The morning before we had our annual choir festival. The kids all sang wonderfully and class 3-3 ended up winning the top prize so they were able to represent their school in the junior high city competition. Not sure how they did but either way all the classes sang wonderfully. Around 6:30pm we hopped on our private jumbo bus and made our way off to Ikaho, Gunma prefecture. As is typical of any Japanese adventure on a bus, there were chocolates, potato chips, sake, beer and of course dried squid. I will never under any circumstances understand the Japanese love for dried squid while traveling. Since I was already feeling very car sick the smell of dried and somewhat rotted squid was how can I say...disruptive. Luckily my colleagues encouraged me to get over my car sickness with a healthy (unhealthy) amount of beer and sake. Surprisingly it worked.

We arrived at our destination roughly 2 hours later. After departing our private bus we then took the next step in our great journey: we got on another bus. Which only drove for 1 minute. Up a hill.

Our location was incredibly luxurious and after depositing our belongings into our respective rooms I had this thought: Man, now that we're here, the only thing that would make this trip even better would be to get naked with a whole bunch of dudes. Well, as luck would have it, it was hot spring time! Since this was my 3rd or 4th visit to a hot spring I was already used to the concept of stripping down with my cohorts. The first time I did it I was absolutely terrified at the idea but what can you do.

After that we enjoyed an incredibly luxurious traditional Japanese meal in a very spacious old fashioned tatami room that probably could have sat about 40 people. There were only 12 of us. The food was exquisite, the company was excellent and of course there was more beer. We ended up socializing the night away until the late hours.

Predictably, 10 out of 12 of us had some very severe headaches the next day when we got up at 7:30. I'll never understand the Japanese dislike for, well, you know, sleeping in. Personally I think there is no better way to spend one's vacation time. After our traditional breakfast we hopped on our hotel bus, to head to the parking lot one minute away, to get on yet another bus. After about an hour we made our way up into the mountains to Haruna Shrine. Apparently its a very famous shrine and known as a "Power Spot" which is supposed to energize one's body and spirit. I must admit to having felt a bit energized after the visit. When the carsickness went away anyway.

After that we visited a delicious Udon noodle restaurant and a fun shopping center for some souvenirs. There is officially no country more into souvenirs and gift buying then the Japanese. Its one of those parts of the culture that some of my Japanese friends admit to being very annoying at times. Don't forget presents for your accountant's cousin's nephew or it'll be rude! I realize thats a joke but its not that much of a stretch I assure you.

We finally made our way home to Kuki City around 5pm and everyone went their separate ways. Since that Saturday was the choir festival, all the teachers at junior high had the next day off. Since I don't work at junior high on Mondays I predictably did not. Oh well. Was a fantastic adventure and I look forward to the next one.

"Hello! I'm so sorry to bother you but are you from America?"

"Yes I am."

"Are you a teacher?"

"Yes I am."

"Thats so wonderful! And you speak Japanese?"

"Yes I do." (This entire conversation was already in Japanese of course. I get this a lot.)

"Thats so wonderful! I've always dreamed of meeting a foreigner who could speak Japanese with me. What a wonderful day this is! Thank you so much!"

She then went on to tell me how she had met foreigners before and wanted to communicate with them but they never spoke Japanese and she couldn't speak English. She also told me a story about a few friends of hers from Australia but she didn't think she'd see them again anytime soon because of the big earthquake that had hit. After mentioning the earthquake her eyes went wide as if some giant realization just dawned on her.

"Oh my, where are my manners! Do you have enough food?" (This was about a month after the big earthquake.)

"Oh yes I have plenty. Thank you for asking but I'm fine and well prepared."

"Please wait here a moment I'll be right back!"

She then ran across the street to her car, fumbled around for about 5 minutes in her trunk and came back with a giant bag of uncooked rice and some turnips. She said all of it was from her family's farm and that they had plenty. She offered them to me and wouldn't take no for an answer so I humbly accepted the gifts. Thinking thats where the conversation would end I was surprised when she had a request of me.

"I'm so sorry to trouble you with this, but would you mind signing my journal?"

"...Your journal?"

She then quickly produced a small diary esque notebook from out of nowhere that had all manner of random writings in it. After signing my name and also writing it in Japanese I handed it back to her while she stared at me with a big smile.

"Thank you so much! This has been the most perfect day! Please enjoy the rice and I hope I see you again soon!"

Before I could get another word of thanks in for the rice she was already running back across the street to her car never to be seen again. A delightfully random event here in the land of the rising sun.

After that it was a very surreal experience in Japan for a few days. Many of us simply couldn't wrap our heads around what had happened which I suppose is natural. There were shortages of things such as gasoline, batteries and bottled water which didn't surprise me. We still have shortages of some things but that is quickly recovering with each day. The funniest shortage was toilet paper. It never occurred to me that toilet paper would be something hard to get your hands on in the wake of such an event. Now I know.

Graduation for my students went great at all three schools. I was sad to see my graduating classes depart for the next part of their academic journey. I will miss them a lot. As of the 7th of this week, I will officially become an employee of Kuki City as an English teacher. I can't stress enough how excited I am about this. I came to like Kuki almost immediately and its hard for me to picture working anywhere else. I can't wait to get started in 5 days. As for my schools, I'm not sure which I'll be working at yet but I believe I'll be getting two new elementaries. Should be interesting to meet a new set of staff and students but I'm looking forward to it.

Other than that, things are relatively normal around here which was strange at first but thats the way it has to be. I applaud the Japanese for both their quick reactions to the earthquake and tsunami but also how diligently they continued to go to work day in and day out without fail despite the fact that their country was hit by the 5th largest earthquake in recorded history. I really must tip my hat to them.

That said, the laundry Gods call my name and thus I must...do laundry.

PS In the old days, it was believed that earthquakes were caused by a catfish that swam under the earth. When he got a bit unruly and the earth would shake so the people prayed to a God whose only purpose to keep said catfish under control. I'm not sure if the God has a shrine but if there is one nearby I wouldn't mind dropping a few coins so he can keep the aftershocks at bay for awhile. :P

In the last month I have been doing a new game with my 3rd year junior high students. I draw a comic but leaving the speaking bubbles blank. Its their job to fill in the bubbles however they like. In English of course. I would typically get the majority of the responses the same as few of the kids have the courage to try something really out there. Every once in awhile I'd get something absolutely hilarious and I made sure to make copies of those that I felt were particularly noteworthy. I will upload them here at the end of the school year.

After about a month I could tell that the kids were getting bored and weren't taking the comics seriously anymore. So I suggested a new game to the teacher. The students would be given a sheet with all the vocabular they needed to review for their upcoming test and we would go through it together to work on pronunciation. At the end of said practice we played the gesture game. No talking, no writing. Well, the students took to it right away as they seemed to especially enjoy watching their fellow classmates embarass themselves at the front of the classroom. I saw some very clever ways to communicate words like: news, day, brother, sister, homework, etc.

One of my poor victims asked me to give him an easy one so I decided to be nice. I gave him the word 'milk'. I figured it would be a very easy word since it was the only vocabulary on the sheet that was a drink. He pondered it for a minute and then both the students and myself lost ourselves in complete uproarious laughter.

When he started milking an invisible cow.

One particular day, I was in the locker room at Junior High soon after I had arrived at school. It was a particularly hot day so I had stripped down to merely my boxers and used a towel I'd brought to attempt to "dry off". As I was doing this someone randomly came into the room to also change their clothes and likely got their first experience of seeing a large American that is particularly hairy. All I got was, "Oh Sukotto. I'm sorry." then a quick departure from the locker room. I finished toweling off and had a giggle to myself at the ridiculousness of it all. Hope I haven't scarred one of my colleagues.

After finding Sayaka we traveled around Omiya, which is where my home office is located and is very close both to my soon to be acquired apartment and the hotels I had been staying in. Made a visit to the Koban (Police Box) to ask the officers if there was anything of interest in Omiya to do or see. There wasn't. So we made our way to First Kitchen to acquire some sustenance. There were a variety of choices and I chose something I had never induldged in. A fried shrimp sandwich and some BBQ flavor french fries. Sounded like a solid combination to me. Turns out that I was absolutely correct and I now have a new fast food favorite for my rare trips to such places.

We noticed on our bags of french fries that there was some English printed in big letters with a very happy looking exclamation mark. This is what we read: LETS SHAKE! I looked a bit puzzled at this, mentioned it to the girls and we came to a conclusion. Our conclusion was not that the bag had such words printed not for the purpose of shaking your bag of french fries to make sure the spices got all mixed up in your fries, but it was in fact that the restaurant wanted us to not only bust out with our best shimmies in the middle of the restaurant but also to try and inspire the other customers to do the same. It didn't work but we had a giggle nonetheless.

We then made our way off through the streets of Omiya to discover a bar called Lock Up which Natsumi had found on the internet and said it sounded cool. When we arrived we discovered a set of stairs leading down into the basement of fairly sizeable building that was decorated much like a cave. Oh and did I mention that the Pirates of the Carribean movie music was playing? As we entered we discovered this was not merely a restaurant/bar but a house of horrors that blasted heavy metal music. I felt instantly at home. As I made my way across the rickety bridge flooring, passed the very realistic scary Frankenstein monster that leapt out at us from behind a cage we came to the front door of the restaurant. Unfortunately, we could not open this door ourselves. On the door was a sign roughly translated that said "To gain entry stick your hand in the statue to the right." Naturally the girls refused to stick their hand into a giant skull statue's mouth so they made me do it. As I did the sliding door slammed open.

On the other side was a Japanese girl dressed like a very...provocative member of the law he lead us to our table. Oh forgot to mention that she handcuffed Natsumi's hands together first then lead us there via a long chain attached to said handcuffs. We hopped in our small little room, sat at our table and then the "cop" closed the door. And by door I mean jail cell bars. We were officially prisoners. We checked the beverage list and made our orders followed with some bits of food. Our drinks consisted of three interesting varieties:

A wooden holder that held roughly 5 test tubes filled with various mixers and a giant glass of alcohol in a measuring glass.

A giant glass of alcohol that came with a giant syringe filled with mixer.

A glass of mixed alcohol that had a giant eyeball on it. (Mine)

Then the food came. Nachos, mixed light veggies and snacks and fried Koroke. Koroke is some sort of fried potato mash and it is quite tasty and very popular here. There were roughly 6 of these Koroke balls and the waitress mentioned that one of them had an abnormal amount of spices in it that would be very painful to eat. So we rock, paper, scissored to see who had to eat more than the rest and Natsumi and I had to choose two where Saya only had to choose one. On my first pick I naturally managed to get the spicy one and it was brutal to say the least. I asked them to ring the bell to ask the waitress for water and she appeared one minute later with a glass in her hand filled with ice to which she said, "I knew one of you would need this. Enjoy!"

It was Darth Vader. Walking around Ikebukuro. God I love this country.

As for apartments, the company is still searching for an appropriate one for me. The hangup on this issue is that I have yet to interview with the Board of Education for my schools in Kuki which would make housing a bit difficult. Unfortunately this means I will haveto continue to burn cash on the hotel front but such is life. The company told us to be very financiallly prepared before we came out here and I made sure I would be. Even so it would be nice to not be spending so much on hotels. Oh well.

Tuesday is my interview with the Board of Edcuation. I must do a self introduction in Japanese and English which is fairly standard practice here in Japan. There is a very big difference between what we would call a self introduction in the US and how they do it here. In the US one would probably just list their name, hometown, university they graduated from and what they majored in and most likely stop there. In a Japanese self introduction you expected to go into far much detail. Things like your hobbies (in detail) how many trips to Japan you've made if any, what you did those previous times, what your university was like etc etc. This shouldn't be too much of a problem for me as my Japanese isn't as rusty as I expected it to be but I must be sure to make a good impression to the Board. To show how important the Board of Education is in relation to me think of it this way: The Board gives Borderlink (my company) the approval per applicant to teach at schools. They help to arrange placement at various schools around the country. If the school has any issues with you or your teaching they have two options, 1) Call my company to complain and ask that the behavior be fixed immediately or 2) They can contact the Board of Education who governs the entire system. If the Board decides they don't want you they can fire you on the spot even tho they are technically not the company I am working for. Its an interesting system to be sure. Lets hope it all works out.