I want to go there

Naming department: Sucess!

A coffee shop/cafe...called Perky Club...haha perfect! Sounds like my kind of joint.  Now if only I can figure out where exactly it is...I'll be peddling my bike there all the time!

Sankanbi: May

Ok so the last few weeks have been kind of stressful as the school prepared for the May sankanbi (parent view class day)  It's not a "real" lesson, as the principal and Japanese teachers made us come up with a lesson plan weeks ago and then watched them, critiqued them and made us fine tune them with pratice for the last week and a half or so.  Needless to say my 3yr old kiddies were very sick of the lesson before today. I think that might have actually worked out in my favor...as we were all anticipating them going insane and not paying attention because of their parents being around.  Not having the extra excitement of a fun new English lesson probably balanced out the extra energy of the parents! 

So YAY! I think I survived.  The other teacher's feedback wasn't that I was a horrible teacher and should be fired.  So that must mean they liked me! right?! 

On a side note...because of the music practices every morning for the last 3 weeks I now have 5 Japanese kid's songs and dances memorized and running around in my head.  GAHHH!!! one of which is about frogs and the dance involves hopping around like one...help me!

Grand Rapids is AWESOME!

Ok so one of my friends posted THIS LINK on FB about Grand Rapids...a town I love that is close enough to being my hometown as not to really matter.  And it is FANTASTIC!!!  I've watched the video twice already.  I can't believe he was in this video.  So cool!

It's sort of a promotion video for GR but done in a completely new way.  Enjoy and hopefully it gets you seeing what makes West Michigan and the Midwest so great a place to live and visit!

Mt. Bizan revisited

So I climbed Mt. Bizan today with a couple of my friends instead of taking the ropeway up like I did last time.  It was fun and since we stopped a ton of times (man we are woses) it wasn't that strenuous.  The part I hated about it was the fact that Japanese misquitoes apparently LOVE me.  I got about 15 new bites just from the hike up...while my friends maybe got 2.  GRRRR....lesson learned...don't go anywhere in Japan without misquito repellent.  I really should have learned this lesson before now, as every morning I wake up with at least one new bite.  My solution had been to try and find/kill all the ones in my apartment before falling asleep.  I must always miss one or they have a secret entrance into my room.

After we got to the top we wandered the viewing platform and found a couple of benches.  My new friend Hal met last night at Ingrids brought a few beers with him and we drank them as celebration of making it to the top.  It's apparently his tradition for when he gets to the top of a moutain.  I'm good with that tradition as I had told him the night before I don't like beer and he produced a smirnoff for me...sweet!  Hanging out at the top was beautiful and the weather was perfect.  This morning had been extremely humid and muggy, but at that time the impending drizzle had put enough water on the ground to make it perfect outside.  After being at the top for perhaps 2 or 3 hours Hal and Jessica started talking about walking back down....after nearly scratching my legs off I decided that was a bad idea for me and bailed on them and took the ropeway down (I STILL managed to get one more bite).  So now I'm sitting in my apartment practically covered in toothpaste attempting to stop the itching.  I forsee a treck to the store for anti-itch cream in my near future. 

Jessica just called apparently she's only now getting to the station (some 2.5 hours after I split from them) and asked if I wanted to go out for sushi once she gets back....sounds like fun..I'll let you know how that turns out!

Ingrid's

I convinced my neighbor Jessica to go out to the bar with me...to the town's main foriegner hang out spot, Ingid's (I've mentioned her here: Hanami)!!!  Being the only girls there got kind of ackward when a few weird..possibly drunk Japanese guys came over and wanted us to sit with them.  We did for perhaps 5 minutes as it was a novel experience to get approached by Japanese guys.  Meeting ones that iniciate talk is VERY rare.  But as neither of us were interested we just stayed long enough to say we did it...and then left Ingrid's bar for a little while and wandered around. 



Look what I discovered!  It's mate found here



We poped our heads into the other of the foriegn bars as Jess likes the owner there...kookey lady who runs an extremely dodgy place. Once we felt it was safe we went back to Ingrids and did Karaoke for several hours.  Around 3 she wanted to close so we all left. haha 3am and the nights only half over.  Crazy Japan!  One of the guys who was there has a friend who owns another bar that was around the corner....I guess that place is the after-after-party spot for when something is going on around town. The owner kept playing great music and it convinced us to stay even after Hal and Chris left for a different bar.  By the time we decided to leave it was after 5am.   It's now 5:30 and we just got back after walking to the station and catching a taxi home...I'm practically crawling into bed as I type.  Great fun.  Hal,  who Jessica seemed to hit it off with and I can see myself being friends with, invited us to climb Mt. Bizan with him...today I guess it would be. He said noon....which is in only a few hours.  I sincerely doubt we'll be going that early!

phew*

Wrist update number 2.

It hurt a bit yesterday too, not nearly as bad as Monday, but enough to convince me not to seek medical attention yet.

Today I am back to 100% wrist usage.  Thank you Daniel for correctly telling me that I probably sprained it....man now that would be an interesting conversation.

Doctor: "Now please tell me what you did to sprain your wrist?"
Me: "I baked a cake."
Doctor: "I'm sorry, I think you're confused.  I asked how you sprained your wrist."
Me: "I baked a cake."
Doctor: "Are you trying to bribe me for stonger medication?"
Me: "NO! I baked a cake!"
Doctor: "why are you telling me you baked a cake if you aren't trying to bribe me with it?!"
Me: "You asked me how I sprained my wrist."
Doctor:  "How does baking a cake have anything to do with spraining you wrist?"
Me: "Lots of mixing"

Hope you enjoyed the peek into my brain!

Awa Odori Bridge

It plays Awa Odori music (tradional dance Tokushima is famous for) 24 hours a day and at night is a changing color light up display.  Come August there is going to be a massive Awa Odori festival around town that crosses this bridge.  I personally think the light display is a waste of Engineering know-how and electricity...that being said it's BEAUTIFUL and I love to watch it.  The first time I heard the music though I was freaked...took me forever to figure out the source!

ouch

Update on my wrist from mixing frosting by hand....it hurts to wave.

Ongaku Chokai (dance and singing practice) this morning, plus then lessons today made me miserable.  I went through at least 8 icepacks during the day.  If this continues for much longer I'm tempted to be a baby and go to the hospital for pain medicine. 

The hello and goodbye songs are going to be the death of me!

Happy Birthday Fuu-san!

Yakiniku for dinner!

Gotta have a Happy Birthday Hat for the occation

Me vs a Japanese kitchen round 3: sucess!!

Baked in a toaster oven...man am I awesome!

mmmm...yummy chocolate cake.

Fuu-san and her presents from Sana and myself

Me vs Japanese Kitchen: Birthday Cake

Sana and I baked Fuusan's Birthday cake tonight for her 25th Birthday and party to be hosted at my apartment tomorrow.  Needless to say we made a huge mess....but as mom did back home, Sana pretty much just followed me around with a rag cleaning up my messes, and then happily went about cleaning the dishes.  SUCH a great benefit, Japanese female friends...compulsive cleaners!

ANYWAYS she left before we got to the frosting......ouch my wrist hurts....the recipe called for blender:

on high, for 5 minutes. 

kinda hard to simulate that with just me and a wisk.  Pictures of the cake to come later!  Happy Birthday Fuusan...it was worth it~!!

Takamatsu for Golden Week!

me putting on a show for the Japanese people to watch...nothing new!

Takamatsu Castle

The guy who takes your ticket to get into the castle

Jessica and I spent today (part of Golden Week) in Takamatsu.  What is the closest of the big cities here on Shikoku.  It was a ton of fun, we caught the train in the morning, rode in style on the express train and arrived before noon.  After wandering around the station for a bit, we decided to go to Takamatsu Castle..pictured above.  It was a lot of fun, I kept being a goof-ball.  Jessica has pictures of me climbing all over stuff..in a lantern..hanging out the castle window..scaling the wall.  I might post them later..they are very entertaining. 

After we had explored probably every square inch of the castle and gardens we decided to hunt down some food...well since this was Golden week there are tons of festival like activities going on.  The local park had food stands with delicious yakisoba and takitori that I couldn't resist.  Jess and I each bought one of each and found our way to the public picnic eating area and partook of our feast.

After eating we watched a bit of an Awa Odori dance performance, and one that looked like someone merged tradition Japanese folk dancing with pop-in-locking...was kinda weird.  My friend said it was probably the traditional dance from the Kobe area.  No idea, I didn't really like it.  Jess and I then collectively decided that shopping was a great idea to do next and hopped on the next bus to Youme Town...a huge shopping mall that took us hours to go everywhere..and we didn't even go inside all of the stores!  I'm planning on going back as soon as I can to explore some other shopping areas in town!

The train ride back was uneventful, other than we got to the station near seconds before the train left and were forced to litterally run to catch it (or else have to wait around for an hour).  When we got back to Tokushima..we got on the wrong transfer train, going to our station (Yoshinari) usually takes only minutes...we went in the wrong direction and ended up taking a cab instead of waiting the hour and a half it would have taken to get home via train.  Wise decision right?

only in Japan

product naming department fumbled on this one!!

best day of work award

Ok so today was officially the best day I have had at a day at work EVER!  It started off completely normal, I wasn't really expecting anything except for having difficulty in telling the kiddies how to finish the Mother's Day presents we had been working on in English class the last two classes.  Difficulties in explaining things is completely normal.  I mean, they are 3 and most haven't even heard English before, let alone speak it! After riding the bus...well not like normal, Daniel thought we were on the new schedule and got on the bus I was supposed to take.  So figuring out which one I should be on instead caused a bit of stress, especially as he was to be on red bus..one I haven't been on since the routes changed.  ANYWAYS....

....I got to school and helped the kids off the bus and reported to class.  Whoever rides the short routes usually watches the classrooms of teachers that aren't there yet, so I had to find out where I was going to be for the next half hour or so.  They kept me in Sakura class (Cherry Blossom Class) it had a helper already, but it seems they've changed how they kept watch in the morning since last "year."  I've been on all long routes in the morning so didn't know about the change.  We had several kids from all the classes.  Chisa sensei had the new schedule for classes ready and handed me Daniel's and Sean's copies to give them whenever they arrived.  When I looked down at mine I noticed we didn't have class today.  Instead, we were to go out "Lotus flower picking" whatever that meant.  So I wouldn't be having the kids do the project afterall...meaning I was going to have to put together 31 projects on my own...as I had been asked moments before to have them ready for the kids to take home that day.  GREAT.

Going somewhere with the kids means we have to wear our Yellow Seiko Staff polo shirts...so I had to run back to my apartment and grab mine.  Luckily they are only right across the street, so I didn't have to run very far and was back to school in less than 5 minutes.  Keiko sensei (Sakura class teacher) was very impressed with my speed! haha.  At 10 we lined all the kids up and walked the few blocks to the field where the "Lotus blossoms" were....these looked pretty much like a field filled with cloverish flowers.  Weeds, whatever kind of flower they were.  The ever present film crew and photographers captured the walk there and we had group shots taken in the flower patch again.  Sean did some pretty amusing things to get all of the K-3's to look at the camera at the same time.  I think he just earned himself the job of doing such things in the future whenever we do group shots!

After photos the kids were allowed to do what I had thought the Tulip park was going to be.....absolute freedom.  Run, jump, play, rollaround, pick the flowers, whatever they wanted!  I of course joined into the fun, falling into an undesterbed patch and a making a plant version of a snow angel.   I had not anticipated the kids dog pileing me while I was at a disadvantage though.  I did catch a few glimpses of the video camera pointed my way....that will be an interesting scene if I ever get to watch it.  haha~ ! I had an awesome time..really wish I had my camera with me..I could have attempted to get some shots where the kid's faces weren't showing to post.  It was a fantastic excursion for everyone.  We were out there for over an hour, I had the kids over my shoulder spinning, or hanging them upside down.  A few even managed to get a horseride out of the morning! Again I wonder how that is going to look on camera as I saw them pointed in my direction a lot.  My antics with the kids had to be more entertaining than the K-4&5 year olds who where actually picking the flowers for the whole time.  Not that the K-3's weren't too...they were just playing hard between each flower they grabbed! I don't think a single stalk of clover was left standing or unplucked by the time we left (^.^)

The rest of the day I was secluded behind my desk, frantically glueing the 31 flowers and drawings together.  Buses leave in the afternoon at 2:10...I finished the last one at 2:02.  By then the teachers had already gotten the kids on the buses and given them the Mother's Day present bags.  Thank goodness I finished one class about an hour earlier and hand given them to Keiko sensei (peach class teacher...yes both of the teachers I work with are named Keiko) so when she handed out her class their bags it was already inside.  Keiko sensei (Sakura class) didn't know her classes' wasn't in there and sent them off onto the bus without it!  I frantically grabbed Naomi sensei and Miki sensei (teacher's helpers) and had them locate all the kids from Sakura class.  Luckily it was only 15 kids and 5 of them weren't on the buses...meaning they were all together.  The last present was given out and put in the bag right as the buses were doing the name calls for leaving.  PHEW! mission accomplished!

now...what to do as my lesson for Friday!