TravelStream™ news feed for member niknash on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/niknash en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:25:19 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1184420760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1184420760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1184420760/tpod.html Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:25:19 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

**this entry is posted almost a year late, I'm doing this for posterity's sake**

The reason for the long time of not posting has to do with the fact that I've now got a sexy new Canon XTi camera and a slew of lenses. The time that I used to spend working on this blog has now become consumed by this new doodad of light-based electronic wizardry. Sorry for not posting sooner. I'm going to post as long as I can tonight.

I've always had an obsession with photography. A lot of it stems from the fact that my eyesight is so bad. I think I've only ever told one other person this, but when I was younger, I was so worried about my deteriorating eyesight that I used to memorize where things were in case I went blind. I would make games to see if I could walk around the house with my eyes closed.

Even now I still do things that require no eyesight - I'm obsessed with learning things that require physical memorization without looking at them (i.e., typing, the location of my glasses at all times, putting things down when I'm working on them and remembering exactly where it is, etc)

As I've gotten older, I've gotten worse at paying attention to where I put things. Ashleigh can attest to this.

But I digress. I've decided that Japan is a very photogenic country if you're not from here. Whereas America is very very new, this country is very very old, so the contrast in interests is quite obvious. I think old things are cool, Japanese people think new things are cool.

I think most people are like that - things you don't have are considered "exotic" and interesting.

meh.

Here are some of my early photos - I'm still playing with light.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1184110740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1184110740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1184110740/tpod.html Sun, 02 Sep 2007 20:37:53 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

This isn't anything exciting, but I finally got my pictures up on my personal website. Uploading pictures to this site can be slow and painful. So I got my own domain

thenickboy.com

The only thing on it is photos, and I'll be trying to figure out how to put them into these entries.

In case you didn't know, I got a new camera. It's a Rebel XTi from Canon, my first SLR. I had to put down quite a bit of money, but I now have a body, 3 lenses, a bag, a sportload of filters, a flash, a mini-studio, and some macro equipment. My gear is quite heavy, but I can do a lot of things with it as you'll see in some of my photos.

I'm still experimenting!

UPDATE:
I've got a flickr.com account.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1178123400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1178123400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1178123400/tpod.html Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:27:08 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Kyoto, Japan

It's that time of year again! Golden Week is the longest amount of vacation time given to the largest amount of the population. I guess it's called Golden week because they find it so awesome. The most awesome thing in the world is gold, right?

I don't know.

Anyway, it's 4 national holidays in one week. It consists of Children's Day, Grandparent's Day, Greenery (like Arbor?) Day and Showa (one of the emperors) Day. I would have much rather preferred them to put them spread out, it feels like there's more pauses in the year.

Ashleigh and I decided Kyoto would be the best place. We booked our hostel 2 months in advance, bought our bus tickets the day they became available, and were set 30 days in advance.

I know what you're saying, no, this not my usual style, but necessary if you really want to do anything during these times - every one is either traveling, or visiting somewhere, so these places get booked quick.

First thing we did when we got there was found our hostel. We'd stayed there before, so it was no problem. Then we wandered around for food. One neat thing about living in Japan is that we can read damn near everything we see. We also are able to find food quite easily (if it exists) and we know what most of the food is.

I love knowing this stuff when I travel. I've learned how to read Greek, cyrillic and can usually piece together other languages to find what i need. It's a really nice luxury to be able to KNOW what something is. In Turkey, I accidentally walked into a prayer room that had a sign that I thought said bathroom. I was grabbed by the arm and nearly thrown out of there with a glaring look from my not-so-kindly accidental tour-guide.

That was probably the worst of my experiences of those kinds.

We helped out some foriegners looking for a restaurant. All the eateries around the hostel seem to know that there are many foriegn customers, so they make English menus as well. These guys we helped out couldn't tell a restaurant from a regular shop, so we gave them pretty good instructions on how to read the sign and what the store facade looked like.

The next day in Kyoto, we went on the look out for a real Geisha performance. We found one near the Gion district in an old theater (old being 1950s). i tried to take abunch of pictures, but I couldn't get any good shots.

Let me remind you, I'd just gotten the camera 3 days prior.

Ashleigh was using my old little P&S camera, and she got some great shots.

I think I also annoyed the people around me as my camera made it's CLICK noise every time I took a picture.

A geisha is not a prostitute, in case I've never discussed this before - a geisha is a performer, an artisan in dance, singing, and playing music. In more intimate settings in the olden days, they were someone that a man pays to hang out with. Basically an escort. They told jokes, made a man comfortable, and provided entertaining and unquestioning company - something I guess they couldn't get from their wives. Go see the movie "memoirs of a geisha" or read the book, it tells you everything.

in the performance we saw, all parts were played by women, even male roles. In Kabuki theater, all parts are played by men. The separation of the sexes is something that still confuses my American cultural logic. This is truly a traditional style of theater.

The performance was great, we understood very little, but we could pick up on the basics of the story on what we did understand. Ashleigh later bought a program in English and we confirmed that we understood the gist of it. In the first of two plays, there is a Samurai who wants to marry one of 3 daughters, but war tears the household apart and one of teh daughters is kidnapped by raiders, another killed and another blinded.

The kidnapped daughter comes back some years later and finds the hosue destroyed. The blinded sister is still there, but the kidnapped one doesn't talk to her, instead she runs away out of shame.

And it so ends. It really was quite exquisite. And you know I really enjoyed it because I used the word 'exquisite'.

The next one was about 2 old geisha traveling a road to tokyo or somewhere and the people they meet. This wasn't quite as interesting, but really cool to see the traditional geisha dancing.

We went to Heian shrine after that, remarking just how many foreigners that we saw as we walked. My guess is that they were there for the same reason we were - they were tourists. In a city like Matsuyama, you don't see quite so many of them. We've seen and know most of the non-tourist foreigners in Matsuyama.

The garden in Heian shrine is amazing. You forget that you're in a major metropolis like Kyoto. you can't hear traffic, you can't see buildings. it's peaceful there. and the wysteria were blooming so Ashleigh was really excited.

After the garden, pretty much everything was closed, so we wandered around downtown area for food and then went back to the hostel.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1187279700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1187279700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1187279700/tpod.html Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:29:43 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

Dave decided to come and visit his brother in Tokyo, and Ashleigh and I in Matsuyama. I was excited for 2 main reasons:

1) I haven't been able to show many people life in Matsuyama, and Dave got to see it first hand.
2) Dave was bringing a camera that I'd purchased in the US.

Most importantly, I was excited to see Dave.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to meet him and his girlfriend (at the time) at the train station, but Ashleigh was able to pick them up after they'd come from Kyoto and Tokyo. They were only staying for 2 days, and then heading right back to Tokyo to catch a flight home.

We started off going out to dinner with some of my students. We at ate some fancy schmancy restaurant where they were really slow with the drinks. The dining part was on the second floor, and the kitchen was on the basement - talk about bad design.

They probably were slow with the food and drinks because the waiters didn't want to go up and down the stairs. If I ever design a restaurant, there will never be a second floor dining area.

Sorry, just some of things I think about.

Went home, went to bed, and Dave and I went to the temple to look around. It's a modern temple, so not a lot of interesting things about it.

We then went to the castle, the ferris wheel and had some dinner. See pictures for the rest.

Sorry this is short, I'm 3 months behind.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1182158280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1182158280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1182158280/tpod.html Mon, 09 Jul 2007 01:56:02 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

Ashleigh and I finally started teaching dancing!!

Our students are actually mostly my students from my classes.

As inconsistently as we teach our classes, we're slowly teaching japanese people how to dance!

We're going to need to find a new room, as the one we're in is a little expensive for the number of students that we teach. We're hoping that more advertising will bring in some more new students.

The students that we do have are learning really fast. I think it's because we have more women than men - women tend to learn dancing faster than men since they usually have to do a little less than a beginner man does.

Eventually, I think it would be cool to be able to go to another swing event with our dancers to let them practice with other dancers. That's the nervous part.

Learning doesn't mean anything if you never use it.

Anyway, wish us luck.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1153566000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1153566000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1153566000/tpod.html Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:31:05 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Aso, Japan

It's amazing to me, when I really think about it, that this school actually takes 100 or so 5-year-old kids on a two-night trip, no parents, only about 30 teachers to look after them. But the even more amazing part? It works!!! This is probably the first time these kids have been away from their parents overnight, so, sure, there are some tears as the ferry pulls away from the dock, but really no more than when sixth graders back in California leave for camp! And they all come back alive. I swear!

Actually, it was a lot of fun, for just about everyone involved. We took a ferry from Matsuyama over to Oita on the neighboring island of Kyushu, where two big tour buses met us. The first day was spent at the African Safari (cool kangaroos, really lame dog show) before heading to our sweet hotel for the night. The next day, it was Mt Aso, a huge volcanic crater, where, sadly, the rain forced us to spend all our time in a really boring museum rather than taking a gondola up the mountain. The last day, we rushed through three rides at Kijima Amusement Park, then on to Umitamago Aquarium, which is easily on par with Monterey Bay's.

My favorite part of the trip? Sitting in our hotel's beautiful outdoor onsen (traditional Japanese bath) under the stars, with a very light rain falling. It was lovely!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1154260800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1154260800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1154260800/tpod.html Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:20:12 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

We had to be at school at 7am for this fieldtrip, on a Sunday, a few weeks into summer vacation. We were going to the beach to set up huge tents, fill tubs with water, and generally set up for our students, who would arrive with their families three hours later, in time to watch a boat drag in a net full of fish, which were then dumped into the tubs to be handled by the children until dead, at which point they would be divied up between the class by, you guessed it, janken (if you don't recall, this is the Japanese name for rock-paper-scissors), all in the sweltering heat. Not surprisingly, we weren't very excited to be going. We did survive, however, and in the end, our kids made it almost fun. ;-)

(By the way, all of these pictures were taken on my "keitai" (cell phone). I forgot my camera that day. :-P)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1162295640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1162295640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1162295640/tpod.html Wed, 04 Jul 2007 11:15:36 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

Aiko Kindergarten's four English teachers helped their students celebrate good ol' American Halloween today, setting up an elaborate "Halloween party" that involved a haunted house (built in the back room of the gym), pinatas, 8 jack-o-lanterns, games, and a number of Halloween-y activity stations. We also all dressed up in full costume, to the limitless entertainment of our students - Brian was Darth Vader (and his costume was so real it made a number of the two-year-olds cry), Kristi was a bee, Rachel was Doraemon (a popular Japanese cartoon character), and I went, for the second time in my life, as Pooh (here known as "Pooh-san"). My Pooh costume this year was much better than it was when I was in college, though, as this one included a pair of bright Pooh-yellow pants, which I made myself with the help of Rachel's sewing machine, and a pillow under my t-shirt to make me nice and fat (the kids loved this!). There was only one student, one of my fives named Hideki, who pointed at my stomach with an impish grin and said, "baby?" :-P

Back to the subject of the jack-o-lanterns: they have crazy pumpkins here, and they all seem to be very thick-skinned. Unfortunately, most Japanese "kabocha" are green, but we did get two good orange ones. One of the orange ones was especially enormous - too heavy for even Brian (who is six feet tall and works out almost daily) to lift by himself! To carve the jack-o-lanterns, we brought our students into the gym, four classes at a time, and since we had 8 pumpkins, each English class got to have their own to choose the face for and watch their English teacher carve, with some guest-carving by the Japanese teachers. The students even got to "help" a little, each student coming up one at a time to scoop out a handful of pumpkin "guts" (new vocab word for the kids ;-D). We saved the biggest ones for the older classes, and somehow I ended up with the gigantic one on my table to carve for my fives! My kids were super-impressed (though I was a little worried :-P), and they voted to give it a scary face. In the end, it was definitely the most spectacular jack-o-lantern of the batch, by its shear size, also by far the coolest one I've ever carved (my kids decided on slanty evil eyes and big fangs, and the final product was pretty intimidating - certainly one to make my brother, always the scary-pumpkin-carver, proud), and even the crotchety, bad-tempered, old secretary came out of the office to comment on it, AND (we almost couldn't believe it) she actually CHUCKLED!! ;-)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1174725360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1174725360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1174725360/tpod.html Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:32:05 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

This isn't actually Ashleigh, it's me, Nick.

Now, I know Ashleigh is supposed to write this one, but if you saw the backlog of things she was supposed to write about, you'd be surprised why I seem to write all the entries.

I think this one is cool, so I want people to see the pics - also so I can sort my pictures folders. (-:

In a great idea to experience Japanese culture, Ashleigh, Rachel, Kristi and Chigusa all went to a kimono rental shop and rented kimonos for a few hours. They then proceeded to wander around to all the shops and stuff and take pictures of themselves. They went to a tea ceremony and had tea and small sweets. Here's some pics. She can write descriptions about them later.

After she's stopped being mad at me for doing this. (-:


>Alright, alright, it's actually Ashleigh-the-slacker this time. :-P I've added some captions to the photos, so you'll know what's going on. This was a special event put on by one of the tourism bureaus, and I'm not exactly sure where they got all the used kimonos, but it was a pretty big collection. Sadly, it was raining the day that we went, but since it was only happening for a two week period and we had four schedules to work around, it was the only day we could go. Shikata ga nai, ne.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1176019560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1176019560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/niknash/nippon-2006/1176019560/tpod.html Mon, 18 Jun 2007 04:29:34 -0400 Nick and Ashleigh's quest to help teach the Japanese proper Engrish.

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Matsuyama, Japan

The Japanese are lovers of nature (at least in the rural sections they seem to be). My students love to talk about their flowers, gardens and the birds coming back from winter.

One popular thing is the beginning of spring with the sakura hanami (Cherry blossom viewings). I thought initially that they all had to involve copious amounts of alcohol and are related to workplaces forcing their employees to sit on blue tarps for over 8 hours to reserve a spot for aforementioned parties.

Nope, they can be as simple as walking thru a group of trees, looking at the flowers. I was only partly right.

Ashleigh, Brian and I went for a walk around Matsuyama castle keep to see what we could see. One of the things we did find was that the garden was open pretty late. We looked around the big garden, walked around snapping pictures, and then went back down.

yeah, not much to write about there.

I just put up some of the usable (out of about 200 unusable) pictures.
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