New Apartment And Teaching

Hello readers,

Sorry for the very late post for this month and the non existent one last month...I have had plenty of Blog worthy events and experiences these past two months so I will try and ketch you up on what has been happening here in japan.

I have recently said goodbye to my old apartment here in Kumamoto that I had lived in for the first 3 months of my stay here in Kumamoto. It was a nice apartment with a central location in the city near the Kumamoto castle and mall so I will miss it a little. I am completely moved into my permanent apartment for the next 2 years of service here in japan. It is allot bigger and has a beautiful view of a small park, a giant improvement over my last apartment that had an AMAZING view of a towering parking garage.

My old apartment with a small porch and bad vie

My current apartment with a huge porch and a beautiful 2nd story view of the park. The sakura, cherry blossoms, are almost in full bloom.

But the view is not the only amazing part of this apartment. I could have a long rant of all the pros and cons but I am sure you don't want to hear it all. What i will say is that this apartment has allot of space and is located with all of the other missionaries that I am here with. Making it a lot more convenient to get together with other English speakers. This apartment is also fairly close to the school I will be teaching at called  Luther Gakuin. where I will be teaching English classes in the Jr High and High school at Luther Gakuin. Sometime after I start teaching, April 2nd, I will give you more information about my classes and what not.

Main entrance for Luther High School. 

Student choir, wearing the school uniform

Luther is also well known for its soccer team. It is one of the most popular schools in the southern part of Japan for soccer.

In March Japan had its first anniversary of the March 11th 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster. Half of the day I was in a near by city called Fukuoka and the other half I spent here in Kumamoto. While I was in Fukuoka I visited a church called Tamana Lutheran. The church had a children's service and an adult service. During the Children's service the mothers of the children performed in a choir some songs from the 1992 movie "Sister Act" singing "I will follow him" and "Oh happy day" in English and Japanese. The children played rock, paper, scissors after the service and I was asked to join in on the fun.

The chapel inside Tamana Lutheran Church

When I returned to Kumamoto I walked down the long central mall in town and stumbled upon a parade of remembrance for the victims and survivors.

I remember all of the TV programs in the morning showing images of the earthquake and talking about the anniversary. I can still vividly remember what was happening in on March 11th and when I was in the tsunami hit area of Japan.


While I have not updated everything it is already past 12:00 am and I am a bit sleepy. So I will add more details tomorrow when I can.