It has been a busy week. We finished teaching all of our extra intensive classes. That means we only have an open campus visit day before our summer vacation officially starts.

I spent some of this last week helping Heidi clean her apartment and pack. On Saturday, several of us went to the airport to see her off. She made if off but without her luggage. We thought that she could have 30 kg per bag, but it ended up that she could only have 30 kg total on that certain airline. Thus, Heidi decided to have us send her luggage via surface mail instead of paying the $2000 over charge per bag. Heidi should now be in Casa Blanca visiting family. It hasn't quite hit that she has gone and will not return. I will miss her dearly!

After watching Heidi's plane take off, Chieko, Ayumi, Nick and I went to Costco. I have been looking forward to this trip all week. It was like a mini-America with a bunch of Japanese people. Everything was in huge quantities and relatively cheap. At one point I pull something off the shelf and turned to Ayumi to ask her what it was. Then it hit me that I could read everything in this store! That hasn't happened since I left home almost one year ago. Wow, it's amazing how exciting it can be to read instructions, explanations, even the nutrition information. At the end, I had a berry slushy and Nick had a piece of pizza that would be the equivalent of three Japanese slices. We heard some English behind us and turned around. He wasn't talking to us, but we are almost programmed to do this. Usually if we hear English it is directed at us. This trip was a reverse cultural experience. It was fun to taste samples, see familiar food, be able to read and understand everything, and pick up some familiar foods like Mac & Cheese, Campbell's soup, M&Ms, full size towels, etc.

Tonight there were hanabi (fireworks) down at the pier. It was a gorgeous night with a nice breeze. People either sat on the wooden pier or stood on the cement. There is no grass to spread a blanket and relax. The fireworks lasted one hour. They would shoot of a set and then have a little break while the fireworks were reloaded and over the loud speakers it was announced who was paying for the display. It was fun to hear all of the oohs and aahs and see the sparks explode into bursts of color in the night sky. They were beautiful! We finished the night walking back home and stopping at McDonald's (pronounced Makudonarudo's) where I had a mango shake. Yummy!

My stomach is a bit upset tonight. I would usually ask myself why, but I know the reason why. Tonight I ate Korean food and had two items that probably aren't sitting too well in my stomach: raw cow tongue and kimchi (fermented cabbage). Thankfully, they tasted really good while I was eating them, and I was able to enjoy them as long as I didn't think about it too hard. I can now add eating raw cow tongue to my list of things I thought I would never eat. Oh, the adventure of foods in a foreign country continues:)

Regular classes have finished but now we have extra intensive classes. We are doing our best to make them fun and interesting, especially since summer vacation officially started on July 20. With our 8th graders we did skits: Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, and Snow White and Sven Dwarf. (Nick wrote the last two.) Today was the performance of these three skits. As you can imagine they were delightful to watch, and any mistakes they made just added to the hilarity and enduringness of it all. Here are a few pictures of the groups. (Heidi, thanks for the pictures.)

Happy Umi no hi (Sea Day)! Yep, there is a national holiday to celebrate the sea. Unfortunately, I never made it to the beach. However, I did go under the ocean via a train accompanied by 12 students, Heidi and Nick. The English Club took a trip to Kokura castle (picture to the left). We took a tour of it, ate lunch in a nearby mall, went around to a few stores with students, and then ate ice cream at Baskin Robins before heading home. (We could barely lick the ice cream fast enough before it was all over ourselves.) It was a fun day of English with our students! It was also interesting to see what clothes they chose to wear. At school, they are always in uniforms but on this field trip they could wear whatever they wanted. Their personalities were further revealed by what they wore. It was a fun case study and would be a great sociology project.

It was Sports Day at school. The American equivalent is track and field, yet there are many differences. The biggest being that there are almost no individual events. The day started out with a warm-up to classical music box type music. This warm-up has been done for over 50 years. It doesn't really stretch anything but it gets your body moving. The other events of the day included relays, a borrowing race, 3 person x 4 legged race, mukade (centipede) race, rump roping, 10 person x 11 legged race, a class dancing competition, and a dress-the-teacher relay and performance.

I was called upon to run in the borrowing race. Each students gets a piece of paper with someone/something to run with for the race. The three foreign English teachers were called upon to run this race. Otherwise, our physical activity was cheering for the students. My voice got more of a work out than my body.

The mukade race was five girls in a line behind each other and their legs in connect ropes. They had to run a lap together that way. The 10 x 11 race was crazy and dangerous. It is like a 3 legged race except with 10 people instead of 2. They run the length of the gym together and crash on mats at the finish line. I've heard that they sometimes do this with 30 students. Yikes! This is a good example of Japanese culture. People are put together regardless of size, height, skill, etc. They have to function together. If one person fails, they all fail. They have to work together to succeed.

The dances were lots of fun. The students put huge amounts of time, practice and effort into choreographing dances that their entire class can do and look good at. I admire their ability to make people with little dancing experience, like me, to look good.

The costume relay was quite funny to watch. One of the teachers put the reason for the activity in these words: This is just an excuse to make fun of teachers. There is definitely some legitimacy to this. The teachers ended up in many different costumes including: a bride & groom, a samurai & princess, a couple from the alps, talk show hosts, and cross dressers. It was in the 90s today with the humidity also around 90%, so I felt extremely bad for the teachers in these costumes. You could literally see the sweat pouring off of them. The teachers were good sports and the students had fun watching and laughing.

All in all, I'd say that the day was a success! Now I'm home with the fan blowing straight on me, relaxing after a cold shower, and ready to take a nap. (Here are a few more pictures of my students:)

Events confirmed. It has been an eventful morning! At 3:09 am, I suddenly woke up when my bed and apartment started shaking. Yep, it was an earthquake, my first one ever that I can recall. It was a bit unnerving to know that a concrete building was moving; however, at the same time it was kind of exciting to experience this natural phenomenon. It probably lasted for about 10 seconds. I just sat up in bed and asked myself if this was actually an earthquake. I got up to see if anything in my apartment was moved or broken. Nothing was. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to bed. Upon checking with my neighbors this morning, I learned that I was right there was an earthquake. Apparently, the epicenter was in Shimonoseki. So much for Shimonoseki not getting any earthquakes!

The other event happened on my way to school. Heidi, Nick and I were talking while having just rounded a corner and starting to walk up a slight incline. On the left side of the sidewalk is a major road in Shimonoseki and on the right side is a hospital. Well, to the left of us, in a very public place, was a man in his fifties peeing in a little patch of grass next to a small bush! We kept talking and looking anywhere expect to the left. Once we passed the man, we made eye contact and it was confirmed: we really did just see what we thought we saw. I have seen this in India and Africa, but I did not expect to see this happen in Japan. We'll see what the rest of the day brings...

Happy 4th of July! Life went on in Japan just like any other day. I decided that if there was any day I was going to be patriotic it might as well be today. Thus, I wore red, white and blue to school complete with star earrings and hair clips. I also packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.

Supper consisted of a small get together. On the menu were the following items: hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, broccoli salad, corn on the cob, watermelon, Pringles, lemonade, Dad's Root Beer and ice cream. It was fun to come up with American summer foods. Here's a picture of the little watermelon. Yep, this is about as big as they usually get in Japan. And boy, are they expensive! (I splurged for the 4th:)

We have had rain all day mixed with thunder (which is rare) and wind. It's been quite nice, but not ideal for the 4th. This also prevented us from shooting of any fireworks we may or may not have had. Instead, we watched "The Incredibles" to round off the evening.

This past weekend, I went to Hagi with Heidi and Chieko-san. Heidi went to speak on Sunday at a sister church of our church in Shimonoseki. I basically went to tag along, meet people that I had heard stories about, and see a little bit of Hagi. It was a wonderful time of relaxation and fellowship! I was blessed by meeting more brothers and sisters in Christ, hearing stories of God's faithfulness, and seeing God's creation. I think that Hagi is one of the most beautiful cities in Japan that I have seen.

Hagi is famous for its beauty and pottery. Hagi yaki (pottery) can be found just about anywhere in the city. We were able to see a workshop and kiln during our brief, 24 hour, stay. We also went to a glass shop. A man was afraid that the art of Japanese glass blowing would cease to exist, so he has started his own shop that is well known today. Apparently, there are three layers of glass and the middle layer has a shattered look to it. Everything in the shop was beautiful and expensive. We were also able to look through a window into the show where a man was making vases for a wedding next week. The process is quite amazing and looks blazing hot!

A short hike up to Kasa-yama (the smallest volcano in Japan) was also included in our activities. This hike was not originally planned. After church we drove and then walked out to a point to get a view of Hagi and islands just off the coast. Our Sunday afternoon stroll turned into a little hike when we saw the sign for the mountain. So, off we went in our Sunday clothes and sandals through the jungles of Japan. The path was filled with vines, tree canopies, and moss covered rocks, and old stone walls. Chieko-san, our fearless leader, took the lead and swung a branch out in front of her the entire trip so we wouldn't walk directly into spider webs. Along the way we saw several interesting looking creatures including a green stick bug that Nick found. There was also an older couple who had a farm and little hut towards the top.

Once we made it to the top, there was a breath taking view. To the right, there were five islands with the endless sea as its backdrop. And to the left lay the bay, city and with the mountains in the background. The hike was definitely worth the view. (Of course, we could have driven up, but that would have taken the adventure out of it.) On the hike down I started noticing all of my bug bites. The bites are now swollen and puffy with some sort of fluid inside. I guess I'm allergic to Japanese bugs! All in all it was a fantastic weekend!