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!