先週12/14（金）（アップが遅くなりましたが・・・）、ちょっと早めの“GenkiJACSクリスマスパーティー”を開催しました。50人もの生徒、ホストファミリー、そしてスクールスタッフが集い、楽しいひと時を送りました。来年はもっと多くの方々にお会いできることを祈りながら、みな様にメリークリスマス！！

Last Friday, Dec. 14, we had a X'mas party at our school. 50 people( host families, students and school staffs) gathered and enjoyed the party.
We hope that next year, we have more people and more fun!
To everyone, merry chrismas and a happy new year!

Here are a few events that might be of interest to people living in Fukuoka, as well as students at Genki Japanese language school:

Kyushu Area Traditional Folk Arts Festival
Date: October 28 (Sunday), 1pm - 4:40pm
Place: ACROS Building
Cost: free
A performance of a local traditional folk art from each of the nine prefectures in Kyushu. Should be very interesting!


Japanese Speech Contest for Foreigners
Date: October 28 (Sunday), 1pm - 4pm
Place: Airef Building (Maizuru, about 10 minutes' walk from school)
Cost: free
Foreigners living in Fukuoka give speeches in Japanese.


Volunteer Festival
Date: October 28 (Sunday), 10am - 4pm
Place: Fuku Fuku Plaza (near Nishi Park, about 25 minutes' walk or 5 minute bus ride from school)
Cost: free
Meet local people interested in volunteering, find out what volunteer opportunities are available for you, and learn a special hula dance using elements of sign language!

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Tuesday the 3rd of April marks GenkiJACS' first Wii 大会 (taikai, sports festival)! Join us at the school at 6pm for several rounds of tennis, baseball, and maybe even boxing. We have prepared four Wiimotes for the day, so hopefully everyone will have a chance to play. On our 100-inch projector screen, with surround sound. Broken limbs are your own responsibility!

You'll hear nothing but music in Tenjin for 2 days! The biggest music festival in Fukuoka is coming soon...
"Music City Tenjin (MCT)" is held on the 14th and 15th of October, and about 300 professional and amateur musicians perform at various places in Tenjin.

Events for the festival will be held in about 40 places, but one of the most remarkable events is the one called "Street Stage". You can see performances of 40 select professional musicians FREE! A main stage will be located in front of Fukuoka City Hall.

There's one other event we'd like to mention, called "Floor Circuit". Once you buy a ticket (Adv: 1500 yen, Day: 2000yen), you can make the rounds of 8 concert venues. Not bar hopping this time but live house hopping!
Besides these, many places have free performances by lots of local musicians. You may find artists from famous bands performing solo, so it's a great chance to catch the other sides of them!

Concert sites included unique places such as 博多百年蔵 (Hakata Hyakunen Gura, a famous sake brewery) and a famous live music house 照和 (Shoowa) which has turned out many great musicians.

It is a good chance to get to know or explore the Japanese music scene.
Why don't you drown yourself in pleasant autumn music waves?

For more info: MCT official website

(This blog entry by Mika-sensei, our resident music expert.)

No, we're not closing! July is the season for JET Programme participants who've finished their contracts to up and leave (as well as time to say goodbye to Tovy, our longest student this year so far!), and so GenkiJACS is holding a farewell party for all the JETs who've supported us throughout this year! We've booked a JET-owned club for the event on June 30th (Friday), and any and all are welcome!
Details after the jump...

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We took a group of students down to Nagasaki this weekend. It's just a 2-hour drive, so we made it a day trip, leaving at 9am and getting back just before 8pm.
We stopped by the Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Memorial first. The museum is understandably a somber place, and an unforgettable experience, if a draining one. They keep a huge collection of artifacts from the day of the blast, as well as recorded testimonials from survivors, that are harrowing to see.
After that, we took one of Nagasaki's famous trams to Chinatown, for a lunch of the local specialty, champon. Nagasaki was the only open port in Japan for more than 200 years, the only place that was allowed to trade with the outside world, and as a result, has a large and thriving Chinatown, and long historic links with other nations, especially Holland.

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A couple of weeks ago, GenkiJACS made our inaugural trip to the conveniently located indoor snowboarding arena Big Air, part of the Bayside Place complex in Hakata Bay. A few students and a few teachers, all beginners, took part in a 90-minute class designed to, well, designed to stop us from falling over and hurting ourselves, mostly. We learned slipping forwards, and zig-zagging. Unfortunately we didn't have time (or ability, to be honest) to learn going backwards, but at least that means there's something waiting for us next time we go. They have a coupon on their website (PDF link) that offers the full pack (equipment rental, entry to the arena, and a teacher for 90 minutes) for just 2,835 yen, instead of the normal 4,200 yen. Not too bad, eh? There's more photos in our gallery.

As a quick addition to our previous item about the Fukuoka 2016 Olympics bid, I thought I should post this photo, which tickled our collective funny-bone here. This is Fukuoka City Hall, in the middle of the city, showing the true force of spirit and willpower to pull the games to Fukuoka at all cost, no expense spared. If you look really really hard, right in the middle of that picture is a tiny tiny banner with the words {2016 Olympics to Fukuoka{. It must have looked huge in someone's bedroom...

GenkiJACS is proud to have been invited to present a class on Japanese gestures at the most recent Fukuoka JET ALT Meeting. Two teachers attended, and taught a 45-minute class on some of the more common and uncommon gestures seen in Japan. (A quick confession: much of the material for the classes was inspired by the book {70 Japanese Gestures: No Language Communication{, by Hamiru-aqui. We just added photos from the class to our photo gallery, so please take a look! GenkiJACS is always happy to do out-lessons for special occasions or events, and if you ask nicely, we might even do them for free! All teachers are, of course, fully certified by the Ministry of Education. Call us for more details!

Japan loves its festivals, and Fukuoka is of course no exception. Here's what's coming up (info excerpted from a very helpful post to the Fukuoka JET website:

January 3: Tamaseseri at Hakozaki Shrine
A New Year festival held to wish for a good harvest. Two groups of men in traditional costumes fight for a wooden ball.

January 7: Oniyo at Daizenji Tamatare Shrine
A shinto ritual to expel evil spirits, one of the three largest fire festivals in Japan. The highlight of this festival is Taimatsu-mawashi in which three hundred young men in loincloths twirl six huge torches with scores of oak poles one after another on the grounds of the shrine. Each of the torches is one meter in diameter, thirteen meters long and weighs one ton.

January 7: Usokae & Onisube at Dazaifu Shrine
People who have come to the shrine exchange kiuso, wooden bullfinch dolls, with each other. Then, for Onisube, people try to drive away a devil with smoke and sparks emitted from large torches.)