Miso Happy!

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...

The northern Japanese island of Hokkaido has interested in me for a while. I've seen pictures from my friends who have visited and from my guidebook depicting a wild an open land filled with bears and foxes, sulfuric hot springs and snow-covered mountains, and snowboarding and biking opportunities. Hokkaido is much less densely populated than Japan's main island, Honshu, which has Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, as well as other major metropolitan areas. Therefore, Hokkaido is not as an outdoorsy getaway from the hustle and bustle of Honshu city life. My 5-day trip in Hokkaido started out in the onsen town of Noboribetsu. After flying from Tokyo's Narita Aiport to New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, I took a couple of trains to get to Noboribetsu (take my advice and spend the extra money on express trains), and I finally took a bus from JR Noboribetsu Station to the onsen part of Noboribetsu. Planes, trains, and automobiles! For those of you who don't know, onsen is defin...

One topic that has interested me ever since I taught English at a high school in Korea is the intersection between education and culture. In my blog about my time in Korea, I discussed the problems with creating a student-centered classroom in Korean culture. This notion seems like it stems from Confucian ideas that view the nature of education as transactional and teachers as the gatekeepers of knowledge. When I tried to flip the classroom from what the students were used to (teacher-centered lectures) to what I thought would be advantageous for developing English speaking fluency (a student-centered, communicative and task-based approach), there was often a lot of confusion. Additionally, it was often difficult to get the students to speak any English at all for a variety of reasons. Teacher-centered classrooms were deeply embedded in the cross-section of education and culture in Korea, and that seems to be the case here in Japan as well. Generally speaking, most university classes...

Before coming to Japan, I talked with several friends and acquaintances who had either taught English in Japan in the past or who are currently teaching English here. Many of them had not had experience teaching English at the university level, but most had generally been positive about their experiences in Japan with the one caveat that they hadn't been able to save much money (from what I understand, this is true unless you work for JET). Since I was aiming to teach at the university level, I sought the advice of a specific acquaintance. This acquaintance has been teaching English at a university in Japan for several years. He warned me about several factors that might impede my successful pursuit of university-level employment. I optimistically did not think his assessment of the current job market would be true across the board (what did I know?!), but I believe he was correct on each point. I'll go through the list: 1. Stricter Requirements Compared to Similar Positio...

Along with Miyajima, my favorite stop on my winter break travels was Nara. In fact, my planning for this trip started with Nara because I was told that it would be a good place to witness a more traditional New Years Eve in Japan. Since Kyoto is the center of traditional Japan what with all of their temples and history, Nara is often thought as a smaller, less well-known Kyoto. Similar to Kyoto, Nara is full of temples and its citizens display a more laid-back sort of life apart from the madness of cities like Tokyo and Osaka. It is worth mentioning that my favorite hostel during my travels was also in Nara: Nara Backpackers. A 100-year-old house had been converted into a hostel. It was definitely the coziest hostel experience I have experienced, and the house and garden itself were beautiful. Additionally, the host (seemingly the only employee) was also incredibly nice. He was a young Japanese guy who had lived in Canada for a year giving tours to Japanese tourists to see th...

Background :   As part of my duties as an English teacher in Japan, I teach English writing to university students. The curriculum confoundingly focuses on contexts and lexical chunks rather than starting with a foundation of specific grammar points or specific structural elements in writing (such as transitional/signal words and phrases) and building from there. Even though my students are studying subjects like law, architecture, and mechanical engineering, they are all required to take English writing. As a result, it can be difficult to keep the students motivated, especially compared with our speaking classes. With this in mind, I have been trying to incorporate more kinesthetic activities into my writing lessons. One wouldn't think that writing classes would present ample opportunities for kinesthetic activities, but so far it seems to have served the lessons well by keeping the students energized and engaged. This is based on a pre-written lesson plan that I changed and ...