Hello,
I don't have any classes today -- Students have exams tomorrow and Friday so they need the class time for study/preparation. I showed up to work this morning and my supervisor handed me a pile of English books to read -- how fun! So I read an English translation of "The Wonderful World of Sazae-san" a very famous/popular Japanese post-war comic. I also read a good book about the titanic -- although it was just a children's book, and I've heard/read about it a million times before, it was very moving.
I also had a large package sitting on my desk from city hall -- they supplied me with free medicine. 3 packs of Ibuprophin, some vitamins, cold/flu/fever medicine, a bunch of stomach medicine, throat gargle. maybe because toyama is such a medical capital, they can provide this stuff for free. (it's famous for pharmacuticals).
On Sunday I went to the Toyama Suiboku(ga) Bijyutsukan -- Japanese Ink Painting Art Museum. There was an event sponsored by a women's group, or something, and they made a real effort to extract many of the ken's foreigners. I was shocked at how international the event was. The Japanese really seem to put a lot of effort and pride into internationalization -- it's kind of a wierd mix of being a really homogonous culture, very self-conscious of its Japaneseness, and being fascinated and proud of its international ties. Anyways, in the evening at this event, there was a dinner, and (ah - it's so difficult for me to communicate -- it seems like my sentaces are really strangly constructed -- it's wierd how much i can feel myself loosing english ability, although i do use it 90 percent of the time... some crazy things come out in conversation) at this dinner they would say a coutry and everyone from that country had to stand up... not only america, canada, england, oz, many asian countries, south american, african, european, probably more than 20 countries -- it was really impressive.
So anyways, this ink thing. It was a beautiful day so I rode my bike there (30 minute cycle). I came alone, and as soon as I walked up to the registration desk and tried to mutter some broken Japanese there was a nice 40 year old japanese woman there to take me by the elbow for the afternoon. The people are really friendly -- you just have to go with the flow in Japan because things happen a little differently here... But this woman was really nice and spoke some decent English, so she escorted me around for the afternoon. First we went to a room where you can experience suiboku-painting. I was sat down, shown how to use the brush, practiced (we were given a painting we were supposed to duplicate) and then was ready to do my painting, but the crowd of Japanese women standing over my got the teacher (sensei) so he could show me how to begin. The teacher came and stood over me, and then I was supposed to paint this thing. So I dipped my brush in the ink and was about to paint when the teacher decided to show me how to do it, grabbed the brush, and paited half of the painting. So I started on the second half, and after a moment he took a brush and changed it until he was satisfied, and there I was! The rest of the day, the woman I was with showed people we met the painting and everyone commented on what a talented painter I was -- and it was my first time!
Also did tea ceremony, which was nice because it was gorgeous out, and a really nice room, looked at the museum's paintings, had coffee, etc. As they were setting up the hall for dinner, a woman had some strange music and was doing really strange dancing on a hill, and over 60 percent of the people had made a large circle around her and were following her. My friends joined in, but I was enjoying coffee and watching. Then we played bingo, and i won a box of chocolates. We went inside for dinner and sat with a few chinese medical students with very good english, and it was nice to meet some foreigners from a different background.
The rest of my weekend was nice, Friday and saturday nights I went out - Friday night a bunch of foreigners went out (drank way too much) met up with some japanese people and had this feeling of 'it's really fun to be going to bars, and in _japan_' at least that was my feeling. Saturday night i went out with some alt's and some of their japanese friends, and that was a completely different experience of 'it's really fun to be going out with japanese people since i'm in japan'. you might be able to imagine.
This friday I have the third installation of English club (have I written about this?) City hall employees can join an English conversation club, and basically victoria, brian, this girl jen and i go out to a really nice (western) meal (on them) and drink a fair amount and speak english. most of the people who come are pretty high ranking city officials (deputy mayor, etc.), they're pretty internationalized, and some of their english is very good, so we can have pretty interesting conversations about books, movies, travel, japan, politics, etc. After the first time we went to a posh kareoke bar (where they served fruit and whiskey), and there might be a kareoke repeat this friday.
Then, sat. early morning (6am) I'm getting on a train for tokyo, yea!! I will be seeing a bit of tokyo saturday morning, then going over to the witcherns' in the afternoon for thanksgiving. sunday i'll tour a bit more and head back. unfortunately, because i took so long making reservations, i only got smoking section of the shinkansen. but it will do.
ps, i repeated the banana bread experience and made two loaves for one of my schools. they really loved it (except they kept calling it pound cake -- i don't think they understood that we consider it bread). as I was remaking the recipe, I realized i head misread it and added 5 spoon (which i am guessing is equivalent to 1 tsp) instead of 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. but, since it worked the first time i made the mistake again and the loaves were still wonderful.
Last thursday I had a demonstration class, where the school shuts down and teachers and officals come and watch me and another teacher teach an english class. it went pretty well, although i really don't have a good sense of the feedback. My supervisor came but had to leave before the feedback section, and she only said it was interesting. When I asked the teacher i team taught with what the feedback was, she said it was only 'good job'. but i was sitting in the meeting for an hour, listening various speeches, and i'm sure they said more than just 'good job' as in they gave some criticism, but i guess it's not for me to hear...
Brrrr, i didn't wear enough clothes today, i have to remember that this is the cold school.
battery power's running low, i forgot my power adaptor today, and i don't have any classes, what will i do!
sarah
ps, just a note, i'm coming home on the 20th (till the 3rd) so give me a call in michigan or e-mail me if you're in the area.
pss, happy thanksgiving
Sunday, November 17, 2002
I think I've inherited a gift from my mother. I won't boast too much, but, despite all odds, I turned out a wonderful loaf of banana bread yesterday.
First there's the problem of buying groceries. The banana's aren't hard, and I had gotten a huge bunch (12) of over ripe bananas for 50 yen (33 cents). So I decided to make the break, and other banana products. But first I needed flour. I went to the very small baking section of the grocery store across the street. There were 3 different bags of flour-like substance, and I puzzled about them for about 20 minutes -- I didn't see the katakana for flour anywhere, but i also didn't know if flour was the kind of thing that would be written in kanji. So i compared the kanji from these packages (which I suspected were some sort of mix, since they had speckles in them and pictures of rope on the front) to the ingredient list on the back of the cake mixes... Finally I asked someone who took me to a different isle with flour. I had already bought eggs and white sugar, my predecessor had left me baking soda and powder, and I so I picked up some walnuts, a chocolate bar (no choc. chips, so I guessed that the bittersweet chocolate bar would be similar if I chopped it up a bit), something I thought was brown sugar (I don't know why, I thought I needed it but I didn't, and I already had some, although really chunky), and milk which I didn't need, and raisins because I like to eat them with yogurt and mashed up bananas for breakfast ( I probably eat an average of 12 bananas a week since I've come to Japan). I was still feeling pretty aweful yesterday so the whole grocery store bit took me a while (another side note-- I've been sick for over 2 weeks and I woke up today and I'm not sick anymore!!!) Then after cleaning my kitchen and hanging up my laundry over my bathtub (no one has driers here) I could start. But I hadn't bought butter, so I went back and bought butter.
Okay time to start cooking. I put the sugar in a bowl and grab the butter. Uh oh -- absolutely no way of measuring it -- no lines, nothing... I can tell from the outside package that there's 200 grams, and the recipe calls for 1/3 of a cup or 75 ml. This is not helpful. So I take out a book of conversions and a calculator, and draw all sorts of diagrams, turn off the music, the fan and the washingmachine, sit somewhere else and think about it, and finally deduct that I need to use 37 percent of the block of butter. Which still isn't that helpful, and I eyed it just as I would have to begin with. So I cubed up some butter and softened it in my glass loaf pan in my toaster oven (a good idea since I needed to grease the pan but don't have cooking spray). Okay, butter and sugar combined, time for the eggs. I take the eggs out of the carton, and there are small pink stickers of baby chicks hatching out of the eggs on each one...... so i guess these eggs are fertilized? they're bright orange, but no beaks or baby chicken eyes so i guess it's okay. (I could tell they were different when i bought them, but all i could read was that they contained vitamin E, so I just thought they were fortified... and on sale!)
The rest of the ingredients were easy, and I threw my batter into the loaf pan and into the oven. I set it at 175, which i think is about 350, for 1 hour (for some reason the recipe i had stopped when the batter was finished). Half-way through I realized that the "emission" was on "toast" not "yogurt" for the toaster oven, so I switched it, and I think maybe it will be a bit smoother next time. But when finished, it was very delicous. Now wasn't that the most long-winded way of telling you I made banana bread? It certainly felt like a long process.
But, it was so wonderful and home-like to have my apartment filled with the baked goods-specifically-banana-bread smell. Other things I did this weekend: saw Mothman Prophecies in the theaters (didn't care for it), ate Nabe, went cosmic bowling, watched the godfather on video, ate tacos a la brian, drank whiskey a la victoria's kitchen sink (that makes no sense, but I don't want to directly implicate victoria), and picked up some of my photos from kyoto. one notably nice picture of brian.
PS, victoria's limerick is probably best read with her british accent, if you can manage it.
First there's the problem of buying groceries. The banana's aren't hard, and I had gotten a huge bunch (12) of over ripe bananas for 50 yen (33 cents). So I decided to make the break, and other banana products. But first I needed flour. I went to the very small baking section of the grocery store across the street. There were 3 different bags of flour-like substance, and I puzzled about them for about 20 minutes -- I didn't see the katakana for flour anywhere, but i also didn't know if flour was the kind of thing that would be written in kanji. So i compared the kanji from these packages (which I suspected were some sort of mix, since they had speckles in them and pictures of rope on the front) to the ingredient list on the back of the cake mixes... Finally I asked someone who took me to a different isle with flour. I had already bought eggs and white sugar, my predecessor had left me baking soda and powder, and I so I picked up some walnuts, a chocolate bar (no choc. chips, so I guessed that the bittersweet chocolate bar would be similar if I chopped it up a bit), something I thought was brown sugar (I don't know why, I thought I needed it but I didn't, and I already had some, although really chunky), and milk which I didn't need, and raisins because I like to eat them with yogurt and mashed up bananas for breakfast ( I probably eat an average of 12 bananas a week since I've come to Japan). I was still feeling pretty aweful yesterday so the whole grocery store bit took me a while (another side note-- I've been sick for over 2 weeks and I woke up today and I'm not sick anymore!!!) Then after cleaning my kitchen and hanging up my laundry over my bathtub (no one has driers here) I could start. But I hadn't bought butter, so I went back and bought butter.
Okay time to start cooking. I put the sugar in a bowl and grab the butter. Uh oh -- absolutely no way of measuring it -- no lines, nothing... I can tell from the outside package that there's 200 grams, and the recipe calls for 1/3 of a cup or 75 ml. This is not helpful. So I take out a book of conversions and a calculator, and draw all sorts of diagrams, turn off the music, the fan and the washingmachine, sit somewhere else and think about it, and finally deduct that I need to use 37 percent of the block of butter. Which still isn't that helpful, and I eyed it just as I would have to begin with. So I cubed up some butter and softened it in my glass loaf pan in my toaster oven (a good idea since I needed to grease the pan but don't have cooking spray). Okay, butter and sugar combined, time for the eggs. I take the eggs out of the carton, and there are small pink stickers of baby chicks hatching out of the eggs on each one...... so i guess these eggs are fertilized? they're bright orange, but no beaks or baby chicken eyes so i guess it's okay. (I could tell they were different when i bought them, but all i could read was that they contained vitamin E, so I just thought they were fortified... and on sale!)
The rest of the ingredients were easy, and I threw my batter into the loaf pan and into the oven. I set it at 175, which i think is about 350, for 1 hour (for some reason the recipe i had stopped when the batter was finished). Half-way through I realized that the "emission" was on "toast" not "yogurt" for the toaster oven, so I switched it, and I think maybe it will be a bit smoother next time. But when finished, it was very delicous. Now wasn't that the most long-winded way of telling you I made banana bread? It certainly felt like a long process.
But, it was so wonderful and home-like to have my apartment filled with the baked goods-specifically-banana-bread smell. Other things I did this weekend: saw Mothman Prophecies in the theaters (didn't care for it), ate Nabe, went cosmic bowling, watched the godfather on video, ate tacos a la brian, drank whiskey a la victoria's kitchen sink (that makes no sense, but I don't want to directly implicate victoria), and picked up some of my photos from kyoto. one notably nice picture of brian.
PS, victoria's limerick is probably best read with her british accent, if you can manage it.
Victoria wrote me a limeric the other day:
There once was a girl called Sarah
Nobody's face could be fairer
When she walked down the street
Men fell at her feet
Oh, that pretty young lady called Sarah.
There once was a tall boy with blond hair
With him Sarah made quite a pair
They both spoke quite queer
For Victoria to hear
Oh that funny young American pair.
So:
She had these rather strange friends
Who played with string and things
When she asked for a pram
Their mouths opened and closed like a clam
Oh, those funny American friends.
They decided to go for a walk
And with the usual problems they could talk
When they climbed up a yama
Sarah met a nice Japanese farmer
So now there are four not three on the walk...
There once was a girl called Sarah
Nobody's face could be fairer
When she walked down the street
Men fell at her feet
Oh, that pretty young lady called Sarah.
There once was a tall boy with blond hair
With him Sarah made quite a pair
They both spoke quite queer
For Victoria to hear
Oh that funny young American pair.
So:
She had these rather strange friends
Who played with string and things
When she asked for a pram
Their mouths opened and closed like a clam
Oh, those funny American friends.
They decided to go for a walk
And with the usual problems they could talk
When they climbed up a yama
Sarah met a nice Japanese farmer
So now there are four not three on the walk...
Thursday, November 14, 2002
Hello,
This will be brief because I'm going to leave school soon, and I'm a little tired and not feeling well. But, I have a few interesting things to quickly write.
First of all, you should read Brian's blog (http://brianirwin.blogger.com ) if you want a detailed, interesting description of our Kyoto trip. I learned a lot from reading his blog that I didn't know, and I was there! Also, if you click on highlighted words it will take you to pictures of what he's writing about. He's so clever! I almost wrote cleaver!
My day has been so strange. First, I realized I forgot the video of all the family meals, the focus of one of today's lessons, about 15 minutes before the lesson. Luckily, I had another lesson with me that we never did in that particular class (watching a scene from the Misanthrope) and I had the misanthrope dvd, plus the appropriate video cables and worksheets on hand. So I figured it would be okay. But, in front of class I realized that I didn't have the right audio cable with me. So after 10 minutes we got a microphone and amplifier rigged, and it worked with just a bit of feedback.
Then, in my only other class of the day, I was trying get the students to understand what 'university' was in japanese without just telling them, so i drew a campus and i was going to draw stick figures wearing backpacks. unfortunatly, i didn't distiguish which side was the front, so it really looked like stick figures with really large breasts... the teacher and i were cracking up for about 10 minutes, but i erased it before the students really caught on to what we were laughin at.
this morning i went to make hot chocolate, and there was a plastic _spork_ in the hot chocolate mix. kfc is the other big fast food here besides mc. donalds.
This will be brief because I'm going to leave school soon, and I'm a little tired and not feeling well. But, I have a few interesting things to quickly write.
First of all, you should read Brian's blog (http://brianirwin.blogger.com ) if you want a detailed, interesting description of our Kyoto trip. I learned a lot from reading his blog that I didn't know, and I was there! Also, if you click on highlighted words it will take you to pictures of what he's writing about. He's so clever! I almost wrote cleaver!
My day has been so strange. First, I realized I forgot the video of all the family meals, the focus of one of today's lessons, about 15 minutes before the lesson. Luckily, I had another lesson with me that we never did in that particular class (watching a scene from the Misanthrope) and I had the misanthrope dvd, plus the appropriate video cables and worksheets on hand. So I figured it would be okay. But, in front of class I realized that I didn't have the right audio cable with me. So after 10 minutes we got a microphone and amplifier rigged, and it worked with just a bit of feedback.
Then, in my only other class of the day, I was trying get the students to understand what 'university' was in japanese without just telling them, so i drew a campus and i was going to draw stick figures wearing backpacks. unfortunatly, i didn't distiguish which side was the front, so it really looked like stick figures with really large breasts... the teacher and i were cracking up for about 10 minutes, but i erased it before the students really caught on to what we were laughin at.
this morning i went to make hot chocolate, and there was a plastic _spork_ in the hot chocolate mix. kfc is the other big fast food here besides mc. donalds.
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Hi all,
You can check out a few pictures at my new home page http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar .
2 things that were very nice in the past few days:
1. Yesterday, I was walking home from school (it was very nice out), and I saw this giant golden retriever sprinting towards me from a block down the opposite side of the street. It's owner was stumbling and running and trying to pull it back, but the dog was too big and energetic. It was causing such a commotion I stopped to watch. The dog dragged its owner across the street, sprinted up to me, and obediently sat in front of me, waiting for me to pet it. It was the cutest thing in the world! It was so nice and soft and had a really big head. I thought it was very cute. The owner was also very nice and seemed proud her dog liked me so much and wanted to speak english to me (the owner not the dog -- isn't my english terrible!). So it was a very nice experience.
This is only a few moments after I passed a woman walking her small, wimpy dog and I thought how much I missed dogs in America, because all the dogs in Japan are small and wimpy.
2. This morning I was waiting for the bus at the station, and across the way I saw this woman in a red coat making these crazy signals with this huge white cloth. The way she moved her body and the way the cloth moved was amazing, and I thought she was signaling with the busses or some deaf person or something. I was very confused. Then I realized she was washing a window. But still it was a nice experience.
That's all for now.
Sarah
You can check out a few pictures at my new home page http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar .
2 things that were very nice in the past few days:
1. Yesterday, I was walking home from school (it was very nice out), and I saw this giant golden retriever sprinting towards me from a block down the opposite side of the street. It's owner was stumbling and running and trying to pull it back, but the dog was too big and energetic. It was causing such a commotion I stopped to watch. The dog dragged its owner across the street, sprinted up to me, and obediently sat in front of me, waiting for me to pet it. It was the cutest thing in the world! It was so nice and soft and had a really big head. I thought it was very cute. The owner was also very nice and seemed proud her dog liked me so much and wanted to speak english to me (the owner not the dog -- isn't my english terrible!). So it was a very nice experience.
This is only a few moments after I passed a woman walking her small, wimpy dog and I thought how much I missed dogs in America, because all the dogs in Japan are small and wimpy.
2. This morning I was waiting for the bus at the station, and across the way I saw this woman in a red coat making these crazy signals with this huge white cloth. The way she moved her body and the way the cloth moved was amazing, and I thought she was signaling with the busses or some deaf person or something. I was very confused. Then I realized she was washing a window. But still it was a nice experience.
That's all for now.
Sarah
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Hello,
Last week I had a cold. Not a big deal, but it slowed me down a bit. I had a very relaxing weekend catching up on sleep, going to the gym, seeing a film (Monster's Ball -- at an actual movie theater!!) and reading a book (The last of Mr. Norris, the other story in The Berlin Stories). Going to the movies is kind of a production in Japan-- the only movie theater I know of in Toyama is a 25 minute drive out of the city. And of course it's difficult to figure out which movies are which, because they often change the titles when they release films in Japan (Monster's Ball was called Chocolate, or chyokore-to in katakana). Other options on Saturday where Changing Lanes, 9 days, Mothman Prophecies (considered), and Serendipidy. Road to Perdition is also still playing, but not as late as we were at the theaters. Movies are also really expensive here -- 1800 yen, or 14 dollars a ticket. But for some reason Satuday the tickets only cost 1200... not sure why. Concessions are, on the other hand, quite cheap: they love sets in Japans so you can get M popcorn and a M drink, or M carmel corn and M drink or hotdog and M drink for 500 yen -- a little over 4 dollars. I though the movie was well done but way too dismal for my taste.
I'm freeeeezing right now in the teacher's room. I've worked out that my airconditioner in myapartment also serves as a heater, which is nice because I don't have to use space heaters as much (only when it's really cold). Unfortunatly, the principle at my base school has mandated that heaters will not be used until mid December, so I'm constantly cold. I dread going home and standing by the bus stop of riding my bike (because I've been freezing all day) but I'm always pleasently surprised that it's the same tempurature outside, if not slightly warmer, then what I've been enduring throughout the day (without my coat). Oh yes, I bought a new coat. It's very Japanese, which means it has many layers and part of a dead animal around the hood (but this one's not really a dead animal). Very functional tan denim with a thick inner layer, lots of buttons and zippers and removable things. Very nice. Also bought a Japanese style sweater at the same time (which I'm wearing right now) which has a wonderful amount of material piled around the neck -- it's like wearing a scarf.
I'm sure these details are very boring, but it's what I feel like writing right now, so sorry.
Alright, I don't have too much to say about the trip to Kyoto, except that it was beautiful and amazing and temporarily made me want to become Buddhist. First of all, it was so nice to be in a proper _city_!!! I like Toyama, but it doesn't have that big city feel of Chicago, and I think after living in a small city, I'm definetly ready to move somewhere very urban. We arrived an hour late (trains in Japan are usually on the minute!) at the train station -- one of the most amazing structure I've ever seen. Very metalic structure, with stuff projected on the roof, etc. There was a large escalator, and as you rode it up one the first few levels, you realized it kept going until you were higher than the ceiling out onto an open air roof patio. I'm very bad at describing it now, but it was beautiful and neat and scary. You should all come to Kyoto to see it. And the temples, of course.
So the first day we walked around and saw a bunch of temples. This is what we did the next day also. It's very hard to describe this very well, you just have to see it. And it really is worth seeing. Especially in the fall, when the leaves are gorgeous, and you happen to be on a mountain with high red temples overlooking the sun setting into the city and mountains behind it. I'll try to e-mail my pictures, when I get them.
Other big city pleasures where Starbucks and a large bookstore with a good English language section.
Alright, I've been drinking so much tea to keep warm, that I must now go to the bathroom -- something I kind of dread. If it's cold in the teacher's room, it's 10 degrees colder in the oterai. but at least the toilet seats are heated.
Bye,
Sarah
Last week I had a cold. Not a big deal, but it slowed me down a bit. I had a very relaxing weekend catching up on sleep, going to the gym, seeing a film (Monster's Ball -- at an actual movie theater!!) and reading a book (The last of Mr. Norris, the other story in The Berlin Stories). Going to the movies is kind of a production in Japan-- the only movie theater I know of in Toyama is a 25 minute drive out of the city. And of course it's difficult to figure out which movies are which, because they often change the titles when they release films in Japan (Monster's Ball was called Chocolate, or chyokore-to in katakana). Other options on Saturday where Changing Lanes, 9 days, Mothman Prophecies (considered), and Serendipidy. Road to Perdition is also still playing, but not as late as we were at the theaters. Movies are also really expensive here -- 1800 yen, or 14 dollars a ticket. But for some reason Satuday the tickets only cost 1200... not sure why. Concessions are, on the other hand, quite cheap: they love sets in Japans so you can get M popcorn and a M drink, or M carmel corn and M drink or hotdog and M drink for 500 yen -- a little over 4 dollars. I though the movie was well done but way too dismal for my taste.
I'm freeeeezing right now in the teacher's room. I've worked out that my airconditioner in myapartment also serves as a heater, which is nice because I don't have to use space heaters as much (only when it's really cold). Unfortunatly, the principle at my base school has mandated that heaters will not be used until mid December, so I'm constantly cold. I dread going home and standing by the bus stop of riding my bike (because I've been freezing all day) but I'm always pleasently surprised that it's the same tempurature outside, if not slightly warmer, then what I've been enduring throughout the day (without my coat). Oh yes, I bought a new coat. It's very Japanese, which means it has many layers and part of a dead animal around the hood (but this one's not really a dead animal). Very functional tan denim with a thick inner layer, lots of buttons and zippers and removable things. Very nice. Also bought a Japanese style sweater at the same time (which I'm wearing right now) which has a wonderful amount of material piled around the neck -- it's like wearing a scarf.
I'm sure these details are very boring, but it's what I feel like writing right now, so sorry.
Alright, I don't have too much to say about the trip to Kyoto, except that it was beautiful and amazing and temporarily made me want to become Buddhist. First of all, it was so nice to be in a proper _city_!!! I like Toyama, but it doesn't have that big city feel of Chicago, and I think after living in a small city, I'm definetly ready to move somewhere very urban. We arrived an hour late (trains in Japan are usually on the minute!) at the train station -- one of the most amazing structure I've ever seen. Very metalic structure, with stuff projected on the roof, etc. There was a large escalator, and as you rode it up one the first few levels, you realized it kept going until you were higher than the ceiling out onto an open air roof patio. I'm very bad at describing it now, but it was beautiful and neat and scary. You should all come to Kyoto to see it. And the temples, of course.
So the first day we walked around and saw a bunch of temples. This is what we did the next day also. It's very hard to describe this very well, you just have to see it. And it really is worth seeing. Especially in the fall, when the leaves are gorgeous, and you happen to be on a mountain with high red temples overlooking the sun setting into the city and mountains behind it. I'll try to e-mail my pictures, when I get them.
Other big city pleasures where Starbucks and a large bookstore with a good English language section.
Alright, I've been drinking so much tea to keep warm, that I must now go to the bathroom -- something I kind of dread. If it's cold in the teacher's room, it's 10 degrees colder in the oterai. but at least the toilet seats are heated.
Bye,
Sarah
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