Lots of blooms remain in Japan at this time. Today it is sunny and the temperature is in the mid 20's. This is the season to be in Japan!














A sea of people exiting the Kashiwa station in the morning. 300,000 people go through this station every day.














A closeup of the blooms in the above picture.

Everything seems to grow larger here, I guess it is the extended growing season. The goldenrod in the picture is 6-7 feet tall.














More goldenrod by the bridge to the university.














This is the canal that runs past our university.














Looking the other direction with a train going over the bridge.











This orange tree is right at the entrance at the university but in Japan the oranges will not be picked off by students ( or teachers ).

These yellow lines on the sidewalks are designed for the blind. The are rough and raised and can therefore be followed by a blind person. They also have them in many public buildings.














There are flowers and shrubs and often fruit trees planted by most houses. The flowers are still blooming here and it is the last week in October. Also you will notice that the leaves are still green.













Looking over a fence into a cemetery. By many of the graves, prayer sticks are placed as you can see.

Everyone hangs their laundry out here. This is a typical house in the area where we live. Notice the palm trees growing in the back yard. And across the street from this house, they had bamboo growing in their yard.















Yes it is the end of October and they are selling bedding plants. There are many plants growing outside near the greenhouses.














These are persimmons growing in someones back yard. The persimmons are still being harvested this fall and there are lots of them. We tried one the other day - not from the tree- and they are quite sweet and tasty.

So you think we can grow radishes in Canada, look at the size of these white radishes from Japan.














This is a Chinese cabbage and is very good in Chanko as you've seen from a previous picture. Jim loves his vegetables and has lots of choice in this country. This cabbage only cost $1.00.

Oranges growing right beside the university building.














The cities like to sculpt their hedges so I hope you can see that in the picture.














Colleen made coffee in her kitchen. She says she won't know what to do with all the room in her Canadian kitchen. Notice the individual coffee container that fits on the cup, a great idea.















Often, there is a barrier between the street and the sidewalk of trees and shrubs.













They have the neatest evergreens here. They are very fine and lacey and the needles run vertically.

These are pictures of Jim's students in his classroom. They are actively engaged in English conversation. Our goal is to facilitate as much converstion between the students as possible. This is the first time in teaching where I didn't want a quiet classroom.

This is the green grocers where we buy most of our fruit and vegetables. The quality is excellent and the price is cheaper than the supermarkets. By the way, we have been eating Japanese oranges for the last month, we don't have to wait until Christmas!













This is an ingenious way to save space. They stack the cars and bring them down one at a time.

Sometimes we are too tired to cook after a long day and we stop here on our way home. It may not be nutritious but it is fast and still the cheapest meal in Japan.














We walk along this busy street to the train station every morning. Check the gas prices, this is per litre as Japan is metric.

Large branch of a tree at a temple that is staked up so it won't break off.














Our latest adventure into Japanese cuisine. It is called Chanko and we cooked it at our table. In the pot is chicken, tofu, Chinese cabbage, leeks, fried tofu, and noodles. It cooked in a broth and was actually quite delicious.













Two Japanese friends we spent the day with on Oct. 12th. They took us to the temple in the background, a museum, and to the restaruant in the previous picture.

View towards university entrance from Jim's classroom.













Japan at night near our church.

We cross this bridge to our university every
morning. Entrance gate to the university below.

Crossing the bridge to the university one rainy day.














Colleen in her classroom.

Would you believe a Christmas sushi tree. That's right, a tree covered with raw fish.

Colleen and Rebecca after training in our first week at our favorite Japanese restaurant.
















Amber and Jim at our favorite restaurant. Everyone enjoyed the fare.

Our apartment complex. Living rm, bedroom, dining rm, rec. rm, etc

Entrance way including kitchen in our apartment.

Colleen at bus
first week. Jeff on the bus, he lives in same apartment complex and teaches with us.

October 11, 2005
To those of you who read my blog from October 9th.....I apologize for the terrible spelling and grammar. My time at the computer had run out and I never had a chance to check it until today.
We spent most of yesterday with some students from our spring term. They took us to a Chinese noodle shop. We really enjoyed this and tried 4 different noodle dishes, and we ate everything with our chopsticks, Japanese style. It is really not that difficult once you realize that lifting your soup bowl while slurping your noodles off your chop-sticks is not only allowed but entirely acceptable. And the liquid....well you just drink it out of your bowl...voila! This restaurant served us bottomless cups of "wheat" tea. Quite tasty. Apparently this is a summer drink only.
Tomorrow, we have another day off and we are meeting with another Japanese friend and her sister. We asked her to plan the day the way she thought best. They are taking us to a temple first, and then to eat at a 'chanko'. I will have to tell you more after we have been there as this is a new term to us. After that she is taking us to a museum about the Edo period in Japan's history. It should be a full day.

One of the things that continues to amaze us is the fact that Japan is quiet. We are living just outside of Tokyo where approximatley 33 million people live and commute to work. At the station that we have to pass through each morning, 300,00 other people also pass through this station everyday. At the Shibuya station in Tokyo there are 1.3 million people passing through this station daily. If even a fraction of these people were travelling to work in Canada through the same area by car the noise would be deafening and they would never get to work because of traffic problems. But the efficient train system of Japan not only transports people on time but very quietly. We just don't hear the dull roar of traffic in most places in Japan.

Time to go for today.....
Colleen

October 9th, that is in Japan
Hi everyone,
I have only 20 minutes on this computer so I will write a short update.
We have now been at our University for 2 weeks and I now know 90 percent of the names...some of my students have never been to class yet....many are on world excursions etc.
Most of my students are well-travelled....some have been to 10 to 20 countries. Most are Masters students.
About our apartment....we have one large room...13.5 feet by 8 feet. This space includes our sleeping accomodations, the TV , our tiny table to eat at, a double clothes closet and storage for suitcases and all of our school supplies, etc. etc.
Our other space is 9 feet by 8 feet. This includes a bathroom with a toilet, another bathroom with a shower, sink and tub; the laundry room, the kitchen, and the entrance including of course, a shoe cupboard. Our kitchen counter, including a 2 burner cooktop and sink is a total of 33 inches by 21 inches. Our overhead cupboard for our 2-place setting of dishes is 12 inches cubed. This has proven to be sufficient, believe it or not. However, we do have to keep our food in our shoe cupboard....appetizing!!! We keep our shoes by the door...not exactly good Japanese etiquette.
We are constantly amazed at the plants here. The variety is unbelievable! We saw golden rod this week...a common Manitoba plant...but this plant is about 5 feet high in Japan!
The persimmons are ripening and the pears are in season, but the tomato season is past. Jim thinks that the tomatoes here are great. We buy them by the box full when we can find them....somehow I dont think that this will surprise some of you who know how much Jim likes his tomatoes.
I guess my time is up. I will add more this week.
Thank you to all who have written this week. Its great to hear from you. To those in Manitoba....keep those shovels handy!!
Colleen

Even though we are a lot more familiar with the country and with Tokyo than we were last time, there is still an adjustment to the routine of the workday we face here. We aren't complaining as we totally knew what to expect but when people in Canada complain about a 40 hour workweek, it pales in comparison. There is a tremendous work ethic in Japan, some of it is good and some of it isn't, but one should expect to work long days in most of Asia. The long days are what we first have to adjust to and that usually takes 1-2 weeks. Our workday starts at 5:00 am when we get up. We leave our apartment at 7:00 and arrive at the university around 8:00. We teach 7 out of 11 classes from 9:00-6:00 and we usually get home around 7:30. So our first week was a total of about 72 hours. Guess what we did the first weekend. That's right, we slept a lot and only left the apartment to get food. We felt much more rested at the start of the second week but I think we have already lost weight as we do a lot of walking over here. Second week classes are going well and we are beginning to learn some of those 50 new names. The mens' names seem a lot harder to learn than the womens' as their names are usually longer. 75% of my class is men and about 80% of Colleen's class. She is teaching a higher level that me this term. It is quite different teaching men and women together this time but still very enjoyable. These students are the cream of the crop in Japan as they attend a very prestigious science univesity. Many of our students are graduate students. We are really enjoying our classes as we get to know our students better. All for now. Jim

Our flight over this time was better than the first time but we were better prepared. We drank lots of water to avoid dehydration, ate fruit and trail mix mainly and avoided the Air Canada food. We were even able to sleep on the plane. We had two other Canadian teachers in the seats right behind us. They were a married couple and were going to teach at the school we taught at on our first trip. When we arrived at Narita airport, we saw many familiar faces, including our daughter Amber who had arrived about a half hour before us from Toronto. Instead of feeling in an alien environment, this time we actually felt more at home. We were escorted to our apartments the first night and our luggage came the next day. It is definitely an adjustment living in a tiny apartment but we are managing quite well and it saves us a lot of change. We met Amber and Rebecca 3 days later at training and we took them out to our favorite Japanese restaurant. They were quite impressed with the good food and the whole dining experience. They were also amazed that the owners knew us there, maybe it shows how many times we have eaten there. The girls headed back to Nagoya and we headed back to our apartment. We are nicely settled in now. ( I know this should have been the first posting but I had a bit of trouble getting this blog set up. Hopefully it will work now and we can keep you posted. Also, please do not stop emailing us. )