Well, yesterday finally came, and with it I finished my final term of teaching at my school. I’ll still be training and working with the school until May, but it was really strange “giving up” my classroom. As we moved schools last year, I have been the only teacher in that room, and I chose the layout, the decorations… I have all sorts of props and materials organized by month… And most of all, I have two years worth of beautiful children that I fell in love with.
Chad and I both got flowers from our students, so our dining room table looks like a little flower shop! They are so beautiful, and bring a lovely fresh scent to our apartment. The parents in my class also made a photo album for me, as well as a pretty little cupcake with my name on it!
Today Chad had Saturday school, so I surprised him by cleaning the apartment and coming to his campus with Starbucks! I had never been to Akashi Park before, so we went for a nice long walk.
Plum Blossoms
After getting groceries (it’s much cheaper to buy them out in Akashi than in Sannomiya!), we headed home. Here’s the view from our apartment with the weather when we got there:
Haaaa~~~I can’t tell you how good it feels to be on vacation, even if I have to catch up on some work! Going to try to relax as much as possible, and enjoy my time left in Japan.
Little Snail 
Otsukaresama! Enjoy the rest of your time in Japan!
Thank you! I will certainly try 😉
I would have loved to have taught in Japan! Good for you! I went there twice and loved it so much I published three novels set there! Enjoy!
Thank you! It has been an invaluable part of my life. We lived two years in the country, and over two in the city, so we’ve been able to learn so much about Japan from different perspectives, as well as get in a lot of travel! What areas of Japan did you visit?
Kyoto and Tokyo. I LOVE Kyoto. I have often thought I could live there:) I don’t speak Japanese, but I tried to teach myself some key phrases, and I think they appreciated my efforts! Glad I found your blog. I came across it while making mine. I’m a teacher, so right now my blog is about teaching, but I also write and paint.
I like Kyoto a lot, too. Did you go to Kyomizu Dera? There are a lot of nice Japanese sweets in Kyoto (^_-) I’m glad you were able to try out a little Japanese–it can be surprisingly hard to get around sometimes if you can’t speak any! I’m happy you found my blog, too, because now I can read about your teaching and hobbies on your blog! 🙂
oh-and Osaka and Nagoya where we went to a sumo basho! Love Japan!
Ah yes! We are going to try and make it to see sumo later this month. Pretty amazing in person, isn’t it!? We used to live near Nagoya, so we’ve been lucky enough to see many areas of Japan.
We may have been the only Americans the time we went! Our Japanese friend was surprised we wanted to go! It was really interesting.
It’s also pretty cool that the people who reserve the good seats tend to wait to come until some of the final matches–you can get away with a pretty amazing up-close view for some of the lower-ranking wrestlers 🙂
I watched a show about how much those guys eat!! Yikes! People here have no idea how popular Sumo is there. Hope you enjoy your basho!
Yes! They often eat chankonabe, a type of soup that’s very yummy, but sooo filling! Thank you–I will probably post about it if we end up going ^ – ^
http://mobile.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/01/poulets-sumo-wrestler-stew-chankonabe.html