Moving Home

Sadly I had to change my blog site as 'Blogger' has told me I reached my photo limit. Mean! So I swtiched to wordpress which has unlimited photo uploading. Nice!
My new site is

http://journeyofjapan.wordpress.com/

I have painfully transferred everything over but will leave this site up and running so the link will always be here! But from now on I'll be posting on the new site!!

So long blogspot!

Shinkansen Festival

New Aomori-Shi Shinkansen station

The Shinkansen comes to Aomori in 30 days, Aomori is very, very, excited. The station will be located very close to Nishi Koko so the school was asked to participate in a festival last Thursday. I went along with the first graders to watch various dance performances, one group of old ladies doing a strange trance dance, tiny kiddies in a brass band club, and a group of traditional Nebuta dancers, the mayor made some speeches too. We were supposed to make a huge human sign, saying 30 but it rained so that got cancelled. Which was sad but instead they gave us vouchers to buy treats at the stands, great success!
Thirty days to go!





せん Restaurant

River Fish, Prawn Cakes, Scallops and Vegetables

Friday night was another amazing night for Japanese food. My good friend Atsushi takes me to dinner so he can practise his English. It's a win win situation for both of us. I get to eat fantastic traditional food while he gets a free English lesson.

Sashimi, the prawn part is insanely slimey

This was a small little restaurant run by a charming Japanese couple, I was the first foreigner to eat there so they swarmed me watching me closely after every single bite, (the reaction after your first bite is crucial to them). I almost had to concentrate harder on enthusiastically ‘hmmmming and yuming’ than actually watching what I ate! The food was glorious.

Scallops, Greens, Omellete, champ; Flowers

We now share a love for the Guinness bar and it has become an after dinner tradition.

Guinness

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghlibli

Studio Ghibli Layout Design exihition is being displayed at AMOMA (Aomori Museum of Modern Art) until early January. I went on Saturday and I have been dreaming Ghibli every since.

I went with Kodama Sensei, the art teacher from Nishi Koko, we have become great friends since she lets me hang out in her Art classes when I’m not busy. She has tiny bits of English so it’s difficult to communicate but surprisingly easy to have fun with her, it is amazing how if you just try hard you can communicate in many other ways, words are not everything.

We spent over two hours walking around viewing these stunning drawings, dating from the early eighties to today. Japan has some seriously talented artist, this is an obvious fact, their style of drawing though is so very different to the European/ American style. They are so beautifully delicate and so extremely cute it would melt your heart.

Unfortunately I couldn’t take any photos but here are some from the internet just in case (like me) you’ve never experienced them before, it will hopefully give you an idea.

These lil dudes are called Kodama just like the Art Sensei!

Kodama Sensei

Stickers of Kodama creatures made by viwers of exhibition

Chanel Friends

It’s nice to have a quiet cute bar to chill out in once in a while with a friend, out of the way of all the fuss and load noises from the city, somewhere with tasty food & drinks. This bar myself and Christy have named ‘Chanel’ the wife of the owner is a beautiful lady who used to work for Chanel in Tokyo but left her job to run this adorable bar in Aomori city. They have become great friends of ours and we adore our little trips here to hang out. Check out their blog which they have posted stuff about us on! It’s all in Japanese but you can still see pictures.


http://blog.livedoor.jp/ginsenhonoca/archives/51608394.html




Birtday champagne from Chanel



The Hot Room

The community centre I use for swimming is a great place to hang out. There is always something strange happening, this week there was flower displays and a photography exhibtion, old men sit outside different rooms and entice you in with biscuits and bananas. It is impossible to say no.

While swimming last Wednesday I met a man who worked in the city hall, he had fantastic English and enjoyed stopping me every few lengths to tell me I had ‘beautiful swim stroke’, what a nice thing to say! He said I was like swam, an animal that looks like it is gliding from above but infact it is secretly very fast. A strange observation that I couldn’t quite get my head around but still seemed like it was ment as a compliment.

Eventually I managed to pull myself away and headed for a quick sauna, (usually I pop in for 10minutes after a swim). I always thought it was odd that every time I entered people would wait a few minutes then quietly excuse themselves, but I had heard that it is quite common for Japanese to do that if foreigners entered and I wasn’t complaining having the place peacefully to myself, (even though they blast a television in the room). After my ten minutes when I was leaving Mr.City Hall man was calling me from the pool. I smiled, bowed and kept waving saying goodbye nice to have met you, secretly trying to run away as the whole pool was watching. He then jumps out of the pool and comes running over. ‘Hannah san man only hot room, MAN ONLY’

Oh dear lord, the embarrassment.

So for a solid two months I have been swimming maybe three times a week, using the sauna 90% of the time…the MENS only sauna.

I laughed, he laughed, the entire pool laughed. I found the womens only today and it just doesn’t feel the same!

Apple Bobbing

A pumpkin I carved with Tesia and Makoto

A bunch of third graders asked me to have a Halloween party after school on Friday, which I was more than happy to accommodate, they made a huge effort to come find me and ask me in English, which blew me away! Not teaching these kids meant I really did not know what to expect, did they want to play games or just chill out, should I dress up or would that be really un-cool? They are about eighteen years old so I tried to think of what I would have wanted when I was in school, which made it worse because there is no way in hell we would have asked for a Halloween party at that age. So I just got loads of sweets, baked some buns (always a safe option), put on a wig and had some games prepared as back up. I also had no idea how many would be coming.


One girl in a witchy hat comes in the door shreaking followed by about 15 others, and lots more shreaking. They unpiled bags of junk and just kept shrieking. I braved the question….do you want to play a game?

The Halloween Team

So we played apple bobbing for about 30mins (which they had never even heard of), they were endlessly entertained by this, then I hung apples from the ceiling and they tried to capture them with their teeth, also endlessly entertained by this game and then we played a solid hour of blind man’s buff. I have to admit I was also endlessly entertained, it was like being 12years old again plunging my head into buckets of freezing water to fetch apples. What really surprised me is the boys that crept in and joined in after much encouragement (boys and girls in Japan do not interact very well at all, at all). I had some teenage girl magazines from Ireland with me which the boys adored and even took home to borrow for the weekend. Could you imagine an 18year old boy in Ireland reading a Mizz magazine?

Apple Games

Clever girls



Narumi