More travel adventures

So tomorrow I'm leaving for a week in China. I'm meeting my parents and a tour group in Beijing, and together we'll tour both Beijing and Xian. Hopefully I'll come back with lots of lovely pictures of the Great Wall, the terra cotta warriors of Xian, and many more exciting subjects. Wish me luck!

A weekend by the shore

I went to Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture two weekends ago on Sunday. It was about a two hour drive, and guess who drove... Yours truly! That's right, I hopped in the right side of that car, and took advantage of that International Driver's License. The biggest reason for risking life and limb on the left side of the road was that no one else had a valid driver's license. Also, I plan on buying a car in the not-too-distant future, so I figured there was no time like the present.


So here we are with our Mitsubishi rental car. Left to right is Oana from Romania, me, Mezbah from Bangladesh, and Anna from Poland. Another quite international group.


Here's the first place we saw the ocean. On the island next to the sailboat, is a torii sitting there in the middle of nowhere. There was no informational sign or anything, so we were all baffled. Quite picturesque, however.


Same torii on the far right-hand side.


One of Japan's famous cherry trees. I kept meaning to take more pictures of them, but little did I know they only bloom for about 4 days. There were a bunch near my apartment, but one day of rain, and *poof* no more flowers.


And up close...


We took a boat tour of the Ku-juu-ku-shima, translates as "ninety-nine islands." I didn't actually count them, but this bay is full of small islands. Some are big enough for populations of several hundred, some are only a few hundred meters across. Truth be told, this was the no the boat we got on. We were on a very similar white boat.


And here we are.






It was quite a nice day. The weather was absolutely perfect, and I'm not sure I've ever seen water that blue.


After our boat tour we drove a little ways and stopped at the beach.


That's Oana in the picture.


I was the only one who actually took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and tested the water. It was slightly cool, but perfectly comfortable for six-inch deep wading. It felt surprisingly good to have the sand between my toes again. I guess it had been quite a while.

And that's the highlights of the Sasebo day-trip. As always I have hundreds more pictures which I will happily send on request.

Stay tuned...

...for a real post. I went to Sasebo, Nagasaki, last weekend, so I have a lot of pics and stuff. Lately, I've been really busy, so it might be next weekend before I get to it, but I have content to add. Soon...

It's all Japanese to me

Monday night I watched my first movie entirely in Japanese. I had seen previews on rental DVDs for a Chinese movie called Lovers (American release title is House of Flying Daggers). I assumed that since it was a DVD I would have my choice of Chinese, Japanese, English, and probably Spanish and French as well. Teach me to assume anything in Japan! I indeed had language choices: Mandarin, Cantonese, or Japanese. Crap! Figuring since I rented the damn thing I might as well at least try it, I watched in Japanese. I surprised myself by actually following the dialogue enough to enjoy it. Obviously I didn't catch every word, and I have only a rough idea of the political intrigue, but I was never completely lost either.

My language issues aside, it was an absolutely beautiful movie. I highly recommend it just for the costuming, scenery, and choreography. At times the fight scenes were so highly stylized they reminded me of the near-dancing of stage fighting in Broadway musicals. The action was surreal like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I thought it was more aesthetically pleasing. Complete eye candy.

Haloscan comments

At Mike's suggestion, I switched the commenting to haloscan. Now you can leave comments with your name even if you're not cool enough to have a blog of your own! I even migrated all existing comments by hand because I love you guys and value your comments (so leave more).

And there was much rejoicing...

Toriis and Temples and Shrines, oh my!

Administrative stuff first: I changed my settings so anybody can leave a comment. I also added a counter. Please leave comments. The whole point of this page is so I can stay in touch with people better.

A bit of catchup: I went to see Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine on Monday, March 21. It was a national holiday, and the day after the big 7.0 earthquake (which did surprisingly little damage for how much stuff was shaking). Where cities like Kyoto are packed with famous shrines and temples, Fukuoka's only notable one is Tenmangu. It's semi-famous as being the best shrine to pray at for academic success. That's right: parents from the whole region drag their high schoolers to Dazaifu in hopes of passing the all-important college entrance exams. Call me pathetic, but it took me 8 months to get to Fukuoka's only great cultural site. It's also known for having beautiful plum trees, which were all in bloom when we went. It was rather pretty.

I went with Keita, a Japanese guy I met, and three of his friends, who all turned out to be really cool. Slowly but surely my social circle is widening... Soon I'll hit double-digits. Here are a few pictures.


This is called a torii. They're placed at the entrances to all shrines.


The main building at Tenmangu shrine. Note the plum tree in the foreground.


A statue--I'm not sure what the significance is--and more plum trees.


Keita reading my fortune to me. Turns out I will be easily susceptible to diseases and will never be reunited with loved ones. Not like American fortune cookies, I tell ya.


But when you get a bad fortunes, you tie it to one of these thingies and the god of the shrine "takes care of it."


Clockwise: Oana, Chen, Mu, Keita, and me. We were quite the international group. Mu and Chen are Chinese, Oana's Romanian, and Keita's Japanese. We had many deep and meaningful conversations about cultural differences, including what noises various animals make. FYI dog noises: English--bow wow, Romanian--how how, Japanese--wan wan, Chinese--wan wan (but the pronunciation is a little different).

Lost in translation

So recently, a bunch of my students took a trip to Denver. Much to my surprise (ok, not really) everyone had a great time and came back all glowy. Here's some pics I got from Ishibashi-sensei, one of the lucky(?) teachers who escorted them.


My students, on their way to Denver.


Left to right: Momoko, Lisa, Maria. Aren't they cute? FYI: Lisa and Maria are also Japanese names. What a coincidence... These are three of my favorite students right here. They volunteer in class, do their homework, have a solid grasp of material, and are all around cool kids. In short, they're teachers' pets. All three had a great time and were bursting to talk about their experiences. Momoko, in particular, was cute when she explained how much fun it was after she realized boys would do whatever she wanted. She's, uh, very eager to spend more time with American boys.


Asleep in Denver. Aww... I feel ashamed I can't name them with 100% certainty, but honestly, it's hard enough to tell them apart when I can see their faces.


Left to right: Yuriko, Fumie, Misa.

I got a ton more pictures, but unless you know the kids, I don't imagine it's too interesting to look at a whole roll of this stuff.

On the wagon we go

I decided that everybody else is doing it so I might as well. Hey why is everyone standing so close to that cliff? Also I feel the need to share details of my life with friends, but I don't have any real ones. Welcome virtual friends.