Photo Omnibus!

Hello again Aventuremail readers!  As promised, here's a bunch of photos to keep you up to date on our fall-time activities.  Be looking for a new post in two weeks - another friend from the States is coming, so we're heading to Osaka and Nara for the first time!  Can't wait to share what it's like with you.

 Just another rainy Day in Kanazawa.  We decided to head up to Nanao to visit the foot onsen.

 Jorden doing some studying on the train.

 Thanks to the weather, we had the place to ourselves!

A warm foot bath on a cold, rainy day.

 Birthday dinner at Sushiro.  Notice the adorable birthday hats, compliments of Jorden.

 Our order has arrived!

 The tiny pumpkin square/birthday cake Jorden brought for me.

 Throwback!  These are from our trip to Kyoto.  This is Jorden and I in the bamboo forest.

 The whole gang!

 Jorden looking fly in a Kimono.

 Robbie.  Stacey.  Flasher.

 Kyoto Station.  The weirdest building I've ever walked through.

 Light-up stairs in Kyoto Station, because Japan.

 Little tori gates with folks' wished written on them.  At Fushimi Inari shrine.

 The red tori gates all lined up.

 Down the tori walkway.

 Don't be fooled... they're Chinese.

 Jorden in the toris.

 Smooching some other dude.

 The entrance to Kyomizu temple.

 More of Kyomizu.

 More wishes hung up at the shrine.

 A pagoda at Kyomizu.

 A view from the huge porch into the forest below.  At Kyomizu.

 Ringing a bell like it's her job.

 On our way to the "Love Stone."

 Jorden looking troubled.  At Kyomizu, Kyoto in the far background.

 Amazing sand raking, made to look like Mt. Fuji, at the Silver Pavilion.

 The Silver Pavilion itself (not actually covered with silver... a bit misleading.)

 There she is.

 Bells at Silver Pavilion.

 The sun setting over the Silver Pavilion, Kyoto in the background.

 Back at the bamboo forest, because I didn't upload these in any chronological order.

 Tea and cake at Okoji Sanso, an old Japanese house/garden complex.

 At Choin-in, in Kyoto.

 The "San Mon" gate at Choin-in.  The largest temple gate in Japan!

Jorden and Stacey doing their Japanese laughs.

Jumping to Halloween:  My costume for the day.  A last-minute idea was a huge hit with the students (and Mrs. Fukami, as you can see.) 

A panorama of the Halloween decorations I set up for the English Club Halloween Party.  Due to a crackdown on rule breaking among students, there was a strict ban on any sweets, snacks, or drinks.  Woohoo...

Me the ghost, and then the three other ALTs who work at the high school down the hall.

Well, that ought to do it for now.  Stay tuned for more updates as we enter into the winter season!

-The Adventurers

Autumn Updates

Hello once again Adventuremail readers!  I must begin by apologize for our lack of posts recently.    Sorry we've been keeping you in the dark!  I'm here today to try and shed some light on what's been going on recently here in Kanazawa.

As you last heard from Jorden, the beginning of the fall semester was marked by our school festivals.  My school also had one, though a little less grandiose than Jorden's.  We too had food stalls, attractions  games, music, and dancing.  The events are mainly carried out by the high schoolers, (remember I'm at a joint junior/senior high school) but my junior high students played a small roll - on the morning of the second day, during the opening assembly, some of my second-year students got up in front of the school and shared their research on various subjects.  Think traditional Kanazawa handicrafts, local historical figures, etc.  Meanwhile, the rest of the junior high and the entire high school looked on, sweating in the un-air-conditioned gym.  Hooray, junior high!  I remembered the words of my former co-worker last year: "the junior high students get the worst part of the festival.  It's like they have to pay their dues before they're high schoolers, then they can do all the fun stuff."

After the festival season ended, it was back to class.  Of course, in true Japanese fashion, the first week back to classes consisted of tests.  Straight from the freedom of summer into the classroom, trying to understand my voice blaring over the speakers during the English listening section.

Me: "Oh, hello Mary!  What are you doing?"
Mrs. Tsukada: "Oh, hi, Ken.  I'm enjoying this soup."
Me: "Question: What is Mary enjoying?"
You get the picture.

Last month also marked the first time I had a repeat lesson.  Since I've been teaching here for over a year, we're cycling back through to the same lessons I remember from my first months in Japan last year.  It's been a lot of fun, and I feel like I can finally offer advice and input when it comes time to prepare for lessons.  I'm practically a real sensei!

Speaking of sensei, I've also recently begun attending Aikido classes.  I figure why not try a martial art while I'm in Japan?  It took me a while to find an affordable, nearby class with an instructor who's willing to teach someone who has terrible Japanese language abilities, but I finally found one that works.  I was surprised when I first walked in to find everyone brandishing swords.  My internet research had led me to believe that Aikido was a hand-to-hand style of martial arts.  I found out that it is hand-to-hand, but all of the techniques derive from swordsmanship, so they also teach that just to be safe.  Heck, last week I was finally upgrade from "wooden sword" to "metal, albeit un-sharpened sword."  Progress!

Oh, and last month our good friends Robbie and Stacey visited us!  We went to Kyoto for the first time and saw a ton of cool Japanese-y stuff.  We'll get some pictures up in a subsequent post, but suffice to say that it was some really cool sightseeing, and the crowds weren't too bad. I still think I like Tokyo the best, but Kyoto was also very cool.  Now we can finally say we've been to Kyoto (a question someone inevitably asks us about every other week).

Autumn has most definitely arrived.  Gone is the sweltering, humid heat of summer (huzzah!) and back are the crisp, dark mornings.  Thanks to an extremely well-timed package from my dad, Jorden and I have been able to make some genuine pumpkin spice syrup.  Combined with the stove-top espresso maker and the milk bubbler we bought at the 100 yen store, we can have delicious pumpkin spice lattes anytime we want!

This time of year really makes me miss the States.  I always love fall foods, colors, and activities (corn mazes!) and can't wait until I can pick up a pumpkin at WalMart for $5, instead of a mail-order $30 plus shipping affair we've got on our hands here in Japanland.  Also, I never realized how much I miss football season until I came here, where not a single one of my co-workers can name an American football team (besides the 49ers, for some reason...)

Well I hope I've got you all caught up on our recent activities.  I'm going to try and do bi-weekly updates from now on (I've written it in my calendar!)  So for all you die-hard Adventuremail readers, be expecting more frequent updates!

Take care, and thanks for reading!


-The Adventurers

Best of all: the Fest-i-val!

       Hello, everyone! Well, we are back from our States vacation and settling in nicely to Year #2. We had a wonderful, much-needed retreat while we were home and saw family and friends our hearts have been missing big time. 

Oh, and sights like these weren't half bad, either:

Meanwhile, Pizza Hut Japan is offering this delightful treat for only 3,380 yen ($34.43 at today's exchange rate):

Yep, that's shrimp, corn, mayo, and seaweed. Interested?

       Anyway, our pizza woes were assuaged by the school festivals this week. Do you remember seeing pictures from last year's festivals? We had only been here about a month at that point, so I think we were still getting over the shock of seeing tuna pancakes and legitimately horrifying haunted houses to really absorb much beyond that. Everything was a little overwhelming. This year it was nice to have a better grasp on the situation, though the haunted houses may have been just as alarming. Oh, and our Japanese has improved, so at least we could read the menus this year and opt for the regular syrup pancakes. 

       This adorable sight greeted festival-goers at Izumigaoka High School on Friday morning, the first day of the festival. The students love Disney and I'm pretty sure they could paper-mache in their sleep, so this makes perfect sense, really.

       Every year, the juniors are charged with the task of making and selling delicious carnival goodies, and I must say, I have been nothing but impressed with their efforts. It's daggum HOT here right now (we're talking 100F + about 600% humidity) and these kids are laboring outside over hot stoves, smiles all around. Here are some of the fruits (slash carbs) of their labor:

The pancake menu: honey & syrup, scrambled egg, the famed tuna mayo, and finally, the pizza pancake. OH YEAH!

The decorations and advertisements are also top-notch. They don't cut any corners when it comes to cutesy cardboard food.

Even the trash cans were adorable.

       My favorite carnival game this year was the TanaCasino, named affectionately for the sponsoring class' homeroom teacher, Mr. Tanakashi. The students made their own poker chips (that's right, even the poker chips aren't store-bought), and set up three casino games in the classroom: darts, blackjack, and roulette. The dealers wore black pants with white dress shirts and homemade duct tape neckties (surprisingly classy). Lucky winners got to cash in their chips for candy at the game's end.  

I didn't win anything.

       Finally, the festival wouldn't be complete without the performances. This year I watched a killer choir performance which included a rendition of the Doraemon theme song. Can you even resist the futuristic little cat robot?

       But my favorite performance was the calligraphy club's. That's right, they have managed to make calligraphy a performing art in Japan. Take a look at what these six students made in a matter of four minutes while also dancing with pom-poms: 

Voila!

All right, that's all for now. As always, thanks for keeping up with our blog, and take care!