thanks for all the comments!

You have no idea how happy I am that most of you wanted to hear about Japanese sweets. I feel like you've all given me a much more legit reason to eat more sweets and sample things many times over to later look up and learn about from Maki-san. So I think Japanese Sweets will be an ongoing thing ^_^ I look forward to posting about that. Thought I thinkI'll start with gyoza... or perhaps chai cookies [see photo for recipe @_@].. expect a post about one of those in the next week!

Also expect to see posts about my adventures around Minatomirai, Kamakura, the Daibutsu, the Tsugaoka Hachiman-gu shrine and the omikuji I got there!

Asaba Art Square

It is here, in this wonderful place, that I have been WWOOFing for the last week. Asaba Art Square is located in Kanazawa Bunko, a mere 3 or 4 blocks from the shrine [which is absolutely amaaaazing! I climbedupthe mountain today to see the top of it and the view was lovely -I'll have to post about the shrine itself later].

But back to the point of this post...

I wanted to give

you all an idea of what WWOOFing here is like. Kazuko-san actually says out of all the hosts I could have picked, she was probably the most unconventional. But it's really great here. I'm hoping to go into art education, so helping Kazuko-san and Kuma-chan in the art studio with the class is perfect.

The kids typically come around 4pm after school and they

start out with some form of physical activity. Usually we take the kids down the road to this great field by the shrine and at the base of the mountain and we climb up around there and go up into the trees. Then we head back to the studio and get to work. These past couple weeks they've been doing a lot of painting, but this week Tamana-chan is gonna do some printmaking with them, and then we start on a bit of sewing! Tamana Araki is the artist we currently have featured in our gallery attached to the cafe.

She's so sweet, and she speaks Spanish very well. The first day we met, I was helping her set up in the gallery all day and we had been speaking in broken English and Japanese. Only when it finally hit me that her husband and fellow artist we had featured, Taller Leñateros was indeed Mexican and that she had spent a lot of time there, did I ask if she knew Spanish.. which, she did!! Half of my family is from Puerto Rico so I'm almost fluent in the language--emphasis on almost--So now we speak in Japaspanishese every time she's in the cafe. It's pretty fun.

But there's definitely a bit of work involved. Last monday myself and the other two French WWOOFers, Gwenaelle and Elsa, spent the afternoon cutting up this giant black paper for the kids to paint on and matting their work from the previous week. Earlier today Gwenaelle and I were sorting through all these baskets of fabric for the kids to choose from when they start sewing. And then there's the cafe.

Every morning we wake up at 8 for breakfast with Kazuko-san and she delegates the morning chores to us to start on after we finish eating. These tasks tend to be, but are not limited to, sweeping and moping the floor in the cafe, gallery and kitchen, washing the pile of dishes of the sink of the cafe kitchen, sweeping in the other room attached to the studio/classroom. [On busier days we shuffle customers over to the big table in there]. Kuma-chan comes in between 9 and 10:30 and the cafe opens at about 11am.

The chef, Maki-san [super nice--she invited me and the other WWOOFers over for lunch with her family on saturday-SO so delicious-this is a photo of her making the curry from that afternoon in her house] comes in a few times a week to work the kitchen. I usually spend my time helping Kuma-chan or Maki-san in the kitchen. Sometimes making drinks, sometimes platting the lunch special, sometimes bring food and drinks to customers and collecting empty plates, almost always washing dishes though haha. Kuma-chan really dislikes doing them, so I usually end up having to do it.

Despite all the dish-washing, I do have fun helping them in the cafe. Maki-san always has questions to ask and shows me a lot of great cooking tips, and Kuma-chan always teaches me something when she's in--language, culture, places I ought to visit, things i need to try...etc. It's

really great.

I may look for other place to go WWOOFing, but until I change hosts, I look forward o the rest of my stay here with Kazuko-san and the rest of the people I meet in Kanazawa-Bunko. ^_^

So guess who's in Yokohama now?

Hello All!

So I will be WWOOFing here in Yokohama for the next 3 months! WWOOF [World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms or Willing Workers on Organic Farms] basically allows anyone to travel anywhere, and live with a host family for however long. All you have to pay for is a standard fee that gives you information on every single host in the country of your choosing. I of course choose to come to Japan, and after careful selection found my host, Kazuko Asaba. Kazuko is the owner of an art studio/gallery/class/cafe, so I'm slowly learning the ins and outs of each part. I'll keep you all posted on daily life and such and a bazillion photos as well. So expect to here more about that in the coming days!