fishermen

buddhist temple

these are the maidens of the temple

shrirokawa shyo undokai

shriokawa chyu enkai

it's tradition to have a sports day festival on a sunday in september. it is customary to see such exciting sports such as the three legged race and the carry a child on a pole relay. afterwards, you will see all the participants going to drinking parties. the locals call them "enkai". this is the story of mine.

my vice principle and teachers party like it's 1999

this is my english teacher and this is my peace sign.

whale of a tale

the extremely dark meat in the photo is whale. we bought it and the boys ate it.

undokai or how to sweat in japan:

this is one of my 2 middle schools. this school is about 3 times as large as my other middle.

uchiko shrine featuring kitty chan

japanese love letters

this was waiting for me on my desk after my first day of teaching at shirokawa middle school.

"kyou wa, hajimete no Kimu sensei no jyugyou deshita.
Kimu sensei wa totemo kirei de, hana ga takai na
te omoitmashita. Saishyo datta kedo, totemo
wakariyasukatta desu!"

Futami Summer End Festival

shortly after taking this picture, we realized there was a festival starting to form behind us. lanterns were hung and tatami mats were spread out. on the boardwalk groups of friends assembled with huge sukiyaki like cookers and started the festivities. we happened upon joe and mike's superintendent and had dinner with him. afterwards we were whisked away to some nearby house to talk with the locals until the midnight hour.

mr donut

Pirate Festival

the last weekend of august we all went to Onomichi, Hiroshima for their pirate festival. japan, pirates, biiru, yakisoba, and crazy gaijin = good times. while we were there, we made friends with a ton of old drunken japanese ojiichans. you wouldn't believe me if i told you, but i got asked to be wife number 2 by a president of a ship building company who is supposedly a millionaire. oh, crazy japan.

on the way there, we drove on the longest suspension bridge in japan. its a series of five bridges that connect Ehime prefecture to Hiroshima.

i teach english.

i teach at 4 schools total. i have 2 elementary and 2 middle schools. everyone in japan these days is participating in the infamous "sports day". apparently, this sunday, i too will be participating in sports day. i will be thrown into a random event and team up with a student - i actually can't wait. i'll grab some pictures of my kids giving it their all ^_~.

this morning arriving at my favorite school i found a stack of handwritten notes from the students thanking me for our first class. at my other school last week, i teach a special needs child. after the lesson i walked her hugging each other to her next class. then later that week after her sports day practice she ran me over practically just to give me a bear hug. i really want to make it work here, but i don't want to ruin everything. things like this get me through the day, because lately the days have been extremely hard.