Whoa- one obvious drawback to my increased classload: less time to putz on the internet. My apologies to anyone trying to kill time that has been dissappointed with a lack of new material. It hasn't quite been a week since I posted... but I guess I ought to get cracking.

I had a great weekend. Yesterday was Children's Day here, a holiday that used to celebrate only male children but officially now celebrates all children (though from the sounds of some of the girls' diaries today... it hasn't really changed). Anyway, the only thing it really means to me is- extra long weekend! Well, and there are lots of 6 foot long carp streamers flying from poles all over the place, but that's a pretty normal thing, right? ;)

I'm kind of working my way backwards now. Let me go back to the start: last Wednesday I missed writing about our fabulous bike safety day. All the students rode to school on their bikes. Then in the afternoon, all the students sat and listened to a police officer warn them about traffic safety while the teachers checked out whether all of the bicycles met school safety standards. Also, we (the students and the teachers not checking bikes) got to watch a thriller bike safety movie. It included slow motion shots of cars running into bikes from all angles. There bikes were (fortunately) ridden by dummies.. referred to as O-tousan Dummi, etc (O-tousan=Father). They even had a baby on the back of the bike for some of the shots. The kids (and me- but don't tell!) tried not to laugh, but ended up getting yelled at anyhow.

The highlight of the day on Thursday was a earthquake drill during the middle of the day. We all knew exactly when the drill was going to happen and when the siren went off, the drill consisted of our vice-principal reading a prepared statement over the PA (this is an earthquake- please get under your desks) in a monotone voice, then all of us running out of the school and lining up neatly outside. I had to go to the staff room and pick up my earthquake helmet first, (because I am sure I would do that in the actual event and I am sure the box would be sitting out in the middle of the room, too) then run out and line up with the kids (decked out in their bright white cleaning/outdoor time hats (because of course they would find said hats in an actual disaster!). The one glimmer of spontaneity (realism?) we were allowed was running out of the school in our indoor shoes instead of changing to outdoor shoes (oh, the horrors!). After everyone was safely outside and quiet, the homeroom teachers all reported to the vice-principal that all their students were safe. The vice-principal then passed the info on to our principal, who in turn reported it to the fire chief (who was conveniently standing around waiting for the report) who in turn gave us a disaster preparedness speech for 15 minutes. Don't get me wrong... I am living in an area where they are predicting a massive earthquake to occur anytime, so I am glad we do the drills... but the way we conduct them is a bit silly.

Whew! So that was my week- on to the weekend! Tom arrived Friday night and Saturday night we set out for Sado Island. Sado is located in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Niigata Prefecture, north of here on the west coast of Japan (map). It is the fifth largest Japanse island and home to the world-renowned Kodo Japanese drumming group. It took us about 5 hours to drive to Joetsu, on the coast of Niigata just north of the northern border of Nagano (I think Nagano is one of the biggest prefectures.. which are basically states here). It was pretty nice driving, the first half through the Alps (I am always tempted to call them "my Alps") and the second half along the sea coastline. At Joetsu we borded a 2plus hour car ferry to the island. We arrived just in time to drive across the island during sunset. It was really beautiful... lots of neat rock formations. Sado is apparently not a place you want to be in winter. Tom has a friend who lives on the eastern town of Ryoetsu, so we stayed with him both Saturday and Sunday nights. He works as a travel/trip/information guide for foreigners visiting the island.. so it was pretty ideal (and he sent us home with business cards and maps for our friends!). On Sunday he guided us to a number of quaint shrines. They were different from Kyoto- practically deserted, no entrance fee, no souvenir stores, nothing! All were very peaceful and positively ancient. At one shrine there were three Cypress trees that are between 800 and 1,000 years old. I got the chills just thinking about how much the world has changed since they were planted... if only trees could talk! Its always so awe inspiring to realize just how old Japan really is- that I'm visiting shrines that have literally existed as shrines for not a century, but a millenium!

We also saw a Japanese puppet show, a dying art on the island. All of the masters are retiring or have died and the young people are no longer interested in learning the skills (or in living on the island itself), so the shows are getting scarce. It was interesting but really hard to understand, linguistically. After the show and lunch, we headed to the Sado Gold Mine, a candidate for World Heritage Site recognition. It was fascinating (a heck of a lot more than I'd predicted!). The mine is extensive and the section you can tour is filled with life-sized robots showing what work in the mine looked like. Really creepy, actually.

One of the other predictable highlights of the weekend on the island was the seafood... yummy crab, shrimp, octopus, clams, and fish. Nagano is land-locked (not as much as Wisconsin, but it is) so it was a nice treat to be a couple of blocks from where they fish. I'll be heading back to Niigata this weekend for my re-scheduled (due to a typhoon last fall) chance for deep-sea fishing. I hope we get to eat some!

We most of yesterday racing the holiday traffic back here. It was beautiful outside all weekend which just made the trip that much more enjoyable. It was also nice to explore a spot in the area that I've not been to. And if you're ever interested... there's a guy there I can hook you up with!