year four?!

As expected, it has been a while since my last post. Things have been a little quieter, especially now that it's September, but they will go straight back to full speed in October: my first (and last?) ever overseas business trip (!), yet another wedding (even in Pittsburgh again, no less), and then our own big yosakoi festival in Chiba.

But anyway, back to what I've been doing since my last blog post. I feel like I haven't done as much as in the past, but what I have done has been pretty interesting/cool!

- I got to accompany the youth exchange students from Montreux and North Vancouver on two separate occasions, which is cool because 1) they were here at the same time, which usually doesn't happen and 2) since the program is run by the international association, I usually don't get to do anything with them other than interpreting for their courtesy visits to the mayor. This time though, since they overlapped and altogether made for a sizeable group, I got to go with them to the science museum/planetarium, lunch, Japanese garden, and a dinosaur exhibit (not all in one day)!

 - I also met and interpreted for the Irish ambassador to Japan. She was quite nice and friendly and didn't bring her own interpreter like ambassadors usually do, which means I did interpreting for both sides. But the content was actually much simpler than what we had been covering in interpreting class so I felt pretty good about it, haha.

 - Then I spent a day judging at a speech contest/presentation day for high-schoolers. I only judged the English speeches (not the Japanese ones) and may or may not have fallen asleep during one of the presentations (I wasn't a judge or anything though). I was impressed by the overall level of English, but it was the national level of the tournament so I guess that makes sense!

- August is the peak of yosakoi season, so there was only one weekend that I didn't spend dancing. The last one was the Nippon Domannaka Matsuri in Nagoya (the one where we made it to the finals last year), and while we didn't make it to the finals, we did make it to the semi-finals! Also a whole bunch (5 over the course of two days) of my friends from the CIRHP agreed to volunteer as staff, which was pretty awesome. I think they had a good time and I think having a group of Japanese-speaking non-Japanese volunteers around was good for the team, haha. (Fulfilling the goals of the international committee, yeahh)

 - And then - this is the highlight of my summer so far - I got to meet the US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy! I received an official invitation from CLAIR to accompany a CLAIR official to his courtesy visit to the ambassador, as a representative of current JET Programme participants. Altogether they picked one ALT, one CIR, and two alums, so I felt pretty special. It was also very cool to go into the embassy and be on the visiting side of a courtesy call (for the second time ever). I was tickled to see the US seal on the coffee cups and napkins. But more importantly, it was an honor to be able to meet and introduce myself to Ambassador Kennedy, and she even asked me a couple questions about what I liked most about my job/my plans for the future (-.-'). Definitely yet another example of the amazing opportunities JET has given me.

 - And just this weekend I went on the monorail beer train with my old supervisor and some of my coworkers! I had been on the wine train before but they didn't seem to be doing the beer train - until this year, where I noticed just a few days before the application period ended. And in fact I didn't make the lottery the first time, but we were able to go because somebody cancelled last-minute! Apparently 6 times as many people applied as got in, which makes it even more amazing. Basically we got to spend two hours on a private monorail car, eating delicious bento lunch and drinking lots of beer (and cider and sangria). I was really amused because everybody was quite boisterous and drunk, which was definitely not what it was like on the wine train. At any rate, it was a good time, and I even won some goods in the lottery!

As I mentioned earlier, September is going to be my one quiet month for a while, because we don't have many yosakoi events and it's also the break in between interpreting classes. I actually wasn't planning to continue after finishing my last class (level 4, the last of the consecutive interpreting classes), because it takes a lot of time/money and I don't really plan on becoming a professional interpreter, so I didn't see the point in continuing to simultaneous interpreting, even if I got permission to move on. But then I got permission to move on, and after lots of thinking, I decided that this was an opportunity that I should just take while I can, since it can't hurt (anything but my wallet) and will surely help both my Japanese and hopefully my future career prospects. To be honest I wasn't even sure I could pay for it this time around but I remembered that I have a US credit card, and that the exchange rate would actually work in my favor for once! So I feel like I have managed to get a good deal despite having to dip into my American savings, especially considering how much the exchange rate cost me the last time I sent money to the US. I am excited to try simultaneous interpreting (though it will be hard), and even though I will have to skip two classes almost immediately after it starts.

For the moment though, I am enjoying my month of having relatively little to do and have actually been fairly productive in terms of things around the house or things I have just never had the time to get around to. I'm sure by the end of the month I'll be ready for some excitement again though, and luckily my business trip will be the first weekend of October! Until then, I plan to be as lazy as I can and give myself a chance to recuperate from the busyness of the first half of the year. :)

update dump (end of year three)

Oohh boy. It's been over three months since my last update and there has been so much going on, I could write for hours and only just barely catch up. (Does anybody even read this anymore?)

I don't think I'll be able to do everything justice, especially so long after everything has happened, so this will have to be a big summary info dump, and then maybe I'll get back to updating regularly, though things should be much quieter/less exciting in my life after this month (... is what I've said to myself every month since May -.-').

Anyway, since my last post I have:

- Visited my GHP friend Tomas in Thailand for Golden Week! I wanted to go to Thailand and he has been doing a research Fulbright there for the past year and was kind enough to take me all around (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Khon Kaen) and interpret for me for almost a week! I saw so many beautiful temples, ate so much delicious food, took a million different types of public transportation (including an overnight train!), and rode an elephant! A fantastic trip.

- Done some cool things at work like interpreting for the daughter of Peter Drucker (the "father of modern management") as her parents' at collection was on exhibit at the Chiba City Museum of Art and also helping interview candidates for the new basic interpreting course run by the city.

- Met up with three different friends/acquaintances from college and also some other alums/current students who were here on an of-campus program. It's always really nice to keep up the Carleton collection and there's always such great intellectual conversation, haha. Sometimes I miss being surrounded by nerds. :)

- Participated in the Yosakoi Soran Festival in Hokkaido for the second time, except this time as the head of a committee and therefore the leader of a fairly large group as we went from venue to venue over the course of the weekend. Actually it was super stressful and we didn't place, like we hoped we might, but it was still fun and a good experience overall. Best parts: two of my friends in Sapporo volunteering as staff for us and seeing the finals live from quite close.

- Officially ending my terms as Chiba AJET President, National AJET CIR Representative/Project Manager, Chiba-kun Ambassador, Chiba block coordinator, and API AJET block representative. I'm still the head of the international committee for my yosakoi team and taking interpreting classes, but finally having less responsibility and the pressure to be constantly doing something productive is feeling pretty nice. I'll be taking it easy this year and trying to plan more for the post-JET future.

- Gone home for the wedding of our dear family friend Faye (the first of two weddings I'll be going back for this year). It was a very short trip (just a few days for the wedding since I am actually running low on vacation days for once) but full of family and friends and love and I enjoyed every single minute of it.  <3


- Taken my friend Michael around Chiba and Tokyo as he visited Japan for the first time on his way to Australia! We've been talking about him visiting ever since I came and now he finally has, and it was super fun. He actually came back on the same flight from the US as me and we managed to get seats beside each other, yayy. We spent five days walking all over Tokyo (over 20 miles one day!) and just seeing the sights, eating all sorts of Japanese food, and generally having a good time. Next it'll be my turn to go to Australia, maybe.  :)

- Spent every weekend so far in July at a CIRHP meetup! The CIRHP is an online forum for CIRs where I spend far too much time and have made many of my good friends in Japan, and this year we've started actually hanging out in person too. So the first weekend I had (delicious deep dish) pizza with people in Kanto, last weekend I went to Ehime Prefecture for castles and mikans, and I just came back from an epic trip to Okinawa that involved renting a little house by the beach, Cards Against Humanity, and lots of good conversation and just chilling out (also cats).

So the end of my third year on JET has been pretty action-packed so far, which is all I can really all for, anyway. It's weird to think that after this I still have a whole year left before things might change, but I have high hopes for what's to come. :)

ramen and long lines for food & alcohol (a summary of my mother's trip to japan)

As the title suggests, last month my mother came to visit me in Japan! She stopped by for almost a week on her way back from a college reunion, in which we spent hours waiting in lines for food/alcohol and probably ate more ramen than I usually eat in six months, haha. <3

She came in on Thursday evening but still offered to cook us dinner (so of course I accepted, haha), and on Friday, we got up early-ish to head to the Tsukiji Fish Market! I'd never been and thought maybe she would like it, and it seems like she did! After wandering around and trying not to get in the way amongst giant crabs and tuna heads and all sorts of other marine delicacies, she insisted that we find the longest line to stand and wait in for lunch, with the logic that longest line = most delicious (even though I warned her that sometimes in Japan people just get in lines without knowing what they're for). Luckily, the logic was sound this time and the lunch we had was absolutely delicious!

Next we headed over to Yokohama, to wander by the Red Brick Warehouse and the pier, which are pretty much the only places I ever go in Yokohama but I always enjoy it anyway because it's so pretty. On the pier we saw what we thought was one lone tree blooming with sakura, but when we approached and tried to take pictures it turns out it was fake and they were shooting some sort of drama around it (no pictures allowed). I wonder who it was... Anyway, after that we went to our actual destination, the Yokohama Ramen Museum! (Not to be confused with the Cup Noodle Museum.) Because I know my mom loves ramen, and basically all there is to do there is eat ramen (it's more ramen shop than actual museum). But it was also decorated in this great Showa-style way (we came in through a part that was decorated like a bathhouse and I thought we were lost), which was a nice atmosphere. And they have smaller bowls of ramen so you can taste a few if you want (though we only had one little bowl each).

The next morning we got up bright and early to take the shinkansen to Niigata! My friend who lives there was performing in a musical, on a weekend that also had a huge sake festival, and since I wanted to go I essentially just dragged my mom along with me, haha. So we boarded my first ever two-story shinkansen (!) and wandered around a little after dropping of our luggage. Then we headed to the sake festival, but upon seeing the line (which we could see from across the bridge) we decided to go have lunch (ramen again) for sustenance first. And then we waited in line for over an hour before entering the craziness that was Niigata's Sake no Jin! Tickets were 2000 yen and with it we each got a little sake cup, with which we could then taste as many types of sake we wanted, in a giant room full of sake brewers. We decided to try drinking every sake that had 雪 in its name (since it's in my name), and then some. We also ended up meeting with the friend I came to see, a friend who's sake lover group was selling their original sake (Connect! Which my mother decided was the best she had tasted and came back to buy later), two National AJET friends, and another friend who I volunteered in Okinawa with two years ago. :D And then we had dinner with my friend and some of his friends, before going back to our hotel early and just going to bed.

Day 2 in Niigata was spent wandering around for a bit and having a seafood lunch before video chatting with my dad for a few minutes before seeing my friend's musical, The Frog Prince, by Niigata AJET. It was an original musical (apparently written by the cast of last year's musical) about a princess who wanted to be a pop star and a prince who thought he was a frog, and it was really entertaining! I was very impressed by the guy playing the prince, who had to hop around stage for like two hours. After the musical we visited a nearby temple and then took a walk/train ride to wait in line for another hour or so for the ramen place where my friend said he had the best ramen ever. Yes, ramen again, but I'd say it was worth it! Apparently on weekends they do thick noodles and on weekdays thin ones, so I'm glad we went on a weekend because thick noodles are my favorite and it was really delicious!

Our final day in the prefecture was spent visiting Yahiko Shrine, a little shrine way up top of a mountain, which we took a cable car up to. After admiring the nature and buying some sweets, we headed to Tsubame to catch the shinkansen, but not before spending an hour or so shopping at an industrial goods center (apparently what the place is famous for). My mom finally bought a Japanese knife, and we had a very tasty semi-fancy lunch made of local ingredients before finally taking the shinkansen and train back to Chiba.

On Tuesday I went back to work and my mom spent the day packing and making me lots of delicious food, for both lunch and dinner and to freeze for the future. <3 And then on Wednesday it was time for her to go back to the US! She wanted to try Japanese tea ceremony so we dragged her giant suitcase (no big lockers available at the station) all the way to the Japanese garden in Makuhari, but the teahouse was being rented out for the day so no tea for us. :( After that we just went to the airport and had ramen one final time and did some shopping before it was time for her to leave.

And then she left. Sigh. But it was a great trip and I was really happy to spend almost a week together! Hoping she and the rest of my family will make it back here at least one more time before I leave. :)

katsuura hina matsuri

So recently I made my way back to Katsuura, where part of our third Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour took place, for their hina matsuri, or doll festival! Hina matsuri is actually something that is celebrated all over Japan and is also called Girl's Day (it's on March 3). Apparently the dolls represent the emperor, empress, court musicians, and attendants in Heian-era clothing, and I think it's traditional to buy a set of dolls for girls to display in their houses.

Anyway, I'm not sure how famous the hina matsuri in Katsuura is, but I think it definitely deserves attention, because there are so many dolls everywhere! When we started walking to the main areas, suddenly we noticed little displays of dolls in bamboo pipes all around the streets. I tried to see what they were made of and it looked like some were made of plastic while others were wood and maybe a few of porcelain? I thought it was cool that they weren't all girls/women (which is what I was expecting) - there were a lot of little old men, too.


Our first stop was actually to eat tantan-men (a type of spicy noodle which I think is from China), because Katsuura's tantan-men is actually famous as a "B-grade gourmet" food - food that isn't expensive but is very tasty. And it was! I was very happy with my bowl, which I ordered with menma (bamboo shoots) as a topping.

The rest of the day was spent just wandering around and looking at ask the dolls, which were in almost every store and along the streets, but also in giant displays with probably hundreds of dolls in each one. The biggest one was at a temple w

here dolls filled a whole staircase, which was pretty impressive to look at. Somebody told us that all the dolls have souls and so they take care to put them all away if it rains, which must be a big undertaking.

All in all it was a pretty neat thing to see, so I'm glad that I went! I still didn't make it to the places I missed on the Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour though - maybe next time!

last official chiba-kun ambassadors event: second opinion exchange

Earlier this week was our last official event of the year for the Chiba-kun Ambassadors, and my last event ever. That's right, after two years and much deliberation, I've decided not to apply for the program again next year. The main reason is so that I can have more time to focus on myself and the future (I'll also be quitting my National AJET, API AJET, and block coordinator roles), but I'm very glad to have been chosen as an ambassador for these part two years, because it's been a lot of fun and I've learned a lot about Chiba Prefecture, which was my original motivation for applying.

Anyway, so on a Monday we had our second opinion exchange, which was a chance for us to present to various tourism related organizations about our recommendations for attracting tourists from our home countries, for them to ask us questions, and also an awards ceremony.

Unlike last year, this time we had a morning rehearsal and opinion exchanges with people from Narita Airport, which I was late to and almost missed because I thought it just started in the afternoon. Fail. Anyway, after going into work and asking to leave an hour later, I made it just after the opinion exchange began and all was well.

For lunch, we had bentos at a place called Plaza Nanohana, right by the prefectural office. Apparently it's just (re?)opened as a hotel, which also offers meals. The bento was entirely made of local products, as part of a "local production for local consumption" initiative, which I thought was pretty cool, and it was of course very tasty!

And then in the afternoon it was time for us to present. The America group chose to recommend Nokogiriyama, as a place we thought Americans would like for being close to Tokyo, with cultural aspects such as the largest stone Buddha in Japan and also hiking and great views. We also cautioned then about the accuracy of the English in their advertising, since we figured we might as well take the opportunity to say how we felt about it honestly. And apparently they liked it, because as a result of voting from both the attendees and ambassadors, our group won an award for Best Presentation! It was unexpected and great to win, but the best part was that for a prize, we each got giant Chiba-kun plushies! So now I have a big one and a little one, just like I have a big and a little ぴーにゃっつ plushie. :)

After the opinion exchange was over, we had a dinner together to celebrate, at a place called Bellini that I've been to before. It was very yummy and fun, though maybe a little bittersweet since I am still s little sad not to be doing another year. But it's time to move on to other things, so I'm glad to have ended our last event with good memories of the day. :)

snow and ice and more snow: sapporo snow festival

A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to do something I've been wanting to do since I came to Japan: go to the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) in Hokkaido! I first learned about it during my first year and every year I said I'd go, but you have to book hotels so far in advance that I never managed to do it in time. But this year, since I thought it might be my last year, I decided I absolutely had to go and it was awesome! :D

I left on Friday and after my flight and a bus ride that was much longer than I expected, I finally arrived in Sapporo! I checked into my hotel, which happened to be my first ever capsule hotel, which also had a really nice spa, and while I admit I was a little bit disappointed to not have a capsule that was on top of another, it was a very cozy space with its own little TV inside so I was pretty happy with it. :)

My next excursion was to find a ramen place, while also checking out the ice sculptures at the Susukino venue of the snow festival, which was just one street down from my hotel. After much wandering I finally found ramen-doori (ramen street), which was a very little alley crammed with ramen shops, and had a delicious bowl of miso ramen, which I think Sapporo is famous for.

And then I went to look at the ice sculptures, which were very pretty and delicate and filled me with the sudden urge to smash them (I didn't). I was a little surprised at how many were commercial (i.e. giant sculptures of Suntory whiskey bottles, a boat race sculpture, Kirin/Sapporo beer mugs), but there were also cool things like sculptures that had real fish frozen in them and a little bar (like for drinks) built entirely with blocks of ice.

And then I decided that while I was at it (since it was still pretty early in the evening), I might as well just go see the main venue with all the snow sculptures. It was at the same place where we performed for the Yosakoi Soran Festival in June (and actually so was the area around my hotel) so it was weird to see everything again covered with snow and almost recognize it (after this trip I feel like I have a decent grasp of those areas of Sapporo, which I'm sure will come in handy when we come again this year).

Anyway, the snow sculptures were really cool! I started out right by the main piece, a giant Star Wars sculpture to celebrate the new movie. I'm not a Star Wars fan so I admit I probably didn't appreciate it as much as others, but right when I got there it was lit up with colored lights and they were playing music from the soundtrack, which was pretty cool. And then when I went to the next sculpture, which had something to do with an Alice in Wonderland movie (?), there was a mini musical performance around/on top of it, with crazy costumes and an orchestra and a projection of live sand art!

In addition to the main giant sculptures (I remember looking at one from behind and being amazed at
just how much snow it was made of), there was also a sculpture contest involving different countries (most were still working on them when I went) and lots of smaller sculptures by the citizens of Sapporo. Including one built by Hokkaido AJET, featuring National AJET's major character, Tsuru-chan! :D

And then I just went home and enjoyed the outdoor bath and strawberry bath and jacuzzi baths and the other fun stuff at my soda capsule hotel and called it a night. :)

The next day I went to Otaru, a nearby town that was having a light festival at the same time. I spent the day wandering around the touristy areas filled with little shops, watched some more glass-making (Otaru is famous for its glassware), ate a delicious seafood donburi, and found a temple looking over the city that was completely free of people. It was beautiful and serene and reminded me that moments like that are some of the best things as about traveling alone.

In the afternoon I took a free tour of the Otaru beer brewery (you'll see that this was kind of a theme during my trip) and tried some smoked beer while waiting for it to get dark. When it finally did, I went to see the main attraction of the festival: lights along the canal! There were lighted floats in the water and little candles set along sculptures by the road, and although it still wasn't that dark, it was really beautiful. There was another main venue a few streets down, which included a miniature maze of sorts, which I enjoyed a lot.

And then I rushed back to Sapporo for a dinner with AJET blocks 1 and 6 at one of the famous beer halls! It was all-you-can-eat genghis khan (a dish that is pretty much yakiniku with lamb meat) and all-you-can-drink, and there were over 100 people there! I was a little worried because I thought I would only know a couple of people there, but as it turns out a quarter of the AJET National Council and some other people I knew were there too, plus I met some new people, so it was actually pretty fun! The rest of the night involved more shenanigans with council people and some dancing. :)

Despite a slight hangover, the next day I got up early to meet some friends from Chiba to take a tour of the Sapporo beer factory! Unfortunately since it was Sunday none of the machines were running, but the tour was free and included a beer tasting and some tasty cheese and snacks! After lunch with everyone I left to meet up with some CIR friends from the forums - actually some of them I had never met in person before but felt like I knew already from all our interactions online, haha. We had a long and fun 女子会 of talking and pancakes, and then I met up with some friends again to try and find a soup curry restaurant, on my friend's recommendation.

I was curious as to whether soup curry would be any different than just watered down normal curry, but it was different and delicious! Exactly what we needed after wandering around in the cold rain (it was warm enough to rain, which had an unfortunate effect on many of the snow and ice sculptures, especially the ones with real fish in them). And then in our quest for dessert, we happened across a place where you could pick different kind of liqueurs to put on top of vanilla ice cream. Since there were five of us and we could pick two each, we got to try 11 flavors (they gave us one extra for free) and it was amazingg. :D

The next day was my last in Sapporo, so I decided to first go to the last venue I hadn't been to before, the Tsudomu venue. When I got there it was full of elementary school students with their teachers, because this place had snow slides and play areas, which I decided not to line up for, but also a little zipline, which I did try! It was short but fun and also ask of the volunteers were cute young men so I was glad I tried it, haha. After that I went to the Sapporo Beer Museum (which we had danced in front of during the yosakoi festival), which was not the same as the factory and focused more on the history than production. Also there was not a free tasting, though I decided to try another type they didn't have at the factory anyway. I then had lunch at another beer garden nearby, only instead of the typical genghis khan instead I had a crab doria, completing my list of typical Hokkaido/Sapporo foods to eat.

I still had a couple of hours until my flight, so I decided to visit the Ainu Center, because one of my fellow linguistics majors had been very interested in the Ainu language and it's also interesting to learn about different peoples in Japan, which seems like such a homogenous country. The center was very small and mostly empty, but there were some exhibits of traditional clothing and artwork, which were cool.

I still had some extra time, so then I stopped by the red brick prefectural office (which was yet another place we had performed in June), to look through even more exhibits.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Sapporo! My flight on the way back was delayed for an hour so I didn't get back home until almost midnight, but I felt very satisfied with my trip and glad to be home again. :)

tour four: fruits and flowers and fine craftsmanship

A few weeks ago was our last Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour of the year! It's always sad to think that something is the last, but at least we ended everything on a good note - lots of people were commenting that this was one of the best tours.

Our first stop was strawberry-picking at a place called Koyama Farm in Sammu (Sanmu?)! Last year we did the same thing in Tohnosho, but I'm definitely not complaining about getting another chance to eat as many strawberries as I can in a limited amount of time! This time we even had 40 minutes (rather than 30), which meant even more strawberry goodness. This strawberry garden had several different types of strawberries, including one that had just been developed and didn't have a real name yet (it was labeled something like "experiment #6", haha), and they told us they don't provide condensed milk so that people can focus on the different sweet tastes of the strawberries themselves. Pretty cool, I thought. They also told us which order we should try the first two types of strawberries in, so that we could tell the difference in taste more clearly. It was fun trying all the different types and picking a favorite, though just like last time I got full much faster than expected...


Koyama Farm
Address: 1912 Shimoyokoji, Sanmu, Chiba 289-1314
Hours: 9:30AM - 3:30PM
Cost: 1,100 - 2,000 yen from January to May (varies by month)
Website (Japanese only): http://koyama-farm.jp/

Our next stop was a different kind of picking: Gerbera flowers! Apparently Gerbera is a genus of flowers in the daisy family (says Wikipedia), but anyway they're really beautiful! The owner of the garden gave us a (rather long) talk about the history of their garden and how they actually get their plants (not just seeds) from the Netherlands, and then we were free to pick 8 flowers to take home! I ended up picking them based on how they looked individually so I don't think they made a very good bouquet (somebody else picked ones that went very well together and I was impressed), but they were still very pretty. I'm currently trying to dry them in my apartment, despite the fact that I suspect they may be giving me allergies... but they're just too pretty to throw away!

And then it was time for lunch! The restaurant we went to specialized in (or at least or choices were limited to) iwashi, or sardines. I picked the sashimi option (though the tempura also looked great), which I think was a good choice because I hardly ever have sashimi of that type (I tend to go for things like tuna or salmon) and it was delicious! The rest of the meal also involved different kinds of iwashi dishes, like iwashi with sesame seeds and a fish meatball in the miso soup.

Maruni
Address: 6928-235 Katakai, Kujukuri, Sanbu-gun
Hours: 9:00AM - 9:00PM
Website (Japanese only): http://maru2-99.com/shokuji-maruni/

After lunch we headed to the nearby Sadako Mochizuki Museum, featuring oil paintings by Sadako Mochizuki, who was the current museum director's mother. The paintings were mostly of local scenes by the ocean, and I was really impressed by the colors and textures. Even more impressive though, is that apparently she only started painting after retirement and keep doing it until she passed away.

And then we got to watch a local group perform a dance for us! Apparently it was a dance from the area, but they used naruko and it was very like yosakoi (actually maybe it was, I don't even know), so I really enjoyed watching it. :D

Sadako Mochizuki Museum
Address: 6928-235 Katakai, Kujukuri, Sanbu-gun
Hours: 10:00AM - 7:00PM, Thursdays - Sundays
Cost: 300 yen
Access: 5-minute walk from Katakai Station Iriguchi bus stop, on the bus headed for Motosuka from JR Togane Station (Kujukuri Bus, west exit bus stop 1)
Website (Japanese only): http://www.mochi-museum.com/

Next, we went to what was the highlight of the day for me: a glass-making experience! We got to pick a color and shape, so I chose a plate, as it seemed most useful. Because we could only go one at a time, there was a lot of time for us to watch the artisans at work. Apparently on Sundays they don't make things to sell, but rather spend the day trying new things and practicing their skills, and watching them work was pretty mesmerizing. My favorite was watching the guy blowing glass balls, which I realized much later became the bases for the vases everybody else was making. Pretty cool.

And then it was my turn to make my plate! They brought over a giant hunk of glowing red glass, and I worked with one of the workers to spread it out and shape the sides. I was surprised at how much heat it was giving off, though I guess it should have been obvious since it was literally molten glass. Anyway it was all over very quickly, but I made a plate! :)

Sugahara Glass Mini School
Address: 797 Fujishita, Kujukuri-machi, Sanbu-gun 283-0112
Hours: 9:00-18:00, closed only during year-end and New Year holidays
Cost: 2500 - 4000 yen for adults
Website: http://www.sugahara.com/english/

Our final stop for the day was Minori no Sato, a little market by the road where they sold local vegetables and souvenirs. I think the intent was for us to get souvenirs, but I was amused by how many people just bought groceries, because they were so cheap! I had a good time looking around at everything they had (no giant plushies to tempt me this time, luckily), and then it was time to go home.

Minori no Sato Togane
Address: 1300-3 Tama, Togane
Hours: 9:00AM - 6:00PM
Access: 1 5-minute walk from JR Gumyo Station
Website (Japanese only): http://minorinosato-togane.com/

All in all, it was a fun day and a good wrap-up to this year's tours. Lots of good pictures and memories and experiences! :)