Chris and Georgia visit Japan

In hopes to better preserve some of our Japanese memories, I'm going to make a better effort to update this blog more regularly and less itty bitty facebook status updates.

At the end of April, my dad Chris and his wife, Georgia, came to Japan for a visit. Their visit lasted 9 days here in Hiroshima-ken, and then a cruise back from Kobe to Vancouver taking about 18 days. While they were here, Mike and I were able to spend some quality time and do some sight seeing. While they were here, we visited Hiroshima Castle, Miyajima, Kure Port Parade, Kure Maritime Museum, and 100 different coffee shops and bakeries!

Here's a brief recap and some snapshots.

Saturday: Dad and Georgia arrive in Hiroshima in the afternoon. Mike and I meet them at the Shinkansen station and take them to their hotel to check in. Afterwards we have some lunch back at the station and then visit Hiroshima Castle.

Sunday: my memory is fuzzy but I think they came to Kure on Sunday. Mostly we showed them around the city and our apartment.

Monday: I had to go to work, so I think they toured around Hiroshima.

Tuesday: On Tuesdays I teach at an Elementary school. That afternoon, Dad and Georgia came to visit my grade 2 elementary school class. We had a really good time, and my students really enjoyed visiting with them, and practicing, "Hello! How are you?! Nice to meet you!" After class, Dad and Georgia shook hands, gave out little Canadian flags and took pictures. After school we walked back to the station and had some coffee and pastires while deciding what to do with the rest of the week. Afterwards we came back to the apartment, relaxed for a little while, then had some lovely food at the Izakaiya restraunt, Hakenden.

Wednesday: I believe we went to Miyajima on Wednesday. Either way, we met my Dad and Georgia when transferring trains in Hiroshima and then carried on to Miyajima. We could tell when we were on the train that the weather was turning sour and we had been on the island for only about 5 minutes when the sky opened up and rained. I have never experienced being right underneath a thunderclap before and I can't even describe how loud it truly was. The rain that followed was so heavy that all the shop keepers had to close down their metal storm door guards and people crowded in shop doorways every where. Soon after the rain slowed down and we continued on our adventure. We tried many different types of food and snacks there, pet many deer, and even saw a traditional Japanese wedding party come through.

Thursday: I think Dad and Georgia took this day to tour some more of Hiroshima while I made some tarts for Noriko's birthday gathering the next day (though it turns out it was her husband's birthday!)

Friday: This day Dad and Georgia came into Kure for the Kure Port Festival.

The festival was very popular and was attended by thousands of people from Kure, as well as other cities. They were able to meet a few other Kure JETs as well as see a lot of Japanese food stalls with all sorts of interesting dishes, and various grilled things a stick. After visiting the festival, I won some fish (Ponyo is the only one still with us however) and we relaxed at home for a few minutes before heading back out again to watch the darade as we walked down to the station. The parade was quite a fancy affair with lots and lots of dance groups of all ages. I saw a few of my students dancing and even one of my school's marching bands.

After the events, we headed out to Tennoh where we met Noriko and her family. We visited Noriko's lovely house and were all dressed up in Kimonos. The Kimono's were a lot of fun. Somehow, when Georgia and I were choosing our Kimonos, I chose the biggest one, and she chose the smallest. So, we had a bit of trouble getting properly dressed. Afterwards the boys came down and they got dressed up. After photos we got undressed and were invited to stay for dinner. Noriko's husband pulled out their grill and they made yakisoba right there in front of us. It was a very unique Japanese experience, just to be a part of a Japanese family for an evening. Noriko even showed them embarrassing videos of me that were on TV. Noriko's husband sang some entertaining songs (though I gather because it was his birthday he had been sipping Japanese whiskey all day.) Just thinking of this day brings back a lot of happy feelings.

Saturday: I think we did our own things on Saturday.

Sunday: Because it was their last full day in Japan, we decided to keep it simple so they still had time to pack and get a good night's rest. Dad and Georgia came into Kure in the early afternoon and we visited the Yamato maritime museum. Afterwards we decided on trying a Korean BBQ place we had seen a few nights before. The Korean BBQ was very delicious. We ordered a selection of meat and they brought it out nicely sliced and with lots of sauces. They also brought out a charcoal grill for us to cook our meat on. It was a lot of fun, though the smoke left me with a cough for a week or so. (even though there was a huge vent, I guess I was a little overzealous in my watching of the meat.)

And on Monday I went back to work and Dad and Georgia hopped on the shinkansen for Kobe!

I know that this was supposed to be a brief update, but oh well. Click here to see the full album!

Spring in Kure

Hello Everyone,

I know it's been a little bit of time since I updated. I don't have a lot of literary updates for you this time, but I do have a lot of pictures.

On March 31st, Mike and I made our way into Hiroshima where we had our affidavits signed by the Canadian Consulate. Basically we checked to make sure that our pre-submitted forms were correct and then we were ushered into a room to wait for the Consul. He then (waddled in in a rather grumpy-old Japanese man fashion) signed our papers and left. After that we taxi'd back to the train station to head to the City Hall in Kure, where our foreigner cards are registered. After giving them our affidavits and trying to semi-explain what we were trying to do they consulted their books and had us fill out some forms. Of course we didn't really realize that we'd need witnesses, so our friends Ryan and Lindsey came down and signed for us. After that we were shuffled off to another booth at city hall to wait while it was registered on our foreigner cards. It was a pretty bureaucratic day, but in truth the sun was beautiful, we didn't have to wait more than a few minutes for a train to and from the city, Mike wore a tie and I found a dress, and at the end of the day Ryan and Lindsey ended up taking us out for a nice Italian dinner. For not having a wedding ceremony, we still couldn't have asked for a nicer day.


To see all the pictures we have you can try this link: It should be publicly viewable.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=632635&id=721050359&l=e1d2a4539c

Next up on the update list is some pictures from my ceramics class. I talked pretty extensively about it before, and all the pictures on my facebook page have descriptions on the photos, so I'll just share the photos here.

The cups I'm making are for Noriko, from the international center. She's the one that helped me find this class and is always doing everything in her power to be 150% sugar and spice ALL THE TIME.

Here's the album!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=635092&id=721050359&l=1a0013fe18






Lastly, It's spring break here in Kure, and the Cherry blossoms, while late this year, have finally started to bloom. I took a lovely bike ride today and later a walk with Mike to get ice cream, see if the outdoor pool was open, and appreciate my last day of semi-freedom before I go back to school tomorrow.
These pictures are 97% cherry blossom pictures. There's a few of some Koi that we saw in a river on our walk at the end of the album, some other flowers, a pigeon, and a picture of Mike .

Here's the album!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=635099&id=721050359&l=216cf4499b

Update with news!

Now, just as a forewarning. I wrote this entry about a week or two ago, but decided not to update it because I wanted to wait for Mike. So, all my plans about what I'm going to do next weekend here, have already happened. I also have some pictures now! but I'm also too lazy to rewrite this entry in the present tense while I'm at work. On that note, let's go!

Hello everyone,

Here is an update of my past week and my plans for next week.

I suppose I'll start off with my big news. On Febuary 1st, Mike and I decided officially that I would recontract and that we would stay in Japan for another 18 months. The other side of this very shiney and lovely coin is that because of Mike's visa restrictions and our mutual want to be together we are going to get married here in Japan. Hoorraaayy!

How the process works here in japan is much different from that in Canada. In Canada, you sign your documents on your wedding day during your ceremony (whether it be civil or religious) and are hence forth legally joined. In Japan, you sign your papers at the city office thus registering you legally joined, and then you have a wedding ceremony (purely for religious reasons and/or shits and giggles) some time later. So, Mike and I are going to file the papers here, and then once we return to Canada we'll have a Canadian style wedding ceremony with friends and family. I know some of you are probably asking, but wait, won't you have already been married for over a year by then? haha, well, Yes, but consider it then either a long engagement, or a wedding celebration of our first year together. I plan on wearing some form of a dress to the city office when we submit our paperwork, and Mike said he would put on a nice shirt as well.

So that's my big news on that front! In case　anyone is wondering, Mike is waiting until I choose a ring before he officially asks. (And he did on Febuary 16th.)

Last Saturday I went to the optometrist to have my eyes checked. I've noticed that only my right eye has become blurry. Some of you may remember that I was having similar troubles in Canada last year with one eye changing then the other eye changing to match a few months later. They ran a whole series of tests on my eyes and have decided that it's either because of eye-stress/strain on tired eyes, or some form of auto immune problem that's causing my eyes to swell. They gave me a prescription for some eye drops to help with the swelling. Should it help, then it's just tired eyes, but if not, then likely some auto immune thing. I have a feeling it's a poor mixture. I've had this problem for a while and the constant blurry vision is causing stress on my eyes which in turn causes more swelling. Gah. Anyways, I was very lucky that my eye doctor spoke very good English and was able to translate other questions that other eye doctors had.

On Sunday I went to my ceramics class and finished up my two bowls. Next time I go in I will glaze them and fire them again and start on something else. Any suggestions? I was thinking of making some nice big hot chocolate mugs for mike and I, but it's starting to warm up now, and soon we'll want big ice tea cups.

On Monday at about 5 am I woke up with tearing pain in my lower abdomen. After about an hour I contacted my supervisor and she found a clinic that I could go see where they spoke English (twice in one weekend? So lucky!) As I suspected at the time, I had a urinary tract infection. I was told I could take the day off to rest and take my medication and I was feeling much better by the evening. Though there is still lingering discomfort.

The rest of the work week so far has been pretty tame. This Friday is Japan Foundation Day so I get a day off. I also previously requested the Monday off so now I have a 4 day weekend. YAY. I'm looking forward to getting some rest. Though, I have Japanese practice on sunday and am going to Miyajima on Saturday.

On Saturday, Noriko, myself and possibly some others will be going to a festival on Miyajima Island. We're planning on wearing kimonos and painting the little town red. I believe there is also an oyster festival there this weekend too.

(Here's a recap of how Saturday went)
Going to Miyajima was a hoot! Though we must have chosen the worst day for the worst weather to go. All morning long we had snow with high winds and thunder/lightning. It was truly a sight to behold. But myself and about 10 others trudged out in our wooden geta (shoes) and kimonos with umbrellas and went to Miyajima.


Click to see larger!









I can say at least that the weather improved over the course of day. While on Miyajima, we watched a Kagura style dance performance, ate all kinds of oysters, and drank tea. It was very busy! At the end of the day, Noriko and I went to the public hot spring baths and soaked away our weary muscles. I'd never been to these baths before, but as with most public baths here in Japan, there is an indoor and an outdoor section. Personally I'm always a fan of the outdoor baths, and these ones were very nice!

catching-up!

Hello everyone, Here's just a bit of an update!

Things are on and off hectic here. Some days I am a chicken without a head, others not so much. Usually I’m only super busy on the days that I go to multiple schools. Two Tuesdays a month I go to a JHS in the morning and an Elem. in the afternoon. Though, for those elementary schools I often have to come back at other times in the month to plan lessons. (Because they don’t know where they will be in the schedule by then.) Often my teachers at one school will be unable to meet and plan (or I need to go to another school for a meeting and have to leave early) and I’ll have to come back another day. Sometimes it is a pain, but it’s also nice to know that you will meet that teacher some time before class and don’t have to worry about anything until then.

Mondays　I prep for my Tuesdays and Wednesday, Tues and Weds, I prep for Thursday Friday, and on Friday I prep for Monday. Usually I’m lucky and don’t have any work to take home or do on the weekends.

My teachers here are nice. The ones that previously have been distant are opening up. Today a teacher I was with let me introduce a new game to the class, and it went well.

One of the things I had overestimated about Japan before coming was my students English levels. It’s easy to forget that just because I learned something in Japanese, or students learn how to say something in another class doesn’t mean that all students will know it. I must say I underestimated the amount of mysteriously English proficient teachers, (other than the Home room or Japanese English teacher.) Every once and a while someone will speak English to me when I least expect it. I accidentally got caught staying for a meeting at one of my schools. When the vice-principal noticed I was still there she said I could go. Being not so sure, and asking “ Is it really OK?” the grounds keeper across from me said “ run! Run while you can!” I was flabber ghasted. Especially considering that my teacher that I teach English with, doesn’t speak any English outside of class.

Tomorrow I’m being interviewed by another English teacher infront of an assembly. She will be asking me about schools in Canada and volunteer work. The grade 9 kids will start their volunteer work soon and need some pepping up. I think some of the information that she wants me to say isn’t quite correct, especially not for such a diverse population. It’s hard to pigeon-hole qualities onto various regional Canadians. Either way, I hope it goes well.

I started ceramics on Sunday. Sadly, it’s only once every other Sunday. The style of building they use is different from what I learned at school. Instead of “scoring and slipping” (making crosshatches and getting it wet to apply one piece of clay to another to prevent air bubbles) They just mash on new pieces of clay to build it higher. It seems to work fine for them and the pieces come out whole, so perhaps I’ll just trust my teacher’s judgment. There is a bit of a language barrier, but my teacher speaks pretty good English and is encouraging others in the class to practice their English with me. On Sunday I made a big and a little bowl.

That's all for now!

update

Hi everyone,

just a quick update to say I've changed the links at the bottom of my previous blog post. They now are public links to pictures on my facebook album. Now, those of you whom I don't have on facebook, can see them.

YAAAY...

michelle

Kyoto and Shizuoka

For our birthdays, Mike and I decided that we would go on a trip. So this weekend being a long weekend (4 days off) for me we packed up our bags and went to shizuoka city in shizuoka.

Day 1

We left on Saturday morning at 10am, and caught the train to Hiroshima, from hiroshima, we bought a Shinkansen (or “Bullet Train”) ticket to Kyoto. If you look on a map, you will see that Kyoto is roughly half of the way between Shizuoka City and Hiroshima. I was hoping to stay for a night in Kyoto, but because it’s a very popular season, we couldn’t find a hotel in any part of Kyoto or outlying areas or cities. In Kyoto, we met one of my old students, Shota, whom I taught at uvic for a few months. Shota and I kept in touch after he returned to Japan and it was nice to see him again. Because we only had a few hours in Kyoto before we needed to be back on the Shinaknsen to Shizuoka to make it in time to check in to the hotel, Shota took us to a very famous, but luckily nearby temple. This temple was called Kiyomizu, and has one of the most famous views of Kyoto. We walked for about 15 minutes shoulder to shoulder with other patrons up the temple hill, surrounded by souvenir merchants and vendors. From the top of the hill, you could enter the temple grounds and take in the scenery. Because Saturday was a very hazy day all over Japan, the view wasn’t as spectacular as perhaps it would be on clear day. However, we could certainly see why so many people come to Kyoto in November. In November, the Japanese Maple trees change their colours. Suddenly, Kyoto becomes the Japanese version of Boston in the fall. The maple trees surrounding Kyoto become completely scarlet.

After our visit to the shrine, we headed back to the train station to catch the Shinkansen. When buying a shinkansen ticket, you can choose to buy a reserved ticket, in the reserved sections or, non reserved ticket in the free for all sections. While the reserved seats are a bit more expensive, you won’t be forced to stand on the train, like mike and I did for part of the trip to kyoto. We decided not to buy a reserved ticket though, seeing as though we had enough time to line up to get a seat for our train. Plus, the train we were going to take had 2 extra non reserved sections to sit in. When the Shinkansen arrived we hopped on the train and jumped into the first non reserved seats we found. We found it a bit odd that people who had gotten on the train before us didn’t sit in those seats, but moved on to other ones. After being seated for a moment a fellow came up to us motioning at the seats, and showed us his ticket. His ticket had those seat numbers on them, apologizing greatly we hurriedly found another set of seats. A few minutes later, when the train had left the station, a train attendant came around and checked everyone’s tickets. He checked our tickets just fine, but a moment later took out a pen and paper. He proceeded to point at our tickets, go umm and uhh, for a few moments, and then write a few lines on the paper. I checked the time on my phone, and suddenly it dawned on me what it was all about. The train we were supposed to be on hadn’t even left the station yet. Not only were we sitting in a reserve section; we were on the wrong train! The nice train attendant gave us the information on how to transfer at the next stop onto our correct train, but he also didn’t ask us to move from our seats. The next station was Nagoya. Luckily, the train we were supposed to catch also stopped in Nagoya about 5 minutes later.

Hopping into some seats on the correct train, we pleasantly enjoyed the last of our journey to Shizuoka.

Once arriving in Shizuoka, we made our way out of the station to the nearby hotel where we were staying. That night we ate in the hotel restraunt. The food was alright, though the portions were mostly tapa sized.

Day 2 Shizuoka:

On the second day of our adventure, we got up around 9 am and headed downstairs to our complementary breakfast of a boiled egg, salad, toast and croissant. Not a normal breakfast for either of us, but the change was nice. Afterwards we headed out towards the gundam! We asked the hotel staff what the best way to get there was. They suggested taking the train for about 3 minutes, but at that distance we just decided we would walk it and see some scenery. Although it was ridiculously hot for a day in November (was about 18 in the sun that day) there was a nice cool breeze. I’m glad we walked to the gundam, because on the way, we caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji! Though without snow.. After about 20 minutes of walking we could see the tip of a gundam head peaking over some of the buildings. The Shizuoka Hobby fair was about two minutes away from the train station in Higashi Shizuoka. The Hobby Fair contained other things than gundams, but it certainly was the main attraction. Inside the Hobby fair were food vendors, a stage where later a juggler performed, a hobby museum, and a giant inflated ship being eaten by a giant orange octopus/kraken that doubled as a children’s slide. (I really wanted to go down this, but I was a bit big...) Inside the Hobby museum there were all sorts of old models, and old model boxes. I took a fair amount of pictures, so I think they can explain themselves. Afterwards, we visited the gift shop, and had our picture taken with the giant gundam as as well as taking our own pictures.

Afterwards we took the train back home and relaxed our tired legs in the hotel room before heading out to find some dinner. That night we decided to try our hand at some ramen. It wasn’t bad, but we both agreed that we much prefer buckwheat noodles called Soba.

Day 3 shopping in Shizuoka

Day three, Monday, which was my birthday, we decided we would go visit the Nihon Daira Zoo, We saw it advertised on a poster at the train station when we were coming back the previous day. Before we headed out to go to the zoo we decided to check the website to see their hours and it turns out they were closed on Mondays. Rain pouring outside, we weren’t really sure what to do with our day after that. Only knowing that we would probably want an umbrella what ever we did we set out to go to the nearby 7/11 to get one. This sort of lead into our walking adventure of Shizuoka city. We found a few malls where Mike bought me some Body Shop lotion for my birthday, we found a Soba restraunt for lunch, and also where I bought a whole bunch of leggings and leg warmers to wear for work. That night we chanced upon a really nice restraunt serving some of the nicest North American style food we’d had since we arrived. Plus, they also had a bread and drink bar, where after paying your fee, could help yourself to fresh bread and non alcoholic drinks. The bread really was fresh, too. Whenever they brought out fresh bread from the kitchen, they would ring a bell and shout the type of bread it was. Also, it was quite reasonably, coming to roughly the same price of our ramen dinner the night before.

During dinner, mike looked across the table to a shop behind me and said, “Hey, that’s a music store. And look, they even have ukuleles.” Before leaving to Japan, I had mentioned to Mike that I was interested in learning to play the ukulele. It’s a bit of a silly instrument but seemed like it would be a lot of fun. I had thought about it some when arriving in Japan, but not seeing any music stores close by, I hadn’t thought too much more about it. After dinner we went over and I chose out a beginners Ukulele and Mike bought it for me as an early Christmas gift.

After dinner, I had a nice hot bath in the hotel room’s tub with my new bubbles and lotions from the Body Shop.

Day 4

After finding out that the zoo was closed yesterday, we decided to delay returning to Kure until the afternoon so we could visit the zoo in the morning.

After having our final complementary breakfast, we headed down to the Shizuoka Station. There, we found a coin locker to put all our bags in and took a train down towards the zoo. We ended up sharing a taxi from the station with another japanese woman who was also going to the zoo. There was a bus that went from the zoo to the station and back, but the next one wasn’t going to leave for another hour.

At the zoo we saw all sorts of animals, some in better condition that others. While entertaining, some of them seemed pretty bored. Such as the hyenas that just walked back and forth in their cages, and the polar bear that did continuous back flips into the water.

It was an enjoyable morning anyways. At around 1:30 we headed off to the station to get onto the Shinkansen and headed home! The trip home was pretty uneventful with us catching the correct trains, hah.

Over all it was a nice trip and we both had a great time.

all the photos can be viewed here in set #1 and set # 2 for those of you on my facebook friend's list.

Miyajima and Yamato Museum Adventure

Hello everyone,

I'm here today to tell you about our adventure of two (or three?) weeks ago. Mike and I went to the island of Miyajima, in the inland sea. To get to Miyajima, we took two trains and a ferry ride :) in all, it took about 1 and a half hours. The ferry ride took only about 7-10 minutes.

As with before, I've uploaded the majority of the photos to my Flickr account, which is linked here: Miyajima and Yamato

Miyajima was kind of fun, but it was quite hot that day, so it was sort of uncomfortable. There was a lot of things we wanted to see, but often involved climbing a mountain, or a whole load of stairs or something. We decided we'd come back again another day when it was cooler so we could see more of the island.

Miyajima is inhabited by loads of deer. (and also monkeys, though we didn't see any wild ones, only one trained pet monkey) The deer are so accustomed to large groups of people and eating anyhting and everything, that it was very difficult to eat on the island. A few times deer stuck their heads in my low pockets and ate what they found there (reciepts at first). On the way back to the ferry terminal, we saw a deer accost some poor guy of his travel brocoure and ate the front and back page.

Because Hiroshima is famous for growing oysters, there were many oyster stalls grilling fresh oysters and serving them. We decided to eat shaved ice instead. (Mike had cola flavour, I had mango) which was a nice reprieve from the heat.

One of the fames of Miyajima, is the giant "Torii" gate in the water. When we were there that day, the water was out, but it did mean we could walk up and touch the gate. Otherwise the gate seems to just float along the top (although it isn't really floating..)

A week later, Mike, our neighbour Alex, and I went to see the Kure/ yamato battleship museum. I liked the museum, and they even provided us with an engish audio tour, but I defenitely would have appreciated it more if I could read more Japanese. Most of the museum didn't allow photos, so I only have a few...

The top floor of the museum was the coolest though. It had a lot of what seemed like science fair toys. you got to play with (water) wave systems and all sorts of things I can't actually explain but were fun.

Tonight I'm going to go have a shower and then maybe trim my bangs. (I'm starting to need a haircut haha)