Last Days with Jeremy

Yesterday we had a great day in Nagoya. Nagoya is Japan's 4th largest city and was the site of the 2005 World Expo. Since holding the Expo, Nagoya has apparently boomed and become an up and coming world city. I was pretty impressed by it. It was clearly a modern city with inovative architecture and many many people. But there were also neighborhoods with 150 year old stores and homes where you could imagine walking the streets with samurai.
We met an acquantince of Jeremy's at lunch time in Nagoya. She was a wonderful older lady who lives in Nagoya but is originally from the area of Japan where I used to live and Jeremy still does. She took us to a place for lunch that served a regional dish called miso katsu which was fried pork cutlet covered in slightly sweet red miso paste. It was great! We then walked through the streets of Nagoya until we arrived at the grand Nagoya castle. Unfortunately most of the original castle and the grounds was destroyed in WWII. But the reconstruction is perfect. The cherry blossoms were beautiful and the museum inside the reconstructed castle was really good. This was the most impressive castle grounds I have been to and it was really crowded!
After that we went to the main downtown area called Sakae and said goodbye to Jeremy's friend and had dinner. It was only an hour away from Kani by train and was a fun day. There is so much to do there that I am sure we will be back many times.
Today was a bit cloudy but we decided to hop in the car and see if we could find a local mountiain that has a hiking trail that goes up to a look out point to look over the city and the mountains. When we got there there were many cars and people even directing traffic! It was such a small little area and we couldn't figure out why all those people were there. Were they all there to climb the hill? We parked and then asked what was going on. It happened that this is the season for these locally famous tiny purple flowers that come out for a short time and are quite pretty. There were many people there oohhing and aahhing and taking pictures of them! Japanese really love flowers! The trail up the mountain was way steep and showed Damien and I how out of shape we were. We really were demoralized when a man in his 60s passed us while jogging up the mountain!!! Anyway, at the top the view was amazing. We ate a picnic lunch and just enjoyed the view.
Checking out a new shopping center, going home and discussing world events and eating dinner at a restaurant across from our apartment took up the rest of our time.
We will be sad to see Jeremy go back tomorrow but are happy that our vacation time was the same so he could visit this week. We start teaching our classes on Tuesday!!!

Inuyama Castle

Yesterday Jeremy came to visit from Hiratsuka!! Today we went to Inuyama City. It is only about 15-20 minutes away by train. This was the first time I had been on a train since I came here! Inuyama is famous for its castle. It is one of only four original castles left in Japan and it is the oldest, built in 1537. It was a significant site of major battles between the major samurai leaders in the late 1500s that finally ended in Tokugawa Ieyasu being Shogun and establishing a 250 year perios of Japanese history. The castle is quite small but just beautiful. it is located on a sharp hill overlooking the Kiso river. We climbed to the top of it up very steep old worn staircases inside. On the top floor you go out on a small open air balcony and look out for miles. We were surrounded by mountains and rivers and we could even see the big city of Nagoya in the distance. The weather was beautiful and the cherry blossoms were out! Everywhere you looked was like a postcard. (please see pictures!)
As we were walking along the little old street lined with old wooden shops and houses we passed a small local radio station where we could see the woman in the studio right from the street talking on the radio. We waved and she said Hello and then we heard her in Japanese say that three foreigners just walked by and said hello. It was pretty funny.
We went to two little museums near the castle too. The first weekend in April is the towns biggest festival. (Damien and I are planning on going to it.) The festival's main attraction are 13 giant three-tiered wooden floats that are paraded through the town. We saw two of them in one of the museums and they are very impressive. During the day all of the floats have handmade wooden puppets about a third life size dancing and doing acrobatics. They are operated by people underneath on the second tier of the float. There will also be flute players and drummers. At night the floats are covered with hundreds of paper lanterns. Some of the floats and the puppets are hundreds of years old. We are very excited to go and see such an old and special festival next weekend.
After we ate lunch we found a large temple which had the same name as where I used to live, Narita-san. I don't know if there was any connection but this Narita-san was just founded in the 1950s.
It was a great time and it is always a treat to see an original piece of Japanese history and to see the fleeting cherry blossoms!
We are going to Nagoya tomorrow and are meeting up with a friend of Jeremy's who is an older woman who is making a plan for us. Should be interesting!

My New Classes

Well, our observing schedules are over and now we are on a week holiday. Our good friend Jeremy is coming to visit in a couple of days and we are planning on going to the big city of Nagoya and the oldest castle in Japan in Inuyama which is not far from here.
We have gotten our work schedules for the next year and we are pretty happy with them. Damien will be working in a school in the neighboring town of Minokamo everyday but one. I will work at the Kani City school everyday but one. I will work in Minokamo with Damien one day and he will work with me in Kani one day. Damien had to drive there himself yesterday and had no problems. I will be working about 25-30 hours a week. I have about 9 kids classes a week ranging in ages from 1 1/2 to 11. Yes, that's right, I will have a class with a 1 and a half year old!! I have been told not to expect much and that he might cry for the first 2-3 months. I will have a Japanese assistant in that class. The kids here are very good at English. Obviously the system here is working and starting early makes a difference.
As for the adult classes, I will have several that are off site which is interesting. One is a high level conversation class at a community center that I can walk to. They usually talk about current events. I will have a lower level adult class at a different community center with very chatty students, one of which owns a local cafe. On Thursdays at the Minokamo school I get to teach the highest level class that Let's English has which is nice because I like high levels. I will have several private students who are learning English for specific purposes, some of which only come twice a month. I will have a small mid-level adult class at a factory (I have to drive 30 minutes to get there.
Well, that is just a quick run down of what kinds of students I will be teaching. It is going to be interesting and challenging with a lot of flexibility as a teacher.

New Life in Kani City

Well, I have finally gotten around to writing my first blog from Japan. Damien and I arrived in Kani on Thursday evening and were met at the airport by Keith, the owner of the school. He is from Australia. He drove us to Kani City, about 90 minutes away, and we stopped in at the school to say hello to the Japanese staff and some of our co-workers. Damien and I and Keith and the Japanese manager, Miuki, got some yakitori to eat and then we spent the first nights in a nearby hotel. We moved into our apartment on Saturday. We are living here with a Canadian teacher for the remainder of the week but he hasn't been around much and then he is moving into another apartment.
The apartment is great and the city is nice. It is pretty quiet and surrounded by hills with snow covered mountains in the background. There are a lot of vegetable shops and tons of vegetable gardens all over the city. I have heard that there are lots and lots of fresh local veggies all season! We feel really comfortable here already and feel like there is a lot of potential for neat things to do and explore and fresh foods to buy.
Our coworkers are great so far. We will be working with a South African couple the most who have been here 1 year. They have been married for 2 years just like us. There is also the Canadian guy I mentioned earlier and another American and her English boyfriend in the neighboring town. We won't work with them probably but will meet them sometime soon.
We are observing classes this week and so far the students have been great and the classes are well organized and interesting. We haven't gotten our exact schedules yet but I know I will have a few off site classes that will be quite fun. I haven't driven yet but I will have to soon!!! Damien will try it tomorrow I think.
I have posted some pictures of birdlife on the local river and of the school and the apartment.
I will blog again soon!!
I miss everyone and would love to hear from you!

New York and Washington DC

We just spent 10 days on the east coast. I wanted Damien to be able to experience New York City and Washington DC before we left the US. I hadn't been to NYC since I was about 14. I lived in DC for two years, but hadn't been back for 8 years.
Except for the fact that Damien had a bit of a cold the whole time we loved the vacation. We were amazed by the intricate decor on the old Manhattan buildings and were humbled by the sense of history in Washington. We stayed in a cute old row house hotel called the Chelsea Inn in midtown Manhattan and a 200 year old house in Alexandria, Virginia owned by an ex-fashion designer who cooked up breakfast every morning.
Both cities were totally overwhelming and we really had to pick and choose what we did with our time. The first thing we did after taking the bus from La Guardia through Harlem, was to take a picture of Grant's tomb (I collect pictures that I take of US president's graves). After seeing the fire ravaged Cathedral of St. John and the Tom's Diner store front used in Seinfeld we stopped and had coffee and pastries at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. We thought we had died and gone to heaven!!! The cappucinos were perfect (which is impossible to find in Indy) and the pastries were made with tradition and love!
In New York we went to the Museum of Modern of Art, The Metropolitan Musuem of Art and the Guggenheim (not our favorite!). We met up with an old friend, Doug, and had lunch at Grand Central station. We braved the security and ticket lines to get to the top of the Empire State Building and took a walk in Central Park. We made the requisite stop in Times Square which seemed like a theme park and is a place you only need to see once I think. We walked past Rockafeller Center, 5th Ave., Radio City Music Hall, Ed Sullivan Theater and other famous landmarks.
The crowning experience in NYC had to be the food. I had made three reservations for our first three nights: Craft, Perilla, and Les Halles. Craft was a dining experience like I have never had. We choose the chef's tasting menu in order to get a litney of interesting dishes. Perilla was in Greenwich Village and was a little bit more intimate with very interesting dishes. Les Halles is a well known French place where we had massive plates of meat and sauerkraut. Overall I was able to try some dishes I had always wanted to try: truffles, escargot, foie gras (not moral highground so I probably won't get it again), and boudin noir. The boudin noir was my favorite although the escargot was excellent! I could go on and on about what we ate!
The last night we visited an area called "Curry Hill" where we had to make a tough decision as to which amazing looking Indian place to eat. We made a great choice!
We took Amtrak from Penn station to Union Station in DC. It was easy and convienient.
In DC I got to see where I used to live near the National Cathedral, we saw the National Gallery of Art, the Air and Space Museum (where we were forced to eat Mcdonalds!!!!! Yuck!!!!), and the Hirshhorn Museum. We were quite excited to see Steven Colbert's portait at the National Portait Gallery. Damien had to get his picture taken in front of the Australian Embassy at Dupont Circle. We found a wonderful little Malaysian restaurant near there and stuffed ourselves silly!
We had a great meal at a place called Vermillion near where we were staying in Alexandria. The food was artistically presented and the wine pairing was delicious! On our last full day the clouds parted and the blue skies created a beautiful background for walking around the memorials, monuments, the White House and Georgetown. I do have to mention the out-of-this-world dessert we had a chic but inexpensive Thai inspired dumpling restaurant in Georgetown called Bangkok Joe's. It was taro root jelly stuffed inside fried Indian roti bread with taro root ice cream and a taro root chip. I thought it sounded interesting and Damien was a bit dubious. It ended up being the single best dessert we had on the whole trip.
We had a great time and really recommend traveling in the off season. I can't imagine how crowded things would be in the summer!!
Overall my impressions of New York were: ornate, old, great pastries, small corner markets, people walking dogs, trash on the streets waiting to be picked up, riding the subway, friendly people, abundant restuarants, and diversity.