This weekend marked the 22nd annual Pumpkin Festival here in Saroma.  It’s by far the biggest event of the year, with the whole town coming out for a weekend of festivities revolving around the famous local pumpkins. The Pumpkin Festival weekend kicks off every year on Saturday night at 6 pm.  As it gets dark, [...]

Make that the International Okhotsk Cycling 2009.  Including myself, there were three non-Japanese among the 982 participants.  Good thing we participated, or they would have had to change all of the signage. Over the weekend, I rode 212km (132mi for those in the dark ages) over 2-days with 981 other people, by bicycle, along the [...]

Today I ended my six-day week with an 80 minute lesson for my middle school’s annual culture festival. Over the past few weeks, I managed to overprepare while still squeezing in a good amount of procrastination. My goal for the lesson was to have students practice natural greetings. “I’m fine thank you” is perfect English, [...]

You never get enough ketchup for your fries here. I actually just have some catchup to do. Good thing I didn’t spell the post title ‘catsup.’ What a stupid spelling. Back in August, I went to a festival in Sekikawa (25 minutes to the south by car) called the Taishitamonja Matsuri. The name is a [...]