I can’t believe that I blogged about climbing Mt. Fuji and forgot to include the Japanese proverb that says he who climbs Mt. Fuji once is a wise man but he who climbs it twice is a fool! Fuji has been considered a sacred mountain since ancient times and women were actually forbidden to climb it until the Meiji Era, hence the proverb’s somewhat chauvinistic wording.

Two days after the fact, we’re looking back on the experience with a deep sense of satisfaction but we both agree that we wouldn’t be foolish enough to tackle the mountain a second time! We’re also quite proud of the fact that, though we’re still feeling the effects of the climb and a night without sleep, our bodies are recovering remarkably well. I really expected to be much stiffer!

In answer to tokyo5’s question about walking sticks, we decided not to purchase them and I’m actually glad that we didn’t as I much preferred having my hands free for the rocky part of the climb. The octagonal wooden sticks sell for about 1200 yen at the 5th station gift shops.  They come adorned with bells and Japanese flags.  Most climbers remove the flags to keep them from becoming torn and dirty and the bells because they’re annoying.  I do have one of the bells because I found it on the trail on our way down.

At each station along the ascending trail, climbers can pay an additional 200 or 300 yen to have a brand burned into their stick marking their progress toward the top.  They make a nice souvenir but we didn’t want to deal with the difficulty of figuring out how to transport them back to Canada.  Instead, Richard bought a souvenir T-shirt and I bought a leather and metal keychain/luggage tag to hang on my backpack.  Both have pictures of the mountain as well as it’s name and height.  There’s space on the back of my tag to put my name and telephone number but I’m also going to record the date of our climb on it.

The past week has been a tiring one because our children’s classes had parents’ day. Since each class meets only once a week, this went on for the entire week.

Parents’ week stress actually started several weeks ago because we were required to hand in parents’ day lesson plans to our school administrators ahead of time for their approval. The due date for these plans was originally set for June 27th but at our weekly staff meeting during the second week of June, we were told that this date had been bumped up to the 18th and we had no choice but to scramble and get them done in a rush. The reason that we were given for the sudden change was that this would give administration time to help those new teachers whose plans weren’t adequate. As I expressed at staff meeting, suddenly giving me six days to complete a job that I thought I had fifteen days to do wasn’t likely to be helpful at all!

In addition to the stress of having to hand in our plans early, we were also expected to spend plenty of time in recent weeks prepping the kids for parents’ day instead of moving forward with our teaching but at the same time, we have a certain amount of work that has to be completed by the end of term! Is it any wonder that we get frustrated with our employer? On the other hand, I keep reminding myself that MIL is my ticket to being here in Japan. This is definitely where I wanted to be and that hasn’t changed so I try to remain as positive as possible.

I feel that most of my parents’ day classes went well, though it was usually very difficult to judge the parents’ reactions as they sat very quietly and showed very little reaction to anything that happened. I did have one class today where the parents responded with laughter and obvious appreciation. Perhaps that’s because it was Saturday and there were fathers in attendance. They seemed more relaxed than the moms and it didn’t hurt that the kids in that class are very young and very cute.

On the other hand, one of my littlest and cutest students is Mahiro. I call him my little boyfriend because every Monday he meets me in the reception room at Katsutadai school, takes me by the hand and leads me upstairs to our classroom. He’s absolutely adorable. There are only two children in that particular class. The second child is Hana, a little girl who is just as sweet, but she didn’t show up for parents’ day. Poor little Mahiro was on his own with an audience made up of his mother, grandmother and older sister. Though he left his shyness with me behind many weeks ago, that was too much for him and he never said a word out loud the entire class! He did everything I asked of him but would only whisper!

There are CDs that go along with each of our children’s textbooks. Often the kids are asked to listen to the CD and repeat what is said. In one of my classes this week, the CD stuck. I didn’t even know a CD could do that but it just kept repeating “their…their…their” over and over again! The kids dissolved in fits of giggles, the tension in the classroom was broken and things went smoothly from then on! There are also silly songs on the CDs that use familiar tunes to reinforce the vocabulary that we’re teaching. After practicing for weeks on end, I know, without a doubt, that some New Year’s Eve, I’m going to hear Auld Lang Syne and what will be going through my head is “Whose keys are these? Whose keys are these? Whose keys are these? They’re mine!”

Anyway, we’re glad it’s over and are happy that parents’ week happens only once a year. As we sip our wine and relax this evening, we look forward to tomorrow. Sunday, our favourite day of the week!

With climate control and carbon dioxide emissions as one of the major topics on the agenda for the annual G8 summit meetings which are taking place in northern Japan this week, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry has been calling on Japanese households to join in a new “Tanabata Light Down” event this evening. The message has been spread primarily through primary, middle and high schools throughout the nation. For this country to achieve the emission reduction targets set out under the Kyoto Protocol, household emissions, which have been rising dramatically, have to be cut. Some estimates suggest that if every home in the country turned off their lights for two hours, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 15 000 tons, equivalent to the amount of emissions from one million households in a 24 hour period.

The idea is not an entirely new one. In 2003 the Environment Ministry began calling on people to turn off their lights for two hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the summer solstice each year. As the Japanese people are very aware of and concerned about the issues of climate control and emissions reduction, many have already been taking part in that event. This year the decision was made to introduce the July 7 event as well to coincide with the G8 summit.

With the exception of the bathroom lights, we have fluorescent lighting throughout the apartment. The kitchen is lit by an overhead light fixture as well as one over the sink. The other two rooms have overhead fixtures that each have three settings. On the brightest setting, two circular tubes are lit. On the lower setting only one of them is lit and on the lowest, a tiny night light bulb provides just enough light to prevent one from stumbling in the dark. It’s now just a few minutes past 8 p.m. and as I look out the windows, I still see plenty of light coming from homes around the neighbourhood and I’m not one to get overly excited about this issue but I’m going to do my part by keeping the lights on the lower setting and using only the light over the sink to cook by this evening. Trying to cook in complete darkness would be foolhardy. If I can figure out a way to light the candles that we were given as promotional gifts by a shoe store where Richard bought a pair of sneakers, perhaps we’ll also eat by candlelight tonight. We don’t have any matches though so that could be tricky!

July 7 is Tanabata in Japan, a day for making wishes and hanging them on bamboo trees.

Tanabata is based on a legend that goes something like this. A long time ago, Ten-kou, the god of the sky had a daughter called Orihime who spent her time weaving cloth for the gods. Ten-kou was worried because his daughter did nothing but work every day so he introduced her to Hikoboshi Kengyu, who spent all his time taking care of cows. When they met, they fell in love and soon spent all their time together. As a result, all the cows became sick and when the gods’ clothing wore out, there was no new cloth to make more. This made Ten-kou very angry so he took Orihime away to the other side of the river Amanogawa (the Milky Way) and wouldn’t allow the lovers to meet anymore. This made them so sad that they were unable to work. Eventually, Ten-kou felt so sorry for them that he decided to allow them to meet once a year on July 7 as long as they worked hard the rest of the year. Traditionally people hoped that the sky would be clear on that day so that the lovers could meet over the Milky Way. If it rained, the water level of the river Amanogawa would rise and they would be unable to cross. Originally people made this wish by writing it on a piece of paper and hanging it on a bamboo tree. Nowadays, people write their own wishes instead. Though adults sometimes participate, these days it is largely an activity for children.

When the Tanabata tradition came up for discussion in some of Richard’s adult classes this week, he was told that this weekend there would be a Tanabata festival on the street where our closest MIL school is located but we didn’t know when or where. We worked yesterday and went to church today. As usual, we stayed for lunch and visited for quite awhile after church then did a bit of shopping before heading for home. We didn’t really consider trying to take in the street festival because we thought it was likely a midday activity and that we had probably missed it. Since we’d had a big lunch after church and it was such a warm day, we decided to forgo cooking dinner at home, pick up a few goodies at the bakery and go to the park for a picnic supper. Before we headed out, I felt prompted to take the camera with us. At first, I ignored the thought but as we were leaving, I once again felt that I was being told to take it. I’ve learned to listen to these promptings and so it went into the bag.

After picking up our dinner at the bakery, we headed for the park but as we got close, we could see bright lights and crowds of people a little further up the street. We decided to investigate and soon found ourselves in the middle of the Tanabata street festival! For several blocks, booths were set up along the sidewalk. Games of chance and booths selling all sorts of ready to eat foods were the main attractions. The sidewalk was a slow moving river of humanity. Many of the young girls were decked out in yukata (summer kimono) and everyone was in a festive mood. We quickly decided that our bakery goods would last until tomorrow and filled up on okinomiyaki, which might best be described as a Japanese omelet, and takoyaki, balls of batter covered octopus.

One of the side streets was blocked off and in the intersection, a musical group featuring a young female singer with a beautiful voice was entertaining the crowd. Though her pronunciation was somewhat difficult to understand, she was singing English songs. When she started into the Tennessee Waltz, we couldn’t resist the urge. Spotting an open space behind the group, we slipped into it, dropped our bags and enjoyed a dance before sliding back into the crowd and continuing on our way!

Our school is closed this Wednesday.  By me taking Thursday, which is Richard’s regular day off, as one of the five yukyu (personal leave days) that I’m entitled to over the course of the year, we get a two day break together.  We decided to use it for a seaside getaway.  Funabashi is located at the upper end of the Boso Peninsula across the bay from Tokyo.  After asking around, we decided to go out to the far end of the peninsula but since that isn’t a usual destination for foreign tourists, finding hotel information in English was a problem.

I mentioned this to my friend, Minako, at the regular ladies meeting at church on Wednesday morning and she offered to help.  She promised to seek out a nice, inexpensive place for us to stay and bring the information to me at church this morning.   She chose what appears to be the perfect spot, a beach front hotel at the very end of the peninsula.  After church, she used one of the church computers to go online and make our reservation.  We’ll have a traditional Japanese room with bath, most likely with an ocean view.  The price of 12 100 yen (about $120) includes a Japanese buffet supper as well as breakfast the next morning and free bicycle rental to explore the area!  The hotel also has an onsen so we’ll probably enjoy the public bath experience again.  In addition to hotel information, Minako also brought us information on both bus and train transportation to and from the resort.

There’s every likelihood that the staff at the hotel won’t speak any English but I’m not worried.  My comfort zone is getting bigger and bigger every day and if something does go seriously wrong, I have Minako’s cell phone number.   We are so blessed to have friends like her.  I can’t quite imagine what our Japan experience would have been like if we hadn’t found Hope Church!

In spite of the fact that it’s definitely warm enough, it doesn’t really feel like summer to me. I think there are two main reasons for that. The first is year round schooling. While our compatriots at home are rejoicing over the end of the school year and the long summer holiday stretching out before them, we will continue to teach.

The Japanese school year begins in early April and ends in late March with only a week or two between. They have a few days off in early May for Golden Week, a summer vacation in August during which many students attend cram school and a two week winter vacation over Christmas and New Years, much like the one we get at home. In addition, there are several one day national holidays. Though ours is a private language school, it follows the regular school schedule quite closely except that we only have a one week vacation in August. We work some of the national holidays but two compensation days were added to our Golden Week vacation and we get other days off in lieu that adjust the schedule so that each of our regular classes occurs the same number of times over the course of a year.

The other reason that this doesn’t feel like summer is because there are no long summer evenings like the ones we’re accustomed to in Canada. Since our latitude is between that of San Fransisco and Los Angeles and Japan doesn’t practice daylight savings time, the sun rose this morning at 4:26 a.m. and set at exactly 7:00 p.m. On Saturdays we only work until 7:00 p.m. so I actually walked home in twilight tonight but we usually work until 8:30 or 9:00 and come home after dark. I understand that the Prime Minister of Japan is in favour of instituting daylight savings time which I think is an excellent idea.

Though this really doesn’t seem like summer, it also doesn’t seem to be the rainy season that we’d been told to expect. In fact, there was more rain in May which is supposed to be one of the nicest months here than there has been in June, the first month of the rainy season. I’m not complaining though! We’ve seen enough rain to last us a very long time!

There are two very special little boys in my life, Andrew and Ayumu, but I have yet to meet either one of them. Andrew, my first grandchild, was born in Canada on May 1st and I knew that I wouldn’t meet him until my year in Japan is over. Ayumu, on the other hand, was born here in Japan on June 14th, just in time to make his father the newest and possibly the proudest Daddy in church on Father’s Day morning.

I went to church this past Sunday hoping that my friend, Seiko, and her wee son might be there. It was then that I began to learn about the differences between giving birth in Canada and in Japan.

My daughter, Melaina, gave birth to Andrew at 4:21 in the morning and took him home around noon the following day. Because he was her first baby, she was required to stay in the hospital for his first 24 hours. Had he not been her first, she would probably have gone home later the day that he was born. Japanese women are absolutely astonished to learn this. Here, the mother and baby stay in the hospital for about a week.

Andrew was born on a Thursday and was in church that Sunday morning, hence my expectation that I might see Ayumu this past Sunday. He was, after all, eight days old by that time. It was then that I learned that after leaving the hospital, the Japanese mother retires, often to the home of her parents, where she spends the next couple of weeks resting in bed while family members care for the baby. She doesn’t usually go anywhere for the first month of her baby’s life. Wow! Personally, I think that sending new mothers and babies home within the first 48 hours is too hasty but a month of going nowhere! I’d have gone absolutely mad!

Even though he arrived two weeks before his due date, Andrew was a robust 8 pounds 1/2 ounce at birth. Japanese babies are only measured in grams but if I’ve done my math correctly, Ayumu, who arrived a week after his due date, weighed about 6 pounds 11 ounces. That’s considered an average birth weight here. Japanese mothers are encouraged not to gain much weight during pregnancy and low birth weights are preferred.

The naming of babies is another interesting cultural difference. Japanese babies are given only one name so Ayumu is Ayumu, plain and simple. Andrew, on the other hand, has three given names. He is Andrew David Richard. Like our oldest son, his middle names were given in honour of his two grandfathers. The Japanese find this custom very peculiar. The meaning of the Chinese characters used to spell a baby’s name are very important here. Ayumu’s name means “a walk with God”. How wonderful! I find this especially interesting because when Seiko and I talked about names before she and her husband, Atsuo, had chosen one for their son, I told her that though the meaning of names doesn’t have much significance to most North Americans, Janina, Matthew, Nathan and Melaina’s middle name, Jean, all mean “gift of God”.

When I finally do meet Ayumu, I’ll have the chance to use my newest Japanese word, kawai. Sounding almost like Hawaii except beginning with a k, it means cute. As I proudly showed off photos of Andrew, as all good grandmas do, I heard the word over and over again. It didn’t take long to figure out what it meant!

I’ve been bothered by some kind of irritation in my mouth for the past month or so and was beginning to get quite concerned about it because I really don’t want to have to go looking for a dentist or a doctor while I’m here. I tried rinsing twice a day with a mouthwash which seemed to help a bit at first but it definitely didn’t get rid of the problem.  I finally started to wonder if it was caused by something I’ve been eating.  Yesterday, the light bulb finally went on!  We’ve been eating pineapple for breakfast almost every day. Could that be the culprit?  Considering the fact that my daughter is allergic to pineapple, I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner.  Last night I did a Google search on mouth sores & pineapple.  The results were quite amazing. Article after article mentioned the relationship between acidic fruits and mouth sores and pineapple was almost always first on the list!

This is definitely an unfortunate development because not only do I really like pineapple but it’s also one of the cheapest fruits available to us here.  In fact, we’ve recently been able to buy a whole pineapple for approximately the same price as a single apple.  I’m quite delighted to buy a pineapple for 198 yen (less than $2) but I’m definitely not willing to pay that much for an apple!   Fortunately, both oranges and kiwis have come down in price recently.  I’ll have to be careful about the number of oranges I consume, however, as they’re also very acidic.

Apparently it’s possible to neutralize the acid in pineapple by soaking it in water with a very small amount of vinegar but I’m not that desperate and the pineapples that we’ve been buying recently haven’t been nearly as sweet as the ones that were available when we first arrived.   Those would have been much harder to give up.

Of course, it’s too soon to know for sure that pineapple is, in fact, the cause of my mouth sores but since mouths tend to heal quickly, I’m hoping to have a definitive answer within a few days.   In the meantime, no more pineapple!

While we were eating breakfast this morning, the building began to rock again. It felt as though the ground was rolling beneath us but it was not particularly frightening. We later learned, however, that a powerful earthquake had hit northeastern Honshu, Japan’s main island and the one we call home. The quake, which measured approximately 7.0 on the Richter scale, was centred about 100 km north of the city of Sendai in a mountainous rural area. While there were several casualties, the outcome might have been much worse had it hit a more highly populated area.

The following are a few photos of the quake area borrowed from various online news sources.

Umbrellas are absolutely essential here. We’ve already seen far more rain in the three and a half months that we’ve been here than we would see in a year or two back home on the Canadian prairie. Rich and I each have two umbrellas, one small telescoping one that slips easily into a book bag and goes to school with us each day and one full sized one that goes with us if it’s already raining when we leave home. There are two choices when it comes to purchasing an umbrella – buy a cheap one and replace it every time the wind blows or pay more for a better quality one that has a chance of lasting. We see many of the cheap variety abandoned beside the road on rainy days. We opted for better quality umbrellas but we bought both our full sized ones at the recycle store. Richard was determined to find a BIG umbrella as he really doesn’t like being wet so his is actually a very large golf umbrella! It’s even vented in such a way that the wind can pass through it. Otherwise I’d fear that it might pick him up and carry him away like Mary Poppins!

Umbrellas on rainy days I can understand but it’s quite another thing to get used to seeing them on sunny ones. These aren’t actually umbrellas, of course; they’re parasols. While a parasol looks like an umbrella, it’s generally a little smaller and is made of lightweight UV protective material. Many of them are very pretty, edged in lace or ruffles. Fair skin is considered beautiful in Japan so parasols are a common sight. Many of the women who don’t carry parasols wear hats or visors that would put our North American golf visors to shame. These ones have huge brims that completely shade the face. I’m sure that many who see me out and about are appalled that I don’t protect my coveted pale skin from the sun and when the topic comes up in conversation, people here are astonished that North Americans actually try to get suntans. Obviously, this would not be the place to open a tanning salon!

Like the parasol, the folding hand fan is still very much a part of Japanese life. I have one that I carry in my book bag and another that usually stays at home unless I’m on my way to church, in which case, I slip it into the bag with my Bible. Even though many buildings are air conditioned, there are plenty of occasions when these provide much needed relief from the oppressive, muggy heat which we are really just beginning to experience.