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!
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