Gakuen Sai and Bill

Well in the past two weeks my two kindergartens have celebrated Gakuen Sai (school celebration). It's a fall celebration that all of the kindergartens take part in in Japan. The children practice a dance where they hold these clapper things that make noise when they jump up and down. I hope the video works because the dance is great, very Japanese. I asked what "dokashow" means and it doesn't mean anything, it's just a dancing sound affect. For the first one at Kuni I worked at the chicken bbq booth, so yummy. It's like chicken on a shishcabob seasoned with salt and pepper (their version of hamburgers and hotdogs). Then this weekend I worked at the cotton candy and bingo booth at Hikari. When we announced the bingo numbers I had to read them out in English and Japanese. It was a little scary, but that's one thing I'm strong at so far in Japanese.

Another thing that has happened I've finally got a car!!! It's very exciting, my first automobile. Last year I had my scooter Kung Fu, but I now have my very own car. I've named him Bill after Bill Cosby because the inside carpeting looks like one of his bad 80's sweaters. Also it's a standard, which means on top of learning how to drive on the left hand side of the road I'm also currently in the process of leaning how to drive a standard here. Good fun. (Yes I know Kendall, you don't have to say I told you so...). The first day (Saturday) I was absolutely horrible. I just couldn't quite get from stationary to first without stalling. Miho Sensei has been teaching me and she's been very patient. I was a little discouraged after that first day because overall I really sucked. But thankfully yesterday with my second lesson I'm now much better and hopefully by the end of the week I'll be a pro. Right now I'm having difficulties not stalling when I stop at a slope or tiny hill. It's embarrassing but whatever. People see the yellow hair and think oh that crazy foriegner anyways.

Also I'm almost 21 again. Crazy how it's that time of year again. I'm planning on going out to this really great sushi restaurant with some of my Peppy kids and work friends. I might also head down to Sapporo because over the weekend they have some fall festival things going on with live music. We'll see what shakes this week. Oh and here are some pictures of a nice walking path right by my house and what a typical Japanese house in Hokkaido looks like. They're all cute and boxy.

-Lindsay