Japanese Thanksgivings

How many people can say they have had two Thanksgivings in Japan in two days?? I can :)

Thanksgiving #1

On Wednesday we had a Thanksgiving at my school. Each class prepared a dish and then the entire school ate Thanksgiving dinner together in my classroom (and it was a MESS afterwards). The three year class made fruit salad and mashed the potatoes, my class made the best pumpkin pie ever (and you can find pumpkin pie filling in Japan quite easily!), 5 year class made cornbread and the 6 year class peeled potatoes, made the chicken (yes, that is chicken-apparently in Japan you don't see turkeys running across the roads and prairies so it is quite hard to get a turkey), and stuffing. It was quite the feast!! Although I have to say it was a bit odd and absolutely adorable watching some of the kiddoes eat their Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks:


Thanksgiving #2
The party
Well, being in Japan on Thanksgiving I decided to throw my own Thanksgiving for all my friends/co-workers, all of which have never been to a real Thanksgiving-3 Aussies and 4 Japanese (except Miho who lived in Cali for a year). Luckily, Thursday in Japan was Labor Day so we had the day off-YEAH!! (unfortunately we did not get Friday off, so we didn't get a day to recover or shop) This was quite a major partaking on my part since I have never throw a party like this before. I decided to cook chicken (read above), mash potatoes, green bean casserole (thanks mom and dad for sending the ingredients-it was a hit), and pumpkin pie. I woke up at 9:45 to start cooking, my roommate woke up around 10-saying she heard me banging around into eh kitchen by myself. Lizzie was great, she is a master chef and I probably would not have been able to pull this off without her (especially the chicken). It went very well, the food was YUMMY, and despite a minor crises with the pumpkin pie it went quite smoothly. It was declared a success by all-including those who threatened to have Pizza Hut on speed dial in case my food turned out to be a flop. I must declare it was quite fun putting this together and may put another dinner together.

The feast

The thief-Megumi's 15 month old son who keep taking all the food off my shelves-absolutely adorable

Weddings, and b-day's and ballets oh my...

After last weekends travel adventures in Sado all I wanted to do this weekend was veg out and do nothing, but that plan never works out in Japan and I nearly spent perhaps 6 awake hours in my apartment this past weekend and 5 of those were spent talking to my Mom's entire fam in Portland (I hope you enjoyed your turkey grandpa:) including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (Christian thinks I am in a pan-hehe), phew. I had a wedding party, a birthday party and a ballet recital to attend all in one weekend, waoza. Once again it was one of those unforgettable weekends.





the flower shop

The Wedding
One of the Japanese teachers got married last weekend and invited all the teachers to attend a party (not the actual ceremony) at her husband's family flower shop. It was the most beautiful amazing totally Japanese party I have been too. The flower shop called Hanaichi (flowers in Aichi) is quite large and beautiful but could not hold all of their guests so they held two different parties, the first was a more formal party with family, bosses and the older guests while the second party (the one we attended) was for the younger, fresh, hip crowd :) j/k It was amazing, the flower shop was completely decked out in the most beautiful flowers you have seen.








The beautiful flower shop



Yumiko the bride was gorgeous and wore an amazing pink dress (later changed into a her bridal dress) and her husband Toyakazu is the cutest, most gentle guy.






Yumiko and Toyakazu






At Japanese weddings they typically charge you to attend, so we had to pay 5000 yen (little less then $50) when we got to the the flower shop-but dif. worth it. They had the most amazing food-pasta, seafood, chicken, salad, steak, fruit, and little finger cakes (big cake came later). There was an announcer who said everything in Japanese so I had no clue what they were saying or what was going on. There was also a singer and guitar player who sang/played music for us, they were great. She sang both English and Japanese songs. Then they brought out the wedding cake and played some flower arranging games. Once all the festivities were over the guests were allowed to disassemble the decorations and take home any flowers you wanted. It was soo fun and amazing to see 50 people take off all the flowers and make their own bouquets. Then Toyakazu's parents came out and arranged all your flowers into gorgeous bouquets.









And with that the party was over, but my night was not.

B-DAY PARTY
We returned home around 9:30 from the wedding but that was just the beginning for Lizzie and I. We meet this American couple Casey and Mandy from PA a month ago and were invited to a bday celebration for Casey's Bday. So, at 11 we were out and about again and meet up with the party and spent a lovely evening with a bunch of strangers singing karaoke. Good times!

Ballet Recital

Mirri and her Mom

Sunday Yasuko, Charissa and I were invited to watch our students Mirri (Yasuko and my student) and Anna (Charissa's student) perform in their first ballet recital ever. It was quite the ordeal, I expected a quite little recital that was 1/2 hour long-cause these are 4 and 5 year olds we were going ot watch-here let me explain. We had to take the subway into the center of Nagoya and arrived at the Aichi Arts Center this massive Auditorium. When I say massive I mean larger then the Sacramento auditorium where I have watched Broadway shows. We walked inside and there were literally 6 tiers of seats and the stage was massive. Professional Ballet companies perform at this Center. Luckily for the kids it wasn't full, but if I was a 4 year old I would have ran off stage as soon as the curtains were drawn (surprisingly no one ran off stage). As soon as we arrived the parents found us and found the best seats for us, they moved us about 3 times, each time closer to the stage and towards the middle. The parents were soo cute, they made little bags of candy for everyone they invited with Anna and Mirri's pictures on them. There was also a mini KIS (Kids International School-my school) cheering section, I was surprised to see quite a few of our students show up with their mothers to watch their classmates dance.

The performance was about 2 hours long, and was the entire academy from the beginners (Mirri and Anna) to the advanced, so we got to see the whole she-bang. Each class danced 2 times, the first part of the recital was more technical showing off what they have been learning and dancing to the piano, after intermission was the fun part-all the ballerinas wore really beautiful bright costumes and the dances were more fun and lively. Mirri and Anna were absolutely adorable, they were the youngest kids up there and Mirri the smallest. They kept watching each other to make sure they were doing the dance correctly. After the performance we went out to the lobby to say hi, they were soo cute and shy-I have never seen Mirri soooo quiet and shy before.

And with that my crazy busy weekend was over.

It's going to be a COLD winter!!!

LOOK! I'm wearing socks.

So I am from Sac where snow does not exist and I wear flip flops 365 days out of the year and only wore thin ankle socks when I rowed (to keep my feet from getting athletes foot-yuck). But lately there was this cold winter snap out of nowhere and it has been FREEZING!!! I do not wear tennis shoes but its been sooo cold that I have been forced to wear them and my boss was sooo proud that I actually wore tennis shoes to school yesterday. To let you know the extent of this cold weather I am experiencing I actually went to Apita today and bought 9 pairs of socks and 2 scarfs (I don't own socks) because I am afriad of freezing to death in my apartment.

Before the sudden snap, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, I wore t-shirts, jeans and flip-flops everyday and I wanted to go on bike rides and picnics everyday in the park. All of a sudden out of nowhere the weather snapped and I am absolutely freezing-there was no gradual cooling-one day its a beautiful flip-flop wearing day, next day I'm freezing to death in my apartment wearing socks and my fleece. I'm scared of Nagoya winter, I have heard it is freezing and it snows a bit. The major difference between winter in the States and in Japan is that the buildings in Japan are not well insulated, you can stand by a window that is closed and feel the breeze through the cracks. If its 45 degrees outside then its 45 degrees inside, whereas at home you can walk inside and be warm in an instant. I will probably be sleeping with 12 blankets, 3 pairs of paints, a sweatshirt and 2 pairs of socks. I will keep you updated.

...and the journey continues in Sado

So where did we leave off-ahhh yes the dancers. Once the performance was over we decided it was time to find our bus to the hostel-this was the last leg of our pilgrimage to the unknown.

Sorry, I'm off to the onsen to get a massage and soak in hot mineral water-ahhh the Japanese lifestyle is sooo good for me :)

I'm back and life is sooo good. Anyways, back to Sado:

Since we had no clue where we were going we asked info about which bus we should take to our hostel, as they started figuring out which bus we should take they started pointing to a bus leaving the parking lot. We had missed our bus because we were watching the performance and spent to much time in the gift shop, ugh. So, they called a taxi to chase down the bus for us, as we drive to chase the bus we realize we aren't going that fast maybe 40 mph; going through our minds at this point was-oh crap we are never going to catch the bus and will have to pay an arm and leg for our taxi ride. As we start to freak out the taxi stops and drops us off at a bus stopping the middle of nowhere and says "bus comes that way". Perfect we are stranded in the middle of nowhere; bright side we are on a island so we cant get to lost.












Naomi trying to hitch a ride for us

The bus finally came and we made it home, about 12 1/2 hours after we left home. What a day!!!
SATURDAY: I was FORCED out of bed at 7 in the morning apparently because they served breakfast at 7am-preposterous!!!

Today I was in charge of getting us around Sado by bus (we didn't get lost-no help to Naomi's lack of trust in me :), so Friday night I made the plan for sat. and figured out which buses to catch. We decided to go to the Gold Mine which was on the other side of the island. We we had to take 2 buses (through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world) and made it to Aiikawa. Once we got to Aiikawa we decided to walk to the Gold Mine which was about 2 miles from the bus station. This walked was absolutely amazing, we walked through some of the cutest ancient cities on the island, we had to walk up 191 stairs (we counted on the way down) and up another freakin mountain to get to the gold mine:


















Part of the 191 stairs we climbed up (and down)














View from the stairs AMAZING!!!


















Beautiful mountains-look at the colors















Road we walked up to get to the Sado Gold Mine

















A mountain they mined through the middle-incredible
















2 hours later, finally made it to the Gold Mine


The Sado Gold Mine is absolutely INCREDIBLE!!!

A little back ground: was opened in 1601 and closed down in 1989. It was the longest running gold mine in history and produced 78 tons of gold and 2330 tons of silver.

The mine itself is well preserved and they have put in life-like robots that moved to demonstrate the jobs they did in the mine along with sound. It was so life-like it was a bit creepy but amazing.


















Me at the entrance to the mine




















Robots reenacting the celebration of
discovering a new gold and silver vine













After the tour and museum needed to refuel for the journey home with gold in our coffee-apparently its good for your circulation-have to admit it was a bit weird drinking gold :)
















Courtyard at the Gold Mine. Absolutely gorgeous and very Japanese


After our gold covered coffee we started the trek home. No broken bones or bruises but maybe a few bruised egos, we wanted see a temple and tomb but were frightens away by a phantom bear-long story if you want details email me :)

Once we got back to the hostel we decided to go see a shrine since we hadn't seen one yet and then go to the onsen. The woman who runs the hostel was awesome and gave us a lift to this incredible shrine and then the onsen. The shrine was a bit run down but that only added to its beauty and mystery:





























Saying goodbye to Green Village the hostel we stayed at and Sado Island-7am in the morn-
way to many early mornings

And with that we left Sado Island, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Naomi and I decided 2 more days were needed at the island but we had to get back to the kiddoes. I would absolutely love to go back one day, if only it wasn't such a pain to get to. The way home was pretty easy-we were veteran travelers by that point. The only bummer was we were stuck in the smokers car from Nagano to Nagoya and smelled like we were in a night club on the subway, other then that it was an incredible weekend that ended way to early.

P.S. I have lots to tell about this weekend, the wedding party and ballet recite but I must get to work and figure out what we are doing next week with the kids so I will leave that to another day-I'm sure this blog is long enough to satisfy you for a bit :)

The Journey to Sado Island

So, Naomi and I decided we were going to go away this past weekend to Kyoto. We completely forget it was a holiday weekend and we tried to book our hostel 5 days in advance, that's a big no-no in Japan-a place like Kyoto you need to book months in advance. So we looked at a map of Japan and randomly decided to go to Sado a little island northwest of Nagoya not knowing anything about it (to figure out were Sado is, it is the tiny island off the west coast near Niigata) just that it is halfway across the country. We figured looking at the map it would probably take 5 hours to get there by train and ferry. Boy, were we wrong-this weekend we used every type of transportation there is expect plane to get to Sado including, bike, subway, train, bus, ferry, taxi, and foot. Needless to say getting there was much more difficult then we expected, and MUCH MUCH longer. Getting to Sado was an adventure in itself. But I am very proud of us, we did so well and NEVER got lost-not once. Lots of very nice people helped us along the way, it probably helped that we looked liked very confused foriengers who had no clue what we were doing.

Let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start...

My alarm clock went off at 5am, yes you read that correctly 5am-and if you know me well you know that I am NOT a morning person but I made the simple sacrafice this once. We needed to be in Nagoya by 6:30 so we had to ride our bikes to Fujigaoka subway station which is about 15 minute bike ride away. From Fujigaoka we had to take the subway for 1/2 hour to the Nagoya train station. Here is Nagoya Train Station at 6:30 in the morning-it was surprising busy at 6:30 on a Saturday:












After much confusion and 2 very nice gentlemen explaining to us where to go and how to put our tickets in the machine (remember 6 in the morning and we had multiple tickets in Japanese) we were on our way. First train ride; a 3 hour ride to Nagano-I didnt see any Olympic Rings-I looked. Second train ride: 1 1/2 hours ride in a very sketchy train to Niigata. The scenery was absoluetly gorgeous-we went through valleys and mountians looking at the Autumn colors, perfect time to see the foliage.
This is outside Nagano

Once we got to Niigata, we had to figure out which bus to take. We went to the tourist info and the lady was awesome. She didn't speak much English but she wrote down for us 1:30 so we had to wait an hour for the bus to take us to the port. Everytime a bus came we would freak out and start to get up to see but the lady crossed her hands and tapped her wrist (crossing arms like a X in Japanese means no, much like when we shake our heads). She was great-we loved her and decided she adopted us :) So we had a hour to burn at the train station so we started watching all the taxis and decided which driver we would choose to take us to the port if needed-very stimulating conversation actually. Finally, our bus came right on time and we were off to the port. But once we got to the port once again our confused forienger faces came in handy and one of the employees who spoke some English came to our rescue. And we finally made it onto the ferry:


The ferry ride was a very interesting experience. We traveled 2nd class on the ferry which means we sat on carpet and didn't have a actual chair to sit on unless we went to the cafeteria. Each time you go on the carpet you had to take off your shoes, so there were piles of shoes by each section. A very cute older couple decided that we were hungrey and gave Naomi and I a orange. They were soo cute and keep saying "It's tiny"-we named it the friendship orange. And being in Japan and knowing the gift giving rules (sort of) returned the favor and gave them some of my Halloween chocolate from home. We took a nap on the carpet and spent time outside watching the birds swarm the ferry as the passangers threw food to them and enjoyed the gorgeous view:



2 1/2 hours later we made it to Sado at 4:30 in the afternoon-and had a welcome party:


We walked into the port terminal with this gorgeous music pouring out into the ferry and as we walked into the building we saw this group of traditional Sado music and dancing. It was so amazing, the dancing was so graceful and the flute, drums and singing was so peaceful and lovely. What a warm welcome to Sado...

Thats all for now, it's 1am and I have to get up for work tomarrow, I promise to continue our saga at Sado soon. There is still so much to tell including; the taxi chasing our bus, the climb up the mountian, gold mine, phantom bear, beautiful old temple, onsen and the journey home.


On a different note, I will be going to my first formal Japanese party this weekend. One of the Japanese teachers is getting married, I am soo excited and happy for Yumiko-she is such a lovely person. I will fill you in soon-i promise :)

Brief Halloween Update

I'm going to bed but just a few updates:

Pumpkin Carving-I carved the pumpkin in front of the whole school. It's a giant pumpkin with some scars (we like to call it character):

Halloween: The kids were sooooo cute, we walked around the block and stopped at five stores to get candy. the kids were really great-then we bobbed for apples, played musical chairs and touched witch hair and eyeballs (spagetti and grapes). Overall a success execpt the parents, urghh they drive me crazy with thier cameras some times, but thats for another day, anywhoo here are some halloween pics for your enjoyment:

Sado stories will be up tomarrow along with pics. As for now, I'm off to bed-good night

I'll be back

I can't write a lot right now. I have to got up tomarrow morning (Saterday) at 5 AM and I have peps over right now. This weekend is a holiday weekend, I get Monday off. Want to know why-because of the Autumn Equinox-how cool is that!!! I am off to Sado Island with Naomi (if you dont hear from me by Friday-she threw me over the boat) which is Northwest and its going to take us 8 hours to get there by, train, boat and bus. Should be fun, I'm off to Onsen and temples all weekend.

I have a lot to tell ya'll but you will have to wait, patiance is a virtue :) This past week has been crazy with pumpkin carving, Halloween and Open House, but I need to be social and drink my wine so you will have to wait. I know my blog is fascinating and my friends lives are bored without it (Annie and Beth:) but I promise Monday night you will have a GREAT blog.

P.S. Thanks to my bro and Kathy for the AWESOME package-my kids LOVED the dancing chicken :)