I can't believe that it's almost been a month since I posted here, but that is what the date tells me.

Work
As I mentioned last time, things have been exceedingly busy. The follow-up training went well, encouraging me while at the same time showing me how far I have yet to go to do my classes smoothly. I continue to do the best I can, and constantly waver between being very anxious about what I'm doing, and a having some confidence that I do know what I'm doing.
The stories from the other teachers I met at follow-up training did encourage me that I'm not alone in my feelings, and indeed that I am well off! I am very thankful to God for placing me where I am, otherwise I very likely would have a lot unhappier. I couldn't imagine trying to do this job with a Manager that can hardly speak English or who has to do classes full-time so is not available to me.

This past week was the first week of parent observations. I had only one class to which the mom came, which was not bad, but she is a mom with high expectations. The feedback I got was quite valuable.
This upcoming week is the second week of observations, and I will have many more classes with the parents attending. I'm not sure who is more nervous- the parents, the students, or me...

Fun events
Two fun things I did recently was to go to Otako Gassen, which are giant kite battles, and go to Tokyo Disneyland with my coworkers.

Here is a video I took at the Otako Gassen. Basically it's a competition where teams fly their giant kites, trying to tangle up other kites and snap their strings. Usually this takes place over a river for added destruction of the paper kites, but it so happens that the event I saw was in this field. A highlight for me was getting to fly one of the kites! As I was walking by someone called out to me "challenge! Challenge!" and beckoned me over. And as simple as that I was suddenly flying a kite. It's actually quite challenging, and I crashed the kite twice- once tangling it with another kite. Oops.

Disneyland was a lot of fun, despite the heat and humidity. I went with my coworkers for the day with a special deal they found. It was very inexpensive! We rode the new Star Wars ride, which gives random scenes in the story so that it's a new experience every time! Well, you'd have to have time to ride this one more than once- our wait was nearly two hours. We got to pod race, as well as fly through the trenches of the Death Star and go up against Boba Fett. We also rode Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, and Pooh's Hunny Hunt. Everything was really fun, and I really enjoyed myself! We ate at the Queen of Heart's banquet hall, and the atmosphere was really amazing with giant flowers and cards.
The day went by really quickly!

FAQ
I haven't been asked recently, but before I left some people asked if living in Japan is very expensive. I don't think that it is- it's pretty comparable with living in Canada, especially now that the dollar is nearly at par with the yen (in that 1.00$ = 100 yen)
When I go shopping for groceries, I usually spend around 2500 yen for the week, with the cost being more if I have to replace things like pasta or rice. I tend to by myself a lot of 'luxuries' too, like ice cream and snacks.

Fruit and vegetables are interesting though. The price varies greatly depending on the season. Cucumbers and carrots are much cheaper now than they were a couple months ago. Melon is a famous example of something that is crazy-expensive here. In the store now are watermelons for nearly 1600 yen each. They are meant to be special gifts and are admittedly more expensive than the 'regular' melons, but still! The Japanese seem to love to have 'special' fruits, nicely packaged and perfectly coloured and shaped.
I like to buy my fruit at the end of the day when the price is lower. I got a small pack of cut honeydew for 150 yen, and a bag of cherries (another 'luxury' fruit) for 300 yen. From a street vendor I got two packs of strawberries for 500 yen, a great deal!

If you are curious about the price of anything in particular let me know and I'll let you know how much it is here!

In May there is a run of holidays together, generally referred to as 'Golden Week' here in Japan. I am so fortunate as to get the whole week off, so I spent a couple days in Tokyo to meet with one friend, and continued down to Fukuoka to visit with another.

My first stop in Tokyo was Tokyo Skytree, where I met Jessica and we acquired cube-shaped creampuffs. At Nezu shrine we saw an amazing taiko drum group and enjoyed the azaleas. Then in Shinjiku we went to Artnia, a Square-Enix themed store and cafe. The food was amazing~ (as was the merchandise...)
The next day we meant to go to a technology museum, but along the way decided to just enjoy the nice weather, the shopping and the random things we wandered across.
That evening we had dinner together with some of Jessica's acquaintances and had a really nice time!
But all too soon that part of the trip was over and I went to the airport to catch the short flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka.

I met up with Stephanie, and because she can drive in Japan we were able to do a lot of things! We ate a more traditional dinner with noodles on a roof tile, and then spontaneously decided to watch the movie "Library Wars" (which was excellent, despite being in all Japanese, of course). The next day we went to one of the locations that they shot that movie at: Kitakyushu Central Library. Unfortunately is was closed, so we couldn't go in! But the outside has some very unique and easily recognizable designs.
We also went to the Kitakyushu Museum, where we enjoyed a special exhibit on Vietnam.
Seeing as we were so close, Stephanie drove us to the bridge that spans the islands of Kyushu and Honshu. (Honshu is the main island of Japan.)
The next day was also full with a day trip to Kurokawa to enjoy onsens (hot springs)! There is a great deal where you pay one price and get to enter three of your choice- there are over 20 in the village to choose from.
The three we chose were all quite nice in their own unique ways. And by some wonder, we got to enjoy them all by ourselves up until the last one! For all the people wandering around the village, it was surprising to not see more people actually in the onsens. (Just for the record, three is a lot to enjoy in one day...)
And that was pretty much the end of my holiday! I spent all of Friday on the Shinkansen getting from Fukuoka back home- it took about 7 and a half hours.

Ahh, I don't want my holiday to be over! I enjoy going around and seeing things so much~!

I make lots of silly mistakes. Often. Today I made one that ended up causing a lot of trouble to a couple of people.

I caught a bus for the first time here today. I had a map, I had a plan, and I even gave myself lots of time in case something went wrong. I got to the stop and the bus arrived almost right away (so I didn't look very closely at the sign on the front. Of course hindsight is 20/20, and I think oh, how easily avoidable all the trouble was!)
After a while on this bus I thought that it really wasn't going where I thought it should. (This is why I like trains. They go on a track. They don't go somewhere other than where you expect.) I asked the bus driver if it was going to Aeon, a major shopping center that's fairly near where I was going. And the lengthy answer in Japanese was basically 'no.' (Insert mild panic here.) He told me to wait and stay on the bus.

We ended up waaaay far from where I was supposed to be. (But if I ever want to get to a lovely park in the foothills, I know how to get there!) I ended up staying on the bus until it returned on its circuit and he left me where I could walk to Aeon. Which was great, but at that time it was 5 minutes past my appointment, and I still had at least a 20 minute walk in front of me. So here I am, running up the streets of Nagaoka, trying to get to my massage appointment.

The masseuse called me as I was going, and (in totally flustered and mangled Japanese) I tried to tell her what had happened and that I was close. I don't think she got any of it except that I was close. ^.^o

At last I got there, totally out of breath and totally late. She very, very kindly let me stay and went through with my appointment, even though I was nearly a half hour late. I could not apologize enough!
The massage was excellent.

On the way home I looked much more closely at the sign on the bus, and had no trouble at all.

Hello from Nagaoka!
I found out about 30-minute internet I can use for free here at the international center, so here is a quick update!

Training was very stressful, but in many ways very encouraging.　The trainers were very kind and attentive, so I got through it.

I then traveled up to Nagaoka, and the landscape got more and more snowy...! As I was forewarned, there is indeed a good couple meters of snow in places here! On the news, one of the leading stories right now is the massive amounts of snow they have been getting in Hokkaido, along with high winds (so a good time to not be in Sapporo!)
Here, the weather is incredibly variable. We do a song with the kids called 'What's the weather?' Well, the other day it was sunny-windy-snowy-cold in the space of 10 minutes. A bit hard to sing!

I spent the past two weekends cleaning my appartment (the outgoing teacher left it okay, but he and I have different levels of what's *clean*). I feel like it's finally 'mine'!
I'm very sore from　sleeping on the floor - there was no couch like in the video, but the VHS player is still here!
Today I'll be going to get a foam mattress, in hopes that it will help. If not, I'll have to look at investing in a real bed...

I have just a couple minutes left, so I have to leave it here for today. I look forward to when I finally can get internet at home so I can chat more with you all!

Talk to you again soon!