Tonight I had to sing in a Karaoke Competition, the one I was volunteered for about a month ago. I had decided to sing YMCA at the suggestion of one of my friends. At first I was dubious but the more I thought about it the more appropriate the song became. It has english that even non-english speakers can understand and I can get the audience involved too, so YMCA was what I decided on. A few nights after I made my song decision I went to a karaoke bar with a few of my co-workers after an event and they got me to sing YMCA in English and then afterwards in Japanese. Apparently I did such a good job that they said I should sing the Japanese version for the competition! I agreed since the competition was a month away and I had toonnns of time to practice.

Fast-forward three weeks: I still hadn't started practicing and the competition was in a week! I'd been so busy I didn't have time (truthfully, I forgot about it...) to practice. Last Tuesday my co-workers, some other new employees who also got "volunteered" to sing in the competition, asked me if I was busy the following night and if I wanted to go to a karaoke bar and practice. It was the first time being reminded of the competition so I said I would definitely go with them. That day I printed off the Japanese lyrics and started my attempt at remembering them, like cramming before a test. I still hadn't remembered them the following night so I was reading off the paper while practicing. We were in the karaoke bar for two hours, alternating our songs back and forth and by the end of that I was pretty damn sick of YMCA! We finished at 11:00pm, I was tired, I didn't want to say "young man" anymore and just wanted to go home and sleep. I reassured myself that I'd memorize the lyrics over the next following days.

This weekend I got distracted after spending some time in Abashiri and Kitami with some other JETs so my piece of paper of lyrics was left, forgotten... until today. I woke up this morning almost in a panic about tonight. I still hadn't remembered the words! I went all day today at my highschool reading the piece of paper and repeating the lyrics in my head over and over again. There was a rehearsal from 2:30-4:00pm so I left the school right after my last class to go and rehearse. They had the stage and everything set up already and it looked to be a bigger event than I had originally thought. They had a guy on scaffolding with a spotlight, a mock windmill on the stage with an actual turning propeller, a backdrop, flashing lights in tune with the music, a judges booth.. this was the real deal! When it came time for my turn I got up onto the stage, trying to maintain my grasp of the lyrics that seemed to slide right out of my head. I placed the sheet of lyrics on the pedestal in front of me and gave it my best!

I remembered maybe half the words, was constantly looking at the sheet, sang off pitch (although.. I don't exactly have the best singing voice in the first place), got my "C" in YMCA backwards (which I realized as I was thinking about it later), and probably looked like I was having a seizure due to my rendition of Seiji Hideko (the singer of the Japanese version of YMCA). I needed some practice.

I went home right after that with two hours to go until I had to return. I got on my computer, found the YouTube video of the Japanese YMCA and listened to it religiously for almost two hours straight. Other than deepening my dislike of YMCA, it actually helped me remember quite a bit. I was able to sing the lyrics without using the sheet! I felt I was ready which, of course, I had to be because there wasn't any more time to practice.

When I returned to the competition there were a lot more people than before. It seemed like the entire town had showed up. I was the 10th person on the list to perform, the follow-up act after the competition's professional guest singer! As he was singing I was waiting backstage, furiously reviewing the lyrics in my head. I realized at that point that I would never be able to memorize the song on my own (all the lights onstage were messing with my memory) so I asked to use a music stand so I could put my lyric sheet on. I would lose points for not remembering the lyrics, but its better than the alternative of not having the lyrics and drawing a blank onstage (*cough* speech contest *cough*). Once the guest singer finished and they called my name, I got onstage all pumped up and ready to go.

My second time singing on the stage went much, much better. I didn't use the sheet all that much and I got the audience pretty involved too. A lot of my students there were pretty excited to see me singing onstage. I finished the song successfully and even received flowers at the end from some people. The MC interviewed me afterwards and told the audience I was from Canada. Then she asked me my age and then said stuff in Japanese which I'm pretty sure was directed to the female members of the audience. After that they called up the next person and I was done! All the hard work of the past few days (more like stressing about remembering the lyrics) had paid off.

I had to wait until everyone else finished singing before they invited us back onstage for the award presentation. Unfortunately I didn't win anything but that's because I got beat out by one of my JTE's - who dressed up as half-man, half-women and sang a duet by himself - and everyone else who were all natural singers. I think maybe I didn't win because they had remembered their lyrics.. yeah, that's it ;) They gave out trophies to each of the winners and then surprisingly, gave out 3000 yen to each of the participants. I wasn't expecting it but it was a nice "Thank you for participating" prize.

It was a really fun experience. I'm wasn't nervous about performing in front of a ton of people (teaching hundreds of kids a day kind of eliminates that) but I was nervous about forgetting the lyrics onstage. I think in retrospect, next time I'll choose a song that's easier to remember.. in a language that's easier to remember.. but I'm also glad I chose YMCA because now I never have to listen to it again!

This past tuesday was the Fall Equinox which is celebrated in Japan by making it a stat holiday. w00t! The possibility of a four day weekend was too good to pass up so I took a day of precious nenkyu (paid leave of absence of which I only get 20 days a year) on the Monday and made it a four-day weekend. I already mentioned before, but the HAJET Southwestern meet was being held at a campground in Shakotan peninsula, about two hours west of Sapporo and all this time off gave me the perfect opportunity to drive down to the meet and explore the island even more.

I was taking another JET, Rebecca, and her twin sister (the same sisters as last weekend) who live in Biei (near Asahikawa) with me to Shakotan. They graciously let me stay at their place on the Friday night so we would get an early start the next morning. That Friday night, however, was a welcome enkai by one of my schools. That afternoon we went for a hike with all the school kids and once we returned and the kids went home, they set up a few tables and we had beer and jinghis kahn right there in the school. At some point during the evening I mentioned that I was going to drive to Biei that night, which I realized afterwards that I shouldn't have mentioned because they wanted to end the enkai right then and there. I said I wasn't in a rush but they wouldn't have it. After a bit of gentle persuasion to the other teachers from the principal, we decided to end the enkai at 6:30pm that night. They gave me a little farewell and plenty of food to bring with me on the drive and I left my town by 7:00pm. It was dark out by then so I made pretty good time (after one or two wrong turns..) and made it into Biei by 10:00pm. I was exhausted from the day's hike, the enkai and the long drive so shortly after I got there it was time for bed.

We left Biei the next morning at 8:00am with a packed car. There's a toll expressway that runs between Asahikawa and Sapporo but, since we weren't in a rush, we decided that we'd take the "scenic route" and drive on the normal highway instead. On the way, we drove through a bunch of little towns and cities which had a lot of traffic lights so it was a bit slow going. We made it into Sapporo around noon and - thanks to my trusty map - successfully navigated our way to Callie's house. We chilled there for ten minutes or so before we set off again for Shakotan. We took a different toll expressway this time and made much better timing. The drive out to Shakotan is right along the coast of the Sea of Japan so our view for pretty much the entire trip was coastline, forests and tunnels. It's a beautiful, natural coastline compared to the eastern coast which is full of cement water breakers and no beaches.

When we arrived in Shakotan I only had a vague idea of where our campsite was from the directions I received. I had circled it on the map so while we were driving I knew we were getting close but wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. As I was rounding a cliff, I could see a beach in the distance with a little city of tents and knew immediatley that's where we were headed. The campsite is literally a strip of grass on a little bluff that goes down to the beach. We unpacked the car, set up our tents and then me and Callie drove ten minutes along the coast to a place called Cape Kamui. It's famous for it's "Virgin Rock", a stone pillar that stands by itself just off the cape. When we got there we walked the path from the parking lot to the top of the cliff to get a better look, but we weren't able to walk out onto the cape because they were doing repairs. We talked to one of the guys working and he said it wouldn't be open until next year. Zannen! It was a gorgeous view from where we were standing and it would've been even better from the lighthouse but ah well, it just means I have to go back next year.

After that we headed back to the campsite and hung out with the other JETs for the rest of the night. There were about 30 of us who showed up for this meet, a little less than last weekend. When it got dark we had a bonfire on the beach by burning random pieces of wood we managed to scalvage including trees, sign posts, benches, etc. There was a raffle, the standard impromptu fireworks display (which occurs at every HAJET meet) and a few hours of talking and good times around the fire. We were right on the beach so when it got dark and the wind started to pick up, it got really cold really fast. I was sitting and talking with some other JETs when 11:00pm rolled around and I decided to call it a night. I went with another JET, Olivia, to find Callie to tell her I was going to bed.. and found her and three other JETs spooning on the beach! They had fallen down in the sand from their photoshoot shenanigans earlier and ended up spooning for warmth. It looked pretty comfortable.. so me and Olivia joined in to make an alternating line of guys and girls spooning on the beach. It was random, but also very fun.. and warm. We ended up lying there talking for another three hours until early in the morning. Since there were no lights on the coast we were able to see the stars really clearly and even the occasional shooting star. It was nice. Eventually it got even colder and we had sand in absolutely every nook and cranny so we decided to head to bed. I didn't end up falling asleep until 4:00am.

We got up the next morning at 8:00am when the tent became a sauna and the crows wouldn't stop being annoying so it was impossible to sleep in. It was a pretty lazy morning with quite a few of the JETs nursing hangovers or groggy from the lack of sleep. Me, Callie and the twins had decided to go hike a mountain in the area called Shakotan dake so we roped in two more JETs and the six of us headed off. We got to the trailhead around 11:00am after driving up a sketchy gravel road to the base and then headed up the trail. It was a fairly easy hike and we made it to the peak in only two hours. When we started out it was overcast and cloudy but by the time we got to the top the sun had burned away the clouds and we were left with a view of the entire peninsula. We stayed up there for half an hour before slowly making our way back to the base. The first thing we did - as everyone should do after taking a hike - is go to an onsen. A really nice onsen was literally right above our campsite so we headed back there first. When we arrived, all the people had already left and every single tent except ours were gone. They went home because they had to work the next day and only a few of us had actually taken nenkyu for the Monday. We had decided to stay another night so the four of us plus another JET who decided to camp the night again with us, Ross, went to the onsen to get cleaned up (to get rid of all the sand!!) and then we drove out to a cliff to watch the sunset. After that we headed into town to eat at a restaurant and then returned to the campsite. It was already pitch black by then and there was no bonfire that night so the five of us just pulled up some chairs next to one of our tents and talked in the dark for a while. It was really relaxing to chill on the beach in the dark at night with a few friends. There's nothing in this world better than that... except maybe doing the same thing while spooning :). It had been a long and exhausting day and we were dropping off one by one so we called it an early night and went to bed by 9:00pm.

We woke up at 7:00am the next morning, ate breakfast and got ready to leave Shakotan. After getting the 10 lbs of sand out of our tents, we packed up everything and leisurely made our way back towards Sapporo. We made a stop along the way at the Space Apple in Yoichi - which has a little space museum - and then continued onto a city called Otaru where we stopped to look around. It's famous for it's canal that runs along downtown and has a few shopping arcades, a ton of glass-blowing shops and a sushi alley. After walking around for a few hours we went for lunch at a snazzy kaitenzushi restaurant before continuing onto Sapporo. We didn't take the expressway back because we weren't in a rush so we braved the Sapporo traffic and managed to make it back to Callie's house by 4:00pm. We recouped there for a short time and then went on a journey to Costco! There were five of us and only one membership card and they have a dumb rule in Japan that you can only use a card to bring in two friends so three of us went in to shop while the other two waited in the car. Costco here is like Costco at home... except a million times better because it's actual food from home! Rebecca was absolutely stoked when she found oats in bulk that she bought three massive boxes to bring back to Biei, enough to last her a few months. I bought a new jacket, a huge chunk of cheese (this stuff is normally unbelievably expensive) and some other random goods that will last me until I go to Costco again. Over 38,200 yen ($382) was spent between the three of us but it was definitely worth it. We loaded down Ross' car with all the food we bought (his camping gear was also still in the car) and headed back to Callie's place to drop off the food. We were going out that night for another JETs birthday dinner so the twins and Ross took off to another JET's place where they were staying the night to get refreshed. I took a shower and a quick nap before we were back out the door at again to meet with others. We went to an amazing Indian restaurant where we gaijin smashed the place and basically took over. After that we took the subway downtown to return to the same club as the Sapporo Orientation, A-Life, for three hours of nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) that started at 10 o'clock. There were a couple of DJ's from around the world performing that night. It went until 5:00am but unfortunately I didn't last that long. We ended up leaving the club a bit early and didn't sleep until after 4:00am (again!).

We woke up around six hours later because we already know sleeping in is impossible in Japan. That afternoon Callie's angel, Mayumi, came over and we went to a park on the edge of Sapporo to watch a Taiko event. It was a regional competition where teams from all around Hokkaido came to compete. First place would go on to compete in Honshu at the national competition. The ages in each team varied from little elementary kids to adults but they were all amazing! Midway through the event they had a demonstration session where members of the audience could go onstage to do a mini taiko lesson. It didn't take much persuasion for me and Callie to get up there so Mayumi came up with us also to help translate. As usual, Callie being the only blonde on stage (and at the entire event) she had a million photos taken of her. Here's a video of some pro taikoing. Sorry about the sound quality but my camera couldn't handle the awesomeness.


We decided to leave the event a little bit early so we could make it back to catch a bit of the Autumn Festival that's going on right now in Sapporo. On the way back into downtown we saw a a huge statue of a Buddha on top of a temple so we decided to make a quick stop and check it out. When we walked into the temple there were a couple of booths set up because they were celebrating the unveiling of the new Buddha statue (I think) including a welcome booth where they asked us to write down our names in the guestbook. When I wrote down my name in English the lady there asked me if I was Japanese and I told her I was from Canada. She got really excited and starting asking me questions and then asked if we would pray at the temple! Apparently it brings good luck to us and the temple if we prayed there so she guided me, Callie and Mayumi over to a huge urn with incense and showed us how to do a Buddhist prayer. After that she brought us over to a picnic table and gave us tea and snacks and asked us to stay for a while. We had only planned on stopping by for a quick look but we ended up there for at least half an hour. It also didn't help that when we asked an innocent question about Buddhist statues it turned out that no one knew the answer so they proceeded to ask every single person there! When they still couldn't find someone that knew they called someone and politely asked us to wait. Mayumi, our poor interpreter, was stuck listening to a lecture on Buddhism while we waited. Once they had managed to find out the answer and tell us (about ten minutes later) we were able to leave politely. We drove back into downtown but didn't have time to make it to the Fall Festival. I had to leave by 5:00pm so once we got back to Callie's, we quickly went shopping at a 100 Yen store for last minute goods then I loaded the car, picked up the twins, refueled and we were off.

I made it outside the city at 6:00pm and took the toll expressway back to Asahikawa. It only took us two hours (and $32) to get back to Biei but it was worth it. I was pretty exhausted from the day and from the lack of sleep the last few nights so I wanted to get home as soon as possible. Once I got to Biei I had some tea to wake myself up and then I was off again. It took me another three hours from Biei to get back to Kamiyubetsu and by then I was super exhausted. I made it back at 11:00pm but by 10:00pm my eyelids kept wanting to close. I was considering pulling over on the side of the road to nap for half an hour but I forced myself to go on. When I got home I brought my clothes up to my apartment, took a quick shower and then slept like a stone. This morning I went to work as usual and then taught an eikaiwa so I didn't manage to clean out my car until a few hours ago. I'm still exhausted from the weekend so I think I'll call it an early night tonight. Luckily it's a short work week because then I can sleep in on Saturday... or at least attempt to.

This past weekend, Sept. 13-15, was a holiday weekend and was also when the HAJET Eastern Hokkaido Meet was. It was held at a campsite near a town called Nakashibetsu near the east coast of Hokkaido and was a chance for all the new and old ALT's in the area to get together and hang out. It was a weekend of camping, hiking, partying, exploring, onsen and more onsen.

I decided to go up on Saturday morning and I was taking a JET and her sister from the Asahikawa area with me. They came up to my town the night before to spend the night and then we left bright and early the next morning, picking up another JET in Engaru on the way.There was a hike planned for 1:30pm so we left early enough to make the three hour drive (with a 15 minute detour to erm.. look at the countryside..) and arrived in the afternoon. We were going to climb Musa-dake (Mt. Musa) which is a four hour hike to the peak and back. There was a group of ten of us who came early for the hike but we didn't get to the base until 2:30pm. I was pretty stoked for it and bought new hiking shoes and a backpack to replace the one I had to leave at home *sniff*. We followed the 4km trail, fought our way to the peak and got there at 4:30pm to rest for a bit before double-timing it back down before it got dark. The sun sets early here so we just barely made it back to our cars by 6 o'clock when it got pitch dark.

Right after we headed to a local onsen to clean ourselves up and relax. It was pretty small with only three baths but it felt pretty damn good after climbing up a mountain. After a quick stop at Seico Mart (a convinience store) for the others to buy booze (you can get booze pretty much anywhere in Japan) we headed back to the campsite to eat and meet up with the rest of the ALT's. There was a pretty large turnout with almost 50 people from all over Hokkaido, some coming from nearby towns and others driving 8-9 hours from as far away as Sapporo. There were also a lot of non-JETs (private ALT's) in the area that were invited to the meet. One girl I met hadn't seen any other english-speaking foreigners in the three months she's been living here! After a huge supper of yakisoba we had a big bonfire at the campsite followed by impromptu fireworks (prizes my friend won that we set off) and then a short walk into town to party at a local bar called Safeway (with almost the same logo, weird). After chatting with the others for a bit (I found new snowboarding buddies!) and checking out the bar for about an hour I went back to the camp and crashed at 1:00am due to sheer exhaustion.

The next morning I woke up at 7:00am (like I always do... there's no such thing as sleeping in for me anymore) and ate a breakfast of conbini onigiri. Deeelicous! At 10:30am that morning there was a taiko session planned for us (real ones this time) so we went to a cabin really close to the campsite where they spread 20 of us out onto one floor and gave us each a taiko drum. We were given a super beginner course where they taught us how to stand and hit the drums and then taught us two little songs to bang away at. All those arcade taiko lessons had paid off :)

After sweating up a storm for an hour and a half (taiko is intense!) we went to a mall in Nakashibetsu for lunch where I had my first KFC in Japan. It's pretty much the same as back home so I wasn't missing anything.. After that we got together a group of people who wanted to go to a super onsen called Yoroushi and caravan'd our way there. Unfortunately, with me being the leader, we accidently got lost and ended up driving in a circle for an hour.. but I won't talk about that.. The onsen was only open to the public between 1-3 and 7-9pm and it was after 2 o'clock by the time we made it back into town so we decided to check out the coast and go to the onsen later that night.

We drove 20 minutes to Shibetsu, a town on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, to go to a place I dubbed the "Shrimp Peninsula" because I don't actually know what it's called and it looks like a shrimp. The 13 of us drove out onto this peninsula and spent a good two hours hanging out on the beach and the water breakers, taking tons of photos and stamping ourselves with cows. The island in the background of the pic on the right is Russian territory so technically I saw Russia from Japan. The one on the left is a pic with random Japanese guys who wanted a picture with our group. Tourists unite! We stopped every hundred meters or so to take pictures of something or other so it was slow going to get to the tip of the peninsula. It was nice to stop and smell the roses because we had all the time in the world.

We got back to the campsite at 6:00pm when it got dark and waited for our guide (the local JET who lives in Nakashibetsu) to finish an interview with the local newspaper before we could head out to the Yoroushi onsen. We were itching to go because we were all set on going earlier but.. yeah.. Surprisingly, the local newspaper wanted to interview me and Justin too because we were first year ALT's. They asked questions about taiko, our impression of Nakashibetsu and about the Eastern Meet. I told her about the arcade taiko sessions from Sapporo and she loved it, so I should be in the Nakashibetsu newspaper! We got to the onsen successfully this time and spent over an hour there. This place was amazing, it's an onsen hotel meaning you can rent rooms there and it's reputably the best onsen in Eastern Hokkaido. It had six baths, a mixed onsen and... a cold bath! It's exactly what it sounds like, a bath of cold water. It may not sound amazing but the first time I tried it I was hooked. What you do is you get steaming hot from the normal onsen and then jump into the cold bath to "shock" your body. It felt so good, I alternated between the baths at least 4-5 times. It's amazing! I felt great for at least three hours afterwards.

Once we were done, about eleven of us drove back to Nakashibetsu and found an izakaya restaurant to eat for supper. All of us hadn't eaten since the mall that afternoon so we were ravenous. We ended up staying there for an hour and a half and had a tab of 18,700 yen ($187) but it was well worth it. We were all about to fall asleep at the table so we got out of there by 11:00pm and headed back to the campsite. Some of us went to bed right away but the rest of us went to the campfire where someone had brought a guitar and spent the next few hours singing songs. Cliche, I know, but it was a really good way to end off the weekend.

The next morning was a round of goodbyes and farewells and then I left with my crew to drop off the sisters at the train station before heading home. Today it was back to work, like nothing happened but there are still the memories and pictures to look back on. This Friday I have another hike with my school to get me prepared for this weekend - Shakotan Peninsula. It's a four day weekend and it's where the Southwestern Hokkaido Meet is. It should be quite the epic of a weekend and I'm quite excited for it. Stay tuned!

This past weekend I helped out at my town's Tonden Furusato Matsuri, celebrating the farmer-soldiers who moved out to this part of the island and settled here many years ago. Nowadays it's celebrated with giant skip rope competitions, giant tug o' war competitions, giant pools where kids can fish for trout, a giant BBQ, and a giant Bingo competition. The whole town came out, teams competed, tears were shed and a good time was had by all.

As part of the yakuba (townhall) I was volunteered to help out with the festivities, mainly by helping to carry things around and then standing around the judge's booth and looking pretty. I also partook in the giant skip rope competition with the highschool teacher's team where we had five people going at once. The points were awarded for each successful jump multiplied by the number of people jumping. Unfortunately, we lost to the machine-like junior high volleyball team who managed to get over 1000 points. I'm pretty sure they're forced to train for hours at a time because I don't know how they didn't collapse from pain due to all their jumping.

After that was the tug o' war competition which I didn't compete in but would've loved to. They were made up of teams of 10-14 people from different businesses and schools. Once that finished they brought out a massive rope (literally a rope the thickness of a tennis ball and 300 meters long) and pitted one half of the town against the other. There were over 100 people pulling from each side so I decided to jump in on the side closest to me. Unfortunately (again), I picked the side that lost! When this was over everyone lined up to help put away the rope and then gave us each a consolation prize. They were sweat towels (very useful in hot weather when your sweating like a pig) with the town logo, the festival name on it and... the kanji for "Loser" printed on it! WTF? They gave the winning side towels that said "Winner" and our side the "Loser" towels. I guess it's their way of saying "Better luck next year"?.. Maybe? At least now whenever I use the towel everyone will know which side of the tug o' war I was on.

One of the other things that happened was the giant Bingo competition near the end of the festival. It was amazing. There was a voucher on the festival flyer that everyone in town received in their mailbox that they had to redeem for a bingo card. I had forgotten mine so my supervisor kindly gave me his. A huge tent was filled to the brim with random stuff: bags of juice, boxes of food, bags of rice, kleenex boxes and a bunch of other random boxes and bags (that I don't know what they were because I couldn't read the kanji..) Anyways, they set up a huge bingo board and called out the numbers, just like normal bingo, and had a pathway roped off leading to the tent so whenever someone got a bingo they had their card checked and then lined up to collect their prize. Obviously you want to get a bingo quickly because the best prizes go first. After the first eight numbers or so the first Bingo gets called. The guy who won walked away with a brand new bicycle! As more numbers got called, more and more people got Bingo and a line for the prizes started to form. I saw the prize pile slowly starting to shrink and thought, "Dammit! Where's my Bingo!?". After quite a few numbers were called and a few hundred prizes had already been given away I finally got a Bingo. I pushed my way past the old people and little kids (no, just kidding :) to get to the front of the line, eagerly awaiting my prize... to get a can of this. Is it crab soup? I don't know, so I asked one of my students I saw there but he didn't know either. Later on I asked my co-worker (who speaks really good english) and she says it's to make crab miso soup, but isn't very tasty. Oh great! I tried to pawn it off to my supervisor as his prize since he gave me his card but he didn't want it either! I guess I'll just use it as a paperweight, or give it as omiyage to an unsuspecting JET.

After the festival was over the yakuba team (who put on the entire festival by the way) stayed and we had our own yakuniku fest with all the leftover food that wasn't sold at the BBQ. We ate for a solid two hours and then went out for karaoke afterwards. A late night and heavy drinking on a Sunday? Sure, why not! The Japanese know how to party! We hung out there for quite a few hours and they made me sing YMCA a bunch of times.

Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned it yet, but my co-workers told me that ALL new employees at town hall have to sing in a karaoke competition coming up on the 29th. The deadline to pick a song was coming up quickly and I didn't have any ideas so I went with one Justin mentioned, YMCA. Gah! What was I thinking? I'm not really afraid to make an ass of myself for their entertainment so it should be interesting..

Anyways, they made me sing YMCA in not only the english version, but in the Japanese version too! I sang it at least 3-4 times because it was "good practice" for the competition. I had intended to sing YMCA in english but they thought I did such a good job at the Japanese version that now I have to do it in Japanese for the competition. Ye gads! I have to have the song memorized by then too so I guess it's back to the karaoke bar for more practice.. I'll keep you all updated on that.

For anyone wanting to come on the JET Programme, the saying "every situation is different" is definitely true. I'm what you call a "One-shot" Assistant Language Teacher (ALT). I'm not based in a school, I work for my town's Board of Education and my desk is at town hall. I have a total of six schools I go to which are four elementaries, one junior high and one senior high. My schedule is made up between my supervisor and the schools I work at which means that everyday I go to the schools I'm supposed to be at for that day and help teach a few english lessons. My schedule is the same each week but the grades I teach in the schools varies each week. I may teach a class of Gr. 6's one week and then not see them again for another 5-6 weeks so it makes it a bit tough if I want to do follow up lessons. In each of my classes I work with the Japanese english teacher (JTE) and teach the class with them. It's a mixed bag as some JTE's have everything prepared beforehand and some require me to make up the entire lesson plan by myself! My work week looks like this:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
AM	SHS	JHS	ES 2	JHS	ES 3
PM		ES 1	ES 3		ES 4

On Wednesday's after my last lesson I also go to the Jidou center where a lot of the elementary and junior high school kids go after school to hang out. I usually play with them for an hour or so and teach them new games and stuff. It's always pretty fun. On Tuesdays nights and Fridays after school I teach adult eikaiwa classes. These usually only last an hour or so and are more focused on english conversation. The awesome thing is that the classes I teach on Tuesdays are considered work outside of my regular hours so instead of getting overtime, I get banked holiday hours! It's not much but it works out to an extra day of vacation every two months.

Since my schedule is so varied I get a lot of different teaching experience. I work with younger kids most of the time but I also get to see what the junior and high schools are like. I think I prefer teaching the little kids have because they have a lot more energy than the older kids. There's always a chorus of "John Sensei!!" whenever I arrive and they're always super excited to see me. It's also fun just hanging out with them and playing games instead of teaching english. The other schools can be pretty interesting too though. I did a self-introduction at my high school a few days ago and the teacher gave them a worksheet that was based on my introduction. After listening to me talk they had to write down what I said, their first impression of me (most of which were "Nihonjin to omotta!" [I thought he was Japanese]), a question to ask me and a Japanese kanji to teach me. I got to read them afterwards and this was one I received! It's a question I've been getting a lot after my introductions. Another girl said that I looked like a famous Japanese actor. It was a nice ego boost :)

One of the greatest things about the schools (aside from the kids of course ;) are the lunches! They have a lunch program in my town so all the kindergarten, elementary and junior high schools have food delivered to their school at lunchtime. I'm talking good food! They send out a biweekly schedule of the menu with something different on it each day. Today I had spaghetti, a hamburger patty and some kind of soup. Other days I could get onigiri, miso soup, tuna salad, wonton, etc. you name it. They always come with a little carton of milk and it's only around 200 yen ($2) each time! It's dirt cheap, healthy and pretty much all you can eat (at least until it runs out). They don't feed us at the high school though so I have to bring a lunch on those days... which I usually just end up buying at 7-11. The bento lunches there are actually pretty good.

One of the other good things about being at so many schools is that most of them are having welcome parties for me! I have an enkai coming up with one of my elementaries where they are cancelling classes that day and are taking me hiking in the morning. How awesome is that! Later that evening is the enkai which usually has enough food to make up for the fact I don't drink, and will probably be followed by karaoke. This is the same school I mentioned before that only has 31 students. I also have another enkai with my highschool this coming Monday. They're taking me to a really good sushi restaurant in my town that I haven't been to yet, and whose owner happens to be one of my Tuesday eikaiwa students!

From what I've heard of other JETs whose situations are worse than mine, like have crappy co-workers or ratty apartments full of roaches, I think I have it pretty good here. Everyone I work with is super friendly and awesome and my apartment is great. I think I'll enjoy my next few years living and teaching here.

So I mentioned before that I had a few roadtrips planned for the next few weeks, including a big one down in the southwesten part of Hokkaido. Even though the train would be more convenient and probably cheaper, I decided to drive because I wanted to see more of the island and have the flexibility to go wherever I wanted while I was in the area. I was thinking about it last night when it occured to me that I should probably start looking at how exactly I was going to get there. Fortunately, my supervisor got a big roadmap book for me when I first bought my car and I finally looked at it for the first time last night. When I opened it up I saw this:


Apart from being dazzled by all the pretty colors, everything is in Kanji! And Kanji that you can't just look up in a dictionary either. There are pink roads, light green roads, dark green roads, blue roads, rainbow roads, etc. and to make it worse, there's a legend on the maps that shows closeups of different intersections and how to exit them!

Needless to say, I have quite a bit of homework to do before I go. I know the green roads are expressways after accidentally taking one while I was exploring a few weeks ago (and not being able to exit until the end). I also know the blue colored roads are toll highways because there's one that runs between Asahikawa and Sapporo that charges a fee of... wait for it... 3800 yen ($38)! Insanity! It's no wonder that taking the train in Japan is so cost effective, they charge an arm and a leg just to drive on the highways. I have to make a stop in Asahikawa to pick up a JET and her sister and then continue onto Sapporo to pick up Callie, so I'll end up having to take that highway anyways. From there it's another two hours to Shakotan where the party is being held. From my house to Shakotan and back its a distance of just over 700 km. I have a pretty good sense of direction so I'm hoping I'll make it ok. I think the worst part will be trying to navigate through Sapporo, a city of almost 2 million. There's an awesome website I found that lets me plan roadtrips, tells me the distances between cities and also which highways to take so I think I'll be alright. Besides, if I do manage to get lost I'll just use my cellphone GPS to tell me where I am ;) Ah, I love Japan. I like getting lost and discovering new places though so I'll probably be doing a lot of it!

I found I had some time on my hand yesterday evening (a first since I've gotten to Japan) and I wasn't really sure what to do.. so I cleaned an rearranged my apartment! I probably found a tennis size ball of dust bunnies in total and managed to increase the size of my living room by 100%. It also feels a lot better now since I Feng Shui'd the place up. All I need left to get are some carpets, a bedside table, and maybe a lamp... an ikea would come in handy right about now.
And now, some pictures: