Matsuyama City Hotel

... the peak as it was, I couldn't really imagine doing the whole thing...all in one day at least.<br><br>The rope-way itself was quite an experience, as it ascends nearly vertically, from the still almost completely green and lush lowland valleys to vibrant, nearly fake looking fall colours at the top. The red, yellow and orange leaves splattered over a canopy of bright green pines was wonderful, never have I seen fall colours like that. Of course our companions from ...

... other smaller portable shrines down a very high set of stairs, followed by a brawl to collect the pieces.<br><br>I am not really sure of the significance of all this, but it was definitely interesting to watch! I will try to find out more about the meaning behind this festival and make another post about it at a later time.<br><br>For the first night of the festival Jess and I walked down to the water to watch them parade around. It was really ...

So many things to tell, and so little time!<br><br>My first week of teaching in Hojo has been very very busy, and very interesting. I have come home everyday too tired to even check email (so sorry for lack of communication, guys!). That being said, I am hoping to become used to the teaching routine and get my energy ...

... and there is a massive parking lot overflowing with bikes. So, I decided I had to buy one and a couple of days ago I finally did! It's called "Tea Cup." It's a beautiful cream and brown beauty and I love her. So today I took a nice shot of her and road around snapping a few ( very few ) pictures of the neighborhood.<br><br>I plan to take more, but the thing is, when you are just a tourist somewhere it is a lot different than living there ...

... attract the fish...which I'm pretty sure is illegal in Canada??? Anyway, the lights and burning lantern thing attract the fish and the Cormorants catch them. When one of them is full ( apparently they can hold up to 16 fish ) the fisherman reals one of them in and sort of chokes them until they cough up the fish.<br><br>The boat got us quite close and I got a pretty nice video, which I will try to upload. It was a pretty amazing experience, even if questionably a little cruel.

... your hands without touching a tap and conserve water at the same time. Japanese people are so clever.<br><br>Anoyances:<br>-Drum practice every morning at 5am, right outside our window!!!<br>-Roosters: for those of you who followed my South America blog you know of my hate for these animals. Contrary to popular belife they DO NOT crow with the sunrise, they crow anytime they feel like, including the middle of the night. And not once, but many, many times.<br><br> <br>

... from Canon, my first SLR. I had to put down quite a bit of money, but I now have a body, 3 lenses, a bag, a sportload of filters, a flash, a mini-studio, and some macro equipment. My gear is quite heavy, but I can do a lot of things with it as you'll see in some of my photos. I'm still experimenting! UPDATE: I've got a flickr.com account.

... Shout out to Tomoki and Shim for their kind help!! There are separate sections for men and women. I went to the men's side, where the is a big locker room. That is where you disrobe, and put all your belongings in a locker. Then connected to the locker room are 2 baths. Each had the good ol' "bucket and faucets" for bathing before entering the mineral waters... and in the center of the room was the actual mineral bath or Kami-no ...

... some of the students were familiar with, "squid" was apparently a completely new word for all of them, and they had been having some difficulty remembering it. Anyway, squid went under "too squishy," and when we came up with octopus a little later, the kids quickly placed it in the same category. The other English teachers had a nice giggle when I came back from class with papers for the Open House display that read, in five-year-old handwriting, "I want a squid, but it ...

... dresser repaired, and I'm currently stealing internet from my neighbor, who is also a co-worker (I asked, he says it's cool if we use it, so I guess it's not stealing). Now that that's mostly done, I'm going to concentrate on studying Japanese again. Work is awesome. The kids are super cute, and unbelievably well disciplined for being 2-3 years old. It's surprising how much discipline they're pushed into and how super mature they act by the time they reach ...