Chuo 35, Akita Kogyo 10

The Akita rugby title match was held over the weekend (like a state championship in the states), with the winner moving on to the nationals in late December in Osaka (I think). This is a very big deal. Two of my four schools, Akita Kogyo (my base school) and Chuo (which I visit every Tuesday) faced off in the final, so obviously, I went and cheered for both squads. It was tied 3-3 at the half, but Chuo blew things up in the second. They clearly were the stronger team. I spent one half with the Chuo students and teachers, and the second half with the Akita Kogyo crew, as not to show any favoritism. As one teacher said, “Jason, you are a winner, and you are a loser.” Don’t I know it.

Backing up to the semifinal, though … Chuo advanced by sort-of defeating yet another one of my schools, Oga Kogyo (Kogyo meaning technical, which means a lot of these kids go on to be mechanics, auto workers and machinists – which might lead you to think, “Oh, they’re brutes, so no surprise they’d be good at such a rough and tumble sport.” Yet, Chuo is either the second- or third-best academic high school in the entire prefecture, depending on whom you ask. So go figure).

Anyway, Chuo didn’t actually beat Oga. They tied. And, as I understand it, instead of playing into the night until one team scored the decisive whatever it’s called in rugby, they simply stopped play at the end of the clock and called the game even. The winner was decided by pulling a name out of a hat (or as my co-teacher put it, the winner was chosen by fortune). The official drew Chuo, so Chuo wins; Oga loses, its season finished. By itself, this is pretty cruel. But, what really has people blue: this is the final season for Oga’s coach. He’s retiring. Oga has never made the national tournament, and the consensus seems to be that they would have easily handled Akita Kogyo in the title game. So I guess you could say fortune was unkind to Oga.
Or as B-san said to me, “That f---ing sucks, you know?”

And consider this: B-san said Chuo expects donations from alumni and parents to exceed 80 million yen, or about $700,000. That seemed unbelievable to me. So I asked him again, and he said, yes, 80 million yen. My friend Ishii at Oga confirmed the figure, and said that Oga would have received a similar, though somewhat smaller, windfall. It’s the first trip to the finals for Chuo in 41 years. Oga has never been. What drama.
I wondered how the kids were holding up, seeing that some teachers were still moping about a week later. Ishii claimed the students were totally fine, saying that Rugby is a sport played by gentleman, and that rules are rules, and everybody understands and accepts this, and that the team is judged not by the final score, but by how honorable they play -- and most importantly, how graciously they handle the outcome. I asked a few of the kids, and indeed, they seemed OK (although, I have my doubts they understood exactly what I was asking. Japanese kids are savvy, and they’ve learned over the years to answer any question they don’t totally understand with a “Yeeeessss,” or just as often, “Okaaay.”).

I’m not so sure. Either way, I am enjoying the win, and suffering through the loss. My friend B-san says that, of course, he’s going with the team and students to cheer Chuo on in the finals (he begins most of his sentences with, “Of course,” which often adds real intrigue to straightforward statements such as, “Of course, I’m fine,” and “Of course, I brought my lunch”). I wondered whether I could tag along for the trip, and he said he’d put in a good word for me. I also asked if there would be limited space, thinking that most of the teachers would want to be on hand for such a historic event.
“Of course not,” he said. “No one will want to go. They will be on a bus with kids for over 12 hours. It will be just like work!”

(my mild-mannered supervisor at Chuo. I've never seen her so animated)

(these girls claimed to be the source of Chuo's inspiration.)

Before the big match, the students at Akita Kogyo practiced their cheers for a very long time. I stayed for about 30 minutes, then took off (it was Saturday). I asked one of the teachers how much longer they would rehearse. "Who knows. Maybe 15 minutes," he said. "Maybe another hour."

Jonas was Dances with Children

Our favorite daycare worker has either moved on to bigger and better things, or is simply on vacation. Either way, she is missed. We have a little notebook that we send with Jonas to daycare each day detailing what he ate for breakfast, when he woke up, his views on global warming, etc. At the end of each day, she would write a little message in English about his day. They were very sweet, and sadly, they have been missing the last week. Obviously, part of their humor lies in the broken syntax; yet, I wouldn't want anyone to think we were having a laugh at her expense. She put a lot of work into these messages, and they are, for us, comforting. There is a real sweetness to each message, and like I said, if she is gone, she will be missed.

Home Sick

Jonas and I are sick today. To borrow a phrase from my supervisor, Jonas "caught the fever," and was in rough shape last night. He sweat like a madman this afternoon during a four-hour nap, and now he's good as new. If only we all could rebound so easily. Spent the weekend in Yuzawa at Mary Ellen and Andrew's place. Andrew and Jason went to a bar to celebrate some dude's birthday, and Tricia, Mary Ellen (and Jonas) stayed in for a movie and popcorn. Jonas was on the cranky side for part of the weekend, as was Jason. Now we know why (no cracks about Jason being cranky ALL the time).

Contemporary. Traditional. Jason.

After an onsen, one of the proprieters (who Mary Ellen and Andrew) know
had the kitchen fix us some dinner. Delicious.

Everyone paused for one picture, then back to eating.

The power water of Yuzawa. Jonas was more interested in jumping in than drinking.

Home Cooked Meal

Home-economic students at one of the schools I visit, which shall remain nameless, prepare lunch for me every week. It's very sweet, and I'm partly to blame. The first meal, a combo of tuna and pasta, was pretty tasty, and I was a bit over the top in my thanks and praise. Since then, they insist I eat with them each week, which I do, but the meals have been somewhat hit and miss. This past lunch, a dish called yakisoba, was a big whiff, but I managed to choke down most of it. Here is a picture, along with some other random shots.
The home-ec class consists mainly of girls, save these guys who I eat with. The one smiling with the pink apron also is the school's star pitcher.

Try as I might, I could not get any of the home-ec girls to look up. They did not want to be photographed, so they just ignored me.

That round deal in the middle of fried noodles was a boiled quail egg. Yum.

View from the third floor of my school.

He's handy with a broom, and gang signs.

A typical student lunch:pasta sandwich, rice ball. Delicious.

These students were not camera shy. They were cold though. While male students here have donned their wool winter uniforms, the girls soldier on wearing their skirts. So during class, they all put blankets over their legs to keep warm.

Happy Birthday Brothers DeGraff

Hokkaido Continued and Concluded

“The sea was angry that day my friends …”
-- George Costanza
Not wanting to expose Jonas to the elements any further, we dug deep into our dwindling wallets and left the campgrounds behind for the rest of the trip, opting for budget-busting hotels the rest of the way. I suppose you can’t put a price on your child’s health. Believe me, I tried. Tricia, however, would sooner shove me off the ledge of a mountain in order to prevent her baby from falling and skinning his knee, so hotels it was. Actually, the accommodations were a nice change, and at least one of them, a traditional Japanese ryokan, was a new and thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Leaving Daisetsuzan National Park, we hopped on the expressway (which was everything you’d hope for in an expressway. The speed limit appeared to be turned off (an observation confirmed by fellow Hokkaido traveler Andrew) and the traffic was nonexistent. But unregulated speed comes at a price. The expressways in Japan can be expensive – a trip that might cost a few dollars in America cost us around $60 in Japan. This forces drivers to choose between frugality and swift travel. We opted for swift travel). We sped past Sapporo, drove around the port city of Otaru, which is alleged to have a famous canal area, and ultimately decided to bypass both, heading to Niseko, one of the top ski areas in all of Japan, and a beautiful place to hike around in the Fall.

After a white-knuckled drive to the top of the mountain, we stopped and ended up staying at the first place we crossed – a small but spectacularly comfortable Japanese inn. Breakfast, dinner and a round-the-clock onsen were included in the price. The place had a capacity of about 20, and when we arrived, there were only two rooms left. In addition to six couples, there was a group of rowdy Japanese dudes, who dined in their own private room and, from the sound of things, were there to live large. They threw down an astonishing amount of beer and Sake, as evidenced by the parade of bottles heading from the kitchen to their dining area. So I was surprised to find them not only awake and ready to go early the next morning, but also middle-aged and very conservative looking. Even more puzzling, four of them were dressed head-to-toe in hard-core hiking gear – and two of them wore gray suits. One of the hiker guys asked me to take a picture of the group posing in front of the inn (a very Japanese thing to do, it seems), which I did, before they all piled into a stretch minivan and took off together, disappearing into the mountains.


Once again, we loved the onsen, and dinner stood out as the top meal we’ve had in Japan (a close second would be the restaurant near the zoo, where entrées featured a piece of meat from one of the zoo animals). The dinner consisted of numerous small and delicious dishes -- crayfish, sushi, vegetables, rice -- and a large pot of soup with chunks of fish, leek, potato, and more crayfish. Breakfast was just OK, as neither of us are really down with the traditional Japanese breakfast, here or anywhere. You can only adapt so much.

We left Niseko, did some fun hiking with some very serious Japanese mountaineers (pics below). One glaring difference between Japan and America: the high numbers of extremely active old timers here. The mountain was filled with oldsters who take there hiking, and stretching, very seriously. They were all decked out in extensive and serious-looking hiking gear, so serious that I began to worry whether the hike would be too much for us and little Jonas, whose balance isn’t the best even on level ground. As you can see below, I needn’t have worried. All that gear for a stroll on a wooden, man-made path.



Along the way we stopped off at a dairy where, among many highlights, was a goat tethered to a stake in the middle of a field where dozens of kids were playing. The ice cream here was delicious. And the goat, well-mannered.

We spent an unremarkable night in a cabin by a lake, then met friends Andrew and Mary Ellen for beers (so-so) and dinner (pretty good) in Hakodate, the final night of our trip. It was here where Jonas, for the first time in front of my eyes, clearly bowed to another toddler upon first meeting him, drawing laughs from all the Japanese onlookers and surprise from me (Tricia was inside still eating). It was a well-executed bow. I was proud.

After a night of good sleep, and finally, Internet access, we boarded the super-charged, two-hour ferry boat that would speed us from Hokkaido to the main island in luxury and comfort, before a short drive home. Those were our plans.

I started the ferry ride by inhaling a $10-dollar sandwich consisting of oddly colored meats and cheeses. This was a mistake. Not only was it overpriced and far from great, I would struggle the next two hours to keep it down. Getting on the ferry, I hadn’t really noticed the rain and whipping wind (the only bad weather the whole trip). I should have. The nasty weather, coupled with a ferry that promised to be twice as fast as its competition, made for a nauseating combination. In other words, once the ferry got going, it really got going. Scores of people – by my guess, at least 50 – got sick. People vomited on the floor, into barf bags, into just about anything they could get their hands on. Trash cans overflowed with sagging bags of vomit. A line of sick, sweating and green-hued Japanese snaked out the bathroom door and down the hallway, trying with everything they had to maintain their composure. The ferry workers, who ran around wearing sanitary masks, actually ran out of those little air sickness bags, and started handing out full-sized trash bags for people to lose it into. It was a long, stomach-turning two hours. Surprisingly, the three of us managed to hold it together, and hold everything in -- a truly remarkable feat for me, as a winding road can turn my stomach. Tricia was nauseous, but held steady. Jonas was oblivious, although he fell down a lot. It was a rough closing to our trip, but at least the weather saved its worst for last.

Hokkaido

“Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from it All”
-- David Foster Wallace




Classes were canceled last week for Japan’s annual sports festival , where amateur sports teams from all over Japan assemble in one of the kens (states) and compete in every sport imaginable. This year, the festival just happened to be held in Akita, where we live. It literally was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity, even for the Japanese, as the festival visits a different ken every year and had not been in Akita since 1961. While sticking around was tempting, we decided it was time to get out of the prefecture and visit someplace truly exotic – a vacation from our vacation. And so, at 5:30 a.m., we boarded a ferry for the 10-hour trip to Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, and a place enthusiastically hyped by my friend B-San, the science teacher: “It’s just like America! You’ll love it!”

Tuesday

The ferry leaves at 7 a.m., and we’re advised by our fabulous travel agent to arrive an hour and a half early, which we promptly do – only to sit in the parking lot for an hour waiting to board (it’s already starting to feel like America!). Although it was a 10-hour trip, there isn’t a whole lot to report. The ferry was massive – more cruise ship than ferry. We splurged for a room, in which we all took a relaxing and much-needed 2+ hour nap. What else is there to say? We ate, Jonas made a mess, and we spent most of the trip chasing him around, which is about all we do these days, anyway. Luckily, the ferry was expansive and provided plenty of territory to roam, so all in all, it was a good trip.

There was one episode of note. I forgot Jonas’s milk (still a must for nap taking) in the car, which was below deck, locked and restricted to passengers until we hit land. The cafeteria and restaurant were closed for “preparations,” so I wandered down to the main deck and asked one of the workers for some milk. This caused much confusion – for me, her and the swelling crowd that soon surrounded us. Nearly every passerby, in particular a group of older women whom Jonas entertained earlier, stopped to find out what was going on. I showed them the empty bottle, used the Japanese word for milk, and they immediately knew what I needed. But no one had a solution. One woman started rubbing her stomach and midsection in a circular motion (was she hungry?). Thankfully (or maybe regrettably) her friend cleared everything up. With one hand, she mimicked cradling a baby, and with the other, she used a squeezing motion near her, uh, chest, making what must be the international sign for breast milk. No, I told her. We can’t nurse him. I then pointed at her, asking whether she could for us. This got me a big laugh, but alas, no milk. After a few more frantic minutes, a guy dressed in a track suit (it was unclear whether he worked there) appeared out of nowhere, led me back to the cafeteria, grabbed a jug of milk from the cooler, disappeared for another 10 minutes, then returned with a scalding hot bottle. By the time I got back to the room, Jonas barely touched it, falling asleep on his own.


Wednesday-Thursday

We camped near the port our first night, then took off for Daisetsuzan National Park, where we stayed two nights and were the only campers in sight (to which B-san said, “Of course you were the only ones! Hokkaido is very cold. Japanese people know this!”). The days were sunny and beautiful, and the nights were indeed on the cool side, which would have been fine, but Jonas was still getting over a cold, and we decided that, after three nights outdoors, the frigid weather wasn’t helping. So these also were the last nights of camping for us. We hiked a bit, Tricia and Jonas took a cable car to the top of Asahidake, the tallest mountain in Hokkaido(I stayed safely on the ground; the car looked rickety and suspect to me. If Tricia and Jonas wanted to risk their lives, fine. But I wasn’t about to), and spent each night soaking in an onsen (hot spring), which for all three of us, may have been the highlight of the trip.







We also visited the Asahiyama Zoo, which, depending on your source, is either the most-visited zoo in Japan, or the second-most visited (the zoo in Tokyo is its competition, and considering 35 million people live in metro Tokyo, and virtually no one lives in Hokkaido, I’ll give Asahiyama the benefit of the doubt for most popular. I’d imagine a couple thousand people at least visit the Tokyo zoo just to ask for directions). However, it is unquestionably the northernmost zoo in Japan – a curious point of pride, which is highlighted in nearly every description I saw, including on its web site which reads, "Asahiyama Zoo: There are many unique interactive animal viewing facilities here at Japan's northernmost zoo."

As it turns out, the most unique interactive animal to view was Jonas. A group of uber-hip kids from Osaka went berserk when they saw him, stopping us to pose for pictures, which, in turn, drew an even bigger crowd. After awhile, we just had to plow through them to get out of there. Here are some picks, including those of the real animals.





(more to come soon)
For more pictures click on the slideshow below