Fall colors near the lake

 After one of my elementary school visits, I had to drive down the lake road. The fall colors were stunning. 

小学校へ行ったの後に湖の近い道路で運転した。紅葉はとても綺麗だった。

I've considered stopping here many times before, but never have. I'm so glad I did this time. 

前にここで止まる事が考えたけど、した事がなかった。今回したのが嬉しかった。

This tree. I've never managed to get a good picture of how red it is against the gorgeous blue before. 

この木。この前にいい写真ができなかった。好きな事は明るい赤と綺麗な青ね。

It was a nice drive back to the JHS. 

中学校へ戻るの運転が綺麗だった。

Last day of the produce stand

My produce stand closed and I went for their annual party and last day of shopping.

野菜の店は閉めて、毎年のパーティと最後の買い物の日へ行った。

I was surprised at how many trees had fallen in the big snow storm.
吹雪にたくさん倒木があった。

On the way I saw this. I hate those power lines, they’re in a place that would be perfect for photos otherwise. Grr!

途中にこれが見た。この電線が大嫌い。なかったら、とてもいい写真ができる。

Pink pickles! Soo delicious!

ピンクの漬物。美味しい！

Butajiru. Yum!

豚汁も美味しい！

So many people came to shop one last time before the shop closed for the season.

たくさん人は最後の日へ行った。

Furano Fall Colors

After a week of having a cold, I needed out of the house on a gorgeous fall Saturday.

１週間に風邪がひいたの後に外で遊びたかった。この土曜日にいい天気があったから。

I decided to head into Furano and see if the fall colors in a park I like were as pretty as they were last year.

富良野へ行った。綺麗な紅葉が見たかった。去年に良かった。

They were.

綺麗だった！

Just wanted to sit on those benches and enjoy the weather. Unfortunately it was just a tad cold for that.

あのベンチで座りたかったけど、ちょっと寒かった。

The leaves are so gorgeous in October.

１０月に葉は綺麗ね。

This tree had all the colors – red, orange, yellow, green.

この木は全部色があった。赤とオレンジと黄色と緑。

So glad I randomly spotted this park a couple of years ago.

この公園を見つけたこと良かった！

Rusutsu, Part 1

We went to Rusutsu Amusement Park for A’s birthday.

Aの誕生日のためルスツの遊園地へ行った。

A and T getting ready to go up!

AとT!

A group shot.

４人の写真。

This one twisted all over the place. Only A and T wanted to ride it.

AとTだけ乗りたかった。

Then I took them on the tea cups.

コーヒーカップ見たいのを乗った。

Apparently, I spin us in circles too fast.

早い過ぎたらしい。 ^^

Only in Japan.

日本でだけ。

Is she tall enough?

背丈が足りないか？

The swings!

楽しかった！

We’re standing in the elevator and someone says “grapefruit.” hehehe.

エレベーターに待つ中にだれか「グレープフルーツ」と言った。

After getting just a tad cold we went in for dinner.

少し寒くなったの後に夕食へ行った。

Beautiful Fall Day

I was driving yesterday from one school to the other and I saw this. 

最近１つ学校から、他の学校まで運転中にこれが見た。

All I could think was "Thank you Lord, for sending me to this gorgeous place." 

「キリストへこのきれい所へ来てありがとう」だけと思った。

If you look closely, you can see snow covered mountains behind the closer hills (they blend a lot with the clouds in this shot). 

丘の後ろに雪がある山を見えるけど、雲見たい。

Elementary English today

For English class today, we studied shapes, and then made jack-o-lanterns. 

今日の授業に形を勉強してから、ジャックランタンを作った。

The kids' designs were so cute! 

生徒のはとてもか分かった！

These were all the pumpkins! The school is so small that in the 1-4th grades, there are only 4 students (plus the 2 pumpkins the teachers made). 

これは全部があった。この学校はとても小さい。１から4年生は4人だけ（＋先生の2つの）

It was a lot of fun and a good practice for next week, when I'll do this with another school. 

楽しくて、来週こうもするためにいい練習。

Surprise snow storm, day 1

8 am Leave for school. Notice the snow has started early, but there’s not enough to take a picture. Use neighbor’s car for contrast.

8時　学校へ行く。雪は早い始まった。少ないから、写真に見えないから、近所の黒い車の前に写真を撮る。

8:40 On the way to 1st period, stop for a picture of the gorgeous tree in the tiny amount of snow.

8時40分　1時間目へ行く。雪が見えるから、写真を撮る。

10:30 After 2nd period. First years, you have the best view of this gorgeous tree. Also, look at all that snow.

10時半　2時間目が終わった。1年生は一番いい眺めがある。この木はとてもきれい。そして、雪が積もっています。

12:40 pm Electricity goes out again, comes back on quickly.

12時40分　2回目の停電、はやい終わり。

2 pm Electricity goes out

14時　停電

2:30 pm Class started 20 minutes ago, teacher wasn’t paying any attention, with no bells to remind her, she didn’t notice.

14時半　授業は20分前に始まったけど、先生は時計が見えなかった。チャイムがなかった。

3 pm Busses and trains are cancelled, how are we getting the students home?

15時　バスと電車は中止した。生徒と富良野に住んでいる先生はどう帰る？

3:45 pm Bus has snow tires now, kids can go home.

15時45分　バスのタイヤが変わった。生徒は帰る。

4 pm Teachers go home. My car is covered in snow, I’m not wearing snow clothes. I-sensei, can I get a ride to the convenience store? (It’s close to my house).

16時　先生は帰る。　私の車で雪積もるし、冬の服を着ないし、I先生はコンビニまで運転する。

4:15 pm Arrive at I-sensei’s house. He forgot about me. Can I help with changing the tires? No, go inside and play with the kids.

16時15分　I先生の家に着いた。　I先生は私が忘れちゃった。男の先生たちはタイヤの変わるの始まる。手伝える事が聞いたけど、子供たちと家で遊ぶ。

4:55 pm The tires are changed.

16時55分　タイヤが変わった。

5:05 pm Arrive home. Find a flashlight and light a candle. Remember the large, camping flashlight that I spotted this morning.

17時05分　家は着いた。　懐中電灯と蝋燭が探す。　朝に見たの大きいキャンプの懐中電灯が思い出す。

6 pm Pull dinner out of the refrigerator. Luckily, one of my choir friends made me dinner yesterday and it’s still cold. Thankfully, it doesn’t require any heat.

18時　冷蔵庫から夕食を食べる。昨日合唱の友達から夕食がもらった。コンロが要らないけど、寒い。

6:30 pm Finish my cold dinner and wish I had a way to make hot tea. Then, remember the hand warmers I have for winter.

18時半　寒い夕食が終わった。　お茶を飲みたいから、お湯が欲しい。　カイロがあった事思い出す。

7 pm Find out school is cancelled tomorrow.

19時　明日に学校が中止と聞いた。

7:10 pm Find out school is cancelled for the students.

19時10分　生徒だけ明日に学校が中止と聞いた。

If I have to accept that fall is here . . .

If I have to accept that fall is here, at least there’s pears!

受け入れられなければならないなら、少なくともなしがある！

I love fall fruit!

秋の果物が大好き！

A weekend update

We headed to Obihiro this weekend for the Fall Meet, here is some fun from Instagram!

The photos are not in this order:

Some fall colors near my bagel shop.

Pumpkin soup from the bagel shop

Two crazy friends

Cake!

The ally we walked down before finding dinner.

Pickles that came with dinner.

Today's green curry lunch.

Searching for Gold

On Saturday, I was invited to go “gold mining” with people in town. This was translated by my JTE. It also included a bit of a historic tour of half of town (next year is the other half).

We started in the parking lot near our michi-no-eki. We did the greetings and heard a quick overview of what we’d be doing that day – most of which I didn’t understand at all, but I just smiled and nodded along, figuring that when we got to an important part of the day, someone would make sure I knew what I was supposed to do.
After the beginning intros, we headed inside and upstairs to the small town museum. I was surprised at how relaxed it was. My students who were along started picking up and touching stuff and they weren’t scolded and told to put things down. They were even allowed to take one of the things with us so that it could be used while we were out “gold mining” later that day.

This man was leading our tour, he used to be in my Eikaiwa class and is super friendly. I think he must be a pretty good teacher of all levels because all of my students seemed quite interested in the mini-history lesson he seemed to be giving about my town. In fact, they seemed to have longer attention spans than I did.
I knew that in the past, farming had been a major industry in town, because it still is. I also knew logging and woodworking had been because I had seen pictures. But I had no idea that gold mining had also been a major thing back in the day.

Here are some of the things they used to do in town. 

Could you imagine Snowshoeing or even having to go for long walks in the snow in shoes like these?



An old-fashioned Japanese type writer, because there are so many characters, they had to pick out the ones they wanted and then put them in the thing in the back that
picked them up. No wonder type writers and computers took so long to pick up here, if you had to do that every time you wanted to write a simple note, it’d be so much easier to just grab a pen and start writing.

And, of course, an old English book! So glad I wasn’t an ALT in those days. Though, I do think they might have done a better job of teaching kids simple words before they start to move on to tougher ones.

After our walk around the museum, we set off!



Apparently we have a suspension bridge in town. It was fun to walk across it with my students. It made me laugh a lot that they all came in red hats. They were three of my first graders. It was fun to talk with some of them in a non-school setting though.

I was glad to have not gone by myself though, between the red signs with a line and the signs declaring “danger,” on my own I would have guessed the bridge wasn’t safe for walking on and that it wasn’t ok to go on it. Instead, we had a good laugh at the kids adventuresome spirits and the moms being scared of how much it moved.

After a bit more driving and showing us a few more historic places (often from the bus), we headed out to start gold mining. My friend from eikaiwa showed us how to do it and we got to work. My students were so excited to try their hand at finding gold.

The adults, of course got to try too. I’m not sure any gold was found, but we all managed to get our fingers pretty cold in the November waters. By the time we finished, my fingers were like ice and one mom passed out hand warmers to all the kids. One of my students shared one with me and then proceeded to show me how to get it to warm up so it would keep my hands warm.

On the way home 3 of my students, one mom and I played shiritori. Shiritori is a word game where the word you say has to start with the last letter of the person before you’s word. I realized as we played that, while I have a lot of Japanese words in my head, I don’t have them connected by first letter, so some letters were incredibly hard to think of words for. It was an interesting realization as a Japanese learner.

I don’t think anyone went home that day with any gold, but it was a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.