The Search for the Lost Castle

It started as just a suggestion after an already rather busy day. "What should we do this afternoon?" "I dont know.....lets go to Kasama!"

Last time we were in Kasama, which is known for its pottery, we went with Leah and we tried to find some castle ruins that we saw on the map. We ended up finding Azaleah Mountain and we ran out of time to continue our search.

Soo, Derrick and I made a second attempt at the castle ruin search today.
We took off on our scooters (which is our new and awesome mode of transportation...I will post some pictures of them soon) and got to kasama after 20 minutes. We took some side streets and started our search in the direction that we remembered it being......we didn't have a map today because the map we used last time was Leah's. We figured if we got lost, we would find a kombini (one of those little snack stop/ convenient stores like the one Derrick finally went to for his Western Toilet) and buy one...

So, we're riding down one of the streets and I notice a shrine to my left and immediately notice Derrick coming to a rather abrupt halt.....I quickly decided I should stop too so as not to hit him. Well, it wasn't part of the castle ruins that we were searching for, but it was a shrine, and as soon as we got off the scooters two men who were standing by the shrine motioned us over.
Before the shrine entrance there was a stone marking with words chiseled into it. What was odd about this stone marking was that it also had a melody chiseled in it. One of the men had a big Japanese flute and they asked us if we knew the melody. Obviously we had no idea what it was and he played it for us. Then he randomly started to play some more songs; some that we knew and some that were Japanese. We had a nice conversation with these men and he gave us his website where we could watch him play more songs on his flute.
Here he is playing for us:

Here's a picture of us with him:

Here's the shrine we stopped to see:

After that we continued our search. We got a little sidetracked here and there and found a few random things. First we tried following these blue pegs along a path up a foresty hill along the road...we gave up though and still have no idea what these pegs are for....maybe the waterline or something.

We also found this cool little shrine back behind some houses:

As we continued our search we found a parking lot and two entrances to a path through the forest that made a circle back to the parking lot. We chose one entrance and started walking...and walking. We found nothing so we turned around and went back. We almost gave up and left, but we looked at some maps that were standing there, didn't understand any of the Japanese and decided to try the other entrance. We walked for not even a minute and found some steps. Then we kept finding more and more steps, so we just followed them up higher and higher. What a workout!

And what did we find.....and empty field with random stone landmarkers and a big map showing you what used to be there! Oh and a picnic table and a little bungalow like building. I was so disappointed!

But....as we were taking a closer look at one of the land markers, low and behold, we saw stairs a little farther away! We followed these stairs up even higher...and a few more flights.

I think I see something!

Sure Enough! We found a big wooden shrine-like house:

Here I am resting on the rock with the sink by the entrance:

We went home tired but satisfied.

Observations!

Yesterday and today were/are observation days at one of my schools: Kaminakazuma. This means that the main board of education for the city (aka Souken) sends some of their people to come observe our classes and make sure that we are living up to their standards.

When I first heard they were doing this, my reaction was "oh, ok, so we're gonna do class just as normal but have a few extra people watching." It would not have been the first time that people would come in and watch.....it actually happens almost every day at one of my schools (Tsumasato....not the one Souken is coming to).....well the people dont necessarily come to watch, but there are two rooms attached to my room, one for PTA and the other for whatever they want to use it for. So people walk through my room during class to go to meetings in these other rooms pretty much daily. And there have been the random occasions that people did come in specifically to watch the class.

What I did not realize was that because these observation days were Souken observations, it's a big deal!!

This past week my teachers have pretty much been freaking out. Tuesday was a rather frusrtating day for me because they would come and talk to me about the lesson plan every chance they got and they would repeat themselves 20 times and tell me what to do 20 times and tell me how we're gonna do the greeting that we've been doing the same every day for the past 3 months and they would tell me how to explain the game in English.....even though they've already explained the game to me so I already know whats going on. Tuesday was also the day that they changed a lot of my classes around and either forgot to tell the teacher who was supposed to come, or they forgot to tell me. So my first period I waited for a teacher who didn't know she was supposed to come and my second period a different class showed up than what I was prepared for.

Now, the reason they changed these classes around was because they wanted to get some "practice classes" in for the big day on Thursday. Not only did we have a practice class for each class that would be observed, the teachers also practiced the English from those classes with their kids in their own class time. So basically, the kids already knew exactly what we were going to be doing before the observed class, so when I was explaining the rules to the games in English, they were thinking "we already know this...can we play!" So of course the observers were very happy to see how well they understood and how well they could speak without help.

Yesterday....the observations themselves actually went really well....ofcourse! They were all planned out very well and really organized and we had gone over every little detail 20 times.....it would be pretty bad if after all that we still had a bad class!!

Later that day I got to have a "meeting" with the observers. We talked about the class....what went well, what didnt, some tips about how to teach different levels....it was a good meeting. At one point she asked me if I had any other questions. I went out on a limn and mentioned that I wasn't sure if the teachers knew I had a TEFL degree (I actually studied to do what I'm doing....which all the other AETs here havent because we are basically just assistants and the japanese teachers plan the classes and tell us what to do). I just said that because I studied teaching English, I would like to help the teachers more and I would like to help come up with activities.

So we will see if that makes any difference. Some teachers already let me do a lot and allow me to bring in game ideas. But some teachers really make me their assistant and only use me in class when they want to.

Ok, thats all for now. Now, as a treat for reading all about my "Observation Experience", here is a video from Youtube that might help you get a better idea of the level of English we deal with every day. Luckily we actually get to teach our kids the correct way instead of just laugh at them when they say it wrong, like what happens in this video. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yE44Rt_Ch_k&NR=1

Fourth and Final Chapter

Chapter Four: The Dog

So I’m sitting at my desk and I keep hearing them talking about me behind my back. There was a lot of gibberish then all of a sudden they would throw in “AET,” and after a while I started hearing other words that I actually knew, like “Coco’s” and “Kombini” which are little rest stops/snack places. It just so happened that there was a neighborhood Kombini right around the corner from where the school was, so I figured that they were planning a trip for me and my turd.

Soon enough they were on the phone making phone calls and a couple of minutes later the school nurse came and bid me follow, and so reluctantly I followed. We walked down the driveway, took a right and then walked further down the street (my pride was going down at the same time), then we entered the Kombini. I thought to myself, it must be in here… but it wasn’t. Sure enough, the lady behind the counter got up and started walking out the back door motioning for me to follow, and so I left the nice little school nurse behind, and continued my journey on through the portal and into the back yard.

All was well until I took my third step out of the door. A dog leapt up and started barking at me. As if I wasn’t embarrassed enough! So I ran out of the dogs reach (it was collared), and the lady continued to lead me past the barking dog and up to her own house. Then into the house we went and sure enough, to the right of the door and down the hall was the most beautiful and magnificent western toilet I had ever seen… or it should have been for what I went through to find it.

To finish off this long and dreadful story, I went, I pooped, I wiped, I flushed, and then I walked back to the Kombini, running quickly beside the dog. When I got inside, the nice nurse lady was standing in the same place that I had left her, waiting ever so patiently for me to return.

Western Toilet Search: Chapter Three

Interlude
If you’ve ever been in a foreign country where you don’t know the language and the people there don’t know your language, you will know that your conversations will more than likely turn into a game of charades…

Dear friends and family,

I hope you are all doing well and being blessed. Thank you for reading our blog and placing comments. We really enjoy hearing from our friends and family across the world and we're happy to hear you enjoy our stories and adventures.

Please enjoy the next chapter of Derrick's search for a Western toilet at his school and look forward to reading the final chapter in the next post. After that you can anticipate seeing a picture and hearing some adventures of our new and exciting mode of transportation...

Chapter Three: The Demonstration

So at this point we walked back to the teachers’ room, and found that even more teachers had arrived there since we had been out. At this point I think they had pretty much given up on finding a western toilet for me, but that wasn’t enough. They decided to explain how to use the toilets, and the best way for them to explain this to me, was to demonstrate the usage of a Japanese toilet. So my first grade female teacher started showing me how to spread my legs and squat over the imaginary toilet in the teachers’ room (it seemed like she had explained and done this demonstration of this before). But because I was standing there in shock, they thought I wasn’t getting it so the teacher that had given me the tour earlier grabbed my hand and was going to literally show me how to use the toilets. So off we went, but at this point I decided enough was enough, and so I broke away, and tried my best to let him know that I was fine and didn’t need to go that bad. So I went back to my desk, buried my head into my arms, and hid there hoping for this whole episode to blow over, but it didn’t.

interlude and chapter 2 of Derrick's Story

Interlude

If you know anything about Japanese culture, you will know that they will stop at nothing to help you; I wish, for my sake, that that aspect would not have been a part of Japanese culture for the hour during which this story took place. Unfortunately, it was.

Chapter Two: The Great Demise

We arrived in the teachers’ room, and joined the group of teachers that had arrived there since we had left on our excursion. My excursion buddy decided that this would be a good time to ask everyone if they knew of a western toilet in the school. Of course this was all going on in Japanese, all I heard was a bunch of noises and the words “western toilet.” With those two words all of the teachers had immediately looked over to where I was standing, with a puzzled look on their faces. They all began to have this long drawn out talk as to where a western toilet might be, when one of the teachers’ assistants started walking out the door and signaled for me to follow. She led me down the hall at a very brisk pace, and barged into the men’s bathroom without as much as a knock. She looked in the two stalls without success and then went into the girl’s bathroom right next door. At this point I had pretty much lost all hope of this actually being a viable alternative location where I might relieve myself at other times in the future, so I stayed outside of the bathroom until she came to the door and insisted that I come in; to my surprise there was a rather small western toilet that sat about a foot above the floor and about two inches from any of the four walls. I guess I could have gone with door open and my legs hanging out, but I did not think that that would be such a good idea especially in an elementary schools girl’s bathroom. So we gave up and walked back to the teachers’ room.

Scuba anyone?

Hello!

The last weekend (as in one week ago) we had a great time on Saturday with our newly made friends Laura and Nobu and their little almost 3-year old DJ. They are a wonderful family and a ton of fun to hang out with. They took us to a city west of hear called Tsukuba (pronounced like Scuba). There is Mount Tsukuba, which is pretty wellknown here even though I do not think it is one of the higher mountains, there is a mall, there is a yamaya (which is a store with foreign foods) and there is a mexican restaurant. THere is also a space center which we will hopefully get to visit on our next trip to Tsukuba. Apparently you can make reservations to have an English tour. Well, thats all about that for now. That day was a ton of fun and we are so appreciative and thankful to Laura and Nobu and Dj, and Nobu's parents who we got to visit with at their home for dinner, for a wonderful experience. And thank God for wonderful friends!

Here is a picture of the happy family:

Interlude for Derrick's Story:

This is coming...the computer is messing up on me and I have to go to class.

God bless!

Derrick's Story

Warning from Miranda: Dear friends and family, if you know Derrick, you know that he does not mind talking about certain things that others might find inappropriate. This story is such an occasion...he was brave enough to ask a teacher he works with a certain question that was burning on his mind since the day he arrived in that school. If you have traveled to certain countries and have experienced the uncomfortable non-western toilet, you will understand why this question can be of great importance. Please consider this a warning that if you continue reading this story, you will be reading about toilets...however, if you so choose to continue reading this story, you are in for a hilarious treat!
This story will be posted in 3 or 4 different chapters....to keep up the suspence.

Chapter One: The Beginning

It was a regular Monday morning, except I had to go poop… the hard thing was that in my school all of the toilets that I have ever seen have been these squatter toilets. What I mean by squatter toilets is that it is a toilet that is basically just a depression in the floor that you have to stand over and do a squat to poop in them, and it’s super hard!!! Anyway, I like to relax while I poop, and so nothing is better than having a nice clean western toilet to poop in (some of the western toilets here have heated toilet seats). So I’m sitting in the teachers room with nothing to do besides think about the pressure that is building up inside of me, when I decide that it’s about time that I ask one of the male teachers if there is a western toilet in the school that I could use. So I went up to him and said “sumi masen” (excuse me/help please), he looked up and I asked “is there a western toilet?” He thought for a second and then replied with “maybe one in school.” So I thought that this was a good sign, and hoped that maybe he knew of a hidden restroom that I had not yet strip-searched. So he gave me the sign to follow him and I followed him in and out of one restroom up one set of stairs, into another bathroom and then up another set of stairs to explore the two bathrooms on the third floor. He basically gave me a guided tour of all the restrooms that I had already searched when I had decided to look for a western toilet the week before. After the fourth bathroom I finally told him that I had already looked in all of the restrooms in the main part of the school and that there simply was not a western toilet. After about five minutes of explaining, he finally understood and we went back down the flights of stairs to the teachers room; he apologized to me, and for the moment it seemed that he had given up and that we could not find one and would not find one.