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.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
A Whole Month`s Worth of Entries
So it`s been incredibly long since I`ve posted. Sorry y`all. It`s been about a month and a half or so right? Many things have been happening in between and lots of lesson planning that I kept delaying writing my blog. I really should be more timely about this stuff lest I forget what happens throughout the day.
Oh, there are small amounts of Japanese inserted in here. I got lazy after a little bit of writing it and decided to just stop after two day entries. =P
June 24th Thursday
Leslie came!! She stayed at my place and we hung out until the 27th. It was very nice having someone in the house when I came back from work to wish me a welcome home. I had missed that feeling. We went to Furano to the lavender farm and ate lots of softcream...lol
今日レスリー来た！私の所に27日まで泊まった。家に帰る時に「おかえり」の挨拶を言うことがないのが寂しいが、レスリーはちゃんと言うので嬉しかった。色々な場所に行ってたくさんソフトクリーム食べた。
July 1st Thursday
Had dinner with the Minks family. BURRITOS!! HOME MADE AMERICAN BURRITOS!!! lol Soooo good. It was nice eating dinner with an American family for once. I`ve been cooking and eating alone for so long that it`s nice to eat with a family. I always go out to eat with friends, but with a family it has a nice warm and fuzzy feeling to it. The kids were so cute and funny and we played CLUE afterwards. A very typical American family evening. I really missed that. I mean, not that my family did that, but my friends` families did. It was always fun to do. I originally planned on leaving at 9pm, but ended up staying there till about 11 or so. Good evening. ^^
ミンクスの家族と一緒に夕ご飯を食べた。ブリートスだった！すごくおいしかった！アメリカン家族とご飯を食べるのは久しぶりだ。ずっと一人で料理して食べているから、家族と一緒に食べることはハッピーだった。
July 3rd Saturday
Erika`s going away party was this evening. First time going to Horobetsu. It was definitely nice. Much bigger than my place. I made peanut butter balls again. The party was great fun because I was able to see everyone again and Steph made this AMMMAAZZINGG fruit dip with handmade pita-like chips. She also made jello-shots...something I haven`t had in a loooong time. lol Anyways, superbly good and funn weekend.
July 9th Friday
My driving test was today at 2pm. I took half a day off to get over to the license center and was incredibly nervous. I had heard that no one ever passes on their first try unless they`ve taken driving classes here. So I was already freaking out about this test being ridiculous hard. I was the only foreigner there that day and was the last to take the driving test. They first took me into a small room to take my super easy written test (in English with cute pictures) and then I got into the car for the driving test. The guy seemed really nice and babied me through everything. He first drove me once around the course and told me what I should and shouldn`t do and what would cause me to fail. Then he let me at it. I was super nervous. Coming out of the S-curve (an S shaped curve) he wanted me to turn right. And he had told me, when he was driving me around, to not turn into the right lane from the curve because Americans have a tendency to do that. And what did I do? I turned into the right lane....I totally didn`t even realize it until the tester was like "No, no. Go into the left lane." I was like "SHIT I FAILED!" And I also didn`t stay within one meter of the left curb.
At the end he told me that it was over and to pull back into the parking space. I turned off the engine and readied myself for a big F. He said, "I told you to be careful of turning into the right lane after the S-curve didn`t I? You have to make sure you`re careful of that. Hmm...well, there wasn`t any big mistakes, so you pass!" I was flabbergasted. I just stared at him for a bit and was like, "Wait. Are you sure? Is it really okay?!" "Yup. You pass." ....So turning into the wrong lane wasn`t a big mistake?! o.O Okay. I just thanked him profusely and went to get my license. However, I still felt guilty about passing. Was it really okay for me to pass with that? But the thought of not having to come back here again and paying an extra 3000yen erased that guiltiness. ~_~;
July 13th Tuesday
Went to the local large temple and watched a solo cello performance. It was amazing! And this guy had studied abroad in California and New York. So it was really cool to see and even better to hear. I got a picture with the dude too!
July 16th Friday
My iPod died on me so I bought a Japanese turquoise and green sony walkman. It`s an awesome little machine. I absolutely love it. It`s not as easy to manuever as the iPod`s touch wheel. But still good.
July 17th Saturday
Today at 2pm at the storybook museum I taught a hip-hop class. Several parents and their kids came. It was mainly the cheerleading people. They liked it so much that I`m going to start having regular hip hop classes at the local club activities hall.
Afterwards I took a shower and cleaned myself up before Collin came to go to Erika`s place for another party. Woo party!! Upon arriving there late in the evening we went to a local Snack and sang some karaoke until 1am. Then called it a night.
July 18th Sunday
Horobetsu matsuri! Lotsa students there and good foods. Two of Erika`s 6th grade boys took a liking to us and followed us around and came over to Erika`s to hang. I busied them up with helping me make a cake. We then went to go cheer them on at the bread eating race. I was checked out by some guys too! I was like "whoa...they`re checking me out..?" lol They even said "Hi" to me in English! I was a little confused with that because I look very Japanese and I was walking on my own without my foreign friends.
Anyways, the party this evening was incredible amounts of fun. Erika invited 3 Japanese friends over and we had copious amounts of alcohol. I drank quite ALOT. Like no joke alot. And it got to the point where I think I started sipping tequila....Yeah, not good. But I wasn`t feeling too well at the karaoke box and spent part of my night in the bathroom and then back to Erika`s to pass out...I don`t remember much though. However, I owe a huge thank you to Erika and Collin for taking care of me. I really really appreciate it. THANKS! Never again do I want to drink that much.
Next morning I had a terrible hangover but managed to get home somehow.
Oh, there are small amounts of Japanese inserted in here. I got lazy after a little bit of writing it and decided to just stop after two day entries. =P
June 24th Thursday
Leslie came!! She stayed at my place and we hung out until the 27th. It was very nice having someone in the house when I came back from work to wish me a welcome home. I had missed that feeling. We went to Furano to the lavender farm and ate lots of softcream...lol
今日レスリー来た！私の所に27日まで泊まった。家に帰る時に「おかえり」の挨拶を言うことがないのが寂しいが、レスリーはちゃんと言うので嬉しかった。色々な場所に行ってたくさんソフトクリーム食べた。
July 1st Thursday
Had dinner with the Minks family. BURRITOS!! HOME MADE AMERICAN BURRITOS!!! lol Soooo good. It was nice eating dinner with an American family for once. I`ve been cooking and eating alone for so long that it`s nice to eat with a family. I always go out to eat with friends, but with a family it has a nice warm and fuzzy feeling to it. The kids were so cute and funny and we played CLUE afterwards. A very typical American family evening. I really missed that. I mean, not that my family did that, but my friends` families did. It was always fun to do. I originally planned on leaving at 9pm, but ended up staying there till about 11 or so. Good evening. ^^
ミンクスの家族と一緒に夕ご飯を食べた。ブリートスだった！すごくおいしかった！アメリカン家族とご飯を食べるのは久しぶりだ。ずっと一人で料理して食べているから、家族と一緒に食べることはハッピーだった。
July 3rd Saturday
Erika`s going away party was this evening. First time going to Horobetsu. It was definitely nice. Much bigger than my place. I made peanut butter balls again. The party was great fun because I was able to see everyone again and Steph made this AMMMAAZZINGG fruit dip with handmade pita-like chips. She also made jello-shots...something I haven`t had in a loooong time. lol Anyways, superbly good and funn weekend.
July 9th Friday
My driving test was today at 2pm. I took half a day off to get over to the license center and was incredibly nervous. I had heard that no one ever passes on their first try unless they`ve taken driving classes here. So I was already freaking out about this test being ridiculous hard. I was the only foreigner there that day and was the last to take the driving test. They first took me into a small room to take my super easy written test (in English with cute pictures) and then I got into the car for the driving test. The guy seemed really nice and babied me through everything. He first drove me once around the course and told me what I should and shouldn`t do and what would cause me to fail. Then he let me at it. I was super nervous. Coming out of the S-curve (an S shaped curve) he wanted me to turn right. And he had told me, when he was driving me around, to not turn into the right lane from the curve because Americans have a tendency to do that. And what did I do? I turned into the right lane....I totally didn`t even realize it until the tester was like "No, no. Go into the left lane." I was like "SHIT I FAILED!" And I also didn`t stay within one meter of the left curb.
At the end he told me that it was over and to pull back into the parking space. I turned off the engine and readied myself for a big F. He said, "I told you to be careful of turning into the right lane after the S-curve didn`t I? You have to make sure you`re careful of that. Hmm...well, there wasn`t any big mistakes, so you pass!" I was flabbergasted. I just stared at him for a bit and was like, "Wait. Are you sure? Is it really okay?!" "Yup. You pass." ....So turning into the wrong lane wasn`t a big mistake?! o.O Okay. I just thanked him profusely and went to get my license. However, I still felt guilty about passing. Was it really okay for me to pass with that? But the thought of not having to come back here again and paying an extra 3000yen erased that guiltiness. ~_~;
July 13th Tuesday
Went to the local large temple and watched a solo cello performance. It was amazing! And this guy had studied abroad in California and New York. So it was really cool to see and even better to hear. I got a picture with the dude too!
July 16th Friday
My iPod died on me so I bought a Japanese turquoise and green sony walkman. It`s an awesome little machine. I absolutely love it. It`s not as easy to manuever as the iPod`s touch wheel. But still good.
July 17th Saturday
Today at 2pm at the storybook museum I taught a hip-hop class. Several parents and their kids came. It was mainly the cheerleading people. They liked it so much that I`m going to start having regular hip hop classes at the local club activities hall.
Afterwards I took a shower and cleaned myself up before Collin came to go to Erika`s place for another party. Woo party!! Upon arriving there late in the evening we went to a local Snack and sang some karaoke until 1am. Then called it a night.
July 18th Sunday
Horobetsu matsuri! Lotsa students there and good foods. Two of Erika`s 6th grade boys took a liking to us and followed us around and came over to Erika`s to hang. I busied them up with helping me make a cake. We then went to go cheer them on at the bread eating race. I was checked out by some guys too! I was like "whoa...they`re checking me out..?" lol They even said "Hi" to me in English! I was a little confused with that because I look very Japanese and I was walking on my own without my foreign friends.
Anyways, the party this evening was incredible amounts of fun. Erika invited 3 Japanese friends over and we had copious amounts of alcohol. I drank quite ALOT. Like no joke alot. And it got to the point where I think I started sipping tequila....Yeah, not good. But I wasn`t feeling too well at the karaoke box and spent part of my night in the bathroom and then back to Erika`s to pass out...I don`t remember much though. However, I owe a huge thank you to Erika and Collin for taking care of me. I really really appreciate it. THANKS! Never again do I want to drink that much.
Next morning I had a terrible hangover but managed to get home somehow.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Osokute gomen, but here it is!
Hey guys. Sorry for the late update but things have been getting crazy busy and hectic lately that I`ve not had the time to do much blogging. And when I do have time, I just want to lie around and do nothing as I recently seldom have the time to relax. I`ve been planning lessons and having meetings often lately that it seems as if I`m no longer the ALT but the official English teacher at the nursery, elementary and high school. Luckily, I get breaks at the middle school where I`m just the assistant and I do no planning. It`s been a little stressful with all the planning and stuff as well as keeping up appearances as the foreign "interesting" English teacher. You`re expected to always be genki and into English and bring a "foreign" flair about with you which can actually be kind of tiring and draining. The job has alot of perks though. It`s fun, no doubt, and I quite enjoy spending my time with the students. But being in the inaka(countryside) with no other English speakers around is affecting my outgoing personality. I have many Japanese friends here, don`t get me wrong. I just seem to have been withdrawing more into myself and spend much of my time at home and on my own. I need to get into the big cities more often...lol Anyways......
June 6th Sunday
Today was the middle school sports festival! The kids have been practicing for this thing for 2 weeks straight! Everyday! Classes will only go for 5 periods, sometimes 4, and then the rest of the day is cancelled and everyone practices for it. The teachers are assigned to 1 of 4 teams to help the students. The students participate in a variety of sports activities raking in points for their team. And let me tell ya, the kids are super serious about this. They get frustrated if their teammates don`t do well and stay after school long after their own club activities are finished to practice. I was very impressed by the kids determination and attitude towards the festival. Now if only that can also be applid to their English classes...lol
So there were four teams: red, blue, yellow, white. Each team consists of a mixture of 1st-3rd years with two 3rd year students as the captain and co-captain. The captains, from what I`ve observed, are typical (and interestingly) drama/anime-like amazing boys. I really couldn`t help but notice it as these boys are some of the best students in my class. And it was no surprise that they were the captains. So the red team`s captain was the hilarious most outgoing sporty boy in the entire 3rd year class. Oh! And he`s president of the baseball club. He`s one of my favs as he`s always so willing to speak and volunteer in English even if he makes mistakes. Not to mention he`s incredibly funny. The blue team`s captain (president of the ping-pong club) was the quiet mysteriuos deep thinker who doesn`t talk much and leaves most of the directing and speaking to his co-captain (who is also very vocal and outgoing). I observed that he only steps in and voices things when needed. The yellow team`s is my taiko instructor`s son and all around ace of the school. He`s the smartest boy in the school and excels at everything, including sports (president of the tennis club and Hokkaido youth tennis champion). One of the mot sincere, honest, kindest boys ever and he has the respect of every student and teachers in this school. He`s also the president of the student body. Talk about being the best. And the last captain, the white team`s, is the best looking playboy of the 3rd years. He`s very outgoing and constantly always assumes I`ve got a boyfriend whenever I say I`m happy. lol The girls love him because he`s got a great personality and is kind of a playboy and looks good. haha. And there you have it, the team captains. Just like your imagination, no? =P
Anyways, on this day everyone was all abuzz about the festival. They have trained hard for it and finally it has come. All the students wore tshirts representing their team`s color. And marched out onto the field. There was the opening ceremony and then the start of the activities. There was a 100meter run, 500meter run, and 800meter run that timed the students individually as well as that one sport where they run and then jump to see who can get the farthest. Then there was the group jump roping, tug-of-war, and 12-15 legged race. That last one was amazing. The kids practiced so hard for it and were able to synch with each other well. Although there were a few injuries, but nothing serious.
At the end of the day the white team won. All of the kids did great! I was so proud of all of them. ^^ After that, the teachers all went for an enkai and drank and were merry. Especially Iwata-sensei. I`ve never seen her so drunk before and it was quite hilarious. I wish she was like that more often. lol I love her though. The principal then invited us over to his apartment for some more drinking and eating. Awesome.
June 12th Saturday
Yosakoi Soran festival in Sapporo!! Today I took a day trip to Sapporo to meet up with my girls Steph, Erika, and Nikki. It was wonderful seeing them again and a good refresher. I`ve been becoming more and more recluse-like in my town and at schools that when I finally saw my friends that recluse bubble popped for a day and I was able to be myself again. (Unfortunately,it only lasted for that one day and when I came back into my town I became the quiet reserved ALT again, except for when I`m teaching, of course). I think I also started getting sick on this day.
I almost didn`t make it on the train to get to Sapporo. I had woken up late and didn`t leave at the time I wanted to. It takes me an hour to drive to Asahikawa station (because I didn`t want to pay 900yen for the train from my town to Asahikawa) and since today was a special festival day the parking lot was crowded! Not to mention it was a little ways away from the station. I parked, ran like crazy to the train and got on just as the doors closed. I was fortunate enough to get a seat, as crowded as it was.
Upon getting to Sapporo and seeing the girls I leapt for joy and ran to hug them. I was so glad to see them!! =) So after a few minutes of staring at gyarus we went outside the station and immediately saw some awesome yosakoi dancers. We spent half an hour in the blazing sun (it went above 27degrees celsius!!!) watching the dancers do their thing. It was pretty awesome. I loved the makeup and the costumes and MEN WITH REAL MUSCLES!! OMG YES! lol I missed seeing that. Actually, I`m a sucker for Rain/Bi`s muscles. I think more men need to have muscles like that in Japan. lol So actually seeing ripped guys was a surprise for all of us girls. =P I now really want to join a team. We then wandered over for lunch at Rakuden. A beautifully decorated restaurant with no real particular theme to it`s menu. Pasta there was good though. Afterwards we headed over to odori koen and watched more soran dancers dance along the road. Then we went shopping! Hurrah! After entering "Cosmo" and seeing all the hot gyarus there I was determined to lose weight more than ever to be able to wear all the cute clothes they had in there. I really like gyaru style. It`s second to my gothic lolita passion. (Although, I don`t wear gothic lolita out normally. I think I`ll save that for special days and gyaru for everyday.)
I bought a set outfit for 5000yen. (5000YEN!!! RIDICULOUS! But I couldn`t not buy it after trying it on 3 times...that`s how I knew I wanted it.) I now just need to make my hair and makeup match it. It`s very sweet gyaru style, the outit. Afterwards we got hungry and wandered along for a restaurant and found this place that served pots of veggies and hamburg steak with rice. It was AMAZING! Erika, Nikki, and Steph all got the red wine sauce wines while I alone tackled the spicy schezuan sauce. And man, it was damn spicy! Like my tongue was on fire within the first lick of it. lol I kept sweating and blowing my nose...lol
We then wandered back over to odorikoen and watched more soran before walking back to the station and heading back to our respective homes. Awesomely fun day.
June 19th Saturday
Today was my nursery`s little sports festival. It was soooo cute!! My elementary`s vice principal was there too and he was so excited; it was cute. He loves seeing little kids and since he`s a grandfather I can understand that excitement. lol I love grandparents as most of them love children. And seeing all the grandparents there so happy looking made me feel happy. haha. I loved watching all the kids waddling to the finish line. It was the cutest thing. Then the parents all joined in and played some random games. I then joined in for the giant baton race. Oh man, on a sidenote majority of the parents there were all really young and gorgeous looking. The guy I was racing against looked so young and fashionable that I thought he was a high school student or fresh college boy. And he was not afraid to have a good grip on my hands when we joined hands for an exercise. I was just wondering whose brother he was when one of my little girls was like "Go DADDY!" And I was like "...Daddy?!!...Oh no...oh man....." Way too many parents there look too way too young to have kids. I did remember many of my babies sayin that their mothers and fathers were like in their early or late 20s and I kept thinking "oh man, they`re aound my age and they already have a child who is 5 years old." It was just hard to fathom the amount of parents in my town who are around my age. I like kids, but I think I`m still too young to be tied down to one. I`ll just play with them.
All the kids did so well and were absolutely adorable. Many of them came over to me and tackled me afterwards. lol I love the feeling of being tackled by little babies. hehe.
June 20th Sunday
This afternoon I went to Noso-sensei`s house to visit her family as well as go with them to visit the American family in Shibetsu city. I didn`t even know there was a family like that here until she mentioned it. I was also surprised to see the amount of children she had. I thought she only had 2 young children but was surprised to see a middle school kid and a 2 year old baby as well. They all came out one by one at different intervals so I kept getting surprised each time. lol We then all piled into the car and drove over to the Minks family`s home. The first thing I noticed was an attached church to the left of the multifloored house and was like "oh, they`re missionaries" and was right on the dot. The family consisted of 6 children ranging from ages 1-12!! They were in the middle of reforming their newly bought home, so the place wasn`t completely finished. The father, Alan, built majority of the interior himself, which was quite impressive. I went in and was like "wow, this is a very American Christian home." The colors and decor really reflected the Oklahoma feeling which is where this family is from. But aside from their first 2 children, the other 4 were born in Japan. They`re a very warm and unique family.
I took a liking to their children immediately as well as the mother, Alan`s wife. They were talkative and very willing to make friends with Noso-sensei`s family of kids. The father was a little jimi but not hard to talk to. The kids also immediately took a liking to me and kept talking nonstop to me. It`s been a long while since I`ve seen Caucasian children and hearing them speak English that I was at first a little unsure of what to do. But my experience with the Japanese elementary kids kicked in and I was back to having fun playing with the kids. I love children, I just don`t want one at the moment. lol
Actually, I think I was just shocked to see a family of Caucasians because here in Japan, the families are usually hybrids. But I was definitely glad to have met them because it reminds me of home a little. I`m pretty sure that when I go back to the states I`m going to be quite culture shocked in seeing different races. lol They invited me over for dinner for the thursday after next. And welcomed me to come over to their home whenever I wanted. I was definitely glad to hear that as I think I will need an American family company on my few years that I`m here. I just hope they don`t bring up religion too much as the father did start talking about how he ended up here. I don`t mind the fact that they`re very religious, in fact I think it`s great that they have something they so strongly believe in. As long as they don`t press it upon me, I will be more than happy to go over to their home to visit.
So we hung around there until 5pm and then left to go back to Noso-sensei`s home. I then bid them farewell and left to go back to my home and chilled for the rest of the evening.
Otsukare for reading and thanks for keeping up with me. lol I`ll try to be more timely in posting next time. Pictures are up btw.
June 6th Sunday
Today was the middle school sports festival! The kids have been practicing for this thing for 2 weeks straight! Everyday! Classes will only go for 5 periods, sometimes 4, and then the rest of the day is cancelled and everyone practices for it. The teachers are assigned to 1 of 4 teams to help the students. The students participate in a variety of sports activities raking in points for their team. And let me tell ya, the kids are super serious about this. They get frustrated if their teammates don`t do well and stay after school long after their own club activities are finished to practice. I was very impressed by the kids determination and attitude towards the festival. Now if only that can also be applid to their English classes...lol
So there were four teams: red, blue, yellow, white. Each team consists of a mixture of 1st-3rd years with two 3rd year students as the captain and co-captain. The captains, from what I`ve observed, are typical (and interestingly) drama/anime-like amazing boys. I really couldn`t help but notice it as these boys are some of the best students in my class. And it was no surprise that they were the captains. So the red team`s captain was the hilarious most outgoing sporty boy in the entire 3rd year class. Oh! And he`s president of the baseball club. He`s one of my favs as he`s always so willing to speak and volunteer in English even if he makes mistakes. Not to mention he`s incredibly funny. The blue team`s captain (president of the ping-pong club) was the quiet mysteriuos deep thinker who doesn`t talk much and leaves most of the directing and speaking to his co-captain (who is also very vocal and outgoing). I observed that he only steps in and voices things when needed. The yellow team`s is my taiko instructor`s son and all around ace of the school. He`s the smartest boy in the school and excels at everything, including sports (president of the tennis club and Hokkaido youth tennis champion). One of the mot sincere, honest, kindest boys ever and he has the respect of every student and teachers in this school. He`s also the president of the student body. Talk about being the best. And the last captain, the white team`s, is the best looking playboy of the 3rd years. He`s very outgoing and constantly always assumes I`ve got a boyfriend whenever I say I`m happy. lol The girls love him because he`s got a great personality and is kind of a playboy and looks good. haha. And there you have it, the team captains. Just like your imagination, no? =P
Anyways, on this day everyone was all abuzz about the festival. They have trained hard for it and finally it has come. All the students wore tshirts representing their team`s color. And marched out onto the field. There was the opening ceremony and then the start of the activities. There was a 100meter run, 500meter run, and 800meter run that timed the students individually as well as that one sport where they run and then jump to see who can get the farthest. Then there was the group jump roping, tug-of-war, and 12-15 legged race. That last one was amazing. The kids practiced so hard for it and were able to synch with each other well. Although there were a few injuries, but nothing serious.
At the end of the day the white team won. All of the kids did great! I was so proud of all of them. ^^ After that, the teachers all went for an enkai and drank and were merry. Especially Iwata-sensei. I`ve never seen her so drunk before and it was quite hilarious. I wish she was like that more often. lol I love her though. The principal then invited us over to his apartment for some more drinking and eating. Awesome.
June 12th Saturday
Yosakoi Soran festival in Sapporo!! Today I took a day trip to Sapporo to meet up with my girls Steph, Erika, and Nikki. It was wonderful seeing them again and a good refresher. I`ve been becoming more and more recluse-like in my town and at schools that when I finally saw my friends that recluse bubble popped for a day and I was able to be myself again. (Unfortunately,it only lasted for that one day and when I came back into my town I became the quiet reserved ALT again, except for when I`m teaching, of course). I think I also started getting sick on this day.
I almost didn`t make it on the train to get to Sapporo. I had woken up late and didn`t leave at the time I wanted to. It takes me an hour to drive to Asahikawa station (because I didn`t want to pay 900yen for the train from my town to Asahikawa) and since today was a special festival day the parking lot was crowded! Not to mention it was a little ways away from the station. I parked, ran like crazy to the train and got on just as the doors closed. I was fortunate enough to get a seat, as crowded as it was.
Upon getting to Sapporo and seeing the girls I leapt for joy and ran to hug them. I was so glad to see them!! =) So after a few minutes of staring at gyarus we went outside the station and immediately saw some awesome yosakoi dancers. We spent half an hour in the blazing sun (it went above 27degrees celsius!!!) watching the dancers do their thing. It was pretty awesome. I loved the makeup and the costumes and MEN WITH REAL MUSCLES!! OMG YES! lol I missed seeing that. Actually, I`m a sucker for Rain/Bi`s muscles. I think more men need to have muscles like that in Japan. lol So actually seeing ripped guys was a surprise for all of us girls. =P I now really want to join a team. We then wandered over for lunch at Rakuden. A beautifully decorated restaurant with no real particular theme to it`s menu. Pasta there was good though. Afterwards we headed over to odori koen and watched more soran dancers dance along the road. Then we went shopping! Hurrah! After entering "Cosmo" and seeing all the hot gyarus there I was determined to lose weight more than ever to be able to wear all the cute clothes they had in there. I really like gyaru style. It`s second to my gothic lolita passion. (Although, I don`t wear gothic lolita out normally. I think I`ll save that for special days and gyaru for everyday.)
I bought a set outfit for 5000yen. (5000YEN!!! RIDICULOUS! But I couldn`t not buy it after trying it on 3 times...that`s how I knew I wanted it.) I now just need to make my hair and makeup match it. It`s very sweet gyaru style, the outit. Afterwards we got hungry and wandered along for a restaurant and found this place that served pots of veggies and hamburg steak with rice. It was AMAZING! Erika, Nikki, and Steph all got the red wine sauce wines while I alone tackled the spicy schezuan sauce. And man, it was damn spicy! Like my tongue was on fire within the first lick of it. lol I kept sweating and blowing my nose...lol
We then wandered back over to odorikoen and watched more soran before walking back to the station and heading back to our respective homes. Awesomely fun day.
June 19th Saturday
Today was my nursery`s little sports festival. It was soooo cute!! My elementary`s vice principal was there too and he was so excited; it was cute. He loves seeing little kids and since he`s a grandfather I can understand that excitement. lol I love grandparents as most of them love children. And seeing all the grandparents there so happy looking made me feel happy. haha. I loved watching all the kids waddling to the finish line. It was the cutest thing. Then the parents all joined in and played some random games. I then joined in for the giant baton race. Oh man, on a sidenote majority of the parents there were all really young and gorgeous looking. The guy I was racing against looked so young and fashionable that I thought he was a high school student or fresh college boy. And he was not afraid to have a good grip on my hands when we joined hands for an exercise. I was just wondering whose brother he was when one of my little girls was like "Go DADDY!" And I was like "...Daddy?!!...Oh no...oh man....." Way too many parents there look too way too young to have kids. I did remember many of my babies sayin that their mothers and fathers were like in their early or late 20s and I kept thinking "oh man, they`re aound my age and they already have a child who is 5 years old." It was just hard to fathom the amount of parents in my town who are around my age. I like kids, but I think I`m still too young to be tied down to one. I`ll just play with them.
All the kids did so well and were absolutely adorable. Many of them came over to me and tackled me afterwards. lol I love the feeling of being tackled by little babies. hehe.
June 20th Sunday
This afternoon I went to Noso-sensei`s house to visit her family as well as go with them to visit the American family in Shibetsu city. I didn`t even know there was a family like that here until she mentioned it. I was also surprised to see the amount of children she had. I thought she only had 2 young children but was surprised to see a middle school kid and a 2 year old baby as well. They all came out one by one at different intervals so I kept getting surprised each time. lol We then all piled into the car and drove over to the Minks family`s home. The first thing I noticed was an attached church to the left of the multifloored house and was like "oh, they`re missionaries" and was right on the dot. The family consisted of 6 children ranging from ages 1-12!! They were in the middle of reforming their newly bought home, so the place wasn`t completely finished. The father, Alan, built majority of the interior himself, which was quite impressive. I went in and was like "wow, this is a very American Christian home." The colors and decor really reflected the Oklahoma feeling which is where this family is from. But aside from their first 2 children, the other 4 were born in Japan. They`re a very warm and unique family.
I took a liking to their children immediately as well as the mother, Alan`s wife. They were talkative and very willing to make friends with Noso-sensei`s family of kids. The father was a little jimi but not hard to talk to. The kids also immediately took a liking to me and kept talking nonstop to me. It`s been a long while since I`ve seen Caucasian children and hearing them speak English that I was at first a little unsure of what to do. But my experience with the Japanese elementary kids kicked in and I was back to having fun playing with the kids. I love children, I just don`t want one at the moment. lol
Actually, I think I was just shocked to see a family of Caucasians because here in Japan, the families are usually hybrids. But I was definitely glad to have met them because it reminds me of home a little. I`m pretty sure that when I go back to the states I`m going to be quite culture shocked in seeing different races. lol They invited me over for dinner for the thursday after next. And welcomed me to come over to their home whenever I wanted. I was definitely glad to hear that as I think I will need an American family company on my few years that I`m here. I just hope they don`t bring up religion too much as the father did start talking about how he ended up here. I don`t mind the fact that they`re very religious, in fact I think it`s great that they have something they so strongly believe in. As long as they don`t press it upon me, I will be more than happy to go over to their home to visit.
So we hung around there until 5pm and then left to go back to Noso-sensei`s home. I then bid them farewell and left to go back to my home and chilled for the rest of the evening.
Otsukare for reading and thanks for keeping up with me. lol I`ll try to be more timely in posting next time. Pictures are up btw.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Malaysia Part 2: A painful lesson learned.
May 2nd Sunday
Today was our elephant orphanage tour. I was super excited for this tour and have been waiting for it since before we arrived. Our guide was also very amazing and sweet. He first took us to Batu Caves which was on the way to the elephant orphanage for a very nice discounted price which was not part of our original tour. But we had extra time, so he decided to take us there. And while we were in the car, I realized I forgot my camera and Erika only brought her big camera which was almost out of batteries...great. But, luckily, upon arriving at the caves, I bought a disposable camera.
The caves were amazing. It`s placed in a large mountainside and is said to be a very religious site. Well, there were Hindu temples all over the place. To get to the top and actually into the caves you had to climb 200 stone steps up, which wasn`t as bad as it sounds. There were just a lot of monkeys all over the place. And they`re vicious, so no touching or getting near them. Most of them were too busy chewing on fruits to bother us anyways. The cave was large and, thankfully, very cool. It was super humid and hot that day so, it was nice to be in the cave. There were statues/idols in alcoves and a temple at the end of the cave.
On our way out of the area we saw little tents set up selling real Indian sweets. We bought one of every colorful sweets they had. It was so delicious, but, ultimately, too sweet for my tastes. I think I`ve become more accustomed to Japanese sweetness lately, or that`s just how I`ve been so far.
Our next stop was Deerland, a sort of mini zoo. Upon arriving there we first went to see and play with the sunbear. A fat kind of tame small bear. It`s face looks very different from any bear I`ve seen, but it was cute nonetheless...Oh, and did I mention it was fat? It would just sit there and eat while you pet it and took pictures of it. Pretty mellow thing, when there`s food in it`s mouth. We then walked around and went into a deer pen to play with the deer. They`re much more tame than the Nara deer that`s for sure, although some of them still bit me for food. The baby deer were lickin my face. lol It was cute and funny. We walked around a bit more and got to hold a snake and pet it. Boy, do I miss snakes. I used to really love putting the ones my bio teacher had in high school around my neck and play with it. Ah, back in the day.
Afterwards, we went to ab aboriginal village where we learned how to shoot needles through pipes. I forgot what they`re called. Anyways, we finally made our way to the elephant orphanage. It was crowded that day though. Well, more people than on a weekday I would assume. When we got there we saw baby elephants standing around being fed by the tourists. If you had a bag of peanuts you could put the food in their mouths or let them suck it up through their nose. They were sooo cute! But not very soft or squishy. lol Their hide and hair were very wiry and coarse. But their tongues were uber soft. I was a little afraid of touching their mouths at first so I accidentally threw the peanuts in their mouths. But then I realized they had no teeth and that it didn`t hurt when their mouths shut on my hands so I would just put the peanuts directly into their mouths or on their tongues. I loved touching their tongues though. Super smooth and soft. heheh.
Then they brought the big elephants out. We got to watch a lil show as they introduced all the animals and then we were able to ride on them. Erika and I, unfortunately, got on one that was particularly spiny and it really hurt our bottoms. =P After that we rode one into the nearby river and the elephant tipped itself over to dump us into the water. I accidentally swallowed some of the river water... Oh, but it was great fun to play and bathe with the elephants. They also brought in the baby ones too. Such cute and funny beasts. And that was the end of the elephant orphange shows and attractions. We spent a good 2 hours there though. It was an amazing experience.
Afterwards, our guide took us to a roadside stand to eat durian, all of which I couldn`t finish because it`s been a long time since I`ve eaten it and it is not my favorite anymore. The smell I could stand, but I just couldn`t eat it anymore even though I tried to stuff as much of it in my mouth because I felt bad that we got it and weren`t going to finish it. And Erika just did not like it. lol Our guide was nice enough to take us to Little India outside market and drop us off there instead of our hotel. We bought some fake MAC makeup for great prices. lol For dinner we ate at a vegetarian Indian curry house. It was amaaaaazzzinngg! The naan and the curry we had was damn good. Or actually, it wasn`t really curry, but something like it. We then went on home to get ready for the next day`s journey to Langkawi island.
May 3rd Monday
So I woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous. I didn`t know why but I just wanted to throw up. So I kept vomiting the whole night. I couldn`t even move my position in bed because if I turned left or right instead of facing up I would get nauseous and go throw up again. It was terrible. My entire night was like that. And I woke up the next morning feeling incredibly weak with what felt like a fever. I suppose I was dehydrated from ejecting all the liquids in me ,but I wasn`t sure where this fever came from. I at first thought that it might have been food poisoning or something. But then Erika suggested that it could`ve been the river water I swallowed.
It took every ounce of energy I had to get up and move and get ready to go to the airport for what was supposed to be a fun filled day on the beach at Langkawi island. I could tell Erika was really worried for me and wondered if I would be able to travel. But I was thinking in my head that we had already booked the flight there and we both had really wanted to spend time at the beach, so I was not about to let this temporary ill condition I had get the best of my trip. So, naturally, I bucked myself up and got a taxi to the airport. The taxi, however, was so old and run down with broken AC that I don`t even know how I made it to the airport without passing out or more throwing up in my condition. When I got there, it was difficult for me to even get out of the car and walk. Just carrying my purse felt burdensome. But once I got there and got some 7-up in my system I immediately felt better. I felt more revived, but still very weak and feverish. As Erika put it "You looked like you were going to die." lol Yeah, I felt like it. But I pumped myself with 7-up after 7-up and started feeling better. After sleeping on the plane and drinking some blackcurrant juice (which is a very big thing in Malaysia) I felt more alive and could even stomach some peanut butter crackers. My stomach was still a lil tender though.
Upon arriving at the airport, the environment of the whole place was vastly different from that of Kuala Lumpur. Oh man, it was nice. It really felt like an island resort. We got ourselves a taxi to AB Motel. So, I tried to book a room for the AB motel via phone before we got to Malaysia and they said they were full for those days. But apparently, for any of the hotels here in Langkawi, if you do walk-ins, they always have vacancies. lol We lucked out and got the last chalet situated right on the beach for only a total of about $30 a night. RIGHT ON THE BEACH!! A CHALET!! $30 A NIGHT ONLY!! Wow. It was roomy and nice. Although I still felt weak, just standing on the beach and breathing in the air felt wonderful and I felt revived. But upon laying down on the bed, my fever came back and I was bedridden for the day. Thank God for Erika being there and her Ibuprofen. She was so sweet and wonderful, trying to help me get better and bringing me food and ice from the local markets. Without her, I would`ve seriously been in trouble. In the evening, however, I started to feel better so I got up and went to sit on the benches outside situated under shady trees on the beach. That really really made me feel like normal again.
Ah, I really do miss the beach. Being a California girl, living her college life in Irvine/Newport Beach there is nothing that beats the feeling of like being home again. We then went to go eat at one of the many restaurants on the main street in front of the hotel. I, unfortunately, could not stomach anything else but bolognaise spaghetti, of which I felt terrible for eating because we`re in Malaysia, and I`m eating spagetti....But it did feel good to have food in my system though. We then returned home and I slept early for the night and started to feel better.
Today was our elephant orphanage tour. I was super excited for this tour and have been waiting for it since before we arrived. Our guide was also very amazing and sweet. He first took us to Batu Caves which was on the way to the elephant orphanage for a very nice discounted price which was not part of our original tour. But we had extra time, so he decided to take us there. And while we were in the car, I realized I forgot my camera and Erika only brought her big camera which was almost out of batteries...great. But, luckily, upon arriving at the caves, I bought a disposable camera.
The caves were amazing. It`s placed in a large mountainside and is said to be a very religious site. Well, there were Hindu temples all over the place. To get to the top and actually into the caves you had to climb 200 stone steps up, which wasn`t as bad as it sounds. There were just a lot of monkeys all over the place. And they`re vicious, so no touching or getting near them. Most of them were too busy chewing on fruits to bother us anyways. The cave was large and, thankfully, very cool. It was super humid and hot that day so, it was nice to be in the cave. There were statues/idols in alcoves and a temple at the end of the cave.
On our way out of the area we saw little tents set up selling real Indian sweets. We bought one of every colorful sweets they had. It was so delicious, but, ultimately, too sweet for my tastes. I think I`ve become more accustomed to Japanese sweetness lately, or that`s just how I`ve been so far.
Our next stop was Deerland, a sort of mini zoo. Upon arriving there we first went to see and play with the sunbear. A fat kind of tame small bear. It`s face looks very different from any bear I`ve seen, but it was cute nonetheless...Oh, and did I mention it was fat? It would just sit there and eat while you pet it and took pictures of it. Pretty mellow thing, when there`s food in it`s mouth. We then walked around and went into a deer pen to play with the deer. They`re much more tame than the Nara deer that`s for sure, although some of them still bit me for food. The baby deer were lickin my face. lol It was cute and funny. We walked around a bit more and got to hold a snake and pet it. Boy, do I miss snakes. I used to really love putting the ones my bio teacher had in high school around my neck and play with it. Ah, back in the day.
Afterwards, we went to ab aboriginal village where we learned how to shoot needles through pipes. I forgot what they`re called. Anyways, we finally made our way to the elephant orphanage. It was crowded that day though. Well, more people than on a weekday I would assume. When we got there we saw baby elephants standing around being fed by the tourists. If you had a bag of peanuts you could put the food in their mouths or let them suck it up through their nose. They were sooo cute! But not very soft or squishy. lol Their hide and hair were very wiry and coarse. But their tongues were uber soft. I was a little afraid of touching their mouths at first so I accidentally threw the peanuts in their mouths. But then I realized they had no teeth and that it didn`t hurt when their mouths shut on my hands so I would just put the peanuts directly into their mouths or on their tongues. I loved touching their tongues though. Super smooth and soft. heheh.
Then they brought the big elephants out. We got to watch a lil show as they introduced all the animals and then we were able to ride on them. Erika and I, unfortunately, got on one that was particularly spiny and it really hurt our bottoms. =P After that we rode one into the nearby river and the elephant tipped itself over to dump us into the water. I accidentally swallowed some of the river water... Oh, but it was great fun to play and bathe with the elephants. They also brought in the baby ones too. Such cute and funny beasts. And that was the end of the elephant orphange shows and attractions. We spent a good 2 hours there though. It was an amazing experience.
Afterwards, our guide took us to a roadside stand to eat durian, all of which I couldn`t finish because it`s been a long time since I`ve eaten it and it is not my favorite anymore. The smell I could stand, but I just couldn`t eat it anymore even though I tried to stuff as much of it in my mouth because I felt bad that we got it and weren`t going to finish it. And Erika just did not like it. lol Our guide was nice enough to take us to Little India outside market and drop us off there instead of our hotel. We bought some fake MAC makeup for great prices. lol For dinner we ate at a vegetarian Indian curry house. It was amaaaaazzzinngg! The naan and the curry we had was damn good. Or actually, it wasn`t really curry, but something like it. We then went on home to get ready for the next day`s journey to Langkawi island.
May 3rd Monday
So I woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous. I didn`t know why but I just wanted to throw up. So I kept vomiting the whole night. I couldn`t even move my position in bed because if I turned left or right instead of facing up I would get nauseous and go throw up again. It was terrible. My entire night was like that. And I woke up the next morning feeling incredibly weak with what felt like a fever. I suppose I was dehydrated from ejecting all the liquids in me ,but I wasn`t sure where this fever came from. I at first thought that it might have been food poisoning or something. But then Erika suggested that it could`ve been the river water I swallowed.
It took every ounce of energy I had to get up and move and get ready to go to the airport for what was supposed to be a fun filled day on the beach at Langkawi island. I could tell Erika was really worried for me and wondered if I would be able to travel. But I was thinking in my head that we had already booked the flight there and we both had really wanted to spend time at the beach, so I was not about to let this temporary ill condition I had get the best of my trip. So, naturally, I bucked myself up and got a taxi to the airport. The taxi, however, was so old and run down with broken AC that I don`t even know how I made it to the airport without passing out or more throwing up in my condition. When I got there, it was difficult for me to even get out of the car and walk. Just carrying my purse felt burdensome. But once I got there and got some 7-up in my system I immediately felt better. I felt more revived, but still very weak and feverish. As Erika put it "You looked like you were going to die." lol Yeah, I felt like it. But I pumped myself with 7-up after 7-up and started feeling better. After sleeping on the plane and drinking some blackcurrant juice (which is a very big thing in Malaysia) I felt more alive and could even stomach some peanut butter crackers. My stomach was still a lil tender though.
Upon arriving at the airport, the environment of the whole place was vastly different from that of Kuala Lumpur. Oh man, it was nice. It really felt like an island resort. We got ourselves a taxi to AB Motel. So, I tried to book a room for the AB motel via phone before we got to Malaysia and they said they were full for those days. But apparently, for any of the hotels here in Langkawi, if you do walk-ins, they always have vacancies. lol We lucked out and got the last chalet situated right on the beach for only a total of about $30 a night. RIGHT ON THE BEACH!! A CHALET!! $30 A NIGHT ONLY!! Wow. It was roomy and nice. Although I still felt weak, just standing on the beach and breathing in the air felt wonderful and I felt revived. But upon laying down on the bed, my fever came back and I was bedridden for the day. Thank God for Erika being there and her Ibuprofen. She was so sweet and wonderful, trying to help me get better and bringing me food and ice from the local markets. Without her, I would`ve seriously been in trouble. In the evening, however, I started to feel better so I got up and went to sit on the benches outside situated under shady trees on the beach. That really really made me feel like normal again.
Ah, I really do miss the beach. Being a California girl, living her college life in Irvine/Newport Beach there is nothing that beats the feeling of like being home again. We then went to go eat at one of the many restaurants on the main street in front of the hotel. I, unfortunately, could not stomach anything else but bolognaise spaghetti, of which I felt terrible for eating because we`re in Malaysia, and I`m eating spagetti....But it did feel good to have food in my system though. We then returned home and I slept early for the night and started to feel better.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
My trip to Malaysia Part 1: an eye opening experience
April 29th Thursday
Left this morning for the airport. I was super excited, but at the same time complacent. Upon arriving I met up with Erika (whom I was very glad to see) at the new and beautiful International Terminal at the Sapporo airport. It was just glistening white. My new favorite airport. Anyways, today was the beginning of my trip to Malaysia. We rode on Cathay Pacific and first arrived in Hong Kong for a 1 night layover. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely beautiful with views of the beach and ocean. Hong Kong is an island country so it was just a bunch of hotels/apts mini cities built on islands connected by bridges. Very interesting to see. The shower was wonderful, though it had blinds so you could open them when taking a shower....lol
April 39th Friday
Got up this morning, bid our beautiful hotel goodbye, and left for the airport to Malaysia. Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur we immediately noticed how hot and, in particular, humid it was. We got ourselves a nice airport black taxi and headed into Kuala Lumpur city, the heart and capital of Malaysia. Our taxi driver was excellent. He gave us all kinds of information on the city and kind of gave us a mini tour. So we finally arrived at our hotel and realized that we were in the more un-touristy area of the city. If you want the real Malaysian experience, ya gotta come to Chow-kit. That`s where we were. It was quite uh....real. I mean the area is not for tourists as it`s surroundings and decor and traffic are not attractive to the average tourist. Our hotel, Hotel Sahara, was adequate for budget travlers. Clean and conveniently located near all the big sites and attractions. But the bathroom was quite interesting. The sink, toilet, and shower were not separated. As in, there is no set shower area. The shower hose hung between the toilet and the sink. So when you took a shower you basically got the whole room wet, including the toilet...lol
Anyways, a bit of interesting info for those who don`t know much about Malaysia. Malaysia is a Muslim country. But the main population (particularly on the east side) consists of Chinese, Indian, and Malays. So there`s alot of languages and religions going on here. Moreover, they used to be a British colony up until 50 years ago so everyone here speaks English and everything is written in English. So Erika and I had no problems getting around whatsoever. Now, speaking of the religion part/tradition/culture, I noticed something very interesting that really opened my eyes.
The Malaysian women, being all Muslim, wear beautiful scarves around their head that only covers their hair and usually wear pants and long sleeves. Then there are the more strict Muslim women who cover themselves from head to toe (literally) in black cloth and only allow their eyes to show through, like the women we`ve been seeing in the American media in Afghanistan, etc. Only, these women walk side by side with skimpily dressed Chinese girls and tank top wearing Indian girls. It`s very interesting to see because the conservative Muslim women don`t seem to mind being friends with/or being seen with/being near to the other women who aren`t so covered up. Everyone`s content with one another. However, for couples, you always only see Chinese and Chinese, Indian and Indian, or maybe Chinese and Indian, but never Malaysian and Chinese/Indian. The Malaysians also only go for other Malaysians because of their religion. If you want to marry or go out with a Malaysian girl/guy you have to convert to being a Muslim. So all these people will walk side by side, but are never really integrated. You`ll see all three races shopping in the same clothing store, but for different clothes. That was very interesting to watch.
The Muslim women (the strict ones included), however, seem perfectly happy with their lives and the men treat them quite well it seems. The women are actually free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn`t go against their religion. They don`t have to walk behind their husbands, they carry designer handbags of all flashy colors, and seem to be able to wear whatever they like as long as it covers majority of their body. Meaning no show of legs (sandals/flip-flops are okay to wear though) and no tank tops or sleeveless tops. Then again, this is Malaysia where I`m sure is not as strict on these things as the countries where the religion originated. Oh, and there are mosques everywhere.
Anyways, back on track. After arriving in our hotel and taking a leisurely walk around the surrounding areas of the hotel we went to Chinatown. And there, we shopped, got stalked by a creepy Indian man trying to make us go into his shop, and ate wonderful nostalgic (well, nostalgic for me) food. No Malaysian food yet, just Chinese food. But it`s authentic Chinese food that I haven`t had in forever and I missed it terribly. I didn`t realize how much I missed it until I popped the sweet roast pork (Cha-shu) in my mouth. Man... Oh and the fruit! Man, the fruit juice was excellent there. Way good!
That night, after returning back to our hotel, we walked around our area for a bit. It was quite shady to say the least and dirty. Coming from beautiful clean Hokkaido Japan, Malaysia was pretty disturbing. But that`s how all the Southeast asian countries (besides Singapore) are compared to Japan. Live like the locals do I suppose.
May 1 Saturday
Today we took the Monorail to the Golden Triangle area. The monorail broke down and we gave up and just decided to walk to our destination, which wasn`t far. I had wanted to head over to Bukit Bintang area for some shopping. So we broke down at the perfect stop. We entered the Sugei Wang plaza, which is this giant giant shopping mall. Like bigger than any I`ve ever been to. We walked around for a while, realized that none of these clothes would fit us and just kept walking around. My feet, for some reaon, started to get really tired and sore real fast. Boo. Anyways, after that, we walked over he Berjaya Times Square, which is a higher level mall complete with the largest indoor theme park in all of Southeast Asia. It was awesome...though we didn`t buy too much. haha.
From there we went to KL Tower which looks like the Stratosphere. I had reserved us dinner there at the restaurant on the top of the tower. The view from the top was breathtaking. Absolutely. The restaurant revolves giving you a full 360 degree view of the city. The food was great and I was stuffed. We spent 2 hours in the restaurant revolving until we came back around to where we started. And then left to go back down. We had wanted to go to Little India, but it seemed to be already closed. So we just headed back to our hotel and chilled.
Left this morning for the airport. I was super excited, but at the same time complacent. Upon arriving I met up with Erika (whom I was very glad to see) at the new and beautiful International Terminal at the Sapporo airport. It was just glistening white. My new favorite airport. Anyways, today was the beginning of my trip to Malaysia. We rode on Cathay Pacific and first arrived in Hong Kong for a 1 night layover. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely beautiful with views of the beach and ocean. Hong Kong is an island country so it was just a bunch of hotels/apts mini cities built on islands connected by bridges. Very interesting to see. The shower was wonderful, though it had blinds so you could open them when taking a shower....lol
April 39th Friday
Got up this morning, bid our beautiful hotel goodbye, and left for the airport to Malaysia. Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur we immediately noticed how hot and, in particular, humid it was. We got ourselves a nice airport black taxi and headed into Kuala Lumpur city, the heart and capital of Malaysia. Our taxi driver was excellent. He gave us all kinds of information on the city and kind of gave us a mini tour. So we finally arrived at our hotel and realized that we were in the more un-touristy area of the city. If you want the real Malaysian experience, ya gotta come to Chow-kit. That`s where we were. It was quite uh....real. I mean the area is not for tourists as it`s surroundings and decor and traffic are not attractive to the average tourist. Our hotel, Hotel Sahara, was adequate for budget travlers. Clean and conveniently located near all the big sites and attractions. But the bathroom was quite interesting. The sink, toilet, and shower were not separated. As in, there is no set shower area. The shower hose hung between the toilet and the sink. So when you took a shower you basically got the whole room wet, including the toilet...lol
Anyways, a bit of interesting info for those who don`t know much about Malaysia. Malaysia is a Muslim country. But the main population (particularly on the east side) consists of Chinese, Indian, and Malays. So there`s alot of languages and religions going on here. Moreover, they used to be a British colony up until 50 years ago so everyone here speaks English and everything is written in English. So Erika and I had no problems getting around whatsoever. Now, speaking of the religion part/tradition/culture, I noticed something very interesting that really opened my eyes.
The Malaysian women, being all Muslim, wear beautiful scarves around their head that only covers their hair and usually wear pants and long sleeves. Then there are the more strict Muslim women who cover themselves from head to toe (literally) in black cloth and only allow their eyes to show through, like the women we`ve been seeing in the American media in Afghanistan, etc. Only, these women walk side by side with skimpily dressed Chinese girls and tank top wearing Indian girls. It`s very interesting to see because the conservative Muslim women don`t seem to mind being friends with/or being seen with/being near to the other women who aren`t so covered up. Everyone`s content with one another. However, for couples, you always only see Chinese and Chinese, Indian and Indian, or maybe Chinese and Indian, but never Malaysian and Chinese/Indian. The Malaysians also only go for other Malaysians because of their religion. If you want to marry or go out with a Malaysian girl/guy you have to convert to being a Muslim. So all these people will walk side by side, but are never really integrated. You`ll see all three races shopping in the same clothing store, but for different clothes. That was very interesting to watch.
The Muslim women (the strict ones included), however, seem perfectly happy with their lives and the men treat them quite well it seems. The women are actually free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn`t go against their religion. They don`t have to walk behind their husbands, they carry designer handbags of all flashy colors, and seem to be able to wear whatever they like as long as it covers majority of their body. Meaning no show of legs (sandals/flip-flops are okay to wear though) and no tank tops or sleeveless tops. Then again, this is Malaysia where I`m sure is not as strict on these things as the countries where the religion originated. Oh, and there are mosques everywhere.
Anyways, back on track. After arriving in our hotel and taking a leisurely walk around the surrounding areas of the hotel we went to Chinatown. And there, we shopped, got stalked by a creepy Indian man trying to make us go into his shop, and ate wonderful nostalgic (well, nostalgic for me) food. No Malaysian food yet, just Chinese food. But it`s authentic Chinese food that I haven`t had in forever and I missed it terribly. I didn`t realize how much I missed it until I popped the sweet roast pork (Cha-shu) in my mouth. Man... Oh and the fruit! Man, the fruit juice was excellent there. Way good!
That night, after returning back to our hotel, we walked around our area for a bit. It was quite shady to say the least and dirty. Coming from beautiful clean Hokkaido Japan, Malaysia was pretty disturbing. But that`s how all the Southeast asian countries (besides Singapore) are compared to Japan. Live like the locals do I suppose.
May 1 Saturday
Today we took the Monorail to the Golden Triangle area. The monorail broke down and we gave up and just decided to walk to our destination, which wasn`t far. I had wanted to head over to Bukit Bintang area for some shopping. So we broke down at the perfect stop. We entered the Sugei Wang plaza, which is this giant giant shopping mall. Like bigger than any I`ve ever been to. We walked around for a while, realized that none of these clothes would fit us and just kept walking around. My feet, for some reaon, started to get really tired and sore real fast. Boo. Anyways, after that, we walked over he Berjaya Times Square, which is a higher level mall complete with the largest indoor theme park in all of Southeast Asia. It was awesome...though we didn`t buy too much. haha.
From there we went to KL Tower which looks like the Stratosphere. I had reserved us dinner there at the restaurant on the top of the tower. The view from the top was breathtaking. Absolutely. The restaurant revolves giving you a full 360 degree view of the city. The food was great and I was stuffed. We spent 2 hours in the restaurant revolving until we came back around to where we started. And then left to go back down. We had wanted to go to Little India, but it seemed to be already closed. So we just headed back to our hotel and chilled.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
PEPY Bike Ride
April 13th Tuesday
Beginning of teaching my 3rd and 2nd years at the high school. The second year class was the same as they were last year, negative. lol Their attitudes about everything in every class is always so negative and I feel my enthusiasm being drained out by them...nevertheless, I tried my best with the kiddies and produced some okay results. The 3rd years however have become my new favorite class at the high school. They`re so enthusiastic about English and insist that everything be spoken in English in class. Amazing! Such great kids and I look forward to teaching them.
In the evening, I don`t know what was wrong with me, but I totally forgot that I had a welcome enkai for my new middle school teachers. I think it`s because of alot of things going on lately that my mind just hasn`t been focusing. And if I don`t have my schedule book organized or have things written down on them, I will most surely forget. I was wandering around the 100yen shop when I got a phone call from one of the teachers to ask if I was still coming to the enkai. And I was like, "Oh, shit!" And immediately left to go. I was an hour and a half late to it....Yeah. When I got there I apologized profusely and sat in the only open seat which was next to the principal at the boy`s end of the table. It was a little awkward at first because I`m not much of a fan of the new principal, but after a little bit, it became better. I still ended up having to pay for my meal even though I only ate a bowl of sukiyaki because I was full from already having eaten...Not smart of me. Ah well.
April 16th Friday
After school I left to get on the train to Kutchan. This weekend is the PEPY bike ride. All the money/donations received from the ride are used to build orphanages for children in Cambodia. So whatever amount of money we raise will all go to that which is something I`m quite proud to be a part of. Plus, I get to see Erika and Steph. Woo!
The train ride from my town to Kutchan takes about 5 hours with an hour break in between. I met up with my friends in Sapporo and we all took the train together to Kutchan. It was so much fun being able to talk and see them again. ^^ When we got to Kutchan train station, the guy whose apt we were staying at came to pick us up. He was from London! Cool guy and it was very nice of him to let us stay at his place. His place was quaint and not bad except a little dirty with many kinds of bugs crawling around. The three of us girls slept in one of the extra tatami rooms he had.
April 17th Saturday
This morning we woke up and got ready for the bike ride. The ride starts off in Niseko area (which is a popular ski resort area and has many many Australians), goes down to Kutchan, and ends with a BBQ near the agricultural high school. We were equipped with some really nice rental bikes, a helmet and a water bottle. And let me tell ya, the helmet is far from making a fashion statement. It just looks terrible on me. lol And I have really bad experiences with helmet hair and this was an example of that. Anyways, the ride up was hot because of all the slopes we went up, but we stopped off at Weiss Hotel at the top of the mountain area and had some coffee. The employee at the the front desk was really quite cute, but looked a little too young for us. Like fresh out of high school. =P The scenery was beautiful during the ride, though! It was refreshing and a wonderful feeling.
The ride down was freezing! There was still snow everywhere and it was quite cold because of the wind. My ears felt like they were going to fall off, but I made it to the high school area okay. We had a delicious burger BBQ for lunch with other ALTs from around the area who came and then went back to our friend`s apt to chill until the play put on by HAJET to raise money for HEC started. My butt, particularly my crotch area, was sore. Very sore. THe other girls were having the same problem. I mean these bike seats were ridiculous narrow and the tip of the seat area was long and thin. Not comfortable. We got back to the apt and I had to carefully sit down because if I sat down too fast too hard, pain would shoot up through my body.
We then got changed and went to the play. There were so many half children there! It amazed me because I`m so used to always seeing plain Japanese people in my area that seeing so much hybrid kids was shocking. haha. But then again, we are in Niseko. So, afterwards we went to go eat at a superbly good pizza parlor. It was delicious! And they had real cheesecake!!! When that was over we went to a party in a rented lodge for someone`s birthday whom we didn`t really know. But we were invited, so we went. However, a couple of the girls we were with fell asleep and so we decided to head on back to the apt for night of well deserved rest.
April 18 Sunday
Woke up, bid goodbye to the guy who let us stay at his place and left on our train. I parted with steph and erika in Sapporo and came back home. Ah, it feels great to be back home. =)
Beginning of teaching my 3rd and 2nd years at the high school. The second year class was the same as they were last year, negative. lol Their attitudes about everything in every class is always so negative and I feel my enthusiasm being drained out by them...nevertheless, I tried my best with the kiddies and produced some okay results. The 3rd years however have become my new favorite class at the high school. They`re so enthusiastic about English and insist that everything be spoken in English in class. Amazing! Such great kids and I look forward to teaching them.
In the evening, I don`t know what was wrong with me, but I totally forgot that I had a welcome enkai for my new middle school teachers. I think it`s because of alot of things going on lately that my mind just hasn`t been focusing. And if I don`t have my schedule book organized or have things written down on them, I will most surely forget. I was wandering around the 100yen shop when I got a phone call from one of the teachers to ask if I was still coming to the enkai. And I was like, "Oh, shit!" And immediately left to go. I was an hour and a half late to it....Yeah. When I got there I apologized profusely and sat in the only open seat which was next to the principal at the boy`s end of the table. It was a little awkward at first because I`m not much of a fan of the new principal, but after a little bit, it became better. I still ended up having to pay for my meal even though I only ate a bowl of sukiyaki because I was full from already having eaten...Not smart of me. Ah well.
April 16th Friday
After school I left to get on the train to Kutchan. This weekend is the PEPY bike ride. All the money/donations received from the ride are used to build orphanages for children in Cambodia. So whatever amount of money we raise will all go to that which is something I`m quite proud to be a part of. Plus, I get to see Erika and Steph. Woo!
The train ride from my town to Kutchan takes about 5 hours with an hour break in between. I met up with my friends in Sapporo and we all took the train together to Kutchan. It was so much fun being able to talk and see them again. ^^ When we got to Kutchan train station, the guy whose apt we were staying at came to pick us up. He was from London! Cool guy and it was very nice of him to let us stay at his place. His place was quaint and not bad except a little dirty with many kinds of bugs crawling around. The three of us girls slept in one of the extra tatami rooms he had.
April 17th Saturday
This morning we woke up and got ready for the bike ride. The ride starts off in Niseko area (which is a popular ski resort area and has many many Australians), goes down to Kutchan, and ends with a BBQ near the agricultural high school. We were equipped with some really nice rental bikes, a helmet and a water bottle. And let me tell ya, the helmet is far from making a fashion statement. It just looks terrible on me. lol And I have really bad experiences with helmet hair and this was an example of that. Anyways, the ride up was hot because of all the slopes we went up, but we stopped off at Weiss Hotel at the top of the mountain area and had some coffee. The employee at the the front desk was really quite cute, but looked a little too young for us. Like fresh out of high school. =P The scenery was beautiful during the ride, though! It was refreshing and a wonderful feeling.
The ride down was freezing! There was still snow everywhere and it was quite cold because of the wind. My ears felt like they were going to fall off, but I made it to the high school area okay. We had a delicious burger BBQ for lunch with other ALTs from around the area who came and then went back to our friend`s apt to chill until the play put on by HAJET to raise money for HEC started. My butt, particularly my crotch area, was sore. Very sore. THe other girls were having the same problem. I mean these bike seats were ridiculous narrow and the tip of the seat area was long and thin. Not comfortable. We got back to the apt and I had to carefully sit down because if I sat down too fast too hard, pain would shoot up through my body.
We then got changed and went to the play. There were so many half children there! It amazed me because I`m so used to always seeing plain Japanese people in my area that seeing so much hybrid kids was shocking. haha. But then again, we are in Niseko. So, afterwards we went to go eat at a superbly good pizza parlor. It was delicious! And they had real cheesecake!!! When that was over we went to a party in a rented lodge for someone`s birthday whom we didn`t really know. But we were invited, so we went. However, a couple of the girls we were with fell asleep and so we decided to head on back to the apt for night of well deserved rest.
April 18 Sunday
Woke up, bid goodbye to the guy who let us stay at his place and left on our train. I parted with steph and erika in Sapporo and came back home. Ah, it feels great to be back home. =)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Young mamas and a hungover Japanese Teacher of English (JTE)
April 3rd Saturday
So I woke up bright and early this morning to get everything ready to go say goodbye to Yuki, since she`s leaving for Mashike this morning at 8:30. Or so I thought. Turns out she left alot earlier, like at 8am because of the bad weather and it takes her 3 hours to drive to her new town. She sent me a text message, but I didn`t read it until late. So it was already too late to see her off. But I did call her later to tell her goodbye. And we`ll definitely still keep in contact.
Afterwards, I headed for the train station to take a 4 hour train ride down to Muroran to hang with Steph for her Easter brunch on Sunday. I got there at about 1:30 and was amazed at the largeness of the station! It was huge and beautiful and the building was pretty neat too. You walked out of the ticket eating machine and are in a large hall that had benches facing the wall made of windows. You could see part of the city from there. It was pretty awesome.
Steph came to meet me and we headed off to go eat. We ended up going to this quaint little cafe tucked away in an alleyway called Coala. Not koala, but coala. Heh. It was cute and decked out with koalas and Australian parapernelia. I ordered a milk sekki which was apparantly like a milk shake, except not...And Steph had this interesting looking concoction of lemonade with red wine floating on top. It was pretty good though. We also ordered sausage and shrimp pizza! That was yummy. We sat there talking for awhile longer before we headed back out to do some shopping for tomorrow`s feast.
At the supermarket we loaded up on booze and ingredients to make my peanut butter balls and Steph`s clafoutie. Originally, we were going to go to my friend`s to have dinner since she said she`d prepare a Chinese meal for us. It sounded amazing, but unfortunately, Steph and I had alot to do that night in preparation for the next day so we decided to just eat at a local restaurant around Muroran. Two other girls came as well! And we decided on curry ramen because I had really wanted to try it. And it was absolutely amazing! One of the best kinds of ramen, ever! So damn good! But, it just sprayed everywhere as we ate, which is why Steph was smart and wore a t-shirt on top of her nicer shirt to keep it from getting dirty. lol The owner chatted us up a bit as we payed our bill. Interesting man.
We then went to a place called "Thriller" which was some mix of a dungeon and cemetary themed karaoke box. We got a nice room, drank lotsa alcohol, and sang our hearts out. Then we all parted ways and Steph and I decided to go try Muroran`s famous yakitori at a little izakaya we`ve never been to. The food was good, although the design of the place could`ve been a little better. Anyways, we went home, drank more alcohol and got to working on dying eggs and making my peanut butter balls. And she had real Skippy peanut butter! Like wow! I haven`t seen that in forever! Oh man, and the taste was the real thing. Ah, American peanut butter, how I have missed thee. Japanese peanut butter just tastes like peanuts. But I guess it`s somewhat healthier for you because there`s no added sugars...lol
April 4th Easter Sunday
Easter brunch time! Many foreigners in one small Japanese apt makes for crowded. And there were also so many people that were brought by other people whom neither Steph or I knew. It was kind of way too many people to have at the brunch. Someone also invited another family to come along, and they had 2 lil girls. They weren`t bad, actually. The kids were wonderful and the family was interesting to talk to. But there were just so many people there I wasn`t sure what to do with myself. Steph seemed pretty stressed out, so I decided to go help and chill with her. We had a couple shots of sake (well, steph more than myself) and a nice walk outside to calm us down. I like parties, but once they get too big to be able to have a good conversation with individual guests I kinda shrink away. I like to have parties where everyone`s involved in every conversation or at least together. But parties that form groups and cliques I don`t do too well with.
Steph, however, even under all that stress and wiggin out, did a good job of hosting the party. Everything went well, and the food turned out well. All in all, a good party. At 6pm I headed for the train station to catch my train back to my town. I arrived at 11:30pm and soon passed out on my bed. lol
April 5th Monday
Entrance ceremony for my nursery babies. They`re so cute and fidgety! Oh babies. I stayed the whole day at the nursery today because classes/school haven`t started. The teachers at the school all ordered some sort of bento and I ordered one as well. OMG it was amazing looking! I ordered a set that consisted of shrimp tempura soba, 6 pieces of sushi, tsukemono, and chawanmushi. SOOO good! And they delivered it all for us. Check it out in my photo album on facebook. Other than that, nothing else really happened this day.
April 6th Tuesday
Double entrance ceremonies. One at the elementary and one at the middle school. The first one was the elementary for the new 1st graders. It was sooo cute! All the 1st graders wore lil suits and dresses. Their parents were all crazy nicely dressed. Like, the dads were in suits and the moms were in kimonos and suits/dresses. I wanna wear a kimono...with a hakama. Those are cool. So, yet another formal ceremony where all my babies were pretty nervous looking. But upon seeing my face, many of the 1st years that I taught at the nursery got all excited and lit up. I`m elated to know that I am the cause of that. haha.
Oh dude, the moms. They are sooo young looking! No, they are young! And there are 36 kids this year! That`s alot of kids in one class, especially for a small town. I mean, a town of 3,000 or so people and 36 couples in one year all decided to have a child! For a large city that`s nothing and normal. But for a town as small as mine? The more I think about it and look at the trend that`s been going on lately, I feel like, for many of these mom`s, having a child is the thing to do. Like it`s a trend and they`re following it. I mean all the moms are the same age or relatively the same and many of them are friends. And there are other factors with it too. It`s just that many of these moms are having children just to keep up with the family image...I don`t know...I`m not saying it`s bad to go and pop out a child so early. But, maybe it`s because we`re in the countryside, that there`s nothing much else to do. I`m just making an observation. =P
So after the kids had their ceremony, they had a short orientation with their new homeroom teacher and went on home. All the other grades did the same. After, I left to go to the middle school`s entrance ceremony.
Man, all my lil 6th graders are so grown up now, wearing their uniforms and all. I can`t call them 6th graders anymore either since they`re now middleschool 1st years. This has to be my favorite class of all time. Amazing kids, they are. Anyways, they were sooo nervous looking! When I went up there with all the teachers to introduce ourselves they had pained nervous wreck looks on their faces. lol It was kind of funny actually, to which I made fun of them for it later. hehe.
So by this time, I was already pretty tired of all the ceremonies and all the long-ass speeches that are always made at every ceremony. I was already starting to fall asleep on them. Seriously, these speeches are given by 3 people with boring monotonous voices, each lasting about 10 minutes. Ridiculous! Way too long to keep any child`s attention span, hence, me falling asleep. After the ceremony, however, everyone went home and I went back to finish up at the elementary.
April 7th Wednesday
Today, the new middle school 1st years get to learn about the clubs they can join. Each club got up to showcase their activities and practices which was really cute. lol They also got the 1st years involved in some demos. I got to talk to my 1st years alot today, so i`m happy.
After school I headed to the gym that`s only open for late hours on wednesday night. Weekdays it opens from 10am to 5pm, but I sometimes don`t get out of work until 5pm or 4:30 making it difficult for me to get in workout times. But on Wednesday nights they open from 5pm-8pm. Yes! So it`s my first time going in there and I wasn`t sure where it was in the health center and I wasn`t expecting it to have much. When I got there, my friends who work there were surprised to see me. I told them I was here to use the training room and asked where it was. Mizutani-san showed me around and then took me to the training room. I stepped in there and was amazed!! It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. I imagined the little gyms they equip you with at apartment complexes in the states with only 4 or 5 machines available. But, omg, this place was huge compared to that. I mean, it`s no ARC at UCI, but still. It had 3 treadmills, 6 bikes (half of which are different types of bikes), 3 weird looking stepping machines, 6 different weight lifting machines, a section for old people to work out, an assortment of dumbells, and mats.
But the two most amazing and surprising things were 1)the massaging stones course and 2)the relaxation capsules. You know those smooth stones embedded in the floor and you walk on them to massage your feet? Well, they have a full indoor course of it! There are different sections in the course with different sized stones and placed sporadically. So, some areas feel good to walk on, whereas others just hurt. But it`s supposed to be good pain. And you ahve to continue this course for 5 minutes to get the full effect. It hurts, but I know it`s good for me. lol I`m kind of masochistic like that. The other thing is the capsules. These things are made for the purpose of relaxation and sweating. You lie in these capsules and it becomes a sort of sauna where you can adjust the heat. It has vibrations, a timer to wake you up if you fall asleep, a music head set, and even aroma therapy. And best thing of all is that it`s all free!!! FREE!!! Woo! I was like, i can`t believe this place is so high tech and yet everything is free! I spent a good 2 hours in there lifting weights and using the one mirror they had in the room to practice dancing.
April 9th Friday
OMG, this morning was ridiculous!!!! >.< I knew this morning that my JTE was not looking too good. I just wasn`t sure what was wrong. Before the morning teacher`s meeting he told me, "Theresa, I need to talk to you about class plans for today after the meeting." Usually, he won`t say that to me and just gives me the plan before class and I go along with it. So I knew something was up. After the meeting he just looked at me and said "Theresa, I have a really bad hangover today. I`m really hungover from the PTA welcome party last night." Oh great. Great! Hangover! And...? "Well, I won`t really be able to teach today, so can you please take over and do games and activites and use the textbook with the students instead?" And this was 15 minutes before my first English class...of the new school year. Outside I just looked calm and laughed and gave a kind of uncertain look before saying "Yeah, alright. No problem." But in my head I was really thinking, `You have got to be kidding me.` 15 minutes before class and I`m supposed to come up with a lesson plan to teach for the whole hour? For the other classes we have today too!?? 15 minutes!!! I was seriously not prepared for this. At all.
So I was scrambling to find a lesson plan and to think of something. And I managed to come up with something. Although while in class, I was actually making alot of shit up as I went. Some kind of idea would just pop into my head as I was teaching and I`d carry it out. The class was okay. I taught the 2nd years first. They were a little confused as to why I was teaching and I didn`t want to tell them because that would be inappropriate I thought. But then my JTE just went ahead and told them, "Oh, I`m not feeling too good today because I have a hangover from the PTA party last night." And I just stared at him for a minute because I just couldn`t believe that he said that! Never had any teachers I knew ever say that to their students. Like, did you really just say that to the kids? Well, whatever, I tried to make the class fun and enjoyable for the kids. I mean it wasn`t as good as the classes I have planned out before because I only had 15 minutes, but it still went well. My JTE just stood to the side....trying to get a hold of himself.
After class he told me he was feeling a little dizzy because everything seems to still be moving around, like the floor...Oh good. Anyways, the second class was my 1st years who were my 6th grade class last year. My fav. They are so good at English that it surprised my JTE. He just asked me to lead the class in what they know so that he can guage what he needs to teach them later (and so he can recuperate). I was totally fine with that as I know this class very well. And my students trust me in teaching and remembered that English was fun for them. So they let go of their serious hard-at-studying selves and followed me into weird English land. =P Good kids. Even my mentally disabled kid was able to read ABCs and spell and say actions in English. So proud of them! I told the JTE afterwards to just use mostly English with them because they can handle it. He was quite surprised at their high level. Well then, shows you that these kids can handle anything!
Afterwards I had the high school`s entrance ceremony. Yet another one. I endured through that too, but I started drifting off alittle. Anyways, after the ceremony I came back to the middle school and lounged around, tired.
So I woke up bright and early this morning to get everything ready to go say goodbye to Yuki, since she`s leaving for Mashike this morning at 8:30. Or so I thought. Turns out she left alot earlier, like at 8am because of the bad weather and it takes her 3 hours to drive to her new town. She sent me a text message, but I didn`t read it until late. So it was already too late to see her off. But I did call her later to tell her goodbye. And we`ll definitely still keep in contact.
Afterwards, I headed for the train station to take a 4 hour train ride down to Muroran to hang with Steph for her Easter brunch on Sunday. I got there at about 1:30 and was amazed at the largeness of the station! It was huge and beautiful and the building was pretty neat too. You walked out of the ticket eating machine and are in a large hall that had benches facing the wall made of windows. You could see part of the city from there. It was pretty awesome.
Steph came to meet me and we headed off to go eat. We ended up going to this quaint little cafe tucked away in an alleyway called Coala. Not koala, but coala. Heh. It was cute and decked out with koalas and Australian parapernelia. I ordered a milk sekki which was apparantly like a milk shake, except not...And Steph had this interesting looking concoction of lemonade with red wine floating on top. It was pretty good though. We also ordered sausage and shrimp pizza! That was yummy. We sat there talking for awhile longer before we headed back out to do some shopping for tomorrow`s feast.
At the supermarket we loaded up on booze and ingredients to make my peanut butter balls and Steph`s clafoutie. Originally, we were going to go to my friend`s to have dinner since she said she`d prepare a Chinese meal for us. It sounded amazing, but unfortunately, Steph and I had alot to do that night in preparation for the next day so we decided to just eat at a local restaurant around Muroran. Two other girls came as well! And we decided on curry ramen because I had really wanted to try it. And it was absolutely amazing! One of the best kinds of ramen, ever! So damn good! But, it just sprayed everywhere as we ate, which is why Steph was smart and wore a t-shirt on top of her nicer shirt to keep it from getting dirty. lol The owner chatted us up a bit as we payed our bill. Interesting man.
We then went to a place called "Thriller" which was some mix of a dungeon and cemetary themed karaoke box. We got a nice room, drank lotsa alcohol, and sang our hearts out. Then we all parted ways and Steph and I decided to go try Muroran`s famous yakitori at a little izakaya we`ve never been to. The food was good, although the design of the place could`ve been a little better. Anyways, we went home, drank more alcohol and got to working on dying eggs and making my peanut butter balls. And she had real Skippy peanut butter! Like wow! I haven`t seen that in forever! Oh man, and the taste was the real thing. Ah, American peanut butter, how I have missed thee. Japanese peanut butter just tastes like peanuts. But I guess it`s somewhat healthier for you because there`s no added sugars...lol
April 4th Easter Sunday
Easter brunch time! Many foreigners in one small Japanese apt makes for crowded. And there were also so many people that were brought by other people whom neither Steph or I knew. It was kind of way too many people to have at the brunch. Someone also invited another family to come along, and they had 2 lil girls. They weren`t bad, actually. The kids were wonderful and the family was interesting to talk to. But there were just so many people there I wasn`t sure what to do with myself. Steph seemed pretty stressed out, so I decided to go help and chill with her. We had a couple shots of sake (well, steph more than myself) and a nice walk outside to calm us down. I like parties, but once they get too big to be able to have a good conversation with individual guests I kinda shrink away. I like to have parties where everyone`s involved in every conversation or at least together. But parties that form groups and cliques I don`t do too well with.
Steph, however, even under all that stress and wiggin out, did a good job of hosting the party. Everything went well, and the food turned out well. All in all, a good party. At 6pm I headed for the train station to catch my train back to my town. I arrived at 11:30pm and soon passed out on my bed. lol
April 5th Monday
Entrance ceremony for my nursery babies. They`re so cute and fidgety! Oh babies. I stayed the whole day at the nursery today because classes/school haven`t started. The teachers at the school all ordered some sort of bento and I ordered one as well. OMG it was amazing looking! I ordered a set that consisted of shrimp tempura soba, 6 pieces of sushi, tsukemono, and chawanmushi. SOOO good! And they delivered it all for us. Check it out in my photo album on facebook. Other than that, nothing else really happened this day.
April 6th Tuesday
Double entrance ceremonies. One at the elementary and one at the middle school. The first one was the elementary for the new 1st graders. It was sooo cute! All the 1st graders wore lil suits and dresses. Their parents were all crazy nicely dressed. Like, the dads were in suits and the moms were in kimonos and suits/dresses. I wanna wear a kimono...with a hakama. Those are cool. So, yet another formal ceremony where all my babies were pretty nervous looking. But upon seeing my face, many of the 1st years that I taught at the nursery got all excited and lit up. I`m elated to know that I am the cause of that. haha.
Oh dude, the moms. They are sooo young looking! No, they are young! And there are 36 kids this year! That`s alot of kids in one class, especially for a small town. I mean, a town of 3,000 or so people and 36 couples in one year all decided to have a child! For a large city that`s nothing and normal. But for a town as small as mine? The more I think about it and look at the trend that`s been going on lately, I feel like, for many of these mom`s, having a child is the thing to do. Like it`s a trend and they`re following it. I mean all the moms are the same age or relatively the same and many of them are friends. And there are other factors with it too. It`s just that many of these moms are having children just to keep up with the family image...I don`t know...I`m not saying it`s bad to go and pop out a child so early. But, maybe it`s because we`re in the countryside, that there`s nothing much else to do. I`m just making an observation. =P
So after the kids had their ceremony, they had a short orientation with their new homeroom teacher and went on home. All the other grades did the same. After, I left to go to the middle school`s entrance ceremony.
Man, all my lil 6th graders are so grown up now, wearing their uniforms and all. I can`t call them 6th graders anymore either since they`re now middleschool 1st years. This has to be my favorite class of all time. Amazing kids, they are. Anyways, they were sooo nervous looking! When I went up there with all the teachers to introduce ourselves they had pained nervous wreck looks on their faces. lol It was kind of funny actually, to which I made fun of them for it later. hehe.
So by this time, I was already pretty tired of all the ceremonies and all the long-ass speeches that are always made at every ceremony. I was already starting to fall asleep on them. Seriously, these speeches are given by 3 people with boring monotonous voices, each lasting about 10 minutes. Ridiculous! Way too long to keep any child`s attention span, hence, me falling asleep. After the ceremony, however, everyone went home and I went back to finish up at the elementary.
April 7th Wednesday
Today, the new middle school 1st years get to learn about the clubs they can join. Each club got up to showcase their activities and practices which was really cute. lol They also got the 1st years involved in some demos. I got to talk to my 1st years alot today, so i`m happy.
After school I headed to the gym that`s only open for late hours on wednesday night. Weekdays it opens from 10am to 5pm, but I sometimes don`t get out of work until 5pm or 4:30 making it difficult for me to get in workout times. But on Wednesday nights they open from 5pm-8pm. Yes! So it`s my first time going in there and I wasn`t sure where it was in the health center and I wasn`t expecting it to have much. When I got there, my friends who work there were surprised to see me. I told them I was here to use the training room and asked where it was. Mizutani-san showed me around and then took me to the training room. I stepped in there and was amazed!! It was much bigger than I thought it was going to be. I imagined the little gyms they equip you with at apartment complexes in the states with only 4 or 5 machines available. But, omg, this place was huge compared to that. I mean, it`s no ARC at UCI, but still. It had 3 treadmills, 6 bikes (half of which are different types of bikes), 3 weird looking stepping machines, 6 different weight lifting machines, a section for old people to work out, an assortment of dumbells, and mats.
But the two most amazing and surprising things were 1)the massaging stones course and 2)the relaxation capsules. You know those smooth stones embedded in the floor and you walk on them to massage your feet? Well, they have a full indoor course of it! There are different sections in the course with different sized stones and placed sporadically. So, some areas feel good to walk on, whereas others just hurt. But it`s supposed to be good pain. And you ahve to continue this course for 5 minutes to get the full effect. It hurts, but I know it`s good for me. lol I`m kind of masochistic like that. The other thing is the capsules. These things are made for the purpose of relaxation and sweating. You lie in these capsules and it becomes a sort of sauna where you can adjust the heat. It has vibrations, a timer to wake you up if you fall asleep, a music head set, and even aroma therapy. And best thing of all is that it`s all free!!! FREE!!! Woo! I was like, i can`t believe this place is so high tech and yet everything is free! I spent a good 2 hours in there lifting weights and using the one mirror they had in the room to practice dancing.
April 9th Friday
OMG, this morning was ridiculous!!!! >.< I knew this morning that my JTE was not looking too good. I just wasn`t sure what was wrong. Before the morning teacher`s meeting he told me, "Theresa, I need to talk to you about class plans for today after the meeting." Usually, he won`t say that to me and just gives me the plan before class and I go along with it. So I knew something was up. After the meeting he just looked at me and said "Theresa, I have a really bad hangover today. I`m really hungover from the PTA welcome party last night." Oh great. Great! Hangover! And...? "Well, I won`t really be able to teach today, so can you please take over and do games and activites and use the textbook with the students instead?" And this was 15 minutes before my first English class...of the new school year. Outside I just looked calm and laughed and gave a kind of uncertain look before saying "Yeah, alright. No problem." But in my head I was really thinking, `You have got to be kidding me.` 15 minutes before class and I`m supposed to come up with a lesson plan to teach for the whole hour? For the other classes we have today too!?? 15 minutes!!! I was seriously not prepared for this. At all.
So I was scrambling to find a lesson plan and to think of something. And I managed to come up with something. Although while in class, I was actually making alot of shit up as I went. Some kind of idea would just pop into my head as I was teaching and I`d carry it out. The class was okay. I taught the 2nd years first. They were a little confused as to why I was teaching and I didn`t want to tell them because that would be inappropriate I thought. But then my JTE just went ahead and told them, "Oh, I`m not feeling too good today because I have a hangover from the PTA party last night." And I just stared at him for a minute because I just couldn`t believe that he said that! Never had any teachers I knew ever say that to their students. Like, did you really just say that to the kids? Well, whatever, I tried to make the class fun and enjoyable for the kids. I mean it wasn`t as good as the classes I have planned out before because I only had 15 minutes, but it still went well. My JTE just stood to the side....trying to get a hold of himself.
After class he told me he was feeling a little dizzy because everything seems to still be moving around, like the floor...Oh good. Anyways, the second class was my 1st years who were my 6th grade class last year. My fav. They are so good at English that it surprised my JTE. He just asked me to lead the class in what they know so that he can guage what he needs to teach them later (and so he can recuperate). I was totally fine with that as I know this class very well. And my students trust me in teaching and remembered that English was fun for them. So they let go of their serious hard-at-studying selves and followed me into weird English land. =P Good kids. Even my mentally disabled kid was able to read ABCs and spell and say actions in English. So proud of them! I told the JTE afterwards to just use mostly English with them because they can handle it. He was quite surprised at their high level. Well then, shows you that these kids can handle anything!
Afterwards I had the high school`s entrance ceremony. Yet another one. I endured through that too, but I started drifting off alittle. Anyways, after the ceremony I came back to the middle school and lounged around, tired.
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