The Gifu group waiting for the train.
The Shinkansen! Bear with me here, the next several pictures will be for my Dad :-)
The Gifu group on the train. We travelled about1.5 hours or so, and got off in the city of Gifu where we were met by our supervisors. Everyone said goodbye and hello, and we were off! Oh, and yes, the bullet train is extremely fast, devoid of any bumps or jolts, and makes your ears pop like crazy.
Myself, and three other new ALTs - Katie, Ryan and Dan - were driven up to Takayama by our supervisor, Hikage-san, and another woman from the Board of Education whose name I've forgotten.
On the way up, we stopped at a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. It was pretty damn cool, and cheap! Fun, delicious and colourful. Oishi.
Driving up into the mountains
First we stopped off at what looked like a magazine/stationary shop and ordered our hankos (official stamps that people here use in liu of written signatures). Then were were taken to the Board of Education to meet various officials, and had to do our introductions in Japanese. I was happy with the results of mine :-) Then the four of us were each taken to our schools for more intruductions, and suddenly very little English was being spoken. Charades became all important. I met my Kyoto-sensei (vice principal) and one of the English teachers, Hori-san, and they took me to my apartment on the nothern edge of town. As I mentioned before, it's absolutely lovely. I'm not going to post any pictures until I've have things in order, but here are the views from balcony: 
Looking north
Looking south - on a clear day you can see more of the mountains
That evening several of the new and current ALTs were going to the Takayama fireworks festival, but since I didn't have a phone and nobody really new where my apartment was, nobody knew how to find me. So after doing some grocery shopping and buying onigiri (rice balls) from a combini (convenience store), I decided to explore and found the festival myself. It wasn't exactly difficult ;-)
What you can't see in this picture are the people holding on to the fireworks on the ground. Pretty crazy!
Again, it's hard to see, but this is a shot of a Taiko drummer in front of an enormous Tori gate on one of the main bridges.
The Shinkansen! Bear with me here, the next several pictures will be for my Dad :-)
The Gifu group on the train. We travelled about1.5 hours or so, and got off in the city of Gifu where we were met by our supervisors. Everyone said goodbye and hello, and we were off! Oh, and yes, the bullet train is extremely fast, devoid of any bumps or jolts, and makes your ears pop like crazy.
Myself, and three other new ALTs - Katie, Ryan and Dan - were driven up to Takayama by our supervisor, Hikage-san, and another woman from the Board of Education whose name I've forgotten.
On the way up, we stopped at a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. It was pretty damn cool, and cheap! Fun, delicious and colourful. Oishi.
Driving up into the mountains
First we stopped off at what looked like a magazine/stationary shop and ordered our hankos (official stamps that people here use in liu of written signatures). Then were were taken to the Board of Education to meet various officials, and had to do our introductions in Japanese. I was happy with the results of mine :-) Then the four of us were each taken to our schools for more intruductions, and suddenly very little English was being spoken. Charades became all important. I met my Kyoto-sensei (vice principal) and one of the English teachers, Hori-san, and they took me to my apartment on the nothern edge of town. As I mentioned before, it's absolutely lovely. I'm not going to post any pictures until I've have things in order, but here are the views from balcony: 
Looking north
Looking south - on a clear day you can see more of the mountainsThat evening several of the new and current ALTs were going to the Takayama fireworks festival, but since I didn't have a phone and nobody really new where my apartment was, nobody knew how to find me. So after doing some grocery shopping and buying onigiri (rice balls) from a combini (convenience store), I decided to explore and found the festival myself. It wasn't exactly difficult ;-)
What you can't see in this picture are the people holding on to the fireworks on the ground. Pretty crazy!
Again, it's hard to see, but this is a shot of a Taiko drummer in front of an enormous Tori gate on one of the main bridges.
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