How To

Gail decided to join the neighborhood movie rental shop. So last weekend we went to check out their selection. One of the stores sections was "How To" videos. This is what we saw:


Look close, maybe click the picture if you have to. There in the "How To" section are the Jackass videos. It is scary to imagine that somewhere in Hiroshima some Japanese kid is trying to learn how to be a Jackass by watching this video.

Car Crash

Last Wednesday while I was teaching an English class an old woman drove her car off a cliff next to the school. Ever since I got here I often wondered, with the multitude of steeply sloped and winding roads, what happens when someone makes a mistake and doesn't make the turn. Well, it would seem not very much.

We saw the lady drive through the fence sideways and slide down the 60 degree slope until her car got caught in some underbrush. Which was fortunate because another 30 meters and the slope ends into a 15 meter drop on another road. So every kid in the classroom rushes to the window to see the action. There is no movement that we can see from the car, the bush is obscuring our view.

There was a person walking along the road near where the lady drove off. This person did nothing. They turned around and left. I asked the teacher I was with if we should call 110 or 119 (the Japanese equivalent to 911). She said no and we tried in vain to get the students to settle back down for the lesson.

20 minutes pass, nothing is happening. I am getting worried. I mean this lady could be bleeding to death and we are just going on doing nothing. If I were in America, I would have left the teacher in charge and went out to help but here, I look toward the example set by the natives. I ask again if we should do something. (By this time the kids have quieted a little but there is little use teaching them as they keep looking out the window. Now I see a few of the teachers from my school investigating the accident. This causes another wave of chaos as all the students get up to look out the window again. So we just give up on teaching and watch. As we are watching a few of the teachers go down the slope to the car. after about 5 minutes a little old woman in a red cardigan is brought up to the road. I was releaved that she was okay or at least appeared to be but appalled that it took twenty minutes before someone went to help her. The extra horribleness of it is that it took forty minutes for any emergency personnel to get on the scene. I snapped a few pictures after the class was over to give you an idea of what happened. The pictures aren't that great because of the angle.

School Cafeteria

I think I should comment about my school's cafeteria. I love the cafeteria. Actually, I am very lucky to have the cafeteria. Why? Because it seems that a lot of schools do not have a cafeteria in Japan.
The cafeteria at my school is relatively small for the number of students that attend my school(about 1,000 students in three grades). To put it in perspective for some of you (those that have been to my old high school) the high school I graduated from had a cafeteria easily 10 times the size of the school's I teach at. My old high school only had 386 students, total.
Here are a few pictures, I have obscured the identies of the innocent.

The End of Youth

Yesterday Gail asked me what I wanted for my birthday. "What?! My birthday is in January, what are you talking about?"
"Well you will be thirty, I figured we should do something special."
Until that moment I hadn't thought about turning thirty. Since then, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Thirty, to me, is an age where you can no longer fool yourself into thinking you are a kid anymore. All those grown-up responsiblities are supposed to be in full effect. When I was little I thought 30 would find me at a career job, with kids, wife, and morgage. I've got one of the four and don't suspect I'll achieve any of the other three in the next ten months.
So, what do I want for my thirtieth birthday?

Japanese Department Stores

The above is a shot is of the inside of the Fukuya. (That is pronounced foo-koo-ya, not fahk-u-ya.) Pretty much all the big department stores are multiple levels and with a parking garage. The Fukuya, located next to Hiroshima Station, is 12 floors and two basements of shopping nirvana. Even in the suburbs where I live, the local Fuji Grand is three stories of shopping with four floors of parking on top and two floors below.

Homeless Cats

Last weekend Gail decided to meet me after my Saturday Japanese class for some lunch and a bit of book shopping. We were walking down the main street and had to stop at a light. While we were waiting I noticed this homeless guy pouring over a newspaper and that he had two pet cats. He had fashioned little coats for his two kitties with discarded hankerchiefs, safety pins, and bells. He, himself, was also similiarly adorned. I only took a picture of the cats (after a huge fiercely whispered debate between Gail and I and asking his permission). Being homeless is a really shameful thing here so I don't think he would have appreciated having his picture taken and put on the net for foreigners to gawk at. Here's teh cats.

Winter's Back

Looks like a bit of Ohio weather in Japan. Usually the seasons gently transition into one another here in Japan but perhaps not this year.