This American Life

For the last few weeks, I've been hooked on listening to the popular radio show, This American Life. For those of you who don't know, it's an hour-long show featuring stories (usually true, sometimes fiction) revolving around a certain theme. The stories are usually told by writers or reporters, and are always worth listening to no matter what the theme is. It's not centered around be American necessarily, it just captures stories from all walks of life, which happen to be in America. I tend to listen to them in the morning when I'm just getting started, during breakfast, etc. You can listen to past episodes for free on their website, so I've been taking advantage of that. If you go under favorites, you can hear some of the best ones too. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
You can also hear it on NPR, though I'm not sure when necessarily. I have one student who is pretty advanced, so I will be recommending her to listen to things like this online, as it will help her improve her listening and real-world vocabulary. She already does some translating, so I think it will be a good next step, as well as a window into American culture.

Classroom Shaking and Ancient Traditions

Over the past few weeks, the surprising amount of "classroom shaking" has slowly come to my attention. The rumbling can be felt when it is time to sing the "Letter Song" and I must chase my 7-8 year old students around the room. Surprise surprise, it's everyone's favorite part of the lesson. The other kind of classroom shaking is due to my school's location adjacent to Ueda Station, and the kind of 20th century advances in ground transportation that whiz through the station at 200 miles per hour. While that kind of shaking isn't too distracting, the occasional student might ask what it is, and another student will nonchalantly respond, "It's the bullet train.". The real distracting kind of shaking is the one that convinces me the building is going down (though it's still standing) and makes everyone's heart skip a beat. We all pause for a few seconds, we all look at one another, we all hear the pre-schoolers losing control four rooms away. It makes me not want to go outside, mostly because I probably forgot my umbrella. After all, it was sunny this morning. I am of course talking about the loudest thunder I've ever heard, and the rain, lightning, clouds, and fear that come with it. Ueda's own weather pentaverate.
This weather pentaverate had been a regular for the month of what is known as "Rainy Season" (tsuyu 梅雨). It suddenly disappeared about a week and half ago, and the main topic of conversation while chatting in the lobby was how difficult the heat's been. So this morning, a co-worker of mine starts telling me about the Ueda Gion Festival, which was happening later in the day. He eventually tells me about how it rains every year on the festival, without fail. I tell him no way, as it's been hot, sunny, and clear for a week and a half now, and I didn't think this city had any rain left in it. I go out for lunch, and there's not a cloud in the sky. Then, six-thirty rolls around and my classroom is shaking. It's too much for it to be a bullet train, and my eight year olds have been long gone for seven hours. We hear pouring and feel more shaking, and sure enough the pentaverate is paying us another visit. While it is still relatively close to rainy season, it's incredible that it rains every year on the night of this festival. I asked my co-worker, who has lived in the area his whole life and this city for fifteen years, the simple words, "Divine intervention?", and he smiled but did not answer. The Gion festival, originally from Kyoto, was started to appease the gods of fire, floods, and earthquakes. Maybe the weather pentaverate of Ueda just feels a little left out?

New Developments

The past few weekends I have been a little busier than normal. My school had a welcome barbecue for me last Sunday, so I had a great opportunity to talk to my students outside of class and get to know them a lot better. It was also fun to see the other teachers there dressed casually and not working. This coming weekend I will be heading back down to the Tokyo area for a mandatory follow up training. The last one we had was successful, though the travel and everything back and forth was pretty tiring. It should be a little easier this time, but hopefully it doesn't wear me out for the week.
In my free time, I have been getting around town and trying the food at different places. Many of my students recommended a few Indian restaurants, so I made sure I tried those. They were all pretty good, and I think it'd be funny if Ueda became famous for Indian food somehow. I am yet to find another hamburger place in town, so with only Mos Burger and McDonald's, I may be forced to start making my own at home. I've started experimenting with grilled cheese sandwiches, inspired by my experience at The Grilled Cheese Invitational in April. Raisin bread and grilled onions are terrific with grilled cheese, and even some marmalade spread too. I'll let you know if I make any noteworthy discoveries.
The best news I have is that next month I will be returning to Kyoto! We have a few days off, so I decided I must make a return to Kyoto. I will be taking the overnight bus both ways, and first on my list of things to do there is to stop at Smile Burger. That will without a doubt be the ultimate burger update, though I don't know if I will be able to write anything I don't already know. I still have a few friends in the area and there are many things I want to do, so it will all be a lot of fun. I'm staying in a hostel with a friend who's teaching in Gifu, and we'll be there for three nights. Seeing as I'm taking the overnight bus, I will have four very full days there, arriving at 6 a.m. the first day and departing at 10 p.m. the last day. That assures me of at least three trips to Smile Burger.

Eric vs. Ueda Garbage Collection, Pt. 2

After that first run-in with the notorious garbage rule enforcers, no one was more surprised by our month of peace than I was. As a token of my gratitude (and strict rule observation!), I decided to make the effort of finding the garbage collection center myself to properly dispose of some old sheets that have been taking up space in my apartment. From what I understand in the garbage collection manual, that is the only way to get rid of such items. After about 45 minutes of walking along the river, or up and down streets, or past Chapel-like wedding venues (they look like chapels, but I assure you they're only for weddings), and getting rained on in the process, I decided to head back to my apartment and save this for another day. I was lucky I did too, since had I even found the place, I would have been there during their mid-day lunch break off-hours. The manual clearly states the Receiving Hours of the collection center, which are 8:30-11:45 a.m. and 1:00-4:00 p.m. I think we're all pretty sure my sheets would not have been collected.
Luckily, I was able to get back to my apartment, dry off, refuel for the day, and head out to lunch. I tried a new place for lunch that many of my students recommended to me, an Indian place called Jaipur. The lunch special came with curry, some amazing rice, and naan bread. All three were very good, but I was very surprised by the light ginger flavor of the rice. I'll definitely be making more trips there when the opportunity arises. That lunch really got me going on the right foot again after the moderately disappointing morning. I then took a train to a part of the city I had yet to visit, and walked to an art museum I've been meaning to go to for a while. The walk was about half an hour and took me through some real farmland (rice paddies, etc.), until I got back up into the actual mountains. There was a bus I could have taken, but I really enjoyed being out there in the open air. I was the only person out there and could here the frogs croaking and birds chirping. The clouds were lower than usual, covering up the tops of most of the mountains. It was a real relief taking my time and walking the path all that way, wet and tired none the less.

Burger Update #3: Teriyaki Egg Burger w/ Cheese

When comparing two countries or cultures, especially two as different as Japan and the United States, I become very interested in things that are surprisingly the same. For example, linguistic similarities between people of the same generations (transcending language and culture), or that certain posture a baseball coach might have while his players are warming up. These things are not baffling, but in fact very revealing, as they show us that we are not as different as we may all think. There are of course many other shared qualities across the Pacific, and one of them is big, bad giant of the fast food industry.
Unlike socio-linguistic research, McDonald's is something that brings more disappointment when I find things to be exactly the same. The Big Breakfast tastes the same, as does the Quarter Pounder. They don't even use pounds here, as they have the metric system. So as a result, a rare trip to McDonald's in Japan usually includes something unique to the Japanese menu. The Teriyaki Burger. The Chicken Tatsuta. The Karakara Chicken. What is even the same in Japan with all of those is that they too taste okay going down but leave you in a mess an hour later.
During my last trip to McDonald's I had to try a sandwich I had not seen before: the Teriyaki Egg Burger w/ Cheese, pictured below.

This strange combination actually sounds like it could be a good idea. If you have tried the Teriyaki Burger from the golden arches over here, you may agree with me that it is more of a sausage patty than a hamburger patty. A little peppery, and with the teriyaki sauce, a decent combination. When they added egg and cheese to that, I found it to be surprisingly similar to a Sausage McMuffin with Egg. But, you know, with teriyaki sauce. Bad is definitely too strong of a word, but I don't think I'd order it again from there. From another place it might work, but with McDonald's world-renowned quality (or lack there of), it really just didn't deliver. Unless of course, your idea of delivering is that same bad feeling in the gut that all of their other sandwiches bring me too.
I'll have to get started on making a better one myself at home!

Nagoya/Gifu/Wide View

I made a quick trip down south this weekend, visiting my buddy James in Gifu for the 4th of July. Gifu itself isn't a big or famous city, and despite being in a different prefecture, it is part of the greater Nagoya area. We met up at Nagoya station and killed time by losing money in an arcade to a bunch of those claw machines, tempting us with Hello Kitty frying pans, huge boxes of candy, and stuffed animals that could have potentially been ours. We eventually met up with our friend Chie, who also went to UCSC and is a local, and we walked around some interesting parts of the city. James introduced me to Tonmusu, which is pictured below. It is a very simple idea, but also happens to be incredibly delicious. It's a ball of rice wrapped in thin slices of pork, and either with a topping or as is. It was great with no toppings and great with cheese on it, and costs about $3. A pretty good deal if you ask me...


The train I took down there is called the "Wide View", and took me through some new territory. While most roads and tracks from Nagano to Nagoya or Gifu go through Tokyo, the Wide View train goes around, through the mountains, and on a quicker and more direct path. It not only saved me time, but also money, and I had some really beautiful scenery to look at. It was about three hours each way, so I had plenty of time to doze off, read, and listen to music. Here's a little video I took.

Naturally, with so many mountains, trees, and rivers, I had no choice but to listen to one of my favorite albums of all time. With lyrics poetic enough to take my mind from the middle of a busy city to the epic wild of Alaska, listening to all seven songs of David Conner's Ursus Horribilis while on that train was a one of a kind experience. Seeing as the Wide View is a cheap and convenient way to get to the other side of Tokyo, I hope to have that experience a few more times. If you're interested in hearing a few of those songs, you can hear them here. Or you can see one here.