Category Archives: Uncategorized

Unbeaten Paths: Nanyo Summer 2022 – New Faces in the Inaka

Edited by Jordan Rocke

G’day everyone! Finally, here’s our beloved small town newcomers in the Inaka heart of Ehime, Nanyo! This isn’t just the final Unbeaten Paths for this year, but assuming there is no surprise flood of Ehime JETs between now and April 2023, this will be the last Unbeaten Paths that I (Jordan) will be running. This is the 12th entry in the series, and I’m so incredibly blown away each year by how many people are willing to take the time to write up an introduction to put out into the world, saying hello to the other JETs in Ehime. What started 3 years ago as a simple project to allow JETs from smaller participating countries to talk about how they became interested in JET without the networks that US, American and Canadian JETs have has turned into a project that occupies a spot on my calendar every year (or several spots, thanks to the odd arrival patterns COVID forced on us). During COVID, where events are often difficult to justify, it has been a wonderful way for me, and hopefully others, to learn a little about the other JETs who aren’t that far away.

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Unbeaten Paths: Toyo 2022 – The New Faces

Edited by Jordan Rocke

Welcome to the after-summer 2022 Unbeaten Paths! For those who are new to the premise, this is a set of introductions, divided by region, of the new JETs in our community! There’s no obligation to write an introduction, so this isn’t an exhaustive list of all the new folks, but I’m always really glad of how many people do take the time out of their day to put an introduction together. If you are a new JET who missed out and would like to be included , please reach out at themikanblog@gmail.com and I can add you in!

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Two Whole Days of Near Non-Stop Rugby: The Tokushima AJET Touch Rugby Tournament

By Jonty Cook

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Every year – barring the Covid Era – the Shikoku University hosts a touch rugby tournament over a summer weekend for all to participate in. This year, we managed to scrounge up an Ehime team of 5 people to play, with another joining along as our support, photographer, and sideline coach. Not quite the team of a required six on the field, but we were ready to accept our role as the scrappy underdogs, underestimated by everyone and determined to shock and awe. We were the Ehime Goonies.

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Listen to the Japanese School Band

By Patrick Peh

A Door Opens

Beyond this door, you will find young aspiring musicians of Uchimiya Junior High School  preparing for their big day tomorrow. Tomorrow is August 2nd, which is the second day of the JHS division for the 70th All Japan Band Competition in Ehime. This band of 30 odd members will perform under category A in the competition. This article hopes to be a refreshing post as I only talk about Japanese bands in schools, which is different from The Sea, The Iwa & The Classroom where I would write about things around the neighborhood.

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Unbeaten Paths: Toyo & Chuyo 2022 – Latecomers and Second Chances

Edited by Jordan Rocke

G’day everyone! Once again we are gathering up introductions from new Ehime JETs. This pair of articles is going to be a collection of odds and ends. We’ll have bios from some folks who have arrived in the past few months, delayed due to a series of pandemic and/or military based inconveniences, as well as a few folks who for one reason or another weren’t able to get an intro in closer to when they arrived. My goal is to have these articles be the last entries for the 2020/2021 arrival group, so we can smoothly move on to focusing on the 2022 arrivals later this year!

We didn’t quite have enough entries for Toyo and Chuyo to justify separate articles, but I hope to have Nanyo out within a fortnight of this article! If you are a new JET and would like to be included in one of these Unbeaten Paths, please get in touch at themikanblog@gmail.com.

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To Clean the Mirror: Why I Love Yokai

By Andrew Pappas

Monsters have always fascinated me. I used to be really afraid of them when I was a kid. My aunt and cousins like to retell the story about the time a witch mannequin at a shopping mall scared the heck out of me, so much that I refused to take another step and my mom had to take me back to the car. I was then again struck with terror that same day by a werewolf mannequin in a bowling alley till my uncle brought me over to it and pulled off the mask to reveal a cardboard cut-out of Elvira, the famous cult horror movie show hostess, and I saw there was nothing to be afraid of.

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Ehime JETs Online: Justin and JTravels

By Justin Woodard

Hey everyone! Quick editor’s note: This is the first in (hopefully) a series of articles focused on current and former Ehime JETs, and the media they create. I mainly want to focus on blogs and Youtube channels, but basically anything local JETs create is fair game! If you are or were an Ehime JET and would like to share your blog, channel or etc with us, please get in touch at themikanblog@gmail.com.

On a bright and sunny day during a pandemic filled Golden Week, I hopped on my bike and started riding to a beautiful little shrine in a small suburb just outside of Matsuyama called Hojo. I had my phone in hand and a goal in my head that started back before I came to Japan. One day as I was sitting in my college fraternity watching the “Abroad in Japan” channel on YouTube, I thought to myself that it would be a lot of fun to go around Japan filming the places I get to visit, just like the sarcastic British guy I was watching. Now there could also be a sarcastic American guy making YouTube videos. Fast forward two years and I’m on my bike pedaling past rice fields and old homes until I arrived at my favorite shrine in Hojo. As I was parking my bike, I realized I didn’t have any plans for what I was going to talk about in my first video, so I improvised, as all good YouTubers do. I started talking about the proper way to enter and exit a shrine as well as the dos and don’ts while praying so as not to offend the gods of Shintoism.

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