Aichi

Last weekend I went to Aichi-ken (prefecture) with Takagi-sensei to visit Keiko. Keiko was the assistant Japanese teacher for Portuguese-speaking students at Kizaki until this past April. I met her at school when I first moved here, and we clicked right away. Keiko is obviously Japanese, but she can also understand and relate to how gaijin (foreigners) think, and that's why it's so easy and nice to talk to her. She now works in Aichi-ken as an actual teacher of Japanese. Her hours are daunting. She gets to school around 7am every morning, and doesn't get back home until 11pm at night. Her weekends are also gone because she has been assigned as the coach of the track and field team, which practices on Saturdays and they sometimes have matches on Sundays. Anyway, Takagi-sensei (the assistant math teacher at Kizaki Jr. High) and I decided to go to Aichi by shinkansen (bullet train) to visit her for the weekend. Here are some pictures from our trip!


Here is Keiko and me at a flower park in Toyohashi, the city where Keiko lives. Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs during most of the weekend! Sad!


We had dinner at this one family-run restaurant. Aichi is famous for their miso-katsu, but instead of katsu, we had miso-tofu whatchamacallit. Anyway, it's famous and very yummy!


On Sunday, the three of us took the train to Nagoya City (the third largest city in Japan) to eat some good food and do some sightseeing. Our first stop was a famous tart cafe that Takagi-sensei had found in her magazine guide. We had a mango white chocolate tart, a strawberry and fig tart, and a peach tart. Although this place was pretty pricey, with the average slice costing about 1000 yen (just under $10), the mango white chocolate tart was SO SO amazing. Seriously one of the BEST mango experiences I've ever had!


Here's a picture of us at Nagoya-jo (Nagoya Castle). Nagoya-jo was burnt down during a US air raid in 1945, then rebuilt in 1959.


Here's a closer shot of Keiko and Takagi-sensei in front of Nagoya-jo. It seriously looks exactly like Osaka-jo, but I'm still glad I visited it...yet another check off my list. =)


This is the famous kinshachi that is atop Nagoya-jo. Actually there are a pair of them up top. In the English pamphlet I received, it described this fish as a "dolphin". I dunno about you, but it looks NOTHING like a dolphin to me! Haha.


Our last meal in Nagoya City was "hitsumabushi," which is a variety of unadon (barbecued eel on rice with sweet soy sauce in a bowl) and there are three steps to eating this. The last step involves eating the unagi and rice with all the seasonings, plus hot soup poured into the bowl! It was mm mmm good!

So yeah, another trip in which the main focus was food. Not too surprising, right? Actually, I don't think you'd expect any less of me. ;) Although we were confined by the heavy downpour throughout our trip, I had a wonderful weekend just spending some quality time with Keiko and Takagi-sensei. I am leaving Japan in six weeks, so I'm very glad that I got this chance to hang out with them before I left. They are both such great people, I will miss them for sure! Awwww. =(