I often think of things to put on the blog while I am walking, but then there are so many other things I want to do, too, that I don\u2019t quite get the blog entry written. It has been more than a month since I posted, and Margo and Lisa have asked when we were going to do a new entry. If people are reading, we better write!<\/p>\n
Life is Japan continues to suit us well! I am loving my work here. David\u2019s job, unfortunately, is not as exciting as he would like it to be. It\u2019s not a fulltime job, so he does have time to do some projects that are exciting. He is not complaining as Tokyo suits him better than Galesburg or the Midwest in general ever has! We both enjoy our non-work time. There is always something to do! Mostly we just walk in or to places to discover another part of the city. We found these great Korean red bean pancakes on a walk a couple of weeks ago that I am anxious to have again!<\/p>\n
Last weekend, the Japan Study Program had its fall retreat in Nagano, a mountainous area about 3 hours by bus west of Tokyo. It was cold and rainy on Saturday, but Sunday was sunny and beautiful. We have a wonderful group of students, so even though David did not attend because he was sick, I enjoyed talking and interacting with the students and Michiyo, the Program Associate. Michiyo, her daughter, Sarah (Michiyo\u2019s assistant), and I snuck off Sunday morning to go to an onsen (a hot springs public bath). It was fabulous!<\/p>\n
Lisa, Ben, and Sophia arrived in Japan on October 5th, David\u2019s and my 26th wedding anniversary. It was a great way to celebrate! We met them at the Nippori station with little trouble and at first Sophia looked like she wasn\u2019t going to come to me, but when I spoke to her, she clearly recognized my voice, and let me hold her! Since their luggage, including Sophia\u2019s stroller, was tied up in a workers strike in France, there were many opportunities to hold her! We had to go shopping to get necessities and for the first few days we didn\u2019t have a stroller. I loved holding her, although, she really is a bit heavy for hours of carrying. The stroller that Ben and Lisa purchased on the third or fourth day helped us all out.<\/p>\n
In addition to shopping, while Ben, Lisa, and Sophia were in Tokyo, we went to the National Museum in Ueno Park one day and went to Asakusa to visit a famous Buddhist Temple and grounds and to shop in a traditional shopping area of Tokyo. Both trips were very nice. <\/p>\n
Lisa, Ben, and Sophia, went to Gosen City a few days after arriving in Tokyo. We missed them, but that was a busy week for us. I had a lot of responsibilities for the Japan Study Program and David was interviewing and going through orientation for his new job. I had coordinated two events for JS, a dinner with the Program Associate from the States and a trip to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. While leaving the museum, I ran into a student I knew from my first year at Knox College. He is the student that asked me to be the advisor of the Chinese Club at Knox. I believe he is from Singapore, so in Tokyo, a city with 12 million people that is not in the country that is home to either of us, it was incredible to just run into each other! He is in a graduate program at a university in Tokyo. We exchanged contact information and should see each other again.<\/p>\n
The weekend before the Nagano retreat, David and I joined Lisa, Ben, and Sophia in Niigata for a few hours of shopping then went to Muramatsu (that may not be spelled correctly) where the Sekuras live. Their city is being combined with some other cities and will be Gosen City now. We were there for three nights and had a wonderful time! It was the best weekend we have had so far. Mrs. Sekura is a wonderful cook and the family is so gracious, fun, and interesting to be with that every minute was fabulous! Time with Lisa, Ben and our granddaughter, of course, topped the bill, but it was great to share the time and space with other people who lover our kids and granddaughter so much. So-chan (Sophia shortened with the Japanese honorific term for children added) charmed us all, and kept us all busy! While in Japan, So-chan learned to crawl, pull herself up to furniture, and to walk pushing a little toy or holding onto someone\u2019s fingers. She matured more every day, and she is a good eater. Just feeding her kept many people busy, and, of course, what she ate caused other needs, too! Her favorite food was the wonderful Niigata rice! It is excellent and we were eating rice that had been in the field the week before. Rice lovers, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re missing until you have had rice that fresh! We have tons of photos of Sophia, but they still don\u2019t seem to be enough. We miss her so much!<\/p>\n
While at the Sekuras’ we went to an onsen. It was fabulous! Lisa, Sophia, and two Grandmothers enjoying the baths together may not happen again. We spent a large portion of the day there, as after bathing, we ate lunch in a large room with low tables that were perfect for So-Chan. A lot of other children were around in the play area, too. We just ate and hung out after bathing. It was a very relaxing day.<\/p>\n
We returned to Tokyo with Lisa, Ben, and Sophia after our visit at the Sekuras\u2019 and went to parks and shopping close to our apartment. We had meals late after So-Chan had gone to bed and David got home. (He doesn\u2019t get home until 9:30.) Since the Goold family returned to Oxford, my attention has been on teaching (finally read some of my students\u2019 papers), working on a research project, and catching up on JS items, and of course going to the retreat in Nagano. I am still enjoying the course I teach and am excited about all of the components of my work here. It feels so good. Every day I feel a bit more relaxed and excited; it\u2019s a freedom I have not felt for a very long time. <\/p>\n
This weekend, I will be preparing a speech, the first of a series of three. I should be more concerned than I am because I have only written a paragraph so far, but it is on critical pedagogy, a topic I know well and can talk about easily with confidence. I am actually looking forward to having a captive audience and meeting students and faculty from education! You can get the details at this site http:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/sils\/en\/student\/info_05KarenENG.html. <\/p>\n
David and I have also decided to begin private Japanese lessons. We met the teacher on Wednesday and will begin classes one hour a day on Mondays and Wednesdays. It will make us more busy, but we want to increase our speaking ability. Just studying on our own means that we forget the things that we learn so easily because we\u2019re not really using Japanese except when we\u2019re studying. Classes are expensive, but we think it is something we need to do.<\/p>\n
Time to work on that speech!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I often think of things to put on the blog while I am walking, but then there are so many other things I want to do, too, that I don\u2019t quite get the blog entry written. It has been more than a month since I posted, and Margo and Lisa have asked when we were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdylorrin.net\/kdblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}