Step right this way to claim you prize

Sept. 14-Sept. 21

So classes are still going well. Now that I've finally done my last self intro (for a while at least), I'm enjoying the teaching side of things. Also, interacting with my students in and out of class is great. For example, while at Kubo ES last Wednesday I went and watched my 6th graders' music class. I was just walking around and stuck my head in one of the rooms they had split up into and a couple of the girls ran up to me and got all the people in the room to perform a song for me. They were very good. I was really surprised to see the students learning so many different instruments. There were kids playing everything from your typical recorder to an accordion. Then after the teachers gathered all the students back together, they played the whole song again with everyone performing this time. It was really fun and the kids seemed to appreciate that I wanted to watch.

Also of note for work last week, there was a demonstration class that all JHS ALTs and JTEs had to go to. Each year a school is selected to do this lesson and this year Katie was the lucky winner whose school got selected to do the class. I think it went pretty well for her but I know both her and her JTE were nervous with all the ALTs and JTEs and a couple of other miscellaneous education people standing in the back of the classroom. Afterwards there was a nice long discussion about the strong and weak points of the class. Unfortunately, much of this was done in Japanese that was far over my head. Afterwards, the four of us went out to an Indian restaurant to celebrate. The food was great and on the way we saw the most amazing rainbow I have ever seen. We could actually see where it began in the water. I guess leprechauns don't bother to bring their pots of gold all the way to Japan.

First sight of the rainbow!

That's the bay where the rainbow is originating. The truck provides a little perspective for just how big it appeared.

The last photo was taken while in the car but we actually stopped for some better pictures. No pot of gold...unless it's underwater or at the other end of the rainbow.

ROYGBIV

The best photo I could of the whole thing. It really was huge!

For a while there was a second rainbow above the first and at one point it even looked like there might have been a third but it didn't last long enough for a photo.

Besides the rainbow, the whole day was absolutely gorgeous!

These last two were both taken at the same time as the rainbow pictures.

You might remember from one of my previous posts that I mentioned a trip that I won. Well that trip was this weekend. Sat.-Mon. I was on a (free!!!) tour of Toyama with four other ALTs, a CIR, and two representatives from the Toyama Tourism Division. For those of you who don't remember (or who usually only look at the pictures in my blog) part of the requirement for this free tour was that we do something afterwards to spread the word about all the cool stuff they took us to go see. Well it just so I happens that I have a web blog in which I can write and post some of the gazillions of pictures I took this three day weekend. If I hadn't mentioned it before Monday was a national holiday in Japan (Respect for the Aged Day) so I had the day off from work. Basically, I plan to be pretty thorough about the places we went so I will be posting about this weekend over several entries. I hope you enjoy hearing about them at least half as much as I enjoyed experiencing them.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to catch the 7:29 train. I arrived almost an hour early. Unfortunately, this was the latest train I could catch to get to Toyama City in time for our 9:20 meeting time. I used the time to make sure I could find the meeting spot and then I explored the nearby area some. I stopped for breakfast at a little coffee shop that looked a little trashy on the outside but ended up having a real swanky interior. I'm glad I stopped because I hadn't really eaten yet and the food and iced coffee I ordered really hit the spot. An auspicious start to my adventure!

After my breakfast I met up with the others and our journey really began. Despite there being only eight of us on the trip we had an entire tour bus driving us around. We piled in and headed off to the Toyama Municipal Folkcraft Village. Here we got our first taste of being celebrities. There was a news station camera crew waiting for us as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. Also, waiting was our tour guide. The Folkcraft Village is actually composed of several different museums and sights. We went to the Toyama Medicine History Museum, the Memorial Art Gallery of Gyuujin Takamura, the 500 Buddha Statues, and we drank tea ceremony tea.

We weren't allowed to take photos in the Museum or Gallery but they didn't tell us this at first so I snapped a few photos. Toyama is where the Japanese traveling medicine men originated from and we were taught a little about how they would travel around the country and bring families the medicine they wouldn't be able to get otherwise. More than 300 years later, Toyama is still know for medicine as the traveling medicine men of long ago are now instead 100's of pharmaceutical companies.

Our tour guide leading us into the medicine museum.

A traveling medicine man. They were still around this century.

Quick shot before turning my camera off. You can see the display that showed how some of the medicine used to be made.

Now that I've given you the first taste of the many exciting experiences I had, you will have to wait with bated breath for the next installment of my action packed three day Toyama tour!