R&R CONFERENCE BLOCK NEWS RESTAURANT REVIEW INTERVIEW SECTION AKITA-BEN
In this issue Meet Lynne ························································· 4 Meet your Block Leaders ···································· 5 Sandcraft Festival ················································ 6 Interview Section ················································ 8 Restaurant Review ·············································· 10 R&R Conference ·················································· 12 Block News ·························································· 13 Araya Onsen ························································ 14 Travel ··································································· 16 Akita-ben ····························································· 18 Lesson corner ······················································ 19 JALT······································································ 20
W
inter is finally gone! Now that the snow has melted, you can finally venture out of your apartment to look at the sakura! Spring is an exciting time filled with flowers and conferences! This issue will fill you in with information about the new PA and Block Leaders. It will also give you some upcoming spring events to look forward to! Check out the new Interview Section! We will be contacting and asking questions to some interesting people living around Akita. Get your eat on by reading up on delicious restaurants in the review article. This edition features Cosi Cosi, a pasta and pizza restaurant! -Your PAs
PA Info Randy Umetsu 080-4608-1073 randy.umetsu@gmail.com
Josh Drewry 090-2987-1984 jdrewry.akita@gmail.com
Stephanie Hupp 090-7565-5049 stephaniehupp11@gmail.com
Taylor Fustin 080-3322-3820 taylor.fustin@gmail.com
Lynne Francis 080-6026-8628 d.lynne.francis@gmail.com AJET Peer Support Group Everyday 8 p.m.–7 a.m. Toll free: 050-5534-5566
Meet our new PA! Lynne Francis Hello y'all! I'm Lynne, a Hoosier (that's a person from Indiana), currently living in Omagari as a SHS ALT A big reason I wanted to do the JET programme was to get involved with the greater JET community professionally and personally, so I'm very excited to be a PA this year. When I'm not writing something for AJET CONNECT magazine, I'm exploring wherever I can on my bike or by train, or trying to master slowcooking in Japan. I hope to give support to anyone who asks. Whether you need advice, someone to see a movie with, or just chat, I'm here for you!
David Ranzini Jeffrey Lowther
2014 BLOCK LEADERS Colin Flinn
Sean Corrigan
Alex Childs
Connie Look
T
he Sandcraft Festival will be
held the weekend of July 26th and 27th on Kamayahama beach in Mitanecho. Every year thousands come to join this festival, and to enjoy the giant works of sand art. There will be many events going on throughout the weekend including sand sculpture displays from professional artists, as well as local residents and students alike. Come and enjoy the food, live music, Kamayahama beach which was ranked the best beach in Tohoku, a swim suit competition, and of course the great sandcraft.
Save the dates! Saturday July 26th, and Sunday July 27th 2014 for Sandcraft in Mitane-cho.
Akita Northern Happinets Interview with Chas McFarland 1. Where are you from? I was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up in a small town in Southern Illinois called Lovington. 2. What are your hobbies? Outside of basketball I enjoy doing anything outdoors. I love to shoot guns and go hog hunting during the summers. During the winter months when I’m in the states I like to go to our hunting ranch with my family and go hunting. 3. What do you like and dislike about living in Akita/Japan? Akita wasn’t a bad city to live in. I enjoyed the people here and our fans made the stay a lot easier on us. The biggest thing I didn’t like was how the team treated all of the import players like babies, and acted like we couldn’t do anything on our own. 4. What is your best memory in Japan? My best memory in Japan would have to be the playoff game when we played at Iwate and our fans took over their gym. It was a really special feeling looking up into the stands and seeing all the pink with hardly any red 5. What are your plans for the future? I plan to go to Europe or Korea next year to continue my basketball career.
Cosi Cosi コジコジ
by Taylor Fustin
Cosi Cosi is a delightfully delicious pizza restaurant located in Akita City and Yokote. They serve both pizza and pasta. Swing by for their lunch special which includes pizza or pasta, a small salad, and a drink for anywhere between 1000-1500 yen! The food is great, but a downside is that if you have a big appetite, then the lunch set may not fill you up. If you go for dinner, there is also a seating charge, similar to an izakaya.
Price: 3/4
Food: 3/4
Service: 4/4
If you are feeling real hungry, then get the pizza lasagna (ピッツァラザニァ). This is the exact same thing as a calzone. It is much more filling than their regular pizzas.
Pizza Lasagna
Try some of their less conventional pizzas, like the shrimp and mushroom pizza. Beware though, some of their pizzas may be lacking in the cheese department!
Shrimp & Mushroom Pizza
Get crazy with the Margerita Pizza, the most popular lunch item. For 1000 yen + tax you get a salad, drink, and pizza.
Margerita Pizza
Locations Yokote:秋田県横手市十文字町西上45-3 Akita City:秋田県 秋田市高陽青柳町1-50 スクエアビル
１Ｆ
R&R Conference Date: Friday, June 6 Location: Prefectural Education Center, Tenno Time: Check in 9:30 Closing Ceremony: 16:45 Dress Code: Cool Biz Click for details
7/26-27 Mitane Sandcraft Festival
Central Block
5/31 - Hafu movie screening - 2:00 PM
www.aiahome.or.jp/news/detail.html?serial_id=1247&lng=en
South Block 8/23 Omagari National Fireworks Competition
Block News
Block News
North Block
Please send any block news you’d like to share to Taylor.Fustin@gmail.com
新屋温泉 Araya Onsen By Owen Cunningham Hidden in the suburbs of Akita City lays one of the more rustic onsen gems in the prefecture. It resides in an area which is quite difficult to find. Weird junctions make having a pin (see end of article) on your phone almost a necessity. When you finally arrive there, you would be forgiven for not recognizing the building as an onsen! But rest assured, as soon as you enter the front door you know you are in for an amazing treat. The beautiful scent of what seems like hinoki, or Japanese cypress, a wood commonly used in wooden baths, will tickle your nostrils, and stimulate every last olfactory receptor in your nasal passage. The building is, however, made entirely from hiba. Hiba (Thujopsis dolabrata) is a type of cypress tree. It is more durable and has a slightly more yellow appearance than hinoki. It has a similar fragrance, though richer and more vibrant. This is due to hiba having a high concentration of hinokitiol, an organic chemical which is known for its aromatic qualities. Hinoki, on the other hand, has very little hinokitiol. As trees, both hinoki and hiba look almost identical. The hiba trees used in the making of this building all came from the mountains in Fujisato, and are between 200~250 years old!
The main bathing room is also completely made from hiba; walls, roof, floors and of course baths! The floor is made from slatted pieces of hiba and care is advised when walking on them, as they can be sloppy at times. There are 3 baths, 2 of which are hot and are 100% pure onsen water. The largest bath is square and has water that is a comfortable temperature for most people (probably 39 or 40°C). This bath can accommodate about 10 or 12 people. The second bath is smaller and rectangular in shape. It fits 4 people, and has hotter water (maybe 42 or 43°C). You can lay down with your head rested on one side and your feet resting on the other. When your body heats up too much you can move on to the next bath. The third bath is not onsen water, but also isn’t tap water either. It is from a groundwater source that doesn’t qualify as an onsen, but has the same slightly cloudy appearance as the onsen water in the two baths that accompany it. This bath is nice and cold, but not unbearable. It is small, and only fits one person at a time. The nice thing about this bath is that there isn’t a tap that customers can turn on or off, but when the water level drops (after the last person got out) it refills quickly, and overflows just a little, which clears out any floating hairs etc. Another positive with this onsen is that there are plenty of benches to sit on and cool down, or warm up, depending on which bath you have just gotten out of. Personally I love working my way from the warm to the hot bath, then into the cold for a good 5 minutes, and then sitting out of the water for 5 or 10 minutes relaxing, before repeating the process all over again! There is no sauna or rotemburo (outdoor bath), which I usually put down as a minus. But with the hot and cold bath and the amazing aroma everywhere in this establishment it totally makes up for it. The quality of the source water is top quality. Every minute 260 liters of water gush up from below the ground at a temperature of 41.5°C. It has a slightly alkaline pH of 7.6, and contains one of the highest levels (37.6mg) of iodide ion (ヨウ素イオン) in all of Japan. High levels of sodium and chloride ions also make the water salty. This onsen is particularly recommended for cuts, burns, skin conditions, people with a weak constitution, and chronic female diseases.
Link to map: https://www.google.com/maps/ place/福祉健康新屋温泉/ @39.682791,140.089313,17z/ data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!
Ishigaki, Okinawa By Randy Umetsu
I
am a fourth-generation Japanese-American with roots in Okinawa. While my family has lost all contact with relatives in Okinawa over the past one-hundred or so years, I had been looking to visit my ancestral homeland for quite some time. I finally made the journey to Okinawa with my friend right before the Golden Week holiday for a total of five days. From Naha airport, our flight took another hour or so to reach Ishigakijima, our final destination. The warm weather coupled with some familiar flavors, such as sata andagi (Okinawan donuts) at every convenience store, made me feel as though I were back home in Hawaii. For a second I wondered why my ancestors ever left this paradise of beautiful ocean water, warm weather and tropical landscape; then I remembered they emigrated to Hawaii, haha. During the trip, we visited an underground cavern, took a ferry to another island for a tour on a water buffalo, rode on a glassbottom boat, took drives around the island, watched an eisa (Okinawan dance) show, visited several beaches, and even got to meet three of the four JETs living on the island. This probably goes without saying if you know me, but the food was by far the most memorable in my mind. I racked up about five bowls of soki soba and 30+ andagi during the five-day trip. If I had a choice of living anywhere in Japan, Okinawa would rank number one on my list. For those looking to travel to Ishigakijima, my entire travel pack cost 57,000 yen and included a roundtrip flight from Haneda Airport, a rental car, hotel and the boat tour. Budget another 10,000 yen if you plan on getting the rental car insurance.
石垣島
Akita-ben Corner What is Akita-ben? Akita-ben, literally translating to “Akita dialect,” is a sub-dialect of the Tohoku dialect umbrella (often called Zuzu-ben). For most of us, learning Japanese is hard enough as it is. Throw Akita-ben into the mix and we have a nearly unintelligible language. (It is often accompanied by subtitles in national broadcasts). But not to fear! Give these Akita-ben phrases a try and you will be conversing with the local obaachan and ojiichan in no time (WARNING: Not for use in formal situations)! In every new issue of The Akitan, we will be featuring a new Akitaben word or phrase.
まめでらが？ We’ve all had someone ask us or have asked ourselves: げんき（元気）ですか？ But now you can fit in with all those elderly men at the bar by saying まめ でらが？ instead. Try it out next time you’re having a conversation!
Example: テイラー：ランディー、まめでらが？ ランディー：いや、カレーたべすぎた。 Translation: Taylor: Randy, are you doing well? Randy: No, I ate to much curry.
SO MUC H CURR Y!!!!
Katakana Spelling Students often have issues spelling. Sometimes this is a result of the emphasis placed on using katakana to write English. A good way to start breaking down this katakana spelling problem is to have students translate katakana words into English. It can help combat the instinct to load up their English words with vowels. This can be played as a game or could be used as a serious class activity. There are numerous ways to employ this idea.
Take time to think about your class size and lesson
objectives before creating an activity.
Example: Have students break into groups and work to see who can correctly translate a list of katakana English words. サラダ —> salad ナイフ ——> knife ライス ——> rice カレー ——> curry
Lesson Corn
er
Akita JALT
A
re you interested in learning more about language teaching? Would you like to connect with other language teachers around Akita or maybe Japan? If so, then you may be interested in The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
JALT is a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of language teaching and learning both within Japan and internationally. The Akita JALT chapter meets monthly and invites you to check out the workshops. You will find a schedule for workshops for the year on their website.
There is a charge of 500 yen for all non-members (It used to be 1,000 yen, but they lowered it for
us!) JALT members and students are free. Scheduled meetings are at JOIN US in Akita City.
NOTE: The Akita JALT community would love to learn more about the JET Programme in Akita and team teaching. If you are interested in presenting something, please contact Wayne Malcom: wamalcom@gmail.com
We hope that you found this newsletter useful. If you have any suggestions to make The Akitan better, please do not hesitate to contact us. Lastly, submissions from you will make this work-related newsletter all the more interesting. So, if you have lesson activities, work-related essays, job postings, news articles, photos, etc., please submit them to one of the PAs. As always, thanks for reading!
Life After the BOE by David Namisato
Good luck returning JETs!
We are looking for great photos and articles by you! Please send anything you would like to contribute to one of the PAs and help make The Akitan even better!
Created by your PAs Design and layout : Randy Umetsu and Taylor Fustin Contributors: Randy Umetsu Jeff Lowther Lynne Francis Brianna Hom Owen Cunningham Jon Stimmer
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