Happy Chocolate Snow Day!
^(snow in honor of Bucknellish peoples) (it's rainy and freakishly warm here)
I gave all my students chocolate today. :) Ako-sensei had chocolate fondue, which she put to use by blindfolding students and making them eat weird things. She made one of my students eat a chocolate-covered tomato. ::tee hee:: Parties are fun. So is making a bunch of respectable adults play rock-paper-scissors in a foreign language.
In less recent news, I had off work Monday for a national holiday (one of the kind only creepily patriotic people celebrate, apparently), so there was Adventure. Sunday, I went ice skating and was apparently a rock star. I think about half the skating rink skated up at some point to ask where I was from and what I was doing in Japan and tell me I have long legs (??....okay......) and my Japanese is good and I'm good at ice skating (a blatant lie, which makes the rest of it pretty dodgy too). It was fun. And I felt all competent about finding the skating rink without exploding. I had to ask for directions and everything. But I fell down and now my legs hurt. Kotatsus will make it all better. I think I may have to mail one to America when I leave. ::hugs kotatsu:: ::waa~arm:: ......zzzzzzzz........::yes, I was writing an LJ post for once in my life - no sleeping!::
On my special holidayey Monday, I went exploring. :) On the train line heading north, there are lots of pretty sceneries, and I miss nature (of the no-people-in-sight variety). So, teravell and I decided to go on a kimagure-ryokou - we got on a train, talked to some random nice ladies who were going to a hot spring, and then got off when it looked pretty outside. It was....very very pretty. There is a river, which may have the cleanest water I have ever seen. It's an odd color of green, and deep, but you can see the whole way to the bottom. We played on the rocks in the river and picnicked and fed some very insistent ducks. One of them ate out of our hands. Also bit our fingers, but oh well. Then they followed us around for quite a while.
After the river, there was some exploration of the town. We saw a grand total of I think 3 people. It was....a town with a very odd atmosphere. Kind of like a sense of impending something, but at the same time incredibly static. It was mysterious and full of possibilities and ladders to nowhere and unexpected corners. I want to have a vacation house there someday.
Then we found a mountain and decided to climb it. It was a short mountain, so that wasn't such a big endeavor, but there wasn't a path or anything, though, so it was a bit slippery. And precipitous. There was a bamboo forest on the mountain, and bamboo are funny plants. They're hollow, so you can play them. I want to give a performance art bamboo concert at dusk, when all the bamboo seems to glow an odd shade of whitish teal. On the whole, the town was full of atmosphere and nature and pretty things and possibilities. It was perfect. :)
I gave all my students chocolate today. :) Ako-sensei had chocolate fondue, which she put to use by blindfolding students and making them eat weird things. She made one of my students eat a chocolate-covered tomato. ::tee hee:: Parties are fun. So is making a bunch of respectable adults play rock-paper-scissors in a foreign language.
In less recent news, I had off work Monday for a national holiday (one of the kind only creepily patriotic people celebrate, apparently), so there was Adventure. Sunday, I went ice skating and was apparently a rock star. I think about half the skating rink skated up at some point to ask where I was from and what I was doing in Japan and tell me I have long legs (??....okay......) and my Japanese is good and I'm good at ice skating (a blatant lie, which makes the rest of it pretty dodgy too). It was fun. And I felt all competent about finding the skating rink without exploding. I had to ask for directions and everything. But I fell down and now my legs hurt. Kotatsus will make it all better. I think I may have to mail one to America when I leave. ::hugs kotatsu:: ::waa~arm:: ......zzzzzzzz........::yes, I was writing an LJ post for once in my life - no sleeping!::
On my special holidayey Monday, I went exploring. :) On the train line heading north, there are lots of pretty sceneries, and I miss nature (of the no-people-in-sight variety). So, teravell and I decided to go on a kimagure-ryokou - we got on a train, talked to some random nice ladies who were going to a hot spring, and then got off when it looked pretty outside. It was....very very pretty. There is a river, which may have the cleanest water I have ever seen. It's an odd color of green, and deep, but you can see the whole way to the bottom. We played on the rocks in the river and picnicked and fed some very insistent ducks. One of them ate out of our hands. Also bit our fingers, but oh well. Then they followed us around for quite a while.
After the river, there was some exploration of the town. We saw a grand total of I think 3 people. It was....a town with a very odd atmosphere. Kind of like a sense of impending something, but at the same time incredibly static. It was mysterious and full of possibilities and ladders to nowhere and unexpected corners. I want to have a vacation house there someday.
Then we found a mountain and decided to climb it. It was a short mountain, so that wasn't such a big endeavor, but there wasn't a path or anything, though, so it was a bit slippery. And precipitous. There was a bamboo forest on the mountain, and bamboo are funny plants. They're hollow, so you can play them. I want to give a performance art bamboo concert at dusk, when all the bamboo seems to glow an odd shade of whitish teal. On the whole, the town was full of atmosphere and nature and pretty things and possibilities. It was perfect. :)