Ahh...the joys of teaching

Date: today
Situation: kids class
Kids: two boys..two girls (twins)
Age: 5

As I'm giving the kids their stamps for being good at the end of class, I look over at one of the twins (who is just standing next to her little kinder-sized chair...frozen) to see her look down at a nice big puddle on the floor...she went wee-wee.

What makes Japan.....Japan!

Over the past month or so, I have had the chance to go out and visit the countryside around here. I visited all of these places with Rumi and we both had a lot of fun together. This will be the photo journal of it all.


Nakasendo Road

One of the historic roads which connected the cities of Kyoto with Tokyo (the two seats of power in ancient Japan), many old post towns along the road have been preserved in their old style. We visited three of the town, Narai-juku...Tsumago-juku...and Magome-juku. In times gone by, it took about 20 days to travel to entire length of the road , which I believe was about 250 km or just over 150 miles. Although the road no longer exists in its historic form, except for an 8km stretch from Magome to Tsumago, the modern roads pretty much run the same course so driving through the area affords a mental image of what it would have been like those hundreds of years ago.

Narai-juku









Tsumago-juku




...more coming later