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We went straight to Osaka from the hiking event in Nara with a suitcase of our costume supplies. We were staying with a group of other ALTs in a swanky airBnB apartment and we stopped there first before having dinner at an awesome Mexican restaurant to celebrate our new friend

On Halloween day Josh and I volunteered to join in a walk to the ruins of Heijo Palace with the Japanese community. We met early in the morning and did some group stretching before breaking out into teams. We had to come up with a Halloween themed name, but we

The weekend after the Hasedera Festival, Josh and I got to celebrate the coming of fall at the Higanbana Festival in Asuka (the very first, ancient capital of Japan!). This festival was so special because the residents of Asuka dressed us up in the traditional clothing of the Asuka Era! The

I had a strenuous yet enjoyable experience with traditional Japanese culture at the Hasedera Festival recently. In this festival, we lifted a huge shrine onto our SHOULDERS and carried it throughout the entire village all day! From my knowledge, the shrine we were carrying is now the spiritual home of

Tonight I experienced probably my favorite festival so far, mostly because it was a small festival just for my cho (neighborhood). It was an intimate celebration at the nearby Hachiman shrine and it felt really special to take part in it. Kids were playing taiko drums skillfully and everyone was

Tomorrow will be the end of my next two-week set of team teaching! I initially made this plan for 2nd years, and then modified it to work for 1st years the week after. This time around I really wanted to try something that would get the whole class talking and

Since my last post I attended an English speech contest for local schools in Kashihara. One of my students was participating, so I along with another JTE and the whole English club came out to support her. I had been coaching her for the past few weeks so I almost