疲れた Tired
It has been a month since I've last talked about what's been going on here in Japan. And in that one month, I have done so much that I've literally exhausted myself out. I better wish myself ガンバレ！ Ganbare!, or "Do your best!", because the next 30 days will be just as busy if not more so.
Leaving off from last time, after my time in Tokyo, I said to myself that I have got to do this again (and again, and again, etc.). So, I was able to plan again for Tokyo this past weekend since it was kind of like a farewell visit for my friend Julie who is going to study in New York to become an optometrist. If it wasn't for Julie, I wouldn't have met so many people and made so many friends in Tokyo. I will surely miss her and we will definitely enjoy good times once again when I visit New York sometime in the future. But my next trip in Tokyo will have to wait for now because of all the other events that happened beforehand.
I'll start off with one of my elementary schools having a 相撲大会 Sumo Taikai. I found this event to be especially interesting since I regularly watch Sumo Wrestling on T.V. whenever the tournaments are happening. The most amusing part about this is that all the wrestlers are MY STUDENTS!!! So, it was really cool to see them do the whole ceremony and so forth.
There's a small video of a part of the opening ceremony in my MySpace.
Recently, lots of work related stuff has been spilling over into the weekend. And in this past month, practically every weekend had something dealing with work. The following weekend after the 相撲大会, my Junior High School students had thier district sport competitions. Since I am now involved with the basketball club, I attended the basketball tournament in the region. Unfortunately, our school didn;t even win one game. Our closest game was the first who became the eventual champions. My students are quite talented with thier limited amount of experience. Watching them play, you would never have thought that they barely started to play basketball only two years ago. Just think what would happen if they played throughout elementary school. Also, our weakness is that we have a main rotation of 6 players while playing 4 games all in one day. But, there really wasn't too much one could do about that. The next day, I watched a couple of other sports, volleyball and softball. The girls' teams both came in second. So, I spent this one weekend watching many of my students pour their heart and souls out in competition. It's really nice to see them motivated nad active with such a goal in mind. Hopefully, they'll keep that up with everything else upcoming in tier lives.
The weekend after that, I attended a farewell party up in the mountains in a nearby town. At this time, many people in my program are leaving since its close to the end of the contract year. So, I drove up a mountain in my little box on wheels and partied with a bunch of foreigners. What can I say, they're an OK bunch of people. But not really the type I'd regularly hang around with. Luckily, I was able to meet some Japanese folks and we partied like crazy until I left in the middle of the night. Shout outs to my new Japanese homies Shinsuke and Sutomu.
THe following weekend, went to the city with Shinsuke to watch the Argentina vs. Germany soccer match. The match was pretty ugly, long, and boring going into penalty kicks. However, the stuff we did before and after was well worth the trip. Funny thing about Shinsuke was that he didn't bring enough cash with him. So what do you do if you don't have any cash, just look around. "見るだけ良い？ (Is it okay just to look?)," was the phrase of the night. We went to a restaraunt, an お釜 Okama bar and one of those high paying スナック Snack clubs and we didn't pay a cent. I thought it was just funny because for the latter two places, you pretty much pay an hourly service charge for just being there. So that was pretty funny. After the game, we went to another bar and drank until 5 a.m. It was a long, long night.
The weekend after that, I was asked to help guide a few Pilipino Government Workers/Professionals who were here in my area for some sort of Agricultural program sponsored by the Japanese and Pilipino Government. In the middle of all that madness, I was still able to find sometime Saturday night to kick it with my Japanese homies again, but this time at the little live house in the city called Sandinista. Some of my friends were having their last performance as a band and they did a fairly good job. Let's just say that they're not INVID ;p Met a bunch of folk (about time I started to meet people my age), and they all drank until they got emotional. It felt like the UCLA days when I was D.D. and I get much more enjoyment and amusement from the antics of my drunk friends rather than my own. Shinsuke and I actually lost Sutomu and found him about an hour later crying in front of a 7 and i-holdings (7-11 for all you Americans). So we dropped emotional when drunk Sutomu off and headed out with more Japanese people to grab some late night food. It was at this time that we all decided to have a bbq at my pad sometime soon. So, look forward to the updates when that event happens.
Okay, so the time had now spilled into Sunday morning and I had a bit of work to do the following day helping translate and guide the Pilipinos. About a couple hours later, the caretakers and the program participants went to tour around my town and check out Mt. Haguro. Spent the whole day doing translating and explainging the significance of this and that and had dinner with them and so forth.
On Monday, I attended the farewell dinner after my work. After that dinner, the program participants wanted me to show them a bit around town in which I did and treated them to some drinks. A nice group of people. They just felt really comfortable around me knowing that I was Pilipino and that I could understand and speak both Tagalog and Japanese. So, I spent time with them a bit into the night since I did have work the following day.
So that's what mostly happened these last 4 weekends or so.
As for this past weekend, I took the night bus to Tokyo which is quite the inexpensive, but long, way to get to Tokyo. So, the Saturday I arrived, I just spent the day with Jules helping her pack and accompany her to the festivals in her area. Apparently, she thought she was supposed to perform the Taiko drums, but there was some miscommunication (since she doesn't speak Japanese). So I kind of helped out with the translating to help her know what in the world was going on. After the few hours of the festivals, we hit up the Muse in 六本木 Roppongi. We then danced and partied until 5 a.m. I then came back, slept for about 3 hours and got ready to explore more of Tokyo with new friend 美絵 Mie. We went to 秋葉原 Akihabara for a couple hours where I was bale ot bargain for my new electronic dictionaary. After that, we wanted to go to a maid cafe since it was recommended, but the line was too long and it was much too hot to just stand around. So the next spot we hit up was my favorite place in Tokyo, お台場 Odaiba. Lucky for us, we came during a very cool time. The 海の光まつり Light of the Sea Festival. Here, they put a bunch of laterns on the shore and many boats with lights come to the bay and light up along with the Rainbow Bridge. A wonderful memory that I will hold close to me forever. Something I hope never to forget.
After that, we went to 池袋 Ikebukuro and met up with my other Japanese homegirls, Kayo and Keiko. We were all supposed to go drinking, but we were all pretty much tired at that point too.
The next day, I went to many of the same places again just to buy souveniers for certain people. Only thing different was having dinner in 新宿 Shinjuku with 美絵 at night before my bus ride back to 山形.
Lastly, I'm having such a great time here in Japan. I look forward to creating more memories with the friends that I've made.
Peace , <3 , =)
Leaving off from last time, after my time in Tokyo, I said to myself that I have got to do this again (and again, and again, etc.). So, I was able to plan again for Tokyo this past weekend since it was kind of like a farewell visit for my friend Julie who is going to study in New York to become an optometrist. If it wasn't for Julie, I wouldn't have met so many people and made so many friends in Tokyo. I will surely miss her and we will definitely enjoy good times once again when I visit New York sometime in the future. But my next trip in Tokyo will have to wait for now because of all the other events that happened beforehand.
I'll start off with one of my elementary schools having a 相撲大会 Sumo Taikai. I found this event to be especially interesting since I regularly watch Sumo Wrestling on T.V. whenever the tournaments are happening. The most amusing part about this is that all the wrestlers are MY STUDENTS!!! So, it was really cool to see them do the whole ceremony and so forth.
There's a small video of a part of the opening ceremony in my MySpace.
Recently, lots of work related stuff has been spilling over into the weekend. And in this past month, practically every weekend had something dealing with work. The following weekend after the 相撲大会, my Junior High School students had thier district sport competitions. Since I am now involved with the basketball club, I attended the basketball tournament in the region. Unfortunately, our school didn;t even win one game. Our closest game was the first who became the eventual champions. My students are quite talented with thier limited amount of experience. Watching them play, you would never have thought that they barely started to play basketball only two years ago. Just think what would happen if they played throughout elementary school. Also, our weakness is that we have a main rotation of 6 players while playing 4 games all in one day. But, there really wasn't too much one could do about that. The next day, I watched a couple of other sports, volleyball and softball. The girls' teams both came in second. So, I spent this one weekend watching many of my students pour their heart and souls out in competition. It's really nice to see them motivated nad active with such a goal in mind. Hopefully, they'll keep that up with everything else upcoming in tier lives.
The weekend after that, I attended a farewell party up in the mountains in a nearby town. At this time, many people in my program are leaving since its close to the end of the contract year. So, I drove up a mountain in my little box on wheels and partied with a bunch of foreigners. What can I say, they're an OK bunch of people. But not really the type I'd regularly hang around with. Luckily, I was able to meet some Japanese folks and we partied like crazy until I left in the middle of the night. Shout outs to my new Japanese homies Shinsuke and Sutomu.
THe following weekend, went to the city with Shinsuke to watch the Argentina vs. Germany soccer match. The match was pretty ugly, long, and boring going into penalty kicks. However, the stuff we did before and after was well worth the trip. Funny thing about Shinsuke was that he didn't bring enough cash with him. So what do you do if you don't have any cash, just look around. "見るだけ良い？ (Is it okay just to look?)," was the phrase of the night. We went to a restaraunt, an お釜 Okama bar and one of those high paying スナック Snack clubs and we didn't pay a cent. I thought it was just funny because for the latter two places, you pretty much pay an hourly service charge for just being there. So that was pretty funny. After the game, we went to another bar and drank until 5 a.m. It was a long, long night.
The weekend after that, I was asked to help guide a few Pilipino Government Workers/Professionals who were here in my area for some sort of Agricultural program sponsored by the Japanese and Pilipino Government. In the middle of all that madness, I was still able to find sometime Saturday night to kick it with my Japanese homies again, but this time at the little live house in the city called Sandinista. Some of my friends were having their last performance as a band and they did a fairly good job. Let's just say that they're not INVID ;p Met a bunch of folk (about time I started to meet people my age), and they all drank until they got emotional. It felt like the UCLA days when I was D.D. and I get much more enjoyment and amusement from the antics of my drunk friends rather than my own. Shinsuke and I actually lost Sutomu and found him about an hour later crying in front of a 7 and i-holdings (7-11 for all you Americans). So we dropped emotional when drunk Sutomu off and headed out with more Japanese people to grab some late night food. It was at this time that we all decided to have a bbq at my pad sometime soon. So, look forward to the updates when that event happens.
Okay, so the time had now spilled into Sunday morning and I had a bit of work to do the following day helping translate and guide the Pilipinos. About a couple hours later, the caretakers and the program participants went to tour around my town and check out Mt. Haguro. Spent the whole day doing translating and explainging the significance of this and that and had dinner with them and so forth.
On Monday, I attended the farewell dinner after my work. After that dinner, the program participants wanted me to show them a bit around town in which I did and treated them to some drinks. A nice group of people. They just felt really comfortable around me knowing that I was Pilipino and that I could understand and speak both Tagalog and Japanese. So, I spent time with them a bit into the night since I did have work the following day.
So that's what mostly happened these last 4 weekends or so.
As for this past weekend, I took the night bus to Tokyo which is quite the inexpensive, but long, way to get to Tokyo. So, the Saturday I arrived, I just spent the day with Jules helping her pack and accompany her to the festivals in her area. Apparently, she thought she was supposed to perform the Taiko drums, but there was some miscommunication (since she doesn't speak Japanese). So I kind of helped out with the translating to help her know what in the world was going on. After the few hours of the festivals, we hit up the Muse in 六本木 Roppongi. We then danced and partied until 5 a.m. I then came back, slept for about 3 hours and got ready to explore more of Tokyo with new friend 美絵 Mie. We went to 秋葉原 Akihabara for a couple hours where I was bale ot bargain for my new electronic dictionaary. After that, we wanted to go to a maid cafe since it was recommended, but the line was too long and it was much too hot to just stand around. So the next spot we hit up was my favorite place in Tokyo, お台場 Odaiba. Lucky for us, we came during a very cool time. The 海の光まつり Light of the Sea Festival. Here, they put a bunch of laterns on the shore and many boats with lights come to the bay and light up along with the Rainbow Bridge. A wonderful memory that I will hold close to me forever. Something I hope never to forget.
After that, we went to 池袋 Ikebukuro and met up with my other Japanese homegirls, Kayo and Keiko. We were all supposed to go drinking, but we were all pretty much tired at that point too.
The next day, I went to many of the same places again just to buy souveniers for certain people. Only thing different was having dinner in 新宿 Shinjuku with 美絵 at night before my bus ride back to 山形.
Lastly, I'm having such a great time here in Japan. I look forward to creating more memories with the friends that I've made.
Peace , <3 , =)