Happy NEW Year

Well, for all you in the past, 2010 is looking to be a pretty good year so far. At least on this side of the world. Last night we had a small but enjoyable New Year's party with some friends of ours.

After stuffing ourselves full of food and candies, we ventured out to observe the Japanese custom of the New Year which invovles paying the first dues to the temple. As people lined up for the tradition (which of course we did not) there were shouts of "Happy New Year" and "Akeme" which is the coloquial Japanese phrase meaning "congratulations on the opening of the year." Strangly enough, all these shouts were directed toward the only foreigners in the area--us, so it is rather difficult to tell if these were genuine congradulations.

Here is an example of a festive New Year's bush, but not quite as festive as a Christmas Tree we would like to point out. If you look closely you will observe a cabbage in the middle of the bush.

Well, a Happy New Year to all friends and family wherever you may be!

The Real Christmas

Well, our first Christmas alone has come and passed. We even got to be with both of our families for a bit via skype! Even though we were far away from "real" Christmas, we had a successful Christmas day with decorations, presents around the tree...

a hearty, although unusual, Christmas lunch...



and even some Christmas turkey!!


Yes, we went bowling on Christmas day! And we were surprised to see the multitude of Toogijuku students at the bowling alley to spend the Christmas Day. Later on we even got to have a "double date" with two of our students for dinner. While we were enjoying our Christmas Dinner at a nice Italian chain restaurant, two of our students came to sit at the table next to us. The waiter was about to sit us together at the same table, due to our friendly chatter, but we all delightfully declined knowing that the conversation would shortly dissolve. So we enjoyed our Christmas dinners separately.


And thanks to all of you who help bring Christmas a little closer with your Christmas cards!!!! We really appreciated it!

Overall a quiet but wonderful Christmas celebration. Sounds better than the snow and rain we have heard so much about in Iowa!!

O' (poor) Christmas Tree

While Japan (Tsugaru area) is not as festive for Christmas as back home, there is still a fair share of decorations around town to enjoy. Here are some for your viewing pleasure.

Here we have a fine fiber optics specimen of the white genre. Very expressive, the "White Christmas" feeling of this time of year. This one was found in a high-end shopping mall of which name nobody really knows how to pronounce. For now we will call the shopping mall Renais (looks French but with English pronounciation).

Here we have the only real Christmas tree for sale that could be found in our city of 180,000 people (complete with hearts...). If one was feeling quite vigorous about Christmas, that one would only have to pay $315 to purchase this adorable tree. That one was not us, nor anyone else in our city of 180,000 people.

Next we have an excellent example of a Japanese styled lighted Christmas Tree. If you look very closely you will notice a garish little sign that is hung on the top of the tree. This sign reads "Merry Christmas." While quite festive in nature, it is quite a travisty to the ideal form of the Christmas tree. Unfortunately this is the signature decoration of all Japanese styled trees.

Our final example of the Japanese Christmas tree is the all to common "Hodge-podge" form. As you can see the example given below, onlookers cannot help but shudder at the disaster strewn upon the unsuspecting tree. (We actually watched the deplorable decorating of this paticular tree as the employee literally chucked, yes--threw with a strong force, the lights onto the tree.) A slight sympathy is given to these unknowing citizens who only recently began celebrating this wonderful holiday. Many stores have Christmas trees, small of course but still the Christmas season is felt. But all too often these little Christmas trees' branches are not fully opened to present room in which to decorate the already sparce tree; therefore, the tree usually resembles a "just-taken-out-of-the-box" feel. At least they're Christmas trees. Next year they may anticipate some help from concerned foreign citizens...

Happy Christmas Eve!

A mind-boggling cultural tradition in this country, so distant from the genuine Christmas celebrations, is Christmas Eve. You see, Christmas Eve here is celebrated more than Christmas day. We know it's tough to imagine, but it's true. And, here's just some of our evidence...

The first anomally we have is the "turkey" dinner. Christmas is a holiday for romance in this country. On Christmas Eve, couples commence a gathering at various restaurants (most commonly KFC, which sounds good to you, but American and Japanese KFC are not the same- trust us! and we're being serious, really, KFC, they go to KFC) across town and enjoy a nice Christmas Eve dinner of what they claim to be turkey. After walking around town to decide where we would eat tomorrow- the real Christmas- we noticed all of the advertisements for Christmas dinner ended on December 24th- Christmas Eve! What about Christmas day? What happened? We even asked one nice-looking restaurant hoping their special would continue to the following day, but no, the special ended today, Christmas Eve. Needless to say, we walked away quite downcast. So, we headed to the store and bought some of this so-called turkey (as we didn't want to botch Christmas by celebrating on Christmas Eve), which we true turkey-eaters all know to be chicken. Yes, chicken. But they are adament it's turkey, but no, it's really actually chicken. Sorry!

The second anomally is the tradition of Christmas-Cake eating. When this tradition started is still a mystery to us, but it is still going strong today, as you can see from the above picture. We thought a nice cup of Baskin Robbins ice cream would be nice on Christmas Eve. Well, we were in for quite a surprise, walking into the store, and seeing boxes upon boxes of ice cream Christmas-Cake sealed in dry ice! Yes, all these boxes are Christmas Cakes!!! How unusually splendid! This is definitely one tradition we could get used to- you know how we like our sweets! But, still we are flabbergasted by the massive quantities of Christmas Cake during this season! No, we did not walk away with a cake, seeing how they are about $40 a piece, but we did get some delicious cups of Cranberry & Chocolate Ice Cream!

Yes, this all occurred on Christmas Eve- the peak of Christmas in this country. If you don't believe us, we don't blame you. We had to ask several of our classes before we succumbed to the reality of this truth. Of course, our Christmas will be on the real day, tomorrow. This could be a bonus for us, as the restaurants raise their prices on Christmas Eve and are packed to the brim- ha!

Well, we hope you have a happily, happy, Christmas Eve!

Christmas Here in J-Pan

Today, we had our long-awaited Christmas party! After much cooking and game preparation, the party came and went- in a flash! But, we are quite happy with the results. The students had fun, and we got to share the Christmas story with them. This year we had them write skits and perform the Christmas story from the Bible, so they really understood what the real meaning of Christmas is! And, of course, they had some fun doing it...

This one especially made us all chuckle heartily :D watch carefully as Mary gives birth to baby Jesus!!

Of course we had all the Christmas goodies: oreo balls, chocolate covered pretzels, jell-o jigglers, sugar cookies, brownies, 2 patisserie cakes, a jell-o cake, walnut brownies, oh yeah, and we also had some other food for supper (but of course, we all know Christmas is about the sweets!!)

Now, we are quite tired, and are just waiting for the real Christmas to come! We are sad to not be with family this year, but we know that God is with us wherever we are, and He has greatly blessed us this year through friends and family at home and here! Please continue to pray for our students and that the time the students spent at the party and reading the Christmas story real sank in, and they see that Jesus came to this earth for them. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers of us when we are so far away.

Another Marathon..

Well, last weekend we had another marathon, but this time we watched the Twilight movies! Seeing how there are only 2, this marathon was much shorter than last weekend's, but just as fun!

We started off by watching the first movie- Tiwlight- at our apartment and then headed to Aomori to watch New Moon. New Moon only came to 2 theatres in our entire state, and one of those was in the city near us.

On the way there, despite the cold, we saw some Cherry Blossom trees blossoming! We think the weather psyched them into thinking it was spring, because on Saturday it was quite warm.

Most of us agreed that the 2nd movie was better than the first, but it was about half and half as to who's cuter- Jacob or Edward (just so you know Travis thinks Jacob is cuter, or in his words "he would rather be like Jacob!)

HP Marathon

This weekend we endeavored to have a Harry Potter Marathon!! That's right a whole 16 hours of Harry Potter. One of our students had specially ordered the newest movie--The Half-Blood Prince. She was really excited to watch and asked us if we would be interested in a marathon of all the older movies to which we replied, "Of course!!" Since Angie really loves the movie and the books, she just couldn't resist. So in two consecutive days, 16 hours, one pan of brownies, one cake, taco dip, 2 dozen cookies, and various other junk food later; we achieved the dream.

Stay tuned to next weeks Twilight Marathon.....(unfortunately there are only 2 of those!)

What Christmas Means to Me...

Guess what we heard tonight in the grocery store...




that's right- Hanson Christmas!!!

Of course, Angie used this moment to point out to Travis that Hanson really is quite popular as she continued singing and dancing down the aisles once taping was over :)

sorry that it's sideways (that was Travis' doing- probably trying to sabotage the moment!)

Fun-Fact-Friday

This has been quite an interesting and somewhat trying week, but we came out on top.. and we'll share some of the better moments with you!

As you may know the dollar weakened to a 14-year low against the yen, which earned us an extra $400 in our monthly transfer today.. talk about a deal, making an extra $400 for NO work! Sorry, everyone, we know the economy is bad back in the states, but we are reaping the benefits over here :)

We also found out today that many of the teachers find it difficult to understand Angie, due to her thick southern Iowa accent. Ya'know, it's so close to the Missouri border, and ya'know how them Missourians are :) Unfortunately, we came to this conclusion when no teacher showed up to teach one of our classes. Angie had confirmed that another teacher would take over the class, but that did not happen, due to her uninterpretable accent!

On a final note, we did have a delicious-home-style dinner with a "Walking Taco" (or for those of you from way down south in Burlington, Taco-in-a-Bag)

Thanksgiving!!

On Sunday English club celebrated, with tons of food and dessert, Thanksgiving!!!

The food included mashed potatos, stuffing, green bean casserole, and even a real turkey!!

The dessert included pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, puppy chow, and apple crisp!!

A special thanks to all those who provided the "fixin's" for our splendid meal!

After the meal we explained the story of Thanksgiving and that Thanksgiving is a time to thank God for all the good things we have. To explain the story the students conducted a short skit in which they were given a short part of the story and had to write a script in pairs. We ended up with some pretty wonderfully creative parts to the play.

Overall the party was a success! We all had a great time and stuffed ourselves full of food, and yet there are still leftovers!!

We Didn't Start the FIRE!

Last night at 1:30am we awoke to yelling, sirens, and the smell of smoke! Drowsily we pulled ourselves out of bed to assess the situation. In a matter of seconds that drowsiness disappeared to be replaced by surprise and confusion. Upon opening the window we were astonished to see that our neighboring apartment building was on FIRE! Firemen were rushing frantically and smoke billowed out of the windows (it was more like flowing but at the time it was much different!). A big fire truck was filling the entire parking lot with its presence and many of our neighbors and bystanders were gazing in awe of the catastrophe. Fortunately, as far as we could tell (as it is rather difficult for us to understand frantic Japanese yelling), noone was hurt and only one apartment was damaged to what appeared to be beyond repair.

Here is our witness from the precipice of our living room window.

The First of the Lasts

Yes, the time has come. It all starts here, simply a bag of salt. Who would think that such a turn of the tides would start with such a mundane object as this. Sadness breaks upon our hearts. Confusion stirs our senses- happiness or sadness, which should we feel?!

(just so you know, we have used only 1 bag of salt in a year and a half's time here, so we know this one last bag of salt will last us our last year and a half here)

Happy Halloween!

Well, on Saturday we had our Halloween party for English club, and overall we think it was a hit! We had all of the old-school favorites: carmel apples, popcorn balls, & pumpkin bars.. yummy!

The entertainment included guessing body parts in bags (it was really food of course), the classic cake walk, a scarecrow buliding relay, and last but not least, pumpkin (Japanese squash) carving!!

Now, it's time to start preparin' for Thanksgivin'!!!

This Just In.....

The H1N1 Flu, otherwise known as the swine flu, has nailed Toogijuku straight in the face. After two weeks of light artillery with only a few casualities "single classroom cancelations" this week has faced the full head-on blow. Due to the influx of known cases, ALL classes have been cancel for the whole week. But of course, teachers must brave the battlefield until 2pm everyday (for apparently no apparent reason (teachers have already been seen asleep at their desks, playing internet games, and...leaving early)). The hope is to stab off any further cases of the mighty enemy influenza. This may faulter seeing how the flu will continue to travel about the land looking for any innocent creature to feed upon. So the odds are that: 1-classes will be cancelled for months to come, 2-We will learn to brave the infectious disease and things will continue as usual.

This is a breaking news update, please stay tuned for further announcements!!!!

Basket of Harvest Joy

Today was a good day...

we have a Pumpkin patch, yeah, see that big one in the back- 3 dollas!!

Random Acts

Due to the coming typhoon, which is the biggest in recent years, our school cancelled classes early! We came to school today just to find out that classes would let out after 1st period. Well, we don't have 1st period so we had no classes today!! Yippy! Unfortunately, if the typhoon is bad enough it will knock all the apples off the trees and the farmers will lose a lot of money!

Also, one of our favorite shopping centers will be closing this weekend! The department store is called Joppal and is the popular hang out for high school students. It has a lot of cheaper fashion shops and a really nice dollar store. We are frequenters to this department store and will be quite sad to it see it go. Many a good memory has been had within the walls of Joppal. What will Hirosaki be without trusty Joppal. Some may say a safer city, but NO! Where will the kids hang out? They will just turn to the streets. For us, it means long, long, long treks through the winter waist deep snow for our supplies. Or we'll just broke spending our money at more expensive (and reliable) stores.

Here is a picture of our stomping grounds: Joppal. Oh! You shall be missed.

All is well though, we are thankful to have learned to cook well enough to make pulled pork!! Yes, thanks to our slow cooker we had a delightful meal! There is a lot to be thankful for!

Hi Ho Silver!

Well, this last weekend and 3 days we've had Silver Week here in Japan, a string of 3 holidays in a row so we can enjoy the beatiful changing of seasons!

We did a nice array of things..

went to a display of Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements)

played badminton and made pizza with some of our boys from English club! (the competition was pretty intense though, so no pictures were taken :D)

conquered Mount Iwaki for the second time :) and we must say it's much prettier in the Fall with the changing leaves and rice patties! Thankfully this time it was clear so we had a pretty amazing view from the top!

went to karaoke and had dinner-and-a movie with some other students..

and if you're wondering who's the only other foreigner in the picture besides us, that's our new foreign exchange student, all the way from Salem, Massachusetts!

went exploring and stumbled upon a KKK building... wonder what this stands for?!

but the highlight of the whole weekend was getting to feel a little bit closer to home..

Thanks to you, Pella windows :) even famous in good ol' Hirosaki, Japan!!

Onto the Big Leagues!

Sorry we haven't blogged lately; we've been quite busy with the state speech contest here!

After 2 weeks of hard work, the day finally came...

Though all of our students did absolutely wonderful, only 1 of our students got 3rd place!! Still rather exciting! And, of course we had fun along the way :)

We're back...

and our plants are dead :(

but, we have lots of food!!

Home Sweet Home

Well, we are leaving Hirosaki tonight on the night bus to catch our flight to Hawaii where we'll be for the following 4 days! Then, off to Iowa for a little over 4 weeks! If you want to see us send us a message on facebook, or send us an email- we'll have access to the internet so we'll be checking it!




Needless to say, we are excited to come home!! Yet we will miss our students!
(I'm attempting to make a sad face here, but it doesn't quite work!)

4th of July

After days of preparing food and games the day has come and passed--successfully. This was English Club's first party of the year and it turned out quite well, we are happy to say. Unfortunately, there was no fireworks or barbeque due to the fact that the city does not allow fire in any parks near our house. So instead we had ourselves a picnic.



To begin the students had a "camera scavenger hunt" around the main street of our city. The students had to take pictures of random objects that ranged from easy--a bicycle, to difficult--a picture with a police officer (which to our surprise, a few of the groups managed to do!).




Our next event, and probably the most sought and important of the evening, was dinner which included potato salad, Zesty Italian pasta salad, pigs-in-a-blanket, fruit pizza, Jell-O, and many other "american" summer foods. Needless to say, the students did enjoy all the many different kinds of food. Well, all except the lemon merengue pie, which they decided tasted like the smell of bathroom perfume!



The rest of the night was given over to playing various games which were rather out going games based on the Japanese mentality but nevertheless, the students stood strong to the challange. The most resoundingly favored of games played was Red Rover. (although there was one "clothes-line" there were no injures!) Red Rover proves to be a game well met by all peoples of the world!




With all the work and play, we proceed to fall asleep promptly at 9pm.

Who's Ready to go Home?

Yesterday was one of those days that you just want to be at home for no reason but the comforts of being home. So we had ourselves a barbeque! A juicy steak seasoned with Lawry's Seasoning Salt, cheesey Johnsonville brats, lettuce from the (windowseal) garden, and Cystal Light raspberry tea--just like home!



Of course a BBQ wouldn't be a BBQ without some s'mores. We have yet to perfect the method of making these delicacies due to the fact that you can't find (cheap) graham crackers here, but we made due with biscuit crackers for now--delicious!



And what else follows the BBQ but a nice night of fireworks! Last night was the Hirosaki fireworks festival and there was definitely not a few people there for the festivities. We had quite a few chats with students we saw. This show definitely one ups the regular 4th fireworks shows back home though as it was almost 2 hours long.

So with only 3 1/2 weeks to go before we head home, we have already started the celebration! Can't wait to see everyone back home!

Seeking Advise

How do you change what seems unchangable?

Recently we were reminded of the Simon & Garfunkel song I Am a Rock. It has been a frustrating experience attempting to teach English to Japanese high school students. There are few successes. We have come to believe that one of the more threatening reasons the Japanese don't learn English is because they are not only learning a language but a behavior. Learning English isn't just a language, it's a behavior. And it is this behavior that the students do not wish to learn; it is too far from their comfort zones. They have to learn to be free thinkers and not just regurgitate information.

So we are calling out to all those that read, what can be done to change these reluctant students. Any advise would be welcomed, from Japan or America or whatever country you happen to live in.

Monkey Bread

'nough said