Robyn and I finally tried Mos Burger the other day. Mos Burger is a popular fast food chain in Japan (second largest in fact right after McDonald's) and is famous for its interesting burgers. Robyn and I tried their famed rice burger (which has 'rice buns' instead of bread buns). We were kind of apprehensive about eating them, but they turned out to be pretty tasty! I liked Robyn's seafood burger better than my chicken one though.

I found these 'mafuura' (what the Japanese call scarves) in the department store. The first one is a hoodie scarf thing with pockets where you can put your hands in to keep them warm. Not sure what the pompoms are for though .. purely for fashion?

Finished Lesson 15 & 16 on schedule.

Studying Lesson 17 this week.

I was going to put up the videos from the festival on my blog, but Robyn already uploaded them on his. Since he did all the work editing the videos together and uploading them to Vox, I'll just link to his entry. The videos are near the end of the entry, but he also wrote a lot about the festival from his perspective. So check it out.

My first ever cultural festival experience was awesome. The students and teachers spent 2 weeks preparing for the  festival, and it was a success. We had a lot of visitors and everything went smoothly. For me though, it was a a very fascinating and interesting cultural experience. I've seen the Japanese school festivals in anime and Japanese dramas, but to experience it first hand was another matter. The students and teachers put a lot of effort into everything. Before the festival, every class had to decide what food item to sell at their food stand, and then they had to cook and prepare for the big day. Some students made fliers and posters while others set up the food stand. The club members as well as the teachers practiced very hard to perform at the festival, and we all had to help set up the stage and everything. The festival was held on the weekend for two days, lasting from 10 to around 3 in the afternoon. Besides the food stands and exhibitions, there were live performances throughout the day in the gym. While I was not walking around sampling food, I mostly hung out in the gym watching the performances, which included singing, dancing and live band performances. As a homeroom teacher, I had to wear the class T-shirt designed by my students. The front of the t-shirt, as you can see in the photos, has a bear, a butterfly, donuts and candies. In the back of the T-shirt, there is a lollipop with the teachers and students' name in it and the words "EAT ME". Imagine a whole class of girls, including the teachers, wearing t-shirts that say EAT ME in the back. Only in Japan. I wasn't consulted before they decided on the design, but I think the girls sort of knew that the phrase was sexually suggestive, but they mostly thought it was funny. Some class's t-shirt design had a symbol of marijuana on it. Again, the students who designed it thought it was a symbol for reggae music (god knows why) while the Japanese teachers believed it to be a maple leave. It aroused no attention or controversy but provided amusement for the foreign teachers.

Here are the photos of my T-shirt and the festival pamphlets. My homeroom class is 2B, and in our section you can see a drawing of the Japanese homeroom teacher's head attached to a snail's body. He's wearing a sombrero because we were selling tacos. Poor guy.

I had a lot of fun during the festival. Everything was new and exciting. Being without many responsibilities also allowed me to go around and take photos and videos all day. Robyn came to the festival on Sunday. At first I wasn't sure if he should come since I knew his white skin would gather too much attention, not to mention being a teacher's boyfriend. In the end, I'm glad he came. It was too cool an experience to miss. It isn't any day you could get invited to a cultural festival either (I had to get a ticket for him from a teacher). It was fun showing him around the school and introduce him to my students and co-workers, and I guess he didn't mind being called "kakkoi" (cool) many times over by the white-struck students either. After he's gone though, I was attacked by the curious students with many personal questions. Students I don't even know would come up to me and ask me if I'm getting married, will I have kids etc. It was both funny and a bit annoying at the same time. I hope they won't remember him after the holidays. Anyway, the best part of the festival was the live performances in the gym, not because the performers were particularly good (sometimes quite the opposite) but because the students seemed to have a lot of fun putting on the shows. The highlight was definitely the teachers' performances at the very end. It was hilarious to see my co-workers dressed up to sing and dance on the stage. Some of them couldn't sing to save their lives but the students loved it. It made me kind of wish I could be part of it too. They never ask the foreign teachers for this kind of thing, but maybe I can volunteer next year (if I'm staying that is). I'm thinking it has more to do with your willingness to make a fool of yourself than your talents when they ask you to participate. It looked like they had a lot of fun though. I took tons of videos of the performances, and I'll upload them in separate entries.

In the meantime, check out the photos from the festival:

2007.10.6-7 Etoile Cultural Festival

Completely dropped my Japanese studies for a while after I started work. Even though I'm picking up Japanese here and there every day at work, I think it's about time for me to hit the books again. My goal is to finish Ninna no Nihongo by the end of this year, which means I need to go through one lesson every week. It shouldn't be hard. I just need to be consistent and study whenever I get the chance, like when I'm riding on the train (two hours everyday).

This week's goal: Lesson 15.

I love the autumn breeze and the cool comfortable temperature. Japan really should outlaw their summer, or at least make it a mandatory 2-month vacation during August and September.

I have another 3-day long weekend this month, and this time, it's for Tokyo Citizen's Day (都民の日). Last week, it was Autum Equinox Day (秋分の日) and before that it was Respect for the Aged Day (敬老の日). Japan really has the most random holidays. Despite all the holidays in September however, it feels particularly busy at work these days. The arrival of the Chinese students last week and the preparation for the cultural festival to be held next weekend are consuming a lot of everyone's time and energy. The cultural festival (文化祭 bunkasai), which is also called 秋輝祭 (Autumn Radiance Festival) at our school, is a really big deal. It will be a 2-day event during the weekend. The students will set up booths selling food and snacks and there will be performances from the teachers and the students alike. I know some teachers are going to sing, dance or play an instrument. The foreign teachers weren't asked to do anything, but even if they had asked me, I wouldn't have known what to do. I have no special talents. Sad but true. The foreign teachers aren't completely devoid of extra responsibilities though. We've been busy choosing the students to enter the English speech contest and practising with them after school. I think most teachers have had to stay late at school this past two weeks. It's a really busy time for us, so thank god for all the random holidays I guess.

Since the festival is happening on the weekend, we'll get two days off during the week, plus one more day off for Health and Sports Day (体育の日 .. no I'm not making these holidays up). I don't think the teachers are doing much during the festival either, so I'll probably be doing a lot of slacking off and not much work that week. I'm certainly not complaining, but all these disruptions have made teaching kind of difficult. I have some classes with only 3 hours of lessons in October while others with 4 to 6 hours. I have to teach the same amount of material before the midterm, so it's kind of a problem. The students themselves are also distracted by all the activities, but I guess that's the way it is, or as the Japanese would say, shoganai. I'm deciding if I should invite Robyn to come to the festival. One student, Kiriko, actually asked me on Friday if I'm bringing my boyfriend (she saw him at her concert we attended), and I said maybe. I think it'd be fun for Robyn to come see a cultural festival, but I'm not sure if I want everyone at school to see him, not that I'm ashamed of him or anything. It's just that I can imagine having to fend off all the personal questions from the students if they actually meet him. They get rather excited at this type of thing. There is no way for him to go under the radar either since he tends to stand out here in Japan. We'll see I guess. Either way, I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures next weekend. I think it's going to be an interesting experience.

Robyn has been looking for work ever since he got back, but no luck so far. The English teaching market is flooded with panicking Nova employees who are job hunting in anticipation of the company's possible demise (Nova used to be the biggest eikaiwa chain). It's really bad timing to look for a job in Japan right now. He's trying hard though, sending out as many resumes as he can. We're hoping he can get a job by the end of October, but you never know. At least we don't have to be stressed out about money as my salary is able to support both of us with a bit of extra left to pay off some of our debts every month. Of course it'd be more comfortable if we were both making money, but there is no real rush. I want him to find a job that he likes. He'd hardly be able to enjoy the time here if he hates his job. Even though we'll both be working, we want to have fun and experience Japan. Our goal is to tour around Tokyo on the weekends and travel farther during the longer holidays. In fact, we're going to Shinagawa tomorrow to catch the annual Shinagawa Shukuba Festival. There will be parades, music and samurai drama performances and other fun events like that. I'm really looking forward to it. It might rain tomorrow though. I certainly hope not. Figures crossed.

Robyn and I chanced upon a street festival this weekend when we went to Musashisakai for dinner. It was a dance festival consisted of half-naked dancers adorned with colourful feathers and drummers in bright costumes and funny hats. Robyn actually saw the same festival last year when he just arrived in Tokyo, but it was in the daytime and smaller in scale. The dancers and the drumming elves, as I call them, paraded through the street near the Musashisakai station. I was surprised by how into the festival the Japanese were as I saw people clapping along to the rhythm and taking videos and photos of the dancers. It was quite a spectacle.

I definitely want to check out more Japanese festivals.

Here are the videos we took with Robyn's cellphone.