Monday, March 3rd, 2025
We started the morning with a walking excursion to another part of town, towards Town Hall. We visited an electronics shop, two convenience stores, and the third grocery store/all-purpose store in Shikaoi. This store is just a couple of minutes-walk from the SS House. In fact, you can see it outside our kitchen window. The sun was shining and the temperature was just below zero, but the westerly wind was sharp enough to make your face freeze. Visibility was really good and the mountains that form a horseshoe around Shikaoi were covered with a fresh snowfall at the higher altitudes. It really is quite a gorgeous panoramic view.
Our big event of the day was the Welcome Lunch, organized by the Shikaoi Town International Friendship Committee. We were picked up and driven to the Shinti Itten Restaurant, across from the Town offices. This venue specializes in tempura and the food was oishii! One of the members in the welcoming party was Hideo Mogami. I think that both me and Dodi teared up the moment we saw him. We hadn’t communicated with him since my last visit to Shikaoi (pre-COVID). Hideo’s wife, Katsuko, had passed in the interim. They were phenomenal hosts to us. Their generosity and kindness are integral to our fond memories of previous trips. As Hideo speaks no English, we greatly appreciated Glen Shimbo’s translation skills.
The Shikaoi delegation made us feel very welcome. Those in attendance who shared the meal with us include Mayor Kii, Glen Shimbo, Deputy Mayor Matsumoto, Chairperson Ueshima, Superintendent Watanabe, HS Principal Nakagawa, Mr. Mogami, Department Manager Hakuta, and Yuyu Matsuda.
For the remainder of the day, we were on our own. We both took advantage of this time by continuing to adjust our bodies to the Japanese time zone.
Tuesday, March 4th, 2025
Later on in the morning, Glen Shimbo took us to visit Urimaki Junior High School. The community of Urimaki is about a ten-minute drive from Shikaoi. It is the area where the Riding Park (horses) is located. We met principal Watanabe at the front entrance and he took us for a tour of the school. We were then invited to participate with the grade nines in their English class. Ms. Monica ran an exceptional class where we engaged with the students in a variety of activities – all in English [having to draw a picture based on your partner’s oral description; explaining to your partner why you would prefer to either read a book or play a musical instrument; generating word lists, with words spelled correctly, based on a prompt]. The students were totally engaged and relaxed while doing all the activities. The teacher’s sense of humour was appreciated by all.
This particular school has a total of 40 students enrolled from grade seven to nine. It runs a unique program, with many kids coming from outside of the Shikaoi area.
We were just sitting down to lunch at SS House when our neighbors, Taeko and Takanori sent us an email inviting us over to their home for a visit. They indicated that they wanted us to meet a couple of their classmates who also attend the Thursday night adult English Conversation Classes. What we thought would be a nice afternoon visit turned out to include an invitation to dinner, as well. We were treated to share a traditional Japanese meal with the group. It was such a wonderful experience. Canadian suppers in the McCann household are often made up of four items served in medium or large portions. The traditional stew we ate came with six items. Then there was rice, kimchi, broiled pumpkin, a type of very fluffy/light omelette, and additional add-ons that provided more flavour.
The welcome and hospitality of this community continues to be both overwhelming and touching. Everyone who has reached out to us has a genuine interest in wanting to hone their English language. They are very patient as me and Dodi are slowly increasing our Japanese vocabulary. Everyone is generous in trying to answer all of the questions we have about all that is unfamiliar.
Wednesday, March 5th, 2025
We awoke to a light shower of snow which persisted throughout the day. Our big event for the day was an invitation from the Yamamoto’s (Taeko and Takanori) to travel with them to the town of Shintoku for lunch at a community centre. We were joined there by another English Conversation classmate of theirs, Masame. Masame was accompanied by her friend, Shinobu. Shinobu studied for a number of years in the southeastern part of the United States. She was a wonderful conversationalist and a very good interpreter for the group. Lunch included miso soup, rice, salmon, forest vegetables, a pickled vegetable, gyoza, French fries with ketchup, and cabbage with mayo. Each portion was served in its own dish. Together, is was a full meal.
After lunch, we were invited back to Masame’s home where food and tea was plentiful. Masame’s home was beautifully decorated with a variety of art, much of it her own. We were delighted to be offered a tour of Masame’s home. Masame has a collection of intricate dolls that were gifted to her by her father when she was a one-year old. Every March third she takes the full collection our of storage and displays them for Girls’ Day. This is a day of significance in Japan
“Hinamatsuri, also called Doll’s Day or Girls’ Day, is a religious day in Japan, celebrated on 3 March of each year. Platforms covered with a red carpet–material are used to display a set of ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress, attendants, and musicians in traditional court dress of the Heian period.” – Wikipedia
Thursday, March 6th, 2025.
A significant amount of snow had fallen during the night, so my day began the same way it often does in Stony Plain – shovelling. On her way to work, Tomoko (a high school teacher who stayed with us when she visited Stony Plain) stopped by with her shovel. She insisted that she help me with clearing the fresh snowfall.
Mid-morning, we payed a visit to Shikaoi Junior High School. There are 120 students at this school. We met with the principal and then were given a tour of the school. We were then invited to join a grade eight English class. The day’s lesson was similar to the previous class we attended at the Urimaki school. Me and Dodi gave a brief photo presentation about our family and living in Canada. Then we participated in activities where we directly interacted with the students.
Our afternoon included a visit to the grocery store. While fooling around with the Google Translate app on my iPhone, I accidentally discovered that, if you pass your camera over the packaging, it changes all of the labelling into English! In a flash, one of our biggest struggles with being in Japan vanished. Shopping for food on our own suddenly became quite bearable.
We attended our first English Conversation class in the evening. There were about fifteen attendees and we were split into three groups, half adults and half students. The theme for the evening was St. Patrick’s Day. Throughout the night the students were encouraged to engage in English conversations through a series of prompts. The time passed quickly.
Stony Plain in Shikaoi 