another early rising, this time to go kayaking. headed out from kopepe beach and around chichijima. we were supposed to go to minami jima, but the waves there were too rough, so we stopped at a place called jon beach. hung around there for a bit, and then the guide was like OKAY, LETS GO TO ANOTHER BEACH HERE. so we climbed around this steep hill ( Read more... )

six of us got picked up at 8:15 this morning and made our way down to the dock, where we got on a boat to go scuba diving. in a rare case of stupidity for me, i didn't put a seasickness patch on. oops. by the time we got near a place and they started explaining the equipment, i was nauseous. i braved through it and eventually got into a wetsuit, ( Read more... )

whoops, forgot to write yesterday. three of us, professor hudson and his son got a ride from savory-san's wife etsuko to kominato beach, a bit of a distance away. on the way, she took us to this place where they use japanese paper to make these incredible fish... things. they're like papier-mache, but bigger. and we had some tea there, and didn't ( Read more... )

another cool day. woke up this morning and headed off to the turtle center. our whole group has been volunteering there, so we stepped it up. got to play with a bunch of endangered turtles. weighed and measured them, cleaned them, and such. lots of fun. came back and showered after stinking like turtles ( Read more... )

good lord, today was long. woke up, got ready, and went to yakimono - pottery. i hadn't been there until now, and lydia and i wanted to go 'cause everyone said it was fun. we walked up the hill a bit and down this little path hidden away on the side of the road. this dude, onodera-sensei, is the main potter on the island. he throws all his own ( Read more... )

woke up, spent a lot of time doing nothing. a little after lunch, some of us went to check out the high school on chichijima. they showed us around, including the english classes. imagine that, 34 kids in three grades in the whole damn school. interesting to see english being taught, and even that much more in japanese. we met the five third-year ( Read more... )

forgot to write yesterday. not that much happened, anyway. literally. some people went to the high school here for like an hour in the morning, and the rest of us just sat around. lots of file trading took place, though. and we went to the supermarket for food, and we made spaghetti and meat sauce and salad for dinner. dave also came over for lunch ( Read more... )

woke up fairly early this morning, and met up with everyone and sebore-san, our host. we jumped into two cars and took a little tour around the island, seeing a number of really gorgeous beaches, as well as a mountain pass that gave lydia and me a little workout. we're weak, heh. got a bunch of really nice pictures out of it. afterwards, we wernt ( Read more... )

woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and lounged around. the rest of the people went to do things - ali and joe to pottery, chris and jess to the marine center - so i bummed for awhile, and went to get some food at the supermarket. everyone got back around noon, and we had lunch and met with professor hudson for a bit ( Read more... )

made it to the islands. i would've written a bunch last night, but i felt perpetually woozy on the boat, and reading or anything like that didn't make it better. so instead, i sat around in the lounge a bit, slept quite a lot, and ate and such. the students were in second class, which was a big room with a number of sleeping areas that consisted of ( Read more... )