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These are my dance sensei. I joined in during the dances and they taught me the moves. They were so sweet to me.

Most towns have some kind of summer festival. This one was a small one. A typical summer festival usually centers around a man playing a large taiko drum on a raised platform. There is also music playing over speakers. Women in kimono lead others from the community in a number of traditional dances that are all danced while walking in a large circle around the drum. It's really fun.

On Saturday, July 23rd, there was a fairly large earthquake here in Chiba. It was the biggest one this area has had in 13 years, apparently. It didn't do any real damage, though, and I don't think anyone was hurt in it. We certainly felt it, though! My purse fell off the top of the refrigerator, but that was the most drama we had in our apartment. Anyway, we had planned to attend a festival in a nearby city, but all the trains stopped running so they could check the rails and make sure there was no damage. So, on our way back to the station, we discovered that right in our backyard, literally, another festival was taking place. So we spent a couple hours eating food and watching the dancers.

A troupe of near-naked men doing jump rope routines...

On Sundays in Akihabara, one of the main streets is closed to traffic because it's usually so crowded with people. So many street performers show off their stuff. Here is a man from a group that gave an extremely odd performance. I'll have a link up soon to some video I took of it. Apparently, tho, his particular schtick is a Freddy Mercury (of Queen) impression.

A couple photos from a recent trip to Akihabara (in Tokyo). Akihabara is one of the Tokyo-est parts of Tokyo. Lots of strange, interesting people walking around. Here is a woman also out shopping for the day. Such unique apparel is quite common to see around these parts.

This is a picture of the courtyard of my school. The leafy items you'll notice in front of the first-floor windows are bamboo branches. On July 7th, a minor holiday is celebrated in Japan called "tanabata". On either side of the milky way are two stars: one star represents a prince (can't remember his name) and the other is a princess (can't remember her name, either). As tradition has it, this prince and princess are in love, but because they live on opposite sides of the milky way, they can only meet once a year - every July 7th. So before that day, Japanese people write prayers and wishes on colored slips of paper and tie them to bamboo branches. On the day of July 7th, the branches are burned and the smoke carries their prayers to the sky where the prince and princess will receive them and perhaps honor them because of their own happiness in being united on that day. They don't make a huge deal out of this holiday here, but I thought it was a sweet story.

And...Haga-san himself with Jonathan and I after his band played their set.

We went to Harajuku in Tokyo a few weeks ago to see one of Jonathan's friends play in a band at The Crocodile (some bar). Here's a man from one of the previous bands getting fresh with Jonathan.

Walking around Ueno Park. This is one of the more famous/touristy parts of Tokyo. this huge pond of lily pads sits in the middle of the park. There's also a zoo a large zoo on the other side of the park.

Views from aboard our vessel.

I took Jonathan to Tokyo to celebrate his birthday. During the day, we walked around Ueno Park and rented a paddle boat. The boat was shaped like a swan, which was cool when other people watched us boatin' around, but when we were actually IN the boat, it wasn't as fun because it was difficult to see where we were going. Here Jonathan is waiting in line for our turn to rent. You can see docked swans in the background.

On June 17, 2005, Jonathan achieved year #40 in his full and precious life. Here he is overcome with excitement for the green tea flavored cake one of his students made for him.

A rare and interesting sight. This is a Japanese hearse.

Having dinner at a ton katsu restaurant after karaoke.

These ladies are women who used to study with Jonathan before he moved north to Chiba. We spent an afternoon together singing karaoke as a farewell gesture to Mie. She's the woman on the left. She moved to a different prefecture because she got a new job working in at a bird sanctuary caring for owls. It sounds really cool.

This is Komooka-san (left; from the English dep)t and Daizo-san (from the PE dept.) This photo is from a night we went to sing karaoke with a few other people.

Here's another photo of a few of my coworkers from the English department from another recent nomikai that we held.