In with the new and in with the new.

Here is the day by day run down of this weeks activities/ events:

Monday 30th August 2004
Typhoon hits Katsuyama. I receive a phone call at 7:25 am to say that the kids aren't going to school because of the typhoon, but we teachers are because we have our work to do. Damn. Well, I get to school with my prepared speech, and myself and the other two new teachers introduce ourselves to the other staff. I attempt to speak in Japanese and end up telling the staff that I was a nurse in a study in London (?!), but the staff was too polite to say anything. At lunchtime they were amazed because a) I had cooked rice and b) I had done it in a rice cooker and c) I could eat it with chopsticks, which really is amazing.

We left work early for safety reasons, and one of the English teachers advised me that it would be dangerous to ride my bike in the typhoon. I informed her that it was dangerous for me to ride my bike anytime. So I rode to the video/ CD rental shop where I amazed staff by being able to write my name in Japanese characters and copy my address in kanji from another piece of paper. Students from school had felt it necessary to brave the typhoon in order to loiter in the rental shop, although they didn't actually rent anything. They did, however, give me a whistlestop tour of Japanese pop culture via video and cd cases.

I returned to Marui supermarket and the typhoon really started to kick in, with the rain pelting down hard. By the time I reached home I resembled an entrant in an alternative wet t-shirt contest where there really were no winners, only losers, and with my new supply of chocolate, and my rented CDs, I dug in for the night. At least until 7:30 when the power went. And for some reason the water went. And I don't own a torch, so I wandered the corridors of our building where the emergency light was working until the electric came back on.

Tuesday 31st August 2004
Well, the power and water came back late Monday night, so I wasn’t too frazzled on Tuesday, although I was still worrying about lessons. School started with an opening ceremony where we three new teachers had to speak in front of the school. It’s only a small school, under 300 kids, so I wasn’t nervous, and as I began to read my speech (which I’d written in simple Japanese characters), I began to lose all understanding of said characters and babbled into the microphone, before putting my elbows on the lecturn and groaning slowly. Everyone noticed, but they were all too polite to say anything.

At lunchtime I ate a home made salad. Again, they were impressed by my meal making skills (tearing lettuce is very challenging). Another afternoon of not teaching was followed by an evening of not going to the Puffy concert because I was too nervous about elementary school on Wednesday. I had wanted to see Puffy (Japanese female duo) since I found out they were playing in Kuse, but priorities said no…

Wednesday 1st September 2004
First day at elementary school today, and boy was it better than I thought it would be. Prior to school I had to go and introduce myself to the whole of the board of education and I said something stupid like my hobby is seeing the cinema. They noticed, but were too polite to say anything.

School was cool. The kids were funny, and were taken with my bum chin and curly hair. I wasn't taken with their favourite game of 'Tokyo Tower' whereby they try to stick their fingers in inappropriate parts of your person. I'm not Michael Jackson (who incidentally is not mentally ill) and therefore refused to take part in such activities.

A dinner of greek moussaka was given to me at school, despite their being informed that I don't do meat. I was starved and so ate it, and then they kept asking, "was it ok", "did you enjoy it" and "did it taste good?" I replied, "no", "no", and stopped short of saying "it tasted of murder" which would have been hypocritical anyway as I like the taste of murdered fishes. But I did instead tell them it made me feel sick which may be seen in some quarters as being rude, but they were too polite to say anything and pretended not to notice.

The school's headmistress gave me a lift home, during which time I tried to say that the kids were cute, but I ended up saying the fruits were cute. She was too polite and said nothing.

Thursday 2nd September 2004
Back to Junior high, and today saw my first lessons. I gave a self introduction to two classes and the teacher translated. It wasn't great. Everyone was impressed by my salad making skills again, and I got to prepare for another lesson.

One of the ladies in my apartment block gave me a couple of aubergines and a sweet potato on my way home, and when I phoned Johanna to see if I should come over and we could cook, she didn't understand. When I translated it to egg plants and a yam, all was fine. So we cooked and I returned to Katsuyama for a drink with my supervisor (who became quickly drunk) and other Japanese people who speak English better than I. I made the mistake of explaining the words to a Shakira song, and was consequently asked if I preferred big or small breasts. What can you say? I prefer a good fillet? Or a tender loin? I declined to answer and instead laughed ridiculously. And drank some more.

Friday 3rd September 2004
Finallythe weekend... One lesson at school which went well (first years) and I impressed no-one by buying my lunch from Lawson's. Left school at four and rushed home to pack for a weekend of booze and 80's disco.

Johanna and I entertained each other on the bus journey which basically involved two hours of being very loud and noisy on a bus full of silent Japanese. Damn gaijin. And we took lots of photos of anything we could with our phones and emailed them to people. I love my phone. Even though I still can't use it...

We split at Okayama and I went to meet Chad and James in Kurashiki, and begun a night of heavy boozing, good conversation and good bars, ending up at Norio's bar which is the coolest in Kurashiki (well, I've been to at least 5, so I should know, right?)

Saturday 4th September 2004
Tiday was the day of Winkie's birthday and the 80's night, so I made for Okayama city a.s.a.p.
Met with the exclusive group for lunch/ shopping (which basically meant taking each other's photos and fiddling about with our phones for about 2 and a half hours) and then met up with Winkie and Busty (Betsy) and lots of others for a really good Italian meal (I have never been to so many Italian restaurants in such a short time, and this was the best yet). Winkie and Busty were hilarious and photo madness continued- 18 people with new mobile phones, what else do you expect? Then it was to the Aussie bar for an orgy of booze and dancing. As it gets dark at 6pm here, you feel like it's really late when you're going somewhere, but it was 8pm and we were drinking and dancing like it was 2am. Only I kind of forgot to talk to anyone and did dance until it was 1:30am to tunes such as 'Never Ending Story', 'Walk This Way' and 'I Think We're Alone Now'. A special moment though was Carolyn and my junior drama style performance of 'Smooth Operator'. It was special.

Anyway, when we finally stopped dancing and talked to lots of new people who were impressed/ appalled (you decide) we started to make our way to the Canadian bar, but crashed into Lawson's for food. This ended up with Johanna just crashing and her and I going back to Fiona's by 2:30 after she'd had a good chat with a statue and we'd wandered the red light district in fear of rape and STDs.

Sunday 5th September 2004
Was woken up many, many times by alcohol crazed RayVon who really didn't know what was going on at various times of the morning. A misguided attempt at McDonalds led to her going home very soon due to sickness, and our jaded-ness (is that a word?) meant I did not have the strength to shop. I hope you understand the gravity of this.

So I got the early bus home with Johanna and we had our tea at the only cafe with Sunday opening in Katsuyama. It was there or Bonnie's. Or Lawson's...

Early to bed- school tomorrow...