Merry Rilakkuma Christmas!

Well it is now THAT Boxing Day.  The one were I drive "an hour and a half" to work in Fukuyama, then "an hour and a half" back to Jinseki and a last "hour and a half" back down to my Fukuyama apartment.  HOWEVER, despite leaving home the best part of half an hour early, I arrived to work at 8:23 - 23 minutes later than normal and 3 minutes after I should have arrived!  Luckily the Vice Principal felt I had probably been in the school gate by 8:20 so I didn't need to do 'I'm late' paperwork.  Even so, it was very embarassing and I'm very angry at those drivers who felt that it was necessary to drive at 10km/hr down the hill (actually a mountain) because of snow on the road.  If you don't have snow tyres and need to drive extra slowly, fine.  But a) pull over to let others overtake and b) don't do your driving at 7:30am when everyone who had enough forethought to get snow tyres is trying to get to work!  Unfortunately, it wasn't only one driver that had me shouting swearwords behind my sealed windows, but several nervous drivers, so I guess I have to accept that I will repeat this frustrating exercise every time I drive from Jinseki to Fukuyama for the rest of the winter.  And that I have to leave well before 6am next time.  *sigh*

To update you on last week, poor Jeff came down with a stomach bug on Tuesday.  He went home from work early and threw up and had to miss the English Club's end of year dinner.  On Wednesday and Thursday he went back to work but was eating like a sparrow and was not up to attending his work party Thursday night.  By Friday he was sick of being left out, so he came with me to dinner at J-mum and Sonoko's place.  Determined to enjoy himself, he ate plenty of tomato nabe and had some beer.  Halfway home I had to pull over because he couldn't keep it down.  Saturday was the fundraising concert dinner where we were meeting friends.  Once again, Jeff didn't want to be stuck at home, so he gave it a go.  Although he wasn't feeling top-notch he didn't throw up (yay!) and he was all set to enjoy Christmas Day! 

Christmas Day turned out to be a Skype marathon.  We spoke to Jeff's parents, then my sister Harry, then my family, then Jason and Shelley (albeit briefly).  By then it was gone midnight in Harry's part of the world, so she Skyped us again so she could open her present over Skype!  Everyone seemed to be having a good day - especially Mum's puppy, which was running around with a cracker hat round it's neck. 

Our Christmas dinner turned out AWESOME.  We had bought a pre-roasted chicken (Christmas special - only time of the year you can buy whole chickens at the supermarket!) and used Luc's wee oven to roast potatos, carrot and onion.  Peas done in the microwave completed our meal.  To top it off, Sarah kindly gave us two Christmas crackers (sent all the way from England!) so we could have hats while we ate dinner.  It may not seem extravagent to you people reading this from home, but for us it was definately the most Christmassy thing we've had in the last year and a half!! 

On the present front, Jeff seemed taken with his very sharp handmade knife from Onomichi.  He marvelled at how easily it sliced things and got a bit carried away on slicing open the packet of peas - several times - exclaiming with delight that he had just sliced a pea in half.  Jeff had struggled to think what to get me, so he decided to go with a theme - Rilikkuma theme.  For those that don't know, Rilakkuma is a bear character that is popular in Japan - a little like Winnie the Pooh is popular on everything back home.  For myself, I'm a big fan :) 

So Jeff hooked me up with Rilakkuma chopsticks, mug, fingerless gloves and an awesome 'poncho blanket' with a bear head hood.  Perfect for the cold Jinseki winter - warm hat and blanket in one!  I didn't take it off all day, although Mum complained she couldn't have a serious conversation with me while I wore the bear head.  I also got a cute new backpack which I'm excited about using in Singapore and Malaysia - as cool as my handbag is, it weighs a ton BEFORE I put a Lonely Planet in it!  I reckon this backpack will improve my mood when I travel by up to 80%  :D

That is about all there is to say...  Tomorrow we fly out for Singapore and ten days/eleven nights of exploring Asia.  So this is my last update for 2011.  I hope you all had a great year and that 2012 brings good things.  Happy New Year for next week!

Now I'm off to share cake.  We were given not one, not two, but THREE cakes by neighbours yesterday, so Jeff and I ate cake till we felt ill yesterday and I have two to share out at work! 

Christmas, I'm coming!

Gosh, sorry about the long drought. It wasn't even me putting off doing this, I guess I've just been busy at work recently. It's not like they work me really hard, but lately they have put an extra three classes into my week, as I'm meeting each of the nine second year classes for a self-intro lesson. A bit of a funny time for them to 'meet' me - when I've been around for four months, but I guess they have a bit of downtime before the winter vacation. I'm not sure 'nervous' is the right word, but I have been a little tense about those classes. It's always awkward going into a new class, not knowing what to expect, and most of the classes thus far have been with new teachers that I'm not used to, too. This morning was an exception - I taught my regular first year class with Inohara-sensei, then we went to her second year class. The fact we are used to teaching together really showed - the students were relaxed and comfortable and we covered much more than I had managed in any other second year class so far. So while an extra three classes a week isn't a huge deal, I have been noticing the change in my schedule.

Of course, my real source of tension could be Christmas. Jeff and I had noticed we had been down recently - taking it in turns experiencing wee bouts of culture shock then having to bouy the other up. But when we caught up with friends, we found it is clearly not limited to us. It seems everyone is finding it a hard time of year to be away from family - with the likely exception of those who went home for the holidays! I'd heard how winter is such a hard time for ALTs and Jeff and I totally disagreed because the snow is beautiful and the snowboarding is great fun, but maybe it's actaully being away from family for the biggest celebratory day our culture has that is so hard. Last year we were lucky enough to have Kate here until the day before Christmas (poor her - she spent Christmas Day on the plane!), but this year we have struggled like all the rest of the ALTs.

However, this is the week of parties - no more moping. Tomorrow we have a 'Tea Party' with our ancient English group. This involves the group of us sitting around a low table while the Japanese people stuff the foreigners with an insane amount of food. What we can't eat then is bagged for us to take home.

- Thursday Jeff and I both have work parties, mine in Fukuyama, his in Sanwa (where his Board of Education is based and about half an hour from home). Sucks for him - he can't drink and drive! For myself, I'll be training home :)

- Friday we are having dinner with our good friends Sonoko and Nishikawa - also known as J-Mum. J-Mum is prepared to cook us huge, sumptuous meals on the condition that Jeff drinks excessive amounts of beer with her. She eats like a sparrow so she can keep her figure without cutting back on the beer. Hilarious, awesome woman!

- Saturday we are attending a fundraising concert at a buffet restaurant. One of the teachers from my school is in a gospel group who will be singing Christmas carols - in English. 500 yen from our ticket price will go to the Tohoku area, so I'm really happy about that.

- Sunday, of course, is Christmas. The other local ALT is letting us borrow his oven for the day, so Jeff and I will attempt to gather the necessary components to do a roast. We are very excited about this! We also went to the import store and bought a number of tasty goodies that we wouldn't normally allow ourselves - Jeff buying the favourites he always craves, while I bought all the exciting things I have been wanting to try for ages. That way we figure, although they may not be the traditional Christmassy foods we eat back home, at least we are ensuring the day is dedicated to eating and presents. I'm particularly excited about the feta-like cheese and the lemon white chocolate. Not together...

The day after Christmas I will go to work. It'll be strange working Boxing Day, but by the time I take time off for our Singapore/Malaysia jaunt and for our trip home in March, I have only two days of leave left (excluding my summer leave, which can only be taken during a certain period in mid summer). It will be a pain in the ass - I will drive from Jinseki to work, do my hours, then drive back to Jinseki to meet Jeff, who will drive us both back down. Roughly 4.5hrs on the road in one day. But I feel it's better to do all that driving and have an extra holiday day available to me next year. Jeff gets more leave than me, so he will be relaxing at home on the 26th...

Well, I should stop procrastinating my favourite job - that is, hoovering. I don't know what my issue is - it takes less than two minutes to hoover my tiny apartment - but of all the jobs around the house, it's the one I procrastinate the most. Stupid because I almost like sweeping (I mean, if I've got to do some form of cleaning!), but the hoover is the only thing that will work on the tatami. Oh, the neighbours are going to hate me - the walls are really thin and it's 9:30pm. But I'm not going to bed tonight until I've done it, so the neighbours will have to deal. Serves them right for washing dishes before 6am and taking ages to turn off their bloody early alarm in the morning! It's the oddest thing, being woken by the alarm from the stranger's apartment next to you. Shows how much you can influence a stranger's life without ever knowing them.

Night,

Charly

Back online!

Phew, yesterday was stressful!  My adaptor plug, allowing me to plug my NZ laptop into the Japanese wall plug, had been steadily getting more and more difficult to connect - requiring lots of jiggling to get it going.  Then yesterday ten minutes jiggling had no effect.  I declared it officially dead.  Unfortunately, I was plugging in because my laptop had only seven minutes left, so that meant my laptop was also dead!  It's amazing how much time you have when you have no computer.  Mainly because I couldn't do anything!  No blog, no emailling, no searching google for images to use for my Thursday lesson, no using itunes to play my Japanese study CD, no listening to music...  I ended up doing the only sensible thing: putting my laptop back in the car and bringing Harry Potter up to the office! 

Jeff had done a bit of shopping around for me last week, looking for solutions to my laptop problem (surprisingly, NZ adaptors aren't easy to come by in a city that Lonely Planet says to skip!).  I managed to convince a computer store to sell me the cord that goes from wall to the in-cord adaptor.  The guy made it specifically clear that if it didn't work they wouldn't give me a refund (how's that for inspirising enthusiasm in the customer!), but it was only about $15 and it WORKS.  Yay! 

To update you on the weekend, my work dinner (Friday night) had an unexpectedly good twist - at lunchtime Nakamura-sensei (who I was supposed to meet at Fukuyama station so she could take me to the right bus stop) came to tell me we had been invited to the onsen in the hotel first.  She was really hesitant, saying she knew many foreigners felt uncomfortable going to onsens (we're not used to the naked thing), but I assured her I loved them and we were set.  In all honesty, I don't know any women who don't like onsens.  It's so liberating to not be worried about looking sexy in bikinis or anything.  It's just everyone, starkers.  You have a wee shower/wash first, so there's no makeup or anything (as you sometimes, strangely, see at the beach).  There are women of all ages and shapes and everyone is just there to relax.  When all you have to protect you modesty is a cloth the size of a small tea towel that goes on your head when you're in the water, there's not much you can do to make yourself look good.  It's too late, let it go and relax.  So I do :) 

This onsen was particularly cool as it was several stories up in the hotel, so the outdoor pool looked over the waves crashing on the rocks below and out to the lights of Fukuyama city glowing across the bay.  To the right you could faintly see the outlines of the mountainous islands that dot the water round the Fukuyama-Tomonoura-Onomichi area.  I'm not good with hot water for extended periods of time, so I loved being able to raise my shoulders out of the steaming water to feel the delicious night breeze lick me with its chilly tongue.  The others went off to the sauna leaving me to absorb the amazing view in an intense silence created by the rain, waves and quiet chatter of elderly Japanese ladies. 

Of course, after that the party would have to have been mind-boggling to top that experience - one of my favourite moments in Japan.  As it was, the party was fun if a little confusing.  Seating was done by pulling a seat number out of a box on your way in, so I ended up between two slightly alarmed-looking teachers who didn't appear to speak English.  The younger one on my right was trying valiently, though, while the one on my left laughed at his appalling English and supplied words for him when he was stuck (wouldn't this be easier if I remembered names!). 

Later the one on my left was the only one left for me to chat to, so I rounded on him.  It turned out he has pretty decent English, is the school rugby coach and has taken a group to Christchurch to play rugby before.  Of course I got all excited about the idea of arranging for his team to visit NZ and meet the Massey team.  The teacher said, "Oh yes, and they can play a game."  I keep cringing at my condescending response, "Hmm... or at least practice together.  The team at my high school are... very big."  It seems so rude to suggest they can't even play the Massey team.  And then I remember that he had just told me they only have ten students on the team at the moment and that at Massey guys often repeated their last year once, even twice, just to stay on the first 15.  I think of pitting 10 little Japanese kids against 15 guys aged up to 20, many of Maori or Island ethnicity, and I realise why I said what I did.  I hate that, when you regret how you said something, but when you review the conversation, you realise why you said what you did and that you would probably say it the same next time. 

The most important thing about the party, though, was definately the food.  There was an incredible amount of food - the number of courses more than made up for the fact I didn't eat or only partially ate several of them.  The meal opened with sashimi, a quarter lobster filled with tofu and mushroom over a gas burner and a bunch of little dishes that I ate but still don't know what they were.  One was maybe tofu, one was some sea critter in a shell that was impaled on a toothpick (the most... err... texturally challenging food of the evening.  I needed a BIG swig of beer to get that one down!) and the rest were unknown.  Other dishes that followed included two legs of raw crab (King crab?  Queen crab?  One of those big ones), fish cooked in some kind of leaf, oyster in some kind of batter that made it look like a root vegetable (maybe my favourite thing I ate.  I thought of you, Jeff... oh, err, only cos you love oysters, not because... I'm stopping here), an entire, if smallish, fried fish and three small pieces of steak and a slab of butter that you put on what looked like a flat-topped incense burner so it cooked in front of you.  By this time I was getting really full and I struggled to get through the clear soup with fish paste and the egg custard thing with mushroom.  Finally (I sigh as I write this, the memory of how full I was is still that fresh!), there was a lemon jelly for dessert.  As I said, I couldn't bring myself to eat all of it (I ate one piece of sashimi, but when they replenished me with two more, I realised I wouldn't win that and just told the kimono'ed waitress that I was finished with it), but as everyone was flitting from table to table and some people were much more focused on drinking than eating, I didn't embarrass myself. 

Other than that, there was some game based on a Japanese game show that I couldn't follow at all and the very thin calligraphy teacher dressed as Santa giving out the numbers for a Bingo game.  I found out why the tickets were so expensive when I saw that everyone got a Bingo prize!  I won a disc that you stand on - one side is reflexology points (if only we could read the kanji to know how to target what!) and the other is a balance board for exercise.  I was pretty happy with that prize - the guy next to me won a clock and letter drawer combined.  Lovely, I'm sure...  On the whole it was a funny evening and everyone tried their hardest to look after me, so that was really cool. 

On the Sunday we went to a school show at Jeff's favourite primary school, Kurumi.  It's a really small school, 40-something students I think, so he is able to get a good relationship with all the students.  We watched a small play or educational talk from each of the different year levels, though we privately agreed the first year students was the most interesting.  It wasn't only that they got all the cuteness points, and that I'm a sucker for little ones in kimono, it was also that theirs was entirely a play so we could follow along.  There was a farming couple and two ladies in kimono who formed the 'locals', then a red devil moves in (played by a slightly ADD student in a red shiny wig, red sweatshirt and hilarious poofy very short girls shorts).  Everyone was frightened until the red devil fought off a blue devil that started terrorising the locals (played by a kid similarly dressed but in longer shorts, with only one horn on his wig).  Everyone is happy - and cute! 

Jeff was going nuts taking photos of his students with our new camera.  The Vice-Principal noticed and asked Jeff to give the school copies of his pics later, so that made Jeff nervous, which made him take about a million more pictures to make sure he got ones the school would like.  The whole show finished with a dance that included all the students.  They were dressed in colourful happi/hapi (not sure on spelling), first and third years in red, second and fourth years in blue and fifth and sixth graders in a few different colours depending on their position in the dance.  The start of the music sent shivers down my spine, it was so beautiful and chilling.  The students did a really great job at the dance, even trying hard to accomodate the special needs student who hadn't attended any of the rehersals and wanted to dance, while not having a clue where he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to be doing. 

One of Jeff's favourite students was at the front - her mother teaches with Jeff at a different school.  Her father is Korean and uses English every day at work, so both her and her little brother have names that easily translate to English and their mother tells them they must always talk to the ALT to practise their English.  As a result, when the little boy saw me in the hallway he stopped for a look.  "Hello."  "Hello, how are you?"  Jeff overheard from the next room and tells me I said it too fast, so I only got a quizzical look.  However, ever mindful of his mother's instructions to always practise his English, he thought then asked me, "What's your favourite subject?"  "I like English" I told him.  Solemnly he told me, "I like Science and Maths."  Just then Jeff came into the hallway.  When the little boy saw us together he clicked who I was and squealed in excitement to see Jeff and his wife.  Too cute! 

Ok, now I'm going to end this before this update moves from short story length to novella.  Sorry, folks! 

Charly

NOT a morning person!

Stay out of my way world, I hate mornings and today I'm not holding back.  I'm totally buggered from a couple of weekends of sightseeing (read early mornings) and 5:30am starts to drive to work from Jinseki, without a chance to sleep in and restock my sleep supplies.

Today I was really really struggling to stay awake for the hour and a half drive to work (safe, I know!) and when I got to work my lunch had leaked in my handbag.  Jeff kindly suggested it was stupid of me to have put a bento box in my handbag, which wasn't really the reaction I was hoping for. 

I know this is a really stupid, petty thing to mind, but I hate the walk up to my fourth floor office where I feel obliged to say 'Good morning!' all bright and cheery-like to every student I pass.  I feel like a performing seal - watch the gaijin show model morning greetings!  I don't mind - no, I enjoy real interactions (like the student who just came into the office to ask me a question), but I hate the passing comments where the students would actually rather I didn't say anything so they weren't forced to respond to me in English!  Plus at this time of the morning I really struggle to jump back and forth between English with the students and Japanese with the teachers (which is encouraged to show respect because you're not here to force your language on the teachers!). 

Finally, this has nothing to do with the morning except that I'm cranky atm, but it's really really bothering me the way the Japanese don't use soap when they wash their hands.  Of course that's not a golden rule, but I don't think I've ever seen a student at Tode use the soap (many of the bathrooms have only recently been stocked with soap) and it's a max of about one in five students at Myoodai who use the soap.  That might be generous - if I use the left soap for the first half of the day, then pick up the soap on the right side, it's usually dry and hard.  For a country that wears face masks so frequently and pride themself on being super clean, it's hard for me to get my head round the soap aversion.  I used to just ignore it, but it's been bothering me and grossing me out lately.  I'm sure we used to get in trouble at primary school if another kid told the teacher you hadn't used soap to wash your hands! 

Anyway, I now have to go and record some dictation for my darling supervisor.  He told me I WOULD be doing it first period, as opposed to the other teachers who asked me if I was free at any point to help them with recording dictation!  Another funny thing with my lovely supervisor is that he just came to ask if I did paperwork for working in Tode on the 22nd.  I said yes, that I had put it in kyoto-sensei's inbox (Vice-Principal).  He then proceeded to tell me he would call the Vice-President and after the phone call to tell me that the Vice-President didn't have my paperwork so I had to redo it.  He must have talked about the Vice-President half a dozen times.  It's kinda mean, I should correct him, but I'm weak and shallow and enjoy smirking at his mistake.  So petty... so human. 

***

After the recording:
That went fairly well with only one real concern.  My stomach did a huge rumble in the middle of it and I have a strong suspicion it will be heard on the tape!  Awkward, but not quite bad enough to make me go through that torturous process again - 'Read through three times.  First, read it slowly.  Second, read it out including speaking the commas and periods and pausing five seconds after commas and ten seconds after periods.  Third, read it slowly.'  By the time I finish counting ten seconds, I have forgotten I'm supposed to say the commas and periods (it's so unnatural - and I've always called them full-stops!).  So I end up having to redo it a few times.  Kinda painful with my smelly, silent supervisor.  So if the students all hear my stomach rumbling, so be it!! 

Week of Saving

Well, yesterday we dropped Steve at the bus that took him to the airport.  While we were in the big city (Okayama) we made the most of it, picking up a few of our favourite things - Starbucks coffee (Jeff) and Body Shop products (me).  Before anyone knocks Jeff for drinking Starbucks, you clearly haven't lived in Japan with only Japanese cafes.  And me... well I'm getting much better at not stockpiling beauty products, but Body Shop continues to be the only place in Japan where I know what I'm buying.  I'm sure the Japanese products are lovely, but most of them are whitening and this pakeha doesn't need any more whitening!  If I get any whiter I'll be able to audition for Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter: the Stage Show (yeah... I'm four books into the series at the moment and my head is 70% in Hogwarts, 30% in Japan). 

While it was lovely having Steve here and doing all the touristy things, when we dropped him off yesterday I realised that in exactly a month we would be flying out for Singapore.  So we have a month of hard saving coming up so we will have spending money for Singapore and Malaysia.  I'm working hard at reading lots to clear my bookshelf (I know, tough job for me...), so we can fit all the new books I intend to buy in Singapore.  Other than that we might try to find shirts in Jeff's size (wish us luck!) and... eat!  We have been assured that there is lots of delicious food for us to try in both Singapore and Malaysia, so we look forward to our culinary tour! 

Of course, the month before Christmas is a bad time to attempt to save money - we need to send gifts home, get gifts for each other and pay for work Christmas parties.  At least I combined touristing with Steve with Christmas shopping, picking up little things in Hiroshima and Sekaiminato (crazy anime town).  But my work party is on this Friday.  My ticket is costing 8000 yen - roughly $135.  I don't know what is happening to be so darn expensive, but everyone always tells ALTs that they need to go to any work parties they can manage, because it's the traditional Japanese way to bond with your workmates.  Apparently at work parties Japanese people drink excessively and really let their hair down.  So far I'm tempted to believe it's an urban myth, as the only work party I've attended was a tame dinner affair, and despite the fact Jeff has been here a year and a half, working at something like eight different schools, he's only been invited to one party.  Maybe people in Hiroshima are more restrained (I can't remember the example, but I've got that impression before.  Not that I know any non-Hiroshima Japanese very well).  Anyway, I'm curious as to how this big party will go down.  I am nervous about interacting with the teachers who don't speak English, but I also know some of them are really keen to interact with me (I know this because one of them baked me cake today!) so I have to stop being a wuss, suck it up, have a beer and start butchering the Japanese language!! 

In preperation for that, I should keep going on trying to catch up in my Japanese book.  I still haven't done the test that I meant to do on Friday, so I need to finish last week's study so I can knuckle down.  I won't have time tonight as I need to go shopping for Jeff's Christmas present...  No, I don't know what to get him.  It's really really hard to buy gifts for each other here - they have to be useful (so they don't end up getting thrown out when we leave, or costing lots to send home!), but we don't fit clothes.  Also we try not to spend money from home so I TRY NOT to use the credit card.  It will be a last resort!!  Jewellery is really difficult because you have no idea what you're looking at - cheap metal, silver or platinum... we can't tell!  We also live a long drive from the big malls that have things like cool shoe shops, the Body Shop or different import stores, so there's really not much range.  There is one mall that we always go to that we have implicitly agreed to both shop at, but on different nights.  Wish us luck! 

Week of Steve

This week we've had Steve (sorry, Stephen!) visiting from NZ.  That sums things up in a way - an intense week of touristing to show a visitor everything we can about our region.  Last weekend was spent in Kyoto, where we got soaked with heavy heavy rain and were totally overwhelmed with the number of 'must see sights'.  We managed to hit a temple with 100 small (Buddhist?) god statues surrounding one huge gold-plated one (would give you the name but I don't remember it.  It's long and Japanese...), the Nijo-jo castle (it may be Nijijo.  Or Noji-jo.  Or Jo-nono.  You get the gist.  I failed to wrap my head round the names.  End of story) which had awesome 'nightengale floors' that make bird-like noises when stepped on so intruders can't creep in undetected.  Must be the only place in the world where a crowd of tourists tramping around sounds like native birds cheeping in the forest!  We finished up the afternoon at a food market, trying different things and buying sake... mmm.  Yuzu (type of citrus fruit) sake... I love you. 

The Sunday was rather drier so we went to the something-mizu-something shrine (I only know that much because mizu is water), where we wandered round taking pictures of the changing leaf colour and made a wish on the turning stone in the PITCHBLACK depths of a side temple.  We then hit what was probably the highlight of our weekend - Kinkakuji (I think that's at least 3/4 accurate.  At least, if I say it quickly no-one laughs at me, so it's fairly correct...).  It's a three story building on the edge of a man-made lake and is completely painted in gold - $6 million worth.  We were lucky enough to have sunshine while we viewed it, so we got the full effect.  It was built as an ostentatious display of power and, hundreds of years on, it still works!  We had a particularly good time there because Jeff was approached by three uni students wearing homemade 'Guide' badges.  They explained they study languages and are in some kind of English club, so they like to get practice by volunteering as tourist guides at some of the big attractions in Kyoto.  There were three guides and three of us, so we had fun chatting to locals as we went around.  I'm not sure how successful Steve and his super-cute little Japanese girl were; he's not used to Japanese English and she's not used to superspeedNZEnglish.  But all three of our guides were very friendly and we got a picture with the group before waving them goodbye. 

This week I've been working while Jeff showed Steve round the more local sights (I'm having issues choosing between sites and sights... most sentences I'm using they are interchangeable, despite the totally different meanings!).  However, Wednesday was a holiday, so J&S headed down to Hiroshima on Tuesday morning and I took the train down to join them after work.  That was quite a mission - I had to drive back from Tode High School (about 40 mins), get changed and made-up for town (always odd before 5pm!  Was hoping I wouldn't meet students!), walk up to the train station with my luggage and take a train down to Hiroshima (about an hour and a half), before tramming from Hiroshima Station to our hotel.  It was a long journey but fairly simple.  The only hairy bit was when I had to change trains.  Mentally rehersing the Japanese in my head, I turned to the woman next to me and pointed out the window at a train on another track.  'Excuse me,' I asked in my best Japanese, 'is that the bicycle to Hiroshima?'  She did one of those bite-your-cheeks-to-hold-in-the-smile things and answered in perfect English that no, it wasn't.  She pulled our her timetable and told me I had to wait 17 minutes on track 2.  'Oh, thanks.'  I answered.  Silence for a moment.  'I said bicycle, didn't I?  Man, I'm lucky I'm sitting next to you!'

That night we took Steve out to an all you can eat, all you can drink restaurant before hitting karaoke (Steve's big request).  My big achievement for the night was not falling asleep (it was touch and go at the restaurant after two drinks and a big feed.  Jeff started making me weak Coke-based drinks to try to keep me awake!), while Jeff's was joining in and... dare I say enjoying it??  Beforehand I had been talking about doing an hour, but they had a deal on where for the price of two hours you could stay as long as you liked between 11pm and 6am.  I was sceptical, but we did it.  Initially we figured we'd drunk enough at the restaurant, but Jeff soon declared he needed lots more beer to sing, so we topped up our deal to all you can drink karaoke.  Four hours later I had sung myself hoarse and told the others we were leaving.  Steve was encouraging us to stay longer, even as we protested four hours was quite enough.  As we paid up, Steve asked the time.  "3:30am" I told him.  "Oh, damn, really?" he asked.  "You mean, we actually have been here four hours?"  "Ah, yeah, yeah we have!"  Someone was clearly smiling on us because we were even able to talk the next day and the guys (who had taken on board plenty of booze) weren't looking too seedy - or no worse than you expect on not a lot of sleep. 

The last two days I've had peace and quiet having my Fukuyama apartment to myself while J&S explore Jinseki (much of the time the three of us have been sharing one tatami 'bedroom' so we have been living out of each other's pockets!).  Tonight I will go up and join the guys in going out for ramen for dinner.  Tomorrow we will do Matsue (awesome castle and moat.  The coolest castle we've found in Japan so far) and Stoehroagobgoehroeh (small town famous for its street lined with manga characters.  And one day I will remember the name...).  It will be a huge day for Jeff, who will be driving; it's three hours drive each way and a bit of a drive inbetween.  But it saves paying for accomodation and we have to get Steve to the Okayama airport bus on Sunday morning, so it's a good way to pack it all in!  Our American friend Emma will be coming to Matsue too, so it will be cool to catch up with her.  I'm a little nervous for my poor little car - this will be a hell of an ask for it.  Four big adults (no Japanese sized people in our group!), with a little 500-600 cc motor!  I hope I don't kill it one of these days - I'm really attached to my tiny, cheap little thing! 

With regards to Jeff being approached by the guides at Kinkakuji, he was also approached in one of the underground malls that weekend.  We were surprised because usually Jeff never gets approached - if someone Japanese is going to approach one of us, it's always me. But he had a gaggle of tiny 17 yr olds (I teach high school and these girls looked even younger than usual) come up and ask him some questions for a school project.  He had to take a note the girl had written and write one in return, then get a photo with her.  The top of her head reached his elbow.  We had a few different theories as to why Jeff was getting approached that weekend, but I think the best suggestion is just that they are more used to foreigners up that way, so people aren't intimidated.  Down here, unless the kids have a tall, broad bloke for an English teacher, they have no exposure to people Jeff's size. 

Then in Kyoto we had another... err... interesting discovery.  Turns out my favourite food, famous in Hiroshima, that we have taken all our visitors to try, well I've been saying it wrong the whole time.  Turns out if you say something quickly with confidence, no-one notices your mistake! It wasn't until I broke it down for Steve that Jeff noticed I was saying 'oKInomiyaki', instead of 'oKOnomiyaki'.  Not a huge difference, but bad when it's my fave Japanese food and I use the word regularly!  Ooops! 

After all this negativity about my Japanese ability, there is one positive.  I have noticed that when we have visitors Jeff and I speak a lot more Japanese to each other.  Nothing major - we can't have heartfelt discussions or even chat each other up (Jeff might be able to manage 'your head looks nice', but I don't think he knows 'hair' or 'outfit'.  And I wouldn't understand him anyway).  We are pretty much limited to stuff like 'Let's go', 'ok', 'it's cold', 'yes it is', 'are you alright?' 'yes I am', 'it's delicious', 'yet it is'... I think you notice a pattern.  I'm the reply.  Anyway, we do it much more when we have visitors.  On one hand I feel rude talking in front of people in a language I know they don't understand, but on the other hand I always need the practice and it's kinda fun to show our visitors that we do know some Japanese!  But mainly... mainly I think we do it as a kind of support for each other thing.  Like other couples use personal nicknames or something.  Ironically, when we have visitors we can use Japanese - a language spoken by 130 million other people in the country, to convey a sense of intimacy when it would be inappropriate to hug or anything.  I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I have just noticed it's a pattern.  Maybe I just notice it a lot more in front of visitors.  But I'm pretty sure that's because we do it more when they're here. 

Now I better stop procrastinating and get back to my Japanese study.  With the free correspondance course provided by the JET Program you get books that have four pages to do each day.  I was doing really well until the extreme exhaustion of this week, so I'm currently four and a half days behind.  Today I'm supposed to finish the book and do the test, but I'll have to do that next week.  I have until the 9th to get the test in, so I have a little time up my sleeve, but I don't want to leave it to the last minute.  I'm going to need that free time for when we go away on our Christmas holidays. 

Until next time,

Charly

On the down-low

Ok, so nothing is official yet, but a little bird told me (ok, my workmate told me) that my supervisor is changing!  Anyone who has asked me about my new job may have noticed that my explanation boiled down to: supervisor = sucky, everything else = awesome.  So the news that he is changing is greatly appreciated!  The other ALT is particularly pleased - he has been campaigning for years to have the supervisor changed and has watched five JET participants like myself come through and have problems with this guy.  I had already planned how I would warn my replacement not to take it personally how rude the supervisor is and not to hold back on asking for help, even when he does try to push it back onto the ALT ("Hello, I can't read this Japanese form!  That's what you're for!!"). 

Having said that, this supervisor hasn't caused me too much stress.  Because I've been married to an ALT - one with an excellent supervisor, I should add - I know what supervisors do and the kind of random issues they expect to help out with.  So I've had no qualms about TELLING my supervisor what I need him to do, and if he tries to tell me I need to do it myself, I tell him I can't and I need HIM to do it.  That has worked fairly well and my biggest issue with him, really, has been about personal hygiene.  I am very very very appreciative this means no more journeys in the car with him and his body odour!!  Unfortunately, his no longer being my supervisor won't stop him standing in front of the office fan in summer, while it propels his personal stench all through the room, but you can't have everything! 

I have no idea who will be taking over, but as my supervisor is currently the most antisocial member of the staff (so bad that the nurse was giggling at me having to share a car with him), anything is up from here.  In all seriousness, every other member of the English department is super lovely and I'm very excited to see who is my official minder as of December! 

A Note on Internationalisation

I had the coolest experience today.  In my classroom I have a big photo board with lots of NZ pictures (and a couple of tea towels - one with our map and one with the haka!).  One of my third year (18 yr old) students was looking at it and he took a fancy to a picture I took back in uni, on a Bio field trip, of the sunrise over the Waikato, taken from Mt Pirongia (as seen below). 

He then approached his teacher asking if she would ask me (he's really shy!) if he could have a copy of my picture, to use as the background of one of his calligraphy paintings.  My photo is going to be a star!  I am tickled pink by the idea of a picture taken on a beautiful NZ mountain will be used as the background for a traditional Japanese form of art. 

I really really really hope I can get a copy!  If nothing else, I will make sure I get a photo of his completed work.  I'm so flattered!  

The best and the worst

In my new tradition of writing two posts in one day when I get around to updating here, I wanted to share my day with you.  I had two classes, both covering the same lesson (Shopping - something I consider myself pretty knowledgable about!). 

The first class was with Nakamura-sensei, one of my favourite teachers to work with.  I anticipated a fairly cruisy class, having a good time with the teacher.  However, the game, variation on Bingo, dragged by.  It depends on the losers standing up and receiting the alphabet as a 'punishment' - something the classes find either funny or dreadfully embarrassing.  This class just found it awkward and uncool.  There were miscommunications (am I the only one who doesn't know what a 'reach' in Bingo is??) and it was pretty much hell in a 3x3 grid.  I was really releived to get that over and done with and I handed out the new vocabulary quiz.  Only it WASN'T the new quiz!  What I hadn't realised was that the other ALT who teaches on Tuesdays - using my lesson plan and class materials - had put my scrap paper (old quizzes) into my lesson folder, so I had handed out the wrong quiz!  The students never said a word and it wasn't until they were finished and I was about to start giving the answers that I noticed it was titled with the wrong topic!  Having wasted their time so badly, the rest of the class was a bit of a blur as I just hung out for the bell to ring, trying to focus on the rest of the lesson and not how I felt sorry for myself for looking like an incompetant dickhead in front of the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) and 20 students! 

This did not bode well for the second class...  My second class for the day is a class that is new to me.  The other ALT had got into some kind of battle of wills with them; he told me that in 14 years in Japan he has never had such a frustrating class.  They basically just talked straight over him, while their JTE didn't have the strength of character to control the rowdy class.  If it sounds like I'm knocking him for not coping with them, I don't mean it at all.  If there is anything I have learnt over the last year and a bit, it's a) that you never know what students are going to drive you crazy and b) once a student or group of students gets you worked all up, that's it, you're probably never going to get things smooth again.  At my first school in Japan I mentioned to my boss that I was struggling with one particular group (about six kids, average age roughly 10.  They once spent an entire half hour lesson laughing at my skirt.  Apparently black skirts are funny??) and he straight away said he would try to avoid ever rostering me on with them.  He said he also had a group he couldn't handle - hence why I taught them every Thursday evening!  Anyway, the point of all that is that I'm NOT knocking the other ALT for letting them get him wound up (wind, wound... is that right??  Hey, both wind and wound have two different pronunciations with very different meanings.  Man English is confusing...).  But all the same, I was pretty darn nervous about taking them on.  One part of me said (is still saying) "You're the new teacher!  They'll be awesome for you... today."  The other side of me said "What if they've enjoyed infuriating the ALT and intend to do it again for kicks?"

As the kids all filed in I got a number of "Charly!"s and one "Good morning!" (full marks for enthusiasm, but it was 1:30 in the afternoon).  We did the game and they thought it was FUNNY singing the alphabet as punishment!  Yay!  They were getting into it and being a model class - which I was really releived about as no less than three senior staff members stuck their heads in during the lesson to check how things were going!  The Head of English stayed the whole second half! 

To continue with the lesson, they were then given the quiz.  They did that and looked pleased at my marking system - students who speak up with the correct answer get a point on their little 'hanko charts' (when they complete the chart they get a certificate and a mini KitKat).  We then moved onto practising the names of items of clothing in preparation for the shopping dialogue.  Having taught the same activity this morning it was a dream run and they played straight into my hands (needing prompting for 'sweater' - although I explain the NZ word is sweatshirt - and explaining that the Japanese term 'short pants' gets shortened down to 'shorts').  They then completed the handout QUICKLY with enough time to practise in pairs.  Despite looking unused to having to stand up and practise dialogue, they quickly did what they were told and, being a louder class, they really enjoyed activities which involved lots of speaking. 

I felt like the cat that got the cream after, with their teacher and the Head of English looking at me with grateful relief because the class went so perfectly!  I think everyone was at their wits end how to fix the situation, so the fact it has been resolved so well is a huge weight off their shoulders.  Concerned about counting chickens before they hatch, I did say that if they gave me any trouble, I was sure it would be in a week or two, but the Head of English looked like he didn't really appreciate that suggestion, so I added quickly, "But I'm sure it'll be fine."  I promised both of them that I would keep this 'noisy' class busy with speaking activities and that it would all be easy.  Now as long as no-one from high up the food chain drops into any of my classes where I have to bang the whiteboard marker on the filing cabinet to get any attention, I get to go down in history as an Awesome ALT!  Whoop whooop! 

Kyoto coming!

Hey there,

This isn't an exciting adventure-filled post like last time, it's just more of a 'this is what we're up to...' post.  Actually it's to procrastinate my Japanese study!  So now we're being honest...

Yesterday I was at Tode, my visit school.  The teacher of my third class had asked me to prepare something on NZ nature (he mentioned something about flowers, but I mentally edited his comment to something NZ can work with!).  He said how he was interested in how much we look after nature and that he wanted to me to tell the kids about it, so I said ok.  I had no idea how long he wanted me to talk for, but I printed off some pics from Cathedral Cove (beautiful beach and marine reserve, good for diving), Tongariro National Park (representing the North Island mountains and tourist hotspot for the Crossing), Kaikoura (need I spell it out?  Whales as tourism, not food!), Nelson Lakes (yes, because I reallyreally wanted to show off the pictures of our 8 day hike when we were 14!  Great pictures of me, mountains and nothing else!  Shows the beauty of the Southern Alps) and Codfish Island/Whenua Hou (the tiny island beside Stewart Island where I worked for a summer looking after the incredibly rare kakapo.  That's a bird for non-Kiwis.  Kiwi is also a bird, but I mean the people.  If you follow...  That was my example of an island sanctuary not accessible to the public.  The students seemed a bit disappointed they couldn't pat a kakapo themselves, so I told them about Sirocco and his facebook page - maybe the lure of kakapo will get my students to study English and visit NZ!). 

Anyhoo, I had no idea how long I was supposed to talk for, but on the day he said 15 minutes.  I agreed that was fine, but by the time the teacher was translating my talking, the students took ages pouring over the pictures, I taught a bit of NZ geography and the students asked questions which the teacher translated, before translating my answers back, it took the whole hour.  I felt bad for hijacking the class, but it was really fun and the students were keen.  They learnt important new words like whale and seal.  The teacher kept asking questions about what happens to you if you kill a seal, so I explained you would probably get a fine and possibly jail time.  Then every new animal he clarified that you would also get jail time for killing one ("Yes, yes you would.  Yes, you also would.  Yup, you still would.  Don't do it.  No, we don't have native goats so you won't get in jail for that.").  Everyone also had some confusion about the kakapo - "what happens if you touch one?", "you can't, they're on a small island and you're not allowed on the island", "but what if you DO", "you... you just can't!  You can't get on the island!"  I draw the island, with 'kakapo' inside and 'you' outside.  "You can't go on the island."  "Oh, you go to jail if you go on the island?"  "Yes...  err...  yes you do." 

If this sounds familiar, yup, it's the same teacher.  I should rename this blog 'Charly's adventures with Kagawa-sensei'.  Don't get me wrong, nice guy, and it's cool he asks questions - better than being quiet and having the wrong idea, or worse, not caring.  He has some really enthusiastic kids in his class so when the cultural assumptions aren't making things too confusing, it's a good time had by all! 

In other news...  Jeff made a game to play with his kids.  But, on a whim, he took the game to our adult English class last night.  It may have been made for ten year olds, but it was a HIT with the oldies!  The 'warm-up game' took all hour (no-one seemed to want to stop) and they were giggling away by the end.  They even asked to go a round overtime, which they never do.  Funny times! 

On Friday Steve arrives from NZ and we meet him in Kyoto - super exciting!  It will be our first time there so we have spent lots of time discussing the best way to carry our new camera around! 

I have class soon, so I should get my stuff organised.  Hope you're all well, wherever you're reading this from.

Cheers,
Charly

Fire Drill

We just had a fire drill.  While it is fresh in my mind, I wanted to share the experience with you...

First off, I'm rather concerned because, unlike the ringing alarm bell back home, they just have an announcement to tell you there is a fire, then a second announcement to tell you where, and you're expected to get out.  Perhaps I need to get my supervisor to teach me 'fire alarm' in Japanese, because if I'm working alone in the office, I'm totally screwed.  Or maybe the office could kindly put 'Fire!' onto the end of the message, to make sure I'm safe?

Before I get too into the oddness of the exercise, I should praise Japanese efficiency.  The students were lined up, counted off and sitting down on the field in next to no time. 

But then, after the obligatory speeches and bows (yup, five bows in the fire drill!), a guy in an official-looking cap and orange and blue jumpsuit appeared at a fourth floor window, waving and talking into a microphone.  Far from the suicidal nutter he appeared, him and his buddy proceeded to set up a pulley outside the window and send the Maths teacher abseiling out.  Two students followed and the demonstration was concluded by another teacher who was so keen to get his feet on the ground that he landed on the second floor ledge and had to re-launch himself.  I'm not sure if they were supposed to be demonstrating different things, or if it's just there was going to be a scrap if only one person got to try the hands-free, one-man abseiling gear. 

Next a male student came out of the ground floor carrying a fire hose.  There was a funny but awkward moment when my socially-inept supervisor didn't move.  As usual, he wasn't standing with anyone else (because otherwise people expect you to make small talk and say niceties) and when he finally realised he was holding things up, he headed not towards the close stairs, but tried to just move back a couple of metres still in line with the hose.  It was indicated to him that he would need to give it much more space than that, so he set off at an uneven shuffling run (he has a limp), finally reaching the safety of the distant stairs while students laughed and teachers tried to pretend they weren't laughing.  Anyway, after that they turned the hose on and the boy holding it looked pleased as punch - clearly he wasn't afraid to show the school his big hose. 

After that there was more talking while I stood there wondering what we were supposed to do with our 'inside shoes' that were now covered in sand from the sports field.  Turns out you just do a little shuffle on the entry mats and you're good to go.  I feel so ripped off - they make such a big deal about inside shoes and outside shoes here, then when it's convenient they ignore it!  While I can't wear my cute heels to work on fat days, because they're 'dirty'. 

Toilet shoes are the other one that gets my goat.  Here at Myoodai I have to take off my inside shoes and put on the obligatory purple slippers to go to the toilet.  The stupid things is that the Western toilet is right next to the 'non-toilet shoe' area, so I have to shift half the slippers to open the door and to get into the toilet without stepping in the non-toilet slippers area I have to walk further into the bathroom, then turn around and get through the door without overbalancing and standing on the 'inside shoes area'.  When there are no students round I just step on the 'inside shoes' bit with my toilet slippers.  What a rebel. 

I told a class at Tode that they are my favourite school because there are no toilet slippers.  The teacher was really confused about this (yup, the same one as the bowing conversation).  I explained that if I come to work, teach three classes in a carpeted classroom and go to the toilet three times (and in honesty, I pee way more than that), then I have to change shoes fourteen times in one day.  Sixteen if you count putting them on and taking them off at home.  It's so crazy.  Well, it is when you're not used to it and you have shoes with buckles or laces that don't just slip on.  My mistake!  Thanks for the Crocs, Mum! 

I should go to tennis - I went once, a fortnight ago.  They didn't really let me touch the ball yet, but things looked promising - I got lots of one-on-one attention because the student didn't know how to tell me he couldn't help me in English!  He was trying really hard to use what English he had, but it was clearly scaring the bejesus out of him.  At one point he finally turned to his fellow students and called in a plaintive voice, "Help!"  I finally took pity on the kid and told him I would see him the following Wednesday.  But then, that day I worked late on some lesson prep and now, another week later, I'm got a really sore stomach, so I don't feel like it.  Getting some exercise would probably make me feel better, but I doubt standing in the cold holding a raquet will help me.  Hmm... I don't know. 

Hope you're all well.  I'm trying to update more regularly so I remember to tell you these little funny things, not just updating you on the big ones. 

Charly

New look

I've just had a play around with the layout of the blog - adding in a few things, removing a few things and rearranging it.  Let me know what you think!  (and yes, if you don't like something I changed, please speak up!)

Cheers,
Charly

P.S.  You should all be relieved I have finally found out how to reply to comments.  Google has me logging out and logging back in everytime, but I hope I've fixed that now!

An hour later

Ok, so this is only an hour after I posted the last one, but I have two important things to say: 1) my school's brass band is the schiz (is that still a word?) and 2) I am an idiot. 

I thought they were playing LAST Monday and that I had just somehow missed it (misunderstanding the venue - right outside my office - or something).  But no, they played today.  They were awesome, doing little box steps with their clarinet solos and everything.  Too cute.  The grand finale involved six students from the calligraphy club coming out and using big paint brushes and mops to write something about 'Myoodai High School, energetic, smiley people' (and something about a dream which I didn't really understand in context), in highlighter pink, yellow, purple, green and orange on a huge banner laid out in front of the band.  It would have made for some awesome pictures... grrr!!  I guess I need to leave the old camera in my car when Jeff has the good camera, so even if I don't get amazing pictures, I'll get SOMETHING. 

What else has been going on?  I've collected a new class - a third year (18 yr olds) English Composition class.  I'm basically a grammar check, wandering round answering questions and helping them with tricky bits (like rearranging the words to make the phrase 'Little had I ever dreamed I would...').  Of course, when the Japanese teacher isn't looking, I get grilled on my favourite movies and music.  Sample conversation:
Student:  J-pop music what do you like?
Me:  What J-pop do I like?  I haven't really listened to any J-pop.
Student:  What music do you like?
Me:  I like rock music and some pop, American pop.
Student:  Oh, rock!  I know rock!  Avril!
Me:  Err, yes.
Student:  Lady Gaga!  Katy Perry!
Me:  Umm, yup.  They're American.  *Bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself laughing at the idea of Katy Perry being rock*

Another funny situation I've had that I've been wanting to share is with a particular teacher at Tode High School, my visit school.  He is a nice guy, always making noises about inviting Jeff and I over for dinner and telling me how much he wants to hear about NZ.  BUT he seems to really struggle with using an ALT in class.  He often forgets I'm there and leaves me standing in the corner while he works on pronunciation with the kids.  Anyway, last class he was asking me about what I found strange in Japan.  I told him (and the class) that we foreigners find the bowing very strange. 
"Oh, really?" he said in surprise.  "Why?"
"Well, it's just not something we do back home.  Especially when it's overdone, it can feel, I don't know, uncomfortable."
"Oh.  But what about if you've done something bad?  You bow then, right?"
"Ah, no.  No, we don't."
"Even if you're really sorry?"  He sounded slightly shocked.
"Nope."
"But, how do you show you're sorry?"
I then acted out my best apology, pretending I was late to class, using my face, voice and body language, to show an apology (trying NOT to include any bowing, which is kinda second nature after a year in Japan!).
"So, you don't bow to your boss at all?!"
I try not to giggle at the thought of my NZ bosses face if I came in late and bowed to them.  "Ah, no.  Never."
"Hmm.  Interesting.  Well, what about in sports teams?  The younger kids still bow to the older ones, right?"
By this point I'm losing patience.  The idea of the younger kids on the first 15 doing a formal bow to the 18 yr olds is so odd I can't even picture it.  What part of 'never' is this teacher not getting?  "No.  Definately not."
"You would bow to the President though, right?"
"No.  No we wouldn't.  We don't have a President and we wouldn't bow to the President of America because he's not our President.  The only person MEN would bow to would be the Queen, because the Queen for us is like the Emperor for you.  MEN would bow like this," I did a deep, straight bow with my arms carefully tucked in front and behind me.  "WOMEN would curtsy."  I did a deep curtsy, holding out my imaginary skirt, to show the class.  There were a few 'ooh's and 'aah's and I think the penny dropped about our culture being DIFFERENT.  While both Japanese and European bows move the head closer to the floor, that's about where the similarity ends.  Really they are two totally different different things, as different as running and skipping.
Throughout the conversation, I could see the teacher couldn't get his head round how much of what they do in Japan is just Japanese culture and not The Way It's Done.  I could see he viewed our not bowing as some kind of stubborn arrogancy, like we considered ourselves to good to bow.  I couldn't work out how to explain it's not like we consider bowing when we apologise but decide we're too arrogant to bow.  He clearly couldn't understand that it is NO part of our culture, so if we did try to bow, people would laugh at us or get angry, thinking we were taking the piss. 
Clearly, although he is an English teacher, he can't have travelled outside Asia, or if he has, it was for a short time on a tour bus chartered for Japanese.  It's not the first time I've had this with him, where he has shown that he has no idea of how Japanese a lot of Japanese behaviour is.  I mean, I know every culture has that and you only realise your behaviour is 'Kiwi' rather than 'normal' when you travel, but it's surprising in someone who teaches a foreign language and has contact with at least two foreigners every week. 

Anyway, that was something odd I wanted to share with y'all.  Now it's time for me to head on home to my little apartment.  Monday is the night Jeff and I seperately, so it's my 'self maintenance' night - painting toenails, doing a facemask, dying my eyebrows (preferably without dying the rest of my forehead...)...  Oh, and hoovering the flat, doing laundry etc.  Not an exciting night, but I always feel good going to bed because I've done something useful that evening.  I'll feel especially good tonight because I expect to finish my book tonight!  We've had PLENTY of time to read lately and we have a big box of books ready to fill up our suitcases for our trip home in March.  My reading lately has been mainly Harry Potters and Terry Pratchetts, so I've been getting through the books particularly fast.  Yesterday Jeff declared he was going to put me on a book diet.  "What, only one a week?" I asked.  "A week?!" he replied.  "One a month!"  It wasn't until I asked, "Umm, can I reread it over the month?" that it turned out while I thought he meant I was only allowed to read one book a month, he actually meant I can only buy one book a month.  Phew!  The reason he is concerned is because I may have bought 13 books in Taipei.  It made my bag pretty squashed but was so worth it.  Now Singapore for New Year's...  Book shopping here I come!! 

Ok, that's actually the end.  No more blogging today, I promise!

Charly

Autumn leaves

Hey there,

Well, to justify the title, I will first point out how beautiful Jinseki looks at the moment.  It was a warm damp weekend, with light but constant rain.  Jeff doesn't like this weather, but I love it.  I ran round the house taking some great pictures of the beautiful autumn trees from various windows.  In this dim, misty weather the reds, yellows and oranges glow.  I mean to go for a big drive at some point, taking millions of pictures before all the leaves fall.  I'm so glad we have our new camera now!

Not too much has happened lately, hence no update in a wee while, but there has been one important development.  The other ALT in Jinseki is married to a Japanese woman who lives a couple of hours away and is currently in his fourth year as a JET, out of a possible five years.  The area his wife lives in has recently started employing JET ALTs (as opposed to private Assistant Language Teachers), so he has applied for a transfer.  It should be noted here that he is unlikely to get it, as he would only be moving for the last year, but then again if anyone compassionate looks at his application, you would think they would let him move.  Anyhow, the question of whether I should apply to take Luc's position is something we have talked about before.  It would mean living together in one house all the time (no more packing a bag to visit my husband!), half the drive to work and a (brand new!) car provided for me.  So I SHOULD jump at the chance to work in Jinseki.  But... only hours before Jeff told me Luc's news I had been wondering about whether I would apply to shift in a year's time when Luc's contract was up.  And I had decided I probably wouldn't.  As it is, I get far more free rein as a teacher than... well then almost any ALT in Japan, I'm just starting to get into sports with the students, I love my workmates and the new apartment (and it's proximity to the train station) has been really helpful for our social life and travels.  It was a bit of a shock to me to realise that I had only a month to decide something that I thought I had over a year to think about.  I think I'm still in the honeymoon period at work, so maybe if I was asked again in six months time, I would be dead keen to shift workplaces, but right now I like Myoodai just fine. 

I wanted to say a bit more here, but the brass band has just started up in the courtyard and everyone is lined up on the walkway outside my office for an excellent bird's eye view, so I'm going to join them!  I promised myself I would go to kendo tonight, but watching the brass band performance probably fills my 'interacting with the students' quota!  (In fact, I do so little at kendo that watching brass band might be more exercise!  Of course, that's my own fault for not going regularly, but I haven't really figured out start times or anything yet!)

Hope you're all well.

Charly

P.S. Taught my 18 yr olds lots of essential Kiwi phrases in class today.  Things like 'choice', 'sweet as', 'heaps' and 'sparrow fart'.  They studiously asked the plural of 'sprog'.  Well, I've prepared them for NZ now!

Big weekend for NZ

Firstly, I don't think I would be a Kiwi without a nod to the toe-clenching World Cup final.  Looks like Auckland is a pretty exciting place to be tonight!!  Wish we could be there! 

However, for those suprised that I watched a rugby game (two actually, because I watched the NZ vs Aus one last week), I have decided to try to stay off facebook for a couple of days so I don't feel too bombarded by rugbyness.  It must be so crazy in NZ!  

I thought of another couple of examples of Japanese randomness, or rather the randomness of living in Japan when you're not Japanese:

* There is a road I drive home via on Tuesdays.  It's so narrow that for much of the way my tiny little Dihatsu Mira can't pass similarly sized cars and someone is required to back up a bit.  It used to scare the shit out of me, but I've worked out that by driving really slowly, I can compensate for those drivers who come racing round the corner too fast to stop if I was close or moving at a similar speed.  By driving like a nana, I have reduced my heart-palpitating moments to only around twice each time I do the road (for anyone who thinks this is clearly an indication that I am a nervous driver, unused to anything but main roads, you clearly haven't driven my parents driveway).  However, I was blown away last time I drove it to find I was travelling behind a bus.  Here I am, in my suitcase-sized car, squashing to the side every time another car comes and there is bus taking the same road!  I was curious to watch how that was going to work, but the bus pulled into the first passing bay and waved me on by.  I was disappointed to lose my bus-sized driving shield! 

* I think I mentioned last entry how sick I get of being asked if I have kids and if not, when?  This time students were so concerned I was misunderstanding the message that they put a basketball up their shirt so I could NOT miss that they were asking me about any impending pregnancies.  At first I was alarmed, thinking they were suggesting I looked pregnant now (I get very, very self-concious round the stick insects that call themselves Japanese women!), but I'm fairly sure they just meant when would I have a baby.  I told them I was too young for kids and maybe when I was older.  As 16 yr olds, they were understandably confused by the ANCIENT teacher saying she was too young for kids, especially as I'm getting old for reproduction by Japanese standards, but they didn't have the English to push the issue any further! 

Ah... good times living in a most foreign of foreign cultures.  Speaking of which... on Tuesday we have English club again with the oldies who got me so rilled up about whaling last time we met.  I'm a little nervous about it.  I don't regret standing up for what I believe in, but I always feel a little foolish after getting so worked up about something. 

In other news... at 3:30 today we got a surprise Skype from Harry.  It was about 2:30am her time (eg. North Carolina time) and she had just got in from clubbing.  She gave us the laptop tour of her bedroom (super nice furniture!), bathroom and adjoining lounge/kitchen area.  It all looks great - she should have a really good year.  We chatted for about an hour, talking about her new job compared to my au pairing experience (I'm trying to learnt about hers so I stop imagining her in my old job!), food strategies (attempts to NOT gain the traditional 10kg in America...) and her social life (she is lucky, as the old au pair is round for a few weeks to show her the ropes and introduce her to people).  Although I've had one sad email from her, for the most part it seems like she will have an easy transition and I think she is coping with everything much better than I did.  Or maybe it's just that looking back nine years later, it's the hard bits and sad times that I remember.  Not that I didn't enjoy the job - I know I did - but I recollect crying LOTS that year.  On the plane to America, my first phone call home, when I flew back from hanging out with Kate and Mum in Kentucky, when I saw a driver in CT who looked like Kate, every time Hallelujah played on the Shrek CD... 

Of course, my recollection of my first summer in Japan involves a fair amount of tears, too.  I probably wasn't as bad as I remember (I hope, Jeff...??  Tell me I wasn't TOO bad...??), but I had bad culture shock and really struggled to adjusting to having no control over my life.  No language, no bank account, no job and no f*$king air conditioning!  That was a really hard summer! 

Now life is much, much easier.  I've learnt that sign language is international, I have a bank account for 'Dorepa Shyaroto', I love my job and my town apartment has air con!  That's not to say life doesn't hit you with a big slap of Difficult fairly regularly, but we are getting much better at going with the flow here.  We now know there is no doctor-patient confidentiality code, so we should see medical professionals in other towns for anything embaressing, we have a special rubbish bag that we dump at the convenience store which has everything we can't work out which rubbish collection it belongs in and we have got into the habit of getting out cash on Fridays because the ATMs close for the weekend.  We are getting good at this Japan thing! 

Random times in Japan...

Hehe, I keep giggling over the facebook post of one of the other ALTs.  She came over with her girlfriend and they are both working through JET, so the locals don't necessarily know they are anything more than friends.  She said they went to dinner with a bunch of old ladies and they were thoroughly quizzed on whether they had boyfriends and what type of blokes they liked.  I keep laughing over the awkwardness of that conversation.  Next time I feel sorry for myself getting the 'do you have children/why not/when' questions, I'm going to be grateful I'm not them!!

Yeah... I've had a few random situations lately.  Driving to work yesterday, in stop-go rush hour traffic, the bloke behind me made the most of the opportunity to do a full personal grooming session.  Including trimming his nose hairs with scissors.  He had to hit the brakes quite hard at one point because he hadn't noticed I had stopped again.  Slamming on the brakes when you have scissors up your nostrils doesn't seem the safest... 

I had finally got used to all the girls (well, mainly the girls!) pulling out their brushes and mirrors to brush their hair during class when I got a new one.  Making the most of the minute before the bell rang, a girl sitting against the wall had her hair straightener plugged in and was attacking her roadkill-flat hair.  Is it just me or is that really odd??

I thoroughly surpised a teacher during a food lesson when I assured him that we don't eat salad for breakfast in Western/English-speaking countries.  Not even in America.  He was so taken aback - I'm not sure he really believed me! 

I have also noticed students struggling with asking what is meant to be 'do you have a boyfriend?'  Here 'boyfriend' has different connotations, so I am regularly asked 'do you have a... a... darling?  A... a lover?'  I'm getting better at not cringing when 16 yr olds ask me if I have a lover, but a 'darling' just makes me think of Peter Pan. 

Having said that, however they ask it's great they are trying out their English on me - lots of students now know the word 'husband'!  Most of my informal chats with students lately have happened while I attempt to infiltrate their sports clubs :D  On Monday I had my first Kendo lesson - I was handed a bamboo sword, was made to hit a student over the head and was asked 'is it fun?'  Actually I felt really mean - I wasn't wearing any protective clothing so they couldn't retaliate in any way.  It was entirely one-sided abuse!  One of the boys was busting a gut trying to translate things for me and I was really impressed.  Then, today (Thursday) I recognised him in one of my classes.  In class he is really quiet, so I had no impression of him, good or otherwise.  Most of the students spend class time pretending they know nothing, but when they need to use it, eg. when trying to instruct Kendo in English, suddenly they have a great vocab! 

The other group I have accidentally joined is a gym session with what turns out to be the girls basketball team on Fridays.  That was random - I just happened to be using the weights room when they came in and got excited to see me there.  They asked me to join them, so I promised to be there the next week.  It's good, similar to a hockey fitness session with different stations and group ass-kicking moves... in fact they're only missing a Sandra! 

Now I'm working on organising one other sport to fit in... probably tennis or volleyball.  Tennis would be good - I figure I make an ass of myself all the time in Japan, so it's a good chance to learn tennis without having anyone call my sports ability retarded.  Not in a language I understand, anyway!  However, if that turns out to be too hard (the 'soft tennis' coach said they are training for a competition atm and the 'hard tennis' (what we know as tennis) coach keeps changing her mind about what day I can join in.  I think she wants to roll out the red carpet and really look after me, even though I find the kids look after me perfectly well and I feel guilty making a teacher try to look after the girl with little Japanese and less tennis ability!)...  Anyway, if it turns out to be too hard, I'm just going to join the volleyball team.  The teacher in charge is the lovely Nakamura-sensei; young, enthusiastic and with really good English!

So... long story short...  I'm finally getting my shit together and sorting out my Life.  In that strange way that motivating yourself in one area often flows into others, shortly after I started making time for exercising, I also started studying Japanese again.  Not a lot - I need to make that clear - but a little every few days.  In fact - don't laugh - around that time I also started straightening my hair, too.  All summer it's been fluffy pony tails, but now the weather has cooled down, I always 'mean to' get up early and straighten it.  Of course, no telling how long this will last for, but at the moment I'm enjoying looking in the mirror and getting a fright when I see smooth, glossy, straight hair.  It's never what I expect!  Now, the remaining question is... when will my new-found willpower extend to not eating junk food?  That's what I want to know! 

Snow White and the ten dwarves

Well, as you can see by the title of today's post, we watched a Japanese production of Snow White in the weekend.  Our 'local' (half an hour away - as local as it gets out here) friend Emma was playing the part of the Queen when she is dressed as a witch, off to kill SnowWhite (in an effort to include everyone who auditioned, they had two entirely different casts and most of the leads were played by two different people!).  The first half was odd, as we tried to follow along with the three mirrors, weight-lifting queen and ten dwarves, but we were thoroughly rewarded by Emma doing an awesome turn as the witch.  Apparently she had spent hours and hours getting her Japanese lines down and it showed.  The only one to rival her for stage charisma was the totally off time but enthusiastic smallest dwarf.  Go Emma! 

In other news... we bought a camera!  Yay!  Very exciting!  It's an 'entry level' Nikon SLR that came with two different lenses and a Mickey Mouse camera bag.  And... being Japan... we also got 'service' - eg. freebies.  In this case, two Adidas bags and two dinner plates, one of which is also Mickey themed.  Foolish Jeff looked SURPRISED at receiving free dinner plates with his camera.  Myself, I laughed at his naivety.  Over a year living in Japan and he still expected the freebies would be relevant??? 

Now we are super excited for November - Jeff's mate Steve will visit from NZ and we will go to Kyoto.  Autumn in Kyoto... is there a better time to have a new camera?  I think not! 

Actually, talking about people visiting, when I called home in the weekend (to wish Harry a good flight as she embarks for America!), Mum said, "What's this I hear that you may not be staying in Japan a third year?  We are planning to come visit you again so you can't leave!"  I was all, "What...??"  First off, who told my Mum we had made any decisions??  Those don't come until February (Feb 10th to be exact, when we have to resign by)!  Second, a second visit??  This is unheard of!  (hmm... please don't hold the excessive punctuation in this paragraph against me!)  She has already spent a month here and she is, apparently, serious about returning.  I was so surprised.  I knew my parents loved it here, but I assumed it was because they don't get out much and they were just enjoying not being in NZ.  I didn't realise that it was Japan in particular that they were so crazy about. 

So far we have already had Kate, Geoff & Sandra and my parents visit.  Now we have Steve coming next month and it sounds like my parents will return!  They never visited this much when I lived in Hamilton...  But in all seriousness... if there was an award for the JETs doing the most for Japanese tourism, I think we would have it in the bag.  Now I'm waiting on Megan, Yi-leen, Heather, Rikki, Chris & Gemma, Hannah, Sam and anyone else who expressed an interest in Japan/likes to travel to visit us!  I'm still working on Laura, too - I think Mum and Dad should fund her a trip here (as of the end of the week she will be the only chick still  in the Draper nest!).  The only problem is trying to get her to fit Japan into her schedule :S

Hope everyone is doing well,
Charly

Friday

Hey there,

Wow... Jeff and I have been keeping up with the Rena disaster online.  It sounds really dreadful :(  Wish I could fly home and help!! 

Here things are pretty quiet.  We are trying to have a 'savings month' so we have a bit of spare cash when Steve (Jeff's uni buddy) comes to visit in November.  We are planning to do a weekend in Kyoto, so that will be awesome.  We have been looking forward to Kyoto since we arrived last year! 

This weekend we have a busy schedule of online rugby games and... er... watching the children's play Snow White performed in Japanese.  Our friend plays the evil witch, so we are heading along to watch.  Should be amusing! 

What else?  Oh, we have bought our flights to Singapore and Malaysia for our holiday over New Year's.  We are really excited - 11 nights spent bumping around Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang (where Yi-leen's parents are gonna show us the sights!).  We are also starting to research our flights home to NZ, having given up on getting a Japanese credit card and therefore no longer waiting on that process. 

On Wednesday I was asked to help out with a second year English class, as they had requested me (I don't teach the second years, not sure why...).  I did an NZ quiz with them and in one of the question answers I taught them 'kia ora'.  Then yesterday, when I was stepping out of my office, a boy gave me a big grin, a wave and a 'kia ora!'  I was so stoked!  We will have them ready to visit NZ in no time!! 

Keep me updated...

Charly

P.S. Harry leaves for America on Monday the 17th and Kate flies out on the 20th!  I'm not even home and it freaks me out that everyone is finally leaving!  In other travel news, Jeff's parents are on an amazing two week ticki/ticky tour around Europe and Canada (cos those two always go together..) and I'm SUPER jealous!  Bring on Malaysia!

Thoughts on travel

Today I've been pondering the million dollar question... why do I love travel?

The thing is, whenever I live overseas I miss NZ.  I miss it so badly and have such fond, rose-tinted memories of home that it's a wonder I ever leave again.  But, when I get back and settle in, it just seems boring and I want to leave again.  It's like... NZ is utopia (for me, anyway.  I know not everyone is in my educated, financially secure position.  I'm not forgetting how hard life is for many NZ families).  But perfect and easy get boring. 

So I come overseas.  I put myself in these mentally and emotionally challenging circumstances... and then feel sorry for myself when I get homesick.  I guess it's a little like post-workout sore muscles.  They are painful, but they remind you of what you've achieved and you wouldn't actually wish yourself back to how you were yesterday. 

Because Jeff is doing his second year in his (fairly undemanding) job, he is feeling rather like moving on.  But I am only just starting my (much more busy) job, so had been talking about how much easier it would be doing this for a second year (lesson plans already done etc!).  These discussions got me homesick and got me to thinking about all that we were missing in NZ.  However, I just realised something... all the things that make me homesick when I think about them are (with the exception of Trudi's photos of Mission Bay on a lovely sunny day) to do with convenience.  It's the ease of replacing clothes, asking for directions and reading the fine print at the bank that I miss. 

And then... when I look on facebook and experience photo-envy, it's always from travel pictures.  Again, with the exception of Trudi's pics, it's everyone's travel photos that get me really jealous and wanting to plan to get there asap.  So... why am I even bothering to indulge in missing NZ when all I REALLY want is to see the other 179 countries in the world?  (Man... that's a lot.  It's going to keep me busy!)

Hope things are going well for you all - wherever in the world you call home!

Cheese sensei

It is now exams week.  Which sounds like a big deal, but for me it's really not.  For me it just means no classes until Friday.  Luckily I worked at the Tode High School Open Day on Saturday, so I get tomorrow off work instead.  That leaves me with only three days of sitting at my desk doing nothing.  Of course, when I say doing nothing, I SHOULD be planning lessons and studying Japanese, but I'll probably be on facebook and having big email conversations with my sister, who works just as hard as me ;)

It's exciting times for my sisters atm.  Kate is leaving the country around the 17th of October, heading off for a big holiday in America and South America.  Harry is leaving on the 17th to spend a year as an au pair in America (aww... taking after her big sis!!).  Beth is (according to my inside source, eg. Kate) looking at leaving the country with Kate in March 2012 to work in Europe somewhere (probably London, of course).  Kate has promised me that she will try to stay in NZ long enough for me to see her when I come home for Holly's wedding and hopefully Beth will be round too.  Would be strange visiting 'the family' in NZ and having only the parents and Laura at home!  Not much of a family visit. 

In a change of topic, I was talking to one of the English teachers this morning as we walked to the morning meeting.  Well, I walked, she limped.  She explained to me that over the weekend she had joined a march from Onomichi on Honshu island (just round the corner), over the Shimanami bridges, to Shikoku island, a distance of 80km.  Participants are given three days to do it, but she couldn't take the Friday off work (a Japanese person take time off?  Not done!!), so her, her sister and her father covered the 80km in two days.  Hence she is limping today. 

Of course, as soon as I heard about this, a plan began forming.  I may have promised my husband, my father and my feet that I will never do the Oxfam Trailwalker again, but I never promised not to walk 80km of bridges in a weekend!  Hah!  So if we stick around for a third year, then on this day in a year's time you'll be hearing all about it! 

Man, my stomach is so rumbly today!  I know that's nothing new for me, but it's EXTRA rumbly this morning.  I got to work at 8am and it was already growling.  I had a macha latte but that only shut it up for an hour or so and now I'm rumbling again.  Luckily the teacher next to me hasn't noticed yet.  At least I'm not teaching - it's super awkward when the students laugh at my rumbly tummy! 

Speaking of students and food, just call me Cheese sensei - the students do!  It's a Tode High thing, just my last class of the day.  The teacher asked me in front of the class what I had done in the weekend.  The real answer was pretty much nothing, but I needed to give them something, so I said I went shopping at the Fuji Grand mall (making it sound like a day out rather than a mission to get something to put in the fridge).  The teacher asked what I had bought and, feeling slightly foolish, I told him 'cheese'.  This was not the answer the students expected and the name has stuck.  Cheese-sensei it is, then!

Yamamoto's

Ah, too cute.  Jeff just got a text from our elderly friend Makiko Yamamoto.  He had messaged her to say he was unable to come to dinner on the 9th, but that I was still coming.  She replied with this message:
Jeff I am regrettable :(  Welcome Charly I am waiting for you :)  MAKIKO YAMAMOTO. 

The Yamamoto's run the English club held in the local town Yuki, that we attend every second Tuesday night.  A few week's back, Mikiko dropped in to let us know that she is visiting NZ for a month to attend a language school for two weeks, then stay at my parents for two weeks (she had the dates for me to run by Mum).  We were excited about her trip, so she showed us the brochure.  We saw it was on the Coromandel and assured her it was a beautiful area, then we noticed with surprise Chris Lawry's (friend who has lived with both Jeff and I.  Poor guy, lol) parents in the picture.  Of course, it was their new language school!  We were laughing with surprise and explained we were very close friends with their son.  Such close friends that we would be home for his wedding in October 2012.  Then we looked at the dates Mikiko was intending to attend.  Yup... October 2012!  So we will be in NZ, on the Coromandel, at the same time as our Japanese friend, while she attends language school run by our friends parents!  How random!  What a small-world moment!! 

Ok, class time now so I better skedaddle (yup, Jeff, I did that just to irk you.  I managed to put 'skedaddle' into my blog!). 

Cheers,
Charly

Back to it

Not much to say here...  Work has started up again - there are FIVE working days this week! 

In order to break up the week a bit, we are going bowling with friends tomorrow night.  We keep talking about doing things with friends, now that I have an apartment in the city (don't think Tokyo style city :S ), but it's time to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk.  Starting with going bowling with Gabby and Danny and their toddler.

Actually, their kid is such a crazy situation.  Mia/Mya/Mea (take your pic, cos I don't know!) was little more than a baby when they came here last year and is now 2 (or 3?).  Her parents are from Montreal, so speak French at home and English when out with friends, but she hadn't started speaking yet when they came to Japan.  She has been attending kindy with Japanese children, so now speaks.  In Japanese.  Which Gabby and Danny don't understand.  They originally thought she was speaking babytalk until a Japanese neighbour held a conversation with her and reported back what they had talked about.  It's pretty sad for the parents, but great for the child if she can keep up with the Japanese when she returns home. 

Now I'm going to pack my bags and head home.  I officially finish at 4:05pm but I invariably leave a little later.  Somehow I am always ready to leave at cleaning time (4:20ish), so that I look like the lazyarse going home while everyone else cleans (hence my updating now :D ).  Not that the Japanese kids version of 'cleaning' seems to involve much more than chatting to friends and hoping the teacher 'supervising' will do their cleaning for them!  I know I should get more involved in school life and help out, but it's just another thing on my Should Do list (others on the list include try Kendo, start exercising, finish decorating my classroom, join the tennis club and do some Japanese study...).  It's a fairly long list and I'm going to need a motivated day to get on top of it. 

Hope you are all doing well and you enjoy the more socially acceptable blog length today!

Osaka weekend

It may have come to your attention that I have not posted anything in the last week - apologies.  Here in Japan it is what's known as Silver week - two three day weekends in a row, meaning a working week of only three days :)

Currently it's Saturday on the second of these long weekends.  Last weekend we headed up to Osaka on the shinkansen.  It's funny, we always assume there will be plenty to do in cities.  Then we remember that a) their shops usually sell things we can't fit/don't use, b) we don't understand the signs on any tourist attractions/places we bump into and c) there is only a finite amount we can eat.  Well, that Jeff can eat :D

However, we tested the limits of how much you can eat (apparently it's the done thing in Osaka!), trying butaman (steamed pork buns), Osaka-style okinomiyaki (cabbage pancake), takoyaki (octopus balls), omi rice (omelette with rice), pumpkin flavoured icecream, 'Freshness Burger', frozen yoghurt from Partyland yoghurt store and, er, Subway. 

Our hotel turned out to be a worry from start to finish.  I had booked online, but when we got there they had no record of my booking.  I wanted to jump online and print off my booking info so I could show them, because I was concerned about double booking and they had my credit card details.  However, the computer in the lobby wasn't working and we hadn't brought our own with us this time.  Throughout this, the minimal English spoken by the staff made things more difficult (usually in big cities hotel staff speak English, we have found).  After a lot of hassle they finally got us booked into a room and took our luggage. 

When we returned that evening to actually check in, we went up to our room and were hit with the stench of old cigarette smoke.  We went back downstairs and insisted on a NON smoking room!  Although the room was even smaller than the smoking room, which in turn was smaller than any previous Japanese hotel room we have stayed in, we settled in for the weekend. 

That evening, tired from the day's travel and walking in the heat, we got our takoyaki and took it back to our room.  We figured we could watch a movie on the entertainment channel while we ate dinner and relaxed in our 'huge' bed.  You may see where this is going but... our 1000 yen card for the entertainment channel allowed us access to three porn channels and one fuzzy music channel featuring J-pop.  Awesome.  So... the front desk got ANOTHER visit from the annoyed foreigner, demanding money back for the crappy pay TV card!

The next morning we headed out to the Osaka aquarium, excited about seeing the resident whale shark.  Ah, foolish foolish tourists.  Midday on a long weekend in Silver week?  What were we thinking??  We spent what seemed like days (but was probably the best part of an hour) queuing up outside in the hot sun (we are talking well over 30 degrees here) before we even got in the door.  Inside was only better because there was shade - we were still crushed on all sides by children, parents, grandparents and strollers.  Jeff was still getting cranky with people pushing him and I was still moaning about the sweat trickling down the back of my legs. 

BUT the good news is that by the time we reached the whale shark in all his awesomeness, the crowd had thinned out some and we had plenty of quality viewing time.  Also, less publicised but equally exciting, was the huge manta ray also gliding around the tank.  They were both truly amazing. 

While we were watching them, a diver came into the ray tank to handfeed some of the smaller fish, sharks and rays in there.  Although the manta ray didn't seem interested, there were two huge stingrays that were very, very interested in him (or her?).  They both had a diameter the length of the diver and he spent his whole time pushing them away, trying not to be a stingray sandwich.  With the limited visibility provided by goggles, he wouldn't realise where they were until a flipper kicked the ray beneath him and the tip of a wing caressed his face from above.  The way he pushed them off was like a teacher scolding well-meaning but boisterous children.  You could almost see him clucking his tongue. 

Other exciting moments at the aquarium were seeing sea otters (huge!), dolphins (bit sad in their small pool) amd, our personal favourite, watching huge deep sea crabs fighting.  Jeff alerted me to it by telling me to 'go and watch War of the Worlds over there'. 

So we learnt two important lessons.  Moral one: don't go to big tourist attractions on national holidays.  Moral two: but if you go to Osaka, you must visit the aqaurium.  Even if it is a national holiday. 

Now it's lunchtime and time for us to prepare our supplies for watching the game.  Yup, I am actually going to watch a rugby game of my own free will.  Well, I think I will watch it.  I intend to watch it.  Maybe I will read a magazine while I watch it... we will see.  But being overseas while all the World Cup hysteria goes on has made us rather homesick, so we have beer and chips and WILL watch the game! 

Hope you are all doing well and - for the people back home - enjoying the rugby madness!!