June part 1

Kari writes:

The coming of June marked our 1st anniversary!  We took a mini trip to nearby Yonago and stayed at the coolest beach-side hotel/spa in Kaike.  The room had an ocean view and the complimentary yukatas were gorgeous.

 Our search for a nice dinner was quite the adventure!  We decided it would be fun to do yaki-niku but we wanted to walk so we could take advantage of the standard 'all you can eat/drink' specials.  Unfortunately the 2 places we found within walking distance were tiny and packed!  We wandered another 20 minutes or so until we lucked out and came upon a yaki-niku buffet!  This place was ridiculous - they had a cotton candy machine and the staff were all wearing foam cowboy hats that said "Canada Beef".  It was certainly an experience!
Once we got back to the hotel we had to check out the famous hot springs and we weren't disappointed.  The facilities were beautiful and there was even an open air bath that looked out onto the ocean. Amazing!

Hamburger Sushi!

The next day we strolled along the coast, visited a neat thrift store, and ate lunch at Kurazushi which is a combination of conveyor belt sushi and shinkansen sushi.  You are seated at your booth and you can grab any plate that passes you by - but there is also a touch screen at your table and you can order anything you want and it will be delivered to your table by a little "train".  Super fun!  I enjoyed the hamburger sushi!





That night we decided to check out a festival we had heard about and vaguely knew the location of!  We drove up Mt Daisen in the rain and were rewarded for our efforts!  It was so amazing to see a sea of torches coming down the mountain toward us!




We were invited by our neighbors to watch them in a softball tournament.  It was a lovely day and even though we aren't huge baseball/softball fans it's always fun to cheer for your friends!  They took 3rd place and afterwards we all met up at the community center and had a party!

The next weekend was the 3rd annual Daisen Beer Festival.  Getting there by train and bus took a good portion of the morning but it was such a fun experience.  There were at least a dozen Japanese craft breweries there and we got the unlimited drink pass so we tried all sorts of interesting beers.  I found the fruit flavors to be the most intriguing - though banana beer was about as good as it sounds (aka not at all!).  There was live entertainment all day and Mt Daisen was an amazing backdrop for the whole thing!  We even got to take a ski lift up the mountainside and survey the whole festival from above!

Man oh man, June was so jam packed that I think I'll break it into two blog posts.  And of course July has been speeding by at record pace!  We have so much to get done in these next two weeks I might not have time to blog!  But I hope you enjoyed your glimpse into the first half of June!

May May May

Kari Writes:

Oofda.  Time continues to fly by!  It feels especially fast since we know we will be coming home so soon (under 6 weeks!!).  So we made sure to do lots of cool things this month.

Tottori is famous for its pears or nashi.  Specifically the 20th Century Nashi.  It's only available in stores from August - Octoberish so I was very sad that I might never get to taste nashi ever again!  Thankfully our friends told us about the Nashi Museum in Kurayoshi and that they have samples of nashi year round!

These are not your average Bartlett pears!

We learned a lot of interesting things about the history of nashi and how some smart people engineered a new breed that was resistant to a pretty nasty blight that was wiping out tons of nashi!
The museum is circular and looks kind of like a giant nashi from the outside. Inside smack dab in the middle is a giant tree!  The part enclosed in glass is the root system!  It's taller than the tree!

Our next adventure was our trip to the Tottori Hanakairo Flower Park with Ellen.  It was huge!  With a giant glass dome in the middle.  You also get a great view of Mt. Daisen!

Breathtaking!

There were so many amazing flowers and the weather was perfect so we walked around for hours admiring all the different gardens and landscaping.  Orchids overflowing, fields of poppies, gardens on top of fish ponds.  All very cool!

Too much to fit into just one picture!

Our next big event was a two-fer.  Ian ended up double booked one Saturday.  His school was having their annual sports day festival and he was also scheduled to do a reading at the local library.  So we did both!  The sports day was pretty cool - all the girls did a choreographed dance and the boys did some daring acrobatics (ie. human pyramids).  They also had a class by class giant jump rope contest (the winning team had over 80 consecutive jumps)!

Then it was off to the library.  And of course the local TV station sent a camera man to capture the event.

Ian Sensei = local celeb

We also had a super fun night with our friend Ellen, the cattle baron (let's call him CB), and some of his workers.  We met up at a small smokey yaki niku place in town and ate, and drank, and drank, and drank!  At one point Christmas Cakes and candles appeared out of thin air (apparently to celebrate a birthday and our upcoming 1 year anniversary)!   When we called CB out on the fact that they were christmas cakes in May he said "shhhh! no one else can read the box!" this despite the fact that the decorations were clearly holiday themed!  But I guess we can't judge too harshly since we still have our mini Christmas tree out on display!

Christmas cakes!

Ian's new BFF

I just have to share an incident that happened this morning.  One of the trickiest things for us about life in Japan has been figuring out their garbage/recycling protocol!  We felt like we had it pretty much figured out until just recently. We got a note slipped in our mailbox (all in Japanese of course) the gist of it was that someone in the neighborhood is putting out the wrong things on garbage day.  We figured they probably meant us but couldn't figure out what in the world we were doing wrong - and why it is just now an issue since we haven't changed anything!  Fast forward a couple weeks to this morning.  I go out to the garbage drop site down the street carrying two bags - one with our general garbage and another smaller bag with our プラ (pura or plastic items).  As I drop them off an old man (who I'm pretty sure was waiting to catch the garbage fiend!) intercepts me and explains that what we've been doing wrong is separating the plastics!  We were doing too much work!  The encounter left me 1 part embarrassed that we've been doing it wrong for so long and 1 part a bit proud since old man Japanese is notoriously difficult to understand, but I completely understood him and was even able to ask clarifying questions to make sure we don't make any more mistakes!

Well that's all for May and as it turns out June is almost over! Yikes!!

-Kari

April Showers

Kari Writes:

Hello again!

April was a more relaxed month for us.  Some of our weekly commitments were on hiatus so we had lots of quiet evenings at home.  Thankfully our house has warmed up quite a bit so we weren't bundled up and shivering!

We took a day to explore Senjo-San and see some of the lovely cherry blossoms there!  They were in full bloom and absolutely dripping with flowers!

Look at that view!

I also bought some flowers for our kitchen window sill and they popped right open!  I couldn't resist snapping some pics of them.

The coolest thing we did this month was attend a rock concert at an old sake warehouse!  It had a super cool vibe and lots of people worked hard to make it an awesome venue! The opening band had tons of energy - but unfortunately they overloaded the power grid and plunged us all into darkness!  But they kept on singing and the drummer kept on drumming for the whole 20 minutes they were without power!  Kudos to them for keeping the audience upbeat!  Then it was time for Ellen sensei to steal the show!  She joined the Kasami Band and sang some golden oldies.  And we got a whole crowd of people up front and dancing!

After the show we joined up with some fellow JETs and went to Karaoke.  We had a blast singing a bunch of American songs!  But the moral of this story is: don't miss the last train home!  We walked a friend home and ended up missing our train.  So instead of a 4 minute train ride we had a 4 mile walk back home!  In the drizzle.  We certainly learned our lesson!

I've also been meaning to share some pics of the pottery we have completed!  We have packed them into boxes to send home already

Ian's first set

Kari's first set

Ian's second set

Kari's second set

Not picture are my horrible first attempt at glazing and my "mistake" plate that was most admired by our fellow classmates and instructor!

So that was our April.  Very uneventful except for one very eventful night!
-Kari

March - where do I start?

Kari Writes:

March was an exciting month for us!

The weather started to warm up and we enjoyed walking around our neighborhood!  Though lately we tend to get one week of nice weather followed by a week of cold and rainy.  It seems Spring is fickle no matter where you live.  Though we certainly aren't expecting anymore snow this year - we send our condolences to the mid-west!

In Japan the school year is a bit different than in America. They run on trimesters and the school year ends in March.  So March is a time a change for the youngsters!  Ian's 9th grade students graduated and are heading off to High School.  Their spring break is about 2 weeks and now a fresh crop of 7th graders are entering Akasaki Jr High!  There have also been a lot of staffing changes this year so Ian is also getting to know his new co-workers and settling into a new rhythm.

The gym all decked out for graduation!

The biggest event of the month was certainly the visit of our friends Josh and Drew!  We picked them up at the Osaka airport (a 3-4 hour drive that took us close to 7 hours! whoops).  We then explored one of the more famous areas of Osaka - Dotonbori:

I was so excited to hang out with the iconic Glico man!

It definitely had a "Times Square" kind of vibe to it!

 The next day we walked from our Hotel to Osaka Castle!  This Castle is a bit controversial because it is 100% reconstructed and the inside is very modern (elevators and gift shops etc!).  But it is still pretty to look at!  And there was a huge grove of plum trees blooming on the grounds which smelled amazing!

We also explored the huge shopping center near the train station and introduced our friends to the best part of Japan - the 100 yen shop!  It's always amazing the variety of things you can get for around 1 US dollar!

Next we took the guys to our neck of the woods.  We spent a rainy day exploring the Akasaki coastline and Kurayoshi.  And capped off the day with dinner at Joyfull and Karaoke!

Lego man on the beach!

The next day we did a bit more exploring at Port Akasaki and the Windmill Park.  And met up with Ian for lunch at one of the most esteemed Ramen establishments in the prefecture (and it even ranks pretty dang high nationally!) Kamitoku Ramen!

Learning the art of Ramen slurping!

Not ones to rest on our laurels we headed off to the Tottori Sand Dunes.  I had never been so I was just as excited as the guys!  And it was pretty great!  Sand as far as the eye can see and we got to see the camels - next time I vow to ride one!

The view from the highest dune!

All of us at the top!

After exploring the dunes we hit the road again off to Kobe!  By the time we got there we were pretty wiped out from all our adventures so we hung out in our swanky hotel and played some cards!  The next day they guys had to catch a train to Kyoto so we kept our exploring to a minimum. We ended up finding "America Town" a part of Kobe with a lot of Western style houses.  Some of them you can go into kind of like a museum.  It is apparently a pretty big draw for Japanese tourist - but kind of a funny place for American tourist to go!  "Ooohh look it's just like where I came from."

Then we dropped the guys off at the station!  We were sad to see them go but also excited to get back home and do nothing for a few days!

At the end of March we joined our friends Ellen and Matt in the age old tradition of Sakura Hanami or Cherry Blossom Viewing.  We went to Utsubuki Park in Kurayoshi where they set up lanterns and banners and have food stands!

We were stationed near the park so
we could watch all the cute kids!

There is also a giant concrete pit that is full of:

Monkeys!! Yup!

All in all a great time was had by all - even though we did get a little bit rained on!  It turned out to be one of the few good days for sakura hanami this season.

And that was our March!

Stay tuned for April!

February . . . Whew!

Kari writes:

I can't believe February is coming to a close already!  Yes, it is shorter than most months but even so I think it has gone by at super-speed!  Our weeks were jam-packed all month.  Starting with the Table Tennis Tournament!

Every year all the teachers in the area have a HUGE table tennis tournament.  Each school puts together 5 doubles teams and then duke it out elimination style against the other schools.  Unfortunately Aka-chu was knocked out in the first round.  But it was fun to cheer the teachers on!  Afterwards we ate yakiniku and drank beer - as all good school sponsored activities should end! 

The next weekend was our big teacher trip to Kyoto!  Kyoto used to be the capital city of Japan so it is chock full of interesting historical sites!  We saw so many castles and temples!

Byodoin Temple was under construction - but it is on the 10 yen coin!

Here we are at the entrance to Fushimi Inari Shrine

Which is known for it's pathways lined by thousands of red arches called torii

After some group sight-seeing we all went to a fancy dinner in downtown Kyoto. As we were walking I got excited every time I saw another white person!  It's so rare to see non-Japanese non-JET people in Tottori that I was so surprised to see so many tourists!

The next day we went to even more cool places:

Nijo Castle!  This castle has "Nightengale floors" which creak
on purpose so Ninjas can't sneak around!

The grounds at Nijo castle were gorgeous!
There were lots of neat trees and pretty flowers too!

Kinkakuji Temple is one of the most famous in Kyoto!
"Kin" means gold so it's pretty obvious how it got its name!

We were pretty impressed

The ultimate Kinkakuji experience - drinking matcha tea in the tea garden!

Up until this point we had been with various groups of Ian's co-workers.  We split off for the afternoon and visited Kiyomizu-Dera.  It was huge!  There were so many different gates, shrines, pagodas and such I didn't know what I was looking at half the time!  Something that was really interesting around Kyoto is that at various places you can pay to get dressed up in Kimonos!  So as we were at Kiyomizu-Dera we saw "geishas" using their smart phones.  It was an amusing juxtaposition!

A pink pagoda at the entrance

This is Kiyomizu-Dera!  Look at all the people!

Old-fashioned meets high-tech

After that we made our way to Sanjusangendo.  This temple is full to the brim with Buddha statues.  There are 1,001 statues!  You aren't allowed to take any pictures inside the temple so I found this one online:

It's a verrrryy long room I swear it took over 10 minutes to walk past all the statues!  Pretty impressive.  Then it was time to meet back up with the group and head back to Tottori!  

The next weekend was a triple whammy.  First that Friday night our good friend and fellow JET Ellen was involved in putting together and performing in a concert with some big name Japanese rock stars in our little town!  They sang a bunch of classic American oldies so we could actually sing along!  Afterwards I got to meet the local mascot "Cowy" which was a dream come true for me! heh.  But maybe even cooler was that we got to go to the after party to hang out with the band and listen to them do some karaoke!  Thankfully neither Ian nor I were requested to sing!  

Me and Cowy! *swoon

Then on Saturday morning Ian was a judge for the foreign language speech competition in our town.  There were speeches and plays in English, Korean, and Chinese.  Thankfully Ian only had to give his opinion on the English entries!  And adorable 5 year old girl told a condensed version of the Little Mermaid that she had memorized!  Pretty amazing.

On Sunday we joined the International Group to hang out at one of the nearby mountains.  There was a retreat facility up there.  We played some team building games and then got to try making Baumkuhen which is originally a German dessert but popular in Japan.  We mixed up the batter and then headed outside to roast it over an open fire!

This was actually super difficult - maybe part of that was
not getting any instructions in English!

The trick is the coat the bamboo with a thin layer of batter, then brown it and coat again. Once they cool off you pull the dessert off the bamboo rod and slice it up.  It has many rings inside like a tree stump because of the way it is cooked.  Pretty cool - but a TON of work!

Our finished product!  It did taste good. 

This last weekend we finally had some time to relax!  We took a little day trip to do some shopping and tidied up the house a bit.  We've also had a warm streak lately so our toes aren't so chilly at night!

I'll leave you with a picture of the Valentine's flowers Ian got for me!  In Japan Valentine's is a bit different in that women give chocolate to men!  But Ian is a smart husband and took the American approach to Valentine's:

I split the bouquet up to fit in my little glass bottles. 

He even shared the chocolates he got at work!  He's a keeper!

Tune in next time - we have some exciting travels planned for March and a visit from some American friends!

-Kari