Swimming!!

I went swimming tonight! Two hours with Heather, Ashley, Shana, and Yumiko! Who knew that the swimming/gym centre on Ono's southern tip was really nice? $4 for access to both. But you have to wear a swim cap (like all Japanese pools) and there's no free swim area outside the kids zone, at least in the evening. Also every hour the bell chimes and everyone gets out for 10 minutes to rest and then we all stretch together along with Rajio Taiso. We did the first one in that video, I've never actually seen the second one done. I object to jumping in a bathing suit so we didn't do that bit. But it was really good exercise and Ash and I helped Yumiko out because she's not a very strong swimmer.

New posting regimen.

Alright. Since my last post was in March I have decided to try and update once a week. These updates will probably be small and trivial but that's life anywhere.

A lot has happened since March, including a visit from Mom and Luke and Brenda, a new school year (Starts one week into April after spring break), a visit home, my town festival, and my first rock concert. I also have a new neighbor named Heather and I've officially started a new year of work. (Note: Heather and I went to Nagoya for a day, there are some pictures of what we did and us here)

Since Sports day is coming up for all my schools I haven't done a lot yet, but when that's finished I'll have more than enough classes to make up for things. I do get to watch them all practice the weird games they're going to compete in. These include 6-legged races, class vs. class tug o'war, relays, and mukade, which means centipede and is like a #-legged race but the kids stand one behind another with a rope to connect all their left feet and another to connect all their right feet. It's super-funny when they all fall over on each other for no apparent reason and you can always tell because the ichi-ni-ichi-ni (one-two-one-two) chanting turns into 'ooph!' and 'kyaa!' noises. I can't post my student's pictures on the net but I'll be taking pictures on Saturday so if I know you and you want to see a few leave a comment here or ask my parents to pass along the e-mail I'll send them.

Anyway! I am tired and it's late so I'm going to leave you with a couple pictures and sign out for the night.

My town festival! This is held in the street and parking lot between Town Hall and the Community Centre. This is about half of the strip of booths. From left to right the booths are: Takoyaki (fried octopus balls), Toumorokoshi (ears of corn with butter), Yakisoba (fried noodles with sauce and cabbage and meat), [from here it gets hard to see so I'm half-guessing] Shaved Ice, Goldfish catching (for pets), fruit on a stick (possibly covered in chocolate or candied), potato fries.


It's an Obon (festival of the dead) festival in my town so to help their ancestors have a peaceful year of rest they pray to their family 'haka' (gravestones), spend time at home with their family, and dance. This is Obon dancing. The central tower has professional dancers (or volunteers) who perform the steps to the different traditional dances and the rest of us dance in a circle around the tower as they play traditional music. There are also hired dancers/volunteers in the crowd to help out those unfamiliar with the dancing. Like kids. Or me. People also stand around the outside of the circle to watch.


I was woken up two weeks ago by what sounded like a helicopter outside. Well, go figure, it was. Albeit a small one that was remote controlled buy some guys you can't see to the left. It's spraying a rice field. Those trucks belong to the construction company below me. This is apparently what I got for sleeping in during the summer!