jennajapan-facebook-login

I was really excited to see Mt. Fuji! I could see it better than it appears in the picture, though it still wasn't a super clear view.


Before getting on the ferry I went to 7-11 and bought a snack. Recently milk chocolate Pocky came out and I love it. The regular kind is dark chocolate and I don't like it that well. The Fanta Super Fruits was OK. I was about to get Peach (which is awesome) when I noticed this new flavor. It's a mix of white grape, pomegranate, mangosteen, and camu camu. I had no idea what a couple of those fruits were until I looked them up just now. It's definitely an interesting mix. It was good, but I probably wont buy it again. I'd much rather have the peach flavor. :)



I first arrived at Higashi Shizuoka station. As I exited the station I saw something very frightening... a giant robot! It looked like it was about to destroy the city.


Actually, this was one of my reasons for going to Shizuoka. I had seen this advertised and wanted to see it. I have never watched the Gundam anime and really have no interest in it or robots in general. But a giant statue of a robot? I had to see it!

The area around the statue was like a festival. There were many food stands (I ate gyoza) and a stage with dance performances. I stopped and watched a few.





The giant model robot was pretty impressive because it is so big. It also moved its head and there were some flashing lights. It's sword (light saber? I don't know...) lights up at night, but I didn't get to see that.

After a while I headed back to the station and took a quick train ride to Shizuoka station to do some shopping around there. There was a mall connected to the station and I bought a cute purple rug for my bedroom later right before I left. :) I also walked to a mall a few streets away because it has Loft, one of my favorite stores in Japan.




One of them had Welch's Strawberry Soda. I was so confused why they had it. It was obviously imported since the packaging had absolutely no Japanese on it. It was so strange though because I have a hard time finding this in the US. It made me happy though!





I came across more dancing in the streets. I had received a pamphlet at the Gundam thing that showed different dance groups and had maps and times showing where they would be. I wasn't particularly looking for any of them, but I came across a strangely interesting one.

100 yen stores are awesome. 100 yen is roughly a dollar ( $1.17 right now actually), so these stores are the equivalent of a dollar store in the US. However, 100 yen stores are WAYYYYYYY better. Do you see the picture above? It's a sign with Hello Kitty angrily telling you to not drink and drive. You can't find that at a US dollar store can you?

That particular store (Daiso in Mishima) has a bunch of Hello Kitty signs including one telling you to put your phone on manner mode (silent mode) and signs for the different types of garbage to help you keep your million different garbage cans straight.

You can actually find a lot of useful things in the 100 yen stores. I already had a hair catcher thingy for my bath tub, but when I saw this one I couldn't resist. It's only 100 yen, so it's OK, right? It doesn't matter that my other one was only a couple weeks old...


You can also find boring useful stuff. They're boring, but I love these little scrubber things. I get ten of them for 100 yen. That's much better than the ones I can get elsewhere, which are like 200 or 300 yen for 2. The more expensive ones are probably better quality, but I don't use a scrubber for more than one use (it grosses me out) so this is a great deal!


The next picture is of one of the first things I ever bought at a 100 yen shop. It's a hanko case. A hanko is a stamp of my name. In Japan, hanko are often used instead of signatures. I use it for official paperwork and stuff like that.



Kawaii you & flower! It makes no sense (kawaii means cute in Japanese) but I love it!



There you can see the hanko. In the stamp you can see my name in Japanese!


I love this melon soda. It's CUTE! It's a pretty color! It tastes good! It's only 100 yen! :)

The next picture shows my favorite purchase from a 100 yen store...


Aren't the Hello Kitty banners adorable? I've seen similar ones at a food stand by the beach in Toi. I thought they were so cute so I was super excited to actually find them in a store. Plus they were only 100 yen each.... so exciting!

Also the pillow on the right was purchased at a 100 yen store. However, it was 300 yen. There are some items that are more than 100 yen, but still a majority of the items in the store are 100 yen. The stuff that's not is still really cheap.


I love my kitty pencil cup. Kawaii, ne? (cute, right?)


I have gotten some dishes and chopsticks at the 100 yen store.


I can buy felt there too. Three pieces come in one pack. It's actually more expensive than the typical craft felt found in craft stores in America, but it's better quality. The 100 yen store's felt is still not as good as the felt found in craft stores here though. I love that I can find good quality felt in stores here and don't have to order it off the internet.


Cute stickers!


Origami paper!


Cute cupcake holders! Wait... I don't have an oven... when I am going to make cupcakes? I plan on making plenty of sweets though... out of felt. :)


This is the most awesome packaging tape and it was only 100 yen!

I have bought many more things not pictured here. I have purchased plastic sleeves to cover the flashcards I print out at school. Many of the organizing boxes around my apartment are from the 100 yen store. I bought a box to organize all my beads and it's much better than the one I left behind in the US. The one in the US cost several dollars too. Oh, and I also got a Chip and Dale towel! The drying rack for my dishes also came from a 100 yen store.

So see? 100 yen stores are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)

This last picture is unrelated to 100 yen stores, but it's a picture of my new bookshelf. I got kind of tired of my apartment being kind of bare and looking so temporary. I want to make it feel more homey (I kind of hate that word but I'm not sure what else to use) so I decided to buy some furniture.

After writing all those posts about my summer break, I haven't posted much. But interesting things are still happening!

On Friday the 3rd, the junior high school had a party for a teacher who transferred to another school. I thought it was just going to be a dinner party, but that day a teacher told me it was at an onsen, which means "hot spring" in Japanese.

I had kind of wanted to go to an onsen, but kind of not because you have to be naked. It just seemed like it would be really awkward. However, it was a lot of fun and really wasn't bad at all.

Before entering the onsen you have to scrub yourself clean and rinse yourself.

I tried many of the different outdoor baths. The first one I got into was a tea bath! It smelled really good! Next we went into a large one (big enough to kind of swim in!) with waterfalls. There were rocks to sit on under the waterfalls so that the water massaged your back. After that I tried one where you lay down. The last outdoor one I tried was one that was really white and smelled a bit like sulphur. It's supposed to do nice things to your skin.
After that we went into one of the indoor baths. It had a bunch of bubble jets. Fun! :)

Then we went to a room upstairs to meet back with the rest of the teachers and eat dinner. We had nabe. There was a burner on the table with a pot. In the pot we boiled dashi, which is a soup stock made from kelp and fish. Then we added various ingredients including thinly sliced beef, chicken meatballs, hot dogs, carrots, bean sprouts, mushrooms (the really long thin white kind that I actually like), and udon noodles. It was sooooooo good! I didn't take a picture, but here is one that will give you a general idea.

For desert we had a piece of cake and grapes. I found out something interesting. Japanese people typically don't eat grape skins. It's fine, but it surprised me since I often feel like Japanese people will eat anything. They'll eat whole fish with heads, eyes, bones, and even eggs inside them... but they don't eat grape skins.

On the following Wednesday afternoon I was sitting in the staff room and the teachers had a meeting. It's odd for them to have a meeting in the afternoon like that. I couldn't understand a lot of what was said but I did catch that a typhoon was coming. Then several of the teachers were asking various questions like, "What about cleaning time?" "What about the speech contest practice?" So I figured it out... the students were getting out of school early!

So, the students got to leave at 2:30. They were very excited of course! I didn't get to leave until 3:30, which was my scheduled time, but I was still happy. I had planned on staying late to practice for the English speech contest (and the day before I had stayed until about 7:00) so it felt like I was leaving early!

The typhoon was actually a tropical storm, but it hardly even seemed like that by the time it reached here. At 3:30 I went to the grocery store. It was raining a bit. The worst was going to arrive at 5:00 though. As I walked home from the grocery it was raining a bit harder and the wind was blowing, but it wasn't bad. My umbrella never even attempted to flip inside out. When I first moved here there were rainy days where I didn't even attempt to carry an umbrella. Some days (even without rain) were so windy that it was hard to walk. This storm probably doesn't even rank in the top five storms since I've been here.

I arrived home and 5:00 arrived and it didn't get any worse. I was a bit disappointed. It wasn't exciting at all.

But, I didn't like that the electricity kept flickering. I really didn't want to lose power. Luckily, it never went out for more than a second.

Other ALTs said that in their towns they saw lighting and that the storm was stronger than it was here. Awww! I want to see lightning! Since I've lived here, I've heard thunder once when I was shopping in Gotemba. One night in Toi I saw quite a few flashes of lightning beyond the mountains and another time while I was running. It was all way in the distance though. Thunderstorms are a LOT rarer here than in Kentucky.

Last Friday was the junior high English speech contest. My students did really well! Four first graders (7th grade in the US) did a skit. They seemed a bit nervous, but I was glad that they remembered all their lines! The 2nd grade student also remembered all her lines. Just a week before she only had about half of the speech memorized and had trouble pronouncing many words and didn't have much emotion. She improved a LOT though! The third grade student did very well, but I knew she would! None of the students from Toi moved on to the next level, but the 3rd grade girl did get an honorable mention.

The speech contest was a lot of fun. I was afraid that it might be a little boring to sit through so many speeches, but it wasn't. I liked seeing the students from the other schools, especially since a lot of them are students of my friends.

The other day I saw something very strange at the grocery store... not surprising. It was a Cream Soda Sandwich! In Japan, cream soda usually means a melon soda ice cream float. I couldn't resist. It didn't sound great, but I just had to try!

The next morning Lauren had to leave. :( I went with her to Tokyo Station. The Narita Express is expensive though so she went to the airport by herself.



After saying goodbye, I went to Yoyogi Park. It was very interesting. It used by many people to exercise and practice various things. There were a lot of trees and open fields. In the shaded areas there were many exercise classes, singing groups, and drama groups. One drama group was acting out something that made me feel like I was watching a cheesy romance drama on TV. It was really funny. I also saw a guy playing a ukulele.


There were a TON of runners. Many of them were running as teams. It's hard to see in this picture, but those two guys are holding onto a loop and are running together.




As I was leaving the park I saw a sign for Meiji Shrine and decided to visit. There were a bunch of people heading there. It seemed like some sort of event was going on. A lot of the older women were dressed in sparkly outfits and had cat ears and face paint. I wish I had a picture of them up close, but here's a picture of the back of three of them. They didn't even have the cat ears like the rest of them though. :(


I don't know why they were dressed like they were, but at the shrine was a dance festival! I love how in Japan sometimes I just have to follow a crowd to find something exciting! I never know what I am going to find next.


My camera was almost dead and the memory card was almost full, so I couldn't take much video, but I still managed to take a few short clips. I edited them into one video. It's my first time ever doing anything like this and I didn't really put a lot of time into it, but it's more convenient for you to watch this way. I don't like the way the title screens look or the way the beginning/ending music sounds with the music from the dances. Oh well...

It's kind of cool how shallow it is. I kept going a little bit further and it didn't really get any deeper. I am actually sitting in this picture here.



Later after I had been out of the water for a while I saw a big fish jump out of the water near where I had been. I'm glad that didn't happen while I was in the water. I would have freaked out.









I did NOT take the time to make this picture myself, haha. So don't think that I have too much time on my hands.

Here are more pictures of our time around Izu:
IZU PICTURES!!!!!