Toya Day 45: A New Thing for the Schedule

Abuta Day. It began innocently enough – our usual wake-up time, but no sooner was  I dressed than Erica was knocking at the door! She had a meeting with the mayor in Abuta, and so we needed to go early. We’d be heading to the Honcho Nursery, the same as last week.

After convincing Erica to find out the Mayor’s favourite flavour of ice cream, we entered the Nursery. Honcho is probably my favourite to work in, I think – the kids and staff there are all really nice and they know how to keep the children entertained.

I was with the four year olds (Class Usagi, or Rabbit). We immediately went outdoors, and proceeded to have a game of Onigokko! Honcho has a fairly big outdoors area, so it was a fun game to play – the staff were also getting really into it! We played three games, of which I actually won one 🙂 Then we proceeded on to the sandpit.

Yes, that’s what a rabbit looks like. Visual stimulation!

Now, I like the sandpit. We began by essentially piling sand onto a big stack in the middle. If it began as ‘Showa-Shinzan’, it ended as ‘Yotei-san’! All of the kids (who numbered perhaps eight or so) were getting really into it. The two staff were helping out, too, and really did end up very big indeed! We also made some sandcastles.

I’ve noticed something interesting about sandcastles in Japan. They aren’t seen as castles – everyone calls them ‘Keiki’ – cakes. It’s a minor difference that I’ve picked up on, and to be fair it makes sense when they don’t seem to have actual ‘castle’ shaped buckets here. They also like to decorate them with flowers.

Anyway, lunch followed fairly quickly, and it was fairly unremarkable. Honcho cook some of the better Nursery lunches (and they also serve a huge amount of bread – they gave me three slices, which, considering it’s all double the thickness of British bread, was a lot), so it was decent. I was worried for Brendan, though – they were serving Bacon and Cabbage soup, and apparently Brendan hates an Irish dish called Bacon and Cabbage! Although lucky for him it turns out they aren’t the same dish!

Apparently, this is Irish bacon and cabbage. We had ours in a soup 😉

After that, we *slowly* headed for the office, by way of the A-Coop and the 7-11 on some chocolate runs 😉 I purchased some Meiji White Chocolate, some premium Cocoa Pocky and some regular Meiji Chocolate, and then we practiced Hiragana a bit before heading to the After School Club.

Nothing of particular note happened there 😉

When we got back, it was time for Kendo! And it was raining, so we were lucky that Matsubara-sensei gave us a ride. We practiced yet more fumikomi-ing, men-striking and general technique. Taka-san is in Tokyo, so we had a private session with Matsubara. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary was that a draft kept making noises. At first we thought it was a scary ghost, but then we realised that Halloween was yesterday 😉

And now I come to the title of this. Once again, we were heading to the Onsen, and once again, Matsubara and his wife offered us a ride. This has happened several times – I think that Matsubara’s Onsen day is Thursday, so Thursday Onsen with the Matsubaras may become a new thing on our schedule! It’s good to talk with him out of Kendo because we see a different side of him, so we chatted about Hokkaido, Ireland and the UK, and Matsubara’s old job for a while.

Our Onsen looks nothing like this. But, I have to keep this blog visually interesting somehow, right?

Then, we went home to play Pokemon 😉

Toya Day 44: This is Halloween!

OK, Halloween today. This also marked our first visit to Toya Junior High School, which, seeing as there is no equivalent level of education at home, was quite interesting.

Since Nishida-sensei wanted us there early, we had to be up at 7:50AM and that was… tough. Although on the upside we got to suit up again!

The Junior High School is, I think, a larger facility than the High School in and of itself, but there was a surprisingly small number of students – numbering only 29 across three grades. It is a very nice facility, though – it gave off the atmosphere of a very good school. Everything was presented immaculately, displays of what the students had been doing adorned the walls, everything was very modern and it was generally just a very pleasant place to be.

Another interesting thing about the Junior High is the uniforms – I’m not exaggerating when I say they look like 19th Century military uniforms. The boy’s outfit is like an old-style infantryman outfit, a single piece with a brace collar, with badges for the Grade and the School on the neck area. Apparently, when Japan industrialised, it took inspiration from the Prussian Military in its uniforms. It’s easy to see, and it’s kind of cool that this traditional style of uniform has remained for so long despite being what would probably be considered a symbol of militarism.

The girl’s uniform is very much what westerners expect of a Japanese schoolgirl uniform – the sailor suit style, with the naval collar and accompanying shirt. Apparently this style of uniform is becoming less popular among schools in Japan, so it’s actually fairly surprising that this school still uses it. They really wouldn’t look out of place in the Royal Navy!

This random schoolgirl from Google Images is showing the Japanese Sailor-style School Uniform.

The first class we worked in was the First Year, and it was essentially an introduction lesson. We introduced ourselves and then the class introduced themselves, and after that we spent the next 30 minutes or so asking questions about each other. At the end, Nishida-sensei had an activity of her own – the day being Halloween and all, we watched the opening from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the students had to count how many times the word ‘Halloween’ was said. I like that song 🙂

After that, we had a fair bit of downtime since the other classes weren’t until the afternoon. In this time, we discussed my good friend Cory Bailey’s controversial beliefs on everything. So thank you, Cory, for giving us something to argue over!

Lunch in the Junior High was quite different to either the High School (where staff and students eat separately) and the Elementary School (where students and teachers eat in classes). In the Junior High, everyone goes into a communal dining hall and the staff mix in with the students everywhere. It’s kind of nice, I think. Even the Principal (who I was sat next to!) was chatting with students. I like this way of doing things.

In the afternoon we began by working with the Second Year. A rather different lesson to the first, the content of this class was rather more textbook-based. We took on a similar role to some of the High School lessons, wherein we were utilised as native speakers. There was one kid who gained the nickname ‘Sleepy-san’ , as a result of doing his introduction wrong, and me and Brendan had a simply massive argument over how to define the beginning, middle and end of an email 😉

Following that, we worked with the Third Year. These were much closer to the first in terms of how the lesson was structured, with it being a mostly introductory lesson. However, they expanded a bit and explained some of the local festivals to us – they were very surprised at our Yukigassen entry!

Words can’t describe how much I’m looking forward to this!

Our work finished in the Junior High, we had to run to our next job. This was a kind of English learning workshop, although in reality it ended up being mostly games 😉 First, we taught numbers, directions and colours. Then we played our first game which was essentially a maze which the kids had to guide each other through in English. This was mildly successful, although a few kids were scared to wear a blindfold!

The second game was Bulldog but with colours (i.e, if you were wearing a green shirt and the person called ‘green’, you’d have to run). This one also went well, with the kids all enjoying themselves.

The third game was to run to the word we shouted out (which were stuck to the walls). Now, this went mostly well until near the end… when a kid seriously hurt himself. He hurt his knee in a fall and couldn’t walk properly for a while. It turned out that it was only a bruise and nothing serious, but still, it was a moment we’ll be careful not to repeat.

In the evening, we had the Halloween Party in which the Curry Diablo would be a thing. First, however, I had to get into a costume. Unfortunately, there was only one, and Brendan beat me to the punch. I had to improvise, so I used my tie as a bandana and attached our imitation Katana to my waist. I went as ‘disgruntled office samurai’, which I’d bet is a world first!

This is something like what I looked like 😉

We got there and we ate dinner. But that isn’t important. Poor Tanemura from Yosakoi ‘won’ the full bowl of very hot curry, and he suffered through it dutifully (well, half of it!) 😉 Someone else won a half bowl, and some people tried a spoon. One lady ran for water after a single spoon! The thing is, I didn’t even think it was that hot. It was at best a weak vindaloo. Jeremie even said that he liked it!

We all had a good time there. Apple bobbing happened, Jeremie had to do squats and situps, and copious amounts of chocolate were consumed 😉

Oh, and someone also gifted me a further bag of chillies. They just never learn, do they?

Toya Day 43: Curry Diablo and Power Ballads

Tuesday is High School Day, and today was no different – Kamada-sensei, as usual, took us between the first, second and third years, and there was only one thing that particularly stood out here 😉

In the first year class, we did an activity using a song from Kamada-sensei’s iPod – the song being so 80’s it would have been called 80’s in the 80’s! It was Alone by Heart – I didn’t recognise it based on the name alone, but as soon as it started playing, it was like listening to Ridings FM back home! That’s a Power Ballad if ever there was one, although it surprised me a bit that Kamada-sensei liked it!

The 1980s make me glad I wasn’t alive in the 1980s 😉

In the second year class, a different song was played. This time, it was Wish You Were Here by U2, which was interesting in that even I, as a native speaker, struggled to understand parts of it! Brendan explained that this was due to Bono’s strong North Dublin accent. For the rest of the day we ripped on Bono a lot – Kamada-sensei was obviously a fan, however, because his iPod cover had their signatures! We also did a brief speaking exercise with them – I really can’t help but feel that Kamada-sensei is too humble in how he describes them. One girl in particular was excellent at it – I gave her full marks!

In the third year class, we omitted this activity in favour of the more standard learning of vocabulary. Funny kid was being funny in the front row again, and the kid with six girlfriends now had nine. Eventually, we moved on to our own activity – a shop role-play using some inanimate objects and some students who had been volunteered. They had been studying this before, so we tried to do it in an applied situation, and it sort of worked. All in all, it was a pretty good day of High Schooling.

After we’d finished with all three classes, Kamada-sensei asked us to do a little proofreading for him – there was an example interview on the Oxford University website that he was using in a listening activity, and we proofread it for him. But it was a tough thing – the man in the video talked very quickly and it was tough even for us! We also noticed that the teachers in the High School are apparently Gundam fans! There’s assorted Gundam merchandise everywhere – model Mobile Suits and even a Gundam-head moneybox!

I like Gundam, and it turns out so do the teachers at Toya High School!

Well, after that, we had to go to the Office and procrasti… work. We had to plan the Junior High Classes, the Elementary School workshop and the games for the Halloween Party. And, in the time we spent in the office, we accomplished… very little, if we’re honest. A small amount of planning was done, but it eventually devolved into random chat with Erica about anything but work!

Thus, the evening was a busy one. As well as finishing planning the lessons which we had to do, we had to prepare for the Halloween Party as well – and that involved Curry Diablo. This will be the thing that loses me most of my friends, I think 😉

If food doesn’t hurt to eat, then it’s not worth eating!

The recipe for it is thus:

Take a tablespoon of butter and melt it in a pan. Add two tins of diced tomatoes and stir until bubbling. Then, add two tablespoons of garlic powder and four tablespoons of curry powder or garam masala. Stir it all together. Add chillies to the desired heat (I used three) and chilli seeds to the desired heat (I used about four tablespoons). Stir in and allow to simmer for a few minutes. Put it all into a blender, add a tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger and puree it. Set aside.

In a new pan, ideally a wok, add the desired amount of chicken (I used two large breasts, which is enough for four people because the sauce is very rich). Season it with salt, pepper, some more garlic (about one teaspoon) and curry powder (about two teaspoons). When the chicken is white (i.e, when you can’t see raw flesh any more), add the sauce, and leave to simmer for 25-30 mins on a medium heat. Do not use a high heat as the sauce and the chicken will burn. At this stage, you can also stir in more chilli seeds if you desire further heat. When the chicken is cooked, remove from the heat and set aside for two to three minutes. It is very important to do this, otherwise you can ruin the curry with the last stage. Add yoghurt to the desired consistency (I like mine thick and rich, but you can make it creamier by adding more yoghurt). If you don’t remove from the heat and allow it to cool briefly, the yoghurt will curdle and ruin the dish.

I used an insane amount of chilli in it, because I’m cruel like that 😉 Yes, I fully intend to hurt someone with this curry!