Jill in Japan

Month of Water

Time flies, and it’s July already. April marked the beginning of a new school year. New students, two more classes per week than last year, and new co-workers. I can’t believe it’s almost summer break. Of course, I still have to go to work… June in Japan is the “rainy season”, and the old, no-longer-used name for this time is 水無月, the month of water. June 7th I had my first American visitor, Cole, a classmate from when I was in university. He stayed at my apartment for a couple nights, and probably explored more of the city I live in than I have in the 10 months I’ve been here. We also went to Kobe for an evening, had a nice Japanese “hotpot” dinner, and walked to Port Kobe. I took some photos with my iPhone, but camera had trouble picking up the rainbow colors of the ferris wheel. They showed up nicely in the water’s reflection, however. For Cole, the highlight of the evening was probably when Haruka showed him a pachinko parlor, and Cole won ¥1000 in the 5 minutes before they closed.

On the 12th I took a day of vacation time and Cole and I went to Kyoto. We stayed in Haruka’s apartment for 2 nights. I showed Cole around Kyoto as much as possible in one full day; ate brunch at Ogawa Coffee, then visited the Golden Pavillion and Kiyomizu Temple. After, we briefly went through Gion on the way to do some shopping in Kawaramachi. For dinner I took him to a cheap sushi place where the sushi rotates around the tables on a conveyor belt. You can also special order items using a touch screen at each table. On Thursday Cole went to Lake Biwa by himself, then successfully hitch-hiked north and made his way to Gifu and Tokyo. I hope he had a great time.

June 21st and 22nd was my main school’s Culture Festival. All of the senior home room classes performed skits in the auditorium, the brass band played, and a five person a capella choir sang. The skits were really funny, and the brass band had random teachers come up and try conducting the band, which was hilarious. The second day of the festival was open to the public, and each club or homeroom set up an activity in their classroom. Everyone walked around and watched skits, or participated in activities. The English club’s main activity was Easter egg dying. I didn’t realize it would be so popular! Especially with the younger children. The club had maybe 6 dozen blown-out eggs, and they ran out of eggs in the early afternoon.

Haruka came with me to the second day of the festival, and I also wore my yukata (summer kimono) that I bought in early June. So, the students were doubly excited when they saw me (first about the yukata, second that I had my boyfriend with me). It was a really big deal to them. Many students wanted to take a picture with me. Haruka had a good time pretending to be a foreigner. For some reason, even though he looks completely Japanese, many people assume he is also a foreigner when we are together (>_<)

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This entry was posted on July 9, 2013 by in Jillian/ジュリエン.
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