futami

for the duration of the language course in mastuyama, i've been staying with a friend who lives about 25 minutes south by train in a town called futami. here's the view from where i've been staying along with some from the eki, i'll definitely be sad to go back to the mountains.

food, friends, and sleepovers

dessert bread drizzled with caramel, honey and ice cream!

we came here with tomoda-sensei! <3>

kitt at matsuyama castle

me and tomoda-sensei!!!!

matsuyama times

i've been in matsuyama for about a week now. i'll be here all next week as well, i'm taking a CLAIR sponsored language course that only cost 5oo yen! here are some of the things i've eaten and seen while in the capital!

Welcome to Ehime!

i was greeted at the airport in matsuyama by my BOE and fellow Seiyo JETs. Ehime was hella hot. actually, japan just is hella hot. there's unfortunately no other way to describe it.
my first meal in ehime was down in Seiyo. it was supposed to be a surprise so no one was telling me where we were headed. we were going to a place that surved nagashi somen. it's somen noodles that are flowing in fresh spring water. its a popular summer dish because it's naturally cooled from the springs and provides a nice breeze while you are eating. the tricky part is that you have to catch some noodles as they pass in front of you! good times!


the next couple of days i was pretty much on overload. my house is in a tiny village way up in the mountains. i'll write more about my campsite, err, rather my home in the coming days.

in the meantime i had a few enkais (japanese drinking parties) visited a few beer gardens and went to a pig rodeo! (i'm in the sticks of japan!)

this is actually roger riding a pig

we sat on the river and watched fireworks after the rodeo was finished.

Japanoblog

!!! I'm finally able to update my little blog! I've been a while without internet and free time so i'll try to catch up on past happenings and first impressions of my adventure here in japan.

i flew out of washington d.c. saturday, august 1. we flew continental and the flight left a lot to be desired. overall my plane ride neighbors were pretty cool and we talked about arrested development and david sedaris books and had a pretty good bonding experience. while on the plane though, i thought it would be awesome to pull out my laptop and watch some of my own movies instead of the crappy inflight movies that were available. what better time to watch movies i haven't seen yet - i thought to myself. so movie number one that i watched was requiem for a dream. coincidentally, this was also the last movie i decided to "try" out on the plane ride over. not so fun with two people you barely know about 3 inches away from you on either side.

fast forward to tokyo orientation.

we stayed in the Keio Plaza Hotel in the middle of Shinjuku, Tokyo for 3 nights.

here is the view from my hotel room, on the 17th floor.

my roommates were a mix of pittsburgh and crazy. the one roommate we later realized lived one street behind me in squirrel hill and would also be going to shikoku to teach.

shinjuku was amazing and bright and busy. pachinko parlors, arcades, bars, and just about anything else you can think of littered the place. oh yeah, and kareoke. in japan, kareoke is king.

this was my first meal in japan: wonton and ramen soup. わんとんえん

i met up with kochi zach. kochi is the prefecture neighboring ehime to the south. we met in d.c. and zach helped make japan a little more fun :). a couple of us headed to this kaiten sushiya that he went to while studying abroad in tokyo last year. it was amazing and the customers there got a kick out of our butchered nihongos.

after this the next couple of days were filled with prefectural meetings, speeches by dipolats, and wanderings around the ominous Shinjuku Eki! tokyo was pretty amazing!

times are changing

i haven't updated my blog in a while due to craziness before leaving, but now i'm here. right now, i'm in shinjuku, tokyo, japan sitting in the Keio Plaza hotel enjoying the air conditioning. kyou wa atsui!! i sweat buckets at Narita airport and again boarding the bus. i snapped some pics of downtown shinjuku and will post them once i get to Ehime with the rest of my baggage.

as for now, i'm heading to bed, trying to stay off killer jet lag. i'll be up and ready to go by some ridiculous time in the morning.