Forest Fires in December

I’ve been at Michimoto-san’s house for about three weeks now. I think I am properly moved in based on the condition of my room. It definitely looks like I let a monkey organize for me. I suppose the next step for completely settling in is learning how to organize it. I’ll get on that in the next three months or so…

The last two weeks have been very busy! Mostly with school, that is. There has been no club activities after school because everyone in preparing for tests, so I’ve been on my own for the evenings. Even so, it’s a wacky schedule! Transportation has become a big part of everyday. I spent at least 2 hours in transit everyday. By the time I move to my next family(at the rate of 5 school days a week), I will have spent a total of one hundred and twenty hours or five days walking, sitting in a car, or riding the train. I don’t mind it at all. It’s a great time just watching and looking at everything. I sometimes listen to music, but I’ve found that it’s so quiet out that it’s nice to just walk in the silence.

The other night I was walking home from aikido at nine at night with my headphones on. It was completely dark and I realized that there was no background noise behind the music I was listening too. When I took off my headphones, the only noise I could hear was my footsteps. It was incredible! Even with the train tracks not one hundred feet away and trains zipping back and forth the silence was incredible. Japan is one of the most populated places I’ve ever been and to have that paired with being one the quietest is very impressive.

Speaking of aikido, I’ve now started to attend more classes. I was originally going to two children’s classes on Wednesdays and Fridays and then an adult class on Saturdays. I’ve started to go to adult classes that are right after the children’s classes on Wednesdays and Fridays, so now I am doing about six hours of aikido a week.

Last week, a Frenchman named Jean was visiting the Kawachinagano aikido dojo. It was really great to be able to be taught in English, but it’s more fun when you don’t understand anything! We talked a lot about aikido and I learned that he comes to Japan every once in a while to practice aikido. The style of aikido that we practice is called daito-ryu aikijujutsu and is not as common as what is known as just aikido. Both aikido and aikijujutsu are from the ancient form of daito-ryu, as are many such branches of self-defense martial-arts in Japan. Aikijujutsu has managed to stick more closely to the original form of daito-ryu than other branches. It is fascinating learning about all of the history of daito-ryu through the classes I go to!

Last Saturday, I went with the members of the adult class out for a small party at a restaurant after aikido practice. It was really great to spend more time with them. All of them are very fun and excited to share their knowledge of aikido with me. The dinner was delicious! The best way to describe it is that it was a stew that you made yourself at the table over gas burners. Common foods that go into the stew are mushrooms, tofu, beef, oysters, clear noodles, and udon. There was also sashimi (raw fish) as an appetizer.

I was able to do a little bit of translation for Jean during aikido and dinner! It was very exciting to be able to do that!

Last Friday, I went a Rotary sponsored event at the local concert hall. There was a performance by a local youth choir. Their focus was on musicals, so they performed a couple pieces from Japanese musicals and finished with “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music. The next performance was a lion dance by two middle school boys. They dance to the music of taiko drums, bamboo flutes, and small cymbals. It was very impressive! A lot of the dance was about flexibility and strength. The two boys took turns picking each other up and then switching places without setting each other down. I don’t really know how they did it or if that sentence even makes sense, but that’s what they did!

After the Rotary event, I went out for dinner with Gigi and Baba. They treated me to Shabu-Shabu (Hot Pot) where you have a bowl of boiling water in the center of the table on a gas burner. Then, meat and vegetables are dropped in one at a time and cooked. Then they are dropped in sauces and eaten. It was very delicious! I love seeing Gigi and Baba because we have a lot of fun together! I’m happy that they are able to find time to spend with me even though I am not staying at their house anymore.

On Sunday, Michimoto-san and I walked up the road that runs past the house to look at the colors of the trees. It was a beautiful day and sun made the leaves absolutely glow!

At the end of the road was Enmeji Temple. The temple was beautiful with the bright colors.

We spent a little time there and then climbed up the small mountain next to it to get to a park. So pretty! We get the autumn colors in Minnesota, but they pass really quickly. Here in Japan, they are more gradual. Right now it is December and there are still trees that are green! It seems that the process is spread out over the course of a couple months. I have never seen such bright orange and red colors on trees before! If you had a campfire next to the trees, the trees would have been brighter!

When we got home, we went to a concert by the Kawachinagano Blue Winds band. It was really fun hearing them! They played a couple classical-style band pieces and then did some covers of pop songs. They were also called back for two encores!

Next, we went out for dinner at Kura Sushi, a sushi shop that has a train of sushi that snakes around the room and you pick what you want (See my blog from September 3). Then we went to Teregaike Park Illumination. It is very popular in Japan for public areas to have a showing of Christmas light decorations. We showed up just after a brief rainstorm, so there were very few people there. It was super cool! They had lights in fountains and covering trees. There were some cool reflections that occurred with the pools of water from the rain. At a neighboring house to the park, there was an enormous amount of Christmas lights and decorations. Someone clearly likes the holidays!

Part of this week and next week I don’t have school because everyone is having tests. Yesterday, I wandered around Kawachinagano and looked at some parks. It was a beautiful day for it! I love Japanese forests! There were very few people in the parks because it was a Friday. I’m hoping to be able to get out and explore more with some of the free time I have!

Right now, I have some difficulty with writing English because I’m out of practice. There are some moments when I want to write something in Japanese because it is a lot easier to explain than it is in English. A new milestone! I’ve also begun to talk to myself in Japanese….hmmmmmm

Thanks for reading!

Wes

Change

Last week was sad because it was my last time living with the Tani family. They are an incredible family and so nice. They really know how to take care of an exchange student. They took me anywhere they could think of without hesitating and the hospitality they showed me was really something. It's amazing to think that three months ago we we're complete strangers that did not understand anything the other was saying. Here's all of us except for Baba and Yoshino on the day I arrived. 

The Saturday leading up to the last week was fun. Mitsuki and Nanako had school. It was a day set aside so parents could come watch a school day. I went with mama Akane to see school. The name of the elementary school is Takou Elementary School. When I first herd the name, I got really confused because I didn't hear the "u" on the end. Takou means tall. Tako means octopus. Unfortunately, it's not the elementary school that teaches sea creatures, just small, jumpy, terrestrial human larvae. 

When we first arrived, we walked around the small school and past the gym to the entrance. Along the wall of the gym were all of these awesome contraptions. 

Pogo sticks,unicycles, and stilts! Quite impressive for an elementary school to be teaching those!

After spending time watching all of the worms learn, they all crowded around me and started climbing on me! I had know idea being a jungle gym could be so hard! 

When all of the climbing had been done, all of the parents and kids cleaned the school. It was incredible how much effort everyone put into it! Because I'm tall, I had the job of unscrewing the ceiling fans so they could be 

cleaned. During this time, a visiting sibling had quite the nap. 

When school was over, Nanako, Mitsuki, Nanako's friend Kanna, Mama Akane, and I went to see the One Direction Movie. One Direction is a band that is extremely popular all over the world right now. Japan is definitely no exception and might have some of the craziest fans. At the mall where the movie theater was, they were already setting for Christmas. 

Really, Japan? November barely started! Pretty crazy, but Japan doesn't have a holiday in for almost two months: November and December. That's a really long time for Japan! They just want to party! The is thing is that they don't even have a national holiday for Christmas, yet there's more celebration for it right now than the New Year. Christmas lights have been working their way up everywhere and there is Christmas music playing.

The movie was excellent and I actual have respect for the guys in One Direction. They are aware of thigs that happen both on and off stage and they aren't stuck in their own bubble. Good job, guys! We finally have some pop music celebrities that can be looked up to!

On Sunday, Papa Kazuhiro planned to take Nanako, Mitsuki, and I to a place called Kansai Cycle Center. It's an amusement park in Kawachinagano that is near Takihata. The special thing about it is that all of the rides are powered by the riders. There are all sorts of things to do! You can pedal vertically up a tower or bike through the woods. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go because of rain an wind. Instead, we drove to the Osaka Museum of Natural History. 

The museum had a ton of great information about the history of the Kansai area (Osaka prefecture as well as some surrounding prefectures). They also had an abbundance of skeletons from dinosaurs to whales that died recently. The collection of sea creatures was especially impressive. What really stuck out to me was an Oar Fish that they had on display. They are the longest fish in the world and have only been seen when they come to the surface to die. There was also this giant crab.

And this big squid. 

The amount of native insects was also very cool. 

Gotta love those giant dung beetles. 

On Monday night, the Gigi took the whole family out for sushi for my birthday. This wasn’t just cheap sushi that you pull off of a train moving past the table. This was the kind where you sit at a bar and talk directly to the chef who makes it right in front of you. There were ten of us there all together; the entire Tani family. It was absolutely delicious and it was such a wonderful gift! Fresh made sushi is absolutely delicious! I ate so much!

The rest of this week was spent packing up my room in preparation for moving to my new host house. Here's a look at my room with all the stuff still in it.

On my birthday, we celebrated with a chocolate cake. Yummy! It even had my name on it!

On my final full day with the family, Papa Kazuhiro, Mama Akane, Mitsuki, Nanako, and I drove to Kyoto to climb Daiyamonja Mountain. We met up with friends of Mama and Papa's from college. It was a lot of fun! In August, there are five mountains that are light up with fire in the shape of characters. Daiyamonja Mountain has the character for "big" on it. It was very beautiful and it waas great to see Kyoto again.

When we came down from the mountain, we walked through Kyoto to the subway station. On the way, we saw a lot of interesting things. First, there were TONS of foreigners walking around. Second, we past this little carriage thing that was a sleeping place for cats....only in Japan.

Third, we went over this big railroad that helped haul material from Lake Biwa to Kyoto.

Last, there was this river crossing over a river.....

Two Sundays ago, all the Rotary Students got together to try wearing Kimonos and trying a tea ceremony and flower arranging. It was really interesting to try everything. Flower arranging is really hard!

Instead of returning home to the Tani family, I went straight to my new house. I am now comfortably moved into Michimoto-san's house. Two nights a week bands practice in the studio at Michimoto-sans house. Here's one of them. They're a lot of fun and really good!

This last Saturday I went to a band festival with Nagano High School brass band. It was a lot of fun and interesting to hear other high schools perform. I also got to hang out with my classmates all day!

On Sunday, ROTEX and Rotary Students went to a place called Nara park. It's full of very tame deer and tourists feeding them. A little strange.... We also went to Toudaiji Temple which is massive! It has one of the biggest Buddhas in Japan in it and the biggest lawn I have seen in Japan!

We also did traditional dying of fabric using indigo. So many cool designs!

I'm sorry that this blog is brief, but it's something, right? I will try and do a couple throughout the week so I can do everything justice.

Thanks for reading!

Wes