Three Day Weekend

We had a national holiday on Friday, so Scott and I had a three day weekend. On Friday we went to Aga (a neighboring city) and had lunch with Scott's supervisor. She cooked us some traditional Japanese foods. There was way too much food, but it was all so good! That day Aga was having their holiday festival so after lunch we went to the shrine. There were lots of men carrying huge drums and alternating drummers. Children followed all dressed up in costumes. Other men and women also followed the drums playing flutes. The drums were huge. They were maybe 4 1/2 feet tall and wide. I can't imagine how much they weighed! The men who played the drums would beat them so hard their hands would start bleeding. All the drums were splattered with blood, it was gross. But the guys thought they were being very manly. The men carry and play these drums all day long. They carry them around the city, to the shrine, and back down through the city. It was quite the sight. We also got to look at all the food and game stands. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so the only pictures we have are on Scott's cell phone.
On Saturday, we went to the Hiroshima Carp's baseball game. We had heard it was an experience and people weren't lying. I would compare it to a college football game in terms of the crowd hype. There was a band, cheerleaders, and people who lead the crowd in a never ending series of cheers. The crowd cheered through the whole game, there wasn't one quite moment. They also have a Carp theme song which is sung at the beginning of the game, during the seventh inning stretch, and if the team wins at the end. The fans also buy long balloons which they blow up and wave during the seventh inning stretch and then when they are done singing their theme song everyone lets them go and the balloons whistle and fly all over the place. The ground crew runs around and picks up the ones on the field of play. Fans also do this at the end if the team wins. I took lots of pictures and a video of everyone letting the balloons go. The game was a lot of fun. However, it was 29 degrees Celsius, so it was VERY hot and humid. It finally started to cool down by the ninth inning. We stayed for the whole game, but the Carps lost 3-6. Oh, well, it was still a lot of fun.
Then Sunday we went to church and met the priest from Spain. His English is so good and we enjoyed hearing a sermon instead of just readings. We had Japanese lesson that night and the rest of the day we spent relaxing. So we had a full, but very exciting, three day weekend.

Miyahara School Festival

Yesterday (Sat Sept. 17) my school had their school festival. The second and thrid year homeroom classes choose to do a food stand or a theme room for the festival. They work on it after school for about a week and then they get half a school day to work on it. They really get into it. I even saw someone sawing something! The rooms were very creative. They had a room of student made origami, game rooms, a movie room showing a movie they made at school, a cartoon room, a balloon room, and many more. For food they had chicken skewers, noodles, fried chicked, snow cones, ice cream, popcorn, etc. It was all very good and the festival was a lot of fun. In one of the pictures I'm sending it shows a student putting noodles down what looks like a bamboo pipe. The pipe has a steady stream of water flowing down and he drops it on the top and it flows down the pipes and the coustomer put their chop sticks in the stream of water and catches the noodles as they come down. Then they dip them in a soy based sauce and eat them. I thought it looked so fun! The other picture is of the performance stage set up out in the courtyards. Many students performed music and dance routines. This is a picture of a boys dance group that was SO good!

Finally Teaching!

Teaching has finally come, and now, a week into it, we are in full swing. Both of us have had a least one full week now. There were a few ups and downs as we started, but after a few days, you begin to figure out what works and what doesn't. Vicky found out the first day that bringing candy into the class that is not individually wrapped is one of the things that doesn't work, or should i say isn't accepted by the school... but live and learn, she's moved on from that experience and has found new ways getting the kids attention. One thing both of us got to experience recently was the difference between academic schools and non-academic schools. Both of our regular schools(meaning we are there four days a week) are academic, meaning after all the jr. high students in the area take their tests, the smarter ones are sent to our high schools, and these kids are almost surely bound for college after high school. The other high schools get the other kids. Once a week I visit a non-academic high school, and Vicky does the same. We quickly found out that the kids at these high schools don't give a **** about English or hearing what we have to say...lol But like all experiences, we learn from it, and what we learned at these schools is more GAMES!!! This may be the only way to get anything done at these schools. Well anyways, today is Tuesday, and i have the day off, and I had yesterday off because i worked all weekend, so I better get back to my busy day of sleeping and doing nothing. hope to hear from you all soon.
scott

The Typhoon!!

Hello all! We are in the middle of a typhoon right now. It is very windy and rainy. Our first day teaching was suppose to be today, but school was canceled. Let me rephrase that - school was canceled for the STUDENTS. Scott and I still had to go in. Scott was let out at noon due to the trains stopping. I was let out at normal time and was informed at the bus stop that the buses were not running either, so I walked home. Grrr. My vice principle is very strict and expects the teachers to be at school if it is humanly possible. I'm sure he will expect me to swim to school if the streets are flooded tomorrow. It is kind of frustrating, but I am very lucky that all the other teachers are very nice and can empathize.
The typhoon has produced winds up to 90 miles per hour, but southern Japan got hit worse than us. We are also safer because we do not live on the coast. Please don't worry. The typhoon will pass over us tonight and should be gone by tomorrow night. So our posts about teaching will be delayed a little. We look forward to telling you more later!

Gorge Hunting

This weekend Scott and I took Friday off so that we could have a three day weekend before we became busy with school.
Friday we went couch shopping and purchased a new couch for our living room that folds down into a bed for when our friends and family come to stay with us. It is longer but takes up less width space than the couch we had when we got here. It was a lot of fun shopping and we feel like the apartment is starting to feel like our home. Friday night we went out to an izakaya (Japanese bar/restaurant) with one of our Japanese friends - Akiko. We tried a lot of great foods! Scott even liked some salmon!
Saturday we went gorge hunting. We took a bus most of the way to Nikyu Gorge and then hiked the rest. Unfortunately our map was not very detailed and we took a lot of wrong turns on the way. We did a lot more hiking than planned. Once we got there we were so impressed. The water level is low this time of year so the river running through the gorge wasn't flowing, but it was cool to see how the water smoothed out all the rock formations. There was also a suspension bridge over the gorge. It was so high it was a little scary for me, but we got a lot of great pictures! Saturday night we rented three tapes of the American TV series 24. It was good and now we are hooked!
Today, Sunday, we went to church. We found out there is a Catholic church close to us that has an English service at 12:00. We are not converting to Catholic, but we enjoyed the service and plan on going back. Right before and after church we continued to watch 24...haha. Tonight we are going to our first Japanese lesson. Every Sunday we will have Japanese lessons from 6:30 to 7:30. We are very excited!
We have been busy this weekend, but we are also looking forward to this upcoming week because Scott and I both start teaching. Our first lessons will be mostly introductions, but now we will have more to do at school. We look forward to sharing with you how our first classes go. They will be interesting!