My working life in Japan in a nut shell

Photos from Nagoya and Takayama

I am just adding my photos from a two day trip.

Tokyo

I bought this egg with custard and sesame seed paste at the bottom. It reminded me that Easter is just around the corner. Today is shrove tues.! Mardi Gras time!

This is NS7 where I got my tattoo. Kinda weird huh? The guy in the photo is Gouki my tattoo artist. He giggled all the time. Very cute.

Next to Minako's apt, was the building where they make Doremon. A famous Japanese cartoon.




This is me snoozing away at Minako's. Under the kotatsu with the heater blowing on me. It was so nice!

A view of Tokyo Tower from Ropongi. Minako and I had Turkish food here for dinner.

This was so weird. I don't know what it is, but Minako seemed to really enjoy it! Creepy.....

Harajuku. Yes, I went shopping here! I got some white pumps with black skulls (very Harajuku style) and some shirts at H&M. Most of the sizes were so small(like 2-6)!

Hachiko and I! I was so excited! Still am! What a dork; but Hachiko was such a good dog.

Shibuya had a entire area of sweets! I couldn't buy anything, so I just took a picture. I am sure they were delicious....ahhh

My mom is really interested in the Shinkansen(bullet train) So I took some pictures while in it.

Kore wa Fuji San Desu!

.......Welcome Party

This is a pictures from Shiho sensei's welcoming party. We always have parties at a reggae yakitori place. It's not very good or clean! But it's fun!. Then we headed to Shidax for Karaoke. The picture is of one of my coworkers so you see what I mean!

Your weekly update

This was Valentines week. On Monday after my Japanese lessons, I went to the Fujieda school manager's house , with their FT Brianna and our Japanese language teacher, to make cookies for our students. Yes, that means enough for two schools. I think we made over a hundred cookies. We made peanut butter and sugar cookies. I don't think anyone at my school is capable of domestic work except for Asami. She's great! I'll post separate about her later. It was a mess! Totally fun! Our Japanese teacher thought everything was too sweet and could barley finish a single cookie! Whaaa? In Japan it is difficult to find a mixer or an oven. Well, there are toaster ovens. But lets just say those are only good for heating things up that taste good burnt. Keiko our Japanese teacher brought ingredients to make gyoza. Delish!
My students were really happy to receive sweets. I gave the junior high boys crap about it yesterday. You see, in Japan Valentines day is for men and there is a separate day when girls get things from boys. It's called Whiteday. I told them they all owed me now! One boys said "but I don't have any money!" Fabulous.
This week I also decided to paint my nails Japanese style. That means gawdy. I love it but, it was a serious pain. They really go all out for nail fashion. Lots of applique.
Last note. My students behaved really well this week, so I actually felt like taking pictures with them. Well, the girl wearing pink is always great. She likes singing and we read some good books together like Frog and Toad. She really did well on her Jr. STEP test. Not because of me though. She's one smart little cookie!

Recap mismosh

A roasted sweet potato, delicious. There is a truck out side Shimizu station that sells these at night. There are two different pervayors though. The quiet old guy has the best sweet potatoes. Th group of two oyaji are halirious, but tend t burn the poor things. They also asked me if I was from Brazil. I think that comment might be slightly offensive since the Japanese don't like Brazillians. So, I just told them was French, becuase they didn't believe I was American.



The bridge closest to my room(apt) has Kappa figures on it. I have wanted to take a picture of them for a while. Kappa are river sprites.

I went out with a friend around Shizuoka. We ended up going to an area called Nihondaira. There are a lot of strawberries there. We walked up increbily steeps stone stairs to get to the shrine on top. We were so tired by the time we reached the top! Ahhhhh. The view was nice though. I also got a charm for taking tests.

Reaching new lows

I've been renting Japanese cds from Tsutaya. I got my paws on TOKIO. I like some of their new stuff well enough. I am in Japan, I have to claim knowledge of something. Any way, they are really famous. There happens to be a life sized poster of one of the band members out side of a film store. Everytime I walk past it, I think, man I wish someone was with me so they could take a picture of me next to it! Yeah, that's totally lame. So what.
There is also a picture of one of my trainers hanging up near my room. I want to get an I'm with stupid t-shirt and get a picture of me standing next to it with the arrow pointing at him! Yes, these are my simple pleasures in life. Just wanted to share them all with you. Which is my mom and perhaps Tara. I do realize that no one looks at this blog.