A Canada Day Celebration

...of sorts.

On July 1st, we had a night of traditional-dress fun in Yamaguchi-city (organised by the fabulous Louise)!
Sorry, I know this was a month ago now and I'm only just posting the photos! ;) Leaver's Party photos will hopefully be up soon too.


La Francesca, an Italian-inspired restaurant beside Yamaguchi's famous Francis Xavier Church:



The first course at dinner, a combination of ratatouille and raw fish



SoDak Becky, looking kawaii





The Yukata Kings and Queen perform a ritualistic dance in honour of their coronation











Izakaya:

Hmmm, who's got the best legs??


Selena and Jen get cheeky


Oishiiso!





Ross eats Paul's food (above) before terrorizing young children (below) by dangling them in the air (a la MJ and Blanket window incident)



Happy Canada Day!


The reason Yukari can now consume twice her weight in beer and still be sober...



Karaoke:

Kat and Marko sing something

Matt and Hannah sing something else (with enthusiasm!)


Relaxing in the foot onsen outside the karaoke bar

Heaps of fun!

These are my instructions for the next teachers' workshop I'm giving.

Rain

The rainy season is doing its thing again, but this time not with thunder and lightning. I got caught in a downpour on my way back from an elementary school yesterday (I was on my bike) and this is a photo taken on my phone of a flight of stairs I passed. I was trying to shield my bag of teaching materials and papers in my bike basket with my umbrella while cycling, so I was absolutely dripping wet by the time I got home (not that the umbrella really would have done that much good anyway since all the cars going by were sending sheets of water over me).
The rain was exciting and I didn't mind too much getting soaking wet since I was on my way home anyway. :)

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Bye Bye, Girls! Shimonoseki just won't be the same without you! Thanks for the great year.

Today Selena headed back to Scotland (well, she's taking the long way back, China first, then home), and last week Gillian left for Canada. (I had originally planned on leaving Japan at this time too, but I definitely need one more year!) It's been sad saying goodbye, but we've had fun this year.

Now, with Selena and Gillian gone for good, Becky off in Thailand for the week, and Anita and Angie out having dinner with some Japanese friends, I am HOME on a Saturday night! I can't remember the last time this happened (actually it was probably back in winter when it was too cold to venture out from under the kotatsu). So, what should I do with all this free time? I could go loot Becky or Selena's apartments since I have keys to both (muah ha!--actually, I guess right now they are both Becky's apartments ;) I could spend three hours cooking an elaborate meal and then eat it by myself. I could read a book; haven't had time to do that in awhile! What I probably should do is study Japanese since I haven't had time to at the office lately. Funny that now that it's summer vacation I have more lessons to plan than I did during the school year (thanks to my office keeping me busy teaching workshops for elementary school teachers all summer). I just bought a new book on kanji that I should start on.

But what I've actually been doing is sitting here randomly surfing the internet for the two hours since I got home! Checking for blog updates and not finding many. ;( (p.s. gillian, I just read a whole bunch of your really old blog entries that I never read when you actually posted them--it took me a long time to figure out how to navigate the new blog layout way back when ;) haha. I think I should find something a bit more productive to do now, but first, here's a recap of what we got up to in Gillian and Selena's last few weeks:

Partying Hawaiian style in Kokura:

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Gillian's last supper.

Last chuhis on the wharf.

Shimonoseki girls posing with the fugu (blowfish) after sushi lunch.

At Beatniks with Selena.

Bye Gillian!

Gillian boards the bus to Fukuoka and the airport after a big send-off from teachers, students and friends.

Bye Selena and Christine!

Selena (apparently excessively happy to be leaving ;) at the international ferry terminal.

Selena and Christine P. board the ferry bound for China and some travel adventure before returning to their respective countries.

The city they've left behind: (Took this today from the top of Shimonoseki's tower. Unfortunately was a bit hazy so you can't see the bridge well.)

Korea, Days 2 & 3: Seoul (finally ;)

We arrived in Seoul on the 22nd, but didn't get much of a look around because we arrived quite late. We stayed in a hostel close to the main shopping district, which has malls that are open until 5am!! There are also street vendors everywhere selling everything from fruit to socks to electronics.

On the 23rd we went to Gyeongbokgung, the old imperial palace:

"Where are we?"

In the evening, we decided to take in some [touristy] culture and spent the evening watching a whole bunch of traditional Korean arts combined into one show (I imagine it's the Korean equivalent to "Gion Corner" in Kyoto, though I've never been). We saw lots of singing, traditional theatre, dance, and some really amazing drumming; the best part was about 10 women in a row, wearing beautiful hanbok,* doing sychronized drumming while doing lots of dance-type moves.

*traditional dress of Korea

Photos were not allowed during the performance, but all the performers went outside for a little dance with the audience afterwards:

Here we are with some of the drummers (hmm, can you tell that we live in Japan??)

Korea's soccer team was going to be playing Switzerland early the next morning (4am) and so by about 8pm the streets of downtown Seoul were starting to fill with vendors and red-clad fans. It reminded me a bit of Canada day, since everyone was wearing red and white and out roaming the streets in hoards. And though I'm not a soccer fan, the atmosphere in the streets was amazing. There was lots of music and noise and there were big screens set up everywhere getting ready to show the match. We called it a night several hours before it started since we had to be up for our DMZ tour the next day, but we met loads of fun people beforehand!

This guy was modelling sit-upon cushions that were for sale.

You can sort of see a temporary tattoo of the korean flag on my arm in this shot. We were literally attacked by guys with temp-tattoos and spray bottles of water to apply them! I think Angie may have been most traumatized by this as they did both her arms at once!

Becky, on the other hand, became fast friends with the tattooers:

Found this sign in the subway. "Bringing Canadian Education to the world!" hmm.

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The next day we got up early for our tour of South and North Korea's Demilitarized Zone and the "3rd tunnel" (so called simply because it was the 3rd of 4 tunnels which were discovered leading from the north to the south beneath the demilitarized zone).

At the 3rd tunnel (we weren't supposed to take anything, including cameras, into the tunnel, so we have no pictures of the inside)

Memorial near the Bridge of No Return

The fence at the middle of the bridge, covered with letters and wishes for peace from South Koreans. The Bridge of No Return was used for prisoner exchanges after the Korean war; prisoners on either side could decide whether to stay or to return.

The Joint Security Area :

The waiver we had to sign before entering. (click to make it bigger)

Inside one of the South Korean Buildings. The black speakers on the table mark the border between North and South.

Standing on the North Korean side of the building.

Looking over to North Korea

For more information [courtesy of wikipedia] about the DMZ, and the ongoing conflict between North and South Korea, click here.

Angie and our vegetarian bibimbap lunch (just like at parties in Japan, we had a segregated "vegetarian table" all to ourselves...)

After our tour we went out to do some shopping and then check out Seoul's nightlife, and our last day was spent travelling back to Pusan to catch the ferry back to Japan.

Mmm, cheap fruit! :)

Street shopping