Over the Past Few Weeks...

Wow, this past couple of weeks have been a blur. I have been pretty busy with my different activities and school visits. I realized that teaching in Japan has been on of the best thing so far on this journey abroad. My work with the students and the teachers makes me so happy, and I realize that it's exactly the kind of job I am meant to do. If I were able to do a job like this in America, I would be so content. However, the part that I am really trying to get used to still is coming home to an empty apartment and spending the night by myself. I'm so used to a house full of people, whether it's family or roommates from collage. I have discovered that I really don't like being alone, but during the day it's amazing getting to be around great students and awesome teachers. It's so fun walking around the school confusing all the students because I speak English, yet I look exactly like them. Most of the students are always waving and saying "Hello! Stacy Sensei!" It really makes my day.
I get so excited at some of my "shougakko" elementary schools because they made special name tags for my desks and for my placement to eat lunch. Usually, for lunch at both the elementary and junior high schools, we eat "kyushouku" lunches. This is a constitution all on its own. Every student and teacher eats the same exact lunch and everyone has a job to set out and clean up the plates and food afterwards. They are around 230 yen ($2.30) for each lunch and it's usually rice or a big loaf of bread, milk, a side dish, and some kind of soup according to the season.



As for the days that we do not eat school lunches, they have us buy a 400 yen bento box which is around 4 dollars. It's actually quite a lot of lunch, but for some reason... I usually am hungry after eating it. HEHE...


It's amazing how many types of bugs you will find in Japan. If I took a picture of each strange bug I found, I would have hundreds, but I figured that would be a little too much, so I am posting some of the best ones. I found this on outside my house... I have no idea what it is. Some kind of leaf looking brown bug.


This HUGE dragonfly flew into the teachers office and wanted to take a picture of it, and one of the teachers helped me, but simply picking it up by it's wings. I was shocked that grabbed it like it was nothing. It was amazing. During the summer months, there were quite a few of bugs that travelled inside the teachers room, and the teachers didn't seem to care whatsoever.


While I was hiking to a Shinto shrine, I found so many different caterpillars all around me. They were all very colorful, and really wanted to know what kind of butterfly they end up turning into. Anyone know?


If you look closely, can you see the gigantic black butterfly? I wasn't able to capture a great picture of it, but I was amazed of its size and how it was completely black!

Ok, so I thought I liked spiders, but when I got to Japan, I started to change my mind. These spiders here are GIGANTIC! And they are soooo scary looking! I mean, this one is colorful, but you have no idea what kind of poisonous venom it might have.

I went and visited Matsuyama one weekend to meet up with Daisuke and a couple of other ALTs in the city. The day was well spent going to the oldest onsen in Japan called Dogo Onsen, walking around Matsuyama Castle, and having dinner at this incredible vegetarian restaurant. It was surely an awesome day. When we went to the castle, we found that there were Japanese dolls that were dressed up for the fall festival. For some odd reason the dolls were decorated with paper bunny hats... very strange.




We ate at the restaurant called Charlie's Vegetables, which was absolutely delicious! It was my first time eating at a vegetarian restaurant, and it was very good. They even had this gobo (burdock root) cream soup that was amazing!


One of the ALT David was displaying his artwork at a cafe after dinner and we all went to see his work. His paintings were so amazing and I had a great time talking to everyone.

While exploring Ozu one day, I discovered a quiet forest path that lead to beautiful scenery areas.



I have always loved renko, lotus root, but never know what the plant looked like. Apparently they are huge leafed plants that are grown in watery mud. It's sort of scary when biking along side of this field because their are huge bull frogs that make a lot of scary noises at night.


Ok, so I think I'm getting a lot better at cooking. I am actually very proud of myself for making such dishes that taste quite good. HEHEHE, I pretty much just make things up and they are packed with lots of vegetables!








During the week, I teach at Ekaiwa, which is English for Adults within the Ozu community. I was surprised to find out that the students in this class is really advanced compared to many people in the city. I was surprised that one of the lessons lead to a tangent about Shakespeare, which was a tangent that one of the students talked about. These are some of the pictures from the welcome Enkai or party that they threw for me the other day.

It's fun getting to know different people in Ozu. I met this one women who is known as "Ozu's foreigners' Mother". She's an amazing women and she had me meet up with her son and his friends at a food bloggers party. They are a group of people who meet up once a month to try new foods and different cuisines.