things on the bottom are corn flakes, which the Japanese love to put in parfait and other desserts.
Our next stop was the Ninja restaurant, appropriately named as it is ninja themed. It has a maze and everything, so that only the ninja can find their way around inside. Uemura adopted the ninja theme with his oshibori, or hot towel, while Koshio and Yamauchi tried to be cute.
We got to Ninja too late to be able to go through the maze, but we did get to go in and get dessert.
On the way inside, Uemura and Yamauchi sneaked in like ninja.
Our waitress was dressed up as a ninja and adopted older speech styles.
This was the chocolate cake dessert.
I don't actually know what this is, but I think it was something vanilla in the shape of a frog with shredded cheese on top.
This is a Japanese style mont blanc.
I have no idea what dessert this is.
I got a tower of chocolate brownie and azuki red bean ice cream with a hot chocolatey dressing.
It was good until it feel down :(
At the end of the night, we all posed as ninja, at Uemura's request. He and Yamauchi were quite hilarious. They were goofing around all night. They were hiding in the hallways at the ninja restaurant and adopted a ninja stance while walking everywhere. It was adorable.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Laurel is a Christmas Cake!
Today was Laurel's birthday and she requested two things: tacos and margaritas. So, I headed off to the foreign foods store to pick up the taco and margarita fixins, and while I was there I of course grabbed some cake mix.
Now, there are two very important ingredients to a mexican food themed birthday party that they do not sell in Japan (at least not that I can find): limes (or lime juice) and frosting. So, I bought juice with the picture of what looked like a lime on it (turned out to be kabosu, which is a green Japanese citrus fruit that is kind of like a lime, but different).
I also tried to make my own frosting. But I chose a kind of gross recipe that used cocoa and it became a kind of sticky caramel-ey mess.
Dara took a picture of the cake baking in my microwave.
This is what my kitchen looks like when I fill it with Mexican food. Yes I even got tomatoes because most normal people like them. The Boy was kind enough to cut them for me because he knows my hatred of them.
Finally the birthday girl and the other guests (Kim-chi and Paulette, as The Boy and Dara were already there helping). Kim saw a DVD that I had bought, thinking of giving it to The Boy for Christmas because he really likes this one French director, and was asking me about it. Kim is currently studying French because her boyfriend is from Quebec, and she was interested in the film. I haven't seen him but The Boy has (I'm glad I chose not to give it to him).
Laurel was getting excited while I was cooking. We do love our tacos and burritos, but can't really get them here.
It has been a while since all of us have gotten together. So it was kinda cool to catch up and just hang out.
I put them in charge of making the margaritas since I was doing the cooking. Laurel had a good time pretending she had had a few too many margaritas.
After dinner it was time for the cake of course. In Japan, they used to call women who were unmarried at 25 Christmas cakes. In Japan they often buy these little chiffon cakes covered in white icing and fruit and eat them at Christmas so they are called Christmas Cakes. But you don't buy a Christmas cake after the 25th of December now do you? Do you want a woman after 25? Apparently not (T_T) So I wanted to write "Christmas" on the cake. There was extra room so Paulette added "Baby."
As you can see, the icing looks, not so yummy. It was kinda good but it was really a sticky mess. But Laurel was sweet and didn't complain.
Now, there are two very important ingredients to a mexican food themed birthday party that they do not sell in Japan (at least not that I can find): limes (or lime juice) and frosting. So, I bought juice with the picture of what looked like a lime on it (turned out to be kabosu, which is a green Japanese citrus fruit that is kind of like a lime, but different).
I also tried to make my own frosting. But I chose a kind of gross recipe that used cocoa and it became a kind of sticky caramel-ey mess.
Dara took a picture of the cake baking in my microwave.
This is what my kitchen looks like when I fill it with Mexican food. Yes I even got tomatoes because most normal people like them. The Boy was kind enough to cut them for me because he knows my hatred of them.
Finally the birthday girl and the other guests (Kim-chi and Paulette, as The Boy and Dara were already there helping). Kim saw a DVD that I had bought, thinking of giving it to The Boy for Christmas because he really likes this one French director, and was asking me about it. Kim is currently studying French because her boyfriend is from Quebec, and she was interested in the film. I haven't seen him but The Boy has (I'm glad I chose not to give it to him).
Laurel was getting excited while I was cooking. We do love our tacos and burritos, but can't really get them here.
It has been a while since all of us have gotten together. So it was kinda cool to catch up and just hang out.
I put them in charge of making the margaritas since I was doing the cooking. Laurel had a good time pretending she had had a few too many margaritas.
After dinner it was time for the cake of course. In Japan, they used to call women who were unmarried at 25 Christmas cakes. In Japan they often buy these little chiffon cakes covered in white icing and fruit and eat them at Christmas so they are called Christmas Cakes. But you don't buy a Christmas cake after the 25th of December now do you? Do you want a woman after 25? Apparently not (T_T) So I wanted to write "Christmas" on the cake. There was extra room so Paulette added "Baby."
As you can see, the icing looks, not so yummy. It was kinda good but it was really a sticky mess. But Laurel was sweet and didn't complain.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
TGIFridays! in Kyoto! What?!
So we all found out that they have opened a TGIFridays here in Kyoto. And not just that, but it is really close and easy to get to. I have just gotten back from America, and I really never cared much for TGIFridays but I had to go. I just couldn't pass it up.
Dara and I headed into the city for a real American meal, in the historic capital of Japan....
As you can see, I was thrilled by the menu. It was actually just like the American one, as far as I could remember, having only been maybe two or three times.
It was really an odd experience. The waiters were all dressed in red and white stripes and they had their flare and everything. They had weird nicknames and they even had a flare bar show.It was amazing to look out the window and see Kyoto and then look inside the restaurant and feel like I was in America, except that I had to butcher the English when I ordered "cheezu chikin" please.
Dara got the chicken finger blt (below), but it reminded me too much of when I was in college and I gained like 25 pounds on chicken finger quesadillas, etc.
note, I have since dragged The Boy there twice. The first time he tried the double Jack Daniels burger, which of course only made him believe that American portions really are huge. He couldn't fit it in his mouth. The second time I finally got to try the fried mac 'n' cheese appetizer, which is odd. I wanted to try that back home, but didn't get to til I came around the world.
Dara and I headed into the city for a real American meal, in the historic capital of Japan....
As you can see, I was thrilled by the menu. It was actually just like the American one, as far as I could remember, having only been maybe two or three times.
It was really an odd experience. The waiters were all dressed in red and white stripes and they had their flare and everything. They had weird nicknames and they even had a flare bar show.It was amazing to look out the window and see Kyoto and then look inside the restaurant and feel like I was in America, except that I had to butcher the English when I ordered "cheezu chikin" please.
Dara got the chicken finger blt (below), but it reminded me too much of when I was in college and I gained like 25 pounds on chicken finger quesadillas, etc.
note, I have since dragged The Boy there twice. The first time he tried the double Jack Daniels burger, which of course only made him believe that American portions really are huge. He couldn't fit it in his mouth. The second time I finally got to try the fried mac 'n' cheese appetizer, which is odd. I wanted to try that back home, but didn't get to til I came around the world.
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