Tokyu Inn Hotel Matsuyama

... 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.

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 many things to tell, and so little time!

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 back ...

... 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.

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.

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.

... very large moth / cricket things, that make a tremendous amount of noise!
-New cars: there are no old cars in Japan, everyone drives new cars.
-Car elevators: there are these crazy car elevators where they store cars here. I will see if I can get a picture.
-Toilet-sink: our toilet has a sink on top of it! When you flush the toilet it starts running and that is the water that fills up the tank to flush again the next time. Very clever, because then you can ...

I arrived in Japan last night! Yay! I am finally here...actually is snuck up pretty quickly.

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.

I had a really nice couple days with my family and visiting old friends ( and by friends I mean friend )

Then it was off to Vancouver to catch my plane to Tokyo. The trip from ...

... bathing area and changing room. It was much bigger than any of the onsens I had visited in Beppu. Most of the other women there were Japanese tourists. At all times of the day, but especially in the evening, there are groups of Japanese tourists walking through the streets either headed toward or coming from Dogo Onsen wearing their hotel provided yukatas and wooden sandals. The basic onsen etiquette as I described it in the ...

... spelling, and memorization. They never REALLY have the opportunity to have an actual conversation with someone with the English that they've studied. Occasionally, the schools will have an ALT come into the class and robotically speak the dialogue that the Japan-born English teacher asks the ALT to say. Dance, monkey! dance! From what I understand, Assistant Language Teachers, or ALTs, are foreigners who are hired by the government to stand around in junior ...

... kind they sell for more common pets, but I had a feeling it should have been something fresher. anyways, 5 days in the cage, and he died. He was a good pet, a good friend, and really creepy looking in the beginning, but he was super cool looking once you got used to him. Sigh. I remember fondly watching him trying to chew thru the bars on the cage.. and how he used to hang upside down, trying to escape. Such happy times.

... was right. The room we walked to was a huge room with about 50 futon mats or so. We were lucky in that our futons were against the wall so I gave it to Ashleigh so she didn't have to afraid of being groped in the middle of the night (She didn't have to worry about anything, i got an elbow in the ribs from the teenage girl next to me, but that was about it). I have a feeling that we were all packed in there due to Golden week. I can't imagine the ...