ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

Last week here on Shikoku, was the coldest and windiest that I have seen in Japan in the 4 winters I have been here! The ducks and other birds that live on the lake I run around have been huddled in a corner of the lake, out of the wind, for over a week. It was so nice to see "calm" waters return to the lake and the birds once again just "floating' around the lake and not trying to survive in a corner! Better still, I am able to run around the lake again, instead of being blown into it!   

I have lived in Japan now for 4 winters and this is by far the coldest winter....and the windiest!! This week while I was driving on the express highway, I felt like I was driving through the prairie in the state of Wyoming back in America, which is know for it's wind that will regularly blow over semi trucks.

Wyoming does out snow Takamatsu. I have yet to see any snow actually stay on the ground here. It melts first. However, as the picture indicates, there are many areas of Japan that do rival America! The picture I posted here is a Snow Corridor in the Northern Japan Alps, Tateyama. That's an awesome picture that would make even Americans that live in the Rocky Mountains impressed!!
  

Happy New Years 2021 to each and everyone! All around the world people in most countries celebrate with fireworks. In America we watch the ball drop and watch the fireworks. Families get together and celebrate together, reminiscing the year that is ending. However, many places in the world will not be celebrating this way and with fireworks this year. So I am going to light off the fireworks over Tokyo and Japan here in my post. I want to celebrate and welcome in a new year. A year of hope....  

Christmas Day is finally here and all the preparation has been done! The highlight of the day besides the coming of Santa Claus- Christmas Dinner with family and/or friends.

I always prepared the holiday favorite, a prime rib roast! However, here in Japan, I have been told by all my students, that Kentucky Fried Chicken is the holiday favorite. I love their chicken, but in America I usually get it for the Fourth of July picnic!! I also am told that a beautiful Christmas cake is important too, and surpases the Christmas cookie here in Japan on the "Favorite list"! I would make a Christmas cake too, but also pecan, pumpkin and apple pies....and leftover cookies that Santa and his reindeer didn't eat!!

Whatever is on the menu, the most important thing is to enjoy it with family and friends! It is one of the biggest reasons for the season!! AND have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!


  

On my count down to my favorite holiday of Christmas, my "to do" list is getting shorter! I have the Christmas tree up and the Christmas cards mailed. Now it is time to make the cookies!!

I don't make them any earlier than the week before Christmas because I want them fresh for Christmas and they would all be eaten before the BIG day got here! I need enough made for gift giving and to leave out for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas eve. I have to start a week ahead of time because I make so many different kinds and need so many cookies! When I give a gift, I like to give a sample of at least 6 different kinds, just like in the picture I selected.

The BEST part about making cookies is sharing the time with the kids and family. They all help, especially with the "supervising" and the decorating. However, they help best with the EATING!!!  

Last week the Christmas tree went up, and this week the Christmas cards get mailed!! It's all a part of the Christmas season in America and throughout the world. It is the preparation to my favorite holiday, Christmas!

Even though writing a Christmas card is a lot of work and is very time consuming, which is why many young and busy people don't do it anymore, I won't give it up. I feel it is a perfect way to stay "connected" to the family and friends we do not see often. People we plan to see over the holidays, we can just hand a pretty card to them when we say "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year"!! However, for those we won't see, I think it is important to write a short letter to catch up a little on the year and tell them you are thinking of them and miss them and wish them well through the season and the coming New Year!

The Christmas cards we receive make for pretty decoration when put on display. I would put them out on a table like the picture shows or sometimes hang them from a pretty colored festive decorative cord strung in a doorway or someplace in my home!

If you haven't tried sending out a holiday card, you may want to try sending a few cards out this year. I guarantee that it will make whoever you send it to "smile"!!  

On my countdown to Christmas, which is my favorite holiday, this is the first big week of preparation! It is the week after Thanksgiving, and it is the week that most people in America put up their Christmas tree! I notice that all around Takamatsu, Christmas trees have gone up too!

I always decorated the tree with ornaments that represented special people and events in my life and the life of my children. Every year when I would get out the ornaments, it would take forever to hang them as I would stop and remember those special times. My children are mostly grown now and are putting up their own trees in the same tradition.

Of course, the final thing to put on the tree- the star or angel at the top. This is my son in the picture doing that honor for his family.
I love Christmas!  

Thanksgiving in America is a day to give thanks for our blessings, but especially to take time to be with the people we love. This usually is spent having a huge delicious home cooked turkey dinner with them! This has been impossible for me during the last 4 years. So what do I do? I virtually spend the whole night on the phone calling everyone! I have to because it is daytime in America when it is night here! Also, I have worked the last 4 Thanksgivings!!

Therefore, I have added to my "Thankful List"!! I am SO grateful to Skype!! Thank you, Skype!!  

This is the "All-American Breakfast", compliments of a restaurant called Denny's! My brother took my mother there this week back in America, and this is what she tried to eat. She couldn't finish it- and shouldn't!!! It is way too much food and it is not healthy for her! I am not saying it doesn't taste good! I used to LOVE these- still do! But healthy it isn't! Here in Japan, I eat a banana and yogurt. I know, that doesn't sound exciting, but I will live longer!! And when I go back to America to visit, I will probably live "dangerously" and go out to breakfast at Denny's....at least once!! Maybe twice!!  

I was hiking down a mountain this week, and came across a new friend. He didn't know I was there so he "let" me take a couple of pictures!! I wasn't sure who he was so of course, I looked him up on Google when I got home. He definitely was "different" than anything in America. He looked to me like a cross between a possum and a porcupine! Or even a badger. We have a lot of those in Michigan where I grew up. But he wasn't "mean" like a badger, and in fact, timidly ran off when he did see me! I'm a country girl so I know my animals pretty well!

My research gave an interesting and fun result! I finally saw the famous "Japanese Raccoon Dog"!! The tanuki, is a raccoon dog that represents a traditional Japanese prankster god. The tanuki is known in the West best from Super Mario Brothers 3, which features a tanuki suit that allows Mario to change form into a statue and to fly, as well as from the Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko, which is about a gang of tanuki! In Japan, it has a long history in folklore.

Now I know why all the "raccoon like" statues are everywhere in Japan! I am glad I got the pleasure of meeting him in person. I read that he is nocturnal so I was lucky to have seen him. It was a dark, lightly rainy, late afternoon, so he was obviously awake early.

Have you had the pleasure of meeting him in person?




  

Carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns is a popular Halloween tradition that originated hundreds of years ago in Ireland. They were carved with scary faces in order to scare away the devil or "evil" beings or monsters. Back then, however, jack-o'-lanterns were made out of turnips or potatoes; it wasn't until Irish immigrants arrived in America and discovered the pumpkin that a new Halloween ritual was born.

I've been in Japan several years now and you, and all my students, recognize the traditional "look" of a carved Jack-o-lantern pumpkin. However, in America, we can get very inventive!! I just got these pictures from some pumpkins carved by my family. The top one they named "Mr. Oogie Boogie Man" which reflects the traditional idea of the scary pumpkin! The second one is of my favorite Japanese anime, Pikachu!! How in the world could Pikachu scare away anyone! I just want to hug him!! And actually, that is what Halloween really has become...especially for young children. It's a way to make fun of scary things and have a good time! I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!!

  

"Get Your Ducks in a Row"!! Is an old English idiom or expression which means to organize your tasks and schedule so that you are ready for the next step and then get it done!

However, with the cooler weather we have been having, this expression means something totally different to our ducks here in Takamatsu!! We put a jacket on now, they line up in a row in the warm sunshine!!   

Orange, reds, yellows and golds are the colors most often associated with autumn....especially orange. I think that is partly due to the color of a pumpkin and Halloween. But not a "seashell"!!

On my weekend holiday I always head on my bike to the mountains or the beach and I have written in my blog about my excursions...and my seashell collection! However, this past weekend I found the most unusual seashell. In fact, two of them, side by side!! They were orange inside! I have never seen this color before inside a seashell. The color is generally a hue of pink or purple. My first reaction was amazement. These seashells are definitely the "prize" of my collection. Then it occurred to me that I found them in October. This made the "find" even more exciting as they are the color of October and autumn!

There has to be a connection somehow, to my "find", with it's brilliant orange color, and the autumn in which I found my "treasure". I am betting on it being a "good luck" omen! I hope this is the case and not just my optimistic disposition!! I could use some "good luck"!!  

"The Wave" is here in Takamatsu! If you haven't seen it yet, run join the crowds this week because this is the final weekend! I've been wanting to see it since I came to Japan as it is one of the most famous works of art created here.

"The Great Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. It was published sometime between 1829 and 1833 in the late Edo period as the first print in Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji."

My personal "favorite" exhibit was the rendition of this famous artwork with Godzilla trying to go up against it! If you look closely, you can see he is crushing a boat and little men are jumping or falling out of it, all with Mount Fuji in the background! Another rendition has the Peanuts characters surfing "The Wave", but they can't compete against Godzilla in his home country!! Awesome Art!!
  

Biking through the fields on the "back roads" of Japan this week, I came across the first pumpkins I have seen here! It's harvest time in America and the pumpkin serves multiple functions. It makes the best pie, and it is perfect for carving out faces in for Halloween! We then put a candle inside and light our carved pumpkin faces up! It is supposed to scare off "bad" monsters and goblins and ghosts! Harvest time here in this part of Japan is mostly year round, and pumpkin pie isn't that popular, although I highly recommend it! Therefore, I haven't seen any pumpkin growing in the gardens around Takamatsu. So this was a treat- just in time for Halloween!  

The cooler weather this week welcomed in the Fall and the start of the autumn "color"!! I took advantage of the "coolness" and biked more than usually, from Achi and the sea, all the way inland to Kagawaken Kimbuchi Forest Park, hiking around the beautiful lake.

I just couldn't get enough of the perfect weather and all the "fall activity" nature was providing....Color topped the list! The ground was littered with chestnuts and acorns, cracked open from some kind of forest creature. The fields were either being harvested of the rice, or planted with fall crops. The freshly cut rice fields smelled so good, similar to the wheat fields back home! I even saw pumpkins sitting in the fields!

Thank you Kagawa, for bringing me reminders of "home" in time for the autumn season!






  

I hope everyone had a beautiful holiday with family and friends this past weekend. I sure did...and what a way for it to end, with this spectacular sunset in brilliant red, orange and yellow. We have a saying back in America for a sunset of brilliant red.

Red sky at night, sailors delight.

"When we see a red sky at night, this means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles. This usually indicates high pressure and stable air coming in from the west. Basically good weather will follow."

I woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and another great week ahead with my Takamatsu Students!!


  

Since all the summer festivals were canceled this year, a local school that several of my students attend, decided to have a "Summer Festival" of it's own to cheer up the kids! What a Great Idea!!

They, of course, followed all the government guidelines and students brought their own food. However, there was a lot of great entertainment! It was similar to a what we call a "Talent Show" back in the United States. Students entertained each other with dance, singing and music, and anything else they were talented in. This picture is a demonstration of what a group of students, including one of mine here at GEM, made to decorate the festival. It is a MASSIVE 3-story poster consisting of thousands of little printed out squares from a computer generated picture!! I asked him how long it took to make and then put together and he said 2 months!! He had a massive smile on his face, and was full of pride. He should be!

Human ingenuity and comradery in a time of trial. Way to Go!!  

The typhoon that blew through Japan over the weekend kept many of us close to "home". It wasn't easy to stay in my apartment most of the weekend but I did get a lot of things done. Things like cleaning and rearranging. However, by Monday afternoon when the last rain clouds had dissipated, I was anxious to get on my bike and breathe some fresh air, even if it was windy. I did some errands first, but then headed to the closest beach in Yashima to breathe the freshest air- the air of the sea! To my surprise, there wasn't much beach left because of the storm surge. However, I did find a little spot out of the wind, to enjoy my picnic and watch the sunset.

What a great way to end the weekend and count my blessings that the storm mostly missed us and all is well.   

With the weather so hot again last weekend, biking to my favorite local beach was a must!

There are at least a half dozen beaches around Takamatsu that I often go to, but there are a couple reasons this one is at the top of the list. It has a beautiful trail leading to the beach from a temple. An elderly man trims the trail and has planted flowers all along it. The trail overlooks the sea. The beach is more secluded than others, and there is rarely anyone on it. Finally, it is the only beach that I have found these huge seashells on- at least in this area around Takamatsu!! I love "hunting" for the most beautiful and adding them to my "treasure chest" of shells. I wade out into the ocean in search of new "treasure", and it is really refreshing on these hot summer days.

I reward myself with a picnic on the beach to the music of the ocean and the beautiful sight of the sea. I only have one problem- leaving- as it means a bike ride home through the HOT city!