Of little or no importance

On my walk home from school today, I pondered, "What if my life ended today?  What would happen?  How would I be remembered?  Would I be remembered?"  You know, the usual questions.  In Japan it's easy for me to think like this because it seems you spend at least one half of the day being either ignored or gawked at, which at times can be very paradoxical, and I came to the conclusion that whether or not I'm remembered is irrelevant because either way those memories will eventually fade.  What is important is what you pass on to others and what they thought of you or what they think of you but what you give to other whether it be knowledge, money, or encouragement.  That is what makes life for living!  Passing on our joy to others so they can in turn pass it to someone else.

"The long and winding road"

Whew, well I finally did it!  I went back to Mt. Hiwada and climbed it again.  This time in just a little over an hour.  It was not quite as peaceful at the top as I was hoping.  Mainly because there was a large group of people pick-nicking at the top of the mountain.  I didn't mind them being there but they were somewhat loud so it made the moment a little less peaceful than I was hoping for.  Not only that, but it here was a layer of haze so that you couldn't get a very good view of the city.  Oh well, that's alright. I'm hoping to do this maybe once a month for both physical training and also to help me spiritually as well.  I did get a lot of enjoyment from greeting people on their way to the top of the mountain and also along the hiking path.  It was great to see Japanese peoples faces change from very stern looks to smiles.  I think that was the highlight of the whole trip for me.

The other part of my weekend was spent by 巾着田 (Kinchakuda Field) or in English, the field shaped like a coin purse, hehe.  It's basically were the river snakes in such a way that the rice and flower fields in the middle resembles a coin bag from way-back when.  It was pretty peaceful there by the river so sat and had some lunch and took some pictures too.  Overall, a great weekend and I didn't fall off a mountain.  Which was good...I think.

Camp in Yamanashi

Just got back from the Arakawa English immersion camp.  It was definitely a roller coaster ride of excitement.  Everyday, none stop until 2 or 3 in the morning (partly my fault for choosing the party room for sleeping) followed by a nice bright and early wake up calls around 6:30.  This of course was followed by breakfast with the junior high kids, which actually was one of the highlights of the experience.  It was always a challenge to get them to speak English only but I saw it as being great fun, then a half-hour break before we began our lessons for the day.

For all three days of lessons, I had to work on pronunciation through tongue twisters and a variety of other drills.  In the spirit of the Olympics, one of the drills that I came up with was one in which the kids had to say set word phrases such as 'would you', 'did you', etc. as fast as they could and I would time them with a stop watch.  One of the kids said the set all the word phrases in 2.61 seconds which was incredible because I don't even think I could do that.  

Overall the schedule was pretty hectic but we all had a lot of fun and at the end it was pretty sad to see everyone go.

The Japanese teachers, who were college kids that had little or no English speaking background,  had to speak English with the Japanese kids the whole time, so I think that they had a very difficult time.  However, it was great fun and I think the kids had a great time learning English too.  Now time to hibernate for a week before starting up school again.  YEAH!!

About the pictures, we went to a souvenir shop to buy, what else, souvenirs.  These places are always gold for finding the stereotypical 'Engrish' or Japanese English.  These were some classic examples.  Do you like your Milk a little Cooky?  Or how about some flesh cakes?  They're the meatist.  The bottom pic is a picture of the campfire, which was about 6 feet tall at one point but in this picture it's about maybe half a foot tall.