A little slow on the updates…

So the past few weeks have been pretty busy! Lots to do on the weekends and evenings!

Not last weekend, but the week before last, myself and 5 other ALTs headed up to Kitakyushu for the Saturday night. Hitoshi’s friend, Tomoko and her roommate graciously put us up on their floor! We went out to dinner and then went to “latin night” at a little bar in town. They had a dance floor as well for salsa dancing – which was very entertaining! There was a group of dancers who put on a little show as well! And Nicola, Hitoshi and I received salsa lessons in Japanese….probably didn’t go off too well, but we had a good time! A lot of coronas and tequila was had that night….so Sunday was a slow morning for me….but we were headed off to Fukuoka for the sumo tournament!! Fukuoka is about an hour south west from Kitakyushu, so we drove down early in the afternoon in order to get to the tournament in time for the more skilled wrestlers. It was a really cool atmosphere to take in and surprisingly, sumo is a lot more interesting that I thought it would be! Never really watched it before, so it was really neat the rituals that go along with it. My favourite part was when these men would come out with banners/advertisements and walk around the ring! It was pretty funny! I guess that’s what they had to resort to since there was no big screen or anything! I dunno! So the yokozuno won the tournament – and apparently everyone was pissed because it was a really fast match – and some people threw their seat cushions onto the ring! Drama drama drama.

After sumo we went to grab a bite at a really small restaurant – the owner realized we were gaijin, so he took our picture and gave us all a printed wall hanging thing! Really nice! We couldn’t believe it and we felt bad for not having anything to give him!

So last Thursday was their Thanksgiving….they don’t celebrate it like North America, in fact, I don’t think they really do anything except that there is no school or work (as far as I know). Nicola and I met up with Courtney (who lives about an hour north) and we drove down to Nagasaki city for a taiko drumming workshop! A few other ALTs joined us, as well as some Japanese English students. It was at a university there and run by a woman who was from Ottawa – and Nepean nonetheless! How crazy is that! Anyways – the workshop was run by two taiko sensei’s who speak a little English – but it was amazing!!! I absolutely loved it and had a blast! There are talks of starting a group and practicing twice a month! So if that does happen (and I hope it does!!) then I will definitely take part in that!

I had to go back to work on the Friday – but left Friday night for Shimabara with Ben and Nicola. Nic and I were staying at Erin’s, so we had a quiet night in and rested for our big mountain climb! We woke up early on Saturday, and headed to Unzen to climb the active volcano – Mt. Fugen. So, yes, that is the mountain we attempted to climb before –but we didn’t know that there was a whole other 3 hour climb to the peak of the volcano! We thought previously that we had gone as far as you could! Hahhaa. Anyway – we did it right this time – and it was pretty hard at some points!! But we made it to the top and were really close to the smoking peak! Very cool!

After we made our way down, we went to an onsen to relax our muscles and wash up before our night out! We went to yakiniku for dinner (where you bbq the meat in front of you) and it was sooo good. Our waitress was really nice and helped us as much as she could – and she even gave us ice coffees as a present! Very sweet! Then we were off into the “city” (not really – very tiny) for a JET night – where they had a whole bunch of bands lined up for the evening. It was really entertaining – there was a Japanese country band and a Japanese hippie African drumming troupe ( to name a few)! A pretty good time! After that closed, we went to a R & B bar type place – where girls were putting on a singing and dancing (not so much dancing….it was sooo much worse and not PG for my blog…), so we quickly left there and went to a little hold in the wall place for the end of the night. All-in-all it was a pretty good time!


I had to leave super early in the morning on Sunday in order to go to a cultural show that was going on at the big theatre in Sasebo. My Japanese dance teachers had given me tickets, as they were all performing that day. It was really neat! Some really cool performances and very long songs – I was there for about 3 hours, and even then I think I left a little early! But it was really cool! I am looking forward to the next one!

So that has been my life for the past few weeks! My days have not been too busy – the kids have had tests and such, so I don’t have many classes. Other than that not much else is new….except that Evy is coming to visit in two weeks, and my parents in 3!! Woo hoo!!