Costumes!!!! Happy Halloween 2005

Cute Bartender @ ALife and his back-less suit! Nice!!

Peace!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween TOKYO STYLE! ;) Last Saturday we had a major murder mystery in Tokyo during the day, so we were running all over the city collecting clues while wearing cat ears, since we were the Niigata Neko (Niigata Cats)!!! At night, we dressed it up and partied late into the night in Rappongi Hills - ALife. Check out some of the other costumes floating around. It was a CRAZY night, but i LOVED every minute!!!

Random Japan I

Picture taken at a little Cafe on "tree" street, I thought it was cool how they were translating Spanish into Japanese. At least that way I can understand it a little more.

View of an Obesan (Grandpa -usually anyone older in Japan is referred to as Obesan (male) or Obasan (female) ) working in this garden one afternoon on my way home from work. I wish I would have gotten a pic of the Obasan, she was cute and wearing her rice hat (like the one you see on Hello Kitty below)

The strawberry and horses was taken on a child playground near my base school Ikarashi, isn't it the cutest thing? The Hello Kitty you see is the officially NIIGATA-KEN kitty, since our prefecture has the BEST RICE in all of Japan (and YES, we boost about that EVERYWHERE) our kitty is a rice farmer, too cute!

The last pic was taking' on our way from Nagano-ken. Just one of the random signs you see all over Japan. I have no idea what it says, but it's still interesting!

2nd Play Practice

Held in a small town/village right before Niitsu. Here the Elephants are working on their costumes, kawaii (cute). Everyone else was either practicing lines, helping crew paint the sets, or working on dance moves. Being one of the wolves myself....we learned the first part to MJ's Thriller - since that's the opening sequence to the play. It looks REALLY awesome so far, i can't wait till Sado Island (our next practice Nov. 12th) There we'll work mostly on make-up, so it should be some good times.

Ikarashi Culture Fesival

Sunday Oct. 23rd was Ikarashi's Culture Festival. It went ALL day, so all the students and teachers had Monday off to rest. Not me though, the joys of being an ALT (not officially a teacher, so I don't get the same perks)

I was interviewed by the 2nd and 3rd graders who were doing a report over different cultures, so that was interesting/fun. These are a few pics of the Koto club (top pic of the girls on stage playing their 13 string Kotos - a very traditional Japanese instrument)
After that, many of the student performed different skits (the dark pic was from the remake of Cinderella, the student is riding in on a white horse (other students) and he ACTUALLY kissed the boy playing Cinderella...too funny!) But over all, it was a fun experience and I'm glad I went. GOOD JOB Ikarashi!!!

Shame - Saturday Nite!!!

This is what happens after play practice in Niigata-shi. We didn't have practice in the city, but the party sure came here. That's why I LOVE being a city girl!!!

I've been checking out my friends Grace's BLOG and she has these GREAT shots of our Fuji trip, so I wanted to share some too. This pic shows just how STEEP Fuji was climbing up. Kawai! (Scary!)

The Next Best Thing!

This would have to be the next best thing to watching the Sun rise LIVE on Fuji and/or video taping it, but isn't it amazing?

Now you can see WHY they call Japan the LAND OF THE RISING SUN. It literally rises/peeks from the clouds and it IS RED.

Enjoy!!!

1st Play Practice!

Working hard or Hardly working!?! :)

These pictures really don't do us justice, huh? Anyways, we had our first play practice near Kashawazaki this last weekend in a small village called Kawrai (i think!) but it's the richest village in Japan since it has the worlds LARGEST nuclear power plant...so we were getting some juice while being there for a while ourselves. Anyways, all 40 ALTs gathered to practice "The Jungle Book." I play Loco one of the wolves. It should be a pretty fun year. The official play will air next year, right now we're playing around and enjoying the get-together. We all crashed (yes, ALL 40) in Patrick's Maison of an apt, so it was like a fun sleepover with bodies EVERYWHERE!!! Anyways, check out Will working on Shir-Khan. More pics to come as practices continue....

Kamo Karaoke

This was our MEXICAN FEAST!!!!

Lovely Kristi ordered all this Mexican food online and decided to throw a party in it's honor. So, we had the whole spill - except Jalapenos! But yummy, it was SOOO good!!! Afterwards we hit up the local karaoke joint to get crazy as only Gaiijins truly can - gotta love it.

Gambatte Tara!!!

Tara in Tokyo! Lucky!!!

Have fun in Tokyo Tara, you'll be missed in Niigata-shi. I can't wait to visit you soon and take the big city.

Shout out for Tara: She's one of the funniest, craziest, and sweetest gals you can find. She's always ready for a good time, eps. karaoke and finding cute bartenders. I'll never forget your little flashing dance (along with Chicka) for the two ramen waiters on our walk to Playerz, good times good times!!!

YOU'LL BE MISSED!!!!!!!!!

ROAD TRIP

What can I say...I LOVE road trips! Esp. those long ones to different prefectures and you have NO idea where you're going so you put all your trust in a handy road atlas of Japan. Quite fun! We survived our Fuji-san trip and now even to Nagano-ken (the prefecture to the bottom east of us and right above Tokyo-ken) Had some fun times along the way since Beth's car only had a tape player and the only TWO (YES, two) tapes were one with kids songs and some taped radio hits from 4 years ago or a Halloween sounds tape. Hmmm, hard choice! :)

This last pic was taken in the town we were heading too in Nagano-ken. It's a HUGE ski resort, so in the off season we saw TONS of people practicing for winter. Beth was kind enough to actually STOP in the street for me to take this pic, that's WHY the guys laughing at us. Too cute! Thanks Beth!!!

This one's for you Joel

Somehow Joel worked his magic and made it behind the bar at SHAME. He even made a drink for Anthony (the guy on the left) who's the owner of the bar. Go Joel!

*Side note - That's my white wine there on the table.....ummmm.......white wine would be so good right now :)



INTERESTING JAPANESE FACT: When grading papers in Japan - Teachers use circles like (o) for correct answers instead of checks. So, when I was first grading papers, I put checks all over it and the kids literally had a fit thinking their whole tests were wrong. Hehe I'm gaiijin, sorry!

OUT & ABOUT

This seems to be a weekly thing here in Niigata-ken. Meet up and drink the night away! Surprisingly strange just HOW often we do this. For sure every Thursday (since it's out traditional ladies-nite at SHAME) But, also ALL weekend and most Mondays as well. Anyways, it's fun...but I sometimes need to take a step back and experience some traditional Japan and not just the nightlife. :) Though I'm proud to say by Japanese Bar words have grown. I've moved up from "Moh Ipai Kudasai" - I'll have another one please! to "ike, ike" - GO,GO (aka CHUG! CHUG!) and "Champo" - the action of mixing drinks!

The Story of my Car

SANJO....SANJO....SANJO!!!

Well, this was a fun/strange trip. I was told by my friend Grace (far left in the pic) about Fujita-san (in the middle) and how good he is in dealing with other ALT's and renting cars. I was informed he spoke "good English" but in Japan..."good English" is always VERY questionable. Thus, i invited Errol (far right)along for the ride to Sanjo. He's a PA and quite (shall i say it) fluent in Japanese (aka life-saver at times). So, we made it there by train (45 mins. from Niigata Station) and Fujita-san was nice enough to pick us up at Higashi-Sanjo Station. Well...he's SPEAKS GREAT ENGLISH. I was blown away. So- Errol was along just for the ride! I picked out my cool Diatsu MOVE in about 15 mins. and was done (since I had to wait a week before going back to pick it up) Thus, we were to meet up with Grace for Dinner. Well, since Fujita-san rented Grace her car as well and knew where she lived...he ended up invited us out for dinner himself. You just can't say NO to that! :) So, we picked up Grace and our other friend Kristi (from Kamo) and went to this little Japanese Izakaya and had some yummy yakitori and umeboshi. What a night! BUT I HAVE A CAR..YEAH. (Pics to come soon)