On Monday night (July 24), Tash and I headed over to Aki-machi to visit our friend Jessica and to check our her local matsuri (festival). Local girl (above) wearing a yukata (cotton summer kimono) The highlight of the festival (below), a fire dance on a boat in the river.  According to a local that chatted [...]

On Saturday night, I went to have a final dinner with the Nishimura family. I used to live next door to them in the inaka (countryside) outskirts of Nakatsu during the first year that I lived in Japan, before I moved to my current house in “downtown” Nakatsu. The two Nishimura children are named Akari [...]

Luke and I went to one of my favorite restaurants in Nakatsu, Pushkar, an Indian restaurant in an old, converted traditional house, for lunch today. Pushkar has a real Indian chef and a real tandoor oven as well. They serve up a good mix of Northern Indian and Anglo-Indian classics (in other words, the kind [...]

On Friday night, I had my going-away party with my Board of Education. My office bought me a traditional Japanese paper umbrella (和傘 – wagasa) for my going away present. The paper is coated with some sort of oil-based water proofing and is hand-made in Nakatsu. Apparently, there are only a few artisans left in [...]

Today is officially my last day of school. Later today, the students will have their closing ceremony which will signal the end of the semester and the beginning of summer vacation. I have one more week to go. One week from now, I will be boarding an airplane back to the U.S. I have so [...]