Family Visit

Here is a slideshow of the pictures I took in Kyoto. My mom, dad, and brother were visiting me in Japan. I met them at the airport in Tokyo and we took the train all the way down to Kyushu and then ferried to my island. On the way down, we stopped in Yokohama, Kyoto, and Nagasaki City.

Kyoto was amazing, the ryokan(Japanese Inn) we stayed at was in the Gion/Higashiyama area. We had a room that was much larger than I expected and was very comfortable for the four of us. The meals there were fantastic as well. We had all sorts of interestic dishes during our multi-course meals which were served to us in our rooms. I hope to get some of the photos of the meals from Eric, because he took some good shots of the different foods we had. It was definitely a unique experience, and I think it was a good way to start off my families introduction to Japan.

After 2 nights in Kyoto, we went to the Atomic Bomb/Peace Museum in Nagasaki City and were given a private tour by the Deputy Director of the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace. I had met him several weeks earlier while he was visiting Ojika, and he offered to meet us when we arrived. After the tour, we were taken to the offices and introduced to the director and former mayor of Nagasaki, as well as an American intern doing some work with the foundation.

From there we continued on to Ojika and spent the rest of the time here. We made a trip to Nozaki, had dinner with several families, toured around the island, ate good food, relaxed, taught a lesson at Ooshima elementary, and overall just had a really good time!

Take a look at the photos of Kyoto... Sagano bamboo forest and Fushimi Inari shrine, and I'll try to add more pictures as I get them!

Rice planting

I'm posting the link to the Japanese blog that talks about our rice planting day from a few weeks ago.

You can check out a couple of pictures there.

Follow this link and click the pictures to make them bigger....

http://ameblo.jp/shigeshigemaron/entry-10260398072.html

What've I been doing?

Wow, I have really been letting this blog slide, huh? Let's see... what have I been up to???

• Saw a Flogging Molly concert in Fukuoka.
• Missed the last train home from Fukuoka and had to stay in a hotel because I was eating ice cream.
• Planted tomatoes, a storm came the next day and blew down 4 of them.
• Planted peppers, eggplants, Japanese pumpkin, watermelon, one unknown vegetable, and a couple of flowers.
• Started replacing the paper on my shoji doors... 2 down, 8 to go!
• Hung noren up in the house and some at the entrance to my future flower garden.
• Got calf deep in mud for a day helping the Takasago family plant their rice paddy by hand.
• More or less finished trimming the trees at my house.
• Aquired several large pieces of pottery to use for plants and my "deer-chaser" water garden, and started clearing the yard to plant flowers.
• Ate dinner with several families around the island during Golden Week.
• Started running with the track club, and then decided that my tolerance for running in circles has become nearly nonexistant.
• Ate black rice for the first time.
• Listened to some great live shakuhachi and koto music, and played some maracca type instrument in front of the audience.
• Enjoyed the beautiful weather and the recent full moon.

Tonight, I'm having a barbecue at my house with the high school teachers. I hope to get more pictures up, but my broken camera is a hindrance at the moment.

My first graduation in Japan

Follow this link for photos from after the graduation ceremony for Hokusho Nishi High School!

http://ojikaenglish.blogspot.com/2009/03/hokusho-nishi-graduation-photos.html

Birthday Photos

I spent my birthday with a few friends from the island at the bar/restaurant down the street from my old apartment. It was a great time with lots of good food! After eating, we all walked over to the "Melody Box" and sang karaoke!

On the Wednesday after, there was another small gathering at my place... supposedly for an english class that had to be rescheduled... but it was actually a surprise party. Unfortunately for them the surprise was leaked and I found out about it!

Finally, a few pictures!

Here is a slideshow from the photo album showing some of the pictures I took of the new house. You can see that they start out with the floor removed and the old tatami pulled out. The house sat like this for about three days while things dried out. Then the new tatami went in and you should be able to see a little bit of how things looked after that process was done. Unfortunately I only have three "after" photos of the place so far. I guess I need to take a few more. The next step for the house is to replace the paper on the sliding shoji doors and get some Japanese style curtains to separate the rooms and add some color. I'm also working on the garden outside.