Mayfest

This is my last week at a visiting school and I am so excited to be back in Ishimine next week and to get back to a normal schedule! I miss my base schools a lot and traveling to new schools all over the city is really hard. I saw one of my students from Shinozaki (my original base school) at the grocery store this week and he was very happy to see me! He asked when I was coming back and knowing my students miss me makes me want to go back all the more. Asakawa is treating me well, but I can't wait to get back to my base schools.

This week had some up and downs for me. I had some fun nights out and about in Kokura, but a good friend of mine had to be hospitalized. She called an ambulance Friday morning and I spent much of Friday night and Saturday afternoon visiting her. She has to stay in the hospital for at least a week. She may need surgery depending on how her recovery goes. She gave us all a bit of a scare, but she should be okay and hopefully next week I'll be able to tell you she's out of the hospital and back to normal!

This week also had some baffling night life. In 勝山公園 (Katsuyama Koen, Katsuyama Park) there are tents set up along the river selling beer for Oktoberfest. The JETs have nicknamed this event Mayfest for obvious reasons. Despite the odd timing the event is quite nice, if not a bit expensive. I walked through the maze of tents and sat beside the river. My friends were busy that night and although I didn't get any expensive beers it was a really nice atmosphere, especially now that the nights are so warm.

I also went to the symphony orchestra practice for the first time. They are singing songs from My Fair Lady and although most have been translated to Japanese, there are a few lines still in English. I sang it for them and we had a mini pronunciation lesson. It was a lot of fun and although I could only stay for 45 minutes, I hope to go back!

After the practice I raced over to meet my friends in a pub owned by a British couple. Juha had found out about a pub quiz in English there. Everyone pays 200円 as an entrance fee and the winners take the pot. It's really cheap and a lot of fun! Juha, Kyoko, Leah, and I were a team. We didn't win, but we want to go back next month to try again!

I know this has a been a short post, but not much excitement has been happening here. The weather has gotten quite warm and very humid (over 90% humidity almost every day). Next weekend I'm hoping to go to a flower show with Leah and Caol is talking about having a mojito party similar to his sangria party last week. I want to have a "Welcome Home Out of the Hospital" diner for Kikumi by next weekend, I really hope she's out of the hospital by then. one more week until I'm back at my normal schools and honestly I just hope this week goes by fast.

浅川

Last week was pretty uneventful. I started and finished at 槻田 (Tsukida) Junior High School. It was a small school about twenty minutes away by bus. There were two English teachers who were both very nice and I had a good time there. Unfortunately I'm still on the visiting school schedule so I had to leave 槻田 for 浅川 (Asakawa) this week. The good news is only two more weeks until I can go back to my base schools! The bad news is that Asakawa is very far away and every time I've visited this school in the past something has gone wrong. It's pretty far from my apartment; I have to commute for over an hour on my bike, then a train, then a bus. I haven't been given a shoe locker in the past, so I would have to carry school shoes back and forth every day and the first time I ever came here they forgot I was coming and all the English teachers had taken the week off. This time, though, I've been giving a shoe locker and they even faxed me a class schedule ahead of time. So even with my previous negative experiences at this school, I have good hopes for the next two weeks here in 浅川!

I also want to say not only a congratulations to my brother for graduating last week, but also to all the students at Hofstra who graduated last Sunday! I also know Hofstra in Japan 2014 is leaving tomorrow. I hope you all have as good of a time as I did and hopefully I can get up to Hiroshima to say hello! (Although HIJ will be there during the school week, so I'm not sure I can.) If not I'll look forward to seeing Kanatsu, the man who makes Hofstra in Japan possible, sometime this summer or fall.

Another exciting thing happening around this time is the new placements for the new JETs. Between now and August the 2014 incoming JETs will be getting their assignments. Usually the first contact we will have with the new JETs is through facebook. People will find their placement and immediately go online to find the corresponding facebook group. So far one new JET has posted in the Fukuoka group, but we're not sure where she will be within Fukuoka province. She won't be in Kitakyushu because it's the only place in Fukuoka that is specified on the placement form. This distinction is because the rest of Fukuoka province is hired by the Fukuoka Board of Education, but Kitakyushu is hired by the Kitakyushu Board of Education. I'm not sure why, but it's certainly much more convenient for me. All that really matters, though, is that we are relentless checking the facebook page with eagerness, excited to meet our newest KitaQ JETs. We've been told that we will get one American and one Australian. They'll both arrive in Kitakyushu on July 31st. I'll be on a flight back to Japan then, but will hopefully meet them the next day!

As you can probably tell by my rambling this week, not much exciting has happened. Over the weekend my friend Caol made sangria and we went to karaoke together, but that's the only excitement I've had this week. I do have a lot to look forward to this week, though! Friends are coming over for dinner both tomorrow (Tuesday) and Thursday. This weekend I'll be going to the symphony practice, I'm swinging by the Board of Education after work today to pick up all the music. I'm sorry this is such a short post, hopefully next week I'll have a bit more to talk about!

梅酒

It may be a day late in Japan, but it's still Mother's Day back home, so happy Mother's Day to all the moms who read this. I was very happy to be able to send flower home to my mom. Also a big congradulations to my brother who is graduating from Emory tonight for me (tomorrow morning for him)! Even though I can't be there in person I have the web address for the live stream and will be watching!

Although it hasn't been a week since my last post, I've been very busy! I only had three days of school last week because of Golden Week and they were pretty uneventful. Leah came over on Friday night and we went to Patrick's to play games and meet up with some other JETs. We had a lot of fun, but made sure to be home by midnight because the next day our friends Masato, Teppei, and Caol were coming over for breakfast. We were up early cleaning and cooking and dying Leah's hair. It was a beautiful day and our preparations didn't take very long, so we sat outside with tea and coffee for a while before the boys showed up. When they did we had our breakfast before all piling into Masato's Mini Cooper and heading out to 日田 (Hita). Hita is a small town in Oita prefecture. Another friend of ours has a guest house there and we had been invited to spend the night. It took us a while to find the house, but we did eventually and it was beautiful! It had a kitchen with a bar (similar to mine, but much bigger) and a living room with a lot of space. There were two tatami rooms and upstairs was two bedrooms. There was a bathroom with an onsen tub big enough for all eight of us to fit comfortably and there was a BBQ in the backyard. Some of the other people didn't speak English, but thankfully even after a few drinks Caol, Leah, and I could still speak to them in Japanese. We had a big BBQ for dinner and played cards for a while before going in the onsen. We had a lot of fun just talking and meeting new people and didn't get to bed until late. Instead of using the upstairs bedrooms, which didn't have enough beds for all of us, we laid out futons in the tatami room downstairs so we could all have our own sleeping spaces. The next morning I only stayed for breakfast before going to the train station back home. Everyone else was staying longer, but I had plans and had to be back in Kokura. Another girl, Yuko, was going back toward Kokura as well. We took the train together when Kyoko texted me. The place we were going needed a reservation, but her sister had just canceled and we needed another person. I invited Yuko and she came with me all the way back to Kokura (about two hours). We met Yuha, Kyoko, and some other friends of ours for lunch before catching a train to Moji.

We went to an 梅酒 (umeshu, plum wine) tasting in Moji. It was so much fun! A lot of JETs came from all around Kyushu and some even came from Honshu. They had over 100 different kinds of umeshu you could try along with beer, 焼酎 (shouchu, Japanese liquor kind of similar to vodka), and 日本酒 (nihonshu, sake). We had these tiny little cups and could try sips of anything we wanted. It was a very limited event, so although the tasting was in a small garden it wasn't too crowded. You could also buy snacks to compliment the different drinks. I tried everything from coffee banana umeshu to spicy umeshu to yogurt umeshu. I didn't like all of them, but it was fun to try all the different flavors. The spicy umeshu was my favorite, although there were many good ones! I'm really happy Yuko came even though we'd only met each other the night before. We had a lot in common and I think she will become a really good friend! (She is in the picture in the upper left.)

Many of my friends from the board game club had come to the tasting, so we decided to head back to my apartment for dinner and to play some games. Nine people ended up coming back and we ordered some pizzas before getting the games started. Mike sent me a new game for Easter called Takenoko. Even though the name of the game is Japanese for bamboo sprout, the game was English. We had a lot of fun playing and Yuko and I won! (We had too many people to play, so we played in pairs.) Everyone left a little after 10:00 and I was exhausted. It was an amazing but tiring day!

Although I had a great weekend, I'm glad it's over. I didn't sleep too much and did a lot of traveling by train! I'm happy to have some down time this week to relax. The next few weeks I'm still going to some visiting schools. This week I'm in Tsukida Junior High School, but next week I'll be in Asakawa. Next month I think I will be back to my regular schools, Ishimine and Shinozaki. I really hope so, I miss them!

Golden Week

Sorry this post isn't going up on Monday like it normally does. Last week was the Golden Week holiday in Japan. So I had last Tuesday off (4/29) as well as this Monday and Tuesday (5/5 & 5/6). I had a nice relaxing break and although I didn't get much traveling done, it's a huge traveling week in Japan and is usually a very expensive and crowded time to travel, I had a great time!

On Tuesday I started my vacation with a trip to the 河内藤園 (Kawachi Fuji en, Kawachi Wisteria Garden). I went with Leah to Yahata station where we met up with some more friends of ours. We caught a free shuttle to the gardens and spent the day walking through tunnels of wisteria and admiring the flowers up close. It was not quite fully bloomed when we were there, but it was still breathtakingly beautiful. It was a great start to the vacation and was incredibly relaxing and fun to walk through these gorgeous gardens.

We continued our relaxing day by spending an hour at the onsen, hot springs. There was an onsen close to the gardens, so we walked the short distance between the two. I have only been to some smaller onsens since arriving in Japan, but this onsen was huge! I don't know about the boys area, but the girls had about thirty shower heads for before the baths, two large indoor baths, an outside bath with a small alcove area, a steam sauna, and a heated wood rest area that could fit about ten people laying down. It was a bit chilly out, but we all opted for the outdoor bath. We became so relaxed on the rocks that we almost lost track of time. We had to dry of and get dressed again very quickly so as not to be late! We finished the day by going out to dinner in Kurosaki. Masato, Leah's boyfriend, gave us all a ride home and it was a great start to the week!

Although Golden Week is normally a consecutive holiday, this week the days fell slightly differently. Although I had a vacation Tuesday, I had school again for the rest of the week. I'm still visiting various schools, but thankfully this week I've been in Minami Kokura. It's not so far from my apartment, so I'm able to bike to and from school. It's only about fifteen minutes each way and I pass a Trial (a large discount store kind of similar to target but with a full grocery store as well), so it's great for grocery shopping on the way home! Despite my convenient placement, I was eager for the weekend. This weekend, as I said before, was a four day weekend with Monday and Tuesday off as holidays. It was a great long weekend!

On Saturday I met my friend Emily in Mojiko. Despite the crowds, we were able to get on a ferry rather quickly and were able to cross the bay and land in Shimonoseki within fifteen minutes. Although Saturday (5/3) was 憲法記念日 (Kenpou Kinenbi, Constitution Memorial Day) in Japan, the festivals in Shimonoseki were a weekend long celebration of こどもの日 (Kodomo No Hi, Children's Day), a holiday that fell on Monday (5/5). Shimonoseki was proudly flying fugu and koi fish flags. Koi fish flags are the traditional decorations always flown on Children's Day. There was a boat parade as well as performances from various school groups and Emily and I had so much fun! We of course visited 唐戸市場 (Karato Ichiba), the fish market. Since it's become Spring, the top of the market is now open. There is a field of real grass on top of the building where Emily and I had a sushi picnic, watched the boat parade, and generally enjoyed the sun. We eventually went back down to the wharf for ice cream and to catch a ferry back to Mojiko. After taking a train back to Kokura, we met up with Juha and Kyoko for dinner and drinks. I ended up meeting Dave, Patrick, and Fumiko at Dave's apartment for video games.

Sunday I had a relaxing day at home. I left my balcony door open all day for some fresh air and did some Spring cleaning. I scrubbed and washed every inch of my apartment. I biked to the grocery store and 100円 shop for some things I was missing around the house. It was the first time I bought exactly enough stuff to fit perfectly into my bike basked. Usually I miscalculate and either have room so my groceries bounce around or I have an extra bag I have to hang off the handle bars. Sunday, though, everything fit exactly without having to squish anything or put anything heavy on top of the eggs. It seems kind of trivial, but trust me is was incredibly satisfying. On my way home and I stopped to grab some flowers for my newly cleaned apartment. It was a relaxing, but very productive day. That night my friends Kikumi and Junko came over for dinner. Kikumi brought some ingredients for hand made gyoza and spring rolls. I'm excited to start learning how to cook more Asian food!

Monday was also uneventful. I relaxed at home in the morning and met Caol in the afternoon. We stayed outside in the afternoon enjoying the day before going to Booties for dinner. Booties is a popular Irish pub in Kitakyushu that is known for its fish and chips. They use ふぐ (fugu, puffer fish) for the fish since puffer is a very famous food in the area (although mostly famous in Shimonoseki). Caol, being from Ireland, is pretty picky about the food and Guinness there, but he loves the fish and chips there. After dinner we went to karaoke and sang the night away.

Tuesday, the last day of my holiday, I spent with Leah. We met for lunch at an udon restaurant down the street and talked for hours. She had gone to Busan, Korea for a few days and said it was packed! Although Korea doesn't have a Golden Week like Japan does, they still had a long weekend. She said she rode the most crowded bus of her life there, but still had a great time.

Next year for Golden Week I will try and make more plans. Hopefully the days line up better as well. Despite not going on a big trip I still had a great, and much needed, relaxing time. The relaxation will continue this weekend. Leah's friend Ryo has a house in Oita with a private onsen. I have many friends in common with them, so I was also invited. We will drive down and spend the night! The next day I'll head back to Kitakyushu to meet Juha, Kyoko, and some other friends for an 梅酒 (umeshu, plum wine) tasting. I can't wait!