On my way to Toi Kindergarten, a cat walked out in front of me on the sidewalk. I was excited to see a cute cat. As I passed by, there was another cat and two little kittens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sooooooooooo cute!
Last Sunday (Halloween) I went to Shuzenji temple to go to a tea ceremony thing. It was a lot of fun! There is a lot of stuff to remember in the Japanese tea ceremony. You have to hold the cup a certain way and you have to turn the pretty design away from you before you drink from the cup.We took turns making the tea and there are a lot of rules to that as well.
There was a beautiful view of the garden from the room where we had the tea ceremony.
I also learned that Shuzenji Temple is 1200 years old!
Another great thing about going there was that I met the other ALT working in Toi! Afterward we went shopping and ate dinner together. It's nice to know another ALT living so close by!
When I got home I celebrated Halloween. Well... kinda. I have worn a costume every year (except when I was really young) and I didn't want to break the tradition. So, I put on a costume and took some pictures.
I made a purple cat plushie the previous weekend. It's one of my favorite plushies. :)
Uhhh... I tried to get an action shot but it didn't work out...
Then I ate Halloween treats (well, sorta) while watching the Thriller music video.
The bag on the left is some Halloween candy I bought at Tokyu Hands in Tokyo. It wasn't very good and I only ate one piece. It was just sweet, but I still enjoyed the festive look. :) The doughnut was awesome. :) I got it at Mr. Donut in Mishima when shopping with the other ALT. The Fanta was good too! It's apple! The doughnut and soda were filling so I only ate a tiny bit of the Pocky.
My throat started feeling a little sore that night but it wasn't too bad. When I woke up on Monday morning it was worse. I went to school, but I didn't feel that well all day. I didn't feel horrible, but my throat started feeling worse and I didn't have much energy. That night I started feeling a bit feverish.
When I woke up in the morning I felt a little better, but still pretty bad. I decided to call in sick to work, mainly because of the sore throat. I didn't want to teach several elementary classes with my throat feeling like that. So I called in sick and then went to sleep for about 3 more hours. When I woke up, I felt much better! My throat still hurt, but not that badly. I even called my boyfriend and talked for a couple hours with no problem. I started craving ice cream and wanted to go out and get some, but I couldn't. The grocery store is right next to the elementary school and I didn't want anyone to see me since I was "sick." I felt a little bad about calling into work, but I really had felt bad in the morning!
The next day was a holiday (Culture Day) so I didn't have school anyway. I went to Mishima to do some shopping. When I walked out of Mishima Hirokouji Station I saw a festival.
The guy dressed up in a panda suit dancing with the kids was random.
I bought some super cute Hello Kitty postage stamps at one stand. Since I made a purchase I got to turn a wheel until a colored ball came out. The different colors were for different prizes. Mine was purple so I won a Doraemon figurine, haha! Doraemon is a popular character among young Japanese children. He's a robotic cat with no ears. I haven't taken a picture of the figurine, but here's a pic of Doraemon.
Then I went to Sun To Moon and bought a few things at Uniqlo and then walked to some other nearby stores. At Tsutaya I bought Beauty and the Beast on DVD. It's fun to watch it in Japanese! :)
That salon is intense! Reflesh! That sounds scary!
I recently ate my Miso Kit Kats that I bought in Shirakawa-go. The first one I ate pretty much just tasted sweet. Though when I ate more than one I could taste the miso flavor and it wasn't very good. They weren't the worst Kit Kats I've had though.
They come in a neat box. You can mail them. The back of the box is kind of like a post card.
I also recently tried Mont Blanc Pepsi. Mont Blanc is a type of desert made from chestnuts. I don't like Pepsi, but I still wanted to try this. As soon as I opened it I could smell the chestnut flavor. The drink was very sweet. I liked it pretty well (much better than regular Pepsi) but I probably wont buy it again. There are other drinks I like much better and plenty of other interesting drinks for me to try!
Yesterday at school one of the teachers was telling me that he grew sweet potatoes and that many people were coming to his house to pick the potatoes. At some point I must have agreed to go (my Japanese is horrible) because later he told me that another teacher would be at my apartment at 9:30 to pick me up.
I wasn't really looking forward to it (getting up early to pick potatoes is not appealing), but I ended up having a lot of fun! I met a couple other foreign English teachers around Izu, the weather was beautiful, and I got to eat a lot of good food! Digging up the potatoes wasn't really that fun, but it didn't take that long. Oh, and I was also excited when I saw that some of them were the kind that are purple inside!
There was a pretty river nearby!
The chairs were sooooo tiny!
This game was not just for kids. It was for foreigners too!
This cat was soooooo sweet! Cute and pretty too! :)
That's what I won from the ring toss game. It's lemonade, some packs of nuts and crackery things, and some sort of sweet stuff that kind of tastes like eating packing peanuts. The fruit wasn't part of the prize. I don't remember what it's called, but it came off some shrub. I ate one while I was there and it's really good!
I came back home and went for a run. I ran to 7-11 and bought hot peach juice and a cheeseburger. I ate that on the beach while watching the sunset.
So yeah... this was a random post... just like the title. My life is filled with all sorts of randomness right now and I love it! :)
