Blogs from Nagano, Japan, Asia - page 11

I had to work this Saturday, which was a shame as there was a big fireworks festival up on lake Suwa (the largest lake in Nagano), which a lot of people were heading to. As it happens, the Typhoon striking Japan at the moment meant most of the weekend was a wash out. Nagano has been lucky being so inland, but I saw on the news places near rivers and on the coast were badly hit and there have been fatalities. The first part of Saturday was normal school and I had one lesson. After lunch all the teachers got changed into gym kit and we headed for the gym. A number of parents had come to the gym too and we proceeded to play the weirdest game of volleyball I've ever seen. In teams of ... read more

In my wanderings around the village of Tomida, and whilst driving around Takagi, I've noticed the rice farmers have a talent for creating the most creepy looking scarecrows. They remind me of a recent Dr Who episode where the scarecrows came to life. These ones all have doll faces....it really is like something out of a horror movie and I keep thinking they will move when I'm not watching them.....I'd best not linger near the fields after dusk or I may not be seen again - or maybe I'll be turned into one of the creepy dolls! The local kids are very friendly and love having their photo taken though. Another strange thing that I'm kind of used to here is the network of loud speakers everywhere. For fans of Japanese film, it is all very ... read more

Friday was my first day at junior high school. I awoke to hammering rain, and it was pretty much like that the whole day, but it did mean it was much cooler and I didn't suffer from the dreaded sweats in class. I got to school for 7.30 for a teachers meeting and to find out what my day would involve. At 8.50 we all headed to the school gym for the schoo'sl opening ceremony, where I had to get up on stage in front of 200 kids and 20 teachers and introduce myself. I did a short piece in Japanese (hope it made sense) and then a speech in English saying where I was from and how I was looking forward to getting to know everyone. Then some students read a speech for me in ... read more

The last few days have been the Japanese Obon period which is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the deceased spirits of one's ancestors. It seems to be a very family focussed time, and although not one of the 15 or so official public holidays, most people seem to take some if not all of this off. Last week my supervisor told me to take Monday to Wednesday off (although I'm a bit confused if this was my "official" holiday leave or not!). Monday was Takagi village's festival. It was a real community event - practically the whole village turned out at 3.30pm to the little green outside the school for the disabled. There were drumming displays from the elementary school and the disabled school kids, and the junior high school band also played. The very ... read more

I had my first Nagano teacher's conference in Nagano City this week. It is a BIG prefecture, so to get to the city by highway bus takes about 2 hours. Apparently by train it is 5! (There are only local trains from my area, no bullet trains alas). So, it was a 5 am start as the bus stop is a 25 minute drive from my house, to get to Nagano City for 9.30 am. We had workshops in the morning and then a quiz/treasure hunt in the afternoon at the famous Zenko-ji temple in small teams with local high school kids to help us. My team wasn't so competative - the second question was how many icecream flavours in the shops near the temple, which ended up in us buying icecreams and spending most ... read more