afraid of small animals

It's been fun!

It's been a busy summer as I have hurried to wrap things up at one job, get ready to start a new one, and at the same time deal with a large-scale mold problem and prepare for a move (next week).  Mixed in with all of my goodbye speeches and parties were the goodbyes to the friends who are leaving Japan to go back to their own countries.  It happens every year but it is always hard to say goodbye!  This year I won the awful "Staying Forever" sash but I can appreciate the JOKE and took it in stride.  I don't want to stay forever, that is for sure!  My sash was nothing compared to Angie's, "So hot!"

I decided a while ago to wrap up my blog at the end of this month.  It's been four years now since I moved to Japan as an ALT, and a lot of the novelty has worn off.  Not only is my teaching job finishing tomorrow, but I have run out of new and fun things to do and post about on a regular basis... the past few months have been pretty pitiful.  I haven't always done a great job of staying in touch with everyone at home since starting this blog, but now I'll have no excuse not to call and email more often.  If you don't already know where to find my pictures online, just ask.

A few weeks ago I had the brilliant idea about how to write my last blog post.  I've gotten so used to bugs and creepy crawlies in Japan that it would be disingenuous to continue my Japan blog under the current name, I thought.  Oh, how I misled myself!  Just days after my great idea I had a run-in with a large huntsman spider on my head and face that sent me flailing and screaming like a lunatic right back into my scaredy-cat ways.  I guess I have really come full circle from my first night in my new apartment 4 years ago when I found an even bigger huntsman on my wall and wondered what I was doing in such an awful, bug-infested place.

I don't know when I will be heading home (maybe next summer?) but I know one thing for sure.  As long as there are bugs in Japan, I will NOT be staying forever! 

Random pictures and quick update

Dragons baseball in Nagoya, late May.  My first Japanese baseball game, finally!  The best part of the game was the specific cheers for each of the players.  It was fun cheering for the home team, and watching these guys in front of us really get into the game.

Chito was rooting for the Hawks (Fukuoka) so there were some slight tensions when he cheered out in the all-Dragons home crowd.  Luckily we were in the last row of the upper deck.  I was running low on Dragons gear but my new Dugong t-shirt did the trick.  We had to leave early, but the Dragons won!  And I even got a "Pretty League" Hello Kitty towel out of the deal, as Chito tried to bribe me into cheering with him.  Maybe I can cheer for the Hawks next time.

Turtles!  There is a pond near my new place that has at least a hundred turtles living there.  They are pretty cute and used to people feeding them, so I have fun tossing them a few old pieces of cucumber or dry bread when I get the chance.  They creeped me out at first (I had dreams of turtles walking up the road to get me in my sleep) but now I love em!  I have to be careful not to drive off the road as I go by and try to catch a glimpse.

 

  

I love Lion bars

Yesterday I had this fantastic surprise package waiting in my mailbox when I got back from work.  I knew I was in trouble when the customs slip just said "candy bars."  Thanks Arz!!

When I was living in France in college, one of the best things about it was trying all the new-to-me foods in the grocery store, especially the chocolate.  This inspired me to do a candy bar tour of Europe.  Yes, I have a bit of a sweet tooth.  Whenever I went to a new place (or my friends did) I stocked up on all the candy bars that were new to me and savored them, one by one after returning back to France.  Surprisingly, I was at the thinnest of my adult life, probably owing to the bizarre cuisine chez my host family and the fact that I walked everywhere.  And so the year of the candy bar began.  When my college roommate arrived to visit at my birthday I had just gotten a care package full of candy bars from another friend living in England at the time.  I was giddy at the sight of all those candy bars, and if I remember correctly, I think I even shared with Arianne (this is a big deal!).

Anyway, the card in yesterday's package said that she wanted to recreate that same excitement with these chocolate bars from her recent travels overseas.  And while I like to think that I have moved on to a healthier life in which I don't need sugar anymore, there was still a lot of excitement!  I might need to take a few more no-sugar weeks after I make my way through all of these...

Shima Road Party

I look kind of scary, but hey, whatever--I just finished my first 10k race!  And it only took an hour and eight minutes.

Where's the butter?

I was recently forced to give in to the evils of margarine, which I swore would never happen!  I am a butter girl through and through, and I honestly think that the natural fat in butter (yum) is way better than that processed stuff in spreads, even if they are low fat.  But much to my absolute SHOCK, there is a butter shortage in Japan so I gave in and bought this.  It is margarine with butter inside, but the taste still leaves a lot to be desired.  The most disturbing part is that in Japanese, it is called ファット・スプレッド, or "fat spread."  Gross!

I'm giving serious thought to trying to make my own butter, I'm just not sure I have the arm strength. 

More Kyushu Camping and the Onsen Circuit

We saw a ton of signs for this animal theme park and it really made me think of my brother!

After Aso, we headed to Kurokawa Onsen, a small hot spring town with a bunch of quaint hotels and gorgeous outdoor baths.  We got our three-entry medallions and were ready to enjoy it!

Here's a picture of Okunoyu, probably one of the nicer outdoor baths that I had ever seen.  It was right on a river and you can even see a little waterfall off in the distance there.  It was so nice!  But the only drawback was that the best bath (above) was mixed so we only snuck in for a little bit when there were no men.

After spending the night near Kurokawa we headed for Beppu, where we had this campsite essentially to ourselves.  There were some crazy swans on the lake though, and when they got out of the water and started walking around, they were HUGE.  Luckily they never came knocking at our tent that night or I would have seriously freaked out.

We were just a few days too early for the Beppu Onsen festival, but I still enjoyed the posters and we still checked out a few more hot springs. 

Nice place to warm your toes on a rainy day!

We went around Beppu that day, checking out some steaming pools of different colored water, or the hells.   

That night, we decided to pick up the tent and head for the big city so that we didn't have to bear another night in the freezing cold, wet tent.  We were all the happiest we had been during the whole trip, that's for sure!

Roadtrip to Kyushu!

Spring break this year we drove to Kyushu to do a tour of the major sites we could see there and camp for a week.  The drive there was long and tiring, leaving around 2 am and getting there around 2 in the afternoon. 

When we arrived we went straight to Kagoshima, the furthest spot in our Kyushu trip, and got right down to business at the hot sand onsen in Ibusuki.  Getting buried in hot sand for 10 minutes was a great way to recover after being crammed in the car for so long.  But I didn't get quite big enough for my booty and after being squashed into hot sand my rear came out a bit toasted. 

We took in the sights of southern Kyushu on the scenic drive back to Kagoshima where we ate and promptly fell into our beds at a hotel for the night.

The next day we went to Sakurajima, the gigantic volcano that looms over the city of Kagoshima from across the bay.  It was pouring rain and foggy though, so no good pictures of the volcano itself.  All I wanted to see was the famous onsen/shrine located on the island.  Because it's a shrine, you have to enter the bath in a white robe.  There is also a gigantic tree growing out of the onsen and a nice seaside view.  Even though the weather was bad, it was nice to soak in the hot bath.  It wasn't the only volcano on our trip so it wasn't too disappointing.

The next day we went hiking around Mt. Aso, another active volcano in central Kyushu, and the biggest volcanic caldera in the world, I believe.  There are a lot of smaller peaks around the main volcano, so we went out for a hike around some volcanic craters.  The hike started off like this, and I thought I was in for a treat!

The hike got more strenuous the higher we got, and I was a little scared to see that we didn't get a paved walkway the whole time. 

We did have a nice view of Mt. Aso as we hiked, so even though I fretted about getting back, it was a nice day.  We had a good trailblazer, after all.

Here we are at the peak of the volcano.  Disappointingly, no volcanic lava to be seen, but the gases coming out of here really stunk and made it a much more authentic experience than the "volcano" that Kevin and I saw in Hokkaido.

After our first night of camping and our long hike, we were keen to find a good onsen.  This old place was recommended to us by a local and while it a hi-tech onsen, it had a nice, authentic feeling to it.  I particularly liked the lanterns hanging outside.

Quick update

High school graduation was on March 1st, my last as an ALT at this school.  I was surprisingly unsentimental, in part because I will still be able to go to the ceremony next year as I'll be living in the same town.  These are all my favorite tennis team girls who taught me how to play tennis a few years ago.  They are so sweet, I can't believe they are graduated!  They all looked so grown-up in their fancy kimono that I hardly recognized them.

The ume blossoms are in bloom!  That means winter is out and spring is here.  No more boiling hot water to stay warm at night.  But my favorite thing about this season?  Ichigo daifuku.  I can't eat one without thinking of you, Marina!

Unfortunately this season means moving for me this year.  I'm in the middle of packing up everything I own (thank God it is just a move down the street or I would really be freaking out).  Better get back to that!

Wedding, chocolate, wine and koalas: my last Australia pictures

Chito and Phil looking spiffy before Angus and Michelle's wedding.

Check out those cars!

This is the nicest picture of us from the wedding... and now I am wishing that I had gotten some better shots of Chito in his three piece suit!

The day after the wedding we went to Max Brenner's Chocolate bar.  It was pretty amazing but this chocolate souffle (and a peanut butter chocolate shake) was almost too much to handle even between two people.  As we neared the end of our trip I stopped ever feeling hungry as we tried to fit in as many tasty meals as we could before heading back to Japan.

The next day we crashed Angus and Michelle's honeymoon and we headed for a wine tour of the Hunter Valley. 

The winery tours were less than amazing, since it all looked super new to me.  Where were the dark, musty wine cellars that I thought we would be seeing?

Still the wine was delicious and I had a tasty, tasty meat pie for lunch.  Why are meat pies not popular in the States like they are in Australia?  They are so delicious. 

On the way home from the Hunter we saw mobs of kangaroos in the wild which was probably the most exciting part of our trip.  Phil was good enough to stop for all my goofy pictures along the way, too, like this wombat crossing sign.  How cute is that?  Unfortunately, we didn't spot any real live ones.

The last day Chito was suffering from a major cold and I was starting to dread coming back to cold, Japanese winter.  But Chito's cousins were visiting from Japan (coincidentally) so we took the last day to do some sightseeing in the absolute pouring rain.  The crummy weather made it considerably easier to leave.

We went to a wildlife center to see koalas, the last thing on my Australia to-do checklist.  But since it was pouring rain, they were all pretty much just big wet lumps sitting on the trees.  Turns out you can't actually hold them at this place, but it was probably for the best.  They were still adorably cute.  I am warming up to cute animals at a frightening pace!

All of the koalas were sleeping just about the whole time we were there, but I happened to spot this one just as he lifted his head to survey the before nestling back in for more sleep. 

After seeing this creepy koala paw/hand display, I realized how lucky I was that I wasn't actually given the opportunity to hug a koala.  I would have wimped out for sure.

It only took me about a month to post all the pictures, but this was seriously the highlight of my winter this year.  Chito had been feeding me lines like, "Australia is just like the States, but better" all year and I thought it was just a bunch of talk.  Turns out, it was pretty good.  I got to enjoy all the comforts of home plus the excitement of new TimTam flavors, meat pies, cute animals and new friends.  It was a great trip!  Now it's just back to my regularly scheduled Japan blog updates.   

      

Yokkaichi!

I spotted this adorable manhole cover when I was on my way to meet Fern in Yokkaichi yesterday.  It was a good thing I had my fancy new camera phone to take a picture!  A panda and a koala... how much cuter could it get?