kdblog

We left Japan on August 8^th, and arrived in Seattle the same day. We have made trips to Galesburg, Illinois and Oxford, England. In Galesburg, we visited friends and spent most of our time moving our stored items around. We prepared for a garage sale at our friends’ house, loaded a small trailer with items to bring back to Seattle, and moved tons of things into our friends’ attic. We still have one storage unit, but previously we had three.

Our primary reason for visiting Oxford was to see our granddaughter, Sophia, and her parents. We had a wonderful two weeks in Oxford. We spent a lot of time with Lisa and Sophia, and worked on some projects at the Goold house. It was our first chance to see their lovely new home. David added a new fence to the existing fence and tore up a badly made walk from the house to the shed in the back yard. I then made a new path. It was so hard to leave Sophia. She is such a darling! Leaving was made easier because we knew they would visit us in December.

We spent the fall getting our Internet soap business up and running. Our website is http://www.gourdgardens.us. We also did projects around the house. We are staying with Tina and Lorrin, and did the work on their house. David put in a toilet in the basement, and I spent many hours digging a driveway parking area and scraping paint in the bathroom. The bathroom has now been primed and looks quite good even though it is not finished. The driveway will be a permeable parking space and is still in progress. I (Karen) also spent a lot of time completing applications for jobs.

David went to visit his former boss at Seattle Vocational Institute, and was welcomed by assurance that there would be work for him there. True to his word, his boss has hired him to do curriculum development and in April he will begin teaching. This is great news for us, although it certainly changes David’s schedule a lot!

Lisa, Ben, and Sophia came for two weeks in December and made our Christmas!! Sophia was talking when she came, but chattering twice as much when she left! She was great fun, and I miss her “Amma?” calls!! We do talk to her through the video camera, but it’s not the same as snuggling with her!

We miss Tokyo a lot. I especially miss working with Michiyo and being at Waseda. I went from having an ideal work world to having no work world. It has been a drastic change, and I miss the academic challenges, although it has been nice in some ways to not have to do academic work. I am ready, however, to have a job again.

We have enjoyed living with Tina and Lorrin and Louis (their dog) and Ella (their cat), and we love Seattle. It is not Tokyo, but it is a wonderful city!

Much of the work for JS continued from May right into June. In addition, my class ended on June 30^th, visitors from the US came at the end of June, and I had to write a speech for the Closing Ceremony for SILS on July 3^rd. It was a hectic month but a positive one. It was a sad one, too, as the realization that we would soon be leaving Japan settled in for both David and me.

I had a great group of students in my course, Philosophies of Education, who worked hard on their websites of schools reflecting the philosophy the group had selected. The menu to the TEN different schools created by my students this year can be found at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/Courses/Philosophies/home.html.

I am very proud of our work as it was a big undertaking for all of us. I considered changing my syllabus after I found out I would have nearly 60 students in my course. However, this project always helps the students really understand the use of philosophy. After a few days at the beginning of the semester to consider making a change I elected to go with it and to trust I could get it all to work out. It was a bit more difficult than at Knox when I have students do websites because I had to do most of the posting to the server. Space on the server was assigned to me as the faculty member, not to the program or the course. I could not give students access. In addition, I had to learn to do many things in Japanese (e.g., connecting to the server, getting a FTP program onto my computers, and using a Japanese keyboard while teaching students about creating their school websites). It was a steep learning curve, but I enjoyed it. Mostly, I enjoyed it because the students worked so hard, learned so much, and enjoyed it, too!

Some of my students will be in the US next year, and two of them will be in Seattle, so I should get to see some of them again! One who will go to school at SUNY-Stonybrook has promised to visit us.

On the 24^th of June, two Knox graduates came to visit Japan for about 10 days. David and I had fun taking them around Tokyo. It brought back memories of our first discoveries in Japan. It helped us recognize some of our learning, too. Although our Japanese is still so bad, it is better than it was last August. David knows the trains and subways better than most long-time residents of Tokyo. Jenn and Cindy stayed with us, and it was during one of the hottest and busiest times during June. David and I were both still teaching, but did a lot of sightseeing, too. Cindy brought us one of her latest beautiful paintings, which I quickly hung on our wall in Tokyo.

During June, David began reducing the number of hours he teaches and started to focus on making soap as soon as we get back to the US. He has the things he needs already delivered to Tina and Lorrin’s, so for all of you who are waiting for soap because your year supply has run out or is running low, David should have soap made and ready to ship by the end of September. One of my first tasks when I return to the US is to start our website for selling his soap on the Internet. Since neither of us has jobs lined up, we will give the soap making business on the Internet a try. You can tell all your friends and family members!

Where did May go? I knew it was going to be busy, and it was! I had lots to do to keep up with my large class and to prepare for the conference in Bangkok; then, of course, we went to Bangkok. I went on a Tuesday afternoon, and David came the following Thursday night. We stayed in Bangkok until Sunday night. In addition to it being the busiest month, it also presented me with some difficult days.

Bangkok. I had to really rush to get to the airport after I taught my class on a Tuesday. I let my students out about 15 minutes early, but they used that extra time to ask me questions, and I ended up leaving 10 minutes after the class is supposed to end. In fact, I was in such a rush after all the questions that I forgot to close down the computer in my classroom, lock the computer cabinet, and return the key to the office! Consequently, while in Bangkok, I received an email message that the office workers were trying to find the key to the computer cabinet!

I did get to the airport in time and my flight to Bangkok was a good one; however, the more than 50 papers in my book bag that I needed to read did not get read. I was exhausted from the nervous moments, and I watched movies instead. I arrived at the airport just after 11:00 pm, and for the first time in my life, I was met by an airport staff person and escorted all the way through the airport. I went through a special immigration line for “honored guests” or some similar honorary designation. Going through customs was even easier; I didn’t even have to wait in line. The young woman who met me had arranged for a driver to take me to my hotel. The cost was covered by the conference. This conference was in honor of the Princess’s 50th birthday, and she had spoken at the opening ceremony (I missed because it was a day before I arrived), so this conference was a really big deal from the Thai perspective.

It was a good start. However, the next morning when I tried to pick up my registration materials, I found out that my credit card had denied charges (for a second time), and I was not actually registered. It would not have been such a big problem except that I had not brought enough cash to pay for the registration (which included my hotel stay), and I could not take enough out of my bank account in a single day to cover it. I was distraught as the conference was going on, and I was spending my time waiting while the nice people tried again to get two different credit cards accepted, or I was at the ATM machine trying to get money. Finally, I convinced the very nice woman to allow me to pay half of the bill and attend the conference and then the next day, I could pay the other half. While sitting in a session, I realized that a new day would be starting in the US, and sure enough, I could get some more money out of my account. I happily paid my other half of the bill in the afternoon.

The sessions at the conference were quite interesting. It felt good to be at a conference dedicated to language issues! I met a lot of nice people who are doing amazing work. I was presenting my research with a colleague from Waseda University, Professor Iino. We have been working on a very interesting study of the program we both teach in, The School of International Studies at Waseda University. It is a new program (in its second year when we began), and we were interviewing students about their experiences. Our focus was the student perspective on the policies and implementation of the new program. Our focus for the Bangkok conference was issues of language and identity of the 26 Japanese students we had interviewed.

Pictures for our Bangkok trip can be found at http://www.nerdylorrin.net/gallery2/v/kd_2005/kd_2005_Japan/May2006/Bangkok/

Research Project. Our project is great, and we have excellent data. We were rushed to do analysis, but we had a good paper for presentation at the conference. We had worked hard to make it only about 12 minutes long, so we would have time for questions and answers within our 20 minute time slot. Unfortunately the first woman to present at our session took nearly 30 minutes, ignoring all the prompts that her time was up. Everyone after her had their time cut, and everyone went over the “new” time. Consequently because we were the last presenters in the session, we had only 10 minutes to present. We had to cut even more from our presentation, and had no time to respond to questions. It was quite disappointing considering all the effort to do the work and to travel to the conference. On the positive side, it was good that we got started with the analysis and had the big push to focus on the project.

JS Student Issues. When I returned to Bangkok, I still had those student papers to get read, and the two biggest issues facing me as the RD pushed themselves forward on my to do list. One of the JS students developed pain in her arm that prevented her from attending classes, and she became quite distraught about not finding a reasonable explanation for the pain despite having undergone many, many medical tests. She ended up returning to the US in early June, just 3 and a half weeks before her scheduled return. It was too early, however, for her to earn credit for the semester.

A second student had stopped going to Japanese classes, but the teachers were making changes and were negotiating to get him back to class. That story worked out very positively.

Since the nature of my job is to discuss and resolve problems by collaborating with the director of the program in the US, my colleague in the program in Tokyo, and with the SILS administration and faculty, I wrote and read many email messages related to both of these issues and had several related meetings. As Michiyo stated, a positive part of having “issues” is that we work closely together and learn so much from each other. It makes us feel competent and grateful to be working together. Therefore, even though we were all worn out, we realized how lucky we were to be working together and to have a director who was interested and involved in what was happening here.

On Saturday, April 29^th, we set off for a walk down the canal near our house to see what we might discover. I (Karen) had walked down the canal on my way to work during the cherry blossom season, so many of those pictures have been shared, but I wanted to go along the canal past my work area. These are some of the things of interest we found.

Although walking along the main road or the canal in this area gives the impression that this is a modern, financially stable area, just one small block north of the canal we found a different picture. We took some pictures of real urban areas that are not wealthy areas. Amongst the buildings in run-down condition, we found a sign advocating peace in English, Japanese, French, and Spanish. We were impressed.

Next we discovered a building that must have been damaged by an earthquake because it certainly had shifted its alignment by several obvious degrees! We saw a couple of buildings in the same block that had been destroyed by fire some time ago but remained in their dilapidated condition. It was interesting to see a side of Tokyo that tourists probably are not likely to see.                                    

We then continued our walk down the canal. Low and behold we walked right to a park/garden, the Chinzan-so Garden, that we had visited nearly three summers ago. We knew that garden was not far from our apartment, but we had not yet searched for it. It had been on our list of things to do since last August, so we were delighted to discover its location with so little trouble. The walk through the garden was beautiful and also nostalgic for us because we had very much enjoyed our last visit to the same garden. It is interesting to now have the garden in a clearer context.

We continued down the canal even though it started to rain (sprinkle) and we had no umbrellas and were not likely to find a place to buy a cheap umbrella on the tree lined, residential walk along the canal. The rain held off until we got to a major road and intersection. We found ourselves in Edogawabashi. Edo is an old name for Tokyo. Gawa means river, and bashi means bridge. We noticed at that location, a road had been built high above the canal—like a double-decker bus, the space was optimally utilized with the highway about 20 to 30 feet above the canal, following the path of the canal. It wasn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing but was impressive use of space.

We left the canal and within a block we found an interesting area of Edogawabashi, an old style shopping street that was closed to vehicles, so we took a turn down the street. Not far down the road, we found a store that is my dream store—almost! It had beautiful clothing, all made from 100% high-quality cotton and linen, Japanese-inspired prints and clothing designs (simple but elegant), and sewn with great skill! It is just the kind of clothing I am thinking I would like to make and sell! I was so excited. I entered the shop thinking I might buy a blouse, skirt, or jacket, but then I saw the price! A lovely blouse had been reduced from 14,000 yen to 13,000 yen, meaning that it was far more than $100 US dollars! Everything in the store was priced like that. Although the quality of fabric, prints, and labor were super, the price was too high. I think I can sell similar items for about half the price in the US. It was a great inspiration, nevertheless.

Next we headed for a place to buy a couple of cheap umbrellas. We were just in time because while we were purchasing the umbrellas, it began to rain harder. We didn’t find much else on the street that interested us, so when we came to the end of that vehicle-forbidden street, we went back to a main road, which we realized was Shin Meiji-ro Dori, a road that is just down the hill from our apartment. We knew how to walk home easily from there. We started in the direction of home, but we were stopped by a small bakery/café that had the English word “vegetarian” on the window. With closer inspection, I could see they had “vegan vegetarian” written on some things. It seemed worth investigating although I had not thought I was hungry and David assured me he was not hungry. Sure enough, the café is 100% vegan and serves many organic things like organic coffee. I ordered a veggie burger, and it was the best veggie burger I have ever had. It was served on 100% whole grain bread and had a real Japanese contribution, a slice of lotus root on it! It was quite lovely! It came with a super soup made with miso and shiso. There were also some Japanese pickles and a seaweed carrot salad that redefines the term “slimy food.” Trust us; okra in comparison would not seem slimy! We also bought completely organic, vegan, whole grain bread to take home. When we left the café, we found the bus stop and figured out that it is only a few stops by bus from our apartment!

We decided to take a break from walking by taking the subway to Ikebukuro, which is really an area we are comfortable in. We still, however, have only scratched the surface of getting around in Ikebukuro efficiently. We’re working on that. We went there to visit the closest store of our favorite bakery/espresso chain in Tokyo, Vie de France. They have great espresso and my currently favorite Japanese sweet, goma anpan. I am not actually sure whether that is the correct way to say it, but goma is sesame, an(ko) is sweet red bean paste, and pan is bread (borrowed from the French—Japanese borrows words from all over the world!) So instead of just anpan, this delicacy adds sesame paste to the anko, making it less sweet and even more flavorful! We wouldn’t miss Starbucks at all if there were more Vie de France Bakeries!! Tina, you will love the goma anpan!

David was getting tired, so he went home, and I went to a bookstore to look at the textile and clothing book/journals. I spent all that I had with me except 1,000 yen; then I got lost in Sunshine City, a HUGE shopping area in Ikebukuro. I walked to the opposite end, right to a Uni Clo store, an inexpensive Gap-type store. I thought I was going to spend my last 1,000 yen bill because they had these 98% cotton/2% lycra pants in blue. I love these pants for yoga and for wearing at home, but I had only found them in black in other Uni Clo stores. However, when I went to pay for them, I got change back! They were only 690 yen—that is somewhere between 5 and 6 dollars US. What a buy!

I, too, then headed home quite tired. I had been out for more than six hours, but I was very pleased. It had been a successful excursion. Sometimes having no agenda results in more success than when the agenda is specific!!

Tokyo is a great city! We will miss it because in just over three months we will be returning to the US.

I had 60 students in my class today!  Hopefully, half will be scared away, but I don’t really think so!  I have never taught such a large class!

Well, after a lot of work, frustration, learning, and redoing things many, many times, my website is done. Well actually, there are still some pages I need to fix to get rid of code that shouldn’t be there, but after all I have been through completing this page, those remaining things are minor! It is significant that the page is on the Waseda server. That means that I can now maneuver through that process and am prepared to teach my students this coming term. Remember I don’t speak Japanese, so communicating with the IT Center technicians who speak about as much English as I speak Japanese was not easy. I have also learned to use Nvu, a new, free program (at least for me) for web page making. You can see the site at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/

What did Karen do on break? In addition to a lot of time on trains and planes, I developed the new course I will be teaching next semester. You can see my course page at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/Courses/Philosophies/home.html. I am looking forward to the course. The page for my fall semester course is http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/Courses/EducationAndSocialJustice/SocialJusticeandEducationalReformsSyllabus.html . I enjoyed the course and hope I get to teach it again. It was a great experience and is part of what makes me excited about the new course! I developed it with a little bit more knowledge about the context in which I will teach it than I had for the fall course. Our semester this spring will be much, much shorter than fall semester, so it will be more intense.

I have also been interviewing and reviewing interviews for our research project. I have created a page for the project, but there is not much on it yet. The address is http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd/SILSResearch/silsresearch.html. I completed 36 interviews. All of them have been transcribed. I am reviewing and correcting the interview transcriptions, a process that takes from 2 to 4 hours for each interview. I have finished 14, so I am not even half finished. The pressure is on because we wrote a proposal for the Power of Language Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, and it was accepted. The conference is only 6 weeks away, so we have to write the paper, which is dependent on my finishing the interviews. Actually, we are focusing on the 24 interviews that are Japanese, so I have only 11 more to do to finish the Japanese students.

Although it has been a long break from classes, I have worked many hours every day. I enjoyed the work and have gotten energy and increased enthusiasm from the work. The semester starts tomorrow, and my first day of class will be Friday. My syllabus is done AND my web page is up! I might actually be able to pull this off yet—teaching web page making and philosophy of education to students in Japan!

David’s steady hours in the evening have come to a close, so he was expecting a quiet week last week, teaching just a few hours some afternoons. However, he was asked to teach a couple of short-term, intensive classes, so he ended up teaching more hours in the week than in any previous week. He would not want to do it every week. And yes, David no longer has a ponytail. He cut it in early October.

I started taking a yoga class in Japanese at the end of February. It’s not that my Japanese is good enough to do that, but my yoga is. I thought I would learn some Japanese in the class, but actually, I don’t need to know any of the words they use because I can watch, and I have been doing yoga for so many years, that I can participate just fine without any language. I actually am disappointed that I am not learning more Japanese in the class, but I have been very happy with the yoga class. It has helped me get back into a regular routine of daily yoga practice, and the pain in my arm that I have endured since late September/early October has decreased. I do not yet have full mobility in my right arm, but the constant pain is gone, replaced by a low-grade sensation. I can reach for things with that arm and have almost full use of it now.

It is a sad story because as it mysteriously started hurting so many months ago, I cut back on doing yoga because I thought it needed to heal. I started babying it, expecting it to heal. After so many months of babying it, it just got worse, so I investigated pinched nerves on the Internet I found a site that proposed a totally new approach to repairing nerve damage. (Although I do not really know if nerve damage is/was the problem. I just know it is not muscular.) This site suggested that the established philosophy of not using an arm (or other body part) that had damaged nerves is wrong. This doctor suggested that, in fact, we need to retrain the nerves with regular, intentional practice/use.

As I tried out his theory, I found my arm was getting a bit better. However, it was slow progress. I decided to take the yoga class to see if I could pick up the pace of healing. Actually, during the first yoga class, I realized I had blocked energy at the base of my spine that was directly linked to my arm. Instead of arm exercises, I needed to do spinal stretches! Indeed, the pace of healing increased significantly once I started doing yoga regularly again! Although it has been a painful few months, I learned some things about my body and self-healing, and I am feeling very positive about it. Of course, it is easier to be positive when I do not have constant pain!

I have had a long, long break even with all my traveling in February. I like this calendar year. I have actually had time to prepare for my course, and that was a lot of work because it is a new course for me. I have also had time to work on my research project. I should be working a bit more intensely on the research project, but with no pressing date, it is easier to be more relaxed about it. We should know this coming week whether our proposal for a conference in Bangkok is accepted or not. If it is accepted, there will be a bit more pressure to get that work done.

Classes start for me on April 12^th. Most Japan Study students are back in Tokyo now, so students have been dropping by my office this week. Currently, they are relaxed and enthusiastic about things. I hope the mood takes us right through to the end of June!

I spent the past week working intensely on my website. That created a lot of frustration and even some traumatic moments, but it is now published. It is not perfect, but interested people can view it at http://www.f.waseda.jp/kgourd.

David is working on getting our photos into the gallery, and then we will be able to post them. He has gotten caught up on his reports for his classes, so we might be able to do some exploring this weekend and get some additional interesting photos, too.

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Tokyo. It is like nothing I have ever seen! Just a few minutes walk from our apartment, there is a canal and all along the canal are cherry blossoms in full bloom. It’s a spectacular walk! In addition, there are cherry trees sometimes in groups and sometimes all alone, blooming all over this area of Tokyo. I have pictures that I will post to our photo gallery. Everyone had told me the cherry blossoms were truly impressive, but I did not expect to be so impressed. All year when I would tell people I would be here for a year, they often replied with, “Great, you will be able to see the sakura.” Now I understand why I so often got that response. Because they don’t blossom at the same time every year, some people, who have come to Tokyo many times, never have actually seen the cherry blossoms in full bloom. It truly is a sight worth seeing! Many Japanese have yearly sakura outing traditions. Everyone talks about the sakura coming, staying, and leaving.

On Saturday, after my yoga class, we went to Shinjuku Gyoen, a large national park or garden near us that David’s students had recommended for viewing sakura. However, when we got there at about 2:30 p.m. on the beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon, we walked at least a block to try to locate the end of the line. We couldn’t see the end of the line, it was barely moving, and the park closed at 4:00. He decided to leave and return on Sunday morning.

On Sunday we went back to the park, getting there between 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. We were determined to have our Japanese traditional outing to view the sakura. There was no line we entered easily. We will try to get our pictures up soon. We took so many pictures because the beauty just kept coming with every step in the park. I hope our pictures do the trees justice. Certainly, the pictures will be more clear than my words!

It is now a week later and the sakura are falling and green sprouts of leaves are replacing the white and pink blossoms! It is not as stunningly beautiful but certainly a clear sign of spring.

Well, my last blog entry was about winter break, and now I see spring break quickly approaching its end! I guess I better get another entry written before summer break is on the way!

Although the last day of classes for fall semester was February 3, 2006, I have not actually been on break. I have been doing a lot of traveling for the program and for an interview in the US. I am also working on a research project that keeps me busy!

The Japan Study Program requires all of its year-long students to complete a spring practicum. There are different practicum choices, and they are in various locations in Japan. One of the things I am most proud of this year is that we were able to offer a new practicum for two of our students this year. With a lot of help from Ben and Lisa, we were able to tap into a wonderful situation in Niigata prefecture, in Gosen City. Because of Ben’s great relationship with Harai-sensei and others in the area, we have two students at a non-profit organization, one teaching preschool and one working with the elderly. Both students are having a wonderful experience! My friend and colleague, Michiyo, and I went to Niigata in January, braving the snow as Niigata prefecture has had a lot of snow! That was a successful trip, and we returned to Niigata a few weeks later to take the two students there.

Next Michiyo, David, and I accompanied 9 students to Shimane, one of the most remote of Japan’s prefectures. We took the overnight sleeper train, which was fun, but not the best night sleep, I’ve ever had. They made announcements over the loudspeaker all night long! We were treated well in Shimane and were taken to a temple, a wonderful museum with a Japanese garden (voted by some to be the best in Japan), a pottery factory, an arts museum, and a castle. We were also well-fed as a farmer and his wife prepared wonderful vegetarian meals for us on two consecutive evenings! In addition, Michiyo and I made good use of the hot springs bath at the traditional hotel where we stayed. We have seen many places in Japan, and surely Shimane is in competition for one of the most beautiful areas of Japan. The people were incredibly nice as well. You can view many of our photos of Shimane at

After two days in Shimane, David, Michiyo, and I headed to Tokyo, but Michiyo and I stopped for a few hours in Osaka, where we met two more students. We went to the city hall of one of the parts of Osaka where our students would be working. We also met their home-stay mothers. David had to teach that evening, so he continued on to Tokyo without us. Michiyo and I did not take time to relax in Osaka or to see any of the sites. In fact, we barely had time to purchase omiyage (small gifts) at the train station, which are an absolute must when traveling in Japan!

Our next adventure was to visit another student who is working at a Green Tourism site in Nagano prefecture. This small town is one of the areas that has had record snows this year, and Michiyo and I have the photos to prove it! This is also a new practicum site this year that the program may be able to develop into a regular practicum choice. This one, however, was found by the student, not by my family members. : ) Michiyo and I were very impressed with it, and for anyone looking for a great place to stay in rural Japan in order to go hiking or relaxing in the outdoors, I recommend this place. I’ll try to get the web address to post, but it is all in Japanese. The people are wonderful, however, and at least one person spoke English!

A few days later, we visited our three students who were working at a Chinese medicine company, Tsumura. (The company is Japanese, not Chinese. It is the medicine that is Chinese.) Our three students had been working with four Japanese engineering students on an operations research project at the company. Our students were part of the formal presentation to the company and had to prepare and speak in public in Japanese!! It was impressive. The company people were great and they loved our students. It made us proud, although I could not understand much about the project. It was one of those presentations that even if it had been in English, I am not sure I would have understood it. A couple of the company personnel took Michiyo and me to see the largest Buddha I have ever seen. It is in Ibaraki if anyone is interested in visiting the big Buddha.

A few days after the trip to Ibaraki, Michiyo and I boarded a shinkansen (the express trains in Japan) again. This time we accompanied 6 students to Okayama, where we left the students at a Zen Monastery. It was absolutely beautiful! I would have loved to have stayed with them and maybe some day, I too will spend time there! The students have to get up at 3:45 to begin their morning meditation. We’re hoping for warm weather as the monastery is not heated and they cannot wear socks during meditation.

A few days after the all-day trip to Okayama, I left for an interview in NY State. I left on Saturday March 4^th and returned on Wednesday March 8^th. (I actually had left on Tuesday, but the time difference is significant!) I hope to have more to report on the interview in a few weeks! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Just about the time I was landing at Narita Airport, Michiyo was flying out on her way to the US for a little more than two weeks. She will be collecting data for her research, and she presented at a conference. After spending so much time together in February, it feels very strange to not see Michiyo regularly. I miss her and cannot wait for her to be back in Tokyo!

On Sunday, David and I went to Kamakura. Kamakura is about 1.5 hours from our apartment, so it was a good day trip. Kamakura is a seaport famous for its temples. It was the capitol of Japan for a period of time (more than 100 years) sometime in the 11^th to 13^th centuries. It is absolutely beautiful! We visited one shrine and one temple, and will have to go back to visit some of the other many temples in the area. We also had fun shopping in the more rural city. People in this city were so friendly to us. In Tokyo, people seldom offer assistance if someone is frowning while studying a map. In Kamakura, we had people even speaking to us in English (and some in Japanese), offering us assistance. The plum blossoms are in bloom and Japan is truly becoming even more beautiful!

While I was off traveling all over Japan, David continued to teach for various companies. He has gotten a lot of positive feedback from his students who would like to keep him as their teacher. However, since the contracts may extend past our expected departure date, he will be giving up some of his jobs.

I’ve just posted in the gallery pictures of our first snowfall this winter in Tokyo. The one above is a stiched photo of the scene behind our apartment from the balcony. It is the same view as the stiched photo from October (see below). The first six photos in the January 2006 gallery are the stiched photo and the five photos that were used to make the stiched photo. Also in the gallery are pictures of our visit to Maebashi and Akagi Mountain. Karen wrote about this in her blog entry so I won’t.

The URL for the gallery is: http://www.nerdylorrin.net/gallery2/v/kd_2005/kd_2005_Japan/Jan2006/