The last three and a half months or so....

Alright, it's been a while and there is a lot to talk about. I will spare the fluff for now and save it for the stories. As for a short introduction/thesis, life is good here in Japan. I am never short of obstacles and challenges, but I am definitely growing from them. The theme of this long chapter (maybe even too long) would be Traveling, Halloween party, and some dancing.

Shortly after my last update, we had silver week here in Japan. Silver week is a week where a couple of holidays happen to converge into one week and Japan has a vacation for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Silver week is sort of like the counterpart to a whole week of vacation in May known as Golden week.

So, for Silver week, Jeff, Nicole and I headed to Osaka for the first time. We met up with Ayaka and Yurie (Friends from Tokyo) there. We didn't get in until around midnight, so we tried to quickly find our hotel. Here is a picture of the rooms we stayed in. Notice that the room is just wide enough to fit the queen sized bed.


Well, we had to get some serious sleep so that we would be rested up for the next days adventure to Universal Studios Japan.

Universal Studios was a ton of fun. We did learn a valuable lesson that day though: Never go to a very popular place over a long vacation in Japan. Universal Studios was packed that Sunday. Check out this math, we got there at 9:00 am and didn't leave the park until 10:00 pm. We were there for 13 hours but only managed to go on/see five attractions.

Here's me, Ayaka, Nicole and Yurie (left to right) in front of USJ

Jurassic Park was one of the most popular rides (we ended up waiting in line for three hours!), but I was looking forward to it way to much to pass it up. The wait was brutal, but the ride was pretty cool. I grew up on Jurassic Park, it inspired probably 75% of any activity my friends and I did when we were still little guys. It was either drawing dinosaurs, or playing a dinosaur tag game, or just arguing about what dinosaur was the best. Anyway, I was really excited to finally experience the ride. It was really funny because USJ was still using a lot of the out-dated videos that they show to the people waiting in line. It was really old and kind of corny stuff to watch. The best part though was the Japanese dubs over the English. It was weird to see my memories of Jurassic Park heard through Japanese.

The line we had to wait in was long enough, but the scariest part was how long the line could have potentially been. When we entered the line, it wound on back....and back....and back, passing rows upon rows of people already waiting. But we finally did make it to the front of the line. I was really excited, but there was a little boy with his mother sitting behind us that wasn't so excited. As the ride started with all the dinosaurs still very calm, the boy was saying to his mom, "I don't like this very much." Of course the ride and the dinosaurs got scarier and scarier and by the end of the ride the boy was screaming bloody murder. I loved the ride and although I felt very bad for the boy, I have to say his screams really made it more exciting. I am sad though that something that gave me so much in my childhood just scared another childhood.

The entrance to the Jurassic Park jungle
And the Jurassic Park car.

We also went on Terminator 2, Jaws, Back to the Future, and we saw the Water World show. Terminator was pretty cool, it sure got me jumping in my seat. I really liked Jaws, I think even better than the Jaws ride in America. Jaws was the last ride we went on so it was dark and that really added to the effect. There was some great pyrotechnics involved in the ride which was cool and unexpected. The same goes for the Water World show. I haven't seen the movie (and I heard it wasn't great), but the show really made me want to see it.

I think of all the rides though, back to the Future was my favorite. Again, Back to the Future was a big part of my childhood, so it had a definite nostalgic value for me. Also, when I was younger, my family went on a trip to Universal Studios in California. I had a chance to go on the Back to the Future ride then, but I was pretty young and little scared to go. My mom and older brother went on it and came back saying how cool it was. I regretted not going on the ride for all these years, so going on the ride at USJ was cool for me in that way, sort of like redeeming myself.

Water World show
Back to the Future ride

Well, after a very long but fun day of standing in lines and enjoying some fun rides, we headed back to the hotel. The next day we went to see the Osaka Castle. My legs were like jello walking around and in the castle. It was also extremely crowded there. There was an elevator you could use to get to the top of the castle, but lines were again our enemy so we toughed it out and took the stairs. My legs were already getting a work out from biking to and from work, but this trip certainly kept me on my exercising ways.

The castle was beautiful. The inside has been renovated into a museum, so it isn't authentic, but as you can see from the pictures, the castle itself is pretty spectacular. It is perched up on the hill in the middle of Osaka and we could see it from all the way from the city as this icon of Osaka. The Castle was originally built during the days of the Samurai and a war lord built the Osaka Castle. He was a pretty horrific person as far as the things he did and it gave the castle a creepy feeling for me, but it was still amazing, it is the best view in the whole city.

Jeff, Ayaka, Yurie, and Nicole at Osaka Castle. And some pictures of the castle.


Pictures of Osaka from the top of the castle.




We came back home later that day very tried and took the next day to rest. The last day of our silver week we spent visiting a place called Akame. Akame is a hiking trail in the mountains of Mie Prefecture that showcases a string of 48 waterfalls. It is a very peaceful place to be in Japan, all you hear when you are hiking is the sound of the waterfalls.

It was interesting though what we saw. It was apparent that many couples were on a date. Maybe it's that they wanted to look good or staying fashionable is just that important in Japan, but there were many women wearing some extreme high heels on the hike. The hiking was hard enough for me in tennis shoes so I can only imagine how uncomfortable it must have been for them.

Akame is known for its small display of giant Japanese salamanders. I guess they are only found in Japan. They are about two feet long and as big a round as a baseball bat. I was blown away by them, these are huge compared to the small ones I am used to back home. I think I would freak out if I saw one in real life. Well, take a look for yourself.
Giant Japanese Salamander

Another cool thing was as we were hiking we heard some noise through the bushes on the hillside next to the trail and when we looked up we saw two wild Japanese monkeys scurrying around. Seeing wild monkeys was something I wanted to cross off of my things to do list for the trip and the things to do before I die list. I know it seems like a weird thing to want to do, but I was really excited that we got to see some. We only saw those two monkeys on the hike and only for a short time, so I wouldn't mind seeing some more while I'm here.

Silver week gave us a short two day week the next week, and the next Sunday we went to a place called Nagashima. Nagashima is famous for it's onsen (public bath), its outlet mall called "Jazz Dream" and Spa Land which is an amusement park. The weather was nice that Sunday, so we went to Spa Land. For as crowded as USJ was, Nagashima was pretty clam which was great. I don't think I could have handled any more lines at that point. There were some lines, but the longest we had to wait for a ride was probably about 30 minutes.

The park almost seemed like an exact replica of Valleyfair. There were almost the same rides plus some other cool ones. The only strange thing was the mascot for Spa Land is Peter Rabbit. It seems very random, but Peter Rabbit is actually a very popular character here in Japan, it is also the logo of the local branch of the bank we use.

The best part was when we went on the log flume ride. As we waited in line, we saw everyone getting off the ride. Most people put in the extra money for a poncho, but there were those few people who toughed it out and came out soaking wet. There was one group of younger Japanese friends, maybe in their early 20's, and they were all done up in the Japanese fashion. We're talking nice, very trendy clothes and hair done like you've never seen before. They went without the ponchos and when they got off the ride they were absolutely drenched. Their hair was dripping in their face and their makeup was smearing. It was quite the sight. Anyway, despite seeing other people soaking, we decided against paying the extra money for the ponchos. Well, half way up the incline we look at each other and ask, what the heck are we doing? Why did we decided to do this? This is such a bad idea. So, we splash down get soaked, get off the ride, and all agree it was one of the funnest rides of the day.

The next weekend was the Tsu city festival. We were going to plan another traveling excursion then, but we were invited to dance in the festival. One of Nicole's students is part of a Tsu city association that participates in the festival's "Bon" dance and she invited us to join her group. We were hard pressed to turn down an offer like that, especially considering our (well, mostly my) superior dancing skills.

We took about two hours to learn and practice the dance and then later that Saturday night, we dressed in our Happi's (festival coats) and danced our hearts out. The group we were with was about 30 people strong. With all of the other groups dancing though, I would guess there were about 1,000 people dancing. We were all in lines dancing down the main street in Tsu. Although there were a lot of people dancing, I believe we were the only Americans. It looked a little odd to see three people sticking up above a see of Japanese dancers. One of the news cameras spotted us and rushed in the middle of our group to get a shot of us. The camera actually went back and got a real close shot of Jeff, which I was thankful for. Some of our students said the next week that they saw us dancing on the local news. And if our students didn't see us on the news, they saw us live. As we were dancing, I hear Jeff and my name being called. I looked over and one of my middle school students and his mom (who is also a student of Jeff's) was standing off to the side. Of course it was the mom yelling our names. When I spotted my middle school student and called his name he just kind of stood there and waved back. I can only imagine how strange that would have been to see your foreign English teacher dancing in your town's festival. It was pretty cool though, I guess past teachers have been invited to dance, but we were the first teachers to actually do it. We are all pretty proud of that fact.

Practicing hours before the performance.
Jeff and I diligently concentrating on the next moves.
Me and a couple of my fellow dancers. Look how much fun we are having. I was having a lot of fun, but I have to say that smile of mine was a little forced, I was fighting the realization of how awkward I must have looked dancing in the festival.
Here's all three of us. We look so tall, and we didn't need anything else to help us stand out.
We made it through! Here are the three of us with Nicole's student Katsuko, who invited us to dance.

The dancing was probably the high light of the festival, but it wasn't the only cool part. There was a professional Taiko drumming group there playing all weekend. At one point they had a demonstration where people from the audience could come up and play. That just happened to be the time I came to watch. One of the drummers came up to me and tried to coax me to play. It didn't really take too much coaxing, I really wanted to try it out. I got to play one of the big bass drums where you have to stand and really put your legs into the whole motion. I was able to play the simple beats, but I couldn't keep up with the more complex ones. It was still really cool though.

The festival also had dancing groups from all over Japan. They did what is called Yosakoi dancing which is a relatively new type of dancing that fuses traditional and hip-hop styles. It is really up beat and exciting. I can only imagine how much practice they do because it looked amazingly difficult. And what's more. they had to dance all along the multi-kilometer parade route (I don't remember how long it was), it must have been draining.

That Monday we had off so we went to a town called Iga, the original ninja city of Japan. It is a small town, but there is a lot of cool things to do. The main park in Iga has the historic Ueno castle which is still authentic (unlike the Osaka castle) and a replica ninja house with secret doors, hidden passages and all. They have a tour available with demonstrations which was really cool to see.

Iga is also famous for its traditional parade and festival that it continues to celebrate today. I will talk later about the super sweet festival.

Here are some pictures from our first Iga trip:
Ueno castle

The Ninja Mobile at the museum about the festival. I kinda thought this must be the wiener mobile of Japan.
Here's Nicole with some of the many kids at Iga dressed in ninja costumes. We knew it was awkward to ask them to take a picture, but we couldn't resist.
This is what the side of the train looks like for the train line that runs through the city. I had no idea ninjas could be so cute!

The next weekend we went to a small city called Kashikojima. It is located on the coast line off the tip of Mie prefecture and is famous for it's pearls. We heard about this little 50 minute cruise on a replica Spanish ship which sounded kind of cool. The cruise took us around the many many little islands that blanket the large bay area and even stopped at a small pearl shop where we could see a person harvesting pearls. It was clearly a way to get customers into the store, but it was still kind of cool. On the boat we met a group of younger Japanese friends on a trip of their own and started talking to them. They know some English and we know some Japanese so we could carry on some sort of a conversation. We kind of hung out with them until we had to catch the train home.
The Spanish boat we rode on. I think the Japanese flag is kind of funny.
"I'm the king of the world!"
Here we are with the Japanese friends we met. There is one person missing and he is taking the picture here.

Kashigojima also has an aquarium that we decided to go to. It's a small town, so it wasn't too difficult to see just about everything there. The aquarium was pretty modest, but my student, who's hometown is Kashigojima, told me that the Emperor of Japan pays an annual visit to this little aquarium. It apparently has a good collection of creatures and it is in a quiet city which the Emperor likes.

At the entrance there was a small tank full of these little fish. The signs said to stick your hand in the tank so of course we tried it. When you put your hand in the water, all of these fish swim up to you and start sucking on your hand. It is the strangest feeling ever, almost like little electric shocks. Jeff, Nicole and I had a contest to see who could keep their hand in there the longest. Jeff won hands down (haha, I am so "Pun"ny), Nicole and I were out almost immediately.
Those crazy little fish sucking on Jeff's hand.
Me, Jeff and Nicole (from lest to right) amongst the penguins.
This picture was pure luck, the penguins just wanted to come right out of the water.
Big old crazy fish at the aquarium.


The next weekend we had the Halloween party at OBC for the elementary students. We each had a room to design and decorate ourselves. Nicole made an enchanted forest room and dressed as Tinkerbell. Jeff made a space room with black lights and constellations and dressed up as a space sorcerer. I made a dinosaur adventure room, sort of like a mix between Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones. I had dinosaurs on the walls and windows and I made a volcano and a river of lava through my room. My room had games that required the students to cross the river to get to the end and get a prize. They were split into two teams and the team to win two out of the three games to get to the finish were the winners. I really liked the idea of my room and the games, but looking back on it, it was a little too complicated to have to try and explain. It was hard to explain even in Japanese let alone in English.

The idea was to have a themed room with games that involved using some English. We tried to use some of the vocab that each class had been working on such as colors, body parts, animals and so forth. We also tried to incorporate phrases they learned, for example, "Let's play a game!" to which they would say "That sounds good!" When we do an activity in class I always ask my students, "Are you ready?" and they respond with "I am ready!" very emphatically. I used that a lot in my Halloween games.

In my room, I had three games. First was twister. This game was the best on paper (they could practice body parts like hand and foot, colors and right and left), but it was the most difficult. I had a pretty strict time frame for the games and twister is a tough game to control the timing of. I think the kids had fun with it, but it wasn't as amazing as I hoped it would be. So the students had to cross the river of lava playing twister. The team with the last person standing or, in the case of how the game actually ended up, the team to correctly answer a question from me won that game. I asked them things like what day is it and what color is this?

The second game was kind of cool I think. The students had to make a bridge to walk across the lava. This bridge was made of paper that fit together like puzzle pieces and each piece had a different number of dinosaurs on them. The goal was to be the first team to put the pieces in order from 1 dinosaur to 10 dinosaurs and be the first team across the river. Again, there were things I didn't expect. I kind of thought of the river as, um, well dangerous and they should avoid being in it. Well, for this game, every member of each team was sprawled out in the river trying to build their receptive bridges instead of being in a line and putting each piece down one at a time. Oh well, they liked the game it seemed like and that is the whole point of the game.

My last game was a spelling game. I had letters in the shape of rocks going across the lava river. My assistant, Mayumi, and I held up signs of words, their spelling and a picture (for example, dog, cat, web, bat, etc.) and the students had to make it across the river by spelling the right word. They were really into the whole competition of the game by this point and were getting their team hyped up. I made sure the words each team had to spell didn't cross each other or else there would have been some pushing going on. Actually, that probably would have made things pretty interesting.

So that's a little about the Halloween party. The party was only about an hour and a half long, but we spent a ton of time planning it all. It was frankly a little hard to tear it down after all that work. We were glad it was over though. The Halloween party is the biggest party event that OBC puts on and with all the extra work we put in for it, I don't doubt that it's the biggest. It was just cool to see the kids having fun, so that made it all worth it. Here are some pictures from the party:
Nicole (Tinkerbell), Jeff (space sorcerer), and me (Domo-kun)
A picture of us and the staff in Jeff's space room.

Here are a couple of pictures of my Jurassic Adventure room.

Some of the students playing twister in my game. I am making sure they understand right hand here. Giving a round of high fives to the students.

Here are the winners for the costume contest. The girl with the red hair is dressed as Anne of Green Gables.


The Sunday following the Halloween party we decided to take the opportunity to go back to Iga, the ninja city, and experience the festival there. The festival is special because it is one of the last remaining, very traditional festivals in Japan. One of our friends here in Tsu has a friend that lives in Iga and he offered to call her up and see if she would show us around. She agreed and so we met her at the train station where she walked us around to see the whole festival and parade. We thought she was going to be bored just showing us the festival in her little city, but it turns out that she rarely gets to see the festival each year so this was a nice thing for her to see too.

The parade has both traditional floats as well as characters who wear masks. Each mask has a different meaning, or bring forth a different personality and the idea is that the children are supposed to be scared by the masked people so that they become good. So the people wearing the masks in the parade have a good time with this and make sure to scare the kids. They will get really close and in their face a lot and even chase them (see the video at the bottom of the this post). And if it isn't the masked people trying to scare the kids, it is the parents trying to make sure their kids get scared. Some parents were trying to push their children toward the demons while the kids are screaming bloody murder. It was exciting for people to watch, but I really felt bad for the kids. I was just thinking, "is this really supposed to make them well behaved?" I don't quite have an answer for that one, but I can say the festival is cool for adults and those who can handle the masks. It can be hard tough. There are some demons that just walk straight with their masks on, but at the tail end of the parade there were some demons with props and things that really acted wild and got in your face (video) and it was really cool. Here are some pictures from that excursion:


Floats at the Iga festival.
Some of the demons that come out for the Iga festival.
We were all so impressed, this little girl was not scared at all of the monster. Everyone around her was laughing.


And now, for the funny/random events.

A while back we had a typhoon here. As many of you know, I am always interested in weather, so the typhoon was exciting for me. It pretty much was the center of every class conversation for about a week. The typhoon was to hit us directly and it was scheduled to come over night between midnight and about 5:00 am. Because of the timing, we weren't sure if classes were going to be canceled. The wind wasn't going to pick up until later in the night or in the early morning, so our night classes were still a go, that is if students felt brave enough to weather the already heavy rain that was falling. We bike to and from work everyday, so all of my students that day were very concerned. They were asking to make sure classes were canceled for the night. But alas, we were at work until 9:00 pm like normal. The bike ride home was an adventurous one.

The wind was still weak, but the rain was sure coming down. There was a warning of some flooding (which was less severe than they originally predicted), so there were already places starting to collect water when we were coming home. Actually, because of the flooding scare, many of my students asked if we lived on the first floor of the building. They were relived to hear that we live on the second floor so that our place wouldn't get flooded. This type of concern from the students helped mix in a little nervousness into my excitement for the typhoon.

Later that night the wind picked up and it got harder and harder to sleep. My bed is next to a large sliding glass window and I could feel it shaking in face of the wind. Also, we forgot to take care of the clothes drying pole and garbage outside, oops, and all of that is right outside my window. It was making a lot of noise so I had to go out IN THE TYPHOON and fix some things. It was actually kind of exhilarating to be out in it, but my students scolded me the next day when I told them about it.

It was so strange though, when I was outside, I saw a person wearing a poncho and circling the block on a bike. In a typhoon I sort of expected to be the only idiot out in it. We kind of looked at each other weird. They were probably thinking the same thing I was which was "what are you doing out here?" The biked off again and I went back inside to try and get some sleep amidst the trembling sliding glass door that I could feel next to my bed. "please don't let any debris fly and bust into my room" I was praying. I eventually had to resort to some music to get to sleep.

I woke up the next morning after only four hours of sleep to find the skies clear and a good amount of debris all around. Needless to say, there were no classes canceled which is okay because our next paychecks wouldn't be shorter. I asked some of my students about that mysterious person on the bike and they said that it was someone who works for 911 (or 119 as it is in Japan) who bikes around and looks out in case an emergency comes up that they have to call in like a fire or building collapse or something.

It was also interesting that the next day we had some trouble with our bikes. I got on my bike the next morning and realized my tires were very flat, like they had leaked. I also heard from Jeff that on his way into work, his back tire popped completely. It was because of the massive changes in air pressure when the typhoon moved through. I think my tire already had a leak so the pressure made it leak faster. The air pressure was low after the typhoon so the tires were over pressurized so that's why Jeff's tires popped on him on the way to work.

The typhoon was exciting but I would be okay with not having another one for a while. Or I would like to have it during the day so that I could enjoy it and still get enough sleep.

Another funny thing happened when we went to the outlet mall a little ways away. We were done shopping and went to have some dinner. Next to us was a young family with a little girl. Now, we have gotten used to the stares that we get from kids here, whether it's on the trains or while riding our bikes. It is actually kind cute and funny now and we usually smile back and try and have fun with them. A lot of times the parents want us to actually talk to their children so they can practice English. It's either that or we just look like the creepiest people alive. Anyway, it is still fun to smile back and appease some of their curiosity of seeing a foreigner.

So, back to the post-shopping dinner. We were eating and we notice the little girl is staring over at us, at Jeff in particular, as we have gotten used to and would expect. Naturally, Jeff smiles back with a big smile. Well, apparently, his smile was a little too big or something because that girl broke down and started crying. The parents tried to comfort her as Jeff turned away and we tried to keep to ourselves. It was too late to quiet her down, our waiter as well as everyone sitting around us were chuckling as they found out why the little girl was crying.

The girl eventually calmed down but her curiosity couldn't keep her from looking back over at Jeff who happened to make passing eye contact with her. That was enough to set her off again. We spent the rest of the dinner looking at each other, completely scared to look in the girl's direction. We managed to catch a couple of passing glimpses of her and the whole time she wouldn't take her eyes off of us until we finished our meal and left. We ate a little faster after all of that, just wanting to get out of there without causing another out cry. That was just such a weird and unusual experience for us.

Okay, this story may gross you out, because I know it sure grossed me out. I was sitting on the couch minding my own business. I was talking to Nicole at the time. suddenly, I saw Nicole's face become concerned, she was looking at the wall right next to my head. I turned just enough to see something slithering down the wall just in my peripheral vision. I turn all the way to see what it is and with far too delayed reaction, I jumped away from the couch, freaking out about the fact that this:
was just inches away from crawling on my head. We caught the thing as it tried to crawl down the couch and let it outside. It was almost as creepy as the bats, almost. I couldn't help but wonder when I was going to encounter another one of those, there had to be more in the house. Alas, I haven't seen any more. Oh great, I probably just jinx.......oh gosh, there's another one!! Okay, just joking. I wouldn't mind not seeing another one of those though. Apparently they are poisonous, so yeah, I cheated death that day.


And now, for the craziest thing:

A while back we decided to try a different Indian curry restaurant for lunch. This was kind of a major shift from our regular curry place. It was actually pretty good, but the food wasn't the most meaningful part. This requires a little back story.

We have noticed some other fellow foreigners in town from time to time either riding on bikes or at the grocery store. I have been able to say hello in passing on bikes, but never enough time to become acquainted. That all changed at the new curry place.

We walked in and found a group of about six Americans. We were sitting at opposite sides of the restaurant and it felt weird to have people there that could understand what we were saying when we are used to not having people listen to us. A few minutes later they got up to pay and leave when we introduced ourselves.

We asked where we were all from. We said Minnesota and Oregon and they said where they were all from. Turns out they are Mormon missionaries here for a couple of years. It sounds like they are on a sort of tour and are in the area for a short while.

After more intros, one of them asked me "where did you say you were from?"
"Oregon", I said.
"What city in Oregon?"
"Portland .... well close to Portland, West Linn really."
"No way!", He said, "I'm from Wilsonville!"

For those less familiar with Oregon, I was part of the West Linn/ Willsonville School District if that gives you an idea of how close our two cities really are to each other. We were basically neighbors. The world is a small place and I made it even smaller with my next question.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.
"2007" he replied.
"Oh really, I graduated from West Linn in 2005." I said, " So you went to Willsonville? Did you know Ryan Clark?"
"Yeah, red curly hair, right?"
"Yeah!.....Oh my gosh", I responded.

I knew Ryan Clark from baby sitter days. We went to different middle schools and high schools. It was just so weird to have that kind of connection all the way over here in Japan. A real small world moment.

Other than the weird and crazy things happening, our social lives have been pretty full of outings with our students. By this time, we have come to know our students pretty well and try and have some social events outside of class. There is a group of students who, or at least some, are in different classes that all work together as nurses at the local hospital. I have a class of three of them. One class we got to talking about food and they ended up questioning me as to what Japanese food I had tried and what I like and don't like (it seems that if you say you like anything, they are automatically surprised). They asked if I had ever tried oden (sort of a Japanese soup dish with many different fish based products, eggs, and things inside. It is traditionally a winter dish because cooking it in the house also does a lot to warm the house up). I said no, so we decided to have an oden cooking party. After class one night, they headed over to our place and we got to try oden for the first time. It was really good, but there were some strange things. As I said there was a lot of fish products in the oden. One thing was this marshmallow type thing that I tried. It was the weirdest thing, it tasted like fish, yes, a fish marshmallow. Anyway, it was all good and a ton of fun. We have also been bowling with that group and will soon have a pot luck.

One of Nicole's students owns a fabulous Italian restaurant close to OBC. We started going there pretty frequently and have all been able to get to know her pretty well. Her husband backpacked through Europe for a good couple of months in his college days and fell in love with Italy. The restaurant is called "San Marco" which is the name of a church I believe in Italy that he fell in love with while there. The food has a Japanese twist to it, but the secret recipe they have is amazing, so we love to go and eat there.

Anyway, Nicole's student invited us to have dinner at her house after we got done with work one night. As is common in Japan, the owners of a shop or restaurant will live a floor above it or behind it. This is the case for her and her restaurant. It was surreal to walk through the restaurant and back to their house to be treated to gourmet quality, home cooked food right behind the restaurant that people pay good money to eat at.

We ate and joked and talked. Her husband talked about his travels in Europe and we got to hear about their family and lives. It was a lot of fun.

Also, a couple of great students (one of whom Nicole has and the other Jeff and I teach on different days) took us out to a sushi lunch. This was the Friday before Thanksgiving, so we consider it our sushi Thanksgiving feast, Japanese style. I have never gotten so full on sushi before. They expected us to eat a lot so they orders a meal and a half of sushi for us. It was good, but our stomachs were not used to that much raw fish in them. Don't worry, no one's stomach "rejected" all that sushi, but I know I was definitely feeling it afterward.

It was a very nice sushi place, but the company was the best part. Those two students are good friends and a real hoot. A lot of joking and laughing was going on.

Oh, and one last thing. The weekend after the sushi Thanksgiving, we took a trip up to Tokyo for a couple of days. I got to see a lot of friends up there and I also got to go back and see Bunkyo, the place I stayed on my study abroad trip. It was a bit surreal to see it about two years later and being two years wiser. It was just so strange.

It was a short two day trip for me, but I saw a ton of great people and got to hangout in Yokohama, Ikebukuro, Korakuen, Bunkyo and Ueno. Short but good trip.

Okay well, that is it for this crazily long post. I have gotten lazy with the blog, I know that, but please forgive the long wait. I will try post more, or at least post when something big happens. At the end of this post there are a few movies. There is part one and two of the apartment tour and there is video of the Iga festival, where the children are being scared. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying life. Miss you, talk to you soon.

I will leave you with this picture of the sunset from our apartment.