That was one long trip...

Two train rides, two plane rides, a bus and a car ride, and about 30 hours. That's what it took to get me from Takayama back to Denver for the holidays. All in all, it was a relatively painless trip (minus the sleep deprivation), I made all my connections no problem and even made a new friend on the flight from Tokyo to San Francisco.
This is from somewhere between California and Colorado... probably Utah?


The biggest hurdle I've had so far occurred during immigration in San Francisco.

Me: *taking every opportunity to make small talk now that I'm surrounded by English speakers* "that's a really old passport. It never works in the new readers they have, you have to type everything in by hand"
Passport guy: *looks at passport* "yeah, it is old. It's so old in fact, you won't be able to leave the country with it."
Me: "eh?!?!!"
Passport guy: "yeah."

Apparently, if your passport expires in less than 6 months, you have to renew it before you are allowed to travel abroad. Mine was good until April of next year, four months after when I plan to head back to Japan, and two months shy of the cut-off (>.<)

So my first full day back in the US was spent getting a new passport, which went surprisingly smoothly considering how horrible the process of obtaining official documents usually is. The first thing I had to do was to contact the Japanese consulate, who informed me that all Japan cared about was that the passport and my re-entry permit were still valid when I went back (I can renew the passport in Japan). The US immigration office didn't really care what the Japanese had to say though, I got the feeling that even if the Japanese would have let me in, the Americans still wouldn't have let me leave.

As it turns out, if you can prove you are leaving the country within 14 days, you can go directly to the passport agency to get a new one. Lucky for me, there is an office in Denver, so I set up an appointment for the latest possible time that day, which was 11 am. This was at about 10 am, we live around 40 minutes from this place, and I was still in pajamas. So I basically got dressed and out the door, didn't even have time to brush my teeth, and headed straight for the passport agency.

After more than a year in a country where if you miss your appointment by like, a minute, you're out of luck, I was a little apprehensive. But, we just managed to get there before my time (yeay!). The guard asked me if I had 1) an appointment (yes) and 2) passport photos (no) and told me to run down to Kinko's to get them. When I expressed some concern about missing my appointment time he told me "don't worry, you have an appointment, we'll still let you in". I love America! Ha ha ha.

Anyway, I got the photos (dirty hair and all), got the stuff turned in, and after begging and pleading with the man behind the glass, talked them into letting me pick it up the next day. My argument being that the American and Japanese holidays overlap in an inconvenient way - the US offices are closed over Christmas and the Japanese ones the four days after New Years, so if I needed to transfer the re-entry permit I needed to get the documents back ASAP.

Other than that exciting start to my vacation, I'm just looking forward to being back for two weeks in a place where I can read all the signs and understand the announcements without having to think about it. Also, I've been eating Mexican food like nobody's business. Viva la burrito! Chipotle, to be precise (-_^)

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

An iPod and a Playstation 3!

Today was my last day at one of my elementary schools before school ends for winter break. So I decided, though it's a little early, to do Christmas lessons today. Cause, well, they're fun ^_^ Not much usable English gets taught, but it's a good chance for some cultural exchange and the kids always enjoy it.

For my 5th and 6th graders I decided to teach them the 12 Days of Christmas song. But, since it's kind of old, and I still have no idea what a partridge in a pear tree has to do with xmas (aside from some sneaky allusion to Christ), I opted for an updated version that I found on this website. Of course, since this version changes the words to modern gifts that people might actually want, there isn't a musical version to sing along to. Which meant we had to do it karaoke style, heh heh heh, which also meant they HAD to sing it cause there was no way to hide if they weren't >:D

Anyway, they lyrics to the final verse are:

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
12 pairs of Levis
11 electric guitars
10 boxes of Legos
9 mobile phones
8 Burberry bags
7 cans of cola
6 Barbie dolls
5 gold rings
4 teddy bears
3 soccer balls
2 Chanel gloves
and an iPod and a Playstation 3!

^_^

It was a bit tough, though really after I explained the intro (on the ~ day of xmas, my true love gave to me...) it's quite easy to understand. The most difficult part is the speed, which was pretty fast on the instrumental version of the song that I have. Plus, I've caught a cold, so singing that song repeatedly for 2 hours was a task... but hey! what's a little laryngitis when we're talking about presents?

Anyway, the kids loved it, and I heard them wandering around the rest of the day, mimicking my dramatic rendition of "5 gold rings!" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ^_^

I am SO going to do this at the junior high schools...

Wow, is it December 6 already?!?!!?

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been busy doing, well, not much really. I'd like to say that I've been studying my butt (or as they like to say in Japan, "hip") off for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) that I'm taking tomorrow... but alas I realized a few weeks ago there's just no way I'm going to pass it, lol

On the advice of many people I, and several of my friends, signed up for the level 3 (4 being the easiest, 1 the hardest). The reasoning being that we've been in Japan for over a year so should be able to pass that with sufficient studying.... which looks to have been a bit, optimistic. So I've just kept plodding along with my usual pattern of studying when I have down time at school and going to my Japanese class on Friday evenings. I've decided to just use tomorrow's test as a gauge of what I know, since I'm pretty sure I can't pass it ^_^

Other than that, I've just been going to work, chatting with my kids, and playing taiko. Also, in a freak dropping-accident, I seem to have broken my camera, so I don't have many pictures these days to post. The camera still kind of works... sort of. Something inside of it is whizzing around and makes the whole thing shake, so taking pictures that aren't blurry is a challenge. I am planning to get a new one when I go home for xmas in a few weeks, but until then I have to live with either blurry pictures, or none at all.

And here are a few of the least fuzzy pics from the past few weeks, in no particular order. Enjoy!

The shrine I've only recently discovered, which sits at the bottom of the back road that climbs the hill to KJH

Some low clouds hanging in Kuguno

My contribution to Thanksgiving dinner: green bean casserole, from scratch!