Hotel Fukuzuru Matsuyama

... up just stopping after a point and heading back. Needless to say it was quite an amazing experience to stand on the sharp jagged edge of such a massive peak and look out over Shikoku. From there you could see the inland see in 2 directions and see several towns lying in around the bays. You could see back to the Joju and the tiny point we climbed the first chains to get to. I am glad Jess lent me her camera, because I unfortunately forgot mine. I will let her handle ...

... continued all night long. And when I say all night long I mean it didn't stop until the next morning around 6am. This happened the whole long weekend and though Jess can sleep through anything I cannot and barely got a wink of sleep. I didn't let this stop me from enjoying the festival though.<br><br>On Saturday night was the big smashing ceremony and that was really the highlight of the festival. It was amazing how many people came too, from all ...

... so that I can regularly update you with some photos and information!<br><br>I will try and backlog later, adding in Tokyo photos, and some other events.<br><br>For now, just a quick glimpse into life in Hojo!<br><br>(More photos to come....more of our apartment (after I finally bought some curtains), my school, etc!)<br>

... when you are somewhere, where rules and manners are so important. So I often feel weird just snapping away. Especially at things like temples and shrines. I'm not even sure if you're allowed??? I'm going to try and find out though, because there are some beautiful Buddhist temples in Hojo, especially the one, it is just gorgeous.<br><br>I am also going to upload images for the journey here entry. So you can check that out if you want.<br>

So we saw our first really cultural "touristy" type thing the other day. We were lucky enough to be placed only 25 minutes from one of the THREE places in Japan that still practices the traditional Cormorant fishing. I just want to make clear that this is NOT fishing for Cormorants, but with them. I'd also like to thank Etta ( one of the advisor people for the JET programme ) for putting this together and inviting us.<br><br>So there was twelve of us, 11 other ALTs and me and ...

... Once on the ground, everything was a breeze and I soon found myself in the airport lobby. I was feeling pretty good at this point. Now I just had to get to Matsuyama???<br><br>With a little help from the video on the plane, it was easy to find the JR ticket booth ( it also helped that there was a huge English sign that said "Train Tickets" ) strangely enough though, once the guy had helped me figure out what train to take, he wouldn't sell me a ticket, he sent ...

I arrived in Japan last night! Yay! I am finally here...actually is snuck up pretty quickly.<br><br>So I would like to start by apologizing to all the people I lied to about my flight date. I just couldn't risk Jessica finding out, I wanted it to be a surprise.<br><br>I had a really nice couple days with my family and visiting old friends ( and by friends I mean friend )<br><br>Then it was off to Vancouver to catch my plane to Tokyo. The trip from ...

... with bread being lost into the sea, but no casualties. The smaller sea birds are to fast and agile for the larger more powerful hawks. The ferry ride takes 2 hours. Most people sleep as most Japanese do while taking any form of transportation. I sneak a seat inside to watch Canada leading in the men's GS skiing competition in Sweden. Nice! We arrive and get our bearings missing the first bus and running for the second as an overpriced meal ran late. We ...

... traditional food, or maintain traditions. They all want to be like Americans, flashy, rich and cool all the while. In Japan, I'd imagine that a lot of it might be that people are suffering from a work overload with little pay. They don't have the time to spend doing the old traditional things, they've got to get to the gym, pick up the kids, go karaoke with their company (something that you can't refuse in many companies), etc. I think they're finding other ways to ...

Ashleigh and I have been trying to get out of the house on the weekends to try and experience some of the nightlife in this town. Most of the time we haven't strayed too far since the rain and our distance from the "downtown" area has kept us nearby. Matsuyama is a pretty small town by Japanese standards, so there aren't a lot of stuff to do outside of the city center. There are small karaoke rooms and some restaurants that are like pubs, but we ...