aizu

This morning we went to a presentation at Fukushima University about teacher education and got a chance to meet a bunch of students who were in their education program. With the aid of one of the interpreters and a lot of gestures, diagrams and guesses, I had the chance to talk with a woman who had been teaching special education in Japan and who was back to work on her master's degree. Awesome.

We then drove about an hour to Aizuwakamatsu City. I actually really liked the small-town feel of where we were staying in Fukushima, but this is also really nice. A lot more calm than Tokyo, there are mountains in the background, and the sun was shining! We visited the school board and were addressed by the Superintendent of schools, and I delivered the thank-you address from our side. Heck, if nothing else, I can get through a basic introduction in Japanese before having to switch to English now, which is a step in the right direction. There are a handful of JET teachers here, and they came to the program for a few minutes. This part of the discussions and lectures part are acutally interesting - real schools, real students, real communities. Having to wait for interpretation is a drag and makes the somewhat interminable speeches go on even longer, but it was amazing how happy they seemed to have us there.

I got a chance just to wander around today - alone, which was extra nice. I found an international ATM (all Japanese post offices have them, which is nice as there are a lot of banks here that won't take a non-Japanese ATM card) and a tiny little craft store with yarn and needles. Two small balls of pink silk this time. Some people remember trips through pictures. Some through t-shirts. Me? Yarn. Also explored a department store, and cannot for the life of me figure out how makeup and stuff is priced here. There is Shiseido on the main level in an area that looks kind of spendy, but there is also some down in the grocery store area. And then there are a ton of different (what I'm guessing to be) lines of the same brand. I don't get it. I want a nice shear gel blush, and I am striking out left and right. And then half the time they don't have the actual numbers written anywhere - at least not in regular numbers. Just trying to navigate basic things is kind of exhausting.

Aizuwakamatsu has excellent, albeit expensive, cherries. And they were really, really good. Not quite good enough for me to buy them at the grocery (~$10/pint) but good enough for me to grab several from the nice man offering them to us with sake and plum wine samples in the lobby. (a employee of the hotel, not a random strange man in the lobby)