Resolution...

to blog.  Check!

These six months have just FLOWN by, who knew it would have taken four of the months just to pick the layout of our blog... We keep getting distracted by McDonalds, Joyfull, drink bar, it's really just hard to stay focused! In any case, the introduction! The pilot episode! To our to-be-award-winning blog about (what better) ourselves. (If not award winning, just commemorative of our time in Japan. But I feel a book/movie deal coming on here. We just saw Julie and Julia.........)


Let's introduce you to the greatness called Uki City.


We three live on the southern most island of Japan, called Kyushu!

A little history lesson on Kyushu... since it is so far south and close to Korea and China, Kyushu is rumored to have been the starting point of Japan (although the Honshu-folk like to debate this fact). Kyushu also has numerous Korean and Chinese influences- especially in art (famous Hakata dolls for instance). Anyways, within Kyushu (which literally means nine states-- but now there are only seven, not including Okinawa) the culture of the South is very distinct (somewhat similar to that of America, ehhh?). Southern Japan is for one, MUCH more humid than the rest of Japan, prone to typhoons, larger insects, and ridiculously incomprehensible local dialects. Every prefecture of Japan has a "ben" -or local dialect- and Kyushu is famous for having the most mutated dialects in all of Japan!


Kyushu is made up Fukuoka Prefecture, Saga Prefecture, Oita Prefecture, Nagasaki Prefecture, Miyazaki Prefecture, Kagoshima Prefecture, and last and best, Kumamoto Prefecture.

And finally, Kumamoto- the best prefecture in ALL Japan, literally means "Bear Book." Famous for one of the top 3 castles in all of Japan:

Kumamoto Castle was once a wartime castle, but is now restored to accommodate all the thousands of foreign tourists that FLOCK to Kumamoto every year. Asides from the castle, Kumamoto is home to Mount Aso- a very active yet beautiful volcano (shout out to Nikki Landa) :

And of course, the BEST part of Kumamoto...

The three of us (AKA Matsubabies) live in Uki City, which is a small "city" comprised of five towns, about 30 minutes south of Kumamoto City, or if we are getting technical a 12 minute train ride. Recognized in 2006 as a "city," rather than a cluster of small rice/fishing/farming towns, the three of us collectively in charge of nineteen schools total. What used to be five ALTs, due to the ridiculous wealth and abundance of government monies, are now three! The loss of ALT's left the three of us with 19 schools.  We spend our days, 8-5, at one of our assigned junior highs or elementary schools.

Our sole purpose in comprising this blog is to entertain readers, immortalize memories and share a little piece of living in Japan as an expat .  We each come from different backgrounds and somewhat different regions of the world (Shannon has been known to call The South its own continent), but as life would have it we are now overlapping our presents as one in the famed Uki.

We gave a teaser of self introductions on the format of our page.  But before you become a part of our life we want to give you a bit more information...

Jessica McGrath. born june 26, 1983. haling from melbourne, victoria, australia. cello. live music. red.

Shannon Lee. born february 8, 1986. hailing from bay area, california, america. cooking. reading.

Erin Riley. born june 11, 1986. hailing from north little rock, arkansas, america.

While The West is very different from Japan, we have made ourselves at home.  All be it a very different home then what we are use to.  We each live in a humble apartment. Shannon and Erin have set up resident in the classy Excelsior Heights, in Shiranuhi, while Jessica lives in Ogawa in the quaint Hiraoka Heights.

We have many back stories to share, but as time continues so the stories have multiplied...so this may take time.  Stay tuned.