Yabu slayer?

I strolled into one of my schools the other day and right as I am slipping into my crocs (they don't sell slippers my size in this country) my principal comes dashing up to me, "Jesse, have you seen this picture?" I had no idea what he was talking about and was terribly confused.

Lets set the stage briefly first. This time of year is what can best be described as fall festival time. The few days prior to this all the first and second graders at this particular school were asked to draw pictures about their emotions on the festivities. Many pictures featured kids winning prizes such as fish and candy from carnival games or depicted scenes of the clash between Yabu and "farmers" or even the Yabu themselves scaring the crap out of the kids.

What the hell is a Yabu?

A Yabu in short is what looks like a bad spirit or entity, but in fact they are more of custodians to the higher powers. They don't much like visitors. Now every year there is a procession where what I have assumed to be farmers try to get grain and or other things to the temple as offerings. They Yabu wish to prevent that. The Yabu get sticks, and crazy suits with big rope on the back... and really cool red scary masks. Oh, and they like to hit things, people, children, dogs, etc with the sticks. Anyways, probably something that would really scare the crap out of a small kid (and possibly even adults). I am definitely missing the finer points here, but that does not matter just so long as you get what a Yabu is.

The picture was drawn by a second grade boy, Yusuke.

The first thing I noticed when I looked at the picture were bodies strewn everywhere around the center and in the distance (he is actually a pretty good artist and a fairly complex level of depth was present) and that those bodies in fact were Yabu corpses. In the center stood a great bearded man much larger than the Yabu. His arms were over his head and in his hands another Yabu was being torn in half.... brutal! Between this giant bearded mans legs were several children safely seated on the ground. They were clutching the big guys legs in order to be "safe". At the bottom of the picture read something to the effect (from what we mutually sussed/translated into workable English) of "My nightmare medicine". Deep man, deeeeeeep. Oh, and there was a label of the giant bearded man, "Jesse Sensei". HAHAHAHAHA!

I died laughing on the spot and asked if I could make a copy of the drawing. In turn the principle chuckled, put the photo in his pocket and walked away. Damnit I wanted that! He was absent this week so I will try again next week to get it and pop up here on the blog.

So in closing:

Jesse > Yabu.

Korean Drama

Short post here.

Was watching some random Korean drama while eating dindin. It was playing when I turned on the tube so I decided to watch it. I was surprised, it was really good. I followed along pretty well with the Japanese sub titles. It was about some boy who was waiting with his puppy for his parents one rainy night while they were running late from some function. He was waiting outside some big building, not his home or school, but some place in the city I think. He also had a balloon, I must have missed why.

He falls asleep waiting for ma and pa and the dog gets away. He pursues the mut and they both get drilled in the street. It flashes forward and his parents are in the car a year or two later and they in turn get in a bad accident and both die. That in mind it goes back to our little boy on the street and turns out hi didn't die, but has a nasty gash along his whole side. Sadly the pup does not make it. So at this point the show is actually really darn good, I was surprised.

It goes forward about twenty years and the boy is now in his mid twenties and depressed (he went on his own and never reunited with his folks before they died...from age five. Serious street cred there). I was waiting for some more good bits but then everyone starts getting hit by cars. It's like some crazy topsy-tervy people dieing in a single square block by vehicular manslaughter thingy. Is there a thingy like that? Anyways, like every character died except for the main "boy" and some chick who hit some people with her jeep. Then there was some elevator romance. WTF?!

Anyways, thought that was strange. Turned it off when I ran out of noodles to eat.

Interesting day I dare say.

So the year is wrapping up before summer and this is my last week of classes. Tuesdays are a good day, I get to see two really good elementary schools set up on the Miyahara Hill. At the first one today one of my fifth graders passed out from the heat while singing in the morning assembly. We raced to him and then I carried him down to the nurses office while some of the teachers cleared the way and prepped the room (fetched ice!). We then cooled him down and he was up and running by third period again. I had an empty second period so I chilled (pardon the pun) with him and played word games Not too scary, but was interesting to watch.

Once I moved onto my next school the day got a bit more interesting. An Olympic Silver Medalist from the Sydney games came to swim with us. She was great and we had a lot of fun teaching together. We had a bunch of news cameras there too. I was really embarrassed when I showed up because all the kids in the pool converged on me at once to say hi, despite them already being in the middle of a lesson on TV. And Mia, the Olympian, was totally confused at this "random" white guy the kids were worshiping. It was pretty damn funny, but I still hope they edit it out in post. The lesson was super fun and we had a great time, the principal of the school challenged Mia to a race for laughs... I nearly died laughing. The principal is a real joker at this school and he was doing everything he could to cheat her. It was like watching a clever comedy show.

After that we had lunch, Mia with the sixth graders and I joined the fifth graders. The 5th graders and I just chilled as always and played games, made jokes, and so on like we always do at lunch. Apparently we made such a ruckus that everyone from the 6th grade classroom next to us (including those damn cameras) came over to watch us. It was pretty amusing judging by their faces. Also during that time I met Mia's coach. Real nice guy. He is from Miyagi Prefecture where the big tsunamis hit and he told us some frightening stories about how a school saved its students, but couldn't save an additional three hundred people that were swept off at the same time; it was the children or them, they had to choose.. rough. Don't worry, he cheered the mood up again before he left.

I got a few photos too that I will post shortly. All in all a very entertaining day.

Other things that have happened. I summited Mt. Fuji. Not that bad of a hike except I ascended too fast and got hit with terrible altitude sickness 300m or so from the top. It takes between 5-7 hours to climb, but my climbing buddy and I were on a three hour pace, mistake for me (he was fine because he has a much better tolerance at altitude than myself). I puked real hard and slept it off for three hours, but was still in bad shape. I crawled to the top anyways (and puked more on the way) and then took an hour nap in the sun on the top. When I woke up I was fine. Crazy stuff. Two things pissed me off about this trip. I spent more time traveling there and back by bus than actually being at Fuji. Also the experience was very un-Japanese; rude guides, unhelpful staff at rest stops (wouldn't let me rest a bit when I was sick), amidst other things. I am not whining about it, but it did catch me off guard.

More to come...

China Baby!

So here is a quick update (and yes once I return they should become more frequent..). I am going to China with my two friend from Canada Luc and Anna. We are going to start in Beijing and work our way down to Shanghai. Should be fun and I will try and take some good pictures.

Speaking of pictures I have reopened my flicker account and will link it to this blog when I put the pictures from China up. I have a crap ton of photos I need to sort.

Side note: While I was on my way back from picking up my visa and plane tickets in Hiroshima today I saw maybe two hundred riot police and a bunch of very "interesting" and very colorful people. I really didn't understand what was going on until I saw the building they were in front of... the building which manages nuclear energy. You guys can put that together. Was real meallow though and the cops appeared to be sharing laughs with the protesters while leaning on their shields. Guess it was just a precaution and they knew they really didn't need it. I thought it was kinda cool.

Oh and I got a taxi ride the other day and the driver asked me if it was alright if he left his porn on (the dash mounted LCD screen) while he drove me to my destination. I laughed and said whatever. I was disappointed though when I got out.. it wasn't very entertaining.

Will return in 11days.