Adventure, here I go!!

Back from 6 Months Hiatus

2011-08-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Soo....after 6 months of not writing anything in my blog I`m back to complete it...and hopefully continue it...

Sooooo just a few points of interest.

During Golden Week April 28th-May 8th(a Japanese holidy that starts at the end of April until beginning of May) I went with Steph, Chingyi, and Keri to Fukuoka for 2 days, Nagasaki for 2 days, and Okinawa for 4 days (went to Naha the first day and then went to a beach resort area for the last 3 days) and lastly, Tokyo for 3 days. Good fun vacation with the girls and had many hilarious adventures with them. Ate lots of good food and bought waaaaaaaayyyyy too much Chinsuko cookies....lol Steph bought a trunk load of beni-imo tarts....=P

I remember we kept complaining about the lack of hot men anywhere except beautiful Fukuoka. I have to say that Fukuoka is now one of my favorite places to go and I intend to go there more often. The night life there is also amazing! Man, I already want to go back. We took some awesome pictures and had a wonderful conversation time sitting next to the Tenjin river and watching some guys doing tricks on their bikes. We went to the Fukuoka tower, Ohori Park, Hawks Dome, Canal city and just did alot of wandering. And we ate all the famous foods. We were just so in awe of a big city after living the Hokkaido life.

Nagasaki was just rainy allllll the time. And plus the men there were just....no....lol But we visited the important atomic bomb places there. It was my second time going to an a-bomb museum (the first being in Hiroshima) and it wasn`t any easier to get through. I cried again after that and we all needed ice cream afterwards. We then rode up a ropeway to get to the top of a mountain to take in the nightview of the city. Apparently, Nagasaki is one of the top 3 nightview spots in all of Japan; Hakodate being one of them. We also visited Megane-bashi and walked around alot.

Afterwards we hopped on over to Okinawa and went to check in to our "guesthouse" in Naha. Wow. It was just one huge room full of 3 tiered bunk beds. Enough for 15 girls...and there were probably 11 or so girls in the room that night. 1 toilet, 1 shower. For 15 girls. In a very hot and humid room with no wind passing through. Yeah, none of us really slept well that night or took a shower and just left early the next morning to get our rental car and head for our beautiful beach resort. The resort was wonderufl, our room was wonderful! I absolutely loved this resort and the beach!! The water was SSOOOOOO BLUE!! Too bad it was raining most of the time with only about 30 minutes of sunlight each day.

After a wonderful couple of days at the beach, we left for Tokyo. In Tokyo we stayed in Shin-Okubo which is the Korea town of Tokyo. HOT KOREAN BOYS EVERYWHERE!!! MAN!! Anyways, it was nice to stay there and go shopping and meet up with Kuma and Jun (my previous conversation partners/students at UCI from Doshisha) and Tyler! Good times.

Then I came back and went to work. Nothing really exciting happened between then and now. Just have become busier. OH! I started up my hip hop class! It`s once every twoo weeks for an hour each and Ihave about 10-15 students. It`s a lot of fun to teach and dance with them, but really hot in this summer weather.

Now it`s already August, and my old JET friends have left to start their new adventure back in the states or wherever they are going. I wish them the best of luck and that I`ll miss them very much!

But! There are new JETS!!! I just came back yesterday from presenting at Sapporo Orientation. And I met quite a lot of the new JETs. They were awesome and I look forward to meeting them again. I`m incredibly exhuasted today but had a wonderful time.

First night we got there we went to eat Shabushabu in Susukino and then went to Red Bar near the Sapporo station area. Awesome place. Second day was the Sapps orientation and then in the evening we went to eat at the new Kirin Beer garden which was beautiful and delicious! Next day was the beginning of my presentations which I was nervous for, but I was able to do my presentation well enough. I hope they found it useful, or will find it useful. Anyways, that`s the end of my post this time. But I hope to post more in the future.

Part 2 of Late Late Posts

2011-01-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

December 27th Monday

Day out with my long time friend Iza. It`s been forever since I`ve seen her, so I was quite excited to hang out with her. She came to pick me up and we spent the day in Santa Monica pier and beach. Went shopping, ate good foods, and had tons of fun. One of the most relaxing days for me. I really missed the beach and everything that comes with it. Going home we were stuck in traffic. So we just boosted up the music and had a party in the car. lol Something I missed. haha. Thanks for a wonderful day Iza!

December 28th Tuesday

Spent the morning and afternoon with Chrissy! I missed this girl who`s helped through a lot online. Had a wonderful day with her at Victoria Gardens.

In the evening at around 8pm I met up with high school friends who I haven`t seen in a long time at the bowling alley. I was suprised at the turn up. ABout 10 people came and we all had so much fun bowling. I also magically got second place in bowling! I used to suck so bad and be in last place! Leveled up WOOT! I had a superb evening with my old high school peeps.

December 29th Wednesday

Spent the day in Irvine and had a great evening with Sawanya and Christina. It`s been a while ladies. I had some wonderful concoction of cocktail and spent the night at Christina`s amazing apt! Thank you so much Christina!!

December 30th Thursday

Spent the day in Irvine, again, shopping. Then in the evening went to Macoroni Grill in Claremont to eat with Ale and Chrissy. It was good to catch up with both of them again, especially after not seeing Ale after a while.

December 31st Friday

Sooooo, I went to Dad`s restaurant tonight to celebrate the New Year`s countdown. I invited Mel and Mollie along and my cousins were there as well. It was an awesome night of countdowns. And I wore my cute/sexy red dress! heheh.

January 1st Saturday

Woke up early in the morning to go to he airport to pick up Su and Tama-chan. But the flight ended up being 4 hours late because someone on their plane got sick and had to have an emergency landing in Anchorage Alaska....lol

So I picked them up and we went off to Hollywood. Then went to my house to drop off their stuff and then left for Victoria Gardens. I took them to eat Johnny Rocket`s.

January 2nd Sunday

Spent the day in Irvine chilling and shopping and then came back to Dad`s restaurant to eat dinner

January 3rd Monday

DISNEYLAND!! And it was all rainy. Plus this day was the beginning of classes for a lot of kids. So man it was empty compared to how it normally is. YES! We got to ride all the rides that we wanted without having to wait too long for anything. YES. Amazingly good day for Disney.

January 4th Tuesday

Took Su and Tama-chan to the airport the next morning. Was too tired afterwards so I just came home and slept the rest of the morning. Then in the afternoon/evening I went back to Irvine to have dinner with my ol guy roommates. SOOO MUCH FUN! I got to see Toast as well. It`s been forever. I hadn`t laughed like that in a long time...Love you boys, thanks for the amazing evening.

January 5th Wednesday

Lunch with Mel. Actually afternoon tea. Yummers. Natsukashii seriously. It`s been so long since I`ve had afternoon tea with scones and the whole set. It was a trip down memory lane in there.

In the evening I went clubbing with my ol high school friends. We went to Oasis which is a gay club in Upland. I was like "THERE`S A CLUB IN UPLAND!??!??!?!" But it was awesome! The music was great and the guys there were hot...albeit gay. Damn. But I got on the dance floor and within 5 seconds I was danced up upon...lol wow. I feel pretty good about myself. hehe. Incredibly fun evening.

January 6th Thursday

Spent my last evening with my family.

January 7th Friday

Spent my last day with my family, and went to my dad`s restaurant before heading out to the airport. I`m really hoping that my family will come visit me in Hokkaido this summer. I can`t wait to see them again.

January 9th Sunday

Arrived back in Japan early morning and Tama-chan came to pick me up at the train station. Mago-chan was there as well. We had a late lunch and then I was taken back home to unpack my crap. It`s interesting to be back in Japan, but I really will miss CA.

LATE LATE LATE POST!

2011-01-25T17:49:00.001-08:00

Alright guys, so...it`s been over 2 months since I`ve last updated. Too much stuff happening and not enough time to sit down and just write about it. But now that I`ve sprained my ankle and don`t have a test to worry about anymore I have time! Wee! So everything`s going to be just simple tabs on everything from November till now. This is mainly for my reference.

November 5th Friday

Today the BOE, elementary, middle, high school teachers all came together and had a floor curling tournament. It was so much fun! Afterwards we all went to go eat at a relaxed banquet together and played games. Then I went drinking with the middle school teachers afterwards.

November 6th Saturday

Junco and Cheep concert at the elementary school

November 12th Friday

Volleyball tournament at the middle school. Afterwards all the teachers were supposed to go out together to have dinner, but ended up unable to. So Mr. Oshare took me out and we went to eat and stuff.

November 13th Saturday

BOE trip to Obihiro. Sadly, this is on the same day as Ayumi`s wedding. So I couldn`t attend the wedding. Congrats though Ayumi! But this trip was amazingly fun! I love the crazy BOE peoples. We went to the Wine Castle and Ryuugetsu to buy lots of sweets.

November 16th Tuesday

PTA bowling with the middle school teachers and parents. I was in last place. Okay, I suck at bowling...lol

November 19th Friday

Had an enkai at the Lakeside Sakuraoka with the young peoples crew. Delicious and fun.

November 20th Saturday

A fateful day of events. I decided to invite Mr. Oshare over for dinner and all was going so well until the end. And well, I guess he`s not the guy for me...the following weeks after this day were all pretty awkward with him. Well, I wasn`t awkward, but he was soooo awkward turtle. Thankfully the next day I was able to hang out with a friend and just felt better about everything. Whatever, I will get over this whole disaster.

November 23rd Tuesday

Went out with Genshuu`s family today. I love them! We had a delicious lunch made by Kaori-san and then went to go ice skating! I`m definitely spending more time with this family!
Genshuu and Jinyuu are my cutie babies!!

December 3rd Friday

I was supposed to have a party with my girlfriends in the town for Christmas, but Mr. Oshare asked if I wanted to go out with him that night. And so I went with him instead of going to the party. I know it sounds stupid of me to have done, but at the time I was in love with this guy, so love makes you do stupid things. Looking back at that now, I should`ve gone to the party instead....

December 5th Sunday

JLPT2 today!!! Ridiculous!!! But I got to see a lot of hot non-Japanese guys! Like KOREAN BOYS!! OH YEAH!!! The listening part of the test was easy, but the reading was damn hard! I`m not sure how exactly this test result is going to turn out, but I`m hoping for a pass.

December 8th Wednesday

Left to go to Sapporo today with Collin for the Mid year conference.

December 10th Friday

Partied with Heidi`s coworkers tonight! Her coworkers are hilarious as well as pretty high up there in the heirarchy of the goverment. Thanks Heidi for inviting me! It was very fun!

December 12th Sunday

WOOO!!!! Miura Daichi`s concert today with the wonderful Steph Palm!! It was held at Penny Lane in Sapporo. Seeing him in concert was amazing!! I love this man even more now! And then watching him do his one dance session was just soooo HAWT! He proves that you don`t have to be a Johnny`s boy to be amazing! HAH! Japan, you are improving! lol The fans were pretty funny as well. Aaahhhh amazing concert!

December 16th Thursday

Today was the young people`s group Christmas party. WEE!! I got a towel and shoe deodarant!! The presents are randomly received through a game of bingo. lol So some people got things that totally don`t match them. My present was a small blankie, slippers, incense, and cup and saucer. Totally the best present there because it had so much stuff and preps you for winter. Everyone was like "DUDE! That`s an awesome gift! All under 10 bucks??!" Hehehe. I can`t help it, I love buying gifts for people so I get a little over myself when I go shopping.

December 17th Friday

Soo...this evening I didn`t want to cook because I`m going back home to the US tomorrow. So I asked Mr.Oshare if he wanted to go eat with me tonight. Oh, btw, we`re back to semi-normal friends terms now after couple weeks of awkwardness. He drove that night and in the car I decided to share to him my grief of having only 5 minutes to transfer trains twice with all my luggage tomorrow and I don`t know how I`m going to do this. Then all of a sudden he was like "Why don`t I take you to the second station tomorrow so you don`t have to transfer twice?" I just looked at him all surprised but was like "OMG really? Is that really okay?! YES PLEASE!!" But at the same time I wasn`t sure what was going on because we were both having an unsure almost turbulent relationship during the past couple of weeks. I was shocked but pleased so I took him up on the offer.

December 18th Saturday

Mr. Oshare picked me up and took me to the airport. Along the way I wasn`t sure what he was trying to do, but he was being rude and somewhat obnoxious to me. But he was driving me so I didn`t want to say anything. Then when we were close to the station he suddenly said "Hey, Teari, when are you coming back?" "Jan. 9th" "Oh, I`ll still be in Okinawa. I was going to come pick you up." "Uh...what? Uh...no it`s alright, but thank you." And this was the nice part of the convo because after this he said, "But Teari, you wanted me to come pick you up didn`t you?" "?" "Yeah. That`s why you said that you only had 5 minutes to transfer trains and stuff was because you were trying to hint to me that you wanted a ride. You could`ve just asked me directly." "WHAT?! Okay, no. That`s not what I was trying to hint at. It was just for conversation. If I wanted a ride, I`d ask directly. I had no other meaning behind what I was saying." I was kind of a little angry at him for saying all that. I know he knows that I still like him, but that was all uncalled for. Anyways, that`s how we parted, but I did text him a thank you for driving. But I was still a little mad at him for all that. Anyways, forget all that and CA here I go!

December 18th Saturday US time

YAY CALI!!! I`VE MISSED YOU HARDCORE!! Yet why do you have to be pouring rain?! And then my Dad forgot to come pick me up cuz he messed up the times...lol S`ok, I knew it was going to happen. But I was so happy to be back in the states! Woo! Dad took me to eat Taiwanese food! MAN! I missed it so damn much! This is my comfort food yo! Hahh....good life..

December 19th Sunday

Went to have lunch with my grandparents. Just chilled with my family all day today. Then in the evening went to see Linda and Mel and had an awesome dinner and convo with them. Love you girls!

December 21st Tuesday

Went to Ontario to see Leslie and Stephanie H! Spent a whole day shopping with the ladies and went to eat at my dad`s restaurant.

December 22nd Wednesday

Irvine Day! Spent the afternoon with my girl Sawanya! She`s still as lovely as ever. Had Korean food!! HELL YEAH! Man, it`s been forever. Then in the evening I had Lucille`s BBQ with my old roommates and Mike and Lillian. BEST NIGHT EVER!! So much fun. It`s been a long time since I`ve laughed like that. Or had a real laughter come out of me.

December 23rd Thursday

Spent the day with Natalie Chen! My long lost high school other Asian friend! lol I`m so glad to be able to meet up with her because she came down from NorCal for Christmas. We ate Hong Kong food for lunch and then in the evening met up with her other cute chick friend from Berkely. I had an awesome time with this girl today!

December 24th Friday

Christmas Eve and MY B-DAY! Went to Disneyland with my family today! It was super crowded but lotsa fun! Good times!

December 25th Saturday Christmas

Merry Christmas! Went to my grandparents house and made Ban Coc (Cambodian style takoyaki, without tako and with shrimp and coconut juice instead). Samuel and Joey came over to hang with us as well.

December 26th Sunday

Went shopping at Victoria Gardens with my mom and Vivian and Lawrence. Damn crowded! But I got to eat Johnny Rocket`s. YESS REAL BURGERS!

Anyways, I will continue the rest of the week later on. This is already about 2 months worth, so I`ll let it finish here. Alrighties, thanks for reading. But really, this was for myself so that I could remember all that happened. Otsukare though! ^^

The rest of October

2010-12-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

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.

Frustration and Exhaultation

2010-10-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

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!

I had a date?

2010-09-09T17:34:00.001-07:00

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!

Days with my family o(^_^)o

2010-08-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

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.

To Tokyo and Beyond!

2010-08-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

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.

A Whole Month`s Worth of Entries

2010-08-03T17:55:00.001-07:00

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.

Osokute gomen, but here it is!

2010-06-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

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.

Malaysia Part 2: A painful lesson learned.

2010-05-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

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.

My trip to Malaysia Part 1: an eye opening experience

2010-05-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

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.

PEPY Bike Ride

2010-04-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

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. =)

Young mamas and a hungover Japanese Teacher of English (JTE)

2010-04-13T17:35:00.001-07:00

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.

A Small Pang in my Heart

2010-04-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

March 28 Sunday

Today I had dinner at Tama-chan`s apt. Her mother had came all the way from Kutchan to visit her and made a crap load of food, so she invited all of us over to eat. I was a little tired this day, but it was free food, so I had to go. Her mother made delicious karaage, okonomiyaki, ramen-salad, cheese eggrolls (incredibly bad for you, but yummy), and flan. It was so damn good!!! Wraah. *o*

And at this time, since I wasn`t talking very much and the other girls were having a merry conversation, I decided to text Mr. Wonderful to see about dinner next week. I asked Yuki, beforehand, if she wanted to have dinner too, so that it would be a friendly get together with people of the same age. Remember, I`m not aiming for his love anymore, just aiming to be friends. However, the text didn`t work properly, so I had no choice but to call him. I stepped outside for a minute to call him. I was actually surprisingly calm about the call. I just directly asked him, "Hey! I was wondering if you`re free to eat dinner next Tuesday with Yuki and I?" "Ah....Yes! I am free that night!" "Alright then! That`s great! I`ll talk to you more about that later. Oh, and, sorry, but could you send me your cell mail address? Because I wasn`t able to get through to your inbox so I had to call you instead." "Yeah, sure." And we then said our goodbyes and hung up. I was proud of myself. hehe.
I went back to the party, but at around 9pm, I went back home, happy.

March 29th Monday

Today was the ending ceremony/graduation at my nursery....Yeah, at the nursery. You heard me right. My little 6 and 7 year olds had a graduation ceremony from the nursery. A really formal one, with alot of bowing and diploma receiving....All the kids wore their best formal clothes, so little suits and dresses that you would normally see at a wedding ceremony. It was very cute, though. And the kids looked so adorable, but there were such formal procedures that they had to go through to get their diploma and stuff. It was a little too much in my opinion. But cute, nonetheless. I spent the rest of the day after the ceremony at the nursery, playing with the babies. heeee. >U<

March 30th Tuesday

So today, since the school`s on spring break there are no students. But unfortunately, the teachers still all have to come to work throughout the break. >.< ugh. But we`re allowed to wear more relaxed clothes like jeans. I don`t really understand why, but in schools in Japan, track suits and sportswear are considered a higher level or above jeans. o.O I`ll never understand why, but we`re not allowed to wear jeans during school time. But sweats are totally okay...

I was helping the teachers clean up their classrooms and organizing things. But at the same time I also decided to go and see if Mr. Wonderful was in his room to talk to him to see if he remembers the dinner tonight. Cuz he tends to forget...I guess. But, now because I think of him as just a friend (well, i still have feelings for him) it feels easier to talk to him than before. So I was able to really speak casually with him. I was like, "Hey. So for dinner tonight, it will be at 6:30. Is that okay?" When he said yes I told him to meet me in front of Seico Mart. I was walking out of the classroom in the hallway when I heard my name being called by him. I turned around to see his body half out the door. "Theresa-sensei, are we going by car? Or what are we doing?" "I`ll drive!" And smiled at him and turned to walk back down the hall.

I was actually busy helping organize and clean the 1st grade classroom that Yuki and I didn`t finish until 5:30. So we had an hour to get home, chill, and get ready for dinner. At 6:30 I went to Seico Mart to pick both of them up. Mr. Wonderful was looking as good as ever in his hot clothes. We got in the car, took a little bit to decide where we wanted to go eat and decided on Shuraku, my favorite izakaya.

We had a pleasant conversation in the car driving there, but I didn`t talk very much because I wasn`t exactly sure what they were talking about. So I would just nod and keep my eyes on the road, but have the occasional response. When we got there, the only room they had was at the bar. So we all sat at the bar. Mr. Wonderful sat in between Yuki and I. We ordered food and drinks and sat around talking. I didn`t really talk too much because of lack of understanding, but he was sweet enough to try and help me understand our conversation. I also finally retold him about my interest in flowers and stuff, which is opposite of him because he has more interest in birds and none in flowers. But he found it interesting because we share the same passion. Camping too.

Well, at around 9pm we left and went home. I dropped him off at his apt. But before he left my car I told him, "If you ever want to practice your English or talk about camping and hiking, you can email me. And is it okay if I message you for this stuff too?" To which he replied, "Yes. I will and you can. Alright then, thank you very much Theresa." And then he stood outside to wait for me to leave before going back into his apartment. *sigh* I could`ve done better. But, ah well, friendship. Friendship.

March 31 Wednesday

No classes again today, so donned on my jeans and went to the middle school. At 10am, though, I went to the elementary to help with desk moving. So, a little about the Japanese school system here. Every new school year, the teachers change the grade levels they teach. And they`re allowed to be the homeroom teacher for each ascending grade for 2 years. After that they have to be assigned to another class. So my 5th grade teacher last year, is now the 6th grade teacher. The 6th grade teacher last year is now the 5th grade teacher, the 4th grade teacher is still the 4th grade teacher, the 3rd grade teacher is someone new to the school, the 2nd grade teacher was the helping teacher last year, and the 1st grade teacher was the 3rd grade teacher last year. Along with changing grades, the desks in the faculty office change places as well. I used to sit in the middle, but now the moved me to the back corner with the 5th and 6th grade teachers. The 1st-4 grade teachers sit in the middle of the room while the nurse, nutritionist, and the OLs and OMs sit on the other side of the room. It`s not so bad becaue I can see everyone in the room and I face the door, so I can see my kids walking in and out. But yeah....I don`t really get this system.

Actually, I realized that my seat is next to where Mr. Wonderful used to sit. And it gave me a little pang in my heart. If Mr. Wonderful was still here, I`d be sitting next to him. But he`s not anymore...so it`s a little sad. But I was able to see him one last time when I went to his apartment with the other teachers to help him move out. And his apt was how I imagined how a single man`s apt would be like. lol It was kinda dirty lol, and he likes to cook, but doesn`t really clean well, and his bathroom was just terrible...lol Well, we all helped him to move out his stuff and everything and clean his apt. I was impressed with the amount of things he had and what he had. He had a snowboard and ski set, a keyboard, weights for lifting, and a bunch of other cool things. Of course, he`s an ex-bartender. That explains his coolness. haha. @.@

Anyways, as I was helping the other teachers clean stuff, I went into one of his storage rooms which, apparently, also doubles as his closet of sorts. And his clothes were awesome! They were very oshare, but in a mature way. It was all very sexy mature clothes. I was quite enamored by the clothes just hanging there, that I imagine I`d be even more awed when they`re worn. lol I`m a little off my rocker these days.

So after all that, I went back to the middle school to get things settled, but totally forgot to say goodbye to him. I slapped myself later about that and decided to go back to the elementary after work to say goodbye to all the leaving teachers. At 4pm I went back to the elementary to say goodbye to Winnie-the-pooh sensei (my fav) and ran into Mr. Wonderful as I was coming out of the bathroom. Good timing. But all I could say to him was "Thank you for everything. I enjoyed our talks in English. They were fun. If you want to practie more English, just message me. Goodbye!" And then I left school. I didn`t give him any more than that becauese 1)just friends policy at the moment and 2) I forgot what I wanted to say to him.... Ah well, I hopefully will be able to see him again, one day. Until then, I will hold on to hope and go on with life with no regrets.

April 2nd Friday

Today I introduced myself to all the new incoming teachers. It was an assembly at the BOE and all the new teachers and principals/vice principal introduced themselves. The BOE people introduced ourselves also. Everyone did it in Japanese, obviously, so I did mine in English. haha. All the new teachers were confused, and the BOE people said I was pretty cool. =P Not a single hot teacher was there though. sad face.

In the evening was the welcome party for the elementary school. I was lucky enough to sit next Ayumi, the new helper teacher that replaced Yuki. I miss Yuki very much. She`s leaving the next day for a town 3 hours away from here. School just wont be the same without her. My kindred spirit. But Ayumi is the same age as I am and very sweet and easy to talk to. She doesn`t have the same humor as Yuki, but cute nonetheless...However, she`s married. 22 and she`s married...geez...I was like, wow. That`s young. haha. But I liked talking to her and we have the same interests. So I look forward to becoming better friends with her.

Our enkai was delicious and quite fun. I`ve been able to talk a lot to the teachers recently, so it`s a good thing. The new principal`s pretty funny. A little perverted, but funny. He was born on leap year, so even though he`s quite old looking, he`s actually only 14 because of the leap year thing. My first time meeting someone with a birthday on leap year. It`s an interesting phenomonen.

After that, we went to the second party. That was fun too. Drank lots, sang lots, and conversed enough. We then all went home at around 11pm or so. It was a good and tiring evening. And I have to prepare for heading off to Muroran the next day...

Otsukare for reading!

I believe my liver is going to kill me.

2010-04-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

March 20 Saturday

Yay 3 day weekend! I’m excited! Time to hang with people! Today I spent my morning cleaning up my apartment for my friends who are coming to chill at my place on Sunday. At around 3pm I left to go to Asahikawa to meet up at Alan’s where Steph and Erika were also chillin. The girls decided to come up to visit Alan in Asahikawa for today and then tomorrow move over to my place to spend the night. I drove over there to discover that they weren’t home and was actually at the local supermarket. So I headed on over there with my car. I was containing my excitement at being able to see them. Living out here in the countryside it’s really difficult to see people, so any chance I get I become really excited. I just had to look for the tall foreigners wandering around the store and finally found them passing an aisle. I ran over to them like a happy puppy. Alan says that the image of me running down the aisle like that was pretty funny. I couldn’t help it, I was happy and excited. Haha. Apparently they were shopping for the next days’ breakfast…though I don’t know if we’ll be able to actually wake up early enough for it, seeing how I’m pretty sure tonight is clubbing and drinking. Lol
At around 7pm we headed over to catch the bus to Asahikawa station to meet up with Alan’s Japanese teacher and her friends. They were going to take us to eat at an izakaya. Their English was amazingly good. They could speak it quite well actually. We spent quite a while walking, trying to find izakayas that would accept 7 people or had room for us. We had no reservations so it was pretty difficult. But, finally, we found a place that was able to take all of us in, providing we were able to finish eating before 10pm because there was another reservation in place. We ordered a nomihoudai, or all you can drink and loads and loads of food. We talked for a serious long time and ended up going past 10pm, but the waiters didn’t come in to shoo us out. So, there must have been an extra room available for them.

After that we all went to “The Den” which is the international bar in Asahikawa. There were a lot of other foreigners that night because it was St. Patty’s weekend. So there were many people there drinking and stuff. But my friends and I were just content with talking and being with each other. There were some strange guys there too, so we basically ignored a lot of them. Eheh. From there we went to “Monarch” which is the new club located in the basement of a building. I guess I’m already pretty used to going underground for clubs as shady as that sounds. =P The club was small, but it had a dance floor and a bar. It was pretty classily decked out, but the music played was definitely not good for dancing. Not hip hop at all. So it was a lil difficult to dance to. The DJ wasn’t that amazing either. When the DJ can leave the dance floor and leave his gear unattended, you know that the club’s not exactly up to par…lol We met some other foreigners there too, some who were pretty cute. But there was one particular guy we all found interesting to talk to. He worked in some kind of bank accounting thing in Tokyo area and has been working there for 13 years, yet doesn’t speak a word of Japanese and has no interest in Japan. Why would you stay working in a country for so long and not speak a word of the language or dislike being here? If it were me, I would have moved ages ago. But, I guess he’s making bank, because he seems to be having the good life as much as he doesn’t care for it here. At around 4:30am we left for Alan’s. At Alan’s before we went to sleep, we stayed up for another 15 minutes still talking…and then fell silent as we all drifted off to sleep at around 5am.

March 21 Sunday

Well, needless to say, we were tired, and didn’t wake up until the afternoon around 12pm. Lol Collin was already on his way down from his village, but we were still in the middle of getting up/getting ready. Since I didn’t have futons and many blankets at my apt, I asked to borrow Alan’s and load them in my car. Okay, so my car is very small. Not meant for a shit load of people or things. So when we crammed all those futons into the back, my car was ready to explode. Pile in 3 more tall foreigners and my car was gonna fall over. When I started to move the car, I thought it weird that it felt so heavy. I knew that everyone and all the futons and thick blankets in it weighed it down a little, but not that much. 10 minutes into the road, my car was shaking bad. We weren’t exactly sure what was going on. So we stopped at the local Lawson’s (conbini) and checked what was going on. My back left tire was flat. Actually, it was completely depleted of air. So that was why my car was shaking so violently. I went into the Lawson’s to ask one of the employees where the nearest gas station was because my tire had gone flat. And he was sweet enough to come out to take a look at it and change it for us…even though Erika was totally ready to do it. Awesome man.

However, in order for us to get the spare tire out of the trunk we had to unload all the futons crammed in the back, but it just burst out our doors as soon as we opened them….lol It was quite a funny sight to see though, I have to say. So it was basically us 4 foreigners stuck at Lawson’s with a flat tire. I’m sure the old man must have thought it funny. And it would be a good story for him. Haha. So with our spare tire tacked on, we went on our way to my place. We arrived there at the same time as Collin. We unpacked the spilling futons and dumped them in my little apt, which it just took up all the floor space. Lol We then went out to eat at the “Hillside Box” restaurant in Shibetsu. Since there were 5 of us big foreigners…well, I’m kinda tiny… so they gave us the large relaxation room with sofas to sit on and a huge window to view out of. We spent a good 3 hours just sitting in the room doing nothing but fun talking until the lady came into the room to tell us that there was a limit to how long we can stay in this room. So at that sign, we decided to leave and go sing Karaoke. Collin was awesome enough to drive us all so he wasn’t able to drink with us at the karaoke bar. Sorry! >.< Next time, for sure, yo!

We then came back from Karaoke to go to Yamamoto-tei in my town, but it was already closed. So we decided to head on back to Shibetsu and went to a ramen shop to eat. Lol We were all pretty tired by the end of it so we just returned home. Although we did not sleep until 4am since we just stayed up late talking. The next morning…at around 11am Collin went back to Sarufutsu and the rest of us decided to cook a very late breakfast. We didn’t eat until 2pm…lol After that, I drove everyone back to their houses on a super slippery/icy road, but was able to make it back in one piece on my spare tire. Haha.

March 23 Tuesday

Today was my Taiko performance debut! And it was at the elderly care center. Lol So, there were a lot of old people there that weren’t really aware of what was going on. But they were cute! I performed with no mistakes, but then again I wasn’t really nervous because I had gotten used to being on stage or in front of a lot of people, thanks to Tomo Modern and teaching. Everything went well and afterwards all the kids and their parents and I went to go have a little celebration party. Lotsa good food and a wonderful time spent with my children. I love them wholeheartedly and am sad that many of them are quiting after this to focus on studies in middle school and club activities…like baseball…Everyone in this town does baseball, dude, why not be different and do something else? Ah well, at least I still get to see them in school.

March 24th Wednesday

Today was the end of the year closing ceremony for all my schools, except my nursery. All the teachers who were leaving to change to go to a different school all said their goodbyes on the stage to all the students. It was a little tearful, but I still see them for another week or so before they actually move away. After the middle school’s farewell ceremony I went to the elementary to have lunch, bought by my principle for all the teachers. It was huge and delicious.

In the evening was the farewell party/soubetsukai for the middle school held in Shibetsu. The food we had was wonderfully delicious, but so fatty because it was drenched in butter. It’s butter yaki or so they call it. You spread a block of butter on the hot plate and then cook meat and veggies on it. I didn’t drink at all at the 1st party because there was nothing besides beer…and I’m kinda on a diet so I didn’t want to drink just beer. But at the second party which was at a lounge/bar there was all you can drink alcohol! YES! And it had shots! WHOO! I asked the teachers around me if it was okay to order a shot and they were like “er….sure…?” They weren’t used to drinking shots and were surprised to hear me say it. When one of them asked the bartender for a shot of tequila for me, the bartender just stared at him incredulously and was like “A SHOT?! OF TEQUILA!? REALLY?” And I saw the teacher point to me and said that it was for me…and that was what surprised the bartender even more. Haha. Well, when I got the shot, even I was shocked. It was basically a double shot of tequila! The glass was the size of a whiskey glass. Like, dude, this was a shot, one shot, of tequila!???!! Well, I didn’t question it too much and just gulped the whole thing down. I didn’t bother to stop after drinking half of it, I just downed it all….Yeah, I’m crazy. After I set the glass back on the table, all the teachers just looked at me and was like “Wow, we just lost.” Lol Waha, American drinking style right there! And then I had a lot more alcoholic drinks after that. Mainly strong drinks made specially by the bartender for me. Heh =P

March 26th Friday

Tonight was the farewell party for the elementary school. It was in Asahikawa, at the Asahikawa Grand Hotel. The most expensive and luxurious hotel in all of the city. And that is why the entire night, plus the hotel room, cost me around $200…..>.< Geez. For one party, I forked over that much money. But I think I’m getting used to tossing my money around for all these parties Japanese people like to have and order expensive foods and all. *sigh* It’s just part of the life here. Well, this was a formal party that everyone had to dress up nicely for and I decided to wear my tube top dress with black leggings and my silver heels. Because the top was too revealing, I wore my faux fur coat over it the entire time…lol When I walked into the room, all the female teachers were like “AH! Kawaii!!” hehe. I saw out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Wonderful look over at me. He himself was looking pretty fly in his suit as well.

Sadly, our seats were at different tables, so we didn’t sit next to each other. We had some bomb foods. Like they were seriously high class and you can tell it was expensive. The dinner alone cost everyone $70.00. Then all the leaving teachers came up one by one to be presented with flowers and thank you notes. Apparently, from what I heard later because I seem to have not been paying real attention, Mr. Wonderful made a shocking announcement that changed my feelings about him. That day marked the anniversary of his breakup with his girlfriend of 3 years…Yeah. He announced it basically. So, obviously, he’s still carrying some baggage about it. There’s no way that he went out with her for 3 years and didn’t still think about or have feelings for her now. Not by the way he announced it at least. I mean, he didn’t look dejected or sound like it at all…but still, there’s a reason why he would announce something like that. I don’t know. All I know is that the whole announcement thing really settled the fact that I just want to be friends with him for now. I don’t want to date a guy who’s still got this problem of an old flame. I don’t want to be a rebound girl. I thought that most people, after a year, would be over it by now, but I guess it depends on the person. So I’m not gonna go after him. I’ll wait until he’s more available mentally. So, friends it is.

After the 1st party, we had a second party with all you can drink alcohol for 120 minutes up on the 17th floor where the hotel’s bar was. We had a private room reserved for us complete with a beautiful large window to view the nightscape. Breathtaking. Yeah, my elementary teachers know how to live it up. *.* As we came in, Mr. Wonderful looked a little sheepish and laughed a little bit. One of the teachers was then like, “Oh yeah! That’s right! You used to work here right?” And he said, “Yeah, I used to be a bartender here.” O.O OMG! THAT IS SO HOT! A BARTENDER! Hello! And the thing is, I can totally see him doing it too. >D I sat between Yuki and a leaving teacher and in front of me was the vice principal. He called over Mr. Wonderful to come sit next to him. So Mr. Wonderful sat diagonal from me. I took that chance to talk to him as much as I could. I just kept saying his name before I asked him questions and stuff. And plus I had a shit load of alcohol to drink, so my confidence was building up and my courage was overflowing. Words just seemed to come out of my mouth asking the randomest questions.

All the teachers there were fairly tipsy, if not drunk. So we had a grand ol’ time laughing it up and being all cooky. And because Mr. Wonderful used to work there and the bartenders knew him, they brought over complementary fruit plates for all of us! Awesome! After the 2nd party, we all went out to a local bar for more all you can drink alcohol. By that time, I was pretty relaxed because I had so much alcohol. But when we walked into the bar, I got excited and was like, omg, I’m ordering shots! No shots, no party. And it was a bar dude! You had to drink a shot at the bar! We got our own little room to sit in and, unfortunately, Mr. Wonderful sat 2 people down to the left of me. But that did not hinder me talking to him. I would look over and chat him up still. Haha. And then my tequila shot came and I downed it. One of the teachers asked me if I was feeling okay and if something bad happened to me recently. I was like “No. These are shots of happiness! I love shots! This is how Americans drink most of the time at parties. We tip our heads back and down the shot.” So he was like, “Alright, Theresa, order me one too!” I stared at him and was like are you sure you want one? Because in Japan, people don’t usually do shots and it’s not exactly normal at parties. So they were all surprised to see me chug it down. Lol Well, I ordered him one more, and me one as well. We cheered and downed it. The principal had a drop of it before we downed it and was like, “My throat feels really warm right now…actually kind of burning.” Lol Yes, that’s what tequila does to you. And it’s one of the strongest alcohols. So, yeah, of course we ordered another pair.

Mr. Wonderful then asked me if you usually always lick the salt first, then drink the tequila, and then eat the lemon. I was like “Well, yeah. I don’t know of any other way to drink tequila.” And he said, “Well, I have a friend that sniffs the salt, drinks the tequila, and squeezes the lemon in her eye.” And I just stared at him and said “That. Hurts. It’s not normal.” At the same time I thought ‘you must be drunk or that girl was high.’ Because that’s not normal…at all…no matter how crazy a party….you have to be on ecstasy or something to get up the courage to do that. When the principal asked him if that wouldn’t hurt, he answered that it hurt the girl’s nose when she sniffed the salt. And I was like, ‘and the lemon didn’t when it was squeezed into her eyes?’ Seriously, what kind of person do you have to be to like that kind of excruciating pain!!?? Salt and lemon, yo! Salt and lemon! In yo nose and eye! WHA?! This is going to stay in my memory forever dude. I’m not going to be able to forget this….lol

Before we left, there was still one more shot of tequila left to drink, so I was like “5th grade teacher! The tequila! Drink up!” And he had this resigned look on his face, “Oh Theresa. You`re riding in my car tomorrow, right? (Implying that is it safe for him to drive tomorrow after so much alcohol?)” “Yes, I am. So drink!” lol I was chocked full of liquor and I wasn`t too conscious about what I was talking about anymore. Much like Mr. Wonderful and that tequila story…lol eheh.

For the fourth and final party we went to sing karaoke. When Exile`s song, "Choo Choo Train", came up all the young male teachers stood up to dance to it. It was awesome. Yes, it reminded me that the male teachers are still really young (at heart as well) and still boys, and pretty cool hip for teachers. But then again, this is Japan, where the teachers are pretty oshare and don`t act like teachers when not in the classroom. They reminded me of college friends. heh. =P Again, we had all you can drink alcohol/nomihoudai and by that time, I was feeling pretty loose and very little control over myself. So, I was ordering alcohol left and right. I would yell it over the table to the waitress since I was sitting in the very back of the room. Oh, and because I had so much alcohol from the beginning, I also began constantly pouring alcohol for the other teachers and calling for more alcohol and other drinks for the other teachers. ~~;

Mr. Wonderful and I sang a duet together. Well, I sang, he rapped. It was to Aoyama Thelma`s "Soba ni iru ne". He`s so damn good at rapping! Anyways, afterwards we all parted ways to head back to the hotel at 4am. I was wearing my silver anklestrapped heels not made for walking in the snow. So I was basically skipping and hopping around because I kept getting snow inside my heels, very f-in cold. I was hopping around saying "OMG, cold! Cold! Cold! Snow in heels! Cold!" The other teachers were all laughing and Mr. Wonderful chuckled.

Finally when we went back to our rooms, he was on the same floor as I was so I took that chance to ask him for his cell phone info. I told him "I want to send you text mails, but I can`t" He just kind of gave a chuckle of sorts and sagged his shoulders. I wasn`t sure what that was, but we were able to exchange info. So I wasn`t going to get too caught up in analyzing that action he did. We then said goodnight to each other and went back to our rooms. I took a bath and chilled until around 4:30am and fell asleep to wake up at 7:30am....Yeah....

March 27th Saturday

Woke up at an awful early time after sleeping so late last night and then went to eat some McDonald`s with Yuki. We discussed all the stuff that happened last night. I asked her if I sounded strange or out of the ordinary when talking with the teachers last night because I had so much alcohol. And I remember myself constantly calling Mr. Wonderful`s name and talking to him. She was like, "Yeah, you really talked to him alot! Like constantly, but it didn`t sound bad! You sounded very natural when you were talking. It was actually a very good feeling between you two." YES! Good, but I doubt he remembers anything because he was drunk...lol

Oh, and a bit of info I forgot to put in for something that also happened yesterday: At the third party in the bar, sitting next to Mr. Wonderful was one of the leaving teachers who read fortunes and stuff. So she was explaining to me my fortune. She said that right now is not a good time for me to get into relationships and stuff. And not many things will be going too great for me, but come July things will get better. Hopefully. That`s when my family might be coming and when I will be able to go camping, possibly, with Mr. Wonderful. I`ll wait until that time to see if anything happens. The teacher also said that I`m a really easy person to date. I`m thinkng that means I can date and get along with just about anybody. Well, that`s good to know. Eheh. Alright guys, maybe something awesome will happen in July. Waiting on it.

Otsukare guys! I know this was a long post, but there`s been so many things happening that I wasn`t able to create the time to write in my blog. But thanks for reading nonetheless and sorry for the late delay.

I`m Quite Elated. ~_~

2010-03-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

March 17th Wednesday

I waited today for Mr. Wonderful`s text message, but nothing came. So I`m assuming that he either forgot about it and was too busy or he didn`t want to eat with me. Ah well, I wasn`t too bummed about it. I had taiko practice today, so I put all my passion into it. Next Tuesday is my taiko debut at an elderly care center playing alongside my elementary babies. haha. Yay!

March 18th Thursday

Today was big setting up for the graduation ceremony for the 6th graders at the elementary. Again, I had no classes at the high school, so I stayed at the elementary the whole day. =P After school was over and everything, all the teachers went to the gym to help set up. I went as well. There were so many flowers, a red carpet, and a huge backdrop of sakura trees. So pretty!

So, obviously, Mr. Wonderful was there helping as well. Though I minded my own business, I still couldn`t help but look at him. lol As I was helping with putting the graduation banners against some tables I had to move the craftwork that the kids made that were on the table. Mr. Wonderful was on the total opposite side of me with many other teachers in between us, but then he came over right next to me, right where I was working at the other end and started moving the stuff with me. It was the first time in a long time that he actually got that close to me. I originally thought that he was ignoring/avoiding me so I didn`t give him too much thought before since he hasn`t really been talking to me, but when he came so close to me-like serious, it was close, our shoulders were kinda touching, or rather my shoulder to his biceps..lol he`s tall- I kinda was taken off guard. I was not prepared for him to be so close to me. And I wondered why exactly he came over here when he was at the other end fixing up things over there. Still a mystery to me, but I did get a lil nervous, even after my whole confidence burst thing.

One assumption I`d like to make about this action is that maybe he found out where he`s placed so maybe he knows that it`s nearby so he doesn`t mind striking up a friendlier relationship. Maybe because, originally, he didn`t want to talk to me too much or become friends with me too much because he was going to move soon, and he wasn`t sure how far away he would be going to. He doesn`t want to make ties and then have to cut them. But I found out after asking him later that he`s actually just in the city next to my town. So only 15 minutes away. YES! Close! So maybe that`s why he`s nicer and doesn`t mind getting close to me now. I could be wrong and it`s just nothing.

So he would reach right across from me to move things, so his arm is like right in front of my chest and he`d lean over just a little. I wasn`t sure what to make of it, but I kept my cool and went about my work, hardly talking to him. (playin hard to get =P) Later when I was walking with Yuki and he was behind us, I decided to take the oppurtunity to talk to him and ask him about dinner/lunch plans. He said he was still busy and he hasn`t emailed me about it yet. So...yeah, nothing for that night. Boo...ah well.

March 19th Friday

6th grade graduation ceremony. I was supposed to go to the middle school this day, but I ended up going to elementary all day today because of the graduation. I got to see all my kids in their new middle school uniforms. I was so proud of them, like a motbher would be. They were growing up, and those uniforms were the beginning of their maturity. When I got there, I once again, missed the picture opp. The ceremony was even more serious than the middle school one. I`d say that the middle school one was really casual compared to this one. All the graduating kids, upon entering, had to bow once and walk to their chair, then walk on the red carpet slowly and deliberately, stand a certain lenght away from each other while walking, and then rise up the stairs to the stage slowly and with care, bow once to the principal, bow again after getting their certificate, walk to the other stairs, make a little comment of appreciation and what they want to work on in middle school, get down the stairs, bow to the teachers, bow to the PTA, bow to their parents, give the diploma to them, bow again, and walk back to their seats. (whew! saying all that was tiring actually) No smiling or anything like that. Just straight faces. It was total opposite of an American graduation. But then again, we don`t really hold grad ceremonies for elementary kids. I wasn`t sure how i liked it though. It was moving because each of the younger grades sang a song for them and made a speech, and by the end of it, all the 6th grade kids were crying. Dude, it`s just elementary too. There`s still the another 6 years before graduating high school. THat`s when the tears really come in.

Anyways the ceremony was long, but it was moving. After that there was the party at Lakeside Sakuraoka. That was awesome! The mom`s all did a dance performance for the kids, the Dads all did one too to Arashi, and the teachers did the awkward Pirameita dance. haha. Mr. Wonderful looked sooo cute in it. And he was wearing a tight white shirt that showed off his muscles in the totally right way. >D At the end all the kids gave us flowers. I got two bouquets! Whoo. After that, we all went back to the school to clean up. There were so many extra flowers left over so we were able to pick and choose a crap load of flowers to take home.

I was then invited to dinner with the elementary teachers at 5pm at the local izakaya. Awesome. I picked up Yuki around that time and we both went there together. At the izakaya, I was hoping to maybe sit next to Mr. Wonderful, but he didn`t come until late and we came early so our seats were at the end of the tables. But there were only a total of 8 people, so it wasn`t bad. He actually talked to me a lot and this is were I learned about where he was going to be placed. His English is wonderful, so we tried to talk in English alot. After this we went to the nijikai at another izakaya opened until late into the evening.

There we met the PTA parents all being rowdy and loud cuz they were all drunk. haha. And, by luck, because I came later then the other teachers, I was able to sit next to Mr. Wonderful. Man, he looked so good today with his black fitted jacket and black jeans. Although his shirt was something else...lol So maybe because of the alcohol and rowdy atmosphere he became really animated in talking to me. He used English most of the time with me and talked about alot of stuff. I was so ecstatic to be able to talk to him like this, and best of all, I didn`t lose my cool. hehe. So this is where I decided to sell my qualities to him. haha. He has a lot of the same interests as me, but I don`t think he knows or really remembers.

So first off, I asked him what his hobbies and stuff were. Just really basic questions. He likes cooking (always a hot plus) and bird watching. He really really likes birds. They`re his favorite animal and his hobby. He can tell what the bird`s species is just by looking at them! That`s amazing. He told me that when he studied nature, there were different subjects that he could choose from: plants, flowers (at which I gave a pleasant exclamation because I studied them), animals, birds, etc., of which he chose birds. I told him that I studied flowers in high school, which was the truth. I had to do a plant project so I logged flowers that I would find while treking through forests and and dry them. I quite liked it because I enjoy walking through forests and adventures. When I told him all that he was really surprised. lol I guess he tried to test my knowledge of flowers by asking what flower do I like. I figured if I said "rose" or "tulip" that would just be too boring and common. So I chose the California Poppy, although I like hydrangeas and hibiscuses better. He had never heard of it, which was good because I was able to show him my knowledge of some basic flowers, and asked me to describe it. Then he stopped and looked at me and was like, "I like poppies." lol

He also said he likes camping, to which I was also pretty ecstatic about. I told him I used to do it quite alot. I did more hiking than camping, but I did do a little of the latter. He was also really quite surprised to hear that. He just looked at me and was like, "OMG, really?" and then said "ii desu ne!" And we carried on a pretty good conversation with that. He told me that most Japanese people don`t really go camping and it`s rare to do so. So I told him if he could please tell me the next time he went camping and he said that he totally will. YAY!!! I think I`ve gotten him somewhat interested in me, somehow. Maybe it was the alcohol talking and I hope he remembers what we talked about. I don`t want to bet that it was my charm working on him because i`m sure the alcohol did help in him loosening up to talk to me. The atmosphre was prime for fun talking too.

It was really quite loud in the place because all the Mom`s were singing and dancing and just being crazy...lol So, when Mr. Wonderful was talking to me we had to get really close to hear each other so that our bodies were basically touching. It didn`t feel awkward or suspicious doing any of that because of the atmosphere. lol I felt quite happy with that. haha. I figured this was my chance to ask him for his phone info, but since he couldn`t really remember his mail address I then asked him if he had his cell with him. He said he left it at home and forgot to bring it which was entirely possible. So I just asked him for his phone number. He did his best, after drinking so much alcohol, to tell it to me. And I was just only going to type in his last name with a sensei tacked onto it, but then he told me that his first name was "Tatsuya" and to type that in. I was quite elated. I was like wow, you`re telling me your first name too? Hopefully, he really meant to give me his phone number and it`s not fake. Well, the only way to find out is to call him.

After he talked to me at the sofa area he decided to go to the bar and drink with the male teachers until he fell asleep. I could tell from when we were talking he was already quite tired. We woke him up later to leave and I offered to take him home along with Yuki and 2 other male teahcers that live in the same area. He sat in the front seat with me. heehee. When I stopped to drop them all off in a general surrounding area of where their apts. were all located he was the last to get out. I believe that he waited until everyone else got out of the car and then got out after. I don`t know if maybe he was just really tired or planned it that way, but when he got out of the car he looked at me with a very soft sweet look and said "See you." I replied the same back, but with a little flutter in my stomach. The way he said it was just so sweet and different from the other times. And it`s the first time he`s ever said "see you" to me.

That night, I went home quite happy and sure that I somehow made an impression on him of some sort. Or at least I hope I did. And that last "see you" was wonderous. I really hope that we can continue on to be better friends, and maybe something more. Right now, I`m just content with being friends with him. That`s all I want right now. If something happens later on that`s even better, then great. If not, I won`t be too sad.

Otsukare! Love you all and thanks for giving me the confidence to do all this! I love my friends and family!

A Me That I Thought I Had Lost.

2010-03-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

March 13 Saturday

So today I was invited out by Alan to go with him, Megan, and 2 other Asahikawa ALTs to go out for dinner. I spent the day doing absolutely nothing except lounge around and watch TV and eating...lol But at around 6pm I left my place to drive to Asahikawa to meet them. Well, it was blizzarding outside and I couldn`t see the road...so it wasn`t the most pleasant drive. But I got there safely, picked up Alan, and went to go meet the other girls at the train station. So we all piled into my little car-I`m assuming it was a lil tight in the back seat lol-and decided to go eat some soup curry.

OMG, this was like the best soup curry I`ve ever had. It was so delicious and wonderful and freakin spicy. It was so spicy I immediately started sweating upon having 2 spoons of it. lol But delicious regardless. I also really liked the decor. It had a bunch of post war memorabilia, like posters of old movies, bottle caps, and candy wrappers hung on the walls. It was so cute! The outside of it though looked just like a house. Like, seriously, it was even in the smack dab middle of the residential area. When my friends was trying to guide me to it, I was like..."Are you sure it`s here? Cuz it looks like it`s all just houses..." lol And it would not be allowed in the states. haha. But it was delicious and we had a grand old time of it.

Afterwards we went to karaoke at Oedo. And it was packed with people that night. But we managed to get a small room with the TV really close to us and with awesome decor. The interior looked like the set of an sci-fi action movie. The walls looked like they were made of grey rock tiles screwed in by large screws. The wall which held the TV actually had a black fence that kept you away from the strange mechanisms and electric wires on the other side. And there was an emergeny door that had caution tapes haphazardly pasted every where on it. We were, however, wondering if that was actually for real or if it just goes with the decor. But it was sooo cool! I love karaoke in Japan. haha.

We sang until midnight and I dropped everyone off and decided to head on home....at like 2am. Not so smart of me as I should have stayed at Alan`s and spent the night there instead of driving an hour in the blizzard home. I was already starting to feel sleepy halfway home and I was in a state of barely consciousness. In between heavy half-lidded eyes I could see that my car was drifting towards the left side a little. When I made myself fully conscious again I realized I was coming on to a snow covered side walk very fast. My car bumped up on to the sidewalk fast enough to cause my little kei (super light) car to almost flip over. And it freaked the hell out of me. But I was able to get it back onto the main road without any further incidences. Needless to say, that woke me up and I didn`t lose consciousness for the rest of the way home...=P

March 14th Sunday

Happy White Day!! Although I forgot to give people chocolate on Valentine`s day so I`m not expecting anything. haha.

March 15th Monday

Last day teaching my Sakura-gumi 5-6 year old babies. I love these kids and will miss being able to teach them because I don`t teach 1st or 2nd grade kids. Only 3rd and up. So I just basically played alot of games with them. That`s all I did with them that day. haha. Then, despite not having class at the elementary that day I still went and just sat in the teacher`s lounge minding my own work. However, at around 3pm, all the teachers and the 5th graders all gathered in the gym to help setup for the graduation ceremony this coming friday. It was actually pretty fun to work with everybody. But kinda tiring and my arms got a pretty good workout from carrying 4 heavy chairs (the kind you can fold up to put away to save space) down from the second floor to the gym about 3 times. The walk`s quite far and the chairs were really heavy. My biceps were pretty sore afterwards. =P

I was also able to see Mr. Wonderful. Although we didn`t really talk too much because we were both busy helping the kids setup stuff. Although in the end when he came closer to me after we all finished with our work and the kids went home, I asked him about his cell email address. I couldn`t send him a message because it didn`t work. He said, "Yappari, it was a hypen and not an underscore..." I told him that it was okay and to just tell me his email when he can. He said he couldn`t go out to dinner tonight either, even though I didn`t ask him that. But I could tell he was sorry. I took it really casually and just told him it`s no problem.

Actually, I`ve been feeling pretty casual about the whole thing lately and my confidence in myself has gone up. I no longer flutter and forget things when I`m around him and am able to speak properly and with strength in my voice (not the meek lil thing that I do around Japanese people). It`s all thanks to my wonderful friends` support and belief in who I really am that I feel super proud to be the me I am now. So in my mind and heart, when I`m talking to people now, I talk with confidence and strength and pride. I like who I am, and if other people don`t like me for myself, then they`re not people I need to focus on or particularly befriend. So same goes for Mr. Wonderful. As great and wonderous as he is, if he doesn`t like me for me then I was not meant to date him. Even if he rejects me when I confess, I feel like it`s not going to be so bad because it just meant that he`s not the guy for me at the moment and I`ll either find someone better or there might be a chance with him in the future if I can stay friends with him. So yeah.

March 16th Tuesday

Today I just spent the whole day at the elementary school, playing with my kids and making cookies, cakes, donuts, pudding with my 6th graders. Today was their mini at school graduation party. They invited all the teachers to the music room and had tables and chairs set up with all the amazing sweets that these kids had made on top. It was so much fun and the sweets were delicious. I was so proud of them. The kids sang a very cute song at the end and the kids were so funny too. Loved them, but then again, they`re wonderful like that every day.

After all that was over and I went back to the teacher`s lounge and then I decided to go find Mr. Wonderful to address the not being able to message him and whether or not he would like to have dinner Wednesday night. So I went into his classroom with assurity and confidence and genkiness and was able to talk to him normally, like I talk with my friends. I spoke to him mainly in English, so here we go: "Mr. Wonderful? Sorry for interrupting you, but are you still okay for dinner Wednesday night?" "Ah, that`s right. Hmm...." (he was trying to figure out if Wednesday was ok or not) Me: "You still don`t know yet?" "Yeah, sorry." "No problem. Hmm...how about if you message me about tomorrow whether you can or not? And if you are too busy tomorrow night then we can always go for lunch on a weekend or something. Just message me about it." "Oh okay! Oh, but could you write down your cell email address again? I`m sorry, but I lost it." "Yeah sure!" (He handed me a piece of paper to write on and we were silent for a while as I wrote.) I told him, "I tried messaging you, but it didn`t go through last time." "Oh yes, then it really must`ve been wrong then. Sorry about that." "No worries. So if you can email me, then I can just find your address via that." "Yeah, I will. My email address starts with a `maestro` so when you see that, it`s from me." "Alright! Then I will wait for that email. Thank you!" "You`re welcome." And I turned and walked out of the classroom.

I have to say, I felt pretty good with that convo because I was able to talk to him without blanking out for the first time and with casuality. haha. =P Now, whether he actually texts me about dinner Wednesday night is another thing. He might pull a "Oh sorry, I was busy and was unable to go out and kind of forgot to message you" on me and then I think I might get the hint from that, although I dislike it when people keep postponing things instead of directly saying "I don`t want to go." It may sound like you`re being nice, but trust me, it actually hurts more than saying it directly because one keeps hoping instead of knowing.

So after that I went to the nurse`s office to chat with the nurse (not Yuki, but equally wonderful to talk to) I got roped in to helping her finish her graduation banner for the 6th graders. Actually, 10 minutes in to helping her she said she had to leave and asked if I could just do what I can and continue cutting the paper sakura and pasting them onto the banner. I like arts and crafts stuff, so I was more than happy to help. But then I realized afterwards that I think I might`ve been used. haha. I knew she wanted to go home, but couldn`t until she did majority of the banner. So she left the rest up to me. haha. I didn`t mind, I actually thought it was funny. Yuki was going to help me as well, but ended up having to go home early so wasn`t able to help at all. haha. She apologized though. =P So in the end, it was just me in the nurse`s office on my own cutting 50 something sakura flowers and pasting them on to the banner. Actually originally I was cutting them one by one, then thought what a waste of time it was to cut them one by one like that, so folded up all the paper and cut out about 100 of them after 6 cuts. Then pasted, and finished within an hour, whereas I think it would`ve taken me 3 hours without the folding....lol

Tonight was the BOE casual dinner at the best BBQ/Yakinku place in town. I got there right on time, thinking I`d be late. And I get there, and no one`s there....But after a little bit my predecessor came in and the others soon followed. (My pred`s here for a week and actually left this [Wednesday] morning). We had a wonderful and super fun dinner that lasted quite a while. Then afterwarads went to go to the bar next to me apt for drinking and karaoke. That was hilarious actually. The guys started dancing to songs and singing all weird and then everyone tried to translate the song as we sang...that was pretty funny. Anyways, a good night, but I smell like Yakinku and cigarettes...eww... I need to wash my jacket somehow...get rid of the smell. >.<

So here`s to hoping that Mr. Wonderful will somehow contact me about dinner or lunch or something. And then I can finally know what`s going on. If not, then maybe he`s not the guy I`m supposed to date...heh.

Otsukare for reading!

What should I be feeling...?

2010-03-11T15:26:00.000-08:00

March 5 Friday

So today at the middle school was pretty fun. After lunch was over, all the students gathered in the gym for a game to play in honor of the 3rd years graduating. I wasn`t exactly sure what game we were playing, but I just followed along. It seems that the students have a time limit to find all the pictures that are hidden throughout the school. Once that 1st time limit is up, then they send a certain amount of people who are the "oni" or those who are "it" out to catch the other students. They`re allowed to go hide and stuff throughout the school, but they cannot run, so they speedwalk. lol It was pretty funny to see. haha. Anyways, after that game they then had to do a triatholon in which they played mini games of ping pong, basketball, and group jump rope.

March 6th and 7th Saturday and Sunday

Saturday, went to Asahikawa to have an awesome lunch with Su. We drove around awhile looking for a good place to go eat and decided to eat at this place called "Kankoku-mura" which means Korean village. And it was the first time, in a long time (say a year) that I had real Korean food and not just Japanese bibimbap (which btw, they think is Chinese.....>.<) or kimchi or kalbi/bulgogi. It was soooo good! The place was even decorated Korean style and everything. I hardcore missed sundubu and they totally had it there! Yes! Although I still really miss Irvine`s sundubu/Korean restaurants. Even more then that, I miss Korea, my other homeland aside from US, Taiwan, and Japan. haha. We talked for several hours and then went to go get my back breaklight fixed because the one on the left had gone out. Then went home to do absolutely nothing.

Sunday was just talking with family (which they are planning on coming here in the summer! Yay!) and cleaning the house.

March 10 Wednesday

Wow. So this day was the middle school 3rd years (9th graders) graduation. And it was so formal and very Japanesey. lol Well, first off, when I went into the teacher`s office all the teachers were wearing black. Just all black; black suits, black dresses, black shoes, black purses. And I was the only one who had a navy blue suit jacket with really thin white stripes and a red tank top underneath. I felt like I had walked into a funeral procession of sorts. So I asked one of the teachers here if I should also be in all black, but she says that I`m fine and that for happy celebrations like this Japanese people always wear black. Err...ok. o.O

Anyways, my predecessor also came to the celebration. He flew here from the states a couple of days ago to come see the 3rd years graduate since he was with them the longest. I think that maybe he secretly came to see his girlfriend who was a teacher at the middle school.......=P I was actually slightly, slightly late for the ceremony. All because I forgot my schedule book in the staff room so I had to run back from the gym to get it. eheh. But I still made it on time before the 3rd years came walking in and the band started playing the graduation song. There was so much bowing and strict formal tradition in this whole process. The students have to have a very good posture while walking to their seats or walking up to the stage/podium to accept their certificate from the principal. Bow once before the principle, accept the certificate, step back, bow again, take one step back and turn to face the audience, walk down the stairs, bow to the BOE on the opposite side of the teachers, walk to their parents (where a little white table was set up where the parents go up to the table when their child comes), bow to their parents, hand over the certificate to them, bow again, and walk with good posture back to their seats... I was quite surprised actually. But amazed at the good discipline of these kids.

Then afterwards, when the 3rd year students` representatives, one boy and one girl, came to the front to give a speech to everyone, it was the most heartwrenching sobfest ever! Because this is a small school and there is only 1 class for every grade level (no 3A, 3B, 3C. Just 3A cuz there`s not that many students that they all fit in one class), and because they`ve all been together for 9 years of their lives never changing classes and some have been together since preschool, this is the first time that they will be seperated from each other. All the students are going to different high schools as all the high schools here are like specialty schools. My best English speaking student is going all the way to Sapporo in the best language school there. So, because this is the first time they`re going to be leaving each other, they have so much precious memories together, that everyone started crying. The students made a speech to thank all the teachers, all the younger students, and lastly, their precious classmates. I told myself I wasn`t going to cry, but I ended up doing so. It was just so touching. I felt like this was an US high school graduation where that was the final stage for everyone leaving each other and going to different schools/countries.

After the speech, the 3rd years sang a chorus song for everyone. They had one student come play the piano and one student conduct. Now, everyone was still crying/sniffling from the speech and one of the boys, the conductor, was red from crying and couldn`t stop sniffling really. So when he got up there, he tried to look strong and hold it all back, but as soon as the song started because it was such a sad sounding song and to look at all your friends crying, he couldn`t hold it in any longer and tears started pouring from his face, yet he still conducted wonderfully. He actually had to close his eyes for a while because he couldn`t stop crying. It was, seriously, one of the most touching and heartbreaking graduation ceremonies I`ve ever been to. When asked later by my teachers about how was a Japanese graduation compared to American ones, I said that the American ones are usually a big celebration and everyone`s just ridiculously happy and having fun, especially college ones. The high school one is probably the only really tearing one because that`s when everyone really seperates. But middle school was never that bad. But then again, most schools in America are big and graduating classes are about 300 and more students. This school only had 25 students graduating. Yeah, the whole 3rd year (9th grade) consists of only 25 students.

After the sobfest, the students and their parents went to the Lakeside Sakuraoka hotel to have a party. The teachers also all went. It was a buffet style lunch, which was absolutely delicious, and then the kids all performed songs and just had fun. Then the MC called up all the teachers to make speeches. I was last and I was ready to give a good speech in English. It was simple slow English so that everyone, even the parents who have not studied English in forever can understand. Although i got a bit excited. haha. I started out with "minna (everyone) CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!" Everyone thought I was going to speak Japanese, but I busted out the English. heh. At the congratulations part all my students whooped and clapped and yelled. And I couldn`t help it, I got caught up in their enthusiasm, and let my American self go and also whooooooooooooo-ed into the mic. ehehe. I`m sure the other teachers were a little taken aback. But the kids were all for it. haha. I told them "your English is very good! So in high school, good luck! I believe in you. You can do it! Yes, you can!" And my students whooped again after that. And then I realized afterwards, oh, maybe I shouldn`t have did the whoop thing, cuz that might`ve scared the other teachers for a little bit. ehehe. Ah well, I`m American, let them just think that. Or at least I hope they`ll think that. ~_~;

After the ceremony we all went home and went to ponder about how I`m going to confess to Mr. Wonderful. I had already decided that I will confess to him on Wednesday night because that is the only night that I believe he will be alone in the classroom. Thursday night there will be other teachers there till late in the evening, and Friday night, he probably goes home early. So I decided to go at around 8pm. I went over there and saw that there were still 3 other cars there. So I went back home and decided to come over at 9pm, other teachers were still there. Went back home again, tried 10pm, and there was still at least one teacher there. So in the end after driving around for another 10 minutes I decided that I would just go in there, ask him to come out to talk in the hallway and confess to him there, as awkward and weird as it may be to the other teacher there. I got there ready to do it, then discovered that the lights were all off and all the cars were gone. *sigh* I had missed him by a couple of minutes. And I was so ready too....>.<; Man. I was thinking to myself how bad everything is turning out and decided to go home dejectedly.

At home, after having a good long talk with Collin about this mess, getting a guys POV, it made better sense to me to ask Mr. Wonderful out to dinner first before confessing. It`s better to confess in not a work environment. At school, it would be kind of awkward. Even though I would never really do that because I`m not really aggressive and I don`t like to take the initiative with a guy. But if I don`t, I won`t get my chance. And plus, he`s a Japanese guy, so unfortunately, being the foreign girl, I have to take the initiative... So I decided to do just that the next day.

March 11th Thursday

Well, I waited until the end of the day after 5th period to walk into his classroom to ask him to dinner. I was kind of nervous, but not as nervous as I was when I went to ask about the snowboard. I felt kind of....complacent..? Anyways, I walked in there, and as soon as I did, I forgot what I was going to say. And then I just stood there after saying hello to him and was like "oh no, I forgot what I was going to say...uh, hold on." And then finally was able to ask him about where he got placed in for his next school. He still doesn`t know yet apparetnly. Then I asked him are you always here until 9 or 10 at night which he says, "yes, just about every night." "Well then, what do you do about food?" "I go home to eat it afterwards." "At 10 at night?!!" "Yes. haha" "WOW." "Well, hmm...If you`re okay with it, how about dinner sometime? Maybe tonight? Or tomorrow?" "Uh, I`m pretty busy these last few days because of the graduation ceremonies coming up and everything." "Oh, yes, I understand. Then maybe next week? Monday?" "Mondays are not the best for me, tuesdays too. But maybe Wednesday might be ok." "Oh, alrgith then. Well, how about we exchange cell phone mail so that we can message each other a good time for it?" "Oh, yeah, sure that`d be fine."

So we exchanged cell phone mail addresses, but he said that his might be wrong because it`s so long that he can`t really remember it all himself. And indeed it was quite long. But he said that if it`s wrong and after he checks his email he`ll tell me again. Because neither of us had our phones on us since they were all in the staff room and we were in his classroom. So we chatted for 5 more minutes or so and then I told him I will text him and said thank you and left.

After school was over I went to the large playroom to see what my friend Yuki was doing. Her and my favorite "Winnie the Pooh-Kitagawa-sensei" and Mr. Wonderful were mixing paint to color the 6th grade graduation banner with. So I decided to help out to which Kitagawa-sensei was more than delighted. I love this man, my fav teacher here. SOOO Cute. Like a bear, and his voice sounds like Pooh too. heheh.^^ Well, he then left to go to do some other errands, and so it was jut me and the other two. I love chatting with Yuki because she`s so much fun and outgoing and happy and just a great gal all around. And it seems that Mr. Wonderful does too. He really liked to chat with her. All I could do, because I`m not yet fluent in Japanese, and it was difficult to hear everything spoken in normal speed Japanese, was just sit there, nod and occasionally laugh at their comments. I couldn`t really say anythnig because I wasn`t sure what they were saying. I did ask some questions but there were mainly about vocab and what the subject that they were talking about. It`s difficult to grasp subjects in japanese as they don`t really say them sometimes....

So after seeing them go at it with a wonderful fun time conversation, I realized how pitiful my Japanese level was and how inept at conversation I was in it. And how I could never have as lively a conversation as they could have together. He really laughed alot and had fun talking with her. And maybe, I got a sense that he might be into her. Maybe. I`m not sure, but judging by how wonderful the two of them seemed to go together and their convo, I`d say the two might do better together than I would, and that maybe he liked her. *sigh* I don`t know.

At the end of the day before I went home, I didn`t feel excited or exhilarated or accomplished at asking him out to dinner. I just felt....normal. I had a Parent-child English conversation class to do that night and it was the last of this year`s, so I focused on doing that. We made peanut butter balls and grilled cheese sandwiches. The kids had so much fun makin the peanut butter balls because you have to use your hands. And the moms loved the grilled cheese sandwiches. My kids said that they loved my class and they wanted to have more with me. When I told them no more, they were all pretty sad. Aww. I love my children. I think that maybe I should channel my love for Mr. Wonderful into the love that I have for these kids. It would maybe be put to better use instead of this futile lovesick feeling that might not amount to anything. Le sigh.

Otsukare for reading guys! Pics will be up later on. Love

I feel almost rejected....but I won`t give up yet!

2010-03-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

Feb. 26th Friday

Today was a fun day with my mentally disabled kids` English class at my middle school. There`s only 2 kids so it`s a really relaxed fun atmosphere. Even the JTE (the Japanese teacher of English with whom I assist) was just weird and crazy. haha. We spent the class playing English games and then afterwards played on the giant yoga balls (or whatever those huge inflatable exercise balls are called)and lounged around. Haha. That was cool.

Feb. 27th Saturday

Today I was supposed to go to one of my high school teacher`s house to have lunch with his family because his wife invited me. I also teach his little baby boy at the nursery. Adorable and smart lil kid. His English is amazing! ^^ But I guess it helps that his parents also speak alot of it. However, I figured that it might not happen today since the high school`s graduation is the coming Monday so he might be busy. So instead, my supervisor and her family invited me to have shabu shabu lunch with them. I love her family, they`re so cute. From the first time I met them, I adored them, and was like "Yes, I can tell this is Su`s family." lol Her dad and mom really like me and think that I`m a good influence on Su. haha. I can cook, clean, drive her around everywhere, and compared to her, I have good fashion sense. =P So her family wants me to try and impart my style to her. LOL I personally love Su the way she is. She`s hilarious and an amazing friend here.

Anyways, we went to this Shabu Shabu restaurant that I thought was going to be tabehoudai (all you can eat) so I can stuff myself, but it turns out it was one of those order your own set places. And it was no ordinary set. It was a set where one plate of four slices of meat costs $36.00!!!!!! ONE PLATE, FOUR SLICES! $36.00!!! O.O!! I was like, "Damn, this is a freakin high class shabu place." I was content with ordering the cheapest plate of meat which was about $20.00/four slices cuz I didn`t want to be a rude guest and I didn`t want them to spend so much money on me since they`re paying. But her mom and dad were like, "One plate of meat is not enough, so let`s get one special plate ($36), one "moon" plate ($30), one "bamboo" plate ($28), and one sukiyaki set ($25)." WHOA. WHOA. That`s a lot of money for four plates of 16 slices of meat total. And this was just lunch! But you could tell the meat was very high end (I`m currently not remembering the English word for it). The most expensive one was very marbled and soft. All of the meat tasted delicious. But I still would`ve been okay with just plain all you can eat cheap meat...like the ones you can buy in grocery stores. haha. =)

I was fine with all this food already. And then, apparently, her family is used to drinking coffee after eating, so we ordered a thing of coffee each, and then ordered sherbets afterwards. These weren`t very cheap either. I tried to eat and drink everything slowly, savroing the flavor of expensiveness, of something I would never get for myself. But Su and her family just ate everything up really fast! lol I guess they`re used to eating rich. At the end of the lunch, I came to a conclusion: Su`s family is BALLER!! Yeah. Her dad is a tax collector and her mom works in an elderly care center in Asahikawa. But they seem to have a good life, and they`re well off... I was very appreciative of the food though. It was delicious.

Feb. 28th Sunday

Massive cleaning day. And then sat down to watch the last season of "Heroes".

March 1st Monday

I`ve been feeling pretty genki lately because of having been able to talk to Mr. Wonderful. But I wanted to leave him alone for a bit since he seems to be busy with things. So I decided to just mind my own business and let him talk to me when he can. After school today, though, he left to go help grab some panels to hang posters and stuff on for the elementary graduation ceremony. They asked us to help bring the panels in when they come back with them. So I did.

After all the panels were brought in and set up, Noso-sensei and I noticed that Mr. Wonderfurl`s fur on the hood of his jacket (oh Japaense guys with your fur hoods) was partially coming off. It was originally attached with buttons, but it apparently came loose. So we both said something to him about it at the same time and he tried to fix it himself which didn`t really work too well because he can`t see it. lol So Noso-sensei was like, "Theresa, go and fix it for him." Well, I said sure, but my heart was thumping a little because I had to get really close to him to fix it. It was right by his head after all. He`s a lot taller than I am, so he had to bend down a little for me to fix it for him. haha. He said "Thank you very much" to me which I responded, without being able to look at him because I was kind of embarrased, you`re welcome. And I missed my chance to talk to him afterwards because he was walking alone in front of my friends and I, and I decided to stay back to talk with my friends instead of talking to him. *sigh* I`m so stupid. Later, Yuki texted me and was like "It`s a good thing you were able to help him with his fur wasn`t it?" lol

March 2nd Tuesday

Hmm....today was an...interesting day. I was feeling damn genki. I taught my kids as usual and had an awesome fun lunch with my children with whom were very very talkative...and alot of it I really could not understand. They speak too fast in Japanese. haha.

After 5th period today I prepared myself to go talk to Mr. Wonderful about snowboarding. However, the snow was already melting, so I wasn`t sure if we would still be able to go. Yuki also worried for me. She told me that the best thing would be to invite him over to dinner...which I was a lil suspicious about. haha. Anyways, I got up my courage to ask him about it in his class. He was busy doing something and I felt terrible interrupting him. I was also nervous. But I went in there and asked him about the snowboard stuff. He said, "Oh yes, that`s right. The snow is kind of melting...why don`t we just cancel it, then? And, plus, I`ve been pretty busy lately." I answered, spitting these words out really fast since I was nervous, "Oh, yes, your busy? Then it`s totally fine. No worries. I`ll try on my own. Thank you!" "Sorry" "No, no problem!" And as I was backing out to leave the classroom, I turned a bit and hit the desk next to me and gave a surprised yelp and made a clang. It was pretty clumsy looking, I have to say. Mr. Wonderful asked if I was okay and I told him, "Yes! I`m fine! I`m perfectly fine!" and scuttled away... u_u; Man, that felt like a rejection...lol And even worse, I was not graceful with it.

*sigh* I felt terrible afterwards and wasn`t sure what to do...so I looked for Yuki to talk to about this. She was in the nurse`s office again so I went to go and talk to her. I told her everything that happened and she told me that the only thing I can do now, is invite him for dinner or stuff....which is really awkward for me. So we pondered on this stuff for a while. She said that, maybe, he already knew/noticed about my feelings. I am really obvious, she says. haha. Yeah, I`ve been told by people I`m really easy to understand and obvious... And by all the actions that I`ve done, it must be obvious. I prefer it if he kind of knew already. It makes things easier on me. And it shows him I`m acting weird and stupid around him because I like him, not because I`m normally like that...or am I? I then asked her if I should confess to him. She said I should because he`s leaving in 3 weeks and I will feel better about it too. I wasn`t sure if I should confess to him the day before he left or if I should do it next week. If I do it early and he likes me too, then we have some time to spend together. But if he doesn`t like me, it might be awkward at work because we see each other 3 times a week. I don`t want it to be awkward between us. If I confess before he leaves, if he doesn`t like me, then I won`t have to see him ever again! If he likes me...well, I don`t know.

I`m trying to lean on the more pessimistic side here with "maybe, he doesn`t like me" so that I don`t get my hopes up too high. I kinda have a feeling that maybe he really doesn`t have the same feelings for me. He`s just so much more mature like and he seems to be the type to go for older women or women who are more mature and lady like and graceful. I`m the more clumsy girl who likes to go have fun and have adventures and is far from graceful (I pop and lock and like to club ~_~) and I`m not yet ready to be so matronly yet. I don`t know. I don`t seem to be his type. But Yuki told me that you never know. That`s what I think, and not what he thinks. He could have a different mindset about me, you never know. So I am planning on confessing sometime next week in the evenings when I know he is alone at the school working until super late at night. It`d be awkward if there were other teachers around...

However, when I was about to go home, I decided I should go say thank you to him for trying with the snowboarding thing anyway. I didn`t want to give up just then from his earlier rejection. So I went in and told him thank you for trying and "If it`s possible, could you just give me advice and tips on riding the snowboard? I know you`re busy, so just when you have time and are able to. No rush" He said that yes, he would definitely try to get the stuff for me. And then I left. I felt a lot better after that talk with him. At least it wasn`t complete rejection of "no I don`t want to have anything to do with you.
March 3 Wednesday

Today I`m at the middle school, but I want to go to the elementary for a special ceremony they`re having today. It`s a ceremony for the 6th graders since they`re graduating and all the other grades are putting up some kind of show for them. Due to the unfortunate scheduling of my classes at the middle school I was unable to get to the elementary until 10:35 when it started at 10:15. But at least I saw a lot of it. I saw Mr. Wonderful too, but tried not to look at him. I was there for the kids. ^_^;

After that I was able to watch the ganbari happyokai that the elementary`s mentally disabled students put on. It was cute and they did such a good job! ^^ So proud of them! They even did a play in English! So proud, so proud. And then, due to unfortunate class scheduling again, I had to leave 10 minutes before it ended so I can get back to the middle school on time to teach the next class. Phew. It was frantic today. haha.

My 1st and 2nd year middle school kids are getting ready for the graduation ceremony for the 3rd graders today. Such busy lil bees.

I`ve been feeling oddly lightheaded lately. I`m not exactly sure what`s wrong and what`s going on, but it`s either my experiences with Mr. Wonderful that`s doing this to me, or other problems.... eh. But on the flip side, I am super genki lately, although tired. When I`m talking though, I`m super genki.

Otsukare for reading!

I did it! I brought out my courage! (via friends and liquid courage)

2010-02-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

Feb. 19 Friday

So I was lucky enough to get out of work early today since my vice principal and other teachers were so nice about it. Yay! Yeah, I had a 3pm train to catch, so I had to leave 2 hours earlier than I usually would. I caught the 3pm train and bumped into one of my graduating high school girls. She`s one of the cutest and prettiest ones. And she`s very sweet. She was on her way home from school so we were headed in the same direction. We had a pleasant conversation (in Japanese) and we decided to exchange info. I told her if you ever want to come to CA, give me a ring because I`ll guide you around and let you stay with me. And she said she will definitely go because I`m there. hehe. It`s sweet because she`s moving in with her bf of 3 years after graduation. They both are planning on doing the same job, so it`s very convenient for them.

Anyways, I got off my train went to the bus station to catch the Lavender-Go bus to Furano. And it was a beautiful sight riding in the bus. The small towns and the nature outside was absolutely beautiful. Everything was covered in white and in the setting sun, the snow glowed a little orange. It was wonderful and made my heart feel at peace. I wanted to sleep before I got there, but I was just too taken by the sights that I couldn`t. Well, before long I arrived at my stop at 6pm and then trekked it 5 minutes up a hill to a cute lil hotel where the HAJET meeting was being held. Directly behind the hotel was the ski hill. The mountains were so beautiful and then lit up by the lights for night skiing makes for a good winter fun combo. heh.

I realized I was late for the 6:30pm HAJET workshop so I rushed to my comfy and quaint lil room that kinda smelled like cigarettes and went down to the meeting room. There were only about 10 people in there as others went out to go eat and stuff or haven`t really arrived yet. We did self intros and then watched the youtube sushi-ya thing. After that were 2 more workshops that I didn`t really need. eheh. Afterwards I was feeling hungry so I went back to my room to get my leftover onigiri and went to hang out in Erika and Nikki`s room. We sat around for awhile talking and then Erika and I decided to go to the hot springs in the basement of the hotel. The water wasn`t as hot as I would`ve liked it in a regular hot springs, but it was warm enough that I didn`t want to stay too long. But thanks to chatting with Erika about Mr. Wonderful I decided to gather my courage and do something about him because he`ll be leaving in about a month. Anyways, after that we went back to my room to hang and wait for Steph and her friend to arrive.

Erika`s room had 4 beds even though they only reserved the room for 2 people. And, since Steph`s friend was also going to be rooming in my room I decided to let him have the bed and went to sleep in Erika`s. The beds were comfy, although, the pillows were, like, half downe half beads....o.O

Feb. 20 Saturday

Got up and went down for a healthy breakfast full of chicken nuggets in the hotel restaurant. lol Then went to the HAJET meeting in which we were introduced to the new HAJET PC which Steph is the new secretary for! Yay! Go Steph! After the meeting we decided to head out for some light lunch at a cute and very smartly decorated cafe in front of the Furano train station. Furano is famous for their cheese and wine and so, of course they would have wine and cheese burgers. It was so huge, but so good. We got two different kinds and split it between the 4 of us. Erika went off to board so it was just me, Steph, Nikki, and Jonno. Afterwards we walked around and then got a taxi to go to the cheese factory. It was very cute looking from the outside, but not as exciting as I thought it would be. No one was really making cheese and non of the machines were moving or doing anythnig. But we saw black cheese! Apparently it was cheese made from squid ink, which, btw, tasted horrible because it was so crazily bitter and inky. We tried about 3 different cheeses that they had out and the wine cheddar was the best tasting. It had a subtle wine flavor to it. I also bought onion cheese cuz that just sounded good.

I then bought an ice cream cone topped with two flavors of corn and cheese ice cream. I was being adventurous, and, besides, I really like trying out wierd things. (but I am going to have to draw the line at bugs. The things freak me out) The cheese one was cheesy alright, but I felt like I was eating cheesecake. So nothing to freaky about it, but the corn, man, if you ate the corn flavored one, it was definitely corn. There were even pieces of corn in there. It reminded me of eating cream of corn. They were good though. We had wanted to make ice cream and cheese and stuff, but because it costs so much money to make it that we would rather save we didn`t do it. We ran into a bunch of other JETs visiting the place as well and then decided to go to the various omiyage(souvenir) shops to buy stuff. I found a bunch of random flavored candy like beer and lavendar and potato caramels. I bought all of them except lavender. It disgusts me to have perfume flavored candy and makes me feel dizzy and nauseous. We went around to various souvenir shops. And then I found it, the most disgusting of all flavors for caramel: genghis khan. Genghis khan (not the famous warlord) but the food is what Hokkaido is really big on and pretty famous for. It`s basically yakiniku(BBQ)lamb. And it`s good. But having it as a caramel? OMG, I had to buy it. I`m a collector of weird candy flavors. I just buy them, but never really eat them and then give them out to unsuspecting house guests. And I gave one of them to each of my friends. It was damn horribly disgusting. From the first taste in your mouth to chewing it, it was just a horrible experience. The taste of meat in your mouth with caramel was just too horrid.

At around 5 we decided to walk back to the hotel from the station. And it takes about 30 minutes to walk there, which wouldn`t be so bad if it wasn`t in a blizzard! Man, that was bad, and we were walking against the wind. So imagine us in the bitter cold getting splashed by a torrent of snowflakes against our faces....lol Well, suffice it to say we were wet. We finally got back to the hotel and dried ourselves off to get ready for the enkai tonight. The enkai was at an awesome place called Irohanihoheto. The seats were the style where it`s tatami, but there is a carved out area underneath the table to put your feet into so that it`s not constant kneeling/indian style seating. The enkai was a 9 course Japanese style dinner complete with lots of sushi. YES. AND! NOMIHOUDAI (ALL YOU CAN DRINK ALCOHOL) WOOHOO. So I wanted to catch up with Steph in how many glasses she`s already drunk, so I ordered about 7 mixed drinks there. After the enkai we went to nijikai (the second enkai/drinking place) which was at a local bar called Bocco. There were about 30 or so of us going to the lil bar which wasn`t big enough to serve all of us and htere was only one guy staffing. But luckily after I had gotten out of the bathroom majority of the people had left to go find some other place to nijikai at.

So there were about just 12 of us left. And so 5 of us decided to get shots. I got a shot of really really rough tequila. My gawd, it was bad. Maybe it`s because I haven`t had hard liquer in a long while, but it was just bad. lol Geez. Even the salt and lemon at the end did nothing. lol And it was a huge shot too, not the puny lil ones at club bars. So, after that we ordered the bartender specialty drinks, which I`m not sure what it was, but it was good, and full of alcohol. lol. I was already pretty tipsy from the 7 glasses of alcohol that I chugged at the first enkai. And I decided to order a tequila shot and 4 more glasses of the specialty drinks at this bar. Yeah...I`m crazy. =P So, needless to say I was already feeling it. I, btw, always carry a deck of cards in my purse in case there is nothing to do when with a group of people and for boredom cases. So, I suggested, "Why not play some king`s cups?" And when the table next to us saw me laying down cards they decided to pull our tables together and make one big game. It was awesome. I got to meet some new people who I`ve never talked to before because of this.

So, for the game, since I`ve been playing it quite recently in Kembuchi (teaching the girls here to play drinking games >D) I know how this game works. But, of course, being as drunk as I was, I could not remember the rules for any of the cards except for the ones that rhyme: like 6=dicks, 3=me, 2=you. So I just made up which activity belonged to what card. I was deigned the game leader, which was totally cool. When people asked me how I rememeber all these cards in my head, I just told them I play this game a lot, when in reality, I was just making shit up as I went. lol I was already kinda drunk so I kept forgetting what card meant what and I`m pretty sure others knew that I was starting to lose it. But I believe I kept up a good front during the whole game. =P Although I know people kept buying me the specialty drinks because I was running low on it each time since I drank a lot. At the time I didn`t think anything of paying because I was so not there. lol But, luckily I rememebred that I had to do that the next day.

Anyways, after finishing the game and we all decided to head out for ramen or go home. All of us were freakin drunk. Yeah. lol Well, I was pretty drunk to the point that I barely remember what was going on, but I was still concious of what I was saying, just not able to control my words. I remember getting into the taxi with Erika and saying obvious and stupid things to the taxi driver because I`m quite the conversationalist when I`m drunk. haha. So I told the taxi driver, "Sorry, we`re a little bit drunk." And he was like "Uh, yeah." And my friend, Erika, just looked at me weird cuz it was pretty obvious. And then I asked "So, do you pick up a lot of drunk people at night?" And he was like "Uh...yes." lol Erika afterwards told me "Uhh, DUH!" eheh. I remember saying stupid things like that, but luckily I kept pretty cool during the game so as to not look so stupid with my peers. haha.

Upon getting to the hotel, I stumbled along holding Erika`s arm for support cuz I knew I was walking funny for sure. It`s the first time I`ve gotten so bad before. Man, those mixed drinks. ~_~; I got back to my room, took a shower, and collapsed on my bed with the world warping around me. Not spinning, warping. lol Everytime I closed my eyes I felt dizzy. So I had to sit up for a while and splash myself with cold water before I could go back to sleep for a bit.

Feb. 21 Sunday

Got up this morning and was still drunk! No headache or anything like that; just dizzy and drunk. We all went down for breakfast. As soon as I put food in my mouth, though, I knew I couldn`t eat. If I ate I would feel nauseous. So I just sat there and drank alot of apple juice and some diced sweet fruit. Because if I ate anything else like eggs or fish or whatever I was gonna throw up. All the other ALTs that morning looked like they also had a pretty rough night of drinking. So everyone was really out of it. haha. I tried to pay back the people who bought me drinks last night, but they said it was fine because I did a good job as a game leader. Whoo! Thank you guys so much! XD So, I guess when I`m drunk, I can play games pretty well. >P I wonder if that works with strip poker or strip anything games. o.O

After breakfast we all checked out and decided to go to the Anpanman shop!! Only to find out that it was too far away and the next bus there did not leave until 1pm. And the taxis would`ve been way too expensive. So we decided to just walk around the area and find a cafe to chill at. And plus I was getting hungry from not eating this morning. eheh. We went to this really cool curry cafe where the guy there spoke really good English. But we ordered green tea ice cream and hot chocolate/coffee. Soon afterwards we headed back to the train station to catch our respective buses and trains back home. And at home I watched Percy Jackson and the Olympians online...which was really not very good at all. I read the book already and was expecting the movie to not really follow the books because of time and other concerns, but it really, really, really did not follow the book at all and was just waaaaaaayyyy different from what I was expecting. Harry Potter did a good job of following it`s reading counterparts as well as LOTR, but Percy Jackson just went way off. I dunno, I didn`t like it and I don`t think it will get as big of a following as HP stil has.

Feb. 15 Monday

So, I know most of you know that I have a thing for one of the elementary teachers at my school, Mr. Wonderful. =) And turns out, he`s leaving in 1 month. He was only here since Septemeber as a replacement teacher for one of the teachers who got pregnant. So after the weekend in Furano I was able to get up my courage and determination to somehow get him to like me. I have 1 month left, what`ve I got to lose? If he doesn`t like me, I won`t see him ever again after 1 month. If he does...well, we`ll see if that will happen or not. Sound reasoning, right?

Today I made up my mind to somehow ask him to teach me how to snowboard...even though I kind of already can. I was lucky enough to catch him alone in his classroom after I had finished teaching 6th period. I "smoothly" transitioned into it. He had mentioned before that he could board, so I asked if he could teach me. He said he wasn`t so good because he learned how to 4 years ago and wasn`t sure if he remembered everything. I thought he was going to tell me that he wasn`t going to be able to teach me, but then he said "If you`re okay with the few amount of info that I know and me being not the best snowboarder around, then I can teach you?" To which I responded, "Oh, yes! It`s totally fine. I can`t board at all!" ...which was a blatant lie...but I`ll somehow make it look like I can`t. eheh. So he said he would try to remember everything and then tell me again later. He then asked me, as I was walking out, if I was going boarding with anyone(Or I thought that was what he asked me, because I got so confused). To which I responded "I think a friend...?" He then seemed to kinda murmer something to which I asked "What?" and he answered "Nothing." ???????

I realized afterwards that I shouldn`t have said that I was going with a friend since I`m actually going to be doing this one on one with him. But I was confused by his question and I was super nervous that my mind was not thinking straight. Whenever I`m around him, my mind goes blank and then I get awkward around him because I`m so nervous that I don`t know what to do. lol

Feb 23 Tuesday

Well, I was going to tell him today after 5th period because I know he`s in his classroom alone. But then, as I was walking over to the classroom I heard a commotion going on in the children`s entryway. I thought that the problem might only take a moment to solve, so I went over to go take a look at what was going on. Turns out that one of my 4th grade boys` pick underneath his snowboot that prevents their shoes from slipping on ice was busted. So I tried to put it back together since he can`t go home without it. It would be dangerous. I spent 15 minutes trying to get the thing back up, only to fail in the end. So I took him and the boot with me to the teacher`s room to see if the head teacher can do anything about it. I spent another 10 minutes with him in there and then I saw Mr. Wonderful come into the room and I knew I could not talk to him anymore. Once they come into the teacher`s room, talk about this kind of leisure stuff is not as easy to talk about anymore. So I really couldn`t do much. I ended up in the school`s health office talking with my friend Yuki who works in there about this. I kept pacing around the room too. haha. She was so distracted by me she couldn`t do her work. Sorry. eheh. =P

So, after having a intense fun conversation with Yuki, I decided that I would somehow tell him tonight via what I had done before. What happened before was, Yuki and I had passed by the elementary school and saw that the lights were still on in the teacher`s room. We knew it was Mr. Wonderful, so after much debating we went to buy snacks at the local conbini and went over to give him the stuff. And that is what I will try again tonight.

Yes, it seems very suspicious and obvious by what I was doing, but I`ll just put it off as something that foreigners do and explain that to him if he asks...lol. So I waited until around 8pm tonight because I knew that most other teachers would`ve gone home by that time. So I went to the school with the food and noticed that there were two cars there and realized that the 5th grade teacher was also there. Luckily, however, Mr. Wonderful was not in the room at the time. I had originally made up a story about how I was coming back from the city next to Kembuchi and passed by the school and saw that the lights were still on. So I decided to buy stuff for you guys since you`re working so hard. THAT was my original story. But I was so f-ing nervous that my Japanese f-ed up and all that came out was "Passed by, lights were on, you guys seemed tired, here (and handed him the bag)." And this was just to my 5th grade teacher yo! lol Geez. I asked if he was the only one here and he said that Mr. Wonderful is still here. He was about to go get Mr. Wonderful, but I said that it was okay and I was just going to leave. He said, "no no, wait. Here." He took out one of the donuts in the bag and gave it to me to take to Mr. Wonderful in his classroom. "You should go and give this to him to let him know you brought all this here. He`d appreciate it." Well, thanks to him I was able to push forward with my plan. Courage, girl, courage.

Well, my heart was thumping as I was walking over to the classroom and trying to go over my lines that I had rehearsed before about how I came to be here. I got over to the room, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. He was busy hanging up some posters in the room and was surprised to see me. I walked in and my Japanese failed on me again. It went like this, "Passed by, lights were on, doughnut...uh here. Oh and there`s more in the teacher`s room." And I knew I sounded dumb and stupid. lol But he said that he was very happy to recieve it. And I was about to walk away, but then I forced myself to turn around and talk to him about why I really came. So I asked him what he had asked me yesterday about me going with someone. But either he somehow misunderstood my question or he thought I said something else but he answered "No, I haven`t gone with anybody yet." To which I just looked at him confusedly and replied with a "Huh?". And he also did a "Huh?" Then I asked, "Wait, what?" "Uh, sorry, what was your question again?" was his reply. lol We were both so confused with what the other was saying that we just didn`t know what was going on. I felt so stupid, though. Arrgg.

Anyways, I was able to ask him about when he was able to teach me. He said that March would be best. So I`m hoping that means next week as by the end of March all the snow will melt. And I gave a big thank you smile and said "ganbatte kudasai" and left. WHEW! OMG, that was so freaking nervewracking! I was so nervous that I probably was awkward, even though I tried my best to be cool about it. oh, man. Was that all so obvious? I don`t know. I`m just freakin out to whether I was stupid or not. Well, whatever. 1 month left, I`m going for it. Ganbaru-ing. So I will do what I can and if the results aren`t so good, at least I tried. You never know unless you try, right? And you won`t regret not doing it. ^^ So I`m kinda proud of myself for doing it, even if it`s not the most succesful.

Otsukare! More pics will be up soon!

My first exciting experience in a Hostess Club!

2010-02-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

Feb. 11 Thursday

So today was supposed to be a day of fun ice skating with my Kembuchi girls. We all gathered at my apt at 8:30am and left to Asahikawa from there. We got to the ice rink, discovered that there were barely any people there and that the skate rental area was closed. I wondered why and decided to ask one of the staff. Apparently there were only hockey games going on today and no general ice skating. Boo! So we came all this way for no skating.

So we decided to leave and go somewhere else and have fun. We ended up going to Sugai to watch movies and go bowling. We first went bowling as there was a lot of time before the movies started, and as usual, I got the lowest score. I did, however, want to play billiards cuz I am quite the fan of it, but no one else wanted to play so I was stuck with bowling. Anyways afterwards we all went to watch our respective seperate movies. Tama-chan, Uno-san, and I went to go watch "Nodame Cantabile" the movie. That was so cute, funny, and interesting. Yay Tamaki Hiroshi! However, the ending just hurt me because it`s supposed to be a continuation to the second movie, but it ended in such a heart wrenching way that when I came out of it I was like "geez..." lol

Afterwards we went down to the 1st floor to take purikura. All the newest purikura machines have this thing where they make your eyes look bigger. My eyes were already pretty huge, so having them made bigger just makes me look alien. lol Afterwards we all decided to go eat at Bikkuri-Donkey. It`s a place that serves excellent hamburg steaks. I had a hamburg steak stuffed with cheese and potato salad. Yes, not the healthiest of things, I know. We talked about ikemen and other stuff and had a grand old time. But we vowed to go back ice skating one day, when the rink is opened to the public. lol

Feb. 12 Friday

So today after work is my Board of Education`s (BOE) group business trip/vacation, which wasn`t really so much a vacation as an enkai. Other depts. in the town hall got to go to the beach, to the mountains, and the lake. We, however, just went to the big city 1 hour from us (Asahikawa, which I always go to for shopping and eating anyways) and have a 1 night stay in the local expensive hotel. *sigh* But I do like staying in hotels, so I didn`t mind so much. However, my BOE and supervisor had told me that they wouldn`t be leaving until 5:30pm. And I was going to get there on time when my supervisor called me and asked where I was. Apparently, everyone had gotten there way earlier than me and were going to leave early. I was the only one who was going to arrive there on time, exactly. When I got there I expected to see my Su there waiting for me, but instead I only saw one car and saw the guy who`s the same age as me waiting by his car.

And I was like "No way, no way. I can`t believe Su and the others did this." This guy, fyi, likes me. Or at least it`s fairly obvious that he does from his actions and of those around him. And I know that the people at the BOE try hard to set him up, most of all, with me. And it`s terrible cuz I don`t like him like that and I don`t see him that way. Su even knows that too! >.< So I felt that this was all set up by them. Leaving earlier than planned and saying that we`d all go together and then leave before I get there to only see him waiting was all just too coincidental for it to have just happened. So I got in the car with him and I could totally feel him being nervous. I was just like, whatever, and chill in the car because I don`t have any feelings or anything for him. But I was a lil uncomfortable because he was nervous. He kept talking to me without stopping, and some of the topics didn`t even make sense or connect when we talked. I just tried to be nice about it and laugh along. He`s a sweet guy, but he`s just not my type. Needless to say, I was glad to finally get to the hotel with everyone after an hour of awkward talking in the car.

The restaurant we went to that night was cool! It was very osahare/stylish. And the food was amazing! I took pictures. And it was all you can drink alcohol. So, naturally, having no need of driving a car, I drank my fill of sake and ume-shuu. Then afterwards we all went to a place called "Pearl". Well, now, this was an experience I think I will not soon forget. When we went to the 7th floor and walked to the door of this place I was awed by the decoration just at the entrance. The borders of the door had large black marble slabs surrounding it and at the top was a bright black background with cream colored writing that said "Pearl". I walked inside, pass the beautiful sexy girl holding the door open for us and welcoming us in, and saw the luxurious ivory colored leather sofas/seats and bottles of alcohol and ice buckets prepared on every white lacquered table and the moody lighting, and I knew, I knew this had to be hostess bar/club. I also saw to my left a bar with middle-aged and old business men sitting across from these beautiful women who sat on the inner side of the bar. They were actively chatting and each guy had one girl to talk to, sometimes 2 if the girls weren`t busy.

The thing is, there were 4 women in our BOE group and I could tell some of them were uncomfortable. I, however, was quite excited, but also uncomfortable because I was with my bosses here. If it was a bunch of us young people I think it would`ve been quite fun and relaxing. I`ve always wanted to try to go to a hostess club to see what it is like. And plus two of my friends are beautiful hostesses. One`s in Tokyo, the other`s in CA. So I`ve always wanted to see how their work was like. After we sat down, I asked my friend Satomi who sat next to me if she knew that this was a hostess bar/club, and she answered no. She said that it was the head boss who suggested this place. o.O Apparently, he comes to hostess bars/clubs quite often. And, apparently, they also went to a hostess club for their dept. business trip last year as well. lol So at the two tables we sat at, each had 2 of us women each. And then, 2 hostesses came and sat at each of their respective tables. Ours was so cute and perfect sized. She had brown long playboy hair, a cute round face, wore a black sort of half jacket, and had on a sexy red dress. I saw her and immediately aspired to look as hot and sexy as that. >D

At first she seemed a little unsure because of the girls at the table, but she seemed to keep calm about everything. The guy my age who sat at my table with Satomi and I seemed a bit nervous since he was sitting next to her and he, obviously, had no experience with hostesses. Actually, he`s a lil feminine in my opinion, and I`m not the only one who thinks that. He just seems kinda timid and not for trying out new things kinda guy. I decided to strike up a conversation with her after semi-listening to my boss talk about his cousin in the states. Her name was Yoshimi-san. She started doing this job at 18 and has been here for 7 years. So I guess right after high school. I told her about my friends also being hostesses and she was surprised to know that there were hostesses outside of Japan too. But she seemed to find it interesting that I had hostess friends. She started asking about CA and how it was like. She works from 7pm to 1am every night and her day and night lifestyle is now completely opposite. But she has fun doing her job.

A couple more business men came in and sat at the other tables around us. And some even had a little room in the back reserved for them. Wow. While I was talking with her I watched her work. She knew the perfect amount for mixing alcohol and water so that it wasn`t too watery and not just pure alcohol flavor. Everytime my drink was halfway, immediately she would take my drink and fill it up. When we ate sweets or snacks laid out for us and we`d leave the wrappers on the table she would, in the blink of an eye, take the wrappers off the table and toss them somewhere out of our sight. Whenever my boss took out a cigarette, she would immediately light up a match ready to light the cigarette. Whenever we came back from the bathroom she would have a warm debacterialized wet towel ready to hand us as soon as we sat down. I was impressed. I knew hostesses were good at what they do, but really watching them do their work? Now, that was impressive. =D

After a while, I was getting tired, and was ready to go back to the hotel to chill. I had so much to drink that night because the hostess kept filling my drink up to the brim everytime it was just halfway. So I was ready to pass out. I went back to my wonderful room and took a nice relaxing long bath. Of which afterwards I passed out on the warm comfortable bed.

Feb. 13 Saturday

Got up for a good early breakfast buffet at the hotel this morning and left with everyone at 8:30am. Yeah. The checkout time was 11am, but because people wanted to leave early and go back to doing more work, we left early. Yes, this is the real reason why our trip was so short and in Asahikawa. Because the people in my BOE wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. THEY WANTED TO DO WORK! So they shortened the trip. Oh Japanese people, why do you work so hard to the point of even refusing vacation time. There were some others who didn`t come because they had work to do even though the head boss also came on the trip meaning that they didn`t have to do the work. Crazy. But I know this is their culture.

I came back home and did a load of absolutely nothing. Woo.

Feb. 14 Sunday

Today was my town`s snow festival. It started at 10am and went until 2pm. I decided to get there around lunch time. It was a beautiful day, so I decided to walk over there. On my walk over I saw lots of ice candle holders. If you placed a candle in them some of them would light up different colors and others would just shine brightly. I was impressed with all this.

Upon arriving at the snow festival I saw the town hall young people`s club and went over to their booth where they were making yakisoba. It was yummy! I then saw my students and went over to them and played with them for a while. A lot of the parents also came over to say hi to me. Some of the women manning the other booths knew who I was and gave me free food too! It was all so deliciuos! And best of all there was takoyaki! I bought alot of the food said goodbye to everyone after half an hour of being at the food booths area and walked over to the back side of the festival to see some of my other students playing on a slide made out of snow. I watched as my students sat on big fat inflatable black tubes and slide down 2 on each tube. It looked so fun. My kids saw me watching them and asked if I wanted to give it a try. Hell yeah I did. So my students said they would hold my stuff for me while I climbed up the stairs made of snow to the top where some of my 1st and 2nd grade babies were chilling. They were all very surprised to see me and were like "THERESA-SENSEI" I told them I`m going to give it a try. And they taught me how to sit on it and then all 4 of them helped to push me down the slide. lol I thought that was cute and funny.

I quite enjoyed the slide down. It was a lil freaky at first but fun. And then I noticed there was a crowd of parents and old people watching me that weren`t there before...hmm...lol Anyways, it was fun and I had a good time. Afterwards I went back to my apt. And chilled for the rest of the day. Good day today and lotsa good food. Oh and there was a pony area with whom the ponies I`ve become good friends with since I pet them and occasionally give them sugar cubes on my summer and fall walks. I really wanted to ride them, but thought that I`d crush them if I got on. lol

Anyways, so that`s all for now. Check out my pics yo! Otsukare!

Snow and Blizzards and Hong Kong?

2010-02-11T15:38:00.001-08:00

Feb. 6th Saturday

So today we got up bright and early for breakfast after 3-4 hours of sleep. lol It was actually pretty good, washoku style. We all headed out around 10:30am to catch the train/subway to Otaru. Otaru is the port city next to Sapporo. It`s famous for it`s music boxes, it`s glass, beer, and the Otaru canal. The train there was also really cute. Nice and bright colored inside. We rode along the snowy coast. It was a beautiful site I have to say. When we got there it was snowing pretty hard. But we endured it and walked out and over to the Music Box Museum.

The outside looked like an old brick building with large wooden doors that reminded me vaguely of an old English warehouse. You walked in and immediately the chimes and tinkling of all the music boxes floated into your ears. It made my spirits lift to hear such beautiful sounds and the interior of this place made you feel warm and fuzzy. All the furniture and the floor inside was made of wood that creaked as you walked on it. I actually quite liked that feeling of creaking wood underneath your feet. The lighting was warm and abundant, but not too powerful. And there were blue Christmas lights that hung down from the ceilings. Most beautiful of all were the huge array of assorted music boxes displayed on the wooden tables.

There were boxes that were adorned with flowers and jewelry, carvings of Victorian maidens on the cover, lacquered Japanese style painted boxes, picture frame music boxes that played music when you pulled a string, merry-go-round boxes that spun slowly around while playing music, and ones that had kalaidescopes attached to them so as music played and while looking through the scope the shapes would shift. I thought that the first room alone was amazing and was definitely planning on buying something there, but I told myself to wait until I looked through the whole thing. Everything, however, was around $30. It was quite expensive, but I had to remind myself that these were handmade unique music boxes that you will not find anywhere else and that these were one of the thigns the city was famous for. Besides, they were wonderous and cute looking.

The second room was larger and opened up to high ceilings and had a large shrubbery bear greeting you in. In this room, everything here was geared towards younger children and/or family. Everything was soooo cute and sparkled quite brightly in the warm light. Many of the boxes here were topped with cute Otaru glass figures or just made out of the famous Otaru glass. The room was so colorful and cheerful and the tinkling sounds could just be heard everywhere. I didn`t know where to start so I started to the far left and made my way down came back up towards the middle and ended down the far right lane. They even had music boxes for babies where they were stuffed animals that had music boxes inside them. Most impressive were the shapes of cash registers, motorcycles, cars made out of copper and all were music boxes. They also had ones that were mini ferris wheels or fighter planes suspended by metal filaments that would rotate as music played. Absolutely adorable.

As I was perusing through the aisles I stopped at a particular table that caught my attention. It was actually the least colorful and sparkly of all the other tables and not many people paid too much attention to it as the tables around it held spinning glass figures that would spin around as music played or the sushi music boxes that had realistic sushi models attached to the top of them. On this particular table everything was made of wood and were the color of wood. The one that I was quite fixed on was this thing that looked like a cardboard box that was opened and had 3 carved wooden dogs with their top torso sticking out of the box opening. I turned the knob to play the music and it started playing "My Neighbord Totoro"`s theme song. The dogs in the box swayed left and right in unison to the music. And right then and there, I knew that this was the music box I was buying. There was something nostalgic about it and something that pulled at me when I first laid eyes on it. It made me feel sad and at peace inside at the same time. And hearing the music, I somehow almost cried.

I don`t know why, but lately, upon seeing specific nature scenes here or specific items these feelings come back to me and I feel as if I`ve seen them somewhere before and my chest wells up and a tear will almost escape my eye. Call me crazy, but it feels like for specific areas that I see I feel like I`ve lived there before or there`s something about these things that tugs at me. Vague, barely noticeable images will start playing at the back of my mind, but I can never make it out. Everytime, this will happen: I see these places and then there will be a flash of a second of an image of something happening in these places, but they`re so quick and transparent that I can`t make it out and it just leaves my thoughts later. But then again, I`ve had these feelings back in the states too, but only in specific areas. So maybe I`m just overthinking things and it`s really nothing. But I think from now on, I`ll start keeping records of these things.

But back to the music box museum itself. Sorry for that weird tangent. I still told myself to go look at other things before coming back to buy this one. I went to the 2nd floor and along the wall of the stairs were hung copper figures and sculptures each with a string attached so that when you pull them, they played music. They were absolutely cute and adorable especially the ones with owl carvings. But I had no particular interest in buying one of them. They were unique and amazing though, it`s just I was attached to the the simple cardboard music box. We then looked around more and saw jewelry and the museum side of this place where it showed the history and had the oldest and larges music boxes I`ve ever seen. They even had a music box juke box! That was cool. But afterwards everyone went off to buy what they needed and I headed back down to the first floor to that same table. I bought a music box picture frame that swayed back and forth to the music made from the same wooden materials and with cats on top instead of dogs. And I also bought that cardboard music box. We spent a good 1 1/2 hours in this place and then went back out into the cold to walk to other places.

It was basically blizzarding outside. And cold, really cold because of the wind. We stopped in Le Tao sweets bakery shop. But we didn`t buy anything from these places. We then went to look in on the famous Kitaichi glass shop where they had various glassware and jewelry displayed throughout the place. We went back outside and went into the Venetian glass museum. Now that was cool. They had glass pens that you would dip into ink to write with. And glass animals and even a Venetian boat in the middle of the room. heh. Then we started heading over to the canal where the Otaru Beer factory was.

We were hungry and cold, so once we got in it was such a relief to sit down in the warm room. The place looked like a German beer hall with large copper machinese that brewed beer in the center of the room. All the waitresses were in somewhat strange looking barmaid outfits. It didn`t feel like we were in Japan anymore, especially with my company of awesome foreigners. haha. So we ordered the famous Otaru beer and I got the special of the season, the Bermberger. The glass was huge and thick and the beer was good. We also ordered food, food that we couldn`t get in normal Japanese restaurants. I got myself a steak plate with fries, salad, and garlic rice. My friends got dark pretzels that tasted so deliciously good, and there were also canellonis and some kind of interesting bread roast. I took a picture of it if you look at the pics on facebook. Oh, and while we were eating you could see groups of people getting tours of the factory. THis place is half factory half restaurant. lol

After that we braved the cold again to go outside to see the canal at night. It was very pretty, but sadly, because the wind was so strong outside the candles that were floating in the river were mostly all blown out. And it was so crowded it was hard to see some of the sculptures made to hold candles. But it was pretty nonetheless. Afterwards we walked back to the Otaru station and boarded the train and went on back to Sapporo. In Sapporo we went back to the yuki matsuri since the weather seemed better and it wasn`t closed. So we walked around, bought some wonderful food, drank amazake, and watched shows. THen the weather turned bad and we decided to head on back to the hotel. We originally wanted to go clubbing and everything, but majority of us were really tired and exhausted. Apparently, for everyone, this entire week was quite tiring. So when everyone came, they were already all ready to pass out. =( But at least we were able to be in a group and chill with each other.

That night we passed out, and I was able to get the bed this time. Yay!

Feb. 7th Sunday

Got up at 8:30 for breakfast and met up with Collin and his gf there. They finally got up for breakfast. haha. Anyways, we all decided today to just chill around Sapporo. Since Collin`s gf had to go check in another hotel, we decided to split up for lunch and then meet back up at odorikoen. Steph, Erika, and I went for lunch at an Omurice place. We all got hamburg doria omurice. It was good, but we weren`t able to get extra sauce. boo...We sat and talked for a while and then went to the yuki matsuri to meet up with them.

At the yuki matsuri I was able to get a picture with our amazing mascot, Marimokkori. He`s the ball of algea with an erection and perverted happy face. lol Look at my pics for him. hehe. I love this mascot. Whoever thought it up is a genius. Who would`ve ever thought of an algea ball having an erection eh? >D

So we met up and walked around seeing the sculptures we weren`t able to see before when it was blizzarding at night and stuff. We saw a couple of awesome international snow sculptures because there was a competition going on there. It was pretty cool as there were people from all over the world there building these things. We then went to eat some international foods. We got stuff from Brazil and Greece. Nummers.

After that we headed back to Sapporo station to chill at a starbucks before I headed off first to get my train back home.

Otsukare for reading guys! Sorry about that weird random exerpt. Look at the pictures!

A weekend to look forward to.

2010-02-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

Jan. 30th Saturday

Yay snowboarding day! Today I went to pick up Alan after going to buy a super cute stomp pad for my board. The pad`s this super cute looking blue bear. I love it! ~_~ But of course I had to wait 24 hours after putting it on my board to be able to use it. So I didn`t use the pad that day because I was gonna go boarding. I figured if I got on the lifts I`d just do something. Alan told me to just hop off when I get to the top. But it still freaked me out a little to think I`ll be riding the lift this time. I like high places and am not scared of them, but snowboarding down them when I barely know how to board? Freaky. So when we got there some of my lil nursery babies were inside the rest area. When they saw me they were like "O! Theresa-sensei da!" I knew that I was gonna see at least one of them while here. I am only in the town next to mine which has the closest ski hill to my town, so I figured my kids would be here too. When they saw Alan they were a little taken aback as I`m pretty sure they don`t see too many foreigners who are caucasian as I`m the only foreigner most of them have had contact with and I`m not so different looking from them. However, the surprising thing is they weren`t scared of him or shy around him like I thought they`d be. They still came and sat next to me or him and started talking (in Japanese lol). Although they would show off how much English they knew of which I felt so proud.

So Alan told me that the only way to learn is to get up on the lift, as I`ve heard from many others say the same thing. The ride up the lift was amazing actually. It was so beautiful and the weather was so nice. The higher we got the better the view. So once I got to the top, I hopped off the lift with my board attached to my feet and managed not to fall over. And then I had to sit down and put my board on because I was still not used to putting it on while standing. But standing up after that was extremely difficult as I wasn`t really on a hill yet just the flat area before getting to the hill. Standing up is much easier when on a slant. So I basically walked to the edge of the hill with just half my board on. lol It was pretty difficult and really worked my leg muscles so that they kinda cramped...

So finally when I got over to the top edge and looked over, the view was breathtaking and amazingly beautiful! I could see the town of Wassamu stretched out on the horizon and white glittering snow and the afternoon sun shining over the town. Beautiful. However, once I looked down that beautiful scene went to the back of my mind and I just went blank and freaked a little. The hill from the bottom didn`t look so bad, but from the top it was freaking steep! I didn`t know what to do. Alan said that we`ll start out slow and try going down inch by inch of which I wasn`t too sure I could do because I wasn`t so sure of my abilities yet. But the first time we went down it was just a warm up to get me to remember my abilities. After that everything started to get better. A couple of middle schoolers from Wassamu town were there too and they started talking to Alan. I was just the Asian person. lol Anyways, I saw more of my kids as the afternoon went on. Finally, I was able to board down the hill without falling and discovered that I leaf instead of carve. Well, I`ll learn how to carve later. Right now, if I can leaf my way down and not fall, I`ll stick with that for now. hehe. =)

At the end of the day around 5pm, Alan got on the train and went home. I had a dinner date with wonderfully cute Yuki. We had so much trouble deciding where to eat, but in the end, since she hasn`t been to Myu we decided to go there. Her leg seems to be getting better after she ripped a tendon in her achilles heel (I think). We talked alot that night and had so much fun. Actually, the only not cool thing she told me was that Mr. Wonderful is actually leaving this March for another school. And he just came to Kenbuchi in September like me! >.< That sucks! So she told me that I only had 2 months left to talk to him and try to get him. I dunno, 2 months is kinda short and I`m not ready to confess to him or anything like that. lol In the end I figured the best thing to do is to just get his email address under the guise of if he wants to practice his English with me. =P But that was all. I haven`t really had too much of a chance to talk to him. So it`s been difficult. Ah well. Hopefully the guy who comes after him, if it is a guy at all, will be better and hotter. lol

Jan. 31 Sunday

Today is the Sapporo Farmer`s Philharmonic Orchestra concert as well as the town mini-volleyball tournament. I heard Mr. Wonderful is going to be in the volleyball thing so I decided to go watch. Of course I also knew my supervisor and my girls that I hang with are also going to be in it. They divided the game areas into two gyms. One for those who are over 30 years old and then there is the one for those under 30. So a couple, not many, of my teachers were in the older one. But majority of my teachers are young so they were all at the young people`s court. So when I first got in I saw my girls standing up on the balcony overlooking the games. I went up to say hi to them and then I noticed all the teachers sitting at the bottom. When it was the male teachers of the middle school and elementary`s turn it was hot. All the guys are young and good looking and fit. They were the best looking male group out of all the groups there. Yes, some of them were pretty skinny, but you can tell they do sports. Mr. Wonderful in just his t-shirt and trackpants looked hot because you could totally see his body shape. He isn`t skinny and scrawny but lean and muscular/tone. And all the male teachers were fierce in the game. Immediately they won each round and in the end came in 2nd. My girls, however, not being the sporty kind and used to just office work lost almost every game. lol I love them still.

Afterwards I went back to get ready for the concert at 1:30. I arrived there and there was barely anyplace to park. So I spent 10 minutes trying to find a parking spot. I saw a couple of my students there too. When the orchestra began with the start of the cello/bass starting off "William Tell" I immediately sunk into a different world. Damn, do I miss classical music and their concerts. I actually quite like classical. I listen to it when I go to sleep back in the states as it soothes my mind and helps me study or learn better. The sweet melody of the violin mixing with the oboes and the fagottos and even the trumpets brought tears to my eyes as it reminded me of my life back at home and a life I could lead. Through this concert it strengthened my resolve to make my dreams a reality and strive to create my company and become it`s owner. So I felt pretty damn good after the concert even though there were times I did feel pretty sleepy because they started playing the more mellow slower music and that`s usually what I listen to when I sleep. But they did play Carmen as well! Awesome.

Feb. 5 Friday

I was let off early today to catch the train to the Yuki Matsuri or snow festival in Sapporo. At the station I ran into my middle school`s health nurse. We talked for a little while until I had to get off at the next stop to wait 20 minutes for the rapid service train to arrive. I got on and sat next to this awesomely nice old man who helped to put my stuff up on the rack above even though I could`ve done it myself since it was so light. The trains were all 5 minutes late because of the blizzard going on. But since this is Japan and these were Hokkaido trains they wouldn`t stop the train because of some snow and they would usually never be late except for these reasons or suicides. So yes, I arrived about 5-10 minutes late and left my friends wondering what`s going on because I believe they know too that trains in Japan are usually never late and that I should`ve been there already. haha.

Boy was I glad to see my friends who I haven`t seen in 2 months. I mean I totally have friends in my lil town but they were all Japanese people who didn`t speak much English and I could never be my weird joking self around them lest I ruin my good teacher`s image. And believe me, in this little town where everyone knows who you are, you cannot do anything bad or stupid. Always have to keep up a good image because you teach the whole town`s children. And plus I just miss being my crazy self without restrictions of sorts. And these friends of mine are like a piece of home to me. And being cooped up in my lil town for several months I was desperate to go out and chill in a different place with different people. I like my job and all, but it really takes a toll on your mental strength, especially if your in a small country town like mine. I love being in the country however, don`t get me wrong, it`s just many things pile up and living away in a different country away from all your old friends and family where you have to always keep up an image and cannot be your total self all the time is hurting me a little. I think that maybe it`s just the winter season and I`m pretty sure that by summer/spring I`ll be bright as a rainbow. But for now, this is what I`m feeling. Boo...

So back on track, I met my friends and we decided to go check into the hotel first. We were all a little worried that it was going to be sketchy and a love hotel or something. So were quite relieved to see such a nice place. The room is a lil small, but it was big enough for 3 of us girls to cram into. Erika hadn`t come yet though since she couldn`t come until later in the evening. So we first decided to go out to eat at Sapporo Station. We ate at "The Don" lol. I love the name. It was just a bunch of rice bowls with katsu, oyakodon, katsudon, gyudon, and the like. It was good though. I got a katsudon with mini curry Udon set. So good! We hung around there for awile and then went to meet up with Erika who had just arrived. Yay! We put her stuff in the station lockers and then went to the Yuki Matsuri in Odorikoen.

It was beautiful! And very very awesome! ALthough the weather was not for the best and everything was actually closed. So nothing was lit up. Couldn`t see too much. So we decided to head to an izakaya for drinks and stuff. We ended up sitting next to this super hot group of young Japanese guys who I believed were hosts since all of them seem to have the same hairstyle and were pretty fashionable and were all really hot. lol But they were all pretty drunk and one of them was passed out. haha. After 2 hourse we decided to head back to the hotel. But first, we had to go back to the station to getErika`s luggage. So Collin and his gf went back first and I went with Steph and Erika to retrieve it. However, the station looked pretty dark upon arrival and realized that it was closed. We missed it by 15 minutes. Damn! But still we didn`t give up hope, we walked all the way to the other side and discovered that the lights were on, but the outside doors were locked. Man.

So we decided to give up on this one and went back to the hotel for the night and just get her stuff tomorrow. We got in the room, played "rock, paper, scissors" for who got to sleep on the bed and who on the floor and I ended up being the one on the floor. lol It actually wasn`t that bad as I was lent Steph`s wonderful electric heating blanket. Thanks Steph! We spent the night talking and making fun of things on TV until 4am and then went to sleep to get up in 4 hours for breakfast. lol

Anyways, I will continue more of this in my second posting of Yuki matsuri. Otsukare! Pictures of this and the trip to the Sounkyou hot springs/ice festival will be posted. Love you all!

Lotsa naked ladies! >D

2010-01-26T17:51:00.001-08:00

Jan. 21st Thursday

So all this week I`ve been fretting like crazy about tonight`s Parent-child english conversation class. If it was just the children it wouldn`t be so bad, but I have to incorporate the parents in it too, and that`s what worried me so much. And teaching in front of parents is also very nervewracking. I love your children parents, please don`t hate my class. Oh and the lil kids are ranging from age 3 years old-2nd graders in elementary. Yeah, this is going to be pretty difficult to teach. Attention spans don`t last too long.

I seriously could have an ulcer this week for worrying so much about it. Come this day, I was freakin out. The day went by okay, but once the evening came along, I was like, damn, I can`t believe I`m doing this. I have about 27 people who applied. 17 kids and 10 parents (mainly moms). So I got the whole room set up for things and teaching and stuff. My kids started arriving and they were so adorable upon seeing me. When they say me they were all like "Theresa-sensei" *glomp*. XD I love them. But the parents I felt so awkward and restrained around them except for the ones that I have spoken an extensive amount to. So when all the people arrived and it was 6:30 I started the class.

I was so f-ing nervous that my intro and first half of the class went terribly. I confused the students as well as myself and spoke in very jumbled English. Man, and I was fretting about how the parents would take to this. But luckily in the second half of the class things started to take a better turn. The kids started to get really into it and I started becoming more relaxed. I actually got the kdis pretty tired because of all the actions and activities we were doing. lol The parents got pretty tired too. haha. Anyways, one student who totally was not into it in the beginning actually came up to the front in the middle half and started doing all the activities with me and all. At the end he gave me an enthusiastic high 5 (which they call high touch here) and said he can`t wait for next week. I was so proud. But I was still hesitatn about how the parents took to my class. One of the parents invited me over to her house for dinner, so i take that as a positive sign. ~_~;

Jan. 23 Saturday

So today I woke up nice and early to get ready to head off to Asahikawa to catch a bus to Sounkyou`s Choyou Hot Springs Resort in Sounkyou. Sounkyou is a hot springs town. It`s famous for it`s natural spring waters and it`s beautiful mountain setting. Su and Mago-chan also went with me. Actually it was Su that suggested we go and Mago-chan made the reservations. I appreciate it very much! So it was actually quite a nice day today. The sun was out, it was just cold and had a tad bit of snow falls. Mago-chan almost missed the train because she was a lil late, but she totally ran for it and got on at the very last minute just as teh train was about to leave. whew. Upon arrival at Asahikawa we met up with Su and went to go get lunch at "American Box" which actually had no american food, just pasta and hamburg steaks. lol But it was quite good since we got the set that came with a drink, entree, and dessert. At 2:30 we caught the bus that would take us to the resort. Apparently there were alot of people going this weekend so there were 3 buses for the resort and all of them were full. If you booked a room at the resort, they provided you with the bus, so you had to be on the list to get on.

It was a very nice and comfy bus ride and it took us all the way into the mountains 1 1/2 hour away. I really like natury scenes so I took massive amounts of pictures of the nature outside on the way there. When we got there some of the hotel staff came outside to welcome us. (I love Japanese service, makes you feel all high class). We then went to go check in to our room. It was a cute lil Japanese style room with tatami mats and futons but with a very nice view of the mountains and stream outside. Absolutely breathtaking. I just sat in the chair next to the window for a lil while staring outside. And then we quickly took a towel and got on a bus that would take us to another hotel where we can use the hot springs there for free since we`re staying in this one.

So at first when we got into the changing room, I had to get comfortable again with undressing and being naked in front of strangers. Of course they were all female (no males since the baths are gender seperated, so no worries on anything happening there ^_~*) but I was still like, oh that`s right, I can`t wear clothes in the springs. My friends all undressed super quickly while I was still taking my time trying to be somewhat modest, but then I gave up on doing that and just quickly went into the springs area. It really reminded me of when I was on EAP with my Irvine EAP buddies and we stayed a night in Hakone hot springs town. And I was reminded of how quickly and comftorable all us girls just undressed and got in while the boys seemed to have the most problems with doing that. Ah, memories. But I think I`m starting to get used to seeing naked old women. lol

So when you get into the hot springs you have to first wash yourself clean at the open shower area before you can enter into the springs themselves. It`s to avoid dirtying the springs since so many people use it. When I got in, I was reminded of how hot they usually are. It was about 42 degrees Celsius, so it was damn hot. But my skin quickly got used to it. We first went into the inside one where it was on the 17th floor of the hotel on top of a mountain and was protected by glass windows so the view was beauitufl. You could see down to the ice festival and stream below. It was wonderful. After being in the inside one we then went to the one that`s outside. yes, outside. In the snowy weather. We`re still on the 17th floor, but there are hot springs in wooden tubs or built into the floor stone hot springs that overlook everything below while sitting outside with not really a roof over it. So it was f-ing cold when you walk outside naked cuz it was still snowing and in the mountain areas but once we sat in the tub, it was amazingly relaxing and wonderful. You get to sit out in the cold while your body is in the warm/hot water and watch the snow fall aroundyou and gaze at mountains and streams. It was a very wabisabi feeling for me, i think. lol I felt so at peace, but sad at the same time. Yeah, I`m becoming super Japanese with wabisabiness. And I was there to enjoy it with 2 good friends. ^^ I wish there were more of us though. It would be funner. But all the same, I enjoyed myself.

So after that onsen we went back to our original hotel and went to eat at the buffet. So yummy and I got to drink warmed cherry wine like at the Mulhenn festival in Sapporo. Nummers. After stuffing ourselves full we went and collapsed on our futons in our room for 30 minutes then got dressed in these horribly garish yellow pajama things with felt green vest jackets that the hotel provides all its guest to wear and headed to the onsen in the hotel. I also went into the sauna in this one. Trying to lose all the water weight to know that I will gain it back later. lol

After the onsens, my body felt really light because all my muscles are relaxed and I know that when you bathe in an onsen it releases some kind of chemical in your body that gets rid of the toxin built up in muscles. So ya have to drink lotsa water after it. Or so I think I`ve heard...correct me if I`m wrong. =P Then we went to the ice festival that`s just a lil ways away from our hotel.

IT WAS AMAZING! They had built structures and igloos and sculptures and a slide out of snow and ice. And they lit each one up with bright colored lights. So it was just fantabulous looking! I went into all the igloos and climbed up the structure to the very top and watched the fireworks from atop the tallest ice structure there. It was cool! And I drank amazake for the first time! Damn that`s good! It`s the leftovers from when you finish brewing the sake and they make it into a drink. There`s barely any alcohol in it, so children can drink it too. XD People also decided to have wedding ceremonies out here in the cold as well. Now that`s crazy. It`s freezing outside, but the women all have these beautiful wedding dresses on. But I can see on their faces they were f-ing cold. lol Poor couples. But congrats to them. ^^

Afterwards we went back, took another dip in the springs, and then collapsed on our futons playing shiritori until we passed out at 12am. Good day.

Jan. 24 Sunday

Woke up this morning at 6:30am, grabbed my towel, and went to the hot springs on my own. It is opened 24 hours after all, why not use it to its fullest. So I bathed and stuff for another hour, went back up to the room and got ready for our breakfast buffet. After breakfast we got dressed in our normal clothes out of the garish yellow green things and went to the souvenir shop. I bought this cute lil crystal phone strap thing that`s called the water star in the sky. And then we boarded the bus home at 10am and got back to Kembuchi at around 2pm. I got home and wanted to do absolutely nothing, so I just chilled and watched "Where the Wild Things Are" online. And then after the movie, for some reason, I broke down...again. I`ve been feeling pretty bipolar lately (thank you Doug for that word, I almost forgot its use lol). I`ll be fine one minute and then feel like the world is ending the next. And then after 10 minutes of crying I was bright and happy again. *sigh* I think because it`s the winter time and I really missed being home with family and friends and familiar faces all around, chillin, drinkin, and being me. But after crying I felt fine and it was as if nothing happened. lol I dunno. I love my job and all, but it does take a toll on me.

Jan. 26th Tuesday

So today i came home and discovered that I have a package. A very large one in fact. And it was heavy. I brought it inside the house, opened it and discovered 20 boxes of Swiss Miss hot chocolate (each with 10 pouches inside), a box of caramel apple candies, and a box of exotic flavored hot chocolate all sent from my best buddy back at home. I love her. I really didn`t need 20 boxes though. lol I only wanted about 14 to give out to people who requested them here in Japan, but 20 is good too. lol Thank you uber much! I couldn`t stop laughing when I opened up the box though because I`ve just never seen so many boxes for one person before, ever, and the thought of it just cracked me up. lol

After that episode, I went to the elementary school`s shinnenkai or a party to bring in the new Year. This time however, when I drew the paper from a pile that would rtell me where my seat is, I got the one to the very end, the last seat on the left. And Mr. Wonderful, being one of the hosts that night, sat at the last seat on the right. Boo~ Ah well. I spent alot of the time being quiet and learned a new word in Japanese, "kamakasu". Not exactly sure what it means ( i think it means mix or shake). I wasn`t sitting with people I can talk easily too. We had our small convos but that`s it.

Afterwards, I decided to take Yuki home and gave her 2 boxes of the swiss miss that I got to give to her family. They`re very sweet to me and treat me like their own. So I appreciate them quite alot. And Yuki`s a cutie so I love her. lol

Otsukare-sama for reading! More pictures will be posted soon! oh, and I quite miss cultural diversity. I miss seeing the different peoples around. Japanese people are awesome and all, but homogeniousity is kinda gettin to me. >.< lol Loves!

I can snowboard yo!

2010-01-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

Jan. 13 Wednesday

So today at lunch time I went back to the town hall/BOE for a special mochi lunch. Today was some kind of special holiday that I don`t really remember the name of where they eat mochi. The mochi is made by the people in town hall and everyone comes to eat it at lunch. It`s grilled mochi (so it`s a little crunchy on the outside and mo-chiri on the inside) in a broth and there was also karaage. And for dessert mochi and red bean paste, yummers.

In the evening was the young peoples` Shinnenkai to welcome in the new year. I was actually a little late getting in so I waited outside until the speeches were over, but the speeches went on for so long that I thought it better to just go in. I tried to go in all quietly, but the door was soooo creaky and rough that it just made so much noise that someone actually opened the inner door and looked out to see who it was. He just beckoned me inside, so I was like F-it and made a huge lot of noise walkin in because the floors and doors were just so creaky. I ended up being able to sit next to Tama-chan and we had a wonderful talk and became much more friendlier. And then Sugisawa-kun even joined in and we had a pretty hilarious conversation i have to say. It was so much fun thta I was totally looking forward to going to the nijikai. At the nijikai we sat around and talked about stuff and then I mentioned that I was going to go buy my snowboard this weekend and both Tama-chan and Sugisawa-kun said they wanted to come along too and go boarding. So that was that. And then Uno-san also said she wanted to tag along. Awesome.

January 14 Thursday

My high school started today. As usual, the kids were still uninterested in English. And showed no want to learn. And when I taught my 1st graders I had to motivate them with candy. lol Ah well. After this I went back to the middle school to have lunch with all the teachers again. So much funner there.

January 16 Saturday

At around 2pm Sugisawa-kun came to pick me and Tama-chan up to go to Asahikawa to look at boards and buy my board, and Uno-san followed in her car. I swear I have so much fun with these two. They`re so funny. It was basically a snowstorm that we were driving in and everything was just pure white that it was sooo hard to see the road. But luckily we got everywhere just fine. We first went to Xebio Sports, then Arpen Sports, and finally to Sports Authority in AEON where I bought by beautiful board. The board`s description was called "Nature" and it was a black board with lime green edges and bubbles of brilliant up close pictures or radiant flowers. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. The black and the radiant colors were so eye catching and plus I really like nature stuff. So there we go. It was a set. I get the boots, bindings, and board all for around $318 bucks! Awesome! I was thinking that I could only get $500 ones. But thank god for the nature board at sports authority. Ibought my snowboarding outfit there too because it`s cheaper. So then we all went to take purikura together and it was pretty cute! Uno-san then had to leave and so the three of us went to go eat okonomiyaki together. And it was soooo good! It was a set menu of delux okonomiyaki which is seafood and pork, and then there was monjya (my first time eating monjya, it`s a Tokyo thing) which had mentaiko, cheese, and pork in it, and then last was a yakisoba with other meats and veggies you can grill. Amazing! After being so freakin full we decided to go home. And sleep and wait for the next day`s snowboardin fun.

Jan. 17 Sunday

At around 1pm Tama-chan came to pick me and Sugisawa-kun up to head to Pippu to board. They`re both renting and I`m bringin my new board. Wooo! So the ski hill in Pippu is huge! It`s got snowboard, snowear, and ski rentals! And there`s 3 lifts! Whoa! So Tama-chan, Sugisawa-kun and I decided to head over to the lil kiddies slope area which turned out to be pretty high level area. And there we learned. I can now finally stand up properly, slide forward, stop, and turn left, but turning right is still a danger zone. I tend to hurt myself alot when I try that. lol So we spent 3 hours on the slopes and then around 6pm we headed back home for dinner at Ibushiya and sat there talking for a long ass time and then went home. Good day it was.

Jan. 18 Monday

Sashiburi going back to the nursery today! I love my nursery babies, so I was very much looking forward to seeing them. I was able to stay the whole day at the nursery today because there was no class at the elementary. My kids were sooo funny today. I love listening to hte lil things talk because they say such funny things! And they`re sooo cute! My students kept climbing all over me and huggin me and stuff today. I loved it. One of my girls was like "I wanna marry Theresa-sensei!" And I was like "I wanna marry you too!" ANd my other lil kids were like "You can`t do that Theresa-sensei. Two women can`t marry each other" lol Oh children, if you only knew the world out there. lol I was being reprimanded by my children. I felt small. lol So there was a fire drill today at the nursery. And my teachers asked me how to say drill in English and (here`s an example of my English just dying on me) I couldn`t think of the word at all so I said practice. Fire Practice. Yes..... Anyways at the drill it was right before waking up the children from their afternoonnap. lol So they were all soo disoriented and just woken up so there hair is all over the place with bedhead. It was soo cute! The lil kids weren`t panicking or anything at all. Just confused cuz they just woke up. haha.

Anyways, I stayed at the preschool longer than my job needed me too because I love playing with the babies. And then at around 6pm I went over to my Shinnenkai with my Taiko group. There alot of my nursery babies were there because of hteir parents also being in taiko so it was really fun. The parents and people are so fun and easy to talk to. The kids, when they saw me all ran over to me and were like I wanna sit next to Theresa-sensei!!! And when their parents came to sit next to them, the kids were like "Mom, you don`t need to sit next to me I`m fine! I like Theresa-sensei better than you!" I quickly covered their mouth and was like "You can`t say that to you parents!" lol I felt happy, but at the same time very apologetic to the parents. I played with lil Toshinori the whole time because he`s so cute and chubby. He`s only 2 years old so WAAH!

When one of the dad`s asked me if I had a boyfirned and if I wanted a Japanese guy I said "maybe" and the men around thoought I said "baby". So they thought I meant that I wanted a baby...lol. THey totally jumped several steps there. They looked at me incredulously and then their wives had to explain to them what I said. lol haha. I love these people. Anyways, good fun night with my taiko group and the cutie children. But my eye has been twitching alot lately and I think I need more sleep. lol

Otsukare for reading and love you all!

Coming of Age ceremony makes me feel old.

2010-01-14T19:26:00.000-08:00

Jan. 6 Wednesday

*sigh* Work. Work on school break time. All my kids are all off somewhere playing and I`m stuck coming to school and my BOE to work. Booo....So anyways, I was stuck sitting at the BOE at first, but around 10am Sakurai-san came to the BOE looking like he needed to get something. When really, he just came cuz he wanted to see me and take me back to the middle school. He says that Iwata-sensei also told him to get me. lol Apparently, they were feeling lonely without me. Personally, I totally didn`t mind. Actually seeing Sakurai-san made me feel all happy because he was the bright light in the dark BOE. lol The atmosphere in the BOE is a lil stiff you know.

So I packed up my stuff and went with Sakurai-san in his car to the middle school. I was so relieved and even told him that he was my saviour. haha. When I got into the staff lounge everyone looked at me and then Sakurai-san and then started laughing. Because everyone was like "so you went to the BOE just to bring her back, huh?" And Iwata-sensei just had a knowing smirk on her face. lol Already, the atmosphere was great. Sakurai-san was like "why, is it not good?" And they said if it`s Teari, it`s okay. Yosh! Haha, but it was such a bright atmosphere here compared to the dark BOE. Heh. So I spent my time here doing nothing except getting on the comp. I`d rather do nothing here than the BOE really.

Jan. 8th Friday

So I`ve just been spending my days at the middle school lately. Doing almost nothing, except for the occasional preparing for my Parent-child English Conversation classes. But today, there was a special event going on. It`s the town`s traditional beginning of the year Fire Prevention Ceremony. So my teachers told me to go watch it. They said I had to first go to the BOE, so I did, whereupon I met all my school`s principals there and some other really high up ther peoples. Everyone were old men in black suits and I was the one lil girl in her golden jacket and white scarf... I felt really out of place and just said that I can just walk to the venue that the ceremony`s being held at. But the middle school principal said that it`s fine because a bus is coming so I should just take the bus. So I did. And sat there awkwardly with all the old elite men waiting for the bus. lol

When we walked outside to get on the bus it was like a ray of sun fell on the awkward day because I saw my elementary children standing outside in happis(mini kimono jacket things) waiting to do the march through town. And of course they saw me since I was the gold in a sea of black suits. =P I couldn`t help smiling when I saw them as that`s usually my first reaction whenever I see my kids. They were all like "Hey! It`s Theresa!! Hello Theresa!" and would wave enthusiastically. I would respond with the same enthusiasm. Oh, my children. The light of my day. Anyways, I still had to get on the bus. That was terribly awkward. The bus was small and just full of elite old men. They all knew who I was and I guess didn`t really question why I was there since I`m the foreigner who wants to see the town`s ceremonies and stuff like that. lol

When we got to the destination (which was the bank that is only 5 minutes away from the town hall/BOE and I could`ve jsut walked) all the old men filed out behind the town mayor and I followed behind and squeezed myself in between 2 cars so that I wouldn`t feel awkward standing there with all of them. I basically tried to hide myself away to deter attention cuz I was obviously not an elite old man. The firefighters that I knew were also kind of giggling when they saw me because they thought it was funny that I went with the group and that I came to watch. But, alas, the high school vice principal called me out to stand more near the center and not hide between 2 cars. lol So I went over and watched the firemen march down the street and then, "LLAAA~", my children marched up behind them. Again, my face went from serious-paying respect to smily laughy face. I stood over on the side so that I wasn`t really near the men, so all the children could see me. When they saw me they all waved at me and acted like lil kids do. I wasn`t sure if that was okay in front of all the elite people and worst off was they were doing it jsut to me, so I was like err...I hope they don`t mind the children and I waving to each other in this time of seriuosness... I can`t help it, I love my kids and become like on when I`m with them.

After it was over and everyone tried to file back on the bus, there were no seats left cuz somehow more people got on the bus then last time and so I and some other elite old men decided to walk the loooong 5 minute walk back to the town hall. I was talking with one of the genkier old men about the ceremony when I saw my children walking back as well. And so I sped up my pace and went towards them. They were happy to see me and talk to me, but the old man was still talking to me. So I had to use my respectful Japanese and feign interest with the old man while at the same time the children were trying to talk to me. One of the girls even held one of those warm packet things (that when you rub them they become warm) up to my face, so I bent over sideways a lil to let her do it and at the same time continued talking to the man. So I walked awkwardly the rest of the way back. lol When we got back I walked with the kids to the changing room and then over to the big hall for a reception ceremony of some kind.

The people at townhall thought it was funny to see me walking with the kids...I think because they`ve only all seen the polite straight side of me, cuz when I`m with the kids I let loose you know. Even the girls that I usually hang out with here thought it was funny. I got in late to the ceremony because I was talking with BOE people, so I wasn`t sure where to sit, but I just saw my kids sitting in the center, so I just went to sit with them. And then I heard "kiritsu!" which means stand and saw my children and everyone in front of me stand up and bow and sit down according to the commands and did the same. I did that about 5 times before I looked around to see that people sitting in the left and right side of the room were all the elite old men and spectators and didn`t bow and stuff whereas the middle of the room were the children and all the volunteer firefighters in their suits........And I felt superbly embarrased and dumb. I got up and did the bow thing when I didn`t need to and no one told me that I didn`t need to....Man. But ah well, I just kept thinking to myself that I`m a foreigner and I`m expected to not know what to do here and like having new experiences. And I hope that that`s what everyone else thinks too. =P

During the whole ceremony though I could see my children totally falling asleep and getting restless because it was 1 hour of just awards giving and speeches. My kids even told me "Theresa, I`m sleepy". lol Tell you the truth, I was too. I was terribly bored because I really didn`t understand any of it and I felt like one of my kids being restless and everything. But because I was their teacher and am technically responsible for the kids here since their parents weren`t here and I was the only person that the kids knew, I had to set a good example and tried to look attentive. When my kids would start falling asleep or talk too much or fidget in their chairs I would get up and give them a light nudge and a look (nothing scary) and they would be quiet. THough I totally understood how they felt. When it was over all the kids were like YES! lol

We then all went back to the changing room and they got bags of snacks. And since there was an extra one the firemen gave it to me, even though I did absolutely nothing. Apparently after this, all the kids were supposed to go eat out together with the volunteer firemen and the kids told me to go with them. But it`s because I`m not part of the thing I told them I couldn`t go even though I badly wanted to. During this time all the kids would crowd around me in a semi-circle and talk to me and play with me. I felt loved. =) But soon after they left and I left to go back to the middle school and back home.

Jan. 9 Saturday

Today I went to AEON`s Sports Authority to buy my snowboarding outfit because on monday Satomi is gonna teach me to board! whoo! So I bought a set outfit for $185. Not bad for a set. It was a dark grey Ellesse jacket with a furry hood and beige pants. I looked pretty cool. Now if only I can snowboard, I would complete this look. haha. I then decided to call Alan to see if I can borrow his extra goggles and discovered that he was also in AEON and in Sports Authority of all places! Coinky Dink! He was also with Meghan, a wonderful ALT gal from Scotland! So we bought our stuffs and then decided to head on out. And on impulse, when I saw CoCo Curry house, I stopped and said let`s eat. Here. Now. lol I looooovee CoCo Curry! They`re soooo good. Oh, and did you know that Hokkaido is famous for our Soup curry? Well, Hokkaido is famous for a lot of food though. Anyways, I ended up getting back home at 9pm instead of the 7pm I was aiming for. haha.

Jan. 10 Sunday

Coming of Age ceremony for my town was today. I was invited to go watch it. I walked in there and was just impressed and amazed. Everyone looked soooo beautiful and cool in their kimonos and suits. The girls all wore the most beautiful Kimonos ever and had wonderful hair styles and accessories! I so wanted another kimono after that. Actually, I should go and get one because my dad has mine hanging in his restaurant and I don`t have one here in Japan. Want a blue or green one. ^^ The guys looked so cool and hot in their suits and formal kimonos. Actually I was like "dude, where have all these hot guys been!??!" I`ve never seen any of them before and they seriuosly were good looking, but I had to remind myself that they were only 20 (because that`s the coming of age in Japan). I felt kinda old after that even though I`m only 22. But everyone was so much taller than me that I felt that they could`ve been older. lol We don`t look that different in age do we? >) Just seeing all of them there was impressive to me and I kinda wished I had a coming of age ceremony too.

Jan. 11 The official Coming of Age Day, Monday

So today at around 1:30pm Satomi came to pick me up to go boarding. I`m temporarily borrowing my boss`s daughter`s board and shoes. But the shoes were a tiny bit tight. At least I didn`t have to buy one yet since I`m trying it out to see if I like it or not. Tama-chan and Mago-chan also decided to come along and go skiing. It was also snowing like crazy today. We went to Wassamu`s ski hill. So I first went over to the family slope/bunny slope and started practicing strapping in the board and standing up. After 10 minutes I was able to stand up properly on the hill without falling backwards on my butt. haha. And I saw alot of my lil elementary students there too. So they would gravitate over towards me and talk to me and ask me why I`m so inept. lol But I was like "kids, maybe you shouldn`t get too close to me while I`m boarding. You might get hurt" as I don`t know how to stop yet and how to control the board when I`m sliding.

I was also able to slide straight down without falling! Although, when it came to trying to stop I would tumble down. lol Not exactly the most graceful I`d say. The kids would then, again, come crowd around me after I fall and be silly with me. =P After 3 hours of falling on my butt and tumbling around in the snow with my kids laughing at me we decided to all head on back home. Oh, man I know I`m going to be sore the next day. Although luckily, falling here means falling on soft powder snow. So it didn`t hurt as much. So now I am dfeinitely going to go buy my own board. woo.

Otsukare for reading!

My first experience in a Love Hotel!

2010-01-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

Jan. 1 New Years Day

So today, Leslie and I got up super early...well 7am, to go and catch the bus to go to the Formosan Aboriginal Village Cultural Theme Park in the next county. We got on the 8am bus and it took us 2 hours to get there. There were a bunch of young peoples going there as well. The place is located up in the mountains area, near Sun Moon Lake. SO it was a beautiful ride up to the park.

We got to the park and the first ride we went on was this knock off of Disneyland`s Space Tours. LOL It was soo old and so not exciting. But all the Taiwanese people were like OMG that was so crazy! lol Leslie and I just looked at each other and was like "what was that". =P Anyways, we then went in to the amusement center and rode the ever exciting carousel. And then rode the pirate ship which was so much fun actually. lol But again, the other peoples were like screaming and everything and only Leslie and I dared to hold our hands up. haha. We be brave cool girls. THen we rode the awesome knock off of Space Mountain where the inside was just totally all black and no lights or music and couldn`t see a thing. lol That was a fun ride though.

Then we walked a bit more towards the Formosan villages up the hill/mountain and saw some wonderful penis statues (see my pictures) and awesome aborigines. And we went further up to get onto the skyline/ropeway over to the Sun Moon Lake. The line was f-ing long that day. We waited a supposed 1 hour compared to the original 2 hours so we were lucky. So there was a kid that dared cut in front of us. And at first i was like, maybe he`s with the family behind us and just wants to see the carriages go up so I was fine with it, or he`s with the people in front of us. But then I remembered talking to the people in front of us and they were all couples and there`s no way they`ll take their siblings with them on a date trip, and the family behind us only had lil lil kids cuz I talked to them too. And I also saw him look back and smirk at people or friends in the back. So I was sure he was cutting. That one smirk gave it away. I asked him who he was with and he tried to lie to me and then I looked at him and gave a more severe "Say it louder" expression and he just shrank and wasn`t sure what to say. So I told him we were behind these couples and I don`t appreciate you cutting in front of us. I felt kinda mean, but alot of asian families and kids do this and I get soo annoyed and tired by this kinda thing and no one else saying anything that I take matters into my own hands and do it. bleh. Neways, The ropeways was awesome! Super high and freaky, but I kinda like high places, but going down was a lil freaky because the hill just drops below you and you`re floating via these ropes up on top.

So we get there, and the first thing I notice are all the hot guys standing around. That was nice. haha. But there was a shit load of people waiting to ride the gondola to the theme park. The lake was beautiful though! I wanted to stay there longer, but I didn`t want to miss the bus back home. So we left to get the bus, waited for an hour and a half for a supposed 15 minute wait only bus. It was stuck in ridiculous amounts of traffic because it was new years Day and everyone wanted to spend it on the beautiful lake. In the end us and these 5 other girls from Hong Kong decided to take a taxi together as it would cheapen the price becuase it was about $15 because we were on the other side of our destination. The girls were really cute htough and was surprised that I could speak cantonese to them. They weren`t expecting it and just though I was Taiwanese who could speak English. I get that here in Japan too. haha.

We get halfway and the taxi driver told us to get off and charged us just $12 because he has to go back and get the other peoples stuck there since the bus isn`t coming. In a way, it`s valiant of him and in another he just wants to make more money. lol So we walked on the lake trail back to the big bus stop that would pick us up to go to Taichung. It was a beautiful scene and I do want to go back to the lake and stay in the luxurious hotel with a lake view oneday. When I am rich and famous I will. For sure! So we finally got to the bus stop and found out that the 4:30 bus was super late and it was already 5pm. Come 6pm the 4:30 bus came to pick us up. Due to horrendous Taiwanese traffic, 1 hour later we arrived at the theme park to pick other people up. It`s supposed to only take like 15 minutes to get over there from the lake. I was worried about getting back to Taichung on time since we have to get my supervisor, but luckily we arrived in Taichung station without further incident, but since we arrived so late, everything was already closing so we ate at Subway. I hadn`t had a sandwhich in a long time, so it was nice.

The one guy who made the sandwhiches there was ridiculous hot! But I`m pretty sure he was a college kid. Which made me feel old. lol But he had an ear piercing and spoke English pretty well and that made him even hotter! So he fixed up our sandwhiches for us and we went upstairs to chill and eat them as we waited for my supervisor`s bus to get here. Come 10pm we headed over to the station to meet her. ANd as I expected, because she`s a Hokkaidian and Taiwanese weather in the winter is like summer in Hokkaido, she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. haha. it was warm I have to say. Leslie thought so too, yet everyone was still dressed like it was Hokkaido in the winter. We caught one of the last trains back home and my aunt came to pick us up at the train station to go home.

We got home and Su absolutely loved the dogs! Hurray! Who wouldn`t? They`re fat and funny dogs. We settled in for the night and watched TV until like 3am and then went to sleep.

Jan. 2 Saturday

We woke up at 10am got dressed, drove over to my hospital, parked my car there, and walked up the stone stairs/hiking trail next to my hospital to Bagua Mt. It was a pleasant yet tiring walk up, but we made it in time for the morning market and bought lotsa foods and stuff. Then we went to see the Big Buddha. There were lotsa Vietnamese tour groups there and they kept saying hi to us because we were such an interesting group of peeople. lol It`s so hard explaining in Chinese to people who we were and where we`re from and our relationship with each other becasue that`s what they all seem to want to know. We`re all technically from Japan, but two of us are originally from America, one of us is studying abroad and one of us an English teacher, and the Japanese person is my supervisor/co-worker. It`s a mouthful. haha

We took lotsa pictures and I was able to eat my little conch shells snails in spicy soy sauce that I used to eat so much of when I was a kid. =P And I saw boiled ostrich eggs and goose eggs like EVERYWHERE! I wanted to buy an ostrich egg just to try eating it because it was so damn huge, but advised myself against wasting my money...lol We walked back down the hill to my car and drove to get delicious drinks. In the afternoon we went to buy stuff at Carrefour because they had stuff that Japan doesn`t, like American products for CHEAP! Ah, I missed these things. So we all bought a lot of stuff to take back to Japan to use. haha. At night we went to the nightmarket and bought and ate lotsa food (gaining 20 pounds and all). And afterwards we went to go get an awesome relaxing/painful massage for the whole body for just around $27! Woo! I felt very relaxed and dizzy afterwards though, i have to say. Su got herself a foot massage since she didn`t wanna get the full body one. The masseuse were very friendly and kept trying to talk to me, but talking to me while giving me a full body massage is dangerous, it`s already hard to breathe as it is and you want me to talk? But I will, cuz I`m trying to be friendly. ~~

We came back home at around 12pm (the massage place opens until 6am which made me kinda question it a little ^_~) and went to sleep because we had to catch another early bus in the morning to go to Taipei.

Jan. 3 Sunday

Got up and said goodbye to my family and dogs and left to go to Taipei. It`ll be my first real sightseeing trip there. hehe. So when we got there we first took the subway to get to the hotel which is supposedly located close to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. We got outside and i was amazed! The roads were soooooooo wide and big and clean compared to Taichung! But then again, we are in gov`t area. So stupide me, I forgot to write down the address of the hotel and only know the English name of it so we had a hard time trying to get the taxi drivers to take us there. But finally we found it as we drove along the roads. At least I knew what road it was on, just wasn`t sure of the exact location.

We got in the hotel and it was so fabulous and modern looking! Everything was contemporary modern art style and it was so oshare/fashionable. The beautiful ladies who worked at the desk spoke English as well, so it was easy for Su and leslie to understand. We couldn`t check in yet, so we just left our bags with them first and then went to see the President`s house. Obviously, you can`t go in because there were guards just everywhere so we stood outside, stared the guards down, and took pictures. Then we left. And off to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall. We originally wanted to go to the Palace Museum, but it was way too far away and would take us too long to get there and would deter us from seeing other things. So we decided against it and went to the Memorial Hall instead. It was a huge place! It also included the National Theater, the National Opera House, and the large courtyard upon which that day they had a special exhibit with a huge ass blown up Gulliver body which you can go inside to view the anatomy of a human.....it costs money, so we didn`t. heh. We then went to go see the Theater area, but you cant go in unless you have a ticket for a show. And finally we headed over to the memorial hall where just as we arrived they were doing changing of the guards.

Now that was cool. The guards looked hot and damn good in their uniforms as well as the body guards around them cuz they were wearing their black suits. =P I`m a sucker for men in suits and uniforms. I just like how they look, not necessarily who they are. Anyways, at the memorial hall there was a huge bronze statue of Chiang Kai Shek sitting on a chair much like the marble carved Pres. Lincoln in D.C. And then we went down the elevator to go check out the exhibits downstairs and found out that they were having a dinosaur exhibit. So we bought tickets for it and went in. Interesting, but not amazing. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, checked in and found a fresh new condom on the table in the room. And immediately we were all like "Omg, is this a love hotel? And saw that the bathroom doors were made of transparent glass....and so was the shower stall. woooooooOoOo. And to make sure of it, we flipped on the TV to check if there was porn, but no, no porn. We still weren`t so sure, so we said we`ll wait until night to check out the TV to see if there is porn on.

Afterwards we jumped on a bus and headed over to the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world (well that is until on Jan. 6th I read that Dubai`s bldg. is now the tallest). When we got on the bus I first asked the busdriver if this goes to Taipei 101 and he said yes. After my friends all sat down he motioned for me to come over, and he started talking to me. He was interested in who we were and found it interesting that I was like the tour group leader. haha. He was a cute young guy actually and really liked to talk to me. He recommended all sorts of places for us to go and helped me set up a sightseeing plan even though we were leaving the next day. I didn`t tell him that because I felt he really wanted to tell me these things so I let him talk like we were staying here for awhile. He even helped to tell us that we were at the stop for the Taipei 101 otherwise I would never have known.

On our way to the bldg we passed by a lot of hot young guys and I was wonderin why whenI noticed that there was a car convention going on in the bldg next to Taipei 101. We decided we would go after we went to Taipei 101 (which we didn`t end up going back to the convention). We got in, took the elevator up to the 5th floor to buy tickets to get up to the tower and realized how expensive they were. It costs $16 to go up in the world`s fastest elevator to the 89th floor. >.< So expensive, but we decided to go up since it was a once in a lifetime chance I suppose. Oh, and all the guards were kinda hot too. So filed in line and went into the elevator and the whole elevator turned dark and the ceiling lit up with shooting stars. You could also see how fast you were going and what floor you were on via the moving picture of the elvator going up the bldg. We got to the 89th floor in 37 seconds! Amazing!

The view from up here was amazing! And breathtaking. Althouhg we couldn`t see very much because of the fog since the air wasn`t so good today. But towards evening, since we stayed up there for a good 1-2hours we saw the lights of the city below and watched as the sky cleared up. It was magnificent. We even went to the 91st floor`s outdoor observatory so that we could brave the high winds and look over the rails to the world below. It was such a wonderful feeling! ^^ We then went back in and took pictures with all the cute lil Damper Babies (see pictures). They`re wind damper mascots, so they call them Damper Babies. I wanted one, but for lil figures they cost $6 and I didn`t want them that bad. Anyways, we then went off to the Shilin Night Market from there.

At the Shilin Night Market there were just hot guys EverYwhERE! I was ecstatic. haha. I bought lotsa heels cuz it`s cheap. I swear, the main things that I bought in Taiwan were the Taiwanese puppetry merchandise, food, and shoes. When we went to go eat Taiwanese shaved ice and I had to translate in English and Japanese (even though I realized that I could just speak one of the either since they both understood enough) and then back into mandarin/Taiwanese for the shopkeepers I sometimes would accidentally spill Japanese while speaking mandarin. And it kinda confused the people. haha. But I heard one of the workers talking later saying how I had to translate the Chinese first into Japanese then English then Japanese and back into Chinese again. lol I thought it was funny hearing him say that.

After buying stuffs we went back to the hotel cuz we didn`t want to miss the last train back and turned on the TV to find that there was porn on 3-4 channels!! YES! So we were in a love hotel!!! Woo! So we all sat around watching porn for a good 15 minutes because we were so fascinated by it. (Picture my supervisor, my friend Leslie, and I all sitting on the bed watching porn with fascinated faces. LOL =P) I have to say, the porn with story/plot in it was kinda interesting, while the other ones just were funny to watch. Anyways, we spent a wonderful night altogether on the king sized bed. The next morning Su and I left at 6am to catch a Taxi to the bus station that would take us to the airport to head on back to Hokkaido. Our plane, btw, was extremely small and only had 31 rows dude. lol But no incidences. Everything was good and calm.

And that is the end of my wonderful 9 day Taiwan vacation. Otsukare! My pictures are all posted, so take a look if you`d like! Love you all!

More Taiwan!

2010-01-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

Dec. 28th Monday

So today was a day of maintenance. I was able to borrow my uncle`s old car to drive Leslie and I around, but it took me a lil while to get used to driving on the other side again. The car was a cute lil burgundy Nissan Verita. I loved it. It was just a little bit hard to drive. So we went morning shopping for things. I bought some fake nails to glue onto my fingers because I missed having my nails decorated/blinged out like a gyaru`s nail. It makes your hand just so much more interesting. haha. The nails were pink with light pink and white sparkly criss-cross designs at the tip and on some of them there were acrylic white flowers and fake diamonds. It was sooo cute! (Check out my pics) But sadly they only lasted a day. ;_; Then we went to go buy some milk tea, after all, we`re in the land that created it and boba and all. I missed it hardcore because it`s so damn good here. So I ordered my sweet mung bean drink from my favorite store. I love the place. We also bought some awesome popcorn chicken and Taiwanese tempura. Oh man I missed this. Street food bought from vendors is the best. And I knew from that day I was gonna be gaining a hell of a lot of weight. Actually, I knew before I went to Taiwan that I was gonna become fatter and eat from day to night. Cuz that`s what you do in Taiwan. Eat and shop.

In the afternoon we went looking for a hair salon cuz Leslie wanted to get her hair dyed and cut and I decided to get a hair treatment. After getting lost 5 times and almost hitting a rogue moped driver (I swear, moped drivers are freakin crazy and reckless in Taiwan. Oh, and there`s no concept of pedestrians here.) we found a cool looking place with young people who work in there. And there was one ikemen guy in there. So at first it was a lady who was talking to both me and Leslie, but when I asked her about the hair treatment stuff she called over the treatment specialist who turned out to be that hot guy. I was like "no way, oh man. I`m gonna have a heart attack" lol. So he touched my hair and after asking him what was best, I decided to go along with his recommendation. He took me over to the washing basin and started to wash my hair. Along with the hair wash was the most amazing head massage EVER! Damn it felt good! His hands were like magic! Leslie said I was there for a good 10-15 minutes and said that he must`ve liked me enough to massage for that long, kya! Yeah, it did feel like a long time, but I enjoyed every second of it. >D Leslie got her hair dyed a beautiful burgundy red color and my hair felt soft and silky aftewards.

We went back home ate some wonderful Taiwanese hot pot with lamb and then left to go to the night market for some shopping. I got there and ate food again....lol Then came back home to play with my doggies. Oh, and it was only 16 degrees C outside but people here were sporting thick winter hokkaido style jackets. I was like WTF? It`s warm outside! But then again, I have gotten used to Hokkaido weather.

Dec. 29th Tuesday

So today we went to Taichung!! Yay! Took the train over. Actually we woke up at around 11am and watched some TV and ate lunch before heading over to Taichung. ehehe. So our goal today was to watch Avatar in 3D. We went over to ShinkongSanye or Mitsukoshi and watched the 2pm showing. It was soooooooooooooo GOOOD! Watch it peoples if you haven`t watched it! The story is pretty typical, but it`s the graphics that you have to watch it for. It`s beautiful, like ridiculous beautiful. And it really is like a pocahontas story. =P Anyways, afterwards we went to the Taichung Fengjia Night Market to shop and eat dinner. We just went to eat alot of stuff sold by the vendors, got some mega long ice cream, ate stinky tofu, and drank Indonesian pulled tea which was manned by this hot looking in-man`s-clothes-girl. There`s a lot of them here in Taiwan. I believe they`re lesbians. But I think they`re terribly hot and sexy. I`d totally go for them because they just look soooo good. They`re girls who dress up like guys, act and walk like guys, and do their hair like a guys. I actually have a couple friends like them and I think they`re hot! And they usually always have some really hot girl with them too, maybe their gf? Anyways, Taiwanese lesbian couples are hot hot hot. >D

We had a wonderful evening and caught a taxi back to get one of the last trains back home.

Dec. 30th Wednesday

Today is Lugang day. Lugang is the second oldest city in Taiwan and its chocked full of historical stuff and old alleys. It`s also very Buddhist. Lugang translated into English means deer alley, but I didn`t see any deer. Anyways, the meat buns here are the most famous and this is about the only place you can get dragon whiskers candy. It is made from sugar spun into thin strings so they look like whiskers and they wrap them around sesame or peanut powder so it looks like a cocoon of sorts. I love it and missed this as well. I went to the temple to do some praying because I haven`t done so in a while. I did the usual thing then went out to buy some wonderous mini deep fried shrimp. Then we walked around the old alleys where there were vendors everywhere and we bought liquid molasses candy that are in bags with sticks sticking out of them closed off with a rubber band so that the liquid cant flow out. You cut off the tip of the bag at the top and start sucking out the molasses. It`s super sticky but not extremely sweet, just perfect. Walked around a bit more and then went on back home late evening. I also bought mung bean and milk powder cakes. Lugang is also the only place for these things. Anywas, getting back home we were pretty tired from the days excitment but still went to the Changhwa night market inmy town. And there we bought papaya milk and ate more foods. Yup that`s all you do here.

Dec. 31st Thursday

Spent the day in Taichung again. Just chillin and shoppin and then went to the Sogo Dept store for a nice New Years Eve dinner. We ate at California Skylark. I ordered a nice 3 course steak meal and Leslie ordered a four course one. Appetizer was a shrimp and mushroom grill. Soup was puff pastry chicken cream soup. Entree was steer steak and chicken nuggets on a teppan plate. And my drink was fruit tea with an assortment of cut fruits floating around inside. It was delicious! We then went home and went upstairs to the roof to watch the fireworks at midnight to bring in the new year. Woo 2010!

Christmas and Taiwan!

2010-01-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

Dec. 25th Friday, Christmas Day and Elementary Bounenkai

So after a fun day at the elementary with the kids today (I had absolutely no classes whatsoever) there was the bounenkai for the elementary staff. Ueno-sensei was still as oshare/fashionable as ever with her Vivien Westwood clothes and bag. I love this teacher, we have the same tastes in wierd things like Rilakkuma/Mameshiba/and Vivien Westwood. Noso-sensei (whom I also adore cuz she`s such a sweet teacher) drove us over to the ryoukan where the bounenkai was held. This ryoukan was in like a back alley area where I`ve never seen before and it was old, but had a very Japanese rusticness about it.

So when we got into the room we had to pick a piece of paper that matched where we would sit. At the elementary and middle school there is no heirarchy seating. It is all based upon chance and matching, which is pretty cool cuz you get to sit next to people you`ve never sat near before. So I got a picture with a Prius on it and sat down with Tanaka-sensei (the nurse) to my right. And then I heard a "Yes we can" from behind me and saw Mr. Wonderful sit down to my left. Now, this is not the first time we`ve sat in proximity together actually. The first time was the welcome party for me and him so they had us sit next to each other, him on my right. The second time we sat diagonal from each other. And now he drew the picture that matched the one to my left. Each time we drew pictures we somehow ended up getting seats near each other or next to each other. Could it be....fate? lol Not getting my hopes up though. ^_~ Anyways, he looked soooo good in his black suit and he also had black leather gloves and a black long coat. In fact, he kinda looked like a host it was so hot. Serious. I wasn`t the only one who thought that either. One of the other male teacher was also wearing a suit and going around pouring beer for everyone and Kikuchi-sensei was like "You look like a host" And then the other teachers chimed in and said "But Mr. Wonderful looks just like one." And I was sitting next to him so I was like does that mean I`m like his client? =P He was hot that night I have to say.

Anyways, Mr. Wonderful and I had wonderful talks about stuff and he told me all about Fuji-san and the cave underneath it. I would love to do those things. I have a penchance for adventures and exploration. hehe. Anyways the dinner was wonderful! It was Hokkaido`s famous kegani/hairy crab, baked scallops, kobe steak salad, chawanmushi, hamachi (fish), and oyako-don (salmon and salmon roe rice). SOOOOO Good! And then to end it, the 5th grade teacher did a presentation on the big 10 news of the year. One of them was me coming to the school and he also had a special thank you for me for teaching the kids fun games and doing wierd gestures so the kids will remember the vocab. Hehe, I felt happy and glowy. Then we went to go to nijikai at an all you can drink bar place for 90 minutes. Upon aftewards we went home via taxi or the vice principal`s car. I should`ve gone home via the vp`s car because then I could`ve sat with Mr. Wonderful!! >.< But it`s okay, the taxi was a nice ride and I was able to talk to my 5th grade teacher more. He paid for the whole taxi ride which cost $30!!! I insisted on paying for half of it, but he paid for the whole thing instead! Dude! I owe him one.

Anyways, I went home, packed, and barely slept cuz I was happy and excited that i get to finally get out of the snow and everything so that I can go and visit family in Taiwan. Ah, warm Taiwan.

Dec. 26th Saturday

So I got there on time and everything (which btw, I now hate the Chitose Airport`s international flight section because the lines are so ridiculously long and not enough counters and stuff and only one security check which ended up causing the long ass lines) and got on the plane at 3pm which it was supposed to take off at 3:45pm. And we ended up taxi-ing on the plane until 7pm.........yes...It was definitely not going to take off. And what`s worse was that there were about 4 tour groups all from Singapore on the plane in the seats near me. Luckily for me, no one sat next to me and I had a window and aisle seat open, so I spread myself on there. But the tour group was all around me and complained alot and were loud and annoying.

I have to say, no offense to anyone because I`m actually also one and so are my parents, but many (not everyone) Asian people from China and southeast Asia just have no consideration for those around them. And this always annoyed me. Everytime. I think that maybe only Japanese people don`t annoy me as much. At least they kind of have the courtesy to take in consideration for those around them. Seriously, I had tour group families sit in front of me and behind me and they would just crowd around the area talking loudly to each other, making an abundance of complaints, and actually crowding into my seat area. I was like `dude, I sit here and you`re leaning all over my chair and getting all up in my space yo!` I kinda felt sorry for the non tour group families sitting around because they also had to endure the same thing. I also felt bad for the flight attendants because they were trying their hardest to calm everyone down but everyone was complaining that it was their fault! It isn`t! It`s the weather! What did you expect from Hokkaido in the winter? Happy sunflowers and coconut trees under a beautiful blue sky?!!

I was sooo annoyed and I could tell that the flight attendants were too! I`d totally want to punch someone if they kept coming to complain to me about the plane not taking off. I`d rather sit in the plane for a couple hours than have the plane take off in the blizzard, slip on black ice somewhere during take-off and have a fiery crash. And it wasn`t just our flight either. 4 other flights sheduled to take off around the same time were also delayed. The main problem was that they couldn`t get the 2 main runways cleared of all the snow and ice in time for us to leave. It was reasonable because if you looked outside you`d understand. And I do understand that many of the tour groups had to catch a connecting flight to Singapore from Taiwan and were frustrated that they`d miss their flight, but I`m sure the airport will organize something since you paid all that money and you have to get home somehow. But complaining like that will get you nowhere under these circumstances. At least the mother who sat in front of me apologized for the situation with everyone complaining and crowding around me. She actually helped me a couple times because maybe she felt bad for all the disturbances. But they still continued.

But just fyi, that was not the first time I experienced this. Everytime I get on the plane to Taiwan or from Taiwan back to America, Taiwanese and southeast asian families/groups always annoyed me because they were so loud and loved to complain about everything and paid no heed to courtesy. I`m Taiwanese and Southeast Asian, but I have to say out of all the Asians on planes or in groups, they annoy me the most. Sorry, but my Mom is the same way and she`s Southeast Asian, I love her and all but her friends and her really annoy me when they get together and stuff like that because it's basically the same as the above; my Dad`s Taiwanese, but he`s really not that bad. Just please please please take in consideration those around you, don`t be stupid and let others think so of you, and first try to understand why things are happening the way they are before you make judgements and complaints. If you do so, other people won`t make rash judgements on you, maybe won`t dislike you, and be a little more open to your feelings. Because all I could think about during that time was not how I had to wait for so long on the plane (cuz I`d really rather be safe than sorry) but of how annoyed I was with the tour groups around me!!!! I don`t know, maybe I`ve been living in sweet polite (maybe fake?) Japan for so long or am pretty Americanized (where space and courtesy is well enforced otherwise you`d get your ass kicked) that these things annoyed me soo much.

Anyways, sorry for the long rant on the plane tour groups stuff. I was just terribly annoyed and couldn`t really do anything about it because I was the lone person in the section with all the tour groups and I didn`t want to get ganged up on if I said anything or ruin my teacher`s reputation. bah. I kinda feel like a coward now and stupid for not saying anything. But ah well. The flight ended up being cancelled until the next morning and so the airport/airline provided hotel rooms for us to stay in. And I have to say, I totally didn`t mind the flight being cancelled because these rooms were serious nice! They were huge! I told them I was just by myself, but they gave me a double sized bedroom! The hotel was called Classe Hotel, sits on top of a hill, and it just opened in August. It was a beautiful hot springs spa hotel and would probably cost 100-something a night to stay (luckily free for us). The view from my room was spectacular. I could see mountains and distant city lights. My bathroom was gigantic with so much space in the middle of it I wasn`t sure what to do with it. haha. I had a vanity as well! The only thing is we arrived at around 1am when the hot springs were closed. So no chance for that. But I took full advantage of the room for the night. hehe.

Dec. 27th Sunday

The bus came to pick all of us passengers up to get over to the airport in the morning after a splendid free breakfast buffet. This wonderful Taiwanese couple from last night who helped me get a room when I was confused with what was going on (because all I could hear was complaining and all the airport people were being bombarded by the complainees that I couldn`t really get a chance to talk to them about what was happening) also were with me so I made new friends. They came to Hokkaido to tour on their own without a group. (Like I said, not all Taiwanese/Southeast Asian people are annoying, some are pretty nice) They helped me along and everything and I was able to get on the 11:30 flight to Taiwan, same seats and everything. Again, I spread myself over the two seats I had free. Woo. I finally watched District 9 on the plane! It was good!

I arrived and got through customs at 4:30pm and waited around for Leslie to arrive from Tokyo at around 5pm. And boy was I so glad to see her! I missed seeing my friends from back home and seeing her was a wave of exhiliration and relief. I`m finally with my old friends and family again. I missed them so terribly much. Oh, btw, Fahrenheit is Taiwan`s representative, like how Rain is for Korea. I saw their life sized cutouts welcoming me in Taiwan immediately upon entering the arrivals hall. lol We both caught a bus over to Taichung and had a wonderful fun talk which I haven`t done in a while on the way over. My aunt and uncle came to pick us up at the Taichung bus stop and then we went back to the house. Upon arriving I was so happy to see my 2 wonderful dogs, Kin-chan and Bobby. I missed them soo much! They got skinnier!...I think. Anyways, my grandma was happy to see me as I was her. I missed Taiwan and I missed my family. Actually, it was a pretty funny change from seeing the white covered winterland of Hokkaido to seeing the still lush moist green fields of Taiwan. I was like, man, I don`t need my jacket. And indeed I really didn`t. It was not cold whatsoever. Well, to us Hokkaidians and the one from Tokyo. The coldest it got was 13 degrees C and it was mainly 17-18 degrees C most of the time. So I actually got hot on some days.

So Happy New Years to all and I will write more on Taiwan later! Peace! Oh! And, pics are all up. All 300 of them! So check out my old updated album and my 3 new ones! My kids are all in them as well!

oooo Parties!

2009-12-24T20:10:00.000-08:00

Dec. 19 Saturday

So today my sup and I went to go check out snowboards and snowboarding gear at this awesomely big sports shop called Xebio. Some of the decor included fake/stuffed/taxidermed wildlife and for a sec I was like "whoa, they sell hunting rifles here too?" Cuz, you know, that`s usually how it is if you go to a sports shop in the US; it`s either full of camping gear or rifles when there`s animals like that around....lol

So anyways, I found a board, boots, and bindings set, all for 500 bucks total cuz it was on sale. But I didn`t buy it because I had found a board in a recycle shop earlier for 32 bucks. And plus I`ve never snowboarded in my life, so I was planning on maybe renting first to see how I like it. But I think I will be boarding alot here because that`s basically the big sport here in Hokkaido. And plus there`s a ski hill in every town. So it`s crazy if I don`t learn a winter sport besides skating here. I need to get out more and work out too. haha.

In the evening Su and I went to Bikkuri Donkey to eat hamburg steaks. They were soooo damn good there!

Dec. 20 Sunday

Went over to Asahikawa to hang with Alan! My first time hanging with him in Asahikawa. I usually don`t have the time, but this time I was like, "Yes! Free!" I had a car so I drove him and I to JUSCO for some shopping goods. Christmas presents etc. Yes, it`s a lil late for me to still be buying gifts especially since I have to send it to CA, but hey, I know or I hope my family won`t mind late presents. =P And then we stuffed ourselves at the buffet there. haha. Alan saw a couple of his high school students, and i saw a couple of my elementary kids. hehe.

Dec. 22nd Tuesday

So today was the Christmas party at the nusery at 10am, but before that, at my elementary was the individual grades music concert at 9:30am. So since my 6th graders were last to perform, I was unable to see the whole thing and had to rush off to the nursery. At the nursery the party was already well underway and each of the classes performed a Christmas song. It was soooooooooOOOOOO CUTE! I melted when I saw all of them in their little cute proper formal christmas wear and party hats. I wore my reindeer headband and all the kids were like "AH! REINDEER!" And asked me if Santa`s coming or not. lol Cute. I was surprised, however, when the kids (my older ones, 5 and 6 year olds) were aloud to hold open flame stick candles and walk with it and light the menora in the center of the stage. I was freaking out because I was like "OMG you guys are getting too close to the person in front of you!! Watch the hair! THe hair!" The lil kids were trying to be as careful as possible and kept only staring at the candle. And it was actually really funny to see because they were just absolutely mezmerized by their candles and couldn`t stop staring at it. lol But I was still freaking out. Open flamed candle stick, children, walking in one line really close to each other makes for a bad combo. Afterwards I had to head back to the elementary because I was going to teach a special Christmas lesson to my 6th graders. Although my nursery kids were asking me to stay for the afternoon and asked why I had to go. hehe. cuties!

Once I got off of work I immediately came home and got ready for the bounenkai (end of the year party) with my middle school teachers. It was held in Asahikawa, so Iwata-sensei came to pick me up and we booked individual rooms together at a hotel there since there was going to be massive drinking at the party tonight and none of us wanted to drive back home at 2-3am in the morning. I was able to talk to my family on skype for a bit, but was talking and running around fretting about what to do with myself for the party. haha. So at 5pm I was picked up and we checked into our wonderful nice hotel rooms (well, great except for the fact that it smelt like cigarretes) And then left to go to the party venue.

The place was called Shiraume. And it was damn awesome and delicious! They were famous for their tempura. And then they had Mushi-shabu which uses the shabu-shabu pot, but on top of it you put a bamboo box and put the meat and veggies inside and then cover it, and steam it via the shabu pot beneath. It was delicious! And I loved the atmosphere with all the teachers. Yappari, my middle school teachers are the best to get along with and party with. They`re so much fun and lively and crazy! haha. I love them. Afterwards we reserved a bar/snack (as that`s what they call dark places with few lights that has a bar, and sofas, and a karaoke machine) for all of us to have 90minutes all you can drink alcoholic beverages. Dangerous. lol There I sung my heart out with karaoke. Hagino-sensei was excellent however. LOL His actions, adlibbing, and super genkiness even had the other customers joining in with us! haha. Then afterwards we went to another bar to drink witha ll you can drink stuffs. But I was starting to get tired and I had another party the next day, so I decided halfway to head back to the room and crash.

Okay, right now, I`m at work and it`s the big cleaning day at my elementary. So I will go clean now. More updates later! Bye! Otsukare!

I think by the end of this month, I`m going to be sick of parties.

2009-12-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

Alright guys, it`s been a while since my last post. I`ve just been too tired and busy lately. But now that I have nothing to do while I`m at work, I can post! Yay! =P

Dec. 13 Sunday

Today is the Christmas party at the storybook library/museum for the elementary and nursery kids! I volunteered to help out but there really wasn`t much for me to do except look after the children. So all the volunteers all had little Santa aprons and hats on and because I didn`t, I decided to be a reindeer with snow on it. I wore my reindeer ears, a brown tank, and brown leggings with a white fluffy poncho like thing(shawl?) that represented the snow. =P I got there and people weren`t expecting me to be all dressed up, so they were all like WHA?! lol I love dressing up for the occasion so I couldn`t pass it up. The kids thought I was funny and liked to play with my ears because I was the only reindeer. There were lotsa santa`s helpers and santas though. haha. Several of my high school girls also decided to volunteer at the party. So it was a jolly good time bonding with them! I normally don`t talk to them very much at school, but I was happy to be able to talk to them now. They`re sweet and happy children.

I felt so popular at the party because I knew basically every kid! They were all my students. When they came in through the doors and saw me, all smiles. I love them, my babies. I met a lot of the nursery kids parents and they all already knew who I was. I even got invited by one of them to go over for dinner. Turns out she`s the wife of one of my cool high school teachers that I actually talk to. Their son, Genshuu, is seriously adorable and loves English time. ^^ Anyways, when it was time to do a dance together,(I think I must have lost all shame by now) a couple of the kids came over to hold my hand because they wanted to dance with me. haha, cute!!! And I was the only one going all out on the little cute dance because I had to keep up my image of a fun wierd exciting teacher for the kids. haha. -Seriously, at school, I`m quite the wierd teacher and sometimes even the teachers are like "What...are you doing, Theresa?" Or they`ll just laugh at me because I do weird actions. It`s all for my kids. Oddly enough, by me being my weird crazy self, the kids respect me more. The class becomes more fun and lively that way. I like it. The teachers get a kick out of it too. And by chasing students down and poking them until they finally say hello in English to me, I`m getting the students to be more into speaking it (cuz they have to, otherwise they`ll be poked endlessly >D). But that`s mainly only at my elementary.-

Anyways, the kids all had fun at the party and went home happy and with presents. I hung around and went to the otsukare party afterwards with my high school girls. But I didn`t feel right staying there too long and eating the food because I really didn`t do anything to help, except clean up and mind the kids. But they all still gave me a present and homemade cake which is very good btw! ^^

Dec. 16 Wednesday

So, I found out yesterday that my high school has a dormitory. I was like, really?! A dorm in high school? It`s my first time hearing it, but I`m sure there are other high schools like this in the states...i think. It`s located right behind the school. It`s super nice and cozy and has 22 students living in it, seperated into the boys` dorm and the girls` dorm. Although there are only 5 boys living there. lol The boys` area was super dirty compared to the girls even though they clean the dorm everyday after school! Dedication! But they had a PS3 and Grand Theft Auto! I was like, "DUDE! You guys realize I`m coming over here more often now, right?" It also had a cafeteria in it with the cafeteria ladies. The ladies told me about a party happening Wednesday night for the students and teachers in this dorm for Christmas! They invited me to come! I was super excited and said yes because I wanted to spend more time with the high school students and come back to this dorm because it`s awesome! And then I realized that I`m going to be having Christmas party overload. This month is the month of Bounenkai`s or End of the Year work parties and Christmas parties. Parties galore to be exact. I have two more parties tomorrow night to go to too.......

So at first on this night I wasn`t sure if I wanted to go because I was super tired after work today, but I`m quite glad I went. Actually, the free food enticed me to go. haha. So when I entered the cafeteria, all the kids were like "OMG, Theresa!" And were all excited! One of the boys was even like "Tension agatta zo!" which basically means the atmosphere is getting more exciting, for a lack of better translation for this...lol The food was soo good and I got to eat Japanese pizza. I had one with shrimp and mayonnaise and one with raw ham on it (proscuitto?) But food was so damn good and my kids loved talking to me. And then the boys decided to go dress up or cross dress and came in wearing sexy dresses and evreything. haha. They were sooooo skinny! More than some of the girls! I took pictures. =P Afterwards, we played some games like bingo, charades, and quiz games. It was pretty fun. I kept getting the "Kawaii!!~" from all my girls too. And then they all asked my if I had a bf and when I said no, all the girls were super surprised and was like "Wha? But you`re so cute!" lol Thanks girls. You make me feel special.　So the night ended at 9pm and was wonderfully fun. Mainly because the dorm was really comfy feeling. Woot.

Dec. 17 Thursday

A hectic day of partying. Seriously, no joke. I had two Christmas parties today, one starting at 6pm and one at 6:30pm. Yes....they were basically at the same time. And I had just finished teaching at the elementary school today, running around and playing with the kids, so I was already ready to just pass out. But since I payed for the 6pm one, which is for the 30 years old and under workers in town crew I wanted to get my money`s worth. And I promised my Taiko kids (the party at 6:30) that I would be there to exchange presents and play with them. So I first went to the 6pm one at really hot nabe (hot pot) really fast, burnt my tongue, and then at 6:25 went over to the club hall for the other party. Actually, I would`ve been able ot eat more and a little slower if there weren`t so many speeches before eating. That`s about the only thing I don`t like here that people have to give long speeches before eating taking up precious eating time and letting the food go cold. Just kampai and lets eat! >.< At the 6pm party I didn`t really talk to other people very much except for Su because she`s the easiest to talk to for me and the funniest. So I was actually pretty excited to go to the 6:30pm one with my kids.

At the club hall my kids and their parents had already arrived and were sitting down at the tables waiting for the teachers to all arrive. I was second to last to arrive and felt pretty bad, but my kids were excited to see me and my girls were like "Theresa-sensei, come sit next to us!" And they even said, "It`s good isn`t it? Theresa-sensei is sitting with us!" I felt more glowy and happy. It was much more comfortable sitting there with my students and their parents and the taiko group rather than the 6pm party with people who are the same age as me. Either, I`m really just a kid at heart or maybe the atmospehere was better. I don`t know. It made me wonder though. Anyways, we played a fun and cute game with stuffed animals and Bingo and then did a present exchange. Most of the gifts that the parents got were all given to the younger kids because the presents were mainly fun kids things. I got 2 nice pens and cute erasers from one of my 1st grade boys. I was quite happy actually. I need them! ^^

Then after sitting and playing with my kids for a lil while longer, I was called by Su and other peoples at the 6pm party to go back because they want to start the present exchange. So as much as i hated to leave my taiko party, I had to because, one I was still hungry for more food, and I paid for the thing, and I didn`t want to be rude to them. So I bid my kids farewell for the night and went back to the other party. I actually got lucky and got this huge apple pie made by the local bakery. It looks so damn good, but I can`t eat all of it, so I think I`m gonna give some to other people, or just Su since she eats so much anyways. lol After the first party ended, there was a second party to go to, which i wasn`t sure if I should go or not. But against better judgement i went. I drank no alcohol though because I was driving. And I didn`t want to drink anymore after all the drinking in Sapporo. I wanted to give myself time to rest and let my liver recover. lol So I stayed there and talked to everyone for a little bit and then left at around 11pm. I was quite exhausted to say the least. And now I`m at work writing my blog update. I`m really quite tired right now, but pumping myself full of coffee to keep me going throughout the day. Hahh.....I have more parties next week too...3 more to be exact. One on the 22nd, 23rd, and 25th. Luckily, on my B-day, the 24th, I can just stay at home and chill. Or, maybe go out and party......

Otsukare-sama! Pics willl will will be up soon. There will be about 300 or so pics so just be warned. Love you all!

Sapporo Orientation MYC (Mid Year Conference) and others

2009-12-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

December 2nd Wednesday

So this is the second time this week that I`ve woken up late for work! I woke up at 8:30am and I was supposed to be at the school by 8:10am! Damn alarm clock had run out of batteries while I was sleeping. So, yes, I was very late. But, luckily, I didn`t have to teach until second period, so the vice principal and the other teachers all said that it was totally fine and not a big deal since I`ve never been late before. Just as long as I don`t do it again. eheh. But I felt terrible because I also needed to leave an hour earlier to catch the train to Asahikawa city to change onto the fast train to Sapporo for the Mid year conference that starts tomorrow. So troublesome. But all the teachers said it was okay for me to do so.

So I got all my stuff ready and went off to the train station. When I got to Asahikawa station and was waiting in line to get on the fast limited express train, I saw a girl who looked very familiar because I`ve seen her several times. I vaguely remembered that it was Mio and so I called her name and she responded. It was such a coincidence that we were on the same train together. She lives and works in Biei which is about an hour south of Asahikawa. I`m an hour north. So we sat together on the train and had a good conversation. Turns out we both have the same interests and all that which is awesome. And then a caucasian guy came over to talk to us and we found out he was one of the ALTs in Nayoro city which is only an hour north of me. And I knew Abby and Giselle were also from there so they were also on the train as well. There were actually a lot of us ALTs on the train all headed over to the hotel for the night since we all live so far away that we didn`t want to have to wake up at the crack of dawn to leave for Sapporo.

Once we all got to Sapporo, we parted ways after we checked into the hotel, and since I didn`t have a room to stay in because my BOE was being cheap and didn`t want to pay for the extra night, I stayed the night with Abby. So then John (the Nayoro ALT) and I went to go meet up with Collin and two other guy ALTs from Hamatonbetsu which is near where Collin is. However, from the first impression I got from them, they seemed like trouble. And that`s kindof how it was that night. They were crazy ass guys and I started feeling alittle uncomfortable with them. Our conversations got pretty perverted and I was like "Whoa!" But I really should be used to dirty conversations since me and a bunch of you guys back home constatnly had really wierd and wrong conversations. But because I`ve been isolated from that and have been constantly in the polite sweet mannered jpanaese peoples` company (well, as sweet mannered as they can be until they drink) it`s been way too long since anything like that has happened. At around 12am I decided that I wanted to head home because it was just too much. I know that John was very unhappy with these guys by the end of the night that`s for sure.

So I spent half the night sleeping on the floor in my friend`s room and then was called back to sleep on the bed, to which I kind of got kicked off a little. lol But it wasn`t bad at all. haha. I really appreciated her letting me sleep there for the night, though. Thank you so much Abby! Luvs!

Nov. 3rd Thursday

So neither Abby nor I woke up until 8am because we didn`t need to be at the meeting until 10:30am. Yeah, being able to wake up that late on a weekday is wonderful. I was able to meet up with Miki and everyone else that morning so I was super excited and happy to see everyone. The conference was okay, I mean the it felt like college lectures all over again for some part of it. But when Chelle did her presentation, that was awesome! And what she said was pretty true. Like how when we phone back home to the states, for some of us who have been so isolated, and tell our family and friends how we`re so excited when we get to eat fried chicken for lunch. lol Thtat was totally me. I get excited when little things like that happen. haha.

So tonight is the MYC ball which is an 80`s prom theme. My homies and I didn`t have 80`s theme dresses or clothes, so we all just kinda stuck with our cocktail dresses. I wore my dress with black "fiberheat" (nice and warm) pantyhose or stockings, and silver heels with my black fur coat. I looked and felt really Japanese. haha. My friends even said the same thing. =P Oh, and I met Davie Bowie. lol

Afterwards we went to TK6 which is the foreigners bar in town to drink and stuff, but I ended up going home early because I was tired and the next day we had to wake up earlier for the conference. But i had a good Long Island Ice Tea before I went home.

Nov. 4th Friday

Last day of conference. At night I went to go see the White Illumination in Odori Park. It`s when they decorate the park with a lot of lights and light statues and stuff. So it was absolutely beautiful! Then they also had the Mulhen festival in the park which is a German Christmas festival. That was cool. I had real sausages and real saurkraut! So damn good. I also had warm cherry beer which was actually very good. I met up with other ALTs there too! And got to take a picture with the German santa! Yay! ^^ Afterwards we were supposed to meet up with Steph to go eat, but it turned out to be pretty late by the time we got back to the hotel and we all wanted to go clubbing too. So we decided to just make a run to the conbini and head over to the girl`s hotel and eat there while everyone was sitll getting ready.

However, we accidentally walked into the love hotel that`s right next door because we thought that that was the hotel they were staying at. We went inside and knew it was not a normal hotel as the hallway and entryway had no one there and allt here was was an elevator and a wall with pictures of available rooms. HAH! That was my first timein one and i was excited because they always have like the coolest rooms ever! Seriously, they were swanky! So I called the girls and was like "dude, are you guys staying in a love hotel?" And they said that it was called the Business Inn hotel, which is very different from the one we were in. lol =P We found it right next door and it looked completely different. haha. Anyways we went to the girl`s room and they looked damn hot! Well, everyone just looked good that night. It`s been awhile since we`ve all dressed up to go dancin. I wore my one piece long sleeve semi-dress top that bared a shoulder with leggings and my stylish brown legboots. Lol I was thinking of heels, but then decided against it. haha.

So we walked all the way to the club and when we got there we found out they were playing hip hop and reggae!!! YESSSHHHH!!! I love it. We also had met up with Jonathon and his wife. So all the cool kids were there. All the guys were dressed up in button up shirts and nice pants. But the Japanese guys at the club were all just wearing sweatshirts and jeans and caps. lol Steph couldn`t get over that fact because back at home, the guys would totally be kicked out. lol =P I do like it when guys dress up nicer for clubbin. But it was pretty funny. The guys just wear their street clothes in. haha. The music was pretty good and we spotted these 3 girls who were damn good at dancing and figured that by the way they danced, they cannot possibly be from Japan. So i asked one girl with short hair and she said they were from Tokyo but originally came from New York. So that`s why! I fell in love with her. Seriously, she was so hot when she danced. Man. X3

At 5am our feet were dying and getting tired so we decided to go home. I crashed at Collin`s that night because I had no other place to stay. So thanks muchos Collin! Appreciation!

Next day, woke up at 10 checked out at 11 and decided to go eat at an awesome Indian restraunt with Nan and curry and then went shopping for a little bit. Then headed back home. Everyone was ready to pass out we were so freakin tired. lol

Nov. 6th Sunday

Stayed at home, found out my pipes froze and tried to unfreeze them. The temp in my apt was 1 degrees celsius. Wooo. lol So I ordered some delicious potato and cod roe pizza (which is seriously damn good) and stayed at home planning games and lesson plans for my elementary school kids. Fun day. lol Well actually it really was because I was able to talk with my love, Linda. I lurv you massly Lindas!

Nov. 7th Monday

I stocked myself up on coffee galore because I was still feeling the effects of the lack of sleep the entire time I was at the conference. Seriously, each night I only had at most 4 hours of sleep. And i always start my mondays with my super energetic little nursery babies which require all of your energy. Like crazy. Then after was the elementary 6th grade which also required a shit load of my energy. I seriuosly go crazy when I`m in school with the kids. I try to match with their energy and level of excitement so by the end of the day I`m ready to pass out. Waaaaa....But it`s always alot of funwith them. At the elementary today all my kids told me "Theresa-sensei daisuki!!!" which means I love you Ms. Theresa!! and gave me big hugs WAAHHH!! To which I responded back with equally large huggage. When the teachers told them that I will still be in the elementary when they go there, they were all like "yatta!" ^_^ woo children. And then at the elementary school, because I was super genki and super outgoing with the kids today, the kids fed off my energy and were excited for class. They loved me and loved talking to me. Yay!! Seriuosly, I had so many kids tell me they loved me today. I feel so special.

Nov. 8th Tuesday

Today was my BOE`s bounenkai which means end of the year party where they can forget all their troubles this year and look forward to the next year. It wasn`t terrible, but it wasn`t awesome. I just liked the sukiyaki they had. That was super good. I won bingo and got soba making basket things......And then went back home and had a good talk time with Su (my supervisor which I totally love and adore cuz she`s so awesome). We had a pretty hilarious conversation. XD Anyways,

Otsukare-sama for reading all. And be prepared for 300 or so pics to be up by this weekend. For sure! Love you all. I think I need to hold back on the coffee drinking. But without it, I`m unable to give enough energy to the kids in my elementary. soooo tired.....

F-ing awesome weekend!!!!

2009-11-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

November 21-23 Saturday-Monday

Yes for long three day weekend and thanksgiving!!! We don`t really have a thanksgiving feast or anything, just the day off which is on monday. So one of the Asahikawa ALT`s invited a couple of us ALTs in Hokkaido to go over for a mini get-together. And originally Collin and I were going to go on a road trip over to Lake Akan this weekend to see the marimo (balls of algae that Hokkaido is famous for and therefore the mascot is marimokko= the humanized algae ball with an erection.....), but because of the weather, we decided it would be best to just head over to Asahikawa and hang there. So Collin drove down on Saturday to my town and got here about 6pm and we went to go eat at Ibushiya. We then caught the train over to Nagayama and got there about 9:30pm and walked in the snow to the Alan`s (one of the Asahikawa ALTs) apartment, which was super big!!!! It had three spare rooms, a living room, a super huge bathroom/washroom, and a kitchen. I was like "WHAA??!! IT`S HUGE! compared to mine." And we have deduced that I have the smallest apt, but apparently a very homey feeling one. Yay. I try with the decor.

So when we got there Erika (the Noboribetsu ALT) was already there. It`s been awhile since I`ve seen her so was quite glad. Since it was already quite late by the time we arrived, and we were still waiting for Steph, we decided to just chill at the apt. and drink. So two of us headed out to buy alcohol while we waited for Steph to come. And we bought quite a lot of stuff! In fact we bought enough that we couldn`t drink all of it. After Steph came and we busted open the drinks we sat and talked with alcohol for a while. Actually, until 5am. Well, Erika fell asleep first and I was being lulled away by the kotatsu, but was in a mode of pseudo sleep as I would occasionally respond to whatever the others were saying while partially asleep. But I don`t know why we stayed up until 5am as the next day we were supposed to go to the Asahiyama Zoo. lol

SoI woke up at 8am to take a shower which was super early after sleeping so late!! >.< But if we wanted to head over there before the zoo closed we had to get up. Though Steph did comment "Why are we up?". lol We got up, Collin went go buy materials for breakfast (Thanks Collin!) We had yummy scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. It`s been awhile since I`ve eaten western style full breakfast. It was nice. And all the English we spoke...man, it`s been a super long time since I`ve spoken that much English. Seriously. lol But I felt my English level falling. haha. So we all got ready and left for the train to Asahikawa where we then caught the bus to the zoo.

On the bus, these three guys got on and one of them was SUPER HOT!! Like, he wasn`t gyaru-o style or host club boy style which are good for looking, but not really bf material or great personalities. But this guy was sort of Asian hip hop style with his black and white jersey and his pants almost falling below his butt (not exactly the pants style that I like but...), his hair was styled very nicely, his face was amazing because it was a very masculine shape and he had kind of a little bit of a shadow on his face and he looked like a serious nice guy, and his hands were nice. =P I couldn`t stop looking at him cuz he was just so hot and kept reminding the rest of the ALTs on the bus with me that too. haha. And he got off at the zoo stop also! lol He was going with his 2 guy friends. I just couldn`t stop staring longingly after him. And the rest of the ALTs were like, you should totally go and talk to him. They kept trying to push me towards him, but I couldn`t as I thought it would be awkward because I look to Asian to just randomly go up to a Japanese guy and talk. If I were foreign looking, then it would be no problem. But since I blend in, it`s a little difficult. eheh.

So I wanted to take a picture of all of us standing in front of the Asahiyama Zoo sign and was going to ask a random person when I saw the hot dude with his friends trying to take a picture too. Collin told me I should go ask them if they wanted help and I couldn`t because I was too nervous, so Collin did it for me. And then afterwards the hot guy was like alright, let`s change places now and took my camera from me to take a picture of all of us. I was secretly very happy. Haha.

Majority of the animals were not out at all because it was f-ing cold outside. But we saw all of the winter animals and then the big flat faced bored looking orangutan. We then went to the petting zoo area and got to pet a collie and a sheepdog!! I was soo happy! It`s been so long since I`ve been able to pet a dog and I miss it. I miss fat Bobby and Kin-chan (my Taiwan uncle`s fat Shi-tzu and Japanese Golden Retriever). But I`ll get to see them next month when I head over there and get fatter eating the food..I`ll start looking like Bobby then... So then we tried to pet some ducks but were afraid they were going to bite us, and then we went in to see the Guinea Pig farm....now that was strange. There were so many guinea pigs!! And a chinchilla. I got to hold a guinea pig. It kept my lap warm cuz I was so cold. haha. I kinda want one, but unfortunately, of all the animals, guinea pigs are not really kept as pets here. But you can keep a prairie dog and flying squirrel! lol

We pretty much stayed until the zoo kicked us out and we were the second to last people in the place. =P Collin left to go spend the evening with his friend`s family and the rest of us headed back to Asahikawa city for chilling and foods. We found an awesome store for Halloween costumes or just weird gag stuffs and then took some purikura. Yay! Then I discovered the location of "Hoang Tam Asian Cafe". I had seen the restaurant in magazines cuz it was so pretty looking and well designed that I was like, dude, let`s go guys. And the decor was awesome! It`s supposed to be like southeast Asia style. Mainly, Thai and Vietnamese style as that was the majority of the foods they served there. The bar was awesome though! THey`re drinks were so tasty and good! I got this drink called Blue Bell Heaven. It was beautiful and tasty! The food however took forever to come out and came out one by one. They only had 2 chefs in the back. Seriously, they need to hire more chefs or be super fast or make the restaurant smaller. We got in at 6 and didn`t get all our food until 7 so didn`t leaved until 8pm. It would never fly in the US.

Afterwards, we decided to go to a bar and have nomihoudai which is all you can drink alcohol. Whoo! We went to this awesome bar that Alan recommended called Zero. The decor was cool and there were 200 drinks to choose from. 1,880yen for all you can drink for 2 hours. Awesome. Although, the service there could`ve been a little better. The girls were gyarus and when they respond to your order they say "haaii~" instead of "kashikomarimashita" and their attitude needs a little work. But, hey, they`re gyarus, what do you expect? The guys, however, were super great and provided excellent service. Wow, what would I do when I go back to the states with crappy service? lol

So after getting loaded up on alcohol we went to Shidax Karaoke at 12am and sang our hearts out until 3am. Whereupon one of the girls got sick and spent a bit in the bathroom before we decided to go home. I was amazed at how well she held herself until we got back to Alan`s apt. So we got back at 4am and then went to sleep. I was gonna get up early the next day to head to AEON for Taco shells for teaching my 3rd year high school class how to make tacos on Tuesday, but luckily, Alan had some so I was just gonna use his, even though they were a little stale. And then I found out that we`re not doing tacos until 2 weeks later....Well, that had me worry for nothing.

Anyways, that morning I woke up, went to Asahikawa with Steph, sent off Steph back to her place, and met up with Collin for shopping. They had the cutest Christmas cards at Loft. I missed Loft, I love the place,but it`s a little pricey. I have to figure out what I`m sending back home to the states for friends and family. We then headed back to Kenbuchi where Collin then went back to Sarufutsu. I feel like I`m getting sick again because just when I thought I was cured, I go out and spend whole evenings with barely any sleep drinking....lol So yes, I`m sick, again.

November 26 Thursday

So I went to play badminton this evening at the B&G gym which is our local gym. Oh, btw, it`s one of our town`s activities for the townspeople where you can play ping pong or badminton on Tuesday and Thursday nights. So most of my elementary boys do ping pong along with some middle schoolers. I always see them there and one of my high school boys does badminton. On the occasion Hiroya (elementary 6th grade) is there too. Today both my badminton kids asked me if I was going tonight. And I said yes and they were happy. Yay! lol When I entered the gym, all the lil kids who were busy playing badminton saw me, stopped what they were doing, and were like "oh! It`s Theresa! HELLO!" And they all had smiling faces on. I felt popular and loved and I love my children very much too. That`s one of the greatest feelings of this job is the fact that your children appreciate and love what you do for them and being able to love your students too. I`ve grown attached to this lil town`s babies. They`re so precious to me they`re like my own children. ehehe. I attach myself to my job too much. Today was special at the badminton courts. 3 boys from each school came and were playing together on one court. One from elementary, middle, and high school. They were all my students. When they saw me they had the same big smile on their faces with their "Hello Theresa!" I was so glad to see them. Although, Hiroya is sometimes a hit or miss because he tries to act adult-like sometimes and I`m too playful with him...eheh.

After playing and saying goodbye to Nemoto-san`s cute little daughter who I will see at the elementary 1st grade next year I drove Su home with me. Su was like "You really love the students, dont` you?" I replied "Yes, I really really love all of them", to which she said "Yeah, I can tell. You love them and they love you too, judging from their reactions with you". Yokatta. I`m glad for that. In this town, my students are the most important thing to me. And if they`re happy learning and loving English, then it makes me the happiest person right now. Yay Kenbuchi babies! Mass love to you all!

Otsukaresama for reading all! Pictures will for sure be up. Although it will be old because there are pics from way back. Love ya all!

Tama-ire!?

2009-11-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

November 16 Monday

So I`m officially sick. I was already not feeling too good at the Arashi concert, but I shrugged it off and thought that I was just too excited during the time. But when I got up for work today I started feeling the strain of holding back my sickness during the weekend. And, as it is the trend here when you get sick, you wear a mask so you don`t spread it to others, or so the Asians believe. In truth, the mask doesn`t really do too much because it`s not airtight or sealed to your mouth so there are open areas for germs to still spread out; it`s difficult to breathe through the mask causing you a little bit of dizziness, possibly making you more sick; and if you sneeze or anything like that the germs just stick to the mask that you`re wearing and you still have to breathe it in.....Not the most effective in my opinion. But, hey, it does help in the fact that during work if I`m reading something funny I can smile and no one will notice. =P Anyways, if that`s what the Japanese people think will be better for me and for them I will wear the mask because there`s the big influenza scare.

I was ready to go to the nursery, but my BOE peoples were all a little apprehensive of me working because I was sick. I felt well enough to teach, so I just told them I`m fine, no worries. It`s just that I have a runny nose, a little cough, and I`m unable to talk in a normal voice. I don`t have a fever, so I`ll be okay I said. So they let me go to the nursery where I taught my lil loving kiddies and they were so good when they learned that I was sick and couldn`t talk in a loud voice so they were a lot more quiet. Good children. But then one of the head teachers told me that after the class I should just stay in the teacher`s office because she doesn`t want me spreading it to the children. I was actually thinking the same thing, so it`s fine. Later, as I sat there、I received a call from my BOE saying that I should go back because i was sick and shouldn`t go to the elementary. At the elementary the 1st,3rd,4th,and 6th graders are all infected and have been sent home for the week. So only the 2nd and 5th graders are there. They told me it was because they wanted to wait for me to become better and for my voice to come back to me before I go teach, but I know it`s because they don`t want me spreading it to the children. Whatever, to protect the kids it`s fine.

So they told me that this entire week I will just stay at the BOE and chill (do nothing, because there is nothing for me to do) since they will cancel all the classes I`m supposed to teach this week. And that`s bad because this week was supposed to be pronunciation practice with the sounds "th", "v", "r", "l". Mooouuu...I feel bad for being sick, but at least I can rest for this week without straining my voice and stuff. I had bought Omiyage for my elementary and middle school teachers so I wanted to bring it over to them myself personally. So I did, and when I got in there everybody avoided me like the plague...>.< The only person who was normal with me was Ichinoseki-san, the office personnel. So I handed him the stuff and left. The middle school was actually nicer to me as they all worried for my health. I need to sleep earlier.

November 17 Tuesday

I sat at the BOE the whole day today with absolutely nothing to do.....So I just read manga on the internet. Everyone kept telling me to go to the hospital to get checked out, but I was like, "dude, I`m not going to the hospital just beacuse I have a cold. I know it`s not influenza and I know I don`t have a fever so no need for the hospital." But since everyone just kept pestering me, and I mean everyone, I decided to give in to them and go to the hospital. Because I have health insurance (in Japan, it`s social health insurance meaning everyone who lives in Japan has health insurance no matter what. US needs to adopt this system because we f-ing need health insurance for everybody) the bill was pretty cheap including medicine. And as I had already suspected, I only have a cold. So I went back home to prepare for tonight`s activity which is the big Teacher`s gathering. All the teacher`s of all the schools in this town and the staff of the BOE meet up togethher for a recreational activity and then have dinner. It happens once a year and it`s pretty cool to see all the teachers gathered like that so even though I was sick, I still decided to go. I wore my mask.

It took place in the middle school gym and the activity was Tama-ire. I was like wtf is that? Basically it`s just throwing a bunch of little bean bags into a basket on a pole that`s pretty high up. Alright. It was actually harder than I thought. I ended up not getting any into my basket earning nothing for my team. Oh, btw, you play this game in teams. All the teachers were pre-seperated in teams A-F with teachers from every school in each team and one BOE member. Since I`m technically a BOE memebr I was the head for my D team. And so all the team members have to gather around the net with your bean bags and throw them in. And the fastest team to get everything in is the winner. Our team came in 5th place. Mr. WOnderful was there too,a lthough not in my team. But he was the only one of the elementary teachers to say konbanwa to me and I was super happy. But then he just left without saying anything. Well, actually, all the teachers did that. But I felt stupid because all this time as we were watching the other teams compete he was standing there by himself and not talking to anybody and it was my chance to go to talk to him, but what did I do? I just stood there talking with the other female teachers....I lost my chance that night and I felt dumb because of it. I need to be more confident in my flirting ability and go ahead and be agressive and talk to him. =P lol But I don`t even know if he has a gf.

Anyways so after I left I just went home because I decided not to go eat because I wasn`t feeling too well, and plus majority of my fav teachers weren`t going to be there, like Mr. Wonderful. So I just went home to sleep and rest. Oh! It was actually kinda cool at the recreational activity because I knew everyone in there and was able to talk to all my teacher`s easily. And some of the teachers on my team don`t really talk to the other teachers on my team, but would talk to me. So I felt kind of popular because of that. haha. Yay. Anyways, it was fun. Cool.

Otsukare-sama for reading!

YES ARASHI CONCERT!!!

2009-11-15T20:16:00.000-08:00

November 9-12 Monday thru Thursday

So my confidenceness has been paying off. Ever since I pumped myself with more confidence the teachers have been talking to me more and stuff. Particularly interesting is the elementary. On Monday when I went to the Elementary I exuberantly and confidently said Ohayou gozaimasu to the teachers and was so energetic with the kids that the teachers were surprised, but since the kids already knew that was how I usually am like it was nothing new to them. Yeah, I don`t know how the teachers don`t see how genki I am with the kids...eh, whatevs. But at all the schools it made a difference with the teachers. Well, the high school is still the same, but in terms of teaching, it was a difference.

On Thursday night I went to pick up Chingyi from the Asahikawa train station. She flew in from Gunma-ken on the main island. She was here to see the Arashi concert in Sapporo, in which she invited me to go as well, and decided to also visit me since I`m on this island. haha. But it was nice to have another states person with me in the car. The way we talked and everything really felt like I was back in the US with my ol buddies. I missed it very much. And I realized that after not cussing for a long time, I spewed it out almost every other sentence. And that`s bad. lol =O I`ve been trying to be agood girl and not do that. But it just came out....

Anyways, we went to go eat at the all you can eat Shabu-shabu place and I had her try the Hokkaido softcream because damn is it good. And I told her she also needed to try HOkkaido milk. So afterwards we went to Lawson`s to find it, but to no avail. We`ll check out Seico Mart later for it. So then we went home and chilled.

November 13 Friday

My middle school was excited to hear about my friend who came last night. I had asked them beforehand if it was okay if I brought in my friend for a visit of the school after all the students had left and they were totally fine with it. On the other hand, the elementary was f-ing strict with this stuff and it took an hour to okay everything! Are you kidding me? She`s just coming in to see the school after the students have left. ANd they like need to know why she came, where she came from, why she`s coming to the school, what time she`s coming to the school, if she needs a guide via the vice principal. DUDE. It was like a police inquiry. I know it would be dangerous if it was some gangsta guy, but I had already told them she was an ALT from Gunma-ken. Bah, in the end they told me it was okay.

So at around 3pm I went home to pick up Chingyi at the apt and took her to the elementary first to look around. The teachers were all in a meeting so they were in the meeting room. So I guided her around the school and saw a couple of my volleyball girls so went over to say hi and introduce them. Then afterwards I went to the middle school and with whom all my teachers were really excited to talk to her and everything. I love my middle school peoples. haha. Even my kids who were still at the school for club practices were pretty cool with her. =P

After that we went to the Picture Book Library/Museum, one of my favorite places in town. It`s so nice and modern looking. Hehe. So Takeuchi-san, one of my bosses who works at the the Picture Book place and also an awesome father of one of the 6th grade elementary kids whom I dearly love, was there that evening. No one else was at the library except for the workers. So I was halfway giving her the tour when Takeuchi-san came over and said he`ll give us a tour of the place himself. And luckily because of him we were able to go to all the rooms that were locked and even go the backroom or the safe room where the temperature has to be kept at a certain degree so as not to ruin the items kept there. It was soo cool! He even told me that if I ever want to come in here to translate books or anything like that all I have to do is tell him and he`ll let me in. WOO! I feel like one of those special agent peoples who have special access to everything. haha. Anyways, afterwards we went to go eat at the Eki-mae ryokan and then went to go sing our hearts out at the Karaoke box in Shibetsu city. Originally, we were going to only sing for an hour, but when I got there and they said there was a special price if you order free time (no time limit) that comes with all you can drink it`s only 1420yen. If we ordered the one hour Karaoke by itself it would cost us about 800yen for one hour. It`s expensive at night yes.So we were like, dude, 1420yen for as long as we like and anything we want to drink? I think I`ll take that one instead. SO we sang for 4 1/2 hours just the two of us, from 7pm until 11:30pm. Man, my voice was seriously dying on me. haha. But the Arashi concert is tomorrow! Exciting!

November 14 Saturday

Off to Sapporo for the Arashi concert!!! I drove my car to Asahikawa and parked it at the structure next to the train station for an overnight stay and then afterwards rode the train to Sapporo. The trip was pleasant with our duking it out on Mario Kart. So when we got there it was raining like crazy. Like a freakin typhoon. So we rode the subway over to the nearest stop to our hotel and walked the rest of the way. My jacket was soaked,even though I had an umbrella. ANyways, we got there at 12pm so we couldn`t check in yet. We just left our luggage with them and went off to Sapporo dome to buy the goods for the concert. THE LINE WAS LOOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG!!!! We waited outside, in the pouring rain, in the long ass line for 2-3 hours! Just to buy the concert goods. Hah.... It was a good thing both of us had umbrellas and were wearing rain boots. Otherwise I would`ve died from the cold and wetness. =P There were a lot of girls wearing very little out there and non rain repellent stuff so I felt bad for them. But they chose fashion over usefulness and protection. Their own fault. But what they were wearing were cute I have to say.

Finally after 2 long hours I could see the goods. And I saw the really hot posters of them. This concert is their 5x10 Anniversary Tour celebrating 10 years that they`ve been super popular. So all their stuff has that logo on it. But their posters were super hot. And Aiba-kun seriously takes the best pictures!! His single picture was sooo hot! He looked like a prince in the photos. HOT! I caved and bought the single one of him, the one with all the members, and I bought their pamphlet/photo book, and a fan with Aiba-kun`s face on it. Haha. They were selling eco-bags and pen lights and towels and keychains too, but since I`m not a super big fan, I was content with what I bought. Save money!! lol And as I was waiting for Chingyi to finish buying her things I hear "Theresa?" and looked around and saw my two eldest cousins standing there with their umbrellas looking at me incredulously. I was like "OMG!!?? WHAT!??" My cousins don`t live in Japan, they live in the states. So I was super surprised to see them. They were here traveling around Japan and were fans of Arashi so last stop for them was this concert. Freakin amazing! Seriously, big coincidence that we met here at the concert. I haven`t seen them in several years too. And then of all the places, here. So I took pictures with my cousins and said goodbye to them and if we see each other later it would be awesome. But I don`t think that was going to happen because there`s way too many people here. I didn`t even see any of my students who were coming, but I met my cousins. Too cool!

So afterwards we first went back to drop stuff off at the hotel and then went back to the Sapporo Dome (concert venue). Our seats were up in the stands but since the stage was huge and the seats were well positioned there was no problem seeing them. Although the boys were a little small. Our seats ended up being next to these two awesome black girls who were studying abroad here in Sapporo. And get this, one of the girls is from CA`s La Verne University. My hometown`s university! Too coincidental. I was like, wow, today was a day of coincidences.

But anyways, the concert was way too awesome. The crowd all had their pen lights and when the concert was beginning they all held them up in the air. It was soooo cool looking. The whole place lit up red and blue. Well, more red though. But that`s like DBSK`s color....lol There was this giant helium balloon that had 5x10 written on it and when the boys came out they were dangling from this huge balloon flying over the crowd. It was awesome!! And then Aiba did his solo song and he was so freakin cool and hot hot hot! All the other boys were also very cool and hot. I didn`t know that Nino played the guitar. That was cool. And at the end, when you thought it was the end with just one encore, they popped out again with another one. THey did 2 encores! I love these boys! Seriously, this concert made me a bigger fan of them. The special effects and everything were all very cool. An awesome concert.

Afterwards, since there were so many people leaving the dome to get onto the one train leading out of the dome we girls decided to just chill around the area for an hour before getting on the train. We did not want to get smashed in the train with other rabid fans. But there was a line to get on the train that extended all the way out to the entrance of the station. We waited for a while before we got to the actual platform and by then we were lucky enough to catch the last train. I felt sorry for all the other girls who couldn`t get a train back home. But it was already super cramped on there. It felt like the Tokyo trains during rush hour, but luckily it was all young girls standing around us and not old men on you. lol Ah, good times. =P

Anyways, the girls we were with were totally awesome, and I will definitely call them up when I come back to Sapporo next time. So we said our goodbyes and headed over to our hotel. I was originally planning on hitting up bars to drink the night away, but because we didn`t get back until 12:30am and I was super tired after the concert, we just bought bentos from the conbini and went back to chill at the hotel. Yeah, I just collapsed after my shower. Oh, btw, our hotel is located in downtown Susukino where all the host and hostess clubs were located. Oh yeah. The cabaret clubs were there too. There were so many sexy looking buildings that just had club names all over them. There was one named Club Desire and Club Atlantis and I so wanted to go into them!! And our hotel is right across the street from the apartment building where all the hosts live. So we saw a couple of them walking in and out from there as well as just all over the place. haha. It was hot.

November 15 Sunday

Aahh...Good morning. A very good morning indeed. I`m all worked out from the concert and then we get free breakfast. Woo. So we spent the morning wandering around the Sapporo train station looking for empty lockers to put our luggage in after we have checked out so tht we don`t have to carry the damn things around. But because there were so many girls here for the concert majority of the lockers were taken. So we wandered for like 30 min trying to find empty ones. But we finally found them. Then we went to go take some purikura. I love purikura here and it`s so cheap! The first machine we took pics in we held up our Arashi fans and just had Arashi written all over the pics. The second machine we looked cho model-like. Super models. Haha. It helps that what we were wearing were fairly fashionable. I liked that machine. It made me look a little skinnier. haha.

We then went to the pokemon center and I bought 2 little pokemon plushies. Soo cute. The place was pretty awesome I have to say and there were so many lil kids running around. haha. It was cute. Afterwards we met up with Chingyi`s friend who came from Canada to the concert. We met up to give her her stuff that Chingyi had bought for her. We then rushed to go eat and ended up in the same Tonkatsu place as last time I was here because it was the fastest. At 3pm I took my train home to Asahikawa and drove back home. Good weekend.

Otsukare-sama for reading! I will post a video and pictures soon. But unfortunately I will not have pics of the concert since we were not allowed to take pics and there were people walking around making sure we didn`t take pictures. Suck. But good good concert.

I`m going to freakin exude confidence and be awesome!!

2009-11-10T15:56:00.001-08:00

11/8/09 Sunday

My Elementary School Festival! Well, more like just an open house performance thing. I`ve been waiting for this day for a while because the kids plays are sooooo cute and good that I wanted to see it performed for real, as well as the dance I taught the 6th graders. I love my children! So the thing started at 8:30am and all the parents arrived to sit on the floor in the gym where the stage also is. Since I`m technically a teacher, but not one of the official teachers I don`t have to actually work and I get the special important people chairs/seats. And when I went to go sit down I heard a small little voice say "Theresa-sensei!!" and saw one of my lil nursery kids run over to me and hug me tight. I was so exhilarated to see her! She`s soo cute! And her parents were sitting on the floor behind me and I heard them say "Who is that? The English teacher?" So I decided to introduce myself to them and now they like me. haha. And because there was an empty seat next to me since not many important people came, I told her that she could sit next to me because she couldn`t really see anything otherwise. Some of my other babies also saw me and came over to hold my hand or talk to me. However, some of the parents were like...who is that? THey didn`t think I was a teacher and wondered why I was sitting in the important people`s seats. I guess I still look like a high schooler to alot of them....

So the kids did an awesome awesome job and their costumes and props and backdrops were freakin AMAZING!! I have to admit I did help alot on the 1st graders costumes. And so they had the most elaborate looking ones because Yuki also helped. THe other teachers did majority of everything themselves which was amazing! But I didn`t know that Kitagawa-sensei (the 1st grade teacher) was so freaking good at art or just artistic and creative in general. His backdrops were painted and hand drawn by him and they were soooooo beatiful!! Even the audience gasped when they saw it! I love him even more now. He was already my fav teacher because he reminded my of Winnie the Pooh, but now he`s the best! haha. So the 2nd graders did a play called きつねさんのたくさん客さん "Mr. Fox`s Many Guests". 1st graders did something about a fight between the water mountain and fire mountain. It was actually pretty epic and the 1st graders did an awesome job! The 3rd graders did どろぼう学校 "Theives School"　which was the best performance of them all. It was sooo cute and funny. The 5th graders did something about a good daimyo in a village. The 4th graders did おれたちはゴミっ子だ！ "We are Garbage Children!" Yes, it sounds terrible, but it talks about the importance of seperating trash...lol Kinda cute, kinda sad. =P The 6th graders did 青い鳥２１about finding the beginning of peaceful times from travelling to the past. It was really good and funny.

Oh, dude, so Mr. Wonderful looked damn good today! He was wearing black pants, a grey sweater and underneath it was a white collared shirt so the collar and cuffs peeked out of the sweater, and he moussed/gelled his hair semi-ikemen style. I saw him and was like DAMN! lol Like I said before, he`s not the hottest thing out there, but he has a very nice body and an awesome personality and really is kind of like eye candy. SO that`s why when I saw him looking like that, it upped his level! lol

After the festival at 1pm we had the enkai for all the elementary teachers. There was supposed to be a bus that left for the Shibetsu hotel where the enkai was taking place and I rode in to the school on my bike just in time to see the bus leave....I was like Oh shit...Luckily, the vice principal and Watanabe-sensei were there waiting for me. I felt so bad. But they told me it`s okay because they had told me a later time...so technically it wasn`t my fault...=P At the enkai we are given lil pieces of paper with a picture of a cute animal on it which corresponds to the animal pictures on our seats. It`s basically a roullette of where you get to sit. So I was standing next to Mr. Wonderful and was dearly hoping to be sitting next to him. He got a deer and I got a freakin hippo. And I was hoping that they would be next to each other. But nope, I`m next to the principal. I somehow always end up in the seat next to the bigwigs. But then I saw Mr. Wonderful sit directly diagonal from me and was like, "oh man, it`s going to be hard for me to talk to him because now I`ll have to look at him". And you know me, I panic during those times with hot guys. But I really tried and ganbarued! So I got one short 2 minute conversation in with him during the whole time and it was just about his car......>.< lol

After lunch was the second party to where most of the teachers went to go bowling. I again, like always, got the lowest score. Suck. But Mr. Wonderful took off his sweater and relaxed his white button up shirt underneath. And he looked sooo nice! He was on a different team next to mine, but we sat back to back or side to side whatever you wanna see it as, and I didn`t show it, but was pretty happy. haha. After bowling we decided to go to Tsubohachi to drink and somewhat eat. The guys ordered beer that came in fat big glasses and whiskey and the girls ordered cocktails and stuff. I didn`t sit next to Mr. Wonderful, one of the teachers was in between us, but he would occasionally look over to talk to me. And the men drank sooooo much, like ridiculous amounts. lol ANd it`s not nomihoudai, so we had to pay for all of it. The enkai at the hotel cost 4000yen each and this cost us 3000yen each. Errg.... Then we went to karaoke.

And there is where I really let myself go. I love Karaoke, and no matter what I fill myself with confidence and sing my heart out. Singing is something I`m not afraid to just belt out in front of people whether I suck or not. And it really freakin surprised my teachers. I guess that normally I`m really meek and quiet at school when I`m around the teachers, but when singing I`m back to my normal American self. haha. And all the teachers were like, dude, Theresa, you`re really good. And I swelled with pride. haha. And Mr. Wonderful`s voice is amazing! And when he`s doing Karaoke, he also becomes a little different. He somehow becomes sooo cool and fun! At school he`s kind of quiet and mature like, but here he was a normal cool party guy. Points upped. I really like that. When you work, your in good person work mode, and when you party, you really know how to party. That was him. Awesome! And when I selected to sing Aoyama Telma`s そばにいるね "Soba ni iru ne", he was like "ah, さすが" haha. And in the song there`s a guy rapping part to which none of the other guy teachers knew except for Mr.Wonderful. I was about to rap myself, but he took the other mic and started rapping the words for me! XDDDDD AAAAAHHH!! He was sooo good at it! I was amazed and wowed. And I was all a flutter that he sang with me. haha. Points totally upped. Then I decided to sing Mariah Carey`s "All I want for Christmas" and he totally cheered me on and woohoo`d for me. XD

After the karaoke session when I was waiting with him to pay I told him that he was totally good at rapping and his singing voice is amazing! And he told me that he just likes to sing and really has an interest in foreign music and the English language. He said that when he learned English in middle school he started having an interest in English and so he actually speaks it pretty well! So we started talking about English music in English. And I told him anytime he wanted to practice his English with me he can. Ahah. My strategy. lol So he was really happy and talked alot with me that night. He also asked me if I knew Fly Me to The Moon, and I just looked at him and was like OMG, are you serious? I love that song!! (No joke, I really do.) And he was like "you Love that song?! That`s great! Let`s go Karaoke together next time!" And I almost fainted from that one comment. =P I`m weird, yes I know. haha. But I`m always really fluttery around him, so I`m never sure what I should be feeling. XD Oh, and he`s a freakin gentleman. Like, the other men, even Kitagawa-sensei aren`t so gentlemanly, but he was totally. He would always wait for all the women to go out the door first to follow in the end so he was always the last guy out. Or he would let all the girls get their shoes before he would get his and he would open all the doors for us. Then when we got back at 12am after Karaoke (Yes, I spent from 1:30pm to 12am with my elementary teachers all day, and, man, can elementary teachers party. I love them when their drunk and crazy!!! LOL) he volunteered to walk me and the other female teacher back home when the other teachers were like "you guys are walking back alone?" But we told him since we`re walking together, it`ll be fine. Although, I really would`ve liked to walk with him. We could`ve been able to talk more, but becuse he lives in the total opposite direction of us, I didn`t want to inconvenience him. Points majorly upped. Oh, yeah, and Karaoke cost us 4000yen each cuz of all the drinks we ordered and the long ass time we spent in there. Yeah, I don`t need money. I don`t need money at all.

However, to cut this lovely spiel about Mr. Wonderful, there was something that majorly irked me and pissed me off during this time. Specifically during Karaoke, but it began at Tsubohachi. I guess the guys were getting a little more drunk and tipsy and can`t control what they say ya know. But I was still very surprised and taken aback by it. Watanabe-sensei (the 6th grade teacher) began to be a little rude to me at Tsubohachi. Not terribly, just a little. And then at Karaoke he said some rude things to me and when I went to the bathroom and came back, I saw him talking with one of the female teachers who I was sitting next to. And when I came back and sat next to her he said "I`ll talk to you more about this later" and she turned and saw me and kinda laughed and went Oh! So I knew something was up, but didn`t wanna confirm it just yet. Then when I was with Mr. Wonderful waiting to pay I saw him talking to the other teachers in the corner and them looking at me. So I really really knew something was up. When we got in the large taxi to go home, I sat behind him and I heard him say to Hisakawa-sensei "oh, she`s sitting behind us" Hmm.....So I started listening to his conversation while at the same time talking with the female teacher next to me and Mr. Wonderful behind me to not let them know I suspect something. ALthough they`re so obvious because they`re kindof drunk.

So Watanabe-sensei kept saying "she really needs to have more confidence in herself. She is so different when she sings, but at school she has no confidence." But it was in a much more worse tone. And the other teachers seem to be nodding along. You know I really wouldn`t mind if you told me after I sang or something "oh, Theresa, you`re really confident and different when you sing, but you need to have more confidence at school" Yeah, I wouldn`t take offense but take it to heart and do my best then. But if you`re going to talk behind my back like that about something that I think is so trivial but you`re making it sound horrible it`s absurd and I won`t just take it. I mean, they were freaking talking about it right there, while I was still there with them like they thought I couldn`t hear or understand them! True, at school I`m a little more meek and quiet, but that doesn`t mean I have no confidence. I just don`t know what exactly to talk to you about besides lesson plans, you teachers are always super busy anyways, and I get confused in class sometimes because I`m never exactly sure what you want me to teach! >.< Seriuosly, I try really hard to clear things up with the lesson I`m supposed to help you teach so that I understand what I have to do. Yet, even when they tell me what to do and I thought that I understood they pull some things on me during class where they don`t explain to me what they`re doing and expect me to just know and I get so confused because of that. I know it`s partially my fault for not being able to understand Japanese fluently, but I try freakin hard when I teach. I really let myself go crazy in class and be totally out there with the students, how can you say I have no confidence in that area? The kids seem to love me because I`m so different and I do things that teachers would normally not do because they might think it lowers their status or whatever but I go out and do it because I don`t care if people think I`m wierd or look stupid. I mean, I came all the way out to Japan on my own to teach in an area where barely anyone knows English, so then how can you say I have no confidence in myself? Maybe, they might`ve taken my confusedness and quietness with lack of confidence, but by no means do I think I have no confidence. Maybe I do need a little more confidence in myself, but the reason I don`t talk too much is because I sometimes can`t understand what your conversation is about. I`m not fluent or a native Japanese person. I try to start a conversation on the occasions, but you only answer shortly and breifly and don`t continue it and you want to now beat on me? WTF, dude? Majority of my friends who know me know that I have enough confidence in myself. True, there are many things that I`m not confident about, but it`s not in the part of teaching or talking with Japanese people because I`ve already done alot of that back at UCI. SOmetimes, I just don`t know how to act around the teachers so that I don`t offend them so I think it`s better to be a little more reserved around them. I didn`t want to be too American style ya know?

But you know what? F that! THis Sunday night I decided that from now on I will be so confident that you will take back those words you said and realize that you made a mistake. I will exude even more confidence than I already have, be even more genki and livelier than normal, and be my normal self. You want more confidence? You`ll get it. You might even think that I maybe am not the same person anymore and I don`t know if you`ll like my new self, but that`s me. So don`t go regretting that you think I need more confidence. Because I will show you more confidence. But, no worries peoples, I will be careful with myself that I don`t go overboard. I just want it so that one day when Watanabe-sensei or any of the other teachers in cahoots with him say to me "Theresa, you seem to be alot more lively and genki lately" I`ll just say to them "Oh, you know, I just thought it would be good if i had more confidence in myself" and just see the look on their faces. So from now I will live life like there is no tomorrow and burst with and exude confidence so that no one will ever say otherwise again.

Sorry for the long rant here, but I needed to vent and proclaim my "new" self. haha. And hopefully, good changes will happen.

OMG SNOW!!!! And my car battery died while I was an hour away from home...

2009-11-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

October 31st HALLOWEEN!!!!

So today is Halloween right? But rememeber, there is no such official day like that in Japan. So instead, for my town, today is the town`s cultural festival. Or specifically the old people`s culture festival. It was a small little thing held at the town hall with a gallery displaying all the works of the elderly in this town. The work was amazing!! I have to say, old people really do have a lot of time on their hands. So much that they perfect their hobbies of artwork and calligraphy. It reminded me of my grandma because she`s the same way. Old people don`t have alot to do during the days so they go to art classes and stuff. I loved the gallery. I really really wanted to learn all these things that the grandpa/mas do but, sadly, I don`t have the time. After the gallery I went to go eat some free soba that some of the grandpas were making. They asked if I wanted to make it too and I did. Except that Su was in front of me making it so I had to wait as there was only one table for this thing. ANd i was kinda on a time constraint. I had to get back home to get ready to leave for Asahikawa and the Halloween party tonight. So I couldn`t make the sobas. Sadness. ;=; But after Su was done making her portion she brought alot of it over for me with sauce. Hurrah! I also bought some deep fried curry flavored potatoes called "Curry Balls". Yes. lol

Anyways, I went back home to get myself ready for the party tonight and discovered I don`t have a costume!! So I decided to just wear a nice black top and jeans. Hiraga-san came to pick me up at 5pm and I discovered that she lives right behind me! We both didn`t know that we lived so close to each other. So from now on when she goes to the local bar, which they call "snack"s here if they include Karoake...i think, she will call me up and we will go drinking! lol I normally don`t talk to her at the high school because she always seems super busy. But now that I`ve talked to her she is awesome! I like her alot! haha. ^^ So we talked the whole way to Asahikawa. When we got there we parked at the station and walked along Kaimono doori to meet up with her ALT friend from Kitami city who invited us to the party. He apparently knew about it from before and he has friends who are going to the party. Hiraga-sensei used to work with him at her previous high school. He`s from England and super tall, and so were his two other friends who were both from the states. Well, everyone`s taller than me, except for my elementary students. lol The street was freaking cold though! And I saw so many girls/gyarus wearing short shorts or skirts and heels or boots and was like "AREN`T YOU LADIES COLD!!?" Yes, they were, but they choose sexy fashion over protection....sure. But I have to admit, I like that fashion style alot and would wear it if I could. Just maybe not in this cold.

We decided to go to someplace to eat before the party which started at 9pm. So we walked all over the place in the freakin cold until we found an izakaya to eat at. Oh, and one of the guys` costume was a girl`s seifuku/school uniform so he was wearing a skirt and looked pretty cold. The Japanese people were staring at him as we walked around because of his costume. lol haha. After the izakaya we decided to head to a nearby place for more drinks. So we headed in to a British Pub named "Bank of America"....something`s wrong here.....LOL But it had a bar and a TV showing the baseball game and felt like a foreign pub, except for the fact that the bartenders were Japanese. The girl bartenders were pretty cute though. So I drank this cocktail named Blue`s Blue which had grapefruit and blueberry juice/alcohol in it. And around 9pm we headed to Club Den which was where the party was held. This club/bar area is owned and operated by foreigners. most of them all work here as ALT`s or for companies and stuff around here. It was a small place, but had a good foreign atmosphere to it.

But here`s the problem. I did meet a couple of the other foreigners around here, but for some reason, I couldn`t talk to them as well as I used to back in the states. I remember myself being super social and being able to hold conversations with alot of people. And people who know me can hopefully attest to that. I did say hi and try to talk to them, but I think it might be partially because lately I haven`t been in contact with much other foreign peoples and then I`ve been kind of isolated in my lil place, and the fact that most of these people already knew each other was a bit of a problem. Hiraga-san knew no one at the party aside from me and the Kitami ALT, so I decided to stay with her otherwise she would be alone and left out. So I ended up sitting with a bunch of Japanese people and actually holding a decent conversatino with the Japanese peoples. Me and 2 Japanese girls became quite good friends and decided to exchange phone numbers and emails so that we can hang out and stuff. One of them`s a nurse and the otherone used to live in Kenbuchi. haha. So I don`t know if it`s sad or not or if it`s a good thing or not, but I was able to have a better conversation and connection with the Japanese people then with the foreigners. I felt bad for a little bit that I wasn`t able to talk or connect much with the other foreigners aside from the three I had dinner with, but then quickly got over it because I was able to make new friends anyways. It`s fine. I think.

At around 11pm we decided to leave because Hiraga-san was driving and I don`t think she was having too much fun at the party, so I didn`t mind leaving. When we got outside it was snowing for REALS!! I was like "WWWWAAAAAAAAHhHHHH" I got so excited and happy. And it didn`t help that I was a little buzzed from the all you can drink bar at the party. I drank quite a lot. And they give you generous amounts. So on the way home I was really animated and talked to Hiraga-san alot, although I don`t remember what I talked to her about. lol When I got to my apt, the place was covered in snow!! I was like woah and in my buzzed status wobbled over to the door and tried to put the key into the lock for like 2 minutes. haha. Either my hands were super cold or I was just super buzzed. =P Haha. And I conked out.

November 1st Sunday

It`s so damn bright outside because it`s all covered in white!! Everything was white! And super beautiful!! Just wonderous! I was like wow, winter wonderland! I couldn`t believe it! So in the morning I put on my winter clothes and went outside to play in the snow by myself....lol XD I made botched lobatomy snowmen and buttprints in the snow. Haha. I also made snowballs and threw them at my apt or tried to see how far they would sink when i threw them in the snow. I think if you were watching me, you would`ve probably thought it sad. lol I bet the neighbors were like, wtf is she doing? =P So then I decided to trudge my way through the soft powder snow over to Su`s apt. Oh my feet sank to the ground almost 1ft. And I at first couldn`t open my door because there was so much snow piled outside my apt. lol But I had so much fun just walking in the snow. I felt like a lil kid again. haha. I went over to Su`s apt, rang her doorbell, just to tell her it was snowing. haha. And she laughed and thought it funny. I sat over at her place for a lil bit and then went back home after a few minutes of walking through snow covered Kenbuchi. My feet however were getting super cold because I didn`t have real snow boots. Just my velvet black ones. So what ended up happening was that I wore plastic bags over my socks and then put htem in my shoes to avoid them getting wet and my toes hurting from the cold. =P

And then at night I decided to head over to Aoi to eat. It was snowing like crazy outside and I couldn`t really see the road that clearly. And just when I neared the place I stepped on an area that had frozen over and was like black ice and basically slipped and fell. I landed hard on my butt, but thankfully, not my head. It hurt and reminded me of when I fell when I used to ice skate and wanted to go ice skating again...haha. funny. ANyways, it happened again when I left the restaurant. Terrible, stupid clumsy me.

November 3rd Tuesday

Today is Japan`s culture day so it`s a holiday evryone has off. Thank god, because I needed a day where I could go buy winter stuff. I desperately needed snowboots, a thicker jacket, a hat, a shovel and a snow brush for my car. And Su said she would come with me today. So I first headed over to SHibetsu city to find the cheaper things. At Homac I was thinking of getting an extra thing of car batteries and a rope/cable tug thing just in case. And then thought better of it. I was like, "oh, I don`t need it" That will come back to bite me in the butt later tonight. I bought some of my cheap stuff in Shibetsu then headed over to Asahikawa AEON JUSCO to buy the rest of it. I drove super slow and let people pass me because I was really scared of getting into an accident in the snow. Especially slipping. We passed by one car where the girl had slipped into the snow next to the road and some dude was trying to help her out. THat`s when that cable would come in handy.

Well after an hour or maybe a little over because I drove so much slower than usual, we got there. So today AEON`s clothing section was having a huge sale on winter clothing, so I went and bought some, particularly my jacket. And then i bought a humidifier, a mini heater for my toilet beause it`s freakin cold in there since it`s not in my main apt area, just in the entryway which is an awkward place to put it I tell you. And then I bought my snow boots!! Yay! THey`re super cute I love them! They`re brown with pink words written in French all over it. I had liked the black one too, but I have too many black boots already. I wanted to buy these really hot heels, but because I doubt I`ll be able to wear them much during this time, I didn`t.

We basically spent a whole day out until 7pm and decided tohead on back to the car to go home. And my car wouldn`t start up. I had realized too late that I had forgotten to turn off my headlights and it sucked up all the battery life. And now my car won`t run. And we were in Asahikawa. And it was -3 degrees celsius outside. Great. Luckily, we were stuck at the AEON parking lot. And AEON just so happened to be the largest mall/dept store place in Asahikawa. So there were alot of people to ask for help in there. The service people called the guardsman to come and try to charge my car`s batteries or give it a little boost for it to run. And it didn`t. So the guardsman/police dude told us to call JAF which is the AAA of Japan to come help us. He said it might not just be the problem with the batteries. Su called JAF and had the guy come out to help find the problem with my car. And what happened was that the problem was just that my batteries needed a boost!!! And just for that it cost me $120!! If I was a JAF member, it would`ve been free. But apparently I wasnt, when I thought I had signed up for it, and it cost me. BOOO!!!! So I decided to join them in case anymore things like this happened which prolly will cuz my car`s so freakin old. STUPID GUARDSMEN! If only you were able to charge it properly I wouldn`t have had to pay....Whatever. I still thank him for having tried several times. Honestly, I`m really thankful to all of the people who helped, because otherwise I would`ve been hin huge trouble.

I had originally wanted to stop and eat at Kohrinboh ramen with Su, but because of this problem I cannot stop the car until I get home because I need to let the batteries run awhile. So that was that. And then at midnight, as I was blowdrying my hair, the electricity went out. And i was like "oh shit, if the electricty is out that means my heater will go out, and it`s -4 degrees right now. Not good" So I donned my winter clothing and went outside and shoveled my way through the snow at 12am to try and find the circuit breaker. And then realized that it was not outside but inside my apt, above my door. I wasted my body heat outside....lol anyways, it worked. And then I forgot that when you reset the heater, previous settings are erased and I had forgotten to put it on save mode so that when it reaches a certain temperature it will stop for a little bit until the temperature drops and it will start again. So it saves a lot of kerosene and electricity while keeping me warm, hence the name Save mode. I had left it on normal nmode all night and was unsure why it was so hot in my apt until this morning when I realized that it was not on save mode. There goes a lot of my money......Not a good night.

Crazy me and my sleep deprivation.

2009-10-29T18:25:00.001-07:00

I really don`t know why, but facebook is being a bitch and not allowing me to post pictures. Boo.... I have so many too!

October 26th Monday

So I know it`s Friday now and I`m writing about something several several days ago. My life has become pretty busy and a hectic adventure so it`s beginning to get harder and harder for me to post and update stuffs. But I will still try. Oh, and would you guys rather me write about stuff everyday like a diary? Or write when big stuff or amazing things happen? Which one?

I really really wanted to go to Asahikawa for dinner today like hardcore, so I asked Su if she wanted to come along. I didn`t care that it would take about an hour to drive there and back and Su didn`t seem to mind either. SO yes! I really wanted Shabu-shabu, but I didn`t know where I could get it. And neither did Su. So we just took a long drive around the city getting lost a couple of times and finding the super bright neon lights section advertising all the izakayas and bars and restaurants all around. I got so excited when I saw that area because it reminded me of Tokyo which I sorely missed. Actually I just sorely miss big cities. THey`re just so amazing. But I still love my lil town. Like I keep saying, people are nicer and the atmosperhere is better. But I do miss the bright lights big city feel. I got so happy when I saw that street and told Su that next time we are for sure definitely coming here. No joke.

And then I decided that I wanted to try out the buffet I keep seeing advertised in magazines and stuff called "Five Star". So we decided to go there. That was a long long away from where we entered the city. It was actually near the zoo. I was like dude, this is eating up my gas. But it`s all for the food. So we got there and I smelled something that smelled like yakiniku. And lo and behold, there on every table was a grill. It was a buffet with all you can eat yakiniku!!!! I was suddenly reminded of "Gut`s Soul" (EAP CREW! eating till we barfed). Good times. So the buffet was pretty big, but there was barely anybody there because, well, it was a monday night. Yeah. I was crazy and came all the way here to Asahikawa on a monday night just for food. But Asahikawa has a larger variety of foods to choose from and better tasting too. =P SO at the buffet, there was the yakinku section, western foods section, chinese food section, korean food, japanese food, dessert section complete with a large chocolate fountain, and a kids food section. It was awesome. I mean as far as the food goes, it`s okay. But the presentation was beautiful and you get to make your own ramen! And dessert section was HUGE! So it wasn`t bad. And in the booth behind us were 4 hot guys that I thought might`ve been in their 3rd year in high school or 1st year in college. Even Su said that one of them was pretty ikemen. Hahah.

So we ate till we were bursting and decided to head on home. On our way home I spotted these beautiful beautiful houses on my left and decided to turn into the street area to look at them. And these houses were awesome! They`re not terribly big, probably big enough for a family of 5. But the decor and architecture for these houses were way too cool. They were all very artistically contemporary style. But there were some that reminded me of American style houses. I however, adore the Japanese style contemporary architecture houses. Su, though, likes the American style ones and we both said that we should switch places. haha. Dude, if I lived in one of those houses, I wouldn`t leave Japan. =P After 1 hour of milling around the neighborhood we took to the streets for home. However, we took some weird "country" path that Su told me to get on where there were barely any lights, barely and houses and just fields and blackness. I was like "Su...where are you taking me?" And she just went "hehehe. It would suck if you got a flat tire right about now wouldn`t it?" And I was scared. lol

But luckily I found the original street we had come from and went back onto that and ran into fog on our 1 hour drive back home in darkness. Seriuosly, it`s creepy to drive alone at night around here. It`s so dark with almost nothing around you when your not in a city or town area. lol

October 29th Thursday

So I decided that I would make vanilla meringue ghosts for my BOE and middle school which turned out more difficult than I thought. I wanted to make caramel apples at first, but I decided not to make the caramel or get apples because it`s so costly. Apples cost a shit load of mooney out here. So I decided it wouldn`t be cost effective. SO I bought a lot of stuff to make it with and went over to Su`s apt to cook and prep evrything. And only to find out that Su has absolutely nothing in her apt for cooking. She doesn`t cook whatsoever so she has nothing that I could use for baking. She also has no oven which is kinda essential to make Meringue. So I had to settle with using toaster oven which isn`t as good. I started at 7:30 until 1am. That was how long making about 80 of these things was exluding the help of any electruc egg beater. at about 9:30 Su came back home from the volleyball competition thingy. I was at her house by myself from 7:30pm. She left it unlocked for me. Thank you! She and Mago-chan helped me make the things until 1am. I`m so grateful to them. I gave them all the extra ones and I gave Su the leftover meringue mix and chocolate. I just let them eat everything because I`m on a diet. Or, well trying to.

But today at the elementary i wore my Ko-Rilakkuma costume to school for my special Halloween day! And I basically got tackled all day today by small children. A lot of them were like "Why are you wearing a costume?" because most have never heard of Halloween. WHen I explained it to them or did a presentation about it during class time, all the students were like "dude, we want something like that too!" lol And then I distributed stickers to all the kiddies. Everyone was super happy and excited because of it. My children now love me forever. haha. Wait till Christmas and Valentines day kiddies, I have more! Oh and even Mr. Wonderful came over to talk to me when he saw me, although it was just about describing Halloween to the little kids in his class...but he said I was sugoi! XD I was happy for that one word. It just made me giddy. haha. Anyways, afterwards I gave a lot of stuff like American candies to all my teachers.

And then I was supposed to go play badminton today, but because I had to make those meringue ghosts, there was no time. Yuki had come to find me to go play with her, but I sadly had to say no even though I wanted to. I told her to go without me and have fun. And then later I find out that she injured her achilles heel!! I felt so bad after because I had told her to go play. But she went to the hospital and is hopefully okay. I really really hope she`s okay.

On that note, I will have to end it here as I`m falling asleep writing this. It`s been a long day. But oh! It will start snowing Friday! So I`m looking forward to it, but I think I will freeze.

I can see Russia!!

2009-10-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

October 24th

So I`m now on a quest to look for caramel in packages that I can melt to make caramel apples for my teachers and the BOE, but apparently there`s no such thing here. Well, there is, but not for sale in bulk for making these things since there are no caramel apples here. Boo....Maybe I`ll just make little meringue ghosts or something. hehe. =P

This day Sakurai-san from the junior high decided to take me and Iwata-sensei around the northern peninsula of Hokkaido!! WOo! He`s so awesome. Actually the trip was supposed to be for viewing the swans as they have migrated here now. But yesterday Sakurai-san was like "I was thinking, and well, you have three courses to choose from. There`s the Daimyo/Tono course where we leave at 7:30am and drive to see the swans and then tour the entire northern peninsula. Then there`s the Ojou-sama course where we leave at noon to go see the swans and go the western side of the northern peninsula where Wakkanai city is. And then there`s the ______course (I don`t remember what the name was) where we go to see the swans and then come back." Both Iwata-sensei and I chose the Daimyo course. lol

So at 7:30 in the morning Sakurai-san came to pick us up and we were on our way to see the swans. The swans all flock to the little river that is in the countryside area of the next city (but then again the entire island is countryside-like, even in the cities) and just chill there with the ducks. And they`re totally not afraid of humans. Especially the ducks! There were a couple that just walked right up to me and stood next to my feet for the longest time. I really wanted to pet them, but I didn`t want to get some kind of disease especially since the Influenza has already been going around. So we fed the swans chips and stuff we bought from Seico-mart (the local conbini) which was probably terrible for them. I even told that to Sakurai-san and he just told me "yeah, these things aren`t exactly the best foods for them, but I`m gonna give it to them anyways." LOL I was like, okay. =P

So after we fed them we went up Monbetsu and followed the road up the northern peninsula and over to SoyaMisaki which is the northern most point in Japan. And there, on a fine day, you can actually see the outline of the Russian continent!!! I saw silhouettes of mountains and stuff from where we were. It was soooooo cool! I was like dude, we`re so close to Russia this is so exciting! I`ve never been, so at the moment that`s the closest it`ll be for me to go. lol Oh, btw, on our drive up we would drive next to the ocean and it was just sooo beautiful! And it reminded me of the OC area, specifically Irvine, and I miss it terribly. I miss being seaside. But, I love Kenbuchi, so it`s okay. So, at Soyamisaki, we got hungry and decided to eat at the little Ramen shop that`s perched on top of the hill there. Because it was next to the sea and this area is special for its scallops the ramen special was Scallop ramen. So freakin amazingly good! And this shop was pretty packed with people. And then these super hot gyaru-o guys came in and I was like WHA? Gyaru-o guys here in this lil place? But I was happy to see them. It`s been a little while since I`ve seen them besides on TV. haha.

After that, we went to Wakkanai city. And when I went through the city I almost had tears because I terribly missed the big city life. Wakkanai was kinda like Irvine. Actually, it really really was like Irvine. I felt so refreshed being there and was wondering what would it be like if I lived here. It was just so great looking! I think I prefer it over Asahikawa. It`s got the big city feel without being overcrowded and noisy. So after visiting some seafood places where they sold amazing hairy crabs that ranged from $30 to $90 each and there I bought some very interesting caramels. They had the normal caramel, then sea salt and butter caramels, then sweet milk caramel, and then there was melon caramel, and corn caramel. I bought the corn one, the sea salt one, and the sweet milk one. And the corn one really tasted like corn! But then again, the corn here in Hokkaido is naturally ridiculously yummily sweet so i guess it worked. Oh, on our way here we stopped off at the Bifuka rest station where they were selling foods and other souvenirs. Iwata-sensei bought croquettes and I bought the karaage. And I have to say, the karaage was the best i`ve tasted ever! So damn good and soft and juicy but crunchy on the outside since it`s been fried. I loved it. And Sakurai-san bought us corn to eat. AAhhh, I melted when I ate that corn. It was seriously the best tasting corn EVER!! SOOO DAMN GOOD HERE!! The corn, the tomatos...man, I just never knew veggies could taste so good. lol

After that we Wakkanai we wound down the western side of the northern peninsula, saw some more fat and funny swans that we had given names to, and made ridilous pathetic puns on our drive down. The puns we made were so pathetic that it was funny. For example: 稚内＝わっかんない　the city name Wakkani= Wakkannai which means I don`t understand. しんご町＝信号を待ち Shingo town= Shingo wo Machi which means waiting for the traffic light to turn green. lol They were so dumb, but it was fun. It was really dark on our way back and we took all the country roads where there were barely any lights whatsoever. So we almost ran over a fox and almost ran into a deer. It was dangerous to say the least. haha. Around 6:30-7pm we got home. And I took a nice long sleep. haha Thank you so much for today Sakurai-san! I really appreciate it!

Otsukare-sama for reading all!

English Competition

2009-10-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Alright....my posts are getting farther and farther in between. I just keep not having the time for it anymore. I feel terrible. And freakin facebook is not letting me post my pictures!!!! >.< I don`t know why though. Anyways, I really will try to post up pics soon as soon as I discover why freakin facebook won`t take it.

October 20th Tuesday

So today is going to be an awesomely fun day in my opinion. I get to be one of the judges for the English Speech and Performance Competition in Shibetsu. Willing junior high kids from all the schools in Shibetsu (there are about 4 of them I think), the one middle school in Wassamu, and my one middle school in Kenbuchi do speech recitations from the textbook and performances and are judged based on that. My kids and I have been practicing non-stop everyday after school from 3pm until 6pm sometimes 7 for this thing. So in the morning I dressed more formal than usual in my cool white long sleeve button up top and my vest and made sure my hair was perfect and sexy and then left for school. I got to school way earlier than I usually would because my 2nd year kids were practicing their script at 7:40am. Ugh, early, but it`s for my kids, so it`s okay. We gathered all the props and stuff and at about 8:40 we piled everything and everyone onto the little bus and headed off the the Shibetsu community center.

When we got there I saw a tall white dude with blond hair and was like "You must be an ALT" and he was like "Oh,yeah. I`m Jonathon, the Wassamu ALT" and we did our lil intros. At first he didn`t really talk much to me and I was like..hmm...he`s not much of a talker, but his kids seemed to like him. He`s from Australia. Then I saw another tall kinda burly white dude with a brown beard and figured "You must be the Shibetsu ALT, Collin right?" And he seemed to be the nicest fun-loving teddy bear teacher. I immediately took a liking to him. He really reminds me of Santa Claus. lol Nice man. He`s from Australia as well. Both of the ALT`s are from Sydney and they`re super super tall. I felt like a little kid standing next to them even in my heels. So, anyways, Jonathon just married a Japanese teacher last year and has been working as an ALT for 8 years. JET only allows you 5 years. And so he worked for JET for 3 years, went to a different city not on JET for 2 years, and then was rehired by the Shibetsu peoples on a private contract. That was amazing. I was like, Dude, I`d definitely like to do that. Anyways, all the other students from the other schools were surprised to see me as an ALT cuz I was Asian looking and it`s been a while since they saw a female ALT. haha. The, uh, young 2nd year boys from Minami-Shibetsu seem to have taken an interest in me from my interactions with them. haha. Minami-Shibetsu`s kids were all boys, and mine were all girls, so Collin told me that they should stay away from each other. lol Cute. And of course I had the best looking Japanese English teacher among all of them. Yes, Mr. Shibata! He really looked good in his suit. haha.

So in the competition there are 2 categories: recitation and performance, and they are seperated by grades. There was only 1 person in 1st grade recitation and that was my kid, and then there were 2 groups for the 1st year performance with 2 of my girls. Then about 5 groups for the 2nd year performances. My kids (5 of them) did Urashima Taro Returns and used paper puppets on sticks to narrate the story. It was cute! And then last were my 3rd graders with their coolest performance: Kojiroh. The script was originally written by them in Japanese and I translated the whole thing into ENglish. It was about 8 pages long but they memorized everything! I was super proud of them but I knew they could do it. They`re all smart children so I had faith. I mean, they would stick around everyday after school and practice all the lines with me in their classroom and act out the script and practice the intonations I taught them. By the third time I practiced with them I knew they were going to be able to do it. And they won Best Performance in the whole show!! ^O^ WAHAHAH! And I felt so prideful when the other Japanese Teachers of English and the other ALTs told me how impressed they were with my 3rd year kids and told me I taught them well. HAHAHA!! AWESOME!! eheh. Of course, I only helped a little, it was mainly my kids that did the most of the work.

After that we ate lunch and deliberated on the winner. 1st year speech was my child, 1st year performance went to Shibetsu, 2nd year performance went to Onnebetsu because they did the cutest "Three Little Pigs" story, 2nd year speech-i forgot who, but none of my kids, 3rd year speech went to Onnebetsu, and 3rd year performance were my girls who also won best in show. heheh. WOO!! Two awards! Oh, and at lunch there was a leftover bento and no one knew what to do with it, so Shibata-sensei was like "Well, here you go Theresa, your dinner for tonight." And lo and behold the problem was solved and I had free dinner. =P Thanks Mr. Shibata! We then went back to the competition hall and announced the winners. Then when we were about to leave and I said goodbye to Collin and followed Jonathon out to where his kids and my kids were, I shook Jonathon`s hand and said goodbye and his kids were all like "wooo". haha. Jonathon was like "No, no it`s nothing like that" I just ignored it and went to my kids. eheh.

The bus ride back home was so lively because of the happy atmosphere of all the kids. There was lots of singing and applauding and happiness. Haha. Good times.

October 21st Wednesday

Not much happened during school. After school for dinner I asked if Su wanted to go eat with me at Sawarabi, witch is a very short walk from our apts. She also invited Satomi along. Tomorrow`s Satomi`s b-day so I`m thinking of buying her two cake slices from the local bakery to give to her. She`s helped me with a lot of stuff so I really appreciate her. ANyways, we had Mushroom Nabe/hotpot, and pork kebabs. =P Delicious. And I`ve been watching Ninkyo Helper lately. It`s very good because it has Mukai Osamu in it. haha. I`m a sucker for anything this sexy man does. He`s my #1 ikemen right now.

October 23rd Thursday

So I first went to the high school today. I loathe teaching at the high school. It`s because of the 3rd year boys. Not my favorite kids. The girls are fine, but the boys....The 2nd year boys are awesome though. They`re so much fun and lively! And everytime they see me they love saying Hi to me and trying to remember my name. I like that. The girls in 2nd year don`t talk very much though. But the boys are good. They`re also pretty good looking haha. I can`t wait to teach them next year. oh, and everytime Mr. Gorgeous and I pass by them they would yell out things at him. I kept thinking they were just calling him Eichi or Eiji as his nickname but then later he told me that they call him Ecchi, which means hentai, which means erotic pervert. LOL The boys think it`s funny to call him that, especially when he`s walking around with me. I think it`s pretty funny too cuz I can kinda see it in him. haha. Then it was off to the elementary.

Today I did a presentatino on Halloween for my 6th grade kiddies and they really liked it. My 6th grade girls love me. They love talking to me and everything. I`m happy for that. They also really like my hair, every chance they get they`ll come and stroke my head because they think it feels nice. haha. And they`re used to me helping them clean now, so they`ll always ask me to help them wipe the floors now. The other teachers still haven`t gotten used to me doing these things with the students I suppose. =P Oh, so at lunch break I met Mr. Wonderful in the library. I was already in there with 4 of the girls and then he came in and I was like "Oh shit." He looked really good today. Oh, btw, the 1st, 2nd, and 5th graders had kids with influenza so they cancelled the classes for this week. They`re coming back on Friday though, which is a very good thing. But those teachers now have a lot of time on their hands. Anyways, he came in and then I was at a lost for what to do. He came to check on the books I think...or I don`t know what he came in for cuz he doesn`t usually come into the library. But he came in this time and I just stood around reading the books over the children`s shoulders and then asked them if they knew what Halloween was and then forgot to explain it to them. I must`ve looked so stupid to him. I don`t know, whenever he`s around I can never properly talk to him or ask him questions or be cool looking. haha. I just get all clumsy and awkward around him. I need to work on that.

So after school was over and everything I went to home to prep for the community badminton activity that started this tuesday and happens every tuesday and thursday from 7:30pm until 9pm at the B&G gym. So when I got there I was very surprised to see one of my good 1st year high school boys there as well. He was also surprised to see me. So he`s a resident of Kenbuchi. Now I know. I never know where all the students come from for the High school cuz they`re all from different cities and stuff. Anyways, I also saw some of my elementary boys playing pingpong there. They were very happy and surprised to see me. I was exhilirated to see them. They`re the cutest 3rd and 4th grade boys ever and I absolutely adore them. I don`t know, this job is making me constantly "moeeee" over them. I`m starting to really really love children. But then again, I think I really love country children, not the city ones just yet. haha.

Otsukare-sama for reading and I promise to get the pictures up and running as soon as possible.

Freakin Influenza!!....>.<

2009-10-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

October 9th Friday

So long time no update and no pictures yet. I`m really sorry guys, my life has been ridiculously busy lately what with the Elementary school festival coming up. I`ve been staying at school until 7-9pm helping with the preparations, especially for the 1st graders. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday after school Yuki and I would help Kitagawa-sensei (the 1st grade homeroom teacher) make costumes, props, etc. for the 1st graders` play. It`s fun, but I start lacking in sleep because then I come home and have to prep for the next day`s lesson and I try to have a decent meal.

Anyways, today when I came home it was f-Ing cold!! It dropped below 40 degrees dude! First time ever in my life to be that cold! So my lil old apt needed heating and I tried to turn on the heater to find out that I couldn`t operate it...I kept trying to push the buttons but the little screen just kept popping up green letters spelling "CL". I was like WTF? I`M FrEAKIN COLD! Work DAMNIT! And so I tried calling Su, but she couldn`t help me because she wasn`t in Kenbuchi; I called Satomi, but she too wasn`t here and so she called Mago-chan to come and help me and she dragged Ayako along. They were at a party when Satomi called them to come and I felt sooooo bad. But they both said that when they heard about my heater situation they felt bad for me and came to help. lol I get the `foreigner-is-unable-to-work-everyday-electronics` pity...But it was the first time for me to work such a heater. It`s not like the American electronic ones...It is electric in which it needs it to turn on, but the heat uses the kerosene oil from the container outside my apt. Oh and fyi, my apt area is like an explosion waiting to happen. Right outside my door is a can (or those large metal tubular things that hold gas) of Kerosene oil for my stove. And then next to my house is the large Kerosene oil container to heat up my water and the heater.

So they came over to help me try to figure out my heater and couldn`t figure it out either. Then they called Soutome-san to come over early tomorrow morning (7am on Saturday) to come and help me fix it. So I spent the night under several layers of blankets freezing as I slept...lol

October 10th Saturday

I woke up at 6:30am on a saturday to greet the dude who`s supposed to help me fix my heater. And let me tell you, my apt was like freezing over. Mago-chan also came over to help me in case I couldn`t understand his Japanese. So the man came to check on my heater and after pushing around buttons he was like "Your heater was on child-lock." Well I felt stupid. And Mago-chan was like "oh, was that the problem?" Yes, so now I know what to do when I can`t work my heater, press the child lock button 3 times. lol And the heater uses the kerosene oil to make a fire. Anyways, my room got warmer that`s for sure. Mago-chan stayed around a little bit and so I made breakfast for the both of us. She`s never had real Peanut Butter before and I just so happened to find real peanut butter in a store so I made PB&J. Woot!

Today we decided to go out shopping for stuff. It was decided last night when the girls came over to fix my heater and discovered that my living room light is dying on me. But before that I went to my 3rd-5th graders cheerleading practice to watch them. Oh! And fyi, cheerleading is a huge sport here in Kenbuchi. It`s the new in thing to do and because my town is so big on it that all the other cities around us come down and over to my lil town for cheer practice. Hehe. All the kids and coaches want me to join them because they know that I can dance. =P But I told them I`m just there to watch. The Cheerleading image in japan isn`t what you imagine in the states. It`s not full of ditzy popular girls or mean chicks or anything like the same image in the states. Totally different. I was really surprised to see some of my girls in the cheerleading team because they`re so different from the image I had. So cheer is actually a good accepted thing here. And it`s so great here that the Japan Representative Cheerleading team came here yesterday to do performances today and tomorrow. That`s cool! But unfortunately I couldn`t make it to both of them. Today`s reason was because I had already promised the girls that we would go out.

So Ayako came to pick us up in her luxury black car that I felt I should be a millionare to ride...Man, who knew the priesstess`s daughter had so much money? lol We went to Asahikawa. We first went to Yamada Electronics store and that place was HUGE!1!! And guess what!? I even saw a LOTUS there? As in the sexy lil sportscar. I was like DUDE?! WHAT!? A lotus!? WTF? But then again, I shouldn`t be surprised anymore. I swear, on the way here I saw several hot and sexy sportscars here and more than my fill of hotass motorcycles. Yes...I`m a sucker for hot vehicles. Even better, hot vehicles with hot men on them. lol Them Japanese people like them crazy looking sportscars and racecars...like maybe for some late night in the parking structure drifting races maybe? lol ehehe. >D Then we went to Toys R Us and it was amazing! They had real American products and stuff there! I was very happy to see all that. I finally bought a picture frame for my 1000piece puzzle. Then we decided to go to Karaoke!!! After 2 hours of 飲み放題 and endless songs we became hungry and went to go find food to eat.

Ayako recommended a Soup-curryスープカレー place. It was small and rundown looking on the outside, but once you step in it`s like your in an Indian cavern. The music was like funky trance Indian music and the waiters in there were all really gangsta looking. haha. Everyone in the restaurant were young and hot looking peoples. And I swear I saw a guy in there who looked exactly like Mizushima Hiro, but he was with his gf. Boo...lol The food portion was HUGE! But it wasn`t my favorite. Asahikawa is famous for its soup-curry, but I`m not too fond of it to be frank. Then we went to Mega Don Quixote!! AND IT WAS F-ING HUGE!!! LIKE DUDE!!! All my ICU EAP-ers should remember the Don Quixotes in Tokyo right? Well think that except twice as big! And it had an arcade and restaurants and brand name items in there too! Like it carried Chanel, Coach, LV. It was crazy! I think I might spend a lot of my time there in the future. haha. After that we went home. Twas a good day.

October 13th Tuesday

Yesterday was an official holiday, the day of health. So I didn`t have to go to work. But today at work I heard from my boss that some children at my elementary have influenza A H1N1!!!!! So they closed the school for the week, but the teachers still have to go to school. ANd I still have to work. So I stayed in the BOE until lunch time, went to go have lunch and then went to the high school to teach my lazy 3rd years. I really do not like teaching at the high school as the kids are disrespectful and the teachers don`t really talk. The atmosphere in the teachers` room always seems really heavy.

In my 3rd grade class I decided to play hangman with them and divided them into groups. Well, they divided themselves, so there was a group of the most noisy and inattentive boys in the class. When I asked that group to give me a letter they answered with "You`re beautiful" and "Love" and "You`re my wife" ....Hmm...I think maybe it was because I cut my hair and straightened it. lol My friend even said I looked younger, like a high school student. haha. cool. Then after that in the hallways and stuff the other boys would come and talk to me and everything more than they did before....ehehe. Well, I guess my haircut was a good thing. Now I just have to lose weight. =P

After that I went to the middle school to help the 3rd year girls with their play for the English contest on the 20th of this month. I stayed until 6pm.

October 15th Thursday

As usual I had my high school class and as soon as that was over I went home to take a nap before heading over to the elementary school. I didn`t have to teach the 1st year highschool kids today so I had an extra hour. So I took that hour to nap at home. I was dead tired. And then I went to the elementary. At the elementary none of the teachers were in the teachers lounge which was strange because since the school closed for the week there shouldn`t be any classes. So I walked around and found Kitagawa-sensei doing some things in his classroom for preparation for next week. He told me that all the teachers were in the cooking classroom on the 2nd floor. I went up and in and my glasses fogged up. lol It was so warm in the class especially since there was boiling water in a large pot. The teachers were making soba! lol They made the dough themselves and cut it and then cooked it! LOL It was awesome! I decided to help in cleaning since I got there when they were all done. I felt a little awkward at first because I`m never too sure on conversations with these teachers. It`s a little hard for me to talk with the elementary teachers. And plus my Japanese aint that good so it`s kinda a problem. ANyways, I ate the soba and it was very very good! Afterwards I decided to head over to the middle school since there was nothing for me to do at the elementary.

I stayed at the middle school until 5:30pm. And I also found out that 17 of my elementary kids have influenza...the really bad one. I`m really really worried about them because on the news there have been children dying from it. I really hope my children are alright. They`re such wonderful kids.

Otsukare-sama for reading. I promise pictures will come up soon!