Friday Night in Toi

This past Friday there was a campfire at the beach. I'm not sure if it was a special festival or anything, the kids just referred to it as a campfire. I headed towards the beach around sunset so I took some pictures along the way. The picture above is the main street.

I really love the lanterns along the beach and park.


When I arrived at the beach, my students, and other people, were in a circle around the campfire dancing. Well... sorta.

Here's a video:



Haha, as you can see they weren't very good. But it was entertaining and one of the junior high students gave me a glow-in-the-dark bracelet. Then one of the elementary students showed me she had one and we had a conversation talking about colors. Haha. She would hold up her wrist and yell, "green!" I would say, "blue!" This student loves having "conversations" like this. At recess one day we spent five minutes just saying "I like rabbits!" "I like blue!" "I like dogs!" "I like fish!" "I like pink!"

Here are a few more pictures: A FEW MORE PICTURES

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Umi no Hi Weekend

This past weekend was a three-day weekend. Monday was 海の日 (umi no hi) which means "Ocean Day." So it was very appropriate to go to the beach! :)

On Saturday (Ok, not quite Umi no Hi) I went to Shimoda with a few friends. Shimoda is on the southwest coast of the Izu Peninsula. To get there I took a bus to Shuzenji Station where I met my friends. From there we took another bus and then a train to Shimoda. From there we took another bus to the beach.

This is a picture of the nautical themed ticket gate at the train station in Shimoda. The workers there wore Hawaiian shirts.

Finally we made it to the beach!



It was a little crowded, but still very pretty and a lot of fun. :) We ate lunch at a little place on the beach. They had Japanese food like ramen and yakisoba and curry. I had curry. :)

We took the train back home. Shuzenji Station is in the middle of the peninsula. Shimoda is on the southeast coast of the peninsula. But to get to Shuzenji Station by train I had to go all the way north and then west, and then back south. It's too bad there's not a train line connecting the central line to the east line, but there are mountains in the way.

The train had some nice views though!


On Monday (actually Ocean Day!) I walked to the beach in Toi. It has been several weeks since I was last there, so I was a little surprised to see so many people there! All the stands along the beach were open selling food and cute inner tubes and other swimming toys.

I bought some cookies earlier in the week and I thought it was funny that I ate some of them on Ocean Day, since they have pictures of ships on them.

So overall, it was a very nice weekend! :)
As usual, there are more photos on facebook! :)
MORE PHOTOS

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Tokyo (the fourth time!)

Today I finally got internet. I haven't had internet for a little over a month now. So I haven't been able to use Skype either. So, I went to Tokyo a couple weeks ago so that I could use internet in the hotel. I also did some sightseeing and shopping of course!

I went to Rikugien Saturday morning. It was really pretty and a huge contrast with the city around it.

Then I went to Ginza to do some shopping. :)

I went to Itoya, which is a stationary store. It has a wide variety of things. It has pens that cost 100 yen (about a dollar) and pens that cost over 6000000 yen. Seriously! That's like $60,000!!!! I think I stood there several minutes recounting the zeros to make sure that's really how much it was. It was sooooo ugly too. I wanted to take a picture, but there were signs not to take photos and there were workers (more like guards) around these cases (there were many other expensive pens as well, this one was just the most expensive one I saw).

I did make some purchases in this store. I bought one of the cheaper thousand dollar pens. Okay, of course not (why would anyone spend that much on a pen?!?!?!?!?!?). I bought something much better (for less than 10 dollars!). Paper! It's soooo cute! :)

Then I went to Shibuya. Look at the Godzilla ad! Haha.


These buildings are just a few minutes from the station. I don't know why they are still there. They're so old! They don't look like they're in great condition either. This is an expensive area!!!! The land those buildings are on has to be worth a TON!


This is the view of the Hachiko crosswalk in Shibuya from Starbucks.

Japanese ads can be so random. Why is Darth Vader in the cell phone ad? I have no idea, but I love it!

On Sunday I went to Harajuku. This girl was outside the station posing for pictures.



This store had really cheap Lolita clothing. I know where to buy a fun costume! :)

Here is a picture of a rainbow I saw on the way home. This is Mishima Station.


More pictures of Tokyo............ HERE!

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Tokyo Disney Sea!!!!!!!!!!!!

About a month ago I went to Tokyo Disney Sea with a few friends. I had been looking forward to visiting Tokyo Disney for a long time!

We stayed at a hostel in Tokyo. All four of us shared a room with bunk beds. It was nice that we didn't have to share the room with other random people.

The next morning we took the subway and trains and finally arrived at Disney Sea! The train that went from the train station to the park was really cute!!!! Mickey shaped windows! Mickey shaped handles! かわいい！

Disney Sea was really cool and pretty! Here area few pictures of the different areas.

In one area there was a random performance



We rode several rides including a random boat ride (and I really mean random... it just took a random spinning route through the water and kept switching from forwards to backwards), and Indiana Jones ride (which had pretty cool effects!), a Sinbad boat storybook ride (what's with the non-Disney rides?), a roller coaster, a kiddy Little Mermaid spinning ride, and Tower of Terror.

The Tower of the Terror was my favorite! Most of it was inside but then at the very top they opened the doors and there was a really cool (and scary!) view of Disney Sea right before dropping again.

By the end of the day we were all very tired. Our feet hurt and it had been a hot day. But it had been soooo much fun!

We headed back to Jimbocho (the area of Tokyo our hotel was in). Then we went to a Mexican restaurant. I was really craving Mexican food. It was good, but it didn't satisfy my craving... this is NOT a chimichanga.

Lol, at least it still tasted good.

The next morning we went out to eat at Denny's. It's totally different than an American Denny's. I had a hamburger (without bread) and some sort sauce on it and corn and some other Japanese type vegetables and rice and miso soup. No bacon and scrambled egg and sausage platters at this Denny's. They did have pancakes though, but it looked like they were more of a desert thing.

Then we headed to Akihabara so one of my friens could buy a camera at the same store that I had bought my camera. I "bought" a puzzle of Tokyo Tower. I used the points I had on my store card from my camera so it was free. :) I love that store!

After that we went to Ginza to shop at Forever 21. I hadn't been to Ginza yet so it was exciting. It was really cool because they closed the main street so that pedestrians could walk on it. They even put chairs out in the street for people to sit on.

Forever 21 was fun and I got a cute flowery headband and some cute hair clips. :)

Tokyo is soooo much funnn!!!!! I could definitely live there! But then I would never have any money... :P

I took the Shinkansen back home. I got a nice view of Fuji-san!

Here are more pictures from my weekend: TOKYO DISNEY SEA!!!!!!!!

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Kawazu Nanadaru

Today I went to Kawazu Nanadaru, which is a trail that goes past seven waterfalls. The weather was great and the waterfalls were super pretty! There's not a whole lot to write about so here is a link to more photos:
Kawazu Nanadaru Photos

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Random Stuff

Last Friday the principal brought these to school and gave them to the teachers. They're called biwa (loquats in English). They were really good!


The seeds were pretty! :)


This is one of my favorite drinks... :) It's fizzy lemonade and it's cute! :)

On Saturday I went to the outlet stores in Gotemba with some friends. On the way there I played around with a fun setting on my camera.

At Gotemba I bought a shirt and some scented soaps, but the most exciting thing I bought was probably this ice cream! In the US I think Cold Stone is way too overpriced especially when I can buy ice cream at the grocery store that I like better. But here in Japan it was totally worth the money. This was the first mint chocolate ice cream I've had in Japan! :) Oh and the workers sang as they made the ice cream. It was really cute!


On the way back home I played with my camera some more...


Another wonderful purchase from Gotemba was this candy!!!! :) It was fun to eat while I studied that night.

Believe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The next morning I took some pictures of the rice paddies behind my apartment. They look pretty cool when they're flooded.


Oh, and here are a couple pictures of my apartment building. Isn't it so lovely? Haha... at least the inside looks a lot better than the outside!


Then I headed to go to the mall. When I got to Shuzenji I was a little hungry and wanted a snack before getting on the train. So I got a piece of blueberry mousse cake. Mmm! :)

Then I got onto the train. I stood up front, which I hadn't done before. I took a couple videos of the view.






When I arrived in Mishima I walked to a small shrine nearby. Here are some pictures I took along the way.


There was a little creek running by here with stepping stones across it. I'll have to do that sometime.


On the way to the mall I stopped to take pictures of pretty flowers. :)



Soon I arrived at the mall. The following picture was taken in Home Assist (like a cross between a Home Depot, a home store, an office supply store, a pet store, and a car store).

I really don't know... I have no idea what he was advertising... lol.

I took some pictures of the cute animals in the pet department but then was told not to take pictures. :(



Now here are a couple pictures I have taken around Toi the past couple days.

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