I have been duly chastised about my lack of posting. I've been pretty busy with work and such. The cherry blossoms have come and gone, they didn't last very long, but they were beautiful while they were blooming. I went to Okazaki, a town about 40 minutes south of Nagoya that is famous for it's cherry blossoms. One of my fellow teachers lives there so she showed us around a little. We got there in the afternoon and walked along the river until we came across this...

We were walking and noticed that a lot of people were all wearing matching costumes, and there were lots of different costumes as well. As we were pondering what exactly that meant, this video happened and semi-answered our question. Apparently there was some sort of dance concert/competition going on. After we had our fill we wandered to the other side of the river where there were lots of festival stalls and bought some food and booze, laid out a picnic blanket, and got to it. I didn't take a picture of any of the food I ate, but I wish I had. One thing I ate was especially delicious and I keep trying to ask my students what it's called, but first I have to describe it to them. They keep telling me okonomiyaki, but I'm pretty sure that's something different. So, here are some pictures from my cherry blossom viewing (hanami in Japanese).

These are pictures of the trees along the river, the castle, and the festival stalls at night. They hang lanterns in the trees and light them up when it gets dark so it's really beautiful at night too.

Golden Week is coming up really soon (hooray!). Golden Week is 5 national holidays all in a row, so the whole country goes on vacation. Elliott is coming to Nagoya and then we're traveling together. I'm pretty excited about not having to go to work for a week.

Cell Phones

Today was the last day of going to the schools I will be teaching at for my new schedule and it was possibly the worst. It took me and hour and 40 minutes to get there from my apartment. The directions they gave us were hardly adequate. Luckily for myself I decided to leave 2 hours in advance in case I got lost. Little did I know it would just take me that long to get there normally.

So that's my little rant. Now I want to show you what cell phones are like in Japan. (Not all of them, but some...)


So, we have cake cell phone and bedazzled skull cell phone. I haven't actually seen any one's phone look like the cake one on the left, but this was in the display case of Bic Camera (a large electronics store near on the of the schools I work at) so I have to assume some girls somewhere have cell phones that look like pieces of cake. I have seen many bedazzled cell phones though.

My cell phone looks like this...

It has skeleton stickers on the back because one of the days that I had nothing to do at work (no lessons to teach) a teacher had an entire sheet of skeleton stickers that her kids classes didn't want, so we decorated my phone with them. Everyone has baubles on their cell phones here. I think two has to be my maximum. As far as I can tell they all have bells attached to them so they jingle everywhere. I saw one guy's phone with about 80 baubles attached. I don't know how he could stand to carry it around with so many cutesy things hanging off the side of it. Mine are the traditional good luck cat in Japan (not sure what it's called) and a little jug I got from the Hounen Festival that has a surprise inside. It's a tiny golden member. It was the most tasteful souvenir I could find there.

Meieiki Party

Last Saturday one of the schools I've been to a couple times had a party for staff, English teachers and students (who are old enough to drink of course). We met outside the school at 7:30 and then followed the school director to a secret location. It was just an izukaya (traditional Japanese style restaurant) down the street and around the corner, but no one knew where we were going until we got there. Then we had nomihoudai (all you can drink) for 2 hours and the beverage just started flowing. Every time we were in danger of running out, a staff member would appear from no where with another giant bottle of beer.

This photo was taken at the party. On the left is Kate (who I met on the plane to Japan), Yumi giving the double "v" for victory (she works at Meieiki and was supplying everyone with booze), and I guess you the the character on the right.

A few things about partying with the Japanese: At work they are always very businesslike and serious, but when it's time for the work party they really let loose (an izukaya seems to be the only place it's acceptable to be as loud as foreigners). It takes only about 2 drinks to make most of them really drunk. In short, they work hard, they play hard. After the izukaya students and teachers alike stumbled down the street to a bar across the street from the school. It was a little weird to be encouraged to drink with people who are supposed to think of you as a teacher, but apparently that's how work parties go down in Japan.

In other news, this week will not be fun for me. We have entered the gap schedule which means that I won't be a sub everyday anymore which is great, but because of when my old day off and my new day off are I don't get a day off at all this week. We have about a week and a half until the new schedule starts so they fill the in between time with Free Time Lessons (which are 40 minutes and students just come in a sign up for them whenever they want). At least in my new schedule I only have one sub shift day now (Mondays). That's all for now.