Merry Christmas!

This will be a short post, but I don't want to have too much stuff to talk about when I come back from my trip! I updated during the day on Monday, but I had a great night! I went to my 忘年会 (bonenkai, end of the year party) with Shinozaki. We went to a very fancy restaurant that was meant for weddings. The two youngest teachers in charge of the party came in down the stairs as if they were getting married, it was really funny! Also, the principal came about half an hour late and they made him come in with the youngest teacher down the stairs again. He walked her over to her seat and pulled it out for her before going to his table. It was great fun! I sat with the first year English teacher and the special education teacher. They're both really nice! The food was delicious and we played a 'Quiz Millionaire' game. They asked questions and we had cards that read A, B, C, and D. We had to hold up the right answer for each question. Our team didn't do so well, but we all got prizes! After dinner we went back to Kokura for 二次会 (nijikai, second party). I met Mike and he came with us, too! All the teachers were really excited to meet him and we all had a great time!

Tuesday was a national holiday, so Mike and I met Megan, Leah, and a friend of Leah's to see Interstellar at Cha Cha Town. We all liked it and afterwards we got lunch at a sushi place. Megan had a bit more Christmas shopping to do, so we headed over to Riverwalk. We ended up going to the temple near-by and on our way we saw a huge line of people by Riverwalk. We asked what was going on and found out there was a gospel concert starting at 5:00. It was 4:30, so we decided to grab a coffee and wait for the concert. It was about an hour long and really cool! There were about 100 people singing and the soloists were amazing! They had special lights, streamers, and even giant balloons that popped and let down a bunch of smaller, heart-shaped balloons. After the concert Megan and Leah's friend had to go home, but another friend of ours, Satoshi, came. We went to Konya-machi for dinner. We meet Kikumi and Shinki at a restaurant called 赤ちょうちゃん (Akachouchan). It had opened a few days before and Kikumi and Shinki hadn't been around to celebrate with the owners. We had the restaurant all to ourselves and it was delicious! I will definitely be going back! We went to meet Caol after dinner and had a few drinks at a Korean bar before heading home.

Wednesday I had my school's closing ceremony. There was no school lunch, so I went to sushi with the same teacher's I had sat with at the bonenkai. It was really nice seeing them outside of school (or a school event)! I left after lunch, but not before Mr. Kawai gave me a present. He even got a present for Mike. I'm not sure of the official name for them, but they're decorated Japanese badminton rackets. It was really nice of him to get them for us, I'm so happy!

Last night was Christmas Eve, so I went out to dinner with Marc, Tanya, Dan, Younglim, Juha, and Kyoko. We went to an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink Korean BBQ restaurant. It's a restaurant I really like and everyone else liked it as well! We had a great dinner and then went out to a sake bar where we met Leah, Satoshi, Patrick, and Caol. We didn't stay out too late, but we had a lot of fun! It was a great night!

Today for Christmas we're having a small potluck as my apartment. My friend Jake is coming over early to play some games before dinner. It will be a small gathering, but it should be a very cozy Christmas. Mike and I will Skype with my family tomorrow morning before heading off to Nagoya! We're so excited to go on our trip! We're all packed and everything. So merry Christmas everyone! I'll update again after my trip!

Mike's Here!

Merry almost Christmas!! I'm just three days away right now and even though I have to work on both the 24th and 25th I'm very excited for the holidays! Tomorrow is the last night of Hanukkah and it's also the emperor's birthday, so it's a national holiday for me. I'll celebrate by going to Interstellar with some friends, have a 回転寿司 (kaiten zushi, conveyor belt sushi) lunch, and have a Marvel movie marathon and do puzzles and play games at my place for the afternoon. We might also meet Kikumi for dinner, but she might have to work. I hope we can see her!

Last week at school went pretty quickly, it was mostly Christmas lessons and review games. All the classes made Christmas tree ornaments. They wrote an English Christmas or holiday message on side and drew pictures on the other side. There are only seven classes in Ishimine, so I made a paper Christmas tree for each class and they decorated their classes tree as they finished their ornaments. It was a lot of fun and the students really enjoyed it. We listened to English Christmas music and the students really liked checking out their tree after everyone finished and even looked over all the other classes trees.

On Friday I went out with Patrick to an 居酒屋 (izakaya, Japanese style casual food and drink restaurant). We didn't stay out late because we were both tired from the week, but it was really nice to have a little celebration of the last full work week of 2014.

Saturday I spent cleaning in preparation for Mike. I also got a beautiful Hanukkah/Christmas present from my aunt Debby and uncle Howard and cousins Molly and David. A home-made bag decorated with orange koi fish. I'm sure there will be pictures of it out and about in Japan in upcoming posts, so be on the lookout for that! Saturday night I took the shinkansen into Fukuoka for dinner before heading to the airport to grab Mike! His plane came in an hour late and we had a bit of a dash back to the train station. I had already bought shinkansen tickets to get us home quickly, but the last shinkansen leaves at 11:28 on Saturdays. With the delay, Mike came out of the baggage claim around 11:10. We caught the subway back to the main station in Hakata and got to the shinkasen just in time!

On Sunday Mike and I made royal icing with the ingredients my mom sent with Mike to me. I also had a ton of gingerbread cookies from my mom and I spent the morning decorating cookies. We finished just as my friends started arriving and we played board games well into the evening. Jake brought chocolate turtles his mom had sent him and we snacks on those and the more accident-prone gingerbread men that had arrived a bit beaten up. Eventually we decided to get some real food and went to てつ鍋　(Tetsunabe) in Kokura station for some delicious gyoza, 豚キムチ (buta kimuchi, pork kimchi), and 焼うどん (yaki udon, friend udon noodles). It was really nice and my friend had to catch the train home anyway, so being at the train station was great! It was a nice day.

Now I'm at school, but four out of six classes were canceled due to too many students having the flu. Tonight is my 忘年会 (bounenkai, end of the year party) with Shinozaki and I'm really excited! We're going out with our friend Marc, Tanya, Juha, and Kyoko for Christmas Eve and we'll have a potluck dinner on Christmas. The day after Christmas we will spend five days in Nagoya and be back in Kitakyushu for New Years. I'm not sure when the next update will be, since I will be in Nagoya next Monday when I normally update. I will try to update by the 30th, but I'm not sure! I will definetly have something up by the first week of the new year. Happy holidays everyone!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Only 10 days until Christmas and tomorrow is the first night of Hanukkah! I've been listening to Christmas music and really getting into the holiday spirit! Last Wednesday I sent off over 300 Christmas cards, made by my Shinozaki students, to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and picked up my shinkansen tickets for my trip to Nagoya! I also signed up for an information session about what to do after JET. There will be over sixty international companies looking to hire ex-JETs when our contacts end. Many of the companies, although international, will be hiring for people who want to stay in Japan, so I may not find anything for back home, but it's still a great opportunity and I won't know if I don't try! The conference is for two days in Chiba prefectures (near Tokyo). I'm really excited for this opportunity (and to spend some more time in Tokyo on a work trip)!

Last week I also started doing Christmas lessons at Ishimine. This is the last full week of school, next week there are only classes on Monday, so I'm getting to do Christmas activities with the classes now. I'm showing them a short presentation about how people celebrate Christmas in America and we're making Christmas ornaments to decorate paper trees displayed in the hallway. So far the students have enjoyed the lesson, but only one class has done it so far.

All last week I was helping the chorus club prepare for an upcoming concert, but on Tuesday we ended up helping out the chorus teacher. The next day in school was going to be a lesson on playing the 箏 (koto), a traditional Japanese string instrument. The koto's had to be set up and tuned before class, so the chorus club and I helped set them up. I learned out to tune the instrument and the students even taught me to play a short song. It was a lot of fun and one of the many reasons I always stay after school to participate in the club activities.

In preparation for all the craziness during the holidays, I took last Friday to myself. After school I biked over to Cha Cha Town and had a nice dinner. I played some games in the arcade and even won a little prize. Gone Girl came out here on Thursday, so I went to the movie theater to see that and really liked it. In fact, I'm going to see it again tonight with some of my friends who wanted to see it, but couldn't come on Friday. It was a very quite night for me, but I had a great time!

Saturday I went to a Christmas party with some other JETs! My friend Caol booked Habit, a really popular burger restaurant, for a party and ten JETs came for dinner. We had a secret Santa as well. My secret Santa was Nate. I got him two little bottles of foreign liquor and a small box of chocolates. As it turned out, he was my secret Santa, too! I got four bottles of beer all from different countries and none of them Japanese. It was a great present! After exchanging gifts we all stuffed ourselves, Habit makes huge burgers! Megan and I had brought little tarts for dessert and passed them out to everyone. After dinner we went to karaoke and sang lots of Christmas songs. It was a great night!

On Sunday I got up early to head to Wakamatsu. Ishimine's chorus club was performing in a brass concert. The concert was fantastic! It started in the early afternoon and the first half was the Kitakyushu Philharmonics playing with the Wakamatsu brass band. They were playing only songs that had been suggested previously. Their songs ranged incredibly going from a disco Christmas medley to songs from the American Godzilla movie soundtrack (complete with Godzilla roaring over the speakers) to Arabian music. Everything was played fantastically and I loved it all! The second half of the concert was the choirs. The chorus clubs from Ishimine, Futajima, and Takao junior high schools and Wakamatsu high school all sang together. They opened with Joyful Joyful from Sister Act II and many of Ishimine students had solos. I worked with them all last week on their English pronunciation and their singing in general and they all did amazingly! Some of the Futajima students had solos as well and also did great! They sang a total of five songs, two with an orchestra accompaniment. Of course they sang ありのままで (Ari No Mama De, The Japanese version of Let It Go). They finished with Carmina Burana selections which was really well done. There was an encore as well and sang a really high tempo pop song before the orchestra finished with a very up-beat version of When the Saint's Go Marching In. The students stood on the second floor above the exit to the building and sang Silent Night in Japanese as people were leaving. I stayed to see all my students at the end. It was also really nice to see the students and a few teachers from Futajima there as well. I gave my Ishimine students little candy canes as congratulations before heading home.

It is a long bus ride back to Kokura and the bus wasn't coming for about twenty minutes. I was really lucky, though, and while I was sitting at the bus stop I heard someone call my name. Mr. Teshima, the chorus teacher, saw me while he was driving by and offered me a ride back to my apartment. I was very grateful! It was nice to talk to him and get to know him a bit more outside of school.

Last week was great and this week is shaping up to be even better. I have Christmas lessons and games in class all week and Mike will get into Fukuoka airport on Saturday! I'm so excited!!!!

Another Short Post

This will be another short post. My week was very fun, but pretty uneventful. I had many Christmas classes at Shinozaki and will be sending the cards to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital on Wednesday. Other ALTs are using my Christmas card activity in class, I'm glad I can make something everyone likes! On Friday we had an assembly for the last two periods of the day. It was a concert that included many styles of music in different instruments from pan flute to piano to taiko. Many of the songs that had words were also done in Japanese Sign Language and the group included many people with mental handicaps. All the music was great and I think the students really enjoyed it!

After school on Friday Megan came over for dinner. We watched some movies before bed and the next morning we went to Hakata for some Christmas shopping. I got a few things from the Pokemon Center and a gift for my secret Santa. She got a lot of stuff, much more than me, and we had a really delicious lunch before heading back to Kokura. In Kokura we went to Aru Aru City, an anime mall behind the train station. There was a pop culture festival going on and we saw a lot of people dressed up in costumes! We played some games at the arcade there and I got a few books. That night I had dinner with Patrick and met up with Canadian Dave and Chris. We went to the Turkish restaurant before heading to a sports bar to watch the Newcastle v. Chelsea game. Patrick and Dave were pretty bummed about Chelsea losing, but Chris and I just enjoyed hanging out. I also played darts for the first time at the bar. I got one bulls-eye, but Chris still beat me.

Sunday was very relaxing. I slept in late and then went over to Marc's apartment. He just got a Wii U and the new Smash Bros. game, so Caol, Megan, and I all went over to play. We spent the day gaming and watching TV. It was a lot of fun! This weekend I'm thinking of going to see a movie on Friday (Gone Girl comes out then and I want to see it). Saturday I have a secret Santa party, and Sunday I will clean everything so it's ready for when Mike gets here the following weekend. Probably another week of not-so-much excitement, but soon I'll have lots of trips and fun things to talk about!