After my travels in Kyoto over the weekend, our city held its 9th annual International Friendship Festival on the outskirts of Yamasaki. Though it rained throughout the day, it drew a good crowd, including a number of foreign residents I hadn't met before and our PAs in Hyogo!
Kyoto City
This past Friday and Saturday I made an overnight visit to Japan's former capital, 京都市, to see my uncles and take in the sights around town. Rather than bore you with a laundry list of places I went and things I saw, I will let the pictures speak for me. Needless to say, Kyoto is a gorgeous city with a ton of history.
Autumn Festival
portable shrine
ohmori
This weekend was the 秋祭り in my town. I had only heard about it from the other ALT that lives in my area earlier in the week, so I had no idea what it entailed. Turns out it was mostly just townspeople walking through the streets carrying a 神輿, while somenone hit a drum to cue everyone to yell something. What's interesting is that there were a few different festivals happening at the same time, and the one you went to depended on where you lived in town. This is because there are several different shrines in my town, and each one had their own festival.
Just to make everyone aware, I have been writing short essays for my school's English blog. If you want to hear about some of the larger events and extracurricular things I do at the school, keep an eye on the "Chikusa High School" blog link in the right-hand sidebar under "Blogs you should follow." I will still post here on my personal blog about school, but it will be less formal in manner and more personal with regards to the topic. For the big stuff, refer to the school's website. Also don't be afraid to check out the Japanese entries that show up; most of them have a host of pictures of the activities going on here!
If you had asked me how to do this yesterday, I would've had no idea. If you ask me now, I still wouldn't have any idea. The only difference is that I was thrust into this position during 1st period this morning. My JTE had to deal with some school administrative issues, so he asked me to cover his 3rd Year (seniors) Writing class. My only direction was to perhaps try something involving listening. Hmm...