Blue Christmas

It's Christmastime and I am staying in Tokyo. It's my first Christmas in Japan and my first away from family. I turned an electric light into a Christmas tree and made some decorations for it.

It's not much, but I need something to get into the Christmas spirit. My friends and co-workers are having Christmas dinner on the day of, so at least I will have somewhere to go.

Christmas in Japan is quite different than it is in America. It is more like a romantic holiday than anything, kind of like Valentine's Day. And they sell special Christmas cakes everywhere. New Year is a much bigger holiday here.

But there are a lot of Christmas lights to look at. I went to see some this past weekend.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!

Fall and Halloween!

It's been a while. Fall is here. It has gotten quite cool, which is nice. This is my favorite time of year.

I went to Yokohama to see the Landmark tower recently. They have a huge shopping mall there that I had heard about so I decided to go check it out.

It was kind of overwhelming. I couldn't stay too long because there was just too much stuff to look at and I didn't want to spend any money.

As I mentioned before, I have been taking Japanese classes. I really enjoy them and look forward to them every time I get to go, which is on every Tuesday and Saturday. The classes are in a big skyscraper in the city and this is the view from the 13th floor, where the classes are held.

Well, it's halloween time and that means dressing up as a...banana. Yes, I am dressing up as a banana by wearing a giant banana on my head. It sounded like a good idea when I found a discount banana hat at the local halloween shop.

Volunteer Work

I went to Ishinomaki in Miyagi this weekend to do some volunteer work with my friend Marci, who has been going every weekend since the middle of the summer. Going back to Miyagi for the first time since I left seemed like fun, as well.

Back in Sendai for the first time in a long time. It was weird being back here, but everything seemed to be back to normal.

From Sendai, we went to Ishinomaki, which is about 2 hours from where I was living in Naruko Onsen. It's on the coast and was badly damaged by the tsunami.

We went straight to the work site at about 9am in the morning after riding a night bus all night long and not getting too much sleep.

The first day we were busy digging mud from the tsunami and typhoon out of the gutters. It was pretty hard work and definitely a dirty job.

Seeing the damaged and vacant houses was shocking and the amount of damage was unbelievable.

The group of volunteers that I was working with got permission from the local University to camp on their property, and there were so many volunteers there that it looked like a little village.

The recent typhoon left a lake in the soccer field near the university!

The second day we cleaned out some more, dirtier gutters and then we cleaned up the area that used to be someone's home. While we were shoveling the wreckage, you would occasionally find something like a child's toy that would really remind you what happened here.

After working we hiked up a small hill and looked at the view of Ishinomaki from up there. It is a beautiful little town.

After a hard two days' work and no shower, I made my way back to Naruko, where I lived last year and visited my old ryokan and used the onsen, for free! I saw Mami-chan and her mother, who was really pregnant and about to pop!

I am glad to be home now, and having a normal shower was priceless!!

Sunset at the Beach

I went to the beach the other day and as the sun set, Mt. Fuji became visible over the horizon and it was really breathtaking. I took lots of pictures, but this was probably the best one.

Probably my last trip to the beach this summer, but I had fun and I am definitely glad I caught this sunset. I may frame this one.

Today is the end of a long week and I am lucky to have two three day weekends, one starting now, and one three work days away after this one ends. Tomorrow I am going to the dentist for the first time in Japan, so that should be an experience. And I am starting Japanese classes next week!

Back to School

Well, it's back to school time here, which means back to work for me. I had a great vacation and the past couple of weeks have just been finishing up summer school and doing easy work, more or less. But today was my first day back to the grind and, although I was dreading to go back, it was a good first day. It was good to see some of my students again and it wasn't quite as hot as it was before.

Here are some of my students in pictures we had to take for their report cards.

Dancing Festival and Trip to Nagoya

The day after Dustin left I went to one of my favorite places to shop, Shimo Kitazawa, and there was a really big dancing festival going on throughout the streets. It was pretty fun to watch the different people come through and dance. The outfits were pretty amazing in and of themselves.

The past weekend I had to go down to Nagoya to help out with summer school there. It was my first trip to Nagoya and I was really glad to get a free trip there. I took the bullet train down, which took about one and a half hours. I hadn't been on it in a while. In fact, I hadn't used the bullet train since I came down to Tokyo from Miyagi.

The ride was very comfortable and the views from the windows were picturesque.

The hotel room was tiny and extremely similar to the one that I first stayed at when I arrived to Japan for the first time. But it was free so I can't complain.

Nagoya is the 3rd largest city in Japan and it was larger than I expected, but nothing compared to Tokyo. The biggest difference was just how there weren't as many people and it wasn't as crowded.

Nagoya is famous for a couple of different foods. One of them is misokatsu. My co-worker, Steven, found this popular place and we went and stood in line for a while, which is pictured here.

I was not disappointed. The misokatsu was really delicious. One of my new favorite Japanese foods. Unfortunately, it is only popular in Nagoya. But I ate at this restaurant twice during my trip to Nagoya. So delicious!!

There was a dancing festival going on in Nagoya the night we came down, too. It was a pretty but one. They had this big green laser shooting through the sky above a landmark. It was pretty odd.

This was the view from the 9th floor complimentary breakfast buffet in the hotel. It was really nice and they had a lot of good choices, like scrambled eggs and meat balls, along with other Japanese breakfast items.

The architecture of Nagoya's buildings was pretty interesting. This spiral tower was really eye catching.

This was another good restaurant we ate at on the top of a tall building. It was all you can eat and I ate for four hours! Overall, the trip to Nagoya was a blast. I would not mind going back at all, and I definitely want to get some more misokatsu!