Japan Living Blog: This week, or whatever this post turns out to be about

Hey again all, greetings from the land of the rising sun. And thankfully, it's starting to rise a little earlier - we're through the worst of winter over here, and moving into the days where it doesn't hurt to get up in the morning. Everyone's saying it's surprisingly warm this year, I guess we're having weird weather just like the rest of the world, but it's plenty cold for me, thank you.

This has been an eventful couple of weeks. Sorry about last week, the cold is getting better, but still hanging around. Basically, the only thing it really affected was my ability to talk and shout and be as enthusiastic as I want/need to be at elementary school. That's too bad, too, because this week I had my last meeting with one of the classes at elementary school, and I was hoping to be really up. Even though I will be in Shibukawa until next August, Toyoaki does not use an ALT for the first of the three school terms (the school year starts in April here), so I won't teach any of those kids again! *sob* It's tough for me. They're all so cool and full of energy. Some of them were really my buds. Here's some photos.

This is a game I played with the 5th and 6th graders to practice spelling. The target point of the lesson today was the th, ch, sh, and ph sounds. It's kind of an anagram game, it's a race to see who can spell the flash card word fastest. The answer is "SANDWICH" by the way, I know it's tough for you guys out there.

This weirdo here is Zenyouji-sensei, kind of my coordinator at Toyoaki elementary. He's a really cool guy, and his English is very passable - sometimes you need to spell a phrase out on paper, but not usually. I like giving him advice on how to impress his wife, since he's a little bit of a traditional Japanese guy in that he doesn't have much time to spend with her. It's funny, he goes all red, and laughs really hard, and says those are excellent ideas, but he'd be embarrassed.

Class 5-2 (Fifth grade, classroom number 2)

Class 4-3 (It was my last class with them this Wednesday! It's so sad!)

Just some other random stuff - here is a picture of an onsen hot spring in Shibukawa that I really like going to, called Sky Therme - the actual baths are on the fifth floor, and if you use the outside bath, there's a fantastic view of the town and the surrounding mountains. It's really cool, and really relaxing.

From the outside, it appears that an alien spacecraft crashed on top of a building, but inside it's very nice and spacious and hospitable, with a complete lack of probes.

One of the eventful things that happened this week was a trip to Takasaki to hang out at a bar I really like there called "Odessa." That's where a lot of the ALT's in Takasaki hang out, and the bartender is American and his wife is Japanese, and they're both really cool and speak perfect English, and there's generally live music and fun people there. Fun times. However, every time I go there are difficulties, in what will happen at the end of the night. See, the trains stop running pretty early - the last train to Shibukawa leaves at about 11PM, and taxi service all the way home would be outrageously expensive. You could elect to stay out all night and catch the first train, but that generally means arriving home at about 7:30, which pretty much wrecks the rest of the weekend for me. The last couple of times I was there, I just shelled out about 5500 yen (~45 bucks) for a hotel room, which I shouldn't have to do! Ah, well. You'd think a country that has REALLY strict drunk driving laws would have either a train service that runs really late, or affordable taxi service or something, but that's not the case. I guess they just don't want people to have a good time. It's annoying.

Wow, a lot of separate topics this week. And now, for something completely different.

So the teaser photo last week was of my trip to Tokyo with Brigg over the winter holiday - this was a couple of months ago, but it was an excellent time and worth mentioning, so I'm going to catch up on it. Here are a lot of photos.

The first thing we did on the first day there was hit the Tsukiji fish market, which is worth seeing for the hustle and bustle. Nearly all the fish consumed in Tokyo (which is a fair quantity) is circulated through this one facility, about the size of a city block. There is a real danger of being run over by a motorized cart or fifty, but it's worth the risk of life and limb to check out the atmosphere. Plus, there are sushi restraunts where you can get a sushi breakfast that is not to be outdone.

Second thing we did is check out the Meiji Jingu, the famous imperial Shinto shrine. Every new year, about a million people come to this shrine to pray - we hit it on about the 6th, so the crowds had died down a bit. This is the big famous Tori gate at the entrance to the shrine walkway.