Tennis: I suck

Woo-hoo! Two days in a row!

Well, I'll keep this brief. I played tennis with some colleagues after work today. I'm not a sports-guy, never have been, left that to my brother a long time ago, but damn, I suck at tennis. Seems I remember playing a long time ago and actually being able to get it over the net fairly consistently, but I seem to have lost more hand-eye coordination than I would like to think. Ugh. This is what it was like.


NET. NET. NET. SWISH. NET. NET. SWISH. hit. SWISH. NET. NET....

Yeah, I'm going to go try rock climbing next week.

School begins...I get pissed off. Is there a connection?

So I'm going to TRY to be more diligent here, and post more regularly and cut down on the length. But I think I said that before. Anyway, here's to trying.

I got sick. Came back from the wedding feeling kind of blah, throat a bit sore, but not too bad, and then Monday I woke up and it had gone full-blown. I was SICK. Sore throat, coughing up nasty yellow mucus. YUCK. It sucked. Made it through work on Monday, stayed home that night, stayed home all day Tuesday (in spite of it being a PERFECT spring day), and on Wednesday morning went to the doctor's. I hate the doctor's but I went.

This guy asked me what was wrong (in English), I answered in English and Japanese. He asked if I had asthma, I told him yes. He listened to my chest, then to my back, then he prescribed me medication. The whole took less than five minutes, and I would have been satisfied if he'd given me antibiotics, but he gave me medicine that helped...until my cold morphed and went into my sinuses. So then I had medicine for my cough but not my congestion. I've been dealing with it since, and I think it's about done, but one week is just too long for me to be sick.

I haven't run in a week and am feeling out of shape...I think tomorrow, though, I'm going to play (or try to play) tennis with some friends.

Anyway, back to the title of this post. I have freshmen this term. I had freshmen last term, too, but in much smaller numbers (half) and second semester, so they'd gotten a little used to college. The kids I have still think they're in high school. So I had to give them a wake up call. Last Friday they wouldn't listen...wouldn't quiet down so I could give them instructions, so I hammered them with homework. I know in retrospect that that is a very high school teacher thing to do, but if they're going to act like high schoolers... In any case, I think it worked...they seemed more subdued and ready to cooperate. I hate doing that kind of thing, I really, really do. But sometimes kids leave no choice. The class is too large, over 25 (which is HUGE for a language class), and I just don't have the time or patience to babysit, especially since this class is being taught in sync with other sections and we need to move at a very specific pace.

But my other two classes are good, so I think this will be a good term, once I get these freshmen wised up.

Hope you're all well....Aloha.

A visit from Dad; school begins...again. Then a wedding!

My dad arrived here on April 3rd, which means that he left Hawaii on April 2nd. Originally, he was going to leave on the 1st, arrive on the 2nd. So when he updated his travel plans to me, saying that he was leaving Honolulu on the 2nd and would then leave Japan on the 11th, I thought: "Ok, he pushed back his return date." So, on the evening of April 2nd, around 8:30, I started to wonder where my dad was. Around 9:30, I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what could have delayed him so much. At 10:30 I was about to write an email to my brother to see if he knew anything...but luckily held off. About 11:00 or so, it finally clicked that he was leaving Hawaii on the 2nd. I was a day early.

The next night he called me from the airport, then showed up an hour or so later on the bus, dropped so conveniently at the station only minutes from my apartment. Hawaii is 19 hours behind Japan, or 5 hours ahead and a day behind; whichever is easier for you to get your head around. In either case, he was tired as it was about 1 AM Hawaii time, so he went to bed early, though of course he'd be up early.

The next day was the opening ceremony for the new semester at my school, so I had don my black suit and off we went. My dad tried to catch some Z's while I was attending the ceremony. The only interesting thing at the ceremony was the performance by the university cheerleader squad, which, aside from the language, could have been imported directly from some Asian-dominated town in the US, so perfectly did they smile and cheer and give that all-too-familiar "cheerleader nod." You know the one.

That evening we met up with my friend Yuka and the three of us hit a great udon shop in Umeda, quite famous (if getting into the Lonely Planet Eating section counts as fame). After a tasty dinner, we headed over to Osaka Castle for some nighttime viewing of the cherry blossoms, which were just hitting their peak. Amazingly beautiful. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, and though I used Yuka's, I couldn't get all that I wanted...but there's always next year. We walked a lot that night, exhausting my dad completely, although he never complained at all.

Saturday was a take-it-easy day, so went to Costco for lunch, dropped by two hardware stores, then home. Easy-peasy.

Sunday we headed to Okayama, to Shiraishi Island for a little quiet relaxation time. We took the Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Okayama City, 45 minutes, a local train to Kasaoka, another 45 minutes, then a ferry, 30 minutes. We checked into the Villa and found that there was a Danish girl, Marie, staying there as well, just the three of us. We got tipped off that the next day might be rainy, so we headed out immediately to check out the beach (so-so, but then I'm a harsh judge, coming from Hawaii and all) and hike up the mountain to the observatory. The weather was perfect that day, with a strong wind and lots of sun. The following day it did rain, and rain, and rain, but let up enough in the afternoon that we walked down to the beach with Marie to check out the low tide. In Hawaii, the high and low tides are not so drastic, but farther from the equator, a drop of several feet is normal, so we got to see a lot more of the beach than we had earlier. Some kids were digging out some kind of shellfish, but what exactly they were, I don't know. Long and skinny and cylindrical like a cigar. Our last morning there, we took out some bikes and rode around the island. Aside from one rather long and steep hill we had to push the bikes up, it was a pleasant ride.

The next day, Wednesday, was my last free day. We took in a bike ride in Ibaraki, going first to a great sushi place (of the conveyor belt type) and then the Expo Park, or Banpaku, which I've written about before. We caught what was probably the last day of the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, and enjoyed walking the grounds and taking in the beauty of the trees and their fragile flowers.

Then school started. Luckily I only had one class first thing in the morning, but other work required that I stay on longer, so I didn't get home until after lunch. That first class was great. 7 students, mostly higher ability levels. Unfortunately, it was downhill from there. Friday brought me back to reality. My first class was a TOEIC prep class; that's a test designed to see how well people can use English in an international setting, for work and such. I had over 45 students. It's since been trimmed to about 32, but it's still a big class. My other class was noisy...very noisy. They are all freshmen and obviously still don't realize that they are in college now...I'm going to have to teach them. SIGH.

My dad and I had lunch on Friday, then said our goodbyes, as I was leaving directly from school for my friend Kurara's place in the countryside for her wedding, and my dad was leaving that evening for Hawaii. He got out on his flight just fine. I had by this time started to feel a bit under the weather, a bit of sore throat coming on. But I was the wedding photographer, so I had no excuses, just had to push through.

The Shimizu house, which was always full of life, hit new highs this weekend. Daniel had five relatives in for the wedding--his grandmother, mother, aunt, uncle, and his uncle's fiance--not to mention Kurara's brother and two sisters, brother-in-law, two nieces, two friends from Canada, and me. And her parents. FULL HOUSE. But in a good way. Spanish, English, and Japanese...and that may have been the only time I have ever been called on to be a translator...what a poor job I did at that!

The wedding was at 1 PM on Saturday, so that morning I was up and shooting whatever preparations I could: Kurara's make-up, Daniel looking for something, Kurara's mom putting on her kimono, etc. We hurried off, went to the chapel place, and I got set up: one camera with a flash on a tripod, another held in my hands for close-ups. The service was bilingual, with a priest from the Congo (yes, in Africa) presiding, speaking both English and Japanese (the guy speaks 7 languages). It was nice, though with my duty as cameraman, I didn't get to listen as much as I wanted.

The picture session afterwards was a flurry of confusion, with most of the set shots we wanted to do tossed out because of how late everything was running. But we mangaed to get in some lovely shots in any case, but after what felt like only a few minutes (but was probably more like 30) we moved on to the reception. There was a nice buffet set out, a lovely cake made by Kurara's younger sister, and even a short song and dance later on.



I had the good fortune (actually Kurara's good planning) to get seated with six of my former students, all classmates of Kurara. It was so nice to see them again, grown and mature, one of them married and pregnant, others working, one still studying in a master's program. It was really nice to see them after so long.

Although I was busy shooting pictures all day and so didn't get to enjoy the wedding as much as I would have liked, I felt good knowing that I was doing it as a gift, giving them something I hope would be good, something I hope will stay with them throughout their lives together.

Now it's back to reality. That cold that I felt coming on the day I left for the wedding went full-blown, into my chest, so that I now have a sore throat and a gross cough. YUCK. I hope to kick it by the weekend, but two days of rest have only helped a little...got some meds from the doctor today, but no antibiotics (dammit!), so I'll have to wait for my body to beat the cold on its own.

I hope all of you are well. Aloha.

PS: To steal from the Daily Show: Here is your moment of Zen:

Sumo! A party! Seoul!

A few weeks ago now, on March 16th, I went with two friends to the Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka. I think (though I'm not sure) that this is one of only two Grand Tournaments each year. My co-worker Kathy got tickets for "box seats" from a friend, so we went and took along Yuka, a staff member at OGU.

We skipped the early rounds, which I'm told are less exciting, and showed up just as those were ending and preparations were made for the top-tier fighters to begin. The arena is huge, seating thousands, and although I've always found watching sumo to boring when on TV, I found it exciting and a lot of fun live. Of course, it might have helped to be sitting where we were, only 30 or 40 yards back and just a little above the fighting platform...but I think it was just the energy in the place, the feeling of increasing tension as the fighters got ready, the excitement of the fans. I think it's probably always that way when there are many spectators watching a sport.

One of the perks of sitting where we did was that you get food and omiyage (gifts/souvenirs). You get A LOT of food, and a lot of omiyage. The food consisted of a bento (boxed lunch) in plastic, octagonal boxes; a bag of three mikan (mandarin oranges); a box of gourmet sandwiches; boiled soybeans; and some sweets. The omiyage had a towel, tea cups, handmirrors, chocolates, and rice crackers.

So to describe a round to someone who's never seen it... Sumo wrestlers fight on a raised platform within a circle perhaps 15 feet across. Women are not allowed on the platform, so all of the fighters, judges, maintenance people, and sign holders are men. The fighters go their corners, which are not opposite each other, then go through a ritual of stepping up to a line to face each other. They do this two times before finally settling in on the third time to actually fight. They both touch the ground with both hands and then lunge at each other. I'm not sure, but I think junior or lower ranked person touches both fists to the ground, and then the senior or higher ranked person touches one and then the other; the fight begins when the last fist touches.

I saw some great matches, though I can't remember the names of the fighters. The two champions, or Yokozuna, both gave great performances. The one who lost the final round the following week is probably the favorite, and his fight lasted for over a minute, and it got everyone quite tense. The Yokozuna who won the tournament was in the news a lot recently because he broke protocol and took an unauthorized trip back to his country (Mongolia). That said, he's a strong wrestler and quickly and decisively beat his opponent, and, if I saw correctly on the news, defeated the other Yokozuna for the championship in another sound victory.

There is so much tradition and ritual here that I know next to nothing about, but it makes for a fascinating afternoon...and while I didn't watch any more of the tournament on TV, I would certainly go again if the chance came to sit in similar seats.


The following Saturday marked the last day for the kids program, and to celebrate that but also to say thanks to the student volunteers who help us in our classes, we threw a small party at my house for them. Or at least that's how the idea started for me...but as it turned out, all of the staff assistants who came were leaving the program. So sad! One of the teachers, Kathy, couldn't come as she was leaving for Hawaii that evening, and one of the staff assistants couldn't make it either as she had to attend a wedding. But all told, Jean and I were there, as well as (the staff assistants) Yuka (going to graduate school), Hiromi (also going to grad school, but in the US), and Noriko (cut as there are two people from her department working for our program), and six students: Akiko, Kotaro, Yuki, Keishi, Tatsuya, and Kote.

We had salad, pasta, and hot dogs (I didn't eat the latter), then apple pie from Costco (that sucker is HUGE! and CHEAP! only about $9). Then we played a few games, one of which is just hilarious...I cried, I laughed so hard. The game has one prop: four stockings sewn together at the toes, which are then pulled completely over the heads of four people. These people then pull and tug until they rip themselves free. I'm not sure how to go about judging who wins, but I honestly haven't laughed so much in a long time...it was hilarious to watch. I later put one of the stockings on my head and created one of my favorite pictures of myself.

It is sad, sad, sad to see those three staff assistants go...they are invaluable to the program, to us teachers, and they were so good with the kids. Only one of the four who were here when I started will continue, and as of right now, only one more has been added. So now two, maybe three if they get one more person, will have to do what four did before...it's going to be hard on them, as they handle all of the administrative duties.



Finally, Korea! On March 24th, I left on a noon flight to Seoul to visit friends and take in some sights. All told, I got together with nine Korean natives I met while I was in Virginia. Two were classmates in the linguistics program, and the other seven were students at the ELI where I taught. Some of them I had seen as recently as last June, while others had been back in Korea for a while and so I hadn't seen them in over a year.

I got to Kansai International Airport (KIX!) around 11:30, which gave me almost two hours before flight at 1:40. So I checked in, then decided that I should change money there, so that I could more quickly get moving once I got to Seoul. Little did I know that the exchange rates would vary so much. In Japan, I got about 875 Won to the dollar, whereas if I'd waited, I would have gotten 975. For that first three hundred bucks or so that I changed, I lost about $30 in that ill-advised exchange. Dammit! Well, now I know: Wait till you get to the country where it's CHEAPER before exchanging; they'll give you a better rate.

Anyway, I arrived in Seoul in the afternoon, made my way to baggage claim, then I was off to find the place where I could rent a cell phone for my stay. I'm glad a friend of mine asked me if I would have a phone, otherwise I wouldn't have thought about it, but it was easy as pie, and cheap, too, at only about $3/day. Of course outgoing calls were about $0.50/minute, but if I asked my friends to call me, it was no problem. I got a phone, got on the bus, then headed into the city. The ride was about an hour, and I took it in in silence, or with the hum of the bus and chatter of Korean on the bus's TV; when I travel, I try to avoid listening to music so that I can get a fuller sense of the place. As my friends had warned me, the air over Korea can be murky with dust blowing in from China's Gobi desert (I think). It had the look of smog, though I don't think it was; as I recall, Beijing had much the same kind of dust (albeit worse) when I visited there in March of 2002.

The bus dropped me in Insadong, a touristy "traditional" area, around 5:30. I found my accommodation without too much trouble, following the map and directions from their website, which proved far more reliable than the map in my guidebook. (I've loved the Lonely Planet Guidebooks since my last stay in Japan, but lately, after my Tokyo trip and now Seoul, their maps have been irritating me with inaccuracies.) The guesthouse, Beewon, is a decent place, great for the price and location for most people, I think. I slept in a dorm-style room, 4 beds, and paid just under $20 a night, so about $140 for the whole week I was there. It was clean, although it lacked that REALLY CLEAN feeling I felt at the ryokan in Tokyo (which, to be fair, was more than twice the cost, although that was for a private room).

I wandered a bit, found a tofu restaurant to eat in (listed in my guidebook), and felt culturally inept as my food came and I was forced to peek at the guy next to me to see what I was supposed to do with everything. It wasn't that complicated, but they brought me a bowl of boiling tofu-stew (I don't know what to call it), a pot of rice, some different types of kim chee and veggies, and a raw egg. I figured the egg would go in the stew, but I wasn't sure and didn't want to embarrass myself too much, so I side-eyed the guy next to me and sure enough, he broke the egg into the stew. I followed suit, and soon was munching on the spicy and hot tofu and broth and rice. Not my favorite meal, but a good one.

I then went in search of something else I'd read about in my guidebook: a DVD bang. This is a place where, for about the cost of going to a theatre, you can get a private room and watch the latest (and some older) DVDs on a large projected screen (about six feet across) while you recline on a sofa. This wasn't that appealing in itself, but it's a great place to watch Korean films with English subtitles; in Japan, finding English subtitles on Japanese or Korean films is tough. And anyway, it's a unique thing to do.

The following day, Tuesday, I met Hye Young and went to have lunch and then walk about. We had a tasty red bean soup, then walked past the President's Blue House, past Gyeongbok Palace, over to Insadong (where there are a lot of traditional shops and goods mixed in with the gimmicky tourist stuff you find in all cities with decent tourism. We made our way down to a rather recent city improvement called Cheonggyecheon, a river walk that cuts through the city center, north of the Han River. From there, we went to Namdaemun Market, where I looked around a bit at the massive amounts of stuff they have and resisted buying any of it. I saved shopping for another day, when I wouldn't have to carry it so far. We made a short detour to Myeong-dong, a modern shopping area with upscale shops and countless youths crowding the streets. We had to meet up with Peter, another former student (though these two didn't know each other). Together the three of us went to dinner, finding a little Japanese restaurant (I know, but it was convenient, and we just wanted to eat), then caught a bus up to Namsan Tower, which offers great night views of Seoul. We made plans to meet again on Thursday and go to an amusement park in Seoul called Lotte World.













Wednesday I started with a walk along the river Cheonggyecheon, going all the way to Dongdaemun, another market. There I found a stall which custom made name stamps of the same sort used in Japan. On a short side note: The hanko, as it's called in Japan, that I received when I came here in September had my name, Nakagawa, written in katakana, which is the writing used for foreign words. I know I'm a foreigner, but my name is not, and so I've been wanting to replace this hanko with one which has my name in kanji, as I feel it should be. So, I took this opportunity to have a cheap one custom-made for me while I watched. The girl put the characters into a computer, adjusted the size, then set the machine to work, and in about five minutes, I had my new hanko. I'm looking forward to using it. I puttered around that market for a while, then moved back to Namdaemun where I bought some DVDs, on whose legitimacy I'll make no comment. I eventually met up with Eugene and Kyunghwa, two more former students, near Ewha University, where we had a nice meal at a small Italian place, then walked around the unversity, Kyunghwa playing tourguide. We ended up in a teashop, where I had a nice if a bit unusual chamomile milk (like tea, but no water, just milk).

The next day was Lotte World with Peter and Hye Young. Now, I've not been to an amusement park in some time. The last time was Universal Studios Japan in 2002, and I didn't really get to ride anything that day, it was so crowded. So before that was Knott's Berry Farm, 1994. Yeah, that long. And while Lotte World isn't the biggest or best Korea has to offer, it was a lot of fun. It wasn't so crowded when we got there around 2 PM, so we only had to wait 30 minutes at the longest for any of the rides. Taking advantage of this, we rode a few of them two times. My favorite, without a doubt, was the Gyro Drop: about fifty people sit in a circle facing out; the mechanism then lifts up about 430 feet (130 meters) while slowly rotating; then suddenly you just drop. That is awesome. I haven't felt so much like a kid in years. We spent the whole day there, riding different things, but that Gyro Drop was the best.

Friday I met with another friend for lunch, chatted for a bit, then caught a train to Yeoido, known as Seoul's Manhattan, with their financial center located there. They also have a nice park, narrow and long, a la Central Park. I met Jiwon, a classmate from George Mason, and the two of us went to dinner, then for a ride on a river cruise. The cruise was a mixed bag.

The night views from the river were great, but it was a bit nippy outside, even for me, but inside there was some kind of heavy perfume in the air that gave me a headache. This meant I had to keep going outside (ok, since I wanted to take some pictures anyway) and then coming back in. A bit warmer or no perfume and it would have been great.

I had a busy day lined up next. Saturday, I started with meeting Diana (former student) and her boyfriend.
We ate lunch at a fusion restaurant which served some kind of seafood stew inside of a small steamed pumpkin. Delicious, but SPICY! Diana works these crazy hours at an advertising agency, finishing late, late at night some days. I couldn't survive that kind of work environment very long...good thing I'm a teacher. They're a really nice couple, a lot of fun to hang out with. From there, I was off to Seoul's gigantic shopping center, Coex Mall, where I met Jiwon (again) and JeeHee (another classmate), had coffee and chatted, catching up on life and, of course, discussing linguistics a bit. They left me a few hours later, and around 7 I met Peter and Hye Young again, grabbing a bite to each at a Korean ramen shop before going to see a movie. The movie (Awake) was just so-so, but the company was great; I'm glad I got to see so much of those two; they're really nice, really positive people, a pleasure to hang around.

Although I was leaving Monday, Sunday was really my last day. June, a former student, had been gone on a business trip to Shanghai, so Sunday was the only day she could meet me. We went to have red bean soup (I really wanted to have it again), then found a cute cafe that served up waffles. After a couple of hours, I had to meet another friend, so off I went, out to east side of the city, nearly the last station in that direction that is still part of Seoul's metro. She had a car, so we drove out into the countryside a bit, along the Han River. It was nice to be outside of the city, to get the chance to see something beyond that, although it was a bit chilly and spring hasn't really come to Seoul just yet, so many of the trees are still bare. I think it would be a much lovelier place in May. We ended up seeing a movie, too, and this time we picked a much better one, Dan in Real Life: not the best movie, but fun and funny.



The next day I was off, on a bus to the airport, on a plane, on another bus, then showering and on a train to go to a friend's farewell party (the aforementioned Yuka).

But before I sign off, some general thoughts on Seoul. Having recently been to Tokyo, I'll draw some comparisons, but I'll have to draw in two other world-renowned cities, too: New York and Beijing. Seoul, like New York, varies greatly depending on what part of the city you're in. Of course that's probably true of Tokyo, but not in the same way. In Seoul, near where I was staying, there were a lot of older buildings, small back alleys, tiny shops, food stands that get setup at night and are gone in the morning, and a lot of litter; but in other parts, it was spotless, clean, modern. It reminded me of walking through, say, parts of Brooklyn, then jumping the subway for Mid-town, that's how different it could be. (I don't mean to sound like I've lived in New York, but I think I've spent enough time there to make an apt comparison.) Seoul is a city with a lot going on, with many areas, all different. In feel, I think it was closer to Beijing or New York than to Tokyo, and that surprised me, though I'm not sure why.

Compared to Japanese people, Koreans are more straightforward, or so it seems to me. Koreans tell me that they are quiet and shy, but I swear they've never faced a classroom of Japanese kids. That's quiet and shy. Koreans will walk down the street and hug and maybe even kiss a bit, a lot more like what I'm used to in America...you wouldn't see that in Japan, except very, very rarely. The Koreans I met who spoke English, aside from my friends, were very friendly.

I don't speak a lot of Japanese, but what little I do speak is MILES ahead of NOTHING, which is what I know how to say in Korean. I'd forgotten what it was like to be at Square One, not even knowing how to say "please" or "water" or "excuse me." I left Korea knowing only about four words. Sad, but true. It made me grateful that I can at least speak SOME Japanese, and not NONE.

Well, this has dragged on a lot longer than I thought it would, and I'll be surprised if anyone who gets this far did it in one sitting. Sorry about that. I just didn't really have time between the party and my Seoul trip to update this.

My dad is on his way here now, on a bus from the airport, so I'm going to get going so that I can meet him at the train station. Take care! I hope you are all well.