Less than a week to go and I'll be on a plane to Korea and transfer there to a flight bound for New Zealand! I am really excited. Slightly nervous, but exicted more than anything else. I have to go pick up a bag from Dave tomorrow which I'll probably have packed by Wednesday. I'm making lists and keep crossing off things because I know I'm taking too much but once the bag gets here the lists will probably go to the trash anyway. I've been trying to wash clothes and stuff but the weather is rainy this weekend and there's of course no sun at all which is really the only thing that keeps it fairly warm around these mountainous areas. I think if it doesn't clear up I'm going to try to make a few makeshift clothes lines in the house. I still have no idea how to do that so lets just hope a little sun shines this way.

My best friend is about to finally drop that load she's been carrying around for the last 8 months! The baby isn't due until April 4th but she has already begun dialating and has contractions about 15 mins apart. I talked to her on the phone last night before I went to bed for about 40 mins and she had 3 contractions during that time! My friend Vanessa who has two kids told me that she'll be having that baby real soon now. Probably this weekend or early next week. Today was her last day at work (Friday for the US folks) for a while. I think she wants to take off two months before putting Micah in day care. She's breastfeeding so its going to be difficult but my girl is finally growing up THANK GOD! I'm glad that being a mommy has help changed her life in such a positive way.

My mom told me today that my niece is in the eccelerated readers program at school! I always love to hear that! With the girls (my lil sister and niece) I never really bought them toys. Always either books or clothes. I guess I really wanted them to appreciate the things that are important in life: being smart and looking smart (as the Brits say) ! Ha Ha Ha! But it really does make me feel good to know they enjoy reading. There are so many other things the can and are interested in but balance is SOOO important! If they learn that early they've won more than half the battle. My mom also said my other niece was I haven't had a chance to see yet is cockeyed! I think maybe its just a weak eye. That sometimes happens with babies. Maybe it will straighten out maybe not but I'm sure she's a beautiful little girl anyway. I think my Granma has some pictures of her. Hopefully I can get her to send me a couple.

Sanae wants me to come watch Sex and the City that she got on DVD at Cacy's place with her today. Kimi will come too. Sana is excited because she'd never heard of it before and now she's hooked! Kimi has only heard about it from Sana so it will be an enjoyable afternoon I'm sure! Its funny because Erica has known about the show since it came out in the US but her first time watching it was here in Japan. She was so excited that she got on some website and found the series sets so she can have them! But its worth i think. Because by the time you rent them all, you would have watched enough and paid enough to equal what a set costs. And since she is going home to "The Chi" next week she doesn't have to pay for shipping!! It will be a fun afternoon. Uh Oh, looks like the rain has stopped, its getting kinda bright outside so I'm going to get busy and do some more cleaning before our afternoon movie session begins.

TTFN!

What a wonderful place Kyoto is! Hazel and I took the bus down there Thursday night. It was a really comfortable bus. They had slippers to put on and a blanket to cover you up while you slept. The bus left Kofu at 10ish and got to Kyoto around 6am ish Friday morning. It was too early to even get a cup of coffee or a piece of fruit so we just went to the bathroom washed up and walked around the train/bus station checkin' it out. It was a pretty big station too and around 7 we finally were able to go to the information desk, get a map and try to find our way around and map out our plan for the day. We bought these 2 day bus/subway passes for about 2,000 yen which turned out to be really good investments because the buses go all over the city and come quite often.

Day one we went to Ginkaku-ji (the silver temple), Eikan-do, and Nanzen-ji. We went to lunch at this wonderful little restaurant that was recommended to us by Lonely Planet Japan called Hinode. They saw our Lonely Planet book on the table and got excited. The owner was so nice! We asked him for directions on how to get to our hostel and he didn't know so he took our book and called the place to get the directions. Then he proceeded to draw us out a map from the restaurant to the place which he said would take about 20mins walking. After we left the restaurant and had probably walked for about 5-7 mins, the owner pulls up next to us and offers to drive us to the hostel!!! It was such a nice thing to do. Just when some Japanese folks piss ya off, you find folks like the man from Hinode (who's name we never even got) who do such benevolent things. The place we stayed was kinda shaky. It was a dorming house for foreigners. Some long stay as well as short stay. It was fine because we only had to stay there one night but longer would have been a problem. It was an 8 mat tatami room with a small balcony and a kitchenette, if you can call it that. I refer to it as the dungeon and am glad we only had to stay there one night!!! After we found the place we unloaded a few souveniors we bought and set back out to the rainy streets of Eastern Kyoto. We headed back up towards Maruyama Park where there was supposed to be a festival of lights and some stage performances. We were most excited about seeing the Geisha women dance. Its funny because I never knew how important Geisha were to Japanese society. They are actually like the highest level of feminity that a women can be. They are very well trained in Japanese art of tea ceremony, dance, ikebana (flower arranging) and many others. The women who train to be Geisha area called Maiko. I think I was told some begin as Maiko at the young age of 15! Anyway it was really nice and so cool to actually get to see them dance and sing. The kimono they wore were beautiful!! And their make up was flawless. After that we walked around and took pictures of the scenery and the way they had lit everything up. It was a great atmosphere. Nice date spot too! Then we left to go find a onsen type bath. The only thing is the water wasn't hot spring mineral water. It was just regular water. We did that and then set out to find dinner and go back to our hotel. The dinner thing was hard because it was late when we got done bathing. It was about 10ish when we got back down to Gion, which is the hot spot night area. The other thing is Hazel is a vegetarian which in Japan is hard in the first place and especially if you are just eating out and don't really know where to go. We finally found this one Asian restaurant that I throughly enjoyed but Hazel ended up not being able to eat much. She's very accomodating so it wasn't bad and she would never complain but we had to eat soon because I was turning into the mean hungry E which isn't a pleasant person so she didn't mind eating there. What a whirlwind first day and the second proved to be just as busy.

We got up pretty early and planned out our next day turned in the keys and set off into Kyoto. Today we planned to hit a few spots we'd missed the day before and a bunch of new stuff. We took a bus down to the Station so we could put our heavy stuff in a locker and set out for the temples. We grabbed a bite to eat at the station which ended up being much more suitable for Hazel. Then we took the subway up to Nijo Castle. This was probably my favorite next to the Park. It was so tight!! It was the home of the famous shogun Tokugawa. Inside the castle there are "nightengale floors". This means that whenever walk the floor boards have a distinct squeaking sound. The floors were contructed for that purpose that wherever you walked squeaks to protect him from intruders and so he always knew when someone was coming. Since the builiding is so old they don't allow photos to be taken inside but I'm trying to hold on to the mental images as much as I can. We saw the room where he held his cabinet meetings and they had these doors that were roped with this bright orange cord. Wherever this cord was on a door there was a bodyguard behind it to protect the shogun in an emergency. I think there were some peep holes in the door too, but we couldn't get up close enough to see it. This castle is surrounded by a moat which is the first time I've actually seen something like that NOT on TV. There were beautiful Japanese style gardens that I did get a few pictures of. It was just really nice and peaceful. I enjoyed it throughly.

Next we went to a dragon processional at Kiyomizu Shrine. No one told us about the 15 min uphill climb to the temple, but the walk and fatigue was WELL worth it. We walked around once we got to the top and I spotted a group of Japanese folks standing around so naturally we went up there. I told Hazel that anytime you see Japanese folks in a group just waiting...you go then! Because it is usually something worth waiting for. Shortly there after, piles of people just seemed to come out of NO WHERE pushing and shoving to get to the front. We held down the front line though and Hazel got some really good movies with her digital camera. Mine takes the movies but there isn't any sound so its no good to take movies of that kind of thing. It was awesome though. First 8 buglers came down dressed in this heavy green and orange gear. The buglers were playing conk shells (not sure about the spelling) but when you blow in them an amazing sound some out. Next the soliders came down, then the priestesses and the high priest and finally the dragon! It was carried by about 10 -12 men and they really moved it like it was a dragon body! I was so impressed. They came down and the priestesses put something over the crowd out of their bowls using a wand of some sort and then the whole processional went down that hill we'd just come up! It was sooo cool! After they left some of the people standing around followed them down. We took another hill cause we didn't want to be in the traffic. We came across this shop where this 80 year old woman had made these gorgeous little paper Japanese women folded into bookmarks. They were only like $3 a piece so we both bought a few. After that we went to this place called Sanjusan gendo. It was a temple that had 33 something or others but I'm not sure what. It also had 1000 budda statues with over 10,000 arms. They say that all the faces of these statues are different and one looks like you. You just have to figure out which one it is. We got there when it was almost closig time so we didn't get to see much. We left there and went back up to the park and saw a wonderful taiko drum performance. After that we went to another bathhouse. This one was much better than the first but harder to find. Both of us were craving to go back to Hinode where we had lunch the first day but couldn't justify going all the way back up there until that is we found a subway near the bathhouse! So we took a subway and then a short bus to the place and guess what!!! They were closed! I couldn't believe it. We had wasted so much time getting there too that we didn't have time to get to a nice restaurant before time to catch the bus home. So, we just caught a cab back down to the station picked up our packages from the lockers, went to McDonalds for some fries and an apple pie and then to this quick beef bowl shop. I think Hazel got rice and a tofu soup. We rushed back across the street in time to catch the night bus back home to Kofu

Admist the heat and slight snoring I had a pretty enjoyable and restful ride home and a great weekend. I'm looking forward to New Zealand even more now because I know that Hazel and I can and enjoy traveling together so that's a relief. I'm pretty much down for whatever and so is she so it wasn't stressful at all. It was cool. I'm glad we got a chance to go together!!!

I received on of the best presents I've ever gotten today! My 9th graders are graduating next week and they usually give all the teachers a gift. Our gift this year was a board with a picture of the class in the middle and around it a "thank you" message from each one of the students. It was sooo sweet! It was funny because it was in 1/2 English and 1/2 Japanese but I loved it just the same. Some of the kids have pretty bad handwriting so I couldn't really figure out what they were saying but I'm going to take it to my Japanese lesson on Sunday and let her look at it for me.

That reminds me, I need to pack some soccer clothes for Sunday too. I'm leaving to go to Kyoto tonight for the next two days with Hazel. We were supposed to stay until Sunday night and take the bus back in time to be at school on Monday but our bus reservation got mixed up and we will come back Saturday night instead and arrive back in Kofu on Sunday morning around 6am. I think I'll just take Hazel home and stay in Kofu at Keysha's and take a nap. If I feel like it, we have soccer practice at 1. Then I have my private and Japanese lesson beginning at 4. I'm not sure how busy we'll be in Kyoto and haven't decided if I'll be too tired to do anything Sunday but as of now everything is still on. I hope that Keysha can do something to this bush that I'm pretending to call hair. I haven't had a perm since December when Lessie did it. It was about mid-December too and only the second perm I've gotten since I cut all my hair off. This stuff is very unruly!

Last week I made an appointment at this salon but when we were hanging up I quickly asked their prices. They said $70 for the perm. Not too bad, but then he mentioned that if I didn't have my OWN PERM it would be $25 more dollars! He was kidding right? Nope! He said we sell them here for about $25. Just plain old box perm for $25...I couldn't do that. I couldn't spend $100 on a hairdo that I might hate when I walked out. So I'm waiting on the sorors to get me a hair appointment at one of the military bases. The only reason I didn' t do that in the first place was I wanted to do it on my own. If I go to the base someone has to go with me and sign me in etc. But its cheaper and with this NZ trip comin' up in less than a month...a sista is on a budget!

Well lemme shower and stuff so I can go pick up my travelin' buddy and hit the road from Kyoto. Don't worry Diary-san I'll take plenty of pictures!

Tonight I finally got a chance to watch the tape that E sent me. Her folks taped some videos, the whitney and bobby interview, more videos, the billboard music awards and still more videos. Well, I'm up to the Billboard Awards now. I'm excited cause Cedric the Entertainer was the host and that is for real my MAN! He's a funny dude yo. He can wear just about ANY hat he puts on! I know its sad cause I'm finally watching the awards almost a year after they came out but its still new to me. That's one of the things I don't like is missing out on new TV. I mean I left right at the beginning of Cedric's new show. I got to see two episodes while I was home for Christmas and it made me sad to know I was going to miss out on his debut program. Oh well. Its not a life or death thing...I'll just be unfashionably out of date with current comedy when I get back. Probably revert to tellin' knock-knock jokes...Woe is me...

Sunday's are always some of my favorite days. I usually do laundry between naps (ha ha ha) and its funny how I actually enjoying hanging out clothes. The after that, I look over my japanese lesson from the previous week, that I should have been looking at during the week and then look briefly over what I'll cover with Yumie and Shozo. Today was no exception. The weather was chilly in the shade but the sun made it great for hanging/drying clothes. I get such cabin fever and I really want to open my doors and windows as the sun looks soooo inviting, but its only a trap. As soon as I step outside I realize that the wind is very strong and the sun is only playing tricks with my emotions. I can't wait for the weather to finally break and become warm. One of the teachers I work with told me that it won't happen until APRIL! Can you believe that! APRIL! I sure can't. Its seems like the entire time I've been in Japan its been freezin! I can't take it. I'm a moderate to hot weather babe. This cold spell is freezin' all my mojo out!! (I can't even take myself seriously as I write that)

This morning the first call I recieved for the day was from Miho, one of my 7th graders. We studied English phone ettiquite last week and I told them that they could call me to practice. My team teacher told them if they did call me they'd get 10 points added to their grade!! All of them sounded excited by it but Miho was my first call. She's given them until March 4 to complete the assignment. It was of course a very short conversation. "Hello this is Miho" "Oh, Hi Miho" "Can I speak to...(dead silence)" "This is Eboni, how are you Miho" "I'm fine thank you" "Well, Miho, thanks for calling. (silence) Talk to you later." "Okay bye" It of course doesn't seem like much but I'm proud of her on a few levels. #1 for actually having enough balls to call. #2 being the first one in the class to call. She isn't even one of the better students at English. Its not like they get held back or anything if they don't have high grades. Everyone goes on the next level anyway. I'm just happy she called.

The second call I recieved was from my Japanese teacher who told me that if I didn't have anything to do today she wanted to invite me over for dinner. Her husband would be cooking all chicken dishes and wanted me to join them. I always enjoy their company and her husband is a GREAT cook, so I never turn down an opportunity to hang out and socialize with them. So after my lesson with Shimura-san, I went to spend an hour and a half studying Japanese and then the evening eating and talking with the Muramatsu family. Dinner was of course delicious. Mr. Muramatsu made a chinese chicken strip salad with a homemade ginger and onion dressing which was WONDERFUL! He also made an appetizer of eggplant and red bell peppers with a light sesame oil and soy sauce. The two main entrees were Chicken Gyoza Nabe (which is like a soup with chicken pastry and cabbage) and Chinese Spaghetti with chicken and bell pepper mixed in. It was so delicious! I love eating with them because they are so fun. Tonight we had conversations about when to use " " in speaking with your hands. I tryed to tell my teacher that you only make quotes with your hand twice when you say something and trying to help her understand situations in which you use them. She kept doing it over and over again. I have to practice it in conversation with her so she'll understand how to use it. It was a sight too hard to explain. We also had a discussion about Christianity and its many different beliefs and dominations. I told them about how I was raised African Methodist but have attended Missionary Baptist churches since I began college. Its really difficult to explain religion to people who don't really believe but its good for me because it helps me to affirm what I believe and explain exactly what it is I believe in. I know there was a time in my life where I couldn't have done that. It also helps me see how far I've come spiritually. I also brought the new Alicia Keys CD with me that I got at Towers Records. Its called "Remixed and Unplugged in A Minor". In some of the unplugged songs she is just playing the piano. My teacher is also a piano instructor so I wanted her to listen to how Alicia incorporates many different piano styles into her music. She enjoyed it I think. We ended the night with a brief discussion of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and I told her how much I really want to visit the museums there sometime soon.

I really want to learn more about world history and specifically how it relates to US relations with other places. I really wasted my time in my World History lessons in High School. Although I made "A's" it was mostly shortterm memorization and that does me absolutely no good at the point I'm at today. I've got a lot to learn here! Japanese! World History! How to be a better teacher! How to be a better person! What I like! What I don't like! What's important and indespensible! What's not important and expendible! and the list goes on. I'm glad I decided to stay another year because I could definitely use the personal growth. I feel so good about life and about myself but of course there is always more to learn.

"I never felt sooo....goood" as Ms. Keys and Mr. McKnight would say.