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.