An ending to the year

Already December 31?! This year has absolutely flown by!  And me barely squeaking in a blog post for this month...

This past month there haven't been too many things of note to talk about.  School life has been very busy lately, although that has finally begun to wind down as most of the students finished classes for winter break last Friday.  Now there are only a few around for my English camp which runs until the end of next week.  But the students who do attend are hopefully having fun and enjoying it as I'm trying to give them a fair amount of time to play games instead of just boring textbook work like summer camp.  Although all of my ideas were very nearly destroyed thanks to my USB that held all of my school data dying.  STRESS! But I guess that's why everyone always says to back things up --- unfortunately for me, I hadn't done so since October, so I lost a fair amount of work, and made a pile more work for myself, having to rush around to redo things in time for the start of camp.

Oh, and I suppose the other thing of note is that as it's December our renewal paperwork came out, and I ended up deciding not to renew here in Korea for a number of reasons, which is probably no surprise, however, that means that I really need to get on my job searching - why are there only 24 hours in a day?? It's really not enough to get everything done and have time to do important things like sleeping and eating!

The past couple of weeks have felt a little bit strange, this being the first Christmas away from the family, and also one of those very rare Christmas days without any snow.  I think it was also a bit unusual because Christmas is a more low key holiday here in Korea.  Other than in the big department store, I don't think I saw any Christmas decorations anywhere, and it was also very rare to hear any Christmas music (not that I'm complaining on that front, mind you...)  It was also rather difficult to get into the Christmas mood because the kids weren't even really excited for it at all - I think that was the strangest part for me.  In fact, in the days after Christmas before winter break started when I asked my students about their Christmases, most of them said it was so-so or boring, or something along those lines.  AND very few of them actually received a Christmas present.  I guess all of the gift giving happens on Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) instead.

Outside of school, I haven't been up to much either, aside from one afternoon/evening out with a couple of my friends to watch the Hobbit (which I loved, of course!).  And that turned into a double movie night followed by some shooting (turns out I'm kind of good at that -- beware!) and some conversations.   It was a much needed excellent time out!

Also this past week, my klutz self has been coming out quite frequently.  Apparently it thinks that I need to fulfill some kind of quota before the end of the year or something like that.  All kinds of ridiculous things have been happening.  On Monday, I was just walking between my office and classroom, when somehow, with a big, loud crash, I ended up flat on my back on the floor with the garbage can being a casualty as well.  No idea how it happened!  That same night, I also managed to close my hand in a door and smack my head on the corner of a cupboard door with a rather large amount of force.  And those are only a couple of things that happened!  Oh well - thinking about it, it's really a little bit funny!

Anyway, that's about all for me for now, so....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!! ^_^



By the way - it's highly unlikely that there will be any blog post from me in January, but look forward to hearing about my vacationing adventures once February rolls around!

November

Ok, so being as it’s already the end of November, I imagine that I should update my blog a little bit. Wow, already the end of November?! Time is really flying by!

I can’t say that there have been many super exciting events going on this month, however, I have been incredibly busy, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I ended up catching a cold for a couple of weeks.

The month started off with me teaching a number of supplementary classes, and that has continued on throughout all but this past week in November. Also at school, we recently had an English contest where a number of students from grades four through six participated. This contest turned out to be a significant amount of extra work for me because I was required to create the slideshows for it as well as come up a bunch of extra riddles (which didn’t actually get used, but that’s a story for another time). The kids seemed to enjoy the contest, and that was the most important thing to me.

Also at school this month, it has gotten to the point in some of my classes where I am teaching the entire thing on my own without any help from my co-teachers. I rarely ever see my grade 3 co-teacher during class now, as she spends most of it in my office or out doing other things. There were even a couple of times where she completely forgot that we had class together and I didn’t see her until it was completely over and the students were gone. I guess that means that they trust me to teach the kids now? Another event that was kind of a back-handed compliment was getting called up to the teacher’s room to talk with my fellow English teachers, only to get told that parents of our grade 4s and 5s had called in to complain. Their complaint was that those students weren’t getting as much time with me as the siblings in grades 3 and 6 (my co-teacher for grades 4 and 5 liked to run the show herself).

In Korea, November 11 is 'Peppero Day', so the Koreans give each Peppero, which you may have tried the Japanese version of (Pocky).  Basically they are little cookie sticks that are dipped in chocolate.  I received a number of boxes from my students that I saw on that day -- but especially from the grade 3 class I taught that day - I ended up with a GIANT pile of Peppero on my desk within the first 5 minutes of class. So nice to be loved! ;)

 

I have also had to go to a couple of different open classes at other schools with my co-teachers. Now, according to them, these classes were supposed to have been taught in English with their native English teachers, however on both occasions, the classes were taught in mostly Korean, and there were no other native teachers anywhere in sight, making me stand out like an eyesore. I must have been a huge distraction, because the students all wanted to keep sneaking looks at me. The last open class event that I visited with my teachers, I later found out that there wasn’t even a native teacher to teach at that school, which had me questioning why exactly they had brought me along, since I clearly wouldn’t be able to understand the majority of what the Korean teachers were saying to their students. In my opinion, I was a kind of escape card because since I was there, the teachers didn’t want to ‘drag’ me into listening to all of the other Korean teachers discuss the lessons, so we left early. Hmmm….. Well anyway, it was kind of interesting to see how Korean teachers teach their classes though, and in one of the classes the teacher had dressed up like Jack Sparrow – makeup, clothes, everything – and he did indeed make a fairly good Jack, so….

Our school has also acquired a new family which has been adopted by pretty much everyone. That is probably because they are absolutely adorable. Allow me to explain – a mother cat recently gave birth to 4 beautiful little kittens and they have taken up residence just below the window next to my desk in my English classroom. They attract all different kinds of visitors throughout the day, and there’s no way that they’ll ever go hungry as the students and teachers are always bringing them more food and water. My only issue with them is that they can sometimes be quite loud (or the students coming to visit them are) and it can disrupt the class that I’m teaching. Other than that, they’re great.

The leaves on the trees finally started changing colors about the second week into November, and although some of them have already lost their leaves, there are still a large number of them that are still quite green, which to me, is absolutely amazing! The weather has also started to get rather cool this month as well. Since Koreans have a strange habit of keeping the doors and some of the windows open even though the temperature has been around 10 or a bit cooler, it definitely makes for a bit of a chilly day inside (which is probably why I ended up getting sick, if I think about it…), but hopefully it won’t get too much colder. Oh! And it snowed for the first time today (Nov 28) – not the kind of snow that sticks around, but still snow nonetheless – I was beginning to wonder if it would snow here at all – but apparently it can.

Let me see, what else has happened – outside of school – I have gone out hiking a couple of times, took a few fall pictures, and did a bit of Christmas shopping.

This past weekend, a friend of mine invited myself and two other girls to go listen to the Teacher’s Orchestra, as she had acquired some free tickets through her school. It was a very nice afternoon/evening, which we followed up with dinner and going out for tea and dessert. One of the amusing parts of that particular day was however, before I even got to where we were going to watch the orchestra perform. What happened was as follows: I originally meant to go there by bus; however, my transfer bus didn’t come fast enough, so I ended up taking a taxi for the last part of the trip out there. When I first got into the taxi, the driver was playing some Korean pop dance track, but as we started driving along, he decided to change the song (he was listening through his iPod). Anyway, after a few false choices, he finally settled on a song. Celine Dion’s “The Power of Love”. Now, I’m not sure if he decided on that song because he had a foreigner in the car or what, but all I can say is for me, it was a little bit amusing, if mildly uncomfortable, and I almost wish he had kept it on the Korean music. But there you have it. I don’t think the reactions that Koreans have towards seeing me for the first time will ever get old.

And that my friends, has been the majority of my November.

To see my November pictures click here.

Suncheon Garden Expo

This past week, I visited the Suncheon Garden Expo, a place which I've been meaning to go since I've been here, but hadn't made the opportunity yet.  This visit was on a Wednesday afternoon with many of the other native English teachers in Yeosu, who were all visiting with one of our co-teachers as some kind of bonding activity put on by the Yeosu Education Office.  Mind you, many of the teachers, both Korean and English, ended up abandoning each other to hang out with their respective group of friends.  I, however, managed to not be abandoned.  Although that was probably only because my co-teacher didn't know any of the other teachers there - but that's not the point! 
And as a random aside - I did feel a little bit passed around by the teachers at my school - originally my main co-teacher was supposed to come with me, but she was gone for training all week - so that's understandable.  Then it was supposed to be the vice principal, who became to busy to go, and then my grade 3 co-teacher, who was also too busy because she has a number of make-up classes to teach as she will be gone next week.  And so, I was passed on to my grade 6 co-teacher.  Now I wouldn't have felt so passed around if he hadn't told me about the fact that I was passed around, but there you have it.

Anyway, that story aside, what was I talking about? Right -- so I managed to not be abandoned, spending the day with not only my co-teacher, but also a few of my other teacher friends as well - even if we did separate and return to each other at times, but that story I'll tell a little bit later.

The Garden Expo itself was quite nice.  They had all different kinds of gardens: a traditional Korean garden, Japanese gardens, Thai, English, French, Spanish, Turkish, American, Dutch, German, and Italian gardens.  I'm pretty sure I'm missing some in there - but anyway, you get the idea - there were all different international styles of gardens throughout the expo area.  They also had many places where you could stop for food and ice-cream (Turkish), there was a tiny little zoo area with animals like badgers, foxes, rabbits, hedgehogs, otters, and parrots (not that many different kinds, and they were all trying to sleep when we were there).

 At the traditional Korean garden

Also, amazingly enough as it was the middle of October, many of the flowers were still in bloom providing a colorful afternoon.  Some, such as the sunflowers, had died off as they were out of season, but it was still very nice to see.  And of course, given my background, I had a massive amount of respect for the sheer amount of work that had to have gone into making the expo possible, so that may have given me a little bit of extra enjoyment compared to some of the other people who went.

 

 

If you want to see more pictures from the garden expo, please click here.

I kind of felt a little bit bad for my co-teacher though - I forced him to talk in English all afternoon, which must have been incredibly exhausting for him.  He kept stopping to sit down and 'take a rest', saying that he'd wait for me (and my friends when they were around) while we climbed up hills and such things.  And at one point he told me that from this afternoon he understood how I must feel at school (being out of place and not understanding all of what's being said, and things like that). Poor guy.  HOWEVER, since he called me cruel, maybe I'm not that sympathetic.  Allow me to explain.  When we were going through some of the first gardens my co-teacher and I decided to walk up a hill to see the view, and we left my friends behind at the bottom of the hill as they were busy taking photos and didn't want to go up the hill.  So, my co-teacher asked if I was going to wait for my friends, and I of course said no, and that we'd meet them later when we went back down, and if we lost them, I could always call them.  This is when he said I was cruel to my friends.  What?!  We're all independent adults, and we actually did in fact join up with them again not that long after, so I feel like that was a horrible thing to say to me! hehehe....

Always taking a rest...

Anyway, all in all, it was a lovely afternoon which I thoroughly enjoyed, and it was also quite nice because my co-teacher also explained about some cultural Korean things that we saw along the way.

Guardian 'trees'

Oh, and there was a mini-adventure at the end of the day, as when the bus dropped us off at the pick up point back in Yeosu, my co-teacher and I went to go find a cab, and there weren't many, so we walked for a while to a bus stop, where we waited for 15 minutes for the bus, and at that point it was starting to get a bit chilly, so when the bus finally came, we were temporarily relieved.  I say temporarily because the bus was PACKED and a couple people managed to get on it, but just as my co-teacher and I were about to get on the bus driver said no more people were allowed to get on!!  So, as it was chilly and we were hungry, we finally found a cab, and made it back to our home area safe and sound.  Yep, that's my story about that day.

Lovely Lanterns

This weekend a friend and I went to Jinju, a city about 2 hours outside of Yeosu, to go and see a lantern festival that has been going on. My other friends who were supposed to come, were unfortunately sick this weekend (feel better soon!!) So it was just the two of us, and we hopped on the one and only bus that goes out there and got ready for a lovely day full of blue skies, sunshine, lanterns and festival food.

When we arrived in Jinju, the festival was incredibly easy to find for two reasons: first, it was right next to the bus terminal, and second because the displays were quite big and could be seen from a good distance (which we weren't by the way...like I just said).

The first thing that you have to do when you get to this particular festival is cross the river - because while there are a few things on the bus terminal side of the river (like constructing your own floating lantern (for a small fee)) most things (the food, lantern displays, music, etc) were on the other side of the river.  However, in order to cross the river, you have to walk across these floating temporary bridges that were put up for the festival - and they charge you 1000 won EACH time you want to cross a bridge.  I believe that there were about 4 bridges that you could choose from.

There a number of displays in the river itself, and one activity that you could do was ride a little boat that weaved in and out of the river displays.  Once you cross the river, you are faced with the option of either taking a stroll under the lanterns or walking in front of the tents where they had information, places to rest and were selling food and souvenirs.  Over the course of the day, we did both (multiple times as we were waiting for it to get dark so the lanterns could be lit up).

There were two different kinds of lanterns that were displayed - the majority were blue and orange - and they all looked more or less the same, other than the attached ribbons that had the names of the people who made/hung them. (not really sure)  The other lanterns were referred to as 'creative lanterns'.  These lanterns were pretty much all very unique as they were made by people (again, for a small fee) attending the festival however they would like.

In our wanderings, we found a path that went up to the bridge along the road - and walked over that bridge (for free!!) to the other side, where there was a sort of children's area and a musical fountain, which we timed excellently as the show started right when we were about to decide what we should do next.

So, yes, the majority of the day was spent strolling around the area, enjoying the sites of the lovely lanterns, trying out some food, taking in some sunshine and things like that.

Oh - and as a random side note - I saw a few people that I haven't seen since orientation - and had a little chat with a couple of them, which was also rather nice...

At 6:00 when the sun went down behind the mountains, the number of people at the festival area increased incredibly quickly, as the lights in the lanterns was turned on.

The two of us took a stroll through the lit up lanterns - of course taking many pictures, and then went back to one of the bridges (which at this point had a long line up to get across), so that we could go back to the other side to catch the last bus back to Yeosu.  This time, crossing the bridge was much more interesting though because since there were so many people crossing at the same time it was moving around quite a bit and you needed your sea legs to keep your balance!

Before we left we also watched people launching their floating lanterns for a little bit.
I'll explain a bit since I know at least one person (**Mom**) wanted to hear more about it.  So what they did was put a floating platform out on the bank of the river - and people would go onto that to launch their lanterns, and then the current in the river would carry them along under the bridge and down the river.  While a few of the lanterns did get stuck along the banks - that wasn't necessarily a bad thing because people were pulling them out to take pictures (mildly unsafe - but this is Korea...) or they were poking them with sticks to get them to continue moving.  Also - they had a few, let's call them obstacles, (they were really floating kind of platform things similar to what was holding up the floating displays) placed in the river along the path of where the lanterns would float, so that they would be forced to go around and not all follow the exact same path.

Anyway, I think that explains most of our experience so it's likely off to the beach to get some more sunshine today! :)

For pictures from the Jinju Namgang Yudeung (Lantern) Festival, click here.

September in short

Since I apparently owe a blog post for this month - here goes...Although I'll warn you I don't have too much to say...

This month has flown by incredibly fast.  Having the students back again is great!  I definitely missed them a little bit over the summer vacation (especially during desk warming time).
I've been able to learn a few names of more people this past month, as the students have decided to start telling me their names, which is great!  In particular I have a group of four 4th graders who have not only told me their names, but they also quiz me on what their names are every time they see me (which is usually at least once every day) so I definitely remember their names for sure!!
 
The students also seem to be getting much more comfortable with my presence - when I go outside during break time and lunch time, I usually end up with crowds of kids around me, asking questions, telling me things, getting me to play with them, or occasionally, just sitting with me.  Even some of the 2nd graders (who I don't teach) have started trying to talk with me, even though they can't say too much - I'm glad they're trying!  There's one little boy who walks right up to me (into my personal bubble), stops, looks up and says "Hi, Amanda Teacher," then walks away.  It's kind of funny - he also has an older sister who is one of the grade 3s that I do teach.

Talking about my grade 3s - they are starting to be my favorite level of students to teach.  They listen the best and have the most fun in class. (Plus they try to teach me Korean too!)  They also say some of the funniest things to me as well...

I also think some of the other teachers at school are getting a little bit less shy as well - some of them have started saying hello to me when they see me, a couple of people on the admin staff seem to have taken up teaching me about 1 Korean word a week, and this past week, after lunch, during the break time, I was invited to go drink some tea with a couple of other teachers, and so we talked for a bit which was nice.


Outside of school, this month it has been beach, beach, beach time!!  With the coming of September - after the first week or so, the humidity finally went down to manageable levels. and the weather has been sunny and warm - between 24-28 - so absolutely beautiful and perfect for going to the beach!!
I also found out that there is a really nice beach much closer to where I live than the other beach I had been going to before - and so it's been my go to!  Also this beach, for whatever reason doesn't get too many people there at all (at least not when I went).  During Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), when I went to the beach, there would only be about 3 or 4 other people on the beach area when I got there, so it was like having my own private beach!  Later in the afternoons, more people would show up, and I also met some of my 'foreigner' friends there - but given the good weather, it was kind of surprising there weren't more people!  Speaking of meeting my friends, we also did a little bit of kayaking at this beach - they have an area where we just have to show them our ARCs (alien registration cards) and then sign out the kayaks and we're good to go - they give you a life jacket, kayak and oar, and you're good to go!

 

Oh and random mini story - the first weekend that I went to this beach - I ended up seeing some of my grade 6 girls there - and was temporarily mobbed as they surrounded me curious about what I was doing, wearing, who I was with, etc.  They were trying to catch some little fish that swim around near the beach - but that's not my story...At one point they were being a little bit silly - pushing each other around in the water - and then before you know it - one of them comes running to me, "Teacher!!!" (in a slightly whiny voice) "My money got wet!" She shows me and then informs me that I need to dry it out for her, and goes back to playing with her friends.  Good thing I was there, right? What would she have done without me?  Oh, and then about 15 minutes before we were about to leave - my students come to show us the fish that they caught - which was actually kind of impressive since they were just using a plastic bag to catch the fish.  But then - they ask me if I had a towel - well, yes, it was what I was sitting on - and then they ask if they can borrow it - I don't think I gave an actual answer - more of a surprised indescript noise, which they apparently took for a yes, because next thing you know - all eight of them are using my towel to dry off!  Mind you by the last few, I'm not sure how much drying they were getting done because when they finally returned my towel to me it was literally dripping!  Lovely - I get to go home with a soaking wet towel...And then Monday morning - when I ask the students what they did on the weekend (I teach my grade 6s on Monday) - the girls who were at the beach tell the class that they 'played with me' at the beach. Oh students!! You're so funny!

Summer vacation in Japan!

Where to start? Japan was, of course, incredibly amazing. From the moment I arrived, I had a permanent giant smile on, and I felt like I was right at home! Not to mention that the transition into using Japanese was remarkably fluid for me.  And I didn't get lost once during this whole trip! Bonus!!  This trip, it felt like I did much more 'doing and experiencing' than the last time, if you understand my drift.  And although I felt like I didn't have my camera out very often, I still somehow managed to come away with over 1000 pictures.  How that even happened boggles my mind - because I could've sworn I had my camera out constantly last time, but based on the ratio of days spent to pictures taken, I took more this time!

I spent my first day in Shinjuku, getting a few things done that needed doing (like getting my JR Pass).


The Southern Terrace at Shinjuku Station




Typical night views in Shinjuku

I followed that up with a visit to Shinjuku Gyoen - which is a GIANT 58 acre park that has different styles of gardens within it - Japanese, English, and French. It also had a good-sized greenhouse at one end of the park, and you could go in and see all different kinds of unique plants.  If it weren't for the fact that it's summer - it would have been a very quiet and peaceful place - listen to this video as an explanation (that noise - that's from bugs!):

Click here if the video above isn't working.

 

One of the little guys responsible for the sounds in the video above...

 

 

More pictures from Shinjuku Gyoen can be found here.


That night, I spent my time listening to the live music that is put on by many different performers at Shinjuku Station. And I found a new band that I really like too! They're called Slur.
Here's a quick video I took while listening to them:

Video not working? Click here.



And this video is also one of theirs - if you're interested... Link is here, if you can't play it...

Oh, and this video was taken at the Southern Terrace of Shinjuku Station - it was kind of quiet that night though...

Click here to go to the video

The next day I had planned to be my hiking day, but it was WAY too hot to even consider doing that, so I took the train a few stops further and visited the Nippara Limestone caves. And that was a process in itself - after getting off the train, you have to take a bus for about 30 minutes, and then walk for another 15-20 to get to the caves because the bus doesn't go that far. But it was worth it! When you finally get to the entrance of the caves, you can feel a cool breeze coming out of the cave, and walking in is like going into air conditioning. But it's all natural! It was quite interesting in there - but very dark, and I kept getting dripped on! And some of the passageways (or rather the stairways) were a little bit sketchy - there was only room for one person to go at a time, they were wet from the dripping rocks which means slippery and you were going more or less straight up and had to watch your head because some of the rocks extended quite low...
If you're interested in rocks at all, I would suggest checking that out!

        

My pictures from the Limestone caves can be found here.


The following day I spent outside of Tokyo, visiting Mt. Fuji, Oshino Hakkai (an attraction of melt-water ponds from Mt Fuji), and an orchard.
Mt Fuji was, to be perfectly honest, not that exciting - I think it would be more interesting to go there if you were actually doing the hike up it, but since I wasn't...
At the 5th station of Mt Fuji you're at an elevation of about 2300m, so you're kind of right up in there with the clouds, and that's nice - the views off the sides of the mountain as you're driving up/down where you are above the low elevation clouds are kind of cool.  But there was SO many people there, it was ridiculous - if you went into any of the stores/restaurants there, they were packed wall to wall with people.

Mt Fuji and the masses.

 

The orchard (Kinbaraen Orchard) that we visited was great!  Apparently the region we went to is supposed to be quite famous for the fruit they grow.  All over this area there were little vineyards with different kinds of grapes - purple, red, and green.  And of course other fruit trees as well.  The thing that I noticed was different from the vineyards I've seen in the Okanagan, is the height of the grapevines - most of them were tall enough that you could walk under them, and others were even taller than the buses!  Oh, and did I mention that the grapes tasted absolutely delicious!  I probably could've eaten them all day long!  They were actually quite small, but were incredibly sweet!  And I also got to eat a couple giant fresh-picked peaches which were also equally delicious.

 

        

 

 

More pictures from Mt Fuji and the orchard can be found here.

 

 

Oshino Hakkai was absolutely beautiful!  For starters, the area surrounding it was beautiful on it's own, but then you saw the ponds.  They are filled with the most amazingly and startlingly clear water!  It's even more amazing when you consider that the water in these ponds is held there for 30-40 years (and it was pointed out to me that the water is older than I am!  True enough...), and for whatever reason, it doesn't stagnate at all.  In fact the Japanese even specially go to buy the water from these ponds because it's considered to be an 'energy' or 'power' source. Oh, and I guess I didn't mention this yet - the water comes from melt water off of Mt Fuji.

 

Here again there were tons of people, but since August is also summer vacation time in Japan, that's only to be expected.

 

This particular pond is supposedly 8m deep.

 

 

For more pictures, click here.

 

The next day, it was off to Osaka, which was smoking hot!! By the time I got into Osaka, it was already mid-afternoon, so I spent the rest of the day exploring the Umeda area where I was staying.  Umeda is a kind of vibrant area - there are all different kinds of restaurants around, MULTIPLE department stores all within 5 minutes of each other, and of course there are the stations themselves - there is the large JR Osaka station, and then multiple other smaller subway stations.  I also lucked out in that at one of the plazas at Osaka station, there was an event going on nightly called "Music Buskers in UmeKita", so every night there were at least two different musicians performing.  It was wonderful - plus it was in an area where you could sit down and enjoy the cool night breeze as well.  Relaxing might describe it well.

 

In this video, you can see some of the plaza I was just talking about, and you can hear the breeze and one of the performers as well!

Click here to go to my video.

 

 

Here are some pictures of around Osaka station:

I took a ride on this ferris wheel one night.

 

And then, I wanted to talk a little bit more about the "Music Buskers" event... My favorite happened on my last night in Osaka.  I actually hadn't been planning to stay to listen to music that night, but as I was walking by, one particular performer caught my ears.  And I liked his music so much that I stayed for the entire hour and a half that he played!  It was really fun music, and he interacted really well with the people (including kids) that were listening.  Oh, and I don't think I mentioned - after these events, the performers usually go around and hand out leaflets to the people who were listening to their music (basically giving info on their next live dates, websites, and that sort of thing).  So when his performance was done, he went and handed out the leaflets, and stopped to talk to the people too.  Including me - so I had a good little conversation with him (in Japanese)!  I learned all kinds of things - for example - not just anyone could perform for this event - they actually had to audition and go through a selection process for it...

 

Even though I hadn't planned to stay that night - it was definitely worth it - I think it definitely ranks up there as one of my most favorite nights in Japan - definitely my favorite in Osaka!

 

That being said, I think some videos are in order, so that you might be able to see why I enjoyed it so much (or not, who knows!)

 

This first one I took while I was listening, so here it is, ヨシダヒロキ(Yoshida Hiroki):



Click here if above isn't working.

 

And because I can, here are a couple of his other music videos on YouTube:

This first one is the full song of the one that I took in my video:

Video not working? Click here.

 

And this next one is another one of his songs that he really seemed to have fun performing:

Video not working? Click here.

 

For my first full day in Osaka, I started it off by visiting Umeda's Sky Building's Floating Garden Observatory, where you can see some nice views of Osaka.  I found out while I was there, that it's a very popular 'couple place'.  There's one room where you're supposed to sit on a couch together and hold hands and the floor lights up according to the 'strength of your love'. Sure it does.  And there was an area outside on the observatory for couples only - it also had a little mini couch and a place to hang a lock commemorating your date/love, or something like that.  I  just went for the views of the city....

 

The Sky Building

The escalator you ride to get up/down

View of Osaka



 

The 'couples only' area.

 

Right, so Sky Garden in the morning, then in the afternoon, I visited with my friend who lives in Osaka.  The two of us went for lunch, wandered around another shopping area, and then went to Osaka aquarium to escape the heat.

 

 

I also visited Osaka Castle one day as well as taking a river bus to see some more of the city from a different perspective.  In Osaka Castle the floors that have the most interesting things - artifacts like scrolls and paintings - you can't take pictures of, but on the other floors they kind of explain the story of the history of the creation of the castle as well as the life of the person who had it built.

 

 

 

You can see more pictures from my trip to Osaka here.

 

While I was in Osaka, I also took a day trip out to Nara.  While I was there I saw a few World Heritage sites, and TONS of deer.  Apparently there are 7 or 8 World Heritage sites in Nara - I had time to see three of them.  The deer just wander around the town, at least in the area where a lot of the Heritage sites are.  People touch them, and you can even buy 'deer crackers' to feed to them.  And they definitely like those things - if they could smell them on you, you'd get a group of deer surrounding you searching for those crackers.  It was kind of funny though - because a lot of the Japanese girls and women who had the food for the deer would start screaming when the deer came near.  Why buy food for them if you're scared??  At one point I even saw one deer walk behind a woman bend down its head, and give her a 'gentle' little head butt to her backside.  I admit - it was a little bit funny, although I do feel a bit bad for her at the same time. 

I also think that the tourist information office in Nara deserves a lot of kudos!  When you go there, they ask you how much time you have to spend in Nara, and then give you a map and give you a suggested course of where you should go to see the main sites (based on the amount of time you said you have), where you can stop for a meal, souvenirs, and other sites you might want to check out if you have extra time.  They were extremely helpful!!

 

I also got to have some more conversations in Japanese while in Nara, and some of the locals told me about some things that I could do, and some less touristy places I could go visit too.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time for everything! (And that's the mantra of my trip - Not enough time for everything!)

 

You can see pictures from Nara here, although I warn you there are a lot, and lots of deer pictures...

 

 

Kofukuji - A World Heritage Site

 Todaiji - World Heritage Site - largest wooden structure in the world home to the Daibatsu (Great Buddha)

 

Daibatsu (Great Buddha)

Stone lanterns going towards Kasuga Taisha Shrine (World Heritage Site)

A baby deer!! CUTE!



 

 

And then there was my last day in Tokyo.  I did a number of things - I visited Ueno Park to see the lotus flowers in bloom at Shinobazu pond, saw a juggler/bagpiper in the middle of the park and then stopped at a Panda Café for lunch.

 

 

 

After lunch, I headed off to Asakusa to visit the famous Sensoji Temple and Kaminarimon Gate.  That place was completely packed with people!!  But, it is a popular place, and I went on a Saturday, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by that.  While I was there I also wandered through Namikase - which is one main shopping street between Sensoji and Kaminarimon, and there are a number of other covered shopping streets that run perpendicular to it as well.

 

 Sensoji

 

Kaminarimon Gate

 

 

Next, I went to Tokyo Skytree, a 634m tall tower, which is surrounded by Tokyo Skytree Town which has shopping, an aquarium, a planetarium, restaurants, an arcade and more.  And it was also crammed full of people!  I had gone up to see if I could go to the planetarium, but turned out it was all Japanese, so I decided I might be better off to spend my time seeing other things.  Only problem was - because there were so many people it took about 45 minutes to get out of there! But on the way out, I got a ginger mint soda - which was made with real mint and real ginger - it was deliciously refreshing!

 

 

 

After that, I took a quick ride on a rickshaw.  I learned all sorts of things from my driver, who told me that he studied for a year in Australia, and because he was from Kyushu he said that both his English and his Japanese sound strange.  I also learned about the older part of Asakusa, and things about rickshaws and their drivers.  For example, did you know that a rickshaw costs about $23,000 to make?  Or that there are different kinds of rickshaws for different events?  Or that the drivers have to take 5 different exams (Traffic laws, how to drive the rickshaw, English, etc.) to become a rickshaw driver?  Interesting, right?!

 

If you're interested in seeing photos from Ueno and Asakusa, please click here!

 

 

My next stop was Harajuku, because when I was in Asakusa, I was told that there was a dance festival going on in Harajuku that weekend, so I went to go check it out!  The festival was traditional Japanese dancing, and I enjoyed watching it.  I took a few videos of some of the dances - unfortunately, I didn't bring enough memory cards with me that day to video some of the later dances, which were even better in my opinion, but at least I can give you a quick idea of how some of them go! (If you're going to watch these videos, I would suggest watching in full screen mode so you can actually see what's going on)

 

If video isn't working, click here.

 

Link to video #2 here.

 

Link to third video here.

 

 

If you don't know this already, even on a normal day, Harajuku is filled with all kinds of different people, but this time it was extra insane.  When the dancing was over, going to take a train back was intense.  For the first train that came, masses of people crammed into that train, and Japanese people can seriously cram into small spaces - but there was literally no room left on that first train for anyone else to squeeze on (or even breathe by the looks of it!)  So, I waited for the next train, which didn't take long because Harajuku is on one of the main train lines that loops around Tokyo.  Squeezed in and headed out for dinner.

 

 

By the time I finally ate my dinner - it was already quite late into the evening, so the I didn't quite have time to go see the other things that I wanted to, because they would have already been closed for the night.  Next time, I guess!

 

Speaking of dinner - this trip to Japan was filled with all kinds of delicious food!  I ate SOOOO much!  It's absolutely amazing that I could even move after eating all that food ;)

 

For example, I ate things like:

 

             

Okonomiyaki                                                                              Om-rice

 

Waffles, Fruit & Ice-cream 

 

All in all, I REALLY enjoyed my trip to Japan, and I was left wishing that I had much more time, as there were many more things that I wanted to do and see, but I just didn't have time for.  And, once again, it was incredibly difficult for me to leave.  I just really click with Japan, and can't seem to get enough!