Livin' in the Inaka

So naturally, the day the last of the JETs in my region take off for their holiday vacations we get our first big snowfall in the Tonami Region, and I alone was lucky enough to still be here and experience it :\ (i think)... On the last official day of work (yesterday) we had a "mini typhoon" that hit our area for about 14 hours, but by 4:00pm the heavy rain turned into snow which continued into the night and the next morning. snow buries fun cargo, first 3 hrs of snowfall In our region at least, the preferred method of snow removal is by melting it with water... so each house in my neighborhood has a special type of hose with little holes lining it. The hose runs from a well and is placed on the alley/street you want cleared, and then the water slowly melts the snow. My supervisor explained how to use ours a few weeks ago so I decided to try it out the night it started snowing. The next day at 7:30am I got a knock on the door from some guy from Iox Arosa saying I was using i

This year I spent my Christmas shopping on the crowded urban streets of downtown Kobe and Osaka, museum hopping on a sunny island beach, and exploring a historical town of feudal Japan. Other than the commerical aspect of Xmas there were few reminders that somewhere else people were opening presents, eating turkey dinners and visiting with family. I can't say I didn't miss that aspect of the holidays a little bit, but during my busy travels I was too occupied to think about much else. After killing 5 hours in Kanazawa waiting for my bus I spent the whole Sat night travelling to Osaka where I caught the first morning train to Kobe. As usual I had trouble sleeping on the bus so when I finally met up with yuki at Sannomiya (after an hour detour into the inaka due to not listening to the train conductor) I was about ready to pass out. Fortunately I was able to sleep in the car on the way to our first destination. When I woke up I looked out the window to see we were in a city again

Dec 24th-Dec 26th: KOBE (visiting yuki for xmas) Dec 27th-Dec 29th: Return to Toyama for work :\ Dec 30th-Jan 2nd: TOKYO/CHIBA (visiting host family for New Years) Jan 3rd-Jan 7th: HONG KONG (visiting Kim) Jan 7th: putz around tokyo for 9 hrs before my bus leaves for Toyama Jan 8th: back I've never been more in need of a vacation. Seems like every time there's a big American holiday my workload triples. On average I teach 24 classes a week- but normally I only have to plan lessons for the 8 elementary classes on Tues and Weds. This month my JTEs asked if I could plan all the lessons for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years at the junior high too. The lesson planning itself isn't that bad, but the actual teaching all day without any breaks is really draining (especially at the elementary schools. There's just not enough 'genki' in me to keep up with 5 classes of 40 kids a day). I was also asked to host a few Xmas parties- one for all the students of a local tutor and

I'm going to sum my week up in list form, partially because I'm lazy but also because I enjoy making lists. the good bought bus ticket to Tokyo for New Years afternoon coffee and sweets with the office ladies successfully incorporated squidgy into lesson plan finally retrieved bike from train station after 2 weeks delicious Indian lamb curry xmas party at danielles late night movies got my christmas cards all sent out finalized plans to visit yuki the not so good student loan grace periods ended lost nice jacket poisoned ourselves with vegies from our garden spending too much money bad DJs and smokey lounges getting out of bed when its 34 degrees ouside covers haven't been taking a whole lot of pictures this month, apologies. It's not that things aren't happening... just that nothing recently has been especially new or different enough to bother carrying my camera around. Be patient though- I guarantee there'll be a flood of new photos up once I get back from m

It finally snowed last night. There's a lovely white glow through the kitchen windows now. I would be happy except I can clearly see my breath here as I type and eat my breakfast. I'll be visitng my host family for New Years and then I'm off to Hong Kong in January. Xmas plans sorta fell through so looks like it might be Christmas in Toyama. off ta change the snow tires on the car ~~

It's hard to believe it's December already. Adding the four months I spent in Tokyo last year and my time with JET I've been in Japan for just over 8 months, and yet in that time I feel like my Japanese has actually deteriated since graduating last May. Gee, maybe I should actually study... :P This week was the Mid-year Seminar for Toyama JETs. Got two "business trip" days off from work to make the 1 hr drive to Toyama City and attend a bunch of workshops. It was as expected. Somehow I ended up getting placed in the "Culture Shock" workshop- not even sure if I know what that is. I did however get to learn a bit of Portugese in one of language workshops (Oi, bon dea!) They're predicting the first snowfall of the year this Sunday. Everyone at work has been giving me a hard time 'bout not changing the wheels on the car to snow tires yet. The Fukushikaikan came through for us once again with a free set so it's just a matter of takin' the Fun