Taco rice & co

Last night Kat and I went to Gotcha for our dinner. Normally, just a dinner-out would not warrant a full blog post, but I feel on this occasion I have to sing Gotcha's praises once again! They do a delicious Taco Rice (divine...but it still doesn't beat Kirk's actual tacos!), and so I was all set just to have that, and a lovely pineapple juice. However, it seems that Gotcha (and Yoshika to be more precise!) had other plans, as they tempted and enticed me with their new dinner 'set'! Just to put my salesman's hat on for a mo (you can take the girl out of M&S......) ; you can have a main course (e.g taco rice), and like a starter, and a mini-dessert, and a soft drink...all for the lovely price of 1500 yen (about £7.50). Well, how is a girl gonna say no to that!!! I had fresh Vietnamese spring rolls for my starter, taco rice, mini-sticky toffee pudding, and my beloved pineapple juice (that's right folks Im branching out from the land of OJ!) It was fabulous to say the least, and Kat an I left feeling truly stuffed! There, of course, was only one answer to feeling so full...so off we went to karaoke!!!

(Note to self; this was the night we tried to sing Boys 2 Men, and vowed never to sing it again!....other new tunes, however, had great potential....erm...Bon Jovi anyone??)

The air-con is on!

I am sitting in the teachers room at Tabuse Agricultural High School, and the sweet wonderful aircon is on! This is the first one of my schools to decide to flick that magic switch, and boy am I happy!! At first I was a little confused, when I saw all the teachers walking round, closing all the windows. All I could think was "NO!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? IT'S SOOOOO HOT/HUMID!" But then it dawned on me, as I heard the sound of the 3 large aircon units kicking into action! Yippeeee!

My apologies to any of my fellow JETs who do not have aircon in their teachers rooms. My thoughts are with you!

CTU meets Calorie Mate

I am a big 24 fan, and absolutely love the wonderful Jack Bauer (aka Kiefer Sutherland, getting on a bit, but very hot!). So imagine my dismay / amazement when I see that Mr Bauer has sold out fo the Japanese market! I am currently watching series 2 (again!) on Fox TV (Japanese SKY channel), and they have suddenly started running adverts for Calorie Mate starring the CTU agent himself!!! Now, I've never tried Calorie Mate myself, (and I think it's Japanese...correct me if Im wrong), but I think it's something that is supposed to be low in cals, but high in energy...just the thing you need if you're trying to stop a bomb from destroying L.A! You can get choc bars, drinks, and various other Calorie Mate bits and bobs. It's interesting to see the kind of advertising big stars don't mind doing over here (David Beckham and Almond chocolate for example!), but would probably never dream of considering back at home! It's kind of funny to see him looking all moody and angry (as usual), whilst chomping on his Japanese energy bar. The new advert that I saw today, has him on the Tokyo subway, trying to push past loads and loads of Japanese school girls (giggling included), in order to get out of the train to get his Calorie Mate drink!!!! Quite bizarre!! For now though, here is a link to the original ad

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=10500

Yamaguchi-ken

This is for the folks at home, who are wondering what my lovely ken (prefecture) looks like. There are lots of mountains (well...big hills!), rice fields, and windy narrow roads. It's certainly different to my previous home, next to a busy York road, above Betty's Brown Wigs, next to the chippy!! Oh those were the days! Although, don't get the wrong idea...this is not the view from my apartment or anything! This is on a lovely drive between my friend Ellen's house, and a supermarket that has the best orange ice lollies in the world...fact!

Sticky and hot and oh so sticky

I was determined not to write a post about my hatred of the Japanese weather...yet again! However, my resolve has finally crumbled, and feel the need to follow my other fellow Yamaguchi bloggers, and moan about the god-awful weather at the moment. I loved spring...absolutely loved it...somtimes sunny, a nice warm temperature, the cherry blossoms, and a general 'yey it's not winter anymore' feeling. It just didn't last long enough...and now we are in the beginning of summer, sticky, hot, and sweating! Not sure of the actual temperature at the moment..it's hot, but not ridiculous...it's the humidity that's killing me! Whatever I do I get hot and bothered, and as Kat said in her blog, start to sweat in places I have never sweated before (the backs of my ears for example!) Just having a conversation, or walking to get my water from the fridge, makes me feel sticky. It's supposed to be rainy season at the moment, but we actually haven't seen any rain, so I suppose I should count my blessings...although maybe the rain would be refreshing!!!! This weekend I'm finally going to summer-proof my apartment ; the cockroach houses are going out ; the humidity boxes are going to be doubled ; and I might even get myself one of those plug-in mozzy repellent thingies. Oh the joy of a Japanese summer!

Good company, good food

What? - Trip to Hagi with Ellen and Kat for Dan's Birthday!

Food? - Rosie's amazing meal consisted of mozzarella salad and crusty bread ; home-made lasagne (even the pasta sheets were made from scratch!) ; and espresso cheesecake with chocolate marbling ........simply divine!

Drink? - The wine flowed...all evening! And some of the red even flowed onto the carpet when we were in the middle of Dan blowing out his candles! Oops...I hope the stain came out Rosie!

Games? - The classic that is the 'concentration' game ; the gesture game (featuring my fabulous jazz hands!) ; musical statues and musical bumps (happy memories from Christmas Day!) ; and a game of pass the parcel / ball which was turned into 'truth or dare!'

Karaoke? - Of course! A celebration night would not be the same without karaoke! We had a huge room, good tunes, and even a little stage!!

A good nights sleep, a wander round pottery shops this morning, and Mos Burger for lunch made it all in all a great weekend!

Moving on

My lovely house in England (well, my parent's house, but you know what I mean!), is on the market, and this August I will say a final farewell to it. My parents want to downsize, and are hoping to move to my own adopted part of Yorkshire...York! I completely understand why they want to move, as both me and my brother have left home (and me, the country!), the house is simply too big for them now, and it is time for them to start a new chapter! I am also extremely happy that they plan to move to North Yorkshire, as it is truly a lovely and beautiful area of England, and I'm sure they will be happy there. Of course when I come back to England I plan on moving back to York, and so it will be great to be close to them. However, it is still strange to think of my Mum and Dad living anywhere else but our current pad, and I know that I will be a little sad when they finally close a deal. I have lived there since I was 6 years old, and so it is really the only house I remember. I consider it my childhood home, and I love all of the things in it, and lots of the memories that I have of my time there ;

-Sunbathing on the front grass with Vicki each summer.
-Birthday parties in the family room hosted by my big bro.
-Watching ER / Kirstie and Phil / Ready Steady Cook (!) with Mum in her bedroom.
-English essay 'consultations' with Dad in the dining room.
-Hours of singing in the family room (sometimes with Paul listening, sometimes a duet with Vic, which I still have the tape of!!..often, just me!)
-Sitting on the kitchen floor (I love sitting on the floor!) watching my Mum make sunday lunch!
-Watching for the school bus through the kitchen window, and then dashing down the driveway.
-Watching Paul and Dad try to pick apples in the back garden.
-Singing Christmas carols in the family room straight after Christmas lunch.
-Leaving numerous cups, glasses and plates in my bedroom, and always forgetting to take them back down to the kitchen! Sorry Mum!
-Speculating on what the neighbours were up to with Dad, as we watched the comings and goings from the landing window!
-Enjoying summer holidays with Paul and our 'projects!'...2 words for you Paul...Campy FM!!....we were such geeks!
-Seeing the faces of my Mum and Dad when they saw the presents we had bought them for their Pearl Wedding Anniversary....there were smiles in the study that day!

I am looking forward to being in that house for one final (?) time this summer! There is something very comforting about being surrounded by all the things that you have grown up with, and all the things that remind you of being a kid! Thanks Mum and Dad for giving me a great place to grow up in, and I hope you are very very happy in your new home, wherever and whenever that may be!

Happy Birthday Gotcha!

Last night I spent a nice relaxed couple of hours at Gotcha (our local foreigner-friendly bar in Yanai), with Kirk and Kat. We were there to help Gotcha (basically Yoshika!) celebrate its 2nd anniversary. All of the drinks and food had some money knocked off for the night, and so it felt only right to go show our support, and have some lovely cheap(er) food! I enjoyed a superb taco rice, and washed it down with lovely pineapple juice. The bar was really quite busy, and I was so pleased for Yoshika that all of the locals had turned out for the evening.

Two of Yanai’s true ‘characters’ were there ; Ezzy, a girl who graduated from one of my high schools in March, but who Im sure has been going to Gotcha for as long as it has been open. She loves reggae and hip-hop, hangs out with some sullen wanna-be-gangsters, wears a frog bag round her neck, and has a voice and laugh which Im sure can be heard in Hiroshima-ken! And Aiji, a teacher at Aaron’s school, who claims that “crazy teacher is best teacher in Japan”, and who seems to have an abundance of energy, humour, weird impressions, and English swear words! He is not an English teacher, but still manages to make his language….colourful, shall we say! He is quite a character, and continues to surprise me with his wackiness every time I see him.

At 10, the Tequila came out, and lots of people (inc Kirk and Kat!), were happy to play the human-cocktail-shaker game! I didn’t join in with the drinking, but I certainly enjoyed watching them all jumping up and down with salt, tequila and lemon in their mouths, and then bellowing “tequila!!” into the microphone. Bless the one guy who appeared to get some of the mixture (not sure what part) in his eye, and so jumped for a while, and then collapsed on the floor rubbing his eye! He was still squinting when I left half an hour later! Happy Birthday Gotcha!

More gems!

Another load of marking, another collection of gems ; unaware, incoherent, innocent, and sometimes a little scary!

Question - Where would you like to visit in the world?

-"Im going to go to Alaska. (How long will you stay?) I'll shoot white bear, but if I could not do it, I'll stay 2 years. (What is the puropse of your trip) I want to catch a picture of animals."

- "I want to go to England. (Purpose?) I want to learn about speaking English in England where English pronunciate is beautiful."

- "I'd like to go to America. (How long?) I want to stay for two months. (Purpose?) I am going to kill Bush by gun. (Preparation?) I have been preparing for two guns!"

Question - Are you for or against using cell phones on trains?

-"I think don't using a cell phone on a train. First, man is sleeping when a lot of trouble. Man can't deep sleep. Cell phone is man make bad mood. Second, cell phone have danger of kill man."

- Using cell phones on a train is a "foul deed!"

These kids are so full of expression and emotion!

Playing catch-up

Have had a little bit of a blogging break, and have realised that I never got the chance to blog about some cool things that have happened in the last week. So, in an attempt to let my blog catch up with real time, here are the highlights ;

- Kobe recontracting Conference on the whole was great. I would love to visit Kobe again, and actually have the chance to explore the city during the day. We had some great food, drinks and karaoke at night though, and Kobe proved itself to be a pretty cool and exciting city. The Spanish food was great, the dancing at Sally's was fun, Kat's games were on top form, and it was great to hang out with lots of different people from around the ken. Even the conference itself was pretty good!! In fact some of the workshops/lectures were, dare I say it, useful and relevant!!!! Jamie's workshop on 'Classroom management at senior high school' was good, had some great ideas, and was extremely interesting to hear from other people who actually appear to have some real issues in their classes! My kids are angels in comparison to some of the stories I heard. The TEFL basic theory workshop, was not really thrilling, but did not put me off wanting to get my CELTA qualification. Plus the guy presenting was quite cute, and tried his best, bless him! The 'Enhancing students' motivation' workshops, and the 'GenkiEnglish' guy presentation, gave me some good ideas, and just generally boosted my enthusiasm for my job. I've already started thinking about the website I'm gonna design, and have already instigated one change at my base school, by persuading my teachers that the kids should have a speaking test as part of their termly english OC1 test. Yey...let's see how long i can keep this motivated, genki attitude going! Other good points about Kobe ; very nice hotel ; yummy breakfasts ; a free train ride to Osaka thanks to Yamaguchi-ken BOE ; great to reminisce about Tokyo orientation, and remember how little I knew then ; great to realise that I still know very little, so I have lots more to learn over the next year ; nice to see all my ken friends, and hang out with a bunch of people who are on the same page as me, and who are looking forward to the next year in Japan like me!

- Im actually going to give the GenkiEnglish guy his own section, as I feel his intense enthusiasm and passion for working in English teaching warrants a longer comment! He was inspirational, if a little crazy! It was just so nice to listen to someone who does not appear to have become jaded by working as a teacher in Japan, and who still sounds incredibly fresh when he speaks of his ideas or motivations. I hope that at the end of my second year, I still have his passion for the job and the students that will carry me into my next position with enough ideas and enthusiasm to succeed. Aside from this however, I loved listening to this guy, as he's from Yorkshire, and still has his accent, even after many years in Japan. It was just so cool to listen to a Yorkshire accent for 90 minutes, and I positively beamed when he used the expressions 'eh up!' and 'down pit!'. It was also funny to watch others around me (from the US, Australia, New Zealand, and even the South of England) looking a little confused by his ramblings and occassional slang! At the beginning of his speech, when he said he was from Yorkshire, I couldn't help but cheer! As my Mum said when I told her this 'you can take the girl out of Yorkshire. But you can't take the yorkshire out of the girl!"

- AJET Beach BBQ in Hagi. Ok, so the beach part of this wasn't a success, as it was grey, windy, cold, and slightly rainy. We therefore moved all of the food and bbqs back to Dan and Rosie's house, who were kind enough to host the party of around 30 people for the whole afternoon and evening. Thanks guys! It was great to see our first event become a success, and everyone seemed to be having a really good time. The food was delicious and plentiful, and the fireworks and sparklers in the evening were cool, if a little scary! Some of those 100 yen fireworks often looked like they might fly straight into the house! Thanks to everyone for coming, bringing great food (but not great weather!), and a special thanks to Dan and Rosie for their hospitality, and Sarah for her dance show, which ended in a spectacular striptease routine!!!

- Baking scones in English club. Yey...it was a huge success. 12 students turned up to try their hands at making an English afternoon tea, and by god they were great! Tori, I used the recipe you sent me (thanks heaps), and it worked a treat!! They actually tasted like proper scones!! Whooohooo! At the end all the students sat around spreading jam and butter on the scones, and sipping earl grey tea! I think they really enjoyed it, and I certainly did!

This is Lauren, with her positive/enthusiastic hat on, signing off.

Universal Studios

Sunday was Universal Studios day!! We were all really excited, and managed to get up early so we could be there for when the gates opened. The train to take us to the park was brightly coloured with characters such as Woody Woodpecker and Snoopy, so even that was enough to make me even more excited and kid-like! We arrived at the park, walked past a street of enticing foreign-looking shops, and Hard Rock Café (which we went back to later!), and entered Universal Studios Japan. We were all extremely excited, giggly, and I just wanted to jump up and down on the spot (Paul, remember what I was like at Disneyland Paris!!!)

Our first ride of the day was to be Spiderman, and so we joined the 75 minute queue, and began playing Kat’s games to help the time pass more quickly. Spiderman was my favourite ride….it was sooooo good! We were flying round New York, along with Spidey, and we were wearing 3D glasses, which made all these baddies look as if they were all coming straight towards us. The movement of the car-thing we were in, was not as violent as a rollercoaster obviously, but it was just as thrilling, as sometimes the things you can see are even more scary than the sensations you feel. It was definitely my kind of ride, as I don’t really like big rollercoasters, and WILL NOT go on anything that goes upside down, so this was just the right amount of movement, scary, spectacle and thrill for me! I think we all enjoyed it, that’s for sure!

Next was Terminator 2, which was good, and also quite scary in places. The bext thing about this ride though, was the actress-woman who was supposed to work for the evil company, and who did the most over-exaggerated acting I have ever seen in my life. 10 points for the enthusiasm though, jeez!

After a gift-shop and hotdog stop, we were on to the next ride, Back to the Future. I was soooo looking forward to this one, and it didn’t disappoint. After quite a short queue, we were in the delorion, hurtling through the air, speeding across the town you see in the movie, and then other scary areas, like deep ravines, and volcanoes! It was great!! Of course we made sure we has a photo next to the famous car when we left. Next stop was Backdraft, which was disappointing to say the least. It was quite a long queue, but we had decided that we would do all the rides, so we stuck at it. Im sure the ‘ride’ is better in America, where the video clips of Ron Howard talking about the movie, and about what a ‘backdraft’ is are not dubbed into Japanese. Seriously, I never thought I would be watching Richie from ‘Happy Days’ speaking in Japanese!!! The actual ‘ride’ part consisted of various things exploding into flames, a lot of heat being blasted at the audience, and then a sudden jolt when it finished, which made us all shriek but did not make up for the lack of an actual ride!

I had mixed feelings about going on the Jurassic Park ride. I don't really like dinosaurs…think they’re a bit rubbish, and sometimes scary, and Im not a big fan of big-drop rides! This was a big-drop log-flume through Jurassic Park land, and so I was not that keen! But, I went along with it, and bought a ‘ride poncho’ to at least stop myself from getting drenched! The ride was good…not long enough, but good. I screamed and scrunched up my eyes through the entire drop, and on the photo I bought afterwards, I look terrified! But yeah, it was ok. The funniest part of the ride though (apologies in advance Louise!), was at the end when the screaming had stopped, the drop was over, and I had opened my eyes. I realised that I hadn’t got wet (phhhew!), and glanced around at the others. Poor old Louise, who was sat at the edge of the boat-thing was absolutely drenched, her hair plastered to the side of her face, her lovely white and green skirt a little transparent in places, and a look of ‘oh-my-god-what-just-happened’ on her face. Bless her! I wish I had taken a photo…I think the others did! To reward ourselves for our dinosaur bravery, we all bought huge turkey legs to eat, from a stall next to the ride. Unfortunately they were a little weird tasting, more like ham, and I didn’t really want to eat much of mine. My hands smelt of smoked ham for the rest of the day!

And then it was on to Jaws! Im sure I don’t need to explain what happens on this ride…you’re on a boat, there is a shark…it’s pretty easy to fill in the gaps!! It was good fun, and silly-scary rather than aaaaaaarrrrrggghhh scary! I realise that I have met my match in the competition for person who screams the most at theme parks (it’s not just me Paul!), as Kat screamed almost immediately as we saw the shark’s fin in the water. I think it’s more a case of she’s very dramatic, and getting into character, rather than her being actually scared, but it was still nice to have a screaming partner!

We wandered around the shops for a while, and I found another Hello Kitty shop. In Osaka I bought an okonomiyaki kitty (soooo cute!), and here at Universal I bought Marilyn Monroe Kitty (in the white floaty dress!), so it was definitely a good trip for kitty shopping!

Our last ride of the day was E.T. This was my other joint 2nd! It was sooooooooooooo cute and cool! We were on the bikes that go across the moon, we saw E.T.’s home planet (which was actually a little creepy at times, with its huge bright flowers, and singing E.Ts), and at the end E.T. said goodbye to us, using our own names!!! Bless! I made my best purchase of the day at the E.T. shop, as I found E.T. dressed in yukata (summer kimono)!!!!!!!

By this time we were all completely knackered, and ready for a sit down and some food. So, off we went to Hard Rock Café. Cocktails, onion rings, nachos, and fajitas were a great cure for the fatigue, and extremely yummy! The whole day (and in fact the whole weekend) had just been so un-Japanese, and so western, and this was the perfect end to a great weekend.

Back in the city, the others headed back to the hostel, whilst Ellen and I decided we had just a tiny amount of energy left to go on the giant red ferris wheel in Umeda. It was great fun, with wonderful views again, and just relaxing watching the world go by. By the end of the ride, I didn’t want to stand back up, as I just felt soooo sleepy! But we finally made it back to the hostel, and boy, did I enjoy my night’s sleep that night!

Osaka

Ok, here I go with another mammoth post, about another fun weekend away. On Friday night I caught the Shink with Kat, and headed off for Osaka! Kat and I truly started the weekend in style, by drinking beer, eating Maccy Ds, and playing games, in spite of being placed in the 'silent' car!!! After meeting Louise at Shin-Osaka, we went off in search of our little hostel 'Sumo Backpackers'. It did take us a little while to find it, and a few minutes of walking round in circles, but eventually we spotted it, and dumped our bags in our new home for the next three days. We decided to go and explore the area near our hostel. Umeda was bright, exciting and noisy...everything we were looking for on our first night in the big city! Kat was successful in her attempts to win a cool teddy from one of the UFO machines ; a drunk business man tried to strike up a conversation with us, and then just apolgised, and stumbled away ; we saw dodgy bars, dodgy people, and dodgy clothes ; we looked around us in awe at the neon, the size of the buildings, the amount of people ; and we finally decided to end our evening at a karaoke place which seemed to have 'dragons' as its decor theme! Karaoke, as always, was fun, and with classics such as Take That, and Stevie Wonder, accompanied by karage (fried chicken) and the saltiest chips in the world, it was a good ending to our Osaka beginning.

On Saturday, Selena arrived at the hostel, and then the four of us set out for a morning of exploring. First stop was Den Den Town (basically an area with loads of electrical-type shops), which was cool to look around for a bit, but as I had nothing I wanted to buy there (no electrical bargains to haggle for!), it did not keep my interest for very long. After looking for another 'Lonely Planet recommended area' in the vicinity, and failing terribly by walking in completely the wrong direction, we cut our losses and headed for Amerika-Mura. After a brief stop in the almighty 'Loft', refreshments in Starbucks, and browse around a Hello Kitty shop (whooohooo!), we found Amerika-Mura. This is the area of South Osaka which has lots of shops selling American-style clothes, accessories, stuff (!), in order for young 'hip' Japanese kids to look like the American kids they see in the movies! It was actually a cool area to wander around, for people-watching if nothing else. I really wanted an American greasy burger for lunch, and so tried to find a diner-type-place. We couldn't find one though, and settled for a very pleasant Italian cafe, where I had pizza, and where I learnt that celery and broccoli should not be a topping on pizza! Back at the hostel later in the afternoon, we met up with Ellen, and planned our evening. The 5 of us (& Maya, a girl who was staying in our hostel, and was travelling alone, so we invited her along, set off for the Umeda Sky Building. When we finally found it (we were given confusing directions!), I was very excited, and looking forward to getting a great night-time view over Osaka. The building (well, the tower), is huge! You go up it in a glass elevator, and so can see all of Osaka around you, and then do the final stage on a long, long escalator, which again is surrounded by glass, providing you with impressive views, and a slight feeling of vertigo! It was great, and the view from the top was spectacular (Dan, Rosie and Alex, it was just like being back up Seoul Tower again!). I took some great photos, and enjoyed staring our at the neon and sparkle of Osaka city spread out before me. After the long ride back down, we hunted for a restaurant in the basement of the building, as we were all starving! We decided on a cute okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage&otherstuff pancake) restaurant. My first okonomiyaki experience was not great, so I was hoping this would redeem the old cabbage pancake! And yep, it did! It was really nice, and although I preferred the yakisoba that we also had, I would definitely have it again. What really made the whole dining experience though was the kindness and humour of the guy who appeared to the run the place. He jokingly asked Kat for I.D when she ordered a beer, he did not put those awful fish-flakes in our pancake, he took photos of our whole group for us, and then happily posed for photos with his staff, as we snapped away! We were the last customers to leave, and before we went, he let us all keep our metal spatulas that we had been using to cut and scoop up the okonomiyaki!! He even cleaned them off for us! He was such a sweety, and a great example of the generosity and friendliness of Japanese people. We headed back to the hostel, feeling stuffed, tired, but happy.