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Published: June 28th 2007
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Noo-Sensei and me in one of the really old neighborhoods on Yuge 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).
Well, just so that we’re all on the same page: The almost non-existent spring has passed, and we’re now in the midst of the rainy season. Last week it rained every day of the week, and the heat doesn’t help much either. It’s usually up to about 30 degrees Celsius most days, which isn’t so bad, but it’s the sticky kind of heat that leaves you feeling like you don’t want to move. And I just keep thinking, the worst is yet to come. As for work, we’re nearing the end of the first term at my schools. We
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From left: Noo-sensei, Seiji (English teacher at Yuge high school), and Misayo-san at the overlook at the southern end of Yuge have about three weeks left, and this week and next week are full with final exams.
In case any of you do not know, I have bought a plane ticket to WV (or the nearest airport) for a whole month visit before the second term of school starts here. Yes, I’m using just about all of my vacation days up for all of next year, but so be it. I arrive on July 24th. It will be a long-awaited break from the chaos. I am so excited to see my family and what friends are still around my hometown. Yay! U.S.A. HERE I COME!
Speaking of home, my Japanese teacher from West Virginia University, Noo-sensei, came to visit me recently. She only stayed for one day, but luckily we had good weather and she was able to see a lot of the island of Yuge. In the morning I went to meet her at the shinkansen station about an hour away. It was so nice to see a familiar face from back home when I saw her coming out from the train platform area. After we traveled back to Yuge, we attended the Yuge chorus group practice (I
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The gang at the barbeque. The older people are all rotary club members, the younger people are all international students at the Marine Technology School (from Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, amd Morocco) and me! had promised to attend, even though I can’t sing).
My Yuge mom, Misayo-san is also in the Yuge chorus group (as well as every other group there is on Yuge including my mandolin group and English conversation group). She is like the definition of hospitality, so after the practice was over, she took Noo-sensei and I up to an overlook up on a hill at the southern end of Yuge. We took pictures, and Misayo-san gave us a boxed-lunch all made from wild vegetables she had picked (she knows all about the flora and fauna of Yuge).
After we explained to Noo-sensei what each visible island was from the overlook, Misayo-san took us to what she called her “private beach.” It was a hidden beach I had never been to before, and Misayo-san pointed out the different kinds of seaweed there. Then we went back to my apartment for tea. The three of us talked in a combo of English and Japanese for a while before Misayo-san left. Noo-sensei and I spent the rest of the night watching “Sister Act”…haha. Noo-sensei had to leave the next day in the afternoon, but we went on a bike ride through
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The entrance to China town in Kobe some of the really old neighborhoods and to my favorite beach before she left.
As soon as she left I was scheduled to attend a barbeque on a neighboring island, Innoshima. I don’t know if you remember, but I had participated in an “International School Day” event back in January that was hosted by the rotary club on Innoshima. So, they were having a start-of-the-summer barbeque for all of the participants. I wasn’t really looking forward to it since I knew that the other English teachers were not attending, but it ended up being really enjoyable. I had forgotten that all of the international students from the Yuge Maritime Technology School would be there, and I hadn’t seen them in a while.
I guess this was a busy week because the very next day I headed out to a teachers conference in Kobe (famous for the expensive Kobe beef and the 1995 Kobe earthquake), near Osaka. The conference was three days long, and it was another thing I wasn’t looking forward to. It’s weird being the only white person on the island here, and then going to a conference and being forced into a situation with hundreds of
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China town! foreigners. It can be a bit overwhelming because of the complete difference in personalities between Japanese people and the foreigners who teach English here. But, this event too ended up being much better than expected. I attended some really good seminars on global education, music in the classroom, communication with other teachers at school, discipline, and just English education in Japan in general.
It was also nice to be in a city for a change, and this was a port city. So, as most port cities have, it had a China town! I went out with some people in search of China town one evening. It took us about two hours just to find China town, and by the time we got there we were so hungry that we just ate at the first restaurant we saw. Bad idea, and bad Chinese food. But, after we left the restaurant we got food from a lot of the street vendors that made up for the yucky stuff we ate at the restaurant. We bought coconut bubble tea drinks and steamed sesame buns. We went to the central courtyard where a pretty Chinese gazebo was. It was surrounded by statues of
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The gazebo in the courtyard of China town all of the Chinese astrological animals. There were also wooden cutouts of Chinese royalty for picture taking, so of course we couldn’t resist.
So, the three days in Kobe were good, and I left to go back to the island feeling motivated….
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