I used to think that I wanted to live someplace warm, but that has now changed to someplace with insulation and central cooling/heating. Seriously.
Work is REALLY cold. The schools are all very open - which I loved... until it got cold! Now it's as if I'm teaching outside. They've set up these giant heaters in the staff room... but refuse to turn them on until December. Why? ... because why would you ever want to use a heater before December???
It's great that Japan is eco-conscious or whatever... but when it's hot, sticky, and unbearable outside - then it's hot, sticky, and unbearable inside... and vice versa in the winter - cold, cold, and unbearable outside and inside!
All the girls still wear their skirts to school. Now that would suck. At least I get to wear pants! I brought 1 set of long underwear in my suitcase and I need to buy more when I get the time. After all, it is still FALL... it's not even winter yet!
Over the weekend I purchased a mini halogen heater and I keep it right next to me all the time whenever I'm at home. My airconditioner units work as heaters and I've been using one of them quite a bit... but I'm afraid my electric bill is going to hurt this month. I've moved my futon into my living room in order to cut down on the amount of living space I need to heat. The only time I use my tatami room is to get stuff out of my closet. I've set up a little make-shift thingy to hang my clothes on to dry. They take forever to dry outside and I had my clothes rained on twice last week. Plus, one of my co-workers told me that she hangs her clothes indoors to dry in the winter because it puts a little moisture in the air. Japan is dry, dry, dry in the winter. I've already had 3 random bloody noses in the past 2 weeks... and it's only fall! Luckily I was at home.
Alright, enough about the cold. Last weekend (the 15th and 16th) I had to go to bunkasai - school festival - at my base school. My commercial school had their bunkasai the same weekend, but I didn't have to go ... well, I couldn't go... because I was required to go to my base school's bunkasai. It was alright. Saturday was full of performances - music, dancing, etc. It was kind of funny because some of the girls had some pretty provocative dances to the most vulgar music... seriously! The songs were in Englsih, so nobody knew what the words meant. They just liked the music, I guess. But wow, those songs were so vulgar! I actually had to sing a song in front of the entire school. My supervisor told me aboout a mont
h ago... so I had a month to prepare. I sang the song "Yesterday Once More" by The Carpenters with my supervisor and the school band played the song. I was really nervous and wasn't exactly thrilled that I had to sing a song... but actually... it was a lot of fun! and I'm really glad that I did it. I didn't have to go to bunkasai on Sunday since I had to go to Midyear Seminar Monday while everybody else had the day off (because of bunkasai on the weekend). I would've actually liked to have gone on Sunday because that's when the 
students set up little stands and sold goods. Since my base school is an agriculture school they supposedly sold really good, fresh, cheap fruits, veg
gies, and flowers. I had planned to head over just to buy some stuff, but by Sunday I was exhausted and didn't feel like making the trek up there. Instead, I went to the cool secondhand store with Meng and we walked around the city center of Ube. The city center of Ube isn't really anything special... at all... but we walked along the canal - which I walk every Thursday on the way to my technical school - and I took some pictures. There's also a shrine I pass that I wanted to check out... so we did.
Monday and Tuesday (the 17th and 18th) was Midyear Seminar for all Yamaguchi JETs. It was held at Yuda Onsen which is famous for foot onsens - or foot hotsprings. Seminar was surprisingly not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I actually got some good ideas from it. Monday night a bunch of us went out for dinner and drinks and then hung out at one of the many foot onsens. It was a lot of fun!
This past weekend was a three-day weekend. Monday was a holiday because of Labor Thanksgiving Day - which is actually every November 23rd - but since the 23rd was a Sunday, they made Monday a substitute holiday. Saturday morning I made my way to Fukuoka to go to the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament. It was a lot of fun! I've seen sumo on t.v. and it gets boring after awhile, but it's much better in real life with the atmosphere and everything. Afterwards a bunch of us made our way to Hard Rock Cafe Fukuoka and paid a lot of money for some western food... but it was good! We ended up staying out all night and those of us who didn't book a hostel for the night caught the first train home around 6am.
Sunday I was exhausted from the day before and slept basically all day. I did wake up to make my way over to Trial in order to purchase my mini heater and another pillow.
Monday I went to Miyajima with Nia and Meng. Miyajima is one of the places I absolutely wanted to visit while in Japan. It's a World Culture Heritage Site. It's a town on Itsukushima Island located in Hiroshima Prefecture. It's famous for Itsukushima Shrine which is known as the "floating shrine." I think you can figure out why from the pictures! It was a rainy day, but we really wanted to go see the fall colors. I plan on returning again - it's not too far from Yamaguchi. Actually, it's basically on the border of Yamaguchi Prefecture and Hiroshima Prefecture. I'll for sure be back!
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