Family in Japan!!!

Ah, the post you have been waiting for (maybe)! Stories of my family being in Japan! I think the stories might be better told from the other side, so if you are curious you should ask my mom or Kevin what they thought of Japan. However, I do have some fun ones from Kevin coming to school with me. Kevin actually came to school with me on Christmas, which was pretty fun. Mom played in Nagano while we were at school, and then we met up with her after school and had yummy yakiniku for dinner. So anyway, back to Kevin being at school. First thing that happened, Kevin and I walked into the teachers room and said good morning, and then we sat (Kev sat at the open desk next to mine). The English teachers all introduced themselves in English, and then one of the Japanese teachers came over and introduced himself in English too! However, this time Kevin answered in Japanese, which threw the whole room off completely! They actually all started laughing, which I had to assure Kevin was not at him, but at their own surprise. I think he was not too thrilled to have them laughing at him, but I have been laughed at many-a-time by that same room of people, so I told him not to worry.

So next, Kevin and I went to some classes. For some reason, my students here were being even shier than usual!!! The 2ne years did ask Kevin some questions, but nothing really about America or school in America or that sort of thing.They asked him if he likes Harry Potter, and then they asked him if he IS Harry Potter, which was entertaining, but I was hoping they would take advantage of him being like a foreign student of almost the same age and ask some questions about living in America, etc etc etc. Oh well, I did not want to force anything on them, so I did not do anything. Kevin did get to eat lunch at school, which was actually a major point of frustration for me. The school got an extra lunch for him, but he would not eat it. People do not really waste food here, so it was not a good thing that he did not eat it. Luckily the homeroom teacher of the class we ate with was really nice about it, but I was not too thrilled with him at that point. So after lunch, Kevin and I went to Togari Elementary school to teach 5th graders. How perfect, Kevin is also in 5th grade! And these kids were great that day! They talked to him in English AND Japanese and did not become quiet and shy. Though, they are not usually shy, so I would have been shocked for them to have been completely silent, but they were the same as usual. First Kevin got to meet every kid in the class (good practice of "hello, my name is~ whats your name?") and then we did the lesson and at the end they got to ask questions about anything, so they asked some about school, some about Kevin, etc. They asked some in Japanese, too, because they wanted to see if he could actually speak Japanese or not. I think he passed their test.

Alright, so my school is awesome and they told me that after we finished at elem school, Kevin and I could go and that I did not need to go back to my school to finish off the day. That was amazing. He and I took the train to Nagano and meet up with my mom. We had yakiniku for Christmas dinner (thats the grilled meat that you cook yourself on a grill that is in the table.) Kevin was thrilled with this meal because he loves meat. And so ended Kevin's day at Japanese schools. You will have to ask him what he thought of it.

Other family stories... Let's see. we went to see the snow monkeys! It was actually much easier to find that I thought it would be. When I researched the trip, it said, from Nagano, there's a train, then a bus, then a 40 minute walk, But Kim (who came too) figured out that there is a way to do it with just a bus, so we took the bus from Nagano station and it dropped us off at the bottom of the walk. The only problem with the "walk" was that 25 minutes of it was through the mountains (more of a hike) and the path was almost entirely covered with ice. We had to be really careful when walking to make sure we did not fall, especially because if you fall down the wrong side of the mountain, I don't think you come back. Ok, so 25 icy minutes later, we are there! In fact, before we even got to the actual pay to get in "Monkey Park," a monkey appeared out of nowhere! He wanted Kim's karaage (fried chicken) which she was holding in her hand. He literally sat there and begged (see picture to the right), and then watched as she put the food into my backpack. With his super sad eyes, he walked away. So next we went to the actual Monkey Park and there are monkeys everywhere! And they really do go into the hot spring! It's crazy! I think I heard in the video that this is much colder than their usual habitat, so into the hot spring they go as part of their survival technique. Of course, they are also fed as a means to keep them there, but I do think they figured out going in the hot spring all on their own. So we got to see them in the hot spring, we got to see them playing, and then the guy came around and fed them, so we got to see them eating, and also fighting over food. The fights are kind of crazy! They sort of bark and screech and chase each other in a non-friendly way.

Other days they were here, one of the days I had to work, so they played in Nagano all on their own, and another day I wen to Nagano and we went to Zenkoji temple and just sort of wandered around Nagano. We took Kevin to Animate (which is an anime store) and he got tons of Yugioh cards that I guess are hard to find in the US. I think he actually went to that store 4 or maybe 5 times while he was here, so at least he found something he was happy with. Of course we did some shopping, including going to the dollar store equivalent. The dollar stores here are tons of fun, because they are not full of useless and poor-quality crap. They have some very useful things and also some very random things! Oh, of course, one day mom and Kevin came to Iiyama and saw where I live, and the stores around here. I also took them to Kappa sushi for lunch which is the conveyor sushi restaurant that is cheap and delicious!!! I think they enjoyed Kappa. That was actually their last day here, because their flight was at 11am the next day, so the taxi came to get them at 3am. I also had my school end of the year party that night, so I dropped them at the train station in Iiyama and they went back to Nagano!

Well, that pretty much covers adventures with my family in Japan. Again, for further details, ask them, because they did spend quite a bit of time without me while they were here. Luckily they made it out of here before the insane snow came, or they very well may have found themselves stuck in Iiyama/Nagano for a few extra days.

More monkey pictures: (there are quite a few more on my shutterfly)