recently ive been...

hello from tsushima again. here is another one of my updates on what ive been doing... this week has been pretty fun. no school... just farewell parties.. and i went to fukuoka to see my mother and her two friends visiting from califonia.

i'll just talk about things as you see them.

the PTA for one of my schools had a "farewell" party for the pta members who are leaving, and for the teachers who got transfered... we went to the first place.. got sloshed, then we all caught the rented bus back to the principals house.. this is round two at the principals house.

local food showed up.. the fish on the left is fresh saba (mackrel)... most mackrel that you might find in a sushi place is heavily salted because bacteria live in saba.. but if you eat it super fresh, it's not bad for you. (or something like that) this is fresh.. probably the first time ive ever eaten it fresh before.. and on the right, is namako (sea cuecumber).. yeah.. its the exact same shit that you might see me pick up and pretend pretend its my penis or just throw it at you.. yes you.
this came in live.. i saw the guy cut it down the stomach (wherever that is) pull out the the guts, and cut it... i was staring with my mouth open.. and the guy handed me a fat chunk.. i was like "holy fuck".. but i ate it.. and to my suprise, it was good.. give it a go sometime.

along with local fish and sea cuecumber, they brought seaweed and turban shells (sazae)... very fresh.. literally JUST picked from the ocean.. amazing stuff. this was made into a miso soup.

the two guys on the left are moving.. well they moved already. and the guy on the right is the vice principal (kyotousensei)

i was at a bar and saw sakamoto ryoma beer.. ryoma is popular now because there is a show about him (he's a historical figure in japan.. do the research yourself).. this bottle had been sitting there for a while.. and they no longer make ryoma beer... so i thought this was cool.

i think in my last post i mentioned that japanese LOVE their goodbyes... i took a ferry to fukuoka last saturday morning.. and to my suprise.. a few of my teachers were on the same ferry as me... and a million students and teachers were there to say "farewell" for the LAST LAST LAST time.. i dont know if i can count how many times each teacher says their offical last goodbye.
anyway.. the above picture is of streamers that everyone puts on the ferry, and each person holds the end of a streamer.. it makes goodbyes really dramatic... and for pretty pictures.

by chance, one of the guys i do karate with is moving to fukuoka too... and he left on the same ferry too... but karate guys aren't so dramatic and fruity with their goodbyes, so a few fellows showed up to give mr shohei a goodbye hand wave... they waited till the boat was gone to disburse.

looks cool right?. a lot of my students are down there holding the other ends of the streamers.

"goodbye"

we started moving...

i think this WOULD have been my favorite if the stupid rail wasnt in the way.

this is fukuoka... its the one place in japan that looks ghetto.

i saw this. dont know if you like bearbrik or however you spell it john, but this is a picture i took for you.

i got really fucking drunk with my old boss from california.. he's from japan (obviously).. but he was my boss at one of the restaurants i worked at in OC... taka got drunk quick.

also tagged this french guy along with me. we stayed in the same hostel. this guy was cool.

taka's friend showed up. she was cool. we stayed out till 6am. FUCK

my mother woke me up at 9am with a phone call... the upper bunk gave me a good view of the ceiling... the cealing was half happy, and half soso... i was feeling soso...

the french guy (alex) still wasnt feeling very wonderful yet.

an hour after the wakeup call, i met up with my mother and her two friends sarah and jackie

i found this soda that made me want to shit myself laughing... slightly suggestive picture if you ask me...

fuck you UN-taxi

my island is beautiful

i walk on logs.. actually i went for a hike today... didnt know where the trail went.. turns out it went NOWHERE... so i walked down to the stream and just followed that... down to nothing.

i tried to get artsy

scenery

trees that dont know which way to grow

moss.. i like the colors

i cant tell if i like this sideways

or regular

i found a shrine to some kamisama... very unusual to see this shape... ive never seen anything quite like this before

went to kamizaka park.. not far from my house.... just up a mountain.. this is training grounds for the russo-japanese war.

tree vag

they sell this in little "quarter machines" (gachagacha machines)... it says "unkosan" or "mr poop". hahaha.. hilarious.. little keychains of poop.. and each poop has a different texture.. and yeah, there is corn poop. there's hard poop.. fucking ridiculous.

got a new toy. goodbye's

hello. japan is an interesting place. school starts on the 1st of april.. that's fine.. school's have to start at some time...but elem and middle school teachers, aside from private schools (which are few and far between) are at the mercy of the state (prefecture) of where they are going to be assigned.. under no circumstances will a teacher attend one school for more than 5 years.... even if it is where they are from... so a teacher that works for the prefecture of nagasaki is at the mercy of nagasaki as to where they'll be living (family and all).. its pretty interesting.. i guess it keeps fresh ideas coming in and out of schools... but its really hard for both the kids and the teachers.. especially around this time of year... the teachers have zero idea where they'll be moving until 10 days before they have to start work at their newly assigned school.. no shit.
if you are a part-time teacher.. you dont find out until 4 or 5 days before... i have 2 teachers right now that have no idea where they'll be teaching in 6 days... i feel bad for them.
and there is no telling exactly how long the teachers will be staying at a school or not... there is one teacher at one of my schools who has been at the school for 4 years.. and he asked to move back home (to a different part of nagasaki).. so he was pretty sure he was going to get it... but he didnt.... but there is another guy who has only been at the school for 2, and asked to stay, so he was pretty sure he was going to stay, but he was transfered... it was sad to see that.
japanese love their ceremonies too... graduation is the saddest shit ever.. very little smiles... all kinds of tears... same shit with the "goodbye teachers ceremony"... as expected there was a lot of tears falling from everyone's face. god damn i dont want to go thru that again. anyway.. i just wanted to fill you guys in on a little bit of how japanese schooling works.
below are some pictures of this and that... from my phone.


i found this wonderful device... in japan nintendo was called famicom. i found a famicom/superfamicom player for less than sixty bucks. i had to buy it.

i also got some games... the one thats bringing back the most memories is metroid (super). im a kid again.

this is one of those farewell parties... (one of many).. but this one was "farewell graduating basketball girls"... with me, all the 1st and 2nd graders, and the graduated 3rd grade basketball girls... and shirota sensei (the head coach). they had their farewell party at the grand hotel (10 min walk from my house)

this is the 4 graduated girls saying "goodbye"

found a jazz bar in the local "downtown".. i couldnt believe it... i couldnt believe it even more whe i saw the band... 2 teachers from my favoriet school. good stuff.

rare sighting of a northern teacher in my neighborhood.. we went on a hike.

this is a 1300 year old wall.. it must have taken forever to build

this is from the trail. it looked nice i think

me and the big big boss at the Board of education went out drinking together. it was fun. he got wasted.

here he is at a quiet "snack" bar. here are the two "mama-sans" who work at the bar. it was fun

anyway. i hope you guys are having fun wherever you are reading this from.
love from tsushima
shane

most snow on my island in... i dont know how long.

my island rarely gets snow... i mean it comes from the sky on occasion.. but i havnt seen it stick.. and when i first got here to tsushima, i asked if it ever snows.. the answers were all, "yeah, but it never sticks"... so last night when i heard "its going to snow tomorrow" i didnt think much about it... i woke up at 645, went downstairs... showered... ate breakfast... regular routine stuff.. and i looked toward the window.. and it was really fogged up.. more than usual... so when i walked closer, i put one finger on the glass and i relized, its not THAT fogged up... it was just all white outside.. amazing!. went back upstairs and took this first picture...

the taxi ride out of my house was crazy! we were the first car all morning to try and drive on the road.. we almost fell in a ditch and we bumped a wall trying to get out of my neighborhood.. at the first turn there were cars lined up for i dont know how long trying to get up the hill that i live by.. some people just abandoned their cars in the store parking lot and just walked up the hill, hoping that they could catch a ride with someone at the top of the hill back down the hill.



this is what it looked like outside my house.

when i got to school the kids were already playing in the snow.

here are some second and third graders

this is the view from my desk

the snow started coming down harder around 10am

even the little leaves started feeling heavy

poor guy

this plant couldnt get away from it all

close up

even this twiggy thing caught tons of snow

the weight of the world

cool looking plant

it wasnt cold very long ago

i took a little walk during my break




pretty nice right?

i enjoyed my walk

the kids were allowed to go outside and play for a while. it was loads of fun

here are some kids on a hill.

more playing...

snow forest






we closed the school after lunch and just played outside. it was fun.

this is my face print.

good stuff.. its melting already.. pretty sad but its supposed to snow more tonight. that should be fun.
love from tsushima