Setsubun, Risshin & Formatting Updates

Greetings all!
Sorry I haven't updated in a couple weeks. I've still got some things to share from my experience in Taiwan, and I recently spent the evening at Eiheiji learning zazen (meditation).

In the meantime, I've made some changes to the format of this blog. You'll notice along the left hand side that links to other blogs have changed, and you now can see a list of labels. I added that for easy archiving purposes. Now, if you want to see anything I've written about something like temples or festivals, all you have to do is click on the label for temples or festivals. I also inserted a translation service at the bottom of the page.

While looking through the archives I noticed that some pictures seemed to have disappeared. I checked my storage limit, and I really don't know why this has happened. While looking up the storage limit, however, I found out that all the pictures I post here automatically get sent to an online photo storage service. If I ever organize that, I'll post a link.

Now, on to some updates:

This is a photograph I took in January shortly after returning from my travels. We had a decent amount of snow for probably less than two weeks in Fukui City. Then, it warmed up just enough to change to rain, and all the snow disappeared.

I noticed something with the snowfall this year that I don't recall from last year - THUNDER. Turns out that Western Japan is one of three places in the world where it can thunder while snowing.
February 3rd was setsubun this year. (click here for old post on setsubun). It's the end of winter on the lunar calendar, and people celebrate by tossing beans to ward off demons. I decided to check out events at a local shrine but heard the wrong starting time and showed up just as it ended.The day after setsubun is called risshin. This is the first day of spring on the lunar calendar. I believe it snowed on this day last year.

帰：Return

Here you have a map of Japan with my current base of operations highlighted in red. I will be living in the city of Fukui in the prefecture of Fukui for at least the next year as an English teaching assistant in a technical high school. My limit is 3 years with the JET Programme (Language teaching assistant hunting organization), but I really have no idea how long I will end up in Japan. Some people give up before boarding the plane, others stay several years and some even settle down, marry and never leave.

This is the view from my one bedroom apartment. The bedroom doubles as an entertainment room, the kitchen doubles as a welcome room and the bathroom is really more of a small closet than an actual room. On a clear day you can see the trees on the mountains from my back window.

I came to Fukui with a group of about 20 new ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers). Surprisingly enough, I am one of only 3 or 4 people in the group that speaks Japanese and has lived in Japan previously. This, apparently, makes me actually useful at times. An example from a trip yesterday to the beach:

Two girls approach a surfer from South Africa (not a joke, we have a surfer from South Africa in the group) and start speaking in Japanese, "Hello, what country are you from?"
...he replies with a blank stare
I glide over, "he's from South Africa"
"Africa?! You're both from Africa?"
...blank stare
"no, just him. I'm from the states"
"you speak English in South Africa?"
..."uh, yes? English."
The rest of the conversation pivoted around my ability to translate back and forth between the young women and the guy with whom they really wanted to speak. Sure, they'd rather only speak with the cute long-haired foreigner, but without the nerd associate all they'd have for conversation is blank stares.


It's good to be back.