Journey Through Japan

Hello everyone, The count down continues - 6 days until my 2 week summer vacation begins! Last weekend I head to Awajii island a huge island - I´ve been told its the same physical size as Bali or Singapore but significantly less populated, with a population of 150,000, not far from the main Honshu island where Kobe is located. I travel to Awajii once a month to teach a private lesson and have dinner with some Japanese friends who live there. This past weekend I was invited to a special bbq on the island for some highschool and college students from the area who are headed to the U.S. to do a homestay for the week. We practiced some English conversation - some students seemed pleased to try their English out on me and others looked ... read more

I had such a good day today I wanted to write about it before too many details escape me. I recently read about some rural Japanese towns not far from Kobe which are famous for the pottery that is produced in small studios by local craftspeople. So after consulting 3 different sources and getting 3 different sets of directs I decided to visit one of the commmuities, Aino. To tell you the truth I´m not sure if the towns named Aino or just the local train station that I got off at, but nevertheless they make pottery there so I know I was in the right place. A scenic 1.5 train ride from Kobe, I found myself literally in the middlle of nowhere, with just fice fields as far as the eye could see, but I ... read more

Another week has come and gone here is beautiful Kobe, Japan. Last week was a busy one, outside of working I FINALLY, after much anticipation, got to take in my first professional baseball game in Japan. Anyone who knows me knows that I simply wouldn´t be my father´s daughter if I didn´t get to a game in this baseball loving country! Quite simply, it was outstanding! Hanshin Stadium in a beautiful old stadium, covered in cascading green ivy and always filled to capacity with fiercely loyal fans of the home team, the Hanshin Tigers. It had been 2 months since I first tried to get tickets to a game only to be told, in the nicest possible Japanese way, that there weren´t any tickets available until June. I arrived well before game time because, since I ... read more

After a full week of feeling kinda blah and having a voice that a lot of the mom´s in my baby class referred to as ´husky´I am finally feeling much better and, knock on wood, my voice is returning to normal. A hoarse voice is a hazard of the job I guess when you talk for 6 hours a day! So after returning to the land of the healthy I really wanted to make the most of my time off this week. Friday it was off to Osaka where I visited the Osaka Human Rights Museum, there wasn´t a lot of English here but a friendly little Japanese man followed me around and translated whereever he could, nice and endearing for the first 30 minutes, kinda annoying after an hour or so. So after the museum ... read more

The first week back after Golden Week has certainly been a busy one. After enjoying an entire week off with the freedom to explore as much as I wanted each day I had to mental psyche myself up to return to work on Saturday. Thankfully, my Saturday 'Mini Kids' class, full of 1.5 year olds and their moms is a really good. I have to admit one of the hardest things for me about teaching in Japan is the fact that you often see your students being hit or slapped by their parents and you are simply expected to ignore because it is an accepeted parenting practice here. Eventhough I included a 'no hitting' rule for all of my classes back in April in the little kids class which the mom's attend students are often given ... read more