Golden Week Day 13

You can see the pics posted during the trip here.

前の携帯の写真はここで。

Here are a few shots of the area near the very rural, airport hostel. 

ホステルの近い所の写真。とても田舎だね。

This is the hostel. 

これはホステル。

I took the train from the airport to Narita station and then headed off to explore the area. 

空港から成田駅まで電車で行った。

Thankfully there was a tourist information booth near one of the Narita stations. I took a Japanese map and asked for the woman's recommendations all in Japanese. 

観光案内所があったが良かった。日本語でおすすめが聞いて、日本語の地図ももらった。

She recommended Narita's temple for the few hours I had in the area before I needed to get back to the airport, check in and have lunch. 

２時間３時間があったから、成田山がおすすめした。

These two old ladies with their umbrella were super cute. 

この2人と傘はかわいかった。

It was one of the most beautiful temples I've seen. 

この寺はとてもきれいだった。

The area with lots of little shops. 

たくさん店があった。

Still in awe at how green everything was. 

たくさん緑色い木があった。

An interesting pot. 

Look at all the intricate detail in this building. 

すごいきれい。

So many lamps with their interesting design. 

これもきれい。

Love how the orange stands out from the blue of the sky and the green of the trees. 

対比色いっぱいあった。オレンジ建物と青空と緑色い木があった。

More green! 

緑！

This was the part I liked the best. The forest part, where you could just walk and walk. It reminded me of many places in Oregon. 

この所が大好きだった。森みたいに歩いた。オレゴン州見たい所。

Another interesting area for selling things. I wanted ice cream. None of these stalls had ice cream. 

ここもたくさん店があった。アイスが欲しかったけど、アイスがなかった。

After I walked around the temple, I headed back for the train station and the airport. 

寺の後に駅へ戻った。

I decided to walk down a different street to see if there were any different things there. 

違う道に歩いた。他の事が見て欲しかった。

I found these two houses. One looks like old Japan and one looks like it was dropped out of California. 

この2台家が見た。古い日本見たいとカリフォルニア州から見たい。

Lunch at the same place as the day before. I loved all the colorful veggies. 

前の日の同じ昼食所へ行った。明るい野菜があったから。

It was such a cute little shop. 

かわいい店。

After lunch, I still had time to kill, so I went to the plane viewing area. It was sunny and a great place to sit and wait before having to go check in. It reminded me even more that I wasn't ready to come back to snowy Hokkaido. 

昼食の後にもう少し時間があったから、飛行機見える所へ行った。天気は良かったからいい待ちる所。北海道帰るの前の最後太陽見える所こと考えた。

The airplane. 

飛行機。

When I got back to Hokkaido, I got to meet up with my friend Aileen and her mom for dinner at the airport. It was nice to catch up and nice to meet her mom. 

北海道へ帰ったの後に友達と友達のお母さんと夕食を食べた。楽しかった。

Yakiniku with my big ES

Last Friday, I got to continue my yakiniku-life and have a party with some of the elementary school teachers. It was a ton of fun.

金曜日に1週間に４回目焼肉した。大きい小学校の先生と。とても楽しかった。

Here’s all the food. Look at all the veggies!

食べ物いっぱいあった。そして、たくさん野菜があった！

Starting the barbecue.

始めましょう！

Two teachers I really like teaching with.

この2人は一緒に教えることが楽しいね。

They have eyes!

目があるよ！

Garlic chives. I don’t think I’d eaten these before, but they taste like garlic. I ate half the ones that were put on the grill during the first go-round.

この前に多分ニラを食べたことない。ニンニク味があったから、たうさんを食べた。

I waited a little too long in the fading light . . . should have taken a group shot earlier.

黒くなったから、少しピンぼけ所がある。

After it was dark, we played bingo. I was in the loud group, shouting at the teacher who was calling the numbers that they must be wrong because they weren’t our cards . . . I’m never in the loud group in Japanese.

黒くなったの後にビンゴした。うるさいグループにいた。今回始まったけど。先生は私たちのビンゴカード以外番号が言ったら、私たちは「違うよ」と言った。

Small town produce stand

Today, I was at one of my tiny schools, so I stopped at the produce stand that’s in that area of town.

今日小さい小学校へ行った。野菜店も行った。

Look at all these yummy veggies! I love all the colors.

美味しそう野菜があった。　きれい色いっぱいあった。

They also had cantaloupe!

メロンもあった。

It was delicious.

とても美味しかった！

June Photo Challenge Days 4, 5, 6

The last last couple of days, I had no interest in trying to take any photos for this challenge, so these were all taken today.

前の2日間にこの写真を撮りたくなかったから、今日全部撮った。

June 4: Half

6月４日：半分

After I cut the veggies, dinner was half finished.

野菜来たの後に晩ご飯を半分終わった。

Here it is finished:

終わり：

June 6: line

６月６日：ライン

Today my students were studying, “I’m going to . . .” So my JTE showed them the time using a timeline. I thought it was really interesting that the timeline is the opposite of an American one, which would have the past on the left and the future on the right.

今日生徒は「I’m going to ～」と勉強した。英語の先生はタイムラインが使った。面白いことはアメリカのタイムラインの反対。このは明日に左、昨日に右、でもアメリカの昨日は左、明日は右。

June 6: Ice cream

６月６日：アイス

I went to buy Mint Crunky to photograph, but the convenience store in town didn’t have any. What’s the point in buying ice cream in June, if there’s no Mint Crunky?

コンビニへアイス買いに行ったけど、ミントのがなかった。　ミントのがなかったら、なぜアイス買う？

Dinner with new teachers

Today, I went out for dinner with two of the new high school teachers.

今日２人の新しい高校の先生と晩ご飯を食べた。

They are brand new teachers, just graduated from college.

今年の前に卒業した。

The one on the right is one of two new English teachers this year.

右のは新しい英語の先生。

This was my dinner! Look at all those bright, colorful veggies!

私の晩ご飯！明るい野菜があった！

It was a lot of fun getting to chat with these two.

話が楽しかった。

*  *  *  *  *

In other news, I had my first English club of the year today! I didn’t know it was even going to continue this year until yesterday.

今日英語の部活がはじめた。　昨日の前続くことが知らなかった。

I have 4 students this year – 3 girls and 1 boy.

今年４人　－　女３人、男１人。

We shared some things about ourselves and then we played Apples to Apples. Best English club game, EVER.

私たちは自分のこと教えてから、「Apples to Apples」と言うゲームをした。　英語の部活に最高ゲーム。

I had fun, the kids had fun and we all finished with a smile. Now I’ve gotta think of something good for next week.

私と生徒は楽しかった。　来週いいアクチビティが考えなければならない。

EPIC GOMI (garbage) FAIL

Friday, I forget to take out my nama gomi (raw garbage/compost). No big deal, right? I’ll just take it out on Monday morning and all will be fine.

Tonight, I return from church with my JTE and because of a particularly long meeting, dinner out and then grocery shopping, we arrive home at 10pm. Not too bad. Having had caffeine a little on the late side and knowing that Sunday is the best time to chop up my veggies, I head into the kitchen to put food away and throw other food away.

At the 100 yen store this afternoon, I bought a couple of new bags for the onions and potatoes that have been in my fridge quite a long time and have been doing just fine. So I start there. I dig through the potatoes and find that the majority of them need to go. There’s a handful that can go in my new fancy bag – probably good that I bought the bags, because I had to go through the bad produce. Then I begin doing the same thing on the onions. The first few are still good. Then I get lower in the bag and they are soft – according to the website I found, this means they have to go. I get lower in the bag and find mushy, fuzzy onions. At this point, I decide that I’m glad I bought tongs at the 100 yen shop as well because I don’t have to touch the nasty onions – yay!

After I’ve gone through the onions and potatoes, I glance through the rest of my produce drawer. I didn’t go through peppers as fast as I thought I would last week and I now have two very soft peppers on my hands. I decide to toss these as well and the grapes that are mostly over ripe at this point in the week.

This is all well and good, but having not chopped any produce yet, my gomi bag is FULL. Nothing else is going in that bag if I want to be able to tie it shut. So I decide to take it out. I don’t even want to chance forgetting to take it out this week.

I begin to pull the bag out and notice some gomi juice in the gomi bucket. I don’t want to drip this the whole way to the gomi cage, so I carry the bucket out. In the entryway, I find my plastic garbage that I had forgotten to take out the last two Wednesdays (the good thing about that is it never smells). Since people in my apartment complex are terrible at being Japanese, there’s always gomi out early (apparently in most of Japan this is against the rules and the gomi police will return it). I decide I’m going to take the plastics out too.

I grab my fleece and my rain boots and head out. I walk down to the gomi cage and stick both gomi bags into one hand so that I can open the cage. The plastic being the easiest, I toss in first.

Once that’s in the cage, I grab my nama gomi and stand back so it won’t leak on me. Then I yank it out by the handle of the bag (think shopping bag with the handles tied together).

I get it to just in front of the gomi cage when BOOM. My gomi bag explodes all over the ground IN FRONT of the gomi cage.

I am utterly shocked standing with an empty bag in my hand. How is it that the gomi bag I have in my hand is now empty? One minute the gomi was in my hand, the next it was all over the ground.

Then, I do what I always do in a random moment like this. I start laughing. My gomi had rejected the gomi cage. What other JET has had that experience?

After I get over the insanity of my situation (I’m still standing there), I decide I need to do something. As much as I would rather pretend it wasn’t me, I can’t leave this for someone else. I head back into the house to grab a new gomi bag and try to figure out how I’m going to get all the gomi picked up.

As I enter the house it occurs to me, I’ll use the freshly cleaned tongs I bought today so I don’t have to touch the nasty food all over the ground. I head back out. It’s 11:45 and I’m headed out in my blue rain boots, armed with a gomi bucket and tongs. I’m sure if anyone had been looking outside at that moment, I would have been a hilarious sight.

With my weapons, I manage to take out the mess bit by bit, apple cores, potatoes, onion, peppers, carrot ends, and parts of veggies all get tossed into the new bag. I managed to get all the whole things picked up. I find something slimy and wonder what it is I ate last week that would go bad this fast.

I get to the bottom and remember, as I find them, that last week I had not been able to use 4 eggs before the expiration date. They’ve cracked over the small bits of gomi that are left along with the dirt. I get most of that picked up. But, lacking a hose or any water source to rinse the area. It’s going to be gross in a couple of days. I’m very much hoping for rain this evening to wash the whole mess away. But looking at the weather forecast, rain’s not likely until tomorrow night.

I returned to my kitchen after that to chop up the veggies before I lost steam and didn’t have the energy to do it. As I now head to bed, I have a container of celery, one of carrots and two of peppers in my fridge and ready for healthy snacking this week.