On Monday Lily and I stayed at Ginzn Onsen, an onsen Japanese hotspring bath-house/inn. It was in a quaint town called Ginzan. Our room was traditional Japanese,with tatami, futon, low table, and sliding doors. It also had all the modern amenties, a bathroom, phone,etc.. We looked out over a small river and a hillside full of trees in full autumn splendor. After hiking around the town and up to an old silver mine, (ginza mens silver) we put on our yukata (cotton kimono) and went for a bath. The bath was outside looking out at the hillside, the water was very hot  but relaxing.  We had dinner in a private dining room, 9 courses, including,imoni ( potato stew), a few strips of Yamagata beef cooked at the table, sushi, a smal grilled trout and much more. After dinner, and still in our Yukata we walked into town wearing geta. The walk was tricky as it was downhill, we rewarded ourselves by soaking our feet at the sidewalk public  footbath. It looked like rain so we tottered back for a bath in the rain, very cool. When we got back to the room our futons were set out for us. It was a very fun and much needed time away from work for Lily. She is excited to return in the winter.
 

lunch in Kamakura, all this for about $7                                      Yes they have Mac+Dons             Tonkatsu for lunch  for Lil,katsudon for 
                                                                                                                                                                           me

 On Saturday Nov 1, we drove to Matsushima, which is one of the 4 great views in Japan. it was a long but pretty drive over and through the mountains to Sendai, and then north up the coast to Matsushima. We had beautiful weather and walked along the shore. Matsushima is a bay with many small islands. It is a popular spot, with hotels and boat tours out in the bay. We didn't do the boat tour but enjoyed our walk in the woods on  the nearby islands.  There is an old Temple there and when we went to see it they were closing up, it was 4:30. The ticket guy said something about 5 o'clock and we noticed a poster with the temple lit up at night! It turned out that during November, the temple grounds are lit up at night with candles, torches and lights. We chilled out at a coffee shop and returned for the light show. It was amazing, not too crowded and really beautiful, they even had a guy playing a Japanese music on a flute.
    On the way home I said the famous last words " lets go home a different way" We had a map, in Japanese, and a full tank of gas , what could go wrong...We ended up getting sort of lost, it took alot longer to go anywhere and the roads here are differently marked so it was really confusing. When we finally got on the road that would lead us west over the mountains, it was a harrowing drive in the pitch black, and it got worse, there was contstruction and sometimes the road was down to one lane. Luckily we did not meet too many people coming the other way and they all were going as slowly as we were. When we finally got home after 3 1/2 hours of white knuckle driving I felt so bad I made Lily dinner. She for sure didn't want to go out any more.
    
 

 Halloween is not really celebrated in Japan. It is a curiosity because some store have Halloween items, candy, products with orange and black witches and pumpkins. In school yesterday we had pumpkin pudding with Halloween designs on the cover of the pudding cup. The kids would say "oh Halloween eh?' but  in school they did not dress up or decorate. One of the women Lily works with asked about what we do for Hallowen, and then asked what is the difference between that and Christmas. 
   School was good today, the school ahd 500 students. We played a counting game with the 1st graders, and Bingo with the 2nd grade. The classes with Lily are only 20 minutes long so it went very quickly.  At tis school thye raise chickens, rabbits, and parrotts. At lunch they asked me to give a short speech. I said i liked thier city very much, the mountains are beautiful and I enjoy the leaves changing colors. I did not take questions.
   Tonight we will go into Yamagata City, a 40 minute train ride, and go to a party at a Nepalese restaurant. I will meet more JETs, Lily's coworkers. Tomorrow is a big day of sightseeing.

My Lunch

 
The kids running a "marathon"


Lily doing her introduction to the class                                         Chillin' in the office between classes

  Today, lunch was much better than he one in this picture, Curry and salad. The shool was even smaller than yesterday, only 64 students. They were preparing for a pagent this weekend and so we got to see them dance and do some skits. The oddest thing was that the 2nd graders had a Bushido lesson. They used small Samurai type swords called Katana. 2 older men in tradtional dress taught the how to unsheath thier swords, and brandish them overhead, left and right. it was really more like a dance, although one girl cut her hand while replacing her sword in it's sheath, yes they were real swords!!! Class was good we worked with 3-4th grade. They were a bit more advanced at this school. One more thing, the school grows its own rice and vegetables, they gave me a bag of thier organic rice "grown without medicine'  rice as a gift.  

Today Lily taught at an elementary school in Sodasake, a small community in northern Murayama. We had tea with the principal before going to class.
 The school is very small, the 3rd grade class had only 7 kids. the entire school 1-6 grade has about 90 kids.The 3rd graders learned Left,Right and Straight. Lily drilled them for a while and then one of them was blindfolded and directed by the class using the new words, They had to get to a stuffed toy that the class had set up. It was fun and they really liked it.  Then the whole school had a running event, it was cold and a little rainy but the kids were enthusiastic.  For the next  2 classes,5th and 6th grades Lily did her introduction, she is very entertaining and good at gearing it to the kids skill level. She has them guess her age and shows them pictures of her family and Minnesota.
   School Lunch was okay, soup,Broccoli salad,potato croquet, and bread. Lily was surprised there was no rice, The kids serve up the food and then clean up and all brush thier teeth. Then they clean the school! Scrubbing floors and cleaning the rooms.
   After school we drove around a bit in Sodasake, it is older than where Lily lives and there are some interesting houses. We got home and took a nap. 
   We met lily's friend Shaina, another english teacher, and went for dinner at a great little Yaki Tori place. it was sort of like Tapas, there was a list of items each about 100-200 Yen which are then  grilled on sticks. The tastiest and oddest was chicken skin, we each had 2, we also had asparagus wrapped in bacon, beef and onion, chicken and garlic, and grilled potato. It was yummy. After that we went to Jusco, the shopping mal and Lily and shaina had ice cream. At the mall several kids greeted Lily when they saw her, it was very sweet.
   Lily sings in a community choir, the rehearsal was tonight, I was able to go and taped some of it. They are very god and sing some in English but mostly in Japanese. Lily has a cold so it was hard on her to sing tonight, the choir has a big concert on Nov 8.

 Tomorrow more school and maybe pictures for you to see. 
 

We got into Murayama late last night, 1030. The train from Tokyo was smooth and fast. Lilys place is basically one smal room 13 x13, but she has made it home. We pretty much crashed we were so tired.
  This morning, Tuesday, we slept in and then went to visit at Lily's office at the city hall. It was very 50's, the men all at desks in ties and white shirts. The women in the office served us coffee, we were there at lunch and I saw one of the women serve lunch to the supeviser.

        I met Lily's boss, he said she is an excellent teacher, I am so proud. People at the office seemed to be very fond of Lily.They seemed surprised that I would go to school with her, She assured them I will be no trouble for the staff. I plan to just follow her and attend class.

    We had lunch at a little noodle place, delicious. I had ramen, Lily had soba.  
   
    Then we went to the famous rosegardens. The roses are past thier prime but it was pretty anyway. And Then WE SAW MONKEYS!!!!!!
wild monkeys were hanging out playing on the lawn in the gardens, I hope my video caught them. We watched them for a while till finally they scampered up into the woods, It was the coolest thing ever! 

      Our next stop was Yamadera (Yama means mountain) it is a temple on a mountain, 1500 steps up. We did not make the trek up as it was late and clouding up. We toured the lower temple and then were invited to watch a drum performance by some Jr High students. It was fun, the students enjoyed practicing thier English on usThey had an English teacher from Canada with them. Lily introduced herself and they exchanged info. We had a nice walk through the town to the car.

      Dinner was a dish of fried pork on rice with egg over it. We also got a motar and pestle to grind sesame seeds to add to a sauce that went with the food.  
  
     We were both very tired, we stopped to get bread and yogurt for breakfast at the 7/11. 
 
    tomorrow we will go to school.




























  

       

       

      

Here are some neat Japanese inventions. I have seen.

 The Toilet tank sink: basically the top of the tank is like a sink, the water that fills the tank comes out of a faucet behind the toilet, I will try to post a picture.

 Blind friendly sidewalks: All the sidewalks have a bumpy area to guide blind people, at intersections it is round bumps and on the main sidewalk they are long stripes.

Modest Toilets: Some womens toilets have a button which will play a recording of a flushing sound. Apparently a lot of water was being wasted because women would flush to cover other bathroom noises.

 Fog Free Mirrors: Again in the bathroom, the mirror is heated so that when you shower it will not fog up. This was in our hotel in Tokyo,the area just above the sink was fogfree. Lily's apartment bathroom has a switch by her mirror for this.

 I know I know it is a lot of bathroom stuff but that is where I notice these things.  

I arrived in Japan exactly 24hrs late. The flight was uneventful,I slept 5 of the 12 hours! My bags had gone the day before and were merrily riding the carousel.  I figured out the payphones and called Lily, she was on the train to the airport. 　 It was wonderful　to
see her and I gave her a hug from everyone. 
  We checked into the hotel and then went to Shibuya , a famous shopping/dining/nightlife area of Tokyo. We walked around awhile and then found a cute restaurant. The chef was from the area that Lily lives in Japan (Yamagata) and worked at a store that she has shopped at. When we said we were from Minnesota he said "Minnesota Twins".  We went back to the hotel and our tiny room for a good nights sleep.
  Sunday we got up and had went to meet Lilys friend and  went to an American style restaurant for coffee. The hotel fed us breakfast, an odd combination of items, buffet style, soup,yam porridge,salads,bacon,potatoes,yogurt, rice,noodles,and some other stuff. 
  Then we went to the Asakusa Temple to watch the arrival of the Bhudas sandals. The procession/ceremony was confusing and crowded. We met Miho,her mother and Mark  Schumacher and went to have Tempura. The sandals were hung from the temple gate by the time we were done with lunch. It was very cool.
   We took a nice walk through a beautiful garden  on the temple grounds. It was very relaxing after the temple crowds.  We bid Miho and her mom farewell and went on to Kamakura with Mark. Mark and Keikos house is amazing, it is tiny and to get to it we had to walk through a tunnel in a mountain, the taxi was not allowed to go through the tunnel. It was dark when we got here and the tunnel was VERY dark. The house is Japanese style, low cielings,sliding doors, tiny rooms. They took us to a Thai place fro dinner that was at the bottom of the hill. On our walk back we to a shortcut through a temples grounds. Tomorrow we will go see the sites then back to Tokyo to catch the 730 train to Murayama.  On Tuesday we will just chill in Murayama, Lily has the day off.
    I hope this makes sense, I am pretty jetlagged.
 

    Well I took the money and ran. My flight was overbooked and so I took the offer and will leave on Friday instead. They offered a hotel but I thought since I live here that was cheating. I got food vouchers for the airport and a hefty travel voucher.  Bill came and got me, it cost 50 cents to make a call these days, and I had already bought my $3 bottle of "secure" water. oh well.
   Now I have this eerie feeling  that I am seeing what would have happened here without me...... I suppose tomorrow  will be all deja vu like. Of course Carter greeted me like I had been away for weeks.
   Next post Tokyo

I leave for Japan in 4 days!  I talked to Lily today and her friend Miho will meet me at the airport and take me to my hotel. Lily will not arrive in Tokyo until the next day so I was to be on my own for the 1st night. That was the part of the trip I was most worried about. I am sure I could figure out how to get to the hotel on my own,  but now it is one less thing to worry about. My plan is to do some blogging and maybe send pictures too. Hopefully it will be more successful than my plan to learn some Japanese before my trip.