Here it is, right before the next big family trip. The last family trip description:

The post Toyama trip started out for me a couple days after my family had left to go to Paul's place. I got a phone call from Keith. He had accidentally left his CD case on the train to Osaka. It was next to him in a crack between the seat and the window. When they had to get off to change trains, he forgot it in the hustle to get suitcases off, too. Inside were several hundred dollars worth of DVDs and CDs, plus some things that would be difficult to replace, due to availability. The folks at Paul's train station had tried to call to Osaka, but without any success. Keith asked if I could check at Toyama, since it was the other end of the line.

I was doubtful they would have it, but I figured I would check anyway. I went to the Toyama train station, and inquired about the lost CD case. They didn't have it, but they volunteered to call Osaka and check. I figured it was a lost case since the folks at Paul's station had already called. But it was worth a shot. They guy called, and sure enough, they had it in their lost and found. I don't know why it wasn't found the first time they called, but they had it.

So on Saturday morning, I decided to leave for Kyoto an hour early and go to Osaka first (past Kyoto 40 minutes). I determined that there was a special rapid train that went from Osaka to Kyoto without stopping, but cost the same amount as a local train. It would save a lot of money, but it left about 7 minutes after I arrived in Osaka station. So I basically sprinted off the train to the Lost and Found. Someone was in line ahead of me, but I still managed to pick up the CD case and make it to the train on time.

Paul was the only one who knew I had found the CD case, so I told him that I would either be waiting for the family at Kyoto station, because I would get there before everyone else, or I would be about 15 minutes late, due to getting the CD case first. I didn't know if I was going to get it originally or send Keith off to collect it. Anyway, when I arrived, I pulled out the CD case, and he was very relieved.

Once I arrived, we headed out to the hotel, Hotel Station Kyoto. It was a pretty nice hotel, with surprisingly large rooms, for Japanese hotels. There was also a public bath at the hotel, which we took advantage of a couple times. They are basically big hot tubs. I roomed with Keith in Kyoto. One of Victoria's friends from university, Will, was living in Kyoto at the time. (Victoria and I stayed with him and his girlfriend the previous fall). I gave him a call, and he said he was busy, but that there was supposed to be an interesting light festival at the Fushiki Inari Shrine, which is in south Kyoto. I don't remember what we did during the day, but we met up for dinner near the train station that night. After we ate, we went to the shrine. They had hundreds of red lanterns hanging around the shrine, and several hundred hand-painted lanterns, which they lit up at night. Before it got too dark, some of us wandered around the mountain, which had huge passageways of torii gates. We walked under several hundred torii gates while walking around the mountain. It was really pretty. We also got to see lots of personal shrines on the mountains (which were inhabited by wild cats, who seemed to feed off the fish offerings left at the shrines). As it got dark, they lit all the mountains, and the dancing started. They also had a ceremony at the shrine, so the priests were very dressed up for it. After awhile, we decided we had seen enough and headed back to the hotel.

The next day an old exchange student who stayed at our house a long time ago, Junichi, came to the hotel, and picked us up. He hired an English speaking taxi driver (the taxi was a van) to give us a tour of some places in Kyoto. We went to Nijo Castle, an old castle. The coolest thing about the castle is the floor whistles when you step on it. The floor is nicknamed the Nightingale Floor, because it sounds like birds chirping. The sound was intentional, designed to detect sneaky ninjas. Besides the floor, the castle was similar to many other Japanese castles. Mostly Japanese castles had tatami mat floors, and no furniture. They are extremely boring to look at, except for wall screens. I believe this castle had a cool wood carving room divider that was different on either side. One surprising difference between Nijo Castle and other castles is that it was not constructed on a hill and is not multistoried, like many of them are.

After Nijo Castle, we went to Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Temple. It is quite famous and I had heard about it before, but I didn't visit it during my first trip to Kyoto. It is actually a very small temple, and the inside is not open to the public. It is called the Golden Temple because it is covered in gold leaf. The temple was one of the oldest ones that was left standing after the war. However, after surviving the war, it was burned down by a crazy monk who decided it was too beautiful, or something like that. So what stands now is a recreation, unfortunately.

Next, we moved on to a nearby temple with a famous Zen garden, Ryoan-ji. Ryoan-ji's centerpiece is a sand Zen garden, with some 15 large rocks in it. It is said that if you sit by the garden, you can't see all 15 rocks at any one time. This was apparently to show you the limits of your knowledge, or something like that. I couldn't see them all sitting down, but I could when I was standing. Also, with rocks in sand, you can imagine all sorts of things like tigers in fields, islands in the sea, or a bunch of rocks in sand. That's what Zen is all about, I guess. The temple also had a large pond, which was covered in lilies and quite pretty.

We had lunch with Junichi's family in an really old (100 years?) noodle restaurant, which had apparently served the emperor and other famous people. Junichi's mother and father were there, along with his wife and two kids. The kids were surprisingly quiet. Normally young kids are quiet talkative in Japanese, at least.

After lunch, the grandparents went home, and the rest of us went to the Kyoto Handicraft's Center. They had some private classes on how to do traditional Japanese arts, like woodblock prints or tiny dolls. I signed up for what turned out to be the most difficult one, the tiny Japanese dolls. They required a lot of patience and strength. My grandmother signed up for it also, and pretty much let the instructor make most of hers. Still, it was fun. My doll ended up with a little afro. It looked cool. Keith and Paul didn't want to be at the crafts center, so they took a shuttle back to the hotel. The rest of us took a class and shopped around the center some. My grandmother found a kimono she liked. My cousin bought several prints to decorate his house with.

After the Handicraft Center, we said good-bye to Junichi and his family. They were really nice to us, and he paid for everything (he feels he owes a lot to my parents). It was a fairly busy and exhausting day.

The next morning, we went to a big market in a temple southwest of the station. It was basically a flea market, with all sorts of stuff being sold. My grandmother bought a couple things. When it was time to rendezvous, my aunt was missing. Keith and I searched for her, but we didn't find her. Eventually Paul sent me a message that she had shown up, and we went back. After the market, we took cabs over to my favorite temple, Kiyomizu-dera. It looks really pretty during sunset, but still nice during the morning. We toured the temple and then split up. Grandmommy went back to the hotel, my parents and Anna went on the Philosopher's Walk, which I did last year, and the young men went to downtown Kyoto. We walked along the geisha strip, past the fancy restaurants, and other establishments. We even saw one geisha girl. Keith got bored and went back to the hotel, while Paul, Edward, and I went to a shrine and watched a short play. The three of us went to dinner in Kyoto, while Keith met up with the rest of the family for food. I was hoping everyone would come downtown, but it didn't work out well.

The last morning in Kyoto, my dad took my grandmother to get her hair washed at an expensive hotel near the station. The day before, we went there and Paul explained to the lady what my grandmother wanted, and then we left the rest up to fate. My grandmother emerged later with her hair looking a bit different than it normally was. But at least it was clean.

That morning, us boys went off on our own again, this time outside of the city. We were a bit templed-out, which can happen quite easily in Kyoto, since it is chock-full of temples and shrines. We took a bus out to one temple, which had a hiking path near it. It was recommended in the Lonely Planet guidebook. It was a steep climb to the temple area from where we started, so we were tired at the top. The temple complex was pretty much abandoned, and we wandered around its paths in the woods. We bought some small clay discs at the ticket gate, and threw them off the cliff near the temple. They fly a bit like frisbees down into the valley below. We weren't just being strange, it was a custom to throw away your bad karma. Afterwards, we hiked back down the mountain to the valley below, and walked alongside the river all the way to a small town. On the way, we found a bunch of clay discs in the water and on the path. It must be dangerous during peak season, with clay discs flying everywhere. I picked up one of the unbroken ones as a souvenir. Now I have someone's bad karma. I think it might be one of ours, because it was in the middle of the path, and wasn't dirty or anything.

The walk was very pretty, and we passed a bunch of swimming holes. We went to one with a nice sized cliff and got in the water. Edward jumped in from up high, but the water was so cold, I didn't want to. I just jumped in from a small rock. I don't think Paul or Keith got all the way in. The weather was perfect throughout the hike. We reached a tiny town part way through and got a snack and a drink at a restaurant there. Then we passed lots of schoolboys jumping off a bridge into the water below. They kind of stared at us wandering by. Hardly anyone else was on this trail today, except a couple people killing weeds. So we must have seemed strange to them. We kept going, and the trail ended on the side of a highway. Our small river merged with a huge river, and we walked above that towards a train station. When we got to the train station, we read the time table, and it said there were no more trains. We were a little shocked, because it was only 5 or so. Luckily, there were some folks playing cards nearby, who told us that was a private line, and we wanted the JR line, which was further down the road. They told us to walk next to the train tracks, and jump the fence to get to the JR line. It was faster than going down the road. So that's what we did. The train station was deserted, except for some delinquents who were smoking by the tracks, and doing annoying things. The trains to this station were quite regular, and one soon came, and it was pretty crowded. This station was between more populous ones and Kyoto, I guess. We made it back, and we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. It had a buffet, which was okay. After dinner, Paul, Edward, and I met up with Will, Victoria's friend, at an Irish pub. We had a good chat, and I was glad to see him again.

The next morning, we left Kyoto and went to Okayama. From there, we had to take a limited express train to the island of Shikoku. The first city we visited was Takamatsu, which means Tall Pines, and it was near the long suspension bridges that lead to the island. It is in Tokushima Prefecture (in the northeast) While our train was crossing the bridges, a helicopter appeared and started filming the train, right outside our window. It was very strange. From the train station, we took taxis to our hotels, because it is much easier with all our luggage than trying to take public transportation. The hotel was nice, but cramped, like Japanese hotels normally are. I roomed with Edward this time.

We took a train over to a 'museum' that afternoon. It was an outdoor park with lots of buildings from all over Japan. They had traditional guard houses, homes, factories, and even a bridge. The buildings were varied, and the English explanation was good. However, the park was quite big and built on a hill, so it was tiring walking around so much. Before the museum, I think the young ones all ate udon noodles at a restaurant next to the park. It was very cheap and good. Paul managed to spill hot water on himself, though, so that wasn't too fun.

After the park, we went up the funicular to the top of Yashima Plateau, which is a large mountain towering over the city. The last funicular was quite early, so we didn't have much time to explore the top. Paul, Edward, and I raced around the top of the mountain some, and I got to see the suspension bridges from earlier that day, but the view was too hazy for good pictures.

We took taxis back, and we ate dinner at a chain Indian restaurant near our hotel. It was the most convenient place for us to go. The food was pretty good there. Some of my family did laundry, and they were nice enough to take my stuff too, so I wouldn't have to go.

The next morning we went on a tour. We arranged the tour of the Iya River Valley the day before. We had to take a train to Awa Ikeda, which was actually in the next prefecture, Tokushima Prefecture (to the southeast). However, we had heard this gorge was beautiful, so we wanted to see it. The tour bus was a small bus, and our guide was a woman with a lot to say. She managed to speak in Japanese for the entire bus ride (several hours), barely pausing. It was really annoying after awhile. When surrounded by lots of trees and rivers, I don't want a blow by blow commentary. I want silence. In some ways I was thankful I couldn't understand. At the first stop of the tour, we got out of the bus and went down by the river to a boat. I hadn't realized a boat ride was included. Before the boat ride was the obligatory group photo, fun as ever. Then we took the boat ride. Basically we all crammed into this boat and sat on mats on the bottom of it (taking off our shoes, of course), and it puttered down the river some so we could look at the rocks. Then the boat motored back up the river and dropped us off. The rocks were quite pretty, however. After the ride, we had lunch, which was traditional Japanese fare, much to the chagrin of some of my family members. I pretty much eat any lumpy stuff nowadays, so it didn't bother me much.

After lunch, we drove to a rock museum that was close by, and we saw that. There were many beautiful rocks and minerals in the museum. The museum seemed a bit out of place in the middle of nowhere by the river. Afterwards, we went to some silly house on a hill, which seemed pointless. It was basically a bunch of someone's junk (antiques) crammed into a tiny house. I don't know why we toured it, exactly.

Finally, we came to the focal point of the tour, a traditional vine bridge over the Iya River. The bridges are rebuilt every 10 years or so, but maybe not this one, because it was actually reinforced by steel wires (cheaters!). There were big spaces between the boards on the bridge, so you did have to watch your step some. I basically sprinted across the bridge while my mom tentatively crossed it. There was a small waterfall on the other side of the bridge, too. We couldn't cross back over the vine bridge (it was one way or something), so we walked back over the concrete bridge next to it that the buses and stuff go on. After crossing the bridge, we got back in the bus and drove alongside a huge gorge (we were much higher this time). The tour guide said that other buses can't drive along this road because it is too narrow for them. It seemed quite narrow. The last stop on the tour was a mannekin pis (peeing boy) statue replica from Brussels. It was basically on the side of the highway over the gorge, for no good reason. Then the tour finally dropped us off at the train station again. I was relieved it was finally over, though it was very pretty.

We caught a train back to Takamatsu and went to a nearby mall to find a restaurant. We ended up at an Italian restaurant again. This restaurant was okay, but they seemed to think that a Caesar's salad meant that you just dumped a lot of salt on the salad (a whole bottle, perhaps). Edward ordered the salad and he said it was like eating pure salt. In the end, I dumped water into the salad, and drained off some of the salt that way. It was an adventure salad.

The next morning, my mother and Anna left bright and early to go search for silk cocoons. Apparently Anna's mother likes to spin her own thread, so Anna wanted to buy the cocoons for her. The tourist information office was quite helpful in giving them directions on how to get to a silk farm in the next prefecture.

The rest of us woke up at a sensible hour, took all the suitcases and went to the next town, Matsuyama, in Ehime Prefecture (to the northwest). We took cabs to our hotel, but we were too early to check-in. So we left the bags at the hotel, and walked down to near the castle to eat lunch. After lunch we went to the castle. This castle was on a hill in the center of town, and is one of the nicest looking ones. They had a cable car up the hill, and a chair lift. Grandmommy and dad went up the cable car, while us Four went up the chair lift. They both got there at the same time, so it didn't make much difference. At the top of the hill, we were attacked by mosquitos, which rarely happens in Japan. We quickly moved on to the castle. It was a really pretty castle, and it's made of wood. However, they had to rebuild large parts of the castle due to arson and WWII bombings. Many reconstructions are concrete, so a wooden one was a nice change. Inside the castle were lots of steep ladders for moving from floor to floor. They didn't believe in stairs. They also didn't believe in tall people, so I have to watch my head a lot. If I were a samurai, I would be knocked out from running up and down the steps. My grandmother couldn't go inside, so she waited outside while we yelled and waved from inside the castle.

After that, we went back to the hotel, and checked in. The rooms were huge. The room Paul and I were in was like a jumbo-sized suite. It would've been big in the states, too. So we really lucked out with these rooms. The other sets of rooms weren't as big, but were still good. After awhile, mom and Anna came back with cocoons (with dead worms in them), and we went to dinner. We found a place called Chico's, which was a new-style Japanese restaurant, sort of a Japanese take on different foods. The food was great, but we waited for over an hour for some of it. The manager felt really bad about making us wait so long, and gave us complementary desserts. I think my food was particularly slow in coming. Us young folks wandered down the street after dinner and decided to go see "Terminator 3", which was playing nearby. There was hardly anyone in the movie theater, because Japanese people don't seem to like seeing movies late at night. In fact, the showing was discounted, despite being a new movie, because it was after 8pm. I really liked the movie, much more than I thought I would. It was quite funny and good.

The next morning, Paul, Edward and I took a train an hour to a station to the north. We wanted to go climb Mt. Ishizuchi, Shikoku's highest mountain. We were really lucky and there was a bus which arrived shortly after we got to the station. It turned out there were only four buses to and from the mountain each day! It was not an easy place to come and go from. The bus dropped us off next to a cable car, which led part way up the mountain. The river next to where we were dropped off was an amazing bright blue color. I have never seen water like that in a river before. It was beautiful. However, we couldn't see the mountain, so we couldn't tell if it was beautiful. There was a lot of mist about 200 meters up.

We took the cable car up to about 1300 meters. We barely squeezed past a tour group to get in the cable car before they did. If we hadn't gotten in first, I don't think we would've made it. But since we were already in, they couldn't kick us out. The cable car basically rose through the mist very quickly to get to the top, where we were enshrouded with mist still. We then walked over and took a chair lift, that was part of a ski resort in the winter. It didn't save us any time, but it was fun, and had a decent view.

Next we had to go down about 200 meters before we could start up the mountain again. It was a bit annoying, and we ended up at 1200 meters. Then we started the climb back up to the top of the mountain, at 2000 meters. This trail was very interesting, because there are often two ways to go up the mountain. One, you can take the trail. Two, you can grab onto some giant metal chains and pull yourself straight up. We decided to always use the chain method, but it was very strenuous work. The first chain was basically pointless, since it led to a little peak, and then you had to chain your way down the other side of the peak. Still, it was a lot of fun climbing on the chains. We climbed a total of four chains, which was hard work. The last one was fairly difficult and you had to put your feet in the rings to help you climb. I just didn't want to fall, since there was no safety equipment. The last chain brought us to a shrine where there were many pilgrims praying. Then we walked another 200 meters to the peak of the mountain. At this point the weather was cooperating and we had some great views. We hiked the way back instead of going down the chains (dangerous). It was much easier, but longer, too. We took the chair lift back again (despite being out of the way) and saw the view was even better now. You could see the ocean from the mountain. Finally we took the cable car back down the mountain.

At the bottom of the mountain, we waited around until the last bus came to get us at 3:30pm. Some people who started climbing at the same time as us didn't make the bus. I don't know how they got back. Paul also had a run in with a store owner who tried to sell him tickets to the bus, saying it was impossible to buy them on the bus. Of course, it wasn't actually impossible and Paul knew this. This guy just wanted to get a commission from us for selling the tickets. He guilted two Japanese girls waiting next to us to do it. Things were fine on the bus, and we arrived at the train station in good time, only to find out that the next train going to our station wasn't for an hour, and was a slow local train! This wouldn't have been much of a problem, except we wanted to get back in time for a nice dinner. My grandmother really wanted us to have a nice dinner, because it was the last day Edward and Anna would be with us. Instead I called my mom and told her when we would arrive, all filthy and stinky. They decided to order pizza instead, which is an expensive dinner in Japan, if not particularly nice. The pizzas were pretty good, except the one with salmon cream on it. We had mystery pizzas since both Paul and I were out hiking. My parents and Keith basically looked at pictures to decide. We all ate in my parent's large hotel room.

The next morning, Edward and Anna left, and the rest of us headed to Kochi, in Kochi-ken (southwest). The train ride to Kochi was very pretty and went by many gorges. Shikoku seems to have a lot of gorges in general. Our hotel was close to the station in Kochi, and called Los Inn Kochi. The guy was from Paraguary and spoke perfect Spanish. He was really nice, and let us move into the rooms, even though we were early. After dropping off our stuff, we took a tram into town, and visited Kochi castle. It is up a little hill, which my grandmother went up. But then she didn't go inside the castle. It was a fairly old castle, and a little small. It had nice views because it was on a hill. There seemed to be some sort of dignitary visiting, because there were bodyguards around the castle, checking things out. I didn't see the mysterious guest though.

Afterwards we thought about going to a street market, but it was closed. Instead we wandered to the river, where we heard there was a giant festival going on. They had big inflatable whales in the river spewing out water, and tons of food booths. We attracted a lot of attention from the food vendors and many other people. I don't think they were used to seeing foreigners. I talked to some junior high school girls who were really nice. Many people took pictures of Keith's hair using their cell phones (they think you can't tell, but it's obvious). We ate some food from the booths and then left the festival, as everyone seemed to be arriving, all the women in their yukatas (summer kimonos). On the way back, we ran across a group of people practicing for the Yosokoi Festival, a dance festival with tons of groups that is held here in August.

Our final day in Shikoku, Keith, Paul, and I didn't do very much. We mostly relaxed, and went shopping for birthday presents for our grandmother. Paul and I got her a dance clapper, and an obi (belt for her kimono). That night we went out to Garlic, Garlic. It is a loose chain of restaurants which serve lots of garlic foods. However, this one wasn't as nice as the one in Kanazawa, which has a larger, English menu. So I had to play the translation game once again. Which is a fun enough game to play by myself, but with a whole family waiting to eat, it is not as fun.

The next day we took a series of trains to Nara, near Osaka. Keith didn't go to Nara but went to Kyoto again, instead. Nara has a giant temple (Todai-ji) with a giant bronze Buddha statue inside it. The temple is the largest wooden structure in the world, I think. The Buddha is 49 feet high, and was made in 745. Apparently the temple is only 1/3 of it's original size, which makes it even more amazing. The temple is located in a large park full of deer. They are considered national treasures and number over one thousand. Grandmommy got chased by a deer who wanted her ice cream. We had delicious soft serve caramel ice cream. I highly recommend it.

Next we walked through the park, a bit further than we thought we would. We found a shrine with hundreds of stone lanterns. They would've been awesome lit up, but they were still nice. We ended up on the wrong side of the park, away from all taxis. We wandered down the street to a shop and Paul asked the man to call a taxi for us. Paul was inside a long time, so I thought the man had killed him or something. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

That night we went to a family restaurant with a salad bar and steaks, because it was my grandmother's birthday and she doesn't really like Japanese food, especially fish. I always thought she liked fish, but it turns out she hates it with a passion. That evening we gave her the presents we had bought in Kochi. I think she liked them a lot.

The next day we had a Chinese breakfast (complimentary at the hotel) and split up at the train station. I went back to Taki with Paul to stay at his house for a couple days, and the family went to the airport. They all had a safe and long trip home. Now I'm making some of them take an even longer trip to Australia. I'm so cruel. I wrote about the rest of my trip at Paul's place earlier in my blog.

I just found out there are a ton of Royal Host restaurants in Osaka. Victoria will be pleased. They have the best coffee and hot chocolate in Japan, plus pancake breakfasts.

I would like to go to the Sydney Opera House, but it appears there aren't any performances when we'll be there. They start up again the day before and the day after we leave. Maybe next time.

Australia is right around the bend. I guess my parents have already started their journey. Victoria and I are going to Osaka tomorrow night, to spend the weekend there. It was her idea, and it is a good one. Since we are already paying for the train, we might as well enjoy the city a little. We have a reservation at our favorite chain of hotels, Toyoko Inn.

On Sunday we'll fly to Melbourne, via Hong Kong. I think we'll be quite tired when we arrive. Unfortunately, we are only staying in Melbourne for that day. It would be nice to stay a bit longer, but our parents will be waiting in Sydney for a couple days already. So we have to move on.

We had our first snow in Toyama last night. I didn't see it fall, but I noticed a little bit on cars this morning when I was biking to school. It hasn't stuck on the roads, but they are predicting snow during the day on Saturday, which may stick. Luckily, I'll be in Osaka then, so I won't have to deal with it.

Victoria and I bought tickets to Okinawa for a birthday trip yesterday. It was pretty cheap, at 10,000 yen a leg. So each round-trip ticket only cost 20,000, which is much better than the normal price of 60,000 (550 dollars). It's not a popular time to go, so we had no trouble getting the discount tickets. We are taking advantage of a Wednesday holiday to get a 5 day trip from 2 days vacation time. Now I have about 11 days of vacation left, so I have to figure out when to take the rest of the days.

Today I took a survey about the JET program. It had some funny questions. I like the last two answers for the following question:

In what language to you communicate with your supervisor?
a) Primarily Japanese
b) A mixture of Japanese and my native language
c) Primary my native language
d) A third language (neither Japanese nor my native language)
e) I communicate throught another teacher who acts as a translator
f) Gestures and drawings
g) I do not feel that "communication" is what occurs

There's a problem student in the office right now. It's really strange, though. He was my student last year at Horikawa Elementary School. I think he lived in America for a little bit, because he was my best student at that school. Once he started at junior high school this year, he started faking sickness every day in class. Then he reached a point where he started coming into school late (12:30) every day, just in time for lunch, but having missed 4 classes. I don't know what's wrong with him, because he seemed to be totally fine last year, even a nice kid.

He just showed up around 12:00 today, and the teachers called his family or something. Anyway, they told him to leave school, but he wouldn't go and started throwing stuff in the office and stuff. Now he's just sitting on the floor. Anyway, it's really sad because he is only 12, and in the Japanese system, once you get behind, it's nearly impossible to catch up. He's just headed for trouble.

Victoria and I rented skis this weekend. We got a good deal. It was only 7,000 yen with insurance. That's a little over $50. We don't have to return them until the end of the season. It is too early to ski now, but my feet are considered large in Japan, so I have to go early to get skis. They found some boots for me, but they couldn't find skis that fit the boots until the fourth try!

Hopefully it will snow tons once I am safely out of the country. Then I can return to enjoy the snow (with clear sidewalks, of course)

I've been showing my second year students a short movie that Sarah, Victoria, and I made last year. I was Santa Claus, Victoria was the narrator and a sleeping girl, and Sarah did all the filming and editing (the hardest part). Victoria originally had the idea for us to make the video to practice the grammar point "There is" and "There are." We imagined it as a simple little film with one or two takes that wouldn't look great, but would be okay. However, the love of Sarah's life is film (she's at the American Film Institute this year), so she made it into an all-star production. She filmed the skit a dozen times from many different angles, and then spent hours editing it. The result was quite impressive, I think. I doubt she'll be putting it on her resume anytime soon, though.

The reaction of the kids to the video has been wildly varied. One class all applauded when it was finished, which was nice. Then there was the class who didn't know that I was Santa Claus (they must be stupid, because it's obvious). The teacher and I couldn't believe they couldn't tell it was me. All the other classes have been able to see me. I think the students thought it was some professional video or something. One of the classes today seemed quite bored by the whole affair. I figure it must be better than learning grammar, right? Anyway, it's a cool video and despite having shown it 26 times so far, I am still not bored of it. Maybe it's because I'm in it. :)

First period this morning, I was supposed to teach a second-year class, but I couldn't find the teacher I was supposed to co-teach with. I searched around the school, and then gave up and just started the class without her. Normally this class is not very well-behaved, but they were pretty good today. Actually, I think they were happy the other teacher didn't show up, because they started talking in Japanese about how the teacher wasn't coming and then many of them started cheering.

I did about half the class by myself, and then she finally showed up. The kids were able to understand most of what I said, without any Japanese, so I probably could've taught the whole lesson by myself. Apparently my teacher was in the principal's office, but I don't know why exactly. The lesson ended up a little short on time, but other than that, it went pretty well.

December seems to be passing by as quickly as November did. Soon I will be in Australia, which will be a blast. It is starting to get cold here, so I am really looking forward to having some sunny weather for a bit.

Not much exciting going on this week. I hope to rent skis for the season soon. I've decided to try out skiing instead of snowboarding this year. That way I'll be okay at both things, and I can see which one I prefer.

On Monday we also have to buy tickets to Okinawa. We want to go for my birthday, in February. We think we can get really cheap tickets then, which would be great. It would also be much warmer there in February than Toyama, so that would be a nice break from the cold again.

This week we had the mid-year JET seminar. It was all-day Tuesday and Wednesday. Last year I felt I got a lot out of the seminar, but this year I already know what I am doing, so I was a little bored. Jo said she thought it was good, so it must be that being a second-year has affected my perspective on it. This year it didn't help that they put people in seminars that they didn't sign up for or need. For instance, I was in a seminar for after school activities, like clubs. However, English Club ended in September, so I don't need ideas anymore. Still, going to a seminar that I didn't need was still better than some folks. They had to go to the same seminar twice. It didn't really make sense. I don't remember similar problems last year.

The trip to Australia is approaching quickly. We leave for Osaka on the 19th, then we'll go to Australia on the 21st. It will be my first time in the Southern Hemisphere. I am excited about the warm weather that awaits us.

This weekend has been pretty low-key. I'm a little low on yen right now, so I'm trying to spend a little less money. I tend to spend a lot when I travel, because the train is so expensive here. I think I'll be shocked at prices when I go back to the states.

I got a call from my family on Friday morning before I went to work, which was Thanksgiving evening for my family. They did the same thing last Thanksgiving. It was good to talk to them, but the reception wasn't so great because it was on my cell phone.

Friday afternoon I did my big presentation on America. The kids seemed to enjoy it. They liked seeing what cartoons kids in America watched (half are Japanese) and they liked it when I played them the four most popular songs in America. However, they didn't really like those songs, but they were more adult songs. I should try to find some pre-teen songs. I had time to show home movies, too, but not enough time to do the North Carolina presentation, so I'll do it next week.

Saturday I slept in while Victoria went to the General Education Center. The Toyama prefecture JETs publish a creative writing publication every four months, and Victoria is one of the three editors. They can publish it for free at the GEC, so they did it there. I decided to do something about my apartment, which was starting to look like a disaster scene. I managed to clean up the kitchen and all my recycleables, but I still have to work on the living/bedroom. I hope to make my apartment presentable again. It started pouring that night, but I made it over to Victoria's apartment anyway and we watched Ransom, the movie on TV that night, and the West Wing, which is shown in bilingual mode every Saturday night on the national TV channel, NHK.

This morning I woke up at 10:30 and went downtown to the CIC building, a tall building near the station. The owner of the building went bankrupt and the city bought the building. The city moved the Toyama Cosmopolitan Association into the building. I take Japanese lessons at the TCA, so they asked if I could help out at the grand opening ceremony. I taught a short English lesson and manned a table about America, which was more a forum for people to talk English to me if they wanted to practice.

One man came to talk to me and I ended up realizing he was a man who had been email stalking Victoria! It dawned on me when I was talking to him, and when he asked for my email address, I told him I didn't like to give it out to strangers. Victoria only gave him her email address because she thought there was a child (at a different TCA function) that was his son, but it turned out the boy wasn't actually his son. In fact, the guy told Victoria that he didn't have any kids, but was looking for a girlfriend (*wink* *wink*). She responded, "Oh dear, that's sad. Better go now." and ran off. He got home and sent her about three emails immediately, and didn't let up for two weeks, despite her not replying to them. You can understand why I wasn't anxious to give him my email address, too. After I got back from the thing today, Victoria checked her email and he had sent her another email, telling her that he had met her boyfriend, Brown.

Unfortunately, Victoria had some sort of bug this morning and was sick, but seems to be better tonight. When I finally feel over my two week bug, it was inevitable that she would get a little ill, too.

This week is the mid-year seminar for Toyama JETs, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Should be fun.

Happy Thankgiving! Unfortunately, this marks my third Thanksgiving sans family. I have to admit that it doesn't have the feel of a holiday without the gathering together bit. Luckily, Victoria drew a picture of all the family (including Whitefoot) so I wouldn't miss everyone too much.

I had some pumpkin products today, just by coincidence. We had pumpkin soup for lunch, which was pretty good. Jo, my co-worker, didn't like it though. It was the first time she had ever eaten pumpkin. Later, Victoria was eating a piece of pumpkin cake at Seattle's Best, which she shared with me. If I actually had an oven, I might consider buying a frozen turkey at the foreign food store and cooking it. No such luck, though. Victoria is predicting that I'll go crazy in the apartments in Australia and cook lots of things in ovens, due to withdrawal. We'll see.

Tonight I am making a presentation for tomorrow about America and North Carolina. I got my elementary kids to write down lots of questions about things they want to know. Some of them are a little strange.... "Which has more supermarkets, North Carolina or Toyama?" and "What is the biggest restaurant in North Carolina?" I don't think I can answer questions like these, from a lack of data. I did a search for the biggest restaurant in North Carolina on the Internet, but I didn't get a good hit. If you know, please tell me. The other questions are more sensible, like what music is popular. In addition to the presentation, I download some popular songs, and will show them some of the home videos we have on DVD. Hopefully they'll enjoy that.

My cough is still here. It's gotten a lot better, but I would just like for it to go away! It didn't interfere too much with my trip to Okayama last weekend. We couldn't get a seating reservation for the way down, but it didn't matter, because we hustled and made it to an early train at 5:13 pm that started in Toyama. So we were able to get seats together in the unreserved section. This was a good thing, because the train was very crowded. We had a 45 minute shinkansen ride from Shin-Osaka to Okayama, and we managed seats together for that one, too. It didn't really matter, though, because the train ride was so short, compared to the Toyama->Shin-Osaka 3 hours plus ride.

We found our hotel, which was hidden down a dark alleyway. Luckily, we were in Japan, so we were probably still safe. We went to Mister Donut for a snack and then went to bed. Saturday we slept in really late, and had breakfast at a cafe with some great warm chocolate croissants. Then we headed to Okayama's garden, Koraku-en. It is quite large, but a lot of it is grassy lawns, which aren't that impressive for me. For the Japanese people, seeing a grassy lawn is impressive, however. Many parks and all the school fields are made of sand and dirt instead of grass. They go around killing the grass on my school field, for reasons unknown to me. The nice things about the garden were the ponds, the warm benches to sit on in the sun, the crane aviary, and the bamboo that surrounded the whole park. The bamboo made knocking sounds as the wind pushed the stalks together. It was quite cool.

On the way to the garden we ran into a mean-looking man with 9 puppies. None of them had leashes, so they just ran around like crazy puppies. They seemed to come when he called them. At first we only saw three, then he whistled, and two more came. This repeated until all 9 were there. I think if I had 9 puppies, I would be much happier than he was.

After the garden we walked to the castle. The castle is quite large, and it has black wood panels on the outside. Most of the castles have white panels, so it looks quite different. The castle was destroyed in the war, so it is just a reconstruction. It was the only castle I've been to that was grandmother-safe. It had an elevator leading to the upper floors. It felt a little strange seeing one in a recreation of a castle. Inside the castle, Victoria and I dressed up in kimonos as a lord and lady. I'll put up a picture when I can. We're wearing wigs, too, so we look quite strange.

We ate at a great Italian restaurant called Pizza Patio. The pizza was some of the best I have had in Japan, and the prices were good. Afterwards, we went to an American bar called Hunter. We had a long conversation and then called it a night. We had satellite TV, so I watched the Rugby World Cup on it. It was quite interesting, and a very close game.

On Sunday we went to Kurashiki, a nearby town with a large (and I mean LARGE) Edo era district. Takayama has a lot of old shops lining some of it's streets, but only a couple blocks total. This district stretched for quite a ways. It was a beautiful day and tons of tourists were there, mostly Japanese. We ate a lunch from Wendy's by the river in the district. Then we went shopping and visited a ton of stores. Eventually, we got tired of shopping, so we headed back to Okayama, which was only 15 minutes away by train. I liked Saturday's restaurant so much, that we just headed back there. Afterwards we went to a nearby karaoke place. It was a lot of fun, and cheaper than Toyama. This might have been because it was on a Sunday.

Monday we checked out of our hotel and headed home. On the way home, we stopped in Himeji, a city between Okayama and Shin-Osaka. It took us about 90 minutes because we took local trains. On the shinkansen, it's about 15 or 20 minutes. The train went through many hills, and the hills were covered with trees changing color. It was a really nice train ride.

Himeji is famous mostly for it's giant castle. It's one of the oldest castles in Japan, and one of the few original wooden ones that is still standing. It's quite an impressive castle. However, like many castles in Japan, the insides were pretty barren and the tour mostly consisted of climbing up ladders until you get to the top. Still, I enjoyed it a lot. Afterwards we got a bento (packed lunch) and ate it outside. Of course, it started to rain when we were going to sit down. Luckily, there were some covered picnic tables nearby. Afterwards we went to Koko-en, a garden with 9 different style gardens inside it. It was quite nice. It was only constructed in 1992, so it wasn't too old. Victoria said it was the best Japanese garden she's seen. I agreed with her. It was very nicely done.

After the garden, we headed to the station and took a shinkansen to Shin-Osaka (30 minutes). We got seats on the shinkansen, but when we changed trains to the one in Toyama, all the seats were full. We had to stand up most of the way back. By coincidence, one of the Japanese guys I play basketball with every week was standing on the train next to us. It was good to talk to him, because I haven't come to basketball in two weeks because of my cold. We thought we'd be able to get seats in Kanazawa, but it turned out that hardly anyone got off there. Victoria managed to get a seat, though. Tons of people got off in Takaoka, so I got a seat there. However, it is about a 15 minute ride from Takaoka to Toyama, so I spent almost all the 3 hour trip standing or sitting on the floor.

We made it back to Toyama, and went to Toyama's latest attraction: a chain coffee shop. It's called Seattle's Best, and it's pretty much like Starbucks. It just opened in the CIC building 1st floor. It should be a nice addition this winter. Most importantly, they have real cookies. Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun for us, the worst thing being the trip home.

My sickness has dragged on through one week. I cough up a lot of phlegm, so I hope that's a good sign that things are getting better. I also take it as a good sign that I can smell today. Unfortunately, what I am smelling is the shockingly horrible body odor of one of the male gym teachers. It really stinks in here!

One of my teachers is quite sad today. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she got a call last night from one of her students' parents saying that their daughter never came home last night. She didn't show up for school this morning either, so my teacher is worried. I get the impression she is not a terribly good student, and could have run away or something. She said she also found out today that one of the students is bullying the other students, which is a problem I've heard about in Japan, but haven't really seen. I think it's a pretty tough day for her.

This weekend Victoria and I are going to Okayama. It is going to be crowded, we think. We booked our train too late, so all the seats are full on the trains. We have to chance it with the unreserved seats. Hopefully we can show up early to the trains and get an unreserved seat. Our first train begins at Toyama, so hopefully we can get an unreserved seat. I might show up an hour early to hold a place in line for us. If we can't get a seat for our second train, it's no big deal, because the train ride is only 45 minutes long. The first train ride is 3 hours, so we really want seats for that one.

We also had some difficulty in booking a hotel. Our favorite chain of hotels, Toyoko Inn, doesn't have a hotel in Okayama City. I looked at some other places online, but there weren't many choices that were affordable (there were lots of luxury hotels online). In the end, three hotels sent us notices that they were fully booked, and one had a double room available for us. So, luckily, we got a room. It turned out to be quite cheap, too, at 7400 yen for a double. Okayama has a famous garden area, and in a nearby city, there's one of the most famous castles in Japan. I'm very excited about the trip. However, it seems like I'm planning too many trips right now. I have to plan for a birthday trip, a trip in April, a trip in March, Australia, and Okayama! It's a lot of trips. The good news is that I'll get to enjoy the trips later.

I'm still sick today. Luckily I only have one class. I hope to get better by tomorrow, since I have two classes and elementary school then. Hopefully I can make it to the weekend.

We have a possible venue booked for the charity show, which is a relief. We might be able to get a bigger, closer place for the same price, so I'm looking into that now, too. We booked the same place that we had last year for the charity show. We keep having the problem every year that we don't try to book someplace until October, so many places are full by then. I hope that next year we can go ahead and find a new producer and book the hall in June or July. That would be easiest for the group next year. They wouldn't have to worry about finding a place again.

About thirty minutes ago one of the teachers came into the office and asked if I didn't like Japanese music. I said I liked it, and why was she asking. It turns out there was a concert going on with traditional Japanese instruments. No one had bothered to tell me, and I assumed it was a student government sort of meeting, which we have sometimes and I never understand.

This week I am helping students from 3:15 or so until after regular school hours. There was a test a couple of weeks ago for English proficiency. The students who passed the first part of the test have to take a second part this Saturday. There is an oral interview section to the test, so they want to practice for it. I volunteered to interview them after school. It's a good chance to talk with the students one-on-one also. I'll have about six kids each day for four days. It's been good so far.

Oh yeah, my teacher who I was told was sick turned out to be okay. She came back this week in perfect healthy (or at least appears to be).

Today I feel a little sick. I have a nose and throat problem. Luckily, I don't have any classes today. It's a test day, so they are busy testing all day. I've been cleaning out my inbox, and looking for Australian accomodation. My family, Victoria, and I will be headed there for Christmas and New Year's. It should be a lot of fun.

At lunch today, we had shishamo, which I think is some of the worst Japanese food. It's little pregnant fish, with the heads on the them still. We're supposed to eat them whole, but I don't eat them at all. It was on the last first-year English listening test that I don't like shishamo, so all the students who like shishamo in the class I eat lunch in, were waiting by my desk to ask me for my shishamo. It was pretty funny.

Normally I play basketball on Wednesdays, but today I think I will just try to get some rest. It's too bad, because I look forward to playing basketball a lot.

I feel like I am planning so many trips right now. Victoria and I might go somewhere in two weeks (there's a three day weekend), there's the Australia trip, a trip to Okinawa for my birthday, possibly a trip to Tokyo to attend a seminar in March about leaving the JET program, and then we need to start looking at plane tickets for Golden Week. We will probably take a five day vacation to South Korea for Golden Week. Golden Week is a series of holidays that are all in a row at the beginning of May. Last year we only got one day of holiday because most of the holidays fell on the weekend. This year we get 5 days in a row, and more if we took some vacation time. However, since school is in session during some of Golden Week, the schools don't want us to take time off then. Victoria won't have that much vacation time left then, so we'll probably just take the 5 days of holiday for our trip.

It's the most popular time for Japanese people to travel, so we want to make sure we get seats on the one daily flight to Korea from Toyama. Otherwise we'll have to travel to Osaka to get the flight, which would be an additional 3 hours travel, plus more money. The flight itself doesn't even take 3 hours. The flight looks to be about $750 USD, which is not very cheap. But we really want to go, so we'll probably pay it. I think my flight to Malaysia over Christmas was about the same amount. I hope hotels and the like in Korea aren't too expensive during that time, but I bet they will be.

Thankfully the election only lasted 12 days, which is a little bit crazy, I think. I think it's amazing that the candidates can only have 12 days to campaign from the announced day of the election to the actual election. Here the Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning for president at least 16 months early. I do tend to think we go a bit overboard, however. I guess when there is a president, everyone has to vote for him/her, so it requires more campaigning. There's no president in Japan, just a prime minister. He's appointed by the legislature's ruling coalition, so there's no need to campaign for it.

The ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party won, again. It was not much of a surprise, but they did lose some of their seats to the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan. One reason it is not much of a surprise is that the LDP has always won. It has never lost since it's founding after WWII. It has ruled for about 50 years in Japan. I think even the Japanese are a bit surprised by it when they talk about it. Many of them think it has a lot of porkbelly politics, is large and inefficient, and tries to avoid necessary reforms. Yet people still vote for them. I think they must think the evil they know is better than a possible evil that's out there. Also surprising is that there are a large number of political dynasties. Many members of parliament's father also served on parliament (and some of their fathers).

There were some funny quotes on the BBC about the election. They interviewed different people in Japan about it. One woman said that in other countries, when the economy goes south and things start going badly for a country, that often people vote for a different leader. However, she said, in Japan they still vote for the LDP, despite the decade long recession. The LDP is so large that there are various factions inside the party warring over things. The current prime minister is considered quite flamboyant and rebellious. He says he wants to institute many economic reforms to help pull the country out of its recession. I'm curious if it will work or not.

Recently the Prime Minister dissolved parliament, which means we are having another election right now. This one is just as annoying as the last election. I wouldn't mind the elections, except it means there are vans driving around the town, or parked at popular locations, blaring out loud political slogans. Sometimes they aren't even doing that, but just repeating "Thank you very much!" over and over again. How annoying! I can't believe they put up with all that noise pollution here. They will do it as early as 8am and as late as 9pm. You can hear the vans a long way away. I just hope the elections happen soon.

In some more bad news, one of my English teachers was gone from school all week. Normally Japanese teachers come to work even if they are violently ill and likely to infect everyone else at school, so I figured it was serious. Someone told me she was in the hospital. Another person hinted she might be depressed and at a psychiatrist. I don't know what the deal is, but I wrote her a card and sent it today. I hope she is okay. She's one of my favorite teachers, because she is very funny, and good at teaching.

Last Friday I did a special Halloween party for my elementary school students. I dressed up the stuffed animals I always take to class with me, and had them do a little skit to explain trick-or-treating. I think the students got it, but you never really know. I think they were very surprised that we really did it.

At night, we went to a Halloween party in the nearby city of Uozu. It was fun, but a little expensive, since it was all-you-can-drink. We had a best costume competition (Wolverine won, followed by a nun and an old lady). The boobie prizes (a pair of plastic breasts) went to Colin, who dressed up as a cardboard box. It was pretty funny. We took the midnight train home and collapsed.

On Saturday, I helped out at a "juku" Halloween party. "Juku" is cram school. Cram school is highly recommended for students to help them get the edge on other students when applying for high school or university. Some students go to juku all the time, but many only go once or twice a week. One of my student's mother runs an English cram school, and she got me and another ALT to help out with her Halloween party. I helped out last year, too. This year there weren't as many students overall, but there were more students from my school who came. It was pretty fun, but took longer than I thought it would. Afterwards, they gave us sushi for dinner.

On Sunday, Victoria and I went to Kanazawa, a nearby large city. We visited Kenrokuen, which I've been to several times. It's a beautiful garden. This time, the leaves were changing color on some of the trees, so it was very pretty. Afterwards we went to the Garlic-garlic restaurant that we really like. We ended up in the worst possible seats though, jutting out into a place a lot of people walked by. It was a nice dinner, but at the end a giant engagement party came and they were pretty festive. That evening, we went to a bar I had seen that I thought looked neat. It was a really mellow place, with a pub sort of feeling. They even had cool non-alcoholic cocktails. A bar like that is a rare find in Japan.

Monday was a national holiday, so we just stayed in Kanazawa on Sunday night. We went to a temple that is nicknamed the Ninja Temple, because it has tons of traps and secret rooms and staircases to hide troops and spy on people from. It was really neat, and good practice for our Japanese since we had to go on a tour in Japanese to see it.

I've found that I quite like teaching. It feels good to help people understand, and you can see the kids getting better all the time. However, it really bugs me when a student doesn't even want to try. I feel so frustrated, because I'll often walk them through a sentence or exercise step by step if they need that much help. But if they won't even repeat one word, then what can you do? I find it particularly frustrating in Japan, because there is no way for kids to catch up when they fall behind. All the kids will pass English I and go onto English II, even if they got a 0 in English I. This means the kids who don't try now can never really have a chance to try later on, even if they should change their minds.

Last Saturday I went to my elementary school's school festival. Horikawa (my junior high school) doesn't have a school festival, but most other schools do. Often they include crafts, food, singing, and presentations. Some of the technical high schools have things like fighting sumo robots, from what I hear. My elementary school is quite small (90 students), so they didn't have anything that fancy. First 5 of the 7 classes made presentations simultaneously. I visited the special class, which only has two students for about 20 minutes. They two girls were really embarrassed, because there were three teachers there watching. I was sad that the girls' parents didn't come. Almost every other student in the school had a parent who came to watch. After awhile I went to the other classes, grades 1, 3, 4, and 5. I caused quite a commotion in some of the classes, because the students didn't know I was coming. I tried to sneak in, so as to not interrupt their presentations, but I was always spotted. The presentations often included a song, a story, and a quiz. The first year students went around interviewing the parents (and me).

The second part of the festival was held in the gym. They have a stage in the gym, too. The 2nd graders put on a presentation for everyone about going around the neighborhood and interviewing local workers. They interviewed someone from the train station, a shoe store, and the castle. I couldn't understand everything they said. The 6th graders put on a play for us, called Melos. It seemed to be Greek or Roman, but I didn't know the story. All I know is that it involved crucifying two of the students (they were cut down later), so that was interesting. For a finale, all the students sang some songs together. They were pretty good, actually. It was a lot of fun, and makes me wonder why Horikawa doesn't do it, too. The only thing we have at my junior high school is a choral competition, which is this Friday. However, the whole school doesn't come to the competition. It's done one grade at a time, and the other students have class.

I found out today there is a new student in one of my classes. He is a first year student, and he started coming in September. He is Chinese, and he doesn't speak any Japanese. I imagine he'll have to learn quickly. He got pulled from English class today to go study Japanese, and I noticed that he is using the same book I use. However, he's way behind me. I hope he does well, because it has to be difficult for him. I don't think any of the teachers speak any Chinese, so that can't be easy. He doesn't speak English, either.

Back to the grind again! I'm pretty busy this week with planning a couple big lessons, and teaching them. There's just one thing that really bothers me. It's vegetables at lunch.

Almost every day, we are given cabbage as our lunch vegetable. What's their problem? They have some sort of cabbage obsession. And if it's not cabbage (5%) of the time, it's baby cucumbers. Or often it's cabbage and baby cucumbers. Surely they could give us a different vegetable every once in awhile!

Anyway, yesterday was my brother Keith's birthday. Happy Birthday Keith! I gave him his present when the family came to visit in July, so I don't need to send anything home now. I have been researching about sending things home, since I don't think I can fit it all on the plane on the way home. Apparently I can ship 30kg via surface mail for about 110 dollars. Not too bad... Of course, it will take months to get there, so I'll just ship my winter things back in the spring. For twice the price, I can have it arrive in two weeks. I don't know if it is worth it to have my sweaters waiting for me, though.

This Friday is Halloween, and a bar in Uozu, a city near Toyama, is having its annual Halloween Party. They've invited us JETs to come, too. In fact, we're part of their advertising (real, live foreigners), but we don't get a discount. Someone suggested we should have a patent on the use of the "gaijin" label. The party should be fun, but it is one of those really annoying things where we have to pay for all-you-can-drink. I find it really annoying, since I don't drink, and rarely consume enough juice and soft drinks to make it worth the money. This one costs 4,000 yen (about 35 dollars or so).

I'm reaching new heights of boredom at work. I have no classes this week, due to the mid-term tests which are Thursday and Friday. This means I've become bored. I am mostly focusing on next week's lesson, and on my elementary lessons for the next two weeks.

I've decided to do something special for Halloween for my elementary school. I'm going to have a little treasure hunt around the school. I'll even give them candy at the end. However, they can't read, so I need to make lots of tapes to play for them.

I also take three stuffed animals to elementary school every week. They have names, and the students know them and like them. So I have decided to dress them up in Halloween costumes and have a little puppet show with them to explain trick-or-treating. I think it'll be cool.

I had a big demonstration class yesterday. About half the junior high English teachers and ALTs came to my school to watch one of two demonstration classes. I helped with the 3rd year student class. There was also a 1st year class. The teachers could choose which class to go watch, but most ALTs watched my class, since it was team teaching. The other class was team teaching, but with two Japanese teachers.

For our lesson, we tried to get the students to speak to foreigners in English, and to practice using things like, "I don't understand," "Could you speak more slowly, please?" and "What does _______ mean? The students did pretty well, but I think they did better in practice. But with over 50 teachers packed into our tiny classroom, standing around them watching, I'm sure they were nervous. I was just hoping our students would learn that they can communicate in English, despite not having a strong mastery of it. I think they did accomplish that goal, and were able to communicate, despite the cultural differences.

After the team teaching class, we had a meeting where all the teachers gather and then we have to talk about what we liked and didn't like about the lesson, etc. My Japanese teacher was really scared, though. She told me I had to answer all the ALT's questions since she didn't speak English well. She said she would answer the Japanese teachers' questions. However, this was kind of a trick since Japanese people generally think it is rude to talk about things in front of lots of people. Basically it meant I would answer nearly all the questions. But I didn't really mind fielding the questions, so I agreed.

My teacher and I each had to make a short speech about how the class went. My teacher pre-wrote some of her speech in English, but switched to Japanese after it was over. I find it really annoying that she spoke in Japanese since there were non-Japanese speakers present, and her English is plenty good enough. In fact, she seemed totally embarassed to speak in English. This is particularly ironic, since the lesson we just had was about how it was okay to communicate in English when you aren't good (however, she's actually one of my most fluent teachers). I felt like I was sitting next to one of my students who refuses to speak.

One Japanese teacher finally asked her a question and she answered in a timid little voice that I doubt many people heard. Despite the fact that the Japanese teacher asked the question in English, Ms. Shouman answered in Japanese! It was really embarassing. Then one of the ALTs asked me a question about something Ms. Shouman had decided to do at the last minute without consulting me (why did we record the students' conversations?). I passed the question on to her, but she didn't seem to understand it. It was a really easy question, and she should've been able to understand it. I had to repeat it and simplify it so she would get it. I didn't want to put pressure on her like that, but I had no idea of the answer. She finally gave an answer to the ALT, but in Japanese! I had to ask another ALT who speaks Japanese what her answer was. Ms. Shouman looked absolutely terrified throughout the whole process. I couldn't tell if she was going to pee in her pants, cry, or what. She looked like an awful mess. I found this a little strange since she was fine during the actual class.

Afterwards my supervisor at the city hall spoke. She was kind of funny though, because she basically said something really blunt and un-Japanese about how the lesson was a failure since students weren't using the grammar point enough, despite the successful communications that were going on. It was a humorous that she said that, though. Somehow it didn't seem malevolent so much as a "better luck next time" sort of thing.

The meeting lasted about 50 minutes, until 4pm. Then the ALTs got to go home, but the Japanese teachers had to stay longer. Anyway, I'm just glad it's over so I have one less thing to worry about right now.

Last Friday I sent money home using a new, more secure way, and I found out today it was successful. It costs 400 yen in Japan, and $12 to process it in America. It is cheaper than my old method of sending it via mail, plus it is safer, since it goes directly into my bank account. It seems great, but I haven't seen much on websites about life in Japan. Maybe I'll write something up about it and submit it to a website. Anyway, dad, it means you don't have to run to the post office for me anymore. Thanks though!

All the teachers have disappeared. I think all the first year teachers went to a concert with the students. I found out they're not coming back for lunch, so I get to eat with some of the older students. They are often better at talking, so it's a little more fun.

I've entered speech contest time. For some reason, every single English speech contest is scheduled for the same time. Last Thursday was a really big speech contest. Two of my girls entered it. It was during school, so I left at 11, and went with them to a building next to the art museum. There were about 5 other ALTs there with their students, and many Japanese English teachers. There were 32 students who made speeches. Each one had a limit of 5 minutes to talk. It went on until 4 or so. It was very long. I started drifting off during some of the speeches. My girls did well, but not well enough to win. The top three winners earn a place in the national English speech contest in Tokyo.

I also went to a speech contest with Victoria on Sunday morning. I went to this same contest last year, too. It is sponsored by the Toyama University of International Studies. The guy who yelled at me about English club when I first came to my school was the chief judge at the contest and is an English professor at the University. In the junior high school division, they only accept 5 students (22 applied this year), so it was great that one of mine got in. She did well, and tied for second place. I think she could've gotten first if she had practiced with me, but she is really busy right now.

Also, there is an English skit competition this Saturday that two of my girls are in. I am getting a little overwhelmed by speech contests!

I did other things around Toyama this weekend, besides speech contests. On Friday, Victoria organized a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, with karaoke afterwards. I organized a dinner for the new JETs at this restaurant back in August, and I typed up an English translation of the menu for the new JETs. When I left, I gave the restaurant a copy. Well, it turns out that they made a whole nice looking English menu based on the translation I did. It was almost word for word what I had written. It really made my day that they put it to such good use. Karaoke was a lot of fun, but several people who were going to come chickened out instead.

Saturday Victoria and I got up early and went to Oyama town, where a friend of ours lives. Erin rounded up some JETs for an Oyama international event (they always do cool stuff). Last year they had soba-making, but this year they had a glass blowing workshop. A woman in the town has a large workshop where she makes the stuff. She showed us how to do it, then helped us to realize our designs. It was really cool, but it took a long time for all 13 of us to make what we wanted. I was number 11, so I had a really long wait. I ended up making a cool looking blue flower vase. I was really happy with the way it came out. We didn't get home until 5ish, though, so it was a tiring day.

Here are pictures from our Hiroshima and Fukuoka trip:

1) Victoria with the Hiroshima Peace Bell
2) Victoria with the kids who helped us make paper cranes
3) A man prays in front of the cenotaph
4) Miyajima ferry ride with the torii in the background
5) Victoria overwhelmed by deer
6) The deer eating Victoria's map
7) These girls saw Victoria's map get eaten, and used their map as bait
8) Me with a baby deer
9) Floating torii
10) Victoria with the floating torii
11) Miyajima Itsukushima Shrine
12) Miyajima town street
13) The view from the top of the mountain on Miyajima Island
14) Humorous monkey sign 1
15) Humorous monkey sign 2
16) Humorous monkey sign 3
17) Victoria poses with the world's largest rice scoop (apparently they were invented in Miyajima)
18) Fukuoka City Street
19) Victoria at the Fukuoka Harbor
20) Fukuoka Harbor scene
21) Plane watching at the harbor tower
22) It was Asian month in Fukuoka (isn't every month Asian month in Japan?)
23) Yatai stands in Fukuoka (portable ramen trucks that come out at night by the river)
24) Friends we made at a bar in Fukuoka
25) Ohori Park lake in Fukuoka (we rowed around the lake)
26) A Japanese garden in Ohori Park
27) Victoria in the Japanese garden
28) For the Brits out there: the shopping area called "Ming"

The new ALT, Jo, seems to be having a little trouble with her lesson plan today. She says she's done the same lesson plan at her other school and it worked well. Here it isn't working too well. She's asked me where the highest building is, and the nearest train tracks. I take those things to mean she isn't very happy with the classes today.

She's from Ireland, and pretty friendly. I think she's just having a little bit of trouble adjusting to teaching. I think my students aren't at as high a level of English as her students are. After all, the elementary kids I teach every week end up going to her school, and they're superstars at English.

I had an interesting conversation with two of the office ladies today. They asked if we studied Romaji in elementary school in America. I was a little confused by the question, so I asked if they meant if we studied Japanese. (Romaji is the way of writing Japanese with Roman letters (a-z)). I had to explain that Romaji was just for Japanese and that English uses the same letters, but of course, it is English, not Japanese. They hadn't really thought about that. I pointed out that French, Spanish, and German all used the same letters, with some slight variations.

I'm getting ready for a big demonstration class in October. Half the English teachers from junior high schools in the prefecture will be coming to it. We're doing it with the third-year students, so they know a little English. I'm worried they're going to be nervous with the 40 people or so watching them, and not want to speak out at all. The teacher I'm doing it with is not one of my favorite teachers to work with right now. I used to love working with her, but my feelings have changed recently. Now I just feel stressed out working with her, because she acts very Japanese. Sometimes she will tell me she likes some idea, then just go behind my back and change it. I'd rather she just tell me straight out that she doesn't like it, instead of lying and then doing something else.

Anyway, she's become very stressed out about the lesson plan and is worried about how it will go. She asked me for ideas, and I told her about three different ideas, but she didn't like any of them. She asked me to write a skit for it, and then didn't like the skit. Now she wants me to rewrite the skit for a third time. My English supervisor has indicated this is a top priority, however, so I guess I will work on this instead of teaching as many classes as I normally would. I think how well we do will partially reflect upon how good other teachers think the students are. This is apparently the only demonstration class this year, so it is considered a big deal.

My teacher seems to have turned into a kleptomaniac, too. I think she stole my pencil and my list of ALTs. I think she just keeps grabbing things absent-mindedly.

At least the demonstration class will be over in two weeks. Then I'll be safe.

Two weekends ago, Victoria and I took a long 4-day trip to the west of Honshu, the main island in Japan. We took a limited express train down to Kyoto (nearly 3 hours). Then we took a shinkansen to Hiroshima. We rode on the Nozomi shinkansen, which is slightly more expensive but is the fastest shinkansen in service. The Nozomi is the only one that is not included in the Japan Rail Pass, so my family has never ridden one. The shinkansen got us there in under 1.5 hours, which is quite impressive since the distance from Kyoto to Toyama and Kyoto to Hiroshima are about the same. We were going nearly twice as fast.

Normally we would've taken the cheaper and slightly slower shinkansen, but it was Friday night, so we were arriving quite late (11pm). The slower shinkansen would've gotten in after 11:30pm, so we figured we'd pay more to get there on time.

I found a hotel on the internet called Flex Hotel, that had really good prices, so we had a reservation there. We checked in late, but didn't go to bed immediately. Across the street was a Royal Host, an awesome family restaurant. They had a drink bar with fresh hot cocoa and coffee, orange juice, and pink lemonade. We ordered some tacos and sandwiches and had drink bars. It was great.

The hotel was quite nice, too. It was spartan, but very affordable (7,350 yen for a double). That's about a little under 60 dollars.

The next morning we started out the day with a pancake, bacon, egg, and yogurt breakfast at the Royal Host for 5 dollars. It was very good, and we had the same breakfast the next day. While we were in the restaurant, we noticed a lot of Mormons walking around below. We saw about 5 of them, which is a lot more than we normally see, thought there are some in Toyama. We thought maybe there was a church near the area our hotel was in.

We walked down the street towards the Peace Park. We ran into three high school girls and I thought I heard one of them say hello. But when we looked at them, they were just talking in Japanese. I said something to Victoria about if they said hello, and then they stopped and we were very friendly. They pretty much just talked to Victoria, but I followed their conversation. They were making all sorts of cute girlie noises upon hearing that we were boyfriend and girlfriend. They were 17 and 18 years old, in their last year of high school. They asked us if we were in high school, too! I was really surprised, since that was the first time I was asked that in Japan. It turns out that there are a lot of foreigners living in Hiroshima, and some of them have kids in school. In Toyama, it is rare to find foreign kids in school, especially past elementary school. Still, I don't know that we looked that young. They were shocked we were teachers.

After talking to them for a little while, we let them go to school, and we kept walking down the road. We passed by Hiroshima castle, but didn't go in. It was rebuilt in concrete after the war, so it's not very authentic. Toyama castle is the same way. I like visiting the wooden ones though, they are impressive.

We made our way to the Peace Park through an underground shopping mall that followed the tram line for a ways. We found a 300 yen store there (normally they are 100 yen stores) with slightly nicer stuff. We also found a great foreign food store, with lots of different things in it.

The first thing we saw in the Peace Park was the Genbaku Dome. It was one of the only buildings left partially standing after the bomb hit. It was brick and concrete, so it didn't catch on fire like the wooden houses did. It was very close to the epicenter of the blast. It is falling down, but they have propped it up. They want it to remain in the condition it was in after the blast forever.

After looking at the dome, we went across the river to the main part of the park. We saw the Children's Memorial, where a group of kids were convincing people to fold paper cranes for peace. They cautiously shyly approached us and asked us to fold one. So we asked them how. One girl demonstrated and we folded them. It was a lot of fun, and they seemed really happy to be able to communicate with us. At the children's memorial, they hang paper cranes, because a girl who got leukemia from the radiation had folded 1,000 paper cranes. It is superstition that if you fold 1,000 cranes, you get a wish. She hoped to get better, but she didn't, unfortunately. So they ended up building a Children's Memorial, and collecting cranes sent from around the world.

Nearby was a peace bell, which we both rang. It reverberated for a long time. Then we walked past the cenotaph, where a flame will burn until all nuclear weapons are abolished from Earth. Next we visited the atomic bomb museum. It is very cheap (50 yen) so that everyone can afford to go. I rented a headset, but Victoria said she didn't want one.

The museum was very complete, with some video footage, and tons of pictures. The before and after the bomb pictures were very shocking. Nearly the whole town was completely destroyed. A handful of concrete buildings were about all that were left standing. Schools, a hospital, and a bank, were most of the buildings left. The enormous heat generated by the bomb burned up the wooden houses. Apparently a lot of people survived the bomb, but died trapped in their houses, caught in fires. It was very sad. There were many parents who lost their children. The children weren't going to school. Instead, the classes were used for war preparation, like destroying houses to make fire lanes. So a lot of children were downtown when the bomb exploded, but their parents may have been in the outskirts of town and survived.

The thing that was surprising at the museum was the list of telegrams. The mayor of Hiroshima always sends a telegram to the leader of any country that performs a nuclear test, asking them to stop nuclear testing and disarm their weapons. I was surprised to see a number of recent American tests. Apparently we are performing what they call "sub-critical tests," where there is no detonation. Some of it is computer-based. I fear we will see another nuclear explosion within the next 50 years, based on the number of countries that seem to want the bomb right now.

I find the world stance on nuclear weapons a little questionable. It seems like the purpose of many world treaties is to prevent new countries from gaining nuclear weapons, not to try to dismantle any of the existing ones. Basically, the countries with nuclear weapons want to preserve the status quo. I hardly find it surprising that countries like Iran or North Korea, that feel threatened by America want nuclear weapons. It seems like the only thing that might deter the U.S. Or course, America doesn't want them to have the weapons, since that would pose a threat to us. But it is hardly fair to say that Iran can't do nuclear tests, while America continues them.

After the museum, we were pretty hungry and drained. So we got a snack to tide us over for dinner. Then we wandered around the covered shopping street (there's one in every city) until we got to the restaurant area. We had hiroshima-yaki for dinner. It's Hiroshima's speciality. It is onomiyaki (kind of like an omelette) with yaki-soba (fried noodles) on the inside.

After dinner, we wandered around looking for a bar that was in our guidebooks. It was called Snappers. We went to where it should've been, but couldn't find it. Eventually we asked someone. They said it had closed down a couple years ago. Darn out of date guidebooks! They recommended we go to a place called Mac. It was close-by and very cool. It was run by two Japanese hippies. They spoke English very well, and had a very large CD collection. We even made some requests. The guy in charge of the music was very funny, and when he found out I was from North Carolina, he secretly put on "Carolina in My Mind" by James Taylor to see if I would notice. I thought it was funny. Anyway, we met some Japanese women there and a guy from New York, Dale. This guy was pretty intense. He was an ex-Nova (a private English language company in Japan) teacher. He talked a lot about how much he hated Nova. I think he was there for only 8 months before leaving. Dale was heading back to the U.S. Before he went back, he was travelling around Japan for a month. He was very friendly though. I think he was a little lonely since he was travelling by himself.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel, but left our bags there. After another great breakfast, we took a train to Miyajima Ferry. The ferry took us across the bay to the island Miyajima. It is famous for being one of the most beautiful places in Japan. There is a torii there that floats in the water (during high tide). Also, the island is filled with deer, like in Nara. The deer come up to you and eat out of your hands. Or, in Victoria's case, they rip the tasty tourist map right out of your hands and eat it in front of you, ignoring your pleas for them to stop. I guess they deer thought paper was tasty, because after eating Victoria's map, we saw another one being lured by two Japanese girls who saw Victoria's map get eaten. They were using the map as bait to have the deer get close to the camera for a picture. It was pretty funny. There were lots of baby deer around too, so they were very cute.

We went to the torii, but it was low tide, so you could walk right out to it. We also visited the shrine, which was built on stilts and by the water. There was a traditional wedding going on at the shrine, which was cool to see. Most Japanese don't do traditional weddings anymore, instead preferring the Western-style wedding.

There is a "mountain" on the island, which is 540 meters high. You can either hike up one of several trails to the top, or hike part of the way and take two cable cars to near the top. We were a little short on time, so we took the cable cars up. It was very pretty there, and the weather was great (it rained the day before). Victoria concluded that we chose the best days to do each of the activities. At the end of the cable cars was a monkey viewing area, but the monkeys were "in the forest feeding." Several people who went there recently told me the monkeys were in the forest when they came, too. Oh well. Instead of monkeys, there were some very funny signs about the monkeys which I hope to put on my website.

To get to the top was a twenty minute walk, because you had to go back down a little way before you could go up. We just walked a little bit of the trail then turned back. After we took the cable cars down, we bought some omiyage (customary gifts) for our teachers and headed back to the ferry. We went back to Hiroshima and collected our stuff. Then we were off to Fukuoka / Hakata, the last city (with two names because two cities merged) on the shinkansen line. It was about an hour away. We stayed at a Toyoko Inn. Toyoko Inns are a chain across Japan that are really cheap, with good service. Many of the hotels are very new looking, also. Plus they have an English reservation service online. With all these benefits, we always look for one. We first stayed in one in Sapporo, and have been hooked since. There's even a Toyoko Inn, Jr. in Toyama that I didn't know about.

We went to a place called Canal City for dinner that night. It was built next to a river, and contained a lagoon between the three or four shopping buildings in the complex. The lagoon shot up an impressive display of water jets and had some cool fountains. We found a nice looking Italian restaurant next to a bar with a live singer. This made for a very enjoyable evening. We were going to go to the bar afterwards, but the singer finished right when we were going in, so we decided to go back to the hotel.

In Fukuoka, there aren't many obvious tourist attractions like in Hiroshima, but it is a nice city with some things nearby (a famous temple). We decided to skip the outskirts and just enjoy the city, though. We first went back to Canal City. We discovered some of it that we hadn't seen before, and went shopping. I found a 300 yen ($2.50) shirt at GAP. It was marked down from 4,000 yen to this clearance price, so I couldn't resist. Victoria bought a nice pair of pants to wear to school. Afterwards, we had lunch at Wendy's (yes, the fast food chain). I hadn't eaten at a Wendy's in over 14 months, so I couldn't resist. Victoria had never eaten at one. Actually just like at home, as far as the menu goes. KFC and McDonald's have many different choices, and don't have some of the same stuff as at home, so I was surprised that Wendy's was the same. Of course, maybe this approach isn't working well, since I've only seen Wendy's in Fukuoka and Tokyo.

Afterwards, we headed toward the Asian Art Museum, which was on the top floors of another shopping center. The museum was quite interesting, but small. I tend to get a little overwhelmed by museums after too long, so it was the perfect size for me. It meant I could see a lot but not get too tired.

Then, we went to the shopping center where the Asian Art Museum was located. It was filled with really expensive designer stores. Every one of the stores seemed to sell expensive handbags. They had Louis Vitton (very popular in Japan), Gucci, and some other ones, whose names I don't remember. We didn't buy anything (obviously), but we had fun marvelling at the price tags that were half our annual salary.

Then we walked further north to the harbor. There we found the harbor tower and went up it (free). It was actually quite a cool thing to see the whole city laid out. They had a free telescope/binocular thing which we used to look at things that were very far away. The airport is actually quite close to the city, and you could see planes taking off and landing with some regularity. Plane-watching is one of Victoria's favorite pastimes.

After around an hour in the tower, we walked to Tenjin Station, a private station, and another central commercial hub. Fukuokans really seem to like shopping. The station was about three shopping malls put together with a train and bus station also. From there, we started looking for ramen stalls (yatai) by the river. We found one with a small line (we were afraid to go to an empty one) and they gave us ramen and were very nice to us. Fukuoka specializes in tonkotsu ramen, ramen with a white broth. It tasted very good.

We debated whether to do some karaoke or not, but decided to go directly to a nearby bar. Unfortunately, we got totally lost by the directions in her book, and the map in my book. I misread the map and we went to the wrong building first. Then her book said the bar was west of a particular street, when it was one block east of the street. So we spent nearly an hour before finding it. It was fine, though, since it only started to pick up once we got there. At first we were in the bar near some Japanese "rap-style" guys. They basically were wearing lots of clothes they had observed in rap videos, from what we could tell. Anyway, the D.J. that night decided to blast the music to try to deafen us. After shouting for awhile, we moved to a quieter corner of the bar. One of the owners of the bar was there, and engaged us in conversation. He was from New York, and had been running the place for 10 years. He was a nice guy, but his boasts about having a great hamburger were a little misplaced. It came out very well done: too much so for my liking.

After a little bit, three Japanese guys came and wanted to practice their English with us. They were really nice, and we talked with them until we wanted to go home. We were probably just going to walk home, but they said they lived nearby (a blatent lie, we think) and two of them took us back to our hotel in a taxi. So four of us crammed into the taxi and they dropped us off at our hotel. Victoria offered to pay for the taxi, but they wouldn't have any of it. So we got out, said goodbye and went in the hotel. Shortly thereafter, Victoria realized that the pants she had toted around all day from GAP were still in the taxi. I tried calling our new friends to see if they knew which company the taxi was, but they didn't. I couldn't remember the taxi's color, so the hotel receptionist (an exceptionally nice woman) called a bunch of the taxi companies to try to find out. We had no luck, and the taxi lost and found was closed the next day because of a public holiday. Victoria was quite disappointed.

The next morning we took the subway to Ohori-koen, a lake-park in the middle of the city. We wented a row boat for 30 minutes, and I took Victoria around the lake. It was very pretty and fun. We walked to the art museum (a different one), but there was a line of 100 people trying to get in. I think there was a special exhibition or it was free or something. Regardless, we didn't have enough time to wait in line and then see the museum. So we went to a nearby Japanese garden (built 10 years ago) which was nice.

We headed back to the train station and had a nice lunch at a Korean restaurant. Then we went back to the hotel and got our stuff. The rest of Tuesday was spent on trains going home (6 hours). Overall, it was an awesome trip, and lots of fun. The only bad thing was losing the pants. I've been to Shikoku, Hokkaido, and Kyushu in the last two months. Not bad, considering a lot of Japanese people haven't been to all four main islands (Honshu being the other one).

Recently Hokkaido had the world's largest earthquake for this year. It was an 8.0 on the Reichter scale. I couldn't feel it though. Hokkaido is quite a ways to the north and east of Toyama.

The good news is that Hokkaido is not very populated, so there weren't many people hurt. I think two fisherman are feared swept out to sea in the tsunami after the earthquake. Those are the only fatalities, though. There was an oil refinery fire, too, but no one was hurt.

Surprisingly, no one at work even said anything to me about it. I figured they'd be talking about it a lot, but I think they are also quite used to earthquakes. Since this one wasn't in a highly populated area, I think they weren't very worried about it.

Hmmm... maybe I felt a very small earthquake just now. I can't really tell. I could feel my floor shaking, but it was pretty minor. Definitely not something to be worried about, just curious. I'll have to ask someone when I get back from Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

In August I volunteered to help the Toyama sports stadium hold an event with elementary kids one Saturday evening. They took our bank account details to reimburse us for transportation, and give us a "little present." It was about 4 hours of my time total. Today I got a letter from them that they are giving us 11,000 yen! That's about 90 dollars! It's a ridiculous amount for something that we wanted to do and volunteered for. It's kind of a tradition in Japan to give some present or money to people who volunteer. For helping at a Halloween party, I got 5,000. English camp in Tateyama: 5,000 in book gift certificates. Helping at a New Year's Party: 2,000 in book gift certificates. Now this new money.

While I appreciate that they want to give us something to say thanks, I just wish they would say it, or give us some pizza or something. It kind of cheapens the volunteer experience when it turns out you're actually getting paid to do it.