I'm a fine thank you, and you?

Fancy dress is always a gamble. What do you do? Go all out and look like a complete imbecile, do something that most people will probably think is disgraceful or do you do something that amuses you but no-one else will find funny? I chose the latter. Eventually. We had our hallowe'en party at the weekend and it went really well. Loads of people showed up, some people had hilarious costumes and some people had slightly worrying outfits. I ended up with a bad pun that had had me chuckling away to myself al week in my apartment. Having decided against Beyonce (I had no jeans to make cut-off hotpants with) and a tampon (simple but offensive- wear white and hang a blue string off your trousers), I ended up wearing a speeding ticket on my front and a parking ticket on my head. When people asked what I'd come as, I would give the Japanese student's number one reply to the question, "how are you?"- "I'm a fine thank you and you?". At least 3 people laughed. Oh well... But lots more people danced and drank and the night went down well. In my drunken stupor I didn't notice the Police who'd apparently come along to move us on and we ended up at the Red Moon without incident. With Fiona as a witch and Saddam as the Hulk we must have scared the taxi driver who took us home. Actually Saddam's slurred, thug like repetiton of every direction I tried to give must have scared him more than anything else...

Wking up tired on Saturday morning we watched movies at Fiona's until we could be bothered doing anything and then went for lunch to Pizza Patio. We ordered 2 caesar salads to share and then realised only Fiona could eat the bacon that came on them (full rashers!) so Fiona soon had a bacon salad of her own. I then went to book my flight home. It turned out I couldn't as Korean air was closed for the weekend (!?) So I headed back to Fiona's and as I was almost asleep on my feet called Wendy and pulled out of a night of croaking at karaoke (the previous night's events had shredded my voice) and more drinking (as it would not equal success, so instead I headed to Bob's in Takebe where he, I and Rachel ate dinner and chatted till 2am. No rest for the wicked as they say, but then I must have a huge stock of wickedness to perform as I haven't been rested since I arrived in this country.

On Sunday Bob and I went to explore Takebe (or to be more precise, Fukuwatari) and looked at an old temple before heading to a fairly bizarre Japanese gardens-cum-bird zoo. One area of the place was a lovely Japanese garden filled with red leaves and neatly trimmed hedges and the other side had a fantastic collection of tropical birds in rather not-nice looking cages. Some of the birds appeared to have developed cabin fever and seemed to have gone stir crazy, incessantly flying from one end of their cage to the other. Bob and I were quite keen to liberate the birds but neither of us had remembered to bring wire cutters. So we moved along to the Flamingoes instead. These were beautiful but appeared to be standing in their own poo.

Linking the gardens and the zoo area were some very strange faux colonial buildings which appeared to be decorated in an art-deco vagabond kitsch style. It soon became clear the the Macintosh inspired glass and tiles were in fact plain with Macintosh inspired stickers on them. Gah! And the furnishings was part French Regency part Elizabeth Taylor on acid. It was a very, er, inspiring look. Across the road was a second part of the bird zoo with some more fantastic birds (crested cranes, lots of wildly colouful pheasants and some bantam hens) all lovingly situated around a resturant that wasn't sure if it was a Japanese McDonalds or a traditional Japanese food place. But the food was very cheap and tasty and we got to see some slightly crazed ducks in action while we ate. It was a great place to visit for the garden and birds and for the general oddness of the whole thing. I shall return. For the blue pigeons if nothing else...

Boorudo. Now available in liquid form. Yay! 

Marvellous news!

Bold (hereafter referred to as Boorudo) the only laundry detergent with a built in fabric softener is now available in liquid form. In Japan! So now my clothes can at least pretend to be clean by smelling nice. Damn the useless washing machines...

Yes, it is a slow week, but I've had lots of nice, bizarre compliments at school to make up for it...

Fiona, WhyVon and Amy at Kanba no Taki (Kamba waterfalls). Here you can see why it is one of the hundres most beautiful in all Japan... (who shouted no. 98?) 

These monkeys are cold, NOT scared. We were the ones who were slightly alarmed...

Monkey Magic, ooh Monkey Magic

Well, the week didn't end with me sat alone at home weeping into a pillow with the curtains closed as I'd feared. Instead I had lots of company! Yay! Amy came up on Friday night and we caught up, ate and prepared the music for the Hallowe'en party on Friday night. She stayed over and on Saturday I picked up WhyVon and Fiona from the station and we had a lovely day out and about in Katsuyama. We started with lunch at Te-a (thinkMel and Kim's "Respectable"- it's pronounced tay-a) and went on to Kanba waterfall, (where I'd taken Jessica and Madeleine the week before). Fortunately this time it was still daylight, and we were all delighted when Fiona spotted the first monkey. But we walked a further 10 paces and you couldn't miss them. Hundreds of the things. And of course, seeing as we live in the sunshine prefecture and I had visitors, it started to rain. So we took shelter under a small gazebo (I'm never quite sure what one of those is and maybe this wasn't one) only to realise monkeys were in the frame above our heads, sliding down the support poles etc. And they seemed to be all moving towards us. Making more and more noise. As soon as the rain eased we quickly edged out and headed for the waterfall where the trees were showing signs of autumnal effort. A nice smattering of read set off the suddenly blue sky and the pink chill in out cheeks beautifully. So we took pictures and headed back towards the car, but we had to go slowly as the monkeys seemed to be going a bit wild and were jumping through the trees, growling, and looking like they were going to land on us. So we scarpered and headed back for the safety of Katsuyama's old street where we went to Ken-I, the lightmaker's shop (beautiful glass lamp shades and ceramic tablewares) and then to Kano-san's shop, the lady who makes noren and kimono (and was kind enough to open her shop on her day off for Jessica and Madaleine- thanks!). From there we went for coffee and hot chocolate at Uenodan, the cafe in Katsuyama's new international plaza and finally headed to Kuse to laugh at the bad English on the bargain t-shirts in Casual Spot. When I return to England I shall start making t-shirts with similarly bad Japanese so that Japanese tourists will have something to laugh at.

Amy left in the evening, and the remaining three of us ate dinner and then headed off to karaoke with Nao-chan where Yvonne and I caused Freddy Mercury to do headspins in his grave by positively murdering "Bohemian Rhapsody" (although that song is pure evil, so murdering it is fair justice).

On Sunday Yvonne headed home while Fiona stayed to get the last bus, so we watched films, went to the legendary second hand shop in Tsuyama (which only proved that some legends are fake) and then had early tea before I took Fiona to the bus station. And then turned round again because the last bus on a weekend has now been cancelled. So, we headed to the video shop and rented Dangerous Beauty 2 (not a porno, just the Japanese name for Miss Congeniality 2) and Closer (I was quite keen to see if this was as bad as everyone said. It was.) And as I headed to schiik in Monday, Fiona headed off home. And I did nothing all day thanks to the National Sports Festival which all the school kids went to watch. Just as they did today. Thank God for weekends...

Bringing in the danjiri. This is the back end, between the lantern is a little cabin with two man sat inside banging bells and drums. 

Kenka danjiri matsuri in Katsuyama. Bang that cart!

When they bang them together the two teams push as hard as they can. The winner is the one which pushes the other team furthest.

Weirdness with a slow shutter.

My town goes boom-bang-a-bang

Boom-bang-a-bang this time of year,
boom-bang-a-bang, boom-bang-a-bang loud in my ear...
No, I haven't moved to Beirut. It's been festival week in Katsuyama and what a crazy time it's been.

I managed to avoid watching Bridget Jones again on Monday although I actually have no recollection of what I did do, so it must have been a lie. Or a blackout brought on by the shock of ACTUALLY HAVING SOMETHING TO DO AT WORK!!! Tuesday night the festival started- at 6 I was told, so I wondered round town at 6 and nothing was happening so I went home again and shuffled papers and plastic bags around the living room until it was bedtime. As you do.

On wednesday, after a comedy morning at possibly the smallest school in the prefecture (only 6 students) where I taught one lesson, told them all meat made me vomit and was taken to see a thousand year old cherry tree (very big, very nice) I went off to meet visitors who were coming to see the festival. Vicki was coming from Niimi and Tara from Kuse, so I met Vicki, showed her round the town and we bumped into Christine.Vicki quickly figured out that I taught all the children aged 5-15 in my town as pretty much everyone of them said hello at the festival.

Pretty soon things were going off. The festival started. This is the one that was cancelled because of the typhoon last year. It involves the town splitting up into it's districts (or streets as they are commonly known), building a wooden cart and then ramming them into each other. There appears to be a referee and there appears to be a winner at each duel, but it's not recorded and apparently is for personal pleasure. Well, having been told many stories of loss of digits and limbs and broken legs and hands and feet caused by said carts in previous years I strangely enough turned down an offer to push one (although watching it last night I thought it may have been fun- but not for 4.5 hours each night as is done). When it's all in full swing the atmosphere's great- on the back of each cart people are banging drums and ringing bells (and getting whiplash) and groups of girls dance behind the carts cheering their teams. It's a true spectacle, and one of only five festivals of it's kind in Japan. Fortunately one of the others is in Kuse next week, so we will see it again!

Anyway, on Wednesday night one of the ladies from our English conversation class gave us tasty sushi and invited us to watch the festival from the first floor of her house (2nd floor to Americans), so I now have 3,204,345 pictures of the festival.

On Thursday, more visitors came to see it. Jaco, the ALT from three towns away came with his parents and another Okayama ALT, Stu. They all loved it, and all my kids were shocked by how tall they both are (both are well over six feet tall). It's hard not to enjoy the atmosphere of this festival and get caught up in the cheering (that is, once you've found out who your team is- Christine was made aware half way through the night that the team she'd been told was hers actually wasn't. D'oh!). But the banging sound of the crashing carts does go right through you. Although the festival kept on till 10:30 we went to Wakaba at 9 o'clock for dinner. Great place. But having not had a drink for a while (well, maybe a week), I managed to get a little bit smashed off three beers. I am blaming tiredness and cold weather for this sorry state of affairs- Thursday was remarkable for being the coldest day of the year so far (in my opinion), so I had to wear Jeans and a long sleeve top all night. Tomorrow will be similar- 14 degrees! Gah! Now that my skin isn't constantly on fire I am more able to assess the weather. And it leaves me wishing my skin were at least toasty...

Have a good weekend!

Jessica makes friends on the tram.

Under attack! Madeleine doesn't make friends on Miyajima...

Pretty birdy! Pretty, pretty birdy!

Looking doubtful at Itsukushima jinja...

Good luck buddha statues at Daisho-in temple.

Pretty shrine. Pretty lanterns. All over prettyness. At Daisho-in.

One of many thousands of shots of Itsukushima jinja. This one comes with lantern in the foreground. Also available with tree, with signpost, with nothing or with everything. 

Kitty and Barry show off their balls.

all by myself, don't wanna be, all by myself...

*Sobs* The visitors have *sniffle* gone, and now my flat feels so *whimpers* empty...

Yes, Madeleine and Jessica (the tourists) have gone to Tokyo for the last leg of their holiday, having finished their whirlwind tour of western Japan on Saturday. They didn't make it to Kurashiki on Thursday, but they did get to spent a nice amount of time at Okayama's famous Korakuen (one of the top three gardens in Japan- position never clarified) and enjoy the shopping opportunities available to them. I drove down in Janice Mark 2 to meet them around 8pm and what fun it was doing 100 kilometres an hour, feeling like your car is going to lift off the ground any moment and do a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-minus-the-wings over the edge of the viaduct...

So I got to Fiona's and the two of us headed to the city to meet the tourists and we allwent for curry in the CRED building (or cledo as one of the maps called it). The evening was a quiet one as we were all rather exhausted from forgetting to go to bed most nights, but we had to be up early for another trip.

On Friday morning we all woke up at around 8am in order to get the shinkansen to Hiroshima and start our sightseeing. Proving the Japanese are a friendly people (and possibly also deluded), a woman in our queue for the train told Jessica she'd seen her at Desperado's 2 weeks ago (oh no you didn't) but was very kind and tried to give us lots of information about getting around in Hiroshima even though we knew exactly where we were going (we'd already asked at the information desk). We were going to Miyajima and having dropped our bags at the 'otel, we took the longest tram journey ever where Jessica was slept on by a boy with greasy hair and scabies and the tram at one point became a train and started running on a train track (also a chitty-chitty-bang-bang-esque transformation).

Well of course it was pouring with rain by the time we'd gotten on the ferry to Miyajima, but it's such a beautiful place it doesn't matter. Madeleine's attempts to make friends with the deer that roam the island failed when 2 of them tried to eat her umbrella at the same time, and I took about 30 pictures of an egret as they seemed a lot tamer here than anywhere else in Japan. We all went photo crazy in fact with Madeleine and Jessica changing films regularly and me having to stop taking the same photos I've taken before. We all took photos of the wedding couple though. One of the comments was that they were the ugliest wedding party ever as their buck teeth seemed to take away the glamour from the traditional costume, but the fact that the bride and groom both had buck teeth made it all the more endearing. I just fear for the kids. Book the orthodontist now.

So we wandered a bit more round the island going to another series of temples (daisho-in?) and took more photos of the bhudda statues (which had been infiltrated by statues of cartoon characters such as Ampan man- the boy made of bread filled with red bean paste) before the rain got heavier. As we headed back to the ferry the tide was coming in and Miyajima's famous red gate was once again under water, and the mists blocked any view of mainland Japan, so we all have some very nice photographs.

In the evening we split up to maximise our shopping time in Hiroshima, then ate Hiroshima style okonomiyaki (Jessica much preferred it to Osaka style) and after a shattered Madeleine headed to the hotel to sleep, Jessica and I went bowling under the assumed names Kitty and Barry. Kitty won every game, although Barry did better than he ever has done before. He was proud.

Saturday was another rushed day as the tourists headed for the peace park and museum only to be waylayed by the allure of shopping, but they did make it and I left them to it (I've been there too many times) and came back to meet them for a walk around the park. After a lunch of udon we headed off to the station to get the shinkansen, and they had to change at Okayama where we said our sad goodbyes. I miss the tourists already!

So having gone to dinner with Fiona and Andrew (balinese restaurant, very nice) I set off for Kibichuo cho, right in the heart of Okayama, except I set off late and after half an hour's driving I could barely focus on the road signs, so I was quite concerned that I would miss my turning. D'oh! But all was OK, and as Rachel came to meet me I finally found out how to get the tape player in car to use my minidisc walkman correctly. Yay! So we convened at Adam's where Amy, Herbert and Bob were already enjoying themselves and chatted and joked until the small hours.

With maybe 4 and a half hours sleep under our belt we got up on Sunday ready for one of the top three festivals in the prefecture. Now a lot of foriegners in Japan love the festivals, but I find it slightly frustrating not having a clue what is going on. This one was good though, if worrying, as someone who knew Adam carted us off to eat a traditional Japanese festival lunch and did his best to get us to take part in carrying the portable shrines. They were, again, hugely friendly and warm people. So despite our tiredness we decided we would take part along with Herbert who had joined us. But as time went on it seemed like it was never going to happen, so we waited around enjoying the atmosphere and the noise and the hubbub and then had to get people back to make bus connections at three thirty, so we slyly wandered away. I feel slightly guilty, but not too much.

The journey home was fun, although I thought I was going to vomit after driving down a highway version of a spiral staircase, and having done some (more) shopping I finished the evening alone in my flat watching Bridget Jones' diary. I might watch it again tonight too. It's a good film after all. And I will be all by myself... *sobs* *wails* *whimpers*

Sake bottles at Wakaba, Katsuyama- "the best food in Japan" according to well known gourmet critiques from Sweden and Australia. And bloody right they are too...

Dressed like a freaky cult family at Kanba waterfalls, me, Jessica and madeleine promote peace to the missing monkeys.

Two of Jessica's favourite things in Japan- Lawson's and Crunky (with macadamia nuts). I must say her selections are rather fine. 

Nijo castle in Kyoto. This is the second time I've been too late to get in. Gah! 

Must sell this one to a travel brochure... Wooden fence and wooden lanterns at Yasaka jinja, Kyoto. 

Ladies at rest. Madeleine and Jessica blend in at Yasaka Jinja, Kyoto. 

Paper lanterns at Yasaka Jinja, Kyoto.  

James Bond film or futuristic tunnel at the Miho Museum in Kyoto?  

School of how to get gainful employment the easy way. Long legs, short skirts, a coy wink and a flash of knickers. I pray this is the old fashioned way... 

Waiting for the brown to make it Neapolitan. Jessica and I at the diner in Universal Studios JAPAN.