The Sake Festival

Hi! Long time no see! Thanks for checking this, and I should be doing a few more updates soon because my time in Fukuyama is ending and soon I'll be moving to a town near here and then going to England for a two week vacation (!).

Anyway, last weekend we went to the annual Sake Matsuri (Festival) in Saijo, a small town near Hiroshima. Apparently the festival attracts 200,000 people every year, and it was pretty crowded. We arrived a little after 10 and spent the first part of the day wandering through cool old sake breweries and trying a lot of free samples. We had one of my friend's students as a guide, and he was really into sake, so that was a big help. We stayed about six hours just looking at sake breweries, trying food and sake (even sake ice cream!), and then sitting for a while to recover from the drinking and wandering.

The first picture is my boyfriend, Mark, our friend, Paul, and our guide for the day, Shintaro, with sake cups made from bamboo. The next shot is a display with flowers and sake bottles, and then some people testing the temperature of the sake they were about to serve. The last one is me and my co-worker, Chris, with a raccoon mascot.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Fukuoka and Kumamoto

Hi! Right now I'm just finishing a week of vacation for the Obon holidays. It's been nice having some time off and it gave us a chance to spend a long weekend in Fukuoka and visit a couple who used to live here but moved in April. We went to Fukuoka Sunday morning and spent the afternoon at Canal City, a big shopping center. We went to the ramen stadium there, which is a big, crowded area with many shops selling ramen. Fukuoka is famous for a special type of ramen called Tonkotsu where the soup is made from pork bones, I think, so it's white. The shopping center also had a "dessert museum" but it wasn't very impressive - just a few coffee shops with expensive cakes. That evening we traveled to Omuta where our friends live. The next day we went to a beach outside Fukuoka, which was a lot of fun, though I got a small sting on my foot from something in the water. Tuesday we went to Kumamoto to see the castle there. It's a really nice castle with lots of things to look at and English explanations of everything. We came back last night (Tuesday night) and I have one more day off before starting work again tomorrow.

The first picture is of the restaurant we ate at in the ramen stadium. We waited in line for maybe 20 or 30 minutes then bought tickets at a vending machine and then waited a bit more before being seated in the restaurant. Next is a picture of Kumamoto Castle from the outside and then an example of the English explanations they had (this is for the gun windows in the guard tower). The last picture is a view of Kumamoto and the guard tower from the top of the castle.

Thanks for reading!

Summer Festivals

Hi! Sorry again for the long silence and thanks for checking back, anyway. Not much has been going on lately, just trying to get through the unbelievably hot summer. There are lots of summer festivals and fireworks in Japan, and yesterday we went to the festival in Okayama, which involved stages at various places around downtown and a big parade. It was so hot and crowded that we couldn't really watch much of the parade (I'm not much of a parade person, anyway, and I couldn't help thinking how hot the performers must have been in their beautiful costumes so it wasn't such a big loss) but it was fun to watch the dancing.

Here are a few shots of a dance we saw at about two in the afternoon outside the station. I think it was about 110 (no joke) and very high humidity so I have no idea how the dancers all managed to look so cool and sweat-free, but they did it. We saw a few groups of dancers sitting in the shade later after their performances and they were starting to show the effects of the heat and exertion then, but they were all smiles onstage.

After two more days of work I have a week off for the Obon holidays so we're going to visit friends in Fukuoka, and I'll write an update after that. I hope you're all enjoying the summer!

Cate

Takamatsu and my birthday

Hi Everyone! Sorry for the long silence, I haven't been doing much that's worthy of a blog update, just enjoying the warm weather (which is already starting to get uncomfortably hot, unfortunately). Also I've been busy because my boyfriend, Mark, had an accident when we were playing a game in a park two weeks ago and knocked a few teeth out and injured his jaw, so I've been busy helping him.

Anyway, these pictures are from Ritsurin Park in Takamatsu, which is a town on the smallest of Japan's four main islands, Shikoku. The park is not one of the "big 3," (the park's considered the three most beautiful in the country) but apparently there is a campaign to change that. The park was lovely and it was a perfect day to see it. The theme of the day was "The Amazing Race" because we'd been watching that show a lot, so Mark had set up a treasure hunt in the style of the show.

Ok, enjoy the pictures! I hope you're all enjoying the summer,
Cate

Vietnam 2: Halong Bay

We arrived in Vietnam late Sunday evening (I think it was around midnight when we finally stepped into our hotel room) and spent Monday and Tuesday exploring Hanoi, then Wednesday morning we left for Halong Bay. We were picked up at our hotel at 8:30 or so and rode in a van for about three and a half hours to the dock in Halong. The trip of course included a stop to buy souvenirs (which they pretend is a bathroom break). There were four couples in our van, so when we stepped out at the souvenir stop, four Vietnamese employees attached themselves to our group, and then as the four couples started going to different parts of the shop we each had one employee shuffling along behind us.

Anyway, one other couple from our van was on our boat (the other two were on another boat), so the four of us got on the boat and sat on the deck drinking sweet tea for maybe half an hour until another van of people arrived. Eventually we set off and had a big lunch while we sailed into the bay. After lunch we saw a floating fishing village and some amazing scenery, and at four Mark and I set off for a kayak trip. We were the only two going in the afternoon, so it was just us and our guide, which was really nice. We kayaked for about two hours and the best part of that was going through a little cave into a lagoon where we were the only three people (that's where the picture above was taken). After kayaking was dinner and then drinks on the deck.

The next day after breakfast we got out to see "Amazing Cave" and then before we knew it we were back at the dock and on our way back to Hanoi. We have tons of pictures, but I didn't want to overload this post with images, so I hope you get the idea of what it was like. The first picture is our boat, the Dragon's Pearl, and then it's Mark and me in our kayaks, then two pictures of Halong Bay, one around sunset, and one at five in the morning when we got up for sunrise (though as you can see, it was too foggy to see anything).

Thanks for reading!
Catie

Vietnam 1: Hoa Lu and Tam Coc

Hi Everyone! We just arrived back from Vietnam yesterday (at five in the morning) and now I've just finished my first day back at work. I want to write a lot about Vietnam because it was a really great trip and I'll start with a day trip we took to the old capital, Hoa Lu, and Tam Coc, a place about two hours from Hanoi with really amazing scenery.

Mark and I were the only two people signed up for the trip, so it was just us and our guide, Binh. We started with a two-hour car trip out of Hanoi (punctuated with a stop at a souvenir shop, as always). Then we went to a temple dedicated to the first king of Hanoi and then a temple maybe 200 yards away dedicated to the second king. It was a smart area to have the capitol of the country because it was all surrounded by amazing limestone cliffs so it was well-protected. They moved the capitol to Hanoi in 1010 so in three years there will be a huge celebration in Hanoi for the millenial anniversary of becoming the capitol (I plan to go back for that, who's with me?).

After that we walked up the road to get our bikes and while Binh and I were in the bathroom (or the 'happy room' as our guides liked to call it) Mark was accosted by village ladies trying to sell him things. The people in that area all studied French for talking to tourists, so we were monsieur and madame all day, which was interesting. The bike ride wasn't too challenging, even for me, and I learned to ride a bike less than a year ago, though we did get stuck in mud once and had to change our route a bit. It was rough going when we first got out of the mud but we passed some villagers who were cleaning motorbikes so they gave our feet, sandals, pedals, and wheels a power wash. After that we rode for maybe an hour and a half enjoying the amazing limestone cliffs, traditional villages (with children who asked for candy and one little girl who spat at us when we didn't give her anything), and wild animals (I nearly ran over chickens twice). Then we stopped to eat lunch and dry off and cool down a bit before a quick cycle to a dock where we got on a sampan rowed by two women (well, one rowed while the other stood and steered with a big stick). The boat ride was about an hour and a half and included a ride through a cave where the women stopped and tried to sell us crafts. Finally we had another short bike ride and then packed back into the car for Hanoi.

It was an exhausting day but really fun and a great way to get out of the city and see the countryside. The first picture is me and Binh on our bikes, the next one is the scenery on the bike ride, and the last one is from the boat ride.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Visiting Uncle Ho

Hi Everyone, I'll write a lot more about Vietnam when we get home (right now it's the end of day 2) but for now I wanted to quickly write about the surreal experience of seeing Ho Chi Minh before I forget the details. Also this is our last night in a place with a computer and internet in the room so I wanted to take advantage of it. Tomorrow we're doing a trip to Halong Bay, which includes a night on the boat and then we have three more nights in Hanoi and we're staying in a different hotel.

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum is a bit far from where we're staying, so we took a Cyclo, which is a little cart that's pushed in front of a bike. It's a good way to get right into the crazy traffic while still feeling relatively safe (and we took a bunch of pictures during the ride that I'll put up when we get home). When we got there we saw a huge line of people waiting to get in but as we were walking toward the end of the line a man told us he could get us past the line to a special shortcut only for foreigners if we'd slip him five dollars (turned out to be five each). I'm not sure what the deal with that is, though we ended up in a line with all the other foreigners and it was much, much shorter, so he wasn't lying. I suppose he makes a deal with the guards, and I'm guessing the reason he said it was 'only for English, Australians, and Americans' is because the Vietnamese wouldn't be willing to pay that.

Anyway, after lots of waiting and passing through a metal detector and then more waiting to check cameras we made it into the mausoleum building. There were lots of guards inside and they shush you and push you into two lines and herd you toward the room with Uncle Ho himself. The room is a big square with the casket in the center and four guards standing around it. You walk on a narrow little path around three sides of the casket and then back out and it all happens very quickly, though you don't really need any more time because all you're doing is looking at a body. The guards grab your elbows and keep you moving along and they also pushed the children to a center track for walking around so that they can see, which is nice. The whole thing felt a little strange and it felt like a lot of hubbub for such a short visit but, hey, how often do you get to see the body of a national hero? Apparently you're supposed to watch the faces of the Vietnamese people in there because they're so reverant but I forgot to do that because I was too busy looking at Ho Chi Minh.

Ok, that's it for now. We've been keeping very busy walking around and seeing things and eating ice cream. This place is pretty fascinating and very different from anywhere I've been before (and an interesting change from Japan). Thanks for reading!

Cate

Kyoto and Nara

Last weekend I went to Kyoto and Nara with my parents and Mark. We left Monday morning and that evening we visited the Golden Temple, kinkaku-ji, which is in the bottom picture. It was originally a retirement villa for a shogun, but now I guess it's a Zen temple (thank you, wikipedia). It's covered in gold leaf, so it's a really striking structure, and I enjoyed seeing it again (I also visited it last time I was in Japan, three years ago).

The next day we went to Nara, which is famous for its big Buddha statue and herds of tame deer. The deer are actually pretty pushy and as soon as they saw me going to buy food they surrounded me and put their pushy little faces in my bag. One of them even bit me, which surprised the heck out of me, but I guess they know an easy target when they see one. They are all trained to bow their heads for food though I didn't know that at the time so I didn't get to try it out. The picture above the Golden Temple is of the building that houses the big Buddha and that's me lighting incense before going in.

That afternoon Mark and I went to Kiyomizu Temple, one of the most popular temples in Kyoto. It's on a hillside supported by big stilts (you can kinda see them in the top picture) and it gives you a really nice view of the city. The second picture shows three waterfalls coming from the hill that you can drink from. You can get one of three things, depending on which fall you drink from: money, beauty, or wisdom. We didn't know which was which but found out later that I drank from money and Mark drank from wisdom.

Thanks for reading! Next week we leave for Vietnam and I can't wait for that! I'll post pictures when we get back.

Cate

Tokyo

Here are a few pictures from Tokyo, which I visited with my parents the weekend before last. They arrived in Japan on Saturday and I took the train to meet them on Sunday. That day we went to dinner with my old host family in Tokyo and met their two current students, which was a lot of fun. The next day we mostly just walked around a few of my old favorite neighborhoods and enjoyed people-watching and window-shopping. The first two pictures are from Harajuku, a neighborhood that is popular with young people for great shopping (and is now very famous thanks to Gwen Stefani, I guess). The bottom picture is Shinjuku at night, which I like because it's got all the neon that people expect of Tokyo. That picture was taken in Kabuki-cho, Shinjuku's red-light district, though it doesn't feel as sketchy as other red-light districts I've seen (still, I wouldn't walk there along late at night)

After Tokyo my parents came back to my town, Fukuyama, and they did some sightseeing in the afternoons while I was at work. Then Monday we went to Kyoto along with my boyfriend, Mark, and I plan to post pictures from that little trip soon.

But that's it for now, thanks for reading!
Cate

Osaka

Last weekend Mark and I had to go to Osaka to get our tourist visas for our trip to Vietnam, and we decided to see the sights while we were in the big city. We went up Sunday morning and spent most of Sunday afternoon wandering around an area called American town, which is the hip, young shopping area. It reminded me of being back in Tokyo and shopping in Harajuku, actually, so that was neat. There wasn't actually anything very American, unless you count lots of t-shirts that say USA or have random states or confederate flags on them, and you see those everywhere, but there was a statue of liberty on top of a building (the second one I've seen in Japan; there's one on Odaiba, too). We had some beer tastes and edamame at a Kirin restaurant when we got tired of walking (the first picture at the top). That evening we had okonomiyaki, which is like a big pancake with cabbage and seafood. Osaka is famous for food, so I wish we'd had more chances to eat out, but we didn't have a lot of time.

Monday morning we checked out of our hostel (nothing stinks like very old tatami mats, but you can't beat 3000 yen - about 25 dollars - for a night in Osaka) and went to find the consulate. That was a fun adventure because addresses in Japan are not sequential. Every city is divided into wards and then each ward is divided into numbered boxes and then the boxes are divided once more, so you find the ward, then use the zipcode to find the area, which gives you a square block and you just have to find your place. After that we went to Osaka's famous aquarium, Kaiyukan, which is one of the world's largest. That was fun, though it actually wasn't the best aquarium because the displays didn't look very natural and a lot of the tanks seemed too small, especially for the dolphins and penguins. We had a good time discussing which would be the worst tank to be dropped into - the giant crabs with huge skinny legs or the creepy, crawly jellyfish.

Finally we stopped by Namba, Osaka's entertainment district. I've heard it's also the place with the highest concentration of love hotels anywhere in the world. We had fun looking at those, though I've read that love hotels are in the process of going up-market and are therefore getting less interesting (it's getting more difficult to find a hotel shaped like a whale or a spaceship, for example). Anyway, the picture at the top is the sign at one called Bali, which I took because it shows the options - you can go for a "rest" (from one to three hours) or stay longer. The next picture was a hotel called Mickey Cookies which had an all-pink room. Surprisingly the area is not too seedy, though I imagine it changes a bit at night.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

New Year's Resolutions

Hi Everyone! So, around New Year's we asked students to write their New Year's Resolutions on little paper hearts and then used those to decorate a bulletin board. Now that it's Spring we rearranged the hearts to make a cherry blossom display (the top picture).

I thought it was pretty so I wanted to share it with you all, and I also included detail shots of my favorite resolutions. I hope you can read them on these pictures, because they're pretty great. I made one, too, and it's "to practice Japanese every day," which I certainly do not do.

Thanks for reading, I should be updating again soon because I'm going to Osaka next weekend (to get a tourist visa for my big trip to Vietnam next month) and then the week after that I'm meeting my parents in Tokyo and then going with them to Kyoto the next week. So I should have lots to write about!

Cate

Baseball Game

Last weekend I went to a pre-season baseball game to see the Hanshin Tigers play the Eagles. Japanese baseball is fairly similar to American baseball in a lot of ways, but the fans are completely different. The Tigers are famous for having rowdy fans, though the stadium wasn't too crowded because it was Spring Training and it was a Monday afternoon. Every time the Tigers were at bat, everyone around us (we were in the Tigers cheering section) was singing and making noise along with men who were shouting encouragement and playing trumpets. Each inning there was a different man leading the crowd.

Instead of a seventh-inning stretch, they had a big balloon release. We all blew up big ballooons with special caps on the ends (to release air slowly) and then let them go during the special balloon song. It was a very pretty sight to see all the balloons fly into the air and I also enjoyed the balloon cleaning squad on the field who waited for the balloons to fall and picked them up before the players came back out. A single balloon escaped their attention and was flying around but the right fielder got it in the end.

American Bar

These photos were taken at an American Bar called GB's that Mark and I go to a lot (because it's halfway between the train station and his house). The first picture shows my dinner, 'Country Morning,' which was an omelette filled with ground beef and cheese and covered in ketchup, plus a giant piece of toast (that was the only time we had dinner there - usually we just get Miller and American potatoes, which are french fries with a pat of butter on top). The other two pictures show the decor, which is very heavy on license plates. The plates seemed to all repeat the same ten or so states, but they had my favorite plate, Utah, so that's ok. They also have American food containers on a shelf along the top of the walls. You can't see the containers in the pictures, but they have a random selection including Folger's coffee, macaroni and cheese boxes, corn, Nestea, spam, and ketchup. I'm always interested to see how America is portrayed abroad, so I hope you enjoy this little look at American-themed dining in Japan.

And a side-note about how the rest of the world sees us: we were doing subjunctive in class the other day, and a student made the sentence, "if I were American... I would eat hamburgers every day."

Bye bye,
Cate

Hiroshima

I went to Hiroshima on January 3rd for a day trip. This was the second to last day of my New Year's Holiday and I hadn't done much for most of the break so I decided to make a trip to the big city for some shopping and sightseeing. I went to Hiroshima three years ago with my family when they visited during my study abroad semester, so I've already seen the Peace Museum and the Peace Park, which meant I could focus on shopping on this trip. Unfortunately everyone else in Western Honshu (the main island of Japan) apparently had the same idea so the stores were crazy-crowded. It reminded me of riding the trains in Tokyo at rush hour, actually, though there were no white-gloved employees pushing people in the doors like on the trains.

I did walk to the Atomic Bomb dome, which is the third picture. It was a government building very near the epicenter of the blast that somehow managed to survive more or less the way you see it there. It's a very famous monument so there were lots of people around taking pictures of it. After that I did a little shopping and looked around Hiroshima. The first picture was just a wall somewhere that happened to have those neat sculptures and the second one is a fountain outside the art museum.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Kurashiki

Kurashiki is a city about half an hour fom Fukuyama, where I live. It's famous for a small area of old buildings, willow trees and picturesque bridges around a nice canal. It's not a huge tourist attraction (we were the only foreign tourists, though there were big groups of Japanese tourists) but it's a nice place to spend an afternoon. There's a small art gallery with a nice little collection that was put together by a textile magnate named Ohara. Our favorite part of the museum was a small garden and a stream full of very hungry carp. There are many little stands selling fishfood for 100 yen a bag so we spent a nice few minutes feeding the fish.

The first two pictures up there are of the canal area and the third one is Mark standing in the garden behind the Ohara gallery.

Oh, and I have internet in my apartment now, so hopefully I'll be updating a lot more! Thanks for reading,
Cate

Valentine's Day

Hi Everyone! Once again, sorry I don't update much and thanks for checking, anyway. I got the official notice in the mail that I will have internet installed in my apartment in one week, so then I plan to update more and add lots of pictures.

Valentine's Day is a little different in Japan, as you may know. Women give chocolates to men and men don't have to give women anything (though I made it clear to my boyfriend that as he's dating an American he's still expected to give me something). There are two kinds of chocolate gifts, obligation chocolates that you give to your boss and co-workers and chocolates for that special someone. Many women (most?) make their own chocolate treats, so there are all kinds of cute little kits for making and presenting truffles or brownies or some such thing. There are also lots of adorable little boxes of chocolate and other sweets for sale in the department stores, in the grocery stores, and even in the 100-yen (one dollar) stores. I've heard that the holiday is mainly between women and men, though a student told me today that when she was a child all the girls gave chocolates to their friends, and today she gave me a beautiful box of Godiva chocolates, so I guess that's not entirely true. Also, despite most things being much more expensive here than at home, you can get really beautifully-packaged, high quality chocolates for a very good price.

Next month is White Day, when men have to give gifts back to the women who gave them chocolates. I think these presents are usually more expensive, like jewelry, so that's a good deal, I guess.

Thanks for reading!
Cate

Interviews

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't updated much lately, and thank you for reading my blog, anyway. I'm still working on getting internet in my apartment, and once that happens I will be able to update more and add pictures, finally. Apparently Yahoo needs to check my information with some other internet/phone company and then check with my landlord and then they can do it. Ridiculous.

But anyway, I've been thinking that I should put something here about how I spend my time at work and one of our main jobs is interviewing prospective students, so I'll tell you about that. The interview has two main goals - to place the student in the right lesson for his or her level, and to get him or her to come to our school instead of one of the many, many other schools (I'd say the second goal is most important as far as management is concerned). So when you have an interview, you check that your jacket is on and your company pin is straight on your lapel, then you get out a business card, which you hand to the prospective student when you walk in. During the interview you're supposed to fill out a sheet called 'My First Lesson at (Company Name) ' while you ask the student lots of questions. The sheet has spaces for phrases, vocabulary and pronunciation, so you write things down when the person makes mistakes and go over it with him or her, just like in a lesson. The idea is that they can see some improvement after just the 15 minute interview and they'll want to sign up for more. Usually students are very shy, but sometimes we get some talkative ones, and those interviews are especially fun. I've had two prospective students tell me in the last couple of days that they saw my picture on our website and wanted to meet me, which is a little strange but I guess it means I look friendly. The guy I interviewed today told me that he's not sure which lesson he would take, but the important thing is that it's one of my lessons and he kept mentioning places and saying we should go together. I felt a little strange about that, but one of the Japanese teachers told me it's good I can attract students that way, so maybe I should be flattered. She told me not to mention my boyfriend to him or he might leave our school, but I think she was joking.

Ok, thanks for reading! More soon, I promise!
Cate

Advertising

One of the most popular ways to advertise in Japan is to pass out small tissue packets with little brochures inside or stapled to the packets. You get so many of these walking around that eventually you have to stop taking them or they'll take over your life. I really don't understand why stores here even sell tissues. Anyway, my company does this and our branch puts the pictures of its three foreign teachers on the little fliers that they pass out, which makes me feel like a celebrity. They also have our pictures on the sandwich-board sign that sits outside our building but the pictures are so dopey that I'm not particularly proud of that one. I took a picture of the sign that I will post on here when I get my internet access. Maybe if I work here long enough I'll make it into one of the brochures that they use all over the country so I can be famous all over Japan and not just in my little home.

Ok, I hope you enjoyed this little culture note. Oh, and this can serve as incentive for you all to visit me - you can stock up on kleenex!

Cate

New Year's Eve

Hi Everyone! Akemashite Omedetou (Happy New Year)! Sorry I haven't been updating much - I'm hoping to finally get internet access at home sometime in the next few days and I plan to put up a bunch of pictures then, so I've been waiting for that.

New Year's in Japan is a very important holiday, and, it turns out, a quiet, family time, which we discovered when we tried going out on the 31st. I went to Okayama, where I had my training in November, because most people I know here in Fukuyama went out of town. I met a teacher from Canada who arrived here recently and we had dinner with a few other people at the apartment of an ex-Marine who has lived in Japan for 13 years and now writes textbooks. He also does the voice of one of the characters in one of our textbooks, so it was very exciting to meet him. After dinner we went to an Australian-themed bar for the countdown to midnight, and a teacher from Stratford Upon Avon had written out Auld Lang Syne a bunch of times so we could sing at midnight. They play the tune here when stores are closing, so everyone knows it. After midnight we went dancing until maybe 4 or 5 in the morning and finally went to bed.

Part of the Japanese tradition for New Year's is to go to a shrine on the 1st, but I didn't end up doing that. They also have lots of traditional New Year's dishes called Osechi, and my coworker, Marina, and I did make one of those yesterday. It was made with sweet potato and chestnut. For more information on traditions of Japanese New Year's, you can look at my host mother's blog linked on the left (okasan's blog) and see pictures of the huge crowds that turn out for the post-New Year's bargain sales. They definitely do look similar to the after-Thanksgiving sales in the U.S. I think it's best to avoid setting foot in a store for the first few days of January if at all possible.

Thanks for reading! And thanks for the comments!

Christmas in Japan

Christmas was a few days ago now, so most places have already replaced Christmas decoration with New Year's decorations (which are totally different here - the Christmas stuff is all Western-imports like lights and trees and the New Years stuff is traditional Japanese). New Years is much more important here (Christmas is a relatively new import, after all), so I'm excited to see how that goes.

Fortunately, Christmas fell on a Monday this year, which is a day off for us. I think I would be sad to have to work on Christmas. We had a little North American Christmas celebration at my coworker Marina's house. It was me and Marina plus Chris, who works with us two days a week, and his coworker from his other school, Brian. Christmas was the first time I met Brian, but I liked him immediately because he is a fellow Seattle-ite. Anyway, our day consisted of homemade eggnog (DELICIOUS! I will be making this every year from now on), a small gift exchange, stuffed cabbages, immitation almond tarts, and lots of alcohol. It was a lot of fun even thoguh all we did was sit around eating and drinking from 3:30 until after 11, which is what Christmas is all about, I guess.

Today is my last day of work before 8 days off for New Years, so I'm looking forward to that. I think maybe tomorrow I'll take a trip to Hiroshima (about an hour and a half by bus) and Saturday I'm going to my tutor's house in Kasaoka (about 15 minutes away by train), but other than that I have no definite plans so far. Thanks for reading! I'll try to update more over the break.