When I was a kid, I loved puzzles. While I was eating breakfast before school, I always flipped the newspaper open to the comics, immediately followed by the Jumble* or crossword puzzle. Some mornings, I would steal that page and try to finish the puzzle on the school bus.

Recently I came across a series of maze books that I used to like. The author, Rolf Heimann, designed some of the most challenging and unusual mazes I’ve ever seen. Sometimes, it’s difficult even to figure out the rules of the maze, or what kind of path you should follow.

In this particular book, every maze starts on the left middle and ends on the right middle. There is also a key hidden on each page. If you can find the key, you’ll get a hint on how to solve the maze.

Try solving the fish maze above! It’s relatively easy.

*If you’re not familiar with the Jumble, you can try it for yourself here.

Yesterday NEO was attacked by a scary demon three times. However, our brave students threw beans and fought off the demon. We hope that you all had safe and enjoyable Setsubun.

We held our annual New Year Party last Saturday night. About 16 students and teachers gathered together at a restaurant downtown and enjoyed great food and fun conversations in English and Japanese. After 2 hours of feasting, about half of the people carried on to a second party at Pinball Cafe for a few more hours of fun. Thanks for coming out everybody, it was great!

A-san traveled to Canada to meet her son, who is living and working there. They enjoyed spending the Christmas season together, went skiing and did some sightseeing.

T-san traveled to Egypt with her husband. They saw the pyramids and the Great Sphinx. At the Grand Egyptian museum, they saw the famous Mask of Tutankhamun.

These both looked like fabulous vacations!

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Joren Falls

Last month, I wrote about my Shizuoka/Izu plans. Here are some highlights from the trip.

First, the food! There are quite a few local specialties in this part of the country, including:

Matcha

Shizuoka Oden, characterized by the dashi powder on top

Wasabi

Wasabi ice cream (delicious, believe it or not!)

Fresh fish

There are a lot of other great places to explore around both Shizuoka City and Izu. To be honest, I didn’t do much research before this trip, but it was easy to find things to do. I looked at guide maps and pamphlets, asked the staff at restaurants and hotels, and sometimes just opened Google Maps and scanned the area. Renting a car made it much easier to get around the peninsula.

Mt. Fuji

Scuptures throughout Shizuoka CIty designed to look like plastic models

Chibi Maruko-chan

Kunozan Toshogu

Shuzenji Onsen

A dinosaur-themed park

Waterfalls and volcanic rocks

This park in Izu Kogen was one of my surprise favorite places of the trip. The illumination event here, which is held every winter, is called グランイルミ.

I know Shizuoka is not the most common destination for people in west Japan, but it was well worth the trip. Actually, it reminded me of Okayama in some ways - a smallish city surrounded by nature in all its forms, but reasonably close to some big-city action.

And don’t sleep on the wasabi ice cream. It’s fantastic.