Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!!! I haven't really done anything for Halloween over here, as the Japanese don't really celebrate Halloween. Some schools had parties, but ours didn't. The two little boys that I taught wore costumes last week, but that was about it. I did see a small group of teenagers dressed in costumes taking pictures by my train station on my way home tonight though.

This past week was pretty busy for me, as I had training on both Friday afternoon and all day yesterday. I only had one day off last week (but this Friday is a holiday... yeah!!). I managed to make it through everything, and it turns out that they are happy with my teaching and the work that I do at the school. Yeah me!

On Saturday night, we saw the DoCoMo cell phone outside of the train station (they are a cellular phone service provider here). Don't ask why, but I just thought it would be a fun, random picture (Saturdays are always a bit long for us).

Later on Saturday night, a few other teachers and I gave the Roppongi neighborhood another chance in search of some fun Halloween festivities. Roppongi it turns out is a mixture of good and bad. It was a bit comforting to be surrounding by so many other foreigners at the dance club, but at the same time, the area also had quite a few rude/trashy foreigners. I have mixed feelings about this area. The music was decent, the security staff was rude, and the entrance "rules" were prejudice (women and foreigners paid a 1,000 yen cover that included two drinks, while the Japanese men paid 3,000 yen. Also, women had to be 20, legal drinking age here, to get in, while the men had to be 23). All in all, it was a decent night, and definitely much better than that last time we tried to hang out there.

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween! Amy and Vee, I loved the cop outfits you guys wore!

Sick with a Cold

That pretty much sums up my last week here. I got a cold on Tuesday, and it progressed nicely through the week. I managed to teach but am not really sure how. I pretty much had to be overly lively, or I felt as if I was going to fall asleep while teaching. On a brighter note though, my evaluation went well (have been here for two months already), and my staff didn't really realize how sick I was until they saw me at the end of the day on Saturday (I must have disguised it well). I spent my weekend sleeping, watching bad syndicated television, and reading a trashy novel.

So, I don't really have many pictures to share this week (especially since it has been raining for the last day).

Here is a picture of the creek on my way to the train station by my apartment. Can't really see it, but it is hidden in the middle (I am standing on the bridge over a swarm of about 25 catfish in the creek (my camera wouldn't cooperate and take a nice photo of them though).

Need a little pick-me-up in the morning? Well, I've got just the thing for you! Run to your nearest vending machine kids and grab yourself a can of Deepresso coffee! It'll really perk you up in the morning. (this has been one of my vending machine favorites since I got here; the sight of it that is... haven't tried it yet).

Dancing Painter

It's official, I am sick again. After a fairly uneventful week, I managed to come down with a cold. I woke up with an incredibly sore throat on Monday. I taught on Tuesday and will be spending some quality time with my futon after work over the next few days.

As for this past week, I am finally getting into a routine, so it was just business as usual. On Sunday, I finally checked out Yoyogi Park. It was more than I could have imagined, and my guidebook lied. It said that bands no longer played there, as the neighbors have complained, and it has been banned. There were a lot of bands (little punk trios and quartets), break dancers, flea market vendors, and even a dancing painter. Unfortunately, after getting off at the wrong train stop, I got to Yoyogi late in the afternoon, so most of my pictures didn't turn out well due to the dusk lighting.

One of the many "banned" bands performing on the sidewalk outside of the park. It was kind of like walking through a flea market that was competing with a neighborhood block party.
Here is a picture of the painter in action. He was pretty wild to watch. He got really into it and never skipped a beat, even if the music skipped/stopped. I think I will go back to try to get a video of him during the daylight. I found myself getting completely sucked in, like Kiva gets sucked in by the spray-paint artist on State Street in the summer.

(Okay, so it won't let me load a picture here for the past two days. Just know that I will keep trying over the next few days. The paragraph below is about the picture (I hate you Blogger).)

Finally, in typical Jessica style, I found myself almost making a faux pas. I was trying to help a second grader with her school project by taking her "Flat Whitney" (paper doll) to various sites in Japan and taking pictures. The little girl will later make a scrapbook about Flat Whitney's adventures during the year. I wanted to get a picture in a typical Tokyo setting, so I figured that Shibuya at night would be perfect (lots of neon advertising, etc.). So Linda took our picture on Sunday night, and then we rushed off to catch our last trains. When I got home and uploaded the photos, I noticed that the ad behind me was for some art show featuring paintings of a nearly naked woman. Now this is okay for adults, but is it okay for second graders? I found myself quickly cropping the photo before I e-mailed it off.

Me and 59,999 Others

This past week was pretty standard, but my weekend was busy....

On Sunday I went to Kamakura (southwest of Tokyo, on the Pacific Ocean side) and saw the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine. After meeting some friends, we headed to the shopping district in Kamakura and then the shrine. There was a wedding taking place at the shrine, so it was neat to see the bride and groom in their traditional clothing as they left.

This is a statue at the entrance to the shrine. There was one on each side of the bottom of a large staircase leading up to the main shrine.

Here is the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine. It was huge and beautiful. It is hard to believe that this building was moved here in 1108. Some of the buildings here are so old and well-kept, that is hard to believe they are that old.

On Monday, it was a national holiday here in Japan. Some of my staff decided that we should all go to Disneyland in Tokyo. The weather was great, and one of the families that take lessons at our school also happened to be there. We spent the day at the park, which was at capacity. It was busy but fun nonetheless. We rode all of the main attractions and also checked out the Halloween stuff (they don't really celebrate Halloween over here).

Those are the highlights for this week. Hope everyone is doing well!

No Starving Artists???

This week's post is inspired by my last class on Saturdays. My two "boys" (as I call them; they are older than I am) are a high-level discussion class. They read an article each week, and then we discuss it. This week's article talked about starving artists and gentrification of artist communities. They said that this was a difficult topic to discuss, as Japan doesn't really have any staving artist communities, and the arts don't really revitalization areas over here. They found it hard to relate to the article.

I thought about this and wonder how true it really is. Although this is a largely metropolitan area filled with boring, multi-story, EIFS buildings, there are pockets of art and architecture here. From Roponggi Hills to the kids that hang out in Harajuku, there has to be an artist community somewhere in Tokyo....

Here are some Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired privacy screens at the entrance to the bathrooms at the neighboring Seibu train stop. The JR train stations often have large murals on their walls (the Hachioji station has a large ceramic tile mural that stretches the length of a main wall).

Here is a picture of my favorite buildings along my train ride to work. I pass many drab-looking buildings on my 40-minute ride, but this one stands out (please disregard the advertising banner though). It doesn't fit in with the others, but it is not terribly hideous. It stands out, but yet has a quaint air to itself (maybe it is the red brick... most "brick" buildings here seem to be smooth grey bricks with dark grout, leaving a tile-floor look).

On a different note, Bruce has been MIA. I found him seeking refuge from the chaos of IKEA this Sunday afternoon. Amongst the many screaming children and slow-moving shoppers, we found a few things to make the pad a little more "ours".

Also, congratulations to Trisha and Brian. Sorry I could not make it to the wedding this past weekend. My mother said you looked "beautiful", Trisha. It sounds like everyone had fun, and the dance floor was a bigger pull than talking to Aunty Jess on the phone in Japan. :)