meetings, I hate japanese, illegal questions

There was a meeting that Aimi-sensei and I had been planning for all week today. We had to give a regular 50 minute English class for our first years (7th graders), who are our favourites and they freakin' love English.

I made a plan with her and we put it in English and in Japanese. We prepared all of the work sheets and stapled everything together neatly.

When it came to teach the class, we were both nervous. Aimi-sensei was visably nervous while I spoke more in English than I usually do with teh first years (although I doubt any of the Japaenese people there really could tell). Oh yeah, so all of the teachers from our school AND all of the teachers from Honjo JHS came to see us teach class.

AS USUAL, I was never specifically told why we had to do this. I just went with the flow.

The class went very well, the first years were rock stars because they answered all the questions correctly (even though they were visably nervous doing so). We made skits, they did beautifully, and class ended perfectly on time. It was a really good class, actually!

But then we had to go to a meeting upstairs for an hour and ten minutes. All of it in Japanese, which I guess is good practice, but it wasn't interesting (even if it had been in a language I understood perfectly). The definite worst part was when they asked me MY opinion of how the class had gone... I stood up and attempted to say this:

"I believe that the first years did really well today! They answered all of our questions, and they memorised their original skits very skillfully, I thought. I know they were quiet during the Bingo game, but on their comment sheets they all wrote "Bingo was fun!" "I understood everything" "I did well on the skit!", so I don't understand it, but I think it's good".

Who knows what ACTUALLY came out of my mouth. Probably something like, "Hey everyone, I am a big dumb gaijin and I like goats! I never wash my hands, I wear shoes to bed and I never brush my teeth! I hate children!!!! Blagh lbagh!!!!!"

I don't really remember. I do know that I have been made to stay way passed my general 4:15pm every day this week, which I resent only a little... I honestly have nothing better to do when I get home anyway!!!!!

Also Kirby has been spending afternoons curled up on my lap napping. It's passing the winter!

Also I recontracted for another year with Ine.

Also I found out that downloading movies in Japan is perfectly legal. But then why does it still feel so unethical? Oh, because it IS.

Rachel

Damn if those don't be some nasty cookies.

I don't have much to talk about on this day except for a small anecdote.

I altered this comic strip from www.penny-arcade.com for writing practice and so on. I blanked out the word bubbles and showed it to my JTE.

She said, "neat! What are those cookies supposed to be?"

I think my heart literally collapsed into my chest. Cuz... I'm preeetty sure they are supposed to be penises.

The End.

Weekend of anti-anti-socialness

Weekend was more social than expected.

On Saturday I joined a few Tango people for dinner. Due to feelings that I might have to detach a lot of people from my life in order to be happy/make new friends/keep other friends, I had stopped hanging out with a few of them. However, after some self-evaluation, I decided I didn't like that about myself at all, and tried to reconnect with said people. Not be their best friends, not even be good friends, but be an acquaintance. Nobody's really that awful anyway.

That said, on Saturday I met Marina, Desirae, Andy, Eric, Yuumi, Jarrad and Scott at Mipple for dinner at the little restaurant we always go to on the fourth floor. We had lots of delicious food for not very much money and followed it up with ice cream next door at 'pier jolly', as I discovered it is called.

Afterwards, we drove to Nodagawa to get some karaoke time in. We sang for HOURS. I didn't realize how late it was until one person started throwing up from too much whiskey and my voice was about as useful as said puking person's coordination. Andy and I did a mean nirvana duet complete with headbanging/hoarse screaming! And Desirae and I rocked out to some Alanis Morisette as well, which was the end of my voice. Everyone was really drunk except for the drivers/devoted girlfriends of drunken louts. We played in the snow a little bit too

I drove Desi and Andy back to their home and decided to stay there for the night since the snow might make it problematic to get back to Ine (over an hour away) at 2 in the morning. So, the next morning I set off home to feed Kirby and change clothes and then set BACK off to Mineyama to meet Liz for lunch.

I hadn't seen Liz in ages, so it was nice catching up with her even though neither of us had too much to talk about! We ate a lot of sushi (as to say, I ate a lot of sushi) and then went for coffee at a cute little cafe called 'Honeycomb'. Liz got a very nice looking cake!

Together we set off for an IYP event (IYP stands for something official that I cannot remember). We made moss-balls! So, we took potted flowers and ivy/dragon's mustache (yay!) and shaped the soil into a ball, covered it with soft, damp moss and tied green string around it to make it stay. Voila! Moss and ball, together at last.

Granted, they were really pretty! Mine is set up by my kitchen window now, which gives my kitchen the effect of looking non-horrible! (This is always a plus).

That's the gist of the weekend, anyway. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I find my picture adapter thingie.

Rachel

Yuppie Weekend/Sweeny Todd

On Friday, Leigh and I drove in her car down to the city. The roads are icier these days, so the Japanese people have put in hot water sprays that get rid of the ice on the asphalt. Only thing is, some of them reach your windshield and it's fairly terrifying.

I spent Friday night hanging with Megan and Greg watching The Prestige (which was kindly given to me by Desirae and Andy for my birthday) and eating PIZZA (honest to God pizza).

This is Greg. He always has a good time!

Saturday was going out for burgers at an Americana style burger 'joint' with Greg, John and Megan. It was a LOT of fun hanging out with those guys. And adding a burger joint and a dr. pepper to the mix, it felt like I wasn't in Japan.

Not long after, Megan and I put on some dresses and make up so we could look/feel fancy for the opera that Ian had gotten us tickets to! High heels make me walk... poorly. The opera, as it turned out, was a mix of professional singers and community theatre types. It was interesting, and ridiculous. The Japanese people in the crowd took any excuse to clap to the beat of a song, even if there wasn't really a beat at all. And despite the fact that they generally have no rhythm.

As we were all dressed up, we decided to grab some posh food at a restaurant I have forgotten the name of! We ordered lots of delicious dishes and alcohol (for me: espresso drinks as I was battling jet-lag). Twice it was mentioned that we were having a yuppie's night out. Posh food, posh clothes and the fact that we're all way too young to be taking ourselves seriously doing either.

Sunday Megan and I got together with Amy at her apartment downstairs (we were soon joined by Ian and Lauren). Amy fixed us up a 'southern breakfast' with walnut/banana/chocolate chip pancakes, sausages, (Megan made eggs), and tea! It was immensely delicious. We then wandered out to the city of Kyoto to see Sweeny Todd in an actual movie theatre. Japanese movies theatres are very fancy and I was pleased with the over all experience! Movie was good, too!

Then it was a long series of train rides back to Tango. However, fortunately for me, there was no snow to come home to. And there hasn't really been any snow all week!

England thoughts

England and Belgium were good.
I won't write much about them because technically this is my Japan blog and also I don't think anyone would find it that interesting!

But seeing my family was really really really good. I felt refreshed after coming back to Ine.

Getting there and back was definitely a long journey. Getting from my house to England took about 36 hours (driving, train, bus, train, airplane, train) and coming back was about 28 hours (train, plane, train, bullet train, train, drive).

Fortunately the jet-lag didn't get the better of me, I've been busy at work ever since, and I haven't been as sick of Japan as I was just before leaving. Thank goodness for that especially because man oh man I was ready to get out of Asia.

I was culture shocked in Europe though. London, especially. People there are extremely rude or nonchalant. Spikey, I'd say. It's very different after the kindness and humanity you get from everyone in Japan (even at the post office!) But I suppose city people can't be bothered to act like human beings anywhere you go. Maybe small town life has spoiled me! People in Belgium were much kinder and had a really great sense of humour! It was cold but a really good trip, overall.

I am excited for when my family will visit Japan.

I am not excited for a lot of people to leave in July. I don't' think life after that will be very good for some time. But that's not for seven or so more months. It's best to enjoy people while they're still here and willing to visit my house in outer space!

New Years Under the Snow

New Years was an interesting series of events. Most of the revolving around the massive amounts of snow that came to my town in a hurry.

On New Years Eve, I dug my car out of the four or so feet of snow and drove slowly down to Fukuchiyama. As soon as I hit the 'out-of-Ine' border, there was NO SNOW (yet). Naruhodo.

Once in Fukuchiyama, I picked up Leigh and her friend, Gordon. We drove over to the Yoshida's house for osechi New Years dishes, beer, and Canadians. As to say, we met some. They were former JETs who had been stationed in Sonobe a few years back. They were very jet-lagged and nice.

Here is Kumi Yoshida and some Osechi (New Years assortments of food-stuffs)

Around 11:30 we braved the snowfall that had come to Yasaka and walked up to the local shrine. The shrine was absolutley beautiful under all the white powder and we rang some bells, watched some chanting, and drank some hot sake.
Afterwards, we drove home at 0 km/h in Leigh's frozen car and slept/shivered in her house until morning.

I then drove back to Ine to see even MORE snow. I and my neighbour dug out our parking spaces for a good 45 minutes with shovels and gusto. Once we had spaces, I told her she could just use mine (which was more excavated), as I would be gone for 11 days.

And so I began packing for England! It was not easy getting in or out of Ine for those few days because of the snow. It's good to know that my social life will be on hold whenever snow happens though. And by good, I mean lame.

Christmas Day - a day for walking around a shopping mall and inpromptu クリスマスデート's

Christmas day was spent giving a quick goodbye to Zara, who ran off to work. Then I wandered over to the little train station and was harassed by some crazy lady who kept saying she didn'T speak english and that she could read dreams. I played dumb, "Oh I don't speak Japanese sorryyyyyyy OKBYE" but she kept following me around the platform... and then as I was eating my morning nikuman (bun with meats), she asked if she could have some. I just gave her the whole thing. Finally two train stops later, she left me alone and I switched trains to a much nicer one headed for Hakata.

In Hakata, I hopped on the bullet train that would take me back to Kyoto Station. The rest is a memory only of napping.

In Kyoto, I wandered around the stupid shopping malls in the station, got some coffee, and played my video games until Lauren and Ian met me in the afternoon. Lauren was off to Kobe to catch an overnight bus to Tokyo so it was a quick hello/goodbye/Merry Christmas. Ian and I then grabbed some sub-par soba and oyakodon at a little restaurant in the shopping center for our CHRISTMAS DATE (クリスマスデート), since that is all that people really do on X-mas. Then we geeked out about Zelda video games and I went to catch my trains back to Miyazu so I could go home.

Yuumi was fabulous enough to keep Kirby an extra day, so I didnt have to worry about going by her house until Wednesday. Unfortunately, I spent most of my evening getting on the wrong trains and having to haul ass back to Fukuchiyama to catch the last train back to Miyazu for the night. Phew. If I had missed that train, I would have most definitely spent the night in the train station. Everyone, after all, is on holiday.

Anyway, I did make it home around 11:30 and called my family in the UK. I ranted about my trip and then fell asleep watching Lord of the Rings. It was a good Christmas.

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 4 - Christmas Eve, a day for Driving and eating fried foods

On Christmas Eve, Zara did a lot of driving. We took the coastal road instead of the mountain road back towards the ferry. We stopped by to take pretty pictures of pretty things! Here are some.

Also, we took a break in Kumamoto, a city in a prefecture that means "Bear Tree", which made me really happy. We grabbed lunch at a little restaurant and they gave us apple juice! Afterwards we hopped over to Kumamoto Castle, which is supposed to be really awesome but was actually mostly boring. Without the flowers or trees in bloom and everything under contsruction, we mostly just wandered around taking ridiuclous pictures and then hung back to the city area for some ice cream.

Afterwards we found our way to the ferry and went back to Nagasaki Prefecture. After some more driving, we got back to Zara's and got some Xmas Eve dinner at her local izakaya (or tavern). It was really delicious food. The best was by far the chicken wings stuffed with gyoza pork dumpling filling. Ughghghg so artery cloggingly delicious.

We celebrated the rest of X-mas eve by watching "the Queen", which I really enjoyed, and then we fell asleep.

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 3 - Samurai Village, Ryokan, and some very large eels indeed

I woke up this morning to the thought, "Today is the day I didn't lose $900." The day was already better. My bruise had turned an interesting shade of green, while keeping its purple highlights.

We left the hotel and grabbed breakfast at a nearby Starbucks. I had a crazy delicious coffee and hot sandwich thing filled with cheeeese. It was a good morning already! Zara mentioned that she felt optimistic about the day, and I couldn't disagree with her crazy-smiley face. She is definitely a morning person.

On this day we saw many beautiful sites. One included a place that said "World famous Eels!" It was just a little hut by a dock full of eel tanks. Granted, the eels were quite large. We then drove through the mountains to a place that has a name, which I cannot remmeber. We also stopped off at a little themed area called "Samurai Residences", which was a little area with some old houses and gardens in a beautiful area of some random valley.

After that, HUNGER came! We looked for kurabuta ramen (a specialty of the area made with a special kind of black pig), but it was 3pm and we found nothing but Hokahoka bento (a chain of made to order bento places) and scarfed down decently delicious bentos. Afterwards we went to a really cool onsen to be buried in warm, semi-volcanic sand and follow it up with a traditional onsen. Zara was privy to see my amazing technicolour bruise, and complimeted it.

Afterwards we found our ryokan (traditional Japanese overnight stay house) and hung out watching bad TV while I played some video games! We then ate way too many courses of yummyish food and soaked in the little onsen for an hour or so. It was nice girl-talk time, and I had forgotten my woes and was actually enjoying myself properly.

As it was Christmas eve, we hunkered down and watched the "Happy Christmas Show!" on TV. They had a bunch of terrible Japanese singers and Enya! Weird! It was fabulously bad and all of the narration was in English for no apparent reason. It was also nice being in a place for the evening that was not really really cold. I appreciated that aspect of this Southern area of Japan quite a bit.

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 2 - "Disaster Strikes by bus, Kagoshima comes by ferry, Relief comes by Naan bread

I woke up at 0605, 10 minutes before my bus was meant to roll into Omura (where Zara lives). I scrambled my things together and prepared to get off the bus with the rest of the departing passengers. Only thing was, I was the only one getting off the bus. Everyone was stil stretched out, and my seat was in the way back, so there was no way for me to exit the bus without something standing. Nobody would! I had to scramble OVER someone finally because the bus driver wanted to leave! As I got off the bus, I realized my wallet must still be on the seat b/c it was no longer in my jacket pocket! So I turned around to let the bus driver know, but at that moment the bus sped off and wouldn't stop. I didn't panic. It's common for everyone to carry a lot of cash in their wallets because nobody uses credit cards in this country. I also knew that theft in Japan is very rare, and that my wallet was tucked away in the very back of the bus. So I let Zara know I had arrived, and that I had left my wallet on the bus. She came to pick me up and told me not to worry and that we could call the bus company when we got back to her house. She then told me more about the breakup with her boyfriend and that he had to take on a second job to support his car payments and never had time to see her, so he broke it off. She said she was in need of a fabulous vacation, and we prepared to leave!

After grabbing breakfast at a lovely bakery in her town, we received a phone call from the bus company saying that my wallet was not found. This is about the point where I died inside. No wallet? Granted, my important things were tucked away in my rucksack. But important things aside, I was now missing $900 and upwards. There was nothing I could do but pray that someone would somehow turn it in. This however, was not to be my luck.

The rest of that day is somewhat a blurred combination of sleep deprivation, massive cash loss, and a swirl of Zara talking about her exboyfriend and the injustice that was currently following both of us. I agreed, probably. We hopped a ferry to take the two of us and her car over to Kagoshima, the southern area in Kyushyu.

Aside from being mostly dead inside that day, the two of us arrived in Kagoshima city and put our things away in the business hotel Zara had made a reservation at. Lucky for me, they took credit cards! We then walked around the busy town to the aquarium, where we were lucky enough to see some of the biggest, most amazing fish I had ever seen! So big! We saw a whale shark, some huuuge guitar sharks, groupers, some weird Amazon fish I forgot the name of, and dolphins, otters, and weird sea snake things! It was a blast!

We then decided to walk around "Dolphin Pier" or whatever it was called, which looked like a typical Californian outdoor venue. Very nice, indeed! We purchased souvenirs for our coworkers back home.

We then found our way to a fantastic Indian restaurant (complete with actual Indian chef!) At the Indian place we dined next to three couples. All of them involved one caucasian male, and one or more giggling Japanese women. Oh lordy. Zara felt a might bitter, I expect, and I drowned my new financial despair in naan bread and spiniach potato curry. Mmmm.

Afterwards we wandered over to do some purikura (funfun Japanese picture stickers), followed by some beer and swift karaoke. We then retired to the business hotel to shower and sleep in an actual BED! It was then I realized the extent of my "falling down stairs" injuries. The bruise on my back was enormous and a beautiful gradient of blues, blacks, and purples. It was pretty fantastic.

I believe I slept really really really hard that night.

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday: Part 1 - The Road to Kyushyu

I left the Board of Education an hour early to get down to Miyazu and grab a train (with Leigh and Simon) to Fukuchiyama, and then to Kyoto station. The trian was 13 minutes late, and we nearly missed out connecting train but managed to hop on it alright! Simon and I ate chocolate shou creams and Leigh felt sick and yucky. Then I grabbed a coffee from the station's starbucks and Leigh and I grabbed some yarn from the yarn/sweater store. After that, she went off to Steve's, Simon went to his hotel, and I got on my bus to Kyushyu.

Kyushyu is a very long way from Kyoto, so I opted to take the less expensive overnight bus there. The trip began at 7:40pm and would arrive in Nagasaki Prefecture at 0615am. It was a long trip! The bus was really comfortable! The seats stretched out and each passenger got a complimentary blanket and slippers. I sipped my hot chocolate, snapped some photos of Osaka as we passed by, and slept pretty soundly for most of the ride.

I believe I will take another overnight bus when I go to the airport near Tokyo. It saves a lot of money!

(Here we have a man utilizing all of his space. This man was much bigger than I was, and his feet were really grosss).

Cake Party!

I went to my shuji class, where I normally talk to my awesome Honjo JHS kids and paint kanji poorly! But today was the cake party!

I hung out with Kamitsuji-sensei (my calligraphy teacher and the mother of one of my students) and we chatted a bit before my kids came in. It was all the 2nd year boys (Takanori, the Yuukis, Mahiro), then Kaai (my wonder girl at English), Hitomi (a little first year girl) and Toshiki (a disgruntled/awesome 1st year boy).

Then there was CAKE! I only managed 1.5 pieces... but Masaru (a short 1st year boy) showed up from nowhere and ate 8 pieces of cake! I couldn't believe how these tiny kids could pack away sugar! Although I suppose 13 year old boys are the same in every country.

I also had good English conversations with Kaai, who is so fabulous at English. Her English is 10 times better than my Japanese... and she has only been leraning for a year and a half and lives in Japan. Way to show me up Kaai, thanks a lot. Kaai says things like "I like Christina Aguilera, but her hair is look crazy! Britney Spears is crazy too, yes?" Hahahahahah.... oh my yes.

I also found out that Kamutsuji-sensei breasted/raised one of my 3rd years (besides her own daughter). It apparently is quite common for Ine/Honjo mothers to up and leave their kids behind. I don't know where they go, but they certianly don't stay. It's pretty sad.

The day was awesome though. I heart Christmas in Japan.