Teachers go on trip

So a few weeks ago (in November...) I went with my teachers to Yamanashi Prefecture.  Deciding whether or not to go was really hard because the AJET thanksgiving dinner (WITH TURKEY) was the same day.  I missed the Thanksgiving last year, too for the same reason, so this year I waited until the very last minute to decide and I went with the logic that I will have many many many years to eat turkey in America, but this was my only chance to go on a trip with this particular group of teachers, thus, I went with the teachers.  long sentence!!!

Our day started at 7:30 when the bus came and picked us up.  Actually, we could request where we wanted to be picked up, so it picked some teachers up at school, then came to where I live and picked three of us up, and proceeded from there.  We had some slight delays getting on the highway (freeway? expressway?  there is a toll...so call it what you will.) because of an accident but then we were finally on our way to Yamanashi.  Yamanashi is the prefecture next to Nagano and it is full of mountains!!  The kanji for Yamanashi are 山 (mountain) and 梨 (pear) so...  I did not see any pears.

I DID SEE MOUNT FUJI though!  Finally.  Reason number one I am glad I went.  Two years and this was my first proper sighting of Mount Fuji.  Though I am sure after I climb it next year, I will never want to see it again.

When we got there, we first went on a bit of a walk so we could admire the "changing fall colors"  Japanese actually has a special word for that, whereas English does not.  Seeing the fall colors is reason two I am glad I went.  Every year, Iiyama goes from green to brown in a week.  It's not beautiful at all!  I don't know why people here brag about fall...they got nothing.  However, the place we went, we were a little late but even so, it was really pretty!  There was a nice path and a river and mountains and lots of colors.  I was happy.

Our walk led us to a restaurant where we first took a group picture and then went in to eat.  It was good.  Japanese food is good.  All of it (almost).

After lunch, we went to a winery.  Due to some planning difficulties (read: stupid teachers who don't know how to plan...), we only had about 30 minutes at the winery, but it was enough to taste a few, buy some souvenirs and get back on the bus.

And last, we went up up up a mountain to an amazing onsen (that's natural hot spring...yeah the kind where you go in naked.)  I am so used to onsen now that it is just fun and relaxing.  You would think going with coworkers would be awkward like whoa, but it's not at all.  It was nice and we had an amazing view of the valley from the bath.  Again, planning issues meant only 40 minutes total, which was a challenge since I can spend 40 minutes in the shower...er....

Anyway, some pictures for you to enjoy.

Next update...KOREA!

Japanese maple.  SO pretty.

Pretty,

Me and three teachers I work with.  I know, I will say it since I know you are all thinking it.  I look like a cow.  Can't help it. 

A river runs through it.

All the teachers who went.  My Principal is next to me with the wig/hat on. 

fresh fish.  delicious.  But  had to remove the head because I can't eat fish when it is staring at me...

View from the onsen, though the actual baths don't have the roof in the way.  You could see FOREVER!

beautiful even on a rainy day!

Hi everyone!  No, I am not talking about myself in the title.  oh ho ho!  Just wanted to get you in a good mood before I apologize for the month between posts.  Greetings from Japan where it is pretty cold and Christmas music is already a-playing in stores because there is no Thanksgiving buffer here between Halloween and Christmas.  Japanese people and their ability to grasp onto certain western traditions and take them to extremes.  *sigh!*

Anyway, as my mom was kind enough to remind me this morning, it has indeed been over a month since I last posted.  sorry, sorry, but as I think I mentioned before, my life here is just not as interesting as it was in my first year or even in my second year.  But, I did have some fun adventures yesterday, so I thought I would at least share some pictures and a bit of narrative.

So as you may or may not know, Kim and I lead a weekly English conversation class.  One member of our class is a really outdoorsy kind of person, so he offered to take us hiking, which we gladly accepted.  He is actually a trained hiking guide so he really knows his trails.  Unfortunately it was raining yesterday, but we went anyway, just on a different route than he planned.  He drove us to Togakushi, which is a mountain in Nagano.  It has a huge ski park and it's pretty well known for the awesome ninja house, but it also has some gorgeous shrines, one of which we went to see.  I should mention that in my rain-logged stupidity, I did not take any pictures of the actual shrine!  But it's ok because mostly the walk to the shrine was amazing and the shrine itself was pretty usual. 

tree hugging.  mostly to show how big the tree was.

Apparently these are 400-year-old cedars.

The snow up here is powerful.  It piles up and is heavy enough to cause the trees to bend like this,

Part of the shrine area, but not the shrine itself.  Sorry.

 Ok, then we got back in the car and went to a new place.  We were not sure what to expect, but we ended up at a waterfall!  It was really pretty.

Waterfall! 

sorta scary bridge.

 Then back in the car again.  Little further north into Niigata Prefecture and we ended up at Mt. Myoko.  Really pretty and also awesome for skiing/snowboarding.  We went once last winter and we will go again this winter.

This is Imori Pond with Mt. Myoko in the background.  You can see the parts that become the ski areas,  Imori means newt and the pond was named for the many many newts that live there.

Ducks!!

Imori!!

Taxidermy...  hmm.

I dream about creating a company that would prevent the printing of such signs.  But, then what would foreigners have to chuckle about when they visit Japan?!

This is on the way back to Iiyama.  We are above the clouds!

HOMG SNOW!!

And so ends our hiking adventures.

already dreading the big move...and it is not for another 9 months!

As I sit in my apartment and look around, I seriously wonder how on EARTH I am going to move everything back to America.  The clothes I can deal with...I can leave them behind if necessary.  I am talking about the things I have collected in the past 2 years and 2 months.  We are talking about things I am not willing to leave behind.  They HAVE to come back to America so that someday my grandkids can be cleaning out all my crap going "What the Hell is this, anyway?"  And then they will throw it away, completely ignorant of the fact that I carried it around the world with me.  Let's face it...I like to collect things.  I always have and I always will.  There is nothing I can do about it.    Just a list here for starters, then pictures.  Some things I have collected:

Manga (Japanese comics).  I have at least 75 to move back.  They are not your normal American comic books, either.  They are maybe 6x8 (I have no idea) and are on average, an inch thick.  That means I have 75 inches of manga to bring home.


Kamen Rider...It is a TV series that has been on in Japan since the 70s.  America gave it a try once, but I do not think it was the most successful show ever, so it stopped.  Anyway, I got REALLY into Kamen Rider, though the current series is NOT good, thank God (less things I will want to collect!) and as a result, I have a decently sized collection of random things: cups, figures, towels, McDonald's happy meal toys (don't ask), and one very large Kamen Rider head.  Yes, a head.  (see picture)

My toy shelf, though this barely touches on the toys.  The top has the Kamen Rider mask.  It is about a foot tall, if that helps to put things in perspective.

Stuffed animals.  Ah, I have always loved stuffed animals, and apparently, allergies and all, I still do.  They are really fun to win out of claw machines and I have quite a few.  My most recent addition is this guy,  Haro, a robot character from the Gundam series.

Haro!  Yeah, same size as my head.  Bigger, even!

Keychains/cell phone straps.  These are legit, because I have been collecting key chains FOREVER.  So, in keeping with tradition, I have been buying a key chain every time I go somewhere new.  I have a grand plan for these key chains, do not worry.  Now, cell phone straps...sometimes it is hard to find a keychain, so I have resorted to buying cell phone straps instead to represent certain places I visited.  But, once I started doing that, it opened the door to general cell phone strap collecting.  The result:  I have a small Christmas tree in my room that has the straps hanging on it like ornaments.  At this point, the tree is no longer visible...

Kanji (this is sort of a stretch as far as "collecting" but.. well, just read on)  As you may know, I have gotten really into kanji since coming to Japan.  I love studying kanji!!  LOVE IT!  As a result, I have accumulated quite a few study books which I would like to have back in America so I can constantly review the kanji I learned.  In addition, I want to continue learning new kanji, so I want to bring books full of kanji I have yet to study.  We are talking 10-15 books here...not too big or anything, just heavy.

Along with kanji study are the kanji notebooks.  They are all pretty and gridded with little spaces to write readings.  And then they have extra boxes to practice writing kanji.  I am not sure if I can get these in America.  I plan to research that, but if it seems to be a no, then I will need to bring a few of these pretties home with me.  Or I could figure out a way to get creative with excel, I guess and print my own paper, but it is just not the same as the beautiful notebooks with cute pictures of baby animals on the cover.

Movies.  Another legit collection (have you seen my DVDs in America?)  I love movies.  I have gotten quite a few over here, too, most of them Japanese movies that I will not be able to get in America.  The problem with that?  I need a region 2 (or region free) DVD player.  A problem to deal with later.  For now, I have to get all the movies back to America without breaking any cases or disks.

Ok...are you seeing the problem here?  Moral of the story...next summer, I am going to be stressed about this.  I think I will start sending boxes home now, but even so...it is going to be a challenge to get everything I want moved back to America.  *sigh*  There is a lesson in all this...from now on, I will not be such a collector of random things.  The keychains can stay, but everything else has to stop!!!!