Ninja Village

Last weekend, 13 of us foreign doods piled into 3 cars and headed for Iga ninja village in Mie Prefecture. When we got there, we rented ninja outfits and some of us (me and Jim) bought extra swords and ninja stars. Even though JJ and Gareth were giddy and jumping all over the place early in the morning, it took the rest of us until we had those outfits on before we could fully act the part. Once we got started, though, it was on. Hiding behind traffic signs, pointing our swords at people in cars, stalking children and old women...good times.

We visited an old ninja house, and the guides pointed out hidden doors, stairwells, viewing areas and weapons storage. All in all, pretty neat. They had a museum with explanations of weapons, tactics, and outfits, and obviously had a gift shop for purchase of phone straps, stuffed animals, and other cutsey Japanese type stuff.

We caught the ninja show as well, where some guys put on a demonstration of the different weapons, blew darts, threw ninja stars, fought, made jokes, and basically entertained the hell out of us. Afterwards you could throw 5 ninja stars for 200 yen...so obviously most of us did this 2 or 3 times. They put a target on a tatami mat and leaned it against a wall...some folks couldn't even hit the tatami, with the stars flying over, under and to the side of this huge mat. That was pretty funny.

Afterwards we climbed the walls of Iga castle, took all kinds of pictures with strangers, and basically just screwed around before heading off to return our gear. One of the funnest days I've had in Japan period.

Teacher Movement/School Changes

For those unfamiliar with the way things work in terms of staff in Japanese schools, here's a primer based on what was sprung on me this year.

• School year ends in late March
• Teachers are selected (not sure on what basis, sometimes it seems random, sometimes it seems like they asked for a transfer) to change schools or even positions (a teacher becoming a vice-principal, that sort of thing)
• The teachers leaving are announced near the end of March
• On April 1, the new teachers move to their new schools
• Also on April 1, all teachers are officially assigned their jobs for the year

I have teachers transferring from one of my schools to another of my schools, most teachers changing grades, and an overall change of administration at my favorite school Youdo (principal and vice-principal both changing). My favorite vice-principal (Yoshimoto @ Yanase) retired, and I have yet to see what's happened at all at Ookura.

This combined with the changing of my base school from Ookura to Yanase, the switching of days from M, T from Yanase to Ookura and vise versa, and the requirement of the government this year for 5th and 6th graders to have English every week has me wondering how the year is going to turn out. Every school goes through it, and thousands of JETs have done the same thing, but it's always different when it happens to you.

Either way, all I can do is try to do my job. I never really get in tight with the teachers anyways, since I spend most of my free time playing with kids or doing personal crap in the office, and most of their conversations are either boring or beyond my Japanese comprehension. Mainly the latter.