October

October passed like the blink of an eye! Some days, I feel like I just arrived yesterday. Other times, I feel a bit overwhelmed not seeing my family and friends back home. I miss you all very much! I am having the time of my life in Japan. I am slowly learning how to cook Japanese food(turning on the oven was the hard part)! I am travelling as often as I can since the world is just at my finger tips and I am meeting people from all over! It's difficult to explain all that I have been through here. I wish I could say these pictures capture everything I have seen and done in the past few months but unfortunately they are just small pieces of the excitement. When you see pictures of the top of the mountain, I wish I could tell the story of the great people we met along the way, the chain path on the way up and Ross' "detour" on the way down but I think the stories are told much better in person. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Before you continue to check out this website, I want to say “Thank You”. Your emails have been my motivation for all the photos you are about to see. I am so fortunate to have such great support! I love hearing from you! Thank you for taking the time to write! I am thinking of you!

Saga Castle and Tea Ceremony

Some of the ALTs were invited to participate in a tea ceremony at the Saga castle. We all had a chance to dress up but there was only princess costume. The lucky chosen one…..me! I have to admit when I had the headpiece on I didn’t feel so lucky. However, I learned that the headpiece is worth thousands of dollars because it is part of the castle museum. I have never taken so many pictures with people I haven’t met before. The cultural experience was incredible! The tea ceremony wasn't anything like I thought it would be. I had to learn quickly since there were many people watching!

Ton Ten Ton Festival

Imari had its famous festival from October 22-24. Ross and I participated in the parade of dancing that took place one afternoon during the festival. Since there weren’t any other foreigners involved in the dancing, we definitely stood out. People are still commenting when they see me in the grocery store or on the street. The festival has two shrines that fight over and over again for three days. I took a picture of a miniature shrine held by some children walking in the streets. The real shrines are much larger. The events are actually quite dangerous. There were people seriously injured every time they fought. The final fight, where the shrines battle into the river was cancelled this year because an 18 year old high school student was killed during one of the battles in the daytime. The last time there was a death in the festival was about 9 years ago.

Sightseeing in Karatsu

One of the teachers I work with offered to take me and a couple of friends sightseeing in her city for an afternoon. We went to a great café for lunch. After lunch, she took us to a Karatsu shrine, castle and waterfall. In the photos, you can see Megumi(the teacher), Towana(from Los Angeles) and Christine(from England). We were exhausted at the end of the day but that didn’t stop us from checking out a great place at night.

Karatsu Castle
You can see the castle from a distance. We had tons of stairs to climb to get to the top but the scenary made the whole workout worth it!

Kurokami Mountain

Ross took me hiking for an afternoon to this great mountain that’s only 20 minutes from our apartments! We climbed to the top pretty quickly but somehow managed to an unintensional detour on the way down. It was a beautiful hike and a really enjoyable afternoon. We came across a Japanese family on the way up. After Ross’ conversation with them, I learned that they drive for four hours every weekend to climb to the top of this mountain because they believe that the soil has healing power. They have a very sick daughter so they collect the soil and place it under her pillow in the hospital every week.

ALT Sports Day

Thanks to some great organizers, we had an ALT sports event on October 15. A few areas in Saga put in a team. My team won at the end of the day so we were happy. We played three different sports and calculated points when we were finished. I played touch rugby for the first time! We played soccer and ultimate frisbee too.