tokyo disney

last weekend i went to a disney for the first time. two parades, several rides, and many hours of waiting later, actually did turn out to be fun. and i learned that if being an english teacher doesn't work out, one can always try to get a job as a disney character in the parades in tokyo.

graduation

today was graduation. there were a lot of similarities, as well as a lot of differences from american graduation ceremonies. i don't want to try to list all of them, so, if you ever find yourself really really curious about high school graduation in japan, ask me and i will talk to you about it. i was not expecting it to be emotional...it was. bye bye third years--you'll be missed!

ume blossoms!

last weekend i went to the nearby town of taura to see the plum blossoms. unfortunately i was a week or 2 early so only a few were opened. but it was still really pretty and the daffodils smelled really good. it was a nice day and i really enjoyed being outside after a LONG winter inside avoiding the cold.

uikiddo (wicked) finally!!

after weeks of waiting i finally got to see wicked in tokyo. it was so fun and very good. but it's a good thing i know it or i would have been very confused. but i did learn a few words watching it. it was kinda weird though b/c everything was exactly the same as the u.s. version, the set down to the costumes.

oh, and this is a new ad i saw in tokyo for the train line that i take out of my little city...it's good.

yuki matsuri

so i went to sapporo (in hokkaido, the north island of japan) for the annual snow festival. they build huge sculptures our of snow and ice. we actually had to go the weekend before it started (so that it was affordable) so a lot of things weren't finished and we weren't allowed to walk all the way up to see some of the sculptures. but it was really fun and pretty anyway. it was such a fun trip and i'm so glad i was able to go! it was so pretty!
(i didn't notice that the lens had fogged up, oops)
not a sculpture, just a lot of snow on a subway entrance.


this is what the snow sculptures start out as.
the chronicle of narnia snow sculpture.




people make these snowmen to make wishes, later, once the festival is in full swing, there will be hundreds of them.
butt-biting bug!
the egypt one was my favorite.



i wish this giant slide had been open to go down...it wasn't.

susukino, the downtown entertainment area


ramen alley. when you walk by, everyone tries to get you to come into their ramen shop. when we finally settled on one, we still felt weird eating there, b/c many of them seem to have yakuza ties.
so much snow!

trains and tracks covered in snow and ice still look weird to me
the view from the plane on the trip home. it was so nice b/c the sunrise and sunset is rarely visible from where i live
and then, the most ironic part of all, i went to sapporo b/c i really missed snow. so i was shocked when i left the train station and saw the remnants of snow on the ground. it doesn't snow here, so the fact that it actually did, the weekend that i went to see snow, thus missing the snow here, was pretty funny.