Back from hiatus...
Sorry for the long break recently- there's been a lot going on this past month, not to mention that June and July are basically the busiest months of the year at work. This is because the kindergartens I teach at (there are 5) try to cram in as many classes as possible before summer break/fall arrives. But my kindergarten classes are mostly finished for the summer, which means I just have a few weeks left before my vacation!
So here are some highlights of what I've been up to the last month:
At the end of June, my friend from college, Ellen, came to visit me in Sendai. Ellen lived in Japan for about 12 years, went to grad school in Portland which is how we met, and then went off to the Netherlands to teach at an international school there. I always enjoy hanging out with Ellen, since we have so many common interests. She brought me some wonderful Dutch souvenirs, including stroopwaffel cookies and cheese! Good cheese is extremely expensive and hard to find in Japan, so I decided to throw a fondue party and share the goodness.
Ellen came to Sendai in order to volunteer in the tsunami-affected areas nearby. On my day off, I joined her in volunteering in Ishinomaki. Ishinomaki is a coastal town that was hit hard by the tsunami and the damage there is still pretty overwhelming. The entire downtown area looks as if it were hit by a bomb, with buildings completely collapsed or barely standing and mud everywhere. It was raining hard the day we went, so we helped out at a photo restoration center. Volunteer organizations have been saving photos and other important personal items, cleaning them up, and placing them in centers for locals to come find.
For the most part I didn't take any photos in Ishinomaki because volunteers are strongly cautioned against "disaster tourism", but here are a couple of the few I did take.
Following Ellen's visit, I went with some friends for an overnight stay at an onsen. Onsen are hot springs, and the one we visited was in a small onsen town called Akiu, about 40 minutes by bus from Sendai. Thanks to the quake, the prices at onsen hotels have been incredibly low lately so we decided to take advantage of that by renting out a big room for our group. We had a great time relaxing in the onsen, playing drinking games in our room and exploring the hotel, which had karaoke booths, an arcade and gift shops. We also took lots of silly photos in our yukata!
The next event was a 4th of July party with my other American friends in Sendai. It was actually a very international group, with lots of people from other countries around the world, so it was more of a 4th of July/Canada Day/Midsummer/etc. Party. We special ordered baby-back ribs from The Meat Guy and had a BBQ down by the Hirose River downtown. After it got dark we lit off some little Japanese fireworks.
I will save my other adventures for the following posts before this one gets much longer. You can look forward to: a review of my new Kindle, Sendai's Rokkonsai Festival and hiking in Yamagata Prefecture.
So here are some highlights of what I've been up to the last month:
At the end of June, my friend from college, Ellen, came to visit me in Sendai. Ellen lived in Japan for about 12 years, went to grad school in Portland which is how we met, and then went off to the Netherlands to teach at an international school there. I always enjoy hanging out with Ellen, since we have so many common interests. She brought me some wonderful Dutch souvenirs, including stroopwaffel cookies and cheese! Good cheese is extremely expensive and hard to find in Japan, so I decided to throw a fondue party and share the goodness.
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| Mm, cheese and stroopwaffel... and! Sprinkles for toast!! |
Ellen came to Sendai in order to volunteer in the tsunami-affected areas nearby. On my day off, I joined her in volunteering in Ishinomaki. Ishinomaki is a coastal town that was hit hard by the tsunami and the damage there is still pretty overwhelming. The entire downtown area looks as if it were hit by a bomb, with buildings completely collapsed or barely standing and mud everywhere. It was raining hard the day we went, so we helped out at a photo restoration center. Volunteer organizations have been saving photos and other important personal items, cleaning them up, and placing them in centers for locals to come find.
For the most part I didn't take any photos in Ishinomaki because volunteers are strongly cautioned against "disaster tourism", but here are a couple of the few I did take.
Following Ellen's visit, I went with some friends for an overnight stay at an onsen. Onsen are hot springs, and the one we visited was in a small onsen town called Akiu, about 40 minutes by bus from Sendai. Thanks to the quake, the prices at onsen hotels have been incredibly low lately so we decided to take advantage of that by renting out a big room for our group. We had a great time relaxing in the onsen, playing drinking games in our room and exploring the hotel, which had karaoke booths, an arcade and gift shops. We also took lots of silly photos in our yukata!
The next event was a 4th of July party with my other American friends in Sendai. It was actually a very international group, with lots of people from other countries around the world, so it was more of a 4th of July/Canada Day/Midsummer/etc. Party. We special ordered baby-back ribs from The Meat Guy and had a BBQ down by the Hirose River downtown. After it got dark we lit off some little Japanese fireworks.
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| Nothing says "4th of July" like BBQ and beer! |
Okay the Onsen picture might be my new favorite picture ever! I'm so happy you're blogging about your adventures again. Not to harp on Rose and Teal.
ReplyDeleteI love that onsen picture, but it'd be even cooler if you could see the chandelier better- it had tacky colored fruits hanging from it, thus the pose.
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking about the blog today, I might have been lazy and not posted again otherwise... :)