I checked the weather report for Hiroshima for the next week. It's supposed to be beautiful weather, except for Tuesday: rain. All the other days: about 70 degrees and sunny. (Yea!) ...So it should be nice for the Flower Festival in Hiroshima.

My mom is waiting for me to get my act together this morning so we can do a bit of hiking on Etajima today, and perhaps some sketching or picture-taking. I just got up, so I'm in slow-motion... By the way, last night I proved again what a not-so-good cook I am...(Mara would laugh)...instead of used the normal method of cooking rice, I decided to try to cook it in a pan (instead of a rice-cooker.) BIG MISTAKE. After about 30 minutes of not much happening and the water evaporating, I gave up and put it in the rice cooker. I ended up with rice gruel. It looked like oatmeal, basically. (The perfect addition to any dinner!)

Well, I have made a couple reservations for going to Nara, but I need to change them...soon. The rest of the day today Mom and I are going to go hiking on Etajima and maybe some sketching!! (She'd like to fit in some apartment cleaning too...though I guess I'd rather go hiking:)

Today was okay. Feelings of inadaquacy as a teacher. I haven't made reservations for a hotel yet for next weekend...during "Golden Week." Golden Week is a week with 3 holidays, including Children's Day. It means no school, and it also means EVERYONE in Japan has the same days off. Which means I need to have started calling yesterday about a hotel. (Wish me luck!)

My mom and I want to go to Hiroshima's Flower Festival on May 3rd, and make our way to Nara, the first capital of Japan.

I'm always learning new and interesting things. Did you know that there is a Children's Day in Japan? (Well, actually, since I've lived here for almost 2 years, yes, I did know that.) There are no presents given, though. And, actually, it's more of a Boy's Day. (There was a day last month called "Doll's Day" for girls.)

On Boy's Day, May 5th, huge carp (fish)kite-flags are flown atop poles outside some homes. Decorations inside the house include a doll's samurai helmet, or a samurai doll. And, of course, there is a special food to eat...gooey rice snack with sweet red bean inside (otherwise known as mochi or daifuku.)

Anyhow, the thing I learned today was about Children's Day in Turkey.

People in Turkey celebrate their nation and children on the same day. In fact, they even let Turkish children run the country for a day, including children visiting from other countries. Even the president gives up his chair for the day! For more information, check out this site :)

Today was another fun day at school, except today I was sick. :( Mom came to school and we played "Simon Says" with the 7th graders. Because I'm only into the second week of teaching in the new school year (School starts in April in Japan), I'm still getting accustomed to teaching with the new teachers. I'm afraid I'm stepping all over the toes of one of them. I'll have to take my enthusiasm in class down a notch or two, I guess. :)

This Thursday is Mom's last visit to my JHS classes. She thinks:

"They're typical. One is a terrific class, and one is not so great, and the rest are in between. Lunch is very interesting. The kids actually eat their lunches. You ask them if they like their lunches, and they say 'Yes.' And at the end of 30 minutes, all of the food is gone. The very first thing that surprised me was that students were allowed to roam in the teachers' room anytime, at will. Also, the level of maturity surprised me. You still can play games in the classroom."

Today, Mom and I woke up at Elisa's. Elisa is a good friend of mine. She is from Peru, she lived in California for a few years, and she's lived in Hiroshima for the last few years. She is married and has 3 really cool kids: Naoaki, Megumi, and Steven. ...Anyhow, Mom and I spent Friday and Saturday at her house. I stayed up playing with the kids and Mom chatted with Elisa. Hiroshi, my boyfriend, drove us to Hiroshima Port from Hiroshima City. It's about a 30 min. drive. From there, we took a beautiful car ferry ride to Etajima. Mist was hovering in the mountains, as it had just been raining, and the inland sea was mysterious and a perfect photo op. for my mom!! She went all the way to the top of the ferry...the same level as where the captain of the ship is. After arriving at Etajima, Hiroshi drove us into the Japanese Naval Base. It is one of the 2 Japanese Navy schools in Japan and about a mile from my apartment. The technical name is the Japanese Self Defence Force, or Jietai in Japanese. We all met up with our tour guide, Mr. Kuratani. He is a recent addition to my English Conversation class, and just moved from Tokyo. He was a good tour guide, but I was a bit overpowered in the museum from photos of 19-yr-old Kamikaze pilots to also hear about it... I even shed a few tears I was so overwhelmed by the letters to their parents before their missions. After that, my mother, Hiroshi and I said our goodbyes and drove around the edge of the island to look at flowers and grab some dinner.

I am planning on telling everyone about this site as soon as I work out some more of the bugs. I have finally gotten reasonable access to the internet at home, so I can realistically e-mail and update this site at least a couple times a week now!! I'm excited about that because I miss everyone back home so terribly. This winter was really hard to get through for me without family and good friends.

Mom and I came back from Kurashiki, which sounds like perhaps somewhere in Hawaii, but it wasn't quite like that. Kurashiki is in Okayama prefecture, which means it was about a 2 1/2 train ride one way. The weather was beautiful, and I actually found a cheap motel to stay at. It turned out to be a hostel. Go me. Anyhow, Kurashiki is known for 2 things: One is its traditional "romantic" atmosphere, accompanied by willow trees dipping into a small river. The other is an amusement park called Tivoli which is a copy of the same-named amusement park in Copenhegan, Denmark. Hans Christian Andersen was a frequent guest at that park, and his stories are also a motif at the one in Japan. My mother especially liked all of the well-landscaped flower gardens. You would have to ask her what all kinds of flowers we saw...if you'd ask me, you'd hear: purple, yellow, red, ...