Voyage Junkie

This year has already been an improvement on last year in terms of students.  All the new first-years (seventh graders) are friendly and unafraid of speaking English.  It helps that I am better at Japanese this year, so often I can translate words for them and help them translate for me more successfully.  The second-years (eigth graders) are still a rowdy bunch.  The teachers are starting to split them into leveled groups, so some can do the "challenge" course and some can go a bit slower.  It's nice for both students and teachers.  I don't think as many students will be "left behind," if you'll pardon the reference to current American doctrine.  The third years (ninth graders) are certainly the most morose of the school, having toned down the antics and tantrums from last year.  They're all in new groups now, so the "bad" kids can't be bad together, and they're all losing their thunder. Today I helped with a second-year "cha...

Matt with Roo, very kind and fluffy bunny. Over Golden Week, which is a week that has three holidays in a row (Tues, Wed, Thurs), we went to Nagoya again with a few friends.  This trip's specific purpose?  To visit a rabbit cafe located in a really pretty part of the city.  We discovered it when looking up cat cafes in Nagoya after visiting one in Tokyo.  Since Matt would love to have a bunny if he could, it made sense to visit the cafe and see if we enjoyed actual bunnies as much as the concept of bunnies. They did not disappoint.  The cafe is set up differently from a cat cafe, mostly because bunnies are a bit... dirtier.  The cats are allowed to roam around actual cafe space, but they can be trusted to hold their bodily functions until a litter box, and they're fastidious with personal hygiene.  The bunnies, while they can be trained to go in a specific place, don't mind peeing and pooping anywhere.  At one point, a very calm l...

We headed to the famous island Miyajima in order to recuperate from the historical beating Hiroshima's museums and monuments provided the day before.  We took the streetcar line to the island, which gave us about an hour's ride through Hiroshima suburbs.  It was a very interesting ride.  We saw insane apartment buildings, mountains, shopping centers, schools, and finally the little waterfront town that boasts two ferries to Miyajima. We bought a 2-day streetcar, ferry, and ropeway pass when we arrived in Hiroshima the other day, and we put it to good use on Miyajima.  It was an insane deal, plus we got to ride the historical streetcars and thumb our nose at JR, the national transportation system.  JR is awesome, don't get me wrong, but this felt like shopping local.  It seemed important, and it was fun. The pass got us on the trolley, then across the water on the ferry.  As you approach the island, you see the famous o-torii  gate standing in ...