Goodbye!

I'm turning my keys in, in about an hour or two! I will be KEYLESS! Whoa, not a key to my name! :( Well, hopefully my father will return my car key to me when I get home. :)

Tonight I head with Alice to Shimonoseki (thank you Matt and Bethany for your hospitality!).

Tomorrow we head off together to Nagasaki for a couple of days.

8/3 To Mt. Aso we go! The biggest volcano in the world!

8/5 Goodbye for now, Alice, I'm off to meet Christina in Fukuoka!

8/6~8/9 Hello again Korea!!

8/10 A day of rest in Hofu at Christina's place (thank you thank you my dai tomodachi)

8/11 Off to Onomichi to rent some bikes and ride across 6 islands to Shikoku!

8/12~8/14 What's up Shikoku? Nice to meet you!

8/15 Night bus from Shin-yamaguchi to Kyoto

8/16 Daimonji (大文字) in Kyoto with Alice again! Long time no see!

8/17 Early morning shinkansen up to Tokyo to use my three remaining nights taking advantage of the hospitality of my very good friends Preston and Junko. Maybe meet up with Sarah, or whoever else is around!

8/20~~CALIFORNIA!!!!!!

Well, I will have to finish up my Japan Time blog from America, because I think I'm going to leave my computer (and some luggage) with my friend Naoya until August 15th, the last time I see Hofu... but I here are just a few of the goodbye's I want to mention!

Goodbye disgusting Japanese food! I don't know what she is eating...it was probably very tasty..but the half of the food here that is not tasty--- see you!

Goodbye Choruru!!! I will always love you! Take care of Yamaguchi for me!

Goodbye crazy Japanese people! Oh, and of course the normal Japanese people too. :D

Goodbye Hofu city children that say "HALLO!" to me everytime I pass! You haven't seen the last of this white girl!

Goodbye my lovely Japanese class! You taught me so much! I learned some. But you taught me so much! I when I die, I can remember everything from my life with perfect clarity, I will surely be able to speak Japanese in the afterlife. :D

Goodbye friends, schools, apartment, everything and everyone. Japan was the best time of my whole life. I love you.

So, yes hopefully I'll finish off all my planned blogs in late August or September. Thanks for reading everyone. *hugs*

Official Leaver's Ceremony

Once upon a time, on July 8th, 2011, it was time for the Prefecture of Yamaguchi, Japan, to officially let me go. ...

As a JET teacher, I am employed by Japan, not by a private company. I always thought that was the coolest part of my job. :) So ending our contracts is a pretty big thing. Very formal, and Japanese style. Here is a view from the prefectural office's 14th floor. Yamaguchi city is the capital of Yamaguchi, and here I was, looking out on it all. So beautiful. !!

I've always meant to count the number of bows in a typical Japanese ceremony, but I never actually did...and I have exactly zero ceremonies left. I'm done. I'm out. I am going to work for 2 more days, but everything big is done, and it's time for me to get on with my life. The future is pretty exciting, I must say.

I received this, along with some other paperwork, and then the traditional gift that people get when leaving Yamaguchi. I can't put a picture of mine up, because I already sent my two sets home (one from Yamaguchi Prefecture, and one from a private adult class I teach, that had the same idea.) But click here to see the gift: Traditional folk handicraft, Ouchi Dolls . Made in Yamaguchi! Yay!!

Here's all the prefectual JETs that are leaving. We all either stayed here for 1, 2 or 3 years. I'm right in the middle, length-of-stay wise.

Our gang sign is Yamaguchi--- 山口！

Rice Bowl

AJET (the peer-run social organization for our assistant language teacher network) put together a wonderful event for us JET teachers in Yamaguchi Ken!

There were about 12 events...3 of them simply being JANKEN (or Rock, Paper, Scissors) which is really funny if you live here. It seems like all decisions in Japan are based off of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Americans often do a "coin toss" but Japanese people do Janken, and at a rate that would alarm most rational people. hehe.

The other events were awesome. One event, for example was a relay for each team of 4 members. The first person had to use chopsticks to get a cup of marbles from one cup to the next. Next was perhaps, moving a deck of playing cards one by one, with only the chopsticks, and last one was transferring a bowl of uncooked rice into another bowl. Very silly and fun. There were also events that tested us on our knowledge of the Japanese language, and Japanese culture/pop culture. It was a great day!

My team:

Christina-chan, Eric-kun, me, Kris-chan.

WE WON! Yes. We won. :) I still have my awesome trophy, shaped as a bowl of rice.

Down time activities

Badminton is one of the most popular sports in Japan. Before coming here, maybe I played it in Junior High School a few times? But I didn't really know anything about it. I would always prefer volleyball, but on some days when there are no classes, some of the other teachers invite me to play! And it's fun! I just stink at it. I can't get use to the badminton racquet. I treat it like a tennis racket..which I probably don't know how to use either. haha.

I really like the camaraderie between teachers at my base school. Through random spontaneous sporting events like this, I have learned so much useful vocabulary too. Close one! In! Out! You suck! Winner! Loser! I get called a loser often, you see. hehe.

My supervisor, below, is the badminton queen of the world! I probably won't ever play again, after leaving Japan! How sad!!! Great memories here. :)

Goodbye enkai

In a few minutes, I'll be leaving to a goodbye party thrown for me by my base school. I'm nervous about crying. Only 14 people signed up to come, but that means it's the 14 people that like me the best, so I'll totally have a propensity to cry!

These are pictures from a formal enkai earlier in the year, sometime. hehe. Maybe 2010 even! But tonight, my enkai is at Tre Buono, a nice Italian restaurant in town, which specializes in parties and such. So hopefully the food will not look like the food below. ;) I'm sure it won't, I've been to a few parties at Tre Buono, and it's always great food, and a bit too much drink.

P.S., it's not that I don't like Japanese food. It's that I don't like expensive Japanese enkai food. It's always like a 80 dollar party, with fancy food that tastes like butt, and I can't eat 90% of it since I don't eat meat meat (I eat fish).

I'll post pics of all my goodbye parties over the coming weeks! So many blogs to catch up on, as I'm sure no one is going to be interested in reading about my Japan experience after I return home! Maybe I'll just pretend I'm still here, as I wrap up my Japan Time blog... ;)

I'll miss lots

It's less than a month now, until I return home to America!

I am going to miss so many things. One thing, is just being famous. Sticking out. I like sticking out. Probably most people don't, but I do.

Here, I'm walking along the other side of the street... Some Junior High School boys see me from their cram school...sticking their heads out of the second story window.

"HELLO!!! HELLO HELLO!!! My name is naninani. HELLO!"

Students talk to me whenever they see me, wherever they see me. These students almost fell out the window trying to get me to come talk to them.

I will miss random groups of girls look at me, and then exclaim "Kawaii!!!" (so cute!!) just because I smile and say hello. No one will ever call me kawaii again, after my return. :(

I forgot Osaka!

Back on February 12th, Yoko, Yumi and I caught the early morning Shinkansen up to Osaka for the weekend. Our plan--To see Taylor Swift live in concert on Sunday evening.

Yoko's travel agent friend got us the BEST deal ever. For 17000yen (about 200 bucks) we got round trip Shinkansen tickets (It would usually be like 150 each way) plus two nights in a nice hotel.

We got to Osaka, and had a fun time exploring the city the first day. Look what we found:

Miso Soup in a can! lol! My life is complete!

Yoko was sooooo excited about this Billboard. I guess this Guriko man is really famous in Japan? Something about him being the first spokesperson for mass produced chocolate in Japan.

My picture here is just capturing the essence of her excitement.

That night we also found an all you and eat AND all you can drink place for 1200 yen. It was actually a Shakeys! So lots of pizza for the right price. The weekend was so exciting from all the deals we found. Yoko and Yumi splurged on me, buying me a $6.00 cardigan which would still be my favorite thing to wear if it hadn't gotten so hot recently.

I just thought this was a funny picture. No. bike. parking. please.

On Sunday, we decked ourselves out for the concert, and headed on our way. The concert hall is right next to Osaka castle, so we stopped by.

The concert happened because I got many of my students into Taylor Swift with a lesson plan I made from her music video: "You Belong to Me." I think it was 4 girls that decided that they were going to go to the concert. But in Japan, the concert ticket system is kind of weird. Concerts are super popular, but it isn't first come first serve, usually. You place yourself in a lottery, and if you win the lottery you have to pay for the tickets. For really popular groups, winning the lottery is really hard. But Taylor is still kind of new here, and I guess the girls didn't realize how easy it would be to win the lottery. So 3 of the girls signed up for the max of 4 tickets. And they all won. So these poor 4 students were stuck with 12 tickets at 8000 yen a piece. I was able to convince Yumi and Yoko to help me take some tickets off their hands, and they found enough friends from my school and Christina's school to use all 12 tickets! So I basically went to the concert with 9 of my students too :) But I can't put their pictures up here, of course. I wish I could. I seriously want to adopt 2 of the girls.

The concert was AMAZING. I'm not so into Taylor Swift anymore. I was really into her, I think, because she seemed like the perfect idol for my sweet students. I feel much more comfortable showing Taylor to them than any of the other people that barely wear clothes and cuss and you know.

At the time though, that concert was like my life. I turned into a crazy person when Taylor was walking through the aisles, singing. Everyone turned into a crazy person. I really understood mob mentality for the first time.

It was amazing to be in a huge concert hall full of Japanese people (I only saw a couple other foreigners) that knew all the words to Taylor's songs better than me. Seriously, music is the best way to learn a language. :)

By the way, we were in the 12th row! 12th row!~ ~~!! It was sooo cool to be so close!

aaah, I forgot how cold it was the whole time. I couldn't not wear these stupid ski gloves at all times! :) Oh, and I realize how much better this picture would have been if Yoko or Yumi took on Ken Watanabe's stance and chin touch. :)

Osaka was amazing, and I need to start combing through all my pictures now to see what other kinds of things I missed blogging about. Yakushima is still coming soon!

Peace!

Memories 2

What will I do without my walking-distance karaoke? I am going to try to do karaoke every week from now until I leave Japan. :)

Memories!

I'm very sad that I won't be around to participate in the World Laughing Competition this year! But I'm happy that my memory lives on, on the promotional material. :D I'm on the bottom left.

May you never stop laughing, Japan.

Miyajima

Miyajima Island. What a great place! It is near Hiroshima, and from me is about an hour and a half away by train. And it took me almost two years of living here to ever go! The first time I went was with my sister, when she visited me. Now I've been there twice, and want to go again. Who shall I take? :)

We took the ferry from the train station, over to the island. It is a nice 10 minute ferry ride. Here is a map of the island, which a nice statue of a deer marking the location. ...well, so I thought until well after I took the picture, and found out that it was a real deer. :D He's just standing there for photo opportunities I suppose.

The island is very famous for it's many shrines, and for it's deer and for some special foods. But of course, my sister and I just wanted to stick our faces in the wooden tourist photo thingie. What are these called? There must be a name for them.

All the deer everywhere freaked me out, but my sister has no fear. They all seem to be trained so well. Most of the stores are just completely airy and open, but no deer ever went inside.

This guy is feeding them. Not really allowed, but you know there are always the people that don't care about the warnings or signs. Made for a very cute picture at least.

The oysters there were the most glorious things that I have ever eaten. They were so huge, savory and delicious. This picture reminds me of inception. hehe. It's low tide now, and I saw it both ways, when the tide comes up, it is beautiful. The picture below would be to the left of the camera lense on the picture above. And to the right of the camera lense above is a floating shrine. Well, at least it is called a floating shrine. It has bases. All your base are belong to us. ;)

I should put up more pictures. It's such a beautiful place. Just google Miyajima, and you can see what I mean. Hope you all are having a lovely day.

English Club

Running English club is part of my job here! I used to have English club every day, but now I have Thursdays off (which I am sad about~).

I'm always trying to come up with stuff to do for English club, to keep it exciting. I'm not sure how much I succeed, but this year I have a lot of new members at all of my schools! At my base school, I even have 2 boys! BOYS! Boys don't join English club! Really, it's exciting to have helped build up a club that is big and inclusive and fun, yet beneficial.

For example, four of my English club members participated in a Prefectural-wide English speech contest this last Saturday. I stayed late and went in on my days off to help prepare them for it. One of my girls got second place! (I truly believe she deserved first, but 2nd isn't bad, and it's always about the experience.)

I cried when we arrived back in my city's station, because I realized that the speech/recitation contest was the last one I'd ever be attending, at least as the coach. The next contest is in October, when I will be home in America.

My kids made all these English club or "E.S.S." signs. E.S.S. stands for English Speaking Society, our official club name. The picture here to the right says: "2011. This year, you must study English." With the Karate Kid on it. So cute!

Recently we had another burrito day. But we made burritos for the principal and vice-principal and all the teachers that were around. My girls and boys were running through the halls with plates of burritos to make everyone try. Even for the teachers, it was their first time ever trying a burrito.

A lot of what I do is trivia and jeopardy type games. If you have any good trivia, please send it my way!

I'm going to miss my English clubs so much. The person taking over my position at the end of July BETTER be good! I can't wait to find out who it is. I can't wait, I can't wait!

I didn't get to meet my predecessor because she was traveling in other parts of Japan, but I'll still be here for a bit, so hopefully I can go to school with them, and show them the ropes for a bit. Mostly so I can try to convince them to do things my way. ;)

Unko

These stickers...the title is literally: Golden Unko.

I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, here on this blog. But Unko is..well this. A steaming pile of poop. It's not just poop, but like... the iconic pile that you picture when you think of poop in cartoons.

I may have mentioned this before, only because in class I made an unfortunate error. I mixed up "unko" and "anko". "Anko" is the famous red-bean paste, that is used in many sweets here. So there I am, accidentally talking about eating poop in class, rather than red-bean paste.

Wonderful. :) That mistake is a long time ago, though. I need to start recording my day-to-day mistakes! There is always something funny happening in this life of mine! I'll try to be better at blogging and telling funny stories. Starting now.

Peace

I received this a while ago while meandering around Hiroshima. A woman approached, near the atomic dome, and started chatting. She pulled out a box, and gave me this carefully folded flower pin. The whole time, I was thinking: "I don't want anything." "Not interested." "Okay, fine, how much?"

It was a weird moment for me, because I realized how American it is of me to always think that people are trying to sell stuff. In Japan, you go buy things from people. The people don't come to you. I felt a little ashamed of myself for thinking she was trying to get a couple hundred yen out of me. Really she just wanted to chat, and let me know that she appreciated that Americans would come here now, to learn about the sad history.

I've only been asked for money here twice, in 2 years. So why can't I shake the feeling that someone always wants something? I need to get rid of that feeling. I need to enjoy every moment here, and not worry about anything else. :) And I'm trying. This Hiroshima incident was over 2 months ago, but I still think of that nice lady who just wanted to give me a handmade flower pin.

Hanami Hanami

Wikipedia:

Hanami (花見, lit. "flower viewing") is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, "flower" in this case almost always meaning cherry blossoms or ume blossoms. From the end of March to early May, sakura bloom all over Japan, and around the first of February on the island of Okinawa. The blossom forecast (桜前線 sakurazensen, literally cherry blossom front) is announced each year by the weather bureau, and is watched carefully by those planning hanami as the blossoms only last a week or two. In modern-day Japan, hanami mostly consists of having an outdoor party beneath the sakura during daytime or at night.

(Thanks Wikipedia, I'm just too busy to blog properly these days!)

------------

My first Hanami party of the season: [There were like 2 blossoms at this time. But I wanted my sister who was visiting to get to see what a Hanami Party was all about. But it rained, and was freezing...but we had a great time!]

Hanami Party Number 2: [it was great! I doubled as a birthday thing for me]

Hanami Party number 3 was in Iwakuni, and was BEAUTIFUL. Perfect perfect time for Hanami:

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I think the key to proper Hanami'ing (yes, I mix Japanese and English a lot) is being there with people you care about! And that was true for all three of the hanami parties that I attended this year! The first was the last week in March, the second was the first week in April, and the third was the second week in April.

There's of course no cherry blossoms left now, but I'm certainly viewing my city's other flowers every day. Hofu is so beautiful. I'm going to miss this place. :)

Best

This is my favorite picture of all time. :)

Walking overpasses

I know it seems like a minor annoyance...but these things REALLY bother me! I live in the most countryside prefecture of Japan! There isn't traffic! There is no reason for this! Yet everywhere, there are these huge walking overpasses. I am a very bad jaywalker here... Oops. I mean, I can see how they can be useful sometimes. But Japan has too many. My town shouldn't have any. There are also there intricate tunnels to go *under* intersections. This is not Tokyo! This is not Osaka!

The main reasons for all of these are economic. In the 1990's Japan gave huge payments per square meter of concrete used to build something as a public work. But I don't want to walk over that thing!!! :)

Sunset

I'm starting to pack up my apartment a bit. Starting to get boxes ready. Shipping all my winter clothing home on Saturday. And books I can't part with. And the cleaning frenzy has begun, too. I am still in my apartment for another 2 months, but I know that will go by really quickly. I'm really going to miss this balcony, those mountains, that sun...

I love you Hofu!!!!!

Bin Laden

Hey there.
Sometimes I doubt is my sister loves me. Why? Oh, probably because she said she didn't and laughed. Well....... SHE DOES LOVE ME! And here's how I know:

Facebook message from her:

''dont no if u wer asleep wen da news cam or wat but osama bin laden was killed today.. thought id make sure u knew cuz idk if u got time for news b/ i no u got time 4 fb.. lol...''

Who would take the time to make fun of me like that, other than a loving sister? I mean, come on, who has time for facebook, but not the news?

---

Well, that is how I found out Osama Bin Laden had been killed. haha. I think I found out two and a half days after the fact. Only because I was busy climbing a huge mountain when it happened! A mountain that eludes cell-phone reception.

But it is funny, that when I finally had reception again, I found out by facebook. My sister's explanation to me made a lot of things make more sense. When I saw so many people posting 'USA USA USA'' and ''Proud to be an American''...the only thing that went through my mind was: ''huh? Did the Lakers win or something?''

Thanks for clearing that up for me Jenn.

My Little Silent Monks

Please go to youtube.com and "like" this video! And please leave some encouraging comments for my students! :) Thank you!

Comment on youtube now! here :) Actually you should just watch it on youtube, not on here, because it's right side is cut off for some reason here on blogspot.

Birthday!

Back on my birthday... well, life was just perfect! Tonight I'm going to my bestest bud Jennie's birthday party, so I thought I'd reflect on my birthday last month.

It was awesome. A friend from home was visiting, my birthday landed on a Friday, and WHAT? Christina and Jennie hand-baked and frosted me my very own Stargate cake!

It may not be this:

But it really really touched me. 27 will be my best year yet. Just don't remind me that SGU was canceled. Thank you. :)

seven sins

My sister and I found this when she was here. It was a sign, chilling in a forest. No one around. Just open nature, and his sign. :)

Jenny's Visit 3

Hey! Back again (life is busy). Tomorrow I am going to Kagoshima, Japan. And on Sunday morning I am leaving for Yakushima. Yakushima is a place I have been dying to go to since day one here. Check out this blog about it: click.

But back to Jenny's visit. Like I said, we went hiking around the famous mountainous area called Arashiyama, in Kyoto Japan.

It was beautiful. But even up in the mountains we found vending machines. :)

Nice sunset after hitting up the International Manga Museum.

We took the train from Kyoto to Osaka for dinner. Jenny tried real Osaka-style okonomiyaki. I guess you can call it a hearty Japanese pancake. There is Osaka style and Hiroshima style. They compete. Jenny later tried Hiroshima style, but she couldn't tell which one she liked better because she disliked them both. I too hated Okonomiyaki when I first came to Japan. But now I love and crave it.

And back to Hofu we go!!

We had a hanami party in honor of my sister being in town. But it was still cold, and even rainy...so we set up our hanami time under a ...thing. The Sakura hadn't bloomed yet, and it was pretty cold to enjoy the day, but we did it!

Hanami parties are always potluck style. Japanese strawberries are the best. I never want to eat an American strawberry again. No flavor!!

It was fun! I'm happy all my friends came for my sister. And then they came again for when Kyle visited me in Japan! People just like to hanami though....

Now, I gotta pack more for Yakushima.

Y A K U S H I M A ! ! ! !