Pick Up Game Experience

So a couple of nights ago I went out with one of my JTs(Japanese Teachers) to play basketball. His name is Yoshiya and lived in the states for a number of years, so his english is excellent. That makes it easy on me, but sometimes he'll speak to me in Japanese so I can practice.

We went to a sports complex to play and for this month the open hours were from 9 PM - 11 PM. Here you have to sign up to play and only a certain amount of people are allowed to join. So, first come, only served. This placed allowed for a maximum on 20 people so we got there early just in case. To sign in you are given little sign in slips with numbers on them, fill it out and give them about 5 bucks. I think that's how the teams are formed. First 5 are a team, second 5 are a team, and so on. I'm really not sure but it seemed that way.

Once it was 9, the players went in the gym to shoot around and warm up. About 15 people showed up. After about ten minutes one person stopped everybody and they all moved to the outside of the court. Then he started leading a stretch for everyone. I was like what's going on right now? Then I heard him counting, looked more closely around and was like oh everyone is stretching, I guess I'll stretch too instead of just standing here looking special. The guy leading the stretch was the manager for open gym. After we finished that he called out for the 1st and 2nd team to play.

While two teams are playing the non-playing team members manage the game. There is a score card they keep and at as referees. That's very nice actually. People can't start complaining about the score at the end of a game 'cause everyone forgot, like in the states. They also keep the time. All the games are timed, so no playing to 11 by ones and you have to win by two.

There are no 'check ball's here. You take the ball out of bounds where it went out. They really don't wait either, hahaha. Just run over there and throw it in.

And if you haven't guessed already, winner doesn't stay on. They just go through a rotation, so everyone gets to play.

I really enjoyed playing, it was a good little work out. I needed to do some running. I particularly liked the idea of the people not playing keeping score and ref'ing. It took me forever to walk home 'cause I was tired but man, did I sleep good that night.

Club Activies

Hello everyone. I’m now in my third week of teaching in a Japanese school and am enjoying it very much. School days for Japanese teachers do seem a lot longer than American teachers. I remember getting finished with practice and no one was at school anymore. Here, teachers are working until 6, 7, 8 o’clock and then here before 8 in the morning. I usually arrive at the schools around 8:15 and stay ‘till at least 6. The reason for this is because I participate in various club activities after school. I try to go to a different one everyday so that I can interact with as many students as possible. So far I have been to the baseball, soccer, soft tennis, basketball, art, sadoo (Japanese tea ceremony), international, kendo, and badminton clubs. I enjoyed all of them, but kendo is something that is completely different from sports I’m used to so I am drawn to that. I already got a huge blister from one day’s practice .

After school activities here are a little different than those in Japan. First off, activities are year-round. No seasons here. You are pretty much playing or participating in the same club all year long. Most of the clubs start roughly at 3 and finish up at 6. Some clubs like soccer and baseball also will have practice in the morning sometimes. That’s a lot of practicing I think for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Teams that have to share facilities like the gym (i.e. basketball, badminton, volleyball) will alternate their workout schedule. One day is like a regular sports practice in America and the other is mostly conditioning training outside. The biggest difference that I noticed between American and Japanese club activities is that a large portion of practice is run by the kids.

Each team has a designated captain and they lead the practice for each club. Before practice they receive a schedule from their coaches for that days work. All of the kids are amazing. They don’t fool around too much. They want to get better and practice. They act as a team and help each other out. I was blown away by the patience they had at such a young age. They don’t make fun of one another if they mess up or just are not very good. Usually they will try and give advice. They will do it until they get it right too. I’ve seen them take multiple reps a few times and man are they patient. I was thinking at the time back home this wouldn’t fly, someone would have been fighting or something by now. They are even patient with me. I was coached for about 30 mins. on how to scoop up a birdy from the floor with a racket. One kid was not going to stop until I got it out, hahaha. And she did a great job in coaching me so that I could figure it out. The kids handle themselves extremely well and seem to truly love the activity they are involved in. They seem to enjoy when I come to visit their respective clubs and they will practice English, so I don’t mind staying a little later.

Side-note: Yeah, the header isn’t the greatest but I really wanted to put something up. Plus I have no experience using Flash or html, so I’m shocked I even got it up. I will try to clean it up if time permits, but probably not for a while ‘cause that crap took forever. Hope everyone is doing well.

Check out my new post TASTIES. I wanted to dedicate a whole page to the foods I discover in Japan, maybe it'll have to wait until I can get a real page. But I will post oishii (delicious) and interesting foods I find out here.

Later

Tasties

This is the first desert I tried in Japan and it might be my favorite forever. Ice cream covered in chocolate (as well as in the center) and then enclosed in a waffle. These things are sooooo goood. They are pretty big too, much more than you would expect. I might start eating one every day.

Hello and Welcome from Yokohama

Hi everyone! Well I finally got something up.

First, I would like to thank you for visiting this page. It's not what I had in mind initially, but it will have to do. I need to start posting stuff now before I get overwhelmed. Second, I'm going to apologize for any grammatical errors anyone finds on here in the future or even in this first post. I will try to catch errors if I can but I'm not gonna go over this like a term paper.

Alright, now that's out of the way on to the good stuff...Japan. It's been great so far. Of course it's been hectic getting situated and figuring out what I need to do to get started, but I've already met some fantastic, very kind people.

The first couple of days were not very exciting in terms of activities. Just the thought of being out here was crazy and amazing at the same time, the company I work for didn't have me do anything except get a place to live and I just accepted the first place they recommend. No it's not the greatest place, but it will do until I get paid. I did a little walking around, a lot of pachinko (gambling game). Didn't venture too far though 'cause I didn't have a guide and couldn't speak enough Japanese to save my life. So I was chillin' in the hotel room quite a bit until my friend Rickey (some of you know him as Rickey Japan) showed up at the hotel. He took me out for my first authentic Japanese dinner in Japan. He also gave me a nice little "point-and-speak" phrase book to practice my Japanese when I'm out and about.

The next week was training. Long days of learning how to teach the kids. All in all pretty easy. Basically be active with the kids.

On April 2nd we had an opening ceremony for the board of education. Here I met the two Japanese teachers I'll be teaching with in the schools. A guy and a girl, both seem really cool. We talked about my schedule and general information. I will teach at two schools alternating every two weeks. Both are fairly close to my house so that's a good thing.

April 5th was my first day of school. For the first week we don't have anything but opening ceremonies and activities so no teaching. YEAH!! Seems like a great school. The teachers are very friendly and it doesn't seem like there will be any problems getting along with them. The kids are great too. Many have come up to talk to me, mostly just hello 'cause that's all they know. And it sounds more like hallow, whatever at least they are talking to me. Some of them call me Tiger Woods. Hahaha. I don't look anything like him, but it makes them laugh so it's ok.

Well, that's it for the post. I could easily go on typing about all the stuff that has happened, but I'm gonna try and get this page together and post at least one picture. Hope everyone is doing well.

Later.