A Jerm in Kagawa

2007-03-15T16:22:00.000+09:00

Sorry.

I have not been posting here because I've been to busy building my portfolio.

www.jeremylanig.com

2006-12-22T02:10:00.000+09:00

PEEPS

I haven't placed much emphasis on people that I encounter or interact with. So this post will begin the documenting of these people.

Aoife (Eefa), Chris, Carol, Roshin acting silly after a potluck in my town.

Long exposure at Benny's Bar, a popular JET watering hole.

Sanagi San is my supervisor. He's a great guy, probably my favorite person in my area. He even has a small 8 or 6 ga stretched lobed, while his wife has a slightly bigger stretched lobe.

Sanagi San's daughter. She's not afraid of anything, even eating red bell peppers.

Upon first moving to Japan, a drunken birthday party on a sidewalk in front of a convenience store would have seemed a bit odd. Looking back now, I realize it was one of the more normal activities I've participated in.

Holly and I like to cause some trouble here and there.

2006-12-22T02:02:00.000+09:00

MORE NIO

Just two images, but I like them.

I accidentally stumbled on a trick to give objects unnatural shadows. It's nothing too technical and could probably be reproduced in PS fairly easily. But the shadows make the background look like a fake backdrop.

2006-12-22T01:56:00.000+09:00

FOUND NEGATIVES

I found a couple thousand 135mm and 120 negatives. I've only begun scanning them.
Later I will post more images and details that I can come up with.

2006-12-06T14:00:00.000+09:00

MORE DEAD STUFF AND HOTELS

This latest hotel was interesting because there was a squatter living there. A 60ish year old Japanese man had plants and his clothes hanging to dry. Next time I will try to take pictures of him. I was too scared this time around when I found out that it wasn't empty.

2006-12-06T13:51:00.000+09:00

RANDOM STUFF FROM THE AREA

Just some images from my area. No real theme.

2006-12-06T13:23:00.000+09:00

RITSURIN PARK AND TAKAMATSU

So there's this big park in Takamatsu with fish and trees and stuff.

Near Takamatsu station at night.

These are some fruit that, when dried, leave an interesting skeleton with a berry-ish thing in the middle.

2006-12-06T12:55:00.000+09:00

HOLGA + FILM

Sometimes it's nice to keep it real. These are images from my holga in Okinawa (one is from a disposable film camera.)

2006-11-27T21:53:00.000+09:00

VACATION FROM VACATION

Sometimes you need a break. Four months in and I'm finally feeling the effects of Japan wearing me down. Okinawa was a good escape. Lots of lounging on the beach and snorkeling. I even won another round trip ferry ride to the island by playing Janken (rock paper scissors). Looks like I'll be back. Underwater camera pictures to come soon.

Digital point and shoot in a ziplock bag proved to be slightly successful. Sadly the Holga and fisheye lens got a good salt water bath. Who knows what the dripping green film will yield.

The main drag in Zamami.

Locals danced in a Okinawa style party.

Fire dancers at the party.

Couldn't explain this guy if I wanted to.

Seems safe enough.

Dinking around as usual.

2006-11-16T09:27:00.001+09:00

KILLING TIME

I have loads of free time which was an important motivation for moving to Japan. Here's a little of what I've done in my free time.

2006-11-15T15:30:00.000+09:00

ABANDONMENT

My new theme and focus for photo projects. My town has an abandoned theme park. I've also stumbled upon hotels and factories which are shut down. These locations are often filled with objects that offer some history, but not enough to fill in the gaps. I assume most of these places are dead due to the Japanese bubble economy bursting in the mid-late 80's. Perhaps the cost to properly remove their remains wasn't worth it.

2006-11-14T23:45:00.000+09:00

HALLOWEEN

This didn't live up to the Madison reputation, but it was a great time.

2006-11-14T23:39:00.000+09:00

KEIRIN AND MY BIKES

I don't think this post needs much of an explanation.

2006-10-30T13:53:00.000+09:00

FESTIVALS

One could say festivals are a big deal in Japan. So far in my town, in 3 months, we've had the Nio Dragon festival to bring rain, the Junior High sports festival, the autumn festival and the doll festival. Typically a Japanese festival consists of a lot of drinking, yelling, and walking/running carrying a large float. The sports festival is an exception in that it's more like a sports day at school. Not so much drinking.

Junior High School Sports Festival

Nio Dragon Festival

Nio Autumn Festival at the elementary school

2006-10-12T09:59:00.000+09:00

NIO SHOGAKO

Nio has four schools if you count the preschool. The elementary school (shogako) has about 250 - 300 students. The junior high school (chugako) has 150 students. There is a small agricultural elementary school (Soho Shogako) on the outskirt of town with about 50 students from farming families.

I usually teach at Nio elementary and Nio JHS twice each per week. I teach at Soho once every 3 weeks and the preschool once per month.

Nio shogako is my favorite school. The kids are fun and the staff is great. An average day consists of four or five 45 min. lessons. For grades 3-6, we do the daily introduction (good morning, how are you, etc.), vocabulary and basic sentence structures, and usually a game. Grades 1 and 2 are awesome. It's tons of yelling, games, and classroom mayhem which I don't attempt to control. In fact, most of the time I'm the instigator.

Everyday a couple of scouts will show up at the teachers room and ask me to do something with them. I have no idea what they're requesting, but I just go along. They tend to grab my hands and lead to various locations on the playground. I've recently been giving my digital point and shoot to the kids at recess. It's always interesting the results I get from their perspective.

Teacher through the eyes of a 8 year old.

Teacher through the eyes of a 8 year old.

I schooled those kids at racing.

I didn't take this, but it's funny.

Students by students.

Lunch time preparations.

Checking for plaque after lunch.

Was I this energetic at 7 years old?

2006-09-29T10:09:00.000+09:00

NIO-CHO IN KAGAWA-KEN.

My town is called Nio. It's in the Kagawa prefecture. Nio merged with 6 other towns in Jan. 2006 to be called Mitoyo city. Nio is still its own little town nestled between the Seto Inland sea and three mountain ranges. The closest town to Nio is Takuma (also in Mitoyo), 5 kilometers away, across one of the surrounding mountain ranges. There are no train stations in Nio.

Population of Nio: 6000-7000 (population is decreasing)

Kagawa is the smallest prefecture in Japan. It's know as the udon (noodle) prefecture. I don't have any pictures of udon at the moment, although I ate udon everyday for nearly 3 weeks.

This is a model from the Seto Hashi Bridge museum in Sakaide. It clearly shows Nio's isolation.

Nio has an abandoned amusement park which I will post about later. One night while snooping around, I found this projected model of Nio in the year 2001. Sadly, the town never grew as hoped and after the bubble burst, the amusement park shut down. Since then, the town has been slowly diminishing. (Note: there are no buildings taller than 4 stories in Nio, while two-story buildings seems to be average. I still laugh when I see this model because of its gross inaccuracy.)

A small canal, whose depth is dependent on the tide, runs through the city. At low tide all of the boats rest in the empty canal on a bed of barnacles.

A beverage booth from the amusement park.

A soccer field in the middle of my town.

Bluetown grocery store, one block from my apartment.

2006-09-28T21:22:00.003+09:00

WHEN CAN I SLEEP?

When I finally arrived in Tokyo, I was a zombie despite having slept for 12 hours straight on the flight. My plan of not sleeping for more than 3 hours during the 3 nights prior to the flight worked better than I expected.

I learned pretty much nothing at the Tokyo orientation. I took very few photos. I just sort of chilled and mingled for 3 days in a group of 1000 people in my shoes. I met billions of people to the extent of, "Hello, my name is blahblahblah. Where are you from?"

Unfortunately, I only remember about .005% of the billion names, and most of those that I remember are in my prefecture. I finally came back to life with the influence of a night out with the group of Kagawa jets. This is definitely a candidate for one of my best nights in Japan thus far, but there are too many to choose from.

A sea of incoming JETs with about half the Kagawa JETs in the foreground.

A little karoke with a lots of beer to get the night started. 25 - 30 of us in total.

A small portion of Tokyo night crawlers. (There are only 2 from Kagawa here.)

Takamatsu steps are great for conversing. Week 1.

3/5 new JETs, 1/5 old JET, 1/5 not JET.

We don't know each other, but I could sense that he wanted me to have a picture with him.

2006-09-20T20:42:00.000+09:00

BEGINNING AT THE END

The nights in Madison and Portland prior to my departure from Chicago were both action packed and strenuous, not to mention my birthday thrown in there somewhere. Apartments were cleaned, final Wed. night rides were finalized, shots were taken, and goodbyes were said. In reality, I was so busy packing and panicking that never realized that those were my last nights in the Midwest.

Frank, Monkey, Monkey.

Doo-dee.

Never can quite make it into the picture.

Kelly probably doesn't miss me.

I don't think we should ever forget the events of tonight.

Evnar.

Mr. Steal My Camera.

Lyle.

This is what I miss most. Kids, bikes, and beer.

mmm... sexy pink bike parts.

Tyrel is angry that he's not riding in the Madison bike scene.

J9son must have lost his clothes in his spokes. Tragic.

Jamie will steal this photo.

Cathie and bashful Mac with bashful toes.

Trouble.

Sabrina modeling with the faucet.

My Sammich.

Tyler playing pool and wondering if he'll have to fight off rabid drug dealers in the near future.

2006-09-14T11:18:00.000+09:00

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

I've been in Japan for about 7 weeks now. I promised many people that I would create some sort of travel log so that they may live vicariously through me. Sadly, I have taken very few photos compared to last summer. I'm not the biggest fan of writing so pics are preferred. I will post what I have now to bring everyone up to speed and *try* to post more regularly in the future.