photooooooooz.

chirstmas party dinner.... .. complete with an English play...
...and a crazy meatloaf.
My English board at school: an English Christmas tree!!..
...well mostly English...Our new Katashina Junior High School Championship belt.. my English teacher decided it was totally worth the $50.. really.. how did we survive without it?

great sign, ne?Christmas at my friend's nursery schools... notice the girl on the right..
Santa-san!

beginning to look a lot like christmas??

Christmas season in Japan...
Haven't been too good about this blogging thing this past month and i seriously apologize.. let's see what ive been tooooooooooo..
1. Climbed a mountain.. actually a couple of them in ChiChiBu National Park. We adventured there not really knowing what to expect and im pretty sure anything that we did expect was completely wrong. we stayed up on the mountain side in a tiny but touristy village in a hostel. It was a pretty sweet hostel where we met some great random japanese people.. by the end of the nite we had found ourselves a hiking partner for the next day (actually he found us). His name.. not quiet sure but told us to call him Yama-chan (mountain child?) and loved american tv shows. in planning for the next day he said he was thinking about starting at 7:30 and asked what time we would start. I responded with a indefinite 8 o'clock at which he expressed a shock and almost appall that we would start THAT late (30 mins later than him?). Anyway, the next day we had a great full day of hiking, even saw Mt Fuji and at the end parted ways with our new friend. The next day we found a sweet fishing area, almost summit ed another mountain and finally headed home.. thats when the real adventure began as, after traveling 4 hours in opposite directions, realized that my car and house keys were in my friend's bag. oops.

Mountain Child and LoganMt Fuji.. its even cooler in real life

Man harvesting wasabe
Fishing place.. i think? not so happening in the late fall though..
2. had my face rocked off.. went to daft punk in tokyo.. it was.. in.cre.di.ble. topped as one of the best shows ive ever been too. danced so hard straight for 3 hours.. felt like 3 seconds. i feel like a new person..

our new friend.. he had really sweet sparkly converses... on the way back on the train he traded his with a japanese salary man for a little... made that sad sad man's day i think...

this was taken with my friend's phone so not the best quality.. but how could you really capture that life changing moment?


3. the season of bonenkai's have begun. bonenkai=end of the year party with people your are kind of acquainted with.. usually overpriced. but always interesting if not damn fun.

4. and christmas? its been thrown in here an there. went to visit nursery school plays with my friend dressed as santa.. they either cried or were really happy.. most times it resulted in us becoming human jungle gyms. I had a Christmas party with one of the english speakers of the village, a couple of my students, and parents. This combination resulted in an over zealous but pretty awesome play in english, waaaaayy too much food, and lots of conversations i didn't understand. and!! there was a yankee swap which I conducted and was actually really fun!! Also, I have been "teaching Christmas" to all the elementary schools. This often resulted in very little english being taught but lots of fun making christmas cards and snowflakes!! my family can speak of the high quality cards some of my 3rd graders made... (im not a slave laborer.. really)

.. pictures to come !!

Party Boobytrap

sweet palindrome, eh?

random bits of japan:

my halloween at school..
me + sexy ferrari
japan is weird / totally AWESOME!
.. a little creepy but how could i not grab a pic of this random child?
apple picking with some of my students!

ashigaka wine festival.. you get there at 10:30am.. a man in a grape costume hands you a bottle of wine and wine glass, then you find a spot on a really steep hill and watch drunk people slide down it all day.. its incredible.
ok.. whoever made that smarmy comment about my vest before can see that it has not phased me and i am still rocking it hard.. so there.
november 19.. my first snow in katashina!

monkey buisness...

saw some monkeys.. they were sweeeeeet!

Jellyface and Scrugles Go To India (and LFHR3 too!!)

To those of you who I have not spoken to about Christmas plans.. this may come as a shock.. but... I'm not coming home. It greatly sadness me and I will terribly miss all of you who I would have seen.. especially the family (already flashes of Christmas not at home gives me heart aches.) But I am in Asia and won't have an opportunity like this for a while.. so instead I will be spending Christmas watching the sunset over the Taj Mahal and New Years on the southern beaches stuffing myself with curry. I am really excited and our plan is coming together pretty nicely now. BUT! I would love any input anyone has on India.. as of now we are visiting Chennai, Agra/Taj Mahal/Mumbai/Goa/Hampi.. any info about these or places along the way would be much appriciated!
..but without further adieu.. the cast of characters:

Cristina
aka Jellyface
Skill: putting jelly on her face
India Weakness: the Taj, the Curry


Logan
aka LFHR3 (his name in the subtitle alludes nothing to his involvement in this trip)
Skill: Team Husband (yes.. he is both of our husband if any sketchy guy asks)
India Weakness: the Beach, the Curry


Me!
aka Scugles
Skill: Scrugle-izing India
India Weakness: the Markets, the Curry

Aaron and Lauren visits!

So after much expectation from both me and my students my brother and his wife finally arrived to katashina on the 17th. We spent the first couple of days in katashina.. i showed them around, brought them to school (the students were really excited!) and went to dinner with my Japanese teacher and her husband. We then headed off to Tokyo to stay with the Naruis (amazingly hospitable family friends). We saw Harijuku and a crazy park, pottery, the lights of Tokyo, modern art, and lots of meat with our Korean BBQ dinner. The next morning we met with the Tajima's for lunch (yes, our whole trip was centered around eating, eating, and more eating). Ken told us that the Emperor sent his regards and we told him to tell the Emperor that we say hello as well. We met little Riko (the epitamy of pink chunk, i think) and adorable Mako (after got after the initial shock of so many foreigners (yes we made her cry) she turned out to be not that shy!). After exchanging gifts we were off to Kyoto. On arriving in Kyoto I found out that my friend, Logan, was there with "his driver" (this guy who loves to drive and sees no problem in driving Logan the 4 hours to Kyoto and then back in a day). We had dinner with them and a Japanese family (who we still arent clear who they are).. okinomiyaki! oishi! The next morning we started with Kinkakuji, Kiomizudera, and a sweet Zen temple. We saw a parade for the Jidai Matsuri and crashed before we took a packed train 30 min to a village outside of Kyoto for a Fire Festival. Although it sounded really cool it was kinda overly packed, cold, and not very entertaining. Still tho, fire is always pretty sweet so we stood around for a couple of hours before being packed into a sardine like train to go home. We had some excellent sushi and headed to bed. The next day we started with ?? and Ginkakuji, Heian, saw some touristy Craft place, went down the streets of Gion (saw two geishas!) then stuffed ourselves full of shabu shabu. The next morning we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine. I didn't really know anything about it but was completely blown away when we got there. The first temple had a service happening, which was pretty cool to watch and there was some nice music too. We then headed up the trail to the top of the mountain. This shrine is known for its 1000 toris (red gates) and foxes as they represent the Inari God. The toris climb all over a mountain, through the forests, with smaller shrines places scattered throughout the climb. It was a pretty thorough walk but it was too beautiful to stop or turn around. We ended up being there for close to 3 or 4 hours. It was a nice way to end such a great trip with Aaron and Lauren. I said goodbye to them at the train station and headed back to the countryside.

Links for pics... (there's a lot of them)
http://picasaweb.google.com/tajima.laura/AaronAndLaurenSVisit
Aaron and Lauren's Pics:
Katashina:http://picasaweb.google.com/atajima/JapanTripKatashina?authkey=LMXU8UQ8bB4
Kyoto:http://picasaweb.google.com/atajima/JapanTripKyoto?authkey=27ObNIde_I4


and Aaron and Lauren- I know that some of these names/facts are wrong but my memory is pretty terrible.. you wanna help me out with the things ive messed up?

Discovery #7: Koyo ROCKS

ah.. the immensely important koyo has arrived to Katashina.. (koyo=fall foliage).. a recent trip to Oze with some amigas...

japanese concerts: an experience

ok... before all this kyoto stuff i gotta say something about japanese concerts.. I went to see Lite, Art School, and yes, Ogre You Asshole (name of the band, i swear) last night in Takasaki. A friend of mine had heard about it and I tagged along having no idea what i was getting into.. Unlike American shows where they say the show starts at one time and usually the main set doesn't go on until at least 2 hours later, the woman at the ticket stand said the main band would go on at 9:05.. they went on at 9:06. We entered the venue and were just about blown back by how loud it was.. completely deafening.. why you wonder? to drown out the loud and rambuncious crowd perhaps? no.. the crowd was SILENT. i mean after these bands would rock out.. the crowd would politely clap and wait silently for the next song. I mean I was nearly whispering to my friend between the songs and still was making a scene. And dancing!? zilch.. jurawa- you would have horrified them. The most I saw were some head bobs and twice a hand go up in a sort of awkward fist pumping way.. I wouldn't categorize it as dancing. Now onto the bands. They were kind of alternative/indie (I didnt really know this before I went)... I actually liked Ogre You Asshole the best.. The main set, Art School, were so full of angst and inner turmoil that it was pretty hard not to laugh. The main singer (all of the main singers had EXACTLY the same haircut) was so emo, he barely spoke, except saying "arto" after every song. I think we saw the face of the guitarist twice the whole time.. all the other times he was head-banging (oh yea.. its totally in right now) or had his long angst filed hair covering his face entirely. But it was still a great time and i hope to see more silly shows here in the future...
a taste of some other bands' names? meat buns, price albert, mask de pizza, your song is good, morton the on, seattle standard cafe', and the really popular, bump of chicken.

Ogre You Asshole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gOCz8xe9PU

Discovery #5: what the hell is up with japanese television?!?!?

so japanese television is one of the most ridiculous things i have encountered while being in japan.. and let me tell you, i've encountered some really ridiculous stuff. for example, i am currently switching between the most overly dramatic boxing match hosted by a guy straight out of the 70's cowboy look.. except japanese, a show that matches up the top competitors from Ninja Warrior against a chimpanzee on an insane course, a show that has gone from seeing if two vegetables can grow together if cut in half, stapled to each other and left for some time to seeing if you can build a boat to hold 4 people purely out of leaves, and my personal favorite, people cooking gigantic food-- like a sushi the size of a football and a plate of soba about a foot tall. Now all of these shows, except for the boxing match, are accompanied with a small picture in the corner of people in the studio watching these things happen, incredibly dramatic music and intense replays, and a variety of japanese subtitles at all times. another enigma for me is then these shows end or if they end at all. ending on the hour or half hour is not an issue and they often blend into the next show (or maybe that's because all these shows seem exactly the same). Some other of my favorite: Matching up elementary schools against each other to see who can make the most extreme domino courses- meaning dominoes that fall and create a davinci across the gymnasium or that hits a ball that ignites a flame that heats water that pushes over.. etc. they show these students working on it day and night for a whole week- and when a part messes up at least 7 of them erupt in tears. And the other, although my japanese isn't perfect i believe it's called "crazy shit that happens". it ranges from cop chases to a guy smashing watermelons with his head, to dumb burglars, to BASE jumpers, to a guy that can catch jumping insects, to a crazy indian festival.. ok.. ive already written too much on such an inane subject.. i gotta get my vcr working....

Canyons, Kabobs, Cookies, and Cold.

this weekend i went CANYONING.. ie.. putting on a wetsuit and jumping down waterfalls and sliding down rocks. I know, y'all are thinking, man that girl is so extreme. We'll, i am. But it was real fun. I went with a bunch of JET kids, including Cristina (you may remember her from such episodes as.. Tokyo craziness, JET Orientation, and the ski jumpers of Nagano).Afterwards, we bbq-ed and rested up for a night of dancing at the Full Moon Party, nearby the canyoning place. Although cold, that was pretty sweet too. There were a couple of DJ's, firepits, kabobs, and lots of dancing. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves until about 3:00am.. when we had to decide if we were heading home on the last bus or waiting up for the 7:30am bus. We went with the 3am bus. The next morning we headed home, bbq-d again with a group of friends, then chilled out for the night. The next day after dropping off Cristina, I was full of ambition and took on two major projects. 1.) Baking chocolate chip cookies. Between figuring out how to work my microwave/toaster/oven, converting to the metric system, and finding the right ingredients, this was more of a task than it appears. They turned out slightly cake like and strangely shaped but good. I think I'm going to give them to my school and call them a Boston delicacy. Next, winterizing my house. Yes, it is getting cold and I am absolutely petrified of the Katashina winter. I have bought almost everything in the store that could possibly used to keep in heat. It a moment of ambition/insanity, I decided to make two walls in order to shrink the size of the room I need to heat. needless to say, this was a task in itself and I have no idea if they will be standing, much less keeping the heat in, when I get home from work today.
But things are good.. the newness of everything is wearing off a bit and its getting a little cold. But I have things to look forward to (Aaron and Lauren are coming!) and things to keep me busy (yes.. I have taken up Judo) and am slowly learning Japanese..
The Canyoning Crew
I'm so EXTREME
.. and so is Cristina?

that mountain i climbed.. and fell all the way down.

Mt. Hotaka.. see.. the scrapes were worth it!

small god statue of the mountain


the fearless leader..

there is no way to capture this weekend in a witty little title.

sooo.. this weekend.
I met up with one friend Friday night in Tokyo. We stayed at this pretty nice hostel. We met up with my other friend around 1pm the next day. I gotta say, the subway/train line is so ridiculous here and amazingly sweet. There is an insane metro system (with like 4 shades of green colored lines) PLUS a train system that has a bunch of loops within the city and out to the nearby areas. It was pretty easy..except for this one station that is miles long with a couple of malls and sooo complicated to get around (especially after a night of drinking, dancing, tired and at the 7am rush hour.. but thats another story). So we meet up with my friend and decide we want to go to the beach so we head out to Kamakura.. the city my grandparents lived. We don't exactly know where we would be staying that night but we go and hope to find something there. When we get there there is a tourist info place so I ask about hotels/hostels.. she basically laughs in my face and was like.. all these places were booked weeks ago.. you're screwed. But screwed or not we decided to hit up the beach. It turned out to be pretty dirty but at least there was water and a bunch of surfers to watch. After a while we wonder around looking for anything that looks like it could put us up for a night and figured if we found nothing we could always head back to Tokyo and get something there. We walk past a surf shop and given they had a sign in English in the front, we decided to ask if they knew of anywhere. They tried but no success. So we hit up some drinks then headed to the beach to hang out. On the way down we pass a bbq.. and the surfers from before are there. Within 15 min this one adorable girl surfer is like.. you guys are staying with me. We played the "no, its ok, really we were fine" for a little but said yes and were tickled pink. So we hang out for the rest of the night with these sweetas surfers. The girl we are staying with is unbelievable and we have all fallen deeply in love with her by the end of the night. She doubles as a clown and pulled out balloon tricks later that night.. how can't you love that ? Another guy we were chilling with was one of the most famous surfers in Japan.. too bad we didn't catch his name.. Anyway, after everyone goes home Mika (surfer/clown/host) insists on us all sleeping upstairs we finally go to sleep, 5 of us sharing two futons.. yea it was cozy.

The next morning we had hoped to learn how to surf from this famous guy but there wasn't any waves so we hit up Hase-dera (really beautiful shrine and Japanese gardens) and Daibutsu (a really big Buddah). They were as I remembered from going their when I was younger. Except that the Daibutsu keeps on looking smaller and smaller to me each time I visit. We head back to Tokyo to hopefully catch a nap before our night out. First we have a nice dinner with Aya and her breakdancing teacher.. Then we head to this show that Jurawa had informed me about from Peru.. DJ Krush and Lupe Fiasco. This place it was at was ridiculous.It's HUGE.. they didn't allow cameras in so I couldn't take any pictures. But there was the main stage, a tent stage playing the second rate DJ's (they were playing such a weird/bad set of old and new hip hop), a pool stage that we didn't check out until the end but had some real decent house, and another stage that I just walked by but was playing some pretty good jazz. Before Lupe Fiasco there was this sick beatboxing group.. then Lupe played. i didn't know him at all but he gave a killer show. Then DJ Krush, but we were too pumped up to listen to his tranceish stuff. We danced basically the whole time until like 6:30am. We walked through the main stage area on our way out and they were playing Rage.. me and Cristina (friend) rocked it out..these Japanese thought we were hilarious.. but we finally headed out.. had a terrible experience with the huge confusing train station and got to bed at like 8am.... we headed home the next morning after a dazed but delicious tempura breakfast.

... and now im about to get a very concerned email from my mother (im safe.. i promise)

mmm.. Japanese Gardens..
"the three little idiots" as Cristina lovingly calls us..
DAIBUTSU!
there were a couple of weddings happening at this shrine.. but i forgot its name (dad.. its the one at the end of the street that leads to the beach.. the really big one)
mmm.. kimonos
clown work..
kamakura.. surfer beach style..
outside the club.. at 7am