Most of the tags that people throw up around the city are ugly and uninspired, but if you look hard enough and explore the less frequented areas you can find some really good stuff. I’ll be posting pictures of the better works here, so check back once in a while if you’re interested.
I never noticed it before, but the Sky Building is really just a huge tori.
Last year, Huw and I went on a hike through the mountains of Kobe, starting from Ashiyagawa and ending in Shukugawa. Along the way, we saw many signs with wild boars on them, but saw no real wildlife to speak of, only other hikers. This sign stands right in front of the Hankyu train station, warning the people of Ashiya about the dangers of wild boars that sometimes come down from the hills to get run over by BMWs and Mercedes Benzes. If you’re going to get run over, Ashiya is definitely the place to do it!
The little kid yells “Dame!” at her dad as he gets attacked as a result of feeding the boar. Ah, this brings back so many colorful childhood memories, notably the one where my dad chased after a female black bear and her cubs in order to snap a picture. I’m just disappointed that he didn’t get the picture…
Signs warning hikers against feeding or playing with the boars were more common than one might expect. Personally, if I saw a boar I wouldn’t want any part of it after watching Old Yeller but I guess not that many people have seen what happens when you screw with a boar. You either get gored and end up being shot by your best friend, or you kill the boar, eat it, put its head on a stick and worship it as the God of the island. And then you kill Piggy and use his glasses to make fire.
This is a bit late/early depending on how you look at it, but I wanted to say that I’m really happy for you guys. It seems as if you two have been married for over a decade already to me, so it’s fitting after waiting so long that you should get married with such a massive undertaking. Hopefully there will be many more pictures to post later.
This is a really strange legacy to leave behind, a malignant tumor that won’t die.
A big green 0 was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes this morning. Within 10 minutes I was to the door. Snow blasted my face, and I ran through the blizzard, taking the time to snap a few pictures on my cell phone:
Osho, in Higashi Juso, is starting to accumulate a mantle of snow.
A shot of Juso Eki between the Eastern Mr. Donut and the entrance to Hankyu railway station
The train tracks and the area around the Yodogawa quickly accumulated a layer of snow. I wonder how the insulation of the residences of the homeless population, who live in the shanty town along the length of the Yodogawa river, compares to the average Japanese apartment.
I usually ride on the first car from track number 6 on my way to Osaka. This morning was the first time I remember being able to hear the conductor talking on his radio. Though muffled through the barrier that separates the cockpit from the cabin, I was able to make out the words ?concerned?, ?dangerous?, and ?please check?. A maintenance crew quickly entered the locomotive, as the passengers disembarked.
I?m glad nothing went wrong. Riding in the first car is the most dangerous place in a train to be in case of an accident. After the train crash on the JR line in Amagasaki, I remember reading in The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel that if you know that a crash is imminent, it is a good idea to get to the rear of the train. Most of the casualties in Amagasaki were riding in the first two cars. Well, I didn?t start running to the back of the train when I heard the conductor?s concerned exchange on the radio. It would have been impossible to maneuver my way through, as all of the cars were packed like sardine tins.
I remember watching his stand up two Christmases ago, and hurting from laughing so hard. For whatever reason, it’s too bad that he didn’t finish the 3rd season. Whether it has any truth to it or not, this is worth reading.
I’ve been using this game in my classes since I first started teaching English close to three years ago. Over time, I have modded it into its present version.
Typhoon is a great game to use when you want to review materials from previous lessons, but the traditional way of writing points up on the board and covering them up with individual sheets of paper is time consuming and laborious.
I first got around this problem by making my own deck of customized Typhoon cards with point values and special cards, which worked really well. However, I have come up with a way that anyone can play this game with a standard deck of playing cards.
First, divide the class into 3 or more teams. Any student may raise their hand after you ask a question, but a different student must answer every time. The fastest team to raise their hands gets to answer the question. I usually allow the team to help each other if they don?t know the answer.
If a student gives a correct answer, they pick a card from the deck. Here are the values for the cards:
Point Cards:
*Cards 2-10 are worth their number in points
*Aces ? Diamonds, Clubs, and Hearts are worth 30 points. The Spade is worth 100.
Typhoon Cards:
*Jacks ? They reduce the points of the teams who draws it to 0
*Queens ? If a team draws a Queen, they choose a team and that team?s points are reduced to zero. A team can pick themselves as the target (as teams can accrue negative points).
*Kings ? This card is Armageddon. All points are reduced to zero.
*Joker ? After the Joker comes into play, all point values from this point for everybody become negative points. For example, after the Joker is pulled, the 10 card would subtract 10 points from the total points of the team who draws it.
If the second Joker is drawn, scoring returns to normal.
I used to put the cards up on the board as a grid, and had vocabulary words set up on the x and y axis so that the students would have to use that week?s vocabulary in order to get in some extra practice:
| Alpha | Beta | Niner | Delta | |
| Tourettes | x | x | x | x |
| Arachibutyrophobia | x | x | x | x |
| Narcolepsy | x | x | x | x |
| A.D.D. | x | x | x | x |
| Necrophilia | x | x | x | x |
| Pica | x | x | x | x |
(“x” denotes a card, face down. In the case of a deck of 54 cards, I would probably set up the board in a 6 x 9 grid.)
But for the sake of speed, I now just shuffle the deck and let the students pick one out. The team with the most points at the end wins.
This game can be used repeatedly with the same class. The key is to not over use it, and to keep the durations shorter, rather than longer, otherwise they may tire of it prematurely.
This is a pretty cool trick using a plant leaf as a photographic medium.
