.japan.love.: busy (BUT FUN!) weekend...

friday was my first parent/teacher conference experience.. not too bad! :) i enjoyed getting to meet all the parents and talk to the ones i normally see after school every day. there weren't too many concerns with some of my students, so it was a pretty upbeat conference day. and i'm happy to say the my students aren't scared of me haha. they tell their parents they have fun and they think i'm cute.. haha.. it makes my heart melt.

on saturday eight of us went up to northern okinawa to hike hiji falls. it was a long car ride full of crazy kids, beautiful scenery, a rain cloud following us (i swear it was!), and a lovely stop at a bento mart. once we finally arrived at hiji falls, we found out that it was closed due to construction. haha.. we traveled too far (2 hours!!!) to not do anything! there was another waterfall down the street that rocky knew about, so we decided to go there instead.. hiji falls will have to be another day! we parked.. ate our lunches in the van (made a little picnic bench out of the middle seat.. quite the lunch spot) and then got ready for the "hike." to get to this particular waterfall, you have to walk in the water the whole time.

we were prepared for a normal hike, so we didn't bring shoes for a water hike. let me tell you, my feet were so sore! some of those rocks were very sharp! and some were also very slippery.. quite a few people fell into the water ;) we didn't get to the main waterfall (you need shoes for that), but we did make it to a little one.

me and my hiking buddy at the waterfall spot

it was very beautiful walk.. looked like something out of jurassic park haha. AND while we were walking to the waterfall we could hear bursts of thunder in the distance.. we could just imagine trekking through the water and being caught in a downpour. luckily, that didn't happen :)

super snail!

and the dry award goes to... rocky, alison, and me! :)

today the girls and i met up with the gang again (minus rocky, add dennis' mom and some sophomore boys that are staying with lori for a couple days during a cultural exchange program) to go bowling on base. i haven't been bowling in a long time (besides playing on the wii haha).. i've missed it! i didn't do that bad either.. 144! the girls were hilarious with their bumper bowling :) we then went to the hundren yen store for the guys to buy some stuff.. they bought matching red hats that i guess japanese kids wear during pe. they were hilarious.