I am always getting emails about events happening on mainland Shikoku that other foreign English teachers plan. Unfortunately, I rarely attend any of the gatherings because living out here in the middle of the Inland Sea makes it really difficult to get there and back. However, I got an email about a white water rafting trip that was happening on the Yoshino River in a quasi-national park in mid-eastern Shikoku, and I couldn’t pass it up. It’s also interesting to hang out with other foreign English teachers because it’s always such a diverse group of people (rather than me an [View Full Entry]

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Well, year two of project Yuge Island has officially begun! The opening ceremonies have been held, the undoukai has come and gone, and I am now in the midst of the chaos that is fall semester at Japanese schools. It was a bit rough readjusting to my life here again. I had to go to school the next day after my flight back from the U.S. I was extremely jetlagged, and I had caught a cold on top of that. It took me a few days to be able to think clearly again. The heat didn’t help either. It was swelteringly [View Full Entry]

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My summer break in the U.S. has come and gone already, and it is now back to the suffocating heat and humidity of Japan. During the other seasons or when I am away from Japan I always think the summer can’t possibly be as miserably hot as I remember it. But, every time the summer rolls around here, I’m unfortunately proven wrong. But, instead of complaining about the weather here, let’s relive the memories of my relatively cool summer in the U.S. The trip began with a surprise at Narita International Airport in Tokyo. I had eaten breakfast that morning at [View Full Entry]

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Tomorrow I fly over the pacific and most of the length of the U.S., back to West “by god” Virginia! It’s only for a month vacation, of course, before I come back here to Yuge for another year of madness. And I have been thinking a lot about how I’m really relieved I’m not leaving Yuge and flying back to the U.S. for good tomorrow. Yes, of course I miss my hometown, friends and family…but I’m definitely not ready to leave the “Yugetopia” as the locals call the island here. I have many goals set for the next year I [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/4209.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4209.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Hiroshima Carps song As the rainy season continues, the days are getting hotter and more humid. But last weekend I managed to escape the island during a couple of dry days to celebrate Nick’s (English teacher on neighboring island, Ikina) birthday in Hiroshima city. We went to our favorite team, the Hiroshima Carps’, baseball game against the Tokyo Giants. Japanese baseball games are really crazy and fun. Of course, I can’t compare them to baseball games in the U.S., [View Full Entry]

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So, I’ve started to get complaints from several of my readers after not posting an entry for over a month. Sorry! Things have been a bit slow in the Inland Sea. I went for a month without going off the island, so I haven’t taken many pictures of anything new. My life is pretty much at school, and I don’t know how many more pictures of Japanese kids in uniforms giving the peace sign you really want to see (I never get tired of it since I know all of my students, but I don’t know how my readers feel). [View Full Entry]

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Last week was Missy’s last week in Japan. It was also Golden Week, which is a week of several national holidays strung together. So, we headed up to Gifu and Nagano prefecture in the middle of Honshu mainland where the Northern Japan Alps are located. We took the shinkansen as far as Nagoya city, and then changed to an express train that headed north into the mountains, to Takayama city. The train ride was beautiful as we rode deeper and deeper into the huge mountain range. The train mostly followed along this huge gorge with the clearest water rushing through [View Full Entry]

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Hm. I’m posting this blog at least a couple of weeks after these events happened. I try not to do that because all of the details become jumbled up and faded in my mind (I have a horrid memory), but I’ll try to put the pieces back together and tell you about the last few weeks. Starting from Easter: After spring break everyone came back to school, and in Japan it is the start of the new school year. This was a bit stressful, but exciting because there are lots of new faces, not only among students, but teachers too. [View Full Entry]

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Our train let us off right at the Thailand boarder, where we had to walk 2km across the boarder and find a local train to take us to the transportation hub of Hat Yai. Hat Yai was a bit out of the way for our destination of the series of Trang’s Andaman Islands, but we had to go inland first in order to catch a ride to some of the less touristy islands. I started to like the country of Thailand as soon as I boarded the bus to Hat Yai. It was run by two carefree guys who looked [View Full Entry]

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I'm back from my spring break in South East Asia! I took so many pictures to put here on my blog, so I hope you enjoy. I'm splitting this blog up into two different blogs since there are too many pictures and stories to tell. This first blog will be about our first week in Singapore and Malaysia. The second blog will be about our time in Thailand. I'm going to try to report on some of the events of our two weeks, but so many things happened, that I'm sure this will end up more of a list of [View Full Entry]

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