Student Art

This piece is appropriately titled "Battle of the Cats"

I'm thinking (hoping) this is an illustration from a story that the 6th graders are reading and not a plea for help.  Either way I thought it  had a strong message.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm not sure why her eyes are two completely different sizes. This was just for fun, its no one I know.

Fashion girls

I had a great time with my mom while she was here. She's home safe and sound and I'm getting on with my regular schedule.


Some fashion sketches from JJ, Japan fashion magazine. These were fun to do. I just wanted to get the major colors and shapes in, nothing fancy.

Annabelles Days

My mom Annabelle is here visiting and she's got a little blog going of her time here. I thought it would be fun for people to see different pictures and a different perspective.

http://annabellesdays.blogspot.com/

School lunch

I had to laugh when I read the description of the school lunch on Friday.
"Colorful bean stew in ketchup sauce, roll of bread, chewy chewy salad, mayonnaise and whole milk." What? Despite the strangeness of description it tasted really good.

Isso Sports Festival

This weekend I went to the Isso Junior High annual sports festival. Unfortunately it was pouring rain almost the whole time and it ended early. It was fun to watch the little kids slip in the mud though.

The front of the main building with a few spectators watching the race.

Sarah Palin Disney Movie

This is awesome for so many reasons.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The House

This house is a bit of a breakthrough for me. I've been practicing painting buildings for awhile now but with dismal results. I had a bit of an epiphany a few days back that eventually led to this and hopefully more like it in the future.

Sketch painting I worked on while I was taking a break from doing the house. Hands are tough, looks like I'll have to work on that.

Autumn, Wai Wai

I often run into students at the store. Sometimes they hide behind the aisles and peek out at me and some run up and shout "Hello" before running off again. I'm hiding tempura behind my back.

Autumn is officially here so I thought I'd redo my blog title once again. I hope everyone likes it.

The Calm

Today we had a typhoon come over the island and just before it got dark there was a calm and the sky turned a brilliant orange red. This photo wasn't altered in any way. I took it with white balance set to cloudy.

Isso Point

Dragon Boat Races

Last Saturday the local offices got together and raced "dragon boats" in the nearby river.

We didn't win any of the races but we had a good time. We had eight oarsmen, someone on rudder and person in the front who kept the beat with a taiko drum.

This is the new ALT, Jessica, and her boyfriend Ken who came to visit her last week.

We had a barbecue after the race. The man waving in the picture above is Fukumoto sensei, my boss. Toward the end of the day there was a raffle and I won the second to last (and best) prize, a compact stereo system and speakers. The final prize was a mini freezer.

Misa Kitty

This is the newest kitty to come around the neighborhood. She showed up at my door last Sunday. She was really scared of people when I first found her. I was afraid she would starve so after a few days I started giving her a little food. Well, you can guess what happened next.



Technically she's still homeless. This is the box she lives in. I just wanted to keep her alive but it seems that I've adopted my second stray cat.

Max at Isso Junior High

My little brother Max is on Yakushima visiting me for about a month. The first few days he was here I brought him to school with me so that he and the students could do a bit of a cultural exchange since they are more or less the same age. After Max gave a self introduction each student stood up and told Max about themselves and then asked one question.

During another period we made origami and played Japanese cat's cradle. The English teacher, Nakao Sensei, is on the far right.
Max had school lunch in the classroom with the students. The day before we had "make your own" sushi rolls but this day it was curry and naan. The students all adored Max and had a great time talking and playing with him. For the last few periods Max and the students all played hide and seek. Yesterday was the last day of school, summer vacation is finally here.

Brush work

Some practice paintings.

Tanegashima

A few weeks ago Brittany and I went to a nearby island, Tanegashima, for the weekend to see our friends. One of the coolest things we saw was Japan's main rocket launch center. They put satellites into orbit a few times a year. If I get a chance I really want to go see a launch.

Kitty's getting bigger. He's running amok and attacking everything in sight.

Monday Night Sketch

I haven't been drawing too much lately, aside from some random sketching on the back of my daily class schedules (the schedule scanned through). I helped the gardener at school paint some bulletin boards today and I think that got me in the mood to throw some color on these.

Rainy days

It's the rainy season so I'm getting lots of bugs around the house again. This is a kind of spider I hadn't seen before. I got a pretty good macro shot, you can click on zoom.
This bug had the size and appearance of a small lizard.

Yakushima Home for Infirm Cats

This is Shogun. It's hard to say if he likes being held like this.


Brittany heard some stray kittens mewing near her house so she decided to adopt one. It turned out that the kitten was only a couple weeks old and needed intensive care. Once we determined that it wasn't eating and that we couldn't care for it properly we brought it to the local vet who gave him food via tube.

After a few days at the vet clinic we got him back along with 2 special kitten foods, a nursing bottle, two different kinds of eye medication and kitty de-worming pills. (All medicine, food, care, and 3 nights stay cost only 70 dollars). He looked pretty sickly still when we got him back but he's doing a lot better now.

I'll take some new photos to show how much healthier he looks already. He's eating regularly and off his medication. The only thing missing is a name. Any ideas out there?

Good Times

Well, Cindy flew out Monday morning and arrived home safe... Monday morning. We had a really great time and managed to do a lot in a week and a half.

This is SunaMushi. A hot spring under this sandy ocean beach keeps the sand piping hot just under the surface. You lay in a shallow hole and are covered in sand. You're only supposed to stay under for 10 minutes, more than that and it gets too hot and painful for most people. Beside Cindy is her friend Keiko chan.

The Kamada family took us to lunch at a famous local restaurant. If you see Cindy ask her how it worked.

Melons. If you zoom and look closely you can see the prices. The least expensive being 5250 Yen, the most desirable being 16800 Yen. To figure out the dollar amount just move the decimal left two places.
There are normally prices melons in Japan but these are grown with perfectly homogeneous patterns and are given as gifts to show status.

The many faces of Yakushima

Cindy and I sat here for a long time watching the monkeys and deer.
Click to enlarge.


This is our local supermarket. It's called Wai Wai Land, wai wai being the Japanese for a child's yell of delight, similar to Yay yay. Happy Shopping!

Cindy and Kagoshima

Please ignore that stupid little rating bar, I can't get rid of it.

River Unknown

I walked up the nearby river today and, for the first time, brought my camera with me. I always come across quite a few strange things by the river. Today I hiked up to the bamboo beach, through the old gypsy camps in the forest, past the coelophysis grove and onto Kaizokujima, an island known, by me, to be a haven for monkey poachers.


The Bamboo Forest. If the crisscrossing paths show evidence of the Gypsy's home base, the camp size clearings are undeniable proof.


Directly opposite is the Coelophysis Grove. To say that there aren't dinosaurs in this cretaceous clearing would be ludicrous, but to turn your back on it would be fatal.


This is the view that the shikaru have of you while you're walking by on the beach. There are some swimming just below the surface on the far side of the river, you may be able to make out their shapes. Trust me, you don't want to get any closer than I was when I got this shot.



As I was returning home I came across this shredded bird carcass. I thought that maybe I hadn't noticed it earlier but then I observed the untrampled feathers over my footprints from earlier. Something had made short work of this bird. Whats more, small bird prints circled the area while no predator prints could be found anywhere. The monkeys? Coelophysis? shikaru? Another river mystery.

Bike safety

My spring vacation consisted of two weeks sitting behind my desk at the office. I'm so glad to be back in the classroom teaching again. Two new English teachers transfered to Yakushima this year, both are really nice, though one is so shy I haven't been able to get but a few words out of her.
A few days ago the police came to the Junior High school and showed us the equivalent of a red asphalt video but for bicycles. It was all done with dummies on bikes being rear-ended and side-swiped at 20 and then 40kph. I thought the advice they gave was pretty good.

She's Back!

My friend Luke told me he wanted to start a comic and sent me this idea (the words are his). There isn't actually a story but I thought it at least deserved an illustration.
I actually don't know anything about Jane Fonda (big surprise right)

The Goodbye Party

It's the end of the Japanese school and work year and many of the teachers and government workers are transferring to the mainland. My boss, Kamada Sensei, is one of the people transferring so I went to the ferry terminal to see him off. It turns out that there is a big get together every year for all the teachers leaving. Students and cooworkers made signs, sang songs and yelled bonzai.
At the end the passengers threw down rolls of paper tape that everyone held onto until they were torn in two.
Kamada Sensei was a great guy, I'm planning on visiting him next time I go to Kagoshima.