seeing sites, spooky nights

In the past few weeks, travelling has occured!
I made the trip up to Kyoto to visit Jess and Jo-el, who I met in Tokyo. We did some temple site-seeing, went up the Kyoto tower for the killer view, shopped, and partied it up Saturday night. One of the local alts was celebrating her 30th birthday, so copious amounts of karaoke, drinking and obnoxious behaviour were bound to follow. The following day was spent in Otsu, just outside Kyoto, enjoying the lake and re-hydrating.
Last weekend was the big Osaka trip. Julie (from Mikamo), Christina and Lisa (from Tokushima-shi) and I all banded together to get some hotel rooms and see the city. Before leaving, we had a "conference", aka exploiting the foreigners on the weekend for a really nice and new school's open house day. The event wasn't terrible, but the real reason for having us there was pretty transparent. Regardless, we met a bunch of great kids and had fun.
After that, we headed to downtown Tokushima to catch the bus to Osaka.
Upon arriving, we dined Mexican style and checked into the (very nice) hotel. After some pre-drinking, we hit the streets for a night of clubbing and terrifyingly memorable cabaret shows. The following day we met up with Angelina and her friend for a bit, shopped, rode the Hep Five ferris wheel, shopped, ate, shopped shopped shopped and headed back. My wallet is a little lighter, but the memories are more than worth it. Interesting fact, Osaka is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Its a shame, because it would be a wonderful place to live.

In other random news, I was invited to a woman's house in Ka... Ka..., some city near Tokushima where Eric and Louise live, last week for dinner and to meet some new people. Sounds harmless enough, but an hour and a half drive there led me into a trecherous plot to exploit my being in Japan. The woman runs a private cram school out of her home, and I arrived to a house full of children waiting for me to teach them English. The woman had the nerve to tell them all that I would be coming twice a month to teach them too! Arrrrgh. Awful. Apparently, I'm not the first person this has happened to, as the woman has a reputation with the local English teachers (which explains why she began looking so far from her city for fresh meat....). Oy vey. But again, I met some great kids, who I will never see again.

Here in Mino, I've been doing mad Halloween lessons, and the chugakko ichinensei have been making paper-mache halloween decorations for the party we're having on Tuesday. Many a crossword, spooky story, and historical Halloween fact have been shared with every class from shogakko 1 through chugakko 3. God I love this season. My adult night class is also enjoying the Halloween vibe, and together with Julie's Mikamo class and Sally's Miyoshi class, we'll be having a nighttime costume party on the 31st. Should be a blast, and pics will follow.