all things d@vidb
We have arrived safely in Canada!! Suffice it to say, we are extremely jet lagged.
unfortunately, after arriving in Canada I realized I forgot to bring my usb cable to get our pictures off of the Camera(s). I will figure something out… don’t fret. In the meantime, now that we have Lee’s permission, we would like to share some of our favourite pictures from Lee Gribbon’s amazing family photo shoot.
The full shoot is available here.
That is all. (He’s amazing! THANK YOU SO MUCH LEE!!!) 😮
That’s right… our two year stint in Chunan (now: Manno) in Kagawa Prefecture is coming to a close. We leave on Tuesday morning but still have a ton of packing to do. Here are a few photos that we have taken over the past few days that we thought you might enjoy.
This first photo is actually a scan of an article that appeared in the Shikoku Shinbun (the big paper in our area.) The article is a thank you to me and saying goodbye to our family.
My liberal translation:
Thank you, David! David Bennett (26) who has been working and living in Chunan Town (now Manno Town) since August of 2004 as an international relations co-ordinator will be leaving us. As a student, David spent two years on exchange in Yokohama and Tokyo. In his current role David was very active around the community through numerous events, school visits, and English classes. He also brought internationalization to the local community groups through his visits. David came to Chunan with his wife, Kiko. Their first son, Noa, was born last year in November. (That pretty much covers it. I rushed the translation, so if you think you could do a better job… do it.) 😮
At least 3 times a month Jim and I ate at the local kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi place. It was fantastic. (Especially the oinky bits [read: meat susghi] and the salmon!) Definitely will miss the sushi… and possibly Jim.
And finally, Noa took me for a drive the other day.
That is all.
I’ve decided to take a break from the regular Noa reporting to talk about me for a little bit. 😉
Don’t get too excited…
Today marked the end of my two year contract with Manno (formerly Chunan) Town, and as a CIR on the JET Program. It was quite sad for me to leave my office for the last time as it has been an excellent experience. Living in Kagawa Prefecture taught me a lot about Japan. My other experiences as a high school and university exchange student saw me living in Tokyo and Yokohama, and gave me the false impression that I had even the slightest clue of what Japan was like. 90% of Japan is rural farmland (and mountains) and it took 2 years living here to learn about what that was like.
(I know this is getting corny, but forgive me for just this post.)
During our time in Chunan/Manno (仲南町/まんのう町) we got to meet many kind people, grow vegetables, have a baby, buy a car, live in a super fantastic house, receive vegetables on a daily basis, and just get the brunt of the generosity that the people here have to offer.
As a CIR on the JET program I was fortunate enough to be put in a town that supported me in whatever I chose to do, and allowed me to work at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo, work as a prefectural PA councillor, star in the JET PR video, act as vice president for the regional AJET group, and have a whole lot of interaction with the Tokyo office of the JET program through the organization of orientations etc.
My actual duties here included numerous things such as school visits (elementary, kindergarten) [where we did tons of stuff like play games and make gingerbread houses, etc… remember!?], visit community groups, organize activities (cooking, speeches, whatever), town english classes (with really dedicated people, old and young), write articles in the local newsletter and papers, a weekly radio segment, and a whole bunch more.
Why am I writing all of this? I just needed to put it somewhere so that I wouldn’t forget and I can look back and remember. This is where Noa was born, and Kiko and I have had a great time living here for the past 2 years. We are going to miss our house, our gardens (except the watermellon-killing dogs), the nice people, the beautiful mountains and scenery, and all of the friends we have made.)
No worries, we will be back to reporting on Noa tomorrow, not to mention what we will be up to now that we are leaving Kagawa… don’t get too excited.
Chunan and Manno, thank you!
仲南町、まんのう町、ありがとう！
(okokok. i give in)
We are on our way to Osaka! Here is a picture of Kiko anD Noa in front of a famous bridge connecting Shikoku to the rest of Japan.
The World’s Longest Monkeybars
Watch as we tackle the World’s Largest Monkey Bars (110m, located in Kochi.) (never mind the fact that it looked like no one had been there in many years and that the “park” it was located in consisted of a strip of green surrounded by nothing and an ocean.)
The Contenders:
The Results
In the end Adam managed to make it to the halfway point, and managed to wreck his hands doing it. Lee made it just past the 10m mark. I made it to the 5m mark. and Kiko made it about as far as she did in the picture. 😉
ps. It’s waaay harder than it looks!
It took a long time, but we have finally put up a new photo-album! We hope to have more to come.
Today we took Noa (and our good friend Lee!) out to take some pictures with the sunflowers on display for our town’s annual sunflower festival. The town chooses a few plots of land (always near our house!) to grow a ton of sunflowers and people from all around the prefecture, and Japan, come to take a look.
Take a look at the new gallery here.
Here is a sneak peak:
Below are some pictures of Noa, us, and our good friend Lee enjoying the view. (Despite the popular view that Lee is a photoraph-taking genius and is currently trying to raise my photo-knowledge from 0 to some, I see him as my protegee whom I hope to impart some of my fantastical camera skills.) 8)
I found this cute picture in my phone! Did I already post this?
We took a trip to Naruto in Tokushima (our neighbour to the south/east/west) with Ayano-san last weekend. Naruto is famous for “uzumaki” which is like a whirlpool in the ocean. It is supposed to be quite exciting, but unfortunately the two times I have been there have been no whirlpools. The excitement was compounded by 0% visibility due to fog. 8)
(note the nice new jeans.)
Note Kiko’s hotness.
Because we don’t have any pretty pictures of whirlpools to show you, we will compensate by showing you pictures of a pretty little baby.
followed by pictures of the behemoth Japanese baby who is younger than Noa but looks like he is about to eat Noa (with his 3 teeth. Noa has no teeth yet.)
(Noa’s expression signals that he is distressed by the presence of fat baby-san beside him.)
And finally… here is a picture of me putting Noa to good use.
Here I ago, attempting once again to explain some sort of Japanese festival thingy that I don’t know very much about. So with wikipedia in hand, here I go.
Tanabata (七夕 lit. seven evenings) is a Japanese star festival celebrated on July 7th (or August 7th, according to Wikipedia. What’s up with that?)
Apparently there is some story where two people (stars) , Orihime (織姫 lit. seamstress (vega)) and Hikiboshi (彦星 lit. boy star (altair)) are seperated across the sky and connected by a river of stars. They are only allowed to meet once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar.
There you go! Apparently it’s an old chinese mythology.
I am lazy, so watch me copy the rest from wikipedia:
In present-day Japan, people generally celebrate this day by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poetry, on tanzaku (短冊, small pieces of paper) and hanging them on bamboo, sometimes with other decorations.
The bamboo and decorations are often set float on a river or burned after the festival, around midnight or on the next day. This resembles the custom of floating paper ships and candles on rivers during Obon.
Many areas in Japan have their own Tanabata customs, which are mostly related to local Obon traditions.
And now we have some super neat pictures of Kiko, Noa, and I celebrating our first Tanabata together in Manno (aka. Chunan).
Just a few more pictures we thought you would enjoy. (I am still working on our albums… so… umm… don’t get too excited.)
Although I always suspected, I was convinced Noa is a genius when I saw his sleeping pose. (Note the raised leg and holding of the cloth. Can you do that?)
To really know Noa is to know that he loves nudity.
Here is a picture of Noa just hanging out with his Mom.
That is all.