November was a fairly quiet month until the last week or so. At that time I took my first trip outside of Nagano Prefecture (that wasn't to Tokyo). I went with the junior high teachers to Niigata prefecture, the next prefecture to the north. The best part of the trip was probably the bus ride, because we got to talk and have fun, but I also enjoyed the geology museum. We ate an enormous amount of crab (Niigata is famous for it) while looking over the sea of Japan. We also went to an aquarium and a sake factory. Souvenirs are very important in Japanese culture, but I didn't find anything particularly interesting except crab cola. (It says on the bottle, "made with crab broth!") So I bought a couple of bottles of that and gave it to a teacher at another school who is a good friend, and we shared it. It actually tasted better than normal cola to me.
In the last month of November it started getting below freezing most nights. One day at the junior high school we noticed some snow monkeys climbing on the roof of the school. After trying to scare them away by throwing sticks at them, we had to do a quick check of the windows and floors to make sure that none of them had managed to get into the school. Snow monkeys are, for some reason, famous in Nagano prefecture. Many tourists go into the mountains to watch the snow monkeys bathe in hot springs. Personally, I don't understand the appeal, and haven't done it myself.
I don't have a lot of work to do at the Junior high school, so occasionally I am able to attend classes. One week I helped the students come up with dances that they will perform. I've attended a few Japanese classes, one of which focused on a famous set of Japanese poems. These poems are used to play a game, and I have watched a Japanese TV series about people who play this game. It's one of my favorite TV shows, so I was thrilled to be able to actually participate in the game in class. Now the students are doing kendo (Japanese version of fencing, kind of) in PE class, so I was invited to participate when I have a free period. I learned how to hold and swing the sword.
Last Sunday I went to Nagano City to take the Japanese language proficiency test level 1. This is supposedly the most difficult Japanese test geared towards foreigners, so I really didn't expect to do very well. I have managed to learn at least one word for each of the 2200 Chinese characters in normal use in Japanese, but I've really neglected my reading for the past six months. On the train to the test, I knew that I should study some more, but I got bored and started reading a young adult novella in Japanese. I happened across an interesting word, and I circled and starred it. The word was an entire question on the test! Anyway, the test was easier than I expected, and though I still don't have high hopes of passing, I think I might have a chance. Also, I now know a few of my weakpoints--mainly vocabulary used in the workplace.
So far I have nothing special planned for the month of December. I work on Christmas Day, and Boxing Day is my last workday until January 9th or so. I'll try to post again if something interesting happens before January, though.
