WHOA. It`s kind of been more than a month since I`ve uploaded anything....sorry guys! Been ridiculous busy and preoccupied. But now I`ve got time to write a little before heading off for a business trip.
October 18th Monday
Had a Halloween party with my nursery babies. They had so much fun and I had fun watching them be cute. <3 Then went to help the middle school kids with their last practice before Tuesday`s speech contest.
October 19th Tuesday
English Speech and Performance Contest day in Shibetsu. This year`s kids were all very amazing. It was pretty high level, I have to say. I was a judge again this year along with two other ALTs, and since I have to be fair, my kids didn`t win anything this year. The kids from all the different schools did really well, so it was difficult to judge this year. But everyone still did extremely wonderfully regardless.
October 22 Friday
After school today was the Elementary teacher`s trip. And we went to Sounkyou Hot Springs village. Ayumi (the 23 year old assistant teacher) also went. Yay! The bus ride took 2 hours and on the way there the other teachers had organized Bingo games for us to play. lol That was fun.
When we got there, we checked into our amazing rooms, which were half western style and half japanese style, and then went to the hot springs. They were amazing!! They had outside routenburou ones and a huge roman style inside hot springs. AMAZING!! I took a quick dip into the hot springs then got ready with the other women to go to our enkai dinner. The dinner was delicious! It was traditional style ryoukan enkai food. You sit on the tatami with a mini table in front of you and on the table a tray of amazing delicious foods were laid upon it. Man, I ate so much. Then we went to the second party at the bar lounge and sang our hearts out at karaoke. My teachers got sooooo drunk....and still wanted to drink more... But after that, other people went to the third party to drink, but Ayumi and I went back one more time to the hot springs and then went to sleep.
Next morning, I got up and went to the hot springs one last time before heading out with the other teachers to ride the cable car up Mount Kurodake. That was a relaxing ride up. Once that finished and we came back down, we got back on the bus and headed on home.
October 24th Sunday
I invited the chem teacher out to hang out today, with nowhere in particular in mind. So he suggested to go to Nayoro to eat lunch and then eat at the dessert parlor there. I drove. So I was kinda sick so I couldn`t really think properly, let alone in Japanese, causing me to be kind of silent for a while. SOrry! >.< But we had a good time there, then afterwards we came back to Shibetsu for bowling and karaoke. He`s so damn good at bowling! Like it was ridiculous! Strikes each time! And I just had gutters each time...suck. lol Actually while we were there I ran into one of my high school girls. She was like "Oh, boyfriend?" And I wasn`t sure what to say to that because he was still there listening to us and I just said "Uhm...no, friend." "Oh..." lol Yeah. Then he asked me if my student asked if he was my boyfriend, and when I said yes, he was like "Man, junior high and high school students all seem to like to think those things..haha." Okay. lol
We then went to sing Karaoke. And he was also so damn good at it! I jokingly said to him sing Ayaka`s songs and he just looked at me and said "Really? You want me to sing her songs...? Uh...alright" And he really did and it was CRAZY GOOD! He`s got a high voice, but sung it beautifully. I was quite impressed. After all that, he paid for the whole thing for me. Actually he paid for everything for me that day. That got my heart beating. It was really sweet of him. We then went home after that. Wonderful day. <3 Actually, wonderful weekend. However, things will start to get...interesting from here on out with him...you`ll just have to stay tuned in to the next episode to find out what our relationship is now...ehe...>D
October 29th Friday
This evening was a congratulatory party for one of the substitute teachers at my school because she passed the test that officially makes you a teacher. Hooray! Only a couple of the teachers were able to make the party, but we all wished her congratulations. I`m very happy for her, but at the same time it means she won`t be at our school anymore. Boo...
October 30th Saturday
This mornign until afternoon was my nursery babies recital/show where they show off dances and plays to their families. So cute!!!! OMG It was seriously the cutest recital ever!! WAAAHH!! My babies were all very happy to see me there as well and the parents thanked me for coming out and staying until the very end to watch the whole thing. I love my babies, of course I`d stay for them. This made me very warm and fuzzy inside. hehe
Thanks all! And my next update will prolly be sometime next week.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Frustration and Exhaultation
Hey all. I apologize from being way behind on my blog posting. But again, I`ve been ridiculous busy that I haven`t had the time. And at the moment I don`t remember what happened between the last blog until the beginning of October...so I`ll get back to writing that later. eheh. ^^;
October 8th Friday
Starting from today was the HAJET Fall Meeting held in Asahikawa. Yay for being close to me! I finished work and managed to head on over there right after. The meeting was held at the Washington Kankou Hotel. It was a pretty nice and fancy hotel and I got a room to myself. Upon checking into my room I got a phone call from *dum dum dum* Mr. Oshare!! He asked me if I`ve eaten dinner yet and if I wanted to go to dinner with him. The ONE time he asks me out to eat with him, I`m in a different city for a meeting. Of course. That`s how it always is. >.< But he just said, no worries. There`s always next time. Yay!
Anyways, I waited for Keri to arrive and we headed over to MOS Burger for dinner. Then we met up with other peoples and decided to go karaoke-ing and after that, clubbing. Yeah, the actual meeting and parties don`t start until tomorrow morning at 10am, but we were already partying it up until 5:30am. I didn`t actually get to sleep until 6am cuz I took a bath. Lotsa fun! But extremely tired.
October 9th Saturday
Woke up for breakfast, then went back to the room to sleep for an hour, then went to the HAJET meeting, then went to sleep until 2pm and went out with ppls at 3pm to walk around. Tabemarche was happening this weekend which is a festival where each town/city of Hokkaido has a booth selling their delicious foods. And for some reason, we all decided to eat a big meal before the enkai at 6pm. Smart of us. lol
The theme of the enkai was "Fall of the Roman Empire" so many of the ALTs were dressed in togas or costumes relating to that theme. And there was about 90 or so of us foreigners walking down the street in costumes to the izakaya. You can imagine the amount of staring we got from the confused Japanese people. Everyone in all the shops we passed by just stopped what they were doing and stared at us...lol I would too if I was Japanese...haha.
The enkai was a 7 course meal (right after our late lunch) and included a costume party. I met many new cool ALTs and had a lot of fun. During the enkai I received a text from one of my taiko mates, Ayako. She told me that she was going to go to her friend`s bar in Asahikawa and asked if I wanted to go as well. She has been wanting to go drinking with me for awhile and upon hearing that her friend had a bar, I was all for it. I invited other ALTs to go, but they already had plans after, so I went on my own to the station to get pickedup by Ayako.
Apparently, this bar is not in the heart of the city, but more in the outskirts in a residential area. And literally, it was all houses around this place and actually, this bar was a garage turned bar. The house that the owner lived in was right on top of it. And the owner is a 30year old cool dude who is friends with Ayako. And did I mention he`s rich?! This bar is only opened once a month because he gets enough money from his other job that he doesn`t need this bar to be opened all the time. He drives a Mercedes too, btw. And all the patrons of this bar are all friends with one another and know each other and are all hot young relatively wealthy people. Dude. I came to the right place and made an awesome decision by coming to this place. Ayako introduced me to the owner, Naoki-san, and I was surprised to find out he spoke a good relative amount of English. I was able to have a full on conversation with him in English. He`s been to the US 3 times and he travels ALOT. Actually, he`s going to go to Bali like next month or something. Anyways, he said he stayed at the Radisson hotel in Santa Monica before!!!! RADISSON HOTEL IN SANTA MONICA YO! He`s got moolah. Plus this man is a legit bartender. Like he makes real cocktails. None of this lame mixed with water crap that the Japanese like to do. No, it`s full on Martinis and straight mixed alcohol. No water. Thankfully.
I also met the other bartender. He`s 26 and damn hot! And makes delicious martinis. We all became fast friends...I think it`s because everyone`s interested in talking to me because I`m not Japanese...lol I also met some other hot guys who`re friends with Ayako as well as her wonderful girl friends.
The bar closed at around 2am and I was shown the inside of the owner`s house afterwards. It was AMAZING and screamed wealthy bachelor! Black shiny tile floors, marble walls, black leather sofas, beautiful mood lighting, a mini chandelier, and a giant surfboard displayed on the wall behind his mini-bar. And he had the cutest little happy dachsund. And yes, he actually does surf. COOL!
He told me afterwards that we should all go on trips together. Like travel around the place. I was all up for that. Afterwards, he took me and my new friends out to eat ramen and then my friend took me back to the hotel.
October 10th Sunday
Woke up today, checked out, and got ready to go to Sounkyou Hot Springs village for some hot springs chillin with 3 wonderful girls. Holly drove the 1 1/2 hours there which I am very thankful for. We went to check in to the room and had to wait in the lobby for a bit before we could go to our room, which was a pure stroke of luck. As we were waiting my friend (who`s from Hong Kong) suddenly nudged me and said "OMG, I think that`s (insert name here), the famous Hong Kong actor!" I looked over and lo and behold, it was him!! He`s a pretty famous actor in Hong Kong and has been in numerous dramas and movies and I`ve watched many of them, thanks to my mom. And his wife, who`s an actress, was also with him. We were ecstatic. And I`m pretty sure they were on to us giggling girls.
I finally went up to him to ask if we could take a picture with him and he said, "Sure!" I have the picture with him to be posted on facebook. So wait for it! You probably might recognize him if you watch a lot of Hong Kong stuff. Anyways, we checked into our wonderful hotel room after and went down to the hot springs. It was wonderful! After all the dance teaching I`ve been doing at the elementary for their festival my muscles were incredibly sore and I was beat. Btw, the school festival was on the 17th, which I`ll get into details later.
The trip was an awesomely wonderful experience. And I`ll be going again the weekend of the 23rd for the elementary school teacher`s faculty trip. Woot!
October 12th-15th
I`ve been working my ass off at school these last few days and going to 3 different schools a day. Why? Because the Shibetsu district Junior High English Speech and Performance contest was coming up on the 19th. Every day after I finish work and classes at the high school and/or elementary I head over to the middle school and stay there helping the kids rehearse and stuff until 6pm. Mind you that I don`t get paid after 4pm. I actually don`t mind because I really love helping the kids and being with them. But there came a point where I was just ridiculously exhausted and was maybe hoping for a day off from "working" at the school for so long. Actually, I would even settle for just half a day off.
I pitched the idea to my boss and supervisor of maybe getting a day off or half day off because of all the work I`ve been doing with these kids the last few days. But they just told me because I was doing this stuff off hours and my bosses were not the ones to appoint me to helping the kids, it`s all considered volunteer work where I technically don`t have to go. So, I won`t be able to get even a half day off. But on the papers at my middle school, I`m officially the appointed head teacher of all the English practices and was even appointed a proctor for the big national English test well after school hours. If I don`t go to these things I`m just making myself look like an ass. So in a way I was obligated to go and not at the same time. A wonderful situation to be in as an ALT, I have to say. Anyways, upon hearing that I was unable to get any compensation I was so frustrated I could`ve cried. It`s just a lot of built up stress and things that I was just so pissed at my bosses for a while. And then I have to also go to school on Saturday the 16th from 10am until 3pm (but it turned into being from 9am until 6pm, a freakin full day at work) and I`m not going to be compensated for any of that. True, I`m technically volunteering, but I just want a bit of a rest. *sigh* I just have to keep thinking that this is all for the kids. If it`s for them, I`ll shut up. Otherwise, I`m afraid my bosses won`t let me help the kids or work with them after school anymore.
Damn Japan and it`s strict unable to go around things ways.
Anyways, something wonderful happened on Friday the 15th however that made me feel a little better. I was at school until 6pm that night as well as the chem teacher. So, he knew I hadn`t eaten dinner yet so he texted me when I got home to ask if I wanted to go with him to Asahikawa for dinner and shopping. I was, of course, quite ecstatic to see his text and agreed to go with him.
It was raining hard that day so instead of picking me up by the street like he usually does, he backed his car up in front of my door to get me so that I wouldn`t have to run around in the rain. It was very sweet of him. His music player broke and that`s why he needed to go shopping for it. So we had a full hour of talking in the car. He looked so cute/hot that day. He wore a hat, scarf, grey zip-up hoodie over a white tank, olive green loose pants, tucked into his brown leather boots. Oshare. This was after work too. Thankfully I made myself look good as well.
We went to go eat Italian food and he paid for me. We actually had quite an awesome time talking with each other and it was really fun! Then we went shopping. At first on the escalators I would stand one step behind him, but as the night went on and as we got closer to each other he started to stand next to me on the escalators. When I was buying candy for a Halloween party he brought over a basket for me to hold and as I was about to grab the basket from him he told me that he`ll hold onto it for me. I`m a real sucker for these little gentlemanly moves. *sigh* At the end of the night I ended up falling a little for this guy. At first I just thought of him as just a friend. But the more I hang with him, the more I want to actually be with him. Ugh, I feel like a sap. I`ve also been glancing in his direction more often when I`m at the middle school.
Bleh, I just need to work things out here. >.<
October 17th Sunday
After Saturday`s ridiculous "work" hours from 9am-6pm helping my middle school kids at school with rehearsing and prop making with no compensation I get to jump right in to my elementary`s school festival. Man, so much things going on these last few weekends. Actually, I was suppose to have left yesterday with the town hall`s young people`s club to go on an awesome camping trip with them. But because of the ridiculous busy scheduling I`ve gotta stay here and work. I feel like a real freakin Japanese teacher and not just an ALT anymore, which is good and bad at the same time.
Anyways, my 5th graders, whom I taught my dancing to did a wonderful job at the festival! I was sooo proud of my kids. After that, the teachers had an enkai at an onsen restaurant and then we went to sing karaoke. I left early because I had work the next day because I`m not given a day off to rest from working on Sunday at the festival because it`s technically not part of my work schedule that my bosses set up for me. Usually, all the teachers who work during the school festival get a day off of work to recuperate, or basically, in compensation for them having worked. I would really like to have that, especially since I`ve been helping out at all the festivals. *sigh* Whatevs. Anyways, not a bad day.
And now, I`m up to date with what`s been goin on. I think. Otsukare for reading and I`ll post up pictures soon!
October 8th Friday
Starting from today was the HAJET Fall Meeting held in Asahikawa. Yay for being close to me! I finished work and managed to head on over there right after. The meeting was held at the Washington Kankou Hotel. It was a pretty nice and fancy hotel and I got a room to myself. Upon checking into my room I got a phone call from *dum dum dum* Mr. Oshare!! He asked me if I`ve eaten dinner yet and if I wanted to go to dinner with him. The ONE time he asks me out to eat with him, I`m in a different city for a meeting. Of course. That`s how it always is. >.< But he just said, no worries. There`s always next time. Yay!
Anyways, I waited for Keri to arrive and we headed over to MOS Burger for dinner. Then we met up with other peoples and decided to go karaoke-ing and after that, clubbing. Yeah, the actual meeting and parties don`t start until tomorrow morning at 10am, but we were already partying it up until 5:30am. I didn`t actually get to sleep until 6am cuz I took a bath. Lotsa fun! But extremely tired.
October 9th Saturday
Woke up for breakfast, then went back to the room to sleep for an hour, then went to the HAJET meeting, then went to sleep until 2pm and went out with ppls at 3pm to walk around. Tabemarche was happening this weekend which is a festival where each town/city of Hokkaido has a booth selling their delicious foods. And for some reason, we all decided to eat a big meal before the enkai at 6pm. Smart of us. lol
The theme of the enkai was "Fall of the Roman Empire" so many of the ALTs were dressed in togas or costumes relating to that theme. And there was about 90 or so of us foreigners walking down the street in costumes to the izakaya. You can imagine the amount of staring we got from the confused Japanese people. Everyone in all the shops we passed by just stopped what they were doing and stared at us...lol I would too if I was Japanese...haha.
The enkai was a 7 course meal (right after our late lunch) and included a costume party. I met many new cool ALTs and had a lot of fun. During the enkai I received a text from one of my taiko mates, Ayako. She told me that she was going to go to her friend`s bar in Asahikawa and asked if I wanted to go as well. She has been wanting to go drinking with me for awhile and upon hearing that her friend had a bar, I was all for it. I invited other ALTs to go, but they already had plans after, so I went on my own to the station to get pickedup by Ayako.
Apparently, this bar is not in the heart of the city, but more in the outskirts in a residential area. And literally, it was all houses around this place and actually, this bar was a garage turned bar. The house that the owner lived in was right on top of it. And the owner is a 30year old cool dude who is friends with Ayako. And did I mention he`s rich?! This bar is only opened once a month because he gets enough money from his other job that he doesn`t need this bar to be opened all the time. He drives a Mercedes too, btw. And all the patrons of this bar are all friends with one another and know each other and are all hot young relatively wealthy people. Dude. I came to the right place and made an awesome decision by coming to this place. Ayako introduced me to the owner, Naoki-san, and I was surprised to find out he spoke a good relative amount of English. I was able to have a full on conversation with him in English. He`s been to the US 3 times and he travels ALOT. Actually, he`s going to go to Bali like next month or something. Anyways, he said he stayed at the Radisson hotel in Santa Monica before!!!! RADISSON HOTEL IN SANTA MONICA YO! He`s got moolah. Plus this man is a legit bartender. Like he makes real cocktails. None of this lame mixed with water crap that the Japanese like to do. No, it`s full on Martinis and straight mixed alcohol. No water. Thankfully.
I also met the other bartender. He`s 26 and damn hot! And makes delicious martinis. We all became fast friends...I think it`s because everyone`s interested in talking to me because I`m not Japanese...lol I also met some other hot guys who`re friends with Ayako as well as her wonderful girl friends.
The bar closed at around 2am and I was shown the inside of the owner`s house afterwards. It was AMAZING and screamed wealthy bachelor! Black shiny tile floors, marble walls, black leather sofas, beautiful mood lighting, a mini chandelier, and a giant surfboard displayed on the wall behind his mini-bar. And he had the cutest little happy dachsund. And yes, he actually does surf. COOL!
He told me afterwards that we should all go on trips together. Like travel around the place. I was all up for that. Afterwards, he took me and my new friends out to eat ramen and then my friend took me back to the hotel.
October 10th Sunday
Woke up today, checked out, and got ready to go to Sounkyou Hot Springs village for some hot springs chillin with 3 wonderful girls. Holly drove the 1 1/2 hours there which I am very thankful for. We went to check in to the room and had to wait in the lobby for a bit before we could go to our room, which was a pure stroke of luck. As we were waiting my friend (who`s from Hong Kong) suddenly nudged me and said "OMG, I think that`s (insert name here), the famous Hong Kong actor!" I looked over and lo and behold, it was him!! He`s a pretty famous actor in Hong Kong and has been in numerous dramas and movies and I`ve watched many of them, thanks to my mom. And his wife, who`s an actress, was also with him. We were ecstatic. And I`m pretty sure they were on to us giggling girls.
I finally went up to him to ask if we could take a picture with him and he said, "Sure!" I have the picture with him to be posted on facebook. So wait for it! You probably might recognize him if you watch a lot of Hong Kong stuff. Anyways, we checked into our wonderful hotel room after and went down to the hot springs. It was wonderful! After all the dance teaching I`ve been doing at the elementary for their festival my muscles were incredibly sore and I was beat. Btw, the school festival was on the 17th, which I`ll get into details later.
The trip was an awesomely wonderful experience. And I`ll be going again the weekend of the 23rd for the elementary school teacher`s faculty trip. Woot!
October 12th-15th
I`ve been working my ass off at school these last few days and going to 3 different schools a day. Why? Because the Shibetsu district Junior High English Speech and Performance contest was coming up on the 19th. Every day after I finish work and classes at the high school and/or elementary I head over to the middle school and stay there helping the kids rehearse and stuff until 6pm. Mind you that I don`t get paid after 4pm. I actually don`t mind because I really love helping the kids and being with them. But there came a point where I was just ridiculously exhausted and was maybe hoping for a day off from "working" at the school for so long. Actually, I would even settle for just half a day off.
I pitched the idea to my boss and supervisor of maybe getting a day off or half day off because of all the work I`ve been doing with these kids the last few days. But they just told me because I was doing this stuff off hours and my bosses were not the ones to appoint me to helping the kids, it`s all considered volunteer work where I technically don`t have to go. So, I won`t be able to get even a half day off. But on the papers at my middle school, I`m officially the appointed head teacher of all the English practices and was even appointed a proctor for the big national English test well after school hours. If I don`t go to these things I`m just making myself look like an ass. So in a way I was obligated to go and not at the same time. A wonderful situation to be in as an ALT, I have to say. Anyways, upon hearing that I was unable to get any compensation I was so frustrated I could`ve cried. It`s just a lot of built up stress and things that I was just so pissed at my bosses for a while. And then I have to also go to school on Saturday the 16th from 10am until 3pm (but it turned into being from 9am until 6pm, a freakin full day at work) and I`m not going to be compensated for any of that. True, I`m technically volunteering, but I just want a bit of a rest. *sigh* I just have to keep thinking that this is all for the kids. If it`s for them, I`ll shut up. Otherwise, I`m afraid my bosses won`t let me help the kids or work with them after school anymore.
Damn Japan and it`s strict unable to go around things ways.
Anyways, something wonderful happened on Friday the 15th however that made me feel a little better. I was at school until 6pm that night as well as the chem teacher. So, he knew I hadn`t eaten dinner yet so he texted me when I got home to ask if I wanted to go with him to Asahikawa for dinner and shopping. I was, of course, quite ecstatic to see his text and agreed to go with him.
It was raining hard that day so instead of picking me up by the street like he usually does, he backed his car up in front of my door to get me so that I wouldn`t have to run around in the rain. It was very sweet of him. His music player broke and that`s why he needed to go shopping for it. So we had a full hour of talking in the car. He looked so cute/hot that day. He wore a hat, scarf, grey zip-up hoodie over a white tank, olive green loose pants, tucked into his brown leather boots. Oshare. This was after work too. Thankfully I made myself look good as well.
We went to go eat Italian food and he paid for me. We actually had quite an awesome time talking with each other and it was really fun! Then we went shopping. At first on the escalators I would stand one step behind him, but as the night went on and as we got closer to each other he started to stand next to me on the escalators. When I was buying candy for a Halloween party he brought over a basket for me to hold and as I was about to grab the basket from him he told me that he`ll hold onto it for me. I`m a real sucker for these little gentlemanly moves. *sigh* At the end of the night I ended up falling a little for this guy. At first I just thought of him as just a friend. But the more I hang with him, the more I want to actually be with him. Ugh, I feel like a sap. I`ve also been glancing in his direction more often when I`m at the middle school.
Bleh, I just need to work things out here. >.<
October 17th Sunday
After Saturday`s ridiculous "work" hours from 9am-6pm helping my middle school kids at school with rehearsing and prop making with no compensation I get to jump right in to my elementary`s school festival. Man, so much things going on these last few weekends. Actually, I was suppose to have left yesterday with the town hall`s young people`s club to go on an awesome camping trip with them. But because of the ridiculous busy scheduling I`ve gotta stay here and work. I feel like a real freakin Japanese teacher and not just an ALT anymore, which is good and bad at the same time.
Anyways, my 5th graders, whom I taught my dancing to did a wonderful job at the festival! I was sooo proud of my kids. After that, the teachers had an enkai at an onsen restaurant and then we went to sing karaoke. I left early because I had work the next day because I`m not given a day off to rest from working on Sunday at the festival because it`s technically not part of my work schedule that my bosses set up for me. Usually, all the teachers who work during the school festival get a day off of work to recuperate, or basically, in compensation for them having worked. I would really like to have that, especially since I`ve been helping out at all the festivals. *sigh* Whatevs. Anyways, not a bad day.
And now, I`m up to date with what`s been goin on. I think. Otsukare for reading and I`ll post up pictures soon!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
I had a date?
Hey all, sorry again for the super late update. Coming back from summer break and starting 2nd semester has been keeping me really busy as of late. I actually have a lot of work to do...so, unfortunately and fortunately, I`m not just a tape recorder. I`m to plan lessons for majority of my classes and then in the evenings I either have taiko or teach other classes. And I`ve been studying for the JLPT 2. At the end of the day, I`m usually too tired/lazy to write my blog. So I apologize for the late update. FYI, this update is hopefully going to contain up to the month of September without being too long...eheh. ^^;;
August 9th Monday
Last full day my family is with me. I taught at the nursery today and brought my family along. It was so cute because when I introduced my family to the babies, all the kids had questions for them like,"What color, aniimal, food, etc, do you like?" After teaching/playing with them we all had lunch together and this was the first time my kids got the oppurtunity to try communicating with my family who spoke and understood no Japanese. And I was quite amazed with what these kids could do in communication. They were very smart in finding out ways to "talk" with my family even though my family didn`t understand Japanese, but were able to understand the kids. I was so proud of them!! Yup those are my kids.(o^_^o)
In the evening, I cooked for my family. Our last meal together here.
August 10th Tuesday
Left early this morning with my family to catch the train to Chitose airport. At the airport my family started crying and I was about to tear up too but held on since it would be sad if we all were crying...>.< I saw them through security and waved goodbye. Hopefully, I`ll be able to see them again in December. (United airlines business class??!!)
After that I left and went into Sapporo to hang out on my own. I went into Daimaru department store and checked out the place and found an awesome afternoon tea cafe and sat there to eat and read my book. After a little while I went back to the station and went back to Asahikawa whereupon I met up with Collin who had just come back from Fukui and was crashing over at my place for the evenin before heading back to his place next morning. We had dinner and then went back home. Luckily, Linda was still here for one more week so I had someone to come home to. It`s always a nice feeling.
August 11th Wednesday
I slacked from going to work early in the morning because it`s still summer break for everyone and the teachers don`t get to school to "work" until later in the morning. So I waffled a bit until Collin had to leave to get on his train and then went to work.
August 12th Thursday
Went to the middle school today. Empty as usual. But in the afternoon the good looking chem teacher came back from baseball practice with the kids and I had something to look at. =P But get this, I had a slight inkling that he was somewhat interested in me. He`s 25, very oshare (fashionable), healthy tan, and not bad looking. Above all, he has a playful fun spirit. I found talking to him to be easy and uplifting. Btw, his hair always looks really really good. I think I will now dub him "Mr. Oshare (fashionable/trendy)". Anyways, he figured that I was around the same age as him and really likes talking to me. Whatever chance he gets, he`ll swivel his chair round and talk to me. And I`ve seen on many occasions that he`ll look back (he sits diagonal from me with his back facing me) when I`m talking with a student or when the teachers around me are talking with the students. At first I thought that he was just interested in the conversation but out of the corner of my eyes I could see that he would occasionally glance at me. He also had offered to help me drive my family around if I can`t fit everyone into my car which was super sweet of him.
So I decided to try something. I told the vice principal, who is sitting at the head of the room with Mr. Oshare sitting in front of him, that I was going to go practice my dancing in the empty multipurpose room. The vice principal already knew this habit of mine so thought nothing of it and was like "oh yeah yeah, sure." But I noticed the chem teacher perk his head up when I talked to the vp about it. There was few work to be done that day so there were only 4 teachers there including me. So I went to the room to practice dancing and after 10 minutes he came up to the room to watch me dance. I knew it. I kind of knew that he was going to come up. hehe. So we talked for a while and I finished dancing and then went back to the teacher`s lounge. After a little while I heard someone playing with a ball in the gym and went to see who it was. It was Mr. Oshare playing basketball. He saw me walk in and was like "Come play with me!" And so I spent the afternoon playing b-ball with him. When I left to go home and was in the entryway putting on my shoes with no one around, he came over and asked me for my number. =P teehee. I went home happy.
August 14th Saturday
Left for Sapporo today with Linda. Her flight was on Sunday so we decided to spend the day in Sapporo shopping and hanging out. Actually this day coincided with the Sapporo welcome party for JETs and the Sapporo Orientation for new JETs. I was able to meet up with Steph at the welcome party for a short time, but after that I went with Linda to go eat and all you can eat shabushabu, went shopping and did other stuff. hehe. Good day.
August 15th Sunday
Took Linda to the airport and said our goodbyes. I`m going to miss having people with me all the time. ;_; After this though, I went to hang out with Steph and Heidi. Yay for Heidi being here in Sapporo! I`m able to hang with her!! Hoorah!
We went to the Ghibli exhibit today, made makkurokurosukes, and took a picture on Totoro`s belly. Super cute! hehe~ Afterwards I chilled with Heidi as Steph went to go do preparations for the Sapporo orientation. Heidi made me an awesome dinner and then, after complications, I spent the night at Heidi`s.
August 16th Monday
Took this day off so was able to chill, get myself a chai latte, and then head back to Kembuchi to relax. Hahh..
August 20th Friday
The Hell Festival in Noboribetsu was this weekend and so I went down to spend the weekend at Steph`s and chill. I met Andy who is a new ALT in Tomakomai area. Awesome guy!
August 21st Saturday
Met two wonderful ladies who are also new ALTs, Teresa and Keri. We then all headed over to Noboribetsu for the hell festival. We met up with a bunch of other new and old ALTs and walked around the town. Then went to the jigoku dani (hell valley) and hiked around for a bit before returning to the festival area and buying alcohol and eating dinner. The hell festival was awesome. We all joined in to dance the oni dance. Then, when we returned to Muroran we did an all night Karaoke until we saw the sky getting brighter...lol 11pm until 4am....eheh Good times.
August 22nd Sunday
Bid goodbye to everyone and went to Sapporo to get my JLPT study books. Then chilled in the Kinokuniya cafe and read my book. I really wish there was a place like this near me to just chill and read in a cafe like this. Neways, later on, I met up with Keri to go home since she lives on the same train line as mine.
September 5th Sunday
Met up with the new Nayoro JET, Holly, and then later Vvn! These two were so awesome to hang out with and will definitely be hanging out with them again since they live so close to me. Whoo! And because of Holly, or thanks to Holly, I got up the courage to message Mr. Oshare about going to see a movie, particularly "Inception". He not only quickly responded back to me about going and what days he`s available, but he also called me. lol I told him that the best day for me would be the 23rd of September. So we set up everything up for that day. (o^_^o)
September 8th Wednesday
Mr. Oshare cut his hair again and looks really good. Again. *o* I complemented his hair and then he started talking to me about the movie thing. He told me that the movie was only showing until the 17th so we should go soon. And after trying to find a good day, we decided that tomorrow was best. Thursday. Oh man that was quick. And he got really close to me today when he came to stand over me as I was sitting pointing out the schedule of movies on a piece of paper on my desk. I could smell his cologne and he smelled good. =P
Originally he couldn`t do Thursdays as he has volleyball practice to go to, but he told me that he could take a break from his practice to come watch the movie with me. Wow. We texted each other that night about what time we were leaving. I thought he didn`t get back home until 6pm, but he said that we should leave at around 5pm so we could go do some "window shopping" and that he`ll come pick me up in his car. Is this...a date..?
Septemeber 9th Thursday
I was pretty nervous this afternoon. I got back home early to make myself all happy and cute looking before Mr. Oshare came to pick me up. When he got here he gave me a text saying he was outside. And man did he look GOOD in what he wore! He had on a plaid vest over a white half sleeve button up shirt and khaki pants (I`m weak against vests and blazers fyi). The inside of his car was also very oshare. I got in the car with him and off we went on a one hour drive to Asahikawa.
Our car ride was pretty nice. We had good conversations and when we got silent it never felt awkward. Upon arriving in Asahikawa he asked me if I`ve eaten yet and asked me to choose a place to eat since he doesn`t know the area well enough. The only place I could think of at the moment was soup curry. So I took him to the place and it was just full of couples and quiet. The food took forever to come and so we had a lot of silent times as we sat across from each other at the table because we weren`t sure of what to talk about. Plus with my limited amount of Japanese it`s difficult. After we finished our food we went down to pay and he paid for me. I was thinking, oh he`s just paying together right now so it won`t be troublesome to the cashier. I asked him after how much it cost and he just smiled and said "I forgot". I looked at him incredulously and was like "OMG, no. That`s very sly of you. Seriously, how much?" And he just answered the same thing. But then he was like "alright, if you really want to, you can get the movie tickets?" And on that I agreed. He then asked me "Don`t guys in America usually pay for a girl?" I didn`t want to say "It`s usually only if you guys are dating" which would be stating that this was a date. I`d rather this be left as an ambiguos situation. I just said "Well, sometimes. But yes, most guys do that in the states" "You mean like gentlemen?" "Haha, yes! A gentleman usually is wonderful enough to pay." "Well, then, I`m a gentleman!" At which we both chuckled/giggled a bit.
I`m not used to guys paying for me and so wasn`t sure what to make of it and usually feel in debt when ppl pay for me. So I was totally fine with getting the movie tickets. We had to wait a little bit before we could go in to see the movie so I went to the bathroom. When I came out he was sitting on a bench waiting for me looking at his cell. His posture plus his clothes and his hair as he sat there made him look so cool and gave me a butterfly in the stomach because of the fact that he was waiting for ME. And upon coming out he gave me a smile and said "let`s go in!" It`s just a fluttery feeling to know that someone like him is with you and waiting for you. I don`t know. It`s hard to explain, just a nice feeling.
So we went in to watch "Inception". And let me say that this movie is too complicated for majority of Japanese people I think because of all the nuances and the complexities of the movie. So naturally, he fell asleep. It`s actually my second time watching the movie and I admit there are parts where I was like "okay okay, get to the action" but that movie is still one of my all time favorites. I like deep movies. He told me he likes movies where he doesn`t fall asleep and where the plot is simple and easy to understand....well, total opposite of this movie. lol
Anyways, at the end I asked him if he knew what the contents were about. He said he got the gist of it. lol After that it was already 11:30pm so I was pretty tired after a day at the high school and elementary so I didn`t have as much energy to talk. So we spent majority of the ride back in silence listening to Kpop. I told him he could just drop me off at his place since it`s only a 1 minute walk to my apt from his. But he insisted on dropping me off in front of my apt. I told him "It was fun today. Thank you." The thank you I said in English and he replied in English "No, no thank you." lol
I have to say, there was no doki doki feeling or butterflies or exhilaration afterwards. Maybe I was just too tired to feel anything or I`m just getting used to these things...So it`s all good. I can continue my friend relationship with him, for now.
September 10th Friday
Today I went to the middle school so saw Mr. Oshare. And he didn`t have his hair styled today, but had it in a messy down look, which looked really sexy on him. Damn. It was kind of funny today because for some reason all the teachers kept asking him "So how was yesterday?" where they were referring to a meeting he had at another school yesterday morning. But I saw that both him and I kind of panicked for a bit thinking that it was about last night, and he was like "Uh, yesterday? What was yesterday?" And I was like "Uh, what!?" And the teachers just looked at him and were like "You know, yesterday." I was thinking in my head "Please no, please no." And finally he was like "....Do you mean...the meeting?" "Of course! What else? Why did you do something else?" "Huh? Oh, yeah, the meeting. It went well!" Whew...panic moment averted. lol I chuckled inside though because of this little conversation.
And then today Mr. Oshare put on Korean music in the school at lunch and it was awesome!! First time hearing Kpop in the school. I went around the hallways and danced. haha. Then talked to my kids who like Big Bang since they`re so big here in Japan now.
Otsukare for reading guys! Thanks for keeping up with my lack of posting!! Love ya all!
August 9th Monday
Last full day my family is with me. I taught at the nursery today and brought my family along. It was so cute because when I introduced my family to the babies, all the kids had questions for them like,"What color, aniimal, food, etc, do you like?" After teaching/playing with them we all had lunch together and this was the first time my kids got the oppurtunity to try communicating with my family who spoke and understood no Japanese. And I was quite amazed with what these kids could do in communication. They were very smart in finding out ways to "talk" with my family even though my family didn`t understand Japanese, but were able to understand the kids. I was so proud of them!! Yup those are my kids.(o^_^o)
In the evening, I cooked for my family. Our last meal together here.
August 10th Tuesday
Left early this morning with my family to catch the train to Chitose airport. At the airport my family started crying and I was about to tear up too but held on since it would be sad if we all were crying...>.< I saw them through security and waved goodbye. Hopefully, I`ll be able to see them again in December. (United airlines business class??!!)
After that I left and went into Sapporo to hang out on my own. I went into Daimaru department store and checked out the place and found an awesome afternoon tea cafe and sat there to eat and read my book. After a little while I went back to the station and went back to Asahikawa whereupon I met up with Collin who had just come back from Fukui and was crashing over at my place for the evenin before heading back to his place next morning. We had dinner and then went back home. Luckily, Linda was still here for one more week so I had someone to come home to. It`s always a nice feeling.
August 11th Wednesday
I slacked from going to work early in the morning because it`s still summer break for everyone and the teachers don`t get to school to "work" until later in the morning. So I waffled a bit until Collin had to leave to get on his train and then went to work.
August 12th Thursday
Went to the middle school today. Empty as usual. But in the afternoon the good looking chem teacher came back from baseball practice with the kids and I had something to look at. =P But get this, I had a slight inkling that he was somewhat interested in me. He`s 25, very oshare (fashionable), healthy tan, and not bad looking. Above all, he has a playful fun spirit. I found talking to him to be easy and uplifting. Btw, his hair always looks really really good. I think I will now dub him "Mr. Oshare (fashionable/trendy)". Anyways, he figured that I was around the same age as him and really likes talking to me. Whatever chance he gets, he`ll swivel his chair round and talk to me. And I`ve seen on many occasions that he`ll look back (he sits diagonal from me with his back facing me) when I`m talking with a student or when the teachers around me are talking with the students. At first I thought that he was just interested in the conversation but out of the corner of my eyes I could see that he would occasionally glance at me. He also had offered to help me drive my family around if I can`t fit everyone into my car which was super sweet of him.
So I decided to try something. I told the vice principal, who is sitting at the head of the room with Mr. Oshare sitting in front of him, that I was going to go practice my dancing in the empty multipurpose room. The vice principal already knew this habit of mine so thought nothing of it and was like "oh yeah yeah, sure." But I noticed the chem teacher perk his head up when I talked to the vp about it. There was few work to be done that day so there were only 4 teachers there including me. So I went to the room to practice dancing and after 10 minutes he came up to the room to watch me dance. I knew it. I kind of knew that he was going to come up. hehe. So we talked for a while and I finished dancing and then went back to the teacher`s lounge. After a little while I heard someone playing with a ball in the gym and went to see who it was. It was Mr. Oshare playing basketball. He saw me walk in and was like "Come play with me!" And so I spent the afternoon playing b-ball with him. When I left to go home and was in the entryway putting on my shoes with no one around, he came over and asked me for my number. =P teehee. I went home happy.
August 14th Saturday
Left for Sapporo today with Linda. Her flight was on Sunday so we decided to spend the day in Sapporo shopping and hanging out. Actually this day coincided with the Sapporo welcome party for JETs and the Sapporo Orientation for new JETs. I was able to meet up with Steph at the welcome party for a short time, but after that I went with Linda to go eat and all you can eat shabushabu, went shopping and did other stuff. hehe. Good day.
August 15th Sunday
Took Linda to the airport and said our goodbyes. I`m going to miss having people with me all the time. ;_; After this though, I went to hang out with Steph and Heidi. Yay for Heidi being here in Sapporo! I`m able to hang with her!! Hoorah!
We went to the Ghibli exhibit today, made makkurokurosukes, and took a picture on Totoro`s belly. Super cute! hehe~ Afterwards I chilled with Heidi as Steph went to go do preparations for the Sapporo orientation. Heidi made me an awesome dinner and then, after complications, I spent the night at Heidi`s.
August 16th Monday
Took this day off so was able to chill, get myself a chai latte, and then head back to Kembuchi to relax. Hahh..
August 20th Friday
The Hell Festival in Noboribetsu was this weekend and so I went down to spend the weekend at Steph`s and chill. I met Andy who is a new ALT in Tomakomai area. Awesome guy!
August 21st Saturday
Met two wonderful ladies who are also new ALTs, Teresa and Keri. We then all headed over to Noboribetsu for the hell festival. We met up with a bunch of other new and old ALTs and walked around the town. Then went to the jigoku dani (hell valley) and hiked around for a bit before returning to the festival area and buying alcohol and eating dinner. The hell festival was awesome. We all joined in to dance the oni dance. Then, when we returned to Muroran we did an all night Karaoke until we saw the sky getting brighter...lol 11pm until 4am....eheh Good times.
August 22nd Sunday
Bid goodbye to everyone and went to Sapporo to get my JLPT study books. Then chilled in the Kinokuniya cafe and read my book. I really wish there was a place like this near me to just chill and read in a cafe like this. Neways, later on, I met up with Keri to go home since she lives on the same train line as mine.
September 5th Sunday
Met up with the new Nayoro JET, Holly, and then later Vvn! These two were so awesome to hang out with and will definitely be hanging out with them again since they live so close to me. Whoo! And because of Holly, or thanks to Holly, I got up the courage to message Mr. Oshare about going to see a movie, particularly "Inception". He not only quickly responded back to me about going and what days he`s available, but he also called me. lol I told him that the best day for me would be the 23rd of September. So we set up everything up for that day. (o^_^o)
September 8th Wednesday
Mr. Oshare cut his hair again and looks really good. Again. *o* I complemented his hair and then he started talking to me about the movie thing. He told me that the movie was only showing until the 17th so we should go soon. And after trying to find a good day, we decided that tomorrow was best. Thursday. Oh man that was quick. And he got really close to me today when he came to stand over me as I was sitting pointing out the schedule of movies on a piece of paper on my desk. I could smell his cologne and he smelled good. =P
Originally he couldn`t do Thursdays as he has volleyball practice to go to, but he told me that he could take a break from his practice to come watch the movie with me. Wow. We texted each other that night about what time we were leaving. I thought he didn`t get back home until 6pm, but he said that we should leave at around 5pm so we could go do some "window shopping" and that he`ll come pick me up in his car. Is this...a date..?
Septemeber 9th Thursday
I was pretty nervous this afternoon. I got back home early to make myself all happy and cute looking before Mr. Oshare came to pick me up. When he got here he gave me a text saying he was outside. And man did he look GOOD in what he wore! He had on a plaid vest over a white half sleeve button up shirt and khaki pants (I`m weak against vests and blazers fyi). The inside of his car was also very oshare. I got in the car with him and off we went on a one hour drive to Asahikawa.
Our car ride was pretty nice. We had good conversations and when we got silent it never felt awkward. Upon arriving in Asahikawa he asked me if I`ve eaten yet and asked me to choose a place to eat since he doesn`t know the area well enough. The only place I could think of at the moment was soup curry. So I took him to the place and it was just full of couples and quiet. The food took forever to come and so we had a lot of silent times as we sat across from each other at the table because we weren`t sure of what to talk about. Plus with my limited amount of Japanese it`s difficult. After we finished our food we went down to pay and he paid for me. I was thinking, oh he`s just paying together right now so it won`t be troublesome to the cashier. I asked him after how much it cost and he just smiled and said "I forgot". I looked at him incredulously and was like "OMG, no. That`s very sly of you. Seriously, how much?" And he just answered the same thing. But then he was like "alright, if you really want to, you can get the movie tickets?" And on that I agreed. He then asked me "Don`t guys in America usually pay for a girl?" I didn`t want to say "It`s usually only if you guys are dating" which would be stating that this was a date. I`d rather this be left as an ambiguos situation. I just said "Well, sometimes. But yes, most guys do that in the states" "You mean like gentlemen?" "Haha, yes! A gentleman usually is wonderful enough to pay." "Well, then, I`m a gentleman!" At which we both chuckled/giggled a bit.
I`m not used to guys paying for me and so wasn`t sure what to make of it and usually feel in debt when ppl pay for me. So I was totally fine with getting the movie tickets. We had to wait a little bit before we could go in to see the movie so I went to the bathroom. When I came out he was sitting on a bench waiting for me looking at his cell. His posture plus his clothes and his hair as he sat there made him look so cool and gave me a butterfly in the stomach because of the fact that he was waiting for ME. And upon coming out he gave me a smile and said "let`s go in!" It`s just a fluttery feeling to know that someone like him is with you and waiting for you. I don`t know. It`s hard to explain, just a nice feeling.
So we went in to watch "Inception". And let me say that this movie is too complicated for majority of Japanese people I think because of all the nuances and the complexities of the movie. So naturally, he fell asleep. It`s actually my second time watching the movie and I admit there are parts where I was like "okay okay, get to the action" but that movie is still one of my all time favorites. I like deep movies. He told me he likes movies where he doesn`t fall asleep and where the plot is simple and easy to understand....well, total opposite of this movie. lol
Anyways, at the end I asked him if he knew what the contents were about. He said he got the gist of it. lol After that it was already 11:30pm so I was pretty tired after a day at the high school and elementary so I didn`t have as much energy to talk. So we spent majority of the ride back in silence listening to Kpop. I told him he could just drop me off at his place since it`s only a 1 minute walk to my apt from his. But he insisted on dropping me off in front of my apt. I told him "It was fun today. Thank you." The thank you I said in English and he replied in English "No, no thank you." lol
I have to say, there was no doki doki feeling or butterflies or exhilaration afterwards. Maybe I was just too tired to feel anything or I`m just getting used to these things...So it`s all good. I can continue my friend relationship with him, for now.
September 10th Friday
Today I went to the middle school so saw Mr. Oshare. And he didn`t have his hair styled today, but had it in a messy down look, which looked really sexy on him. Damn. It was kind of funny today because for some reason all the teachers kept asking him "So how was yesterday?" where they were referring to a meeting he had at another school yesterday morning. But I saw that both him and I kind of panicked for a bit thinking that it was about last night, and he was like "Uh, yesterday? What was yesterday?" And I was like "Uh, what!?" And the teachers just looked at him and were like "You know, yesterday." I was thinking in my head "Please no, please no." And finally he was like "....Do you mean...the meeting?" "Of course! What else? Why did you do something else?" "Huh? Oh, yeah, the meeting. It went well!" Whew...panic moment averted. lol I chuckled inside though because of this little conversation.
And then today Mr. Oshare put on Korean music in the school at lunch and it was awesome!! First time hearing Kpop in the school. I went around the hallways and danced. haha. Then talked to my kids who like Big Bang since they`re so big here in Japan now.
Otsukare for reading guys! Thanks for keeping up with my lack of posting!! Love ya all!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Days with my family o(^_^)o
July 29th Thursday
Today it was just pouring rain. But that didn`t stop us from going to the Shiroi-koibito Park/Ishiya Chocolate factory. We made our way over there in the rain and walked around the museum and everything and saw how the chocolate and the cookies came to be so delicious. We then went to eat at the cafe and I ordered some of their special hot chocolate. Sooo good and creamy. We also ate some rose soft cream which actually tasted pretty good! We also were able to see the special every hour show since we were there for so long. It was so cute and bubbly and magical. Just really rainy.
Actually, before we headed over to the chocolate factory, we went over to the Hokkaido Jingu (shrine). It was a lot of trekking through a wet soggy park and along a little hill. But I was glad to allow my family the shrine experience as all must see and do while in Japan or any of the Buddhist countries. Well, the shrine was Shinto….but, eh.
After the factroy we went to the Sapporo station and ate at one of the ramen shops. For my family it was the first time they`ve had Hokkaido ramen and were very surprised by the fattiness of it; all the oil and salt and deliciously yummy things that are so incredibly terrible for you. We shopped around the area for a bit buying Marimo (the algae ball that`s so famous here in Hokkaido) and then went on back to our hotel in the partying/red light district. Yup, that`s right, I got my family and I a room in the partying district. But the hotel is mainly for tourists and families, so it wasn`t bad. It`s just that when you get out of the subway to the surface streets there`s hosts and bars and club s everywhere. Eheh, which my friend and I totally didn`t mind because the host boys were pretty hot.
July 30th Friday
Today was Otaru day. We got over to Minami-Otaru and walked over to the music box museum. No one bought anything, though I was sorely tempted to get this cute giant Japanese cat kneeling on a zabuton. It cost about 8000yen though….>.< Blargh…maybe when I get a boyfriend, I`ll get him to buy it for me. >D
Afterwards we walked along the path looking at various things on our way to go eat at a sushi-ya-san since we`re right next to the ocean. We ate some wonderful sushi and extra other things and then went on our way to the Otaru canal area to find the Otaru beer factory to drink some German beer. Beer`s not my favorite thing to drink, but I figured that since we`re here, we should get some, especially since my mother really likes beer. I got this fruity herby dark green colored beer cocktail of sorts. It was okay, I still didn`t like the lingering taste of the hops.
We also got some bakudan-yaki which is a giant takoyaki ball of goodness. I ate majority of it…We got back to Sapporo and bought dinner at a Lawson`s conbini that night. Cheap, yes.
July 31st Saturday
Got up early, checked out of our hotel and went to Odori Koen. They were having their beer festival thing going on there that day and even though it was only 11am in the morning, I got myself a mojito. Eheh. I couldn`t resist! And it was so cheap and rare to see. There`s barely and mojitos here. Plus, it was a hot day well worth the drink. Ah, fresh, minty, and alcoholic.
We then went to get some yummy tonkatsu for lunch and then left for the train back to my town. At my town, after settling in to my apartment, I took my family and Linda out to eat superb Genghis khan (lamb bbq). They absolutely loved it and wanted to eat it one more time.
My apt, was barely big enough to fit everyone. Lol But, sleeping wise, the arrangement was good.
August 1st Sunday
This morning I took my family over to the next city for lunch at the hot springs hotel there and then took them to eat some awesome softcream at "The Hillside Box". At 4pm I had to head over to the activities hall to practice taiko because today was the Kembuchi festival. And my taiko group and I were going to play in it. I took my family along with me to practice and then over to the lakeside for the performance. I`m glad they were able to come at a good time to make it for the festival and see my perform.
We stayed at the festival meeting all my students and their parents there until 8pm when the fireworks started. This was actually my first time seeing the fireworks show at the lakeside because last year I didn`t stay long enough for it. You could go right up to the lake`s edge (where the steps descend into the water) and sit there and watch the fireworks being launched on the other side of the lake. The fireworks were absolutely beautiful and magical. And I`m very glad my family was there with me to see it.
August 2nd Monday
I drove to the Asahiyama zoo today. Since it`s the most famous in all of Japan, people flock from all over to go see it. And we`re one of the few zoos in Japan that has an Orangutan and Kapibara. My family thoroughly enjoyed the zoo. Afterwards we went to go eat soup curry. We then went home to go sing karaoke in Shibetsu. My family, being American, wanted to get their all-you-can-drink money`s worth so ended up drinking a lot of alcohol and drinks causing them to have to constantly go to the bathroom…lol It was quite funny actually. =P
August 3rd Tuesday
Was super tired this morning after all the activities in Tokyo, Sapporo, and the other days in Kembuchi. So, my mom told me that today, I don`t need to take them to Furano. I`ll take them on Saturday instead. So today we just hung around the house in the morning and then headed over to AEON JUSCO to go shopping. We got there, did some shopping, and then went to go eat okonomiyaki and monja. Yummers! Afterwards, we got some takoyaki and shaved ice to eat as well. Hehe
August 4th Wednesday
Went to work today…had absolutely nothing to do as I figured. But I left a little earlier today to pick up my family to bring them around the schools and stuff for people to meet. Then left to go home early. Yay! Mom cooked ba hoc! I missed Cambodian food hardcore, so my mom had said she would cook for me. Yes! Sooooo good!!!!!
August 5th Thursday
Work again. For dinner, Mom cooked Cambodian curry!!! Wee again!!
August 6th Friday.
Left work early today to go home and chill and do nothing. Took my family to Don Quixote in the evening after eating at Myu. Did lotsa shopping and then went home.
August 7th Saturday
Furano day! Went to Furano today on the Norokko train, but it was a rainy day today. Absolutely terrible. But we were still able to eat good foods, lotsa different flavored ice cream and see the Lavenders. I bought some nice smelling soap.
After Furano, we came back to eat at Kohrinboh, the really good miso ramen shop.
August 8th Sunday
We ate lunch at Ibushiya today. We got free drinks because the manager knows me and wanted to get something for my family. So free drinks it was. Yay! Then we went shopping and lazed around town.
Today it was just pouring rain. But that didn`t stop us from going to the Shiroi-koibito Park/Ishiya Chocolate factory. We made our way over there in the rain and walked around the museum and everything and saw how the chocolate and the cookies came to be so delicious. We then went to eat at the cafe and I ordered some of their special hot chocolate. Sooo good and creamy. We also ate some rose soft cream which actually tasted pretty good! We also were able to see the special every hour show since we were there for so long. It was so cute and bubbly and magical. Just really rainy.
Actually, before we headed over to the chocolate factory, we went over to the Hokkaido Jingu (shrine). It was a lot of trekking through a wet soggy park and along a little hill. But I was glad to allow my family the shrine experience as all must see and do while in Japan or any of the Buddhist countries. Well, the shrine was Shinto….but, eh.
After the factroy we went to the Sapporo station and ate at one of the ramen shops. For my family it was the first time they`ve had Hokkaido ramen and were very surprised by the fattiness of it; all the oil and salt and deliciously yummy things that are so incredibly terrible for you. We shopped around the area for a bit buying Marimo (the algae ball that`s so famous here in Hokkaido) and then went on back to our hotel in the partying/red light district. Yup, that`s right, I got my family and I a room in the partying district. But the hotel is mainly for tourists and families, so it wasn`t bad. It`s just that when you get out of the subway to the surface streets there`s hosts and bars and club s everywhere. Eheh, which my friend and I totally didn`t mind because the host boys were pretty hot.
July 30th Friday
Today was Otaru day. We got over to Minami-Otaru and walked over to the music box museum. No one bought anything, though I was sorely tempted to get this cute giant Japanese cat kneeling on a zabuton. It cost about 8000yen though….>.< Blargh…maybe when I get a boyfriend, I`ll get him to buy it for me. >D
Afterwards we walked along the path looking at various things on our way to go eat at a sushi-ya-san since we`re right next to the ocean. We ate some wonderful sushi and extra other things and then went on our way to the Otaru canal area to find the Otaru beer factory to drink some German beer. Beer`s not my favorite thing to drink, but I figured that since we`re here, we should get some, especially since my mother really likes beer. I got this fruity herby dark green colored beer cocktail of sorts. It was okay, I still didn`t like the lingering taste of the hops.
We also got some bakudan-yaki which is a giant takoyaki ball of goodness. I ate majority of it…We got back to Sapporo and bought dinner at a Lawson`s conbini that night. Cheap, yes.
July 31st Saturday
Got up early, checked out of our hotel and went to Odori Koen. They were having their beer festival thing going on there that day and even though it was only 11am in the morning, I got myself a mojito. Eheh. I couldn`t resist! And it was so cheap and rare to see. There`s barely and mojitos here. Plus, it was a hot day well worth the drink. Ah, fresh, minty, and alcoholic.
We then went to get some yummy tonkatsu for lunch and then left for the train back to my town. At my town, after settling in to my apartment, I took my family and Linda out to eat superb Genghis khan (lamb bbq). They absolutely loved it and wanted to eat it one more time.
My apt, was barely big enough to fit everyone. Lol But, sleeping wise, the arrangement was good.
August 1st Sunday
This morning I took my family over to the next city for lunch at the hot springs hotel there and then took them to eat some awesome softcream at "The Hillside Box". At 4pm I had to head over to the activities hall to practice taiko because today was the Kembuchi festival. And my taiko group and I were going to play in it. I took my family along with me to practice and then over to the lakeside for the performance. I`m glad they were able to come at a good time to make it for the festival and see my perform.
We stayed at the festival meeting all my students and their parents there until 8pm when the fireworks started. This was actually my first time seeing the fireworks show at the lakeside because last year I didn`t stay long enough for it. You could go right up to the lake`s edge (where the steps descend into the water) and sit there and watch the fireworks being launched on the other side of the lake. The fireworks were absolutely beautiful and magical. And I`m very glad my family was there with me to see it.
August 2nd Monday
I drove to the Asahiyama zoo today. Since it`s the most famous in all of Japan, people flock from all over to go see it. And we`re one of the few zoos in Japan that has an Orangutan and Kapibara. My family thoroughly enjoyed the zoo. Afterwards we went to go eat soup curry. We then went home to go sing karaoke in Shibetsu. My family, being American, wanted to get their all-you-can-drink money`s worth so ended up drinking a lot of alcohol and drinks causing them to have to constantly go to the bathroom…lol It was quite funny actually. =P
August 3rd Tuesday
Was super tired this morning after all the activities in Tokyo, Sapporo, and the other days in Kembuchi. So, my mom told me that today, I don`t need to take them to Furano. I`ll take them on Saturday instead. So today we just hung around the house in the morning and then headed over to AEON JUSCO to go shopping. We got there, did some shopping, and then went to go eat okonomiyaki and monja. Yummers! Afterwards, we got some takoyaki and shaved ice to eat as well. Hehe
August 4th Wednesday
Went to work today…had absolutely nothing to do as I figured. But I left a little earlier today to pick up my family to bring them around the schools and stuff for people to meet. Then left to go home early. Yay! Mom cooked ba hoc! I missed Cambodian food hardcore, so my mom had said she would cook for me. Yes! Sooooo good!!!!!
August 5th Thursday
Work again. For dinner, Mom cooked Cambodian curry!!! Wee again!!
August 6th Friday.
Left work early today to go home and chill and do nothing. Took my family to Don Quixote in the evening after eating at Myu. Did lotsa shopping and then went home.
August 7th Saturday
Furano day! Went to Furano today on the Norokko train, but it was a rainy day today. Absolutely terrible. But we were still able to eat good foods, lotsa different flavored ice cream and see the Lavenders. I bought some nice smelling soap.
After Furano, we came back to eat at Kohrinboh, the really good miso ramen shop.
August 8th Sunday
We ate lunch at Ibushiya today. We got free drinks because the manager knows me and wanted to get something for my family. So free drinks it was. Yay! Then we went shopping and lazed around town.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
To Tokyo and Beyond!
July 24th Saturday
Left for Tokyo today! I went via Asahikawa airport and roundtrip tickets were only 18,000yen. Cheap! ^^ ...Upon setting foot outside of the airplane in Tokyo my first and immediate reaction was "EW!" The weather was terribly humid and hot...well, compared to the cool summers of Hokkaido.
So I got there and made my way to the Ootsuka train station to meet up with Chingyi at the hotel. I was pretty sweaty by the time I got there, so our greeting hug was light and brief. lol Anyways, we checked into our hotel room and found out how small it was. It was a bunk bed room with barely enough room to open our suitcases. And we couldn`t leave our suitcases lying on the floor because otherwise we couldn`t walk around it or walk outside. o.o;
Anyways, I had found out that there was a Chipotle knock-off place in Akasaka somewhere and was dying to go there to eat. I miss American-Mexican food terribly so I was like "That`s the first place we be eatin at" And we did. This place was called Frijoles and had wonderful amazing burritos!! I ate a steak burrito...*droolした" SOOOO GOOOD だった. Everyone inside spoke English and most of the customers were all foreigners. lol It was kind of funny to see so many foreigners in one place cuz I`m not used to it. I was also not used to seeing so much exposed skin and gyarus because we have few up here and none in my town. eheh. And the styles, oh man, it`s been a while since I`ve seen such a vareity. Anyways, end of my digression.
July 25th Sunday
In the morning Chingyi and I set off for Harajuku and did a good amount of shopping. And we ate Shakey`s pizza! Oh man was it hot today. Bought a couple of stuff from Paris Kids and Body Line...oh money, goodbye.
At 6pm tonight at the Tokyo Dome was the Kattun concert! I was lucky enough to go because my friend is part of the fan club and was able to get tickets for us. The concert was damn awesome. And even though I`m not a fan of Kattun I really liked their concert and found myself trying to sing along. I think I might actually start listening to some of their songs now. =P Immediately after the last encore Chingyi and I ran out of the building as fast as we could to catch the train home so that we weren`t crowded by the other (mainly) girls leaving the building. We weren`t the only ones who ran either. lol Very good night. And Koki was extremely sexy with his "Make You Wet" song....>D
July 26th Monday
Yay for DisneySea!! Today Chingyi`s friend from Gunma also came along with us. Awesome girl who`s really into Duffy, the Disney bear. So this bear is apparantely something that Minnie made for Mickey and is only found at Tokyo DisneySea. I originally was not so keen about it for it looked like a regular normal brown teddy bear that you can find in any toy store. But due to Chingyi`s friend praises of cuteness over it and peer pressure of every Japanese person in the park having one in his/her hand/arm I gave in a bought Shellie May, Duffy`s girlfriend bear. She`s a dirty rose sort of color with a removable squishy bow on her head. She has blue eyes too. We ate so much stuff and watched almost every show at Tokyo DisneySea before we called it a day and headed on home. It was a wonderfully awesome day. Lines weren`t too bad either. hehe.
July 27th Tuesday
This morning we went out to Harajuku to eat at this amazing Hawaiian breakfast place. I had eggs benedict, turkey bacon, and kona coffee. DELICIOUS! I want to go back there again, sometime in the near future. But the line for it is always ridiculously long. We got there at a good time where there were only 4 people in front of us, thankfully.
We then went over to Roppongi to walk around and then headed over to Ginza. We went to watch 借りぐらしのアリエッティーwhich is Studio Ghibli`s newest movie. It was a little slow, but I quite liked it. It ended kind of abruptly though...lol After that we walked around Ginza, had some kind of ice cream donut, and looked at the newest 3D TVs that Sony had to offer inside the Sony building. Man, did I miss Tokyo.
At 7pm, I bid Chingyi farewell for she had to go back to Gunma for work tomorrow and I went to Shibuya to meet up with my old friends from Irvine who have been recruited into the JET program. One of them is going to be up here in Sapporo!! hurrah! My other friends are just spread around all over Japan. We decided to head over to Kichijoji and ate at an okonimiyaki place. My friend who has been placed in Sapporo had close family friends in Kichijoji that we went to go greet and the wonderful mother of the house paid for all our food! Man, I want to send her some 毛ガニor something as a thanks. I also met this lady`s son who is friends with my friend and who now works for various broadcasting companies. It`s really cool cuz he gets to be on set doing things for the shows. Neways, hung out with my friends and then went back to my hotel to spend a lonely night by myself. eheh.
July 28th Wednesday
Checked out of my hotel and went to meet up with my friend who`s currently studying abroad in Tokyo. Had burritos with her in Akasaka again and then went to the Darjheeling Tea house for cake and tea. I then stayed at the tea house for an hour longer after she left to wait for a good time to leave for the train to the airport. I was only half an hour away..sooo.....no rush.
I then left on the plane to go back to Sapporo. Upon arriving I met up with Linda!! YAY!! My friend from my hometown. Aw man, I missed seeing her. So it was definitely really nice to be able to have her with me. We ate dinner and waited around till my family arrived at 8pm. My mother cried upon seeing me...And I couldn`t believe how big my siblings have grown! It was definitely nice to see them again. However, they had soo much luggage on them it was ridiculous! It was quite an effort to get all this stuff on the train to Sapporo. But we checked into the Susukino Green Hotel 2 and got a nice Japanese style tatami room with our futons already all laid out for us. It was very nice. The only thing that was missing with the public bath house in the hotel. Most come with one and I quite enjoy them.
Ah well, the hotel was nice enough. I took them to the nearby 7eleven and showed them just how awesomely wonderfully convenient Japanese convenience stores are. hehe.
Left for Tokyo today! I went via Asahikawa airport and roundtrip tickets were only 18,000yen. Cheap! ^^ ...Upon setting foot outside of the airplane in Tokyo my first and immediate reaction was "EW!" The weather was terribly humid and hot...well, compared to the cool summers of Hokkaido.
So I got there and made my way to the Ootsuka train station to meet up with Chingyi at the hotel. I was pretty sweaty by the time I got there, so our greeting hug was light and brief. lol Anyways, we checked into our hotel room and found out how small it was. It was a bunk bed room with barely enough room to open our suitcases. And we couldn`t leave our suitcases lying on the floor because otherwise we couldn`t walk around it or walk outside. o.o;
Anyways, I had found out that there was a Chipotle knock-off place in Akasaka somewhere and was dying to go there to eat. I miss American-Mexican food terribly so I was like "That`s the first place we be eatin at" And we did. This place was called Frijoles and had wonderful amazing burritos!! I ate a steak burrito...*droolした" SOOOO GOOOD だった. Everyone inside spoke English and most of the customers were all foreigners. lol It was kind of funny to see so many foreigners in one place cuz I`m not used to it. I was also not used to seeing so much exposed skin and gyarus because we have few up here and none in my town. eheh. And the styles, oh man, it`s been a while since I`ve seen such a vareity. Anyways, end of my digression.
July 25th Sunday
In the morning Chingyi and I set off for Harajuku and did a good amount of shopping. And we ate Shakey`s pizza! Oh man was it hot today. Bought a couple of stuff from Paris Kids and Body Line...oh money, goodbye.
At 6pm tonight at the Tokyo Dome was the Kattun concert! I was lucky enough to go because my friend is part of the fan club and was able to get tickets for us. The concert was damn awesome. And even though I`m not a fan of Kattun I really liked their concert and found myself trying to sing along. I think I might actually start listening to some of their songs now. =P Immediately after the last encore Chingyi and I ran out of the building as fast as we could to catch the train home so that we weren`t crowded by the other (mainly) girls leaving the building. We weren`t the only ones who ran either. lol Very good night. And Koki was extremely sexy with his "Make You Wet" song....>D
July 26th Monday
Yay for DisneySea!! Today Chingyi`s friend from Gunma also came along with us. Awesome girl who`s really into Duffy, the Disney bear. So this bear is apparantely something that Minnie made for Mickey and is only found at Tokyo DisneySea. I originally was not so keen about it for it looked like a regular normal brown teddy bear that you can find in any toy store. But due to Chingyi`s friend praises of cuteness over it and peer pressure of every Japanese person in the park having one in his/her hand/arm I gave in a bought Shellie May, Duffy`s girlfriend bear. She`s a dirty rose sort of color with a removable squishy bow on her head. She has blue eyes too. We ate so much stuff and watched almost every show at Tokyo DisneySea before we called it a day and headed on home. It was a wonderfully awesome day. Lines weren`t too bad either. hehe.
July 27th Tuesday
This morning we went out to Harajuku to eat at this amazing Hawaiian breakfast place. I had eggs benedict, turkey bacon, and kona coffee. DELICIOUS! I want to go back there again, sometime in the near future. But the line for it is always ridiculously long. We got there at a good time where there were only 4 people in front of us, thankfully.
We then went over to Roppongi to walk around and then headed over to Ginza. We went to watch 借りぐらしのアリエッティーwhich is Studio Ghibli`s newest movie. It was a little slow, but I quite liked it. It ended kind of abruptly though...lol After that we walked around Ginza, had some kind of ice cream donut, and looked at the newest 3D TVs that Sony had to offer inside the Sony building. Man, did I miss Tokyo.
At 7pm, I bid Chingyi farewell for she had to go back to Gunma for work tomorrow and I went to Shibuya to meet up with my old friends from Irvine who have been recruited into the JET program. One of them is going to be up here in Sapporo!! hurrah! My other friends are just spread around all over Japan. We decided to head over to Kichijoji and ate at an okonimiyaki place. My friend who has been placed in Sapporo had close family friends in Kichijoji that we went to go greet and the wonderful mother of the house paid for all our food! Man, I want to send her some 毛ガニor something as a thanks. I also met this lady`s son who is friends with my friend and who now works for various broadcasting companies. It`s really cool cuz he gets to be on set doing things for the shows. Neways, hung out with my friends and then went back to my hotel to spend a lonely night by myself. eheh.
July 28th Wednesday
Checked out of my hotel and went to meet up with my friend who`s currently studying abroad in Tokyo. Had burritos with her in Akasaka again and then went to the Darjheeling Tea house for cake and tea. I then stayed at the tea house for an hour longer after she left to wait for a good time to leave for the train to the airport. I was only half an hour away..sooo.....no rush.
I then left on the plane to go back to Sapporo. Upon arriving I met up with Linda!! YAY!! My friend from my hometown. Aw man, I missed seeing her. So it was definitely really nice to be able to have her with me. We ate dinner and waited around till my family arrived at 8pm. My mother cried upon seeing me...And I couldn`t believe how big my siblings have grown! It was definitely nice to see them again. However, they had soo much luggage on them it was ridiculous! It was quite an effort to get all this stuff on the train to Sapporo. But we checked into the Susukino Green Hotel 2 and got a nice Japanese style tatami room with our futons already all laid out for us. It was very nice. The only thing that was missing with the public bath house in the hotel. Most come with one and I quite enjoy them.
Ah well, the hotel was nice enough. I took them to the nearby 7eleven and showed them just how awesomely wonderfully convenient Japanese convenience stores are. hehe.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
A Whole Month`s Worth of Entries
So it`s been incredibly long since I`ve posted. Sorry y`all. It`s been about a month and a half or so right? Many things have been happening in between and lots of lesson planning that I kept delaying writing my blog. I really should be more timely about this stuff lest I forget what happens throughout the day.
Oh, there are small amounts of Japanese inserted in here. I got lazy after a little bit of writing it and decided to just stop after two day entries. =P
June 24th Thursday
Leslie came!! She stayed at my place and we hung out until the 27th. It was very nice having someone in the house when I came back from work to wish me a welcome home. I had missed that feeling. We went to Furano to the lavender farm and ate lots of softcream...lol
今日レスリー来た！私の所に27日まで泊まった。家に帰る時に「おかえり」の挨拶を言うことがないのが寂しいが、レスリーはちゃんと言うので嬉しかった。色々な場所に行ってたくさんソフトクリーム食べた。
July 1st Thursday
Had dinner with the Minks family. BURRITOS!! HOME MADE AMERICAN BURRITOS!!! lol Soooo good. It was nice eating dinner with an American family for once. I`ve been cooking and eating alone for so long that it`s nice to eat with a family. I always go out to eat with friends, but with a family it has a nice warm and fuzzy feeling to it. The kids were so cute and funny and we played CLUE afterwards. A very typical American family evening. I really missed that. I mean, not that my family did that, but my friends` families did. It was always fun to do. I originally planned on leaving at 9pm, but ended up staying there till about 11 or so. Good evening. ^^
ミンクスの家族と一緒に夕ご飯を食べた。ブリートスだった！すごくおいしかった！アメリカン家族とご飯を食べるのは久しぶりだ。ずっと一人で料理して食べているから、家族と一緒に食べることはハッピーだった。
July 3rd Saturday
Erika`s going away party was this evening. First time going to Horobetsu. It was definitely nice. Much bigger than my place. I made peanut butter balls again. The party was great fun because I was able to see everyone again and Steph made this AMMMAAZZINGG fruit dip with handmade pita-like chips. She also made jello-shots...something I haven`t had in a loooong time. lol Anyways, superbly good and funn weekend.
July 9th Friday
My driving test was today at 2pm. I took half a day off to get over to the license center and was incredibly nervous. I had heard that no one ever passes on their first try unless they`ve taken driving classes here. So I was already freaking out about this test being ridiculous hard. I was the only foreigner there that day and was the last to take the driving test. They first took me into a small room to take my super easy written test (in English with cute pictures) and then I got into the car for the driving test. The guy seemed really nice and babied me through everything. He first drove me once around the course and told me what I should and shouldn`t do and what would cause me to fail. Then he let me at it. I was super nervous. Coming out of the S-curve (an S shaped curve) he wanted me to turn right. And he had told me, when he was driving me around, to not turn into the right lane from the curve because Americans have a tendency to do that. And what did I do? I turned into the right lane....I totally didn`t even realize it until the tester was like "No, no. Go into the left lane." I was like "SHIT I FAILED!" And I also didn`t stay within one meter of the left curb.
At the end he told me that it was over and to pull back into the parking space. I turned off the engine and readied myself for a big F. He said, "I told you to be careful of turning into the right lane after the S-curve didn`t I? You have to make sure you`re careful of that. Hmm...well, there wasn`t any big mistakes, so you pass!" I was flabbergasted. I just stared at him for a bit and was like, "Wait. Are you sure? Is it really okay?!" "Yup. You pass." ....So turning into the wrong lane wasn`t a big mistake?! o.O Okay. I just thanked him profusely and went to get my license. However, I still felt guilty about passing. Was it really okay for me to pass with that? But the thought of not having to come back here again and paying an extra 3000yen erased that guiltiness. ~_~;
July 13th Tuesday
Went to the local large temple and watched a solo cello performance. It was amazing! And this guy had studied abroad in California and New York. So it was really cool to see and even better to hear. I got a picture with the dude too!
July 16th Friday
My iPod died on me so I bought a Japanese turquoise and green sony walkman. It`s an awesome little machine. I absolutely love it. It`s not as easy to manuever as the iPod`s touch wheel. But still good.
July 17th Saturday
Today at 2pm at the storybook museum I taught a hip-hop class. Several parents and their kids came. It was mainly the cheerleading people. They liked it so much that I`m going to start having regular hip hop classes at the local club activities hall.
Afterwards I took a shower and cleaned myself up before Collin came to go to Erika`s place for another party. Woo party!! Upon arriving there late in the evening we went to a local Snack and sang some karaoke until 1am. Then called it a night.
July 18th Sunday
Horobetsu matsuri! Lotsa students there and good foods. Two of Erika`s 6th grade boys took a liking to us and followed us around and came over to Erika`s to hang. I busied them up with helping me make a cake. We then went to go cheer them on at the bread eating race. I was checked out by some guys too! I was like "whoa...they`re checking me out..?" lol They even said "Hi" to me in English! I was a little confused with that because I look very Japanese and I was walking on my own without my foreign friends.
Anyways, the party this evening was incredible amounts of fun. Erika invited 3 Japanese friends over and we had copious amounts of alcohol. I drank quite ALOT. Like no joke alot. And it got to the point where I think I started sipping tequila....Yeah, not good. But I wasn`t feeling too well at the karaoke box and spent part of my night in the bathroom and then back to Erika`s to pass out...I don`t remember much though. However, I owe a huge thank you to Erika and Collin for taking care of me. I really really appreciate it. THANKS! Never again do I want to drink that much.
Next morning I had a terrible hangover but managed to get home somehow.
Oh, there are small amounts of Japanese inserted in here. I got lazy after a little bit of writing it and decided to just stop after two day entries. =P
June 24th Thursday
Leslie came!! She stayed at my place and we hung out until the 27th. It was very nice having someone in the house when I came back from work to wish me a welcome home. I had missed that feeling. We went to Furano to the lavender farm and ate lots of softcream...lol
今日レスリー来た！私の所に27日まで泊まった。家に帰る時に「おかえり」の挨拶を言うことがないのが寂しいが、レスリーはちゃんと言うので嬉しかった。色々な場所に行ってたくさんソフトクリーム食べた。
July 1st Thursday
Had dinner with the Minks family. BURRITOS!! HOME MADE AMERICAN BURRITOS!!! lol Soooo good. It was nice eating dinner with an American family for once. I`ve been cooking and eating alone for so long that it`s nice to eat with a family. I always go out to eat with friends, but with a family it has a nice warm and fuzzy feeling to it. The kids were so cute and funny and we played CLUE afterwards. A very typical American family evening. I really missed that. I mean, not that my family did that, but my friends` families did. It was always fun to do. I originally planned on leaving at 9pm, but ended up staying there till about 11 or so. Good evening. ^^
ミンクスの家族と一緒に夕ご飯を食べた。ブリートスだった！すごくおいしかった！アメリカン家族とご飯を食べるのは久しぶりだ。ずっと一人で料理して食べているから、家族と一緒に食べることはハッピーだった。
July 3rd Saturday
Erika`s going away party was this evening. First time going to Horobetsu. It was definitely nice. Much bigger than my place. I made peanut butter balls again. The party was great fun because I was able to see everyone again and Steph made this AMMMAAZZINGG fruit dip with handmade pita-like chips. She also made jello-shots...something I haven`t had in a loooong time. lol Anyways, superbly good and funn weekend.
July 9th Friday
My driving test was today at 2pm. I took half a day off to get over to the license center and was incredibly nervous. I had heard that no one ever passes on their first try unless they`ve taken driving classes here. So I was already freaking out about this test being ridiculous hard. I was the only foreigner there that day and was the last to take the driving test. They first took me into a small room to take my super easy written test (in English with cute pictures) and then I got into the car for the driving test. The guy seemed really nice and babied me through everything. He first drove me once around the course and told me what I should and shouldn`t do and what would cause me to fail. Then he let me at it. I was super nervous. Coming out of the S-curve (an S shaped curve) he wanted me to turn right. And he had told me, when he was driving me around, to not turn into the right lane from the curve because Americans have a tendency to do that. And what did I do? I turned into the right lane....I totally didn`t even realize it until the tester was like "No, no. Go into the left lane." I was like "SHIT I FAILED!" And I also didn`t stay within one meter of the left curb.
At the end he told me that it was over and to pull back into the parking space. I turned off the engine and readied myself for a big F. He said, "I told you to be careful of turning into the right lane after the S-curve didn`t I? You have to make sure you`re careful of that. Hmm...well, there wasn`t any big mistakes, so you pass!" I was flabbergasted. I just stared at him for a bit and was like, "Wait. Are you sure? Is it really okay?!" "Yup. You pass." ....So turning into the wrong lane wasn`t a big mistake?! o.O Okay. I just thanked him profusely and went to get my license. However, I still felt guilty about passing. Was it really okay for me to pass with that? But the thought of not having to come back here again and paying an extra 3000yen erased that guiltiness. ~_~;
July 13th Tuesday
Went to the local large temple and watched a solo cello performance. It was amazing! And this guy had studied abroad in California and New York. So it was really cool to see and even better to hear. I got a picture with the dude too!
July 16th Friday
My iPod died on me so I bought a Japanese turquoise and green sony walkman. It`s an awesome little machine. I absolutely love it. It`s not as easy to manuever as the iPod`s touch wheel. But still good.
July 17th Saturday
Today at 2pm at the storybook museum I taught a hip-hop class. Several parents and their kids came. It was mainly the cheerleading people. They liked it so much that I`m going to start having regular hip hop classes at the local club activities hall.
Afterwards I took a shower and cleaned myself up before Collin came to go to Erika`s place for another party. Woo party!! Upon arriving there late in the evening we went to a local Snack and sang some karaoke until 1am. Then called it a night.
July 18th Sunday
Horobetsu matsuri! Lotsa students there and good foods. Two of Erika`s 6th grade boys took a liking to us and followed us around and came over to Erika`s to hang. I busied them up with helping me make a cake. We then went to go cheer them on at the bread eating race. I was checked out by some guys too! I was like "whoa...they`re checking me out..?" lol They even said "Hi" to me in English! I was a little confused with that because I look very Japanese and I was walking on my own without my foreign friends.
Anyways, the party this evening was incredible amounts of fun. Erika invited 3 Japanese friends over and we had copious amounts of alcohol. I drank quite ALOT. Like no joke alot. And it got to the point where I think I started sipping tequila....Yeah, not good. But I wasn`t feeling too well at the karaoke box and spent part of my night in the bathroom and then back to Erika`s to pass out...I don`t remember much though. However, I owe a huge thank you to Erika and Collin for taking care of me. I really really appreciate it. THANKS! Never again do I want to drink that much.
Next morning I had a terrible hangover but managed to get home somehow.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Osokute gomen, but here it is!
Hey guys. Sorry for the late update but things have been getting crazy busy and hectic lately that I`ve not had the time to do much blogging. And when I do have time, I just want to lie around and do nothing as I recently seldom have the time to relax. I`ve been planning lessons and having meetings often lately that it seems as if I`m no longer the ALT but the official English teacher at the nursery, elementary and high school. Luckily, I get breaks at the middle school where I`m just the assistant and I do no planning. It`s been a little stressful with all the planning and stuff as well as keeping up appearances as the foreign "interesting" English teacher. You`re expected to always be genki and into English and bring a "foreign" flair about with you which can actually be kind of tiring and draining. The job has alot of perks though. It`s fun, no doubt, and I quite enjoy spending my time with the students. But being in the inaka(countryside) with no other English speakers around is affecting my outgoing personality. I have many Japanese friends here, don`t get me wrong. I just seem to have been withdrawing more into myself and spend much of my time at home and on my own. I need to get into the big cities more often...lol Anyways......
June 6th Sunday
Today was the middle school sports festival! The kids have been practicing for this thing for 2 weeks straight! Everyday! Classes will only go for 5 periods, sometimes 4, and then the rest of the day is cancelled and everyone practices for it. The teachers are assigned to 1 of 4 teams to help the students. The students participate in a variety of sports activities raking in points for their team. And let me tell ya, the kids are super serious about this. They get frustrated if their teammates don`t do well and stay after school long after their own club activities are finished to practice. I was very impressed by the kids determination and attitude towards the festival. Now if only that can also be applid to their English classes...lol
So there were four teams: red, blue, yellow, white. Each team consists of a mixture of 1st-3rd years with two 3rd year students as the captain and co-captain. The captains, from what I`ve observed, are typical (and interestingly) drama/anime-like amazing boys. I really couldn`t help but notice it as these boys are some of the best students in my class. And it was no surprise that they were the captains. So the red team`s captain was the hilarious most outgoing sporty boy in the entire 3rd year class. Oh! And he`s president of the baseball club. He`s one of my favs as he`s always so willing to speak and volunteer in English even if he makes mistakes. Not to mention he`s incredibly funny. The blue team`s captain (president of the ping-pong club) was the quiet mysteriuos deep thinker who doesn`t talk much and leaves most of the directing and speaking to his co-captain (who is also very vocal and outgoing). I observed that he only steps in and voices things when needed. The yellow team`s is my taiko instructor`s son and all around ace of the school. He`s the smartest boy in the school and excels at everything, including sports (president of the tennis club and Hokkaido youth tennis champion). One of the mot sincere, honest, kindest boys ever and he has the respect of every student and teachers in this school. He`s also the president of the student body. Talk about being the best. And the last captain, the white team`s, is the best looking playboy of the 3rd years. He`s very outgoing and constantly always assumes I`ve got a boyfriend whenever I say I`m happy. lol The girls love him because he`s got a great personality and is kind of a playboy and looks good. haha. And there you have it, the team captains. Just like your imagination, no? =P
Anyways, on this day everyone was all abuzz about the festival. They have trained hard for it and finally it has come. All the students wore tshirts representing their team`s color. And marched out onto the field. There was the opening ceremony and then the start of the activities. There was a 100meter run, 500meter run, and 800meter run that timed the students individually as well as that one sport where they run and then jump to see who can get the farthest. Then there was the group jump roping, tug-of-war, and 12-15 legged race. That last one was amazing. The kids practiced so hard for it and were able to synch with each other well. Although there were a few injuries, but nothing serious.
At the end of the day the white team won. All of the kids did great! I was so proud of all of them. ^^ After that, the teachers all went for an enkai and drank and were merry. Especially Iwata-sensei. I`ve never seen her so drunk before and it was quite hilarious. I wish she was like that more often. lol I love her though. The principal then invited us over to his apartment for some more drinking and eating. Awesome.
June 12th Saturday
Yosakoi Soran festival in Sapporo!! Today I took a day trip to Sapporo to meet up with my girls Steph, Erika, and Nikki. It was wonderful seeing them again and a good refresher. I`ve been becoming more and more recluse-like in my town and at schools that when I finally saw my friends that recluse bubble popped for a day and I was able to be myself again. (Unfortunately,it only lasted for that one day and when I came back into my town I became the quiet reserved ALT again, except for when I`m teaching, of course). I think I also started getting sick on this day.
I almost didn`t make it on the train to get to Sapporo. I had woken up late and didn`t leave at the time I wanted to. It takes me an hour to drive to Asahikawa station (because I didn`t want to pay 900yen for the train from my town to Asahikawa) and since today was a special festival day the parking lot was crowded! Not to mention it was a little ways away from the station. I parked, ran like crazy to the train and got on just as the doors closed. I was fortunate enough to get a seat, as crowded as it was.
Upon getting to Sapporo and seeing the girls I leapt for joy and ran to hug them. I was so glad to see them!! =) So after a few minutes of staring at gyarus we went outside the station and immediately saw some awesome yosakoi dancers. We spent half an hour in the blazing sun (it went above 27degrees celsius!!!) watching the dancers do their thing. It was pretty awesome. I loved the makeup and the costumes and MEN WITH REAL MUSCLES!! OMG YES! lol I missed seeing that. Actually, I`m a sucker for Rain/Bi`s muscles. I think more men need to have muscles like that in Japan. lol So actually seeing ripped guys was a surprise for all of us girls. =P I now really want to join a team. We then wandered over for lunch at Rakuden. A beautifully decorated restaurant with no real particular theme to it`s menu. Pasta there was good though. Afterwards we headed over to odori koen and watched more soran dancers dance along the road. Then we went shopping! Hurrah! After entering "Cosmo" and seeing all the hot gyarus there I was determined to lose weight more than ever to be able to wear all the cute clothes they had in there. I really like gyaru style. It`s second to my gothic lolita passion. (Although, I don`t wear gothic lolita out normally. I think I`ll save that for special days and gyaru for everyday.)
I bought a set outfit for 5000yen. (5000YEN!!! RIDICULOUS! But I couldn`t not buy it after trying it on 3 times...that`s how I knew I wanted it.) I now just need to make my hair and makeup match it. It`s very sweet gyaru style, the outit. Afterwards we got hungry and wandered along for a restaurant and found this place that served pots of veggies and hamburg steak with rice. It was AMAZING! Erika, Nikki, and Steph all got the red wine sauce wines while I alone tackled the spicy schezuan sauce. And man, it was damn spicy! Like my tongue was on fire within the first lick of it. lol I kept sweating and blowing my nose...lol
We then wandered back over to odorikoen and watched more soran before walking back to the station and heading back to our respective homes. Awesomely fun day.
June 19th Saturday
Today was my nursery`s little sports festival. It was soooo cute!! My elementary`s vice principal was there too and he was so excited; it was cute. He loves seeing little kids and since he`s a grandfather I can understand that excitement. lol I love grandparents as most of them love children. And seeing all the grandparents there so happy looking made me feel happy. haha. I loved watching all the kids waddling to the finish line. It was the cutest thing. Then the parents all joined in and played some random games. I then joined in for the giant baton race. Oh man, on a sidenote majority of the parents there were all really young and gorgeous looking. The guy I was racing against looked so young and fashionable that I thought he was a high school student or fresh college boy. And he was not afraid to have a good grip on my hands when we joined hands for an exercise. I was just wondering whose brother he was when one of my little girls was like "Go DADDY!" And I was like "...Daddy?!!...Oh no...oh man....." Way too many parents there look too way too young to have kids. I did remember many of my babies sayin that their mothers and fathers were like in their early or late 20s and I kept thinking "oh man, they`re aound my age and they already have a child who is 5 years old." It was just hard to fathom the amount of parents in my town who are around my age. I like kids, but I think I`m still too young to be tied down to one. I`ll just play with them.
All the kids did so well and were absolutely adorable. Many of them came over to me and tackled me afterwards. lol I love the feeling of being tackled by little babies. hehe.
June 20th Sunday
This afternoon I went to Noso-sensei`s house to visit her family as well as go with them to visit the American family in Shibetsu city. I didn`t even know there was a family like that here until she mentioned it. I was also surprised to see the amount of children she had. I thought she only had 2 young children but was surprised to see a middle school kid and a 2 year old baby as well. They all came out one by one at different intervals so I kept getting surprised each time. lol We then all piled into the car and drove over to the Minks family`s home. The first thing I noticed was an attached church to the left of the multifloored house and was like "oh, they`re missionaries" and was right on the dot. The family consisted of 6 children ranging from ages 1-12!! They were in the middle of reforming their newly bought home, so the place wasn`t completely finished. The father, Alan, built majority of the interior himself, which was quite impressive. I went in and was like "wow, this is a very American Christian home." The colors and decor really reflected the Oklahoma feeling which is where this family is from. But aside from their first 2 children, the other 4 were born in Japan. They`re a very warm and unique family.
I took a liking to their children immediately as well as the mother, Alan`s wife. They were talkative and very willing to make friends with Noso-sensei`s family of kids. The father was a little jimi but not hard to talk to. The kids also immediately took a liking to me and kept talking nonstop to me. It`s been a long while since I`ve seen Caucasian children and hearing them speak English that I was at first a little unsure of what to do. But my experience with the Japanese elementary kids kicked in and I was back to having fun playing with the kids. I love children, I just don`t want one at the moment. lol
Actually, I think I was just shocked to see a family of Caucasians because here in Japan, the families are usually hybrids. But I was definitely glad to have met them because it reminds me of home a little. I`m pretty sure that when I go back to the states I`m going to be quite culture shocked in seeing different races. lol They invited me over for dinner for the thursday after next. And welcomed me to come over to their home whenever I wanted. I was definitely glad to hear that as I think I will need an American family company on my few years that I`m here. I just hope they don`t bring up religion too much as the father did start talking about how he ended up here. I don`t mind the fact that they`re very religious, in fact I think it`s great that they have something they so strongly believe in. As long as they don`t press it upon me, I will be more than happy to go over to their home to visit.
So we hung around there until 5pm and then left to go back to Noso-sensei`s home. I then bid them farewell and left to go back to my home and chilled for the rest of the evening.
Otsukare for reading and thanks for keeping up with me. lol I`ll try to be more timely in posting next time. Pictures are up btw.
June 6th Sunday
Today was the middle school sports festival! The kids have been practicing for this thing for 2 weeks straight! Everyday! Classes will only go for 5 periods, sometimes 4, and then the rest of the day is cancelled and everyone practices for it. The teachers are assigned to 1 of 4 teams to help the students. The students participate in a variety of sports activities raking in points for their team. And let me tell ya, the kids are super serious about this. They get frustrated if their teammates don`t do well and stay after school long after their own club activities are finished to practice. I was very impressed by the kids determination and attitude towards the festival. Now if only that can also be applid to their English classes...lol
So there were four teams: red, blue, yellow, white. Each team consists of a mixture of 1st-3rd years with two 3rd year students as the captain and co-captain. The captains, from what I`ve observed, are typical (and interestingly) drama/anime-like amazing boys. I really couldn`t help but notice it as these boys are some of the best students in my class. And it was no surprise that they were the captains. So the red team`s captain was the hilarious most outgoing sporty boy in the entire 3rd year class. Oh! And he`s president of the baseball club. He`s one of my favs as he`s always so willing to speak and volunteer in English even if he makes mistakes. Not to mention he`s incredibly funny. The blue team`s captain (president of the ping-pong club) was the quiet mysteriuos deep thinker who doesn`t talk much and leaves most of the directing and speaking to his co-captain (who is also very vocal and outgoing). I observed that he only steps in and voices things when needed. The yellow team`s is my taiko instructor`s son and all around ace of the school. He`s the smartest boy in the school and excels at everything, including sports (president of the tennis club and Hokkaido youth tennis champion). One of the mot sincere, honest, kindest boys ever and he has the respect of every student and teachers in this school. He`s also the president of the student body. Talk about being the best. And the last captain, the white team`s, is the best looking playboy of the 3rd years. He`s very outgoing and constantly always assumes I`ve got a boyfriend whenever I say I`m happy. lol The girls love him because he`s got a great personality and is kind of a playboy and looks good. haha. And there you have it, the team captains. Just like your imagination, no? =P
Anyways, on this day everyone was all abuzz about the festival. They have trained hard for it and finally it has come. All the students wore tshirts representing their team`s color. And marched out onto the field. There was the opening ceremony and then the start of the activities. There was a 100meter run, 500meter run, and 800meter run that timed the students individually as well as that one sport where they run and then jump to see who can get the farthest. Then there was the group jump roping, tug-of-war, and 12-15 legged race. That last one was amazing. The kids practiced so hard for it and were able to synch with each other well. Although there were a few injuries, but nothing serious.
At the end of the day the white team won. All of the kids did great! I was so proud of all of them. ^^ After that, the teachers all went for an enkai and drank and were merry. Especially Iwata-sensei. I`ve never seen her so drunk before and it was quite hilarious. I wish she was like that more often. lol I love her though. The principal then invited us over to his apartment for some more drinking and eating. Awesome.
June 12th Saturday
Yosakoi Soran festival in Sapporo!! Today I took a day trip to Sapporo to meet up with my girls Steph, Erika, and Nikki. It was wonderful seeing them again and a good refresher. I`ve been becoming more and more recluse-like in my town and at schools that when I finally saw my friends that recluse bubble popped for a day and I was able to be myself again. (Unfortunately,it only lasted for that one day and when I came back into my town I became the quiet reserved ALT again, except for when I`m teaching, of course). I think I also started getting sick on this day.
I almost didn`t make it on the train to get to Sapporo. I had woken up late and didn`t leave at the time I wanted to. It takes me an hour to drive to Asahikawa station (because I didn`t want to pay 900yen for the train from my town to Asahikawa) and since today was a special festival day the parking lot was crowded! Not to mention it was a little ways away from the station. I parked, ran like crazy to the train and got on just as the doors closed. I was fortunate enough to get a seat, as crowded as it was.
Upon getting to Sapporo and seeing the girls I leapt for joy and ran to hug them. I was so glad to see them!! =) So after a few minutes of staring at gyarus we went outside the station and immediately saw some awesome yosakoi dancers. We spent half an hour in the blazing sun (it went above 27degrees celsius!!!) watching the dancers do their thing. It was pretty awesome. I loved the makeup and the costumes and MEN WITH REAL MUSCLES!! OMG YES! lol I missed seeing that. Actually, I`m a sucker for Rain/Bi`s muscles. I think more men need to have muscles like that in Japan. lol So actually seeing ripped guys was a surprise for all of us girls. =P I now really want to join a team. We then wandered over for lunch at Rakuden. A beautifully decorated restaurant with no real particular theme to it`s menu. Pasta there was good though. Afterwards we headed over to odori koen and watched more soran dancers dance along the road. Then we went shopping! Hurrah! After entering "Cosmo" and seeing all the hot gyarus there I was determined to lose weight more than ever to be able to wear all the cute clothes they had in there. I really like gyaru style. It`s second to my gothic lolita passion. (Although, I don`t wear gothic lolita out normally. I think I`ll save that for special days and gyaru for everyday.)
I bought a set outfit for 5000yen. (5000YEN!!! RIDICULOUS! But I couldn`t not buy it after trying it on 3 times...that`s how I knew I wanted it.) I now just need to make my hair and makeup match it. It`s very sweet gyaru style, the outit. Afterwards we got hungry and wandered along for a restaurant and found this place that served pots of veggies and hamburg steak with rice. It was AMAZING! Erika, Nikki, and Steph all got the red wine sauce wines while I alone tackled the spicy schezuan sauce. And man, it was damn spicy! Like my tongue was on fire within the first lick of it. lol I kept sweating and blowing my nose...lol
We then wandered back over to odorikoen and watched more soran before walking back to the station and heading back to our respective homes. Awesomely fun day.
June 19th Saturday
Today was my nursery`s little sports festival. It was soooo cute!! My elementary`s vice principal was there too and he was so excited; it was cute. He loves seeing little kids and since he`s a grandfather I can understand that excitement. lol I love grandparents as most of them love children. And seeing all the grandparents there so happy looking made me feel happy. haha. I loved watching all the kids waddling to the finish line. It was the cutest thing. Then the parents all joined in and played some random games. I then joined in for the giant baton race. Oh man, on a sidenote majority of the parents there were all really young and gorgeous looking. The guy I was racing against looked so young and fashionable that I thought he was a high school student or fresh college boy. And he was not afraid to have a good grip on my hands when we joined hands for an exercise. I was just wondering whose brother he was when one of my little girls was like "Go DADDY!" And I was like "...Daddy?!!...Oh no...oh man....." Way too many parents there look too way too young to have kids. I did remember many of my babies sayin that their mothers and fathers were like in their early or late 20s and I kept thinking "oh man, they`re aound my age and they already have a child who is 5 years old." It was just hard to fathom the amount of parents in my town who are around my age. I like kids, but I think I`m still too young to be tied down to one. I`ll just play with them.
All the kids did so well and were absolutely adorable. Many of them came over to me and tackled me afterwards. lol I love the feeling of being tackled by little babies. hehe.
June 20th Sunday
This afternoon I went to Noso-sensei`s house to visit her family as well as go with them to visit the American family in Shibetsu city. I didn`t even know there was a family like that here until she mentioned it. I was also surprised to see the amount of children she had. I thought she only had 2 young children but was surprised to see a middle school kid and a 2 year old baby as well. They all came out one by one at different intervals so I kept getting surprised each time. lol We then all piled into the car and drove over to the Minks family`s home. The first thing I noticed was an attached church to the left of the multifloored house and was like "oh, they`re missionaries" and was right on the dot. The family consisted of 6 children ranging from ages 1-12!! They were in the middle of reforming their newly bought home, so the place wasn`t completely finished. The father, Alan, built majority of the interior himself, which was quite impressive. I went in and was like "wow, this is a very American Christian home." The colors and decor really reflected the Oklahoma feeling which is where this family is from. But aside from their first 2 children, the other 4 were born in Japan. They`re a very warm and unique family.
I took a liking to their children immediately as well as the mother, Alan`s wife. They were talkative and very willing to make friends with Noso-sensei`s family of kids. The father was a little jimi but not hard to talk to. The kids also immediately took a liking to me and kept talking nonstop to me. It`s been a long while since I`ve seen Caucasian children and hearing them speak English that I was at first a little unsure of what to do. But my experience with the Japanese elementary kids kicked in and I was back to having fun playing with the kids. I love children, I just don`t want one at the moment. lol
Actually, I think I was just shocked to see a family of Caucasians because here in Japan, the families are usually hybrids. But I was definitely glad to have met them because it reminds me of home a little. I`m pretty sure that when I go back to the states I`m going to be quite culture shocked in seeing different races. lol They invited me over for dinner for the thursday after next. And welcomed me to come over to their home whenever I wanted. I was definitely glad to hear that as I think I will need an American family company on my few years that I`m here. I just hope they don`t bring up religion too much as the father did start talking about how he ended up here. I don`t mind the fact that they`re very religious, in fact I think it`s great that they have something they so strongly believe in. As long as they don`t press it upon me, I will be more than happy to go over to their home to visit.
So we hung around there until 5pm and then left to go back to Noso-sensei`s home. I then bid them farewell and left to go back to my home and chilled for the rest of the evening.
Otsukare for reading and thanks for keeping up with me. lol I`ll try to be more timely in posting next time. Pictures are up btw.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Malaysia Part 2: A painful lesson learned.
May 2nd Sunday
Today was our elephant orphanage tour. I was super excited for this tour and have been waiting for it since before we arrived. Our guide was also very amazing and sweet. He first took us to Batu Caves which was on the way to the elephant orphanage for a very nice discounted price which was not part of our original tour. But we had extra time, so he decided to take us there. And while we were in the car, I realized I forgot my camera and Erika only brought her big camera which was almost out of batteries...great. But, luckily, upon arriving at the caves, I bought a disposable camera.
The caves were amazing. It`s placed in a large mountainside and is said to be a very religious site. Well, there were Hindu temples all over the place. To get to the top and actually into the caves you had to climb 200 stone steps up, which wasn`t as bad as it sounds. There were just a lot of monkeys all over the place. And they`re vicious, so no touching or getting near them. Most of them were too busy chewing on fruits to bother us anyways. The cave was large and, thankfully, very cool. It was super humid and hot that day so, it was nice to be in the cave. There were statues/idols in alcoves and a temple at the end of the cave.
On our way out of the area we saw little tents set up selling real Indian sweets. We bought one of every colorful sweets they had. It was so delicious, but, ultimately, too sweet for my tastes. I think I`ve become more accustomed to Japanese sweetness lately, or that`s just how I`ve been so far.
Our next stop was Deerland, a sort of mini zoo. Upon arriving there we first went to see and play with the sunbear. A fat kind of tame small bear. It`s face looks very different from any bear I`ve seen, but it was cute nonetheless...Oh, and did I mention it was fat? It would just sit there and eat while you pet it and took pictures of it. Pretty mellow thing, when there`s food in it`s mouth. We then walked around and went into a deer pen to play with the deer. They`re much more tame than the Nara deer that`s for sure, although some of them still bit me for food. The baby deer were lickin my face. lol It was cute and funny. We walked around a bit more and got to hold a snake and pet it. Boy, do I miss snakes. I used to really love putting the ones my bio teacher had in high school around my neck and play with it. Ah, back in the day.
Afterwards, we went to ab aboriginal village where we learned how to shoot needles through pipes. I forgot what they`re called. Anyways, we finally made our way to the elephant orphanage. It was crowded that day though. Well, more people than on a weekday I would assume. When we got there we saw baby elephants standing around being fed by the tourists. If you had a bag of peanuts you could put the food in their mouths or let them suck it up through their nose. They were sooo cute! But not very soft or squishy. lol Their hide and hair were very wiry and coarse. But their tongues were uber soft. I was a little afraid of touching their mouths at first so I accidentally threw the peanuts in their mouths. But then I realized they had no teeth and that it didn`t hurt when their mouths shut on my hands so I would just put the peanuts directly into their mouths or on their tongues. I loved touching their tongues though. Super smooth and soft. heheh.
Then they brought the big elephants out. We got to watch a lil show as they introduced all the animals and then we were able to ride on them. Erika and I, unfortunately, got on one that was particularly spiny and it really hurt our bottoms. =P After that we rode one into the nearby river and the elephant tipped itself over to dump us into the water. I accidentally swallowed some of the river water... Oh, but it was great fun to play and bathe with the elephants. They also brought in the baby ones too. Such cute and funny beasts. And that was the end of the elephant orphange shows and attractions. We spent a good 2 hours there though. It was an amazing experience.
Afterwards, our guide took us to a roadside stand to eat durian, all of which I couldn`t finish because it`s been a long time since I`ve eaten it and it is not my favorite anymore. The smell I could stand, but I just couldn`t eat it anymore even though I tried to stuff as much of it in my mouth because I felt bad that we got it and weren`t going to finish it. And Erika just did not like it. lol Our guide was nice enough to take us to Little India outside market and drop us off there instead of our hotel. We bought some fake MAC makeup for great prices. lol For dinner we ate at a vegetarian Indian curry house. It was amaaaaazzzinngg! The naan and the curry we had was damn good. Or actually, it wasn`t really curry, but something like it. We then went on home to get ready for the next day`s journey to Langkawi island.
May 3rd Monday
So I woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous. I didn`t know why but I just wanted to throw up. So I kept vomiting the whole night. I couldn`t even move my position in bed because if I turned left or right instead of facing up I would get nauseous and go throw up again. It was terrible. My entire night was like that. And I woke up the next morning feeling incredibly weak with what felt like a fever. I suppose I was dehydrated from ejecting all the liquids in me ,but I wasn`t sure where this fever came from. I at first thought that it might have been food poisoning or something. But then Erika suggested that it could`ve been the river water I swallowed.
It took every ounce of energy I had to get up and move and get ready to go to the airport for what was supposed to be a fun filled day on the beach at Langkawi island. I could tell Erika was really worried for me and wondered if I would be able to travel. But I was thinking in my head that we had already booked the flight there and we both had really wanted to spend time at the beach, so I was not about to let this temporary ill condition I had get the best of my trip. So, naturally, I bucked myself up and got a taxi to the airport. The taxi, however, was so old and run down with broken AC that I don`t even know how I made it to the airport without passing out or more throwing up in my condition. When I got there, it was difficult for me to even get out of the car and walk. Just carrying my purse felt burdensome. But once I got there and got some 7-up in my system I immediately felt better. I felt more revived, but still very weak and feverish. As Erika put it "You looked like you were going to die." lol Yeah, I felt like it. But I pumped myself with 7-up after 7-up and started feeling better. After sleeping on the plane and drinking some blackcurrant juice (which is a very big thing in Malaysia) I felt more alive and could even stomach some peanut butter crackers. My stomach was still a lil tender though.
Upon arriving at the airport, the environment of the whole place was vastly different from that of Kuala Lumpur. Oh man, it was nice. It really felt like an island resort. We got ourselves a taxi to AB Motel. So, I tried to book a room for the AB motel via phone before we got to Malaysia and they said they were full for those days. But apparently, for any of the hotels here in Langkawi, if you do walk-ins, they always have vacancies. lol We lucked out and got the last chalet situated right on the beach for only a total of about $30 a night. RIGHT ON THE BEACH!! A CHALET!! $30 A NIGHT ONLY!! Wow. It was roomy and nice. Although I still felt weak, just standing on the beach and breathing in the air felt wonderful and I felt revived. But upon laying down on the bed, my fever came back and I was bedridden for the day. Thank God for Erika being there and her Ibuprofen. She was so sweet and wonderful, trying to help me get better and bringing me food and ice from the local markets. Without her, I would`ve seriously been in trouble. In the evening, however, I started to feel better so I got up and went to sit on the benches outside situated under shady trees on the beach. That really really made me feel like normal again.
Ah, I really do miss the beach. Being a California girl, living her college life in Irvine/Newport Beach there is nothing that beats the feeling of like being home again. We then went to go eat at one of the many restaurants on the main street in front of the hotel. I, unfortunately, could not stomach anything else but bolognaise spaghetti, of which I felt terrible for eating because we`re in Malaysia, and I`m eating spagetti....But it did feel good to have food in my system though. We then returned home and I slept early for the night and started to feel better.
Today was our elephant orphanage tour. I was super excited for this tour and have been waiting for it since before we arrived. Our guide was also very amazing and sweet. He first took us to Batu Caves which was on the way to the elephant orphanage for a very nice discounted price which was not part of our original tour. But we had extra time, so he decided to take us there. And while we were in the car, I realized I forgot my camera and Erika only brought her big camera which was almost out of batteries...great. But, luckily, upon arriving at the caves, I bought a disposable camera.
The caves were amazing. It`s placed in a large mountainside and is said to be a very religious site. Well, there were Hindu temples all over the place. To get to the top and actually into the caves you had to climb 200 stone steps up, which wasn`t as bad as it sounds. There were just a lot of monkeys all over the place. And they`re vicious, so no touching or getting near them. Most of them were too busy chewing on fruits to bother us anyways. The cave was large and, thankfully, very cool. It was super humid and hot that day so, it was nice to be in the cave. There were statues/idols in alcoves and a temple at the end of the cave.
On our way out of the area we saw little tents set up selling real Indian sweets. We bought one of every colorful sweets they had. It was so delicious, but, ultimately, too sweet for my tastes. I think I`ve become more accustomed to Japanese sweetness lately, or that`s just how I`ve been so far.
Our next stop was Deerland, a sort of mini zoo. Upon arriving there we first went to see and play with the sunbear. A fat kind of tame small bear. It`s face looks very different from any bear I`ve seen, but it was cute nonetheless...Oh, and did I mention it was fat? It would just sit there and eat while you pet it and took pictures of it. Pretty mellow thing, when there`s food in it`s mouth. We then walked around and went into a deer pen to play with the deer. They`re much more tame than the Nara deer that`s for sure, although some of them still bit me for food. The baby deer were lickin my face. lol It was cute and funny. We walked around a bit more and got to hold a snake and pet it. Boy, do I miss snakes. I used to really love putting the ones my bio teacher had in high school around my neck and play with it. Ah, back in the day.
Afterwards, we went to ab aboriginal village where we learned how to shoot needles through pipes. I forgot what they`re called. Anyways, we finally made our way to the elephant orphanage. It was crowded that day though. Well, more people than on a weekday I would assume. When we got there we saw baby elephants standing around being fed by the tourists. If you had a bag of peanuts you could put the food in their mouths or let them suck it up through their nose. They were sooo cute! But not very soft or squishy. lol Their hide and hair were very wiry and coarse. But their tongues were uber soft. I was a little afraid of touching their mouths at first so I accidentally threw the peanuts in their mouths. But then I realized they had no teeth and that it didn`t hurt when their mouths shut on my hands so I would just put the peanuts directly into their mouths or on their tongues. I loved touching their tongues though. Super smooth and soft. heheh.
Then they brought the big elephants out. We got to watch a lil show as they introduced all the animals and then we were able to ride on them. Erika and I, unfortunately, got on one that was particularly spiny and it really hurt our bottoms. =P After that we rode one into the nearby river and the elephant tipped itself over to dump us into the water. I accidentally swallowed some of the river water... Oh, but it was great fun to play and bathe with the elephants. They also brought in the baby ones too. Such cute and funny beasts. And that was the end of the elephant orphange shows and attractions. We spent a good 2 hours there though. It was an amazing experience.
Afterwards, our guide took us to a roadside stand to eat durian, all of which I couldn`t finish because it`s been a long time since I`ve eaten it and it is not my favorite anymore. The smell I could stand, but I just couldn`t eat it anymore even though I tried to stuff as much of it in my mouth because I felt bad that we got it and weren`t going to finish it. And Erika just did not like it. lol Our guide was nice enough to take us to Little India outside market and drop us off there instead of our hotel. We bought some fake MAC makeup for great prices. lol For dinner we ate at a vegetarian Indian curry house. It was amaaaaazzzinngg! The naan and the curry we had was damn good. Or actually, it wasn`t really curry, but something like it. We then went on home to get ready for the next day`s journey to Langkawi island.
May 3rd Monday
So I woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous. I didn`t know why but I just wanted to throw up. So I kept vomiting the whole night. I couldn`t even move my position in bed because if I turned left or right instead of facing up I would get nauseous and go throw up again. It was terrible. My entire night was like that. And I woke up the next morning feeling incredibly weak with what felt like a fever. I suppose I was dehydrated from ejecting all the liquids in me ,but I wasn`t sure where this fever came from. I at first thought that it might have been food poisoning or something. But then Erika suggested that it could`ve been the river water I swallowed.
It took every ounce of energy I had to get up and move and get ready to go to the airport for what was supposed to be a fun filled day on the beach at Langkawi island. I could tell Erika was really worried for me and wondered if I would be able to travel. But I was thinking in my head that we had already booked the flight there and we both had really wanted to spend time at the beach, so I was not about to let this temporary ill condition I had get the best of my trip. So, naturally, I bucked myself up and got a taxi to the airport. The taxi, however, was so old and run down with broken AC that I don`t even know how I made it to the airport without passing out or more throwing up in my condition. When I got there, it was difficult for me to even get out of the car and walk. Just carrying my purse felt burdensome. But once I got there and got some 7-up in my system I immediately felt better. I felt more revived, but still very weak and feverish. As Erika put it "You looked like you were going to die." lol Yeah, I felt like it. But I pumped myself with 7-up after 7-up and started feeling better. After sleeping on the plane and drinking some blackcurrant juice (which is a very big thing in Malaysia) I felt more alive and could even stomach some peanut butter crackers. My stomach was still a lil tender though.
Upon arriving at the airport, the environment of the whole place was vastly different from that of Kuala Lumpur. Oh man, it was nice. It really felt like an island resort. We got ourselves a taxi to AB Motel. So, I tried to book a room for the AB motel via phone before we got to Malaysia and they said they were full for those days. But apparently, for any of the hotels here in Langkawi, if you do walk-ins, they always have vacancies. lol We lucked out and got the last chalet situated right on the beach for only a total of about $30 a night. RIGHT ON THE BEACH!! A CHALET!! $30 A NIGHT ONLY!! Wow. It was roomy and nice. Although I still felt weak, just standing on the beach and breathing in the air felt wonderful and I felt revived. But upon laying down on the bed, my fever came back and I was bedridden for the day. Thank God for Erika being there and her Ibuprofen. She was so sweet and wonderful, trying to help me get better and bringing me food and ice from the local markets. Without her, I would`ve seriously been in trouble. In the evening, however, I started to feel better so I got up and went to sit on the benches outside situated under shady trees on the beach. That really really made me feel like normal again.
Ah, I really do miss the beach. Being a California girl, living her college life in Irvine/Newport Beach there is nothing that beats the feeling of like being home again. We then went to go eat at one of the many restaurants on the main street in front of the hotel. I, unfortunately, could not stomach anything else but bolognaise spaghetti, of which I felt terrible for eating because we`re in Malaysia, and I`m eating spagetti....But it did feel good to have food in my system though. We then returned home and I slept early for the night and started to feel better.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
My trip to Malaysia Part 1: an eye opening experience
April 29th Thursday
Left this morning for the airport. I was super excited, but at the same time complacent. Upon arriving I met up with Erika (whom I was very glad to see) at the new and beautiful International Terminal at the Sapporo airport. It was just glistening white. My new favorite airport. Anyways, today was the beginning of my trip to Malaysia. We rode on Cathay Pacific and first arrived in Hong Kong for a 1 night layover. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely beautiful with views of the beach and ocean. Hong Kong is an island country so it was just a bunch of hotels/apts mini cities built on islands connected by bridges. Very interesting to see. The shower was wonderful, though it had blinds so you could open them when taking a shower....lol
April 39th Friday
Got up this morning, bid our beautiful hotel goodbye, and left for the airport to Malaysia. Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur we immediately noticed how hot and, in particular, humid it was. We got ourselves a nice airport black taxi and headed into Kuala Lumpur city, the heart and capital of Malaysia. Our taxi driver was excellent. He gave us all kinds of information on the city and kind of gave us a mini tour. So we finally arrived at our hotel and realized that we were in the more un-touristy area of the city. If you want the real Malaysian experience, ya gotta come to Chow-kit. That`s where we were. It was quite uh....real. I mean the area is not for tourists as it`s surroundings and decor and traffic are not attractive to the average tourist. Our hotel, Hotel Sahara, was adequate for budget travlers. Clean and conveniently located near all the big sites and attractions. But the bathroom was quite interesting. The sink, toilet, and shower were not separated. As in, there is no set shower area. The shower hose hung between the toilet and the sink. So when you took a shower you basically got the whole room wet, including the toilet...lol
Anyways, a bit of interesting info for those who don`t know much about Malaysia. Malaysia is a Muslim country. But the main population (particularly on the east side) consists of Chinese, Indian, and Malays. So there`s alot of languages and religions going on here. Moreover, they used to be a British colony up until 50 years ago so everyone here speaks English and everything is written in English. So Erika and I had no problems getting around whatsoever. Now, speaking of the religion part/tradition/culture, I noticed something very interesting that really opened my eyes.
The Malaysian women, being all Muslim, wear beautiful scarves around their head that only covers their hair and usually wear pants and long sleeves. Then there are the more strict Muslim women who cover themselves from head to toe (literally) in black cloth and only allow their eyes to show through, like the women we`ve been seeing in the American media in Afghanistan, etc. Only, these women walk side by side with skimpily dressed Chinese girls and tank top wearing Indian girls. It`s very interesting to see because the conservative Muslim women don`t seem to mind being friends with/or being seen with/being near to the other women who aren`t so covered up. Everyone`s content with one another. However, for couples, you always only see Chinese and Chinese, Indian and Indian, or maybe Chinese and Indian, but never Malaysian and Chinese/Indian. The Malaysians also only go for other Malaysians because of their religion. If you want to marry or go out with a Malaysian girl/guy you have to convert to being a Muslim. So all these people will walk side by side, but are never really integrated. You`ll see all three races shopping in the same clothing store, but for different clothes. That was very interesting to watch.
The Muslim women (the strict ones included), however, seem perfectly happy with their lives and the men treat them quite well it seems. The women are actually free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn`t go against their religion. They don`t have to walk behind their husbands, they carry designer handbags of all flashy colors, and seem to be able to wear whatever they like as long as it covers majority of their body. Meaning no show of legs (sandals/flip-flops are okay to wear though) and no tank tops or sleeveless tops. Then again, this is Malaysia where I`m sure is not as strict on these things as the countries where the religion originated. Oh, and there are mosques everywhere.
Anyways, back on track. After arriving in our hotel and taking a leisurely walk around the surrounding areas of the hotel we went to Chinatown. And there, we shopped, got stalked by a creepy Indian man trying to make us go into his shop, and ate wonderful nostalgic (well, nostalgic for me) food. No Malaysian food yet, just Chinese food. But it`s authentic Chinese food that I haven`t had in forever and I missed it terribly. I didn`t realize how much I missed it until I popped the sweet roast pork (Cha-shu) in my mouth. Man... Oh and the fruit! Man, the fruit juice was excellent there. Way good!
That night, after returning back to our hotel, we walked around our area for a bit. It was quite shady to say the least and dirty. Coming from beautiful clean Hokkaido Japan, Malaysia was pretty disturbing. But that`s how all the Southeast asian countries (besides Singapore) are compared to Japan. Live like the locals do I suppose.
May 1 Saturday
Today we took the Monorail to the Golden Triangle area. The monorail broke down and we gave up and just decided to walk to our destination, which wasn`t far. I had wanted to head over to Bukit Bintang area for some shopping. So we broke down at the perfect stop. We entered the Sugei Wang plaza, which is this giant giant shopping mall. Like bigger than any I`ve ever been to. We walked around for a while, realized that none of these clothes would fit us and just kept walking around. My feet, for some reaon, started to get really tired and sore real fast. Boo. Anyways, after that, we walked over he Berjaya Times Square, which is a higher level mall complete with the largest indoor theme park in all of Southeast Asia. It was awesome...though we didn`t buy too much. haha.
From there we went to KL Tower which looks like the Stratosphere. I had reserved us dinner there at the restaurant on the top of the tower. The view from the top was breathtaking. Absolutely. The restaurant revolves giving you a full 360 degree view of the city. The food was great and I was stuffed. We spent 2 hours in the restaurant revolving until we came back around to where we started. And then left to go back down. We had wanted to go to Little India, but it seemed to be already closed. So we just headed back to our hotel and chilled.
Left this morning for the airport. I was super excited, but at the same time complacent. Upon arriving I met up with Erika (whom I was very glad to see) at the new and beautiful International Terminal at the Sapporo airport. It was just glistening white. My new favorite airport. Anyways, today was the beginning of my trip to Malaysia. We rode on Cathay Pacific and first arrived in Hong Kong for a 1 night layover. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely beautiful with views of the beach and ocean. Hong Kong is an island country so it was just a bunch of hotels/apts mini cities built on islands connected by bridges. Very interesting to see. The shower was wonderful, though it had blinds so you could open them when taking a shower....lol
April 39th Friday
Got up this morning, bid our beautiful hotel goodbye, and left for the airport to Malaysia. Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur we immediately noticed how hot and, in particular, humid it was. We got ourselves a nice airport black taxi and headed into Kuala Lumpur city, the heart and capital of Malaysia. Our taxi driver was excellent. He gave us all kinds of information on the city and kind of gave us a mini tour. So we finally arrived at our hotel and realized that we were in the more un-touristy area of the city. If you want the real Malaysian experience, ya gotta come to Chow-kit. That`s where we were. It was quite uh....real. I mean the area is not for tourists as it`s surroundings and decor and traffic are not attractive to the average tourist. Our hotel, Hotel Sahara, was adequate for budget travlers. Clean and conveniently located near all the big sites and attractions. But the bathroom was quite interesting. The sink, toilet, and shower were not separated. As in, there is no set shower area. The shower hose hung between the toilet and the sink. So when you took a shower you basically got the whole room wet, including the toilet...lol
Anyways, a bit of interesting info for those who don`t know much about Malaysia. Malaysia is a Muslim country. But the main population (particularly on the east side) consists of Chinese, Indian, and Malays. So there`s alot of languages and religions going on here. Moreover, they used to be a British colony up until 50 years ago so everyone here speaks English and everything is written in English. So Erika and I had no problems getting around whatsoever. Now, speaking of the religion part/tradition/culture, I noticed something very interesting that really opened my eyes.
The Malaysian women, being all Muslim, wear beautiful scarves around their head that only covers their hair and usually wear pants and long sleeves. Then there are the more strict Muslim women who cover themselves from head to toe (literally) in black cloth and only allow their eyes to show through, like the women we`ve been seeing in the American media in Afghanistan, etc. Only, these women walk side by side with skimpily dressed Chinese girls and tank top wearing Indian girls. It`s very interesting to see because the conservative Muslim women don`t seem to mind being friends with/or being seen with/being near to the other women who aren`t so covered up. Everyone`s content with one another. However, for couples, you always only see Chinese and Chinese, Indian and Indian, or maybe Chinese and Indian, but never Malaysian and Chinese/Indian. The Malaysians also only go for other Malaysians because of their religion. If you want to marry or go out with a Malaysian girl/guy you have to convert to being a Muslim. So all these people will walk side by side, but are never really integrated. You`ll see all three races shopping in the same clothing store, but for different clothes. That was very interesting to watch.
The Muslim women (the strict ones included), however, seem perfectly happy with their lives and the men treat them quite well it seems. The women are actually free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn`t go against their religion. They don`t have to walk behind their husbands, they carry designer handbags of all flashy colors, and seem to be able to wear whatever they like as long as it covers majority of their body. Meaning no show of legs (sandals/flip-flops are okay to wear though) and no tank tops or sleeveless tops. Then again, this is Malaysia where I`m sure is not as strict on these things as the countries where the religion originated. Oh, and there are mosques everywhere.
Anyways, back on track. After arriving in our hotel and taking a leisurely walk around the surrounding areas of the hotel we went to Chinatown. And there, we shopped, got stalked by a creepy Indian man trying to make us go into his shop, and ate wonderful nostalgic (well, nostalgic for me) food. No Malaysian food yet, just Chinese food. But it`s authentic Chinese food that I haven`t had in forever and I missed it terribly. I didn`t realize how much I missed it until I popped the sweet roast pork (Cha-shu) in my mouth. Man... Oh and the fruit! Man, the fruit juice was excellent there. Way good!
That night, after returning back to our hotel, we walked around our area for a bit. It was quite shady to say the least and dirty. Coming from beautiful clean Hokkaido Japan, Malaysia was pretty disturbing. But that`s how all the Southeast asian countries (besides Singapore) are compared to Japan. Live like the locals do I suppose.
May 1 Saturday
Today we took the Monorail to the Golden Triangle area. The monorail broke down and we gave up and just decided to walk to our destination, which wasn`t far. I had wanted to head over to Bukit Bintang area for some shopping. So we broke down at the perfect stop. We entered the Sugei Wang plaza, which is this giant giant shopping mall. Like bigger than any I`ve ever been to. We walked around for a while, realized that none of these clothes would fit us and just kept walking around. My feet, for some reaon, started to get really tired and sore real fast. Boo. Anyways, after that, we walked over he Berjaya Times Square, which is a higher level mall complete with the largest indoor theme park in all of Southeast Asia. It was awesome...though we didn`t buy too much. haha.
From there we went to KL Tower which looks like the Stratosphere. I had reserved us dinner there at the restaurant on the top of the tower. The view from the top was breathtaking. Absolutely. The restaurant revolves giving you a full 360 degree view of the city. The food was great and I was stuffed. We spent 2 hours in the restaurant revolving until we came back around to where we started. And then left to go back down. We had wanted to go to Little India, but it seemed to be already closed. So we just headed back to our hotel and chilled.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
PEPY Bike Ride
April 13th Tuesday
Beginning of teaching my 3rd and 2nd years at the high school. The second year class was the same as they were last year, negative. lol Their attitudes about everything in every class is always so negative and I feel my enthusiasm being drained out by them...nevertheless, I tried my best with the kiddies and produced some okay results. The 3rd years however have become my new favorite class at the high school. They`re so enthusiastic about English and insist that everything be spoken in English in class. Amazing! Such great kids and I look forward to teaching them.
In the evening, I don`t know what was wrong with me, but I totally forgot that I had a welcome enkai for my new middle school teachers. I think it`s because of alot of things going on lately that my mind just hasn`t been focusing. And if I don`t have my schedule book organized or have things written down on them, I will most surely forget. I was wandering around the 100yen shop when I got a phone call from one of the teachers to ask if I was still coming to the enkai. And I was like, "Oh, shit!" And immediately left to go. I was an hour and a half late to it....Yeah. When I got there I apologized profusely and sat in the only open seat which was next to the principal at the boy`s end of the table. It was a little awkward at first because I`m not much of a fan of the new principal, but after a little bit, it became better. I still ended up having to pay for my meal even though I only ate a bowl of sukiyaki because I was full from already having eaten...Not smart of me. Ah well.
April 16th Friday
After school I left to get on the train to Kutchan. This weekend is the PEPY bike ride. All the money/donations received from the ride are used to build orphanages for children in Cambodia. So whatever amount of money we raise will all go to that which is something I`m quite proud to be a part of. Plus, I get to see Erika and Steph. Woo!
The train ride from my town to Kutchan takes about 5 hours with an hour break in between. I met up with my friends in Sapporo and we all took the train together to Kutchan. It was so much fun being able to talk and see them again. ^^ When we got to Kutchan train station, the guy whose apt we were staying at came to pick us up. He was from London! Cool guy and it was very nice of him to let us stay at his place. His place was quaint and not bad except a little dirty with many kinds of bugs crawling around. The three of us girls slept in one of the extra tatami rooms he had.
April 17th Saturday
This morning we woke up and got ready for the bike ride. The ride starts off in Niseko area (which is a popular ski resort area and has many many Australians), goes down to Kutchan, and ends with a BBQ near the agricultural high school. We were equipped with some really nice rental bikes, a helmet and a water bottle. And let me tell ya, the helmet is far from making a fashion statement. It just looks terrible on me. lol And I have really bad experiences with helmet hair and this was an example of that. Anyways, the ride up was hot because of all the slopes we went up, but we stopped off at Weiss Hotel at the top of the mountain area and had some coffee. The employee at the the front desk was really quite cute, but looked a little too young for us. Like fresh out of high school. =P The scenery was beautiful during the ride, though! It was refreshing and a wonderful feeling.
The ride down was freezing! There was still snow everywhere and it was quite cold because of the wind. My ears felt like they were going to fall off, but I made it to the high school area okay. We had a delicious burger BBQ for lunch with other ALTs from around the area who came and then went back to our friend`s apt to chill until the play put on by HAJET to raise money for HEC started. My butt, particularly my crotch area, was sore. Very sore. THe other girls were having the same problem. I mean these bike seats were ridiculous narrow and the tip of the seat area was long and thin. Not comfortable. We got back to the apt and I had to carefully sit down because if I sat down too fast too hard, pain would shoot up through my body.
We then got changed and went to the play. There were so many half children there! It amazed me because I`m so used to always seeing plain Japanese people in my area that seeing so much hybrid kids was shocking. haha. But then again, we are in Niseko. So, afterwards we went to go eat at a superbly good pizza parlor. It was delicious! And they had real cheesecake!!! When that was over we went to a party in a rented lodge for someone`s birthday whom we didn`t really know. But we were invited, so we went. However, a couple of the girls we were with fell asleep and so we decided to head on back to the apt for night of well deserved rest.
April 18 Sunday
Woke up, bid goodbye to the guy who let us stay at his place and left on our train. I parted with steph and erika in Sapporo and came back home. Ah, it feels great to be back home. =)
Beginning of teaching my 3rd and 2nd years at the high school. The second year class was the same as they were last year, negative. lol Their attitudes about everything in every class is always so negative and I feel my enthusiasm being drained out by them...nevertheless, I tried my best with the kiddies and produced some okay results. The 3rd years however have become my new favorite class at the high school. They`re so enthusiastic about English and insist that everything be spoken in English in class. Amazing! Such great kids and I look forward to teaching them.
In the evening, I don`t know what was wrong with me, but I totally forgot that I had a welcome enkai for my new middle school teachers. I think it`s because of alot of things going on lately that my mind just hasn`t been focusing. And if I don`t have my schedule book organized or have things written down on them, I will most surely forget. I was wandering around the 100yen shop when I got a phone call from one of the teachers to ask if I was still coming to the enkai. And I was like, "Oh, shit!" And immediately left to go. I was an hour and a half late to it....Yeah. When I got there I apologized profusely and sat in the only open seat which was next to the principal at the boy`s end of the table. It was a little awkward at first because I`m not much of a fan of the new principal, but after a little bit, it became better. I still ended up having to pay for my meal even though I only ate a bowl of sukiyaki because I was full from already having eaten...Not smart of me. Ah well.
April 16th Friday
After school I left to get on the train to Kutchan. This weekend is the PEPY bike ride. All the money/donations received from the ride are used to build orphanages for children in Cambodia. So whatever amount of money we raise will all go to that which is something I`m quite proud to be a part of. Plus, I get to see Erika and Steph. Woo!
The train ride from my town to Kutchan takes about 5 hours with an hour break in between. I met up with my friends in Sapporo and we all took the train together to Kutchan. It was so much fun being able to talk and see them again. ^^ When we got to Kutchan train station, the guy whose apt we were staying at came to pick us up. He was from London! Cool guy and it was very nice of him to let us stay at his place. His place was quaint and not bad except a little dirty with many kinds of bugs crawling around. The three of us girls slept in one of the extra tatami rooms he had.
April 17th Saturday
This morning we woke up and got ready for the bike ride. The ride starts off in Niseko area (which is a popular ski resort area and has many many Australians), goes down to Kutchan, and ends with a BBQ near the agricultural high school. We were equipped with some really nice rental bikes, a helmet and a water bottle. And let me tell ya, the helmet is far from making a fashion statement. It just looks terrible on me. lol And I have really bad experiences with helmet hair and this was an example of that. Anyways, the ride up was hot because of all the slopes we went up, but we stopped off at Weiss Hotel at the top of the mountain area and had some coffee. The employee at the the front desk was really quite cute, but looked a little too young for us. Like fresh out of high school. =P The scenery was beautiful during the ride, though! It was refreshing and a wonderful feeling.
The ride down was freezing! There was still snow everywhere and it was quite cold because of the wind. My ears felt like they were going to fall off, but I made it to the high school area okay. We had a delicious burger BBQ for lunch with other ALTs from around the area who came and then went back to our friend`s apt to chill until the play put on by HAJET to raise money for HEC started. My butt, particularly my crotch area, was sore. Very sore. THe other girls were having the same problem. I mean these bike seats were ridiculous narrow and the tip of the seat area was long and thin. Not comfortable. We got back to the apt and I had to carefully sit down because if I sat down too fast too hard, pain would shoot up through my body.
We then got changed and went to the play. There were so many half children there! It amazed me because I`m so used to always seeing plain Japanese people in my area that seeing so much hybrid kids was shocking. haha. But then again, we are in Niseko. So, afterwards we went to go eat at a superbly good pizza parlor. It was delicious! And they had real cheesecake!!! When that was over we went to a party in a rented lodge for someone`s birthday whom we didn`t really know. But we were invited, so we went. However, a couple of the girls we were with fell asleep and so we decided to head on back to the apt for night of well deserved rest.
April 18 Sunday
Woke up, bid goodbye to the guy who let us stay at his place and left on our train. I parted with steph and erika in Sapporo and came back home. Ah, it feels great to be back home. =)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Young mamas and a hungover Japanese Teacher of English (JTE)
April 3rd Saturday
So I woke up bright and early this morning to get everything ready to go say goodbye to Yuki, since she`s leaving for Mashike this morning at 8:30. Or so I thought. Turns out she left alot earlier, like at 8am because of the bad weather and it takes her 3 hours to drive to her new town. She sent me a text message, but I didn`t read it until late. So it was already too late to see her off. But I did call her later to tell her goodbye. And we`ll definitely still keep in contact.
Afterwards, I headed for the train station to take a 4 hour train ride down to Muroran to hang with Steph for her Easter brunch on Sunday. I got there at about 1:30 and was amazed at the largeness of the station! It was huge and beautiful and the building was pretty neat too. You walked out of the ticket eating machine and are in a large hall that had benches facing the wall made of windows. You could see part of the city from there. It was pretty awesome.
Steph came to meet me and we headed off to go eat. We ended up going to this quaint little cafe tucked away in an alleyway called Coala. Not koala, but coala. Heh. It was cute and decked out with koalas and Australian parapernelia. I ordered a milk sekki which was apparantly like a milk shake, except not...And Steph had this interesting looking concoction of lemonade with red wine floating on top. It was pretty good though. We also ordered sausage and shrimp pizza! That was yummy. We sat there talking for awhile longer before we headed back out to do some shopping for tomorrow`s feast.
At the supermarket we loaded up on booze and ingredients to make my peanut butter balls and Steph`s clafoutie. Originally, we were going to go to my friend`s to have dinner since she said she`d prepare a Chinese meal for us. It sounded amazing, but unfortunately, Steph and I had alot to do that night in preparation for the next day so we decided to just eat at a local restaurant around Muroran. Two other girls came as well! And we decided on curry ramen because I had really wanted to try it. And it was absolutely amazing! One of the best kinds of ramen, ever! So damn good! But, it just sprayed everywhere as we ate, which is why Steph was smart and wore a t-shirt on top of her nicer shirt to keep it from getting dirty. lol The owner chatted us up a bit as we payed our bill. Interesting man.
We then went to a place called "Thriller" which was some mix of a dungeon and cemetary themed karaoke box. We got a nice room, drank lotsa alcohol, and sang our hearts out. Then we all parted ways and Steph and I decided to go try Muroran`s famous yakitori at a little izakaya we`ve never been to. The food was good, although the design of the place could`ve been a little better. Anyways, we went home, drank more alcohol and got to working on dying eggs and making my peanut butter balls. And she had real Skippy peanut butter! Like wow! I haven`t seen that in forever! Oh man, and the taste was the real thing. Ah, American peanut butter, how I have missed thee. Japanese peanut butter just tastes like peanuts. But I guess it`s somewhat healthier for you because there`s no added sugars...lol
April 4th Easter Sunday
Easter brunch time! Many foreigners in one small Japanese apt makes for crowded. And there were also so many people that were brought by other people whom neither Steph or I knew. It was kind of way too many people to have at the brunch. Someone also invited another family to come along, and they had 2 lil girls. They weren`t bad, actually. The kids were wonderful and the family was interesting to talk to. But there were just so many people there I wasn`t sure what to do with myself. Steph seemed pretty stressed out, so I decided to go help and chill with her. We had a couple shots of sake (well, steph more than myself) and a nice walk outside to calm us down. I like parties, but once they get too big to be able to have a good conversation with individual guests I kinda shrink away. I like to have parties where everyone`s involved in every conversation or at least together. But parties that form groups and cliques I don`t do too well with.
Steph, however, even under all that stress and wiggin out, did a good job of hosting the party. Everything went well, and the food turned out well. All in all, a good party. At 6pm I headed for the train station to catch my train back to my town. I arrived at 11:30pm and soon passed out on my bed. lol
April 5th Monday
Entrance ceremony for my nursery babies. They`re so cute and fidgety! Oh babies. I stayed the whole day at the nursery today because classes/school haven`t started. The teachers at the school all ordered some sort of bento and I ordered one as well. OMG it was amazing looking! I ordered a set that consisted of shrimp tempura soba, 6 pieces of sushi, tsukemono, and chawanmushi. SOOO good! And they delivered it all for us. Check it out in my photo album on facebook. Other than that, nothing else really happened this day.
April 6th Tuesday
Double entrance ceremonies. One at the elementary and one at the middle school. The first one was the elementary for the new 1st graders. It was sooo cute! All the 1st graders wore lil suits and dresses. Their parents were all crazy nicely dressed. Like, the dads were in suits and the moms were in kimonos and suits/dresses. I wanna wear a kimono...with a hakama. Those are cool. So, yet another formal ceremony where all my babies were pretty nervous looking. But upon seeing my face, many of the 1st years that I taught at the nursery got all excited and lit up. I`m elated to know that I am the cause of that. haha.
Oh dude, the moms. They are sooo young looking! No, they are young! And there are 36 kids this year! That`s alot of kids in one class, especially for a small town. I mean, a town of 3,000 or so people and 36 couples in one year all decided to have a child! For a large city that`s nothing and normal. But for a town as small as mine? The more I think about it and look at the trend that`s been going on lately, I feel like, for many of these mom`s, having a child is the thing to do. Like it`s a trend and they`re following it. I mean all the moms are the same age or relatively the same and many of them are friends. And there are other factors with it too. It`s just that many of these moms are having children just to keep up with the family image...I don`t know...I`m not saying it`s bad to go and pop out a child so early. But, maybe it`s because we`re in the countryside, that there`s nothing much else to do. I`m just making an observation. =P
So after the kids had their ceremony, they had a short orientation with their new homeroom teacher and went on home. All the other grades did the same. After, I left to go to the middle school`s entrance ceremony.
Man, all my lil 6th graders are so grown up now, wearing their uniforms and all. I can`t call them 6th graders anymore either since they`re now middleschool 1st years. This has to be my favorite class of all time. Amazing kids, they are. Anyways, they were sooo nervous looking! When I went up there with all the teachers to introduce ourselves they had pained nervous wreck looks on their faces. lol It was kind of funny actually, to which I made fun of them for it later. hehe.
So by this time, I was already pretty tired of all the ceremonies and all the long-ass speeches that are always made at every ceremony. I was already starting to fall asleep on them. Seriously, these speeches are given by 3 people with boring monotonous voices, each lasting about 10 minutes. Ridiculous! Way too long to keep any child`s attention span, hence, me falling asleep. After the ceremony, however, everyone went home and I went back to finish up at the elementary.
April 7th Wednesday
Today, the new middle school 1st years get to learn about the clubs they can join. Each club got up to showcase their activities and practices which was really cute. lol They also got the 1st years involved in some demos. I got to talk to my 1st years alot today, so i`m happy.
After school I headed to the gym that`s only open for late hours on wednesday night. Weekdays it opens from 10am to 5pm, but I sometimes don`t get out of work until 5pm or 4:30 making it difficult for me to get in workout times. But on Wednesday nights they open from 5pm-8pm. Yes! So it`s my first time going in there and I wasn`t sure where it was in the health center and I wasn`t expecting it to have much. When I got there, my friends who work there were surprised to see me. I told them I was here to use the training room and asked where it was. Mizutani-san showed me around and then took me to the training room. I stepped in there and was amazed!! It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. I imagined the little gyms they equip you with at apartment complexes in the states with only 4 or 5 machines available. But, omg, this place was huge compared to that. I mean, it`s no ARC at UCI, but still. It had 3 treadmills, 6 bikes (half of which are different types of bikes), 3 weird looking stepping machines, 6 different weight lifting machines, a section for old people to work out, an assortment of dumbells, and mats.
But the two most amazing and surprising things were 1)the massaging stones course and 2)the relaxation capsules. You know those smooth stones embedded in the floor and you walk on them to massage your feet? Well, they have a full indoor course of it! There are different sections in the course with different sized stones and placed sporadically. So, some areas feel good to walk on, whereas others just hurt. But it`s supposed to be good pain. And you ahve to continue this course for 5 minutes to get the full effect. It hurts, but I know it`s good for me. lol I`m kind of masochistic like that. The other thing is the capsules. These things are made for the purpose of relaxation and sweating. You lie in these capsules and it becomes a sort of sauna where you can adjust the heat. It has vibrations, a timer to wake you up if you fall asleep, a music head set, and even aroma therapy. And best thing of all is that it`s all free!!! FREE!!! Woo! I was like, i can`t believe this place is so high tech and yet everything is free! I spent a good 2 hours in there lifting weights and using the one mirror they had in the room to practice dancing.
April 9th Friday
OMG, this morning was ridiculous!!!! >.< I knew this morning that my JTE was not looking too good. I just wasn`t sure what was wrong. Before the morning teacher`s meeting he told me, "Theresa, I need to talk to you about class plans for today after the meeting." Usually, he won`t say that to me and just gives me the plan before class and I go along with it. So I knew something was up. After the meeting he just looked at me and said "Theresa, I have a really bad hangover today. I`m really hungover from the PTA welcome party last night." Oh great. Great! Hangover! And...? "Well, I won`t really be able to teach today, so can you please take over and do games and activites and use the textbook with the students instead?" And this was 15 minutes before my first English class...of the new school year. Outside I just looked calm and laughed and gave a kind of uncertain look before saying "Yeah, alright. No problem." But in my head I was really thinking, `You have got to be kidding me.` 15 minutes before class and I`m supposed to come up with a lesson plan to teach for the whole hour? For the other classes we have today too!?? 15 minutes!!! I was seriously not prepared for this. At all.
So I was scrambling to find a lesson plan and to think of something. And I managed to come up with something. Although while in class, I was actually making alot of shit up as I went. Some kind of idea would just pop into my head as I was teaching and I`d carry it out. The class was okay. I taught the 2nd years first. They were a little confused as to why I was teaching and I didn`t want to tell them because that would be inappropriate I thought. But then my JTE just went ahead and told them, "Oh, I`m not feeling too good today because I have a hangover from the PTA party last night." And I just stared at him for a minute because I just couldn`t believe that he said that! Never had any teachers I knew ever say that to their students. Like, did you really just say that to the kids? Well, whatever, I tried to make the class fun and enjoyable for the kids. I mean it wasn`t as good as the classes I have planned out before because I only had 15 minutes, but it still went well. My JTE just stood to the side....trying to get a hold of himself.
After class he told me he was feeling a little dizzy because everything seems to still be moving around, like the floor...Oh good. Anyways, the second class was my 1st years who were my 6th grade class last year. My fav. They are so good at English that it surprised my JTE. He just asked me to lead the class in what they know so that he can guage what he needs to teach them later (and so he can recuperate). I was totally fine with that as I know this class very well. And my students trust me in teaching and remembered that English was fun for them. So they let go of their serious hard-at-studying selves and followed me into weird English land. =P Good kids. Even my mentally disabled kid was able to read ABCs and spell and say actions in English. So proud of them! I told the JTE afterwards to just use mostly English with them because they can handle it. He was quite surprised at their high level. Well then, shows you that these kids can handle anything!
Afterwards I had the high school`s entrance ceremony. Yet another one. I endured through that too, but I started drifting off alittle. Anyways, after the ceremony I came back to the middle school and lounged around, tired.
So I woke up bright and early this morning to get everything ready to go say goodbye to Yuki, since she`s leaving for Mashike this morning at 8:30. Or so I thought. Turns out she left alot earlier, like at 8am because of the bad weather and it takes her 3 hours to drive to her new town. She sent me a text message, but I didn`t read it until late. So it was already too late to see her off. But I did call her later to tell her goodbye. And we`ll definitely still keep in contact.
Afterwards, I headed for the train station to take a 4 hour train ride down to Muroran to hang with Steph for her Easter brunch on Sunday. I got there at about 1:30 and was amazed at the largeness of the station! It was huge and beautiful and the building was pretty neat too. You walked out of the ticket eating machine and are in a large hall that had benches facing the wall made of windows. You could see part of the city from there. It was pretty awesome.
Steph came to meet me and we headed off to go eat. We ended up going to this quaint little cafe tucked away in an alleyway called Coala. Not koala, but coala. Heh. It was cute and decked out with koalas and Australian parapernelia. I ordered a milk sekki which was apparantly like a milk shake, except not...And Steph had this interesting looking concoction of lemonade with red wine floating on top. It was pretty good though. We also ordered sausage and shrimp pizza! That was yummy. We sat there talking for awhile longer before we headed back out to do some shopping for tomorrow`s feast.
At the supermarket we loaded up on booze and ingredients to make my peanut butter balls and Steph`s clafoutie. Originally, we were going to go to my friend`s to have dinner since she said she`d prepare a Chinese meal for us. It sounded amazing, but unfortunately, Steph and I had alot to do that night in preparation for the next day so we decided to just eat at a local restaurant around Muroran. Two other girls came as well! And we decided on curry ramen because I had really wanted to try it. And it was absolutely amazing! One of the best kinds of ramen, ever! So damn good! But, it just sprayed everywhere as we ate, which is why Steph was smart and wore a t-shirt on top of her nicer shirt to keep it from getting dirty. lol The owner chatted us up a bit as we payed our bill. Interesting man.
We then went to a place called "Thriller" which was some mix of a dungeon and cemetary themed karaoke box. We got a nice room, drank lotsa alcohol, and sang our hearts out. Then we all parted ways and Steph and I decided to go try Muroran`s famous yakitori at a little izakaya we`ve never been to. The food was good, although the design of the place could`ve been a little better. Anyways, we went home, drank more alcohol and got to working on dying eggs and making my peanut butter balls. And she had real Skippy peanut butter! Like wow! I haven`t seen that in forever! Oh man, and the taste was the real thing. Ah, American peanut butter, how I have missed thee. Japanese peanut butter just tastes like peanuts. But I guess it`s somewhat healthier for you because there`s no added sugars...lol
April 4th Easter Sunday
Easter brunch time! Many foreigners in one small Japanese apt makes for crowded. And there were also so many people that were brought by other people whom neither Steph or I knew. It was kind of way too many people to have at the brunch. Someone also invited another family to come along, and they had 2 lil girls. They weren`t bad, actually. The kids were wonderful and the family was interesting to talk to. But there were just so many people there I wasn`t sure what to do with myself. Steph seemed pretty stressed out, so I decided to go help and chill with her. We had a couple shots of sake (well, steph more than myself) and a nice walk outside to calm us down. I like parties, but once they get too big to be able to have a good conversation with individual guests I kinda shrink away. I like to have parties where everyone`s involved in every conversation or at least together. But parties that form groups and cliques I don`t do too well with.
Steph, however, even under all that stress and wiggin out, did a good job of hosting the party. Everything went well, and the food turned out well. All in all, a good party. At 6pm I headed for the train station to catch my train back to my town. I arrived at 11:30pm and soon passed out on my bed. lol
April 5th Monday
Entrance ceremony for my nursery babies. They`re so cute and fidgety! Oh babies. I stayed the whole day at the nursery today because classes/school haven`t started. The teachers at the school all ordered some sort of bento and I ordered one as well. OMG it was amazing looking! I ordered a set that consisted of shrimp tempura soba, 6 pieces of sushi, tsukemono, and chawanmushi. SOOO good! And they delivered it all for us. Check it out in my photo album on facebook. Other than that, nothing else really happened this day.
April 6th Tuesday
Double entrance ceremonies. One at the elementary and one at the middle school. The first one was the elementary for the new 1st graders. It was sooo cute! All the 1st graders wore lil suits and dresses. Their parents were all crazy nicely dressed. Like, the dads were in suits and the moms were in kimonos and suits/dresses. I wanna wear a kimono...with a hakama. Those are cool. So, yet another formal ceremony where all my babies were pretty nervous looking. But upon seeing my face, many of the 1st years that I taught at the nursery got all excited and lit up. I`m elated to know that I am the cause of that. haha.
Oh dude, the moms. They are sooo young looking! No, they are young! And there are 36 kids this year! That`s alot of kids in one class, especially for a small town. I mean, a town of 3,000 or so people and 36 couples in one year all decided to have a child! For a large city that`s nothing and normal. But for a town as small as mine? The more I think about it and look at the trend that`s been going on lately, I feel like, for many of these mom`s, having a child is the thing to do. Like it`s a trend and they`re following it. I mean all the moms are the same age or relatively the same and many of them are friends. And there are other factors with it too. It`s just that many of these moms are having children just to keep up with the family image...I don`t know...I`m not saying it`s bad to go and pop out a child so early. But, maybe it`s because we`re in the countryside, that there`s nothing much else to do. I`m just making an observation. =P
So after the kids had their ceremony, they had a short orientation with their new homeroom teacher and went on home. All the other grades did the same. After, I left to go to the middle school`s entrance ceremony.
Man, all my lil 6th graders are so grown up now, wearing their uniforms and all. I can`t call them 6th graders anymore either since they`re now middleschool 1st years. This has to be my favorite class of all time. Amazing kids, they are. Anyways, they were sooo nervous looking! When I went up there with all the teachers to introduce ourselves they had pained nervous wreck looks on their faces. lol It was kind of funny actually, to which I made fun of them for it later. hehe.
So by this time, I was already pretty tired of all the ceremonies and all the long-ass speeches that are always made at every ceremony. I was already starting to fall asleep on them. Seriously, these speeches are given by 3 people with boring monotonous voices, each lasting about 10 minutes. Ridiculous! Way too long to keep any child`s attention span, hence, me falling asleep. After the ceremony, however, everyone went home and I went back to finish up at the elementary.
April 7th Wednesday
Today, the new middle school 1st years get to learn about the clubs they can join. Each club got up to showcase their activities and practices which was really cute. lol They also got the 1st years involved in some demos. I got to talk to my 1st years alot today, so i`m happy.
After school I headed to the gym that`s only open for late hours on wednesday night. Weekdays it opens from 10am to 5pm, but I sometimes don`t get out of work until 5pm or 4:30 making it difficult for me to get in workout times. But on Wednesday nights they open from 5pm-8pm. Yes! So it`s my first time going in there and I wasn`t sure where it was in the health center and I wasn`t expecting it to have much. When I got there, my friends who work there were surprised to see me. I told them I was here to use the training room and asked where it was. Mizutani-san showed me around and then took me to the training room. I stepped in there and was amazed!! It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. I imagined the little gyms they equip you with at apartment complexes in the states with only 4 or 5 machines available. But, omg, this place was huge compared to that. I mean, it`s no ARC at UCI, but still. It had 3 treadmills, 6 bikes (half of which are different types of bikes), 3 weird looking stepping machines, 6 different weight lifting machines, a section for old people to work out, an assortment of dumbells, and mats.
But the two most amazing and surprising things were 1)the massaging stones course and 2)the relaxation capsules. You know those smooth stones embedded in the floor and you walk on them to massage your feet? Well, they have a full indoor course of it! There are different sections in the course with different sized stones and placed sporadically. So, some areas feel good to walk on, whereas others just hurt. But it`s supposed to be good pain. And you ahve to continue this course for 5 minutes to get the full effect. It hurts, but I know it`s good for me. lol I`m kind of masochistic like that. The other thing is the capsules. These things are made for the purpose of relaxation and sweating. You lie in these capsules and it becomes a sort of sauna where you can adjust the heat. It has vibrations, a timer to wake you up if you fall asleep, a music head set, and even aroma therapy. And best thing of all is that it`s all free!!! FREE!!! Woo! I was like, i can`t believe this place is so high tech and yet everything is free! I spent a good 2 hours in there lifting weights and using the one mirror they had in the room to practice dancing.
April 9th Friday
OMG, this morning was ridiculous!!!! >.< I knew this morning that my JTE was not looking too good. I just wasn`t sure what was wrong. Before the morning teacher`s meeting he told me, "Theresa, I need to talk to you about class plans for today after the meeting." Usually, he won`t say that to me and just gives me the plan before class and I go along with it. So I knew something was up. After the meeting he just looked at me and said "Theresa, I have a really bad hangover today. I`m really hungover from the PTA welcome party last night." Oh great. Great! Hangover! And...? "Well, I won`t really be able to teach today, so can you please take over and do games and activites and use the textbook with the students instead?" And this was 15 minutes before my first English class...of the new school year. Outside I just looked calm and laughed and gave a kind of uncertain look before saying "Yeah, alright. No problem." But in my head I was really thinking, `You have got to be kidding me.` 15 minutes before class and I`m supposed to come up with a lesson plan to teach for the whole hour? For the other classes we have today too!?? 15 minutes!!! I was seriously not prepared for this. At all.
So I was scrambling to find a lesson plan and to think of something. And I managed to come up with something. Although while in class, I was actually making alot of shit up as I went. Some kind of idea would just pop into my head as I was teaching and I`d carry it out. The class was okay. I taught the 2nd years first. They were a little confused as to why I was teaching and I didn`t want to tell them because that would be inappropriate I thought. But then my JTE just went ahead and told them, "Oh, I`m not feeling too good today because I have a hangover from the PTA party last night." And I just stared at him for a minute because I just couldn`t believe that he said that! Never had any teachers I knew ever say that to their students. Like, did you really just say that to the kids? Well, whatever, I tried to make the class fun and enjoyable for the kids. I mean it wasn`t as good as the classes I have planned out before because I only had 15 minutes, but it still went well. My JTE just stood to the side....trying to get a hold of himself.
After class he told me he was feeling a little dizzy because everything seems to still be moving around, like the floor...Oh good. Anyways, the second class was my 1st years who were my 6th grade class last year. My fav. They are so good at English that it surprised my JTE. He just asked me to lead the class in what they know so that he can guage what he needs to teach them later (and so he can recuperate). I was totally fine with that as I know this class very well. And my students trust me in teaching and remembered that English was fun for them. So they let go of their serious hard-at-studying selves and followed me into weird English land. =P Good kids. Even my mentally disabled kid was able to read ABCs and spell and say actions in English. So proud of them! I told the JTE afterwards to just use mostly English with them because they can handle it. He was quite surprised at their high level. Well then, shows you that these kids can handle anything!
Afterwards I had the high school`s entrance ceremony. Yet another one. I endured through that too, but I started drifting off alittle. Anyways, after the ceremony I came back to the middle school and lounged around, tired.
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