Random Fall 2005
Here are a bunch of pictures from sometime in the fall of 2005, but I don't really remember what order they happened in. Forgive my lack of chronological accuracy.
Episode 1: Emm and Alyson and I went to a "walking seminar" with Duke in Nanba Parks. The mall itself is an awesome building, and here's one picture of the elevator. Duke is a famous, well, walking instructor with a short weekly TV show about how to improve your walking to make you healthier and more attractive. We saw that he was putting on a show and thought, why not? The first 100 people were let in free, but as you can see, plenty of other people randomly lined up to see him from wherever they could. Sorry my hair's in the way of the second picture. Duke even came up and talked to us in English, and asked us to grab his rear! These three photos are all taken by Emm.
Episode 2: Emm managed to get stuck on her balcony due to problems with an old screen door. I rushed to her rescue, but not before taking a few pictures of her and our lovely apartment building. My apartment isn't really visible, but go ahead and imagine that you can see the door to it behind the glowing fire extinguisher light on the third floor. I'm pretty sure you can't, but that's where it is.
Episode 3: I really do not remember when this occurred, but there was a Nara JET event in Asuka, a tiny town near my home here. It's supposedly the very first capitol of Japan (there are so many places that claim that title) and has a lot of REALLY OLD cultural stuff. We went on a hike with a lot of other JET's as well as Japanese people who could sign up to come along and practice their English with us. Emm tagged along and brought her NOVA friend Peter as well. These are all Emm's photos. We kept falling behind the rest of the group 'cause we actually stopped to look at stuff along the way, like kids playing baseball and cheap fruit stands. The little boy with the flowers was in our group. After the hike, we were SOAKED from the rain, so Emm and Peter and I went to go get okonomiyaki at Fuugetsu. Mmmm...
Episode 4: Elementary school mall! About once a month, I teach second graders at an elementary school. All year they'd been learning huge batches of vocabulary grouped into themes, and each time I visited they added another element to a slowly growing shopping dialogue they had memorized. By the time they had their culminating shopping mall activity here, they could ask for stock not on the shelves and haggle! The kids were grouped into several different shops. In addition to all the English practice from the year, they'd been working on collecting or creating merchandise. Some things they just borrowed from home, but you can see a lot of stuff they made, like paper food or colored pencils made of chopsticks and marker ink. They also had homemade store signs and uniforms! Here are a ton of photos I took of their activity as they took turns shopping and selling, and then I was asked to pose for a picture with EVERY GROUP to send to the school. These kids are SO CUTE, really well-behaved, and have FAR better English pronunciation than most of my junior high schoolers.
Okay, the following pictures aren't from 2005 at all; they're from back in '04 when I broke my ankle but went back to school for one more day 'cause it was my last day at my first school. Emm came along because I seriously could not get ANYWHERE by myself (this was like a day and a half after the accident) and she was helping, and also took the opportunity to take these pictures. We've got photos of school lunch lined up in the staffroom, eating in a classroom, kids cleaning up, and a class presenting me with big heartshaped thank-you notes. The last one is of a charming sign that used to be up on a corner near my apartment.
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