Getting Ready for Halloween

This was a great week! I had dinner with various friends throughout the week despite being at my far school and getting home late. Nothing super exciting happened during the week, but that was okay because I had a packed weekend!

I woke up early on Saturday to get ready for the Halloween party in Fukuoka that night. My friends were coming over for dinner, so I mostly cleaned and did laundry in the morning. Once my apartment was presentable I dyed my hair and made a few small alterations to my costume. Leah came over early to help me cook and to finish off the last bits of her costume. She helped me do the last few bits of cleaning and helped me get dinner started before everyone arrived. We had a lot of fun getting ready together and finished dinner just as everyone arrived. We ate pretty quickly before catching a train into Fukuoka. Even at Kokura station before leaving for Fukuoka, people wanted to take pictures of us all in our costumes. It was great! We took two pictures, one with a groups of girls about our age all dressed as devils, and two little kids dressed as princesses wanted to take a picture with just me. We met two more of our friends on the train and had seven of us all together when walking from Hakata station to the area we would be in, closer to Tenjin.

We went to an event called Night Walker, a bar crawl in Fukuoka where everyone dresses up. We saw so many amazing costumes! People but a lot of effort into them and they all looked amazing! We saw everything for Iron Man and Captain America to Where's Waldo to zombie Sailor Moon. Everyone was dressed up! We saw Pikachu and the full cast and titans from Attack on Titen. We saw a headless horseman ride an actual horse down the street and we saw all the Mario characters ride scooters and tricycles playing Mario Cart music. It was so much fun! Our group eventually split up and I spend the night hanging out with one of the new JETs Megan who I really like. We found some small dance places to hop between before meeting back up with Leah, Becca, Chris, and eventually Patrick. It was a great night that I wish I had more pictures of (my phone died pretty early on).

Sunday my professor from Hofstra, Kanatsu, stopped by! He's on sabbatical this semester and studying the nuclear power plants around Japan. He's staying a few cities over for a few days, so he came to Kokura for dinner! Patrick and I met him at Kokura station and had so much fun hanging out with him and talking. We took him to Booties, and Irish restaurant that serves the best fish and chips made from pufferfish. Kanatsu really liked the restaurant and the three hours we spent sitting and talking and eating flew by so fast. It was so great to see him and we had such a nice time!

After dinner I went out with my friend Kikumi. Her friend had just opened a restaurant, so we went together. Since I had just eaten I only nibbled, but the food was great! Kikumi and I talked a lot and she asked me to perform with her and her band again in two weeks, so I'm very excited about that! I'll also work at her bar on Friday for Halloween, which I'm very excited for! Although it will have to be an early night for me because the next day, November 1st, is my 文化祭 (bunkasai, culture festival) at Shinozaki. I'm very excited for the culture festival and the week ahead!

Caramel Apples and 手巻き寿司

This week started off with a care package from home. I got some goodies and everything I needed to make caramel apples! My week was pretty slow because my school has started getting ready for their culture festival in a few weeks, so there were only four classes a day instead of six. I didn't do much during the week, I got dinner with some friend on Wednesday at a Turkish restaurant and Patrick came over on Thursday. Although my week was uneventful, it was a great week.

Things picked up on Friday when I had both a small English party with some students and a girls night in at my place. At school I made caramel apples from the supplies my parents sent. In Japan people don't eat caramel apples, the closest I've seen is りんご飴 (ringo ame, candied apples), which is a hard candy shell around an apple like you find at carnivals. It's usually found during festivals, but I've never seen one with caramel. I made the caramel apples in the home economics room during the day and after school met with the students who had participated in English speech contest. We had a little English party with one of the English teachers at the school. I cut up the apples and let all the students try some. They really enjoyed the caramel apples! We talked a bit in English and listened to English music before heading home.

I ran to the grocery store on the way home to get some sushi grade fish. Because Leah and I had picked up some nice sake in Kobe, we wanted to have a little dinner party and pair it with some sushi! Leah came over a little early to help me prepare and we made a nice plate of fish and vegetables. Megan came over a little later and we had 日本酒 (nihonshu, sake) and 手巻き寿司 (temaki zushi, hand-rolled sushi) for dinner. I've had 手巻き寿司 before and love it, but I'd never been the one to host it before. It was a lot of fun and it was really nice to have a bit of a girls night!

On Saturday I met Leah for lunch before going shopping. We're both working on our Halloween costumes, so we went out looking for costume pieces and craft stuff to make any parts we couldn't find. It was a beautiful day, so we walked from my house to the restaurant for lunch, then across the street to Don Quixote (a variety store), then to Kokura station to check out Aru Aru city, then back to my apartment, stopping in stores along the way. Leah found some good stuff at Don Quixote and Aru Aru city, and although I found stuff at other stores, the ￥100 store turned out to be the store I found most of the stuff I need!

Saturday was also Juha's birthday, so I met him for a night of pub quiz! Our team was Juha, Kyoko, Leah, Megan, and me. Later on more of our friends came to join us. We bought Juha is favorite beer and did our best to answer all the questions. We didn't place, but still had a lot of fun! Afterwards we went for hamburgers and then over to karaoke. Despite it being Saturday night we got a room right away and sang our hearts out until it was time for everyone to catch the last train or bus home. Megan ended up coming home with me to watch some movies before we finally went to sleep.

Sunday was pretty quiet. I made breakfast for Megan and I in the morning and we watched one final movie before she had to go home. I spent the afternoon cleaning and relaxing until I went over to Kikumi's around four thirty. She'd gone to Costco with some friends who were craving tacos. They bought taco meat, soft tortillas, jalapenos, and even real cheese. A bunch of people came over and we all helped prepare everything. It was Kikumi's first time having tacos and she really liked them. It was nice to sit around the table and talk with everyone.

This week I'm hoping with go by quickly because I have a Halloween party on Saturday in Fukuoka! The party is called Night Walker and I went with Patrick and Emily last year. More of my friends will be coming this year and I will have a costume, so I'm really excited! So far I only have one part of my costume done (I made it from the things I found in the ￥100 store). Can you guess who I'll be?

Kobe and So Much More!

My last few posts have been a bit short, but this post will probably be pretty long! This week I've celebrated a birthday, seen an eclipse, been observed during a lesson, performed with a band from Tokyo, and taken a trip to Kobe. It's been quite a week!

Thankfully Monday was an easy day that let me get ready for the week ahead. Tuesday I had a a nice surprise fourth period when the PTA made duck and leek soba for all the teachers. They even made a mochi and red bean dessert that was incredibly delicious! It was a great surprise and a really nice way to interact more with the teachers at Ishimine over some really incredible food. At school I continued to get ready for my observation lesson and change the ALT boards before heading home to start dinner. Tuesday was also Patrick's birthday and he came over to my apartment to celebrate. I splurged on steak and made some green beans and mashed kabocha to go with it. It was a nice, very relaxing night with nice dinner and wine.

Wednesday I left school early for an ALT meeting in Kokura. Even though it meant less preparation time at school, I needed to be in Kokura for band practice that afternoon and leaving Ishimine early was a big help. So, after my ALT meeting I went straight to band practice at Heart Key for a few hours. I love hanging out with everyone and it was a nice break for me before before meeting back up with the ALTs and Kitakyushu Board of Education staff for a welcome party for the new JETs. We went to a nice restaurant on the third floor with a great view. The moon that night was a big, orange harvest moon and during the course of our enkai we could see the eclipse that was happening! It was so cool to have good food and drinks, be surrounded by friends, watching the eclipse. Even after the enkai I walked home with an ALT I haven't had the chance to talk with much. It was great getting to know her more and I hope to hang out with her more during this year!

Thursday I finished putting up the new ALT boards and making sure they were perfect and finalized the plans with my JTE for our observation class the next day. That preparation plus teaching four classes made the day fly by and before I knew it I was out of school and on the bus back to Kokura. I met my friend Caol at Tetsunabe for dinner after getting back to the station to celebrate with him. A year ago, when we were both new JETs, he started having some health problems. The doctors thought he might have cancer and for about two months they ran all sorts of tests on him. I was one of the few people he talked with about it and thankfully his health problem was not nearly as serious as the initially fears. This was the week last year when his results come back negative for cancer and we decided to have dinner to celebrate a year of good health. We stuffed ourselves with gyoza for dinner and went sang two hours of karaoke. It was a great night and I'm glad to still be so close with him even if we see each other less than we did when we first arrived.

Friday was probably one of my busiest days in Japan so far. In the morning, I spent equal time teaching, cleaning, and finalizing the observation class plan. After lunch my JTE and I set up stools in the back of the classroom and desk outside with perfectly printed lesson plans for the observers. twenty minutes before class other elementary school and junior high school English teachers and higher ups from the Kitakyushu Board of Education started arriving. While my JTE finished up the last of the cleaning I showed our visitors the English boards I worked on. Some even took the worksheets from the boards to use in their own schools! By the time the bell rang and class started, a little over twenty people from other schools and the Board of Education were sitting in the back of our classroom. The class went smoothly (although it was a bit difficult with so many people watching us) and I think the students enjoyed the lesson as well. After the class we had a big meeting in the library where the people who observed us commented on the lesson. There were some good suggestions to improve the lesson and lot of helpful feedback! There was also lots of things people liked about the lesson and the overall everyone thought the lesson was good. By the time the meeting was over, school was also ending and I was lucky enough to get a ride back to Kokura from my supervisors.

After getting home I quickly got ready to go back out. I changed and got to Swing21 by 6:00 for a mic check. I met the other two bands and they were incredibly nice! We had a quick dinner before opening the doors for people to come in. Leah came and even got to sit with me in the performers corner. The concert was just amazing. I don't even really know what to say about it. It was a small venue, but there was about 60 people packed into the the little room! Everyone was having a great time and the energy was fantastic. We even got to sing along with the band from Tokyo! You can check out me singing with my friend Kikumi with the band Orange Key on YouTube (I come in for the second song about halfway through). Chris and Becca also came and we had a blast listening to the bands play. We went to Kikumi's bar for an after party and got to talk with the band from Tokyo a lot. It was just so much fun! We made sure not to stay out too late though so we'd have plenty of energy for Saturday.

The next morning I got up and had breakfast with Leah before we took the shinkansen to Kobe! We found our hotel close to Shin-Kobe station and realized we were right next to an herb garden and ropeway. We decided to go there first and I'm so glad we did! It started with a ropeway that took us up Nunobiki mountain. We weren't sure what to expect, but we found out it was Japan's largest herb garden with about 75,000 different herbs and flowers and fourteen different gardens. We spent the entire afternoon there looking at the flowers and the view of Kobe from the top of the mountain. We could even see Osaka! There was an Oktoberfest going on as well, so we had lunch up there. There was even a small museum and an herbal footbath! After hours of walking around the gardens we went back down to our hotel before going to Harborland for dinner. We had a delicious dinner outside in beautiful weather looking out across the Port of Kobe. We ended the night by riding the Ferris wheel near the port and getting a beautiful view of the city before calling it a night.

The next day we found a little cafe to get some breakfast. We walked around before heading to Sannomiya station where we found a great place for lunch and had world-famous Kobe beef. It was the first time I've seen a teppenyaki style restaurant in Japan and it was better than I ever imagined! We had grilled vegetables with the steak and there was garlic, salt, pepper, and wasabi for seasonings. Everything was just so good!

After lunch we walked to the Port of Kobe where we saw an Indian festival and the Kobe Port Tower. We were going to catch a loop bus from there to go sightseeing, but realized we already walked the entire loop that morning! So instead we walked to Kobe station and caught a train a bit farther out to the Hakutsuru sake brewery and museum. It showed how sake has been made since the Edo period. It was a small museum, but was really interesting and the (very small) free samples at the end were great! We got a few different bottles to take home and even tried sake ice cream! It was a bit strange, but very delicious!

By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost dinner time. We took a little down time in our hotel before walking back to Sannomiya station. There were many restaurants and stores in that area and we walked around until we found something that caught our eye. It wasn't fancy, but we had a nice little table and a lot of little dishes of our favorite Japanese foods. We had sashimi, maguro (tuna) and avocado, butter and garlic grilled mushrooms, and more! A typhoon was coming up and although it wouldn't hit until the next day, rain was supposed to start in the evening, so we headed back to our hotel right after dinner. The rain held off for our walk back and we decided to grab a drink at a little bar near our hotel. We sat and talked for an hour or two before going back to our hotel. It was the perfect end to our trip.

The next day our shinkansen ticket back to Kokura wasn't until 2:26 PM, but with the typhoon coming we were worried the shinkansen would get shut down. We caught a train earlier in the morning and found seats in the unreserved section. There were delays between some stations, but we got back to Kokura and got home before the wind or rain got too bad. I stayed inside most of the day, but was invited to Marc and Tanya's for dinner. The weather had calmed down by then, so I went over. Tanya made some delicious food and we talked and played board games until I had to return home. It was the perfect, relaxing end to a very busy (but incredibly fun) week!

I had an AMAZING week! I don't have too many plans from now until Christmas, so I'm excited to see what the next few weeks bring!

Speech Contest

School this week was a bit slow because of mid-terms, but I still had a great week! I had my second 女子会 (jyoshikai) outing with my female co-workers from Shinozaki. We went to a great restaurant close to Kokura station. I'm very close with one of the English teachers, but it was nice to talk to my other co-workers. There are many new teachers in Shinozaki this year that are really nice and it's been great getting to know them a bit better! One teacher is even trying to learn English in her free time by listening to English lessons on her iPod. I invited her and some of the other teacher to my place for dinner sometime when we are all free. Obviously we will speak mostly in Japanese, but we can speak some English for her and other teachers who are interested in practicing English! The teachers taught me some Japanese tongue twisters and we all had fun trying to say them. I taught them one easy one in English, but it was hard to say quickly. We also played with our phones. The teacher I was sitting next to was demonstrating Siri on her new iPhone 6. We would both ask Siri a question, her in Japanese and me in Enlgish, and compare the answers we got. It was a lot of fun! After the 女子会 I went to visit Kikumi before going home. I've been really busy at school and I hadn't gotten a chance to talk with her in while, so it was nice to see her! We sang a bit of karaoke before I had to head home.

For the last month I've been staying after school every day to help my students prepare for the English speech contest. I had seven students participating between my two school. The students worked incredibly hard and the contest was Saturday. All the JET ALTs were judges, but we were split up in a way that makes sure we are not judging our own students. The contest is divided into three categorizes: skit, original speech, and recitation. There are three speeches the students can choose for the recitation section. This year I was judging the original speech section, which was much better than the recitation section I judged last year. It can get very boring listening to the same speech over and over! All the speeches I heard were really interesting and although none of my students were in them, I still had two students in my group who I was close with during English camp this summer. Neither of them won, unfortunately, but both of their speeches were great!

During the closing ceremony of speech contest the winners were announced. None of my students won a prize, but when I saw them after the announcements they were all proud of themselves for participating. I couldn't watch them compete because I was judging in a separate room, but the teachers took videos that I watched later and I think they all did really well. I had cute notebooks and pens that I gave to all my students as a thank you for working so hard with me over the last month.

Since the JETs were all together at speech contest, we decided to meet up again after going home and changing out of our suits. I went out with Patrick, Chris, Leah, Rebecca, and Juha to do the monothon. The monothon is a tradition among the Kitakyushu JETs where you walk the length of the monorail, about five and a half miles. We meet at 企救丘 (Kikugaoka), the station farthest out, and walked under the monorail back to Kokura station. We made a lot of stops at various places, which made the walk take almost three hours. It was a ton of fun even if my legs were sore the next day!

This week I am crazy busy! Tomorrow (10/7) is Patrick's birthday and I will be making dinner. Wednesday is both a rehearsal for my singing gig on Friday and a welcome party for the new JETs with the members of the Kitakyushu Board of Education. Thursday I'm going to karaoke with my friend Caol and Friday is my performance at Swing21! Saturday I leave in the morning with Leah to spend my long weekend in Kobe. Because of the long weekend I will most likely be a day or two late in updating this blog, but it should be a pretty action packed post so stay tuned!