Trip to Kyoto and Asago Biking

Hi There,

I did not write much last week as I had spent Saturday in Kyoto and then went on a bike ride on Sunday.

For Kyoto, I had heard there was a special train that runs on weekends and holidays from Osaka up to the east side of Kyoto. The train cars are specially decorated - some areas have tatami mat seating and one car even has a Japanese garden. Pictures of this train are in the album below.

The train does not require a special ticket or boarding procedure - it is just like any other train except that it only runs a few times a day. The inside was pretty crowded. After the train arrives in Kyoto and people get off, you can walk around it and take pictures.

Peak fall colors in the Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto regions occurred starting last week and Kyoto is a popular destination to view them, so many people were there! I spent time walking through a few temples and areas around the "Philosopher's Path."

After Kyoto on Saturday, I joined a bike tour on Sunday. The tour started in a small town just over two and a half hours from Kobe. To get there, I rode a train to Himeji and then another, older train from Himeji to a region called Asago (near Ikuno Station). You can see the area here on google maps.

I have been to this area once before - last year over winter break, I visited and spent the night nearby. The area has a mining background, thus the tour focused on talking about that.

I rented an electric bike and the tour group rode north through the country side, stopping every so often to see scenic points or areas related to mining history.

One stopping point was a foreign-built house in which international engineers lived. They purposely built it with colonial architecture to try and show their superiority to the locals. It is one of the few buildings I have been in with high ceilings and doorways.

After finishing the tour, I rode back to Kobe and started another workweek.

At school, we are starting to get into the last few weeks before winter break. I think the students will have about 2 weeks off for the holidays.

Christmas is not an official holiday here but New Years is important to the Japanese. Many offices and businesses close for about 4 weekdays around January 1st. I think the holiday dates this year are December 29th-30th (Thursday, Friday) and January 2nd-3rd (Monday, Tuesday).

For 5th grade, we recently did a "speaking challenge." This activity is quite common for 5th and 6th graders in Japan. I am not totally sure, but it seems like they try to do one once a semester.

This year, the 5th graders have learned how to respond to a variety of different phrases like "when is your birthday," "where do you want to go" (learning and talking about foreign countries), and "what time do you go to bed/what time do you get up" (plus a lot of other phrases related to activities and household chores).

Their teacher has also been working with them to develop natural speaking responses, like saying "Oh, I see", "that's nice," or asking a follow-up question.

The speaking challenge consisted of a student talking to me for a few minutes 1-1 with the teacher watching. I would ask each student a few questions like the ones mentioned above and the teacher would evaluate their responses, including how naturally they handled the conversation.

While it was hard for some students, it did seem to increase other students' desire to practice and learn English. Hopefully that continues into next year.

Link to pictures below!

Until next time,