As you know, last month I went to Tokyo to my friend’s wedding ceremony. After that I wanted to surprise her with a wedding painting… but it took me too long to finish, so now it’s turned into a Christmas present. But anyway, now that it’s done, I can post it here too, I guess.

I think I’m getting the hang of painting in this style a lot more now… as well as getting a lot more used to digital painting. The previous 2 pieces I did — the Mikuni Ryokan and Nagoya Castle — looked okay, but while I was studying for and painting this one I noticed a lot of ways I can improve. So that’s good! Hopefully it will show in future images…

Taken from Snopes:

During World War I, in the winter of 1914, on the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever.

All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the “no man’s land” between them, came songs from the British and French troops. Incredibly, many of the Germans, who had worked in England before the war, were able to speak good enough English to propose a “Christmas” truce.

The British and French troops, all along the miles of trenches, accepted. In a few places, allied troops fired at the Germans as they climbed out of their trenches. But the Germans were persistent and Christmas would be celebrated even under the threat of impending death.

According to Stanley Weintraub, who wrote about this event in his book, Silent Night, “signboards arose up and down the trenches in a variety of shapes. They were usually in English, or – from the Germans – in fractured English. Rightly, the Germans assumed that the other side could not read traditional gothic lettering, and that few English understood spoken German. ‘YOU NO FIGHT, WE NO FIGHT’ was the most frequently employed German message. Some British units improvised ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ banners and waited for a response. More placards on both sides popped up.”

A spontaneous truce resulted. Soldiers left their trenches, meeting in the middle to shake hands. The first order of business was to bury the dead who had been previously unreachable because of the conflict. Then, they exchanged gifts. Chocolate cake, cognac, postcards, newspapers, tobacco. In a few places, along the trenches, soldiers exchanged rifles for soccer balls and began to play games.

It didn’t last forever. In fact, some of the generals didn’t like it at all and commanded their troops to resume shooting at each other. After all, they were in a war. Soldiers eventually did resume shooting at each other. But only after, in a number of cases, a few days of wasting rounds of ammunition shooting at stars in the sky instead of soldiers in the opposing army across the field.

For a few precious moments there was peace on earth good will toward men.

What Song Is This?

This reminds me a lot of when I was a kid and I made a whole ton of recordings similar to this, and told people I was studying Russian. If only I had nurtured that insanity better… I could be rich now.

Cruel Video Game

I haven’t posted YouTube videos on my blog yet, but after seeing this one, I decided I had to… this is just too funny! Anyone who’s lost their temper from playing Mario too sloppily and dying easily has felt this pain… only this one is just masochistic.

Today is Festivus! Or at least, it is in the US. My Festivus was yesterday, as I am living in the future… So get out your aluminum poles and air your grievances!

That also means that today (tomorrow for the US) is my birthday! Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday! \(^o^)/ So I am 25 now (or at least in 12 hours, when it’s the 24th in the US, I will be), which is a special age for me because I never planned to live to 25. When I was little, I always thought it would be a shame to die before you were ready, so I decided that I would plan to die before I turned 25; that way, if I should live past 25, each day is essentially bonus time! So I suppose there’s still 12 hours left for me to die and it would be a shame… but once I break 25, I’ll have exceeded my expectations! (Moral: set the bar really low, and you’ll never be disappointed.)

So to celebrate Christmas, we had a party up at Aeon Fukui, which meant of course that I would be staying out all night long, as the last train home is at 11:02. The party was good fun. I had bought a reindeer suit this week to wear for the party (I’ve decided that I will only ever go to Aeon Fukui in some kind of costume), and I was pretty much the only person walking around the city and on the train wearing any sort of costume… but as usual it’s nice to know I’m making people smile or laugh just by being nearby.

I had forgotten that we had to bring a 500 yen gift to the party though, so during my break I snuck off to Daiso and bought 5 100 yen gifts… My manager and other teachers were scolding me for getting a present at Daiso, but come on! It’s 500 yen! And I thought I put together a very nice art set for whomever got it… Actually once they saw my gift they thought it was quite nice, and in the end it turned out ok… the gift I received was a box of old cookies and a half-used bottle of Febreeze wrapped up in a dirty trash bag… Kind of the style of gift I expected to get, before I was guilted into making my present look all pretty and special.

After the party, as I had to stay out all night, we went out to a karaoke bar with the other gaijin JETs and foreign teachers. We sang Christmas songs and drank all night… so it was another loooong, tiring night. I managed to crash at the Aeon Fukui teacher’s house for a few hours before taking the train back home… as I had made plans to make cheesesteaks with one of my students the next day.

So after a shower and a bite to eat, I went out for another day of adventure. My student and I went to the Echizen washi village, where traditional Japanese paper is made. The town was so beautiful and peaceful… I thought Takefu was rural and quiet, but Imadate makes Takefu look bustling. At this time of year, the rice paddies were all bright golden — glowing in the diffused light from the overcast clouds — and the mountaintops had just a bit of snow on them… the air was still and smelled like snow but it was still warmish. And Imadate is full of little gardens and fountains. I’m not sure what the best word to describe it would be, maybe serene?

After making some paper and walking around, we went to Wai Plaza (that’s fun to say) and bought supplies for making cheesesteaks. (Why, oh why do I live near the only grocery store that doesn’t stock any food I’m familiar with? Mine doesn’t even have the right materials to make sandwiches! If only I had a car…) The cheesesteaks we made were actually really good! We made a few substitutions, like French bread instead of an Italian roll, and Japanese sauces instead of steak sauce… but the taste was authentic, and it really took me back. Actually, as good as it was, it was almost a little bit gross considering how light I’ve been eating lately. Almost. It was still heaven.

So today, I’m going to Fukui again to see Yumi’s choir sing outside of a department store, and then I’ll head up to Minako and Hiro’s place for birthday dinner! Yay!

Tomorrow I have to work. >_< But that’s ok I guess. My winter vacation starts on the 28th. I will visit some temples and go photographing, paint a bit, and then in January I’m going to go down to Kyoto (finally!).

There were 2 earthquakes in Fukui today! Spooky!

I’m not sure how powerful they were, because the Japanese scale is different from the Richter Scale, but I heard that the first one was pretty big. Our building shook a fair bit. It sounded like a nearby thunderclap, except it was a lot longer, and the building was shaking and squeaking the whole time. Whee!

Last night was the first snow here in Takefu! It was really wet, slushy snow, plus hail, but it was really awesome! Also, it came with LOAD snow thunder, which was really exciting — although, all my kids got pretty scared. You could even feel the reverberation of the thunder through the ceiling vents — that’s how powerful thunder here is… really, it’s not like any thunder I’ve felt before! So here’s a crummy nighttime photo of the snow, taken with my cellphone:

In Japan, they don’t salt the street to keep the ice melted — they spray warm water on it constantly. It seems to work, but all I can think is how back home the water would freeze and we’d have a much, much worse problem.

The feeling of Christmas is everywhere here — well it has been since Halloween, considering there’s no Thanksgiving buffer between the two holidays — but I’ve only gotten around to writing about it now. Christmas in Japan is weird… just like Halloween, it has no meaning, although Christmas seems to be a little more important here than Halloween did. Actually, the main difference that I’ve seen is that now, instead of the stores being stocked with costumes of sexy witches and devils, they’re stocked with costumes of sexy elves and reindeer.

I wanted to post a couple more pictures from your amusement. These are from the teachers’ guides for my books. First:

Usually we either ask, “What day is it today?” or “How’s the weather?” I guess the author couldn’t make up his mind.

And second:

What would you think if you overheard this conversation in a locker room? It sounds like Masato should see a doctor…

Oh yeah, and this week, my manager began telling my students they’re not allowed to take me to see ghosts. Both my Japanese teacher and my manager told me some creepy stories about curses and ghosts nearby after I told them about my Tojinbo trip, and I guess I said I wanted to go see… So now my manager is trying to protect me.