Voyage Junkie

L-R: Katsu, Saya, Mari, Chelsea  On June 25th, we gathered a surprising amount of people together for dinner and karaoke, under the guise of June birthday celebrations.  Birthdays are a great excuse to plan a large party in Japan, not that one needs a great excuse to have a party here.  Especially an all-you-can-eat-and-drink party, otherwise known as tabenomihodai .  We invited a wide range of people, and then some of them invited other people, and we ended up with a group of about 20 for dinner and 14 for karaoke! L-R: Chiko,   , Laura, Dan, Bill, Stephan, Rachael We started the evening at Godmother's Restaurant in Gifu.  Rachael and I found the place a few months back after a fortuitous trip to a mall near her home, where we met Mugi and Sato (featured later in karaoke pictures).  They both speak amazing English, having lived in the States before.  Currently they work for a company called Kobayashi Noodle Co , that develops gluten-f...

"Don't mind us, we're just putting this back where it belongs."

  On June 12th I took part in another dance concert.  This one was more of a recital than a professional venture like last week's, which meant it was a little more relaxed.  I did still have to go for crazy amounts of rehearsal and tech in one weekend, but at least it was only two days of crazy!  I got to meet a lot of really interesting people from all corners of Gifu and Nagoya.  I'm pictured to the left with my itty bitty fan club. I danced in an improvisational workshop piece set by Haruna and Mikiko of Tokyo.  They have an interesting company called KiriCollage , which you check out via the link (although it is mostly in Japanese).  There's a lot of pictures and video on the site, understandable in any language.  They are both very impressive movers and have spectacular improvisational flow together.  I took two workshops with them back in April, and they came back to Gifu to set a workshop dance with the participants.  I got to ...

Nadeshiko, Mako, Rie, Sachiko, me, Yuuko, and Shio On June 5th, I was in my first performance in Japan.  It was a crazy affair of epic proportions.  The process was a mixture of frustration and fun, as were all dance projects I've ever been involved in.  I danced with ModernDanceYou Co, a small company run by an adorable woman in her late 60's named Yuuko.  This makes the company name even cuter, because her name sounds like "You Co." Our dance piece was a reaction to the May 11th earthquake.  I saw the dance as a story of a community dealing with an imminent disaster, one they did not consciously know was coming.  Apparently the lights were a color that accentuated our earth-toned and water-colored costumes, making it appear that half of us were representing the earth and half of us were representing the tsunami. Getting ready was a trip and a half.  I arrived later than the others with Yuuko, and I was still ready a good hour before everyone ...

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 ...