"Reunited and it feels so good..."

Just a brief post to let everyone know we've arrived safely, back in the good ole' US of A, and that things are going swimmingly. We've already gotten new cell phones, retrieved our car, and already began the whirlwind that will be August.

Thanks again to all of our friends from Japan, both Japanese and gaikokujin. We'll miss you!

The only reverse-culture shock we've experienced thus far is how shockingly easy it has been to slip back into "normal" life back home. Everything seems so easy, from shopping to restaurants to driving around. Some of our other friends returning home will have a bit more difficult time, as they've been away much longer than we'd been, and their situations are a bit more uncertain than ours. We wish you all the best in settling down again and rediscovering your home!

But sadly, for us, the best reunion of all has been with our little dog, Rocky...we're such suckers for him! And it makes us seem so shallow!!!

In due time, we'll have more updates on what's going on. Internet connections may be sparse for the next week, so we'll see what happens with updating this time-sucking blog!

Thanks for reading,

Jeremy & Jackie (and Rocky)

Sayonara, Japan!

Though we leave Japan on Tuesday, I have to write our last post on Sunday, as I need to pack up our modem and ship it back to Yahoo! tomorrow. So, no more internet access, no more email, etc. At least, until we arrive at our hotel in San Francisco, that is! But there's a certain feeling of finality to it all.

The last week or two has been very busy with good-byes, last to-do's, etc. Here, Jackie and our friend Lisa are dressed up in traditional summer clothing (yukata) and learning the finer points of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. You might be skeptical, but in watching a Tea Ceremony Master perform her art, I was reminded of my Iaido teacher, who is a master of using the Japanese Sword. There were many striking resemblences between making tea and artfully using a sword. I've heard the same is true about caligraphy in Eastern cultures...watch an opponent draw words or make tea, and you learn about their sword technique, as well. I thought it was all a bunch of Hollywood hooey until I saw it for myself. Now I think there very well might be something to it all!

But, I digress. Don't Jackie and Lisa look great in their yukata? They're with their Japanese teacher (the girl in the bottom left) and their friends and the tea ceremony teacher, the lady in the middle. Jackie and Lisa really enjoyed themselves, and had a great day.
And here is a class picture of Jackie and her supervisor Fukioka sensei, and class 2-4. Thanks everyone for a great year! And thank you very much, Fujioka sensei. We'll miss you!!!

And here I am trying to be artful with the sword, though my caligraphy is awful. I'm sure that says more than enough about my ability with the katana! I didn't get to go to the dojo as much as I would have liked, but I really enjoyed learning what I could. Not only was it physically challenging, it was really rewarding to hear my master grunt when I got something right. I learned a lot about patience, precision, discipline, and teaching from him. What a great experience!

And though I frequently dreaded the food, eating lunch with the students was almost always a lot of fun. And after eating a huge meal, we'd then do the most natural thing in the world...go and play a game of soccer or dodge-ball! I'm surprised I didn't get more stomach cramps than I did. But the kids were always so enthusiastic and eager. Can't go wrong there.

Here is my home-away-from-home, Hisayama Junior High School. I came to be very comfortable there, and am a bit sad I won't get to see it again. The students and staff were wonderful!

Here is my good buddy, Yahiro sensei. He and I shared many a laugh together, and I really enjoyed helping him teach special ed. We did a lot of English lessons, cooking lessons, etc. together. And, he makes a really nice pair of hand-made chopsticks! Thanks for being such a great friend.

And last but certainly not least, M-I-H-O S-E-N-S-E-I! (think mickey mouse) This Mickey-Mouse lover was always a good conversationalist, good friend, and all-around great gal, not to mention an avid lover of the stars and stripes and the American way! She's the most American Japanese person I know.

And here's a great guy, Honda sensei, who aptly sums up our experience in Japan!

So, good-bye, Japan! We'll miss you!

Nihon wa tano-shikata yo!

Mina ga dai-suki desu

Mina o wasuremasen

Domo Arigato Gozaimashita!!!!!

Oissa! Oissa! OISSA!

Yesterday morning, Jackie and I awoke at 2:45 am to go to a crazy festival downtown, called "Yamakasa," in the old ward of the city, called Hakata. We'd heard many stories of the glories of Yamakasa, including naked behinds and insanely heavy floats being carried by crowds of grunting men. Having been out late the night before saying goodbye to a fellow teacher, I was in no mood to get up a few short hours later to attend some crazy festival. At Jackie's urging, I went...but this was going to have to be pretty impressive, in order to warrant such an early morning.

Well, it was pretty cool after all. The race commenced at 5 am. There were six teams, each of which carried a float. The floats weigh approximately 1 ton, and they do a time-trial race through the city. Word has it, this festival began in the 13th century, when a local shinto priest had some men build a portable shrine and put him on it, so he could be carried all over town, sprinkling water in order to ward away an impending plague. Legend credits his efforts as a success, so the tradition continues on today as a celebration of the salvation of the city over 700 years ago. They commemorate it with a 5k race through the narrow streets of town, and it has evolved into a fascinating display of "macho-ism," where 6 old neighborhoods of Hakata compete for bragging rights.

Before each float, there first came runners to clear the way. Here is a pic:

They're clearing the way through the crowds, and setting the pace for the guys carrying the float. The streets are really narrow, so when the runners came by, we had to press up pretty close to the fence behind us and try not to get run over. It was pretty intense! It felt a little bit like the running of the bulls in Spain, maybe. All of them were shouting "Oissa! OISSA! Oissa! OISSA!" Nobody's sure what it means, but it supposed to motivate them to keep running. It's nice and rhythmic, anyway. The runners are all men, but also can include some of their sons and we even saw a few daughters, some as old as ten. But the best of all was the toddlers. Everybody wears these g-strings over their bottoms, and some very young runners were still literally in real diapers, so they had a red g-string over their big, white, poofy pampers! It was really cute (though I don't know how they got a toddler to run in an intense 5k race! I think they were carried quite often by a very exhausted father...)

About 30 men carry the float, and a pair of men sit on the float to give direction and cheer the others on. It's extremely heavy, so the men rotate out in a complex system, without ever slowing down. Believe it or not, they managed to move those floats 5k in about 30 mins (some 29 and a few seconds). That's about a 10 minute mile! (for those of us not accustomed to metric) Pretty impressive. But it sure is heavy, as you can see by the expression on that one guy's face. We even saw one guy almost get trampled...the streets are wet because the crowd is constantly throwing water on these guys. This one guy slipped and fell while running, and it took some frantic and dramatic effort by the crowd to get him out of the way, or he would have been squashed like a bug. I think that float has so much momentum, it would be nearly impossible to stop in the case of an accident. Here's a pic of a runner and his grandson after the race.

So, in conclusion, it was definitely worth getting up for. But that being said, I don't believe I'd go again anytime soon. When we arrived back at our apartment around 8:30 am, we fell asleep and didn't wake up until 4:30 pm! Talk about messing up one's sleep schedule. But we got some great video footage, a few pictures, and some fun memories. It was a good experience of traditional Japan.

For a quick explanation of Yamakasa, click the following link:

http://www.bridgewater.edu/~dhuffman/soc306/sp03grp01/page7.html

Also, be sure to see a few pictures I put on Flickr, by clicking on the link to the right.

Oh yeah, and Jackie's board now says "9".

Sayonara.

Jackie's Chalkboard says 14

That's right, we're at two weeks exactly. In fact, in two weeks exactly from this moment we'll be flying out of Seoul, on our way two San Francisco. Hooray!

But, that doesn't mean there aren't important things to do here first...things to be enjoyed for the last time, good-bye parties with friends, visiting the last few things that deserve to be seen before leaving Fukuoka, etc. One thing I'm particularly looking forward to is finding the big Buddha in the woods in a town near here. There's supposedly a giant Buddha, and I'm gonna find him.

Another thing that's especially "Hakata" is a big upcoming festival, named Yamakasa. Basically, it's celebrants are large groups of men who run through the streets of Hakata carrying great big "floats," called "kakiyama." Here's a picture of a "kazariyama," or a float specially made for display. These don't actually get carried around in the parade, but are very similar. They're made with images of samurai, anime characters, etc. Very colorful!

However, the floats really aren't the most interesting thing about this festival. A couple things make it much more interesting: 1) it takes place at 4:30 in the morning, and 2) none of the men are wearing pants. They only wear a sumo-like diaper-loincloth thing, with their butt-cheeks hanging out. They chant crazy things while they're carrying their 1-ton float, grunting rhythmically while they show off their strength. I'm not sure how Jackie talked me into going into this thing, but I do believe it's one of those things I'll really be glad I did. (and that banner under the float, which says "2016" is our city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. It's a long shot, I believe, but can't blame them for trying! Maybe we'll come back and visit then.)

And here are a few pics from my last day at my main elementary school. It was a nice day, full of "Arigatou Jeremy Sensei Sayonara Party." The kids danced and sang for me, gave me a Japanese quiz, played lots of games like dodgeball, etc. We found one little boy on the floor at the end of one party, literally sobbing because he was so sad I was leaving. How touching! What a tender little guy!






Thanks for reading!