Rice, rice everywhere...

We're back!! Ethan and I got back from Soma a couple days ago and it was absolutely gorgeous!!! We were way out in the countryside of Japan, surrounded simply by ocean, woods and rice fields. With none of the noise, department stores, sky scrapers, traffic jams, or neon lights of Tokyo, I think Ethan and I both experienced a bit of culture shock. We had no time to waste though, thanks to Chieko-san, our schedule was completely packed with fun ways to check out the area. In fact, we ended up hardly teaching any English. Which was fine cuz we all had a great time just exploring Soma and hanging out.


I wasn’t kidding. So many of the roads we drove down were rice fields as far as you could see. It was a perfect time of the year too, cuz the green was beautiful! The down side though: to us, everywhere looked the same. So, getting lost just became a part of our daily routine.


This trip has made me realize how much I truly love the beach. I would’ve been totally content to just spend the whole time hanging out at the ocean, relaxing, playing and listening to the waves.

The sunrise is somewhere behind the clouds in this photo. Miraculously, every single person (Ethan included!), woke up at 4am to go see it.  The weather wasn’t really in our favor though and we didn’t get to see much.

No success with catching any fish, but Ethan did get a gigantic piece of seaweed together with a tiny crab.
Japanese style BBQ: This was a first for me and Emer, and a total change up from what we're used to when we hear "bbq." No burgers or hot dogs here, we were cooking up yaki niku (marinated beef) and yaki soba (noodles). The food was out of this world and left a lot of us with pretty heavy stomachs.

Hanabi! Tokyo recently enforced a new rule that says you're not allowed to do hanabi in small parks, side streets, etc, basically meaning no more individual fireworks in the city. So, we took full advantage of the big space, less enforced rules of Soma and did all sorts of loud, fun fireworks.




In total there were 14 of us, and it was definitely a really fun group to be a part of. We all got along great and remarkably left with no one getting sick, hurt or having anything else major happening. It was a new, but no doubt awesome experience for both Ethan and I.

much love,
Hanako