Just got in from my weekend spent in Akita visiting Jim for Canadian Thanksgiving (helpfully dubbed by said boys as "Fake Thanksgiving"). I had a total blast! I'm exhausted today but it was well worth it. The ALTs there were super nice and the weather was so chilly it felt like I was back in Canada. It was exactly what I needed this weekend. We spent a lot of time there eating and going out to bars. I was told many times that that is all you can really do in their town - drink and eat. It's not so bad though, really. The food was deeeelicious and the bars were great too! They even have an international beer bar there that has beers from all over the world. I wound up drinking some fruit flavoured ... read more

It has been a little while since I updated, and I apologize for keeping out of touch, but I haven't been around all that much the past couple weeks. Last week was called "Silver Week" - three national holidays back to back, from Mon-Wed. Awesome :D So I decided to take the Thursday and Friday off too, make a week of it and head to Osaka with the boy. It turned out to be an amazing time! We met up with a bunch of other ALTs there and went exploring and drinking. I will definitely need to plan a trip back. Osaka was ridiculously crowded due to the holiday, so going to places like Kaiyukan (Osaka Aquarium) was an ordeal and a half. We ended up getting on the Giant Wheel (note: apparently not a ferris ... read more

What better way to wave goodbye to the end of August and sticky hot summer days than with a festival - more specifically a Pirate Festival! This weekend I took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Onomichi, and then took a ferry to the island of Innoshima to attend their yearly Suigun Matsuri (Pirate festival). It had pirates, huge ass torches, many, many adorable Japanese children, dancers and taiko drummers. All in all it was immensely entertaining and really a fabulous time. I'm definitely going back next year! I couldn't get enough of the pirates - I took soo many pictures. It seemed like the locals couldn't get enough of us either. Our host was telling us that they never have so many foreigners on the island at one time so we were like mini celebrities to ... read more

Japanese TV is full of some weird shit. I came home from a night out with other ALTs in the area, all of whom seem awesome and chill, to find that the only show on TV at the moment is some drama featuring a superhero maid who decides to take on a fetishist and a dominatrix with her sakura charm to rescue her fellow maid friend. Oh Japan... It doesn't need to make sense as long as it's entertaining :) With the exception of some interesting dramas and animes like Naruto or Bleach, every other show seems to feature food. Close ups of food. Features on restaurants. Groups of people eating food and shouting "Oiishii!" (delicious!) It's really quite different from TV back home. And definitely not something you want to watch while hungry hahaha I ... read more

I knew it would happen eventually. I had the most unfailingly awesome experience on the train this morning. I'm currently on my way to Nagoya so I can take the 7:12 AM semi-express BACK home. It's entirely my own fault, of course. Being hungover, I had the brilliant idea to sleep it off on the train. This worked marvellously - I now feel much better than I did waking up at 5 am and drunkenly stumbling to the train. Unfortunately, it worked a little too well - I missed my stop. And the one after it. And the one after that... When I couldn't see mountains anymore I knew I was in trouble. I missed my stops all the way to Nagoya... Fabulous. Sometimes I amaze myself. I did have a great sleep though and I'm ... read more