Life as Usual (for now)

Now that the blog is (more or less) caught up with recent events, I thought I'd give you all a post about exactly what it is I do all day when I'm NOT sightseeing. I promise I'll go back to the more diverse posts after this one. My work week begins on Tuesday because JAFCO classes tend to meet outside of normal working hours, so my bosses decided that Monday would be their one day off a week. Also, University of Phoenix starts all their classes on Tuesdays, so Monday is the last day of the week there, too. As a result, Tuesday is the new Monday. So that's where I'll start.
On Tuesdays, I try to get up early enough to do some exercise at home before my first class of the week. Since class begins at 10:30, this means waking up by about 7:30. (For me, that's on the early side.) After exercise (if I get up), I get showered and dressed and then open up our kitchen table and add the leaves so that it will hold six or seven people. My Tuesday morning class is a private class consisting of six women who have been taking English together for probably about as long as I've been alive. They come over, I give them tea and they talk. I help with vocabulary and grammar issues. After an hour, they pay me. It's a nice gig. :-)
After class, I generally eat lunch, then head over to base to run errands. Tuesday is a good day for grocery shopping because the store on base is closed on Wednesday, so if you need something, you better get it ahead of time. My next appointment is 2:30 to 3:30 at the JAFCO central classroom where I teach a (much more intense) adult class. JAFCO's curriculum focuses on basics in pronunciation and vocabulary, so teaching these classes involves a lot of repeating words that start with F, L, R, Th, V or W with extremely exagerated pronunciation. Then I go home and try to get some University work done. Since Tuesday is the first day of the school week, I try to do the reading for the week, so I can be prepared to discuss for the rest of the week. Depending on the length of the chapters, I generally get through most of it. Tuesday evenings, I go to Japanese class from 6:00-7:30. As a result, I tend to make and eat dinner early. I generally come home from that wiped out, and if Zack is home we watch some TV until it's bedtime.
Wednesday morning is much less rushed, so I get up and generally try to go to the gym. (It's free on base, so why not?) When I get home, I go straight into school work. Usually Wednesday I write up my required discussion responses so that I don't have to worry about them later. My first actual appointment for the day is at 4:00 when I teach another JAFCO class at the central classroom. This one's a family class which means more children's songs and moving around, but the curriculum is essentially the same. Then I'm home again for dinner time and at 8:00, I go back to the classroom for an adult class.
Thursdays depend on the week. Twice a month I have the option of going to an event for either ILC or OSC. The rest of the time, I go to yoga at 11:00, so I spend the morning on school work, which at this point in the week generally consists of reading what other students have posted, responding, and researching whatever project will be due on Monday. At 3:00, I have a JAFCO adult class at my house. To get ready for that, I have to put a plastic green cover over my carpet (my bosses think it makes the room more cheerful) and get out little tables and the various visual aids that live at my house. I also have to get a CD ready to play the songs we listen to. After that class, I've got two hours to make and eat dinner before my 6:00 choir practice which runs either until 7:00 or 7:30 depending on how many people show up (usually, it's just me and may be one other person, so we finish quickly). When that's done, I head back to the JAFCO central classroom for another adult class at 8:00.
Friday morning I'm up bright an early to go to Nagasaki Junior College to teach my childcare English class from 9:00-10:30. This class is conversation based, so we do a lot of practicing using vocabulary that might come in handy when the students become preschool teachers or day care helpers. I always leave that place with a smile on my face. It's a great job. After that, the day is mine. I run errands on base or go home and work on school stuff. It's a very easy day for me. I like it when Zack's home these evenings because we generally have some time to play video games.
Saturday, on the other hand, is non-stop. I have my first JAFCO family class at my house at 11:00. After that, I get an hour to eat some lunch and make it to the central classroom for my 1:00 family class. I come home, try to spend some time with Zack (if he's around), and then head back to the central class at 6:00 for another class. When it's over, it makes sense to just hang around because my next adult class starts there at 8:00.
Sunday morning is church and then I get the day to finish up my University assignments. My only class for the day is at 8:00 pm. Then Monday is my day off. I got to the gym for a total body workout class and then yoga. Then I finish whatever didn't get done over the course of the week. And before I know it, it's Tuesday again!
Of course, Zack's schedule changes every day and every week and sometimes he's not home for months, but that's my general routine. JAFCO is still recruiting new students, so the goal is to have me working 40 hours a week for them by the end of July, but I have trouble imagining that. We'll see what happens.

The Golden Temple

So after Gion Cho, we got into a taxi that took us to the other side of town, to the Golden Temple. I don't have my nifty historical information in front of me (sorry), but short version of the story is that a very important guy in Japanese history came here to retire, and buit this place and then covered it in gold as a retirement home of sorts. Since then, it's been repainted to make it five times shinier than when it was originally built. Here it is:

The Golden Temple was probably the most crowded place we visited in Kyoto. It certainly felt like there were more people there than elsewhere. The result is pictures like this:

Visitors aren't actually allowed inside the building (and why would you want to go in anyway? The pretty part is outside), but the grounds around the temple are quite lovely as well.

The grounds of the temple are also home to a very old tea house. It's not currently in use, but it is very pretty, too:

By the time we finished at the Golden Temple, it was getting to be mid-afternoon and we were a little tired of sight seeing, so we went on back to the hotel for a quick rest before dinner. We spent the evening looking through a Japanese department store and finding dinner. My big accomplishment for this trip: the guy at the restaurant we ate at for dinner that night assumed we wouldn't need English menus based on my Japanese. I'm terribly proud!

The next morning, we took our time getting up and to the train station, and by the next afternoon we were back in Sasebo. It was a quick trip, but a good one.

The other Gion Cho

After our visit to Kiyomizu, our sightseeing walk took a less formal turn. Our next point of interest was a section of town known for the fact that Geishas often perform there. This area is known as Gion, just like my neighborhood in Sasebo. (Presumably, the name means something, but I don't know what.) Since we weren't looking for a specific place, per se, this involved just kind of strolling in a general direction until we were satisfied. Here's what we saw:

And finally, we arrived in Gion itself:

Having seen this famous area, and having spent most of the day walking, we decided it was time to hire a taxi and see the other main attraction of Kyoto: the Golden temple. So we were off again...

Kyoto Sightseeing Part 2

So, where were we? Right. On our way to Kiyomizu. The name of this shrine means clear water, I believe. It's perched up on the top of a hill overlooking the valley and the city of Kyoto. In the grand tradition of touristy spots everywhere, the streets approaching it were lined with shop after shop selling anything and everything that might appear vaguely Japanese. This made the walk up much more interesting. Here's some of what we saw:

Finally we got to the top of the hill and entered into the shrine area:

As usual, there were several places to wash your hands and mouth if you were going to pray:

And here's a view of one of the temple buildings:

One famous feature of Kiyomizu is a shrine devoted to "love affairs". Love affairs means all things related to love, in Japanese terms. Outside this shrine are two rocks, and if you can successfully get from one to the other with your eyes closed, then you're supposed to have good luck in love for the next year. Here's one girl attempting to make it the last few feet.

The general trend there seemed to be that if you wanted to try, you got a good friend to direct you to keep you from bumping into the other people or from falling down the stairs that were a few feet from the rock on the other side. It was fun to watch.
But probably the best thing about this temple was the view:

So having had a nice look around, we set off down another shop-lined street in search of some lunch and something interesting to see... More to come...

Kyoto Sightseeing Part One

While Mom and Dad were here, we took a trip to Kyoto. This gave me the chance to ride the bullet train for the first time, which was pretty cool, and of course there was the joy of seeing Kyoto. We stayed in a Japanese style hotel that was within walking distance of a lot of the sights, so on our first morning there, we set off for a walking tour.

First stop was a Budhist temple devoted to statues of various gods. It's one of the longest buildings in Japan. Inside, of course, there was no pictures allowed inside where all the statues are, but outside looked like this.

From there we went to the home of a famous potter, which was supposed to be a good example of a traditional Japanese home. Unfortunately, it's tucked away in the middle of an otherwise un-touristy neighborhood and really hard to find. Fortunately, it's in Japan, so we asked some nice lady on the street how close we were, and she literally walked us there.

The first interesting feature of the house was the picture policy. I asked the lady at the front desk if I could take pictures. She asked me to sign in, giving my name, address, and purpose (hobby) and then I was allowed to snap away. It was worth the effort.
Here's the main central room:

Here's one of the kilns out back:

And here's the other kiln:

The house was incredibly beautiful and very Japanese:

From there, we headed on to find a shrine that was recommended to us by pretty much everyone we talked to before we went: Kiyomizu. Stay tuned.

Kashima Shrine

While my parents were here, we took advantage of one of the wonderful MWR trips offered on base. This one was to Kashima Shrine. It was a short drive and when the bus parked, what we saw was this:

Since the tour guide was not especially talkative, we were a little worried at first that the Tori Gate was it. It seemed a long way to come, even if it was nice. But we meandered down the road, looking at the various shops along the way, and before long we stumbled upon the shrine itself, which turned out to be especially beautiful with the cherry blossoms in full view. Here it is:

When we had walked around enough to be satisfied with the view, we were carted off for lunch and then a tour of a sake mill. Sorry about the lack of pictures of that, but this was much prettier. :-) More to come later...

Hanami!

One of the best features of spring in Japan is the cherry blossoms. To celebrate this delightful asspect of spring, the Japanese celebrate by having Hanami parties. Hana means flower, Mi is to look/see/watch. So Hanami is a flower viewing party. Hanami parties generally involve not only lovely blossoms, but food and alcohol. So they're basically picnics. JAFCO, the new company that I work for, threw a Hanami party while my folks were here, so we all got together and went. The day of the party turned out to be cold, but the blossoms were still incredible. Here we are eating:

After everyone was done eating, there were a few special presentations by various talented people. The gentleman in this picture is blackbelt in several martial arts. He demonstrated some moves with lots of different weapons while the lady in the picture did marvelous impromptu translations.

Then a woman whose mother teaches tea ceremony walked us through that process so that we could try the matcha (yummy!) and get a rough idea of how that works:

And of course the cherry blossoms were everywhere, so Zack and I took a few of our annual cherry blossom pictures. Here's the group picture for the year:

So a good time was had by all.