Jpanese Winter

hi hi. well, being back in japan is nice except for the cold. clearly its not as cold as good ole wisco, but the lack of central heating or any heating for that matter makes it quite unpleasant. i sometimes sleep with my coat on, but soon winter will be gone and it will go back to being nice and warm! winter in japan is very peaceful, although more and more people are out taking advantage of the sale season, which i must say is absolutely wonderful. After shogatsu everything goes on sale and i have been shopping like a mad woman and buying nice dress pants for 15 bucks, insane. besides the massive amount of shopping ive been doing, ive just been catching up with everyone after their winter breaks. finally back into the swing o things. lots of casual dinners and getting accustomed to japan again. last week was a really difficult week for my base school, Handa koko. my supervisor's mother passed away and a third year student got hit and killed by a train at my train station on wednesday. that was really hard for everyone to handle and such a shock to everyone. i didnt know the student, but anything like that can have a pretty strong affect on a person. his funeral was this weekend along with all the third years college entrance exams, so i cant imagine what a stressful time its been for them. on to a more upbeat topic, last week we had a kencho meeting and got the low down on re-contracting, which i have decided to stay another year in japan because there just isn't enough time to accomplish everything in one year. most everyone else is staying as well, which will be good for me. on friday i went to a friend's birthday party and we all had quite a good time, and stayed out all night again haha. on saturday i went to a theatre audition with maria, for this musical the Nagoya Arts center is putting on, in english of course. then we found ourselves a new, actually traditional, irish pub in nagoya and then went to see Body of Lies at the theatre. On sunday i got up super early, well at least for a sunday, to go to this private kimono exhibition and got to see amazingly intricatly designed kimonos, which were around 30 to 60,000 dollars, totally expensive but definately worth the price. clearly i did not buy any, but looking was a special experience. then we had some mochi, a tea ceremony, and got to see the traditional tye-dying techniques and products of Arimatsu, a town outside of nagoya and very famous for shibori, or tye-dye. we also got to go to a sake brewery and see how sake is made and taste 4 different kinds, which were all quite delicious. now i understand a little bit more about sake, but we were all in agreement that the brewery was more like a torture chamber and just glad to leave with our lives. As for this week, its a pretty easy one. We have a mid-year seminar on wednesday and thursday with the ALts and JTE (japanese teachers of english) which will be pretty boring, but something to do i guess. this weekend im off to Gero for the annual ski trip with the Gifu jets, and i will be attempting to snowboard so just hope i make it back with no broken bones! also there are a lot of natural springs around the area, so im really excited for that. thats all for now. much love from the east. xx

Happy New Year

Re-starting the blog in the new year, mainly for susan, but clearly you all are dying to know whats new with me, cuz im kinda a big deal and all. Just got back to Japan after two weeks of vacation. On December 19th I left out of Tokyo headed for Frankfurt to meet up with my mom, dad, aunt rita, and grandpa in Frankfurt where my uncle Mark currently resides in a town called Rodenback. I arrived that night after my 12 hour flight, stuffed myself full of cheese that mom had brought me and went to bed. The next couple days we relaxed and wandered around the area, went to kaiserslautern, trier, and luxembourg and enjoyed the christmas markets, drank gluhwein, beer, and ate loads of delicious brats. unfortunately rita had to head back to south africa early but in her place we got my cousin kayla, a fair trade if i say so myself. we picked kayla up in frankfurt in our rented mercedes van, classy, and walked around, shopped, ate more brats, and rita and i hit up a murukami museum, which is no less than bizarre that my favorite japanese artist is nowhere to be found in japan, but has a museum in frankfurt, go figure. Then we left for Paris and those four days were nothing short of fabulous. I have never been to Paris and can say that everything you hear about Paris doesnt even come close to the real thing. As predicted, I feel in love. We got in on christmas eve and went to mass at Notre Dame with the other 10,000 people who had the same idea. It was beautiful, one of the only times i can remember staying awake the whole mass, although my other companions cant say the same. On christmas we took a morning tour around the city in a mini van, stopping at le Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, and Monmartre. Apres, we went shopping on the Champs Elysees and went to the Christmas markets on the street. All in all a wonderful christmas in Paris. The next day while kayla, grandpa, and mark went to Normandy and mom and dad off to the Invalides, I went to the Louvre and spent a short four hours running around trying to see everything, but getting my fix of Davids before I left the creme de la creme of museums. then i headed to the Orangerie that houses a pretty good collection of impressionist and post impressionist art along with two oval rooms with 8 huge paintings of Monets water lillies, absolutely stunning. Then met up with the rents and wandered around the latin quarter and stopping at a cafe for some french beer. the next day, saturday, i headed to the D`Orsay musee for some impressionist art viewing and probably could have stayed there all day, without a doubt the best museum i have and most likely ever will go to. then met up with the others for some shopping at Galaries Lafayette and other stores to search for non-existant bargains, it is Paris after all. at night mom, kayla, and i went up to the top of le Tour Eiffel, which was beatiful with all the lights but the beauty was over shadowed but the extreme coldness of the evening but totally worth it. on sunday we packed up to go back to germany, hit up a few last stops like the Hard Rock, some souvenir shops, and the latin quarter for one last panini and gyro, and headed out. back in germany we took a couple more adventures to see a castle in hiedelberg and shop in speyer. then in was back to relaxing, watching movies, eating, and playing numerous amounts of mexican dominoes. on new years eve we participated in the german tradition of lighting off fireworks at midnight, which was something new and exciting. but i did get to go on base for a day and eat some delicious delicious taco bell, oh how i had missed it. then it was time for me to leave, so on jan 2 we did a little last minute shopping and sight seeing in frankfurt and also ate a last brat and slice of pizza hut and said goodbye and flew back to japan. as of now i have still not gotten over my jet lag and have gotten a mean cold and am now more homesick than i have been yet :( but i shall live i think. its a new year and i plan to make the most of my time in japan and soon enough i have to decided whether of not to stay another year! hope all is well and much love from me!xx