Lake hunting

well well...It's been a pretty busy week/weekend! I am so close to going home...it's scary actually. I am really loving this country, and I am also aware that I will probably miss a lot of things once I return to england. It's gonna be a culture shock. Who knows...maybe I'll go so mad that I'll just have to return! hahahah anyway.

School was going well mostly. Apart from horrible wednesdays where i nearly killed my 6th and 4th graders. Gawwwwd teenagers are so darn dramatic! What is it with the exaggerations??? I swear if I have kids and they do this whole drama number..they're gonna be shipped off somewhere far away till they learn to get over it. My handicapped class was the worst class on monday. I really want to give up with that. It's unbelievable how much mess 7 kids can make, and how frustrating they can be. It's so scary. I wonder if I would ahve the strength and patience and love to deal with a child like that 24/7 let alone 45minutes once a week. It's pretty amazing really. Hats off to those that can.

Friday I got to leave early because we had a big ALT meeting. I do love those meetings. It makes me feel like I am part fo something important. It's also great to meet all your "colleagues" and talk about how school is going for them. It makes you feel less alone with the little daily struggles.

Friday night was a chilled night with Imo, Capn Maney, Jeremy, Hannah and me. We started off in an izakaya having some random food and the most gorgeous pudding. We then moved on to playing pool (I actually didn't TOTALLY suck...just mostly), and then went off to karaoke. It was a dingy little place but quite fun! I found some bravery and sang a song...I was shaking all the way through it but hey! I managed! be proud of me! The guys were lovely bout it and applauded me! yaaay. Saturday was immensly chilled out and involved a lot of scrubs.

Sunday, I had Franny call me through our slidey doors checking if I was awake. We went on a road trip around the lakes in this area with Rudd and Joe. It was really fun! We basically made a round trip of Mt Fuji, seeing it from angles we had never known existed. The lakes looked beautiful too. It was strange Japan felt so empty today, we were often the only ones around. It was cool though. There were remnants of snow all around the area, and we also saw these amazing snow/ice....sculpture thingys? The day was rounded off with a hyaku yen sushi visit....mmmmmmmhhhh........there's one thing already that I am gonna miss. The list goes on.

Ghibli studios aka Ross's day out

my goodness....I seriously need to get some sleep!

So yesterday was sushi with Minae and her boy. Kalli loved it and Yo yo wasn't entirely sure about the seaweed concoctions....we then went to the beach together. It was a beautiful day!!! I was actually out in shorts and T-shirt!!!!! awesomeness! In the evening we then all met up for dinner for Ross's birthday. The food was great and obviously it was nomihodai. We then moved the whole thing to SpeakEZ and had a brilliant time. I was a "DJ" for a while sorting out some tunes. Gave me an oppertunity to play some MUSE and ting tings and MGMT and get people hooked! harhar! Well bed time was aorund 2....or 3?...I dunno.....

getting up wasn't easy. But it was time to go to Tokyo to ghibli studios! We went in a small group; Dion, Doran, Ross, Amy, Dr Z and myself! The studio was brilliantly done. Really cute and interesting...showing all the media and how they do the illustrations and tricks....It's a great place to go for anyone who is interested in animation anyway. Afterwards we went off for some food and then our long ride back. All in all it was a great day...and I soooo don't want to teach tomorrow!

tsugoi nemui!

raaaaaaaar.

ehm......I really should do better with sleep and all that jazz...I have a feeling my body is a lil pissed off at me.

aaanyways! My cousin and his tomodachi arrived this monday, which was a lil chatoc as I had probably forgotten to tell him what exit he should come out of, anf he had forgotten to write down my number or address. SO...I waited for about an hour...going from south to north side checking if he was there. In the end they went to the southside and an internet cafe. they emailed my phone from there.

ha....

Tuesday was then an immediate introduction to all the various ALT's as we nomihodai - ed it 3 times! (all you can drink). We started off in an Izakaya so the boys got to taste some proper japanese food. Very impressed. Then we went to a bar where everyone was getting more and more wasted, while I got the friendly bar man to serve me endless amounts of orange juice. He even personally brought them over to me which was sweet. I think me being the only non loud drunk person helped. The evening ended with a massive karaoke session. 16 of us all shouting the lyrics to songs like bohemian rapsody, come together and we are the world. I even had the microphone for "mr brightside" and sang! Be impressed people!
We managed ot get to bed at 5 am and Kalli told me he wanted to do tokyo the next daa. So we got up just before 10 and got ready. We cruised around Asakusa, Ueno,and Akihabara. To me it wasn't obviously anything new. The boys loved it though, taking pictures of literally EVERYTHING. They say it's revenge for all the japanese tourists that do that when they come to europe. School the next day was slightly difficult, but with plenty of coffee flowing it went alright. My grade 2's were high again...which really makes things a bit difficult. I also snapped at "demonchild" for the first time. Not in a particularly bad way, I just told her to stop being a baby, because she was hissy fitting that she was the 4th person in line to play the boardgame that I had made. In the end she shut up and was actually very good. I am hoping it has something to do with the fact that my attitude towards her was " I don't give a sugar lump what you think..get over it and play"....hahahahah I am so mean.

right...party time.

Hakone pt 2!!!

3 hours of sleep....yay!.......Funnily I am not that bad...or wasn't at the time. We all got ready and went off to this art gallery which Amy had always wanted to go to and Ross took the opportunity to make that part of the birthday weekend. They had quite a lot of random French artists in there..a few greats...Monet, Kandinsky, Gogh etc. It felt almost homely to see the pictures! The Gallery itself was interesting from an architectural point of view! It looked like some parts of Boehringer Ingelheim..so maybe the architect was german..hmmmm.

Anyway after that we went off to the rope...cart? I don't remember the word for it in english. Basically we got in to something similar to a ski lift and went up this mountain. The view was absolutley gorgeous, Fuji san looked beautiful today. Up at the top were many sulphur mines, so everything smelt very eggy. But this was a special place as famous eggs were steamed in these suplhur pits. They come out black, and not so nice smelling but were very nice. Naturally we all had to have some of these eggs. It was really good. Then we went back down and took the pirate ship back to the other side, and the bus back to mishima. On our way everyone got chatting to a drunken osaka dude who thought that one of the girls in our group was beautiful. It made a lot of entertainment for the trip.

Hakone!!!!! pt 1

Tadaima!!!

wow...that was an awesome weekend! ( I really gotta stop saying awesome...). A bunch of us all went to Hakone for the weekend to celebrate Amy's birthday. Ross (her slave/boyfriend :p ), organised this entire thing as a surprise 2 months beforehand. It was really sweet. So we all set off at 9 in the morning on saturday. There was 16 of us in total. It was quite a bit colder in Hakone and also quite grey...we took some pictures on the viewing platforms. There was this great fake pirate ship!! We then went to this reconstructed Edo period outdoor museum. It was actually where the original checkpoint was for japanese citizens citizens to cross over to Tokyo. They had some damn cruel punishments for people that tried to avoid the checkpoint. The men would be crucified and beheaded and the women would have their heads shaved and sold in to slavery. It was rather scary. We then went in to a few other museums, and made various photostops. After that we got on to the pirate ship to sail to the otherside of the town where our hostel was. It was sooo cold! But really great! Our hostel was a sweet little traditional place. We all slept on futons and had to be girl/boy separated. The owners were very nice to us and tried their best to speak english too. We all decided to go off for food in this yakitor place. I felt a little sorry for the little old couple that ran the restaurant. As there was basically this attack of 16 loud /drunk gaijins and there was also a karaoke machine there. So it was singing/drinking/eating (when food eventually would come.....). We continued these shenanigens till roughly 5 in the morning in the hostel.....but in the hostel it was more about throwing a sticky ear around and throwing balloons at each other. At around 11 at night we all sang happy birthday to Amy and had strawberry cake. Then it was present opening time. It was a very cool night.

Die Mary, die!

This blog was going to be a massive rant about teenagers when I first ran the draft through my head this morning during my first lesson. But then the day actually got relatively good. So now I can't rant so much any more....

My first lesson started off a bit badly. The kids seemed to all be in a bit of a huff about something. So when I tried to make them do stuff they'd be dragging themselves...which pissed me off. Then halfway through the lesson they decided to become a little more cheery...It was the same with grade 4. They all started off in a bit of a mood. Especially the girls... they were doing their usual silent treatment routine. There were very violent scenes in my head at the time. But again about half way through they decided to just have fun. Grade 2 were awesome. They knew the damn song! We have to sing bloody "Old mac Donald had a farm" for the rest of this month. I swear I am gonna hate children's songs by the time I get back. I already hate "Mary had a little lamb"(last month)....damn her and her stupid lamb??? Why write such patronising stupid lyrics??? and why use such awful instruments????arrrrghhhhhhhhhhhh damn you Mary! and your stupid lamb! go fall in some ditch and leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

breathe....

ehm...anyway. Yes grade 6 and 4 obviously hate singing the songs as much as I do, which makes it even more "fun" for me to stand up there by the board making a carrot out of myself singing. But enough about songs. Grade 2 were awesome! they did everything perfectly this lesson! I loved them. They saved my day!

So after lessons I was talking to my fave member of staff (He looks a little like this korean actor), while laminating mini cards of the alphabet for my 1st and 2nd graders. When suddenly we realised that one was stuck inside. I was like "SH SH SH F F F F F F !!!!" So there I was trying to figure out how to get this piece out. We tried first with a ruler...then he brought a knife. Then one of the other teachers came over and was told the situation. he then tried with his technique of putting in anothe piece of paper. That failed. Then another teacher came over. Soon there was a whole congregation trying to help. I was just profusely apologising japanese style. Basically over the course of 2 hours the entire male part of the teacher crowd dismantled the laminator step by step, we had various different types of screwdrivers out on the table...we had guys chit- chattering over the best course of action to unscrew everything. Then after 2 hours one of the Senseis finally got to the piece of paper and released it...he raised his arms Rocky style while everyone cheered and clapped. It was quite a funny bonding session really. The guys were actually happy to tamper away while my 5th grade teacher was trying to reassure me that no one was angry and that teachers constantly break stuff. I felt a bit like I was part of a family. It was really nice.

setsubon no hi

It's the 3rd of february!

yes I can hear you all go "oh really?..I did NOT know that!". Let me explain. It's a special day today in Japan. It's the last day before spring..(which is tomorrow...yes..I know....it's a little earlier than back home). Anyway..TODAY..is all about throwing beans or "mame" at this demon like thing called an Oni. It's supposed to be to like drive the devil out and bring luck in. So all the kids made masks of this Oni today, and got sweets. We had dried beans as "dessert" (not particularly nice), and the best part? We went up to the roof of the school and grade 5 and 6 threw beans at each other and the Sensei who was the Oni. I was the official photographer. It was pretty funny to see really. My classes all went well today too. Everyone was a in a good mood it seems! My grade 6 class also had a photographer in it taking pictures the whole time. That's because Grade 6 will "graduate" soon and go to Junior high school Every school seems to send in professional photographers to take pictures of grade 6 in various situations and then make a year book for them. Back in the teacher's room I got asked if I liked natto. I pulled a face and was like...no.....it's horrible. The whole congregation laughed. Then they asked if I wanted to try this chip like thing which was natto flavouring...I took it hesitantly and received applause and "gambatte" cheering. I then had the entire teachers room watch me eat this and kyoto sensei (vice principal) took pictures....I actually quite liked it and everyone was really happy. Bizarre! But it certainly made the day an interesting day overall.

Now....getting ready to see James Bond! sigh.......oh Daniel....you are so hot with your perfect english accent.....if only every englishman spoke like you.