Hotel Route-Inn Shimada-ekimae

... I came across on the middle of this road. I saw one pair of red eyes glint back at me in the darkness reflected by my headlights, glaring at me with pure hatred (as much hatred that is possible in a jackrabbit). "Jackrabbit?" I hear you say. Yes, and how could I tell this? Well, I'm not sure who ran away faster, but I could swear it was the jackrabbit who was on top who ...

... bill.
Anyhoo, almost every time I come to Tomiyama I have to pause on the way up the stairway to the school to admire the view. This is partly because the stairs are so many and so steep, that even I get winded when I carry my laptop bag, teaching bag and guitar up. But I allow myself to believe that unless I take in the view, I will probably collapse somewhere half-way up and look like I'm trying out for the part of the priest in the next Exorcist movie.
Once at the top and ...

... after helping serve everyone lunch. And, shortly after lunch, we have 15 minutes of our daily-cleaning routine, where students and most teachers take to their assigned rooms and dust, mop, sweep, windex, and scrub anything that needs the attention. I'm sure that they do this all over Japan, and you can only imagine the trade-off in discipline and education costs. I don't particularly feel sad when I realize that this doesn't create many jobs in the janitorial field; most of those ...

So after meeting Andrew in Toyohashi with Julie, I knew I had to see them play. Not only are they very talented musicians, but they were also very entertaining. It was also a goodbye party to a few of the local JETs who were leaving to get married or leaving to avoid it, not sure which was which. Either way, I met Brad and Brian that night, and another gentleman who I can't remember, who played like it was their ...

So this is going back a few days from the festival, but after staying about a week in Toyone, I felt like I had to explore more of it, rain or shine, farther than the nearest convenient store.
So grabbing my trusty wendy-basket mickey-mouse-locked Jidensha (Bicycle), I took off on what was a downhill journey one way...and a terrible return trip up the steep road that leads to my mountain apartment. In Japanese, they say Iki yoi yoi, Kaeri koway (The way there is good ...

I was all excited this week because a friend I met at the Nagoya orientation -one of the few who could hold his own- invited me (in my first Japanese keitai text message) to a tour of the area. Not having much planned yet, we agreed to tour around Saturday and maybe Sunday.
Less than a day or two later, my gym teacher (a personal favorite) brought up a BBQ he was hosting with his friends and family on Saturday. It being my first 'official' invite to any sort of co-worker outing, I didn't ...

... draw me maps indicating different landmarks, but the best was the one gas station where this grubby looking mechanic gave me a huge handful of "maple candies". They were just caramel (a Canadian could tell the diff), but they were delicious and appreciated nonetheless. I didn't eat for another hour. Eventually I found the grocery store, and some cool farmer's market that had some deep-fried potato nugget things (called after the French Croquette), bought a bunch of ...

... the town, talked to some high school students, and had the best hair-experience of my life: I got my hair cut in Japan.
It's not like at home, and it was worth every yen I spent (roughly $30; no tip since Japan doesn't do tipping...it makes sense really; if someone tips, then you expect better service. There's favoritism. Something more is expected. The dollar rules. Here, the Yen rules. And if someone tipped you, well then you'd be expected to tip another. The ...

... it. Although I'm thinking frying it up in tempura may be my method of choice.

After that we headed to Lake Hamana for lunch. It was a Japanese rest stop! We found a restaurant that served pork cutlet curry and then later found a place that sold crepe's and gelato. Yum! I had a crepe with gelato in it, sooooo yummy! It also satisfied my need to stop at the Starbucks that was there too.

After lunch we headed to the Dragon Rock Cave, which is a 1 ...

... the wooden bridge. In ten minutes, I reached the other end. There were statues of Seven Dieties of Good Fortune, a viewpoint for the bridge, and bells for prayer. It was a really nice tourist spot, although it was a little bit inconvenient to get there. When I got back to Shimada Station, trains were not available, because of the influence of a injury accident. So I had two more destinations left at that time, but I chose another destination to kill time in ...