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.

This weekend we have yet another trip planned. We are going to Hiroshima and Fukuoka. There's a holiday next Tuesday, so we are taking a vacation day on Monday to take advantage of the potential four day weekend.

It's not cheap to go so far away. I think it will cost us about $300 in train fares round trip. Still it will be fun to have another vacation.

Fukuoka is the northernmost city in Kyushu, the third largest island. It's supposed to be a great place for foreigners and have a real cosmopolitan feel. I'm excited. We have a reservation at a chain of hotels that we've discovered. They are really great. We stayed at one in Sapporo, and this one is even cheaper.

Recently there's been a small scandal in our JET community. Actually, it involves one of last year's JETs that decided not to renew, but is living in Toyama still. Apparently the police were following some Japanese who were smoking pot, and he got caught with marijuana in the sting.

The Japanese treat having marijuana about as harsh as having heroine or cocaine. Plus, any amount will get you into deep trouble, not just having enough to sell. So currently he is in jail, as far as I've heard. If he's lucky, he'll just get a suspended sentence and deported from the country. Some past JETs have apparently served time for drug offenses.

Anyway, the prefectural leadership is really nervous about all the implications this might have on the JET program, etc. I think at the meeting today, one of the leaders is going to talk about not doing drugs. I already received a letter from my supervisor. She says that he is a current JET, though (which he isn't). I think that we'll feel a lot of pressure for a little while. I guess I'll have to stop my rampant drug use.

For Victoria's birthday, August 27, we went to Hokkaido. You can get cheap flights in Japan ($80 one way) during the week before and after your birthday. It's a good deal, so we wanted to take advantage of it.

We flew into Chitose airport in Hokkaido, and discovered we had just missed the bus to the Lake we wanted to go to. We wandered around the airport for about three hours waiting for the bus. It gave us a good chance to eat and watch the planes though. Lunch was pretty good. They have a lot of potatoes in Hokkaido, so we ate baked potatoes. Elsewhere in Japan, potatoes aren't a common food. Rice is much more popular.

Eventually the bus came and took us to Lake Shikotsu, a small tourist enclave next to a lake. The lake is the second deepest in Japan and never freezes, despite cold winters. It is surrounded by volcanoes. There are two older volcanoes which helped create the lake, and one newer one that still has toxic gases coming out of it.

There were several campsites around the lake, but only two we could get to. Some of our info suggested your could get a bus to either one, but we found out that only one of them had a bus still. I really wanted to go to the campsite with the sandy beach, Morrapu, which was a 3.5 km hike through the woods. So we headed there for our first night. It was a nice hike through the woods, but it was pretty steep, because we went up a mountain first, then down the other side. When we got to the camp, we saw that it was not sand at all, but dirt with lots of rocks. It wasn't very nice at all. They had a grassy area, but it was all roped off. We got there around 5 or 5:30, and were getting hungry again. However, we discovered that the restaurant and store that the campsite was supposed to have were closed for the year. I think it was only open June-mid August.

Luckily there were a couple food stands nearby, but they were closing. We rushed over there and bought some cooked potatoes, corn, and corn dogs. It was better than going hungry, but not the best meal ever. The office of the campsite was closed, so we just pitched a tent and then paid in the morning. We chose a place by the water that wasn't too rocky, and was far away from the other 6 tents on the beach. We went to bed early, as you are prone to do when camping.

However, we were woken up at 2am by some stupid college kids who decided to have a party about 10 meters from our tent! They were yelling and screaming at everything. Then they started shooting fireworks. Victoria was really funny, yelling loudly at them in English and stuff. They pretty much seemed to ignore us. Eventually they went away, though.

We feel back to sleep but were woken up at about 5am by 50 crows outside on the beach cawing loudly. They sounded a little like growling dogs.

The next morning we decided to change campsites, since there wasn't a bus at this one, plus it was being quite loud.

So we walked back to town and caught the bus to Poropinai campsite. We only had fifteen minutes or so before the next bus back to town (a two hour wait after that), so we quickly paid and set up the tent. We threw our stuff in and made the bus in time. The campsite wasn't much better, but was more private. The toilets were just pit toilets though, while the other one had been flush.

Back in town we rented bikes and then tried to bike to some mossy caves that are nearby (okay, 14 km away). However, Victoria decided to turn around because it was a lot of uphill biking. I pressed on, and then it started raining, so I got pretty soaked. I made it to the caves, to discover massive construction in the parking lot. Apparently they were rebuilding the visitor's center, so no cars could enter. I went on foot up to the caves and they were blocked off with do not enter signs. I wish the tourist information desk had mentioned this in their brochure. Apparently for a short time, you can't go into the caves. I took a picture and then left. It was a little frustrating, since I had biked so far.

I made it back faster due to a shortcut I discovered. It was a small gravel road that cut off about 3km of uphill / downhill. I don't know why they didn't recommend this route, either.

It was really raining at this point, so we returned the bikes and went to a log cabin cafe place that was nice and cozy. We took a bus back to our campsite and discovered our tent was in a bit of a perilous place. There was a decent amount of water around the tent, so we decided to rent a bigger, more waterproof tent from the campsite for 1,500 yen. It was nice and spacious and dry, so it was worthwhile.

The next day we ate breakfast at a nearby place and paddled around in a paddle boat. It was pretty fun, but it was a slow paddle boat. Victoria thought too much of the paddle was out of the water. However, we did have good views of the volcanoes today.

We got a bus to Sapporo and were in a big city once more. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel, which was only a year old, and really nice (plus cheap!).

We just wandered around the city, going to the city hall lookout, and a famous park, in addition to shopping places. The park is famous because Sapporo's famous snow festival is held there every year in February. It started to rain some, so we went back to check-in to the hotel. That night we went to the Garlic-Garlic restaurant. They have one near Toyama, but the menu was considerably different. I think our family went to the same restaurant in Shikoku, and the menu was different there, too.

We were planning on going out that night, but it had gotten a little late, and Victoria was having bad problems because of the smoke in the restaurant. So we just went back to the hotel instead.

The next day (Saturday) we had some of the best weather of the trip, which was nice. Our flight wasn't until 5:30, so we had some time to wander around the city. We took a bus which drove around the city and deposited us at the Sapporo Beer Museum. The museum had a short, free tour, where they explained the history of the company, and how to make beer. Then we ate lunch at their German-style beer hall. The food was quite good, actually.

Then we walked back to the station to do a little shopping before finally catching a train to the airport. Unfortunately, we checked in a little late, so we couldn't get a window seat. Victoria finds a window seating comforting, since she is terrified of flying. However, she did nobly after a bottle of whiskey.

We couldn't get a direct flight back to Toyama, so we had to fly to Tokyo on Saturday, and Toyama Sunday evening. So we ended up with 22 hours in Tokyo. Our hotel, Hotel New Park Ueno, was nicely priced and quite cozy. It was a little old, but we didn't suffer from it. We went out to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe, Tokyo - Ueno. It was pretty much like all the other Hard Rock Cafes, but Victoria had never been to one, and I quite fancied something more like at home.

Sunday we went to the center of town to visit the Imperial Gardens. In June, we tried to go there two other times but weren't able to because of rain and a park closure. So we were very happy to be able to go again. I was a little disappointed with the gardens, actually. They were not very decorative, like many Japanese gardens. Victoria liked this about it, but I didn't. To me it just looked like any old park in America. Some grassy fields, trees, and bathrooms.

This time we went to the airport early and got window seats for our flight back to Toyama. The weather in Tokyo was quite nice, so of course, when we arrived in Toyama, it was pouring down rain. Still, it was a really nice trip.

I think I have become the worst blog writer ever. Shame on me!

Sports Day was last weekend. It was supposed to be on a Saturday, but it rained. So they moved it to Sunday, which was fine. However, it kind of broke up the weekend, since we had Saturday and Monday off.

Most of the events were identical to last year, so there weren't any surprises. I even helped spot some of the people who were in more dangerous events. I ran a 70 meter sprint against the oldest boys, and got third place. We were neck and neck, so I wanted a photo finish. :)

Then I ran in the 1700 meter run later on. I think it's about 1700 meters, at least. It's hard to tell on the track, because it is much smaller than a regular one. I did okay, getting about 10th out of a field of 17. Not too bad, since I didn't train at all. I had really tight muscles after the race.

At the end of the day, they have a series of relays. The teachers participate against the first year boys. It was a lot of fun, but we teachers weren't very good at handoffs. Three different teachers fell down during handoffs. Luckily, I didn't fall down this year (I did last year). It's difficult to run on sand, so I took it slow on the curves this year, and tore it up on the straight parts. I ran one lap, which was about 200 meters. When I got the baton, we were about 20 meters behind, but I ran quickly and passed two of the boys. The guy I was handing off to started running really late though and wasn't going nearly as fast as I was. So I put on the brakes and then was about to run into him, so I tried to push him forward. Unfortunately, this meant he fell flat on his face. We quickly fell behind again. We stayed in the race though, and probably could've beaten one of the teams, but I don't think the principal wanted to pass the poor kid, because he was already in last place. Still, it was quite fun.

Some of the teachers dressed up like animals this year, too. We had a cow costume, two chickens, a hamster, and a rabbit. It was very funny watching them run in their costumes.