Getting through July...

It seems that time is playing tricks on us... One day it's speeding by and the next it is moving so slowly that we get overwhelmed with how long it is until we come home for good. Please excuse me again for taking so long between updates. I now have a ton of photos that I'd love to post but it would be too messy so I'll add another photo share in the next few days. Make sure to check the list on the right for a July Events link.
On the fourth of July I went (by myself) to Date and met some of the women I sometimes do a private class with for a festival at the cultural centre. It turned out to be located in an historic building just behind the cultural centre. The building is now a part of the museum but it was part of the ancestral home of the Date family who the city is named after. There was a performance in a room that had been opened up to the outside by sliding the walls back. Two women played these musical instruments and then there were dishes of food left as offerings to some diety. I wasn't feeling 100% and I didn't get all the details.
Part of the festival involved writing a wish on a piece of paper and then hanging it from a bamboo tree. Afterwards we sat and had tea in the park.

I managed to work at Date Chu for the next two days - it all went fine - but then I gave in to whatever flu was chasing me and I spent the next four days in bed. I did eventually recover enough to go back to work but it was quite a while before I felt like myself again.
The next time I went to Date I convinced my friend Mayu (who works at City Hall) to take me up on the roof so I could take some picturs of the view. Check it out...

(just click on any of the photos to make them bigger!)

From the first week of July the students at Otaki Chu had be practicing for their sports festival. They worked really hard - on some blistering hot days! The sports festival here is kind of a combination of a track and field day and a fun sports day. It is always held on a Saturday and the students and teachers all get a day off in lieu. The morning starts off with the opening ceremonies and then there are the track and field events. Everyone competes in the 100m and at least two other events. Taran and Joisan both opted for shotput and Taran was also signed up for the 1500m. Joisan was not able to run since her injury in May so she did not do a track event. Taran wound up having a really bad asthma attack during the last 300m of his race and he was given some oxygen by the school nurse while I ran home for the forgotten puffer. He recovered well though and still managed to do the shotput. The morning finished off with an official awards ceremony. Joisan ended up winning third place for the girls and Taran picked up first place for the boys!
We ate our picnic lunch with another family - the Hayashi-san's - in the shade of the gym. We felt a bit odd since we had only brought a couple of onigiri's (rice and fish wrapped in seaweed) each and some fruit. The Hayashi-san's had an amazing spread and they shared it with us! You'd have thought they were planning to feed twenty people for two days! Anyway, after lunch it was all about the fun stuff. There was an race where everyone had to use water balloons to knock over plasitc water bottles and then do several other things before crossing the finish line. There was a skipping event where the whole team had to see how long they could skip together before someone tripped. There was a tug of war that the parents and teachers eventually got in on and there was a relay race. All in all it was a fun fun day.


When all was cleaned up and put away there was (thankfully) still time to go for a swim in the river before the bugs got too bad. We picked up an audience somewhere along the way and trooped down to the river with three other families. Only one person actually joined us in the water and everyone else just stood on the shore and watched. It was heaven after all day in the sun! The water was significantly lower than last time but there were still some deep spots.

On Sunday the Hayashi-san's came and picked us up and took us to the city of Otaru. It is the oldest city on Hokkaido and it's said to be the "Venice" of Japan because they do a lot of glass-blowing there. The Hayashi-san's treated us like royalty! We felt truly spoiled! They stopped at a special ice-cream place and bought us ice-cream and then we stopped at a winery where we tasted a few different wines and they bought us a bottle of our favourite. We stopped at this viewpoint to check out the city from above. The characters on the sign mean bald spot or bald head or something so Hayashi-san was making jokes about Ian's bald spot! The kids were very comfortable in the back of the van because it was quite big. Although it was over two hours to get there they managed to amuse themselves quite happily with card games.

Our main destination was the aquarium so we went there first. I was totally excited because I got to see penguins for the first time!! Pretty much every aquarium here in Japan has penguins so I'm looking forward to seeing a few more before we come home for good. They were very cute but I found that the aquarium facilities were not up to North American standards. The pools for the dolphins were really small and when they were doing their tricks Josian and I both thought that they were going to hit the wall a couple of times!


After we finished at the aquarium we went to a "downtown" type area where they had many touristy shops and some glass blowing and this absolutly HUGE, amazing music box shop! This photo is from the second of three floors and it doesn't even show the whole main floor!


We didn't spend enough time in the downtown area for my liking - clearly I'm going to have to go back and check it out under my own steam! The Hayade-san's still wanted to show us a few things though so we left. We went to three different specialty food shops - one for chocolate, one for a pressed fish thing and one for mocchi. Joisan was very impressed by the chocolate and I liked the fish and loved the fresh mocchi! We ended up at a huge mall so that Joisan and their girls could have some shopping time. Everywhere we went though, our money was no good and they even refused to let us pay for their admission to the aquarium or their dinner.
After a late dinner we finally headed back to Otaki. We got home about midnight - totally exhausted but very happy!

This week has been all about winding down. I've done the last of my official teaching until September and aside from helping a few students to prepare for the upcoming speach contest, I'm done! We are flying out on August 2nd and (thanks the international date line) arriving in Canada a couple of hours before we leave Japan! We will be staying at my mums house for about three and a half weeks and we hope to catch up with as many of our friends as we can before flying back to Japan on August 26th. Hopefully we'll see YOU!

Happy Canada Day Eh!

So, again a long update is in order... it seems that I don't actually update as often as I think I do! Last week I played in a volleyball tournament. They periodically have community tournaments for anyone who wants to join. I was asked to join two different teams this time and due to numbers I wound up on the Shuraku Centre team with my friend Kimiko. We played on Monday and Tuesday night and... (drumroll please...) we won! Unfortunately I was playing and none of my crew came to watch so I don't have any photographic evidence :( There was a photo taken afterwards of the winning team in front of the banner but I don't have a copy of it yet. On Friday night we had Miss Miyamaru over for dinner. She is the music teacher at the Otaki Chugakko and she is really fun! She brought her GIANT hamster with her so that we could meet her. She is totally cute and Taran got right into playing with her. I played with her for a bit too but she bit me! Taran pulled out his toy bagpipes and even managed to get some sounds out of them! He thinks he'd like to try out the real thing sometime! Saturday was a sort of craft fair in Date. We didn't go for long because we were also expected at a matsuri (festival) in Otaki in the afternoon. There were some amazing things at the craft fair, including this wooden Harley. Joisan decided she'd be a good decoration for it! There were performances throughout the two day festival / craft fair and while we were there an African drumming group was playing. It made us think of Byron and Lynn! The lead guy in particular reminded Ian of Byron! Their dancing wasn't as good as Lynn's though. After the craft fair we hightailed it back to Otaki because Ian's friend had specifically asked us to come to a party for the Finnish friendship club. Between the cross country skiing, the nordic walking and the consultations for the handicapped programs the Finns have a big fan base and influence here in Hokkaido. There were five people from Finland at the party who are studying in Sapporo. We didn't talk much with them but there were some other really nice people we met. I met an opera singer, a guy who used to work for a UK company (so he has great English) and a really lovely woman who owns an organic vegetable shop in Sapporo. She helped us make rhubarb jam during the first part of the gathering. Yum! As the evening progressed the bugs started to come out... mosquitos and this other really nasty thing that looks a bit like a small flying ant. Unfortunately, we had not gone home before coming to the festival so I was wearing the sandals and short dress that I had worn to Date. I quickly became a full meal deal for the bugs. My feet are only just now beginning to recover (6 days later!) Just before we left (and quite a while after the fabulous potluck dinner) there was some special mutton that had been cooked in a pit in the ground. It was pretty cool to watch them dig it out and serve it up. It was quite tasty but a little overcooked for Ian and I. On Sunday we went back into Date because there was a flea market and we were hoping to find some bargains. It was quite amusing actually because the best bargains we found were from our friend Takeshi from Otaki! We managed to get a great fan for the house for only 400 yen, which is great because the weather has been really warm. This is supposed to be the rainy season but we're getting more muggy, humid weather than actual rain. There is the odd day of rain here and there but they are becoming very welcome because they help to cool things down a bit. Ian and Joisan and I went out for lunch at my favourite restaurant - Wasabi. Joisan had sashimi for the first time. Wasabi is great because everything is so fresh that you never want to eat sushi anywhere else because it will never compare. Joisan liked the whole set up with the rolling sushi and the personal tea dispenser and the electronic counters in the plates for totalling the bill. I think the coconut sherbet was her highlight though and in fact it's worth the plane ticket from Canada... come visit and we'll take you to Wasabi for coconut sherbet served in a coconut!
Monday night was a work party and BBQ for the friendship club. About 15 people came and we all pulled weeds around the guesthouse and then we had an awesome BBQ. It was lots of fun! Kimiko brought great food - we had Jengis Kan (marinated lamb)and she even brought some seafood for Joisan to BBQ. Yesterday was July first here so we tried our best to celebrate in style. I talked to each class I was in yesterday about Canada Day and how old Canada is compaired to Japan. I sang Oh Canada in each class and they all sang the Japanese national anthem to me. Thanks to my mum I had a good supply of Canadian flag stickers so I gave one to each student. They were all really excited to receive a present for Canada's birthday! Once it got dark last night we celebrated with some fireworks we bought at the 100 yen shop. There was one kind in particular that were really cool. I took a video of them...
We're planning to check out the regulations and see if it's okay to bring some back with us.

Roller coaster mania!

It's now Tuesday and I'm sitting at Date Chu not doing anything... thankfully the English teacher I sit next to has said that I can borrow his computer while he's teaching. I'm here this week - although not really being used. Yesterday I did actually go to three of the grade one classes and do a self introduction but they're all madly reviewing and studying for some big exams that are coming up so most of them don't need (or want) me in the classroom. This is going to be an interesting experience. I've been meeting individually with the four English teachers to make plans for how we will team teach and I can see already that there will be varying levels of involvement on my part. One of them has told me that he will give me 15 minutes at the beginning of each class to play a game or do some conversation practice but then he will use the rest of the time to teach on his own. He said he's not good at team teaching... hmmm. It will be interesting!!
I'm still a bit tired from the weekend activities. On Saturday I got up early to go to the Shogakko Sports Day. Man oh man! They don't do things halfway here! Even when they have a small school... this was a BIG deal! The whole school is divided into two teams - red and white. They compete throughout the day getting points from each event. I made a ton of notes because they had some really cool events that I would love to try in Cowichan! This is one of the games where they are trying to toss soft balls into baskets. Some seniors from the care home up the street were included too! The whole school was in the marching band that made one circut of the field and then came up the middle and played two or three songs. The little ones had some serious moves with the pom poms - they'd obviously been practicing for a long time! Joisan made like a monkey and scaled this climber. At one point she was joined by a 4 year old and a grandpa! This is my friend Natsumi's baby girl - she's lots of fun to play with!
This was the closing ceremonies... as I said... they don't do things by halves here! I have a short video of the marching band that I will post when I have access to the right computer.

On Sunday we went to the amusement park at Rusutsu. Although our group dwindled from eight to five we still had an amazing time! My friend Mayu who works at Date City Hall, and her friend Mokori came but Naoko was not feeling well and Joisan's friend Yuka wasn't available. Ian opted to stay home and have some quality alone time.
There are eight roller coasters at Rusutsu, all in a variety of formats. There was a stand up one, a backwards looping one, a wild twister one and a hanging one (my favourite). Taran would always rather ride roller coasters with Aurora and Dave but he tried them all and had a great time! We rode all eight - one of them twice. A couple of them did me in though - I wound up feeling like my brain had been shaken just a little too much. I sat out the last few rides.
One of the rides had this "NO SMORKING" sign on it... We weren't exactly sure what "smorking" is but Mayu, Joisan and Mokori took a guess... Taran figures it's smoking through your nose!!
The kids favourite ride was called Top Gun and the first time we went on it my head wasn't hurting yet so I really enjoyed it too. I had to opt out later though so I took some video...
We were all quite tired at the end and Taran got a bit frustrated with the fact that there was shopping on the way out... but he survived. The shopping area was set up to look like an old world village and it has the most amazing carousel in the middle of it! Joisan and I have made a plan to go back again when we can have a better look around the shops.
By the time we got home I was cooked. I could have fallen happily right into bed - particularly given that I had to be in Date by 8am on Monday - but it was still a bit too early. I managed to help a bit with dinner and get through the dishes before I collapsed! Thankfully the shaken head syndrome did not last through a good nights sleep and I felt much better by morning. Clearly I'm getting too old for some things and I'm going to have to be more careful about the number of roller coasters I ride in one day!!
I saw on Facebook today that one of my friends now owns her house free and clear!! I'm so happy for you Kim!!! Congratulations!!! I am feeling like we've kind of stuck ourselves in a rut with coming here - nothing is getting paid off... in fact - just the opposite! UGH! I keep telling myself that you can't put a price on the experiences we're having... hmmm it's not helping right now... maybe later :-)

Check out my mad skills!!

Well... they're not really my skills - it's all blogger! They put up new layout and background options and I got into it! What do you think?!?
So... it has been a busy couple of weeks and there's lots of cool things coming up in the next few weeks too!

I forgot to mention last time that I did my presentation to the local English teachers. It got seriously watered down and I just wound up doing an elaborate self introduction and playing a few games with them before we moved on to talking about team teaching. I don't know if there was much value there for any of us but it was still an interesting experience.

I have had an easy month as far as work in concerned because both the Shogakko and the Kindergarten are practicing for their sports festivals so they have put ekaiwa on hold. I have done my last classes at Tatsunan now though and I'm starting on Monday at Date Chu. I'm looking forward to something new but I'm also a little intimidated... it's the largest school in the area (though still not large by Canadian standards) at 550 students. I suspect that I'm going to be run off my feet on Mondays and Tuesdays as they have four English teachers. It will be a nice change from Ootaki where there are only 26 students altogether!



The weather has been absolutly increadible for a couple of weeks now and last Saturday we decided to go for a swim in the river. We had been told that the water level would get low enough that it would be safe to swim by the falls (the ones from the photos last time) and so we went to check it out. There was still a bit too much water for it to be safe right near the main part of the falls but the kids and Ian played around a bit lower down and then we all swam and played in a deep spot we found later on.
Ian and the kids even climbed the falls and went for a walk up top!!



The water was cold but it was so warm out that we all really enoyed it. Joisan and I went back on Monday evening for a swim but the sun had already passed by and the bugs were brutal so we learned our lesson!

Speaking of Joisan, we've had her back to the hospital to have her leg checked out because she's been having chronic pain since mid May. It's been particularly bothersome when she's doing track and field but now and then she was bothered by it at dance too. It turns out that she has ruptured something around the "junction box" area where the achilles tendon meets the muscle. She's been ordered to rest it completely and take some prescribed anti-inflamatories for two weeks. I'm suspecting that she's figuring on jumping back into things with both toe shoes but I'm doubting that it will be all healed that quickly. Particularly since she continues to "forget" to rest it.

Last Sunday Ian and I had the unfortunate pleasure of attending a buddhist funeral service. Kabo-san is a friend of ours (and the father of Josian's friend Akari)and his father passed away last week. He had just been diagnosed with cancer in April so it felt a little quick. I had recently been remarking to Ian that I wanted a chance to check out the inside of the temple and then suddenly there we were! It was an interesting service. There were many rituals involving drums and bells and chanting and incense. The place was packed - they ran out of chairs and there were at least 20 people sitting on cushions on the floor. Between the heat, the number of people, the chanting and the incense I had quite a headache by the time we left.

On Tuesday we took the kids and went to Sapporo to deal with some paperwork issues and to check out the JR Tower (huge shopping centre) and the big festival that's on there right now. We parked in this really cool place where you drive onto a lift and the car goes up on an elevator thing. Then, when you want it back you back it onto a turntable and it turns the car around for you!! Very cool!

We didn't have very much time at the JR Tower this time but we did manage to get some cool photos while Joisan and I went shopping and the boys checked out the BIG bookstore across the street.

On our way to the festival we saw this really cool building... It was just there in the middle of Sapporo... we have no idea what it is or anything about it!

The festival occupies the majority of a huge park in the middle of the city. Joisan was excited to go because she heard that there were gaming booths where you can win a turtle. Taran wasn't too thrilled with trecking around the park - he'd rather have gone back home (party pooper!) Anyway, Ian had heard from Ato-san that the booths are all run by the Japanese mafia. It was pretty interesting... I think there were probably about 20 or 30 different booths (food or games) but they were repeated again and again. Only now and then did we see something new.
In the centre of the park you could rent a rowboat and go out on the pretty little lake, and there was also a sort of a midway with several haunted houses and a motorcycle riding show as well as some shooting games. The kids each played a couple of games and Joisan did manage to win her turtle - with a little help from the guy running the booth!

We had some yummies - including some bbq'd ika(squid) on a stick. The whole festival was supposed to have something to do with the big Shinto shrine but we never did manage to find it! We don't actually know anyone in this photo but I just liked the scene and it was so cool to see so many people walking around in kimonos!


The weather turned a bit on Wednesday and it rained for two days. It's just now starting to clear up and I'm looking forward to a weekend of outdoor fun! Tomorrow is the sports festival at the Shogakko and on Sunday we are going to Rusutsu which is the local resort area. In the winter time the kids went snowboarding there and in the summer time they have quite an extensive amusement park. We've gathered a little group to go with us and we're looking forward to it! I'll be sure to post an update and photos asap.

Our other big news is that we are booked to come back to BC for a few weeks in August. We are all excited to spend as much time as we can with family and friends. We'll be there from August 2nd to the 26th and we're looking forward to some good visiting!!