. . : : Japan takes the QUEEN : : . .

i am in hiroshima. i really like it down south. as my friend HL said, it could just be that I like cities {or access to them} and maybe that's what it is....either way, it's peace down here. i am supposed to be heading to peace park and checking out a museum or two today, but haven't made it out of the apartment yet...it will happen. i was awake earlier, but then fell back asleep...i will be going to a music festival on the beach tomorrow, so i am looking forward to that...beautifuls pics will come...

I almost missed the last dance of the festival. It's good thing that I went down there when I did. Out of all of the festivals that I went to this month (3 others) I was at this one for the tail end (about 30 minutes). I got the best shots in these few minutes that I was there.





While at the festival, I felt like I wanted to have yukata [summer kimono] on. It's funny b/c before I left, I ran into two of my students and they said "Takeyah-sensei, where's your yukata?!" . . .they asked like they would ask anyone else.

I am heading south for a mini vacation for 10 days...YEAH! I am looking forward to the trip! I bought a sleeping bag last night! And today, I laid down a whole lot of YEN (more than my Singapore trip) to get down there. Travel in J can be so expensive if you are a resident/citizen!

In honor of me (almost) finishing my presentation, I rented a movie. It was pretty good... It's a nice break from the big "To DO" list that I have been owrking on for the past two months. I will soon be a graduate student again! YEAH! I think! LOL! I haven't heard anything back from my old dept since I sent my "my bad, I am not returning to your dept" letter. They actually don't have to send me anything. It all will work out well. I am looking forward to completing my degree when I return. The on-line class format might be very different for me. It's a good thing that my first class will be in fall/winter...I will be indoors anyway, so there shouldn't be too many distractions.

This morning I woke up to ...




I am not very clear about what it is [a shrine-esque structure?], but I know it let's us know that the Tanabu Matsuri [Tanabu Festival] is beginning today! So now, since I will be gone over the next two days, I am going to ride my bike "downtown" to see if anything is going on.

i followed what it said...first the road was paved for 2-way traffic...paved for one-way traffic...one way traffic yet getting more like gravel...getting narrower...the tree branches are brushing the sides of the car...nowhere to turn around...follow the sign....keep on going....heading up steep hills...deeper and deeper in the foresty mountain..no street lights...is this really a street?...winding up and up..."beware of bears"...lock my doors...dirt road now...where is my cell phone?...no signal...at least it's still light outside...these roads are really bad...a flat tire would be bad right now...okay...Creator, please get me out of this...it's a good thing I have a Ru...okay, heading downhill now......still a lot of gravel...winding..."beware of bears"...hmm...still no signal....is that the ocean I see?...i am still so high up...hope there aren't any cars coming around the bend...at least it's still light outside...okay...I can see the ocean still, so that must mean I am heading in the right direction...road is getting les steep...less winding...it's paved all of a sudden....i see a sign...it's the same "highway" as the beginning....there a guy on a motorbike...some houses, in the cut...downhill...back on gravel....right turn onto a highway...

That was me last Friday afternoon between 4 and 440p...I can NOT believe that they have that road as an exchange...1..7..9....the 179...the road most people are warned about...except me....I was very nervous...truly scared....I didn't get the memo...where is my secretary?!

having an earthquake at this very moment

not wildin' out [otherwise known as patience] is a virtue...my VP just came in and told me that they are giving me additional days off, so I can do my Hiroshima trip over a longer period of time. YEAH! All I have to do is work out my arrangemnts to get there. Hopefully it will not be too expensive. I put the YEN aside for this trip though, so it really is not a major issue!

i went wall-climbing for the first time today. i am worn out but i had a great time! i have always wanted to try it. so when i was asked if i wanted to go, i jumped right on the opportunity. i plan on going again! the dude at the place said he was impressed with my 'wall-climbing abilities' and he was surprised that it was my first time. i was surprised at it too, however something tell me that my 'foreigner' status may have been the guiding force in that compliment...but who knows.

on saturday morning, went to a great onsen in rokkasho. it was really nice and they supplied you with bath salts. they had an outdoor pool as well. this place is supposed to be a one-stop relaxation spot. they have onsen, karaoke, restaurants, massages...the works! my shimokita sisdekick and I decided that this will be a regular hang out spot. we had to head down to the beach, so we didn't stay for massages or karaoke. we headed south to asamushi beach and hung out there all day. i got browner! then just sat around most of the day. towards the end of my stay at the beach, i played volleyball. it wouldn't be a sport if, somehow, i didn't have a minor injury....I managed to get elbowed in the mouth and left with a mini-swollen lip (only I could really notice it!) taking a step back: i found out last weekend, at the beach, that the rules in volleyball have changed! i guess things do change after HS (the last time I played)

i left the beach and went to get kaiten zushi [sushi that come around on a turnstyle and you just pick up what you want and based on the color of the plates, you pay afterwards]. after the sushi, we went to an onsen and had a nice time here. took a mini-break and watch the brazil-japan volleyball game, then got back into the hot pool. ended up spending the night in aomori, then went wall-climbing this morning...pretty good weekend so far!

soy milk, orange juice, frozen bananas, apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla essence and ice...tasty! I finally bought a blender and it has been ON since. I had some people over for dinner last night, so of course for dessert what did we have? smoothies. my Aomori lil' bro came over today for a short bit. what did we have? smoothies. came back in after sitting at the cellphone store with lil' bro. what did i have to make? A SMOOTHIE!

Aside from being tempted to make smoothies for all 50,000 of Mutsu's residents, I was also tempted to get a new cell phone today. They were practically giving the away for free. And actually, if you are under 29 [that would be me] it was free! Too bad it was a different company from the one I currently use, and they didn't have an free pink phones. So if there is no pink option, what is the point, right?! At the phone shop, I held the tiniest phone that I ever saw. It was only about half of my palm and it wasn't even a flip phone (see picture below)....wait...speaking of pictures, my digi cam is fixed! I forgot about it. YEAH! So now I get to tke photos of all of the summer fun. This part is important b/c when the winter rolls around and all i can see is white fluff around me, I'll need to remember that there was life before inhaling kerosene fumes and slipping on ice.

;)

On June 16th of last year I signed a contract to teach English in Japan.

On August 2nd of last year I boarded an airplane and sat in seat 57E on a plane bound for Japan.

On February 6th of this year I signed a contract to teach an additional year in Japan.

Today marks one year and one week in Japan. Last year, I wrote:

...I am looking forward to classes beginning and having a schedule that I can follow (although it won't really be consistent). I have to prepare my self-introduction lesson for next week. I am going to do it on PowerPoint. It will make it easy and colorful. Plus, my school is the best academic school in the prefecture so they have the facilities.

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
I FINALLY found brown rice (genmai) and soymilk (tonyu) in the local supermarket! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cant wait to cook (I would never have thought that I would say that, but it's true). When my boxes get here, I can throw down on some Japanesed style cooking...until then, I'll have to work with what I have.

I honestly had no idea that I would be in Japan longer than one year. The time has really flown by. There is so much that I have yet to experience here. After a year, I am finally getting a splash of warm weather. I am seeing other parts of J. I can understand (some) Japanese. I travelled to 3 additional countries and plans are underway to add at least 3 more to the list. I taught over 400 students. I made two sweaters. I had 3 visitors. I typed over 60,000 words and received more than 10,000 online visitors.

I have lived....and I am looking forward to living more...

I have some Ominato Nebuta photos now.




Before the festival, a group of us [locals, residents (me) and visiting foreigners] met before the festival. My cute geta [sandals with two "heels"] are peaking out.

With Ayako before the parade

I had a affirming experience last night. It ended with me speaking with a 74-year old Mutsu native for an hour. I passed by my (craft store owner) friend's store and did my usual chatting and crafting. An older woman came in and sat down then started talking to me. The interesting thing is that here Japanese is thelocal dialect, that I soon realized I don't understand. So the conversation was going from local dialect Japanese to Japanese to me (in a closer to Japanese). I actually understood the of the conversation. So after talking for about a half hour, she invited me to come to her bar/shop down the road. We chatted about the different dialects, how the area has changed in her lifetime (she was borned and raised here and has lived here all her life), it was really cool. She also invited me to do karaoke at her place this week. It was nice and I realized that my Japanese listening comprehension is much better than I thought b/c she was speaking in a different dialect and I could understand her still...YATTA!

WHY are these folx at my school trying to steal my joy today?! I got up, handled some things at home prepare mySelf to come into work. Wearing a nice summery wrap skirt and feeling great...get to school to stamp my seal in the attendance book and see that someone whited out my vacation days that the VP of my school gave me. Now, I just raised my eyebrow at it, but kept it moving. I go to the other room where I usually sit to put my bag down and come back into the main room. As soon as I am at my desk, here comes my old supervisor and new supervisor with the book saying that I cannot take my vacation (which is supposed to start tomorrow) b/c I don't have the days off. I told them that kyoto-sensei/VP told me to take those days off. So now we get back into the convo about ... your contract says etc... So I am thinking and even say to them, everything has been approved for 2 weeks and I made my plans already.... kyoto-sensei, gave me the days off ... this is the reason why I ask you for my schedule in advance ... how come I find this out the day before I am scheduled to go on vacation ... this is the same issue we had last year, when you got me for 3 of my vacation days... Kyoto-sensei is out on a business trip today and my new supervisor is going on vacation tomorrow, so everyone wants to rush me to get things done.

So my old supervisor, wanting to make things peaceful, thinks of a plan to have me take in-service days, since I am staying Japan. Basically, it's a paid vacation where I tell them that I am trying to learn about J culture and that type of thing...and in actuality, that is what I am trying to do. But this is NOT what I wanted to greet me today as I entered this building. And since my new supervisor got her position, I am kind of feeling like she is on a mission to make things a smidge more difficult for me. This incident is making me think this. I mean, we had a discussion about the 'summer vacation', I filled out the form 3 or 4 times, then the VP gave his approval and told me to take a paid vacation instead of using my regular vacation days. I go on a trip, and my supervisor goes back and whites out the days after I was told to take them, then tels me that it's not in my contract so I can't take the days off and that's not how they do things at this school. I don't think it would be in their best interest to begin making things difficult for me here...NOT after a year.

In the meantime, I am 'living my life like it's golden'....thanks for the video JS and MG ;)

I have been feeling super productive recently. Aside from completing the presentations/workshops at the Tokyo Orientation and for the teacher training, I also FINALLY completed a sweater that I have been working on for more than 6 months! I think sweaters will continue to be my long term projects. I designed the sweater myself and I can't wait to wear it. I mad it with super-long belled sleeves. It buttons up on one side at the neck with two (currently missing) buttons. Since I broke my camera, I can only take a pic with my cell phone [on the right] which doesn't do it much justice...but oh well, I like it a lot. I also completed ES' cell phone case and I got a cute button to go with it. YEAH! I have to begin working on some other items soon, including another sweater and some items for a trunk show that I want to do in autumn....see how things go!

I have to do my taxes. It seems like they will be alright. Hopefully the int'l filing tax experience remains pleasant :)

I also have to plan my mini-vacation that I am taking either this week or at the end of the month. I plan on going to Kyuushu and/or Hiroshima. The trip will be costly but I have places to stay so that makes it cool.

It's about 8AM now, I have been up for about and hour and ahalf and I feel good...

A sistah is officially tired tonight this morning! I have been out of my area for almost 2 weeks! First Tokyo then I came back for a day or two then headed to Aomori City to do the teacher's seminar. The presentations went well and results seem to show that the teachers learned some"thing" from our workshops and presentations. At some point during this week, the teachers' performances gave me the impression that they were looking for us to plan lessons for them for the next year, as opposed to giving them the skills that they need to teach the students effectively. By the end of the week, that impression didn't change however we were able to see that the students took a lot of the information that we gave them and began processing it. So it was productive. By the time Friday rolled around, I was ready to head out of there...thank goodness for the scheduled half-day!

I went to see the Tachinebuta in Goshogawara on Thursday night. On Friday, I went to the Aomori City Nebuta and jumped around in the parade! There had to be at least 50+ JETs that participated. I got dressed in my yukata [plus my cute pink sneakers] and prepared for jumping for a few hours shouting a response of "rassera sera sera"! I jumped so much that I was drenched by the time the parade ended. As a matter of fact, my clothes were stil wet when I took them out of the bag today (2 days later)...ewwww....not a good thing considering my continuous M-O-L-(.....you know the rest) problem. The couple that I borrowed the costume from told me that I could have it, so I have added yet anothey yukata to my collection.

I decided to stay until Saturday instead of heading back home on Friday. When we woke up on Saturday, we planned to head to the onsen , head to a friend's for lunch, then head to the beach. We ended up just chatting for most of the morning, going to the onsen , going to a friend's house for lunch, going to Aomori City to look at fireworks, and going to karaoke until about 1AM.

I decided to stay until Sunday instead of heading back home, so we go up with an action plan. I needed to go shopping to buy some geta to match my yukata that my friend bought for me. So we set out to find some shoes, then headed to the beach. After the beach, I dropped off my new friend, Shimokita Sidekick. I had had a really great weekend already, but the fun didn't end there. I met up with my friend (from my Adult English class, same one that bought my yukata) and she wrapped me up nice and tight for the Ominato Nebuta.

The Ominato Nebuta is smaller than Aomori's but just I knew a good number of people walking around. It was my first time wearing yukata and I liked it. Of course, everyone looked at me like usual, but I think that people were generally surprised that I could wear yukata. I think it looked great and I was happy that my cute little shoes matched the yukata. It was a long night and weekend, so by the time a city official asked me to join the parade and pull a float, I was really tired.

The funny thing and maybe not so funny thing is that I did all of these cultural events over the past week. My camera is broken, so I don't have any pics from all of the events.....AND here I am at almost 2AM about to pass out....and things are good!

I went to the Tachinebuta festival in Goshogawara last night! It was pretty good. The floats were humongous. There was even a float lit by candles...unfortunately part of it caught fire a few nights ago. Only a small section showed fire damage so all was well in 'float news'.

Tonight I will be dancing/jumping in the Aomori Nebuta festival parade....should be fun. Unfortunately, my digital camera is broken, and I do NOT want to jump around in a parage with my manual SLR, so I will be going with the old disposable camera for today's festivities.

i am in aomori city on another business trip. i am doing a teacher training seminar for Japanese Teachers of English in this area. coming to J, I would have never thought that I would be teaching teachers how to teach their students...but hey! who knows?! today was my first day and it went well...looking forward to tomorrow lessons.