This entry is a bit of a catch-up of stuff that’s happened this week.

First event happened just after I got back home from the train ride from Fuji on Sunday night (almost Monday morning). I heard the windows rattling, but there hadn’t been any wind when I was outside just a few minutes earlier. Investigating, I discovered it was the inside sliding doors rattling and the hanging lamps were swaying just slightly. Looks like I had experienced my first earthquake. I really didn’t feel it, but it was a pretty significant one off the coast that caused a few injuries in coastal areas and tsunami warnings. It was the second of a pair, didn’t notice the first while on the bus. Good thing it didn’t happen earlier, they might have shutdown the trains. I would not have enjoyed that as tired as I was.

Other significant event of the week was Tuesday with Typhoon 18. As usual, everyone around here was in a mild panic over the prospects of the typhoon & warning me about it. The last two weren’t all that impressive here, even though they did a fair amount of damage on the coasts. No worse that a heavy monsoon rain, the likes of which I’ve ridden my bike home in before.

This time they waffled on canceling school & my adult conversation classes. Apparently my school & the one in Midori were the only ones in Aikitakata that had classes. I went through a few more self introduction classes at the elementary and watched the storm increase. It was actually looking kinda impressive after lunch, trees blowing everywhere and curtains of rain. It because apparent that they would like to send the kids home, but it was too dangerous to do so. Kinda reminded me of school back home when it snowed during class, catching everyone off guard. The phones in the staff room were ringing off the hook as parents called about their kids. Of course there wasn’t much I could do about anything and I was kinda stuck there too as the storm was more than I wanted to go out in.

Finally it subsided a bit and I headed home. I’ve seen a bit of damage here and there to trees and a few houses, but probably nothing major. My place weathered it just fine. Plenty of turned over plant pots at the school the next day and lots of debris everywhere to be cleaned up. My adult education class was canceled as a result, though. Ended up being asked to describe the differences between typhoons here and hurricanes in the US for some of my middle school classes yesterday as a result of the storm.

Wednesday, after taking a post-kindergarden nap, I went into Hiroshima to pick up a copy of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test application at a bookstore. I’m only planning on taking the easiest test (4th Kyu) since I still need to relearn what Japanese I once knew, but I think it’ll be a good goal to work towards (even if the first couple levels don’t really mean anything).

In the process I finally wandered through all the levels of the Fukuya department store across from the station. In total its like 11 stories tall, the bookstore on around the 9th floor is more like Borders than any I’ve been in here. More relaxing and less frantically crowded. Also picked up the Genki 1: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 1 textbook which looks really good, especially for adults.

Spent the rest of the evening wandering around, mostly in the Shareo underground mall. I finally got around to looking around Jupiter, a foreign foods store. They actually have Peach Snapple! But they didn’t have Cheeros, so I’m still waiting on my shipment from Foreign Buyers Club. But they have lots of other stuff that will probably come in handy eventually.

Killing time before my train by waiting at the fountain in front of the station, I noticed that they had the security camera pointed at the fountain on the jumbotron on the station wall. Couldn’t recognize myself as such, but was freaky watching what I knew was me on the big screen. I wasn’t the only one so easily amused, a couple young kids were playing tag around the fountain while watching where the other went on the screen…

Classes this week have went pretty well. I’m getting a little more used to things. The elementary school is a bit of a mixed bag on how I do things it looks like. Some of the teachers want me to carry the class, others barely give me a chance to speak in my own self-introduction. I think the main challenge there will be to tailor my material to suit the teacher as much as to suit the class. Although it is a little tough to know what level to set things for the kids at as well. Even just passing around pieces for the self introduction picture bingo I did was sometimes a challenge. But I guess its a learning experience for me as much as for the children.

Kindergarden is still tiring, glad its only a half day. Still need to get a better idea what the teachers there want me to do when the kids aren’t climbing all over me. Did some reading to one class along with a teacher reading the same story in Japanese and lots of color karuta (a game where you slap the card called out).

I think middle school is going best for me. The 2nd & 3rd year teacher speaks excellent English and is rather comfortable with the team teaching approach. Once I get the hang of it I think it’ll work well. I’m still working on communicating with the 1st year teacher sometimes, that class looks like it will be much more Japanese heavy. Also still need to work on the room they have for me. My predecessor James set it up well, but I need to put my touches on it (He was from San Diego and more into sports than I. Stuff like that).

Anyways, that’s more or less what the post Fuji week was like. Still interesting and looking forward to more stuff to come!

[comments from old blog]

Joe wrote:
So what are differences between typhoons here and hurricanes?
09/10/04 12:38:31

tmorgan wrote:
Technically they’re the same thing, just different names in different hemispheres. However there are more typhoons each year, they hit all of Japan (as opposed to just the east & Gulf coasts of the US) and entire towns don’t seem to get destroyed here like in the US. According to the web sites I read, typhoons tend to be stronger, though. Then there’s the habit of naming hurricanes, but numbering typhoons. That and surprising the kids with stuff like Arizona doesn’t have hurricanes (left out that odd tropical storm comes & washes Yuma or Tucson away).
09/10/04 12:46:29

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