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!