I'm Alive!

I just realized I never updated this and thought perhaps you might be worried I'm still lost somewhere on Mt. Fuji. Worry not! We made the climb (got the the top at 4am to watch the sunrise), stood around freezing on the top for a while, and then basically slid back down. It was looooooong and difficult, but we did it! It was totally worth it. The sunrise was AMAZING! Pictures coming soon!

We bussed back to Shinijuku, hung out for a little while and I managed to lose my contacts. They were in a case and I accidentally left them somewhere... oh, and I wear hard lenses, so I only have ONE pair (plus my old pair for back-ups, but one of the lenses is damaged so it hurts). Long story short, I'm wearing glasses till I get a chance to see my doctor in Chico. Anyway, I had dinner with my friend Marie who moved to Tokyo in April. It was nice to see her, but sad to say goodbye. I'll definitely see her again (she wants to work/school in CA in a year or two), so it's okay.

Then we finally made it home at 1am. Which means I was out and about for 43 hours straight. AND I climbed to the highest point in Japan! Very cool!

The rest of the week was a series of goodbye parties and late nights packing. Lots of pictures from those, too (not the packing part), so wait excitedly!

Last night (Sunday) I finished packing/boxing up everything, and today I sent it all off. I mailed 4 packages (a poster tube, 1 small amazon.com box, a big envelope, and a medium sized box) via Japan Post (the post office) and it cost about $150. It sounds like a lot, but I really think it's a good deal. Those things were heavy! I hope everything arrives okay. My favorite lady at the post office, Kawamura-san, helped me get everything packaged and ready, and I trust her to make everything alright. Next I shipped my two big suitcases straight to Narita Int'l Airport, so I don't have to deal with them when I change from the domestic airport (Haneda) and I can just walk up to the check-in counter and they'll have my bags (COOL!). It cost about $35, but I think it's totally worth it.

Now that that's all done, and the stuff for my carry-on bags is set, the only thing left is to clean my house! I've been working on it little by little, but it's really hot and humid, so I have to keep taking breaks (like right now) to sit under the AC in the livingroom. I want to finish tonight (it's 6:40pm so that's totally possible), so when the board of education people come tomorrow to "help me clean" and pick up the garbage bags they can be in and out in a flash. Tomorrow's my last day!!!! Right now I have planned to get a haircut at 10, meet the BOE people and get them out asap, cancel my cell phone service, get dressed in my yukata, and go to Kanto Festival in Akita City with all my friends!

Wednesday morning, I'm leaving here at about 10:40am and a bunch of my friends are seeing me off at the airport. Nice! I'll probably cry.

I'm really going to miss it here!!!!!
But, I'm also excited to go home. Wish I could have both! =/

Here We Go!

We're having dinner at the 5th station (Subway!) and going to head out at 8pm!

Great views already!

Subway!

We scouted out a Subway in Shinjuku and I just paid 1300Y ($12) for a footlong Subway Club. You may be thinking, "That's a dollar an inch! Ridiculous!" and you'd be right.

But it was stuffed with meat and veggies AND delicious! Plus, now I have a delicious 6" sub for midnight snack! :D

And we're off!

We're on the shinkansen to tokyo! I remembered my camera this time! Things are going much more smoothly this time - but I'm on guard, don't worry. :)

More updates later!

101 Dalmations (and posts - not Posts)

So we went back at 12 for our train only to find they were now stopped until 2pm, which means we'd definetly miss our bus and wouldn't make it to Fuji until really late. Plus, there's no guarantee it would actually go at 2.

We decided to postpone our trip to Monday. We were able to change our tickets and get the bus reserved to Mon. No sweat.

It's not an adventure without bumps, I said to Christian this morning. Too true.

Fuji climb attempt #2 - coming Mon!

What's an adventure without snags?

Thanks to the earthquake last night, all the shinkansen from Akita are stopped until 12pm! We were supposed to arrive in Tokyo at 12!! uh oh...

We got our tix changed to leave Akita on the noon train, which puts us in Tokyo at 4:08pm - which means will probably won't make it to Shinjuku for our bus to Mt. Fuji at 4:50pm. Maaaaybe if everything magically works out...

We're working on a backup plan as I write. Worry not! :)

p.s. this the 100th post on this blog! cheers!

Shake, Shake, Shaking - Shshshaking!

I felt another earthquake tonight. I was lying in bed trying to sleep and it went all shaky like last time. Not as violent this time, but still enough to scare me out of bed. I got up and sat in the doorway until the shaking stopped.

I checked the news to make sure there wasn't going to be another one, and they said to relax (also, no tsunami warning). Apparently the epicenter was in Aomori (neighbors to the north) and a 6.8M or something. I'll have more details tomorrow (but I won't post them because I'm climbing Mt. Fuji!!!!).

Anyway, no worries here, and I hope everything is alright everywhere else. Good night.

TWO WEEKS!!!

I'm leaving in two weeks and I'm kind of (totally) freaking out.
Of course I'm excited to go home and see everyone, but it's really hard to feel that in the midst of saying goodbye to all these really great people!!

TWO! WEEKS! That's such a short time!!!! I'm not ready!!! (emotionally or practically - though, I did start packing today)

Here are pictures from this weekend:

Party Weekend!

Last day!

Tomorrow (well, today now) is my last teaching day in Japan! (for now) I finish at Yama-chuu with four classes in the morning, and then a farewell ceremony in the afternoon. I'm really happy with the speech I wrote because I said a lot of things to the students I've always wanted to say but haven't had the chance (or guts) to. I hope I can deliver it all right. I haven't really practiced. I'll work on it in between classes tomorrow.

I can't believe in about 14 hours, I will be finished!!* It's been a tumultuous year, but an outstanding one!! More on all of this later.


(*I still have 'work' for two more weeks - it will consist of going to the board of education and sitting at my desk all day reading/writing letters/studying)

Where have you been??

Sorry bloggy buddies, I haven't been very good about updating this lately. I'm still here, alive and well! There are two main reasons why I haven't been keeping this updated, and neither are very good excuses (but true!). 1. I have been SUPER busy the last three weeks, and will be for at least another week. 2. I've been doing/experiencing so many things, I have waaay too much to write about, and when I get overwhelmed with a task like trying to record it all, I procrastinate. Sorry.

I was going to recap the whole thing now, but that will take too long, so I'll do it in installments over the next little while. Here's the first one:

Sally's Visit
If you don't know who Sally is, you should - she's a good friend from Berkeley (now lives in southern California), and she's been one of my biggest supporters and closest friends (someone I talk to everyday) since I've been in Japan. This summer, she was lucky enough to be able to come to Japan for about a month to visit with her grandparents, and she spent about 6 days of that vacation up here, with me. The following are some highlights from that visit.

-Akita Castle
After meeting Sally at the train station, and a little Starbucks time, I took her on a tour of Senshu Park and the Akita castle ruins. Nothing super exciting, but the park was pretty and it was nice to talk and walk around. We had dinner and headed home to relax and watch Gilmore Girls dvds. Great!
-school
The first full day she was here, we went to Shimoiwakawa Elementary School, and since it was my last visit to the school, we played games in class and did A LOT of running around at recess. (More on school good-byes in the next post)

-karaoke!!
From about 10:30pm-2:30am, we sang everything from Grease's "Summer Nights" to J-Pop, to Mandy Moore, to My Chemical Romance, with my friend Moto and his friend. Exhausting, but soooooo much fun!!

-Oga Peninsula tour
We visited the Namahage Museum, and had a picnic by the lighthouse while enjoying views of the Sea of Japan.

-BBQ!
That night, there was a big BBQ at Christy's house, so Sally and I went and I was able to introduce her to most of my friends. She met Yuta and Tsuru - the guys with whom I always go bowling/play sports/karaoke, etc -, and all of my (and Christy's) English conversation class family. Sally got on especially well with my high school student/friend Izumi, and they decided to wear yukata together the next day to the dance festival.

-Yatose Modern Dance Festival (Akita City)
I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but I returned to dancing with the macarena ladies back in April, and Christy and I practiced with them twice a week to prepare for the Yatose Festival. It was a pretty big, two-day festival (we only danced on Sunday though) with teams from all over, 155 in total. We preformed our dance five times throughout the day in our silly costumes, crazy make-up, and ridiculous hair. Sally, Izumi, and Moto hung out together watching performances and I joined them every time I had a break. It was a long, tiring day, but SO much fun!!! Dancing for crowds of people was great, and having Sally there watching made me put even more into it! In the end, our team earned second place in both the Viewer's Choice and the over all competition!! So great!! After we all changed back into normal clothes, we had dinner together and headed home. Sally and I watched a movie and stayed up late, despite being wicked tired (well, we did that EVERY night she was here!).

-Tazawako, Kakunodate, and mountain driving
We got up early, and headed out on a crazy backroads drive through the mountains down to Tazawako. The mountains were beautiful, and with Sally being a great DJ/co-pilot (feeding me snacks and water as well as reading the map!), the the two+ hour drive went by quickly. We drove around Lake Tazawa, stopping for pictures and souvenirs at all the appropriate places. It was a gorgeous day and the lake was craaaaazy blue! Next we headed to Kakunodate, where we ate lunch at a great little cafe, toured a samurai house, and ended up in a park outside a museum. Neither of us felt like visiting the museum, so we sat in the park, napped on the benches, and took lots of silly pictures.It was a really relaxing afternoon. For the return trip, Sally opted for an even longer mountain route home, so we drove through the pretty pretty mountains on the border of Akita and Iwate. It was great. When we cut back west toward the coast and my house, we drove on this tiiiiiny windy road with NO traffic on it. It was slow going, but we had fun. Parts were a little scary, because there was construction going on, and we'd drive past it to see that part of the road had collapsed/landslid down... Luckily, we arrived home safely (even though I had to stop the car at one point because we were laughing so hard, I couldn't drive). We stayed up REALLY late again.

-train station
Sadly, the last day had come. We drove to the station in the morning, leaving enough time to take purikura (those little sticker pictures), which turned out great. Saying good bye was sad, though. We had SOOOOO much fun in such a short amount of time, when I got home, everything felt so quiet and empty.

-the aftermath
You can't tell from these terse descriptions (or maybe you can), but we played waaaay hard while Sally was here. There wasn't a lot of sleep combined with a LOT of activity. The day after Sally left, I went back to school (exhausted and sore all over), but about halfway through, I started to get reeeeally shiver-y and I almost fainted. I finished my classes for the day in the morning, so the rest of the day I sat at my desk going from shivering cold to sweating hot. I definitely had a fever. I finally made it to the end of the day (I had refused the teachers' offers to go home early and stuck it out), and I passed out for a few hours. I woke up, and since it was Wednesday, my autopilot kicked in and I went to Ikawa eikaiwa. Everyone in class was saying I didn't look well and they too, decided I had a fever. My friend/student Hisashi is a pharmacist, and after class he offered to take me to get some medicine. He set me up with some fever reducers, and one sleep-inducing muscle relaxant. I got home, took the medicine, and slept aaaaaall night. The next day, the fever was gone, the soreness was gone, and I was just little tired. Besides the tiredness I was fine, and recovered fully in the next few days. I don't know if I caught some strange flu or what, but my theory is that I just totally, totally exhausted myself during Sally's visit and my body needed to recoup. hahaha not many people can claim they've played so much they gave themselves a fever!! :D

I went to school on the fourth of July for the very first time in my life today.
I also didn't watch/use fireworks for probably the first time on a fourth of July.
I didn't even see an American flag!
Nor did I hear any of those uber patriotic slightly red-necky country tunes (a la God Bless the USA or whatever that song's called).

Buuuuuut, I'm okay with it. In fact, I didn't realize any of this until just now, and it's 11:27pm. Oh well.

Happy Birthday, America!

Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

Earthquake!! Well, first, let me say I'm totally fine, there's no damage to my house or anywhere in my immediate area, so don't worry!

As you may (or may not) know, there was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in northern Japan this morning. The epicenter was right across the southeast border of Akita in Iwate Prefecture. It seems most of the shock went further southeast, so up to the northwest, where I live, the shaking was less severe. On this map, you can assume I live pretty much where the little "Akita" box is indicating Akita City. As you can see, while the news articles mention the shaking in big city Sendai and even in Tokyo, I'm a lot closer to the epicenter than them.

It occurred at 8:44am, and being Saturday morning, I was still asleep. I woke up to my whole bed vibrating and shaking, and the walls rattling and making noises. It took me a second to figure out what was going on. My bed is in a room where two "walls" are non-safety-glass sliding doors, so my first thought was I should get away from those. I jumped out of bed and did what I'm sure was a cartoon-y, arms-flailing run to the next room where I stood in a doorway, because I remember that's what I was taught in elementary school (kudos for all the earthquake safety lessons, CA public schools!). Anyway, the shaking stopped after a few seconds (this whole ordeal was probably less than a minute, but it felt long), and aside from some papers and books sliding off my desk and table, there was no damage.

Click here to see a video posted by the BBC showing the quake and some of the damage.

It was definitely bigger and shakier (and scarier, to be frank) than any earthquake I've felt before (in Berkeley). Oh, plus, after it ended, I thought I better turn on the TV and make sure there wasn't a tsunami warning, because Akitans always tell me about how earthquakes cause dangerous tsunamis and give me all kinds of scary examples - in the 1980s, a post-quake tsunami killed several people on the Akita coast, including a foreign missionary lady, so I think they think foreigners should be extra careful. Thankfully, no tsunami warning this time. My house is probably not really in danger of a tsunami anyway, but how would I know, I'm from Chico.

From what I'm reading and seeing on the news, there have been four deaths, numerous injuries and missing people. :( Rescue workers are on the job though, so hopefully people will be found an helped. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of structural damage, and though landslides have blocked/destroyed some roads, the trains are running fine. Some areas lost power when the nuclear plant preventively shut-down, but I believe it's mostly been restored now.

I had plans to go hiking tomorrow with some Japanese friends, but due to recent rainfall and this quake, the landslide danger is too great, so we're going bowling instead. Safety first!

Alright, that's it for the earthquake update. Thanks to those of you who called or emailed to check on me. I appreciate your concern and I'm really happy to report that I'm A-OK. :)

Reverse/Re-entry Culture Shock

Most of you have heard of “Culture Shock” – the emotional ups and downs of living in and adapting to a foreign culture (I think it’s less about the culture itself and more about how you deal with a different lifestyle. There are phases and the lengths/severities vary by person and experience. If you weren’t aware of it before, you’re probably more familiar with it from reading this blog. I am a poster child for Culture Shock! I covered every little down-tick and up-tick, and every phase on the Culture Shock graph to a T. In fact, you could probably predict my current mental state based on the Culture Shock timeline (currently, I’m in the “I love Japan and don’t want to say goodbye!” phase).

However, I’ve found that, unless they’ve experienced living abroad and its after effects themselves, most people haven’t heard of Reverse Culture Shock (or Re-entry Shock), so I thought now might be a good time to fill you in.


-Nearly two-thirds of JET alumni say they experienced some kind of Re-entry Shock.-

...so, what is it? Responses vary, but...


[excerpt from Living Abroad by Cathy Tsang-Feign http://www.psychinternational.com/abroad/abroad10.htm]

Re-entry Shock – Fitting right in to the “home” circle and returning to “normal” life doesn’t happen overnight. The fact is, a returnee will feel very different from everyone around. This will make him or her feel delighted and special on one hand, but on the other hand it brings confusion and a sense of isolation.

For example, the returnee may be eager to point out that “I’ve just returned from a year in Japan!” By doing so, he or she knows s/he can draw others’ attention and reassures him/herself that s/he is unique, interesting, and different. It’s easy to overdo it, though. Excessive comments like, “I forgot that’s how they do things here! ha ha” to cashiers or servers, for example.

*In a questionnaire given by CLAIR [aka the organization that hires JETs] every year to JET alumni, many state they no longer feel they have a lot in common with people back home. This is a symptom of reverse culture shock. According to many JETs, everybody will inevitably ask, “So how was Japan?” That’s a difficult question. Can you encompass your entire JET experience in a 10-second reply?

*Many JETs say even close friends and family aren’t so interested in what happened “over there”. They often say, when asked about Japan, you get a half a minute into talking about it before the listeners eyes glaze over. Many listeners can’t relate, even if they’re really close. Most people want to hear, “It was great!” and then be done with it, while you want to share what you have been through and how you have grown.
[*credit to The After JET Preparation Guide, 2004 Edition, prepared by CLAIR]

Family and friends will demonstrate interest in the retunee’s adventures, anecdotes, and little comparative comments, but only for as long as their attention span can tolerate. At a family dinner, a returnee may find that the relatives are not nearly as fascinated at hearing about the temples in Kyoto, as they are in hearing Auntie Martha describe Uncle Joe’s hernia operation. To many returnees, this apparent disinterest is a great surprise. It is also a disappointment that leads to feeling disoriented and isolated.

In some cases, returned expatriates carry their feeling of being special too far. They may tend to pick on friends and people in general for being narrow-minded about the world, or unsophisticated. They will repeatedly draw comparisons between home and Japan. For example, saying at restaurants: “This isn’t real sushi,” or constantly remarking, “You know how cheap this would be in Japan?” Such commentary will eventually anoty and bore others, who will take it as showing off. These actions will keep people at a distance and make it difficult to readjust to the old circle.

Most people are oblivious to whatever changes may have on inside a person from living abroad. For the most part, friends and family believe that you still think and act the way they do, as if you’d never left. The returnee may therefore feel inhibited from saying or doing anything that could appear “show-off-y”. He or she may be reluctant to discuss any feelings of disappointment or disorientation at being back, for fear nobody will understand.

Faced with the day-to-day routine, they often begin to long for the favorable lifestyle once enjoyed in the foreign land. The travel, climate, cultural experiences, mingling with an international group of expatriates, as well as the social status and “special treatment” they usually received are missed. A returnee may begin to think back to “the good old days” or refuse/resent readjusting to the lifestyle of the home country.

Given time, returned expatriates will re-familiarize themselves with their home environment and appreciate what is there. They finally accept what they have given up in the foreign society and are happy to settle down. Remember, this will be a gradual process rather than a distinct stage that the person goes through.

A Few Ways to Reduce Re-entry Shock (what I’m doing)
-Expect and prepare for it. (that’s today’s blog)
-Keep family and friends informed while overseas so they have a frame of reference for your stories later. (I try to do that with this blog and posting lots of pictures, and I think I stay in pretty good touch with friends/family via phone, email, IM, Facebook, etc.)
-Keep busy, be active, get involved - don’t just sit around. (No matter what, I’m going to start school, so I’ll be busy with that, and I definitely plan to get back into karate and hopefully, yosakoi, too.)
-Find sympathetic friends who have returned from living abroad and can relate to your re-entry shock. (I’ve got a bunch of friends who have studied abroad, including Erin, who’s been doing the whole culture shock thing with me all year, and will be living close-by)
-Keep in touch with Japanese language/culture/food (That’s what I’ll be studying, plus I’ll be a skip away from Japan Town in SF, plus, thanks to my NSU days, I have plenty of friends to help me out with this)


Who knows how I will react when I return to California. I may be totally fine, or it may take me a while to adjust, so please be patient, and try to be aware that I may be going through this.

Oh, and you have two months, so PLEASE think of something other than “How was Japan?” to ask me when I get back. If you don’t, I’m telling you now, my answer will be, “It was a great experience.”

Two Months...

As of yesterday, I officially have two months left in Japan. My flight leaves Tokyo at 6p.m. August 6th.

TWO MONTHS!!!!

That is such a short amount of time!!! Yesterday, we had the Akita JET Prefectural Conference. The Returners, like me, when to seminars on tax and pension withdrawal information, good-bye speeches, and reverse culture shock. Then we took one last group picture, and parted ways. It was a surprisingly emotional day for me. Or, the range of emotions was surprising - stressed about tax forms and bureaucracy, sad/nostalgic about saying goodbyes, nervous about re-entry shock, excited for things at home, happy/sad to JET people I don't see often and probably won't see again, etc. It was all pretty exhausting, I guess, because when I got home at 5:30, I passed out on the couch until almost 8!! And then went to bed at midnight.

I've got to squeeze in as much play time as possible the next two months, so tonight I'm off for a cake date at a bakery with Maureen, and then to the movies with a Japanese friend. Tomorrow, I'm going to a taiko festival in Noshiro to see the Namahage Taiko team and some of the JETs play. :D

I <3 Japan

Not that that really needs to be said at this point, but it's true. It seems like everyday I grow to love it even more.

Generally speaking, I love the geography (both 田舎 and 都会), the history, the culture, the tradition, the language, and, of course, the people! I can break it down to even simpler, daily things, too. Things like traditional style houses and the smell of tatami floors, untranslatable phrases like 懐かしい and 'KY', melon flavored soda, jingly keitai straps, the old ladies selling ice cream, heated toilet seats (and clean public restrooms!), the yellow hats pre-schoolers wear, Japanese-accented English, and a thousand more.

Of course, there are times living here when cultural differences are frustrating, or when I don't enjoy my lifestyle. There are plenty of things that annoy me (smoking in restaurants or inefficient bureaucracies, for example)...
But that's true of anywhere.

Even though my Japanese will never be good enough, and I may never learn to love natto, and no matter how annoyed, frustrated, or homesick I get, it doesn't change the simple fact - I love Japan.
It's true.


With only two months left here, the excitement of being home with my family and friends is growing exponentially, but, at the same time, so is my love and appreciation for all things "Japanese". As divisive and stressful as that is for me, I'm trying to just relax and enjoy it all.

I do take comfort in reassuring myself that when I go home in August I certainly won't be saying "good-bye".
I'll be back. Soon...
because it's love!

Thank you for teaching us gently

Today is my LAST day at Hachiryu JHS, and even though I've visited this school the least of the three junior highs (started here mid-Nov), saying goodbye is SAD!! Since I'm going to be in town until August, it came as a surprise to everyone that I would finish at this school so early. The English teachers told the vice principal it was my last day and they quickly arranged to have a whole school assembly after lunch.

I just got back from it. The principal gave a speech about how great it was to have me, and how I'm going off to do good things, it was really cute. Then two 3rd graders (9th grade) gave a little speech in English where one boy would talk and the other would repeat key phrases, saying things like "We are very sad to say goodbye. Thanks for teaching us English. Your classes were always interesting (interesting!) and fun (fun!) and comfortable (comfortable!) and exciting (exciting!). Thank you for teaching us gently." and then with double thumbs up, "Good luck!" SO CUTE! and funny!

Then a girl came up and gave me a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of roses and pretty pink flowers. I gave my little speech in English (it was really simple so I think they understood most, if not all, of it). Then one of the funny boys from before did a "translation" which basically consisted of him putting on a funny girly voice and translating a couple of the main things I said. Everyone laughed. :D He's cute!

And then they clapped, and I waved, and the end!


Oh, and in the 2nd grade English class this morning, the teacher told them it was my last day at the end of class. So a bunch of kids came up to say thank you or shake my hand, etc. Two boys came up separately to tell me, "You are very beautiful." One boy (who's a big character in class) said, "I love you!" and then pulled the other teacher over, asked her something, and then came back and said "Will you marry me??" hahahaha I told him, "Sorry, I have to go to America." He said, "OK! See you again!" and went off with his laughing friends.

Cute, cute, cute. I'm going to miss these kids!!!! :(

Okinawa Pics

The pictures are up! I sorted through them this time, so there's only a little under 300 from a week vacation... I think that's pretty good!

Enjoy! (click the pic below to get to the album)

Okinawan Magic

vacation

I'm having SUCH a good time!! So far I've visited Shuri Castle and war memorials, went snorkling in a coral reef, done karaoke, seen a trad Okinawan music show, explored an aquarium and an old-time village, rode in a pineapple car at the pineapple park, did a little shopping, and today I went to two karate training sessions! You'll see all the pics later.

This has just been so amazing thus far. Training with all these 9th degree black belts and the grandmaster is just cool!! and I'm really glad I'm here now (rather than when I was in high school) because my Japanese and knowledge of J culture is at a point now where I can really appreciate this experience. I'm kinda proud of how well I've done, too. Apparently, karate is like riding a bike. :)

I'm looking forward to filling you all in!! <3

Okinawa!

the trip is just getting started, but here's an update so far!

i got here at 1130, went to bed, got up to go the fish market at 330 and then went on an inpromptue tour of naha on the back of my karate instructor's (rented) motocycle. fun, but i didnt get back to bed til 6, slept till 830 and then felt funky because odd sleep patterns don't agree with me... but it's okay. the group made plans to meet in the lobby at 12:30 so i decided to spend my morning exploring International St. I ended up spending too much money on souvenirs - i like too many people! oh well. we all went to some gardens, took lots of pics and then went out to lunch at Charlie's Tacos - yuuum!

now im off to see the famous shuri castle!

Welcome Back!

Thanks! I do, in fact, officially have a steady, working, wonderful DSL connection at home again! That means after three months (exactly! no joke!), I have the ability to call people whenever I want, email, blog, post photos, read/listen to news in ENGLISH, watch American TV, etc!! It's a good thing!!! :D I will say, after living three months without it, I don't really find the internet as entertaining as I once did, but that's probably a good thing.

Anywho, I've posted and captioned photos from cherry blossom season and from my recent road trip. Yesterday, I went to the Sport Day at one of my elementary school, but I haven't transferred the pictures to my computer yet, so I'll get those up soon. In the meantime, enjoy these:

Cherry Blossoms

Aomori Road Trip

Now that I'm back in the realm of communication, call me! Oh, but I'm leaving for Okinawa for a week on Thursday, so I'll talk to you when I get back! :D