Merry Xmas and Happy New Year! / 謹賀新年！

Going to make this a short and simple post: Merry Xmas and Happy New Year everybody. Take care of yourself and best wishes for the new year.

P.S. The above picture is one of a few xmas cards I received from students at my junior high school today. It says, "Dear Johnson, Merry Christmas!! Santa is coming soon. Enjoy your Christmas." The little snowman, cat and tree actually pop-up from the card. Absolutely amazing. ありがとう！　

みな様、気をつけて！　クリスマスおめでとう！　謹賀新年！　

来年また〜ね！
ジョンソン
Johnson

ALT Office Xmas Party

Welp, it's that time of the year where everybody gets together for the last time as a "family" to say, 'Merry Xmas' and 'Happy New Year!'. That's right, I'm talking about the annual Xmas Office Party!

The ALTs in my office decided we needed to keep up the office party tradition back home (Re: Thanksgiving) by holding our own little ALT Xmas Party. At first the girls had a little bit of trouble trying to get us a table at the restaurant (バカ外人), so Jeremy took the lead, walked right up to the cute (and blushing!) Japanese hostess, and got us a table in about 20 minutes. (”あのう、すみません。六人、お願いします。") It was flawless Japanese. How could the hostess _not_ give us a table after that?

Anyways, the restaurant came highly recommended by Jeremy and Jackie -- it did not disappoint. It was an Italian buffet-style restaurant with an all-you-can-drink bar (both alcoholic and non). The food was good, conversation was good (although obnoxious by Japanese standards) and the gifts were good! I managed to snag a bottle of Baileys and some Lindt Chocolate.. although a couple of the other gifts were a little bit more, ahem, interesting.

Starting from the left going clockwise is: Jackie (who doesn't exactly work in the same office as us but is Jeremy's wife so, there she is!); Shannon (yup, I think the picture says it all -- that's Shannon.. doesn't she look constipated or something?); Marika (I made her standup for the picture because I wanted a shot of the tinsel she wore as a belt to the party.. haha); Marika's brother (he's not an ALT.. he had just flown in from Scotland the other day); and Jeremy (he's 100% American -- no jokes required). Missing from the picture is James (he had already flown back to the UK for vacation); and Jamie (who was feeling extremely ill -- on the brink of death I think -- and couldn't make it.. we even said grace in her honour).

Thanks for the great, funny, interesting, instructive, profound, whiney, honest, jaded, humble, amusing, hilarious, insightful, cynical, sarcastic, idiotic, arrogant but, most of all, once-in-a-lifetime 5 months. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Self-Introduction / 自己紹介

"Hello! Good Morning! I pause for a few moments so the students can repeat the phrase. My name is Jooohnson. Pause some more. One more time! Jooohnsooon. Pauses. I am from Caaaanada. With a heavily nasalized emphasis on the first 'a'. Caaaanada! Pauses. One more time! Caaaanada!"

Whups, wrong self-introduction. The above is the opening-line of my self-introduction to students that I have done roughly 40 times so far. Maybe more. And I am _still_ not done self-introducing myself to all the students.. I still have three more classes to go before I can finally stop. I wish I could just tell the kids and administration, "Hey, I'm not that interesting! I don't need to do a self-introduction!" But then that would require me to speak Japanese -- which, even though I've been here 5 months -- still truly sucks.

Anyways, in my haste to construct a blog (well, actually, I should say, in my haste to jump onto the let's-make-a-blog-about-living-in-Japan bandwagon) I neglected to write anything about myself so, here is a little self-introduction!

My name is Johnson. Yes, you heard right, that's my first name, Johnson (that's for white people). Not Jason or Jackson (that's for Japanese people). Not Johnston (for Scottish people, apparently). Or any other permutation.

I grew up in the capital of Canada, Toronto (haha, that's for the Americans and Western Canadians). I went to the University of Western Ontario for the first 2 years of my post-secondary school education (which, looking back, was one big party). Then, I decided I needed to go to a real university and enrolled into the University of Toronto. I had absoblutly no idea what I wanted to major in until I started studying International Relations and Political Theory.. Ta-da, done.

Having applied for the JET Programme in the middle of November, I received notification in early April that I got in -- I was going to Japan. So, after completion of my degree at the end of April, I had a solid plan for the next year or so. I arrived in Japan at the beginning of August and, well, you've been following the rest!

I am employed by the Fukuoka Prefectual Compulsory Board of Education (Jimusho for you other JETs) as an ALT (although sometimes I wonder if the title is a little bit of a misnomer as occasionally I find myself doing a little bit more than just "assisting" and sometimes a little less than "teaching"). I go to 5 different elementary schools and 1 base junior high school. All the schools are in fairly rural locations (at least I would consider them rural) so, I am pretty much the only foreigner (although, I've been told, I blend in well!) that these kids come into contact with. Although initially I was a little bit bummed I wasn't placed somewhere closer to the city-proper, the small-town feel and atmosphere is growing on me. That being said, I still find myself in the city doing something almost every weekend. It's called balance, okay?

Anyways, that's it .. any questions?

Makin' Mochi!

It's 9:00. In the morning. On a Sunday. And as I sit on the subway, half-asleep, I wonder to myself, what the hell am I doing going to my Japanese language class to make "mochi". I say to myself, "Oh, right .. to get some culture out of this experience." Riiiiiiight.

Actually, the whole event turned out to be quite an interesting experience. For those unfamiliar with what 'mochi' is, it is a soft, chewy Japanese food product (I actually have no idea what food-category it falls under) made from glutinous, sticky rice. The process of making mochi involves first the washing and soaking of a particular rice grain. Then, one steams the rice for approximately 40 minutes under a live fire. This is where the fun begins. After the steaming-process, you put the hot, steamed rice into a stone dish and pound it over and over until you reach the desired stickiness. And that's how you make mochi (in a nutshell)!

On that day we made 3 types of popular mochi: The first, 'kinako', was basically mochi garnished with Japanese white radish (daikon). This was my least favourite of the three we made. The white radish dressing was rather tart and, truth be told, I'm not a big fan of daikon anyways.

The second type of mochi we made was 'taikonmochi' which was, by far, my favourite one. It is mochi sprinkled with a sweet, yellow powdery substance. It tasted even better while the mochi was warm.

The last type of mochi we made was 'anko' mochi which is probably the most traditional/familiar type of mochi to most folks. It is the mochi with the sweet, red bean paste in the middle. You know, the type they sell in Daizaifu (that ones' for you Fukuoka-JETs!).

Anyhow, overall I did have a good time. It was fun to actually be doing something 'Japanesey' for a change -- sometimes living in Japan but surrounded by the foreign community all the time tends to make one forget that you _are_ in Japan. When in Rome...

Xmas Stuff

I originally wasn't going to post anything tonight but boredom got the best of me so, here is another post! I am getting pretty regular, eh?!

Anyhow, I was going through my emails today and lately I have been getting emails from my friends back home concerning the Xmas Eve Eve Bash. For those unfamiliar with this annual event (that would be most of you), basically we started a Xmas tradition among our high school classmates to hold an annual Xmas party on the 23rd of December (hence Eve Eve). On the "committee" for this annual event has been my long-time friend (longest I think!) Ed, and person-I-see-once-a-year-but-who-is-soon-to-be-married (congratulations again!) Tammy. Believe it or not fellow JETs, the abbreviation we came up to call ourselves was: J.E.T. Coincidence? Perhaps!

Anyways, the event is in its 9th year and just by reading the emails, it looks like its shaping up to be another great party! I do miss not being able to help out and whatnot (I mean, who's going to do the organizing and scheduling.. that was _my_ forte!) but I'm sure everything will work out. Just avoid the $1.00 coloured light-bulbs, okay? :)

Hmm, I'm not quite sure where this post is going so, looking at the time, I think I will stop. But, I just thought I'd share that little Xmas story .. well, that and I stumbled upon the above picture while going through my computer. That's me about 3-5 years ago getting ready to cook the 25 pound turkey we bought for that year. It was ENORMOUS -- but so good. I want turkey.

Interesting fact: Japanese people eat KFC for Xmas -- in fact, it is their busiest day of the year! People usually book weeks in advance for a special "Xmas Bucket"!

Not-so-recent Trip to Kokura/Kitakyushu

After posting 2 pictures of Canal City 2.0 in Kokura, I thought it would probably be a good idea to talk a little about my trip to Kitakyushu.

Well, there isn't really that much to say except Kokura is a fairly ugly city. It's an industrial town with lots of factories, steel mills, refineries, etc. -- sort of like Hamilton in Ontario (Canada). That being said, I did have a good time! I went to my first Japanese castle (it was small but pretty neat, nonetheless), walked along the city 'boardwalk', tried 一蘭 ramen for the first time, and got to see another part of Japan (something I will probably never get tired of).

Coincidently, I was only going to go to Kokura with my friend Hannah who is also a JET but ended up getting the grand tour of the city with a couple of Japanese friends (thank you Yoshi & Yukiko).

Lastly, you might think I have some sort of fascination with Canal City 2.0 since I've put up like 3 pictures of it so far. I have to admit that it _does_ stand out in comparison to most of the malls I've been to in North America. It looks like a futuristic Japanese apartment-complex or something; indeed, I think the one in Kokura looks more interesting (from the outside) than the one in Fukuoka. Below is a comparison, which one do you think looks better? To be fair, the picture of Canal City 1.0 isn't that great -- but who said I was going for objectivity? Also, anybody know how to place pictures side-by-side? :)

Winter

So, after spending the past few hours chatting I decided I should really put _something_ worth reading about. So, here it is: The Only Good Thing About Winter in Japan..

.. is I don't get anymore spiders that look like that running around in my jutaku. Also, the mukade's (poisonous millipedes) seemed to have disappeared for now, too. That's a relief.. after that one night we were watching a movie at Phil's place and that mukade brushed my leg. I love pesticide.

Anyways, so winter is finally here and as others have commented, our jutaku's aren't exactly the coziest places on Earth. First, they are made out of cement. Period. 0 insulation (except maybe asbestos... ). My friend Jamie who works in the same office as me calls our jutaku's an Ice box. I think so, too.

Do most Japanese people live like this? I'm not sure. I'm sure people in rural Japan live like us -- but the vast majority of urban dwellers probably have central heating and whatnot. So why do they put us in cement boxes like this? I guess it's to experience the "real" Japan .. as it was 50 years ago. Not that I'm complaining (not yet anyways, the coldest season has yet to arrive). On the plus-side, our rent is super-cheap so, I guess the money we save on rent we can put towards electricity and gas bills to heat up our cold jutaku's that are super-cheap so, I guess the money we save on rent we can put towards electricity and gas bills to heat up our cold jutaku's that are super-cheap so, I guess the money we save on rent we can put towards electricity and gas bills to heat up our cold jutaku's.. etc.

Oh, on a final note: I finally did manage to catch that spider. Well, to be honest, Phil (my neighbour upstairs) did. We engaged the enemy using a plethora of sophisticated weapons (pots, pans, pesticides, traps) but in the end, Phil ended up killing the spider with his ... shoe. Its black guts splattered all over my window and curtains (which are STILL stained). It was awesome.

Weird.

Here we go! Another entry!

Kokura

My trip to Kokura. I call this Canal City 2.0. Worst post ever.

Underconstruction.

I've finally decided to start a blog about my time in Japan (seems like the thing to do!).. I have been pretty busy but will start posting as soon as I have time!