how can you have a picnic without any sun?

Well, we managed it somehow.

Our school held a picnic on the 28th, and the sun never came out once. The forecast had called for a 60% chance of rain, but it didn't start until 4pm, at which point the picnic was coming to an end anyway. The clouds disappointed me a little, but everyone else seemed a little relieved by the weather.

They all thought I was kind of crazy to suggest a summer picnic anyway. Every day for the past three weeks, everyone has come in complaining about the heat. This has amused me a great deal. Because while it is somewhat hot and humid, it's nothing compared to a Florida summer. As I told some of my higher-level students, "Sure, it's hot. But it ain't *that* hot." As for the humidity, eh. There's not much wind unless it's raining, so everything's all hazy and a bit muggy. Until this week, the rainy season hasn't been all that impressive: it would rain maybe three days out of seven. Even this week, it's been more cloudy than rainy. The way people talked about it, I'd expected rain five days out of seven. But most people I've asked say this is normal. Well, everything's relative, isn't it?

For another thing, the sun isn't as strong here, but maybe that's just me too. Japanese women seem terrified of getting even a little sun - I've never seen so many cardigans and long-sleeved shirts worn in the summer (maybe *that's* why they're so hot!), and they wear these funky long and fingerless gloves and carry parasols. Also, lots of them wear not just pantyhose but leggings, which is downright crazy if you ask me.

But, I digress. Back to the picnic.

I wanted a picnic. 1: because I'd had little chance to hang out with most of my students, and I wanted to have a get-together to do that. 2: because I must find new ways of entertaining myself. 3: Izumiさん (our manager) is moving back to Sapporo. She refused to allow this to be a sayonara party, but I wanted something to let everyone chat with her once more before she left.

We had about 30 students show up, most of them mine. Several of our students live near a park near Shin-Moriya station, about a 15-minute bike ride to the school, and they suggested that we have the picnic there. We had everyone bring their own lunches, and Izumiさん and I brought some picnicky items like bubbles and frisbees and a couple of balls to toss around. One of my students brought a badminton set, and another student brought a larger ball so we could play soccer and dodgeball.

It really was a perfect set-up. We ate lunch first and then broke out the picnic toys. We had about ten kids there, and they had a blast with the bubbles and playing soccer with some of the adults. Some of my students had never played frisbee before, so I conducted a quick mini-lesson on the art of the frisbee. The previous English teacher also stopped by, which made a lot of the students happy because they don't often get a chance to see him even though he lives in Moriya. One of my extremely shy and quiet pre-teen girls kicked butt at dodgeball. And there were dogs - three dachshunds brought by a student who lives nearby. The adults fawned over the dogs more than the kids did.

The best thing for me was the park itself. In addition to a playground and tennis courts, it has a nice big lawn for groups such as our own. Also, it is grassy and not sandy (as it would be in Florida) and there were no ants in sight and it was all nice and soft. So the first thing I did upon arriving was take off my sandals and run around barefoot. The way my students reacted, you'd think they'd never seen a barefoot person before. I couldn't convince anybody else (except one of my kids students) to go barefoot with me, but they all thought it was "adorable." Some of them are still calling me the Barefoot Sensei. Even better was when I had to roll up the cuffs of my jeans because they were getting all dirty and I kept tripping on them. That sent Izumiさん into a fit of giggles. Of course I had to wash my feet when we got back to the school, but it was totally worth it. What's the point of summer if you can't go barefoot?

We got about three hours in before it started to rain. I had known it was going to rain eventually - I could smell it in the air - so this came as no surprise. Everybody (except me, apparently) was starting to wind down and needing a rest anyway, so it worked out. And nobody went away disappointed - everybody gave positive feedback and said they hoped we'd have another get-together in the future. I get the feeling an August picnic would not go over well, so I'm settling for September. This satisfied them.

Afterwards, Izumiさん, Mio先生, and I went out to karaoke to memorialize our last weekend as co-workers. That went beyond entertaining - both of them are good singers and they even sang English songs! (Usually, Benni先生 is the only one who does this with me.) We finished with a trio version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

[item of interest: Simon & Garfunkel are as popular as Queen and the Beatles here in Japan. S & G will are appearing in concert in Tokyo this weekend, and one of my students is actually skipping class to go to it. Some of my other students were disappointed that they couldn't go, either because of the cost of the tickets or the fact that they sold out almost immediately.]

And so, that was our Moriya summer picnic. I am now anxiously awaiting the main summer season, which will bring festivals and fireworks and other wonderful summery things. I'm especially hoping that I can make it up to Isesaki or Maebashi to hang out with my friends up there. Either way, summer is shaping up to be pretty awesome this year!

further evidence of winter in Gunma-ken

Yes, it was snowy in Takayama. But you know what Takayama doesn't have? Incredible, frigid Siberian wind. If I had to choose between heavy snow and this ridiculous dry wind, I think I'd choose the snow. There have been a couple of days when the wind was steady at 10mph, with much more powerful gusts that make it incredibly difficult to ride a bike without suddenly veering into stone walls or curbs. A couple of days, I've chosen to walk instead of ride simply because I knew it'd be a struggle to actually get anywhere.

Further, it's a very dry wind. Winters in Gunma are typically very dry - there's currently an advisory out warning about the dangers of dehydration. We haven't seen any precipitation in about two weeks, but it feels like longer. Everything's all brown and dry. Benni-sensei's hands are all cracked from the lack of moisture in the air (and there are more commercials for healing ointments and lotions than I can count). It certainly explains why my hair has been considerably less frizzy lately. I'm surprised my hands aren't cracked and peeling too, as they usually are that way during winter. It's been warmer the past couple days, though, with temperatures in the higher single digits. It'd be quite pleasant out if not for this ridonkulous wind.

Here are some pictures I took on the 24th, just to give you an idea of the view I sometimes I have of the mountains north of Isesaki. I had to climb onto a skywalk to get them, but it's nice to know that there's a view to see. This is Mount Akagi, which is the largest mountain in Gunma. It doesn't come to one tall peak, but as you can see, is spread out a bit. One of my students told me that Akagi-san is famous for its silhouette: because it has many small peaks, it resembles a woman lying on her side. You can't really see that from the angle of these pictures, but in other places in Isesaki, that's exactly what it looks like. The best such view is near the Isesaki bus station, which I pass on the way to the train station. Next time I'm walking that way, I'll try to remember to take a picture of it.

sara-sensei and the futile battle to keep warm

As far as I'm concerned, it is officially winter. Doesn't matter that we still have about three weeks to go before the solstice, doesn't matter that it's going to get even colder as winter draws nearer. For me, winter is here: snow is on the mountains. Not a lot of it, but enough to be visible from Isesaki.




Last week, some wet weather came down from the mountains - I'm getting pretty decent at weather prediction, but I think it's common sense to see clouds enveloping the mountains and looming over the valley and figure that rain is coming. Except, up in the mountains, it's not rain, it's snow, as you can see in the pictures.

You have to remember where I'm from (ahem, Florida). Snow is a big deal for me. Waking up to 14 degrees in my room (that's 57 degrees in Fahrenheit) is a big deal for me. Riding my bike to work in a freezing Siberian wind is a bid deal for me. Staying warm has become a pretty important part of my life lately.

One of Benni-sensei's students, Kazuhiro (I think I've mentioned him before), suggested to us one day that we go to UniQlo and check out something called HeatTech. It's a very thin material, and it's made as both shirts and shorts, meant to be worn under regular clothes. It's designed to keep heat in the body, thus keeping body temperature up. It's very warm and very comfortable, and the XL size fits me nicely.

Can we say awesome? The fact that I can fit into Japanese clothing thrills me to no end, even if it is the largest size in the store. What's really great is that it really does an excellent job of keeping me warm. The heater in my room at school doesn't quite get the job done, and even wearing a long-sleeved shirt and suit jacket didn't help much in keeping warm. The HeatTech shirts have really helped with that. At home, I usually wear one under a t-shirt. My apartment heater works fine, but because I'm heating such a small space, it can get stuffy really fast, so I usually only turn it on in the mornings.

This means that, while riding around on my bike, I usually wear 4 layers: HeatTech shirt, blouse, suit jacket, and overcoat. And gloves. And leggings and tennis shoes. That's how cold it is. During the day, when the sun is shining, I usually leave the overcoat at work, but sunset is around 4:30pm, and it gets cold really quick after that. I am now enamored with vending machines that sell hot drinks, because they are HOT. I'm especially fond of hot green tea, and every once in a while, I'll treat myself to one of the sweet cream lattes from the school machine.

But, it's going to be a struggle for me to not freeze to death this winter, because it's not even winter yet. And everyone tells me that the wind will get worse and the weather will get colder. And then they cheerfully tell me that it's usually dry, so there's not much snow. This doesn't really make me feel better, because there's that whole "cold Siberian wind" thing that bothers me. I'm starting to believe that the overcoat is the second-most important thing I brought with me to Japan (the first being the laptop, of course, I'd be going stir-crazy without it).

But, yeah. FREEZING.