Alright... If you follow my blog (not many people follow it), I am just lazy... I am fine and enjoying myself, but have been lazy, thus not updating my blog.
Just a quick update of what I have been up to:
1) The new sch year in Japan just started. (Japan start their new year in April) There were welcome ceremonies and parties for the new teachers. 1st graders just reported to school. I will be working with new teachers and kids. Pretty excited about it, cos I think I will be having more lessons. There was a welcome hike (欢迎远足）on 15 April for the students too (20km walk), together with a picnic outside school. I loved the hike and the picnic! I exercised by walking 20km, talked to the kids while walking, had a delicious 高级中华便当 and played volleyball with my students. On the same day, there was the 1st grade teachers enkai, we had yaki niku (yummy beef). Fantastic day!
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| School flag flying high... |
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| Students assembled at the grass patch |
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Rope jumping competition among all classes.
That's Kiyohara sensei (JTE) jumping in the air... |
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| 高级中华便当 1000 yen |
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| Having picnic lunch... |
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The Meatball Club (They all said their fav food
is meatball, so I formed the
Meatball Club with them... |
2) Sakura had bloomed. I went for 2 hanamis, one in Fukuoka (9 APril) and one in Saiki (10 April). Fukuoka's hanami was with the Singaporean ALTs from Kyushu and some of their friends. It was relaxing and fun sitting under the sakura trees, eating and chatting away. I invited Kumi (a SSEAYP friend) to join us. We haven't met for a long long time. I also met dajie's friend, Yuri, who will be going to Singapore in May.
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| 女子会。Girls from Kyushu. |
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| SSEAYP reunited... |
The next day, I had another hanami in Saiki. With some other gaijins, we went to the park near Honan High School for our hanami. It was a lovely and warm day. We chatted, ate and played frisbee. Sakura are beautiful. Well, before I even blog about the hanamis, it has already started snowing sakura and now sakura season is officailly over.
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| Food for the picnic |
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| A beautiful small park in Saiki |
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| View of the sakura lying down |
3)I had been baking as well. For the hanami, I baked Almond Chocolate Chip cookies They were suposed to be big soft cookies (like those sold by Subway), they were when they just came out of the oven, but they turned hard after they cooled down. Nevertheless, they were delicious.
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| Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies |
Last week was bread fiesta. I found a recipe for no-knead bread and had to try it. I made the dough and left it in the fridge for a 3 days. I managed to bake twice with that dough. There were ham and cheese, cinnamon buns, kaya braided bread and choco-peanut butter braided bread. I like the shape of the braided bread. However, the bread was soft for only 2 days, on the 3rd day, they turned hard. I hope to bake really soft buns. I think the next thing I will be bake is a cheesecake :)
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| Cinnamon buns |
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| Ham and Cheese |
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| Mini Kaya bun |
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| Sausage and pork floss rolls |
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Braided bread:
Choco-peanut butter and kaya |
Love the welcome hike idea! At least it brings everyone together on the first day of school! :)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful sakura!! I want to see them too!!
me too... great idea for bonding, esp for the new year 1... and they did CCA introduction there, brought all the equipment,including PA system! impressive...
ReplyDelete