Hello. I'm back. Back in Japan and back to blogging. Sorry it took me so long (I've been here since late March) but this experience hasn't been what I've been used to... This area is much too city like for my tastes and to get anywhere interesting I have to get to the subway, take it into the city and go from there. So basically 1 - 1.5 hours to get anywhere at all. And there are so many people on the way... Although I love the children in my class, there are many things about the job which I don't love. And I'm so tired by the time the weekend rolls around it's hard to enjoy myself. I wasn't even finding enough joy to want to take pictures. I'm hoping that time has passed and I can enjoy my year here. Anyway, here we go.
One of the teachers is from a town near Tokushima - the first town I lived in - and she went home when we had a 3 day weekend in May and invited me to ride with her. So I got to see my old friends and I went to this Boy's (now Children's) Day festival. I've always wanted to see these kites flying over a river! Koi nobori is the name for the kites which are shaped like the koi fish. Although it doesn't seem to be too common anymore, every house that has a boy living there is supposed to fly one kite for each son. (By the way there is a girl's day in March and it features dolls.) Some towns fly them over rivers and although I've seen it on TV it was fun to be able to see it in person. And to be out in the countryside - mountains, rivers, rice fields!!!! My kind of place.
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| Naoko and Haruto - it was soooo nice to see them! |
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| We took a boat ride |
It got so windy that the boats were being pushed backwards even while the men were rowing! The had to stop for a while.
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| There were a few other amusements. |
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| This is a real truck. There are a lot of 'miniature' trucks in Japan because some of the roads and building areas are so narrow. |
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| The kids got to work the controls. In this one they could move rocks around. Another one had a magnet attached to the shovel and the children picked up a bag of chips that they got to keep! |
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| A school band, an action hero show and some mochi tossing (quite dangerous actually) were the entertainment. |
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| Trying out a fire engine hose. |
It was really a fun day. After the festival we went to Sushi Rou, a conveyor belt sushi place.
It was so nice to be back in Tokushima and with old friends, it was hard to leave.
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