Holiday Festivities

Seeing as Valentine's Day is today, I thought a post on this here blog would be nice :) First of, happy Valentine's Day to EVERYONE I know -- whether or not you have a Valentine or special someone to celebrate with.  Yes, there is history to Valentine's Day but in Japan but it's different to what the Western idea of Valentine's Day is.  For more information, read about it here.

Back to my adventures abroad....



The end of the semester came like a nice, cool, summer breeze.  My class ended up having no final exam (unlike the other two classes) so we did casual learning of Japanese each day.  As boring as it was, it was definitely nice to have a break from the stress of studying for the next test.

Bernie, Sandra, and I

Our winter holiday came and went very quickly, a short two weeks that seemed like ages ago!  I spent the first week of the holiday being lazy...very, very lazy.  However, I did become un-lazy due to the Christmas party that some of the other international students and I did together.  We all made a dish to share at the party that we usually eat at home during the holidays.  It was nice to share the holidays with fellow students from around the world, as we were all feeling that bit of loneliness of not being with our families and friends during this time.  We ate, drank, played games, and were merry the entire night.

I spent the second week of winter holiday in Ibaraki-prefecture where my relatives live in order to celebrate the Japanese New Year with them.  I stayed at my grandmother's home and reveled in all of her delicious, homemade dishes and meals.  Although it was freeeeezing, my grandma and I would hang out under the kotatsu and drink some sake as we watched some marathon, haha.

On New Year's Eve, my cousin and I went to the local Buddhist temple to (literally) ring in the new year.  We arrived about 11:45pm before the new year and there were already about 40 people waiting in line to ring the giant bell.  After ringing the bell and getting my small shot of sake, mikan, and 100 yen coin (all provided by the temple), my cousin and I made our way to the Shinto shrine a few blocks down.  At the shrine, we also rang a bell for the incoming new year and got yet another drink of sake and then amazake, a sweet, warm, and chunky sake.  As unappealing as amazake may sound, it was delightfully delicious in the freezing weather as I stood next to older, local men by the large bonfire.

Grandma's new year's day breakfast

The morning after the new year welcoming activities, my grandma made an amazing new year breakfast, consisting of many of her homemade dishes, salmon, marinated octopus, and a mochi soup.  My grandma honestly makes some of the best Japanese food I have ever tasted in my life...she can cook for real!  If you ever come to Japan, try to make friends with an elderly person because they most likely have the cooking secrets locked up in the brains..and the only way to experience great Japanese food is eating their food.

My "half luck"

A "tree" of omikuji

After a verrry filling new year breakfast, my cousin and I made our way to the big shrine located in the nearby city.  It is customary for Japanese people to go to shrines on New Year's day to offer up a little money to the gods and pray for a good year.  The shrine area was brimming with people as well as food vendors, all in hopes of a good new year.  As we finally made it through the crowds to the actual shrine, we offered up some yen, did a short prayer, and headed over to get our little fortune papers call omikuji.  There are many different levels of luck or blessings one can get from their omikuji.  I got half luck/blessing, which surprisingly, isn't that unfortunate.  My cousin, on the other hand, didn't fare so well and got a little bad luck.  After we finished reading out omikuji, we tied them up, like the hundreds of others before us, hoping to get better luck later!

As the Japanese new year festivities and winter holiday came to an end, I made my way back to Yatsuka to prepare for a last week and half of classes.  Honestly there really shouldn't have been any classes after the winter holiday because we ended up having another day off the following Monday (1/14) after classes started and our last day was on a Thursday (1/17).  Nonetheless, our teachers kept going at the boring grammar and readings until the very last minute.  On the last day of class, our teacher, "Dad" (we nick-named him that because of how much of a father-figure he plays in our class), took my class of six students to the Indian restaurant next to Dokkyo University and treated us to lunch.  Fortunately, I'll have to opportunity to have "Dad" as my teacher next semester :)

Shortly after spring holiday began, I decided to take up a part-time job as a preschool English teacher at Belgrave International School.  Although working during holiday does not seem like the most exciting thing, I have actually had a lot of fun teaching so far.  Because I am a preschool teacher, I only work about 5 hours each day and I am only scheduled three days a week so I still have time to do any traveling or sightseeing.  Each day of class consists of playing with the kids, doing lessons that correspond with the month's curriculum, more play time, crafts, songs, and dancing.  The age range of the kids in preschool is from 18 months to 3 years, and as young as they are, they catch on to English very quickly.  The kids' brains at this young of an age is quickly making lingual connections and although they may not reply in English when you speak to them, they usually understand about 70% of what you say to them (depending on the student and how long that student has been enrolled).  I am always just so amazed when I see the kids understand what I say in English and they too also try to mimic what I say in English.  Some days the kids are difficult to handle but it's worth it at the end of the day when you realize how much language ability these kids are gaining each day.