Art museums!

The Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya was pretty awesome! I went with Raven and Chisako last Saturday. They had some cool exhibits including a bunch of tea ceremony, noh theatre, and ancient court game things. They also have old Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) manuscripts including a reproduction of surviving parts of the oldest know illustrated copy (check it out, there's some more info on wikipedia). While the originals are, of course, too old and easily damaged to actually show it was still cool to see the reproduction.

We also got to see the special viewing of 'Sen no Rikyu: Tea Scoop of Tears'. He is considered the greatest master of the tea ceremony and this tea scoop is the one he carved himself and used in his last tea ceremony before he had to commit ritual suicide.

What we really went for was the Hina Doll exhibit! It was awesome~~~ Dozens of old dolls from the Edo period and tons of doll accessories. So pretty! I wish they allowed pictures. But, in lieu of that I shall link you to the Japanese exhibit site. Just scroll down the page til you get to the pictures and click on them.

After the museum we had coffee and bussed/trecked to Sakae to go shopping. I got three new books at Maruzen bookstore! Dewey, Inkheart, and The Tale of Desperaux. I am excited for all of them. it is so much nicer to buy books when you can check out their covers and fondle them a little first.

For dinner we went to a little kaiten zushi in the subway mall but it kind sucked, so we left after one piece each and found a really nice soba noodle place in Nagoya station.

More pictures.

Sorry about the delay! Here's the next album from the Christmas trip! Also a bonus album with some pictures of the first hints of Spring here in Japan.

Bali - Komodo Tour

Spring 2009

The first of the photos from Indonesia!

Bali - Kuta

These are the photos from the trip to Indonesia and the first two days we spent in and around Kuta.

Back from Indonesia!

So I am back from Indonesia safe and sound. All my travel compatriots got back more or less safe and sound as well. In the future I will elaborate but for now a brief summary of my trip:

12/22: Nagoya - Seoul - Denpasar airports all successfully traversed. Hotels for both parties were checked in to.
12/23: Took our time getting up. Saw Kuta beach. It was dirty. Wandered around town. Booked a driver for the next day.
12/24: Visited some cool temples and a really pretty beach. Had dinner on the beach at a posh restaurant. Tried to go partying but some wires got crossed that were sorted the next morning.
12/25: Successfully made it to the airport and arrived in Labuan Bajo. Most places were closed for Christmas. Managed to find a wonderful little cafe run by a lady from Britain and her local husband where we spent the day relaxing. Got on the boat on time and enjoyed the welcome party.
12/26: Visited Rinca Island. Saw the adult Komodo Dragons that they feed hanging around. Had a nice hike. Later went snorkeling at Spider Island. Saw some awesome fish. That night there was a big storm. Everyone got seasick. My stomach was fine until one of the other girls was sick but I managed to suppress the nausea and get to sleep.
12/27: Visited one of the Gili Islands and walked through the local village to a waterfall in the forest where you could jump into a pool below. Didn't jump but enjoyed playing in the upper pool and watching some of the others jump. Later on went snorkeling at a tiny, tiny island. Choose to swim in instead of taking the boat. Spent some time fishing garbage out of the coral and putting it above the tide line while I looked at the fish. Still scared of dark water. That night disembarked on Lombok Island and were taken to our hotel for the night.
12/28: Took a taxi to the airport and got back to Denpasar by lunch even though it was delayed. Got driven to Ubud where we checked into our gorgeous little hotel. Did some exploring of town and had dinner and checked out the town and the spas.
12/29: Explored some more of the the Ubud shops and checked out the market. Booked a dance. Went to a spa and were pampered for four hours from massages to hair treatment to a rose-petal bath. Saw some traditional dancing in the evening. Ate dinner at a place that looked okay but was not on the same street where we'd eaten our other meals.
12/30: Heather, Maggie, and I were all sick to various degrees of very bad. Figure it might have been non-bottled water in the drinks. Spent the day in the hotel room while Rachel and Shana went out. Rachel and I left the others and took a van to Tulamben that night. Made it there alright. Went to bed.
12/31: Managed to eat some breakfast. Met our diving instructor Made. Finished the book part of the course. Walked into town to look around a bit in the evening.
1/1: Did our five confined water dives in the hotel pool (that was only finished on the 27th of December) Was nervous at first but it went really well and was a lot of fun.
1/2: Completed first two open water dives. One to a coral wall and one to a coral garden. Cannot express how magical it is to get so close to so much amazing and bizarre life. Rachel bumped into a stinging hydroid and got a bit of a rash and we learned to keep better track of the whereabouts of our limbs. After dinner went walking on a black beach (Tulamben is right below a volcano) and down the road a bit.
1/3: Did our final two open water dives. Both to the wreak of the USS Liberty submarine that was torpedoed in WW2 and was originally very close to the beach but was pushed a bit deeper when the volcano erupted. Swam around it and then through an open cargo hold on the second dive. Accumulated three hours of ocean dive experience total.
1/4: Went to a temple, coffee/cocoa/spice plantation, the Ubud market, and a grocery store on the way back to the airport. Had a very relaxing nice day. Got dropped at the airport at 8 and stayed into our flight left at 3:30am.
1/5: Denpasar - Seoul - Nagoya. Slept most of the way. Heather picked Rachel and I up from the airport. Found out that what we had was contagious and that Maggie is still sick. Since my symptoms are over and Heather was just given some antibiotics and told to rest figure I'm probably okay.

I am currently enjoying being clean and being able to drink tap water with the happy anticipation of having a proper sleep in my own bed. Hope all your holidays went well!

Fall/Winter update!

Obviously my intent to update here weekly has fallen by the roadside. Badly. Things have been pretty busy here with some activity or another each evening and usually more than one per weekend.

Winter has kind of jumped right on us. A week ago I was comfortably wearing short-sleeved sweaters and light shirts to work but now it is most definitely sweater season. There was snow on the mountains yesterday morning! It didn't reach quite this low but it was close! I suspect that within a week the kerosene heaters will be making their reappearence in the classrooms. The leaves hadn't even finished changing but they'll easily be gone within a few weeks now!

Um, yeah, I have to go do some photocopying now but last night I put together some of the pictures I've taken over fall with a few comments. My kotatsu (heater table with blankets) is set up now so I should be spending more time attached to my computer over the winter. Maybe I'll update more often :D Anyway, enjoy!

Fall 2008

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!