October 23

Ok, so I am going to work backwards and tell you what I did today, then yesterday, and so on. I am very busy and by the time I get back to the hotel room, I am just exhausted! Plus, I think jet lag is settling in.

Today we visited the Barono-oka (Rose Hill) Garden in Shimada, Shizouka, the largest rose growing region in Japan. Their growing season is from May-December, so there were still quite a few roses in various stages of bloom. One of my favorites is actually called "Miss Shimada" and is unique to this area, and just happens to have been "invented" in 1971 - the year I was born. My other favorite is the "Peace" rose, "invented" in 1945 - can you guess why it is called the Peace rose? (think of your history).

Rose horticulture is an important part of Japan's economy and certainly helps the Shizouka prefecture; there are over 350 varieties of roses here. It was very relaxing, as classical music was being played around the grounds. Here are photos from left to right: Miss Shimada Rose , Peace Rose

There are many more rose pictures if you follow the link to the left under "Photos"-I will post them later.

After viewing the roses, we went to the Haurai Bridge that spans the Oi River. This bridge is in the Guiness Book of Records for being the longest, wooden foot bridge in the entire world. This bridge now connects what was the old posts of the Tokkaido Road - a road that stretched from Tokyo to Kyoto hundreds of years ago. Where I am staying, in Shimada, is where the 23rd post, or stopping place, occurred for travelers. At the time, there was no bridge, so people were actually carried across the river by men. You could pay for various tickets - the most expensive included a carriage, while the cheapest way to go was on top of someone's shoulders! Not only did you have to pay for yourself to cross the bridge, you had to pay passage for each worker that carried you across! That got to be expensive! This was the only place on the Tokkaido road where there was no bridge (5 rivers cross the Tokkaido road at various places).

Today, you can cross the bridge and see men fishing the river for what is called "sweet fish". I found many similarities between these river communities to the Fargo/Moorhead river - both were historical towns that grew up on the crossroads of transportation - rivers and roadss. One difference, however, is that the Oi river floods three times a year, and not because of th e melting snows - like you would find at home, but because of the Typhoons. This year, in September, there was a bad Typhoon that swept over Japan, and the foot bridge was damaged, so we could not cross all the way. What happens is the Typhoon comes in from the east off the Pacific coast and drops an incredible amount of rain, which floods the area. It is a very wide and shallow flood plain as you will see in the photos and video on TeacherTube.com

Then we headed over to the Kawagoshi Historic Road/Shimada City museum, where they had on display original items of the Edo period (when was that students?). I had asked if everything was original and they told us yes - the government does not allow replicas inside museums. This particular museum had items related to the Oi river crossing and the process people went through to cross this particular river. We also walked through remnants of the original town. You can find out more about this bridge and other Shizouka places at http://www.pref.shizuoka.jp/a_foreign/english/no1/index.html

We proceeded, by bus, up a long winding road to a Tea museum, where we learned about all the kinds of tea in the world. What country did tea originate? (it is not Japan). Shizouka is also Japan's largest green tea producing area in Japan. It can take up to 5 years for a tea tree/bush to be ready to pick after it is planted. Much of the work today is done by machine and they have mono rail to bring this machine up the mountain side. If it is too steep, people still have to carry it. In this area are also scattered rice fields, which were out to dry this time of year. Here is a photo. Surrounding these fields are fans that circulate the air to prevent freezing/frost...wow! See them in the photo below.

After the museum, we ate in the adjoining restaurant, with a view of Mt. Fuji in the distance. I was a bit hazy, so Fuji-san wasn't very clear. But you could see it, which made for a great view! This was a great meal, we ate raw tuna and some other fish I have no idea what it was, miso soup, vegetable tempura, dinner custard, soba noodles, rice, a red bean paste bun followed by green tea. Yes, I ate everything, including the raw tuna (but only tasted the white fish, it was real rubbery) I have photos to prove it! These photos are before, during, and after lunch.

After (Jeff, the fish is gone :) )

Enjoying the locally grown green tea - a customary after dinner drink here in Japan. For more on green tea go to http://www.maruichi-jp.com/e_index.htm

Then, if that wasn't enough to keep us busy, we traveled to observe the artifical turf. It was actually cool to see - I will have photos and explanations on the photo link.

After...yes, there is more in this day! We met with members of the local Parent Teacher Association after 30 minutes of introductions. Introductions are very formal and long here.
It appears that the parents have the same concerns as those in the U.S. and they expressed their jealousy over many of our automated grading systems (run by computers and internet). We told them there are good and bad sides to this ;) One question they asked that struck me is the belief that U.S. schools are violent. As was the case with most questions we answered, we always had to preface it with "each school in the U.S. is different from one another" - we represent 20 states from the U.S. in my group. There was discussion about "crammies" (look it up students :) ) and the role it plays today in the competitve school atomospehre. I have seen what testing has done to this culture...everything, and I mean every aspect of a student's life is dedicated to passing the exams to get into good schools. When, and if, you go to college, you go directly into your major area of study, there is no 2 years of general education classes in Japan (except for one private school - ICU, International Christian University).

One more thing before I got back to the hotel. We proceeded to the Obi Street/Suzubishi Kimono store. Shimada has an Obi festival and parade once every three years. (see http://east-asian-cultural-events.suite101.com/article.cfm/shimada_obi_festival ) It was held in town this year, just last weekend. The town has about 97,000 people and an additional 167,000 people came to the festival! The store owner is a long time and close friend to one of our guides, and we went to his famous Obi and Kimono store. He allowed us to try on wedding Kimonos, to which one female guide raised her eyebrows and gasped....evidently this is a very famous place and even for her this was incredibly special. So, I tried on an orange one, that is hand stitched. It was quite heavy, and it didn't include the Obi ( yes, students, find out what an Obi is). Oh, by the way, the wedding hairstyle, called the Mage, originated here in Shimada as well. Try to find a photo of a Mage. There was one obi, not for sale, but it was just beautiful - and made out of pure gold threading...the owner told us it was priceless. Anyway, here I am in my orange wedding Kimono. It costs about 100,000 American dollars, if I remember - it could be more. On the first floor were items for sale. Since I could not afford a kimono such as this, I opted for the fabric remants, which where more in my price range ;)

I decided after this point (our days start at 8 and go non-stop to about 6 pm), I was going to the local grocery store to eat dinner. Sushi to go is incredibly cheap here, and I am sure those of you who love it would like to know that a box of about 8 pieces, with rice is $3. I bought green tea ice cream, which has a much stronger flavor than in the U.S., a chocolate bar, and these potato things...not sure what it is called, and vitamin water. There was acerola water this morning, which I believe is cherry juice...it was tasty.

It is 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night and I need to get to bed. What time is it there? - students, I am 14 hours ahead of you.

Take care, kw