Blogs from Shimizu, Shizuoka, Japan, Asia

2023_Blog 20_Japan April 9 Port of Call: Shimizu, Japan – Weather: Clear sunny skies - 57°F/14°C – Wind: 15 to 20 mph. As we sailed into harbor this Easter morning, we were greeted by a glorious sight of Mt. Fuji being bathed in sunlight and appeared to rise straight out of the sea. We had been told that this was quite a remarkable sight as the mountain is frequently wrapped in clouds and not visible. Now that we have seen it, legend holds that we will come back to Japan once again. Our excursion for the day included a visit to the Shinto Kambe-jinja Shrine with its highly decorative wooden buildings. As with all the shrines visited on this trip this one presented the viewer with an explosion of color, fantastic carvings overlaid with a feeling ... read more

We survived! (sigh of relief!!!) Mixing the travel styles of a 25 year old, poor backpacker and two 50 year old first class travelers (who might I add definitely deserve to travel first class after all of their hard work in life :), is a bit of a challenge but I must say that overall I think we did a really good job. Besides the small finger marks on my neck that still burn a bit to the touch, hahah, my mom, dad and I managed to traipse through the trains, buses and subways of Tokyo, Shizuoka and Kyoto relatively unscathed. And although the trip was a far cry from the luxurious vacation that my hard working parents deserve, all in all I think it went pretty well. I won't get into the nitty gritty of ... read more

A sneak peak into my fridge these days.... Asia » Japan » Shizuoka » Shimizu By FarbsApril 30th 2007Just a few of the new foods I am experimenting with :).... read more

VENDING MACHINE CRAZE IN JAPAN :) http://www.japantimes.co.jp/photo_gallery/photo_gallery.html?eid=18 ANPANMAN!!! My favorite Japanese Animated Superhero!!! http://www.jamco.or.jp/english/library/animation/an029800.html DORAYAKI!!! My favorite Japanese Sweet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorayaki Doraemon -- Japanese animated character and perhaps my soul mate because he LOVES DORAYAKI as much as me :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon Bonseki -- Japanese Art. I saw a display of Bonseki last week in Shizuoka and fell in love with it!!! It's beautiful and kind of mind boggling, I don't know how the artists make such beautiful pictures with powder from stones. http://www.ne.jp/asahi/noar/seiyu/emenu.htm GENKI DRINKS -- Japanese version of Red Bull http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/asian_medicine/genki.html A BLOCK OF AZUKI (SWEET BEANS) ... read more

What a crazy day at work today. My adult classes and my senior kids class were fine, but I had a kinder class that went horrible today ;). April is the beginning of the new school year in Japan and so this was my first week with a new kinder class. I had 3 of the girls previously in another class, but there were two boys in class today who I had for the first time and they were not too excited about having me as a teacher (gotta love kids for their honesty). They both refused to talk at all during class today and one of them even started crying and left class to go sit with his parents outside the classroom. Am I really that scary????? Needless to say I felt like a horrible ... read more