The last hoorah

If I thought last year was hard to give up my favorite class of only 13 boys... This year was ridiculous. The kids that I lost this year were the first year students when I came. I spent 2 1/2 years getting to know them, their names, their hobbies, their musical tastes... I forced them to study the UN, the Beatles, American "punk", the Rwandan Genocide, the British Commonwealth... and we sure did play a lot of games.

These are some photos from the last classes I had with them. I tried to do special classes so we baked cookies. Some turned out really good, others, not so much (^-^)

Yonaizawa's 3S Class
The 3S class is always special... They are only 12 so they are so easy for me to get to know. This year we decided to have a feast for our last class; pizza, cheese burgers, hot dogs, rice omelets, cookies and cheese cake!

Kanari Sensei and Seiya are chopping vegetables to put on the pizzas

Seiya and Hiroki, having finished the pizzas, are preparing to put them into the oven

Ryuta and Tatsuya are working on the rice omelets - fried chicken, peas, corn and ketchup inside an omelet. Honestly, not my favorite but the Japanese love it...

Abe and Tomoya working on the cheesecake. It really tasted good in the end, too

Kazuya and Kazuki working on the cookies - in the background you can see Takeishi Sensei (the boys homeroom teacher), Shota and Wataru working on the hot dogs.

Group photo!

From top left: me, Tomonari, Wataru, Seiya, Ryuta, Kohei (the tall one in back), Hiroki, Tomoya and Yoshie Sensei

From bottom left: Shota, Kazuki, Kazuya, Tatsuya and Abe

Seiya shoving a burger down his throat (^-^)v

Futatsui's 3B Class

Well, I was really disappointed with this class. We were supposed to have a cooking day as well but schedules got changed and it didn't work out in the end... Fortunately enough, I was able to get a good group photo - unfortunately I can't give you all their names m(_ _)m

Even without their names it's a cute picture, right?!

Takanosu's 3A and 3B classes

These kids were a lot of fun and I love them so much! We had a great time baking cookies and I had a great time laughing at the boys (^-^)

You see Midori and Ami working on cookies with the lovely Kanako in the middle, supervising (a word to those who didn't know - Kanako has been transferred to a different school and I am absolutely heart-broken without her!!! however, I that I'm being selfish since I know I'm going home soon... I hope she's happy at her new school!)


Ichitaro and Mana's group had a banana cookie recipe and they decided they'd like to try pan-frying them as well as baking them. You know, the pan-fried ones ended up tasting pretty darn good... if not a little doughy


Ayako, me, Megumi and Kaori - cheese (^-^)v



A group shot of the girls with their cookies set out on the table



The cutest girl ever!!! Noriko spooning out chocolate cookies


Ayako and Manami - their cookies look yummy!!!



Yuya, Koei, Hiroya and Shota checkin out their cookies (they really meant for the one on the left to be a giant cookie... boys will be boys...)



and boys will goof off (^-^)

Ryohei and Shoya messin around with Masaya

Mari, Erika, Hinako, Chiharu and Minako

I can't deny that these boys (or atleast the ones framing the picture) are my favorites... (or were until they moved to Yokohama in March (T-T)) From the left: Katsuya (KK), Kohei and Shun

Takahiro with KK, Shun and Kohei... they're cookies turned out... not so great

For the most part, the lessons turned out really great and everyone had a good time. The cookies tasted pretty good too (bar Shun and KK's group)

Mmmm... think I'll make some cookies this weekend!

Let's get a move on...

So obviously, I have just completely fallen off the blog horse. I do apologize for that. I'll tell you what though, recently I've been assembling pictures for a friends birthday and it brought me back to this blog (some of the pictures I wanted I've erased from my hard drive so I saved them once again off this website). I was looking over old posts and I realized how neat they were, and what a good journal this blog really is. So I've decided to give it a go and get back on that horse!

Christmas. As most of you know, it was not the best holiday imaginable. Yes, most of that is and was my own doing. I never should have agreed to go to Hawaii with Sho, but seriously, who can pass up Hawaii? All things said and done, I am glad I went; I was able to go to church quite regularly (and understand not only the readings but the homily as well). I was able to see some truly beautiful landscapes and, most importantly, I was able to shop and gorge myself on the most delicious and disgusting American cuisine I could get my grubby little hands on!!! Maybe it wasn't so bad after all... I did get a nice tan out of it, as well... (^-^)

Sho and I stayed in Waikiki, on the touristy island of Oahu. We never had time to go to any other islands, which was disappointing but more affordable. By the end of it, to be perfectly honest, I was so sick of Waikiki and Hawaii! I never really thought it possible for me, the girl who dreams of shopping and pizza, to get sick of a land with nothing but shopping, restaurants and beaches... Looking back on it now, sitting in my tiny apartment in Japan, I think I must have been nutters!

A shot of Waikiki; this picture was taken from the top of Diamond Head, a volcano that is apparently iconic of Waikiki and Oahu

A shot of Diamond Head from the ocean, taken whilst I was out on my whale viewing excursion... sadly enough another disappointment (_ _)

And a proper shot of what gives Diamond Head the name... obviously, it's shape. I will say this for the whale viewing, I was fortunate enough to meet these two, very kind Canadian men and we had a nice conversation for the duration of the trip. I really do enjoy speaking English with pure strangers, or anyone for that matter

A beautiful shot of a lighthouse taken from the top of Diamond Head. Speaking of that hike, it really was quite easy, however, the stairs at the end were killer!!! Seemed like about 500, going straight up and not stopping!

Taken from the east side of the island, just a random beach shot

Another shot taken from the same point on the east side of the island

A shot from our hike the Tantalus mountains. It was really a short walk and quite beautiful

A view from the top of Hanauma Bay. This was an absolutely beautiful little piece of the island, turned into a sea-nature preserve in the 1960s. Unfortunately I found it quite disappointing. I think at one point in time it probably was absolutely beautiful, but too many people have gone and poisoned the water. I know that sounds terrible, and maybe if I hadn't had my experience in Malaysia I would have thought this was fabulous, but alas, I have been spoiled with true aquatic beauty. Hanauma was breath-taking from the top, not so much from the bottom...

Of course, no trip to Oahu would be complete without visiting Pearl Harbor. This was a pretty moving experience, and, truth be told, slightly awkward to view with a Japanese person. Anyway, this shot was pretty neat, I thought, it's hard to tell but there was a rainbow shining down on the Arizona Memorial, pretty beautiful, really

A shot from the other side of the bay of the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri Memorial

A picture of the actualy Arizona Memorial, flag at half mast because President Ford had just passed. I'll tell you, it was really neat to walk over that memorial and look out at that boat. You spend your whole life hearing about Pearl Harbor, studying it in school, perhaps watching cheesey movies about it, but it is a entirely different feeling to be standing there, all the soldiers still entombed there, it was truly remarkable

Inside the monument there is a list of the names of all the sailors who died on the ship. Something that I found haunting was that those who didn't die in the attack of Pearl Harbor but were crewmen on the USS Arizona have been laid to rest there as well, very touching. The inscription reads, "To the memory of the gallant men here entombed and their shipmates who gave their lives in action on December 7, 1941 on the USS Arizona"

While definitely not a dream vacation, it was better than staying in Akita! Hope you enjoyed the pictures (^-^)v

Barbecues and Keisuke...

Take a trip back through time... back to the year 2006, to the month of September... and you'll find these lovely pictures from the barbecue my school threw as a sort of "Farewell to Summer". It was a pretty good time, almost all of the teachers from Takanosu High School showed up, there was camping (although I didn't join in that fun) and drinking and, of course, barbecuing! For me, the best part was that it was held at the (semi-)local park, Hokuo-no-Mori, where they also happen to have an 18 hole disc golf course, which I was able to hit up with Senju and Naoki (fellow teachers) before the festivities began. (^-^)
The down side to this whole barbecuing excursion? It just happened that a typhoon came through that night so those brave few that did stay to camp out definitely got their money's worth with those waterproof tents... (hehehe)

Yamamoto and Hideyuki getting the grills ready for the grub (notice in the back, they even brought kegs! My kinda barbecue (^-^)v)

This was actually my first time to watch gyoza being made from scratch. It was pretty neat. Gyoza are little dumblings that have meat on the inside. I used to think they were the same thing as potstickers but then I checked it out on Wikipedia... pretty interesting. Anyway, you see Yoko, Senju and Yoshie working away at those, I actually made one, too! Hooray for me (^-^)

Close up of the gyoza

You can see Yoshie was dishing out the meat while the other two folded... nice little system, really

And a shot of everyone enjoying the barbecue...

Naoki and Jun (whom I like to refer to as Buddha because... honestly, do I need to explain why?)

Yoshie and Yuzawa enjoying some beers and probably some smoke in their faces as well (^-^)

A very fun night indeed. Honestly, I wish my school had more parties like this one...

On to the next bit of news...
I think you were all aware that Yancy's old college pal Keisuke came to visit me in October. It was really awesome of him to come all the way up here and we had a pretty good time - although the weather didn't quite cooperate... He stayed for just about two days and we decided to try and go up to the northern part of the prefecture and check out the beautiful Lake Towada and perhaps check out some local shrines...

Keisuke looking out over Lake Towada. It really is beautiful but, to tell you the truth, I have never seen it on a nice day. It is always (every time I've been there) either cloudy or rainy... But I can imagine that it would be fabulous on a clear day!

Concentrating hard on how to find Towada Shrine... while driving my car! (Which was actually preferred because the road to Lake Towada was very windy and I was very car sick by this point (^-^))

And we found it! Here is proof! Keisuke, standing at the entrance to Towada Shrine

Protectors of the Shrine

It was honestly, quite possibly one of the most beautiful shrines I've seen in Japan. There's a short walk from the village to the actually temple and the trees are just lovely, there are many beautiful torii's along the way...

Keisukei, performing the traditional cleansing ritual before entering the grounds of the shrine. (I believe) one is expected to wash both hands, pour some water into the left hand to rinse the mouth and then spit out again, and then wash the left hand again

Towada Shrine

For Keisuke's last night in Akita I took him out for some traditional local food, kiritanpo and Hinai chicken. Now, if the viewer pays close attention to this picture, they will notice a dark blue plate in front of Keisuke. Honestly, I didn't realize this was something people ate but I watched Keisuke eat it and man... I was a little repulsed. So, can you guess? Can you tell from the picture? Raw chicken! RAW CHICKEN!!! Incredible

Keisuke only visited for a short time but we had fun. I promise I will try my hardest to get down and visit him and his family in Ibaraki before I leave Japanland!

(^-^)v

Summertime, and the livin's easy... (and way late)

Summer is like, totally the best time of year in Japan. First of all, there's not 10 feet of snow on the ground, secondly, there's not 10 feet of snow on the ground. In my opinion, the summer here comes a little late, like, the end of July, but once it's here it's mighty hot! Anyway, this summer was really fun for me because I mainly spent my time festival hopping. I mean, it just seems like there are so many festivals around! Unfortunately, most of them are fireworks shows so I don't have so many pictures...
A little more on the serious side, I was also able to do a cooking class three times over the summer for students who were interested. Unfortunately, not so many kids showed up (about 10 each time) but we still had a lot of fun. I'm posting some pictures from the day we made pancakes, (blueberry, banna and chocolate chip). They were so yummy, I discovered that banana pancakes with blueberry yogurt sauce is fantastically delicious!

This is Manami on the left and Noriko on the right, two of my most favorite students! They were in charge of the chocolate chip pancakes that turned out abosolutely fabulous, though a little too sweet for me (^-^)

Kanako and Kyoto Sensei (the vice principal, Junko) made the blueberry pancakes - fantastic!

Everybody sitting down together to eat, from the left is Ami, Kaori, Erika (I think...), Kyoto Sensei and Kanako (^-^)

Alright, on to festivals

Gotta start out with some students... From the left it's Wataru, Jun and Tomoru. They participated in this awesome festival in Ani-Maeda called the Himatsuri (火祭り - fire festival) by playing the daiko drums. They were so amazing!!! I actually have a video, too. This was actually the coolest festival I went to this summer. I was really amazed because it's in a tiny town but... it was just so neat!



Remember, I never claimed to be like, a decent videographer or anything...

The next festival I'll show was a really neat one in Odate City. It's not actually a really special festival, most towns in Japan have them... With this festival, each neighborhood in the city has a float that they pull and they kinda compete at the end, running at each other and stuff... Well, all the ALT's in Odate were asked to participate in theirs so they got to wear the special clothes and look real neat, and I got to take pictures (^-^)

This is quite a balancing act, considering they've actually been drinking like, all day (^-^)



This is where we up here in Akita try to mimic Kyoto with the big 大 burning on the mountain side... The fireworks were fun though

Of course, it wouldn't be summer in Akita without Kanto and (especially for us in the north) Onagori. I absolutely love this festival that brings together all sorts of festivals from all over northern Japan. Above are the lanterns of Kanto, Akita's most famous festival held every year in August. It's absolutely amazing to see live, I mean, there is only one man, sometimes even hgih school boys, holding those poles... Astounding, really

Of course there's also Nebuta from our neighbors to the north, Aomori. Also a very neat festival

For most people, the best part of Onagori is the lovely Brazilian Carnivale dancers who come all the way from Tokyo just to party with us in Akita. They are quite pretty...

(^-^)v