Cycling Trail

(PICTURE FLASHBACK: Jessica and Chi-Na in Beijing.)

A few weeks ago I had my first visitor. My friend Jessica -- who I had met in China while she was traveling with her friend/ahoy hanoi reader Chi-Na -- was doing a tour of Japan and swung by Koryama.

I had met Jessica at the Great Wall of China. For her visit, I took her on the slightly less famous great bike ride of Koryama. Along the local river here is a bike path called the Michinoku Cycling Trail. I had only ridden a little bit of the trail before Jessica's visit and decided she would be a great person to explore the rest with.

I borrowed Katie's bicycle for the weekend and Jessica and I headed out along the trail. After about fifteen minutes the trail leaves Koryama and begins to wind through the countryside. The reason I asked to be in a small city was so I could be around Japanese nature. Well, this trail had everything I could want: rice fields, orchards, a river, huge open areas, tree lined forests and even a little waterfall and shrine at the end.
(PICTURE: Jessica on the bike trail.)

(PICTURE: Me, Iain and Mikka.)

The trail was so good that I took Mikka and Iain on it the day after the fire festival.

My Student

On the way out of the fire festival, we passed a tent with some extremely energetic vendors who were pounding mochi. Mikka took out here camera to get some pictures and one of the vendors came up to her and Iain. I immediately recognized a familiar face -- my student.

I was really proud of my student because he was using English to talk to my friends. I stepped up and said hi and he absolutely lit up...and sold me a piece of grilled pork from his tent.

(PICTURE: Me and my student. Mikka took this great picture. My favorite part is the random girl trying to sneak into the shot at the end.)

Now I need to flash back into earlier in this night when I was talking about my students with Mikka and Iain. We were comparing our classes and I was saying how my students are extremely shy and introverted. As soon as we walked away from my student, Iain turns to me and says, "That was one of your shy students?"

On Monday my student came in and turned bright red. He was really embarrassed about seeing me and thought he had acted inappropriately by being so friendly. I smiled at my student and assured him that it was great seeing him and there was nothing to be embarrassed about. That said, every time he comes into class now he turns bright red.

Sukagawa Fire Festival

I recently had a fantastic weekend with my friends Mikka and Iain from Hanoi, who are also teaching in Japan through the same company I am. Mikka and Iain are living and working in Tokyo and decided to come out and visit me and the country side.

The three of us had met up my first weekend in Japan at our company conference. While at the conference we heard great things about the Sukagawa Fire Festival from my coworker Katie. Her sales pitch worked on us and we all decided to hit up the festival when it came around. Well, Katie done us well. The Sukagawa Fire Festival was freaking fantastic.

Kensuke and Masumi came along and explained to us that the festival was in honor of a King who had lost a battle on the same ground the festival was being held. Every year they light a castle and giant pilars of straw on fire to appease his spirit.

(PICTURE: Masumi and Kensuke watching the Fire Festival.)

When the fires began I started to take some pictures and quickly realized that any photo I took wouldn't look half as good as Mikka's. Mikka is an extremely talented photographer and was snapping away photos like she was the papparzi and the pillars were Brad Pitt. You can check out Mikka's photos on her blog: www.mikkarose.blogspot.com All of the pictures in this post were taken by Mikka.

Here is my favorite photo Mikka took that night. This fireman is epic:

Here's some pretty cool video from the night:

Happy Thanksgiving!

(PICTURE: My early Thanksgiving dinner.)

Few things make me sadder about being away from home then when Thanksgiving rolls around. Nothing can replace being around my family and eating a ridiculous amount of delicious food. I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing for Thanksgiving today but in my head I've already convinced myself that Thanksgiving came early for me this year. Let me explain:

A few weeks ago I was eating at my favorite sushi restaurant and began making small talk with four "salary men" ("salary men" is the term people use for businessmen). Nobody spoke English well but after a few sake drinks one of the men told me that he makes soba noodles as a hobby. It wasn't long before the man declared that he wanted to have a "Soba Festival." The sushi chef said we should have the party at his restaurant and that he would make some special food too. We set a date and BAM, it was one of the greatest culinary nights of my life.

I showed up at the restaurant thinking that that it would just be the four men I had met and the sushi chef. Well, I was wrong. There were about thirty people in the small restaurant and I was more or less the guest of honor. I was told to sit at a table with about 20 people who I had never seen before. It turns out that I was sitting with the heads of the Koryama Rotary Club. But forget about them, it was all about their wives. Each wife had made their "special dish". I was surrounded by plates upon plates of food including a ton of sashimi and at least 10-20 pounds of the greatest soba I have ever eaten. At the end of the night I felt like I usually do after Thanksgiving -- completely stuffed.

It's gonna be hard to top this meal in Japan.

Wishes II

I've been to quite a few temples and shrines already and seen lots of different wishing posts. However, this one takes the cake:
This one wishing place was just for people hoping for love. We're only a few months away from Valentine's Day and it seems to me that people are really starting to think about their February 14th plans.

Wishes

At nearly every shrine in Japan are places for people to put their personal wishes. I think this tradition is really cool versus silent prayer. I think when you have to write something down and display it, it kind of makes wish making more real. It's like when you write down your new year's resolution every year instead of just saying it in your head. Maybe that is just me but I've always failed on my resolutions that I think to myself versus the ones I've posted above my desk.

While we were at Nikko, Masumi and Kensuke pointed out a wish that was hanging up. This wish, if you can't tell from the picture, was done by a little boy who wants to be a major league baseball player:

Nikko

(PICTURE: Temples located in the forests at Nikko.)

A couple of weekends ago I wanted to get out of Koryama and see a little more of Japan. I emailed Masumi (1/2 of my new Japanese best friends) and asked her how to get to Nikko. Masumi emailed me back that she and Kensuke (the other 1/2 of my new Japanese best friends) wanted to go to Nikko too and would drive. Can you say road trip!

Nikko is one of the most famous tourist sites in Japan. It is a bunch of temples and shrines scattered among beautiful forrests. One of the most recognizable images in the world is located in Nikko -- the "Hear No Evil, See No Evil" monkeys.

Tons of Japanese tourists visit Nikko on the weekend, including this adorable little girl wearing a kimono.

Everywhere around Nikko you will see three-leaf clover symbols. The symbol is for the Tokugawa Dynasty that ruled Japan for over 250 years.