Ice Ice Baby

Before today, the only ice hockey I had seen consisted of The Mighty Ducks 1 and 2. Never been to a game, since, growing up in California where it doesn't actually snow... there aren't too many professional teams (though, I do remember there were teams at the ice skating rink I used to visit as a child in Berkeley). We have one in northern california - the San Jose sharks (who apparently used to play at the Cow Palace).

I had no idea there was another league outside the NHL. Apparently there is - the ECHL. And apparently San Francisco just got a team: the Bulls. And apparently, my parents had purchased tickets to go to the game... so to avoid what happened with the football game last time, where my family went without me and I was just kind of stuck, I said yes, I'd go (despite this looming amount of work for school that keeps on staring at me, that I'm still procrastinating on as I write)

Ice hockey,  it turns out, is a lot more interesting to watch than certain other sports for the whole game, especially when the players fight or take a fall. There were some pretty spectacular falls tonight too. Plus, it's only three periods long! I'm totally okay with this. I actually found it hard to sneak in a little bit of reading when I could, because there was always something going on, and the puck was always moving back and forth, so it never really got boring to watch.

It seems so... angry and violent though. Near the end of the third period, one of the players ripped off his helmet and gloves and started punching one of the other players. It took a lot longer for the refs to pull them apart than in other sports.

Speaking of refs... ice hockey is not a sport I would like to ref. I think I'd rather ref any other sport, even if I could skate really well (which I can't). The moves I saw the refs pull, and the jumps, and near misses (and some hits) the refs were subject to... yeah. Seemed kinda dangerous.

But overall, that wasn't too bad. Kinda fun, actually, despite not knowing what was going on most of the time and not being able to keep track of where the heck the stupid puck was.

*

Also, recently it was thanksgiving... my first one back in the states in two years! HOORAY, AMERICAN FOOD. I'm thankful for turkey and stuffing and thanksgiving food! Except we had thanksgiving in NorCal this year (which, for a while, we had thanksgiving in San Diego because that's where I was going to school and stuff) so we had a Chinese thanksgiving with the extended family. My siblings came back home too, so it was really nice to see them again, despite wanting to kill my brother several times (he still has this magic way of pushing my buttons just the right way. I guess that's the job of brothers...). He's so frustrating sometimes! lol. But I am really glad I got the chance to see them again, even if the butt did forget to bring the rice cooker back up for me.

Chinese thanksgiving means Chinese sticky rice stuffing with the mushroom and sausage stuff and turkey, potato salad, rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, and deviled eggs. Oh, and party punch (which is a combination of sorbet and 7 up, no alcohol involved), and pies. But no regular stuffing, and no mashed potatoes. NO MASHED POTATOES OR STUFFING. I was actually kind of sad. Ironically, I've had those the past two years, and it was the turkey that was always lacking (though, my first year we *did* have turkey and my second year in Japan we had the best chicken I've ever eaten). Seriously. Those two things are my favorite parts of thanksgiving. ...AND WE DIDN'T HAVE THEM. SUPER SAD FACE. Chinese sticky rice stuffing is also pretty good, but it's like they combined the mashed potatoes and stuffing and made it Asian by turning it into rice.

I know what I'm making for dinner over the next few days...

This thanksgiving, also, will forever be remembered as the infamous thanksgiving where our uncle maybe tried to kill us (or at least make us sick) by putting out rancid butter. Like seriously, when we went to the adults asking if they noticed something funny about the butter, my uncle was like, "Oh yeah, that butter's kinda old..." So old, apparently, that both the taste and texture changed. It tasted like mizithera cheese to me (and Parmesan to my cousin, and blue cheese to my brother), and had the texture of crisco. It probably wasn't wise of me or my brother to actually continue to eat it once we put it on our rolls... I'm not sure how much he ate (he spread it all around the outside of his roll), but I had put it on half my roll and kept eating it to make sure it was really kind of strange tasting with a weird texture.

Shoulda trusted my taste buds when they said "WOAAAAAAAAH SOMETHING IS OFF." I'm not sure if it's the cause, but I got a little sick the day after, and I'm blaming it on the butter because my brother felt a little not well too, though for not as long. Maybe I ate more butter? I had no idea butter could actually go bad like that though. -_-

I'm not ready for thanksgiving break to end. D: I NEED MORE TIME. I don't know what happened to all the- oh wait. Yes I do. I went to Disneyland for two days, then driving up and down took basically two days (though I did get a lot of reading done during those days), and then thanksgiving happened, and then the day after we went wine tasting which took all day, and then my uncle had a birthday party I didn't find out about until the day before thanksgiving and we went to the hockey game, and now, somehow, impossibly, we're at Sunday, with school - week 9 - starting Monday. WEEK NINE. WHERE DID THE QUARTER GO?! Seriously.

Next quarter, I'm taking less classes. D:

Day 1.5

Today was my first full day on Ishigaki, since I spent most of yesterday just getting here. However! That's not to say I didn't do anything my first half day! The guest house I'm staying at, Maetakaya, offers dinner and breakfast, so I figured I would sign up for both, though personally, I think dinner is a little steep seeing as how cheap you can buy taco rice from local restaurants and stuff. An well. At least it's always pretty good. And actually, given that it's a set meal and that so far, it's come with some form of seafood, it would probably cost around the same price in a decent restaurant. Last night there was sashimi and pickles with I think champuru (a stir fry with Goya, and ours had ground meat and tofu and veggies). Plus dessert. Plus it's the closest I've had to home cooked food (of the Japanese variety) that I've had for a while. So other than the fact that I can't quite justify eating more taco rice, I really can't complain about the food!

Anyways, I was ready to write off last evening as a kind of dude "go to bed early" day but after dinner, the chef guy (who actually worked/lived in CA -the OC- and later Maui as a sushi chef) drove a few of us out into this jungle thicket area, where we were advised to suit up in long pants, long sleeves, and boots if we had them or close toed good shoes. We got there during dusk, so we killed time by spraying ourselves with bug spray to avoid being eaten alive. After night fell, we trumped through the jungle on a small muddy path to this small grove, where we were privileged enough to observe magic happening. Truly, it was amazing.

Though it was nearly pitch black, small light green and yellow lights floated in the air, while others seemed to sparkle in the distance. I had no idea there was more than one kind of firefly. The shiny ones were so pretty! It reminded me a bit of Christmas. The regular ones though... I dunno, there's something that just makes them seem so magical when there are ten or more floating around high in the air. So pretty. :)

But yes! That was my evening. :) I honestly cannot think of a better evening. Or well, okay, we'll I mean I can, but that ranks up there in the top. It's kinda nerdy, but I would choose to go watch fireflies like that over going to a club any day.

Today though, I got to go diving! It was ridiculously fun, even if we didn't go to the manta point. Kinda disappointed about that, to be honest. The waves were pretty choppy at our first dive site, and they said that they would probably be choppier at the manta point. As a diver, choppy waters make surfacing a pain in the ass, but it doesn't really matter once you're underwater. Our group, however, also had some snorkelers (waves, as I'm sure you can imagine, are not so great for snorkeling), one of whom got seasick at the first point. Having been with people who freak out with choppy waves (I swear, one day, that post about the Philippines will be finished), and knowing how scared people can get.... and the fact that the poor lady was seasick, I didn't want to be the douche and decide that the whole group is going to go to manta point. Despite the fact that I would have loved to go there and see manta possibly twice.... since I'm going tomorrow I decided to be a nicer person and let them take us somewhere calmer.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the second dive as well. Actually, we saw a bunch of really cool things that almost made up for not seeing manta. Almost. Among the fish we saw, we saw a couple of cool lionfish, a b ch of small tiny black fish hiding In an anemone, loads of clown fish, and a moray eel. But. Y far, my favorites were a sea snake I swam behind for a while (seriously, those things are so awesome! It was at least as long as my whole arm, and possibly as long as my leg, though it was hard to tell since it was swimming). That was freaking sweet. I don't think it was (too) dangerous (and by dangerous I mean poisonous). It was white with black stripes. I'll have to look it up later.

Oh! And the other rad thing we saw was an electric.... clam! Who knew clams could be electric! I didn't that's for sure. This one was a bright vivid orange color, and was I a small crevice-like hole inside a small cave/tunnel thing we went into. It had long tentacles coming out of it and when our guide, Harvey, shine his light on it, it was like watching lightning streak around the outside! Freaking sweet.

What else did we see that was awesome.... Hm... well, we also saw a puffer! They're actually quite large; I was kinda surprised. And we saw oh! We saw an octopus, though it wouldn't come out of its hiding spot. Lots of sea slugs, an orangutan crab, ghost pipe fish... Those were cool. Really large Nemos. Angelfish. I think I saw all the fish from the Tank except for Peach, though I did see some starfish, some no bigger than your thumbnail. Oh! And some awesome spikey sea slugs.

I also met a fellow JET from Fukuoka, where I quickly established that I suck at geography lol. Apparently, she came the same year I did. She was part if the snorkeling team, and we had a good time chatting away in English :)

Our trip finished way earlier than I expected though, so I was left with an over abundance of time on my hands... So I walked around Kabira, the name of the city/area I'm staying at, for a bit. They're well known for their cultivated black pearls (less known for their soba) so I visited one of the vendors there, learned about how they inject oysters with irritants in hopes that it'll take and produce a perfectly spherical pearl, and window shopped hahaha. I also walked around the beach a bit, before going "back into town" and grabbed some ice cream and checked out the souvenir shop. They had a bunch of cute things! They also had Jasmine gelato! It turns out, Sanpin-cha is Jasmine Tea - had I known this last time I would have only bought that lol!

Actually, when I went to eat my gelato, the cashier lady came up and started talking to me, and we chatted for a bit in Japanese before she introduced me to her coworker who spoke English and lived in Pennsylvania! We chatted for a bit in English hahahaha. It was really weird, but I keep hearing from Japanese people that they don't like the states much, or places where there aren't many Japanese people to talk to and stuff. That was fun though. I also got into a conversation with the vendor of a glass store who lived in South Africa for a while; he spoke English, and I spoke Japanese. Super good practice! It was a lot of fun too (also apparently according to him the unemployment rate is 50%, or was when he was there, so it was super dangerous in the city he was in).

Actually, that's why I enjoy traveling alone sometimes. I find that I get into more random conversations like that (and will even start some myself!) which, if the conversation is in Japanese, does amaz g things for my Japanese. :)

OH YEAH. ALSO TODAY A COCKROACH THE SIZE OF MY THUMB WAS CRAWLING ON MY ARM. MOST DISGUSTING THING EVER.

Oh also, so I learned a little bit today from the local man at the glass shop about the kind of places you can stay here in Japan. I knew most of them.... Just not about guest house, which is what my place is.
Hostels are super cheap of course, and feature dorm style housing. Guest houses, however, while still economical offer individual rooms and stuff apparently? That's what Maetakaya is.

Anyways, for future reference, if anyone ever decides to go to Ishigaki and stay in Kabira, here's a rundown of the place I stayed:

Maetakaya guest house
Regular price: ¥4700/night
W/breakfast: +600¥
w/dinner: + 1600? I think.
Dinner & breakfast: 6300¥

Good points: Own Room. Clean. Close to Kabira (everything). Good food (albeit a little early). Clean bathrooms. Deck. Free wifi downstairs. Hotaru viewing. English ある！bathroom has paper towels. Has shampoo and body soap. Nice view.

Meh: tatami rooms and futons. Ridiculously skinny stairs. Dinner is kinda expensive and kinda early. rental towels are kinda small. Only four showers and three bathrooms to share with the while guest house (our wing anyways).

Bad: pay for AC! 400 yen/8 hours. Windows have no screens! If you're going to make us rely on our windows and a fan, at least make sure the bugs can't crawl in while we sleep! So many bugs. :( seriously, while I've been writing this, I've squashed four bugs. Four!

Overall thoughts: not too bad. Kabira is hella quiet, and it's probably one of the cheapest places here, but I would splurge for a bed and free AC. Also I think if I came again, since there's free shuttle pickup, I'd totally stay I. Ishigaki for
Ty next time, since the other JET chick said she was at a super cheap hostel. But ,
Maetakaya Wasn't too bad; I've stayed at worse I guess.

Okinawa Part II (& the Great Teacher Shuffle)

Okinawa Part I in case you haven't read it yet. :)

The second day we got up and hit up the local Family Mart on our way to the car rental dealer, OTS. Oh my god. Family Mart has these amazing rice balls that are pretty much like spam musubi - but they were spam rice sandwiches. Spam and egg (some with miso) sandwiched between rice and nori. Oh my goooood amazing. Anyways, after our foray into the convenience store, we headed on over to the rental place and sat down with the lady, who helped us - with our limited Japanese and the occasional assist from the lady next to her who spoke a little English - and managed to get ourselves a car for cheaper than the coupon price. I'm still not entirely sure how, since they told us that it was high season so we couldn't actually use the coupon. But I'm not complaining.

Our car was a bright blue... car. I forget the model. Hyundai? To be honest I didn't really pay attention to the model. My friend, the lovely Miss Melody has a car in Kibichuo (cause it's like, super boonies and puts my complaining that Takahashi is small to shame) so she, bless her, offered to drive us around and stuff. The plan that day? Aquarium and the Pineapple Park, both of which were near the city of Nago, north of Naha.

A word of advice for anyone who goes to Okinawa: if you intend on leaving Naha proper (which has pretty good public transportation), rent a car. Your life will be a billion times easier, since there's a bunch of stuff around the island that you can't reach easily via bus alone. There's a bus that goes to the aquarium, but if I remember correctly, it takes about three hours (by car it took us about two-ish hours), and it doesn't go to the Pineapple Park, which is on the way back to Naha.

So anyways. We hopped in our car, stopped at another convenience store, and were on our way! It's amazing how fast time flies when you're in the car talking to good company. I'm afraid I wasn't the best navigator, since we missed our turn a couple times since I was reading the wrong turn on the iPhone GPS. Sigh. The GPS that came with the car was really cool though! It had an automatic gas/parking lot/conbini locator. Couldn't quite figure out how to input places though, since the system was all in Japanese. Either way, all of us really liked the car -- especially our driver, since she was used to driving a small K-car that doesn't have much power (and has a top speed of somewhere around 80 km/hr). It was pretty nice.

As we drove up, we drove along the coast and maaaan I forgot how much I love living near the ocean! Clear blue the whole way up - gorgeous colors that made me nostalgic for San Diego. We stopped at a 道の駅 「michi no eki」Or station of the road, or in just English, road station/rest stop. They sold a bunch of discount tickets for the places around there, so we picked up tickets for the pineapple park since the rental car place had sold out of those.

Then it was off to the aquarium... after a quick stop for lunch. We passed this crazy spiral structure along the way (I don't remember what we theorized it was, but it turned out to be a "dream" house or something and was supposed to have a field of orchids, though I don't know if they were in bloom) and right outside of it was a place we thought specialized in vegetarian food (we also passed a taco rice stand on the way). Though it didn't actually specialize in vegetarian foods, they were able to make omurice vegetarian (Okinawa, as it turns out, is much more vegetarian friendly) and Mel and I crossed our first "Okinawa must haves" off our list:

Soki soba and papaya tempura

Soki soba is an okinawan specialty (though I'm not sure if it's the same as okinawan soba). The noodles are a bit thicker, the kamaboko was a bit tougher (and huge) and it was served with delicious pork and soba. It was alrightish; I much prefer taco rice. I think I could eat that stuff all day and night! But the papaya tempura was delicious. I think it was made with a non-sweet kind of papaya or something (didn't know they had that) because normally I dislike papaya (it reminds me of vomit) but this was amazing.

Anyways. Bellies full, we went to the aquarium (where I promptly lost a hair clip I had just purchased. Sigh. This is why I can't have nice things.) and wandered through it. They had a touch pool with loads of sea cucumbers and a couple of chocolate chip starfish. Those were cool. Sea cucumbers are so squishy, which is weird because they aren't like that at all when you eat them.

These are my favorite. ^_^

The aquarium at Okinawa, the Churaumi Aquarium, is really really huge. So freaking awesome. The main attraction is a giant tank that holds not one, but two whale sharks along with a number of giant manta rays. God I love giant mantas. They're so graceful and powerful when they swim. ^_^

There was also a pretty cool exhibit about sharks, and they had a bunch of shark jaws and stuff, along with preserved sharks and other interesting tidbits about them. Outside, they had a manatee tank (manateeeeeeeeeeeees!) and a sea turtle enclosure that also had a makeshift mini beach for the turtles to occasionally go up on. That was pretty cool. I got lots of pictures of turtles. They're one of my favorites to take pictures of.

Right as we were leaving, it started to rain, lightly at first. As we neared the car, it started to come down a little harder, until by the time we were out of the garage in our car, it was downright pouring. Crazy, how good our timing was.

Our next stop was the pineapple park, a place that grows pineapples and takes you on a tour in these crazy pineapple cars. The tours were pretty informative, even if they used very uh... scary pineapple dolls and had a video of these very unhappy looking/bored girls doing this pineapple dance. Sadly (or thankfully) there are no pictures of this frightening scene, because they prohibited cameras past a certain point since they took your picture there in order to sell you the creepy pineapple mascot picture later on. It still makes me kind of shudder.

So the pineapple fields were really interested and they had a whole bunch of different plants other than pineapples (plus a bunch of different types - I had no idea there was more than like... one kind of pineapple...) but what I wasn't expecting was what we saw after the tour had finished.

A room full of seashells. All sorts of seashells. Like holy wow, that's a lot of seashells. There were gorgeous conch shells, and lots of different colored scallop shells, and abalone shells, and other shells I don't know the name for. Some would twist and turn, while others shone brilliantly, and even more had spikes or holes. Personally, I really enjoyed that room, but it was really random hahaha.

The pineapple park also had an omiyage or souvenir area with a wine cellar and sweets (and also vinegar, which was kinda random). The best part about this part... that while the restaurant had already closed (wtf) the gift area included about a billion stations to sample things before you bought them. Like pineapple wine, both reds and whites as well as dry wine and sweeter wine. The passion fruit was my personal favorite (and also the most expensive, so I bought some to ahem, celebrate my parent's anniversary with when they visit).

Seriously though, that place had more samples than costco, and the best part was, the people would sometimes encourage a second or third sample (to help you make up your mind of course...) The guy who was serving the wine cake (super rich and delicious, btw) was like "HERE HAVE TWO~" Who am I to refuse that? hahaha.


We finished up the omiyage place and I arranged to have some of the wine and heavy things sent to my house (very convenient, that. Much better than having to take it on the plane with us... which I did with another wine haha) then enjoyed a completely fantastic cream puff with pineapple chunks.


Man does Japan know cream puffs - or shuukuriimu (shu cream), from choux à la crème. They're a billion times better than the cream puffs we usually have in the states (you know, those small soft things). In Japan they're quite large and sometimes have a crunchy almost exterior (at least on the top) and ohhh they ar delicious. Actually desserts in general, they're really really good at. Parfaits especially. Mmm. Waffles. I never thought of waffles as dessert until I came here. Belgian waffles. Oh god, they do them better than Americans do. But it makes me giggle to think that every time I have waffles for breakfast, I'm actually having dessert. Heheheh.


Right. Anyways. We finally left around the time the park was closing (they closed the shop at the front that sold boba... I wanted to buy some so I was super sad). After we thought that maybe we'd be able to get to fruits land and they wouldn't be closed, but alas, they too had closed. Their shop hadn't though, so we went in and browsed around (and sampled things) and I picked up an amazing mango soft cream before we finally left to head back towards Naha.


Before we went back to Naha though, we decided to make a pit stop like... somewhere along the coast. So instead of taking the express way all the way back, we got off a bit north of Naha and headed towards a place that looked like there were a lot of restaurants (at least it said that on our map). We got a little lost (I pointed the wrong way to turn... oops), but eventually we saw this giant, brightly lit, colorful ferris wheel and decided that we were going to head to that place.


Turns out that place was American Village, a place that had as many lights as the Vegas Strip almost. Everything was brightly lit, and we quickly parked our car (thankfully the rain had stopped) and walked over. There were loads of marines there as well (I mean, with a name like that it should have been a duh) and some of them tried to join our conversation about how cold it was but we just kind of... ignored them haha. We stopped first at this store called American Depot, because I had left my jacket at the hostel and was actually kind of cold (it had gotten really chilly).



We spent some time in the store, me hunting in the men's section for a sweater or sweatshirt since even though this was American Village, this was still Japan, and my friend hunting for something for her boyfriend :) They had a bunch of like... sweats stuff and like, comfy loungey sweatshirts that you wear when you're at home alone or having a crap day or something that I almost bought. The sweatshirts were all kind of expensive (as sweatshirts/sweaters are wont to be). Thankfully though, it being Japan, I found this really cute looking polka dot sweatshirt that zips up super high and is just pretty cool overall. According to Mel, my style is casual sporty cool? lol. I hadn't thought of it like that, but I guess that's pretty accurate? I don't really do girly, since I don't really have the figure for that, and generally it's been too cold (recently anyways) or too hot (I sweat enough to drown, which is not the best for things like skirts and dresses. Ugh.). That's just me kinda complaining though haha.

There were so many delicious places in American Village (like curly fries and chili fries! OH MY GOOOOD) but we eventually decided on a Taco Rice place (did I mention I LOVE taco rice?) and that place did not disappoint. The food was amazing. Like seriously, I think I could eat Taco rice every day (and be ridiculously fat).

After feeling like we were going to explode (yet still wanting more taco rice) we walked around for a bit before deciding that we were tired and that the hostel seemed like a rather attractive place (oh and that we'd have to get parking, which was kind of a pain but there were loads of parking lots all over).

Day three started with us retrieving and returning the rental car, which happened to conveniently be located at the ferry port. Catching a ferry out to one of the local islands was pretty easy (though slightly more expensive than I had imagined) and we luckily were there right as the 10 o'clock ferry was taking off. We grabbed a quick lunch from the conbini (did I mention how awesome the pork sandwiches at conbinis are? Well they are.) and it was off to the beach we went!

The island we went to was called Tosomethingshima, and it was a suuuuper tiny place in the Kerama archipelago. Not so tiny though, that there wasn't a bus waiting at the docks to take us to a tiny white sandy beach named Aharen Beach (which also had a small port area). Since it was so tiny, it basically was also going to come back once - some time around 3, so that we would be back in the port in time for our return ferry. The weather was kinda cruddy though; cloudy, kind of chilly water, but occasionally the sun would peek through for a nice treat. There was a really nice (if slightly pushy) old man who kept trying to sell us hot showers after we were done with our time on the beach. There were also a butt-ton of stray cats around the area that kept mewing at us for food.  


We passed the other beach - named after the island - and wow, just wow. It was absolutely gorgeous. Probably should have picked that beach, but there were also far less shops/potential kayak/snorkle rental/scuba places around there. I really wanted to go diving, but I kinda got there too late... so I settled for snorkeling instead (which turned out to be super fun anyways).


When we first arrived to the beach, there was hardly anyone else there, so my friends and I lay out our stuff and they prepped for a nice relaxing sun bathing session while I went up and rented snorkeling equipment and asked around about kayaks. They said the kayak guy was out on a tour, so I went down with the snorkel stuff back to where our things were...


...to find that many people had since returned, including a really loud group of teenagers who set themselves up literally right in front of us. The swimming area at this beach wasn't actually that big (and the water was actually a tad chilly) so I wasn't super comfortable taking off my swim shorts (I had a two piece on but yeah, my legs could be used as a source of light in a dark room). Instead I sat with my friends and enjoyed what sun there was until the kayaking man returned. It was really funny, because I tried to ask him in Japanese about renting a kayak and he actually asked me if English was okay and I breathed a super huge sigh of relief at that point haha.


I kayaked out to the small island in the bay (which was pretty much the only place I could kayak, since he warned against kayaking to the eastern part and northern part of the bay as well as behind the small island) and beached myself there, dragging the kayak up the little hill of sand well away from the water. It was like a mini pinnensula and bay there, and I was stupid enough to land near the edge, which meant that waves were washing up to the beach from behind me AND from my side. Not helpful in trying to get out of the kayak without completely flipping. Somehow I managed though. The bay was a much calmer place, so I stripped down to my bikini (in blissful privacy, since I was the only one on this small island and I couldn't blind anyone but the fish) and went out snorkeling into the small bay.


Wow. Just wow. I wish I had bought an underwater camera. There was an amazing amount of fish in that small bay, and I spent nearly an hour just swimming around there. It was interesting too, since there were small pockets of warm water that (thank god) fish tended to be found around so I was able to watch fish while staying warm. Conversely there were pockets of ridiculously cold water. Those sucked. There were decently large fish down there, brightly colored pastel fish (I think parrot fish?), large ones that looked like the Hawaiian state fish, small, brilliant bright blue fish that lived in the coral and rocks, hidden fish, sea cucumbers (oh god so many sea cucumbers) and loads of other fish.


My favorites though, were: 1. the weird four armed starfish I saw. It was a periwinkle blue. 2. The angelfish I saw swimming around in pairs. So very pretty! I was like EEEEEE GILL~~! 3. The clownfish I saw. They weren't your movie clownfish (they only had two brown stripes) but they were chilling in this jungle of sea anemone arms that looked like something out of a postcard/national geographic picture. That was freaking awesome. 4. The... abalone? Clams? I don't know what they were. I think I knew but right now I can't remember what they're called. Giant clams? They were kind of small. But they came in such bright mottled colors - purples, greens, blues, and I even saw an orange one - and they would shut any time I tried to get close. Their colors though were absolutely glorious.


I really love the underwater world. It's so beautiful, and every time I go diving or snorkeling, I feel like I've entered into a completely different world than our own, and I'm stunned and awed each time by places that have preserved this beauty. When I was diving in the philippines, it felt like I was swimming in a national geographic video or something. It was beautiful, mysterious, and I don't think words can sufficiently express how much awe I felt in looking at the coral shelves from below them. Or well, here's my best approximations: "Woah.... This is Nature."


Brilliant, I know.

Oh right, I forgot, I haven't actually typed out the Philippines yet (working on that...) and that I'm talking about Okinawa! Right. So. The rest of our day was fairly uneventful though - we got ice cream, went back home, showered, went out to the Kokusaidori street. Went towards an izakaya we had heard about from our hostel, but decided to go somewhere else instead. They had amazing amazing food. We also looked around this book store with the most amazing English section I've seen in my LIFE. They had academic books! Like, two giant rows of books with books on English on both sides! Manga in English! My neuroscience textbook! MATH and science texts! A used book section! Oh right. So that was kind of eventful.

We managed to knock everything off our "to eat" list at this izakaya restaurant. They had avocado pasta for our vegetarian friend, so that left me and Mel to go through the meat. Oh god we ordered so much. We got kaarage (Japanese fried chicken, which is really different than our fried chicken) that was as big as my palm. They were HUGE.  We got agubutu (agu pork) which was my favorite favorite favorite. Rafute pork, which was super tender and fatty pork. SOmething else... uh, I don't remember. Really good fries. They tasted like curly fries! Mm. Curly fries. A tomato and something else al fresco kind of thing that was also delicious and had tons of avocados. I think there's a small chance I raised my cholestorol and blood pressure that night and added to the likelihood that I'll die from a heart attack, but the food there was soooo good. They also gave us some goya champuru which - I found out later - is tofu stir fried with veggies (in this case goya, or bittermelon. It's really really bitter unless you cook it the right way) and pork that was probably spam (or some knock off). It was super tasty. NOMMMMM. I love okinawan food.

After that night, we did a it more omiyage shopping, and then went back to the hostel and woke up and did last minute omiyage shopping haha before heading back to the airport. I grabbed a few more pork sandwiches - and some taco maki (taco rice in sushi form!) for later that night/as snacks and found out my friends were going to the conbini for their lunch. I was super hungry though, and there were loads of awesome looking places, so we went to check them out. Sadly they didn't have many veggie friendly things - but there was an A&W (actually, there were a lot in Okinawa!). And it had CHILI CHEESE FRIES AND CURLY FRIES. OMFFGGGGG. Yeah. Needless to say, I got that for lunch haha. Dude, A&W is super tasty. Why don't we have more of them?

Our flight back to Takamatsu actually got delayed a bit, so we had some time to kill at the airport (which was fine - none of us were in a rush and we were still well earlier than our last trains). Other than that, the rest of our return trip went smoothly and uneventfully (especially since the bus didn't leave the airport until most of the passengers had gotten their bags).

Oh, there was giant plastic udon on the conveyor belt at the airport (since that's what Takamatsu is famous for). That was... interesting. And different. But kind of a nice quirky touch to the end of a fantastic trip.

Okinawa was super awesome though. Definitely want to go again!


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On a different note, right now is the time when teachers change schools: The Great Teacher Shuffle. I've yet to find out what my situation is like at my Niimi schools, but most of the teachers I like (whom I teach with anyways) are staying at my schools. However, I'm not teaching with the same lady as last year at my visit school, and we don't know yet at my base school. Oh also one of my favorite teachers is leaving to participate in a teacher exchange program with Southern Australia. SUPER SAD FACE. He was the one I talked to the most probably, and who was the easiest to talk to since he was super laid back and also his English was super. Plus I taught with him the first academic year I was here, and he's constantly explaining things to me about Japanese (and I explain things about English to him - or at least, try to). So I'm really sad about that, but I guess I'll be moving on in less than half a year anyways. As the Japanese say, "しかったがない" or, "it can't be helped."

This also didn't get posted as soon as I had wanted it to, so I'm sitting here in a BRAND NEW SPANKIN' DESK. They actually had four extra new desks (all the third year teachers got new desks) so since I'm now sitting in the rows that are touching the 3rd year desks.... I got an upgrade! (Honestly though, I was kind of annoyed that like, I had to change desks because I liked my old one and I also liked the fact that I didn't have to empty out all of my drawers!) The teachers were all really surprised with how much crap is in my drawers... and the funny thing, is that a lot of it isn't actually mine (really, I should just chuck them, but I can't help but feel that one day they'll come in handy or something, or that my successor can use them for ideas or use them or something).


Also, I swear, my entry about the philippines will probably happen around the time I actually get those pictures uploaded.

Okinawa

(now with pictures!)

I swear, some day, there will be a post written about the Philippines. Before I forget about everything even. Sadly, that day is not today, since what's fresh in my mind right now is the trip I took with some friends this past weekend down to Okinawa.

Okinawa - for some quick basic geography and facts - is a cluster of islands (and a prefecture I guess?) southwest of Kyuushu. From Takamatsu in Kanagawa Prefecture, Shikoku, it takes approximately two hours to fly to the main island of Okinawa and the capital city of Naha. This is further away than Korea is. There are a bunch of islands, and it's often referred to as the Hawaii of Asia (or of Japan).

Indeed, it is kind of like the Hawaii of Japan as far as climate and culture goes, but with a more Japanese twist. The main city is Naha, where most of the flights go into. The airport is ridiculously close to the rest of the city proper, and connected via monorail (called the Yui Rail I think?). From there, you can travel down the line for a fairly decent price; about 290 to Kokusai Dori (one of the main tourist shopping areas) or double that(ish) down to the end of the like where Shuri Castle lies. Either way, it would have been a nice airport to have a layover in, since the domestic security area took a relatively small amount of time to go through (can't say anything about international though). Fly in, pop over to Kokusaidori for an hour or two, pop back in to the airport.

I went with two other JETs - both ladies - so we had a kind of girl's trip. My friend, who's amazing, organized the hostel we were staying at, which was about halfway down the monorail and a short walk from the station. We managed to get a discount through booking through hostel world, so the hostel - called Guest House Kerama - was ridiculously cheap: 1000 yen only (about $11 per night). They had a washing machine and drier available, as well as a bunch of games and a kitchen, refrigerator, and showers. Oh, and probably most importantly, free wifi.

For the price that we paid, we got a pretty sweet deal. The showers were relatively clean (though there was a pervasive kind of moldy smell) and there were always people hanging around. We kind of chalked this up to islander attitude. The staff was friendly and helpful (even if sometimes the places they told us about were closed) and the whole place had this really relaxed attitude. Can't say too much for the quality of sleep though. I'm biased and can sleep almost anywhere, but like, occasionally, despite it being lights out in the rooms the downstairs was still fairly noisy enough to where I almost pulled out my headphones. Oh, and it was really really warm in the room, but no plug for the fans and no air con (though, they did have a unit, it just wasn't warm enough I guess, despite the fact I was sweating). We were really close to the ferry terminal as well, which is where a lot of the day ferries depart from for the Kerama Islands (another archipelago). I guess I'd stay there again, if I was really looking to save money. I think though I'd need a day at least in a nicer place. Call me spoiled but after years of using the public showers at swim meets, I'm willing to pay a little extra for a nice clean shower area.

We landed sometime in the afternoon, and after dropping off our stuff, made our way to visit Shuri Castle (and stopped for some amazing Taco Gratin. That probably took a year or two off my life, since it was potatoes and taco meat and cheese and cream sauce and ohgod heaven. But this was because they didn't have rice {wtf} to make tacorice with).

Shuri castle is very very different than the rest of the castles in Japan. Rather than being built in the typical Japanese style, it was built in the Ryuuku kingdom style, which feels distinctly more... Chinese. Probably because of all the red painted onto the buildings and the dragons. So many dragons. It's like they combined Chinese and Japanese styles into a fusion or something. The Okinawan kingdom was famous for dragons, and used this motif EVERYWHERE. Even the tops of the castle - which, on Japanese castles, often have this kind of fish thing on the edges and corners - are full fledged dragons in the same kind of pose as the fish things on Japanese castles. I wonder if they're better at keeping the birds off the top of the roof.

Sweetest chair ever.

Inside was also pretty amazing, though these castles, due to all the fighting and wars that have gone on in Okinawa, have been rebuilt multiple times. The interior was more Chinese or Korean in design, with a couple of sliding panel doors here and there. There were also lots of pillars (red of course) and small Japanese courtyards with bonsai around it. The castle also has a bunch of people dressed in period wear, which is pretty cool.


Actually, it took us a little bit of time to find the castle at first. There were signs, yes, but they were spaced out just far enough for us to question whether or not we were going the right direction. Such questions led us past a small lake with these wild... I'm not sure if they're ducks or if they're geese. They're as big as geese are, definitely (which honestly, made me slightly paranoid about walking too close to them). But obviously, we eventually found the castle.

The castle, in addition to its multi-language brochures, also turned visiting the sites into a kind of game, presumably for the kids that visited it by encouraging them to collect as many stamps as they could (and alas, only junior high school and younger kids were allowed to win a prize for collecting all the stamps in a given path). Oh Japan. Our own trip slightly transformed into "spot the stamp booth" as well, and we merrily stamped our way through the castle grounds. Quite an interesting way to go about doing that though. Not too expensive either, after the initial setup costs. You basically just need to keep buying ink, assuming the stamps don't get stolen. And man were there a lot of stamps. We didn't even get half of them.

This is what 8 bowls look like. Pretty!

We walked back to the station and decided to hit up Kokusai Dori, a street with a bazillion different shops geared specifically towards tourists and Okinawa souvenier gifts (omiyage). There were several stores that I think had one shop on both ends of the long street, and a dozen places that sold pretty much the same snacks and pretty glass cups. The street is actually really pretty at night though; everything is lit up, giving the street a very different feel than if you walk down it during the day. Also, since it was saturday evening, we saw a lot of foreigners (probably Americans) and marines walking around. Despite the list of food things that one of the girls had on foods to eat in Japan, we ended up at an Indian place with a fairly cheap all you can eat curry special thing. It wasn't too bad, but I had like... so many bowls lol. We also ran into this group whom we saw at the castle, then had separated from, then saw again getting off the monorail, then saw again in the restaurant. Stalkers. lol. They were there first though. But it was like the Philippines all over again.

Oh, and my personal favorite:

We saw two Green Rangers. You know, from the Power Rangers? Tommy the Green Ranger. Two guys (my friend confirmed this with the power of uh... observation) in the green ranger spandex suit, shoulder gear, boots, and helmets. I mean, these were really good cosplays of the green ranger. One of them had a video camera as well. We were kind of like "...wtf?" while some inner part of me (and a little outer bit too) freaked out and was like "OMG OMG OMG GREEN RANGER." Actually, seeing other people's reaction to seeing two Green Rangers walk down the street was kind of priceless... especially because people were usually really loud and vocal in their reactions. I heard two guys across the street flip out about it haha.

Ahhh, the 90's. My childhood. Good times. It makes me kind of sad that a bunch of my students have probably never actually watched the Power Rangers (or at least, seen them in that style/version).

Thank you Japan, for making that day freaking awesome.

Okinawa Part II (coming soon)

Queen of Bad Luck

Well, that was the worst string of bad luck I've experienced in a while. I guess I'm lucky that it was only bad luck for like... getting back home and not something worse like losing my wallet, or bad luck with my graduate school applications (which, I am very happy to announce, I have finished applying for!). I mean, I guess that's pretty bad luck anyways... but as they say... it could've been worse. I could have broken something or not healed as fast.

But yeah. I got discharged from the hospital Monday... but my journey didn't end there.

So, I wrote that entry at the hospital on Sunday night/early monday morning because I had very little to do. It was actually a good thing I was awake that late and writing because they came in to take my blood pressure, heartrate, and temperature while I was writing that. At 2 am! Crazy. But when I woke up in the morning, my fever was actually not as bad - practically gone. Breakfast was this congee/jook stuff that wasn't too bad, since they used like... actual chicken soup or something. And! They actually gave me a couple pieces of cantaloupe. This was big, since fruit was on the forbidden list. My stomach didn't make too many weird noises either. The doctor came back and told me that it was possible for me to get discharged that day, and that the customer service downstairs would help me get everything in order and rebook my flight and stuff. I had to pay an extra hundred dollars because they weren't able to find the same booking class I made the reservation in, but at that point it was like... ugh, I just want to get back.

So they made my reservation for the same flight I had missed: the 1am flight on Tuesday. This meant I was going to get back sometime around Tuesday afternoon. The whole morning was spent in correspondence with my prefectural advisor and emails to my teachers and supervisors and family and friends (one of whom kindly called my supervisor for me, since in Japan, monday was a national holiday... so nobody was going to be checking their emails until Tuesday when it was too late.) So people knew what was going on. I had to deal with things for insurance and stuff, with getting paper work. Once they knew I was going to get discharged, things like medication and paper work started to slowly but surely trickle in.

One of our family's friends who was working and living in Thailand came to visit me with his driver and stuff. He kindly offered to give me a ride to the airport if I could leave that afternoon when he visited, but at that point I didn't have all the paper work I needed, and they said taxis were fairly cheap so I just opted to take a taxi to the hospital since there was a protest happening near his wife's workplace, which was going to back up the traffic for two or three hours. Super sucky.

Before he arrived though, I had the chance to eat lunch and shower. Lunch was a chicken patty thing with two potatoes (I think that's like... one of the only main dishes I had those few days) and also pork wonton soup, which, to my surprise, was actually really freaking tasty. They gave me fish sauce to add to the pork wonton broth (which was like all the broth I had before, which is to say, it tasted like water). But the fish sauce? Oh my god. It was like magic. IT MADE IT TASTE AMAZING.

Showering was more interesting, since I was still attached to the IV drip at that point. I had to call the nurse in to ask her how I should shower, if she could just disconnect the IV drip from the bag for a little bit and then... she disappeared. I got super worried, because I thought she was going to take the IV out of my hand and then put it back in when I finished. I don't think I could have done that again, put the IV back in my hand. I mean, I had a hard enough time doing it when I was half conscious and sick and kinda in pain already, but now? I was like, no way.

Luckily for me, when the nurse returned, she told me that I didn't actually need the IV anymore, so she just took it out for good. It left a huge bump in my hand, and is still a little sore when I press on it now or stretch my hand. I also have a little dot there where it went in. My bruise from where they drew blood has finally disappeared too. I think I almost passed out when they drew my blood, cause I could feel myself get lightheaded and start to do that ah-ha-ha-nervous-laughter kind of thing after they were pulling blood for a few moments. Part of me panics a little, but usually I'm able to keep it under control unless they pull blood for too long.

The shower was really really nice though, since I hadn't showered since I left the Philippines (though other than being sick, it's not like I really did anything...)

Eventually, I got all my paperwork that I needed for insurance stuff - it turns out that we JETs *are* covered when we travel abroad, through both the national insurance as well as an additional JET insurance, which is good, because my bill was *not* cheap. I was also told that my hotel was not one of the cheapest hotels - er, and by hotel I mean hospital, but inside kinda felt like a hotel. People spoke English there and it was super clean and nice. And there was the clinic visit, the ER visit, the hospital food, the room itself, the doctors, the ambulance... yeah, thank god for insurance.

Right though. So after I got discharged, I went to the airport since they said that I wouldn't really have much time to explore the city on my own, plus at that point I was more concerned about getting home than I was about looking around. Plus, I decided that it probably still wasn't a good idea to eat like... street food with my stomach, so I elected to stay at the airport after checking in. Read or something.

I did get to hang out with my friend though! She actually came to the airport to visit me :) That made me super happy. She also helped me go on a manhunt for my baggage, since we weren't sure if it was in Thailand, Beijing, or in Osaka since it had been checked all the way in theory. Eventually, after being let back in to baggage claim, we managed to find it and they brought it out for us. THank goodness! We had dinner together (and I got some pad thai, which she pronounced to be not actually pad thai but hey, I wasn't super picky at that point) and waited until I could check in for my flight before parting ways. She was one of my friends from my study abroad program, The Scholar Ship. I hadn't seen her in five years, so it was a super special treat to be able to see her again.

At 1 am, I boarded my plane from Bangkok to Beijing and decided I was going to sleep for most of it. ANd sleep I did, when they weren't serving us food (which actually wasn't half bad). But when I woke up, we had landed... in Taiyuan, about 6-7 hours away from Beijing, where we were supposed to be. Nobody knew what was going on, but eventually, my seat buddy, who spoke Chinese and English, found out and then passed along that we were unable to land in Beijing due to "fog" (I don't think it was just fog...) so we were going to chill there until we got cleared.

So we sat there. For three hours. THREE HOURS. They gave us these biscuit cookie things... but they weren't letting anyone off the plane. By the time we were actually cleared to leave, we still had an hour of travel to do. By the time we got into Beijing, it was already 11:30 am.

My connecting flight to Osaka was supposed to be at 8 am.

We got put at the very end of the terminal... and holy christ, Beijing's airport is HUGE. There are actually two (or three?) terminals, and I was lucky in that I was in the same terminal... but I swear, it's like a half mile to where the transfer area is. I almost ran to the international transfers counter, where they told me (after having to wait ages behind this really slow couple) that my plane had already left a while ago. I was like, wtf.

They rescheduled me for another flight, one that left at 4. I really should have asked them, or someone, if I could reschedule my flight to the one that left two hours earlier. I went to the gate to see if there was anyone, but I only saw that the flight was delayed an hour and there was still nobody at the gate, an hour before it was supposed to fly. So I decided I would get lunch since that'd at least probably boost my mood, and send off a few more emails and check train times.

Lunch was really tasty. I didn't have Chinese food... kinda. I had suejiao, or boiled dumplings. They were pretty tasty :3 and I had lasagna, since who knew when I was going to get that again. It was hella small though. And they had a charger area as well, so I was looking up train times and emailing people while I killed time. I figured an hour difference wasn't too bad, though my flight was going to maybe not get me back in time to take the last train to Takahashi.

After lunch, I went to check the boards again since I had no idea where my gate was and started walking towards there.... and then I checked the board again closer, only to find out my flight had been delayed an hour as well.

I started to panic. I pulled out my computer and checked the train times again... only to find out that now, instead of missing the last train back to Takahashi, there was a very real chance I would miss the last train back to Okayama. And the flight I was thinking of asking to transfer to was in its final boarding call, so basically, I couldn't make that flight.

I think at that point, I got really down because I was like, what do you mean, I can't even get back to my home prefecture? We were slightly delayed in getting off the ground as well because a couple people were late and also I don't know what.

We landed in Osaka and I practically ran off the train and to get my bags and everything and through customs. By the way, bringing cans of food and oatmeal in to Japan? Totally doable. Worth hauling a heavy suitcase everywhere. Now the problem is... do I hoard it, or do I just eat it whenever I feel like it? Decisions.

But I got out and ran to the train station and decided against buying a shink ticket since I wasn't a hundred percent sure when the train left and all, or if I would have time. I decided on taking JR for some stupid reason, and got on the first train that left there since it was cheaper.

It wasn't until I was on the train that I checked the times and stuff. I had come in a couple minutes too late for the subway line that would have gotten me to the shink station in time, so getting back tonight was kind of impossible. The trains that I could have caught wouldn't actually get me to the station in time. One train got in two minutes after the train left. There was only a train that went back to Himeiji, still a good hour and a half away from where I was.

So knowing this, I decided to look for a place to stay, and messaged the people on our Okayama AJET group asking for suggestions and found a place that wasn't too far from the train station for a not ridiculous price. They had free breakfast too. I decided to go there and decided that I was going to try to catch the first train back, which would have gotten me back to school actually on time for work, maybe.

By the time I got to the hotel and checked in, it was already like... 00:45, but I was feeling super gross so I decided to take a shower after getting a little settled and sending off some emails to people so they had an update on what was going on. When I got out of the shower.... I discovered that the water was stuck or something, and it wouldn't actually turn off. It wasn't a small trickle either. I'm talking like, gushing water. It had two settings. Gushing, or torrential gushing downpour. Not the kind of thing you want to keep running, so I contacted the front desk and they told me that I would have to change rooms. At 2 am. By the time I actually got into bed, it was 2:30, and at that point, I was like, no way am I going to be at the train station by 5:45 to catch the 6 am train. I actually tried to wake up at 6:30 to catch the next train... but I woke up and then decided that sleep was a better idea for my body, and went back to sleep.

The trip back to Okayama, thankfully, was rather non-eventful. I'm okay with that. I got back, ate lunch, and then went in to work since I had to talk to some of my teachers and get stuff sorted out.

Longest. Trip. Back. Ever.

So, if you count the days I was sick, from when I was supposed to be back...
I was supposed to get back to Takahashi Sunday around 1pm. I didn't get back until Wednesday around 1pm. It took me three extra days to get back.

Hot damn.

Never flying through Beijing again though, if I can help it. It's not worth saving that much money to get dicked over that hard and for that much stress. I'm not overly fond of Air China either and their old planes.

I'm just happy to be back.

Oh, also I turned in my paper work for my recontracting. In a way, it was kind of easy since I had already made the decision to apply to graduate school a long time ago, and the deadline for the papers was long before I would find out any results.

Bittersweet. It feels like I have a limited amount of time here. It makes me sad though, because the people here are just so... awesome.

Happy holidays and mexican fun!

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!

I'm home for Christmas, but only for two more days. Then it's off to the Philippines for me, to visit one of my good friends from my study abroad. :D Hopefully I'll get the chance to update (I've been meaning to while I'm home, but yeah, we've seen how that goes... though, I do intend to get a new years post up!).

A quick word on Christmas in Japanland, since I spent last year there and did a bunch of Christmas lessons this year. I was really proud of my students; they all answered false to the question of "Do Americans eat Christmas Cake?" since that's one of the stereotypes/traditions in Japan. Christmas cake, and KFC. Last year everyone was really surprised that we actually did... neither.

I did manage to blow their minds with a couple of facts. Namely: a) Santa lives in the North Pole b) the red nose reindeer's name is Rudolph (the song in Japanese only sings about an anonymous red nosed reindeer) and c) Santa has 9 reindeer including Rudolph.

I think my new hobby is surprising Japanese people/blowing their minds ohohohoho. It's actually quite fun.

Today, one of my students made my morning when I logged in to facebook and found a happy christmas message. :) I was like, awwww. Yay. Warm fuzzy feelings.

Time to go stuff myself with breakfast casserole and glorious bacon and potatoes. OMMMMMMMMNNNNOOOMM. Real bacon! CRISPYYY.

Like usual, my uncle is very late and "breakfast" has turned into brunch since it's already 11 am. That's one of the traditions in my family; Christmas breakfast with the family at my parent's house. Usually (though not always) my mom and dad's siblings come over. This year is a little smaller, since we're missing two aunties and their spouses/families.

I guess I should go down and be like... social or something hahaha. Since this is what I came home for, after all! This and my friend's wedding. And driers. And Mexican food. OH. I should mention. While I was home, my family took me to Mi Pueblo, the Mexican supermarket. Oh my god. Mind = blown. IT'S AMAZING. THEY HAVE GIANT BARRELS OF HOT PEPPERS AND GUAVA AND ALL SORTS OF AMAZING THINGS AND THEY HAVE AGUA FRESCA THERE AND LIKE A HOT FOODS SECTION THAT MAKES BURRITOS AND TACOS AND ALL SORTS OF OTHER AMAZING MEXICAN FOODS AND IT'S LIKE SO FREAKING AMAZING BECAUSE I COULD PROBABLY LIVE THERE AND THEY EVEN HAVE AN OVEN SO I WOULD LIKE NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE THE PLACE CAUSE I COULD JUST COOK THERE AND I WOULD GET SO FREAKING FAT BECAUSE THEY ALSO HAVE A BAKERY SECTION AND THEY HAVE THIS AMAZING LOOKING FLAN AND TART AND I GUESS THEY HAVE OTHER THINGS TOO LIKE STRAWBERRY CROISSANTS BUT THEY LOOK MORE LIKE DANISHES AND THEN DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE MEAT SECTION IT LOOKED AMAZING AND THEY HAD SAUSAGES AND CHORIZO AND THEN THEY HAD A WHOLE SALSA SECTION THAT GAVE YOU FREE SAMPLES AND IT WAS SO TASTY AND THEIR CHIPS ARE HELLA GOOD AND THEN WE FOUND TAPATIO FLAVORED DORITOS AND RUFFLES AND I WAS LIKE OMFG OMFG HAVE I REALLY FOUND HEAVEN BECAUSE DAMN THIS IS KINDA AMAZING BUT THEN I GOT DISTRACTED BY THE MEXICAN CANDIES AND THOSE WERE KINDA COOL BUT DID I MENTION THE SPICE SECTION AND HOW AWESOME IT IS AND HOW THEY SELL WHOLE CHILIS AND DRIED CHILIS AND OMFG THEY ACTUALLY SELL STALKS OF SUGAR CANE LIKE IN THE GROCERY MARKET JUST CHILLIN THERE NEXT TO THE GUAVA AND THE PEPPERS IN THE SHELLS AND STUFF JUST LIKE GIANT SUGAR CANES AND THEY ALSO SELL MASA AND THEIR TORTILLAS WERE GOOD AND OH GOD THE AL PASTOR STUFF WAS FREAKING AMAZING THOUGH IT SHAMES ME THAT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS BEFORE IT WAS LIKE WUTTT IT'S PINEAPPLE MARINATED PORK OMFG TASTYYYY AND REAL AGUA FRESCA NOT JUST HORACHA AND JAMAICA AND TAMARIND BUT ALSO MELON AND STRAWBERRY AND IT WAS SO AMAZING AND OH GOD WHY HAVE I NOT GONE THIS PLACE BEFORE ESPECIALLY SINCE MY BROTHER SAID THERE WAS ONE IN SAN DIEGO CLEARLY I FAIL.

Haha, that was longer than I intended it to be.

TLDR; Mi Pueblo is a Mexican supermarket that's effin' amazing and kind of like my personal heaven.

Hope you have/had a fantastic christmas where ever you are!

Halloween!

Oh my god it's November already. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? I could have sworn it was still October last time I checked. That's probably why I haven't posted for a good half month (which, I suppose isn't too bad when you look at how long it's been since I've written a newsletter...).

The thing I've been the most busy with recently - in addition to studying for the JLPT and working on applications for graduate school - has been Halloween lessons. Since Halloween fell on a monday this year, we did all the lessons a week early, though I'm told by one of my Japanese teachers that a bunch of kids turned up on Monday and tried to trick-or-treat with her.

I almost feel bad for the ALT who will be replacing me eventually... these kids are all going to attack the person and try to trick-or-treat with them haha.
I really do enjoy giving them the candy though. Saying that makes me seem kind of creepy, but I swear it's not like that. I didn't do it as much this year since I got swarmed several times, but candy has been one of the best motivators to get them to speak English. In addition to teaching them the phrase "trick or treat" I also usually asked them a question. This year, in honor of the business I was giving Japanese dentists, the question was "What's your favorite sweet?" The kids who had better English had to answer in proper sentences heheheh.

There was also a Halloween party I went to with a bunch of other ALTs Friday night (since having it sunday would have destroyed us all). It was super fun, and I actually made my costume for that this year (though only a handful of people knew my costume, which made me kind of sad. I guess I'm used to having a bunch of really really nerdy friends lol). The costume was a white mage hoodie - a surprisingly easy thing to sew together (though technically, I cheated and glued the triangles on since I lacked the time). It was by no means good or perfect - the seams were laughably crooked and I forgot to save fabric for a liner for inside the hood so you couldn't see the seams, and completely forgot to sew down part of the triangles - but it still was pretty alright. I used the sewing machines at school, since my school has a dressmaking room for the home economics girls. Doing everything was actually kind of fun, though a little tedious. Hopefully, eventually I'll get pictures up. I wore that costume to my monday school and some of my kids thought I was santa. That made me even sadder. But I guess on the plus side they said it looked really cute?

We also had an "English in Takahashi" day the thursday before halloween. English club basically takes over one of the small shops owned by the schools in the covered mall area and does activities. Last year we played Simon Says for like... the whole time (I, for the record, am awful at Simon Says). This year, since it was so close to Halloween, we decided to do Halloween things. I wanted to carve pumpkins but those were kind of expensive, so we found crafts online instead.
Using pipe cleaners, we made little pumpkin finger... things... and spiders. We also used construction paper to make pumpkins and then we glued faces on them. There was also candy, and I went in my witch costume that I no longer have. Oh, and this water color thing I brought back from the states and some Halloween tattoos. Originally, I had intended for the kids to take like... one or two tattoos back with them, but there was kind of a communication error and they ended up taking a whole page of tattoos. Part of me was like "ARGGG NO WHY" but then again there were only 3 kids who came this year, which, I suppose, is still one more than last year. Yeah though, my Japanese Teacher of English really likes to start just giving things away and I was like noooo I have other uses for these. Oh well though, hopefully the kids are enjoying them. They were pretty cute, even if two of the kids there were brothers of one of the kids who does the Exchange Diary with me.

For all of my classes except for the one actually on Halloween, I wore a witch's hat, mantle, and orange feather boa to work. It was a lot of fun, and the reactions I got from people - both students and teachers alike - were amusing. It kept surprising people. They'd turn the corner, see me, and gasp, "BIKKURISHIMASHITA" which is basically shouted out "I'M SURPRISED." There's no swearing, just stating that you're ridiculously surprised. But yeah, that was fun. Sadly though, I only have the mantle from that costume now. The hat I forgot when we visited the orphanage for Halloween on sunday and the feather boa... well it was coming apart anyways, so I gave it to one of the girls at the special needs school. When I wore it there, she was just so fascinated by that that she played with the boa for the better part of an hour. I wish I could have given her a new one, since this one was constantly losing feathers (and they'd make her go pick up the feathers). Those things were from either Daiso or the cheapo section of Toys-R-Us, so I really didn't mind. I'm glad the feather boa has an owner who doesn't care that it's losing feathers. She just looked so happy when she was playing with it... how could I say no? I couldn't.

Halloween in Japan though... is really a kids thing and a retail thing, I think. All the candy goes Halloween themed. But there's not much more. A student told me that houses in Japan are a little small, so having parties at them... not so great actually. After seeing a couple of my friend's places, I can see why. THose places are *tiny*. My place isn't, though sometimes I wish it was. It's not like people come over to my place. I should probably fix that, but seriously... we usually either go into okayama city, or I'll go to the guys' places because they have video games or whatnot.

But anyways.

I'm stealing this idea from one of the other JETs here: NaBloWriMo. Since I don't have the time to be writing a whole entire novel during this month with studying for the JLPT and with applying for graduate school (which, ahem, I should be doing now, rather than writing this blog post) the goal is a blog post a day! And to get the godforsaken newsletter out at some point in time. Yeah. Yeaaaaaaaaah.

LET'S WRITING.