Yakushima!

I just got back from the island of Yakushima. Here are a few pictures. I'll add captions later... I'm tired!




And here's a link to the full photo album (full as soon as it finished uploading to picasa...)

Yakushima Trip November 2008

Yakushima

Here's where I'll be this weekend:

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Sumo!

Six times a year there are sumo tournaments in Japan and every November one of those events comes to Fukuoka. All the top sumo wrestlers compete against each other every day for two weeks.


We wanted to go outside to wait and meet the wrestlers but since it was too friggin' cold (it snowed today!) I figured this cardboard cut-out would have to do! After the tournament we went out for yakitori (grilled meat on sticks) in Tenjin. What a fun school night! It was a fun school day, too, by the way! I treated my 10th graders to a little party in celebration of our new unit on the Classical Period. History rocks!


Here is a typical scene on a Fukuoka subway.











I'm trying to upload videos but it's way too slow! I'll try again tomorrow, if I'm not too busy packing for Yakushima! We have a 5-day weekend so Lori and I are off on another adventure. This time we're heading to the southern tip of Kyushu for a hot "sand bath" in Ibusuki then we'll take a hydrofoil to Yakushima to frolic in the magical forest!

Karaoke!

Finally I've had opportunities to sing karaoke!  In Japan!  At last!  We went out Friday night after a staff "Thanksgiving" dinner (turkey and sushi!) and had a blast.  Tomorrow night I'm off to my first Sumo tournament.  Stay tuned...

It's the most wonderful time of November!

On November 1st, the Christmas lights came out in Japan. Shops busted out the wreaths and carols, and Starbucks introduced the holiday lattes. It's funny because less than 1% of Japan is Christian (thank goodness!) but apparently Christmas is a popular commercial holiday. Here is one festive house I pass on my bike ride along the river to/from school:

Seoul

This week I took 9 students to the Seoul Model United Nations conference. Here are my students in front of a temple on our first night downtown. Only one student speaks Korean so he and I were the tour guides. It was great to return to Seoul, where I had a great adventure last year.
Karinna accompanied students from her school in Vietnam as a chaperone at the MUN conference, too! It was so good to see her! She joined my group for our second night on the town. We braved the crowded subways to get around.
The conference was great and we all enjoyed our time in Seoul. I especially enjoyed the food and was impressed with all the student delegates. Can't wait to go back next year!

Yanagawa Festival

Last night Lori and I went back to Yanagawa for the annual nighttime lantern festival. Once a year (for 56 years now) they honor some local guy (I have no idea who, but his picture was all over town) by decorating the canals and boats with thousands of lanterns. We didn't make a reservation for a boat so we had to view the festivities from land.

Over a hundred boats full of happy and hungry festival-goers filled the canals. Next year Lori and I hope to have enough friends to fill our boat for a dinner cruise.

Along the canal route local citizens provided cultural entertainment and set off firecrackers. The best show was a women's taiko drumming group.

I wish I'd taken a longer video. They were great! See the boats going by in the background?

An older group of ladies performed on traditional Japanese stringed instruments.

In the end there was a huge fireworks display.

We took the train home and checked out a karaoke bar in my neighborhood. It was a small place with about ten people sitting
around the bar and passing the mic around. Most of the clientele were drunk old men and in the end I'm not sure if we belonged there but it was a fun night anyhow!