BUT....all complaining about having to wear ear muffs around the house ASIDE...

Sometimes we really get lucky and get doused with beauty...

The other day we went up into the mountains and ate at this soba restaurant. Afterwards we cleaned the old art museum you see here...

I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to have a Chilly Willy thermometer in my kitchen...

This is what greeted me yesterday.

I don't think I'll look at it again till at least May :)

Warm wishes for your day though!

The Monkey and the Crab(s)

(once again, the gods of the internet deny me access at home...I thought I was so clever in moving the Mac to a warm room, and it DID work for a little while, but then - (sigh) :-( gone again. But if that's the worst of my troubles, I'm doing alright! )

Here's my International Day group donning some costumes from our skit. Basically, I think the moral of that story was:

If you're a monkey, and a crab asks you to pick some delicious kaki (persimmons) for her and her baby crabs, be nice and do it. Don't, as 'Bad Monkey Tracey' did, eat all the persimmons and pummel the crabs with the unripe ones (Hey! I had to! It was in the script the students wrote! But don't fret - they were only cardboard kaki anyway)

Yes, bad things happen to bad monkeys...eggs are thrown, strange characters attack with pitchforks and fierce kicking...But, fortunately, at the end of the day, Bad Monkey Tracey apologized and Monkey and Crab were friends once more.

******

Hey - Do you know what Japanese food I'm eating? (no fair if you answer, Kris!) You can buy them at grocery stores and conbini, and the rugby team eats these for snacks after practice.

International Day

Here's one of the cuties from the International Day I did at the commercial high school the other day. She wasn't in my group, but I'd had a really nice time talking to her at the train station on Sunday and so we grabbed a photo op. (no - that's not the school uniform - this was part of her costume for the skit)

Merry/Happy/Congratulations & all that jazz...

Happy New Year!!!

I figured I should put up photographic evidence that I'm still alive...

Though I was out of the country for two weeks for the holidays, my prolonged absence from cyberspace can be blamed on jet lag, computer woes, and some really bad allergies. I think I' m allergic to the heating unit in the teachers' room at school, and I'm definitely allergic to the sub-zero temps in my little office at home (I was SO spoiled with central heat in the US). I thought I'd be clever and move my computer to a room that could get heat, and I fouled everything up. The good news is that I finally got the school to sign out a laptop to me, so I'm not having to drag my poor Mac back and forth on the bike now - yea :)

The trip home was so nice and warm - I'm so SO lucky to have such amazing family and friends. Thank you thank you thank you all for helping me to have such a lovely Christmas.

Ahhh - there's the bell...

See you soon again -

(in the meantime, how about sharing about your favorite holiday moment in the comment section below?)