Wandering Vegans

Month: July 2009

  • Nagoya and Inuyama

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    Lara
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    Day 1 of our summer kansai holidays: We took all local trains from Kisarazu (where we had to run for the bus to the station because we were running late) to Nagoya, making transfers at Tokyo, Shinagawa, Atai, Shizuoka and a couple other stops. Since we are not tourists (we have working visas, not tourist…

  • Learning the language…making haste slowly

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    Lara
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    Benno’s been demonstrating excellent Japanese language skills lately (even if he doesn’t think so). 1. He made a reservation for our return express bus trip from Nagoya to Takayama by phone in Japanese. He was even able to ask about payment methods and how to collect the tickets. 2. He booked cabin accommodation in Nikko…

  • Culture

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    Lara
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    Stumbled upon some things while doing random reading on my holidays. Turn your photos of Japan into Meiji era relics. And for something funny, we watched this video, laughed our heads off, then while waiting at the bus stop the next morning I asked a japanese school kid if he had studied hard for his…

  • Japan Travel Itinerary

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    Lara
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    Only one week until we head off to travel around Kansai for 20 days. Here’s where we plan to go: From Kisarazu to Nagoya (with an overnight in Takayama) Nagoya to Hiroshima (in time for the 6th August A-bomb festival) Hiroshima to Kyoto Kyoto to Nara Nara to Osaka Osaka to Kobe Kyoto (with Himeji…

  • Nokogiri-yama (Saw Mountain)

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    Lara
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    Today, being a Sunday and the first day of my school summer holidays, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of pancakes. After that we went to K’s (electrical store) to spend a 10000 yen gift voucher we got for signing up for our internet during a campaign. We bought a printer for Benno’s work and while…

  • Nokogiri yama map

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    Lara
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    Here’s a copy of the walking map around Nokogiri yama. There’s not that much information on the web or in guide books about this place and yet it’s the largest buddha in Japan. (Right click and ‘view image’ to see full size)

  • Summer Holidays and Rice Paddies

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    Lara
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    I finished my last official duties at school today. I rode my bike at 8am and started ‘staff room supervision’ duties at 9am. I read the Japan Times newspaper for a while, then got bored and read some of the LOTR books from the Inter Library, then did some lesson planning and read textbooks until…

  • Exam time

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    Lara
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    It’s end of term exam time. While that means I’ve been super busy writing exams, photocopying and designing the Inter newsletter it also means that now I only have half-days at school. The students have exams block 1-4, then the bus leaves at 12.50pm. So I’m sitting at home doing some marking in between reading…

  • Yet another strange movie

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    Lara
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    Yet another strange movie from Tsutaya video store that we watched. All the the movies that have English subtitles seem to be quite odd. Japanese movies/dramas are very slow, there is almost no conversation as it’s mostly monologue and the time-travel plot in this one was a little hard to piece together. Maybe Japanese understand…

  • I want to ride my bicycle

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    Lara
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    I rode my 3 speed mama chari bicycle to school today for the first time. It took 35-40 minutes to struggle up the hill into the rice-paddy mountains to school and only 20 minutes to cruise down the hill (trying to avoid the trucks and buses). Although it was fairly cool in the morning, the…

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