More Rugby, A Beer Factory and Yanagawa

Hi everyone,
As promised here is a little summary of everything I have been doing the past 4 weeks.
On the 15 of January I attended a performance by the drumming group TAO.
I forgot my camera but, like many events in Japan, pictures were not allowed.
But the performance was quite good. One of the performers said that they would be returning to Fukuoka in May, so hopefully I will be able to see them again when I am back here.

On the 19th, there was a Christmas Party at the school.
Three groups of students sang a different Christmas song in Japanese.
My group sang "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town".
Then all the students and teachers sang the Japanese version of "Silent Night".

That weekend, I went with a few friends to another rugby game.
This one was a professional game and was held in a stadium.





On Christmas Day, all the students took a trip to the Asahi Beer factory.
Being able to see the whole process was quite interesting. But unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the most exciting things.





Just this past week I left my homestay and moved into a dorm about 10-15 minutes away from the school by train.
This past weekend I spent a day in a small town called Yanagawa with a couple students from the same dorm.
The town is famous for it's unagi (eel) and for boat tours through it's many canals.

Before taking our boat tour we walked around the town a bit and stopped bya few Shinto Shrines that were nearby.




This Shrine seemed brand new.

This young boy, along with his mother and younger sibling were inside the shrine when we arrived.

This man is a Shinto Priest.


Next we made our way to the boat dock and had a nice one hour tour of the canals.




The tour took us under several bridges.
Believe it or not, these next two pictures are the second lowest bride we went under.


Afterwards we were a bit cold and very hungry.
So we ate at a nearby unagi restaurant.
It was a bit expensive, but VERY good.

As for the future...
Right now, the plan is to leave the city and go to my first WWOOF farm by January 5th.
I will stay on that farm for 2 weeks, and then go to another farm in Fukuoka prefecture and stay for another two weeks.
After that I must renew my visa (which will probably involve going to Korea for a short period of time) before I can travel to another WWOOF farm somewhere else.
Right now I'm thinking of going to the Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe area, and then closer to Tokyo.

After January 5th (if all goes well) I'm not sure when I'll have internet access again.
Or cellphone reception for that matter...it'll be just like home!
Anyway, feel free to leave me some questions/comments.
I'll try and post at least one more time before I leave.
Oh, and
Happy New Year everyone!

Long time no blog

ごめんなさい皆さん！
Sorry everyone!
I've been too busy to blog the past few weeks.
And these next few weeks won't be any less busy since I'm moving out of my homestay tomorrow and then moving on to my first WWOOF farmstay a week from now.
But I do have many things to show you.
I'll post again soon.
じゃまた。

Chotto Clubin'

So last friday, as usual, there was a student organized party.
This time a bunch of us went to a karaoke place pretty close to the school.
I had a good time, but sadly I had to leave early because a good friend of one of the teachers I had met at a different student party, had bought tickets for a fellow student and I to a techno/electro show not too far away.
The forecast said there would most likely be a little bit of snow that night.
Nevertheless we decided to forego a cab/bus/subway as it was just about 10 minutes away on foot.
Believe it or not, the show was actually in a department store.
The place was called "eeny meeny miny mo".
The stage was set up on the top floor which was a large atrium.
When we got there there weren't may people there, and nobody was there to take out tickets.
We we wondering why we even bought tickets in the first place when it seems that anyone could just walk in.
We later found out that we had come in the wrong way, so we entered again through the proper entrance and got our wristbands.
We realized that there weren't very many people there because the big name DJs weren't scheduled to play for another hour.
As it got later, a great deal of people showed up.
Although there weren't many other foreigners there we did meet a small group of people, most of whom where from the UK.
One man said that he came to Japan for the World Cup Soccer Final in 2002 and just never went back.
Overall I had a good time.
Although the headliner who was supposed to be really good, was unable to show up because of food poisoning.
The walk back wasn't very fun, but luckily it wasn't snowing yet.
Here are some pictures of the show. Most of them didn't turn out too well. The image at the top of the post was taken from the deck of the top floor of "eeny meeny miny mo".







As always, leave a comment　if you like.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving
じゃまった。