A hike to the Peace Pagoda, Conferences, too many parties, and other random fun

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I can’t believe that I’ve been in Japan for six months already. It’s crazy how fast the time flies sometimes! I spent a lot of my free time in January at work related functions….here’s a little catch-up.

When I was in Thailand for the winter break, Innoshima and Setoda islands merged with the city of Onomichi….so now we are all considered Onomichi City. This changed only a few things for me: my address, my Board of Education and a few additional schools in my schedule. There are now over 100 people that work for the Onomichi Board of Education, which made for a lively 'welcome enkai' (welcome party). They made me get up at the end of the night in front of everyone and introduce myself IN JAPANESE! I was incredibly embarrassed!

This past weekend we had our mid-year conference in Hiroshima city for all the Assistant English teachers in Hiroshima prefecture. It’s supposed to be a conference to share teaching ideas and strategies, as well as talk about the technicalities of our employment. This did happen, however on a small scale compared to everything else we managed to do. A lot of the discussions revolved around trying to convince us all that re-contracting for next year is the way to go. Many people are still struggling with this decision, and we have to let them know by next week. I’ve already decided that I'm not going to stay in Innoshima….I’m certainly enjoying myself, but one year is enough. For most of us, we hadn’t seen each other for months because we live to far away….so this called for many celebrations. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were filled with dinners, pubs, dancing and shopping! Not bad for a work function!

Sunday was a bit more relaxes. With the gray cloud of work on Monday hanging over our heads, after a four day weekend, a group of us decided that a day of sunshine and exercise was in order. My friends Stacey, Marc, Jenn, Bill and I hiked to the Hiroshima Peace Pagoda. At the top of the mountain/hill, we were greeted by three lovely Japanese ladies, who gave us candy and raspberries for snacks. How sweet! We then followed a hiking trail, and came across several shrines and a sea of bright orange torii gates.

Other days I have been hanging around not doing a whole lot….suffering a bit from Season Affective Disorder, or something like that. I'm ready for the sun to shine again any time now! I’ll be keeping myself very busy in the next month to come….the Sapporo Snow Festival, Okayama's Naked Man Festival, the McLean reunion in Japan and then a sumo tournament in Osaka! Good times in Japan!

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Photos

at the top of Futabayama
Jennifer, Bill, Stacey, Me, Marc

along the hiking trail
torii gates

the Peace Pagoda
Hiroshima city

peek-a-boo, i see you
Bill, Stacey, Marc, Jennifer

dining pals
me, Dana, Jess, Natasha and Allison

ummm.....?!?!?!
Allison and I

friends
Lisa, Brian, Casey and Jeff

Jess and I
(and apparently I'm strong?! I don't remember what that was about....)

yet again....ummmm
I really don't know what the obsession with devil horns was that night!

"snarl"
Dana and Jess

la-la-la-la-la-laaaaaaa
Karaoke masters! (me, Jeremy and Jess)

some hardcore 'peace' action!
me, Jess and Dana

the entire party at "Sacred Spirits"
we went to this bar, and ended up being the only people there.....this is us pretending it's a wild, packed party!

the dudes
Jeremy and Graham

how embarassing!
This was an absolutely obscene chair that had to be photographed! We were at "Round 1", an arcade/sport centre that apparently has really random furniture!

the Love Post
This mailbox was set up at HMV in Hiroshima....sending Valentine's from Japan to Canada!

Celebrity Heads!
A bunch of ALTs hard at work! This game was a good way to force the Japanese teachers to talk to us....they were wondering why all the foreigners had paper on their heads!!

Welcome to Onomichi enkai
The merge of Setoda, Innoshima and Onomichi to one big city called for a party!
Allison, Tanya and I

Onomichi ALTs
Tanya, Brandon and Jackie

Comments

[Roothie]

Question
What are Torri Gates?

[anonymous]

Hi Heddie we are really enjoying your pictures and your stories about your travels what a wonderful experience. Gramma really enjoyed looking at the pics also thanks for sending it to us and I hope you are enjoying every minute of your exciting Japanese life. The Japanese people will be so proud of the gold medal in figure skating won today by the female skater are you watching the olympics at all? Love Marie