July 26th--> Getting rid of our heavy heavy luggage.
The usual suspects posing for our last group picture for a while.
Mom trying to get in on some group picture action.
July 27th--> And ta-da~!!!! Suddenly we are here in Tokyo!!! After a looooooong 12 hour flight and a tiring trip around the darn baggage claim, and an hour ride on the bus, we finally got to our destination in Tokyo--the Keio Plaza Hotel. Apparently a 4-star hotel where all the employees are bilingual in Japanese and English.
Taka and Gen actually came out to visit me!!! On the first night that I was in Japan...
I have no idea why but Stitch is a big deal in Japan!! Doesn't he look a little different though? I guess he was a bit Japanafied?
So it was around 10pm when Taka, Gen and I went out to town to get some food, because I was starving.
Shinjuku, the city that we were in has a west side and an east side. I believe the hotel was located on the east side of Shinjuku, and all of the stores were closed. So we went over to the west side of town.
Actually, the west side of Shinjuku is known as Kabukicho, a sort of a red-light district...we JETs were actually told at one of the meetings to try to avoid this part of Shinjuku since it can be sort of dangerous...but...yea, thanks Taka and Gen.
But the city lights were really pretty, and according to Taka and Gen, not the whole west side is Kabukicho, so it was ok.
My first bowl of Ramen since stepping on to Japanese land!!! One bowl=500 yen. And seconds were free.
Group picture time! It was pretty amazing seeing these guys. I haven't seen Gen in years!!! But it didn't seem like that at all that night.
Taka for some reason is acting like a samurai in these pictures.
This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, AKA "Tochou" The governor of Tokyo works in there.
Another view from our hotel room. Not too sure what building that one is. But it's probably an important one.
July 28th--> Our breakfast scene.
For some strange reason, this Japanese hotel thought that Americans eat french fries for breakfast.
After breakfast, off to our welcoming ceremony.
This room was I kid you not, like 90 degrees inside.
And the chairs were so tiny!!! And they were placed so close together.
Here we are, me and Mike Smith, the other ALT who was placed in Nachikatsuura.
My roomie in the hotel, and the other ALT going to Wakyama prefecture.
Everybody was already tired before the ceremony even started...
For some strange reason, they did not put the AC on.
The view from the room where we had lunch that day.
I wish I can tell you what this building is, but I have no idea.
Even in a big city like Tokyo, I was surprised to see so much plant life.
Oh god...the dreaded Japanese squatty toilet.
Even the bathrooms in this hotel were nice.
This is still the bathroom.
We would sometimes skip out on the boring panels and go out to town.
These bikes reminded me of SB. But surprisingly, none of these bikes were locked.
The famous cigarette vending machines!!! You have to have a special i.d. card to buy them now though. The person wearing that Bob Dylan jacket is a Japanese person.
East side of Shinjuku.
This is on the road.
The closest mall to the hotel.
Around dinner time, everybody goes to the big "take-out dinner court" in the basement of the mall.
Here, you can buy all kinds of foods to take home for dinner. These are actually snacks though. Haha.
Probably a housewife buying her family some dinner.
Dumplings~!!!!
Right after I took this picture, the store manager came out to tell me to stop taking pictures. Haha. Oops.
A really big electronics store.
Dacia and Marissa taking a break from walking in the heat to get a bite of some delicious dumplings.
Inside of a Japanese Starbucks. Looks pretty much the same as any old Starbucks.
But in a Japanese Starbucks, you would see people dressed like this. Hahaha.
Some crabs that were on display outside of a noodle shop.
Inside of a drug store.
Inside of a "combini" or a Japanese Convenience Store, like a Seven Eleven or an AMPM. But in Japan, these places sell almost anything you can think of and more! The food is sometimes better than some fast food places.
They even sell DVDs!! Some of them are totally crappy DVDs!!
An outside view of the hotel we stayed in.
Some technical college that was right outside of the hotel.
OMG~!!! They still have payphones!!!
A pretty display that was in the lobby of the hotel.
A night version of the Tochou.
The welcome party that night. But everybody was pretty much tired and Jet-lagged.
Oh god...I cannot eat right now, please let me just go back to my room to sleep.
Please...no more...no more alcohol.
I had orange juice :-)
But of course, Dacia and Atkins had Asahi!
I look so sleepy in this picture!!!
But there's so much...food...to..eat...
After we rested for a little, we met up again to go out all together as Wakyama Prefecture JETs.
We went to a Gaijin Bar. A "Foreigner Bar".
Mmmmm...my lime tonic.
Smile Wakyama Girls!!!
Can you tell they serve crab at this restaurant?
And that's the bar we all went to. I didn't see any Lions in it though.
But we did see some cute dogs on the way back to the hotel!
And this nice ramen stand!!
Noodles noodles noodles!!
July 29th--> I think this was the next night...or the night after that, btu we went out to go karaoke.
Happy Charger. They have these cell phone chargers everywhere around town.
July 30th--> Time to leave tokyo to go to Wakyama!!
Tokyo Banana--looks like a twinky, but tastes like heaven.
I'm happy I can watch my Naruto real time now!
After an hour ride on the train from Tokyo to Kansai International Airport in Osaka, we rode in the car for 4 hours to get to our final destination--Nachikatsuura Town in Wakayama prefecture. This is my kitchen/dining room
This is my tv room
My other room which I just use for my laundry
My bedroom
August 2--> The view from my bedroom.
My new cell phone!!!
And yes, it's very Japanese.
One of the junior high schools where I will be teaching
The port right near my apartment. Nachi is known for its tuna!!! Mmmm!!
A train I found in one of the little parks near my apartment. I have no idea what historical significance it has.
Right in front of my apartment.
A sign for some restaurant. They have tons and tons of Tuna dishes here. But another interesting dish--whale sushi.
Some box lunches they were selling near the station.
This sign says, "Tuna Steak"
Sort of like the tourist center in our town.
They even have a chinese restaurant!
This restaurant serves all kinds of noodle dishes. Of course, there's Tuna Noodles!
Mandarin oranges are another big thing in our town.
This is home-made mandarin orange sherbert made at the Orange House.
Okada Sensei, one of my many supervisors suddenly gave me a call the next day and took me out to the Nachi Mountain to go and visit the Nachi Shrine.
After climbing thousands of steps, we finally got to the top. I wish I had some pictures of the Nachi Shrine, but unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries!! But I was able to take a picture of the great Nachi Waterfall.
The Nachi Waterfall is one of the great World Heritage Sites. It's the tallest waterfall in Japan.
Climbing those steps killed me, but luckily it was a lot cooler around the waterfall.
I went to the Kushimoto (a town right next to my town of Nachi) Fireworks Festival with one of my co-workers Akashima-san and her Fiance.
These girls were definitely not dressed in traditional kimonos.
The greatest part about these festivals is the food!!!! This stand was selling steak kabobs!! Mmmmm...whoever said that the Japanese were all afraid to eat beef right now....such a liar.
They have food stands, and game stands and shaved ice stands...
You know those stands where you can scoop fish out of a pool? Well at this stand you have to scoop out these slippery balls to win a prize.
Candy apples!!
Mmmmm...takoyaki--Octopus balls
Wow, they were selling model guns at this festival.
The fireworks were amazing!!!!
August 3--> Time to go visit Dacia in Gobo!! This is our local train station.
Kii-Katsuura Station. Since this place is so rural, unlike in the cities, trains only come once in a while.
On my way to go see Dacia in the town of Gobo. On the map it looks like it's closer than LA and SB, but it actually took me 2 and a half hours to get there!!
Once I got to Gobo, the first thing we did...eat ramen!!!
And buy comic books!!!
Wow....candy!
And laugh at the funny english on these Japanese t-shirts.
Even the mannequins in Japan are like anime characters!!
I soooooo wanna see this new Miyazaki film!
Yup, it's Pokemon.
The arcades in Japan are addicting!!!!
Because everything in these darn UFO catcher machines are darn cute!!!
But we ran out of change...and didn't win anything.
Kids in Japan are so hard-core. They play games while they play games.
Dacia, Marissa and I are now Japanese girls so we all did what all Japanese girls do at arcdes...take purikura!!!
Our picture is on the bottom right
Japanese cereal....? But, not really Japanese.
Crocs even invaded Japan.
In Japan, everybody does their own bagging at supermarkets.
Yaaaaaay for wakayama JETs!!!
Let me be in the picture too~!
August 4--> Back to Nachi!! Our supervisor Shima-san took us to the local beach.
Nachi Beach.
Apparently, they imported all of this sand from Austrailia.
This is my workplace, the Nachikatsuura Board of Education Office.
August 5??--> My typical breakfast: an egg, some sausages, rice, and natto!!!
One of many weapons I bought for the war against pests in the apartment. This is a powder that I just put around the entrance to my apartment.
A roach trap.
My tub/shower room
My toilet room.
Two of them right next to each other.
The package Brian and Steph sent me.
The box was so huge! I had to dig through all of these peanuts to get to everything. The blue thing around my neck is an ice pack they sell here to keep me cool. It really doesn't work.
Random photo!!! This is Nachi, he was walking with his owner outisde of our apartment one day.
August 7--> At Hotel Urashima, the biggest hotel in Japan for the welcoming luncheon for the exchange students from Nachi's sister city in America.
Back to Hotel Urashima. Every year, Nachi participates in this sister city exchange program. And guess where the sister city is...Monterey Park. LOL.
Mike posing for the picture.
The vice mayor.
Kamryn and Alex from Monterey Park.
One of the host families--The Sakais.
The girls got yukatas from the committee. Here they are being helped to wear them.
The daughters (the exchange students who went to Monterey Park the year before) sang a song for them at the end.
The boat that takes you from the harbor to the hotel.
After the lunch, me and Mike went back to the Board of Education. There, they were holding the annual summer student cooking class.
This year, the kids were learning how to make Moon Viewing Dumplings.
Their finished work should look something like this.
It says "Moon Viewing" on the board
Nachi Kids, Annual Summer Cooking Class!
Here's a funny picture of my co-worker Akashima-san.
And the huge teapot.
The clouds looked cool this night.
At our local supermarket, the food gets marked down at around 6pm. Everything is super cheap!!! Dinner is served!
Even the rice balls!
August 8--> The Sister City Exchange Program invited me and Mike to tag along this day to a spiritual hiking trip.
The Daimon Zaka or the Daimon Hill is another world heritage site.
The area around Daimon Zaka is just so beautiful.
This is sort of what a lot of tourists like to do when they come to Daimon Zaka. They like to dress up in traditional Heian Period clothing and go on a "pilgrimage."
The Prince also came to this store.
Time to get dressed! This is just the firsy layer...
Ready to get hot??
Tabi socks!
All done for Yuura-chan!
Now, let's get that hat on...
Remember, its about 98 degrees outside right now...and we're wearing many many heavy layers...
Done! But...sweating a lot already...
Kamryn and Alex need a drink of tea before stepping outside.
Group picture!!!
We're like Heian Princesses!!
Now to begin our spiritual journey up the Daimon Zaka.
We had to take breaks like every ten steps...
She's smiling, but really...we were all suffering.
The boys got dressed too.
Up, up, up those stairs.
We only got less than half way to the top.
The ALTs~!!!! Smile~!
Now...to go back down the stairs...good job guys!
August 8, 2008 evening--> The Lifelong Education Division, which is located right next to our division in the office hosted a Satellite Concert called "Songbridge in Wakayama" this night. Chorus Groups from China, Germany, and South Africa were invited to sing in Nachi's Sports Stadium.
The Wakayama Chorus Club.
The South African Chorus Group
The German Chorus Group--they were all girls.
The Chinese Chorus Group
At the end, they all sang together.
August 9, 2008--> Me and Mike trekked over to the local train station to go shopping at the big mall located several towns away from Nachi.
The view from the station where we got off.
That evening, we were invited to a home BBQ party at the Sakais (one of the host families for the exchange students) they lived up in the mountains.
Their home was so big and pretty!
They even had Kois in their pond.
The Sakais grew rice, plums, blueberries, persimmons...all kinds of things on their farm.
The rice paddies~!!!
Time to eat with the family~!!! OMG...the meat was just so delicious!
After dinner, we did fireworks!!!
Kamryn did fireworks too~!!!
Time for endless group pictures~!!
I finally bought some rice at the store!!! Now I can make my own meals~!
Dinner one evening.
August 11, 2008--> This night was the annual Fireworks Festival in our town of Nachi.
Akashima-san, me, Mike, and Akashima-san's fiance all went together to Nachi Beach for the festival.
Lots and lots of stands this time~!
So many girls were dressed up in their yukatas. Pretty~!!
They even had Pikachu sweets!
And of course Anime Vendors.
Aoki-san, Akashima-san, and Mike
Mmmm...Octopus Balls~!!!!
More Fireworks!!! I think I'm getting better at taking pictures of these fireworks.
At the end of the night, Akashima-san could not resist the goldfish scooping game!
August 13, 2008--> Unbelievably, we went out to yet ANOTHER fireworks festival, this time in the town of Shingu. Akashima-san's hometown. On our way there, we stopped by one of the other World Heritage sites in Wakayama--the Hayatama Shrine.
The torii--the red gate signifies a sacred site. And the bridge connects the human world to the spiritual world.
On the human world side still...
And into the sacred ground.
When we go deeper in, we see the gate that leads into the Main Temple.
I was really amazed at how big the ropey thing was. I don't know what it's called though...a sacred knot probably.
Into the main courtyard of the temple.
The main temple. This is where Akashima-san will have her wedding in October!!! Yaaaaaaaay!
I really liked how the sky came out in the background.
An adorable little corner of town with really old looking houses. :-) Akashima-san said that these houses have been around for ages, and they used to be built so they they can easily take them apart when the river flooded.
Not too sure if these houses are replicas though.
The vendors in front of these houses were selling everything for very cheap!
So many people~!!! So many vendors!
Oh my goodness, they even had a turtle scooping stand at this festival~!!!
I tried something new at this festival~! Tamago Senbei (Egg over crackers!) MMmmmm~!!! Yum!
This firework was called The Niagara. You can tell why right?
This was something I haven't seen at any other vendor here in Japan. A chocolate fountain stand!
Buy a piece of fruit like a banana or strawberry and dip it into the fountain all you want!
