Japan and Thanksgiving

This is one of those kind of similar to the ice cream post, in that a few people have asked me this, does Japan have Thanksgiving?

The answer in my opinion is no. The reason being is that there are some holidays here in japan where they might go to temples to ask for another good year or something along those lines. I am not sure if there is a really a day that they give thanks. Borrowing from tonight's (Sunday's Night's) sermon who are we giving thanks to? In my opinion God. If you look at the origins of the first Thanksgiving (or at least what was taught in school) the pilgrims were giving thanks for a good harvest and good friends. So for this reason I don't think the Japanese do not have what I would call a Thanksgiving.

The Japanese do have a holiday on Nov. 23 that is basically a workers or labor day. So if you see a holiday on the Japanese Calendar that is the one.

I guess I should say what I am thankful for. Several things actually. One was a good turkey dinner (the first turkey I have had since a Turkey Club Sandwich in Korea in June) at Church on Sunday. Pictures below.



Trust me, this made my week.

The leaves finally changing here with color are nice.



To all of the people who comment on this blog and just a new way for me to put stories up of what is happening around me right now. Finally, I am thankful for my family and friends both in the US and in Japan.

Well thats all for me. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

Stanely and a Fashion Show

The last installment for this will talk about the fashion show for each of different countries. So with out further adieu I will just begin.



China





Wighuru




India




Pakistan




Nepal




Indoneshia





Bangladesh




Korea




Mongolia




Romania




Vietnam




Russia




Jordan




Japan




Just all of us after the event.

This will be the last post relating the Flat Stanley project. There are even more pictures than are shown at my flickr account. Below is a link to just the photos related to Stanley

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20969726@N00/tags/stanley/

I will be adding more pictures to that over time (there is a 20 meg upload limit and I use that up pretty fast). Those pictures will both be new pictures, pictures from the ophoto account and other random pictures that I never posted before.

I hope people have enjoyed the Flat Stanley project, because I have.

Post 1 of 2 on the Amigo Festival

The first in a series on the Amigo festival. The Amigo festival was held at my dormitory last weekend. The Amigo festival is basically an international festival where people make different foods for their part of the world and then there is a series of skits, songs, dances and a fashion show to showcase all of the different cultures.

For this event I was in charge of the sound mixing.



This meant that the pictures I got were from the side of the stage instead of the center. Also sadly my camera does not do well in low light conditions so the pictures are not that great. The good news is that Flat Stanley was s placed very nicely in the pictures that I took. I also had a friend in the crowd with a tripod so she was able to get some good pictures in the low light conditions.

Onto the show. The first show of the day was a Japanese Drums group. These are quite nice, but very loud. One of the fun things that they did was they had the children come up and play a little. See pictures below.



This picture is a good shot of where Flat Stanley was stuck.

Next was a Napalese dance which is one of those sad cases with most of these photos that to see it was very impressive unfotunatly you can only see the pictures from the event.

Next Up I will post the pictures for the fashion show.

Pictures from the top of my Lab Building

This is the last of the pictures of Flat Stanely before I mailed him back to America. These were taken from the top floor of my building where my lab is to show off some of the scenery around where I am.





This is not the last post for Flat Stanely because I have well over 100 pictures or so to sort through for the International festivile at my Dormatory last weekend.

Sendai soccer Game

So This weekend Flat Stanley along with several friends from church went to a soccer* game. Sendai's (仙台） team is Vegalta (ベガルタ [Pronounced begaruta, this made for some confusion this week when speaking to friends at the lab]). Sorry for that long side bar. So we went to the soccer game and sat in the Sendai Fan section. This meant that we were surrounded by yellow with some blue. In the pictures below you can see some of the opening festivities.




Here are a couple of pictures of action during the game of the fans cheering and of the action on the field.




These flags shown in these pictures are waved around whenever there was a big play or a goal.




Finally here is a picture of the group that I went with to the game in front of a statue of the team's mascot.



Before I forget Sendai won 1 to 0.

*FYI in Japan they also call soccer "soccer." I find this interesting because I was taught in French class in high school that the US was the only country that did not call soccer "football."

A picture in front of a random temple at night

This is a picture that I took last night in front of a temple on my way back to my apartment.


Stanley is leaning against the post to the right of the center door.

The Beginning of the Flat Stanley project

Yesterday in the mail I received Flat Stanley. Below is a quote of the description for Flat Stanley.

This is what the Flat Stanley project is - it is a book that tells the story of a child named Stanley that has a bulletin board hit him. While this may seem tragic it enables him to be mailed in an envelope to places all over the world.

So over the next two weeks or so I will be taking Flat Stanley around with me to the various places I go and take pictures with him. I will post the pictures and descriptions here for people to see.

Hopefully I will get out and do some stuff over the next couple of weeks instead of go to the lab everyday (I probably still will go to the lab everyday).

Below is a picture of Flat Stanley.