Yesterday NEO was attacked by a scary demon three times. However, our brave students threw beans and fought off the demon. We hope that you all had safe and enjoyable Setsubun.
We held our annual New Year Party last Saturday night. About 16 students and teachers gathered together at a restaurant downtown and enjoyed great food and fun conversations in English and Japanese. After 2 hours of feasting, about half of the people carried on to a second party at Pinball Cafe for a few more hours of fun. Thanks for coming out everybody, it was great!
A-san traveled to Canada to meet her son, who is living and working there. They enjoyed spending the Christmas season together, went skiing and did some sightseeing.
T-san traveled to Egypt with her husband. They saw the pyramids and the Great Sphinx. At the Grand Egyptian museum, they saw the famous Mask of Tutankhamun.
These both looked like fabulous vacations!
Last month, I wrote about my Shizuoka/Izu plans. Here are some highlights from the trip.
First, the food! There are quite a few local specialties in this part of the country, including:
There are a lot of other great places to explore around both Shizuoka City and Izu. To be honest, I didn’t do much research before this trip, but it was easy to find things to do. I looked at guide maps and pamphlets, asked the staff at restaurants and hotels, and sometimes just opened Google Maps and scanned the area. Renting a car made it much easier to get around the peninsula.
This park in Izu Kogen was one of my surprise favorite places of the trip. The illumination event here, which is held every winter, is called グランイルミ.
I know Shizuoka is not the most common destination for people in west Japan, but it was well worth the trip. Actually, it reminded me of Okayama in some ways - a smallish city surrounded by nature in all its forms, but reasonably close to some big-city action.
And don’t sleep on the wasabi ice cream. It’s fantastic.
Now it is January and Christmas has passed. Last year, I went to two Christmas markets during the festive season. These days Christmas markets are very popular in Japan. I sometimes see pictures online or posters for them, but I had not visited any before. I have never visited such markets back home either. The ones here are influenced by German culture too, which made them seem unique and interesting to me.
The first I visited was in Umeda in Osaka. I went there in November, so it was a little early for Christmas, but it was fun to visit at the time. It was packed with people, and there were long lines at every food stall. I looked around the other stalls which were selling things such as Christmas mugs and snow globes. There was also a big lit up Christmas tree in the middle of the market which was changing colors depending on the song playing. I eventually found a food stall with a line that did not look so long. I ate a cream cheese-filled pretzel and cheese-covered fries. They were better than I expected and were not too expensive.
On Christmas day, I was in Tokyo. I stopped by the final day of the Christmas market in Ueno. It was also busy. I think the atmosphere was not as interesting as the one in Umeda, though the one in Ueno had a lot of interesting Santa statues depicting him in different clothes and situations. They were quite amusing to look at. At this market you could also buy real reindeer fur, which was quite expensive. Of course, most people were enjoying the food and drink at this market too. I once again got a pretzel, as well as a hot chocolate. The food and drink were not as good at this market, but I still enjoyed it.
