GAH! Sorry guys!

There's been a whole lotta schoolin' going on and a trip to Canada and my personal life... well... so... yeah. GOMEN!!! m(_ _)m

Late night Beach Party & 仮面ライダーライブ！ (Kamen raidaa raibu =Skyrider Live!)

The following Friday I was invited to a beach party. I made the drive up to Rokkashomura in the evening and we met at the mall for dinner. There's a yummy Indian place just inside the main doors of the Reev. I decided to try the 'chicken burger' which looked like a pita in the photo, but, in reality, it was na'an bread folded in half and filled with delicious and spicey goodness. and despite the rain, we got ice cream and drinks and went down to the beach where we sang Beach Boys song, and longed for our beach umbrella and beach blanket. We stuck around long enough to have the rain water pool about our knees on the tarp we hunkered down on to enjoy our treats and have the tide come in and soak one of my shoes.

Enjoying ourselves, dammit!

We quickly escaped to Joy's for the rest of the evening, dried off and hung out.

Rokkasho English Camp

Heyoooooo!

This may seem like a strange thing to blog about...

My beautiful motherland.

...but I went to Canada to visit my family as it had been about a year since I had been away. The time has flown by this year, for the most part. I wonder how year 2 will feel.

Anyway, because this is not just read by my Mum (Hi Mum!!! *waves*), I thought I would stick up a few photos from that whirlwind tour.

七戸中学校大運動会

That's Shichinohe Junior High School Field Day/Sports Festival

A couple weeks ago I was asked by an assistant teacher if I would like to attend their 'undoukai'. My first question (as usual) was 'what's that?'. The teacher then proceeded to look it up in her electronic dictionary.
'Field day'. Ok, but what *is* it?

She got a panicked look on her face and fetched the English teacher for some assistance.

Eventually I get a little snapshot of what's involved... "The kids run races and their parents come by and watch. Please wear something with your team colour on it" Although I still had no idea why my schools needed to rehearse a field day...  I try to explain the Canadian ones I'd been to, how they're much more laid back, there's no marching, it's not on a Saturday... it's just an afternoon in June where we run around outside. I seem to recall some days spent in the park with hot dogs for lunch, but I don't think that was track and field related, I think that was just 'it's too nice to stay inside these schools without a/c, let's get the kids to run around outside'... or else it was girl guides, I honestly don't know at this point. Anyhoo, point is, as usual, Japan does it up with a lot more pomp and circumstance than we Canucks.

Flowers and Pizza (and a bonus treat! Woo hoo!)

Spring seems to have arrived in Shichinohe. Hoooraaaaaay! I'm sure it will go by quickly, so I figured I should take advantage of the fact that it wasn't raining and see how the flowers were doing. I had tried to get out a couple times last week, and I got rained on each time. Once it was a freaking thunderstorm!

八戸うみねこマラソン

Heeeeeeeey there!

I know, I'm sorry, I've been... distracted... lately and just haven't been keeping up with things.

In Winnipeg, the annual Manitoba Marathon takes place on Father's day. The ”Hachinohe Black-Tailed Gull Marathon was on Mother's day. Before ya'll get *too* excited, I only did the 3km one. I think next time I do one, I'll kick it up to the 5km and challenge myself. :) I'm not quite sure how quickly I ran it, as Marv's (my dear ipod) battery was dying and he wouldn't boot up when I went to check... But I'm glad I did it. Looking forward to the next one. If anyone wants a 5km buddy, lemmie know and let's *do* this!