Hiroshima 広島 and Miyajima 宮島

I've been able to explore a lot. I've visited Onomichi, stopped by Tokyo, explored Kyoto with friends, gone to Nagoya, seen Osaka. But not until last weekend did I go to the largest city of my own prefecture, Hiroshima. Hiroshima is the city we all know as the target of the 1945 atomic bombing by…

Keeping It Interesting Cont’d

There are still a lot of things I can improve on, but one thing I did not expect was to receive complaints for doing my job decently well. We teachers get a lot of petty complaints--I don't understand anything; you said my name wrong; you speak quickly; it's difficult, etc. But my strangest complaint was that…

Keeping It Interesting

Some of my baby students are amazingly fast learners. They are brilliant and it's incredible to see such young children learning so much. Others, however, baffle me with how brilliant they are not... I seriously don't understand how they can be that slow. I don’t say this to be humorous at all though. I have a genuine…

Kyoto Solo (Part 2)

Somewhere along the way in Kyoto, I had gotten lost in the crowds (it was like the third or fourth time it had happened; so the panic and shock I had felt the first couple times had faded). I was separated from the group, but I learned that they wouldn't leave me too far behind. Soon,…

Kyoto Photo (Part 1)

At my graduation ceremony, my family had a thing for photo-bombing, which wasn't hard to do since it was such a crowded place (it seems wherever my dad goes he starts a trend). My brothers all started photo-bombing. Even the youngest one (6-years-old) photo-bombed who he could from three feet off the ground. Somehow the trend…

My Job in Japan

I work as an English teacher at something called an ekaiwa, which essentially means an English conversation school. It's a place where parents pay money for their kids to take English classes. The school where I teach has it's own specific teaching method that consists of a certain curriculum, and teaching style. With this method, the native teachers are…

Welcome to the Seaside

Here are a few snapshots from my visit to the nearby town of Onomichi (尾道). It's a seaside city about 20 minutes away from my town. I went with my friend Yumiko. She's been a great help to me in my time here.

The Pleased Parents: Part 3

My schedule at work is kind of crazy. After lunch, my day is packed with six to seven regular lessons back-to-back (I ain't complaining though; there are worse things. Also, the overtime pay is nice money). The breaks that I do get are the 10-15 minutes between each of my classes. Sometimes in that time,…

A Grocery Challenge (1 Year in Japan)

In college, I had no car so I usually brought a small suitcase to travel with my groceries through the DC metropolitan transportation system. I usually ended up sore the next day. It was actually a very rough experience, but now I have challenges of a different sort. I have no idea what to buy. One time,…

The Pleased Parents: Part 2

My second-to-last class of the week is on a Saturday evening and consists of three students. One of them, she is my all-time favorite, Alana. Another, a boy named Len, is beautifully happy and just energetic enough to still be manageable, but the last one--she's the sauce, Ai (pronounced "eye"). She looked at me and…