Japanese make the best signs...

One of my friends came across this wonderful sign in a town called Beppu which is apparently basically on top of a volcano and has steam coming out of everywhere.... anyway, I just had to share this photo with you...



just incase you cant see it......



Thanks CP!

Somebody Smart Once Said....

everyone smiles in the same language...apparently bad jokes do as well. in my family it is not uncommon for somebody (usually my dad and i admit even myself) to respond jokingly to the phrase, "me too," by saying "me three." so once a week i help out at a junior high school basketball practice and i guess some of the younger brothers and sisters come to just run around and do not much of anything really, but in any case i was talking to a couple of these youngins (how do you spell that?) and sure enough, one of the responded to "me too" with "me three."


on a side note, i spent the last weekend in tokyo and saw a lot of friends. i went back to sophia uni where i spent my semester and saw some old friends on campus that i had not planned on seeing. i also had time to get a Nectar and sip on it in front of the school gates just like old times.



sorry the photo is not so good, i took it really fast into the sun with my cell phone bci had a train to catch...

New Gallery Site

I finally have another gallery site that I am going to be updated a lot of photos to, so change your bookmarks and check it out

not done yet but will be soon....i think...

Cloud 9

this past weekend I went to mt. zao and went to see this famous place called okama-ko. it is said that depending on the weather and time of day the lake turns 7 different colors. anyway here is what it is suppose to look like:



unfortunately, it was so (INCREDIBLY) cloudy that this was about the best it got (which lasted for all of about 15 seconds):



nevertheless, i still enjoyed my trip up the mountain and will want to go back there (hopefully with a friend who has a car instead of going by bus so i can stop along the way at places that looked nice). for more photos, check out my gallery

I thought I was the local celebrity....

yeah so apparently this is one of my students, Hitomi Takahashi. she has released two singles on sony music label and is just starting to blow up in japan. i talked to her today she was really down to earth and cool about it. she wanted me to sing one of her songs, but i couldnt...not bc i have not heard it (bc i have) but how am i suppose to sing (in another language) a song that somebody is famous for infront of them!?!? anyway, you can check out her website here and click on "discography" to listen to her singles! personally i like "evergreen" better.

NECTAR!!!!!

i LOVE nectar. that is really all there is to it. you know when you buy canned peaches and there is that syrup in the bottom??? it is like that but not as thick or strong. it is the perfect drink and as any of my friends from tokyo or some in miami know, it is SO hard for me to live with out, BUT you will be glad to know that I have already found 3 vending machines that can dispense my happiness in a can.

Gallery Site

if you haven't figured it out already, i am having issues with my gallery site. recently i was told that i might be losing my space on the viscom server as early as this year so i am debating whether or not to fix it and get it up and running again. anyway, i will keep you updated, but for now check out my recent photos from japan, which will also eventually have a lot of the older photos. enjoy!

www.evanpike.com/gallery2/

School Festival Day 2

ok so this was more like a festival today... there were booths of people selling a lot of food, games, exhibitions (everything from photography, to giant cardboard gundams to flower arrangements) musical and dance performances (inluding my performance with other english teachers which went well). it was really a lot of fun! i wish it lasted longer bc there was so much to do and see that i didnt get to really eat any of the good food and take as many photographs as i would have liked to. i was really amazed with not only how much effort was put into this but also with how many different talents the students have! it was really a fun day and i get monday off bc i had to "work" on saturday! i wanna have more work days like that!! anyway, check out the photos...



more photos...

School Festival Day 1

which was actually pretty much just preparation and a costume parade (all costuems were hand made btw) by the girls school... i was really impressed with how much effort all the students are putting into it! something like this would never happen in a high school in the states i dont think... anyway here are some photos, more in my gallery and more to come tomorrow(or whenever i have time to post after tomorrow!

Anonymity?

so tomorrow and saturday my two schools are having a school festival. about 3pm today i was asked to sing (well more like rap) an english part of an song for the festival on saturday, which i dont mind too much bc most of the people will not understand any of what i say and will think i am doing a great job just bc im up there participating, but i am sitting here tryin to memorize my 4 or five lines which abesolutely make NO sense whatsoever (not that american songs make sense either) and there is one part that i just cannot get right (wow that was a really bad run on sentence, sorry)... the song is called Lokahi Lani by Def Tech and for some reason they decided to use the world "anonymity" in a fast rap part. i dont know if it is just me, but i have trouble just saying that word and hesitate when i just read it. maybe its just me tho....


on a related note, i am now poor ("and by poor i mean we will have to share a private jet" anyone know wat movie that is from???) bc every single student in the girls school was selling food/drink tickets for the festival and i was holding off well, but then decided to buy one for this one drink i wanted thinking they would leave me alone....big mistake. i was hounded the rest of the day with puppy dog eyes and cute (but bad) english by girls that just wouldnt take no for an answer bc i bought something from one girl! im such a softy!

1 out of 7...

seeing how the UM vs FSU game was on while i was teaching, i couldn't watch it (and by watch it i mean watch espn.com's gamecast that gives live updates with text and infographics) but after having some time to look at the stats, how did UM lose this game???? well actually i guess special teams is how, but we outplayed them in almost every part....except the part that matters the most. oh well, if FSU wins 1 out of 7 times the rest of my life, im happy :-)



isn't FSU suppose to mess up on the field goals?? *sigh*

Tanabata!

ok, so again im going out of order, but in Sendai around aug 7th there was a huge festival. it is about two lovers (that are now stars in the sky) that were separated and can meet once a year. its pretty famous Sendai was packed with people but I still enjoyed walking through and taking photos of these, um well im not sure what they are, but you can see for yourself!!




for more photos, go to my gallery

Yokohama

when i was in tokyo, i spent a day in yokohama. went to chinatown for lunch and then sankeien temple in the afternoon. the temple was pretty amazing, but i really wanna see it in the autumn when all the leaves change colors!



for more photos see my gallery

Tokyo or NY???

ok, so im not really going in order here, but i spent a week of my first month here in tokyo. it was really nice to see old friends, familiar places and restaurants that i had been craving!




as you can see, things have got even more conservative over here.....

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Yes it was my birthday about a week ago, thank you to everyone who sent messages/cards, it was really great to hear from you all!

one kind of funny story to share from Aug 25th, my first day at my all girls school....I was on my way to the vending machines to get a drink and before I knew it was was surrounded by like 15 girls from the dance club like they were going to jump me and steal my iPod or something. instead tho, they just started asking me questions and questions and more questions. finally one girl asked when my birthday was and when i told her it was in two days immediately all of them starting singing happy birthday in english and clapping so loud that everyone in the classrooms came out to see what was going on (this was after school during club activities). I was a little embarrassed to say the least (you know im shy), but it was really funny at the time!

What happened this past month when I disappeared from the world??

I have spent the first month here just settling in and getting to know the area and some of my coworkers. everyone has been really kind to me and i feel i am really lucky with my situation and placement! so far i am really happy! Actually there was a really big earthquake here in Miyagi prefecture but lucky it didn't do much damage (none in my apartment) and I was actually in Tokyo at the time using some vacation days that the school asked me to take before school started this past week.

i just finished my first week of teaching! it was pretty easy bc i did all the same lesson plan (just a self introduction) for all 14 of my classes (that is how many i teach a week). I talked about some different places in the USA and then about myself and family. it is really interesting how different the two schools are. I am like a local celebrity at the all girls school and in all my classes they are really interested in me and not shy at all... in the boys school however, for the most part they are really shy! I was totally surprised! i thought for sure the girls would be more shy than the boys. there are some boys of course who aren't but in general the boys are more shy. I enjoy my time at the girls school more bc the staff is so really nice and helpful to me (not that the staff isn't at the all boys school, but the girls staff just goes above and beyond) and the girls are a lot better students than the guys!!! no surprise that girls are better students thinking back to my high school days!

i have joined the basketball team at both schools a couple times and when i have class with some of the boys on the basketball team, the class goes a lot smoother... not sure if it is bc they know me already and respect me or of it is just that they know they will see me later at basketball practice and that i am becoming pretty good friends with the coach! :-) but in all, everyone seems to like me, just they are not always interested in learning english. which i can understand. especially since only about 33% will go onto college! at least that was what i was told.

as far as my apartment goes, it is pretty convenient. close to everything i need (train station, supermarket--not that i go often :-)--, post office, bank, even a mcdonalds!!) and i can walk anywhere. sendai (a city of about 1 million) is only about 18 mins by train so i have been going there a lot. sendai reminds me of tokyo except it obviously isn't as big and has more trees and nature. up until now the biggest complaint i had was that i didn't have internet or AC...but now i have internet and it is starting to cool off a little (maybe like 80 in the day and 70 at night). So i really cannot complain much at all!

And on the 31st day God said...

let there be internet! so yeah I have been here for over a month and I just finally got internet set up in my place. The delay was bc I needed a foreigner registration card before I could get internet and while I applied for it like the day I got here, I just got it about a week ago. Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally feel like I am back in touch with the world and can find out what is going on in the world since I can't read Japanese newspapers yet :-)