Melissa jumps on the blogwagon

Going home

2008-03-20T14:06:00.002+09:00

I'm going back to Atlanta permanently (or at least long-term) at the end of this month.

For weeks, I've been trying to come up with something profound to say about it, but I've come up sorely lacking. Basically, this job hasn't worked out very well, and during my whole time in Japan I haven't been able to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I couldn't see any way to improve my life here, so I decided it was time to move on.

Taiwan

2008-03-10T12:57:00.000+09:00

Over my winter holidays, I went to Taiwan for 4 days. When I got back, I immeadiately uploaded photos, wrote most of the this post, and then proceeded to forget about it for 3 months. Oops. So today I thought I'd finish it.

I arrived in Taiwan on Christmas day. I found the hotel, checked in, and had a delicious lunch of beef noodle soup. Then I set out exploring. First stop: Baoan Temple(保安宮), a 30 minute walk from my hotel.

Out of all of the Asian temples I've been to, this was the first Taoist one. It isn't a particularly impressive temple, nor is it a place most tourists bother with; however it is full of old Chinese men playing go. I was actually going to the famous, must-see Confucious Temple nearby, but it was closed for renovation. Such is life.

Next, I hopped on the subway and made my way to Longshan Temple. The name--龍山寺--means dragon mountain. According to my guide book, "religious life is alive and kicking" at Longshan Temple. This huge mob of people was moving around in a a rough circle and chanting, which I can only presume was religious. I dislike crowds immensely so I got out of there rather quickly,

and out into one of the lovely courtyards. Locals kept offering to take my picture with my camera for a few Taiwanese dollars. Being both rather suspicious and emotionally attached to my camera, I got a fellow tourist to snap this instead.

That night I ventured to Huanxi Night Market, aka Snake Alley. The Lonely Planet description of this place was brilliant.

Once considered a Taipei must see... nowadays [it] is considered more of a window into Taiwan's less enlightened past, when the live skinning of reptiles for the benefit of passing tourists was considered an appropriate form of cultural expression...Taipei dwellers might bring their visitors from abroad to Snake Alley and express mild amusement as their foreign guests squirmed at the sight of a local merchant baiting a cobra... before slitting its belly and offering the foreigners a shot glass of snake bile mixed with Kaoliang liquor... If you'd like to watch a snake handler barking like a carnie...

After reading that, how could I not go and check it out? However, the realty was quite different. If was an upscale market with nary a snake in sight. The book warned of sketchy alleyways and dark corners of which to beware in this bed of sin. At the raunchiest end, I saw what looked like a PG-13 attempt at a red-light district, but most of it was child-friendly. It was more expensive than the other markets, too.

I woke up early the next morning and decided to walk around a bit. I stopped and took some pictures at a temple with no English signage. When I returned to the hotel, I asked someone the name, but I can't find where I wrote it down, so I know it only as 景福宮--happy scenery shrine.

More people chanting; I don't know why.

Next I took the subway to the tallest building in the world, Taipei 101. Yes, it was really tall. My ears popped in the elevator and everything. Somehow, I don't share my father's fascination for skyscrapers, so I everytime I visit one, I always wonder what exactly I'm supposed to be getting out of it. Up to the top--check. Nice view--check. Now what?

At about noon I left for a tour of the Wulai village south of Taipei. The waterfall--the village's claim to fame--was lovely, but I couldn't get very close. The aboriginal culture show was interesting, but it lost points for authenticity since you just knew these people were going to put on jeans, go home, and play WoW as soon as they left work.

After dinner that evening, I went to the Shilin night market. Basically the same as every other night market, but it's always fun. Just walk around looking at counterfeit purses while eating one of everything (it's best to go on an empty stomach). The pork buns I had were absolutely delicious. I should have bought this T-shirt. I really should have.

The third day was the highlight of the trip. I took an all day tour of the Taroko Gorge located on the east part of the main island. Prior to the gorge, I'd been feeling a little disappointed with Taiwan. I found it sort of like Beijing-lite. But the gorge was just as beautiful as all of the guide books and websites made it out to be.

I wish they had let us climb up there.

After the gorge before the plane back to Taipei, we got to spend a little time at a beach. It was too cold for swimming, and from the signs posted I gather the ocean's pretty dangerous even when it's warm enough.

The next morning I let myself sleep in late, which I usually don't do when sightseeing. The first 3 days were tiring! Yet on my last day, I still managed to get in quite a few things.

I went to the Martyrs' Shrine first, which honors Taiwan's war causulties. It was probably the prettiest shrine I saw in Taiwan. I was able to get some good through-doorway pictures.

But the main reason people visit this shrine is to see the changing of the guard. In America there would have been ropes and security to make sure no one got to close to the soldiers during the ceremony. In Taiwan I think the soldiers just run you over.

After the shrine I went to the Chinese Handicraft Mart where I purchased a vase for my mother.

Next on the list was the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Only when I got there, I found the like most things referencing Chiang Kai Shek, it has been renamed. So I visited the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. Names aside, the inside was a museum devoted to the life of Chiang Kai Shek. I wonder if they'll try to rename everything inside as well... The grounds were lovely, but I ran out of memory! Though I must have a dozen SD cards, I only brought 1gb with me, foolishly thinking that would be enough for a mere 5 days. Ha! Last time I make that mistake. Anyhow, I was able to get my pics transferred onto a CD so I could keep using my card. Crisis over.

The very last morning, before I caught my plane back to Japan, I went on one more excursion. This one was to the Zhinan temple in Maokong, which required taking the train south of Taipei and then taking a gondola up to the temple. It was absolutely magnificent. Trying to figure out transportation and waiting in the line for 2 hours for the gondola (no, I could not have walked it), I was beginning to feel like I made a mistake in trying to squeeze this in. If it didn't actually make me miss my plane, it was certainly making me stressed. However, the temple was worth it. Besides being a gorgeous temple, it had a spectacular mountain view.

And that was the end of my trip. I made it back to the hotel and to the airport on time. Then upon arriving in Fukuoka, I again had the puzzling thought, "It's nice to be back where people speak ~~English~~ a comprehensible language."

Linguistics for fun and profit

2007-12-19T03:34:00.000+09:00

The English language has 2 ways of forming the comparative/superlative. The first being to add er/est to the end of an adjective, and the second being to use more/most before the adjective. Generally speaking, short words get the first method, long words get the latter. (Click here for a more in depth explanation.) Good? Good.

But, wait a minute... Doesn't this seem incredibly arbitrary? I mean arbitrary even for English? So I started wondering if there might be some orthographic reason for the split. After all, English's long and convoluted history does often explain the illogical. Perhaps -er/est words are of Germanic origin and more/most words are of French? A brief list of adjectives indicates that this might be the case, although I have already found exceptions if so. Part of the problem with testing this hypothesis is that I don't have a good dictionary that includes the orthographies of words. Wheras Middle French and Middle English directly mingled, German's influence was much further back, so there are don't seem to be as many good cognates. This is also hampered by the fact that I don't speak German.

	French	Germanic	er/est	more/most
big	NO grand	maybe Gr:groß	YES	NO
little	NO petit	maybe Gr:klein	YES	NO
useful	probably utile	maybe Gr:nützlich	NO	YES
risky	YES risque	NO	YES	YES much more risky
interesting	YES intéressant	NO	NO	YES
popular	YES populaire	NO	NO	YES
difficult	YES difficile	NO	NO	YES
rich	YES riche	NO	YES	NO

However I haven't been able to find anything online to confirm or deny this theory. I would like to get back to the teacher who asked me that most fundamental and yet annoying of all questions: Why.

So, give me your thoughts, comments, suggestions. Pretty please?

Addendum in favor of my hypothesis:
French forms the comparative by inserting plus before the adjective and the superlative by inserting le plus. Once again, I don't speak German, a little googling makes it look like German does something more like -er/est.

Address

2007-12-15T10:38:00.000+09:00

Several people have asked me for my current address, leading me to wonder, am I getting cards? Or better yet, presents? ;-) Without further ado

1850-3 oaza Kumano
Chikugo-shi, Fukuoka-ken 833-0055
JAPAN

Because this is, of course, a translation, there are several variations that will work. So don't panic if I've told you before and this is slightly different.

Fall foliage

2007-12-09T16:39:00.000+09:00

This one's for my friend Lynn, who lives in Hawaii and misses Japan's 紅葉. I took all of these during a Yosakoi festival near Dazaifu. (info that will only make sense to Lynn: it's the one hosted my Ki-chan's husband's group.)

I'm not dead

2007-12-08T14:36:00.000+09:00

Fall kind of sucked. It felt like one crisis after another. Also, I barely saw the light of day between working and studying for the dreaded Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 1. But the test was last weekend, my hours have been cut back at work, and hopefully things are looking up. I have some pretty pics of fall foliage from a few weeks ago that I'll post real soon (no really, I will!).

Not funny

2007-09-29T11:19:00.000+09:00

Two nights ago, I got trapped in the bathroom (the room with the tub, not the room with the toilet). Don't laugh! This is not funny! The living room door got wedged somehow against the bathroom door, rendering the bathroom door completely unopenable from the inside.

For the first half hour, I tried everything I could think of to open the damn door, but there was nothing in the bathroom I could use as a tool, and the door turned out to be surprisingly solid. I kicked it repeatedly with everything I had, and it didn't budge.

Then I thought about escape through the windows, but they have bars on then. Also good, solid construction.

So I did what any reasonable person would do: I screamed my bloody head off. Something along the lines of, "Help! Help! This is not a joke! I am trapped! I need help! Help me, please!" (Of course I screamed in Japanese.) And despite seeing some neighbors' figures moving in their respective windows, no one came over to inquire why I was screaming. I now officially hate them all.

After roughly two hours of this, some poor kid on a bicycle happened past. Well, my voice was just about gone by then, but I managed to kick up the screaming another notch, adding such phrases as, "Hey, you, on the bicycle!" and "over here!". God bless him, he stopped and came to the window. I explained the situation. Fortunately I accidentally left the kitchen door unlocked, so he came in and freed me from my humid prison. Clad only in a towel, I collapsed on the floor, breathing raggedly. The kid was pretty freaked out and practically ran out the door after he was sure he didn't need to call anyone (again, bless him!). I figure he must have had quite the story for his high school friends the next day.

Two more?

2007-09-21T13:07:00.000+09:00

Usually this blog is all about the pictures of vacation destinations, but I thought I say a few lighthearted words about an... issue... I've been having. Then I'll post some pics from Atlanta. Then (after I finish decorating!) I'll take some pics of my house to show you guys. And so on.

So here's the latest episode from the soap opera that is my life:

As if the lack of internet until last night, moving, and starting a new job weren't enough reason to be incommunicado, I've been stressed out about my health, too. I started getting a sharp pain in my lower belly about a week after I got back. Like the kind of pain where you think maybe it's time to actually see a doctor. My boss was fantastic and pulled some strings at city hall to get me my health insurance before my foreigner registration had actually come through. So then it was off to the gynecologist I go!

Getting a gyn exam in Japan is a wholly different procedure from the "fun" one in the US. In short, I stripped, got on a magical seatless chair that put swiveling dentist's chairs to shame, and the nurse pulled the curtain over my waist so I can't see anything. This is supposed to prevent embarassment. Then I sat feeling generally weird and uncomfotable for a minute and then *oh, my! that's a hand.* He never even said anything. It could have been Cousin It for all I knew. What seemed like ten years later, he finished fishing around in there, and I went to the other room to hear the exam and ultrasound results.

Enter the good doctor, waving a grainy b&w pic.

"Here. Ooo-ter-us."

"Uh huh," I intelligently reply while inspecting a whitish blob.

"Here. Oh-bah-ree."

Then he paused, like he was searching for a word. Now, I actually hate it when Japanese people are so desperate to show off their English that we have these horrible broken conversations. Even if my Japanese is far from perfect, I understand a normal stream of Japanese better than random, questionably-used English words. Usually I find that a little prompting on my part in Japanese will get them to switch over. No such luck.

"えっと、その大きい陰は？" I tried. (and that large shadow is?)

"Maybe two more."

Huh? Say what? Two more what? Was he saying I had 3 ovaries? What the heck? Seeing I had no earthly idea what he was saying, he continued.

"Oo-ter-us," he said, pointing to what I supposed was my uterus.

"Tyoo-bu," he said, pointing at the skinny thing I can only assume was my fallopian tube.

"Two more," he repeated.

Suddenly it clicked, and I whipped out my dictionary.

"腫瘍？！Tumor?!" I had to be sure I got this one right.

"Yes, tumor," he replied happily. (There's a certain facial expression that can only be achieved by successfully communicating in a foreign language.)

At that my brain effectively shut off for the day.

Well, the rest of the story is pretty boring. It involves several follow up visits, more ultrasounds, and finally a referral to Kurume University hospital for better testing. There, the doctor decided it was simply an infection, gave me antibiotics, and everything cleared up. Ta da!

So, basically, this is my excuse for not getting done all the things I needed to in the last two weeks. Not a bad excuse, if I do say so myself. On the upshot, I learned that saying you have to go to the doctor to get a possible tumor checked out will get you out of any committment.

Patience

2007-09-12T14:02:00.001+09:00

I will get on it, Amy, just as soon as I have regular internet access. Say 2 weeks.

Isn't it ironic?

2007-07-16T10:00:00.000+09:00

Irony #1: I had to get my passport renewed recently. It expires next year and since I need to get a new visa it had to be renewed first. I wasn't sure I would have enough time to do this while I was back in America, so I opted to renew from overseas through my local consulate. This made me extremely nervous. When I sent it off I was due to get on a plane in 5 weeks. Not having a passport would put a serious crimp in these plans. But I took a deep breath and sent it off. Predicted renewal time in the US: 4 to 6 weeks. Predicted renewal time from the consulate: 3 to 4 weeks. O...k.... Already a little odd. Actual results: I got it back in 2 weeks. The moral of the story: If you've got to have you passport in a hurry, move overseas.

Irony #2: We got hit by a "typhoon" on Saturday. It was the nicest weather we've had for weeks. It was cool and windy and drizzled a little. Last week was humid and poured every day with intermittent lightning and thunder. Go figure.

I have a job!

2007-06-03T19:41:00.000+09:00

I just took an English teaching job for the next year. It's in a town called Chikugo, located a bit north of here. There's not too much in Chikugo itself, but it's only about 20 minutes south from Kurume, which is about 1/2 a million people. Kurume is currently the closest movie theater to me, so I'll be a good 45 minutes to an hour closer.

The job is at an "eikaiwa" school. Eikaiwa is Japanese slang for eigo kaiwa, which means English conversation. I work Tuesday through Friday, 8:30-6:00, so I have a 3 day weekend every week. Woo hoo! Part of the time I'll be visiting local middle schools for the dog and pony routine that I'm doing now, but the rest of the time will be private/small group English lessons. Not too shabby.

My current contract ends on July 25, and the new one doesn't begin until around September 4 (date TBD), so for most of the interim I should be back in Atlanta. So I'm thinking party in ATL for any of you guys who can make it.

On a sidenote, here's my link-o-the-day: Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest. Sound off on your favorites. My are "Dancing Tree" and "A winter dawn in a New Zealand pasture."

Hodgepodge

2007-05-08T13:26:00.000+09:00

Just a bit of this, that, and the other...

I had a former student come visit me the other day. (In Japan schools are not yet locked down for security reasons, so grads actually can come and visit.) It was good to see her, but I almost didn't recognize her. High Schools her prohibit students from dying their hair, piercing their ears, etc, etc. So as a rite of passage, many high school grads rush to their nearest salon and mangle their hair and punch as many holes as their lobes can take. I kid just a bit. This particular girl hadn't overdone it and looked quite cute. Anyhow, she is doing some secretarial work that requires her to use English and is going to an English school at night. And ... wait for it ... she said my class really helped her. Awww... That made my day.

Last week I went to the Kurogi Wisteria festival again, this time with my neighbor Patrick. We decided to stop at a little out of the way temple called Reiganji. The pictures are here. The reason I didn't post them on this blog is that I try and keep this blog squeaky-clean and the post is a bit PG-13.

Lastly, I finally got around to sending out some resumes. Now I can be depressed every time I check my email! If only I was one of those people that lost weight when depressed.

Vive la France!

2007-05-06T21:18:00.000+09:00

*warbles* I loooove Paaaaaris in the spriiingtiiiiiime...

As you may have heard, my mother and I met for a brief stay in Paris during my school's spring break week. We only had three full days in Paris, which was an appallingly short vacation to the French we talked to, and yet an enviably long vacation to most Japanese people I know. (Now let's compare GNPs, shall we?) Despite the fact that I seem to actually be taking fewer pictures as of late, I still had quite a pile to digitally rummage through. I decided not to post some of the nice-but-boring photos of, say, a distance shot of the Eiffel Tower. (Google it if you feel the need.) Instead I'm only posting photos I actually like.

Saturday morning I awaken and go downstairs for my complimentary breakfast. In Japan, when you get a free breakfast, it's usually vinegared rice and pickled fish, so I guess my expectations were kind of low. But there was bread! Not just any bread. Real bread. I just don't get this stuff in Japan. It was pure bliss. I could have stayed in the hotel feasting on bread all day...

However appealing that thought was, I knew I'd come to regret it, so I met my mother at her hotel, and on our first full day in Paris we went to the Arc de Triomphe (凱旋門). It was a bit drizzly, but it never did really rain on us. I knew the Arc was big and impressive, but somehow I wasn't expecting all of the ornate stonework on the sides. I guess you can't see it that well in most photos that show the whole thing. I also didn't know that you could go up to the top. There was even an elevator! Unlike everywhere else we went... Anyhow, after appreciating the view of Paris from the top, we made our way down and got a couple of Japanese tourists to snap our photo. I scared the crap out of them. Clearly, they were not expecting a white girl in Paris to speak to them in Japanese. After the guy took one, they practically ran in the other direction.

After the Arc de Triomphe, my mother and I headed over to la Tour Eiffel. It was a pleasant walk, nice weather, about 10 minutes. And then there it was. The symbol of France to the rest of the world.

The crowds at the base were unreal. It was like Disneyland, without the themed waiting area and crowd control techniques. We wanted to walk up to the first stage. Ok, I wanted to climb. Sorry, Mom. But you did great! This photo was taken a bit below the first stage.

On a tour Monday night, we wound up back at the tower. Apparently, it's all lit up at night. Pretty.

After the Eiffel Tower and lunch, we took a cab up to the Sacré Cœur Church in the Montmartre area. Beautiful church, with a view to rival the Eiffel Tower's. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed inside, and most of my exterior shots are marred by the swarms of people.

We walked around the Montmartre area a bit. It was the kind of artsy area where there are hundreds of portrait artists latching onto unwary tourists like barracudas. I could see buying a locally done painting if not for the hassle of transportation, but I don't quite understand why I would want one of myself. Do you hang it in your own home? Isn't that a little vain/creepy? Regardless, this is where my pound worth of souvenir keychains was purchased. On our way back to my hotel, we passed the three remaining windmills (moulins) in Paris, including the infamous Moulin Rouge, which is in the heart of the red light district. (By the way, my pic of the Moulin Rouge is almost identical to Wiki's.) We also passed this statue in front of a park. It had no explanation, but I thought it was cool.
And thus ended the first day.

Day 2 started bright and early with a visit to Notre Dame. My exterior shots of the front were nothing special. At that time in the morning the sun was directly behind the church. But I thought this guy was capturing the moment pretty well.

That day was actually Palm Sunday, and yet, amazingly, they let in non-parishioners to look around. And they allowed photography, which I had mixed feelings about. Of course I was glad for the chance to get some nice photos, but taking photos with a mass in session, even if everyone else was doing it, felt wrong somehow.

As per my grandmother's instructions, my mother lit a candle for her at every church we visited. Is this considered hedging her bets?

Next, onwards and upwards! Ok, actually next was waiting in line for an hour. But then up, up, up! To the top of the tower! (Sorry, Mom. But you did great!) Here I am standing in the (tiny) doorway of one of the bell towers.

And here are just two of the zillions of chimeras that "protect" Notre Dame. I thought they were amazing. A visually stunning reminder of the many pagan traditions infused into early (and not-so-early) Christianity. Also, didn't they come to life in the Disney movie?

The afternoon was spent walking around the Île de la Cité and seeing Sainte-Chappelle.

The third day we visited the Louvre. I always knew the Louvre was big, but like the Grand Canyon, it wasn't until I went that I really grasped the scale. Every other art museum I have ever been to could fit into the Louvre at once with room to spare. C'est magnifique!

Outside the Louvre we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries. Funny side-note. I asked a man at the information counter just outside the Louvre which way the gardens were. I asked in English. He replied something along the lines of, "Non, non, madame. No English," so I repeated the question in French. He then gave me directions in perfect English. My mother and I found this to be a fairly typical attitude during our stay.

On Saturday when we explored Montmartre, we got to the famous Montmartre Cemetery too late in the day to be able to go in. However, Tuesday morning, before my airport shuttle came, I had about an hour to spare, and the cemetery was about a 20 minute walk from my hotel. So I went and got a quick look-see before leaving for the airport.

Then it was back to Charles de Gaulle. On the way there, I had an interesting conversation with the shuttle driver about immigration issues. He was originally from Cambodia but had been in France since age 10. It's kind of funny. The first day, although I could understand what people around me were saying, I could scarcely get out a sentence in French to save my life. Yet by the end of the trip, though I still felt a little awkward, the driver remarked on my pas d'accent. {insert comment about human beings remarkable capacity for language here.}

~le fin~

I believe!

2007-04-10T01:39:00.000+09:00

I do believe in fairies! I do believe in fairies... I mean friends! Thanks guys for letting me know that people do actually read this once in a while. It really helps motivate me to put stuff up. I'm back from France, and I have pictures. I seem to be taking fewer pictures (don't worry, I still managed to take about 400), but I'm generally more satisfied with them. Maybe I'm improving? I'll let you judge. I'm aiming to get them up by this weekend.

Amy, you should definitely come visit, with or without Victoria and Scott. Actually, all of you guys should come. Occasionally I get this strange urge to speak English at a normal pace. Think about it: having a free translator is a limited time offer.

And btw, we need a starcraft weekend soon. It's been too long. Maybe next weekend or the one after?

Long time, no post

2007-03-25T23:04:00.000+09:00

Why? Because no one reads this (except my mom). Or if you do you do, you don't comment, which makes me much less inclined to take the time to write. Also, I haven't been up to much of anything lately. Just same old, same old at work.

So, since I am posting, here's my obligatory amusing anecdote:
Lest you mistakenly believe all Japanese are polite... I was on the train with my friend Lynn, and it was just about full. We saw one seat, and I told her to take it and kept searching. A little further back, I saw an empty seat next to a middle-aged woman. Her bag was on the seat, so I asked her if the seat was occupied. She said something to the effect of, "Can't you see my bag?" (lit. 見えます？). I mumbled something and kept looking. I hashed this over with Japanese friends looking for some cultural nuance I was missing, but their conclusion was that she was just rude. So, there's my story. Of course the Japanese still have the courtesy thing down a lot better than Americans.

On to recent news... the not-so-exciting: right now I'm job-hunting and trying to figure out what to do next year. Any suggestions? I wrote my resume. I just haven't gotten around to sending it anywhere.

...and the exciting: I'm going to France this week. Spur of the moment decision. I was in the travel agency going over details for my Bali trip in May and saw a brochure for "Bargain Paris" with really great prices. So I decided to go for it. I have time off for our spring break. And booking international travel less than 10 days in advance is a rush. Then, even more surprising, my mother pulled a similar stunt and is going to meet me in Paris. So expect photos soon, my imaginary friends.

Hong Kong

2006-12-29T11:04:00.000+09:00

I'm leaving in a few hours to go get Michelle from the airport, but I'm determined to get this post up first. Please excuse me if the quality of the writing isn't up to par.

In November, shortly after my computer died but before I got my new one, Lynn and I went to Hong Kong for 4 nights/3 days. We had a great time. Hong Kong's no cultural mecca, but there was surprisingly a lot to see and do. We stayed busy, that's for sure. Out of the hundreds of pictures I took, here are a representative 20 or so to give you a glimpse.

The first day we went up to Victoria Peak. Beautiful view of the city and of the bay. We walked around trails on the top for about an hour. More gorgeous views and some really prime real estate. Apparently anyone who's anyone in Hong Kong (all of China?) has a house up there.

After coming down from Victoria Peak, we hit Hong Kong Park and the Central district for some shopping. Then we headed to the Midlevels for, well, more shopping, although the Midlevels was more antique-type stuff. All throughout the Midlevels there are covered outdoor escalators. They're upbound only--you get to walk back down--but one way or not, they were certainly appreciated.

Nestled in the Midlevels is the Man Mo Temple. This was the most incense I have ever seen in a single place. No, scratch that. This was the most incense I have ever seen cumulatively. Lynn had to immediately run out again, and I only lasted a few minutes.

That evening we took the Star Ferry over to Kowloon, which is the part of Hong Kong on the mainland. All of the buildings are lit up spectacularly at night, and at 8:00 there is a laser show everynight.

On the Southern tip of Kowloon is an area called the Avenue of the Stars. It's pretty much like Hollywood's Walk of Fame with Chinese actors. Though most of the names were meaningless to us, we did find a few we recognized. If anyone's curious, the Chinese characters mean "to become" and "dragon."

Also on the Avenue is a statue of Bruce Lee.

Nearby we went to the market on Temple Street. Bustling, busy, and a great place to get really cheap crap. Not as big as the night market in Thailand, but somewhat less chaotic.

Day two... We slept in a little (ok, not much), and visited the Tai Tam Reservoir and Park, some of the most pristine land in Hong Kong. Like all of Hong Kong, it was quite clean feeling. It may have something to do with a sign we saw listing the fines for littering. Spitting on the side of the road is $1500 (HKD), which is about $180 (USD). This led to Lynn and I childishly daring each other to spit for the rest of the vacation.

Next we went to Repulse Bay because Lynn, a native of Hawaii, was jonesing to see a beach. It was really too cold for swimming, but I did get some nice photos, all of which have been cut from this post to increase the likelihood I'll actually get it posted. At the end of the beach is Kwum Yam, which is a rather unusual shrine. It was filled with statues of all different types that had been donated by various famous people. It was nothing so much as a giant bric-a-brac shelf.

Next we ventured a bit outside the city on Hong Kong's rail system to the 10,000 Buddhas Shrine. Literally, on the top of a mountain, the entire walkway up is lined with nearly life-size statues of Buddha, all of which are different. Are there really 10,000? Beats me. I lost count after the first mile or so.

There was a nice pagoda at the top.

After our exhausting march uphill, we thought we had finally reached the end (and hopefully gained some god's favor), when leading away from the shrine proper we saw another trail lined with Buddhas. This time they were painted instead of the solid gold color. After walking a little ways and seeing how much further the trail went up, we decided we had had just about enough enlightenment for one day.

As long as we were in the area, we decided to check out the Wishing Tree. People would go to this tree, write their wish on a piece of paper, tie it to an orange, and throw it up into the tree. The higher branch it could get stuck in, the better, Sadly, due to damage to the tree from overzealous orange hurlers, you are no longer allowed to throw oranges, but must instead put your wish on a pegboard nearby, like at many Buddhist shrines all over Asia. Giant disappointment.

It wasn't until our last day that we properly explored Wan Chai, the area our hotel was in. (Hey, folks. We had an itinerary.) A sizeable portion of the neighborhood was a meat market. A really unappetizing meat market. Check out this guy's cigarette ash about to fall onto the... something.

The chickens were something else. It wasn't so much cages of chickens as it was a living, breathing cube of chicken encased with wire. This is where bird flu comes from. Women would point to a chicken, and then the butcher would hold it still so they could squeeze it, I guess to see if it was fat enough. If it passed inspection, the butcher cut off its head right there. They really do keep moving after decapitation. It's not just a myth.
We ate vegetarian for lunch.

This was only one area of Wan Chai. A few streets over Lynn managed to buy a nice suit for something like 30 USD.

The last thing on our agenda was going to see the Tian Tam Buddha, the largest outdoor seated Buddha made of bronze in the world. (Anyone who's ever traveled in Asia knows that every Buddha is the ~est in the world.) If we'd known how many steps were involved, we might have skipped it, seeing as we were already pretty sore from the 10,000 Buddhas.

The statue is located on the grounds of the Po Lin Monastery. While it is certainly the main attraction, the rest of the grounds were lovely as well.

Finally, we stopped for a late lunch at the vegetarian restaurant. It was surprisingly good. Easily the best vegetarian food I've ever had. Considering how we had just watched the animal carcass-->meat process a few hours ago, we thought if there was ever a time to go veg, this was it.

The rest of the day was spent making sure we left no shopping area unexplored before we left the next morning.

Yuck

2006-12-04T09:49:00.000+09:00

For those of you who don't know, I've been sans-computer for a while now. And while certain aspects of my Thoreau-like life are appealing, I should get my new one sometime this week. After getting it all set up, I have some 600 photos from my recent trip to Hong Kong to go through, and then hopefully I'll post before Christmas.

WTF?

2006-11-21T13:28:00.000+09:00

I know it's a little hard to see because it was taken on a rainy night with a camera phone, but...

it's a hummer... in Omuta...?

Kagoshima

2006-11-04T15:35:00.000+09:00

Saturday, September 16th, the first day of a three day weekend, Lynn and I decided to drive down to Kagoshima. Surpassing my own expectations for posting pictures in a timely fashion, I actually had them all edited and uploaded by the beginning of October, but then I became hellaciously busy and have been unable to write any accompying text. But now I finally have a bit of a breather.

The drive to Kagoshima took about 3 hours and was literally a straight shot. No problems. Here's a map for those who don't know their Japanese geography.

{blogger is being stupid. I'll get the map up later.}

As we approached Kagoshima, we saw some unusual highway animal crossing signs. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture. (Gosh, Lynn. How hard is it to stick your head out the window at 100km/hr and get a decent picture? Really.) It looked like the middle sign on here. We asked at a rest stop, and it turned out to be a picture of a tanuki. Remember Tanuki Mario? It's not just something imagined by Nintendo.

Once we reached Kagoshima, we took the ferry over to Sakurajima (literally cherry island), a volcano that sits in the middle of the bay.

Here's Lynn and me on the ferry with Sakurajima in the background,

and here's a shot of the island itself.

Sakurajima isn't technically an island. It's a peninsula, but it used to be an island. A volcanic eruption spewed matter into one side of the bay forming a connection to the eastern side. To see as much as we could, we drove around the perimeter of what used to be the island, making a bunch of stops along the way.

Here is the Hakamagoshi-Karasujima Lava Trail. We walked around for about an hour before deciding that, lovely as it was, it was just a bunch of rocks, and it was quite hot out.

These were just off the trail. Technically, we weren't supposed to climb down there, but the sign was only in Japanese, and I tend to selectively forget how to read.

Good shot of the mountain from the Yunohira Observatory.

Sakurajima is famous for it's enormous daikon (Japanese radish), supposedly due to the rich, volcanic soil. That is one big radish.

This is the Kurokami buried torii (shrine gateway). It was covered by a volcanic eruption.

A view of Kagoshima city on the ferry back from Sakurajima.

Back in Kagoshima we visited Reimeikan, a museum built upon castle ruins. The front entrance shown here is all that's left of the original structure.

Last, before heading back fo Fukuoka, we went to Isoteien Gardens. It was very attractive, but their claim of year-round flowers was a blatant lie. I don't think we saw a single bloom. The gardens are part of an old estate. Here's one point of interest: the pewter-roofed gate.

Nice shot of the gardens.

Scampering amongst the rocks all throughout the garden were bright red crabs about the size of my palm. I was fascinated because I don't think I've ever seen crabs outside of a beach or marsh before. I've certainly never seen that color red. I managed to get a few pictures. They're a little blurry, but it's not like I could convince the crabs to hold still for me.

Me feeding fish at the gardens. Thanks to Lynn for the pic.

Sadly this fun-filled day had a price. I believed all day that I had forgotten my sunscreen only to find upon arriving home that it was in my purse all along. Regardless, a sunny day without sunscreen + me = bright red.

That was all for Kagoshima. It was a very full day, but we managed to see everything we wanted to, and we got back home before 10pm.

Korea (the one without nukes)

2006-09-18T17:32:00.000+09:00

Greetings! Long time, no post. This is because of a variety of factors, the two most prominent being periodically forgetting and then getting fed up with blogger's upload picture function when I did remember. At this point I am so woefully behind on posting pictures, I will never catch up. And I just took another hundred or so the day before yesterday at Mt. Sakurajima. But that is an entirely separate upcoming post, and has nothing at all to do with this one. I'm rambling...

At the end of June/beginning of July, my friend Lynn and I went to South Korea for a long weekend. Seoul is only an hour and a half direct flight from Fukuoka, and there's no time change, so it's actually quite easy to get to. We had a lovely time. I thought Korea was great. I couldn't quite figure out exactly why Japanese people feel Japan is so superior to Korea. Seoul was a clean, high-tech city with great public transit and delicious food. Although the climate was the same horrible mugginess (is that a word?) as Japan, places were generally better air-conditioned than in Japan.

Another thing both Lynn and I observed was that Korean people are significantly bigger than Japanese people. Many women were around my height (I'm 5'6"/168cm), whereas in Japan I generally feel like She-Hulk. In particular, we could tell a difference with the school children. Like in Japan, Korean students wear emblazoned school uniforms, which makes it pretty easy to pick them out and determine an approximate age. The high schoolers looked to be about 4 inches taller/10 cms and 30 lbs/13.6 kgs heavier than my students. Pretty substantial difference. It was refreshing. All of my students are short and skinny skinny skinny. (See previous comment about being the She-Hulk.) Any ideas why there's such a difference between countries with such similar profiles? Genetics? Diet?

Whimsical observations that don't fit elsewhere in my post aside, on with the travel log:

The first place we visited was Gyeongbokgung, the Palace of Shining Happiness. One of the best palaces/castles I've seen in Asia. Gorgeous.

Later that afternoon we hit Namdaemun, a traditional market intermixed with newer stores. This would have been a good place to purchase omiyage (Japanese custom of obligatory gifts for coworkers), except that I have truly caught on the Japanese way of doing things and now order my omiyage online before leaving the country -- less to carry and no hassel at customs.

Here's a shot of the marketplace.

This was grilled aloe. It looks sort of like some sort of tentacles, doesn't it? I wouldn't have believed it was a plant if I hadn't watched the guy cooking it.

Here's Sungnyemun, the Great South Gate. It's the historic city gate. Today it marks the entrance the Namdaemun market.

Our lust for shopping not yet satisfied, we then went to Insadong. There were tons of small shops selling things like pottery and antiques, as well as dozens of small art galleries. This was my favorite shopping area in Seoul. Unfortunately, it wasn't too photogenic -- just a nondescript street with lots of stores, so I didn't upload many photos.

One interesting thing I did photograph: eggs on a bicycle. I got some laughs from locals for taking a picture of this, but am I the only one that thinks this seems like a very bad idea?

Still in Insadong, across the street from Tapgol park, this crazy (drunk?) old man was literally knocking people out of his way with his cart.

The next morning, specifically to make our parents worry, we toured the DMZ. We had originally planned to go to Korea about 2 weeks later than we did because there was a nationl holiday in Japan so we had a day off work. That week was when the tensions between Japan and North Korea were really high, so it's probably just as well. I'm not sure we would have been able to see the DMZ. Most places in the DMZ strictly prohibitted photography, and though I'm generally the sort of person who will take pictures anyway until someone catches me, I got the feeling that the guys with M16's meant business, so I restrained myself.

One of the few photos: Lynn and me in front of the Freedom Bridge, the only road that links the south and north around Imjingak, which was the jumping off point for our tour.

Also in Imjingak, lest you get too comfortable.

Then came the highlight of the tour: we walked along the 3rd infiltration tunnel. Really cool. Discovered in 1978 and running about 73 meters below ground, the tunnel itself was dark, narrow, cold, and damp. All in all, fairly creepy. Especially when you consider that the tunnel was built to move hundreds of troops an hour to launch an attack on Seoul. Note: despite overwhelming evidence, the North Korean government still denies any involvement in the creation of this tunnel.

Next was Dora observatory, where we were allowed to take pictures of the DMZ itself, just from really, really far away. As in, 10 meters from the railing. Basically, you can take pictures of the backs of other tourists' heads. Anyway, here's the outside of the building.

After a morning at the DMZ, we caught a bus (an adventure in itself) to a reconstructed folk village outside of Seoul.

The folk village was interesting and very well presented, but unfortunately we didn't have enough time, and it was raining on and off, so it wasn't quite as enriching as it could have been.

These totem poles cropped up at quite a few places we visited in Korea. I never could get a good explanation about them, other than that they come in male and female pairs, and they're pretty similar in function to Native American totem poles, which I don't understand either.

The area immediately around our hotel didn't have much in the way of eating, so on the way back from the folk village, we got off the subway at what looked to be a pretty major stop, assuming we'd be able to find something there. Apparently this was not a place tourists ever venture. We could tell, because there was nothing at all written in English, and the area had much more of a local flavor. Still having lived for an extended time in Japan, Lynn and I are both used to the point-and-rub-belly method of ordering food, so we decided to chance it. (Note: Of course I'm beyond that now in Japanese, but when I first got here it was a different story.)

Finally we settled on a smallish but moderately busy place that had pictures of things that were recognizably food in the window. So we walked in, took off our shoes, stood awkwardly for a minute until we realized we were supposed to seat ourselves, and sat down. The waitress then brought us a menu, which being written in Korea, was entirely useless to us. Then the fun began. The waitress was assuming that Lynn (who is Japanese-American) was Korean, so everytime we began our food-obtaining gesticulating, she snapped something in Korean and directed Lynn's attention to the menu. After a minute or two of this, I stood up and grabbed her hand, pulled her outside to the pictures, randomly pointed at one of them, and held up two fingers. This seemed to work, as a few minutes later food arrived. It was quite tasty, too. However, Lynn and I both had some trouble with Korean chopsticks. They are made of metal, so after being in contact with hot food, they heat up and can burn your mouth. Also, they are much more slippery than wooden or bamboo chopsticks. Furthermore, compared to Japanese chopsticks, the Korean chopticks were very long and skinny, making then overall kind of tricky to use. But the food was good, and all's well that end's well.

The next morning before we caught our plane back to Japan, we spent the last of our won in fashionable Itaewon. (Shopping again -- sensing a theme here?) Itaewon is more modern than either Namdaemun or Insadong, filled mostly with clothing stores, souvenir shops, restaurants, and the typical fare that you'd find in a mall at home. However, we did run across one store that sold these traditional Korean masks that we'd seen in a bunch of places on our trip. I bought some refrigerator magnet size. Oh, for the day when my souvenirs are not dictated by their weight and the size of my apartment...

The place next door had some laquerware stuff that I just thought was pretty.

Then, won gone and slightly sunburned (at least I was) we collected our bags from the hotel and caught our flight back to Fukuoka. It was a good trip. Sorry it took me forever to post about. Blame blogger for irritating me.

Coming soon: Lynn and Melissa venture to the south of Kyushu island in Melissa's glorified golf cart of a car. Do they get lost? What about the approching typhoon? And what do tanuki have to do with anything. Stay tuned...

Mt. Unzen

2006-06-19T21:32:00.000+09:00

The day after Nagasaki city, we went to nearby Mt. Unzen. Like everything else in Japan, it's volcanically active. There was a cool museum, where we learned about the most recent erruptions in the 90's. Between that museum and the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki, I dubbed the trip "Death and Destruction" weekend. Good thing no philanthropic group hit me up for money right then. I couldn't have resisted. Anyhow, got some nice pictures driving around the mountain.

We stopped at a castle in the area. I have forgotten the name. Forgive me. It was pretty much like every other castle I have seen in Japan. The orchards were nice.

That's all for Golden Week.

On an unrelated note... I've been pretty unhappy with blogspot lately. It's been slow to load, and sometimes I can't get pictures to upload for no apparent reason. I'm thinking of migrating somewhere else... Any thoughts or suggestions?

Nagasaki

2006-06-18T17:00:00.000+09:00

Golden Week, for those of you not in Japan, is the first week in May. Pretty much everyone in Japan travels, and I was no exception. I went to Nagasaki May 3 and 4. It took about 3 hours to get there. 20 minutes to the port, an hour on the ferry, and another 1 1/2 to Nagasaki city. Here we are, waiting for the ferry. By the way, for you folks at home, that's Yuki, my boyfriend for the last few months.

View of the Nagasaki coastline from the ferry.

One of the must-see locales in Nagasaki city is Chinatown. It's pretty much like every other Chinatown I've ever been to, only cleaner and more expensive. Had some good food.

During Japan's isolationist period, Nagasaki was the only port open to the west. As a result, there was a heavy influence from Portugese missionaries. Here's a picture of Oura Church. It was interesting to see a historical church in Japan. Certainly, I've seen more impressive churches, but the way Japanese people were marveling over things like the pews was very cute to me. Probably like how we ooh and ahh over shrines and temples.

Next up was the Glover Garden. Beautiful, though again it was a bit strange for me to watch Japanese tourists snapping photos of all of the western things.

And, of course, Heiwa Koen (Peace Memorial Park) .

That's all for Nagasaki city proper. The next day we visited Mt. Unzen. I will post as soon as blogger is once more cooperative (right now it doesn't want to upload my pics).

O-Fuji Matsuri

2006-05-20T10:00:00.000+09:00

Literally, Wisteria Festival.

The last weekend in April I went to the nearby town of Kurogi with some friends for their annual Wisteria Festival. It was fun. Lots of flowers everywhere. The whole town smelled really nice. Here's a few pictures. (woo hoo!)

Tile placed in the sidewalk. The writing says "Kurogi Big Wisteria." This one's for you, Mom.

The wisteria is generally grown on these overhead lattice structures. Walking around had sort of a weird cave-like feeling to it. Only it smelled much nicer. According to the sign, that particular wisteria plant (tree?) is over 600 year old.

Another tree. This one was a young 'un. Only 400 years old. Or so the sign said.

Lastly, here's me and my friend Lynn, hamming it up amongst the Wisteria blossoms. For you folks at home, yes, I have gotten quite fat. I'm working on it.

That's all for now. Photography criticism is always appreciated.

Grrr... stupid technology... and other news

2006-05-19T21:44:00.000+09:00

Ok, I was going to post pictures this evening. (No, really! I swear! I edited them and everything!) But I got a crappy error message trying to upload the files. I've been using Picassa to upload photos, cause it's easy, and I don't want anyone to accuse me of putting my CS degree to good use. Now it is "failing to initialize" and directing me to reinstall. I don't feel like dealing with it right now, but I should have some time this weekend. It probably has to do with the increasing number of bad sectors on my harddrive and all of the random errors that sound suspiciously like my computer's swan song. *ouch* I may break down and buy a Japanese machine. Having the OS in Japanese would no doubt annoy me, but on the plus side, the key board configuration makes typing Japanese a heck of a lot easier.

Anyhow, the pictures were from the Wisteria festival in nearby Kurogi. Pretty purple flowers. Just imagine them for now.

Moving on... I had a job interview last Wednesday. I think it went pretty well. It's for sort of a lateral promotion that would involve doing more administrative work and less teaching. I would have to move to a different area of the prefecture. It's more urban area, but I would have the hassle of moving.

Lastly, did anyone besides Mike see the comment thread with the other "Melissa in Japan"? Strange coincidence. Anyhow, check it out here.

For those of you who still read this (both of you), I have pictures of Nagasaki to post after I get Kurogi up.

Hanami

2006-04-08T12:41:00.000+09:00

It's spring. That means everything is in bloom. Most famously, of course, are the cherry trees (桜). The Japanese have a national obsession with the pale pink flowers. Hanami (花見) literally means to look at flowers, but that single word ensconces a whole culture. Hanami refers to a ritual of spring wherein one sits unders cherry trees admiring the beauty of nature. Alcohol is usually involved. Cherry blossoms fall from the tree only a week or two after opening, meaning they fall in a pristine unwithered state, which has great poetic appeal.

Anyhow, with that in mind, I decided I had to get a few pictures. I mean, I pass cherry trees everywhere I go. However, I've been pretty busy this year, so I didn't make it to any parks or shrines or other recommended Hanami sites, and Omuta is not the most photogenic city. While the cherry blossoms are lovely, my choice of backgrounds ranged from rusted out cars to garbage heaps to construction sites to stucco buildings very close in color to the blossoms. After two weeks of carrying my camera with me everywhere, here is the best of the bunch.

And here's a picture of a Japanese magnolia, cause it was, you know, pretty.

I'll be glad when these marvels of nature stop dropping their pollen everywhere.

Two in one day!

2006-02-14T16:39:00.000+09:00

Oh a happier note, here's my new favorite way to waste oodles of time: Worth1000. You can see my (pitiful) work and tell me how great it is here.

My test results are in...

2006-02-14T16:35:00.000+09:00

... for the Japanese Proficiency Test. {drumroll} I failed. {cymbal clash and d'oh sound} I failed by 7 freakin' points out of 400. Ouch! The only consolation is that next year I should be able to pass it in my sleep. Fortunately I didn't really need this for any reason except my own ego. Still irritating.

Blast from the past

2006-01-10T22:18:00.000+09:00

So my sister came to visit and has now gone back home (more on that later). We went to Kyoto for a few days, and while I was standing outside an Italian restaurant waiting for Michelle to finish in the bathroom, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a very long time. I didn't quite believe my eyes when I saw fellow alum of both Cornell and Walton HS, Jarrett Silver. How weird is that? I bumped into my lab partner in high school biology unexpectedly... in Japan. Despite the fact that I know he did go to Cornell, I only saw him on campus a few times. I believe he graduated in '02. We talked for a few minutes and went our separate ways, leaving me to reflect on the utter surrealness of the experience. I realized it has actually been 10 years since high school biology. I felt very old.

Someone please draw a profound conclusion from this. I got nada, but it's just too strange.

New policy on photos...

2005-12-29T23:01:00.000+09:00

... I'm posting what I feel like when I feel like it.

Often times, I find myself avoiding updating my blog at all because I feel guilty about not having put up all of my travel pics. Well, posting a bunch of pictures is time-consuming--I have to go through roughly 1000 pics per trip, pick the best, edit them, shrink file size for web, upload the pics, and comment on them.

Therefore I am going to stop worrying about having a publishable travel log and update more frequently about my personal life. I'll still stick up some photos, but I'm going to stop stressing about it.

whew...

Without further ado...

Thailand Photos

2005-12-29T22:50:00.000+09:00

Like an self-respecting Asian country, Thailand is home to many Buddhist temples. It is interesting to me how Buddhist temples in Japan, China, and Thailand all look so different. Japanese temples are quite austere, usually relatively simple buildings with statues of Buddha and (of course!) Zen gardens. The temples that we saw in China were magnificent, conjuring images of rich, nearly decadant, homages to the gods. In Thailand, the temples were fantastically decorated to the point of being guady. There was ornate tile work and painting covering every surface. Beautiful, yes. But sometimes over the top. Another major difference is that Thai temples were distinctly religious. Though China and Japan are both Buddhist countries, Buddha often seems like an afterthought in temples. Anyhow... here's some photos of temples in Bangkok.

Our guide said that these figures were temple guardians. Apparantly using quasi-evil demons is the best way to protect temples from evil-evil devils.

Statues inside the temple grounds.

Another temple...
photoshop alert! I removed Japanese tourists from this photo. Can anyone tell me how many or where exactly they were standing?

In Bangkok, we took a tour of the canals criss-crossing the city. They are called Klongs, I believe. It was the best look we got at Thai life outside of the city and touristy areas. Immense poverty...

After Bangkok, we took a trip up North to a city called Chiang Mai. I think we all agreed that it was the best part of the trip. Quieter, less smelly, and safer(-seeming) than Bangkok, we saw a lot more of the area than just the mandatory day of temples.

Lotus flowers were everywhere. I don't think I'd ever actually seen one before. Apparently, people fold down the outer petals by hand to create a more beautiful shape. Or something like that. This was taken at night in a flower market.

We got out of the city one day and had many "hazardous to your health" experiences. The first was an elephant ride. I can now honestly say, elephants are nothing like overgrown, ugly horses. They more or less go where they want to/where the other elephants are going, and hopefully sometimes that works out well for you.

The other "exciting" experience of that day was a bamboo raft ride. Sadly I do not have pictures because they advised not bringing a camera. But we did have an encounter with a poisonous snake. Or at least, our guide was scared of the snake so we thought we probably should be, too. Regardless of whether or not the snake was worth being afraid of, the water certainly was.

That day, we also visited a few villages of various Hill Tribes. The Hill Tribes are people that live in the countryside of Thailand that are not ethnic Thai. Different tribes come from surrounding areas such as Cambodia and China, and they all have their own languages and customs. The overhwhelming poverty there made the people living along the Klong in Bangkok look rich.

Here's a woman weaving. After leaving there, Mom immeadiately regretted not buying her entire stock.

Also in Chiang Mai, we visited several crafts factories, including places that made celadon glassware, teak carvings, and paper products. Here are some pictures from the teak factory and the paper factory.

That's all for now. This Saturday, my sister is arriving in Japan for a visit. Afterwards we'll head up to Kyoto and Hiroshima. Until I get back, this is sayonara.

I am a horrible blogger...

2005-11-27T20:57:00.000+09:00

...but in my defense, I don't post a lot of the crap that no one likes reading. I have been crazy busy since I've been back from Thailand (great--will post about it... eventually), and next weekend is my big Japanese Proficiency Test. Yikes! Between that and a conference I have this week, don't expect anything this week. But I will post again soon! And prolifically! I have about a million photos, for starters. For now, I added some links to my sidebar.

-end transmission-

The Ming Tombs

2005-10-09T14:58:00.005+09:00

After we thoroughly exhausted ourselves on the Great Wall, we saw the Ming Dynasty tombs. Pretty impressive, though I don't remember anything that looked like a tomb or grave.

Here's a shot of the outer wall ( I believe).

And two of the main inner building.

I believe this is looking out of the inner gateway into the outer enclosure.

Another building and large incense burners in the inner courtyard.

And one of those "too cute for words" little kids hamming it up.

This is part of a ramp leading into one of the building, which is flanked by stairs on either side. The purpose of the ramps was so that the emperors litter could be caried up more easily.

And finally, two extra large incense burners in the inner courtyard. Yes, that is a lot of money surrounding them. People were leaving money. I'm sure this incurs some deities favor.

Thank you for viewing installment #2 of Melissa's much delayed China pictures. Stay tuned, because I am determined to get through these.

The Great Wall of China

2005-10-08T18:01:00.002+09:00

If you thought I was never going to post any more pictures from China, or if you though I had completely forgotten... you're wrong. It's only been 5 months. I told you I'd get around to it. I refuse to go to Thailand until I get all of the highlights from China posted. Really. I promise.

A lovely scenic shot of the Great Wall of China.

And here I experiment with an artsy "through a window" shot.

This one I actually like. I think the doorway frames the background nicely. Now if only there weren't a million people there at the time.

This picture only gives you an inkling of the physical torture that is climbing the Great Wall.

And lastly, the trimphant climbers. Ok, actually this was taken before. We weren't so pretty afterwards. It was hot that day.

Alrighty. There's a couple more pictures for your viewing pleasure. I'm really going to try and be better about posting from now on. Perhaps more comments would motivate me...

A big congratulations...

2005-10-04T22:46:00.000+09:00

...to the brilliant and ever fashionable Oana Vlad!

My girl here just got accepted to a masters program for marketing in Kobe! As you can probably guss from the picture, she is not Japanese. Yet she managed to go head-to-head with Japanese college students (read: absolutely no language assistance) and secure a spot for graduate studies. I'm impressed (and you should be, too!) but not surprised.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled web trolling...

Unblemished driving record no more :-(

2005-09-25T10:05:00.000+09:00

Last Sunday, I headed up to Mt. Aso with a couple of friends. Mt. Aso is (I believe -- the informational placards were in Japanese) the largest crater on the planet as well as the most active volcano in Japan. It's pretty cool-looking. Anyhow, I was driving and I rear-ended someone. It was stop and go traffic, I scratched my eye, and hit the guy at a whopping 2mph. Totally my fault, but as accidents go, it was about as minor as possible. The other guy has a significant dent in his bumper, that doesn't quite seem to look like the front end of my car if you know what I mean, but there's not really anything I can do about it. Everything's covered by insurance. My rates will go up next year if I stay in Japan, but only $100 a year. That's scarcely any incentive not to hit people I don't like.

Any Civil War buffs out there?

2005-08-31T08:48:00.000+09:00

A teacher at my school, Ura-sensei, asked me if I would talk to his world history class about the Civil War sometime in the next few weeks. I didn't feel as though I could tactfully refuse, so now I have to talk about something way outside my realm of expertise, and I was hoping I could get some ideas of what I should do. I had originally thought I would pick some specific area (ie, life during the civil war, or civil war technology, or effects on later generations), since I only have an hour. But then I looked at the kids' world history textbook. There is a grand total of 2 pages (with pictures!) covering Westward Expansion, Lincoln, the Civil War, and a couple of vague sentences about changes in American culture. Not a single battle is named, no important players other than Lincoln are mentioned, which states were on which side was completely omitted, and the reasons for the war are pretty sparse. This means just about anything is fair game.

I would just love it if one of you could give me a suggestion (entire lesson plans accepted as well) for how to do a meaningful 50 minutes on the Civil War.

Blowing stuff up

2005-08-31T08:46:00.000+09:00

Hi there, campers! The other day Mike and I met on battlenet and played a couple rounds of Starcraft. I was just wondering if there was any interest in organizing a "for old time's sake" game across a half-dozen timezones. (Lisa, John, I'm looking at you.)

Now I'm driving legally

2005-08-14T05:39:00.000+09:00

Praise {insert deity of choice here}, I finally passed my driving test. In Japan, you can only use an international driver's license for the 1st year after the entry date on your passport, after which you have to get a Japanese license. This means, that since July 27, I have been driving without a valid license (oops!). This is not for lack of trying. I took the test for the first time in the beginning of July, never imagining the difficulties I would face. The test is all closed-course, with nothing particularly hard. However, Japan being the perfectionist nation that it is, everything has to be textbook-perfect. I have been failed for such inanities as not looking in the mirrors enough, looking in the mirrors too much, going too fast (10km/h) around turns, being too confident/not careful enough through the S-turns (note that I got through them just fine), driving in the center of the lane (in Japan, it's keep left, unless you're making a right turn, changing lanes too quickly, changing lanes too slowly, and not keeping my hands at exactly 10 and 2. But thankfully, I passed on the 7th time. Ironically, no one, not even the DMV {insert derogatory term here}, ever implied that I was not a competent and safe driver.

Now, I go off the English "camp" for a week.

What do you mean, you're not going to college?

2005-08-02T15:05:00.000+09:00

I just discovered something distressing today. My absolute smartest student, is not planning on going to college. I have long known that my students (and Japanese students in general) don't go to college as universally as I would like, but I can chalk that up to cultural differences. College is not seen as essential to getting a good job. In fact, companies tend to frown on bachelor's degrees that don't carry with them practical skills (*cough cough* liberal arts), preferring instead 2 year technical programs where applicable. So, with most of them, I can let it slide. However, this girl is very bright.

Her name is Momoko, and she's the equivalent of a high school junior. Because of differences in the academic calendar, she just started her junior year in February. Her English is amazing. Far from fluent, but able to hold a conversation, and her pronunciation is nearly perfect. In short, she's a lot better than most of her teachers. I can only directly attest to her English ability, but I know last year there was talk in the teachers' room that she was the only student to get the highest marking on all sections of some kind of achievement test. If Japanese schools did class rankings, she'd probably be number one.

Now that I'm done singing her praises... Today after a tutoring session for a speech contest (in which she placed 3rd in the prefecture last year), I wanted to talk to her some about study abroad. She then told me she didn't plan on going to college. After pushing my eyeballs back into their sockets I asked her why. Basically, she wants to start working right away so she can be independent of her parents. No real plan past that. (BTW: I'm quite proud of myself for maintaining my composure during this conversation.) I didn't exactly know what to say to her. Obviously I told her I think she should go, and I listed just a few perfectly valid reasons. I was at least relieved to hear that I'm not the only teacher that has told her that. Even in Japan which doesn't belive in unnecessary education, especially for women, everyone believes she should go. At the end, she did promise to think about it some more, and she did seem a bit conflicted.

I just can't believe that such a high-achieving student would even consider not furthering her education. It blows my mind. I know I'm a foreigner, completely ignorant to the ways things are done in Japan, but I wish there was something I could say that might help change her mind. I hate to think of that kind of wasted potential.

Hey! Teacher! Leave us kids alone!

2005-07-23T14:40:00.000+09:00

School's out for summer! Japanese summer is pretty short--I think classes start back end of August/beginning of September (note to self: check calendar). But regardless, I have quite a few weeks of boredom sitting at my desk. Despite the fact there are actually no students, teachers in Japan come to work every day. Sucks. It's not like I don't do anything during the day... I prepare materials for various English camps I have been roped into and for next fall, I tutor interested students (why is it always the ones who need help the least who are interested?), and I study Japanese... But this leaves ample time free for reading, surfing the web, and picking out that grit that accumulates under fingernails.

In other news, I went to Osaka last weekend to watch the Big Red bring home second place in the RoboCup competition. The set up a team blog for the competition. It was great to see Mike, Chris, and a bunch of people I didn't really know despite having many common acquaintances. Unfortunately, I got kind of sick over the weekend, so I didn't enjoy as much as I could have, but it was still great see people who understand my sense of humor. Mike even agreed to go with me to see the new Star Wars. I didn't want to go with Japanese people, because in the past I've had movies largely ruined by completely inappropriate audience responses, leading to me laughing at completely different parts of the movie.

Well, that's all for now. I anticipate more frequent updates since I have a lot of free time at work.

Vrrroooom!

2005-06-12T10:51:00.000+09:00

I have a car! It's a '97 Toyota Cynos. The Cynos is a Japan-only model, but I think it's pretty similar to the Celica. Yay! Mobility! Freedom! No more biking in the rain with groceries!

Must drive on the left side of the road... Must drive on the left side of the road... Must drive on the left side of the road...

Ain't it great to be American?

2005-06-07T22:24:00.000+09:00

The following has been plagarized shamelessly from Scientic American. I couldn't find this blurb in their online magazine, so here goes:

Data Points: Feeling Terror
Fear of terrorism has made many Americans willing to curtail rights and sacrifice basic freedoms, according to a national survey of 715 respondents prepared by Erik C. Nisbet and James Shanahan of Cornell University for a December 2004 report.

Percent of respondents who think the federal government should:
Have more power to monitor internet activities: 47
Indefinitely detain suspected terrorists: 63
Outlaw some activities even if constitutionally protected: 36

Percent who say the media should not:
Cover protests: 33
Report criticisms of the government: 31
ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM
"Islam promotes violence."
Percent who agree: 47
Percent of highly religious Christians who agree: 65

"Muslim-Americans should be forced to register their whereabouts."
Percent who agree: 27
Among highly religious Christians: 42

"Mosques should be closely monitored."
Percent who agree: 26
Among highly religious Christians: 34

SOURCE: Media & Society Research Group, Cornell University. Analyses involving religion included data only from Christians, agnostics and atheists. Degree of religiosity was based on self-identification, church attendance and beliefs about Israel and a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Wow! This whole thing is so completely amazing, I can't even decide which part most warrants my ire. I probably have to go with the one about outlawing constitutionally protected activities just because the amount of ignorance and idiocy that shows is utterly depressing. The whole idea of having a constitution in the first place is that our laws fit into the Constitution, not the other way around. But really, this study is completely mindnumbing. It makes me feel like my head is going to explode... For that reason, I would love to have it pointed out to it's not valid for some reason or another. Anyone? Is there anyone who would like to explain why my outrage is out of line? Flame away.

That's "koh bay," not "koh bee"

2005-06-06T19:59:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I still have lots more pics... but it takes a while to upload them and it they make my blog load slower... I will finish China, but not right now. So here we have a brief aside.

Last week I had my recontracting conference in Kobe. Kobe was a really cool city. It's sort of known as the most cosmopolitan city in Japan. There are lots of western style buildings, and good western food, etc. The northern part of the city feels like the countries section of Epcot center. It probably doesn't have a lot of appeal for foreign tourists, but if you happen to live in Japan... well, I found bagels and cream cheese. *sighs happily* I also had some Kobe beef. It was ok, but I didn't think it was that great. It was well-marbled. All meat in Japan tends to be fatty and this was no exception, so I wasn't that crazy about it.

Two really interesting things happened in Kobe.

1. I met a non-relative with my last name. This has never happened to me since I have a pretty uncommon last name. I think the odds that we actually are distant relatives are pretty good because she looks like me and her family's from the Boston area. Before this, I would have bet good money that I was the only Whitcomb in Japan.

2. I met a wild boar. Yes, folks, an honest-to-god, not-confined-to-a-zoo wild boar. One afternoon I was hiking by myself at Rokko mountain just outside of Kobe. I saw a sign that said to beware of the "inoshishi." Funnily enough, I had just learned the word inoshishi (=boar) because the prior week my textbook had a passage on the legend of the origin of the Chinese zodiac. However, upon seeing this sign, I decided I clearly needed to study a bit more carefully, because I couldn't imagine why there would be a sign warning me of wild boars. I wan't far from civilization by any means. And wild boars are something I associate with Grimms fairy tales and the Black Forest in Germany. So I was walking along, and I heard a rustling sound. It sounded like one hell of a big squirrel (Japan doesn't have squirrels). A few seconds later, this pig-like thing the size of a golden retriever stepped out. Honestly, I probably wasn't in any danger because I was above the boar and separated by some rocks, but I was too shocked to be scared, regardless.

That's about the highlights of Kobe. I promise I will finish posting about China eventually. Sayonara for now.

Temple of Heaven

2005-05-23T21:15:00.000+09:00

You asked for it, you got it. Here's some pictures from China. But the fun won't stop here! This is only part 1! I took over 700 pictures, nearly all of which were decent, and most of which were fairly unique from the others. Hence the 2 week delay. These pictures represent only day 1. I will get to the rest of the trip in the not-too-distant future, but this is as many as I could do at one time. I do (sort of) have a life, folks.

I apologize for the sort of shoddy explanations. At the time you're sure you'll remember everything forever, but when you actually look at the pictures, it's hard enough to even identify them.

The first site on our tour was the Temple of Heaven.

A magnificent long walkway near the Temple of Heaven.

Tai chi devotees outside the Temple of Heaven.

At the Temple of Heaven, there was a large dais near the entrance where the emperor would purify himself (I think). No one except the emperor was allowed at the center (I think). You can see the dais in the picture behind the gates. It was enclosed in a square courtyard with square gates. The reason behind this is that the ancient Chinese believed that the Earth was square and the Heavens were round. Therefore spiritual places were often modeled after circles within squares (I think).

Stairs leading up to the dais.

This spot in the center used to be reserved for the emporer only. Now they let anyone pose for photo ops. FYI: Chinese kids are very cute, but not quite as cute as Japanese kids.

Looking down from the rear of the dais.

Another building at the Temple of Heaven. I'm sure it had a name.

Here we are in front of another building at the temple of heaven. Friends at home: yes, I have gained 20 lbs. But doesn't my mom look great? She's lost 60(?) lbs.

You can just see the center of the Temple of Heaven through this archway.

The very center of the Temple of Heaven.

Cypress forest outside of the Temple of Heaven.

The Forbidden City

2005-05-23T21:14:00.000+09:00

Next stop was the Forbidden City.

distant shot of the Forbidden City

Dress up like a Chinese dignitary and have your picture taken at the Forbidden City!

And here's an eager participant.

When it rains, then the water cascades from level to level, coming out through dragon-shaped spouts.

Another shot from in the Forbidden City.

Tiennaman Square

2005-05-23T21:13:00.000+09:00

Then we moved on to Tiennaman Square.

The world famous Tiennaman Square.

Statue of the People's Heros at Tiennaman Square.

Summer Palace

2005-05-23T21:12:00.000+09:00

That same day we also visited the Summer Palace. My pictures are notably fewer and of poorer quality because by that point I was suffering from cultural/information overload.

A gate at the Summer Palace.

One of the many buildings at the Summer Palace.

Famously long hallway at the Summer Palace.

boat for touring the bay (big lake?) by the Summer Palace.

More travel adventures

2005-04-28T13:46:00.000+09:00

So tomorrow I'm leaving for a week in China. I'm meeting my parents and a tour group in Beijing, and together we'll tour both Beijing and Xian. Hopefully I'll come back with lots of lovely pictures of the Great Wall, the terra cotta warriors of Xian, and many more exciting subjects. Wish me luck!

A weekend by the shore

2005-04-25T20:56:00.002+09:00

I went to Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture two weekends ago on Sunday. It was about a two hour drive, and guess who drove... Yours truly! That's right, I hopped in the right side of that car, and took advantage of that International Driver's License. The biggest reason for risking life and limb on the left side of the road was that no one else had a valid driver's license. Also, I plan on buying a car in the not-too-distant future, so I figured there was no time like the present.

So here we are with our Mitsubishi rental car. Left to right is Oana from Romania, me, Mezbah from Bangladesh, and Anna from Poland. Another quite international group.

Here's the first place we saw the ocean. On the island next to the sailboat, is a torii sitting there in the middle of nowhere. There was no informational sign or anything, so we were all baffled. Quite picturesque, however.

Same torii on the far right-hand side.

One of Japan's famous cherry trees. I kept meaning to take more pictures of them, but little did I know they only bloom for about 4 days. There were a bunch near my apartment, but one day of rain, and *poof* no more flowers.

And up close...

We took a boat tour of the Ku-juu-ku-shima, translates as "ninety-nine islands." I didn't actually count them, but this bay is full of small islands. Some are big enough for populations of several hundred, some are only a few hundred meters across. Truth be told, this was the no the boat we got on. We were on a very similar white boat.

And here we are.

It was quite a nice day. The weather was absolutely perfect, and I'm not sure I've ever seen water that blue.

After our boat tour we drove a little ways and stopped at the beach.

That's Oana in the picture.

I was the only one who actually took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and tested the water. It was slightly cool, but perfectly comfortable for six-inch deep wading. It felt surprisingly good to have the sand between my toes again. I guess it had been quite a while.

And that's the highlights of the Sasebo day-trip. As always I have hundreds more pictures which I will happily send on request.

Stay tuned...

2005-04-19T17:11:00.000+09:00

...for a real post. I went to Sasebo, Nagasaki, last weekend, so I have a lot of pics and stuff. Lately, I've been really busy, so it might be next weekend before I get to it, but I have content to add. Soon...

It's all Japanese to me

2005-04-06T17:47:00.000+09:00

Monday night I watched my first movie entirely in Japanese. I had seen previews on rental DVDs for a Chinese movie called Lovers (American release title is House of Flying Daggers). I assumed that since it was a DVD I would have my choice of Chinese, Japanese, English, and probably Spanish and French as well. Teach me to assume anything in Japan! I indeed had language choices: Mandarin, Cantonese, or Japanese. Crap! Figuring since I rented the damn thing I might as well at least try it, I watched in Japanese. I surprised myself by actually following the dialogue enough to enjoy it. Obviously I didn't catch every word, and I have only a rough idea of the political intrigue, but I was never completely lost either.

My language issues aside, it was an absolutely beautiful movie. I highly recommend it just for the costuming, scenery, and choreography. At times the fight scenes were so highly stylized they reminded me of the near-dancing of stage fighting in Broadway musicals. The action was surreal like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I thought it was more aesthetically pleasing. Complete eye candy.

Haloscan comments

2005-04-06T17:16:00.000+09:00

At Mike's suggestion, I switched the commenting to haloscan. Now you can leave comments with your name even if you're not cool enough to have a blog of your own! I even migrated all existing comments by hand because I love you guys and value your comments (so leave more).

And there was much rejoicing...

Toriis and Temples and Shrines, oh my!

2005-04-04T20:50:00.001+09:00

Administrative stuff first: I changed my settings so anybody can leave a comment. I also added a counter. Please leave comments. The whole point of this page is so I can stay in touch with people better.

A bit of catchup: I went to see Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine on Monday, March 21. It was a national holiday, and the day after the big 7.0 earthquake (which did surprisingly little damage for how much stuff was shaking). Where cities like Kyoto are packed with famous shrines and temples, Fukuoka's only notable one is Tenmangu. It's semi-famous as being the best shrine to pray at for academic success. That's right: parents from the whole region drag their high schoolers to Dazaifu in hopes of passing the all-important college entrance exams. Call me pathetic, but it took me 8 months to get to Fukuoka's only great cultural site. It's also known for having beautiful plum trees, which were all in bloom when we went. It was rather pretty.

I went with Keita, a Japanese guy I met, and three of his friends, who all turned out to be really cool. Slowly but surely my social circle is widening... Soon I'll hit double-digits. Here are a few pictures.

This is called a torii. They're placed at the entrances to all shrines.

The main building at Tenmangu shrine. Note the plum tree in the foreground.

A statue--I'm not sure what the significance is--and more plum trees.

Keita reading my fortune to me. Turns out I will be easily susceptible to diseases and will never be reunited with loved ones. Not like American fortune cookies, I tell ya.

But when you get a bad fortunes, you tie it to one of these thingies and the god of the shrine "takes care of it."

Clockwise: Oana, Chen, Mu, Keita, and me. We were quite the international group. Mu and Chen are Chinese, Oana's Romanian, and Keita's Japanese. We had many deep and meaningful conversations about cultural differences, including what noises various animals make. FYI dog noises: English--bow wow, Romanian--how how, Japanese--wan wan, Chinese--wan wan (but the pronunciation is a little different).

Lost in translation

2005-04-02T19:01:00.000+09:00

So recently, a bunch of my students took a trip to Denver. Much to my surprise (ok, not really) everyone had a great time and came back all glowy. Here's some pics I got from Ishibashi-sensei, one of the lucky(?) teachers who escorted them.

My students, on their way to Denver.

Left to right: Momoko, Lisa, Maria. Aren't they cute? FYI: Lisa and Maria are also Japanese names. What a coincidence... These are three of my favorite students right here. They volunteer in class, do their homework, have a solid grasp of material, and are all around cool kids. In short, they're teachers' pets. All three had a great time and were bursting to talk about their experiences. Momoko, in particular, was cute when she explained how much fun it was after she realized boys would do whatever she wanted. She's, uh, very eager to spend more time with American boys.

Asleep in Denver. Aww... I feel ashamed I can't name them with 100% certainty, but honestly, it's hard enough to tell them apart when I can see their faces.

Left to right: Yuriko, Fumie, Misa.

I got a ton more pictures, but unless you know the kids, I don't imagine it's too interesting to look at a whole roll of this stuff.

On the wagon we go

2005-04-01T19:24:00.000+09:00

I decided that everybody else is doing it so I might as well. Hey why is everyone standing so close to that cliff? Also I feel the need to share details of my life with friends, but I don't have any real ones. Welcome virtual friends.