may flowers

Chiba City may not be labeling itself as 'the Flowery City' anymore (apparently this was the previous mayor's initiative), but it certainly is full of flowers! The bushes (or shrubs? I don't know much about plants) that line the roads on my way to work are almost entirely pink with blossoms, which is certainly a nice way to start the morning.

Anyway, the past couple of weekends have been pretty exciting, though due to general laziness I will mostly just summarize them below (-.-").

Since my last post I have:
- held my first English conversation class! It's meant for City Hall workers and to be honest my intention is not really to actually teach them much but rather to create an opportunity for them to talk to each other in English, but I think it started off really well. It seems like everybody is pretty willing to talk without too much prompting and speak pretty well (I did recruit self-assessed intermediate level people), which is fantastic. The class is only once every two weeks so the next one is tomorrow, which will hopefully go well too!
- gone to a get-together with my co-workers and everybody from the International Association, which was lots of fun! A lot of people I know complain whenever they have events (aka drinking parties) with their work, but I always look forward to it (maybe since we don't have them too often).
- participated in my first beach ultimate tournament! It took place at Kugenuma Beach, which is in the Shonan area in Kanagawa Prefecture (not too far from Yokohama). I've never played beach ultimate before and the first day was almost entirely rain, but (as expected) it was super fun! Running was certainly harder, but having less people on the (smaller) field made things easier and I even scored a goal (against a newbie team, but hey, I'll take it). We spent the night at a little place in Enoshima, which I didn't really get a good chance to wander around but was pretty cool. I rode the Enoshima Escar, which is literally just an escalator that you pay some money to ride up the mountain in (we were tired), which I had also just been talking about with Sato-san at work, haha. Anyway, I came home at the end of day two tired and sunburned but happy.
- gone to a friend's farewell concert and a different friend's musical performance in Tokyo. The farewell concert was great because it was basically a chance to swing dance to live music performed by a friend, and the musical was awesome because it was Into the Woods (the musical of my first and last stage performance in the 8th grade) with an Indian twist. The costumes and the music and dancing all had an Indian flair (though the lines were the same), which was pretty neat.
- gone camping in Otaki with Chiba AJET. Well, we called it camping even though we were just staying in log cabins with normal sleeping pads and blankets, but it was in the midst of nature and included s'mores, so we'll go with it. I think the combination of friends and nature and campfire (and alcohol) meant a good time was had by all. :)
- gone to the first Paraguay Festival in Chiba (hosted by Chiba City and the Paraguayan Embassy) and had fun hanging out with coworkers, watching performances (including a lady who danced with literally a stack of bottles on her head), and eating Paraguayan food (aka a lot of meat). Good times. :D
- survived another courtesy visit to the mayor, this time by Rice University. As always, I think I could have done better, but no big blunders so we'll go with it.
- been picked to be a Chiba-kun Ambassador, which means getting to take some trips sponsored by the prefecture in an effort to promote Chiba Prefecture to the world! Also lots more detailed blog posts on my travel blog (so add it to whatever you're using to replace Google Reader after July).

And that's about it! I have a lot more things lined up to look forward to in the next month or so, so I am sure I'll have plenty to write about.

chiba-kun ambassador!

Exciting news: I found out just the other day that I was selected to be a Chiba-kun Ambassador! Which basically means I'll be part of a group of people using blogs, social media, etc so that people in their home countries can learn about Chiba Prefecture. Because it's a pretty cool place, as far as I can say after being here for 10 months, and I think people should know that there's a lot more to Japan than Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima (though I also think these all do deserve their fame).

Anyway, this really doesn't change too much about the blog - except maybe giving me more exciting things to write about. As a Chiba-kun Ambassador I'll get to go on a few trips around the prefecture, with the first one coming up in June! One of the places we'll be going is the Kikkoman Soy Sauce Museum in Noda, which is actually pretty cool because the group of students who visited the Mayor today got to go there and I had just been thinking about how I wished I could have gone, too. Plus I've heard that if you go on a tour you get a free bottle of soy sauce, which is always a plus!

So I guess I'll find out if it lives up to expectations next month, but I plan to keep posting in between as well. There's a new exhibit at the Chiba City Museum of Art, which I feel like I'm practically a regular visitor to now, which has apparently been getting some attention so I'll be checking it out sometime soon. Until then! :)

golden week of dance~

So I decided to spend my first Golden Week in Japan dancing, and I think I did this very successfully! Starting on Wednesday, I danced every night (in one way or another) up until Sunday night, which also means the first four days of May were lots of fun - a good sign for the rest of the month to come!

My Golden Week of dance:
- Wednesday: salsa in Chiba
- Thursday: west coast swing in Omotesando
- Friday: Dance Central on the Xbox chez my friend Cory (which I totally think counts, especially since I've never played it before and it was super fun)
- Saturday: lindy hop at two separate Mood for Swing Events in Tokyo, essentially from early evening to early morning
- Sunday: west coast swing in Shinjuku

Basically lots of trips to and from Tokyo to do lots of dancing, which both my feet and my wallet probably don't appreciate too much, but it was really just so much fun. I hadn't planned on staying out all night Saturday since I was meeting friends Sunday morning, but I couldn't resist and it was well worth it. Danced a lot (a lot a lot), met new people, all that good stuff.

Besides dancing, I also went to a Cinco de Mayo celebration in Tokyo (so I guess I also did some salsa on Saturday, now that I think about it) and to one of Japan's biggest flea markets at Makuhari Messe (written about in more detail here), both of which involved lots of people and eating some yummy food. :D

All in all, I'd say it was an excellent first Golden Week. :)

makuhari dokidoki flea market

This Sunday, a few friends and I went to the Makuhari Doki-Doki Flea Market, one of the biggest flea markets in Japan! I'm a big fan of recycle shops and flea markets and anything that involves reusing things instead of throwing them away, so I was excited for this. :D

Sunday was the last day of the market and it opened at 10, so I definitely did not expect to see the giant lines of people waiting to get it when I got there around 9:30. I wonder if there are people who look forward to this every year and get up extra early to get a head start on shopping - actually, I'm sure there are. Evidently, 'one of Japan's biggest flea markets' was no joke - it took up Makuhari Messe's exhibition halls 1-8, which is a looottt of space (to give an idea, I'm pretty sure the time I went to go see a Noh performance there, it only took up one exhibition hall).

I think this is roughly 1.5 exhibition halls' worth of space?

That said, there was plenty of stuff to fill up the space with! There were all sorts of booths selling all manner of things (clothes, household goods, typical flea market stuff), but also a handmade art section (ceramics, artwork, arts & crafts - somebody was selling little shoes made out of peanuts!), cars, a stage sponsored by bayfm78 (a radio station in Chiba) with performances, and lots of food stalls all around! I had some Thai chicken and also gelato from 'Samurai Gelato' (where all the staff had cowboy hats), which was all very tasty.

We were at the flea market for probably about three hours or so, and it took us almost all that time just to walk around through everything! I thought about buying a gigantic Pikachu pillow but decided I'd go back for it later, which (as I suppose any seasoned flea market shopper knows), this was not a good choice because when I went back it was gone (and actually I saw the people who bought it walking around with it later, haha). Ah well. I did end up with a Pooh-bear suit though (don't ask).

It was so crowded when we left we all had to stop and take pictures.

All in all, it was really cool and I'm glad I went! I'll probably go back next year, too - well worth the 600-yen admission fee, I think. :D

triathlons and more

And April ended in a flash! (This feels like when it's time to publish my monthly newsletter and suddenly I realize the month is almost over so I have to rush and write it super quickly.) And once again I will resort to the bullet-point summary (which is probably all you really want to bother to read anyway). So for the past few weeks, I have:

 - gone to Ishigaki Island to volunteer for a triathlon! Read about it in detail here and here (split in two posts because a week-long trip means lots of things to write about). It was a super fun and great experience, made even better by the fact that I could use 代休 (time off taken to make up for overtime) for all six days of work I missed, woo.
- successfully been on standby to interpret for a courtesy visit to the mayor by high school exchange students, where I was only needed once, thankfully
- held another English story time at the library, where I tried to teach them the Itsy Bitsy Spider (to varying degrees of success)
- had my first trip to the dentist in Japan (not at all exciting, but parents, now you know I am properly taking care of myself)
- had dinner with my friend at a really cute cafe within biking distance from my apartment called Mother Moon! Really glad to have made this discovery
- met up with another friend I haven't seen in a while for coffee, before heading to ladies' night with some other Chiba JETs, which was super fun
- had dinner with my linguistics professor, who happened to be in Japan on business this week! It was really great to see him again and hear about everything going on at Carleton. :D
- played in a frisbee tournament and sunburned my eyelids (apparently this is possible)! We may have only scored 7 points over the course of 5 games and 2 days, but hey, it was fun. :)

And that's the end of April in a nutshell! Golden Week means that this Friday and next Monday are both holidays (as are Saturday and Sunday, not that it means much), and while I'm not traveling anywhere or anything I still think it'll be a good time. :)

ishigaki, part two~

Okay, so picking up where I left off: Saturday, or day 5! Almost all the interpreting volunteers had the day off, so a few of us started out by visiting Taketomi Island, which is only about 10 minutes away by boat. This was also the first day with sunny weather, which was amazing! We spent a lot of time marveling at how much difference the sun made. :)

Since the island isn't very big, we decided to rent bikes, which I think is pretty common. Our first destination was Kaiji Beach, which is known for its star sand! It looks like stars or suns, and to be fair it isn't actually sand, but rather the shells of tiny crustaceans - but it still looks really cool. Naturally the first thing we all did was scoop up some sand to try and find some star bits, with varying degrees of success. Definitely super cool. Then we went to Kondoi Beach, which was gorgeous with surprisingly warm water (though only one of us was smart enough to bring a swimsuit) and then we had the famed soki soba for lunch, which is basically noodles with ribs and spectacularly tasty. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around, eating dragonfruit popsicles and seeing sights like Nagomi Tower, which looks over the whole tiny traditional village.

Star sand!

Water buffalo here too!

Nagomi Tower - climbing up was an adventure!

When we got back, plans were made for us to go see the fireflies at Banna Park, which is one of the sights the mayor recommended to us at our courtesy visit. At first we tried to rent a car but instead the owners of the rental place got a taxi for us at a good deal, with the driver even agreeing to guide us all the way to exactly where the fireflies were (and a good thing too, because we probably wouldn't have found it otherwise). Anyway, it was amazing! There were tons and tons of fireflies everywhere, twinkling like Christmas lights! I've never seen so many fireflies at once before, or flashing so often, either. I didn't even try to take pictures because I knew it wouldn't turn out, but just take my word for it - it was breathtaking. Then we went back and joined some more JET volunteers for food and drinks at an izakaya with performances of Okinawan music!

The next day was the big day: the Sunday of the triathlons! I didn't get there for the start of the Ishigaki Island triathlon, but I did get to see the first person who finished, and also cheer on all the rest. It was super cute to see people run across the finish line with their families or teammates (for those doing it as a relay), especially when they included babies! I did get to see the start of the women's World Cup race, though this was also when it started to rain so I have no pictures whatsoever. I did see the end of both the men and women's races though, and it was pretty cool to realize that these were world-class athletes, in a qualifying race for the Olympics! Super impressive. Then in the evening, there was the award party, which was a chance for the citizens and athletes and volunteers to hang out while eating food from stalls like the ones they have at festivals. Good times.

The first amateur finisher!

Monday morning was spent assisting some athletes with check-out at the hotel and making sure they all got on the right shuttle to the airport (which they did). Then my host parents took us to a few places around the island, starting with the marine research center where my host dad used to work, where they had lots and lots of sea turtles! We got to see them in their tanks (including one that was separated from the rest because it was on a diet and another one that apparently had the opposite problem) and I even held a little one! Then we went to the Hirakubo Lighthouse, at the northernmost point of the island, which had the most spectacular view. I couldn't get over how gorgeous the ocean was, with its many different shades of blue, and eating chinsuko (a famous Okinawan treat) ice cream there was pretty much perfect.

Apparently when they are resting they put their fins on their backs!

Northernmost point of Ishigaki Island!

The last evening consisted of dinner and karaoke with some other JETs, my host sister and her friend, and more, which was a great way to wrap up the end of the trip. The next day was pretty much just spent going home, but not before my host parents let us each pick a bowl they had made to take home with us! I definitely think staying with a host family was one of the best parts of what was a really awesome trip. I met new people, saw new places, and experienced so many new things. Hopefully I'll be back to Ishigaki someday!

ishigaki triathlons, part one!

So two weeks ago, I boarded my first (Japanese) domestic flight and headed off to Ishigaki, Okinawa! I went there as a volunteer interpreter for the not one, but two triathlons that were happening there that weekend: the Ishigaki Island Triathlon and the Ishigaki ITU Triathlon World Cup. It was my first time going to Okinawa (though hopefully not my last) and my second time volunteering at a triathlon (which I only remembered after I got there, haha. Oops) and basically a super fun time. :D (I'm also splitting the post into two parts because I think otherwise it will be ridiculously long.)

The first day was mostly spent traveling and then meeting my host family and fellow JET volunteer who was also staying with them. It turns out my host sister lived in Georgia for 9 years, which is a crazy coincidence because she was also in a place super close to my house, my host parents do ceramics, just like my mom, and my fellow JET house buddy was somebody I met at our mid-year conference! What a small world.

Ishigaki's brand new airport!

The next day we had our volunteer training with the resident Ishigaki CIR and a courtesy visit to the mayor! It was kind of cool to be on the guest side rather than the interpreting end, though it was also very short. Then all the (visiting) interpreting volunteers went out for yakiniku (of the famed Ishigaki beef) - we were all JETs from basically all over Japan, so it was great to meet everybody and get to know them a little better. The afternoon was just spent wandering around Ishigaki City, where we discovered the Shinei Park World Peace Bell and learned that Taiwan is only 270km away, among other things. I thought it was amazing how different it felt to be in Okinawa though - you could definitely tell that we were on an island (even though the weather was not ideal). And then I went to the airport to welcome some triathletes from South Africa!

The World Peace Bell

I had all of Wednesday free, so a couple of volunteers and I went to the nearby Iriomote Island! It's the only Yaeyama Islands I'd heard of besides Ishigaki before coming, because it's the home of the Iriomote cat, which is a wild cat (not much bigger than a housecat) that's only found there. Apparently there are less than a hundred of them left and some people live there their whole lives without seeing one, though our bus guide had seen them 5 times! Anyway, our day in Iriomote consisted of a short cruise around the mangroves and a short ride across to Yubu Island via water buffalo (ours was named Yumi-chan), where we had lunch and saw things like a butterfly house. And then we went back to Ishigaki for a welcome party with all the interpreting volunteers, including Ishigaki residents!

An Iriomote cat!

A very cool tree

Yumi-chan!

The next morning was free for me too, so I took the opportunity to have my first scuba diving experience! The weather wasn't the greatest (cloudy and not quite warm) and the water was a little cold even with a wetsuit, but it was definitely worth it. After stopping to snorkel a little, it was time to try scuba diving! I'd never done it before so I was a little nervous (especially since I'd always thought you needed to go through proper training before scuba diving), but they explained everything clearly and I didn't run into any problems (other than occasionally tipping over from the weight of the tank being imbalanced), which was awesome. We saw a bunch of fish and also a group of cuttlefish (I think), which was really cool.

Trying hard to breathe properly

Then I went back to Ishigaki City Hall to prep for my next volunteer job: interpreting at the World Cup welcome party! The three of us were originally supposed to use the time to translate prepared speeches, but we found out that one of them didn't have a written copy, and because one of the other volunteers wasn't a native English speaker and the other had never interpreted before, I agreed to do it on-the-fly (which is always terrifying). But it actually went pretty well (he kept it short and sweet), so I got to enjoy just being at the welcome party. I didn't actually talk to any of the athletes, but I watched some performances of traditional dances/music by local high schoolers and ate some yummy food!

And that's all I'll recount for now - stay tuned for part two (hopefully shortly)! :)