Update ...

I am so unbelievably far behind in blogging it's not even funny. Amanda & I went to Hiroshima in November and then Tokyo in December. We've gone on countless day trips or bus tours. My students gave an amazing musical performance and just yesterday I returned from a 4 day vacation in Okinawa. I have a lot to say and the pictures as proof. Not to mention the fact that I didn't post anything from when I was home over the holidays. And on top of that I have pages (well I would have pages if I wrote these things down) of funny quips, hilarious stories and random quotes that make every day in Japan great.

I'm going to get better. It takes a long time to write a blog (typically over an hour if uploading multiple pictures and/or video) but I know there are people 7,000 miles away who enjoy reading them. So for you I will get to it. First I have two funny stories.

Funny Story #1:
During a lesson with teachers I was attempting to explain pluralizing nouns. Japanese does not distinguish between singular and plural so you usually determine whether a person is speaking of one or multiple items from the context of the sentence. It's simplifies learning Japanese for me, but is difficult to explain the English ways of 'change the y to i and add -es' to Japanese speakers. It is even more difficult to explain why sometimes the word changes completely when you are speaking of more than one. Like foot to feet or goose to geese. We were playing a game one day and a teacher said, "I have two mouse." I explained that mouse changes to mice if you are speaking of more than one and she looked really confused. Then she had the 'aha' moment and I could see the light bulb go off. A discovery had been made. And then she said, "I understand. Like Mickey and Minnie Mice." So close.

Funny Story #2:
My teachers were explaining to me the idea of nabe (nah-beh). They told me that nabe was food that many people eat together. It is served from a pot and sounded kind of like a stew or combination of meat, noodles, vegetables, and whatever else (probably live fish ...joke, joke). They said many people have nabe parties and invite friends over to cook and eat together. The Japanese believe that eating from the same pot strengthens the relationships between those who are feasting together. I was confused about the actual word 'nabe'. I couldn't figure out if the nabe was what you cooked in or what you ate. One of the teachers explained, "Nabe is the pot. Maybe in America you don't say nabe party. Say pot party." I nodded my head and smiled while thinking that in America maybe a 'pot party' would reference something other than eating stew.

I absolutely love the teachers that I work with. They are so sweet. And adorable. Here's a few pictures of my cute teachers who I now call my friends.

(Posted with permission, of course.)

much love,
-tara-
xoxo