Wine Tasting

As we walked through the grocery we stopped to do a little wine tasting! Have I mentioned that I love it here?

Ryan, me and Dave

The Cost of Fruit

Oh my word! Check out the prices of the fruit in the Japanese grocery store! Yeah and the conversion rate is $1 for every 75 YEN.  So basically add a quarter for every dollar spent. So the 5,250 Yen watermelon is $68.63! FOR WATERMELON!

$10 for melon

$51 for grapes

Funky fish

Teeny Tiny fish AND.....

OCTOPUS.... AT 50% OFF! Love it!

Bon Odori Festival

Bon Odori

Obon (お盆^?) or just Bon (盆^?) is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the departed (deceased) spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori.

The festival of Obon lasts for three days; however its starting date varies within different regions of Japan. When the lunar calendar was changed to the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, the localities in Japan reacted differently and this resulted in three different times of Obon. "Shichigatsu Bon" (Bon in July) is based on the solar calendar and is celebrated around 15 July in eastern Japan (Kantō: areas such as Tokyo,Yokohama and the Tohoku region), coinciding with Chūgen. "Hachigatsu Bon" (Bon in August) is based on the solar calendar, is celebrated around the 15th of August and is the most commonly celebrated time. "Kyu Bon" (Old Bon) is celebrated on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and so differs each year. "Kyu Bon" is celebrated in areas like the northern part of the Kantō region, Chūgoku, Shikoku, and the Southwestern islands. These three days are not listed as public holidays but it is customary that people are given leave. (Source: Wikipedia) 

There are several traditional dances in Japan, but the one of the most famous and common dance is Bon dance, which is called "Bon Odori" in Japanese. People dance Bon Dance in the Bon Festival. The Bon Festival is held every summer, in every district in every city.

Bon means welcoming ancestors' souls and holding a memorial service for the souls. There is a Bon week in August every year, and Bon continues for about a week. During Bon, sometimes all relatives of family gather and hold a memorial service for their ancestors, and enjoy being in a reminiscent mood. This traditional comes from Buddhism in China.

The Bon Festival is held during Bon week, and people gather at the near open-space or the parks, and dance with traditional Japanese music. The music is happy and festive to welcome the ancestor's souls, and people have a duty to be in a happy, mysterious, and welcoming mood. Moreover, the Bon Dance is usually held at night because Japanese people believe that ancestors' souls come back in the night.

The technology in Japan has developed in a hundred years, but Japanese people have never forgotten the traditional heart, and thus participate and celebrate Bon Festival and Bon Dance every summer. Japanese people will continue to venerate this tradition and to respect the souls of their ancestors. (Source: Japan-101)

Field Trip!

I went with my sponsor off base on Tuesday.  I tried to snap some pictures from around town, I don't know where I was or what anything is!

 The street my sponsor lives on.

My sponsor's house.

Out to Eat

So on my first full day here a teacher from my school took me out to eat.  We went to a restaurant right off post.  The food was good, though they like to serve you items in sets, and they don't break up the sets.  I found this out the hard way!

I wanted a noodle bowl with shrimp and crab in it, but I didn't want the rice and soup that went with it.  I got the WHOLE thing.  Then I wanted a tempura plate, I got the tempura with rice and soup as well.  I'm not 100% as to how much this all cost me, but I know that the Japanese customers thought I was a REALLY hungry American! Here's my receipt - I don't even know what it says! :)

The New Classroom

Here are some before shots of my new classroom.  It has  A LOT of storage.  I know everything can be easily stored here.  Do you see the refrigerator? Apparently every classroom has on of them! This week and next week as I begin working on it I will update the post with more photos.  The only sad thing I saw was my classroom printer, but with 6000 copies a month I'm not worried about it! I am going to ask for more student computers though, I only have 3 :(

Blog Note

Some of the stories are out of order, please disregard that, I'm trying to write as I remember them.  The blog is mainly for the pictures and partly for the stories.  I'm going to brush up on my story telling skills.  Give me time.  It will get better - I HOPE!

Who needs gasoline?

So, I was supposed to take the shuttle from the Narita airport to the base.  However, my principal was coming to pick up his wife so he said he could pick me up as well. This is unexpected, but I go with it. I can get to know him and his wife a bit.

Everything is going fine, we are traveling about 60 miles an hour in what seems to be a car with a moped engine. I'm not kidding this little car worked its little heart out! As we begin our two hour journey Dave, my principal, mentions that he's not quite sure about how much gas we have. I didn't pay much attention because, I taking it all in.  I'm really thinking about how I already miss air conditioning, but I'm not too concerned.  We are driving along fine, passing Tokyo Disney (which you know does not do the real one justice), the Tokyo tower, etc.  Well as we approach the Hadena airport Dave starts to really worry about gas.  Apparently the light is blinking.  We get off the expressway at the airport, thinking there may be a gas station near there.  Why, I don't know, I can't recall seeing gas at any airport, but we try anyway.  Not too surprisingly, we don't find any gas.  We are starting to get a little more anxious, the moped has got good gas mileage but we are really testing the limits.  After driving around for about 30 minutes we pull up to and Eneos gas station.

Apparently in Japan most gas stations are full service.  They clean the windshields, check tires, and if necessary empty ashtrays.

Dave says welcome to Japan, I say - this is going on the blog!

My new TEMPORARY home

I have to say I love my temporary lodging.  It's actually about the same size as my old apartment, but with better furnishings! And it's only $55 a night! This sure beats any other military temporary lodging I've been in!

Here are some photos of my place!

Long Distance Traveling

After a 5 day delay due to the passport people I was on my way!

The trip across the water was as bad as I thought it would be.  Thankfully the flight wasn't too full so I was able to spread out a bit.  I think the trip could had been better if the plane had been new.  This plane was OLD SCHOOL. No individual monitors, but rather a couple of screens that had a yellow tint to them! and they were so small it wasn't worth watching anything.

The thirteen hours flew by pretty fast.  I slept some, played with my "toys" and ate.  They feed you  A LOT on international flights.  I thought we would travel east over Europe on our way to Asia, but we went west into the sunlight.  There was no Friday night for me, which made it harder to sleep, but I made it work.

Customs and immigration were a breeze as well, thank the Lord. Just give your forms and grab your bags and your off! I thought I was going to be searched and asked a hundred questions, but God was looking out for me.  He knows how anxious I have been!