Trips around town: English Camp, Fancy Lunch, and Jazz...

So, all of these next three excursions happened within city limits. Let's move through the pictures, shall we?

First was our ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) volunteer English camp. We volunteered and worked for three days during what was otherwise holiday time for the kids to teach them English for 2 and a half days, with fun filled skits and activities. To the right are some of the kids with fellow ALTs interacting in English conversation; it was challenging, but rewarding, to see kids of all levels interacting (or, in more often than not, attempting to interact) with us in English. The kids ranged in age from elementary to early high school. Below are pictures of the much more interesting parts: making chikuwa, or ground fish patties, and cutting wide swaths of bamboo to cook rice inside of them (that was truly delicious!! its like pizza in a wood oven, baby... just, um, with rice instead of pizza...) Finally, me and the girls in my skit posing with King of Banana. our skit was about things that you should buy (in this case, a banana.) we all used some props that i brought to explain who likes bananas and why you should buy one. it was pretty interesting... even included the fact that people in Finland AND Hawaii eat bananas! (see, we're not so different after all... haha...) and of course, gratuitious pictures of the beautiful, serene mountain landscape... it was on the outskirts of town, after all!























































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Next journey, also on the outskirts of town towards the mountains (and right near a temple on the 88 pilgrimage, Yokomine-ji) was to a ryokan, or traveler's inn, for lunch. Often ryokan, traditional lodgings, here will serve their homecooked meals either for their guests or often just for visitors who just come to eat. We were the latter group; my fellow Japanese teachers at my base school and I all went out for a 4 course meal at this quaint little cabin like inn in the mountains. It even included a hot tub that looked out over a beautiful lake below (you can catch a glimpse of the view here, the hot tub is under the roof and you are supposed to bathe there naked.) So we entered the main hall of the restaurant/ inn and looked around, finally being brought into our totally private old style Japanese style room (complete with straw mats and sliding doors, of course!)
We sat down to our meal in the Saijo-style Cracker Barrel (except with fresh ingredients!) for lunch and were treated to pickled veggies, soup, tofu, and of course, noodles (yum!) and sashimi.. some pretty fresh sashimi too! hooray for yummy sliced raw fish from the Seto Inland Sea nearby! (the pot on the left side is our noodles boiling above an actual fire in an iron pot. and it was soo delicious!) After the meal I took a look about the inn, it was an interesting mix of rustic and streamlined design, I especially liked the ambience of the room with these interesting light fixtures! The inn from the outside was pretty
welcoming, I gotta admit. I had no idea a place like this was within my
city limits!























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Finally was a jazz concert at the dessert cafe Apple Pie (it does have some bangin' apple pie!) roughly a ten minute walk from my house. Although we had met the owner, or master, of the cafe and he told us he played bass in a jazz outfit, I wasn't quite expecting the rockin' time I got with this crew! They played what I can only conjecture were jazz standards, as the only other times I've listened to jazz has been unwillingly while hostessing brunches at the Light Horse in Jersey City. However, they really got into it and had such passion for all of it--it started with just the sax and the piano, then branched out to the Master (owner) on bass and the pianist and saxist, then the drummer joined in--he was my favorite, man, his solos were so fresh! Enjoy--and sorry, I didn't take any videos, you'll have to take my word for it ;).