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Thursday, September 27, 2012

September Pictures Galore!

A view from the train as we ride into Yonago

The bus we take to get to the big department store

It just felt like that bus would take you to the "bad" part of town

Some things we found at a store called Village Vanguard

Tottori Ramen! This is the gyoza set

Awww, he doesn't look happy at all to be at McDonald's does? (there is also another one across the street if you look carefully)

You can plug your phone directly into the photo printer here

30 yen a picture is a bit much, but it's cool and fast

The inside of the train we ride to get back home

A moth that landed on us, in the train

A scraggy (from pokemon) doll that doubles as a headphone holder

Making tonkatsu

The finished product with miso!

This night we went for BLTs (mine had egg in it)

Working on making a letter box out of a used Amazon.com box (I didn't get a picture of what it looked like from the start)

More Progress

The English Board for the kids at the Jr. High School

Look how tiny!


This is where Mitsuko "parks" her bike

Prime parking no?

Our new pet: Mr. Frog

A bread truck that comes once in a while, they call it Peter Pan here (pan is the word for bread in Japanese)

The house just past that black car is ours

From that previous picture, looking further down the road

Looking towards where I was standing earlier (that's the bank/ATM on the right hand side)

Our train station (takes about a minute and a half to walk to)

More views of the town

Moving down the road more

That's the post office

Apparently this is a clinic


Better view of the post office

An even better view of it

This is at the Jr. High School looking at out at their field. That building on the right has a computer room at the end of the hall, and that is where we usually practiced with the students for the English Speaking Contest

From that spot, turning the other direction

Standing back a bit further looking towards the field

Making Miso Soup!

A little round of Hangman with the kids after a long day of practice

Miso soup, it was delicious

The kindergarten lesson plan

A close up of the board when I was helping Souhei

There was a little bit more to the right

From left to right: Souhei, Mitsuko, Shunpei, Shouta, and Fukada-Sensei

The whole board in full view

Birthday card

Fish on sale at the checkstand at our local shop

Mayonnaise in a bag, in a bottle

An electronic store where we shopped for a fan and a printer (only bought the fan here though)

Cool car we saw on the way out

Sounds like a place you don't want your car to be

I had no idea why this one was so expensive (printer)

Mos Burger. The best burger in Japan

Have a look at the menu

This is a Double Cheese Mos Burger (cost 470 yen)

The wrapper after I finished because why not

Fancy cups

Some fun English on things in the 100 yen shop

More Engrish

Halloween Photospot?

They sure know about Halloween here. This is better than most places in America as far as style goes

They'll make it fit

This cutely named shop had expensive trinkets in varying degrees of uselessness

I'm noticing a pattern in the naming conventions here. . .

Star Wars chopsticks. [Insert force joke here]

Star Wars Hanafuda cards! I'd buy those

Figurines

The same glass Chess Set that Mitsuko has. How random is that?


As opposed to the boxes that cannot be put into a color box

I don't even know what's going on here

It took me a while to notice it was JINdiana

Space Invader ice cube trays!

Ice cube trays for every man


ABC-Mart, they sell shoes

Fun clocks

I really liked this one

Some manga just sitting about at a book store called Miraiya. Yes, that one at the top left is just casually sitting here

My birthday cake that Keiko-san bought for me

The fancy printer we bought, it was only in Japanese but we managed to set it up and get it working. Really nice printer

Even though the Sports Festival was canceled due to rain, we still had the drinking party at 12pm

Another shot of the tables before even turned up

All the ladies in our area preparing food. Men sat down and read papers. Pretty patriarchal place still.

Our train station, and the name of our area: Ebi

Visiting another ALT, named Tom. This is Higashiyamakoen

More shots of the train station where we got off at

Too many chances for cool pictures

See! There's English, even if you couldn't speak or read Japanese, you'd make it somehow

More shots of the station

A waiting area, that red box is where you get a stub that proves you got on at so-and-so stop for when you eventually pay

A shot from the top of the stairs look out at the town and the rest of the tracks

Looking back down

More cool shots

Sorry, I found this place fascinating as far as picture taking was concerned

A little waterway just beyond the station

Vending machines!

Not sure how to pronounce that one

The first Mountain Dew, Pepsi, and 7up I've seen in Japan

BOSS coffee. Rainbow Mountain Blend. For the real men

The dinner I made earlier

Fried rice with shimeji mushrooms, a bit of egg, and green onions

And shiyosaba, salted mackerel. A delicious dinner