Busy days in June

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long! I've been really busy at work as well as not doing much on the weekends, so that's why I haven't written.

Lately we've had a lot of events going on at school, or at the schools around the town, so I've been very busy. The students also had testing last week which I thought would make me less busy, but I ended up being asked to help give a speaking test in all classes, so that made me more busy.

One of the events I had to go to was at the other junior high school in my town, Yashiro JHS. It sits atop a hill and therefore biking is not an ideal form of transportation to reach it from my school or apartment. Getting there, my supervisor was able to give me a ride. But coming back I was on my own. I decided to walk, thinking downhill would be better than uphill and that it would only take about 30-35 min to reach my apartment. I didn't take into account that it was a very, very hot day, and I hadn't drank anything for quite some time, so I ended up having to stop at a vending machine and buy some water. Anyway, it turns out there are two ways down the mountain- the long and the short- and, of course, I took the former. -_- In the end, it took me 50 minutes to walk back to my apartment. The one good thing that came out of it was that the second large shrine in my town, Harumiya, was right on the way back, so I stopped in briefly to take some pictures. It was very peaceful and beautiful. I wish I hadn't been so tired and hot, I would have stayed longer. I'll go back again someday!

Let's see, there were two events which I attended that were outside of working hours. One was called "English Cafe" and it was basically a chance for Japanese people to come talk to a few of us foreigners in a relaxed, cafe-like setting for a couple hours. It was very nice and I enjoyed it a lot even though it was at the end of a long day. The other event was mandatory and I call it the "Meet the ALTs." Basically this one was a chance for townspeople to meet the foreign teachers. There are 5 of us ALTs in my town. Anyway, around 30-40 people, mostly elementary school kids and their parents, come to the culture hall for the event, and we played some games. It was a fun time. :)

Can't think of much else to say at the moment. Even though it's the rainy season here in Japan, it hasn't been raining very much lately- maybe one day a week for an hour or so. It's been very hot (it'll only get hotter, though!!). Next weekend I have to go to Tokyo for training. Towards the end of July and through August is festival season, though, which I am very much looking forward to!! I will be posting about any festivals that I attend, so stay tuned for that. :) :) Well, goodbye for now!

Stream on the way to Harumiya Shrine

Harumiya

The main building of Harumiya

Harumiya

Dessert at Denny's, Shiratama: Vanilla ice cream, red beans, and mochi (doughy rice balls)

Another Denny's dessert, Kakigori: Shaved ice with strawberry sauce and a scoop of ice cream

A page in my town's July newsletter about us foreign teachers!! I'm on the top left. :)

Firefly Festival in Tatsuno

Last night I went with Brendan, Phil, and Phil's wife Yukiko to the firefly festival. We drove about 35 minutes to the small town of Tatsuno. We had to park pretty far away because the closer lots were full (and you had to pay).

After walking for about ten minutes, we came to the main festival street. It was FILLED with people and along the sides were dozens of food stands, selling everything from chocolate bananas to kebabs. The colorful streamers, lanterns, and people dressed in yukata (summer kimono) made it very atmospheric! Everything smelled so good, I couldn't decide what to get. Eventually I decided on a katsu (pork cutlet) burger. It was really tasty! We kept walking, slowly with the large crowd, until we reached Tatsuno train station. There was some kind of band competition going on there. We briefly stopped to check it out, but by that point it was mostly dark, and we wanted to get to the firefly park before it was too late.

You have to buy a ticket to get into the park. It's only 300 yen, though. I bought my ticket at the little machine and when I turned around, there was one of my students waving at me! Her name is Sakura, she's twelve, and is planning a homestay in Utah at some point (next year maybe?). She was there with her family which was quite big for Japan, two little sisters and an older brother. It was really nice to see a student outside of school, haha. :)

It was about a ten minute walk further to the firefly park from the ticket machines. It was a narrow street, maybe four people wide, surrounded by rice paddies and illuminated with small yellow lanterns hanging from the telephone wires. It really felt like being out in the country!

When we got the firefly park, everything was very dark- nearly pitch-black. We followed the crowds to a wooden railing and there they were, hundreds of tiny white dots, flashing almost in unison! It nearly took my breath away. As my eyes grew used to the dark, I could see that the fireflies were flying around a kind of field with water running through it in a pattern. I think they probably designed the park specifically for the fireflies. There was a path leading further up so we explored and discovered that the higher vantage points were even better! So many dancing dots of light. :) Some fireflies even flew kind of near us, and if you looked up, there were a few dancing in the trees. I kept hearing people saying "sugoi" and "kirei" which are like the equivalent of saying "Amazing!" and "Beautiful!" or "So pretty!"

On the way back to the car, we stopped briefly at a small temple that is apparently where the firefly festival originated. We lit candles and some guy I guess prays over them the next day or something. I don't care so much about that part, but it was really funny that the guys at the temple were super excited to see foreigners. XD

Well, it was a really busy weekend, and I have today off to rest thankfully. Back to the old grindstone tomorrow! Next weekend is a frog festival in Matsumoto... Maybe that will be my next adventure. ;)

Walking down the street towards the firefly park

Brendan's favorite kind of festival food

Food vendors lining the streets

Getting closer to the fireflies

If you look at this picture without many lights on, you can make out some small little dots of light towards the middle/lower left.

The closest I got to getting a good picture, lol.

An illumination shaped like a firefly on the side of a mountain!

Sun, Barbecue, and X-Men

Today was a very busy and good day. First I met up with another teacher, Eric, in the town adjacent to mine and we hung out at the lake for a couple hours, just chilling and soaking in the peaceful atmosphere. At one point we walked past a big group of elementary school kids, and they all wanted to say hello to us as they went by. XD So cute!!

Anyway, we got some soft serve (I had vanilla & green tea) and then met up with another teacher, Brendan, in Okaya (yet another town adjacent to mine). We went to a yakiniku place for dinner. Basically yakiniku means grilled meat, and that's what you do there. You grill meat on a barbecue in the middle of the table. We had so much meat!! Garlic chicken, Kobe beef, basil fondue chicken, harami (which is apparently like abdomen meat off a cow), and of course some rice as well as a salad. It was all really tasty, although very expensive. Definitely want to go back there some day. :)

Then we went to see the new X-Men movie at one of the only two movie theaters within easy distance of where I live. =_= I thought the movie was pretty good, although a little too much action and not enough down-time. :P It was cool to watch it with Japanese subtitles, because I could understand a lot of them, but very distracting. :)

Tomorrow I'm hoping to go the firefly festival with the same peeps, so that should be a lot of fun! This is a long weekend for me because my school is taking Monday off, so I'm really looking forward to having Monday to rest and recuperate from being really busy lately (and having a slight cold). If I do anything fun tomorrow, I'm sure I'll have pictures to post on here. :)

Lake Suwa looking towards Okaya

At the yakiniku restaurant

Cookin' up some chicken!

I think this was the restaurant's signature beef.

"Harami" or "skirt steak"

In the theater behind a couple foreigners, haha.

A very Japanese day

I planned to write this post yesterday, but I ended up being so busy that I didn't get back to my apartment until really late. In any case, this post is about my Saturday.

About 1 pm, I joined some of my apartment buddies- Amy, Brendan, and a super sweet couple named Momoko & Junta- to go get lunch and then do karaoke. We went to a ramen shop that's known for making their noodles super thin. I ordered their original ramen dish and it was really good! Maybe a bit warm to eat on a hot day, but the iced tea that was served with it helped with that quite a bit. :) After lunch, we stopped by a second-hand store filled with Japanese knick-knacks. I ended up buying some manga (Japanese comic books) because they were SUPER cheap, and I found some of my favorites that I'd been wanting the Japanese version of. I got 7 of them for the equivalent of about $5! :)

Next we went to karaoke. It was about 3:30 or so when we got to the karaoke place and we stayed until 8. It was just so much fun, we couldn't stop! About halfway through a couple others joined us, Miyao-sensei aka Neko (which means "cat" in Japanese and is a play on his name) and Eric who is a new teacher from America like me. They had a lot of English songs, but I sang some Japanese ones, too. They were impressed that I could read the Japanese on the screen. :) It's hard in fast songs, though... haha.

After karaoke, we went to an okonomiyaki (kind of like a savory pancake with cabbage, meat, sauce, etc.) restaurant. We all sat around a table with a grill in the middle and the food came in bowls that we had to stir and then pour onto the grill. The food was all really good.

When we got back to the apartment building, it was about 11, but we decided to play some cards. Brendan recently got a game called "Resistance" that's kind of like a board game but is all about strategy. It ended up being so addicting that we (him, Amy, Junta, Momoko, and I) played until 3 in the morning!! It was a lot of fun, but I was tired today because of it. :P Anyway, speaking of which, I'm going to bed soon. Got another week of teaching starting in twelve hours. The weekend always seems to go by way too fast, but what are you gonna do. At least in two weeks I get a long weekend, so I'm looking forward to that. :) Okay then, good night! Until next time.

Pork-based ramen with slices of pork, green onion, bean sprouts, and black mushrooms.

The small karaoke room (it was darker in real life)

From the left: Brendan, Momoko, Neko, Eric, me, and Junta

Four different kinds of okonomiyaki (just slightly different ingredients)

Yakisoba - fried noodles