Happy Halloween

No one in Japan celebrates Halloween but everyone knows about it. I painted the above picture to illustrate the different costumes and overall scary theme of Halloween for my students.

I hope everyone has a fun Halloween.

Precious Things

This is a picture I took with my phone of a mostly dry river I was hiking up yesterday. The weather is getting cooler and its great for hiking.

Last week I went to Kuchierabu (Island of the Bats) again. The ocean was so rough on the way home I had to lay on my back holding my stomach. My whole body was floating as the ferry lifted off one wave and dropped down onto the next. It didn't help that I had to stay near the bow and below deck, the worst combination in rough water.

I met a really nice family last night and learned that the father makes knives. He said that he would show me how but that it takes months from start to finish. How cool is that.

Anbo

Just a few pictures I've taken over the last few days. Below is Anbo, the second largest port on the island. You can rent boats here and have dinner parties in the middle of the river.



Brittany is obviously much cuter than me but also oh so much more popular. She's already had her mother, step-father, father, step-mother, and boyfriend come to visit her. Next week she's got another good friend coming to visit and then who knows, maybe her dogs will come. Time to buy some plane tickets whoever you are.Or maybe its because I keep posting pictures like this. It's harmless, honest, except when you're washing your hands and notice it sitting a few inches below you in the sink and almost have a heart attack. Tenacious island bugs.

I was eating cereal a few days ago and noticed a small ant on the rim of the bowl. When I began looking for more I noticed small black spots floating all around in my milk. They had infested the cereal box without me noticing and I had eaten half a bowl of frosted ant flakes. Mmm yes wonderful.

Moon girl

I realize I haven't posted any decent photos for awhile now. Tomorrow I'm planning on a hike with a new friend of mine. Maybe I'll get some good shots if it doesn't rain too much. Brit's (the other ALT) parents are here so we've all been hanging out together recently, hiking and eating out. I even made them all dinner one night.

I'm taking a break from digital and decided to only paint "traditional" paintings for awhile. At left is my first shot, a bookmark for the friend I'm meeting tomorrow.

Same same but different

I've been getting some pretty strange school lunches recently. I eat with the students in the classroom and I'm always a little nervous about the menu. A few days ago we got a salad of pickled vegetable and these creepy little fish. Yesterday we got rice and seaweed mix, slimy mushroom soup and chicken liver. mmm. It's often quite good but some days I get the one two punch. A crazy mess that was fun to draw

Seasons

It's finally starting to cool off around here. I was able to take this picture of the coolness on my way home from work today. I got some water and rocks and stuff in the background but you can clearly see the nice weather in the foreground. We should have a solid month or two before it starts to get really cold (it snows at the higher elevations). That should be fun too though... snowmen in Japan woot woot.

A really rough painting. This is just too hard so I'm giving up, hopefully I learned something from it... perhaps subconsciously. Moving on...

Falling Water

I worked on this over the last few days. It was good practice doing all the different elements, water, buildings, sky and rocks... though the rocks are the hardest part, I'll have to work on those.