After the Sendai ceremony a small, air-conditioned (thank goodness) van as loaded up with the four JETs who were all in the same area and we drove the hour to Tsukidate (ski-dahh-tay). Tsukidate is also called Kurihara City. A bit of history… last year there was an amalgamation of the 9 towns and 2 villages in the Kurihara area. These were all combined and given a new title called “Kurihara City.” The hub of Kurihara City is the largest of the towns: Tsukidate. So Tsukidate is now also being called Kurihara City and I believe in 10 years or so this new title will be the most common title for this town of 20,000 or so. The neat thing is that my town, Ichihasama, is only about a 10 minute drive east. Back to my story… We get to Tsukidate and there is another welcoming ceremony where we meet the director of education for the whole Kurihara area and he introduces us and we say a few words. After this we say goodbye to the other JETs and we’re off to our respective towns and finally on our own… little fishies in a big challenging pond. (Ichi pic 4)