I know, I know....blogging has been on the back burner

Hello all!
Sorry its been so long since my last post. Let us see if I can quickly wrap up what has been happening since my birthday. I had my first week of school, where I did the same introduction lesson oh, about 30,000,000,000 times. =P I still have one more school to go to, my second elementary school. So, after next week, I will be officially done introducing myself and my home. Part of my intro has been to explain that I am a vegetarian. I tell them what it means and that "many people in Asheville are Vegetarian" Ha! I thought it was pretty interesting to show these kids that there are people who not only speak a different language but have completely removed, what the kids consider to be, what makes a meal a meal, meat/fish. Ha!
Moving on...the little kids are very cute, 1st and 2nd graders especially. It makes me want to be a elementary school teacher...in Japan at least. BUT these kids have yet to realize that I do not speak Japanese. As I walk the halls I get swarms of children asking me all sorts of questions in their soft spoken, yet quite fast, Japanese. Sigh. I wish I could understand them! That is just more motivation for me to study the language.
Okay...the rest of the blog will be the usual. I will share a picture and a (hopefully) brief explanation....brief because I am using my neighbors internet still.

so on my way to pick up matt in Kofu, I saw Mt. Fuji! I am not sure how well you will be able to see it, but the mountain in the background is Mt. Fuji. I was excited to finally see it. I live on the completely other side of the prefecture, so it is very rare for it the sky to be clear enough to see it.


Matt went into a store to kill some time, when we saw these great "Engrish" slippers. That's right people...it says "where are you doing?"! hee hee!



These are the promised cake pics that I took on my birthday. I was craving a Ingles or Harris Teeter style cake. But, alas, there aren't any of those places near our home here. To get a real birthday cake here, you have to order pretty far in advance from what I understand. These three slices of cake were a nice substitute, but still not the same. =P

Here it is! one of the famous cigarette vending machines. This one requires a certain id to be swiped to get the cigs, but have no fear under aged hooligans, there are plenty of beer vending machines with out any id requirements, just pay your 200 yen and let the drinking commence! (ps. I do not condone underage drinking k? but I do think its pretty funny to see beer and cigarettes being sold like this. I have a friend who lives near a vending machine that sells eggs...eww.)

Key chains are big here. You put them on your cell phone, your Nintendo ds, your keys...etc. You find lots of these key chain machines in Japan. I thought this one was pretty funny. They are selling mos burger key chains. Mos burger is the Japanese Burger King. So if you wanted, you could have a hot dog, or a hamburger attached to your cell phone...sooooo coool! =P

Lastly, Matt and I went to Kofu to experience the "I love Kofu" Festival....really, that is what it was called...in English and everything. We ate festival food (yay pork free Yakisoba!!) and watched Taiko (Japanese drumming) on the main stage. We eventually ended up at a karaoke place. It was...interesting. =P (I can't sing)