She's thinking again...

Bad thing about public holidays is that it gives you a taste for a real holiday. Just when you are starting to forget about work you are back at your desk wondering what happened to yesterday. Today I really have done nothing at all. No classes or anything. I tried to work on my CIR Times rag but couldn't concentrate. Too much time to think leads to too much thinking and too much thinking leads to too many thoughts. That's the sum of it today.

Still, let's try and talk about Tokyo. It is clearly a big place. It is kind of overwhelming when you think about. I should say try and think about it because the more you attmept to contemplate how 10 million people can live in such close proximity to each other without all hell breaking loose, the more understanding eludes you. There are just buildings everywhere and under the buildings, subway lines, train lines, roads, electric lines, gas lines, water pipes... what a mess. I wonder why the whole city doesn't just cave in since there seems to be nothing below ground but a rabbit warren of tunnels for the train system. And then there are actually people in all these buildings and trains and what not who are all playing some small part in keeping this chaos running. The more I think about it, the more it seems that the people are there for the city and not the other way around.

Despite being usually quite uncomfortable in such large cities, I felt quite OK in Tokyo this time. I think that all the time I spend in my little town has made me crave some kind of action. There were so many people around! It was great. AND they were all young! Imagine being able to go out and run into people of your own age. Wow.

Okaeri!

For the first time I actually really enjoyed the time I spent in Tokyo. For 2 days I hung out with my friends and saw some stuff, but mostly it was the company that made it worth while. I saw Ueno garden, the imperial palace (from a distance), Tokyo Tower, Roppongi Hills, Ginza, Yasukuni shrine, Shibuya and a whole bunch of Tokyo fashion. Yesterday lunch we had all you can eat Indian and boy was it yummy! I ate so much that I was seriously still full at 9pm last night before I got on my bus home! On Saturdaywhen we walke dthrough the Ginza, which is an area where you can spend $10,000 without too much effort (or so I imagine), the streets were all blocked off for some kind of festival which hadn't started yet so we wandered along in the middle of the street. There were ladies walking up and down there who were wearing dresses worth more than my life.

Saturday the weather was hot, clear blue skies (cept for the fog over the skyline that I imagine is a permanent fixture). That kept the streets fairly empty so we had a good walk around. Saturday night we went down to Shibuya for dinner and karaoke and I was quite surprised to discover that the last train is at about 12! A city of 10 million and they can't see fit to leave the trains running all night? It was good to be out with so many young people left and right though. A welcome change from the weekends in Kamogata!

Tokyo is just so massive though, I really cannot comprehend how it even functions. There are just massive buildings everywhere and each one of the is full of people. There are roads and train lines and stuff all over the place, then think about the sewerage and electrical lines, gas lines. It must be a bloody mess underground. How it keeps in order I have no idea.

Anyway, pictures will be forthcoming when I can get a connection happening. Despite the expense of living there, I thought for a few minutes I might not mind it if it meant I could have a social life! I have more to say I am sure, just quite tired and can't think of it now! Just as well today is a public holiday, plenty of catch up sleep i think!

TOKYO!!

Yar! Tonight I board a bus at 20:40 and in approxiamtely 10 hours time I shall be in Tokyo. How excitement is that! I am going to visit a friend who is studying there for a month. I haven't seen him in a long time so I am heaps looking forward to catching up. NOT looking forward to the massive bus ride though. I have exhausted myself today though by jumping around more than usual in classes so hopefully I can just sleep without too much issue. Last time I took a bus here it was quite a disaster involving trying to get on the wrong bus and waiting around for several hours in the dead of night in freezing temperatures for the right bus. When we did eventually get on a bus it kept stopping every few hours to let people off to mill around and left the door open the whole time so cold air could get in and wake us all up. I saw snow falling for the first time from that stupid bus.

Here's a picture of what the rice fields around my house are now looking like. Lovely and green. Full of mosquitoes and frogs.

Hanakin - the wonderous phenomenon that is Friday

Friday Friday. Ah, they just seem to come around so fast these days... Yesterday was crazy town at school. I was asked to hep out with the special needs class as they were putting on a Tanabata party for their parents and teachers to come and watch. There are only 3 kids in the class, 2 boys and a girl. I had to help them make hotcakes in 3rd period which was highly interesting. The 2 boys tend to gang up on the girl and not let her get involved in anything. In the English class on Wednesday we studies colours and when Masaki picked out green as her favourite colour Hiroki went mental because that's HIS favourite colour. They told her she had to have yellow. Anyway, yesterday it was a stool. They all wanted to sit on the same stool so they had a bit of a tug-a-war over it next to the frypan. It was great. Yamamuro was nowhere to be seen, he'd left them with me while he did god knows what elsewhere. When they are all excited and the boys are doing their stupid voices I can't understand what the hell they are saying so I ended up just yelling at them and distracting them while they were still surprised at being yelled at by saying "Oh, look whose hotcake needs turning over!" with about as much enthusiasm as I usually would say "Oh, look they are giving away beer!" That seemed to work.

The actual party was after lunch and even though the kids had obviously been practicing they were so nervous and when they read out the opening remarks from their books you couldn't hear a word of it. They sang a few songs and handed out the hotcakes and played some games. It was fun in the end but oh so very frustrating to watch sometimes. Afterwards there were heaps of hotcakes left and Yamamuro said they could eat some and while our backs were momentarily turned they wolfed the whole lot down! It was hilarious, they just had syrup all over their faces.

So today I have my last E-time classes and I am kind of relieved even though I know I will be bored next week without classes to teach. I never really got along with the grade 6 class very well so I am glad to see the back of them. I am supposed to be swimming with them currently, but I am "busy doing prep".

What world?

Hmm, too bad that I am teaching clases today because otherwise I could have gone out in the searing heat and picked peaches with the year 2s! What a shame.

Last night some bloke came to my door and said that he works in a futon business near my house and just wanted to say hello. I was like, "Ok." and stood there looking at him and he thought I didn't understand what he was saying and got all embarrassed and tried to say it again but slower. It was one of those weird situations where I thought I knew what he was saying, but I didn't understand what he meant by it. What was I supposed to say after he said that? "Hello to you to!" and then what? Invite him in for a cuppa? In the end he just went away and I went back to eating my dinner.

On Monday at our meeting one of the CIRs told me that a girl from New Zealand who lives in this area teaching at a middle school was once asked if there were clouds in her country. She was looking upat the sky at the train station and some woman sidled up and said, "Do you have those where you come from?" with a smug Japan-has-special-stuff face no doubt, "What, clouds?"

I reckon clouds are pretty much a world-wide phenomenon and if you get to the age where strangers look at you and judge you to be a grandma without knowing this fact then shame on you. Perhaps if she was a grandma from some isolated desert tribe I might make an exception, but a woman who is living in one of the richest developed countries in the world has no excuses, she probably has 5 wide-screen televisions in her house. I was thinking of this because just about every second day a kid will ask me if we have TV in Australia. I must give the Japanese this, they are extremely persistant in their ignorance of the outside world!

I sat on my rabbit

Here's a picture of me being a little crazy on Friday night in Hiroshima. I am not a fan except of the part where my arm looks nice and brown. The bit from the neck up is border-line mental. Even so, I will share it with you because if you know me, you have surely seen me make a similar face. Although now that I have seen myself making this face I doubt I will be in a hurry to reproduce it ever again.

Yesterday was the last day at the kindy for me. The kids drew pictures for me and put them in a book. We ate cherry tomatoes together and talked about how many rabbits we each have, or have died under our care. I am 0-0 on that account, some kids had an incredibly high tally which made me feel slightly concerned for the welfare of rabbits owned by small children everywhere. Forget lab animals, it's childrens' pets that are at most risk of dying in cruel and unusual ways.

Drunken antics (and sleepy ones too)

The weekend in Hiroshima was a bit of a mixed bag in the end. Friday night was hella fun. Went out to an all-you-can eat n drink do for my friend who has recently returned to Japan. It was yakiniku, which means you sit in front of a grill with plates of raw meat. It is fun, but the trouble is that it generally takes longer for the food to cook than for you to drink anything that is placed in front of you. As a result of this imbalance I ended up having what could be described without too much exaggeration as a liquid dinner. For 2 hours we drank beer and burnt meat, after we left the restaurant I didn't have another drink all night but still managed to feel quite tipsy at 10:45AM the next morning as I was leaving my internet cafe accommodation. There was a fair amount of karaoke singing at Gs bar, and from what I recall - none of it was too tuneful. Actually after 6 hours worth of snooze in the internet cafe I was feeling quite a lot perkier than I rightfully should have. My friend and I met up for lunch and went round to where he was crashing and watched some TV. Nice.

Seriously, watching TV in English is like a treat equivalent to going to the drive-in at home. And we were sitting on a lounge!! Such luxury. Saturday night off to a mate's place for dinner and movie watching. Saw V for Vendetta, a top film. I really enjoyed it, made me think about a few things, although I don't think it was the things I was supposed to be thinking about. How is it that Natalie Portman can be so gorgeous even with a bald head? Not fair. And also this; no one should worry about who left the fridge door open, who didn't change the toilet roll, whose turn it is to clean the bathroom, just be nice to each other because before you know it you could be sitting in a cell, bald, starving, freezing and awaiting your next torture session (and you won't look as lovely as Natalie while you're doing it either, trust me). So just be nice to each other. That's all.

Sunday I did some excitement shopping for a backpack for my wee holiday. Wandered around with my Japanese friend for a while. Had lot of trouble speaking in Japanese becauseI was so sleepy and I imagine she was quite annoyed with me. Got on the train home at about 3 and when I got home there were 2 undelievered parcel notice waiting for me! Yay!! One will be my visa I reckon and the other could be chocolate! Oh yeah. Oh yeah. What a tops way to end the weekend. Now I just need sleep...