4th of July

This week I was finally able to prove to myself that yes, the 4th of July does exist in other countries. Unfortunately, it's just July 4; other than being a Friday it wasn't much more than a typical school day.

I did make a point of talking about the holiday and printing out some pictures to show my students how we celebrate Independence Day at home. I got some interesting responses when I asked them why July 4 was special... when I gave the hint that it was an important birthday in AMERICA I got "Jen!" (no!) "Bush!" (no!) "Obama!" (no!) lol, it was only after I said it wasn't a person that they finally figured it out ^_^ The picture of the flag cake got the most interest; in Japan, they have something similar called hinomaru bento, which is a box lunch that has white rice with an umeboshi (pickled plum) in the center, representing the Japanese flag.

(hinomaru bento pic from wired.com )
Personally, I think cake is a much a tastier way to eat your country's symbol ^_^

(pic from recipetips)

Although I wasn't in the US, this year I did get to spend my holiday with other Americans - 3 other Takayama ALTs. And I had the honor of hanging out with the chief instructor of the Ki Society in the US, and all-around really-cool-guy, Kashiwaya Sensei and his daughter, Yuki, who were visiting Takayama ^_^ (For those who don't know, I studied Ki Aikido in the US before moving to Japan)

After baseball practice, I headed up to Takayama where I met Kashiwaya Sensei, Yuki, and 2 other Aikido students who were also in Takayama, Randy and Felicia, for dinner. The PE teacher at KJH actually set the whole thing up for us, I love how helpful people are here ^_^

4th of July dinner this year? Hoba miso (a traditional Hida dish served on a big leaf)


After dinner, Sensei, Yuki, and I met up with 3 other Takayama ALTs, Katie, Dan, and Angela for some fun with fireworks. Which are surprisingly easy to acquire here. In Colorado they're almost universally banned because of the fire hazard. But here you can get them in almost any convenience store during the summer.

The biggest challenge is finding an open area to light them; we chose a spot next to the Miya river near the Hachimon shrine.


Dan, looking like the Statue of Liberty

Sensei

It may have been small, we didn't have BBQ or cake, there were no silly people dressed like flags, but it was the 4th of July. And we had fireworks (^-^) Yeay