Hanshin Tigers Baseball Game

     Last week Mr. Tanaka one of Fumiko's English students, treated us to a Hanshin Tigers Baseball game at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka.  Apparently the Tigers are a little like the Toronto Maple Leafs, even when they are having a losing season, which they are this year, plenty of fans turn out. In August they don't use Koshien Stadium their real home, as it is being used for high school tournaments.  Baseball is huge here!


     Mr. Tanaka picked us up in Ikoma City and drove us to Osaka.  As we got close to the downtown, I could see other parts of Osaka that I had visited before - Osaka Castle and the big Japan Public Television building (like our CBC).  Parts of the city are right out of the Jetsons.  Raised highways, monorails, trains, subways, hidden ancient gardens, little shrines, cultured trees, crazy lights, and long narrow covered street malls.  So exciting.

 

We didn't park here - Over $10.00 each 25 minutes!

 

 

There was a band for each team. 

It's a real family outing.

 

We parked close to the stadium and found our seats - 11th row up from the field. By the way, if you walk in with a water or pop bottle from outside the stadium, the staff KINDLY pour it into a big sturdy paper cup for you instead of throwing it out!  Century 21 was doing a promo and all women got a gift bag with a fan, and a Hanshin Tigers/Century 21 seat cushion.  Next we got food and drinks.  I chose (I hate to say it) a KFC sandwich over the octopus dumplings that Fumiko and Mr. Tanaka chose.  Then I ordered an ice cold Asahi Dry draft from a beer-seller.  They wear a soft keg back-pack and have a gun-spout they pour into your cup.  They go down on their knees on the stadium step so as not to stand in the fans' way as they pour your drink.  And no tipping.

Everyone chants and sings and bangs plastic bats together for the whole game. To prepare for the seventh inning stretch, you have to blow up an enormously long balloon with a plastic whistle/mouthpiece. Then everyone lets them go at once.  They whistle and whirl around the stadium.  Awesome fun.

Unfortunately, the Tigers lost to the Dragons. 

Kids’ Yoga

Another of my duties here is to lead some yoga with families, preschoolers, and youth.  This has been so rewarding so far.  I am once again thankful for my awesome Rainbow Kids Training from Amanda McFayden.  This is bringing joy around the world.  So far, we’ve done two workshops in Osaka; one with mothers and preschoolers at the YWCA, and one with youth at Children’s Views and Voices.  For an un-touchy-feely culture (bows instead of hugs), they all really enjoyed the positive touch built into the Rainbow Kids-style yoga.  

I am the driver; he is the steering wheel!

Pendulum in a giant clock!

A forest of trees, all supporting each other.

Bus ride!

Coming out of a tunnel of Downward Dog Grown-ups!

Singing bowl on the belly is a new experience. After this, Mom and her twins relaxed in Savasana together. Ahhh.

Being driven like a car and flying like an airplane are two big favourites with the little ones.

The youth loved some of the more challenging partner poses. 

 Namaste!

     More on Japan.  Fumiko has another secret weapon in her language lessons – her parents-in-law.  Mr. and Mrs. Fujikawa live near Fumiko’s school and have a huge garden and a big workshop, as Mr. Fujikawa is a retired 6^th generation Japanese carpenter.  They welcome Fumiko and her students for lots of special hands-on activities: planting, harvesting, creating, and even finding crayfish and frogs.  They remind me of my grandparents - so knowledgeable and wanting to share old, important knowledge with the new generation.

On my first visit to their home this year, we made wooden key-holder plaques, and then had traditional-style Japanese noodles. 

      The noodle eating involves guests sitting alongside a long bamboo trough and trying to catch the noodles with chopsticks (ohashi).  Luckily for me, my ohashi skills have improved tremendously.  In previous visits, I would have gone hungry.  Fumiko’s students got to learn English through the crafts and then again while we eat.  Research tells us that more parts of the brain light up when doing something,  the deeper the learning during these types of activities.  Sitting still, and just listening does not light up much of a brain.  Even my old jet-lagged brain learned some of the colours I used to paint and some vocabulary around our meal.  

      The other wonderful thing about the Fujikawas is that they take me for a vigorous walk after the sun goes down.  Mr. Fujikawa finds frogs for me along the rice paddies, exotic (to me) fruit in trees, and huge carp in the river. Mrs. Fujikawa  only speaks Japanese but I can understand her all the same. We see stars, the moon, and bats.  We smell grass, exhaust, night flowers, smoke, and laundry.  We use sign language and seem to understand each other, through the warm, sweet night air. 

     I am here in Ikoma City, near Osaka, working and playing with Fumiko Fujikawa, amazing English teacher and ECE.  Fumiko has taken the learning through play philosophy and adapted it fit her F.L.A.T. English School www.flat-ed.com curriculum for adults as well as children.  F.L.A.T. stands for Fun to Learn And Teach. It has a very positive meaning in Japanese.  Cleverly, it also stands for Fumiko, Lynn, and Terry; three friends and Early Childhood Educators.  The late Lynn Caruso was Fumiko’s professor at Seneca College in Toronto, her mentor, inspiration, and extremely close friend.  We are still mourning the loss of Lynn to cancer just a few short months ago.  While I am here, we are remembering Lynn a lot. People here who met her on her previous trips to Japan are missing her and still giving their condolences.  But, in the way Lynn would want, we are also having a lot of fun.

 The gorgeous and brilliant, Fumiko!

Lynn, Fumiko, and Terry,  tired and happy in Japan 2010

     While I am here my first duty is to be a model native English speaker.  This means I must remember to speak slowly, clearly, avoid slangy jargon, and odd Canadian expressions.  No “Haliburton Mumble”, that a friend says I slip into sometimes.   My second duty is to assist with the children’s classes and special activities that Fumiko has arranged.  It is fun to learn English when all of your senses are engaged, as in the water balloons that we played with.  It took me about 20 minutes to fill them all and less than five to burst them all, but what fun vocabulary! Burst! Explode! Break! Wet! Blue, red, green, pink, yellow!  Fun! Wow! Oops! Roll, throw, catch, bounce! 

It took 20 minutes to fill the balloons.  My job, nice and cool considering it gets to about 37 degrees!

 And less than 5 minutes to break them!

 

     Fumiko incorporates so much art into her work.  The children are so engrossed in the engaging activities they don’t realize how much English they are learning.  No drills.  Their parents are impressed with the outcomes.   “Water balloon!”  “I am painting my dinosaur!”  The children learn in the natural way, without having to conjugate verbs.  

 More updates very soon.

For 10 days this July, 9 Jamaican ECE's will be touring 11 early learning and care environments in Toronto Peel Region and York Region.  Students Crossing Border alumni will be hosting them in their homes, their centres, and their hearts.  We will also get a chance to hear about the Jamaican early childhood experience.  Mr. Junior Rowe and Mrs. Christine Stennett are leading the group.  We will also visit Family Day Care child care and Ontario Early Years sites.  The Oak Ridges Ontario Early Years outreach locations are also on the itinerary.  The group will also visit the Children's Treatment Network in Oak Ridges, and the lab schools of Humber and Seneca Colleges. 

And of course. We will be taking the group to Niagara Falls!  Back to the preparations . . .