We LOVED Japan!!

Daniel and I just returned from six days in Japan!! We had a wonderful time, even though the weather did not fully cooperate. It appeared as though many people in Kyoto were as obsessed with cherry blossoms as I am, which made me very happy: fake branches with blossoms were hung along the streets and in restaurants; a woman in the subway handed us a map of the best cherry blossom sightings in the city; and every store we went to featured items with blossoms. While we were too early to experience the blossoms in all of their glory, we did get to see several stunning trees (and I, along with many others, took pictures of them). Here's a list of some of the highlights from our vacation...

We spent the first night (last Saturday) in Kyoto in a small guesthouse, which just opened a month ago and features small rooms for one or two people and "capsules." Our room was about a quarter of the size of our bedroom in Korea, but we still had a great time--the owners were very friendly and helpful and the other guests seemed to be in their 20s or 30s. On Sunday, we spent a few hours at a famous flea market by Toji Temple, which only happens on the 21st of each month. I bought two secondhand kimonos (for $10 each) and a beautiful obi. We then visited two other huge temples near Kyoto Station before returning to the guesthouse for our luggage and moving to our hotel, which was in "Downtown Kyoto" in a great location, at the intersection of the two subway lines. Our room wasn't much bigger, but the bed was a little more comfortable and the people at the front desk were also very helpful (we also heard many languages during our small interactions with the other guests). We had dinner at a great sushi restaurant near the Kamogawa River and, sitting at the counter, we could observe the work of the sushi chefs (we went back on Monday night since we liked it so much). Monday was wonderful--the weather was perfect and we spent the day in gorgeous Arashiyama, to the west of Kyoto. Since the day was a holiday, the area was filled with Japanese tourists (a few of whom were wearing kimonos). We hiked up the mountain in the monkey park and had a wonderful view of Kyoto from the top (and we fed some monkeys). We later visited the impressive Bamboo Grove and the Tenryuji Temple, which had lovely gardens.

On Tuesday, we took the bullet train to Nagoya to visit our friend Lee, which was lots of fun. We visited Nagoya Castle, had traditional green tea and a red bean-filled sweet, saw a temple, walked around the city (it was unfortunately raining most of the day), and had dinner at a tempura restaurant. That morning, we woke up early to visit Ryoanji Temple, which contains a famous zen garden (we actually found the other gardens to be even more stunning). On Wednesday, we spent a very rainy day visiting several other beautiful sites--the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji Temple), the Kyoto Imperial Palace, the Path of Philosophy, and Ginkakuji Temple. Everything was lovely (especially the Path of Philosophy), but our shoes and pants got soaked. Thursday was also rainy, but the rain stopped later in the afternoon. We spent the day in Nara, which was also beautiful. We had big bowls of udon noodle soup for lunch, which were warm and delicious (and the noodles were hidden in a large bag of yummy tofu). We then saw Todaiji Temple, where the Buddha was so impressive, and saw two shrines and a five-storey pagoda. Deer were walking around everywhere in the forest, and they generally looked cute, wet, and hungry; Daniel fed a group of them special hay crackers, and they looked like they were going to jump on him.

Friday morning, we quickly visited Kiyomizu-dera Temple, which was stunning, before taking the train back to the airport. When we arrived in Seoul, we were greeted by cold gusts of wind and a rain/snow mix. I hope it warms up here soon! We now have to face reality--lots of grading and planning to do before school on Monday. But we're looking forward to two visits from great friends in the next couple of weeks, and we're already planning our next trip to Japan! :)

Here are some of my favorite pictures; I took almost 800 pictures during the trip, so it was very difficult to choose just a few of them...


The flea market at Toji Temple


In Arashiyama





Feeding the monkeys


The view of Kyoto from the monkey park





The Bamboo Grove


At Tenryuji Temple









Green tea ice cream


Pontocho-dori Street


Ryoanji Temple





Nagoya Castle


Green tea



The Golden Pavilion


The Kyoto Imperial Palace





The Path of Philosophy


Ginkakuji Temple


Deer in Nara

Todaiji Temple


The Buddha





Daniel feeding the deer


The five-storey pagoda


At Kiyomizu-dera Temple

My kids do me proud...

...and many of them can even spell Nuku'alofa correctly.

I just finished grading the Oceania map quiz. That's the hardest map quiz we've had yet, and the most totally unfamiliar. (Do you know what the capital of Vanuatu is? Could you even find Vanuatu on a map?) And they complained about it a lot (as far as I can remember this was the first time some kids even complained in writing in their weekly journals about a map quiz). But I corrected the quizzes today, and I'm really proud of my students. It's quite obvious that all of them studied (some of them harder than others); normally there are a few kids who obviously didn't and totally bomb the quiz. There was only one failing grade out of thirty-four kids, and he would have passed if he'd gotten a few more points; there were a few in the C+ and B- range, and a very gratifying number in the A-range. There are always a few extra credit points, so there are always a few kids with better-than-perfect scores, but this time it seemed like more than usual. Plus, my lowest-level ESL student, who was given a mandatory zero on his last map quiz because he had answers written on his hand (he would have failed it anyway), got a 63.5 out of 63. It made me so happy.

THIS JUST IN: Chickens not only birds to lay eggs

Ducks, quails also reproduce oviparously

The other day at school, one of my colleagues said she had accidentally bought some duck eggs. She had bought some expensive eggs, thinking they were organic or something. Having brought them home, she made an omelet. They tasted funny. She then saw a picture of a duck on the carton. Apparently she has some ethical qualms about eating duck eggs, and did not intend to eat any of the three remaining eggs. Seeing my interest, she offered to bring them to school for me. And she did; so I had three duck eggs to try. I had two of them fried with some of the leftover pork from the faculty dinner--they were good. Maybe a slightly stronger "eggy" or "gamey" flavor. Today I went out shopping and got another carton of duck eggs. I used some of them to make cookies, and now there are four left over. I don't know if the duckiness of the eggs made a difference to the cookies--I had to put about a cup of extra flour in to make them bake up properly (give them "structural integrity"), and using dark brown sugar instead of light brown was probably a bigger deal.

When Leslie and I are all grown up and have a house in suburbia with a backyard, I want to be a duck farmer.

Happy New Year!!

Hi everyone! It's the Lunar New Year this weekend, so we have today and tomorrow off from school! Last week was very busy (and I was quite sick); on top of our normal teaching and preparations, we also had to work on our curriculum maps (entering our units onto the special website) before our faculty meeting Friday afternoon. After the meeting, the school took us to dinner at a very nice Korean BBQ restaurant (I had tofu and Daniel took home a bunch of extra meat). On Saturday, we spent several hours watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony at our friend's apartment (they can get American television through slingbox), which was a lot of fun (she made us and her other guests delicious homemade banana muffins, crepes, and coffee cake), went shopping at Costco with another friend, and then went to that friend's place to eat Costco pizza for dinner and watch Amadeus. Yesterday, I met up with my elementary school friend (who's also teaching in Korea this year) at the Namsangol Hanok Village in the center of Seoul. It was very crowded--they had several special activities set up for the New Year, and a lot of children were wearing their beautiful traditional outfits (called hanbok) under their coats. It was fun to see kids playing with traditional toys, writing good-luck letters, and making recorders out of bamboo. We also watched a cool performance (video below) and tried homemade rice wine (called Makgeolli--not my favorite). We later went back to the apartment she's currently staying in, which is near Itaewon, and then I met Daniel in Itaewon at a yummy Indian restaurant for Valentine's Day dinner. Today, I need to start doing some work (grading tests and planning my next units especially). We are traveling to Kyoto, Japan for Spring Break (at the end of March), so we've spent a lot of time on the internet and skype the last couple of days trying to find hotels; we've called at least 20 places for the first night we're there (we're set for the rest of the week) and they're all booked, or else very expensive. We'll keep trying! :) I can't wait to visit Japan! We hope you're all doing well!


Playing with hoops.


They had a "man" and "woman" in traditional clothing.


The N Seoul Tower.


Making Korean recorders.


The garden, looking down from the traditional houses.


In one of the traditional houses.


One of the rooms.


Letters people had written.


I loved his hanbok.


Kite-flying.


The performance--look at their hats!


More performance.




The rice wine.


Yummy red bean-filled pastries.


At the Indian restaurant.

Ice Skating Adventure

Hi everyone! After a stressful past few weeks, we had lots of fun today because of an ice skating field trip (for 4th-10th grades) this afternoon! While chaperoning our homerooms (which mainly consisted of getting them there and back in one piece), Daniel and I also had the chance to skate! We were at the rink for over two hours, and I skated for most of that time. While the students were first being given group lessons, the ice was open on one side of the rink, which was very nice; when they were done with the lessons, it was pretty crowded. I skated alone, with Daniel, and with a few of my students (at one point, I was pulling two girls at once). The only not-so-fun part was when one of the 8th graders cut right in front of me, and when I tried to stop, I fell and bruised my knee. :( Most of the students had a great time; however, a few of them (the 10th grade boys especially) didn't want to give it a try. Here are some pictures from the trip:



My students getting their group lessons.



Empty ice!





A few of my ninth graders.


While fixing my skates.






Two other teachers. :)


I taught my students how to play Apples to Apples today (in the half an hour we had left of school when we got back); they really enjoyed it.