Slow Times at Kesennuma High

       I hope someone understands the title reference. I've been doing a lot of lesson planning. Studying Japanese a little. Going to the beach and exploring on days off. Trying to run and practice Karate. 空手 is karate. The first kanji is for 'empty' and the second is for 'hand'. I've been cooking and decided it simply could not be called summer if I didn't have plants to tend. So I acquired some plant boxes and soil and seeds. I also took some pictures of random gardens in my neighborhood to show the prevalence of plants here, which is inviting.

 This one is lettuce, basil, and beans.

 I bought the pansies I think. And then seeded some dwarf sunflowers and another flower behind them. The dwarf sunflowers are the seedlings coming up.

 One of my most favorite things is watching seedlings pop up. On the right are some soybeans and then the green is bok choy. To the right and left of the bok choy are rows of spinach which are probably not visible.

 Even if people don't have places to garden I see many planters filled with things anywhere they will fit.

 This persons house is amazing. I see them out tending things sometimes. When the blossoms were more in bloom and the other side of the house is all daffodils. Its always a joy walking or driving by this place.

       Not much is new with respect to work. I did go to a new school and met people and had several good chats with teachers. An English teacher sat and chatted and had tea with me for an hour while everyone else attended a meeting. He asked me to guess his age and I said 53, he was actually 67! I spoke brokenly with the PE teacher whose desk was next to mine. He likely knows more English than I know Japanese but we talked about some of my time in Africa and I had fun showing people pictures of moose. School is supposed to start up with regular scheduling beginning May 7th. I believe the students will be in the schools now but who knows.

       This weekend I explored a beach about 20 minutes away. Look at the little island attached with this dock! I debated rock climbing out around the edge to explore the island but felt with no one around it would be a poor choice should I find myself in the water with a large gash on my leg or arm. After the tide receded I did put my phone in the car and do an easier and safer route out around the side. I also found 5 or so sea slugs which the biggest was nearly a foot long and about 5 lbs. It was stranded so I chucked it back into the water. I also was walking along the erosion barrier with a 14 foot fall to the seaward side and was cautiously walking on the landward side in case I fell while looking at the ocean. I then fell while looking at the ocean... It was about 2 and a half feet to the ground with rocks and stuff on the landward side. I failed to change my footing enough to catch myself and fell on my hands. Was worried I'd broken a wrist but it worked well. Scratched up my left hand pretty good and a nice bruise on my right hand. The temperature had been hanging around 60 but then there were 2 or 3 days where it went up to 80. It's back to chilly and sub 60 now again.

       I decided to try and get into Japanese by studying cooking. I purchased some ingredients and want to make some of the traditional things. Onigiri for certain, Tamagoyaki is an egg omelette made with a little soy sauce and sugar, which I frequently bought when getting sushi. Bought some ingredients to make a very common ingredient to soups and other dishes. Dashi is a soup broth made with very thin slices of dried skipjack tuna and a specific kind of dried kelp. Simmering them in hot water makes a wonderful sea aroma. A little knowledge of Japanese cooking would be a great conversation in to chat with people. The teacher sitting two desks to my right at the school I've been at for the past month is the home ec teacher and does cooking so I'm looking forward to having some small chats with her once my Japanese gets just a little better.

 Can't cook without ingredients. Like Black ice cream. Which were actually fudgcicles....

 This was too salty, but pretty good.

 Don't forget to throw in old favorites when cooking new stuff.

 This tasted really good, wasn't too salty. But I think maybe the meat may have been jussst past when it should have been. Cause I ate this twice and had a headache and decreased appetite for the next day and a half.

I haven't used these very much after moving into my apt but I decided it was nice to grab something every now and again. This one is about 300 ft away from my apt. There are several more slightly farther away in different directions with more choices and some of the choices are heated!

       Oh I may have written about the used goods store I visited in a previous post but I don't believe I shared the images from it. So they are here for you.

 This place was amazing. There were awesome looking tea sets and dishes. I am not leaving this country without returning here to buy at least two and ship them back home. The back half of the store was tons of manga books. There were electronics and washing machines. Anything you could think of this lady had 2 of it at least.

 I didn't even know they could possibly get this BIG!

I don't even know.

My haul. The brown thing I already owned but I bought the chair and the table.