Of Fish and Long Days

So spreaking of catching up, I actually caught a fish last weekend – with my bare hands! Unbelievable, eh? Well, last weekend was actually Rokkasho-mura's annual Festival – the Sangyo (Industry) Matsuri (Festival). One of the most interesting features of this Matsuri was the giant pool full of salmon, a fairly good portion of the industry here on the sea coast. Pretty much, about 200 people surround the pool, and on go they attempt to seize their own prize. The first five get a second salmon free. I got mine in the last ten seconds of the three minute farce. Did I mention the water was freezing? Here are some pics:

Me and Kento, Taneichi-san's youngest. By the way he caught his fish before me.

As you can see, I got wet.

Whoo! My prize.

Some other things I did was hack the sack with Gabe and Jon, some other gaijin living in Rokkasho. Both of them are supercool. Gabe, an ALT from the US has a giant cone, and tiny harmonica. Jon, an Aussie, is working at the International School; he can play the didgeridoo (sp.?).

Somehow Taneichi-san (the only Rotarian who speaks a spot of English, and even so it's not so great) got us a grill in the mash of a Matsuri, and so we had some amazing grilled salmon. I swearr that man runs thi whole town, as he got me in front of the line before the salmon catching. I definitely had a lot of fun, but I was lucky I didn't catch a cold.

One thing I didn't see at the festival, but was appalled to hear about was the dog fighting. I didn't know that it was not only legal, but there are tournaments and stuff every year in Toukyou. However, I cannot say anything about it; it is Japanese culture, not mine. What the Japanese think is right is right in Japan.

So I think it is ripe time to tell my dear readers about school, now that I've finally gotten the hang of the weird schedule. I think i might have had my first "regular" day this Tuesday. Every day at about 7:52 I walk to school (I live just a few hundred meters away) with usually three other guys, a first year whose name I can't remember, a second year (my grade) named Kota, and a third year, Nautaka. We are usually greeted at the entrance of the school, "Gozaimasu!" (short for "Ohayou gozaimasu") in which we reply the same, and then I change into my school shoes for inside, as per Japanese custom, and go to my homeroom until school starts, 8:20. Once school starts, I typically have 6 classes, 50 minutes each, with 10 minutes in between. 4 classes in the morning, a 45 minute lunch, and 2 (or 3, but we'll get to that later) classes in the afternoon. Here's my schedule:

		Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
	8:15~8:25	Reading	Reading	Reading	Reading	Reading
	8:25~8:35	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room
1	8:40~9:30	数学A Math A 品川 Shinigawa	体育 Health & PE 飛内 Tobinai	現代文 Modern Japanese 亀田 Kameda	英語II English II 田中 Tanaka	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library
2	9:40~10:30	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	音楽 Music 宮里 Miyazato	ワープロ Typing 小笠原 Ogasawara	情報処理 Computer 小笠原 Ogasawara	体育 PE 飛内 Tobinai
3	10:40~11:30	音楽 Music 宮里 Miyazato	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	フードデサイン Food Design 川口 Kawaguchi	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	Reading 立崎 Tachizaki
4	11:40~12:30	体育 PE 飛内 Tobinai	地理 Geography 西村 Nishimura	フードデサイン Food Design 川口 Kawaguchi	音楽 Music 宮里 Miyazato	ワープロ Typing 小笠原 Ogasawara
	12:30~13:15	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time
5	13:15~14:05	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	Japanese Lesson at International Center	英語II English II 田中 Tanaka	体育 PE 飛内 Tobinai	Japanese Lesson at International Center
6	14:15~15:05	Writing English 田中 Tanaka	Japanese Lesson at International Center	化学 Chemistry 清水 Shimizu	LHR 田中 Tanaka	Japanese Lesson at International Center
	15:05~15:20	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time
	15:20~15:30	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room

Now, I get to buy lunch from one or two women (one of them is a friend of okaasan) who work down the street. They bring a variety of bento and sandwiches and pan which is Japanese for bread, but encases everything from sandwiches to pastries. I usually get a chicken sandwich and pan, and then either a Coke or Kochakaden (only the most delicious type of tea in a can) either hot or cold from the vending machine (yes, the vending machines serve hot drinks!). Then, as we don't have a cafeteria, I go back to my homeroom, or the one next to mine, and eat with friends.

So there are three grades in highschool, I am a second year. Each grade has 2 homerooms, making for about 50-60 kids per grade. Now, because the Japanese school year starts in April, and the age cutoff in in January, I should be a first year, but they (Rotary) wanted me to go on the School Trip, so they made me a second year. Therefore, all my friends are a year older than me at least. It's ok though, they don't seem to care all that much.

Now, I rarely have a normal school day. I have yet to find out why, but classes are constantly being switched around, changed, canceled, or even entire days switched (This week, Thursday was a Monday schedule, while Monday was a Wednesday, and Wednesday was just whacked). Because it is such a small school, (like 150 kids) it works. However, I often don't get told of these changes, and end up in the wrong class, like Modern Japanese for example. Mostly the teachers understand, after all, I've been here, what, 2 months and a week?

Another irregularity that constantly throws me off is BS. Don't know what it means, but it's a special 45 minute class after classes that happens two to three times a week. Sometimes it's Math, sometimes English (in which I have to do the work backwards into Japanese), or Kanji (yeahhhh, not even easy for the Japanese kids). And then at the end of every school day, we have souji. That is, cleaning! The students are the school's best unpaid janitors. Just imagine how quickly and easily, and thoroughly, 200 people can clean a school, then imagine 600 kids cleaning Harwood!!

So school officially ends at 3:30, or 4:15, depending on the day. The school day is finally over, right? (Trivia: Japan has one of the longest school days in the world) Weeelll, not so! If you aren't in a club, you are obviously a slacker. In spite of the long school day, clubs try to go for as long as possible. Thursday I got home at 6:30, whih is also when the final buses leave from school. This time of year it's already dark by about 5:30, and maybe 10˚C. Freezing. As you know, dear reader, I am doing archery. It's fun trying to shoot when you can't feel your hands !! However, when it's all said and done, after a ten hour total school day, I get to walk home and eat some wondrously delicious meal that okaasan cooks up. うめ！

As for grades, I have no idea. I'm thinking I'm probably gonna be able to get a credit from PE and Foreign Language (of course), and maybe English, only because I'm half teacher in class, but I'm not so sure. I'm totally ok with doing my Junior year over back home, because then I won't be rushed senior year, and I'll be able to take some elective courses that I have been wanting to take.

Well, I hope that didn't sound too gruesome for you, 'cause these are some of the best school days I have ever experienced. I have awesome, funny friends from whom I learn so much, and I have cool, sometimes crazy teachers, who are so helpful. One day I walked into my homeroom between classes and saw all these Japanese kids and I said to myself, "How the hell did you get yourself here, Dakota?"

Don't forget about me, Dakota M. Benjamin, JTD 勉蛇民舵誇太 ダコタ　ベンジャミン Rotary District 7850 - Vermont, USA Hosted by Rotary Club or Rokkasho, Japan District 2830 - Aomori, Japan dakota.benjamin@gmail.com

ahem.

Hello dear readers, if you are still reading. It has been a little over two weeks since my last post. I blame partly my laziness and mostly that I am so damn tired from all the stuff going on. Please forgive me. Anyways, here is an updated account of my life here in where the deepest hot spring of Japan resides and the salmon are all caught with your hands -- well, one a year that is.

But more on that later. Now, I will rewind my memory to two weekends past, within which I was swept over 1400 kilometers in a single day, without ever leaving the surface of the Earth. Yes, you guessed it, I took a ride (well, two) on the legendary Shinkansen! Jeez that sounds like a Pokemon... For those of you who didn't guess that, or don't even know what I'm talking about, that would be the Bullet Train. To where, you may ask? Well, to Tokyo, of course! And you'd think I would be so excited form that that I would want to post immediately! Well, dear reader, you must remember that I took the good 'ole Shinkansen there and back in a single day, barely leaving time for the true reason I went, to see the beautiful, and oft outrageous Kabuki theater. Yes, and what a show it was! Some key points of the 5 hour long performance: there are only male actors, even for the women's parts; men who specialize in women's parts are called "onnagata"; in order to become a Kabuki actor, you must be born into it, therefore, I was watching the great-great-etc-grandghildren of the original actors of the 1800s; there are usually four shows; there is often music, dancing, singing, chanting, and odd poses; it uses old Japanese, and many younger Japanese can't even understand it, fortunately I had a benri (convienient) headphone set with an English guide.

The first show was about a princess who had to move from Kyouto to Edo (modern-day Toukyou) to marry a prince, but she didn't want to. So, her handmaid brought in a young horse driver to play a game about Edo for her. Turns out this boy is the abandoned son of the princess's handmaid, but she must shun the boy out of duty to her princess, in order not to ruin the girl's reputation.

The second was about a dancer who came to a temple to celebrate a new bell. Really she was a demon who wanted to destroy it. So she was accepted into the temple (even though women aren't allowed, the priests were corrupt) In the middle of the dance, she is reavealed as a man, and at the end, he climbs up the bell, reveals himself as a serpent, and crushes it.

The third was about a man whose sister had been unjustly killed by her master, a samurai lord. He has taken a vow of sobriety, but in his distress drinks a whole keg of sake. He drunkenly storms into the samurai lord's palace in an attempt for revenge. He is stopped and tied up, and after falling asleep by his drink, put in the very same garden his sister was killed in. He was extremely lucky that he was not killed on spot for his behavior. When he wakes up he is sober. He is greeted by the Samurai lord, who admits that he had killed her in a drunken rage, and offers a hefty compensation. How ironic.

The final show was a dance to the fuji flower (not the mountain) also known as the wisteria. It shows the growth into maturity of the Wisteria Maiden through costume changes. Very impressive and interesting, but hard to explain in detail.

Ok, so I don't want to leave you hanging, but I'd rather give you little by little whats been happening. So I'll finish this post now and send the next one hopefully by tomorrow. if not, Please look at the pictures and you'll see most of what went down. .... Sorry!!!!!

Dakota M. Benjamin, JTD ダコタ　ベンジャミン Rotary District 7850 - Vermont, USA Hosted by Rotary Club or Rokkasho, Japan District 2830 - Aomori, Japan dakota.benjamin@gmail.com

Too much going on....

AHHHHHHH I am soooo busy I haven't even any time to check my email. Between a trip to Osaka and Fukui-ken last week and a marathon I ran on Friday, and another orientation this weekend, I'm pooped! I would have liked to have posted last week about Osaka, but I was too busy! Oh well.

So I will have to give a short explanation of my recent adventures. Going back to last Monday, I went on a little business trip with some Japan National Fuel Limited (JNFL) people and Sakamoto-san, a Rotarian. We went south, farther than Tokyo, to Osaka and Fukui. If you know anything about Japan, Osaka was once the capital of Japan; it is also the second biggest city. And was it big! I don't have a particular affinity for cities, as they are much too crowded for me, but this was definitely a sight to see! Definitely a blast! I also got to see a cool o-tera, I think one of the oldest in Japan. Well, not really, because it was partially destroyed during the Meiji Restoration, but then rebuilt exactly how it was before. It was still really cool. I saw turtles too.

I also went to Fukui, a little north, to see some nuclear power plants. I learned a lot, (even if it was all in Japanese) and now I think that Nuclear Power is a very clean and almost entirely renewable source of energy. I also learned a lot about how business goes about in Japan. This was a business trip after all.

And then the marathon.... On Friday, I ran a total of 18.1 kilometers, which is 11 and a quarter miles. I ran it in 2 hours flat. Boy was I tired. However, it was fun, and healthy, and my legs really hurt afterwords. Mr. Kerrigan would be proud than I'm keeping in shape for next year though.

And now the main event! Definitely an amazing weekend I just had. It was my second orientation of the year, this time in Goshogawara and Juniko Lake.　When I got there, I had to make a speech in front of a few hundred Rotarians, but it wasn't that bad. Then we shipped off to our cabins and talked until late into the night. As you may know, there are many hot springs in Japan. Well, the place we were staying had one, and each cabin had a hot spring bath right in the back. Although it was freezing and raining, we had to shower outside, but it paid off sitting in the hot bath for ten minutes. It was so nice. It was also nice to sleep in a real bed for once.

The next day we went to the mall, in which we shopped for the food we were going to make for each other that night. Everyone suggested that I make pizza, so I got the ingredients. We also were going to make okunomiyaki (おくのみやき - Japanese pizza) and sushi and shellfish and curried rice.

After that we began a journey across Japan, to the west coast, the sea of Japan (Nihonkai - 日本海) We went to two o-tera and the sea and a museum about Japanese ships. The first o-tera was actually mixed - both an o-tera and a jinja. It was also up a mountain, so we got to climb it to see it. The second was the oldest in Aomori, and it was popular for fishermen to go to to pray for a good catch. Then there was the sea, which was beautiful, and the foliage, which was also beautiful (I could hear constantly "sugoi kirei ne! which is japanese for amazing and pretty).

We reached another destination, Juniko Lake, or Twelve Lakes. I guess it mush have had twelve lakes or something, but we got there and it was dark enough so that I couldn't see. We were in the middle of the mountains, and it was cold. We began to cook our meals, each in our separate cabins. Unfortunately, we lacked adequate cookingware, like measuring cups, and so I had to trust that the glasses they gave me were the amount that they said they were. However, I don't believe they were right, because the dough was somewhat of a disaster, and took too long, and so it was a project unfinished. I was disappointed, but everyone said next time (our Christmas party) I would be able to make it. I'm going to definitely bring some English directions, and maybe even my own utensils. However, the okunomiyaki was amazing, and so were the conversations. I was able to take to some of the student outbounds, tell them what America is like, as them about Japan, and have some good Japanese conversation. And I found out that we might be getting an Australian boy in January. Another late night, and an early morning, trekking into the mountain and seeing the most beautiful, blue ponds I have ever seen.

Finally it was time to go home. However, we took the scenic route, straight through the windy, narrow mountains. The fall mountain were so beautiful and we saw monkeys!!! Except the damn creatures are so fast that I couldn't even get a picture of them. Oh well, it was so cool though.

Well, that's the most recent of my adventures, sorry about being so busy! It's good though, I'm not wasting my time here!

Pictures soon, for now go to my Picasa.

---

Dakota M. Benjamin, JTD ダコタ　ベンジャミン Rotary District 7850 - Vermont, USA Hosted by Rotary Club or Rokkasho, Japan District 2830 - Aomori, Japan dakota.benjamin@gmail.com

楽しかった文化祭です！！！ An Awesome School Festival!

EDIT EDIT: Fixed it! Turns out it wasn't an HTML prob after all, for those who wanted to know... EDIT: For some reason while playing with the HTML of my blog, I deleted comments! I'm working on it! Ok! So, another exciting week for Dakota!

Let's start on Wednesday. Tuesday was The Autumnal Equinox, so we had it off. Tuesday was I can't remember what I did... Anyways, Tuesday was the start of preparation for the school festival, also known as 文化祭(ぶんかさい -bunkasai). I had a little hand in it – making pizza! But first, we had to get our homeroom decorated. Our homeroom was going to be the "えんにち", ennichi, or snack bar. For the next three days, we decorated, talked, messed around, and had a lot of fun. I made a lot of new friends, and I'm beginning to understand most of what they say to me; I can even give a sensible response.

Through this somewhat out of the classroom experience with people my age, I have learned that they are not so different from American teenagers. However, there are no cliques, I think, in my class of 54 second-years. Everyone seems to get along, however the separation between boys and girls is much larger than at home. The boys tend to group together on one side of the room, and the girls on the other. There is still lot of interaction, But it is just different.

On Friday, the festival began with the Opening Ceremony. There was a quiz contest, and a battle of the bands, which, to say the least, was awesome. I would have to say it was much better than the one we have back home. Saturday was the day I made pizza! Unfortunately, we had not the adequate tools, nor manpower to make the dough, so it wasn't really making pizza, but topping and cooking bread, however! never fear, dear reader, for the best is yet to come!

We sold all forty pizzas, at 800¥ each. Pretty good, I think. We then watched the school dance, which was awesome. I have tried to learn a little bit of it, but alas, it is chotto muzukashi... Maybe by the end of the year, maybe.

The final day was clean up day, where we tore down all that we had spent so much caring time placing for families to see. It was a day of rejoicing, for despite the rain, the festival was a success, and I had a lot of fun. At the end of the day, as the clouds receded, to prove that what we had done was good, we were shown this message from the sky:

And so that was my school festival. And I know, Dave, if you are reading this, I realize that I didn't make a real pizza, but like I said, never fear. One of okaasan's friends (recall Yumi #1) loved the idea that I can make pizza so much, that she took me to the store to make a REAL one! So on Monday, (which I have off because it is between-semester break this week - jeez, i sure do have lot of days off... But they make up for it by having only a three week summer vacation) I made six true, doughy, delicious, pepperoni-bacon-peppers-onions-and-basil pizzas. Did I mention they were delicious? Ume is a Rokkasho slang word, which probably no other Japanese will understand. It means, "Holy crap this is amazing". Yeah. Thanks Dave, for showing me how to bake a good pie.

Well, that's all for now, dear readers, a little tidbit of my life here across the world. By the way, you may have noticed the new colors. Tell me if you like it. Also, I realize I told some of you that I was going to talk about school life, and I really was, but I realized halfway through that it was not appropriate for this post. Don't worry, I will explain soon, probably within the next few weeks. It is very exciting. Well, さようなら！Sayonara! ダコタ　ベンジャミン