My Job

I teach English at a Senior High School in Sendai, Japan. I currently have 16 classes of students in the 1st and 2nd years of high school (there are only 3 years of high school in Japan). I am absolutely loving my classes and the students are all so sweet.
So far I am assisting students with speeches, as many are currently working on a project in which they have to memorize a speech introducing themselves. Others in their 3rd year are working on memorizing a much more complicated speech for the city speech contest which takes place in October.
Because I have come to the school in the middle of term (school begins in April), they are general already busy with projects. I've therefore only given a brief introduction of myself to the classes and talked a little but about Canada, my family and myself. I also posted a Canadian display on the English board outside of the classroom.

Once this project has been completed, I will be giving a much larger introduction and giving each of the classes a lecture about Canada. After that, I am given much more responsibility and have already begun planning the lessons for October. We will be working on introducing and speaking about your community. I'll also be giving a lesson about pronunciation, as I've noticed many students struggle with this.

Here is a picture of the English classroom. I've already mentioned before that I am quite lucky to be the only ALT in Sendai with air conditioning, but I'm also lucky to have a dedicated English room. Most ALT's tour around to each home room to teach, but because my school is so big, the students come to me.

Crazy English teacher. 

There is a comment section below all of these posts, so feel free to ask me any questions you have!

Japanese Food

My main goal since touching down here has been to eat as many different kinds of food as possible, some of which I've been able to snap photos of. Without further ado, here are some of my favourite dishes that I've had so far.

This is a pancake, topped with egg, asparagus, ham, and cheese. Delicious!

The dish came with sides of hot onion soup, daikon radish, potato salad, and green salad. The cafe where this was served was themed with hundreds of small rubber duckies. So cute!

A few of the ALT's are vegan, so we visited a place which specialized in vegan ramen. This one tasted like peanuts. 

Of course, sushi. I've eaten quite a bit of sushi since coming here. 

I make my own lunches for school, and pack them in a bento box. I've made much better lunches, but this is the one I happened to make the day I remembered to take a picture. Stiry-fried broccoli, beans, and beef with garlic and ginger, garlic mashed potatoes, two pre-made sushi rolls, and sliced kiwi. 

This is a popular way to serve sushi in Japan; on conveyor belts. You use a screen located at your table to make selections, and the chefs place your order on the converyor belt. When your order is about to reach you, a song plays on your screen. Each table has a specific plate colour so that you know which is yours. You are also free to take any of the "for grabbing" sushi as it passes you. Your bill is calculated by how many plates you have your table. 

Grilled salmon and cheese sushi.

Roast beef and garlic sauce (totally still sushi, right?).

Shrimp tempura sushi. 

Cold soba noodles (buckwheat noodles) served with sesame seeds, green onions, and a cold dipping sauce.

A cheap (about $0.10) snack I had been on the hunt for in Japan. They are called "umaibo" and are basically over-sized cheetos, and they come in dozens of flavours.

Fancy sashimi. The fish was set above a bed of dry ice, so it smoked at the table! 

Not sure what the name for this was, but it was minced fish meat inside a mochi (pounded rice) cake. It was served with a hot grill so that you able to toast it yourself. 

Hot udon noodles in a soy-sauce broth topped with tempura flakes, green onions, and ginger. I also purchased sides of karage (fried chicken), and eggplant tempura. 

Yukata

As promised, here is a post devoted to my new yukata.

Yukata are summer kimono's worn by people in Japan during the festival season. Throughout July and August, there are many festivals for all different reasons, some more spiritual, and some entirely meant for entertainment. I came to Japan at the end of the festival season, and therefore was only able to attend 3 festivals, but each had amazing food, entertainment, and all had evening fireworks after the festivities. The fireworks in Japan are legendary.

Here is a very poor video of the legendary fireworks in Japan. I considered not posting this since, while the quality of the original video is great, uploading it here destroys the video quality. But, nonetheless, I thought I'd give at least a taste. This was even a very tame portion of the show, as the finales are amazing. 

First Experiences and Impressions

The past week has been incredible. Here are some highlights:

I attended a festival called Obon, where the Japanese people honour their dead ancestors by lighting lanterns and setting them out to sea. We watched as the local monks chanted and burned tokens in a large bon fire and it was absolutely beautiful. I was also able to witness a genuine fan dance by a woman dressed in a kimono, which was equally as stunning. Did I mention it was pouring rain? As you’ll see, this becomes a theme.

Beautiful fan dance.

The pathway to a shrine. Each one of the 1000's of lanterns was hand drawn by a local elementary school student.

I climbed a mountain! The mountain is called Izumigatake and it nearly killed me. It began easy, if not physically demanding, but then progressed to the point that it was more bouldering than hiking. We had to use our hands to help us climb over the large rocks which someone had seen fit to call a trail. During the whole process it was also pouring rain. Pouring pouring rain. I'’ve never been so drenched in my life. I’m also not sure if I'’ve ever had so much fun outdoors. While we were soaked through, and everything in our backpacks was ruined, there was nothing you could do but laugh. Everyone fell multiple times and we hiked all the way to the top of the mountain for a view of absolutely nothing thanks to the heavy heavy rain. But the people I was with were all fantastic and we had a spectacular time helping each other out the whole way. Sometimes we were up to our shins in muddy water, and more than one pair of shoes was destroyed, but we all went home with huge smiles on our faces. And I went home having been successful at one of the hardest things I’ve ever put my body through. Its been two days since I climbed, but my legs are still almost too sore to walk. And that’s an oddly satisfying feeling.

We had just been told that we weren't even half way. Needless to say, this was upsetting.

Laughing at the rain. At this point we were on our way down and were so thoroughly drenched that we couldn't possibly be any wetter. All you can do is laugh.

One of the many beautiful views while we climbed the mountain.

Having hiked a mountain, I decided that wasn’t quite enough for one day and donned my yukata (Traditional Japanese festival attire meant to be worn in the summer. It looks quite similar to a kimono) and attended a local fireworks festival held at the park next to my apartment. The fireworks were out of this world, and the food was too. I ate some miso fried chicken on a stick and tried to hide and drink a beer without any of my students seeing.

Happily eating fried chicken. I will upload an entire post devoted to my new yukata.

My impression of Japan so far can really just be summed up in one word; efficiency. Everything in japan is made to be as convenient as possible. The convenience stores aren’t just for snacks and forgotten toiletries, they also act as a post office and bank. All modes of transportation in the city use the same pass card so that with just the one card, you can travel anywhere. When you buy pancake mix, upon opening the bag you’ll notice that inside are portioned out bags of mix so that you don’t have to measure it yourself. And the Japanese recycling system in legendary, so you don’t even have to feel bad about the extra plastic. Take-away bento boxes are equipped with magic pull strings that use the power of the sun god to heat your food when you’re ready to eat it (seriously its some chemical wizardry that blew my mind). All deliveries are made right to your door, and if you’re not there to receive it, they leave you a notice and you can either call them or go online to schedule a time when you will be in for them to drop it off.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg though. It seems to be ingrained in to Japanese culture that as a customer you are to be treated as royalty. At a restaurant they will call you “-sama”, equivalent to “Master” in English. When you purchase something, they will hold the bag with both hands in such a way that the handle is facing you and easy to grab. And the bows. Lordy loo the bows. They will literally do a 90-degree-bend-from-the-waist bow if you even talk to an employee of a shop. It feels incredibly awkward at first, but you quickly get used to it and start to bob your head like a chicken at them as you compete for most bows. I’m going to return home with a superiority complex.
Even outside of the customer relationship, people seem to just genuinely need to make sure they are doing everything they can to both help and respect others. If someone approaches your desk, you stand, because heaven forbid they feel alone in standing. When you leave the office, you MUST say “osaki ni shitsureshimasu” which means “please excuse me for leaving before you”, and they MUST respond with, “thank-you for all your hard work”. Everything is a ritual.

I have much more to say about Japan, including my very first couple of experiences with earthquakes, but I will have to save that for another time! I’m off to eat sushi with friends! Never mind that there’s a typhoon. Food is calling.

The Ninth Day

This will be the last day that I write a full account of, as after this things fell into a pretty reasonable routine.
On the Monday which officially marked one week in Japan, I went to work and again spent the morning looking like I was working away. In truth I really was as I was planning a huge bulletin board by the English room and practicing my speech (once again in Japanese) for an important ceremony in the afternoon. After leaving work at lunch I ate some cup ramen before getting dressed in a suit again and hopping on the subway to downtown.
The ceremony was even more official than the last as we arrived two hours early so that the Board of Education representatives could teach us just how to perform the ceremony. Listen for your name, say “hai!”, stand up, hands clasped in front, step around the table, bow low to all the important people there, walk past them, turn, bow again as you leave their ‘area’, approach podium, man reads your name and school and hands you certificate, grasp certificate first with left hand, then right, bow very very low to this man, stand, turn, take a few steps, bow to important people, turn, return to seat. I’m not even exaggerating, It was so stressful. Then after they had one through everyone, we each in turn made our Japanese speeches again. Once that was over, a few of the important people made speeches and they closed the ceremony, We could all breathe again! We bonded as we discussed how we almost passed out from stress.
After the very formal ceremony we all walked to central Sendai to the British Pub where some of the ALTs had been making a habbit of visiting. I grabbed some pretty decent fish and chips before having a drink and shortly after hopping on the subway home.
Following this day, I began a routine of getting to school by 8:15 am every day, working on various English-related things, and going home around 4:30 pm. Every night I usually find something to do with some of the other ALTs, whether it’s just dinner and shopping or a festival or other culturally significant event. That first week was both amazing and an absolute mind-numbing whirlwind. Here’s to discovering Japan at my own pace!

The Eighth Day

Happy day! A sleep in! After enjoying a much needed sleep in I decided to walk around the park right next to my apartment. It was absolutely stunning. It beats any park I’ve been to, and this one was practically in my backyard.

The main entrance to the park.

Some of the beautiful flowers there.

After my walk I met up with some other ALTs on the othe side of the city to go furniture shopping at a store called Nitori, I still needed a dresser to put my clothes is, a toaster oven (there’s no such thing as an oven in Japan- all apartments are outfitted with just a stove top and a microwave if you’re lucky-I wasn’t), and a chair for my desk. For some strange reason I had also made it my do or die mission to find some decorative pillows for my couch, as I hadn’'t been able to find any anywhere (I thought I had a couple days earlier but the pillows themselves are just oversized beanbags and are highly uncomfortable- now I just use them as weights to hold my blanket in place on my bed). Nitori was a huge success though and I left having ordered everything I needed and bought just about everything I wanted. We all went to yet another ramen shop on the way home and oh. my. goodness. This ramen even topped the last one. It was also spicy, but where it got the edge was with the noodles. They were the best noodles I’ve ever tasted. I would post a picture, but this bowl was devoured far too quickly to even catch a photo of it.
I spent my evening decorating my apartment and finally getting around to unpacking my suitcases. By the time that was done, I was hungry but too tired to go out to buy food so I once again crashed after finishing my third load of laundry.

The Seventh Day

On Saturday morning we were rounded up for a tour of Sendai city. We met at the main subway station in Sendai and fell into the crowds during the biggest festival Sendai has to offer; Tanabata. Tanabata celebrates the yearly meeting of the two gods Orihime and Hikoboshi. The story, to keep it brief, basically featured two gods; a weaver and shepherd who fell in love. However, because they were so involved with each other, they neglected their duties, and the gods were forced to separate them on either side of the Milky Way. Now they are only permitted to see each other once a year, and on that day the people of Sendai (and many other cities) celebrate their union with elaborate decorations, and by making wishes for the coming year and hanging them along with the traditional streamers hung at Tanabata.

The famous Tanabata decorations of Sendai

We sampled one of Sendai’s many specialty dishes, which was like a pancake cooked in a fish-shaped mold and filled with chocolate or other stuffings. It was so delicious. I broke off with a smaller group which ended up enjoying the absolute best ramen I had ever had. It was called something like “Joan of Arc Ramen” and was meant for women-somehow. But it was so good with a spicy broth and ground pork and a large leek (maybe?). I still dream about that ramen.

The best ramen I've ever had.

Later in the day we went shopping for a couple of things different people wanted, including foreign foods, purses, and, my favourite, the Sendai Pokemon center. Each area of Japan has a designated Pokemon center, and no more are permitted other than that one central store. Tohoku, the region where I live, was not permitted to have a Pokemon center until 2011 after the great earthquake and tsunami of Japan. At that time, Sendai was awarded a Pokemon center as a way to cheer up the children of Sendai.

So many pokemon!

I was able to pick up a Bulbasaur plushie and some pokemon cards.

In the evening, after saying goodbye to everyone, I went to shop some more at a local dollar store to try and stock my apartment with necessities like scrubbies and cutlery. After a very busy day I fell asleep on the couch and had to force myself to move to the proper bed in the middle of the night.