Miso Happy!

Tokyo is the 7th city I have lived in and Japan is the 6th country I have lived in. I have lived in a few cities over a million people - and visited many more - but nothing like the size of Tokyo. Just so you know, Tokyo is the largest urban area (not the largest city - that honor goes to Shanghai) in the world at around 37 million people. Outside of your neighborhood, daily route to work, or your regularly patronized waterholes, there is an extremely small chance you'll ever run into the same person twice. But at the same time, there are throngs of people EVERYWHERE you go. Sometimes it feels like it's difficult to get a respite from the crowds unless you're at home! But what I have found is that there is a palpable feeling of being alone in a crowd while living here. Partly, I think this is cultural. In Japan, people often keep to themselves and striking up a conversation with strangers is simply not done like it is in, say, smalltown Midwest in the United States. From

I chose Kanazawa as my last big trip in Japan. I had mostly been wanting to visit Kanazawa since I had arrived in Japan because an acquaintance from high school had lived in the same prefecture as Kanazawa for many years with his wife. However, once I started to learn more about what Kanazawa has to offer, I wanted to visit the city on its own merits (especially since my friend moved to the United States with his wife earlier this year). Kanazawa is known as one of Japan's traditional cultural centers. Kanazawa is one of the few major cities (including Kyoto) in Japan that escaped bombing by US forces during World War II. As a result, there are many historic buildings that are still standing, which is most apparent in the Higashi Chaya-gai district. This area was traditionally the tea house and geisha district - a tradition that still continues as many of the businesses in the district seemed to be cafes that retained at least a little bit of the traditional decor of the orig

Don't get me wrong. I love my students. The students I'm teaching now are overall the best students that I've ever taught - motivated and energetic with great attitudes to boot. I cherish the freedom I have to create lesson plans that engage them and suit their levels. What I don't appreciate are some of the practices of the company I work for. I work for a private company in Japan that contracts out English programs (curricula, teachers, the whole kit and caboodle) to universities. Universities do this to save money on direct hires of English instructors. On a personal level, I've had no issues with the individual staff members I have dealt with, but I've a lot of issues with how things are done - especially the inconsistencies. One inconsistency is based around the curricula. The curricula are cobbled together and the curriculum from one course for one set of students is often carried over almost verbatim to other courses despite the students' levels a

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been really enjoying teaching the group of students I have this semester. They are motivated and energetic, and I rarely have to pull teeth to get the students participating in speaking activities (with the exception of a couple of isolated incidents). As such, I've been gradually introducing critical thinking elements into classroom activities. At this point, I'm defining critical thinking as the questioning of one's assumptions in order to evaluate perspectives and worldviews from a broader perspective. However, I would say that as the semester has gone on, I've only just edged into the first part of that definition: the questioning of one's own assumptions . I wouldn't say most of the activities I've introduced have been focused on critical thinking, and I'm not teaching it explicitly. I do think many of my fluency activities have subtlely introduced basic elements of critical thinking: asking for opinions,

My last stop on my Hokkaido trip was its capital city: Sapporo. Sapporo is most widely known for its namesake beer, which is the oldest beer in Japan and the #1 best-selling Japanese beer in the United States, but it has more to offer! I arrived in Sapporo in the evening, so I waited until the next morning to start exploring. I decided that since the weather was pretty nice, and I had missed my hiking opportunity in Hakodate, that I would do some hiking early on in the morning. My hostel was near Maruyama Park, which has a small 200-meter mountain within its boundaries. As I was walking around the park and looking at some cherry blossom trees early in the morning, I saw that some groups were setting up tarps for picnics on the second to last day of the holiday week. Some of the younger groups were already drinking - possibly continuing the fun from the night before. Others were patiently waiting for the rest of their parties to arrive. The climb up Maruyama afforded some nice vie

Hakodate is one of Hokkaido's largest cities, and it lies on the southern tip of the island. It has a lot of history from a Western perspective because it was one of three ports in Japan that Western traders could use after Japan opened up commercially a couple hundred years ago. As a result, there are still relics of the Western presence in the presence of Victorian-era houses and churches (including an Orthodox Church founded by the Russian consulate). For me, however, the real jewel of Hakodate was Goryokaku, and it was possibly my favorite part of my trip in Hokkaido. Before I went to Hokkaido, I read a "cherry-blossom report" which shows when cherry blossom trees are expected to bloom around Japan. I saw that not only were the cherry blossoms expected to be in bloom while I was in Hokkaido, but Hakodate is one of the best places to see the cherry blossom trees. This is because Hakodate has a park called Goryokaku ("pentagonal" in Japanese) which has 1,6