Eurovision

I had another quiet week. I was back in my new base school Matsugae and had a great time there. On Friday some of us went out for dinner to celebrate that our visiting school period is over, but I went home a bit early. Saturday we had a Eurovision party at Bec's house. It was my first time seeing Eurovision, a big singing contest with one group representing one country, and it was pretty fun. Bec is Australian and this year Australia was one of the contestants. It was a potluck and we had a ton of delicious food. It was a great night! Sunday I stayed home and cleaned.

This week I'm back at Tsukida, my other base school. It should be another great, but quiet, week for me!

Picnic in the Park

This week was pretty quiet. I laid low during the weekday, but Friday I went out with Lisa. I don't get to see Lisa too often, so it was really nice to see her! We went out for dinner first and sat and talked for hours. Then we ran to the arcade down the street for プリクラ (purikura). It's really popular in Japan, but I don't do it often. It's like a full-body photo booth and you can personalize your pictures with stickers and writings. It can also do different things like make you look taller, make your skin look smother, make your eyes look bigger, and retroactively give you makeup. It's pretty fun to play around with! After the arcade we spent an hour at karaoke before heading home. It was a great night!

The next day I was up early for spring cleaning. I cleaned everything in my apartment and went through my drawers and shelves to make sure I'm ready when it's time to start packing for home. Patrick came over in the middle of cleaning for a break. We both have a packet of forms to fill out before leaving (pension, bank stuff, change of address, etc.) and of course they're all in Japanese. We figured it'd be easier to figure it out if we worked together, so we went through it all and filled it out as best we could. It was nice to have someone else to help with it. After Patrick left I continued cleaning and finished in the later afternoon. I grabbed some stuff for dinner and Megan came over for dinner and to watch some movies. She didn't stay too late, but we had a good time and I was able to get to bed a bit early.

Sunday was beautiful, so I made some food and headed to the park for a picnic. I met up with Kyoko, Caol, Bec, Chris, and Leah and we enjoyed the weather and some lunch. The May-time Oktoberfest was back up, but we stayed on the other side of the park. Kyoko and Caol both had to head home, but I stayed out with everyone else well until dinner time. When the sun started to go down we decided to walk over to a restaurant for dinner and had a nice meal before we each headed home.

This week will probably be quiet as well. I'm saving money for coming home and my last month here will be filled with goodbye parties, so I'm saving money for that as well. I'm starting at my new base school this week and so far everyone has been incredibly nice! June should be just as quiet, but July things will get exciting again! I'll also post updates on my move back home since June is the month where I have to pick flights and really start getting ready for the move!

たこ焼き Party

Nothing really exciting to report this week. I had a great time at Asakawa, the students and teachers there are always nice to see. I had a meeting on Wednesday at the Board of Education and Emily, Leah, and I all went out for dinner afterwards. I also had dinner with some friends on Friday. At Asakawa, one of the students' fathers and I have a mutual friend. Last year I was invited to their house for 手巻き寿司 (temaki zushi, handrolled sushi). They invited me again ths year and we had たこ焼き (takoyaki, fried octopus). It was really fun to see them again and the food was delicious! They were surprised I knew how to make the takoyaki and were really happy I could eat it! (Sometimes foreigners don't like eating octopus, they said.) We even used the takoyaki pan for dessert and put pancake batter in to make little pancake balls. We covered them in honey, strawberry syrup, and whipped cream. They were so delicious! I had a great time seeing the family again and I hope I can go see them at least once more before I come home!

Saturday was pretty uneventful. I cleaned during the day and met up with Kikumi and Shinki for dinner. We went to the Turkish restaurant and it was Shinki's first time having Turkish food. He really enjoyed it! We went out for a few drinks after at her friends bar. The bar just had a few couches and a ton of instruments set up. It was still early, so we were the only ones there. The owner, Sasaki, and Shinki played the different instruments while Kikumi and I sang. It was so much fun! They want me to preform again before I leave so hopefully at the end of July I'll get to sing again!

Sunday was another relaxing day. I slept in before meeting Leah and Kyoko at Katsuyama Park. There was a fair going on and we looked at all different stalls and what everyone was selling. Leah got some good stuff! We went to get lunch soon after at an okonoiyaki place and it was nice to have some girl time! Juha met up with us after lunch and we headed back to Leah's place. We all hung out until dinner, when Juha and Kyoko had to go home. Leah ended up walking me home and hanging out at my place all night. We hadn't seen each other much the last few weeks and it was nice to spend so much time with her!

This week will be another quiet one. Kyoko planned an 梅酒 (umeshu, plum wine) picnic party for next Sunday, but other than that I'll probably be laying pretty low. I'm excited to be a completely new school this week, everyone seems really nice and it should be a good week!

Weekend in Korea

It's only been a short time since my last post, but I've got a lot to tell you! I had a great two days back at Asakawa before the weekend started. On Friday I went to Marc and Tanya's after school. Juha and Megan came as well and we ordered take out for dinner. We hadn't all gotten together in a while and it was really nice seeing them again. We hung out and played board games for a while (I won!) and had a great night. I meant to go home early to get some rest before my next trip, but I ended up staying later than I meant to because I was having such a good time!

On Saturday I met Megan again to head into Hakata. We went in early to exchange our Yen for Korean Won and then caught a ferry at noon. The ferry was a little under three hours and we quickly landed in Busan, Korea! Our hotel was only a 10 minute walk from the ferry terminal and we found it pretty easily. We'd gotten the hotel because of how cheap it was, but were really happy to find the room was beautiful! We even had a view of the bridge and nearby ocean! Although the room was nice, we were eager to get out and see things. We walked over the bridge to the shopping district. We walked around for a bit and had a late lunch. We really wanted to also go see Avengers: Age of Ultron because it wouldn't come out in Japan until July, so we found a movie theater nearby playing it and went. It was a great movie and afterwards we went to get some coffee and talk about the movie. We were at the coffee shop for about an hour before we started getting hungry for dinner and decided to check out the area around our hotel. I'm really glad we did, because although it had looked a little dead earlier in the day, at night it was completely lit up with small restaurants and bars everywhere! We just wandered the streets for another hour enjoying seeing everything we could. Eventually our hunger got the better of us and we decided to try a small BBQ place. I wish I could tell you the name of the restaurant, but it was all in Korean and I have no idea what it was called! It was small, but one of the servers spoke both English and Japanese, so we could easily communicate. Despite having gone in on a hunch and not knowing anything about it, we ended up with a fantastic meal! The restaurant's specialty was pig skin, so we had that along with some pork for the BBQ. For Korean BBQ you also get lettuce, vegetables, garlic, and sauces to wrap the meat you cook. It was a perfect end to the day! We headed back to our hotel after dinner since it was almost midnight by the time we finished and got a good nights sleep.

We slept in a bit, but were our of the hotel by 10 AM. We found online a 4D version of the movie and decided to see if we could go. We were hoping to go to a 4D version when it came to Japan, but in Korea is was much cheaper! There were just a few seats left, so we grabbed some before heading out to find breakfast. We wanted to also go to Yongdusan Park, so we found a cafe on the way called Whoever Cafe. Breakfast was perfect and we continued to the park afterwards. The park was beautiful and had a lot of famous building and statues. We saw Busan Tower, the Palgakjeong Pavilion, Cheongdongyongtap (bronze dragon statue), the Flower Clock, and the Busan Citizens' Bell Pavilion. It was a really beautiful spot and I'm so happy the weather held out for us to see it all! We stayed at the park for a while, but eventually headed back down toward the shopping district. Megan wanted to buy a shirt, so we did just a little bit of shopping before heading back to the theater for the movie. The 4D was really fun! All the seats moved, air blew around you, and there were even squirts of water all timed and relevant to the movie. I'm glad we'd already watched it once, though, because all the movement could get a bit distracting. It was really, really fun, though! After the movie we headed back to the ferry terminal and got there just in time to catch the ferry back to Hakata. We had dinner a great Mexican restaurant before catching the train back home.

I'm back at Asakawa this week and I'm excited for some quiet. I'm glad to be back at this school for now with no plans but to relax for a bit.

Golden Week in 愛媛

I'm back from my Golden Week vacation! Quickly, last week I had Wednesday off, so I went back to 河内富園 (Kawachi Fuji-en, Kawachi wisteria garden) with Leah and some of her Japanese friends. We had a great time and it was so nice to go back again so soon! We had lunch at a famous champon restaurant and spent the rest of the day at the natural history museum in Yahata. It was a great day off in the middle of the week!

Friday is when my real vacation stated, though! After school I went home, gathered my things, and met Juha, Kyoko, and Caol at Kokura port. We caught an overnight ferry from the port that left close to 10 PM. We stayed outside for the launch and enjoyed watching Kitakyushu's city lights before finally passing under the Kanmon Straights Bridge and leaving the city completely. The boat had a big room full of mats and everyone was assigned a number corresponding to their sleeping mat. The floor was a bit hard, but it was surprisingly comfortable! We slept until about 4 AM the next morning when the lights were turned on to prepare for our arrival. Since we couldn't check into our hotel and nothing was open that early, we stayed on the boat until about 7 AM when we ventured out for breakfast. We caught a train to Matsuyama city, had some coffee, and went to our hostel to drop off our bags. Our hostel, the Sen Guesthouse, was in Dogo, another area of the city, so we had to take a small tram. Arriving in Dogo was amazing! It's a very famous onsen area because it is the setting for a very famous book called 坊っちゃん (Botchan). The titular character Botchan frequents the onsen in Dogo, making it very famous for many Japanese people. There are many references to Botchan around Dogo including a small train that can run on the tram tracks, a clock tower, and a foot bath. After looking around the area a bit, we went to drop off our bags.

We couldn't check into the Sen Guesthouse early, but they took our bags and gave us some ideas of where to go. We started by visiting Dogo park and it was so beautiful we ended up staying there for a few hours. After leaving the park we walked through a few temples. We started at the Isaniwa Shrine. Shikoku (the island we were on) is famous in Japan for the 88 Temple Pilgrimage. It is a 750 mile long trail through 88 temples all associated with the Buddhist Monk Kukai. Because of it's length many people tour the temples via bus, but some people still walk the Pilgrimage. We were not there for the pilgrimage, but we still decided to visit one of the temples. Although the first shrine we visited was not on the pilgrimage, we next visited the Ishite Temple and it was beautiful! We saw people making the pilgrimage dressed in white robes and straw hats with walking sticks. We burned some incense at the temple before moving on. We found some caves in the back of the temple and followed them out back to a third shrine. It looked a little run down like it hadn't been maintained in a few years, but it was still very nice.

We still had some time before our hostel would be ready, so we walked to Matsuyama Castle. We took a chairlift up to where the castle sat on the mountain and explored for a few hours. Some people were dressed in old gate keeping uniforms and it was really fun! After the castle we headed back to the hotel to check in. We got in and our room was amazing! It was one of the best places I've ever stayed. The owners gave us great suggestions for things to do and we decided on heading to the onsen. Dogo onsen was a bit crowded, so we decided to go next door to Tsubaki no Yu, another bath house. It was a great bath and we all decided on dinner after we met back up. We tried some sushi for dinner in the area and headed back to the guesthouse. We brought a few beers and went up to the roof, where the owners had told us about some hammocks and a great view. We relaxed and hung our for a bit enjoying the fresh air and views of the castle before finally heading to bed.

We slept in the next morning and decided what to do for the day. The owners had told us about a boat festival happening in Hojo/Kashima. Kyoko, Juha, and I all decided to go, but Caol hung back to explore the city more. We took a train out to Hojo and a ferry over to Kashima. The whole trip only took about half an hour, it was very close to the city! The island was beautiful and there were many wisteria flowers blooming. The festival started at the Kashima Shrine where people carried big bamboo springs with flags tied all over it. Children also sat on floats that men carried up to the shrine. Eventually, everything was carried down to the water and loaded onto the boats. Three festival boats were launched. The first carried the bamboo, had people drumming, and had children dancing at the front and back. The second two were not decorated, but tied to the first and carried two お神輿 (omikoshi, a divine palanquin used during ceremonies or when moving temples). We got a small boat just for the three of us to follow the festival boats. By this point, it had started raining, but thankfully our small boat had a canvas roof. The driver of our was very nice and got us really close to everything! He even dropped us off near the train station instead of back on Kashima island like he was supposed to. It was a really great festival and we had a lot of fun!

By the time we went back to the hostel it was almost dinner time. We meet back up with Caol for dinner and then went back to the hostel. The owners were showing a moving and we wanted to see it! We watched 思い出のマーニー ( Omoide No Mani, When Marnie Was There), a Ghibli Movie that currently had an exhibit in the Matsuyama museum. The movie was great and it was really nice hanging out with the owners and some other people from our hostel. We were getting up early the next morning, so we decided to head to bed after the movie.

The next day we got up early and headed to Dogo Onsen. It was packed because of the holiday. Although most Japanese people know it from Botchan, Dogo Onsen was also the inspiration for the onsen in Spirited Away. The bath was beautiful and the inside does have a bit of an otherworldly feel to it. After the bath we took the tram into the city center for lunch and to see the museum. The exhibit for the movie we'd seen last night was prominently featured. The exhibit was incredible! The had perfect scale models and even entire rooms you could walk through from the movie. Throughout the exhibit there were projections of the characters that would only play for a few seconds every minute and it really felt like you were in the movie. It was one of the coolest exhibits I've ever seen and I'm so glad we went!

After the museum we went back towards the castle. We didn't go all the way back up, but we walked along the shopping street we'd missed earlier. Everyone was pretty tired so they caught the tram home, but I was still enjoying the nice weather and decided to walk. It took almost an hour at my leisurely pace, but I saw some small shrines and got side-tracked walking through a park. I finished up all my souvenir shopping on the way back and it was almost sunset by the time we got back to the hotel. We sat and talked with the owners for a while before decided to head up to the roof to watch the sunset. A bunch of other people staying in the hotel came too and we all had a great time! We met another guy from our room and after the sun was down headed out to dinner with him. We went back towards the city center and found an amazing Indian restaurant. We walked around for a bit before heading back to the guesthouse. We played cards up on the roof for a bit longer before bed.

Our last day in Ehime we decided to take the train an hour south for another festival. Ikazaki is a very small town, but they have a huge kite festival every year. There were hundreds of kites and even a giant kite that had to be lifted up with a crane! Caol and I helped hold the rope for the giant kite and tried to help it fly. After the giant kite flying, all the smaller kites came out. There is a big kite fight as part of the festival and all the kites had gagari, a cutting tool, attached to their strings. The kites would fly into each other and try to cut each others strings! It was the first time I'd ever seen a kite fight and the festival was really amazing!

By the time we got back to Matsuyama City, it was getting late. We decided to take the bus to one last onsen before we had to leave. The onsen was only ten minutes away, so we had just enough time. This last onsen was also amazing! The baths were outside and they had all different baths, almost like a spa. There was a Jacuzzi, mineral bath, and even private tubs. It was the perfect way to end the trip. We grabbed our bags from the guesthouse when we finished and had dinner near Matsuyama station. We got back to the ferry a little early and found our spots. We again went outside to say goodbye to Ehime, but went to bed pretty soon after we left the dock.

Yesterday was also a day off for me, but I mostly slept and cleaned. I had such an amazing Golden Week, but I needed a bit of a rest! Today and tomorrow I'm back at Asakawa, but Saturday I will take another ferry to Korea. This one is much shorter and will just be a one night trip! I'll let you know how it goes on Monday.