Five Days Gone By

I know, I know, I know...it has been a while. To tell you the truth, I haven't had a whole lot happening. I have gone to work and come home...I have eaten fish at school twice, taught two classes of first graders, and tried some new frozen foods. I know, the lives of celebrities right? 

I don't really have new pictures to post, so I am going to post some old ones that have been kicking around for 6 weeks. 

 Right before I started going to work everyday, I took a little trip to the Akeno Sunflower Festival. I didn't feel like it matched the intensity of other festivals I have been to, but it was sunflowery nonetheless. 

You can see that people like taking pictures of said sunflowers, much like myself.  

Nice right? It looks like there are millions of flowers...in fact, there are only 454,392. 

BONUS! It was advertised as the sunflower festival, but there were other flowers. The Japanese way personified, you come for the sunflowers, you stay for the...other flowers.  

Yeah...I don't want to ruin peoples lives, but sunflowers die. Two giant fields of now dead sunflowers, droopy and sad.  

It would appear that these sunflowers died in a bowtie pattern...I don't understand this at all.  

 I found this nice Swiss haven nearby as well. Here I thought that Midway, Utah was the only one that celebrated a forced Swiss heritage. 

 Have you ever had sunflower ice cream? Because I have. It tasted like you would think it would...earthy. The sunflower seeds made the ice cream confusing. 

I call this picture, "The Lonely Sunflower." I also have a haiku to accompany it:

Lonely Sunflower

Why is the flower lonely?

I bet it's evil.

Internet Problems

So I know that you ravenous wolves are at the door salivating for the opportunity to read some more observations of mine in Japan. By ravenous wolves, I really mean my family and Liz. Well, here we are. I am having internet problems at home currently. Before you get worked up and storm the offices of the Japanese internet company, it`s ok. I am online now at work with not a whole lot to do (students are testing today). So I am left with some time to update you on what is going on.

Yesterday I went to school for the first time for a full day. Overall, it was good and bad. I met the other teachers, which was good. The unfortunate part was trying to talk to...anyone. It turns out that I don`t speak Japanese. While this is not news to me, it seems to be news to them. Despite my best efforts to tell them that I don`t understand, they just rattle away in Japanese. It is quite frustrating. Consequently, I am trying harder to learn Japanese words and perfecting my blank stare.

On my drive to work, I saw Fuji again, and when I got to work, I was able to see it out the window from where I sit. That only lasted for about 15 minutes before the clouds rolled in and covered it up. They say Fuji is very shy. Whatevs. If I were a famous mountain, everyone would bask in my glory 24/7.

I went to the sunflower festival by myself which was relatively fun. I will upload some pitures, but I think I missed the good part of the festival by a few days because the flowers looked sad and dying. I did have sunflower ice cream and got a few pictures of one field of flowers. Not to be jaded or anti-botanist, but flowers aren`t terribly interesting on their own merits. Did you know that? I suspected, but now I know for sure. Also, we always considered sunflowers weeds when I was growing up. Corn on the other hand, that is a plant! It is delicious, interesting and you can make mazes out of it!

With that corny ending, I will conclude, satistfied that your thirst has been quenched for now.