Luke and Angie's Eikaiwa Birthday Celebrations

Joint Eikaiwa Birthday-Fun!

There were even more birthday celebrations being held before the end of September. Following Angie's birthday party and another drinking event for the ALTs for Luke Beatson, the eikaiwa group held a birthday dinner for both Luke and Angie in celebration of their birthdays. We went to a local restaurant in Kozai named Ofuku (which I'd never been to before), for a lovely buffet meal of traditional Japanese food.

At Ofuku; a small restaurant operated by two elderly women.

Dinner time!

Angie and I cycled in, and arrived just a little late - as everyone was already seated and waiting for us before they began eating (whoops!). In Japan, parties often don't start until formal speeches are made welcoming everyone (and, again, parties don't normally end until someone makes a formal speech either). We arrived and jumped straight into the speech - which was fine, because we were all feeling pretty damn hungry!

The spread laid on was absolutely fantastic. I spent more time eating it than photographing it, which you can see.

Angie and Luke both received a series of gifts from members of the eikaiwa, too. In addition to home-baked goods and traditional Japanese calligraphy writings, Angie and Luke received stamps of Pokemon characters - hand-made by a small boy from erasers! I also received one as a bonus present for myself (along with some baking) - a nice little surprise, considering my birthday was all the way back in May! The stamps had been chosen to try and correspond with our favourite Pokemon; Mew for Luke, Eevee for Angie, and Charmander for myself.

Angie's home-made Eevee stamp.

Rival Pokemon champions.

The evening was also particularly memorable for me as I finally undertook my first-ever Pokemon battle with Japanese kids. I happened to have my Nintendo DS in my back-pack, and the kids weren't shy about challenging me to a game. The Zushi sisters had no hesitation, and had a team composed of several legendary Pokemon which I couldn't stand a change against. Meanwhile, myself and the Masami boys teamed up to battle them in a team battle of 2 vs 2.

Sadly, we lost with a final score of 3-1 to the girls. Disaster! Still, we put up a good fight. The lesson here is to never underestimate Japanese kids when it comes to video-games.

I'm getting my bum kicked, here.

The boys team takes on the girls.

The following night, we held a special "party" class at our eikaiwa. Along with Luke and Angie, Stephen Branston made a return appearance (following his visit last year where he performed this fun wee sketch with me). Luke did a presentation on party games, before hosting a game of "pass the parcel", and we were treated to a birthday feast - including two amazing chocolate brownie cakes (one for Luke, one for Angie) by Hanyama-san. We lit the cakes up with candles and sang group renditions of "Happy Birthday" for them both.

Guess who's back!

Chocolate brownie cakes!

Party time.

After our feast, we shared out party poppers amongst all of the class members and showered Angie and Luke in confetti and streamers. It was a great little way to end the evening, and cap what seemed to be a month of continued birthday celebrations.

Snake!

Eep.

The Japanese Rat Snake.

Arriving at school yesterday morning, I encountered a wild snake in Japan for the very first time.

I'd just arrived at Kinashi Elementary School when the serpent made it's appearance. The students typically arrive about an hour before I do to play sports in the morning, and so by this point they were all inside the school. I was by myself in the grounds as I wheeled my bike around to the staff bike sheds. The snake was directly in front of me, about six foot long, and slithering beneath the wheels of the other bikes. It was only when I was about three feet away from it that I finally spotted it, and I froze completely with fear.

The snake was moving away from me, luckily, and while undoubtedly it had seen me it seemed to take no interest. It continued to move under the bikes until it left the shed and made it's way towards some bushes by the ball. When it was finally several feet away, I quickly locked my bike down and walked very cautiously back to the school, keeping my eyes on it until I was a good distance away.

I reported the snake to the school, and whatever happened next took place without my knowledge as I had to teach classes throughout the first two periods. Whatever happened, the snake must have left the premises, but as is often the case in Japan I wasn't given any more information than that. I was thanked later in the day by the school principle for reporting it, and they told me that it was apparently quite a big one. I hope that it caught rather than simply spotted leaving, or else just assumed to have left. The Kinashi area is full of rows and rows of beautiful bonsai trees, and it would be incredibly easy for a snake to hide in amongst them.

The bonsai fields in Kinashi.

Certain snakes are particularly dangerous in Japan, including the infamous mamushi (the Japanese pit viper) that occasionally pops up around rural areas Kagawa. Mamushi are notorious for (according to Wikipedia) attacking around 2000-3000 people a year, having severely powerful venom that can take up to a week in hospital to be treated for, and which kills several people every year who can't handle it. I had no knowledge of what snake it was at the time, but it certainly doesn't appear to fit the description of the mamushi. It seems far more likely that what I saw was a Japanese rat snake, which is apparently non-venomous. Still bloody terrifying, though.

I'd gone two years without having seen a snake, yet I'd come within very close distance of one and had taken quite the shock at the time. I'll certainly be keeping my eyes peeled on the ground whenever I visit more rural areas in Kagawa again!

Takamatsu North JHS Speech Contest 2013

On Saturday 21st September, I experienced another round of the annual Takamatsu North JHS speech contest. This was my third time at the contest. The two students from Katsuga Junior High School were Nakano-san and Karato-san (Yune from my eikaiwa group).

Nakano-san performed a rendition of a rakugo play in English, with an amusing one-man show of a con-man trying to avoid paying the full bill at a noodle shop, while Yune wrote her speech on her experiences in Okinawa and her thoughts on World War 2 and peace.

Both Nakano-san and Yune performed excellently, with Nakano-san managing to come in second place in the recitation category. Not bad at all!

Angie's 24th Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Angie!

Angie's 24th birthday was on September 24th, 2013. I organised a small birthday party on the Friday before to celebrate the occasion. Our group made our way to Spaccanapoli - Angie's favourite Italian restaurant - for an evening of celebrations.

From left to right: Angie, Tamara, Luke, Laquichia and Rainer.

Clockwise from lower left: Sayuri, Stepehn, Shiori, Yaseen,

Julia, Lily, Saad, Julia 2 and Niall.

We had a great help from Sayuri Uematsu, who booked the table for us in advance. On the eve of the party, I was in somewhat of a rush. The time period fell right into the week where I was practising for the annual Takamatsu speech contest every night after school. The party was set to start at 7pm, but I didn't get home until around 5.30pm. A very fast turnaround needed indeed - and I wasn't the only one in a rush, as several other ALTs found themselves in the same position.

Lily and Saad arrived a little before I did, and ran into Angie at the train station. As the party was intended to be a surprise, they pretended to be doing their own thing, while contacting me via text as I headed across town to ask me what they should say to her. They made their way to the restaurant ahead of us. I met Angie and Rainer at Kawaramachi station, before leading them to the restaurant. If there had been any element of surprise left, it would definitely have gone now, as I turned up with bags of presents which Rainer had to help me carry!

With Angie.

We had a great turnout for the meal, and it was wonderful to see so many people come to greet Angie. The food was wonderful, as always, and the company was grand. I waited until everyone was engaged in conversation to try and give Angie her presents without gathering too much attention, but I was caught and photographed by Laquichia, sitting across from me.

Present time!

Cute animal cups!

Sweater.

I bought Angie a few things (including jelly beans, animal cups for her kitchen, and a sweater she had wanted to buy), but the main present was a photo album I'd prepared which contained photos of her time in Japan over the last year, with her friends and I. I also included a personal handwritten note which said a lot of nice things, which seemed to go down well.

A personal note.

Angie and I look over her photo album.

We asked the restaurant to bring out the cake which Yas, Julia and I had prepared the previous evening. Unfortunately, they slightly messed it up a little! The cake arrived with little fanfare; no candles attached, no rendition of "Happy Birthday" and not even a dimming of the lights. Luckily, I had brought a supply of candles with me, and with the help of Rainer Wessels (who lit all the candles) we managed to get the cake ready for action. It must be said that Angie was very pleased with Yas's design choice of a Jammie Dodger.

The finished cake! Now with candles.

Rainer cuts the cake.

After Angie blew out the candles, Rainer cut us all a serving and I managed to finally taste our home-made cake. Sadly, a lot of the filling had disappeared during the leakage the evening prior, but the sponge turned out great, and what remained of the filling was delicious.

Home-made cake!

Angie takes a bite.

After dinner, we made our way along to the pier at Sunport, where many more JETs and other friends were waiting to meet us that couldn't make it along to the dinner. I brought along the bottle of whisky I'd cracked open the previous evening, and we spent the night enjoying quiet drinks by the sea. Angie often likes to spend time in that area, and it turned out to be a great way to spend the evening intimately with friends, rather than losing contact with everyone in a loud bar.

Overall, I was really happy with how the party turned out, and really pleased that so many people turned up to show their love of Angie. Here's hoping she enjoyed her birthday celebrations.

So... Happy Birthday, Angie!

Birthday Cake Bake Night

Yas and Julia in the kitchen.

For Angie's 24th birthday, I invited two of Angie's closest friends (Yaseen Akhtar and Julia Collie) over to my place to help me bake a special birthday cake from scratch.

Julia prepares the filling.

Julia and Yas made their way over to my place the day before I'd scheduled a secret birthday party for Angie the following evening. Yas had come up with the idea of creating a Jammie Dodger cake, in celebration of Angie's love for the famous biscuit. A quick search on Google revealed a recipe which suggested using two Victoria Sponges on top of one another, and we decided to give it a try.

Cutting out the heart shape.

We picked up the ingredients at our local Aeon store fairly painlessly. A bigger problem was actually baking the cake. Ovens in Japan are notoriously rare in small flats; most homes only have a single hob and a microwave. Luckily, I'd bought a small toaster oven a while ago (with which I'd previously baked scones), and we decided to push it to it's limits in order to bake the cake.

The cake would be filled with three layers of fillings; butter-cream, strawberry jam, and clotted cream. The heart we had cut out in the middle with a cutter would be filled with strawberry jam, to try and recreate the look of an authentic jammy dodger.

Yas spreads the cake.

As we were waiting for each of the sponges to cook separately, we cracked out a bottle of Glenlivet whisky and some salsa and tortilla chips. Yas and I spent a fair bit of time playing each other at a Dragonball Z fighting game on my PS2, while Julia enjoyed playing with my iPad. A fun way to pass the time, and the evening ended up being a lot of fun as an event in it's own right!

Disaster! The filling runs out the sides.

We made a small boo-boo by not letting the fillings set in the fringe long enough before putting them back together again, resulting in all of the filling running out of the sides. Whoops! Nevermind, we were novices after all.

Fixed, and now with a jam love-heart centre.

Julia and Yas left just around midnight after a solid evening's work. It was a great team effort, and we were greatly anticipating Angie's reaction at her birthday party the following evening.

Team photo!

The finished article; dusted with icing sugar.

風立ちぬ (Kaze Tachinu): "The Wind Rises"

Kaze Tachinu (2013).

Following our recent trip to the Pokemon movie (and Man of Steel a few days prior to that), Angie and I decided to head along to 風立ちぬ (Kaze Tachinu) on Wednesday evening. The new film from the acclaimed Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki (called "The Wind Rises" in English), we were excited to watch it - albeit without subtitles, as with the Pokemon film - making it the third film we'd seen in the space of a week (I was also keen to check out World War Z and Star Trek Into Darkness, which have just been released here, but I haven't gotten around to those as of yet).

Unfortunately, I currently have quite mixed feelings about this film.

It appears to be the personal labour of love (and swansong) of director Hayao Miyazaki (famed for Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and other Ghibli classics). As what has been announced to be the final film of his career as he head's into retirement, a lot of people don't quite know what to make of this film, as it's been attacked by both the political left and right in Japan (on the left for being too kind to Japan's war effort, and on the right for being too harsh on it).

To put things into context, I have to make it clear that without subtitles it is very difficult for me (with my limited Japanese language ability) to understand the full context of the visuals and dialogue of the film. Reading it purely on a sensory level, however, the whole thing appears to be a bit overly simplistic, with a rather dubious moral position which suggests that the pursuit of one's creative spirit is fine if that individual is ignorant of the acts of war their creations are used for.

The film's protagonist: Jiro Horikoshi.

In this case, we are asked to accept a very positive reading of the film's protagonist - Jiro Horikoshi (based on a real historical figure, making this something of an animated biopic) - who designed planes which were used by the Japanese military during World War II. I'm not one to delve into the politics of this in detail, but it is a bizarre choice for a film studio to make which is usually associated with child-like wonder and fantasy (with some exceptions, of course, such as Grave of the Fireflies).

It's incredibly frustrating, because without the necessary language abilities, I can't really interpret the film accurately or appropriately. I'm missing a huge chunk of the context, and I feel that my subjective opinion is really difficult to validate without a deeper knowledge of the language. I'm only interpreting from what I saw, which could well be off the mark.

It's worth noting that, as always with Studio Ghibli, the animation is simply sublime, and the music is breathtaking. Just listen to this stunning theme; it will take your breath away.

It's very, very difficult to read this movie impartially.

I'll definitely be watching this again with subtitles, and giving a more thorough analysis of the movie then. Right now, I'm trying to reserve judgement until I really know what I'm talking about. At present, I've found this particular article from the Asia-Pacific Journal very useful in contextualising the film, which I'd highly recommend to anyone.

Regardless; a curious film, by all accounts.

 

A Trip to a Pokemon Movie: Mewtwo vs Genesect

Mewtwo vs Genesect!

As is probably well known by now, being in Japan somewhat reignited my love of Pokemon somewhat (to the point that I even set up a local Facebook group for Fife Pokemon fans back home in Scotland). The games still continue to engage me on my DS, and it's been quite fun to get back into such a good RPG franchise.

Still, I'd given up on the Pokemon anime series years ago (around about the time I started high school, naturally). I hadn't watched a single episode of Pokemon since then. Well, no matter; with a new Pokemon movie coming out this year, I decided I simply had to go - as something I owed to my eleven year old self. So, last Sunday, Angie and I went along to the Aeon Cinema in Takamatsu to check out the new movie; "Mewtwo vs Genesect".

Well, it was... er, not great.

Post-screening blues: you can tell I look a tad deflated.

(Spoilers ahead.)

The film is basically your typical story, and a bit of a rip-off of the first Pokemon movie (which is the only other one I've watched). Basically, five laboratory-grown Pokemon named Genesect break out of their lab and search for a new home (we're never given any backstory as to who made them or why). Meanwhile, a brand new (!) female Mewtwo has been born in what appears to be another secret lab by another group of scientists (?!). This Mewtwo has since learned the value of friendship with it's Pokemon pals before the start of the movie (?!?), though distrusts humans (like the original Mewtwo). The Genesect attack a Pokemon sanctuary / park where Ash (and his rubbish new friends) happen to visiting in order to make it their new home (no idea why they had to aggressively invade it, mind you). Ash and Pikachu do almost nothing for the whole film while the new Mewtwo fights the Genesect and eventually teaches them the power of friendship and love, with the usual clichés, etc. Yadda yadda yadda... Uninspired, and almost identical to the plot of the first movie that I watched when I was a kid.

It's... terrible. It really is. Unless you're five. Maybe.

Also, Team Rocket show up for a couple of very brief cameos and do nothing of any note. They have no bearing on the plot or any interaction with the main cast whatsoever. Very disappointing considering they were the best part of the show when I watched it (they have pretty much nothing to do here). Additionally, Brock and Misty are nowhere to be seen (though apparently they were written out years ago, for some reason). Their replacements are terrible - especially the green-haired goon who keeps spouting nonsense in English like "SU-PAH SU-WEET!".

I honestly don't know why they didn't just use the same Mewtwo character that's been in the films before. If the character has exactly the same backstory, then what's the point? There's tons of flashbacks to it's origin anyway, so would it really have been so difficult to sync them up?

The movie is also preceeded by a twenty-ish minute short where Pikachu and a few of his Pokemon pals meet a new Eevee evolution and have various fun adventures with it and other Eevee evolutions. Fairly harmless, but I did feel a bit stupid at 25 watching something clearly intended for the very, very youngest members of the audience. Danny Glover has this covered. It also has an extended five minute sequence where the cast stare at various screensavers (and no, I'm not making that up). It's really just too long for what it's supposed to be, but maybe the kids enjoyed it.

What struck me most about this was how little the characters seem to have grown in the decade or so since I stopped watching the show. Ash appears no better a Pokemon trainer than the last time I saw him. There seems to be honestly no point in watching this series, because the character will simply never catch them all. As soon as Nintendo brings out a new game, he has another hundred or so to catch - yet he hasn't even caught all of the last set each time (in fact, he used to actively let them go for some reason). Essentially; the series becomes pointless as there is no conceivable end or conclusion to it. It will simply endure in perpetuity as long as it is profitable.

You can watch the full trailer for the movie here (or below). Strangely, a lot of footage from this trailer isn't in the actual movie itself - these scenes seem to have been animated specifically for the trailer. Many of the events pan out completely differently here (it must also be said that Team Rocket has almost as much screen time in the trailer as they do in the film!).

Overall, I have to say that I don't think I'll be going to any Pokemon movies again in future. It's clearly aimed at kids much, much younger than myself. While the game series continues to be a great RPG franchise that I still love to play, I'm reminded that I stopped watching the anime on TV years ago for a reason; I had simply outrgown it, and the nostalgia factor sadly didn't make up for it's limitations on this occasion.

Still... I can't say there wasn't just the *tiniest* part of me that didn't remember the good times when I was a wee boy, watching this show after school.

Don't get me wrong, though. This movie was awful.

Lantern Walk in Mure

On Friday, fellow ALT Julia Collie held a Tex-Mex party at her house. It was a lovely way to spend the evening catching up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while (following my recent break away back to Scotland). I also got to meet a brand new ALT in the form of Adam Simonini (another Canadian!).

Following dinner, we went out onto the streets of Mure where Julia lives. At this time of year, they display a lantern festival where all of the houses display fascinating lanterns of all different types on their doorsteps, as well as a few more public ones scattered on the walk.

Here are a selection of some of the highlights from our walk.