scenery from my condo

Since our condo is built on the top of the hill, we can see the nice view from there. If it is clear, sometimes we can see Mt. Fuji. I was raised up at a house where Mt. Fuji was seen very nicely and clearly, so the mountain means special to me. This pic could not catch the Mt. Fuji, but still the sunset was beautiful.

These days, I take exercise at night after dinner around 30min-one hour. I do walk fast, and sometimes I run slowly, which makes me sweat a lot. I hope it burns a lot of energy... And I found that there is a nice place where I can see the wide sky becuase the place is surrounded by only paddle fields and veggie fields, without any electric wires. The scenery of wide sky reminded me of the scene in Athens.

Yes, now it is the time to adapt myself to the life in Japan.

What is English teaching?

I have got two temporary jobs in schools only for summer. One is teaching English at a school camp of intensive learning only for three days. This is kinda students' preparation for the entrance exam for universities. I will be in charge of five third-year students. Since it has been long time since I before taught Juken-eigo, acquiring special English skills for universities' entrance exam, I am a bit nervous. But at the same time, I am so excited to teach them because I am sooooo bored of being by myself in a daytime.

Another job is supposed to be a teaching one, but it turned out that I am not teaching there. I will check the report of students regularly, not teaching in classrooms because the school is mainly focusing on correspondence courses. Students usually send thier assingment by mail, which is called Report, and teachers check it and return it to the students. The new system in public schools is newly developed in my prefecture and luckily the school is located pretty close to my place.

However, there are some students who attend classes in a classroom setting. Just for my reference, I asked one English teacher to let me observe one class of the Oral Communication 1 the day before yesterday and I was so stunned to see it... Usually I do not like to make a complaint, but I cannot help doing it this time. The class was fifty minutes but the activities the teacher arranged for the class was only two: listening which is in the textbook and a very short speech which was already prepared in the last meeging. For the rest of the time in class, the students were asked to fill in the Report and redeveloped their speech individually. Luckily, the class is small enough for the teacher to take care of every student. But the teacher almost never used English in class although the class was Oral Communication! Only CD spoke and the students used English in their speech.

I rerealized that that is the real situation in English education in Japan, especially public schools. Of course there are great English teachers even in public schools, but I guess not so many, compared with private schools. The experience made me think about the English education system in Japan again... But I am not sure what I can do for it so far...

introducing my place

The place I live in is in a big city, but it is kind of an edge of the city, which means that the place is located in suburb area, or if I could say, it is like countryside. Some say it is boring to live in countryside, but I personally like to live in an area which has a lot of greenery especially with water such as a river. There are a lot of fields around my condo, and also sometimes it smells natural manure depending on the direction of wind. Now I get used to it, but when friends visit my condo and they smell it, they are usually surprised at the strong smell... Although I feel sorry about it, there is nothing I can do for it. Also, around the river there is an open area for little kids to play with water. On weekends the area is usually crowded with little ones with their parents. It is very convenient to commute because the condo is very close to the train station, but at the same time, the environment is also great because there is a lot of greenery around my condo.

a unique vending machine

I went shopping with my family today. We walked to the station for approximately 30 minutes just for exercise. On our way, we found a very interesting vending machine. I have never seen that kind of machine before. It sells canned noodles. They are already ready to be eaten, which means they are already cooked and heated. There are many flavors available, such as soy beans, soy source, and curry. And the ones at the bottom are to go since they are not heated yet. The price is all ￥300 ($3.00). I was too afraid to try them so I just took a pic of them... Would you like to try them???

from Ecuador

I almost always kept spending time by myself after I came back to Japan and almost feel depressed for some reason. I guess I miss the US life too much. Also, I kept feeling terribly sleepy for a week. I do not know the reason, but I am sure that it is not because of the jet lag anymore. I slept approximately 10 hours every day. Considering that I slept only 3-4 hours every day when I was in the US, it is amazing... Now I am like making up with the lack of sleep those days. But I feel even there is something wrong with my body...

But yesterday, I did not become sleepy in the daytime! I went out for drink with my old friends. It has been a long time since I went out for drink before. Since I was not in the mood before to attend those kinds of gethering of old friends, I kinda refrained from joining those events. But for the first time after I came back home for good I attended the gethering.

The place we went to was a local Japanese style bar. Once I went into the bar, the strong smell hung around, which may have been smoke of grill and cigarette. It may sound strange but the smell was kinda comfortable then although I do not usually like the smell of cigarette. It reminded me that I came back to Japan.

It was kinda welcoming party for a friend who came back from Ecuador temporarily for business trip. Amazingly, now he lives in a place that is 3000m hight. He has only lived there for four months, but he can speak Spanish now. For me, his life there sounded amazing... If I were him, I do not think I can master the language only for four months and I cannot adjust myself to the totally different culture so soon. When I went to the US, it took me almost a year to make myself feel comfortable to live there. Also, it was fun to talk with old friends. I talked a lot...I laughed a lot...

The banana chips a friend gave us as souvenir from Ecuador was so unique. It is not sweet but salty. And as you can see in the picture, banana's color is green and its size is bigger than regular bananas. I felt like it is similar to the vegitable chips. But anyway, it was so tasty and I like it very much.

Now I realized that I need to go out to communicate with people in order to re-adjust myself to Japanese life. It may take more time but there is no other way...

Kamakura

This weekend, my hubby's close senior friend and his girl friend visited our condo and we all went to Kamakura together. Since our friend is from Fukuoka, the southern part of Japan, it was the first time for him to visit Kamakura. I have lived very close to Kamakura for a long time, so it was amazing to hear that. But Kamakura is a very nice old city. Everytime I visit there, I find something new and interesting. I love Kamakura a lot.

We just went to Enkaku-ji (Enkaku temple). There were so many hydrangea flowers blooming. As it was a little bit foggy and cloudy, we could not see the nice view but it has certain nice atmosphere of itself.

The next day was the Star Festival in Japan(July, 7th). There was a special ema (a votive picture tablet) available and also some events were held. It is nice even for Japanese people to touch the real traditional Japanese culture. I decided to visit there more often than before.

krupuk lover

After I ate this snack in the US for the first time, this became my favorite snack. There are three flavors available at the Asian store where I used to go when I was in the US: onion (garlic), fish, and shrimp. My favorite is onion because it tastes nicest as well as it is cheapest:) When I left Athens for good, I bought three packages of onion flovor. (I am not sure if three is enough... probably not...)

These days, I feel kinda reversed homesick. I am really missing my friends in Athens and the fun days there. Of course it is nice to live with my family and visit my beautiful nieces. But it is different. It is too sad to have a big change all of sudden. That is why, I decided to fry Krupuk yesterday because the snack reminds me of the nice Indonesian friends and the life in the US.

It is not difficult to fry them. Just put them into the oil one by one, shake it, and make it flat if possible. Gradually, I became more skillful to fry them nicely. But now it is rainy season in Japan. Since I left them for a while in the kitchen, they absorbed moisture and became soft... but still tasty. My hubby and I enjoyed them and finished them very soon.

If any of you know the place in Japan those kinds of Asian snack are available, please let me know.