Sushi

Last few weeks: Sukiyaki, Sue, and the farewell parties

2008-07-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have been really busy. The day after we got back from Fuji san we had a "sukiyaki party" with the local ramen chef and his girlfriend. Sukiyaki is a delicious Japanese beef dish that you cook at you table with soy sauce, veggies, tofu... We went out to a local onsen(hot spring) with the two of them and then back to the ramen shop for sukiyaki. It was a Monday, which is his one day off, and it was just the four of us. It was wonderful.

Charlie prepping for dinner. (The first time we met him, he told us we could call him Charlie)

Charlie and his girlfriend.

We had a few more days of school to make it through until Sue's arrival. Then on Thursday night we headed to Kansai Airport and happily met her there. We had a great week with her. We spent a lot of the time in Kyoto, but were able to do some new things too. We went to Himeji and Himeji castle, Kobe, Kurama Onsen(awesome), and had a lot of relaxing time. It was great to hang out with Sue and she was here to celebrate our third anniversary!

Sue and I at Himeji castle.

Sue and Dan eating Okonomyaki and Yakisoba.

Dan and I on our 3rd anniversary.

After Sue left, we had the boating club farewell party, one week left of school, and then a farewell party from the board of education on the last day. For those of you who haven't stayed on top of our day to day happenings, we have gone sailing with a group of old men this year five or six times and spent extensive time with one of them. So they threw us a party at a nice platform restaurant in Kyoto. The restaurant has a back deck that extends out over part of the Kamogawa River. Along the downtown portion of this river it is lined with restaurants like this, but we were told they we expensive, so hadn't tried one yet. It was really nice.

Platform dinning in Kyoto

Me, Dan, Toshio, and Matsuda san

We then had a week of school to finish up. The students were really great and came and told us many thank yous. I even had one boy manage to tell me he would be "a little sad" when we leave. So, Friday night we had the Board of Ed. farewell party. It was much more formal than we had anticipated. When we arrived(on time) everyone was already there and seated. We were lead to our seats up at the head table with the superintendent, the principals, and three unknown but very important people who later gave speeches. A few peoeple spoke, Dan and I spoke, and then we were presented with a gift from the city, a beautiful ceramic platter. All of our teacher buddies were seated over at another table. I was surrounded by people who didn't speak English, but were unphased by the fact I spoke very little Japanese. This was funny, because 5 feet away was a table of bilingual friends. Anyway- the party was nice. It was held at a local restaurant, which we were happy about, because we like the owners. There was a formal Kanpai(toast), and many small meet, vegetable, and fish dishes served. After dinner, teachers from each school gave us a gift, we had a group photo, and then I noticed everyone was standing up looking at us. I recieved a quick nod at our belongings from Attarashi sensei and asked Dan if we should leave. He was quickly told by Nambu sensei that it was the Japanese way and that he would follow us. So everyone was standing there waiting for us to leave, but we didn't know it. Very funny!

Farewell party

Us with some principals and teachers

Formal picture with owl

After the party, we went out with Nambu sensei and met Kinoshita sensei and some other teachers for karaokeing in Kusatsu. It was our first time and we liked it better than American karaoke. Here you rent a room and can order food and drinks by phone to the room, where you sit around with a small group of friends and do casual karaoke. Dan and I lead it off with the Bangles' Eternal Flame(there was a small English selection). We then realized everyone else was really good- really really good. After a few drinks, we were getting requests for Disney songs. We quickly shot those down, but were somehow tricked into singing a Beauty in the Beast duet. They loved it. I can't believe it took us all year to try this!

Nambu sensei and I

Dan on the mic

Kinoshita sensei(on the left) and two other Ritto teachers

Fuji san, 3776m

2008-07-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we took Friday off and headed over to Fujiyoshida, a small mountain town at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Apparently, this is where the ancient Fuji san pilgrims would start from, so there is a tori gate and a shrine that make the entrance to Mt. Fuji. All the pictures from the town show great views of Fuji, but he was hidden behind a giant cloud the days we were there. It wasn’t really cloudy out, but there was just a big cloud hiding the highest mountain in Japan.

It is still “rainy season”, so we didn’t know what we’d get, but we actually had wonderful weather for our hike. On our train ride to Fujiyoshida, we met an Irish girl. We talked for a while and then parted ways. Saturday morning, Dan and I got up early to go get some food before the big hike. We ate delicious cinnamon toast and coffee at a cute café, then took the train to the station to catch the Mt. Fuji 5^th station bus.

After we bought our bus tickets and took our spot in line, I ran into the Irish girl, Blaitin, again. She came on the same bus and the three of us ended up spending a grueling nine hours together. We took the bus up to Fuji’s fifth station, which is where most people start these days. The volcano has ten stations, the tenth being at the summit.

The first hour or two wasn’t too bad. We occasionally passed a hut or a station and had many “konnichiwas” along the way. Most people start at night, sleep in a hut, then climb up to the summit for sunrise. We were not interested in climbing at night, nor during the “official season” when 10,000 people a day attempt the climb(I have seen pictures and people are just wainting in lines on the trails). This along with many things we’ve done, proved to confuse people. Climbing Fuji san, like most things in Japan is done one way. Anyway- Dan was leading the way and Blaitin and I were trailing. We were in one big cloud and everything was foggy and hard to see. At one point around the seventh station she almost turned around, but didn’t and then around the eigth station I felt like turning back too. After that point it just became treacherous. I had never climbed at that elevation before, and it proved to be a different animal. Every switchback or two I would have to stop and catch my breath. After a while the clouds broke a bit and we could see parts of Fuji and the big patches of snow that still hung around. There was one spot where people were stopped and looking at something, so we went over to see what it was. There were a couple crazy people snowboarding down a huge field of snow. I also heard reports that people were seen carrying mountain bikes to the top. Crazy!

Here I am around the ninth station.

This is Blaitin and I chuggin up the mountain from Dan's view.

Finally after five hours, we reached the summit. It was amazing. I felt awful. It started snowing a little. I got my photo taken with some old Japanese ladies who had made it up there. Old Japanese ladies are tough for the record. I constantly see really old ladies riding bikes, tending to rice fields, and doing their neighborhood assigned duties. Much different from old people in the US. So- once at the top my main concern was the crater. I had read that some people have fallen fatally into the crater or been blown off the top of the volcano by high winds. Neither of those things happened to us, so I was relieved about that. The crater was interesting to see, and we took lots of photos with it.

We hung out up top for about an hour, then headed back down the steep mountain. I felt like I was weightless. I loved going down, but Dan said it was more difficult for him than coming up. It took four hours to get back to the fifth station. It was still technically off season, so buses stopped at two thirty. We were prepared for the worst- hiking all the way to Fujiyoshida. Luckily some hiker took a cab up to the station to start their hike just as we were ending ours and for the bargain price of 12,000\(about 120$ ), we were happily driven back to our hostel. Having three people to split the cab made it bareable. So, in celebration of our tremendous feat, the three of us went out for dinner. We ended up at a place called “Skylark Gusto”. A Japanese take on the American family restaurant. The fries and beer tasted great and afterwards, I was so tired that I almost didn’t make the walk back to the hostel.

Me, Dan, and Blaitin next to Fuji san's crater.

Wrappin it up...

2008-06-19T05:44:00.000-07:00

This is me by the Kamogawa in Kyoto.

So, we’ve begun the great count down. We have one week until we go to Fujisan, two weeks until Sue comes, four weeks left of school, and five weeks left in Japan.

I won’t say that their aren’t mixed feelings about the approaching end of our Japanese adventure, but more than anything, I am excited to go back to the US and relax. Unlike the train systems and the sweet car technology, that is something that the people here have not mastered. People here don’t relax, or their relaxing is working. I don’t believe everyone really likes it enough to validate the extremeness of it though.

The one place here that we have found a little oasis of relaxation is in Kyoto by the Kamogawa. The Kamogawa is a wide shallow river that runs through the city. It’s not even all that pretty. Like the mountains up in Nagano. The mountains were pretty, but while I was skiing, I kept noticing the beautiful view always included some concrete support structure somewhere, holding a piece of the mountain in place. The Kamogawa has that going on. The whole bank and bed has bed cementified. It’s nice enough to sit next to and drink a beverage. So, that’s what people do. On a nice day, people sit along the river, drink beer, barbeque, and just hang out. This is the only place in Japan I have seen this happen(other than cherry blossom season, and then it’s sake, not beer). I love it.

I must make a disclaimer. We are in Kansai(the region around Kyoto). People in Kansai are old school. They love being Japanese and seem to conform even more than other parts of the country. It’s even evident in the clothes people where. Here you don’t really see tank tops or sunglasses. I was once told by someone I consider to be relatively “normal” for this area that “we think that sunglasses are showy”. They don’t, however feel that wearing gloves, huge welding masks, scarves and umbrellas in the middle of summer, to block the sun from their whitened skin, is showy. But, go an hour south(Osaka) and people are wearing more “normal” clothes. Last time we were in Osaka, I even saw a girl with a sun tan!

Anyway- the end is near. I am mostly happy about it, but Dan and I were talking about what we’ll miss most about Japan:

#1 not the job

#2 the trains

#3 the healthy food at convenience stores

#4 some of the people we’ve met

#5 the Kamogawa

Here are some pictures of what we’ve been up to lately:)

Here I am making takoyaki(octopus balls) with Kinoshita sensei. I love Kinoshita sensei.

Here we are with the Fukadas. We went up to the top of that bridge. This bridge has the longest distance between the support things of any suspension bridge.

This is a kiln in Shigaraki. Shigaraki is a town up in the mountains known for it's history of pottery.

This is us out in Kyoto with our friend Masami.

This is the sunset view from Koshien Stadium(between Osaka and Kobe), where we went to see the Hanshin Tiger baseball game.

Cooking Nihongo Style Part 2

2008-05-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

So, another teacher that we work with invited us to come and cook with them. I personally like this trend. This time it was one of our favorite sensei, Noda sensei. He works at Ritto Chugako and sits across from our desk. He is an art teacher and seems to have things in common with both Dan and I.

We were invited to come over to his house for a gyoza making session, lunch and then out to the Kusatsu aquarium with his daughters. He said he would pick us up at our house at 11:00 by car.

Right at 11:00 our doorbell rang. We opened it to find not only Noda sensei and his two daughters, but also a friend of the girls. This meant I had to run back up stairs and grab another Michigan pencil and piece of candy, because instead of two nine and ten year old kids to impress, there were now three.

We left and went directly to Noda’s house in Kusatsu. It was in an area we had never been to(meaning it wasn’t right by the train station), and it seemed nicer then many neighborhoods that we had seen up until then. Not in a fancy money way, but more in a there are stores to walk to, friendly neighbors, etc. kind of way.

We went in, were offered slippers and coffee and a seat on the tatami, while Noda finished prepping for our class. The three girls, Nao and Natsuki, his daughters, and Yuka, the friend, came and sat with us. Yuka by the way was wearing a cast on her left arm because she broke it playing dodgeball. Natsuki was present for the breaking. We proceeded to drill them with half English and half Japanese questions that we had vocabulary for: What is your favorite color?, What animals do you like?, How old are you?, etc. They giggled and hid their faces and eventually started asking us similar questions.

Then the coffees were done and Noda announced that it was time to make gyoza. He had already mixed the ground pork/beef, onion, garlic, cabbage mixture. The girls, Dan, and I surrounded the mixture and began. The girls showed us how to dip the wrapper halfway in egg, add some meat mixture, and then fold and pinch the wrapper. After formed, we placed the dumplings on a floured plate. When we finished, Noda told me that we had made 90 gyoza.

To finish the gyoza we went back to the tatami room and sat on our knees around the low table with a big electric frying pan on it. We fried up the gyoza and feasted on them, curry and rice, and salad. The girls had heard that we liked curry and rice, so they had prepared it for us. After lunch, we were suckered into a few card games before we left for the aquarium. The kids were really nice, so we obliged and played speed and some Japanese version of memory.

We then headed out to the aquarium. It was a typical outing with kids. They seemed to want to go faster and pound on the fish tanks and be kids. Pounding on the fish tanks was not corrected like it would have been in an aquarium in the states. I tried for a second to suggest that they might be scaring the fish, but they didn’t seem to care. The aquarium was filled with fish and other life from the nearby Biwako(Lake Biwa). This is the reason for our Prefecture to be linked with Michigan as sister states. Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan, so naturally it would be paired with the Great Lakes State.

After we went through the aquarium, we walked out to the park by the lake and found that Yuka had packed a ball for the outing and wanted to play dodgeball. I thought this was funny, but half-heartedly played with them. I was the first out.

We headed back towards the Noda house, stopped for ice cream, and barely made it in time for Yuka to get picked up by her dad for juku. Juku is the out of school school that a lot of Japanese kids go to. I think that usually kids go after school in the evenings. This was a national holiday, thus no school today and she was still going to juku. I guess she should since her parents pay for it. After Yuka was off, Nao and Natsuki taught us how to make paper cranes and then Noda sensei took us home.

Cooking Nihongo Style

2008-05-02T16:27:00.000-07:00

At Ritto Chugako(Junior High School), we got a new English teacher for the new term. Her name is Kageyama sensei. She is probably a little bit older than our parents, but hides it well with the nice make up application and black dyed hair. I think most people dye their hair here, making age very difficult to guess.

Anyway, Kageyama sensei is very nice and offered to teach me how to make Inari-zushi, which are these really good little rice and tofu things. I thought this was a great opportunity to learn so authentic Japanese cooking techniques, so I accepted.

I took the train to Kusatsu station where she told me that she would pick by up “by car” at 11:00. That’s how everyone talks here. I come to school by bike, I went to Kyoto by train, I will pick you up by car… After I arrived a few minutes early and saw how nice it was outside, I was second guessing my decision to commit to such a potentially long indoor activity for a day off.

Then in one hurried motion, Keiko Kageyama ran in and apologized for being so late. I looked up at the clock and saw it was 11:01. Not late by any standards with the folks I have associated with my entire life. We quickly walked down the stairs outside the station and over to her car. Her husband was standing there. We shook hands, I gave Keiko a Detroit mug, and we were off for Kageyama no uchi.

As we walked in the house, I heard a very familiar sound. It was their rice cooker playing the same song that my rice cooker plays when it is finished. I said that it was good timing and she seemed very surprised that I knew the sound of the rice cooker. That’s another thing that cracks me up. People are constantly surprised to hear I have picked up any vocabulary, knowledge of the country, skill with the chopsticks, or any other things, even after being here over eight months now. I realize that it’s a type of flattery and politeness on their end, but sometimes I feel like come on, enough with the image thing.

Getting started, I was handed an apron and told that it suited me well, by two different people(her daughter, Miho, was also there. We guessed eachothers ages- she also looked much younger than her actual 33.) Then we went in the kitchen. It was small and efficient looking compared to a western kitchen, but I have seen smaller ones to. The best thing I noticed about it, was that there was a trap door thing in the floor that she lifted up once to get an ingredient. It was like a little mini pantry in the floor. I was impressed.

So there are a few ways to go about making Inari-zushi. You can make the tofu skin wrapping or purchase the tofu skin, and make the sauce from fish broth or make the sauce from water. We made the tofu skins and made the sauce from water. She thought westerners would like it better that way, and seeing that it’s much easier, I had to agree.

We cut the pieces of fried tofu in half, split them open and turned them inside out. We made a sauce in a pan of water, sugar, salt and soy sauce and cooked the tofu skins until all the water was cooked off. There was much discussion of how to say “cook off the water”. Then was the sushi rice. The rice was ready and waiting in the cooker. We put it in a larger bowl and mixed in a sauce of vinegar, sugar and salt. I think this aids in the sticky factor. There was an option for mixing in some finely sliced tiny vegetable pieces, so we made some with and some without. (I have also seen Inari-zushi with sesame seeds mixed into the rice, so next time I make them, I might do that)

After the tofu skins were done, we spread them out on a plate. Next, we stuffed the tofu with the rice. The sticky rice was sticking more to my hands then to Keiko’s for some reason. She got a big lacquered platter out and we lined up out little army of completed Inari-zushi on the platter.

There was some left over sushi rice, so we also made maki-zushi(sushi rolls). We put cucumber, imitation crab, and tuna fish in them. She rolled one and I rolled one. Hers looked so much better than mine. But they were nice and complimented me talking about how proficient I was at sushi rolling.

Miho, meanwhile, had made a yogart and strawberry desert and Kareage(Japanese fried chicken). Then when I thought we were ready to sit down and eat, Miho busted out bacon and asked how I liked my bacon sandwiches. I was a bit confused. I played along and answer random questions for a minute, until I realized they were also making BLTs. I imagine they wanted to make me feel at home.

The feast was amazing. Keiko’s husband joined in and we ate tons of good food. He commented on my proficiency with the chopsticks. They packed up lots of food for me to take home and drove me home.

Nam

2008-04-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

Since we are over here in Asia, we figured we should go see another country too. We thought about Korea, China, Malaysia, and Russia, but decided on Vietnam. I think it has a more exciting sound to it, since Americans have only one image that comes to mind about the country. Also, once you get there, it’s really cheap.

Here I am in Hanoi

So, over our two week haruyasumi(spring break), our moms came for a week and then we went to Vietnam for nine days. It was amazing. We had a hard time deciding on which region to visit, but after discovering Halong Bay, opted for the north. We flew into Hanoi, spent a few days there, then took a boat tour of Halong Bay for three days and two nights, and headed back to Hanoi for a few more days.

Hanoi was crazy. It was loud, dirty, busy, old, and I loved it. The architecture was beautiful and unique- lots of French influence. The traffic was like nothing I could have imagined nor do I think I could adequately explain it. Motorbikes everywhere, no crosswalks, you just walk and they go around you. There were street venders wearing conical hats(not in a touristy way)trying to sell anything they could. This bothered me at first, but I learned how to deal with them. The sidewalks were filled with people sitting on low plastic stools, like ones that you would find at a dollar store and think, what would anyone use this for? They would be cooking, visiting, smoking, selling things, monitoring their shop, or just sitting. I especially loved the groups that were cooking, because those were the ones that smelled so good to pass by. There were also very bad smells in Hanoi too. Lots of good and bad smells.

Crazy traffic

People crossing the street

The city has many districts, the main ones being the old quarter, the French quarter, Hoan Kiem Lake district, Ba Dinh and Dong Da. All the things to see are within a thirty minute walk from the middle of the city, so we stayed in the middle and walked everywhere. We stayed in the old quarter in a place called the Sunshine 3 Hotel. We later saw the Sunshine 2, but I don’t think we ever stumbled across the original. There is quite a range of accommodations in this city. You can pay anywhere from 7 USD to 250USD for super fancy place on the edge of the city. We thought we would splurge and went for a 25$ a night place. For 25$ we got a really nice room with a mini bar and a computer with internet(this included a traditional Vietnamese breakfast of pho, a type of noodle soup or a few other options- we liked the pho). We lived like kings! Dan was excited because he could actually drink what was in the mini bar, unlike the US where a beer is like 10$, the hike up on the price would put it around 1$. The Vietnamese currency is the Dong, and we figured that about 50,000 Dong is about 3$.

All this plus two more beers was 5$ USD

The first couple days, we saw the sights and checked out the most intriguing restaurants from our book. Our favorite was the Tamarind café. It wasn’t the most traditional, but the food was amazing. Another cool restaurant was a place called KOTO. It trains disadvantaged youth to work in the hospitality industry. It was a really cool place and the food was great. We went to Ho Chi Minh’s house, a few temples, cafes on the lake, markets, the water puppet theater(amazing), museums, galleries, and lots of shops.

Temple of Literature

Hoa Lo Prison("Hanoi Hilton")

Ngoc Son Temple

Water Puppet Theater

Nha Tho(St. Joseph's Cathedral)

We had read about these places called Bia Hoi, sidewalk street stalls selling ridiculously cheap beer. We heard it was the cheapest in the whole world. They were all over the city, but we found one, liked it and stuck with it. We also happened to meet an awesome French couple, Julien and Elojie, there. We met up with them several more times throughout the trip. Anyway- Bia Hoi supposedly means fresh beer. They have to sell it quickly so it doesn’t go bad. Hence a glass was 3,000 Dong, roughly 18cents. The people that ran this place had the cutest three year old granddaughter, who decided she liked me and sang me a fifteen minute song.

Bia Hoi with our new friends Julien and Elojie

Hanoi has a great/strange art community. There are really cool art galleries everywhere selling original local art, but there are also little galleries with young artists painting reproductions of famous paintings. They are all over the place and they all have the same reproductions. I don’t know how many times I saw Picasso’s Guernica. The artists were really skilled, but it was strange to see them pumping out old European masterpieces.

After a few days in the city, we got up early to meet our ride out to Halong Bay. We booked with the cheapest tour we found. There were tour places all over the place selling the same tours for different prices. The guy seemed sketchy, and an hour after when we were supposed to be picked up, we were still waiting. I thought for sure we had been had, but then we were picked up, driven(wildly) to Halong and had an amazing time. The only weird part was that for the different sections of the trip we would have different guides.

A junk on Halong Bay

Us in a cave

floating fishing village

We boarded our boat(they call them Junks), had lunch and cruised around the bay. As we went we started talking to all the people on board. There were folks from the states, Montreal, Vietnam, Ontario, South Africa, Malaysia, France, and Holland. We had the coolest group of people with us. Everyone was really interesting and traveling to wonderful places. The first day we cruised around, took pictures, went kayaking, and at night we stayed in cabins on the boat.

Our cabin

The second day we went to a large island called Cat Ba. We went hiking and checked into a hotel with our crew. After the hike we realized a couple people had some money taken from their bags, but another switch in tour guides made it difficult to do much about it.

Simone, Liz, and Dan hiking Cat Ba island

view from our hike on Cat Ba looking at Halong Bay

ladies of the boat(me, Marie Michelle, and Ellen)

That afternoon we walked around the little town and found a café. One of our new friends, also named Dan, a Vietnamese American, taught us how to have Vietnamese coffee. The next day we went back on the boat then headed back to Hanoi on another wild bus ride.

part of the crew

Going back to Hanoi, we were able to see anything we had missed the first time, and revisit the restaurants and cafes that we really liked. Overall, the people were really nice and the city was beautiful. Meeting all those people traveling all over the world was inspiring. We heard about some really nice beaches in Cambodia from our new friend Dan. I could use more of a tan and further stick out from my Nihongo coworkers.

Tamarind Cafe

Tropical Fried Rice(so good)

The next few pictures are supplementary and need some added explanation. Rice wine is a very popular and traditional drink in Vietnam. It is often infused with dead things, often snakes, but sometimes other things, to bring supposed health benefits. Some of the dead things are supposed to bring men strength and stamina...
As those of you who know me well enough would probably guess. I didn't get too close to these large vessels of deadness. Dan took these pictures.

Moms come to town

2008-04-10T04:06:00.000-07:00

So, it had been almost seven months since we had seen our mothers(and fathers and sisters and brothers) and we were really looking forward to their arrival. I personally, like I do with all fun approaching things, had been counting down days and weeks for a while now(probably since the last fun, exciting thing). So, when Marianne and Dianne finally got here, we had a great time, talking, showing them our favorites, and introducing them to our lives this year.

The first night we took them to an izakaya that we really like called Za Watami. It just so happened that two of our favorite teachers were there for a basketball party(they coach basketball) so the moms were able to meet them.

The next morning, we had to go to school for “closing ceremonies”, so the moms came along to our respective schools. It was just for a couple of hours, but they got to see the schools and the students. We were home early and able to go into Kyoto for lunch and the beginning of our intense look at the city.
We thought about going to Hiroshima, but that would mean cutting into the nice relaxing mornings we were having with our moms, so we opted to stick with showing them our nearby cities, Kyoto, Otsu, Kusatsu and last but not least Ritto.

It was a wonderful week with them and now I can begin the real countdown. Only 70 workdays left here in Japan. I don’t want to give the impression that I am not loving it here, I am, but I also can’t wait to get back to the wasteful land where the word for husband doesn't also mean master.

The Willoughbys!

2008-03-09T01:04:00.001-08:00

Our good friends the Willoughbys came to visit at the end of February. We were so excited that we took a few days off of work and treated it like a little vacation for ourselves. Like always, we spent a lot of time in Kyoto, but we also went to a few new places like the Hikone Castle and Kobe. We had a great time and may be seeing them again in June to climb Fuji-san. Here are the highlights:

Rob and Amber at Za Watami(a good izakaya)

A couple members of a boy-band that we ran into in Kyoto
(they coincidentally both were wearing purses).

Amber, Rob, Dan, Me and Gransan at the Monkey Park.

Rob, Amber and Dan in the Bamboo forest.

Rob climbing a wall at Hikone Castle

Dan and Rob posing with a giant tanooki. There are statues of tanookis all over the country. They are often near entrances of stores/restaurants and are supposed to represent good economy.

Rob and Amber at The A Bar. This is our favorite bar in Kyoto.

Dan and Rob taking it in at the Kobe harbor.

Tyler and Kinkakuji

2008-03-09T00:43:00.000-08:00

Howdy- I haven't posted lately, so I have some catching up to do. Last month, my brother's friend(and now our's) was over working for Nissan in Tokyo for the month. One weekend he made the bullet train ride to visit us over in Kansai. Naturally we went to Kyoto.

Dan and I have been to many places in Japan now and are pretty convinced that Kyoto is the best city. So, we took Tyler to a few of our favorite places as well visiting some new ones for the first time. One place we went was Kinkakuji. It's the "Golden Temple". It is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto and probably Japan for that matter. Interesting fact#1: It was burned down by a Buddhist monk who had become obsessed with it.

Kinkakuji in all it's glory. It had snowed the day before we went and turned out to be a great day.

Another view of Kinkakuji

We also went to the Imperial Palace, but soon realized that it wasn't that cool. It's open to the public for one week a year, and Dan and I didn't feel like going when it was. The grounds are really nice. There were people running, walking their dogs, and strolling around. Maybe it's the central park of Kyoto. The actual palace is surrounded by tall walls and you can't see any of it.

Me, Dan, and Tyler at the Imperial Palace grounds.

School Lunch

2008-02-14T00:44:00.000-08:00

Three times a week, teachers in the Ritto City Schools eat school lunch. The other two days we bring "bento"(lunch from home, or more commonly the convenience store). People have special bento boxes with cartoon characters or flowers or something and they wrap them in cloths that also have a special name. I have an old tuperware container- it's not as cute, but it works. Anyway- it's become a big part of our lives here and I wanted to share it with all of you. School lunch usually consists of 4 items: meat/fish, vegetables, soup, and rice. Sometimes the meat/fish is substituted with something like tofu or egg or something. Anyway- the meat/fish can get pretty weird sometimes(usually when it is on the meat side of things), so the staples of it have become the veggies, rice and soup. I eat most anything, but unrecognizable meat is where I draw the line. I typically like most of it though, so my overall opinion is good. Dan wavers on the subject. So here you go; a picture of school lunch.

This particular day I believe I passed on the meat. I think it's chicken though.
Also, notice the chopsticks. I have a cute matching case for them.

Biwako Valley

2008-01-31T03:33:00.001-08:00

This past weekend we went snowboarding up at Biwako Valley. It's a ski resort up about 30 minutes north of Kyoto in the mountains along Lake Biwa. On a clear day, you can see down the slopes to the big lake, but we unfortunately were not there on a clear day. The advantage of that was that the snow was fresh and good. I haven't been snowboarding since the first time I tried it about seven years ago on a Saturday at Breckenridge. It was super crowded and I just had to keep falling down to stay out of other people's way. This time I had a much better experience. After the first couple runs I was getting the hang of it and seemingly staying in control. I only bit it real hard once. Anyway- here are some pictures of us at Biwako Valley.

This is at a train station along the way. We don't really know what's going on here.

This is a self-pic on the lift. We didn't notice the person in the background at the time, but it looks pretty funny in the picture.

These little people were so cute.

Here I am shredding it up.

Here is Dan on the gondola.

Taking On Tokyo

2008-01-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

This holiday break was great. After skiing in Hakuba, we went to Tokyo to meet our friends, Liz and Phil, who were flying in from the states. We hadn't seen anyone from home in over four months, so this was very exciting for us. So- we went to Narita airport to meet them, headed back into the city to our hotel, and spent three nights there. We stayed in an older district on the northeast side of the city. It was cool because there was still shopping and city life, but it was a little calmer than some of the more famous neighborhoods. The subways in Tokyo were possibly the best I have ever seen. They were on time, clean, super easy to use, and we found these cheap two-day passes, so for what was like 10$, you could use the subways for 2 days with unlimited use. I was highly impressed.
Another bonus to our trip was that New Years is kind of a chilled out time in Japan. Dan and I had been a little nervous to visit Tokyo after hearing horror stories such as "people-jams" and people who's job it is to shove you into subways to make more room for more people to then be shoved in. I typically like my good old American personal space. So, when we discovered that the city was unusually calm and we would never be without a seat on the subway, we were more than pleased. In addition to the overall calmness, Japan doesn't have the same kind of "bar scene" we are used to surrounding this holiday. People here spend time with family and go to temples to pray for good luck in the new year.
Liz and Phil arrived on Saturday December 29th. They were understandably tired that night, so we went out to dinner and had an early evening. The next day, we went out to start our touristy sight seeing. In the three days, we saw Sensoji temple, the Imperial Palace grounds(the actual palace was closed for the holiday), Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, Roponggi, the Mori Art Museum, and Ginza street. It was great. The districts were all like different little cities all attached to each other. Shibuya was very fun. It was really lively and had lots of shops and restaurants. It looked like what you think Tokyo should look like. Another cool place was the Mori Art Museum. It was in Roponggi Hills(a huge trendy shopping area) and was on the top of a high rise building. In addition to a cool modern art exhibit, your ticket is good for the Tokyo City View. It is just above the museum and there are huge windows that go all the way around the floor. The views were amazing.

This is us on a train from Narita airport heading into the city. I was so happy to see Liz!

This is the first night in the hotel. Phil was choking down some mystery drink he found at the convenience store.

At Sensoji Temple in Asakusa. Liz and Phil are warding off bad spirits with the smoke.

I was really excited to find this chocolate shop. For those of you that don't know, Peltier is my maiden name and I love chocolate.

Liz B. and Liz P. taking on Tokyo

Shibuya

Us in Shibuya.

Dan and Liz chatting on the metro.

In The Mori Art Museum at the Tokyo City View.

New Years Eve at Sensoji Temple.

Happy New years at an English Pub in Tokyo.

Christmas in Hakuba

2007-12-27T02:55:00.001-08:00

Dan and I have just returned from our trip to Hakuba. It is a village up in the mountains of Nagano, where the 98 winter Olympics were held. We had a great time. We arrived there on December 23, skied and snowboarded on the 24th and 25th and came home the 26th. We stayed at a hotel called Hakuba House. It was more of a trendy bed and breakfast. This place made our stay so wonderful. It was run by a nice young Australian couple, who just opened the place days before we got there. It was cute and cozy and everyone was really friendly. They had a little comfortable lounge where everyone hung out and talked. The skiing was good too. I was able to ski on a run that they used for the Olympics.

This is a view from our window Christmas eve morning. We woke up to beautiful snow and it continued to snow all day.

Dan snowboarding. We dressed up like Santa because the resort was giving free lift tickets to people in Santa costumes on Christmas eve.

Mrs. Claus

Dan was loosing parts of the costume every time he fell.

Here is a view of the valley.

This is a view from close to the top of the mountain.

Surreal Human Rights Experience

2007-12-13T23:43:00.000-08:00

There won't be too many posts that I put up without pictures, but this is definately worthy of immediate mention. Today was a normal day at Ritto- Nishi Chugako. I was grading papers at my desk when a teacher approached me to let me know that there was a Human Rights Performance in the gym being done by the second grade(our 8th grade). I was appreciative of the heads up, so I followed him to the gym. Once in there, I realized I might be stuck in there for an hour, trying to pick out any Japanese vocabulary that sounds familiar to me. Then the piano started and a stage full of thirteen year old Japanese kids started singing "We Shall Overcome". I must say, they did a nice job. After the song, which up until that performance I had solely connected to the African American Civil Rights movement, I began trying to pick through the Japanese vocabulary for something to hold onto.

Nagasaki

2007-12-02T01:34:00.000-08:00

It was a long trip for just two nights, but we thought it was worth it. We took the shinkansen(bullet train) and it was still alomost 6 hours. This country is deceptively big. It looks so small on maps. Anyway- we arrived in Nagasaki in the afternoon on Friday. We found our way by tram to our hotel. It was very small, but cheap and had western beds and our own bathroom. It was walking distance to some shopping and restaurants too. The tram system was great in Nagasaki. You could take a ride anywhere and it was only 100y(less than 1$). We basically settled in, walked around and found a restaurant to have dinner at on Friday. Saturday, we went everywhere. We started by going out to Glover Gardens and The Dutch Slopes. These are areas that have a lot left of all the European influence. Historical note: Nagasaki was the only open port during the isolation period. That's why it has so much cultural influence from the west. Then we crossed town to the Peace Memorial and a-bomb museum. It was smaller and less dramatic than Hiroshima's, but it still got the point across. After that, we dropped by the shopping area for lunch(Indian Curry), and bought tickets for the Inasa-yama ropeway. It is a cablecar that takes you up a mountain, where you can see the whole city. We went up right before sunset and it was beautiful. The sun was setting on one side of the mountain, while the moon was rising on the other. We stayed up there and had a coffee while the cities lights came on. It was really cool. After that, we went to the train station area, where there is huge shopping complex(with a gap- gap is pretty expensive here). We bummed around there and had dinner at this gourmet organic buffet. It was super good. We originally went there because I read on Frommer's web page that there was 1000y beer all you can drink in 90 minutes, but that ended up not being the case. Dan was slightly disappointed, but we both loved the food. After that, we went back to the hotel. Sunday we got up had breakfast and made our way back to the station, so we could make sure we got seats on the train.

This is the first night after dinner. We wandered around and found this reggae bar- who knew?

Here we are the next day at Glover Garden. It's a beautiful area with a nice view of the city and a lot of European influenced architecture.

This is the Confucian temple. It's much more colorful than the Buddhist ones.

This is the Peace Memorial Statue in the peace park near the a-bomb hypocenter. It's controversial, because it's not pretty. One hand is pointing towards the sky(where the bomb exploded) to always remember it and never repeat it, and one hand is held out like a Buddhist statue to represent peace.

In the peace park there are monuments that have been given to Nagasaki from other countries. I forgot what country gave them this one, but I liked it.

This is another one I liked.

This is a memorial to the "26 martyrs". 26 people who were marched across the country to Nagasaki because they were Christians and then crucified here. This was a long time ago.

Here is a catholic church near the martyrs monument. It has really cool mosaic spires.

This is part of the museum connected to the monument.

This is a view of the sunset from Inasa-Yama, the mountain that we went up via the ropeway. You can see the edge of the island Kyushu, the last of the 4 main islands(Okinawa comes next).

This was a view of the moon rising that we saw when we turned around.

Self-pic on Inasa-Yama.

Arashiyama, The Monkey Park, and The Purple Sanga

2007-11-15T04:54:00.001-08:00

Dan and I had a fantastic day last Sunday. We started off by taking the train into Kyoto and heading over to the northwest side to a neighborhood called Arashiyama. We've heard of this place a lot lately, because it's supposed to be a great place to see fall leaves(apparently people here are just as excited about the fall leaves as they are about cherry blossoms). The other reason we had heard about Arashiyama is because a coworker told us about a monkey park that is there. So that, not the leaves is really what brought us to that side of town. I am glad we went there though, because it was beautiful. It is nestled into the mountains and has a big river running through town.

Here is one of the main streets. It was really cute, lined with touristy shops and food stands.

There was some celebration going on and there were people playing drums and dancing. Near that stuff was this crazy thing. It was so high you couldn't see the end of it.

This is the area you can rent boats.

This is after we got to the monkey park. After you enter you have to climb a mountain. Along the way, we saw a few peaceful monkeys looking quite normal and as if they were in their natural habitat.

This is the opposite of that. At the top of the long winding trail, you come to a clearing and see this. The building is a giant cage, not for monkeys, but for people. You go in and feed the monkeys through the fencing. We bought a small bag of sliced bananas. There were also peanuts and apples, but we figured monkeys should be eating bananas.

This is a view from inside. The monkeys would straight up reach towards people who had food. They are so human-like it's crazy!

Here are some on the move. They were fighting for positions. We were trying to feed the babies, bu the big guys weren't having it.

This monkey just received a nice piece o' banana from Dan. He had them taking the food right out of his hands.

Outside the cage there were amazing views of Kyoto.

Here is us among the monks.

After the monkeys, we headed over to the Purple Sanga game. They are Kyoto's professional soccer team. Here is Dan with his dog on a stick and his Asahi.

This was the crazy fan section. They chanted the entire game. Many of the chants went to the tune of old American songs.

This is the field with a pretty view of the sunset. The empty section across the field is the visitors section.

This is us having a fun time.

This is us having a fun time after it got really cold.

We had a really fun time and recommend the monkey park to anyone coming to visit.

At my mom's request

2007-11-15T04:33:00.000-08:00

So my mom asked that I take some more pictures of the house and what we see from it. They might not be as exciting to other people, but I understand. Here they are...

This is looking directly out the door at the side of that "restaurant" next door. There used to be a bunch of bushes and stuff, so you couldn't see it as much, but City Hall had people cut it down.

This is the view if you turn left out of the door and look at the street.

This is our door.

This is our gate and the house directly across the street. The dentists office is right next door to it to the left.

This is our house from the street.

This is looking down the street. Our house is on the left, the dentists office has the blue sign and City Hall is the enormous building past that.

This was on my morning bike commute to Hayama Junior High School.

This is also the morning commute.

Halloween

2007-11-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

So I really missed Halloween this year, but I was fortunate enough to be working with teachers that wanted me to share the joys of the wonderful holiday with the Japanese students.

This picture is hideous, but it was too funny not to share with the world. This is in the AM, just after I completed making the hat and right before I had to get dressed for work.

Here are the Jack o'lanterns I made with a couple students.

Kurama to Kibune

2007-11-04T04:40:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, Dan and I went on a hike from a town called Kurama to a town called Kibune. It was up north of Kyoto about a half an hour and the train ride up was beautiful. In Kurama we climbed up a mountain to a shrine and then hiked across a ridge to Kibune.

This is Kurama. At the end of the street are the begining of the stairs that we climbed for quite a while.

The temple at the top had great views of the surrounding mountain range.

Here is an example of that.

Here is the temple(Kurama-dera)

This is Yoshitsune Seekurabe-ishi. It is height comparing rock that Minamoto Yoshitsune used to measure his height before he went to join the Minamoto clan.

These are some crazy roots we saw along the way.

This is a pretty waterfall at the end in Kibune.

Elementary Japan

2007-11-04T04:25:00.000-08:00

There have been a couple Fridays the past month that I was assigned an Elementary school for a half of a day. I didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be fun and the students were so cute! I also only worked a half day, which was nice.

Here the principal and I are showing an example of how to say "Hello. It's nice to meet you." and then shake hands. You can see the Michigan banner I brought on the board.

Here I am trying to get the students to say the phrases to each other in English.

I ate lunch with one of the classes. This little girl talked the whole time!

At one point I was left alone with this bear.

Hiroshima

2007-10-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Dan and I took a trip to Hiroshima. It was an amazing city. We enjoyed our first shinkansen ride(bullet train) and stayed in a traditional Japanese Inn. The Inn was a lot like a hostel, but with tetami floors in the rooms that you couldn’t wear your shoes on. It was a short walk from our Inn to the Peace park, which was nice and convenient.

The first night, we found our hotel and walked to the main shopping and dining area. There we ate some Japanese-Italian(the Japanese seem to really like Italian restaurants). Then we headed out for a drink at a fancy sports bar. The next day was devoted mainly to the sights. We started with the Peace Memorial Museum. It was super informative and fair. I thought it really showed both sides and didn’t blame as much as ask the question- “how can this be avoided in the future?”. There were lots of before and after pictures, which gave a good idea of exactly what happened. I was glad that Dan made me read the book Hiroshima this past summer, because a lot of things made more sense with that background. From there, we explored the Peace Park, the monuments, and the A-Bomb Dome. The Dome is crazy to see in person.

We went and had lunch at a curry place and then went to the Hiroshima Contemporary Art Museum. We chose that one over a couple others because it had some art inspired by the bombing. After the museum we were ready to be done with the sights and relax. We went for a drink and met a couple US marines and a very friendly bartender who studied in England for a while. Later we ate at an Izakaya- it’s kind of like a bar, but they serve lots of different Japanese food in small portions(almost like tapas).

The next day we found a place that served an egg and toast breakfast(not common over here). We were excited about that and then headed over to the Hiroshima castle (a rebuilt one, since we destroyed the first one). After that we walked over to the Shukkei-en garden, which means shrunken garden(It too was destroyed and rebuilt). It was beautiful and right after we walked in an old man approached us and asked if he could give us a tour. He walked us around and explained what things were and why they were there. He was very friendly and often referred to his notes so he didn’t miss telling us anything. It was interesting because it's a type of garden that was made with a formula. All of the gardens that are this type have certain types of bridges, bamboo, green tea, four small rice plots,a central pond, a waterfall, a mimi-shore, and islands. They day we were there, there happened to be a musical performance in the large tea house, so as we walked around, we heard some faint traditional music in the background. Very pleasant.

Sunday evening we headed home and decided we want to go back to Hiroshima.

Here we are on our first Shinkansen train ride. We loved it.

Here is the Peace Park Memorial with the cenotaph that contains a list of more than 200,000 A-bomb victims. It is out in front of the Peace Memorial Museum. This woman was cleaning up.

This is the flame that is to remain burning until there are no more nuclear weapons on earth. You can see it through the memorial arch.

The A-bomb Dome

A before and after picture of the A-bomb Dome.

An interesting view of the dome.

The cool stairway at the Hiroshima contemporary art museum. All the things on the stairs are fountains.

Hiroshima-jo castle

Huge koi in the moat at the castle.

Here we are in the Shukkei-en Garden.

This is the nice gentleman who guided us around for an hour.

Here I am relaxing after the tour.

Welcome Dinner

2007-10-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday the board of education threw us a welcome dinner. We used our house because it's huge. They got sushi and pizza for the occasion. We talked about our positions and the cultural differences. It was really nice.

Floating

2007-10-14T05:12:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday, Dan and I were picked up by a teacher from his school(Fukada-sensei) and her husband and taken on quite an adventure. They picked us up at 8:30 in the AM and took us to Otsu for the Otsu Festival. This festival involved a huge parade of 13 elaborate traditional floats. Each one was an enormous old wooden wagon thing and it represented one of the 13 spirits. They each had a wooden doll(kind of like a marianette) in the front. The floats made periodic scheduled stops where they would have the dolls move and perform for the crowd. There was lots of traditional music begin played on the floats and sometimes they would throw these rice sweets out to the crowd. It was very festive.

From there, our day only got better. Around 11:30, The Fukadas took us around the lake to there yacht club for lunch and a boat ride. There we feasted with some of the people that Mr. Fukada sails with(and has since college-everyone here has a hobby that they have done since college and that is how they met there old friends). The food was awesome. There was sushi, tempura, noodles, rice, oden- soup with tons of stuff in it, different kinds of tofu, and some other stuff. So- we ate and then headed out on the sail boat. It was great- we saw the whole area from the lake. We were out for about 2 and 1/2 hours and cruised around the southern end of Biwaco(lake Biwa). Everyone was super nice and they invited us back for a race. We are not sure if that means we will be on the boat for it.

Otsu Festival

The Fukadas

Musicians on a float

Dan and I being spoiled on Lake Biwa.

The crew

They let Dan steer the boat.

A view of Otsu

I really enjoyed myself.

Minamiyama(yama means mountain)

2007-10-14T04:54:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Dan and I went on a bike ride to Minamiyama, which is a mountian that we can see from our town. It's a town over from us in Yasu and apparently looks closer than it is. All in all it was a nice bike ride even though it was longer than we had anticipated. It took so long that we didn't have much time for hiking once we got there, but it was fun anyway.

This is a view of Minamiyama from a distance. It's nickname is omi-Fuji, because it has a Fuji-like shape.

This is us on the mountain, posing for a timer picture.

This is the bike I ride- it's called the "Bounty Hunter" and it's got a mind of it's own. Sometimes it just decides to switch gears on a whim. Also there are three old locks locked to it with no keys. The bike Dan rides is newer and safer. I like my bounty hunter.

First Temple Experience

2007-09-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

Alright, so we went back to Kyoto. We really like it, so I bet there will be many Kyoto updates to come. It helps that it is only 20 minutes away. Last weekend, Dan and I went to the Kyoto National Modern Art Museum. It was really nice, but we got into town too late to do any other museuming. There are alot of cool museums in Kyoto that we plan to see. Monday, we went back to Kyoto with our friends Yoko and Masami. You may remember the name Yoko from past posts, she is our coordinator. Anyway- we had a great time with them and were able to see things we wouldn't have known about.
Even our transportation was a learning experience. We met Yoko and Masami at the bus stop down the street from our house. We had never taken a bus, so she thought it would be good to teach us. We took a bus to Kusatsu station and then headed into the city via the JR(Japan Rail).

Here are the four of us in front of Kyoto station.

Next, we took the subway downtown and found our way to this awesome old market street called Nishiki Market. It was a covered arcade lined with stands selling different prepared foods, local produce, and textiles. We tried some samples- my favorite being the pickled eggplant and the mochi with sweet beans.

Here are some beautiful mushrooms at the Nishiki Market. I was told that they were very expensive, but I couldn't read the signs.

Here is green tea for sale at the Nishiki Market.

Dan and I are getting ready to see our first temple.

This was at the entrance to the temple to wash your hands as you come in.

Me and Yoko enjoying some shaved ice up around Chion-in.

A huge buddhist statue that appeared as we came up the steps to a temple. For adding effect, there was chanting that we could hear in the distance.

This is an awesome traditional street called Sannen-zaka. We walked along streets like this to the next temple.

A beautiful garden that we passed.

This is the main gate to Kiyomizu-dera. It is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto. About 2 minutes after this picture was taken, it stared to pour.

You can bearly see the pagoda poking through the trees. This view is from the main stage at Kiyomizu-dera. We were advised to come back in November, so that we could see the colorful leaves.

Another beautiful view.

This is a fountain at Kiyomizu-dera that pours out spring water and people drink it for good health. Dan and I did not drink it because we didn't want to wait in the line.

We don't have too much planned for this weekend, but we hope to get to Nara, Hiroshima, and Tokyo soon:)

Otsu Festival

2007-09-16T18:32:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, we got up and went down the street to see if any of the Ritto half marathon excitement was still going on. The tail end of the race was still coming in and we looked over to see a couple of the finished runners lighting up a smoke. Different from the typical American post race regimin. Anyway-there wasn’t much else going on, so we decided to take the train to Otsu, where we heard there was a multicultural festival. We thought this was funny because as far as we could see Japan had not seemed the least bit diverse to us. Everywhere we go people stare at us. Now I know what Jennifer Aniston must feel like. So- Otsu was a 15 minute train ride away. When we got there, we were amazed at the huge beautiful mountains surrounding the city. We followed the main street down towards the lake. This town is at the very bottom of Biwako(lake Biwa). At the Lakefront park, we found the festival. There was a band on stage playing lound music, multicultural food tents, and information about the festival. Apparently there was a man with mixed Brazilian and Japanese heritage that started the festival and now the area has a lot of people from Peru. To get to the important part of the story: one of the food tents had beef tacos and coronas. The price was the taco, some hotdog like item, and a corona for 500 yen(about 5 dollars). The tacos were awesome. The musical acts were good(one girl sang a song in Enlish). Then there was a parade. It was fine, but halfway through it, it started to down pour. Everyone retreated into the big Biwako center(it was air conditioned and had clean bathrooms). The rain stopped, so we went back out for another taco, but then it started raining again, so at the first break, we put on our rain coats and hurried back to the train station. We had a great time in Otsu.

Here is a view of Biwako across the southern most tip of the lake.

Here is a view looking back at part of Otsu.

People watching the music stage with food tents in the background.

This woman was great. She seemed like a Japanese Ani Difranco.

The band got the crowd to get up and do a fun dance together.

Dan and I enjoying ourselves.

Dan watching the parade.

A view of the mountains after the downpour.

This is the central area to the festival. There were tents all around it.

This is one of many garbage areas. Each bin is labeled with what type of garbage it is for. The first was for plastic, then glass, then cans, then the last two were burnables. The green bucket on the end has a strainer and is where you are supposed to dump any remaining liquid. It is a great system and people actually follow it. There were people maintaining these complex garbage areas throughout the day. They were never overflowing or messy looking.

School

2007-09-16T18:15:00.001-07:00

School has been good so far. The English teachers we work with are nice and the kids think we are such novelties, that they pay attention and listen to us. We have basically been creating worksheets to go with lessons and reading things for the classes for pronunciation. There is a lot of down time, since we don’t need too much preparation. The kids leave at 3:25 and the teachers work until 5:00. Dan has taken to reading during that time(he is reading Japanese fiction), but I haven’t been able to bring myself to read my NY bestseller on the job yet. Here are pictures of school.

Kids in the hall. They have a uniform, but they can where their sports uniforms instead. There are boys at this school too, but the girls seem to be more interested in having their picture taken.

This is one of the student bike parking lots. All the students ride their bikes to school- a lot of the staff does too.

This is where the students enter. It is the equivalent to a basement, but it's just inside from the bike area. They keep their inside shoes in the cubbies, take their outside shoes off on the tile, then step up onto the platform to put their inside shoes on.

Here are some camera shy girls.

Kyoto Adventure

2007-09-08T19:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday (Saturday) Dan and I went on our first adventure outside of Ritto by ourselves. It was a success! We got to Kyoto and back with our broken Japanese and our trusty phrasebook. It was great. The train ride there was only about 25 minutes (including the transfer in Kusatsu) and the train ride back was only 20 minutes. We didn’t have much of an agenda, we just wanted to go somewhere, so when we got there, we just wandered around the Kyoto Station area for a while before heading to the Downtown area. We followed a river for a good half hour and made our way to downtown. There were lots of restaurants (with romanji on the menus) and shops that we recognized. The highlight for me was that there was a Benetton and for Dan I think it was the Japanese soccer store. Kyoto was much more modern/western than Ritto. It was much easier to navigate and communicate with people. We found this huge covered arcade mall area with tons of great shops. We found a bar in it where we took a short break with some Kirin beer and edamame beans. We also found a great book store that had a whole section of English books- other countries always conveniently accommodate the Americans. I bought a lonely planet Hiking Japan book at the book store and Dan bought a Japan National soccer jersey at the soccer store. Overall we had an excellent first experience in Kyoto (I must give credit to our friends the Willoughbys, for the Kyoto book they gave us came in very handy). The city was very big, but manageable. We haven’t even begun to explore everything there, but the impression we got was that it reminded us of San Francisco because of the smaller old architecture and the different districts and neighborhoods. So here are some pictures from yesterday:

This is Kyoto Station. It is the cities main train train station and is huge. It has an underground mall, an attached department store, hotel and tons of other stuff.

This is Dan and I by the Kama gawa. It is a large shallow river that flows through the city. You can see the mountains in the distance. All of the towns and cities that we have seen are surrounded by mountains.

This is another view of the city with the Kama gawa and the mountains.

This is me purchasing a biru from a street vending machine. It still felt kind of wrong.

This is Dan taking in the Shinkyogoku covered arcade. It was endless. We were in there a really long time and didn't see half of it.

Moyer Sensei

2007-09-07T17:55:00.000-07:00

So, we have made it through our first week in Japan! We have internet, a bank account, national health insurance, bills in our name, and we even have a "seal". It is a small round stamp with a Japanese character that means Moyer.We are supposed to stamp it on official documents instead of a signature. Things are subtly different with the whole gender thing. When we went for our bank account we said we wanted only one. From that point on I was invisible. They addressed Dan with everything and put everything in has name. We were going to get a cell phone, we filled the paper work out and everything, but then realized it would only be used to call Yoko. The first few days were easy because we had Yoko with us the whole time. Things got a little scarier when she stopped meeting us at our gate every morning. Because Ritto is a smaller town, nothing is in romanji(roman characters), which makes it difficult on Dan and I, not knowing much Japanese let alone Japanese characters. Since it is our first weekend we may try to take a train(all by ourselves) to Kusatsu or if we are feeling extra crazy Kyoto. Stay tuned to see how this unfolds!
Also- Dan is writing on his website: www.van38.com and he has an awesome account of the cell phone experience.

our house

2007-09-05T06:12:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Konbanwa! We are starting to figure a few things out now, such as how much we need to learn Japanese and how much better of a garbage system they have here. Everyday of the week they pick up a different type of garbage that you put in a shed(the sheds are located on every few streets). One type is burnable(paper/food),one is plastics, one is metals... Everything is burned or recycled. It's quite wonderful. This happens everywhere too. There aren't garbage cans around for people to throw things in. And the schools are just as strict. There are strainers by the sinks for food remnants and the milk cartons must be rinsed and cut apart so that they lay flat in the recycle crate. Anyway- here are some pictures of the house. The shower room is one big shower with the option to soak. The kitchen is huge and has everything we need. The wood work everywhere is really nice and I was told that the wall hanging
is a famous painting. Anywhere with tetami mats we can't wear shoes.

Good Luck To Us!

2007-09-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

Ohayo gozaimasu! We made it to Japan and are finally relaxing a little bit. The week leading up to the trip was so crazy with trying to cram in last visits and good byes. We are going to miss everyone, but I'm sure the year will fly by.

So- that was the lead up to saying that we actually enjoyed the 14hr flight! It went really smoothly and we were able to relax. Also, they gave us a surprising amount of food, which included one excellent gourmet brownie. When we arrived in Osaka and got through customs, Yoko(our coordinator), and an another school board person were right there with a big colorful sign. We hurried to catch a train and took it through Kyoto and Otsu to Kusatsu, where we stayed in a hotel for the night. It was a nice hotel and we slept really well that night. The next morning we woke up super early and had green tea in our room before going down to breakfast. The buffet had both Japanese(rice and fish) and more western stuff(eggs, bread, meat). We ate both. Yoko met us later and brought us here to our house in Ritto. Ritto seems to be around the size of Ann Arbor, maybe smaller because it ends at the mountains and doesn't sprawl like towns in the US seem to do. After she showed us around our house(very cool and very big), she took us shopping which is a 5-10 minute walk into town. We bought some groceries to get us started and she showed us where everything we might need will be. We took a break for lunch and then she came back on her bike. We followed her on the house bikes(there were conveniently two here already, so we didn't have to buy them) on the routes to the three schools we will be working at. One is super close and the others are around 20 minutes on bikes. We found out that we will be at separate schools and rotate through each one every four weeks or so. For Dinner Yoko brought her husband over and we walked about a block down the street to the Yakitori restaurant. They let us pick the type of food and we picked that because we thought it was safe- we were wrong. It was good, but I thought Yakitori was just chicken skewers. They ordered us tons of different stuff: chicken insides, chicken skin, chicken cartilage, ground chicken(like little chicken meatballs), chicken with plum sauce, regular chicken, eggplant, and mushrooms. Everything was grilled on skewers except a special treat that the chef brought out for us on the house. It was the little meatball ones but they were raw! I think Yoko and her husband felt obligated to eat them(it was their first time too) but I told them that raw chicken was kind of against our whole belief system. We had beer and did the Kanpai cheers thing- It was really fun. My favorite Yakitori was the cooked chicken meatball things. For the record we definately could not have gone there without them. All we would have been able to order was the beer. There was some English in Osaka and Kusatsu, but not in Ritto. Good luck to us!

Today is a free day for us so I will take pictures of our palace and post them soon. This is very fun but crazy!

Michigan

2007-08-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

My husband, Dan, and I have been traveling around MI for the past week and loving it. We started by heading up to Taquomenon Falls, which neither of us had seen as adults. We stayed in the state park and hiked down to the falls. Next, we headed over to Pictured Rocks Lakeshore and backpacked for a few nights. We love that area and Lake Superior was as beautiful as ever(but scarily warmer). While backpacking we saw a really big snake, a rabbit, tons of chipmunks and squirrels, and one night a coyote visited our site. After that, we drove down to Petoskey and met up with my brother and his two kids at the state park and stayed there two nights. This was Dan's first time to the homeland, so we had lots to show him. We went into town, we went by our old house, we went put-putting were we put-putted as kids, and we went to Walloon Lake. The trip was awesome and relaxing, but it was the calm before the storm.

Sushizama

2007-07-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hi and welcome to my new blog. I did this to make it easy to post pictures while I am away and I named it "sushi" because I am going to Japan and I really like sushi. I hope to eat lots of sushi while over there. We now roughly have 5 weeks until we leave and I am not quite nervous, but almost because I don't have any idea what to expect. I don't exactly know what to be nervous about. I have been reading up on the country and customs. I have even been trying to learn some of the language(which is not going so well). All of this basically means nothing. We will go over and I am sure it will just be wild.