Hello, love you, goodbye.

Asamushi Sunday

2008-07-21T09:57:00.003+09:00

Hello dear neglected blog. I'll try to keep you updated more often.

I agreed to be part of a team for the Cheseborough Cup swimming relay in Shariki in August. It seemed like a good idea, and then I realised just how far 1000m was. I have been training in the pool for a couple of weeks, but yesterday Mel, Michelle and I headed out to Asamushi Beach to try swimming in the sea. We dragged Dom along for the ride.

After all that exercise (and playing silly buggers) we decided we deserved pizza. While waiting for the pizza we went to the foot onsen, which was quite hot.

After that we collected our pizza and headed back to the beach and sat on the end of the jetty sort of type thing. We interrupted the romantic atmosphere of girly sunglasses man and "do you love me?" T-shirt girl.

Good times.

Interesting Sunday

2008-04-20T23:22:00.003+09:00

Interesting day today. Went to Hirosaki. I got my camera back too. You can have some cherry blossom pictures soon. They were beautiful. I'll tell you all about my day too. It was interesting.

Arrrrh! Bloody Pirates.

2008-04-19T14:25:00.003+09:00

Last night I went to Misawa with Mel and Bec. We met a group of other JETs there, and went to see "Pirates of Penzance", put on by the Misawa Base Theatre Guild. Two JETs had starring roles - Sam as the Pirate King, and John as his lieutenant. It was excellent. I have never seen a straight man prance as well as Sam did. Anyone in the vicinity, I recommend you go and see it.

After the show, a big group of JETs headed to a Mexican restaurant just off base for some food. In little America, it is possible to get all sorts of food you can't find in the rest of the prefecture.

Filled with Mexican food, we headed back to the city. I live on the complete opposite side of town from Mel and Bec, so I crashed at Mel's for the night. In the morning she dropped me in town, and I realised my keys were in my coat pocket. Which was in Bec's car still...

I think the most annoying thing was that I had said to Mel "oh, my coat is in Bec's car. It's OK, it's not cold and I'll see her tomorrow anyway."

After I caught the bus back to that side of town, Bec was kind enough to drop me in town again. Then I caught the bus to my house. In all, an hour and a half balls-up. The spare key has now been put somewhere OUTSIDE my house...

I spent the rest of the morning tidying, and then Koto and her kids came for coffee. Minami has just started school, so she was a bit tired and not as genki as usual. Taichi was as hyper as ever.

Tonight, I think is DVDs, junk food and taking it easy. Tomorrow is an EofA meeting in Hirosaki, and then an "Area Leaders" meeting. I am planning to go early and visit Kinokuniya book shop, and go and see the cherry blossoms in Hirosaki park. The cherry blossoms have just started. They are early this year.

That is all for now. Really need to get my camera back...

Kia ora, talofa lava, good morning girls.

2008-04-13T12:48:00.002+09:00

Hello. I'm still here. My camera is still at Steve's house, so no photos. Nothing terribly exciting has been happening lately, only several thousand enkais to go to. Last Friday night was the welcome party for the new teachers at Nishiko, and Friday night was the second grade teachers' party. I am trying my best to be the super-genki gaijin, so all the new teachers think I am, and always have been, super-genki. It is exhausting! At the welcome enkai I think trying to make everyone think I was super-genki just came across as "Wow, quiet Karen is super-drunk." Oh well, what can you do?

I have been having a lazy weekend. I just made a couple of banana cakes to take into the office and earn brownie points. The God of Cake is still smiling on me and they came out pretty well.

I suppose I ought to go and find something for lunch. Perhaps I will leave Little New Zealand and see what is happening in Japan.

So, I'm lazy. Whatcha gonna do?

2008-04-03T16:10:00.005+09:00

Several weekends ago, in March, I went to Hakodate with Bec and Anne. It was great fun. Here is photographic evidence of good times, in no particular order.

Bec and Anne on the tram:
Chocolate AND prawn crackers, anyone?

Or how about some corn ice-cream?Creepy music-box man! Hisashi-buri!

Fun with statues.

Goryokaku Tower.
Hakodate yama.
King of the World.
Oohhh. Pretty.
Oohhh. Pretty.
Fun with statues. Never gets old.
Never.
Ever.
Miserable looking onsen monkeys at the tropical plant garden.
Original heart made joy な fit? That's just what I was thinking!
And since then, all sorts of exciting things have happened. The end of the school year has arrived and with it crazy boredom and ten thousand nomikais. Teachers have been transferred, and new ones arrived. Unfortunately quite a few of the teachers I get on with have been transferred. Very sad. I'm sure the new ones will be fine.

I went to a two-day junior high English camp at Lake Ogawara-ko. It was fun. I have some photos but they are on my camera.

My camera is at Steve's house (hopefully), because I left it in Helen's car after our Tsugaru peninsula road trip. I have photos. They are on my camera.

Last weekend I went on another road trip with Bec and Dom to Lake Towada-ko. I have no photos, my camera is still AWOL.

This weekend I have another enkai (welcome party for the new teachers), and the E of A indoor soccer tourney. I'm not playing, but I am going to help out. For a while.

That is all the photos I have for the moment. Until I get my camera back. Hopefully on the weekend.

Ciao.

Hirosaki Monday

2008-03-16T10:30:00.002+09:00

On the Monday following the graduation ceremony I had a holiday because I had worked on Saturday for the graduation. Bec had a holiday as well, and we headed over to Hirosaki for they day.

We visited Hirosaki castle, had lunch at Zilch, and visited Kinokuniya bookshop. I managed to keep my hands in my pockets at Kinokuniya, which was quite an achievement.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. The students had exams all week, so I had nothing to do all day at work. I had one class on Friday, and by then my brain had turned to liquid and was beginning to leak out my ears.

Graduation

2008-03-16T10:07:00.002+09:00

On the first of March was the graduation ceremony at Nishiko.

After the ceremony was an enkai for the teachers. It was fairly uneventful. Sugisawa Sensei got smashed (as usual), and an ex-Nishiko principal wanted me to go to a snack bar with him. It was an offer I politely declined.

Challa Bagundi!

2008-02-29T20:52:00.004+09:00

Here are the last of them!

After pointing at the non-existent star, Honey had to wash Dave's feet. After washing his feet, Honey then had to ask for money. Being a boy with expensive tastes, he asked for an iPhone. Whether he actually gets it or not is another matter altogether. To ensure getting something, Honey and some other cousins held Dave's shoes for ransom. I'm not sure what happened in the end. I was trying not to spew up again.

After that it was lunch time (for those without a stomach bug...), and then photos.

Here are the happy couple with Dave's parents:Dave's friends, Sam and Tamaki, modelling their pyjama suits:
Me, Dave and Shilp:
Shilp's extended family:
After the wedding it was back to the rented house. I slept most of the afternoon, and felt much better. I spent some time hanging out with Shilp, Dave and Neel. Later on I went for a walk with Neel and Honey to try and find an internet cafe. It was Sunday night, and not much was open. It was good to get out and breath is some of that pollution though!

The next day we left the rented house. After sitting outside, chatting and drinking chai, everyone went their separate ways. I went with Shilpa's mum, aunt and Honey to another aunty's house. From there, Honey and I went to Kovur and spent the day with Shilp's grandmother. It was nice to have a lazy day! Shilp's mum and aunt joined us there in the evening, and then Honey and I caught an overnight bus back to Hyderabad. I didn't see Shilp at all, so I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye. I spoke to her on the phone though. It was tough saying goodbye to her mum though. She had done so much for me! I'm sure I wouldn't have had half as good a time if it wasn't for all her hard work and organisational skills. A big お疲れ様ですto you Aunty!

Honey and I arrived in Hyderabad early on Tuesday morning. After a brief panic, in which he thought the keys were still in Nellore, we got back to the house. We both slept for a while and then Honey "went to school." I took an auto across to one of the shopping centres I knew from last time. I was absolutely convinced I was going to get kidnapped, but I got there in one piece. I'm pretty sure I got ripped off, but it was still only Rs70 (about Y200), so I can't really complain. I did some shopping (books and movies), then headed to another shopping centre, and back to the house. Successful Indian adventure on my own!

That night Honey and I went to one of his mother's friends for dinner. I insisted I could cook something and there was no need to go to any trouble, but it was all arranged. Imagine my suprise when we arrived at the aunty's house and there was another foreigner there! The aunty's niece was visiting from America, along with her American husband. They invited me to go shopping with them the next day, which is what I did.

The driver came and picked me up in the morning, and imagine my delight when the car was an Ambassador (best car ever!). I tagged along with them for the day. It was nice to have someone to hang out with for the day.

After shopping it was back to the house, final packing, a little dinner, and then off to the airport.

I was thankful I had been through Indian airports before with others, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have coped with the disaster that is Hyderabad airport otherwise. It is so confusing! I did laugh when going through immigration - the officer asked me where I was going, why I was going to Tokyo, and how much I earned.

I can't be too critical of Hyderabad airport. It was in it's last week or two of operation before the new airport opened. Luckily for me I flew into the old one - it only took half an hour to get to. The new airport is apparently 2 hours away from Shilpa's aunt's.

I left Hyderabad at 11.50 on Wednesday night, and arrived back in Aomori (via Bangkok and Tokyo) at midnight on Thursday night. My house was freezing, and everything was very, very quiet. I had to stay up until about 2 am for the place to warm up enough to sleep and even then I couldn't sleep because it was too quiet!

Alright, I could go on about India for hours, but I'm sure by now you are sick of the subject!
It is past my bed time. Have to get my beauty sleep.

Wedding Day

2008-02-29T20:26:00.004+09:00

Here are the last of my pictures from India - the wedding!

Unfortunately, the night before the wedding Prathima and I both had a dose of Delhi Belly. It was a rough night. I slept very little, and was absolutely exhausted the next day. I dragged myself out of bed, had a wash, and was one of the last people to leave the house.

But I made it.

I was able to just sit in the audience and observe. I couldn't stand up for more than two minutes anyway. I have the utmost admiration for Prathima. As the bride's sister she had to run around and be useful, and look after Dave and make sure he knew what was happening. I don't know how she did it!

Here is Shilpa arriving:The lady on her right (in the light coloured sari) is Neel's mother. The lady behind her (in the green and purple sari) is Shilpa's uncle's mother-in-law. We stayed at the uncle's house, and she looked after me. I think she felt bad because I had no idea what was going on. She kept talking to me in Telugu. Somehow, between my three words of Telugu and her three words of English, we had some communication.

Here is Dave arriving in his Maharajah suit:
Dave and Shilpa:

This is after the ceremony. The bride and groom go outside and they point to a star. It is a south Indian thing. They do it for the photos, even though it is day time and there are no stars.
And I lied. There will be one more lot of photos because this won't let me put up any more than five for some reason.

How was India?

2008-02-29T16:40:00.005+09:00

How was India? I'll tell you how India was. I got up this morning and shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How an elephant got in my pyjamas I shall never know.

Sorry. I've wanted to use that quote from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for such a long time!

On to the photos.

This is the start of the wedding stuff. Early on Saturday morning there was a blessing sort of thing for Shilp.

After that Shilp went off to the temple in Kovur, and everyone else had time to kill until lunchtime. Shilp's cousin Honey and I escaped the house for a while, and went to visit Dave's family and friends at their hotel. Being on the Indian side of things, and having been to Prathima's wedding, I was considered the expert in all matters relating to the wedding. I didn't know much more than they did, but having gotten used to "Indian Time", as well as too long in Japan with no idea what is going on, I was better prepared. If it is important, someone will tell you what to do...

Lunch was about 2 o'clock. We ate outside at rented house. These are Dave's friends, Sam and Tamaki. They are eating a collection of things wrapped up in a betel leaf. It is supposed to be good for your digestion. Maybe... it is pretty gross.
I hung out with the foreigners for a while, before I realised there were no Indians still outside. I figured there must be a reason for this, and moved inside. Sure enough it was much cooler!

I hung out with Honey and Neel for a while. Luckily, Neel wasn't trying to charge me a million dollars to take his photo this time:
Later in the afternoon Shilp was sent back to the beauty salon to get made even more beautiful. Prathima went with her, while I got ready for the evening function. When I was ready we swapped shifts. The beauty salon was about five minutes walk from the rented house. Everyone at the house was busy, so I walked over by myself. Such a funny sight you have never seen - the whitest thing ever to hit Nellore, dressed up in a black dress, high heels, walking across to the beauty salon. I didn't dare look left or right. I KNEW everyone was staring at me, I just didn't need to see them...

Anyway, I made it, kidneys intact.

Shilp got made pretty:

And then we went to the wedding hall. And here are a series of photos in which Shilp looks gorgeous:

These are two of Shilp's cousins - Naviya and Honey.This is Shilp and her uncle. I had trouble getting him to smile for the photo...

The whitest thing ever to hit Nellore:

When I arrived in Hyderabad and met Shilpa's aunt, who I had met last time I was in India, she apparently said "she's whiter than last time." That is what an Aomori winter will do to you!

Shilp and her mum:

Shilp, her mum and her mum's siblings:

Shilp's sister, Prathima; Shilpa; Shilp's brother-in-law Neel:
Sunday was the wedding proper. I'll put those pictures up soon.

Today is Friday! TGIF! Unfortunately I have to go to work tomorrow - it is the graduation ceremony. Today and yesterday we have had practices - bowing practice, singing practice, entering the hall practice, exiting the hall practice... today it wasn't so bad, but yesterday was awful. The hall is FREEZING! They have two big heaters but they are noisy, so they turn them off while the actual practice is going on. So bloody cold! Today they had the other smaller heaters out as well. Hardly makes a difference if you are the students, but I am not and carefully chose a place to sit near the heater. AND I was prepared and wore a polypro...

Tuesday was the entrance exam for the junior high kids who want to come to Nishiko next year, and Wednesday was the marking day. It is quite fun - all the teachers sit around a table and mark one section each. Unlike most ALTs, I am allowed to help. I even had sentences to mark, not just the multiguess questions. My other job was "advisor" - when the teachers weren't sure about the answer the student had written I had the final say.

There were some real gems in the exams. The best was a finish the sentence - "In Canada schools start in September, but in Japan..." and the student had written "everybody angry." The model answer was "schools start in April."

OK, that is enough for today. I'll go and dust off my suit and make sure I have a shirt ironed for tomorrow.

Hi Mum!

2008-02-25T18:56:00.006+09:00

I've been back in Aomori for more than a week, so it is high time I got my A into G and put up some photos.

Shilpa and I spent one day in Hyderabad. We visited Charminar and the old part of Hyderabad. We went bangle shopping and I had my arse grabbed by a dodgy north Indian man. It was an eventful day.

This is Charminar:
And this is the view:
We had some lunch, and the first of many Thums Ups:
That night Shilp and I took the train (11 hours or so) to Tirupati, where we indulged in some coconuts:
And some vegetable shopping:
While shopping for veges, my camera and I caught the attention of these two:
Or as Shilp described it "what is this black magic the white witch has?"

In our travels we took many auto rides. Here, we are waiting while the driver fills the auto with petrol, while the engine was still running. Saftey first!

The two days we had in Tirupati involved lots of visiting Shilpa's friends and relatives (and another marathon gossip session...). Early on Wednesday morning Shilpa, her mum and I caught a bus to Chennai (formerly known as Madras).

Tamil Nadu is very pretty. This is the rest stop halfway between Tirupati and Chennai:
I think the bus ride was about 4 hours. I we had Indian junk food to keep us fed.

I told Shilpa she was trying to make me fat. She said "You won't get fat. Only people who don't eat anything get fat in India." I swear, this girl has a sixth sense!

In Chennai we took a 45 minute bus ride across town. It was a local bus. It wasn't fun. We went and visited one of Shilp's mum's cousins, had lunch there, and then took a 45 minute auto ride back across town. We had all sorts of adventures trying to find Shilp's uncle's house. We visited them, then headed back to the bus terminal.

There, we took a 5 hour bus to Nellore, Shilp's mum's hometown. We stayed with another uncle. By this stage I was exhausted, overwhelmed by too many Indians, and over fed (again!). I had my wee culture shock/breakdown and had an early night.

After a couple of hours sleep I was all genki again, and ready to visit the temple with Shilp, her mum and Pratima (who had arrived early that morning).
After visiting the temple we headed out to Kovur, the village where Shilpa's grandmother lives. We hung out for the afternoon, and played with the little cousins.

This is Shilpa and Pratima:

And Pratima with her cousins:
That night we moved from Shilp's uncle's to the house the family had rented for the wedding. It was HUGE! I made Shilp's aunt crack up laughing when I walked in - I couldn't believe the size of it. I am used to Japanese houses, and this could fit at least 4 of my apartment in it!

Here is a random photo of some buffalo. There are lots of buffalo in Nellore. There are also lots of mozzies. They seem to like me a lot. Not so spicy I guess. A little bit of ethnic food in the diet.

The next day I went with Shilp and her mum to talk about the wedding photos, then we went to see Dave and his friends and sister. They had arrived early that morning and were staying in a hotel. We went and had lunch with them, then rescued Dave's sister (she'd spent two weeks travelling with boys...) and went to the beauty salon to get Shilp all beautiful. We all got mehindi (henna) on our hands as well.

The next day the wedding events started and I have lots of photos of Shilp looking gorgeous. You are going to have to wait for another day though!

Hyderabad

2008-02-14T02:49:00.002+09:00

Hello! Long time no see. I am sitting in Hyderabad airport waiting for my flight to Bangkok. Internet access has been a bit thin on the ground. Well, finding time to find it has been anyway! The trip has been great. It has been pretty different - not as much travelling as visiting relatives and hanging out with Shilpa and her family. The wedding and alll the associated functions were great. Shilpa looked amazing, and I will put up some pictures when I get back to Japan. I am looking lovely and slim after the tried and tested "India Diet Plan" - one stomach bug away from your optimum weight! Unfortunately Shilpa's sister and I both got sick the night before the wedding. We both came right after 24 hours, but Indian food hasn't been too appetising since...

Time to go to Bangkok. Photos soon.

Here I am...

2008-02-04T15:24:00.000+09:00

I've been a little lazy about puting up photos lately. Sorry!

I have arrived safely in India. I took the train to Tokyo on Firday night, and left for Hyderabad on Saturday morning. I had a four hour stopover in Bangkok and almost went crazy, I was so bored.

Shilp and her cousin, Honey, met me at the airport at Hyderabad, and we went back to Shilp's aunt's house. Shilp and Honey were the only two home. Despite the fact that I'd been up for a ridiculous length of time, and it was late, Shilp and I still stayed up gossipping for a few hours!

On Sunday Shilp and I went to Charminar, in the old part of Hyderabad. We drove a hard bargain buying a bangle and a necklace, before heading back to Shilp's aunt's to get organised and then catch the train to Tirupati.

So here I am with Shilp in Tirupati, we have just come out for a walk and found an internet cafe. Her Mum is due to arrive back in Tirupati anytime soon, and her sister in the next few days, and then we are off to Nellore for the wedding.

Later alligators.

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

2008-01-16T17:20:00.000+09:00

I just haven't done anything terribly exciting lately. Here is a quick run down:

Sat at my desk and spoke to nobody every day for a week.
Went skiing at Hakkoda.
Read some books.
Went skiing at Moya.
Got tickets to India organised.
Spent lots of time stressing out over the Indian visa (continuing).

Tonight I am heading up to Moya with Dom and Bec. I finally got the Indian visa application posted and now I have quite a lot of stress hoping it will come back in time.

So that is it. I am still here. Away with the fairies most of the time, but still here.

Today I am Happy.

2008-01-07T15:19:00.001+09:00

Today I have nearly recovered from my cold. And I almost finished reading War and Peace. And the sun is shining. And I was allowed to go home at 2 o'clock. And the office lady was nice to me. That is all. Goodbye.

Just for fun...

2008-01-06T17:20:00.000+09:00

Too much time at home doing nothing this weekend. I found these gems on the interweb-thingy.

From the Sunday Star Times:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4345943a4560.html

From YouTube (via the Sunday Star Times):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48eHkZfnGug
This is Brett Lee, from the Aussie cricket team. Somebody tell him not to give up the day job!

I'm also following the disaster that is Britney Spears:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10485265

Snow

2008-01-05T12:35:00.000+09:00

On Thursday I took some pictures of the snow.

The view from my balcony:

The view from the bus stop:

The Utou Shrine in central Aomori:
The shrine still had the New Year decorations up, and was busy with people getting their fortunes for the year ahead.

This is another (less busy) shrine, just off route 4:
Yesterday was the first day back at work for the year. I was bored out of my skull - no students, few teachers, no work. At least it was Friday. I called the whanau to say Happy New Year after school, and then hung out with Mark who had time to kill on his way to Tokyo.

The dreaded lurgy had hunted me down so today I am taking it easy at home and hoping it will pass quickly. Actually I feel guilty because I'm wasting the day, and I'm trying to convince myself it is better to stay home and do nothing and get better quickly.

New Year Traditions

2008-01-02T20:36:00.000+09:00

I managed to fit in a lot of the whanau's New Year traditions this year, despite being away from home. Here I am with my silly hat, my bubbly with sugar and a strawberry in it, and some fish.

CO-OP had smoked salmon last week, but I couldn't find it this week so I bought some salmon and grilled it instead. I served it on a cracker with some cream cheese. It was pretty good!

よいお年を!

2008-01-02T18:03:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year!
I spent New Year's Eve skiing at Mount Hakkoda with Becky, Helen and Steve. We had an exciting detour getting to Hakkoda - we missed the turn onto the 103 and went as far as we could on the 122, before turning around and going back to the turn when the road turned out to be closed.

We skied until 3, headed down for an onsen, and then Becky and I went back to my house to get changed. After a quick trip to the supermarket before it shut for two days we headed into town and met Mark, Helen and Steve. We went to an izakaya, and had all kinds of adventures trying to sort out nomihodai and food.

After nomihodai ended about 10 we went and shared a bottle of bubbly in the snow.

Here is the bubbly, chilling in the snow:

Me, Mark, Helen, Steve and Becky:
After finishing that we headed to the Utou Shrine, just off Shinmachi. It was too early and there wasn't much happening. We caught a taxi to my house and shared another bottle of bubbly (I was well prepared!).

I gave Mark a Christmas present - its washing powder called biizu, his surname in katakana.
We walked down to the small shrine near my house to see in the New Year. We bought omiguji (fortunes) and then held our own countdown just outside the shrine gate. It was a very Japanese way to spend New Year.
Unfortunately most of the photos are blurry.

Helen and Steve headed back to his place from the shrine. We stopped at the konbini on the way back to my house to buy another bottle of bubbly (why we thought this was a good idea I'm not sure...) and then drank that and the other bottle I had back at my house (why we thought this was a good idea...).

New Year's Day started slow, and remained that way all day. We ordered pizza, and that was about as exciting as things got. We put Mark on the bus home about 7.30, Becky and I watched a movie, then it was bed time.

Today Becky and I had planned to take the bus up to Hakkoda (due to lack of friends with spare seats in their cars...) but we were rescued by Helen and Steve again. It was a great day skiing, although it disappeared really fast! I really, really, really enjoyed my last run down the direct with Helen. I nailed it! It was great.

Tomorrow is also a holiday. I'm going to chill out in town, sit in Quadrille and read a book, do nothing!

Boxing Day

2007-12-29T15:16:00.000+09:00

After breakfast, making sandwiches and packing up we headed back up Hakkoda in time for the 10 o'clock ropeway. It was a beautiful day. I felt much better about the skiing. I think going at my own speed rather than trying to keep up with everyone else helped a lot.

Tine, Joel and Mel on the ropeway: The view from the direct course:
Becky and the snow monsters:
Sabastian, Joel, Matt, Mel, Tina, Jason and Becky at lunchtime:
Joel made the best sandwiches ever!

We had a lot of gingerbread and rum truffles left over, so Melanie shared the Christmas love with the ropeway staff:
Me, looking unco:The direct course:
Mel, Becky and I headed back into Aomori about 3.30, hoping to get Becky on the 4.15 train to Imabetsu. We made it in time, but unfortunately discovered 4.15 was when Becky had to change trains. She had to wait another 2 hours for the next train going that way.

I got home, had a shower and was in bed by 8.30.

Thursday and Friday I had the most boring days at work EVER. Luckily the calligraphy teacher told me I was allowed to go home at lunchtime on Friday. Thank goodness someone knows I have no idea what is going on!

Today I had every intention of tidying my house, but it's now 3.30ish and I've done nothing, apart from catch up here and listen to the Les Mis soundtrack a lot of times.

Christmas Day 2007

2007-12-29T14:56:00.000+09:00

After a breakfast of bacon, eggs and blueberry pancakes we left Kathryn, Ali, Syo and Carl to recover from the previous night and headed up to Hakkoda.

I decided to challenge the ropeway for the first time. It wasn't as steep as I expected, but it was really long. I was exhausted by the end and sat out the second run. I joined everyone for their third run, this time the forest course. I had a lot of trouble getting down the first part, but after that it wasn't too bad.

This is Joel:
This is Becky:
I think everyone else did one more run before Sabastian had to head back to Misawa and we headed to the onsen at Jogakura.

When we got back to the cabin we found Santa had paid a visit:
Tina and Becky fought over the ham bone:
Jason was a force of nature:
Melanie, Jason, Joel and Tina show off their silly hats:Team Kiwi:Christmas dinner spread - ham, turkey, turkey soup, cous cous, salad, Joel's famous tacos, goose fat roast veges, followed by gingerbread, rum truffles and chocolate pecan pie. After dinner we had a very competitive game of pictionary, won by Melanie and Joel, before a relatively early night.

Happy Merry Christmas!

2007-12-29T14:39:00.000+09:00

After an uneventful weekend (cooking, cleaning, making my house look like it hadn't been cleaned again...) it was Monday - Christmas eve. Becky caught the train in from Imabetsu and dragged all her junk to my house. We had a cup of tea and then walked over to Korona world where we met Bec and her friend Lauren, visiting from Okayama-ken. We had lunch, headed back to my house to grab all the junk. Bec was kind enough to drop Becky and I off at Moya where we were spending Christmas.

We got checked in (eventually), and were soon joined by Sabastian, Carl, Melanie, Jason, Joel, Tina, Kathryn, Ali and Syo.

The cars got unloaded, the cooking got started, and the merry-making began.

Tina gets a head start:
Melanie, looking pretty pleased with the turkey:Goose fat, secret ingredient in the roast spuds:
Me and my pavlova:
Melanie and another batch of eggnog:
We had lots of food - a ham, a turkey, cous cous, roast veges, salad... as well as plenty of eggnog, mulled wine and rum cranberry cider. It was an excellent way to spend Christmas eve.

Bonenkai

2007-12-29T14:07:00.001+09:00

Friday the 21st of December was the bonenkai. It literally means "forget the year party". Oyanagi-san, the office lady, decided it would be fun to dress me up in a kimono for the event.

This is Oyanagi-san and I:

The kimono is really tight so you have to sit up very straight.

This is Sugisawa Sensei and I:
He got really drunk, as usual, and couldn't stop giggling. He was very excited that he'd had his photo taken with me. It was very funny.

This is the principal:The bonenkai was a lot of fun. We played a bingo game. Everyone won a prize. Mine was a combination travel alarm clock and body fat analyser.

One of the office men, the guy who looks like the cartoon character Droopy, was really drunk and kept stealing the microphone. He started singing a song called "Matsuwa" (wait for her), but changed the lyric to "matsuba" (crutches), because both Maeda Sensei and Kawauchi Sensei are on crutches at the moment. After the microphone was taken away from Droopy, the "matsuba kyodai" (Crutches Brothers) got up on the stage and started playing silly buggers.

This is Oyanagi-san, Sakata Sensei (calligraphy), Jin Tomoko Sensei, Niioka Sensei, Shibata Sensei (all English) and Mutsuko Sensei (Science I think). And me (Santa-san).I went to the nijikai with Niioka Sensei and Jin Sensei and a group of other teachers. I butchered Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas", a karaoke request from Maeda Sensei. Niioka Sensei and Jin Sensei were watching the businessmen at the table opposite and decided they were "elite salarymen" because they were all wearing glasses. Maeda Sensei and Kawauchi Sensei sang "matsuba" again. It was fun. I got home about 11.

Christmas in the Teachers' Room

2007-12-22T11:03:00.000+09:00

On Thursday I took some Christmas treats to school for the other teachers. Here is the Famous Retter Christmas Tray: Japan Edition. It's missing most of the main ingredients - mince pies, shortbread, rum truffles, Christmas cake - but it does have the icing sugar on top which makes all the difference.

I gave them strawberries, chocolate, Mum's apple cake, and chocolate wafer stick things. On Friday I took in some rum truffles (without rum).

Brownie points, brownie points!

Happy Merry Christmas Party

2007-12-16T15:16:00.000+09:00

Last night I went out for dinner with Koto and some of her friends for Christmas.

Here are Mika-chan, Koto, Youko and Magic-san.
Magic-san has a name, but I can't remember it. He did magic tricks for us, mostly card tricks. It was very cool. He was funny, and kept telling us to drink more so we couldn't figure out how he did the trick.

The whole crowd: Chef-san, Youko, Magic-san, me, Hwa? (a Vietnamese girl studying at Chuo Daigakuen), Angelo, Emicchi, Mika-chan and Koto.
Emicchi, Koto, Mika and Angelo playing silly buggers:
After dinner/nomikai Mika, Koto, Angelo and I went to karaoke for an hour, and then onto a club called Brain.

We left about 2, and Koto and I walked with Mika for most of the way to her house. It was snowing. This is Koto and Mika on the Furukawa overpass:
And Koto and I:Koto and I caught a taxi back to Shinjo. We told the taxi driver we had just had a Christmas party. He told us it was a little bit early to have a Christmas party...

Today I have been really lazy, although I did get the Christmas pressies wrapped and ready to go in the post tomorrow. It's been snowing all day. I ought to get started on some Christmas baking for the office, but there is always tomorrow. Another cup of tea sounds much nicer than braving the snow to go to the supermarket.

This week:

2007-12-16T14:51:00.000+09:00

Another crazy week here in Aomori. On Monday night I went to a talk given by the head of a medical school in Cleveland. They have some kind of partnership with Chuo Hospital in Aomori. It was interesting. He talked about training doctors and also about the controls they put in to make sure they don't make mistakes.

On Wednesday I was at Namioka again, doing Christmas lessons. In the afternoon I went to Aomori Hospital for the Christmas party. It wasn't nearly as eventful as last year. No tiger suit this year! I just had to ring some bells.

This is at the Christmas party. This woman is making everyone sing in Tsugaru-ben. It's something about me (wado) and you (nado), and then father (tocha) and mother (kacha) I think. I didn't really understand it.

This is the principal of Namiyou, or as he described himself "cos-puree kocho" (costume-play principal):

Cos-play Kocho's sidekicks:

After I had finished for the day I headed to Hirosaki. Namioka is technically part of Aomori city, but is closer to Hirosaki. I met Helen and Wyomia at Zilch, and we ran into Andy there. It was good to have a catch up with them. Wyomia and I went to Capricossa for dinner, and were joined by Steven and Alex later on. Alex had just finished taking his Italian course.

On Thursday night it was Bec's turn to cook. She did an excellent roast beef (with the help of Mel's oven). Marti and Dom couldn't make it to the party, but Mel joined us.

On Friday night I went to the ikebana club for the first time in ages, then raced home and then out again to the second grade teachers "welcome back from the school trip" enkai.

I'll be back with more just as soon as I put the jug on for a cup of tea.

Walking to School

2007-12-11T18:35:00.000+09:00

Usually walking to school is a pain in the backside - it's cold, it's icy, it's slippery. Today I enjoyed it. I realised it is my only chance in the day to enjoy the sunlight. By the time I finish work (4 o'clock) twilight is already setting in.

Will somebody please tell Japan about daylight saving time?

Snoopy's Christmas

2007-12-09T20:11:00.000+09:00

Snoopy's Christmas is probably the most over-played
Christmas song in New Zealand. It's like Vince Martin
from Beaurepairs singing "Winter Wonderland", it just
isn't Christmas without it. Last Christmas I never heard
it, so this year I fixed that by purchasing it from iTunes.
I was feeling very Christmassy on Friday night after
listening to it on repeat about 5 times. I was surprised
to find that NOBODY knows the song! I can't believe it.

The news it came out in the First World War
The bloody Red Baron was flying once more
The Allied Command ignored all of its men
And called on Snoopy to do it again

Was the night before Christmas and forty below
When Snoopy went up in search of his foe
He spied the Red Baron and fiercely they fought
With ice on his wings, Snoopy knew he was caught

Christmas bells those Christmas bells
Ring out from the land
Asking peace of all the world
And good will to man

The Baron had Snoopy dead in his sights
He reached for the trigger to pull it up tight
Why he didn't shoot, well, we'll never know
Or was it the bells from the village below

{Refrain}
Christmas bells those Christmas bells
Ringing through the land
Bringing peace to all the world
And good will to man

The Baron made Snoopy fly to the Rhine
And forced him to land behind the enemy lines
Snoopy was certain that this was the end
When the Baron cried out "Merry Christmas, mein friend!"

The Baron then offered a holiday toast
And Snoopy our hero saluted his host
And then with a roar they were both on their way
Each knowing they'd meet on some other day

{Refrain twice}

The Week in Review

2007-12-09T19:40:00.000+09:00

I had no classes all week, because the first and third grade students had exams. The second grade students and teachers were all on the school trip to Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. It was a very quiet week at school, but I did put a good dent in the book I bought in Sapporo - an oral history of Japan in the war. It is very good.

Monday and Tuesday nights I spent recovering from Sapporo. When it gets dark at 4 o'clock, going to bed at 8 doesn't seem at all outrageous!

On Wednesday night I went to the house of a PE teacher from Higashi High School. He likes English. He lives very very close to Nishiko, so sees me walking around quite often. I met him when a group of us showed up at a restaurant to have dinner, and it just happened to be the same restaurant where the Higashi teachers (and Bec) had an enkai. When I went to say hello to Bec, he said "hey, I know you". I ran into him again at the supermarket, and he invited me to dinner at his house with Ishikawa Sensei, a maths teacher who is the Nishiko basket ball coach. Bec had been to dinner at his house before, but I couldn't make it due to climbing mountains at the time.

Alright, so now the explanation is out of the way, I went to dinner at Ogawa Sensei's house. It was fun. He talked a lot. His English is pretty good. I also talked to Ishikawa Sensei, who I don't usually get a chance to talk to at school. He is only a year older than me. He is very cool. Ogawa Sensei just got really drunk, and by the end of the night was speaking Japanese, most of which I could understand, and kept stopping to ask me how to say it in English. So I was translating random phrases into English. It was fun though.

Thursday night I went to Alex's house for dinner. Our original "dinner at someone's house every week" has expanded to include Steven, Alex and Dom. Alex cooked us excellent, authentic Italian food, the highlight being the tiramisu.

All of a sudden it was Friday night, and I was very, very happy. I met Bec, Anne, Dom and Will at Korona world to go Christmas tree shopping and have 100-en sushi for dinner. After that we decided to go to karaoke and sing nothing but Christmas carols. We managed about an hour before exhausting all the Christmas songs. We then spent two more hours singing anything and everything we could think of.

Will crashed at my house on Friday night, so we got up on Saturday morning, and headed to meet Bec at the Hard Off second hand shop. We had a look around, had lunch, went shopping for ski gear, and eventually came up with a plan for how to spend the rest of the weekend.

That saw Will heading back to Hiranai to clean his house, and Bec and I collecting stuff for sleeping and skiing. We headed out to Hiranai with the plan of staying up til the wee small hours and then going to cut down a pine tree from somewhere so Will could have a real Christmas tree. In the end we abandoned the stealth mission in favour of the (relative) warmth of Will's house.

Sunday, after an excellent breakfast of French toast, we headed up to Hakkoda-san. The skiing was excellent, and I am pleased I haven't forgotten how! Lots of JETs up there as well, so it was nice to see everyone. We headed back to Aomori, went to Akbar's for dinner, then home, a nice hot shower, and telling the world the blow-by-blow details of my week!

No photos, because I am getting really lazy about taking them!

Sunday in Sapporo

2007-12-09T19:13:00.001+09:00

We woke up fairly early on Sunday morning and had breakfast at the hotel. The croissants were excellent but they ran out. After sending Steven, Bec and Marti off to sit the JLPT Japanese exam, Dom, Alex and I went to the fish market.

After the fish market we went to the Sapporo Clock Tower, famous symbol of Sapporo. Dom was underwhelmed by it, but I thought it was pretty cool. Then again, he is a Pom, and they have Big Ben. We have The Square...
We went shopping and had lunch at the Sapporo Factory. There was nothing much factory about it, it is a shopping centre. They did have fun mirrors outside!

After we collected the examed-out Marti, Bec and Steven we went to Starbucks because Alex was hanging out for a "robust espresso with character". After that we did a bit more shopping. Clearly it was a bit much for Dom:He is sitting in a massage chair. The Japanese says "Dear Customer. Please do not sleep here."

I was reunited with fingers-pants man, of Beijing fame. I last met fingers-pants man in a Beijing alley, near Tienanmen Square, in 2004. He has lost his trousers somewhere between Beijing and Sapporo.
We all met again and went to a very flash crab restaurant for dinner. It was Alex's birthday, so we decided to splash out.
After a very delicious crab meal, and plenty of "we got crabs in Sapporo" jokes, it was time to catch the train back to Aomori. It left at 10pm. We had a cake for Alex, so we had a little party at the end of the carriage, then tried to get whatever sleep we could get. Unfortunately I was sitting right in front of a guy who snored like a tractor. Like a tractor with a broken muffler. It was awful, but Japanese people are far too polite to "accidentally" kick the back of his seat or "accidentally" jab him in the ribs, so he was allowed to continue all the way to Hakodate. Luckily in Hakodate my prayers to the deities of the world's major religions were answered and he got off.

We got back to Aomori about 5.30, and I got back to my house about 6, just in time to have a shower and head off to school at 8. It was a tough day. I didn't have any classes to keep me occupied and falling asleep at my desk was a major concern...

Sapporo

2007-12-06T18:17:00.001+09:00

Last Friday night 5 intrepid travellers and I caught the overnight train from Aomori to Sapporo. My luck was in and there was no one sitting in the seat next to me on the train so I could stretch out. We arrived in Sapporo at about 6.30 on Saturday morning, found our hotel and then hit the onsen. Feeling a little more human we got our caffiene fix at Starbucks to finish the job off.

Sufficiently caffeinated we split in to two groups - Alex and Steven went shopping, and the rest of us did a Tiki Tour. Here is Marti at the Hokkaido Jingu:Next stop was the Maruyama Zoo, where we got hijacked by an elderly man and taken to make Christmas trees from pine cones. Here is Dom-chan with his kindy creation:
Once we had kindy out of the way we explored the zoo, quite possibly the most depressing zoo in the history of ever. Bec described it as having been built in 1960, some animals put in it, and no one had done anything since. Add to that it was freezing cold and trying to snow. They did have more exciting animals, but these are the first sheep I have seen since I left New Zealand. It was very exciting for me, even if somebody from that country across the Tasman sea wanted to take pictures of me in compromising positions... This is a random statue dressed up for Christmas and being attacked by gaijin in downtown Sapporo:

We ate ramen in Ramen Alley for lunch:After lunch we went to the Sapporo Beer Museum. The museum was pretty much a waste of time, apart from the bar. It was really cheap!

After the museum we hit the beer garden for the Hokkaido specialty - Ghengis Khan. It is barbequed lamb, and the name comes from the shape of the hot plate it is cooked on. It looks like a Mongolian helmet. We went the whole hog and did tabehodai (all you can eat) and nomihodai (all you can drink):I suspect the "lamb" was actually hogget or mutton, but whose complaining?

After dinner we went back to downtown Sapporo. Here are Bec and Marti in Odori koen Christmas Village with some hot cocoa:
We also went up the TV tower. Because it is Japan, everything in Japan needs a cute character or no one will go there. Sapporo TV Tower has terebi to-san (TV Father).
And because I can't go past random English:

That'll have to do for the moment, I will put up Sapporo Sunday photos when I can. Happy Flowery Christmas 'til next time!

The Second Annual Aomori American Thanksgiving

2007-11-25T20:14:00.001+09:00

On Saturday I slept in, and then had a lovely lazy day. I made a couple of banana cakes, and in the evening I headed over to Goshogawara with Bec, Dom and Anne for the Thanksgiving party at Teri's. I don't have any pictures because, clever girl, I forgot to take the batteries for my camera.

There were lots of people there. Teri, Becky and Jody made a great effort and there was heaps of food. I drank far more than I ought to have, but the less said about that the better.

This morning we surfaced rather late, and headed back to Aomori feeling slightly worse for wear. I spent most of the afternoon being extremely lazy, although I did get a couple of loads of washing done.

And that is the weekend over. Only five days until the next one...

Hachinohe

2007-11-25T19:37:00.000+09:00

On Thursday night after the conference I was planning to go down to Tokyo, but I couldn't find anywhere to stay. Instead I decided to spend another night in Hach and catch up with some friends. Because we are so grown up we found this MOS Burger ad amusing - the chicken looks like a hand giving the finger:

After dinner we went to a really random, tiny little izakaya near the bus terminal. Will was catching the bus to Tokyo, so we didn't want to go too far. It was a very, very strange experience. The mama was ancient, and absolutely plastered. Every now and then she seemed to have trouble breathing and we were worried she was going to drop dead.

The only other customer in the bar was this guy. He was a few sheep short in the top paddock, and even more wasted than mama-san. According to Dom and Bec he had a really runny nose that he didn't seem to notice.

After we made our exit and sent Will on his way to Tokyo, we took an interesting taxi ride into downtown Hachinohe. The taxi driver didn't seem to have put his winter tyres on, and it had been dumping in Hach for most of the afternoon and the roads were all ice.

We had a few drinks and a good chat, before back to the hotel (and finding Bec had lost her room key).

On Friday morning we headed over to Shimoda JUSCO, had lunch, watched a movie (The Bourne Ultimatum), did a bit of shopping, and then went back into Hach to catch the train back to Aomori.

Mid-year conference

2007-11-24T11:19:00.000+09:00

I had only Monday and Tuesday at Nishiko, and on Wednesday Hirano Sensei and I headed to Hachinohe for the Aomori ALT mid-year conference. It had snowed a lot overnight, and Hirano Sensei picked me up about 7. It was a very slow drive over to Hachinohe, but the snow was beautiful! I'm pretty sure I NEVER want to hear any of the songs from the movie "Hairspray" ever again, after listening to the soundtrack three times on the drive to Hach.

The conference was good. On the first afternoon I had to present my lesson activity to other high school ALTs and JTEs, and in the second workshop I had to "facilitate" - it was a series of mini workshops, and I was responsible for keeping time and interrupting presenters mid presentation and telling their audience to move to the next presentation.

Wednesday night was the E of A talent show and slave auction. It was a good night. I didn't take any photos, but Sam was brave enough to share this video with the world, so it's only fair that I share it with you. It was by far the best act of the night.

In the slave auction I bought Jody for 6000 yen. I am now the owner of a one day road trip to the destination of my choice. I was up for auction later in the night, and I sold to Melissa for 160,000 yen. I'm cooking dinner and doing her ironing, at some point in the future.

Thursday at the conference was fairly slow, for the ALTs at least. I chose to pretend I wasn't feeling the effects of the previous night while my supervisor was around. I'm pretty sure she could see straight through me!

We had two more workshops in the morning, and then a demonstration class in the afternoon. By the afternoon it was freezing cold, and the snow was really dumping down. I can highly recommend not walking in snow in high heels. I managed to not break my ankle.

Sunday with Veena and Motoko

2007-11-24T10:47:00.001+09:00

On Sunday we had a slow start to the day. Motoko and I were up early, because we had planned to spend the day in Hirosaki. We took one look at the weather (bucketing!) and decided not to. We let Veena sleep in, and then headed into town for lunch (Aomori hotate at the little green place), a quick trip to ASPAM for some souvenirs, and then back to the station to send Motoko on her way to visit some family friends in Hirosaki.

By that stage the rain had turned into snow:
Veena was excited to meet some of my students:
Veena and I stopped for a cup of coffee, hit a few more souvenir shops, and then decided it was far too cold and miserable to hang out in town any longer. We caught the bus back to my place, and I cooked dinner (spaghetti bog), and we ate junk food while watching the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. Veena and I have a Pride and Prejudice thing, ever since fifth form English. In this version we were quite impressed with Mr Bingley and Mrs Bennet, but didn't like Jane much at all.

About 8.30 I headed down to the station to meet Motoko coming back from Hirosaki. She had instructions to get back to my house, but it was far too good an excuse to go and play in the snow!

Motoko, frolicking:
Evidence of frolicking:
We just veged for the rest of the night. On Monday morning we got up and I headed off to work, and left Veena and Motoko get themselves to the station to catch the train to Tokyo.

It sounds like they had a good time in Tokyo, and did lots of walking. They met Ben and he took them to The Lockup (because I told him to!), spent two days at Disneyland, and a lot of shopping. Veena flew home yesterday, and Motoko is back in Osaka.

Aomori Fun!

2007-11-20T18:51:00.001+09:00

On Friday morning Motoko and Veena arrived in Aomori. It also happened to be the first snow (that I saw anyway!). Motoko and Veena spent most of their day in McDonalds, and I spent mine counting down the time until I could go and meet them. Five hours in McDonalds. I'm pretty sure they could have found somewhere nicer to hang out, but oh well...

I took them to Gyukaku for dinner, and then back to my house for dessert and quality kotatsu time!

On Saturday morning Motoko and I dragged Veena to the Onsen at Korona World, which I don't think she enjoyed very much at all. Then we went to town and caught a bus to the other side of town to meet Bec. The bus didn't go where I expected it to, so after a bit of a walk back to the main road Bec came and rescued us, and we went to see the Showa Daibutsu.We ran into Fuyuka and Gavin there, also taking some visitors around, and also taking their pet snake for a walk.
After kaitenzushi for lunch , we went to the Nebuta no Sato museum/warehouse near Moya Hills. We got these certificates saying we had had the Nebuta experience. Not really anything like the real thing, but oh well!As one of the token forein visitors, Bec was asked to model the hat...We decided we probably had time to get up to the Hakkoda Ropeway before it shut for the day. Unfortunately we didn't, so we went to the Jogakura Bridge instead. There was quite a lot of snow up there!
I made a really big snowman:After an adventurous trip back into the city, involving lots of singing and a petrol station adventure in which Bec's car earned the nickname "Caroline", we got back to Bec's place, left the car, and caught the train into town. We went to an izakaya for dinner and a few drinks, then on to karaoke. Will joined us at karaoke - poor boy. We subjected him to lots of girly songs from back in the day, but he took it very well. They didn't have the Girls' High school song on the karaoke machine. Sing it with me now "while youth is ours, with all it's powers..."

Back in the real(ish) world

2007-11-19T19:41:00.001+09:00

Back in Aomori on Wednesday I visited Namioka yogo. I was in the senior high school, and we made pavlova.

This is Sae, Narumi Sensei and Rina:

It was a really good pav. It didn't sink in the middle, and it stayed crispy on the outside.
I also made baked kumara with the special needs class, visited rehabilitation with some students, and visited Shirakabba gakkyu.

Busy day!

On Wednesday night Bec came for dinner, and then took me to get some toiyu for the heater so I didn't freeze to death. The closest petrol station was closed, so we went on an adventure up the 7 to find another one. The first one we pulled into was self service, and Bec laughed at me when I said let's find another one. Hey, it was raining, and I didn't want to muck around trying to figure out kanji!

Thursday was school all day, then cleaning.

Friday morning we had the first snow in the city!!!

Osaka, part MVXXVIIXYZ

2007-11-19T19:02:00.001+09:00

Some more Osaka pictures, because I have lots.

I think I'm turning Japanese (I really think so):

Oh Deer!

I wasn't the only one having a conversation with the deer:

Raveena making friends with the locals at Osaka Castle:

Conbini lunch:

Because I have to (this one's for Liz!):All sorts of goodies from home thanks to Veena and Motoko:

Motoko at Todaiji:Tea time:The quote that goes with this photo is "I'm going to drink my sweat now":Motoko and Veena at Osaka castle:Motoko and Veena at Osaka castle:All tuckered out on the train (V was sleeping on my shoulder):She is abunai:She looks scarily like her mother in this picture!

And just because no trip with Raveena would be complete without a photo of my backside:

And that is the end of the Osaka pictures.

The KKK

2007-11-19T18:04:00.001+09:00

As with any good excursion, we aquired nicknames during the course of our travels. May I present to you the KKK:

かわいい - kawaii - cute:
こわい - kowai - scary:

And かわいそう- kawaisou - pathetic:Not only nicknames, but a theme song too:

The kkk took my baby away they took her away
Away from me the kkk took my baby away
They took her away away from me

Now I dont know where my baby can be they
Took her away from me they took her away from me
I dont know where my baby can be
They took her away from me
They took her away from me

- The Ramones

Osaka, yeah!

2007-11-19T17:16:00.000+09:00

Hello possums.
Here are some photos from my trip to Osaka to see Motoka and suprise Raveena. They are in no particular order, because I can't be bothered and I have a zillion photos...

Todaiji - the largest wooden building in the world - in Nara:

The giant buddha inside the building, and some silly foreigner with the giant buddha hand puppet she just bought:

Motoko, being attacked by the deer in Nara park:

Veena, doing a good impression of a Japanese person with a cold:

Veena and Motoko, seeing me off on the shinkansen (back to Aomori):

Motoko and I at another great Japanese invention,ケーキバイキング(dessert buffet):

Marina, Motoko and I:Marina was an exchange student at Palmy Girls' when we were in the fifth form.

Marina and Veena at the dessert buffet:

Motoko with the takoyaki menu:Takoyaki is an Osaka specialty.

Teaching Veena the checkout chick trick for sore feet:

Playing silly buggers:

Is it possible to take a bad photo of this girl?
On the giant ferris wheel:

Veena and I at the Floating Garden Observatory:

Dotonbori:

Motoko and I with our Osaka takoyaki:

An 大阪 update!

2007-11-11T22:47:00.000+09:00

It's been a crazy week or so, ending with me in Osaka. I'll try and catch up with photos when I have some more time, but here is an overview:

Thursday 1 November: English teacher's enkai.
Friday 2: Second grade skating class, getting lost and teacher's enkai.
Saturday 3 and Sunday 4: Cleaning house and procrastinating.
Monday 5: Back to the doctor about the ear.
Wednesday 7: Ear...
Thursday 8: Dinner with Will and Bec at Will's house in Hiranai.
Friday 9: Train to Osaka.

Which brings us up to now. I took the night train down to Osaka, and Motoko met me at the station near her aunt's house. Raveena had no idea I was coming, and was suprised when I showed up on the doorstep.

Osaka is great, and it has been great catching up with Motoko and Veena. Yesterday we went to the floating garden observatory and the ferris wheel. Today we went to Dotonbori, ate takoyaki (an Osaka specialty), and then met Marina. Marina spent a year on exchange at PNGHS, and Veena and I hadn't seen her since the fifth form!

Tomorrow I think we are off to Nara for the day, and Osaka castle on Tuesday. Tuesday night I'm heading back to Aomori to clean the shower and vacuum before Veena and Motoko arrive on Friday night (hopefully - they haven't bought tickets yet!).

Alright, there you go. Happy Mum? I got Veena's message...

おやすみなさい。

Happy Halloween!

2007-11-02T15:42:00.001+09:00

Here is my prize-winning costume - ebi (prawn) sushi. I won the costume competition. Nah nah nah nah! I think it was just because I got in everyones face and made them give me their spare change.

The Hambugler (also known as Brett) was tough competition for best costume:
Mark the giant eyeball came third.
Alice (Helen) and the Mad Hatter (Stephen), but not as you know them:
Harry Potter (who usually goes by "Dominic" to avoid the publicity):

Team Kiwi - Karen (sushi), Daniel (a bogan) , and Tina (a J-girl):
Speed Racer (Sam) was impressed by the mirrored ceiling:
We always knew Andre was a bit sus. Turns out he's part of the Russian Mafia:
Julia wants to suck your blood (and Mark M does the fingers in the back ground):
Kelly the playboy bunny:
Will the train robber:If you did this in a convenience store in any other country you'd have the police there pretty smartly...

It was a great night. I ended up at karaoke with Daniel, Will and Bec. I was absolutely knackered after all that, and really glad I'd treated myself to a hotel room (as opposed to a Hach JET's tatami!).

Trick or Treat!

2007-11-02T15:09:00.001+09:00

On Saturday morning JoAnn and I were up and about early. We held Courtney to her promise to take us to Noheji train station so we could get to Hachinohe for the children's Halloween party. We were meeting Bec on the train. Bec and I had agreed to go on the train dressed up - 変な外人さん! We had a few funny looks...

Here I am at Noheji station:
Minnie mouse (in her pyjamas) and two witches. Day-to-day they are known as Jody, JoAnn and Bec.

Tina's evil twin tries to tempt small children with a poison apple:

Mario (also known as Ricky on his days off):
There were lots of cute kids :
And some little shits as well:These two, and one other accomplice, would not leave me alone. I made the mistake of pretending to be afraid of them. They thought it was a huge joke. By this point there was no acting, this look is genuine terror!

It was good fun. I thought more volunteers were going to show up sometime in the afternoon so I could split. Unfortunately nobody else came, so I ended up staying until 7. My feet were killing me! Did you see the shoes I thought it would be a good idea to wear?

When I finally escaped I went and found a hotel room, had a quick shower and got changed into my other costume (because why make it easy on yourself and wear the same thing?!?!) and headed out to the E of A Halloween party.

Pictures soon!

I lie, I lie...

2007-10-29T20:47:00.000+09:00

While I think about it I'll share this movie trailer with you. The Boy Wonder told me about it. The movie is called "The Devil Dared Me To".

It's a New Zealand movie. I can't decide whether it looks terrible or I really want to see it. I'm leaning towards terrible, but the accents are wonderful! I do miss New Zealand accents.

TGIF!

2007-10-29T20:28:00.001+09:00

On Friday after work I headed to Shichinohe for Kelly's birthday party. I met Wyomia on the train, and had to hear all about how wonderful the South African rugby team was. All I have to say is "2011, dear God, 2011".

Here are Juliet and Wyomia, our South Africans, having a celebration.

...and here am I, drowning my sorrows...

Theresa, Kelly the birthday girl, and Courtenay

Jody

Kelly, bashing the pinata

It was a fun night, and good to catch up with a lot of the Nanbu side people. Fun times. And that was only the start of the weekend!

Too knackered to put any more photos up for the moment. Ear is playing up again as well, so I'm going to take a panadol and have an early night. Oyasumi!

Should have been in catering...

2007-10-29T20:13:00.001+09:00

On Thursday last week I had a crowd at my place for dinner - Bec, Marti, Will, Koto, Minami and Taichi. It went well. I was pleased. We had beef in red wine stew, mashed spud and broccoli. If ony I had remembered to warm the plates up it would have been perfect.

It was the most people I've had in my house for a long time!

We also had pav for dessert. It was a pretty good pav actually, the third pav I've made in my little oven, and the best so far I think.
Koto's hyperactive but adorable son, Taichi. I did feel bad for filling Minami and Taichi up with sugary pavlova right before bed time...

Shirakami-sanchi

2007-10-21T10:39:00.001+09:00

On Saturday a small group of brave (stupid?) souls set off on an expedition up Mount Shirakami. The weather was terrible, but we decided to give it a go anyway. Shirakami-san is part of the Shirakami-sanchi UNESCO world heritage site (although not officially in the world heritage part). Have a look at it here.

The autumn leaves were excellent, and so was the view, if you like looking at clouds. We made it to the top in about 4 hours and it was FREEZING! We had lunch in the hut at the top, and I discovered my boots weren't waterproof, you just can't feel the water while you are walking...

After we'd all eaten and allowed the water on our bodies to cool down sufficiently and make us colder than we were before, we headed back down the hill. Gen and I set the pace, and in our hurry to get back below the tree line and out of the wind we left everyone else behind. Speed demons Helen and Stephen caught up and passed us, but it was too cold to stop and wait too long for the others to catch up, so Gen and I kept going.

The cloud had cleared a little bit when we were coming down, so we got a bit of a view. I definitely have plans to go back on a fine day! One benefit of climbing in bad weather was having the mountain almost to ourselves - climbing on a fine day would mean sharing the mountain with 15 busloads of retired people from Saitama...

We got down about 3.30, twenty minutes or so behind Helen and Stephen. The others made it down about half an hour after us.

Today, I'm a little bit sore.

'Ear are the news...

2007-10-18T16:30:00.000+09:00

Today is a lovely autumn day. It is very still. I like autumn.

Yesterday I went back to the doctor about my ear. Apparently there is now mould growing in there. Isn't that a lovely thought.

The other day I bought a green cardy. I'm not sure that I like it. I look a bit much like a Mid-Central Health nurse.

I just had a nice chat to the whanau.

Nothing exciting enough to take photos of lately.

Happy 21st to BW tomorrow!

I am 電車オタク.

2007-10-15T19:52:00.001+09:00

Because I live in Japan, I can do all kinds of stuff that would be too twee to do at home. On Sunday afternoon I went on a tour of the shinkansen line that they are building to Aomori. It is due to open in about 2010.

I do have a soft spot for the project. I live about 10 minutes walk from the station that will become the shinkansen station. I go past it every time I go to town. When I arrived in Japan the site was still covered in houses and trees.

Anyway, off we went, Abidemi, me, and two busloads of Japanese people. We went to the station, the route 7 bridge, and the Hakkoda tunnel. The tunnel is the longest in the world that isn't underwater. It's 26 kilometres long. The longest in the world is the Sekkan Tunnel between the Tsugaru peninsula and Hokkaido.

Abidemi and I go to visit the tunnel: Bob the builder:
The tunnel:
I was particularly impressed with the tunnel. Probably because the bridge and the station are really close to my house and I see them all the time.

Chiaki, who works in the office responsible for the shinkansen and who I know through Kendall, sent me some of the "official" photos of the event. I particularly like this one of us looking very studious and learning all kinds of important shinkansen stuff.
There were film crews from both the local news channels there as well. Today Sakuraba Sensei asked me if I went to the shinkansen tour on Sunday, because she'd seen me on the news. So now I am the office 電車オタク (train geek).

A short but busy week.

2007-10-13T21:58:00.000+09:00

It was a short week this week, thank goodness! Monday was a holiday and I had a lovely lazy day.

On Tuesday I came home to find a nice long letter from Liz which made me laugh out loud.

On Wednesday I had dinner with Naito-san. We had very nice (and expensive) sushi and sashimi. He gave me some photos from the last time we met, and from the string quartet concert. There was a set for me, and a set to send home to Mum and Dad. He also gave me an envelope and a stamp.

On Thursday I wrote a letter home. I also put it in the mail. When I got home I got a nice long letter from V which also made me laugh. I met Kathryn and Becky for dinner at a new Italian restaurant. It was pretty good. It was nice to catch up with them and have a gossip!

On Friday night I went to the Ikebana club, and then went to Teri's in Gosh for the E of A meeting. I was going to catch a ride with Chris, who was planning to come back to Aomori that night. About 15 minutes before I was supposed to meet him, he called to say he couldn't make it. I caught a ride with Jody and Sam who were coming from the Nanbu side, and crashed on Teri's couch for the night.

This morning Jody, Sam and I headed back to Aomori, and had lunch at Quadrille (do you need an excuse to go to Quadrille?). I went to Fujiwara to buy some cheap tomatos, and spent the rest of the afternoon getting them ready to make into relish (tomorrow's job). I went into town and had dinner with Will at the Thai/Vietnamese/SEA restaurant that I have always meant to try but never got around to. It was pretty good. We also ran into a couple of other JETs and had a drink with them. Will and I split after that. He went to play DDR, I biked home.

It is getting really chilly here now, about 7 degrees when I was biking home, according to the Furukawa overpass. Last night the first snow fell on Hakkoda-san! I'm looking forward to the snow coming, but at the same time.... not.

At least I can use my kotatsu again!

10 October

2007-10-10T16:27:00.000+09:00

Today the vending machine spoke to me in English. It said "Welcome to vending machine" and then it said "Thank you. See you again". It was a very polite vending machine, but it did scare me a little.

There was also a fire and earthquake drill at school. We watched an informative video about what to do in an earthquake. I think the video was older than my students. It is possible that is was older than me.

That is all. Goodbye.

A little overboard with the rice photos...

2007-10-09T20:00:00.000+09:00

I was pretty lazy for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday I met Bec at Korona World. I took about 15,000 photos of rice paddies on the way. Rice season is almost over here.

Today I had to go to the big post office, so while I was over there I went and got everything I need for my Halloween costume. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it will be spectacular. Watch this space. The Halloween party is on October 27.

The week that was...

2007-10-07T22:28:00.000+09:00

All week I had school as usual. I spent Monday and Tuesday evening recovering from Nagano. On Wednesday I went to watch a string quartet play. I had a free ticket from Naito-san, who was organising it.

I stopped at McDonalds on the way for some food, and most of 3.6HR were there. I sat next to a group of boys, because they asked me to. They thought it was a huge joke. They rang one of their mates, and gave me the cellphone while it was still ringing so that I would speak to him in English when he answered. It was funnier when I handed the phone back, and the guy rattled off all the names of the people he was with... and Karen.

After that I found my way to the place where the concert was. Chris, his girlfriend and Andre were there as well. At the half time break (I can't remember English - what is it called?) Mr Naito came and hijacked Aya (Chris's girlfriend) and I and asked us to help at the end and give flowers to the musicians. Which is what we did - went up on stage and bowed, gave flowers and said thank you with two other Japanese ladies who were on the organising comittee. It was alright for Aya, she was dressed up, and Japanese so therefore short. I was twice as tall as the other three ladies, and dressed in typical gaijin style - jeans and a t-shirt. Oh well.

On Thursday night I went out for dinner with Dan, his girlfriend Misuzu, and her sister Misato. Misato was one of my English club students last year. Aomori is not a big place! Misato was back in Aomori for a week to visit her family. She is studying in Tokyo to become an air hostess. It was really nice to catch up with her, and I am really impressed how much her English has improved since I last saw her!

Friday was interesting. It was culture day, so all the Aomori-ken JETs come into town and learn Japanese things. I had to be there about 11.30, so I had to go to work first. I left early to go to the bank to try and send money to Nepal for E of A, the Aomori JET charity which I am now treasurer of. It was an adventure, and the money still didn't get sent because they are not satisfied that I got it legitimately. Opening a bank account, depositing a large sum of money, and then transfering it out of the country looks dodgy, apparently.

I was at the bank for two and a half hours (less the time I was biking between bank branches because mine couldn't do it, and biking to my house and back to the bank with more evidence I wasn't laundering money). By the time they finally said something that roughly translated as "we can't do this, now bugger off" I was really late. I decided to get a taxi. My luck continued, and I got a taxi driver that didn't know where the Shakai Kyouiku Centre was. Luckily I did, and gave her directions which she decided to pretty much ignore. We got there in the end, and she knocked about 1000 yen off the total.

I went to half of the Tsugaru-ben and Aomori dialects seminar. After that was nebuta bayashi - the musical accompaniment to nebuta. Here are Karina and Chris showing off their skills:

I can play the cymbals too!Julia went to the ink painting class and made this for Mark. If you can read katakana it's funny. My second class was woodblock printing, and here is my creation:When we were done for the day I went to Akbars with half of the prefecture, then had coffee with Renato, Rachel and Aaron. Rachel and Aaron caught the train back to Hirosaki, and I went and had a drink with a group of (mostly) second and third year JETs. Later on I split and joined another group who appeared to be having more fun.

At some point in the evening "fun" became "obnoxious", and a group of us decided to split again and leave the obnoxious drunk people from that country near Canada. We enjoyed karaoke until the wee small hours.

There is a lot more to the story than that, but I am very aware that anyone can read this so I'll keep my opinions to myself. If you want to know what I think you'll have to buy me a beer sometime!

Or wait for the letter to arrive if you are one of the poor people I subject to my letters...

Sorry for all the writing!

Look Mum! I can play soccer!

2007-10-07T19:13:00.000+09:00

Last weekend 19 intrepid souls from Aomori made the trip down to Nagano for the ALT soccer tournament. Look up Aomori on a map (it's at the top). Now look up Nagano. Are you impressed? You should be.

We rented three vans. I shared a van with Abu, Will, Gen, Anne, Helen B and Erin. We had a great adventure. Here we are on the side of the toll road, about 2.5 km from the nearest exit, and 16 km from Niigata, at about 3.30 in the morning.
Why? We had a flat tire. We had to wait about 40 minutes for JAF (the Japanese AA) to come and rescue us. There was no way we could fix it ourselves because we were in the (very narrow) breakdown lane on a one lane part of the road, with very big truck and trailer units thundering past. JAF told us we shouldn't wait in the car in case it got hit by a truck (if you were wondering why we are on the side of the road). Oh, a classic quote from an American (I don't remember who, but it was an American) after we had called JAF: "Do they have AAA in Japan?"

When JAF came, they changed the tire to the spare "doughnut". They told us we could drive only 80 kilometres on it. At that point we were 260 kilometres from Nagano. We (eventually) decided to chance it, and drove the rest of the way v e r y s l o w l y. But we made it, a little after 8 am. The boys had to go straight out and play their first game (poor dears), but the girls got a little bit of a rest (not much).

We lost our first game, and our second. We won the third though, thanks to Helen M's soccer skills. The team got much better as we played a few more games. I played in the forwards most of the time, which was fun. I wasn't much good at getting the ball in the goal, but I had fun.

We also had to ref one game. Helen M was the ref and Anne and I were the touch judges (what do you call them in soccer?). I enjoyed it a lot more this year.

The Ringo Stars:
An important part of the tournament is the party. They gave everyone a beer for the kampai (toast). As you can see they went all out:I was still on painkillers for my ear, so I wasn't drinking at all. I did stick around for quite a while, so I knew all the gossip. But what goes on tour stays on tour (mostly...)

I did meet this nice chap. His name is Taka, and he was playing for the British Embassy team. He lives in Tokyo, but his grandmother lives in Aomori. He is going to become a junior high school English teacher. I have his phone number...

The next day the girls had one game, which we lost in a penalty shootout. That meant we were supposed to ref the next game, but luckily for us Tochigi defaulted due to being hungover and the fact it was freezing cold and raining.

We went to watch the boys play instead. They won their game, and had to move grounds to play the next one because the ground manager objected to his grass being ripped up by a bunch of gaijin dumb enough to play soccer in the rain.
The other ground was further up in the mountains, and the cloud came down.

They lost that game, and told the organisers they could get stuffed, they weren't ref-ing another game 'cos we had to drive to Aomori. So it was back to the hotel for an onsen, then on the road about 4 pm.

I ended up in the van that was going through Hachinohe for one reason and another. We didn't have the speediest drivers (that was one reason...), and we got back to Hach about 3 am. From there we missed the Michinoku toll road, so we dropped Allie off in Towada, then found the toll road. We got to Aomori just before 4, and dropped Dominic off at his house and collected John's car. Will, John and I headed to Chris's to drop the van off, and then from the 4 I caught a taxi home, and Will and John headed home to Hiranai (40 minutes away) and Misawa (an hour from Hiranai). Poor buggers. I don't think either of them got any sleep!

I got home about 4.30, and enjoyed my luxurious two and a half hours sleep. Somehow I survived Monday with a mix of caffeine, sugar and just knowing I had to!

Feeling なつかしい

2007-10-07T09:49:00.000+09:00

It isn't long before Veena and Motoko come to visit me. I'm so exited! And feeling a bit nostalgic. I was looking through some old photos and I thought I'd share a few to prove I had a life before I came to Japan!
Turangi, 2006
Veena in Akaroa, 2006.
Wendy's birthday, 2006.

Raymond and Motoko, 2006
Peter, Kelly and I at my "Going to Japan" party.
Veena, Motoko and I at Veena's 21st, 2005.

Disney movies sleepover, 2004.
Shilpa, Veena, Annette and I, Valentines day 2005.
Shilpa and I at my "not Karen's 21st birthday party" party.

Steamboat night at Karen Z's flat, 2005.

The Retter Whanau, 2006.

The Chejerlas, 2005.

Long time no see!

2007-10-06T21:22:00.000+09:00

Hello all.

Last time we met I was having ear troubles. Unfortunately I am still having them.

On Sunday afternoon the week before last Itoshi, the Kita Chu JTE that invited me to go up to her friend's cabin at Hakkoda, rang me to see how my ear was doing. I decided I was well enough to join her and her husband, their ALT friend from Fukaura-machi, and another Fukaura-machi ALT. They came and picked me up from Aomori station and we headed up to the cabin.

The cabin was made out of hiba, a kind of cypress or cedar (I forget) that is famous in Aomori. It smelled fantastic, and the wood inside reminded me of Turangi. It was freezing up there, so the fire was going (in September!), and we sat around and ate, talked, looked at the stars, enjoyed the private onsen, and then slept.

The next morning was beautiful, and this is how Hakkoda looked:

Bridget and Gen headed back to Fukaura, and Itoshi, her husband and I headed for Hirosaki to meet JoAnn and her family. On the way we stopped at a craft shop in Kuroishi. Itoshi is friends with the woman who owns the shop. She sells lots of local crafts made by her friends. They also sell old kimono and other traditional clothing. Often people will buy them and recycle them into other interesting items. They also sell a lot of things made from the old fabric. It was really great to have someone to explain everything to me.

We also had lunch there, and I tried the Kuroishi-style yakisoba. It was excellent.

We headed on to Hirosaki where we met JoAnn and her family. They were visiting from the US of A. We went to Neputa-mura, where we listened to shamisen, saw traditional Tsugaru crafts being made (kogin embroidery, Tsugaru-nuri laquer ware, kokeshi dolls and so on). They also had Neputa-matsuri floats, and we tried the Neputa drumming.

Hirosaki Neputa is similar to Aomori Nebuta, but... different.

After being all cultured out we went across the road to Hirosaki park to see the castle.Then we went to see the temple streets.

Then we headed back towards Aomori, via Apple Hill in Namioka. I bought a big bag of apples for 500-en, which I turned into jam during the week. We got back to Aomori and all went to a sushi restaurant for dinner, where JoAnn's family kindly picked up the tab. Cheers guys!

After that it was back home and into Tuesday. Yay for long weekends!

On Tuesday I dragged Marti to the ear doctor with me. Turns out that in Japan there is no such thing as going to a GP who knows about everything. You have to decide what is wrong with you and then go to the right kind of doctor. So if you go to the internal medicine doctor when your ear is sore you bugger the whole system up and they get all confused and make you do silly things like urine samples.

I went out for dinner at Porcini on Wednesday night with a bunch of A-shi JETs. Dee got her car locked in the carpark by the dock, and had some stress trying to figure out what to do (she got it the next morning).

Well, that puts a bit of a dent in catching up. More tomorrow. I need to sleep now I think. It has been seriously lacking from my routine lately! More about that soon.

Depressing...

2007-09-23T16:29:00.000+09:00

I've been reading the news on the internet - www.nzherald.co.nz and it seems to get more depressing every time I check it. Have a look today. Here is a sample of the headlines:

Teen raped in public toilets by two men.
Police prosecute 500 in boy racer blitz.
$25bn welfare bill covered up - Nats.
Pumpkin case big news in Chinatown.
Man stabbed at Tauranga 21st.
Shot teen doing well.
Car-mad teen dies at boy racer meet.

You get the idea. And today wasn't as bad as usual. No out of control teen parties or abused kids.

I was feeling a little depressed about New Zealand, but then I found this website: www.retrokiwi.com, which has t-shirts with classic New Zealand quotes on them - O for Awesome, you're not in Guatemala now Doctor Ropata, cook me some eggs... it made me smile.

Also, the gingerbread haka on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oulQwIP9VQQ

And "God Defend the All Blacks":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4P4f-9S28s

It made me feel better (a little bit)!

Kikizake

2007-09-23T15:40:00.000+09:00

On Friday my ear was really sore, but I had to stay at work and finish marking the listening tests (about 480). I went home at 3 o'clock.

Unfortunately I had agreed to go to a sake tasting party in Hiranai that night, and I had to pay Y4000 whether I went or not. I dosed myself up with panadol and off I went.

The food was really good. Mostly. This is sushi. The one on the left is minced tuna and spring onion. The one on the right is omelette. The one in the middle is the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. Ever. It is an Aomori specialty I think, and it is called tara shiroko. It is cod sperm. It is revolting.

Hide and Anne, a little too much sake perhaps?Unfortunately the panadol only worked for about half the night...

Saturday my ear was so sore I barely got out of bed. Today it is still blocked up, but it doesn't hurt so much. I actually got dressed today. It is a big step!

Last Sunday

2007-09-23T15:01:00.000+09:00

Last Sunday I had lunch at Akbars with a group of Gosh/Hirosaki JETs who were on their way to Yagen to go camping. After lunch I went to watch the taiko group perform at a shrine in town. Karina was the only JET playing - she is on the right hand side on this photo.

There was also a festival going on:

After that I went with Martha, Anne, Karina, Angelo and some of Karina's Japanese friends to see an art exhibition at Hotel Aomori. I liked this one, a pile of wood and metal with a broccoli in it.After that Martha, Anne, Angelo and I hung out at Quadrille for a while, then I went home, grabbed my computer and went all the way back across town to Dan's house to make the listening exam for my students.

On Monday I went across to Hirosaki with Martha and Bec. I was pouring all day, and it was awful. We went to Kinokuniya bookshop, hung out in Mr Donut for a while, had lunch at Zilch, then went home.

On Tuesday nothing exciting happened.

On Wednesday I managed to open a bank account for E of A, the Aomori JET charity. I am now the treasurer. That night I went out for dinner with Mr Naito, a friend of Lois'. He is an Aomori Bank manager, but he likes to practise his English by taking foreigners out for dinner. If was actually fun, but my ear was kind of blocked and I couldn't hear well.

On Thursday my ear was really blocked and quite painful, but I survived the day and went to the doctor with Karina that afternoon. It was really bizarre. About the first thing they wanted apart from taking my temperature was a urine sample. I wonder if they found anything helpful...

Friday is coming up next.

Let's cook in English!

2007-09-14T18:12:00.000+09:00

On Wednesday I went to Namioka. I was teaching the junior high kids, and we had another "English cooking" lesson. First we wrote the recipe in English, and then we cooked miso soup, onigiri, and potato salad.

After we had eaten lunch together I had to go and visit the class that I usually eat lunch in. We had a chat, and then Shiho, who is obsessed with Zenmai Samurai, bought me her book and a whiteboard pen and kept making me draw him all over the whiteboard.

Zenmai Samurai means "clockwork Samurai".

I went to visit the Shirakabba class as well. They were practising for the school festival. I swear the stuff they do just gets more and more bizarre. Their school festival production/skit/item is based on a picture book where all the animals go up "Mount Pikkeyama" and have a farting competition (or "breaking wind" as it was more politely translated) and all the noises the make. Then the mountain ends up being the biggest fart of all. Yep.

On Wednesday night I went out for dinner with Bec, Anne and JoAnn.

On Thursday night I invited myself out for dinner with Anne, Jared, and Nozaki Sensei and her husband. Nozaki Sensei is from Kita Junior High, and I went out for dinner a few times with her and Liz. She was also one of the teachers at the seminar in the summer. Anne is teaching at Kita chuu at the moment.

And now it is Friday, and it is a long weekend. And life is good!

I am teacher, hear me roar!

2007-09-14T18:07:00.000+09:00

You know that cliche where teachers have apples sitting on their desks. On Monday, that was me:Apple season is just starting in Aomori, and Shibata Sensei gave me a nice big Aomori apple.

Landscaping.

2007-09-14T17:57:00.000+09:00

Last Sunday I went to Karina's and helped her, Gavin and Chris with her "backyard". We got the pebbles down and pulled out most of the weeds from the rest of it before it got too dark to carry on.

Oh, Japan...

2007-09-10T18:49:00.001+09:00

How do you get it so wrong sometimes?
The poster was outside a dance club in Aomori.

Another party...

2007-09-10T18:35:00.000+09:00

I had a lovely, lazy Saturday before heading out to Karina's house. Chris and Karina's friend Gavin had been out to Homac to buy some pebbles and stuff to tidy up Karina's "backyard". While they were there they decided they were still at university and bought the necessary equipment for a beer bong...

Saturday was also Alex's birthday. He is the new city hall CIR. A bunch of Aomori and about the place went out for dinner, before karaoke. Lots and lots of people joined us for karaoke.

Alex and Dominic, the new Aomori city poms:Angella, looking lovely:

Misawa Sam:The other Aomori Alex:

Typhoon?

2007-09-09T14:17:00.000+09:00

On Thursday night I went bowling with Becky, Dan, Will, Anne and Stephen. It was fun. I am not good at bowling and swore a lot. I lost miserably.

On Friday it was my birthday. Guess what I got?!?

A TYPHOON!

Actually I think Aomori only got clipped by the side of it. It wasn't any worse than Palmy on an average day in winter, but everyone freaked out. They sent the students home after lunch so they could get home safely, because JR were stopping all the trains. Teachers were allowed home at 3, which was very nice!

The enkai I was supposed to have got cancelled as well, so I was left with a birthday and no one to celebrate it with. As much as I would have liked to stay home and watch movies in my pyjamas I thought I really ought to do something, so I rounded up whoever I could find at short notice and who was brave enough to go out in a typhoon and went out for dinner. Marti asked them to surprise me:
After dinner Chris, Karina, Marti and I went to Korona world to see a movie. The times were all no good, so we went to Jusco to see what was on there, but it was all shut up, so we played on the kiddy rides instead.

The Olympics! oh... wait....

2007-09-09T13:48:00.000+09:00

Thursday was the undoukai - the school sports day. Japanese school sports days are pretty much nothing like the athletics days we had at Girls' High. They just have a lot of (mostly) fun events, and the classes are competing against each other. Japan is not so good on the individual achievements, it is all about the group. They have the same touchy-feely "everyone is a winner" PC crap like home.

The day started with the opening ceremony - everyone marches around the 300m track and stands in the middle, the principal says a few words, the flags get raised, the national anthem gets played, then they all do the official national warm up exercise. Actually the warm up thing didn't go so well, because they couldn't find the rajio-taiso CD...

After all that they start with the events. Everyone has to run 100 metres, then x number of students from each class do the other events. There is the obstacle course, which includes eating a marshmallow out of a tray of flour:

Tug of war:

Class skipping:Class relays:Of course there was also a teachers race, which the second grade teachers (my team!) won. It was a relay, but three teachers had to hold a bar at the same time. Takeya Sensei can run pretty fast!

So all very fun.

Oh, I got dragged into the folk dancing as well. Literally dragged by one of the 3.6 boys, who grabbed my arm, said "Hey! Karen! Come on!" and started running.

After all that we had a closing ceremony, and awarding of prizes to the winning classes, they played the national anthem and took down the flags, and then sang the school song acapella because they lost the CD...

Wednesday

2007-09-09T11:05:00.000+09:00

On Wednesday Koto and her kids came around and threw me a birthday party. Koto cooked spaghetti, and Minami and Taichi drew pictures for me and then sang Happy Birthday (in English). It was possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen.

They also gave me a present. It is a tissue box cover. It is so Japanese. I love it!

Hisashi buri!

2007-09-09T10:32:00.000+09:00

I've decided that putting up summer holiday pictures is going to take forever, and I am just going to start with being back in Aomori and catch up later. So, without further ado may I present to you the EofA scavenger hunt and AJET welcome party.

The scavenger hunt involved teams of JETs driving all over the prefecture taking photos at some of the more unusual places, trying to win some of Teri's fabulous 100-en shop prize packs.

My team started in Hachinohe, because that is where Erin is, and she had the car. First stop was the seagull shit island and the Pacific Ocean.

We made a quick stop at the Statue of Liberty in Momoishi (on the same latitude as New York).And we ate some squid.

Anne, Dominic, Erin and I:
On the way to the next stop we ticked off a few more things - a bright yellow house, a tractor on the road, bears, and horses.

We made it to Shingo, where Jesus is buried. I bet you didn't know Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, that was his less famous Japanese half brother Isukiri. Jesus spent 12 years in Japan before returning to Jerusalem, pulled a swifty and got his half brother on the cross, and returned to Japan where he lived until he was 106. It's true. I've seen his grave.

Veronica, Anne, Dominic and Erin (and Jesus's grave):

On to Lake Towada.After Towada we stopped at the foot onsen for 100 points, and at the supermarket to pick up some drinks and apple vinegar, before eventually finding the Shichinohe camping grounds.

I caught up with all the old JETs and met a whole lot of new ones.

Renarto and I:

Me, Karina, Miki and Miki:Kathryn and I:I took my own wine glass. Anyone can bring sexy back, I was bringing classy back.

The problem with JET parties is there is never enough room to sleep, and everyone is drunk and inconsiderate. I got around this problem by staying up all night, which meant I got to enjoy the 6am Johnny Cash dancing, and Joel and John's ipod-off.

The Johnny Cash dancing - Andre, Joel, John and Sam:

So that was the welcome party. It seemed much more restrained than last year. Any passing out/vomiting/embarrassing of oneself was done quietly out of the way, which was nice.

Back in the OTHER Big Apple

2007-08-27T07:33:00.000+09:00

I am finally back in Aomori! I left Liz's house at about 9 o'clock on Saturday morning, and arrived back at my house at about 12.45 this morning (Monday). I was pretty pleased to see my house! This morning I am back to work.

New York was great fun. I will put some pictures up when I have some time. I managed to make it to Washington DC for a little while as well - so much to see and so little time!

Big thank you to Liz and her whanau for letting me stay with them and eat all their food!

Right now I have to get to work. Isn't that the worst part of coming home from a holiday? Actually I think I've come back to Aomori for a holiday!

More later,

Karen

The REAL Big Apple

2007-08-16T09:52:00.000+09:00

Kia ora from New York! I arrived here on Monday evening, and my luggage arrived on Tuesday night...

Liz met me at the airport (Laguardia - "the ghetto fabulous airport" as Liz described it). We took an exciting bus ride, then a subway ride and arrived at the World Trade Centre. We ate cheeseburgers at a random little takeaway place, then caught another train to Jersey City. The cheeseburger was very exciting. Yay! Stereotypes! It was the longest Monday ever due to the time difference.

On Tuesday Liz and I went exploring beautiful downtown Jersey City, then took the train into New York(!). We visited Times Square. It is fantastic here - every time you turn a corner there is something else famous.

Today Liz was busy so I went across to New York and went on the Circle Line ferry right around Manhattan island, then went walking and watching the crazy people, and the exceedingly beautiful ones.

Tomorrow I am going to queue up at sparrow fart with Liz and her family to get tickets for Shakespeare in the park. Very exciting stuff!

Hello from Tokyo

2007-08-11T12:41:00.000+09:00

こんにちは. It has been a very busy couple of weeks! I am sitting in an internet cafe in Tokyo and enjoying the airconditioning right now.

Bren arrived safe and sound in Aomori on Thursday night last week. He was introduced to about a thousand random Japanese teachers and other JETs, danced up a storm at Nebuta, and saw the giant Buddha.

On Monday morning we left for Kyoto which was... OK. I didn't really enjoy it because there were so many tourists and it was all made so easy with the amount of English around. It all felt a bit fake. We met Kevin and his brother there and went out for dinner with them on both nights we were there. We made a good attempt at destroying the Kyoto branch of Gyu Kaku too.

On to Tokyo, which I always thought was pretty full of tourists, but now seems pretty Japanese compared with Kyoto. We did Disneyland. It was fun, but going in the middle of the school holidays probably wasn't the best idea!

I can't believe Bren is off home tomorrow. It has gone ridiculously fast. Once Bren is off I will stay with Leigh and Ryan on Sunday night and then I am off to visit Liz in the States for two weeks!

Oh it is a tough life!

Photos when I get back to Aomori - there are plenty of them.

I'll enjoy the random 80s pop songs they are playing in the internet cafe now.

皆さん、さようなら。

Japan Blues Festival

2007-07-30T18:48:00.000+09:00

On Friday the seminar only went until 12 (yay!). I went for lunch with JoAnn, and then caught the train home (I was feeling lazy). I had a nana nap, got changed, and headed back to town about 4 o'clock. I had offered to help out with the blues festival. It's kind of a long story, but I ran into Angelo (an Eikaiwa teacher) and his karate sensei at an izakaya with Liz one night shortly before she left. We talked to them, and Sen (the karate sensei) mentioned that every year they bring some blues musicians from Chicago to the festival. So when I got an email from Angelo asking for people to help out I thought "why not?". Sen lives in Chicago, but is originally from Aomori. Now he works for some kind of international exchange sort of a something. I don't really know, but her was in charge of the musicians coming here.

And that is how I found myself standing outside Aomori station at 5.30 on a Friday night waiting for some blues musicians to be interviewed and having very little idea what was going on.

Once we got to the venue (Aoi umi park, next to ASPAM) I still had very little idea what was going on. But here is the postcard "visit Aomori" photo of ASPAM:

This is Dan, the harmonica player, the mayor of Aomori, and me:
I even had a special "STAFF" pass, but that still didn't mean I knew what I was doing.

This is Vernon, the drummer. He was very short, so he is standing in the doorway to be the same height as me:
The band is "John Primer and the Real Deal Blues Band".

The music was excellent. Because I was special and had a staff pass, even though I didn't do any work, I was allowed to go to the party afterwards. It was... interesting.

After I got the bike.

2007-07-29T17:25:00.000+09:00

After I found John's house I biked all the way to "Ra Sera" Universe to meet Dave, Jenny and JoAnn. It was Dave and Jenny's second to last night in Aomori, and although I was going to see Dave at the seminar on Thursday, it was my last chance to say goodbye to Jenny.After our 100-en sushi dinner JoAnn had to go back to town for taiko practice, and Dave, Jenny and I went to see a festival that was at a shrine next to the river.We waited on the bridge for them to put the candle lanterns out on the river. And saw some more of my students:

After that we went and watched the concert - shamisen, te odori, and traditional singing (it sounds terrible but requires years of practice to achieve the correct degree of out of tune...)

And I ate a toffee covered strawberry.

Thursday morning I biked across town. It was stinking hot. The seminar was... same again. I did quite a lot of talking bull shit. Just act like you know what you are talking about.... During the first week all the teachers have to give a five minute talk about anything they want to. Thursday was my supervisors turn, and she talked about the first day that I arrived in Aomori, and her first impressions of me. She said I was very tall, and pretty, but very quiet and I didn't smile much. She also said that we went to a sushi restaurant for lunch and that she wasn't sure if I liked it or not, but now she knows that I like sushi, but my favourite food is beer "always at the parties she likes to drink beer". In my defence, Japanese wine is terrible, and Japanese liquor (nihonshu, shochu) knocks me for six.

After we finished for the day I raced home, had a shower, and caught the bus back to town to meet JP and Koko (JP's JTE who we've been out with a few times before). JP got drunk and talked too much. I only had one beer, because Koko is one of the teachers at the seminar... Actually, because I have been out drinking with her before she'd probably agree with Hirano Sensei. We both left at the same time, and JP and Kimura Sensei, another JTE who arrived later went on to a nijikai.

Right, only Friday and Saturday to catch up on now!

We're up to Tuesday...

2007-07-29T17:06:00.000+09:00

Tuesday was back across town to Hokuto High School for the seminar. I can't remember if I had to do any of the workshops. The days have all blurred into one. After I finished there I went and met Kendall at Dotour for a coffee. I gave Kendall a bottle of salt as a leaving present (she put salt in her biscuits instead of sugar when we did some cooking together...)

Later we went for dinner with Dawn and Sara. It was Dawn and Kendall's last night in Aomori.
Dawn, Kendall and Sara: A-shi girls - Dawn, Kendall and I:
On Wednesday I was still without my bike, because I hadn't had time to get mine fixed, or to pick up Dawn's from John's house. So it was bus across town again, Seminar until four, and then I tried to find John's house. I spent a lot of time wandering around trying to find it, before I realised I was looking in the wrong place (I confused the 103 and Yanagimachi). Eventually I found it. On the way I found a second hand store truck. In Japan there is a chain of second hand stores. The second hand bookshop is called "Book Off", the second hand furniture shop is called "Off House". I had heard a rumour that there was a second hand hardware store called "Hard Off", but I hadn't ever seen it for myself. Here is proof that it exists:

Actually it isn't only hardware according to the sign - it is PCs, AV equipment, software, (mysterious kanji...), cameras and golf clubs.

Sunday Dinner

2007-07-29T11:08:00.000+09:00

On Sunday night, I went out for dinner with Kendall, Terren, Teri, Claud, Jody and Dawn.

Claud spoiling the end of the new Harry Potter book (who knew he was going to have Hermione's baby!? I never saw that coming!).A little karaoke to finish off the night:Toby, from Mutsu, was also staying at my house on Sunday night, because he had to watch his students playing in the prefectural tournament for junior high school students.

And that brings us to Monday. Monday was the start of the 5-kanen kenshuu, a two week English seminar for English teachers. I was planning to bike there, but I got a really huge puncture about 2 minutes after leaving my house. Luckily I was rescued by Toby, who happened to drive past me after deciding not to follow my directions to get where he was going. Monday wasn't too bad, I didn't have to take any workshops, and JoAnn and I were allowed to leave early while the teachers practised the TOIEC test. We decided not to hang around and try it, because we'd probably fail and be sent home.

Monday night was the enkai for the bunkasai, and to welcome the new office lady. I'd met Dawn in town just before it, and she had given me the keys to her bike which I have bought from her. She also gave me the bike pump, so I was walking around with it sticking out the top of my bag (everyone found it amusing to pump me up...). Melanie's farewell happened to be at the same place, one floor up. I met her as she was arriving, and so I went upstairs and had a drink with her and her office. I went to the nijikai as well, despite telling myself I wouldn't. Ichinohe Sensei was telling me to say things to people in Tsugaru-ben (which I didn't understand), and I think what ever it was I said to Young Ishikawa (who doesn't speak Tsugaru-ben) was translated into something completely different and inappropriate. I talked to the principal a lot. He is really nice, and speaks great English (but only when he is drunk).

PS. Claud didn't really tell me what happened in Harry Potter, so anyone that does tell me is going to be in BIG trouble.

Sunday Baseball

2007-07-29T10:45:00.000+09:00

On Sunday I went to watch the baseball team play. They played Yamada High School. Yamada is a private school, and it was an absolute whitewash - 16-0. Nishiko called it in the 5th innings.

Hirano Sensei (my supervisor) and Saito Sensei:After the game the team comes and bows, to say thank you for supporting us.

It was really sad. After the game all the softball girls and the cheerleaders were crying, and so were most of the baseball players. I taught a lot of the baseball team last year, and most of them told me in their speaking tests that their favourite sport is baseball, and their dream is to go to the koshien (national high school baseball championship) in Osaka. Now that they are in the third grade it was their last chance.

However, we are still very proud of them because they made it to the top 8 in the prefecture, which is a really good achievement.

A few more bunkasai pictures...

2007-07-29T10:07:00.000+09:00

Hello! Hisashiburi! I've been pretty busy over the last week, so I'll make some attempt to catch up with some photos. These are a few more photos from the school festival.

The tea ceremony club:

The second grade home rooms had a rubbish bin making competition. Billy's boot camp is the current craze in Japan. One side is "moeru Birii" (burnable Billy), and the other side is "moenai Birii" (non-burnable Billy).
The third grade students do silly things to their hair and try to sell as much yakisoba to the ALT as they can...
The kid in the yellow shirt is Makoto, one of my most enthusiastic and genki students. He was flirting with the girl in the orange shirt quite a lot. They are both in the tennis team. It was very cute.

The 2.6 class had the most fun I think. They filled their classroom up with all kinds of crazy costumes and made people dress up and take photos. Here I am with some of the 2.6 girls, wearing Junior High School uniforms.This is "Keiko", winner of the cross dressing competition. That was all last Saturday. More pictures from the rest of the week soon.

Good Days!

2007-07-21T17:37:00.000+09:00

Friday was the first day of the bunkasai (school festival). The morning was spent setting up the English Club room. My decorations were pretty piss poor (a New Zealand flag and a map), but I tried to make up for it by taking my computer and borrowing the projector from the English room to project Whale Rider and The World's Fastest Indian on to the wall, and played New Zealand music really loudly. It didn't help much.

The opening part of the festival was the most fun. All the cultural clubs and third grade classes introduced what they were going to do, then the brass band played, and two teachers sang (one of whom I never thought had a sense of humour, but he sang a really recent J-pop song!). Then the fun really began. I've been adopted by the teachers in one of the upstairs staffrooms - the seitobu. I think it's because they like my sunglasses. They asked me to help with their skit, which involved me trying to speak Tsugaru ben and them making fun.

It started off with Young Ishikawa Sensei singing karaoke, then Ichinohe Sensei (who everyone thinks looks like Anpanman) throwing anpan (a bun with red bean paste in the middle) into the crowd.

Then W Jin Sensei sang. There are three Jin Senseis at school, and two are in the seitobu. The Japanese pronunciation of W is daburu, so "double something" becomes "W something". It took me a long time to figure out that and "Y shatsu" - white shirts.

Here is Jin Tomo, cleverly disguised as herself:

Then "Tachi Hiroshi" (Maeda Sensei) sang the tachi nebuta song (he's from Gosh). At the end I had to come out saying "Onrou!", Tsugaru ben for "wow!", and say "nice job, Maeda Sensei". Maeda Sensei said "I am Tachi Hiroshi" (in English), then tried to teach me to say "Onrou!" correctly. At the same time the music for "iideba eigo juku", the local ATV Tsugaru-ben English TV programme, was playing and "Rachel", the show's host appeared. She was almost mobbed by the students. They went nuts. Only half a dozen people knew she was coming (I was one of them, I really am in the in-crowd now!).

After that the festival started. This is the total membership of my English club this year:
Ayano is on the left (she took a shine to my sunglasses as well!), and Yoshiko is on the right. Yoshiko was busy helping her homeroom class, so Ayano and I were in charge of the English club room. We made about Y1000. We made it really cheap so people would have a go - Y20 for 5 tries. I think people just felt sorry for us.

After work I got home, had a shower, then caught the train to Kendall's house. Kendall, Lois and I drove back to town, picked up John and Simona, then drove for an hour and a half to Misawa for Nat and Kantoku's farewell party. We had a wee dance party in Kantoku's living room, then Kendall, Lois and I left a little after 11.30 and headed back to Aomori. We got a little lost on the way, arrived abruptly at the end of the road and had to go back, and eventually made it to my house at 2 (am).

I got up at 7 this morning to go to work (yes, on a Saturday) for more bunkasai. Today's adventures can wait for the next installment, cos I am knackered. Sorry for all the writing - lots of explanations, and you probably still don't get why it's funny.

Busy as a bee with a bumful...

2007-07-21T17:23:00.000+09:00

It has been a pretty busy week, full of bunkasai preparations and farewell parties. On Wednesday night I was planning to stay home, but after I'd said that I couldn't meet Kendall, Nat and Mel for dinner I remembered I had to go out anyway to buy bunkasai stuff. I met them halfway through their dinner - Kendall, Mel, Nat and her other half Kantoku, Nat's friend who is visiting from Oz and Lois. It was good though, I needed a good laugh.

All day Thursday I was busy preparing for the bunkasai (school festival). The barely existent English club had decided we ought to do something, so we did a game like quoits. All day I had pretty much no idea what was going on, and the English club girls were both busy helping with their class stalls and student council.

On Thursday night Melanie had organised to get all the Aomori-shi JETs together for a few farewell drinks and dinner. Melanie, Kendall, Lois and I were the only piss-hags organised enough to turn up in time for a few beers at the Alaska Hotel beer garden before dinner.

Kendall and Lois had clearly had a long day and were in desperate need of a beer:

Gardening

2007-07-18T17:37:00.000+09:00

Today I went to Namioka again. I made somen noodles and yakitori (chicken kebabs) with the Junior High school students. After lunch I joined them weeding their vege patch, as the international guest judge of the Namiyo Weeding Taikai. There were four teams, and every time they bought me a full bucket of weeds I gave them a sticker to put on the score sheet, or told them to bugger off and fill it up a bit more.

While we are on the topic of gardening, I finally remembered to take a photo of my garden.It looks quite impressive, until you put me in the picture and realise just how tiny it is.

It does, however, represent a lot of lugging stuff around on my bike, and then up three stories to my house.

Rice paddies...

2007-07-16T17:59:00.000+09:00

Also out at the buddha we took lots of photos of rice paddies, because we're foreign and we can.

Do you like rice?

Yes, I do!

Baseball and Buddha

2007-07-16T17:41:00.000+09:00

Today is a public holiday in Japan - Marine Day - which means day off!

At the moment the prefectural high school baseball tournament is on. Nishiko were playing so I went along to cheer them on.

But before they can start the game they have to rake:

Ichinohe Sensei, Maeda Sensei and I:
Nishiko won 7-0, after the other team (Shofuko) gave up and went home after the eighth innings. Next game is against Hachinohe Kita high school on Wednesday.

After the game I met Kendall and we biked out to the big buddha. Although Kendall has lived about 5 minutes bike ride away from it for a year she'd never been.

This is where you are supposed to pray that you don't lose your memory when you get old, but I think I've forgotten something...

Sunday in the shi

2007-07-16T17:29:00.000+09:00

I've had a really lazy weekend (although I did get some cleaning done).

On Sunday afternoon I met Kendall in town and we didn't do a hell of a lot, but I took a photo of the lanterns they have hung up down a little side street.

I ended up walking halfway back to Kendall's house, then catching a bus back to town. I decided I didn't have enough time to go home before the school choir's concert at 6.30.

The concert was really good. Here are the third grade students who are in the choir, with Mastuno Sensei and Nakano Sensei.

They were the teachers in charge of the choir last year, but they both got transferred this year.

They sang really well, although I was trying really hard not to laugh when they sang "Imagine" by John Lennon. It was perfect Engrish pronunciation. I shouldn't make fun. They still sang better than I ever could, even if the pronunciation was a little... unusual.

Pavlova and whale - another day at Namioka

2007-07-14T17:18:00.000+09:00

On Wednesday I was at Namioka again. I was making pavlova with the Junior high school third grade. The more you try and tell them pavlova is difficult and takes forever, the more they want to make it.
It flopped a little bit, but that's OK, they don't need to know...
Tasted alright anyway.

After lunch I went to Shirakabba Gakkyu again, and this time I was dressed as a whale, with two mice to keep me company. It was Tanabata, so we went "swimming in the milky way".

Yeah, the suit isn't too flattering, and I had my work clothes underneath which didn't help.

After I got back to Aomori I went and met Kendall for coffee, and we found this Engrish gem:

On Thursday night I went to see Spiderman 3 with Kendall. It was terrible. It didn't have anything going for it... no plot, no acting... go and see it for a good laugh. Friday night I had ikebana at school. We used Chrismas lillies, which was difficult to get my head around since it is nowhere near Christmas (of course they are not called Christmas lillies here). Today I have been trying to tidy my house, but I am easily distracted and it has taken all day and still looks terrible. Now I am listening to the All Blacks playing South Africa. Radio Sport is hilarious. Seventeen minutes left in the second half, 12-6 to the ABs. Not a terribly exciting game.

Daikon and Giant Spiders

2007-07-08T21:01:00.000+09:00

On Saturday I had a fairly slow day, reading, gardening on my balcony, drinking tea. In the evening I headed to Karina's house and watched a movie with her and Kathryn. We watched "The Princess Diaries", which is pretty terrible really. It was so bad that I couldn't even laugh at it for being bad. And it made me miss Liz and Veena, my bad movie watching buddies.

This morning I went with Melanie and her friend Elise, an ex-JET, to Melanie's vege patch up at Moya. Melanie mentioned going up there on Friday night if anyone wanted to do some gardenating, so I invited myself along. Although I never actually did any gardening at home, now that the weather is good I feel like being outside doing something useful. I've been planting myself a sort of garden on my balcony as well. It is a work in progress, but I'll put up some photos soon.

I biked home with a basketful of organic veges - two giant daikon, some radishes, a bit of broccoli, some green stuff, some other green stuff, and a couple of under-ripe squash.

I'm going to give the daikon away to whichever teacher wants them tomorrow, because I really don't know how to use them (they're the big white things).

I got home and didn't do a hell of a lot at all. I found a giant spider on my balcony. It was enormous. I sprayed him with fly spray. He looked a bit sick after that but he disappeared onto the roof, so I'm not sure if I got him. He was too far away to reach with a shoe. I was afraid of him getting into my house, so I shut all the doors and windows. Yep, I can be all gung-ho and get stuck in and get my hands dirty gardening and weeding, and poking the giant catepillars, but I am scared of big nasty spiders.

I made myself a big vege stir-fry for tea. I think it had too much salt in it, because I am so thirsty now. And sadly that is another weekend over...

JET Farewell Party

2007-07-08T19:41:00.000+09:00

Friday night was the farewell party for the JETs who are leaving. The "official" farewell was at Hotel Aomori. By the time I got off the train from Namioka, stopped to get some pantyhose, and had a shower to wash all the barbeque smell off I was cutting it pretty fine as far as time went. I managed to get there though. It was all speeches and then "mingling".

This is Mark, asking the Japanese photographer to fix the settings on his new camera:

Kendall and I: JoAnn, Jared and I:JP and Melanie:Chris and John, who made me feel very short for the first time ever in Japan: Jenny, Dave and I:Namioka Rob and I. One day, he will be responsible for making cricket popular is the USA.Melanie and her flowers:After the party there was about an hour before the "unofficial" farewell party. I went with Dan, Jared, JP and a group of the Towada JETs to an expensive Bali-theme bar.

The party itself was lots of loud music and dancing. And drinking of course. Wouldn't be a JET party without booze.

After that party I went with a big group of people to karaoke and nomihodai, followed by miso ramen. And by then it was about 5 am and well past my bed time.

Challenge Cooking

2007-07-08T18:30:00.001+09:00

On Friday I headed over to Namioka Yogo for "challenge cooking". It was great fun. The day before the students had been to the supermarket to buy everything they needed.

Preparation was divided entirely along gender lines. Girls inside making salad and cutting vegetables, boys outside setting up the barbeque and nagashi somen.

I helped with both...

This is nagashi somen which is great fun. The noodles are cooked before hand, and they get floated down the piece of bamboo, which has water running down it. You take your chopsticks and catch the noodles as they float past, and put them in a cup that has some soy sauce based broth in it, then eat them.

Or just wait until they fall off the end...When I visited the week before the students in the kadai course pulled out all the stops to explain nagashi somen so it was really nice to be able to have them show me how it worked in reality. They were pretty spot on with their explanation!

We had yakiniku (Japanese barbequed meat), veges, somen, onigiri (rice balls), and salad. It was all oishii!

Towadako in the rain

2007-07-08T18:05:00.000+09:00

On Thursday last week I went with the three Humanities classes on their school trip. We went back to the Oirase Gorge and Lake Towada (where the trivia weekend was). It was amazingly beautiful, and extremely wet. It poured with rain all day, so the plan to walk along the stream to the lake had to be canned. We did get out an walk for a little bit, but were back on the bus fairly smartly. Conveniently, they have built a road right next to the stream, so should you want to visit this beautiful place you won't even need to get your high heels dirty.

Tanaka Sensei was well prepared with his little yellow duck outfit:

After everyone was thoroughly drenched we drove down to the lake, where we had lunch and bought souvenirs. It was raining still, there wasn't much else to do. Carla, do you remember when I visited you in Seoul, and we said "the true meaning of Korean tourism - the souvenir shop"? Well it is definitely also the true meaning of Japanese tourism.

After I got home I started working on the last minute "Aomori Yearbook", which Marti had kindly changed the deadline on and was now due at midnight Thursday to be done in time for the farewell party. Karina also came around so I could take up the cuffs of her trousers, which I did but am sorry to say didn't make a very good job of (sorry Karina!). I did get my part of the yearbook done, although it was feeling like a sort if half-arse job, and I was about ready to throw something. It was very much like ALL the assignments I did at Massey in fact!

Memories

2007-07-04T20:43:00.000+09:00

I can't believe I have been here for nearly a year. Everyone is starting to say goodbye and pack up. Here are a few memories from the year. Just what I can think of off the top of my head:

Nebuta; Gappo Park barbeque in the rain; ten in the van Shirakami adventure; Nagano soccer tourney; Kiwi Kai and Culture day; first snow; sawing the lock off my "new" bike with the office ladies; the cafe in Hirosaki that would serve Liz and not me; Hirosaki talent show; JP as my slave; okonomiyaki and karaoke with Koko, JP et al; Aomori Hospital Christmas party and being Torako-chan; Hakkoda hiking with Dave and Jenny; the friendly photo shop man; Shichinohe welcome party and the party in the carpark; Asamushi beach day; Sanpia cooking sessions; Shanghai Christmas; dinners at Koto's house; making Melanie's chocolate cake and a hell of a mess; trying to find the mystery onsen with Melanie, Dave and Jenny; finding it and being disappointed; lazy winter weekends in my apartment; making pickles; cooking with Lois's obasans; planting rice; my Hakodate boyfriend; the little green place; JoAnn making banana cake at my house; English club graduation party; rainy Saturday morning in my apartment with JP and Teri the morning after culture day; playing silly buggers in Hakodate with Liz; Asamushi aquarium in the rain; the random ramen shop down the road from me; being told I was Nihongo jouzu for saying ohayou gozaimasu; the bartenders remembering me six months later; being the tallest person in the room at the hip-hop gig with Koto and Kamiyama Sensei; getting the kotatsu from Nakata Sensei; playing "make Karen pick up the facecloth" with Daiichi at Shirakaba Gakkyu; dressing up as a hula girl for Shirakaba; Namioka yogo graduation and eating icecream in the snow with Melanie and Rob; the disaster that was Sendai with Liz and JoAnn; 3.7 boys dialogues; feeding the office cheese and crackers; long conversations with JP while driving back from all sorts of interesting places; Rokkasho international fair; recording dialogues; meeting Dan and Karina at the izakaya and the unexpected all-nighter; walking to Aomori station with Maribel and Connie; meeting Sen and Angelo at the izakaya with Liz; watching the fireworks on the last night of Nebuta; cycling all the way across town with Makoto; sports day and the obstacle course; sports day and my welcome enkai on my birthday; being surprised with cakes from the teachers at the enkai; the dodgy enkai after the skating class; the skating class; the skiing class; Kocho Sensei being worried about how I would get home after an enkai and taking me all the way home in a taxi; Maeda, Ichinohe and Sasaki Senseis all laughing at my sunglasses; being taught Tsugaru-ben by all the teachers; Saito Sensei making fun of my accent; the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, 48, say; Courtenay and her manga; random poses in ALL Liz's photos; watching "The Pianist" alone in my apartment, at night and listening to the snow sliding off the roof; Echizen Sensei mocking my accent; getting really drunk on my first weekend here and then biking home; biking from Liz's house to mine in 30 minutes at 1am; marching in the opening ceremony of the Prefectural Sports Tournament in my matching tracksuit; doing Shodo with Sakata Sensei when I first arrived and had nothing to do all day; going to the mixed onsen at Sukayu; lugging soup across town for the Yume Jitsugen Challenge; being told I look like Cameron Diaz by one of the Yume Jitsugen students; Nabe at Mel's house after a Hakkoda adventure; Hakkoda in July; AJET ski trip at Aji; first time skiing at Hakkoda; falling down a lot; Singapore in Golden Week with Mum and Dad; eating a pie with Dad in Singapore; being really sunburnt in Singapore; terrible flight times and sleeping in the airport; okonomiyaki after Aomori orientation; winding up Hirosaki Helen; cricket in Hirosaki park; seeing all the New Zealanders I came with at the recontracting conference; Liz's house which always made mine seem tidy; catching up with Leigh, Ryan and Ben in Tokyo; randomly meeting the snack Mama while walking home from school; seeing Asami when I go to the post office; getting really lost with Liz and JoAnn trying to find our way back from the art museum; biking home from Nishi Post Office with two giant boxes from home; racing to see the cherry blossoms in Hirosaki on the last day of Golden Week; give her tounge, not time; Russel helping me learn to ski and being patient when I fell over all the time; making paper snowmen with Kendall at Dotour; hina matsuri with Kendall; getting letters from Granny; when I said my name is Karen and Hirona said ninjin; the friendly bike shop girl; Tsugaru-ben Taikai in Tsuruta; watching Die Hard 4 with JoAnn, Kendall and Dawn; watching Superman with Liz and laughing because it was so bad; Pirates of the Caribbean with Liz, Courtenay and JoAnn; mammoth pirates karaoke session; karaoke with my English club after the graduation party; sober karaoke; buying too much in Shanghai; reading random books that I would never have read if Liz wasn't there to make me; great advice from Melanie when school seemed overwhelming; catching the wrong buses too many times to count; Koto coming up to me and asking to be my friend; feeding the carp with Koto, Minami and Taichi; Futsal Tournament; random Japanese guy hugging me at the end of the game; running to catch the last train after the futsal party; trying to play darts with Kathryn; being dressed as a shipwreck survivor at the trivia night; Robinson's Cru-YO!; jumping on the rocks in the Oirase Gorge while everyone else just sat on them; running to catch the last bus from Liz's house; the shower exploding; walking down the road singing with Liz; Tanaka Sensei explaining the kanji for "bird" and "crow"; Tanaka Sensei's facial expressions; Takeya Sensei being brave enough to speak English only when there are no English teachers within hearing distance; the kadai students at Namioka pulling out all the stops in order to explain nagashi somen to me; the taiko concert; making pavlova with the thrid grade students at Namioka; motsu nabe; telling John that we have kiwifruit the size of melons but we can't export them because they are really fragile; making the listening test with JP and laughing so much at the diet part; Chris making fun of my English at every possible opportunity; Uno-chan at Aomori Hospital; Sakaki Sensei; karendaa and kare...

I think that is enough for the moment.

Of course I don't expect anyone will actually read all of that, much less understand it all!

左足が２つある？

2007-07-02T22:28:00.000+09:00

Today I had the day off to make up for working on Saturday. It wasn't a very relaxing day off, because I kept worrying that I should have been at work. In fact I'm still worried that I'm going to have a rocket put up me tomorrow!

Anyway, I had a message from Koto asking me to go to a salsa dancing class with her and Kamiyama Sensei. It was great fun, despite me and my two left feet. Turns out the class was taught by Angelo, an eikaiwa teacher who I have met a couple of times before. Aomori is a small place, especially if you are a foreigner! I'll try to go again, although it was a long way across town, especially on a bike.

Boy Wonder, I hope you are up for plenty of dancing (jumping!) when you get here, because Koto and I decided we should haneru together in the Nebuta parade, and there'll be another night when all the JETs dance together.

When I was at Aomori Station on yesterday they had their official "decorate-the-station-for-Nebuta" day, and all the JR staff were out hanging up goldfish.

I'm starting to hear taiko drumming and flute practice around my neighbourhood too. I'm so excited!

Only a month until the Boy Wonder comes (Melanie was wondering if everyone can call him that, and has already shortened it to BW...).

Hakkoda-san

2007-07-01T20:24:00.000+09:00

Today I went tramping up Mount Hakkoda. Most people laugh at me here when I say tramping. Anyway, off we went to Hakkoda-san. We took the ropeway part of the way up, then walked from there up one of the peaks (it was fairly knackering), walked around a crater, watched a mad keen Japanese skier on one of the larger patches of snow still hanging around up there, and then gently down the other side to Sukayu onsen for a late lunch.

Me, on the ropeway:
Melanie and Julia carefully checked the map:Although we didn't need a map because we had our two fearless mountain men and their compass:
Mark made sure we knew not to pick the flowers:I made it to the top, although I look buggered (which I was):There was a shrine there too: Sebastian, Dawn and Chris admiring the cloud:I have tomorrow off as well, because I had to work on Saturday because it was the open day. Parents were invited to go to school and watch the classes. It has to be on a Saturday so the parents aren't working. Only about half a dozen came anyway. I spent all day sitting at my desk counting the seconds til I was allowed out.

When I finally was allowed out I went to Korona world with JoAnn, Dawn and Kendall to watch Die Hard 4 (dai haado foaa in Japanese). It was a great movie! I haven't laughed so much for a long time. And it had Cliff Curtis in it, playing a role other than a terrorist! I swear if you strain your ears you can hear the kiwi accent in there.

I'm buggered, and I am off to bed now. Goodnight and good gardening to you all!

The weekend

2007-06-27T19:35:00.000+09:00

On Friday night I went out for a few drinks and some karaoke with JP, his girlfriend Yukiko, and one of his JTEs Koko. JP and I went out with Koko way back in December.

On Saturday morning I was up and off early. I met Ryan and some Hokkaido people, and we headed of to Towada for the trivia weekend.

When we got there it was straight into helping with the set up. Lunch was next on the agenda, and it was a barbecue sponsored by Aussie beef. Not only was there steak, but also lamb. Melanie, legend that she is, even had mint sauce and mint jelly. I was a happy camper!

I had a couple of hours on the registration desk before heading out to explore with Kendall, Nat, Claud, Dawn and Sara. The hotel was right next to the "I-can't-believe-I'm-not-in-New-Zealand" Oirase Gorge.

While everyone else sat on the rocks I went for more exploring.

Back at the hotel we had dinner, and then it was time for the quiz. Our team name was "Robinson's Cru-YO!" (the team capitan's surname is Robinson). I was going for shipwreck survivor chic here:

Nobody else bothered with a silly costume...

Kendall and Andy (Bob), part of Robinson's Cru-YO!:

The team was: Lois, Miko, Don, Kendall, Andy, Abidemi, Kevin, Nat, Jason and me.

I think in total there were 5 New Zealanders there (from other prefectures, and Andy who is an eikaiwa teacher in Hirosaki). I think the number of questions related to New Zealand to New Zealanders actually there ratio was pretty high, and they were all gimmies.

Part of the quiz was individual challenges, I got saddled with making Jason into the most beautiful woman I could (Miko did most of the work, although it is my shirt he is wearing).

While Jason was going for classy, Chris went straight for trashy ho...Neither could compete with Russel's arse shaking though, and he took out the prize.

On Sunday morning I went for another walk to the river, this time with Mila and Abidemi. I lost track of them when we got to the hotel, and bought cheap wine at Melanie's fire sale.

Lois was my ride back to Aomori, so I went with her, Miko, Miko's friend Don, Kevin and Andy to Lake Towada where we sat on the beach and admired the beige and sludge green fashions modeled by middle aged Japanese people in tour groups.

We headed back to Aomori, via Asamushi and an excellent milkshake place.

So, that was the weekend. Monday and Tuesday were uneventful. Today I was at Namioka Yogo. The funniest thing that happened today was when I was teaching the Kadai students, and they asked one of the girls what my name was. She didn't remember, so I said "My name is Karen". She said "ninjin", which means carrot. I guess you had to be there...

One more thing!

2007-06-18T21:26:00.000+09:00

The Tsugaru-ben Taikai made Japanese national TV! Kyoto Sensei told me today he had seen it on NHK news.

No photos but...

2007-06-18T21:00:00.000+09:00

I thought I'd just tell you about my day, since it went so well.

I was at school, as usual for the morning. I had two classes. The first was 1.4 and they were little shits, but no problem. The second class was 2.6, and the class went really well, one of the best I've had. The class got really into it.

Also I gave some tomato relish that I made to Maeda and Ichinohe Senseis to say thank you for teaching me Tsugaru-ben, and had a wee chat with them. They asked me if I came first. I said "no". They asked me if I came second. I said "I don't know, everyone got a prize". They said "did you come last?" I said "probably", and they laughed at me.

After lunch I went over to Jenny's school to talk to some of her students who are going on a study trip to New Zealand in their summer holiday. It was really fun. It was cool to be able to talk about New Zealand to students and they understood without any translation! I think I may have scared them a bit with the "New Zealand English" I tried to explain, but oh well. I made them laugh with my description of "eh?"- an essential and highly useful part of New Zealand speech. Has anyone got any must-see tips for Auckland? Jenny's supervisor has nothing to do all day while the students are at the English course, so I promised to have a look and find some suggestions.

After that I went back to Jenny's house for tea, and had a catch up with her and Dave. They dropped me home, and I found I had a letter from Granny. I love getting real letters. Hint hint!

After all that my new neighbours, who moved in on Sunday, came and introduced themselves and gave me some cakes, which is the Japanese thing to do. They invited me to come to dinner sometime after they had finished moving in, and asked me to teach them English. They seem really nice.

And the sun was shining all day. And my hair was good.

So, that was that. One of those "I love Japan" days. I think quite often I only talk to people (well, other JETs anyway) about what is wrong with Japan, so it is important to remember to talk about when things are going well.

Hebana!